The Project Gutenberg EBook of The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon

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Title: The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, Complete
       6 volumes

Author: Edward Gibbon

Commentator: Rev. H. H. Milman

Editor: David Widger

Release Date: June 7, 2008 [EBook #25717]
[Most recently updated: November 21, 2020]


Language: English


Character set encoding: UTF-8


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




Produced by David Widger




History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire

By Edward Gibbon, Esq.

With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman

Complete Contents

1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)





There are two Project Gutenberg sets produced by David Reed of the
complete ÒHistory Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman EmpireÓ by
Edward Gibbon: the 1996 edition (PG #731-736) has the advantage of
including all the foonotes by Gibbon and others; the 1997 edition (PG
#890-895) was provided at that time only in html format and footnotes
were not included in the first five volumes of this set.

Project Gutenberg files #731-736 in the utf-8 charset are the basis of
the present complete edition, #25717

All the original 12 sets were reproofed in 2010 with correction of
several thousand errors. An html and text format were provided for both
sets. The HTML version of the earlier has approximately 6000 linked
footnotes.

     David Reed’s note in the original Project Gutenberg 1997 edition:

I want to make this the best etext edition possible for both scholars
and the general public and would like to thank those who have helped in
making this text better. Especially Dale R. Fredrickson who has hand
entered the Greek characters in the footnotes and who has suggested
retaining the conjoined ae character in the text.

A set in my library of the first original First American Edition of
1836 was used as a reference for the many questions which came up
during the re-proofing and renovation of the 1996 and 1997 Project
Gutenberg editions. Images of spines, front-leaf, frontispiece, and the
titlepage of the 1836 set are inserted below along with the two large
fold out maps.

DAVID WIDGER
For Project Gutenberg


spines (138K)



inside (130K)



portrait (157K)



titlepage (41K)


MAPS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Western Empire
Full Size     Original Archive
West-NW-thumb (30K)


Full Size     Original Archive
West-SW-thumb (26K)

	Full Size     Original Archive
West-NE-thumb (33K)


Full Size     Original Archive
West-SE-thumb (41K)



Eastern Empire
Full Size     Original Archive
East-NW-thumb (30K)


Full Size     Original Archive
East-SW-thumb (26K)

	Full Size     Original Archive
East-NE-thumb (33K)


Full Size     Original Archive
East-SE-thumb (41K)





1996 Project Gutenberg Edition
Table of Contents for Ebooks 731-736



VOLUME ONE

Introduction

Preface By The Editor.

Preface Of The Author.

Preface To The First Volume.

Preface To The Fourth Volume Of The Original Quarto Edition.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     The Cruelty, Follies, And Murder Of Commodus—Election Of
     Pertinax—His Attempts To Reform The State—His
     Assassination By The Pr¾torian Guards.

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

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

     Public Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus By The
     Pr¾torian GuardsÑClodius Albinus In Britain, Pescennius
     Niger In Syria, And Septimius Severus In Pannonia, Declare
     Against The Murderers Of Pertinax—Civil Wars And Victory Of
     Severus Over His Three Rivals—Relaxation Of Discipline—New
     Maxims Of Government.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



VOLUME TWO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part I.

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

Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part II.

Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part III.

Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part IV.

Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part V.

Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part VI.

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part I.

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

Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part II.

Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part III.

Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part IV.

Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part I.

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

Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part II.

Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part III.

Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part IV.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part I.

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

Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part II.

Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part III.

Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part IV.

Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part I.

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

Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part II.

Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part III.

Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part IV.

Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part V.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



VOLUME THREE


Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part I.

     Death Of Gratian.—Ruin Of Arianism.—St. Ambrose.—First
     Civil War, Against Maximus.—Character, Administration, And
     Penance Of Theodosius.—Death Of Valentinian II.—Second
     Civil War, Against Eugenius.—Death Of Theodosius.

Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part II.

Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part III.

Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part IV.

Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part V.

Chapter XXVIII: Destruction Of Paganism.—Part I.

     Final Destruction Of Paganism.—Introduction Of The Worship
     Of Saints, And Relics, Among The Christians.

Chapter XXVIII: Destruction Of Paganism.—Part II.

Chapter XXVIII: Destruction Of Paganism.—Part III.

Chapter XXIX: Division Of Roman Empire Between Sons Of Theodosius.—Part I.

     Final Division Of The Roman Empire Between The Sons Of
     Theodosius.—Reign Of Arcadius And Honorius—Administration
     Of Rufinus And Stilicho.—Revolt And Defeat Of Gildo In
     Africa.

Chapter XXIX: Division Of Roman Empire Between Sons Of Theodosius.—Part II.

Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part I.

     Revolt Of The Goths.—They Plunder Greece.—Two Great
     Invasions Of Italy By Alaric And Radagaisus.—They Are
     Repulsed By Stilicho.—The Germans Overrun Gaul.—Usurpation
     Of Constantine In The West.—Disgrace And Death Of Stilicho.

Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part II.

Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part III.

Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part IV.

Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part V.

Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By Barbarians.—Part I.

     Invasion Of Italy By Alaric.—Manners Of The Roman Senate
     And People.—Rome Is Thrice Besieged, And At Length
     Pillaged, By The Goths.—Death Of Alaric.—The Goths
     Evacuate Italy.—Fall Of Constantine.—Gaul And Spain Are
     Occupied By The Barbarians.ÑIndependence Of Britain.

Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By Barbarians.—Part II.

Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By Barbarians.—Part II.

Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By Barbarians.—Part III.

Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By Barbarians.—Part IV.

Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By Barbarians.—Part V.

Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By Barbarians.—Part VI.

Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part I.

     Arcadius Emperor Of The East.—Administration And Disgrace
     Of Eutropius.—Revolt Of Gainas.—Persecution Of St. John
     Chrysostom.—Theodosius II. Emperor Of The East.—His Sister
     Pulcheria.—His Wife Eudocia.—The Persian War, And Division
     Of Armenia.

Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part II.

Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part III.

Chapter XXXIII: Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.—Part I.

     Death Of Honorius.—Valentinian III.—Emperor Of The East.
     —Administration Of His Mother PlacidiaÑ®tius And
     Boniface.—Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.

Chapter XXXIII: Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.—Part II.

Chapter XXXIV: Attila.—Part I.

     The Character, Conquests, And Court Of Attila, King Of The
     Huns.—Death Of Theodosius The Younger.—Elevation Of
     Marcian To The Empire Of The East.

Chapter XXXIV: Attila.—Part II.

Chapter XXXIV: Attila.—Part III.

Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila.—Part I.

     Invasion Of Gaul By Attila.—He Is Repulsed By ®tius And
     The Visigoths.—Attila Invades And Evacuates Italy.—The
     Deaths Of Attila, ®tius, And Valentinian The Third.

Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila.—Part II.

Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila.—Part III.

Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part I.

     Sack Of Rome By Genseric, King Of The Vandals.—His Naval
     Depredations.—Succession Of The Last Emperors Of The West,
     Maximus, Avitus, Majorian, Severus, Anthemius, Olybrius,
     Glycerius, Nepos, Augustulus.—Total Extinction Of The
     Western Empire.—Reign Of Odoacer, The First Barbarian King
     Of Italy.

Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part II.

Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part III.

Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part IV.

Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part V.

Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.—Part I.

     Origin Progress, And Effects Of The Monastic Life.—
     Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity And Arianism.—
     Persecution Of The Vandals In Africa.—Extinction Of
     Arianism Among The Barbarians.

Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.—Part II.

Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.—Part III.

Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.—Part IV.

Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part I.

     Reign And Conversion Of Clovis.—His Victories Over The
     Alemanni, Burgundians, And Visigoths.—Establishment Of The
     French Monarchy In Gaul.—Laws Of The Barbarians.—State Of
     The Romans.—The Visigoths Of Spain.—Conquest Of Britain By
     The Saxons.

Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part II.

Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part III.

Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part IV.

Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part V.

Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part VI.



VOLUME FOUR


Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part I.

     Zeno And Anastasius, Emperors Of The East.—Birth,
     Education, And First Exploits Of Theodoric The Ostrogoth.—
     His Invasion And Conquest Of Italy.—The Gothic Kingdom Of
     Italy.—State Of The West.—Military And Civil Government.—
     The Senator Boethius.—Last Acts And Death Of Theodoric.

Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part II.

Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part III.

Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part I.

     Elevation Of Justin The Elder.—Reign Of Justinian.—I. The
     Empress Theodora.—II.  Factions Of The Circus, And Sedition
     Of Constantinople.—III.  Trade And Manufacture Of Silk.—
     IV. Finances And Taxes.—V. Edifices Of Justinian.—Church
     Of St. Sophia.—Fortifications And Frontiers Of The Eastern
     Empire.—Abolition Of The Schools Of Athens, And The
     Consulship Of Rome.

Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part II.

Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part III.

Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part IV.

Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part V.

Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Charact Of Balisarius.—Part I.

     Conquests Of Justinian In The West.—Character And First
     Campaigns Of Belisarius—He Invades And Subdues The Vandal
     Kingdom Of Africa—His Triumph.—The Gothic War.—He
     Recovers Sicily, Naples, And Rome.—Siege Of Rome By The
     Goths.—Their Retreat And Losses.—Surrender Of Ravenna.—
     Glory Of Belisarius.—His Domestic Shame And Misfortunes.

Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Charact Of Balisarius.—Part II.

Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Charact Of Balisarius.—Part III.

Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Charact Of Balisarius.—Part IV.

Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Charact Of Balisarius.—Part V.

Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part I.

     State Of The Barbaric World.—Establishment Of The Lombards
     On the Danube.—Tribes And Inroads Of The Sclavonians.—
     Origin, Empire, And Embassies Of The Turks.—The Flight Of
     The Avars.—Chosroes I, Or Nushirvan, King Of Persia.—His
     Prosperous Reign And Wars With The Romans.—The Colchian Or
     Lazic War.—The ®thiopians.

Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part II.

Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part III.

Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part IV.

Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of Justinian.—Part I.

     Rebellions Of Africa.—Restoration Of The Gothic Kingdom By
     Totila.—Loss And Recovery Of Rome.—Final Conquest Of Italy
     By Narses.—Extinction Of The Ostrogoths.—Defeat Of The
     Franks And Alemanni.—Last Victory, Disgrace, And Death Of
     Belisarius.—Death And Character Of Justinian.—Comet,
     Earthquakes, And Plague.

Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death OF Justinian.—Part II.

Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of Justinian.—Part III.

Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of Justinian.—Part IV.

Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part I.

     Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—The Laws Of The Kings—The
     Twelve Of The Decemvirs.—The Laws Of The People.—The
     Decrees Of The Senate.—The Edicts Of The Magistrates And
     Emperors—Authority Of The Civilians.—Code, Pandects,
     Novels, And Institutes Of Justinian:—I.  Rights Of
     Persons.—II. Rights Of Things.—III.  Private Injuries And
     Actions.—IV. Crimes And Punishments.

Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part II.

Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part III.

Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part IV.

Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part V.

Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part VI.

Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part VII.

Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part VIII.

Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.—Part I.

     Reign Of The Younger Justin.—Embassy Of The Avars.—Their
     Settlement On The Danube.—Conquest Of Italy By The
     Lombards.—Adoption And Reign Of Tiberius.—Of Maurice.—
     State Of Italy Under The Lombards And The Exarchs.—Of
     Ravenna.—Distress Of Rome.—Character And Pontificate Of
     Gregory The First.

Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.—Part II.

Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.—Part III.

Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part I.

     Revolutions On Persia After The Death Of Chosroes On
     Nushirvan.—His Son Hormouz, A Tyrant, Is Deposed.—
     Usurpation Of Baharam.—Flight And Restoration Of Chosroes
     II.—His Gratitude To The Romans.—The Chagan Of The Avars.—
     Revolt Of The Army Against Maurice.—His Death.—Tyranny Of
     Phocas.—Elevation Of Heraclius.—The Persian War.—Chosroes
     Subdues Syria, Egypt, And Asia Minor.—Siege Of
     Constantinople By The Persians And Avars.—Persian
     Expeditions.—Victories And Triumph Of Heraclius.

Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part II.

Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part III.

Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part IV.

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part I.

     Theological History Of The Doctrine Of The Incarnation.—The
     Human And Divine Nature Of Christ.—Enmity Of The Patriarchs
     Of Alexandria And Constantinople.—St. Cyril And Nestorius.
     —Third General Council Of Ephesus.—Heresy Of Eutyches.—
     Fourth General Council Of Chalcedon.—Civil And
     Ecclesiastical Discord.—Intolerance Of Justinian.—The
     Three Chapters.—The Monothelite Controversy.—State Of The
     Oriental Sects:—I.  The Nestorians.—II.  The Jacobites.—
     III.  The Maronites.—IV. The Armenians.—V.  The Copts And
     Abyssinians.

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part II.

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part III.

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part IV.

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part V.

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part VI.

Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part I.

     Plan Of The Two Last Volumes.—Succession And Characters Of
     The Greek Emperors Of Constantinople, From The Time Of
     Heraclius To The Latin Conquest.

Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part II.

Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part III.

Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part IV.

Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part V.



VOLUME FIVE


Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part I.

     Introduction, Worship, And Persecution Of Images.—Revolt Of
     Italy And Rome.—Temporal Dominion Of The Popes.—Conquest
     Of Italy By The Franks.—Establishment Of Images.—Character
     And Coronation Of Charlemagne.—Restoration And Decay Of The
     Roman Empire In The West.—Independence Of Italy.—
     Constitution Of The Germanic Body.

Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part II.

Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part III.

Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part IV.

Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part V.

Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part VI.

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part I.

     Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Birth,
     Character, And Doctrine Of Mahomet.—He Preaches At Mecca.—
     Flies To Medina.—Propagates His Religion By The Sword.—
     Voluntary Or Reluctant Submission Of The Arabs.—His Death
     And Successors.—The Claims And Fortunes Of All And His
     Descendants.

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part II.

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part III.

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part IV.

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part V.

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VI.

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VII.

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VIII.

Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part I.

     The Conquest Of Persia, Syria, Egypt, Africa, And Spain, By
     The Arabs Or Saracens.—Empire Of The Caliphs, Or Successors
     Of Mahomet.—State Of The Christians, &c., Under Their
     Government.

Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part II.

Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part III.

Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part IV.

Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part V.

Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part VI.

Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part VII.

Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part I.

     The Two Sieges Of Constantinople By The Arabs.—Their
     Invasion Of France, And Defeat By Charles Martel.—Civil War
     Of The Ommiades And Abbassides.—Learning Of The Arabs.—
     Luxury Of The Caliphs.—Naval Enterprises On Crete, Sicily,
     And Rome.—Decay And Division Of The Empire Of The Caliphs.
     —Defeats And Victories Of The Greek Emperors.

Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part II.

Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part III.

Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part IV.

Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part V.

Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part I.

     Fate Of The Eastern Empire In The Tenth Century.—Extent And
     Division.—Wealth And Revenue.—Palace Of Constantinople.—
     Titles And Offices.—Pride And Power Of The Emperors.—
     Tactics Of The Greeks, Arabs, And Franks.—Loss Of The Latin
     Tongue.—Studies And Solitude Of The Greeks.

Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part II.

Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part III.

Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part IV.

Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Part I.

     Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Their Persecution By
     The Greek Emperors.—Revolt In Armenia &c.—Transplantation
     Into Thrace.—Propagation In The West.—The Seeds,
     Character, And Consequences Of The Reformation.

Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Part II.

Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part I.

     The Bulgarians.—Origin, Migrations, And Settlement Of The
     Hungarians.—Their Inroads In The East And West.—The
     Monarchy Of Russia.—Geography And Trade.—Wars Of The
     Russians Against The Greek Empire.—Conversion Of The
     Barbarians.

Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part II.

Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part III.

Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part I.

     The Saracens, Franks, And Greeks, In Italy.—First
     Adventures And Settlement Of The Normans.—Character And
     Conquest Of Robert Guiscard, Duke Of Apulia—Deliverance Of
     Sicily By His Brother Roger.—Victories Of Robert Over The
     Emperors Of The East And West.—Roger, King Of Sicily,
     Invades Africa And Greece.—The Emperor Manuel Comnenus.—
     Wars Of The Greeks And Normans.—Extinction Of The Normans.

Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part II.

Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part III.

Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part IV.

Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part V.

Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part I.

     The Turks Of The House Of Seljuk.—Their Revolt Against
     Mahmud Conqueror Of Hindostan.—Togrul Subdues Persia, And
     Protects The Caliphs.—Defeat And Captivity Of The Emperor
     Romanus Diogenes By Alp Arslan.—Power And Magnificence Of
     Malek Shah.—Conquest Of Asia Minor And Syria.—State And
     Oppression Of Jerusalem.—Pilgrimages To The Holy Sepulchre.

Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part II.

Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part III.

Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part I.

     Origin And Numbers Of The First Crusade.—Characters Of The Latin
     Princes.—Their March To Constantinople.—Policy Of The Greek
     Emperor Alexius.—Conquest Of Nice, Antioch, And Jerusalem, By The
     Franks.—Deliverance Of The Holy Sepulchre.— Godfrey Of Bouillon,
     First King Of Jerusalem.—Institutions Of The French Or Latin Kingdom.

Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part II.

Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part III.

Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part IV.

Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part V.



VOLUME SIX


Chapter LIX: The Crusades.—Part I.    Part II.    Part III.

Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part I.    Part II.    Part III.

Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.—Part I.    Part II.    Part III.    Part IV.

Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Part I.    Part II.    Part III.

Chapter LXIII: Civil Wars And The Ruin Of The Greek Empire.—Part I.    Part II.

Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part I.    Part II.    Part III.    Part IV.

Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death.—Part I.    Part II.    Part III.

Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part I.    Part II.    Part III.    Part IV.

Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—Part I.    Part II.

Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of Eastern Empire.—Part I.    Part II.    Part III.    Part IV.

Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.—Part I.    Part II.    Part III.    Part IV.

Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.—Part I.   Part II.    Part III.    Part IV.

Chapter LXXI: Prospect Of The Ruins Of Rome In The Fifteenth Century.—Part I.    Part II




HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Edward Gibbon, Esq.
With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman
Vol. 1
1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)




Introduction




      Introduction

      Preface By The Editor.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      The editor’s notes are marked M.

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

      June, 1845.

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

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




      Preface Of The Author.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      BENTINCK STREET, _February_ 1, 1776.

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

      BENTINCK STREET, _March_ 1, 1781.

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

      BENTINCK STREET, _March_ 1, 1782.

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




      Preface To The First Volume.


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

      At present I shall content myself with a single observation.

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




      Preface To The Fourth Volume Of The Original Quarto Edition.

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

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

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

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

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

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

      DOWNING STREET, _May_ 1, 1788.

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




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

      Introduction.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      The caprice of Hadrian influenced his choice of a successor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      58 (return) [ Aurelius Victor.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      70 (return) [ Appian in Prooem.]

      71 (return) [ Dion Cassius seems to have written with no other
      view than to form these opinions into an historical system. The
      Pandea’s will how how assiduously the lawyers, on their side,
      laboree in the cause of prerogative.]

      The contemporaries of Severus in the enjoyment of the peace and
      glory of his reign, forgave the cruelties by which it had been
      introduced. Posterity, who experienced the fatal effects of his
      maxims and example, justly considered him as the principal author
      of the decline of the Roman empire.




      Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
      Marcinus.—Part I.

     The Death Of Severus.—Tyranny Of Caracalla.—Usurpation Of
     Macrinus.—Follies Of Elagabalus.—Virtues Of Alexander
     Severus.—Licentiousness Of The Army.—General State Of The Roman
     Finances.

      The ascent to greatness, however steep and dangerous, may
      entertain an active spirit with the consciousness and exercise of
      its own powers: but the possession of a throne could never yet
      afford a lasting satisfaction to an ambitious mind. This
      melancholy truth was felt and acknowledged by Severus. Fortune
      and merit had, from an humble station, elevated him to the first
      place among mankind. “He had been all things,” as he said
      himself, “and all was of little value.” 1 Distracted with the
      care, not of acquiring, but of preserving an empire, oppressed
      with age and infirmities, careless of fame, 2 and satiated with
      power, all his prospects of life were closed. The desire of
      perpetuating the greatness of his family was the only remaining
      wish of his ambition and paternal tenderness.

      1 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 71. “Omnia fui, et nihil expedit.”]

      2 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxxvi. p. 1284.]

      Like most of the Africans, Severus was passionately addicted to
      the vain studies of magic and divination, deeply versed in the
      interpretation of dreams and omens, and perfectly acquainted with
      the science of judicial astrology; which, in almost every age
      except the present, has maintained its dominion over the mind of
      man. He had lost his first wife, while he was governor of the
      Lionnese Gaul. 3 In the choice of a second, he sought only to
      connect himself with some favorite of fortune; and as soon as he
      had discovered that the young lady of Emesa in Syria had _a royal
      nativity_, he solicited and obtained her hand. 4 Julia Domna (for
      that was her name) deserved all that the stars could promise her.

      She possessed, even in advanced age, the attractions of beauty, 5
      and united to a lively imagination a firmness of mind, and
      strength of judgment, seldom bestowed on her sex. Her amiable
      qualities never made any deep impression on the dark and jealous
      temper of her husband; but in her son’s reign, she administered
      the principal affairs of the empire, with a prudence that
      supported his authority, and with a moderation that sometimes
      corrected his wild extravagancies. 6 Julia applied herself to
      letters and philosophy, with some success, and with the most
      splendid reputation. She was the patroness of every art, and the
      friend of every man of genius. 7 The grateful flattery of the
      learned has celebrated her virtues; but, if we may credit the
      scandal of ancient history, chastity was very far from being the
      most conspicuous virtue of the empress Julia. 8

      3 (return) [ About the year 186. M. de Tillemont is miserably
      embarrassed with a passage of Dion, in which the empress
      Faustina, who died in the year 175, is introduced as having
      contributed to the marriage of Severus and Julia, (l. lxxiv. p.
      1243.) The learned compiler forgot that Dion is relating not a
      real fact, but a dream of Severus; and dreams are circumscribed
      to no limits of time or space. Did M. de Tillemont imagine that
      marriages were consummated in the temple of Venus at Rome? Hist.
      des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 389. Note 6.]

      4 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 65.]

      5 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 5.]

      6 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxxvii. p. 1304, 1314.]

      7 (return) [ See a dissertation of Menage, at the end of his
      edition of Diogenes Lærtius, de Foeminis Philosophis.]

      8 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1285. Aurelius Victor.]

      Two sons, Caracalla 9 and Geta, were the fruit of this marriage,
      and the destined heirs of the empire. The fond hopes of the
      father, and of the Roman world, were soon disappointed by these
      vain youths, who displayed the indolent security of hereditary
      princes; and a presumption that fortune would supply the place of
      merit and application. Without any emulation of virtue or
      talents, they discovered, almost from their infancy, a fixed and
      implacable antipathy for each other.

      9 (return) [ Bassianus was his first name, as it had been that of
      his maternal grandfather. During his reign, he assumed the
      appellation of Antoninus, which is employed by lawyers and
      ancient historians. After his death, the public indignation
      loaded him with the nicknames of Tarantus and Caracalla. The
      first was borrowed from a celebrated Gladiator, the second from a
      long Gallic gown which he distributed to the people of Rome.]

      Their aversion, confirmed by years, and fomented by the arts of
      their interested favorites, broke out in childish, and gradually
      in more serious competitions; and, at length, divided the
      theatre, the circus, and the court, into two factions, actuated
      by the hopes and fears of their respective leaders. The prudent
      emperor endeavored, by every expedient of advice and authority,
      to allay this growing animosity. The unhappy discord of his sons
      clouded all his prospects, and threatened to overturn a throne
      raised with so much labor, cemented with so much blood, and
      guarded with every defence of arms and treasure. With an
      impartial hand he maintained between them an exact balance of
      favor, conferred on both the rank of Augustus, with the revered
      name of Antoninus; and for the first time the Roman world beheld
      three emperors. 10 Yet even this equal conduct served only to
      inflame the contest, whilst the fierce Caracalla asserted the
      right of primogeniture, and the milder Geta courted the
      affections of the people and the soldiers. In the anguish of a
      disappointed father, Severus foretold that the weaker of his sons
      would fall a sacrifice to the stronger; who, in his turn, would
      be ruined by his own vices. 11

      10 (return) [ The elevation of Caracalla is fixed by the accurate
      M. de Tillemont to the year 198; the association of Geta to the
      year 208.]

      11 (return) [ Herodian, l. iii. p. 130. The lives of Caracalla
      and Geta, in the Augustan History.]

      In these circumstances the intelligence of a war in Britain, and
      of an invasion of the province by the barbarians of the North,
      was received with pleasure by Severus. Though the vigilance of
      his lieutenants might have been sufficient to repel the distant
      enemy, he resolved to embrace the honorable pretext of
      withdrawing his sons from the luxury of Rome, which enervated
      their minds and irritated their passions; and of inuring their
      youth to the toils of war and government. Notwithstanding his
      advanced age, (for he was above threescore,) and his gout, which
      obliged him to be carried in a litter, he transported himself in
      person into that remote island, attended by his two sons, his
      whole court, and a formidable army. He immediately passed the
      walls of Hadrian and Antoninus, and entered the enemy’s country,
      with a design of completing the long attempted conquest of
      Britain. He penetrated to the northern extremity of the island,
      without meeting an enemy. But the concealed ambuscades of the
      Caledonians, who hung unseen on the rear and flanks of his army,
      the coldness of the climate and the severity of a winter march
      across the hills and morasses of Scotland, are reported to have
      cost the Romans above fifty thousand men. The Caledonians at
      length yielded to the powerful and obstinate attack, sued for
      peace, and surrendered a part of their arms, and a large tract of
      territory. But their apparent submission lasted no longer than
      the present terror. As soon as the Roman legions had retired,
      they resumed their hostile independence. Their restless spirit
      provoked Severus to send a new army into Caledonia, with the most
      bloody orders, not to subdue, but to extirpate the natives. They
      were saved by the death of their haughty enemy. 12

      12 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1280, &c. Herodian, l. iii. p.
      132, &c.]

      This Caledonian war, neither marked by decisive events, nor
      attended with any important consequences, would ill deserve our
      attention; but it is supposed, not without a considerable degree
      of probability, that the invasion of Severus is connected with
      the most shining period of the British history or fable. Fingal,
      whose fame, with that of his heroes and bards, has been revived
      in our language by a recent publication, is said to have
      commanded the Caledonians in that memorable juncture, to have
      eluded the power of Severus, and to have obtained a signal
      victory on the banks of the Carun, in which the son of _the King
      of the World_, Caracul, fled from his arms along the fields of
      his pride. 13 Something of a doubtful mist still hangs over these
      Highland traditions; nor can it be entirely dispelled by the most
      ingenious researches of modern criticism; 14 but if we could,
      with safety, indulge the pleasing supposition, that Fingal lived,
      and that Ossian sung, the striking contrast of the situation and
      manners of the contending nations might amuse a philosophic mind.

      The parallel would be little to the advantage of the more
      civilized people, if we compared the unrelenting revenge of
      Severus with the generous clemency of Fingal; the timid and
      brutal cruelty of Caracalla with the bravery, the tenderness, the
      elegant genius of Ossian; the mercenary chiefs, who, from motives
      of fear or interest, served under the imperial standard, with the
      free-born warriors who started to arms at the voice of the king
      of Morven; if, in a word, we contemplated the untutored
      Caledonians, glowing with the warm virtues of nature, and the
      degenerate Romans, polluted with the mean vices of wealth and
      slavery.

      13 (return) [ Ossian’s Poems, vol. i. p. 175.]

      14 (return) [ That the Caracul of Ossian is the Caracalla of the
      Roman History, is, perhaps, the only point of British antiquity
      in which Mr. Macpherson and Mr. Whitaker are of the same opinion;
      and yet the opinion is not without difficulty. In the Caledonian
      war, the son of Severus was known only by the appellation of
      Antoninus, and it may seem strange that the Highland bard should
      describe him by a nickname, invented four years afterwards,
      scarcely used by the Romans till after the death of that emperor,
      and seldom employed by the most ancient historians. See Dion, l.
      lxxvii. p. 1317. Hist. August. p. 89 Aurel. Victor. Euseb. in
      Chron. ad ann. 214. Note: The historical authority of
      Macpherson’s Ossian has not increased since Gibbon wrote. We may,
      indeed, consider it exploded. Mr. Whitaker, in a letter to Gibbon
      (Misc. Works, vol. ii. p. 100,) attempts, not very successfully,
      to weaken this objection of the historian.—M.]

      The declining health and last illness of Severus inflamed the
      wild ambition and black passions of Caracalla’s soul. Impatient
      of any delay or division of empire, he attempted, more than once,
      to shorten the small remainder of his father’s days, and
      endeavored, but without success, to excite a mutiny among the
      troops. 15 The old emperor had often censured the misguided
      lenity of Marcus, who, by a single act of justice, might have
      saved the Romans from the tyranny of his worthless son. Placed in
      the same situation, he experienced how easily the rigor of a
      judge dissolves away in the tenderness of a parent. He
      deliberated, he threatened, but he could not punish; and this
      last and only instance of mercy was more fatal to the empire than
      a long series of cruelty. 16 The disorder of his mind irritated
      the pains of his body; he wished impatiently for death, and
      hastened the instant of it by his impatience. He expired at York
      in the sixty-fifth year of his life, and in the eighteenth of a
      glorious and successful reign. In his last moments he recommended
      concord to his sons, and his sons to the army. The salutary
      advice never reached the heart, or even the understanding, of the
      impetuous youths; but the more obedient troops, mindful of their
      oath of allegiance, and of the authority of their deceased
      master, resisted the solicitations of Caracalla, and proclaimed
      both brothers emperors of Rome. The new princes soon left the
      Caledonians in peace, returned to the capital, celebrated their
      father’s funeral with divine honors, and were cheerfully
      acknowledged as lawful sovereigns, by the senate, the people, and
      the provinces. Some preeminence of rank seems to have been
      allowed to the elder brother; but they both administered the
      empire with equal and independent power. 17

      15 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1282. Hist. August. p. 71.
      Aurel. Victor.]

      16 (return) [Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1283. Hist. August. p. 89]

      17 (return) [Footnote 17: Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1284. Herodian, l.
      iii. p. 135.]

      Such a divided form of government would have proved a source of
      discord between the most affectionate brothers. It was impossible
      that it could long subsist between two implacable enemies, who
      neither desired nor could trust a reconciliation. It was visible
      that one only could reign, and that the other must fall; and each
      of them, judging of his rival’s designs by his own, guarded his
      life with the most jealous vigilance from the repeated attacks of
      poison or the sword. Their rapid journey through Gaul and Italy,
      during which they never ate at the same table, or slept in the
      same house, displayed to the provinces the odious spectacle of
      fraternal discord. On their arrival at Rome, they immediately
      divided the vast extent of the imperial palace. 18 No
      communication was allowed between their apartments; the doors and
      passages were diligently fortified, and guards posted and
      relieved with the same strictness as in a besieged place. The
      emperors met only in public, in the presence of their afflicted
      mother; and each surrounded by a numerous train of armed
      followers. Even on these occasions of ceremony, the dissimulation
      of courts could ill disguise the rancor of their hearts. 19

      18 (return) [ Mr. Hume is justly surprised at a passage of
      Herodian, (l. iv. p. 139,) who, on this occasion, represents the
      Imperial palace as equal in extent to the rest of Rome. The whole
      region of the Palatine Mount, on which it was built, occupied, at
      most, a circumference of eleven or twelve thousand feet, (see the
      Notitia and Victor, in Nardini’s Roma Antica.) But we should
      recollect that the opulent senators had almost surrounded the
      city with their extensive gardens and suburb palaces, the
      greatest part of which had been gradually confiscated by the
      emperors. If Geta resided in the gardens that bore his name on
      the Janiculum, and if Caracalla inhabited the gardens of Mæcenas
      on the Esquiline, the rival brothers were separated from each
      other by the distance of several miles; and yet the intermediate
      space was filled by the Imperial gardens of Sallust, of Lucullus,
      of Agrippa, of Domitian, of Caius, &c., all skirting round the
      city, and all connected with each other, and with the palace, by
      bridges thrown over the Tiber and the streets. But this
      explanation of Herodian would require, though it ill deserves, a
      particular dissertation, illustrated by a map of ancient Rome.
      (Hume, Essay on Populousness of Ancient Nations.—M.)]

      19 (return) [ Herodian, l. iv. p. 139]

      This latent civil war already distracted the whole government,
      when a scheme was suggested that seemed of mutual benefit to the
      hostile brothers. It was proposed, that since it was impossible
      to reconcile their minds, they should separate their interest,
      and divide the empire between them. The conditions of the treaty
      were already drawn with some accuracy. It was agreed that
      Caracalla, as the elder brother should remain in possession of
      Europe and the western Africa; and that he should relinquish the
      sovereignty of Asia and Egypt to Geta, who might fix his
      residence at Alexandria or Antioch, cities little inferior to
      Rome itself in wealth and greatness; that numerous armies should
      be constantly encamped on either side of the Thracian Bosphorus,
      to guard the frontiers of the rival monarchies; and that the
      senators of European extraction should acknowledge the sovereign
      of Rome, whilst the natives of Asia followed the emperor of the
      East. The tears of the empress Julia interrupted the negotiation,
      the first idea of which had filled every Roman breast with
      surprise and indignation. The mighty mass of conquest was so
      intimately united by the hand of time and policy, that it
      required the most forcible violence to rend it asunder. The
      Romans had reason to dread, that the disjointed members would
      soon be reduced by a civil war under the dominion of one master;
      but if the separation was permanent, the division of the
      provinces must terminate in the dissolution of an empire whose
      unity had hitherto remained inviolate. 20

      20 (return) [ Herodian, l. iv. p. 144.]

      Had the treaty been carried into execution, the sovereign of
      Europe might soon have been the conqueror of Asia; but Caracalla
      obtained an easier, though a more guilty, victory. He artfully
      listened to his mother’s entreaties, and consented to meet his
      brother in her apartment, on terms of peace and reconciliation.
      In the midst of their conversation, some centurions, who had
      contrived to conceal themselves, rushed with drawn swords upon
      the unfortunate Geta. His distracted mother strove to protect him
      in her arms; but, in the unavailing struggle, she was wounded in
      the hand, and covered with the blood of her younger son, while
      she saw the elder animating and assisting 21 the fury of the
      assassins. As soon as the deed was perpetrated, Caracalla, with
      hasty steps, and horror in his countenance, ran towards the
      Prætorian camp, as his only refuge, and threw himself on the
      ground before the statues of the tutelar deities. 22 The soldiers
      attempted to raise and comfort him. In broken and disordered
      words he informed them of his imminent danger, and fortunate
      escape; insinuating that he had prevented the designs of his
      enemy, and declared his resolution to live and die with his
      faithful troops. Geta had been the favorite of the soldiers; but
      complaint was useless, revenge was dangerous, and they still
      reverenced the son of Severus. Their discontent died away in idle
      murmurs, and Caracalla soon convinced them of the justice of his
      cause, by distributing in one lavish donative the accumulated
      treasures of his father’s reign. 23 The real _sentiments_ of the
      soldiers alone were of importance to his power or safety. Their
      declaration in his favor commanded the dutiful _professions_ of
      the senate. The obsequious assembly was always prepared to ratify
      the decision of fortune; 231 but as Caracalla wished to assuage
      the first emotions of public indignation, the name of Geta was
      mentioned with decency, and he received the funeral honors of a
      Roman emperor. 24 Posterity, in pity to his misfortune, has cast
      a veil over his vices. We consider that young prince as the
      innocent victim of his brother’s ambition, without recollecting
      that he himself wanted power, rather than inclination, to
      consummate the same attempts of revenge and murder. 241

      21 (return) [ Caracalla consecrated, in the temple of Serapis,
      the sword with which, as he boasted, he had slain his brother
      Geta. Dion, l. lxxvii p. 1307.]

      22 (return) [ Herodian, l. iv. p. 147. In every Roman camp there
      was a small chapel near the head-quarters, in which the statues
      of the tutelar deities were preserved and adored; and we may
      remark that the eagles, and other military ensigns, were in the
      first rank of these deities; an excellent institution, which
      confirmed discipline by the sanction of religion. See Lipsius de
      Militia Romana, iv. 5, v. 2.]

      23 (return) [ Herodian, l. iv. p. 148. Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1289.]

      231 (return) [ The account of this transaction, in a new passage
      of Dion, varies in some degree from this statement. It adds that
      the next morning, in the senate, Antoninus requested their
      indulgence, not because he had killed his brother, but because he
      was hoarse, and could not address them. Mai. Fragm. p. 228.—M.]

      24 (return) [ Geta was placed among the gods. Sit divus, dum non
      sit vivus said his brother. Hist. August. p. 91. Some marks of
      Geta’s consecration are still found upon medals.]

      241 (return) [ The favorable judgment which history has given of
      Geta is not founded solely on a feeling of pity; it is supported
      by the testimony of contemporary historians: he was too fond of
      the pleasures of the table, and showed great mistrust of his
      brother; but he was humane, well instructed; he often endeavored
      to mitigate the rigorous decrees of Severus and Caracalla. Herod
      iv. 3. Spartian in Geta.—W.]

      The crime went not unpunished. Neither business, nor pleasure,
      nor flattery, could defend Caracalla from the stings of a guilty
      conscience; and he confessed, in the anguish of a tortured mind,
      that his disordered fancy often beheld the angry forms of his
      father and his brother rising into life, to threaten and upbraid
      him. 25 The consciousness of his crime should have induced him to
      convince mankind, by the virtues of his reign, that the bloody
      deed had been the involuntary effect of fatal necessity. But the
      repentance of Caracalla only prompted him to remove from the
      world whatever could remind him of his guilt, or recall the
      memory of his murdered brother. On his return from the senate to
      the palace, he found his mother in the company of several noble
      matrons, weeping over the untimely fate of her younger son. The
      jealous emperor threatened them with instant death; the sentence
      was executed against Fadilla, the last remaining daughter of the
      emperor Marcus; 251 and even the afflicted Julia was obliged to
      silence her lamentations, to suppress her sighs, and to receive
      the assassin with smiles of joy and approbation. It was computed
      that, under the vague appellation of the friends of Geta, above
      twenty thousand persons of both sexes suffered death. His guards
      and freedmen, the ministers of his serious business, and the
      companions of his looser hours, those who by his interest had
      been promoted to any commands in the army or provinces, with the
      long connected chain of their dependants, were included in the
      proscription; which endeavored to reach every one who had
      maintained the smallest correspondence with Geta, who lamented
      his death, or who even mentioned his name. 26 Helvius Pertinax,
      son to the prince of that name, lost his life by an unseasonable
      witticism. 27 It was a sufficient crime of Thrasea Priscus to be
      descended from a family in which the love of liberty seemed an
      hereditary quality. 28 The particular causes of calumny and
      suspicion were at length exhausted; and when a senator was
      accused of being a secret enemy to the government, the emperor
      was satisfied with the general proof that he was a man of
      property and virtue. From this well-grounded principle he
      frequently drew the most bloody inferences. 281

      25 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1307]

      251 (return) [ The most valuable paragraph of dion, which the
      industry of M. Manas recovered, relates to this daughter of
      Marcus, executed by Caracalla. Her name, as appears from Fronto,
      as well as from Dion, was Cornificia. When commanded to choose
      the kind of death she was to suffer, she burst into womanish
      tears; but remembering her father Marcus, she thus spoke:—“O my
      hapless soul, (... animula,) now imprisoned in the body, burst
      forth! be free! show them, however reluctant to believe it, that
      thou art the daughter of Marcus.” She then laid aside all her
      ornaments, and preparing herself for death, ordered her veins to
      be opened. Mai. Fragm. Vatican ii p. 220.—M.]

      26 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1290. Herodian, l. iv. p. 150.
      Dion (p. 2298) says, that the comic poets no longer durst employ
      the name of Geta in their plays, and that the estates of those
      who mentioned it in their testaments were confiscated.]

      27 (return) [ Caracalla had assumed the names of several
      conquered nations; Pertinax observed, that the name of Geticus
      (he had obtained some advantage over the Goths, or Getæ) would be
      a proper addition to Parthieus, Alemannicus, &c. Hist. August. p.
      89.]

      28 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1291. He was probably descended
      from Helvidius Priscus, and Thrasea Pætus, those patriots, whose
      firm, but useless and unseasonable, virtue has been immortalized
      by Tacitus. Note: M. Guizot is indignant at this “cold”
      observation of Gibbon on the noble character of Thrasea; but he
      admits that his virtue was useless to the public, and
      unseasonable amidst the vices of his age.—M.]

      281 (return) [ Caracalla reproached all those who demanded no
      favors of him. “It is clear that if you make me no requests, you
      do not trust me; if you do not trust me, you suspect me; if you
      suspect me, you fear me; if you fear me, you hate me.” And
      forthwith he condemned them as conspirators, a good specimen of
      the sorites in a tyrant’s logic. See Fragm. Vatican p.—M.]




      Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
      Marcinus.—Part II.

      The execution of so many innocent citizens was bewailed by the
      secret tears of their friends and families. The death of
      Papinian, the Prætorian Præfect, was lamented as a public
      calamity. 282 During the last seven years of Severus, he had
      exercised the most important offices of the state, and, by his
      salutary influence, guided the emperor’s steps in the paths of
      justice and moderation. In full assurance of his virtue and
      abilities, Severus, on his death-bed, had conjured him to watch
      over the prosperity and union of the Imperial family. 29 The
      honest labors of Papinian served only to inflame the hatred which
      Caracalla had already conceived against his father’s minister.
      After the murder of Geta, the Præfect was commanded to exert the
      powers of his skill and eloquence in a studied apology for that
      atrocious deed. The philosophic Seneca had condescended to
      compose a similar epistle to the senate, in the name of the son
      and assassin of Agrippina. 30 “That it was easier to commit than
      to justify a parricide,” was the glorious reply of Papinian; 31
      who did not hesitate between the loss of life and that of honor.
      Such intrepid virtue, which had escaped pure and unsullied from
      the intrigues of courts, the habits of business, and the arts of
      his profession, reflects more lustre on the memory of Papinian,
      than all his great employments, his numerous writings, and the
      superior reputation as a lawyer, which he has preserved through
      every age of the Roman jurisprudence. 32

      282 (return) [ Papinian was no longer Prætorian Præfect.
      Caracalla had deprived him of that office immediately after the
      death of Severus. Such is the statement of Dion; and the
      testimony of Spartian, who gives Papinian the Prætorian
      præfecture till his death, is of little weight opposed to that of
      a senator then living at Rome.—W.]

      29 (return) [ It is said that Papinian was himself a relation of
      the empress Julia.]

      30 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xiv. 2.]

      31 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 88.]

      32 (return) [ With regard to Papinian, see Heineccius’s Historia
      Juris Roma ni, l. 330, &c.]

      It had hitherto been the peculiar felicity of the Romans, and in
      the worst of times the consolation, that the virtue of the
      emperors was active, and their vice indolent. Augustus, Trajan,
      Hadrian, and Marcus visited their extensive dominions in person,
      and their progress was marked by acts of wisdom and beneficence.
      The tyranny of Tiberius, Nero, and Domitian, who resided almost
      constantly at Rome, or in the adjacent was confined to the
      senatorial and equestrian orders. 33 But Caracalla was the common
      enemy of mankind. He left the capital (and he never returned to
      it) about a year after the murder of Geta. The rest of his reign
      was spent in the several provinces of the empire, particularly
      those of the East, and every province was by turns the scene of
      his rapine and cruelty. The senators, compelled by fear to attend
      his capricious motions, were obliged to provide daily
      entertainments at an immense expense, which he abandoned with
      contempt to his guards; and to erect, in every city, magnificent
      palaces and theatres, which he either disdained to visit, or
      ordered immediately thrown down. The most wealthy families were
      ruined by partial fines and confiscations, and the great body of
      his subjects oppressed by ingenious and aggravated taxes. 34 In
      the midst of peace, and upon the slightest provocation, he issued
      his commands, at Alexandria, in Egypt for a general massacre.
      From a secure post in the temple of Serapis, he viewed and
      directed the slaughter of many thousand citizens, as well as
      strangers, without distinguishing the number or the crime of the
      sufferers; since as he coolly informed the senate, _all_ the
      Alexandrians, those who had perished, and those who had escaped,
      were alike guilty. 35

      33 (return) [ Tiberius and Domitian never moved from the
      neighborhood of Rome. Nero made a short journey into Greece. “Et
      laudatorum Principum usus ex æquo, quamvis procul agentibus. Sævi
      proximis ingruunt.” Tacit. Hist. iv. 74.]

      34 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1294.]

      35 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1307. Herodian, l. iv. p. 158.
      The former represents it as a cruel massacre, the latter as a
      perfidious one too. It seems probable that the Alexandrians has
      irritated the tyrant by their railleries, and perhaps by their
      tumults. * Note: After these massacres, Caracalla also deprived
      the Alexandrians of their spectacles and public feasts; he
      divided the city into two parts by a wall with towers at
      intervals, to prevent the peaceful communications of the
      citizens. Thus was treated the unhappy Alexandria, says Dion, by
      the savage beast of Ausonia. This, in fact, was the epithet which
      the oracle had applied to him; it is said, indeed, that he was
      much pleased with the name and often boasted of it. Dion, lxxvii.
      p. 1307.—G.]

      The wise instructions of Severus never made any lasting
      impression on the mind of his son, who, although not destitute of
      imagination and eloquence, was equally devoid of judgment and
      humanity. 36 One dangerous maxim, worthy of a tyrant, was
      remembered and abused by Caracalla. “To secure the affections of
      the army, and to esteem the rest of his subjects as of little
      moment.” 37 But the liberality of the father had been restrained
      by prudence, and his indulgence to the troops was tempered by
      firmness and authority. The careless profusion of the son was the
      policy of one reign, and the inevitable ruin both of the army and
      of the empire. The vigor of the soldiers, instead of being
      confirmed by the severe discipline of camps, melted away in the
      luxury of cities. The excessive increase of their pay and
      donatives 38 exhausted the state to enrich the military order,
      whose modesty in peace, and service in war, is best secured by an
      honorable poverty. The demeanor of Caracalla was haughty and full
      of pride; but with the troops he forgot even the proper dignity
      of his rank, encouraged their insolent familiarity, and,
      neglecting the essential duties of a general, affected to imitate
      the dress and manners of a common soldier.

      36 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1296.]

      37 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1284. Mr. Wotton (Hist. of Rome,
      p. 330) suspects that this maxim was invented by Caracalla
      himself, and attributed to his father.]

      38 (return) [ Dion (l. lxxviii. p. 1343) informs us that the
      extraordinary gifts of Caracalla to the army amounted annually to
      seventy millions of drachmæ (about two millions three hundred and
      fifty thousand pounds.) There is another passage in Dion,
      concerning the military pay, infinitely curious, were it not
      obscure, imperfect, and probably corrupt. The best sense seems to
      be, that the Prætorian guards received twelve hundred and fifty
      drachmæ, (forty pounds a year,) (Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1307.) Under
      the reign of Augustus, they were paid at the rate of two drachmæ,
      or denarii, per day, 720 a year, (Tacit. Annal. i. 17.) Domitian,
      who increased the soldiers’ pay one fourth, must have raised the
      Prætorians to 960 drachmæ, (Gronoviue de Pecunia Veteri, l. iii.
      c. 2.) These successive augmentations ruined the empire; for,
      with the soldiers’ pay, their numbers too were increased. We have
      seen the Prætorians alone increased from 10,000 to 50,000 men.
      Note: Valois and Reimar have explained in a very simple and
      probable manner this passage of Dion, which Gibbon seems to me
      not to have understood. He ordered that the soldiers should
      receive, as the reward of their services the Prætorians 1250
      drachms, the other 5000 drachms. Valois thinks that the numbers
      have been transposed, and that Caracalla added 5000 drachms to
      the donations made to the Prætorians, 1250 to those of the
      legionaries. The Prætorians, in fact, always received more than
      the others. The error of Gibbon arose from his considering that
      this referred to the annual pay of the soldiers, while it relates
      to the sum they received as a reward for their services on their
      discharge: donatives means recompense for service. Augustus had
      settled that the Prætorians, after sixteen campaigns, should
      receive 5000 drachms: the legionaries received only 3000 after
      twenty years. Caracalla added 5000 drachms to the donative of the
      Prætorians, 1250 to that of the legionaries. Gibbon appears to
      have been mistaken both in confounding this donative on discharge
      with the annual pay, and in not paying attention to the remark of
      Valois on the transposition of the numbers in the text.—G]

      It was impossible that such a character, and such conduct as that
      of Caracalla, could inspire either love or esteem; but as long as
      his vices were beneficial to the armies, he was secure from the
      danger of rebellion. A secret conspiracy, provoked by his own
      jealousy, was fatal to the tyrant. The Prætorian præfecture was
      divided between two ministers. The military department was
      intrusted to Adventus, an experienced rather than able soldier;
      and the civil affairs were transacted by Opilius Macrinus, who,
      by his dexterity in business, had raised himself, with a fair
      character, to that high office. But his favor varied with the
      caprice of the emperor, and his life might depend on the
      slightest suspicion, or the most casual circumstance. Malice or
      fanaticism had suggested to an African, deeply skilled in the
      knowledge of futurity, a very dangerous prediction, that Macrinus
      and his son were destined to reign over the empire. The report
      was soon diffused through the province; and when the man was sent
      in chains to Rome, he still asserted, in the presence of the
      præfect of the city, the faith of his prophecy. That magistrate,
      who had received the most pressing instructions to inform himself
      of the _successors_ of Caracalla, immediately communicated the
      examination of the African to the Imperial court, which at that
      time resided in Syria. But, notwithstanding the diligence of the
      public messengers, a friend of Macrinus found means to apprise
      him of the approaching danger. The emperor received the letters
      from Rome; and as he was then engaged in the conduct of a chariot
      race, he delivered them unopened to the Prætorian Præfect,
      directing him to despatch the ordinary affairs, and to report the
      more important business that might be contained in them. Macrinus
      read his fate, and resolved to prevent it. He inflamed the
      discontents of some inferior officers, and employed the hand of
      Martialis, a desperate soldier, who had been refused the rank of
      centurion. The devotion of Caracalla prompted him to make a
      pilgrimage from Edessa to the celebrated temple of the Moon at
      Carrhæ. 381 He was attended by a body of cavalry: but having
      stopped on the road for some necessary occasion, his guards
      preserved a respectful distance, and Martialis, approaching his
      person under a presence of duty, stabbed him with a dagger. The
      bold assassin was instantly killed by a Scythian archer of the
      Imperial guard. Such was the end of a monster whose life
      disgraced human nature, and whose reign accused the patience of
      the Romans. 39 The grateful soldiers forgot his vices, remembered
      only his partial liberality, and obliged the senate to prostitute
      their own dignity and that of religion, by granting him a place
      among the gods. Whilst he was upon earth, Alexander the Great was
      the only hero whom this god deemed worthy his admiration. He
      assumed the name and ensigns of Alexander, formed a Macedonian
      phalanx of guards, persecuted the disciples of Aristotle, and
      displayed, with a puerile enthusiasm, the only sentiment by which
      he discovered any regard for virtue or glory. We can easily
      conceive, that after the battle of Narva, and the conquest of
      Poland, Charles XII. (though he still wanted the more elegant
      accomplishments of the son of Philip) might boast of having
      rivalled his valor and magnanimity; but in no one action of his
      life did Caracalla express the faintest resemblance of the
      Macedonian hero, except in the murder of a great number of his
      own and of his father’s friends. 40

      381 (return) [ Carrhæ, now Harran, between Edessan and Nisibis,
      famous for the defeat of Crassus—the Haran from whence Abraham
      set out for the land of Canaan. This city has always been
      remarkable for its attachment to Sabaism—G]

      39 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1312. Herodian, l. iv. p.
      168.]

      40 (return) [ The fondness of Caracalla for the name and ensigns
      of Alexander is still preserved on the medals of that emperor.
      See Spanheim, de Usu Numismatum, Dissertat. xii. Herodian (l. iv.
      p. 154) had seen very ridiculous pictures, in which a figure was
      drawn with one side of the face like Alexander, and the other
      like Caracalla.]

      After the extinction of the house of Severus, the Roman world
      remained three days without a master. The choice of the army (for
      the authority of a distant and feeble senate was little regarded)
      hung in anxious suspense, as no candidate presented himself whose
      distinguished birth and merit could engage their attachment and
      unite their suffrages. The decisive weight of the Prætorian
      guards elevated the hopes of their præfects, and these powerful
      ministers began to assert their _legal_ claim to fill the vacancy
      of the Imperial throne. Adventus, however, the senior præfect,
      conscious of his age and infirmities, of his small reputation,
      and his smaller abilities, resigned the dangerous honor to the
      crafty ambition of his colleague Macrinus, whose well-dissembled
      grief removed all suspicion of his being accessary to his
      master’s death. 41 The troops neither loved nor esteemed his
      character. They cast their eyes around in search of a competitor,
      and at last yielded with reluctance to his promises of unbounded
      liberality and indulgence. A short time after his accession, he
      conferred on his son Diadumenianus, at the age of only ten years,
      the Imperial title, and the popular name of Antoninus. The
      beautiful figure of the youth, assisted by an additional
      donative, for which the ceremony furnished a pretext, might
      attract, it was hoped, the favor of the army, and secure the
      doubtful throne of Macrinus.

      41 (return) [ Herodian, l. iv. p. 169. Hist. August. p. 94.]

      The authority of the new sovereign had been ratified by the
      cheerful submission of the senate and provinces. They exulted in
      their unexpected deliverance from a hated tyrant, and it seemed
      of little consequence to examine into the virtues of the
      successor of Caracalla. But as soon as the first transports of
      joy and surprise had subsided, they began to scrutinize the
      merits of Macrinus with a critical severity, and to arraign the
      nasty choice of the army. It had hitherto been considered as a
      fundamental maxim of the constitution, that the emperor must be
      always chosen in the senate, and the sovereign power, no longer
      exercised by the whole body, was always delegated to one of its
      members. But Macrinus was not a senator. 42 The sudden elevation
      of the Prætorian præfects betrayed the meanness of their origin;
      and the equestrian order was still in possession of that great
      office, which commanded with arbitrary sway the lives and
      fortunes of the senate. A murmur of indignation was heard, that a
      man, whose obscure 43 extraction had never been illustrated by
      any signal service, should dare to invest himself with the
      purple, instead of bestowing it on some distinguished senator,
      equal in birth and dignity to the splendor of the Imperial
      station. As soon as the character of Macrinus was surveyed by the
      sharp eye of discontent, some vices, and many defects, were
      easily discovered. The choice of his ministers was in many
      instances justly censured, and the dissatisfied people, with
      their usual candor, accused at once his indolent tameness and his
      excessive severity. 44

      42 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxxviii. p. 1350. Elagabalus reproached
      his predecessor with daring to seat himself on the throne;
      though, as Prætorian præfect, he could not have been admitted
      into the senate after the voice of the crier had cleared the
      house. The personal favor of Plautianus and Sejanus had broke
      through the established rule. They rose, indeed, from the
      equestrian order; but they preserved the præfecture, with the
      rank of senator and even with the annulship.]

      43 (return) [ He was a native of Cæsarea, in Numidia, and began
      his fortune by serving in the household of Plautian, from whose
      ruin he narrowly escaped. His enemies asserted that he was born a
      slave, and had exercised, among other infamous professions, that
      of Gladiator. The fashion of aspersing the birth and condition of
      an adversary seems to have lasted from the time of the Greek
      orators to the learned grammarians of the last age.]

      44 (return) [ Both Dion and Herodian speak of the virtues and
      vices of Macrinus with candor and impartiality; but the author of
      his life, in the Augustan History, seems to have implicitly
      copied some of the venal writers, employed by Elagabalus, to
      blacken the memory of his predecessor.]

      His rash ambition had climbed a height where it was difficult to
      stand with firmness, and impossible to fall without instant
      destruction. Trained in the arts of courts and the forms of civil
      business, he trembled in the presence of the fierce and
      undisciplined multitude, over whom he had assumed the command;
      his military talents were despised, and his personal courage
      suspected; a whisper that circulated in the camp, disclosed the
      fatal secret of the conspiracy against the late emperor,
      aggravated the guilt of murder by the baseness of hypocrisy, and
      heightened contempt by detestation. To alienate the soldiers, and
      to provoke inevitable ruin, the character of a reformer was only
      wanting; and such was the peculiar hardship of his fate, that
      Macrinus was compelled to exercise that invidious office. The
      prodigality of Caracalla had left behind it a long train of ruin
      and disorder; and if that worthless tyrant had been capable of
      reflecting on the sure consequences of his own conduct, he would
      perhaps have enjoyed the dark prospect of the distress and
      calamities which he bequeathed to his successors.

      In the management of this necessary reformation, Macrinus
      proceeded with a cautious prudence, which would have restored
      health and vigor to the Roman army in an easy and almost
      imperceptible manner. To the soldiers already engaged in the
      service, he was constrained to leave the dangerous privileges and
      extravagant pay given by Caracalla; but the new recruits were
      received on the more moderate though liberal establishment of
      Severus, and gradually formed to modesty and obedience. 45 One
      fatal error destroyed the salutary effects of this judicious
      plan. The numerous army, assembled in the East by the late
      emperor, instead of being immediately dispersed by Macrinus
      through the several provinces, was suffered to remain united in
      Syria, during the winter that followed his elevation. In the
      luxurious idleness of their quarters, the troops viewed their
      strength and numbers, communicated their complaints, and revolved
      in their minds the advantages of another revolution. The
      veterans, instead of being flattered by the advantageous
      distinction, were alarmed by the first steps of the emperor,
      which they considered as the presage of his future intentions.
      The recruits, with sullen reluctance, entered on a service, whose
      labors were increased while its rewards were diminished by a
      covetous and unwarlike sovereign. The murmurs of the army swelled
      with impunity into seditious clamors; and the partial mutinies
      betrayed a spirit of discontent and disaffection that waited only
      for the slightest occasion to break out on every side into a
      general rebellion. To minds thus disposed, the occasion soon
      presented itself.

      45 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxxiii. p. 1336. The sense of the author
      is as the intention of the emperor; but Mr. Wotton has mistaken
      both, by understanding the distinction, not of veterans and
      recruits, but of old and new legions. History of Rome, p. 347.]

      The empress Julia had experienced all the vicissitudes of
      fortune. From an humble station she had been raised to greatness,
      only to taste the superior bitterness of an exalted rank. She was
      doomed to weep over the death of one of her sons, and over the
      life of the other. The cruel fate of Caracalla, though her good
      sense must have long taught her to expect it, awakened the
      feelings of a mother and of an empress. Notwithstanding the
      respectful civility expressed by the usurper towards the widow of
      Severus, she descended with a painful struggle into the condition
      of a subject, and soon withdrew herself, by a voluntary death,
      from the anxious and humiliating dependence. 46 461 Julia Mæsa,
      her sister, was ordered to leave the court and Antioch. She
      retired to Emesa with an immense fortune, the fruit of twenty
      years’ favor accompanied by her two daughters, Soæmias and Mamæ,
      each of whom was a widow, and each had an only son. Bassianus,
      462 for that was the name of the son of Soæmias, was consecrated
      to the honorable ministry of high priest of the Sun; and this
      holy vocation, embraced either from prudence or superstition,
      contributed to raise the Syrian youth to the empire of Rome. A
      numerous body of troops was stationed at Emesa; and as the severe
      discipline of Macrinus had constrained them to pass the winter
      encamped, they were eager to revenge the cruelty of such
      unaccustomed hardships. The soldiers, who resorted in crowds to
      the temple of the Sun, beheld with veneration and delight the
      elegant dress and figure of the young pontiff; they recognized,
      or they thought that they recognized, the features of Caracalla,
      whose memory they now adored. The artful Mæsa saw and cherished
      their rising partiality, and readily sacrificing her daughter’s
      reputation to the fortune of her grandson, she insinuated that
      Bassianus was the natural son of their murdered sovereign. The
      sums distributed by her emissaries with a lavish hand silenced
      every objection, and the profusion sufficiently proved the
      affinity, or at least the resemblance, of Bassianus with the
      great original. The young Antoninus (for he had assumed and
      polluted that respectable name) was declared emperor by the
      troops of Emesa, asserted his hereditary right, and called aloud
      on the armies to follow the standard of a young and liberal
      prince, who had taken up arms to revenge his father’s death and
      the oppression of the military order. 47

      46 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1330. The abridgment of
      Xiphilin, though less particular, is in this place clearer than
      the original.]

      461 (return) [ As soon as this princess heard of the death of
      Caracalla, she wished to starve herself to death: the respect
      shown to her by Macrinus, in making no change in her attendants
      or her court, induced her to prolong her life. But it appears, as
      far as the mutilated text of Dion and the imperfect epitome of
      Xiphilin permit us to judge, that she conceived projects of
      ambition, and endeavored to raise herself to the empire. She
      wished to tread in the steps of Semiramis and Nitocris, whose
      country bordered on her own. Macrinus sent her an order
      immediately to leave Antioch, and to retire wherever she chose.
      She returned to her former purpose, and starved herself to
      death.—G.]

      462 (return) [ He inherited this name from his great-grandfather
      of the mother’s side, Bassianus, father of Julia Mæsa, his
      grandmother, and of Julia Domna, wife of Severus. Victor (in his
      epitome) is perhaps the only historian who has given the key to
      this genealogy, when speaking of Caracalla. His Bassianus ex avi
      materni nomine dictus. Caracalla, Elagabalus, and Alexander
      Seyerus, bore successively this name.—G.]

      47 (return) [ According to Lampridius, (Hist. August. p. 135,)
      Alexander Severus lived twenty-nine years three months and seven
      days. As he was killed March 19, 235, he was born December 12,
      205 and was consequently about this time thirteen years old, as
      his elder cousin might be about seventeen. This computation suits
      much better the history of the young princes than that of
      Herodian, (l. v. p. 181,) who represents them as three years
      younger; whilst, by an opposite error of chronology, he lengthens
      the reign of Elagabalus two years beyond its real duration. For
      the particulars of the conspiracy, see Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1339.
      Herodian, l. v. p. 184.]

      Whilst a conspiracy of women and eunuchs was concerted with
      prudence, and conducted with rapid vigor, Macrinus, who, by a
      decisive motion, might have crushed his infant enemy, floated
      between the opposite extremes of terror and security, which alike
      fixed him inactive at Antioch. A spirit of rebellion diffused
      itself through all the camps and garrisons of Syria, successive
      detachments murdered their officers, 48 and joined the party of
      the rebels; and the tardy restitution of military pay and
      privileges was imputed to the acknowledged weakness of Macrinus.
      At length he marched out of Antioch, to meet the increasing and
      zealous army of the young pretender. His own troops seemed to
      take the field with faintness and reluctance; but, in the heat of
      the battle, 49 the Prætorian guards, almost by an involuntary
      impulse, asserted the superiority of their valor and discipline.
      The rebel ranks were broken; when the mother and grandmother of
      the Syrian prince, who, according to their eastern custom, had
      attended the army, threw themselves from their covered chariots,
      and, by exciting the compassion of the soldiers, endeavored to
      animate their drooping courage. Antoninus himself, who, in the
      rest of his life, never acted like a man, in this important
      crisis of his fate, approved himself a hero, mounted his horse,
      and, at the head of his rallied troops, charged sword in hand
      among the thickest of the enemy; whilst the eunuch Gannys, 491
      whose occupations had been confined to female cares and the soft
      luxury of Asia, displayed the talents of an able and experienced
      general. The battle still raged with doubtful violence, and
      Macrinus might have obtained the victory, had he not betrayed his
      own cause by a shameful and precipitate flight. His cowardice
      served only to protract his life a few days, and to stamp
      deserved ignominy on his misfortunes. It is scarcely necessary to
      add, that his son Diadumenianus was involved in the same fate.

      As soon as the stubborn Prætorians could be convinced that they
      fought for a prince who had basely deserted them, they
      surrendered to the conqueror: the contending parties of the Roman
      army, mingling tears of joy and tenderness, united under the
      banners of the imagined son of Caracalla, and the East
      acknowledged with pleasure the first emperor of Asiatic
      extraction.

      48 (return) [ By a most dangerous proclamation of the pretended
      Antoninus, every soldier who brought in his officer’s head became
      entitled to his private estate, as well as to his military
      commission.]

      49 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1345. Herodian, l. v. p. 186.
      The battle was fought near the village of Immæ, about
      two-and-twenty miles from Antioch.]

      491 (return) [ Gannys was not a eunuch. Dion, p. 1355.—W]

      The letters of Macrinus had condescended to inform the senate of
      the slight disturbance occasioned by an impostor in Syria, and a
      decree immediately passed, declaring the rebel and his family
      public enemies; with a promise of pardon, however, to such of his
      deluded adherents as should merit it by an immediate return to
      their duty. During the twenty days that elapsed from the
      declaration of the victory of Antoninus (for in so short an
      interval was the fate of the Roman world decided,) the capital
      and the provinces, more especially those of the East, were
      distracted with hopes and fears, agitated with tumult, and
      stained with a useless effusion of civil blood, since whosoever
      of the rivals prevailed in Syria must reign over the empire. The
      specious letters in which the young conqueror announced his
      victory to the obedient senate were filled with professions of
      virtue and moderation; the shining examples of Marcus and
      Augustus, he should ever consider as the great rule of his
      administration; and he affected to dwell with pride on the
      striking resemblance of his own age and fortunes with those of
      Augustus, who in the earliest youth had revenged, by a successful
      war, the murder of his father. By adopting the style of Marcus
      Aurelius Antoninus, son of Antoninus and grandson of Severus, he
      tacitly asserted his hereditary claim to the empire; but, by
      assuming the tribunitian and proconsular powers before they had
      been conferred on him by a decree of the senate, he offended the
      delicacy of Roman prejudice. This new and injudicious violation
      of the constitution was probably dictated either by the ignorance
      of his Syrian courtiers, or the fierce disdain of his military
      followers. 50

      50 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1353.]

      As the attention of the new emperor was diverted by the most
      trifling amusements, he wasted many months in his luxurious
      progress from Syria to Italy, passed at Nicomedia his first
      winter after his victory, and deferred till the ensuing summer
      his triumphal entry into the capital. A faithful picture,
      however, which preceded his arrival, and was placed by his
      immediate order over the altar of Victory in the senate house,
      conveyed to the Romans the just but unworthy resemblance of his
      person and manners. He was drawn in his sacerdotal robes of silk
      and gold, after the loose flowing fashion of the Medes and
      Phœnicians; his head was covered with a lofty tiara, his numerous
      collars and bracelets were adorned with gems of an inestimable
      value. His eyebrows were tinged with black, and his cheeks
      painted with an artificial red and white. 51 The grave senators
      confessed with a sigh, that, after having long experienced the
      stern tyranny of their own countrymen, Rome was at length humbled
      beneath the effeminate luxury of Oriental despotism.

      51 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1363. Herodian, l. v. p. 189.]

      The Sun was worshipped at Emesa, under the name of Elagabalus, 52
      and under the form of a black conical stone, which, as it was
      universally believed, had fallen from heaven on that sacred
      place. To this protecting deity, Antoninus, not without some
      reason, ascribed his elevation to the throne. The display of
      superstitious gratitude was the only serious business of his
      reign. The triumph of the god of Emesa over all the religions of
      the earth, was the great object of his zeal and vanity; and the
      appellation of Elagabalus (for he presumed as pontiff and
      favorite to adopt that sacred name) was dearer to him than all
      the titles of Imperial greatness. In a solemn procession through
      the streets of Rome, the way was strewed with gold dust; the
      black stone, set in precious gems, was placed on a chariot drawn
      by six milk-white horses richly caparisoned. The pious emperor
      held the reins, and, supported by his ministers, moved slowly
      backwards, that he might perpetually enjoy the felicity of the
      divine presence. In a magnificent temple raised on the Palatine
      Mount, the sacrifices of the god Elagabalus were celebrated with
      every circumstance of cost and solemnity. The richest wines, the
      most extraordinary victims, and the rarest aromatics, were
      profusely consumed on his altar. Around the altar, a chorus of
      Syrian damsels performed their lascivious dances to the sound of
      barbarian music, whilst the gravest personages of the state and
      army, clothed in long Phœnician tunics, officiated in the meanest
      functions, with affected zeal and secret indignation. 53

      52 (return) [ This name is derived by the learned from two Syrian
      words, Ela a God, and Gabal, to form, the forming or plastic god,
      a proper, and even happy epithet for the sun. Wotton’s History of
      Rome, p. 378 Note: The name of Elagabalus has been disfigured in
      various ways. Herodian calls him; Lampridius, and the more modern
      writers, make him Heliogabalus. Dion calls him Elegabalus; but
      Elegabalus was the true name, as it appears on the medals.
      (Eckhel. de Doct. num. vet. t. vii. p. 250.) As to its etymology,
      that which Gibbon adduces is given by Bochart, Chan. ii. 5; but
      Salmasius, on better grounds. (not. in Lamprid. in Elagab.,)
      derives the name of Elagabalus from the idol of that god,
      represented by Herodian and the medals in the form of a mountain,
      (gibel in Hebrew,) or great stone cut to a point, with marks
      which represent the sun. As it was not permitted, at Hierapolis,
      in Syria, to make statues of the sun and moon, because, it was
      said, they are themselves sufficiently visible, the sun was
      represented at Emesa in the form of a great stone, which, as it
      appeared, had fallen from heaven. Spanheim, Cæsar. notes, p.
      46.—G. The name of Elagabalus, in “nummis rarius legetur.”
      Rasche, Lex. Univ. Ref. Numm. Rasche quotes two.—M]

      53 (return) [ Herodian, l. v. p. 190.]




      Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
      Marcinus.—Part III.

      To this temple, as to the common centre of religious worship, the
      Imperial fanatic attempted to remove the Ancilia, the Palladium,
      54 and all the sacred pledges of the faith of Numa. A crowd of
      inferior deities attended in various stations the majesty of the
      god of Emesa; but his court was still imperfect, till a female of
      distinguished rank was admitted to his bed. Pallas had been first
      chosen for his consort; but as it was dreaded lest her warlike
      terrors might affright the soft delicacy of a Syrian deity, the
      Moon, adored by the Africans under the name of Astarte, was
      deemed a more suitable companion for the Sun. Her image, with the
      rich offerings of her temple as a marriage portion, was
      transported with solemn pomp from Carthage to Rome, and the day
      of these mystic nuptials was a general festival in the capital
      and throughout the empire. 55

      54 (return) [ He broke into the sanctuary of Vesta, and carried
      away a statue, which he supposed to be the palladium; but the
      vestals boasted that, by a pious fraud, they had imposed a
      counterfeit image on the profane intruder. Hist. August., p.
      103.]

      55 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1360. Herodian, l. v. p. 193.
      The subjects of the empire were obliged to make liberal presents
      to the new married couple; and whatever they had promised during
      the life of Elagabalus was carefully exacted under the
      administration of Mamæa.]

      A rational voluptuary adheres with invariable respect to the
      temperate dictates of nature, and improves the gratifications of
      sense by social intercourse, endearing connections, and the soft
      coloring of taste and the imagination. But Elagabalus, (I speak
      of the emperor of that name,) corrupted by his youth, his
      country, and his fortune, abandoned himself to the grossest
      pleasures with ungoverned fury, and soon found disgust and
      satiety in the midst of his enjoyments. The inflammatory powers
      of art were summoned to his aid: the confused multitude of women,
      of wines, and of dishes, and the studied variety of attitude and
      sauces, served to revive his languid appetites. New terms and new
      inventions in these sciences, the only ones cultivated and
      patronized by the monarch, 56 signalized his reign, and
      transmitted his infamy to succeeding times. A capricious
      prodigality supplied the want of taste and elegance; and whilst
      Elagabalus lavished away the treasures of his people in the
      wildest extravagance, his own voice and that of his flatterers
      applauded a spirit of magnificence unknown to the tameness of his
      predecessors. To confound the order of seasons and climates, 57
      to sport with the passions and prejudices of his subjects, and to
      subvert every law of nature and decency, were in the number of
      his most delicious amusements. A long train of concubines, and a
      rapid succession of wives, among whom was a vestal virgin,
      ravished by force from her sacred asylum, 58 were insufficient to
      satisfy the impotence of his passions. The master of the Roman
      world affected to copy the dress and manners of the female sex,
      preferred the distaff to the sceptre, and dishonored the
      principal dignities of the empire by distributing them among his
      numerous lovers; one of whom was publicly invested with the title
      and authority of the emperor’s, or, as he more properly styled
      himself, of the empress’s husband. 59

      56 (return) [ The invention of a new sauce was liberally
      rewarded; but if it was not relished, the inventor was confined
      to eat of nothing else till he had discovered another more
      agreeable to the Imperial palate Hist. August. p. 111.]

      57 (return) [ He never would eat sea-fish except at a great
      distance from the sea; he then would distribute vast quantities
      of the rarest sorts, brought at an immense expense, to the
      peasants of the inland country. Hist. August. p. 109.]

      58 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1358. Herodian, l. v. p. 192.]

      59 (return) [ Hierocles enjoyed that honor; but he would have
      been supplanted by one Zoticus, had he not contrived, by a
      potion, to enervate the powers of his rival, who, being found on
      trial unequal to his reputation, was driven with ignominy from
      the palace. Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1363, 1364. A dancer was made
      præfect of the city, a charioteer præfect of the watch, a barber
      præfect of the provisions. These three ministers, with many
      inferior officers, were all recommended enormitate membrorum.
      Hist. August. p. 105.]

      It may seem probable, the vices and follies of Elagabalus have
      been adorned by fancy, and blackened by prejudice. 60 Yet,
      confining ourselves to the public scenes displayed before the
      Roman people, and attested by grave and contemporary historians,
      their inexpressible infamy surpasses that of any other age or
      country. The license of an eastern monarch is secluded from the
      eye of curiosity by the inaccessible walls of his seraglio. The
      sentiments of honor and gallantry have introduced a refinement of
      pleasure, a regard for decency, and a respect for the public
      opinion, into the modern courts of Europe; 601 but the corrupt
      and opulent nobles of Rome gratified every vice that could be
      collected from the mighty conflux of nations and manners. Secure
      of impunity, careless of censure, they lived without restraint in
      the patient and humble society of their slaves and parasites. The
      emperor, in his turn, viewing every rank of his subjects with the
      same contemptuous indifference, asserted without control his
      sovereign privilege of lust and luxury.

      60 (return) [ Even the credulous compiler of his life, in the
      Augustan History (p. 111) is inclined to suspect that his vices
      may have been exaggerated.]

      601 (return) [ Wenck has justly observed that Gibbon should have
      reckoned the influence of Christianity in this great change. In
      the most savage times, and the most corrupt courts, since the
      introduction of Christianity there have been no Neros or
      Domitians, no Commodus or Elagabalus.—M.]

      The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others
      the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can
      readily discover some nice difference of age, character, or
      station, to justify the partial distinction. The licentious
      soldiers, who had raised to the throne the dissolute son of
      Caracalla, blushed at their ignominious choice, and turned with
      disgust from that monster, to contemplate with pleasure the
      opening virtues of his cousin Alexander, the son of Mamæa. The
      crafty Mæsa, sensible that her grandson Elagabalus must
      inevitably destroy himself by his own vices, had provided another
      and surer support of her family. Embracing a favorable moment of
      fondness and devotion, she had persuaded the young emperor to
      adopt Alexander, and to invest him with the title of Cæsar, that
      his own divine occupations might be no longer interrupted by the
      care of the earth. In the second rank that amiable prince soon
      acquired the affections of the public, and excited the tyrant’s
      jealousy, who resolved to terminate the dangerous competition,
      either by corrupting the manners, or by taking away the life, of
      his rival. His arts proved unsuccessful; his vain designs were
      constantly discovered by his own loquacious folly, and
      disappointed by those virtuous and faithful servants whom the
      prudence of Mamæa had placed about the person of her son. In a
      hasty sally of passion, Elagabalus resolved to execute by force
      what he had been unable to compass by fraud, and by a despotic
      sentence degraded his cousin from the rank and honors of Cæsar.
      The message was received in the senate with silence, and in the
      camp with fury. The Prætorian guards swore to protect Alexander,
      and to revenge the dishonored majesty of the throne. The tears
      and promises of the trembling Elagabalus, who only begged them to
      spare his life, and to leave him in the possession of his beloved
      Hierocles, diverted their just indignation; and they contented
      themselves with empowering their præfects to watch over the
      safety of Alexander, and the conduct of the emperor. 61

      61 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1365. Herodian, l. v. p.
      195—201. Hist. August. p. 105. The last of the three historians
      seems to have followed the best authors in his account of the
      revolution.]

      It was impossible that such a reconciliation should last, or that
      even the mean soul of Elagabalus could hold an empire on such
      humiliating terms of dependence. He soon attempted, by a
      dangerous experiment, to try the temper of the soldiers. The
      report of the death of Alexander, and the natural suspicion that
      he had been murdered, inflamed their passions into fury, and the
      tempest of the camp could only be appeased by the presence and
      authority of the popular youth. Provoked at this new instance of
      their affection for his cousin, and their contempt for his
      person, the emperor ventured to punish some of the leaders of the
      mutiny. His unseasonable severity proved instantly fatal to his
      minions, his mother, and himself. Elagabalus was massacred by the
      indignant Prætorians, his mutilated corpse dragged through the
      streets of the city, and thrown into the Tiber. His memory was
      branded with eternal infamy by the senate; the justice of whose
      decree has been ratified by posterity. 62

      62 (return) [ The æra of the death of Elagabalus, and of the
      accession of Alexander, has employed the learning and ingenuity
      of Pagi, Tillemont, Valsecchi, Vignoli, and Torre, bishop of
      Adria. The question is most assuredly intricate; but I still
      adhere to the authority of Dion, the truth of whose calculations
      is undeniable, and the purity of whose text is justified by the
      agreement of Xiphilin, Zonaras, and Cedrenus. Elagabalus reigned
      three years nine months and four days, from his victory over
      Macrinus, and was killed March 10, 222. But what shall we reply
      to the medals, undoubtedly genuine, which reckon the fifth year
      of his tribunitian power? We shall reply, with the learned
      Valsecchi, that the usurpation of Macrinus was annihilated, and
      that the son of Caracalla dated his reign from his father’s
      death? After resolving this great difficulty, the smaller knots
      of this question may be easily untied, or cut asunder. Note: This
      opinion of Valsecchi has been triumphantly contested by Eckhel,
      who has shown the impossibility of reconciling it with the medals
      of Elagabalus, and has given the most satisfactory explanation of
      the five tribunates of that emperor. He ascended the throne and
      received the tribunitian power the 16th of May, in the year of
      Rome 971; and on the 1st January of the next year, 972, he began
      a new tribunate, according to the custom established by preceding
      emperors. During the years 972, 973, 974, he enjoyed the
      tribunate, and commenced his fifth in the year 975, during which
      he was killed on the 10th March. Eckhel de Doct. Num. viii. 430
      &c.—G.]

      In the room of Elagabalus, his cousin Alexander was raised to the
      throne by the Prætorian guards. His relation to the family of
      Severus, whose name he assumed, was the same as that of his
      predecessor; his virtue and his danger had already endeared him
      to the Romans, and the eager liberality of the senate conferred
      upon him, in one day, the various titles and powers of the
      Imperial dignity. 63 But as Alexander was a modest and dutiful
      youth, of only seventeen years of age, the reins of government
      were in the hands of two women, of his mother, Mamæa, and of
      Mæsa, his grandmother. After the death of the latter, who
      survived but a short time the elevation of Alexander, Mamæa
      remained the sole regent of her son and of the empire.

      63 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 114. By this unusual
      precipitation, the senate meant to confound the hopes of
      pretenders, and prevent the factions of the armies.]

      In every age and country, the wiser, or at least the stronger, of
      the two sexes, has usurped the powers of the state, and confined
      the other to the cares and pleasures of domestic life. In
      hereditary monarchies, however, and especially in those of modern
      Europe, the gallant spirit of chivalry, and the law of
      succession, have accustomed us to allow a singular exception; and
      a woman is often acknowledged the absolute sovereign of a great
      kingdom, in which she would be deemed incapable of exercising the
      smallest employment, civil or military. But as the Roman emperors
      were still considered as the generals and magistrates of the
      republic, their wives and mothers, although distinguished by the
      name of Augusta, were never associated to their personal honors;
      and a female reign would have appeared an inexpiable prodigy in
      the eyes of those primitive Romans, who married without love, or
      loved without delicacy and respect. 64 The haughty Agrippina
      aspired, indeed, to share the honors of the empire which she had
      conferred on her son; but her mad ambition, detested by every
      citizen who felt for the dignity of Rome, was disappointed by the
      artful firmness of Seneca and Burrhus. 65 The good sense, or the
      indifference, of succeeding princes, restrained them from
      offending the prejudices of their subjects; and it was reserved
      for the profligate Elagabalus to discharge the acts of the senate
      with the name of his mother Soæmias, who was placed by the side
      of the consuls, and subscribed, as a regular member, the decrees
      of the legislative assembly. Her more prudent sister, Mamæa,
      declined the useless and odious prerogative, and a solemn law was
      enacted, excluding women forever from the senate, and devoting to
      the infernal gods the head of the wretch by whom this sanction
      should be violated. 66 The substance, not the pageantry, of power
      was the object of Mamæa’s manly ambition. She maintained an
      absolute and lasting empire over the mind of her son, and in his
      affection the mother could not brook a rival. Alexander, with her
      consent, married the daughter of a patrician; but his respect for
      his father-in-law, and love for the empress, were inconsistent
      with the tenderness of interest of Mamæa. The patrician was
      executed on the ready accusation of treason, and the wife of
      Alexander driven with ignominy from the palace, and banished into
      Africa. 67

      64 (return) [ Metellus Numidicus, the censor, acknowledged to the
      Roman people, in a public oration, that had kind nature allowed
      us to exist without the help of women, we should be delivered
      from a very troublesome companion; and he could recommend
      matrimony only as the sacrifice of private pleasure to public
      duty. Aulus Gellius, i. 6.]

      65 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xiii. 5.]

      66 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 102, 107.]

      67 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxx. p. 1369. Herodian, l. vi. p. 206.
      Hist. August. p. 131. Herodian represents the patrician as
      innocent. The Augustian History, on the authority of Dexippus,
      condemns him, as guilty of a conspiracy against the life of
      Alexander. It is impossible to pronounce between them; but Dion
      is an irreproachable witness of the jealousy and cruelty of Mamæa
      towards the young empress, whose hard fate Alexander lamented,
      but durst not oppose.]

      Notwithstanding this act of jealous cruelty, as well as some
      instances of avarice, with which Mamæa is charged, the general
      tenor of her administration was equally for the benefit of her
      son and of the empire. With the approbation of the senate, she
      chose sixteen of the wisest and most virtuous senators as a
      perpetual council of state, before whom every public business of
      moment was debated and determined. The celebrated Ulpian, equally
      distinguished by his knowledge of, and his respect for, the laws
      of Rome, was at their head; and the prudent firmness of this
      aristocracy restored order and authority to the government. As
      soon as they had purged the city from foreign superstition and
      luxury, the remains of the capricious tyranny of Elagabalus, they
      applied themselves to remove his worthless creatures from every
      department of the public administration, and to supply their
      places with men of virtue and ability. Learning, and the love of
      justice, became the only recommendations for civil offices;
      valor, and the love of discipline, the only qualifications for
      military employments. 68

      68 (return) [ Herodian, l. vi. p. 203. Hist. August. p. 119. The
      latter insinuates, that when any law was to be passed, the
      council was assisted by a number of able lawyers and experienced
      senators, whose opinions were separately given, and taken down in
      writing.]

      But the most important care of Mamæa and her wise counsellors,
      was to form the character of the young emperor, on whose personal
      qualities the happiness or misery of the Roman world must
      ultimately depend. The fortunate soil assisted, and even
      prevented, the hand of cultivation. An excellent understanding
      soon convinced Alexander of the advantages of virtue, the
      pleasure of knowledge, and the necessity of labor. A natural
      mildness and moderation of temper preserved him from the assaults
      of passion, and the allurements of vice. His unalterable regard
      for his mother, and his esteem for the wise Ulpian, guarded his
      unexperienced youth from the poison of flattery. 581

      581 (return) [ Alexander received into his chapel all the
      religions which prevailed in the empire; he admitted Jesus
      Christ, Abraham, Orpheus, Apollonius of Tyana, &c. It was almost
      certain that his mother Mamæa had instructed him in the morality
      of Christianity. Historians in general agree in calling her a
      Christian; there is reason to believe that she had begun to have
      a taste for the principles of Christianity. (See Tillemont,
      Alexander Severus) Gibbon has not noticed this circumstance; he
      appears to have wished to lower the character of this empress; he
      has throughout followed the narrative of Herodian, who, by the
      acknowledgment of Capitolinus himself, detested Alexander.
      Without believing the exaggerated praises of Lampridius, he ought
      not to have followed the unjust severity of Herodian, and, above
      all, not to have forgotten to say that the virtuous Alexander
      Severus had insured to the Jews the preservation of their
      privileges, and permitted the exercise of Christianity. Hist.
      Aug. p. 121. The Christians had established their worship in a
      public place, of which the victuallers (cauponarii) claimed, not
      the property, but possession by custom. Alexander answered, that
      it was better that the place should be used for the service of
      God, in any form, than for victuallers.—G. I have scrupled to
      omit this note, as it contains some points worthy of notice; but
      it is very unjust to Gibbon, who mentions almost all the
      circumstances, which he is accused of omitting, in another, and,
      according to his plan, a better place, and, perhaps, in stronger
      terms than M. Guizot. See Chap. xvi.— M.]

      The simple journal of his ordinary occupations exhibits a
      pleasing picture of an accomplished emperor, 69 and, with some
      allowance for the difference of manners, might well deserve the
      imitation of modern princes. Alexander rose early: the first
      moments of the day were consecrated to private devotion, and his
      domestic chapel was filled with the images of those heroes, who,
      by improving or reforming human life, had deserved the grateful
      reverence of posterity. But as he deemed the service of mankind
      the most acceptable worship of the gods, the greatest part of his
      morning hours was employed in his council, where he discussed
      public affairs, and determined private causes, with a patience
      and discretion above his years. The dryness of business was
      relieved by the charms of literature; and a portion of time was
      always set apart for his favorite studies of poetry, history, and
      philosophy. The works of Virgil and Horace, the republics of
      Plato and Cicero, formed his taste, enlarged his understanding,
      and gave him the noblest ideas of man and government. The
      exercises of the body succeeded to those of the mind; and
      Alexander, who was tall, active, and robust, surpassed most of
      his equals in the gymnastic arts. Refreshed by the use of the
      bath and a slight dinner, he resumed, with new vigor, the
      business of the day; and, till the hour of supper, the principal
      meal of the Romans, he was attended by his secretaries, with whom
      he read and answered the multitude of letters, memorials, and
      petitions, that must have been addressed to the master of the
      greatest part of the world. His table was served with the most
      frugal simplicity, and whenever he was at liberty to consult his
      own inclination, the company consisted of a few select friends,
      men of learning and virtue, amongst whom Ulpian was constantly
      invited. Their conversation was familiar and instructive; and the
      pauses were occasionally enlivened by the recital of some
      pleasing composition, which supplied the place of the dancers,
      comedians, and even gladiators, so frequently summoned to the
      tables of the rich and luxurious Romans. 70 The dress of
      Alexander was plain and modest, his demeanor courteous and
      affable: at the proper hours his palace was open to all his
      subjects, but the voice of a crier was heard, as in the
      Eleusinian mysteries, pronouncing the same salutary admonition:
      “Let none enter these holy walls, unless he is conscious of a
      pure and innocent mind.” 71

      69 (return) [ See his life in the Augustan History. The
      undistinguishing compiler has buried these interesting anecdotes
      under a load of trivial unmeaning circumstances.]

      70 (return) [ See the 13th Satire of Juvenal.]

      71 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 119.]

      Such a uniform tenor of life, which left not a moment for vice or
      folly, is a better proof of the wisdom and justice of Alexander’s
      government, than all the trifling details preserved in the
      compilation of Lampridius. Since the accession of Commodus, the
      Roman world had experienced, during the term of forty years, the
      successive and various vices of four tyrants. From the death of
      Elagabalus, it enjoyed an auspicious calm of thirteen years. 711
      The provinces, relieved from the oppressive taxes invented by
      Caracalla and his pretended son, flourished in peace and
      prosperity, under the administration of magistrates who were
      convinced by experience that to deserve the love of the subjects
      was their best and only method of obtaining the favor of their
      sovereign. While some gentle restraints were imposed on the
      innocent luxury of the Roman people, the price of provisions and
      the interest of money, were reduced by the paternal care of
      Alexander, whose prudent liberality, without distressing the
      industrious, supplied the wants and amusements of the populace.
      The dignity, the freedom, the authority of the senate was
      restored; and every virtuous senator might approach the person of
      the emperor without a fear and without a blush.

      711 (return) [ Wenck observes that Gibbon, enchanted with the
      virtue of Alexander has heightened, particularly in this
      sentence, its effect on the state of the world. His own account,
      which follows, of the insurrections and foreign wars, is not in
      harmony with this beautiful picture.—M.]

      The name of Antoninus, ennobled by the virtues of Pius and
      Marcus, had been communicated by adoption to the dissolute Verus,
      and by descent to the cruel Commodus. It became the honorable
      appellation of the sons of Severus, was bestowed on young
      Diadumenianus, and at length prostituted to the infamy of the
      high priest of Emesa. Alexander, though pressed by the studied,
      and, perhaps, sincere importunity of the senate, nobly refused
      the borrowed lustre of a name; whilst in his whole conduct he
      labored to restore the glories and felicity of the age of the
      genuine Antonines. 72

      72 (return) [ See, in the Hist. August. p. 116, 117, the whole
      contest between Alexander and the senate, extracted from the
      journals of that assembly. It happened on the sixth of March,
      probably of the year 223, when the Romans had enjoyed, almost a
      twelvemonth, the blessings of his reign. Before the appellation
      of Antoninus was offered him as a title of honor, the senate
      waited to see whether Alexander would not assume it as a family
      name.]

      In the civil administration of Alexander, wisdom was enforced by
      power, and the people, sensible of the public felicity, repaid
      their benefactor with their love and gratitude. There still
      remained a greater, a more necessary, but a more difficult
      enterprise; the reformation of the military order, whose interest
      and temper, confirmed by long impunity, rendered them impatient
      of the restraints of discipline, and careless of the blessings of
      public tranquillity. In the execution of his design, the emperor
      affected to display his love, and to conceal his fear of the
      army. The most rigid economy in every other branch of the
      administration supplied a fund of gold and silver for the
      ordinary pay and the extraordinary rewards of the troops. In
      their marches he relaxed the severe obligation of carrying
      seventeen days’ provision on their shoulders. Ample magazines
      were formed along the public roads, and as soon as they entered
      the enemy’s country, a numerous train of mules and camels waited
      on their haughty laziness. As Alexander despaired of correcting
      the luxury of his soldiers, he attempted, at least, to direct it
      to objects of martial pomp and ornament, fine horses, splendid
      armor, and shields enriched with silver and gold. He shared
      whatever fatigues he was obliged to impose, visited, in person,
      the sick and wounded, preserved an exact register of their
      services and his own gratitude, and expressed on every occasion,
      the warmest regard for a body of men, whose welfare, as he
      affected to declare, was so closely connected with that of the
      state. 73 By the most gentle arts he labored to inspire the
      fierce multitude with a sense of duty, and to restore at least a
      faint image of that discipline to which the Romans owed their
      empire over so many other nations, as warlike and more powerful
      than themselves. But his prudence was vain, his courage fatal,
      and the attempt towards a reformation served only to inflame the
      ills it was meant to cure.

      73 (return) [ It was a favorite saying of the emperor’s Se
      milites magis servare, quam seipsum, quod salus publica in his
      esset. Hist. Aug. p. 130.]

      The Prætorian guards were attached to the youth of Alexander.
      They loved him as a tender pupil, whom they had saved from a
      tyrant’s fury, and placed on the Imperial throne. That amiable
      prince was sensible of the obligation; but as his gratitude was
      restrained within the limits of reason and justice, they soon
      were more dissatisfied with the virtues of Alexander, than they
      had ever been with the vices of Elagabalus. Their præfect, the
      wise Ulpian, was the friend of the laws and of the people; he was
      considered as the enemy of the soldiers, and to his pernicious
      counsels every scheme of reformation was imputed. Some trifling
      accident blew up their discontent into a furious mutiny; and the
      civil war raged, during three days, in Rome, whilst the life of
      that excellent minister was defended by the grateful people.
      Terrified, at length, by the sight of some houses in flames, and
      by the threats of a general conflagration, the people yielded
      with a sigh, and left the virtuous but unfortunate Ulpian to his
      fate. He was pursued into the Imperial palace, and massacred at
      the feet of his master, who vainly strove to cover him with the
      purple, and to obtain his pardon from the inexorable soldiers.
      731 Such was the deplorable weakness of government, that the
      emperor was unable to revenge his murdered friend and his
      insulted dignity, without stooping to the arts of patience and
      dissimulation. Epagathus, the principal leader of the mutiny, was
      removed from Rome, by the honorable employment of præfect of
      Egypt: from that high rank he was gently degraded to the
      government of Crete; and when at length, his popularity among the
      guards was effaced by time and absence, Alexander ventured to
      inflict the tardy but deserved punishment of his crimes. 74 Under
      the reign of a just and virtuous prince, the tyranny of the army
      threatened with instant death his most faithful ministers, who
      were suspected of an intention to correct their intolerable
      disorders. The historian Dion Cassius had commanded the Pannonian
      legions with the spirit of ancient discipline. Their brethren of
      Rome, embracing the common cause of military license, demanded
      the head of the reformer. Alexander, however, instead of yielding
      to their seditious clamors, showed a just sense of his merit and
      services, by appointing him his colleague in the consulship, and
      defraying from his own treasury the expense of that vain dignity:
      but as was justly apprehended, that if the soldiers beheld him
      with the ensigns of his office, they would revenge the insult in
      his blood, the nominal first magistrate of the state retired, by
      the emperor’s advice, from the city, and spent the greatest part
      of his consulship at his villas in Campania. 75 751

      731 (return) [ Gibbon has confounded two events altogether
      different— the quarrel of the people with the Prætorians, which
      lasted three days, and the assassination of Ulpian by the latter.
      Dion relates first the death of Ulpian, afterwards, reverting
      back according to a manner which is usual with him, he says that
      during the life of Ulpian, there had been a war of three days
      between the Prætorians and the people. But Ulpian was not the
      cause. Dion says, on the contrary, that it was occasioned by some
      unimportant circumstance; whilst he assigns a weighty reason for
      the murder of Ulpian, the judgment by which that Prætorian
      præfect had condemned his predecessors, Chrestus and Flavian, to
      death, whom the soldiers wished to revenge. Zosimus (l. 1, c.
      xi.) attributes this sentence to Mamæra; but, even then, the
      troops might have imputed it to Ulpian, who had reaped all the
      advantage and was otherwise odious to them.—W.]

      74 (return) [ Though the author of the life of Alexander (Hist.
      August. p. 182) mentions the sedition raised against Ulpian by
      the soldiers, he conceals the catastrophe, as it might discover a
      weakness in the administration of his hero. From this designed
      omission, we may judge of the weight and candor of that author.]

      75 (return) [ For an account of Ulpian’s fate and his own danger,
      see the mutilated conclusion of Dion’s History, l. lxxx. p.
      1371.]

      751 (return) [ Dion possessed no estates in Campania, and was not
      rich. He only says that the emperor advised him to reside, during
      his consulate, in some place out of Rome; that he returned to
      Rome after the end of his consulate, and had an interview with
      the emperor in Campania. He asked and obtained leave to pass the
      rest of his life in his native city, (Nice, in Bithynia: ) it was
      there that he finished his history, which closes with his second
      consulship.—W.]




      Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
      Marcinus.—Part IV.

      The lenity of the emperor confirmed the insolence of the troops;
      the legions imitated the example of the guards, and defended
      their prerogative of licentiousness with the same furious
      obstinacy. The administration of Alexander was an unavailing
      struggle against the corruption of his age. In llyricum, in
      Mauritania, in Armenia, in Mesopotamia, in Germany, fresh
      mutinies perpetually broke out; his officers were murdered, his
      authority was insulted, and his life at last sacrificed to the
      fierce discontents of the army. 76 One particular fact well
      deserves to be recorded, as it illustrates the manners of the
      troops, and exhibits a singular instance of their return to a
      sense of duty and obedience. Whilst the emperor lay at Antioch,
      in his Persian expedition, the particulars of which we shall
      hereafter relate, the punishment of some soldiers, who had been
      discovered in the baths of women, excited a sedition in the
      legion to which they belonged. Alexander ascended his tribunal,
      and with a modest firmness represented to the armed multitude the
      absolute necessity, as well as his inflexible resolution, of
      correcting the vices introduced by his impure predecessor, and of
      maintaining the discipline, which could not be relaxed without
      the ruin of the Roman name and empire. Their clamors interrupted
      his mild expostulation. “Reserve your shout,” said the undaunted
      emperor, “till you take the field against the Persians, the
      Germans, and the Sarmatians. Be silent in the presence of your
      sovereign and benefactor, who bestows upon you the corn, the
      clothing, and the money of the provinces. Be silent, or I shall
      no longer style you solders, but _citizens_, 77 if those indeed
      who disclaim the laws of Rome deserve to be ranked among the
      meanest of the people.” His menaces inflamed the fury of the
      legion, and their brandished arms already threatened his person.
      “Your courage,” resumed the intrepid Alexander, “would be more
      nobly displayed in the field of battle; _me_ you may destroy, you
      cannot intimidate; and the severe justice of the republic would
      punish your crime and revenge my death.” The legion still
      persisted in clamorous sedition, when the emperor pronounced,
      with a loud voice, the decisive sentence, “_Citizens!_ lay down
      your arms, and depart in peace to your respective habitations.”
      The tempest was instantly appeased: the soldiers, filled with
      grief and shame, silently confessed the justice of their
      punishment, and the power of discipline, yielded up their arms
      and military ensigns, and retired in confusion, not to their
      camp, but to the several inns of the city. Alexander enjoyed,
      during thirty days, the edifying spectacle of their repentance;
      nor did he restore them to their former rank in the army, till he
      had punished with death those tribunes whose connivance had
      occasioned the mutiny. The grateful legion served the emperor
      whilst living, and revenged him when dead. 78

      76 (return) [ Annot. Reimar. ad Dion Cassius, l. lxxx. p. 1369.]

      77 (return) [ Julius Cæsar had appeased a sedition with the same
      word, Quirites; which, thus opposed to soldiers, was used in a
      sense of contempt, and reduced the offenders to the less
      honorable condition of mere citizens. Tacit. Annal. i. 43.]

      78 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 132.]

      The resolutions of the multitude generally depend on a moment;
      and the caprice of passion might equally determine the seditious
      legion to lay down their arms at the emperor’s feet, or to plunge
      them into his breast. Perhaps, if this singular transaction had
      been investigated by the penetration of a philosopher, we should
      discover the secret causes which on that occasion authorized the
      boldness of the prince, and commanded the obedience of the
      troops; and perhaps, if it had been related by a judicious
      historian, we should find this action, worthy of Cæsar himself,
      reduced nearer to the level of probability and the common
      standard of the character of Alexander Severus. The abilities of
      that amiable prince seem to have been inadequate to the
      difficulties of his situation, the firmness of his conduct
      inferior to the purity of his intentions. His virtues, as well as
      the vices of Elagabalus, contracted a tincture of weakness and
      effeminacy from the soft climate of Syria, of which he was a
      native; though he blushed at his foreign origin, and listened
      with a vain complacency to the flattering genealogists, who
      derived his race from the ancient stock of Roman nobility. 79 The
      pride and avarice of his mother cast a shade on the glories of
      his reign; and by exacting from his riper years the same dutiful
      obedience which she had justly claimed from his unexperienced
      youth, Mamæa exposed to public ridicule both her son’s character
      and her own. 80 The fatigues of the Persian war irritated the
      military discontent; the unsuccessful event 801 degraded the
      reputation of the emperor as a general, and even as a soldier.
      Every cause prepared, and every circumstance hastened, a
      revolution, which distracted the Roman empire with a long series
      of intestine calamities.

      79 (return) [ From the Metelli. Hist. August. p. 119. The choice
      was judicious. In one short period of twelve years, the Metelli
      could reckon seven consulships and five triumphs. See Velleius
      Paterculus, ii. 11, and the Fasti.]

      80 (return) [ The life of Alexander, in the Augustan History, is
      the mere idea of a perfect prince, an awkward imitation of the
      Cyropædia. The account of his reign, as given by Herodian, is
      rational and moderate, consistent with the general history of the
      age; and, in some of the most invidious particulars, confirmed by
      the decisive fragments of Dion. Yet from a very paltry prejudice,
      the greater number of our modern writers abuse Herodian, and copy
      the Augustan History. See Mess de Tillemont and Wotton. From the
      opposite prejudice, the emperor Julian (in Cæsarib. p. 315)
      dwells with a visible satisfaction on the effeminate weakness of
      the Syrian, and the ridiculous avarice of his mother.]

      801 (return) [ Historians are divided as to the success of the
      campaign against the Persians; Herodian alone speaks of defeat.
      Lampridius, Eutropius, Victor, and others, say that it was very
      glorious to Alexander; that he beat Artaxerxes in a great battle,
      and repelled him from the frontiers of the empire. This much is
      certain, that Alexander, on his return to Rome, (Lamp. Hist. Aug.
      c. 56, 133, 134,) received the honors of a triumph, and that he
      said, in his oration to the people. Quirites, vicimus Persas,
      milites divites reduximus, vobis congiarium pollicemur, cras
      ludos circenses Persicos donabimus. Alexander, says Eckhel, had
      too much modesty and wisdom to permit himself to receive honors
      which ought only to be the reward of victory, if he had not
      deserved them; he would have contented himself with dissembling
      his losses. Eckhel, Doct. Num. vet. vii. 276. The medals
      represent him as in triumph; one, among others, displays him
      crowned by Victory between two rivers, the Euphrates and the
      Tigris. P. M. TR. P. xii. Cos. iii. PP. Imperator paludatus D.
      hastam. S. parazonium, stat inter duos fluvios humi jacentes, et
      ab accedente retro Victoria coronatur. Æ. max. mod. (Mus. Reg.
      Gall.) Although Gibbon treats this question more in detail when
      he speaks of the Persian monarchy, I have thought fit to place
      here what contradicts his opinion.—G]

      The dissolute tyranny of Commodus, the civil wars occasioned by
      his death, and the new maxims of policy introduced by the house
      of Severus, had all contributed to increase the dangerous power
      of the army, and to obliterate the faint image of laws and
      liberty that was still impressed on the minds of the Romans. The
      internal change, which undermined the foundations of the empire,
      we have endeavored to explain with some degree of order and
      perspicuity. The personal characters of the emperors, their
      victories, laws, follies, and fortunes, can interest us no
      farther than as they are connected with the general history of
      the Decline and Fall of the monarchy. Our constant attention to
      that great object will not suffer us to overlook a most important
      edict of Antoninus Caracalla, which communicated to all the free
      inhabitants of the empire the name and privileges of Roman
      citizens. His unbounded liberality flowed not, however, from the
      sentiments of a generous mind; it was the sordid result of
      avarice, and will naturally be illustrated by some observations
      on the finances of that state, from the victorious ages of the
      commonwealth to the reign of Alexander Severus.

      The siege of Veii in Tuscany, the first considerable enterprise
      of the Romans, was protracted to the tenth year, much less by the
      strength of the place than by the unskilfulness of the besiegers.
      The unaccustomed hardships of so many winter campaigns, at the
      distance of near twenty miles from home, 81 required more than
      common encouragements; and the senate wisely prevented the
      clamors of the people, by the institution of a regular pay for
      the soldiers, which was levied by a general tribute, assessed
      according to an equitable proportion on the property of the
      citizens. 82 During more than two hundred years after the
      conquest of Veii, the victories of the republic added less to the
      wealth than to the power of Rome. The states of Italy paid their
      tribute in military service only, and the vast force, both by sea
      and land, which was exerted in the Punic wars, was maintained at
      the expense of the Romans themselves. That high-spirited people
      (such is often the generous enthusiasm of freedom) cheerfully
      submitted to the most excessive but voluntary burdens, in the
      just confidence that they should speedily enjoy the rich harvest
      of their labors. Their expectations were not disappointed. In the
      course of a few years, the riches of Syracuse, of Carthage, of
      Macedonia, and of Asia, were brought in triumph to Rome. The
      treasures of Perseus alone amounted to near two millions
      sterling, and the Roman people, the sovereign of so many nations,
      was forever delivered from the weight of taxes. 83 The increasing
      revenue of the provinces was found sufficient to defray the
      ordinary establishment of war and government, and the superfluous
      mass of gold and silver was deposited in the temple of Saturn,
      and reserved for any unforeseen emergency of the state. 84

      81 (return) [ According to the more accurate Dionysius, the city
      itself was only a hundred stadia, or twelve miles and a half,
      from Rome, though some out-posts might be advanced farther on the
      side of Etruria. Nardini, in a professed treatise, has combated
      the popular opinion and the authority of two popes, and has
      removed Veii from Civita Castellana, to a little spot called
      Isola, in the midway between Rome and the Lake Bracianno. * Note:
      See the interesting account of the site and ruins of Veii in Sir
      W Gell’s topography of Rome and its Vicinity. v. ii. p. 303.—M.]

      82 (return) [ See the 4th and 5th books of Livy. In the Roman
      census, property, power, and taxation were commensurate with each
      other.]

      83 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxiii. c. 3. Cicero de
      Offic. ii. 22. Plutarch, P. Æmil. p. 275.]

      84 (return) [ See a fine description of this accumulated wealth
      of ages in Phars. l. iii. v. 155, &c.]

      History has never, perhaps, suffered a greater or more
      irreparable injury than in the loss of the curious register 841
      bequeathed by Augustus to the senate, in which that experienced
      prince so accurately balanced the revenues and expenses of the
      Roman empire. 85 Deprived of this clear and comprehensive
      estimate, we are reduced to collect a few imperfect hints from
      such of the ancients as have accidentally turned aside from the
      splendid to the more useful parts of history. We are informed
      that, by the conquests of Pompey, the tributes of Asia were
      raised from fifty to one hundred and thirty-five millions of
      drachms; or about four millions and a half sterling. 86 861 Under
      the last and most indolent of the Ptolemies, the revenue of Egypt
      is said to have amounted to twelve thousand five hundred talents;
      a sum equivalent to more than two millions and a half of our
      money, but which was afterwards considerably improved by the more
      exact economy of the Romans, and the increase of the trade of
      Æthiopia and India. 87 Gaul was enriched by rapine, as Egypt was
      by commerce, and the tributes of those two great provinces have
      been compared as nearly equal to each other in value. 88 The ten
      thousand Euboic or Phœnician talents, about four millions
      sterling, 89 which vanquished Carthage was condemned to pay
      within the term of fifty years, were a slight acknowledgment of
      the superiority of Rome, 90 and cannot bear the least proportion
      with the taxes afterwards raised both on the lands and on the
      persons of the inhabitants, when the fertile coast of Africa was
      reduced into a province. 91

      841 (return) [ See Rationarium imperii. Compare besides Tacitus,
      Suet. Aug. c. ult. Dion, p. 832. Other emperors kept and
      published similar registers. See a dissertation of Dr. Wolle, de
      Rationario imperii Rom. Leipsig, 1773. The last book of Appian
      also contained the statistics of the Roman empire, but it is
      lost.—W.]

      85 (return) [ Tacit. in Annal. i. ll. It seems to have existed in
      the time of Appian.]

      86 (return) [ Plutarch, in Pompeio, p. 642.]

      861 (return) [ Wenck contests the accuracy of Gibbon’s version of
      Plutarch, and supposes that Pompey only raised the revenue from
      50,000,000 to 85,000,000 of drachms; but the text of Plutarch
      seems clearly to mean that his conquests added 85,000,000 to the
      ordinary revenue. Wenck adds, “Plutarch says in another part,
      that Antony made Asia pay, at one time, 200,000 talents, that is
      to say, 38,875,000 L. sterling.” But Appian explains this by
      saying that it was the revenue of ten years, which brings the
      annual revenue, at the time of Antony, to 3,875,000 L.
      sterling.—M.]

      87 (return) [ Strabo, l. xvii. p. 798.]

      88 (return) [ Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 39. He seems to give
      the preference to the revenue of Gaul.]

      89 (return) [ The Euboic, the Phœnician, and the Alexandrian
      talents were double in weight to the Attic. See Hooper on ancient
      weights and measures, p. iv. c. 5. It is very probable that the
      same talent was carried from Tyre to Carthage.]

      90 (return) [ Polyb. l. xv. c. 2.]

      91 (return) [ Appian in Punicis, p. 84.]

      Spain, by a very singular fatality, was the Peru and Mexico of
      the old world. The discovery of the rich western continent by the
      Phœnicians, and the oppression of the simple natives, who were
      compelled to labor in their own mines for the benefit of
      strangers, form an exact type of the more recent history of
      Spanish America. 92 The Phœnicians were acquainted only with the
      sea-coast of Spain; avarice, as well as ambition, carried the
      arms of Rome and Carthage into the heart of the country, and
      almost every part of the soil was found pregnant with copper,
      silver, and gold. 921 Mention is made of a mine near Carthagena
      which yielded every day twenty-five thousand drachmns of silver,
      or about three hundred thousand pounds a year. 93 Twenty thousand
      pound weight of gold was annually received from the provinces of
      Asturia, Gallicia, and Lusitania. 94

      92 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus, l. 5. Oadiz was built by the
      Phœnicians a little more than a thousand years before Christ. See
      Vell. Pa ter. i.2.]

      921 (return) [ Compare Heeren’s Researches vol. i. part ii. p.]

      93 (return) [ Strabo, l. iii. p. 148.]

      94 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxiii. c. 3. He mentions
      likewise a silver mine in Dalmatia, that yielded every day fifty
      pounds to the state.] We want both leisure and materials to
      pursue this curious inquiry through the many potent states that
      were annihilated in the Roman empire. Some notion, however, may
      be formed of the revenue of the provinces where considerable
      wealth had been deposited by nature, or collected by man, if we
      observe the severe attention that was directed to the abodes of
      solitude and sterility. Augustus once received a petition from
      the inhabitants of Gyarus, humbly praying that they might be
      relieved from one third of their excessive impositions. Their
      whole tax amounted indeed to no more than one hundred and fifty
      drachms, or about five pounds: but Gyarus was a little island, or
      rather a rock, of the Ægean Sea, destitute of fresh water and
      every necessary of life, and inhabited only by a few wretched
      fishermen. 95

      95 (return) [ Strabo, l. x. p. 485. Tacit. Annal. iu. 69, and iv.
      30. See Tournefort (Voyages au Levant, Lettre viii.) a very
      lively picture of the actual misery of Gyarus.]

      From the faint glimmerings of such doubtful and scattered lights,
      we should be inclined to believe, 1st, That (with every fair
      allowance for the differences of times and circumstances) the
      general income of the Roman provinces could seldom amount to less
      than fifteen or twenty millions of our money; 96 and, 2dly, That
      so ample a revenue must have been fully adequate to all the
      expenses of the moderate government instituted by Augustus, whose
      court was the modest family of a private senator, and whose
      military establishment was calculated for the defence of the
      frontiers, without any aspiring views of conquest, or any serious
      apprehension of a foreign invasion.

      96 (return) [ Lipsius de magnitudine Romana (l. ii. c. 3)
      computes the revenue at one hundred and fifty millions of gold
      crowns; but his whole book, though learned and ingenious, betrays
      a very heated imagination. Note: If Justus Lipsius has
      exaggerated the revenue of the Roman empire Gibbon, on the other
      hand, has underrated it. He fixes it at fifteen or twenty
      millions of our money. But if we take only, on a moderate
      calculation, the taxes in the provinces which he has already
      cited, they will amount, considering the augmentations made by
      Augustus, to nearly that sum. There remain also the provinces of
      Italy, of Rhætia, of Noricum, Pannonia, and Greece, &c., &c. Let
      us pay attention, besides, to the prodigious expenditure of some
      emperors, (Suet. Vesp. 16;) we shall see that such a revenue
      could not be sufficient. The authors of the Universal History,
      part xii., assign forty millions sterling as the sum to about
      which the public revenue might amount.—G. from W.]

      Notwithstanding the seeming probability of both these
      conclusions, the latter of them at least is positively disowned
      by the language and conduct of Augustus. It is not easy to
      determine whether, on this occasion, he acted as the common
      father of the Roman world, or as the oppressor of liberty;
      whether he wished to relieve the provinces, or to impoverish the
      senate and the equestrian order. But no sooner had he assumed the
      reins of government, than he frequently intimated the
      insufficiency of the tributes, and the necessity of throwing an
      equitable proportion of the public burden upon Rome and Italy.
      961 In the prosecution of this unpopular design, he advanced,
      however, by cautious and well-weighed steps. The introduction of
      customs was followed by the establishment of an excise, and the
      scheme of taxation was completed by an artful assessment on the
      real and personal property of the Roman citizens, who had been
      exempted from any kind of contribution above a century and a
      half.

      961 (return) [ It is not astonishing that Augustus held this
      language. The senate declared also under Nero, that the state
      could not exist without the imposts as well augmented as founded
      by Augustus. Tac. Ann. xiii. 50. After the abolition of the
      different tributes paid by Italy, an abolition which took place
      A. U. 646, 694, and 695, the state derived no revenues from that
      great country, but the twentieth part of the manumissions,
      (vicesima manumissionum,) and Ciero laments this in many places,
      particularly in his epistles to ii. 15.—G. from W.]

      I. In a great empire like that of Rome, a natural balance of
      money must have gradually established itself. It has been already
      observed, that as the wealth of the provinces was attracted to
      the capital by the strong hand of conquest and power, so a
      considerable part of it was restored to the industrious provinces
      by the gentle influence of commerce and arts. In the reign of
      Augustus and his successors, duties were imposed on every kind of
      merchandise, which through a thousand channels flowed to the
      great centre of opulence and luxury; and in whatsoever manner the
      law was expressed, it was the Roman purchaser, and not the
      provincial merchant, who paid the tax. 97 The rate of the customs
      varied from the eighth to the fortieth part of the value of the
      commodity; and we have a right to suppose that the variation was
      directed by the unalterable maxims of policy; that a higher duty
      was fixed on the articles of luxury than on those of necessity,
      and that the productions raised or manufactured by the labor of
      the subjects of the empire were treated with more indulgence than
      was shown to the pernicious, or at least the unpopular, commerce
      of Arabia and India. 98 There is still extant a long but
      imperfect catalogue of eastern commodities, which about the time
      of Alexander Severus were subject to the payment of duties;
      cinnamon, myrrh, pepper, ginger, and the whole tribe of
      aromatics; a great variety of precious stones, among which the
      diamond was the most remarkable for its price, and the emerald
      for its beauty; 99 Parthian and Babylonian leather, cottons,
      silks, both raw and manufactured, ebony ivory, and eunuchs. 100
      We may observe that the use and value of those effeminate slaves
      gradually rose with the decline of the empire.

      97 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xiii. 31. * Note: The customs
      (portoria) existed in the times of the ancient kings of Rome.
      They were suppressed in Italy, A. U. 694, by the Prætor, Cecilius
      Matellus Nepos. Augustus only reestablished them. See note
      above.—W.]

      98 (return) [See Pliny, (Hist. Natur. l. vi. c. 23, lxii. c. 18.)
      His observation that the Indian commodities were sold at Rome at
      a hundred times their original price, may give us some notion of
      the produce of the customs, since that original price amounted to
      more than eight hundred thousand pounds.]

      99 (return) [ The ancients were unacquainted with the art of
      cutting diamonds.]

      100 (return) [ M. Bouchaud, in his treatise de l’Impot chez les
      Romains, has transcribed this catalogue from the Digest, and
      attempts to illustrate it by a very prolix commentary. * Note: In
      the Pandects, l. 39, t. 14, de Publican. Compare Cicero in
      Verrem. c. 72—74.—W.]

      II. The excise, introduced by Augustus after the civil wars, was
      extremely moderate, but it was general. It seldom exceeded one
      _per cent_.; but it comprehended whatever was sold in the markets
      or by public auction, from the most considerable purchases of
      lands and houses, to those minute objects which can only derive a
      value from their infinite multitude and daily consumption. Such a
      tax, as it affects the body of the people, has ever been the
      occasion of clamor and discontent. An emperor well acquainted
      with the wants and resources of the state was obliged to declare,
      by a public edict, that the support of the army depended in a
      great measure on the produce of the excise. 101

      101 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. i. 78. Two years afterwards, the
      reduction of the poor kingdom of Cappadocia gave Tiberius a
      pretence for diminishing the excise of one half, but the relief
      was of very short duration.]

      III. When Augustus resolved to establish a permanent military
      force for the defence of his government against foreign and
      domestic enemies, he instituted a peculiar treasury for the pay
      of the soldiers, the rewards of the veterans, and the
      extra-ordinary expenses of war. The ample revenue of the excise,
      though peculiarly appropriated to those uses, was found
      inadequate. To supply the deficiency, the emperor suggested a new
      tax of five per cent. on all legacies and inheritances. But the
      nobles of Rome were more tenacious of property than of freedom.
      Their indignant murmurs were received by Augustus with his usual
      temper. He candidly referred the whole business to the senate,
      and exhorted them to provide for the public service by some other
      expedient of a less odious nature. They were divided and
      perplexed. He insinuated to them, that their obstinacy would
      oblige him to _propose_ a general land tax and capitation. They
      acquiesced in silence. 102 The new imposition on legacies and
      inheritances was, however, mitigated by some restrictions. It did
      not take place unless the object was of a certain value, most
      probably of fifty or a hundred pieces of gold; 103 nor could it
      be exacted from the nearest of kin on the father’s side. 104 When
      the rights of nature and poverty were thus secured, it seemed
      reasonable, that a stranger, or a distant relation, who acquired
      an unexpected accession of fortune, should cheerfully resign a
      twentieth part of it, for the benefit of the state. 105

      102 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lv. p. 794, l. lvi. p. 825. Note:
      Dion neither mentions this proposition nor the capitation. He
      only says that the emperor imposed a tax upon landed property,
      and sent every where men employed to make a survey, without
      fixing how much, and for how much each was to pay. The senators
      then preferred giving the tax on legacies and inheritances.—W.]

      103 (return) [ The sum is only fixed by conjecture.]

      104 (return) [ As the Roman law subsisted for many ages, the
      Cognati, or relations on the mother’s side, were not called to
      the succession. This harsh institution was gradually undermined
      by humanity, and finally abolished by Justinian.]

      105 (return) [ Plin. Panegyric. c. 37.]

      Such a tax, plentiful as it must prove in every wealthy
      community, was most happily suited to the situation of the
      Romans, who could frame their arbitrary wills, according to the
      dictates of reason or caprice, without any restraint from the
      modern fetters of entails and settlements. From various causes,
      the partiality of paternal affection often lost its influence
      over the stern patriots of the commonwealth, and the dissolute
      nobles of the empire; and if the father bequeathed to his son the
      fourth part of his estate, he removed all ground of legal
      complaint. 106 But a rich childish old man was a domestic tyrant,
      and his power increased with his years and infirmities. A servile
      crowd, in which he frequently reckoned prætors and consuls,
      courted his smiles, pampered his avarice, applauded his follies,
      served his passions, and waited with impatience for his death.
      The arts of attendance and flattery were formed into a most
      lucrative science; those who professed it acquired a peculiar
      appellation; and the whole city, according to the lively
      descriptions of satire, was divided between two parties, the
      hunters and their game. 107 Yet, while so many unjust and
      extravagant wills were every day dictated by cunning and
      subscribed by folly, a few were the result of rational esteem and
      virtuous gratitude. Cicero, who had so often defended the lives
      and fortunes of his fellow-citizens, was rewarded with legacies
      to the amount of a hundred and seventy thousand pounds; 108 nor
      do the friends of the younger Pliny seem to have been less
      generous to that amiable orator. 109 Whatever was the motive of
      the testator, the treasury claimed, without distinction, the
      twentieth part of his estate: and in the course of two or three
      generations, the whole property of the subject must have
      gradually passed through the coffers of the state.

      106 (return) [ See Heineccius in the Antiquit. Juris Romani, l.
      ii.]

      107 (return) [ Horat. l. ii. Sat. v. Potron. c. 116, &c. Plin. l.
      ii. Epist. 20.]

      108 (return) [ Cicero in Philip. ii. c. 16.]

      109 (return) [ See his epistles. Every such will gave him an
      occasion of displaying his reverence to the dead, and his justice
      to the living. He reconciled both in his behavior to a son who
      had been disinherited by his mother, (v.l.)]

      In the first and golden years of the reign of Nero, that prince,
      from a desire of popularity, and perhaps from a blind impulse of
      benevolence, conceived a wish of abolishing the oppression of the
      customs and excise. The wisest senators applauded his
      magnanimity: but they diverted him from the execution of a design
      which would have dissolved the strength and resources of the
      republic. 110 Had it indeed been possible to realize this dream
      of fancy, such princes as Trajan and the Antonines would surely
      have embraced with ardor the glorious opportunity of conferring
      so signal an obligation on mankind. Satisfied, however, with
      alleviating the public burden, they attempted not to remove it.
      The mildness and precision of their laws ascertained the rule and
      measure of taxation, and protected the subject of every rank
      against arbitrary interpretations, antiquated claims, and the
      insolent vexation of the farmers of the revenue. 111 For it is
      somewhat singular, that, in every age, the best and wisest of the
      Roman governors persevered in this pernicious method of
      collecting the principal branches at least of the excise and
      customs. 112

      110 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xiii. 50. Esprit des Loix, l. xii.
      c. 19.]

      111 (return) [ See Pliny’s Panegyric, the Augustan History, and
      Burman de Vectigal. passim.]

      112 (return) [ The tributes (properly so called) were not farmed;
      since the good princes often remitted many millions of arrears.]

      The sentiments, and, indeed, the situation, of Caracalla were
      very different from those of the Antonines. Inattentive, or
      rather averse, to the welfare of his people, he found himself
      under the necessity of gratifying the insatiate avarice which he
      had excited in the army. Of the several impositions introduced by
      Augustus, the twentieth on inheritances and legacies was the most
      fruitful, as well as the most comprehensive. As its influence was
      not confined to Rome or Italy, the produce continually increased
      with the gradual extension of the Roman City. The new citizens,
      though charged, on equal terms, 113 with the payment of new
      taxes, which had not affected them as subjects, derived an ample
      compensation from the rank they obtained, the privileges they
      acquired, and the fair prospect of honors and fortune that was
      thrown open to their ambition. But the favor which implied a
      distinction was lost in the prodigality of Caracalla, and the
      reluctant provincials were compelled to assume the vain title,
      and the real obligations, of Roman citizens. 1131 Nor was the
      rapacious son of Severus contented with such a measure of
      taxation as had appeared sufficient to his moderate predecessors.
      Instead of a twentieth, he exacted a tenth of all legacies and
      inheritances; and during his reign (for the ancient proportion
      was restored after his death) he crushed alike every part of the
      empire under the weight of his iron sceptre. 114

      113 (return) [ The situation of the new citizens is minutely
      described by Pliny, (Panegyric, c. 37, 38, 39). Trajan published
      a law very much in their favor.]

      1131 (return) [ Gibbon has adopted the opinion of Spanheim and of
      Burman, which attributes to Caracalla this edict, which gave the
      right of the city to all the inhabitants of the provinces. This
      opinion may be disputed. Several passages of Spartianus, of
      Aurelius Victor, and of Aristides, attribute this edict to Marc.
      Aurelius. See a learned essay, entitled Joh. P. Mahneri Comm. de
      Marc. Aur. Antonino Constitutionis de Civitate Universo Orbi
      Romano data auctore. Halæ, 1772, 8vo. It appears that Marc.
      Aurelius made some modifications of this edict, which released
      the provincials from some of the charges imposed by the right of
      the city, and deprived them of some of the advantages which it
      conferred. Caracalla annulled these modifications.—W.]

      114 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1295.]

      When all the provincials became liable to the peculiar
      impositions of Roman citizens, they seemed to acquire a legal
      exemption from the tributes which they had paid in their former
      condition of subjects. Such were not the maxims of government
      adopted by Caracalla and his pretended son. The old as well as
      the new taxes were, at the same time, levied in the provinces. It
      was reserved for the virtue of Alexander to relieve them in a
      great measure from this intolerable grievance, by reducing the
      tributes to a thirteenth part of the sum exacted at the time of
      his accession. 115 It is impossible to conjecture the motive that
      engaged him to spare so trifling a remnant of the public evil;
      but the noxious weed, which had not been totally eradicated,
      again sprang up with the most luxuriant growth, and in the
      succeeding age darkened the Roman world with its deadly shade. In
      the course of this history, we shall be too often summoned to
      explain the land tax, the capitation, and the heavy contributions
      of corn, wine, oil, and meat, which were exacted from the
      provinces for the use of the court, the army, and the capital.

      115 (return) [ He who paid ten aurei, the usual tribute, was
      charged with no more than the third part of an aureus, and
      proportional pieces of gold were coined by Alexander’s order.
      Hist. August. p. 127, with the commentary of Salmasius.]

      As long as Rome and Italy were respected as the centre of
      government, a national spirit was preserved by the ancient, and
      insensibly imbibed by the adopted, citizens. The principal
      commands of the army were filled by men who had received a
      liberal education, were well instructed in the advantages of laws
      and letters, and who had risen, by equal steps, through the
      regular succession of civil and military honors. 116 To their
      influence and example we may partly ascribe the modest obedience
      of the legions during the two first centuries of the Imperial
      history.

      116 (return) [ See the lives of Agricola, Vespasian, Trajan,
      Severus, and his three competitors; and indeed of all the eminent
      men of those times.]

      But when the last enclosure of the Roman constitution was
      trampled down by Caracalla, the separation of professions
      gradually succeeded to the distinction of ranks. The more
      polished citizens of the internal provinces were alone qualified
      to act as lawyers and magistrates. The rougher trade of arms was
      abandoned to the peasants and barbarians of the frontiers, who
      knew no country but their camp, no science but that of war, no
      civil laws, and scarcely those of military discipline. With
      bloody hands, savage manners, and desperate resolutions, they
      sometimes guarded, but much oftener subverted, the throne of the
      emperors.




      Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of
      Maximin.—Part I.

     The Elevation And Tyranny Of Maximin.—Rebellion In Africa And
     Italy, Under The Authority Of The Senate.—Civil Wars And
     Seditions.—Violent Deaths Of Maximin And His Son, Of Maximus And
     Balbinus, And Of The Three Gordians.— Usurpation And Secular Games
     Of Philip.

      Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the
      world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope
      for ridicule. Is it possible to relate without an indignant
      smile, that, on the father’s decease, the property of a nation,
      like that of a drove of oxen, descends to his infant son, as yet
      unknown to mankind and to himself; and that the bravest warriors
      and the wisest statesmen, relinquishing their natural right to
      empire, approach the royal cradle with bended knees and
      protestations of inviolable fidelity? Satire and declamation may
      paint these obvious topics in the most dazzling colors, but our
      more serious thoughts will respect a useful prejudice, that
      establishes a rule of succession, independent of the passions of
      mankind; and we shall cheerfully acquiesce in any expedient which
      deprives the multitude of the dangerous, and indeed the ideal,
      power of giving themselves a master.

      In the cool shade of retirement, we may easily devise imaginary
      forms of government, in which the sceptre shall be constantly
      bestowed on the most worthy, by the free and incorrupt suffrage
      of the whole community. Experience overturns these airy fabrics,
      and teaches us, that in a large society, the election of a
      monarch can never devolve to the wisest, or to the most numerous
      part of the people. The army is the only order of men
      sufficiently united to concur in the same sentiments, and
      powerful enough to impose them on the rest of their
      fellow-citizens; but the temper of soldiers, habituated at once
      to violence and to slavery, renders them very unfit guardians of
      a legal, or even a civil constitution. Justice, humanity, or
      political wisdom, are qualities they are too little acquainted
      with in themselves, to appreciate them in others. Valor will
      acquire their esteem, and liberality will purchase their
      suffrage; but the first of these merits is often lodged in the
      most savage breasts; the latter can only exert itself at the
      expense of the public; and both may be turned against the
      possessor of the throne, by the ambition of a daring rival.

      The superior prerogative of birth, when it has obtained the
      sanction of time and popular opinion, is the plainest and least
      invidious of all distinctions among mankind. The acknowledged
      right extinguishes the hopes of faction, and the conscious
      security disarms the cruelty of the monarch. To the firm
      establishment of this idea we owe the peaceful succession and
      mild administration of European monarchies. To the defect of it
      we must attribute the frequent civil wars, through which an
      Asiatic despot is obliged to cut his way to the throne of his
      fathers. Yet, even in the East, the sphere of contention is
      usually limited to the princes of the reigning house, and as soon
      as the more fortunate competitor has removed his brethren by the
      sword and the bowstring, he no longer entertains any jealousy of
      his meaner subjects. But the Roman empire, after the authority of
      the senate had sunk into contempt, was a vast scene of confusion.
      The royal, and even noble, families of the provinces had long
      since been led in triumph before the car of the haughty
      republicans. The ancient families of Rome had successively fallen
      beneath the tyranny of the Cæsars; and whilst those princes were
      shackled by the forms of a commonwealth, and disappointed by the
      repeated failure of their posterity, 1 it was impossible that any
      idea of hereditary succession should have taken root in the minds
      of their subjects. The right to the throne, which none could
      claim from birth, every one assumed from merit. The daring hopes
      of ambition were set loose from the salutary restraints of law
      and prejudice; and the meanest of mankind might, without folly,
      entertain a hope of being raised by valor and fortune to a rank
      in the army, in which a single crime would enable him to wrest
      the sceptre of the world from his feeble and unpopular master.
      After the murder of Alexander Severus, and the elevation of
      Maximin, no emperor could think himself safe upon the throne, and
      every barbarian peasant of the frontier might aspire to that
      august, but dangerous station.

      1 (return) [ There had been no example of three successive
      generations on the throne; only three instances of sons who
      succeeded their fathers. The marriages of the Cæsars
      (notwithstanding the permission, and the frequent practice of
      divorces) were generally unfruitful.]

      About thirty-two years before that event, the emperor Severus,
      returning from an eastern expedition, halted in Thrace, to
      celebrate, with military games, the birthday of his younger son,
      Geta. The country flocked in crowds to behold their sovereign,
      and a young barbarian of gigantic stature earnestly solicited, in
      his rude dialect, that he might be allowed to contend for the
      prize of wrestling. As the pride of discipline would have been
      disgraced in the overthrow of a Roman soldier by a Thracian
      peasant, he was matched with the stoutest followers of the camp,
      sixteen of whom he successively laid on the ground. His victory
      was rewarded by some trifling gifts, and a permission to enlist
      in the troops. The next day, the happy barbarian was
      distinguished above a crowd of recruits, dancing and exulting
      after the fashion of his country. As soon as he perceived that he
      had attracted the emperor’s notice, he instantly ran up to his
      horse, and followed him on foot, without the least appearance of
      fatigue, in a long and rapid career. “Thracian,” said Severus
      with astonishment, “art thou disposed to wrestle after thy race?”
      “Most willingly, sir,” replied the unwearied youth; and, almost
      in a breath, overthrew seven of the strongest soldiers in the
      army. A gold collar was the prize of his matchless vigor and
      activity, and he was immediately appointed to serve in the
      horseguards who always attended on the person of the sovereign. 2

      2 (return) [ Hist. August p. 138.]

      Maximin, for that was his name, though born on the territories of
      the empire, descended from a mixed race of barbarians. His father
      was a Goth, and his mother of the nation of the Alani. He
      displayed on every occasion a valor equal to his strength; and
      his native fierceness was soon tempered or disguised by the
      knowledge of the world. Under the reign of Severus and his son,
      he obtained the rank of centurion, with the favor and esteem of
      both those princes, the former of whom was an excellent judge of
      merit. Gratitude forbade Maximin to serve under the assassin of
      Caracalla. Honor taught him to decline the effeminate insults of
      Elagabalus. On the accession of Alexander he returned to court,
      and was placed by that prince in a station useful to the service,
      and honorable to himself. The fourth legion, to which he was
      appointed tribune, soon became, under his care, the best
      disciplined of the whole army. With the general applause of the
      soldiers, who bestowed on their favorite hero the names of Ajax
      and Hercules, he was successively promoted to the first military
      command; 3 and had not he still retained too much of his savage
      origin, the emperor might perhaps have given his own sister in
      marriage to the son of Maximin. 4

      3 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 140. Herodian, l. vi. p. 223.
      Aurelius Victor. By comparing these authors, it should seem that
      Maximin had the particular command of the Tribellian horse, with
      the general commission of disciplining the recruits of the whole
      army. His biographer ought to have marked, with more care, his
      exploits, and the successive steps of his military promotions.]

      4 (return) [ See the original letter of Alexander Severus, Hist.
      August. p. 149.]

      Instead of securing his fidelity, these favors served only to
      inflame the ambition of the Thracian peasant, who deemed his
      fortune inadequate to his merit, as long as he was constrained to
      acknowledge a superior. Though a stranger to real wisdom, he was
      not devoid of a selfish cunning, which showed him that the
      emperor had lost the affection of the army, and taught him to
      improve their discontent to his own advantage. It is easy for
      faction and calumny to shed their poison on the administration of
      the best of princes, and to accuse even their virtues by artfully
      confounding them with those vices to which they bear the nearest
      affinity. The troops listened with pleasure to the emissaries of
      Maximin. They blushed at their own ignominious patience, which,
      during thirteen years, had supported the vexatious discipline
      imposed by an effeminate Syrian, the timid slave of his mother
      and of the senate. It was time, they cried, to cast away that
      useless phantom of the civil power, and to elect for their prince
      and general a real soldier, educated in camps, exercised in war,
      who would assert the glory, and distribute among his companions
      the treasures, of the empire. A great army was at that time
      assembled on the banks of the Rhine, under the command of the
      emperor himself, who, almost immediately after his return from
      the Persian war, had been obliged to march against the barbarians
      of Germany. The important care of training and reviewing the new
      levies was intrusted to Maximin. One day, as he entered the field
      of exercise, the troops, either from a sudden impulse, or a
      formed conspiracy, saluted him emperor, silenced by their loud
      acclamations his obstinate refusal, and hastened to consummate
      their rebellion by the murder of Alexander Severus.

      The circumstances of his death are variously related. The
      writers, who suppose that he died in ignorance of the ingratitude
      and ambition of Maximin affirm that, after taking a frugal repast
      in the sight of the army, he retired to sleep, and that, about
      the seventh hour of the day, a part of his own guards broke into
      the imperial tent, and, with many wounds, assassinated their
      virtuous and unsuspecting prince. 5 If we credit another, and
      indeed a more probable account, Maximin was invested with the
      purple by a numerous detachment, at the distance of several miles
      from the head-quarters; and he trusted for success rather to the
      secret wishes than to the public declarations of the great army.
      Alexander had sufficient time to awaken a faint sense of loyalty
      among the troops; but their reluctant professions of fidelity
      quickly vanished on the appearance of Maximin, who declared
      himself the friend and advocate of the military order, and was
      unanimously acknowledged emperor of the Romans by the applauding
      legions. The son of Mamæa, betrayed and deserted, withdrew into
      his tent, desirous at least to conceal his approaching fate from
      the insults of the multitude. He was soon followed by a tribune
      and some centurions, the ministers of death; but instead of
      receiving with manly resolution the inevitable stroke, his
      unavailing cries and entreaties disgraced the last moments of his
      life, and converted into contempt some portion of the just pity
      which his innocence and misfortunes must inspire. His mother,
      Mamæa, whose pride and avarice he loudly accused as the cause of
      his ruin, perished with her son. The most faithful of his friends
      were sacrificed to the first fury of the soldiers. Others were
      reserved for the more deliberate cruelty of the usurper; and
      those who experienced the mildest treatment, were stripped of
      their employments, and ignominiously driven from the court and
      army. 6

      5 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 135. I have softened some of the
      most improbable circumstances of this wretched biographer. From
      his ill-worded narration, it should seem that the prince’s
      buffoon having accidentally entered the tent, and awakened the
      slumbering monarch, the fear of punishment urged him to persuade
      the disaffected soldiers to commit the murder.]

      6 (return) [ Herodian, l. vi. 223-227.]

      The former tyrants, Caligula and Nero, Commodus, and Caracalla,
      were all dissolute and unexperienced youths, 7 educated in the
      purple, and corrupted by the pride of empire, the luxury of Rome,
      and the perfidious voice of flattery. The cruelty of Maximin was
      derived from a different source, the fear of contempt. Though he
      depended on the attachment of the soldiers, who loved him for
      virtues like their own, he was conscious that his mean and
      barbarian origin, his savage appearance, and his total ignorance
      of the arts and institutions of civil life, 8 formed a very
      unfavorable contrast with the amiable manners of the unhappy
      Alexander. He remembered, that, in his humbler fortune, he had
      often waited before the door of the haughty nobles of Rome, and
      had been denied admittance by the insolence of their slaves. He
      recollected too the friendship of a few who had relieved his
      poverty, and assisted his rising hopes. But those who had
      spurned, and those who had protected, the Thracian, were guilty
      of the same crime, the knowledge of his original obscurity. For
      this crime many were put to death; and by the execution of
      several of his benefactors, Maximin published, in characters of
      blood, the indelible history of his baseness and ingratitude. 9

      7 (return) [ Caligula, the eldest of the four, was only
      twenty-five years of age when he ascended the throne; Caracalla
      was twenty-three, Commodus nineteen, and Nero no more than
      seventeen.]

      8 (return) [ It appears that he was totally ignorant of the Greek
      language; which, from its universal use in conversation and
      letters, was an essential part of every liberal education.]

      9 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 141. Herodian, l. vii. p. 237. The
      latter of these historians has been most unjustly censured for
      sparing the vices of Maximin.]

      The dark and sanguinary soul of the tyrant was open to every
      suspicion against those among his subjects who were the most
      distinguished by their birth or merit. Whenever he was alarmed
      with the sound of treason, his cruelty was unbounded and
      unrelenting. A conspiracy against his life was either discovered
      or imagined, and Magnus, a consular senator, was named as the
      principal author of it. Without a witness, without a trial, and
      without an opportunity of defence, Magnus, with four thousand of
      his supposed accomplices, was put to death. Italy and the whole
      empire were infested with innumerable spies and informers. On the
      slightest accusation, the first of the Roman nobles, who had
      governed provinces, commanded armies, and been adorned with the
      consular and triumphal ornaments, were chained on the public
      carriages, and hurried away to the emperor’s presence.
      Confiscation, exile, or simple death, were esteemed uncommon
      instances of his lenity. Some of the unfortunate sufferers he
      ordered to be sewed up in the hides of slaughtered animals,
      others to be exposed to wild beasts, others again to be beaten to
      death with clubs. During the three years of his reign, he
      disdained to visit either Rome or Italy. His camp, occasionally
      removed from the banks of the Rhine to those of the Danube, was
      the seat of his stern despotism, which trampled on every
      principle of law and justice, and was supported by the avowed
      power of the sword. 10 No man of noble birth, elegant
      accomplishments, or knowledge of civil business, was suffered
      near his person; and the court of a Roman emperor revived the
      idea of those ancient chiefs of slaves and gladiators, whose
      savage power had left a deep impression of terror and
      detestation. 11

      10 (return) [ The wife of Maximin, by insinuating wise counsels
      with female gentleness, sometimes brought back the tyrant to the
      way of truth and humanity. See Ammianus Marcellinus, l. xiv. c.
      l, where he alludes to the fact which he had more fully related
      under the reign of the Gordians. We may collect from the medals,
      that Paullina was the name of this benevolent empress; and from
      the title of Diva, that she died before Maximin. (Valesius ad
      loc. cit. Ammian.) Spanheim de U. et P. N. tom. ii. p. 300. Note:
      If we may believe Syrcellus and Zonaras, in was Maximin himself
      who ordered her death—G]

      11 (return) [ He was compared to Spartacus and Athenio. Hist.
      August p. 141.]

      As long as the cruelty of Maximin was confined to the illustrious
      senators, or even to the bold adventurers, who in the court or
      army expose themselves to the caprice of fortune, the body of the
      people viewed their sufferings with indifference, or perhaps with
      pleasure. But the tyrant’s avarice, stimulated by the insatiate
      desires of the soldiers, at length attacked the public property.
      Every city of the empire was possessed of an independent revenue,
      destined to purchase corn for the multitude, and to supply the
      expenses of the games and entertainments. By a single act of
      authority, the whole mass of wealth was at once confiscated for
      the use of the Imperial treasury. The temples were stripped of
      their most valuable offerings of gold and silver, and the statues
      of gods, heroes, and emperors, were melted down and coined into
      money. These impious orders could not be executed without tumults
      and massacres, as in many places the people chose rather to die
      in the defence of their altars, than to behold in the midst of
      peace their cities exposed to the rapine and cruelty of war. The
      soldiers themselves, among whom this sacrilegious plunder was
      distributed, received it with a blush; and hardened as they were
      in acts of violence, they dreaded the just reproaches of their
      friends and relations. Throughout the Roman world a general cry
      of indignation was heard, imploring vengeance on the common enemy
      of human kind; and at length, by an act of private oppression, a
      peaceful and unarmed province was driven into rebellion against
      him. 12

      12 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 238. Zosim. l. i. p. 15.]

      The procurator of Africa was a servant worthy of such a master,
      who considered the fines and confiscations of the rich as one of
      the most fruitful branches of the Imperial revenue. An iniquitous
      sentence had been pronounced against some opulent youths of that
      country, the execution of which would have stripped them of far
      the greater part of their patrimony. In this extremity, a
      resolution that must either complete or prevent their ruin, was
      dictated by despair. A respite of three days, obtained with
      difficulty from the rapacious treasurer, was employed in
      collecting from their estates a great number of slaves and
      peasants blindly devoted to the commands of their lords, and
      armed with the rustic weapons of clubs and axes. The leaders of
      the conspiracy, as they were admitted to the audience of the
      procurator, stabbed him with the daggers concealed under their
      garments, and, by the assistance of their tumultuary train,
      seized on the little town of Thysdrus, 13 and erected the
      standard of rebellion against the sovereign of the Roman empire.
      They rested their hopes on the hatred of mankind against Maximin,
      and they judiciously resolved to oppose to that detested tyrant
      an emperor whose mild virtues had already acquired the love and
      esteem of the Romans, and whose authority over the province would
      give weight and stability to the enterprise. Gordianus, their
      proconsul, and the object of their choice, refused, with
      unfeigned reluctance, the dangerous honor, and begged with tears,
      that they would suffer him to terminate in peace a long and
      innocent life, without staining his feeble age with civil blood.
      Their menaces compelled him to accept the Imperial purple, his
      only refuge, indeed, against the jealous cruelty of Maximin;
      since, according to the reasoning of tyrants, those who have been
      esteemed worthy of the throne deserve death, and those who
      deliberate have already rebelled. 14

      13 (return) [ In the fertile territory of Byzacium, one hundred
      and fifty miles to the south of Carthage. This city was
      decorated, probably by the Gordians, with the title of colony,
      and with a fine amphitheatre, which is still in a very perfect
      state. See Intinerar. Wesseling, p. 59; and Shaw’s Travels, p.
      117.]

      14 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 239. Hist. August. p. 153.]

      The family of Gordianus was one of the most illustrious of the
      Roman senate. On the father’s side he was descended from the
      Gracchi; on his mother’s, from the emperor Trajan. A great estate
      enabled him to support the dignity of his birth, and in the
      enjoyment of it, he displayed an elegant taste and beneficent
      disposition. The palace in Rome, formerly inhabited by the great
      Pompey, had been, during several generations, in the possession
      of Gordian’s family. 15 It was distinguished by ancient trophies
      of naval victories, and decorated with the works of modern
      painting. His villa on the road to Præneste was celebrated for
      baths of singular beauty and extent, for three stately rooms of a
      hundred feet in length, and for a magnificent portico, supported
      by two hundred columns of the four most curious and costly sorts
      of marble. 16 The public shows exhibited at his expense, and in
      which the people were entertained with many hundreds of wild
      beasts and gladiators, 17 seem to surpass the fortune of a
      subject; and whilst the liberality of other magistrates was
      confined to a few solemn festivals at Rome, the magnificence of
      Gordian was repeated, when he was ædile, every month in the year,
      and extended, during his consulship, to the principal cities of
      Italy. He was twice elevated to the last-mentioned dignity, by
      Caracalla and by Alexander; for he possessed the uncommon talent
      of acquiring the esteem of virtuous princes, without alarming the
      jealousy of tyrants. His long life was innocently spent in the
      study of letters and the peaceful honors of Rome; and, till he
      was named proconsul of Africa by the voice of the senate and the
      approbation of Alexander, 18 he appears prudently to have
      declined the command of armies and the government of provinces.
      181 As long as that emperor lived, Africa was happy under the
      administration of his worthy representative: after the barbarous
      Maximin had usurped the throne, Gordianus alleviated the miseries
      which he was unable to prevent. When he reluctantly accepted the
      purple, he was above fourscore years old; a last and valuable
      remains of the happy age of the Antonines, whose virtues he
      revived in his own conduct, and celebrated in an elegant poem of
      thirty books. With the venerable proconsul, his son, who had
      accompanied him into Africa as his lieutenant, was likewise
      declared emperor. His manners were less pure, but his character
      was equally amiable with that of his father. Twenty-two
      acknowledged concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand
      volumes, attested the variety of his inclinations; and from the
      productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former
      as well as the latter were designed for use rather than for
      ostentation. 19 The Roman people acknowledged in the features of
      the younger Gordian the resemblance of Scipio Africanus, 191
      recollected with pleasure that his mother was the granddaughter
      of Antoninus Pius, and rested the public hope on those latent
      virtues which had hitherto, as they fondly imagined, lain
      concealed in the luxurious indolence of private life.

      15 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 152. The celebrated house of Pompey
      in carinis was usurped by Marc Antony, and consequently became,
      after the Triumvir’s death, a part of the Imperial domain. The
      emperor Trajan allowed, and even encouraged, the rich senators to
      purchase those magnificent and useless places, (Plin. Panegyric.
      c. 50;) and it may seem probable, that, on this occasion,
      Pompey’s house came into the possession of Gordian’s
      great-grandfather.]

      16 (return) [ The Claudian, the Numidian, the Carystian, and the
      Synnadian. The colors of Roman marbles have been faintly
      described and imperfectly distinguished. It appears, however,
      that the Carystian was a sea-green, and that the marble of
      Synnada was white mixed with oval spots of purple. See Salmasius
      ad Hist. August. p. 164.]

      17 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 151, 152. He sometimes gave five
      hundred pair of gladiators, never less than one hundred and
      fifty. He once gave for the use of the circus one hundred
      Sicilian, and as many Cappæcian Cappadecian horses. The animals
      designed for hunting were chiefly bears, boars, bulls, stags,
      elks, wild asses, &c. Elephants and lions seem to have been
      appropriated to Imperial magnificence.]

      18 (return) [ See the original letter, in the Augustan History,
      p. 152, which at once shows Alexander’s respect for the authority
      of the senate, and his esteem for the proconsul appointed by that
      assembly.]

      181 (return) [ Herodian expressly says that he had administered
      many provinces, lib. vii. 10.—W.]

      19 (return) [ By each of his concubines, the younger Gordian left
      three or four children. His literary productions, though less
      numerous, were by no means contemptible.]

      191 (return) [ Not the personal likeness, but the family descent
      from the Scipiod.—W.]

      As soon as the Gordians had appeased the first tumult of a
      popular election, they removed their court to Carthage. They were
      received with the acclamations of the Africans, who honored their
      virtues, and who, since the visit of Hadrian, had never beheld
      the majesty of a Roman emperor. But these vain acclamations
      neither strengthened nor confirmed the title of the Gordians.
      They were induced by principle, as well as interest, to solicit
      the approbation of the senate; and a deputation of the noblest
      provincials was sent, without delay, to Rome, to relate and
      justify the conduct of their countrymen, who, having long
      suffered with patience, were at length resolved to act with
      vigor. The letters of the new princes were modest and respectful,
      excusing the necessity which had obliged them to accept the
      Imperial title; but submitting their election and their fate to
      the supreme judgment of the senate. 20

      20 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 243. Hist. August. p. 144.]

      The inclinations of the senate were neither doubtful nor divided.
      The birth and noble alliances of the Gordians had intimately
      connected them with the most illustrious houses of Rome. Their
      fortune had created many dependants in that assembly, their merit
      had acquired many friends. Their mild administration opened the
      flattering prospect of the restoration, not only of the civil but
      even of the republican government. The terror of military
      violence, which had first obliged the senate to forget the murder
      of Alexander, and to ratify the election of a barbarian peasant,
      21 now produced a contrary effect, and provoked them to assert
      the injured rights of freedom and humanity. The hatred of Maximin
      towards the senate was declared and implacable; the tamest
      submission had not appeased his fury, the most cautious innocence
      would not remove his suspicions; and even the care of their own
      safety urged them to share the fortune of an enterprise, of which
      (if unsuccessful) they were sure to be the first victims. These
      considerations, and perhaps others of a more private nature, were
      debated in a previous conference of the consuls and the
      magistrates. As soon as their resolution was decided, they
      convoked in the temple of Castor the whole body of the senate,
      according to an ancient form of secrecy, 22 calculated to awaken
      their attention, and to conceal their decrees. “Conscript
      fathers,” said the consul Syllanus, “the two Gordians, both of
      consular dignity, the one your proconsul, the other your
      lieutenant, have been declared emperors by the general consent of
      Africa. Let us return thanks,” he boldly continued, “to the youth
      of Thysdrus; let us return thanks to the faithful people of
      Carthage, our generous deliverers from a horrid monster—Why do
      you hear me thus coolly, thus timidly? Why do you cast those
      anxious looks on each other? Why hesitate? Maximin is a public
      enemy! may his enmity soon expire with him, and may we long enjoy
      the prudence and felicity of Gordian the father, the valor and
      constancy of Gordian the son!” 23 The noble ardor of the consul
      revived the languid spirit of the senate. By a unanimous decree,
      the election of the Gordians was ratified, Maximin, his son, and
      his adherents, were pronounced enemies of their country, and
      liberal rewards were offered to whomsoever had the courage and
      good fortune to destroy them.

      21 (return) [ Quod. tamen patres dum periculosum existimant;
      inermes armato esistere approbaverunt.—Aurelius Victor.]

      22 (return) [ Even the servants of the house, the scribes, &c.,
      were excluded, and their office was filled by the senators
      themselves. We are obliged to the Augustan History. p. 159, for
      preserving this curious example of the old discipline of the
      commonwealth.]

      23 (return) [ This spirited speech, translated from the Augustan
      historian, p. 156, seems transcribed by him from the origina
      registers of the senate]

      During the emperor’s absence, a detachment of the Prætorian
      guards remained at Rome, to protect, or rather to command, the
      capital. The præfect Vitalianus had signalized his fidelity to
      Maximin, by the alacrity with which he had obeyed, and even
      prevented the cruel mandates of the tyrant. His death alone could
      rescue the authority of the senate, and the lives of the senators
      from a state of danger and suspense. Before their resolves had
      transpired, a quæstor and some tribunes were commissioned to take
      his devoted life. They executed the order with equal boldness and
      success; and, with their bloody daggers in their hands, ran
      through the streets, proclaiming to the people and the soldiers
      the news of the happy revolution. The enthusiasm of liberty was
      seconded by the promise of a large donative, in lands and money;
      the statues of Maximin were thrown down; the capital of the
      empire acknowledged, with transport, the authority of the two
      Gordians and the senate; 24 and the example of Rome was followed
      by the rest of Italy.

      24 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 244]

      A new spirit had arisen in that assembly, whose long patience had
      been insulted by wanton despotism and military license. The
      senate assumed the reins of government, and, with a calm
      intrepidity, prepared to vindicate by arms the cause of freedom.
      Among the consular senators recommended by their merit and
      services to the favor of the emperor Alexander, it was easy to
      select twenty, not unequal to the command of an army, and the
      conduct of a war. To these was the defence of Italy intrusted.
      Each was appointed to act in his respective department,
      authorized to enroll and discipline the Italian youth; and
      instructed to fortify the ports and highways, against the
      impending invasion of Maximin. A number of deputies, chosen from
      the most illustrious of the senatorian and equestrian orders,
      were despatched at the same time to the governors of the several
      provinces, earnestly conjuring them to fly to the assistance of
      their country, and to remind the nations of their ancient ties of
      friendship with the Roman senate and people. The general respect
      with which these deputies were received, and the zeal of Italy
      and the provinces in favor of the senate, sufficiently prove that
      the subjects of Maximin were reduced to that uncommon distress,
      in which the body of the people has more to fear from oppression
      than from resistance. The consciousness of that melancholy truth,
      inspires a degree of persevering fury, seldom to be found in
      those civil wars which are artificially supported for the benefit
      of a few factious and designing leaders. 25

      25 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 247, l. viii. p. 277. Hist.
      August. p 156-158.]

      For while the cause of the Gordians was embraced with such
      diffusive ardor, the Gordians themselves were no more. The feeble
      court of Carthage was alarmed by the rapid approach of
      Capelianus, governor of Mauritania, who, with a small band of
      veterans, and a fierce host of barbarians, attacked a faithful,
      but unwarlike province. The younger Gordian sallied out to meet
      the enemy at the head of a few guards, and a numerous
      undisciplined multitude, educated in the peaceful luxury of
      Carthage. His useless valor served only to procure him an
      honorable death on the field of battle. His aged father, whose
      reign had not exceeded thirty-six days, put an end to his life on
      the first news of the defeat. Carthage, destitute of defence,
      opened her gates to the conqueror, and Africa was exposed to the
      rapacious cruelty of a slave, obliged to satisfy his unrelenting
      master with a large account of blood and treasure. 26

      26 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 254. Hist. August. p. 150-160.
      We may observe, that one month and six days, for the reign of
      Gordian, is a just correction of Casaubon and Panvinius, instead
      of the absurd reading of one year and six months. See Commentar.
      p. 193. Zosimus relates, l. i. p. 17, that the two Gordians
      perished by a tempest in the midst of their navigation. A strange
      ignorance of history, or a strange abuse of metaphors!]

      The fate of the Gordians filled Rome with just but unexpected
      terror. The senate, convoked in the temple of Concord, affected
      to transact the common business of the day; and seemed to
      decline, with trembling anxiety, the consideration of their own
      and the public danger. A silent consternation prevailed in the
      assembly, till a senator, of the name and family of Trajan,
      awakened his brethren from their fatal lethargy. He represented
      to them that the choice of cautious, dilatory measures had been
      long since out of their power; that Maximin, implacable by
      nature, and exasperated by injuries, was advancing towards Italy,
      at the head of the military force of the empire; and that their
      only remaining alternative was either to meet him bravely in the
      field, or tamely to expect the tortures and ignominious death
      reserved for unsuccessful rebellion. “We have lost,” continued
      he, “two excellent princes; but unless we desert ourselves, the
      hopes of the republic have not perished with the Gordians. Many
      are the senators whose virtues have deserved, and whose abilities
      would sustain, the Imperial dignity. Let us elect two emperors,
      one of whom may conduct the war against the public enemy, whilst
      his colleague remains at Rome to direct the civil administration.
      I cheerfully expose myself to the danger and envy of the
      nomination, and give my vote in favor of Maximus and Balbinus.
      Ratify my choice, conscript fathers, or appoint in their place,
      others more worthy of the empire.” The general apprehension
      silenced the whispers of jealousy; the merit of the candidates
      was universally acknowledged; and the house resounded with the
      sincere acclamations of “Long life and victory to the emperors
      Maximus and Balbinus. You are happy in the judgment of the
      senate; may the republic be happy under your administration!” 27

      27 (return) [ See the Augustan History, p. 166, from the
      registers of the senate; the date is confessedly faulty but the
      coincidence of the Apollinatian games enables us to correct it.]




      Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of
      Maximin.—Part II.

      The virtues and the reputation of the new emperors justified the
      most sanguine hopes of the Romans. The various nature of their
      talents seemed to appropriate to each his peculiar department of
      peace and war, without leaving room for jealous emulation.
      Balbinus was an admired orator, a poet of distinguished fame, and
      a wise magistrate, who had exercised with innocence and applause
      the civil jurisdiction in almost all the interior provinces of
      the empire. His birth was noble, 28 his fortune affluent, his
      manners liberal and affable. In him the love of pleasure was
      corrected by a sense of dignity, nor had the habits of ease
      deprived him of a capacity for business. The mind of Maximus was
      formed in a rougher mould. By his valor and abilities he had
      raised himself from the meanest origin to the first employments
      of the state and army. His victories over the Sarmatians and the
      Germans, the austerity of his life, and the rigid impartiality of
      his justice, while he was a Præfect of the city, commanded the
      esteem of a people whose affections were engaged in favor of the
      more amiable Balbinus. The two colleagues had both been consuls,
      (Balbinus had twice enjoyed that honorable office,) both had been
      named among the twenty lieutenants of the senate; and since the
      one was sixty and the other seventy-four years old, 29 they had
      both attained the full maturity of age and experience.

      28 (return) [ He was descended from Cornelius Balbus, a noble
      Spaniard, and the adopted son of Theophanes, the Greek historian.
      Balbus obtained the freedom of Rome by the favor of Pompey, and
      preserved it by the eloquence of Cicero. (See Orat. pro Cornel.
      Balbo.) The friendship of Cæsar, (to whom he rendered the most
      important secret services in the civil war) raised him to the
      consulship and the pontificate, honors never yet possessed by a
      stranger. The nephew of this Balbus triumphed over the
      Garamantes. See Dictionnaire de Bayle, au mot Balbus, where he
      distinguishes the several persons of that name, and rectifies,
      with his usual accuracy, the mistakes of former writers
      concerning them.]

      29 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 622. But little dependence is
      to be had on the authority of a modern Greek, so grossly ignorant
      of the history of the third century, that he creates several
      imaginary emperors, and confounds those who really existed.]

      After the senate had conferred on Maximus and Balbinus an equal
      portion of the consular and tribunitian powers, the title of
      Fathers of their country, and the joint office of Supreme
      Pontiff, they ascended to the Capitol to return thanks to the
      gods, protectors of Rome. 30 The solemn rites of sacrifice were
      disturbed by a sedition of the people. The licentious multitude
      neither loved the rigid Maximus, nor did they sufficiently fear
      the mild and humane Balbinus. Their increasing numbers surrounded
      the temple of Jupiter; with obstinate clamors they asserted their
      inherent right of consenting to the election of their sovereign;
      and demanded, with an apparent moderation, that, besides the two
      emperors, chosen by the senate, a third should be added of the
      family of the Gordians, as a just return of gratitude to those
      princes who had sacrificed their lives for the republic. At the
      head of the city-guards, and the youth of the equestrian order,
      Maximus and Balbinus attempted to cut their way through the
      seditious multitude. The multitude, armed with sticks and stones,
      drove them back into the Capitol. It is prudent to yield when the
      contest, whatever may be the issue of it, must be fatal to both
      parties. A boy, only thirteen years of age, the grandson of the
      elder, and nephew 301 of the younger Gordian, was produced to the
      people, invested with the ornaments and title of Cæsar. The
      tumult was appeased by this easy condescension; and the two
      emperors, as soon as they had been peaceably acknowledged in
      Rome, prepared to defend Italy against the common enemy.

      30 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 256, supposes that the senate
      was at first convoked in the Capitol, and is very eloquent on the
      occasion. The Augustar History p. 116, seems much more
      authentic.]

      301 (return) [ According to some, the son.—G.]

      Whilst in Rome and Africa, revolutions succeeded each other with
      such amazing rapidity, that the mind of Maximin was agitated by
      the most furious passions. He is said to have received the news
      of the rebellion of the Gordians, and of the decree of the senate
      against him, not with the temper of a man, but the rage of a wild
      beast; which, as it could not discharge itself on the distant
      senate, threatened the life of his son, of his friends, and of
      all who ventured to approach his person. The grateful
      intelligence of the death of the Gordians was quickly followed by
      the assurance that the senate, laying aside all hopes of pardon
      or accommodation, had substituted in their room two emperors,
      with whose merit he could not be unacquainted. Revenge was the
      only consolation left to Maximin, and revenge could only be
      obtained by arms. The strength of the legions had been assembled
      by Alexander from all parts of the empire. Three successful
      campaigns against the Germans and the Sarmatians, had raised
      their fame, confirmed their discipline, and even increased their
      numbers, by filling the ranks with the flower of the barbarian
      youth. The life of Maximin had been spent in war, and the candid
      severity of history cannot refuse him the valor of a soldier, or
      even the abilities of an experienced general. 31 It might
      naturally be expected, that a prince of such a character, instead
      of suffering the rebellion to gain stability by delay, should
      immediately have marched from the banks of the Danube to those of
      the Tyber, and that his victorious army, instigated by contempt
      for the senate, and eager to gather the spoils of Italy, should
      have burned with impatience to finish the easy and lucrative
      conquest. Yet as far as we can trust to the obscure chronology of
      that period, 32 it appears that the operations of some foreign
      war deferred the Italian expedition till the ensuing spring. From
      the prudent conduct of Maximin, we may learn that the savage
      features of his character have been exaggerated by the pencil of
      party, that his passions, however impetuous, submitted to the
      force of reason, and that the barbarian possessed something of
      the generous spirit of Sylla, who subdued the enemies of Rome
      before he suffered himself to revenge his private injuries. 33

      31 (return) [ In Herodian, l. vii. p. 249, and in the Augustan
      History, we have three several orations of Maximin to his army,
      on the rebellion of Africa and Rome: M. de Tillemont has very
      justly observed that they neither agree with each other nor with
      truth. Histoire des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 799.]

      32 (return) [ The carelessness of the writers of that age, leaves
      us in a singular perplexity. 1. We know that Maximus and Balbinus
      were killed during the Capitoline games. Herodian, l. viii. p.
      285. The authority of Censorinus (de Die Natali, c. 18) enables
      us to fix those games with certainty to the year 238, but leaves
      us in ignorance of the month or day. 2. The election of Gordian
      by the senate is fixed with equal certainty to the 27th of May;
      but we are at a loss to discover whether it was in the same or
      the preceding year. Tillemont and Muratori, who maintain the two
      opposite opinions, bring into the field a desultory troop of
      authorities, conjectures and probabilities. The one seems to draw
      out, the other to contract the series of events between those
      periods, more than can be well reconciled to reason and history.
      Yet it is necessary to choose between them. Note: Eckhel has more
      recently treated these chronological questions with a perspicuity
      which gives great probability to his conclusions. Setting aside
      all the historians, whose contradictions are irreconcilable, he
      has only consulted the medals, and has arranged the events before
      us in the following order:— Maximin, A. U. 990, after having
      conquered the Germans, reenters Pannonia, establishes his winter
      quarters at Sirmium, and prepares himself to make war against the
      people of the North. In the year 991, in the cal ends of January,
      commences his fourth tribunate. The Gordians are chosen emperors
      in Africa, probably at the beginning of the month of March. The
      senate confirms this election with joy, and declares Maximin the
      enemy of Rome. Five days after he had heard of this revolt,
      Maximin sets out from Sirmium on his march to Italy. These events
      took place about the beginning of April; a little after, the
      Gordians are slain in Africa by Capellianus, procurator of
      Mauritania. The senate, in its alarm, names as emperors Balbus
      and Maximus Pupianus, and intrusts the latter with the war
      against Maximin. Maximin is stopped on his road near Aquileia, by
      the want of provisions, and by the melting of the snows: he
      begins the siege of Aquileia at the end of April. Pupianus
      assembles his army at Ravenna. Maximin and his son are
      assassinated by the soldiers enraged at the resistance of
      Aquileia: and this was probably in the middle of May. Pupianus
      returns to Rome, and assumes the government with Balbinus; they
      are assassinated towards the end of July Gordian the younger
      ascends the throne. Eckhel de Doct. Vol vii 295.—G.]

      33 (return) [ Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 24. The president de
      Montesquieu (in his dialogue between Sylla and Eucrates)
      expresses the sentiments of the dictator in a spirited, and even
      a sublime manner.]

      When the troops of Maximin, advancing in excellent order, arrived
      at the foot of the Julian Alps, they were terrified by the
      silence and desolation that reigned on the frontiers of Italy.
      The villages and open towns had been abandoned on their approach
      by the inhabitants, the cattle was driven away, the provisions
      removed or destroyed, the bridges broken down, nor was any thing
      left which could afford either shelter or subsistence to an
      invader. Such had been the wise orders of the generals of the
      senate: whose design was to protract the war, to ruin the army of
      Maximin by the slow operation of famine, and to consume his
      strength in the sieges of the principal cities of Italy, which
      they had plentifully stored with men and provisions from the
      deserted country. Aquileia received and withstood the first shock
      of the invasion. The streams that issue from the head of the
      Hadriatic Gulf, swelled by the melting of the winter snows, 34
      opposed an unexpected obstacle to the arms of Maximin. At length,
      on a singular bridge, constructed with art and difficulty, of
      large hogsheads, he transported his army to the opposite bank,
      rooted up the beautiful vineyards in the neighborhood of
      Aquileia, demolished the suburbs, and employed the timber of the
      buildings in the engines and towers, with which on every side he
      attacked the city. The walls, fallen to decay during the security
      of a long peace, had been hastily repaired on this sudden
      emergency: but the firmest defence of Aquileia consisted in the
      constancy of the citizens; all ranks of whom, instead of being
      dismayed, were animated by the extreme danger, and their
      knowledge of the tyrant’s unrelenting temper. Their courage was
      supported and directed by Crispinus and Menophilus, two of the
      twenty lieutenants of the senate, who, with a small body of
      regular troops, had thrown themselves into the besieged place.
      The army of Maximin was repulsed in repeated attacks, his
      machines destroyed by showers of artificial fire; and the
      generous enthusiasm of the Aquileians was exalted into a
      confidence of success, by the opinion that Belenus, their tutelar
      deity, combated in person in the defence of his distressed
      worshippers. 35

      34 (return) [ Muratori (Annali d’ Italia, tom. ii. p. 294) thinks
      the melting of the snows suits better with the months of June or
      July, than with those of February. The opinion of a man who
      passed his life between the Alps and the Apennines, is
      undoubtedly of great weight; yet I observe, 1. That the long
      winter, of which Muratori takes advantage, is to be found only in
      the Latin version, and not in the Greek text of Herodian. 2. That
      the vicissitudes of suns and rains, to which the soldiers of
      Maximin were exposed, (Herodian, l. viii. p. 277,) denote the
      spring rather than the summer. We may observe, likewise, that
      these several streams, as they melted into one, composed the
      Timavus, so poetically (in every sense of the word) described by
      Virgil. They are about twelve miles to the east of Aquileia. See
      Cluver. Italia Antiqua, tom. i. p. 189, &c.]

      35 (return) [ Herodian, l. viii. p. 272. The Celtic deity was
      supposed to be Apollo, and received under that name the thanks of
      the senate. A temple was likewise built to Venus the Bald, in
      honor of the women of Aquileia, who had given up their hair to
      make ropes for the military engines.]

      The emperor Maximus, who had advanced as far as Ravenna, to
      secure that important place, and to hasten the military
      preparations, beheld the event of the war in the more faithful
      mirror of reason and policy. He was too sensible, that a single
      town could not resist the persevering efforts of a great army;
      and he dreaded, lest the enemy, tired with the obstinate
      resistance of Aquileia, should on a sudden relinquish the
      fruitless siege, and march directly towards Rome. The fate of the
      empire and the cause of freedom must then be committed to the
      chance of a battle; and what arms could he oppose to the veteran
      legions of the Rhine and Danube? Some troops newly levied among
      the generous but enervated youth of Italy; and a body of German
      auxiliaries, on whose firmness, in the hour of trial, it was
      dangerous to depend. In the midst of these just alarms, the
      stroke of domestic conspiracy punished the crimes of Maximin, and
      delivered Rome and the senate from the calamities that would
      surely have attended the victory of an enraged barbarian.

      The people of Aquileia had scarcely experienced any of the common
      miseries of a siege; their magazines were plentifully supplied,
      and several fountains within the walls assured them of an
      inexhaustible resource of fresh water. The soldiers of Maximin
      were, on the contrary, exposed to the inclemency of the season,
      the contagion of disease, and the horrors of famine. The open
      country was ruined, the rivers filled with the slain, and
      polluted with blood. A spirit of despair and disaffection began
      to diffuse itself among the troops; and as they were cut off from
      all intelligence, they easily believed that the whole empire had
      embraced the cause of the senate, and that they were left as
      devoted victims to perish under the impregnable walls of
      Aquileia. The fierce temper of the tyrant was exasperated by
      disappointments, which he imputed to the cowardice of his army;
      and his wanton and ill-timed cruelty, instead of striking terror,
      inspired hatred, and a just desire of revenge. A party of
      Prætorian guards, who trembled for their wives and children in
      the camp of Alba, near Rome, executed the sentence of the senate.
      Maximin, abandoned by his guards, was slain in his tent, with his
      son (whom he had associated to the honors of the purple),
      Anulinus the præfect, and the principal ministers of his tyranny.
      36 The sight of their heads, borne on the point of spears,
      convinced the citizens of Aquileia that the siege was at an end;
      the gates of the city were thrown open, a liberal market was
      provided for the hungry troops of Maximin, and the whole army
      joined in solemn protestations of fidelity to the senate and the
      people of Rome, and to their lawful emperors Maximus and
      Balbinus. Such was the deserved fate of a brutal savage,
      destitute, as he has generally been represented, of every
      sentiment that distinguishes a civilized, or even a human being.
      The body was suited to the soul. The stature of Maximin exceeded
      the measure of eight feet, and circumstances almost incredible
      are related of his matchless strength and appetite. 37 Had he
      lived in a less enlightened age, tradition and poetry might well
      have described him as one of those monstrous giants, whose
      supernatural power was constantly exerted for the destruction of
      mankind.

      36 (return) [ Herodian, l. viii. p. 279. Hist. August. p. 146.
      The duration of Maximin’s reign has not been defined with much
      accuracy, except by Eutropius, who allows him three years and a
      few days, (l. ix. 1;) we may depend on the integrity of the text,
      as the Latin original is checked by the Greek version of
      Pæanius.]

      37 (return) [ Eight Roman feet and one third, which are equal to
      above eight English feet, as the two measures are to each other
      in the proportion of 967 to 1000. See Graves’s discourse on the
      Roman foot. We are told that Maximin could drink in a day an
      amphora (or about seven gallons) of wine, and eat thirty or forty
      pounds of meat. He could move a loaded wagon, break a horse’s leg
      with his fist, crumble stones in his hand, and tear up small
      trees by the roots. See his life in the Augustan History.]

      It is easier to conceive than to describe the universal joy of
      the Roman world on the fall of the tyrant, the news of which is
      said to have been carried in four days from Aquileia to Rome. The
      return of Maximus was a triumphal procession; his colleague and
      young Gordian went out to meet him, and the three princes made
      their entry into the capital, attended by the ambassadors of
      almost all the cities of Italy, saluted with the splendid
      offerings of gratitude and superstition, and received with the
      unfeigned acclamations of the senate and people, who persuaded
      themselves that a golden age would succeed to an age of iron. 38
      The conduct of the two emperors corresponded with these
      expectations. They administered justice in person; and the rigor
      of the one was tempered by the other’s clemency. The oppressive
      taxes with which Maximin had loaded the rights of inheritance and
      succession, were repealed, or at least moderated. Discipline was
      revived, and with the advice of the senate many wise laws were
      enacted by their imperial ministers, who endeavored to restore a
      civil constitution on the ruins of military tyranny. “What reward
      may we expect for delivering Rome from a monster?” was the
      question asked by Maximus, in a moment of freedom and confidence.

      Balbinus answered it without hesitation—“The love of the senate,
      of the people, and of all mankind.” “Alas!” replied his more
      penetrating colleague—“alas! I dread the hatred of the soldiers,
      and the fatal effects of their resentment.” 39 His apprehensions
      were but too well justified by the event.

      38 (return) [ See the congratulatory letter of Claudius Julianus,
      the consul to the two emperors, in the Augustan History.]

      39 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 171.]

      Whilst Maximus was preparing to defend Italy against the common
      foe, Balbinus, who remained at Rome, had been engaged in scenes
      of blood and intestine discord. Distrust and jealousy reigned in
      the senate; and even in the temples where they assembled, every
      senator carried either open or concealed arms. In the midst of
      their deliberations, two veterans of the guards, actuated either
      by curiosity or a sinister motive, audaciously thrust themselves
      into the house, and advanced by degrees beyond the altar of
      Victory. Gallicanus, a consular, and Mæcenas, a Prætorian
      senator, viewed with indignation their insolent intrusion:
      drawing their daggers, they laid the spies (for such they deemed
      them) dead at the foot of the altar, and then, advancing to the
      door of the senate, imprudently exhorted the multitude to
      massacre the Prætorians, as the secret adherents of the tyrant.
      Those who escaped the first fury of the tumult took refuge in the
      camp, which they defended with superior advantage against the
      reiterated attacks of the people, assisted by the numerous bands
      of gladiators, the property of opulent nobles. The civil war
      lasted many days, with infinite loss and confusion on both sides.
      When the pipes were broken that supplied the camp with water, the
      Prætorians were reduced to intolerable distress; but in their
      turn they made desperate sallies into the city, set fire to a
      great number of houses, and filled the streets with the blood of
      the inhabitants. The emperor Balbinus attempted, by ineffectual
      edicts and precarious truces, to reconcile the factions at Rome.
      But their animosity, though smothered for a while, burnt with
      redoubled violence. The soldiers, detesting the senate and the
      people, despised the weakness of a prince, who wanted either the
      spirit or the power to command the obedience of his subjects. 40

      40 (return) [ Herodian, l. viii. p. 258.]

      After the tyrant’s death, his formidable army had acknowledged,
      from necessity rather than from choice, the authority of Maximus,
      who transported himself without delay to the camp before
      Aquileia. As soon as he had received their oath of fidelity, he
      addressed them in terms full of mildness and moderation;
      lamented, rather than arraigned the wild disorders of the times,
      and assured the soldiers, that of all their past conduct the
      senate would remember only their generous desertion of the
      tyrant, and their voluntary return to their duty. Maximus
      enforced his exhortations by a liberal donative, purified the
      camp by a solemn sacrifice of expiation, and then dismissed the
      legions to their several provinces, impressed, as he hoped, with
      a lively sense of gratitude and obedience. 41 But nothing could
      reconcile the haughty spirit of the Prætorians. They attended the
      emperors on the memorable day of their public entry into Rome;
      but amidst the general acclamations, the sullen, dejected
      countenance of the guards sufficiently declared that they
      considered themselves as the object, rather than the partners, of
      the triumph. When the whole body was united in their camp, those
      who had served under Maximin, and those who had remained at Rome,
      insensibly communicated to each other their complaints and
      apprehensions. The emperors chosen by the army had perished with
      ignominy; those elected by the senate were seated on the throne.
      42 The long discord between the civil and military powers was
      decided by a war, in which the former had obtained a complete
      victory. The soldiers must now learn a new doctrine of submission
      to the senate; and whatever clemency was affected by that politic
      assembly, they dreaded a slow revenge, colored by the name of
      discipline, and justified by fair pretences of the public good.
      But their fate was still in their own hands; and if they had
      courage to despise the vain terrors of an impotent republic, it
      was easy to convince the world, that those who were masters of
      the arms, were masters of the authority, of the state.

      41 (return) [ Herodian, l. viii. p. 213.]

      42 (return) [ The observation had been made imprudently enough in
      the acclamations of the senate, and with regard to the soldiers
      it carried the appearance of a wanton insult. Hist. August. p.
      170.]

      When the senate elected two princes, it is probable that, besides
      the declared reason of providing for the various emergencies of
      peace and war, they were actuated by the secret desire of
      weakening by division the despotism of the supreme magistrate.
      Their policy was effectual, but it proved fatal both to their
      emperors and to themselves. The jealousy of power was soon
      exasperated by the difference of character. Maximus despised
      Balbinus as a luxurious noble, and was in his turn disdained by
      his colleague as an obscure soldier. Their silent discord was
      understood rather than seen; 43 but the mutual consciousness
      prevented them from uniting in any vigorous measures of defence
      against their common enemies of the Prætorian camp. The whole
      city was employed in the Capitoline games, and the emperors were
      left almost alone in the palace. On a sudden, they were alarmed
      by the approach of a troop of desperate assassins. Ignorant of
      each other’s situation or designs (for they already occupied very
      distant apartments), afraid to give or to receive assistance,
      they wasted the important moments in idle debates and fruitless
      recriminations. The arrival of the guards put an end to the vain
      strife. They seized on these emperors of the senate, for such
      they called them with malicious contempt, stripped them of their
      garments, and dragged them in insolent triumph through the
      streets of Rome, with the design of inflicting a slow and cruel
      death on these unfortunate princes. The fear of a rescue from the
      faithful Germans of the Imperial guards shortened their tortures;
      and their bodies, mangled with a thousand wounds, were left
      exposed to the insults or to the pity of the populace. 44

      43 (return) [ Discordiæ tacitæ, et quæ intelligerentur potius
      quam viderentur. _Hist. August_. p. 170. This well-chosen
      expression is probably stolen from some better writer.]

      44 (return) [ Herodian, l. viii. p. 287, 288.]

      In the space of a few months, six princes had been cut off by the
      sword. Gordian, who had already received the title of Cæsar, was
      the only person that occurred to the soldiers as proper to fill
      the vacant throne. 45 They carried him to the camp, and
      unanimously saluted him Augustus and Emperor. His name was dear
      to the senate and people; his tender age promised a long impunity
      of military license; and the submission of Rome and the provinces
      to the choice of the Prætorian guards saved the republic, at the
      expense indeed of its freedom and dignity, from the horrors of a
      new civil war in the heart of the capital. 46

      45 (return) [ Quia non alius erat in præsenti, is the expression
      of the Augustan History.]

      46 (return) [ Quintus Curtius (l. x. c. 9,) pays an elegant
      compliment to the emperor of the day, for having, by his happy
      accession, extinguished so many firebrands, sheathed so many
      swords, and put an end to the evils of a divided government.
      After weighing with attention every word of the passage, I am of
      opinion, that it suits better with the elevation of Gordian, than
      with any other period of the Roman history. In that case, it may
      serve to decide the age of Quintus Curtius. Those who place him
      under the first Cæsars, argue from the purity of his style but
      are embarrassed by the silence of Quintilian, in his accurate
      list of Roman historians. * Note: This conjecture of Gibbon is
      without foundation. Many passages in the work of Quintus Curtius
      clearly place him at an earlier period. Thus, in speaking of the
      Parthians, he says, Hinc in Parthicum perventum est, tunc
      ignobilem gentem: nunc caput omnium qui post Euphratem et Tigrim
      amnes siti Rubro mari terminantur. The Parthian empire had this
      extent only in the first age of the vulgar æra: to that age,
      therefore, must be assigned the date of Quintus Curtius. Although
      the critics (says M. de Sainte Croix) have multiplied conjectures
      on this subject, most of them have ended by adopting the opinion
      which places Quintus Curtius under the reign of Claudius. See
      Just. Lips. ad Ann. Tac. ii. 20. Michel le Tellier Præf. in Curt.
      Tillemont Hist. des Emp. i. p. 251. Du Bos Reflections sur la
      Poesie, 2d Partie. Tiraboschi Storia della, Lett. Ital. ii. 149.
      Examen. crit. des Historiens d’Alexandre, 2d ed. p. 104, 849,
      850.—G. ——This interminable question seems as much perplexed as
      ever. The first argument of M. Guizot is a strong one, except
      that Parthian is often used by later writers for Persian.
      Cunzius, in his preface to an edition published at Helmstadt,
      (1802,) maintains the opinion of Bagnolo, which assigns Q.
      Curtius to the time of Constantine the Great. Schmieder, in his
      edit. Gotting. 1803, sums up in this sentence, ætatem Curtii
      ignorari pala mest.—M.]

      As the third Gordian was only nineteen years of age at the time
      of his death, the history of his life, were it known to us with
      greater accuracy than it really is, would contain little more
      than the account of his education, and the conduct of the
      ministers, who by turns abused or guided the simplicity of his
      unexperienced youth. Immediately after his accession, he fell
      into the hands of his mother’s eunuchs, that pernicious vermin of
      the East, who, since the days of Elagabalus, had infested the
      Roman palace. By the artful conspiracy of these wretches, an
      impenetrable veil was drawn between an innocent prince and his
      oppressed subjects, the virtuous disposition of Gordian was
      deceived, and the honors of the empire sold without his
      knowledge, though in a very public manner, to the most worthless
      of mankind. We are ignorant by what fortunate accident the
      emperor escaped from this ignominious slavery, and devolved his
      confidence on a minister, whose wise counsels had no object
      except the glory of his sovereign and the happiness of the
      people. It should seem that love and learning introduced
      Misitheus to the favor of Gordian. The young prince married the
      daughter of his master of rhetoric, and promoted his
      father-in-law to the first offices of the empire. Two admirable
      letters that passed between them are still extant. The minister,
      with the conscious dignity of virtue, congratulates Gordian that
      he is delivered from the tyranny of the eunuchs, 47 and still
      more that he is sensible of his deliverance. The emperor
      acknowledges, with an amiable confusion, the errors of his past
      conduct; and laments, with singular propriety, the misfortune of
      a monarch from whom a venal tribe of courtiers perpetually labor
      to conceal the truth. 48

      47 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 161. From some hints in the two
      letters, I should expect that the eunuchs were not expelled the
      palace without some degree of gentle violence, and that the young
      Gordian rather approved of, than consented to, their disgrace.]

      48 (return) [ Duxit uxorem filiam Misithei, quem causa eloquentiæ
      dignum parentela sua putavit; et præfectum statim fecit; post
      quod, non puerile jam et contemptibile videbatur imperium.]

      The life of Misitheus had been spent in the profession of
      letters, not of arms; yet such was the versatile genius of that
      great man, that, when he was appointed Prætorian Præfect, he
      discharged the military duties of his place with vigor and
      ability. The Persians had invaded Mesopotamia, and threatened
      Antioch. By the persuasion of his father-in-law, the young
      emperor quitted the luxury of Rome, opened, for the last time
      recorded in history, the temple of Janus, and marched in person
      into the East. On his approach, with a great army, the Persians
      withdrew their garrisons from the cities which they had already
      taken, and retired from the Euphrates to the Tigris. Gordian
      enjoyed the pleasure of announcing to the senate the first
      success of his arms, which he ascribed, with a becoming modesty
      and gratitude, to the wisdom of his father and Præfect. During
      the whole expedition, Misitheus watched over the safety and
      discipline of the army; whilst he prevented their dangerous
      murmurs by maintaining a regular plenty in the camp, and by
      establishing ample magazines of vinegar, bacon, straw, barley,
      and wheat in all the cities of the frontier. 49 But the
      prosperity of Gordian expired with Misitheus, who died of a flux,
      not without very strong suspicions of poison. Philip, his
      successor in the præfecture, was an Arab by birth, and
      consequently, in the earlier part of his life, a robber by
      profession. His rise from so obscure a station to the first
      dignities of the empire, seems to prove that he was a bold and
      able leader. But his boldness prompted him to aspire to the
      throne, and his abilities were employed to supplant, not to
      serve, his indulgent master. The minds of the soldiers were
      irritated by an artificial scarcity, created by his contrivance
      in the camp; and the distress of the army was attributed to the
      youth and incapacity of the prince. It is not in our power to
      trace the successive steps of the secret conspiracy and open
      sedition, which were at length fatal to Gordian. A sepulchral
      monument was erected to his memory on the spot 50 where he was
      killed, near the conflux of the Euphrates with the little river
      Aboras. 51 The fortunate Philip, raised to the empire by the
      votes of the soldiers, found a ready obedience from the senate
      and the provinces. 52

      49 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 162. Aurelius Victor. Porphyrius
      in Vit Plotin. ap. Fabricium, Biblioth. Græc. l. iv. c. 36. The
      philosopher Plotinus accompanied the army, prompted by the love
      of knowledge, and by the hope of penetrating as far as India.]

      50 (return) [ About twenty miles from the little town of
      Circesium, on the frontier of the two empires. * Note: Now
      Kerkesia; placed in the angle formed by the juncture of the
      Chaboras, or al Khabour, with the Euphrates. This situation
      appeared advantageous to Diocletian, that he raised
      fortifications to make it the but wark of the empire on the side
      of Mesopotamia. D’Anville. Geog. Anc. ii. 196.—G. It is the
      Carchemish of the Old Testament, 2 Chron. xxxv. 20. ler. xlvi.
      2.—M.]

      51 (return) [ The inscription (which contained a very singular
      pun) was erased by the order of Licinius, who claimed some degree
      of relationship to Philip, (Hist. August. p. 166;) but the
      tumulus, or mound of earth which formed the sepulchre, still
      subsisted in the time of Julian. See Ammian Marcellin. xxiii. 5.]

      52 (return) [ Aurelius Victor. Eutrop. ix. 2. Orosius, vii. 20.
      Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 5. Zosimus, l. i. p. 19. Philip, who
      was a native of Bostra, was about forty years of age. * Note: Now
      Bosra. It was once the metropolis of a province named Arabia, and
      the chief city of Auranitis, of which the name is preserved in
      Beled Hauran, the limits of which meet the desert. D’Anville.
      Geog. Anc. ii. 188. According to Victor, (in Cæsar.,) Philip was
      a native of Tracbonitis another province of Arabia.—G.]

      We cannot forbear transcribing the ingenious, though somewhat
      fanciful description, which a celebrated writer of our own times
      has traced of the military government of the Roman empire. What
      in that age was called the Roman empire, was only an irregular
      republic, not unlike the aristocracy 53 of Algiers, 54 where the
      militia, possessed of the sovereignty, creates and deposes a
      magistrate, who is styled a Dey. Perhaps, indeed, it may be laid
      down as a general rule, that a military government is, in some
      respects, more republican than monarchical. Nor can it be said
      that the soldiers only partook of the government by their
      disobedience and rebellions. The speeches made to them by the
      emperors, were they not at length of the same nature as those
      formerly pronounced to the people by the consuls and the
      tribunes? And although the armies had no regular place or forms
      of assembly; though their debates were short, their action
      sudden, and their resolves seldom the result of cool reflection,
      did they not dispose, with absolute sway, of the public fortune?
      What was the emperor, except the minister of a violent
      government, elected for the private benefit of the soldiers?

      53 (return) [ Can the epithet of Aristocracy be applied, with any
      propriety, to the government of Algiers? Every military
      government floats between two extremes of absolute monarchy and
      wild democracy.]

      54 (return) [ The military republic of the Mamelukes in Egypt
      would have afforded M. de Montesquieu (see Considerations sur la
      Grandeur et la Decadence des Romains, c. 16) a juster and more
      noble parallel.]

      “When the army had elected Philip, who was Prætorian præfect to
      the third Gordian, the latter demanded that he might remain sole
      emperor; he was unable to obtain it. He requested that the power
      might be equally divided between them; the army would not listen
      to his speech. He consented to be degraded to the rank of Cæsar;
      the favor was refused him. He desired, at least, he might be
      appointed Prætorian præfect; his prayer was rejected. Finally, he
      pleaded for his life. The army, in these several judgments,
      exercised the supreme magistracy.” According to the historian,
      whose doubtful narrative the President De Montesquieu has
      adopted, Philip, who, during the whole transaction, had preserved
      a sullen silence, was inclined to spare the innocent life of his
      benefactor; till, recollecting that his innocence might excite a
      dangerous compassion in the Roman world, he commanded, without
      regard to his suppliant cries, that he should be seized,
      stripped, and led away to instant death. After a moment’s pause,
      the inhuman sentence was executed. 55

      55 (return) [ The Augustan History (p. 163, 164) cannot, in this
      instance, be reconciled with itself or with probability. How
      could Philip condemn his predecessor, and yet consecrate his
      memory? How could he order his public execution, and yet, in his
      letters to the senate, exculpate himself from the guilt of his
      death? Philip, though an ambitious usurper, was by no means a mad
      tyrant. Some chronological difficulties have likewise been
      discovered by the nice eyes of Tillemont and Muratori, in this
      supposed association of Philip to the empire. * Note: Wenck
      endeavors to reconcile these discrepancies. He supposes that
      Gordian was led away, and died a natural death in prison. This is
      directly contrary to the statement of Capitolinus and of Zosimus,
      whom he adduces in support of his theory. He is more successful
      in his precedents of usurpers deifying the victims of their
      ambition. Sit divus, dummodo non sit vivus.—M.]




      Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of
      Maximin.—Part III.

      On his return from the East to Rome, Philip, desirous of
      obliterating the memory of his crimes, and of captivating the
      affections of the people, solemnized the secular games with
      infinite pomp and magnificence. Since their institution or
      revival by Augustus, 56 they had been celebrated by Claudius, by
      Domitian, and by Severus, and were now renewed the fifth time, on
      the accomplishment of the full period of a thousand years from
      the foundation of Rome. Every circumstance of the secular games
      was skillfully adapted to inspire the superstitious mind with
      deep and solemn reverence. The long interval between them 57
      exceeded the term of human life; and as none of the spectators
      had already seen them, none could flatter themselves with the
      expectation of beholding them a second time. The mystic
      sacrifices were performed, during three nights, on the banks of
      the Tyber; and the Campus Martius resounded with music and
      dances, and was illuminated with innumerable lamps and torches.
      Slaves and strangers were excluded from any participation in
      these national ceremonies. A chorus of twenty-seven youths, and
      as many virgins, of noble families, and whose parents were both
      alive, implored the propitious gods in favor of the present, and
      for the hope of the rising generation; requesting, in religious
      hymns, that according to the faith of their ancient oracles, they
      would still maintain the virtue, the felicity, and the empire of
      the Roman people. The magnificence of Philip’s shows and
      entertainments dazzled the eyes of the multitude. The devout were
      employed in the rites of superstition, whilst the reflecting few
      revolved in their anxious minds the past history and the future
      fate of the empire.58

      56 (return) [ The account of the last supposed celebration,
      though in an enlightened period of history, was so very doubtful
      and obscure, that the alternative seems not doubtful. When the
      popish jubilees, the copy of the secular games, were invented by
      Boniface VII., the crafty pope pretended that he only revived an
      ancient institution. See M. le Chais, Lettres sur les Jubiles.]

      57 (return) [ Either of a hundred or a hundred and ten years.
      Varro and Livy adopted the former opinion, but the infallible
      authority of the Sybil consecrated the latter, (Censorinus de Die
      Natal. c. 17.) The emperors Claudius and Philip, however, did not
      treat the oracle with implicit respect.]

      58 (return) [ The idea of the secular games is best understood
      from the poem of Horace, and the description of Zosimus, 1. l.
      ii. p. 167, &c.] Since Romulus, with a small band of shepherds
      and outlaws, fortified himself on the hills near the Tyber, ten
      centuries had already elapsed. 59 During the four first ages, the
      Romans, in the laborious school of poverty, had acquired the
      virtues of war and government: by the vigorous exertion of those
      virtues, and by the assistance of fortune, they had obtained, in
      the course of the three succeeding centuries, an absolute empire
      over many countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The last three
      hundred years had been consumed in apparent prosperity and
      internal decline. The nation of soldiers, magistrates, and
      legislators, who composed the thirty-five tribes of the Roman
      people, were dissolved into the common mass of mankind, and
      confounded with the millions of servile provincials, who had
      received the name, without adopting the spirit, of Romans. A
      mercenary army, levied among the subjects and barbarians of the
      frontier, was the only order of men who preserved and abused
      their independence. By their tumultuary election, a Syrian, a
      Goth, or an Arab, was exalted to the throne of Rome, and invested
      with despotic power over the conquests and over the country of
      the Scipios.

      59 (return) [The received calculation of Varro assigns to the
      foundation of Rome an æra that corresponds with the 754th year
      before Christ. But so little is the chronology of Rome to be
      depended on, in the more early ages, that Sir Isaac Newton has
      brought the same event as low as the year 627 (Compare Niebuhr
      vol. i. p. 271.—M.)]

      The limits of the Roman empire still extended from the Western
      Ocean to the Tigris, and from Mount Atlas to the Rhine and the
      Danube. To the undiscerning eye of the vulgar, Philip appeared a
      monarch no less powerful than Hadrian or Augustus had formerly
      been. The form was still the same, but the animating health and
      vigor were fled. The industry of the people was discouraged and
      exhausted by a long series of oppression. The discipline of the
      legions, which alone, after the extinction of every other virtue,
      had propped the greatness of the state, was corrupted by the
      ambition, or relaxed by the weakness, of the emperors. The
      strength of the frontiers, which had always consisted in arms
      rather than in fortifications, was insensibly undermined; and the
      fairest provinces were left exposed to the rapaciousness or
      ambition of the barbarians, who soon discovered the decline of
      the Roman empire.




      Chapter VIII: State Of Persia And Restoration Of The
      Monarchy.—Part I.

     Of The State Of Persia After The Restoration Of The Monarchy By
     Artaxerxes.

      Whenever Tacitus indulges himself in those beautiful episodes, in
      which he relates some domestic transaction of the Germans or of
      the Parthians, his principal object is to relieve the attention
      of the reader from a uniform scene of vice and misery. From the
      reign of Augustus to the time of Alexander Severus, the enemies
      of Rome were in her bosom—the tyrants and the soldiers; and her
      prosperity had a very distant and feeble interest in the
      revolutions that might happen beyond the Rhine and the Euphrates.
      But when the military order had levelled, in wild anarchy, the
      power of the prince, the laws of the senate, and even the
      discipline of the camp, the barbarians of the North and of the
      East, who had long hovered on the frontier, boldly attacked the
      provinces of a declining monarchy. Their vexatious inroads were
      changed into formidable irruptions, and, after a long vicissitude
      of mutual calamities, many tribes of the victorious invaders
      established themselves in the provinces of the Roman Empire. To
      obtain a clearer knowledge of these great events, we shall
      endeavor to form a previous idea of the character, forces, and
      designs of those nations who avenged the cause of Hannibal and
      Mithridates.

      In the more early ages of the world, whilst the forest that
      covered Europe afforded a retreat to a few wandering savages, the
      inhabitants of Asia were already collected into populous cities,
      and reduced under extensive empires the seat of the arts, of
      luxury, and of despotism. The Assyrians reigned over the East, 1
      till the sceptre of Ninus and Semiramis dropped from the hands of
      their enervated successors. The Medes and the Babylonians divided
      their power, and were themselves swallowed up in the monarchy of
      the Persians, whose arms could not be confined within the narrow
      limits of Asia. Followed, as it is said, by two millions of
      _men_, Xerxes, the descendant of Cyrus, invaded Greece.

      Thirty thousand _soldiers_, under the command of Alexander, the
      son of Philip, who was intrusted by the Greeks with their glory
      and revenge, were sufficient to subdue Persia. The princes of the
      house of Seleucus usurped and lost the Macedonian command over
      the East. About the same time, that, by an ignominious treaty,
      they resigned to the Romans the country on this side Mount Tarus,
      they were driven by the Parthians, 1001 an obscure horde of
      Scythian origin, from all the provinces of Upper Asia. The
      formidable power of the Parthians, which spread from India to the
      frontiers of Syria, was in its turn subverted by Ardshir, or
      Artaxerxes; the founder of a new dynasty, which, under the name
      of Sassanides, governed Persia till the invasion of the Arabs.
      This great revolution, whose fatal influence was soon experienced
      by the Romans, happened in the fourth year of Alexander Severus,
      two hundred and twenty-six years after the Christian era. 2 201

      1 (return) [ An ancient chronologist, quoted by Valleius
      Paterculus, (l. i. c. 6,) observes, that the Assyrians, the
      Medes, the Persians, and the Macedonians, reigned over Asia one
      thousand nine hundred and ninety-five years, from the accession
      of Ninus to the defeat of Antiochus by the Romans. As the latter
      of these great events happened 289 years before Christ, the
      former may be placed 2184 years before the same æra. The
      Astronomical Observations, found at Babylon, by Alexander, went
      fifty years higher.]

      1001 (return) [ The Parthians were a tribe of the Indo-Germanic
      branch which dwelt on the south-east of the Caspian, and belonged
      to the same race as the Getæ, the Massagetæ, and other nations,
      confounded by the ancients under the vague denomination of
      Scythians. Klaproth, Tableaux Hist. d l’Asie, p. 40. Strabo (p.
      747) calls the Parthians Carduchi, i.e., the inhabitants of
      Curdistan.—M.]

      2 (return) [ In the five hundred and thirty-eighth year of the
      æra of Seleucus. See Agathias, l. ii. p. 63. This great event
      (such is the carelessness of the Orientals) is placed by
      Eutychius as high as the tenth year of Commodus, and by Moses of
      Chorene as low as the reign of Philip. Ammianus Marcellinus has
      so servilely copied (xxiii. 6) his ancient materials, which are
      indeed very good, that he describes the family of the Arsacides
      as still seated on the Persian throne in the middle of the fourth
      century.]

      201 (return) [ The Persian History, if the poetry of the Shah
      Nameh, the Book of Kings, may deserve that name mentions four
      dynasties from the earliest ages to the invasion of the Saracens.
      The Shah Nameh was composed with the view of perpetuating the
      remains of the original Persian records or traditions which had
      survived the Saracenic invasion. The task was undertaken by the
      poet Dukiki, and afterwards, under the patronage of Mahmood of
      Ghazni, completed by Ferdusi. The first of these dynasties is
      that of Kaiomors, as Sir W. Jones observes, the dark and fabulous
      period; the second, that of the Kaianian, the heroic and
      poetical, in which the earned have discovered some curious, and
      imagined some fanciful, analogies with the Jewish, the Greek, and
      the Roman accounts of the eastern world. See, on the Shah Nameh,
      Translation by Goerres, with Von Hammer’s Review, Vienna Jahrbuch
      von Lit. 17, 75, 77. Malcolm’s Persia, 8vo. ed. i. 503. Macan’s
      Preface to his Critical Edition of the Shah Nameh. On the early
      Persian History, a very sensible abstract of various opinions in
      Malcolm’s Hist. of Persian.—M.]

      Artaxerxes had served with great reputation in the armies of
      Artaban, the last king of the Parthians, and it appears that he
      was driven into exile and rebellion by royal ingratitude, the
      customary reward for superior merit. His birth was obscure, and
      the obscurity equally gave room to the aspersions of his enemies,
      and the flattery of his adherents. If we credit the scandal of
      the former, Artaxerxes sprang from the illegitimate commerce of a
      tanner’s wife with a common soldier. 3 The latter represent him
      as descended from a branch of the ancient kings of Persian,
      though time and misfortune had gradually reduced his ancestors to
      the humble station of private citizens. 4 As the lineal heir of
      the monarchy, he asserted his right to the throne, and challenged
      the noble task of delivering the Persians from the oppression
      under which they groaned above five centuries since the death of
      Darius. The Parthians were defeated in three great battles. 401
      In the last of these their king Artaban was slain, and the spirit
      of the nation was forever broken. 5 The authority of Artaxerxes
      was solemnly acknowledged in a great assembly held at Balch in
      Khorasan. 501 Two younger branches of the royal house of Arsaces
      were confounded among the prostrate satraps. A third, more
      mindful of ancient grandeur than of present necessity, attempted
      to retire, with a numerous train of vessels, towards their
      kinsman, the king of Armenia; but this little army of deserters
      was intercepted, and cut off, by the vigilance of the conqueror,
      6 who boldly assumed the double diadem, and the title of King of
      Kings, which had been enjoyed by his predecessor. But these
      pompous titles, instead of gratifying the vanity of the Persian,
      served only to admonish him of his duty, and to inflame in his
      soul the ambition of restoring in their full splendor, the
      religion and empire of Cyrus.

      3 (return) [ The tanner’s name was Babec; the soldier’s, Sassan:
      from the former Artaxerxes obtained the surname of Babegan, from
      the latter all his descendants have been styled Sassanides.]

      4 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, Ardshir.]

      401 (return) [ In the plain of Hoormuz, the son of Babek was
      hailed in the field with the proud title of Shahan Shah, king of
      kings—a name ever since assumed by the sovereigns of Persia.
      Malcolm, i. 71.—M.]

      5 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxxx. Herodian, l. vi. p. 207.
      Abulpharagins Dynast. p. 80.]

      501 (return) [ See the Persian account of the rise of Ardeschir
      Babegan in Malcolm l 69.—M.]

      6 (return) [ See Moses Chorenensis, l. ii. c. 65—71.]

      I. During the long servitude of Persia under the Macedonian and
      the Parthian yoke, the nations of Europe and Asia had mutually
      adopted and corrupted each other’s superstitions. The Arsacides,
      indeed, practised the worship of the Magi; but they disgraced and
      polluted it with a various mixture of foreign idolatry. 601 The
      memory of Zoroaster, the ancient prophet and philosopher of the
      Persians, 7 was still revered in the East; but the obsolete and
      mysterious language, in which the Zendavesta was composed, 8
      opened a field of dispute to seventy sects, who variously
      explained the fundamental doctrines of their religion, and were
      all indifferently devided by a crowd of infidels, who rejected
      the divine mission and miracles of the prophet. To suppress the
      idolaters, reunite the schismatics, and confute the unbelievers,
      by the infallible decision of a general council, the pious
      Artaxerxes summoned the Magi from all parts of his dominions.
      These priests, who had so long sighed in contempt and obscurity
      obeyed the welcome summons; and, on the appointed day, appeared,
      to the number of about eighty thousand. But as the debates of so
      tumultuous an assembly could not have been directed by the
      authority of reason, or influenced by the art of policy, the
      Persian synod was reduced, by successive operations, to forty
      thousand, to four thousand, to four hundred, to forty, and at
      last to seven Magi, the most respected for their learning and
      piety. One of these, Erdaviraph, a young but holy prelate,
      received from the hands of his brethren three cups of
      soporiferous wine. He drank them off, and instantly fell into a
      long and profound sleep. As soon as he waked, he related to the
      king and to the believing multitude, his journey to heaven, and
      his intimate conferences with the Deity. Every doubt was silenced
      by this supernatural evidence; and the articles of the faith of
      Zoroaster were fixed with equal authority and precision. 9 A
      short delineation of that celebrated system will be found useful,
      not only to display the character of the Persian nation, but to
      illustrate many of their most important transactions, both in
      peace and war, with the Roman empire. 10

      601 (return) [ Silvestre de Sacy (Antiquites de la Perse) had
      proved the neglect of the Zoroastrian religion under the Parthian
      kings.—M.]

      7 (return) [ Hyde and Prideaux, working up the Persian legends
      and their own conjectures into a very agreeable story, represent
      Zoroaster as a contemporary of Darius Hystaspes. But it is
      sufficient to observe, that the Greek writers, who lived almost
      in the age of Darius, agree in placing the æra of Zoroaster many
      hundred, or even thousand, years before their own time. The
      judicious criticisms of Mr. Moyle perceived, and maintained
      against his uncle, Dr. Prideaux, the antiquity of the Persian
      prophet. See his work, vol. ii. * Note: There are three leading
      theories concerning the age of Zoroaster: 1. That which assigns
      him to an age of great and almost indefinite antiquity—it is that
      of Moyle, adopted by Gibbon, Volney, Recherches sur l’Histoire,
      ii. 2. Rhode, also, (die Heilige Sage, &c.,) in a very ingenious
      and ably-developed theory, throws the Bactrian prophet far back
      into antiquity 2. Foucher, (Mem. de l’Acad. xxvii. 253,) Tychsen,
      (in Com. Soc. Gott. ii. 112), Heeren, (ldeen. i. 459,) and
      recently Holty, identify the Gushtasp of the Persian mythological
      history with Cyaxares the First, the king of the Medes, and
      consider the religion to be Median in its origin. M. Guizot
      considers this opinion most probable, note in loc. 3. Hyde,
      Prideaux, Anquetil du Perron, Kleuker, Herder, Goerres,
      (Mythen-Geschichte,) Von Hammer. (Wien. Jahrbuch, vol. ix.,)
      Malcolm, (i. 528,) De Guigniaut, (Relig. de l’Antiq. 2d part,
      vol. iii.,) Klaproth, (Tableaux de l’Asie, p. 21,) make Gushtasp
      Darius Hystaspes, and Zoroaster his contemporary. The silence of
      Herodotus appears the great objection to this theory. Some
      writers, as M. Foucher (resting, as M. Guizot observes, on the
      doubtful authority of Pliny,) make more than one Zoroaster, and
      so attempt to reconcile the conflicting theories.— M.]

      8 (return) [ That ancient idiom was called the Zend. The language
      of the commentary, the Pehlvi, though much more modern, has
      ceased many ages ago to be a living tongue. This fact alone (if
      it is allowed as authentic) sufficiently warrants the antiquity
      of those writings which M d’Anquetil has brought into Europe, and
      translated into French. * Note: Zend signifies life, living. The
      word means, either the collection of the canonical books of the
      followers of Zoroaster, or the language itself in which they are
      written. They are the books that contain the word of life whether
      the language was originally called Zend, or whether it was so
      called from the contents of the books. Avesta means word, oracle,
      revelation: this term is not the title of a particular work, but
      of the collection of the books of Zoroaster, as the revelation of
      Ormuzd. This collection is sometimes called Zendavesta, sometimes
      briefly Zend. The Zend was the ancient language of Media, as is
      proved by its affinity with the dialects of Armenia and Georgia;
      it was already a dead language under the Arsacides in the country
      which was the scene of the events recorded in the Zendavesta.
      Some critics, among others Richardson and Sir W. Jones, have
      called in question the antiquity of these books. The former
      pretended that Zend had never been a written or spoken language,
      but had been invented in the later times by the Magi, for the
      purposes of their art; but Kleuker, in the dissertations which he
      added to those of Anquetil and the Abbé Foucher, has proved that
      the Zend was a living and spoken language.—G. Sir W. Jones
      appears to have abandoned his doubts, on discovering the affinity
      between the Zend and the Sanskrit. Since the time of Kleuker,
      this question has been investigated by many learned scholars. Sir
      W. Jones, Leyden, (Asiat. Research. x. 283,) and Mr. Erskine,
      (Bombay Trans. ii. 299,) consider it a derivative from the
      Sanskrit. The antiquity of the Zendavesta has likewise been
      asserted by Rask, the great Danish linguist, who, according to
      Malcolm, brought back from the East fresh transcripts and
      additions to those published by Anquetil. According to Rask, the
      Zend and Sanskrit are sister dialects; the one the parent of the
      Persian, the other of the Indian family of languages.—G. and
      M.——But the subject is more satisfactorily illustrated in Bopp’s
      comparative Grammar of the Sanscrit, Zend, Greek, Latin,
      Lithuanian, Gothic, and German languages. Berlin. 1833-5.
      According to Bopp, the Zend is, in some respects, of a more
      remarkable structure than the Sanskrit. Parts of the Zendavesta
      have been published in the original, by M. Bournouf, at Paris,
      and M. Ol. shausen, in Hamburg.—M.——The Pehlvi was the language
      of the countries bordering on Assyria, and probably of Assyria
      itself. Pehlvi signifies valor, heroism; the Pehlvi, therefore,
      was the language of the ancient heroes and kings of Persia, the
      valiant. (Mr. Erskine prefers the derivation from Pehla, a
      border.—M.) It contains a number of Aramaic roots. Anquetil
      considered it formed from the Zend. Kleuker does not adopt this
      opinion. The Pehlvi, he says, is much more flowing, and less
      overcharged with vowels, than the Zend. The books of Zoroaster,
      first written in Zend, were afterwards translated into Pehlvi and
      Parsi. The Pehlvi had fallen into disuse under the dynasty of the
      Sassanides, but the learned still wrote it. The Parsi, the
      dialect of Pars or Farristan, was then prevailing dialect.
      Kleuker, Anhang zum Zend Avesta, 2, ii. part i. p. 158, part ii.
      31.—G.——Mr. Erskine (Bombay Transactions) considers the existing
      Zendavesta to have been compiled in the time of Ardeschir
      Babegan.—M.]

      9 (return) [ Hyde de Religione veterum Pers. c. 21.]

      10 (return) [ I have principally drawn this account from the
      Zendavesta of M. d’Anquetil, and the Sadder, subjoined to Dr.
      Hyde’s treatise. It must, however, be confessed, that the studied
      obscurity of a prophet, the figurative style of the East, and the
      deceitful medium of a French or Latin version may have betrayed
      us into error and heresy, in this abridgment of Persian theology.
      * Note: It is to be regretted that Gibbon followed the
      post-Mahometan Sadder of Hyde.—M.]

      The great and fundamental article of the system was the
      celebrated doctrine of the two principles; a bold and injudicious
      attempt of Eastern philosophy to reconcile the existence of moral
      and physical evil with the attributes of a beneficent Creator and
      Governor of the world. The first and original Being, in whom, or
      by whom, the universe exists, is denominated in the writings of
      Zoroaster, _Time without bounds_; 1001a but it must be confessed,
      that this infinite substance seems rather a metaphysical
      abstraction of the mind than a real object endowed with
      self-consciousness, or possessed of moral perfections. From
      either the blind or the intelligent operation of this infinite
      Time, which bears but too near an affinity with the chaos of the
      Greeks, the two secondary but active principles of the universe
      were from all eternity produced, Ormusd and Ahriman, each of them
      possessed of the powers of creation, but each disposed, by his
      invariable nature, to exercise them with different designs. 1002
      The principle of good is eternally aborbed in light; the
      principle of evil eternally buried in darkness. The wise
      benevolence of Ormusd formed man capable of virtue, and
      abundantly provided his fair habitation with the materials of
      happiness. By his vigilant providence, the motion of the planets,
      the order of the seasons, and the temperate mixture of the
      elements, are preserved. But the malice of Ahriman has long since
      pierced _Ormusd’s egg;_ or, in other words, has violated the
      harmony of his works. Since that fatal eruption, the most minute
      articles of good and evil are intimately intermingled and
      agitated together; the rankest poisons spring up amidst the most
      salutary plants; deluges, earthquakes, and conflagrations attest
      the conflict of Nature, and the little world of man is
      perpetually shaken by vice and misfortune. Whilst the rest of
      human kind are led away captives in the chains of their infernal
      enemy, the faithful Persian alone reserves his religious
      adoration for his friend and protector Ormusd, and fights under
      his banner of light, in the full confidence that he shall, in the
      last day, share the glory of his triumph. At that decisive
      period, the enlightened wisdom of goodness will render the power
      of Ormusd superior to the furious malice of his rival. Ahriman
      and his followers, disarmed and subdued, will sink into their
      native darkness; and virtue will maintain the eternal peace and
      harmony of the universe. 11 1101

      1001a (return) [ Zeruane Akerene, so translated by Anquetil and
      Kleuker. There is a dissertation of Foucher on this subject, Mem.
      de l’Acad. des Inscr. t. xxix. According to Bohlen (das alte
      Indien) it is the Sanskrit Sarvan Akaranam, the Uncreated Whole;
      or, according to Fred. Schlegel, Sarvan Akharyam the Uncreate
      Indivisible.—M.]

      1002 (return) [ This is an error. Ahriman was not forced by his
      invariable nature to do evil; the Zendavesta expressly recognizes
      (see the Izeschne) that he was born good, that in his origin he
      was light; envy rendered him evil; he became jealous of the power
      and attributes of Ormuzd; then light was changed into darkness,
      and Ahriman was precipitated into the abyss. See the Abridgment
      of the Doctrine of the Ancient Persians, by Anquetil, c. ii
      Section 2.—G.]

      11 (return) [ The modern Parsees (and in some degree the Sadder)
      exalt Ormusd into the first and omnipotent cause, whilst they
      degrade Ahriman into an inferior but rebellious spirit. Their
      desire of pleasing the Mahometans may have contributed to refine
      their theological systems.]

      1101 (return) [ According to the Zendavesta, Ahriman will not be
      annihilated or precipitated forever into darkness: at the
      resurrection of the dead he will be entirely defeated by Ormuzd,
      his power will be destroyed, his kingdom overthrown to its
      foundations, he will himself be purified in torrents of melting
      metal; he will change his heart and his will, become holy,
      heavenly establish in his dominions the law and word of Ormuzd,
      unite himself with him in everlasting friendship, and both will
      sing hymns in honor of the Great Eternal. See Anquetil’s
      Abridgment. Kleuker, Anhang part iii. p 85, 36; and the Izeschne,
      one of the books of the Zendavesta. According to the Sadder
      Bun-Dehesch, a more modern work, Ahriman is to be annihilated:
      but this is contrary to the text itself of the Zendavesta, and to
      the idea its author gives of the kingdom of Eternity, after the
      twelve thousand years assigned to the contest between Good and
      Evil.—G.]




      Chapter VIII: State Of Persia And Restoration Of The
      Monarchy.—Part II.

      The theology of Zoroaster was darkly comprehended by foreigners,
      and even by the far greater number of his disciples; but the most
      careless observers were struck with the philosophic simplicity of
      the Persian worship. “That people,” said Herodotus, 12 “rejects
      the use of temples, of altars, and of statues, and smiles at the
      folly of those nations who imagine that the gods are sprung from,
      or bear any affinity with, the human nature. The tops of the
      highest mountains are the places chosen for sacrifices. Hymns and
      prayers are the principal worship; the Supreme God, who fills the
      wide circle of heaven, is the object to whom they are addressed.”
      Yet, at the same time, in the true spirit of a polytheist, he
      accuseth them of adoring Earth, Water, Fire, the Winds, and the
      Sun and Moon. But the Persians of every age have denied the
      charge, and explained the equivocal conduct, which might appear
      to give a color to it. The elements, and more particularly Fire,
      Light, and the Sun, whom they called Mithra, 1201 were the
      objects of their religious reverence because they considered them
      as the purest symbols, the noblest productions, and the most
      powerful agents of the Divine Power and Nature. 13

      12 (return) [ Herodotus, l. i. c. 131. But Dr. Prideaux thinks,
      with reason, that the use of temples was afterwards permitted in
      the Magian religion. Note: The Pyræa, or fire temples of the
      Zoroastrians, (observes Kleuker, Persica, p. 16,) were only to be
      found in Media or Aderbidjan, provinces into which Herodotus did
      not penetrate.—M.]

      1201 (return) [ Among the Persians Mithra is not the Sun:
      Anquetil has contested and triumphantly refuted the opinion of
      those who confound them, and it is evidently contrary to the text
      of the Zendavesta. Mithra is the first of the genii, or jzeds,
      created by Ormuzd; it is he who watches over all nature. Hence
      arose the misapprehension of some of the Greeks, who have said
      that Mithra was the summus deus of the Persians: he has a
      thousand ears and ten thousand eyes. The Chaldeans appear to have
      assigned him a higher rank than the Persians. It is he who
      bestows upon the earth the light of the sun. The sun. named Khor,
      (brightness,) is thus an inferior genius, who, with many other
      genii, bears a part in the functions of Mithra. These assistant
      genii to another genius are called his kamkars; but in the
      Zendavesta they are never confounded. On the days sacred to a
      particular genius, the Persian ought to recite, not only the
      prayers addressed to him, but those also which are addressed to
      his kamkars; thus the hymn or iescht of Mithra is recited on the
      day of the sun, (Khor,) and vice versa. It is probably this which
      has sometimes caused them to be confounded; but Anquetil had
      himself exposed this error, which Kleuker, and all who have
      studied the Zendavesta, have noticed. See viii. Diss. of
      Anquetil. Kleuker’s Anhang, part iii. p. 132.—G. M. Guizot is
      unquestionably right, according to the pure and original doctrine
      of the Zend. The Mithriac worship, which was so extensively
      propagated in the West, and in which Mithra and the sun were
      perpetually confounded, seems to have been formed from a fusion
      of Zoroastrianism and Chaldaism, or the Syrian worship of the
      sun. An excellent abstract of the question, with references to
      the works of the chief modern writers on his curious subject, De
      Sacy, Kleuker, Von Hammer, &c., may be found in De Guigniaut’s
      translation of Kreuzer. Relig. d’Antiquite, notes viii. ix. to
      book ii. vol. i. 2d part, page 728.—M.]

      13 (return) [ Hyde de Relig. Pers. c. 8. Notwithstanding all
      their distinctions and protestations, which seem sincere enough,
      their tyrants, the Mahometans, have constantly stigmatized them
      as idolatrous worshippers of the fire.]

      Every mode of religion, to make a deep and lasting impression on
      the human mind, must exercise our obedience, by enjoining
      practices of devotion, for which we can assign no reason; and
      must acquire our esteem, by inculcating moral duties analogous to
      the dictates of our own hearts. The religion of Zoroaster was
      abundantly provided with the former and possessed a sufficient
      portion of the latter. At the age of puberty, the faithful
      Persian was invested with a mysterious girdle, the badge of the
      divine protection; and from that moment all the actions of his
      life, even the most indifferent, or the most necessary, were
      sanctified by their peculiar prayers, ejaculations, or
      genuflections; the omission of which, under any circumstances,
      was a grievous sin, not inferior in guilt to the violation of the
      moral duties. The moral duties, however, of justice, mercy,
      liberality, &c., were in their turn required of the disciple of
      Zoroaster, who wished to escape the persecution of Ahriman, and
      to live with Ormusd in a blissful eternity, where the degree of
      felicity will be exactly proportioned to the degree of virtue and
      piety. 14

      14 (return) [ See the Sadder, the smallest part of which consists
      of moral precepts. The ceremonies enjoined are infinite and
      trifling. Fifteen genuflections, prayers, &c., were required
      whenever the devout Persian cut his nails or made water; or as
      often as he put on the sacred girdle Sadder, Art. 14, 50, 60. *
      Note: Zoroaster exacted much less ceremonial observance, than at
      a later period, the priests of his doctrines. This is the
      progress of all religions the worship, simple in its origin, is
      gradually overloaded with minute superstitions. The maxim of the
      Zendavesta, on the relative merit of sowing the earth and of
      prayers, quoted below by Gibbon, proves that Zoroaster did not
      attach too much importance to these observances. Thus it is not
      from the Zendavesta that Gibbon derives the proof of his
      allegation, but from the Sadder, a much later work.—G]

      But there are some remarkable instances in which Zoroaster lays
      aside the prophet, assumes the legislator, and discovers a
      liberal concern for private and public happiness, seldom to be
      found among the grovelling or visionary schemes of superstition.
      Fasting and celibacy, the common means of purchasing the divine
      favor, he condemns with abhorrence as a criminal rejection of the
      best gifts of Providence. The saint, in the Magian religion, is
      obliged to beget children, to plant useful trees, to destroy
      noxious animals, to convey water to the dry lands of Persia, and
      to work out his salvation by pursuing all the labors of
      agriculture. 1401 We may quote from the Zendavesta a wise and
      benevolent maxim, which compensates for many an absurdity. “He
      who sows the ground with care and diligence acquires a greater
      stock of religious merit than he could gain by the repetition of
      ten thousand prayers.” 15 In the spring of every year a festival
      was celebrated, destined to represent the primitive equality, and
      the present connection, of mankind. The stately kings of Persia,
      exchanging their vain pomp for more genuine greatness, freely
      mingled with the humblest but most useful of their subjects. On
      that day the husbandmen were admitted, without distinction, to
      the table of the king and his satraps. The monarch accepted their
      petitions, inquired into their grievances, and conversed with
      them on the most equal terms. “From your labors,” was he
      accustomed to say, (and to say with truth, if not with
      sincerity,) “from your labors we receive our subsistence; you
      derive your tranquillity from our vigilance: since, therefore, we
      are mutually necessary to each other, let us live together like
      brothers in concord and love.” 16 Such a festival must indeed
      have degenerated, in a wealthy and despotic empire, into a
      theatrical representation; but it was at least a comedy well
      worthy of a royal audience, and which might sometimes imprint a
      salutary lesson on the mind of a young prince.

      1401 (return) [ See, on Zoroaster’s encouragement of agriculture,
      the ingenious remarks of Heeren, Ideen, vol. i. p. 449, &c., and
      Rhode, Heilige Sage, p. 517—M.]

      15 (return) [ Zendavesta, tom. i. p. 224, and Precis du Systeme
      de Zoroastre, tom. iii.]

      16 (return) [ Hyde de Religione Persarum, c. 19.]

      Had Zoroaster, in all his institutions, invariably supported this
      exalted character, his name would deserve a place with those of
      Numa and Confucius, and his system would be justly entitled to
      all the applause, which it has pleased some of our divines, and
      even some of our philosophers, to bestow on it. But in that
      motley composition, dictated by reason and passion, by enthusiasm
      and by selfish motives, some useful and sublime truths were
      disgraced by a mixture of the most abject and dangerous
      superstition. The Magi, or sacerdotal order, were extremely
      numerous, since, as we have already seen, fourscore thousand of
      them were convened in a general council. Their forces were
      multiplied by discipline. A regular hierarchy was diffused
      through all the provinces of Persia; and the Archimagus, who
      resided at Balch, was respected as the visible head of the
      church, and the lawful successor of Zoroaster. 17 The property of
      the Magi was very considerable. Besides the less invidious
      possession of a large tract of the most fertile lands of Media,
      18 they levied a general tax on the fortunes and the industry of
      the Persians. 19 “Though your good works,” says the interested
      prophet, “exceed in number the leaves of the trees, the drops of
      rain, the stars in the heaven, or the sands on the sea-shore,
      they will all be unprofitable to you, unless they are accepted by
      the _destour_, or priest. To obtain the acceptation of this guide
      to salvation, you must faithfully pay him _tithes_ of all you
      possess, of your goods, of your lands, and of your money. If the
      destour be satisfied, your soul will escape hell tortures; you
      will secure praise in this world and happiness in the next. For
      the destours are the teachers of religion; they know all things,
      and they deliver all men.” 20 201a

      17 (return) [ Hyde de Religione Persarum, c. 28. Both Hyde and
      Prideaux affect to apply to the Magian the terms consecrated to
      the Christian hierarchy.]

      18 (return) [ Ammian. Marcellin. xxiii. 6. He informs us (as far
      as we may credit him) of two curious particulars: 1. That the
      Magi derived some of their most secret doctrines from the Indian
      Brachmans; and 2. That they were a tribe, or family, as well as
      order.]

      19 (return) [ The divine institution of tithes exhibits a
      singular instance of conformity between the law of Zoroaster and
      that of Moses. Those who cannot otherwise account for it, may
      suppose, if they please that the Magi of the latter times
      inserted so useful an interpolation into the writings of their
      prophet.]

      20 (return) [ Sadder, Art. viii.]

      201a (return) [ The passage quoted by Gibbon is not taken from
      the writings of Zoroaster, but from the Sadder, a work, as has
      been before said, much later than the books which form the
      Zendavesta. and written by a Magus for popular use; what it
      contains, therefore, cannot be attributed to Zoroaster. It is
      remarkable that Gibbon should fall into this error, for Hyde
      himself does not ascribe the Sadder to Zoroaster; he remarks that
      it is written inverse, while Zoroaster always wrote in prose.
      Hyde, i. p. 27. Whatever may be the case as to the latter
      assertion, for which there appears little foundation, it is
      unquestionable that the Sadder is of much later date. The Abbé
      Foucher does not even believe it to be an extract from the works
      of Zoroaster. See his Diss. before quoted. Mem. de l’Acad. des
      Ins. t. xxvii.—G. Perhaps it is rash to speak of any part of the
      Zendavesta as the writing of Zoroaster, though it may be a
      genuine representation of his. As to the Sadder, Hyde (in Præf.)
      considered it not above 200 years old. It is manifestly
      post-Mahometan. See Art. xxv. on fasting.—M.]

      These convenient maxims of reverence and implicit faith were
      doubtless imprinted with care on the tender minds of youth; since
      the Magi were the masters of education in Persia, and to their
      hands the children even of the royal family were intrusted. 21
      The Persian priests, who were of a speculative genius, preserved
      and investigated the secrets of Oriental philosophy; and
      acquired, either by superior knowledge, or superior art, the
      reputation of being well versed in some occult sciences, which
      have derived their appellation from the Magi. 22 Those of more
      active dispositions mixed with the world in courts and cities;
      and it is observed, that the administration of Artaxerxes was in
      a great measure directed by the counsels of the sacerdotal order,
      whose dignity, either from policy or devotion, that prince
      restored to its ancient splendor. 23

      21 (return) [ Plato in Alcibiad.]

      22 (return) [ Pliny (Hist. Natur. l. xxx. c. 1) observes, that
      magic held mankind by the triple chain of religion, of physic,
      and of astronomy.]

      23 (return) [ Agathias, l. iv. p. 134.]

      The first counsel of the Magi was agreeable to the unsociable
      genius of their faith, 24 to the practice of ancient kings, 25
      and even to the example of their legislator, who had fallen a
      victim to a religious war, excited by his own intolerant zeal. 26
      By an edict of Artaxerxes, the exercise of every worship, except
      that of Zoroaster, was severely prohibited. The temples of the
      Parthians, and the statues of their deified monarchs, were thrown
      down with ignominy. 27 The sword of Aristotle (such was the name
      given by the Orientals to the polytheism and philosophy of the
      Greeks) was easily broken; 28 the flames of persecution soon
      reached the more stubborn Jews and Christians; 29 nor did they
      spare the heretics of their own nation and religion. The majesty
      of Ormusd, who was jealous of a rival, was seconded by the
      despotism of Artaxerxes, who could not suffer a rebel; and the
      schismatics within his vast empire were soon reduced to the
      inconsiderable number of eighty thousand. 30 301 This spirit of
      persecution reflects dishonor on the religion of Zoroaster; but
      as it was not productive of any civil commotion, it served to
      strengthen the new monarchy, by uniting all the various
      inhabitants of Persia in the bands of religious zeal. 302

      24 (return) [ Mr. Hume, in the Natural History of Religion,
      sagaciously remarks, that the most refined and philosophic sects
      are constantly the most intolerant. * Note: Hume’s comparison is
      rather between theism and polytheism. In India, in Greece, and in
      modern Europe, philosophic religion has looked down with
      contemptuous toleration on the superstitions of the vulgar.—M.]

      25 (return) [ Cicero de Legibus, ii. 10. Xerxes, by the advice of
      the Magi, destroyed the temples of Greece.]

      26 (return) [ Hyde de Relig. Persar. c. 23, 24. D’Herbelot,
      Bibliotheque Orientale, Zurdusht. Life of Zoroaster in tom. ii.
      of the Zendavesta.]

      27 (return) [ Compare Moses of Chorene, l. ii. c. 74, with
      Ammian. Marcel lin. xxiii. 6. Hereafter I shall make use of these
      passages.]

      28 (return) [ Rabbi Abraham, in the Tarikh Schickard, p. 108,
      109.]

      29 (return) [ Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. viii. c. 3.
      Sozomen, l. ii. c. 1 Manes, who suffered an ignominious death,
      may be deemed a Magian as well as a Christian heretic.]

      30 (return) [ Hyde de Religione Persar. c. 21.]

      301 (return) [ It is incorrect to attribute these persecutions to
      Artaxerxes. The Jews were held in honor by him, and their schools
      flourished during his reign. Compare Jost, Geschichte der
      Isræliter, b. xv. 5, with Basnage. Sapor was forced by the people
      to temporary severities; but their real persecution did not begin
      till the reigns of Yezdigerd and Kobad. Hist. of Jews, iii. 236.
      According to Sozomen, i. viii., Sapor first persecuted the
      Christians. Manes was put to death by Varanes the First, A. D.
      277. Beausobre, Hist. de Man. i. 209.—M.]

      302 (return) [ In the testament of Ardischer in Ferdusi, the poet
      assigns these sentiments to the dying king, as he addresses his
      son: Never forget that as a king, you are at once the protector
      of religion and of your country. Consider the altar and the
      throne as inseparable; they must always sustain each other.
      Malcolm’s Persia. i. 74—M]

      II. Artaxerxes, by his valor and conduct, had wrested the sceptre
      of the East from the ancient royal family of Parthia. There still
      remained the more difficult task of establishing, throughout the
      vast extent of Persia, a uniform and vigorous administration. The
      weak indulgence of the Arsacides had resigned to their sons and
      brothers the principal provinces, and the greatest offices of the
      kingdom in the nature of hereditary possessions. The _vitaxæ_, or
      eighteen most powerful satraps, were permitted to assume the
      regal title; and the vain pride of the monarch was delighted with
      a nominal dominion over so many vassal kings. Even tribes of
      barbarians in their mountains, and the Greek cities of Upper
      Asia, 31 within their walls, scarcely acknowledged, or seldom
      obeyed. any superior; and the Parthian empire exhibited, under
      other names, a lively image of the feudal system 32 which has
      since prevailed in Europe. But the active victor, at the head of
      a numerous and disciplined army, visited in person every province
      of Persia. The defeat of the boldest rebels, and the reduction of
      the strongest fortifications, 33 diffused the terror of his arms,
      and prepared the way for the peaceful reception of his authority.
      An obstinate resistance was fatal to the chiefs; but their
      followers were treated with lenity. 34 A cheerful submission was
      rewarded with honors and riches, but the prudent Artaxerxes,
      suffering no person except himself to assume the title of king,
      abolished every intermediate power between the throne and the
      people. His kingdom, nearly equal in extent to modern Persia,
      was, on every side, bounded by the sea, or by great rivers; by
      the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Araxes, the Oxus, and the Indus,
      by the Caspian Sea, and the Gulf of Persia. 35 That country was
      computed to contain, in the last century, five hundred and
      fifty-four cities, sixty thousand villages, and about forty
      millions of souls. 36 If we compare the administration of the
      house of Sassan with that of the house of Sefi, the political
      influence of the Magian with that of the Mahometan religion, we
      shall probably infer, that the kingdom of Artaxerxes contained at
      least as great a number of cities, villages, and inhabitants. But
      it must likewise be confessed, that in every age the want of
      harbors on the sea-coast, and the scarcity of fresh water in the
      inland provinces, have been very unfavorable to the commerce and
      agriculture of the Persians; who, in the calculation of their
      numbers, seem to have indulged one of the meanest, though most
      common, artifices of national vanity.

      31 (return) [ These colonies were extremely numerous. Seleucus
      Nicator founded thirty-nine cities, all named from himself, or
      some of his relations, (see Appian in Syriac. p. 124.) The æra of
      Seleucus (still in use among the eastern Christians) appears as
      late as the year 508, of Christ 196, on the medals of the Greek
      cities within the Parthian empire. See Moyle’s works, vol. i. p.
      273, &c., and M. Freret, Mem. de l’Academie, tom. xix.]

      32 (return) [ The modern Persians distinguish that period as the
      dynasty of the kings of the nations. See Plin. Hist. Nat. vi.
      25.]

      33 (return) [ Eutychius (tom. i. p. 367, 371, 375) relates the
      siege of the island of Mesene in the Tigris, with some
      circumstances not unlike the story of Nysus and Scylla.]

      34 (return) [ Agathias, ii. 64, [and iv. p. 260.] The princes of
      Segestan de fended their independence during many years. As
      romances generally transport to an ancient period the events of
      their own time, it is not impossible that the fabulous exploits
      of Rustan, Prince of Segestan, many have been grafted on this
      real history.]

      35 (return) [ We can scarcely attribute to the Persian monarchy
      the sea-coast of Gedrosia or Macran, which extends along the
      Indian Ocean from Cape Jask (the promontory Capella) to Cape
      Goadel. In the time of Alexander, and probably many ages
      afterwards, it was thinly inhabited by a savage people of
      Icthyophagi, or Fishermen, who knew no arts, who acknowledged no
      master, and who were divided by in-hospitable deserts from the
      rest of the world. (See Arrian de Reb. Indicis.) In the twelfth
      century, the little town of Taiz (supposed by M. d’Anville to be
      the Teza of Ptolemy) was peopled and enriched by the resort of
      the Arabian merchants. (See Geographia Nubiens, p. 58, and
      d’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 283.) In the last
      age, the whole country was divided between three princes, one
      Mahometan and two Idolaters, who maintained their independence
      against the successors of Shah Abbas. (Voyages de Tavernier, part
      i. l. v. p. 635.)]

      36 (return) [ Chardin, tom. iii c 1 2, 3.]

      As soon as the ambitious mind of Artaxerxes had triumphed ever
      the resistance of his vassals, he began to threaten the
      neighboring states, who, during the long slumber of his
      predecessors, had insulted Persia with impunity. He obtained some
      easy victories over the wild Scythians and the effeminate
      Indians; but the Romans were an enemy, who, by their past
      injuries and present power, deserved the utmost efforts of his
      arms. A forty years’ tranquillity, the fruit of valor and
      moderation, had succeeded the victories of Trajan. During the
      period that elapsed from the accession of Marcus to the reign of
      Alexander, the Roman and the Parthian empires were twice engaged
      in war; and although the whole strength of the Arsacides
      contended with a part only of the forces of Rome, the event was
      most commonly in favor of the latter. Macrinus, indeed, prompted
      by his precarious situation and pusillanimous temper, purchased a
      peace at the expense of near two millions of our money; 37 but
      the generals of Marcus, the emperor Severus, and his son, erected
      many trophies in Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria. Among their
      exploits, the imperfect relation of which would have unseasonably
      interrupted the more important series of domestic revolutions, we
      shall only mention the repeated calamities of the two great
      cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon.

      37 (return) [ Dion, l. xxviii. p. 1335.]

      Seleucia, on the western bank of the Tigris, about forty-five
      miles to the north of ancient Babylon, was the capital of the
      Macedonian conquests in Upper Asia. 38 Many ages after the fall
      of their empire, Seleucia retained the genuine characters of a
      Grecian colony, arts, military virtue, and the love of freedom.
      The independent republic was governed by a senate of three
      hundred nobles; the people consisted of six hundred thousand
      citizens; the walls were strong, and as long as concord prevailed
      among the several orders of the state, they viewed with contempt
      the power of the Parthian: but the madness of faction was
      sometimes provoked to implore the dangerous aid of the common
      enemy, who was posted almost at the gates of the colony. 39 The
      Parthian monarchs, like the Mogul sovereigns of Hindostan,
      delighted in the pastoral life of their Scythian ancestors; and
      the Imperial camp was frequently pitched in the plain of
      Ctesiphon, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, at the distance of
      only three miles from Seleucia. 40 The innumerable attendants on
      luxury and despotism resorted to the court, and the little
      village of Ctesiphon insensibly swelled into a great city. 41
      Under the reign of Marcus, the Roman generals penetrated as far
      as Ctesiphon and Seleucia. They were received as friends by the
      Greek colony; they attacked as enemies the seat of the Parthian
      kings; yet both cities experienced the same treatment. The sack
      and conflagration of Seleucia, with the massacre of three hundred
      thousand of the inhabitants, tarnished the glory of the Roman
      triumph. 42 Seleucia, already exhausted by the neighborhood of a
      too powerful rival, sunk under the fatal blow; but Ctesiphon, in
      about thirty-three years, had sufficiently recovered its strength
      to maintain an obstinate siege against the emperor Severus. The
      city was, however, taken by assault; the king, who defended it in
      person, escaped with precipitation; a hundred thousand captives,
      and a rich booty, rewarded the fatigues of the Roman soldiers. 43
      Notwithstanding these misfortunes, Ctesiphon succeeded to Babylon
      and to Seleucia, as one of the great capitals of the East. In
      summer, the monarch of Persia enjoyed at Ecbatana the cool
      breezes of the mountains of Media; but the mildness of the
      climate engaged him to prefer Ctesiphon for his winter residence.

      38 (return) [ For the precise situation of Babylon, Seleucia,
      Ctesiphon, Moiain, and Bagdad, cities often confounded with each
      other, see an excellent Geographical Tract of M. d’Anville, in
      Mem. de l’Academie, tom. xxx.]

      39 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xi. 42. Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 26.]

      40 (return) [ This may be inferred from Strabo, l. xvi. p. 743.]

      41 (return) [ That most curious traveller, Bernier, who followed
      the camp of Aurengzebe from Delhi to Cashmir, describes with
      great accuracy the immense moving city. The guard of cavalry
      consisted of 35,000 men, that of infantry of 10,000. It was
      computed that the camp contained 150,000 horses, mules, and
      elephants; 50,000 camels, 50,000 oxen, and between 300,000 and
      400,000 persons. Almost all Delhi followed the court, whose
      magnificence supported its industry.]

      42 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxi. p. 1178. Hist. August. p. 38.
      Eutrop. viii. 10 Euseb. in Chronic. Quadratus (quoted in the
      Augustan History) attempted to vindicate the Romans by alleging
      that the citizens of Seleucia had first violated their faith.]

      43 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1263. Herodian, l. iii. p. 120.
      Hist. August. p. 70.]

      From these successful inroads the Romans derived no real or
      lasting benefit; nor did they attempt to preserve such distant
      conquests, separated from the provinces of the empire by a large
      tract of intermediate desert. The reduction of the kingdom of
      Osrhoene was an acquisition of less splendor indeed, but of a far
      more solid advantage. That little state occupied the northern and
      most fertile part of Mesopotamia, between the Euphrates and the
      Tigris. Edessa, its capital, was situated about twenty miles
      beyond the former of those rivers; and the inhabitants, since the
      time of Alexander, were a mixed race of Greeks, Arabs, Syrians,
      and Armenians. 44 The feeble sovereigns of Osrhoene, placed on
      the dangerous verge of two contending empires, were attached from
      inclination to the Parthian cause; but the superior power of Rome
      exacted from them a reluctant homage, which is still attested by
      their medals. After the conclusion of the Parthian war under
      Marcus, it was judged prudent to secure some substantial pledges
      of their doubtful fidelity. Forts were constructed in several
      parts of the country, and a Roman garrison was fixed in the
      strong town of Nisibis. During the troubles that followed the
      death of Commodus, the princes of Osrhoene attempted to shake off
      the yoke; but the stern policy of Severus confirmed their
      dependence, 45 and the perfidy of Caracalla completed the easy
      conquest. Abgarus, the last king of Edessa, was sent in chains to
      Rome, his dominions reduced into a province, and his capital
      dignified with the rank of colony; and thus the Romans, about ten
      years before the fall of the Parthian monarchy, obtained a firm
      and permanent establishment beyond the Euphrates. 46

      44 (return) [ The polished citizens of Antioch called those of
      Edessa mixed barbarians. It was, however, some praise, that of
      the three dialects of the Syriac, the purest and most elegant
      (the Aramæan) was spoken at Edessa. This remark M. Bayer (Hist.
      Edess. p 5) has borrowed from George of Malatia, a Syrian
      writer.]

      45 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1248, 1249, 1250. M. Bayer has
      neglected to use this most important passage.]

      46 (return) [ This kingdom, from Osrhoes, who gave a new name to
      the country, to the last Abgarus, had lasted 353 years. See the
      learned work of M. Bayer, Historia Osrhoena et Edessena.]

      Prudence as well as glory might have justified a war on the side
      of Artaxerxes, had his views been confined to the defence or
      acquisition of a useful frontier. but the ambitious Persian
      openly avowed a far more extensive design of conquest; and he
      thought himself able to support his lofty pretensions by the arms
      of reason as well as by those of power. Cyrus, he alleged, had
      first subdued, and his successors had for a long time possessed,
      the whole extent of Asia, as far as the Propontis and the Ægean
      Sea; the provinces of Caria and Ionia, under their empire, had
      been governed by Persian satraps, and all Egypt, to the confines
      of Æthiopia, had acknowledged their sovereignty. 47 Their rights
      had been suspended, but not destroyed, by a long usurpation; and
      as soon as he received the Persian diadem, which birth and
      successful valor had placed upon his head, the first great duty
      of his station called upon him to restore the ancient limits and
      splendor of the monarchy. The Great King, therefore, (such was
      the haughty style of his embassies to the emperor Alexander,)
      commanded the Romans instantly to depart from all the provinces
      of his ancestors, and, yielding to the Persians the empire of
      Asia, to content themselves with the undisturbed possession of
      Europe. This haughty mandate was delivered by four hundred of the
      tallest and most beautiful of the Persians; who, by their fine
      horses, splendid arms, and rich apparel, displayed the pride and
      greatness of their master. 48 Such an embassy was much less an
      offer of negotiation than a declaration of war. Both Alexander
      Severus and Artaxerxes, collecting the military force of the
      Roman and Persian monarchies, resolved in this important contest
      to lead their armies in person.

      47 (return) [ Xenophon, in the preface to the Cyropædia, gives a
      clear and magnificent idea of the extent of the empire of Cyrus.
      Herodotus (l. iii. c. 79, &c.) enters into a curious and
      particular description of the twenty great Satrapies into which
      the Persian empire was divided by Darius Hystaspes.]

      48 (return) [ Herodian, vi. 209, 212.]

      If we credit what should seem the most authentic of all records,
      an oration, still extant, and delivered by the emperor himself to
      the senate, we must allow that the victory of Alexander Severus
      was not inferior to any of those formerly obtained over the
      Persians by the son of Philip. The army of the Great King
      consisted of one hundred and twenty thousand horse, clothed in
      complete armor of steel; of seven hundred elephants, with towers
      filled with archers on their backs, and of eighteen hundred
      chariots armed with scythes. This formidable host, the like of
      which is not to be found in eastern history, and has scarcely
      been imagined in eastern romance, 49 was discomfited in a great
      battle, in which the Roman Alexander proved himself an intrepid
      soldier and a skilful general. The Great King fled before his
      valor; an immense booty, and the conquest of Mesopotamia, were
      the immediate fruits of this signal victory. Such are the
      circumstances of this ostentatious and improbable relation,
      dictated, as it too plainly appears, by the vanity of the
      monarch, adorned by the unblushing servility of his flatterers,
      and received without contradiction by a distant and obsequious
      senate. 50 Far from being inclined to believe that the arms of
      Alexander obtained any memorable advantage over the Persians, we
      are induced to suspect that all this blaze of imaginary glory was
      designed to conceal some real disgrace.

      49 (return) [ There were two hundred scythed chariots at the
      battle of Arbela, in the host of Darius. In the vast army of
      Tigranes, which was vanquished by Lucullus, seventeen thousand
      horse only were completely armed. Antiochus brought fifty-four
      elephants into the field against the Romans: by his frequent wars
      and negotiations with the princes of India, he had once collected
      a hundred and fifty of those great animals; but it may be
      questioned whether the most powerful monarch of Hindostan evci
      formed a line of battle of seven hundred elephants. Instead of
      three or four thousand elephants, which the Great Mogul was
      supposed to possess, Tavernier (Voyages, part ii. l. i. p. 198)
      discovered, by a more accurate inquiry, that he had only five
      hundred for his baggage, and eighty or ninety for the service of
      war. The Greeks have varied with regard to the number which Porus
      brought into the field; but Quintus Curtius, (viii. 13,) in this
      instance judicious and moderate, is contented with eighty-five
      elephants, distinguished by their size and strength. In Siam,
      where these animals are the most numerous and the most esteemed,
      eighteen elephants are allowed as a sufficient proportion for
      each of the nine brigades into which a just army is divided. The
      whole number, of one hundred and sixty-two elephants of war, may
      sometimes be doubled. Hist. des Voyages, tom. ix. p. 260. * Note:
      Compare Gibbon’s note 10 to ch. lvii—M.]

      50 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 133. * Note: See M. Guizot’s note,
      p. 267. According to the Persian authorities Ardeschir extended
      his conquests to the Euphrates. Malcolm i. 71.—M.]

      Our suspicions are confirmed by the authority of a contemporary
      historian, who mentions the virtues of Alexander with respect,
      and his faults with candor. He describes the judicious plan which
      had been formed for the conduct of the war. Three Roman armies
      were destined to invade Persia at the same time, and by different
      roads. But the operations of the campaign, though wisely
      concerted, were not executed either with ability or success. The
      first of these armies, as soon as it had entered the marshy
      plains of Babylon, towards the artificial conflux of the
      Euphrates and the Tigris, 51 was encompassed by the superior
      numbers, and destroyed by the arrows of the enemy. The alliance
      of Chosroes, king of Armenia, 52 and the long tract of
      mountainous country, in which the Persian cavalry was of little
      service, opened a secure entrance into the heart of Media, to the
      second of the Roman armies. These brave troops laid waste the
      adjacent provinces, and by several successful actions against
      Artaxerxes, gave a faint color to the emperor’s vanity. But the
      retreat of this victorious army was imprudent, or at least
      unfortunate. In repassing the mountains, great numbers of
      soldiers perished by the badness of the roads, and the severity
      of the winter season. It had been resolved, that whilst these two
      great detachments penetrated into the opposite extremes of the
      Persian dominions, the main body, under the command of Alexander
      himself, should support their attack, by invading the centre of
      the kingdom. But the unexperienced youth, influenced by his
      mother’s counsels, and perhaps by his own fears, deserted the
      bravest troops, and the fairest prospect of victory; and after
      consuming in Mesopotamia an inactive and inglorious summer, he
      led back to Antioch an army diminished by sickness, and provoked
      by disappointment. The behavior of Artaxerxes had been very
      different. Flying with rapidity from the hills of Media to the
      marshes of the Euphrates, he had everywhere opposed the invaders
      in person; and in either fortune had united with the ablest
      conduct the most undaunted resolution. But in several obstinate
      engagements against the veteran legions of Rome, the Persian
      monarch had lost the flower of his troops. Even his victories had
      weakened his power. The favorable opportunities of the absence of
      Alexander, and of the confusions that followed that emperor’s
      death, presented themselves in vain to his ambition. Instead of
      expelling the Romans, as he pretended, from the continent of
      Asia, he found himself unable to wrest from their hands the
      little province of Mesopotamia. 53

      51 (return) [ M. de Tillemont has already observed, that
      Herodian’s geography is somewhat confused.]

      52 (return) [ Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 71)
      illustrates this invasion of Media, by asserting that Chosroes,
      king of Armenia, defeated Artaxerxes, and pursued him to the
      confines of India. The exploits of Chosroes have been magnified;
      and he acted as a dependent ally to the Romans.]

      53 (return) [ For the account of this war, see Herodian, l. vi.
      p. 209, 212. The old abbreviators and modern compilers have
      blindly followed the Augustan History.]

      The reign of Artaxerxes, which, from the last defeat of the
      Parthians, lasted only fourteen years, forms a memorable æra in
      the history of the East, and even in that of Rome. His character
      seems to have been marked by those bold and commanding features,
      that generally distinguish the princes who conquer, from those
      who inherit, an empire. Till the last period of the Persian
      monarchy, his code of laws was respected as the groundwork of
      their civil and religious policy. 54 Several of his sayings are
      preserved. One of them in particular discovers a deep insight
      into the constitution of government. “The authority of the
      prince,” said Artaxerxes, “must be defended by a military force;
      that force can only be maintained by taxes; all taxes must, at
      last, fall upon agriculture; and agriculture can never flourish
      except under the protection of justice and moderation.” 55
      Artaxerxes bequeathed his new empire, and his ambitious designs
      against the Romans, to Sapor, a son not unworthy of his great
      father; but those designs were too extensive for the power of
      Persia, and served only to involve both nations in a long series
      of destructive wars and reciprocal calamities.

      54 (return) [Eutychius, tom. ii. p. 180, vers. Pocock. The great
      Chosroes Noushirwan sent the code of Artaxerxes to all his
      satraps, as the invariable rule of their conduct.]

      55 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, au mot Ardshir.
      We may observe, that after an ancient period of fables, and a
      long interval of darkness, the modern histories of Persia begin
      to assume an air of truth with the dynasty of Sassanides. Compare
      Malcolm, i. 79.—M.]

      The Persians, long since civilized and corrupted, were very far
      from possessing the martial independence, and the intrepid
      hardiness, both of mind and body, which have rendered the
      northern barbarians masters of the world. The science of war,
      that constituted the more rational force of Greece and Rome, as
      it now does of Europe, never made any considerable progress in
      the East. Those disciplined evolutions which harmonize and
      animate a confused multitude, were unknown to the Persians. They
      were equally unskilled in the arts of constructing, besieging, or
      defending regular fortifications. They trusted more to their
      numbers than to their courage; more to their courage than to
      their discipline. The infantry was a half-armed, spiritless crowd
      of peasants, levied in haste by the allurements of plunder, and
      as easily dispersed by a victory as by a defeat. The monarch and
      his nobles transported into the camp the pride and luxury of the
      seraglio. Their military operations were impeded by a useless
      train of women, eunuchs, horses, and camels; and in the midst of
      a successful campaign, the Persian host was often separated or
      destroyed by an unexpected famine. 56

      56 (return) [ Herodian, l. vi. p. 214. Ammianus Marcellinus, l.
      xxiii. c. 6. Some differences may be observed between the two
      historians, the natural effects of the changes produced by a
      century and a half.]

      But the nobles of Persia, in the bosom of luxury and despotism,
      preserved a strong sense of personal gallantry and national
      honor. From the age of seven years they were taught to speak
      truth, to shoot with the bow, and to ride; and it was universally
      confessed that in the two last of these arts they had made a more
      than common proficiency. 57 The most distinguished youth were
      educated under the monarch’s eye, practised their exercises in
      the gate of his palace, and were severely trained up to the
      habits of temperance and obedience, in their long and laborious
      parties of hunting. In every province, the satrap maintained a
      like school of military virtue. The Persian nobles (so natural is
      the idea of feudal tenures) received from the king’s bounty lands
      and houses, on the condition of their service in war. They were
      ready on the first summons to mount on horseback, with a martial
      and splendid train of followers, and to join the numerous bodies
      of guards, who were carefully selected from among the most robust
      slaves, and the bravest adventurers of Asia. These armies, both
      of light and of heavy cavalry, equally formidable by the
      impetuosity of their charge and the rapidity of their motions,
      threatened, as an impending cloud, the eastern provinces of the
      declining empire of Rome. 58

      57 (return) [ The Persians are still the most skilful horsemen,
      and their horses the finest in the East.]

      58 (return) [ From Herodotus, Xenophon, Herodian, Ammianus,
      Chardin, &c., I have extracted such probable accounts of the
      Persian nobility, as seem either common to every age, or
      particular to that of the Sassanides.]




      Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part I.

     The State Of Germany Till The Invasion Of The Barbarians In The
     Time Of The Emperor Decius.

      The government and religion of Persia have deserved some notice,
      from their connection with the decline and fall of the Roman
      empire. We shall occasionally mention the Scythian or Sarmatian
      tribes, 1001 which, with their arms and horses, their flocks and
      herds, their wives and families, wandered over the immense plains
      which spread themselves from the Caspian Sea to the Vistula, from
      the confines of Persia to those of Germany. But the warlike
      Germans, who first resisted, then invaded, and at length
      overturned the Western monarchy of Rome, will occupy a much more
      important place in this history, and possess a stronger, and, if
      we may use the expression, a more domestic, claim to our
      attention and regard. The most civilized nations of modern Europe
      issued from the woods of Germany; and in the rude institutions of
      those barbarians we may still distinguish the original principles
      of our present laws and manners. In their primitive state of
      simplicity and independence, the Germans were surveyed by the
      discerning eye, and delineated by the masterly pencil, of
      Tacitus, 1002 the first of historians who applied the science of
      philosophy to the study of facts. The expressive conciseness of
      his descriptions has served to exercise the diligence of
      innumerable antiquarians, and to excite the genius and
      penetration of the philosophic historians of our own times. The
      subject, however various and important, has already been so
      frequently, so ably, and so successfully discussed, that it is
      now grown familiar to the reader, and difficult to the writer. We
      shall therefore content ourselves with observing, and indeed with
      repeating, some of the most important circumstances of climate,
      of manners, and of institutions, which rendered the wild
      barbarians of Germany such formidable enemies to the Roman power.

      1001 (return) [ The Scythians, even according to the ancients,
      are not Sarmatians. It may be doubted whether Gibbon intended to
      confound them.—M. ——The Greeks, after having divided the world
      into Greeks and barbarians. divided the barbarians into four
      great classes, the Celts, the Scythians, the Indians, and the
      Ethiopians. They called Celts all the inhabitants of Gaul.
      Scythia extended from the Baltic Sea to the Lake Aral: the people
      enclosed in the angle to the north-east, between Celtica and
      Scythia, were called Celto-Scythians, and the Sarmatians were
      placed in the southern part of that angle. But these names of
      Celts, of Scythians, of Celto-Scythians, and Sarmatians, were
      invented, says Schlozer, by the profound cosmographical ignorance
      of the Greeks, and have no real ground; they are purely
      geographical divisions, without any relation to the true
      affiliation of the different races. Thus all the inhabitants of
      Gaul are called Celts by most of the ancient writers; yet Gaul
      contained three totally distinct nations, the Belgæ, the
      Aquitani, and the Gauls, properly so called. Hi omnes lingua
      institutis, legibusque inter se differunt. Cæsar. Com. c. i. It
      is thus the Turks call all Europeans Franks. Schlozer, Allgemeine
      Nordische Geschichte, p. 289. 1771. Bayer (de Origine et priscis
      Sedibus Scytharum, in Opusc. p. 64) says, Primus eorum, de quibus
      constat, Ephorus, in quarto historiarum libro, orbem terrarum
      inter Scythas, Indos, Æthiopas et Celtas divisit. Fragmentum ejus
      loci Cosmas Indicopleustes in topographia Christiana, f. 148,
      conservavit. Video igitur Ephorum, cum locorum positus per certa
      capita distribuere et explicare constitueret, insigniorum nomina
      gentium vastioribus spatiis adhibuisse, nulla mala fraude et
      successu infelici. Nam Ephoro quoquomodo dicta pro exploratis
      habebant Græci plerique et Romani: ita gliscebat error
      posteritate. Igitur tot tamque diversæ stirpis gentes non modo
      intra communem quandam regionem definitæ, unum omnes Scytharum
      nomen his auctoribus subierunt, sed etiam ab illa regionis
      adpellatione in eandem nationem sunt conflatæ. Sic Cimmeriorum
      res cum Scythicis, Scytharum cum Sarmaticis, Russicis, Hunnicis,
      Tataricis commiscentur.—G.]

      1002 (return) [ The Germania of Tacitus has been a fruitful
      source of hypothesis to the ingenuity of modern writers, who have
      endeavored to account for the form of the work and the views of
      the author. According to Luden, (Geschichte des T. V. i. 432, and
      note,) it contains the unfinished and disarranged for a larger
      work. An anonymous writer, supposed by Luden to be M. Becker,
      conceives that it was intended as an episode in his larger
      history. According to M. Guizot, “Tacite a peint les Germains
      comme Montaigne et Rousseau les sauvages, dans un acces d’humeur
      contre sa patrie: son livre est une satire des moeurs Romaines,
      l’eloquente boutade d’un patriote philosophe qui veut voir la
      vertu la, ou il ne rencontre pas la mollesse honteuse et la
      depravation savante d’une vielle societe.” Hist. de la
      Civilisation Moderne, i. 258.—M.]

      Ancient Germany, excluding from its independent limits the
      province westward of the Rhine, which had submitted to the Roman
      yoke, extended itself over a third part of Europe. 1 Almost the
      whole of modern Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland,
      Livonia, Prussia, and the greater part of Poland, were peopled by
      the various tribes of one great nation, whose complexion,
      manners, and language denoted a common origin, and preserved a
      striking resemblance. On the west, ancient Germany was divided by
      the Rhine from the Gallic, and on the south, by the Danube, from
      the Illyrian, provinces of the empire. A ridge of hills, rising
      from the Danube, and called the Carpathian Mountains, covered
      Germany on the side of Dacia or Hungary. The eastern frontier was
      faintly marked by the mutual fears of the Germans and the
      Sarmatians, and was often confounded by the mixture of warring
      and confederating tribes of the two nations. In the remote
      darkness of the north, the ancients imperfectly descried a frozen
      ocean that lay beyond the Baltic Sea, and beyond the Peninsula,
      or islands 1001a of Scandinavia.

      1 (return) [ Germany was not of such vast extent. It is from
      Cæsar, and more particularly from Ptolemy, (says Gatterer,) that
      we can know what was the state of ancient Germany before the wars
      with the Romans had changed the positions of the tribes. Germany,
      as changed by these wars, has been described by Strabo, Pliny,
      and Tacitus. Germany, properly so called, was bounded on the west
      by the Rhine, on the east by the Vistula, on the north by the
      southern point of Norway, by Sweden, and Esthonia. On the south,
      the Maine and the mountains to the north of Bohemia formed the
      limits. Before the time of Cæsar, the country between the Maine
      and the Danube was partly occupied by the Helvetians and other
      Gauls, partly by the Hercynian forest but, from the time of Cæsar
      to the great migration, these boundaries were advanced as far as
      the Danube, or, what is the same thing, to the Suabian Alps,
      although the Hercynian forest still occupied, from north to
      south, a space of nine days’ journey on both banks of the Danube.
      “Gatterer, Versuch einer all-gemeinen Welt-Geschichte,” p. 424,
      edit. de 1792. This vast country was far from being inhabited by
      a single nation divided into different tribes of the same origin.
      We may reckon three principal races, very distinct in their
      language, their origin, and their customs. 1. To the east, the
      Slaves or Vandals. 2. To the west, the Cimmerians or Cimbri. 3.
      Between the Slaves and Cimbrians, the Germans, properly so
      called, the Suevi of Tacitus. The South was inhabited, before
      Julius Cæsar, by nations of Gaulish origin, afterwards by the
      Suevi.—G. On the position of these nations, the German
      antiquaries differ. I. The Slaves, or Sclavonians, or Wendish
      tribes, according to Schlozer, were originally settled in parts
      of Germany unknown to the Romans, Mecklenburgh, Pomerania,
      Brandenburgh, Upper Saxony; and Lusatia. According to Gatterer,
      they remained to the east of the Theiss, the Niemen, and the
      Vistula, till the third century. The Slaves, according to
      Procopius and Jornandes, formed three great divisions. 1. The
      Venedi or Vandals, who took the latter name, (the Wenden,) having
      expelled the Vandals, properly so called, (a Suevian race, the
      conquerors of Africa,) from the country between the Memel and the
      Vistula. 2. The Antes, who inhabited between the Dneister and the
      Dnieper. 3. The Sclavonians, properly so called, in the north of
      Dacia. During the great migration, these races advanced into
      Germany as far as the Saal and the Elbe. The Sclavonian language
      is the stem from which have issued the Russian, the Polish, the
      Bohemian, and the dialects of Lusatia, of some parts of the duchy
      of Luneburgh, of Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria, &c.; those of
      Croatia, Bosnia, and Bulgaria. Schlozer, Nordische Geschichte, p.
      323, 335. II. The Cimbric race. Adelung calls by this name all
      who were not Suevi. This race had passed the Rhine, before the
      time of Cæsar, occupied Belgium, and are the Belgæ of Cæsar and
      Pliny. The Cimbrians also occupied the Isle of Jutland. The Cymri
      of Wales and of Britain are of this race. Many tribes on the
      right bank of the Rhine, the Guthini in Jutland, the Usipeti in
      Westphalia, the Sigambri in the duchy of Berg, were German
      Cimbrians. III. The Suevi, known in very early times by the
      Romans, for they are mentioned by L. Corn. Sisenna, who lived 123
      years before Christ, (Nonius v. Lancea.) This race, the real
      Germans, extended to the Vistula, and from the Baltic to the
      Hercynian forest. The name of Suevi was sometimes confined to a
      single tribe, as by Cæsar to the Catti. The name of the Suevi has
      been preserved in Suabia. These three were the principal races
      which inhabited Germany; they moved from east to west, and are
      the parent stem of the modern natives. But northern Europe,
      according to Schlozer, was not peopled by them alone; other
      races, of different origin, and speaking different languages,
      have inhabited and left descendants in these countries. The
      German tribes called themselves, from very remote times, by the
      generic name of Teutons, (Teuten, Deutschen,) which Tacitus
      derives from that of one of their gods, Tuisco. It appears more
      probable that it means merely men, people. Many savage nations
      have given themselves no other name. Thus the Laplanders call
      themselves Almag, people; the Samoiedes Nilletz, Nissetsch, men,
      &c. As to the name of Germans, (Germani,) Cæsar found it in use
      in Gaul, and adopted it as a word already known to the Romans.
      Many of the learned (from a passage of Tacitus, de Mor Germ. c.
      2) have supposed that it was only applied to the Teutons after
      Cæsar’s time; but Adelung has triumphantly refuted this opinion.
      The name of Germans is found in the Fasti Capitolini. See Gruter,
      Iscrip. 2899, in which the consul Marcellus, in the year of Rome
      531, is said to have defeated the Gauls, the Insubrians, and the
      Germans, commanded by Virdomar. See Adelung, Ælt. Geschichte der
      Deutsch, p. 102.—Compressed from G.]

      1001a (return) [ The modern philosophers of Sweden seem agreed
      that the waters of the Baltic gradually sink in a regular
      proportion, which they have ventured to estimate at half an inch
      every year. Twenty centuries ago the flat country of Scandinavia
      must have been covered by the sea; while the high lands rose
      above the waters, as so many islands of various forms and
      dimensions. Such, indeed, is the notion given us by Mela, Pliny,
      and Tacitus, of the vast countries round the Baltic. See in the
      Bibliotheque Raisonnee, tom. xl. and xlv. a large abstract of
      Dalin’s History of Sweden, composed in the Swedish language. *
      Note: Modern geologists have rejected this theory of the
      depression of the Baltic, as inconsistent with recent
      observation. The considerable changes which have taken place on
      its shores, Mr. Lyell, from actual observation now decidedly
      attributes to the regular and uniform elevation of the
      land.—Lyell’s Geology, b. ii. c. 17—M.]

      Some ingenious writers 2 have suspected that Europe was much
      colder formerly than it is at present; and the most ancient
      descriptions of the climate of Germany tend exceedingly to
      confirm their theory. The general complaints of intense frost and
      eternal winter are perhaps little to be regarded, since we have
      no method of reducing to the accurate standard of the
      thermometer, the feelings, or the expressions, of an orator born
      in the happier regions of Greece or Asia. But I shall select two
      remarkable circumstances of a less equivocal nature. 1. The great
      rivers which covered the Roman provinces, the Rhine and the
      Danube, were frequently frozen over, and capable of supporting
      the most enormous weights. The barbarians, who often chose that
      severe season for their inroads, transported, without
      apprehension or danger, their numerous armies, their cavalry, and
      their heavy wagons, over a vast and solid bridge of ice. 3 Modern
      ages have not presented an instance of a like phenomenon. 2. The
      reindeer, that useful animal, from whom the savage of the North
      derives the best comforts of his dreary life, is of a
      constitution that supports, and even requires, the most intense
      cold. He is found on the rock of Spitzberg, within ten degrees of
      the Pole; he seems to delight in the snows of Lapland and
      Siberia: but at present he cannot subsist, much less multiply, in
      any country to the south of the Baltic. 4 In the time of Cæsar
      the reindeer, as well as the elk and the wild bull, was a native
      of the Hercynian forest, which then overshadowed a great part of
      Germany and Poland. 5 The modern improvements sufficiently
      explain the causes of the diminution of the cold. These immense
      woods have been gradually cleared, which intercepted from the
      earth the rays of the sun. 6 The morasses have been drained, and,
      in proportion as the soil has been cultivated, the air has become
      more temperate. Canada, at this day, is an exact picture of
      ancient Germany. Although situated in the same parallel with the
      finest provinces of France and England, that country experiences
      the most rigorous cold. The reindeer are very numerous, the
      ground is covered with deep and lasting snow, and the great river
      of St. Lawrence is regularly frozen, in a season when the waters
      of the Seine and the Thames are usually free from ice. 7

      2 (return) [ In particular, Mr. Hume, the Abbé du Bos, and M.
      Pelloutier. Hist. des Celtes, tom. i.]

      3 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus, l. v. p. 340, edit. Wessel.
      Herodian, l. vi. p. 221. Jornandes, c. 55. On the banks of the
      Danube, the wine, when brought to table, was frequently frozen
      into great lumps, frusta vini. Ovid. Epist. ex Ponto, l. iv. 7,
      9, 10. Virgil. Georgic. l. iii. 355. The fact is confirmed by a
      soldier and a philosopher, who had experienced the intense cold
      of Thrace. See Xenophon, Anabasis, l. vii. p. 560, edit.
      Hutchinson. Note: The Danube is constantly frozen over. At Pesth
      the bridge is usually taken up, and the traffic and communication
      between the two banks carried on over the ice. The Rhine is
      likewise in many parts passable at least two years out of five.
      Winter campaigns are so unusual, in modern warfare, that I
      recollect but one instance of an army crossing either river on
      the ice. In the thirty years’ war, (1635,) Jan van Werth, an
      Imperialist partisan, crossed the Rhine from Heidelberg on the
      ice with 5000 men, and surprised Spiers. Pichegru’s memorable
      campaign, (1794-5,) when the freezing of the Meuse and Waal
      opened Holland to his conquests, and his cavalry and artillery
      attacked the ships frozen in, on the Zuyder Zee, was in a winter
      of unprecedented severity.—M. 1845.]

      4 (return) [ Buffon, Histoire Naturelle, tom. xii. p. 79, 116.]

      5 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gallic. vi. 23, &c. The most
      inquisitive of the Germans were ignorant of its utmost limits,
      although some of them had travelled in it more than sixty days’
      journey. * Note: The passage of Cæsar, “parvis renonum tegumentis
      utuntur,” is obscure, observes Luden, (Geschichte des Teutschen
      Volkes,) and insufficient to prove the reindeer to have existed
      in Germany. It is supported however, by a fragment of Sallust.
      Germani intectum rhenonibus corpus tegunt.—M. It has been
      suggested to me that Cæsar (as old Gesner supposed) meant the
      reindeer in the following description. Est bos cervi figura cujus
      a media fronte inter aures unum cornu existit, excelsius magisque
      directum (divaricatum, qu?) his quæ nobis nota sunt cornibus. At
      ejus summo, sicut palmæ, rami quam late diffunduntur. Bell.
      vi.—M. 1845.]

      6 (return) [ Cluverius (Germania Antiqua, l. iii. c. 47)
      investigates the small and scattered remains of the Hercynian
      wood.]

      7 (return) [ Charlevoix, Histoire du Canada.]

      It is difficult to ascertain, and easy to exaggerate, the
      influence of the climate of ancient Germany over the minds and
      bodies of the natives. Many writers have supposed, and most have
      allowed, though, as it should seem, without any adequate proof,
      that the rigorous cold of the North was favorable to long life
      and generative vigor, that the women were more fruitful, and the
      human species more prolific, than in warmer or more temperate
      climates. 8 We may assert, with greater confidence, that the keen
      air of Germany formed the large and masculine limbs of the
      natives, who were, in general, of a more lofty stature than the
      people of the South, 9 gave them a kind of strength better
      adapted to violent exertions than to patient labor, and inspired
      them with constitutional bravery, which is the result of nerves
      and spirits. The severity of a winter campaign, that chilled the
      courage of the Roman troops, was scarcely felt by these hardy
      children of the North, 10 who, in their turn, were unable to
      resist the summer heats, and dissolved away in languor and
      sickness under the beams of an Italian sun. 11

      8 (return) [ Olaus Rudbeck asserts that the Swedish women often
      bear ten or twelve children, and not uncommonly twenty or thirty;
      but the authority of Rudbeck is much to be suspected.]

      9 (return) [ In hos artus, in hæc corpora, quæ miramur,
      excrescunt. Tæit Germania, 3, 20. Cluver. l. i. c. 14.]

      10 (return) [ Plutarch. in Mario. The Cimbri, by way of
      amusement, often did down mountains of snow on their broad
      shields.]

      11 (return) [ The Romans made war in all climates, and by their
      excellent discipline were in a great measure preserved in health
      and vigor. It may be remarked, that man is the only animal which
      can live and multiply in every country from the equator to the
      poles. The hog seems to approach the nearest to our species in
      that privilege.]




      Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part II.

      There is not anywhere upon the globe a large tract of country,
      which we have discovered destitute of inhabitants, or whose first
      population can be fixed with any degree of historical certainty.
      And yet, as the most philosophic minds can seldom refrain from
      investigating the infancy of great nations, our curiosity
      consumes itself in toilsome and disappointed efforts. When
      Tacitus considered the purity of the German blood, and the
      forbidding aspect of the country, he was disposed to pronounce
      those barbarians _Indigenæ_, or natives of the soil. We may allow
      with safety, and perhaps with truth, that ancient Germany was not
      originally peopled by any foreign colonies already formed into a
      political society; 12 but that the name and nation received their
      existence from the gradual union of some wandering savages of the
      Hercynian woods. To assert those savages to have been the
      spontaneous production of the earth which they inhabited would be
      a rash inference, condemned by religion, and unwarranted by
      reason.

      12 (return) [ Facit. Germ. c. 3. The emigration of the Gauls
      followed the course of the Danube, and discharged itself on
      Greece and Asia. Tacitus could discover only one inconsiderable
      tribe that retained any traces of a Gallic origin. * Note: The
      Gothini, who must not be confounded with the Gothi, a Suevian
      tribe. In the time of Cæsar many other tribes of Gaulish origin
      dwelt along the course of the Danube, who could not long resist
      the attacks of the Suevi. The Helvetians, who dwelt on the
      borders of the Black Forest, between the Maine and the Danube,
      had been expelled long before the time of Cæsar. He mentions also
      the Volci Tectosagi, who came from Languedoc and settled round
      the Black Forest. The Boii, who had penetrated into that forest,
      and also have left traces of their name in Bohemia, were subdued
      in the first century by the Marcomanni. The Boii settled in
      Noricum, were mingled afterwards with the Lombards, and received
      the name of Boio Arii (Bavaria) or Boiovarii: var, in some German
      dialects, appearing to mean remains, descendants. Compare Malte
      B-m, Geography, vol. i. p. 410, edit 1832—M.]

      Such rational doubt is but ill suited with the genius of popular
      vanity. Among the nations who have adopted the Mosaic history of
      the world, the ark of Noah has been of the same use, as was
      formerly to the Greeks and Romans the siege of Troy. On a narrow
      basis of acknowledged truth, an immense but rude superstructure
      of fable has been erected; and the wild Irishman, 13 as well as
      the wild Tartar, 14 could point out the individual son of Japhet,
      from whose loins his ancestors were lineally descended. The last
      century abounded with antiquarians of profound learning and easy
      faith, who, by the dim light of legends and traditions, of
      conjectures and etymologies, conducted the great grandchildren of
      Noah from the Tower of Babel to the extremities of the globe. Of
      these judicious critics, one of the most entertaining was Olaus
      Rudbeck, professor in the university of Upsal. 15 Whatever is
      celebrated either in history or fable this zealous patriot
      ascribes to his country. From Sweden (which formed so
      considerable a part of ancient Germany) the Greeks themselves
      derived their alphabetical characters, their astronomy, and their
      religion. Of that delightful region (for such it appeared to the
      eyes of a native) the Atlantis of Plato, the country of the
      Hyperboreans, the gardens of the Hesperides, the Fortunate
      Islands, and even the Elysian Fields, were all but faint and
      imperfect transcripts. A clime so profusely favored by Nature
      could not long remain desert after the flood. The learned Rudbeck
      allows the family of Noah a few years to multiply from eight to
      about twenty thousand persons. He then disperses them into small
      colonies to replenish the earth, and to propagate the human
      species. The German or Swedish detachment (which marched, if I am
      not mistaken, under the command of Askenaz, the son of Gomer, the
      son of Japhet) distinguished itself by a more than common
      diligence in the prosecution of this great work. The northern
      hive cast its swarms over the greatest part of Europe, Africa,
      and Asia; and (to use the author’s metaphor) the blood circulated
      from the extremities to the heart.

      13 (return) [ According to Dr. Keating, (History of Ireland, p.
      13, 14,) the giant Portholanus, who was the son of Seara, the son
      of Esra, the son of Sru, the son of Framant, the son of
      Fathaclan, the son of Magog, the son of Japhet, the son of Noah,
      landed on the coast of Munster the 14th day of May, in the year
      of the world one thousand nine hundred and seventy-eight. Though
      he succeeded in his great enterprise, the loose behavior of his
      wife rendered his domestic life very unhappy, and provoked him to
      such a degree, that he killed—her favorite greyhound. This, as
      the learned historian very properly observes, was the first
      instance of female falsehood and infidelity ever known in
      Ireland.]

      14 (return) [ Genealogical History of the Tartars, by Abulghazi
      Bahadur Khan.]

      15 (return) [ His work, entitled Atlantica, is uncommonly scarce.
      Bayle has given two most curious extracts from it. Republique des
      Lettres Janvier et Fevrier, 1685.]

      But all this well-labored system of German antiquities is
      annihilated by a single fact, too well attested to admit of any
      doubt, and of too decisive a nature to leave room for any reply.
      The Germans, in the age of Tacitus, were unacquainted with the
      use of letters; 16 and the use of letters is the principal
      circumstance that distinguishes a civilized people from a herd of
      savages incapable of knowledge or reflection. Without that
      artificial help, the human memory soon dissipates or corrupts the
      ideas intrusted to her charge; and the nobler faculties of the
      mind, no longer supplied with models or with materials, gradually
      forget their powers; the judgment becomes feeble and lethargic,
      the imagination languid or irregular. Fully to apprehend this
      important truth, let us attempt, in an improved society, to
      calculate the immense distance between the man of learning and
      the _illiterate_ peasant. The former, by reading and reflection,
      multiplies his own experience, and lives in distant ages and
      remote countries; whilst the latter, rooted to a single spot, and
      confined to a few years of existence, surpasses but very little
      his fellow-laborer, the ox, in the exercise of his mental
      faculties. The same, and even a greater, difference will be found
      between nations than between individuals; and we may safely
      pronounce, that without some species of writing, no people has
      ever preserved the faithful annals of their history, ever made
      any considerable progress in the abstract sciences, or ever
      possessed, in any tolerable degree of perfection, the useful and
      agreeable arts of life.

      16 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. ii. 19. Literarum secreta viri pariter
      ac foeminæ ignorant. We may rest contented with this decisive
      authority, without entering into the obscure disputes concerning
      the antiquity of the Runic characters. The learned Celsius, a
      Swede, a scholar, and a philosopher, was of opinion, that they
      were nothing more than the Roman letters, with the curves changed
      into straight lines for the ease of engraving. See Pelloutier,
      Histoire des Celtes, l. ii. c. 11. Dictionnaire Diplomatique,
      tom. i. p. 223. We may add, that the oldest Runic inscriptions
      are supposed to be of the third century, and the most ancient
      writer who mentions the Runic characters is Venan tius
      Frotunatus, (Carm. vii. 18,) who lived towards the end of the
      sixth century. Barbara fraxineis pingatur Runa tabellis. * Note:
      The obscure subject of the Runic characters has exercised the
      industry and ingenuity of the modern scholars of the north. There
      are three distinct theories; one, maintained by Schlozer,
      (Nordische Geschichte, p. 481, &c.,) who considers their sixteen
      letters to be a corruption of the Roman alphabet, post-Christian
      in their date, and Schlozer would attribute their introduction
      into the north to the Alemanni. The second, that of Frederick
      Schlegel, (Vorlesungen uber alte und neue Literatur,) supposes
      that these characters were left on the coasts of the
      Mediterranean and Northern Seas by the Phœnicians, preserved by
      the priestly castes, and employed for purposes of magic. Their
      common origin from the Phœnician would account for heir
      similarity to the Roman letters. The last, to which we incline,
      claims much higher and more venerable antiquity for the Runic,
      and supposes them to have been the original characters of the
      Indo-Teutonic tribes, brought from the East, and preserved among
      the different races of that stock. See Ueber Deutsche Runen von
      W. C. Grimm, 1821. A Memoir by Dr. Legis. Fundgruben des alten
      Nordens. Foreign Quarterly Review vol. ix. p. 438.—M.]

      Of these arts, the ancient Germans were wretchedly destitute.
      1601 They passed their lives in a state of ignorance and poverty,
      which it has pleased some declaimers to dignify with the
      appellation of virtuous simplicity. Modern Germany is said to
      contain about two thousand three hundred walled towns. 17 In a
      much wider extent of country, the geographer Ptolemy could
      discover no more than ninety places which he decorates with the
      name of cities; 18 though, according to our ideas, they would but
      ill deserve that splendid title. We can only suppose them to have
      been rude fortifications, constructed in the centre of the woods,
      and designed to secure the women, children, and cattle, whilst
      the warriors of the tribe marched out to repel a sudden invasion.
      19 But Tacitus asserts, as a well-known fact, that the Germans,
      in his time, had _no_ cities; 20 and that they affected to
      despise the works of Roman industry, as places of confinement
      rather than of security. 21 Their edifices were not even
      contiguous, or formed into regular villas; 22 each barbarian
      fixed his independent dwelling on the spot to which a plain, a
      wood, or a stream of fresh water, had induced him to give the
      preference. Neither stone, nor brick, nor tiles, were employed in
      these slight habitations. 23 They were indeed no more than low
      huts, of a circular figure, built of rough timber, thatched with
      straw, and pierced at the top to leave a free passage for the
      smoke. In the most inclement winter, the hardy German was
      satisfied with a scanty garment made of the skin of some animal.
      The nations who dwelt towards the North clothed themselves in
      furs; and the women manufactured for their own use a coarse kind
      of linen. 24 The game of various sorts, with which the forests of
      Germany were plentifully stocked, supplied its inhabitants with
      food and exercise. 25 Their monstrous herds of cattle, less
      remarkable indeed for their beauty than for their utility, 26
      formed the principal object of their wealth. A small quantity of
      corn was the only produce exacted from the earth; the use of
      orchards or artificial meadows was unknown to the Germans; nor
      can we expect any improvements in agriculture from a people,
      whose prosperity every year experienced a general change by a new
      division of the arable lands, and who, in that strange operation,
      avoided disputes, by suffering a great part of their territory to
      lie waste and without tillage. 27

      1601 (return) [ Luden (the author of the Geschichte des Teutschen
      Volkes) has surpassed most writers in his patriotic enthusiasm
      for the virtues and noble manners of his ancestors. Even the cold
      of the climate, and the want of vines and fruit trees, as well as
      the barbarism of the inhabitants, are calumnies of the luxurious
      Italians. M. Guizot, on the other side, (in his Histoire de la
      Civilisation, vol. i. p. 272, &c.,) has drawn a curious parallel
      between the Germans of Tacitus and the North American
      Indians.—M.]

      17 (return) [ Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains, tom.
      iii. p. 228. The author of that very curious work is, if I am not
      misinformed, a German by birth. (De Pauw.)]

      18 (return) [ The Alexandrian Geographer is often criticized by
      the accurate Cluverius.]

      19 (return) [ See Cæsar, and the learned Mr. Whitaker in his
      History of Manchester, vol. i.]

      20 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 15.]

      21 (return) [ When the Germans commanded the Ubii of Cologne to
      cast off the Roman yoke, and with their new freedom to resume
      their ancient manners, they insisted on the immediate demolition
      of the walls of the colony. “Postulamus a vobis, muros coloniæ,
      munimenta servitii, detrahatis; etiam fera animalia, si clausa
      teneas, virtutis obliviscuntur.” Tacit. Hist. iv. 64.]

      22 (return) [ The straggling villages of Silesia are several
      miles in length. See Cluver. l. i. c. 13.]

      23 (return) [ One hundred and forty years after Tacitus, a few
      more regular structures were erected near the Rhine and Danube.
      Herodian, l. vii. p. 234.]

      24 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 17.]

      25 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 5.]

      26 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gall. vi. 21.]

      27 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 26. Cæsar, vi. 22.]

      Gold, silver, and iron, were extremely scarce in Germany. Its
      barbarous inhabitants wanted both skill and patience to
      investigate those rich veins of silver, which have so liberally
      rewarded the attention of the princes of Brunswick and Saxony.
      Sweden, which now supplies Europe with iron, was equally ignorant
      of its own riches; and the appearance of the arms of the Germans
      furnished a sufficient proof how little iron they were able to
      bestow on what they must have deemed the noblest use of that
      metal. The various transactions of peace and war had introduced
      some Roman coins (chiefly silver) among the borderers of the
      Rhine and Danube; but the more distant tribes were absolutely
      unacquainted with the use of money, carried on their confined
      traffic by the exchange of commodities, and prized their rude
      earthen vessels as of equal value with the silver vases, the
      presents of Rome to their princes and ambassadors. 28 To a mind
      capable of reflection, such leading facts convey more
      instruction, than a tedious detail of subordinate circumstances.
      The value of money has been settled by general consent to express
      our wants and our property, as letters were invented to express
      our ideas; and both these institutions, by giving a more active
      energy to the powers and passions of human nature, have
      contributed to multiply the objects they were designed to
      represent. The use of gold and silver is in a great measure
      factitious; but it would be impossible to enumerate the important
      and various services which agriculture, and all the arts, have
      received from iron, when tempered and fashioned by the operation
      of fire and the dexterous hand of man. Money, in a word, is the
      most universal incitement, iron the most powerful instrument, of
      human industry; and it is very difficult to conceive by what
      means a people, neither actuated by the one, nor seconded by the
      other, could emerge from the grossest barbarism. 29

      28 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 6.]

      29 (return) [ It is said that the Mexicans and Peruvians, without
      the use of either money or iron, had made a very great progress
      in the arts. Those arts, and the monuments they produced, have
      been strangely magnified. See Recherches sur les Americains, tom.
      ii. p. 153, &c]

      If we contemplate a savage nation in any part of the globe, a
      supine indolence and a carelessness of futurity will be found to
      constitute their general character. In a civilized state every
      faculty of man is expanded and exercised; and the great chain of
      mutual dependence connects and embraces the several members of
      society. The most numerous portion of it is employed in constant
      and useful labor. The select few, placed by fortune above that
      necessity, can, however, fill up their time by the pursuits of
      interest or glory, by the improvement of their estate or of their
      understanding, by the duties, the pleasures, and even the follies
      of social life. The Germans were not possessed of these varied
      resources. The care of the house and family, the management of
      the land and cattle, were delegated to the old and the infirm, to
      women and slaves. The lazy warrior, destitute of every art that
      might employ his leisure hours, consumed his days and nights in
      the animal gratifications of sleep and food. And yet, by a
      wonderful diversity of nature, (according to the remark of a
      writer who had pierced into its darkest recesses,) the same
      barbarians are by turns the most indolent and the most restless
      of mankind. They delight in sloth, they detest tranquility. 30
      The languid soul, oppressed with its own weight, anxiously
      required some new and powerful sensation; and war and danger were
      the only amusements adequate to its fierce temper. The sound that
      summoned the German to arms was grateful to his ear. It roused
      him from his uncomfortable lethargy, gave him an active pursuit,
      and, by strong exercise of the body, and violent emotions of the
      mind, restored him to a more lively sense of his existence. In
      the dull intervals of peace, these barbarians were immoderately
      addicted to deep gaming and excessive drinking; both of which, by
      different means, the one by inflaming their passions, the other
      by extinguishing their reason, alike relieved them from the pain
      of thinking. They gloried in passing whole days and nights at
      table; and the blood of friends and relations often stained their
      numerous and drunken assemblies. 31 Their debts of honor (for in
      that light they have transmitted to us those of play) they
      discharged with the most romantic fidelity. The desperate
      gamester, who had staked his person and liberty on a last throw
      of the dice, patiently submitted to the decision of fortune, and
      suffered himself to be bound, chastised, and sold into remote
      slavery, by his weaker but more lucky antagonist. 32

      30 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 15.]

      31 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 22, 23.]

      32 (return) [ Id. 24. The Germans might borrow the arts of play
      from the Romans, but the passion is wonderfully inherent in the
      human species.]

      Strong beer, a liquor extracted with very little art from wheat
      or barley, and _corrupted_ (as it is strongly expressed by
      Tacitus) into a certain semblance of wine, was sufficient for the
      gross purposes of German debauchery. But those who had tasted the
      rich wines of Italy, and afterwards of Gaul, sighed for that more
      delicious species of intoxication. They attempted not, however,
      (as has since been executed with so much success,) to naturalize
      the vine on the banks of the Rhine and Danube; nor did they
      endeavor to procure by industry the materials of an advantageous
      commerce. To solicit by labor what might be ravished by arms, was
      esteemed unworthy of the German spirit. 33 The intemperate thirst
      of strong liquors often urged the barbarians to invade the
      provinces on which art or nature had bestowed those much envied
      presents. The Tuscan who betrayed his country to the Celtic
      nations, attracted them into Italy by the prospect of the rich
      fruits and delicious wines, the productions of a happier climate.
      34 And in the same manner the German auxiliaries, invited into
      France during the civil wars of the sixteenth century, were
      allured by the promise of plenteous quarters in the provinces of
      Champaigne and Burgundy. 35 Drunkenness, the most illiberal, but
      not the most dangerous of _our_ vices, was sometimes capable, in
      a less civilized state of mankind, of occasioning a battle, a
      war, or a revolution.

      33 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 14.]

      34 (return) [ Plutarch. in Camillo. T. Liv. v. 33.]

      35 (return) [ Dubos. Hist. de la Monarchie Francoise, tom. i. p.
      193.]

      The climate of ancient Germany has been modified, and the soil
      fertilized, by the labor of ten centuries from the time of
      Charlemagne. The same extent of ground which at present
      maintains, in ease and plenty, a million of husbandmen and
      artificers, was unable to supply a hundred thousand lazy warriors
      with the simple necessaries of life. 36 The Germans abandoned
      their immense forests to the exercise of hunting, employed in
      pasturage the most considerable part of their lands, bestowed on
      the small remainder a rude and careless cultivation, and then
      accused the scantiness and sterility of a country that refused to
      maintain the multitude of its inhabitants. When the return of
      famine severely admonished them of the importance of the arts,
      the national distress was sometimes alleviated by the emigration
      of a third, perhaps, or a fourth part of their youth. 37 The
      possession and the enjoyment of property are the pledges which
      bind a civilized people to an improved country. But the Germans,
      who carried with them what they most valued, their arms, their
      cattle, and their women, cheerfully abandoned the vast silence of
      their woods for the unbounded hopes of plunder and conquest. The
      innumerable swarms that issued, or seemed to issue, from the
      great storehouse of nations, were multiplied by the fears of the
      vanquished, and by the credulity of succeeding ages. And from
      facts thus exaggerated, an opinion was gradually established, and
      has been supported by writers of distinguished reputation, that,
      in the age of Cæsar and Tacitus, the inhabitants of the North
      were far more numerous than they are in our days. 38 A more
      serious inquiry into the causes of population seems to have
      convinced modern philosophers of the falsehood, and indeed the
      impossibility, of the supposition. To the names of Mariana and of
      Machiavel, 39 we can oppose the equal names of Robertson and
      Hume. 40

      36 (return) [ The Helvetian nation, which issued from a country
      called Switzerland, contained, of every age and sex, 368,000
      persons, (Cæsar de Bell. Gal. i. 29.) At present, the number of
      people in the Pays de Vaud (a small district on the banks of the
      Leman Lake, much more distinguished for politeness than for
      industry) amounts to 112,591. See an excellent tract of M. Muret,
      in the Memoires de la Societe de Born.]

      37 (return) [ Paul Diaconus, c. 1, 2, 3. Machiavel, Davila, and
      the rest of Paul’s followers, represent these emigrations too
      much as regular and concerted measures.]

      38 (return) [ Sir William Temple and Montesquieu have indulged,
      on this subject, the usual liveliness of their fancy.]

      39 (return) [ Machiavel, Hist. di Firenze, l. i. Mariana, Hist.
      Hispan. l. v. c. 1]

      40 (return) [ Robertson’s Charles V. Hume’s Political Essays.
      Note: It is a wise observation of Malthus, that these nations
      “were not populous in proportion to the land they occupied, but
      to the food they produced.” They were prolific from their pure
      morals and constitutions, but their institutions were not
      calculated to produce food for those whom they brought into
      being.—M—1845.]

      A warlike nation like the Germans, without either cities,
      letters, arts, or money, found some compensation for this savage
      state in the enjoyment of liberty. Their poverty secured their
      freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest
      fetters of despotism. “Among the Suiones (says Tacitus) riches
      are held in honor. They are _therefore_ subject to an absolute
      monarch, who, instead of intrusting his people with the free use
      of arms, as is practised in the rest of Germany, commits them to
      the safe custody, not of a citizen, or even of a freedman, but of
      a slave. The neighbors of the Suiones, the Sitones, are sunk even
      below servitude; they obey a woman.” 41 In the mention of these
      exceptions, the great historian sufficiently acknowledges the
      general theory of government. We are only at a loss to conceive
      by what means riches and despotism could penetrate into a remote
      corner of the North, and extinguish the generous flame that
      blazed with such fierceness on the frontier of the Roman
      provinces, or how the ancestors of those Danes and Norwegians, so
      distinguished in latter ages by their unconquered spirit, could
      thus tamely resign the great character of German liberty. 42 Some
      tribes, however, on the coast of the Baltic, acknowledged the
      authority of kings, though without relinquishing the rights of
      men, 43 but in the far greater part of Germany, the form of
      government was a democracy, tempered, indeed, and controlled, not
      so much by general and positive laws, as by the occasional
      ascendant of birth or valor, of eloquence or superstition. 44

      41 (return) [ Tacit. German. 44, 45. Freinshemius (who dedicated
      his supplement to Livy to Christina of Sweden) thinks proper to
      be very angry with the Roman who expressed so very little
      reverence for Northern queens. Note: The Suiones and the Sitones
      are the ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia, their name may be
      traced in that of Sweden; they did not belong to the race of the
      Suevi, but that of the non-Suevi or Cimbri, whom the Suevi, in
      very remote times, drove back part to the west, part to the
      north; they were afterwards mingled with Suevian tribes, among
      others the Goths, who have traces of their name and power in the
      isle of Gothland.—G]

      42 (return) [May we not suspect that superstition was the parent
      of despotism? The descendants of Odin, (whose race was not
      extinct till the year 1060) are said to have reigned in Sweden
      above a thousand years. The temple of Upsal was the ancient seat
      of religion and empire. In the year 1153 I find a singular law,
      prohibiting the use and profession of arms to any except the
      king’s guards. Is it not probable that it was colored by the
      pretence of reviving an old institution? See Dalin’s History of
      Sweden in the Bibliotheque Raisonneo tom. xl. and xlv.]

      43 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. c. 43.]

      44 (return) [ Id. c. 11, 12, 13, & c.]

      Civil governments, in their first institution, are voluntary
      associations for mutual defence. To obtain the desired end, it is
      absolutely necessary that each individual should conceive himself
      obliged to submit his private opinions and actions to the
      judgment of the greater number of his associates. The German
      tribes were contented with this rude but liberal outline of
      political society. As soon as a youth, born of free parents, had
      attained the age of manhood, he was introduced into the general
      council of his countrymen, solemnly invested with a shield and
      spear, and adopted as an equal and worthy member of the military
      commonwealth. The assembly of the warriors of the tribe was
      convened at stated seasons, or on sudden emergencies. The trial
      of public offences, the election of magistrates, and the great
      business of peace and war, were determined by its independent
      voice. Sometimes indeed, these important questions were
      previously considered and prepared in a more select council of
      the principal chieftains. 45 The magistrates might deliberate and
      persuade, the people only could resolve and execute; and the
      resolutions of the Germans were for the most part hasty and
      violent. Barbarians accustomed to place their freedom in
      gratifying the present passion, and their courage in overlooking
      all future consequences, turned away with indignant contempt from
      the remonstrances of justice and policy, and it was the practice
      to signify by a hollow murmur their dislike of such timid
      counsels. But whenever a more popular orator proposed to
      vindicate the meanest citizen from either foreign or domestic
      injury, whenever he called upon his fellow-countrymen to assert
      the national honor, or to pursue some enterprise full of danger
      and glory, a loud clashing of shields and spears expressed the
      eager applause of the assembly. For the Germans always met in
      arms, and it was constantly to be dreaded, lest an irregular
      multitude, inflamed with faction and strong liquors, should use
      those arms to enforce, as well as to declare, their furious
      resolves. We may recollect how often the diets of Poland have
      been polluted with blood, and the more numerous party has been
      compelled to yield to the more violent and seditious. 46

      45 (return) [ Grotius changes an expression of Tacitus,
      pertractantur into Proetractantur. The correction is equally just
      and ingenious.]

      46 (return) [ Even in our ancient parliament, the barons often
      carried a question, not so much by the number of votes, as by
      that of their armed followers.]

      A general of the tribe was elected on occasions of danger; and,
      if the danger was pressing and extensive, several tribes
      concurred in the choice of the same general. The bravest warrior
      was named to lead his countrymen into the field, by his example
      rather than by his commands. But this power, however limited, was
      still invidious. It expired with the war, and in time of peace
      the German tribes acknowledged not any supreme chief. 47
      _Princes_ were, however, appointed, in the general assembly, to
      administer justice, or rather to compose differences, 48 in their
      respective districts. In the choice of these magistrates, as much
      regard was shown to birth as to merit. 49 To each was assigned,
      by the public, a guard, and a council of a hundred persons, and
      the first of the princes appears to have enjoyed a preeminence of
      rank and honor which sometimes tempted the Romans to compliment
      him with the regal title. 50

      47 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gal. vi. 23.]

      48 (return) [ Minuunt controversias, is a very happy expression
      of Cæsar’s.]

      49 (return) [ Reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute sumunt. Tacit
      Germ. 7]

      50 (return) [ Cluver. Germ. Ant. l. i. c. 38.]

      The comparative view of the powers of the magistrates, in two
      remarkable instances, is alone sufficient to represent the whole
      system of German manners. The disposal of the landed property
      within their district was absolutely vested in their hands, and
      they distributed it every year according to a new division. 51 At
      the same time they were not authorized to punish with death, to
      imprison, or even to strike a private citizen. 52 A people thus
      jealous of their persons, and careless of their possessions, must
      have been totally destitute of industry and the arts, but
      animated with a high sense of honor and independence.

      51 (return) [ Cæsar, vi. 22. Tacit Germ. 26.]

      52 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 7.]




      Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part III.

      The Germans respected only those duties which they imposed on
      themselves. The most obscure soldier resisted with disdain the
      authority of the magistrates. “The noblest youths blushed not to
      be numbered among the faithful companions of some renowned chief,
      to whom they devoted their arms and service. A noble emulation
      prevailed among the companions to obtain the first place in the
      esteem of their chief; amongst the chiefs, to acquire the
      greatest number of valiant companions. To be ever surrounded by a
      band of select youths was the pride and strength of the chiefs,
      their ornament in peace, their defence in war. The glory of such
      distinguished heroes diffused itself beyond the narrow limits of
      their own tribe. Presents and embassies solicited their
      friendship, and the fame of their arms often insured victory to
      the party which they espoused. In the hour of danger it was
      shameful for the chief to be surpassed in valor by his
      companions; shameful for the companions not to equal the valor of
      their chief. To survive his fall in battle was indelible infamy.
      To protect his person, and to adorn his glory with the trophies
      of their own exploits, were the most sacred of their duties. The
      chiefs combated for victory, the companions for the chief. The
      noblest warriors, whenever their native country was sunk into the
      laziness of peace, maintained their numerous bands in some
      distant scene of action, to exercise their restless spirit, and
      to acquire renown by voluntary dangers. Gifts worthy of
      soldiers—the warlike steed, the bloody and ever victorious
      lance—were the rewards which the companions claimed from the
      liberality of their chief. The rude plenty of his hospitable
      board was the only pay that _he_ could bestow, or _they_ would
      accept. War, rapine, and the free-will offerings of his friends,
      supplied the materials of this munificence.” 53 This institution,
      however it might accidentally weaken the several republics,
      invigorated the general character of the Germans, and even
      ripened amongst them all the virtues of which barbarians are
      susceptible; the faith and valor, the hospitality and the
      courtesy, so conspicuous long afterwards in the ages of chivalry.

      The honorable gifts, bestowed by the chief on his brave
      companions, have been supposed, by an ingenious writer, to
      contain the first rudiments of the fiefs, distributed after the
      conquest of the Roman provinces, by the barbarian lords among
      their vassals, with a similar duty of homage and military
      service. 54 These conditions are, however, very repugnant to the
      maxims of the ancient Germans, who delighted in mutual presents,
      but without either imposing, or accepting, the weight of
      obligations. 55

      53 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 13, 14.]

      54 (return) [ Esprit des Loix, l. xxx. c. 3. The brilliant
      imagination of Montesquieu is corrected, however, by the dry,
      cold reason of the Abbé de Mably. Observations sur l’Histoire de
      France, tom. i. p. 356.]

      55 (return) [ Gaudent muneribus, sed nec data imputant, nec
      acceptis obligautur. Tacit. Germ. c. 21.]

      “In the days of chivalry, or more properly of romance, all the
      men were brave and all the women were chaste;” and
      notwithstanding the latter of these virtues is acquired and
      preserved with much more difficulty than the former, it is
      ascribed, almost without exception, to the wives of the ancient
      Germans. Polygamy was not in use, except among the princes, and
      among them only for the sake of multiplying their alliances.
      Divorces were prohibited by manners rather than by laws.
      Adulteries were punished as rare and inexpiable crimes; nor was
      seduction justified by example and fashion. 56 We may easily
      discover that Tacitus indulges an honest pleasure in the contrast
      of barbarian virtue with the dissolute conduct of the Roman
      ladies; yet there are some striking circumstances that give an
      air of truth, or at least probability, to the conjugal faith and
      chastity of the Germans.

      56 (return) [ The adulteress was whipped through the village.
      Neither wealth nor beauty could inspire compassion, or procure
      her a second husband. 18, 19.]

      Although the progress of civilization has undoubtedly contributed
      to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have
      been less favorable to the virtue of chastity, whose most
      dangerous enemy is the softness of the mind. The refinements of
      life corrupt while they polish the intercourse of the sexes. The
      gross appetite of love becomes most dangerous when it is
      elevated, or rather, indeed, disguised by sentimental passion.
      The elegance of dress, of motion, and of manners, gives a lustre
      to beauty, and inflames the senses through the imagination.
      Luxurious entertainments, midnight dances, and licentious
      spectacles, present at once temptation and opportunity to female
      frailty. 57 From such dangers the unpolished wives of the
      barbarians were secured by poverty, solitude, and the painful
      cares of a domestic life. The German huts, open, on every side,
      to the eye of indiscretion or jealousy, were a better safeguard
      of conjugal fidelity than the walls, the bolts, and the eunuchs
      of a Persian harem. To this reason another may be added of a more
      honorable nature. The Germans treated their women with esteem and
      confidence, consulted them on every occasion of importance, and
      fondly believed, that in their breasts resided a sanctity and
      wisdom more than human. Some of the interpreters of fate, such as
      Velleda, in the Batavian war, governed, in the name of the deity,
      the fiercest nations of Germany. 58 The rest of the sex, without
      being adored as goddesses, were respected as the free and equal
      companions of soldiers; associated even by the marriage ceremony
      to a life of toil, of danger, and of glory. 59 In their great
      invasions, the camps of the barbarians were filled with a
      multitude of women, who remained firm and undaunted amidst the
      sound of arms, the various forms of destruction, and the
      honorable wounds of their sons and husbands. 60 Fainting armies
      of Germans have, more than once, been driven back upon the enemy
      by the generous despair of the women, who dreaded death much less
      than servitude. If the day was irrecoverably lost, they well knew
      how to deliver themselves and their children, with their own
      hands, from an insulting victor. 61 Heroines of such a cast may
      claim our admiration; but they were most assuredly neither lovely
      nor very susceptible of love. Whilst they affected to emulate the
      stern virtues of _man_, they must have resigned that attractive
      softness in which principally consist the charm and weakness of
      _woman_. Conscious pride taught the German females to suppress
      every tender emotion that stood in competition with honor, and
      the first honor of the sex has ever been that of chastity. The
      sentiments and conduct of these high-spirited matrons may, at
      once, be considered as a cause, as an effect, and as a proof of
      the general character of the nation. Female courage, however it
      may be raised by fanaticism, or confirmed by habit, can be only a
      faint and imperfect imitation of the manly valor that
      distinguishes the age or country in which it may be found.

      57 (return) [ Ovid employs two hundred lines in the research of
      places the most favorable to love. Above all, he considers the
      theatre as the best adapted to collect the beauties of Rome, and
      to melt them into tenderness and sensuality,]

      58 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. iv. 61, 65.]

      59 (return) [ The marriage present was a yoke of oxen, horses,
      and arms. See Germ. c. 18. Tacitus is somewhat too florid on the
      subject.]

      60 (return) [ The change of exigere into exugere is a most
      excellent correction.]

      61 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. c. 7. Plutarch in Mario. Before the
      wives of the Teutones destroyed themselves and their children,
      they had offered to surrender, on condition that they should be
      received as the slaves of the vestal virgins.]

      The religious system of the Germans (if the wild opinions of
      savages can deserve that name) was dictated by their wants, their
      fears, and their ignorance. 62 They adored the great visible
      objects and agents of nature, the Sun and the Moon, the Fire and
      the Earth; together with those imaginary deities, who were
      supposed to preside over the most important occupations of human
      life. They were persuaded, that, by some ridiculous arts of
      divination, they could discover the will of the superior beings,
      and that human sacrifices were the most precious and acceptable
      offering to their altars. Some applause has been hastily bestowed
      on the sublime notion, entertained by that people, of the Deity,
      whom they neither confined within the walls of the temple, nor
      represented by any human figure; but when we recollect, that the
      Germans were unskilled in architecture, and totally unacquainted
      with the art of sculpture, we shall readily assign the true
      reason of a scruple, which arose not so much from a superiority
      of reason, as from a want of ingenuity. The only temples in
      Germany were dark and ancient groves, consecrated by the
      reverence of succeeding generations. Their secret gloom, the
      imagined residence of an invisible power, by presenting no
      distinct object of fear or worship, impressed the mind with a
      still deeper sense of religious horror; 63 and the priests, rude
      and illiterate as they were, had been taught by experience the
      use of every artifice that could preserve and fortify impressions
      so well suited to their own interest.

      62 (return) [ Tacitus has employed a few lines, and Cluverius one
      hundred and twenty-four pages, on this obscure subject. The
      former discovers in Germany the gods of Greece and Rome. The
      latter is positive, that, under the emblems of the sun, the moon,
      and the fire, his pious ancestors worshipped the Trinity in
      unity]

      63 (return) [ The sacred wood, described with such sublime horror
      by Lucan, was in the neighborhood of Marseilles; but there were
      many of the same kind in Germany. * Note: The ancient Germans had
      shapeless idols, and, when they began to build more settled
      habitations, they raised also temples, such as that to the
      goddess Teufana, who presided over divination. See Adelung, Hist.
      of Ane Germans, p 296—G]

      The same ignorance, which renders barbarians incapable of
      conceiving or embracing the useful restraints of laws, exposes
      them naked and unarmed to the blind terrors of superstition. The
      German priests, improving this favorable temper of their
      countrymen, had assumed a jurisdiction even in temporal concerns,
      which the magistrate could not venture to exercise; and the
      haughty warrior patiently submitted to the lash of correction,
      when it was inflicted, not by any human power, but by the
      immediate order of the god of war. 64 The defects of civil policy
      were sometimes supplied by the interposition of ecclesiastical
      authority. The latter was constantly exerted to maintain silence
      and decency in the popular assemblies; and was sometimes extended
      to a more enlarged concern for the national welfare. A solemn
      procession was occasionally celebrated in the present countries
      of Mecklenburgh and Pomerania. The unknown symbol of the _Earth_,
      covered with a thick veil, was placed on a carriage drawn by
      cows; and in this manner the goddess, whose common residence was
      in the Isles of Rugen, visited several adjacent tribes of her
      worshippers. During her progress the sound of war was hushed,
      quarrels were suspended, arms laid aside, and the restless
      Germans had an opportunity of tasting the blessings of peace and
      harmony. 65 The _truce of God_, so often and so ineffectually
      proclaimed by the clergy of the eleventh century, was an obvious
      imitation of this ancient custom. 66

      64 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 7.]

      65 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 40.]

      66 (return) [ See Dr. Robertson’s History of Charles V. vol. i.
      note 10.]

      But the influence of religion was far more powerful to inflame,
      than to moderate, the fierce passions of the Germans. Interest
      and fanaticism often prompted its ministers to sanctify the most
      daring and the most unjust enterprises, by the approbation of
      Heaven, and full assurances of success. The consecrated
      standards, long revered in the groves of superstition, were
      placed in the front of the battle; 67 and the hostile army was
      devoted with dire execrations to the gods of war and of thunder.
      68 In the faith of soldiers (and such were the Germans) cowardice
      is the most unpardonable of sins. A brave man was the worthy
      favorite of their martial deities; the wretch who had lost his
      shield was alike banished from the religious and civil assemblies
      of his countrymen. Some tribes of the north seem to have embraced
      the doctrine of transmigration, 69 others imagined a gross
      paradise of immortal drunkenness. 70 All agreed that a life spent
      in arms, and a glorious death in battle, were the best
      preparations for a happy futurity, either in this or in another
      world.

      67 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 7. These standards were only
      the heads of wild beasts.]

      68 (return) [ See an instance of this custom, Tacit. Annal. xiii.
      57.]

      69 (return) [ Cæsar Diodorus, and Lucan, seem to ascribe this
      doctrine to the Gauls, but M. Pelloutier (Histoire des Celtes, l.
      iii. c. 18) labors to reduce their expressions to a more orthodox
      sense.]

      70 (return) [ Concerning this gross but alluring doctrine of the
      Edda, see Fable xx. in the curious version of that book,
      published by M. Mallet, in his Introduction to the History of
      Denmark.]

      The immortality so vainly promised by the priests, was, in some
      degree, conferred by the bards. That singular order of men has
      most deservedly attracted the notice of all who have attempted to
      investigate the antiquities of the Celts, the Scandinavians, and
      the Germans. Their genius and character, as well as the reverence
      paid to that important office, have been sufficiently
      illustrated. But we cannot so easily express, or even conceive,
      the enthusiasm of arms and glory which they kindled in the breast
      of their audience. Among a polished people a taste for poetry is
      rather an amusement of the fancy than a passion of the soul. And
      yet, when in calm retirement we peruse the combats described by
      Homer or Tasso, we are insensibly seduced by the fiction, and
      feel a momentary glow of martial ardor. But how faint, how cold
      is the sensation which a peaceful mind can receive from solitary
      study! It was in the hour of battle, or in the feast of victory,
      that the bards celebrated the glory of the heroes of ancient
      days, the ancestors of those warlike chieftains, who listened
      with transport to their artless but animated strains. The view of
      arms and of danger heightened the effect of the military song;
      and the passions which it tended to excite, the desire of fame,
      and the contempt of death, were the habitual sentiments of a
      German mind. 71 711

      71 (return) [ See Tacit. Germ. c. 3. Diod. Sicul. l. v. Strabo,
      l. iv. p. 197. The classical reader may remember the rank of
      Demodocus in the Phæacian court, and the ardor infused by Tyrtæus
      into the fainting Spartans. Yet there is little probability that
      the Greeks and the Germans were the same people. Much learned
      trifling might be spared, if our antiquarians would condescend to
      reflect, that similar manners will naturally be produced by
      similar situations.]

      711 (return) [ Besides these battle songs, the Germans sang at
      their festival banquets, (Tac. Ann. i. 65,) and around the bodies
      of their slain heroes. King Theodoric, of the tribe of the Goths,
      killed in a battle against Attila, was honored by songs while he
      was borne from the field of battle. Jornandes, c. 41. The same
      honor was paid to the remains of Attila. Ibid. c. 49. According
      to some historians, the Germans had songs also at their weddings;
      but this appears to me inconsistent with their customs, in which
      marriage was no more than the purchase of a wife. Besides, there
      is but one instance of this, that of the Gothic king, Ataulph,
      who sang himself the nuptial hymn when he espoused Placidia,
      sister of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius, (Olympiodor. p. 8.)
      But this marriage was celebrated according to the Roman rites, of
      which the nuptial songs formed a part. Adelung, p. 382.—G.
      Charlemagne is said to have collected the national songs of the
      ancient Germans. Eginhard, Vit. Car. Mag.—M.]

      Such was the situation, and such were the manners of the ancient
      Germans. Their climate, their want of learning, of arts, and of
      laws, their notions of honor, of gallantry, and of religion,
      their sense of freedom, impatience of peace, and thirst of
      enterprise, all contributed to form a people of military heroes.
      And yet we find, that during more than two hundred and fifty
      years that elapsed from the defeat of Varus to the reign of
      Decius, these formidable barbarians made few considerable
      attempts, and not any material impression on the luxurious, and
      enslaved provinces of the empire. Their progress was checked by
      their want of arms and discipline, and their fury was diverted by
      the intestine divisions of ancient Germany. I. It has been
      observed, with ingenuity, and not without truth, that the command
      of iron soon gives a nation the command of gold. But the rude
      tribes of Germany, alike destitute of both those valuable metals,
      were reduced slowly to acquire, by their unassisted strength, the
      possession of the one as well as the other. The face of a German
      army displayed their poverty of iron. Swords, and the longer kind
      of lances, they could seldom use. Their _frameæ_ (as they called
      them in their own language) were long spears headed with a sharp
      but narrow iron point, and which, as occasion required, they
      either darted from a distance, or pushed in close onset. With
      this spear, and with a shield, their cavalry was contented. A
      multitude of darts, scattered 72 with incredible force, were an
      additional resource of the infantry. Their military dress, when
      they wore any, was nothing more than a loose mantle. A variety of
      colors was the only ornament of their wooden or osier shields.
      Few of the chiefs were distinguished by cuirasses, scarcely any
      by helmets. Though the horses of Germany were neither beautiful,
      swift, nor practised in the skilful evolutions of the Roman
      manege, several of the nations obtained renown by their cavalry;
      but, in general, the principal strength of the Germans consisted
      in their infantry, 73 which was drawn up in several deep columns,
      according to the distinction of tribes and families. Impatient of
      fatigue and delay, these half-armed warriors rushed to battle
      with dissonant shouts and disordered ranks; and sometimes, by the
      effort of native valor, prevailed over the constrained and more
      artificial bravery of the Roman mercenaries. But as the
      barbarians poured forth their whole souls on the first onset,
      they knew not how to rally or to retire. A repulse was a sure
      defeat; and a defeat was most commonly total destruction. When we
      recollect the complete armor of the Roman soldiers, their
      discipline, exercises, evolutions, fortified camps, and military
      engines, it appears a just matter of surprise, how the naked and
      unassisted valor of the barbarians could dare to encounter, in
      the field, the strength of the legions, and the various troops of
      the auxiliaries, which seconded their operations. The contest was
      too unequal, till the introduction of luxury had enervated the
      vigor, and a spirit of disobedience and sedition had relaxed the
      discipline, of the Roman armies. The introduction of barbarian
      auxiliaries into those armies, was a measure attended with very
      obvious dangers, as it might gradually instruct the Germans in
      the arts of war and of policy. Although they were admitted in
      small numbers and with the strictest precaution, the example of
      Civilis was proper to convince the Romans, that the danger was
      not imaginary, and that their precautions were not always
      sufficient. 74 During the civil wars that followed the death of
      Nero, that artful and intrepid Batavian, whom his enemies
      condescended to compare with Hannibal and Sertorius, 75 formed a
      great design of freedom and ambition. Eight Batavian cohorts
      renowned in the wars of Britain and Italy, repaired to his
      standard. He introduced an army of Germans into Gaul, prevailed
      on the powerful cities of Treves and Langres to embrace his
      cause, defeated the legions, destroyed their fortified camps, and
      employed against the Romans the military knowledge which he had
      acquired in their service. When at length, after an obstinate
      struggle, he yielded to the power of the empire, Civilis secured
      himself and his country by an honorable treaty. The Batavians
      still continued to occupy the islands of the Rhine, 76 the
      allies, not the servants, of the Roman monarchy.

      72 (return) [ Missilia spargunt, Tacit. Germ. c. 6. Either that
      historian used a vague expression, or he meant that they were
      thrown at random.]

      73 (return) [ It was their principal distinction from the
      Sarmatians, who generally fought on horseback.]

      74 (return) [ The relation of this enterprise occupies a great
      part of the fourth and fifth books of the History of Tacitus, and
      is more remarkable for its eloquence than perspicuity. Sir Henry
      Saville has observed several inaccuracies.]

      75 (return) [ Tacit. Hist. iv. 13. Like them he had lost an eye.]

      76 (return) [ It was contained between the two branches of the
      old Rhine, as they subsisted before the face of the country was
      changed by art and nature. See Cluver German. Antiq. l. iii. c.
      30, 37.]

      II. The strength of ancient Germany appears formidable, when we
      consider the effects that might have been produced by its united
      effort. The wide extent of country might very possibly contain a
      million of warriors, as all who were of age to bear arms were of
      a temper to use them. But this fierce multitude, incapable of
      concerting or executing any plan of national greatness, was
      agitated by various and often hostile intentions. Germany was
      divided into more than forty independent states; and, even in
      each state, the union of the several tribes was extremely loose
      and precarious. The barbarians were easily provoked; they knew
      not how to forgive an injury, much less an insult; their
      resentments were bloody and implacable. The casual disputes that
      so frequently happened in their tumultuous parties of hunting or
      drinking were sufficient to inflame the minds of whole nations;
      the private feuds of any considerable chieftains diffused itself
      among their followers and allies. To chastise the insolent, or to
      plunder the defenceless, were alike causes of war. The most
      formidable states of Germany affected to encompass their
      territories with a wide frontier of solitude and devastation. The
      awful distance preserved by their neighbors attested the terror
      of their arms, and in some measure defended them from the danger
      of unexpected incursions. 77

      77 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gal. l. vi. 23.]

      “The Bructeri 771 (it is Tacitus who now speaks) were totally
      exterminated by the neighboring tribes, 78 provoked by their
      insolence, allured by the hopes of spoil, and perhaps inspired by
      the tutelar deities of the empire. Above sixty thousand
      barbarians were destroyed; not by the Roman arms, but in our
      sight, and for our entertainment. May the nations, enemies of
      Rome, ever preserve this enmity to each other! We have now
      attained the utmost verge of prosperity, 79 and have nothing left
      to demand of fortune, except the discord of the barbarians.”
      80—These sentiments, less worthy of the humanity than of the
      patriotism of Tacitus, express the invariable maxims of the
      policy of his countrymen. They deemed it a much safer expedient
      to divide than to combat the barbarians, from whose defeat they
      could derive neither honor nor advantage. The money and
      negotiations of Rome insinuated themselves into the heart of
      Germany; and every art of seduction was used with dignity, to
      conciliate those nations whom their proximity to the Rhine or
      Danube might render the most useful friends as well as the most
      troublesome enemies. Chiefs of renown and power were flattered by
      the most trifling presents, which they received either as marks
      of distinction, or as the instruments of luxury. In civil
      dissensions the weaker faction endeavored to strengthen its
      interest by entering into secret connections with the governors
      of the frontier provinces. Every quarrel among the Germans was
      fomented by the intrigues of Rome; and every plan of union and
      public good was defeated by the stronger bias of private jealousy
      and interest. 81

      771 (return) [ The Bructeri were a non-Suevian tribe, who dwelt
      below the duchies of Oldenburgh, and Lauenburgh, on the borders
      of the Lippe, and in the Hartz Mountains. It was among them that
      the priestess Velleda obtained her renown.—G.]

      78 (return) [ They are mentioned, however, in the ivth and vth
      centuries by Nazarius, Ammianus, Claudian, &c., as a tribe of
      Franks. See Cluver. Germ. Antiq. l. iii. c. 13.]

      79 (return) [ Urgentibus is the common reading; but good sense,
      Lipsius, and some Mss. declare for Vergentibus.]

      80 (return) [ Tacit Germania, c. 33. The pious Abbé de la
      Bleterie is very angry with Tacitus, talks of the devil, who was
      a murderer from the beginning, &c., &c.]

      81 (return) [ Many traces of this policy may be discovered in
      Tacitus and Dion: and many more may be inferred from the
      principles of human nature.]

      The general conspiracy which terrified the Romans under the reign
      of Marcus Antoninus, comprehended almost all the nations of
      Germany, and even Sarmatia, from the mouth of the Rhine to that
      of the Danube. 82 It is impossible for us to determine whether
      this hasty confederation was formed by necessity, by reason, or
      by passion; but we may rest assured, that the barbarians were
      neither allured by the indolence, nor provoked by the ambition,
      of the Roman monarch. This dangerous invasion required all the
      firmness and vigilance of Marcus. He fixed generals of ability in
      the several stations of attack, and assumed in person the conduct
      of the most important province on the Upper Danube. After a long
      and doubtful conflict, the spirit of the barbarians was subdued.
      The Quadi and the Marcomanni, 83 who had taken the lead in the
      war, were the most severely punished in its catastrophe. They
      were commanded to retire five miles 84 from their own banks of
      the Danube, and to deliver up the flower of the youth, who were
      immediately sent into Britain, a remote island, where they might
      be secure as hostages, and useful as soldiers. 85 On the frequent
      rebellions of the Quadi and Marcomanni, the irritated emperor
      resolved to reduce their country into the form of a province. His
      designs were disappointed by death. This formidable league,
      however, the only one that appears in the two first centuries of
      the Imperial history, was entirely dissipated, without leaving
      any traces behind in Germany.

      82 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 31. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xxxi. c. 5.
      Aurel. Victor. The emperor Marcus was reduced to sell the rich
      furniture of the palace, and to enlist slaves and robbers.]

      83 (return) [ The Marcomanni, a colony, who, from the banks of
      the Rhine occupied Bohemia and Moravia, had once erected a great
      and formidable monarchy under their king Maroboduus. See Strabo,
      l. vii. [p. 290.] Vell. Pat. ii. 108. Tacit. Annal. ii. 63. *
      Note: The Mark-manæn, the March-men or borderers. There seems
      little doubt that this was an appellation, rather than a proper
      name of a part of the great Suevian or Teutonic race.—M.]

      84 (return) [ Mr. Wotton (History of Rome, p. 166) increases the
      prohibition to ten times the distance. His reasoning is specious,
      but not conclusive. Five miles were sufficient for a fortified
      barrier.]

      85 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxi. and lxxii.]

      In the course of this introductory chapter, we have confined
      ourselves to the general outlines of the manners of Germany,
      without attempting to describe or to distinguish the various
      tribes which filled that great country in the time of Cæsar, of
      Tacitus, or of Ptolemy. As the ancient, or as new tribes
      successively present themselves in the series of this history, we
      shall concisely mention their origin, their situation, and their
      particular character. Modern nations are fixed and permanent
      societies, connected among themselves by laws and government,
      bound to their native soil by art and agriculture. The German
      tribes were voluntary and fluctuating associations of soldiers,
      almost of savages. The same territory often changed its
      inhabitants in the tide of conquest and emigration. The same
      communities, uniting in a plan of defence or invasion, bestowed a
      new title on their new confederacy. The dissolution of an ancient
      confederacy restored to the independent tribes their peculiar but
      long-forgotten appellation. A victorious state often communicated
      its own name to a vanquished people. Sometimes crowds of
      volunteers flocked from all parts to the standard of a favorite
      leader; his camp became their country, and some circumstance of
      the enterprise soon gave a common denomination to the mixed
      multitude. The distinctions of the ferocious invaders were
      perpetually varied by themselves, and confounded by the
      astonished subjects of the Roman empire. 86

      86 (return) [ See an excellent dissertation on the origin and
      migrations of nations, in the Memoires de l’Academie des
      Inscriptions, tom. xviii. p. 48—71. It is seldom that the
      antiquarian and the philosopher are so happily blended.]

      Wars, and the administration of public affairs, are the principal
      subjects of history; but the number of persons interested in
      these busy scenes is very different, according to the different
      condition of mankind. In great monarchies, millions of obedient
      subjects pursue their useful occupations in peace and obscurity.
      The attention of the writer, as well as of the reader, is solely
      confined to a court, a capital, a regular army, and the districts
      which happen to be the occasional scene of military operations.
      But a state of freedom and barbarism, the season of civil
      commotions, or the situation of petty republics, 87 raises almost
      every member of the community into action, and consequently into
      notice. The irregular divisions, and the restless motions, of the
      people of Germany, dazzle our imagination, and seem to multiply
      their numbers. The profuse enumeration of kings, of warriors, of
      armies and nations, inclines us to forget that the same objects
      are continually repeated under a variety of appellations, and
      that the most splendid appellations have been frequently lavished
      on the most inconsiderable objects.

      87 (return) [ Should we suspect that Athens contained only 21,000
      citizens, and Sparta no more than 39,000? See Hume and Wallace on
      the number of mankind in ancient and modern times. * Note: This
      number, though too positively stated, is probably not far wrong,
      as an average estimate. On the subject of Athenian population,
      see St. Croix, Acad. des Inscrip. xlviii. Boeckh, Public Economy
      of Athens, i. 47. Eng Trans, Fynes Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, vol.
      i. p. 381. The latter author estimates the citizens of Sparta at
      33,000—M.]




      Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
      Gallienus—Part I.

     The Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian, And
     Gallienus.—The General Irruption Of The Barbari Ans.—The Thirty
     Tyrants.

      From the great secular games celebrated by Philip, to the death
      of the emperor Gallienus, there elapsed twenty years of shame and
      misfortune. During that calamitous period, every instant of time
      was marked, every province of the Roman world was afflicted, by
      barbarous invaders, and military tyrants, and the ruined empire
      seemed to approach the last and fatal moment of its dissolution.
      The confusion of the times, and the scarcity of authentic
      memorials, oppose equal difficulties to the historian, who
      attempts to preserve a clear and unbroken thread of narration.
      Surrounded with imperfect fragments, always concise, often
      obscure, and sometimes contradictory, he is reduced to collect,
      to compare, and to conjecture: and though he ought never to place
      his conjectures in the rank of facts, yet the knowledge of human
      nature, and of the sure operation of its fierce and unrestrained
      passions, might, on some occasions, supply the want of historical
      materials.

      There is not, for instance, any difficulty in conceiving, that
      the successive murders of so many emperors had loosened all the
      ties of allegiance between the prince and people; that all the
      generals of Philip were disposed to imitate the example of their
      master; and that the caprice of armies, long since habituated to
      frequent and violent revolutions, might every day raise to the
      throne the most obscure of their fellow-soldiers. History can
      only add, that the rebellion against the emperor Philip broke out
      in the summer of the year two hundred and forty-nine, among the
      legions of Mæsia; and that a subaltern officer, 1 named Marinus,
      was the object of their seditious choice. Philip was alarmed. He
      dreaded lest the treason of the Mæsian army should prove the
      first spark of a general conflagration. Distracted with the
      consciousness of his guilt and of his danger, he communicated the
      intelligence to the senate. A gloomy silence prevailed, the
      effect of fear, and perhaps of disaffection; till at length
      Decius, one of the assembly, assuming a spirit worthy of his
      noble extraction, ventured to discover more intrepidity than the
      emperor seemed to possess. He treated the whole business with
      contempt, as a hasty and inconsiderate tumult, and Philip’s rival
      as a phantom of royalty, who in a very few days would be
      destroyed by the same inconstancy that had created him. The
      speedy completion of the prophecy inspired Philip with a just
      esteem for so able a counsellor; and Decius appeared to him the
      only person capable of restoring peace and discipline to an army
      whose tumultuous spirit did not immediately subside after the
      murder of Marinus. Decius, 2 who long resisted his own
      nomination, seems to have insinuated the danger of presenting a
      leader of merit to the angry and apprehensive minds of the
      soldiers; and his prediction was again confirmed by the event.
      The legions of Mæsia forced their judge to become their
      accomplice. They left him only the alternative of death or the
      purple. His subsequent conduct, after that decisive measure, was
      unavoidable. He conducted, or followed, his army to the confines
      of Italy, whither Philip, collecting all his force to repel the
      formidable competitor whom he had raised up, advanced to meet
      him. The Imperial troops were superior in number; but the rebels
      formed an army of veterans, commanded by an able and experienced
      leader. Philip was either killed in the battle, or put to death a
      few days afterwards at Verona. His son and associate in the
      empire was massacred at Rome by the Prætorian guards; and the
      victorious Decius, with more favorable circumstances than the
      ambition of that age can usually plead, was universally
      acknowledged by the senate and provinces. It is reported, that,
      immediately after his reluctant acceptance of the title of
      Augustus, he had assured Philip, by a private message, of his
      innocence and loyalty, solemnly protesting, that, on his arrival
      on Italy, he would resign the Imperial ornaments, and return to
      the condition of an obedient subject. His professions might be
      sincere; but in the situation where fortune had placed him, it
      was scarcely possible that he could either forgive or be
      forgiven. 3

      1 (return) [ The expression used by Zosimus and Zonaras may
      signify that Marinus commanded a century, a cohort, or a legion.]

      2 (return) [ His birth at Bubalia, a little village in Pannonia,
      (Eutrop. ix. Victor. in Cæsarib. et Epitom.,) seems to
      contradict, unless it was merely accidental, his supposed descent
      from the Decii. Six hundred years had bestowed nobility on the
      Decii: but at the commencement of that period, they were only
      plebeians of merit, and among the first who shared the consulship
      with the haughty patricians. Plebeine Deciorum animæ, &c.
      Juvenal, Sat. viii. 254. See the spirited speech of Decius, in
      Livy. x. 9, 10.]

      3 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 20, c. 22. Zonaras, l. xii. p.
      624, edit. Louvre.]

      The emperor Decius had employed a few months in the works of
      peace and the administration of justice, when he was summoned to
      the banks of the Danube by the invasion of the Goths. This is the
      first considerable occasion in which history mentions that great
      people, who afterwards broke the Roman power, sacked the Capitol,
      and reigned in Gaul, Spain, and Italy. So memorable was the part
      which they acted in the subversion of the Western empire, that
      the name of Goths is frequently but improperly used as a general
      appellation of rude and warlike barbarism.

      In the beginning of the sixth century, and after the conquest of
      Italy, the Goths, in possession of present greatness, very
      naturally indulged themselves in the prospect of past and of
      future glory. They wished to preserve the memory of their
      ancestors, and to transmit to posterity their own achievements.
      The principal minister of the court of Ravenna, the learned
      Cassiodorus, gratified the inclination of the conquerors in a
      Gothic history, which consisted of twelve books, now reduced to
      the imperfect abridgment of Jornandes. 4 These writers passed
      with the most artful conciseness over the misfortunes of the
      nation, celebrated its successful valor, and adorned the triumph
      with many Asiatic trophies, that more properly belonged to the
      people of Scythia. On the faith of ancient songs, the uncertain,
      but the only memorials of barbarians, they deduced the first
      origin of the Goths from the vast island, or peninsula, of
      Scandinavia. 5 501 That extreme country of the North was not
      unknown to the conquerors of Italy: the ties of ancient
      consanguinity had been strengthened by recent offices of
      friendship; and a Scandinavian king had cheerfully abdicated his
      savage greatness, that he might pass the remainder of his days in
      the peaceful and polished court of Ravenna. 6 Many vestiges,
      which cannot be ascribed to the arts of popular vanity, attest
      the ancient residence of the Goths in the countries beyond the
      Rhine. From the time of the geographer Ptolemy, the southern part
      of Sweden seems to have continued in the possession of the less
      enterprising remnant of the nation, and a large territory is even
      at present divided into east and west Gothland. During the middle
      ages, (from the ninth to the twelfth century,) whilst
      Christianity was advancing with a slow progress into the North,
      the Goths and the Swedes composed two distinct and sometimes
      hostile members of the same monarchy. 7 The latter of these two
      names has prevailed without extinguishing the former. The Swedes,
      who might well be satisfied with their own fame in arms, have, in
      every age, claimed the kindred glory of the Goths. In a moment of
      discontent against the court of Rome, Charles the Twelfth
      insinuated, that his victorious troops were not degenerated from
      their brave ancestors, who had already subdued the mistress of
      the world. 8

      4 (return) [ See the prefaces of Cassiodorus and Jornandes; it is
      surprising that the latter should be omitted in the excellent
      edition, published by Grotius, of the Gothic writers.]

      5 (return) [ On the authority of Ablavius, Jornandes quotes some
      old Gothic chronicles in verse. De Reb. Geticis, c. 4.]

      501 (return) [ The Goths have inhabited Scandinavia, but it was
      not their original habitation. This great nation was anciently of
      the Suevian race; it occupied, in the time of Tacitus, and long
      before, Mecklenburgh, Pomerania Southern Prussia and the
      north-west of Poland. A little before the birth of J. C., and in
      the first years of that century, they belonged to the kingdom of
      Marbod, king of the Marcomanni: but Cotwalda, a young Gothic
      prince, delivered them from that tyranny, and established his own
      power over the kingdom of the Marcomanni, already much weakened
      by the victories of Tiberius. The power of the Goths at that time
      must have been great: it was probably from them that the Sinus
      Codanus (the Baltic) took this name, as it was afterwards called
      Mare Suevicum, and Mare Venedicum, during the superiority of the
      proper Suevi and the Venedi. The epoch in which the Goths passed
      into Scandinavia is unknown. See Adelung, Hist. of Anc. Germany,
      p. 200. Gatterer, Hist. Univ. 458.—G. ——M. St. Martin observes,
      that the Scandinavian descent of the Goths rests on the authority
      of Jornandes, who professed to derive it from the traditions of
      the Goths. He is supported by Procopius and Paulus Diaconus. Yet
      the Goths are unquestionably the same with the Getæ of the
      earlier historians. St. Martin, note on Le Beau, Hist. du bas
      Empire, iii. 324. The identity of the Getæ and Goths is by no
      means generally admitted. On the whole, they seem to be one vast
      branch of the Indo-Teutonic race, who spread irregularly towards
      the north of Europe, and at different periods, and in different
      regions, came in contact with the more civilized nations of the
      south. At this period, there seems to have been a reflux of these
      Gothic tribes from the North. Malte Brun considers that there are
      strong grounds for receiving the Islandic traditions commented by
      the Danish Varro, M. Suhm. From these, and the voyage of Pytheas,
      which Malte Brun considers genuine, the Goths were in possession
      of Scandinavia, Ey-Gothland, 250 years before J. C., and of a
      tract on the continent (Reid-Gothland) between the mouths of the
      Vistula and the Oder. In their southern migration, they followed
      the course of the Vistula; afterwards, of the Dnieper. Malte
      Brun, Geogr. i. p. 387, edit. 1832. Geijer, the historian of
      Sweden, ably maintains the Scandinavian origin of the Goths. The
      Gothic language, according to Bopp, is the link between the
      Sanscrit and the modern Teutonic dialects: “I think that I am
      reading Sanscrit when I am reading Olphilas.” Bopp, Conjugations
      System der Sanscrit Sprache, preface, p. x—M.]

      6 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 3.]

      7 (return) [ See in the Prolegomena of Grotius some large
      extracts from Adam of Bremen, and Saxo-Grammaticus. The former
      wrote in the year 1077, the latter flourished about the year
      1200.]

      8 (return) [ Voltaire, Histoire de Charles XII. l. iii. When the
      Austrians desired the aid of the court of Rome against Gustavus
      Adolphus, they always represented that conqueror as the lineal
      successor of Alaric. Harte’s History of Gustavus, vol. ii. p.
      123.]

      Till the end of the eleventh century, a celebrated temple
      subsisted at Upsal, the most considerable town of the Swedes and
      Goths. It was enriched with the gold which the Scandinavians had
      acquired in their piratical adventures, and sanctified by the
      uncouth representations of the three principal deities, the god
      of war, the goddess of generation, and the god of thunder. In the
      general festival, that was solemnized every ninth year, nine
      animals of every species (without excepting the human) were
      sacrificed, and their bleeding bodies suspended in the sacred
      grove adjacent to the temple. 9 The only traces that now subsist
      of this barbaric superstition are contained in the Edda, 901 a
      system of mythology, compiled in Iceland about the thirteenth
      century, and studied by the learned of Denmark and Sweden, as the
      most valuable remains of their ancient traditions.

      9 (return) [ See Adam of Bremen in Grotii Prolegomenis, p. 105.
      The temple of Upsal was destroyed by Ingo, king of Sweden, who
      began his reign in the year 1075, and about fourscore years
      afterwards, a Christian cathedral was erected on its ruins. See
      Dalin’s History of Sweden, in the Bibliotheque Raisonee.]

      901 (return) [ The Eddas have at length been made accessible to
      European scholars by the completion of the publication of the
      Sæmundine Edda by the Arna Magnæan Commission, in 3 vols. 4to.,
      with a copious lexicon of northern mythology.—M.]

      Notwithstanding the mysterious obscurity of the Edda, we can
      easily distinguish two persons confounded under the name of Odin;
      the god of war, and the great legislator of Scandinavia. The
      latter, the Mahomet of the North, instituted a religion adapted
      to the climate and to the people. Numerous tribes on either side
      of the Baltic were subdued by the invincible valor of Odin, by
      his persuasive eloquence, and by the fame which he acquired of a
      most skilful magician. The faith that he had propagated, during a
      long and prosperous life, he confirmed by a voluntary death.
      Apprehensive of the ignominious approach of disease and
      infirmity, he resolved to expire as became a warrior. In a solemn
      assembly of the Swedes and Goths, he wounded himself in nine
      mortal places, hastening away (as he asserted with his dying
      voice) to prepare the feast of heroes in the palace of the God of
      war. 10

      10 (return) [ Mallet, Introduction a l’Histoire du Dannemarc.]

      The native and proper habitation of Odin is distinguished by the
      appellation of As-gard. The happy resemblance of that name with
      As-burg, or As-of, 11 words of a similar signification, has given
      rise to an historical system of so pleasing a contexture, that we
      could almost wish to persuade ourselves of its truth. It is
      supposed that Odin was the chief of a tribe of barbarians which
      dwelt on the banks of the Lake Mæotis, till the fall of
      Mithridates and the arms of Pompey menaced the North with
      servitude. That Odin, yielding with indignant fury to a power he
      was unable to resist, conducted his tribe from the frontiers of
      the Asiatic Sarmatia into Sweden, with the great design of
      forming, in that inaccessible retreat of freedom, a religion and
      a people which, in some remote age, might be subservient to his
      immortal revenge; when his invincible Goths, armed with martial
      fanaticism, should issue in numerous swarms from the neighborhood
      of the Polar circle, to chastise the oppressors of mankind. 12

      11 (return) [ Mallet, c. iv. p. 55, has collected from Strabo,
      Pliny, Ptolemy, and Stephanus Byzantinus, the vestiges of such a
      city and people.]

      12 (return) [ This wonderful expedition of Odin, which, by
      deducting the enmity of the Goths and Romans from so memorable a
      cause, might supply the noble groundwork of an epic poem, cannot
      safely be received as authentic history. According to the obvious
      sense of the Edda, and the interpretation of the most skilful
      critics, As-gard, instead of denoting a real city of the Asiatic
      Sarmatia, is the fictitious appellation of the mystic abode of
      the gods, the Olympus of Scandinavia; from whence the prophet was
      supposed to descend, when he announced his new religion to the
      Gothic nations, who were already seated in the southern parts of
      Sweden. * Note: A curious letter may be consulted on this subject
      from the Swede, Ihre counsellor in the Chancery of Upsal, printed
      at Upsal by Edman, in 1772 and translated into German by M.
      Schlozer. Gottingen, printed for Dietericht, 1779.—G. ——Gibbon,
      at a later period of his work, recanted his opinion of the truth
      of this expedition of Odin. The Asiatic origin of the Goths is
      almost certain from the affinity of their language to the
      Sanscrit and Persian; but their northern writers, when all
      mythology was reduced to hero worship.—M.]

      If so many successive generations of Goths were capable of
      preserving a faint tradition of their Scandinavian origin, we
      must not expect, from such unlettered barbarians, any distinct
      account of the time and circumstances of their emigration. To
      cross the Baltic was an easy and natural attempt. The inhabitants
      of Sweden were masters of a sufficient number of large vessels,
      with oars, 13 and the distance is little more than one hundred
      miles from Carlscroon to the nearest ports of Pomerania and
      Prussia. Here, at length, we land on firm and historic ground. At
      least as early as the Christian æra, 14 and as late as the age of
      the Antonines, 15 the Goths were established towards the mouth of
      the Vistula, and in that fertile province where the commercial
      cities of Thorn, Elbing, Köningsberg, and Dantzick, were long
      afterwards founded. 16 Westward of the Goths, the numerous tribes
      of the Vandals were spread along the banks of the Oder, and the
      sea-coast of Pomerania and Mecklenburgh. A striking resemblance
      of manners, complexion, religion, and language, seemed to
      indicate that the Vandals and the Goths were originally one great
      people. 17 The latter appear to have been subdivided into
      Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Gepidæ. 18 The distinction among the
      Vandals was more strongly marked by the independent names of
      Heruli, Burgundians, Lombards, and a variety of other petty
      states, many of which, in a future age, expanded themselves into
      powerful monarchies. 181

      13 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 44.]

      14 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. ii. 62. If we could yield a firm
      assent to the navigations of Pytheas of Marseilles, we must allow
      that the Goths had passed the Baltic at least three hundred years
      before Christ.]

      15 (return) [ Ptolemy, l. ii.]

      16 (return) [ By the German colonies who followed the arms of the
      Teutonic knights. The conquest and conversion of Prussia were
      completed by those adventurers in the thirteenth century.]

      17 (return) [ Pliny (Hist. Natur. iv. 14) and Procopius (in Bell.
      Vandal. l. i. c. l) agree in this opinion. They lived in distant
      ages, and possessed different means of investigating the truth.]

      18 (return) [ The Ostro and Visi, the eastern and western Goths,
      obtained those denominations from their original seats in
      Scandinavia. In all their future marches and settlements they
      preserved, with their names, the same relative situation. When
      they first departed from Sweden, the infant colony was contained
      in three vessels. The third, being a heavy sailer, lagged behind,
      and the crew, which afterwards swelled into a nation, received
      from that circumstance the appellation of Gepidæ or Loiterers.
      Jornandes, c. 17. * Note: It was not in Scandinavia that the
      Goths were divided into Ostrogoths and Visigoths; that division
      took place after their irruption into Dacia in the third century:
      those who came from Mecklenburgh and Pomerania were called
      Visigoths; those who came from the south of Prussia, and the
      northwest of Poland, called themselves Ostrogoths. Adelung, Hist.
      All. p. 202 Gatterer, Hist. Univ. 431.—G.]

      181 (return) [ This opinion is by no means probable. The Vandals
      and the Goths equally belonged to the great division of the
      Suevi, but the two tribes were very different. Those who have
      treated on this part of history, appear to me to have neglected
      to remark that the ancients almost always gave the name of the
      dominant and conquering people to all the weaker and conquered
      races. So Pliny calls Vindeli, Vandals, all the people of the
      north-east of Europe, because at that epoch the Vandals were
      doubtless the conquering tribe. Cæsar, on the contrary, ranges
      under the name of Suevi, many of the tribes whom Pliny reckons as
      Vandals, because the Suevi, properly so called, were then the
      most powerful tribe in Germany. When the Goths, become in their
      turn conquerors, had subjugated the nations whom they encountered
      on their way, these nations lost their name with their liberty,
      and became of Gothic origin. The Vandals themselves were then
      considered as Goths; the Heruli, the Gepidæ, &c., suffered the
      same fate. A common origin was thus attributed to tribes who had
      only been united by the conquests of some dominant nation, and
      this confusion has given rise to a number of historical
      errors.—G. ——M. St. Martin has a learned note (to Le Beau, v.
      261) on the origin of the Vandals. The difficulty appears to be
      in rejecting the close analogy of the name with the Vend or
      Wendish race, who were of Sclavonian, not of Suevian or German,
      origin. M. St. Martin supposes that the different races spread
      from the head of the Adriatic to the Baltic, and even the Veneti,
      on the shores of the Adriatic, the Vindelici, the tribes which
      gave their name to Vindobena, Vindoduna, Vindonissa, were
      branches of the same stock with the Sclavonian Venedi, who at one
      time gave their name to the Baltic; that they all spoke dialects
      of the Wendish language, which still prevails in Carinthia,
      Carniola, part of Bohemia, and Lusatia, and is hardly extinct in
      Mecklenburgh and Pomerania. The Vandal race, once so fearfully
      celebrated in the annals of mankind, has so utterly perished from
      the face of the earth, that we are not aware that any vestiges of
      their language can be traced, so as to throw light on the
      disputed question of their German, their Sclavonian, or
      independent origin. The weight of ancient authority seems against
      M. St. Martin’s opinion. Compare, on the Vandals, Malte Brun.
      394. Also Gibbon’s note, c. xli. n. 38.—M.]

      In the age of the Antonines, the Goths were still seated in
      Prussia. About the reign of Alexander Severus, the Roman province
      of Dacia had already experienced their proximity by frequent and
      destructive inroads. 19 In this interval, therefore, of about
      seventy years we must place the second migration of the Goths
      from the Baltic to the Euxine; but the cause that produced it
      lies concealed among the various motives which actuate the
      conduct of unsettled barbarians. Either a pestilence or a famine,
      a victory or a defeat, an oracle of the gods or the eloquence of
      a daring leader, were sufficient to impel the Gothic arms on the
      milder climates of the south. Besides the influence of a martial
      religion, the numbers and spirit of the Goths were equal to the
      most dangerous adventures. The use of round bucklers and short
      swords rendered them formidable in a close engagement; the manly
      obedience which they yielded to hereditary kings, gave uncommon
      union and stability to their councils; 20 and the renowned Amala,
      the hero of that age, and the tenth ancestor of Theodoric, king
      of Italy, enforced, by the ascendant of personal merit, the
      prerogative of his birth, which he derived from the _Anses_, or
      demigods of the Gothic nation. 21

      19 (return) [ See a fragment of Peter Patricius in the Excerpta
      Legationum and with regard to its probable date, see Tillemont,
      Hist, des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 346.]

      20 (return) [ Omnium harum gentium insigne, rotunda scuta, breves
      gladii, et erga rages obsequium. Tacit. Germania, c. 43. The
      Goths probably acquired their iron by the commerce of amber.]

      21 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 13, 14.]

      The fame of a great enterprise excited the bravest warriors from
      all the Vandalic states of Germany, many of whom are seen a few
      years afterwards combating under the common standard of the
      Goths. 22 The first motions of the emigrants carried them to the
      banks of the Prypec, a river universally conceived by the
      ancients to be the southern branch of the Borysthenes. 23 The
      windings of that great stream through the plains of Poland and
      Russia gave a direction to their line of march, and a constant
      supply of fresh water and pasturage to their numerous herds of
      cattle. They followed the unknown course of the river, confident
      in their valor, and careless of whatever power might oppose their
      progress. The Bastarnæ and the Venedi were the first who
      presented themselves; and the flower of their youth, either from
      choice or compulsion, increased the Gothic army. The Bastarnæ
      dwelt on the northern side of the Carpathian Mountains: the
      immense tract of land that separated the Bastarnæ from the
      savages of Finland was possessed, or rather wasted, by the
      Venedi; 24 we have some reason to believe that the first of these
      nations, which distinguished itself in the Macedonian war, 25 and
      was afterwards divided into the formidable tribes of the Peucini,
      the Borani, the Carpi, &c., derived its origin from the Germans.
      251 With better authority, a Sarmatian extraction may be assigned
      to the Venedi, who rendered themselves so famous in the middle
      ages. 26 But the confusion of blood and manners on that doubtful
      frontier often perplexed the most accurate observers. 27 As the
      Goths advanced near the Euxine Sea, they encountered a purer race
      of Sarmatians, the Jazyges, the Alani, 271 and the Roxolani; and
      they were probably the first Germans who saw the mouths of the
      Borysthenes, and of the Tanais. If we inquire into the
      characteristic marks of the people of Germany and of Sarmatia, we
      shall discover that those two great portions of human kind were
      principally distinguished by fixed huts or movable tents, by a
      close dress or flowing garments, by the marriage of one or of
      several wives, by a military force, consisting, for the most
      part, either of infantry or cavalry; and above all, by the use of
      the Teutonic, or of the Sclavonian language; the last of which
      has been diffused by conquest, from the confines of Italy to the
      neighborhood of Japan.

      22 (return) [ The Heruli, and the Uregundi or Burgundi, are
      particularly mentioned. See Mascou’s History of the Germans, l.
      v. A passage in the Augustan History, p. 28, seems to allude to
      this great emigration. The Marcomannic war was partly occasioned
      by the pressure of barbarous tribes, who fled before the arms of
      more northern barbarians.]

      23 (return) [ D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, and the third part
      of his incomparable map of Europe.]

      24 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 46.]

      25 (return) [ Cluver. Germ. Antiqua, l. iii. c. 43.]

      251 (return) [ The Bastarnæ cannot be considered original
      inhabitants of Germany Strabo and Tacitus appear to doubt it;
      Pliny alone calls them Germans: Ptolemy and Dion treat them as
      Scythians, a vague appellation at this period of history; Livy,
      Plutarch, and Diodorus Siculus, call them Gauls, and this is the
      most probable opinion. They descended from the Gauls who entered
      Germany under Signoesus. They are always found associated with
      other Gaulish tribes, such as the Boll, the Taurisci, &c., and
      not to the German tribes. The names of their chiefs or princes,
      Chlonix, Chlondicus. Deldon, are not German names. Those who were
      settled in the island of Peuce in the Danube, took the name of
      Peucini. The Carpi appear in 237 as a Suevian tribe who had made
      an irruption into Mæsia. Afterwards they reappear under the
      Ostrogoths, with whom they were probably blended. Adelung, p.
      236, 278.—G.]

      26 (return) [ The Venedi, the Slavi, and the Antes, were the
      three great tribes of the same people. Jornandes, 24. * Note
      Dagger: They formed the great Sclavonian nation.—G.]

      27 (return) [ Tacitus most assuredly deserves that title, and
      even his cautious suspense is a proof of his diligent inquiries.]

      271 (return) [ Jac. Reineggs supposed that he had found, in the
      mountains of Caucasus, some descendants of the Alani. The Tartars
      call them Edeki-Alan: they speak a peculiar dialect of the
      ancient language of the Tartars of Caucasus. See J. Reineggs’
      Descr. of Caucasus, p. 11, 13.—G. According to Klaproth, they are
      the Ossetes of the present day in Mount Caucasus and were the
      same with the Albanians of antiquity. Klaproth, Hist. de l’Asie,
      p. 180.—M.]




      Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
      Gallienus.—Part II.

      The Goths were now in possession of the Ukraine, a country of
      considerable extent and uncommon fertility, intersected with
      navigable rivers, which, from either side, discharge themselves
      into the Borysthenes; and interspersed with large and lofty
      forests of oaks. The plenty of game and fish, the innumerable
      bee-hives deposited in the hollow of old trees, and in the
      cavities of rocks, and forming, even in that rude age, a valuable
      branch of commerce, the size of the cattle, the temperature of
      the air, the aptness of the soil for every species of grain, and
      the luxuriancy of the vegetation, all displayed the liberality of
      Nature, and tempted the industry of man. 28 But the Goths
      withstood all these temptations, and still adhered to a life of
      idleness, of poverty, and of rapine.

      28 (return) [ Genealogical History of the Tartars, p. 593. Mr.
      Bell (vol. ii. p 379) traversed the Ukraine, in his journey from
      Petersburgh to Constantinople. The modern face of the country is
      a just representation of the ancient, since, in the hands of the
      Cossacks, it still remains in a state of nature.]

      The Scythian hordes, which, towards the east, bordered on the new
      settlements of the Goths, presented nothing to their arms, except
      the doubtful chance of an unprofitable victory. But the prospect
      of the Roman territories was far more alluring; and the fields of
      Dacia were covered with rich harvests, sown by the hands of an
      industrious, and exposed to be gathered by those of a warlike,
      people. It is probable that the conquests of Trajan, maintained
      by his successors, less for any real advantage than for ideal
      dignity, had contributed to weaken the empire on that side. The
      new and unsettled province of Dacia was neither strong enough to
      resist, nor rich enough to satiate, the rapaciousness of the
      barbarians. As long as the remote banks of the Niester were
      considered as the boundary of the Roman power, the fortifications
      of the Lower Danube were more carelessly guarded, and the
      inhabitants of Mæsia lived in supine security, fondly conceiving
      themselves at an inaccessible distance from any barbarian
      invaders. The irruptions of the Goths, under the reign of Philip,
      fatally convinced them of their mistake. The king, or leader, of
      that fierce nation, traversed with contempt the province of
      Dacia, and passed both the Niester and the Danube without
      encountering any opposition capable of retarding his progress.
      The relaxed discipline of the Roman troops betrayed the most
      important posts, where they were stationed, and the fear of
      deserved punishment induced great numbers of them to enlist under
      the Gothic standard. The various multitude of barbarians
      appeared, at length, under the walls of Marcianopolis, a city
      built by Trajan in honor of his sister, and at that time the
      capital of the second Mæsia. 29 The inhabitants consented to
      ransom their lives and property by the payment of a large sum of
      money, and the invaders retreated back into their deserts,
      animated, rather than satisfied, with the first success of their
      arms against an opulent but feeble country. Intelligence was soon
      transmitted to the emperor Decius, that Cniva, king of the Goths,
      had passed the Danube a second time, with more considerable
      forces; that his numerous detachments scattered devastation over
      the province of Mæsia, whilst the main body of the army,
      consisting of seventy thousand Germans and Sarmatians, a force
      equal to the most daring achievements, required the presence of
      the Roman monarch, and the exertion of his military power.

      29 (return) [ In the sixteenth chapter of Jornandes, instead of
      secundo Mæsiam we may venture to substitute secundam, the second
      Mæsia, of which Marcianopolis was certainly the capital. (See
      Hierocles de Provinciis, and Wesseling ad locum, p. 636.
      Itinerar.) It is surprising how this palpable error of the scribe
      should escape the judicious correction of Grotius. Note: Luden
      has observed that Jornandes mentions two passages over the
      Danube; this relates to the second irruption into Mæsia.
      Geschichte des T V. ii. p. 448.—M.]

      Decius found the Goths engaged before Nicopolis, one of the many
      monuments of Trajan’s victories. 30 On his approach they raised
      the siege, but with a design only of marching away to a conquest
      of greater importance, the siege of Philippopolis, a city of
      Thrace, founded by the father of Alexander, near the foot of
      Mount Hæmus. 31 Decius followed them through a difficult country,
      and by forced marches; but when he imagined himself at a
      considerable distance from the rear of the Goths, Cniva turned
      with rapid fury on his pursuers. The camp of the Romans was
      surprised and pillaged, and, for the first time, their emperor
      fled in disorder before a troop of half-armed barbarians. After a
      long resistance, Philoppopolis, destitute of succor, was taken by
      storm. A hundred thousand persons are reported to have been
      massacred in the sack of that great city. 32 Many prisoners of
      consequence became a valuable accession to the spoil; and
      Priscus, a brother of the late emperor Philip, blushed not to
      assume the purple, under the protection of the barbarous enemies
      of Rome. 33 The time, however, consumed in that tedious siege,
      enabled Decius to revive the courage, restore the discipline, and
      recruit the numbers of his troops. He intercepted several parties
      of Carpi, and other Germans, who were hastening to share the
      victory of their countrymen, 34 intrusted the passes of the
      mountains to officers of approved valor and fidelity, 35 repaired
      and strengthened the fortifications of the Danube, and exerted
      his utmost vigilance to oppose either the progress or the retreat
      of the Goths. Encouraged by the return of fortune, he anxiously
      waited for an opportunity to retrieve, by a great and decisive
      blow, his own glory, and that of the Roman arms. 36

      30 (return) [ The place is still called Nicop. D’Anville,
      Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 307. The little stream, on whose
      banks it stood, falls into the Danube.]

      31 (return) [ Stephan. Byzant. de Urbibus, p. 740. Wesseling,
      Itinerar. p. 136. Zonaras, by an odd mistake, ascribes the
      foundation of Philippopolis to the immediate predecessor of
      Decius. * Note: Now Philippopolis or Philiba; its situation among
      the hills caused it to be also called Trimontium. D’Anville,
      Geog. Anc. i. 295.—G.]

      32 (return) [ Ammian. xxxi. 5.]

      33 (return) [ Aurel. Victor. c. 29.]

      34 (return) [ Victorioe Carpicoe, on some medals of Decius,
      insinuate these advantages.]

      35 (return) [ Claudius (who afterwards reigned with so much
      glory) was posted in the pass of Thermopylæ with 200 Dardanians,
      100 heavy and 160 light horse, 60 Cretan archers, and 1000
      well-armed recruits. See an original letter from the emperor to
      his officer, in the Augustan History, p. 200.]

      36 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 16—18. Zosimus, l. i. p. 22. In the
      general account of this war, it is easy to discover the opposite
      prejudices of the Gothic and the Grecian writer. In carelessness
      alone they are alike.]

      At the same time when Decius was struggling with the violence of
      the tempest, his mind, calm and deliberate amidst the tumult of
      war, investigated the more general causes that, since the age of
      the Antonines, had so impetuously urged the decline of the Roman
      greatness. He soon discovered that it was impossible to replace
      that greatness on a permanent basis without restoring public
      virtue, ancient principles and manners, and the oppressed majesty
      of the laws. To execute this noble but arduous design, he first
      resolved to revive the obsolete office of censor; an office
      which, as long as it had subsisted in its pristine integrity, had
      so much contributed to the perpetuity of the state, 37 till it
      was usurped and gradually neglected by the Cæsars. 38 Conscious
      that the favor of the sovereign may confer power, but that the
      esteem of the people can alone bestow authority, he submitted the
      choice of the censor to the unbiased voice of the senate. By
      their unanimous votes, or rather acclamations, Valerian, who was
      afterwards emperor, and who then served with distinction in the
      army of Decius, was declared the most worthy of that exalted
      honor. As soon as the decree of the senate was transmitted to the
      emperor, he assembled a great council in his camp, and before the
      investiture of the censor elect, he apprised him of the
      difficulty and importance of his great office. “Happy Valerian,”
      said the prince to his distinguished subject, “happy in the
      general approbation of the senate and of the Roman republic!
      Accept the censorship of mankind; and judge of our manners. You
      will select those who deserve to continue members of the senate;
      you will restore the equestrian order to its ancient splendor;
      you will improve the revenue, yet moderate the public burdens.
      You will distinguish into regular classes the various and
      infinite multitude of citizens, and accurately view the military
      strength, the wealth, the virtue, and the resources of Rome. Your
      decisions shall obtain the force of laws. The army, the palace,
      the ministers of justice, and the great officers of the empire,
      are all subject to your tribunal. None are exempted, excepting
      only the ordinary consuls, 39 the præfect of the city, the king
      of the sacrifices, and (as long as she preserves her chastity
      inviolate) the eldest of the vestal virgins. Even these few, who
      may not dread the severity, will anxiously solicit the esteem, of
      the Roman censor.” 40

      37 (return) [ Montesquieu, Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, c.
      viii. He illustrates the nature and use of the censorship with
      his usual ingenuity, and with uncommon precision.]

      38 (return) [ Vespasian and Titus were the last censors, (Pliny,
      Hist. Natur vii. 49. Censorinus de Die Natali.) The modesty of
      Trajan refused an honor which he deserved, and his example became
      a law to the Antonines. See Pliny’s Panegyric, c. 45 and 60.]

      39 (return) [ Yet in spite of his exemption, Pompey appeared
      before that tribunal during his consulship. The occasion, indeed,
      was equally singular and honorable. Plutarch in Pomp. p. 630.]

      40 (return) [ See the original speech in the Augustan Hist. p.
      173-174.]

      A magistrate, invested with such extensive powers, would have
      appeared not so much the minister, as the colleague of his
      sovereign. 41 Valerian justly dreaded an elevation so full of
      envy and of suspicion. He modestly argued the alarming greatness
      of the trust, his own insufficiency, and the incurable corruption
      of the times. He artfully insinuated, that the office of censor
      was inseparable from the Imperial dignity, and that the feeble
      hands of a subject were unequal to the support of such an immense
      weight of cares and of power. 42 The approaching event of war
      soon put an end to the prosecution of a project so specious, but
      so impracticable; and whilst it preserved Valerian from the
      danger, saved the emperor Decius from the disappointment, which
      would most probably have attended it. A censor may maintain, he
      can never restore, the morals of a state. It is impossible for
      such a magistrate to exert his authority with benefit, or even
      with effect, unless he is supported by a quick sense of honor and
      virtue in the minds of the people, by a decent reverence for the
      public opinion, and by a train of useful prejudices combating on
      the side of national manners. In a period when these principles
      are annihilated, the censorial jurisdiction must either sink into
      empty pageantry, or be converted into a partial instrument of
      vexatious oppression. 43 It was easier to vanquish the Goths than
      to eradicate the public vices; yet even in the first of these
      enterprises, Decius lost his army and his life.

      41 (return) [ This transaction might deceive Zonaras, who
      supposes that Valerian was actually declared the colleague of
      Decius, l. xii. p. 625.]

      42 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 174. The emperor’s reply is
      omitted.]

      43 (return) [ Such as the attempts of Augustus towards a
      reformation of manness. Tacit. Annal. iii. 24.]

      The Goths were now, on every side, surrounded and pursued by the
      Roman arms. The flower of their troops had perished in the long
      siege of Philippopolis, and the exhausted country could no longer
      afford subsistence for the remaining multitude of licentious
      barbarians. Reduced to this extremity, the Goths would gladly
      have purchased, by the surrender of all their booty and
      prisoners, the permission of an undisturbed retreat. But the
      emperor, confident of victory, and resolving, by the chastisement
      of these invaders, to strike a salutary terror into the nations
      of the North, refused to listen to any terms of accommodation.
      The high-spirited barbarians preferred death to slavery. An
      obscure town of Mæsia, called Forum Terebronii, 44 was the scene
      of the battle. The Gothic army was drawn up in three lines, and
      either from choice or accident, the front of the third line was
      covered by a morass. In the beginning of the action, the son of
      Decius, a youth of the fairest hopes, and already associated to
      the honors of the purple, was slain by an arrow, in the sight of
      his afflicted father; who, summoning all his fortitude,
      admonished the dismayed troops, that the loss of a single soldier
      was of little importance to the republic. 45 The conflict was
      terrible; it was the combat of despair against grief and rage.
      The first line of the Goths at length gave way in disorder; the
      second, advancing to sustain it, shared its fate; and the third
      only remained entire, prepared to dispute the passage of the
      morass, which was imprudently attempted by the presumption of the
      enemy. “Here the fortune of the day turned, and all things became
      adverse to the Romans; the place deep with ooze, sinking under
      those who stood, slippery to such as advanced; their armor heavy,
      the waters deep; nor could they wield, in that uneasy situation,
      their weighty javelins. The barbarians, on the contrary, were
      inured to encounter in the bogs, their persons tall, their spears
      long, such as could wound at a distance.” 46 In this morass the
      Roman army, after an ineffectual struggle, was irrecoverably
      lost; nor could the body of the emperor ever be found. 47 Such
      was the fate of Decius, in the fiftieth year of his age; an
      accomplished prince, active in war and affable in peace; 48 who,
      together with his son, has deserved to be compared, both in life
      and death, with the brightest examples of ancient virtue. 49

      44 (return) [ Tillemont, Histoire des Empereurs, tom. iii. p.
      598. As Zosimus and some of his followers mistake the Danube for
      the Tanais, they place the field of battle in the plains of
      Scythia.]

      45 (return) [ Aurelius Victor allows two distinct actions for the
      deaths of the two Decii; but I have preferred the account of
      Jornandes.]

      46 (return) [ I have ventured to copy from Tacitus (Annal. i. 64)
      the picture of a similar engagement between a Roman army and a
      German tribe.]

      47 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 18. Zosimus, l. i. p. 22, [c. 23.]
      Zonaras, l. xii. p. 627. Aurelius Victor.]

      48 (return) [ The Decii were killed before the end of the year
      two hundred and fifty-one, since the new princes took possession
      of the consulship on the ensuing calends of January.]

      49 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 223, gives them a very honorable
      place among the small number of good emperors who reigned between
      Augustus and Diocletian.]

      This fatal blow humbled, for a very little time, the insolence of
      the legions. They appeared to have patiently expected, and
      submissively obeyed, the decree of the senate which regulated the
      succession to the throne. From a just regard for the memory of
      Decius, the Imperial title was conferred on Hostilianus, his only
      surviving son; but an equal rank, with more effectual power, was
      granted to Gallus, whose experience and ability seemed equal to
      the great trust of guardian to the young prince and the
      distressed empire. 50 The first care of the new emperor was to
      deliver the Illyrian provinces from the intolerable weight of the
      victorious Goths. He consented to leave in their hands the rich
      fruits of their invasion, an immense booty, and what was still
      more disgraceful, a great number of prisoners of the highest
      merit and quality. He plentifully supplied their camp with every
      conveniency that could assuage their angry spirits or facilitate
      their so much wished-for departure; and he even promised to pay
      them annually a large sum of gold, on condition they should never
      afterwards infest the Roman territories by their incursions. 51

      50 (return) [ Hæc ubi Patres comperere.. .. decernunt. Victor in
      Cæsaribus.]

      51 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 628.]

      In the age of the Scipios, the most opulent kings of the earth,
      who courted the protection of the victorious commonwealth, were
      gratified with such trifling presents as could only derive a
      value from the hand that bestowed them; an ivory chair, a coarse
      garment of purple, an inconsiderable piece of plate, or a
      quantity of copper coin. 52 After the wealth of nations had
      centred in Rome, the emperors displayed their greatness, and even
      their policy, by the regular exercise of a steady and moderate
      liberality towards the allies of the state. They relieved the
      poverty of the barbarians, honored their merit, and recompensed
      their fidelity. These voluntary marks of bounty were understood
      to flow, not from the fears, but merely from the generosity or
      the gratitude of the Romans; and whilst presents and subsidies
      were liberally distributed among friends and suppliants, they
      were sternly refused to such as claimed them as a debt. 53 But
      this stipulation, of an annual payment to a victorious enemy,
      appeared without disguise in the light of an ignominious tribute;
      the minds of the Romans were not yet accustomed to accept such
      unequal laws from a tribe of barbarians; and the prince, who by a
      necessary concession had probably saved his country, became the
      object of the general contempt and aversion. The death of
      Hostiliamus, though it happened in the midst of a raging
      pestilence, was interpreted as the personal crime of Gallus; 54
      and even the defeat of the later emperor was ascribed by the
      voice of suspicion to the perfidious counsels of his hated
      successor. 55 The tranquillity which the empire enjoyed during
      the first year of his administration, 56 served rather to inflame
      than to appease the public discontent; and as soon as the
      apprehensions of war were removed, the infamy of the peace was
      more deeply and more sensibly felt.

      52 (return) [ A _Sella_, a _Toga_, and a golden _Patera_ of five
      pounds weight, were accepted with joy and gratitude by the
      wealthy king of Egypt. (Livy, xxvii. 4.) _Quina millia Æris_, a
      weight of copper, in value about eighteen pounds sterling, was
      the usual present made to foreign are ambassadors. (Livy, xxxi.
      9.)]

      53 (return) [ See the firmness of a Roman general so late as the
      time of Alexander Severus, in the Excerpta Legationum, p. 25,
      edit. Louvre.]

      54 (return) [ For the plague, see Jornandes, c. 19, and Victor in
      Cæsaribus.]

      55 (return) [ These improbable accusations are alleged by
      Zosimus, l. i. p. 28, 24.]

      56 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 19. The Gothic writer at least
      observed the peace which his victorious countrymen had sworn to
      Gallus.]

      But the Romans were irritated to a still higher degree, when they
      discovered that they had not even secured their repose, though at
      the expense of their honor. The dangerous secret of the wealth
      and weakness of the empire had been revealed to the world. New
      swarms of barbarians, encouraged by the success, and not
      conceiving themselves bound by the obligation of their brethren,
      spread devastation though the Illyrian provinces, and terror as
      far as the gates of Rome. The defence of the monarchy, which
      seemed abandoned by the pusillanimous emperor, was assumed by
      Æmilianus, governor of Pannonia and Mæsia; who rallied the
      scattered forces, and revived the fainting spirits of the troops.
      The barbarians were unexpectedly attacked, routed, chased, and
      pursued beyond the Danube. The victorious leader distributed as a
      donative the money collected for the tribute, and the
      acclamations of the soldiers proclaimed him emperor on the field
      of battle. 57 Gallus, who, careless of the general welfare,
      indulged himself in the pleasures of Italy, was almost in the
      same instant informed of the success, of the revolt, and of the
      rapid approach of his aspiring lieutenant. He advanced to meet
      him as far as the plains of Spoleto. When the armies came in
      sight of each other, the soldiers of Gallus compared the
      ignominious conduct of their sovereign with the glory of his
      rival. They admired the valor of Æmilianus; they were attracted
      by his liberality, for he offered a considerable increase of pay
      to all deserters. 58 The murder of Gallus, and of his son
      Volusianus, put an end to the civil war; and the senate gave a
      legal sanction to the rights of conquest. The letters of
      Æmilianus to that assembly displayed a mixture of moderation and
      vanity. He assured them, that he should resign to their wisdom
      the civil administration; and, contenting himself with the
      quality of their general, would in a short time assert the glory
      of Rome, and deliver the empire from all the barbarians both of
      the North and of the East. 59 His pride was flattered by the
      applause of the senate; and medals are still extant, representing
      him with the name and attributes of Hercules the Victor, and Mars
      the Avenger. 60

      57 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 25, 26.]

      58 (return) [ Victor in Cæsaribus.]

      59 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 628.]

      60 (return) [ Banduri Numismata, p. 94.]

      If the new monarch possessed the abilities, he wanted the time,
      necessary to fulfil these splendid promises. Less than four
      months intervened between his victory and his fall. 61 He had
      vanquished Gallus: he sunk under the weight of a competitor more
      formidable than Gallus. That unfortunate prince had sent
      Valerian, already distinguished by the honorable title of censor,
      to bring the legions of Gaul and Germany 62 to his aid. Valerian
      executed that commission with zeal and fidelity; and as he
      arrived too late to save his sovereign, he resolved to revenge
      him. The troops of Æmilianus, who still lay encamped in the
      plains of Spoleto, were awed by the sanctity of his character,
      but much more by the superior strength of his army; and as they
      were now become as incapable of personal attachment as they had
      always been of constitutional principle, they readily imbrued
      their hands in the blood of a prince who so lately had been the
      object of their partial choice. The guilt was theirs, 621 but the
      advantage of it was Valerian’s; who obtained the possession of
      the throne by the means indeed of a civil war, but with a degree
      of innocence singular in that age of revolutions; since he owed
      neither gratitude nor allegiance to his predecessor, whom he
      dethroned.

      61 (return) [ Eutropius, l. ix. c. 6, says tertio mense. Eusebio
      this emperor.]

      62 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 28. Eutropius and Victor station
      Valerian’s army in Rhætia.]

      621 (return) [ Aurelius Victor says that Æmilianus died of a
      natural disorder. Tropius, in speaking of his death, does not say
      that he was assassinated—G.]

      Valerian was about sixty years of age 63 when he was invested
      with the purple, not by the caprice of the populace, or the
      clamors of the army, but by the unanimous voice of the Roman
      world. In his gradual ascent through the honors of the state, he
      had deserved the favor of virtuous princes, and had declared
      himself the enemy of tyrants. 64 His noble birth, his mild but
      unblemished manners, his learning, prudence, and experience, were
      revered by the senate and people; and if mankind (according to
      the observation of an ancient writer) had been left at liberty to
      choose a master, their choice would most assuredly have fallen on
      Valerian. 65 Perhaps the merit of this emperor was inadequate to
      his reputation; perhaps his abilities, or at least his spirit,
      were affected by the languor and coldness of old age. The
      consciousness of his decline engaged him to share the throne with
      a younger and more active associate; 66 the emergency of the
      times demanded a general no less than a prince; and the
      experience of the Roman censor might have directed him where to
      bestow the Imperial purple, as the reward of military merit. But
      instead of making a judicious choice, which would have confirmed
      his reign and endeared his memory, Valerian, consulting only the
      dictates of affection or vanity, immediately invested with the
      supreme honors his son Gallienus, a youth whose effeminate vices
      had been hitherto concealed by the obscurity of a private
      station. The joint government of the father and the son subsisted
      about seven, and the sole administration of Gallienus continued
      about eight, years. But the whole period was one uninterrupted
      series of confusion and calamity. As the Roman empire was at the
      same time, and on every side, attacked by the blind fury of
      foreign invaders, and the wild ambition of domestic usurpers, we
      shall consult order and perspicuity, by pursuing, not so much the
      doubtful arrangement of dates, as the more natural distribution
      of subjects. The most dangerous enemies of Rome, during the
      reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, were, 1. The Franks; 2. The
      Alemanni; 3. The Goths; and, 4. The Persians. Under these general
      appellations, we may comprehend the adventures of less
      considerable tribes, whose obscure and uncouth names would only
      serve to oppress the memory and perplex the attention of the
      reader.

      63 (return) [ He was about seventy at the time of his accession,
      or, as it is more probable, of his death. Hist. August. p. 173.
      Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 893, note 1.]

      64 (return) [ Inimicus tyrannorum. Hist. August. p. 173. In the
      glorious struggle of the senate against Maximin, Valerian acted a
      very spirited part. Hist. August. p. 156.]

      65 (return) [ According to the distinction of Victor, he seems to
      have received the title of Imperator from the army, and that of
      Augustus from the senate.]

      66 (return) [ From Victor and from the medals, Tillemont (tom.
      iii. p. 710) very justly infers, that Gallienus was associated to
      the empire about the month of August of the year 253.]

      I. As the posterity of the Franks compose one of the greatest and
      most enlightened nations of Europe, the powers of learning and
      ingenuity have been exhausted in the discovery of their
      unlettered ancestors. To the tales of credulity have succeeded
      the systems of fancy. Every passage has been sifted, every spot
      has been surveyed, that might possibly reveal some faint traces
      of their origin. It has been supposed that Pannonia, 67 that
      Gaul, that the northern parts of Germany, 68 gave birth to that
      celebrated colony of warriors. At length the most rational
      critics, rejecting the fictitious emigrations of ideal
      conquerors, have acquiesced in a sentiment whose simplicity
      persuades us of its truth. 69 They suppose, that about the year
      two hundred and forty, 70 a new confederacy was formed under the
      name of Franks, by the old inhabitants of the Lower Rhine and the
      Weser. 701 The present circle of Westphalia, the Landgraviate of
      Hesse, and the duchies of Brunswick and Luneburg, were the
      ancient seat of the Chauci who, in their inaccessible morasses,
      defied the Roman arms; 71 of the Cherusci, proud of the fame of
      Arminius; of the Catti, formidable by their firm and intrepid
      infantry; and of several other tribes of inferior power and
      renown. 72 The love of liberty was the ruling passion of these
      Germans; the enjoyment of it their best treasure; the word that
      expressed that enjoyment the most pleasing to their ear. They
      deserved, they assumed, they maintained the honorable epithet of
      Franks, or Freemen; which concealed, though it did not
      extinguish, the peculiar names of the several states of the
      confederacy. 73 Tacit consent, and mutual advantage, dictated the
      first laws of the union; it was gradually cemented by habit and
      experience. The league of the Franks may admit of some comparison
      with the Helvetic body; in which every canton, retaining its
      independent sovereignty, consults with its brethren in the common
      cause, without acknowledging the authority of any supreme head or
      representative assembly. 74 But the principle of the two
      confederacies was extremely different. A peace of two hundred
      years has rewarded the wise and honest policy of the Swiss. An
      inconstant spirit, the thirst of rapine, and a disregard to the
      most solemn treaties, disgraced the character of the Franks.

      67 (return) [ Various systems have been formed to explain a
      difficult passage in Gregory of Tours, l. ii. c. 9.]

      68 (return) [ The Geographer of Ravenna, i. 11, by mentioning
      Mauringania, on the confines of Denmark, as the ancient seat of
      the Franks, gave birth to an ingenious system of Leibritz.]

      69 (return) [ See Cluver. Germania Antiqua, l. iii. c. 20. M.
      Freret, in the Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom.
      xviii.]

      70 (return) [ Most probably under the reign of Gordian, from an
      accidental circumstance fully canvassed by Tillemont, tom. iii.
      p. 710, 1181.]

      701 (return) [ The confederation of the Franks appears to have
      been formed, 1. Of the Chauci. 2. Of the Sicambri, the
      inhabitants of the duchy of Berg. 3. Of the Attuarii, to the
      north of the Sicambri, in the principality of Waldeck, between
      the Dimel and the Eder. 4. Of the Bructeri, on the banks of the
      Lippe, and in the Hartz. 5. Of the Chamavii, the Gambrivii of
      Tacitua, who were established, at the time of the Frankish
      confederation, in the country of the Bructeri. 6. Of the Catti,
      in Hessia.—G. The Salii and Cherasci are added. Greenwood’s Hist.
      of Germans, i 193.—M.]

      71 (return) [Plin. Hist. Natur. xvi. l. The Panegyrists
      frequently allude to the morasses of the Franks.]

      72 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 30, 37.]

      73 (return) [ In a subsequent period, most of those old names are
      occasionally mentioned. See some vestiges of them in Cluver.
      Germ. Antiq. l. iii.]

      74 (return) [ Simler de Republica Helvet. cum notis Fuselin.]




      Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
      Gallienus.—Part III.

      The Romans had long experienced the daring valor of the people of
      Lower Germany. The union of their strength threatened Gaul with a
      more formidable invasion, and required the presence of Gallienus,
      the heir and colleague of Imperial power. 75 Whilst that prince,
      and his infant son Salonius, displayed, in the court of Treves,
      the majesty of the empire, its armies were ably conducted by
      their general, Posthumus, who, though he afterwards betrayed the
      family of Valerian, was ever faithful to the great interests of
      the monarchy. The treacherous language of panegyrics and medals
      darkly announces a long series of victories. Trophies and titles
      attest (if such evidence can attest) the fame of Posthumus, who
      is repeatedly styled the Conqueror of the Germans, and the Savior
      of Gaul. 76

      75 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 27.]

      76 (return) [ M. de Brequigny (in the Memoires de l’Academie,
      tom. xxx.) has given us a very curious life of Posthumus. A
      series of the Augustan History from Medals and Inscriptions has
      been more than once planned, and is still much wanted. * Note: M.
      Eckhel, Keeper of the Cabinet of Medals, and Professor of
      Antiquities at Vienna, lately deceased, has supplied this want by
      his excellent work, Doctrina veterum Nummorum, conscripta a Jos.
      Eckhel, 8 vol. in 4to Vindobona, 1797.—G. Captain Smyth has
      likewise printed (privately) a valuable Descriptive Catologue of
      a series of Large Brass Medals of this period Bedford, 1834.—M.
      1845.]

      But a single fact, the only one indeed of which we have any
      distinct knowledge, erases, in a great measure, these monuments
      of vanity and adulation. The Rhine, though dignified with the
      title of Safeguard of the provinces, was an imperfect barrier
      against the daring spirit of enterprise with which the Franks
      were actuated. Their rapid devastations stretched from the river
      to the foot of the Pyrenees; nor were they stopped by those
      mountains. Spain, which had never dreaded, was unable to resist,
      the inroads of the Germans. During twelve years, the greatest
      part of the reign of Gallienus, that opulent country was the
      theatre of unequal and destructive hostilities. Tarragona, the
      flourishing capital of a peaceful province, was sacked and almost
      destroyed; 77 and so late as the days of Orosius, who wrote in
      the fifth century, wretched cottages, scattered amidst the ruins
      of magnificent cities, still recorded the rage of the barbarians.
      78 When the exhausted country no longer supplied a variety of
      plunder, the Franks seized on some vessels in the ports of Spain,
      79 and transported themselves into Mauritania. The distant
      province was astonished with the fury of these barbarians, who
      seemed to fall from a new world, as their name, manners, and
      complexion, were equally unknown on the coast of Africa. 80

      77 (return) [ Aurel. Victor, c. 33. Instead of Poene direpto,
      both the sense and the expression require deleto; though indeed,
      for different reasons, it is alike difficult to correct the text
      of the best, and of the worst, writers.]

      78 (return) [ In the time of Ausonius (the end of the fourth
      century) Ilerda or Lerida was in a very ruinous state, (Auson.
      Epist. xxv. 58,) which probably was the consequence of this
      invasion.]

      79 (return) [ Valesius is therefore mistaken in supposing that
      the Franks had invaded Spain by sea.]

      80 (return) [ Aurel. Victor. Eutrop. ix. 6.]

      II. In that part of Upper Saxony, beyond the Elbe, which is at
      present called the Marquisate of Lusace, there existed, in
      ancient times, a sacred wood, the awful seat of the superstition
      of the Suevi. None were permitted to enter the holy precincts,
      without confessing, by their servile bonds and suppliant posture,
      the immediate presence of the sovereign Deity. 81 Patriotism
      contributed, as well as devotion, to consecrate the Sonnenwald,
      or wood of the Semnones. 82 It was universally believed, that the
      nation had received its first existence on that sacred spot. At
      stated periods, the numerous tribes who gloried in the Suevic
      blood, resorted thither by their ambassadors; and the memory of
      their common extraction was perpetrated by barbaric rites and
      human sacrifices. The wide-extended name of Suevi filled the
      interior countries of Germany, from the banks of the Oder to
      those of the Danube. They were distinguished from the other
      Germans by their peculiar mode of dressing their long hair, which
      they gathered into a rude knot on the crown of the head; and they
      delighted in an ornament that showed their ranks more lofty and
      terrible in the eyes of the enemy. 83 Jealous as the Germans were
      of military renown, they all confessed the superior valor of the
      Suevi; and the tribes of the Usipetes and Tencteri, who, with a
      vast army, encountered the dictator Cæsar, declared that they
      esteemed it not a disgrace to have fled before a people to whose
      arms the immortal gods themselves were unequal. 84

      81 (return) [ Tacit.Germania, 38.]

      82 (return) [ Cluver. Germ. Antiq. iii. 25.]

      83 (return) [ Sic Suevi a ceteris Germanis, sic Suerorum ingenui
      a servis separantur. A proud separation!]

      84 (return) [ Cæsar in Bello Gallico, iv. 7.]

      In the reign of the emperor Caracalla, an innumerable swarm of
      Suevi appeared on the banks of the Main, and in the neighborhood
      of the Roman provinces, in quest either of food, of plunder, or
      of glory. 85 The hasty army of volunteers gradually coalesced
      into a great and permanent nation, and, as it was composed from
      so many different tribes, assumed the name of Alemanni, 851 or
      _Allmen_, to denote at once their various lineage and their
      common bravery. 86 The latter was soon felt by the Romans in many
      a hostile inroad. The Alemanni fought chiefly on horseback; but
      their cavalry was rendered still more formidable by a mixture of
      light infantry, selected from the bravest and most active of the
      youth, whom frequent exercise had inured to accompany the
      horsemen in the longest march, the most rapid charge, or the most
      precipitate retreat. 87

      85 (return) [ Victor in Caracal. Dion Cassius, lxvii. p. 1350.]

      851 (return) [ The nation of the Alemanni was not originally
      formed by the Suavi properly so called; these have always
      preserved their own name. Shortly afterwards they made (A. D.
      357) an irruption into Rhætia, and it was not long after that
      they were reunited with the Alemanni. Still they have always been
      a distinct people; at the present day, the people who inhabit the
      north-west of the Black Forest call themselves Schwaben,
      Suabians, Sueves, while those who inhabit near the Rhine, in
      Ortenau, the Brisgaw, the Margraviate of Baden, do not consider
      themselves Suabians, and are by origin Alemanni. The Teucteri and
      the Usipetæ, inhabitants of the interior and of the north of
      Westphalia, formed, says Gatterer, the nucleus of the Alemannic
      nation; they occupied the country where the name of the Alemanni
      first appears, as conquered in 213, by Caracalla. They were well
      trained to fight on horseback, (according to Tacitus, Germ. c.
      32;) and Aurelius Victor gives the same praise to the Alemanni:
      finally, they never made part of the Frankish league. The
      Alemanni became subsequently a centre round which gathered a
      multitude of German tribes, See Eumen. Panegyr. c. 2. Amm. Marc.
      xviii. 2, xxix. 4.—G. ——The question whether the Suevi was a
      generic name comprehending the clans which peopled central
      Germany, is rather hastily decided by M. Guizot Mr. Greenwood,
      who has studied the modern German writers on their own origin,
      supposes the Suevi, Alemanni, and Marcomanni, one people, under
      different appellations. History of Germany, vol i.—M.]

      86 (return) [ This etymology (far different from those which
      amuse the fancy of the learned) is preserved by Asinius
      Quadratus, an original historian, quoted by Agathias, i. c. 5.]

      87 (return) [ The Suevi engaged Cæsar in this manner, and the
      manoeuvre deserved the approbation of the conqueror, (in Bello
      Gallico, i. 48.)]

      This warlike people of Germans had been astonished by the immense
      preparations of Alexander Severus; they were dismayed by the arms
      of his successor, a barbarian equal in valor and fierceness to
      themselves. But still hovering on the frontiers of the empire,
      they increased the general disorder that ensued after the death
      of Decius. They inflicted severe wounds on the rich provinces of
      Gaul; they were the first who removed the veil that covered the
      feeble majesty of Italy. A numerous body of the Alemanni
      penetrated across the Danube and through the Rhætian Alps into
      the plains of Lombardy, advanced as far as Ravenna, and displayed
      the victorious banners of barbarians almost in sight of Rome. 88

      88 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 215, 216. Dexippus in the
      Excerpts. Legationam, p. 8. Hieronym. Chron. Orosius, vii. 22.]

      The insult and the danger rekindled in the senate some sparks of
      their ancient virtue. Both the emperors were engaged in far
      distant wars, Valerian in the East, and Gallienus on the Rhine.
      All the hopes and resources of the Romans were in themselves. In
      this emergency, the senators resumed the defence of the republic,
      drew out the Prætorian guards, who had been left to garrison the
      capital, and filled up their numbers, by enlisting into the
      public service the stoutest and most willing of the Plebeians.
      The Alemanni, astonished with the sudden appearance of an army
      more numerous than their own, retired into Germany, laden with
      spoil; and their retreat was esteemed as a victory by the
      unwarlike Romans. 89

      89 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 34.]

      When Gallienus received the intelligence that his capital was
      delivered from the barbarians, he was much less delighted than
      alarmed with the courage of the senate, since it might one day
      prompt them to rescue the public from domestic tyranny as well as
      from foreign invasion. His timid ingratitude was published to his
      subjects, in an edict which prohibited the senators from
      exercising any military employment, and even from approaching the
      camps of the legions. But his fears were groundless. The rich and
      luxurious nobles, sinking into their natural character, accepted,
      as a favor, this disgraceful exemption from military service; and
      as long as they were indulged in the enjoyment of their baths,
      their theatres, and their villas, they cheerfully resigned the
      more dangerous cares of empire to the rough hands of peasants and
      soldiers. 90

      90 (return) [ Aurel. Victor, in Gallieno et Probo. His complaints
      breathe as uncommon spirit of freedom.]

      Another invasion of the Alemanni, of a more formidable aspect,
      but more glorious event, is mentioned by a writer of the lower
      empire. Three hundred thousand are said to have been vanquished,
      in a battle near Milan, by Gallienus in person, at the head of
      only ten thousand Romans. 91 We may, however, with great
      probability, ascribe this incredible victory either to the
      credulity of the historian, or to some exaggerated exploits of
      one of the emperor’s lieutenants. It was by arms of a very
      different nature, that Gallienus endeavored to protect Italy from
      the fury of the Germans. He espoused Pipa, the daughter of a king
      of the Marcomanni, a Suevic tribe, which was often confounded
      with the Alemanni in their wars and conquests. 92 To the father,
      as the price of his alliance, he granted an ample settlement in
      Pannonia. The native charms of unpolished beauty seem to have
      fixed the daughter in the affections of the inconstant emperor,
      and the bands of policy were more firmly connected by those of
      love. But the haughty prejudice of Rome still refused the name of
      marriage to the profane mixture of a citizen and a barbarian; and
      has stigmatized the German princess with the opprobrious title of
      concubine of Gallienus. 93

      91 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 631.]

      92 (return) [ One of the Victors calls him king of the
      Marcomanni; the other of the Germans.]

      93 (return) [ See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iii. p.
      398, &c.]

      III. We have already traced the emigration of the Goths from
      Scandinavia, or at least from Prussia, to the mouth of the
      Borysthenes, and have followed their victorious arms from the
      Borysthenes to the Danube. Under the reigns of Valerian and
      Gallienus, the frontier of the last-mentioned river was
      perpetually infested by the inroads of Germans and Sarmatians;
      but it was defended by the Romans with more than usual firmness
      and success. The provinces that were the seat of war, recruited
      the armies of Rome with an inexhaustible supply of hardy
      soldiers; and more than one of these Illyrian peasants attained
      the station, and displayed the abilities, of a general. Though
      flying parties of the barbarians, who incessantly hovered on the
      banks of the Danube, penetrated sometimes to the confines of
      Italy and Macedonia, their progress was commonly checked, or
      their return intercepted, by the Imperial lieutenants. 94 But the
      great stream of the Gothic hostilities was diverted into a very
      different channel. The Goths, in their new settlement of the
      Ukraine, soon became masters of the northern coast of the Euxine:
      to the south of that inland sea were situated the soft and
      wealthy provinces of Asia Minor, which possessed all that could
      attract, and nothing that could resist, a barbarian conqueror.

      94 (return) [ See the lives of Claudius, Aurelian, and Probus, in
      the Augustan History.]

      The banks of the Borysthenes are only sixty miles distant from
      the narrow entrance 95 of the peninsula of Crim Tartary, known to
      the ancients under the name of Chersonesus Taurica. 96 On that
      inhospitable shore, Euripides, embellishing with exquisite art
      the tales of antiquity, has placed the scene of one of his most
      affecting tragedies. 97 The bloody sacrifices of Diana, the
      arrival of Orestes and Pylades, and the triumph of virtue and
      religion over savage fierceness, serve to represent an historical
      truth, that the Tauri, the original inhabitants of the peninsula,
      were, in some degree, reclaimed from their brutal manners by a
      gradual intercourse with the Grecian colonies, which settled
      along the maritime coast. The little kingdom of Bosphorus, whose
      capital was situated on the Straits, through which the Mæotis
      communicates itself to the Euxine, was composed of degenerate
      Greeks and half-civilized barbarians. It subsisted, as an
      independent state, from the time of the Peloponnesian war, 98 was
      at last swallowed up by the ambition of Mithridates, 99 and, with
      the rest of his dominions, sunk under the weight of the Roman
      arms. From the reign of Augustus, 100 the kings of Bosphorus were
      the humble, but not useless, allies of the empire. By presents,
      by arms, and by a slight fortification drawn across the Isthmus,
      they effectually guarded, against the roving plunderers of
      Sarmatia, the access of a country which, from its peculiar
      situation and convenient harbors, commanded the Euxine Sea and
      Asia Minor. 101 As long as the sceptre was possessed by a lineal
      succession of kings, they acquitted themselves of their important
      charge with vigilance and success. Domestic factions, and the
      fears, or private interest, of obscure usurpers, who seized on
      the vacant throne, admitted the Goths into the heart of
      Bosphorus. With the acquisition of a superfluous waste of fertile
      soil, the conquerors obtained the command of a naval force,
      sufficient to transport their armies to the coast of Asia. 102
      These ships used in the navigation of the Euxine were of a very
      singular construction. They were slight flat-bottomed barks
      framed of timber only, without the least mixture of iron, and
      occasionally covered with a shelving roof, on the appearance of a
      tempest. 103 In these floating houses, the Goths carelessly
      trusted themselves to the mercy of an unknown sea, under the
      conduct of sailors pressed into the service, and whose skill and
      fidelity were equally suspicious. But the hopes of plunder had
      banished every idea of danger, and a natural fearlessness of
      temper supplied in their minds the more rational confidence,
      which is the just result of knowledge and experience. Warriors of
      such a daring spirit must have often murmured against the
      cowardice of their guides, who required the strongest assurances
      of a settled calm before they would venture to embark; and would
      scarcely ever be tempted to lose sight of the land. Such, at
      least, is the practice of the modern Turks; 104 and they are
      probably not inferior, in the art of navigation, to the ancient
      inhabitants of Bosphorus.

      95 (return) [ It is about half a league in breadth. Genealogical
      History of the Tartars, p 598.]

      96 (return) [ M. de Peyssonel, who had been French Consul at
      Caffa, in his Observations sur les Peuples Barbares, que ont
      habite les bords du Danube]

      97 (return) [ Eeripides in Iphigenia in Taurid.]

      98 (return) [ Strabo, l. vii. p. 309. The first kings of
      Bosphorus were the allies of Athens.]

      99 (return) [ Appian in Mithridat.]

      100 (return) [ It was reduced by the arms of Agrippa. Orosius,
      vi. 21. Eu tropius, vii. 9. The Romans once advanced within three
      days’ march of the Tanais. Tacit. Annal. xii. 17.]

      101 (return) [ See the Toxaris of Lucian, if we credit the
      sincerity and the virtues of the Scythian, who relates a great
      war of his nation against the kings of Bosphorus.]

      102 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 28.]

      103 (return) [ Strabo, l. xi. Tacit. Hist. iii. 47. They were
      called Camaroe.]

      104 (return) [ See a very natural picture of the Euxine
      navigation, in the xvith letter of Tournefort.]

      The fleet of the Goths, leaving the coast of Circassia on the
      left hand, first appeared before Pityus, 105 the utmost limits of
      the Roman provinces; a city provided with a convenient port, and
      fortified with a strong wall. Here they met with a resistance
      more obstinate than they had reason to expect from the feeble
      garrison of a distant fortress. They were repulsed; and their
      disappointment seemed to diminish the terror of the Gothic name.
      As long as Successianus, an officer of superior rank and merit,
      defended that frontier, all their efforts were ineffectual; but
      as soon as he was removed by Valerian to a more honorable but
      less important station, they resumed the attack of Pityus; and by
      the destruction of that city, obliterated the memory of their
      former disgrace. 106

      105 (return) [ Arrian places the frontier garrison at Dioscurias,
      or Sebastopolis, forty-four miles to the east of Pityus. The
      garrison of Phasis consisted in his time of only four hundred
      foot. See the Periplus of the Euxine. * Note: Pityus is
      Pitchinda, according to D’Anville, ii. 115.—G. Rather Boukoun.—M.
      Dioscurias is Iskuriah.—G.]

      106 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 30.]

      Circling round the eastern extremity of the Euxine Sea, the
      navigation from Pityus to Trebizond is about three hundred miles.
      107 The course of the Goths carried them in sight of the country
      of Colchis, so famous by the expedition of the Argonauts; and
      they even attempted, though without success, to pillage a rich
      temple at the mouth of the River Phasis. Trebizond, celebrated in
      the retreat of the ten thousand as an ancient colony of Greeks,
      108 derived its wealth and splendor from the magnificence of the
      emperor Hadrian, who had constructed an artificial port on a
      coast left destitute by nature of secure harbors. 109 The city
      was large and populous; a double enclosure of walls seemed to
      defy the fury of the Goths, and the usual garrison had been
      strengthened by a reënforcement of ten thousand men. But there
      are not any advantages capable of supplying the absence of
      discipline and vigilance. The numerous garrison of Trebizond,
      dissolved in riot and luxury, disdained to guard their
      impregnable fortifications. The Goths soon discovered the supine
      negligence of the besieged, erected a lofty pile of fascines,
      ascended the walls in the silence of the night, and entered the
      defenceless city sword in hand. A general massacre of the people
      ensued, whilst the affrighted soldiers escaped through the
      opposite gates of the town. The most holy temples, and the most
      splendid edifices, were involved in a common destruction. The
      booty that fell into the hands of the Goths was immense: the
      wealth of the adjacent countries had been deposited in Trebizond,
      as in a secure place of refuge. The number of captives was
      incredible, as the victorious barbarians ranged without
      opposition through the extensive province of Pontus. 110 The rich
      spoils of Trebizond filled a great fleet of ships that had been
      found in the port. The robust youth of the sea-coast were chained
      to the oar; and the Goths, satisfied with the success of their
      first naval expedition, returned in triumph to their new
      establishment in the kingdom of Bosphorus. 111

      107 (return) [ Arrian (in Periplo Maris Euxine, p. 130) calls the
      distance 2610 stadia.]

      108 (return) [ Xenophon, Anabasis, l. iv. p. 348, edit.
      Hutchinson. Note: Fallmerayer (Geschichte des Kaiserthums von
      Trapezunt, p. 6, &c) assigns a very ancient date to the first
      (Pelasgic) foundation of Trapezun (Trebizond)—M.]

      109 (return) [ Arrian, p. 129. The general observation is
      Tournefort’s.]

      110 (return) [ See an epistle of Gregory Thaumaturgus, bishop of
      Neo-Cæoarea, quoted by Mascou, v. 37.]

      111 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 32, 33.]

      The second expedition of the Goths was undertaken with greater
      powers of men and ships; but they steered a different course,
      and, disdaining the exhausted provinces of Pontus, followed the
      western coast of the Euxine, passed before the wide mouths of the
      Borysthenes, the Niester, and the Danube, and increasing their
      fleet by the capture of a great number of fishing barks, they
      approached the narrow outlet through which the Euxine Sea pours
      its waters into the Mediterranean, and divides the continents of
      Europe and Asia. The garrison of Chalcedon was encamped near the
      temple of Jupiter Urius, on a promontory that commanded the
      entrance of the Strait; and so inconsiderable were the dreaded
      invasions of the barbarians that this body of troops surpassed in
      number the Gothic army. But it was in numbers alone that they
      surpassed it. They deserted with precipitation their advantageous
      post, and abandoned the town of Chalcedon, most plentifully
      stored with arms and money, to the discretion of the conquerors.
      Whilst they hesitated whether they should prefer the sea or land,
      Europe or Asia, for the scene of their hostilities, a perfidious
      fugitive pointed out Nicomedia, 1111 once the capital of the
      kings of Bithynia, as a rich and easy conquest. He guided the
      march, which was only sixty miles from the camp of Chalcedon, 112
      directed the resistless attack, and partook of the booty; for the
      Goths had learned sufficient policy to reward the traitor whom
      they detested. Nice, Prusa, Apamæa, Cius, 1121 cities that had
      sometimes rivalled, or imitated, the splendor of Nicomedia, were
      involved in the same calamity, which, in a few weeks, raged
      without control through the whole province of Bithynia. Three
      hundred years of peace, enjoyed by the soft inhabitants of Asia,
      had abolished the exercise of arms, and removed the apprehension
      of danger. The ancient walls were suffered to moulder away, and
      all the revenue of the most opulent cities was reserved for the
      construction of baths, temples, and theatres. 113

      1111 (return) [ It has preserved its name, joined to the
      preposition of place in that of Nikmid. D’Anv. Geog. Anc. ii.
      28.—G.]

      112 (return) [ Itiner. Hierosolym. p. 572. Wesseling.]

      1121 (return) [ Now Isnik, Bursa, Mondania Ghio or Kemlik D’Anv.
      ii. 23.—G.]

      113 (return) [ Zosimus, l.. p. 32, 33.]

      When the city of Cyzicus withstood the utmost effort of
      Mithridates, 114 it was distinguished by wise laws, a naval power
      of two hundred galleys, and three arsenals, of arms, of military
      engines, and of corn. 115 It was still the seat of wealth and
      luxury; but of its ancient strength, nothing remained except the
      situation, in a little island of the Propontis, connected with
      the continent of Asia only by two bridges. From the recent sack
      of Prusa, the Goths advanced within eighteen miles 116 of the
      city, which they had devoted to destruction; but the ruin of
      Cyzicus was delayed by a fortunate accident. The season was
      rainy, and the Lake Apolloniates, the reservoir of all the
      springs of Mount Olympus, rose to an uncommon height. The little
      river of Rhyndacus, which issues from the lake, swelled into a
      broad and rapid stream, and stopped the progress of the Goths.
      Their retreat to the maritime city of Heraclea, where the fleet
      had probably been stationed, was attended by a long train of
      wagons, laden with the spoils of Bithynia, and was marked by the
      flames of Nico and Nicomedia, which they wantonly burnt. 117 Some
      obscure hints are mentioned of a doubtful combat that secured
      their retreat. 118 But even a complete victory would have been of
      little moment, as the approach of the autumnal equinox summoned
      them to hasten their return. To navigate the Euxine before the
      month of May, or after that of September, is esteemed by the
      modern Turks the most unquestionable instance of rashness and
      folly. 119

      114 (return) [ He besieged the place with 400 galleys, 150,000
      foot, and a numerous cavalry. See Plutarch in Lucul. Appian in
      Mithridat Cicero pro Lege Manilia, c. 8.]

      115 (return) [ Strabo, l. xii. p. 573.]

      116 (return) [ Pocock’s Description of the East, l. ii. c. 23,
      24.]

      117 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 33.]

      118 (return) [ Syncellus tells an unintelligible story of Prince
      Odenathus, who defeated the Goths, and who was killed by Prince
      Odenathus.]

      119 (return) [Footnote 119: Voyages de Chardin, tom. i. p. 45. He
      sailed with the Turks from Constantinople to Caffa.]

      When we are informed that the third fleet, equipped by the Goths
      in the ports of Bosphorus, consisted of five hundred sails of
      ships, 120 our ready imagination instantly computes and
      multiplies the formidable armament; but, as we are assured by the
      judicious Strabo, 121 that the piratical vessels used by the
      barbarians of Pontus and the Lesser Scythia, were not capable of
      containing more than twenty-five or thirty men we may safely
      affirm, that fifteen thousand warriors, at the most, embarked in
      this great expedition. Impatient of the limits of the Euxine,
      they steered their destructive course from the Cimmerian to the
      Thracian Bosphorus. When they had almost gained the middle of the
      Straits, they were suddenly driven back to the entrance of them;
      till a favorable wind, springing up the next day, carried them in
      a few hours into the placid sea, or rather lake, of the
      Propontis. Their landing on the little island of Cyzicus was
      attended with the ruin of that ancient and noble city. From
      thence issuing again through the narrow passage of the
      Hellespont, they pursued their winding navigation amidst the
      numerous islands scattered over the Archipelago, or the Ægean
      Sea. The assistance of captives and deserters must have been very
      necessary to pilot their vessels, and to direct their various
      incursions, as well on the coast of Greece as on that of Asia. At
      length the Gothic fleet anchored in the port of Piræus, five
      miles distant from Athens, 122 which had attempted to make some
      preparations for a vigorous defence. Cleodamus, one of the
      engineers employed by the emperor’s orders to fortify the
      maritime cities against the Goths, had already begun to repair
      the ancient walls, fallen to decay since the time of Scylla. The
      efforts of his skill were ineffectual, and the barbarians became
      masters of the native seat of the muses and the arts. But while
      the conquerors abandoned themselves to the license of plunder and
      intemperance, their fleet, that lay with a slender guard in the
      harbor of Piræus, was unexpectedly attacked by the brave
      Dexippus, who, flying with the engineer Cleodamus from the sack
      of Athens, collected a hasty band of volunteers, peasants as well
      as soldiers, and in some measure avenged the calamities of his
      country. 123

      120 (return) [ Syncellus (p. 382) speaks of this expedition, as
      undertaken by the Heruli.]

      121 (return) [ Strabo, l. xi. p. 495.]

      122 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 7.]

      123 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 181. Victor, c. 33. Orosius, vii.
      42. Zosimus, l. i. p. 35. Zonaras, l. xii. 635. Syncellus, p.
      382. It is not without some attention, that we can explain and
      conciliate their imperfect hints. We can still discover some
      traces of the partiality of Dexippus, in the relation of his own
      and his countrymen’s exploits. * Note: According to a new
      fragment of Dexippus, published by Mai, the 2000 men took up a
      strong position in a mountainous and woods district, and kept up
      a harassing warfare. He expresses a hope of being speedily joined
      by the Imperial fleet. Dexippus in rov. Byzantinorum Collect a
      Niebuhr, p. 26, 8—M.]

      But this exploit, whatever lustre it might shed on the declining
      age of Athens, served rather to irritate than to subdue the
      undaunted spirit of the northern invaders. A general
      conflagration blazed out at the same time in every district of
      Greece. Thebes and Argos, Corinth and Sparta, which had formerly
      waged such memorable wars against each other, were now unable to
      bring an army into the field, or even to defend their ruined
      fortifications. The rage of war, both by land and by sea, spread
      from the eastern point of Sunium to the western coast of Epirus.
      The Goths had already advanced within sight of Italy, when the
      approach of such imminent danger awakened the indolent Gallienus
      from his dream of pleasure. The emperor appeared in arms; and his
      presence seems to have checked the ardor, and to have divided the
      strength, of the enemy. Naulobatus, a chief of the Heruli,
      accepted an honorable capitulation, entered with a large body of
      his countrymen into the service of Rome, and was invested with
      the ornaments of the consular dignity, which had never before
      been profaned by the hands of a barbarian. 124 Great numbers of
      the Goths, disgusted with the perils and hardships of a tedious
      voyage, broke into Mæsia, with a design of forcing their way over
      the Danube to their settlements in the Ukraine. The wild attempt
      would have proved inevitable destruction, if the discord of the
      Roman generals had not opened to the barbarians the means of an
      escape. 125 The small remainder of this destroying host returned
      on board their vessels; and measuring back their way through the
      Hellespont and the Bosphorus, ravaged in their passage the shores
      of Troy, whose fame, immortalized by Homer, will probably survive
      the memory of the Gothic conquests. As soon as they found
      themselves in safety within the basin of the Euxine, they landed
      at Anchialus in Thrace, near the foot of Mount Hæmus; and, after
      all their toils, indulged themselves in the use of those pleasant
      and salutary hot baths. What remained of the voyage was a short
      and easy navigation. 126 Such was the various fate of this third
      and greatest of their naval enterprises. It may seem difficult to
      conceive how the original body of fifteen thousand warriors could
      sustain the losses and divisions of so bold an adventure. But as
      their numbers were gradually wasted by the sword, by shipwrecks,
      and by the influence of a warm climate, they were perpetually
      renewed by troops of banditti and deserters, who flocked to the
      standard of plunder, and by a crowd of fugitive slaves, often of
      German or Sarmatian extraction, who eagerly seized the glorious
      opportunity of freedom and revenge. In these expeditions, the
      Gothic nation claimed a superior share of honor and danger; but
      the tribes that fought under the Gothic banners are sometimes
      distinguished and sometimes confounded in the imperfect histories
      of that age; and as the barbarian fleets seemed to issue from the
      mouth of the Tanais, the vague but familiar appellation of
      Scythians was frequently bestowed on the mixed multitude. 127

      124 (return) [Syncellus, p. 382. This body of Heruli was for a
      long time faithful and famous.]

      125 (return) [ Claudius, who commanded on the Danube, thought
      with propriety and acted with spirit. His colleague was jealous
      of his fame Hist. August. p. 181.]

      126 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 20.]

      127 (return) [ Zosimus and the Greeks (as the author of the
      Philopatris) give the name of Scythians to those whom Jornandes,
      and the Latin writers, constantly represent as Goths.]




      Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
      Gallienus.—Part IV.

      In the general calamities of mankind, the death of an individual,
      however exalted, the ruin of an edifice, however famous, are
      passed over with careless inattention. Yet we cannot forget that
      the temple of Diana at Ephesus, after having risen with
      increasing splendor from seven repeated misfortunes, 128 was
      finally burnt by the Goths in their third naval invasion. The
      arts of Greece, and the wealth of Asia, had conspired to erect
      that sacred and magnificent structure. It was supported by a
      hundred and twenty-seven marble columns of the Ionic order. They
      were the gifts of devout monarchs, and each was sixty feet high.
      The altar was adorned with the masterly sculptures of Praxiteles,
      who had, perhaps, selected from the favorite legends of the place
      the birth of the divine children of Latona, the concealment of
      Apollo after the slaughter of the Cyclops, and the clemency of
      Bacchus to the vanquished Amazons. 129 Yet the length of the
      temple of Ephesus was only four hundred and twenty-five feet,
      about two thirds of the measure of the church of St. Peter’s at
      Rome. 130 In the other dimensions, it was still more inferior to
      that sublime production of modern architecture. The spreading
      arms of a Christian cross require a much greater breadth than the
      oblong temples of the Pagans; and the boldest artists of
      antiquity would have been startled at the proposal of raising in
      the air a dome of the size and proportions of the Pantheon. The
      temple of Diana was, however, admired as one of the wonders of
      the world. Successive empires, the Persian, the Macedonian, and
      the Roman, had revered its sanctity and enriched its splendor.
      131 But the rude savages of the Baltic were destitute of a taste
      for the elegant arts, and they despised the ideal terrors of a
      foreign superstition. 132

      128 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 178. Jornandes, c. 20.]

      129 (return) [ Strabo, l. xiv. p. 640. Vitruvius, l. i. c. i.
      præfat l vii. Tacit Annal. iii. 61. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxvi. 14.]

      130 (return) [ The length of St. Peter’s is 840 Roman palms; each
      palm is very little short of nine English inches. See Greaves’s
      Miscellanies vol. i. p. 233; on the Roman Foot. * Note: St.
      Paul’s Cathedral is 500 feet. Dallaway on Architecture—M.]

      131 (return) [ The policy, however, of the Romans induced them to
      abridge the extent of the sanctuary or asylum, which by
      successive privileges had spread itself two stadia round the
      temple. Strabo, l. xiv. p. 641. Tacit. Annal. iii. 60, &c.]

      132 (return) [ They offered no sacrifices to the Grecian gods.
      See Epistol Gregor. Thaumat.]

      Another circumstance is related of these invasions, which might
      deserve our notice, were it not justly to be suspected as the
      fanciful conceit of a recent sophist. We are told that in the
      sack of Athens the Goths had collected all the libraries, and
      were on the point of setting fire to this funeral pile of Grecian
      learning, had not one of their chiefs, of more refined policy
      than his brethren, dissuaded them from the design; by the
      profound observation, that as long as the Greeks were addicted to
      the study of books, they would never apply themselves to the
      exercise of arms. 133 The sagacious counsellor (should the truth
      of the fact be admitted) reasoned like an ignorant barbarian. In
      the most polite and powerful nations, genius of every kind has
      displayed itself about the same period; and the age of science
      has generally been the age of military virtue and success.

      133 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 635. Such an anecdote was
      perfectly suited to the taste of Montaigne. He makes use of it in
      his agreeable Essay on Pedantry, l. i. c. 24.]

      IV. The new sovereign of Persia, Artaxerxes and his son Sapor,
      had triumphed (as we have already seen) over the house of
      Arsaces. Of the many princes of that ancient race. Chosroes, king
      of Armenia, had alone preserved both his life and his
      independence. He defended himself by the natural strength of his
      country; by the perpetual resort of fugitives and malecontents;
      by the alliance of the Romans, and above all, by his own courage.

      Invincible in arms, during a thirty years’ war, he was at length
      assassinated by the emissaries of Sapor, king of Persia. The
      patriotic satraps of Armenia, who asserted the freedom and
      dignity of the crown, implored the protection of Rome in favor of
      Tiridates, the lawful heir. But the son of Chosroes was an
      infant, the allies were at a distance, and the Persian monarch
      advanced towards the frontier at the head of an irresistible
      force. Young Tiridates, the future hope of his country, was saved
      by the fidelity of a servant, and Armenia continued above
      twenty-seven years a reluctant province of the great monarchy of
      Persia. 134 Elated with this easy conquest, and presuming on the
      distresses or the degeneracy of the Romans, Sapor obliged the
      strong garrisons of Carrhæ and Nisibis 1341 to surrender, and
      spread devastation and terror on either side of the Euphrates.

      134 (return) [ Moses Chorenensis, l. ii. c. 71, 73, 74. Zonaras,
      l. xii. p. 628. The anthentic relation of the Armenian historian
      serves to rectify the confused account of the Greek. The latter
      talks of the children of Tiridates, who at that time was himself
      an infant. (Compare St Martin Memoires sur l’Armenie, i. p.
      301.—M.)]

      1341 (return) [ Nisibis, according to Persian authors, was taken
      by a miracle, the wall fell, in compliance with the prayers of
      the army. Malcolm’s Persia, l. 76.—M]

      The loss of an important frontier, the ruin of a faithful and
      natural ally, and the rapid success of Sapor’s ambition, affected
      Rome with a deep sense of the insult as well as of the danger.
      Valerian flattered himself, that the vigilance of his lieutenants
      would sufficiently provide for the safety of the Rhine and of the
      Danube; but he resolved, notwithstanding his advanced age, to
      march in person to the defence of the Euphrates.

      During his progress through Asia Minor, the naval enterprises of
      the Goths were suspended, and the afflicted province enjoyed a
      transient and fallacious calm. He passed the Euphrates,
      encountered the Persian monarch near the walls of Edessa, was
      vanquished, and taken prisoner by Sapor. The particulars of this
      great event are darkly and imperfectly represented; yet, by the
      glimmering light which is afforded us, we may discover a long
      series of imprudence, of error, and of deserved misfortunes on
      the side of the Roman emperor. He reposed an implicit confidence
      in Macrianus, his Prætorian præfect. 135 That worthless minister
      rendered his master formidable only to the oppressed subjects,
      and contemptible to the enemies of Rome. 136 By his weak or
      wicked counsels, the Imperial army was betrayed into a situation
      where valor and military skill were equally unavailing. 137 The
      vigorous attempt of the Romans to cut their way through the
      Persian host was repulsed with great slaughter; 138 and Sapor,
      who encompassed the camp with superior numbers, patiently waited
      till the increasing rage of famine and pestilence had insured his
      victory. The licentious murmurs of the legions soon accused
      Valerian as the cause of their calamities; their seditious
      clamors demanded an instant capitulation. An immense sum of gold
      was offered to purchase the permission of a disgraceful retreat.
      But the Persian, conscious of his superiority, refused the money
      with disdain; and detaining the deputies, advanced in order of
      battle to the foot of the Roman rampart, and insisted on a
      personal conference with the emperor. Valerian was reduced to the
      necessity of intrusting his life and dignity to the faith of an
      enemy. The interview ended as it was natural to expect. The
      emperor was made a prisoner, and his astonished troops laid down
      their arms. 139 In such a moment of triumph, the pride and policy
      of Sapor prompted him to fill the vacant throne with a successor
      entirely dependent on his pleasure. Cyriades, an obscure fugitive
      of Antioch, stained with every vice, was chosen to dishonor the
      Roman purple; and the will of the Persian victor could not fail
      of being ratified by the acclamations, however reluctant, of the
      captive army. 140

      135 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 191. As Macrianus was an enemy to
      the Christians, they charged him with being a magician.]

      136 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 33.]

      137 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 174.]

      138 (return) [ Victor in Cæsar. Eutropius, ix. 7.]

      139 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 33. Zonaras, l. xii. p. 630.
      Peter Patricius, in the Excerpta Legat. p. 29.]

      140 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 185. The reign of Cyriades
      appears in that collection prior to the death of Valerian; but I
      have preferred a probable series of events to the doubtful
      chronology of a most inaccurate writer]

      The Imperial slave was eager to secure the favor of his master by
      an act of treason to his native country. He conducted Sapor over
      the Euphrates, and, by the way of Chalcis, to the metropolis of
      the East. So rapid were the motions of the Persian cavalry, that,
      if we may credit a very judicious historian, 141 the city of
      Antioch was surprised when the idle multitude was fondly gazing
      on the amusements of the theatre. The splendid buildings of
      Antioch, private as well as public, were either pillaged or
      destroyed; and the numerous inhabitants were put to the sword, or
      led away into captivity. 142 The tide of devastation was stopped
      for a moment by the resolution of the high priest of Emesa.
      Arrayed in his sacerdotal robes, he appeared at the head of a
      great body of fanatic peasants, armed only with slings, and
      defended his god and his property from the sacrilegious hands of
      the followers of Zoroaster. 143 But the ruin of Tarsus, and of
      many other cities, furnishes a melancholy proof that, except in
      this singular instance, the conquest of Syria and Cilicia
      scarcely interrupted the progress of the Persian arms. The
      advantages of the narrow passes of Mount Taurus were abandoned,
      in which an invader, whose principal force consisted in his
      cavalry, would have been engaged in a very unequal combat: and
      Sapor was permitted to form the siege of Cæsarea, the capital of
      Cappadocia; a city, though of the second rank, which was supposed
      to contain four hundred thousand inhabitants. Demosthenes
      commanded in the place, not so much by the commission of the
      emperor, as in the voluntary defence of his country. For a long
      time he deferred its fate; and when at last Cæsarea was betrayed
      by the perfidy of a physician, he cut his way through the
      Persians, who had been ordered to exert their utmost diligence to
      take him alive. This heroic chief escaped the power of a foe who
      might either have honored or punished his obstinate valor; but
      many thousands of his fellow-citizens were involved in a general
      massacre, and Sapor is accused of treating his prisoners with
      wanton and unrelenting cruelty. 144 Much should undoubtedly be
      allowed for national animosity, much for humbled pride and
      impotent revenge; yet, upon the whole, it is certain, that the
      same prince, who, in Armenia, had displayed the mild aspect of a
      legislator, showed himself to the Romans under the stern features
      of a conqueror. He despaired of making any permanent
      establishment in the empire, and sought only to leave behind him
      a wasted desert, whilst he transported into Persia the people and
      the treasures of the provinces. 145

      141 (return) [ The sack of Antioch, anticipated by some
      historians, is assigned, by the decisive testimony of Ammianus
      Marcellinus, to the reign of Gallienus, xxiii. 5. * Note: Heyne,
      in his note on Zosimus, contests this opinion of Gibbon and
      observes, that the testimony of Ammianus is in fact by no means
      clear, decisive. Gallienus and Valerian reigned together.
      Zosimus, in a passage, l. iiii. 32, 8, distinctly places this
      event before the capture of Valerian.—M.]

      142 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 35.]

      143 (return) [ John Malala, tom. i. p. 391. He corrupts this
      probable event by some fabulous circumstances.]

      144 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 630. Deep valleys were filled
      up with the slain. Crowds of prisoners were driven to water like
      beasts, and many perished for want of food.]

      145 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 25 asserts, that Sapor, had he
      not preferred spoil to conquest, might have remained master of
      Asia.]

      At the time when the East trembled at the name of Sapor, he
      received a present not unworthy of the greatest kings; a long
      train of camels, laden with the most rare and valuable
      merchandises. The rich offering was accompanied with an epistle,
      respectful, but not servile, from Odenathus, one of the noblest
      and most opulent senators of Palmyra. “Who is this Odenathus,”
      (said the haughty victor, and he commanded that the present
      should be cast into the Euphrates,) “that he thus insolently
      presumes to write to his lord? If he entertains a hope of
      mitigating his punishment, let him fall prostrate before the foot
      of our throne, with his hands bound behind his back. Should he
      hesitate, swift destruction shall be poured on his head, on his
      whole race, and on his country.” 146 The desperate extremity to
      which the Palmyrenian was reduced, called into action all the
      latent powers of his soul. He met Sapor; but he met him in arms.

      Infusing his own spirit into a little army collected from the
      villages of Syria 147 and the tents of the desert, 148 he hovered
      round the Persian host, harassed their retreat, carried off part
      of the treasure, and, what was dearer than any treasure, several
      of the women of the great king; who was at last obliged to repass
      the Euphrates with some marks of haste and confusion. 149 By this
      exploit, Odenathus laid the foundations of his future fame and
      fortunes. The majesty of Rome, oppressed by a Persian, was
      protected by a Syrian or Arab of Palmyra.

      146 (return) [ Peter Patricius in Excerpt. Leg. p. 29.]

      147 (return) [ Syrorum agrestium manu. Sextus Rufus, c. 23. Rufus
      Victor the Augustan History, (p. 192,) and several inscriptions,
      agree in making Odenathus a citizen of Palmyra.]

      148 (return) [ He possessed so powerful an interest among the
      wandering tribes, that Procopius (Bell. Persic. l. ii. c. 5) and
      John Malala, (tom. i. p. 391) style him Prince of the Saracens.]

      149 (return) [ Peter Patricius, p. 25.]

      The voice of history, which is often little more than the organ
      of hatred or flattery, reproaches Sapor with a proud abuse of the
      rights of conquest. We are told that Valerian, in chains, but
      invested with the Imperial purple, was exposed to the multitude,
      a constant spectacle of fallen greatness; and that whenever the
      Persian monarch mounted on horseback, he placed his foot on the
      neck of a Roman emperor. Notwithstanding all the remonstrances of
      his allies, who repeatedly advised him to remember the
      vicissitudes of fortune, to dread the returning power of Rome,
      and to make his illustrious captive the pledge of peace, not the
      object of insult, Sapor still remained inflexible. When Valerian
      sunk under the weight of shame and grief, his skin, stuffed with
      straw, and formed into the likeness of a human figure, was
      preserved for ages in the most celebrated temple of Persia; a
      more real monument of triumph, than the fancied trophies of brass
      and marble so often erected by Roman vanity. 150 The tale is
      moral and pathetic, but the truth 1501 of it may very fairly be
      called in question. The letters still extant from the princes of
      the East to Sapor are manifest forgeries; 151 nor is it natural
      to suppose that a jealous monarch should, even in the person of a
      rival, thus publicly degrade the majesty of kings. Whatever
      treatment the unfortunate Valerian might experience in Persia, it
      is at least certain that the only emperor of Rome who had ever
      fallen into the hands of the enemy, languished away his life in
      hopeless captivity.

      150 (return) [ The Pagan writers lament, the Christian insult,
      the misfortunes of Valerian. Their various testimonies are
      accurately collected by Tillemont, tom. iii. p. 739, &c. So
      little has been preserved of eastern history before Mahomet, that
      the modern Persians are totally ignorant of the victory Sapor, an
      event so glorious to their nation. See Bibliotheque Orientale. *
      Note: Malcolm appears to write from Persian authorities, i.
      76.—M.]

      1501 (return) [ Yet Gibbon himself records a speech of the
      emperor Galerius, which alludes to the cruelties exercised
      against the living, and the indignities to which they exposed the
      dead Valerian, vol. ii. ch. 13. Respect for the kingly character
      would by no means prevent an eastern monarch from ratifying his
      pride and his vengeance on a fallen foe.—M.]

      151 (return) [ One of these epistles is from Artavasdes, king of
      Armenia; since Armenia was then a province of Persia, the king,
      the kingdom, and the epistle must be fictitious.]

      The emperor Gallienus, who had long supported with impatience the
      censorial severity of his father and colleague, received the
      intelligence of his misfortunes with secret pleasure and avowed
      indifference. “I knew that my father was a mortal,” said he; “and
      since he has acted as it becomes a brave man, I am satisfied.”
      Whilst Rome lamented the fate of her sovereign, the savage
      coldness of his son was extolled by the servile courtiers as the
      perfect firmness of a hero and a stoic. 152 It is difficult to
      paint the light, the various, the inconstant character of
      Gallienus, which he displayed without constraint, as soon as he
      became sole possessor of the empire. In every art that he
      attempted, his lively genius enabled him to succeed; and as his
      genius was destitute of judgment, he attempted every art, except
      the important ones of war and government. He was a master of
      several curious, but useless sciences, a ready orator, an elegant
      poet, 153 a skilful gardener, an excellent cook, and most
      contemptible prince. When the great emergencies of the state
      required his presence and attention, he was engaged in
      conversation with the philosopher Plotinus, 154 wasting his time
      in trifling or licentious pleasures, preparing his initiation to
      the Grecian mysteries, or soliciting a place in the Areopagus of
      Athens. His profuse magnificence insulted the general poverty;
      the solemn ridicule of his triumphs impressed a deeper sense of
      the public disgrace. 155 The repeated intelligence of invasions,
      defeats, and rebellions, he received with a careless smile; and
      singling out, with affected contempt, some particular production
      of the lost province, he carelessly asked, whether Rome must be
      ruined, unless it was supplied with linen from Egypt, and arras
      cloth from Gaul. There were, however, a few short moments in the
      life of Gallienus, when, exasperated by some recent injury, he
      suddenly appeared the intrepid soldier and the cruel tyrant;
      till, satiated with blood, or fatigued by resistance, he
      insensibly sunk into the natural mildness and indolence of his
      character. 156

      152 (return) [ See his life in the Augustan History.]

      153 (return) [ There is still extant a very pretty Epithalamium,
      composed by Gallienus for the nuptials of his nephews:—“Ite ait,
      O juvenes, pariter sudate medullis Omnibus, inter vos: non
      murmura vestra columbæ, Brachia non hederæ, non vincant oscula
      conchæ.”]

      154 (return) [ He was on the point of giving Plotinus a ruined
      city of Campania to try the experiment of realizing Plato’s
      Republic. See the Life of Plotinus, by Porphyry, in Fabricius’s
      Biblioth. Græc. l. iv.]

      155 (return) [A medal which bears the head of Gallienus has
      perplexed the antiquarians by its legend and reverse; the former
      Gallienoe Augustoe, the latter Ubique Pax. M. Spanheim supposes
      that the coin was struck by some of the enemies of Gallienus, and
      was designed as a severe satire on that effeminate prince. But as
      the use of irony may seem unworthy of the gravity of the Roman
      mint, M. de Vallemont has deduced from a passage of Trebellius
      Pollio (Hist. Aug. p. 198) an ingenious and natural solution.
      Galliena was first cousin to the emperor. By delivering Africa
      from the usurper Celsus, she deserved the title of Augusta. On a
      medal in the French king’s collection, we read a similar
      inscription of Faustina Augusta round the head of Marcus
      Aurelius. With regard to the Ubique Pax, it is easily explained
      by the vanity of Gallienus, who seized, perhaps, the occasion of
      some momentary calm. See Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres,
      Janvier, 1700, p. 21—34.]

      156 (return) [ This singular character has, I believe, been
      fairly transmitted to us. The reign of his immediate successor
      was short and busy; and the historians who wrote before the
      elevation of the family of Constantine could not have the most
      remote interest to misrepresent the character of Gallienus.]

      At the time when the reins of government were held with so loose
      a hand, it is not surprising that a crowd of usurpers should
      start up in every province of the empire against the son of
      Valerian. It was probably some ingenious fancy, of comparing the
      thirty tyrants of Rome with the thirty tyrants of Athens, that
      induced the writers of the Augustan History to select that
      celebrated number, which has been gradually received into a
      popular appellation. 157 But in every light the parallel is idle
      and defective. What resemblance can we discover between a council
      of thirty persons, the united oppressors of a single city, and an
      uncertain list of independent rivals, who rose and fell in
      irregular succession through the extent of a vast empire? Nor can
      the number of thirty be completed, unless we include in the
      account the women and children who were honored with the Imperial
      title. The reign of Gallienus, distracted as it was, produced
      only nineteen pretenders to the throne: Cyriades, Macrianus,
      Balista, Odenathus, and Zenobia, in the East; in Gaul, and the
      western provinces, Posthumus, Lollianus, Victorinus, and his
      mother Victoria, Marius, and Tetricus; in Illyricum and the
      confines of the Danube, Ingenuus, Regillianus, and Aureolus; in
      Pontus, 158 Saturninus; in Isauria, Trebellianus; Piso in
      Thessaly; Valens in Achaia; Æmilianus in Egypt; and Celsus in
      Africa. 1581 To illustrate the obscure monuments of the life and
      death of each individual, would prove a laborious task, alike
      barren of instruction and of amusement. We may content ourselves
      with investigating some general characters, that most strongly
      mark the condition of the times, and the manners of the men,
      their pretensions, their motives, their fate, and the destructive
      consequences of their usurpation. 159

      157 (return) [ Pollio expresses the most minute anxiety to
      complete the number. * Note: Compare a dissertation of Manso on
      the thirty tyrants at the end of his Leben Constantius des
      Grossen. Breslau, 1817.—M.]

      158 (return) [ The place of his reign is somewhat doubtful; but
      there was a tyrant in Pontus, and we are acquainted with the seat
      of all the others.]

      1581 (return) [ Captain Smyth, in his “Catalogue of Medals,” p.
      307, substitutes two new names to make up the number of nineteen,
      for those of Odenathus and Zenobia. He subjoins this list:—1. 2.
      3. Of those whose coins Those whose coins Those of whom no are
      undoubtedly true. are suspected. coins are known. Posthumus.
      Cyriades. Valens. Lælianus, (Lollianus, G.) Ingenuus. Balista
      Victorinus Celsus. Saturninus. Marius. Piso Frugi. Trebellianus.
      Tetricus. —M. 1815 Macrianus. Quietus. Regalianus (Regillianus,
      G.) Alex. Æmilianus. Aureolus. Sulpicius Antoninus]

      159 (return) [ Tillemont, tom. iii. p. 1163, reckons them
      somewhat differently.]

      It is sufficiently known, that the odious appellation of _Tyrant_
      was often employed by the ancients to express the illegal seizure
      of supreme power, without any reference to the abuse of it.
      Several of the pretenders, who raised the standard of rebellion
      against the emperor Gallienus, were shining models of virtue, and
      almost all possessed a considerable share of vigor and ability.
      Their merit had recommended them to the favor of Valerian, and
      gradually promoted them to the most important commands of the
      empire. The generals, who assumed the title of Augustus, were
      either respected by their troops for their able conduct and
      severe discipline, or admired for valor and success in war, or
      beloved for frankness and generosity. The field of victory was
      often the scene of their election; and even the armorer Marius,
      the most contemptible of all the candidates for the purple, was
      distinguished, however, by intrepid courage, matchless strength,
      and blunt honesty. 160 His mean and recent trade cast, indeed, an
      air of ridicule on his elevation; 1601 but his birth could not be
      more obscure than was that of the greater part of his rivals, who
      were born of peasants, and enlisted in the army as private
      soldiers. In times of confusion every active genius finds the
      place assigned him by nature: in a general state of war military
      merit is the road to glory and to greatness. Of the nineteen
      tyrants Tetricus only was a senator; Piso alone was a noble. The
      blood of Numa, through twenty-eight successive generations, ran
      in the veins of Calphurnius Piso, 161 who, by female alliances,
      claimed a right of exhibiting, in his house, the images of
      Crassus and of the great Pompey. 162 His ancestors had been
      repeatedly dignified with all the honors which the commonwealth
      could bestow; and of all the ancient families of Rome, the
      Calphurnian alone had survived the tyranny of the Cæsars. The
      personal qualities of Piso added new lustre to his race. The
      usurper Valens, by whose order he was killed, confessed, with
      deep remorse, that even an enemy ought to have respected the
      sanctity of Piso; and although he died in arms against Gallienus,
      the senate, with the emperor’s generous permission, decreed the
      triumphal ornaments to the memory of so virtuous a rebel. 163

      160 (return) [ See the speech of Marius in the Augustan History,
      p. 197. The accidental identity of names was the only
      circumstance that could tempt Pollio to imitate Sallust.]

      1601 (return) [ Marius was killed by a soldier, who had formerly
      served as a workman in his shop, and who exclaimed, as he struck,
      “Behold the sword which thyself hast forged.” Trob vita.—G.]

      161 (return) [ “Vos, O Pompilius sanguis!” is Horace’s address to
      the Pisos See Art. Poet. v. 292, with Dacier’s and Sanadon’s
      notes.]

      162 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xv. 48. Hist. i. 15. In the former
      of these passages we may venture to change paterna into materna.
      In every generation from Augustus to Alexander Severus, one or
      more Pisos appear as consuls. A Piso was deemed worthy of the
      throne by Augustus, (Tacit. Annal. i. 13;) a second headed a
      formidable conspiracy against Nero; and a third was adopted, and
      declared Cæsar, by Galba.]

      163 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 195. The senate, in a moment of
      enthusiasm, seems to have presumed on the approbation of
      Gallienus.]

      The lieutenants of Valerian were grateful to the father, whom
      they esteemed. They disdained to serve the luxurious indolence of
      his unworthy son. The throne of the Roman world was unsupported
      by any principle of loyalty; and treason against such a prince
      might easily be considered as patriotism to the state. Yet if we
      examine with candor the conduct of these usurpers, it will
      appear, that they were much oftener driven into rebellion by
      their fears, than urged to it by their ambition. They dreaded the
      cruel suspicions of Gallienus; they equally dreaded the
      capricious violence of their troops. If the dangerous favor of
      the army had imprudently declared them deserving of the purple,
      they were marked for sure destruction; and even prudence would
      counsel them to secure a short enjoyment of empire, and rather to
      try the fortune of war than to expect the hand of an executioner.

      When the clamor of the soldiers invested the reluctant victims
      with the ensigns of sovereign authority, they sometimes mourned
      in secret their approaching fate. “You have lost,” said
      Saturninus, on the day of his elevation, “you have lost a useful
      commander, and you have made a very wretched emperor.” 164

      164 (return) [ Hist. August p. 196.]

      The apprehensions of Saturninus were justified by the repeated
      experience of revolutions. Of the nineteen tyrants who started up
      under the reign of Gallienus, there was not one who enjoyed a
      life of peace, or a natural death. As soon as they were invested
      with the bloody purple, they inspired their adherents with the
      same fears and ambition which had occasioned their own revolt.
      Encompassed with domestic conspiracy, military sedition, and
      civil war, they trembled on the edge of precipices, in which,
      after a longer or shorter term of anxiety, they were inevitably
      lost. These precarious monarchs received, however, such honors as
      the flattery of their respective armies and provinces could
      bestow; but their claim, founded on rebellion, could never obtain
      the sanction of law or history. Italy, Rome, and the senate,
      constantly adhered to the cause of Gallienus, and he alone was
      considered as the sovereign of the empire. That prince
      condescended, indeed, to acknowledge the victorious arms of
      Odenathus, who deserved the honorable distinction, by the
      respectful conduct which he always maintained towards the son of
      Valerian. With the general applause of the Romans, and the
      consent of Gallienus, the senate conferred the title of Augustus
      on the brave Palmyrenian; and seemed to intrust him with the
      government of the East, which he already possessed, in so
      independent a manner, that, like a private succession, he
      bequeathed it to his illustrious widow, Zenobia. 165

      165 (return) [ The association of the brave Palmyrenian was the
      most popular act of the whole reign of Gallienus. Hist. August.
      p. 180.]

      The rapid and perpetual transitions from the cottage to the
      throne, and from the throne to the grave, might have amused an
      indifferent philosopher; were it possible for a philosopher to
      remain indifferent amidst the general calamities of human kind.
      The election of these precarious emperors, their power and their
      death, were equally destructive to their subjects and adherents.
      The price of their fatal elevation was instantly discharged to
      the troops by an immense donative, drawn from the bowels of the
      exhausted people. However virtuous was their character, however
      pure their intentions, they found themselves reduced to the hard
      necessity of supporting their usurpation by frequent acts of
      rapine and cruelty. When they fell, they involved armies and
      provinces in their fall. There is still extant a most savage
      mandate from Gallienus to one of his ministers, after the
      suppression of Ingenuus, who had assumed the purple in Illyricum.

      “It is not enough,” says that soft but inhuman prince, “that you
      exterminate such as have appeared in arms; the chance of battle
      might have served me as effectually. The male sex of every age
      must be extirpated; provided that, in the execution of the
      children and old men, you can contrive means to save our
      reputation. Let every one die who has dropped an expression, who
      has entertained a thought against me, against _me_, the son of
      Valerian, the father and brother of so many princes. 166 Remember
      that Ingenuus was made emperor: tear, kill, hew in pieces. I
      write to you with my own hand, and would inspire you with my own
      feelings.” 167 Whilst the public forces of the state were
      dissipated in private quarrels, the defenceless provinces lay
      exposed to every invader. The bravest usurpers were compelled, by
      the perplexity of their situation, to conclude ignominious
      treaties with the common enemy, to purchase with oppressive
      tributes the neutrality or services of the Barbarians, and to
      introduce hostile and independent nations into the heart of the
      Roman monarchy. 168

      166 (return) [ Gallienus had given the titles of Cæsar and
      Augustus to his son Saloninus, slain at Cologne by the usurper
      Posthumus. A second son of Gallienus succeeded to the name and
      rank of his elder brother Valerian, the brother of Gallienus, was
      also associated to the empire: several other brothers, sisters,
      nephews, and nieces of the emperor formed a very numerous royal
      family. See Tillemont, tom iii, and M. de Brequigny in the
      Memoires de l’Academie, tom xxxii p. 262.]

      167 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 188.]

      168 (return) [ Regillianus had some bands of Roxolani in his
      service; Posthumus a body of Franks. It was, perhaps, in the
      character of auxiliaries that the latter introduced themselves
      into Spain.]

      Such were the barbarians, and such the tyrants, who, under the
      reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, dismembered the provinces, and
      reduced the empire to the lowest pitch of disgrace and ruin, from
      whence it seemed impossible that it should ever emerge. As far as
      the barrenness of materials would permit, we have attempted to
      trace, with order and perspicuity, the general events of that
      calamitous period. There still remain some particular facts; I.
      The disorders of Sicily; II. The tumults of Alexandria; and, III.
      The rebellion of the Isaurians, which may serve to reflect a
      strong light on the horrid picture.

      I. Whenever numerous troops of banditti, multiplied by success
      and impunity, publicly defy, instead of eluding, the justice of
      their country, we may safely infer that the excessive weakness of
      the country is felt and abused by the lowest ranks of the
      community. The situation of Sicily preserved it from the
      Barbarians; nor could the disarmed province have supported a
      usurper. The sufferings of that once flourishing and still
      fertile island were inflicted by baser hands. A licentious crowd
      of slaves and peasants reigned for a while over the plundered
      country, and renewed the memory of the servile wars of more
      ancient times. 169 Devastations, of which the husbandman was
      either the victim or the accomplice, must have ruined the
      agriculture of Sicily; and as the principal estates were the
      property of the opulent senators of Rome, who often enclosed
      within a farm the territory of an old republic, it is not
      improbable, that this private injury might affect the capital
      more deeply, than all the conquests of the Goths or the Persians.

      169 (return) [ The Augustan History, p. 177. See Diodor. Sicul.
      l. xxxiv.]

      II. The foundation of Alexandria was a noble design, at once
      conceived and executed by the son of Philip. The beautiful and
      regular form of that great city, second only to Rome itself,
      comprehended a circumference of fifteen miles; 170 it was peopled
      by three hundred thousand free inhabitants, besides at least an
      equal number of slaves. 171 The lucrative trade of Arabia and
      India flowed through the port of Alexandria, to the capital and
      provinces of the empire. 1711 Idleness was unknown. Some were
      employed in blowing of glass, others in weaving of linen, others
      again manufacturing the papyrus. Either sex, and every age, was
      engaged in the pursuits of industry, nor did even the blind or
      the lame want occupations suited to their condition. 172 But the
      people of Alexandria, a various mixture of nations, united the
      vanity and inconstancy of the Greeks with the superstition and
      obstinacy of the Egyptians. The most trifling occasion, a
      transient scarcity of flesh or lentils, the neglect of an
      accustomed salutation, a mistake of precedency in the public
      baths, or even a religious dispute, 173 were at any time
      sufficient to kindle a sedition among that vast multitude, whose
      resentments were furious and implacable. 174 After the captivity
      of Valerian and the insolence of his son had relaxed the
      authority of the laws, the Alexandrians abandoned themselves to
      the ungoverned rage of their passions, and their unhappy country
      was the theatre of a civil war, which continued (with a few short
      and suspicious truces) above twelve years. 175 All intercourse
      was cut off between the several quarters of the afflicted city,
      every street was polluted with blood, every building of strength
      converted into a citadel; nor did the tumults subside till a
      considerable part of Alexandria was irretrievably ruined. The
      spacious and magnificent district of Bruchion, 1751 with its
      palaces and musæum, the residence of the kings and philosophers
      of Egypt, is described above a century afterwards, as already
      reduced to its present state of dreary solitude. 176

      170 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. v. 10.]

      171 (return) [ Diodor. Sicul. l. xvii. p. 590, edit. Wesseling.]

      1711 (return) [ Berenice, or Myos-Hormos, on the Red Sea,
      received the eastern commodities. From thence they were
      transported to the Nile, and down the Nile to Alexandria.—M.]

      172 (return) [ See a very curious letter of Hadrian, in the
      Augustan History, p. 245.]

      173 (return) [ Such as the sacrilegious murder of a divine cat.
      See Diodor. Sicul. l. i. * Note: The hostility between the Jewish
      and Grecian part of the population afterwards between the two
      former and the Christian, were unfailing causes of tumult,
      sedition, and massacre. In no place were the religious disputes,
      after the establishment of Christianity, more frequent or more
      sanguinary. See Philo. de Legat. Hist. of Jews, ii. 171, iii.
      111, 198. Gibbon, iii c. xxi. viii. c. xlvii.—M.]

      174 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 195. This long and terrible
      sedition was first occasioned by a dispute between a soldier and
      a townsman about a pair of shoes.]

      175 (return) [ Dionysius apud. Euses. Hist. Eccles. vii. p. 21.
      Ammian xxii. 16.]

      1751 (return) [ The Bruchion was a quarter of Alexandria which
      extended along the largest of the two ports, and contained many
      palaces, inhabited by the Ptolemies. D’Anv. Geogr. Anc. iii.
      10.—G.]

      176 (return) [ Scaliger. Animadver. ad Euseb. Chron. p. 258.
      Three dissertations of M. Bonamy, in the Mem. de l’Academie, tom.
      ix.]

III. The obscure rebellion of Trebellianus, who assumed the purple in
Isauria, a petty province of Asia Minor, was attended with strange and
memorable consequences. The pageant of royalty was soon destroyed by an
officer of Gallienus; but his followers, despairing of mercy, resolved
to shake off their allegiance, not only to the emperor, but to the
empire, and suddenly returned to the savage manners from which they had
never perfectly been reclaimed. Their craggy rocks, a branch of the
wide-extended Taurus, protected their inaccessible retreat. The tillage
of some fertile valleys 177 supplied them with necessaries, and a habit
of rapine with the luxuries of life. In the heart of the Roman
monarchy, the Isaurians long continued a nation of wild barbarians.
Succeeding princes, unable to reduce them to obedience, either by arms
or policy, were compelled to acknowledge their weakness, by surrounding
the hostile and independent spot with a strong chain of fortifications,
178 which often proved insufficient to restrain the incursions of these
domestic foes. The Isaurians, gradually extending their territory to
the sea-coast, subdued the western and mountainous part of Cilicia,
formerly the nest of those daring pirates, against whom the republic
had once been obliged to exert its utmost force, under the conduct of
the great Pompey. 179

      177 (return) [ Strabo, l. xiii. p. 569.]

      178 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 197.]

      179 (return) [ See Cellarius, Geogr Antiq. tom. ii. p. 137, upon
      the limits of Isauria.]

      Our habits of thinking so fondly connect the order of the
      universe with the fate of man, that this gloomy period of history
      has been decorated with inundations, earthquakes, uncommon
      meteors, preternatural darkness, and a crowd of prodigies
      fictitious or exaggerated. 180 But a long and general famine was
      a calamity of a more serious kind. It was the inevitable
      consequence of rapine and oppression, which extirpated the
      produce of the present and the hope of future harvests. Famine is
      almost always followed by epidemical diseases, the effect of
      scanty and unwholesome food. Other causes must, however, have
      contributed to the furious plague, which, from the year two
      hundred and fifty to the year two hundred and sixty-five, raged
      without interruption in every province, every city, and almost
      every family, of the Roman empire. During some time five thousand
      persons died daily in Rome; and many towns, that had escaped the
      hands of the Barbarians, were entirely depopulated. 181b

      180 (return) [ Hist August p 177.]

      181b (return) [ Hist. August. p. 177. Zosimus, l. i. p. 24.
      Zonaras, l. xii. p. 623. Euseb. Chronicon. Victor in Epitom.
      Victor in Cæsar. Eutropius, ix. 5. Orosius, vii. 21.]

      We have the knowledge of a very curious circumstance, of some use
      perhaps in the melancholy calculation of human calamities. An
      exact register was kept at Alexandria of all the citizens
      entitled to receive the distribution of corn. It was found, that
      the ancient number of those comprised between the ages of forty
      and seventy, had been equal to the whole sum of claimants, from
      fourteen to fourscore years of age, who remained alive after the
      reign of Gallienus. 182 Applying this authentic fact to the most
      correct tables of mortality, it evidently proves, that above half
      the people of Alexandria had perished; and could we venture to
      extend the analogy to the other provinces, we might suspect, that
      war, pestilence, and famine, had consumed, in a few years, the
      moiety of the human species. 183

      182 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Eccles. vii. 21. The fact is taken
      from the Letters of Dionysius, who, in the time of those
      troubles, was bishop of Alexandria.]

      183 (return) [ In a great number of parishes, 11,000 persons were
      found between fourteen and eighty; 5365 between forty and
      seventy. See Buffon, Histoire Naturelle, tom. ii. p. 590.]




      Chapter XI: Reign Of Claudius, Defeat Of The Goths.—Part I.

     Reign Of Claudius.—Defeat Of The Goths.—Victories, Triumph, And
     Death Of Aurelian.

      Under the deplorable reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, the empire
      was oppressed and almost destroyed by the soldiers, the tyrants,
      and the barbarians. It was saved by a series of great princes,
      who derived their obscure origin from the martial provinces of
      Illyricum. Within a period of about thirty years, Claudius,
      Aurelian, Probus, Diocletian and his colleagues, triumphed over
      the foreign and domestic enemies of the state, reëstablished,
      with the military discipline, the strength of the frontiers, and
      deserved the glorious title of Restorers of the Roman world.

      The removal of an effeminate tyrant made way for a succession of
      heroes. The indignation of the people imputed all their
      calamities to Gallienus, and the far greater part were, indeed,
      the consequence of his dissolute manners and careless
      administration. He was even destitute of a sense of honor, which
      so frequently supplies the absence of public virtue; and as long
      as he was permitted to enjoy the possession of Italy, a victory
      of the barbarians, the loss of a province, or the rebellion of a
      general, seldom disturbed the tranquil course of his pleasures.
      At length, a considerable army, stationed on the Upper Danube,
      invested with the Imperial purple their leader Aureolus; who,
      disdaining a confined and barren reign over the mountains of
      Rhætia, passed the Alps, occupied Milan, threatened Rome, and
      challenged Gallienus to dispute in the field the sovereignty of
      Italy. The emperor, provoked by the insult, and alarmed by the
      instant danger, suddenly exerted that latent vigor which
      sometimes broke through the indolence of his temper. Forcing
      himself from the luxury of the palace, he appeared in arms at the
      head of his legions, and advanced beyond the Po to encounter his
      competitor. The corrupted name of Pontirolo 1 still preserves the
      memory of a bridge over the Adda, which, during the action, must
      have proved an object of the utmost importance to both armies.
      The Rhætian usurper, after receiving a total defeat and a
      dangerous wound, retired into Milan. The siege of that great city
      was immediately formed; the walls were battered with every engine
      in use among the ancients; and Aureolus, doubtful of his internal
      strength, and hopeless of foreign succors already anticipated the
      fatal consequences of unsuccessful rebellion.

      1 (return) [ Pons Aureoli, thirteen miles from Bergamo, and
      thirty-two from Milan. See Cluver. Italia, Antiq. tom. i. p. 245.
      Near this place, in the year 1703, the obstinate battle of
      Cassano was fought between the French and Austrians. The
      excellent relation of the Chevalier de Folard, who was present,
      gives a very distinct idea of the ground. See Polybe de Folard,
      tom. iii. p. 233-248.]

      His last resource was an attempt to seduce the loyalty of the
      besiegers. He scattered libels through the camp, inviting the
      troops to desert an unworthy master, who sacrificed the public
      happiness to his luxury, and the lives of his most valuable
      subjects to the slightest suspicions. The arts of Aureolus
      diffused fears and discontent among the principal officers of his
      rival. A conspiracy was formed by Heraclianus, the Prætorian
      præfect, by Marcian, a general of rank and reputation, and by
      Cecrops, who commanded a numerous body of Dalmatian guards. The
      death of Gallienus was resolved; and notwithstanding their desire
      of first terminating the siege of Milan, the extreme danger which
      accompanied every moment’s delay obliged them to hasten the
      execution of their daring purpose. At a late hour of the night,
      but while the emperor still protracted the pleasures of the
      table, an alarm was suddenly given, that Aureolus, at the head of
      all his forces, had made a desperate sally from the town;
      Gallienus, who was never deficient in personal bravery, started
      from his silken couch, and without allowing himself time either
      to put on his armor, or to assemble his guards, he mounted on
      horseback, and rode full speed towards the supposed place of the
      attack. Encompassed by his declared or concealed enemies, he
      soon, amidst the nocturnal tumult, received a mortal dart from an
      uncertain hand. Before he expired, a patriotic sentiment rising
      in the mind of Gallienus, induced him to name a deserving
      successor; and it was his last request, that the Imperial
      ornaments should be delivered to Claudius, who then commanded a
      detached army in the neighborhood of Pavia. The report at least
      was diligently propagated, and the order cheerfully obeyed by the
      conspirators, who had already agreed to place Claudius on the
      throne. On the first news of the emperor’s death, the troops
      expressed some suspicion and resentment, till the one was
      removed, and the other assuaged, by a donative of twenty pieces
      of gold to each soldier. They then ratified the election, and
      acknowledged the merit of their new sovereign. 2

      2 (return) [ On the death of Gallienus, see Trebellius Pollio in
      Hist. August. p. 181. Zosimus, l. i. p. 37. Zonaras, l. xii. p.
      634. Eutrop. ix. ll. Aurelius Victor in Epitom. Victor in Cæsar.
      I have compared and blended them all, but have chiefly followed
      Aurelius Victor, who seems to have had the best memoirs.]

      The obscurity which covered the origin of Claudius, though it was
      afterwards embellished by some flattering fictions, 3
      sufficiently betrays the meanness of his birth. We can only
      discover that he was a native of one of the provinces bordering
      on the Danube; that his youth was spent in arms, and that his
      modest valor attracted the favor and confidence of Decius. The
      senate and people already considered him as an excellent officer,
      equal to the most important trusts; and censured the inattention
      of Valerian, who suffered him to remain in the subordinate
      station of a tribune. But it was not long before that emperor
      distinguished the merit of Claudius, by declaring him general and
      chief of the Illyrian frontier, with the command of all the
      troops in Thrace, Mæsia, Dacia, Pannonia, and Dalmatia, the
      appointments of the præfect of Egypt, the establishment of the
      proconsul of Africa, and the sure prospect of the consulship. By
      his victories over the Goths, he deserved from the senate the
      honor of a statue, and excited the jealous apprehensions of
      Gallienus. It was impossible that a soldier could esteem so
      dissolute a sovereign, nor is it easy to conceal a just contempt.
      Some unguarded expressions which dropped from Claudius were
      officiously transmitted to the royal ear. The emperor’s answer to
      an officer of confidence describes in very lively colors his own
      character, and that of the times. “There is not any thing capable
      of giving me more serious concern, than the intelligence
      contained in your last despatch; 4 that some malicious
      suggestions have indisposed towards us the mind of our friend and
      _parent_ Claudius. As you regard your allegiance, use every means
      to appease his resentment, but conduct your negotiation with
      secrecy; let it not reach the knowledge of the Dacian troops;
      they are already provoked, and it might inflame their fury. I
      myself have sent him some presents: be it your care that he
      accept them with pleasure. Above all, let him not suspect that I
      am made acquainted with his imprudence. The fear of my anger
      might urge him to desperate counsels.” 5 The presents which
      accompanied this humble epistle, in which the monarch solicited a
      reconciliation with his discontented subject, consisted of a
      considerable sum of money, a splendid wardrobe, and a valuable
      service of silver and gold plate. By such arts Gallienus softened
      the indignation and dispelled the fears of his Illyrian general;
      and during the remainder of that reign, the formidable sword of
      Claudius was always drawn in the cause of a master whom he
      despised. At last, indeed, he received from the conspirators the
      bloody purple of Gallienus: but he had been absent from their
      camp and counsels; and however he might applaud the deed, we may
      candidly presume that he was innocent of the knowledge of it. 6
      When Claudius ascended the throne, he was about fifty-four years
      of age.

      3 (return) [ Some supposed him, oddly enough, to be a bastard of
      the younger Gordian. Others took advantage of the province of
      Dardania, to deduce his origin from Dardanus, and the ancient
      kings of Troy.]

      4 (return) [ Notoria, a periodical and official despatch which
      the emperor received from the frumentarii, or agents dispersed
      through the provinces. Of these we may speak hereafter.]

      5 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 208. Gallienus describes the plate,
      vestments, etc., like a man who loved and understood those
      splendid trifles.]

      6 (return) [ Julian (Orat. i. p. 6) affirms that Claudius
      acquired the empire in a just and even holy manner. But we may
      distrust the partiality of a kinsman.]

      The siege of Milan was still continued, and Aureolus soon
      discovered that the success of his artifices had only raised up a
      more determined adversary. He attempted to negotiate with
      Claudius a treaty of alliance and partition. “Tell him,” replied
      the intrepid emperor, “that such proposals should have been made
      to Gallienus; _he_, perhaps, might have listened to them with
      patience, and accepted a colleague as despicable as himself.” 7
      This stern refusal, and a last unsuccessful effort, obliged
      Aureolus to yield the city and himself to the discretion of the
      conqueror. The judgment of the army pronounced him worthy of
      death; and Claudius, after a feeble resistance, consented to the
      execution of the sentence. Nor was the zeal of the senate less
      ardent in the cause of their new sovereign. They ratified,
      perhaps with a sincere transport of zeal, the election of
      Claudius; and, as his predecessor had shown himself the personal
      enemy of their order, they exercised, under the name of justice,
      a severe revenge against his friends and family. The senate was
      permitted to discharge the ungrateful office of punishment, and
      the emperor reserved for himself the pleasure and merit of
      obtaining by his intercession a general act of indemnity. 8

      7 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 203. There are some trifling
      differences concerning the circumstances of the last defeat and
      death of Aureolus]

      8 (return) [ Aurelius Victor in Gallien. The people loudly prayed
      for the damnation of Gallienus. The senate decreed that his
      relations and servants should be thrown down headlong from the
      Gemonian stairs. An obnoxious officer of the revenue had his eyes
      torn out whilst under examination. Note: The expression is
      curious, “terram matrem deosque inferos impias uti Gallieno
      darent.”—M.]

      Such ostentatious clemency discovers less of the real character
      of Claudius, than a trifling circumstance in which he seems to
      have consulted only the dictates of his heart. The frequent
      rebellions of the provinces had involved almost every person in
      the guilt of treason, almost every estate in the case of
      confiscation; and Gallienus often displayed his liberality by
      distributing among his officers the property of his subjects. On
      the accession of Claudius, an old woman threw herself at his
      feet, and complained that a general of the late emperor had
      obtained an arbitrary grant of her patrimony. This general was
      Claudius himself, who had not entirely escaped the contagion of
      the times. The emperor blushed at the reproach, but deserved the
      confidence which she had reposed in his equity. The confession of
      his fault was accompanied with immediate and ample restitution. 9

      9 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 137.]

      In the arduous task which Claudius had undertaken, of restoring
      the empire to its ancient splendor, it was first necessary to
      revive among his troops a sense of order and obedience. With the
      authority of a veteran commander, he represented to them that the
      relaxation of discipline had introduced a long train of
      disorders, the effects of which were at length experienced by the
      soldiers themselves; that a people ruined by oppression, and
      indolent from despair, could no longer supply a numerous army
      with the means of luxury, or even of subsistence; that the danger
      of each individual had increased with the despotism of the
      military order, since princes who tremble on the throne will
      guard their safety by the instant sacrifice of every obnoxious
      subject. The emperor expiated on the mischiefs of a lawless
      caprice, which the soldiers could only gratify at the expense of
      their own blood; as their seditious elections had so frequently
      been followed by civil wars, which consumed the flower of the
      legions either in the field of battle, or in the cruel abuse of
      victory. He painted in the most lively colors the exhausted state
      of the treasury, the desolation of the provinces, the disgrace of
      the Roman name, and the insolent triumph of rapacious barbarians.
      It was against those barbarians, he declared, that he intended to
      point the first effort of their arms. Tetricus might reign for a
      while over the West, and even Zenobia might preserve the dominion
      of the East. 10 These usurpers were his personal adversaries; nor
      could he think of indulging any private resentment till he had
      saved an empire, whose impending ruin would, unless it was timely
      prevented, crush both the army and the people.

      10 (return) [ Zonaras on this occasion mentions Posthumus but the
      registers of the senate (Hist. August. p. 203) prove that
      Tetricus was already emperor of the western provinces.]

      The various nations of Germany and Sarmatia, who fought under the
      Gothic standard, had already collected an armament more
      formidable than any which had yet issued from the Euxine. On the
      banks of the Niester, one of the great rivers that discharge
      themselves into that sea, they constructed a fleet of two
      thousand, or even of six thousand vessels; 11 numbers which,
      however incredible they may seem, would have been insufficient to
      transport their pretended army of three hundred and twenty
      thousand barbarians. Whatever might be the real strength of the
      Goths, the vigor and success of the expedition were not adequate
      to the greatness of the preparations. In their passage through
      the Bosphorus, the unskilful pilots were overpowered by the
      violence of the current; and while the multitude of their ships
      were crowded in a narrow channel, many were dashed against each
      other, or against the shore. The barbarians made several descents
      on the coasts both of Europe and Asia; but the open country was
      already plundered, and they were repulsed with shame and loss
      from the fortified cities which they assaulted. A spirit of
      discouragement and division arose in the fleet, and some of their
      chiefs sailed away towards the islands of Crete and Cyprus; but
      the main body, pursuing a more steady course, anchored at length
      near the foot of Mount Athos, and assaulted the city of
      Thessalonica, the wealthy capital of all the Macedonian
      provinces. Their attacks, in which they displayed a fierce but
      artless bravery, were soon interrupted by the rapid approach of
      Claudius, hastening to a scene of action that deserved the
      presence of a warlike prince at the head of the remaining powers
      of the empire. Impatient for battle, the Goths immediately broke
      up their camp, relinquished the siege of Thessalonica, left their
      navy at the foot of Mount Athos, traversed the hills of
      Macedonia, and pressed forwards to engage the last defence of
      Italy.

      11 (return) [ The Augustan History mentions the smaller, Zonaras
      the larger number; the lively fancy of Montesquieu induced him to
      prefer the latter.]

      We still posses an original letter addressed by Claudius to the
      senate and people on this memorable occasion. “Conscript
      fathers,” says the emperor, “know that three hundred and twenty
      thousand Goths have invaded the Roman territory. If I vanquish
      them, your gratitude will reward my services. Should I fall,
      remember that I am the successor of Gallienus. The whole republic
      is fatigued and exhausted. We shall fight after Valerian, after
      Ingenuus, Regillianus, Lollianus, Posthumus, Celsus, and a
      thousand others, whom a just contempt for Gallienus provoked into
      rebellion. We are in want of darts, of spears, and of shields.
      The strength of the empire, Gaul, and Spain, are usurped by
      Tetricus, and we blush to acknowledge that the archers of the
      East serve under the banners of Zenobia. Whatever we shall
      perform will be sufficiently great.” 12 The melancholy firmness
      of this epistle announces a hero careless of his fate, conscious
      of his danger, but still deriving a well-grounded hope from the
      resources of his own mind.

      12 (return) [ Trebell. Pollio in Hist. August. p. 204.]

      The event surpassed his own expectations and those of the world.
      By the most signal victories he delivered the empire from this
      host of barbarians, and was distinguished by posterity under the
      glorious appellation of the Gothic Claudius. The imperfect
      historians of an irregular war 13 do not enable us to describe
      the order and circumstances of his exploits; but, if we could be
      indulged in the allusion, we might distribute into three acts
      this memorable tragedy. I. The decisive battle was fought near
      Naissus, a city of Dardania. The legions at first gave way,
      oppressed by numbers, and dismayed by misfortunes. Their ruin was
      inevitable, had not the abilities of their emperor prepared a
      seasonable relief. A large detachment, rising out of the secret
      and difficult passes of the mountains, which, by his order, they
      had occupied, suddenly assailed the rear of the victorious Goths.

      The favorable instant was improved by the activity of Claudius.
      He revived the courage of his troops, restored their ranks, and
      pressed the barbarians on every side. Fifty thousand men are
      reported to have been slain in the battle of Naissus. Several
      large bodies of barbarians, covering their retreat with a movable
      fortification of wagons, retired, or rather escaped, from the
      field of slaughter.

      II. We may presume that some insurmountable difficulty, the
      fatigue, perhaps, or the disobedience, of the conquerors,
      prevented Claudius from completing in one day the destruction of
      the Goths. The war was diffused over the province of Mæsia,
      Thrace, and Macedonia, and its operations drawn out into a
      variety of marches, surprises, and tumultuary engagements, as
      well by sea as by land. When the Romans suffered any loss, it was
      commonly occasioned by their own cowardice or rashness; but the
      superior talents of the emperor, his perfect knowledge of the
      country, and his judicious choice of measures as well as
      officers, assured on most occasions the success of his arms. The
      immense booty, the fruit of so many victories, consisted for the
      greater part of cattle and slaves. A select body of the Gothic
      youth was received among the Imperial troops; the remainder was
      sold into servitude; and so considerable was the number of female
      captives that every soldier obtained to his share two or three
      women. A circumstance from which we may conclude, that the
      invaders entertained some designs of settlement as well as of
      plunder; since even in a naval expedition, they were accompanied
      by their families.

      III. The loss of their fleet, which was either taken or sunk, had
      intercepted the retreat of the Goths. A vast circle of Roman
      posts, distributed with skill, supported with firmness, and
      gradually closing towards a common centre, forced the barbarians
      into the most inaccessible parts of Mount Hæmus, where they found
      a safe refuge, but a very scanty subsistence. During the course
      of a rigorous winter in which they were besieged by the emperor’s
      troops, famine and pestilence, desertion and the sword,
      continually diminished the imprisoned multitude. On the return of
      spring, nothing appeared in arms except a hardy and desperate
      band, the remnant of that mighty host which had embarked at the
      mouth of the Niester.

      13 (return) [ Hist. August. in Claud. Aurelian. et Prob. Zosimus,
      l. i. p. 38-42. Zonaras, l. xii. p. 638. Aurel. Victor in Epitom.
      Victor Junior in Cæsar. Eutrop. ix ll. Euseb. in Chron.]

      The pestilence which swept away such numbers of the barbarians,
      at length proved fatal to their conqueror. After a short but
      glorious reign of two years, Claudius expired at Sirmium, amidst
      the tears and acclamations of his subjects. In his last illness,
      he convened the principal officers of the state and army, and in
      their presence recommended Aurelian, 14 one of his generals, as
      the most deserving of the throne, and the best qualified to
      execute the great design which he himself had been permitted only
      to undertake. The virtues of Claudius, his valor, affability,
      justice, and temperance, his love of fame and of his country,
      place him in that short list of emperors who added lustre to the
      Roman purple. Those virtues, however, were celebrated with
      peculiar zeal and complacency by the courtly writers of the age
      of Constantine, who was the great-grandson of Crispus, the elder
      brother of Claudius. The voice of flattery was soon taught to
      repeat, that gods, who so hastily had snatched Claudius from the
      earth, rewarded his merit and piety by the perpetual
      establishment of the empire in his family. 15

      14 (return) [ According to Zonaras, (l. xii. p. 638,) Claudius,
      before his death, invested him with the purple; but this singular
      fact is rather contradicted than confirmed by other writers.]

      15 (return) [ See the Life of Claudius by Pollio, and the
      Orations of Mamertinus, Eumenius, and Julian. See likewise the
      Cæsars of Julian p. 318. In Julian it was not adulation, but
      superstition and vanity.]

      Notwithstanding these oracles, the greatness of the Flavian
      family (a name which it had pleased them to assume) was deferred
      above twenty years, and the elevation of Claudius occasioned the
      immediate ruin of his brother Quintilius, who possessed not
      sufficient moderation or courage to descend into the private
      station to which the patriotism of the late emperor had condemned
      him. Without delay or reflection, he assumed the purple at
      Aquileia, where he commanded a considerable force; and though his
      reign lasted only seventeen days, 151 he had time to obtain the
      sanction of the senate, and to experience a mutiny of the troops.

      As soon as he was informed that the great army of the Danube had
      invested the well-known valor of Aurelian with Imperial power, he
      sunk under the fame and merit of his rival; and ordering his
      veins to be opened, prudently withdrew himself from the unequal
      contest. 16

      151 (return) [ Such is the narrative of the greater part of the
      older historians; but the number and the variety of his medals
      seem to require more time, and give probability to the report of
      Zosimus, who makes him reign some months.—G.]

      16 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 42. Pollio (Hist. August. p. 107)
      allows him virtues, and says, that, like Pertinax, he was killed
      by the licentious soldiers. According to Dexippus, he died of a
      disease.]

      The general design of this work will not permit us minutely to
      relate the actions of every emperor after he ascended the throne,
      much less to deduce the various fortunes of his private life. We
      shall only observe, that the father of Aurelian was a peasant of
      the territory of Sirmium, who occupied a small farm, the property
      of Aurelius, a rich senator. His warlike son enlisted in the
      troops as a common soldier, successively rose to the rank of a
      centurion, a tribune, the præfect of a legion, the inspector of
      the camp, the general, or, as it was then called, the duke, of a
      frontier; and at length, during the Gothic war, exercised the
      important office of commander-in-chief of the cavalry. In every
      station he distinguished himself by matchless valor, 17 rigid
      discipline, and successful conduct. He was invested with the
      consulship by the emperor Valerian, who styles him, in the
      pompous language of that age, the deliverer of Illyricum, the
      restorer of Gaul, and the rival of the Scipios. At the
      recommendation of Valerian, a senator of the highest rank and
      merit, Ulpius Crinitus, whose blood was derived from the same
      source as that of Trajan, adopted the Pannonian peasant, gave him
      his daughter in marriage, and relieved with his ample fortune the
      honorable poverty which Aurelian had preserved inviolate. 18

      17 (return) [ Theoclius (as quoted in the Augustan History, p.
      211) affirms that in one day he killed with his own hand
      forty-eight Sarmatians, and in several subsequent engagements
      nine hundred and fifty. This heroic valor was admired by the
      soldiers, and celebrated in their rude songs, the burden of which
      was, mille, mile, mille, occidit.]

      18 (return) [ Acholius (ap. Hist. August. p. 213) describes the
      ceremony of the adoption, as it was performed at Byzantium, in
      the presence of the emperor and his great officers.]

      The reign of Aurelian lasted only four years and about nine
      months; but every instant of that short period was filled by some
      memorable achievement. He put an end to the Gothic war, chastised
      the Germans who invaded Italy, recovered Gaul, Spain, and Britain
      out of the hands of Tetricus, and destroyed the proud monarchy
      which Zenobia had erected in the East on the ruins of the
      afflicted empire.

      It was the rigid attention of Aurelian, even to the minutest
      articles of discipline, which bestowed such uninterrupted success
      on his arms. His military regulations are contained in a very
      concise epistle to one of his inferior officers, who is commanded
      to enforce them, as he wishes to become a tribune, or as he is
      desirous to live. Gaming, drinking, and the arts of divination,
      were severely prohibited. Aurelian expected that his soldiers
      should be modest, frugal, and laborious; that their armor should
      be constantly kept bright, their weapons sharp, their clothing
      and horses ready for immediate service; that they should live in
      their quarters with chastity and sobriety, without damaging the
      cornfields, without stealing even a sheep, a fowl, or a bunch of
      grapes, without exacting from their landlords either salt, or
      oil, or wood. “The public allowance,” continues the emperor, “is
      sufficient for their support; their wealth should be collected
      from the spoils of the enemy, not from the tears of the
      provincials.” 19 A single instance will serve to display the
      rigor, and even cruelty, of Aurelian. One of the soldiers had
      seduced the wife of his host. The guilty wretch was fastened to
      two trees forcibly drawn towards each other, and his limbs were
      torn asunder by their sudden separation. A few such examples
      impressed a salutary consternation. The punishments of Aurelian
      were terrible; but he had seldom occasion to punish more than
      once the same offence. His own conduct gave a sanction to his
      laws, and the seditious legions dreaded a chief who had learned
      to obey, and who was worthy to command.

      19 (return) [ Hist. August, p. 211 This laconic epistle is truly
      the work of a soldier; it abounds with military phrases and
      words, some of which cannot be understood without difficulty.
      Ferramenta samiata is well explained by Salmasius. The former of
      the words means all weapons of offence, and is contrasted with
      Arma, defensive armor The latter signifies keen and well
      sharpened.]




      Chapter XI: Reign Of Claudius, Defeat Of The Goths.—Part II.

      The death of Claudius had revived the fainting spirit of the
      Goths. The troops which guarded the passes of Mount Hæmus, and
      the banks of the Danube, had been drawn away by the apprehension
      of a civil war; and it seems probable that the remaining body of
      the Gothic and Vandalic tribes embraced the favorable
      opportunity, abandoned their settlements of the Ukraine,
      traversed the rivers, and swelled with new multitudes the
      destroying host of their countrymen. Their united numbers were at
      length encountered by Aurelian, and the bloody and doubtful
      conflict ended only with the approach of night. 20 Exhausted by
      so many calamities, which they had mutually endured and inflicted
      during a twenty years’ war, the Goths and the Romans consented to
      a lasting and beneficial treaty. It was earnestly solicited by
      the barbarians, and cheerfully ratified by the legions, to whose
      suffrage the prudence of Aurelian referred the decision of that
      important question. The Gothic nation engaged to supply the
      armies of Rome with a body of two thousand auxiliaries,
      consisting entirely of cavalry, and stipulated in return an
      undisturbed retreat, with a regular market as far as the Danube,
      provided by the emperor’s care, but at their own expense. The
      treaty was observed with such religious fidelity, that when a
      party of five hundred men straggled from the camp in quest of
      plunder, the king or general of the barbarians commanded that the
      guilty leader should be apprehended and shot to death with darts,
      as a victim devoted to the sanctity of their engagements. 201 It
      is, however, not unlikely, that the precaution of Aurelian, who
      had exacted as hostages the sons and daughters of the Gothic
      chiefs, contributed something to this pacific temper. The youths
      he trained in the exercise of arms, and near his own person: to
      the damsels he gave a liberal and Roman education, and by
      bestowing them in marriage on some of his principal officers,
      gradually introduced between the two nations the closest and most
      endearing connections. 21

      20 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 45.]

      201 (return) [ The five hundred stragglers were all slain.—M.]

      21 (return) [ Dexipphus (ap. Excerpta Legat. p. 12) relates the
      whole transaction under the name of Vandals. Aurelian married one
      of the Gothic ladies to his general Bonosus, who was able to
      drink with the Goths and discover their secrets. Hist. August. p.
      247.]

      But the most important condition of peace was understood rather
      than expressed in the treaty. Aurelian withdrew the Roman forces
      from Dacia, and tacitly relinquished that great province to the
      Goths and Vandals. 22 His manly judgment convinced him of the
      solid advantages, and taught him to despise the seeming disgrace,
      of thus contracting the frontiers of the monarchy. The Dacian
      subjects, removed from those distant possessions which they were
      unable to cultivate or defend, added strength and populousness to
      the southern side of the Danube. A fertile territory, which the
      repetition of barbarous inroads had changed into a desert, was
      yielded to their industry, and a new province of Dacia still
      preserved the memory of Trajan’s conquests. The old country of
      that name detained, however, a considerable number of its
      inhabitants, who dreaded exile more than a Gothic master. 23
      These degenerate Romans continued to serve the empire, whose
      allegiance they had renounced, by introducing among their
      conquerors the first notions of agriculture, the useful arts, and
      the conveniences of civilized life. An intercourse of commerce
      and language was gradually established between the opposite banks
      of the Danube; and after Dacia became an independent state, it
      often proved the firmest barrier of the empire against the
      invasions of the savages of the North. A sense of interest
      attached these more settled barbarians to the alliance of Rome,
      and a permanent interest very frequently ripens into sincere and
      useful friendship. This various colony, which filled the ancient
      province, and was insensibly blended into one great people, still
      acknowledged the superior renown and authority of the Gothic
      tribe, and claimed the fancied honor of a Scandinavian origin. At
      the same time, the lucky though accidental resemblance of the
      name of Getæ, 231 infused among the credulous Goths a vain
      persuasion, that in a remote age, their own ancestors, already
      seated in the Dacian provinces, had received the instructions of
      Zamolxis, and checked the victorious arms of Sesostris and
      Darius. 24

      22 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 222. Eutrop. ix. 15. Sextus Rufus,
      c. 9. de Mortibus Persecutorum, c. 9.]

      23 (return) [ The Walachians still preserve many traces of the
      Latin language and have boasted, in every age, of their Roman
      descent. They are surrounded by, but not mixed with, the
      barbarians. See a Memoir of M. d’Anville on ancient Dacia, in the
      Academy of Inscriptions, tom. xxx.]

      231 (return) [ The connection between the Getæ and the Goths is
      still in my opinion incorrectly maintained by some learned
      writers—M.]

      24 (return) [See the first chapter of Jornandes. The Vandals,
      however, (c. 22,) maintained a short independence between the
      Rivers Marisia and Crissia, (Maros and Keres,) which fell into
      the Teiss.]

      While the vigorous and moderate conduct of Aurelian restored the
      Illyrian frontier, the nation of the Alemanni 25 violated the
      conditions of peace, which either Gallienus had purchased, or
      Claudius had imposed, and, inflamed by their impatient youth,
      suddenly flew to arms. Forty thousand horse appeared in the
      field, 26 and the numbers of the infantry doubled those of the
      cavalry. 27 The first objects of their avarice were a few cities
      of the Rhætian frontier; but their hopes soon rising with
      success, the rapid march of the Alemanni traced a line of
      devastation from the Danube to the Po. 28

      25 (return) [ Dexippus, p. 7—12. Zosimus, l. i. p. 43. Vopiscus
      in Aurelian in Hist. August. However these historians differ in
      names, (Alemanni Juthungi, and Marcomanni,) it is evident that
      they mean the same people, and the same war; but it requires some
      care to conciliate and explain them.]

      26 (return) [ Cantoclarus, with his usual accuracy, chooses to
      translate three hundred thousand: his version is equally
      repugnant to sense and to grammar.]

      27 (return) [ We may remark, as an instance of bad taste, that
      Dexippus applies to the light infantry of the Alemanni the
      technical terms proper only to the Grecian phalanx.]

      28 (return) [ In Dexippus, we at present read Rhodanus: M. de
      Valois very judiciously alters the word to Eridanus.]

      The emperor was almost at the same time informed of the
      irruption, and of the retreat, of the barbarians. Collecting an
      active body of troops, he marched with silence and celerity along
      the skirts of the Hercynian forest; and the Alemanni, laden with
      the spoils of Italy, arrived at the Danube, without suspecting,
      that on the opposite bank, and in an advantageous post, a Roman
      army lay concealed and prepared to intercept their return.
      Aurelian indulged the fatal security of the barbarians, and
      permitted about half their forces to pass the river without
      disturbance and without precaution. Their situation and
      astonishment gave him an easy victory; his skilful conduct
      improved the advantage. Disposing the legions in a semicircular
      form, he advanced the two horns of the crescent across the
      Danube, and wheeling them on a sudden towards the centre,
      enclosed the rear of the German host. The dismayed barbarians, on
      whatsoever side they cast their eyes, beheld, with despair, a
      wasted country, a deep and rapid stream, a victorious and
      implacable enemy.

      Reduced to this distressed condition, the Alemanni no longer
      disdained to sue for peace. Aurelian received their ambassadors
      at the head of his camp, and with every circumstance of martial
      pomp that could display the greatness and discipline of Rome. The
      legions stood to their arms in well-ordered ranks and awful
      silence. The principal commanders, distinguished by the ensigns
      of their rank, appeared on horseback on either side of the
      Imperial throne. Behind the throne the consecrated images of the
      emperor, and his predecessors, 29 the golden eagles, and the
      various titles of the legions, engraved in letters of gold, were
      exalted in the air on lofty pikes covered with silver. When
      Aurelian assumed his seat, his manly grace and majestic figure 30
      taught the barbarians to revere the person as well as the purple
      of their conqueror. The ambassadors fell prostrate on the ground
      in silence. They were commanded to rise, and permitted to speak.
      By the assistance of interpreters they extenuated their perfidy,
      magnified their exploits, expatiated on the vicissitudes of
      fortune and the advantages of peace, and, with an ill-timed
      confidence, demanded a large subsidy, as the price of the
      alliance which they offered to the Romans. The answer of the
      emperor was stern and imperious. He treated their offer with
      contempt, and their demand with indignation, reproached the
      barbarians, that they were as ignorant of the arts of war as of
      the laws of peace, and finally dismissed them with the choice
      only of submitting to this unconditional mercy, or awaiting the
      utmost severity of his resentment. 31 Aurelian had resigned a
      distant province to the Goths; but it was dangerous to trust or
      to pardon these perfidious barbarians, whose formidable power
      kept Italy itself in perpetual alarms.

      29 (return) [ The emperor Claudius was certainly of the number;
      but we are ignorant how far this mark of respect was extended; if
      to Cæsar and Augustus, it must have produced a very awful
      spectacle; a long line of the masters of the world.]

      30 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 210.]

      31 (return) [ Dexippus gives them a subtle and prolix oration,
      worthy of a Grecian sophist.]

      Immediately after this conference, it should seem that some
      unexpected emergency required the emperor’s presence in Pannonia.

      He devolved on his lieutenants the care of finishing the
      destruction of the Alemanni, either by the sword, or by the surer
      operation of famine. But an active despair has often triumphed
      over the indolent assurance of success. The barbarians, finding
      it impossible to traverse the Danube and the Roman camp, broke
      through the posts in their rear, which were more feebly or less
      carefully guarded; and with incredible diligence, but by a
      different road, returned towards the mountains of Italy. 32
      Aurelian, who considered the war as totally extinguished,
      received the mortifying intelligence of the escape of the
      Alemanni, and of the ravage which they already committed in the
      territory of Milan. The legions were commanded to follow, with as
      much expedition as those heavy bodies were capable of exerting,
      the rapid flight of an enemy whose infantry and cavalry moved
      with almost equal swiftness. A few days afterwards, the emperor
      himself marched to the relief of Italy, at the head of a chosen
      body of auxiliaries, (among whom were the hostages and cavalry of
      the Vandals,) and of all the Prætorian guards who had served in
      the wars on the Danube. 33

      32 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 215.]

      33 (return) [ Dexippus, p. 12.]

      As the light troops of the Alemanni had spread themselves from
      the Alps to the Apennine, the incessant vigilance of Aurelian and
      his officers was exercised in the discovery, the attack, and the
      pursuit of the numerous detachments. Notwithstanding this
      desultory war, three considerable battles are mentioned, in which
      the principal force of both armies was obstinately engaged. 34
      The success was various. In the first, fought near Placentia, the
      Romans received so severe a blow, that, according to the
      expression of a writer extremely partial to Aurelian, the
      immediate dissolution of the empire was apprehended. 35 The
      crafty barbarians, who had lined the woods, suddenly attacked the
      legions in the dusk of the evening, and, it is most probable,
      after the fatigue and disorder of a long march.

      The fury of their charge was irresistible; but, at length, after
      a dreadful slaughter, the patient firmness of the emperor rallied
      his troops, and restored, in some degree, the honor of his arms.
      The second battle was fought near Fano in Umbria; on the spot
      which, five hundred years before, had been fatal to the brother
      of Hannibal. 36 Thus far the successful Germans had advanced
      along the Æmilian and Flaminian way, with a design of sacking the
      defenceless mistress of the world. But Aurelian, who, watchful
      for the safety of Rome, still hung on their rear, found in this
      place the decisive moment of giving them a total and
      irretrievable defeat. 37 The flying remnant of their host was
      exterminated in a third and last battle near Pavia; and Italy was
      delivered from the inroads of the Alemanni.

      34 (return) [ Victor Junior in Aurelian.]

      35 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 216.]

      36 (return) [ The little river, or rather torrent, of, Metaurus,
      near Fano, has been immortalized, by finding such an historian as
      Livy, and such a poet as Horace.]

      37 (return) [ It is recorded by an inscription found at Pesaro.
      See Gruter cclxxvi. 3.]

      Fear has been the original parent of superstition, and every new
      calamity urges trembling mortals to deprecate the wrath of their
      invisible enemies. Though the best hope of the republic was in
      the valor and conduct of Aurelian, yet such was the public
      consternation, when the barbarians were hourly expected at the
      gates of Rome, that, by a decree of the senate the Sibylline
      books were consulted. Even the emperor himself, from a motive
      either of religion or of policy, recommended this salutary
      measure, chided the tardiness of the senate, 38 and offered to
      supply whatever expense, whatever animals, whatever captives of
      any nation, the gods should require. Notwithstanding this liberal
      offer, it does not appear, that any human victims expiated with
      their blood the sins of the Roman people. The Sibylline books
      enjoined ceremonies of a more harmless nature, processions of
      priests in white robes, attended by a chorus of youths and
      virgins; lustrations of the city and adjacent country; and
      sacrifices, whose powerful influence disabled the barbarians from
      passing the mystic ground on which they had been celebrated.
      However puerile in themselves, these superstitious arts were
      subservient to the success of the war; and if, in the decisive
      battle of Fano, the Alemanni fancied they saw an army of spectres
      combating on the side of Aurelian, he received a real and
      effectual aid from this imaginary reënforcement. 39

      38 (return) [ One should imagine, he said, that you were
      assembled in a Christian church, not in the temple of all the
      gods.]

      39 (return) [ Vopiscus, in Hist. August. p. 215, 216, gives a
      long account of these ceremonies from the Registers of the
      senate.]

      But whatever confidence might be placed in ideal ramparts, the
      experience of the past, and the dread of the future, induced the
      Romans to construct fortifications of a grosser and more
      substantial kind. The seven hills of Rome had been surrounded by
      the successors of Romulus with an ancient wall of more than
      thirteen miles. 40 The vast enclosure may seem disproportioned to
      the strength and numbers of the infant-state. But it was
      necessary to secure an ample extent of pasture and arable land
      against the frequent and sudden incursions of the tribes of
      Latium, the perpetual enemies of the republic. With the progress
      of Roman greatness, the city and its inhabitants gradually
      increased, filled up the vacant space, pierced through the
      useless walls, covered the field of Mars, and, on every side,
      followed the public highways in long and beautiful suburbs. 41
      The extent of the new walls, erected by Aurelian, and finished in
      the reign of Probus, was magnified by popular estimation to near
      fifty, 42 but is reduced by accurate measurement to about
      twenty-one miles. 43 It was a great but a melancholy labor, since
      the defence of the capital betrayed the decline of monarchy. The
      Romans of a more prosperous age, who trusted to the arms of the
      legions the safety of the frontier camps, 44 were very far from
      entertaining a suspicion that it would ever become necessary to
      fortify the seat of empire against the inroads of the barbarians.
      45

      40 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 5. To confirm our idea, we
      may observe, that for a long time Mount Cælius was a grove of
      oaks, and Mount Viminal was overrun with osiers; that, in the
      fourth century, the Aventine was a vacant and solitary
      retirement; that, till the time of Augustus, the Esquiline was an
      unwholesome burying-ground; and that the numerous inequalities,
      remarked by the ancients in the Quirinal, sufficiently prove that
      it was not covered with buildings. Of the seven hills, the
      Capitoline and Palatine only, with the adjacent valleys, were the
      primitive habitations of the Roman people. But this subject would
      require a dissertation.]

      41 (return) [ Exspatiantia tecta multas addidere urbes, is the
      expression of Pliny.]

      42 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 222. Both Lipsius and Isaac
      Vossius have eagerly embraced this measure.]

      43 (return) [ See Nardini, Roman Antica, l. i. c. 8. * Note: But
      compare Gibbon, ch. xli. note 77.—M.]

      44 (return) [ Tacit. Hist. iv. 23.]

      45 (return) [ For Aurelian’s walls, see Vopiscus in Hist. August.
      p. 216, 222. Zosimus, l. i. p. 43. Eutropius, ix. 15. Aurel.
      Victor in Aurelian Victor Junior in Aurelian. Euseb. Hieronym. et
      Idatius in Chronic]

      The victory of Claudius over the Goths, and the success of
      Aurelian against the Alemanni, had already restored to the arms
      of Rome their ancient superiority over the barbarous nations of
      the North. To chastise domestic tyrants, and to reunite the
      dismembered parts of the empire, was a task reserved for the
      second of those warlike emperors. Though he was acknowledged by
      the senate and people, the frontiers of Italy, Africa, Illyricum,
      and Thrace, confined the limits of his reign. Gaul, Spain, and
      Britain, Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, were still possessed by
      two rebels, who alone, out of so numerous a list, had hitherto
      escaped the dangers of their situation; and to complete the
      ignominy of Rome, these rival thrones had been usurped by women.

      A rapid succession of monarchs had arisen and fallen in the
      provinces of Gaul. The rigid virtues of Posthumus served only to
      hasten his destruction. After suppressing a competitor, who had
      assumed the purple at Mentz, he refused to gratify his troops
      with the plunder of the rebellious city; and in the seventh year
      of his reign, became the victim of their disappointed avarice. 46
      The death of Victorinus, his friend and associate, was occasioned
      by a less worthy cause. The shining accomplishments 47 of that
      prince were stained by a licentious passion, which he indulged in
      acts of violence, with too little regard to the laws of society,
      or even to those of love. 48 He was slain at Cologne, by a
      conspiracy of jealous husbands, whose revenge would have appeared
      more justifiable, had they spared the innocence of his son. After
      the murder of so many valiant princes, it is somewhat remarkable,
      that a female for a long time controlled the fierce legions of
      Gaul, and still more singular, that she was the mother of the
      unfortunate Victorinus. The arts and treasures of Victoria
      enabled her successively to place Marius and Tetricus on the
      throne, and to reign with a manly vigor under the name of those
      dependent emperors. Money of copper, of silver, and of gold, was
      coined in her name; she assumed the titles of Augusta and Mother
      of the Camps: her power ended only with her life; but her life
      was perhaps shortened by the ingratitude of Tetricus. 49

      46 (return) [ His competitor was Lollianus, or Ælianus, if,
      indeed, these names mean the same person. See Tillemont, tom.
      iii. p. 1177. Note: The medals which bear the name of Lollianus
      are considered forgeries except one in the museum of the Prince
      of Waldeck there are many extent bearing the name of Lælianus,
      which appears to have been that of the competitor of Posthumus.
      Eckhel. Doct. Num. t. vi. 149—G.]

      47 (return) [ The character of this prince by Julius Aterianus
      (ap. Hist. August. p. 187) is worth transcribing, as it seems
      fair and impartial Victorino qui Post Junium Posthumium Gallias
      rexit neminem existemo præferendum; non in virtute Trajanum; non
      Antoninum in clementia; non in gravitate Nervam; non in
      gubernando ærario Vespasianum; non in Censura totius vitæ ac
      severitate militari Pertinacem vel Severum. Sed omnia hæc libido
      et cupiditas voluptatis mulierriæ sic perdidit, ut nemo audeat
      virtutes ejus in literas mittere quem constat omnium judicio
      meruisse puniri.]

      48 (return) [ He ravished the wife of Attitianus, an actuary, or
      army agent, Hist. August. p. 186. Aurel. Victor in Aurelian.]

      49 (return) [ Pollio assigns her an article among the thirty
      tyrants. Hist. August. p. 200.]

      When, at the instigation of his ambitious patroness, Tetricus
      assumed the ensigns of royalty, he was governor of the peaceful
      province of Aquitaine, an employment suited to his character and
      education. He reigned four or five years over Gaul, Spain, and
      Britain, the slave and sovereign of a licentious army, whom he
      dreaded, and by whom he was despised. The valor and fortune of
      Aurelian at length opened the prospect of a deliverance. He
      ventured to disclose his melancholy situation, and conjured the
      emperor to hasten to the relief of his unhappy rival. Had this
      secret correspondence reached the ears of the soldiers, it would
      most probably have cost Tetricus his life; nor could he resign
      the sceptre of the West without committing an act of treason
      against himself. He affected the appearances of a civil war, led
      his forces into the field, against Aurelian, posted them in the
      most disadvantageous manner, betrayed his own counsels to his
      enemy, and with a few chosen friends deserted in the beginning of
      the action. The rebel legions, though disordered and dismayed by
      the unexpected treachery of their chief, defended themselves with
      desperate valor, till they were cut in pieces almost to a man, in
      this bloody and memorable battle, which was fought near Chalons
      in Champagne. 50 The retreat of the irregular auxiliaries, Franks
      and Batavians, 51 whom the conqueror soon compelled or persuaded
      to repass the Rhine, restored the general tranquillity, and the
      power of Aurelian was acknowledged from the wall of Antoninus to
      the columns of Hercules.

      50 (return) [ Pollio in Hist. August. p. 196. Vopiscus in Hist.
      August. p. 220. The two Victors, in the lives of Gallienus and
      Aurelian. Eutrop. ix. 13. Euseb. in Chron. Of all these writers,
      only the two last (but with strong probability) place the fall of
      Tetricus before that of Zenobia. M. de Boze (in the Academy of
      Inscriptions, tom. xxx.) does not wish, and Tillemont (tom. iii.
      p. 1189) does not dare to follow them. I have been fairer than
      the one, and bolder than the other.]

      51 (return) [ Victor Junior in Aurelian. Eumenius mentions
      Batavicoe; some critics, without any reason, would fain alter the
      word to Bagandicoe.] As early as the reign of Claudius, the city
      of Autun, alone and unassisted, had ventured to declare against
      the legions of Gaul. After a siege of seven months, they stormed
      and plundered that unfortunate city, already wasted by famine. 52
      Lyons, on the contrary, had resisted with obstinate disaffection
      the arms of Aurelian. We read of the punishment of Lyons, 53 but
      there is not any mention of the rewards of Autun. Such, indeed,
      is the policy of civil war: severely to remember injuries, and to
      forget the most important services. Revenge is profitable,
      gratitude is expensive.

      52 (return) [ Eumen. in Vet. Panegyr. iv. 8.]

      53 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 246. Autun was not
      restored till the reign of Diocletian. See Eumenius de
      restaurandis scholis.]

      Aurelian had no sooner secured the person and provinces of
      Tetricus, than he turned his arms against Zenobia, the celebrated
      queen of Palmyra and the East. Modern Europe has produced several
      illustrious women who have sustained with glory the weight of
      empire; nor is our own age destitute of such distinguished
      characters. But if we except the doubtful achievements of
      Semiramis, Zenobia is perhaps the only female whose superior
      genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her sex by
      the climate and manners of Asia. 54 She claimed her descent from
      the Macedonian kings of Egypt, 541 equalled in beauty her
      ancestor Cleopatra, and far surpassed that princess in chastity
      55 and valor. Zenobia was esteemed the most lovely as well as the
      most heroic of her sex. She was of a dark complexion (for in
      speaking of a lady these trifles become important). Her teeth
      were of a pearly whiteness, and her large black eyes sparkled
      with uncommon fire, tempered by the most attractive sweetness.
      Her voice was strong and harmonious. Her manly understanding was
      strengthened and adorned by study. She was not ignorant of the
      Latin tongue, but possessed in equal perfection the Greek, the
      Syriac, and the Egyptian languages. She had drawn up for her own
      use an epitome of oriental history, and familiarly compared the
      beauties of Homer and Plato under the tuition of the sublime
      Longinus.

      54 (return) [ Almost everything that is said of the manners of
      Odenathus and Zenobia is taken from their lives in the Augustan
      History, by Trebeljus Pollio; see p. 192, 198.]

      541 (return) [ According to some Christian writers, Zenobia was a
      Jewess. (Jost Geschichte der Israel. iv. 16. Hist. of Jews, iii.
      175.)—M.]

      55 (return) [ She never admitted her husband’s embraces but for
      the sake of posterity. If her hopes were baffled, in the ensuing
      month she reiterated the experiment.]

      This accomplished woman gave her hand to Odenathus, 551 who, from
      a private station, raised himself to the dominion of the East.
      She soon became the friend and companion of a hero. In the
      intervals of war, Odenathus passionately delighted in the
      exercise of hunting; he pursued with ardor the wild beasts of the
      desert, lions, panthers, and bears; and the ardor of Zenobia in
      that dangerous amusement was not inferior to his own. She had
      inured her constitution to fatigue, disdained the use of a
      covered carriage, generally appeared on horseback in a military
      habit, and sometimes marched several miles on foot at the head of
      the troops. The success of Odenathus was in a great measure
      ascribed to her incomparable prudence and fortitude. Their
      splendid victories over the Great King, whom they twice pursued
      as far as the gates of Ctesiphon, laid the foundations of their
      united fame and power. The armies which they commanded, and the
      provinces which they had saved, acknowledged not any other
      sovereigns than their invincible chiefs. The senate and people of
      Rome revered a stranger who had avenged their captive emperor,
      and even the insensible son of Valerian accepted Odenathus for
      his legitimate colleague.

      551 (return) [ According to Zosimus, Odenathus was of a noble
      family in Palmyra and according to Procopius, he was prince of
      the Saracens, who inhabit the ranks of the Euphrates. Echhel.
      Doct. Num. vii. 489.—G.]




      Chapter XI: Reign Of Claudius, Defeat Of The Goths.—Part III.

      After a successful expedition against the Gothic plunderers of
      Asia, the Palmyrenian prince returned to the city of Emesa in
      Syria. Invincible in war, he was there cut off by domestic
      treason, and his favorite amusement of hunting was the cause, or
      at least the occasion, of his death. 56 His nephew Mæonius
      presumed to dart his javelin before that of his uncle; and though
      admonished of his error, repeated the same insolence. As a
      monarch, and as a sportsman, Odenathus was provoked, took away
      his horse, a mark of ignominy among the barbarians, and chastised
      the rash youth by a short confinement. The offence was soon
      forgot, but the punishment was remembered; and Mæonius, with a
      few daring associates, assassinated his uncle in the midst of a
      great entertainment. Herod, the son of Odenathus, though not of
      Zenobia, a young man of a soft and effeminate temper, 57 was
      killed with his father. But Mæonius obtained only the pleasure of
      revenge by this bloody deed. He had scarcely time to assume the
      title of Augustus, before he was sacrificed by Zenobia to the
      memory of her husband. 58

      56 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 192, 193. Zosimus, l. i. p. 36.
      Zonaras, l. xii p. 633. The last is clear and probable, the
      others confused and inconsistent. The text of Syncellus, if not
      corrupt, is absolute nonsense.]

      57 (return) [ Odenathus and Zenobia often sent him, from the
      spoils of the enemy, presents of gems and toys, which he received
      with infinite delight.]

      58 (return) [ Some very unjust suspicions have been cast on
      Zenobia, as if she was accessory to her husband’s death.]

      With the assistance of his most faithful friends, she immediately
      filled the vacant throne, and governed with manly counsels
      Palmyra, Syria, and the East, above five years. By the death of
      Odenathus, that authority was at an end which the senate had
      granted him only as a personal distinction; but his martial
      widow, disdaining both the senate and Gallienus, obliged one of
      the Roman generals, who was sent against her, to retreat into
      Europe, with the loss of his army and his reputation. 59 Instead
      of the little passions which so frequently perplex a female
      reign, the steady administration of Zenobia was guided by the
      most judicious maxims of policy. If it was expedient to pardon,
      she could calm her resentment; if it was necessary to punish, she
      could impose silence on the voice of pity. Her strict economy was
      accused of avarice; yet on every proper occasion she appeared
      magnificent and liberal. The neighboring states of Arabia,
      Armenia, and Persia, dreaded her enmity, and solicited her
      alliance. To the dominions of Odenathus, which extended from the
      Euphrates to the frontiers of Bithynia, his widow added the
      inheritance of her ancestors, the populous and fertile kingdom of
      Egypt. 60 The emperor Claudius acknowledged her merit, and was
      content, that, while _he_ pursued the Gothic war, _she_ should
      assert the dignity of the empire in the East. The conduct,
      however, of Zenobia was attended with some ambiguity; not is it
      unlikely that she had conceived the design of erecting an
      independent and hostile monarchy. She blended with the popular
      manners of Roman princes the stately pomp of the courts of Asia,
      and exacted from her subjects the same adoration that was paid to
      the successor of Cyrus. She bestowed on her three sons 61 a Latin
      education, and often showed them to the troops adorned with the
      Imperial purple. For herself she reserved the diadem, with the
      splendid but doubtful title of Queen of the East.

      59 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 180, 181.]

      60 (return) [ See, in Hist. August. p. 198, Aurelian’s testimony
      to her merit; and for the conquest of Egypt, Zosimus, l. i. p.
      39, 40.] This seems very doubtful. Claudius, during all his
      reign, is represented as emperor on the medals of Alexandria,
      which are very numerous. If Zenobia possessed any power in Egypt,
      it could only have been at the beginning of the reign of
      Aurelian. The same circumstance throws great improbability on her
      conquests in Galatia. Perhaps Zenobia administered Egypt in the
      name of Claudius, and emboldened by the death of that prince,
      subjected it to her own power.—G.]

      61 (return) [ Timolaus, Herennianus, and Vaballathus. It is
      supposed that the two former were already dead before the war. On
      the last, Aurelian bestowed a small province of Armenia, with the
      title of King; several of his medals are still extant. See
      Tillemont, tom. 3, p. 1190.]

      When Aurelian passed over into Asia, against an adversary whose
      sex alone could render her an object of contempt, his presence
      restored obedience to the province of Bithynia, already shaken by
      the arms and intrigues of Zenobia. 62 Advancing at the head of
      his legions, he accepted the submission of Ancyra, and was
      admitted into Tyana, after an obstinate siege, by the help of a
      perfidious citizen. The generous though fierce temper of Aurelian
      abandoned the traitor to the rage of the soldiers; a
      superstitious reverence induced him to treat with lenity the
      countrymen of Apollonius the philosopher. 63 Antioch was deserted
      on his approach, till the emperor, by his salutary edicts,
      recalled the fugitives, and granted a general pardon to all who,
      from necessity rather than choice, had been engaged in the
      service of the Palmyrenian Queen. The unexpected mildness of such
      a conduct reconciled the minds of the Syrians, and as far as the
      gates of Emesa, the wishes of the people seconded the terror of
      his arms. 64

      62 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 44.]

      63 (return) [ Vopiscus (in Hist. August. p. 217) gives us an
      authentic letter and a doubtful vision, of Aurelian. Apollonius
      of Tyana was born about the same time as Jesus Christ. His life
      (that of the former) is related in so fabulous a manner by his
      disciples, that we are at a loss to discover whether he was a
      sage, an impostor, or a fanatic.]

      64 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 46.]

      Zenobia would have ill deserved her reputation, had she
      indolently permitted the emperor of the West to approach within a
      hundred miles of her capital. The fate of the East was decided in
      two great battles; so similar in almost every circumstance, that
      we can scarcely distinguish them from each other, except by
      observing that the first was fought near Antioch, 65 and the
      second near Emesa. 66 In both the queen of Palmyra animated the
      armies by her presence, and devolved the execution of her orders
      on Zabdas, who had already signalized his military talents by the
      conquest of Egypt. The numerous forces of Zenobia consisted for
      the most part of light archers, and of heavy cavalry clothed in
      complete steel. The Moorish and Illyrian horse of Aurelian were
      unable to sustain the ponderous charge of their antagonists. They
      fled in real or affected disorder, engaged the Palmyrenians in a
      laborious pursuit, harassed them by a desultory combat, and at
      length discomfited this impenetrable but unwieldy body of
      cavalry. The light infantry, in the mean time, when they had
      exhausted their quivers, remaining without protection against a
      closer onset, exposed their naked sides to the swords of the
      legions. Aurelian had chosen these veteran troops, who were
      usually stationed on the Upper Danube, and whose valor had been
      severely tried in the Alemannic war. 67 After the defeat of
      Emesa, Zenobia found it impossible to collect a third army. As
      far as the frontier of Egypt, the nations subject to her empire
      had joined the standard of the conqueror, who detached Probus,
      the bravest of his generals, to possess himself of the Egyptian
      provinces. Palmyra was the last resource of the widow of
      Odenathus. She retired within the walls of her capital, made
      every preparation for a vigorous resistance, and declared, with
      the intrepidity of a heroine, that the last moment of her reign
      and of her life should be the same.

      65 (return) [ At a place called Immæ. Eutropius, Sextus Rufus,
      and Jerome, mention only this first battle.]

      66 (return) [ Vopiscus (in Hist. August. p. 217) mentions only
      the second.]

      67 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 44—48. His account of the two
      battles is clear and circumstantial.]

      Amid the barren deserts of Arabia, a few cultivated spots rise
      like islands out of the sandy ocean. Even the name of Tadmor, or
      Palmyra, by its signification in the Syriac as well as in the
      Latin language, denoted the multitude of palm-trees which
      afforded shade and verdure to that temperate region. The air was
      pure, and the soil, watered by some invaluable springs, was
      capable of producing fruits as well as corn. A place possessed of
      such singular advantages, and situated at a convenient distance
      68 between the Gulf of Persia and the Mediterranean, was soon
      frequented by the caravans which conveyed to the nations of
      Europe a considerable part of the rich commodities of India.
      Palmyra insensibly increased into an opulent and independent
      city, and connecting the Roman and the Parthian monarchies by the
      mutual benefits of commerce, was suffered to observe an humble
      neutrality, till at length, after the victories of Trajan, the
      little republic sunk into the bosom of Rome, and flourished more
      than one hundred and fifty years in the subordinate though
      honorable rank of a colony. It was during that peaceful period,
      if we may judge from a few remaining inscriptions, that the
      wealthy Palmyrenians constructed those temples, palaces, and
      porticos of Grecian architecture, whose ruins, scattered over an
      extent of several miles, have deserved the curiosity of our
      travellers. The elevation of Odenathus and Zenobia appeared to
      reflect new splendor on their country, and Palmyra, for a while,
      stood forth the rival of Rome: but the competition was fatal, and
      ages of prosperity were sacrificed to a moment of glory. 69

      68 (return) [ It was five hundred and thirty-seven miles from
      Seleucia, and two hundred and three from the nearest coast of
      Syria, according to the reckoning of Pliny, who, in a few words,
      (Hist. Natur. v. 21,) gives an excellent description of Palmyra.
      * Note: Talmor, or Palmyra, was probably at a very early period
      the connecting link between the commerce of Tyre and Babylon.
      Heeren, Ideen, v. i. p. ii. p. 125. Tadmor was probably built by
      Solomon as a commercial station. Hist. of Jews, v. p. 271—M.]

      69 (return) [ Some English travellers from Aleppo discovered the
      ruins of Palmyra about the end of the last century. Our curiosity
      has since been gratified in a more splendid manner by Messieurs
      Wood and Dawkins. For the history of Palmyra, we may consult the
      masterly dissertation of Dr. Halley in the Philosophical
      Transactions: Lowthorp’s Abridgment, vol. iii. p. 518.]

      In his march over the sandy desert between Emesa and Palmyra, the
      emperor Aurelian was perpetually harassed by the Arabs; nor could
      he always defend his army, and especially his baggage, from those
      flying troops of active and daring robbers, who watched the
      moment of surprise, and eluded the slow pursuit of the legions.
      The siege of Palmyra was an object far more difficult and
      important, and the emperor, who, with incessant vigor, pressed
      the attacks in person, was himself wounded with a dart. “The
      Roman people,” says Aurelian, in an original letter, “speak with
      contempt of the war which I am waging against a woman. They are
      ignorant both of the character and of the power of Zenobia. It is
      impossible to enumerate her warlike preparations, of stones, of
      arrows, and of every species of missile weapons. Every part of
      the walls is provided with two or three _balistæ_ and artificial
      fires are thrown from her military engines. The fear of
      punishment has armed her with a desperate courage. Yet still I
      trust in the protecting deities of Rome, who have hitherto been
      favorable to all my undertakings.” 70 Doubtful, however, of the
      protection of the gods, and of the event of the siege, Aurelian
      judged it more prudent to offer terms of an advantageous
      capitulation; to the queen, a splendid retreat; to the citizens,
      their ancient privileges. His proposals were obstinately
      rejected, and the refusal was accompanied with insult.

      70 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 218.]

      The firmness of Zenobia was supported by the hope, that in a very
      short time famine would compel the Roman army to repass the
      desert; and by the reasonable expectation that the kings of the
      East, and particularly the Persian monarch, would arm in the
      defence of their most natural ally. But fortune, and the
      perseverance of Aurelian, overcame every obstacle. The death of
      Sapor, which happened about this time, 71 distracted the councils
      of Persia, and the inconsiderable succors that attempted to
      relieve Palmyra were easily intercepted either by the arms or the
      liberality of the emperor. From every part of Syria, a regular
      succession of convoys safely arrived in the camp, which was
      increased by the return of Probus with his victorious troops from
      the conquest of Egypt. It was then that Zenobia resolved to fly.
      She mounted the fleetest of her dromedaries, 72 and had already
      reached the banks of the Euphrates, about sixty miles from
      Palmyra, when she was overtaken by the pursuit of Aurelian’s
      light horse, seized, and brought back a captive to the feet of
      the emperor. Her capital soon afterwards surrendered, and was
      treated with unexpected lenity. The arms, horses, and camels,
      with an immense treasure of gold, silver, silk, and precious
      stones, were all delivered to the conqueror, who, leaving only a
      garrison of six hundred archers, returned to Emesa, and employed
      some time in the distribution of rewards and punishments at the
      end of so memorable a war, which restored to the obedience of
      Rome those provinces that had renounced their allegiance since
      the captivity of Valerian.

      71 (return) [ From a very doubtful chronology I have endeavored
      to extract the most probable date.]

      72 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 218. Zosimus, l. i. p. 50. Though
      the camel is a heavy beast of burden, the dromedary, which is
      either of the same or of a kindred species, is used by the
      natives of Asia and Africa on all occasions which require
      celerity. The Arabs affirm, that he will run over as much ground
      in one day as their fleetest horses can perform in eight or ten.
      See Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. xi. p. 222, and Shaw’s Travels
      p. 167]

      When the Syrian queen was brought into the presence of Aurelian,
      he sternly asked her, How she had presumed to rise in arms
      against the emperors of Rome! The answer of Zenobia was a prudent
      mixture of respect and firmness. “Because I disdained to consider
      as Roman emperors an Aureolus or a Gallienus. You alone I
      acknowledge as my conqueror and my sovereign.” 73 But as female
      fortitude is commonly artificial, so it is seldom steady or
      consistent. The courage of Zenobia deserted her in the hour of
      trial; she trembled at the angry clamors of the soldiers, who
      called aloud for her immediate execution, forgot the generous
      despair of Cleopatra, which she had proposed as her model, and
      ignominiously purchased life by the sacrifice of her fame and her
      friends. It was to their counsels, which governed the weakness of
      her sex, that she imputed the guilt of her obstinate resistance;
      it was on their heads that she directed the vengeance of the
      cruel Aurelian. The fame of Longinus, who was included among the
      numerous and perhaps innocent victims of her fear, will survive
      that of the queen who betrayed, or the tyrant who condemned him.
      Genius and learning were incapable of moving a fierce unlettered
      soldier, but they had served to elevate and harmonize the soul of
      Longinus. Without uttering a complaint, he calmly followed the
      executioner, pitying his unhappy mistress, and bestowing comfort
      on his afflicted friends. 74

      73 (return) [ Pollio in Hist. August. p. 199.]

      74 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 219. Zosimus, l. i. p.
      51.]

      Returning from the conquest of the East, Aurelian had already
      crossed the Straits which divided Europe from Asia, when he was
      provoked by the intelligence that the Palmyrenians had massacred
      the governor and garrison which he had left among them, and again
      erected the standard of revolt. Without a moment’s deliberation,
      he once more turned his face towards Syria. Antioch was alarmed
      by his rapid approach, and the helpless city of Palmyra felt the
      irresistible weight of his resentment. We have a letter of
      Aurelian himself, in which he acknowledges, 75 that old men,
      women, children, and peasants, had been involved in that dreadful
      execution, which should have been confined to armed rebellion;
      and although his principal concern seems directed to the
      reëstablishment of a temple of the Sun, he discovers some pity
      for the remnant of the Palmyrenians, to whom he grants the
      permission of rebuilding and inhabiting their city. But it is
      easier to destroy than to restore. The seat of commerce, of arts,
      and of Zenobia, gradually sunk into an obscure town, a trifling
      fortress, and at length a miserable village. The present citizens
      of Palmyra, consisting of thirty or forty families, have erected
      their mud cottages within the spacious court of a magnificent
      temple.

      75 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 219.]

      Another and a last labor still awaited the indefatigable
      Aurelian; to suppress a dangerous though obscure rebel, who,
      during the revolt of Palmyra, had arisen on the banks of the
      Nile. Firmus, the friend and ally, as he proudly styled himself,
      of Odenathus and Zenobia, was no more than a wealthy merchant of
      Egypt. In the course of his trade to India, he had formed very
      intimate connections with the Saracens and the Blemmyes, whose
      situation on either coast of the Red Sea gave them an easy
      introduction into the Upper Egypt. The Egyptians he inflamed with
      the hope of freedom, and, at the head of their furious multitude,
      broke into the city of Alexandria, where he assumed the Imperial
      purple, coined money, published edicts, and raised an army,
      which, as he vainly boasted, he was capable of maintaining from
      the sole profits of his paper trade. Such troops were a feeble
      defence against the approach of Aurelian; and it seems almost
      unnecessary to relate, that Firmus was routed, taken, tortured,
      and put to death. 76 Aurelian might now congratulate the senate,
      the people, and himself, that in little more than three years, he
      had restored universal peace and order to the Roman world.

      76 (return) [ See Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 220, 242. As an
      instance of luxury, it is observed, that he had glass windows. He
      was remarkable for his strength and appetite, his courage and
      dexterity. From the letter of Aurelian, we may justly infer, that
      Firmus was the last of the rebels, and consequently that Tetricus
      was already suppressed.]

      Since the foundation of Rome, no general had more nobly deserved
      a triumph than Aurelian; nor was a triumph ever celebrated with
      superior pride and magnificence. 77 The pomp was opened by twenty
      elephants, four royal tigers, and above two hundred of the most
      curious animals from every climate of the North, the East, and
      the South. They were followed by sixteen hundred gladiators,
      devoted to the cruel amusement of the amphitheatre. The wealth of
      Asia, the arms and ensigns of so many conquered nations, and the
      magnificent plate and wardrobe of the Syrian queen, were disposed
      in exact symmetry or artful disorder. The ambassadors of the most
      remote parts of the earth, of Æthiopia, Arabia, Persia,
      Bactriana, India, and China, all remarkable by their rich or
      singular dresses, displayed the fame and power of the Roman
      emperor, who exposed likewise to the public view the presents
      that he had received, and particularly a great number of crowns
      of gold, the offerings of grateful cities.

      The victories of Aurelian were attested by the long train of
      captives who reluctantly attended his triumph, Goths, Vandals,
      Sarmatians, Alemanni, Franks, Gauls, Syrians, and Egyptians. Each
      people was distinguished by its peculiar inscription, and the
      title of Amazons was bestowed on ten martial heroines of the
      Gothic nation who had been taken in arms. 78 But every eye,
      disregarding the crowd of captives, was fixed on the emperor
      Tetricus and the queen of the East. The former, as well as his
      son, whom he had created Augustus, was dressed in Gallic
      trousers, 79 a saffron tunic, and a robe of purple. The beauteous
      figure of Zenobia was confined by fetters of gold; a slave
      supported the gold chain which encircled her neck, and she almost
      fainted under the intolerable weight of jewels. She preceded on
      foot the magnificent chariot, in which she once hoped to enter
      the gates of Rome. It was followed by two other chariots, still
      more sumptuous, of Odenathus and of the Persian monarch. The
      triumphal car of Aurelian (it had formerly been used by a Gothic
      king) was drawn, on this memorable occasion, either by four stags
      or by four elephants. 80 The most illustrious of the senate, the
      people, and the army, closed the solemn procession. Unfeigned
      joy, wonder, and gratitude, swelled the acclamations of the
      multitude; but the satisfaction of the senate was clouded by the
      appearance of Tetricus; nor could they suppress a rising murmur,
      that the haughty emperor should thus expose to public ignominy
      the person of a Roman and a magistrate. 81

      77 (return) [ See the triumph of Aurelian, described by Vopiscus.
      He relates the particulars with his usual minuteness; and, on
      this occasion, they happen to be interesting. Hist. August. p.
      220.]

      78 (return) [ Among barbarous nations, women have often combated
      by the side of their husbands. But it is almost impossible that a
      society of Amazons should ever have existed either in the old or
      new world. * Note: Klaproth’s theory on the origin of such
      traditions is at least recommended by its ingenuity. The males of
      a tribe having gone out on a marauding expedition, and having
      been cut off to a man, the females may have endeavored, for a
      time, to maintain their independence in their camp village, till
      their children grew up. Travels, ch. xxx. Eng. Trans—M.]

      79 (return) [ The use of braccoe, breeches, or trousers, was
      still considered in Italy as a Gallic and barbarian fashion. The
      Romans, however, had made great advances towards it. To encircle
      the legs and thighs with fascioe, or bands, was understood, in
      the time of Pompey and Horace, to be a proof of ill health or
      effeminacy. In the age of Trajan, the custom was confined to the
      rich and luxurious. It gradually was adopted by the meanest of
      the people. See a very curious note of Casaubon, ad Sueton. in
      August. c. 82.]

      80 (return) [ Most probably the former; the latter seen on the
      medals of Aurelian, only denote (according to the learned
      Cardinal Norris) an oriental victory.]

      81 (return) [ The expression of Calphurnius, (Eclog. i. 50)
      Nullos decet captiva triumphos, as applied to Rome, contains a
      very manifest allusion and censure.]

      But however, in the treatment of his unfortunate rivals, Aurelian
      might indulge his pride, he behaved towards them with a generous
      clemency, which was seldom exercised by the ancient conquerors.
      Princes who, without success, had defended their throne or
      freedom, were frequently strangled in prison, as soon as the
      triumphal pomp ascended the Capitol. These usurpers, whom their
      defeat had convicted of the crime of treason, were permitted to
      spend their lives in affluence and honorable repose.

      The emperor presented Zenobia with an elegant villa at Tibur, or
      Tivoli, about twenty miles from the capital; the Syrian queen
      insensibly sunk into a Roman matron, her daughters married into
      noble families, and her race was not yet extinct in the fifth
      century. 82 Tetricus and his son were reinstated in their rank
      and fortunes. They erected on the Cælian hill a magnificent
      palace, and as soon as it was finished, invited Aurelian to
      supper. On his entrance, he was agreeably surprised with a
      picture which represented their singular history. They were
      delineated offering to the emperor a civic crown and the sceptre
      of Gaul, and again receiving at his hands the ornaments of the
      senatorial dignity. The father was afterwards invested with the
      government of Lucania, 83 and Aurelian, who soon admitted the
      abdicated monarch to his friendship and conversation, familiarly
      asked him, Whether it were not more desirable to administer a
      province of Italy, than to reign beyond the Alps. The son long
      continued a respectable member of the senate; nor was there any
      one of the Roman nobility more esteemed by Aurelian, as well as
      by his successors. 84

      82 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 199. Hieronym. in
      Chron. Prosper in Chron. Baronius supposes that Zenobius, bishop
      of Florence in the time of St. Ambrose, was of her family.]

      83 (return) [ Vopisc. in Hist. August. p. 222. Eutropius, ix. 13.
      Victor Junior. But Pollio, in Hist. August. p. 196, says, that
      Tetricus was made corrector of all Italy.]

      84 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 197.]

      So long and so various was the pomp of Aurelian’s triumph, that
      although it opened with the dawn of day, the slow majesty of the
      procession ascended not the Capitol before the ninth hour; and it
      was already dark when the emperor returned to the palace. The
      festival was protracted by theatrical representations, the games
      of the circus, the hunting of wild beasts, combats of gladiators,
      and naval engagements. Liberal donatives were distributed to the
      army and people, and several institutions, agreeable or
      beneficial to the city, contributed to perpetuate the glory of
      Aurelian. A considerable portion of his oriental spoils was
      consecrated to the gods of Rome; the Capitol, and every other
      temple, glittered with the offerings of his ostentatious piety;
      and the temple of the Sun alone received above fifteen thousand
      pounds of gold. 85 This last was a magnificent structure, erected
      by the emperor on the side of the Quirinal hill, and dedicated,
      soon after the triumph, to that deity whom Aurelian adored as the
      parent of his life and fortunes. His mother had been an inferior
      priestess in a chapel of the Sun; a peculiar devotion to the god
      of Light was a sentiment which the fortunate peasant imbibed in
      his infancy; and every step of his elevation, every victory of
      his reign, fortified superstition by gratitude. 86

      85 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. 222. Zosimus, l. i. p.
      56. He placed in it the images of Belus and of the Sun, which he
      had brought from Palmyra. It was dedicated in the fourth year of
      his reign, (Euseb in Chron.,) but was most assuredly begun
      immediately on his accession.]

      86 (return) [ See, in the Augustan History, p. 210, the omens of
      his fortune. His devotion to the Sun appears in his letters, on
      his medals, and is mentioned in the Cæsars of Julian. Commentaire
      de Spanheim, p. 109.]

      The arms of Aurelian had vanquished the foreign and domestic foes
      of the republic. We are assured, that, by his salutary rigor,
      crimes and factions, mischievous arts and pernicious connivance,
      the luxurious growth of a feeble and oppressive government, were
      eradicated throughout the Roman world. 87 But if we attentively
      reflect how much swifter is the progress of corruption than its
      cure, and if we remember that the years abandoned to public
      disorders exceeded the months allotted to the martial reign of
      Aurelian, we must confess that a few short intervals of peace
      were insufficient for the arduous work of reformation. Even his
      attempt to restore the integrity of the coin was opposed by a
      formidable insurrection. The emperor’s vexation breaks out in one
      of his private letters. “Surely,” says he, “the gods have decreed
      that my life should be a perpetual warfare. A sedition within the
      walls has just now given birth to a very serious civil war. The
      workmen of the mint, at the instigation of Felicissimus, a slave
      to whom I had intrusted an employment in the finances, have risen
      in rebellion. They are at length suppressed; but seven thousand
      of my soldiers have been slain in the contest, of those troops
      whose ordinary station is in Dacia, and the camps along the
      Danube.” 88 Other writers, who confirm the same fact, add
      likewise, that it happened soon after Aurelian’s triumph; that
      the decisive engagement was fought on the Cælian hill; that the
      workmen of the mint had adulterated the coin; and that the
      emperor restored the public credit, by delivering out good money
      in exchange for the bad, which the people was commanded to bring
      into the treasury. 89

      87 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 221.]

      88 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 222. Aurelian calls these soldiers
      Hiberi Riporiences Castriani, and Dacisci.]

      89 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 56. Eutropius, ix. 14. Aurel
      Victor.]

      We might content ourselves with relating this extraordinary
      transaction, but we cannot dissemble how much in its present form
      it appears to us inconsistent and incredible. The debasement of
      the coin is indeed well suited to the administration of
      Gallienus; nor is it unlikely that the instruments of the
      corruption might dread the inflexible justice of Aurelian. But
      the guilt, as well as the profit, must have been confined to a
      very few; nor is it easy to conceive by what arts they could arm
      a people whom they had injured, against a monarch whom they had
      betrayed. We might naturally expect that such miscreants should
      have shared the public detestation with the informers and the
      other ministers of oppression; and that the reformation of the
      coin should have been an action equally popular with the
      destruction of those obsolete accounts, which by the emperor’s
      order were burnt in the forum of Trajan. 90 In an age when the
      principles of commerce were so imperfectly understood, the most
      desirable end might perhaps be effected by harsh and injudicious
      means; but a temporary grievance of such a nature can scarcely
      excite and support a serious civil war. The repetition of
      intolerable taxes, imposed either on the land or on the
      necessaries of life, may at last provoke those who will not, or
      who cannot, relinquish their country. But the case is far
      otherwise in every operation which, by whatsoever expedients,
      restores the just value of money. The transient evil is soon
      obliterated by the permanent benefit, the loss is divided among
      multitudes; and if a few wealthy individuals experience a
      sensible diminution of treasure, with their riches, they at the
      same time lose the degree of weight and importance which they
      derived from the possession of them. However Aurelian might
      choose to disguise the real cause of the insurrection, his
      reformation of the coin could furnish only a faint pretence to a
      party already powerful and discontented. Rome, though deprived of
      freedom, was distracted by faction. The people, towards whom the
      emperor, himself a plebeian, always expressed a peculiar
      fondness, lived in perpetual dissension with the senate, the
      equestrian order, and the Prætorian guards. 91 Nothing less than
      the firm though secret conspiracy of those orders, of the
      authority of the first, the wealth of the second, and the arms of
      the third, could have displayed a strength capable of contending
      in battle with the veteran legions of the Danube, which, under
      the conduct of a martial sovereign, had achieved the conquest of
      the West and of the East.

      90 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 222. Aurel Victor.]

      91 (return) [ It already raged before Aurelian’s return from
      Egypt. See Vipiscus, who quotes an original letter. Hist. August.
      p. 244.]

      Whatever was the cause or the object of this rebellion, imputed
      with so little probability to the workmen of the mint, Aurelian
      used his victory with unrelenting rigor. 92 He was naturally of a
      severe disposition. A peasant and a soldier, his nerves yielded
      not easily to the impressions of sympathy, and he could sustain
      without emotion the sight of tortures and death. Trained from his
      earliest youth in the exercise of arms, he set too small a value
      on the life of a citizen, chastised by military execution the
      slightest offences, and transferred the stern discipline of the
      camp into the civil administration of the laws. His love of
      justice often became a blind and furious passion; and whenever he
      deemed his own or the public safety endangered, he disregarded
      the rules of evidence, and the proportion of punishments. The
      unprovoked rebellion with which the Romans rewarded his services,
      exasperated his haughty spirit. The noblest families of the
      capital were involved in the guilt or suspicion of this dark
      conspiracy. A nasty spirit of revenge urged the bloody
      prosecution, and it proved fatal to one of the nephews of the
      emperor. The executioners (if we may use the expression of a
      contemporary poet) were fatigued, the prisons were crowded, and
      the unhappy senate lamented the death or absence of its most
      illustrious members. 93 Nor was the pride of Aurelian less
      offensive to that assembly than his cruelty. Ignorant or
      impatient of the restraints of civil institutions, he disdained
      to hold his power by any other title than that of the sword, and
      governed by right of conquest an empire which he had saved and
      subdued. 94

      92 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August p. 222. The two Victors.
      Eutropius ix. 14. Zosimus (l. i. p. 43) mentions only three
      senators, and placed their death before the eastern war.]

      93 (return) [ Nulla catenati feralis pompa senatus Carnificum
      lassabit opus; nec carcere pleno Infelix raros numerabit curia
      Patres. Calphurn. Eclog. i. 60.]

      94 (return) [ According to the younger Victor, he sometimes wore
      the diadem, Deus and Dominus appear on his medals.]

      It was observed by one of the most sagacious of the Roman
      princes, that the talents of his predecessor Aurelian were better
      suited to the command of an army, than to the government of an
      empire. 95 Conscious of the character in which nature and
      experience had enabled him to excel, he again took the field a
      few months after his triumph. It was expedient to exercise the
      restless temper of the legions in some foreign war, and the
      Persian monarch, exulting in the shame of Valerian, still braved
      with impunity the offended majesty of Rome. At the head of an
      army, less formidable by its numbers than by its discipline and
      valor, the emperor advanced as far as the Straits which divide
      Europe from Asia. He there experienced that the most absolute
      power is a weak defence against the effects of despair. He had
      threatened one of his secretaries who was accused of extortion;
      and it was known that he seldom threatened in vain. The last hope
      which remained for the criminal was to involve some of the
      principal officers of the army in his danger, or at least in his
      fears. Artfully counterfeiting his master’s hand, he showed them,
      in a long and bloody list, their own names devoted to death.
      Without suspecting or examining the fraud, they resolved to
      secure their lives by the murder of the emperor. On his march,
      between Byzantium and Heraclea, Aurelian was suddenly attacked by
      the conspirators, whose stations gave them a right to surround
      his person, and after a short resistance, fell by the hand of
      Mucapor, a general whom he had always loved and trusted. He died
      regretted by the army, detested by the senate, but universally
      acknowledged as a warlike and fortunate prince, the useful,
      though severe reformer of a degenerate state. 96

      95 (return) [ It was the observation of Dioclatian. See Vopiscus
      in Hist. August. p. 224.]

      96 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 221. Zosimus, l. i. p.
      57. Eutrop ix. 15. The two Victors.]




      Chapter XII: Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus And His Sons.—Part
      I.

     Conduct Of The Army And Senate After The Death Of Aurelian.
     —Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus, And His Sons.

      Such was the unhappy condition of the Roman emperors, that,
      whatever might be their conduct, their fate was commonly the
      same. A life of pleasure or virtue, of severity or mildness, of
      indolence or glory, alike led to an untimely grave; and almost
      every reign is closed by the same disgusting repetition of
      treason and murder. The death of Aurelian, however, is remarkable
      by its extraordinary consequences. The legions admired, lamented,
      and revenged their victorious chief. The artifice of his
      perfidious secretary was discovered and punished.

      The deluded conspirators attended the funeral of their injured
      sovereign, with sincere or well-feigned contrition, and submitted
      to the unanimous resolution of the military order, which was
      signified by the following epistle: “The brave and fortunate
      armies to the senate and people of Rome.—The crime of one man,
      and the error of many, have deprived us of the late emperor
      Aurelian. May it please you, venerable lords and fathers! to
      place him in the number of the gods, and to appoint a successor
      whom your judgment shall declare worthy of the Imperial purple!
      None of those whose guilt or misfortune have contributed to our
      loss, shall ever reign over us.” 1 The Roman senators heard,
      without surprise, that another emperor had been assassinated in
      his camp; they secretly rejoiced in the fall of Aurelian; but the
      modest and dutiful address of the legions, when it was
      communicated in full assembly by the consul, diffused the most
      pleasing astonishment. Such honors as fear and perhaps esteem
      could extort, they liberally poured forth on the memory of their
      deceased sovereign. Such acknowledgments as gratitude could
      inspire, they returned to the faithful armies of the republic,
      who entertained so just a sense of the legal authority of the
      senate in the choice of an emperor. Yet, notwithstanding this
      flattering appeal, the most prudent of the assembly declined
      exposing their safety and dignity to the caprice of an armed
      multitude. The strength of the legions was, indeed, a pledge of
      their sincerity, since those who may command are seldom reduced
      to the necessity of dissembling; but could it naturally be
      expected, that a hasty repentance would correct the inveterate
      habits of fourscore years? Should the soldiers relapse into their
      accustomed seditions, their insolence might disgrace the majesty
      of the senate, and prove fatal to the object of its choice.
      Motives like these dictated a decree, by which the election of a
      new emperor was referred to the suffrage of the military order.

      1 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 222. Aurelius Victor
      mentions a formal deputation from the troops to the senate.]

      The contention that ensued is one of the best attested, but most
      improbable events in the history of mankind. 2 The troops, as if
      satiated with the exercise of power, again conjured the senate to
      invest one of its own body with the Imperial purple. The senate
      still persisted in its refusal; the army in its request. The
      reciprocal offer was pressed and rejected at least three times,
      and, whilst the obstinate modesty of either party was resolved to
      receive a master from the hands of the other, eight months
      insensibly elapsed; an amazing period of tranquil anarchy, during
      which the Roman world remained without a sovereign, without a
      usurper, and without a sedition. 201 The generals and magistrates
      appointed by Aurelian continued to execute their ordinary
      functions; and it is observed, that a proconsul of Asia was the
      only considerable person removed from his office in the whole
      course of the interregnum.

      2 (return) [ Vopiscus, our principal authority, wrote at Rome,
      sixteen years only after the death of Aurelian; and, besides the
      recent notoriety of the facts, constantly draws his materials
      from the Journals of the Senate, and the original papers of the
      Ulpian library. Zosimus and Zonaras appear as ignorant of this
      transaction as they were in general of the Roman constitution.]

      201 (return) [ The interregnum could not be more than seven
      months; Aurelian was assassinated in the middle of March, the
      year of Rome 1028. Tacitus was elected the 25th September in the
      same year.—G.]

      An event somewhat similar, but much less authentic, is supposed
      to have happened after the death of Romulus, who, in his life and
      character, bore some affinity with Aurelian. The throne was
      vacant during twelve months, till the election of a Sabine
      philosopher, and the public peace was guarded in the same manner,
      by the union of the several orders of the state. But, in the time
      of Numa and Romulus, the arms of the people were controlled by
      the authority of the Patricians; and the balance of freedom was
      easily preserved in a small and virtuous community. 3 The decline
      of the Roman state, far different from its infancy, was attended
      with every circumstance that could banish from an interregnum the
      prospect of obedience and harmony: an immense and tumultuous
      capital, a wide extent of empire, the servile equality of
      despotism, an army of four hundred thousand mercenaries, and the
      experience of frequent revolutions. Yet, notwithstanding all
      these temptations, the discipline and memory of Aurelian still
      restrained the seditious temper of the troops, as well as the
      fatal ambition of their leaders. The flower of the legions
      maintained their stations on the banks of the Bosphorus, and the
      Imperial standard awed the less powerful camps of Rome and of the
      provinces. A generous though transient enthusiasm seemed to
      animate the military order; and we may hope that a few real
      patriots cultivated the returning friendship of the army and the
      senate as the only expedient capable of restoring the republic to
      its ancient beauty and vigor.

      3 (return) [ Liv. i. 17 Dionys. Halicarn. l. ii. p. 115. Plutarch
      in Numa, p. 60. The first of these writers relates the story like
      an orator, the second like a lawyer, and the third like a
      moralist, and none of them probably without some intermixture of
      fable.]

      On the twenty-fifth of September, near eight months after the
      murder of Aurelian, the consul convoked an assembly of the
      senate, and reported the doubtful and dangerous situation of the
      empire. He slightly insinuated, that the precarious loyalty of
      the soldiers depended on the chance of every hour, and of every
      accident; but he represented, with the most convincing eloquence,
      the various dangers that might attend any further delay in the
      choice of an emperor. Intelligence, he said, was already
      received, that the Germans had passed the Rhine, and occupied
      some of the strongest and most opulent cities of Gaul. The
      ambition of the Persian king kept the East in perpetual alarms;
      Egypt, Africa, and Illyricum, were exposed to foreign and
      domestic arms, and the levity of Syria would prefer even a female
      sceptre to the sanctity of the Roman laws. The consul, then
      addressing himself to Tacitus, the first of the senators, 4
      required his opinion on the important subject of a proper
      candidate for the vacant throne.

      4 (return) [ Vopiscus (in Hist. August p. 227) calls him “primæ
      sententia consularis;” and soon afterwards Princeps senatus. It
      is natural to suppose, that the monarchs of Rome, disdaining that
      humble title, resigned it to the most ancient of the senators.]

      If we can prefer personal merit to accidental greatness, we shall
      esteem the birth of Tacitus more truly noble than that of kings.
      He claimed his descent from the philosophic historian whose
      writings will instruct the last generations of mankind. 5 The
      senator Tacitus was then seventy-five years of age. 6 The long
      period of his innocent life was adorned with wealth and honors.
      He had twice been invested with the consular dignity, 7 and
      enjoyed with elegance and sobriety his ample patrimony of between
      two and three millions sterling. 8 The experience of so many
      princes, whom he had esteemed or endured, from the vain follies
      of Elagabalus to the useful rigor of Aurelian, taught him to form
      a just estimate of the duties, the dangers, and the temptations
      of their sublime station. From the assiduous study of his
      immortal ancestor, he derived the knowledge of the Roman
      constitution, and of human nature. 9 The voice of the people had
      already named Tacitus as the citizen the most worthy of empire.
      The ungrateful rumor reached his ears, and induced him to seek
      the retirement of one of his villas in Campania. He had passed
      two months in the delightful privacy of Baiæ, when he reluctantly
      obeyed the summons of the consul to resume his honorable place in
      the senate, and to assist the republic with his counsels on this
      important occasion.

      5 (return) [ The only objection to this genealogy is, that the
      historian was named Cornelius, the emperor, Claudius. But under
      the lower empire, surnames were extremely various and uncertain.]

      6 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 637. The Alexandrian Chronicle,
      by an obvious mistake, transfers that age to Aurelian.]

      7 (return) [ In the year 273, he was ordinary consul. But he must
      have been Suffectus many years before, and most probably under
      Valerian.]

      8 (return) [ Bis millies octingenties. Vopiscus in Hist. August
      p. 229. This sum, according to the old standard, was equivalent
      to eight hundred and forty thousand Roman pounds of silver, each
      of the value of three pounds sterling. But in the age of Tacitus,
      the coin had lost much of its weight and purity.]

      9 (return) [ After his accession, he gave orders that ten copies
      of the historian should be annually transcribed and placed in the
      public libraries. The Roman libraries have long since perished,
      and the most valuable part of Tacitus was preserved in a single
      Ms., and discovered in a monastery of Westphalia. See Bayle,
      Dictionnaire, Art. Tacite, and Lipsius ad Annal. ii. 9.]

      He arose to speak, when from every quarter of the house, he was
      saluted with the names of Augustus and emperor. “Tacitus
      Augustus, the gods preserve thee! we choose thee for our
      sovereign; to thy care we intrust the republic and the world.
      Accept the empire from the authority of the senate. It is due to
      thy rank, to thy conduct, to thy manners.” As soon as the tumult
      of acclamations subsided, Tacitus attempted to decline the
      dangerous honor, and to express his wonder, that they should
      elect his age and infirmities to succeed the martial vigor of
      Aurelian. “Are these limbs, conscript fathers! fitted to sustain
      the weight of armor, or to practise the exercises of the camp?
      The variety of climates, and the hardships of a military life,
      would soon oppress a feeble constitution, which subsists only by
      the most tender management. My exhausted strength scarcely
      enables me to discharge the duty of a senator; how insufficient
      would it prove to the arduous labors of war and government! Can
      you hope, that the legions will respect a weak old man, whose
      days have been spent in the shade of peace and retirement? Can
      you desire that I should ever find reason to regret the favorable
      opinion of the senate?” 10

      10 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 227.]

      The reluctance of Tacitus (and it might possibly be sincere) was
      encountered by the affectionate obstinacy of the senate. Five
      hundred voices repeated at once, in eloquent confusion, that the
      greatest of the Roman princes, Numa, Trajan, Hadrian, and the
      Antonines, had ascended the throne in a very advanced season of
      life; that the mind, not the body, a sovereign, not a soldier,
      was the object of their choice; and that they expected from him
      no more than to guide by his wisdom the valor of the legions.
      These pressing though tumultuary instances were seconded by a
      more regular oration of Metius Falconius, the next on the
      consular bench to Tacitus himself. He reminded the assembly of
      the evils which Rome had endured from the vices of headstrong and
      capricious youths, congratulated them on the election of a
      virtuous and experienced senator, and, with a manly, though
      perhaps a selfish, freedom, exhorted Tacitus to remember the
      reasons of his elevation, and to seek a successor, not in his own
      family, but in the republic. The speech of Falconius was enforced
      by a general acclamation. The emperor elect submitted to the
      authority of his country, and received the voluntary homage of
      his equals. The judgment of the senate was confirmed by the
      consent of the Roman people and of the Prætorian guards. 11

      11 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 228. Tacitus addressed the
      Prætorians by the appellation of sanctissimi milites, and the
      people by that of sacratissim. Quirites.]

      The administration of Tacitus was not unworthy of his life and
      principles. A grateful servant of the senate, he considered that
      national council as the author, and himself as the subject, of
      the laws. 12 He studied to heal the wounds which Imperial pride,
      civil discord, and military violence, had inflicted on the
      constitution, and to restore, at least, the image of the ancient
      republic, as it had been preserved by the policy of Augustus, and
      the virtues of Trajan and the Antonines. It may not be useless to
      recapitulate some of the most important prerogatives which the
      senate appeared to have regained by the election of Tacitus. 13
      1. To invest one of their body, under the title of emperor, with
      the general command of the armies, and the government of the
      frontier provinces. 2. To determine the list, or, as it was then
      styled, the College of Consuls. They were twelve in number, who,
      in successive pairs, each, during the space of two months, filled
      the year, and represented the dignity of that ancient office. The
      authority of the senate, in the nomination of the consuls, was
      exercised with such independent freedom, that no regard was paid
      to an irregular request of the emperor in favor of his brother
      Florianus. “The senate,” exclaimed Tacitus, with the honest
      transport of a patriot, “understand the character of a prince
      whom they have chosen.” 3. To appoint the proconsuls and
      presidents of the provinces, and to confer on all the magistrates
      their civil jurisdiction. 4. To receive appeals through the
      intermediate office of the præfect of the city from all the
      tribunals of the empire. 5. To give force and validity, by their
      decrees, to such as they should approve of the emperor’s edicts.
      6. To these several branches of authority we may add some
      inspection over the finances, since, even in the stern reign of
      Aurelian, it was in their power to divert a part of the revenue
      from the public service. 14

      12 (return) [ In his manumissions he never exceeded the number of
      a hundred, as limited by the Caninian law, which was enacted
      under Augustus, and at length repealed by Justinian. See Casaubon
      ad locum Vopisci.]

      13 (return) [ See the lives of Tacitus, Florianus, and Probus, in
      the Augustan History; we may be well assured, that whatever the
      soldier gave the senator had already given.]

      14 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 216. The passage is
      perfectly clear, both Casaubon and Salmasius wish to correct it.]

      Circular epistles were sent, without delay, to all the principal
      cities of the empire, Treves, Milan, Aquileia, Thessalonica,
      Corinth, Athens, Antioch, Alexandria, and Carthage, to claim
      their obedience, and to inform them of the happy revolution,
      which had restored the Roman senate to its ancient dignity. Two
      of these epistles are still extant. We likewise possess two very
      singular fragments of the private correspondence of the senators
      on this occasion. They discover the most excessive joy, and the
      most unbounded hopes. “Cast away your indolence,” it is thus that
      one of the senators addresses his friend, “emerge from your
      retirements of Baiæ and Puteoli. Give yourself to the city, to
      the senate. Rome flourishes, the whole republic flourishes.
      Thanks to the Roman army, to an army truly Roman; at length we
      have recovered our just authority, the end of all our desires. We
      hear appeals, we appoint proconsuls, we create emperors; perhaps
      too we may restrain them—to the wise a word is sufficient.” 15
      These lofty expectations were, however, soon disappointed; nor,
      indeed, was it possible that the armies and the provinces should
      long obey the luxurious and unwarlike nobles of Rome. On the
      slightest touch, the unsupported fabric of their pride and power
      fell to the ground. The expiring senate displayed a sudden
      lustre, blazed for a moment, and was extinguished forever.

      15 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 230, 232, 233. The
      senators celebrated the happy restoration with hecatombs and
      public rejoicings.]

      All that had yet passed at Rome was no more than a theatrical
      representation, unless it was ratified by the more substantial
      power of the legions. Leaving the senators to enjoy their dream
      of freedom and ambition, Tacitus proceeded to the Thracian camp,
      and was there, by the Prætorian præfect, presented to the
      assembled troops, as the prince whom they themselves had
      demanded, and whom the senate had bestowed. As soon as the
      præfect was silent, the emperor addressed himself to the soldiers
      with eloquence and propriety. He gratified their avarice by a
      liberal distribution of treasure, under the names of pay and
      donative. He engaged their esteem by a spirited declaration, that
      although his age might disable him from the performance of
      military exploits, his counsels should never be unworthy of a
      Roman general, the successor of the brave Aurelian. 16

      16 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 228.]

      Whilst the deceased emperor was making preparations for a second
      expedition into the East, he had negotiated with the Alani, 161 a
      Scythian people, who pitched their tents in the neighborhood of
      the Lake Mæotis. Those barbarians, allured by presents and
      subsidies, had promised to invade Persia with a numerous body of
      light cavalry. They were faithful to their engagements; but when
      they arrived on the Roman frontier, Aurelian was already dead,
      the design of the Persian war was at least suspended, and the
      generals, who, during the interregnum, exercised a doubtful
      authority, were unprepared either to receive or to oppose them.
      Provoked by such treatment, which they considered as trifling and
      perfidious, the Alani had recourse to their own valor for their
      payment and revenge; and as they moved with the usual swiftness
      of Tartars, they had soon spread themselves over the provinces of
      Pontus, Cappadocia, Cilicia, and Galatia. The legions, who from
      the opposite shores of the Bosphorus could almost distinguish the
      flames of the cities and villages, impatiently urged their
      general to lead them against the invaders. The conduct of Tacitus
      was suitable to his age and station. He convinced the barbarians
      of the faith, as well as the power, of the empire. Great numbers
      of the Alani, appeased by the punctual discharge of the
      engagements which Aurelian had contracted with them, relinquished
      their booty and captives, and quietly retreated to their own
      deserts, beyond the Phasis. Against the remainder, who refused
      peace, the Roman emperor waged, in person, a successful war.
      Seconded by an army of brave and experienced veterans, in a few
      weeks he delivered the provinces of Asia from the terror of the
      Scythian invasion. 17

      161 (return) [ On the Alani, see ch. xxvi. note 55.—M.]

      17 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 230. Zosimus, l. i. p.
      57. Zonaras, l. xii. p. 637. Two passages in the life of Probus
      (p. 236, 238) convince me, that these Scythian invaders of Pontus
      were Alani. If we may believe Zosimus, (l. i. p. 58,) Florianus
      pursued them as far as the Cimmerian Bosphorus. But he had
      scarcely time for so long and difficult an expedition.]

      But the glory and life of Tacitus were of short duration.
      Transported, in the depth of winter, from the soft retirement of
      Campania to the foot of Mount Caucasus, he sunk under the
      unaccustomed hardships of a military life. The fatigues of the
      body were aggravated by the cares of the mind. For a while, the
      angry and selfish passions of the soldiers had been suspended by
      the enthusiasm of public virtue. They soon broke out with
      redoubled violence, and raged in the camp, and even in the tent
      of the aged emperor. His mild and amiable character served only
      to inspire contempt, and he was incessantly tormented with
      factions which he could not assuage, and by demands which it was
      impossible to satisfy. Whatever flattering expectations he had
      conceived of reconciling the public disorders, Tacitus soon was
      convinced that the licentiousness of the army disdained the
      feeble restraint of laws, and his last hour was hastened by
      anguish and disappointment. It may be doubtful whether the
      soldiers imbrued their hands in the blood of this innocent
      prince. 18 It is certain that their insolence was the cause of
      his death. He expired at Tyana in Cappadocia, after a reign of
      only six months and about twenty days. 19

      18 (return) [ Eutropius and Aurelius Victor only say that he
      died; Victor Junior adds, that it was of a fever. Zosimus and
      Zonaras affirm, that he was killed by the soldiers. Vopiscus
      mentions both accounts, and seems to hesitate. Yet surely these
      jarring opinions are easily reconciled.]

      19 (return) [ According to the two Victors, he reigned exactly
      two hundred days.]

      The eyes of Tacitus were scarcely closed, before his brother
      Florianus showed himself unworthy to reign, by the hasty
      usurpation of the purple, without expecting the approbation of
      the senate. The reverence for the Roman constitution, which yet
      influenced the camp and the provinces, was sufficiently strong to
      dispose them to censure, but not to provoke them to oppose, the
      precipitate ambition of Florianus. The discontent would have
      evaporated in idle murmurs, had not the general of the East, the
      heroic Probus, boldly declared himself the avenger of the senate.

      The contest, however, was still unequal; nor could the most able
      leader, at the head of the effeminate troops of Egypt and Syria,
      encounter, with any hopes of victory, the legions of Europe,
      whose irresistible strength appeared to support the brother of
      Tacitus. But the fortune and activity of Probus triumphed over
      every obstacle. The hardy veterans of his rival, accustomed to
      cold climates, sickened and consumed away in the sultry heats of
      Cilicia, where the summer proved remarkably unwholesome. Their
      numbers were diminished by frequent desertion; the passes of the
      mountains were feebly defended; Tarsus opened its gates; and the
      soldiers of Florianus, when they had permitted him to enjoy the
      Imperial title about three months, delivered the empire from
      civil war by the easy sacrifice of a prince whom they despised.
      20

      20 (return) [ Hist. August, p. 231. Zosimus, l. i. p. 58, 59.
      Zonaras, l. xii. p. 637. Aurelius Victor says, that Probus
      assumed the empire in Illyricum; an opinion which (though adopted
      by a very learned man) would throw that period of history into
      inextricable confusion.]

      The perpetual revolutions of the throne had so perfectly erased
      every notion of hereditary title, that the family of an
      unfortunate emperor was incapable of exciting the jealousy of his
      successors. The children of Tacitus and Florianus were permitted
      to descend into a private station, and to mingle with the general
      mass of the people. Their poverty indeed became an additional
      safeguard to their innocence. When Tacitus was elected by the
      senate, he resigned his ample patrimony to the public service; 21
      an act of generosity specious in appearance, but which evidently
      disclosed his intention of transmitting the empire to his
      descendants. The only consolation of their fallen state was the
      remembrance of transient greatness, and a distant hope, the child
      of a flattering prophecy, that at the end of a thousand years, a
      monarch of the race of Tacitus should arise, the protector of the
      senate, the restorer of Rome, and the conqueror of the whole
      earth. 22

      21 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 229]

      22 (return) [ He was to send judges to the Parthians, Persians,
      and Sarmatians, a president to Taprobani, and a proconsul to the
      Roman island, (supposed by Casaubon and Salmasius to mean
      Britain.) Such a history as mine (says Vopiscus with proper
      modesty) will not subsist a thousand years, to expose or justify
      the prediction.]

      The peasants of Illyricum, who had already given Claudius and
      Aurelian to the sinking empire, had an equal right to glory in
      the elevation of Probus. 23 Above twenty years before, the
      emperor Valerian, with his usual penetration, had discovered the
      rising merit of the young soldier, on whom he conferred the rank
      of tribune, long before the age prescribed by the military
      regulations. The tribune soon justified his choice, by a victory
      over a great body of Sarmatians, in which he saved the life of a
      near relation of Valerian; and deserved to receive from the
      emperor’s hand the collars, bracelets, spears, and banners, the
      mural and the civic crown, and all the honorable rewards reserved
      by ancient Rome for successful valor. The third, and afterwards
      the tenth, legion were intrusted to the command of Probus, who,
      in every step of his promotion, showed himself superior to the
      station which he filled. Africa and Pontus, the Rhine, the
      Danube, the Euphrates, and the Nile, by turns afforded him the
      most splendid occasions of displaying his personal prowess and
      his conduct in war. Aurelian was indebted for the honest courage
      with which he often checked the cruelty of his master. Tacitus,
      who desired by the abilities of his generals to supply his own
      deficiency of military talents, named him commander-in-chief of
      all the eastern provinces, with five times the usual salary, the
      promise of the consulship, and the hope of a triumph. When Probus
      ascended the Imperial throne, he was about forty-four years of
      age; 24 in the full possession of his fame, of the love of the
      army, and of a mature vigor of mind and body.

      23 (return) [ For the private life of Probus, see Vopiscus in
      Hist. August p. 234—237]

      24 (return) [ According to the Alexandrian chronicle, he was
      fifty at the time of his death.]

      His acknowledged merit, and the success of his arms against
      Florianus, left him without an enemy or a competitor. Yet, if we
      may credit his own professions, very far from being desirous of
      the empire, he had accepted it with the most sincere reluctance.
      “But it is no longer in my power,” says Probus, in a private
      letter, “to lay down a title so full of envy and of danger. I
      must continue to personate the character which the soldiers have
      imposed upon me.” 25 His dutiful address to the senate displayed
      the sentiments, or at least the language, of a Roman patriot:
      “When you elected one of your order, conscript fathers! to
      succeed the emperor Aurelian, you acted in a manner suitable to
      your justice and wisdom. For you are the legal sovereigns of the
      world, and the power which you derive from your ancestors will
      descend to your posterity. Happy would it have been, if
      Florianus, instead of usurping the purple of his brother, like a
      private inheritance, had expected what your majesty might
      determine, either in his favor, or in that of any other person.
      The prudent soldiers have punished his rashness. To me they have
      offered the title of Augustus. But I submit to your clemency my
      pretensions and my merits.” 26 When this respectful epistle was
      read by the consul, the senators were unable to disguise their
      satisfaction, that Probus should condescend thus numbly to
      solicit a sceptre which he already possessed. They celebrated
      with the warmest gratitude his virtues, his exploits, and above
      all his moderation. A decree immediately passed, without a
      dissenting voice, to ratify the election of the eastern armies,
      and to confer on their chief all the several branches of the
      Imperial dignity: the names of Cæsar and Augustus, the title of
      Father of his country, the right of making in the same day three
      motions in the senate, 27 the office of Pontifex Maximus, the
      tribunitian power, and the proconsular command; a mode of
      investiture, which, though it seemed to multiply the authority of
      the emperor, expressed the constitution of the ancient republic.
      The reign of Probus corresponded with this fair beginning. The
      senate was permitted to direct the civil administration of the
      empire. Their faithful general asserted the honor of the Roman
      arms, and often laid at their feet crowns of gold and barbaric
      trophies, the fruits of his numerous victories. 28 Yet, whilst he
      gratified their vanity, he must secretly have despised their
      indolence and weakness. Though it was every moment in their power
      to repeal the disgraceful edict of Gallienus, the proud
      successors of the Scipios patiently acquiesced in their exclusion
      from all military employments. They soon experienced, that those
      who refuse the sword must renounce the sceptre.

      25 (return) [ This letter was addressed to the Prætorian præfect,
      whom (on condition of his good behavior) he promised to continue
      in his great office. See Hist. August. p. 237.]

      26 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 237. The date of the
      letter is assuredly faulty. Instead of Nen. Februar. we may read
      Non August.]

      27 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 238. It is odd that the senate
      should treat Probus less favorably than Marcus Antoninus. That
      prince had received, even before the death of Pius, Jus quintoe
      relationis. See Capitolin. in Hist. August. p. 24.]

      28 (return) [ See the dutiful letter of Probus to the senate,
      after his German victories. Hist. August. p. 239.]




      Chapter XII: Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus And His Sons.—Part
      II.

      The strength of Aurelian had crushed on every side the enemies of
      Rome. After his death they seemed to revive with an increase of
      fury and of numbers. They were again vanquished by the active
      vigor of Probus, who, in a short reign of about six years, 29
      equalled the fame of ancient heroes, and restored peace and order
      to every province of the Roman world. The dangerous frontier of
      Rhætia he so firmly secured, that he left it without the
      suspicion of an enemy. He broke the wandering power of the
      Sarmatian tribes, and by the terror of his arms compelled those
      barbarians to relinquish their spoil. The Gothic nation courted
      the alliance of so warlike an emperor. 30 He attacked the
      Isaurians in their mountains, besieged and took several of their
      strongest castles, 31 and flattered himself that he had forever
      suppressed a domestic foe, whose independence so deeply wounded
      the majesty of the empire. The troubles excited by the usurper
      Firmus in the Upper Egypt had never been perfectly appeased, and
      the cities of Ptolemais and Coptos, fortified by the alliance of
      the Blemmyes, still maintained an obscure rebellion. The
      chastisement of those cities, and of their auxiliaries the
      savages of the South, is said to have alarmed the court of
      Persia, 32 and the Great King sued in vain for the friendship of
      Probus. Most of the exploits which distinguished his reign were
      achieved by the personal valor and conduct of the emperor,
      insomuch that the writer of his life expresses some amazement
      how, in so short a time, a single man could be present in so many
      distant wars. The remaining actions he intrusted to the care of
      his lieutenants, the judicious choice of whom forms no
      inconsiderable part of his glory. Carus, Diocletian, Maximian,
      Constantius, Galerius, Asclepiodatus, Annibalianus, and a crowd
      of other chiefs, who afterwards ascended or supported the throne,
      were trained to arms in the severe school of Aurelian and Probus.
      33

      29 (return) [ The date and duration of the reign of Probus are
      very correctly ascertained by Cardinal Noris in his learned work,
      De Epochis Syro-Macedonum, p. 96—105. A passage of Eusebius
      connects the second year of Probus with the æras of several of
      the Syrian cities.]

      30 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 239.]

      31 (return) [ Zosimus (l. i. p. 62—65) tells us a very long and
      trifling story of Lycius, the Isaurian robber.]

      32 (return) [ Zosim. l. i. p. 65. Vopiscus in Hist. August. p.
      239, 240. But it seems incredible that the defeat of the savages
      of Æthiopia could affect the Persian monarch.]

      33 (return) [ Besides these well-known chiefs, several others are
      named by Vopiscus, (Hist. August. p. 241,) whose actions have not
      reached knowledge.]

      But the most important service which Probus rendered to the
      republic was the deliverance of Gaul, and the recovery of seventy
      flourishing cities oppressed by the barbarians of Germany, who,
      since the death of Aurelian, had ravaged that great province with
      impunity. 34 Among the various multitude of those fierce invaders
      we may distinguish, with some degree of clearness, three great
      armies, or rather nations, successively vanquished by the valor
      of Probus. He drove back the Franks into their morasses; a
      descriptive circumstance from whence we may infer, that the
      confederacy known by the manly appellation of _Free_, already
      occupied the flat maritime country, intersected and almost
      overflown by the stagnating waters of the Rhine, and that several
      tribes of the Frisians and Batavians had acceded to their
      alliance. He vanquished the Burgundians, a considerable people of
      the Vandalic race. 341 They had wandered in quest of booty from
      the banks of the Oder to those of the Seine. They esteemed
      themselves sufficiently fortunate to purchase, by the restitution
      of all their booty, the permission of an undisturbed retreat.
      They attempted to elude that article of the treaty. Their
      punishment was immediate and terrible. 35 But of all the invaders
      of Gaul, the most formidable were the Lygians, a distant people,
      who reigned over a wide domain on the frontiers of Poland and
      Silesia. 36 In the Lygian nation, the Arii held the first rank by
      their numbers and fierceness. “The Arii” (it is thus that they
      are described by the energy of Tacitus) “study to improve by art
      and circumstances the innate terrors of their barbarism. Their
      shields are black, their bodies are painted black. They choose
      for the combat the darkest hour of the night. Their host
      advances, covered as it were with a funeral shade; 37 nor do they
      often find an enemy capable of sustaining so strange and infernal
      an aspect. Of all our senses, the eyes are the first vanquished
      in battle.” 38 Yet the arms and discipline of the Romans easily
      discomfited these horrid phantoms. The Lygii were defeated in a
      general engagement, and Semno, the most renowned of their chiefs,
      fell alive into the hands of Probus. That prudent emperor,
      unwilling to reduce a brave people to despair, granted them an
      honorable capitulation, and permitted them to return in safety to
      their native country. But the losses which they suffered in the
      march, the battle, and the retreat, broke the power of the
      nation: nor is the Lygian name ever repeated in the history
      either of Germany or of the empire. The deliverance of Gaul is
      reported to have cost the lives of four hundred thousand of the
      invaders; a work of labor to the Romans, and of expense to the
      emperor, who gave a piece of gold for the head of every
      barbarian. 39 But as the fame of warriors is built on the
      destruction of human kind, we may naturally suspect that the
      sanguinary account was multiplied by the avarice of the soldiers,
      and accepted without any very severe examination by the liberal
      vanity of Probus.

      34 (return) [ See the Cæsars of Julian, and Hist. August. p. 238,
      240, 241.]

      341 (return) [ It was only under the emperors Diocletian and
      Maximian, that the Burgundians, in concert with the Alemanni,
      invaded the interior of Gaul; under the reign of Probus, they did
      no more than pass the river which separated them from the Roman
      Empire: they were repelled. Gatterer presumes that this river was
      the Danube; a passage in Zosimus appears to me rather to indicate
      the Rhine. Zos. l. i. p. 37, edit H. Etienne, 1581.—G. On the
      origin of the Burgundians may be consulted Malte Brun, Geogr vi.
      p. 396, (edit. 1831,) who observes that all the remains of the
      Burgundian language indicate that they spoke a Gothic
      dialect.—M.]

      35 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 62. Hist. August. p. 240. But the
      latter supposes the punishment inflicted with the consent of
      their kings: if so, it was partial, like the offence.]

      36 (return) [ See Cluver. Germania Antiqua, l. iii. Ptolemy
      places in their country the city of Calisia, probably Calish in
      Silesia. * Note: Luden (vol ii. 501) supposes that these have
      been erroneously identified with the Lygii of Tacitus. Perhaps
      one fertile source of mistakes has been, that the Romans have
      turned appellations into national names. Malte Brun observes of
      the Lygii, “that their name appears Sclavonian, and signifies
      ‘inhabitants of plains;’ they are probably the Lieches of the
      middle ages, and the ancestors of the Poles. We find among the
      Arii the worship of the two twin gods known in the Sclavian
      mythology.” Malte Brun, vol. i. p. 278, (edit. 1831.)—M. But
      compare Schafarik, Slawische Alterthumer, 1, p. 406. They were of
      German or Keltish descent, occupying the Wendish (or Slavian)
      district, Luhy.—M. 1845.]

      37 (return) [ Feralis umbra, is the expression of Tacitus: it is
      surely a very bold one.]

      38 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, (c. 43.)]

      39 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 238]

      Since the expedition of Maximin, the Roman generals had confined
      their ambition to a defensive war against the nations of Germany,
      who perpetually pressed on the frontiers of the empire. The more
      daring Probus pursued his Gallic victories, passed the Rhine, and
      displayed his invincible eagles on the banks of the Elbe and the
      Neckar. He was fully convinced that nothing could reconcile the
      minds of the barbarians to peace, unless they experienced, in
      their own country, the calamities of war. Germany, exhausted by
      the ill success of the last emigration, was astonished by his
      presence. Nine of the most considerable princes repaired to his
      camp, and fell prostrate at his feet. Such a treaty was humbly
      received by the Germans, as it pleased the conqueror to dictate.
      He exacted a strict restitution of the effects and captives which
      they had carried away from the provinces; and obliged their own
      magistrates to punish the more obstinate robbers who presumed to
      detain any part of the spoil. A considerable tribute of corn,
      cattle, and horses, the only wealth of barbarians, was reserved
      for the use of the garrisons which Probus established on the
      limits of their territory. He even entertained some thoughts of
      compelling the Germans to relinquish the exercise of arms, and to
      trust their differences to the justice, their safety to the
      power, of Rome. To accomplish these salutary ends, the constant
      residence of an Imperial governor, supported by a numerous army,
      was indispensably requisite. Probus therefore judged it more
      expedient to defer the execution of so great a design; which was
      indeed rather of specious than solid utility. 40 Had Germany been
      reduced into the state of a province, the Romans, with immense
      labor and expense, would have acquired only a more extensive
      boundary to defend against the fiercer and more active barbarians
      of Scythia.

      40 (return) [ Hist. August. 238, 239. Vopiscus quotes a letter
      from the emperor to the senate, in which he mentions his design
      of reducing Germany into a province.]

      Instead of reducing the warlike natives of Germany to the
      condition of subjects, Probus contented himself with the humble
      expedient of raising a bulwark against their inroads. The country
      which now forms the circle of Swabia had been left desert in the
      age of Augustus by the emigration of its ancient inhabitants. 41
      The fertility of the soil soon attracted a new colony from the
      adjacent provinces of Gaul. Crowds of adventurers, of a roving
      temper and of desperate fortunes, occupied the doubtful
      possession, and acknowledged, by the payment of tithes, the
      majesty of the empire. 42 To protect these new subjects, a line
      of frontier garrisons was gradually extended from the Rhine to
      the Danube. About the reign of Hadrian, when that mode of defence
      began to be practised, these garrisons were connected and covered
      by a strong intrenchment of trees and palisades. In the place of
      so rude a bulwark, the emperor Probus constructed a stone wall of
      a considerable height, and strengthened it by towers at
      convenient distances. From the neighborhood of Neustadt and
      Ratisbon on the Danube, it stretched across hills, valleys,
      rivers, and morasses, as far as Wimpfen on the Neckar, and at
      length terminated on the banks of the Rhine, after a winding
      course of near two hundred miles. 43 This important barrier,
      uniting the two mighty streams that protected the provinces of
      Europe, seemed to fill up the vacant space through which the
      barbarians, and particularly the Alemanni, could penetrate with
      the greatest facility into the heart of the empire. But the
      experience of the world, from China to Britain, has exposed the
      vain attempt of fortifying any extensive tract of country. 44 An
      active enemy, who can select and vary his points of attack, must,
      in the end, discover some feeble spot, or some unguarded moment.
      The strength, as well as the attention, of the defenders is
      divided; and such are the blind effects of terror on the firmest
      troops, that a line broken in a single place is almost instantly
      deserted. The fate of the wall which Probus erected may confirm
      the general observation. Within a few years after his death, it
      was overthrown by the Alemanni. Its scattered ruins, universally
      ascribed to the power of the Dæmon, now serve only to excite the
      wonder of the Swabian peasant.

      41 (return) [ Strabo, l. vii. According to Valleius Paterculus,
      (ii. 108,) Maroboduus led his Marcomanni into Bohemia; Cluverius
      (German. Antiq. iii. 8) proves that it was from Swabia.]

      42 (return) [ These settlers, from the payment of tithes, were
      denominated Decunates. Tacit. Germania, c. 29]

      43 (return) [ See notes de l’Abbé de la Bleterie a la Germanie de
      Tacite, p. 183. His account of the wall is chiefly borrowed (as
      he says himself) from the Alsatia Illustrata of Schoepflin.]

      44 (return) [ See Recherches sur les Chinois et les Egyptiens,
      tom. ii. p. 81—102. The anonymous author is well acquainted with
      the globe in general, and with Germany in particular: with regard
      to the latter, he quotes a work of M. Hanselman; but he seems to
      confound the wall of Probus, designed against the Alemanni, with
      the fortification of the Mattiaci, constructed in the
      neighborhood of Frankfort against the Catti. * Note: De Pauw is
      well known to have been the author of this work, as of the
      Recherches sur les Americains before quoted. The judgment of M.
      Remusat on this writer is in a very different, I fear a juster
      tone. Quand au lieu de rechercher, d’examiner, d’etudier, on se
      borne, comme cet ecrivain, a juger a prononcer, a decider, sans
      connoitre ni l’histoire. ni les langues, sans recourir aux
      sources, sans meme se douter de leur existence, on peut en
      imposer pendant quelque temps a des lecteurs prevenus ou peu
      instruits; mais le mepris qui ne manque guere de succeder a cet
      engouement fait bientot justice de ces assertions hazardees, et
      elles retombent dans l’oubli d’autant plus promptement, qu’elles
      ont ete posees avec plus de confiance. Sur les l angues Tartares,
      p. 231.—M.]

      Among the useful conditions of peace imposed by Probus on the
      vanquished nations of Germany, was the obligation of supplying
      the Roman army with sixteen thousand recruits, the bravest and
      most robust of their youth. The emperor dispersed them through
      all the provinces, and distributed this dangerous reënforcement,
      in small bands of fifty or sixty each, among the national troops;
      judiciously observing, that the aid which the republic derived
      from the barbarians should be felt but not seen. 45 Their aid was
      now become necessary. The feeble elegance of Italy and the
      internal provinces could no longer support the weight of arms.
      The hardy frontiers of the Rhine and Danube still produced minds
      and bodies equal to the labors of the camp; but a perpetual
      series of wars had gradually diminished their numbers. The
      infrequency of marriage, and the ruin of agriculture, affected
      the principles of population, and not only destroyed the strength
      of the present, but intercepted the hope of future, generations.
      The wisdom of Probus embraced a great and beneficial plan of
      replenishing the exhausted frontiers, by new colonies of captive
      or fugitive barbarians, on whom he bestowed lands, cattle,
      instruments of husbandry, and every encouragement that might
      engage them to educate a race of soldiers for the service of the
      republic. Into Britain, and most probably into Cambridgeshire, 46
      he transported a considerable body of Vandals. The impossibility
      of an escape reconciled them to their situation, and in the
      subsequent troubles of that island, they approved themselves the
      most faithful servants of the state. 47 Great numbers of Franks
      and Gepidæ were settled on the banks of the Danube and the Rhine.
      A hundred thousand Bastarnæ, expelled from their own country,
      cheerfully accepted an establishment in Thrace, and soon imbibed
      the manners and sentiments of Roman subjects. 48 But the
      expectations of Probus were too often disappointed. The
      impatience and idleness of the barbarians could ill brook the
      slow labors of agriculture. Their unconquerable love of freedom,
      rising against despotism, provoked them into hasty rebellions,
      alike fatal to themselves and to the provinces; 49 nor could
      these artificial supplies, however repeated by succeeding
      emperors, restore the important limit of Gaul and Illyricum to
      its ancient and native vigor.

      45 (return) [ He distributed about fifty or sixty barbarians to a
      Numerus, as it was then called, a corps with whose established
      number we are not exactly acquainted.]

      46 (return) [ Camden’s Britannia, Introduction, p. 136; but he
      speaks from a very doubtful conjecture.]

      47 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 62. According to Vopiscus,
      another body of Vandals was less faithful.]

      48 (return) [Footnote 48: Hist. August. p. 240. They were
      probably expelled by the Goths. Zosim. l. i. p. 66.]

      49 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 240.]

      Of all the barbarians who abandoned their new settlements, and
      disturbed the public tranquillity, a very small number returned
      to their own country. For a short season they might wander in
      arms through the empire; but in the end they were surely
      destroyed by the power of a warlike emperor. The successful
      rashness of a party of Franks was attended, however, with such
      memorable consequences, that it ought not to be passed unnoticed.
      They had been established by Probus, on the sea-coast of Pontus,
      with a view of strengthening the frontier against the inroads of
      the Alani. A fleet stationed in one of the harbors of the Euxine
      fell into the hands of the Franks; and they resolved, through
      unknown seas, to explore their way from the mouth of the Phasis
      to that of the Rhine. They easily escaped through the Bosphorus
      and the Hellespont, and cruising along the Mediterranean,
      indulged their appetite for revenge and plunder by frequent
      descents on the unsuspecting shores of Asia, Greece, and Africa.
      The opulent city of Syracuse, in whose port the navies of Athens
      and Carthage had formerly been sunk, was sacked by a handful of
      barbarians, who massacred the greatest part of the trembling
      inhabitants. From the island of Sicily the Franks proceeded to
      the columns of Hercules, trusted themselves to the ocean, coasted
      round Spain and Gaul, and steering their triumphant course
      through the British Channel, at length finished their surprising
      voyage, by landing in safety on the Batavian or Frisian shores.
      50 The example of their success, instructing their countrymen to
      conceive the advantages and to despise the dangers of the sea,
      pointed out to their enterprising spirit a new road to wealth and
      glory.

      50 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. v. 18. Zosimus, l. i. p. 66.]

      Notwithstanding the vigilance and activity of Probus, it was
      almost impossible that he could at once contain in obedience
      every part of his wide-extended dominions. The barbarians, who
      broke their chains, had seized the favorable opportunity of a
      domestic war. When the emperor marched to the relief of Gaul, he
      devolved the command of the East on Saturninus. That general, a
      man of merit and experience, was driven into rebellion by the
      absence of his sovereign, the levity of the Alexandrian people,
      the pressing instances of his friends, and his own fears; but
      from the moment of his elevation, he never entertained a hope of
      empire, or even of life. “Alas!” he said, “the republic has lost
      a useful servant, and the rashness of an hour has destroyed the
      services of many years. You know not,” continued he, “the misery
      of sovereign power; a sword is perpetually suspended over our
      head. We dread our very guards, we distrust our companions. The
      choice of action or of repose is no longer in our disposition,
      nor is there any age, or character, or conduct, that can protect
      us from the censure of envy. In thus exalting me to the throne,
      you have doomed me to a life of cares, and to an untimely fate.
      The only consolation which remains is the assurance that I shall
      not fall alone.” 51 But as the former part of his prediction was
      verified by the victory, so the latter was disappointed by the
      clemency, of Probus. That amiable prince attempted even to save
      the unhappy Saturninus from the fury of the soldiers. He had more
      than once solicited the usurper himself to place some confidence
      in the mercy of a sovereign who so highly esteemed his character,
      that he had punished, as a malicious informer, the first who
      related the improbable news of his disaffection. 52 Saturninus
      might, perhaps, have embraced the generous offer, had he not been
      restrained by the obstinate distrust of his adherents. Their
      guilt was deeper, and their hopes more sanguine, than those of
      their experienced leader.

      51 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 245, 246. The
      unfortunate orator had studied rhetoric at Carthage; and was
      therefore more probably a Moor (Zosim. l. i. p. 60) than a Gaul,
      as Vopiscus calls him.]

      52 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 638.]

      The revolt of Saturninus was scarcely extinguished in the East,
      before new troubles were excited in the West, by the rebellion of
      Bonosus and Proculus, in Gaul. The most distinguished merit of
      those two officers was their respective prowess, of the one in
      the combats of Bacchus, of the other in those of Venus, 53 yet
      neither of them was destitute of courage and capacity, and both
      sustained, with honor, the august character which the fear of
      punishment had engaged them to assume, till they sunk at length
      beneath the superior genius of Probus. He used the victory with
      his accustomed moderation, and spared the fortune, as well as the
      lives of their innocent families. 54

      53 (return) [ A very surprising instance is recorded of the
      prowess of Proculus. He had taken one hundred Sarmatian virgins.
      The rest of the story he must relate in his own language: “Ex his
      una necte decem inivi; omnes tamen, quod in me erat, mulieres
      intra dies quindecim reddidi.” Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 246.]

      54 (return) [ Proculus, who was a native of Albengue, on the
      Genoese coast armed two thousand of his own slaves. His riches
      were great, but they were acquired by robbery. It was afterwards
      a saying of his family, sibi non placere esse vel principes vel
      latrones. Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 247.]

      The arms of Probus had now suppressed all the foreign and
      domestic enemies of the state. His mild but steady administration
      confirmed the re-ëstablishment of the public tranquillity; nor
      was there left in the provinces a hostile barbarian, a tyrant, or
      even a robber, to revive the memory of past disorders. It was
      time that the emperor should revisit Rome, and celebrate his own
      glory and the general happiness. The triumph due to the valor of
      Probus was conducted with a magnificence suitable to his fortune,
      and the people, who had so lately admired the trophies of
      Aurelian, gazed with equal pleasure on those of his heroic
      successor. 55 We cannot, on this occasion, forget the desperate
      courage of about fourscore gladiators, reserved, with near six
      hundred others, for the inhuman sports of the amphitheatre.
      Disdaining to shed their blood for the amusement of the populace,
      they killed their keepers, broke from the place of their
      confinement, and filled the streets of Rome with blood and
      confusion. After an obstinate resistance, they were overpowered
      and cut in pieces by the regular forces; but they obtained at
      least an honorable death, and the satisfaction of a just revenge.
      56

      55 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 240.]

      56 (return) [ Zosim. l. i. p. 66.]

      The military discipline which reigned in the camps of Probus was
      less cruel than that of Aurelian, but it was equally rigid and
      exact. The latter had punished the irregularities of the soldiers
      with unrelenting severity, the former prevented them by employing
      the legions in constant and useful labors. When Probus commanded
      in Egypt, he executed many considerable works for the splendor
      and benefit of that rich country. The navigation of the Nile, so
      important to Rome itself, was improved; and temples, buildings,
      porticos, and palaces, were constructed by the hands of the
      soldiers, who acted by turns as architects, as engineers, and as
      husbandmen. 57 It was reported of Hannibal, that, in order to
      preserve his troops from the dangerous temptations of idleness,
      he had obliged them to form large plantations of olive-trees
      along the coast of Africa. 58 From a similar principle, Probus
      exercised his legions in covering with rich vineyards the hills
      of Gaul and Pannonia, and two considerable spots are described,
      which were entirely dug and planted by military labor. 59 One of
      these, known under the name of Mount Almo, was situated near
      Sirmium, the country where Probus was born, for which he ever
      retained a partial affection, and whose gratitude he endeavored
      to secure, by converting into tillage a large and unhealthy tract
      of marshy ground. An army thus employed constituted perhaps the
      most useful, as well as the bravest, portion of Roman subjects.

      57 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 236.]

      58 (return) [ Aurel. Victor. in Prob. But the policy of Hannibal,
      unnoticed by any more ancient writer, is irreconcilable with the
      history of his life. He left Africa when he was nine years old,
      returned to it when he was forty-five, and immediately lost his
      army in the decisive battle of Zama. Livilus, xxx. 37.]

      59 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 240. Eutrop. ix. 17. Aurel.
      Victor. in Prob. Victor Junior. He revoked the prohibition of
      Domitian, and granted a general permission of planting vines to
      the Gauls, the Britons, and the Pannonians.]

      But in the prosecution of a favorite scheme, the best of men,
      satisfied with the rectitude of their intentions, are subject to
      forget the bounds of moderation; nor did Probus himself
      sufficiently consult the patience and disposition of his fierce
      legionaries. 60 The dangers of the military profession seem only
      to be compensated by a life of pleasure and idleness; but if the
      duties of the soldier are incessantly aggravated by the labors of
      the peasant, he will at last sink under the intolerable burden,
      or shake it off with indignation. The imprudence of Probus is
      said to have inflamed the discontent of his troops. More
      attentive to the interests of mankind than to those of the army,
      he expressed the vain hope, that, by the establishment of
      universal peace, he should soon abolish the necessity of a
      standing and mercenary force. 61 The unguarded expression proved
      fatal to him. In one of the hottest days of summer, as he
      severely urged the unwholesome labor of draining the marshes of
      Sirmium, the soldiers, impatient of fatigue, on a sudden threw
      down their tools, grasped their arms, and broke out into a
      furious mutiny. The emperor, conscious of his danger, took refuge
      in a lofty tower, constructed for the purpose of surveying the
      progress of the work. 62 The tower was instantly forced, and a
      thousand swords were plunged at once into the bosom of the
      unfortunate Probus. The rage of the troops subsided as soon as it
      had been gratified. They then lamented their fatal rashness,
      forgot the severity of the emperor whom they had massacred, and
      hastened to perpetuate, by an honorable monument, the memory of
      his virtues and victories. 63

      60 (return) [ Julian bestows a severe, and indeed excessive,
      censure on the rigor of Probus, who, as he thinks, almost
      deserved his fate.]

      61 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 241. He lavishes on
      this idle hope a large stock of very foolish eloquence.]

      62 (return) [ Turris ferrata. It seems to have been a movable
      tower, and cased with iron.]

      63 (return) [ Probus, et vere probus situs est; Victor omnium
      gentium Barbararum; victor etiam tyrannorum.]

      When the legions had indulged their grief and repentance for the
      death of Probus, their unanimous consent declared Carus, his
      Prætorian præfect, the most deserving of the Imperial throne.
      Every circumstance that relates to this prince appears of a mixed
      and doubtful nature. He gloried in the title of Roman Citizen;
      and affected to compare the purity of _his_ blood with the
      foreign and even barbarous origin of the preceding emperors; yet
      the most inquisitive of his contemporaries, very far from
      admitting his claim, have variously deduced his own birth, or
      that of his parents, from Illyricum, from Gaul, or from Africa.
      64 Though a soldier, he had received a learned education; though
      a senator, he was invested with the first dignity of the army;
      and in an age when the civil and military professions began to be
      irrecoverably separated from each other, they were united in the
      person of Carus. Notwithstanding the severe justice which he
      exercised against the assassins of Probus, to whose favor and
      esteem he was highly indebted, he could not escape the suspicion
      of being accessory to a deed from whence he derived the principal
      advantage. He enjoyed, at least before his elevation, an
      acknowledged character of virtue and abilities; 65 but his
      austere temper insensibly degenerated into moroseness and
      cruelty; and the imperfect writers of his life almost hesitate
      whether they shall not rank him in the number of Roman tyrants.
      66 When Carus assumed the purple, he was about sixty years of
      age, and his two sons, Carinus and Numerian had already attained
      the season of manhood. 67

      64 (return) [ Yet all this may be conciliated. He was born at
      Narbonne in Illyricum, confounded by Eutropius with the more
      famous city of that name in Gaul. His father might be an African,
      and his mother a noble Roman. Carus himself was educated in the
      capital. See Scaliger Animadversion. ad Euseb. Chron. p. 241.]

      65 (return) [ Probus had requested of the senate an equestrian
      statue and a marble palace, at the public expense, as a just
      recompense of the singular merit of Carus. Vopiscus in Hist.
      August. p. 249.]

      66 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 242, 249. Julian
      excludes the emperor Carus and both his sons from the banquet of
      the Cæsars.]

      67 (return) [ John Malala, tom. i. p. 401. But the authority of
      that ignorant Greek is very slight. He ridiculously derives from
      Carus the city of Carrhæ, and the province of Caria, the latter
      of which is mentioned by Homer.]

      The authority of the senate expired with Probus; nor was the
      repentance of the soldiers displayed by the same dutiful regard
      for the civil power, which they had testified after the
      unfortunate death of Aurelian. The election of Carus was decided
      without expecting the approbation of the senate, and the new
      emperor contented himself with announcing, in a cold and stately
      epistle, that he had ascended the vacant throne. 68 A behavior so
      very opposite to that of his amiable predecessor afforded no
      favorable presage of the new reign: and the Romans, deprived of
      power and freedom, asserted their privilege of licentious
      murmurs. 69 The voice of congratulation and flattery was not,
      however, silent; and we may still peruse, with pleasure and
      contempt, an eclogue, which was composed on the accession of the
      emperor Carus. Two shepherds, avoiding the noontide heat, retire
      into the cave of Faunus. On a spreading beech they discover some
      recent characters. The rural deity had described, in prophetic
      verses, the felicity promised to the empire under the reign of so
      great a prince. Faunus hails the approach of that hero, who,
      receiving on his shoulders the sinking weight of the Roman world,
      shall extinguish war and faction, and once again restore the
      innocence and security of the golden age. 70

      68 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 249. Carus congratulated the
      senate, that one of their own order was made emperor.]

      69 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 242.]

      70 (return) [ See the first eclogue of Calphurnius. The design of
      it is preferes by Fontenelle to that of Virgil’s Pollio. See tom.
      iii. p. 148.]

      It is more than probable, that these elegant trifles never
      reached the ears of a veteran general, who, with the consent of
      the legions, was preparing to execute the long-suspended design
      of the Persian war. Before his departure for this distant
      expedition, Carus conferred on his two sons, Carinus and
      Numerian, the title of Cæsar, and investing the former with
      almost an equal share of the Imperial power, directed the young
      prince first to suppress some troubles which had arisen in Gaul,
      and afterwards to fix the seat of his residence at Rome, and to
      assume the government of the Western provinces. 71 The safety of
      Illyricum was confirmed by a memorable defeat of the Sarmatians;
      sixteen thousand of those barbarians remained on the field of
      battle, and the number of captives amounted to twenty thousand.
      The old emperor, animated with the fame and prospect of victory,
      pursued his march, in the midst of winter, through the countries
      of Thrace and Asia Minor, and at length, with his younger son,
      Numerian, arrived on the confines of the Persian monarchy. There,
      encamping on the summit of a lofty mountain, he pointed out to
      his troops the opulence and luxury of the enemy whom they were
      about to invade.

      71 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 353. Eutropius, ix. 18. Pagi.
      Annal.]

      The successor of Artaxerxes, 711 Varanes, or Bahram, though he
      had subdued the Segestans, one of the most warlike nations of
      Upper Asia, 72 was alarmed at the approach of the Romans, and
      endeavored to retard their progress by a negotiation of peace.
      721

      His ambassadors entered the camp about sunset, at the time when
      the troops were satisfying their hunger with a frugal repast. The
      Persians expressed their desire of being introduced to the
      presence of the Roman emperor. They were at length conducted to a
      soldier, who was seated on the grass. A piece of stale bacon and
      a few hard peas composed his supper. A coarse woollen garment of
      purple was the only circumstance that announced his dignity. The
      conference was conducted with the same disregard of courtly
      elegance. Carus, taking off a cap which he wore to conceal his
      baldness, assured the ambassadors, that, unless their master
      acknowledged the superiority of Rome, he would speedily render
      Persia as naked of trees as his own head was destitute of hair.
      73 Notwithstanding some traces of art and preparation, we may
      discover in this scene the manners of Carus, and the severe
      simplicity which the martial princes, who succeeded Gallienus,
      had already restored in the Roman camps. The ministers of the
      Great King trembled and retired.

      711 (return) [ Three monarchs had intervened, Sapor, (Shahpour,)
      Hormisdas, (Hormooz,) Varanes; Baharam the First.—M.]

      72 (return) [ Agathias, l. iv. p. 135. We find one of his sayings
      in the Bibliotheque Orientale of M. d’Herbelot. “The definition
      of humanity includes all other virtues.”]

      721 (return) [ The manner in which his life was saved by the
      Chief Pontiff from a conspiracy of his nobles, is as remarkable
      as his saying. “By the advice (of the Pontiff) all the nobles
      absented themselves from court. The king wandered through his
      palace alone. He saw no one; all was silence around. He became
      alarmed and distressed. At last the Chief Pontiff appeared, and
      bowed his head in apparent misery, but spoke not a word. The king
      entreated him to declare what had happened. The virtuous man
      boldly related all that had passed, and conjured Bahram, in the
      name of his glorious ancestors, to change his conduct and save
      himself from destruction. The king was much moved, professed
      himself most penitent, and said he was resolved his future life
      should prove his sincerity. The overjoyed High Priest, delighted
      at this success, made a signal, at which all the nobles and
      attendants were in an instant, as if by magic, in their usual
      places. The monarch now perceived that only one opinion prevailed
      on his past conduct. He repeated therefore to his nobles all he
      had said to the Chief Pontiff, and his future reign was unstained
      by cruelty or oppression.” Malcolm’s Persia,—M.]

      73 (return) [ Synesius tells this story of Carinus; and it is
      much more natural to understand it of Carus, than (as Petavius
      and Tillemont choose to do) of Probus.]

      The threats of Carus were not without effect. He ravaged
      Mesopotamia, cut in pieces whatever opposed his passage, made
      himself master of the great cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon,
      (which seemed to have surrendered without resistance,) and
      carried his victorious arms beyond the Tigris. 74 He had seized
      the favorable moment for an invasion. The Persian councils were
      distracted by domestic factions, and the greater part of their
      forces were detained on the frontiers of India. Rome and the East
      received with transport the news of such important advantages.
      Flattery and hope painted, in the most lively colors, the fall of
      Persia, the conquest of Arabia, the submission of Egypt, and a
      lasting deliverance from the inroads of the Scythian nations. 75
      But the reign of Carus was destined to expose the vanity of
      predictions. They were scarcely uttered before they were
      contradicted by his death; an event attended with such ambiguous
      circumstances, that it may be related in a letter from his own
      secretary to the præfect of the city. “Carus,” says he, “our
      dearest emperor, was confined by sickness to his bed, when a
      furious tempest arose in the camp. The darkness which overspread
      the sky was so thick, that we could no longer distinguish each
      other; and the incessant flashes of lightning took from us the
      knowledge of all that passed in the general confusion.
      Immediately after the most violent clap of thunder, we heard a
      sudden cry that the emperor was dead; and it soon appeared, that
      his chamberlains, in a rage of grief, had set fire to the royal
      pavilion; a circumstance which gave rise to the report that Carus
      was killed by lightning. But, as far as we have been able to
      investigate the truth, his death was the natural effect of his
      disorder.” 76

      74 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 250. Eutropius, ix.
      18. The two Victors.]

      75 (return) [ To the Persian victory of Carus I refer the
      dialogue of the Philopatris, which has so long been an object of
      dispute among the learned. But to explain and justify my opinion,
      would require a dissertation. Note: Niebuhr, in the new edition
      of the Byzantine Historians, (vol. x.) has boldly assigned the
      Philopatris to the tenth century, and to the reign of Nicephorus
      Phocas. An opinion so decisively pronounced by Niebuhr and
      favorably received by Hase, the learned editor of Leo Diaconus,
      commands respectful consideration. But the whole tone of the work
      appears to me altogether inconsistent with any period in which
      philosophy did not stand, as it were, on some ground of equality
      with Christianity. The doctrine of the Trinity is sarcastically
      introduced rather as the strange doctrine of a new religion, than
      the established tenet of a faith universally prevalent. The
      argument, adopted from Solanus, concerning the formula of the
      procession of the Holy Ghost, is utterly worthless, as it is a
      mere quotation in the words of the Gospel of St. John, xv. 26.
      The only argument of any value is the historic one, from the
      allusion to the recent violation of many virgins in the Island of
      Crete. But neither is the language of Niebuhr quite accurate, nor
      his reference to the Acroases of Theodosius satisfactory. When,
      then, could this occurrence take place? Why not in the
      devastation of the island by the Gothic pirates, during the reign
      of Claudius. Hist. Aug. in Claud. p. 814. edit. Var. Lugd. Bat
      1661.—M.]

      76 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 250. Yet Eutropius, Festus, Rufus,
      the two Victors, Jerome, Sidonius Apollinaris, Syncellus, and
      Zonaras, all ascribe the death of Carus to lightning.]




      Chapter XII: Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus And His Sons.—Part
      III.

      The vacancy of the throne was not productive of any disturbance.
      The ambition of the aspiring generals was checked by their
      natural fears, and young Numerian, with his absent brother
      Carinus, were unanimously acknowledged as Roman emperors.

      The public expected that the successor of Carus would pursue his
      father’s footsteps, and, without allowing the Persians to recover
      from their consternation, would advance sword in hand to the
      palaces of Susa and Ecbatana. 77 But the legions, however strong
      in numbers and discipline, were dismayed by the most abject
      superstition. Notwithstanding all the arts that were practised to
      disguise the manner of the late emperor’s death, it was found
      impossible to remove the opinion of the multitude, and the power
      of opinion is irresistible. Places or persons struck with
      lightning were considered by the ancients with pious horror, as
      singularly devoted to the wrath of Heaven. 78 An oracle was
      remembered, which marked the River Tigris as the fatal boundary
      of the Roman arms. The troops, terrified with the fate of Carus
      and with their own danger, called aloud on young Numerian to obey
      the will of the gods, and to lead them away from this
      inauspicious scene of war. The feeble emperor was unable to
      subdue their obstinate prejudice, and the Persians wondered at
      the unexpected retreat of a victorious enemy. 79

      77 (return) [ See Nemesian. Cynegeticon, v. 71, &c.]

      78 (return) [ See Festus and his commentators on the word
      Scribonianum. Places struck by lightning were surrounded with a
      wall; things were buried with mysterious ceremony.]

      79 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 250. Aurelius Victor
      seems to believe the prediction, and to approve the retreat.]

      The intelligence of the mysterious fate of the late emperor was
      soon carried from the frontiers of Persia to Rome; and the
      senate, as well as the provinces, congratulated the accession of
      the sons of Carus. These fortunate youths were strangers,
      however, to that conscious superiority, either of birth or of
      merit, which can alone render the possession of a throne easy,
      and, as it were, natural. Born and educated in a private station,
      the election of their father raised them at once to the rank of
      princes; and his death, which happened about sixteen months
      afterwards, left them the unexpected legacy of a vast empire. To
      sustain with temper this rapid elevation, an uncommon share of
      virtue and prudence was requisite; and Carinus, the elder of the
      brothers, was more than commonly deficient in those qualities. In
      the Gallic war he discovered some degree of personal courage; 80
      but from the moment of his arrival at Rome, he abandoned himself
      to the luxury of the capital, and to the abuse of his fortune. He
      was soft, yet cruel; devoted to pleasure, but destitute of taste;
      and though exquisitely susceptible of vanity, indifferent to the
      public esteem. In the course of a few months, he successively
      married and divorced nine wives, most of whom he left pregnant;
      and notwithstanding this legal inconstancy, found time to indulge
      such a variety of irregular appetites, as brought dishonor on
      himself and on the noblest houses of Rome. He beheld with
      inveterate hatred all those who might remember his former
      obscurity, or censure his present conduct. He banished, or put to
      death, the friends and counsellors whom his father had placed
      about him, to guide his inexperienced youth; and he persecuted
      with the meanest revenge his school-fellows and companions who
      had not sufficiently respected the latent majesty of the emperor.

      With the senators, Carinus affected a lofty and regal demeanor,
      frequently declaring, that he designed to distribute their
      estates among the populace of Rome. From the dregs of that
      populace he selected his favorites, and even his ministers. The
      palace, and even the Imperial table, were filled with singers,
      dancers, prostitutes, and all the various retinue of vice and
      folly. One of his doorkeepers 81 he intrusted with the government
      of the city. In the room of the Prætorian præfect, whom he put to
      death, Carinus substituted one of the ministers of his looser
      pleasures. Another, who possessed the same, or even a more
      infamous, title to favor, was invested with the consulship. A
      confidential secretary, who had acquired uncommon skill in the
      art of forgery, delivered the indolent emperor, with his own
      consent from the irksome duty of signing his name.

      80 (return) [ Nemesian. Cynegeticon, v 69. He was a contemporary,
      but a poet.]

      81 (return) [ Cancellarius. This word, so humble in its origin,
      has, by a singular fortune, risen into the title of the first
      great office of state in the monarchies of Europe. See Casaubon
      and Salmasius, ad Hist. August, p. 253.]

      When the emperor Carus undertook the Persian war, he was induced,
      by motives of affection as well as policy, to secure the fortunes
      of his family, by leaving in the hands of his eldest son the
      armies and provinces of the West. The intelligence which he soon
      received of the conduct of Carinus filled him with shame and
      regret; nor had he concealed his resolution of satisfying the
      republic by a severe act of justice, and of adopting, in the
      place of an unworthy son, the brave and virtuous Constantius, who
      at that time was governor of Dalmatia. But the elevation of
      Constantius was for a while deferred; and as soon as the father’s
      death had released Carinus from the control of fear or decency,
      he displayed to the Romans the extravagancies of Elagabalus,
      aggravated by the cruelty of Domitian. 82

      82 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 253, 254. Eutropius,
      x. 19. Vic to Junior. The reign of Diocletian indeed was so long
      and prosperous, that it must have been very unfavorable to the
      reputation of Carinus.]

      The only merit of the administration of Carinus that history
      could record, or poetry celebrate, was the uncommon splendor with
      which, in his own and his brother’s name, he exhibited the Roman
      games of the theatre, the circus, and the amphitheatre. More than
      twenty years afterwards, when the courtiers of Diocletian
      represented to their frugal sovereign the fame and popularity of
      his munificent predecessor, he acknowledged that the reign of
      Carinus had indeed been a reign of pleasure. 83 But this vain
      prodigality, which the prudence of Diocletian might justly
      despise, was enjoyed with surprise and transport by the Roman
      people. The oldest of the citizens, recollecting the spectacles
      of former days, the triumphal pomp of Probus or Aurelian, and the
      secular games of the emperor Philip, acknowledged that they were
      all surpassed by the superior magnificence of Carinus. 84

      83 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 254. He calls him
      Carus, but the sense is sufficiently obvious, and the words were
      often confounded.]

      84 (return) [ See Calphurnius, Eclog. vii. 43. We may observe,
      that the spectacles of Probus were still recent, and that the
      poet is seconded by the historian.]

      The spectacles of Carinus may therefore be best illustrated by
      the observation of some particulars, which history has
      condescended to relate concerning those of his predecessors. If
      we confine ourselves solely to the hunting of wild beasts,
      however we may censure the vanity of the design or the cruelty of
      the execution, we are obliged to confess that neither before nor
      since the time of the Romans so much art and expense have ever
      been lavished for the amusement of the people. 85 By the order of
      Probus, a great quantity of large trees, torn up by the roots,
      were transplanted into the midst of the circus. The spacious and
      shady forest was immediately filled with a thousand ostriches, a
      thousand stags, a thousand fallow deer, and a thousand wild
      boars; and all this variety of game was abandoned to the riotous
      impetuosity of the multitude. The tragedy of the succeeding day
      consisted in the massacre of a hundred lions, an equal number of
      lionesses, two hundred leopards, and three hundred bears. 86 The
      collection prepared by the younger Gordian for his triumph, and
      which his successor exhibited in the secular games, was less
      remarkable by the number than by the singularity of the animals.
      Twenty zebras displayed their elegant forms and variegated beauty
      to the eyes of the Roman people. 87 Ten elks, and as many
      camelopards, the loftiest and most harmless creatures that wander
      over the plains of Sarmatia and Æthiopia, were contrasted with
      thirty African hyænas and ten Indian tigers, the most implacable
      savages of the torrid zone. The unoffending strength with which
      Nature has endowed the greater quadrupeds was admired in the
      rhinoceros, the hippopotamus of the Nile, 88 and a majestic troop
      of thirty-two elephants. 89 While the populace gazed with stupid
      wonder on the splendid show, the naturalist might indeed observe
      the figure and properties of so many different species,
      transported from every part of the ancient world into the
      amphitheatre of Rome. But this accidental benefit, which science
      might derive from folly, is surely insufficient to justify such a
      wanton abuse of the public riches. There occurs, however, a
      single instance in the first Punic war, in which the senate
      wisely connected this amusement of the multitude with the
      interest of the state. A considerable number of elephants, taken
      in the defeat of the Carthaginian army, were driven through the
      circus by a few slaves, armed only with blunt javelins. 90 The
      useful spectacle served to impress the Roman soldier with a just
      contempt for those unwieldy animals; and he no longer dreaded to
      encounter them in the ranks of war.

      85 (return) [ The philosopher Montaigne (Essais, l. iii. 6) gives
      a very just and lively view of Roman magnificence in these
      spectacles.]

      86 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 240.]

      87 (return) [ They are called Onagri; but the number is too
      inconsiderable for mere wild asses. Cuper (de Elephantis
      Exercitat. ii. 7) has proved from Oppian, Dion, and an anonymous
      Greek, that zebras had been seen at Rome. They were brought from
      some island of the ocean, perhaps Madagascar.]

      88 (return) [Carinus gave a hippopotamus, (see Calphurn. Eclog.
      vi. 66.) In the latter spectacles, I do not recollect any
      crocodiles, of which Augustus once exhibited thirty-six. Dion
      Cassius, l. lv. p. 781.]

      89 (return) [ Capitolin. in Hist. August. p. 164, 165. We are not
      acquainted with the animals which he calls archeleontes; some
      read argoleontes others agrioleontes: both corrections are very
      nugatory]

      90 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. viii. 6, from the annals of
      Piso.]

      The hunting or exhibition of wild beasts was conducted with a
      magnificence suitable to a people who styled themselves the
      masters of the world; nor was the edifice appropriated to that
      entertainment less expressive of Roman greatness. Posterity
      admires, and will long admire, the awful remains of the
      amphitheatre of Titus, which so well deserved the epithet of
      Colossal. 91 It was a building of an elliptic figure, five
      hundred and sixty-four feet in length, and four hundred and
      sixty-seven in breadth, founded on fourscore arches, and rising,
      with four successive orders of architecture, to the height of one
      hundred and forty feet. 92 The outside of the edifice was
      encrusted with marble, and decorated with statues. The slopes of
      the vast concave, which formed the inside, were filled and
      surrounded with sixty or eighty rows of seats of marble likewise,
      covered with cushions, and capable of receiving with ease about
      fourscore thousand spectators. 93 Sixty-four _vomitories_ (for by
      that name the doors were very aptly distinguished) poured forth
      the immense multitude; and the entrances, passages, and
      staircases were contrived with such exquisite skill, that each
      person, whether of the senatorial, the equestrian, or the
      plebeian order, arrived at his destined place without trouble or
      confusion. 94 Nothing was omitted, which, in any respect, could
      be subservient to the convenience and pleasure of the spectators.

      They were protected from the sun and rain by an ample canopy,
      occasionally drawn over their heads. The air was continally
      refreshed by the playing of fountains, and profusely impregnated
      by the grateful scent of aromatics. In the centre of the edifice,
      the _arena_, or stage, was strewed with the finest sand, and
      successively assumed the most different forms. At one moment it
      seemed to rise out of the earth, like the garden of the
      Hesperides, and was afterwards broken into the rocks and caverns
      of Thrace. The subterraneous pipes conveyed an inexhaustible
      supply of water; and what had just before appeared a level plain,
      might be suddenly converted into a wide lake, covered with armed
      vessels, and replenished with the monsters of the deep. 95 In the
      decoration of these scenes, the Roman emperors displayed their
      wealth and liberality; and we read on various occasions that the
      whole furniture of the amphitheatre consisted either of silver,
      or of gold, or of amber. 96 The poet who describes the games of
      Carinus, in the character of a shepherd, attracted to the capital
      by the fame of their magnificence, affirms that the nets designed
      as a defence against the wild beasts were of gold wire; that the
      porticos were gilded; and that the _belt_ or circle which divided
      the several ranks of spectators from each other was studded with
      a precious mosaic of beautiful stones. 97

      91 (return) [ See Maffei, Verona Illustrata, p. iv. l. i. c. 2.]

      92 (return) [ Maffei, l. ii. c. 2. The height was very much
      exaggerated by the ancients. It reached almost to the heavens,
      according to Calphurnius, (Eclog. vii. 23,) and surpassed the ken
      of human sight, according to Ammianus Marcellinus (xvi. 10.) Yet
      how trifling to the great pyramid of Egypt, which rises 500 feet
      perpendicular]

      93 (return) [ According to different copies of Victor, we read
      77,000, or 87,000 spectators; but Maffei (l. ii. c. 12) finds
      room on the open seats for no more than 34,000. The remainder
      were contained in the upper covered galleries.]

      94 (return) [ See Maffei, l. ii. c. 5—12. He treats the very
      difficult subject with all possible clearness, and like an
      architect, as well as an antiquarian.]

      95 (return) [ Calphurn. Eclog vii. 64, 73. These lines are
      curious, and the whole eclogue has been of infinite use to
      Maffei. Calphurnius, as well as Martial, (see his first book,)
      was a poet; but when they described the amphitheatre, they both
      wrote from their own senses, and to those of the Romans.]

      96 (return) [ Consult Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 16, xxxvii. 11.]

      97 (return) [ Balteus en gemmis, en inlita porticus auro Certatim
      radiant, &c. Calphurn. vii.]

      In the midst of this glittering pageantry, the emperor Carinus,
      secure of his fortune, enjoyed the acclamations of the people,
      the flattery of his courtiers, and the songs of the poets, who,
      for want of a more essential merit, were reduced to celebrate the
      divine graces of his person. 98 In the same hour, but at the
      distance of nine hundred miles from Rome, his brother expired;
      and a sudden revolution transferred into the hands of a stranger
      the sceptre of the house of Carus. 99

      98 (return) [ Et Martis vultus et Apollinis esse putavi, says
      Calphurnius; but John Malala, who had perhaps seen pictures of
      Carinus, describes him as thick, short, and white, tom. i. p.
      403.]

      99 (return) [ With regard to the time when these Roman games were
      celebrated, Scaliger, Salmasius, and Cuper have given themselves
      a great deal of trouble to perplex a very clear subject.]

      The sons of Carus never saw each other after their father’s
      death. The arrangements which their new situation required were
      probably deferred till the return of the younger brother to Rome,
      where a triumph was decreed to the young emperors for the
      glorious success of the Persian war. 100 It is uncertain whether
      they intended to divide between them the administration, or the
      provinces, of the empire; but it is very unlikely that their
      union would have proved of any long duration. The jealousy of
      power must have been inflamed by the opposition of characters. In
      the most corrupt of times, Carinus was unworthy to live: Numerian
      deserved to reign in a happier period. His affable manners and
      gentle virtues secured him, as soon as they became known, the
      regard and affections of the public. He possessed the elegant
      accomplishments of a poet and orator, which dignify as well as
      adorn the humblest and the most exalted station. His eloquence,
      however it was applauded by the senate, was formed not so much on
      the model of Cicero, as on that of the modern declaimers; but in
      an age very far from being destitute of poetical merit, he
      contended for the prize with the most celebrated of his
      contemporaries, and still remained the friend of his rivals; a
      circumstance which evinces either the goodness of his heart, or
      the superiority of his genius. 101 But the talents of Numerian
      were rather of the contemplative than of the active kind. When
      his father’s elevation reluctantly forced him from the shade of
      retirement, neither his temper nor his pursuits had qualified him
      for the command of armies. His constitution was destroyed by the
      hardships of the Persian war; and he had contracted, from the
      heat of the climate, 102 such a weakness in his eyes, as obliged
      him, in the course of a long retreat, to confine himself to the
      solitude and darkness of a tent or litter.

      The administration of all affairs, civil as well as military, was
      devolved on Arrius Aper, the Prætorian præfect, who to the power
      of his important office added the honor of being father-in-law to
      Numerian. The Imperial pavilion was strictly guarded by his most
      trusty adherents; and during many days, Aper delivered to the
      army the supposed mandates of their invisible sovereign. 103

      100 (return) [ Nemesianus (in the Cynegeticon) seems to
      anticipate in his fancy that auspicious day.]

      101 (return) [ He won all the crowns from Nemesianus, with whom
      he vied in didactic poetry. The senate erected a statue to the
      son of Carus, with a very ambiguous inscription, “To the most
      powerful of orators.” See Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 251.]

      102 (return) [ A more natural cause, at least, than that assigned
      by Vopiscus, (Hist. August. p. 251,) incessantly weeping for his
      father’s death.]

      103 (return) [ In the Persian war, Aper was suspected of a design
      to betray Carus. Hist. August. p. 250.]

      It was not till eight months after the death of Carus, that the
      Roman army, returning by slow marches from the banks of the
      Tigris, arrived on those of the Thracian Bosphorus. The legions
      halted at Chalcedon in Asia, while the court passed over to
      Heraclea, on the European side of the Propontis. 104 But a report
      soon circulated through the camp, at first in secret whispers,
      and at length in loud clamors, of the emperor’s death, and of the
      presumption of his ambitious minister, who still exercised the
      sovereign power in the name of a prince who was no more. The
      impatience of the soldiers could not long support a state of
      suspense. With rude curiosity they broke into the Imperial tent,
      and discovered only the corpse of Numerian. 105 The gradual
      decline of his health might have induced them to believe that his
      death was natural; but the concealment was interpreted as an
      evidence of guilt, and the measures which Aper had taken to
      secure his election became the immediate occasion of his ruin.
      Yet, even in the transport of their rage and grief, the troops
      observed a regular proceeding, which proves how firmly discipline
      had been reëstablished by the martial successors of Gallienus. A
      general assembly of the army was appointed to be held at
      Chalcedon, whither Aper was transported in chains, as a prisoner
      and a criminal. A vacant tribunal was erected in the midst of the
      camp, and the generals and tribunes formed a great military
      council. They soon announced to the multitude that their choice
      had fallen on Diocletian, commander of the domestics or
      body-guards, as the person the most capable of revenging and
      succeeding their beloved emperor. The future fortunes of the
      candidate depended on the chance or conduct of the present hour.
      Conscious that the station which he had filled exposed him to
      some suspicions, Diocletian ascended the tribunal, and raising
      his eyes towards the Sun, made a solemn profession of his own
      innocence, in the presence of that all-seeing Deity. 106 Then,
      assuming the tone of a sovereign and a judge, he commanded that
      Aper should be brought in chains to the foot of the tribunal.
      “This man,” said he, “is the murderer of Numerian;” and without
      giving him time to enter on a dangerous justification, drew his
      sword, and buried it in the breast of the unfortunate præfect. A
      charge supported by such decisive proof was admitted without
      contradiction, and the legions, with repeated acclamations,
      acknowledged the justice and authority of the emperor Diocletian.
      107

      104 (return) [ We are obliged to the Alexandrian Chronicle, p.
      274, for the knowledge of the time and place where Diocletian was
      elected emperor.]

      105 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 251. Eutrop. ix. 88. Hieronym. in
      Chron. According to these judicious writers, the death of
      Numerian was discovered by the stench of his dead body. Could no
      aromatics be found in the Imperial household?]

      106 (return) [ Aurel. Victor. Eutropius, ix. 20. Hieronym. in
      Chron.]

      107 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 252. The reason why
      Diocletian killed Aper, (a wild boar,) was founded on a prophecy
      and a pun, as foolish as they are well known.]

      Before we enter upon the memorable reign of that prince, it will
      be proper to punish and dismiss the unworthy brother of Numerian.
      Carinus possessed arms and treasures sufficient to support his
      legal title to the empire. But his personal vices overbalanced
      every advantage of birth and situation. The most faithful
      servants of the father despised the incapacity, and dreaded the
      cruel arrogance, of the son. The hearts of the people were
      engaged in favor of his rival, and even the senate was inclined
      to prefer a usurper to a tyrant. The arts of Diocletian inflamed
      the general discontent; and the winter was employed in secret
      intrigues, and open preparations for a civil war. In the spring,
      the forces of the East and of the West encountered each other in
      the plains of Margus, a small city of Mæsia, in the neighborhood
      of the Danube. 108 The troops, so lately returned from the
      Persian war, had acquired their glory at the expense of health
      and numbers; nor were they in a condition to contend with the
      unexhausted strength of the legions of Europe. Their ranks were
      broken, and, for a moment, Diocletian despaired of the purple and
      of life. But the advantage which Carinus had obtained by the
      valor of his soldiers, he quickly lost by the infidelity of his
      officers. A tribune, whose wife he had seduced, seized the
      opportunity of revenge, and, by a single blow, extinguished civil
      discord in the blood of the adulterer. 109

      108 (return) [ Eutropius marks its situation very accurately; it
      was between the Mons Aureus and Viminiacum. M. d’Anville
      (Geographic Ancienne, tom. i. p. 304) places Margus at Kastolatz
      in Servia, a little below Belgrade and Semendria. * Note:
      Kullieza—Eton Atlas—M.]

      109 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 254. Eutropius, ix. 20. Aurelius
      Victor et Epitome]




      Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates.—Part
      I.

     The Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates, Maximian,
     Galerius, And Constantius.—General Reestablishment Of Order And
     Tranquillity.—The Persian War, Victory, And Triumph.—The New Form
     Of Administration.—Abdication And Retirement Of Diocletian And
     Maximian.

      As the reign of Diocletian was more illustrious than that of any
      of his predecessors, so was his birth more abject and obscure.
      The strong claims of merit and of violence had frequently
      superseded the ideal prerogatives of nobility; but a distinct
      line of separation was hitherto preserved between the free and
      the servile part of mankind. The parents of Diocletian had been
      slaves in the house of Anulinus, a Roman senator; nor was he
      himself distinguished by any other name than that which he
      derived from a small town in Dalmatia, from whence his mother
      deduced her origin. 1 It is, however, probable that his father
      obtained the freedom of the family, and that he soon acquired an
      office of scribe, which was commonly exercised by persons of his
      condition. 2 Favorable oracles, or rather the consciousness of
      superior merit, prompted his aspiring son to pursue the
      profession of arms and the hopes of fortune; and it would be
      extremely curious to observe the gradation of arts and accidents
      which enabled him in the end to fulfil those oracles, and to
      display that merit to the world. Diocletian was successively
      promoted to the government of Mæsia, the honors of the
      consulship, and the important command of the guards of the
      palace. He distinguished his abilities in the Persian war; and
      after the death of Numerian, the slave, by the confession and
      judgment of his rivals, was declared the most worthy of the
      Imperial throne. The malice of religious zeal, whilst it arraigns
      the savage fierceness of his colleague Maximian, has affected to
      cast suspicions on the personal courage of the emperor
      Diocletian. 3 It would not be easy to persuade us of the
      cowardice of a soldier of fortune, who acquired and preserved the
      esteem of the legions as well as the favor of so many warlike
      princes. Yet even calumny is sagacious enough to discover and to
      attack the most vulnerable part. The valor of Diocletian was
      never found inadequate to his duty, or to the occasion; but he
      appears not to have possessed the daring and generous spirit of a
      hero, who courts danger and fame, disdains artifice, and boldly
      challenges the allegiance of his equals. His abilities were
      useful rather than splendid; a vigorous mind, improved by the
      experience and study of mankind; dexterity and application in
      business; a judicious mixture of liberality and economy, of
      mildness and rigor; profound dissimulation, under the disguise of
      military frankness; steadiness to pursue his ends; flexibility to
      vary his means; and, above all, the great art of submitting his
      own passions, as well as those of others, to the interest of his
      ambition, and of coloring his ambition with the most specious
      pretences of justice and public utility. Like Augustus,
      Diocletian may be considered as the founder of a new empire. Like
      the adopted son of Cæsar, he was distinguished as a statesman
      rather than as a warrior; nor did either of those princes employ
      force, whenever their purpose could be effected by policy.

      1 (return) [ Eutrop. ix. 19. Victor in Epitome. The town seems to
      have been properly called Doclia, from a small tribe of
      Illyrians, (see Cellarius, Geograph. Antiqua, tom. i. p. 393;)
      and the original name of the fortunate slave was probably Docles;
      he first lengthened it to the Grecian harmony of Diocles, and at
      length to the Roman majesty of Diocletianus. He likewise assumed
      the Patrician name of Valerius and it is usually given him by
      Aurelius Victor.]

      2 (return) [ See Dacier on the sixth satire of the second book of
      Horace Cornel. Nepos, ’n Vit. Eumen. c. l.]

      3 (return) [ Lactantius (or whoever was the author of the little
      treatise De Mortibus Persecutorum) accuses Diocletian of timidity
      in two places, c. 7. 8. In chap. 9 he says of him, “erat in omni
      tumultu meticulosu et animi disjectus.”]

      The victory of Diocletian was remarkable for its singular
      mildness. A people accustomed to applaud the clemency of the
      conqueror, if the usual punishments of death, exile, and
      confiscation, were inflicted with any degree of temper and
      equity, beheld, with the most pleasing astonishment, a civil war,
      the flames of which were extinguished in the field of battle.
      Diocletian received into his confidence Aristobulus, the
      principal minister of the house of Carus, respected the lives,
      the fortunes, and the dignity, of his adversaries, and even
      continued in their respective stations the greater number of the
      servants of Carinus. 4 It is not improbable that motives of
      prudence might assist the humanity of the artful Dalmatian; of
      these servants, many had purchased his favor by secret treachery;
      in others, he esteemed their grateful fidelity to an unfortunate
      master. The discerning judgment of Aurelian, of Probus, and of
      Carus, had filled the several departments of the state and army
      with officers of approved merit, whose removal would have injured
      the public service, without promoting the interest of his
      successor. Such a conduct, however, displayed to the Roman world
      the fairest prospect of the new reign, and the emperor affected
      to confirm this favorable prepossession, by declaring, that,
      among all the virtues of his predecessors, he was the most
      ambitious of imitating the humane philosophy of Marcus Antoninus.
      5

      4 (return) [ In this encomium, Aurelius Victor seems to convey a
      just, though indirect, censure of the cruelty of Constantius. It
      appears from the Fasti, that Aristobulus remained præfect of the
      city, and that he ended with Diocletian the consulship which he
      had commenced with Carinus.]

      5 (return) [ Aurelius Victor styles Diocletian, “Parentum potius
      quam Dominum.” See Hist. August. p. 30.]

      The first considerable action of his reign seemed to evince his
      sincerity as well as his moderation. After the example of Marcus,
      he gave himself a colleague in the person of Maximian, on whom he
      bestowed at first the title of Cæsar, and afterwards that of
      Augustus. 6 But the motives of his conduct, as well as the object
      of his choice, were of a very different nature from those of his
      admired predecessor. By investing a luxurious youth with the
      honors of the purple, Marcus had discharged a debt of private
      gratitude, at the expense, indeed, of the happiness of the state.
      By associating a friend and a fellow-soldier to the labors of
      government, Diocletian, in a time of public danger, provided for
      the defence both of the East and of the West. Maximian was born a
      peasant, and, like Aurelian, in the territory of Sirmium.
      Ignorant of letters, 7 careless of laws, the rusticity of his
      appearance and manners still betrayed in the most elevated
      fortune the meanness of his extraction. War was the only art
      which he professed. In a long course of service he had
      distinguished himself on every frontier of the empire; and though
      his military talents were formed to obey rather than to command,
      though, perhaps, he never attained the skill of a consummate
      general, he was capable, by his valor, constancy, and experience,
      of executing the most arduous undertakings. Nor were the vices of
      Maximian less useful to his benefactor. Insensible to pity, and
      fearless of consequences, he was the ready instrument of every
      act of cruelty which the policy of that artful prince might at
      once suggest and disclaim. As soon as a bloody sacrifice had been
      offered to prudence or to revenge, Diocletian, by his seasonable
      intercession, saved the remaining few whom he had never designed
      to punish, gently censured the severity of his stern colleague,
      and enjoyed the comparison of a golden and an iron age, which was
      universally applied to their opposite maxims of government.
      Notwithstanding the difference of their characters, the two
      emperors maintained, on the throne, that friendship which they
      had contracted in a private station. The haughty, turbulent
      spirit of Maximian, so fatal, afterwards, to himself and to the
      public peace, was accustomed to respect the genius of Diocletian,
      and confessed the ascendant of reason over brutal violence. 8
      From a motive either of pride or superstition, the two emperors
      assumed the titles, the one of Jovius, the other of Herculius.
      Whilst the motion of the world (such was the language of their
      venal orators) was maintained by the all-seeing wisdom of
      Jupiter, the invincible arm of Hercules purged the earth from
      monsters and tyrants. 9

      6 (return) [ The question of the time when Maximian received the
      honors of Cæsar and Augustus has divided modern critics, and
      given occasion to a great deal of learned wrangling. I have
      followed M. de Tillemont, (Histoire des Empereurs, tom. iv. p.
      500-505,) who has weighed the several reasons and difficulties
      with his scrupulous accuracy. * Note: Eckbel concurs in this
      view, viii p. 15.—M.]

      7 (return) [ In an oration delivered before him, (Panegyr. Vet.
      ii. 8,) Mamertinus expresses a doubt, whether his hero, in
      imitating the conduct of Hannibal and Scipio, had ever heard of
      their names. From thence we may fairly infer, that Maximian was
      more desirous of being considered as a soldier than as a man of
      letters; and it is in this manner that we can often translate the
      language of flattery into that of truth.]

      8 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 8. Aurelius Victor. As among
      the Panegyrics, we find orations pronounced in praise of
      Maximian, and others which flatter his adversaries at his
      expense, we derive some knowledge from the contrast.]

      9 (return) [ See the second and third Panegyrics, particularly
      iii. 3, 10, 14 but it would be tedious to copy the diffuse and
      affected expressions of their false eloquence. With regard to the
      titles, consult Aurel. Victor Lactantius de M. P. c. 52. Spanheim
      de Usu Numismatum, &c. xii 8.]

      But even the omnipotence of Jovius and Herculius was insufficient
      to sustain the weight of the public administration. The prudence
      of Diocletian discovered that the empire, assailed on every side
      by the barbarians, required on every side the presence of a great
      army, and of an emperor. With this view, he resolved once more to
      divide his unwieldy power, and with the inferior title of
      _Cæsars_, 901 to confer on two generals of approved merit an
      unequal share of the sovereign authority. 10 Galerius, surnamed
      Armentarius, from his original profession of a herdsman, and
      Constantius, who from his pale complexion had acquired the
      denomination of Chlorus, 11 were the two persons invested with
      the second honors of the Imperial purple. In describing the
      country, extraction, and manners of Herculius, we have already
      delineated those of Galerius, who was often, and not improperly,
      styled the younger Maximian, though, in many instances both of
      virtue and ability, he appears to have possessed a manifest
      superiority over the elder. The birth of Constantius was less
      obscure than that of his colleagues. Eutropius, his father, was
      one of the most considerable nobles of Dardania, and his mother
      was the niece of the emperor Claudius. 12 Although the youth of
      Constantius had been spent in arms, he was endowed with a mild
      and amiable disposition, and the popular voice had long since
      acknowledged him worthy of the rank which he at last attained. To
      strengthen the bonds of political, by those of domestic, union,
      each of the emperors assumed the character of a father to one of
      the Cæsars, Diocletian to Galerius, and Maximian to Constantius;
      and each, obliging them to repudiate their former wives, bestowed
      his daughter in marriage or his adopted son. 13 These four
      princes distributed among themselves the wide extent of the Roman
      empire. The defence of Gaul, Spain, 14 and Britain, was intrusted
      to Constantius: Galerius was stationed on the banks of the
      Danube, as the safeguard of the Illyrian provinces. Italy and
      Africa were considered as the department of Maximian; and for his
      peculiar portion, Diocletian reserved Thrace, Egypt, and the rich
      countries of Asia. Every one was sovereign with his own
      jurisdiction; but their united authority extended over the whole
      monarchy, and each of them was prepared to assist his colleagues
      with his counsels or presence. The Cæsars, in their exalted rank,
      revered the majesty of the emperors, and the three younger
      princes invariably acknowledged, by their gratitude and
      obedience, the common parent of their fortunes. The suspicious
      jealousy of power found not any place among them; and the
      singular happiness of their union has been compared to a chorus
      of music, whose harmony was regulated and maintained by the
      skilful hand of the first artist. 15

      901 (return) [ On the relative power of the Augusti and the
      Cæsars, consult a dissertation at the end of Manso’s Leben
      Constantius des Grossen—M.]

      10 (return) [ Aurelius Victor. Victor in Epitome. Eutrop. ix. 22.
      Lactant de M. P. c. 8. Hieronym. in Chron.]

      11 (return) [ It is only among the modern Greeks that Tillemont
      can discover his appellation of Chlorus. Any remarkable degree of
      paleness seems inconsistent with the rubor mentioned in
      Panegyric, v. 19.]

      12 (return) [ Julian, the grandson of Constantius, boasts that
      his family was derived from the warlike Mæsians. Misopogon, p.
      348. The Dardanians dwelt on the edge of Mæsia.]

      13 (return) [ Galerius married Valeria, the daughter of
      Diocletian; if we speak with strictness, Theodora, the wife of
      Constantius, was daughter only to the wife of Maximian. Spanheim,
      Dissertat, xi. 2.]

      14 (return) [ This division agrees with that of the four
      præfectures; yet there is some reason to doubt whether Spain was
      not a province of Maximian. See Tillemont, tom. iv. p. 517. *
      Note: According to Aurelius Victor and other authorities, Thrace
      belonged to the division of Galerius. See Tillemont, iv. 36. But
      the laws of Diocletian are in general dated in Illyria or
      Thrace.—M.]

      15 (return) [ Julian in Cæsarib. p. 315. Spanheim’s notes to the
      French translation, p. 122.]

      This important measure was not carried into execution till about
      six years after the association of Maximian, and that interval of
      time had not been destitute of memorable incidents. But we have
      preferred, for the sake of perspicuity, first to describe the
      more perfect form of Diocletian’s government, and afterwards to
      relate the actions of his reign, following rather the natural
      order of the events, than the dates of a very doubtful
      chronology.

      The first exploit of Maximian, though it is mentioned in a few
      words by our imperfect writers, deserves, from its singularity,
      to be recorded in a history of human manners. He suppressed the
      peasants of Gaul, who, under the appellation of Bagaudæ, 16 had
      risen in a general insurrection; very similar to those which in
      the fourteenth century successively afflicted both France and
      England. 17 It should seem that very many of those institutions,
      referred by an easy solution to the feudal system, are derived
      from the Celtic barbarians. When Cæsar subdued the Gauls, that
      great nation was already divided into three orders of men; the
      clergy, the nobility, and the common people. The first governed
      by superstition, the second by arms, but the third and last was
      not of any weight or account in their public councils. It was
      very natural for the plebeians, oppressed by debt, or
      apprehensive of injuries, to implore the protection of some
      powerful chief, who acquired over their persons and property the
      same absolute right as, among the Greeks and Romans, a master
      exercised over his slaves. 18 The greatest part of the nation was
      gradually reduced into a state of servitude; compelled to
      perpetual labor on the estates of the Gallic nobles, and confined
      to the soil, either by the real weight of fetters, or by the no
      less cruel and forcible restraints of the laws. During the long
      series of troubles which agitated Gaul, from the reign of
      Gallienus to that of Diocletian, the condition of these servile
      peasants was peculiarly miserable; and they experienced at once
      the complicated tyranny of their masters, of the barbarians, of
      the soldiers, and of the officers of the revenue. 19

      16 (return) [ The general name of Bagaudæ (in the signification
      of rebels) continued till the fifth century in Gaul. Some critics
      derive it from a Celtic word Bagad, a tumultuous assembly.
      Scaliger ad Euseb. Du Cange Glossar. (Compare S. Turner,
      Anglo-Sax. History, i. 214.—M.)]

      17 (return) [ Chronique de Froissart, vol. i. c. 182, ii. 73, 79.
      The naivete of his story is lost in our best modern writers.]

      18 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gallic. vi. 13. Orgetorix, the
      Helvetian, could arm for his defence a body of ten thousand
      slaves.]

      19 (return) [ Their oppression and misery are acknowledged by
      Eumenius (Panegyr. vi. 8,) Gallias efferatas injuriis.]

      Their patience was at last provoked into despair. On every side
      they rose in multitudes, armed with rustic weapons, and with
      irresistible fury. The ploughman became a foot soldier, the
      shepherd mounted on horseback, the deserted villages and open
      towns were abandoned to the flames, and the ravages of the
      peasants equalled those of the fiercest barbarians. 20 They
      asserted the natural rights of men, but they asserted those
      rights with the most savage cruelty. The Gallic nobles, justly
      dreading their revenge, either took refuge in the fortified
      cities, or fled from the wild scene of anarchy. The peasants
      reigned without control; and two of their most daring leaders had
      the folly and rashness to assume the Imperial ornaments. 21 Their
      power soon expired at the approach of the legions. The strength
      of union and discipline obtained an easy victory over a
      licentious and divided multitude. 22 A severe retaliation was
      inflicted on the peasants who were found in arms; the affrighted
      remnant returned to their respective habitations, and their
      unsuccessful effort for freedom served only to confirm their
      slavery. So strong and uniform is the current of popular
      passions, that we might almost venture, from very scanty
      materials, to relate the particulars of this war; but we are not
      disposed to believe that the principal leaders, Ælianus and
      Amandus, were Christians, 23 or to insinuate, that the rebellion,
      as it happened in the time of Luther, was occasioned by the abuse
      of those benevolent principles of Christianity, which inculcate
      the natural freedom of mankind.

      20 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. ii. 4. Aurelius Victor.]

      21 (return) [ Ælianus and Amandus. We have medals coined by them
      Goltzius in Thes. R. A. p. 117, 121.]

      22 (return) [ Levibus proeliis domuit. Eutrop. ix. 20.]

      23 (return) [ The fact rests indeed on very slight authority, a
      life of St. Babolinus, which is probably of the seventh century.
      See Duchesne Scriptores Rer. Francicar. tom. i. p. 662.]

      Maximian had no sooner recovered Gaul from the hands of the
      peasants, than he lost Britain by the usurpation of Carausius.
      Ever since the rash but successful enterprise of the Franks under
      the reign of Probus, their daring countrymen had constructed
      squadrons of light brigantines, in which they incessantly ravaged
      the provinces adjacent to the ocean. 24 To repel their desultory
      incursions, it was found necessary to create a naval power; and
      the judicious measure was prosecuted with prudence and vigor.
      Gessoriacum, or Boulogne, in the straits of the British Channel,
      was chosen by the emperor for the station of the Roman fleet; and
      the command of it was intrusted to Carausius, a Menapian of the
      meanest origin, 25 but who had long signalized his skill as a
      pilot, and his valor as a soldier. The integrity of the new
      admiral corresponded not with his abilities. When the German
      pirates sailed from their own harbors, he connived at their
      passage, but he diligently intercepted their return, and
      appropriated to his own use an ample share of the spoil which
      they had acquired. The wealth of Carausius was, on this occasion,
      very justly considered as an evidence of his guilt; and Maximian
      had already given orders for his death. But the crafty Menapian
      foresaw and prevented the severity of the emperor. By his
      liberality he had attached to his fortunes the fleet which he
      commanded, and secured the barbarians in his interest. From the
      port of Boulogne he sailed over to Britain, persuaded the legion,
      and the auxiliaries which guarded that island, to embrace his
      party, and boldly assuming, with the Imperial purple, the title
      of Augustus, defied the justice and the arms of his injured
      sovereign. 26

      24 (return) [ Aurelius Victor calls them Germans. Eutropius (ix.
      21) gives them the name of Saxons. But Eutropius lived in the
      ensuing century, and seems to use the language of his own times.]

      25 (return) [ The three expressions of Eutropius, Aurelius
      Victor, and Eumenius, “vilissime natus,” “Bataviæ alumnus,” and
      “Menapiæ civis,” give us a very doubtful account of the birth of
      Carausius. Dr. Stukely, however, (Hist. of Carausius, p. 62,)
      chooses to make him a native of St. David’s and a prince of the
      blood royal of Britain. The former idea he had found in Richard
      of Cirencester, p. 44. * Note: The Menapians were settled between
      the Scheldt and the Meuse, is the northern part of Brabant.
      D’Anville, Geogr. Anc. i. 93.—G.]

      26 (return) [ Panegyr. v. 12. Britain at this time was secure,
      and slightly guarded.]

      When Britain was thus dismembered from the empire, its importance
      was sensibly felt, and its loss sincerely lamented. The Romans
      celebrated, and perhaps magnified, the extent of that noble
      island, provided on every side with convenient harbors; the
      temperature of the climate, and the fertility of the soil, alike
      adapted for the production of corn or of vines; the valuable
      minerals with which it abounded; its rich pastures covered with
      innumerable flocks, and its woods free from wild beasts or
      venomous serpents. Above all, they regretted the large amount of
      the revenue of Britain, whilst they confessed, that such a
      province well deserved to become the seat of an independent
      monarchy. 27 During the space of seven years it was possessed by
      Carausius; and fortune continued propitious to a rebellion
      supported with courage and ability. The British emperor defended
      the frontiers of his dominions against the Caledonians of the
      North, invited, from the continent, a great number of skilful
      artists, and displayed, on a variety of coins that are still
      extant, his taste and opulence. Born on the confines of the
      Franks, he courted the friendship of that formidable people, by
      the flattering imitation of their dress and manners. The bravest
      of their youth he enlisted among his land or sea forces; and, in
      return for their useful alliance, he communicated to the
      barbarians the dangerous knowledge of military and naval arts.
      Carausius still preserved the possession of Boulogne and the
      adjacent country. His fleets rode triumphant in the channel,
      commanded the mouths of the Seine and of the Rhine, ravaged the
      coasts of the ocean, and diffused beyond the columns of Hercules
      the terror of his name. Under his command, Britain, destined in a
      future age to obtain the empire of the sea, already assumed its
      natural and respectable station of a maritime power. 28

      27 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet v 11, vii. 9. The orator Eumenius
      wished to exalt the glory of the hero (Constantius) with the
      importance of the conquest. Notwithstanding our laudable
      partiality for our native country, it is difficult to conceive,
      that, in the beginning of the fourth century England deserved all
      these commendations. A century and a half before, it hardly paid
      its own establishment.]

      28 (return) [ As a great number of medals of Carausius are still
      preserved, he is become a very favorite object of antiquarian
      curiosity, and every circumstance of his life and actions has
      been investigated with sagacious accuracy. Dr. Stukely, in
      particular, has devoted a large volume to the British emperor. I
      have used his materials, and rejected most of his fanciful
      conjectures.]

      By seizing the fleet of Boulogne, Carausius had deprived his
      master of the means of pursuit and revenge. And when, after a
      vast expense of time and labor, a new armament was launched into
      the water, 29 the Imperial troops, unaccustomed to that element,
      were easily baffled and defeated by the veteran sailors of the
      usurper. This disappointed effort was soon productive of a treaty
      of peace. Diocletian and his colleague, who justly dreaded the
      enterprising spirit of Carausius, resigned to him the sovereignty
      of Britain, and reluctantly admitted their perfidious servant to
      a participation of the Imperial honors. 30 But the adoption of
      the two Cæsars restored new vigor to the Romans arms; and while
      the Rhine was guarded by the presence of Maximian, his brave
      associate Constantius assumed the conduct of the British war. His
      first enterprise was against the important place of Boulogne. A
      stupendous mole, raised across the entrance of the harbor,
      intercepted all hopes of relief. The town surrendered after an
      obstinate defence; and a considerable part of the naval strength
      of Carausius fell into the hands of the besiegers. During the
      three years which Constantius employed in preparing a fleet
      adequate to the conquest of Britain, he secured the coast of
      Gaul, invaded the country of the Franks, and deprived the usurper
      of the assistance of those powerful allies.

      29 (return) [ When Mamertinus pronounced his first panegyric, the
      naval preparations of Maximian were completed; and the orator
      presaged an assured victory. His silence in the second panegyric
      might alone inform us that the expedition had not succeeded.]

      30 (return) [ Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, and the medals, (Pax
      Augg.) inform us of this temporary reconciliation; though I will
      not presume (as Dr. Stukely has done, Medallic History of
      Carausius, p. 86, &c) to insert the identical articles of the
      treaty.]

      Before the preparations were finished, Constantius received the
      intelligence of the tyrant’s death, and it was considered as a
      sure presage of the approaching victory. The servants of
      Carausius imitated the example of treason which he had given. He
      was murdered by his first minister, Allectus, and the assassin
      succeeded to his power and to his danger. But he possessed not
      equal abilities either to exercise the one or to repel the other.

      He beheld, with anxious terror, the opposite shores of the
      continent already filled with arms, with troops, and with
      vessels; for Constantius had very prudently divided his forces,
      that he might likewise divide the attention and resistance of the
      enemy. The attack was at length made by the principal squadron,
      which, under the command of the præfect Asclepiodatus, an officer
      of distinguished merit, had been assembled in the north of the
      Seine. So imperfect in those times was the art of navigation,
      that orators have celebrated the daring courage of the Romans,
      who ventured to set sail with a side-wind, and on a stormy day.
      The weather proved favorable to their enterprise. Under the cover
      of a thick fog, they escaped the fleet of Allectus, which had
      been stationed off the Isle of Wight to receive them, landed in
      safety on some part of the western coast, and convinced the
      Britons, that a superiority of naval strength will not always
      protect their country from a foreign invasion. Asclepiodatus had
      no sooner disembarked the imperial troops, then he set fire to
      his ships; and, as the expedition proved fortunate, his heroic
      conduct was universally admired. The usurper had posted himself
      near London, to expect the formidable attack of Constantius, who
      commanded in person the fleet of Boulogne; but the descent of a
      new enemy required his immediate presence in the West. He
      performed this long march in so precipitate a manner, that he
      encountered the whole force of the præfect with a small body of
      harassed and disheartened troops. The engagement was soon
      terminated by the total defeat and death of Allectus; a single
      battle, as it has often happened, decided the fate of this great
      island; and when Constantius landed on the shores of Kent, he
      found them covered with obedient subjects. Their acclamations
      were loud and unanimous; and the virtues of the conqueror may
      induce us to believe, that they sincerely rejoiced in a
      revolution, which, after a separation of ten years, restored
      Britain to the body of the Roman empire. 31

      31 (return) [ With regard to the recovery of Britain, we obtain a
      few hints from Aurelius Victor and Eutropius.]




      Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates.—Part
      II.

      Britain had none but domestic enemies to dread; and as long as
      the governors preserved their fidelity, and the troops their
      discipline, the incursions of the naked savages of Scotland or
      Ireland could never materially affect the safety of the province.

      The peace of the continent, and the defence of the principal
      rivers which bounded the empire, were objects of far greater
      difficulty and importance. The policy of Diocletian, which
      inspired the councils of his associates, provided for the public
      tranquility, by encouraging a spirit of dissension among the
      barbarians, and by strengthening the fortifications of the Roman
      limit. In the East he fixed a line of camps from Egypt to the
      Persian dominions, and for every camp, he instituted an adequate
      number of stationary troops, commanded by their respective
      officers, and supplied with every kind of arms, from the new
      arsenals which he had formed at Antioch, Emesa, and Damascus. 32
      Nor was the precaution of the emperor less watchful against the
      well-known valor of the barbarians of Europe. From the mouth of
      the Rhine to that of the Danube, the ancient camps, towns, and
      citidels, were diligently reëstablished, and, in the most exposed
      places, new ones were skilfully constructed: the strictest
      vigilance was introduced among the garrisons of the frontier, and
      every expedient was practised that could render the long chain of
      fortifications firm and impenetrable. 33 A barrier so respectable
      was seldom violated, and the barbarians often turned against each
      other their disappointed rage. The Goths, the Vandals, the
      Gepidæ, the Burgundians, the Alemanni, wasted each other’s
      strength by destructive hostilities: and whosoever vanquished,
      they vanquished the enemies of Rome. The subjects of Diocletian
      enjoyed the bloody spectacle, and congratulated each other, that
      the mischiefs of civil war were now experienced only by the
      barbarians. 34

      32 (return) [ John Malala, in Chron, Antiochen. tom. i. p. 408,
      409.]

      33 (return) [ Zosim. l. i. p. 3. That partial historian seems to
      celebrate the vigilance of Diocletian with a design of exposing
      the negligence of Constantine; we may, however, listen to an
      orator: “Nam quid ego alarum et cohortium castra percenseam, toto
      Rheni et Istri et Euphraus limite restituta.” Panegyr. Vet. iv.
      18.]

      34 (return) [ Ruunt omnes in sanguinem suum populi, quibus ron
      contigilesse Romanis, obstinatæque feritatis poenas nunc sponte
      persolvunt. Panegyr. Vet. iii. 16. Mamertinus illustrates the
      fact by the example of almost all the nations in the world.]

      Notwithstanding the policy of Diocletian, it was impossible to
      maintain an equal and undisturbed tranquillity during a reign of
      twenty years, and along a frontier of many hundred miles.
      Sometimes the barbarians suspended their domestic animosities,
      and the relaxed vigilance of the garrisons sometimes gave a
      passage to their strength or dexterity. Whenever the provinces
      were invaded, Diocletian conducted himself with that calm dignity
      which he always affected or possessed; reserved his presence for
      such occasions as were worthy of his interposition, never exposed
      his person or reputation to any unnecessary danger, insured his
      success by every means that prudence could suggest, and
      displayed, with ostentation, the consequences of his victory. In
      wars of a more difficult nature, and more doubtful event, he
      employed the rough valor of Maximian; and that faithful soldier
      was content to ascribe his own victories to the wise counsels and
      auspicious influence of his benefactor. But after the adoption of
      the two Cæsars, the emperors themselves, retiring to a less
      laborious scene of action, devolved on their adopted sons the
      defence of the Danube and of the Rhine. The vigilant Galerius was
      never reduced to the necessity of vanquishing an army of
      barbarians on the Roman territory. 35 The brave and active
      Constantius delivered Gaul from a very furious inroad of the
      Alemanni; and his victories of Langres and Vindonissa appear to
      have been actions of considerable danger and merit. As he
      traversed the open country with a feeble guard, he was
      encompassed on a sudden by the superior multitude of the enemy.
      He retreated with difficulty towards Langres; but, in the general
      consternation, the citizens refused to open their gates, and the
      wounded prince was drawn up the wall by the means of a rope. But,
      on the news of his distress, the Roman troops hastened from all
      sides to his relief, and before the evening he had satisfied his
      honor and revenge by the slaughter of six thousand Alemanni. 36
      From the monuments of those times, the obscure traces of several
      other victories over the barbarians of Sarmatia and Germany might
      possibly be collected; but the tedious search would not be
      rewarded either with amusement or with instruction.

      35 (return) [ He complained, though not with the strictest truth,
      “Jam fluxisse annos quindecim in quibus, in Illyrico, ad ripam
      Danubii relegatus cum gentibus barbaris luctaret.” Lactant. de M.
      P. c. 18.]

      36 (return) [ In the Greek text of Eusebius, we read six
      thousand, a number which I have preferred to the sixty thousand
      of Jerome, Orosius Eutropius, and his Greek translator Pæanius.]

      The conduct which the emperor Probus had adopted in the disposal
      of the vanquished was imitated by Diocletian and his associates.
      The captive barbarians, exchanging death for slavery, were
      distributed among the provincials, and assigned to those
      districts (in Gaul, the territories of Amiens, Beauvais, Cambray,
      Treves, Langres, and Troyes, are particularly specified) 37 which
      had been depopulated by the calamities of war. They were usefully
      employed as shepherds and husbandmen, but were denied the
      exercise of arms, except when it was found expedient to enroll
      them in the military service. Nor did the emperors refuse the
      property of lands, with a less servile tenure, to such of the
      barbarians as solicited the protection of Rome. They granted a
      settlement to several colonies of the Carpi, the Bastarnæ, and
      the Sarmatians; and, by a dangerous indulgence, permitted them in
      some measure to retain their national manners and independence.
      38 Among the provincials, it was a subject of flattering
      exultation, that the barbarian, so lately an object of terror,
      now cultivated their lands, drove their cattle to the neighboring
      fair, and contributed by his labor to the public plenty. They
      congratulated their masters on the powerful accession of subjects
      and soldiers; but they forgot to observe, that multitudes of
      secret enemies, insolent from favor, or desperate from
      oppression, were introduced into the heart of the empire. 39

      37 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. vii. 21.]

      38 (return) [ There was a settlement of the Sarmatians in the
      neighborhood of Treves, which seems to have been deserted by
      those lazy barbarians. Ausonius speaks of them in his Mosella:——
      “Unde iter ingrediens nemorosa per avia solum, Et nulla humani
      spectans vestigia cultus; ........ Arvaque Sauromatum nuper
      metata colonis.”]

      39 (return) [ There was a town of the Carpi in the Lower Mæsia.
      See the rhetorical exultation of Eumenius.]

      While the Cæsars exercised their valor on the banks of the Rhine
      and Danube, the presence of the emperors was required on the
      southern confines of the Roman world. From the Nile to Mount
      Atlas, Africa was in arms. A confederacy of five Moorish nations
      issued from their deserts to invade the peaceful provinces. 40
      Julian had assumed the purple at Carthage. 41 Achilleus at
      Alexandria, and even the Blemmyes, renewed, or rather continued,
      their incursions into the Upper Egypt. Scarcely any circumstances
      have been preserved of the exploits of Maximian in the western
      parts of Africa; but it appears, by the event, that the progress
      of his arms was rapid and decisive, that he vanquished the
      fiercest barbarians of Mauritania, and that he removed them from
      the mountains, whose inaccessible strength had inspired their
      inhabitants with a lawless confidence, and habituated them to a
      life of rapine and violence. 42 Diocletian, on his side, opened
      the campaign in Egypt by the siege of Alexandria, cut off the
      aqueducts which conveyed the waters of the Nile into every
      quarter of that immense city, 43 and rendering his camp
      impregnable to the sallies of the besieged multitude, he pushed
      his reiterated attacks with caution and vigor. After a siege of
      eight months, Alexandria, wasted by the sword and by fire,
      implored the clemency of the conqueror, but it experienced the
      full extent of his severity. Many thousands of the citizens
      perished in a promiscuous slaughter, and there were few obnoxious
      persons in Egypt who escaped a sentence either of death or at
      least of exile. 44 The fate of Busiris and of Coptos was still
      more melancholy than that of Alexandria: those proud cities, the
      former distinguished by its antiquity, the latter enriched by the
      passage of the Indian trade, were utterly destroyed by the arms
      and by the severe order of Diocletian. 45 The character of the
      Egyptian nation, insensible to kindness, but extremely
      susceptible of fear, could alone justify this excessive rigor.
      The seditions of Alexandria had often affected the tranquillity
      and subsistence of Rome itself. Since the usurpation of Firmus,
      the province of Upper Egypt, incessantly relapsing into
      rebellion, had embraced the alliance of the savages of Æthiopia.
      The number of the Blemmyes, scattered between the Island of Meroe
      and the Red Sea, was very inconsiderable, their disposition was
      unwarlike, their weapons rude and inoffensive. 46 Yet in the
      public disorders, these barbarians, whom antiquity, shocked with
      the deformity of their figure, had almost excluded from the human
      species, presumed to rank themselves among the enemies of Rome.
      47 Such had been the unworthy allies of the Egyptians; and while
      the attention of the state was engaged in more serious wars,
      their vexations inroads might again harass the repose of the
      province. With a view of opposing to the Blemmyes a suitable
      adversary, Diocletian persuaded the Nobatæ, or people of Nubia,
      to remove from their ancient habitations in the deserts of Libya,
      and resigned to them an extensive but unprofitable territory
      above Syene and the cataracts of the Nile, with the stipulation,
      that they should ever respect and guard the frontier of the
      empire. The treaty long subsisted; and till the establishment of
      Christianity introduced stricter notions of religious worship, it
      was annually ratified by a solemn sacrifice in the isle of
      Elephantine, in which the Romans, as well as the barbarians,
      adored the same visible or invisible powers of the universe. 48

      40 (return) [ Scaliger (Animadvers. ad Euseb. p. 243) decides, in
      his usual manner, that the Quinque gentiani, or five African
      nations, were the five great cities, the Pentapolis of the
      inoffensive province of Cyrene.]

      41 (return) [ After his defeat, Julian stabbed himself with a
      dagger, and immediately leaped into the flames. Victor in
      Epitome.]

      42 (return) [ Tu ferocissimos Mauritaniæ populos inaccessis
      montium jugis et naturali munitione fidentes, expugnasti,
      recepisti, transtulisti. Panegyr Vet. vi. 8.]

      43 (return) [ See the description of Alexandria, in Hirtius de
      Bel. Alexandrin c. 5.]

      44 (return) [ Eutrop. ix. 24. Orosius, vii. 25. John Malala in
      Chron. Antioch. p. 409, 410. Yet Eumenius assures us, that Egypt
      was pacified by the clemency of Diocletian.]

      45 (return) [ Eusebius (in Chron.) places their destruction
      several years sooner and at a time when Egypt itself was in a
      state of rebellion against the Romans.]

      46 (return) [ Strabo, l. xvii. p. 172. Pomponius Mela, l. i. c.
      4. His words are curious: “Intra, si credere libet vix, homines
      magisque semiferi Ægipanes, et Blemmyes, et Satyri.”]

      47 (return) [ Ausus sese inserere fortunæ et provocare arma
      Romana.]

      48 (return) [ See Procopius de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19. Note:
      Compare, on the epoch of the final extirpation of the rites of
      Paganism from the Isle of Philæ, (Elephantine,) which subsisted
      till the edict of Theodosius, in the sixth century, a
      dissertation of M. Letronne, on certain Greek inscriptions. The
      dissertation contains some very interesting observations on the
      conduct and policy of Diocletian in Egypt. Mater pour l’Hist. du
      Christianisme en Egypte, Nubie et Abyssinie, Paris 1817—M.]

      At the same time that Diocletian chastised the past crimes of the
      Egyptians, he provided for their future safety and happiness by
      many wise regulations, which were confirmed and enforced under
      the succeeding reigns. 49 One very remarkable edict which he
      published, instead of being condemned as the effect of jealous
      tyranny, deserves to be applauded as an act of prudence and
      humanity. He caused a diligent inquiry to be made “for all the
      ancient books which treated of the admirable art of making gold
      and silver, and without pity, committed them to the flames;
      apprehensive, as we are assumed, lest the opulence of the
      Egyptians should inspire them with confidence to rebel against
      the empire.” 50 But if Diocletian had been convinced of the
      reality of that valuable art, far from extinguishing the memory,
      he would have converted the operation of it to the benefit of the
      public revenue. It is much more likely, that his good sense
      discovered to him the folly of such magnificent pretensions, and
      that he was desirous of preserving the reason and fortunes of his
      subjects from the mischievous pursuit. It may be remarked, that
      these ancient books, so liberally ascribed to Pythagoras, to
      Solomon, or to Hermes, were the pious frauds of more recent
      adepts. The Greeks were inattentive either to the use or to the
      abuse of chemistry. In that immense register, where Pliny has
      deposited the discoveries, the arts, and the errors of mankind,
      there is not the least mention of the transmutation of metals;
      and the persecution of Diocletian is the first authentic event in
      the history of alchemy. The conquest of Egypt by the Arabs
      diffused that vain science over the globe. Congenial to the
      avarice of the human heart, it was studied in China as in Europe,
      with equal eagerness, and with equal success. The darkness of the
      middle ages insured a favorable reception to every tale of
      wonder, and the revival of learning gave new vigor to hope, and
      suggested more specious arts of deception. Philosophy, with the
      aid of experience, has at length banished the study of alchemy;
      and the present age, however desirous of riches, is content to
      seek them by the humbler means of commerce and industry. 51

      49 (return) [ He fixed the public allowance of corn, for the
      people of Alexandria, at two millions of medimni; about four
      hundred thousand quarters. Chron. Paschal. p. 276 Procop. Hist.
      Arcan. c. 26.]

      50 (return) [ John Antioch, in Excerp. Valesian. p. 834. Suidas
      in Diocletian.]

      51 (return) [ See a short history and confutation of Alchemy, in
      the works of that philosophical compiler, La Mothe le Vayer, tom.
      i. p. 32—353.]

      The reduction of Egypt was immediately followed by the Persian
      war. It was reserved for the reign of Diocletian to vanquish that
      powerful nation, and to extort a confession from the successors
      of Artaxerxes, of the superior majesty of the Roman empire.

      We have observed, under the reign of Valerian, that Armenia was
      subdued by the perfidy and the arms of the Persians, and that,
      after the assassination of Chosroes, his son Tiridates, the
      infant heir of the monarchy, was saved by the fidelity of his
      friends, and educated under the protection of the emperors.
      Tiridates derived from his exile such advantages as he could
      never have obtained on the throne of Armenia; the early knowledge
      of adversity, of mankind, and of the Roman discipline. He
      signalized his youth by deeds of valor, and displayed a matchless
      dexterity, as well as strength, in every martial exercise, and
      even in the less honorable contests of the Olympian games. 52
      Those qualities were more nobly exerted in the defence of his
      benefactor Licinius. 53 That officer, in the sedition which
      occasioned the death of Probus, was exposed to the most imminent
      danger, and the enraged soldiers were forcing their way into his
      tent, when they were checked by the single arm of the Armenian
      prince. The gratitude of Tiridates contributed soon afterwards to
      his restoration. Licinius was in every station the friend and
      companion of Galerius, and the merit of Galerius, long before he
      was raised to the dignity of Cæsar, had been known and esteemed
      by Diocletian. In the third year of that emperor’s reign
      Tiridates was invested with the kingdom of Armenia. The justice
      of the measure was not less evident than its expediency. It was
      time to rescue from the usurpation of the Persian monarch an
      important territory, which, since the reign of Nero, had been
      always granted under the protection of the empire to a younger
      branch of the house of Arsaces. 54

      52 (return) [ See the education and strength of Tiridates in the
      Armenian history of Moses of Chorene, l. ii. c. 76. He could
      seize two wild bulls by the horns, and break them off with his
      hands.]

      53 (return) [ If we give credit to the younger Victor, who
      supposes that in the year 323 Licinius was only sixty years of
      age, he could scarcely be the same person as the patron of
      Tiridates; but we know from much better authority, (Euseb. Hist.
      Ecclesiast. l. x. c. 8,) that Licinius was at that time in the
      last period of old age: sixteen years before, he is represented
      with gray hairs, and as the contemporary of Galerius. See
      Lactant. c. 32. Licinius was probably born about the year 250.]

      54 (return) [ See the sixty-second and sixty-third books of Dion
      Cassius.]

      When Tiridates appeared on the frontiers of Armenia, he was
      received with an unfeigned transport of joy and loyalty. During
      twenty-six years, the country had experienced the real and
      imaginary hardships of a foreign yoke. The Persian monarchs
      adorned their new conquest with magnificent buildings; but those
      monuments had been erected at the expense of the people, and were
      abhorred as badges of slavery. The apprehension of a revolt had
      inspired the most rigorous precautions: oppression had been
      aggravated by insult, and the consciousness of the public hatred
      had been productive of every measure that could render it still
      more implacable. We have already remarked the intolerant spirit
      of the Magian religion. The statues of the deified kings of
      Armenia, and the sacred images of the sun and moon, were broke in
      pieces by the zeal of the conqueror; and the perpetual fire of
      Ormuzd was kindled and preserved upon an altar erected on the
      summit of Mount Bagavan. 55 It was natural, that a people
      exasperated by so many injuries, should arm with zeal in the
      cause of their independence, their religion, and their hereditary
      sovereign. The torrent bore down every obstacle, and the Persian
      garrisons retreated before its fury. The nobles of Armenia flew
      to the standard of Tiridates, all alleging their past merit,
      offering their future service, and soliciting from the new king
      those honors and rewards from which they had been excluded with
      disdain under the foreign government. 56 The command of the army
      was bestowed on Artavasdes, whose father had saved the infancy of
      Tiridates, and whose family had been massacred for that generous
      action. The brother of Artavasdes obtained the government of a
      province. One of the first military dignities was conferred on
      the satrap Otas, a man of singular temperance and fortitude, who
      presented to the king his sister 57 and a considerable treasure,
      both of which, in a sequestered fortress, Otas had preserved from
      violation. Among the Armenian nobles appeared an ally, whose
      fortunes are too remarkable to pass unnoticed. His name was
      Mamgo, 571 his origin was Scythian, and the horde which
      acknowledge his authority had encamped a very few years before on
      the skirts of the Chinese empire, 58 which at that time extended
      as far as the neighborhood of Sogdiana. 59 Having incurred the
      displeasure of his master, Mamgo, with his followers, retired to
      the banks of the Oxus, and implored the protection of Sapor. The
      emperor of China claimed the fugitive, and alleged the rights of
      sovereignty. The Persian monarch pleaded the laws of hospitality,
      and with some difficulty avoided a war, by the promise that he
      would banish Mamgo to the uttermost parts of the West, a
      punishment, as he described it, not less dreadful than death
      itself. Armenia was chosen for the place of exile, and a large
      district was assigned to the Scythian horde, on which they might
      feed their flocks and herds, and remove their encampment from one
      place to another, according to the different seasons of the year.

      They were employed to repel the invasion of Tiridates; but their
      leader, after weighing the obligations and injuries which he had
      received from the Persian monarch, resolved to abandon his party.

      The Armenian prince, who was well acquainted with the merit as
      well as power of Mamgo, treated him with distinguished respect;
      and, by admitting him into his confidence, acquired a brave and
      faithful servant, who contributed very effectually to his
      restoration. 60

      55 (return) [ Moses of Chorene. Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 74. The
      statues had been erected by Valarsaces, who reigned in Armenia
      about 130 years before Christ, and was the first king of the
      family of Arsaces, (see Moses, Hist. Armen. l. ii. 2, 3.) The
      deification of the Arsacides is mentioned by Justin, (xli. 5,)
      and by Ammianus Marcellinus, (xxiii. 6.)]

      56 (return) [ The Armenian nobility was numerous and powerful.
      Moses mentions many families which were distinguished under the
      reign of Valarsaces, (l. ii. 7,) and which still subsisted in his
      own time, about the middle of the fifth century. See the preface
      of his Editors.]

      57 (return) [ She was named Chosroiduchta, and had not the os
      patulum like other women. (Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 79.) I do not
      understand the expression. * Note: Os patulum signifies merely a
      large and widely opening mouth. Ovid (Metam. xv. 513) says,
      speaking of the monster who attacked Hippolytus, patulo partem
      maris evomit ore. Probably a wide mouth was a common defect among
      the Armenian women.—G.]

      571 (return) [ Mamgo (according to M. St. Martin, note to Le
      Beau. ii. 213) belonged to the imperial race of Hon, who had
      filled the throne of China for four hundred years. Dethroned by
      the usurping race of Wei, Mamgo found a hospitable reception in
      Persia in the reign of Ardeschir. The emperor of china having
      demanded the surrender of the fugitive and his partisans, Sapor,
      then king, threatened with war both by Rome and China, counselled
      Mamgo to retire into Armenia. “I have expelled him from my
      dominions, (he answered the Chinese ambassador;) I have banished
      him to the extremity of the earth, where the sun sets; I have
      dismissed him to certain death.” Compare Mem. sur l’Armenie, ii.
      25.—M.]

      58 (return) [ In the Armenian history, (l. ii. 78,) as well as in
      the Geography, (p. 367,) China is called Zenia, or Zenastan. It
      is characterized by the production of silk, by the opulence of
      the natives, and by their love of peace, above all the other
      nations of the earth. * Note: See St. Martin, Mem. sur l’Armenie,
      i. 304.]

      59 (return) [ Vou-ti, the first emperor of the seventh dynasty,
      who then reigned in China, had political transactions with
      Fergana, a province of Sogdiana, and is said to have received a
      Roman embassy, (Histoire des Huns, tom. i. p. 38.) In those ages
      the Chinese kept a garrison at Kashgar, and one of their
      generals, about the time of Trajan, marched as far as the Caspian
      Sea. With regard to the intercourse between China and the Western
      countries, a curious memoir of M. de Guignes may be consulted, in
      the Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxii. p. 355. * Note: The
      Chinese Annals mention, under the ninth year of Yan-hi, which
      corresponds with the year 166 J. C., an embassy which arrived
      from Tathsin, and was sent by a prince called An-thun, who can be
      no other than Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who then ruled over the
      Romans. St. Martin, Mem. sur l’Armænic. ii. 30. See also
      Klaproth, Tableaux Historiques de l’Asie, p. 69. The embassy came
      by Jy-nan, Tonquin.—M.]

      60 (return) [ See Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 81.]

      For a while, fortune appeared to favor the enterprising valor of
      Tiridates. He not only expelled the enemies of his family and
      country from the whole extent of Armenia, but in the prosecution
      of his revenge he carried his arms, or at least his incursions,
      into the heart of Assyria. The historian, who has preserved the
      name of Tiridates from oblivion, celebrates, with a degree of
      national enthusiasm, his personal prowess: and, in the true
      spirit of eastern romance, describes the giants and the elephants
      that fell beneath his invincible arm. It is from other
      information that we discover the distracted state of the Persian
      monarchy, to which the king of Armenia was indebted for some part
      of his advantages. The throne was disputed by the ambition of
      contending brothers; and Hormuz, after exerting without success
      the strength of his own party, had recourse to the dangerous
      assistance of the barbarians who inhabited the banks of the
      Caspian Sea. 61 The civil war was, however, soon terminated,
      either by a victor or by a reconciliation; and Narses, who was
      universally acknowledged as king of Persia, directed his whole
      force against the foreign enemy. The contest then became too
      unequal; nor was the valor of the hero able to withstand the
      power of the monarch. Tiridates, a second time expelled from the
      throne of Armenia, once more took refuge in the court of the
      emperors. 611 Narses soon reëstablished his authority over the
      revolted province; and loudly complaining of the protection
      afforded by the Romans to rebels and fugitives, aspired to the
      conquest of the East. 62

      61 (return) [ Ipsos Persas ipsumque Regem ascitis Saccis, et
      Russis, et Gellis, petit frater Ormies. Panegyric. Vet. iii. 1.
      The Saccæ were a nation of wandering Scythians, who encamped
      towards the sources of the Oxus and the Jaxartes. The Gelli where
      the inhabitants of Ghilan, along the Caspian Sea, and who so
      long, under the name of Dilemines, infested the Persian monarchy.
      See d’Herbelot, Bibliotheque]

      611 (return) [ M St. Martin represents this differently. Le roi
      de Perse * * * profits d’un voyage que Tiridate avoit fait a Rome
      pour attaquer ce royaume. This reads like the evasion of the
      national historians to disguise the fact discreditable to their
      hero. See Mem. sur l’Armenie, i. 304.—M.]

      62 (return) [ Moses of Chorene takes no notice of this second
      revolution, which I have been obliged to collect from a passage
      of Ammianus Marcellinus, (l. xxiii. c. 5.) Lactantius speaks of
      the ambition of Narses: “Concitatus domesticis exemplis avi sui
      Saporis ad occupandum orientem magnis copiis inhiabat.” De Mort.
      Persecut. c. 9.]

      Neither prudence nor honor could permit the emperors to forsake
      the cause of the Armenian king, and it was resolved to exert the
      force of the empire in the Persian war. Diocletian, with the calm
      dignity which he constantly assumed, fixed his own station in the
      city of Antioch, from whence he prepared and directed the
      military operations. 63 The conduct of the legions was intrusted
      to the intrepid valor of Galerius, who, for that important
      purpose, was removed from the banks of the Danube to those of the
      Euphrates. The armies soon encountered each other in the plains
      of Mesopotamia, and two battles were fought with various and
      doubtful success; but the third engagement was of a more decisive
      nature; and the Roman army received a total overthrow, which is
      attributed to the rashness of Galerius, who, with an
      inconsiderable body of troops, attacked the innumerable host of
      the Persians. 64 But the consideration of the country that was
      the scene of action, may suggest another reason for his defeat.
      The same ground on which Galerius was vanquished, had been
      rendered memorable by the death of Crassus, and the slaughter of
      ten legions. It was a plain of more than sixty miles, which
      extended from the hills of Carrhæ to the Euphrates; a smooth and
      barren surface of sandy desert, without a hillock, without a
      tree, and without a spring of fresh water. 65 The steady infantry
      of the Romans, fainting with heat and thirst, could neither hope
      for victory if they preserved their ranks, nor break their ranks
      without exposing themselves to the most imminent danger. In this
      situation they were gradually encompassed by the superior
      numbers, harassed by the rapid evolutions, and destroyed by the
      arrows of the barbarian cavalry.

      The king of Armenia had signalized his valor in the battle, and
      acquired personal glory by the public misfortune. He was pursued
      as far as the Euphrates; his horse was wounded, and it appeared
      impossible for him to escape the victorious enemy. In this
      extremity Tiridates embraced the only refuge which appeared
      before him: he dismounted and plunged into the stream. His armor
      was heavy, the river very deep, and at those parts at least half
      a mile in breadth; 66 yet such was his strength and dexterity,
      that he reached in safety the opposite bank. 67 With regard to
      the Roman general, we are ignorant of the circumstances of his
      escape; but when he returned to Antioch, Diocletian received him,
      not with the tenderness of a friend and colleague, but with the
      indignation of an offended sovereign. The haughtiest of men,
      clothed in his purple, but humbled by the sense of his fault and
      misfortune, was obliged to follow the emperor’s chariot above a
      mile on foot, and to exhibit, before the whole court, the
      spectacle of his disgrace. 68

      63 (return) [ We may readily believe, that Lactantius ascribes to
      cowardice the conduct of Diocletian. Julian, in his oration,
      says, that he remained with all the forces of the empire; a very
      hyperbolical expression.]

      64 (return) [ Our five abbreviators, Eutropius, Festus, the two
      Victors, and Orosius, all relate the last and great battle; but
      Orosius is the only one who speaks of the two former.]

      65 (return) [ The nature of the country is finely described by
      Plutarch, in the life of Crassus; and by Xenophon, in the first
      book of the Anabasis]

      66 (return) [ See Foster’s Dissertation in the second volume of
      the translation of the Anabasis by Spelman; which I will venture
      to recommend as one of the best versions extant.]

      67 (return) [ Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 76. I have transferred this
      exploit of Tiridates from an imaginary defeat to the real one of
      Galerius.]

      68 (return) [ Ammian. Marcellin. l. xiv. The mile, in the hands
      of Eutropoius, (ix. 24,) of Festus (c. 25,) and of Orosius, (vii
      25), easily increased to several miles]

      As soon as Diocletian had indulged his private resentment, and
      asserted the majesty of supreme power, he yielded to the
      submissive entreaties of the Cæsar, and permitted him to retrieve
      his own honor, as well as that of the Roman arms. In the room of
      the unwarlike troops of Asia, which had most probably served in
      the first expedition, a second army was drawn from the veterans
      and new levies of the Illyrian frontier, and a considerable body
      of Gothic auxiliaries were taken into the Imperial pay. 69 At the
      head of a chosen army of twenty-five thousand men, Galerius again
      passed the Euphrates; but, instead of exposing his legions in the
      open plains of Mesopotamia he advanced through the mountains of
      Armenia, where he found the inhabitants devoted to his cause, and
      the country as favorable to the operations of infantry as it was
      inconvenient for the motions of cavalry. 70 Adversity had
      confirmed the Roman discipline, while the barbarians, elated by
      success, were become so negligent and remiss, that in the moment
      when they least expected it, they were surprised by the active
      conduct of Galerius, who, attended only by two horsemen, had with
      his own eyes secretly examined the state and position of their
      camp. A surprise, especially in the night time, was for the most
      part fatal to a Persian army. “Their horses were tied, and
      generally shackled, to prevent their running away; and if an
      alarm happened, a Persian had his housing to fix, his horse to
      bridle, and his corselet to put on, before he could mount.” 71 On
      this occasion, the impetuous attack of Galerius spread disorder
      and dismay over the camp of the barbarians. A slight resistance
      was followed by a dreadful carnage, and, in the general
      confusion, the wounded monarch (for Narses commanded his armies
      in person) fled towards the deserts of Media. His sumptuous
      tents, and those of his satraps, afforded an immense booty to the
      conqueror; and an incident is mentioned, which proves the rustic
      but martial ignorance of the legions in the elegant superfluities
      of life. A bag of shining leather, filled with pearls, fell into
      the hands of a private soldier; he carefully preserved the bag,
      but he threw away its contents, judging that whatever was of no
      use could not possibly be of any value. 72 The principal loss of
      Narses was of a much more affecting nature. Several of his wives,
      his sisters, and children, who had attended the army, were made
      captives in the defeat. But though the character of Galerius had
      in general very little affinity with that of Alexander, he
      imitated, after his victory, the amiable behavior of the
      Macedonian towards the family of Darius. The wives and children
      of Narses were protected from violence and rapine, conveyed to a
      place of safety, and treated with every mark of respect and
      tenderness, that was due from a generous enemy to their age,
      their sex, and their royal dignity. 73

      69 (return) [ Aurelius Victor. Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c.
      21.]

      70 (return) [ Aurelius Victor says, “Per Armeniam in hostes
      contendit, quæ fermo sola, seu facilior vincendi via est.” He
      followed the conduct of Trajan, and the idea of Julius Cæsar.]

      71 (return) [ Xenophon’s Anabasis, l. iii. For that reason the
      Persian cavalry encamped sixty stadia from the enemy.]

      72 (return) [ The story is told by Ammianus, l. xxii. Instead of
      saccum, some read scutum.]

      73 (return) [ The Persians confessed the Roman superiority in
      morals as well as in arms. Eutrop. ix. 24. But this respect and
      gratitude of enemies is very seldom to be found in their own
      accounts.]




      Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates.—Part
      III.

      While the East anxiously expected the decision of this great
      contest, the emperor Diocletian, having assembled in Syria a
      strong army of observation, displayed from a distance the
      resources of the Roman power, and reserved himself for any future
      emergency of the war. On the intelligence of the victory he
      condescended to advance towards the frontier, with a view of
      moderating, by his presence and counsels, the pride of Galerius.
      The interview of the Roman princes at Nisibis was accompanied
      with every expression of respect on one side, and of esteem on
      the other. It was in that city that they soon afterwards gave
      audience to the ambassador of the Great King. 74 The power, or at
      least the spirit, of Narses, had been broken by his last defeat;
      and he considered an immediate peace as the only means that could
      stop the progress of the Roman arms. He despatched Apharban, a
      servant who possessed his favor and confidence, with a commission
      to negotiate a treaty, or rather to receive whatever conditions
      the conqueror should impose. Apharban opened the conference by
      expressing his master’s gratitude for the generous treatment of
      his family, and by soliciting the liberty of those illustrious
      captives. He celebrated the valor of Galerius, without degrading
      the reputation of Narses, and thought it no dishonor to confess
      the superiority of the victorious Cæsar, over a monarch who had
      surpassed in glory all the princes of his race. Notwithstanding
      the justice of the Persian cause, he was empowered to submit the
      present differences to the decision of the emperors themselves;
      convinced as he was, that, in the midst of prosperity, they would
      not be unmindful of the vicissitudes of fortune. Apharban
      concluded his discourse in the style of eastern allegory, by
      observing that the Roman and Persian monarchies were the two eyes
      of the world, which would remain imperfect and mutilated if
      either of them should be put out.

      74 (return) [ The account of the negotiation is taken from the
      fragments of Peter the Patrician, in the Excerpta Legationum,
      published in the Byzantine Collection. Peter lived under
      Justinian; but it is very evident, by the nature of his
      materials, that they are drawn from the most authentic and
      respectable writers.]

      “It well becomes the Persians,” replied Galerius, with a
      transport of fury, which seemed to convulse his whole frame, “it
      well becomes the Persians to expatiate on the vicissitudes of
      fortune, and calmly to read us lectures on the virtues of
      moderation. Let them remember their own _moderation_ towards the
      unhappy Valerian. They vanquished him by fraud, they treated him
      with indignity. They detained him till the last moment of his
      life in shameful captivity, and after his death they exposed his
      body to perpetual ignominy.” Softening, however, his tone,
      Galerius insinuated to the ambassador, that it had never been the
      practice of the Romans to trample on a prostrate enemy; and that,
      on this occasion, they should consult their own dignity rather
      than the Persian merit. He dismissed Apharban with a hope that
      Narses would soon be informed on what conditions he might obtain,
      from the clemency of the emperors, a lasting peace, and the
      restoration of his wives and children. In this conference we may
      discover the fierce passions of Galerius, as well as his
      deference to the superior wisdom and authority of Diocletian. The
      ambition of the former grasped at the conquest of the East, and
      had proposed to reduce Persia into the state of a province. The
      prudence of the latter, who adhered to the moderate policy of
      Augustus and the Antonines, embraced the favorable opportunity of
      terminating a successful war by an honorable and advantageous
      peace. 75

      75 (return) [ Adeo victor (says Aurelius) ut ni Valerius, cujus
      nutu omnis gerebantur, abnuisset, Romani fasces in provinciam
      novam ferrentur Verum pars terrarum tamen nobis utilior quæsita.]

      In pursuance of their promise, the emperors soon afterwards
      appointed Sicorius Probus, one of their secretaries, to acquaint
      the Persian court with their final resolution. As the minister of
      peace, he was received with every mark of politeness and
      friendship; but, under the pretence of allowing him the necessary
      repose after so long a journey, the audience of Probus was
      deferred from day to day; and he attended the slow motions of the
      king, till at length he was admitted to his presence, near the
      River Asprudus in Media. The secret motive of Narses, in this
      delay, had been to collect such a military force as might enable
      him, though sincerely desirous of peace, to negotiate with the
      greater weight and dignity. Three persons only assisted at this
      important conference, the minister Apharban, the præfect of the
      guards, and an officer who had commanded on the Armenian
      frontier. 76 The first condition proposed by the ambassador is
      not at present of a very intelligible nature; that the city of
      Nisibis might be established for the place of mutual exchange,
      or, as we should formerly have termed it, for the staple of
      trade, between the two empires. There is no difficulty in
      conceiving the intention of the Roman princes to improve their
      revenue by some restraints upon commerce; but as Nisibis was
      situated within their own dominions, and as they were masters
      both of the imports and exports, it should seem that such
      restraints were the objects of an internal law, rather than of a
      foreign treaty. To render them more effectual, some stipulations
      were probably required on the side of the king of Persia, which
      appeared so very repugnant either to his interest or to his
      dignity, that Narses could not be persuaded to subscribe them. As
      this was the only article to which he refused his consent, it was
      no longer insisted on; and the emperors either suffered the trade
      to flow in its natural channels, or contented themselves with
      such restrictions, as it depended on their own authority to
      establish.

      76 (return) [ He had been governor of Sumium, (Pot. Patricius in
      Excerpt. Legat. p. 30.) This province seems to be mentioned by
      Moses of Chorene, (Geograph. p. 360,) and lay to the east of
      Mount Ararat. * Note: The Siounikh of the Armenian writers St.
      Martin i. 142.—M.]

      As soon as this difficulty was removed, a solemn peace was
      concluded and ratified between the two nations. The conditions of
      a treaty so glorious to the empire, and so necessary to Persia,
      may deserve a more peculiar attention, as the history of Rome
      presents very few transactions of a similar nature; most of her
      wars having either been terminated by absolute conquest, or waged
      against barbarians ignorant of the use of letters. I. The Aboras,
      or, as it is called by Xenophon, the Araxes, was fixed as the
      boundary between the two monarchies. 77 That river, which rose
      near the Tigris, was increased, a few miles below Nisibis, by the
      little stream of the Mygdonius, passed under the walls of
      Singara, and fell into the Euphrates at Circesium, a frontier
      town, which, by the care of Diocletian, was very strongly
      fortified. 78 Mesopotomia, the object of so many wars, was ceded
      to the empire; and the Persians, by this treaty, renounced all
      pretensions to that great province. II. They relinquished to the
      Romans five provinces beyond the Tigris. 79 Their situation
      formed a very useful barrier, and their natural strength was soon
      improved by art and military skill. Four of these, to the north
      of the river, were districts of obscure fame and inconsiderable
      extent; Intiline, Zabdicene, Arzanene, and Moxoene; 791 but on
      the east of the Tigris, the empire acquired the large and
      mountainous territory of Carduene, the ancient seat of the
      Carduchians, who preserved for many ages their manly freedom in
      the heart of the despotic monarchies of Asia. The ten thousand
      Greeks traversed their country, after a painful march, or rather
      engagement, of seven days; and it is confessed by their leader,
      in his incomparable relation of the retreat, that they suffered
      more from the arrows of the Carduchians, than from the power of
      the Great King. 80 Their posterity, the Curds, with very little
      alteration either of name or manners, 801 acknowledged the
      nominal sovereignty of the Turkish sultan. III. It is almost
      needless to observe, that Tiridates, the faithful ally of Rome,
      was restored to the throne of his fathers, and that the rights of
      the Imperial supremacy were fully asserted and secured. The
      limits of Armenia were extended as far as the fortress of Sintha
      in Media, and this increase of dominion was not so much an act of
      liberality as of justice. Of the provinces already mentioned
      beyond the Tigris, the four first had been dismembered by the
      Parthians from the crown of Armenia; 81 and when the Romans
      acquired the possession of them, they stipulated, at the expense
      of the usurpers, an ample compensation, which invested their ally
      with the extensive and fertile country of Atropatene. Its
      principal city, in the same situation perhaps as the modern
      Tauris, was frequently honored by the residence of Tiridates; and
      as it sometimes bore the name of Ecbatana, he imitated, in the
      buildings and fortifications, the splendid capital of the Medes.
      82 IV. The country of Iberia was barren, its inhabitants rude and
      savage. But they were accustomed to the use of arms, and they
      separated from the empire barbarians much fiercer and more
      formidable than themselves. The narrow defiles of Mount Caucasus
      were in their hands, and it was in their choice, either to admit
      or to exclude the wandering tribes of Sarmatia, whenever a
      rapacious spirit urged them to penetrate into the richer climes
      of the South. 83 The nomination of the kings of Iberia, which was
      resigned by the Persian monarch to the emperors, contributed to
      the strength and security of the Roman power in Asia. 84 The East
      enjoyed a profound tranquillity during forty years; and the
      treaty between the rival monarchies was strictly observed till
      the death of Tiridates; when a new generation, animated with
      different views and different passions, succeeded to the
      government of the world; and the grandson of Narses undertook a
      long and memorable war against the princes of the house of
      Constantine.

      77 (return) [ By an error of the geographer Ptolemy, the position
      of Singara is removed from the Aboras to the Tigris, which may
      have produced the mistake of Peter, in assigning the latter river
      for the boundary, instead of the former. The line of the Roman
      frontier traversed, but never followed, the course of the Tigris.
      * Note: There are here several errors. Gibbon has confounded the
      streams, and the towns which they pass. The Aboras, or rather the
      Chaboras, the Araxes of Xenophon, has its source above Ras-Ain or
      Re-Saina, (Theodosiopolis,) about twenty-seven leagues from the
      Tigris; it receives the waters of the Mygdonius, or Saocoras,
      about thirty-three leagues below Nisibis. at a town now called Al
      Nahraim; it does not pass under the walls of Singara; it is the
      Saocoras that washes the walls of that town: the latter river has
      its source near Nisibis. at five leagues from the Tigris. See
      D’Anv. l’Euphrate et le Tigre, 46, 49, 50, and the map.—— To the
      east of the Tigris is another less considerable river, named also
      the Chaboras, which D’Anville calls the Centrites, Khabour,
      Nicephorius, without quoting the authorities on which he gives
      those names. Gibbon did not mean to speak of this river, which
      does not pass by Singara, and does not fall into the Euphrates.
      See Michaelis, Supp. ad Lex. Hebraica. 3d part, p. 664, 665.—G.]

      78 (return) [ Procopius de Edificiis, l. ii. c. 6.]

      79 (return) [ Three of the provinces, Zabdicene, Arzanene, and
      Carduene, are allowed on all sides. But instead of the other two,
      Peter (in Excerpt. Leg. p. 30) inserts Rehimene and Sophene. I
      have preferred Ammianus, (l. xxv. 7,) because it might be proved
      that Sophene was never in the hands of the Persians, either
      before the reign of Diocletian, or after that of Jovian. For want
      of correct maps, like those of M. d’Anville, almost all the
      moderns, with Tillemont and Valesius at their head, have
      imagined, that it was in respect to Persia, and not to Rome, that
      the five provinces were situate beyond the Tigris.]

      791 (return) [ See St. Martin, note on Le Beau, i. 380. He would
      read, for Intiline, Ingeleme, the name of a small province of
      Armenia, near the sources of the Tigris, mentioned by St.
      Epiphanius, (Hæres, 60;) for the unknown name Arzacene, with
      Gibbon, Arzanene. These provinces do not appear to have made an
      integral part of the Roman empire; Roman garrisons replaced those
      of Persia, but the sovereignty remained in the hands of the
      feudatory princes of Armenia. A prince of Carduene, ally or
      dependent on the empire, with the Roman name of Jovianus, occurs
      in the reign of Julian.—M.]

      80 (return) [ Xenophon’s Anabasis, l. iv. Their bows were three
      cubits in length, their arrows two; they rolled down stones that
      were each a wagon load. The Greeks found a great many villages in
      that rude country.]

      801 (return) [ I travelled through this country in 1810, and
      should judge, from what I have read and seen of its inhabitants,
      that they have remained unchanged in their appearance and
      character for more than twenty centuries Malcolm, note to Hist.
      of Persia, vol. i. p. 82.—M.]

      81 (return) [ According to Eutropius, (vi. 9, as the text is
      represented by the best Mss.,) the city of Tigranocerta was in
      Arzanene. The names and situation of the other three may be
      faintly traced.]

      82 (return) [ Compare Herodotus, l. i. c. 97, with Moses
      Choronens. Hist Armen. l. ii. c. 84, and the map of Armenia given
      by his editors.]

      83 (return) [ Hiberi, locorum potentes, Caspia via Sarmatam in
      Armenios raptim effundunt. Tacit. Annal. vi. 34. See Strabon.
      Geograph. l. xi. p. 764, edit. Casaub.]

      84 (return) [ Peter Patricius (in Excerpt. Leg. p. 30) is the
      only writer who mentions the Iberian article of the treaty.]

      The arduous work of rescuing the distressed empire from tyrants
      and barbarians had now been completely achieved by a succession
      of Illyrian peasants. As soon as Diocletian entered into the
      twentieth year of his reign, he celebrated that memorable æra, as
      well as the success of his arms, by the pomp of a Roman triumph.
      85 Maximian, the equal partner of his power, was his only
      companion in the glory of that day. The two Cæsars had fought and
      conquered, but the merit of their exploits was ascribed,
      according to the rigor of ancient maxims, to the auspicious
      influence of their fathers and emperors. 86 The triumph of
      Diocletian and Maximian was less magnificent, perhaps, than those
      of Aurelian and Probus, but it was dignified by several
      circumstances of superior fame and good fortune. Africa and
      Britain, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Nile, furnished their
      respective trophies; but the most distinguished ornament was of a
      more singular nature, a Persian victory followed by an important
      conquest. The representations of rivers, mountains, and
      provinces, were carried before the Imperial car. The images of
      the captive wives, the sisters, and the children of the Great
      King, afforded a new and grateful spectacle to the vanity of the
      people. 87 In the eyes of posterity, this triumph is remarkable,
      by a distinction of a less honorable kind. It was the last that
      Rome ever beheld. Soon after this period, the emperors ceased to
      vanquish, and Rome ceased to be the capital of the empire.

      85 (return) [ Euseb. in Chron. Pagi ad annum. Till the discovery
      of the treatise De Mortibus Persecutorum, it was not certain that
      the triumph and the Vicennalia was celebrated at the same time.]

      86 (return) [ At the time of the Vicennalia, Galerius seems to
      have kept station on the Danube. See Lactant. de M. P. c. 38.]

      87 (return) [ Eutropius (ix. 27) mentions them as a part of the
      triumph. As the persons had been restored to Narses, nothing more
      than their images could be exhibited.]

      The spot on which Rome was founded had been consecrated by
      ancient ceremonies and imaginary miracles. The presence of some
      god, or the memory of some hero, seemed to animate every part of
      the city, and the empire of the world had been promised to the
      Capitol. 88 The native Romans felt and confessed the power of
      this agreeable illusion. It was derived from their ancestors, had
      grown up with their earliest habits of life, and was protected,
      in some measure, by the opinion of political utility. The form
      and the seat of government were intimately blended together, nor
      was it esteemed possible to transport the one without destroying
      the other. 89 But the sovereignty of the capital was gradually
      annihilated in the extent of conquest; the provinces rose to the
      same level, and the vanquished nations acquired the name and
      privileges, without imbibing the partial affections, of Romans.
      During a long period, however, the remains of the ancient
      constitution, and the influence of custom, preserved the dignity
      of Rome. The emperors, though perhaps of African or Illyrian
      extraction, respected their adopted country, as the seat of their
      power, and the centre of their extensive dominions. The
      emergencies of war very frequently required their presence on the
      frontiers; but Diocletian and Maximian were the first Roman
      princes who fixed, in time of peace, their ordinary residence in
      the provinces; and their conduct, however it might be suggested
      by private motives, was justified by very specious considerations
      of policy. The court of the emperor of the West was, for the most
      part, established at Milan, whose situation, at the foot of the
      Alps, appeared far more convenient than that of Rome, for the
      important purpose of watching the motions of the barbarians of
      Germany. Milan soon assumed the splendor of an Imperial city. The
      houses are described as numerous and well built; the manners of
      the people as polished and liberal. A circus, a theatre, a mint,
      a palace, baths, which bore the name of their founder Maximian;
      porticos adorned with statues, and a double circumference of
      walls, contributed to the beauty of the new capital; nor did it
      seem oppressed even by the proximity of Rome. 90 To rival the
      majesty of Rome was the ambition likewise of Diocletian, who
      employed his leisure, and the wealth of the East, in the
      embellishment of Nicomedia, a city placed on the verge of Europe
      and Asia, almost at an equal distance between the Danube and the
      Euphrates. By the taste of the monarch, and at the expense of the
      people, Nicomedia acquired, in the space of a few years, a degree
      of magnificence which might appear to have required the labor of
      ages, and became inferior only to Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch,
      in extent of populousness. 91 The life of Diocletian and Maximian
      was a life of action, and a considerable portion of it was spent
      in camps, or in the long and frequent marches; but whenever the
      public business allowed them any relaxation, they seemed to have
      retired with pleasure to their favorite residences of Nicomedia
      and Milan. Till Diocletian, in the twentieth year of his reign,
      celebrated his Roman triumph, it is extremely doubtful whether he
      ever visited the ancient capital of the empire. Even on that
      memorable occasion his stay did not exceed two months. Disgusted
      with the licentious familiarity of the people, he quitted Rome
      with precipitation thirteen days before it was expected that he
      should have appeared in the senate, invested with the ensigns of
      the consular dignity. 92

      88 (return) [ Livy gives us a speech of Camillus on that subject,
      (v. 51—55,) full of eloquence and sensibility, in opposition to a
      design of removing the seat of government from Rome to the
      neighboring city of Veii.]

      89 (return) [ Julius Cæsar was reproached with the intention of
      removing the empire to Ilium or Alexandria. See Sueton. in Cæsar.
      c. 79. According to the ingenious conjecture of Le Fevre and
      Dacier, the ode of the third book of Horace was intended to
      divert from the execution of a similar design.]

      90 (return) [ See Aurelius Victor, who likewise mentions the
      buildings erected by Maximian at Carthage, probably during the
      Moorish war. We shall insert some verses of Ausonius de Clar.
      Urb. v.—— Et Mediolani miræomnia: copia rerum; Innumeræ cultæque
      domus; facunda virorum Ingenia, et mores læti: tum duplice muro
      Amplificata loci species; populique voluptas Circus; et inclusi
      moles cuneata Theatri; Templa, Palatinæque arces, opulensque
      Moneta, Et regio Herculei celebris sub honore lavacri. Cunctaque
      marmoreis ornata Peristyla signis; Moeniaque in valli formam
      circumdata labro, Omnia quæ magnis operum velut æmula formis
      Excellunt: nec juncta premit vicinia Romæ.]

      91 (return) [ Lactant. de M. P. c. 17. Libanius, Orat. viii. p.
      203.]

      92 (return) [ Lactant. de M. P. c. 17. On a similar occasion,
      Ammianus mentions the dicacitas plebis, as not very agreeable to
      an Imperial ear. (See l. xvi. c. 10.)]

      The dislike expressed by Diocletian towards Rome and Roman
      freedom was not the effect of momentary caprice, but the result
      of the most artful policy. That crafty prince had framed a new
      system of Imperial government, which was afterwards completed by
      the family of Constantine; and as the image of the old
      constitution was religiously preserved in the senate, he resolved
      to deprive that order of its small remains of power and
      consideration. We may recollect, about eight years before the
      elevation of Diocletian, the transient greatness, and the
      ambitious hopes, of the Roman senate. As long as that enthusiasm
      prevailed, many of the nobles imprudently displayed their zeal in
      the cause of freedom; and after the successes of Probus had
      withdrawn their countenance from the republican party, the
      senators were unable to disguise their impotent resentment.

      As the sovereign of Italy, Maximian was intrusted with the care
      of extinguishing this troublesome, rather than dangerous spirit,
      and the task was perfectly suited to his cruel temper. The most
      illustrious members of the senate, whom Diocletian always
      affected to esteem, were involved, by his colleague, in the
      accusation of imaginary plots; and the possession of an elegant
      villa, or a well-cultivated estate, was interpreted as a
      convincing evidence of guilt. 93 The camp of the Prætorians,
      which had so long oppressed, began to protect, the majesty of
      Rome; and as those haughty troops were conscious of the decline
      of their power, they were naturally disposed to unite their
      strength with the authority of the senate. By the prudent
      measures of Diocletian, the numbers of the Prætorians were
      insensibly reduced, their privileges abolished, 94 and their
      place supplied by two faithful legions of Illyricum, who, under
      the new titles of Jovians and Herculians, were appointed to
      perform the service of the Imperial guards. 95 But the most fatal
      though secret wound, which the senate received from the hands of
      Diocletian and Maximian, was inflicted by the inevitable
      operation of their absence. As long as the emperors resided at
      Rome, that assembly might be oppressed, but it could scarcely be
      neglected. The successors of Augustus exercised the power of
      dictating whatever laws their wisdom or caprice might suggest;
      but those laws were ratified by the sanction of the senate. The
      model of ancient freedom was preserved in its deliberations and
      decrees; and wise princes, who respected the prejudices of the
      Roman people, were in some measure obliged to assume the language
      and behavior suitable to the general and first magistrate of the
      republic. In the armies and in the provinces, they displayed the
      dignity of monarchs; and when they fixed their residence at a
      distance from the capital, they forever laid aside the
      dissimulation which Augustus had recommended to his successors.
      In the exercise of the legislative as well as the executive
      power, the sovereign advised with his ministers, instead of
      consulting the great council of the nation. The name of the
      senate was mentioned with honor till the last period of the
      empire; the vanity of its members was still flattered with
      honorary distinctions; 96 but the assembly which had so long been
      the source, and so long the instrument of power, was respectfully
      suffered to sink into oblivion. The senate of Rome, losing all
      connection with the Imperial court and the actual constitution,
      was left a venerable but useless monument of antiquity on the
      Capitoline hill.

      93 (return) [ Lactantius accuses Maximian of destroying fictis
      criminationibus lumina senatus, (De M. P. c. 8.) Aurelius Victor
      speaks very doubtfully of the faith of Diocletian towards his
      friends.]

      94 (return) [ Truncatæ vires urbis, imminuto prætoriarum
      cohortium atque in armis vulgi numero. Aurelius Victor.
      Lactantius attributes to Galerius the prosecution of the same
      plan, (c. 26.)]

      95 (return) [ They were old corps stationed in Illyricum; and
      according to the ancient establishment, they each consisted of
      six thousand men. They had acquired much reputation by the use of
      the plumbatæ, or darts loaded with lead. Each soldier carried
      five of these, which he darted from a considerable distance, with
      great strength and dexterity. See Vegetius, i. 17.]

      96 (return) [ See the Theodosian Code, l. vi. tit. ii. with
      Godefroy’s commentary.]




      Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates.—Part
      IV.

      When the Roman princes had lost sight of the senate and of their
      ancient capital, they easily forgot the origin and nature of
      their legal power. The civil offices of consul, of proconsul, of
      censor, and of tribune, by the union of which it had been formed,
      betrayed to the people its republican extraction. Those modest
      titles were laid aside; 97 and if they still distinguished their
      high station by the appellation of Emperor, or Imperator, that
      word was understood in a new and more dignified sense, and no
      longer denoted the general of the Roman armies, but the sovereign
      of the Roman world. The name of Emperor, which was at first of a
      military nature, was associated with another of a more servile
      kind. The epithet of Dominus, or Lord, in its primitive
      signification, was expressive not of the authority of a prince
      over his subjects, or of a commander over his soldiers, but of
      the despotic power of a master over his domestic slaves. 98
      Viewing it in that odious light, it had been rejected with
      abhorrence by the first Cæsars. Their resistance insensibly
      became more feeble, and the name less odious; till at length the
      style of _our Lord and Emperor_ was not only bestowed by
      flattery, but was regularly admitted into the laws and public
      monuments. Such lofty epithets were sufficient to elate and
      satisfy the most excessive vanity; and if the successors of
      Diocletian still declined the title of King, it seems to have
      been the effect not so much of their moderation as of their
      delicacy. Wherever the Latin tongue was in use, (and it was the
      language of government throughout the empire,) the Imperial
      title, as it was peculiar to themselves, conveyed a more
      respectable idea than the name of king, which they must have
      shared with a hundred barbarian chieftains; or which, at the
      best, they could derive only from Romulus, or from Tarquin. But
      the sentiments of the East were very different from those of the
      West. From the earliest period of history, the sovereigns of Asia
      had been celebrated in the Greek language by the title of
      Basileus, or King; and since it was considered as the first
      distinction among men, it was soon employed by the servile
      provincials of the East, in their humble addresses to the Roman
      throne. 99 Even the attributes, or at least the titles, of the
      DIVINITY, were usurped by Diocletian and Maximian, who
      transmitted them to a succession of Christian emperors. 100 Such
      extravagant compliments, however, soon lose their impiety by
      losing their meaning; and when the ear is once accustomed to the
      sound, they are heard with indifference, as vague though
      excessive professions of respect.

      97 (return) [ See the 12th dissertation in Spanheim’s excellent
      work de Usu Numismatum. From medals, inscriptions, and
      historians, he examines every title separately, and traces it
      from Augustus to the moment of its disappearing.]

      98 (return) [ Pliny (in Panegyr. c. 3, 55, &c.) speaks of Dominus
      with execration, as synonymous to Tyrant, and opposite to Prince.
      And the same Pliny regularly gives that title (in the tenth book
      of the epistles) to his friend rather than master, the virtuous
      Trajan. This strange contradiction puzzles the commentators, who
      think, and the translators, who can write.]

      99 (return) [ Synesius de Regno, edit. Petav. p. 15. I am
      indebted for this quotation to the Abbé de la Bleterie.]

      100 (return) [ Soe Vandale de Consecratione, p. 354, &c. It was
      customary for the emperors to mention (in the preamble of laws)
      their numen, sacreo majesty, divine oracles, &c. According to
      Tillemont, Gregory Nazianzen complains most bitterly of the
      profanation, especially when it was practised by an Arian
      emperor. * Note: In the time of the republic, says Hegewisch,
      when the consuls, the prætors, and the other magistrates appeared
      in public, to perform the functions of their office, their
      dignity was announced both by the symbols which use had
      consecrated, and the brilliant cortege by which they were
      accompanied. But this dignity belonged to the office, not to the
      individual; this pomp belonged to the magistrate, not to the man.
      * * The consul, followed, in the comitia, by all the senate, the
      prætors, the quæstors, the ædiles, the lictors, the apparitors,
      and the heralds, on reentering his house, was served only by
      freedmen and by his slaves. The first emperors went no further.
      Tiberius had, for his personal attendance, only a moderate number
      of slaves, and a few freedmen. (Tacit. Ann. iv. 7.) But in
      proportion as the republican forms disappeared, one after
      another, the inclination of the emperors to environ themselves
      with personal pomp, displayed itself more and more. ** The
      magnificence and the ceremonial of the East were entirely
      introduced by Diocletian, and were consecrated by Constantine to
      the Imperial use. Thenceforth the palace, the court, the table,
      all the personal attendance, distinguished the emperor from his
      subjects, still more than his superior dignity. The organization
      which Diocletian gave to his new court, attached less honor and
      distinction to rank than to services performed towards the
      members of the Imperial family. Hegewisch, Essai, Hist. sur les
      Finances Romains. Few historians have characterized, in a more
      philosophic manner, the influence of a new institution.—G.——It is
      singular that the son of a slave reduced the haughty aristocracy
      of Home to the offices of servitude.—M.]

      From the time of Augustus to that of Diocletian, the Roman
      princes, conversing in a familiar manner among their
      fellow-citizens, were saluted only with the same respect that was
      usually paid to senators and magistrates. Their principal
      distinction was the Imperial or military robe of purple; whilst
      the senatorial garment was marked by a broad, and the equestrian
      by a narrow, band or stripe of the same honorable color. The
      pride, or rather the policy, of Diocletian engaged that artful
      prince to introduce the stately magnificence of the court of
      Persia. 101 He ventured to assume the diadem, an ornament
      detested by the Romans as the odious ensign of royalty, and the
      use of which had been considered as the most desperate act of the
      madness of Caligula. It was no more than a broad white fillet set
      with pearls, which encircled the emperor’s head. The sumptuous
      robes of Diocletian and his successors were of silk and gold; and
      it is remarked with indignation that even their shoes were
      studded with the most precious gems. The access to their sacred
      person was every day rendered more difficult by the institution
      of new forms and ceremonies. The avenues of the palace were
      strictly guarded by the various schools, as they began to be
      called, of domestic officers. The interior apartments were
      intrusted to the jealous vigilance of the eunuchs, the increase
      of whose numbers and influence was the most infallible symptom of
      the progress of despotism. When a subject was at length admitted
      to the Imperial presence, he was obliged, whatever might be his
      rank, to fall prostrate on the ground, and to adore, according to
      the eastern fashion, the divinity of his lord and master. 102
      Diocletian was a man of sense, who, in the course of private as
      well as public life, had formed a just estimate both of himself
      and of mankind; nor is it easy to conceive that in substituting
      the manners of Persia to those of Rome he was seriously actuated
      by so mean a principle as that of vanity. He flattered himself
      that an ostentation of splendor and luxury would subdue the
      imagination of the multitude; that the monarch would be less
      exposed to the rude license of the people and the soldiers, as
      his person was secluded from the public view; and that habits of
      submission would insensibly be productive of sentiments of
      veneration. Like the modesty affected by Augustus, the state
      maintained by Diocletian was a theatrical representation; but it
      must be confessed, that of the two comedies, the former was of a
      much more liberal and manly character than the latter. It was the
      aim of the one to disguise, and the object of the other to
      display, the unbounded power which the emperors possessed over
      the Roman world.

      101 (return) [ See Spanheim de Usu Numismat. Dissert. xii.]

      102 (return) [ Aurelius Victor. Eutropius, ix. 26. It appears by
      the Panegyrists, that the Romans were soon reconciled to the name
      and ceremony of adoration.]

      Ostentation was the first principle of the new system instituted
      by Diocletian. The second was division. He divided the empire,
      the provinces, and every branch of the civil as well as military
      administration. He multiplied the wheels of the machine of
      government, and rendered its operations less rapid, but more
      secure. Whatever advantages and whatever defects might attend
      these innovations, they must be ascribed in a very great degree
      to the first inventor; but as the new frame of policy was
      gradually improved and completed by succeeding princes, it will
      be more satisfactory to delay the consideration of it till the
      season of its full maturity and perfection. 103 Reserving,
      therefore, for the reign of Constantine a more exact picture of
      the new empire, we shall content ourselves with describing the
      principal and decisive outline, as it was traced by the hand of
      Diocletian. He had associated three colleagues in the exercise of
      the supreme power; and as he was convinced that the abilities of
      a single man were inadequate to the public defence, he considered
      the joint administration of four princes not as a temporary
      expedient, but as a fundamental law of the constitution. It was
      his intention that the two elder princes should be distinguished
      by the use of the diadem, and the title of _Augusti;_ that, as
      affection or esteem might direct their choice, they should
      regularly call to their assistance two subordinate colleagues;
      and that the _Cæsars_, rising in their turn to the first rank,
      should supply an uninterrupted succession of emperors. The empire
      was divided into four parts. The East and Italy were the most
      honorable, the Danube and the Rhine the most laborious stations.
      The former claimed the presence of the _Augusti_, the latter were
      intrusted to the administration of the _Cæsars_. The strength of
      the legions was in the hands of the four partners of sovereignty,
      and the despair of successively vanquishing four formidable
      rivals might intimidate the ambition of an aspiring general. In
      their civil government the emperors were supposed to exercise the
      undivided power of the monarch, and their edicts, inscribed with
      their joint names, were received in all the provinces, as
      promulgated by their mutual councils and authority.
      Notwithstanding these precautions, the political union of the
      Roman world was gradually dissolved, and a principle of division
      was introduced, which, in the course of a few years, occasioned
      the perpetual separation of the Eastern and Western Empires.

      103 (return) [ The innovations introduced by Diocletian are
      chiefly deduced, 1st, from some very strong passages in
      Lactantius; and, 2dly, from the new and various offices which, in
      the Theodosian code, appear already established in the beginning
      of the reign of Constantine.]

      The system of Diocletian was accompanied with another very
      material disadvantage, which cannot even at present be totally
      overlooked; a more expensive establishment, and consequently an
      increase of taxes, and the oppression of the people. Instead of a
      modest family of slaves and freedmen, such as had contented the
      simple greatness of Augustus and Trajan, three or four
      magnificent courts were established in the various parts of the
      empire, and as many Roman _kings_ contended with each other and
      with the Persian monarch for the vain superiority of pomp and
      luxury. The number of ministers, of magistrates, of officers, and
      of servants, who filled the different departments of the state,
      was multiplied beyond the example of former times; and (if we may
      borrow the warm expression of a contemporary) “when the
      proportion of those who received exceeded the proportion of those
      who contributed, the provinces were oppressed by the weight of
      tributes.” 104 From this period to the extinction of the empire,
      it would be easy to deduce an uninterrupted series of clamors and
      complaints. According to his religion and situation, each writer
      chooses either Diocletian, or Constantine, or Valens, or
      Theodosius, for the object of his invectives; but they
      unanimously agree in representing the burden of the public
      impositions, and particularly the land tax and capitation, as the
      intolerable and increasing grievance of their own times. From
      such a concurrence, an impartial historian, who is obliged to
      extract truth from satire, as well as from panegyric, will be
      inclined to divide the blame among the princes whom they accuse,
      and to ascribe their exactions much less to their personal vices,
      than to the uniform system of their administration. 1041 The
      emperor Diocletian was indeed the author of that system; but
      during his reign, the growing evil was confined within the bounds
      of modesty and discretion, and he deserves the reproach of
      establishing pernicious precedents, rather than of exercising
      actual oppression. 105 It may be added, that his revenues were
      managed with prudent economy; and that after all the current
      expenses were discharged, there still remained in the Imperial
      treasury an ample provision either for judicious liberality or
      for any emergency of the state.

      104 (return) [ Lactant. de M. P. c. 7.]

      1041 (return) [ The most curious document which has come to light
      since the publication of Gibbon’s History, is the edict of
      Diocletian, published from an inscription found at Eskihissar,
      (Stratoniccia,) by Col. Leake. This inscription was first copied
      by Sherard, afterwards much more completely by Mr. Bankes. It is
      confirmed and illustrated by a more imperfect copy of the same
      edict, found in the Levant by a gentleman of Aix, and brought to
      this country by M. Vescovali. This edict was issued in the name
      of the four Cæsars, Diocletian, Maximian, Constantius, and
      Galerius. It fixed a maximum of prices throughout the empire, for
      all the necessaries and commodities of life. The preamble
      insists, with great vehemence on the extortion and inhumanity of
      the venders and merchants. Quis enim adeo obtunisi (obtusi)
      pectores (is) et a sensu inhumanitatis extorris est qui ignorare
      potest immo non senserit in venalibus rebus quævel in mercimoniis
      aguntur vel diurna urbium conversatione tractantur, in tantum se
      licen liam defusisse, ut effrænata libido rapien—rum copia nec
      annorum ubertatibus mitigaretur. The edict, as Col. Leake clearly
      shows, was issued A. C. 303. Among the articles of which the
      maximum value is assessed, are oil, salt, honey, butchers’ meat,
      poultry, game, fish, vegetables, fruit the wages of laborers and
      artisans, schoolmasters and skins, boots and shoes, harness,
      timber, corn, wine, and beer, (zythus.) The depreciation in the
      value of money, or the rise in the price of commodities, had been
      so great during the past century, that butchers’ meat, which, in
      the second century of the empire, was in Rome about two denaril
      the pound, was now fixed at a maximum of eight. Col. Leake
      supposes the average price could not be less than four: at the
      same time the maximum of the wages of the agricultural laborers
      was twenty-five. The whole edict is, perhaps, the most gigantic
      effort of a blind though well-intentioned despotism, to control
      that which is, and ought to be, beyond the regulation of the
      government. See an Edict of Diocletian, by Col. Leake, London,
      1826. Col. Leake has not observed that this Edict is expressly
      named in the treatise de Mort. Persecut. ch. vii. Idem cum variis
      iniquitatibus immensam faceret caritatem, legem pretiis rerum
      venalium statuere conatus.—M]

      105 (return) [ Indicta lex nova quæ sane illorum temporum
      modestia tolerabilis, in perniciem processit. Aurel. Victor., who
      has treated the character of Diocletian with good sense, though
      in bad Latin.]

      It was in the twenty first year of his reign that Diocletian
      executed his memorable resolution of abdicating the empire; an
      action more naturally to have been expected from the elder or the
      younger Antoninus, than from a prince who had never practised the
      lessons of philosophy either in the attainment or in the use of
      supreme power. Diocletian acquired the glory of giving to the
      world the first example of a resignation, 106 which has not been
      very frequently imitated by succeeding monarchs. The parallel of
      Charles the Fifth, however, will naturally offer itself to our
      mind, not only since the eloquence of a modern historian has
      rendered that name so familiar to an English reader, but from the
      very striking resemblance between the characters of the two
      emperors, whose political abilities were superior to their
      military genius, and whose specious virtues were much less the
      effect of nature than of art. The abdication of Charles appears
      to have been hastened by the vicissitudes of fortune; and the
      disappointment of his favorite schemes urged him to relinquish a
      power which he found inadequate to his ambition. But the reign of
      Diocletian had flowed with a tide of uninterrupted success; nor
      was it till after he had vanquished all his enemies, and
      accomplished all his designs, that he seems to have entertained
      any serious thoughts of resigning the empire. Neither Charles nor
      Diocletian were arrived at a very advanced period of life; since
      the one was only fifty-five, and the other was no more than
      fifty-nine years of age; but the active life of those princes,
      their wars and journeys, the cares of royalty, and their
      application to business, had already impaired their constitution,
      and brought on the infirmities of a premature old age. 107

      106 (return) [ Solus omnium post conditum Romanum Imperium, qui
      extanto fastigio sponte ad privatæ vitæ statum civilitatemque
      remearet, Eutrop. ix. 28.]

      107 (return) [ The particulars of the journey and illness are
      taken from Laclantius, c. 17, who may sometimes be admitted as an
      evidence of public facts, though very seldom of private
      anecdotes.]

      Notwithstanding the severity of a very cold and rainy winter,
      Diocletian left Italy soon after the ceremony of his triumph, and
      began his progress towards the East round the circuit of the
      Illyrian provinces. From the inclemency of the weather, and the
      fatigue of the journey, he soon contracted a slow illness; and
      though he made easy marches, and was generally carried in a close
      litter, his disorder, before he arrived at Nicomedia, about the
      end of the summer, was become very serious and alarming. During
      the whole winter he was confined to his palace: his danger
      inspired a general and unaffected concern; but the people could
      only judge of the various alterations of his health, from the joy
      or consternation which they discovered in the countenances and
      behavior of his attendants. The rumor of his death was for some
      time universally believed, and it was supposed to be concealed
      with a view to prevent the troubles that might have happened
      during the absence of the Cæsar Galerius. At length, however, on
      the first of March, Diocletian once more appeared in public, but
      so pale and emaciated, that he could scarcely have been
      recognized by those to whom his person was the most familiar. It
      was time to put an end to the painful struggle, which he had
      sustained during more than a year, between the care of his health
      and that of his dignity. The former required indulgence and
      relaxation, the latter compelled him to direct, from the bed of
      sickness, the administration of a great empire. He resolved to
      pass the remainder of his days in honorable repose, to place his
      glory beyond the reach of fortune, and to relinquish the theatre
      of the world to his younger and more active associates. 108

      108 (return) [ Aurelius Victor ascribes the abdication, which had
      been so variously accounted for, to two causes: 1st, Diocletian’s
      contempt of ambition; and 2dly, His apprehension of impending
      troubles. One of the panegyrists (vi. 9) mentions the age and
      infirmities of Diocletian as a very natural reason for his
      retirement. * Note: Constantine (Orat. ad Sanct. c. 401) more
      than insinuated that derangement of mind, connected with the
      conflagration of the palace at Nicomedia by lightning, was the
      cause of his abdication. But Heinichen. in a very sensible note
      on this passage in Eusebius, while he admits that his long
      illness might produce a temporary depression of spirits,
      triumphantly appeals to the philosophical conduct of Diocletian
      in his retreat, and the influence which he still retained on
      public affairs.—M.]

      The ceremony of his abdication was performed in a spacious plain,
      about three miles from Nicomedia. The emperor ascended a lofty
      throne, and in a speech, full of reason and dignity, declared his
      intention, both to the people and to the soldiers who were
      assembled on this extraordinary occasion. As soon as he had
      divested himself of his purple, he withdrew from the gazing
      multitude; and traversing the city in a covered chariot,
      proceeded, without delay, to the favorite retirement which he had
      chosen in his native country of Dalmatia. On the same day, which
      was the first of May, 109 Maximian, as it had been previously
      concerted, made his resignation of the Imperial dignity at Milan.

      Even in the splendor of the Roman triumph, Diocletian had
      meditated his design of abdicating the government. As he wished
      to secure the obedience of Maximian, he exacted from him either a
      general assurance that he would submit his actions to the
      authority of his benefactor, or a particular promise that he
      would descend from the throne, whenever he should receive the
      advice and the example. This engagement, though it was confirmed
      by the solemnity of an oath before the altar of the Capitoline
      Jupiter, 110 would have proved a feeble restraint on the fierce
      temper of Maximian, whose passion was the love of power, and who
      neither desired present tranquility nor future reputation. But he
      yielded, however reluctantly, to the ascendant which his wiser
      colleague had acquired over him, and retired, immediately after
      his abdication, to a villa in Lucania, where it was almost
      impossible that such an impatient spirit could find any lasting
      tranquility.

      109 (return) [ The difficulties as well as mistakes attending the
      dates both of the year and of the day of Diocletian’s abdication
      are perfectly cleared up by Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
      iv. p 525, note 19, and by Pagi ad annum.]

      110 (return) [ See Panegyr. Veter. vi. 9. The oration was
      pronounced after Maximian had resumed the purple.]

      Diocletian, who, from a servile origin, had raised himself to the
      throne, passed the nine last years of his life in a private
      condition. Reason had dictated, and content seems to have
      accompanied, his retreat, in which he enjoyed, for a long time,
      the respect of those princes to whom he had resigned the
      possession of the world. 111 It is seldom that minds long
      exercised in business have formed any habits of conversing with
      themselves, and in the loss of power they principally regret the
      want of occupation. The amusements of letters and of devotion,
      which afford so many resources in solitude, were incapable of
      fixing the attention of Diocletian; but he had preserved, or at
      least he soon recovered, a taste for the most innocent as well as
      natural pleasures, and his leisure hours were sufficiently
      employed in building, planting, and gardening. His answer to
      Maximian is deservedly celebrated. He was solicited by that
      restless old man to reassume the reins of government, and the
      Imperial purple. He rejected the temptation with a smile of pity,
      calmly observing, that if he could show Maximian the cabbages
      which he had planted with his own hands at Salona, he should no
      longer be urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the
      pursuit of power. 112 In his conversations with his friends, he
      frequently acknowledged, that of all arts, the most difficult was
      the art of reigning; and he expressed himself on that favorite
      topic with a degree of warmth which could be the result only of
      experience. “How often,” was he accustomed to say, “is it the
      interest of four or five ministers to combine together to deceive
      their sovereign! Secluded from mankind by his exalted dignity,
      the truth is concealed from his knowledge; he can see only with
      their eyes, he hears nothing but their misrepresentations. He
      confers the most important offices upon vice and weakness, and
      disgraces the most virtuous and deserving among his subjects. By
      such infamous arts,” added Diocletian, “the best and wisest
      princes are sold to the venal corruption of their courtiers.” 113
      A just estimate of greatness, and the assurance of immortal fame,
      improve our relish for the pleasures of retirement; but the Roman
      emperor had filled too important a character in the world, to
      enjoy without alloy the comforts and security of a private
      condition. It was impossible that he could remain ignorant of the
      troubles which afflicted the empire after his abdication. It was
      impossible that he could be indifferent to their consequences.
      Fear, sorrow, and discontent, sometimes pursued him into the
      solitude of Salona. His tenderness, or at least his pride, was
      deeply wounded by the misfortunes of his wife and daughter; and
      the last moments of Diocletian were imbittered by some affronts,
      which Licinius and Constantine might have spared the father of so
      many emperors, and the first author of their own fortune. A
      report, though of a very doubtful nature, has reached our times,
      that he prudently withdrew himself from their power by a
      voluntary death. 114

      111 (return) [ Eumenius pays him a very fine compliment: “At enim
      divinum illum virum, qui primus imperium et participavit et
      posuit, consilii et fact isui non poenitet; nec amisisse se putat
      quod sponte transcripsit. Felix beatusque vere quem vestra,
      tantorum principum, colunt privatum.” Panegyr. Vet. vii. 15.]

      112 (return) [ We are obliged to the younger Victor for this
      celebrated item. Eutropius mentions the thing in a more general
      manner.]

      113 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 223, 224. Vopiscus had learned
      this conversation from his father.]

      114 (return) [ The younger Victor slightly mentions the report.
      But as Diocletian had disobliged a powerful and successful party,
      his memory has been loaded with every crime and misfortune. It
      has been affirmed that he died raving mad, that he was condemned
      as a criminal by the Roman senate, &c.]

      Before we dismiss the consideration of the life and character of
      Diocletian, we may, for a moment, direct our view to the place of
      his retirement. Salona, a principal city of his native province
      of Dalmatia, was near two hundred Roman miles (according to the
      measurement of the public highways) from Aquileia and the
      confines of Italy, and about two hundred and seventy from
      Sirmium, the usual residence of the emperors whenever they
      visited the Illyrian frontier. 115 A miserable village still
      preserves the name of Salona; but so late as the sixteenth
      century, the remains of a theatre, and a confused prospect of
      broken arches and marble columns, continued to attest its ancient
      splendor. 116 About six or seven miles from the city Diocletian
      constructed a magnificent palace, and we may infer, from the
      greatness of the work, how long he had meditated his design of
      abdicating the empire. The choice of a spot which united all that
      could contribute either to health or to luxury did not require
      the partiality of a native. “The soil was dry and fertile, the
      air is pure and wholesome, and, though extremely hot during the
      summer months, this country seldom feels those sultry and noxious
      winds to which the coasts of Istria and some parts of Italy are
      exposed. The views from the palace are no less beautiful than the
      soil and climate were inviting. Towards the west lies the fertile
      shore that stretches along the Adriatic, in which a number of
      small islands are scattered in such a manner as to give this part
      of the sea the appearance of a great lake. On the north side lies
      the bay, which led to the ancient city of Salona; and the country
      beyond it, appearing in sight, forms a proper contrast to that
      more extensive prospect of water, which the Adriatic presents
      both to the south and to the east. Towards the north, the view is
      terminated by high and irregular mountains, situated at a proper
      distance, and in many places covered with villages, woods, and
      vineyards.” 117

      115 (return) [ See the Itiner. p. 269, 272, edit. Wessel.]

      116 (return) [ The Abate Fortis, in his Viaggio in Dalmazia, p.
      43, (printed at Venice in the year 1774, in two small volumes in
      quarto,) quotes a Ms account of the antiquities of Salona,
      composed by Giambattista Giustiniani about the middle of the
      xvith century.]

      117 (return) [ Adam’s Antiquities of Diocletian’s Palace at
      Spalatro, p. 6. We may add a circumstance or two from the Abate
      Fortis: the little stream of the Hyader, mentioned by Lucan,
      produces most exquisite trout, which a sagacious writer, perhaps
      a monk, supposes to have been one of the principal reasons that
      determined Diocletian in the choice of his retirement. Fortis, p.
      45. The same author (p. 38) observes, that a taste for
      agriculture is reviving at Spalatro; and that an experimental
      farm has lately been established near the city, by a society of
      gentlemen.]

      Though Constantine, from a very obvious prejudice, affects to
      mention the palace of Diocletian with contempt, 118 yet one of
      their successors, who could only see it in a neglected and
      mutilated state, celebrates its magnificence in terms of the
      highest admiration. 119 It covered an extent of ground consisting
      of between nine and ten English acres. The form was quadrangular,
      flanked with sixteen towers. Two of the sides were near six
      hundred, and the other two near seven hundred feet in length. The
      whole was constructed of a beautiful freestone, extracted from
      the neighboring quarries of Trau, or Tragutium, and very little
      inferior to marble itself. Four streets, intersecting each other
      at right angles, divided the several parts of this great edifice,
      and the approach to the principal apartment was from a very
      stately entrance, which is still denominated the Golden Gate. The
      approach was terminated by a _peristylium_ of granite columns, on
      one side of which we discover the square temple of Æsculapius, on
      the other the octagon temple of Jupiter. The latter of those
      deities Diocletian revered as the patron of his fortunes, the
      former as the protector of his health. By comparing the present
      remains with the precepts of Vitruvius, the several parts of the
      building, the baths, bedchamber, the _atrium_, the _basilica_,
      and the Cyzicene, Corinthian, and Egyptian halls have been
      described with some degree of precision, or at least of
      probability. Their forms were various, their proportions just;
      but they all were attended with two imperfections, very repugnant
      to our modern notions of taste and conveniency. These stately
      rooms had neither windows nor chimneys. They were lighted from
      the top, (for the building seems to have consisted of no more
      than one story,) and they received their heat by the help of
      pipes that were conveyed along the walls. The range of principal
      apartments was protected towards the south-west by a portico five
      hundred and seventeen feet long, which must have formed a very
      noble and delightful walk, when the beauties of painting and
      sculpture were added to those of the prospect.

      118 (return) [ Constantin. Orat. ad Coetum Sanct. c. 25. In this
      sermon, the emperor, or the bishop who composed it for him,
      affects to relate the miserable end of all the persecutors of the
      church.]

      119 (return) [ Constantin. Porphyr. de Statu Imper. p. 86.]

      Had this magnificent edifice remained in a solitary country, it
      would have been exposed to the ravages of time; but it might,
      perhaps, have escaped the rapacious industry of man. The village
      of Aspalathus, 120 and, long afterwards, the provincial town of
      Spalatro, have grown out of its ruins. The Golden Gate now opens
      into the market-place. St. John the Baptist has usurped the
      honors of Æsculapius; and the temple of Jupiter, under the
      protection of the Virgin, is converted into the cathedral church.

      For this account of Diocletian’s palace we are principally
      indebted to an ingenious artist of our own time and country, whom
      a very liberal curiosity carried into the heart of Dalmatia. 121
      But there is room to suspect that the elegance of his designs and
      engraving has somewhat flattered the objects which it was their
      purpose to represent. We are informed by a more recent and very
      judicious traveller, that the awful ruins of Spalatro are not
      less expressive of the decline of the art than of the greatness
      of the Roman empire in the time of Diocletian. 122 If such was
      indeed the state of architecture, we must naturally believe that
      painting and sculpture had experienced a still more sensible
      decay. The practice of architecture is directed by a few general
      and even mechanical rules. But sculpture, and, above all,
      painting, propose to themselves the imitation not only of the
      forms of nature, but of the characters and passions of the human
      soul. In those sublime arts the dexterity of the hand is of
      little avail, unless it is animated by fancy, and guided by the
      most correct taste and observation.

      120 (return) [ D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 162.]

      121 (return) [ Messieurs Adam and Clerisseau, attended by two
      draughtsmen visited Spalatro in the month of July, 1757. The
      magnificent work which their journey produced was published in
      London seven years afterwards.]

      122 (return) [ I shall quote the words of the Abate Fortis.
      “E’bastevolmente agli amatori dell’ Architettura, e dell’
      Antichita, l’opera del Signor Adams, che a donato molto a que’
      superbi vestigi coll’abituale eleganza del suo toccalapis e del
      bulino. In generale la rozzezza del scalpello, e’l cattivo gusto
      del secolo vi gareggiano colla magnificenz del fabricato.” See
      Viaggio in Dalmazia, p. 40.]

      It is almost unnecessary to remark, that the civil distractions
      of the empire, the license of the soldiers, the inroads of the
      barbarians, and the progress of despotism, had proved very
      unfavorable to genius, and even to learning. The succession of
      Illyrian princes restored the empire without restoring the
      sciences. Their military education was not calculated to inspire
      them with the love of letters; and even the mind of Diocletian,
      however active and capacious in business, was totally uninformed
      by study or speculation. The professions of law and physic are of
      such common use and certain profit that they will always secure a
      sufficient number of practitioners endowed with a reasonable
      degree of abilities and knowledge; but it does not appear that
      the students in those two faculties appeal to any celebrated
      masters who have flourished within that period. The voice of
      poetry was silent. History was reduced to dry and confused
      abridgments, alike destitute of amusement and instruction. A
      languid and affected eloquence was still retained in the pay and
      service of the emperors, who encouraged not any arts except those
      which contributed to the gratification of their pride, or the
      defence of their power. 123

      123 (return) [ The orator Eumenius was secretary to the emperors
      Maximian and Constantius, and Professor of Rhetoric in the
      college of Autun. His salary was six hundred thousand sesterces,
      which, according to the lowest computation of that age, must have
      exceeded three thousand pounds a year. He generously requested
      the permission of employing it in rebuilding the college. See his
      Oration De Restaurandis Scholis; which, though not exempt from
      vanity, may atone for his panegyrics.]

      The declining age of learning and of mankind is marked, however,
      by the rise and rapid progress of the new Platonists. The school
      of Alexandria silenced those of Athens; and the ancient sects
      enrolled themselves under the banners of the more fashionable
      teachers, who recommended their system by the novelty of their
      method, and the austerity of their manners. Several of these
      masters, Ammonius, Plotinus, Amelius, and Porphyry, 124 were men
      of profound thought and intense application; but by mistaking the
      true object of philosophy, their labors contributed much less to
      improve than to corrupt the human understanding. The knowledge
      that is suited to our situation and powers, the whole compass of
      moral, natural, and mathematical science, was neglected by the
      new Platonists; whilst they exhausted their strength in the
      verbal disputes of metaphysics, attempted to explore the secrets
      of the invisible world, and studied to reconcile Aristotle with
      Plato, on subjects of which both these philosophers were as
      ignorant as the rest of mankind. Consuming their reason in these
      deep but unsubstantial meditations, their minds were exposed to
      illusions of fancy. They flattered themselves that they possessed
      the secret of disengaging the soul from its corporal prison;
      claimed a familiar intercourse with demons and spirits; and, by a
      very singular revolution, converted the study of philosophy into
      that of magic. The ancient sages had derided the popular
      superstition; after disguising its extravagance by the thin
      pretence of allegory, the disciples of Plotinus and Porphyry
      became its most zealous defenders. As they agreed with the
      Christians in a few mysterious points of faith, they attacked the
      remainder of their theological system with all the fury of civil
      war. The new Platonists would scarcely deserve a place in the
      history of science, but in that of the church the mention of them
      will very frequently occur.

      124 (return) [Porphyry died about the time of Diocletian’s
      abdication. The life of his master Plotinus, which he composed,
      will give us the most complete idea of the genius of the sect,
      and the manners of its professors. This very curious piece is
      inserted in Fabricius Bibliotheca Græca tom. iv. p. 88—148.]




      Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
      Empire.—Part I.

     Troubles After The Abdication Of Diocletian.—Death Of
     Constantius.—Elevation Of Constantine And Maxen Tius.— Six
     Emperors At The Same Time.—Death Of Maximian And
     Galerius.—Victories Of Constantine Over Maxentius And
     Licinus.—Reunion Of The Empire Under The Authority Of Constantine.

      The balance of power established by Diocletian subsisted no
      longer than while it was sustained by the firm and dexterous hand
      of the founder. It required such a fortunate mixture of different
      tempers and abilities as could scarcely be found or even expected
      a second time; two emperors without jealousy, two Cæsars without
      ambition, and the same general interest invariably pursued by
      four independent princes. The abdication of Diocletian and
      Maximian was succeeded by eighteen years of discord and
      confusion. The empire was afflicted by five civil wars; and the
      remainder of the time was not so much a state of tranquillity as
      a suspension of arms between several hostile monarchs, who,
      viewing each other with an eye of fear and hatred, strove to
      increase their respective forces at the expense of their
      subjects.

      As soon as Diocletian and Maximian had resigned the purple, their
      station, according to the rules of the new constitution, was
      filled by the two Cæsars, Constantius and Galerius, who
      immediately assumed the title of Augustus. 1

      1 (return) [ M. de Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur et
      La Decadence des Romains, c. 17) supposes, on the authority of
      Orosius and Eusebius, that, on this occasion, the empire, for the
      first time, was really divided into two parts. It is difficult,
      however, to discover in what respect the plan of Galerius
      differed from that of Diocletian.]

      The honors of seniority and precedence were allowed to the former
      of those princes, and he continued under a new appellation to
      administer his ancient department of Gaul, Spain, and Britain.

      The government of those ample provinces was sufficient to
      exercise his talents and to satisfy his ambition. Clemency,
      temperance, and moderation, distinguished the amiable character
      of Constantius, and his fortunate subjects had frequently
      occasion to compare the virtues of their sovereign with the
      passions of Maximian, and even with the arts of Diocletian. 2
      Instead of imitating their eastern pride and magnificence,
      Constantius preserved the modesty of a Roman prince. He declared,
      with unaffected sincerity, that his most valued treasure was in
      the hearts of his people, and that, whenever the dignity of the
      throne, or the danger of the state, required any extraordinary
      supply, he could depend with confidence on their gratitude and
      liberality. 3 The provincials of Gaul, Spain, and Britain,
      sensible of his worth, and of their own happiness, reflected with
      anxiety on the declining health of the emperor Constantius, and
      the tender age of his numerous family, the issue of his second
      marriage with the daughter of Maximian.

      2 (return) [ Hic non modo amabilis, sed etiam venerabilis Gallis
      fuit; præcipuc quod Diocletiani suspectam prudentiam, et
      Maximiani sanguinariam violentiam imperio ejus evaserant. Eutrop.
      Breviar. x. i.]

      3 (return) [ Divitiis Provincialium (mel. provinciarum) ac
      privatorum studens, fisci commoda non admodum affectans;
      ducensque melius publicas opes a privatis haberi, quam intra unum
      claustrum reservari. Id. ibid. He carried this maxim so far, that
      whenever he gave an entertainment, he was obliged to borrow a
      service of plate.]

      The stern temper of Galerius was cast in a very different mould;
      and while he commanded the esteem of his subjects, he seldom
      condescended to solicit their affections. His fame in arms, and,
      above all, the success of the Persian war, had elated his haughty
      mind, which was naturally impatient of a superior, or even of an
      equal. If it were possible to rely on the partial testimony of an
      injudicious writer, we might ascribe the abdication of Diocletian
      to the menaces of Galerius, and relate the particulars of a
      _private_ conversation between the two princes, in which the
      former discovered as much pusillanimity as the latter displayed
      ingratitude and arrogance. 4 But these obscure anecdotes are
      sufficiently refuted by an impartial view of the character and
      conduct of Diocletian. Whatever might otherwise have been his
      intentions, if he had apprehended any danger from the violence of
      Galerius, his good sense would have instructed him to prevent the
      ignominious contest; and as he had held the sceptre with glory,
      he would have resigned it without disgrace.

      4 (return) [ Lactantius de Mort. Persecutor. c. 18. Were the
      particulars of this conference more consistent with truth and
      decency, we might still ask how they came to the knowledge of an
      obscure rhetorician. But there are many historians who put us in
      mind of the admirable saying of the great Conde to Cardinal de
      Retz: “Ces coquins nous font parlor et agir, comme ils auroient
      fait eux-memes a notre place.” * Note: This attack upon
      Lactantius is unfounded. Lactantius was so far from having been
      an obscure rhetorician, that he had taught rhetoric publicly, and
      with the greatest success, first in Africa, and afterwards in
      Nicomedia. His reputation obtained him the esteem of Constantine,
      who invited him to his court, and intrusted to him the education
      of his son Crispus. The facts which he relates took place during
      his own time; he cannot be accused of dishonesty or imposture.
      Satis me vixisse arbitrabor et officium hominis implesse si labor
      meus aliquos homines, ab erroribus iberatos, ad iter coeleste
      direxerit. De Opif. Dei, cap. 20. The eloquence of Lactantius has
      caused him to be called the Christian Cicero. Annon Gent.—G.
      ——Yet no unprejudiced person can read this coarse and particular
      private conversation of the two emperors, without assenting to
      the justice of Gibbon’s severe sentence. But the authorship of
      the treatise is by no means certain. The fame of Lactantius for
      eloquence as well as for truth, would suffer no loss if it should
      be adjudged to some more “obscure rhetorician.” Manso, in his
      Leben Constantins des Grossen, concurs on this point with Gibbon
      Beylage, iv. —M.]

      After the elevation of Constantius and Galerius to the rank of
      _Augusti_, two new _Cæsars_ were required to supply their place,
      and to complete the system of the Imperial government. Diocletian
      was sincerely desirous of withdrawing himself from the world; he
      considered Galerius, who had married his daughter, as the firmest
      support of his family and of the empire; and he consented,
      without reluctance, that his successor should assume the merit as
      well as the envy of the important nomination. It was fixed
      without consulting the interest or inclination of the princes of
      the West. Each of them had a son who was arrived at the age of
      manhood, and who might have been deemed the most natural
      candidates for the vacant honor. But the impotent resentment of
      Maximian was no longer to be dreaded; and the moderate
      Constantius, though he might despise the dangers, was humanely
      apprehensive of the calamities, of civil war. The two persons
      whom Galerius promoted to the rank of Cæsar were much better
      suited to serve the views of his ambition; and their principal
      recommendation seems to have consisted in the want of merit or
      personal consequence. The first of these was Daza, or, as he was
      afterwards called, Maximin, whose mother was the sister of
      Galerius. The unexperienced youth still betrayed, by his manners
      and language, his rustic education, when, to his own
      astonishment, as well as that of the world, he was invested by
      Diocletian with the purple, exalted to the dignity of Cæsar, and
      intrusted with the sovereign command of Egypt and Syria. 5 At the
      same time, Severus, a faithful servant, addicted to pleasure, but
      not incapable of business, was sent to Milan, to receive, from
      the reluctant hands of Maximian, the Cæsarian ornaments, and the
      possession of Italy and Africa. According to the forms of the
      constitution, Severus acknowledged the supremacy of the western
      emperor; but he was absolutely devoted to the commands of his
      benefactor Galerius, who, reserving to himself the intermediate
      countries from the confines of Italy to those of Syria, firmly
      established his power over three fourths of the monarchy. In the
      full confidence that the approaching death of Constantius would
      leave him sole master of the Roman world, we are assured that he
      had arranged in his mind a long succession of future princes, and
      that he meditated his own retreat from public life, after he
      should have accomplished a glorious reign of about twenty years.
      6 7

      5 (return) [ Sublatus nuper a pecoribus et silvis (says
      Lactantius de M. P. c. 19) statim Scutarius, continuo Protector,
      mox Tribunus, postridie Cæsar, accepit Orientem. Aurelius Victor
      is too liberal in giving him the whole portion of Diocletian.]

      6 (return) [ His diligence and fidelity are acknowledged even by
      Lactantius, de M. P. c. 18.]

      7 (return) [ These schemes, however, rest only on the very
      doubtful authority of Lactantius de M. P. c. 20.]

      But within less than eighteen months, two unexpected revolutions
      overturned the ambitious schemes of Galerius. The hopes of
      uniting the western provinces to his empire were disappointed by
      the elevation of Constantine, whilst Italy and Africa were lost
      by the successful revolt of Maxentius.

      I. The fame of Constantine has rendered posterity attentive to
      the most minute circumstances of his life and actions. The place
      of his birth, as well as the condition of his mother Helena, have
      been the subject, not only of literary, but of national disputes.
      Notwithstanding the recent tradition, which assigns for her
      father a British king, 8 we are obliged to confess, that Helena
      was the daughter of an innkeeper; but at the same time, we may
      defend the legality of her marriage, against those who have
      represented her as the concubine of Constantius. 9 The great
      Constantine was most probably born at Naissus, in Dacia; 10 and
      it is not surprising that, in a family and province distinguished
      only by the profession of arms, the youth should discover very
      little inclination to improve his mind by the acquisition of
      knowledge. 11 He was about eighteen years of age when his father
      was promoted to the rank of Cæsar; but that fortunate event was
      attended with his mother’s divorce; and the splendor of an
      Imperial alliance reduced the son of Helena to a state of
      disgrace and humiliation. Instead of following Constantius in the
      West, he remained in the service of Diocletian, signalized his
      valor in the wars of Egypt and Persia, and gradually rose to the
      honorable station of a tribune of the first order. The figure of
      Constantine was tall and majestic; he was dexterous in all his
      exercises, intrepid in war, affable in peace; in his whole
      conduct, the active spirit of youth was tempered by habitual
      prudence; and while his mind was engrossed by ambition, he
      appeared cold and insensible to the allurements of pleasure. The
      favor of the people and soldiers, who had named him as a worthy
      candidate for the rank of Cæsar, served only to exasperate the
      jealousy of Galerius; and though prudence might restrain him from
      exercising any open violence, an absolute monarch is seldom at a
      loss how to execute a sure and secret revenge. 12 Every hour
      increased the danger of Constantine, and the anxiety of his
      father, who, by repeated letters, expressed the warmest desire of
      embracing his son. For some time the policy of Galerius supplied
      him with delays and excuses; but it was impossible long to refuse
      so natural a request of his associate, without maintaining his
      refusal by arms. The permission of the journey was reluctantly
      granted, and whatever precautions the emperor might have taken to
      intercept a return, the consequences of which he, with so much
      reason, apprehended, they were effectually disappointed by the
      incredible diligence of Constantine. 13 Leaving the palace of
      Nicomedia in the night, he travelled post through Bithynia,
      Thrace, Dacia, Pannonia, Italy, and Gaul, and, amidst the joyful
      acclamations of the people, reached the port of Boulogne in the
      very moment when his father was preparing to embark for Britain.
      14

      8 (return) [ This tradition, unknown to the contemporaries of
      Constantine was invented in the darkness of monestaries, was
      embellished by Jeffrey of Monmouth, and the writers of the xiith
      century, has been defended by our antiquarians of the last age,
      and is seriously related in the ponderous History of England,
      compiled by Mr. Carte, (vol. i. p. 147.) He transports, however,
      the kingdom of Coil, the imaginary father of Helena, from Essex
      to the wall of Antoninus.]

      9 (return) [ Eutropius (x. 2) expresses, in a few words, the real
      truth, and the occasion of the error “ex obscuriori matrimonio
      ejus filius.” Zosimus (l. ii. p. 78) eagerly seized the most
      unfavorable report, and is followed by Orosius, (vii. 25,) whose
      authority is oddly enough overlooked by the indefatigable, but
      partial Tillemont. By insisting on the divorce of Helena,
      Diocletian acknowledged her marriage.]

      10 (return) [ There are three opinions with regard to the place
      of Constantine’s birth. 1. Our English antiquarians were used to
      dwell with rapture on the words of his panegyrist, “Britannias
      illic oriendo nobiles fecisti.” But this celebrated passage may
      be referred with as much propriety to the accession, as to the
      nativity of Constantine. 2. Some of the modern Greeks have
      ascribed the honor of his birth to Drepanum, a town on the Gulf
      of Nicomedia, (Cellarius, tom. ii. p. 174,) which Constantine
      dignified with the name of Helenopolis, and Justinian adorned
      with many splendid buildings, (Procop. de Edificiis, v. 2.) It is
      indeed probable enough, that Helena’s father kept an inn at
      Drepanum, and that Constantius might lodge there when he returned
      from a Persian embassy, in the reign of Aurelian. But in the
      wandering life of a soldier, the place of his marriage, and the
      places where his children are born, have very little connection
      with each other. 3. The claim of Naissus is supported by the
      anonymous writer, published at the end of Ammianus, p. 710, and
      who in general copied very good materials; and it is confirmed by
      Julius Firmicus, (de Astrologia, l. i. c. 4,) who flourished
      under the reign of Constantine himself. Some objections have been
      raised against the integrity of the text, and the application of
      the passage of Firmicus but the former is established by the best
      Mss., and the latter is very ably defended by Lipsius de
      Magnitudine Romana, l. iv. c. 11, et Supplement.]

      11 (return) [ Literis minus instructus. Anonym. ad Ammian. p.
      710.]

      12 (return) [ Galerius, or perhaps his own courage, exposed him
      to single combat with a Sarmatian, (Anonym. p. 710,) and with a
      monstrous lion. See Praxagoras apud Photium, p. 63. Praxagoras,
      an Athenian philosopher, had written a life of Constantine in two
      books, which are now lost. He was a contemporary.]

      13 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 78, 79. Lactantius de M. P. c.
      24. The former tells a very foolish story, that Constantine
      caused all the post-horses which he had used to be hamstrung.
      Such a bloody execution, without preventing a pursuit, would have
      scattered suspicions, and might have stopped his journey. * Note:
      Zosimus is not the only writer who tells this story. The younger
      Victor confirms it. Ad frustrandos insequentes, publica jumenta,
      quaqua iter ageret, interficiens. Aurelius Victor de Cæsar says
      the same thing, G. as also the Anonymus Valesii.— M. ——Manso,
      (Leben Constantins,) p. 18, observes that the story has been
      exaggerated; he took this precaution during the first stage of
      his journey.—M.]

      14 (return) [ Anonym. p. 710. Panegyr. Veter. vii. 4. But
      Zosimus, l. ii. p. 79, Eusebius de Vit. Constant. l. i. c. 21,
      and Lactantius de M. P. c. 24. suppose, with less accuracy, that
      he found his father on his death-bed.]

      The British expedition, and an easy victory over the barbarians
      of Caledonia, were the last exploits of the reign of Constantius.
      He ended his life in the Imperial palace of York, fifteen months
      after he had received the title of Augustus, and almost fourteen
      years and a half after he had been promoted to the rank of Cæsar.
      His death was immediately succeeded by the elevation of
      Constantine. The ideas of inheritance and succession are so very
      familiar, that the generality of mankind consider them as founded
      not only in reason but in nature itself. Our imagination readily
      transfers the same principles from private property to public
      dominion: and whenever a virtuous father leaves behind him a son
      whose merit seems to justify the esteem, or even the hopes, of
      the people, the joint influence of prejudice and of affection
      operates with irresistible weight. The flower of the western
      armies had followed Constantius into Britain, and the national
      troops were reënforced by a numerous body of Alemanni, who obeyed
      the orders of Crocus, one of their hereditary chieftains. 15 The
      opinion of their own importance, and the assurance that Britain,
      Gaul, and Spain would acquiesce in their nomination, were
      diligently inculcated to the legions by the adherents of
      Constantine. The soldiers were asked, whether they could hesitate
      a moment between the honor of placing at their head the worthy
      son of their beloved emperor, and the ignominy of tamely
      expecting the arrival of some obscure stranger, on whom it might
      please the sovereign of Asia to bestow the armies and provinces
      of the West. It was insinuated to them, that gratitude and
      liberality held a distinguished place among the virtues of
      Constantine; nor did that artful prince show himself to the
      troops, till they were prepared to salute him with the names of
      Augustus and Emperor. The throne was the object of his desires;
      and had he been less actuated by ambition, it was his only means
      of safety. He was well acquainted with the character and
      sentiments of Galerius, and sufficiently apprised, that if he
      wished to live he must determine to reign. The decent and even
      obstinate resistance which he chose to affect, 16 was contrived
      to justify his usurpation; nor did he yield to the acclamations
      of the army, till he had provided the proper materials for a
      letter, which he immediately despatched to the emperor of the
      East. Constantine informed him of the melancholy event of his
      father’s death, modestly asserted his natural claim to the
      succession, and respectfully lamented, that the affectionate
      violence of his troops had not permitted him to solicit the
      Imperial purple in the regular and constitutional manner. The
      first emotions of Galerius were those of surprise,
      disappointment, and rage; and as he could seldom restrain his
      passions, he loudly threatened, that he would commit to the
      flames both the letter and the messenger. But his resentment
      insensibly subsided; and when he recollected the doubtful chance
      of war, when he had weighed the character and strength of his
      adversary, he consented to embrace the honorable accommodation
      which the prudence of Constantine had left open to him. Without
      either condemning or ratifying the choice of the British army,
      Galerius accepted the son of his deceased colleague as the
      sovereign of the provinces beyond the Alps; but he gave him only
      the title of Cæsar, and the fourth rank among the Roman princes,
      whilst he conferred the vacant place of Augustus on his favorite
      Severus. The apparent harmony of the empire was still preserved,
      and Constantine, who already possessed the substance, expected,
      without impatience, an opportunity of obtaining the honors, of
      supreme power. 17

      15 (return) [ Cunctis qui aderant, annitentibus, sed præcipue
      Croco (alii Eroco) [Erich?] Alamannorum Rege, auxilii gratia
      Constantium comitato, imperium capit. Victor Junior, c. 41. This
      is perhaps the first instance of a barbarian king, who assisted
      the Roman arms with an independent body of his own subjects. The
      practice grew familiar and at last became fatal.]

      16 (return) [ His panegyrist Eumenius (vii. 8) ventures to affirm
      in the presence of Constantine, that he put spurs to his horse,
      and tried, but in vain, to escape from the hands of his
      soldiers.]

      17 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 25. Eumenius (vii. 8.) gives
      a rhetorical turn to the whole transaction.]

      The children of Constantius by his second marriage were six in
      number, three of either sex, and whose Imperial descent might
      have solicited a preference over the meaner extraction of the son
      of Helena. But Constantine was in the thirty-second year of his
      age, in the full vigor both of mind and body, at the time when
      the eldest of his brothers could not possibly be more than
      thirteen years old. His claim of superior merit had been allowed
      and ratified by the dying emperor. 18 In his last moments
      Constantius bequeathed to his eldest son the care of the safety
      as well as greatness of the family; conjuring him to assume both
      the authority and the sentiments of a father with regard to the
      children of Theodora. Their liberal education, advantageous
      marriages, the secure dignity of their lives, and the first
      honors of the state with which they were invested, attest the
      fraternal affection of Constantine; and as those princes
      possessed a mild and grateful disposition, they submitted without
      reluctance to the superiority of his genius and fortune. 19

      18 (return) [ The choice of Constantine, by his dying father,
      which is warranted by reason, and insinuated by Eumenius, seems
      to be confirmed by the most unexceptionable authority, the
      concurring evidence of Lactantius (de M. P. c. 24) and of
      Libanius, (Oratio i.,) of Eusebius (in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c.
      18, 21) and of Julian, (Oratio i)]

      19 (return) [ Of the three sisters of Constantine, Constantia
      married the emperor Licinius, Anastasia the Cæsar Bassianus, and
      Eutropia the consul Nepotianus. The three brothers were,
      Dalmatius, Julius Constantius, and Annibalianus, of whom we shall
      have occasion to speak hereafter.]

      II. The ambitious spirit of Galerius was scarcely reconciled to
      the disappointment of his views upon the Gallic provinces, before
      the unexpected loss of Italy wounded his pride as well as power
      in a still more sensible part. The long absence of the emperors
      had filled Rome with discontent and indignation; and the people
      gradually discovered, that the preference given to Nicomedia and
      Milan was not to be ascribed to the particular inclination of
      Diocletian, but to the permanent form of government which he had
      instituted. It was in vain that, a few months after his
      abdication, his successors dedicated, under his name, those
      magnificent baths, whose ruins still supply the ground as well as
      the materials for so many churches and convents. 20 The
      tranquility of those elegant recesses of ease and luxury was
      disturbed by the impatient murmurs of the Romans, and a report
      was insensibly circulated, that the sums expended in erecting
      those buildings would soon be required at their hands. About that
      time the avarice of Galerius, or perhaps the exigencies of the
      state, had induced him to make a very strict and rigorous
      inquisition into the property of his subjects, for the purpose of
      a general taxation, both on their lands and on their persons. A
      very minute survey appears to have been taken of their real
      estates; and wherever there was the slightest suspicion of
      concealment, torture was very freely employed to obtain a sincere
      declaration of their personal wealth. 21 The privileges which had
      exalted Italy above the rank of the provinces were no longer
      regarded: 211 and the officers of the revenue already began to
      number the Roman people, and to settle the proportion of the new
      taxes. Even when the spirit of freedom had been utterly
      extinguished, the tamest subjects have sometimes ventured to
      resist an unprecedented invasion of their property; but on this
      occasion the injury was aggravated by the insult, and the sense
      of private interest was quickened by that of national honor. The
      conquest of Macedonia, as we have already observed, had delivered
      the Roman people from the weight of personal taxes.

      Though they had experienced every form of despotism, they had now
      enjoyed that exemption near five hundred years; nor could they
      patiently brook the insolence of an Illyrian peasant, who, from
      his distant residence in Asia, presumed to number Rome among the
      tributary cities of his empire. The rising fury of the people was
      encouraged by the authority, or at least the connivance, of the
      senate; and the feeble remains of the Prætorian guards, who had
      reason to apprehend their own dissolution, embraced so honorable
      a pretence, and declared their readiness to draw their swords in
      the service of their oppressed country. It was the wish, and it
      soon became the hope, of every citizen, that after expelling from
      Italy their foreign tyrants, they should elect a prince who, by
      the place of his residence, and by his maxims of government,
      might once more deserve the title of Roman emperor. The name, as
      well as the situation, of Maxentius determined in his favor the
      popular enthusiasm.

      20 (return) [ See Gruter. Inscrip. p. 178. The six princes are
      all mentioned, Diocletian and Maximian as the senior Augusti, and
      fathers of the emperors. They jointly dedicate, for the use of
      their own Romans, this magnificent edifice. The architects have
      delineated the ruins of these Thermoe, and the antiquarians,
      particularly Donatus and Nardini, have ascertained the ground
      which they covered. One of the great rooms is now the Carthusian
      church; and even one of the porter’s lodges is sufficient to form
      another church, which belongs to the Feuillans.]

      21 (return) [ See Lactantius de M. P. c. 26, 31. ]

      211 (return) [ Saviguy, in his memoir on Roman taxation, (Mem.
      Berl. Academ. 1822, 1823, p. 5,) dates from this period the
      abolition of the Jus Italicum. He quotes a remarkable passage of
      Aurelius Victor. Hinc denique parti Italiæ invec tum tributorum
      ingens malum. Aur. Vict. c. 39. It was a necessary consequence of
      the division of the empire: it became impossible to maintain a
      second court and executive, and leave so large and fruitful a
      part of the territory exempt from contribution.—M.]

      Maxentius was the son of the emperor Maximian, and he had married
      the daughter of Galerius. His birth and alliance seemed to offer
      him the fairest promise of succeeding to the empire; but his
      vices and incapacity procured him the same exclusion from the
      dignity of Cæsar, which Constantine had deserved by a dangerous
      superiority of merit. The policy of Galerius preferred such
      associates as would never disgrace the choice, nor dispute the
      commands, of their benefactor. An obscure stranger was therefore
      raised to the throne of Italy, and the son of the late emperor of
      the West was left to enjoy the luxury of a private fortune in a
      villa a few miles distant from the capital. The gloomy passions
      of his soul, shame, vexation, and rage, were inflamed by envy on
      the news of Constantine’s success; but the hopes of Maxentius
      revived with the public discontent, and he was easily persuaded
      to unite his personal injury and pretensions with the cause of
      the Roman people. Two Prætorian tribunes and a commissary of
      provisions undertook the management of the conspiracy; and as
      every order of men was actuated by the same spirit, the immediate
      event was neither doubtful nor difficult. The præfect of the
      city, and a few magistrates, who maintained their fidelity to
      Severus, were massacred by the guards; and Maxentius, invested
      with the Imperial ornaments, was acknowledged by the applauding
      senate and people as the protector of the Roman freedom and
      dignity. It is uncertain whether Maximian was previously
      acquainted with the conspiracy; but as soon as the standard of
      rebellion was erected at Rome, the old emperor broke from the
      retirement where the authority of Diocletian had condemned him to
      pass a life of melancholy and solitude, and concealed his
      returning ambition under the disguise of paternal tenderness. At
      the request of his son and of the senate, he condescended to
      reassume the purple. His ancient dignity, his experience, and his
      fame in arms, added strength as well as reputation to the party
      of Maxentius. 22

      22 (return) [ The sixth Panegyric represents the conduct of
      Maximian in the most favorable light, and the ambiguous
      expression of Aurelius Victor, “retractante diu,” may signify
      either that he contrived, or that he opposed, the conspiracy. See
      Zosimus, l. ii. p. 79, and Lactantius de M. P. c. 26.]

      According to the advice, or rather the orders, of his colleague,
      the emperor Severus immediately hastened to Rome, in the full
      confidence, that, by his unexpected celerity, he should easily
      suppress the tumult of an unwarlike populace, commanded by a
      licentious youth. But he found on his arrival the gates of the
      city shut against him, the walls filled with men and arms, an
      experienced general at the head of the rebels, and his own troops
      without spirit or affection. A large body of Moors deserted to
      the enemy, allured by the promise of a large donative; and, if it
      be true that they had been levied by Maximian in his African war,
      preferring the natural feelings of gratitude to the artificial
      ties of allegiance. Anulinus, the Prætorian præfect, declared
      himself in favor of Maxentius, and drew after him the most
      considerable part of the troops, accustomed to obey his commands.

      Rome, according to the expression of an orator, recalled her
      armies; and the unfortunate Severus, destitute of force and of
      counsel, retired, or rather fled, with precipitation, to Ravenna.

      Here he might for some time have been safe. The fortifications of
      Ravenna were able to resist the attempts, and the morasses that
      surrounded the town were sufficient to prevent the approach, of
      the Italian army. The sea, which Severus commanded with a
      powerful fleet, secured him an inexhaustible supply of
      provisions, and gave a free entrance to the legions, which, on
      the return of spring, would advance to his assistance from
      Illyricum and the East. Maximian, who conducted the siege in
      person, was soon convinced that he might waste his time and his
      army in the fruitless enterprise, and that he had nothing to hope
      either from force or famine. With an art more suitable to the
      character of Diocletian than to his own, he directed his attack,
      not so much against the walls of Ravenna, as against the mind of
      Severus. The treachery which he had experienced disposed that
      unhappy prince to distrust the most sincere of his friends and
      adherents. The emissaries of Maximian easily persuaded his
      credulity, that a conspiracy was formed to betray the town, and
      prevailed upon his fears not to expose himself to the discretion
      of an irritated conqueror, but to accept the faith of an
      honorable capitulation. He was at first received with humanity
      and treated with respect. Maximian conducted the captive emperor
      to Rome, and gave him the most solemn assurances that he had
      secured his life by the resignation of the purple. But Severus
      could obtain only an easy death and an Imperial funeral. When the
      sentence was signified to him, the manner of executing it was
      left to his own choice; he preferred the favorite mode of the
      ancients, that of opening his veins; and as soon as he expired,
      his body was carried to the sepulchre which had been constructed
      for the family of Gallienus. 23

      23 (return) [ The circumstances of this war, and the death of
      Severus, are very doubtfully and variously told in our ancient
      fragments, (see Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. part i.
      p. 555.) I have endeavored to extract from them a consistent and
      probable narration. * Note: Manso justly observes that two
      totally different narratives might be formed, almost upon equal
      authority. Beylage, iv.—M.]




      Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
      Empire.—Part II.

      Though the characters of Constantine and Maxentius had very
      little affinity with each other, their situation and interest
      were the same; and prudence seemed to require that they should
      unite their forces against the common enemy. Notwithstanding the
      superiority of his age and dignity, the indefatigable Maximian
      passed the Alps, and, courting a personal interview with the
      sovereign of Gaul, carried with him his daughter Fausta as the
      pledge of the new alliance. The marriage was celebrated at Arles
      with every circumstance of magnificence; and the ancient
      colleague of Diocletian, who again asserted his claim to the
      Western empire, conferred on his son-in-law and ally the title of
      Augustus. By consenting to receive that honor from Maximian,
      Constantine seemed to embrace the cause of Rome and of the
      senate; but his professions were ambiguous, and his assistance
      slow and ineffectual. He considered with attention the
      approaching contest between the masters of Italy and the emperor
      of the East, and was prepared to consult his own safety or
      ambition in the event of the war. 24

      24 (return) [ The sixth Panegyric was pronounced to celebrate the
      elevation of Constantine; but the prudent orator avoids the
      mention either of Galerius or of Maxentius. He introduces only
      one slight allusion to the actual troubles, and to the majesty of
      Rome. * Note: Compare Manso, Beylage, iv. p. 302. Gibbon’s
      account is at least as probable as that of his critic.—M.]

      The importance of the occasion called for the presence and
      abilities of Galerius. At the head of a powerful army, collected
      from Illyricum and the East, he entered Italy, resolved to
      revenge the death of Severus, and to chastise the rebellious
      Romans; or, as he expressed his intentions, in the furious
      language of a barbarian, to extirpate the senate, and to destroy
      the people by the sword. But the skill of Maximian had concerted
      a prudent system of defence. The invader found every place
      hostile, fortified, and inaccessible; and though he forced his
      way as far as Narni, within sixty miles of Rome, his dominion in
      Italy was confined to the narrow limits of his camp. Sensible of
      the increasing difficulties of his enterprise, the haughty
      Galerius made the first advances towards a reconciliation, and
      despatched two of his most considerable officers to tempt the
      Roman princes by the offer of a conference, and the declaration
      of his paternal regard for Maxentius, who might obtain much more
      from his liberality than he could hope from the doubtful chance
      of war. 25 The offers of Galerius were rejected with firmness,
      his perfidious friendship refused with contempt, and it was not
      long before he discovered, that, unless he provided for his
      safety by a timely retreat, he had some reason to apprehend the
      fate of Severus. The wealth which the Romans defended against his
      rapacious tyranny, they freely contributed for his destruction.
      The name of Maximian, the popular arts of his son, the secret
      distribution of large sums, and the promise of still more liberal
      rewards, checked the ardor and corrupted the fidelity of the
      Illyrian legions; and when Galerius at length gave the signal of
      the retreat, it was with some difficulty that he could prevail on
      his veterans not to desert a banner which had so often conducted
      them to victory and honor. A contemporary writer assigns two
      other causes for the failure of the expedition; but they are both
      of such a nature, that a cautious historian will scarcely venture
      to adopt them. We are told that Galerius, who had formed a very
      imperfect notion of the greatness of Rome by the cities of the
      East with which he was acquainted, found his forces inadequate to
      the siege of that immense capital.

      But the extent of a city serves only to render it more accessible
      to the enemy: Rome had long since been accustomed to submit on
      the approach of a conqueror; nor could the temporary enthusiasm
      of the people have long contended against the discipline and
      valor of the legions. We are likewise informed that the legions
      themselves were struck with horror and remorse, and that those
      pious sons of the republic refused to violate the sanctity of
      their venerable parent. 26 But when we recollect with how much
      ease, in the more ancient civil wars, the zeal of party and the
      habits of military obedience had converted the native citizens of
      Rome into her most implacable enemies, we shall be inclined to
      distrust this extreme delicacy of strangers and barbarians, who
      had never beheld Italy till they entered it in a hostile manner.
      Had they not been restrained by motives of a more interested
      nature, they would probably have answered Galerius in the words
      of Cæsar’s veterans: “If our general wishes to lead us to the
      banks of the Tyber, we are prepared to trace out his camp.
      Whatsoever walls he has determined to level with the ground, our
      hands are ready to work the engines: nor shall we hesitate,
      should the name of the devoted city be Rome itself.” These are
      indeed the expressions of a poet; but of a poet who has been
      distinguished, and even censured, for his strict adherence to the
      truth of history. 27

      25 (return) [ With regard to this negotiation, see the fragments
      of an anonymous historian, published by Valesius at the end of
      his edition of Ammianus Marcellinus, p. 711. These fragments have
      furnished with several curious, and, as it should seem, authentic
      anecdotes.]

      26 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 28. The former of these
      reasons is probably taken from Virgil’s Shepherd: “Illam * * *
      ego huic notra similem, Meliboee, putavi,” &c. Lactantius
      delights in these poetical illusions.]

      27 (return)
      [ Castra super Tusci si ponere Tybridis undas; (_jubeas_)
      Hesperios audax veniam metator in agros.
      Tu quoscunque voles in planum effundere muros,
      His aries actus disperget saxa lacertis;
      Illa licet penitus tolli quam jusseris urbem
      Roma sit.
      Lucan. Pharsal. i. 381.]

      The legions of Galerius exhibited a very melancholy proof of
      their disposition, by the ravages which they committed in their
      retreat. They murdered, they ravished, they plundered, they drove
      away the flocks and herds of the Italians; they burnt the
      villages through which they passed, and they endeavored to
      destroy the country which it had not been in their power to
      subdue. During the whole march, Maxentius hung on their rear, but
      he very prudently declined a general engagement with those brave
      and desperate veterans. His father had undertaken a second
      journey into Gaul, with the hope of persuading Constantine, who
      had assembled an army on the frontier, to join in the pursuit,
      and to complete the victory. But the actions of Constantine were
      guided by reason, and not by resentment. He persisted in the wise
      resolution of maintaining a balance of power in the divided
      empire, and he no longer hated Galerius, when that aspiring
      prince had ceased to be an object of terror. 28

      28 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 27. Zosim. l. ii. p. 82. The
      latter, that Constantine, in his interview with Maximian, had
      promised to declare war against Galerius.]

      The mind of Galerius was the most susceptible of the sterner
      passions, but it was not, however, incapable of a sincere and
      lasting friendship. Licinius, whose manners as well as character
      were not unlike his own, seems to have engaged both his affection
      and esteem. Their intimacy had commenced in the happier period
      perhaps of their youth and obscurity. It had been cemented by the
      freedom and dangers of a military life; they had advanced almost
      by equal steps through the successive honors of the service; and
      as soon as Galerius was invested with the Imperial dignity, he
      seems to have conceived the design of raising his companion to
      the same rank with himself. During the short period of his
      prosperity, he considered the rank of Cæsar as unworthy of the
      age and merit of Licinius, and rather chose to reserve for him
      the place of Constantius, and the empire of the West. While the
      emperor was employed in the Italian war, he intrusted his friend
      with the defence of the Danube; and immediately after his return
      from that unfortunate expedition, he invested Licinius with the
      vacant purple of Severus, resigning to his immediate command the
      provinces of Illyricum. 29 The news of his promotion was no
      sooner carried into the East, than Maximin, who governed, or
      rather oppressed, the countries of Egypt and Syria, betrayed his
      envy and discontent, disdained the inferior name of Cæsar, and,
      notwithstanding the prayers as well as arguments of Galerius,
      exacted, almost by violence, the equal title of Augustus. 30 For
      the first, and indeed for the last time, the Roman world was
      administered by six emperors. In the West, Constantine and
      Maxentius affected to reverence their father Maximian. In the
      East, Licinius and Maximin honored with more real consideration
      their benefactor Galerius. The opposition of interest, and the
      memory of a recent war, divided the empire into two great hostile
      powers; but their mutual fears produced an apparent tranquillity,
      and even a feigned reconciliation, till the death of the elder
      princes, of Maximian, and more particularly of Galerius, gave a
      new direction to the views and passions of their surviving
      associates.

      29 (return) [ M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. part
      i. p. 559) has proved that Licinius, without passing through the
      intermediate rank of Cæsar, was declared Augustus, the 11th of
      November, A. D. 307, after the return of Galerius from Italy.]

      30 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 32. When Galerius declared
      Licinius Augustus with himself, he tried to satisfy his younger
      associates, by inventing for Constantine and Maximin (not
      Maxentius; see Baluze, p. 81) the new title of sons of the
      Augusti. But when Maximin acquainted him that he had been saluted
      Augustus by the army, Galerius was obliged to acknowledge him as
      well as Constantine, as equal associates in the Imperial
      dignity.]

      When Maximian had reluctantly abdicated the empire, the venal
      orators of the times applauded his philosophic moderation. When
      his ambition excited, or at least encouraged, a civil war, they
      returned thanks to his generous patriotism, and gently censured
      that love of ease and retirement which had withdrawn him from the
      public service. 31 But it was impossible that minds like those of
      Maximian and his son could long possess in harmony an undivided
      power. Maxentius considered himself as the legal sovereign of
      Italy, elected by the Roman senate and people; nor would he
      endure the control of his father, who arrogantly declared that by
      _his_ name and abilities the rash youth had been established on
      the throne. The cause was solemnly pleaded before the Prætorian
      guards; and those troops, who dreaded the severity of the old
      emperor, espoused the party of Maxentius. 32 The life and freedom
      of Maximian were, however, respected, and he retired from Italy
      into Illyricum, affecting to lament his past conduct, and
      secretly contriving new mischiefs. But Galerius, who was well
      acquainted with his character, soon obliged him to leave his
      dominions, and the last refuge of the disappointed Maximian was
      the court of his son-in-law Constantine. 33 He was received with
      respect by that artful prince, and with the appearance of filial
      tenderness by the empress Fausta. That he might remove every
      suspicion, he resigned the Imperial purple a second time, 34
      professing himself at length convinced of the vanity of greatness
      and ambition. Had he persevered in this resolution, he might have
      ended his life with less dignity, indeed, than in his first
      retirement, yet, however, with comfort and reputation. But the
      near prospect of a throne brought back to his remembrance the
      state from whence he was fallen, and he resolved, by a desperate
      effort, either to reign or to perish. An incursion of the Franks
      had summoned Constantine, with a part of his army, to the banks
      of the Rhine; the remainder of the troops were stationed in the
      southern provinces of Gaul, which lay exposed to the enterprises
      of the Italian emperor, and a considerable treasure was deposited
      in the city of Arles. Maximian either craftily invented, or
      easily credited, a vain report of the death of Constantine.
      Without hesitation he ascended the throne, seized the treasure,
      and scattering it with his accustomed profusion among the
      soldiers, endeavored to awake in their minds the memory of his
      ancient dignity and exploits. Before he could establish his
      authority, or finish the negotiation which he appears to have
      entered into with his son Maxentius, the celerity of Constantine
      defeated all his hopes. On the first news of his perfidy and
      ingratitude, that prince returned by rapid marches from the Rhine
      to the Saone, embarked on the last-mentioned river at Chalons,
      and, at Lyons trusting himself to the rapidity of the Rhone,
      arrived at the gates of Arles with a military force which it was
      impossible for Maximian to resist, and which scarcely permitted
      him to take refuge in the neighboring city of Marseilles. The
      narrow neck of land which joined that place to the continent was
      fortified against the besiegers, whilst the sea was open, either
      for the escape of Maximian, or for the succor of Maxentius, if
      the latter should choose to disguise his invasion of Gaul under
      the honorable pretence of defending a distressed, or, as he might
      allege, an injured father. Apprehensive of the fatal consequences
      of delay, Constantine gave orders for an immediate assault; but
      the scaling-ladders were found too short for the height of the
      walls, and Marseilles might have sustained as long a siege as it
      formerly did against the arms of Cæsar, if the garrison,
      conscious either of their fault or of their danger, had not
      purchased their pardon by delivering up the city and the person
      of Maximian. A secret but irrevocable sentence of death was
      pronounced against the usurper; he obtained only the same favor
      which he had indulged to Severus, and it was published to the
      world, that, oppressed by the remorse of his repeated crimes, he
      strangled himself with his own hands. After he had lost the
      assistance, and disdained the moderate counsels, of Diocletian,
      the second period of his active life was a series of public
      calamities and personal mortifications, which were terminated, in
      about three years, by an ignominious death. He deserved his fate;
      but we should find more reason to applaud the humanity of
      Constantine, if he had spared an old man, the benefactor of his
      father, and the father of his wife. During the whole of this
      melancholy transaction, it appears that Fausta sacrificed the
      sentiments of nature to her conjugal duties. 35

      31 (return) [ See Panegyr. Vet. vi. 9. Audi doloris nostri
      liberam vocem, &c. The whole passage is imagined with artful
      flattery, and expressed with an easy flow of eloquence.]

      32 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 28. Zosim. l. ii. p. 82. A
      report was spread, that Maxentius was the son of some obscure
      Syrian, and had been substituted by the wife of Maximian as her
      own child. See Aurelius Victor, Anonym. Valesian, and Panegyr.
      Vet. ix. 3, 4.]

      33 (return) [ Ab urbe pulsum, ab Italia fugatum, ab Illyrico
      repudiatum, provinciis, tuis copiis, tuo palatio recepisti.
      Eumen. in Panegyr Vet. vii. 14.]

      34 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 29. Yet, after the
      resignation of the purple, Constantine still continued to
      Maximian the pomp and honors of the Imperial dignity; and on all
      public occasions gave the right hand place to his father-in-law.
      Panegyr. Vet. viii. 15.]

      35 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 82. Eumenius in Panegyr. Vet. vii.
      16—21. The latter of these has undoubtedly represented the whole
      affair in the most favorable light for his sovereign. Yet even
      from this partial narrative we may conclude, that the repeated
      clemency of Constantine, and the reiterated treasons of Maximian,
      as they are described by Lactantius, (de M. P. c. 29, 30,) and
      copied by the moderns, are destitute of any historical
      foundation. Note: Yet some pagan authors relate and confirm them.
      Aurelius Victor speaking of Maximin, says, cumque specie officii,
      dolis compositis, Constantinum generum tentaret acerbe, jure
      tamen interierat. Aur. Vict. de Cæsar l. p. 623. Eutropius also
      says, inde ad Gallias profectus est (Maximianus) composito
      tamquam a filio esset expulsus, ut Constantino genero jun
      geretur: moliens tamen Constantinum, reperta occasione,
      interficere, dedit justissimo exitu. Eutrop. x. p. 661. (Anon.
      Gent.)—G. —— These writers hardly confirm more than Gibbon
      admits; he denies the repeated clemency of Constantine, and the
      reiterated treasons of Maximian Compare Manso, p. 302.—M.]

      The last years of Galerius were less shameful and unfortunate;
      and though he had filled with more glory the subordinate station
      of Cæsar than the superior rank of Augustus, he preserved, till
      the moment of his death, the first place among the princes of the
      Roman world. He survived his retreat from Italy about four years;
      and wisely relinquishing his views of universal empire, he
      devoted the remainder of his life to the enjoyment of pleasure,
      and to the execution of some works of public utility, among which
      we may distinguish the discharging into the Danube the
      superfluous waters of the Lake Pelso, and the cutting down the
      immense forests that encompassed it; an operation worthy of a
      monarch, since it gave an extensive country to the agriculture of
      his Pannonian subjects. 36 His death was occasioned by a very
      painful and lingering disorder. His body, swelled by an
      intemperate course of life to an unwieldy corpulence, was covered
      with ulcers, and devoured by innumerable swarms of those insects
      which have given their name to a most loathsome disease; 37 but
      as Galerius had offended a very zealous and powerful party among
      his subjects, his sufferings, instead of exciting their
      compassion, have been celebrated as the visible effects of divine
      justice. 38 He had no sooner expired in his palace of Nicomedia,
      than the two emperors who were indebted for their purple to his
      favors, began to collect their forces, with the intention either
      of disputing, or of dividing, the dominions which he had left
      without a master. They were persuaded, however, to desist from
      the former design, and to agree in the latter. The provinces of
      Asia fell to the share of Maximin, and those of Europe augmented
      the portion of Licinius. The Hellespont and the Thracian
      Bosphorus formed their mutual boundary, and the banks of those
      narrow seas, which flowed in the midst of the Roman world, were
      covered with soldiers, with arms, and with fortifications. The
      deaths of Maximian and of Galerius reduced the number of emperors
      to four. The sense of their true interest soon connected Licinius
      and Constantine; a secret alliance was concluded between Maximin
      and Maxentius, and their unhappy subjects expected with terror
      the bloody consequences of their inevitable dissensions, which
      were no longer restrained by the fear or the respect which they
      had entertained for Galerius. 39

      36 (return) [ Aurelius Victor, c. 40. But that lake was situated
      on the upper Pannonia, near the borders of Noricum; and the
      province of Valeria (a name which the wife of Galerius gave to
      the drained country) undoubtedly lay between the Drave and the
      Danube, (Sextus Rufus, c. 9.) I should therefore suspect that
      Victor has confounded the Lake Pelso with the Volocean marshes,
      or, as they are now called, the Lake Sabaton. It is placed in the
      heart of Valeria, and its present extent is not less than twelve
      Hungarian miles (about seventy English) in length, and two in
      breadth. See Severini Pannonia, l. i. c. 9.]

      37 (return) [ Lactantius (de M. P. c. 33) and Eusebius (l. viii.
      c. 16) describe the symptoms and progress of his disorder with
      singular accuracy and apparent pleasure.]

      38 (return) [ If any (like the late Dr. Jortin, Remarks on
      Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 307—356) still delight in
      recording the wonderful deaths of the persecutors, I would
      recommend to their perusal an admirable passage of Grotius (Hist.
      l. vii. p. 332) concerning the last illness of Philip II. of
      Spain.]

      39 (return) [ See Eusebius, l. ix. 6, 10. Lactantius de M. P. c.
      36. Zosimus is less exact, and evidently confounds Maximian with
      Maximin.]

      Among so many crimes and misfortunes, occasioned by the passions
      of the Roman princes, there is some pleasure in discovering a
      single action which may be ascribed to their virtue. In the sixth
      year of his reign, Constantine visited the city of Autun, and
      generously remitted the arrears of tribute, reducing at the same
      time the proportion of their assessment from twenty-five to
      eighteen thousand heads, subject to the real and personal
      capitation. 40 Yet even this indulgence affords the most
      unquestionable proof of the public misery. This tax was so
      extremely oppressive, either in itself or in the mode of
      collecting it, that whilst the revenue was increased by
      extortion, it was diminished by despair: a considerable part of
      the territory of Autun was left uncultivated; and great numbers
      of the provincials rather chose to live as exiles and outlaws,
      than to support the weight of civil society. It is but too
      probable, that the bountiful emperor relieved, by a partial act
      of liberality, one among the many evils which he had caused by
      his general maxims of administration. But even those maxims were
      less the effect of choice than of necessity. And if we except the
      death of Maximian, the reign of Constantine in Gaul seems to have
      been the most innocent and even virtuous period of his life.

      The provinces were protected by his presence from the inroads of
      the barbarians, who either dreaded or experienced his active
      valor. After a signal victory over the Franks and Alemanni,
      several of their princes were exposed by his order to the wild
      beasts in the amphitheatre of Treves, and the people seem to have
      enjoyed the spectacle, without discovering, in such a treatment
      of royal captives, any thing that was repugnant to the laws of
      nations or of humanity. 41

      40 (return) [ See the viiith Panegyr., in which Eumenius
      displays, in the presence of Constantine, the misery and the
      gratitude of the city of Autun.]

      41 (return) [Eutropius, x. 3. Panegyr. Veter. vii. 10, 11, 12. A
      great number of the French youth were likewise exposed to the
      same cruel and ignominious death Yet the panegyric assumes
      something of an apologetic tone. Te vero Constantine,
      quantumlibet oderint hoses, dum perhorrescant. Hæc est enim vera
      virtus, ut non ament et quiescant. The orator appeals to the
      ancient ideal of the republic.—M.]

      The virtues of Constantine were rendered more illustrious by the
      vices of Maxentius. Whilst the Gallic provinces enjoyed as much
      happiness as the condition of the times was capable of receiving,
      Italy and Africa groaned under the dominion of a tyrant, as
      contemptible as he was odious. The zeal of flattery and faction
      has indeed too frequently sacrificed the reputation of the
      vanquished to the glory of their successful rivals; but even
      those writers who have revealed, with the most freedom and
      pleasure, the faults of Constantine, unanimously confess that
      Maxentius was cruel, rapacious, and profligate. 42 He had the
      good fortune to suppress a slight rebellion in Africa. The
      governor and a few adherents had been guilty; the province
      suffered for their crime. The flourishing cities of Cirtha and
      Carthage, and the whole extent of that fertile country, were
      wasted by fire and sword. The abuse of victory was followed by
      the abuse of law and justice. A formidable army of sycophants and
      delators invaded Africa; the rich and the noble were easily
      convicted of a connection with the rebels; and those among them
      who experienced the emperor’s clemency, were only punished by the
      confiscation of their estates. 43 So signal a victory was
      celebrated by a magnificent triumph, and Maxentius exposed to the
      eyes of the people the spoils and captives of a Roman province.
      The state of the capital was no less deserving of compassion than
      that of Africa. The wealth of Rome supplied an inexhaustible fund
      for his vain and prodigal expenses, and the ministers of his
      revenue were skilled in the arts of rapine. It was under his
      reign that the method of exacting a _free gift_ from the senators
      was first invented; and as the sum was insensibly increased, the
      pretences of levying it, a victory, a birth, a marriage, or an
      imperial consulship, were proportionably multiplied. 44 Maxentius
      had imbibed the same implacable aversion to the senate, which had
      characterized most of the former tyrants of Rome; nor was it
      possible for his ungrateful temper to forgive the generous
      fidelity which had raised him to the throne, and supported him
      against all his enemies. The lives of the senators were exposed
      to his jealous suspicions, the dishonor of their wives and
      daughters heightened the gratification of his sensual passions.
      45 It may be presumed that an Imperial lover was seldom reduced
      to sigh in vain; but whenever persuasion proved ineffectual, he
      had recourse to violence; and there remains _one_ memorable
      example of a noble matron, who preserved her chastity by a
      voluntary death. The soldiers were the only order of men whom he
      appeared to respect, or studied to please. He filled Rome and
      Italy with armed troops, connived at their tumults, suffered them
      with impunity to plunder, and even to massacre, the defenceless
      people; 46 and indulging them in the same licentiousness which
      their emperor enjoyed, Maxentius often bestowed on his military
      favorites the splendid villa, or the beautiful wife, of a
      senator. A prince of such a character, alike incapable of
      governing, either in peace or in war, might purchase the support,
      but he could never obtain the esteem, of the army. Yet his pride
      was equal to his other vices. Whilst he passed his indolent life
      either within the walls of his palace, or in the neighboring
      gardens of Sallust, he was repeatedly heard to declare, that _he
      alone_ was emperor, and that the other princes were no more than
      his lieutenants, on whom he had devolved the defence of the
      frontier provinces, that he might enjoy without interruption the
      elegant luxury of the capital. Rome, which had so long regretted
      the absence, lamented, during the six years of his reign, the
      presence of her sovereign. 47

      42 (return) [ Julian excludes Maxentius from the banquet of the
      Cæsars with abhorrence and contempt; and Zosimus (l. ii. p. 85)
      accuses him of every kind of cruelty and profligacy.]

      43 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 83—85. Aurelius Victor.]

      44 (return) [ The passage of Aurelius Victor should be read in
      the following manner: Primus instituto pessimo, munerum specie,
      Patres Oratores que pecuniam conferre prodigenti sibi cogeret.]

      45 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. ix. 3. Euseb. Hist Eccles. viii. 14,
      et in Vit. Constant i. 33, 34. Rufinus, c. 17. The virtuous
      matron who stabbed herself to escape the violence of Maxentius,
      was a Christian, wife to the præfect of the city, and her name
      was Sophronia. It still remains a question among the casuists,
      whether, on such occasions, suicide is justifiable.]

      46 (return) [ Prætorianis cædem vulgi quondam annueret, is the
      vague expression of Aurelius Victor. See more particular, though
      somewhat different, accounts of a tumult and massacre which
      happened at Rome, in Eusebius, (l. viii. c. 14,) and in Zosimus,
      (l. ii. p. 84.)]

      47 (return) [ See, in the Panegyrics, (ix. 14,) a lively
      description of the indolence and vain pride of Maxentius. In
      another place the orator observes that the riches which Rome had
      accumulated in a period of 1060 years, were lavished by the
      tyrant on his mercenary bands; redemptis ad civile latrocinium
      manibus in gesserat.]

      Though Constantine might view the conduct of Maxentius with
      abhorrence, and the situation of the Romans with compassion, we
      have no reason to presume that he would have taken up arms to
      punish the one or to relieve the other. But the tyrant of Italy
      rashly ventured to provoke a formidable enemy, whose ambition had
      been hitherto restrained by considerations of prudence, rather
      than by principles of justice. 48 After the death of Maximian,
      his titles, according to the established custom, had been erased,
      and his statues thrown down with ignominy. His son, who had
      persecuted and deserted him when alive, effected to display the
      most pious regard for his memory, and gave orders that a similar
      treatment should be immediately inflicted on all the statues that
      had been erected in Italy and Africa to the honor of Constantine.

      That wise prince, who sincerely wished to decline a war, with the
      difficulty and importance of which he was sufficiently
      acquainted, at first dissembled the insult, and sought for
      redress by the milder expedient of negotiation, till he was
      convinced that the hostile and ambitious designs of the Italian
      emperor made it necessary for him to arm in his own defence.
      Maxentius, who openly avowed his pretensions to the whole
      monarchy of the West, had already prepared a very considerable
      force to invade the Gallic provinces on the side of Rhætia; and
      though he could not expect any assistance from Licinius, he was
      flattered with the hope that the legions of Illyricum, allured by
      his presents and promises, would desert the standard of that
      prince, and unanimously declare themselves his soldiers and
      subjects. 49 Constantine no longer hesitated. He had deliberated
      with caution, he acted with vigor. He gave a private audience to
      the ambassadors, who, in the name of the senate and people,
      conjured him to deliver Rome from a detested tyrant; and without
      regarding the timid remonstrances of his council, he resolved to
      prevent the enemy, and to carry the war into the heart of Italy.
      50

      48 (return) [ After the victory of Constantine, it was
      universally allowed, that the motive of delivering the republic
      from a detested tyrant, would, at any time, have justified his
      expedition into Italy. Euseb in Vi’. Constantin. l. i. c. 26.
      Panegyr. Vet. ix. 2.]

      49 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 84, 85. Nazarius in Panegyr. x.
      7—13.]

      50 (return) [ See Panegyr. Vet. ix. 2. Omnibus fere tuis
      Comitibus et Ducibus non solum tacite mussantibus, sed etiam
      aperte timentibus; contra consilia hominum, contra Haruspicum
      monita, ipse per temet liberandæ arbis tempus venisse sentires.
      The embassy of the Romans is mentioned only by Zonaras, (l.
      xiii.,) and by Cedrenus, (in Compend. Hist. p. 370;) but those
      modern Greeks had the opportunity of consulting many writers
      which have since been lost, among which we may reckon the life of
      Constantine by Praxagoras. Photius (p. 63) has made a short
      extract from that historical work.]

      The enterprise was as full of danger as of glory; and the
      unsuccessful event of two former invasions was sufficient to
      inspire the most serious apprehensions. The veteran troops, who
      revered the name of Maximian, had embraced in both those wars the
      party of his son, and were now restrained by a sense of honor, as
      well as of interest, from entertaining an idea of a second
      desertion. Maxentius, who considered the Prætorian guards as the
      firmest defence of his throne, had increased them to their
      ancient establishment; and they composed, including the rest of
      the Italians who were enlisted into his service, a formidable
      body of fourscore thousand men. Forty thousand Moors and
      Carthaginians had been raised since the reduction of Africa. Even
      Sicily furnished its proportion of troops; and the armies of
      Maxentius amounted to one hundred and seventy thousand foot and
      eighteen thousand horse. The wealth of Italy supplied the
      expenses of the war; and the adjacent provinces were exhausted,
      to form immense magazines of corn and every other kind of
      provisions.

      The whole force of Constantine consisted of ninety thousand foot
      and eight thousand horse; 51 and as the defence of the Rhine
      required an extraordinary attention during the absence of the
      emperor, it was not in his power to employ above half his troops
      in the Italian expedition, unless he sacrificed the public safety
      to his private quarrel. 52 At the head of about forty thousand
      soldiers he marched to encounter an enemy whose numbers were at
      least four times superior to his own. But the armies of Rome,
      placed at a secure distance from danger, were enervated by
      indulgence and luxury. Habituated to the baths and theatres of
      Rome, they took the field with reluctance, and were chiefly
      composed of veterans who had almost forgotten, or of new levies
      who had never acquired, the use of arms and the practice of war.
      The hardy legions of Gaul had long defended the frontiers of the
      empire against the barbarians of the North; and in the
      performance of that laborious service, their valor was exercised
      and their discipline confirmed. There appeared the same
      difference between the leaders as between the armies. Caprice or
      flattery had tempted Maxentius with the hopes of conquest; but
      these aspiring hopes soon gave way to the habits of pleasure and
      the consciousness of his inexperience. The intrepid mind of
      Constantine had been trained from his earliest youth to war, to
      action, and to military command.

      51 (return) [ Zosimus (l. ii. p. 86) has given us this curious
      account of the forces on both sides. He makes no mention of any
      naval armaments, though we are assured (Panegyr. Vet. ix. 25)
      that the war was carried on by sea as well as by land; and that
      the fleet of Constantine took possession of Sardinia, Corsica,
      and the ports of Italy.]

      52 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. ix. 3. It is not surprising that the
      orator should diminish the numbers with which his sovereign
      achieved the conquest of Italy; but it appears somewhat singular
      that he should esteem the tyrant’s army at no more than 100,000
      men.]




      Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
      Empire.—Part III.

      When Hannibal marched from Gaul into Italy, he was obliged, first
      to discover, and then to open, a way over mountains, and through
      savage nations, that had never yielded a passage to a regular
      army. 53 The Alps were then guarded by nature, they are now
      fortified by art. Citadels, constructed with no less skill than
      labor and expense, command every avenue into the plain, and on
      that side render Italy almost inaccessible to the enemies of the
      king of Sardinia. 54 But in the course of the intermediate
      period, the generals, who have attempted the passage, have seldom
      experienced any difficulty or resistance. In the age of
      Constantine, the peasants of the mountains were civilized and
      obedient subjects; the country was plentifully stocked with
      provisions, and the stupendous highways, which the Romans had
      carried over the Alps, opened several communications between Gaul
      and Italy. 55 Constantine preferred the road of the Cottian Alps,
      or, as it is now called, of Mount Cenis, and led his troops with
      such active diligence, that he descended into the plain of
      Piedmont before the court of Maxentius had received any certain
      intelligence of his departure from the banks of the Rhine. The
      city of Susa, however, which is situated at the foot of Mount
      Cenis, was surrounded with walls, and provided with a garrison
      sufficiently numerous to check the progress of an invader; but
      the impatience of Constantine’s troops disdained the tedious
      forms of a siege. The same day that they appeared before Susa,
      they applied fire to the gates, and ladders to the walls; and
      mounting to the assault amidst a shower of stones and arrows,
      they entered the place sword in hand, and cut in pieces the
      greatest part of the garrison. The flames were extinguished by
      the care of Constantine, and the remains of Susa preserved from
      total destruction. About forty miles from thence, a more severe
      contest awaited him. A numerous army of Italians was assembled
      under the lieutenants of Maxentius, in the plains of Turin. Its
      principal strength consisted in a species of heavy cavalry, which
      the Romans, since the decline of their discipline, had borrowed
      from the nations of the East. The horses, as well as the men,
      were clothed in complete armor, the joints of which were artfully
      adapted to the motions of their bodies. The aspect of this
      cavalry was formidable, their weight almost irresistible; and as,
      on this occasion, their generals had drawn them up in a compact
      column or wedge, with a sharp point, and with spreading flanks,
      they flattered themselves that they could easily break and
      trample down the army of Constantine. They might, perhaps, have
      succeeded in their design, had not their experienced adversary
      embraced the same method of defence, which in similar
      circumstances had been practised by Aurelian. The skilful
      evolutions of Constantine divided and baffled this massy column
      of cavalry. The troops of Maxentius fled in confusion towards
      Turin; and as the gates of the city were shut against them, very
      few escaped the sword of the victorious pursuers. By this
      important service, Turin deserved to experience the clemency and
      even favor of the conqueror. He made his entry into the Imperial
      palace of Milan, and almost all the cities of Italy between the
      Alps and the Po not only acknowledged the power, but embraced
      with zeal the party, of Constantine. 56

      53 (return) [ The three principal passages of the Alps between
      Gaul and Italy, are those of Mount St. Bernard, Mount Cenis, and
      Mount Genevre. Tradition, and a resemblance of names, (Alpes
      Penninoe,) had assigned the first of these for the march of
      Hannibal, (see Simler de Alpibus.) The Chevalier de Folard
      (Polyp. tom. iv.) and M. d’Anville have led him over Mount
      Genevre. But notwithstanding the authority of an experienced
      officer and a learned geographer, the pretensions of Mount Cenis
      are supported in a specious, not to say a convincing, manner, by
      M. Grosley. Observations sur l’Italie, tom. i. p. 40, &c. ——The
      dissertation of Messrs. Cramer and Wickham has clearly shown that
      the Little St. Bernard must claim the honor of Hannibal’s
      passage. Mr. Long (London, 1831) has added some sensible
      corrections re Hannibal’s march to the Alps.—M]

      54 (return) [ La Brunette near Suse, Demont, Exiles,
      Fenestrelles, Coni, &c.]

      55 (return) [ See Ammian. Marcellin. xv. 10. His description of
      the roads over the Alps is clear, lively, and accurate.]

      56 (return) [ Zosimus as well as Eusebius hasten from the passage
      of the Alps to the decisive action near Rome. We must apply to
      the two Panegyrics for the intermediate actions of Constantine.]

      From Milan to Rome, the Æmilian and Flaminian highways offered an
      easy march of about four hundred miles; but though Constantine
      was impatient to encounter the tyrant, he prudently directed his
      operations against another army of Italians, who, by their
      strength and position, might either oppose his progress, or, in
      case of a misfortune, might intercept his retreat. Ruricius
      Pompeianus, a general distinguished by his valor and ability, had
      under his command the city of Verona, and all the troops that
      were stationed in the province of Venetia. As soon as he was
      informed that Constantine was advancing towards him, he detached
      a large body of cavalry, which was defeated in an engagement near
      Brescia, and pursued by the Gallic legions as far as the gates of
      Verona. The necessity, the importance, and the difficulties of
      the siege of Verona, immediately presented themselves to the
      sagacious mind of Constantine. 57 The city was accessible only by
      a narrow peninsula towards the west, as the other three sides
      were surrounded by the Adige, a rapid river, which covered the
      province of Venetia, from whence the besieged derived an
      inexhaustible supply of men and provisions. It was not without
      great difficulty, and after several fruitless attempts, that
      Constantine found means to pass the river at some distance above
      the city, and in a place where the torrent was less violent. He
      then encompassed Verona with strong lines, pushed his attacks
      with prudent vigor, and repelled a desperate sally of Pompeianus.
      That intrepid general, when he had used every means of defence
      that the strength of the place or that of the garrison could
      afford, secretly escaped from Verona, anxious not for his own,
      but for the public safety. With indefatigable diligence he soon
      collected an army sufficient either to meet Constantine in the
      field, or to attack him if he obstinately remained within his
      lines. The emperor, attentive to the motions, and informed of the
      approach of so formidable an enemy, left a part of his legions to
      continue the operations of the siege, whilst, at the head of
      those troops on whose valor and fidelity he more particularly
      depended, he advanced in person to engage the general of
      Maxentius. The army of Gaul was drawn up in two lines, according
      to the usual practice of war; but their experienced leader,
      perceiving that the numbers of the Italians far exceeded his own,
      suddenly changed his disposition, and, reducing the second,
      extended the front of his first line to a just proportion with
      that of the enemy. Such evolutions, which only veteran troops can
      execute without confusion in a moment of danger, commonly prove
      decisive; but as this engagement began towards the close of the
      day, and was contested with great obstinacy during the whole
      night, there was less room for the conduct of the generals than
      for the courage of the soldiers. The return of light displayed
      the victory of Constantine, and a field of carnage covered with
      many thousands of the vanquished Italians. Their general,
      Pompeianus, was found among the slain; Verona immediately
      surrendered at discretion, and the garrison was made prisoners of
      war. 58 When the officers of the victorious army congratulated
      their master on this important success, they ventured to add some
      respectful complaints, of such a nature, however, as the most
      jealous monarchs will listen to without displeasure. They
      represented to Constantine, that, not contented with all the
      duties of a commander, he had exposed his own person with an
      excess of valor which almost degenerated into rashness; and they
      conjured him for the future to pay more regard to the
      preservation of a life in which the safety of Rome and of the
      empire was involved. 59

      57 (return) [ The Marquis Maffei has examined the siege and
      battle of Verona with that degree of attention and accuracy which
      was due to a memorable action that happened in his native
      country. The fortifications of that city, constructed by
      Gallienus, were less extensive than the modern walls, and the
      amphitheatre was not included within their circumference. See
      Verona Illustrata, part i. p. 142 150.]

      58 (return) [ They wanted chains for so great a multitude of
      captives; and the whole council was at a loss; but the sagacious
      conqueror imagined the happy expedient of converting into fetters
      the swords of the vanquished. Panegyr. Vet. ix. 11.]

      59 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. ix. 11.]

      While Constantine signalized his conduct and valor in the field,
      the sovereign of Italy appeared insensible of the calamities and
      danger of a civil war which reigned in the heart of his
      dominions. Pleasure was still the only business of Maxentius.
      Concealing, or at least attempting to conceal, from the public
      knowledge the misfortunes of his arms, 60 he indulged himself in
      a vain confidence which deferred the remedies of the approaching
      evil, without deferring the evil itself. 61 The rapid progress of
      Constantine 62 was scarcely sufficient to awaken him from his
      fatal security; he flattered himself, that his well-known
      liberality, and the majesty of the Roman name, which had already
      delivered him from two invasions, would dissipate with the same
      facility the rebellious army of Gaul. The officers of experience
      and ability, who had served under the banners of Maximian, were
      at length compelled to inform his effeminate son of the imminent
      danger to which he was reduced; and, with a freedom that at once
      surprised and convinced him, to urge the necessity of preventing
      his ruin by a vigorous exertion of his remaining power. The
      resources of Maxentius, both of men and money, were still
      considerable. The Prætorian guards felt how strongly their own
      interest and safety were connected with his cause; and a third
      army was soon collected, more numerous than those which had been
      lost in the battles of Turin and Verona. It was far from the
      intention of the emperor to lead his troops in person. A stranger
      to the exercises of war, he trembled at the apprehension of so
      dangerous a contest; and as fear is commonly superstitious, he
      listened with melancholy attention to the rumors of omens and
      presages which seemed to menace his life and empire. Shame at
      length supplied the place of courage, and forced him to take the
      field. He was unable to sustain the contempt of the Roman people.
      The circus resounded with their indignant clamors, and they
      tumultuously besieged the gates of the palace, reproaching the
      pusillanimity of their indolent sovereign, and celebrating the
      heroic spirit of Constantine. 63 Before Maxentius left Rome, he
      consulted the Sibylline books. The guardians of these ancient
      oracles were as well versed in the arts of this world as they
      were ignorant of the secrets of fate; and they returned him a
      very prudent answer, which might adapt itself to the event, and
      secure their reputation, whatever should be the chance of arms.
      64

      60 (return) [ Literas calamitatum suarum indices supprimebat.
      Panegyr Vet. ix. 15.]

      61 (return) [ Remedia malorum potius quam mala differebat, is the
      fine censure which Tacitus passes on the supine indolence of
      Vitellius.]

      62 (return) [ The Marquis Maffei has made it extremely probable
      that Constantine was still at Verona, the 1st of September, A.D.
      312, and that the memorable æra of the indications was dated from
      his conquest of the Cisalpine Gaul.]

      63 (return) [ See Panegyr. Vet. xi. 16. Lactantius de M. P. c.
      44.]

      64 (return) [ Illo die hostem Romanorum esse periturum. The
      vanquished became of course the enemy of Rome.]

      The celerity of Constantine’s march has been compared to the
      rapid conquest of Italy by the first of the Cæsars; nor is the
      flattering parallel repugnant to the truth of history, since no
      more than fifty-eight days elapsed between the surrender of
      Verona and the final decision of the war. Constantine had always
      apprehended that the tyrant would consult the dictates of fear,
      and perhaps of prudence; and that, instead of risking his last
      hopes in a general engagement, he would shut himself up within
      the walls of Rome. His ample magazines secured him against the
      danger of famine; and as the situation of Constantine admitted
      not of delay, he might have been reduced to the sad necessity of
      destroying with fire and sword the Imperial city, the noblest
      reward of his victory, and the deliverance of which had been the
      motive, or rather indeed the pretence, of the civil war. 65 It
      was with equal surprise and pleasure, that on his arrival at a
      place called Saxa Rubra, about nine miles from Rome, 66 he
      discovered the army of Maxentius prepared to give him battle. 67
      Their long front filled a very spacious plain, and their deep
      array reached to the banks of the Tyber, which covered their
      rear, and forbade their retreat. We are informed, and we may
      believe, that Constantine disposed his troops with consummate
      skill, and that he chose for himself the post of honor and
      danger. Distinguished by the splendor of his arms, he charged in
      person the cavalry of his rival; and his irresistible attack
      determined the fortune of the day. The cavalry of Maxentius was
      principally composed either of unwieldy cuirassiers, or of light
      Moors and Numidians. They yielded to the vigor of the Gallic
      horse, which possessed more activity than the one, more firmness
      than the other. The defeat of the two wings left the infantry
      without any protection on its flanks, and the undisciplined
      Italians fled without reluctance from the standard of a tyrant
      whom they had always hated, and whom they no longer feared. The
      Prætorians, conscious that their offences were beyond the reach
      of mercy, were animated by revenge and despair. Notwithstanding
      their repeated efforts, those brave veterans were unable to
      recover the victory: they obtained, however, an honorable death;
      and it was observed that their bodies covered the same ground
      which had been occupied by their ranks. 68 The confusion then
      became general, and the dismayed troops of Maxentius, pursued by
      an implacable enemy, rushed by thousands into the deep and rapid
      stream of the Tyber. The emperor himself attempted to escape back
      into the city over the Milvian bridge; but the crowds which
      pressed together through that narrow passage forced him into the
      river, where he was immediately drowned by the weight of his
      armor. 69 His body, which had sunk very deep into the mud, was
      found with some difficulty the next day. The sight of his head,
      when it was exposed to the eyes of the people, convinced them of
      their deliverance, and admonished them to receive with
      acclamations of loyalty and gratitude the fortunate Constantine,
      who thus achieved by his valor and ability the most splendid
      enterprise of his life. 70

      65 (return) [ See Panegyr. Vet. ix. 16, x. 27. The former of
      these orators magnifies the hoards of corn, which Maxentius had
      collected from Africa and the Islands. And yet, if there is any
      truth in the scarcity mentioned by Eusebius, (in Vit. Constantin.
      l. i. c. 36,) the Imperial granaries must have been open only to
      the soldiers.]

      66 (return) [ Maxentius... tandem urbe in Saxa Rubra, millia
      ferme novem ægerrime progressus. Aurelius Victor. See Cellarius
      Geograph. Antiq. tom. i. p. 463. Saxa Rubra was in the
      neighborhood of the Cremera, a trifling rivulet, illustrated by
      the valor and glorious death of the three hundred Fabii.]

      67 (return) [ The post which Maxentius had taken, with the Tyber
      in his rear is very clearly described by the two Panegyrists, ix.
      16, x. 28.]

      68 (return) [ Exceptis latrocinii illius primis auctoribus, qui
      desperata venia ocum quem pugnæ sumpserant texere corporibus.
      Panegyr. Vet 17.]

      69 (return) [ A very idle rumor soon prevailed, that Maxentius,
      who had not taken any precaution for his own retreat, had
      contrived a very artful snare to destroy the army of the
      pursuers; but that the wooden bridge, which was to have been
      loosened on the approach of Constantine, unluckily broke down
      under the weight of the flying Italians. M. de Tillemont (Hist.
      des Empereurs, tom. iv. part i. p. 576) very seriously examines
      whether, in contradiction to common sense, the testimony of
      Eusebius and Zosimus ought to prevail over the silence of
      Lactantius, Nazarius, and the anonymous, but contemporary orator,
      who composed the ninth Panegyric. * Note: Manso (Beylage, vi.)
      examines the question, and adduces two manifest allusions to the
      bridge, from the Life of Constantine by Praxagoras, and from
      Libanius. Is it not very probable that such a bridge was thrown
      over the river to facilitate the advance, and to secure the
      retreat, of the army of Maxentius? In case of defeat, orders were
      given for destroying it, in order to check the pursuit: it broke
      down accidentally, or in the confusion was destroyed, as has not
      unfrequently been the case, before the proper time.—M.]

      70 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 86-88, and the two Panegyrics,
      the former of which was pronounced a few months afterwards,
      afford the clearest notion of this great battle. Lactantius,
      Eusebius, and even the Epitomes, supply several useful hints.]

      In the use of victory, Constantine neither deserved the praise of
      clemency, nor incurred the censure of immoderate rigor. 71 He
      inflicted the same treatment to which a defeat would have exposed
      his own person and family, put to death the two sons of the
      tyrant, and carefully extirpated his whole race. The most
      distinguished adherents of Maxentius must have expected to share
      his fate, as they had shared his prosperity and his crimes; but
      when the Roman people loudly demanded a greater number of
      victims, the conqueror resisted, with firmness and humanity,
      those servile clamors, which were dictated by flattery as well as
      by resentment. Informers were punished and discouraged; the
      innocent, who had suffered under the late tyranny, were recalled
      from exile, and restored to their estates. A general act of
      oblivion quieted the minds and settled the property of the
      people, both in Italy and in Africa. 72 The first time that
      Constantine honored the senate with his presence, he
      recapitulated his own services and exploits in a modest oration,
      assured that illustrious order of his sincere regard, and
      promised to reëstablish its ancient dignity and privileges. The
      grateful senate repaid these unmeaning professions by the empty
      titles of honor, which it was yet in their power to bestow; and
      without presuming to ratify the authority of Constantine, they
      passed a decree to assign him the first rank among the three
      _Augusti_ who governed the Roman world. 73 Games and festivals
      were instituted to preserve the fame of his victory, and several
      edifices, raised at the expense of Maxentius, were dedicated to
      the honor of his successful rival. The triumphal arch of
      Constantine still remains a melancholy proof of the decline of
      the arts, and a singular testimony of the meanest vanity. As it
      was not possible to find in the capital of the empire a sculptor
      who was capable of adorning that public monument, the arch of
      Trajan, without any respect either for his memory or for the
      rules of propriety, was stripped of its most elegant figures. The
      difference of times and persons, of actions and characters, was
      totally disregarded. The Parthian captives appear prostrate at
      the feet of a prince who never carried his arms beyond the
      Euphrates; and curious antiquarians can still discover the head
      of Trajan on the trophies of Constantine. The new ornaments which
      it was necessary to introduce between the vacancies of ancient
      sculpture are executed in the rudest and most unskilful manner.
      74

      71 (return) [ Zosimus, the enemy of Constantine, allows (l. ii.
      p. 88) that only a few of the friends of Maxentius were put to
      death; but we may remark the expressive passage of Nazarius,
      (Panegyr. Vet. x. 6.) Omnibus qui labefactari statum ejus
      poterant cum stirpe deletis. The other orator (Panegyr. Vet. ix.
      20, 21) contents himself with observing, that Constantine, when
      he entered Rome, did not imitate the cruel massacres of Cinna, of
      Marius, or of Sylla. * Note: This may refer to the son or sons of
      Maxentius.—M.]

      72 (return) [ See the two Panegyrics, and the laws of this and
      the ensuing year, in the Theodosian Code.]

      73 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. ix. 20. Lactantius de M. P. c. 44.
      Maximin, who was confessedly the eldest Cæsar, claimed, with some
      show of reason, the first rank among the Augusti.]

      74 (return) [ Adhuc cuncta opera quæ magnifice construxerat,
      urbis fanum atque basilicam, Flavii meritis patres sacravere.
      Aurelius Victor. With regard to the theft of Trajan’s trophies,
      consult Flaminius Vacca, apud Montfaucon, Diarium Italicum, p.
      250, and l’Antiquite Expliquee of the latter, tom. iv. p. 171.]

      The final abolition of the Prætorian guards was a measure of
      prudence as well as of revenge. Those haughty troops, whose
      numbers and privileges had been restored, and even augmented, by
      Maxentius, were forever suppressed by Constantine. Their
      fortified camp was destroyed, and the few Prætorians who had
      escaped the fury of the sword were dispersed among the legions,
      and banished to the frontiers of the empire, where they might be
      serviceable without again becoming dangerous. 75 By suppressing
      the troops which were usually stationed in Rome, Constantine gave
      the fatal blow to the dignity of the senate and people, and the
      disarmed capital was exposed without protection to the insults or
      neglect of its distant master. We may observe, that in this last
      effort to preserve their expiring freedom, the Romans, from the
      apprehension of a tribute, had raised Maxentius to the throne. He
      exacted that tribute from the senate under the name of a free
      gift. They implored the assistance of Constantine. He vanquished
      the tyrant, and converted the free gift into a perpetual tax. The
      senators, according to the declaration which was required of
      their property, were divided into several classes. The most
      opulent paid annually eight pounds of gold, the next class paid
      four, the last two, and those whose poverty might have claimed an
      exemption, were assessed, however, at seven pieces of gold.
      Besides the regular members of the senate, their sons, their
      descendants, and even their relations, enjoyed the vain
      privileges, and supported the heavy burdens, of the senatorial
      order; nor will it any longer excite our surprise, that
      Constantine should be attentive to increase the number of persons
      who were included under so useful a description. 76 After the
      defeat of Maxentius, the victorious emperor passed no more than
      two or three months in Rome, which he visited twice during the
      remainder of his life, to celebrate the solemn festivals of the
      tenth and of the twentieth years of his reign. Constantine was
      almost perpetually in motion, to exercise the legions, or to
      inspect the state of the provinces. Treves, Milan, Aquileia,
      Sirmium, Naissus, and Thessalonica, were the occasional places of
      his residence, till he founded a new Rome on the confines of
      Europe and Asia. 77

      75 (return) [ Prætoriæ legiones ac subsidia factionibus aptiora
      quam urbi Romæ, sublata penitus; simul arma atque usus indumenti
      militaris Aurelius Victor. Zosimus (l. ii. p. 89) mentions this
      fact as an historian, and it is very pompously celebrated in the
      ninth Panegyric.]

      76 (return) [ Ex omnibus provinciis optimates viros Curiæ tuæ
      pigneraveris ut Senatus dignitas.... ex totius Orbis flore
      consisteret. Nazarius in Panegyr. Vet x. 35. The word
      pigneraveris might almost seem maliciously chosen. Concerning the
      senatorial tax, see Zosimus, l. ii. p. 115, the second title of
      the sixth book of the Theodosian Code, with Godefroy’s
      Commentary, and Memoires de l’Academic des Inscriptions, tom.
      xxviii. p. 726.]

      77 (return) [ From the Theodosian Code, we may now begin to trace
      the motions of the emperors; but the dates both of time and place
      have frequently been altered by the carelessness of
      transcribers.]

      Before Constantine marched into Italy, he had secured the
      friendship, or at least the neutrality, of Licinius, the Illyrian
      emperor. He had promised his sister Constantia in marriage to
      that prince; but the celebration of the nuptials was deferred
      till after the conclusion of the war, and the interview of the
      two emperors at Milan, which was appointed for that purpose,
      appeared to cement the union of their families and interests. 78
      In the midst of the public festivity they were suddenly obliged
      to take leave of each other. An inroad of the Franks summoned
      Constantine to the Rhine, and the hostile approach of the
      sovereign of Asia demanded the immediate presence of Licinius.
      Maximin had been the secret ally of Maxentius, and without being
      discouraged by his fate, he resolved to try the fortune of a
      civil war. He moved out of Syria, towards the frontiers of
      Bithynia, in the depth of winter. The season was severe and
      tempestuous; great numbers of men as well as horses perished in
      the snow; and as the roads were broken up by incessant rains, he
      was obliged to leave behind him a considerable part of the heavy
      baggage, which was unable to follow the rapidity of his forced
      marches. By this extraordinary effort of diligence, he arrived
      with a harassed but formidable army, on the banks of the Thracian
      Bosphorus before the lieutenants of Licinius were apprised of his
      hostile intentions. Byzantium surrendered to the power of
      Maximin, after a siege of eleven days. He was detained some days
      under the walls of Heraclea; and he had no sooner taken
      possession of that city than he was alarmed by the intelligence
      that Licinius had pitched his camp at the distance of only
      eighteen miles. After a fruitless negotiation, in which the two
      princes attempted to seduce the fidelity of each other’s
      adherents, they had recourse to arms. The emperor of the East
      commanded a disciplined and veteran army of above seventy
      thousand men; and Licinius, who had collected about thirty
      thousand Illyrians, was at first oppressed by the superiority of
      numbers. His military skill, and the firmness of his troops,
      restored the day, and obtained a decisive victory. The incredible
      speed which Maximin exerted in his flight is much more celebrated
      than his prowess in the battle. Twenty-four hours afterwards he
      was seen, pale, trembling, and without his Imperial ornaments, at
      Nicomedia, one hundred and sixty miles from the place of his
      defeat. The wealth of Asia was yet unexhausted; and though the
      flower of his veterans had fallen in the late action, he had
      still power, if he could obtain time, to draw very numerous
      levies from Syria and Egypt. But he survived his misfortune only
      three or four months. His death, which happened at Tarsus, was
      variously ascribed to despair, to poison, and to the divine
      justice. As Maximin was alike destitute of abilities and of
      virtue, he was lamented neither by the people nor by the
      soldiers. The provinces of the East, delivered from the terrors
      of civil war, cheerfully acknowledged the authority of Licinius.
      79

      78 (return) [ Zosimus (l. ii. p. 89) observes, that before the
      war the sister of Constantine had been betrothed to Licinius.
      According to the younger Victor, Diocletian was invited to the
      nuptials; but having ventured to plead his age and infirmities,
      he received a second letter, filled with reproaches for his
      supposed partiality to the cause of Maxentius and Maximin.]

      79 (return) [ Zosimus mentions the defeat and death of Maximin as
      ordinary events; but Lactantius expatiates on them, (de M. P. c.
      45-50,) ascribing them to the miraculous interposition of Heaven.
      Licinius at that time was one of the protectors of the church.]

      The vanquished emperor left behind him two children, a boy of
      about eight, and a girl of about seven, years old. Their
      inoffensive age might have excited compassion; but the compassion
      of Licinius was a very feeble resource, nor did it restrain him
      from _extinguishing_ the name and memory of his adversary. The
      death of Severianus will admit of less excuse, as it was dictated
      neither by revenge nor by policy. The conqueror had never
      received any injury from the father of that unhappy youth, and
      the short and obscure reign of Severus, in a distant part of the
      empire, was already forgotten. But the execution of Candidianus
      was an act of the blackest cruelty and ingratitude. He was the
      natural son of Galerius, the friend and benefactor of Licinius.
      The prudent father had judged him too young to sustain the weight
      of a diadem; but he hoped that, under the protection of princes
      who were indebted to his favor for the Imperial purple,
      Candidianus might pass a secure and honorable life. He was now
      advancing towards the twentieth year of his age, and the royalty
      of his birth, though unsupported either by merit or ambition, was
      sufficient to exasperate the jealous mind of Licinius. 80 To
      these innocent and illustrious victims of his tyranny, we must
      add the wife and daughter of the emperor Diocletian. When that
      prince conferred on Galerius the title of Cæsar, he had given him
      in marriage his daughter Valeria, whose melancholy adventures
      might furnish a very singular subject for tragedy. She had
      fulfilled and even surpassed the duties of a wife. As she had not
      any children herself, she condescended to adopt the illegitimate
      son of her husband, and invariably displayed towards the unhappy
      Candidianus the tenderness and anxiety of a real mother. After
      the death of Galerius, her ample possessions provoked the
      avarice, and her personal attractions excited the desires, of his
      successor, Maximin. 81 He had a wife still alive; but divorce was
      permitted by the Roman law, and the fierce passions of the tyrant
      demanded an immediate gratification. The answer of Valeria was
      such as became the daughter and widow of emperors; but it was
      tempered by the prudence which her defenceless condition
      compelled her to observe. She represented to the persons whom
      Maximin had employed on this occasion, “that even if honor could
      permit a woman of her character and dignity to entertain a
      thought of second nuptials, decency at least must forbid her to
      listen to his addresses at a time when the ashes of her husband
      and his benefactor were still warm, and while the sorrows of her
      mind were still expressed by her mourning garments. She ventured
      to declare, that she could place very little confidence in the
      professions of a man whose cruel inconstancy was capable of
      repudiating a faithful and affectionate wife.” 82 On this
      repulse, the love of Maximin was converted into fury; and as
      witnesses and judges were always at his disposal, it was easy for
      him to cover his fury with an appearance of legal proceedings,
      and to assault the reputation as well as the happiness of
      Valeria. Her estates were confiscated, her eunuchs and domestics
      devoted to the most inhuman tortures; and several innocent and
      respectable matrons, who were honored with her friendship,
      suffered death, on a false accusation of adultery. The empress
      herself, together with her mother Prisca, was condemned to exile;
      and as they were ignominiously hurried from place to place before
      they were confined to a sequestered village in the deserts of
      Syria, they exposed their shame and distress to the provinces of
      the East, which, during thirty years, had respected their august
      dignity. Diocletian made several ineffectual efforts to alleviate
      the misfortunes of his daughter; and, as the last return that he
      expected for the Imperial purple, which he had conferred upon
      Maximin, he entreated that Valeria might be permitted to share
      his retirement of Salona, and to close the eyes of her afflicted
      father. 83 He entreated; but as he could no longer threaten, his
      prayers were received with coldness and disdain; and the pride of
      Maximin was gratified, in treating Diocletian as a suppliant, and
      his daughter as a criminal. The death of Maximin seemed to assure
      the empresses of a favorable alteration in their fortune. The
      public disorders relaxed the vigilance of their guard, and they
      easily found means to escape from the place of their exile, and
      to repair, though with some precaution, and in disguise, to the
      court of Licinius. His behavior, in the first days of his reign,
      and the honorable reception which he gave to young Candidianus,
      inspired Valeria with a secret satisfaction, both on her own
      account and on that of her adopted son. But these grateful
      prospects were soon succeeded by horror and astonishment; and the
      bloody executions which stained the palace of Nicomedia
      sufficiently convinced her that the throne of Maximin was filled
      by a tyrant more inhuman than himself. Valeria consulted her
      safety by a hasty flight, and, still accompanied by her mother
      Prisca, they wandered above fifteen months 84 through the
      provinces, concealed in the disguise of plebeian habits. They
      were at length discovered at Thessalonica; and as the sentence of
      their death was already pronounced, they were immediately
      beheaded, and their bodies thrown into the sea. The people gazed
      on the melancholy spectacle; but their grief and indignation were
      suppressed by the terrors of a military guard. Such was the
      unworthy fate of the wife and daughter of Diocletian. We lament
      their misfortunes, we cannot discover their crimes; and whatever
      idea we may justly entertain of the cruelty of Licinius, it
      remains a matter of surprise that he was not contented with some
      more secret and decent method of revenge. 85

      80 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 50. Aurelius Victor touches
      on the different conduct of Licinius, and of Constantine, in the
      use of victory.]

      81 (return) [ The sensual appetites of Maximin were gratified at
      the expense of his subjects. His eunuchs, who forced away wives
      and virgins, examined their naked charms with anxious curiosity,
      lest any part of their body should be found unworthy of the royal
      embraces. Coyness and disdain were considered as treason, and the
      obstinate fair one was condemned to be drowned. A custom was
      gradually introduced, that no person should marry a wife without
      the permission of the emperor, “ut ipse in omnibus nuptiis
      prægustator esset.” Lactantius de M. P. c. 38.]

      82 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 39.]

      83 (return) [ Diocletian at last sent cognatum suum, quendam
      militarem æ potentem virum, to intercede in favor of his
      daughter, (Lactantius de M. P. c. 41.) We are not sufficiently
      acquainted with the history of these times to point out the
      person who was employed.]

      84 (return) [ Valeria quoque per varias provincias quindecim
      mensibus plebeio cultu pervagata. Lactantius de M. P. c. 51.
      There is some doubt whether we should compute the fifteen months
      from the moment of her exile, or from that of her escape. The
      expression of parvagata seems to denote the latter; but in that
      case we must suppose that the treatise of Lactantius was written
      after the first civil war between Licinius and Constantine. See
      Cuper, p. 254.]

      85 (return) [ Ita illis pudicitia et conditio exitio fuit.
      Lactantius de M. P. c. 51. He relates the misfortunes of the
      innocent wife and daughter of Discletian with a very natural
      mixture of pity and exultation.]

      The Roman world was now divided between Constantine and Licinius,
      the former of whom was master of the West, and the latter of the
      East. It might perhaps have been expected that the conquerors,
      fatigued with civil war, and connected by a private as well as
      public alliance, would have renounced, or at least would have
      suspended, any further designs of ambition. And yet a year had
      scarcely elapsed after the death of Maximin, before the
      victorious emperors turned their arms against each other. The
      genius, the success, and the aspiring temper of Constantine, may
      seem to mark him out as the aggressor; but the perfidious
      character of Licinius justifies the most unfavorable suspicions,
      and by the faint light which history reflects on this
      transaction, 86 we may discover a conspiracy fomented by his arts
      against the authority of his colleague. Constantine had lately
      given his sister Anastasia in marriage to Bassianus, a man of a
      considerable family and fortune, and had elevated his new kinsman
      to the rank of Cæsar. According to the system of government
      instituted by Diocletian, Italy, and perhaps Africa, were
      designed for his department in the empire. But the performance of
      the promised favor was either attended with so much delay, or
      accompanied with so many unequal conditions, that the fidelity of
      Bassianus was alienated rather than secured by the honorable
      distinction which he had obtained. His nomination had been
      ratified by the consent of Licinius; and that artful prince, by
      the means of his emissaries, soon contrived to enter into a
      secret and dangerous correspondence with the new Cæsar, to
      irritate his discontents, and to urge him to the rash enterprise
      of extorting by violence what he might in vain solicit from the
      justice of Constantine. But the vigilant emperor discovered the
      conspiracy before it was ripe for execution; and after solemnly
      renouncing the alliance of Bassianus, despoiled him of the
      purple, and inflicted the deserved punishment on his treason and
      ingratitude. The haughty refusal of Licinius, when he was
      required to deliver up the criminals who had taken refuge in his
      dominions, confirmed the suspicions already entertained of his
      perfidy; and the indignities offered at Æmona, on the frontiers
      of Italy, to the statues of Constantine, became the signal of
      discord between the two princes. 87

      86 (return) [ The curious reader, who consults the Valesian
      fragment, p. 713, will probably accuse me of giving a bold and
      licentious paraphrase; but if he considers it with attention, he
      will acknowledge that my interpretation is probable and
      consistent.]

      87 (return) [ The situation of Æmona, or, as it is now called,
      Laybach, in Carniola, (D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p.
      187,) may suggest a conjecture. As it lay to the north-east of
      the Julian Alps, that important territory became a natural object
      of dispute between the sovereigns of Italy and of Illyricum.]

      The first battle was fought near Cibalis, a city of Pannonia,
      situated on the River Save, about fifty miles above Sirmium. 88
      From the inconsiderable forces which in this important contest
      two such powerful monarchs brought into the field, it may be
      inferred that the one was suddenly provoked, and that the other
      was unexpectedly surprised. The emperor of the West had only
      twenty thousand, and the sovereign of the East no more than five
      and thirty thousand, men. The inferiority of number was, however,
      compensated by the advantage of the ground. Constantine had taken
      post in a defile about half a mile in breadth, between a steep
      hill and a deep morass, and in that situation he steadily
      expected and repulsed the first attack of the enemy. He pursued
      his success, and advanced into the plain. But the veteran legions
      of Illyricum rallied under the standard of a leader who had been
      trained to arms in the school of Probus and Diocletian. The
      missile weapons on both sides were soon exhausted; the two
      armies, with equal valor, rushed to a closer engagement of swords
      and spears, and the doubtful contest had already lasted from the
      dawn of the day to a late hour of the evening, when the right
      wing, which Constantine led in person, made a vigorous and
      decisive charge. The judicious retreat of Licinius saved the
      remainder of his troops from a total defeat; but when he computed
      his loss, which amounted to more than twenty thousand men, he
      thought it unsafe to pass the night in the presence of an active
      and victorious enemy. Abandoning his camp and magazines, he
      marched away with secrecy and diligence at the head of the
      greatest part of his cavalry, and was soon removed beyond the
      danger of a pursuit. His diligence preserved his wife, his son,
      and his treasures, which he had deposited at Sirmium. Licinius
      passed through that city, and breaking down the bridge on the
      Save, hastened to collect a new army in Dacia and Thrace. In his
      flight he bestowed the precarious title of Cæsar on Valens, his
      general of the Illyrian frontier. 89

      88 (return) [ Cibalis or Cibalæ (whose name is still preserved in
      the obscure ruins of Swilei) was situated about fifty miles from
      Sirmium, the capital of Illyricum, and about one hundred from
      Taurunum, or Belgrade, and the conflux of the Danube and the
      Save. The Roman garrisons and cities on those rivers are finely
      illustrated by M. d’Anville in a memoir inserted in l’Academie
      des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii.]

      89 (return) [ Zosimus (l. ii. p. 90, 91) gives a very particular
      account of this battle; but the descriptions of Zosimus are
      rhetorical rather than military]




      Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
      Empire.—Part IV.

      The plain of Mardia in Thrace was the theatre of a second battle
      no less obstinate and bloody than the former. The troops on both
      sides displayed the same valor and discipline; and the victory
      was once more decided by the superior abilities of Constantine,
      who directed a body of five thousand men to gain an advantageous
      height, from whence, during the heat of the action, they attacked
      the rear of the enemy, and made a very considerable slaughter.
      The troops of Licinius, however, presenting a double front, still
      maintained their ground, till the approach of night put an end to
      the combat, and secured their retreat towards the mountains of
      Macedonia. 90 The loss of two battles, and of his bravest
      veterans, reduced the fierce spirit of Licinius to sue for peace.
      His ambassador Mistrianus was admitted to the audience of
      Constantine: he expatiated on the common topics of moderation and
      humanity, which are so familiar to the eloquence of the
      vanquished; represented in the most insinuating language, that
      the event of the war was still doubtful, whilst its inevitable
      calamities were alike pernicious to both the contending parties;
      and declared that he was authorized to propose a lasting and
      honorable peace in the name of the _two_ emperors his masters.
      Constantine received the mention of Valens with indignation and
      contempt. “It was not for such a purpose,” he sternly replied,
      “that we have advanced from the shores of the western ocean in an
      uninterrupted course of combats and victories, that, after
      rejecting an ungrateful kinsman, we should accept for our
      colleague a contemptible slave. The abdication of Valens is the
      first article of the treaty.” 91 It was necessary to accept this
      humiliating condition; and the unhappy Valens, after a reign of a
      few days, was deprived of the purple and of his life. As soon as
      this obstacle was removed, the tranquillity of the Roman world
      was easily restored. The successive defeats of Licinius had
      ruined his forces, but they had displayed his courage and
      abilities. His situation was almost desperate, but the efforts of
      despair are sometimes formidable, and the good sense of
      Constantine preferred a great and certain advantage to a third
      trial of the chance of arms. He consented to leave his rival, or,
      as he again styled Licinius, his friend and brother, in the
      possession of Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt; but the
      provinces of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Dacia, Macedonia, and Greece,
      were yielded to the Western empire, and the dominions of
      Constantine now extended from the confines of Caledonia to the
      extremity of Peloponnesus. It was stipulated by the same treaty,
      that three royal youths, the sons of emperors, should be called
      to the hopes of the succession. Crispus and the young Constantine
      were soon afterwards declared Cæsars in the West, while the
      younger Licinius was invested with the same dignity in the East.
      In this double proportion of honors, the conqueror asserted the
      superiority of his arms and power. 92

      90 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 92, 93. Anonym. Valesian. p.
      713. The Epitomes furnish some circumstances; but they frequently
      confound the two wars between Licinius and Constantine.]

      91 (return) [ Petrus Patricius in Excerpt. Legat. p. 27. If it
      should be thought that signifies more properly a son-in-law, we
      might conjecture that Constantine, assuming the name as well as
      the duties of a father, had adopted his younger brothers and
      sisters, the children of Theodora. But in the best authors
      sometimes signifies a husband, sometimes a father-in-law, and
      sometimes a kinsman in general. See Spanheim, Observat. ad
      Julian. Orat. i. p. 72.]

      92 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 93. Anonym. Valesian. p. 713.
      Eutropius, x. v. Aurelius Victor, Euseb. in Chron. Sozomen, l. i.
      c. 2. Four of these writers affirm that the promotion of the
      Cæsars was an article of the treaty. It is, however, certain,
      that the younger Constantine and Licinius were not yet born; and
      it is highly probable that the promotion was made the 1st of
      March, A. D. 317. The treaty had probably stipulated that the two
      Cæsars might be created by the western, and one only by the
      eastern emperor; but each of them reserved to himself the choice
      of the persons.]

      The reconciliation of Constantine and Licinius, though it was
      imbittered by resentment and jealousy, by the remembrance of
      recent injuries, and by the apprehension of future dangers,
      maintained, however, above eight years, the tranquility of the
      Roman world. As a very regular series of the Imperial laws
      commences about this period, it would not be difficult to
      transcribe the civil regulations which employed the leisure of
      Constantine. But the most important of his institutions are
      intimately connected with the new system of policy and religion,
      which was not perfectly established till the last and peaceful
      years of his reign. There are many of his laws, which, as far as
      they concern the rights and property of individuals, and the
      practice of the bar, are more properly referred to the private
      than to the public jurisprudence of the empire; and he published
      many edicts of so local and temporary a nature, that they would
      ill deserve the notice of a general history. Two laws, however,
      may be selected from the crowd; the one for its importance, the
      other for its singularity; the former for its remarkable
      benevolence, the latter for its excessive severity. 1. The horrid
      practice, so familiar to the ancients, of exposing or murdering
      their new-born infants, was become every day more frequent in the
      provinces, and especially in Italy. It was the effect of
      distress; and the distress was principally occasioned by the
      intolerant burden of taxes, and by the vexatious as well as cruel
      prosecutions of the officers of the revenue against their
      insolvent debtors. The less opulent or less industrious part of
      mankind, instead of rejoicing in an increase of family, deemed it
      an act of paternal tenderness to release their children from the
      impending miseries of a life which they themselves were unable to
      support. The humanity of Constantine, moved, perhaps, by some
      recent and extraordinary instances of despair, engaged him to
      address an edict to all the cities of Italy, and afterwards of
      Africa, directing immediate and sufficient relief to be given to
      those parents who should produce before the magistrates the
      children whom their own poverty would not allow them to educate.
      But the promise was too liberal, and the provision too vague, to
      effect any general or permanent benefit. 93 The law, though it
      may merit some praise, served rather to display than to alleviate
      the public distress. It still remains an authentic monument to
      contradict and confound those venal orators, who were too well
      satisfied with their own situation to discover either vice or
      misery under the government of a generous sovereign. 94 2. The
      laws of Constantine against rapes were dictated with very little
      indulgence for the most amiable weaknesses of human nature; since
      the description of that crime was applied not only to the brutal
      violence which compelled, but even to the gentle seduction which
      might persuade, an unmarried woman, under the age of twenty-five,
      to leave the house of her parents. “The successful ravisher was
      punished with death;” and as if simple death was inadequate to
      the enormity of his guilt, he was either burnt alive, or torn in
      pieces by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The virgin’s
      declaration, that she had been carried away with her own consent,
      instead of saving her lover, exposed her to share his fate. The
      duty of a public prosecution was intrusted to the parents of the
      guilty or unfortunate maid; and if the sentiments of nature
      prevailed on them to dissemble the injury, and to repair by a
      subsequent marriage the honor of their family, they were
      themselves punished by exile and confiscation. The slaves,
      whether male or female, who were convicted of having been
      accessory to rape or seduction, were burnt alive, or put to death
      by the ingenious torture of pouring down their throats a quantity
      of melted lead. As the crime was of a public kind, the accusation
      was permitted even to strangers.9401

      9401 (return) [ This explanation appears to me little probable.
      Godefroy has made a much more happy conjecture, supported by all
      the historical circumstances which relate to this edict. It was
      published the 12th of May, A. D. 315. at Naissus in Pannonia, the
      birthplace of Constantine. The 8th of October, in that year,
      Constantine gained the victory of Cibalis over Licinius. He was
      yet uncertain as to the fate of the war: the Christians, no
      doubt, whom he favored, had prophesied his victory. Lactantius,
      then preceptor of Crispus, had just written his work upon
      Christianity, (his Divine Institutes;) he had dedicated it to
      Constantine. In this book he had inveighed with great force
      against infanticide, and the exposure of infants, (l. vi. c. 20.)
      Is it not probable that Constantine had read this work, that he
      had conversed on the subject with Lactantius, that he was moved,
      among other things, by the passage to which I have referred, and
      in the first transport of his enthusiasm, he published the edict
      in question? The whole of the edict bears the character of
      precipitation, of excitement, (entrainement,) rather than of
      deliberate reflection—the extent of the promises, the
      indefiniteness of the means, of the conditions, and of the time
      during which the parents might have a right to the succor of the
      state. Is there not reason to believe that the humanity of
      Constantine was excited by the influence of Lactantius, by that
      of the principles of Christianity, and of the Christians
      themselves, already in high esteem with the emperor, rather than
      by some “extraordinary instances of despair”? * * * See
      Hegewisch, Essai Hist. sur les Finances Romaines. The edict for
      Africa was not published till 322: of that we may say in truth
      that its origin was in the misery of the times. Africa had
      suffered much from the cruelty of Maxentius. Constantine says
      expressly, that he had learned that parents, under the pressure
      of distress, were there selling their children. This decree is
      more distinct, more maturely deliberated than the former; the
      succor which was to be given to the parents, and the source from
      which it was to be derived, are determined. (Code Theod. l. xi.
      tit. 27, c 2.) If the direct utility of these laws may not have
      been very extensive, they had at least the great and happy effect
      of establishing a decisive opposition between the principles of
      the government and those which, at this time, had prevailed among
      the subjects of the empire.—G.]

      The commencement of the action was not limited to any term of
      years, and the consequences of the sentence were extended to the
      innocent offspring of such an irregular union. 95 But whenever
      the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigor
      of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of
      mankind. The most odious parts of this edict were softened or
      repealed in the subsequent reigns; 96 and even Constantine
      himself very frequently alleviated, by partial acts of mercy, the
      stern temper of his general institutions. Such, indeed, was the
      singular humor of that emperor, who showed himself as indulgent,
      and even remiss, in the execution of his laws, as he was severe,
      and even cruel, in the enacting of them. It is scarcely possible
      to observe a more decisive symptom of weakness, either in the
      character of the prince, or in the constitution of the
      government. 97

      93 (return) [ Codex Theodosian. l. xi. tit. 27, tom. iv. p. 188,
      with Godefroy’s observations. See likewise l. v. tit. 7, 8.]

      94 (return) [ Omnia foris placita, domi prospera, annonæ
      ubertate, fructuum copia, &c. Panegyr. Vet. x. 38. This oration
      of Nazarius was pronounced on the day of the Quinquennalia of the
      Cæsars, the 1st of March, A. D. 321.]

      95 (return) [ See the edict of Constantine, addressed to the
      Roman people, in the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. 24, tom. iii.
      p. 189.]

      96 (return) [ His son very fairly assigns the true reason of the
      repeal: “Na sub specie atrocioris judicii aliqua in ulciscendo
      crimine dilatio næ ceretur.” Cod. Theod. tom. iii. p. 193]

      97 (return) [ Eusebius (in Vita Constant. l. iii. c. 1) chooses
      to affirm, that in the reign of this hero, the sword of justice
      hung idle in the hands of the magistrates. Eusebius himself, (l.
      iv. c. 29, 54,) and the Theodosian Code, will inform us that this
      excessive lenity was not owing to the want either of atrocious
      criminals or of penal laws.]

      The civil administration was sometimes interrupted by the
      military defence of the empire. Crispus, a youth of the most
      amiable character, who had received with the title of Cæsar the
      command of the Rhine, distinguished his conduct, as well as
      valor, in several victories over the Franks and Alemanni, and
      taught the barbarians of that frontier to dread the eldest son of
      Constantine, and the grandson of Constantius. 98 The emperor
      himself had assumed the more difficult and important province of
      the Danube. The Goths, who in the time of Claudius and Aurelian
      had felt the weight of the Roman arms, respected the power of the
      empire, even in the midst of its intestine divisions. But the
      strength of that warlike nation was now restored by a peace of
      near fifty years; a new generation had arisen, who no longer
      remembered the misfortunes of ancient days; the Sarmatians of the
      Lake Mæotis followed the Gothic standard either as subjects or as
      allies, and their united force was poured upon the countries of
      Illyricum. Campona, Margus, and Benonia, 982 appear to have been
      the scenes of several memorable sieges and battles; 99 and though
      Constantine encountered a very obstinate resistance, he prevailed
      at length in the contest, and the Goths were compelled to
      purchased an ignominious retreat, by restoring the booty and
      prisoners which they had taken. Nor was this advantage sufficient
      to satisfy the indignation of the emperor. He resolved to
      chastise as well as to repulse the insolent barbarians who had
      dared to invade the territories of Rome. At the head of his
      legions he passed the Danube, after repairing the bridge which
      had been constructed by Trajan, penetrated into the strongest
      recesses of Dacia, 100 and when he had inflicted a severe
      revenge, condescended to give peace to the suppliant Goths, on
      condition that, as often as they were required, they should
      supply his armies with a body of forty thousand soldiers. 101
      Exploits like these were no doubt honorable to Constantine, and
      beneficial to the state; but it may surely be questioned, whether
      they can justify the exaggerated assertion of Eusebius, that ALL
      SCYTHIA, as far as the extremity of the North, divided as it was
      into so many names and nations of the most various and savage
      manners, had been added by his victorious arms to the Roman
      empire. 102

      98 (return) [ Nazarius in Panegyr. Vet. x. The victory of Crispus
      over the Alemanni is expressed on some medals. * Note: Other
      medals are extant, the legends of which commemorate the success
      of Constantine over the Sarmatians and other barbarous nations,
      Sarmatia Devicta. Victoria Gothica. Debellatori Gentium
      Barbarorum. Exuperator Omnium Gentium. St. Martin, note on Le
      Beau, i. 148.—M.]

      982 (return) [ Campona, Old Buda in Hungary; Margus, Benonia,
      Widdin, in Mæsia—G and M.]

      99 (return) [ See Zosimus, l. ii. p. 93, 94; though the narrative
      of that historian is neither clear nor consistent. The Panegyric
      of Optatianus (c. 23) mentions the alliance of the Sarmatians
      with the Carpi and Getæ, and points out the several fields of
      battle. It is supposed that the Sarmatian games, celebrated in
      the month of November, derived their origin from the success of
      this war.]

      100 (return) [ In the Cæsars of Julian, (p. 329. Commentaire de
      Spanheim, p. 252.) Constantine boasts, that he had recovered the
      province (Dacia) which Trajan had subdued. But it is insinuated
      by Silenus, that the conquests of Constantine were like the
      gardens of Adonis, which fade and wither almost the moment they
      appear.]

      101 (return) [ Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 21. I know not
      whether we may entirely depend on his authority. Such an alliance
      has a very recent air, and scarcely is suited to the maxims of
      the beginning of the fourth century.]

      102 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c. 8. This
      passage, however, is taken from a general declamation on the
      greatness of Constantine, and not from any particular account of
      the Gothic war.]

      In this exalted state of glory, it was impossible that
      Constantine should any longer endure a partner in the empire.
      Confiding in the superiority of his genius and military power, he
      determined, without any previous injury, to exert them for the
      destruction of Licinius, whose advanced age and unpopular vices
      seemed to offer a very easy conquest. 103 But the old emperor,
      awakened by the approaching danger, deceived the expectations of
      his friends, as well as of his enemies. Calling forth that spirit
      and those abilities by which he had deserved the friendship of
      Galerius and the Imperial purple, he prepared himself for the
      contest, collected the forces of the East, and soon filled the
      plains of Hadrianople with his troops, and the straits of the
      Hellespont with his fleet. The army consisted of one hundred and
      fifty thousand foot, and fifteen thousand horse; and as the
      cavalry was drawn, for the most part, from Phrygia and
      Cappadocia, we may conceive a more favorable opinion of the
      beauty of the horses, than of the courage and dexterity of their
      riders. The fleet was composed of three hundred and fifty galleys
      of three ranks of oars. A hundred and thirty of these were
      furnished by Egypt and the adjacent coast of Africa. A hundred
      and ten sailed from the ports of Phœnicia and the isle of Cyprus;
      and the maritime countries of Bithynia, Ionia, and Caria were
      likewise obliged to provide a hundred and ten galleys. The troops
      of Constantine were ordered to a rendezvous at Thessalonica; they
      amounted to above a hundred and twenty thousand horse and foot.
      104 Their emperor was satisfied with their martial appearance,
      and his army contained more soldiers, though fewer men, than that
      of his eastern competitor. The legions of Constantine were levied
      in the warlike provinces of Europe; action had confirmed their
      discipline, victory had elevated their hopes, and there were
      among them a great number of veterans, who, after seventeen
      glorious campaigns under the same leader, prepared themselves to
      deserve an honorable dismission by a last effort of their valor.
      105 But the naval preparations of Constantine were in every
      respect much inferior to those of Licinius. The maritime cities
      of Greece sent their respective quotas of men and ships to the
      celebrated harbor of Piræus, and their united forces consisted of
      no more than two hundred small vessels—a very feeble armament, if
      it is compared with those formidable fleets which were equipped
      and maintained by the republic of Athens during the Peloponnesian
      war. 106 Since Italy was no longer the seat of government, the
      naval establishments of Misenum and Ravenna had been gradually
      neglected; and as the shipping and mariners of the empire were
      supported by commerce rather than by war, it was natural that
      they should the most abound in the industrious provinces of Egypt
      and Asia. It is only surprising that the eastern emperor, who
      possessed so great a superiority at sea, should have neglected
      the opportunity of carrying an offensive war into the centre of
      his rival’s dominions.

      103 (return) [ Constantinus tamen, vir ingens, et omnia efficere
      nitens quæ animo præparasset, simul principatum totius urbis
      affectans, Licinio bellum intulit. Eutropius, x. 5. Zosimus, l.
      ii. p 89. The reasons which they have assigned for the first
      civil war, may, with more propriety, be applied to the second.]

      104 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 94, 95.]

      105 (return) [ Constantine was very attentive to the privileges
      and comforts of his fellow-veterans, (Conveterani,) as he now
      began to style them. See the Theodosian Code, l. vii. tit. 10,
      tom. ii. p. 419, 429.]

      106 (return) [ Whilst the Athenians maintained the empire of the
      sea, their fleet consisted of three, and afterwards of four,
      hundred galleys of three ranks of oars, all completely equipped
      and ready for immediate service. The arsenal in the port of
      Piræus had cost the republic a thousand talents, about two
      hundred and sixteen thousand pounds. See Thucydides de Bel.
      Pelopon. l. ii. c. 13, and Meursius de Fortuna Attica, c. 19.]

      Instead of embracing such an active resolution, which might have
      changed the whole face of the war, the prudent Licinius expected
      the approach of his rival in a camp near Hadrianople, which he
      had fortified with an anxious care that betrayed his apprehension
      of the event. Constantine directed his march from Thessalonica
      towards that part of Thrace, till he found himself stopped by the
      broad and rapid stream of the Hebrus, and discovered the numerous
      army of Licinius, which filled the steep ascent of the hill, from
      the river to the city of Hadrianople. Many days were spent in
      doubtful and distant skirmishes; but at length the obstacles of
      the passage and of the attack were removed by the intrepid
      conduct of Constantine. In this place we might relate a wonderful
      exploit of Constantine, which, though it can scarcely be
      paralleled either in poetry or romance, is celebrated, not by a
      venal orator devoted to his fortune, but by an historian, the
      partial enemy of his fame. We are assured that the valiant
      emperor threw himself into the River Hebrus, accompanied only by
      _twelve_ horsemen, and that by the effort or terror of his
      invincible arm, he broke, slaughtered, and put to flight a host
      of a hundred and fifty thousand men. The credulity of Zosimus
      prevailed so strongly over his passion, that among the events of
      the memorable battle of Hadrianople, he seems to have selected
      and embellished, not the most important, but the most marvellous.
      The valor and danger of Constantine are attested by a slight
      wound which he received in the thigh; but it may be discovered
      even from an imperfect narration, and perhaps a corrupted text,
      that the victory was obtained no less by the conduct of the
      general than by the courage of the hero; that a body of five
      thousand archers marched round to occupy a thick wood in the rear
      of the enemy, whose attention was diverted by the construction of
      a bridge, and that Licinius, perplexed by so many artful
      evolutions, was reluctantly drawn from his advantageous post to
      combat on equal ground on the plain. The contest was no longer
      equal. His confused multitude of new levies was easily vanquished
      by the experienced veterans of the West. Thirty-four thousand men
      are reported to have been slain. The fortified camp of Licinius
      was taken by assault the evening of the battle; the greater part
      of the fugitives, who had retired to the mountains, surrendered
      themselves the next day to the discretion of the conqueror; and
      his rival, who could no longer keep the field, confined himself
      within the walls of Byzantium. 107

      107 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 95, 96. This great battle is
      described in the Valesian fragment, (p. 714,) in a clear though
      concise manner. “Licinius vero circum Hadrianopolin maximo
      exercitu latera ardui montis impleverat; illuc toto agmine
      Constantinus inflexit. Cum bellum terra marique traheretur,
      quamvis per arduum suis nitentibus, attamen disciplina militari
      et felicitate, Constantinus Licinu confusum et sine ordine
      agentem vicit exercitum; leviter femore sau ciatus.”]

      The siege of Byzantium, which was immediately undertaken by
      Constantine, was attended with great labor and uncertainty. In
      the late civil wars, the fortifications of that place, so justly
      considered as the key of Europe and Asia, had been repaired and
      strengthened; and as long as Licinius remained master of the sea,
      the garrison was much less exposed to the danger of famine than
      the army of the besiegers. The naval commanders of Constantine
      were summoned to his camp, and received his positive orders to
      force the passage of the Hellespont, as the fleet of Licinius,
      instead of seeking and destroying their feeble enemy, continued
      inactive in those narrow straits, where its superiority of
      numbers was of little use or advantage. Crispus, the emperor’s
      eldest son, was intrusted with the execution of this daring
      enterprise, which he performed with so much courage and success,
      that he deserved the esteem, and most probably excited the
      jealousy, of his father. The engagement lasted two days; and in
      the evening of the first, the contending fleets, after a
      considerable and mutual loss, retired into their respective
      harbors of Europe and Asia. The second day, about noon, a strong
      south wind 108 sprang up, which carried the vessels of Crispus
      against the enemy; and as the casual advantage was improved by
      his skilful intrepidity, he soon obtained a complete victory. A
      hundred and thirty vessels were destroyed, five thousand men were
      slain, and Amandus, the admiral of the Asiatic fleet, escaped
      with the utmost difficulty to the shores of Chalcedon. As soon as
      the Hellespont was open, a plentiful convoy of provisions flowed
      into the camp of Constantine, who had already advanced the
      operations of the siege. He constructed artificial mounds of
      earth of an equal height with the ramparts of Byzantium. The
      lofty towers which were erected on that foundation galled the
      besieged with large stones and darts from the military engines,
      and the battering rams had shaken the walls in several places. If
      Licinius persisted much longer in the defence, he exposed himself
      to be involved in the ruin of the place. Before he was
      surrounded, he prudently removed his person and treasures to
      Chalcedon in Asia; and as he was always desirous of associating
      companions to the hopes and dangers of his fortune, he now
      bestowed the title of Cæsar on Martinianus, who exercised one of
      the most important offices of the empire. 109

      108 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 97, 98. The current always sets
      out of the Hellespont; and when it is assisted by a north wind,
      no vessel can attempt the passage. A south wind renders the force
      of the current almost imperceptible. See Tournefort’s Voyage au
      Levant, Let. xi.]

      109 (return) [ Aurelius Victor. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 93. According
      to the latter, Martinianus was Magister Officiorum, (he uses the
      Latin appellation in Greek.) Some medals seem to intimate, that
      during his short reign he received the title of Augustus.]

      Such were still the resources, and such the abilities, of
      Licinius, that, after so many successive defeats, he collected in
      Bithynia a new army of fifty or sixty thousand men, while the
      activity of Constantine was employed in the siege of Byzantium.
      The vigilant emperor did not, however, neglect the last struggles
      of his antagonist. A considerable part of his victorious army was
      transported over the Bosphorus in small vessels, and the decisive
      engagement was fought soon after their landing on the heights of
      Chrysopolis, or, as it is now called, of Scutari. The troops of
      Licinius, though they were lately raised, ill armed, and worse
      disciplined, made head against their conquerors with fruitless
      but desperate valor, till a total defeat, and a slaughter of five
      and twenty thousand men, irretrievably determined the fate of
      their leader. 110 He retired to Nicomedia, rather with the view
      of gaining some time for negotiation, than with the hope of any
      effectual defence. Constantia, his wife, and the sister of
      Constantine, interceded with her brother in favor of her husband,
      and obtained from his policy, rather than from his compassion, a
      solemn promise, confirmed by an oath, that after the sacrifice of
      Martinianus, and the resignation of the purple, Licinius himself
      should be permitted to pass the remainder of this life in peace
      and affluence. The behavior of Constantia, and her relation to
      the contending parties, naturally recalls the remembrance of that
      virtuous matron who was the sister of Augustus, and the wife of
      Antony. But the temper of mankind was altered, and it was no
      longer esteemed infamous for a Roman to survive his honor and
      independence. Licinius solicited and accepted the pardon of his
      offences, laid himself and his purple at the feet of his _lord_
      and _master_, was raised from the ground with insulting pity, was
      admitted the same day to the Imperial banquet, and soon
      afterwards was sent away to Thessalonica, which had been chosen
      for the place of his confinement. 111 His confinement was soon
      terminated by death, and it is doubtful whether a tumult of the
      soldiers, or a decree of the senate, was suggested as the motive
      for his execution. According to the rules of tyranny, he was
      accused of forming a conspiracy, and of holding a treasonable
      correspondence with the barbarians; but as he was never
      convicted, either by his own conduct or by any legal evidence, we
      may perhaps be allowed, from his weakness, to presume his
      innocence. 112 The memory of Licinius was branded with infamy,
      his statues were thrown down, and by a hasty edict, of such
      mischievous tendency that it was almost immediately corrected,
      all his laws, and all the judicial proceedings of his reign, were
      at once abolished. 113 By this victory of Constantine, the Roman
      world was again united under the authority of one emperor,
      thirty-seven years after Diocletian had divided his power and
      provinces with his associate Maximian.

      110 (return) [ Eusebius (in Vita Constantin. I. ii. c. 16, 17)
      ascribes this decisive victory to the pious prayers of the
      emperor. The Valesian fragment (p. 714) mentions a body of Gothic
      auxiliaries, under their chief Aliquaca, who adhered to the party
      of Licinius.]

      111 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 102. Victor Junior in Epitome.
      Anonym. Valesian. p. 714.]

      112 (return) [ Contra religionem sacramenti Thessalonicæ privatus
      occisus est. Eutropius, x. 6; and his evidence is confirmed by
      Jerome (in Chronic.) as well as by Zosimus, l. ii. p. 102. The
      Valesian writer is the only one who mentions the soldiers, and it
      is Zonaras alone who calls in the assistance of the senate.
      Eusebius prudently slides over this delicate transaction. But
      Sozomen, a century afterwards, ventures to assert the treasonable
      practices of Licinius.]

      113 (return) [ See the Theodosian Code, l. xv. tit. 15, tom. v. p
      404, 405. These edicts of Constantine betray a degree of passion
      and precipitation very unbecoming the character of a lawgiver.]

      The successive steps of the elevation of Constantine, from his
      first assuming the purple at York, to the resignation of
      Licinius, at Nicomedia, have been related with some minuteness
      and precision, not only as the events are in themselves both
      interesting and important, but still more, as they contributed to
      the decline of the empire by the expense of blood and treasure,
      and by the perpetual increase, as well of the taxes, as of the
      military establishment. The foundation of Constantinople, and the
      establishment of the Christian religion, were the immediate and
      memorable consequences of this revolution.




      Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part I.

     The Progress Of The Christian Religion, And The Sentiments,
     Manners, Numbers, And Condition Of The Primitive Christians. 101

      101 (return) [ In spite of my resolution, Lardner led me to look
      through the famous fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of Gibbon. I
      could not lay them down without finishing them. The causes
      assigned, in the fifteenth chapter, for the diffusion of
      Christianity, must, no doubt, have contributed to it materially;
      but I doubt whether he saw them all. Perhaps those which he
      enumerates are among the most obvious. They might all be safely
      adopted by a Christian writer, with some change in the language
      and manner. Mackintosh see Life, i. p. 244.—M.]

      A candid but rational inquiry into the progress and establishment
      of Christianity may be considered as a very essential part of the
      history of the Roman empire. While that great body was invaded by
      open violence, or undermined by slow decay, a pure and humble
      religion gently insinuated itself into the minds of men, grew up
      in silence and obscurity, derived new vigor from opposition, and
      finally erected the triumphant banner of the Cross on the ruins
      of the Capitol. Nor was the influence of Christianity confined to
      the period or to the limits of the Roman empire. After a
      revolution of thirteen or fourteen centuries, that religion is
      still professed by the nations of Europe, the most distinguished
      portion of human kind in arts and learning as well as in arms. By
      the industry and zeal of the Europeans, it has been widely
      diffused to the most distant shores of Asia and Africa; and by
      the means of their colonies has been firmly established from
      Canada to Chili, in a world unknown to the ancients.

      But this inquiry, however useful or entertaining, is attended
      with two peculiar difficulties. The scanty and suspicious
      materials of ecclesiastical history seldom enable us to dispel
      the dark cloud that hangs over the first age of the church. The
      great law of impartiality too often obliges us to reveal the
      imperfections of the uninspired teachers and believers of the
      gospel; and, to a careless observer, _their_ faults may seem to
      cast a shade on the faith which they professed. But the scandal
      of the pious Christian, and the fallacious triumph of the
      Infidel, should cease as soon as they recollect not only _by
      whom_, but likewise _to whom_, the Divine Revelation was given.
      The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing
      Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native
      purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He
      must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption,
      which she contracted in a long residence upon earth, among a weak
      and degenerate race of beings. 102

      102 (return) [ The art of Gibbon, or at least the unfair
      impression produced by these two memorable chapters, consists in
      confounding together, in one undistinguishable mass, the origin
      and apostolic propagation of the Christian religion with its
      later progress. The main question, the divine origin of the
      religion, is dexterously eluded or speciously conceded; his plan
      enables him to commence his account, in most parts, below the
      apostolic times; and it is only by the strength of the dark
      coloring with which he has brought out the failings and the
      follies of succeeding ages, that a shadow of doubt and suspicion
      is thrown back on the primitive period of Christianity. Divest
      this whole passage of the latent sarcasm betrayed by the
      subsequent one of the whole disquisition, and it might commence a
      Christian history, written in the most Christian spirit of
      candor.—M.]

      Our curiosity is naturally prompted to inquire by what means the
      Christian faith obtained so remarkable a victory over the
      established religions of the earth. To this inquiry, an obvious
      but satisfactory answer may be returned; that it was owing to the
      convincing evidence of the doctrine itself, and to the ruling
      providence of its great Author. But as truth and reason seldom
      find so favorable a reception in the world, and as the wisdom of
      Providence frequently condescends to use the passions of the
      human heart, and the general circumstances of mankind, as
      instruments to execute its purpose, we may still be permitted,
      though with becoming submission, to ask, not indeed what were the
      first, but what were the secondary causes of the rapid growth of
      the Christian church. It will, perhaps, appear, that it was most
      effectually favored and assisted by the five following causes:

      I. The inflexible, and if we may use the expression, the
      intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived, it is true, from the
      Jewish religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial
      spirit, which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles
      from embracing the law of Moses.1023

      II. The doctrine of a future life, improved by every additional
      circumstance which could give weight and efficacy to that
      important truth. III. The miraculous powers ascribed to the
      primitive church. IV. The pure and austere morals of the
      Christians.

      V. The union and discipline of the Christian republic, which
      gradually formed an independent and increasing state in the heart
      of the Roman empire.

      1023 (return) [Though we are thus far agreed with respect to the
      inflexibility and intolerance of Christian zeal, yet as to the
      principle from which it was derived, we are, toto coelo, divided
      in opinion. You deduce it from the Jewish religion; I would refer
      it to a more adequate and a more obvious source, a full
      persuasion of the truth of Christianity. Watson. Letters Gibbon,
      i. 9.—M.]

      I. We have already described the religious harmony of the ancient
      world, and the facility with which the most different and even
      hostile nations embraced, or at least respected, each other’s
      superstitions. A single people refused to join in the common
      intercourse of mankind. The Jews, who, under the Assyrian and
      Persian monarchies, had languished for many ages the most
      despised portion of their slaves, 1 emerged from obscurity under
      the successors of Alexander; and as they multiplied to a
      surprising degree in the East, and afterwards in the West, they
      soon excited the curiosity and wonder of other nations. 2 The
      sullen obstinacy with which they maintained their peculiar rites
      and unsocial manners seemed to mark them out as a distinct
      species of men, who boldly professed, or who faintly disguised,
      their implacable habits to the rest of human kind. 3 Neither the
      violence of Antiochus, nor the arts of Herod, nor the example of
      the circumjacent nations, could ever persuade the Jews to
      associate with the institutions of Moses the elegant mythology of
      the Greeks. 4 According to the maxims of universal toleration,
      the Romans protected a superstition which they despised. 5 The
      polite Augustus condescended to give orders, that sacrifices
      should be offered for his prosperity in the temple of Jerusalem;
      6 whilst the meanest of the posterity of Abraham, who should have
      paid the same homage to the Jupiter of the Capitol, would have
      been an object of abhorrence to himself and to his brethren.

      But the moderation of the conquerors was insufficient to appease
      the jealous prejudices of their subjects, who were alarmed and
      scandalized at the ensigns of paganism, which necessarily
      introduced themselves into a Roman province. 7 The mad attempt of
      Caligula to place his own statue in the temple of Jerusalem was
      defeated by the unanimous resolution of a people who dreaded
      death much less than such an idolatrous profanation. 8 Their
      attachment to the law of Moses was equal to their detestation of
      foreign religions. The current of zeal and devotion, as it was
      contracted into a narrow channel, ran with the strength, and
      sometimes with the fury, of a torrent. This facility has not
      always prevented intolerance, which seems inherent in the
      religious spirit, when armed with authority. The separation of
      the ecclesiastical and civil power, appears to be the only means
      of at once maintaining religion and tolerance: but this is a very
      modern notion. The passions, which mingle themselves with
      opinions, made the Pagans very often intolerant and persecutors;
      witness the Persians, the Egyptians even the Greeks and Romans.

      1st. The Persians.—Cambyses, conqueror of the Egyptians,
      condemned to death the magistrates of Memphis, because they had
      offered divine honors to their god. Apis: he caused the god to be
      brought before him, struck him with his dagger, commanded the
      priests to be scourged, and ordered a general massacre of all the
      Egyptians who should be found celebrating the festival of the
      statues of the gods to be burnt. Not content with this
      intolerance, he sent an army to reduce the Ammonians to slavery,
      and to set on fire the temple in which Jupiter delivered his
      oracles. See Herod. iii. 25—29, 37. Xerxes, during his invasion
      of Greece, acted on the same principles: l c destroyed all the
      temples of Greece and Ionia, except that of Ephesus. See Paus. l.
      vii. p. 533, and x. p. 887.

      Strabo, l. xiv. b. 941. 2d. The Egyptians.—They thought
      themselves defiled when they had drunk from the same cup or eaten
      at the same table with a man of a different belief from their
      own. “He who has voluntarily killed any sacred animal is punished
      with death; but if any one, even involuntarily, has killed a cat
      or an ibis, he cannot escape the extreme penalty: the people drag
      him away, treat him in the most cruel manner, sometimes without
      waiting for a judicial sentence. * * * Even at the time when King
      Ptolemy was not yet the acknowledged friend of the Roman people,
      while the multitude were paying court with all possible attention
      to the strangers who came from Italy * * a Roman having killed a
      cat, the people rushed to his house, and neither the entreaties
      of the nobles, whom the king sent to them, nor the terror of the
      Roman name, were sufficiently powerful to rescue the man from
      punishment, though he had committed the crime involuntarily.”
      Diod. Sic. i 83. Juvenal, in his 13th Satire, describes the
      sanguinary conflict between the inhabitants of Ombos and of
      Tentyra, from religious animosity. The fury was carried so far,
      that the conquerors tore and devoured the quivering limbs of the
      conquered.

      Ardet adhuc Ombos et Tentyra, summus utrinque Inde furor vulgo,
      quod numina vicinorum Odit uterque locus; quum solos credat
      habendos Esse Deos quos ipse colit. Sat. xv. v. 85.

      3d. The Greeks.—“Let us not here,” says the Abbé Guénée, “refer
      to the cities of Peloponnesus and their severity against atheism;
      the Ephesians prosecuting Heraclitus for impiety; the Greeks
      armed one against the other by religious zeal, in the
      Amphictyonic war. Let us say nothing either of the frightful
      cruelties inflicted by three successors of Alexander upon the
      Jews, to force them to abandon their religion, nor of Antiochus
      expelling the philosophers from his states. Let us not seek our
      proofs of intolerance so far off. Athens, the polite and learned
      Athens, will supply us with sufficient examples. Every citizen
      made a public and solemn vow to conform to the religion of his
      country, to defend it, and to cause it to be respected. An
      express law severely punished all discourses against the gods,
      and a rigid decree ordered the denunciation of all who should
      deny their existence. * * * The practice was in unison with the
      severity of the law. The proceedings commenced against
      Protagoras; a price set upon the head of Diagoras; the danger of
      Alcibiades; Aristotle obliged to fly; Stilpo banished; Anaxagoras
      hardly escaping death; Pericles himself, after all his services
      to his country, and all the glory he had acquired, compelled to
      appear before the tribunals and make his defence; * * a priestess
      executed for having introduced strange gods; Socrates condemned
      and drinking the hemlock, because he was accused of not
      recognizing those of his country, &c.; these facts attest too
      loudly, to be called in question, the religious intolerance of
      the most humane and enlightened people in Greece.” Lettres de
      quelques Juifs a Mons. Voltaire, i. p. 221. (Compare Bentley on
      Freethinking, from which much of this is derived.)—M.

      4th. The Romans.—The laws of Rome were not less express and
      severe. The intolerance of foreign religions reaches, with the
      Romans, as high as the laws of the twelve tables; the
      prohibitions were afterwards renewed at different times.
      Intolerance did not discontinue under the emperors; witness the
      counsel of Mæcenas to Augustus. This counsel is so remarkable,
      that I think it right to insert it entire. “Honor the gods
      yourself,” says Mæcenas to Augustus, “in every way according to
      the usage of your ancestors, and compel others to worship them.
      Hate and punish those who introduce strange gods, not only for
      the sake of the gods, (he who despises them will respect no one,)
      but because those who introduce new gods engage a multitude of
      persons in foreign laws and customs. From hence arise unions
      bound by oaths and confederacies, and associations, things
      dangerous to a monarchy.” Dion Cass. l. ii. c. 36. (But, though
      some may differ from it, see Gibbon’s just observation on this
      passage in Dion Cassius, ch. xvi. note 117; impugned, indeed, by
      M. Guizot, note in loc.)—M.

      Even the laws which the philosophers of Athens and of Rome wrote
      for their imaginary republics are intolerant. Plato does not
      leave to his citizens freedom of religious worship; and Cicero
      expressly prohibits them from having other gods than those of the
      state. Lettres de quelques Juifs a Mons. Voltaire, i. p. 226.—G.

      According to M. Guizot’s just remarks, religious intolerance will
      always ally itself with the passions of man, however different
      those passions may be. In the instances quoted above, with the
      Persians it was the pride of despotism; to conquer the gods of a
      country was the last mark of subjugation. With the Egyptians, it
      was the gross Fetichism of the superstitious populace, and the
      local jealousy of neighboring towns. In Greece, persecution was
      in general connected with political party; in Rome, with the
      stern supremacy of the law and the interests of the state. Gibbon
      has been mistaken in attributing to the tolerant spirit of
      Paganism that which arose out of the peculiar circumstances of
      the times. 1st. The decay of the old Polytheism, through the
      progress of reason and intelligence, and the prevalence of
      philosophical opinions among the higher orders.

      2d. The Roman character, in which the political always
      predominated over the religious party. The Romans were contented
      with having bowed the world to a uniformity of subjection to
      their power, and cared not for establishing the (to them) less
      important uniformity of religion.—M.

      1 (return) [ Dum Assyrios penes, Medosque, et Persas Oriens fuit,
      despectissima pars servientium. Tacit. Hist. v. 8. Herodotus, who
      visited Asia whilst it obeyed the last of those empires, slightly
      mentions the Syrians of Palestine, who, according to their own
      confession, had received from Egypt the rite of circumcision. See
      l. ii. c. 104.]

      2 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus, l. xl. Dion Cassius, l. xxxvii. p.
      121. Tacit Hist. v. 1—9. Justin xxxvi. 2, 3.]

      3 (return) [ Tradidit arcano quæcunque volumine Moses, Non
      monstrare vias cadem nisi sacra colenti, Quæsitum ad fontem solos
      deducere verpas. The letter of this law is not to be found in the
      present volume of Moses. But the wise, the humane Maimonides
      openly teaches that if an idolater fall into the water, a Jew
      ought not to save him from instant death. See Basnage, Histoire
      des Juifs, l. vi. c. 28. * Note: It is diametrically opposed to
      its spirit and to its letter, see, among other passages, Deut. v.
      18. 19, (God) “loveth the stranger in giving him food and
      raiment. Love ye, therefore, the stranger: for ye were strangers
      in the land of Egypt.” Comp. Lev. xxiii. 25. Juvenal is a
      satirist, whose strong expressions can hardly be received as
      historic evidence; and he wrote after the horrible cruelties of
      the Romans, which, during and after the war, might give some
      cause for the complete isolation of the Jew from the rest of the
      world. The Jew was a bigot, but his religion was not the only
      source of his bigotry. After how many centuries of mutual wrong
      and hatred, which had still further estranged the Jew from
      mankind, did Maimonides write?—M.]

      4 (return) [ A Jewish sect, which indulged themselves in a sort
      of occasional conformity, derived from Herod, by whose example
      and authority they had been seduced, the name of Herodians. But
      their numbers were so inconsiderable, and their duration so
      short, that Josephus has not thought them worthy of his notice.
      See Prideaux’s Connection, vol. ii. p. 285. * Note: The Herodians
      were probably more of a political party than a religious sect,
      though Gibbon is most likely right as to their occasional
      conformity. See Hist. of the Jews, ii. 108.—M.]

      5 (return) [ Cicero pro Flacco, c. 28. * Note: The edicts of
      Julius Cæsar, and of some of the cities in Asia Minor (Krebs.
      Decret. pro Judæis,) in favor of the nation in general, or of the
      Asiatic Jews, speak a different language.—M.]

      6 (return) [ Philo de Legatione. Augustus left a foundation for a
      perpetual sacrifice. Yet he approved of the neglect which his
      grandson Caius expressed towards the temple of Jerusalem. See
      Sueton. in August. c. 93, and Casaubon’s notes on that passage.]

      7 (return) [ See, in particular, Joseph. Antiquitat. xvii. 6,
      xviii. 3; and de Bell. Judiac. i. 33, and ii. 9, edit. Havercamp.
      * Note: This was during the government of Pontius Pilate. (Hist.
      of Jews, ii. 156.) Probably in part to avoid this collision, the
      Roman governor, in general, resided at Cæsarea.—M.]

      8 (return) [ Jussi a Caio Cæsare, effigiem ejus in templo locare,
      arma potius sumpsere. Tacit. Hist. v. 9. Philo and Josephus gave
      a very circumstantial, but a very rhetorical, account of this
      transaction, which exceedingly perplexed the governor of Syria.
      At the first mention of this idolatrous proposal, King Agrippa
      fainted away; and did not recover his senses until the third day.
      (Hist. of Jews, ii. 181, &c.)]

      This inflexible perseverance, which appeared so odious or so
      ridiculous to the ancient world, assumes a more awful character,
      since Providence has deigned to reveal to us the mysterious
      history of the chosen people. But the devout and even scrupulous
      attachment to the Mosaic religion, so conspicuous among the Jews
      who lived under the second temple, becomes still more surprising,
      if it is compared with the stubborn incredulity of their
      forefathers. When the law was given in thunder from Mount Sinai,
      when the tides of the ocean and the course of the planets were
      suspended for the convenience of the Israelites, and when
      temporal rewards and punishments were the immediate consequences
      of their piety or disobedience, they perpetually relapsed into
      rebellion against the visible majesty of their Divine King,
      placed the idols of the nations in the sanctuary of Jehovah, and
      imitated every fantastic ceremony that was practised in the tents
      of the Arabs, or in the cities of Phœnicia. 9 As the protection
      of Heaven was deservedly withdrawn from the ungrateful race,
      their faith acquired a proportionable degree of vigor and purity.

      The contemporaries of Moses and Joshua had beheld with careless
      indifference the most amazing miracles. Under the pressure of
      every calamity, the belief of those miracles has preserved the
      Jews of a later period from the universal contagion of idolatry;
      and in contradiction to every known principle of the human mind,
      that singular people seems to have yielded a stronger and more
      ready assent to the traditions of their remote ancestors, than to
      the evidence of their own senses. 10

      9 (return) [ For the enumeration of the Syrian and Arabian
      deities, it may be observed, that Milton has comprised in one
      hundred and thirty very beautiful lines the two large and learned
      syntagmas which Selden had composed on that abstruse subject.]

      10 (return) [ “How long will this people provoke me? and how long
      will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have
      shown among them?” (Numbers xiv. 11.) It would be easy, but it
      would be unbecoming, to justify the complaint of the Deity from
      the whole tenor of the Mosaic history. Note: Among a rude and
      barbarous people, religious impressions are easily made, and are
      as soon effaced. The ignorance which multiplies imaginary
      wonders, would weaken and destroy the effect of real miracle. At
      the period of the Jewish history, referred to in the passage from
      Numbers, their fears predominated over their faith,—the fears of
      an unwarlike people, just rescued from debasing slavery, and
      commanded to attack a fierce, a well-armed, a gigantic, and a far
      more numerous race, the inhabitants of Canaan. As to the frequent
      apostasy of the Jews, their religion was beyond their state of
      civilization. Nor is it uncommon for a people to cling with
      passionate attachment to that of which, at first, they could not
      appreciate the value. Patriotism and national pride will contend,
      even to death, for political rights which have been forced upon a
      reluctant people. The Christian may at least retort, with
      justice, that the great sign of his religion, the resurrection of
      Jesus, was most ardently believed, and most resolutely asserted,
      by the eye witnesses of the fact.—M.]

      The Jewish religion was admirably fitted for defence, but it was
      never designed for conquest; and it seems probable that the
      number of proselytes was never much superior to that of
      apostates. The divine promises were originally made, and the
      distinguishing rite of circumcision was enjoined, to a single
      family. When the posterity of Abraham had multiplied like the
      sands of the sea, the Deity, from whose mouth they received a
      system of laws and ceremonies, declared himself the proper and as
      it were the national God of Israel; and with the most jealous
      care separated his favorite people from the rest of mankind. The
      conquest of the land of Canaan was accompanied with so many
      wonderful and with so many bloody circumstances, that the
      victorious Jews were left in a state of irreconcilable hostility
      with all their neighbors. They had been commanded to extirpate
      some of the most idolatrous tribes, and the execution of the
      divine will had seldom been retarded by the weakness of humanity.

      With the other nations they were forbidden to contract any
      marriages or alliances; and the prohibition of receiving them
      into the congregation, which in some cases was perpetual, almost
      always extended to the third, to the seventh, or even to the
      tenth generation. The obligation of preaching to the Gentiles the
      faith of Moses had never been inculcated as a precept of the law,
      nor were the Jews inclined to impose it on themselves as a
      voluntary duty.

      In the admission of new citizens that unsocial people was
      actuated by the selfish vanity of the Greeks, rather than by the
      generous policy of Rome. The descendants of Abraham were
      flattered by the opinion that they alone were the heirs of the
      covenant, and they were apprehensive of diminishing the value of
      their inheritance by sharing it too easily with the strangers of
      the earth. A larger acquaintance with mankind extended their
      knowledge without correcting their prejudices; and whenever the
      God of Israel acquired any new votaries, he was much more
      indebted to the inconstant humor of polytheism than to the active
      zeal of his own missionaries. 11 The religion of Moses seems to
      be instituted for a particular country as well as for a single
      nation; and if a strict obedience had been paid to the order,
      that every male, three times in the year, should present himself
      before the Lord Jehovah, it would have been impossible that the
      Jews could ever have spread themselves beyond the narrow limits
      of the promised land. 12 That obstacle was indeed removed by the
      destruction of the temple of Jerusalem; but the most considerable
      part of the Jewish religion was involved in its destruction; and
      the Pagans, who had long wondered at the strange report of an
      empty sanctuary, 13 were at a loss to discover what could be the
      object, or what could be the instruments, of a worship which was
      destitute of temples and of altars, of priests and of sacrifices.

      Yet even in their fallen state, the Jews, still asserting their
      lofty and exclusive privileges, shunned, instead of courting, the
      society of strangers. They still insisted with inflexible rigor
      on those parts of the law which it was in their power to
      practise. Their peculiar distinctions of days, of meats, and a
      variety of trivial though burdensome observances, were so many
      objects of disgust and aversion for the other nations, to whose
      habits and prejudices they were diametrically opposite. The
      painful and even dangerous rite of circumcision was alone capable
      of repelling a willing proselyte from the door of the synagogue.
      14

      11 (return) [ All that relates to the Jewish proselytes has been
      very ably by Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, l. vi. c. 6, 7.]

      12 (return) [ See Exod. xxiv. 23, Deut. xvi. 16, the
      commentators, and a very sensible note in the Universal History,
      vol. i. p. 603, edit. fol.]

      13 (return) [ When Pompey, using or abusing the right of
      conquest, entered into the Holy of Holies, it was observed with
      amazement, “Nulli intus Deum effigie, vacuam sedem et inania
      arcana.” Tacit. Hist. v. 9. It was a popular saying, with regard
      to the Jews, “Nil præter nubes et coeli numen adorant.”]

      14 (return) [ A second kind of circumcision was inflicted on a
      Samaritan or Egyptian proselyte. The sullen indifference of the
      Talmudists, with respect to the conversion of strangers, may be
      seen in Basnage Histoire des Juifs, l. xi. c. 6.]

      Under these circumstances, Christianity offered itself to the
      world, armed with the strength of the Mosaic law, and delivered
      from the weight of its fetters. An exclusive zeal for the truth
      of religion, and the unity of God, was as carefully inculcated in
      the new as in the ancient system; and whatever was now revealed
      to mankind concerning the nature and designs of the Supreme Being
      was fitted to increase their reverence for that mysterious
      doctrine. The divine authority of Moses and the prophets was
      admitted, and even established, as the firmest basis of
      Christianity. From the beginning of the world, an uninterrupted
      series of predictions had announced and prepared the
      long-expected coming of the Messiah, who, in compliance with the
      gross apprehensions of the Jews, had been more frequently
      represented under the character of a King and Conqueror, than
      under that of a Prophet, a Martyr, and the Son of God. By his
      expiatory sacrifice, the imperfect sacrifices of the temple were
      at once consummated and abolished. The ceremonial law, which
      consisted only of types and figures, was succeeded by a pure and
      spiritual worship equally adapted to all climates, as well as to
      every condition of mankind; and to the initiation of blood was
      substituted a more harmless initiation of water. The promise of
      divine favor, instead of being partially confined to the
      posterity of Abraham, was universally proposed to the freeman and
      the slave, to the Greek and to the barbarian, to the Jew and to
      the Gentile. Every privilege that could raise the proselyte from
      earth to heaven, that could exalt his devotion, secure his
      happiness, or even gratify that secret pride which, under the
      semblance of devotion, insinuates itself into the human heart,
      was still reserved for the members of the Christian church; but
      at the same time all mankind was permitted, and even solicited,
      to accept the glorious distinction, which was not only proffered
      as a favor, but imposed as an obligation. It became the most
      sacred duty of a new convert to diffuse among his friends and
      relations the inestimable blessing which he had received, and to
      warn them against a refusal that would be severely punished as a
      criminal disobedience to the will of a benevolent but
      all-powerful Deity.




      Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part II.

      The enfranchisement of the church from the bonds of the synagogue
      was a work, however, of some time and of some difficulty. The
      Jewish converts, who acknowledged Jesus in the character of the
      Messiah foretold by their ancient oracles, respected him as a
      prophetic teacher of virtue and religion; but they obstinately
      adhered to the ceremonies of their ancestors, and were desirous
      of imposing them on the Gentiles, who continually augmented the
      number of believers. These Judaizing Christians seem to have
      argued with some degree of plausibility from the divine origin of
      the Mosaic law, and from the immutable perfections of its great
      Author. They affirmed, that if the Being, who is the same through
      all eternity, had designed to abolish those sacred rites which
      had served to distinguish his chosen people, the repeal of them
      would have been no less clear and solemn than their first
      promulgation: _that_, instead of those frequent declarations,
      which either suppose or assert the perpetuity of the Mosaic
      religion, it would have been represented as a provisionary scheme
      intended to last only to the coming of the Messiah, who should
      instruct mankind in a more perfect mode of faith and of worship:
      15 _that_ the Messiah himself, and his disciples who conversed
      with him on earth, instead of authorizing by their example the
      most minute observances of the Mosaic law, 16 would have
      published to the world the abolition of those useless and
      obsolete ceremonies, without suffering Christianity to remain
      during so many years obscurely confounded among the sects of the
      Jewish church. Arguments like these appear to have been used in
      the defence of the expiring cause of the Mosaic law; but the
      industry of our learned divines has abundantly explained the
      ambiguous language of the Old Testament, and the ambiguous
      conduct of the apostolic teachers. It was proper gradually to
      unfold the system of the gospel, and to pronounce, with the
      utmost caution and tenderness, a sentence of condemnation so
      repugnant to the inclination and prejudices of the believing
      Jews.

      15 (return) [ These arguments were urged with great ingenuity by
      the Jew Orobio, and refuted with equal ingenuity and candor by
      the Christian Limborch. See the Amica Collatio, (it well deserves
      that name,) or account of the dispute between them.]

      16 (return) [ Jesus... circumcisus erat; cibis utebatur Judaicis;
      vestitu simili; purgatos scabie mittebat ad sacerdotes; Paschata
      et alios dies festos religiose observabat: Si quos sanavit
      sabbatho, ostendit non tantum ex lege, sed et exceptis
      sententiis, talia opera sabbatho non interdicta. Grotius de
      Veritate Religionis Christianæ, l. v. c. 7. A little afterwards,
      (c. 12,) he expatiates on the condescension of the apostles.]

      The history of the church of Jerusalem affords a lively proof of
      the necessity of those precautions, and of the deep impression
      which the Jewish religion had made on the minds of its sectaries.
      The first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were all circumcised Jews;
      and the congregation over which they presided united the law of
      Moses with the doctrine of Christ. 17 It was natural that the
      primitive tradition of a church which was founded only forty days
      after the death of Christ, and was governed almost as many years
      under the immediate inspection of his apostle, should be received
      as the standard of orthodoxy. The distant churches very
      frequently appealed to the authority of their venerable Parent,
      and relieved her distresses by a liberal contribution of alms.
      But when numerous and opulent societies were established in the
      great cities of the empire, in Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus,
      Corinth, and Rome, the reverence which Jerusalem had inspired to
      all the Christian colonies insensibly diminished. 18b The Jewish
      converts, or, as they were afterwards called, the Nazarenes, who
      had laid the foundations of the church, soon found themselves
      overwhelmed by the increasing multitudes, that from all the
      various religions of polytheism enlisted under the banner of
      Christ: and the Gentiles, who, with the approbation of their
      peculiar apostle, had rejected the intolerable weight of the
      Mosaic ceremonies, at length refused to their more scrupulous
      brethren the same toleration which at first they had humbly
      solicited for their own practice. The ruin of the temple of the
      city, and of the public religion of the Jews, was severely felt
      by the Nazarenes; as in their manners, though not in their faith,
      they maintained so intimate a connection with their impious
      countrymen, whose misfortunes were attributed by the Pagans to
      the contempt, and more justly ascribed by the Christians to the
      wrath, of the Supreme Deity. The Nazarenes retired from the ruins
      of Jerusalem 18 to the little town of Pella beyond the Jordan,
      where that ancient church languished above sixty years in
      solitude and obscurity. 19 They still enjoyed the comfort of
      making frequent and devout visits to the _Holy City_, and the
      hope of being one day restored to those seats which both nature
      and religion taught them to love as well as to revere. But at
      length, under the reign of Hadrian, the desperate fanaticism of
      the Jews filled up the measure of their calamities; and the
      Romans, exasperated by their repeated rebellions, exercised the
      rights of victory with unusual rigor. The emperor founded, under
      the name of Ælia Capitolina, a new city on Mount Sion, 20 to
      which he gave the privileges of a colony; and denouncing the
      severest penalties against any of the Jewish people who should
      dare to approach its precincts, he fixed a vigilant garrison of a
      Roman cohort to enforce the execution of his orders. The
      Nazarenes had only one way left to escape the common
      proscription, and the force of truth was on this occasion
      assisted by the influence of temporal advantages. They elected
      Marcus for their bishop, a prelate of the race of the Gentiles,
      and most probably a native either of Italy or of some of the
      Latin provinces. At his persuasion, the most considerable part of
      the congregation renounced the Mosaic law, in the practice of
      which they had persevered above a century. By this sacrifice of
      their habits and prejudices, they purchased a free admission into
      the colony of Hadrian, and more firmly cemented their union with
      the Catholic church. 21

      17 (return) [ Pæne omnes Christum Deum sub legis observatione
      credebant Sulpicius Severus, ii. 31. See Eusebius, Hist.
      Ecclesiast. l. iv. c. 5.]

      18b (return) [Footnote 18b: Mosheim de Rebus Christianis ante
      Constantinum Magnum, page 153. In this masterly performance,
      which I shall often have occasion to quote he enters much more
      fully into the state of the primitive church than he has an
      opportunity of doing in his General History.]

      18 (return) [ This is incorrect: all the traditions concur in
      placing the abandonment of the city by the Christians, not only
      before it was in ruins, but before the seige had commenced.
      Euseb. loc. cit., and Le Clerc.—M.]

      19 (return) [ Eusebius, l. iii. c. 5. Le Clerc, Hist. Ecclesiast.
      p. 605. During this occasional absence, the bishop and church of
      Pella still retained the title of Jerusalem. In the same manner,
      the Roman pontiffs resided seventy years at Avignon; and the
      patriarchs of Alexandria have long since transferred their
      episcopal seat to Cairo.]

      20 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxix. The exile of the Jewish
      nation from Jerusalem is attested by Aristo of Pella, (apud
      Euseb. l. iv. c. 6,) and is mentioned by several ecclesiastical
      writers; though some of them too hastily extend this interdiction
      to the whole country of Palestine.]

      21 (return) [ Eusebius, l. iv. c. 6. Sulpicius Severus, ii. 31.
      By comparing their unsatisfactory accounts, Mosheim (p. 327, &c.)
      has drawn out a very distinct representation of the circumstances
      and motives of this revolution.]

      When the name and honors of the church of Jerusalem had been
      restored to Mount Sion, the crimes of heresy and schism were
      imputed to the obscure remnant of the Nazarenes, which refused to
      accompany their Latin bishop. They still preserved their former
      habitation of Pella, spread themselves into the villages adjacent
      to Damascus, and formed an inconsiderable church in the city of
      Berœa, or, as it is now called, of Aleppo, in Syria. 22 The name
      of Nazarenes was deemed too honorable for those Christian Jews,
      and they soon received, from the supposed poverty of their
      understanding, as well as of their condition, the contemptuous
      epithet of Ebionites. 23 In a few years after the return of the
      church of Jerusalem, it became a matter of doubt and controversy,
      whether a man who sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah,
      but who still continued to observe the law of Moses, could
      possibly hope for salvation. The humane temper of Justin Martyr
      inclined him to answer this question in the affirmative; and
      though he expressed himself with the most guarded diffidence, he
      ventured to determine in favor of such an imperfect Christian, if
      he were content to practise the Mosaic ceremonies, without
      pretending to assert their general use or necessity. But when
      Justin was pressed to declare the sentiment of the church, he
      confessed that there were very many among the orthodox
      Christians, who not only excluded their Judaizing brethren from
      the hope of salvation, but who declined any intercourse with them
      in the common offices of friendship, hospitality, and social
      life. 24 The more rigorous opinion prevailed, as it was natural
      to expect, over the milder; and an eternal bar of separation was
      fixed between the disciples of Moses and those of Christ. The
      unfortunate Ebionites, rejected from one religion as apostates,
      and from the other as heretics, found themselves compelled to
      assume a more decided character; and although some traces of that
      obsolete sect may be discovered as late as the fourth century,
      they insensibly melted away, either into the church or the
      synagogue. 25

      22 (return) [ Le Clerc (Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 477, 535) seems to
      have collected from Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius, and other
      writers, all the principal circumstances that relate to the
      Nazarenes or Ebionites. The nature of their opinions soon divided
      them into a stricter and a milder sect; and there is some reason
      to conjecture, that the family of Jesus Christ remained members,
      at least, of the latter and more moderate party.]

      23 (return) [ Some writers have been pleased to create an Ebion,
      the imaginary author of their sect and name. But we can more
      safely rely on the learned Eusebius than on the vehement
      Tertullian, or the credulous Epiphanius. According to Le Clerc,
      the Hebrew word Ebjonim may be translated into Latin by that of
      Pauperes. See Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 477. * Note: The opinion of Le
      Clerc is generally admitted; but Neander has suggested some good
      reasons for supposing that this term only applied to poverty of
      condition. The obscure history of their tenets and divisions, is
      clearly and rationally traced in his History of the Church, vol.
      i. part ii. p. 612, &c., Germ. edit.—M.]

      24 (return) [ See the very curious Dialogue of Justin Martyr with
      the Jew Tryphon. The conference between them was held at Ephesus,
      in the reign of Antoninus Pius, and about twenty years after the
      return of the church of Pella to Jerusalem. For this date consult
      the accurate note of Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom.
      ii. p. 511. * Note: Justin Martyr makes an important distinction,
      which Gibbon has neglected to notice. * * * There were some who
      were not content with observing the Mosaic law themselves, but
      enforced the same observance, as necessary to salvation, upon the
      heathen converts, and refused all social intercourse with them if
      they did not conform to the law. Justin Martyr himself freely
      admits those who kept the law themselves to Christian communion,
      though he acknowledges that some, not the Church, thought
      otherwise; of the other party, he himself thought less favorably.
      The former by some are considered the Nazarenes the atter the
      Ebionites—G and M.]

      25 (return) [ Of all the systems of Christianity, that of
      Abyssinia is the only one which still adheres to the Mosaic
      rites. (Geddes’s Church History of Æthiopia, and Dissertations de
      La Grand sur la Relation du P. Lobo.) The eunuch of the queen
      Candace might suggest some suspicious; but as we are assured
      (Socrates, i. 19. Sozomen, ii. 24. Ludolphus, p. 281) that the
      Æthiopians were not converted till the fourth century, it is more
      reasonable to believe that they respected the sabbath, and
      distinguished the forbidden meats, in imitation of the Jews, who,
      in a very early period, were seated on both sides of the Red Sea.
      Circumcision had been practised by the most ancient Æthiopians,
      from motives of health and cleanliness, which seem to be
      explained in the Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains,
      tom. ii. p. 117.]

      While the orthodox church preserved a just medium between
      excessive veneration and improper contempt for the law of Moses,
      the various heretics deviated into equal but opposite extremes of
      error and extravagance. From the acknowledged truth of the Jewish
      religion, the Ebionites had concluded that it could never be
      abolished. From its supposed imperfections, the Gnostics as
      hastily inferred that it never was instituted by the wisdom of
      the Deity. There are some objections against the authority of
      Moses and the prophets, which too readily present themselves to
      the sceptical mind; though they can only be derived from our
      ignorance of remote antiquity, and from our incapacity to form an
      adequate judgment of the divine economy. These objections were
      eagerly embraced and as petulantly urged by the vain science of
      the Gnostics. 26 As those heretics were, for the most part,
      averse to the pleasures of sense, they morosely arraigned the
      polygamy of the patriarchs, the gallantries of David, and the
      seraglio of Solomon. The conquest of the land of Canaan, and the
      extirpation of the unsuspecting natives, they were at a loss how
      to reconcile with the common notions of humanity and justice. 261
      But when they recollected the sanguinary list of murders, of
      executions, and of massacres, which stain almost every page of
      the Jewish annals, they acknowledged that the barbarians of
      Palestine had exercised as much compassion towards their
      idolatrous enemies, as they had ever shown to their friends or
      countrymen. 27 Passing from the sectaries of the law to the law
      itself, they asserted that it was impossible that a religion
      which consisted only of bloody sacrifices and trifling
      ceremonies, and whose rewards as well as punishments were all of
      a carnal and temporal nature, could inspire the love of virtue,
      or restrain the impetuosity of passion. The Mosaic account of the
      creation and fall of man was treated with profane derision by the
      Gnostics, who would not listen with patience to the repose of the
      Deity after six days’ labor, to the rib of Adam, the garden of
      Eden, the trees of life and of knowledge, the speaking serpent,
      the forbidden fruit, and the condemnation pronounced against
      human kind for the venial offence of their first progenitors. 28
      The God of Israel was impiously represented by the Gnostics as a
      being liable to passion and to error, capricious in his favor,
      implacable in his resentment, meanly jealous of his superstitious
      worship, and confining his partial providence to a single people,
      and to this transitory life. In such a character they could
      discover none of the features of the wise and omnipotent Father
      of the universe. 29 They allowed that the religion of the Jews
      was somewhat less criminal than the idolatry of the Gentiles; but
      it was their fundamental doctrine that the Christ whom they
      adored as the first and brightest emanation of the Deity appeared
      upon earth to rescue mankind from their various errors, and to
      reveal a new system of truth and perfection. The most learned of
      the fathers, by a very singular condescension, have imprudently
      admitted the sophistry of the Gnostics. 291 Acknowledging that
      the literal sense is repugnant to every principle of faith as
      well as reason, they deem themselves secure and invulnerable
      behind the ample veil of allegory, which they carefully spread
      over every tender part of the Mosaic dispensation. 30

      26 (return) [ Beausobre, Histoire du Manicheisme, l. i. c. 3, has
      stated their objections, particularly those of Faustus, the
      adversary of Augustin, with the most learned impartiality.]

      261 (return) [ On the “war law” of the Jews, see Hist. of Jews,
      i. 137.—M.]

      27 (return) [ Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in
      promptu: adversus amnes alios hostile odium. Tacit. Hist. v. 4.
      Surely Tacitus had seen the Jews with too favorable an eye. The
      perusal of Josephus must have destroyed the antithesis. * Note:
      Few writers have suspected Tacitus of partiality towards the
      Jews. The whole later history of the Jews illustrates as well
      their strong feelings of humanity to their brethren, as their
      hostility to the rest of mankind. The character and the position
      of Josephus with the Roman authorities, must be kept in mind
      during the perusal of his History. Perhaps he has not exaggerated
      the ferocity and fanaticism of the Jews at that time; but
      insurrectionary warfare is not the best school for the humaner
      virtues, and much must be allowed for the grinding tyranny of the
      later Roman governors. See Hist. of Jews, ii. 254.—M.]

      28 (return) [ Dr. Burnet (Archæologia, l. ii. c. 7) has discussed
      the first chapters of Genesis with too much wit and freedom. *
      Note: Dr. Burnet apologized for the levity with which he had
      conducted some of his arguments, by the excuse that he wrote in a
      learned language for scholars alone, not for the vulgar. Whatever
      may be thought of his success in tracing an Eastern allegory in
      the first chapters of Genesis, his other works prove him to have
      been a man of great genius, and of sincere piety.—M]

      29 (return) [ The milder Gnostics considered Jehovah, the
      Creator, as a Being of a mixed nature between God and the Dæmon.
      Others confounded him with an evil principle. Consult the second
      century of the general history of Mosheim, which gives a very
      distinct, though concise, account of their strange opinions on
      this subject.]

      291 (return) [ The Gnostics, and the historian who has stated
      these plausible objections with so much force as almost to make
      them his own, would have shown a more considerate and not less
      reasonable philosophy, if they had considered the religion of
      Moses with reference to the age in which it was promulgated; if
      they had done justice to its sublime as well as its more
      imperfect views of the divine nature; the humane and civilizing
      provisions of the Hebrew law, as well as those adapted for an
      infant and barbarous people. See Hist of Jews, i. 36, 37, &c.—M.]

      30 (return) [ See Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme, l. i. c. 4.
      Origen and St. Augustin were among the allegorists.]

      It has been remarked with more ingenuity than truth, that the
      virgin purity of the church was never violated by schism or
      heresy before the reign of Trajan or Hadrian, about one hundred
      years after the death of Christ. 31 We may observe with much more
      propriety, that, during that period, the disciples of the Messiah
      were indulged in a freer latitude, both of faith and practice,
      than has ever been allowed in succeeding ages. As the terms of
      communion were insensibly narrowed, and the spiritual authority
      of the prevailing party was exercised with increasing severity,
      many of its most respectable adherents, who were called upon to
      renounce, were provoked to assert their private opinions, to
      pursue the consequences of their mistaken principles, and openly
      to erect the standard of rebellion against the unity of the
      church. The Gnostics were distinguished as the most polite, the
      most learned, and the most wealthy of the Christian name; and
      that general appellation, which expressed a superiority of
      knowledge, was either assumed by their own pride, or ironically
      bestowed by the envy of their adversaries. They were almost
      without exception of the race of the Gentiles, and their
      principal founders seem to have been natives of Syria or Egypt,
      where the warmth of the climate disposes both the mind and the
      body to indolent and contemplative devotion. The Gnostics blended
      with the faith of Christ many sublime but obscure tenets, which
      they derived from oriental philosophy, and even from the religion
      of Zoroaster, concerning the eternity of matter, the existence of
      two principles, and the mysterious hierarchy of the invisible
      world. 32 As soon as they launched out into that vast abyss, they
      delivered themselves to the guidance of a disordered imagination;
      and as the paths of error are various and infinite, the Gnostics
      were imperceptibly divided into more than fifty particular sects,
      33 of whom the most celebrated appear to have been the
      Basilidians, the Valentinians, the Marcionites, and, in a still
      later period, the Manichæans. Each of these sects could boast of
      its bishops and congregations, of its doctors and martyrs; 34
      and, instead of the Four Gospels adopted by the church, 341 the
      heretics produced a multitude of histories, in which the actions
      and discourses of Christ and of his apostles were adapted to
      their respective tenets. 35 The success of the Gnostics was rapid
      and extensive. 36 They covered Asia and Egypt, established
      themselves in Rome, and sometimes penetrated into the provinces
      of the West. For the most part they arose in the second century,
      flourished during the third, and were suppressed in the fourth or
      fifth, by the prevalence of more fashionable controversies, and
      by the superior ascendant of the reigning power. Though they
      constantly disturbed the peace, and frequently disgraced the
      name, of religion, they contributed to assist rather than to
      retard the progress of Christianity. The Gentile converts, whose
      strongest objections and prejudices were directed against the law
      of Moses, could find admission into many Christian societies,
      which required not from their untutored mind any belief of an
      antecedent revelation. Their faith was insensibly fortified and
      enlarged, and the church was ultimately benefited by the
      conquests of its most inveterate enemies. 37

      31 (return) [ Hegesippus, ap. Euseb. l. iii. 32, iv. 22. Clemens
      Alexandrin Stromat. vii. 17. * Note: The assertion of Hegesippus
      is not so positive: it is sufficient to read the whole passage in
      Eusebius, to see that the former part is modified by the matter.
      Hegesippus adds, that up to this period the church had remained
      pure and immaculate as a virgin. Those who labored to corrupt the
      doctrines of the gospel worked as yet in obscurity—G]

      32 (return) [ In the account of the Gnostics of the second and
      third centuries, Mosheim is ingenious and candid; Le Clerc dull,
      but exact; Beausobre almost always an apologist; and it is much
      to be feared that the primitive fathers are very frequently
      calumniators. * Note The Histoire du Gnosticisme of M. Matter is
      at once the fairest and most complete account of these sects.—M.]

      33 (return) [ See the catalogues of Irenæus and Epiphanius. It
      must indeed be allowed, that those writers were inclined to
      multiply the number of sects which opposed the unity of the
      church.]

      34 (return) [ Eusebius, l. iv. c. 15. Sozomen, l. ii. c. 32. See
      in Bayle, in the article of Marcion, a curious detail of a
      dispute on that subject. It should seem that some of the Gnostics
      (the Basilidians) declined, and even refused the honor of
      Martyrdom. Their reasons were singular and abstruse. See Mosheim,
      p. 539.]

      341 (return) [ M. Hahn has restored the Marcionite Gospel with
      great ingenuity. His work is reprinted in Thilo. Codex. Apoc.
      Nov. Test. vol. i.—M.]

      35 (return) [ See a very remarkable passage of Origen, (Proem. ad
      Lucam.) That indefatigable writer, who had consumed his life in
      the study of the Scriptures, relies for their authenticity on the
      inspired authority of the church. It was impossible that the
      Gnostics could receive our present Gospels, many parts of which
      (particularly in the resurrection of Christ) are directly, and as
      it might seem designedly, pointed against their favorite tenets.
      It is therefore somewhat singular that Ignatius (Epist. ad Smyrn.
      Patr. Apostol. tom. ii. p. 34) should choose to employ a vague
      and doubtful tradition, instead of quoting the certain testimony
      of the evangelists. Note: Bishop Pearson has attempted very
      happily to explain this singularity.’ The first Christians were
      acquainted with a number of sayings of Jesus Christ, which are
      not related in our Gospels, and indeed have never been written.
      Why might not St. Ignatius, who had lived with the apostles or
      their disciples, repeat in other words that which St. Luke has
      related, particularly at a time when, being in prison, he could
      have the Gospels at hand? Pearson, Vind Ign. pp. 2, 9 p. 396 in
      tom. ii. Patres Apost. ed. Coteler—G.]

      36 (return) [ Faciunt favos et vespæ; faciunt ecclesias et
      Marcionitæ, is the strong expression of Tertullian, which I am
      obliged to quote from memory. In the time of Epiphanius (advers.
      Hæreses, p. 302) the Marcionites were very numerous in Italy,
      Syria, Egypt, Arabia, and Persia.]

      37 (return) [ Augustin is a memorable instance of this gradual
      progress from reason to faith. He was, during several years,
      engaged in the Manichæar sect.]

      But whatever difference of opinion might subsist between the
      Orthodox, the Ebionites, and the Gnostics, concerning the
      divinity or the obligation of the Mosaic law, they were all
      equally animated by the same exclusive zeal, and by the same
      abhorrence for idolatry, which had distinguished the Jews from
      the other nations of the ancient world. The philosopher, who
      considered the system of polytheism as a composition of human
      fraud and error, could disguise a smile of contempt under the
      mask of devotion, without apprehending that either the mockery,
      or the compliance, would expose him to the resentment of any
      invisible, or, as he conceived them, imaginary powers. But the
      established religions of Paganism were seen by the primitive
      Christians in a much more odious and formidable light. It was the
      universal sentiment both of the church and of heretics, that the
      dæmons were the authors, the patrons, and the objects of
      idolatry. 38 Those rebellious spirits who had been degraded from
      the rank of angels, and cast down into the infernal pit, were
      still permitted to roam upon earth, to torment the bodies, and to
      seduce the minds, of sinful men. The dæmons soon discovered and
      abused the natural propensity of the human heart towards
      devotion, and artfully withdrawing the adoration of mankind from
      their Creator, they usurped the place and honors of the Supreme
      Deity. By the success of their malicious contrivances, they at
      once gratified their own vanity and revenge, and obtained the
      only comfort of which they were yet susceptible, the hope of
      involving the human species in the participation of their guilt
      and misery. It was confessed, or at least it was imagined, that
      they had distributed among themselves the most important
      characters of polytheism, one dæmon assuming the name and
      attributes of Jupiter, another of Æsculapius, a third of Venus,
      and a fourth perhaps of Apollo; 39 and that, by the advantage of
      their long experience and ærial nature, they were enabled to
      execute, with sufficient skill and dignity, the parts which they
      had undertaken. They lurked in the temples, instituted festivals
      and sacrifices, invented fables, pronounced oracles, and were
      frequently allowed to perform miracles. The Christians, who, by
      the interposition of evil spirits, could so readily explain every
      præternatural appearance, were disposed and even desirous to
      admit the most extravagant fictions of the Pagan mythology. But
      the belief of the Christian was accompanied with horror. The most
      trifling mark of respect to the national worship he considered as
      a direct homage yielded to the dæmon, and as an act of rebellion
      against the majesty of God.

      38 (return) [ The unanimous sentiment of the primitive church is
      very clearly explained by Justin Martyr, Apolog. Major, by
      Athenagoras, Legat. c. 22. &c., and by Lactantius, Institut.
      Divin. ii. 14—19.]

      39 (return) [ Tertullian (Apolog. c. 23) alleges the confession
      of the dæmons themselves as often as they were tormented by the
      Christian exorcists]




      Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part III.

      In consequence of this opinion, it was the first but arduous duty
      of a Christian to preserve himself pure and undefiled by the
      practice of idolatry. The religion of the nations was not merely
      a speculative doctrine professed in the schools or preached in
      the temples. The innumerable deities and rites of polytheism were
      closely interwoven with every circumstance of business or
      pleasure, of public or of private life, and it seemed impossible
      to escape the observance of them, without, at the same time,
      renouncing the commerce of mankind, and all the offices and
      amusements of society. 40 The important transactions of peace and
      war were prepared or concluded by solemn sacrifices, in which the
      magistrate, the senator, and the soldier, were obliged to preside
      or to participate. 41 The public spectacles were an essential
      part of the cheerful devotion of the Pagans, and the gods were
      supposed to accept, as the most grateful offering, the games that
      the prince and people celebrated in honor of their peculiar
      festivals. 42 The Christians, who with pious horror avoided the
      abomination of the circus or the theatre, found himself
      encompassed with infernal snares in every convivial
      entertainment, as often as his friends, invoking the hospitable
      deities, poured out libations to each other’s happiness. 43 When
      the bride, struggling with well-affected reluctance, was forced
      in hymenæal pomp over the threshold of her new habitation, 44 or
      when the sad procession of the dead slowly moved towards the
      funeral pile, 45 the Christian, on these interesting occasions,
      was compelled to desert the persons who were the dearest to him,
      rather than contract the guilt inherent to those impious
      ceremonies. Every art and every trade that was in the least
      concerned in the framing or adorning of idols was polluted by the
      stain of idolatry; 46 a severe sentence, since it devoted to
      eternal misery the far greater part of the community, which is
      employed in the exercise of liberal or mechanic professions. If
      we cast our eyes over the numerous remains of antiquity, we shall
      perceive, that besides the immediate representations of the gods,
      and the holy instruments of their worship, the elegant forms and
      agreeable fictions consecrated by the imagination of the Greeks,
      were introduced as the richest ornaments of the houses, the
      dress, and the furniture of the Pagans. 47 Even the arts of music
      and painting, of eloquence and poetry, flowed from the same
      impure origin. In the style of the fathers, Apollo and the Muses
      were the organs of the infernal spirit; Homer and Virgil were the
      most eminent of his servants; and the beautiful mythology which
      pervades and animates the compositions of their genius, is
      destined to celebrate the glory of the dæmons. Even the common
      language of Greece and Rome abounded with familiar but impious
      expressions, which the imprudent Christian might too carelessly
      utter, or too patiently hear. 48

      40 (return) [ Tertullian has written a most severe treatise
      against idolatry, to caution his brethren against the hourly
      danger of incurring that guilt. Recogita sylvam, et quantæ
      latitant spinæ. De Corona Militis, c. 10.]

      41 (return) [ The Roman senate was always held in a temple or
      consecrated place. (Aulus Gellius, xiv. 7.) Before they entered
      on business, every senator dropped some wine and frankincense on
      the altar. Sueton. in August. c. 35.]

      42 (return) [ See Tertullian, De Spectaculis. This severe
      reformer shows no more indulgence to a tragedy of Euripides, than
      to a combat of gladiators. The dress of the actors particularly
      offends him. By the use of the lofty buskin, they impiously
      strive to add a cubit to their stature. c. 23.]

      43 (return) [ The ancient practice of concluding the
      entertainment with libations, may be found in every classic.
      Socrates and Seneca, in their last moments, made a noble
      application of this custom. Postquam stagnum, calidæ aquæ
      introiit, respergens proximos servorum, addita voce, libare se
      liquorem illum Jovi Liberatori. Tacit. Annal. xv. 64.]

      44 (return) [ See the elegant but idolatrous hymn of Catullus, on
      the nuptials of Manlius and Julia. O Hymen, Hymenæe Io! Quis huic
      Deo compararier ausit?]

      45 (return) [ The ancient funerals (in those of Misenus and
      Pallas) are no less accurately described by Virgil, than they are
      illustrated by his commentator Servius. The pile itself was an
      altar, the flames were fed with the blood of victims, and all the
      assistants were sprinkled with lustral water.]

      46 (return) [ Tertullian de Idololatria, c. 11. * Note: The
      exaggerated and declamatory opinions of Tertullian ought not to
      be taken as the general sentiment of the early Christians. Gibbon
      has too often allowed himself to consider the peculiar notions of
      certain Fathers of the Church as inherent in Christianity. This
      is not accurate.—G.]

      47 (return) [ See every part of Montfaucon’s Antiquities. Even
      the reverses of the Greek and Roman coins were frequently of an
      idolatrous nature. Here indeed the scruples of the Christian were
      suspended by a stronger passion. Note: All this scrupulous nicety
      is at variance with the decision of St. Paul about meat offered
      to idols, 1, Cor. x. 21— 32.—M.]

      48 (return) [ Tertullian de Idololatria, c. 20, 21, 22. If a
      Pagan friend (on the occasion perhaps of sneezing) used the
      familiar expression of “Jupiter bless you,” the Christian was
      obliged to protest against the divinity of Jupiter.]

      The dangerous temptations which on every side lurked in ambush to
      surprise the unguarded believer, assailed him with redoubled
      violence on the days of solemn festivals. So artfully were they
      framed and disposed throughout the year, that superstition always
      wore the appearance of pleasure, and often of virtue. Some of the
      most sacred festivals in the Roman ritual were destined to salute
      the new calends of January with vows of public and private
      felicity; to indulge the pious remembrance of the dead and
      living; to ascertain the inviolable bounds of property; to hail,
      on the return of spring, the genial powers of fecundity; to
      perpetuate the two memorable æras of Rome, the foundation of the
      city and that of the republic; and to restore, during the humane
      license of the Saturnalia, the primitive equality of mankind.
      Some idea may be conceived of the abhorrence of the Christians
      for such impious ceremonies, by the scrupulous delicacy which
      they displayed on a much less alarming occasion. On days of
      general festivity it was the custom of the ancients to adorn
      their doors with lamps and with branches of laurel, and to crown
      their heads with a garland of flowers. This innocent and elegant
      practice might perhaps have been tolerated as a mere civil
      institution. But it most unluckily happened that the doors were
      under the protection of the household gods, that the laurel was
      sacred to the lover of Daphne, and that garlands of flowers,
      though frequently worn as a symbol either of joy or mourning, had
      been dedicated in their first origin to the service of
      superstition. The trembling Christians, who were persuaded in
      this instance to comply with the fashion of their country, and
      the commands of the magistrate, labored under the most gloomy
      apprehensions, from the reproaches of his own conscience, the
      censures of the church, and the denunciations of divine
      vengeance. 49 50

      49 (return) [ Consult the most labored work of Ovid, his
      imperfect Fasti. He finished no more than the first six months of
      the year. The compilation of Macrobius is called the Saturnalia,
      but it is only a small part of the first book that bears any
      relation to the title.]

      50 (return) [ Tertullian has composed a defence, or rather
      panegyric, of the rash action of a Christian soldier, who, by
      throwing away his crown of laurel, had exposed himself and his
      brethren to the most imminent danger. By the mention of the
      emperors, (Severus and Caracalla,) it is evident, notwithstanding
      the wishes of M. de Tillemont, that Tertullian composed his
      treatise De Corona long before he was engaged in the errors of
      the Montanists. See Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. iii. p. 384.
      Note: The soldier did not tear off his crown to throw it down
      with contempt; he did not even throw it away; he held it in his
      hand, while others were it on their heads. Solus libero capite,
      ornamento in manu otioso.—G Note: Tertullian does not expressly
      name the two emperors, Severus and Caracalla: he speaks only of
      two emperors, and of a long peace which the church had enjoyed.
      It is generally agreed that Tertullian became a Montanist about
      the year 200: his work, de Corona Militis, appears to have been
      written, at the earliest about the year 202 before the
      persecution of Severus: it may be maintained, then, that it is
      subsequent to the Montanism of the author. See Mosheim, Diss. de
      Apol. Tertull. p. 53. Biblioth. Amsterd. tom. x. part ii. p. 292.
      Cave’s Hist. Lit. p. 92, 93.—G. ——The state of Tertullian’s
      opinions at the particular period is almost an idle question.
      “The fiery African” is not at any time to be considered a fair
      representative of Christianity.—M.]

      Such was the anxious diligence which was required to guard the
      chastity of the gospel from the infectious breath of idolatry.
      The superstitious observances of public or private rites were
      carelessly practised, from education and habit, by the followers
      of the established religion. But as often as they occurred, they
      afforded the Christians an opportunity of declaring and
      confirming their zealous opposition. By these frequent
      protestations their attachment to the faith was continually
      fortified; and in proportion to the increase of zeal, they
      combated with the more ardor and success in the holy war, which
      they had undertaken against the empire of the demons.

      II. The writings of Cicero 51 represent in the most lively colors
      the ignorance, the errors, and the uncertainty of the ancient
      philosophers with regard to the immortality of the soul. When
      they are desirous of arming their disciples against the fear of
      death, they inculcate, as an obvious though melancholy position,
      that the fatal stroke of our dissolution releases us from the
      calamities of life; and that those can no longer suffer, who no
      longer exist. Yet there were a few sages of Greece and Rome who
      had conceived a more exalted, and, in some respects, a juster
      idea of human nature, though it must be confessed, that in the
      sublime inquiry, their reason had been often guided by their
      imagination, and that their imagination had been prompted by
      their vanity. When they viewed with complacency the extent of
      their own mental powers, when they exercised the various
      faculties of memory, of fancy, and of judgment, in the most
      profound speculations, or the most important labors, and when
      they reflected on the desire of fame, which transported them into
      future ages, far beyond the bounds of death and of the grave,
      they were unwilling to confound themselves with the beasts of the
      field, or to suppose that a being, for whose dignity they
      entertained the most sincere admiration, could be limited to a
      spot of earth, and to a few years of duration. With this
      favorable prepossession they summoned to their aid the science,
      or rather the language, of Metaphysics. They soon discovered,
      that as none of the properties of matter will apply to the
      operations of the mind, the human soul must consequently be a
      substance distinct from the body, pure, simple, and spiritual,
      incapable of dissolution, and susceptible of a much higher degree
      of virtue and happiness after the release from its corporeal
      prison. From these specious and noble principles, the
      philosophers who trod in the footsteps of Plato deduced a very
      unjustifiable conclusion, since they asserted, not only the
      future immortality, but the past eternity, of the human soul,
      which they were too apt to consider as a portion of the infinite
      and self-existing spirit, which pervades and sustains the
      universe. 52 A doctrine thus removed beyond the senses and the
      experience of mankind might serve to amuse the leisure of a
      philosophic mind; or, in the silence of solitude, it might
      sometimes impart a ray of comfort to desponding virtue; but the
      faint impression which had been received in the schools was soon
      obliterated by the commerce and business of active life. We are
      sufficiently acquainted with the eminent persons who flourished
      in the age of Cicero and of the first Cæsars, with their actions,
      their characters, and their motives, to be assured that their
      conduct in this life was never regulated by any serious
      conviction of the rewards or punishments of a future state. At
      the bar and in the senate of Rome the ablest orators were not
      apprehensive of giving offence to their hearers by exposing that
      doctrine as an idle and extravagant opinion, which was rejected
      with contempt by every man of a liberal education and
      understanding. 53

      51 (return) [ In particular, the first book of the Tusculan
      Questions, and the treatise De Senectute, and the Somnium
      Scipionis, contain, in the most beautiful language, every thing
      that Grecian philosophy, on Roman good sense, could possibly
      suggest on this dark but important object.]

      52 (return) [ The preexistence of human souls, so far at least as
      that doctrine is compatible with religion, was adopted by many of
      the Greek and Latin fathers. See Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme,
      l. vi. c. 4.]

      53 (return) [ See Cicero pro Cluent. c. 61. Cæsar ap. Sallust. de
      Bell. Catilis n 50. Juvenal. Satir. ii. 149. ——Esse aliquid
      manes, et subterranea regna, —————Nec pueri credunt, nisi qui
      nondum æree lavantæ.]

      Since therefore the most sublime efforts of philosophy can extend
      no further than feebly to point out the desire, the hope, or, at
      most, the probability, of a future state, there is nothing,
      except a divine revelation, that can ascertain the existence and
      describe the condition, of the invisible country which is
      destined to receive the souls of men after their separation from
      the body. But we may perceive several defects inherent to the
      popular religions of Greece and Rome, which rendered them very
      unequal to so arduous a task. 1. The general system of their
      mythology was unsupported by any solid proofs; and the wisest
      among the Pagans had already disclaimed its usurped authority. 2.
      The description of the infernal regions had been abandoned to the
      fancy of painters and of poets, who peopled them with so many
      phantoms and monsters, who dispensed their rewards and
      punishments with so little equity, that a solemn truth, the most
      congenial to the human heart, was oppressed and disgraced by the
      absurd mixture of the wildest fictions. 54 3. The doctrine of a
      future state was scarcely considered among the devout polytheists
      of Greece and Rome as a fundamental article of faith. The
      providence of the gods, as it related to public communities
      rather than to private individuals, was principally displayed on
      the visible theatre of the present world. The petitions which
      were offered on the altars of Jupiter or Apollo expressed the
      anxiety of their worshippers for temporal happiness, and their
      ignorance or indifference concerning a future life. 55 The
      important truth of the immortality of the soul was inculcated
      with more diligence, as well as success, in India, in Assyria, in
      Egypt, and in Gaul; and since we cannot attribute such a
      difference to the superior knowledge of the barbarians, we must
      ascribe it to the influence of an established priesthood, which
      employed the motives of virtue as the instrument of ambition. 56

      54 (return) [ The xith book of the Odyssey gives a very dreary
      and incoherent account of the infernal shades. Pindar and Virgil
      have embellished the picture; but even those poets, though more
      correct than their great model, are guilty of very strange
      inconsistencies. See Bayle, Responses aux Questions d’un
      Provincial, part iii. c. 22.]

      55 (return) [ See xvith epistle of the first book of Horace, the
      xiiith Satire of Juvenal, and the iid Satire of Persius: these
      popular discourses express the sentiment and language of the
      multitude.]

      56 (return) [ If we confine ourselves to the Gauls, we may
      observe, that they intrusted, not only their lives, but even
      their money, to the security of another world. Vetus ille mos
      Gallorum occurrit (says Valerius Maximus, l. ii. c. 6, p. 10)
      quos, memoria proditum est pecunias montuas, quæ his apud inferos
      redderentur, dare solitos. The same custom is more darkly
      insinuated by Mela, l. iii. c. 2. It is almost needless to add,
      that the profits of trade hold a just proportion to the credit of
      the merchant, and that the Druids derived from their holy
      profession a character of responsibility, which could scarcely be
      claimed by any other order of men.]

      We might naturally expect that a principle so essential to
      religion, would have been revealed in the clearest terms to the
      chosen people of Palestine, and that it might safely have been
      intrusted to the hereditary priesthood of Aaron. It is incumbent
      on us to adore the mysterious dispensations of Providence, 57
      when we discover that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul
      is omitted in the law of Moses; it is darkly insinuated by the
      prophets; and during the long period which elapsed between the
      Egyptian and the Babylonian servitudes, the hopes as well as
      fears of the Jews appear to have been confined within the narrow
      compass of the present life. 58 After Cyrus had permitted the
      exiled nation to return into the promised land, and after Ezra
      had restored the ancient records of their religion, two
      celebrated sects, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, insensibly
      arose at Jerusalem. 59 The former, selected from the more opulent
      and distinguished ranks of society, were strictly attached to the
      literal sense of the Mosaic law, and they piously rejected the
      immortality of the soul, as an opinion that received no
      countenance from the divine book, which they revered as the only
      rule of their faith. To the authority of Scripture the Pharisees
      added that of tradition, and they accepted, under the name of
      traditions, several speculative tenets from the philosophy or
      religion of the eastern nations. The doctrines of fate or
      predestination, of angels and spirits, and of a future state of
      rewards and punishments, were in the number of these new articles
      of belief; and as the Pharisees, by the austerity of their
      manners, had drawn into their party the body of the Jewish
      people, the immortality of the soul became the prevailing
      sentiment of the synagogue, under the reign of the Asmonæan
      princes and pontiffs. The temper of the Jews was incapable of
      contenting itself with such a cold and languid assent as might
      satisfy the mind of a Polytheist; and as soon as they admitted
      the idea of a future state, they embraced it with the zeal which
      has always formed the characteristic of the nation. Their zeal,
      however, added nothing to its evidence, or even probability: and
      it was still necessary that the doctrine of life and immortality,
      which had been dictated by nature, approved by reason, and
      received by superstition, should obtain the sanction of divine
      truth from the authority and example of Christ.

      57 (return) [ The right reverend author of the Divine Legation of
      Moses as signs a very curious reason for the omission, and most
      ingeniously retorts it on the unbelievers. * Note: The hypothesis
      of Warburton concerning this remarkable fact, which, as far as
      the Law of Moses, is unquestionable, made few disciples; and it
      is difficult to suppose that it could be intended by the author
      himself for more than a display of intellectual strength. Modern
      writers have accounted in various ways for the silence of the
      Hebrew legislator on the immortality of the soul. According to
      Michaelis, “Moses wrote as an historian and as a lawgiver; he
      regulated the ecclesiastical discipline, rather than the
      religious belief of his people; and the sanctions of the law
      being temporal, he had no occasion, and as a civil legislator
      could not with propriety, threaten punishments in another world.”
      See Michaelis, Laws of Moses, art. 272, vol. iv. p. 209, Eng.
      Trans.; and Syntagma Commentationum, p. 80, quoted by Guizot. M.
      Guizot adds, the “ingenious conjecture of a philosophic
      theologian,” which approximates to an opinion long entertained by
      the Editor. That writer believes, that in the state of
      civilization at the time of the legislator, this doctrine, become
      popular among the Jews, would necessarily have given birth to a
      multitude of idolatrous superstitions which he wished to prevent.
      His primary object was to establish a firm theocracy, to make his
      people the conservators of the doctrine of the Divine Unity, the
      basis upon which Christianity was hereafter to rest. He carefully
      excluded everything which could obscure or weaken that doctrine.
      Other nations had strangely abused their notions on the
      immortality of the soul; Moses wished to prevent this abuse:
      hence he forbade the Jews from consulting necromancers, (those
      who evoke the spirits of the dead.) Deut. xviii. 11. Those who
      reflect on the state of the Pagans and the Jews, and on the
      facility with which idolatry crept in on every side, will not be
      astonished that Moses has not developed a doctrine of which the
      influence might be more pernicious than useful to his people.
      Orat. Fest. de Vitæ Immort. Spe., &c., auct. Ph. Alb. Stapfer, p.
      12 13, 20. Berne, 1787. ——Moses, as well from the intimations
      scattered in his writings, the passage relating to the
      translation of Enoch, (Gen. v. 24,) the prohibition of
      necromancy, (Michaelis believes him to be the author of the Book
      of Job though this opinion is in general rejected; other learned
      writers consider this Book to be coeval with and known to Moses,)
      as from his long residence in Egypt, and his acquaintance with
      Egyptian wisdom, could not be ignorant of the doctrine of the
      immortality of the soul. But this doctrine if popularly known
      among the Jews, must have been purely Egyptian, and as so,
      intimately connected with the whole religious system of that
      country. It was no doubt moulded up with the tenet of the
      transmigration of the soul, perhaps with notions analogous to the
      emanation system of India in which the human soul was an efflux
      from or indeed a part of, the Deity. The Mosaic religion drew a
      wide and impassable interval between the Creator and created
      human beings: in this it differed from the Egyptian and all the
      Eastern religions. As then the immortality of the soul was thus
      inseparably blended with those foreign religions which were
      altogether to be effaced from the minds of the people, and by no
      means necessary for the establishment of the theocracy, Moses
      maintained silence on this point and a purer notion of it was
      left to be developed at a more favorable period in the history of
      man.—M.]

      58 (return) [ See Le Clerc (Prolegomena ad Hist. Ecclesiast.
      sect. 1, c. 8) His authority seems to carry the greater weight,
      as he has written a learned and judicious commentary on the books
      of the Old Testament.]

      59 (return) [ Joseph. Antiquitat. l. xiii. c. 10. De Bell. Jud.
      ii. 8. According to the most natural interpretation of his words,
      the Sadducees admitted only the Pentateuch; but it has pleased
      some modern critics to add the Prophets to their creed, and to
      suppose that they contented themselves with rejecting the
      traditions of the Pharisees. Dr. Jortin has argued that point in
      his Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 103.]

      When the promise of eternal happiness was proposed to mankind on
      condition of adopting the faith, and of observing the precepts,
      of the gospel, it is no wonder that so advantageous an offer
      should have been accepted by great numbers of every religion, of
      every rank, and of every province in the Roman empire. The
      ancient Christians were animated by a contempt for their present
      existence, and by a just confidence of immortality, of which the
      doubtful and imperfect faith of modern ages cannot give us any
      adequate notion. In the primitive church, the influence of truth
      was very powerfully strengthened by an opinion, which, however it
      may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, has not
      been found agreeable to experience. It was universally believed,
      that the end of the world, and the kingdom of heaven, were at
      hand. 591 The near approach of this wonderful event had been
      predicted by the apostles; the tradition of it was preserved by
      their earliest disciples, and those who understood in their
      literal senses the discourse of Christ himself, were obliged to
      expect the second and glorious coming of the Son of Man in the
      clouds, before that generation was totally extinguished, which
      had beheld his humble condition upon earth, and which might still
      be witness of the calamities of the Jews under Vespasian or
      Hadrian. The revolution of seventeen centuries has instructed us
      not to press too closely the mysterious language of prophecy and
      revelation; but as long as, for wise purposes, this error was
      permitted to subsist in the church, it was productive of the most
      salutary effects on the faith and practice of Christians, who
      lived in the awful expectation of that moment, when the globe
      itself, and all the various race of mankind, should tremble at
      the appearance of their divine Judge. 60

      591 (return) [ This was, in fact, an integral part of the Jewish
      notion of the Messiah, from which the minds of the apostles
      themselves were but gradually detached. See Bertholdt,
      Christologia Judæorum, concluding chapters—M.]

      60 (return) [ This expectation was countenanced by the
      twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew, and by the first epistle of
      St. Paul to the Thessalonians. Erasmus removes the difficulty by
      the help of allegory and metaphor; and the learned Grotius
      ventures to insinuate, that, for wise purposes, the pious
      deception was permitted to take place. * Note: Some modern
      theologians explain it without discovering either allegory or
      deception. They say, that Jesus Christ, after having proclaimed
      the ruin of Jerusalem and of the Temple, speaks of his second
      coming and the sings which were to precede it; but those who
      believed that the moment was near deceived themselves as to the
      sense of two words, an error which still subsists in our versions
      of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, xxiv. 29, 34. In verse
      29, we read, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days
      shall the sun be darkened,” &c. The Greek word signifies all at
      once, suddenly, not immediately; so that it signifies only the
      sudden appearance of the signs which Jesus Christ announces not
      the shortness of the interval which was to separate them from the
      “days of tribulation,” of which he was speaking. The verse 34 is
      this “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass till
      all these things shall be fulfilled.” Jesus, speaking to his
      disciples, uses these words, which the translators have rendered
      by this generation, but which means the race, the filiation of my
      disciples; that is, he speaks of a class of men, not of a
      generation. The true sense then, according to these learned men,
      is, In truth I tell you that this race of men, of which you are
      the commencement, shall not pass away till this shall take place;
      that is to say, the succession of Christians shall not cease till
      his coming. See Commentary of M. Paulus on the New Test., edit.
      1802, tom. iii. p. 445,—446.—G. ——Others, as Rosenmuller and
      Kuinoel, in loc., confine this passage to a highly figurative
      description of the ruins of the Jewish city and polity.—M.]




      Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part IV.

      The ancient and popular doctrine of the Millennium was intimately
      connected with the second coming of Christ. As the works of the
      creation had been finished in six days, their duration in their
      present state, according to a tradition which was attributed to
      the prophet Elijah, was fixed to six thousand years. 61 By the
      same analogy it was inferred, that this long period of labor and
      contention, which was now almost elapsed, 62 would be succeeded
      by a joyful Sabbath of a thousand years; and that Christ, with
      the triumphant band of the saints and the elect who had escaped
      death, or who had been miraculously revived, would reign upon
      earth till the time appointed for the last and general
      resurrection. So pleasing was this hope to the mind of believers,
      that the _New Jerusalem_, the seat of this blissful kingdom, was
      quickly adorned with all the gayest colors of the imagination. A
      felicity consisting only of pure and spiritual pleasure would
      have appeared too refined for its inhabitants, who were still
      supposed to possess their human nature and senses. A garden of
      Eden, with the amusements of the pastoral life, was no longer
      suited to the advanced state of society which prevailed under the
      Roman empire. A city was therefore erected of gold and precious
      stones, and a supernatural plenty of corn and wine was bestowed
      on the adjacent territory; in the free enjoyment of whose
      spontaneous productions the happy and benevolent people was never
      to be restrained by any jealous laws of exclusive property. 63
      The assurance of such a Millennium was carefully inculcated by a
      succession of fathers from Justin Martyr, 64 and Irenæus, who
      conversed with the immediate disciples of the apostles, down to
      Lactantius, who was preceptor to the son of Constantine. 65
      Though it might not be universally received, it appears to have
      been the reigning sentiment of the orthodox believers; and it
      seems so well adapted to the desires and apprehensions of
      mankind, that it must have contributed in a very considerable
      degree to the progress of the Christian faith. But when the
      edifice of the church was almost completed, the temporary support
      was laid aside. The doctrine of Christ’s reign upon earth was at
      first treated as a profound allegory, was considered by degrees
      as a doubtful and useless opinion, and was at length rejected as
      the absurd invention of heresy and fanaticism. 66 A mysterious
      prophecy, which still forms a part of the sacred canon, but which
      was thought to favor the exploded sentiment, has very narrowly
      escaped the proscription of the church. 67

      61 (return) [ See Burnet’s Sacred Theory, part iii. c. 5. This
      tradition may be traced as high as the the author of Epistle of
      Barnabas, who wrote in the first century, and who seems to have
      been half a Jew. * Note: In fact it is purely Jewish. See
      Mosheim, De Reb. Christ. ii. 8. Lightfoot’s Works, 8vo. edit.
      vol. iii. p. 37. Bertholdt, Christologia Judæorum ch. 38.—M.]

      62 (return) [ The primitive church of Antioch computed almost
      6000 years from the creation of the world to the birth of Christ.
      Africanus, Lactantius, and the Greek church, have reduced that
      number to 5500, and Eusebius has contented himself with 5200
      years. These calculations were formed on the Septuagint, which
      was universally received during the six first centuries. The
      authority of the vulgate and of the Hebrew text has determined
      the moderns, Protestants as well as Catholics, to prefer a period
      of about 4000 years; though, in the study of profane antiquity,
      they often find themselves straitened by those narrow limits. *
      Note: Most of the more learned modern English Protestants, Dr.
      Hales, Mr. Faber, Dr. Russel, as well as the Continental writers,
      adopt the larger chronology. There is little doubt that the
      narrower system was framed by the Jews of Tiberias; it was
      clearly neither that of St. Paul, nor of Josephus, nor of the
      Samaritan Text. It is greatly to be regretted that the chronology
      of the earlier Scriptures should ever have been made a religious
      question—M.]

      63 (return) [ Most of these pictures were borrowed from a
      misrepresentation of Isaiah, Daniel, and the Apocalypse. One of
      the grossest images may be found in Irenæus, (l. v. p. 455,) the
      disciple of Papias, who had seen the apostle St. John.]

      64 (return) [ See the second dialogue of Justin with Triphon, and
      the seventh book of Lactantius. It is unnecessary to allege all
      the intermediate fathers, as the fact is not disputed. Yet the
      curious reader may consult Daille de Uus Patrum, l. ii. c. 4.]

      65 (return) [ The testimony of Justin of his own faith and that
      of his orthodox brethren, in the doctrine of a Millennium, is
      delivered in the clearest and most solemn manner, (Dialog. cum
      Tryphonte Jud. p. 177, 178, edit. Benedictin.) If in the
      beginning of this important passage there is any thing like an
      inconsistency, we may impute it, as we think proper, either to
      the author or to his transcribers. * Note: The Millenium is
      described in what once stood as the XLIst Article of the English
      Church (see Collier, Eccles. Hist., for Articles of Edw. VI.) as
      “a fable of Jewish dotage.” The whole of these gross and earthly
      images may be traced in the works which treat on the Jewish
      traditions, in Lightfoot, Schoetgen, and Eisenmenger; “Das
      enthdeckte Judenthum” t. ii 809; and briefly in Bertholdt, i. c.
      38, 39.—M.]

      66 (return) [ Dupin, Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. i. p. 223,
      tom. ii. p. 366, and Mosheim, p. 720; though the latter of these
      learned divines is not altogether candid on this occasion.]

      67 (return) [ In the council of Laodicea, (about the year 360,)
      the Apocalypse was tacitly excluded from the sacred canon, by the
      same churches of Asia to which it is addressed; and we may learn
      from the complaint of Sulpicius Severus, that their sentence had
      been ratified by the greater number of Christians of his time.
      From what causes then is the Apocalypse at present so generally
      received by the Greek, the Roman, and the Protestant churches?
      The following ones may be assigned. 1. The Greeks were subdued by
      the authority of an impostor, who, in the sixth century, assumed
      the character of Dionysius the Areopagite. 2. A just apprehension
      that the grammarians might become more important than the
      theologians, engaged the council of Trent to fix the seal of
      their infallibility on all the books of Scripture contained in
      the Latin Vulgate, in the number of which the Apocalypse was
      fortunately included. (Fr. Paolo, Istoria del Concilio
      Tridentino, l. ii.) 3. The advantage of turning those mysterious
      prophecies against the See of Rome, inspired the Protestants with
      uncommon veneration for so useful an ally. See the ingenious and
      elegant discourses of the present bishop of Litchfield on that
      unpromising subject. * Note: The exclusion of the Apocalypse is
      not improbably assigned to its obvious unfitness to be read in
      churches. It is to be feared that a history of the interpretation
      of the Apocalypse would not give a very favorable view either of
      the wisdom or the charity of the successive ages of Christianity.
      Wetstein’s interpretation, differently modified, is adopted by
      most Continental scholars.—M.]

      Whilst the happiness and glory of a temporal reign were promised
      to the disciples of Christ, the most dreadful calamities were
      denounced against an unbelieving world. The edification of a new
      Jerusalem was to advance by equal steps with the destruction of
      the mystic Babylon; and as long as the emperors who reigned
      before Constantine persisted in the profession of idolatry, the
      epithet of Babylon was applied to the city and to the empire of
      Rome. A regular series was prepared of all the moral and physical
      evils which can afflict a flourishing nation; intestine discord,
      and the invasion of the fiercest barbarians from the unknown
      regions of the North; pestilence and famine, comets and eclipses,
      earthquakes and inundations. 68 All these were only so many
      preparatory and alarming signs of the great catastrophe of Rome,
      when the country of the Scipios and Cæsars should be consumed by
      a flame from Heaven, and the city of the seven hills, with her
      palaces, her temples, and her triumphal arches, should be buried
      in a vast lake of fire and brimstone. It might, however, afford
      some consolation to Roman vanity, that the period of their empire
      would be that of the world itself; which, as it had once perished
      by the element of water, was destined to experience a second and
      a speedy destruction from the element of fire. In the opinion of
      a general conflagration, the faith of the Christian very happily
      coincided with the tradition of the East, the philosophy of the
      Stoics, and the analogy of Nature; and even the country, which,
      from religious motives, had been chosen for the origin and
      principal scene of the conflagration, was the best adapted for
      that purpose by natural and physical causes; by its deep caverns,
      beds of sulphur, and numerous volcanoes, of which those of Ætna,
      of Vesuvius, and of Lipari, exhibit a very imperfect
      representation. The calmest and most intrepid sceptic could not
      refuse to acknowledge that the destruction of the present system
      of the world by fire was in itself extremely probable. The
      Christian, who founded his belief much less on the fallacious
      arguments of reason than on the authority of tradition and the
      interpretation of Scripture, expected it with terror and
      confidence as a certain and approaching event; and as his mind
      was perpetually filled with the solemn idea, he considered every
      disaster that happened to the empire as an infallible symptom of
      an expiring world. 69

      68 (return) [ Lactantius (Institut. Divin. vii. 15, &c.) relates
      the dismal talk of futurity with great spirit and eloquence. *
      Note: Lactantius had a notion of a great Asiatic empire, which
      was previously to rise on the ruins of the Roman: quod Romanum
      nomen animus dicere, sed dicam. quia futurum est tolletur de
      terra, et impere. Asiam revertetur.—M.]

      69 (return) [ On this subject every reader of taste will be
      entertained with the third part of Burnet’s Sacred Theory. He
      blends philosophy, Scripture, and tradition, into one magnificent
      system; in the description of which he displays a strength of
      fancy not inferior to that of Milton himself.]

      The condemnation of the wisest and most virtuous of the Pagans,
      on account of their ignorance or disbelief of the divine truth,
      seems to offend the reason and the humanity of the present age.
      70 But the primitive church, whose faith was of a much firmer
      consistence, delivered over, without hesitation, to eternal
      torture, the far greater part of the human species. A charitable
      hope might perhaps be indulged in favor of Socrates, or some
      other sages of antiquity, who had consulted the light of reason
      before that of the gospel had arisen. 71 But it was unanimously
      affirmed, that those who, since the birth or the death of Christ,
      had obstinately persisted in the worship of the dæmons, neither
      deserved nor could expect a pardon from the irritated justice of
      the Deity. These rigid sentiments, which had been unknown to the
      ancient world, appear to have infused a spirit of bitterness into
      a system of love and harmony. The ties of blood and friendship
      were frequently torn asunder by the difference of religious
      faith; and the Christians, who, in this world, found themselves
      oppressed by the power of the Pagans, were sometimes seduced by
      resentment and spiritual pride to delight in the prospect of
      their future triumph. “You are fond of spectacles,” exclaims the
      stern Tertullian; “expect the greatest of all spectacles, the
      last and eternal judgment of the universe. 71b How shall I
      admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many
      proud monarchs, so many fancied gods, groaning in the lowest
      abyss of darkness; so many magistrates, who persecuted the name
      of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever kindled
      against the Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in
      red-hot flames with their deluded scholars; so many celebrated
      poets trembling before the tribunal, not of Minos, but of Christ;
      so many tragedians, more tuneful in the expression of their own
      sufferings; so many dancers.”

      711 But the humanity of the reader will permit me to draw a veil
      over the rest of this infernal description, which the zealous
      African pursues in a long variety of affected and unfeeling
      witticisms. 72

      70 (return) [ And yet whatever may be the language of
      individuals, it is still the public doctrine of all the Christian
      churches; nor can even our own refuse to admit the conclusions
      which must be drawn from the viiith and the xviiith of her
      Articles. The Jansenists, who have so diligently studied the
      works of the fathers, maintain this sentiment with distinguished
      zeal; and the learned M. de Tillemont never dismisses a virtuous
      emperor without pronouncing his damnation. Zuinglius is perhaps
      the only leader of a party who has ever adopted the milder
      sentiment, and he gave no less offence to the Lutherans than to
      the Catholics. See Bossuet, Histoire des Variations des Eglises
      Protestantes, l. ii. c. 19—22.]

      71 (return) [ Justin and Clemens of Alexandria allow that some of
      the philosophers were instructed by the Logos; confounding its
      double signification of the human reason, and of the Divine
      Word.]

      711 (return) [ This translation is not exact: the first sentence
      is imperfect. Tertullian says, Ille dies nationibus insperatus,
      ille derisus, cum tanta sacculi vetustas et tot ejus nativitates
      uno igne haurientur. The text does not authorize the exaggerated
      expressions, so many magistrates, so many sago philosophers, so
      many poets, &c.; but simply magistrates, philosophers, poets.—G.
      —It is not clear that Gibbon’s version or paraphrase is
      incorrect: Tertullian writes, tot tantosque reges item præsides,
      &c.—M.]

      71b (return) [Tertullian, de Spectaculis, c. 30. In order to
      ascertain the degree of authority which the zealous African had
      acquired it may be sufficient to allege the testimony of Cyprian,
      the doctor and guide of all the western churches. (See Prudent.
      Hym. xiii. 100.) As often as he applied himself to his daily
      study of the writings of Tertullian, he was accustomed to say,
      “Da mihi magistrum, Give me my master.” (Hieronym. de Viris
      Illustribus, tom. i. p. 284.)]

      72 (return) [ The object of Tertullian’s vehemence in his
      Treatise, was to keep the Christians away from the secular games
      celebrated by the Emperor Severus: It has not prevented him from
      showing himself in other places full of benevolence and charity
      towards unbelievers: the spirit of the gospel has sometimes
      prevailed over the violence of human passions: Qui ergo putaveris
      nihil nos de salute Cæsaris curare (he says in his Apology)
      inspice Dei voces, literas nostras. Scitote ex illis præceptum
      esse nobis ad redudantionem, benignitates etiam pro inimicis Deum
      orare, et pro persecutoribus cona precari. Sed etiam nominatim
      atque manifeste orate inquit (Christus) pro regibus et pro
      principibus et potestatibus ut omnia sint tranquilla vobis Tert.
      Apol. c. 31.—G. ——It would be wiser for Christianity, retreating
      upon its genuine records in the New Testament, to disclaim this
      fierce African, than to identify itself with his furious
      invectives by unsatisfactory apologies for their unchristian
      fanaticism.—M.]

      Doubtless there were many among the primitive Christians of a
      temper more suitable to the meekness and charity of their
      profession. There were many who felt a sincere compassion for the
      danger of their friends and countrymen, and who exerted the most
      benevolent zeal to save them from the impending destruction.

      The careless Polytheist, assailed by new and unexpected terrors,
      against which neither his priests nor his philosophers could
      afford him any certain protection, was very frequently terrified
      and subdued by the menace of eternal tortures. His fears might
      assist the progress of his faith and reason; and if he could once
      persuade himself to suspect that the Christian religion might
      possibly be true, it became an easy task to convince him that it
      was the safest and most prudent party that he could possibly
      embrace.

      III. The supernatural gifts, which even in this life were
      ascribed to the Christians above the rest of mankind, must have
      conduced to their own comfort, and very frequently to the
      conviction of infidels. Besides the occasional prodigies, which
      might sometimes be effected by the immediate interposition of the
      Deity when he suspended the laws of Nature for the service of
      religion, the Christian church, from the time of the apostles and
      their first disciples, 73 has claimed an uninterrupted succession
      of miraculous powers, the gift of tongues, of vision, and of
      prophecy, the power of expelling dæmons, of healing the sick, and
      of raising the dead. The knowledge of foreign languages was
      frequently communicated to the contemporaries of Irenæus, though
      Irenæus himself was left to struggle with the difficulties of a
      barbarous dialect, whilst he preached the gospel to the natives
      of Gaul. 74 The divine inspiration, whether it was conveyed in
      the form of a waking or of a sleeping vision, is described as a
      favor very liberally bestowed on all ranks of the faithful, on
      women as on elders, on boys as well as upon bishops. When their
      devout minds were sufficiently prepared by a course of prayer, of
      fasting, and of vigils, to receive the extraordinary impulse,
      they were transported out of their senses, and delivered in
      ecstasy what was inspired, being mere organs of the Holy Spirit,
      just as a pipe or flute is of him who blows into it. 75 We may
      add, that the design of these visions was, for the most part,
      either to disclose the future history, or to guide the present
      administration, of the church. The expulsion of the dæmons from
      the bodies of those unhappy persons whom they had been permitted
      to torment, was considered as a signal though ordinary triumph of
      religion, and is repeatedly alleged by the ancient apoligists, as
      the most convincing evidence of the truth of Christianity. The
      awful ceremony was usually performed in a public manner, and in
      the presence of a great number of spectators; the patient was
      relieved by the power or skill of the exorcist, and the
      vanquished dæmon was heard to confess that he was one of the
      fabled gods of antiquity, who had impiously usurped the adoration
      of mankind. 76 But the miraculous cure of diseases of the most
      inveterate or even preternatural kind can no longer occasion any
      surprise, when we recollect, that in the days of Irenæus, about
      the end of the second century, the resurrection of the dead was
      very far from being esteemed an uncommon event; that the miracle
      was frequently performed on necessary occasions, by great fasting
      and the joint supplication of the church of the place, and that
      the persons thus restored to their prayers had lived afterwards
      among them many years. 77 At such a period, when faith could
      boast of so many wonderful victories over death, it seems
      difficult to account for the scepticism of those philosophers,
      who still rejected and derided the doctrine of the resurrection.
      A noble Grecian had rested on this important ground the whole
      controversy, and promised Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, that if
      he could be gratified with the sight of a single person who had
      been actually raised from the dead, he would immediately embrace
      the Christian religion. It is somewhat remarkable, that the
      prelate of the first eastern church, however anxious for the
      conversion of his friend, thought proper to decline this fair and
      reasonable challenge. 78

      73 (return) [ Notwithstanding the evasions of Dr. Middleton, it
      is impossible to overlook the clear traces of visions and
      inspiration, which may be found in the apostolic fathers. * Note:
      Gibbon should have noticed the distinct and remarkable passage
      from Chrysostom, quoted by Middleton, (Works, vol. i. p. 105,) in
      which he affirms the long discontinuance of miracles as a
      notorious fact.—M.]

      74 (return) [ Irenæus adv. Hæres. Proem. p.3 Dr. Middleton (Free
      Inquiry, p. 96, &c.) observes, that as this pretension of all
      others was the most difficult to support by art, it was the
      soonest given up. The observation suits his hypothesis. * Note:
      This passage of Irenæus contains no allusion to the gift of
      tongues; it is merely an apology for a rude and unpolished Greek
      style, which could not be expected from one who passed his life
      in a remote and barbarous province, and was continually obliged
      to speak the Celtic language.—M. Note: Except in the life of
      Pachomius, an Egyptian monk of the fourth century. (see Jortin,
      Ecc. Hist. i. p. 368, edit. 1805,) and the latter (not earlier)
      lives of Xavier, there is no claim laid to the gift of tongues
      since the time of Irenæus; and of this claim, Xavier’s own
      letters are profoundly silent. See Douglas’s Criterion, p. 76
      edit. 1807.—M.]

      75 (return) [ Athenagoras in Legatione. Justin Martyr, Cohort. ad
      Gentes Tertullian advers. Marcionit. l. iv. These descriptions
      are not very unlike the prophetic fury, for which Cicero (de
      Divinat.ii. 54) expresses so little reverence.]

      76 (return) [ Tertullian (Apolog. c. 23) throws out a bold
      defiance to the Pagan magistrates. Of the primitive miracles, the
      power of exorcising is the only one which has been assumed by
      Protestants. * Note: But by Protestants neither of the most
      enlightened ages nor most reasoning minds.—M.]

      77 (return) [ Irenæus adv. Hæreses, l. ii. 56, 57, l. v. c. 6.
      Mr. Dodwell (Dissertat. ad Irenæum, ii. 42) concludes, that the
      second century was still more fertile in miracles than the first.
      * Note: It is difficult to answer Middleton’s objection to this
      statement of Irenæus: “It is very strange, that from the time of
      the apostles there is not a single instance of this miracle to be
      found in the three first centuries; except a single case,
      slightly intimated in Eusebius, from the Works of Papias; which
      he seems to rank among the other fabulous stories delivered by
      that weak man.” Middleton, Works, vol. i. p. 59. Bp. Douglas
      (Criterion, p 389) would consider Irenæus to speak of what had
      “been performed formerly.” not in his own time.—M.]

      78 (return) [ Theophilus ad Autolycum, l. i. p. 345. Edit.
      Benedictin. Paris, 1742. * Note: A candid sceptic might discern
      some impropriety in the Bishop being called upon to perform a
      miracle on demand.—M.]

      The miracles of the primitive church, after obtaining the
      sanction of ages, have been lately attacked in a very free and
      ingenious inquiry, 79 which, though it has met with the most
      favorable reception from the public, appears to have excited a
      general scandal among the divines of our own as well as of the
      other Protestant churches of Europe. 80 Our different sentiments
      on this subject will be much less influenced by any particular
      arguments, than by our habits of study and reflection; and, above
      all, by the degree of evidence which we have accustomed ourselves
      to require for the proof of a miraculous event. The duty of an
      historian does not call upon him to interpose his private
      judgment in this nice and important controversy; but he ought not
      to dissemble the difficulty of adopting such a theory as may
      reconcile the interest of religion with that of reason, of making
      a proper application of that theory, and of defining with
      precision the limits of that happy period, exempt from error and
      from deceit, to which we might be disposed to extend the gift of
      supernatural powers. From the first of the fathers to the last of
      the popes, a succession of bishops, of saints, of martyrs, and of
      miracles, is continued without interruption; and the progress of
      superstition was so gradual, and almost imperceptible, that we
      know not in what particular link we should break the chain of
      tradition. Every age bears testimony to the wonderful events by
      which it was distinguished, and its testimony appears no less
      weighty and respectable than that of the preceding generation,
      till we are insensibly led on to accuse our own inconsistency, if
      in the eighth or in the twelfth century we deny to the venerable
      Bede, or to the holy Bernard, the same degree of confidence
      which, in the second century, we had so liberally granted to
      Justin or to Irenæus. 81 If the truth of any of those miracles is
      appreciated by their apparent use and propriety, every age had
      unbelievers to convince, heretics to confute, and idolatrous
      nations to convert; and sufficient motives might always be
      produced to justify the interposition of Heaven. And yet, since
      every friend to revelation is persuaded of the reality, and every
      reasonable man is convinced of the cessation, of miraculous
      powers, it is evident that there must have been _some period_ in
      which they were either suddenly or gradually withdrawn from the
      Christian church. Whatever æra is chosen for that purpose, the
      death of the apostles, the conversion of the Roman empire, or the
      extinction of the Arian heresy, 82 the insensibility of the
      Christians who lived at that time will equally afford a just
      matter of surprise. They still supported their pretensions after
      they had lost their power. Credulity performed the office of
      faith; fanaticism was permitted to assume the language of
      inspiration, and the effects of accident or contrivance were
      ascribed to supernatural causes. The recent experience of genuine
      miracles should have instructed the Christian world in the ways
      of Providence, and habituated their eye (if we may use a very
      inadequate expression) to the style of the divine artist. Should
      the most skilful painter of modern Italy presume to decorate his
      feeble imitations with the name of Raphæl or of Correggio, the
      insolent fraud would be soon discovered, and indignantly
      rejected.

      79 (return) [ Dr. Middleton sent out his Introduction in the year
      1747, published his Free Inquiry in 1749, and before his death,
      which happened in 1750, he had prepared a vindication of it
      against his numerous adversaries.]

      80 (return) [ The university of Oxford conferred degrees on his
      opponents. From the indignation of Mosheim, (p. 221,) we may
      discover the sentiments of the Lutheran divines. * Note: Yet many
      Protestant divines will now without reluctance confine miracles
      to the time of the apostles, or at least to the first century.—M]

      81 (return) [It may seem somewhat remarkable, that Bernard of
      Clairvaux, who records so many miracles of his friend St.
      Malachi, never takes any notice of his own, which, in their turn,
      however, are carefully related by his companions and disciples.
      In the long series of ecclesiastical history, does there exist a
      single instance of a saint asserting that he himself possessed
      the gift of miracles?]

      82 (return) [ The conversion of Constantine is the æra which is
      most usually fixed by Protestants. The more rational divines are
      unwilling to admit the miracles of the ivth, whilst the more
      credulous are unwilling to reject those of the vth century. *
      Note: All this appears to proceed on the principle that any
      distinct line can be drawn in an unphilosophic age between
      wonders and miracles, or between what piety, from their
      unexpected and extraordinary nature, the marvellous concurrence
      of secondary causes to some remarkable end, may consider
      providential interpositions, and miracles strictly so called, in
      which the laws of nature are suspended or violated. It is
      impossible to assign, on one side, limits to human credulity, on
      the other, to the influence of the imagination on the bodily
      frame; but some of the miracles recorded in the Gospels are such
      palpable impossibilities, according to the known laws and
      operations of nature, that if recorded on sufficient evidence,
      and the evidence we believe to be that of eye-witnesses, we
      cannot reject them, without either asserting, with Hume, that no
      evidence can prove a miracle, or that the Author of Nature has no
      power of suspending its ordinary laws. But which of the
      post-apostolic miracles will bear this test?—M.]

      Whatever opinion may be entertained of the miracles of the
      primitive church since the time of the apostles, this unresisting
      softness of temper, so conspicuous among the believers of the
      second and third centuries, proved of some accidental benefit to
      the cause of truth and religion. In modern times, a latent and
      even involuntary scepticism adheres to the most pious
      dispositions. Their admission of supernatural truths is much less
      an active consent than a cold and passive acquiescence.
      Accustomed long since to observe and to respect the invariable
      order of Nature, our reason, or at least our imagination, is not
      sufficiently prepared to sustain the visible action of the Deity.

      But, in the first ages of Christianity, the situation of mankind
      was extremely different. The most curious, or the most credulous,
      among the Pagans, were often persuaded to enter into a society
      which asserted an actual claim of miraculous powers. The
      primitive Christians perpetually trod on mystic ground, and their
      minds were exercised by the habits of believing the most
      extraordinary events. They felt, or they fancied, that on every
      side they were incessantly assaulted by dæmons, comforted by
      visions, instructed by prophecy, and surprisingly delivered from
      danger, sickness, and from death itself, by the supplications of
      the church. The real or imaginary prodigies, of which they so
      frequently conceived themselves to be the objects, the
      instruments, or the spectators, very happily disposed them to
      adopt with the same ease, but with far greater justice, the
      authentic wonders of the evangelic history; and thus miracles
      that exceeded not the measure of their own experience, inspired
      them with the most lively assurance of mysteries which were
      acknowledged to surpass the limits of their understanding. It is
      this deep impression of supernatural truths which has been so
      much celebrated under the name of faith; a state of mind
      described as the surest pledge of the divine favor and of future
      felicity, and recommended as the first, or perhaps the only merit
      of a Christian. According to the more rigid doctors, the moral
      virtues, which may be equally practised by infidels, are
      destitute of any value or efficacy in the work of our
      justification.




      Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part V.

      IV. But the primitive Christian demonstrated his faith by his
      virtues; and it was very justly supposed that the divine
      persuasion, which enlightened or subdued the understanding, must,
      at the same time, purify the heart, and direct the actions, of
      the believer. The first apologists of Christianity who justify
      the innocence of their brethren, and the writers of a later
      period who celebrate the sanctity of their ancestors, display, in
      the most lively colors, the reformation of manners which was
      introduced into the world by the preaching of the gospel. As it
      is my intention to remark only such human causes as were
      permitted to second the influence of revelation, I shall slightly
      mention two motives which might naturally render the lives of the
      primitive Christians much purer and more austere than those of
      their Pagan contemporaries, or their degenerate successors;
      repentance for their past sins, and the laudable desire of
      supporting the reputation of the society in which they were
      engaged. 83

      83 (return) [ These, in the opinion of the editor, are the most
      uncandid paragraphs in Gibbon’s History. He ought either, with
      manly courage, to have denied the moral reformation introduced by
      Christianity, or fairly to have investigated all its motives; not
      to have confined himself to an insidious and sarcastic
      description of the less pure and generous elements of the
      Christian character as it appeared even at that early time.—M.]

      It is a very ancient reproach, suggested by the ignorance or the
      malice of infidelity, that the Christians allured into their
      party the most atrocious criminals, who, as soon as they were
      touched by a sense of remorse, were easily persuaded to wash
      away, in the water of baptism, the guilt of their past conduct,
      for which the temples of the gods refused to grant them any
      expiation. But this reproach, when it is cleared from
      misrepresentation, contributes as much to the honor as it did to
      the increase of the church. The friends of Christianity may
      acknowledge without a blush that many of the most eminent saints
      had been before their baptism the most abandoned sinners. Those
      persons, who in the world had followed, though in an imperfect
      manner, the dictates of benevolence and propriety, derived such a
      calm satisfaction from the opinion of their own rectitude, as
      rendered them much less susceptible of the sudden emotions of
      shame, of grief, and of terror, which have given birth to so many
      wonderful conversions. After the example of their divine Master,
      the missionaries of the gospel disdained not the society of men,
      and especially of women, oppressed by the consciousness, and very
      often by the effects, of their vices. As they emerged from sin
      and superstition to the glorious hope of immortality, they
      resolved to devote themselves to a life, not only of virtue, but
      of penitence. The desire of perfection became the ruling passion
      of their soul; and it is well known that, while reason embraces a
      cold mediocrity, our passions hurry us, with rapid violence, over
      the space which lies between the most opposite extremes. 83b

      83b (return) [The imputations of Celsus and Julian, with the
      defence of the fathers, are very fairly stated by Spanheim,
      Commentaire sur les Cesars de Julian, p. 468.]

      When the new converts had been enrolled in the number of the
      faithful, and were admitted to the sacraments of the church, they
      found themselves restrained from relapsing into their past
      disorders by another consideration of a less spiritual, but of a
      very innocent and respectable nature. Any particular society that
      has departed from the great body of the nation, or the religion
      to which it belonged, immediately becomes the object of universal
      as well as invidious observation. In proportion to the smallness
      of its numbers, the character of the society may be affected by
      the virtues and vices of the persons who compose it; and every
      member is engaged to watch with the most vigilant attention over
      his own behavior, and over that of his brethren, since, as he
      must expect to incur a part of the common disgrace, he may hope
      to enjoy a share of the common reputation. When the Christians of
      Bithynia were brought before the tribunal of the younger Pliny,
      they assured the proconsul, that, far from being engaged in any
      unlawful conspiracy, they were bound by a solemn obligation to
      abstain from the commission of those crimes which disturb the
      private or public peace of society, from theft, robbery,
      adultery, perjury, and fraud. 84 841 Near a century afterwards,
      Tertullian, with an honest pride, could boast, that very few
      Christians had suffered by the hand of the executioner, except on
      account of their religion. 85 Their serious and sequestered life,
      averse to the gay luxury of the age, inured them to chastity,
      temperance, economy, and all the sober and domestic virtues. As
      the greater number were of some trade or profession, it was
      incumbent on them, by the strictest integrity and the fairest
      dealing, to remove the suspicions which the profane are too apt
      to conceive against the appearances of sanctity. The contempt of
      the world exercised them in the habits of humility, meekness, and
      patience. The more they were persecuted, the more closely they
      adhered to each other. Their mutual charity and unsuspecting
      confidence has been remarked by infidels, and was too often
      abused by perfidious friends. 86

      84 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 97. * Note: Is not the sense of
      Tertullian rather, if guilty of any other offence, he had thereby
      ceased to be a Christian?—M.]

      841 (return) [ And this blamelessness was fully admitted by the
      candid and enlightened Roman.—M.]

      85 (return) [ Tertullian, Apolog. c. 44. He adds, however, with
      some degree of hesitation, “Aut si aliud, jam non Christianus.” *
      Note: Tertullian says positively no Christian, nemo illic
      Christianus; for the rest, the limitation which he himself
      subjoins, and which Gibbon quotes in the foregoing note,
      diminishes the force of this assertion, and appears to prove that
      at least he knew none such.—G.]

      86 (return) [ The philosopher Peregrinus (of whose life and death
      Lucian has left us so entertaining an account) imposed, for a
      long time, on the credulous simplicity of the Christians of
      Asia.]

      It is a very honorable circumstance for the morals of the
      primitive Christians, that even their faults, or rather errors,
      were derived from an excess of virtue. The bishops and doctors of
      the church, whose evidence attests, and whose authority might
      influence, the professions, the principles, and even the practice
      of their contemporaries, had studied the Scriptures with less
      skill than devotion; and they often received, in the most literal
      sense, those rigid precepts of Christ and the apostles, to which
      the prudence of succeeding commentators has applied a looser and
      more figurative mode of interpretation. Ambitious to exalt the
      perfection of the gospel above the wisdom of philosophy, the
      zealous fathers have carried the duties of self-mortification, of
      purity, and of patience, to a height which it is scarcely
      possible to attain, and much less to preserve, in our present
      state of weakness and corruption. A doctrine so extraordinary and
      so sublime must inevitably command the veneration of the people;
      but it was ill calculated to obtain the suffrage of those worldly
      philosophers who, in the conduct of this transitory life, consult
      only the feelings of nature and the interest of society. 87

      87 (return) [ See a very judicious treatise of Barbeyrac sur la
      Morale des Peres.]

      There are two very natural propensities which we may distinguish
      in the most virtuous and liberal dispositions, the love of
      pleasure and the love of action. If the former is refined by art
      and learning, improved by the charms of social intercourse, and
      corrected by a just regard to economy, to health, and to
      reputation, it is productive of the greatest part of the
      happiness of private life. The love of action is a principle of a
      much stronger and more doubtful nature. It often leads to anger,
      to ambition, and to revenge; but when it is guided by the sense
      of propriety and benevolence, it becomes the parent of every
      virtue, and if those virtues are accompanied with equal
      abilities, a family, a state, or an empire may be indebted for
      their safety and prosperity to the undaunted courage of a single
      man. To the love of pleasure we may therefore ascribe most of the
      agreeable, to the love of action we may attribute most of the
      useful and respectable, qualifications. The character in which
      both the one and the other should be united and harmonized would
      seem to constitute the most perfect idea of human nature. The
      insensible and inactive disposition, which should be supposed
      alike destitute of both, would be rejected, by the common consent
      of mankind, as utterly incapable of procuring any happiness to
      the individual, or any public benefit to the world. But it was
      not in _this_ world that the primitive Christians were desirous
      of making themselves either agreeable or useful. 871

      871 (return) [ El que me fait cette homelie semi-stoicienne,
      semi-epicurienne? t’on jamais regarde l’amour du plaisir comme
      l’un des principes de la perfection morale? Et de quel droit
      faites vous de l’amour de l’action, et de l’amour du plaisir, les
      seuls elemens de l’etre humain? Est ce que vous faites
      abstraction de la verite en elle-meme, de la conscience et du
      sentiment du devoir? Est ce que vous ne sentez point, par
      exemple, que le sacrifice du moi a la justice et a la verite, est
      aussi dans le coeur de l’homme: que tout n’est pas pour lui
      action ou plaisir, et que dans le bien ce n’est pas le mouvement,
      mais la verite, qu’il cherche? Et puis * * Thucy dide et Tacite.
      ces maitres de l’histoire, ont ils jamais introduits dans leur
      recits un fragment de dissertation sur le plaisir et sur
      l’action. Villemain Cours de Lit. Franc part ii. Lecon v.—M.]

      The acquisition of knowledge, the exercise of our reason or
      fancy, and the cheerful flow of unguarded conversation, may
      employ the leisure of a liberal mind. Such amusements, however,
      were rejected with abhorrence, or admitted with the utmost
      caution, by the severity of the fathers, who despised all
      knowledge that was not useful to salvation, and who considered
      all levity of discours as a criminal abuse of the gift of speech.
      In our present state of existence the body is so inseparably
      connected with the soul, that it seems to be our interest to
      taste, with innocence and moderation, the enjoyments of which
      that faithful companion is susceptible. Very different was the
      reasoning of our devout predecessors; vainly aspiring to imitate
      the perfection of angels, they disdained, or they affected to
      disdain, every earthly and corporeal delight. 88 Some of our
      senses indeed are necessary for our preservation, others for our
      subsistence, and others again for our information; and thus far
      it was impossible to reject the use of them. The first sensation
      of pleasure was marked as the first moment of their abuse. The
      unfeeling candidate for heaven was instructed, not only to resist
      the grosser allurements of the taste or smell, but even to shut
      his ears against the profane harmony of sounds, and to view with
      indifference the most finished productions of human art. Gay
      apparel, magnificent houses, and elegant furniture, were supposed
      to unite the double guilt of pride and of sensuality; a simple
      and mortified appearance was more suitable to the Christian who
      was certain of his sins and doubtful of his salvation. In their
      censures of luxury the fathers are extremely minute and
      circumstantial; 89 and among the various articles which excite
      their pious indignation we may enumerate false hair, garments of
      any color except white, instruments of music, vases of gold or
      silver, downy pillows, (as Jacob reposed his head on a stone,)
      white bread, foreign wines, public salutations, the use of warm
      baths, and the practice of shaving the beard, which, according to
      the expression of Tertullian, is a lie against our own faces, and
      an impious attempt to improve the works of the Creator. 90 When
      Christianity was introduced among the rich and the polite, the
      observation of these singular laws was left, as it would be at
      present, to the few who were ambitious of superior sanctity. But
      it is always easy, as well as agreeable, for the inferior ranks
      of mankind to claim a merit from the contempt of that pomp and
      pleasure which fortune has placed beyond their reach. The virtue
      of the primitive Christians, like that of the first Romans, was
      very frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance.

      88 (return) [ Lactant. Institut. Divin. l. vi. c. 20, 21, 22.]

      89 (return) [ Consult a work of Clemens of Alexandria, entitled
      The Pædagogue, which contains the rudiments of ethics, as they
      were taught in the most celebrated of the Christian schools.]

      90 (return) [ Tertullian, de Spectaculis, c. 23. Clemens
      Alexandrin. Pædagog. l. iii. c. 8.]

      The chaste severity of the fathers, in whatever related to the
      commerce of the two sexes, flowed from the same principle; their
      abhorrence of every enjoyment which might gratify the sensual,
      and degrade the spiritual nature of man. It was their favorite
      opinion, that if Adam had preserved his obedience to the Creator,
      he would have lived forever in a state of virgin purity, and that
      some harmless mode of vegetation might have peopled paradise with
      a race of innocent and immortal beings. 91 The use of marriage
      was permitted only to his fallen posterity, as a necessary
      expedient to continue the human species, and as a restraint,
      however imperfect, on the natural licentiousness of desire. The
      hesitation of the orthodox casuists on this interesting subject,
      betrays the perplexity of men, unwilling to approve an
      institution which they were compelled to tolerate. 92 The
      enumeration of the very whimsical laws, which they most
      circumstantially imposed on the marriage-bed, would force a smile
      from the young and a blush from the fair. It was their unanimous
      sentiment that a first marriage was adequate to all the purposes
      of nature and of society. The sensual connection was refined into
      a resemblance of the mystic union of Christ with his church, and
      was pronounced to be indissoluble either by divorce or by death.
      The practice of second nuptials was branded with the name of a
      legal adultery; and the persons who were guilty of so scandalous
      an offence against Christian purity, were soon excluded from the
      honors, and even from the alms, of the church. 93 Since desire
      was imputed as a crime, and marriage was tolerated as a defect,
      it was consistent with the same principles to consider a state of
      celibacy as the nearest approach to the divine perfection. It was
      with the utmost difficulty that ancient Rome could support the
      institution of six vestals; 94 but the primitive church was
      filled with a number of persons of either sex, who had devoted
      themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity. 95 A few of
      these, among whom we may reckon the learned Origen, judged it the
      most prudent to disarm the tempter. 96 Some were insensible and
      some were invincible against the assaults of the flesh.
      Disdaining an ignominious flight, the virgins of the warm climate
      of Africa encountered the enemy in the closest engagement; they
      permitted priests and deacons to share their bed, and gloried
      amidst the flames in their unsullied purity. But insulted Nature
      sometimes vindicated her rights, and this new species of
      martyrdom served only to introduce a new scandal into the church.
      97 Among the Christian ascetics, however, (a name which they soon
      acquired from their painful exercise,) many, as they were less
      presumptuous, were probably more successful. The loss of sensual
      pleasure was supplied and compensated by spiritual pride. Even
      the multitude of Pagans were inclined to estimate the merit of
      the sacrifice by its apparent difficulty; and it was in the
      praise of these chaste spouses of Christ that the fathers have
      poured forth the troubled stream of their eloquence. 98 Such are
      the early traces of monastic principles and institutions, which,
      in a subsequent age, have counterbalanced all the temporal
      advantages of Christianity. 99

      91 (return) [ Beausobro, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, l. vii.
      c. 3. Justin, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustin, &c., strongly incline
      to this opinion. Note: But these were Gnostic or Manichean
      opinions. Beausobre distinctly describes Autustine’s bias to his
      recent escape from Manicheism; and adds that he afterwards
      changed his views.—M.]

      92 (return) [ Some of the Gnostic heretics were more consistent;
      they rejected the use of marriage.]

      93 (return) [ See a chain of tradition, from Justin Martyr to
      Jerome, in the Morale des Peres, c. iv. 6—26.]

      94 (return) [ See a very curious Dissertation on the Vestals, in
      the Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. iv. p. 161—227.
      Notwithstanding the honors and rewards which were bestowed on
      those virgins, it was difficult to procure a sufficient number;
      nor could the dread of the most horrible death always restrain
      their incontinence.]

      95 (return) [ Cupiditatem procreandi aut unam scimus aut nullam.
      Minutius Fælix, c. 31. Justin. Apolog. Major. Athenagoras in
      Legat. c 28. Tertullian de Cultu Foemin. l. ii.]

      96 (return) [ Eusebius, l. vi. 8. Before the fame of Origen had
      excited envy and persecution, this extraordinary action was
      rather admired than censured. As it was his general practice to
      allegorize Scripture, it seems unfortunate that in this instance
      only, he should have adopted the literal sense.]

      97 (return) [ Cyprian. Epist. 4, and Dodwell, Dissertat.
      Cyprianic. iii. Something like this rash attempt was long
      afterwards imputed to the founder of the order of Fontevrault.
      Bayle has amused himself and his readers on that very delicate
      subject.]

      98 (return) [ Dupin (Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. i. p. 195)
      gives a particular account of the dialogue of the ten virgins, as
      it was composed by Methodius, Bishop of Tyre. The praises of
      virginity are excessive.]

      99 (return) [ The Ascetics (as early as the second century) made
      a public profession of mortifying their bodies, and of abstaining
      from the use of flesh and wine. Mosheim, p. 310.]

      The Christians were not less averse to the business than to the
      pleasures of this world. The defence of our persons and property
      they knew not how to reconcile with the patient doctrine which
      enjoined an unlimited forgiveness of past injuries, and commanded
      them to invite the repetition of fresh insults. Their simplicity
      was offended by the use of oaths, by the pomp of magistracy, and
      by the active contention of public life; nor could their humane
      ignorance be convinced that it was lawful on any occasion to shed
      the blood of our fellow-creatures, either by the sword of
      justice, or by that of war; even though their criminal or hostile
      attempts should threaten the peace and safety of the whole
      community. 100 It was acknowledged that, under a less perfect
      law, the powers of the Jewish constitution had been exercised,
      with the approbation of heaven, by inspired prophets and by
      anointed kings. The Christians felt and confessed that such
      institutions might be necessary for the present system of the
      world, and they cheerfully submitted to the authority of their
      Pagan governors. But while they inculcated the maxims of passive
      obedience, they refused to take any active part in the civil
      administration or the military defence of the empire. Some
      indulgence might, perhaps, be allowed to those persons who,
      before their conversion, were already engaged in such violent and
      sanguinary occupations; 101a but it was impossible that the
      Christians, without renouncing a more sacred duty, could assume
      the character of soldiers, of magistrates, or of princes. 102b
      This indolent, or even criminal disregard to the public welfare,
      exposed them to the contempt and reproaches of the Pagans, who
      very frequently asked, what must be the fate of the empire,
      attacked on every side by the barbarians, if all mankind should
      adopt the pusillanimous sentiments of the new sect. 103 To this
      insulting question the Christian apologists returned obscure and
      ambiguous answers, as they were unwilling to reveal the secret
      cause of their security; the expectation that, before the
      conversion of mankind was accomplished, war, government, the
      Roman empire, and the world itself, would be no more. It may be
      observed, that, in this instance likewise, the situation of the
      first Christians coincided very happily with their religious
      scruples, and that their aversion to an active life contributed
      rather to excuse them from the service, than to exclude them from
      the honors, of the state and army.

      100 (return) [ See the Morale des Peres. The same patient
      principles have been revived since the Reformation by the
      Socinians, the modern Anabaptists, and the Quakers. Barclay, the
      Apologist of the Quakers, has protected his brethren by the
      authority of the primitive Christian; p. 542-549]

      101a (return) [ Tertullian, Apolog. c. 21. De Idololatria, c. 17,
      18. Origen contra Celsum, l. v. p. 253, l. vii. p. 348, l. viii.
      p. 423-428.]

      102b (return) [ Tertullian (de Corona Militis, c. 11) suggested
      to them the expedient of deserting; a counsel which, if it had
      been generally known, was not very proper to conciliate the favor
      of the emperors towards the Christian sect. * Note: There is
      nothing which ought to astonish us in the refusal of the
      primitive Christians to take part in public affairs; it was the
      natural consequence of the contrariety of their principles to the
      customs, laws, and active life of the Pagan world. As Christians,
      they could not enter into the senate, which, according to Gibbon
      himself, always assembled in a temple or consecrated place, and
      where each senator, before he took his seat, made a libation of a
      few drops of wine, and burnt incense on the altar; as Christians,
      they could not assist at festivals and banquets, which always
      terminated with libations, &c.; finally, as “the innumerable
      deities and rites of polytheism were closely interwoven with
      every circumstance of public and private life,” the Christians
      could not participate in them without incurring, according to
      their principles, the guilt of impiety. It was then much less by
      an effect of their doctrine, than by the consequence of their
      situation, that they stood aloof from public business. Whenever
      this situation offered no impediment, they showed as much
      activity as the Pagans. Proinde, says Justin Martyr, (Apol. c.
      17,) nos solum Deum adoramus, et vobis in rebus aliis læti
      inservimus.—G. ——-This latter passage, M. Guizot quotes in Latin;
      if he had consulted the original, he would have found it to be
      altogether irrelevant: it merely relates to the payment of
      taxes.—M. — —Tertullian does not suggest to the soldiers the
      expedient of deserting; he says that they ought to be constantly
      on their guard to do nothing during their service contrary to the
      law of God, and to resolve to suffer martyrdom rather than submit
      to a base compliance, or openly to renounce the service. (De Cor.
      Mil. ii. p. 127.) He does not positively decide that the military
      service is not permitted to Christians; he ends, indeed, by
      saying, Puta denique licere militiam usque ad causam coronæ.—G.
      ——M. Guizot is. I think, again unfortunate in his defence of
      Tertullian. That father says, that many Christian soldiers had
      deserted, aut deserendum statim sit, ut a multis actum. The
      latter sentence, Puta, &c, &c., is a concession for the sake of
      argument: wha follows is more to the purpose.—M. Many other
      passages of Tertullian prove that the army was full of
      Christians, Hesterni sumus et vestra omnia implevimus, urbes,
      insulas, castella, municipia, conciliabula, castra ipsa. (Apol.
      c. 37.) Navigamus et not vobiscum et militamus. (c. 42.) Origen,
      in truth, appears to have maintained a more rigid opinion, (Cont.
      Cels. l. viii.;) but he has often renounced this exaggerated
      severity, perhaps necessary to produce great results, and he
      speaks of the profession of arms as an honorable one. (l. iv. c.
      218.)— G. ——On these points Christian opinion, it should seem,
      was much divided Tertullian, when he wrote the De Cor. Mil., was
      evidently inclining to more ascetic opinions, and Origen was of
      the same class. See Neander, vol. l part ii. p. 305, edit.
      1828.—M.]

      103 (return) [ As well as we can judge from the mutilated
      representation of Origen, (1. viii. p. 423,) his adversary,
      Celsus, had urged his objection with great force and candor.]




      Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part VI.

      V. But the human character, however it may be exalted or
      depressed by a temporary enthusiasm, will return by degrees to
      its proper and natural level, and will resume those passions that
      seem the most adapted to its present condition. The primitive
      Christians were dead to the business and pleasures of the world;
      but their love of action, which could never be entirely
      extinguished, soon revived, and found a new occupation in the
      government of the church. A separate society, which attacked the
      established religion of the empire, was obliged to adopt some
      form of internal policy, and to appoint a sufficient number of
      ministers, intrusted not only with the spiritual functions, but
      even with the temporal direction of the Christian commonwealth.
      The safety of that society, its honor, its aggrandizement, were
      productive, even in the most pious minds, of a spirit of
      patriotism, such as the first of the Romans had felt for the
      republic, and sometimes of a similar indifference, in the use of
      whatever means might probably conduce to so desirable an end. The
      ambition of raising themselves or their friends to the honors and
      offices of the church, was disguised by the laudable intention of
      devoting to the public benefit the power and consideration,
      which, for that purpose only, it became their duty to solicit. In
      the exercise of their functions, they were frequently called upon
      to detect the errors of heresy or the arts of faction, to oppose
      the designs of perfidious brethren, to stigmatize their
      characters with deserved infamy, and to expel them from the bosom
      of a society whose peace and happiness they had attempted to
      disturb. The ecclesiastical governors of the Christians were
      taught to unite the wisdom of the serpent with the innocence of
      the dove; but as the former was refined, so the latter was
      insensibly corrupted, by the habits of government. In the church
      as well as in the world, the persons who were placed in any
      public station rendered themselves considerable by their
      eloquence and firmness, by their knowledge of mankind, and by
      their dexterity in business; and while they concealed from
      others, and perhaps from themselves, the secret motives of their
      conduct, they too frequently relapsed into all the turbulent
      passions of active life, which were tinctured with an additional
      degree of bitterness and obstinacy from the infusion of spiritual
      zeal.

      The government of the church has often been the subject, as well
      as the prize, of religious contention. The hostile disputants of
      Rome, of Paris, of Oxford, and of Geneva, have alike struggled to
      reduce the primitive and apostolic model 1041 to the respective
      standards of their own policy. The few who have pursued this
      inquiry with more candor and impartiality, are of opinion, 105
      that the apostles declined the office of legislation, and rather
      chose to endure some partial scandals and divisions, than to
      exclude the Christians of a future age from the liberty of
      varying their forms of ecclesiastical government according to the
      changes of times and circumstances. The scheme of policy, which,
      under their approbation, was adopted for the use of the first
      century, may be discovered from the practice of Jerusalem, of
      Ephesus, or of Corinth. The societies which were instituted in
      the cities of the Roman empire were united only by the ties of
      faith and charity. Independence and equality formed the basis of
      their internal constitution. The want of discipline and human
      learning was supplied by the occasional assistance of the
      _prophets_, 106 who were called to that function without
      distinction of age, of sex, 1061 or of natural abilities, and
      who, as often as they felt the divine impulse, poured forth the
      effusions of the Spirit in the assembly of the faithful. But
      these extraordinary gifts were frequently abused or misapplied by
      the prophetic teachers. They displayed them at an improper
      season, presumptuously disturbed the service of the assembly,
      and, by their pride or mistaken zeal, they introduced,
      particularly into the apostolic church of Corinth, a long and
      melancholy train of disorders. 107 As the institution of prophets
      became useless, and even pernicious, their powers were withdrawn,
      and their office abolished. The public functions of religion were
      solely intrusted to the established ministers of the church, the
      _bishops_ and the _presbyters;_ two appellations which, in their
      first origin, appear to have distinguished the same office and
      the same order of persons. The name of Presbyter was expressive
      of their age, or rather of their gravity and wisdom. The title of
      Bishop denoted their inspection over the faith and manners of the
      Christians who were committed to their pastoral care. In
      proportion to the respective numbers of the faithful, a larger or
      smaller number of these _episcopal presbyters_ guided each infant
      congregation with equal authority and with united counsels. 108

      1041 (return) [ The aristocratical party in France, as well as in
      England, has strenuously maintained the divine origin of bishops.
      But the Calvinistical presbyters were impatient of a superior;
      and the Roman Pontiff refused to acknowledge an equal. See Fra
      Paolo.]

      105 (return) [ In the history of the Christian hierarchy, I have,
      for the most part, followed the learned and candid Mosheim.]

      106 (return) [ For the prophets of the primitive church, see
      Mosheim, Dissertationes ad Hist. Eccles. pertinentes, tom. ii. p.
      132—208.]

      1061 (return) [ St. Paul distinctly reproves the intrusion of
      females into the prophets office. 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35. 1 Tim. ii.
      11.—M.]

      107 (return) [ See the epistles of St. Paul, and of Clemens, to
      the Corinthians. * Note: The first ministers established in the
      church were the deacons, appointed at Jerusalem, seven in number;
      they were charged with the distribution of the alms; even females
      had a share in this employment. After the deacons came the elders
      or priests, charged with the maintenance of order and decorum in
      the community, and to act every where in its name. The bishops
      were afterwards charged to watch over the faith and the
      instruction of the disciples: the apostles themselves appointed
      several bishops. Tertullian, (adv. Marium, c. v.,) Clement of
      Alexandria, and many fathers of the second and third century, do
      not permit us to doubt this fact. The equality of rank between
      these different functionaries did not prevent their functions
      being, even in their origin, distinct; they became subsequently
      still more so. See Plank, Geschichte der Christ. Kirch.
      Verfassung., vol. i. p. 24.—G. On this extremely obscure subject,
      which has been so much perplexed by passion and interest, it is
      impossible to justify any opinion without entering into long and
      controversial details.——It must be admitted, in opposition to
      Plank, that in the New Testament, several words are sometimes
      indiscriminately used. (Acts xx. v. 17, comp. with 28 Tit. i. 5
      and 7. Philip. i. 1.) But it is as clear, that as soon as we can
      discern the form of church government, at a period closely
      bordering upon, if not within, the apostolic age, it appears with
      a bishop at the head of each community, holding some superiority
      over the presbyters. Whether he was, as Gibbon from Mosheim
      supposes, merely an elective head of the College of Presbyters,
      (for this we have, in fact, no valid authority,) or whether his
      distinct functions were established on apostolic authority, is
      still contested. The universal submission to this episcopacy, in
      every part of the Christian world appears to me strongly to favor
      the latter view.—M.]

      108 (return) [ Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity, l. vii.]

      But the most perfect equality of freedom requires the directing
      hand of a superior magistrate: and the order of public
      deliberations soon introduces the office of a president, invested
      at least with the authority of collecting the sentiments, and of
      executing the resolutions, of the assembly. A regard for the
      public tranquillity, which would so frequently have been
      interrupted by annual or by occasional elections, induced the
      primitive Christians to constitute an honorable and perpetual
      magistracy, and to choose one of the wisest and most holy among
      their presbyters to execute, during his life, the duties of their
      ecclesiastical governor. It was under these circumstances that
      the lofty title of Bishop began to raise itself above the humble
      appellation of Presbyter; and while the latter remained the most
      natural distinction for the members of every Christian senate,
      the former was appropriated to the dignity of its new president.
      109 The advantages of this episcopal form of government, which
      appears to have been introduced before the end of the first
      century, 110 were so obvious, and so important for the future
      greatness, as well as the present peace, of Christianity, that it
      was adopted without delay by all the societies which were already
      scattered over the empire, had acquired in a very early period
      the sanction of antiquity, 111 and is still revered by the most
      powerful churches, both of the East and of the West, as a
      primitive and even as a divine establishment. 112 It is needless
      to observe, that the pious and humble presbyters, who were first
      dignified with the episcopal title, could not possess, and would
      probably have rejected, the power and pomp which now encircles
      the tiara of the Roman pontiff, or the mitre of a German prelate.
      But we may define, in a few words, the narrow limits of their
      original jurisdiction, which was chiefly of a spiritual, though
      in some instances of a temporal nature. 113 It consisted in the
      administration of the sacraments and discipline of the church,
      the superintendency of religious ceremonies, which imperceptibly
      increased in number and variety, the consecration of
      ecclesiastical ministers, to whom the bishop assigned their
      respective functions, the management of the public fund, and the
      determination of all such differences as the faithful were
      unwilling to expose before the tribunal of an idolatrous judge.
      These powers, during a short period, were exercised according to
      the advice of the presbyteral college, and with the consent and
      approbation of the assembly of Christians. The primitive bishops
      were considered only as the first of their equals, and the
      honorable servants of a free people. Whenever the episcopal chair
      became vacant by death, a new president was chosen among the
      presbyters by the suffrage of the whole congregation, every
      member of which supposed himself invested with a sacred and
      sacerdotal character. 114

      109 (return) [ See Jerome and Titum, c. i. and Epistol. 85, (in
      the Benedictine edition, 101,) and the elaborate apology of
      Blondel, pro sententia Hieronymi. The ancient state, as it is
      described by Jerome, of the bishop and presbyters of Alexandria,
      receives a remarkable confirmation from the patriarch Eutychius,
      (Annal. tom. i. p. 330, Vers Pocock;) whose testimony I know not
      how to reject, in spite of all the objections of the learned
      Pearson in his Vindiciæ Ignatianæ, part i. c. 11.]

      110 (return) [ See the introduction to the Apocalypse. Bishops,
      under the name of angels, were already instituted in the seven
      cities of Asia. And yet the epistle of Clemens (which is probably
      of as ancient a date) does not lead us to discover any traces of
      episcopacy either at Corinth or Rome.]

      111 (return) [ Nulla Ecclesia sine Episcopo, has been a fact as
      well as a maxim since the time of Tertullian and Irenæus.]

      112 (return) [ After we have passed the difficulties of the first
      century, we find the episcopal government universally
      established, till it was interrupted by the republican genius of
      the Swiss and German reformers.]

      113 (return) [ See Mosheim in the first and second centuries.
      Ignatius (ad Smyrnæos, c. 3, &c.) is fond of exalting the
      episcopal dignity. Le Clerc (Hist. Eccles. p. 569) very bluntly
      censures his conduct, Mosheim, with a more critical judgment, (p.
      161,) suspects the purity even of the smaller epistles.]

      114 (return) [ Nonne et Laici sacerdotes sumus? Tertullian,
      Exhort. ad Castitat. c. 7. As the human heart is still the same,
      several of the observations which Mr. Hume has made on
      Enthusiasm, (Essays, vol. i. p. 76, quarto edit.) may be applied
      even to real inspiration. * Note: This expression was employed by
      the earlier Christian writers in the sense used by St. Peter, 1
      Ep ii. 9. It was the sanctity and virtue not the power of
      priesthood, in which all Christians were to be equally
      distinguished.—M.]

      Such was the mild and equal constitution by which the Christians
      were governed more than a hundred years after the death of the
      apostles. Every society formed within itself a separate and
      independent republic; and although the most distant of these
      little states maintained a mutual as well as friendly intercourse
      of letters and deputations, the Christian world was not yet
      connected by any supreme authority or legislative assembly. As
      the numbers of the faithful were gradually multiplied, they
      discovered the advantages that might result from a closer union
      of their interest and designs. Towards the end of the second
      century, the churches of Greece and Asia adopted the useful
      institutions of provincial synods, 1141 and they may justly be
      supposed to have borrowed the model of a representative council
      from the celebrated examples of their own country, the
      Amphictyons, the Achæan league, or the assemblies of the Ionian
      cities. It was soon established as a custom and as a law, that
      the bishops of the independent churches should meet in the
      capital of the province at the stated periods of spring and
      autumn. Their deliberations were assisted by the advice of a few
      distinguished presbyters, and moderated by the presence of a
      listening multitude. 115 Their decrees, which were styled Canons,
      regulated every important controversy of faith and discipline;
      and it was natural to believe that a liberal effusion of the Holy
      Spirit would be poured on the united assembly of the delegates of
      the Christian people. The institution of synods was so well
      suited to private ambition, and to public interest, that in the
      space of a few years it was received throughout the whole empire.
      A regular correspondence was established between the provincial
      councils, which mutually communicated and approved their
      respective proceedings; and the catholic church soon assumed the
      form, and acquired the strength, of a great fœderative republic.
      116

      1141 (return) [ The synods were not the first means taken by the
      insulated churches to enter into communion and to assume a
      corporate character. The dioceses were first formed by the union
      of several country churches with a church in a city: many
      churches in one city uniting among themselves, or joining a more
      considerable church, became metropolitan. The dioceses were not
      formed before the beginning of the second century: before that
      time the Christians had not established sufficient churches in
      the country to stand in need of that union. It is towards the
      middle of the same century that we discover the first traces of
      the metropolitan constitution. (Probably the country churches
      were founded in general by missionaries from those in the city,
      and would preserve a natural connection with the parent
      church.)—M. ——The provincial synods did not commence till towards
      the middle of the third century, and were not the first synods.
      History gives us distinct notions of the synods, held towards the
      end of the second century, at Ephesus at Jerusalem, at Pontus,
      and at Rome, to put an end to the disputes which had arisen
      between the Latin and Asiatic churches about the celebration of
      Easter. But these synods were not subject to any regular form or
      periodical return; this regularity was first established with the
      provincial synods, which were formed by a union of the bishops of
      a district, subject to a metropolitan. Plank, p. 90. Geschichte
      der Christ. Kirch. Verfassung—G]

      115 (return) [ Acta Concil. Carthag. apud Cyprian. edit. Fell, p.
      158. This council was composed of eighty-seven bishops from the
      provinces of Mauritania, Numidia, and Africa; some presbyters and
      deacons assisted at the assembly; præsente plebis maxima parte.]

      116 (return) [ Aguntur præterea per Græcias illas, certis in
      locis concilia, &c Tertullian de Jejuniis, c. 13. The African
      mentions it as a recent and foreign institution. The coalition of
      the Christian churches is very ably explained by Mosheim, p. 164
      170.]

      As the legislative authority of the particular churches was
      insensibly superseded by the use of councils, the bishops
      obtained by their alliance a much larger share of executive and
      arbitrary power; and as soon as they were connected by a sense of
      their common interest, they were enabled to attack, with united
      vigor, the original rights of their clergy and people. The
      prelates of the third century imperceptibly changed the language
      of exhortation into that of command, scattered the seeds of
      future usurpations, and supplied, by scripture allegories and
      declamatory rhetoric, their deficiency of force and of reason.
      They exalted the unity and power of the church, as it was
      represented in the episcopal office, of which every bishop
      enjoyed an equal and undivided portion. 117 Princes and
      magistrates, it was often repeated, might boast an earthly claim
      to a transitory dominion; it was the episcopal authority alone
      which was derived from the Deity, and extended itself over this
      and over another world. The bishops were the vicegerents of
      Christ, the successors of the apostles, and the mystic
      substitutes of the high priest of the Mosaic law. Their exclusive
      privilege of conferring the sacerdotal character invaded the
      freedom both of clerical and of popular elections; and if, in the
      administration of the church, they still consulted the judgment
      of the presbyters, or the inclination of the people, they most
      carefully inculcated the merit of such a voluntary condescension.
      The bishops acknowledged the supreme authority which resided in
      the assembly of their brethren; but in the government of his
      peculiar diocese, each of them exacted from his _flock_ the same
      implicit obedience as if that favorite metaphor had been
      literally just, and as if the shepherd had been of a more exalted
      nature than that of his sheep. 118 This obedience, however, was
      not imposed without some efforts on one side, and some resistance
      on the other. The democratical part of the constitution was, in
      many places, very warmly supported by the zealous or interested
      opposition of the inferior clergy. But their patriotism received
      the ignominious epithets of faction and schism; and the episcopal
      cause was indebted for its rapid progress to the labors of many
      active prelates, who, like Cyprian of Carthage, could reconcile
      the arts of the most ambitious statesman with the Christian
      virtues which seem adapted to the character of a saint and
      martyr. 119

      117 (return) [ Cyprian, in his admired treatise De Unitate
      Ecclesiæ. p. 75—86]

      118 (return) [ We may appeal to the whole tenor of Cyprian’s
      conduct, of his doctrine, and of his epistles. Le Clerc, in a
      short life of Cyprian, (Bibliotheque Universelle, tom. xii. p.
      207—378,) has laid him open with great freedom and accuracy.]

      119 (return) [ If Novatus, Felicissimus, &c., whom the Bishop of
      Carthage expelled from his church, and from Africa, were not the
      most detestable monsters of wickedness, the zeal of Cyprian must
      occasionally have prevailed over his veracity. For a very just
      account of these obscure quarrels, see Mosheim, p. 497—512.]

      The same causes which at first had destroyed the equality of the
      presbyters introduced among the bishops a preeminence of rank,
      and from thence a superiority of jurisdiction. As often as in the
      spring and autumn they met in provincial synod, the difference of
      personal merit and reputation was very sensibly felt among the
      members of the assembly, and the multitude was governed by the
      wisdom and eloquence of the few. But the order of public
      proceedings required a more regular and less invidious
      distinction; the office of perpetual presidents in the councils
      of each province was conferred on the bishops of the principal
      city; and these aspiring prelates, who soon acquired the lofty
      titles of Metropolitans and Primates, secretly prepared
      themselves to usurp over their episcopal brethren the same
      authority which the bishops had so lately assumed above the
      college of presbyters. 120 Nor was it long before an emulation of
      preeminence and power prevailed among the Metropolitans
      themselves, each of them affecting to display, in the most
      pompous terms, the temporal honors and advantages of the city
      over which he presided; the numbers and opulence of the
      Christians who were subject to their pastoral care; the saints
      and martyrs who had arisen among them; and the purity with which
      they preserved the tradition of the faith, as it had been
      transmitted through a series of orthodox bishops from the apostle
      or the apostolic disciple, to whom the foundation of their church
      was ascribed. 121 From every cause, either of a civil or of an
      ecclesiastical nature, it was easy to foresee that Rome must
      enjoy the respect, and would soon claim the obedience, of the
      provinces. The society of the faithful bore a just proportion to
      the capital of the empire; and the Roman church was the greatest,
      the most numerous, and, in regard to the West, the most ancient
      of all the Christian establishments, many of which had received
      their religion from the pious labors of her missionaries. Instead
      of one apostolic founder, the utmost boast of Antioch, of
      Ephesus, or of Corinth, the banks of the Tyber were supposed to
      have been honored with the preaching and martyrdom of the two
      most eminent among the apostles; 122 and the bishops of Rome very
      prudently claimed the inheritance of whatsoever prerogatives were
      attributed either to the person or to the office of St. Peter.
      123 The bishops of Italy and of the provinces were disposed to
      allow them a primacy of order and association (such was their
      very accurate expression) in the Christian aristocracy. 124 But
      the power of a monarch was rejected with abhorrence, and the
      aspiring genius of Rome experienced from the nations of Asia and
      Africa a more vigorous resistance to her spiritual, than she had
      formerly done to her temporal, dominion. The patriotic Cyprian,
      who ruled with the most absolute sway the church of Carthage and
      the provincial synods, opposed with resolution and success the
      ambition of the Roman pontiff, artfully connected his own cause
      with that of the eastern bishops, and, like Hannibal, sought out
      new allies in the heart of Asia. 125 If this Punic war was
      carried on without any effusion of blood, it was owing much less
      to the moderation than to the weakness of the contending
      prelates. Invectives and excommunications were _their_ only
      weapons; and these, during the progress of the whole controversy,
      they hurled against each other with equal fury and devotion. The
      hard necessity of censuring either a pope, or a saint and martyr,
      distresses the modern Catholics whenever they are obliged to
      relate the particulars of a dispute in which the champions of
      religion indulged such passions as seem much more adapted to the
      senate or to the camp. 126

      120 (return) [ Mosheim, p. 269, 574. Dupin, Antiquæ Eccles.
      Disciplin. p. 19, 20.]

      121 (return) [ Tertullian, in a distinct treatise, has pleaded
      against the heretics the right of prescription, as it was held by
      the apostolic churches.]

      122 (return) [ The journey of St. Peter to Rome is mentioned by
      most of the ancients, (see Eusebius, ii. 25,) maintained by all
      the Catholics, allowed by some Protestants, (see Pearson and
      Dodwell de Success. Episcop. Roman,) but has been vigorously
      attacked by Spanheim, (Miscellanes Sacra, iii. 3.) According to
      Father Hardouin, the monks of the thirteenth century, who
      composed the Æneid, represented St. Peter under the allegorical
      character of the Trojan hero. * Note: It is quite clear that,
      strictly speaking, the church of Rome was not founded by either
      of these apostles. St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans proves
      undeniably the flourishing state of the church before his visit
      to the city; and many Roman Catholic writers have given up the
      impracticable task of reconciling with chronology any visit of
      St. Peter to Rome before the end of the reign of Claudius, or the
      beginning of that of Nero.—M.]

      123 (return) [ It is in French only that the famous allusion to
      St. Peter’s name is exact. Tu es Pierre, et sur cette pierre.—The
      same is imperfect in Greek, Latin, Italian, &c., and totally
      unintelligible in our Tentonic languages. * Note: It is exact in
      Syro-Chaldaic, the language in which it was spoken by Jesus
      Christ. (St. Matt. xvi. 17.) Peter was called Cephas; and cepha
      signifies base, foundation, rock—G.]

      124 (return) [ Irenæus adv. Hæreses, iii. 3. Tertullian de
      Præscription. c. 36, and Cyprian, Epistol. 27, 55, 71, 75. Le
      Clere (Hist. Eccles. p. 764) and Mosheim (p. 258, 578) labor in
      the interpretation of these passages. But the loose and
      rhetorical style of the fathers often appears favorable to the
      pretensions of Rome.]

      125 (return) [ See the sharp epistle from Firmilianus, bishop of
      Cæsarea, to Stephen, bishop of Rome, ap. Cyprian, Epistol. 75.]

      126 (return) [ Concerning this dispute of the rebaptism of
      heretics, see the epistles of Cyprian, and the seventh book of
      Eusebius.]

      The progress of the ecclesiastical authority gave birth to the
      memorable distinction of the laity and of the clergy, which had
      been unknown to the Greeks and Romans. 127 The former of these
      appellations comprehended the body of the Christian people; the
      latter, according to the signification of the word, was
      appropriated to the chosen portion that had been set apart for
      the service of religion; a celebrated order of men, which has
      furnished the most important, though not always the most
      edifying, subjects for modern history. Their mutual hostilities
      sometimes disturbed the peace of the infant church, but their
      zeal and activity were united in the common cause, and the love
      of power, which (under the most artful disguises) could insinuate
      itself into the breasts of bishops and martyrs, animated them to
      increase the number of their subjects, and to enlarge the limits
      of the Christian empire. They were destitute of any temporal
      force, and they were for a long time discouraged and oppressed,
      rather than assisted, by the civil magistrate; but they had
      acquired, and they employed within their own society, the two
      most efficacious instruments of government, rewards and
      punishments; the former derived from the pious liberality, the
      latter from the devout apprehensions, of the faithful.

      127 (return) [ For the origin of these words, see Mosheim, p.
      141. Spanheim, Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 633. The distinction of
      Clerus and Iaicus was established before the time of Tertullian.]




      Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part VII

      I. The community of goods, which had so agreeably amused the
      imagination of Plato, 128 and which subsisted in some degree
      among the austere sect of the Essenians, 129 was adopted for a
      short time in the primitive church. The fervor of the first
      proselytes prompted them to sell those worldly possessions, which
      they despised, to lay the price of them at the feet of the
      apostles, and to content themselves with receiving an equal share
      out of the general distribution. 130 The progress of the
      Christian religion relaxed, and gradually abolished, this
      generous institution, which, in hands less pure than those of the
      apostles, would too soon have been corrupted and abused by the
      returning selfishness of human nature; and the converts who
      embraced the new religion were permitted to retain the possession
      of their patrimony, to receive legacies and inheritances, and to
      increase their separate property by all the lawful means of trade
      and industry. Instead of an absolute sacrifice, a moderate
      proportion was accepted by the ministers of the gospel; and in
      their weekly or monthly assemblies, every believer, according to
      the exigency of the occasion, and the measure of his wealth and
      piety, presented his voluntary offering for the use of the common
      fund. 131 Nothing, however inconsiderable, was refused; but it
      was diligently inculcated that, in the article of Tithes, the
      Mosaic law was still of divine obligation; and that since the
      Jews, under a less perfect discipline, had been commanded to pay
      a tenth part of all that they possessed, it would become the
      disciples of Christ to distinguish themselves by a superior
      degree of liberality, 132 and to acquire some merit by resigning
      a superfluous treasure, which must so soon be annihilated with
      the world itself. 133 It is almost unnecessary to observe, that
      the revenue of each particular church, which was of so uncertain
      and fluctuating a nature, must have varied with the poverty or
      the opulence of the faithful, as they were dispersed in obscure
      villages, or collected in the great cities of the empire. In the
      time of the emperor Decius, it was the opinion of the
      magistrates, that the Christians of Rome were possessed of very
      considerable wealth; that vessels of gold and silver were used in
      their religious worship, and that many among their proselytes had
      sold their lands and houses to increase the public riches of the
      sect, at the expense, indeed, of their unfortunate children, who
      found themselves beggars, because their parents had been saints.
      134 We should listen with distrust to the suspicions of strangers
      and enemies: on this occasion, however, they receive a very
      specious and probable color from the two following circumstances,
      the only ones that have reached our knowledge, which define any
      precise sums, or convey any distinct idea. Almost at the same
      period, the bishop of Carthage, from a society less opulent than
      that of Rome, collected a hundred thousand sesterces, (above
      eight hundred and fifty pounds sterling,) on a sudden call of
      charity to redeem the brethren of Numidia, who had been carried
      away captives by the barbarians of the desert. 135 About a
      hundred years before the reign of Decius, the Roman church had
      received, in a single donation, the sum of two hundred thousand
      sesterces from a stranger of Pontus, who proposed to fix his
      residence in the capital. 136 These oblations, for the most part,
      were made in money; nor was the society of Christians either
      desirous or capable of acquiring, to any considerable degree, the
      encumbrance of landed property. It had been provided by several
      laws, which were enacted with the same design as our statutes of
      mortmain, that no real estates should be given or bequeathed to
      any corporate body, without either a special privilege or a
      particular dispensation from the emperor or from the senate; 137
      who were seldom disposed to grant them in favor of a sect, at
      first the object of their contempt, and at last of their fears
      and jealousy. A transaction, however, is related under the reign
      of Alexander Severus, which discovers that the restraint was
      sometimes eluded or suspended, and that the Christians were
      permitted to claim and to possess lands within the limits of Rome
      itself. 138 The progress of Christianity, and the civil confusion
      of the empire, contributed to relax the severity of the laws; and
      before the close of the third century many considerable estates
      were bestowed on the opulent churches of Rome, Milan, Carthage,
      Antioch, Alexandria, and the other great cities of Italy and the
      provinces.

      128 (return) [ The community instituted by Plato is more perfect
      than that which Sir Thomas More had imagined for his Utopia. The
      community of women, and that of temporal goods, may be considered
      as inseparable parts of the same system.]

      129 (return) [ Joseph. Antiquitat. xviii. 2. Philo, de Vit.
      Contemplativ.]

      130 (return) [ See the Acts of the Apostles, c. 2, 4, 5, with
      Grotius’s Commentary. Mosheim, in a particular dissertation,
      attacks the common opinion with very inconclusive arguments. *
      Note: This is not the general judgment on Mosheim’s learned
      dissertation. There is no trace in the latter part of the New
      Testament of this community of goods, and many distinct proofs of
      the contrary. All exhortations to almsgiving would have been
      unmeaning if property had been in common—M.]

      131 (return) [ Justin Martyr, Apolog. Major, c. 89. Tertullian,
      Apolog. c. 39.]

      132 (return) [ Irenæus ad Hæres. l. iv. c. 27, 34. Origen in Num.
      Hom. ii Cyprian de Unitat. Eccles. Constitut. Apostol. l. ii. c.
      34, 35, with the notes of Cotelerius. The Constitutions introduce
      this divine precept, by declaring that priests are as much above
      kings as the soul is above the body. Among the tithable articles,
      they enumerate corn, wine, oil, and wool. On this interesting
      subject, consult Prideaux’s History of Tithes, and Fra Paolo
      delle Materie Beneficiarie; two writers of a very different
      character.]

      133 (return) [ The same opinion which prevailed about the year
      one thousand, was productive of the same effects. Most of the
      Donations express their motive, “appropinquante mundi fine.” See
      Mosheim’s General History of the Church, vol. i. p. 457.]

      134 (return) [ Tum summa cura est fratribus (Ut sermo testatur
      loquax.) Offerre, fundis venditis Sestertiorum millia. Addicta
      avorum prædia Foedis sub auctionibus, Successor exheres gemit
      Sanctis egens Parentibus. Hæc occuluntur abditis Ecclesiarum in
      angulis. Et summa pietas creditur Nudare dulces
      liberos.——Prudent. Hymn 2. The subsequent conduct of the deacon
      Laurence only proves how proper a use was made of the wealth of
      the Roman church; it was undoubtedly very considerable; but Fra
      Paolo (c. 3) appears to exaggerate, when he supposes that the
      successors of Commodus were urged to persecute the Christians by
      their own avarice, or that of their Prætorian præfects.]

      135 (return) [ Cyprian, Epistol. 62.]

      136 (return) [ Tertullian de Præscriptione, c. 30.]

      137 (return) [ Diocletian gave a rescript, which is only a
      declaration of the old law; “Collegium, si nullo speciali
      privilegio subnixum sit, hæreditatem capere non posse, dubium non
      est.” Fra Paolo (c. 4) thinks that these regulations had been
      much neglected since the reign of Valerian.]

      138 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 131. The ground had been public;
      and was row disputed between the society of Christians and that
      of butchers. Note *: Carponarii, rather victuallers.—M.]

      The bishop was the natural steward of the church; the public
      stock was intrusted to his care without account or control; the
      presbyters were confined to their spiritual functions, and the
      more dependent order of the deacons was solely employed in the
      management and distribution of the ecclesiastical revenue. 139 If
      we may give credit to the vehement declamations of Cyprian, there
      were too many among his African brethren, who, in the execution
      of their charge, violated every precept, not only of evangelical
      perfection, but even of moral virtue. By some of these unfaithful
      stewards the riches of the church were lavished in sensual
      pleasures; by others they were perverted to the purposes of
      private gain, of fraudulent purchases, and of rapacious usury.
      140 But as long as the contributions of the Christian people were
      free and unconstrained, the abuse of their confidence could not
      be very frequent, and the general uses to which their liberality
      was applied reflected honor on the religious society. A decent
      portion was reserved for the maintenance of the bishop and his
      clergy; a sufficient sum was allotted for the expenses of the
      public worship, of which the feasts of love, the _agapæ_, as they
      were called, constituted a very pleasing part. The whole
      remainder was the sacred patrimony of the poor. According to the
      discretion of the bishop, it was distributed to support widows
      and orphans, the lame, the sick, and the aged of the community;
      to comfort strangers and pilgrims, and to alleviate the
      misfortunes of prisoners and captives, more especially when their
      sufferings had been occasioned by their firm attachment to the
      cause of religion. 141 A generous intercourse of charity united
      the most distant provinces, and the smaller congregations were
      cheerfully assisted by the alms of their more opulent brethren.
      142 Such an institution, which paid less regard to the merit than
      to the distress of the object, very materially conduced to the
      progress of Christianity. The Pagans, who were actuated by a
      sense of humanity, while they derided the doctrines, acknowledged
      the benevolence, of the new sect. 143 The prospect of immediate
      relief and of future protection allured into its hospitable bosom
      many of those unhappy persons whom the neglect of the world would
      have abandoned to the miseries of want, of sickness, and of old
      age. There is some reason likewise to believe that great numbers
      of infants, who, according to the inhuman practice of the times,
      had been exposed by their parents, were frequently rescued from
      death, baptized, educated, and maintained by the piety of the
      Christians, and at the expense of the public treasure. 144

      139 (return) [ Constitut. Apostol. ii. 35.]

      140 (return) [ Cyprian de Lapsis, p. 89. Epistol. 65. The charge
      is confirmed by the 19th and 20th canon of the council of
      Illiberis.]

      141 (return) [ See the apologies of Justin, Tertullian, &c.]

      142 (return) [ The wealth and liberality of the Romans to their
      most distant brethren is gratefully celebrated by Dionysius of
      Corinth, ap. Euseb. l. iv. c. 23.]

      143 (return) [ See Lucian iu Peregrin. Julian (Epist. 49) seems
      mortified that the Christian charity maintains not only their
      own, but likewise the heathen poor.]

      144 (return) [ Such, at least, has been the laudable conduct of
      more modern missionaries, under the same circumstances. Above
      three thousand new-born infants are annually exposed in the
      streets of Pekin. See Le Comte, Memoires sur la Chine, and the
      Recherches sur les Chinois et les Egyptians, tom. i. p. 61.]

      II. It is the undoubted right of every society to exclude from
      its communion and benefits such among its members as reject or
      violate those regulations which have been established by general
      consent. In the exercise of this power, the censures of the
      Christian church were chiefly directed against scandalous
      sinners, and particularly those who were guilty of murder, of
      fraud, or of incontinence; against the authors or the followers
      of any heretical opinions which had been condemned by the
      judgment of the episcopal order; and against those unhappy
      persons, who, whether from choice or compulsion, had polluted
      themselves after their baptism by any act of idolatrous worship.
      The consequences of excommunication were of a temporal as well as
      a spiritual nature. The Christian against whom it was pronounced
      was deprived of any part in the oblations of the faithful. The
      ties both of religious and of private friendship were dissolved:
      he found himself a profane object of abhorrence to the persons
      whom he the most esteemed, or by whom he had been the most
      tenderly beloved; and as far as an expulsion from a respectable
      society could imprint on his character a mark of disgrace, he was
      shunned or suspected by the generality of mankind. The situation
      of these unfortunate exiles was in itself very painful and
      melancholy; but, as it usually happens, their apprehensions far
      exceeded their sufferings. The benefits of the Christian
      communion were those of eternal life; nor could they erase from
      their minds the awful opinion, that to those ecclesiastical
      governors by whom they were condemned, the Deity had committed
      the keys of Hell and of Paradise. The heretics, indeed, who might
      be supported by the consciousness of their intentions, and by the
      flattering hope that they alone had discovered the true path of
      salvation, endeavored to regain, in their separate assemblies,
      those comforts, temporal as well as spiritual, which they no
      longer derived from the great society of Christians. But almost
      all those who had reluctantly yielded to the power of vice or
      idolatry were sensible of their fallen condition, and anxiously
      desirous of being restored to the benefits of the Christian
      communion.

      With regard to the treatment of these penitents, two opposite
      opinions, the one of justice, the other of mercy, divided the
      primitive church. The more rigid and inflexible casuists refused
      them forever, and without exception, the meanest place in the
      holy community, which they had disgraced or deserted; and leaving
      them to the remorse of a guilty conscience, indulged them only
      with a faint ray of hope that the contrition of their life and
      death might possibly be accepted by the Supreme Being. 145 A
      milder sentiment was embraced, in practice as well as in theory,
      by the purest and most respectable of the Christian churches. 146
      The gates of reconciliation and of heaven were seldom shut
      against the returning penitent; but a severe and solemn form of
      discipline was instituted, which, while it served to expiate his
      crime, might powerfully deter the spectators from the imitation
      of his example. Humbled by a public confession, emaciated by
      fasting and clothed in sackcloth, the penitent lay prostrate at
      the door of the assembly, imploring with tears the pardon of his
      offences, and soliciting the prayers of the faithful. 147 If the
      fault was of a very heinous nature, whole years of penance were
      esteemed an inadequate satisfaction to the divine justice; and it
      was always by slow and painful gradations that the sinner, the
      heretic, or the apostate, was readmitted into the bosom of the
      church. A sentence of perpetual excommunication was, however,
      reserved for some crimes of an extraordinary magnitude, and
      particularly for the inexcusable relapses of those penitents who
      had already experienced and abused the clemency of their
      ecclesiastical superiors. According to the circumstances or the
      number of the guilty, the exercise of the Christian discipline
      was varied by the discretion of the bishops. The councils of
      Ancyra and Illiberis were held about the same time, the one in
      Galatia, the other in Spain; but their respective canons, which
      are still extant, seem to breathe a very different spirit. The
      Galatian, who after his baptism had repeatedly sacrificed to
      idols, might obtain his pardon by a penance of seven years; and
      if he had seduced others to imitate his example, only three years
      more were added to the term of his exile. But the unhappy
      Spaniard, who had committed the same offence, was deprived of the
      hope of reconciliation, even in the article of death; and his
      idolatry was placed at the head of a list of seventeen other
      crimes, against which a sentence no less terrible was pronounced.
      Among these we may distinguish the inexpiable guilt of
      calumniating a bishop, a presbyter, or even a deacon. 148

      145 (return) [ The Montanists and the Novatians, who adhered to
      this opinion with the greatest rigor and obstinacy, found
      themselves at last in the number of excommunicated heretics. See
      the learned and copious Mosheim, Secul. ii. and iii.]

      146 (return) [ Dionysius ap. Euseb. iv. 23. Cyprian, de Lapsis.]

      147 (return) [ Cave’s Primitive Christianity, part iii. c. 5. The
      admirers of antiquity regret the loss of this public penance.]

      148 (return) [ See in Dupin, Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom.
      ii. p. 304—313, a short but rational exposition of the canons of
      those councils, which were assembled in the first moments of
      tranquillity, after the persecution of Diocletian. This
      persecution had been much less severely felt in Spain than in
      Galatia; a difference which may, in some measure account for the
      contrast of their regulations.]

      The well-tempered mixture of liberality and rigor, the judicious
      dispensation of rewards and punishments, according to the maxims
      of policy as well as justice, constituted the _human_ strength of
      the church. The Bishops, whose paternal care extended itself to
      the government of both worlds, were sensible of the importance of
      these prerogatives; and covering their ambition with the fair
      pretence of the love of order, they were jealous of any rival in
      the exercise of a discipline so necessary to prevent the
      desertion of those troops which had enlisted themselves under the
      banner of the cross, and whose numbers every day became more
      considerable. From the imperious declamations of Cyprian, we
      should naturally conclude that the doctrines of excommunication
      and penance formed the most essential part of religion; and that
      it was much less dangerous for the disciples of Christ to neglect
      the observance of the moral duties, than to despise the censures
      and authority of their bishops. Sometimes we might imagine that
      we were listening to the voice of Moses, when he commanded the
      earth to open, and to swallow up, in consuming flames, the
      rebellious race which refused obedience to the priesthood of
      Aaron; and we should sometimes suppose that we heard a Roman
      consul asserting the majesty of the republic, and declaring his
      inflexible resolution to enforce the rigor of the laws. “If such
      irregularities are suffered with impunity,” (it is thus that the
      bishop of Carthage chides the lenity of his colleague,) “if such
      irregularities are suffered, there is an end of EPISCOPAL VIGOR;
      149 an end of the sublime and divine power of governing the
      Church, an end of Christianity itself.” Cyprian had renounced
      those temporal honors which it is probable he would never have
      obtained; but the acquisition of such absolute command over the
      consciences and understanding of a congregation, however obscure
      or despised by the world, is more truly grateful to the pride of
      the human heart than the possession of the most despotic power,
      imposed by arms and conquest on a reluctant people.

      1491] (return) [ Gibbon has been accused of injustice to the
      character of Cyprian, as exalting the “censures and authority of
      the church above the observance of the moral duties.”
      Felicissimus had been condemned by a synod of bishops, (non
      tantum mea, sed plurimorum coepiscorum, sententia condemnatum,)
      on the charge not only of schism, but of embezzlement of public
      money, the debauching of virgins, and frequent acts of adultery.
      His violent menaces had extorted his readmission into the church,
      against which Cyprian protests with much vehemence: ne pecuniæ
      commissæ sibi fraudator, ne stuprator virginum, ne matrimoniorum
      multorum depopulator et corruptor, ultra adhuc sponsam Christi
      incorruptam præsentiæ suæ dedecore, et impudica atque incesta
      contagione, violaret. See Chelsum’s Remarks, p. 134. If these
      charges against Felicissimus were true, they were something more
      than “irregularities,” A Roman censor would have been a fairer
      subject of comparison than a consul. On the other hand, it must
      be admitted that the charge of adultery deepens very rapidly as
      the controversy becomes more violent. It is first represented as
      a single act, recently detected, and which men of character were
      prepared to substantiate: adulterii etiam crimen accedit. quod
      patres nostri graves viri deprehendisse se nuntiaverunt, et
      probaturos se asseverarunt. Epist. xxxviii. The heretic has now
      darkened into a man of notorious and general profligacy. Nor can
      it be denied that of the whole long epistle, very far the larger
      and the more passionate part dwells on the breach of
      ecclesiastical unity rather than on the violation of Christian
      holiness.—M.]

      149 (return) [ Cyprian Epist. 69.]

      1492 (return) [ This supposition appears unfounded: the birth and
      the talents of Cyprian might make us presume the contrary.
      Thascius Cæcilius Cyprianus, Carthaginensis, artis oratoriæ
      professione clarus, magnam sibi gloriam, opes, honores
      acquisivit, epularibus cænis et largis dapibus assuetus, pretiosa
      veste conspicuus, auro atque purpura fulgens, fascibus oblectatus
      et honoribus, stipatus clientium cuneis, frequentiore comitatu
      officii agminis honestatus, ut ipse de se loquitur in Epistola ad
      Donatum. See De Cave, Hist. Liter. b. i. p. 87.—G. Cave has
      rather embellished Cyprian’s language.—M.]

      In the course of this important, though perhaps tedious inquiry,
      I have attempted to display the secondary causes which so
      efficaciously assisted the truth of the Christian religion. If
      among these causes we have discovered any artificial ornaments,
      any accidental circumstances, or any mixture of error and
      passion, it cannot appear surprising that mankind should be the
      most sensibly affected by such motives as were suited to their
      imperfect nature. It was by the aid of these causes, exclusive
      zeal, the immediate expectation of another world, the claim of
      miracles, the practice of rigid virtue, and the constitution of
      the primitive church, that Christianity spread itself with so
      much success in the Roman empire. To the first of these the
      Christians were indebted for their invincible valor, which
      disdained to capitulate with the enemy whom they were resolved to
      vanquish. The three succeeding causes supplied their valor with
      the most formidable arms. The last of these causes united their
      courage, directed their arms, and gave their efforts that
      irresistible weight, which even a small band of well-trained and
      intrepid volunteers has so often possessed over an undisciplined
      multitude, ignorant of the subject and careless of the event of
      the war. In the various religions of Polytheism, some wandering
      fanatics of Egypt and Syria, who addressed themselves to the
      credulous superstition of the populace, were perhaps the only
      order of priests 150 that derived their whole support and credit
      from their sacerdotal profession, and were very deeply affected
      by a personal concern for the safety or prosperity of their
      tutelar deities. The ministers of Polytheism, both in Rome and in
      the provinces, were, for the most part, men of a noble birth, and
      of an affluent fortune, who received, as an honorable
      distinction, the care of a celebrated temple, or of a public
      sacrifice, exhibited, very frequently at their own expense, the
      sacred games, 151 and with cold indifference performed the
      ancient rites, according to the laws and fashion of their
      country. As they were engaged in the ordinary occupations of
      life, their zeal and devotion were seldom animated by a sense of
      interest, or by the habits of an ecclesiastical character.
      Confined to their respective temples and cities, they remained
      without any connection of discipline or government; and whilst
      they acknowledged the supreme jurisdiction of the senate, of the
      college of pontiffs, and of the emperor, those civil magistrates
      contented themselves with the easy task of maintaining in peace
      and dignity the general worship of mankind. We have already seen
      how various, how loose, and how uncertain were the religious
      sentiments of Polytheists. They were abandoned, almost without
      control, to the natural workings of a superstitious fancy. The
      accidental circumstances of their life and situation determined
      the object as well as the degree of their devotion; and as long
      as their adoration was successively prostituted to a thousand
      deities, it was scarcely possible that their hearts could be
      susceptible of a very sincere or lively passion for any of them.

      150 (return) [ The arts, the manners, and the vices of the
      priests of the Syrian goddess are very humorously described by
      Apuleius, in the eighth book of his Metamorphosis.]

      151 (return) [ The office of Asiarch was of this nature, and it
      is frequently mentioned in Aristides, the Inscriptions, &c. It
      was annual and elective. None but the vainest citizens could
      desire the honor; none but the most wealthy could support the
      expense. See, in the Patres Apostol. tom. ii. p. 200, with how
      much indifference Philip the Asiarch conducted himself in the
      martyrdom of Polycarp. There were likewise Bithyniarchs,
      Lyciarchs, &c.]

      When Christianity appeared in the world, even these faint and
      imperfect impressions had lost much of their original power.
      Human reason, which by its unassisted strength is incapable of
      perceiving the mysteries of faith, had already obtained an easy
      triumph over the folly of Paganism; and when Tertullian or
      Lactantius employ their labors in exposing its falsehood and
      extravagance, they are obliged to transcribe the eloquence of
      Cicero or the wit of Lucian. The contagion of these sceptical
      writings had been diffused far beyond the number of their
      readers. The fashion of incredulity was communicated from the
      philosopher to the man of pleasure or business, from the noble to
      the plebeian, and from the master to the menial slave who waited
      at his table, and who eagerly listened to the freedom of his
      conversation. On public occasions the philosophic part of mankind
      affected to treat with respect and decency the religious
      institutions of their country; but their secret contempt
      penetrated through the thin and awkward disguise; and even the
      people, when they discovered that their deities were rejected and
      derided by those whose rank or understanding they were accustomed
      to reverence, were filled with doubts and apprehensions
      concerning the truth of those doctrines, to which they had
      yielded the most implicit belief. The decline of ancient
      prejudice exposed a very numerous portion of human kind to the
      danger of a painful and comfortless situation. A state of
      scepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But
      the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude,
      that if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of
      their pleasing vision. Their love of the marvellous and
      supernatural, their curiosity with regard to future events, and
      their strong propensity to extend their hopes and fears beyond
      the limits of the visible world, were the principal causes which
      favored the establishment of Polytheism. So urgent on the vulgar
      is the necessity of believing, that the fall of any system of
      mythology will most probably be succeeded by the introduction of
      some other mode of superstition. Some deities of a more recent
      and fashionable cast might soon have occupied the deserted
      temples of Jupiter and Apollo, if, in the decisive moment, the
      wisdom of Providence had not interposed a genuine revelation,
      fitted to inspire the most rational esteem and conviction,
      whilst, at the same time, it was adorned with all that could
      attract the curiosity, the wonder, and the veneration of the
      people. In their actual disposition, as many were almost
      disengaged from their artificial prejudices, but equally
      susceptible and desirous of a devout attachment; an object much
      less deserving would have been sufficient to fill the vacant
      place in their hearts, and to gratify the uncertain eagerness of
      their passions. Those who are inclined to pursue this reflection,
      instead of viewing with astonishment the rapid progress of
      Christianity, will perhaps be surprised that its success was not
      still more rapid and still more universal. It has been observed,
      with truth as well as propriety, that the conquests of Rome
      prepared and facilitated those of Christianity. In the second
      chapter of this work we have attempted to explain in what manner
      the most civilized provinces of Europe, Asia, and Africa were
      united under the dominion of one sovereign, and gradually
      connected by the most intimate ties of laws, of manners, and of
      language. The Jews of Palestine, who had fondly expected a
      temporal deliverer, gave so cold a reception to the miracles of
      the divine prophet, that it was found unnecessary to publish, or
      at least to preserve, any Hebrew gospel. 152 The authentic
      histories of the actions of Christ were composed in the Greek
      language, at a considerable distance from Jerusalem, and after
      the Gentile converts were grown extremely numerous. 153 As soon
      as those histories were translated into the Latin tongue, they
      were perfectly intelligible to all the subjects of Rome,
      excepting only to the peasants of Syria and Egypt, for whose
      benefit particular versions were afterwards made. The public
      highways, which had been constructed for the use of the legions,
      opened an easy passage for the Christian missionaries from
      Damascus to Corinth, and from Italy to the extremity of Spain or
      Britain; nor did those spiritual conquerors encounter any of the
      obstacles which usually retard or prevent the introduction of a
      foreign religion into a distant country. There is the strongest
      reason to believe, that before the reigns of Diocletian and
      Constantine, the faith of Christ had been preached in every
      province, and in all the great cities of the empire; but the
      foundation of the several congregations, the numbers of the
      faithful who composed them, and their proportion to the
      unbelieving multitude, are now buried in obscurity, or disguised
      by fiction and declamation. Such imperfect circumstances,
      however, as have reached our knowledge concerning the increase of
      the Christian name in Asia and Greece, in Egypt, in Italy, and in
      the West, we shall now proceed to relate, without neglecting the
      real or imaginary acquisitions which lay beyond the frontiers of
      the Roman empire.

      152 (return) [ The modern critics are not disposed to believe
      what the fathers almost unanimously assert, that St. Matthew
      composed a Hebrew gospel, of which only the Greek translation is
      extant. It seems, however, dangerous to reject their testimony. *
      Note: Strong reasons appear to confirm this testimony. Papias,
      contemporary of the Apostle St. John, says positively that
      Matthew had written the discourses of Jesus Christ in Hebrew, and
      that each interpreted them as he could. This Hebrew was the
      Syro-Chaldaic dialect, then in use at Jerusalem: Origen, Irenæus,
      Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius, confirm this statement. Jesus
      Christ preached himself in Syro-Chaldaic, as is proved by many
      words which he used, and which the Evangelists have taken the
      pains to translate. St. Paul, addressing the Jews, used the same
      language: Acts xxi. 40, xxii. 2, xxvi. 14. The opinions of some
      critics prove nothing against such undeniable testimonies.
      Moreover, their principal objection is, that St. Matthew quotes
      the Old Testament according to the Greek version of the LXX.,
      which is inaccurate; for of ten quotations, found in his Gospel,
      seven are evidently taken from the Hebrew text; the threo others
      offer little that differ: moreover, the latter are not literal
      quotations. St. Jerome says positively, that, according to a copy
      which he had seen in the library of Cæsarea, the quotations were
      made in Hebrew (in Catal.) More modern critics, among others
      Michaelis, do not entertain a doubt on the subject. The Greek
      version appears to have been made in the time of the apostles, as
      St. Jerome and St. Augustus affirm, perhaps by one of them.—G.
      ——Among modern critics, Dr. Hug has asserted the Greek original
      of St. Matthew, but the general opinion of the most learned
      biblical writer, supports the view of M. Guizot.—M.]

      153 (return) [ Under the reigns of Nero and Domitian, and in the
      cities of Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, and Ephesus. See Mill.
      Prolegomena ad Nov. Testament, and Dr. Lardner’s fair and
      extensive collection, vol. xv. Note: This question has, it is
      well known, been most elaborately discussed since the time of
      Gibbon. The Preface to the Translation of Schleier Macher’s
      Version of St. Luke contains a very able summary of the various
      theories.—M.]




      Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part VIII.

      The rich provinces that extend from the Euphrates to the Ionian
      Sea were the principal theatre on which the apostle of the
      Gentiles displayed his zeal and piety. The seeds of the gospel,
      which he had scattered in a fertile soil, were diligently
      cultivated by his disciples; and it should seem that, during the
      two first centuries, the most considerable body of Christians was
      contained within those limits. Among the societies which were
      instituted in Syria, none were more ancient or more illustrious
      than those of Damascus, of Berea or Aleppo, and of Antioch. The
      prophetic introduction of the Apocalypse has described and
      immortalized the seven churches of Asia; Ephesus, Smyrna,
      Pergamus, Thyatira, 154 Sardes, Laodicea, and Philadelphia; and
      their colonies were soon diffused over that populous country. In
      a very early period, the islands of Cyprus and Crete, the
      provinces of Thrace and Macedonia, gave a favorable reception to
      the new religion; and Christian republics were soon founded in
      the cities of Corinth, of Sparta, and of Athens. 155 The
      antiquity of the Greek and Asiatic churches allowed a sufficient
      space of time for their increase and multiplication; and even the
      swarms of Gnostics and other heretics serve to display the
      flourishing condition of the orthodox church, since the
      appellation of heretics has always been applied to the less
      numerous party. To these domestic testimonies we may add the
      confession, the complaints, and the apprehensions of the Gentiles
      themselves. From the writings of Lucian, a philosopher who had
      studied mankind, and who describes their manners in the most
      lively colors, we may learn that, under the reign of Commodus,
      his native country of Pontus was filled with Epicureans and
      _Christians_. 156 Within fourscore years after the death of
      Christ, 157 the humane Pliny laments the magnitude of the evil
      which he vainly attempted to eradicate. In his very curious
      epistle to the emperor Trajan, he affirms that the temples were
      almost deserted, that the sacred victims scarcely found any
      purchasers, and that the superstition had not only infected the
      cities, but had even spread itself into the villages and the open
      country of Pontus and Bithynia. 158

      154 (return) [ The Alogians (Epiphanius de Hæres. 51) disputed
      the genuineness of the Apocalypse, because the church of Thyatira
      was not yet founded. Epiphanius, who allows the fact, extricates
      himself from the difficulty by ingeniously supposing that St.
      John wrote in the spirit of prophecy. See Abauzit, Discours sur
      l’Apocalypse.]

      155 (return) [ The epistles of Ignatius and Dionysius (ap. Euseb.
      iv. 23) point out many churches in Asia and Greece. That of
      Athens seems to have been one of the least flourishing.]

      156 (return) [ Lucian in Alexandro, c. 25. Christianity however,
      must have been very unequally diffused over Pontus; since, in the
      middle of the third century, there was no more than seventeen
      believers in the extensive diocese of Neo-Cæsarea. See M. de
      Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiast. tom. iv. p. 675, from Basil and
      Gregory of Nyssa, who were themselves natives of Cappadocia.
      Note: Gibbon forgot the conclusion of this story, that Gregory
      left only seventeen heathens in his diocese. The antithesis is
      suspicious, and both numbers may have been chosen to magnify the
      spiritual fame of the wonder-worker.—M.]

      157 (return) [ According to the ancients, Jesus Christ suffered
      under the consulship of the two Gemini, in the year 29 of our
      present æra. Pliny was sent into Bithynia (according to Pagi) in
      the year 110.]

      158 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 97.]

      Without descending into a minute scrutiny of the expressions or
      of the motives of those writers who either celebrate or lament
      the progress of Christianity in the East, it may in general be
      observed that none of them have left us any grounds from whence a
      just estimate might be formed of the real numbers of the faithful
      in those provinces. One circumstance, however, has been
      fortunately preserved, which seems to cast a more distinct light
      on this obscure but interesting subject. Under the reign of
      Theodosius, after Christianity had enjoyed, during more than
      sixty years, the sunshine of Imperial favor, the ancient and
      illustrious church of Antioch consisted of one hundred thousand
      persons, three thousand of whom were supported out of the public
      oblations. 159 The splendor and dignity of the queen of the East,
      the acknowledged populousness of Cæsarea, Seleucia, and
      Alexandria, and the destruction of two hundred and fifty thousand
      souls in the earthquake which afflicted Antioch under the elder
      Justin, 160 are so many convincing proofs that the whole number
      of its inhabitants was not less than half a million, and that the
      Christians, however multiplied by zeal and power, did not exceed
      a fifth part of that great city. How different a proportion must
      we adopt when we compare the persecuted with the triumphant
      church, the West with the East, remote villages with populous
      towns, and countries recently converted to the faith with the
      place where the believers first received the appellation of
      Christians! It must not, however, be dissembled, that, in another
      passage, Chrysostom, to whom we are indebted for this useful
      information, computes the multitude of the faithful as even
      superior to that of the Jews and Pagans. 161 But the solution of
      this apparent difficulty is easy and obvious. The eloquent
      preacher draws a parallel between the civil and the
      ecclesiastical constitution of Antioch; between the list of
      Christians who had acquired heaven by baptism, and the list of
      citizens who had a right to share the public liberality. Slaves,
      strangers, and infants were comprised in the former; they were
      excluded from the latter.

      159 (return) [ Chrysostom. Opera, tom. vii. p. 658, 810, (edit.
      Savil. ii. 422, 329.)]

      160 (return) [ John Malala, tom. ii. p. 144. He draws the same
      conclusion with regard to the populousness of antioch.]

      161 (return) [ Chrysostom. tom. i. p. 592. I am indebted for
      these passages, though not for my inference, to the learned Dr.
      Lardner. Credibility of the Gospel of History, vol. xii. p. 370.
      * Note: The statements of Chrysostom with regard to the
      population of Antioch, whatever may be their accuracy, are
      perfectly consistent. In one passage he reckons the population at
      200,000. In a second the Christians at 100,000. In a third he
      states that the Christians formed more than half the population.
      Gibbon has neglected to notice the first passage, and has drawn
      by estimate of the population of Antioch from other sources. The
      8000 maintained by alms were widows and virgins alone—M.]

      The extensive commerce of Alexandria, and its proximity to
      Palestine, gave an easy entrance to the new religion. It was at
      first embraced by great numbers of the Theraputæ, or Essenians,
      of the Lake Mareotis, a Jewish sect which had abated much of its
      reverence for the Mosaic ceremonies. The austere life of the
      Essenians, their fasts and excommunications, the community of
      goods, the love of celibacy, their zeal for martyrdom, and the
      warmth though not the purity of their faith, already offered a
      very lively image of the primitive discipline. 162 It was in the
      school of Alexandria that the Christian theology appears to have
      assumed a regular and scientific form; and when Hadrian visited
      Egypt, he found a church composed of Jews and of Greeks,
      sufficiently important to attract the notice of that inquisitive
      prince. 163 But the progress of Christianity was for a long time
      confined within the limits of a single city, which was itself a
      foreign colony, and till the close of the second century the
      predecessors of Demetrius were the only prelates of the Egyptian
      church. Three bishops were consecrated by the hands of Demetrius,
      and the number was increased to twenty by his successor Heraclas.
      164 The body of the natives, a people distinguished by a sullen
      inflexibility of temper, 165 entertained the new doctrine with
      coldness and reluctance; and even in the time of Origen, it was
      rare to meet with an Egyptian who had surmounted his early
      prejudices in favor of the sacred animals of his country. 166 As
      soon, indeed, as Christianity ascended the throne, the zeal of
      those barbarians obeyed the prevailing impulsion; the cities of
      Egypt were filled with bishops, and the deserts of Thebais
      swarmed with hermits.

      162 (return) [ Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. 2, c. 20, 21, 22,
      23, has examined with the most critical accuracy the curious
      treatise of Philo, which describes the Therapeutæ. By proving
      that it was composed as early as the time of Augustus, Basnage
      has demonstrated, in spite of Eusebius (l. ii. c. 17) and a crowd
      of modern Catholics, that the Therapeutæ were neither Christians
      nor monks. It still remains probable that they changed their
      name, preserved their manners, adopted some new articles of
      faith, and gradually became the fathers of the Egyptian
      Ascetics.]

      163 (return) [ See a letter of Hadrian in the Augustan History,
      p. 245.]

      164 (return) [ For the succession of Alexandrian bishops, consult
      Renaudot’s History, p. 24, &c. This curious fact is preserved by
      the patriarch Eutychius, (Annal. tom. i. p. 334, Vers. Pocock,)
      and its internal evidence would alone be a sufficient answer to
      all the objections which Bishop Pearson has urged in the Vindiciæ
      Ignatianæ.]

      165 (return) [ Ammian. Marcellin. xxii. 16.]

      166 (return) [ Origen contra Celsum, l. i. p. 40.]

      A perpetual stream of strangers and provincials flowed into the
      capacious bosom of Rome. Whatever was strange or odious, whoever
      was guilty or suspected, might hope, in the obscurity of that
      immense capital, to elude the vigilance of the law. In such a
      various conflux of nations, every teacher, either of truth or
      falsehood, every founder, whether of a virtuous or a criminal
      association, might easily multiply his disciples or accomplices.
      The Christians of Rome, at the time of the accidental persecution
      of Nero, are represented by Tacitus as already amounting to a
      very great multitude, 167 and the language of that great
      historian is almost similar to the style employed by Livy, when
      he relates the introduction and the suppression of the rites of
      Bacchus. After the Bacchanals had awakened the severity of the
      senate, it was likewise apprehended that a very great multitude,
      as it were _another people_, had been initiated into those
      abhorred mysteries. A more careful inquiry soon demonstrated that
      the offenders did not exceed seven thousand; a number indeed
      sufficiently alarming, when considered as the object of public
      justice. 168 It is with the same candid allowance that we should
      interpret the vague expressions of Tacitus, and in a former
      instance of Pliny, when they exaggerate the crowds of deluded
      fanatics who had forsaken the established worship of the gods.
      The church of Rome was undoubtedly the first and most populous of
      the empire; and we are possessed of an authentic record which
      attests the state of religion in that city about the middle of
      the third century, and after a peace of thirty-eight years. The
      clergy, at that time, consisted of a bishop, forty-six
      presbyters, seven deacons, as many sub-deacons, forty-two
      acolytes, and fifty readers, exorcists, and porters. The number
      of widows, of the infirm, and of the poor, who were maintained by
      the oblations of the faithful, amounted to fifteen hundred. 169
      From reason, as well as from the analogy of Antioch, we may
      venture to estimate the Christians of Rome at about fifty
      thousand. The populousness of that great capital cannot perhaps
      be exactly ascertained; but the most modest calculation will not
      surely reduce it lower than a million of inhabitants, of whom the
      Christians might constitute at the most a twentieth part. 170

      167 (return) [ Ingens multitudo is the expression of Tacitus, xv.
      44.]

      168 (return) [ T. Liv. xxxix. 13, 15, 16, 17. Nothing could
      exceed the horror and consternation of the senate on the
      discovery of the Bacchanalians, whose depravity is described, and
      perhaps exaggerated, by Livy.]

      169 (return) [ Eusebius, l. vi. c. 43. The Latin translator (M.
      de Valois) has thought proper to reduce the number of presbyters
      to forty-four.]

      170 (return) [ This proportion of the presbyters and of the poor,
      to the rest of the people, was originally fixed by Burnet,
      (Travels into Italy, p. 168,) and is approved by Moyle, (vol. ii.
      p. 151.) They were both unacquainted with the passage of
      Chrysostom, which converts their conjecture almost into a fact.]

      The western provincials appeared to have derived the knowledge of
      Christianity from the same source which had diffused among them
      the language, the sentiments, and the manners of Rome.

      In this more important circumstance, Africa, as well as Gaul was
      gradually fashioned to the imitation of the capital. Yet
      notwithstanding the many favorable occasions which might invite
      the Roman missionaries to visit their Latin provinces, it was
      late before they passed either the sea or the Alps; 171 nor can
      we discover in those great countries any assured traces either of
      faith or of persecution that ascend higher than the reign of the
      Antonines. 172 The slow progress of the gospel in the cold
      climate of Gaul, was extremely different from the eagerness with
      which it seems to have been received on the burning sands of
      Africa. The African Christians soon formed one of the principal
      members of the primitive church. The practice introduced into
      that province of appointing bishops to the most inconsiderable
      towns, and very frequently to the most obscure villages,
      contributed to multiply the splendor and importance of their
      religious societies, which during the course of the third century
      were animated by the zeal of Tertullian, directed by the
      abilities of Cyprian, and adorned by the eloquence of Lactantius.

      But if, on the contrary, we turn our eyes towards Gaul, we must
      content ourselves with discovering, in the time of Marcus
      Antoninus, the feeble and united congregations of Lyons and
      Vienna; and even as late as the reign of Decius we are assured,
      that in a few cities only, Arles, Narbonne, Thoulouse, Limoges,
      Clermont, Tours, and Paris, some scattered churches were
      supported by the devotion of a small number of Christians. 173
      Silence is indeed very consistent with devotion; but as it is
      seldom compatible with zeal, we may perceive and lament the
      languid state of Christianity in those provinces which had
      exchanged the Celtic for the Latin tongue, since they did not,
      during the three first centuries, give birth to a single
      ecclesiastical writer. From Gaul, which claimed a just
      preeminence of learning and authority over all the countries on
      this side of the Alps, the light of the gospel was more faintly
      reflected on the remote provinces of Spain and Britain; and if we
      may credit the vehement assertions of Tertullian, they had
      already received the first rays of the faith, when he addressed
      his apology to the magistrates of the emperor Severus. 174 But
      the obscure and imperfect origin of the western churches of
      Europe has been so negligently recorded, that if we would relate
      the time and manner of their foundation, we must supply the
      silence of antiquity by those legends which avarice or
      superstition long afterwards dictated to the monks in the lazy
      gloom of their convents. 175 Of these holy romances, that of the
      apostle St. James can alone, by its singular extravagance,
      deserve to be mentioned. From a peaceful fisherman of the Lake of
      Gennesareth, he was transformed into a valorous knight, who
      charged at the head of the Spanish chivalry in their battles
      against the Moors. The gravest historians have celebrated his
      exploits; the miraculous shrine of Compostella displayed his
      power; and the sword of a military order, assisted by the terrors
      of the Inquisition, was sufficient to remove every objection of
      profane criticism. 176

      171 (return) [ Serius trans Alpes, religione Dei suscepta.
      Sulpicius Severus, l. ii. With regard to Africa, see Tertullian
      ad Scapulam, c. 3. It is imagined that the Scyllitan martyrs were
      the first, (Acta Sincera Rumart. p. 34.) One of the adversaries
      of Apuleius seems to have been a Christian. Apolog. p. 496, 497,
      edit. Delphin.]

      172 (return) [ Tum primum intra Gallias martyria visa. Sulp.
      Severus, l. ii. These were the celebrated martyrs of Lyons. See
      Eusebius, v. i. Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast. tom. ii. p. 316.
      According to the Donatists, whose assertion is confirmed by the
      tacit acknowledgment of Augustin, Africa was the last of the
      provinces which received the gospel. Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast.
      tom. i. p. 754.]

      173 (return) [ Raræ in aliquibus civitatibus ecclesiæ, paucorum
      Christianorum devotione, resurgerent. Acta Sincera, p. 130.
      Gregory of Tours, l i. c. 28. Mosheim, p. 207, 449. There is some
      reason to believe that in the beginning of the fourth century,
      the extensive dioceses of Liege, of Treves, and of Cologne,
      composed a single bishopric, which had been very recently
      founded. See Memoires de Tillemont, tom vi. part i. p. 43, 411.]

      174 (return) [ The date of Tertullian’s Apology is fixed, in a
      dissertation of Mosheim, to the year 198.]

      175 (return) [ In the fifteenth century, there were few who had
      either inclination or courage to question, whether Joseph of
      Arimathea founded the monastery of Glastonbury, and whether
      Dionysius the Areopagite preferred the residence of Paris to that
      of Athens.]

      176 (return) [ The stupendous metamorphosis was performed in the
      ninth century. See Mariana, (Hist. Hispan. l. vii. c. 13, tom. i.
      p. 285, edit. Hag. Com. 1733,) who, in every sense, imitates
      Livy, and the honest detection of the legend of St. James by Dr.
      Geddes, Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 221.]

      The progress of Christianity was not confined to the Roman
      empire; and according to the primitive fathers, who interpret
      facts by prophecy, the new religion, within a century after the
      death of its divine Author, had already visited every part of the
      globe. “There exists not,” says Justin Martyr, “a people, whether
      Greek or Barbarian, or any other race of men, by whatsoever
      appellation or manners they may be distinguished, however
      ignorant of arts or agriculture, whether they dwell under tents,
      or wander about in covered wagons, among whom prayers are not
      offered up in the name of a crucified Jesus to the Father and
      Creator of all things.” 177 But this splendid exaggeration, which
      even at present it would be extremely difficult to reconcile with
      the real state of mankind, can be considered only as the rash
      sally of a devout but careless writer, the measure of whose
      belief was regulated by that of his wishes. But neither the
      belief nor the wishes of the fathers can alter the truth of
      history. It will still remain an undoubted fact, that the
      barbarians of Scythia and Germany, who afterwards subverted the
      Roman monarchy, were involved in the darkness of paganism; and
      that even the conversion of Iberia, of Armenia, or of Æthiopia,
      was not attempted with any degree of success till the sceptre was
      in the hands of an orthodox emperor. 178 Before that time, the
      various accidents of war and commerce might indeed diffuse an
      imperfect knowledge of the gospel among the tribes of Caledonia,
      179 and among the borderers of the Rhine, the Danube, and the
      Euphrates. 180 Beyond the last-mentioned river, Edessa was
      distinguished by a firm and early adherence to the faith. 181
      From Edessa the principles of Christianity were easily introduced
      into the Greek and Syrian cities which obeyed the successors of
      Artaxerxes; but they do not appear to have made any deep
      impression on the minds of the Persians, whose religious system,
      by the labors of a well-disciplined order of priests, had been
      constructed with much more art and solidity than the uncertain
      mythology of Greece and Rome. 182

      177 (return) [ Justin Martyr, Dialog. cum Tryphon. p. 341.
      Irenæus adv. Hæres. l. i. c. 10. Tertullian adv. Jud. c. 7. See
      Mosheim, p. 203.]

      178 (return) [ See the fourth century of Mosheim’s History of the
      Church. Many, though very confused circumstances, that relate to
      the conversion of Iberia and Armenia, may be found in Moses of
      Chorene, l. ii. c. 78—89. Note: Mons. St. Martin has shown that
      Armenia was the first nation that embraced Christianity. Memoires
      sur l’Armenie, vol. i. p. 306, and notes to Le Beæ. Gibbon,
      indeed had expressed his intention of withdrawing the words “of
      Armenia” from the text of future editions. (Vindication, Works,
      iv. 577.) He was bitterly taunted by Person for neglecting or
      declining to fulfil his promise. Preface to Letters to
      Travis.—M.]

      179 (return) [ According to Tertullian, the Christian faith had
      penetrated into parts of Britain inaccessible to the Roman arms.
      About a century afterwards, Ossian, the son of Fingal, is said to
      have disputed, in his extreme old age, with one of the foreign
      missionaries, and the dispute is still extant, in verse, and in
      the Erse language. See Mr. Macpher son’s Dissertation on the
      Antiquity of Ossian’s Poems, p. 10.]

      180 (return) [ The Goths, who ravaged Asia in the reign of
      Gallienus, carried away great numbers of captives; some of whom
      were Christians, and became missionaries. See Tillemont, Memoires
      Ecclesiast. tom. iv. p. 44.]

      181 (return) [ The legends of Abgarus, fabulous as it is, affords
      a decisive proof, that many years before Eusebius wrote his
      history, the greatest part of the inhabitants of Edessa had
      embraced Christianity. Their rivals, the citizens of Carrhæ,
      adhered, on the contrary, to the cause of Paganism, as late as
      the sixth century.]

      182 (return) [ According to Bardesanes (ap. Euseb. Præpar.
      Evangel.) there were some Christians in Persia before the end of
      the second century. In the time of Constantine (see his epistle
      to Sapor, Vit. l. iv. c. 13) they composed a flourishing church.
      Consult Beausobre, Hist. Cristique du Manicheisme, tom. i. p.
      180, and the Bibliotheca Orietalis of Assemani.]




      Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part IX.

      From this impartial though imperfect survey of the progress of
      Christianity, it may perhaps seem probable, that the number of
      its proselytes has been excessively magnified by fear on the one
      side, and by devotion on the other. According to the
      irreproachable testimony of Origen, 183 the proportion of the
      faithful was very inconsiderable, when compared with the
      multitude of an unbelieving world; but, as we are left without
      any distinct information, it is impossible to determine, and it
      is difficult even to conjecture, the real numbers of the
      primitive Christians. The most favorable calculation, however,
      that can be deduced from the examples of Antioch and of Rome,
      will not permit us to imagine that more than a twentieth part of
      the subjects of the empire had enlisted themselves under the
      banner of the cross before the important conversion of
      Constantine. But their habits of faith, of zeal, and of union,
      seemed to multiply their numbers; and the same causes which
      contributed to their future increase, served to render their
      actual strength more apparent and more formidable.

      183 (return) [Origen contra Celsum, l. viii. p. 424.]

      Such is the constitution of civil society, that, whilst a few
      persons are distinguished by riches, by honors, and by knowledge,
      the body of the people is condemned to obscurity, ignorance and
      poverty. The Christian religion, which addressed itself to the
      whole human race, must consequently collect a far greater number
      of proselytes from the lower than from the superior ranks of
      life. This innocent and natural circumstance has been improved
      into a very odious imputation, which seems to be less strenuously
      denied by the apologists, than it is urged by the adversaries, of
      the faith; that the new sect of Christians was almost entirely
      composed of the dregs of the populace, of peasants and mechanics,
      of boys and women, of beggars and slaves, the last of whom might
      sometimes introduce the missionaries into the rich and noble
      families to which they belonged. These obscure teachers (such was
      the charge of malice and infidelity) are as mute in public as
      they are loquacious and dogmatical in private. Whilst they
      cautiously avoid the dangerous encounter of philosophers, they
      mingle with the rude and illiterate crowd, and insinuate
      themselves into those minds whom their age, their sex, or their
      education, has the best disposed to receive the impression of
      superstitious terrors. 184

      184 (return) [ Minucius Felix, c. 8, with Wowerus’s notes. Celsus
      ap. Origen, l. iii. p. 138, 142. Julian ap. Cyril. l. vi. p. 206,
      edit. Spanheim.]

      This unfavorable picture, though not devoid of a faint
      resemblance, betrays, by its dark coloring and distorted
      features, the pencil of an enemy. As the humble faith of Christ
      diffused itself through the world, it was embraced by several
      persons who derived some consequence from the advantages of
      nature or fortune. Aristides, who presented an eloquent apology
      to the emperor Hadrian, was an Athenian philosopher. 185 Justin
      Martyr had sought divine knowledge in the schools of Zeno, of
      Aristotle, of Pythagoras, and of Plato, before he fortunately was
      accosted by the old man, or rather the angel, who turned his
      attention to the study of the Jewish prophets. 186 Clemens of
      Alexandria had acquired much various reading in the Greek, and
      Tertullian in the Latin, language. Julius Africanus and Origen
      possessed a very considerable share of the learning of their
      times; and although the style of Cyprian is very different from
      that of Lactantius, we might almost discover that both those
      writers had been public teachers of rhetoric. Even the study of
      philosophy was at length introduced among the Christians, but it
      was not always productive of the most salutary effects; knowledge
      was as often the parent of heresy as of devotion, and the
      description which was designed for the followers of Artemon, may,
      with equal propriety, be applied to the various sects that
      resisted the successors of the apostles. “They presume to alter
      the Holy Scriptures, to abandon the ancient rule of faith, and to
      form their opinions according to the subtile precepts of logic.
      The science of the church is neglected for the study of geometry,
      and they lose sight of heaven while they are employed in
      measuring the earth. Euclid is perpetually in their hands.
      Aristotle and Theophrastus are the objects of their admiration;
      and they express an uncommon reverence for the works of Galen.
      Their errors are derived from the abuse of the arts and sciences
      of the infidels, and they corrupt the simplicity of the gospel by
      the refinements of human reason.” 187

      185 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iv. 3. Hieronym. Epist. 83.]

      186 (return) [ The story is prettily told in Justin’s Dialogues.
      Tillemont, (Mem Ecclesiast. tom. ii. p. 384,) who relates it
      after him is sure that the old man was a disguised angel.]

      187 (return) [ Eusebius, v. 28. It may be hoped, that none,
      except the heretics, gave occasion to the complaint of Celsus,
      (ap. Origen, l. ii. p. 77,) that the Christians were perpetually
      correcting and altering their Gospels. * Note: Origen states in
      reply, that he knows of none who had altered the Gospels except
      the Marcionites, the Valentinians, and perhaps some followers of
      Lucanus.—M.]

      Nor can it be affirmed with truth, that the advantages of birth
      and fortune were always separated from the profession of
      Christianity. Several Roman citizens were brought before the
      tribunal of Pliny, and he soon discovered, that a great number of
      persons of _every order_ of men in Bithynia had deserted the
      religion of their ancestors. 188 His unsuspected testimony may,
      in this instance, obtain more credit than the bold challenge of
      Tertullian, when he addresses himself to the fears as well as the
      humanity of the proconsul of Africa, by assuring him, that if he
      persists in his cruel intentions, he must decimate Carthage, and
      that he will find among the guilty many persons of his own rank,
      senators and matrons of noblest extraction, and the friends or
      relations of his most intimate friends. 189 It appears, however,
      that about forty years afterwards the emperor Valerian was
      persuaded of the truth of this assertion, since in one of his
      rescripts he evidently supposes that senators, Roman knights, and
      ladies of quality, were engaged in the Christian sect. 190 The
      church still continued to increase its outward splendor as it
      lost its internal purity; and, in the reign of Diocletian, the
      palace, the courts of justice, and even the army, concealed a
      multitude of Christians, who endeavored to reconcile the
      interests of the present with those of a future life.

      188 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 97. Fuerunt alii similis amentiæ,
      cives Romani—-Multi enim omnis ætatis, omnis ordinis, utriusque
      sexus, etiam vocuntur in periculum et vocabuntur.]

      189 (return) [ Tertullian ad Scapulum. Yet even his rhetoric
      rises no higher than to claim a tenth part of Carthage.]

      190 (return) [ Cyprian. Epist. 70.]

      And yet these exceptions are either too few in number, or too
      recent in time, entirely to remove the imputation of ignorance
      and obscurity which has been so arrogantly cast on the first
      proselytes of Christianity. 1901 Instead of employing in our
      defence the fictions of later ages, it will be more prudent to
      convert the occasion of scandal into a subject of edification.
      Our serious thoughts will suggest to us, that the apostles
      themselves were chosen by Providence among the fishermen of
      Galilee, and that the lower we depress the temporal condition of
      the first Christians, the more reason we shall find to admire
      their merit and success. It is incumbent on us diligently to
      remember, that the kingdom of heaven was promised to the poor in
      spirit, and that minds afflicted by calamity and the contempt of
      mankind, cheerfully listen to the divine promise of future
      happiness; while, on the contrary, the fortunate are satisfied
      with the possession of this world; and the wise abuse in doubt
      and dispute their vain superiority of reason and knowledge.

      1901 (return) [ This incomplete enumeration ought to be increased
      by the names of several Pagans converted at the dawn of
      Christianity, and whose conversion weakens the reproach which the
      historian appears to support. Such are, the Proconsul Sergius
      Paulus, converted at Paphos, (Acts xiii. 7—12.) Dionysius, member
      of the Areopagus, converted with several others, al Athens, (Acts
      xvii. 34;) several persons at the court of Nero, (Philip. iv 22;)
      Erastus, receiver at Corinth, (Rom. xvi.23;) some Asiarchs, (Acts
      xix. 31) As to the philosophers, we may add Tatian, Athenagoras,
      Theophilus of Antioch, Hegesippus, Melito, Miltiades, Pantænus,
      Ammenius, all distinguished for their genius and learning.—G.]

      We stand in need of such reflections to comfort us for the loss
      of some illustrious characters, which in our eyes might have
      seemed the most worthy of the heavenly present. The names of
      Seneca, of the elder and the younger Pliny, of Tacitus, of
      Plutarch, of Galen, of the slave Epictetus, and of the emperor
      Marcus Antoninus, adorn the age in which they flourished, and
      exalt the dignity of human nature. They filled with glory their
      respective stations, either in active or contemplative life;
      their excellent understandings were improved by study; Philosophy
      had purified their minds from the prejudices of the popular
      superstitions; and their days were spent in the pursuit of truth
      and the practice of virtue. Yet all these sages (it is no less an
      object of surprise than of concern) overlooked or rejected the
      perfection of the Christian system. Their language or their
      silence equally discover their contempt for the growing sect,
      which in their time had diffused itself over the Roman empire.
      Those among them who condescended to mention the Christians,
      consider them only as obstinate and perverse enthusiasts, who
      exacted an implicit submission to their mysterious doctrines,
      without being able to produce a single argument that could engage
      the attention of men of sense and learning. 191

      191 (return) [ Dr. Lardner, in his first and second volumes of
      Jewish and Christian testimonies, collects and illustrates those
      of Pliny the younger, of Tacitus, of Galen, of Marcus Antoninus,
      and perhaps of Epictetus, (for it is doubtful whether that
      philosopher means to speak of the Christians.) The new sect is
      totally unnoticed by Seneca, the elder Pliny, and Plutarch.]

      It is at least doubtful whether any of these philosophers perused
      the apologies 1911 which the primitive Christians repeatedly
      published in behalf of themselves and of their religion; but it
      is much to be lamented that such a cause was not defended by
      abler advocates. They expose with superfluous wit and eloquence
      the extravagance of Polytheism. They interest our compassion by
      displaying the innocence and sufferings of their injured
      brethren. But when they would demonstrate the divine origin of
      Christianity, they insist much more strongly on the predictions
      which announced, than on the miracles which accompanied, the
      appearance of the Messiah. Their favorite argument might serve to
      edify a Christian or to convert a Jew, since both the one and the
      other acknowledge the authority of those prophecies, and both are
      obliged, with devout reverence, to search for their sense and
      their accomplishment. But this mode of persuasion loses much of
      its weight and influence, when it is addressed to those who
      neither understand nor respect the Mosaic dispensation and the
      prophetic style. 192 In the unskilful hands of Justin and of the
      succeeding apologists, the sublime meaning of the Hebrew oracles
      evaporates in distant types, affected conceits, and cold
      allegories; and even their authenticity was rendered suspicious
      to an unenlightened Gentile, by the mixture of pious forgeries,
      which, under the names of Orpheus, Hermes, and the Sibyls, 193
      were obtruded on him as of equal value with the genuine
      inspirations of Heaven. The adoption of fraud and sophistry in
      the defence of revelation too often reminds us of the injudicious
      conduct of those poets who load their _invulnerable_ heroes with
      a useless weight of cumbersome and brittle armor.

      1911 (return) [ The emperors Hadrian, Antoninus &c., read with
      astonishment the apologies of Justin Martyr, of Aristides, of
      Melito, &c. (See St. Hieron. ad mag. orat. Orosius, lviii. c.
      13.) Eusebius says expressly, that the cause of Christianity was
      defended before the senate, in a very elegant discourse, by
      Apollonius the Martyr.—G. ——Gibbon, in his severer spirit of
      criticism, may have questioned the authority of Jerome and
      Eusebius. There are some difficulties about Apollonius, which
      Heinichen (note in loc. Eusebii) would solve, by suppose lag him
      to have been, as Jerome states, a senator.—M.]

      192 (return) [ If the famous prophecy of the Seventy Weeks had
      been alleged to a Roman philosopher, would he not have replied in
      the words of Cicero, “Quæ tandem ista auguratio est, annorum
      potius quam aut rænsium aut dierum?” De Divinatione, ii. 30.
      Observe with what irreverence Lucian, (in Alexandro, c. 13.) and
      his friend Celsus ap. Origen, (l. vii. p. 327,) express
      themselves concerning the Hebrew prophets.]

      193 (return) [ The philosophers who derided the more ancient
      predictions of the Sibyls, would easily have detected the Jewish
      and Christian forgeries, which have been so triumphantly quoted
      by the fathers, from Justin Martyr to Lactantius. When the
      Sibylline verses had performed their appointed task, they, like
      the system of the millennium, were quietly laid aside. The
      Christian Sybil had unluckily fixed the ruin of Rome for the year
      195, A. U. C. 948.]

      But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and
      philosophic world, to those evidences which were represented by
      the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their
      senses? During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their
      first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed
      by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the
      sick were healed, the dead were raised, dæmons were expelled, and
      the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of
      the church. But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from
      the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of
      life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the
      moral or physical government of the world. Under the reign of
      Tiberius, the whole earth, 194 or at least a celebrated province
      of the Roman empire, 195 was involved in a preternatural darkness
      of three hours. Even this miraculous event, which ought to have
      excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of mankind,
      passed without notice in an age of science and history. 196 It
      happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who
      must have experienced the immediate effects, or received the
      earliest intelligence, of the prodigy. Each of these
      philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great
      phenomena of Nature, earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses,
      which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. 197 Both the one
      and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to
      which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the
      globe. A distinct chapter of Pliny 198 is designed for eclipses
      of an extraordinary nature and unusual duration; but he contents
      himself with describing the singular defect of light which
      followed the murder of Cæsar, when, during the greatest part of a
      year, the orb of the sun appeared pale and without splendor. The
      season of obscurity, which cannot surely be compared with the
      preternatural darkness of the Passion, had been already
      celebrated by most of the poets 199 and historians of that
      memorable age. 200

      194 (return) [ The fathers, as they are drawn out in battle array
      by Dom Calmet, (Dissertations sur la Bible, tom. iii. p.
      295—308,) seem to cover the whole earth with darkness, in which
      they are followed by most of the moderns.]

      195 (return) [ Origen ad Matth. c. 27, and a few modern critics,
      Beza, Le Clerc, Lardner, &c., are desirous of confining it to the
      land of Judea.]

      196 (return) [ The celebrated passage of Phlegon is now wisely
      abandoned. When Tertullian assures the Pagans that the mention of
      the prodigy is found in Arcanis (not Archivis) vestris, (see his
      Apology, c. 21,) he probably appeals to the Sibylline verses,
      which relate it exactly in the words of the Gospel. * Note:
      According to some learned theologians a misunderstanding of the
      text in the Gospel has given rise to this mistake, which has
      employed and wearied so many laborious commentators, though
      Origen had already taken the pains to preinform them. The
      expression does not mean, they assert, an eclipse, but any kind
      of obscurity occasioned in the atmosphere, whether by clouds or
      any other cause. As this obscuration of the sun rarely took place
      in Palestine, where in the middle of April the sky was usually
      clear, it assumed, in the eyes of the Jews and Christians, an
      importance conformable to the received notion, that the sun
      concealed at midday was a sinister presage. See Amos viii. 9, 10.
      The word is often taken in this sense by contemporary writers;
      the Apocalypse says the sun was concealed, when speaking of an
      obscuration caused by smoke and dust. (Revel. ix. 2.) Moreover,
      the Hebrew word ophal, which in the LXX. answers to the Greek,
      signifies any darkness; and the Evangelists, who have modelled
      the sense of their expressions by those of the LXX., must have
      taken it in the same latitude. This darkening of the sky usually
      precedes earthquakes. (Matt. xxvii. 51.) The Heathen authors
      furnish us a number of examples, of which a miraculous
      explanation was given at the time. See Ovid. ii. v. 33, l. xv. v.
      785. Pliny, Hist. Nat. l. ii. c 30. Wetstein has collected all
      these examples in his edition of the New Testament. We need not,
      then, be astonished at the silence of the Pagan authors
      concerning a phenomenon which did not extend beyond Jerusalem,
      and which might have nothing contrary to the laws of nature;
      although the Christians and the Jews may have regarded it as a
      sinister presage. See Michaelia Notes on New Testament, v. i. p.
      290. Paulus, Commentary on New Testament, iii. p. 760.—G.]

      197 (return) [ Seneca, Quæst. Natur. l. i. 15, vi. l. vii. 17.
      Plin. Hist. Natur. l. ii.]

      198 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. ii. 30.]

      199 (return) [ Virgil. Georgic. i. 466. Tibullus, l. i. Eleg. v.
      ver. 75. Ovid Metamorph. xv. 782. Lucan. Pharsal. i. 540. The
      last of these poets places this prodigy before the civil war.]

      200 (return) [ See a public epistle of M. Antony in Joseph.
      Antiquit. xiv. 12. Plutarch in Cæsar. p. 471. Appian. Bell.
      Civil. l. iv. Dion Cassius, l. xlv. p. 431. Julius Obsequens, c.
      128. His little treatise is an abstract of Livy’s prodigies.]




VOLUME TWO




      Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
      Constantine.ÑPart I.

     The Conduct Of The Roman Government Towards The Christians, From
     The Reign Of Nero To That Of Constantine. 1111


      1111 (return) [ The sixteenth chapter I cannot help considering
      as a very ingenious and specious, but very disgraceful
      extenuation of the cruelties perpetrated by the Roman magistrates
      against the Christians. It is written in the most contemptibly
      factious spirit of prejudice against the sufferers; it is
      unworthy of a philosopher and of humanity. Let the narrative of
      CyprianÕs death be examined. He had to relate the murder of an
      innocent man of advanced age, and in a station deemed venerable
      by a considerable body of the provincials of Africa, put to death
      because he refused to sacrifice to Jupiter. Instead of pointing
      the indignation of posterity against such an atrocious act of
      tyranny, he dwells, with visible art, on the small circumstances
      of decorum and politeness which attended this murder, and which
      he relates with as much parade as if they were the most important
      particulars of the event. Dr. Robertson has been the subject of
      much blame for his real or supposed lenity towards the Spanish
      murderers and tyrants in America. That the sixteenth chapter of
      Mr. G. did not excite the same or greater disapprobation, is a
      proof of the unphilosophical and indeed fanatical animosity
      against Christianity, which was so prevalent during the latter
      part of the eighteenth century.Ñ_Mackintosh:_ see Life, i. p.
      244, 245.]

      If we seriously consider the purity of the Christian religion,
      the sanctity of its moral precepts, and the innocent as well as
      austere lives of the greater number of those who during the first
      ages embraced the faith of the gospel, we should naturally
      suppose, that so benevolent a doctrine would have been received
      with due reverence, even by the unbelieving world; that the
      learned and the polite, however they may deride the miracles,
      would have esteemed the virtues, of the new sect; and that the
      magistrates, instead of persecuting, would have protected an
      order of men who yielded the most passive obedience to the laws,
      though they declined the active cares of war and government. If,
      on the other hand, we recollect the universal toleration of
      Polytheism, as it was invariably maintained by the faith of the
      people, the incredulity of philosophers, and the policy of the
      Roman senate and emperors, we are at a loss to discover what new
      offence the Christians had committed, what new provocation could
      exasperate the mild indifference of antiquity, and what new
      motives could urge the Roman princes, who beheld without concern
      a thousand forms of religion subsisting in peace under their
      gentle sway, to inflict a severe punishment on any part of their
      subjects, who had chosen for themselves a singular but an
      inoffensive mode of faith and worship.

      The religious policy of the ancient world seems to have assumed a
      more stern and intolerant character, to oppose the progress of
      Christianity. About fourscore years after the death of Christ,
      his innocent disciples were punished with death by the sentence
      of a proconsul of the most amiable and philosophic character, and
      according to the laws of an emperor distinguished by the wisdom
      and justice of his general administration. The apologies which
      were repeatedly addressed to the successors of Trajan are filled
      with the most pathetic complaints, that the Christians, who
      obeyed the dictates, and solicited the liberty, of conscience,
      were alone, among all the subjects of the Roman empire, excluded
      from the common benefits of their auspicious government. The
      deaths of a few eminent martyrs have been recorded with care; and
      from the time that Christianity was invested with the supreme
      power, the governors of the church have been no less diligently
      employed in displaying the cruelty, than in imitating the
      conduct, of their Pagan adversaries. To separate (if it be
      possible) a few authentic as well as interesting facts from an
      undigested mass of fiction and error, and to relate, in a clear
      and rational manner, the causes, the extent, the duration, and
      the most important circumstances of the persecutions to which the
      first Christians were exposed, is the design of the present
      chapter. 1222

      1222 (return) [ The history of the first age of Christianity is
      only found in the Acts of the Apostles, and in order to speak of
      the first persecutions experienced by the Christians, that book
      should naturally have been consulted; those persecutions, then
      limited to individuals and to a narrow sphere, interested only
      the persecuted, and have been related by them alone. Gibbon
      making the persecutions ascend no higher than Nero, has entirely
      omitted those which preceded this epoch, and of which St. Luke
      has preserved the memory. The only way to justify this omission
      was, to attack the authenticity of the Acts of the Apostles; for,
      if authentic, they must necessarily be consulted and quoted. Now,
      antiquity has left very few works of which the authenticity is so
      well established as that of the Acts of the Apostles. (See
      LardnerÕs Cred. of Gospel Hist. part iii.) It is therefore,
      without sufficient reason, that Gibbon has maintained silence
      concerning the narrative of St. Luke, and this omission is not
      without importance.ÑG.]

      The sectaries of a persecuted religion, depressed by fear
      animated with resentment, and perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are
      seldom in a proper temper of mind calmly to investigate, or
      candidly to appreciate, the motives of their enemies, which often
      escape the impartial and discerning view even of those who are
      placed at a secure distance from the flames of persecution. A
      reason has been assigned for the conduct of the emperors towards
      the primitive Christians, which may appear the more specious and
      probable as it is drawn from the acknowledged genius of
      Polytheism. It has already been observed, that the religious
      concord of the world was principally supported by the implicit
      assent and reverence which the nations of antiquity expressed for
      their respective traditions and ceremonies. It might therefore be
      expected, that they would unite with indignation against any sect
      or people which should separate itself from the communion of
      mankind, and claiming the exclusive possession of divine
      knowledge, should disdain every form of worship, except its own,
      as impious and idolatrous. The rights of toleration were held by
      mutual indulgence: they were justly forfeited by a refusal of the
      accustomed tribute. As the payment of this tribute was inflexibly
      refused by the Jews, and by them alone, the consideration of the
      treatment which they experienced from the Roman magistrates, will
      serve to explain how far these speculations are justified by
      facts, and will lead us to discover the true causes of the
      persecution of Christianity.

      Without repeating what has already been mentioned of the
      reverence of the Roman princes and governors for the temple of
      Jerusalem, we shall only observe, that the destruction of the
      temple and city was accompanied and followed by every
      circumstance that could exasperate the minds of the conquerors,
      and authorize religious persecution by the most specious
      arguments of political justice and the public safety. From the
      reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews discovered a
      fierce impatience of the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke
      out in the most furious massacres and insurrections. Humanity is
      shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties which they
      committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where
      they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting
      natives; 1 and we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation
      which was exercised by the arms of the legions against a race of
      fanatics, whose dire and credulous superstition seemed to render
      them the implacable enemies not only of the Roman government, but
      of human kind. 2 The enthusiasm of the Jews was supported by the
      opinion, that it was unlawful for them to pay taxes to an
      idolatrous master; and by the flattering promise which they
      derived from their ancient oracles, that a conquering Messiah
      would soon arise, destined to break their fetters, and to invest
      the favorites of heaven with the empire of the earth. It was by
      announcing himself as their long-expected deliverer, and by
      calling on all the descendants of Abraham to assert the hope of
      Israel, that the famous Barchochebas collected a formidable army,
      with which he resisted during two years the power of the emperor
      Hadrian. 3

      1 (return) [ In Cyrene, they massacred 220,000 Greeks; in Cyprus,
      240,000; in Egypt, a very great multitude. Many of these unhappy
      victims were sawn asunder, according to a precedent to which
      David had given the sanction of his example. The victorious Jews
      devoured the flesh, licked up the blood, and twisted the entrails
      like a girdle round their bodies. See Dion Cassius, l. lxviii. p.
      1145. * Note: Some commentators, among them Reimar, in his notes
      on Dion Cassius think that the hatred of the Romans against the
      Jews has led the historian to exaggerate the cruelties committed
      by the latter. Don. Cass. lxviii. p. 1146.ÑG.]

      2 (return) [ Without repeating the well-known narratives of
      Josephus, we may learn from Dion, (l. lxix. p. 1162,) that in
      HadrianÕs war 580,000 Jews were cut off by the sword, besides an
      infinite number which perished by famine, by disease, and by
      fire.]

      3 (return) [ For the sect of the Zealots, see Basnage, Histoire
      des Juifs, l. i. c. 17; for the characters of the Messiah,
      according to the Rabbis, l. v. c. 11, 12, 13; for the actions of
      Barchochebas, l. vii. c. 12. (Hist. of Jews iii. 115, &c.)ÑM.]

      Notwithstanding these repeated provocations, the resentment of
      the Roman princes expired after the victory; nor were their
      apprehensions continued beyond the period of war and danger. By
      the general indulgence of polytheism, and by the mild temper of
      Antoninus Pius, the Jews were restored to their ancient
      privileges, and once more obtained the permission of circumcising
      their children, with the easy restraint, that they should never
      confer on any foreign proselyte that distinguishing mark of the
      Hebrew race. 4 The numerous remains of that people, though they
      were still excluded from the precincts of Jerusalem, were
      permitted to form and to maintain considerable establishments
      both in Italy and in the provinces, to acquire the freedom of
      Rome, to enjoy municipal honors, and to obtain at the same time
      an exemption from the burdensome and expensive offices of
      society. The moderation or the contempt of the Romans gave a
      legal sanction to the form of ecclesiastical police which was
      instituted by the vanquished sect. The patriarch, who had fixed
      his residence at Tiberias, was empowered to appoint his
      subordinate ministers and apostles, to exercise a domestic
      jurisdiction, and to receive from his dispersed brethren an
      annual contribution. 5 New synagogues were frequently erected in
      the principal cities of the empire; and the sabbaths, the fasts,
      and the festivals, which were either commanded by the Mosaic law,
      or enjoined by the traditions of the Rabbis, were celebrated in
      the most solemn and public manner. 6 Such gentle treatment
      insensibly assuaged the stern temper of the Jews. Awakened from
      their dream of prophecy and conquest, they assumed the behavior
      of peaceable and industrious subjects. Their irreconcilable
      hatred of mankind, instead of flaming out in acts of blood and
      violence, evaporated in less dangerous gratifications. They
      embraced every opportunity of overreaching the idolaters in
      trade; and they pronounced secret and ambiguous imprecations
      against the haughty kingdom of Edom. 7

      4 (return) [ It is to Modestinus, a Roman lawyer (l. vi.
      regular.) that we are indebted for a distinct knowledge of the
      Edict of Antoninus. See Casaubon ad Hist. August. p. 27.]

      5 (return) [ See Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. iii. c. 2, 3.
      The office of Patriarch was suppressed by Theodosius the
      younger.]

      6 (return) [ We need only mention the Purim, or deliverance of
      the Jews from he rage of Haman, which, till the reign of
      Theodosius, was celebrated with insolent triumph and riotous
      intemperance. Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, l. vi. c. 17, l. viii. c.
      6.]

      7 (return) [ According to the false Josephus, Tsepho, the
      grandson of Esau, conducted into Italy the army of Eneas, king of
      Carthage. Another colony of Idum¾ans, flying from the sword of
      David, took refuge in the dominions of Romulus. For these, or for
      other reasons of equal weight, the name of Edom was applied by
      the Jews to the Roman empire. * Note: The false Josephus is a
      romancer of very modern date, though some of these legends are
      probably more ancient. It may be worth considering whether many
      of the stories in the Talmud are not history in a figurative
      disguise, adopted from prudence. The Jews might dare to say many
      things of Rome, under the significant appellation of Edom, which
      they feared to utter publicly. Later and more ignorant ages took
      literally, and perhaps embellished, what was intelligible among
      the generation to which it was addressed. Hist. of Jews, iii.
      131. ÑÑThe false Josephus has the inauguration of the emperor,
      with the seven electors and apparently the pope assisting at the
      coronation! Pref. page xxvi.ÑM.]

      Since the Jews, who rejected with abhorrence the deities adored
      by their sovereign and by their fellow-subjects, enjoyed,
      however, the free exercise of their unsocial religion, there must
      have existed some other cause, which exposed the disciples of
      Christ to those severities from which the posterity of Abraham
      was exempt. The difference between them is simple and obvious;
      but, according to the sentiments of antiquity, it was of the
      highest importance. The Jews were a _nation;_ the Christians were
      a _sect:_ and if it was natural for every community to respect
      the sacred institutions of their neighbors, it was incumbent on
      them to persevere in those of their ancestors. The voice of
      oracles, the precepts of philosophers, and the authority of the
      laws, unanimously enforced this national obligation. By their
      lofty claim of superior sanctity the Jews might provoke the
      Polytheists to consider them as an odious and impure race. By
      disdaining the intercourse of other nations, they might deserve
      their contempt. The laws of Moses might be for the most part
      frivolous or absurd; yet, since they had been received during
      many ages by a large society, his followers were justified by the
      example of mankind; and it was universally acknowledged, that
      they had a right to practise what it would have been criminal in
      them to neglect. But this principle, which protected the Jewish
      synagogue, afforded not any favor or security to the primitive
      church. By embracing the faith of the gospel, the Christians
      incurred the supposed guilt of an unnatural and unpardonable
      offence. They dissolved the sacred ties of custom and education,
      violated the religious institutions of their country, and
      presumptuously despised whatever their fathers had believed as
      true, or had reverenced as sacred. Nor was this apostasy (if we
      may use the expression) merely of a partial or local kind; since
      the pious deserter who withdrew himself from the temples of Egypt
      or Syria, would equally disdain to seek an asylum in those of
      Athens or Carthage. Every Christian rejected with contempt the
      superstitions of his family, his city, and his province. The
      whole body of Christians unanimously refused to hold any
      communion with the gods of Rome, of the empire, and of mankind.
      It was in vain that the oppressed believer asserted the
      inalienable rights of conscience and private judgment. Though his
      situation might excite the pity, his arguments could never reach
      the understanding, either of the philosophic or of the believing
      part of the Pagan world. To their apprehensions, it was no less a
      matter of surprise, that any individuals should entertain
      scruples against complying with the established mode of worship,
      than if they had conceived a sudden abhorrence to the manners,
      the dress, 8111 or the language of their native country. 8

      8 (return) [ From the arguments of Celsus, as they are
      represented and refuted by Origen, (l. v. p. 247Ñ259,) we may
      clearly discover the distinction that was made between the Jewish
      _people_ and the Christian _sect_. See, in the Dialogue of
      Minucius Felix, (c. 5, 6,) a fair and not inelegant description
      of the popular sentiments, with regard to the desertion of the
      established worship.]

      8111 (return) [ In all this there is doubtless much truth; yet
      does not the more important difference lie on the surface? The
      Christians made many converts the Jews but few. Had the Jewish
      been equally a proselyting religion would it not have encountered
      as violent persecution?ÑM.]

      The surprise of the Pagans was soon succeeded by resentment; and
      the most pious of men were exposed to the unjust but dangerous
      imputation of impiety. Malice and prejudice concurred in
      representing the Christians as a society of atheists, who, by the
      most daring attack on the religious constitution of the empire,
      had merited the severest animadversion of the civil magistrate.
      They had separated themselves (they gloried in the confession)
      from every mode of superstition which was received in any part of
      the globe by the various temper of polytheism: but it was not
      altogether so evident what deity, or what form of worship, they
      had substituted to the gods and temples of antiquity. The pure
      and sublime idea which they entertained of the Supreme Being
      escaped the gross conception of the Pagan multitude, who were at
      a loss to discover a spiritual and solitary God, that was neither
      represented under any corporeal figure or visible symbol, nor was
      adored with the accustomed pomp of libations and festivals, of
      altars and sacrifices. 9 The sages of Greece and Rome, who had
      elevated their minds to the contemplation of the existence and
      attributes of the First Cause, were induced by reason or by
      vanity to reserve for themselves and their chosen disciples the
      privilege of this philosophical devotion. 10 They were far from
      admitting the prejudices of mankind as the standard of truth, but
      they considered them as flowing from the original disposition of
      human nature; and they supposed that any popular mode of faith
      and worship which presumed to disclaim the assistance of the
      senses, would, in proportion as it receded from superstition,
      find itself incapable of restraining the wanderings of the fancy,
      and the visions of fanaticism. The careless glance which men of
      wit and learning condescended to cast on the Christian
      revelation, served only to confirm their hasty opinion, and to
      persuade them that the principle, which they might have revered,
      of the Divine Unity, was defaced by the wild enthusiasm, and
      annihilated by the airy speculations, of the new sectaries. The
      author of a celebrated dialogue, which has been attributed to
      Lucian, whilst he affects to treat the mysterious subject of the
      Trinity in a style of ridicule and contempt, betrays his own
      ignorance of the weakness of human reason, and of the inscrutable
      nature of the divine perfections. 11

      9 (return) [ Cur nullas aras habent? templa nulla? nulla nota
      simulacra!ÑUnde autem, vel quis ille, aut ubi, Deus unicus,
      solitarius, desti tutus? Minucius Felix, c. 10. The Pagan
      interlocutor goes on to make a distinction in favor of the Jews,
      who had once a temple, altars, victims, &c.]

      10 (return) [ It is difficult (says Plato) to attain, and
      dangerous to publish, the knowledge of the true God. See the
      Theologie des Philosophes, in the AbbŽ dÕOlivetÕs French
      translation of Tully de Natur‰ Deorum, tom. i. p. 275.]

      11 (return) [ The author of the Philopatris perpetually treats
      the Christians as a company of dreaming enthusiasts, &c.; and in
      one place he manifestly alludes to the vision in which St. Paul
      was transported to the third heaven. In another place, Triephon,
      who personates a Christian, after deriding the gods of Paganism,
      proposes a mysterious oath.]

      It might appear less surprising, that the founder of Christianity
      should not only be revered by his disciples as a sage and a
      prophet, but that he should be adored as a God. The Polytheists
      were disposed to adopt every article of faith, which seemed to
      offer any resemblance, however distant or imperfect, with the
      popular mythology; and the legends of Bacchus, of Hercules, and
      of ®sculapius, had, in some measure, prepared their imagination
      for the appearance of the Son of God under a human form. 12 But
      they were astonished that the Christians should abandon the
      temples of those ancient heroes, who, in the infancy of the
      world, had invented arts, instituted laws, and vanquished the
      tyrants or monsters who infested the earth, in order to choose
      for the exclusive object of their religious worship an obscure
      teacher, who, in a recent age, and among a barbarous people, had
      fallen a sacrifice either to the malice of his own countrymen, or
      to the jealousy of the Roman government. The Pagan multitude,
      reserving their gratitude for temporal benefits alone, rejected
      the inestimable present of life and immortality, which was
      offered to mankind by Jesus of Nazareth. His mild constancy in
      the midst of cruel and voluntary sufferings, his universal
      benevolence, and the sublime simplicity of his actions and
      character, were insufficient, in the opinion of those carnal men,
      to compensate for the want of fame, of empire, and of success;
      and whilst they refused to acknowledge his stupendous triumph
      over the powers of darkness and of the grave, they
      misrepresented, or they insulted, the equivocal birth, wandering
      life, and ignominious death, of the divine Author of
      Christianity. 13

      12 (return) [ According to Justin Martyr, (Apolog. Major, c.
      70-85,) the d¾mon who had gained some imperfect knowledge of the
      prophecies, purposely contrived this resemblance, which might
      deter, though by different means, both the people and the
      philosophers from embracing the faith of Christ.]

      13 (return) [ In the first and second books of Origen, Celsus
      treats the birth and character of our Savior with the most
      impious contempt. The orator Libanius praises Porphyry and Julian
      for confuting the folly of a sect., which styles a dead man of
      Palestine, God, and the Son of God. Socrates, Hist. Ecclesiast.
      iii. 23.]

      The personal guilt which every Christian had contracted, in thus
      preferring his private sentiment to the national religion, was
      aggravated in a very high degree by the number and union of the
      criminals. It is well known, and has been already observed, that
      Roman policy viewed with the utmost jealousy and distrust any
      association among its subjects; and that the privileges of
      private corporations, though formed for the most harmless or
      beneficial purposes, were bestowed with a very sparing hand. 14
      The religious assemblies of the Christians who had separated
      themselves from the public worship, appeared of a much less
      innocent nature; they were illegal in their principle, and in
      their consequences might become dangerous; nor were the emperors
      conscious that they violated the laws of justice, when, for the
      peace of society, they prohibited those secret and sometimes
      nocturnal meetings. 15 The pious disobedience of the Christians
      made their conduct, or perhaps their designs, appear in a much
      more serious and criminal light; and the Roman princes, who might
      perhaps have suffered themselves to be disarmed by a ready
      submission, deeming their honor concerned in the execution of
      their commands, sometimes attempted, by rigorous punishments, to
      subdue this independent spirit, which boldly acknowledged an
      authority superior to that of the magistrate. The extent and
      duration of this spiritual conspiracy seemed to render it
      everyday more deserving of his animadversion. We have already
      seen that the active and successful zeal of the Christians had
      insensibly diffused them through every province and almost every
      city of the empire. The new converts seemed to renounce their
      family and country, that they might connect themselves in an
      indissoluble band of union with a peculiar society, which every
      where assumed a different character from the rest of mankind.
      Their gloomy and austere aspect, their abhorrence of the common
      business and pleasures of life, and their frequent predictions of
      impending calamities, 16 inspired the Pagans with the
      apprehension of some danger, which would arise from the new sect,
      the more alarming as it was the more obscure. ÒWhatever,Ó says
      Pliny, Òmay be the principle of their conduct, their inflexible
      obstinacy appeared deserving of punishment.Ó 17

      14 (return) [ The emperor Trajan refused to incorporate a company
      of 150 firemen, for the use of the city of Nicomedia. He disliked
      all associations. See Plin. Epist. x. 42, 43.]

      15 (return) [ The proconsul Pliny had published a general edict
      against unlawful meetings. The prudence of the Christians
      suspended their Agap¾; but it was impossible for them to omit the
      exercise of public worship.]

      16 (return) [ As the prophecies of the Antichrist, approaching
      conflagration, &c., provoked those Pagans whom they did not
      convert, they were mentioned with caution and reserve; and the
      Montanists were censured for disclosing too freely the dangerous
      secret. See Mosheim, 413.]

      17 (return) [ Neque enim dubitabam, quodcunque esset quod
      faterentur, (such are the words of Pliny,) pervicacian certe et
      inflexibilem obstinationem lebere puniri.]

      The precautions with which the disciples of Christ performed the
      offices of religion were at first dictated by fear and necessity;
      but they were continued from choice. By imitating the awful
      secrecy which reigned in the Eleusinian mysteries, the Christians
      had flattered themselves that they should render their sacred
      institutions more respectable in the eyes of the Pagan world. 18
      But the event, as it often happens to the operations of subtile
      policy, deceived their wishes and their expectations. It was
      concluded, that they only concealed what they would have blushed
      to disclose. Their mistaken prudence afforded an opportunity for
      malice to invent, and for suspicious credulity to believe, the
      horrid tales which described the Christians as the most wicked of
      human kind, who practised in their dark recesses every
      abomination that a depraved fancy could suggest, and who
      solicited the favor of their unknown God by the sacrifice of
      every moral virtue. There were many who pretended to confess or
      to relate the ceremonies of this abhorred society. It was
      asserted, Òthat a new-born infant, entirely covered over with
      flour, was presented, like some mystic symbol of initiation, to
      the knife of the proselyte, who unknowingly inflicted many a
      secret and mortal wound on the innocent victim of his error; that
      as soon as the cruel deed was perpetrated, the sectaries drank up
      the blood, greedily tore asunder the quivering members, and
      pledged themselves to eternal secrecy, by a mutual consciousness
      of guilt. It was as confidently affirmed, that this inhuman
      sacrifice was succeeded by a suitable entertainment, in which
      intemperance served as a provocative to brutal lust; till, at the
      appointed moment, the lights were suddenly extinguished, shame
      was banished, nature was forgotten; and, as accident might
      direct, the darkness of the night was polluted by the incestuous
      commerce of sisters and brothers, of sons and of mothers.Ó 19

      18 (return) [ See MosheimÕs Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p.
      101, and Spanheim, Remarques sur les C¾sars de Julien, p. 468,
      &c.]

      19 (return) [ See Justin Martyr, Apolog. i. 35, ii. 14.
      Athenagoras, in Legation, c. 27. Tertullian, Apolog. c. 7, 8, 9.
      Minucius Felix, c. 9, 10, 80, 31. The last of these writers
      relates the accusation in the most elegant and circumstantial
      manner. The answer of Tertullian is the boldest and most
      vigorous.]

      But the perusal of the ancient apologies was sufficient to remove
      even the slightest suspicion from the mind of a candid adversary.
      The Christians, with the intrepid security of innocence, appeal
      from the voice of rumor to the equity of the magistrates. They
      acknowledge, that if any proof can be produced of the crimes
      which calumny has imputed to them, they are worthy of the most
      severe punishment. They provoke the punishment, and they
      challenge the proof. At the same time they urge, with equal truth
      and propriety, that the charge is not less devoid of probability,
      than it is destitute of evidence; they ask, whether any one can
      seriously believe that the pure and holy precepts of the gospel,
      which so frequently restrain the use of the most lawful
      enjoyments, should inculcate the practice of the most abominable
      crimes; that a large society should resolve to dishonor itself in
      the eyes of its own members; and that a great number of persons
      of either sex, and every age and character, insensible to the
      fear of death or infamy, should consent to violate those
      principles which nature and education had imprinted most deeply
      in their minds. 20 Nothing, it should seem, could weaken the
      force or destroy the effect of so unanswerable a justification,
      unless it were the injudicious conduct of the apologists
      themselves, who betrayed the common cause of religion, to gratify
      their devout hatred to the domestic enemies of the church. It was
      sometimes faintly insinuated, and sometimes boldly asserted, that
      the same bloody sacrifices, and the same incestuous festivals,
      which were so falsely ascribed to the orthodox believers, were in
      reality celebrated by the Marcionites, by the Carpocratians, and
      by several other sects of the Gnostics, who, notwithstanding they
      might deviate into the paths of heresy, were still actuated by
      the sentiments of men, and still governed by the precepts of
      Christianity. 21 Accusations of a similar kind were retorted upon
      the church by the schismatics who had departed from its
      communion, 22 and it was confessed on all sides, that the most
      scandalous licentiousness of manners prevailed among great
      numbers of those who affected the name of Christians. A Pagan
      magistrate, who possessed neither leisure nor abilities to
      discern the almost imperceptible line which divides the orthodox
      faith from heretical pravity, might easily have imagined that
      their mutual animosity had extorted the discovery of their common
      guilt. It was fortunate for the repose, or at least for the
      reputation, of the first Christians, that the magistrates
      sometimes proceeded with more temper and moderation than is
      usually consistent with religious zeal, and that they reported,
      as the impartial result of their judicial inquiry, that the
      sectaries, who had deserted the established worship, appeared to
      them sincere in their professions, and blameless in their
      manners; however they might incur, by their absurd and excessive
      superstition, the censure of the laws. 23

      20 (return) [ In the persecution of Lyons, some Gentile slaves
      were compelled, by the fear of tortures, to accuse their
      Christian master. The church of Lyons, writing to their brethren
      of Asia, treat the horrid charge with proper indignation and
      contempt. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. v. i.]

      21 (return) [ See Justin Martyr, Apolog. i. 35. Iren¾us adv.
      H¾res. i. 24. Clemens. Alexandrin. Stromat. l. iii. p. 438.
      Euseb. iv. 8. It would be tedious and disgusting to relate all
      that the succeeding writers have imagined, all that Epiphanius
      has received, and all that Tillemont has copied. M. de Beausobre
      (Hist. du Manicheisme, l. ix. c. 8, 9) has exposed, with great
      spirit, the disingenuous arts of Augustin and Pope Leo I.]

      22 (return) [ When Tertullian became a Montanist, he aspersed the
      morals of the church which he had so resolutely defended. ÒSed
      majoris est Agape, quia per hanc adolescentes tui cum sororibus
      dormiunt, appendices scilicet gul¾ lascivia et luxuria.Ó De
      Jejuniis c. 17. The 85th canon of the council of Illiberis
      provides against the scandals which too often polluted the vigils
      of the church, and disgraced the Christian name in the eyes of
      unbelievers.]

      23 (return) [ Tertullian (Apolog. c. 2) expatiates on the fair
      and honorable testimony of Pliny, with much reason and some
      declamation.]




      Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
      Constantine.ÑPart II.


      History, which undertakes to record the transactions of the past,
      for the instruction of future ages, would ill deserve that
      honorable office, if she condescended to plead the cause of
      tyrants, or to justify the maxims of persecution. It must,
      however, be acknowledged, that the conduct of the emperors who
      appeared the least favorable to the primitive church, is by no
      means so criminal as that of modern sovereigns, who have employed
      the arm of violence and terror against the religious opinions of
      any part of their subjects. From their reflections, or even from
      their own feelings, a Charles V. or a Lewis XIV. might have
      acquired a just knowledge of the rights of conscience, of the
      obligation of faith, and of the innocence of error. But the
      princes and magistrates of ancient Rome were strangers to those
      principles which inspired and authorized the inflexible obstinacy
      of the Christians in the cause of truth, nor could they
      themselves discover in their own breasts any motive which would
      have prompted them to refuse a legal, and as it were a natural,
      submission to the sacred institutions of their country. The same
      reason which contributes to alleviate the guilt, must have tended
      to abate the vigor, of their persecutions. As they were actuated,
      not by the furious zeal of bigots, but by the temperate policy of
      legislators, contempt must often have relaxed, and humanity must
      frequently have suspended, the execution of those laws which they
      enacted against the humble and obscure followers of Christ. From
      the general view of their character and motives we might
      naturally conclude: I. That a considerable time elapsed before
      they considered the new sectaries as an object deserving of the
      attention of government. II. That in the conviction of any of
      their subjects who were accused of so very singular a crime, they
      proceeded with caution and reluctance. III. That they were
      moderate in the use of punishments; and, IV. That the afflicted
      church enjoyed many intervals of peace and tranquility.
      Notwithstanding the careless indifference which the most copious
      and the most minute of the Pagan writers have shown to the
      affairs of the Christians, 24 it may still be in our power to
      confirm each of these probable suppositions, by the evidence of
      authentic facts.

      24 (return) [ In the various compilation of the Augustan History,
      (a part of which was composed under the reign of Constantine,)
      there are not six lines which relate to the Christians; nor has
      the diligence of Xiphilin discovered their name in the large
      history of Dion Cassius. * Note: The greater part of the Augustan
      History is dedicated to Diocletian. This may account for the
      silence of its authors concerning Christianity. The notices that
      occur are almost all in the lives composed under the reign of
      Constantine. It may fairly be concluded, from the language which
      he had into the mouth of M¾cenas, that Dion was an enemy to all
      innovations in religion. (See Gibbon, _infra_, note 105.) In
      fact, when the silence of Pagan historians is noticed, it should
      be remembered how meagre and mutilated are all the extant
      histories of the periodÑM.]

      1. By the wise dispensation of Providence, a mysterious veil was
      cast over the infancy of the church, which, till the faith of the
      Christians was matured, and their numbers were multiplied, served
      to protect them not only from the malice but even from the
      knowledge of the Pagan world. The slow and gradual abolition of
      the Mosaic ceremonies afforded a safe and innocent disguise to
      the more early proselytes of the gospel. As they were, for the
      greater part, of the race of Abraham, they were distinguished by
      the peculiar mark of circumcision, offered up their devotions in
      the Temple of Jerusalem till its final destruction, and received
      both the Law and the Prophets as the genuine inspirations of the
      Deity. The Gentile converts, who by a spiritual adoption had been
      associated to the hope of Israel, were likewise confounded under
      the garb and appearance of Jews, 25 and as the Polytheists paid
      less regard to articles of faith than to the external worship,
      the new sect, which carefully concealed, or faintly announced,
      its future greatness and ambition, was permitted to shelter
      itself under the general toleration which was granted to an
      ancient and celebrated people in the Roman empire. It was not
      long, perhaps, before the Jews themselves, animated with a
      fiercer zeal and a more jealous faith, perceived the gradual
      separation of their Nazarene brethren from the doctrine of the
      synagogue; and they would gladly have extinguished the dangerous
      heresy in the blood of its adherents. But the decrees of Heaven
      had already disarmed their malice; and though they might
      sometimes exert the licentious privilege of sedition, they no
      longer possessed the administration of criminal justice; nor did
      they find it easy to infuse into the calm breast of a Roman
      magistrate the rancor of their own zeal and prejudice. The
      provincial governors declared themselves ready to listen to any
      accusation that might affect the public safety; but as soon as
      they were informed that it was a question not of facts but of
      words, a dispute relating only to the interpretation of the
      Jewish laws and prophecies, they deemed it unworthy of the
      majesty of Rome seriously to discuss the obscure differences
      which might arise among a barbarous and superstitious people. The
      innocence of the first Christians was protected by ignorance and
      contempt; and the tribunal of the Pagan magistrate often proved
      their most assured refuge against the fury of the synagogue. 26
      If indeed we were disposed to adopt the traditions of a too
      credulous antiquity, we might relate the distant peregrinations,
      the wonderful achievements, and the various deaths of the twelve
      apostles: but a more accurate inquiry will induce us to doubt,
      whether any of those persons who had been witnesses to the
      miracles of Christ were permitted, beyond the limits of
      Palestine, to seal with their blood the truth of their testimony.
      27 From the ordinary term of human life, it may very naturally be
      presumed that most of them were deceased before the discontent of
      the Jews broke out into that furious war, which was terminated
      only by the ruin of Jerusalem. During a long period, from the
      death of Christ to that memorable rebellion, we cannot discover
      any traces of Roman intolerance, unless they are to be found in
      the sudden, the transient, but the cruel persecution, which was
      exercised by Nero against the Christians of the capital,
      thirty-five years after the former, and only two years before the
      latter, of those great events. The character of the philosophic
      historian, to whom we are principally indebted for the knowledge
      of this singular transaction, would alone be sufficient to
      recommend it to our most attentive consideration.

      25 (return) [ An obscure passage of Suetonius (in Claud. c. 25)
      may seem to offer a proof how strangely the Jews and Christians
      of Rome were confounded with each other.]

      26 (return) [ See, in the xviiith and xxvth chapters of the Acts
      of the Apostles, the behavior of Gallio, proconsul of Achaia, and
      of Festus, procurator of Judea.]

      27 (return) [ In the time of Tertullian and Clemens of
      Alexandria, the glory of martyrdom was confined to St. Peter, St.
      Paul, and St. James. It was gradually bestowed on the rest of the
      apostles, by the more recent Greeks, who prudently selected for
      the theatre of their preaching and sufferings some remote country
      beyond the limits of the Roman empire. See Mosheim, p. 81; and
      Tillemont, MŽmoires EcclŽsiastiques, tom. i. part iii.]

      In the tenth year of the reign of Nero, the capital of the empire
      was afflicted by a fire which raged beyond the memory or example
      of former ages. 28 The monuments of Grecian art and of Roman
      virtue, the trophies of the Punic and Gallic wars, the most holy
      temples, and the most splendid palaces, were involved in one
      common destruction. Of the fourteen regions or quarters into
      which Rome was divided, four only subsisted entire, three were
      levelled with the ground, and the remaining seven, which had
      experienced the fury of the flames, displayed a melancholy
      prospect of ruin and desolation. The vigilance of government
      appears not to have neglected any of the precautions which might
      alleviate the sense of so dreadful a calamity. The Imperial
      gardens were thrown open to the distressed multitude, temporary
      buildings were erected for their accommodation, and a plentiful
      supply of corn and provisions was distributed at a very moderate
      price. 29 The most generous policy seemed to have dictated the
      edicts which regulated the disposition of the streets and the
      construction of private houses; and as it usually happens, in an
      age of prosperity, the conflagration of Rome, in the course of a
      few years, produced a new city, more regular and more beautiful
      than the former. But all the prudence and humanity affected by
      Nero on this occasion were insufficient to preserve him from the
      popular suspicion. Every crime might be imputed to the assassin
      of his wife and mother; nor could the prince who prostituted his
      person and dignity on the theatre be deemed incapable of the most
      extravagant folly. The voice of rumor accused the emperor as the
      incendiary of his own capital; and as the most incredible stories
      are the best adapted to the genius of an enraged people, it was
      gravely reported, and firmly believed, that Nero, enjoying the
      calamity which he had occasioned, amused himself with singing to
      his lyre the destruction of ancient Troy. 30 To divert a
      suspicion, which the power of despotism was unable to suppress,
      the emperor resolved to substitute in his own place some
      fictitious criminals. ÒWith this view,Ó continues Tacitus, Òhe
      inflicted the most exquisite tortures on those men, who, under
      the vulgar appellation of Christians, were already branded with
      deserved infamy. They derived their name and origin from Christ,
      who in the reign of Tiberius had suffered death by the sentence
      of the procurator Pontius Pilate. 31 For a while this dire
      superstition was checked; but it again burst forth; 3111 and not
      only spread itself over Jud¾a, the first seat of this mischievous
      sect, but was even introduced into Rome, the common asylum which
      receives and protects whatever is impure, whatever is atrocious.
      The confessions of those who were seized discovered a great
      multitude of their accomplices, and they were all convicted, not
      so much for the crime of setting fire to the city, as for their
      hatred of human kind. 32 They died in torments, and their
      torments were imbittered by insult and derision. Some were nailed
      on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and
      exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with
      combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the
      darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the
      melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race and
      honored with the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the
      populace in the dress and attitude of a charioteer. The guilt of
      the Christians deserved indeed the most exemplary punishment, but
      the public abhorrence was changed into commiseration, from the
      opinion that those unhappy wretches were sacrificed, not so much
      to the public welfare, as to the cruelty of a jealous tyrant.Ó 33
      Those who survey with a curious eye the revolutions of mankind,
      may observe, that the gardens and circus of Nero on the Vatican,
      which were polluted with the blood of the first Christians, have
      been rendered still more famous by the triumph and by the abuse
      of the persecuted religion. On the same spot, 34 a temple, which
      far surpasses the ancient glories of the Capitol, has been since
      erected by the Christian Pontiffs, who, deriving their claim of
      universal dominion from an humble fisherman of Galilee, have
      succeeded to the throne of the C¾sars, given laws to the
      barbarian conquerors of Rome, and extended their spiritual
      jurisdiction from the coast of the Baltic to the shores of the
      Pacific Ocean.

      28 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xv. 38Ñ44. Sueton in Neron. c. 38.
      Dion Cassius, l. lxii. p. 1014. Orosius, vii. 7.]

      29 (return) [ The price of wheat (probably of the _modius_,) was
      reduced as low as _terni Nummi;_ which would be equivalent to
      about fifteen shillings the English quarter.]

      30 (return) [ We may observe, that the rumor is mentioned by
      Tacitus with a very becoming distrust and hesitation, whilst it
      is greedily transcribed by Suetonius, and solemnly confirmed by
      Dion.]

      31 (return) [ This testimony is alone sufficient to expose the
      anachronism of the Jews, who place the birth of Christ near a
      century sooner. (Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. v. c. 14, 15.)
      We may learn from Josephus, (Antiquitat. xviii. 3,) that the
      procuratorship of Pilate corresponded with the last ten years of
      Tiberius, A. D. 27Ñ37. As to the particular time of the death of
      Christ, a very early tradition fixed it to the 25th of March, A.
      D. 29, under the consulship of the two Gemini. (Tertullian adv.
      Jud¾os, c. 8.) This date, which is adopted by Pagi, Cardinal
      Norris, and Le Clerc, seems at least as probable as the vulgar
      ¾ra, which is placed (I know not from what conjectures) four
      years later.]

      3111 (return) [ This single phrase, Repressa in pr¾sens
      exitiabilis superstitio rursus erumpebat, proves that the
      Christians had already attracted the attention of the government;
      and that Nero was not the first to persecute them. I am surprised
      that more stress has not been laid on the confirmation which the
      Acts of the Apostles derive from these words of Tacitus, Repressa
      in pr¾sens, and rursus erumpebat.ÑG. ÑÑI have been unwilling to
      suppress this note, but surely the expression of Tacitus refers
      to the expected extirpation of the religion by the death of its
      founder, Christ.ÑM.]

      32 (return) [ _Odio humani generis convicti_. These words may
      either signify the hatred of mankind towards the Christians, or
      the hatred of the Christians towards mankind. I have preferred
      the latter sense, as the most agreeable to the style of Tacitus,
      and to the popular error, of which a precept of the gospel (see
      Luke xiv. 26) had been, perhaps, the innocent occasion. My
      interpretation is justified by the authority of Lipsius; of the
      Italian, the French, and the English translators of Tacitus; of
      Mosheim, (p. 102,) of Le Clerc, (Historia Ecclesiast. p. 427,) of
      Dr. Lardner, (Testimonies, vol. i. p. 345,) and of the Bishop of
      Gloucester, (Divine Legation, vol. iii. p. 38.) But as the word
      _convicti_ does not unite very happily with the rest of the
      sentence, James Gronovius has preferred the reading of
      _conjuncti_, which is authorized by the valuable MS. of
      Florence.]

      33 (return) [ Tacit. Annal xv. 44.]

      34 (return) [ Nardini Roma Antica, p. 487. Donatus de Roma
      Antiqua, l. iii. p. 449.]

      But it would be improper to dismiss this account of NeroÕs
      persecution, till we have made some observations that may serve
      to remove the difficulties with which it is perplexed, and to
      throw some light on the subsequent history of the church.

      1. The most sceptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth
      of this extraordinary fact, and the integrity of this celebrated
      passage of Tacitus. The former is confirmed by the diligent and
      accurate Suetonius, who mentions the punishment which Nero
      inflicted on the Christians, a sect of men who had embraced a new
      and criminal superstition. 35 The latter may be proved by the
      consent of the most ancient manuscripts; by the inimitable
      character of the style of Tacitus by his reputation, which
      guarded his text from the interpolations of pious fraud; and by
      the purport of his narration, which accused the first Christians
      of the most atrocious crimes, without insinuating that they
      possessed any miraculous or even magical powers above the rest of
      mankind. 36 2. Notwithstanding it is probable that Tacitus was
      born some years before the fire of Rome, 37 he could derive only
      from reading and conversation the knowledge of an event which
      happened during his infancy. Before he gave himself to the
      public, he calmly waited till his genius had attained its full
      maturity, and he was more than forty years of age, when a
      grateful regard for the memory of the virtuous Agricola extorted
      from him the most early of those historical compositions which
      will delight and instruct the most distant posterity. After
      making a trial of his strength in the life of Agricola and the
      description of Germany, he conceived, and at length executed, a
      more arduous work; the history of Rome, in thirty books, from the
      fall of Nero to the accession of Nerva. The administration of
      Nerva introduced an age of justice and propriety, which Tacitus
      had destined for the occupation of his old age; 38 but when he
      took a nearer view of his subject, judging, perhaps, that it was
      a more honorable or a less invidious office to record the vices
      of past tyrants, than to celebrate the virtues of a reigning
      monarch, he chose rather to relate, under the form of annals, the
      actions of the four immediate successors of Augustus. To collect,
      to dispose, and to adorn a series of fourscore years, in an
      immortal work, every sentence of which is pregnant with the
      deepest observations and the most lively images, was an
      undertaking sufficient to exercise the genius of Tacitus himself
      during the greatest part of his life. In the last years of the
      reign of Trajan, whilst the victorious monarch extended the power
      of Rome beyond its ancient limits, the historian was describing,
      in the second and fourth books of his annals, the tyranny of
      Tiberius; 39 and the emperor Hadrian must have succeeded to the
      throne, before Tacitus, in the regular prosecution of his work,
      could relate the fire of the capital, and the cruelty of Nero
      towards the unfortunate Christians. At the distance of sixty
      years, it was the duty of the annalist to adopt the narratives of
      contemporaries; but it was natural for the philosopher to indulge
      himself in the description of the origin, the progress, and the
      character of the new sect, not so much according to the knowledge
      or prejudices of the age of Nero, as according to those of the
      time of Hadrian. 3 Tacitus very frequently trusts to the
      curiosity or reflection of his readers to supply those
      intermediate circumstances and ideas, which, in his extreme
      conciseness, he has thought proper to suppress. We may therefore
      presume to imagine some probable cause which could direct the
      cruelty of Nero against the Christians of Rome, whose obscurity,
      as well as innocence, should have shielded them from his
      indignation, and even from his notice. The Jews, who were
      numerous in the capital, and oppressed in their own country, were
      a much fitter object for the suspicions of the emperor and of the
      people: nor did it seem unlikely that a vanquished nation, who
      already discovered their abhorrence of the Roman yoke, might have
      recourse to the most atrocious means of gratifying their
      implacable revenge. But the Jews possessed very powerful
      advocates in the palace, and even in the heart of the tyrant; his
      wife and mistress, the beautiful Popp¾a, and a favorite player of
      the race of Abraham, who had already employed their intercession
      in behalf of the obnoxious people. 40 In their room it was
      necessary to offer some other victims, and it might easily be
      suggested that, although the genuine followers of Moses were
      innocent of the fire of Rome, there had arisen among them a new
      and pernicious sect of Galil¾ans, which was capable of the most
      horrid crimes. Under the appellation of Galil¾ans, two
      distinctions of men were confounded, the most opposite to each
      other in their manners and principles; the disciples who had
      embraced the faith of Jesus of Nazareth, 41 and the zealots who
      had followed the standard of Judas the Gaulonite. 42 The former
      were the friends, the latter were the enemies, of human kind; and
      the only resemblance between them consisted in the same
      inflexible constancy, which, in the defence of their cause,
      rendered them insensible of death and tortures. The followers of
      Judas, who impelled their countrymen into rebellion, were soon
      buried under the ruins of Jerusalem; whilst those of Jesus, known
      by the more celebrated name of Christians, diffused themselves
      over the Roman empire. How natural was it for Tacitus, in the
      time of Hadrian, to appropriate to the Christians the guilt and
      the sufferings, 4211 which he might, with far greater truth and
      justice, have attributed to a sect whose odious memory was almost
      extinguished! 4. Whatever opinion may be entertained of this
      conjecture, (for it is no more than a conjecture,) it is evident
      that the effect, as well as the cause, of NeroÕs persecution, was
      confined to the walls of Rome, 43 that the religious tenets of
      the Galil¾ans or Christians, 431 were never made a subject of
      punishment, or even of inquiry; and that, as the idea of their
      sufferings was for a long time connected with the idea of cruelty
      and injustice, the moderation of succeeding princes inclined them
      to spare a sect, oppressed by a tyrant, whose rage had been
      usually directed against virtue and innocence.

      35 (return) [ Sueton. in Nerone, c. 16. The epithet of
      _malefica_, which some sagacious commentators have translated
      magical, is considered by the more rational Mosheim as only
      synonymous to the _exitiabilis_ of Tacitus.]

      36 (return) [ The passage concerning Jesus Christ, which was
      inserted into the text of Josephus, between the time of Origen
      and that of Eusebius, may furnish an example of no vulgar
      forgery. The accomplishment of the prophecies, the virtues,
      miracles, and resurrection of Jesus, are distinctly related.
      Josephus acknowledges that he was the Messiah, and hesitates
      whether he should call him a man. If any doubt can still remain
      concerning this celebrated passage, the reader may examine the
      pointed objections of Le Fevre, (Havercamp. Joseph. tom. ii. p.
      267-273), the labored answers of Daubuz, (p. 187-232, and the
      masterly reply (Bibliothque Ancienne et Moderne, tom. vii. p.
      237-288) of an anonymous critic, whom I believe to have been the
      learned AbbŽ de Longuerue. * Note: The modern editor of Eusebius,
      Heinichen, has adopted, and ably supported, a notion, which had
      before suggested itself to the editor, that this passage is not
      altogether a forgery, but interpolated with many additional
      clauses. Heinichen has endeavored to disengage the original text
      from the foreign and more recent matter.ÑM.]

      37 (return) [ See the lives of Tacitus by Lipsius and the AbbŽ de
      la Bleterie, Dictionnaire de Bayle a lÕarticle Particle Tacite,
      and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin tem. Latin. tom. ii. p. 386, edit.
      Ernest. Ernst.]

      38 (return) [ Principatum Divi Nerv¾, et imperium Trajani,
      uberiorem, securioremque materiam senectuti seposui. Tacit. Hist.
      i.]

      39 (return) [ See Tacit. Annal. ii. 61, iv. 4. * Note: The
      perusal of this passage of Tacitus alone is sufficient, as I have
      already said, to show that the Christian sect was not so obscure
      as not already to have been repressed, (repressa,) and that it
      did not pass for innocent in the eyes of the Romans.ÑG.]

      40 (return) [ The playerÕs name was Aliturus. Through the same
      channel, Josephus, (de vit‰ su‰, c. 2,) about two years before,
      had obtained the pardon and release of some Jewish priests, who
      were prisoners at Rome.]

      41 (return) [ The learned Dr. Lardner (Jewish and Heathen
      Testimonies, vol ii. p. 102, 103) has proved that the name of
      Galil¾ans was a very ancient, and perhaps the primitive
      appellation of the Christians.]

      42 (return) [ Joseph. Antiquitat. xviii. 1, 2. Tillemont, Ruine
      des Juifs, p. 742 The sons of Judas were crucified in the time of
      Claudius. His grandson Eleazar, after Jerusalem was taken,
      defended a strong fortress with 960 of his most desperate
      followers. When the battering ram had made a breach, they turned
      their swords against their wives their children, and at length
      against their own breasts. They dies to the last man.]

      4211 (return) [ This conjecture is entirely devoid, not merely of
      verisimilitude, but even of possibility. Tacitus could not be
      deceived in appropriating to the Christians of Rome the guilt and
      the sufferings which he might have attributed with far greater
      truth to the followers of Judas the Gaulonite, for the latter
      never went to Rome. Their revolt, their attempts, their opinions,
      their wars, their punishment, had no other theatre but Jud¾a
      (Basn. Hist. des. Juifs, t. i. p. 491.) Moreover the name of
      Christians had long been given in Rome to the disciples of Jesus;
      and Tacitus affirms too positively, refers too distinctly to its
      etymology, to allow us to suspect any mistake on his part.ÑG.
      ÑÑM. GuizotÕs expressions are not in the least too strong against
      this strange imagination of Gibbon; it may be doubted whether the
      followers of Judas were known as a sect under the name of
      Galil¾ans.ÑM.]

      43 (return) [ See Dodwell. Paucitat. Mart. l. xiii. The Spanish
      Inscription in Gruter. p. 238, No. 9, is a manifest and
      acknowledged forgery contrived by that noted imposter. Cyriacus
      of Ancona, to flatter the pride and prejudices of the Spaniards.
      See Ferreras, Histoire DÕEspagne, tom. i. p. 192.]

      431 (return) [ M. Guizot, on the authority of Sulpicius Severus,
      ii. 37, and of Orosius, viii. 5, inclines to the opinion of those
      who extend the persecution to the provinces. Mosheim rather leans
      to that side on this much disputed question, (c. xxxv.) Neander
      takes the view of Gibbon, which is in general that of the most
      learned writers. There is indeed no evidence, which I can
      discover, of its reaching the provinces; and the apparent
      security, at least as regards his life, with which St. Paul
      pursued his travels during this period, affords at least a strong
      inference against a rigid and general inquisition against the
      Christians in other parts of the empire.ÑM.]

      It is somewhat remarkable that the flames of war consumed, almost
      at the same time, the temple of Jerusalem and the Capitol of
      Rome; 44 and it appears no less singular, that the tribute which
      devotion had destined to the former, should have been converted
      by the power of an assaulting victor to restore and adorn the
      splendor of the latter. 45 The emperors levied a general
      capitation tax on the Jewish people; and although the sum
      assessed on the head of each individual was inconsiderable, the
      use for which it was designed, and the severity with which it was
      exacted, were considered as an intolerable grievance. 46 Since
      the officers of the revenue extended their unjust claim to many
      persons who were strangers to the blood or religion of the Jews,
      it was impossible that the Christians, who had so often sheltered
      themselves under the shade of the synagogue, should now escape
      this rapacious persecution. Anxious as they were to avoid the
      slightest infection of idolatry, their conscience forbade them to
      contribute to the honor of that d¾mon who had assumed the
      character of the Capitoline Jupiter. As a very numerous though
      declining party among the Christians still adhered to the law of
      Moses, their efforts to dissemble their Jewish origin were
      detected by the decisive test of circumcision; 47 nor were the
      Roman magistrates at leisure to inquire into the difference of
      their religious tenets. Among the Christians who were brought
      before the tribunal of the emperor, or, as it seems more
      probable, before that of the procurator of Jud¾a, two persons are
      said to have appeared, distinguished by their extraction, which
      was more truly noble than that of the greatest monarchs. These
      were the grandsons of St. Jude the apostle, who himself was the
      brother of Jesus Christ. 48 Their natural pretensions to the
      throne of David might perhaps attract the respect of the people,
      and excite the jealousy of the governor; but the meanness of
      their garb, and the simplicity of their answers, soon convinced
      him that they were neither desirous nor capable of disturbing the
      peace of the Roman empire. They frankly confessed their royal
      origin, and their near relation to the Messiah; but they
      disclaimed any temporal views, and professed that his kingdom,
      which they devoutly expected, was purely of a spiritual and
      angelic nature. When they were examined concerning their fortune
      and occupation, they showed their hands, hardened with daily
      labor, and declared that they derived their whole subsistence
      from the cultivation of a farm near the village of Cocaba, of the
      extent of about twenty-four English acres, 49 and of the value of
      nine thousand drachms, or three hundred pounds sterling. The
      grandsons of St. Jude were dismissed with compassion and
      contempt. 50

      44 (return) [ The Capitol was burnt during the civil war between
      Vitellius and Vespasian, the 19th of December, A. D. 69. On the
      10th of August, A. D. 70, the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed
      by the hands of the Jews themselves, rather than by those of the
      Romans.]

      45 (return) [ The new Capitol was dedicated by Domitian. Sueton.
      in Domitian. c. 5. Plutarch in Poplicola, tom. i. p. 230, edit.
      Bryant. The gilding alone cost 12,000 talents (above two millions
      and a half.) It was the opinion of Martial, (l. ix. Epigram 3,)
      that if the emperor had called in his debts, Jupiter himself,
      even though he had made a general auction of Olympus, would have
      been unable to pay two shillings in the pound.]

      46 (return) [ With regard to the tribute, see Dion Cassius, l.
      lxvi. p. 1082, with ReimarusÕs notes. Spanheim, de Usu
      Numismatum, tom. ii. p. 571; and Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l.
      vii. c. 2.]

      47 (return) [ Suetonius (in Domitian. c. 12) had seen an old man
      of ninety publicly examined before the procuratorÕs tribunal.
      This is what Martial calls, Mentula tributis damnata.]

      48 (return) [ This appellation was at first understood in the
      most obvious sense, and it was supposed, that the brothers of
      Jesus were the lawful issue of Joseph and Mary. A devout respect
      for the virginity of the mother of God suggested to the Gnostics,
      and afterwards to the orthodox Greeks, the expedient of bestowing
      a second wife on Joseph. The Latins (from the time of Jerome)
      improved on that hint, asserted the perpetual celibacy of Joseph,
      and justified by many similar examples the new interpretation
      that Jude, as well as Simon and James, who were styled the
      brothers of Jesus Christ, were only his first cousins. See
      Tillemont, MŽm. Ecclesiast. tom. i. part iii.: and Beausobre,
      Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, l. ii. c. 2.]

      49 (return) [ Thirty-nine, squares of a hundred feet each, which,
      if strictly computed, would scarcely amount to nine acres.]

      50 (return) [ Eusebius, iii. 20. The story is taken from
      Hegesippus.]

      But although the obscurity of the house of David might protect
      them from the suspicions of a tyrant, the present greatness of
      his own family alarmed the pusillanimous temper of Domitian,
      which could only be appeased by the blood of those Romans whom he
      either feared, or hated, or esteemed. Of the two sons of his
      uncle Flavius Sabinus, 51 the elder was soon convicted of
      treasonable intentions, and the younger, who bore the name of
      Flavius Clemens, was indebted for his safety to his want of
      courage and ability. 52 The emperor for a long time,
      distinguished so harmless a kinsman by his favor and protection,
      bestowed on him his own niece Domitilla, adopted the children of
      that marriage to the hope of the succession, and invested their
      father with the honors of the consulship.

      51 (return) [ See the death and character of Sabinus in Tacitus,
      (Hist. iii. 74 ) Sabinus was the elder brother, and, till the
      accession of Vespasian, had been considered as the principal
      support of the Flavium family]

      52 (return) [ Flavium Clementem patruelem suum _contemptissim¾
      inerti¾_.. ex tenuissim‰ suspicione interemit. Sueton. in
      Domitian. c. 15.]

      But he had scarcely finished the term of his annual magistracy,
      when, on a slight pretence, he was condemned and executed;
      Domitilla was banished to a desolate island on the coast of
      Campania; 53 and sentences either of death or of confiscation
      were pronounced against a great number of who were involved in
      the same accusation. The guilt imputed to their charge was that
      of _Atheism_ and _Jewish manners;_ 54 a singular association of
      ideas, which cannot with any propriety be applied except to the
      Christians, as they were obscurely and imperfectly viewed by the
      magistrates and by the writers of that period. On the strength of
      so probable an interpretation, and too eagerly admitting the
      suspicions of a tyrant as an evidence of their honorable crime,
      the church has placed both Clemens and Domitilla among its first
      martyrs, and has branded the cruelty of Domitian with the name of
      the second persecution. But this persecution (if it deserves that
      epithet) was of no long duration. A few months after the death of
      Clemens, and the banishment of Domitilla, Stephen, a freedman
      belonging to the latter, who had enjoyed the favor, but who had
      not surely embraced the faith, of his mistress, 5411 assassinated
      the emperor in his palace. 55 The memory of Domitian was
      condemned by the senate; his acts were rescinded; his exiles
      recalled; and under the gentle administration of Nerva, while the
      innocent were restored to their rank and fortunes, even the most
      guilty either obtained pardon or escaped punishment. 56

      53 (return) [ The Isle of Pandataria, according to Dion. Bruttius
      Pr¾sens (apud Euseb. iii. 18) banishes her to that of Pontia,
      which was not far distant from the other. That difference, and a
      mistake, either of Eusebius or of his transcribers, have given
      occasion to suppose two Domitillas, the wife and the niece of
      Clemens. See Tillemont, MŽmoires EcclŽsiastiques, tom. ii. p.
      224.]

      54 (return) [ Dion. l. lxvii. p. 1112. If the Bruttius Pr¾sens,
      from whom it is probable that he collected this account, was the
      correspondent of Pliny, (Epistol. vii. 3,) we may consider him as
      a contemporary writer.]

      5411 (return) [ This is an uncandid sarcasm. There is nothing to
      connect Stephen with the religion of Domitilla. He was a knave
      detected in the malversation of moneyÑinterceptarum pecuniaram
      reus.ÑM.]

      55 (return) [ Suet. in Domit. c. 17. Philostratus in Vit.
      Apollon. l. viii.]

      56 (return) [ Dion. l. lxviii. p. 1118. Plin. Epistol. iv. 22.]

      II. About ten years afterwards, under the reign of Trajan, the
      younger Pliny was intrusted by his friend and master with the
      government of Bithynia and Pontus. He soon found himself at a
      loss to determine by what rule of justice or of law he should
      direct his conduct in the execution of an office the most
      repugnant to his humanity. Pliny had never assisted at any
      judicial proceedings against the Christians, with whose name
      alone he seems to be acquainted; and he was totally uninformed
      with regard to the nature of their guilt, the method of their
      conviction, and the degree of their punishment. In this
      perplexity he had recourse to his usual expedient, of submitting
      to the wisdom of Trajan an impartial, and, in some respects, a
      favorable account of the new superstition, requesting the
      emperor, that he would condescend to resolve his doubts, and to
      instruct his ignorance. 57 The life of Pliny had been employed in
      the acquisition of learning, and in the business of the world.

      Since the age of nineteen he had pleaded with distinction in the
      tribunals of Rome, 58 filled a place in the senate, had been
      invested with the honors of the consulship, and had formed very
      numerous connections with every order of men, both in Italy and
      in the provinces. From _his_ ignorance therefore we may derive
      some useful information. We may assure ourselves, that when he
      accepted the government of Bithynia, there were no general laws
      or decrees of the senate in force against the Christians; that
      neither Trajan nor any of his virtuous predecessors, whose edicts
      were received into the civil and criminal jurisprudence, had
      publicly declared their intentions concerning the new sect; and
      that whatever proceedings had been carried on against the
      Christians, there were none of sufficient weight and authority to
      establish a precedent for the conduct of a Roman magistrate.

      57 (return) [ Plin. Epistol. x. 97. The learned Mosheim expresses
      himself (p. 147, 232) with the highest approbation of PlinyÕs
      moderate and candid temper. Notwithstanding Dr. LardnerÕs
      suspicions (see Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. ii. p. 46,)
      I am unable to discover any bigotry in his language or
      proceedings. * Note: Yet the humane Pliny put two female
      attendants, probably deaconesses to the torture, in order to
      ascertain the real nature of these suspicious meetings:
      necessarium credidi, ex duabus ancillis, qu¾ ministr¾ dicebantor
      quid asset veri et _per tormenta_ qu¾rere.ÑM.]

      58 (return) [ Plin. Epist. v. 8. He pleaded his first cause A. D.
      81; the year after the famous eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, in
      which his uncle lost his life.]




      Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
      Constantine.ÑPart III.


      The answer of Trajan, to which the Christians of the succeeding
      age have frequently appealed, discovers as much regard for
      justice and humanity as could be reconciled with his mistaken
      notions of religious policy. 59 Instead of displaying the
      implacable zeal of an inquisitor, anxious to discover the most
      minute particles of heresy, and exulting in the number of his
      victims, the emperor expresses much more solicitude to protect
      the security of the innocent, than to prevent the escape of the
      guilty. He acknowledged the difficulty of fixing any general
      plan; but he lays down two salutary rules, which often afforded
      relief and support to the distressed Christians. Though he
      directs the magistrates to punish such persons as are legally
      convicted, he prohibits them, with a very humane inconsistency,
      from making any inquiries concerning the supposed criminals. Nor
      was the magistrate allowed to proceed on every kind of
      information. Anonymous charges the emperor rejects, as too
      repugnant to the equity of his government; and he strictly
      requires, for the conviction of those to whom the guilt of
      Christianity is imputed, the positive evidence of a fair and open
      accuser. It is likewise probable, that the persons who assumed so
      invidiuous an office, were obliged to declare the grounds of
      their suspicions, to specify (both in respect to time and place)
      the secret assemblies, which their Christian adversary had
      frequented, and to disclose a great number of circumstances,
      which were concealed with the most vigilant jealousy from the eye
      of the profane. If they succeeded in their prosecution, they were
      exposed to the resentment of a considerable and active party, to
      the censure of the more liberal portion of mankind, and to the
      ignominy which, in every age and country, has attended the
      character of an informer. If, on the contrary, they failed in
      their proofs, they incurred the severe and perhaps capital
      penalty, which, according to a law published by the emperor
      Hadrian, was inflicted on those who falsely attributed to their
      fellow-citizens the crime of Christianity. The violence of
      personal or superstitious animosity might sometimes prevail over
      the most natural apprehensions of disgrace and danger but it
      cannot surely be imagined, 60 that accusations of so unpromising
      an appearance were either lightly or frequently undertaken by the
      Pagan subjects of the Roman empire. 6011

      59 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 98. Tertullian (Apolog. c. 5)
      considers this rescript as a relaxation of the ancient penal
      laws, Òquas Trajanus exparte frustratus est:Ó and yet Tertullian,
      in another part of his Apology, exposes the inconsistency of
      prohibiting inquiries, and enjoining punishments.]

      60 (return) [ Eusebius (Hist. Ecclesiast. l. iv. c. 9) has
      preserved the edict of Hadrian. He has likewise (c. 13) given us
      one still more favorable, under the name of Antoninus; the
      authenticity of which is not so universally allowed. The second
      Apology of Justin contains some curious particulars relative to
      the accusations of Christians. * Note: Professor Hegelmayer has
      proved the authenticity of the edict of Antoninus, in his Comm.
      Hist. Theol. in Edict. Imp. Antonini. Tubing. 1777, in 4to.ÑG.
      ÑÑNeander doubts its authenticity, (vol. i. p. 152.) In my
      opinion, the internal evidence is decisive against it.ÑM]

      6011 (return) [ The enactment of this law affords strong
      presumption, that accusations of the Òcrime of Christianity,Ó
      were by no means so uncommon, nor received with so much mistrust
      and caution by the ruling authorities, as Gibbon would insinuate.
      ÑM.]

      The expedient which was employed to elude the prudence of the
      laws, affords a sufficient proof how effectually they
      disappointed the mischievous designs of private malice or
      superstitious zeal. In a large and tumultuous assembly, the
      restraints of fear and shame, so forcible on the minds of
      individuals, are deprived of the greatest part of their
      influence. The pious Christian, as he was desirous to obtain, or
      to escape, the glory of martyrdom, expected, either with
      impatience or with terror, the stated returns of the public games
      and festivals. On those occasions the inhabitants of the great
      cities of the empire were collected in the circus or the theatre,
      where every circumstance of the place, as well as of the
      ceremony, contributed to kindle their devotion, and to extinguish
      their humanity. Whilst the numerous spectators, crowned with
      garlands, perfumed with incense, purified with the blood of
      victims, and surrounded with the altars and statues of their
      tutelar deities, resigned themselves to the enjoyment of
      pleasures, which they considered as an essential part of their
      religious worship, they recollected, that the Christians alone
      abhorred the gods of mankind, and by their absence and melancholy
      on these solemn festivals, seemed to insult or to lament the
      public felicity. If the empire had been afflicted by any recent
      calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the
      Tyber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks; if the
      earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had
      been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced that
      the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared by
      the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked
      the divine justice. It was not among a licentious and exasperated
      populace, that the forms of legal proceedings could be observed;
      it was not in an amphitheatre, stained with the blood of wild
      beasts and gladiators, that the voice of compassion could be
      heard. The impatient clamors of the multitude denounced the
      Christians as the enemies of gods and men, doomed them to the
      severest tortures, and venturing to accuse by name some of the
      most distinguished of the new sectaries, required with
      irresistible vehemence that they should be instantly apprehended
      and cast to the lions. 61 The provincial governors and
      magistrates who presided in the public spectacles were usually
      inclined to gratify the inclinations, and to appease the rage, of
      the people, by the sacrifice of a few obnoxious victims. But the
      wisdom of the emperors protected the church from the danger of
      these tumultuous clamors and irregular accusations, which they
      justly censured as repugnant both to the firmness and to the
      equity of their administration. The edicts of Hadrian and of
      Antoninus Pius expressly declared, that the voice of the
      multitude should never be admitted as legal evidence to convict
      or to punish those unfortunate persons who had embraced the
      enthusiasm of the Christians. 62

      61 (return) [ See Tertullian, (Apolog. c. 40.) The acts of the
      martyrdom of Polycarp exhibit a lively picture of these tumults,
      which were usually fomented by the malice of the Jews.]

      62 (return) [ These regulations are inserted in the above
      mentioned document of Hadrian and Pius. See the apology of
      Melito, (apud Euseb. l iv 26)]

      III. Punishment was not the inevitable consequence of conviction,
      and the Christians, whose guilt was the most clearly proved by
      the testimony of witnesses, or even by their voluntary
      confession, still retained in their own power the alternative of
      life or death. It was not so much the past offence, as the actual
      resistance, which excited the indignation of the magistrate. He
      was persuaded that he offered them an easy pardon, since, if they
      consented to cast a few grains of incense upon the altar, they
      were dismissed from the tribunal in safety and with applause. It
      was esteemed the duty of a humane judge to endeavor to reclaim,
      rather than to punish, those deluded enthusiasts. Varying his
      tone according to the age, the sex, or the situation of the
      prisoners, he frequently condescended to set before their eyes
      every circumstance which could render life more pleasing, or
      death more terrible; and to solicit, nay, to entreat, them, that
      they would show some compassion to themselves, to their families,
      and to their friends. 63 If threats and persuasions proved
      ineffectual, he had often recourse to violence; the scourge and
      the rack were called in to supply the deficiency of argument, and
      every art of cruelty was employed to subdue such inflexible, and,
      as it appeared to the Pagans, such criminal, obstinacy. The
      ancient apologists of Christianity have censured, with equal
      truth and severity, the irregular conduct of their persecutors
      who, contrary to every principle of judicial proceeding, admitted
      the use of torture, in order to obtain, not a confession, but a
      denial, of the crime which was the object of their inquiry. 64
      The monks of succeeding ages, who, in their peaceful solitudes,
      entertained themselves with diversifying the deaths and
      sufferings of the primitive martyrs, have frequently invented
      torments of a much more refined and ingenious nature. In
      particular, it has pleased them to suppose, that the zeal of the
      Roman magistrates, disdaining every consideration of moral virtue
      or public decency, endeavored to seduce those whom they were
      unable to vanquish, and that by their orders the most brutal
      violence was offered to those whom they found it impossible to
      seduce. It is related, that females, who were prepared to despise
      death, were sometimes condemned to a more severe trial, 6411 and
      called upon to determine whether they set a higher value on their
      religion or on their chastity. The youths to whose licentious
      embraces they were abandoned, received a solemn exhortation from
      the judge, to exert their most strenuous efforts to maintain the
      honor of Venus against the impious virgin who refused to burn
      incense on her altars. Their violence, however, was commonly
      disappointed, and the seasonable interposition of some miraculous
      power preserved the chaste spouses of Christ from the dishonor
      even of an involuntary defeat. We should not indeed neglect to
      remark, that the more ancient as well as authentic memorials of
      the church are seldom polluted with these extravagant and
      indecent fictions. 65

      63 (return) [ See the rescript of Trajan, and the conduct of
      Pliny. The most authentic acts of the martyrs abound in these
      exhortations. Note: PlinyÕs test was the worship of the gods,
      offerings to the statue of the emperor, and blaspheming
      ChristÑpr¾terea maledicerent Christo.ÑM.]

      64 (return) [ In particular, see Tertullian, (Apolog. c. 2, 3,)
      and Lactantius, (Institut. Divin. v. 9.) Their reasonings are
      almost the same; but we may discover, that one of these
      apologists had been a lawyer, and the other a rhetorician.]

      6411 (return) [ The more ancient as well as authentic memorials
      of the church, relate many examples of the fact, (of these
      _severe trials_,) which there is nothing to contradict.
      Tertullian, among others, says, Nam proxime ad lenonem damnando
      Christianam, potius quam ad leonem, confessi estis labem
      pudiciti¾ apud nos atrociorem omni pÏna et omni morte reputari,
      Apol. cap. ult. Eusebius likewise says, ÒOther virgins, dragged
      to brothels, have lost their life rather than defile their
      virtue.Ó Euseb. Hist. Ecc. viii. 14.ÑG. The miraculous
      interpositions were the offspring of the coarse imaginations of
      the monks.ÑM.]

      65 (return) [ See two instances of this kind of torture in the
      Acta Sincere Martyrum, published by Ruinart, p. 160, 399. Jerome,
      in his Legend of Paul the Hermit, tells a strange story of a
      young man, who was chained naked on a bed of flowers, and
      assaulted by a beautiful and wanton courtesan. He quelled the
      rising temptation by biting off his tongue.]

      The total disregard of truth and probability in the
      representation of these primitive martyrdoms was occasioned by a
      very natural mistake. The ecclesiastical writers of the fourth or
      fifth centuries ascribed to the magistrates of Rome the same
      degree of implacable and unrelenting zeal which filled their own
      breasts against the heretics or the idolaters of their own times.

      It is not improbable that some of those persons who were raised
      to the dignities of the empire, might have imbibed the prejudices
      of the populace, and that the cruel disposition of others might
      occasionally be stimulated by motives of avarice or of personal
      resentment. 66 But it is certain, and we may appeal to the
      grateful confessions of the first Christians, that the greatest
      part of those magistrates who exercised in the provinces the
      authority of the emperor, or of the senate, and to whose hands
      alone the jurisdiction of life and death was intrusted, behaved
      like men of polished manners and liberal education, who respected
      the rules of justice, and who were conversant with the precepts
      of philosophy. They frequently declined the odious task of
      persecution, dismissed the charge with contempt, or suggested to
      the accused Christian some legal evasion, by which he might elude
      the severity of the laws. 67 Whenever they were invested with a
      discretionary power, 68 they used it much less for the
      oppression, than for the relief and benefit of the afflicted
      church. They were far from condemning all the Christians who were
      accused before their tribunal, and very far from punishing with
      death all those who were convicted of an obstinate adherence to
      the new superstition. Contenting themselves, for the most part,
      with the milder chastisements of imprisonment, exile, or slavery
      in the mines, 69 they left the unhappy victims of their justice
      some reason to hope, that a prosperous event, the accession, the
      marriage, or the triumph of an emperor, might speedily restore
      them, by a general pardon, to their former state. The martyrs,
      devoted to immediate execution by the Roman magistrates, appear
      to have been selected from the most opposite extremes. They were
      either bishops and presbyters, the persons the most distinguished
      among the Christians by their rank and influence, and whose
      example might strike terror into the whole sect; 70 or else they
      were the meanest and most abject among them, particularly those
      of the servile condition, whose lives were esteemed of little
      value, and whose sufferings were viewed by the ancients with too
      careless an indifference. 71 The learned Origen, who, from his
      experience as well as reading, was intimately acquainted with the
      history of the Christians, declares, in the most express terms,
      that the number of martyrs was very inconsiderable. 72 His
      authority would alone be sufficient to annihilate that formidable
      army of martyrs, whose relics, drawn for the most part from the
      catacombs of Rome, have replenished so many churches, 73 and
      whose marvellous achievements have been the subject of so many
      volumes of Holy Romance. 74 But the general assertion of Origen
      may be explained and confirmed by the particular testimony of his
      friend Dionysius, who, in the immense city of Alexandria, and
      under the rigorous persecution of Decius, reckons only ten men
      and seven women who suffered for the profession of the Christian
      name. 75

      66 (return) [ The conversion of his wife provoked Claudius
      Herminianus, governor of Cappadocia, to treat the Christians with
      uncommon severity. Tertullian ad Scapulam, c. 3.]

      67 (return) [ Tertullian, in his epistle to the governor of
      Africa, mentions several remarkable instances of lenity and
      forbearance, which had happened within his knowledge.]

      68 (return) [ Neque enim in universum aliquid quod quasi certam
      formam habeat, constitui potest; an expression of Trajan, which
      gave a very great latitude to the governors of provinces. * Note:
      Gibbon altogether forgets that Trajan fully approved of the
      course pursued by Pliny. That course was, to order all who
      persevered in their faith to be led to execution: perseverantes
      duci jussi.ÑM.]

      69 (return) [ In Metalla damnamur, in insulas relegamur.
      Tertullian, Apolog. c. 12. The mines of Numidia contained nine
      bishops, with a proportionable number of their clergy and people,
      to whom Cyprian addressed a pious epistle of praise and comfort.
      See Cyprian. Epistol. 76, 77.]

      70 (return) [ Though we cannot receive with entire confidence
      either the epistles, or the acts, of Ignatius, (they may be found
      in the 2d volume of the Apostolic Fathers,) yet we may quote that
      bishop of Antioch as one of these _exemplary_ martyrs. He was
      sent in chains to Rome as a public spectacle, and when he arrived
      at Troas, he received the pleasing intelligence, that the
      persecution of Antioch was already at an end. * Note: The acts of
      Ignatius are generally received as authentic, as are seven of his
      letters. Eusebius and St. Jerome mention them: there are two
      editions; in one, the letters are longer, and many passages
      appear to have been interpolated; the other edition is that which
      contains the real letters of St. Ignatius; such at least is the
      opinion of the wisest and most enlightened critics. (See Lardner.
      Cred. of Gospel Hist.) Less, uber dis Religion, v. i. p. 529.
      Usser. Diss. de Ign. Epist. Pearson, Vindic, Ignatian¾. It should
      be remarked, that it was under the reign of Trajan that the
      bishop Ignatius was carried from Antioch to Rome, to be exposed
      to the lions in the amphitheatre, the year of J. C. 107,
      according to some; of 116, according to others.ÑG.]

      71 (return) [ Among the martyrs of Lyons, (Euseb. l. v. c. 1,)
      the slave Blandina was distinguished by more exquisite tortures.
      Of the five martyrs so much celebrated in the acts of Felicitas
      and Perpetua, two were of a servile, and two others of a very
      mean, condition.]

      72 (return) [ Origen. advers. Celsum, l. iii. p. 116. His words
      deserve to be transcribed. * Note: The words that follow should
      be quoted. ÒGod not permitting that all his class of men should
      be exterminated:Ó which appears to indicate that Origen thought
      the number put to death inconsiderable only when compared to the
      numbers who had survived. Besides this, he is speaking of the
      state of the religion under Caracalla, Elagabalus, Alexander
      Severus, and Philip, who had not persecuted the Christians. It
      was during the reign of the latter that Origen wrote his books
      against Celsus.ÑG.]

      73 (return) [ If we recollect that all the Plebeians of Rome were
      not Christians, and that all the Christians were not saints and
      martyrs, we may judge with how much safety religious honors can
      be ascribed to bones or urns, indiscriminately taken from the
      public burial-place. After ten centuries of a very free and open
      trade, some suspicions have arisen among the more learned
      Catholics. They now require as a proof of sanctity and martyrdom,
      the letters B.M., a vial full of red liquor supposed to be blood,
      or the figure of a palm-tree. But the two former signs are of
      little weight, and with regard to the last, it is observed by the
      critics, 1. That the figure, as it is called, of a palm, is
      perhaps a cypress, and perhaps only a stop, the flourish of a
      comma used in the monumental inscriptions. 2. That the palm was
      the symbol of victory among the Pagans. 3. That among the
      Christians it served as the emblem, not only of martyrdom, but in
      general of a joyful resurrection. See the epistle of P. Mabillon,
      on the worship of unknown saints, and Muratori sopra le Antichita
      Italiane, Dissertat. lviii.]

      74 (return) [ As a specimen of these legends, we may be satisfied
      with 10,000 Christian soldiers crucified in one day, either by
      Trajan or Hadrian on Mount Ararat. See Baronius ad Martyrologium
      Romanum; Tille mont, MŽm. Ecclesiast. tom. ii. part ii. p. 438;
      and GeddesÕs Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 203. The abbreviation of
      Mil., which may signify either _soldiers_ or _thousands_, is said
      to have occasioned some extraordinary mistakes.]

      75 (return) [ Dionysius ap. Euseb l. vi. c. 41 One of the
      seventeen was likewise accused of robbery. * Note: Gibbon ought
      to have said, was falsely accused of robbery, for so it is in the
      Greek text. This Christian, named Nemesion, falsely accused of
      robbery before the centurion, was acquitted of a crime altogether
      foreign to his character, but he was led before the governor as
      guilty of being a Christian, and the governor inflicted upon him
      a double torture. (Euseb. loc. cit.) It must be added, that Saint
      Dionysius only makes particular mention of the principal martyrs,
      [this is very doubtful.ÑM.] and that he says, in general, that
      the fury of the Pagans against the Christians gave to Alexandria
      the appearance of a city taken by storm. [This refers to plunder
      and ill usage, not to actual slaughter.ÑM.] Finally it should be
      observed that Origen wrote before the persecution of the emperor
      Decius.ÑG.]

      During the same period of persecution, the zealous, the eloquent,
      the ambitious Cyprian governed the church, not only of Carthage,
      but even of Africa. He possessed every quality which could engage
      the reverence of the faithful, or provoke the suspicions and
      resentment of the Pagan magistrates. His character as well as his
      station seemed to mark out that holy prelate as the most
      distinguished object of envy and danger. 76 The experience,
      however, of the life of Cyprian, is sufficient to prove that our
      fancy has exaggerated the perilous situation of a Christian
      bishop; and the dangers to which he was exposed were less
      imminent than those which temporal ambition is always prepared to
      encounter in the pursuit of honors. Four Roman emperors, with
      their families, their favorites, and their adherents, perished by
      the sword in the space of ten years, during which the bishop of
      Carthage guided by his authority and eloquence the councils of
      the African church. It was only in the third year of his
      administration, that he had reason, during a few months, to
      apprehend the severe edicts of Decius, the vigilance of the
      magistrate and the clamors of the multitude, who loudly demanded,
      that Cyprian, the leader of the Christians, should be thrown to
      the lions. Prudence suggested the necessity of a temporary
      retreat, and the voice of prudence was obeyed. He withdrew
      himself into an obscure solitude, from whence he could maintain a
      constant correspondence with the clergy and people of Carthage;
      and, concealing himself till the tempest was past, he preserved
      his life, without relinquishing either his power or his
      reputation. His extreme caution did not, however, escape the
      censure of the more rigid Christians, who lamented, or the
      reproaches of his personal enemies, who insulted, a conduct which
      they considered as a pusillanimous and criminal desertion of the
      most sacred duty. 77 The propriety of reserving himself for the
      future exigencies of the church, the example of several holy
      bishops, 78 and the divine admonitions, which, as he declares
      himself, he frequently received in visions and ecstacies, were
      the reasons alleged in his justification. 79 But his best apology
      may be found in the cheerful resolution, with which, about eight
      years afterwards, he suffered death in the cause of religion. The
      authentic history of his martyrdom has been recorded with unusual
      candor and impartiality. A short abstract, therefore, of its most
      important circumstances, will convey the clearest information of
      the spirit, and of the forms, of the Roman persecutions. 80

      76 (return) [ The letters of Cyprian exhibit a very curious and
      original picture both of the _man_ and of the _times_. See
      likewise the two lives of Cyprian, composed with equal accuracy,
      though with very different views; the one by Le Clerc
      (Bibliothque Universelle, tom. xii. p. 208-378,) the other by
      Tillemont, MŽmoires EcclŽsiastiques, tom. iv part i. p. 76-459.]

      77 (return) [ See the polite but severe epistle of the clergy of
      Rome to the bishop of Carthage. (Cyprian. Epist. 8, 9.) Pontius
      labors with the greatest care and diligence to justify his master
      against the general censure.]

      78 (return) [ In particular those of Dionysius of Alexandria, and
      Gregory Thaumaturgus, of Neo-C¾sarea. See Euseb. Hist.
      Ecclesiast. l. vi. c. 40; and MŽmoires de Tillemont, tom. iv.
      part ii. p. 685.]

      79 (return) [ See Cyprian. Epist. 16, and his life by Pontius.]

      80 (return) [ We have an original life of Cyprian by the deacon
      Pontius, the companion of his exile, and the spectator of his
      death; and we likewise possess the ancient proconsular acts of
      his martyrdom. These two relations are consistent with each
      other, and with probability; and what is somewhat remarkable,
      they are both unsullied by any miraculous circumstances.]




      Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
      Constantine.ÑPart IV.


      When Valerian was consul for the third, and Gallienus for the
      fourth time, Paternus, proconsul of Africa, summoned Cyprian to
      appear in his private council-chamber. He there acquainted him
      with the Imperial mandate which he had just received, 81 that
      those who had abandoned the Roman religion should immediately
      return to the practice of the ceremonies of their ancestors.
      Cyprian replied without hesitation, that he was a Christian and a
      bishop, devoted to the worship of the true and only Deity, to
      whom he offered up his daily supplications for the safety and
      prosperity of the two emperors, his lawful sovereigns.

      With modest confidence he pleaded the privilege of a citizen, in
      refusing to give any answer to some invidious and indeed illegal
      questions which the proconsul had proposed. A sentence of
      banishment was pronounced as the penalty of CyprianÕs
      disobedience; and he was conducted without delay to Curubis, a
      free and maritime city of Zeugitania, in a pleasant situation, a
      fertile territory, and at the distance of about forty miles from
      Carthage. 82 The exiled bishop enjoyed the conveniences of life
      and the consciousness of virtue. His reputation was diffused over
      Africa and Italy; an account of his behavior was published for
      the edification of the Christian world; 83 and his solitude was
      frequently interrupted by the letters, the visits, and the
      congratulations of the faithful. On the arrival of a new
      proconsul in the province the fortune of Cyprian appeared for
      some time to wear a still more favorable aspect. He was recalled
      from banishment; and though not yet permitted to return to
      Carthage, his own gardens in the neighborhood of the capital were
      assigned for the place of his residence. 84

      81 (return) [ It should seem that these were circular orders,
      sent at the same time to all the governors. Dionysius (ap. Euseb.
      l. vii. c. 11) relates the history of his own banishment from
      Alexandria almost in the same manner. But as he escaped and
      survived the persecution, we must account him either more or less
      fortunate than Cyprian.]

      82 (return) [ See Plin. Hist. Natur. v. 3. Cellarius, Geograph.
      Antiq. part iii. p. 96. ShawÕs Travels, p. 90; and for the
      adjacent country, (which is terminated by Cape Bona, or the
      promontory of Mercury,) lÕAfrique de Marmol. tom. ii. p. 494.
      There are the remains of an aqueduct near Curubis, or Curbis, at
      present altered into Gurbes; and Dr. Shaw read an inscription,
      which styles that city _Colonia Fulvia_. The deacon Pontius (in
      Vit. Cyprian. c. 12) calls it ÒApricum et competentem locum,
      hospitium pro voluntate secretum, et quicquid apponi eis ante
      promissum est, qui regnum et justitiam Dei qu¾runt.Ó]

      83 (return) [ See Cyprian. Epistol. 77, edit. Fell.]

      84 (return) [ Upon his conversion, he had sold those gardens for
      the benefit of the poor. The indulgence of God (most probably the
      liberality of some Christian friend) restored them to Cyprian.
      See Pontius, c. 15.]

      At length, exactly one year 85 after Cyprian was first
      apprehended, Galerius Maximus, proconsul of Africa, received the
      Imperial warrant for the execution of the Christian teachers. The
      bishop of Carthage was sensible that he should be singled out for
      one of the first victims; and the frailty of nature tempted him
      to withdraw himself, by a secret flight, from the danger and the
      honor of martyrdom; 8511 but soon recovering that fortitude which
      his character required, he returned to his gardens, and patiently
      expected the ministers of death. Two officers of rank, who were
      intrusted with that commission, placed Cyprian between them in a
      chariot, and as the proconsul was not then at leisure, they
      conducted him, not to a prison, but to a private house in
      Carthage, which belonged to one of them. An elegant supper was
      provided for the entertainment of the bishop, and his Christian
      friends were permitted for the last time to enjoy his society,
      whilst the streets were filled with a multitude of the faithful,
      anxious and alarmed at the approaching fate of their spiritual
      father. 86 In the morning he appeared before the tribunal of the
      proconsul, who, after informing himself of the name and situation
      of Cyprian, commanded him to offer sacrifice, and pressed him to
      reflect on the consequences of his disobedience. The refusal of
      Cyprian was firm and decisive; and the magistrate, when he had
      taken the opinion of his council, pronounced with some reluctance
      the sentence of death. It was conceived in the following terms:
      ÒThat Thascius Cyprianus should be immediately beheaded, as the
      enemy of the gods of Rome, and as the chief and ringleader of a
      criminal association, which he had seduced into an impious
      resistance against the laws of the most holy emperors, Valerian
      and Gallienus.Ó 87 The manner of his execution was the mildest
      and least painful that could be inflicted on a person convicted
      of any capital offence; nor was the use of torture admitted to
      obtain from the bishop of Carthage either the recantation of his
      principles or the discovery of his accomplices.

      85 (return) [ When Cyprian; a twelvemonth before, was sent into
      exile, he dreamt that he should be put to death the next day. The
      event made it necessary to explain that word, as signifying a
      year. Pontius, c. 12.]

      8511 (return) [ This was not, as it appears, the motive which
      induced St. Cyprian to conceal himself for a short time; he was
      threatened to be carried to Utica; he preferred remaining at
      Carthage, in order to suffer martyrdom in the midst of his flock,
      and in order that his death might conduce to the edification of
      those whom he had guided during life. Such, at least, is his own
      explanation of his conduct in one of his letters: Cum perlatum ad
      nos fuisset, fratres carissimi, frumentarios esse missos qui me
      Uticam per ducerent, consilioque carissimorum persuasum est, ut
      de hortis interim recederemus, justa interveniente caus‰,
      consensi; eo quod congruat episcopum in e‰ civitate, in qu‰
      Ecclesi¾ dominic¾ pr¾est, illie. Dominum confiteri et plebem
      universam pr¾positi pr¾sentis confessione clarificari Ep. 83.ÑG]

      86 (return) [ Pontius (c. 15) acknowledges that Cyprian, with
      whom he supped, passed the night custodia delicata. The bishop
      exercised a last and very proper act of jurisdiction, by
      directing that the younger females, who watched in the streets,
      should be removed from the dangers and temptations of a nocturnal
      crowd. Act. Preconsularia, c. 2.]

      87 (return) [ See the original sentence in the Acts, c. 4; and in
      Pontius, c. 17 The latter expresses it in a more rhetorical
      manner.]

      As soon as the sentence was proclaimed, a general cry of ÒWe will
      die with him,Ó arose at once among the listening multitude of
      Christians who waited before the palace gates. The generous
      effusions of their zeal and their affection were neither
      serviceable to Cyprian nor dangerous to themselves. He was led
      away under a guard of tribunes and centurions, without resistance
      and without insult, to the place of his execution, a spacious and
      level plain near the city, which was already filled with great
      numbers of spectators. His faithful presbyters and deacons were
      permitted to accompany their holy bishop. 8711 They assisted him
      in laying aside his upper garment, spread linen on the ground to
      catch the precious relics of his blood, and received his orders
      to bestow five-and-twenty pieces of gold on the executioner. The
      martyr then covered his face with his hands, and at one blow his
      head was separated from his body. His corpse remained during some
      hours exposed to the curiosity of the Gentiles: but in the night
      it was removed, and transported in a triumphal procession, and
      with a splendid illumination, to the burial-place of the
      Christians. The funeral of Cyprian was publicly celebrated
      without receiving any interruption from the Roman magistrates;
      and those among the faithful, who had performed the last offices
      to his person and his memory, were secure from the danger of
      inquiry or of punishment. It is remarkable, that of so great a
      multitude of bishops in the province of Africa, Cyprian was the
      first who was esteemed worthy to obtain the crown of martyrdom.
      88

      8711 (return) [ There is nothing in the life of St. Cyprian, by
      Pontius, nor in the ancient manuscripts, which can make us
      suppose that the presbyters and deacons in their clerical
      character, and known to be such, had the permission to attend
      their holy bishop. Setting aside all religious considerations, it
      is impossible not to be surprised at the kind of complaisance
      with which the historian here insists, in favor of the
      persecutors, on some mitigating circumstances allowed at the
      death of a man whose only crime was maintaining his own opinions
      with frankness and courage.ÑG.]

      88 (return) [ Pontius, c. 19. M. de Tillemont (MŽmoires, tom. iv.
      part i. p. 450, note 50) is not pleased with so positive an
      exclusion of any former martyr of the episcopal rank. * Note: M.
      de. Tillemont, as an honest writer, explains the difficulties
      which he felt about the text of Pontius, and concludes by
      distinctly stating, that without doubt there is some mistake, and
      that Pontius must have meant only Africa Minor or Carthage; for
      St. Cyprian, in his 58th (69th) letter addressed to Pupianus,
      speaks expressly of many bishops his colleagues, qui proscripti
      sunt, vel apprehensi in carcere et catenis fuerunt; aut qui in
      exilium relegati, illustri itinere ed Dominum profecti sunt; aut
      qui quibusdam locis animadversi, cÏlestes coronas de Domini
      clarificatione sumpserunt.ÑG.]

      It was in the choice of Cyprian, either to die a martyr, or to
      live an apostate; but on the choice depended the alternative of
      honor or infamy. Could we suppose that the bishop of Carthage had
      employed the profession of the Christian faith only as the
      instrument of his avarice or ambition, it was still incumbent on
      him to support the character he had assumed; 89 and if he
      possessed the smallest degree of manly fortitude, rather to
      expose himself to the most cruel tortures, than by a single act
      to exchange the reputation of a whole life, for the abhorrence of
      his Christian brethren, and the contempt of the Gentile world.
      But if the zeal of Cyprian was supported by the sincere
      conviction of the truth of those doctrines which he preached, the
      crown of martyrdom must have appeared to him as an object of
      desire rather than of terror. It is not easy to extract any
      distinct ideas from the vague though eloquent declamations of the
      Fathers, or to ascertain the degree of immortal glory and
      happiness which they confidently promised to those who were so
      fortunate as to shed their blood in the cause of religion. 90
      They inculcated with becoming diligence, that the fire of
      martyrdom supplied every defect and expiated every sin; that
      while the souls of ordinary Christians were obliged to pass
      through a slow and painful purification, the triumphant sufferers
      entered into the immediate fruition of eternal bliss, where, in
      the society of the patriarchs, the apostles, and the prophets,
      they reigned with Christ, and acted as his assessors in the
      universal judgment of mankind. The assurance of a lasting
      reputation upon earth, a motive so congenial to the vanity of
      human nature, often served to animate the courage of the martyrs.

      The honors which Rome or Athens bestowed on those citizens who
      had fallen in the cause of their country, were cold and unmeaning
      demonstrations of respect, when compared with the ardent
      gratitude and devotion which the primitive church expressed
      towards the victorious champions of the faith. The annual
      commemoration of their virtues and sufferings was observed as a
      sacred ceremony, and at length terminated in religious worship.
      Among the Christians who had publicly confessed their religious
      principles, those who (as it very frequently happened) had been
      dismissed from the tribunal or the prisons of the Pagan
      magistrates, obtained such honors as were justly due to their
      imperfect martyrdom and their generous resolution. The most pious
      females courted the permission of imprinting kisses on the
      fetters which they had worn, and on the wounds which they had
      received. Their persons were esteemed holy, their decisions were
      admitted with deference, and they too often abused, by their
      spiritual pride and licentious manners, the pre‘minence which
      their zeal and intrepidity had acquired. 91 Distinctions like
      these, whilst they display the exalted merit, betray the
      inconsiderable number of those who suffered, and of those who
      died, for the profession of Christianity.

      89 (return) [ Whatever opinion we may entertain of the character
      or principles of Thomas Becket, we must acknowledge that he
      suffered death with a constancy not unworthy of the primitive
      martyrs. See Lord LyttletonÕs History of Henry II. vol. ii. p.
      592, &c.]

      90 (return) [ See in particular the treatise of Cyprian de
      Lapsis, p. 87-98, edit. Fell. The learning of Dodwell (Dissertat.
      Cyprianic. xii. xiii.,) and the ingenuity of Middleton, (Free
      Inquiry, p. 162, &c.,) have left scarcely any thing to add
      concerning the merit, the honors, and the motives of the
      martyrs.]

      91 (return) [ Cyprian. Epistol. 5, 6, 7, 22, 24; and de Unitat.
      Ecclesi¾. The number of pretended martyrs has been very much
      multiplied, by the custom which was introduced of bestowing that
      honorable name on confessors. Note: M. Guizot denies that the
      letters of Cyprian, to which he refers, bear out the statement in
      the text. I cannot scruple to admit the accuracy of GibbonÕs
      quotation. To take only the fifth letter, we find this passage:
      Doleo enim quando audio quosdam improbe et insolenter discurrere,
      et ad ineptian vel ad discordias vacare, Christi membra et jam
      Christum confessa per concubitžs illicitos inquinari, nec a
      diaconis aut presbyteris regi posse, sed id agere ut per paucorum
      pravos et malos mores, multorum et bonorum confessorum gloria
      honesta maculetur. GibbonÕs misrepresentation lies in the
      ambiguous expression Òtoo often.Ó Were the epistles arranged in a
      different manner in the edition consulted by M. Guizot?ÑM.]

      The sober discretion of the present age will more readily censure
      than admire, but can more easily admire than imitate, the fervor
      of the first Christians, who, according to the lively expressions
      of Sulpicius Severus, desired martyrdom with more eagerness than
      his own contemporaries solicited a bishopric. 92 The epistles
      which Ignatius composed as he was carried in chains through the
      cities of Asia, breathe sentiments the most repugnant to the
      ordinary feelings of human nature. He earnestly beseeches the
      Romans, that when he should be exposed in the amphitheatre, they
      would not, by their kind but unseasonable intercession, deprive
      him of the crown of glory; and he declares his resolution to
      provoke and irritate the wild beasts which might be employed as
      the instruments of his death. 93 Some stories are related of the
      courage of martyrs, who actually performed what Ignatius had
      intended; who exasperated the fury of the lions, pressed the
      executioner to hasten his office, cheerfully leaped into the
      fires which were kindled to consume them, and discovered a
      sensation of joy and pleasure in the midst of the most exquisite
      tortures. Several examples have been preserved of a zeal
      impatient of those restraints which the emperors had provided for
      the security of the church. The Christians sometimes supplied by
      their voluntary declaration the want of an accuser, rudely
      disturbed the public service of paganism, 94 and rushing in
      crowds round the tribunal of the magistrates, called upon them to
      pronounce and to inflict the sentence of the law. The behavior of
      the Christians was too remarkable to escape the notice of the
      ancient philosophers; but they seem to have considered it with
      much less admiration than astonishment. Incapable of conceiving
      the motives which sometimes transported the fortitude of
      believers beyond the bounds of prudence or reason, they treated
      such an eagerness to die as the strange result of obstinate
      despair, of stupid insensibility, or of superstitious frenzy. 95
      ÒUnhappy men!Ó exclaimed the proconsul Antoninus to the
      Christians of Asia; Òunhappy men! if you are thus weary of your
      lives, is it so difficult for you to find ropes and precipices?Ó
      96 He was extremely cautious (as it is observed by a learned and
      picus historian) of punishing men who had found no accusers but
      themselves, the Imperial laws not having made any provision for
      so unexpected a case: condemning therefore a few as a warning to
      their brethren, he dismissed the multitude with indignation and
      contempt. 97 Notwithstanding this real or affected disdain, the
      intrepid constancy of the faithful was productive of more
      salutary effects on those minds which nature or grace had
      disposed for the easy reception of religious truth. On these
      melancholy occasions, there were many among the Gentiles who
      pitied, who admired, and who were converted. The generous
      enthusiasm was communicated from the sufferer to the spectators;
      and the blood of martyrs, according to a well-known observation,
      became the seed of the church.

      92 (return) [ Certatim gloriosa in certamina ruebatur; multique
      avidius tum martyria gloriosis mortibus qu¾rebantur, quam nunc
      Episcopatus pravis ambitionibus appetuntur. Sulpicius Severus, l.
      ii. He might have omitted the word _nunc_.]

      93 (return) [ See Epist. ad Roman. c. 4, 5, ap. Patres Apostol.
      tom. ii. p. 27. It suited the purpose of Bishop Pearson (see
      Vindici¾ Ignatian¾, part ii. c. 9) to justify, by a profusion of
      examples and authorities, the sentiments of Ignatius.]

      94 (return) [ The story of Polyeuctes, on which Corneille has
      founded a very beautiful tragedy, is one of the most celebrated,
      though not perhaps the most authentic, instances of this
      excessive zeal. We should observe, that the 60th canon of the
      council of Illiberis refuses the title of martyrs to those who
      exposed themselves to death, by publicly destroying the idols.]

      95 (return) [ See Epictetus, l. iv. c. 7, (though there is some
      doubt whether he alludes to the Christians.) Marcus Antoninus de
      Rebus suis, l. xi. c. 3 Lucian in Peregrin.]

      96 (return) [ Tertullian ad Scapul. c. 5. The learned are divided
      between three persons of the same name, who were all proconsuls
      of Asia. I am inclined to ascribe this story to Antoninus Pius,
      who was afterwards emperor; and who may have governed Asia under
      the reign of Trajan.]

      97 (return) [ Mosheim, de Rebus Christ, ante Constantin. p. 235.]

      But although devotion had raised, and eloquence continued to
      inflame, this fever of the mind, it insensibly gave way to the
      more natural hopes and fears of the human heart, to the love of
      life, the apprehension of pain, and the horror of dissolution.
      The more prudent rulers of the church found themselves obliged to
      restrain the indiscreet ardor of their followers, and to distrust
      a constancy which too often abandoned them in the hour of trial.
      98 As the lives of the faithful became less mortified and
      austere, they were every day less ambitious of the honors of
      martyrdom; and the soldiers of Christ, instead of distinguishing
      themselves by voluntary deeds of heroism, frequently deserted
      their post, and fled in confusion before the enemy whom it was
      their duty to resist. There were three methods, however, of
      escaping the flames of persecution, which were not attended with
      an equal degree of guilt: first, indeed, was generally allowed to
      be innocent; the second was of a doubtful, or at least of a
      venial, nature; but the third implied a direct and criminal
      apostasy from the Christian faith.

      98 (return) [ See the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna, ap. Euseb.
      Hist. Eccles. Liv. c. 15 * Note: The 15th chapter of the 10th
      book of the Eccles. History of Eusebius treats principally of the
      martyrdom of St. Polycarp, and mentions some other martyrs. A
      single example of weakness is related; it is that of a Phrygian
      named Quintus, who, appalled at the sight of the wild beasts and
      the tortures, renounced his faith. This example proves little
      against the mass of Christians, and this chapter of Eusebius
      furnished much stronger evidence of their courage than of their
      timidity.ÑGÑÑThis Quintus had, however, rashly and of his own
      accord appeared before the tribunal; and the church of Smyrna
      condemn Ò_his indiscreet ardor_,Ó coupled as it was with weakness
      in the hour of trial.ÑM.]

      I. A modern inquisitor would hear with surprise, that whenever an
      information was given to a Roman magistrate of any person within
      his jurisdiction who had embraced the sect of the Christians, the
      charge was communicated to the party accused, and that a
      convenient time was allowed him to settle his domestic concerns,
      and to prepare an answer to the crime which was imputed to him.
      99 If he entertained any doubt of his own constancy, such a delay
      afforded him the opportunity of preserving his life and honor by
      flight, of withdrawing himself into some obscure retirement or
      some distant province, and of patiently expecting the return of
      peace and security. A measure so consonant to reason was soon
      authorized by the advice and example of the most holy prelates;
      and seems to have been censured by few except by the Montanists,
      who deviated into heresy by their strict and obstinate adherence
      to the rigor of ancient discipline. 100

      II.The provincial governors, whose zeal was less prevalent than
      their avarice, had countenanced the practice of selling
      certificates, (or libels, as they were called,) which attested,
      that the persons therein mentioned had complied with the laws,
      and sacrificed to the Roman deities. By producing these false
      declarations, the opulent and timid Christians were enabled to
      silence the malice of an informer, and to reconcile in some
      measure their safety with their religion.101 A slight penance
      atoned for this profane dissimulation. 1011

      III. In every persecution there were great numbers of unworthy
      Christians who publicly disowned or renounced the faith which
      they had professed; and who confirmed the sincerity of their
      abjuration, by the legal acts of burning incense or of offering
      sacrifices. Some of these apostates had yielded on the first
      menace or exhortation of the magistrate; whilst the patience of
      others had been subdued by the length and repetition of tortures.
      The affrighted countenances of some betrayed their inward
      remorse, while others advanced with confidence and alacrity to
      the altars of the gods. 102 But the disguise which fear had
      imposed, subsisted no longer than the present danger. As soon as
      the severity of the persecution was abated, the doors of the
      churches were assailed by the returning multitude of penitents
      who detested their idolatrous submission, and who solicited with
      equal ardor, but with various success, their readmission into the
      society of Christians. 103 1031

      99 (return) [ In the second apology of Justin, there is a
      particular and very curious instance of this legal delay. The
      same indulgence was granted to accused Christians, in the
      persecution of Decius: and Cyprian (de Lapsis) expressly mentions
      the ÒDies negantibus pr¾stitutus.Ó * Note: The examples drawn by
      the historian from Justin Martyr and Cyprian relate altogether to
      particular cases, and prove nothing as to the general practice
      adopted towards the accused; it is evident, on the contrary, from
      the same apology of St. Justin, that they hardly ever obtained
      delay. ÒA man named Lucius, himself a Christian, present at an
      unjust sentence passed against a Christian by the judge Urbicus,
      asked him why he thus punished a man who was neither adulterer
      nor robber, nor guilty of any other crime but that of avowing
      himself a Christian.Ó Urbicus answered only in these words: ÒThou
      also hast the appearance of being a Christian.Ó ÒYes, without
      doubt,Ó replied Lucius. The judge ordered that he should be put
      to death on the instant. A third, who came up, was condemned to
      be beaten with rods. Here, then, are three examples where no
      delay was granted.ÑÑ[Surely these acts of a single passionate and
      irritated judge prove the general practice as little as those
      quoted by Gibbon.ÑM.] There exist a multitude of others, such as
      those of Ptolemy, Marcellus, &c. Justin expressly charges the
      judges with ordering the accused to be executed without hearing
      the cause. The words of St. Cyprian are as particular, and simply
      say, that he had appointed a day by which the Christians must
      have renounced their faith; those who had not done it by that
      time were condemned.ÑG. This confirms the statement in the
      text.ÑM.]

      100 (return) [ Tertullian considers flight from persecution as an
      imperfect, but very criminal, apostasy, as an impious attempt to
      elude the will of God, &c., &c. He has written a treatise on this
      subject, (see p. 536Ñ544, edit. Rigalt.,) which is filled with
      the wildest fanaticism and the most incoherent declamation. It
      is, however, somewhat remarkable, that Tertullian did not suffer
      martyrdom himself.]

      101 (return) [ The _libellatici_, who are chiefly known by the
      writings of Cyprian, are described with the utmost precision, in
      the copious commentary of Mosheim, p. 483Ñ489.]

      1011 (return) [ The penance was not so slight, for it was exactly
      the same with that of apostates who had sacrificed to idols; it
      lasted several years. See Fleun Hist. Ecc. v. ii. p. 171.ÑG.]

      102 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 97. Dionysius Alexandrin. ap.
      Euseb. l. vi. c. 41. Ad prima statim verba minantis inimici
      maximus fratrum numerus fidem suam prodidit: nec prostratus est
      persecutionis impetu, sed voluntario lapsu seipsum prostravit.
      Cyprian. Opera, p. 89. Among these deserters were many priests,
      and even bishops.]

      103 (return) [ It was on this occasion that Cyprian wrote his
      treatise De Lapsis, and many of his epistles. The controversy
      concerning the treatment of penitent apostates, does not occur
      among the Christians of the preceding century. Shall we ascribe
      this to the superiority of their faith and courage, or to our
      less intimate knowledge of their history!]

      1031 (return) [ Pliny says, that the greater part of the
      Christians persisted in avowing themselves to be so; the reason
      for his consulting Trajan was the periclitantium numerus.
      Eusebius (l. vi. c. 41) does not permit us to doubt that the
      number of those who renounced their faith was infinitely below
      the number of those who boldly confessed it. The prefect, he says
      and his assessors present at the council, were alarmed at seeing
      the crowd of Christians; the judges themselves trembled. Lastly,
      St. Cyprian informs us, that the greater part of those who had
      appeared weak brethren in the persecution of Decius, signalized
      their courage in that of Gallius. Steterunt fortes, et ipso
      dolore pÏnitenti¾ facti ad pr¾lium fortiores Epist. lx. p.
      142.ÑG.]

      IV. Notwithstanding the general rules established for the
      conviction and punishment of the Christians, the fate of those
      sectaries, in an extensive and arbitrary government, must still
      in a great measure, have depended on their own behavior, the
      circumstances of the times, and the temper of their supreme as
      well as subordinate rulers. Zeal might sometimes provoke, and
      prudence might sometimes avert or assuage, the superstitious fury
      of the Pagans. A variety of motives might dispose the provincial
      governors either to enforce or to relax the execution of the
      laws; and of these motives the most forcible was their regard not
      only for the public edicts, but for the secret intentions of the
      emperor, a glance from whose eye was sufficient to kindle or to
      extinguish the flames of persecution. As often as any occasional
      severities were exercised in the different parts of the empire,
      the primitive Christians lamented and perhaps magnified their own
      sufferings; but the celebrated number of _ten_ persecutions has
      been determined by the ecclesiastical writers of the fifth
      century, who possessed a more distinct view of the prosperous or
      adverse fortunes of the church, from the age of Nero to that of
      Diocletian. The ingenious parallels of the _ten_ plagues of
      Egypt, and of the _ten_ horns of the Apocalypse, first suggested
      this calculation to their minds; and in their application of the
      faith of prophecy to the truth of history, they were careful to
      select those reigns which were indeed the most hostile to the
      Christian cause. 104 But these transient persecutions served only
      to revive the zeal and to restore the discipline of the faithful;
      and the moments of extraordinary rigor were compensated by much
      longer intervals of peace and security. The indifference of some
      princes, and the indulgence of others, permitted the Christians
      to enjoy, though not perhaps a legal, yet an actual and public,
      toleration of their religion.

      104 (return) [ See Mosheim, p. 97. Sulpicius Severus was the
      first author of this computation; though he seemed desirous of
      reserving the tenth and greatest persecution for the coming of
      the Antichrist.]




      Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
      Constantine.ÑPart V.


      The apology of Tertullian contains two very ancient, very
      singular, but at the same time very suspicious, instances of
      Imperial clemency; the edicts published by Tiberius, and by
      Marcus Antoninus, and designed not only to protect the innocence
      of the Christians, but even to proclaim those stupendous miracles
      which had attested the truth of their doctrine. The first of
      these examples is attended with some difficulties which might
      perplex a sceptical mind. 105 We are required to believe, _that_
      Pontius Pilate informed the emperor of the unjust sentence of
      death which he had pronounced against an innocent, and, as it
      appeared, a divine, person; and that, without acquiring the
      merit, he exposed himself to the danger of martyrdom; _that_
      Tiberius, who avowed his contempt for all religion, immediately
      conceived the design of placing the Jewish Messiah among the gods
      of Rome; _that_ his servile senate ventured to disobey the
      commands of their master; _that_ Tiberius, instead of resenting
      their refusal, contented himself with protecting the Christians
      from the severity of the laws, many years before such laws were
      enacted, or before the church had assumed any distinct name or
      existence; and lastly, _that_ the memory of this extraordinary
      transaction was preserved in the most public and authentic
      records, which escaped the knowledge of the historians of Greece
      and Rome, and were only visible to the eyes of an African
      Christian, who composed his apology one hundred and sixty years
      after the death of Tiberius. The edict of Marcus Antoninus is
      supposed to have been the effect of his devotion and gratitude
      for the miraculous deliverance which he had obtained in the
      Marcomannic war. The distress of the legions, the seasonable
      tempest of rain and hail, of thunder and of lightning, and the
      dismay and defeat of the barbarians, have been celebrated by the
      eloquence of several Pagan writers. If there were any Christians
      in that army, it was natural that they should ascribe some merit
      to the fervent prayers, which, in the moment of danger, they had
      offered up for their own and the public safety. But we are still
      assured by monuments of brass and marble, by the Imperial medals,
      and by the Antonine column, that neither the prince nor the
      people entertained any sense of this signal obligation, since
      they unanimously attribute their deliverance to the providence of
      Jupiter, and to the interposition of Mercury. 106 During the
      whole course of his reign, Marcus despised the Christians as a
      philosopher, and punished them as a sovereign. 1061

      105 (return) [ The testimony given by Pontius Pilate is first
      mentioned by Justin. The successive improvements which the story
      acquired (as if has passed through the hands of Tertullian,
      Eusebius, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Orosius, Gregory of Tours, and
      the authors of the several editions of the acts of Pilate) are
      very fairly stated by Dom Calmet Dissertat. sur lÕEcriture, tom.
      iii. p. 651, &c.]

      106 (return) [ On this miracle, as it is commonly called, of the
      thundering legion, see the admirable criticism of Mr. Moyle, in
      his Works, vol. ii. p. 81Ñ390.]

      1061 (return) [ Gibbon, with this phrase, and that below, which
      admits the injustice of Marcus, has dexterously glossed over one
      of the most remarkable facts in the early Christian history, that
      the reign of the wisest and most humane of the heathen emperors
      was the most fatal to the Christians. Most writers have ascribed
      the persecutions under Marcus to the latent bigotry of his
      character; Mosheim, to the influence of the philosophic party;
      but the fact is admitted by all. A late writer (Mr. Waddington,
      Hist. of the Church, p. 47) has not scrupled to assert, that
      Òthis prince polluted every year of a long reign with innocent
      blood;Ó but the causes as well as the date of the persecutions
      authorized or permitted by Marcus are equally uncertain. Of the
      Asiatic edict recorded by Melito. the date is unknown, nor is it
      quite clear that it was an Imperial edict. If it was the act
      under which Polycarp suffered, his martyrdom is placed by Ruinart
      in the sixth, by Mosheim in the ninth, year of the reign of
      Marcus. The martyrs of Vienne and Lyons are assigned by Dodwell
      to the seventh, by most writers to the seventeenth. In fact, the
      commencement of the persecutions of the Christians appears to
      synchronize exactly with the period of the breaking out of the
      Marcomannic war, which seems to have alarmed the whole empire,
      and the emperor himself, into a paroxysm of returning piety to
      their gods, of which the Christians were the victims. See Jul,
      Capit. Script. Hist August. p. 181, edit. 1661. It is remarkable
      that Tertullian (Apologet. c. v.) distinctly asserts that Verus
      (M. Aurelius) issued no edicts against the Christians, and almost
      positively exempts him from the charge of persecution.ÑM. This
      remarkable synchronism, which explains the persecutions under M
      Aurelius, is shown at length in MilmanÕs History of Christianity,
      book ii. v.ÑM. 1845.]

      By a singular fatality, the hardships which they had endured
      under the government of a virtuous prince, immediately ceased on
      the accession of a tyrant; and as none except themselves had
      experienced the injustice of Marcus, so they alone were protected
      by the lenity of Commodus. The celebrated Marcia, the most
      favored of his concubines, and who at length contrived the murder
      of her Imperial lover, entertained a singular affection for the
      oppressed church; and though it was impossible that she could
      reconcile the practice of vice with the precepts of the gospel,
      she might hope to atone for the frailties of her sex and
      profession by declaring herself the patroness of the Christians.
      107 Under the gracious protection of Marcia, they passed in
      safety the thirteen years of a cruel tyranny; and when the empire
      was established in the house of Severus, they formed a domestic
      but more honorable connection with the new court. The emperor was
      persuaded, that in a dangerous sickness, he had derived some
      benefit, either spiritual or physical, from the holy oil, with
      which one of his slaves had anointed him. He always treated with
      peculiar distinction several persons of both sexes who had
      embraced the new religion. The nurse as well as the preceptor of
      Caracalla were Christians; 1071 and if that young prince ever
      betrayed a sentiment of humanity, it was occasioned by an
      incident, which, however trifling, bore some relation to the
      cause of Christianity. 108 Under the reign of Severus, the fury
      of the populace was checked; the rigor of ancient laws was for
      some time suspended; and the provincial governors were satisfied
      with receiving an annual present from the churches within their
      jurisdiction, as the price, or as the reward, of their
      moderation. 109 The controversy concerning the precise time of
      the celebration of Easter, armed the bishops of Asia and Italy
      against each other, and was considered as the most important
      business of this period of leisure and tranquillity. 110 Nor was
      the peace of the church interrupted, till the increasing numbers
      of proselytes seem at length to have attracted the attention, and
      to have alienated the mind of Severus. With the design of
      restraining the progress of Christianity, he published an edict,
      which, though it was designed to affect only the new converts,
      could not be carried into strict execution, without exposing to
      danger and punishment the most zealous of their teachers and
      missionaries. In this mitigated persecution we may still discover
      the indulgent spirit of Rome and of Polytheism, which so readily
      admitted every excuse in favor of those who practised the
      religious ceremonies of their fathers. 111

      107 (return) [ Dion Cassius, or rather his abbreviator Xiphilin,
      l. lxxii. p. 1206. Mr. Moyle (p. 266) has explained the condition
      of the church under the reign of Commodus.]

      1071 (return) [ The Jews and Christians contest the honor of
      having furnished a nurse is the fratricide son of Severus
      Caracalla. Hist. of Jews, iii. 158.ÑM.]

      108 (return) [ Compare the life of Caracalla in the Augustan
      History, with the epistle of Tertullian to Scapula. Dr. Jortin
      (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 5, &c.) considers
      the cure of Severus by the means of holy oil, with a strong
      desire to convert it into a miracle.]

      109 (return) [ Tertullian de Fuga, c. 13. The present was made
      during the feast of the Saturnalia; and it is a matter of serious
      concern to Tertullian, that the faithful should be confounded
      with the most infamous professions which purchased the connivance
      of the government.]

      110 (return) [ Euseb. l. v. c. 23, 24. Mosheim, p. 435Ñ447.]

      111 (return) [ Jud¾os fieri sub gravi pÏna vetuit. Idem etiam de
      Christianis sanxit. Hist. August. p. 70.]

      But the laws which Severus had enacted soon expired with the
      authority of that emperor; and the Christians, after this
      accidental tempest, enjoyed a calm of thirty-eight years. 112
      Till this period they had usually held their assemblies in
      private houses and sequestered places. They were now permitted to
      erect and consecrate convenient edifices for the purpose of
      religious worship; 113 to purchase lands, even at Rome itself,
      for the use of the community; and to conduct the elections of
      their ecclesiastical ministers in so public, but at the same time
      in so exemplary a manner, as to deserve the respectful attention
      of the Gentiles. 114 This long repose of the church was
      accompanied with dignity. The reigns of those princes who derived
      their extraction from the Asiatic provinces, proved the most
      favorable to the Christians; the eminent persons of the sect,
      instead of being reduced to implore the protection of a slave or
      concubine, were admitted into the palace in the honorable
      characters of priests and philosophers; and their mysterious
      doctrines, which were already diffused among the people,
      insensibly attracted the curiosity of their sovereign. When the
      empress Mamm¾a passed through Antioch, she expressed a desire of
      conversing with the celebrated Origen, the fame of whose piety
      and learning was spread over the East. Origen obeyed so
      flattering an invitation, and though he could not expect to
      succeed in the conversion of an artful and ambitious woman, she
      listened with pleasure to his eloquent exhortations, and
      honorably dismissed him to his retirement in Palestine. 115 The
      sentiments of Mamm¾a were adopted by her son Alexander, and the
      philosophic devotion of that emperor was marked by a singular but
      injudicious regard for the Christian religion. In his domestic
      chapel he placed the statues of Abraham, of Orpheus, of
      Apollonius, and of Christ, as an honor justly due to those
      respectable sages who had instructed mankind in the various modes
      of addressing their homage to the supreme and universal Deity.
      116 A purer faith, as well as worship, was openly professed and
      practised among his household. Bishops, perhaps for the first
      time, were seen at court; and, after the death of Alexander, when
      the inhuman Maximin discharged his fury on the favorites and
      servants of his unfortunate benefactor, a great number of
      Christians of every rank and of both sexes, were involved in the
      promiscuous massacre, which, on their account, has improperly
      received the name of Persecution. 117 1171

      112 (return) [ Sulpicius Severus, l. ii. p. 384. This computation
      (allowing for a single exception) is confirmed by the history of
      Eusebius, and by the writings of Cyprian.]

      113 (return) [ The antiquity of Christian churches is discussed
      by Tillemont, (MŽmoires EcclŽsiastiques, tom. iii. part ii. p.
      68-72,) and by Mr. Moyle, (vol. i. p. 378-398.) The former refers
      the first construction of them to the peace of Alexander Severus;
      the latter, to the peace of Gallienus.]

      114 (return) [ See the Augustan History, p. 130. The emperor
      Alexander adopted their method of publicly proposing the names of
      those persons who were candidates for ordination. It is true that
      the honor of this practice is likewise attributed to the Jews.]

      115 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. vi. c. 21. Hieronym.
      de Script. Eccles. c. 54. Mamm¾a was styled a holy and pious
      woman, both by the Christians and the Pagans. From the former,
      therefore, it was impossible that she should deserve that
      honorable epithet.]

      116 (return) [ See the Augustan History, p. 123. Mosheim (p. 465)
      seems to refine too much on the domestic religion of Alexander.
      His design of building a public temple to Christ, (Hist. August.
      p. 129,) and the objection which was suggested either to him, or
      in similar circumstances to Hadrian, appear to have no other
      foundation than an improbable report, invented by the Christians,
      and credulously adopted by an historian of the age of
      Constantine.]

      117 (return) [ Euseb. l. vi. c. 28. It may be presumed that the
      success of the Christians had exasperated the increasing bigotry
      of the Pagans. Dion Cassius, who composed his history under the
      former reign, had most probably intended for the use of his
      master those counsels of persecution, which he ascribes to a
      better age, and to and to the favorite of Augustus. Concerning
      this oration of M¾cenas, or rather of Dion, I may refer to my own
      unbiased opinion, (vol. i. c. 1, note 25,) and to the AbbŽ de la
      Bleterie (MŽmoires de lÕAcadŽmie, tom. xxiv. p. 303 tom xxv. p.
      432.) * Note: If this be the case, Dion Cassius must have known
      the Christians they must have been the subject of his particular
      attention, since the author supposes that he wished his master to
      profit by these Òcounsels of persecution.Ó How are we to
      reconcile this necessary consequence with what Gibbon has said of
      the ignorance of Dion Cassius even of the name of the Christians?
      (c. xvi. n. 24.) (Gibbon speaks of DionÕs _silence_, not of his
      _ignorance_.ÑM) The supposition in this note is supported by no
      proof; it is probable that Dion Cassius has often designated the
      Christians by the name of Jews. See Dion Cassius, l. lxvii. c 14,
      lxviii. lÑG. On this point I should adopt the view of Gibbon
      rather than that of M Guizot.ÑM]

      1171 (return) [ It is with good reason that this massacre has
      been called a persecution, for it lasted during the whole reign
      of Maximin, as may be seen in Eusebius. (l. vi. c. 28.) Rufinus
      expressly confirms it: Tribus annis a Maximino persecutione
      commota, in quibus finem et persecutionis fecit et vitas Hist. l.
      vi. c. 19.ÑG.]

      Notwithstanding the cruel disposition of Maximin, the effects of
      his resentment against the Christians were of a very local and
      temporary nature, and the pious Origen, who had been proscribed
      as a devoted victim, was still reserved to convey the truths of
      the gospel to the ear of monarchs. 118 He addressed several
      edifying letters to the emperor Philip, to his wife, and to his
      mother; and as soon as that prince, who was born in the
      neighborhood of Palestine, had usurped the Imperial sceptre, the
      Christians acquired a friend and a protector. The public and even
      partial favor of Philip towards the sectaries of the new
      religion, and his constant reverence for the ministers of the
      church, gave some color to the suspicion, which prevailed in his
      own times, that the emperor himself was become a convert to the
      faith; 119 and afforded some grounds for a fable which was
      afterwards invented, that he had been purified by confession and
      penance from the guilt contracted by the murder of his innocent
      predecessor. 120 The fall of Philip introduced, with the change
      of masters, a new system of government, so oppressive to the
      Christians, that their former condition, ever since the time of
      Domitian, was represented as a state of perfect freedom and
      security, if compared with the rigorous treatment which they
      experienced under the short reign of Decius. 121 The virtues of
      that prince will scarcely allow us to suspect that he was
      actuated by a mean resentment against the favorites of his
      predecessor; and it is more reasonable to believe, that in the
      prosecution of his general design to restore the purity of Roman
      manners, he was desirous of delivering the empire from what he
      condemned as a recent and criminal superstition. The bishops of
      the most considerable cities were removed by exile or death: the
      vigilance of the magistrates prevented the clergy of Rome during
      sixteen months from proceeding to a new election; and it was the
      opinion of the Christians, that the emperor would more patiently
      endure a competitor for the purple, than a bishop in the capital.
      122 Were it possible to suppose that the penetration of Decius
      had discovered pride under the disguise of humility, or that he
      could foresee the temporal dominion which might insensibly arise
      from the claims of spiritual authority, we might be less
      surprised, that he should consider the successors of St. Peter,
      as the most formidable rivals to those of Augustus.

      118 (return) [ Orosius, l. vii. c. 19, mentions Origen as the
      object of MaximinÕs resentment; and Firmilianus, a Cappadocian
      bishop of that age, gives a just and confined idea of this
      persecution, (apud Cyprian Epist. 75.)]

      119 (return) [ The mention of those princes who were publicly
      supposed to be Christians, as we find it in an epistle of
      Dionysius of Alexandria, (ap. Euseb. l. vii. c. 10,) evidently
      alludes to Philip and his family, and forms a contemporary
      evidence, that such a report had prevailed; but the Egyptian
      bishop, who lived at an humble distance from the court of Rome,
      expresses himself with a becoming diffidence concerning the truth
      of the fact. The epistles of Origen (which were extant in the
      time of Eusebius, see l. vi. c. 36) would most probably decide
      this curious rather than important question.]

      120 (return) [ Euseb. l. vi. c. 34. The story, as is usual, has
      been embellished by succeeding writers, and is confuted, with
      much superfluous learning, by Frederick Spanheim, (Opera Varia,
      tom. ii. p. 400, &c.)]

      121 (return) [ Lactantius, de Mortibus Persecutorum, c. 3, 4.
      After celebrating the felicity and increase of the church, under
      a long succession of good princes, he adds, ÒExtitit post annos
      plurimos, execrabile animal, Decius, qui vexaret Ecclesiam.Ó]

      122 (return) [ Euseb. l. vi. c. 39. Cyprian. Epistol. 55. The see
      of Rome remained vacant from the martyrdom of Fabianus, the 20th
      of January, A. D. 259, till the election of Cornelius, the 4th of
      June, A. D. 251 Decius had probably left Rome, since he was
      killed before the end of that year.]

      The administration of Valerian was distinguished by a levity and
      inconstancy ill suited to the gravity of the _Roman Censor_. In
      the first part of his reign, he surpassed in clemency those
      princes who had been suspected of an attachment to the Christian
      faith. In the last three years and a half, listening to the
      insinuations of a minister addicted to the superstitions of
      Egypt, he adopted the maxims, and imitated the severity, of his
      predecessor Decius. 123 The accession of Gallienus, which
      increased the calamities of the empire, restored peace to the
      church; and the Christians obtained the free exercise of their
      religion by an edict addressed to the bishops, and conceived in
      such terms as seemed to acknowledge their office and public
      character. 124 The ancient laws, without being formally repealed,
      were suffered to sink into oblivion; and (excepting only some
      hostile intentions which are attributed to the emperor Aurelian
      125 the disciples of Christ passed above forty years in a state
      of prosperity, far more dangerous to their virtue than the
      severest trials of persecution.

      123 (return) [ Euseb. l. vii. c. 10. Mosheim (p. 548) has very
      clearly shown that the pr¾fect Macrianus, and the Egyptian
      _Magus_, are one and the same person.]

      124 (return) [ Eusebius (l. vii. c. 13) gives us a Greek version
      of this Latin edict, which seems to have been very concise. By
      another edict, he directed that the _C¾meteria_ should be
      restored to the Christians.]

      125 (return) [ Euseb. l. vii. c. 30. Lactantius de M. P. c. 6.
      Hieronym. in Chron. p. 177. Orosius, l. vii. c. 23. Their
      language is in general so ambiguous and incorrect, that we are at
      a loss to determine how far Aurelian had carried his intentions
      before he was assassinated. Most of the moderns (except Dodwell,
      Dissertat. Cyprian. vi. 64) have seized the occasion of gaining a
      few extraordinary martyrs. * Note: Dr. Lardner has detailed, with
      his usual impartiality, all that has come down to us relating to
      the persecution of Aurelian, and concludes by saying, ÒUpon more
      carefully examining the words of Eusebius, and observing the
      accounts of other authors, learned men have generally, and, as I
      think, very judiciously, determined, that Aurelian not only
      intended, but did actually persecute: but his persecution was
      short, he having died soon after the publication of his edicts.Ó
      Heathen Test. c. xxxvi.ÑBasmage positively pronounces the same
      opinion: Non intentatum modo, sed executum quoque brevissimo
      tempore mandatum, nobis infixum est in aniasis. Basn. Ann. 275,
      No. 2 and compare Pagi Ann. 272, Nos. 4, 12, 27ÑG.]

      The story of Paul of Samosata, who filled the metropolitan see of
      Antioch, while the East was in the hands of Odenathus and
      Zenobia, may serve to illustrate the condition and character of
      the times. The wealth of that prelate was a sufficient evidence
      of his guilt, since it was neither derived from the inheritance
      of his fathers, nor acquired by the arts of honest industry. But
      Paul considered the service of the church as a very lucrative
      profession. 126 His ecclesiastical jurisdiction was venal and
      rapacious; he extorted frequent contributions from the most
      opulent of the faithful, and converted to his own use a
      considerable part of the public revenue. By his pride and luxury,
      the Christian religion was rendered odious in the eyes of the
      Gentiles. His council chamber and his throne, the splendor with
      which he appeared in public, the suppliant crowd who solicited
      his attention, the multitude of letters and petitions to which he
      dictated his answers, and the perpetual hurry of business in
      which he was involved, were circumstances much better suited to
      the state of a civil magistrate, 127 than to the humility of a
      primitive bishop. When he harangued his people from the pulpit,
      Paul affected the figurative style and the theatrical gestures of
      an Asiatic sophist, while the cathedral resounded with the
      loudest and most extravagant acclamations in the praise of his
      divine eloquence. Against those who resisted his power, or
      refused to flatter his vanity, the prelate of Antioch was
      arrogant, rigid, and inexorable; but he relaxed the discipline,
      and lavished the treasures of the church on his dependent clergy,
      who were permitted to imitate their master in the gratification
      of every sensual appetite. For Paul indulged himself very freely
      in the pleasures of the table, and he had received into the
      episcopal palace two young and beautiful women as the constant
      companions of his leisure moments. 128

      126 (return) [ Paul was better pleased with the title of
      _Ducenarius_, than with that of bishop. The _Ducenarius_ was an
      Imperial procurator, so called from his salary of two hundred
      _Sestertia_, or 1600_l_. a year. (See Salmatius ad Hist. August.
      p. 124.) Some critics suppose that the bishop of Antioch had
      actually obtained such an office from Zenobia, while others
      consider it only as a figurative expression of his pomp and
      insolence.]

      127 (return) [ Simony was not unknown in those times; and the
      clergy some times bought what they intended to sell. It appears
      that the bishopric of Carthage was purchased by a wealthy matron,
      named Lucilla, for her servant Majorinus. The price was 400
      _Folles_. (Monument. Antiq. ad calcem Optati, p. 263.) Every
      _Follis_ contained 125 pieces of silver, and the whole sum may be
      computed at about 2400_l_.]

      128 (return) [ If we are desirous of extenuating the vices of
      Paul, we must suspect the assembled bishops of the East of
      publishing the most malicious calumnies in circular epistles
      addressed to all the churches of the empire, (ap. Euseb. l. vii.
      c. 30.)]

      Notwithstanding these scandalous vices, if Paul of Samosata had
      preserved the purity of the orthodox faith, his reign over the
      capital of Syria would have ended only with his life; and had a
      seasonable persecution intervened, an effort of courage might
      perhaps have placed him in the rank of saints and martyrs. 1281

      Some nice and subtle errors, which he imprudently adopted and
      obstinately maintained, concerning the doctrine of the Trinity,
      excited the zeal and indignation of the Eastern churches. 129

      From Egypt to the Euxine Sea, the bishops were in arms and in
      motion. Several councils were held, confutations were published,
      excommunications were pronounced, ambiguous explanations were by
      turns accepted and refused, treaties were concluded and violated,
      and at length Paul of Samosata was degraded from his episcopal
      character, by the sentence of seventy or eighty bishops, who
      assembled for that purpose at Antioch, and who, without
      consulting the rights of the clergy or people, appointed a
      successor by their own authority. The manifest irregularity of
      this proceeding increased the numbers of the discontented
      faction; and as Paul, who was no stranger to the arts of courts,
      had insinuated himself into the favor of Zenobia, he maintained
      above four years the possession of the episcopal house and
      office. 1291 The victory of Aurelian changed the face of the
      East, and the two contending parties, who applied to each other
      the epithets of schism and heresy, were either commanded or
      permitted to plead their cause before the tribunal of the
      conqueror. This public and very singular trial affords a
      convincing proof that the existence, the property, the
      privileges, and the internal policy of the Christians, were
      acknowledged, if not by the laws, at least by the magistrates, of
      the empire. As a Pagan and as a soldier, it could scarcely be
      expected that Aurelian should enter into the discussion, whether
      the sentiments of Paul or those of his adversaries were most
      agreeable to the true standard of the orthodox faith. His
      determination, however, was founded on the general principles of
      equity and reason. He considered the bishops of Italy as the most
      impartial and respectable judges among the Christians, and as
      soon as he was informed that they had unanimously approved the
      sentence of the council, he acquiesced in their opinion, and
      immediately gave orders that Paul should be compelled to
      relinquish the temporal possessions belonging to an office, of
      which, in the judgment of his brethren, he had been regularly
      deprived. But while we applaud the justice, we should not
      overlook the policy, of Aurelian, who was desirous of restoring
      and cementing the dependence of the provinces on the capital, by
      every means which could bind the interest or prejudices of any
      part of his subjects. 130

      1281 (return) [ It appears, nevertheless, that the vices and
      immoralities of Paul of Samosata had much weight in the sentence
      pronounced against him by the bishops. The object of the letter,
      addressed by the synod to the bishops of Rome and Alexandria, was
      to inform them of the change in the faith of Paul, the
      altercations and discussions to which it had given rise, as well
      as of his morals and the whole of his conduct. Euseb. Hist. Eccl.
      l. vii c. xxxÑG.]

      129 (return) [ His heresy (like those of Noetus and Sabellius, in
      the same century) tended to confound the mysterious distinction
      of the divine persons. See Mosheim, p. 702, &c.]

      1291 (return) [ ÒHer favorite, (ZenobiaÕs,) Paul of Samosata,
      seems to have entertained some views of attempting a union
      between Judaism and Christianity; both parties rejected the
      unnatural alliance.Ó Hist. of Jews, iii. 175, and Jost.
      Geschichte der Israeliter, iv. 167. The protection of the severe
      Zenobia is the only circumstance which may raise a doubt of the
      notorious immorality of Paul.ÑM.]

      130 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. vii. c. 30. We are
      entirely indebted to him for the curious story of Paul of
      Samosata.]

      Amidst the frequent revolutions of the empire, the Christians
      still flourished in peace and prosperity; and notwithstanding a
      celebrated ¾ra of martyrs has been deduced from the accession of
      Diocletian, 131 the new system of policy, introduced and
      maintained by the wisdom of that prince, continued, during more
      than eighteen years, to breathe the mildest and most liberal
      spirit of religious toleration. The mind of Diocletian himself
      was less adapted indeed to speculative inquiries, than to the
      active labors of war and government. His prudence rendered him
      averse to any great innovation, and though his temper was not
      very susceptible of zeal or enthusiasm, he always maintained an
      habitual regard for the ancient deities of the empire. But the
      leisure of the two empresses, of his wife Prisca, and of Valeria,
      his daughter, permitted them to listen with more attention and
      respect to the truths of Christianity, which in every age has
      acknowledged its important obligations to female devotion. 132
      The principal eunuchs, Lucian 133 and Dorotheus, Gorgonius and
      Andrew, who attended the person, possessed the favor, and
      governed the household of Diocletian, protected by their powerful
      influence the faith which they had embraced. Their example was
      imitated by many of the most considerable officers of the palace,
      who, in their respective stations, had the care of the Imperial
      ornaments, of the robes, of the furniture, of the jewels, and
      even of the private treasury; and, though it might sometimes be
      incumbent on them to accompany the emperor when he sacrificed in
      the temple, 134 they enjoyed, with their wives, their children,
      and their slaves, the free exercise of the Christian religion.
      Diocletian and his colleagues frequently conferred the most
      important offices on those persons who avowed their abhorrence
      for the worship of the gods, but who had displayed abilities
      proper for the service of the state. The bishops held an
      honorable rank in their respective provinces, and were treated
      with distinction and respect, not only by the people, but by the
      magistrates themselves. Almost in every city, the ancient
      churches were found insufficient to contain the increasing
      multitude of proselytes; and in their place more stately and
      capacious edifices were erected for the public worship of the
      faithful. The corruption of manners and principles, so forcibly
      lamented by Eusebius, 135 may be considered, not only as a
      consequence, but as a proof, of the liberty which the Christians
      enjoyed and abused under the reign of Diocletian. Prosperity had
      relaxed the nerves of discipline. Fraud, envy, and malice
      prevailed in every congregation. The presbyters aspired to the
      episcopal office, which every day became an object more worthy of
      their ambition. The bishops, who contended with each other for
      ecclesiastical pre‘minence, appeared by their conduct to claim a
      secular and tyrannical power in the church; and the lively faith
      which still distinguished the Christians from the Gentiles, was
      shown much less in their lives, than in their controversial
      writings.

      131 (return) [ The ®ra of Martyrs, which is still in use among
      the Copts and the Abyssinians, must be reckoned from the 29th of
      August, A. D. 284; as the beginning of the Egyptian year was
      nineteen days earlier than the real accession of Diocletian. See
      Dissertation Preliminaire a lÕArt de verifier les Dates. * Note:
      On the ¾ra of martyrs see the very curious dissertations of Mons
      Letronne on some recently discovered inscriptions in Egypt and
      Nubis, p. 102, &c.ÑM.]

      132 (return) [ The expression of Lactantius, (de M. P. c. 15,)
      Òsacrificio pollui coegit,Ó implies their antecedent conversion
      to the faith, but does not seem to justify the assertion of
      Mosheim, (p. 912,) that they had been privately baptized.]

      133 (return) [ M. de Tillemont (MŽmoires EcclŽsiastiques, tom. v.
      part i. p. 11, 12) has quoted from the Spicilegium of Dom Luc
      dÕArcheri a very curious instruction which Bishop Theonas
      composed for the use of Lucian.]

      134 (return) [ Lactantius, de M. P. c. 10.]

      135 (return) [ Eusebius, Hist. Ecclesiast. l. viii. c. 1. The
      reader who consults the original will not accuse me of
      heightening the picture. Eusebius was about sixteen years of age
      at the accession of the emperor Diocletian.]

      Notwithstanding this seeming security, an attentive observer
      might discern some symptoms that threatened the church with a
      more violent persecution than any which she had yet endured. The
      zeal and rapid progress of the Christians awakened the
      Polytheists from their supine indifference in the cause of those
      deities, whom custom and education had taught them to revere. The
      mutual provocations of a religious war, which had already
      continued above two hundred years, exasperated the animosity of
      the contending parties. The Pagans were incensed at the rashness
      of a recent and obscure sect, which presumed to accuse their
      countrymen of error, and to devote their ancestors to eternal
      misery. The habits of justifying the popular mythology against
      the invectives of an implacable enemy, produced in their minds
      some sentiments of faith and reverence for a system which they
      had been accustomed to consider with the most careless levity.
      The supernatural powers assumed by the church inspired at the
      same time terror and emulation. The followers of the established
      religion intrenched themselves behind a similar fortification of
      prodigies; invented new modes of sacrifice, of expiation, and of
      initiation; 136 attempted to revive the credit of their expiring
      oracles; 137 and listened with eager credulity to every impostor,
      who flattered their prejudices by a tale of wonders. 138 Both
      parties seemed to acknowledge the truth of those miracles which
      were claimed by their adversaries; and while they were contented
      with ascribing them to the arts of magic, and to the power of
      d¾mons, they mutually concurred in restoring and establishing the
      reign of superstition. 139 Philosophy, her most dangerous enemy,
      was now converted into her most useful ally. The groves of the
      academy, the gardens of Epicurus, and even the portico of the
      Stoics, were almost deserted, as so many different schools of
      scepticism or impiety; 140 and many among the Romans were
      desirous that the writings of Cicero should be condemned and
      suppressed by the authority of the senate. 141 The prevailing
      sect of the new Platonicians judged it prudent to connect
      themselves with the priests, whom perhaps they despised, against
      the Christians, whom they had reason to fear. These fashionable
      Philosophers prosecuted the design of extracting allegorical
      wisdom from the fictions of the Greek poets; instituted
      mysterious rites of devotion for the use of their chosen
      disciples; recommended the worship of the ancient gods as the
      emblems or ministers of the Supreme Deity, and composed against
      the faith of the gospel many elaborate treatises, 142 which have
      since been committed to the flames by the prudence of orthodox
      emperors. 143

      136 (return) [ We might quote, among a great number of instances,
      the mysterious worship of Mythras, and the Taurobolia; the latter
      of which became fashionable in the time of the Antonines, (see a
      Dissertation of M. de Boze, in the MŽmoires de lÕAcadŽmie des
      Inscriptions, tom. ii. p. 443.) The romance of Apuleius is as
      full of devotion as of satire. * Note: On the extraordinary
      progress of the Mahriac rites, in the West, see De GuigniaudÕs
      translation of Creuzer, vol. i. p. 365, and Note 9, tom. i. part
      2, p. 738, &c.ÑM.]

      137 (return) [ The impostor Alexander very strongly recommended
      the oracle of Trophonius at Mallos, and those of Apollo at Claros
      and Miletus, (Lucian, tom. ii. p. 236, edit. Reitz.) The last of
      these, whose singular history would furnish a very curious
      episode, was consulted by Diocletian before he published his
      edicts of persecution, (Lactantius, de M. P. c. 11.)]

      138 (return) [ Besides the ancient stories of Pythagoras and
      Aristeas, the cures performed at the shrine of ®sculapius, and
      the fables related of Apollonius of Tyana, were frequently
      opposed to the miracles of Christ; though I agree with Dr.
      Lardner, (see Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 253, 352,) that when
      Philostratus composed the life of Apollonius, he had no such
      intention.]

      139 (return) [ It is seriously to be lamented, that the Christian
      fathers, by acknowledging the supernatural, or, as they deem it,
      the infernal part of Paganism, destroy with their own hands the
      great advantage which we might otherwise derive from the liberal
      concessions of our adversaries.]

      140 (return) [ Julian (p. 301, edit. Spanheim) expresses a pious
      joy, that the providence of the gods had extinguished the impious
      sects, and for the most part destroyed the books of the
      Pyrrhonians and Epicur¾ans, which had been very numerous, since
      Epicurus himself composed no less than 300 volumes. See Diogenes
      Laertius, l. x. c. 26.]

      141 (return) [ Cumque alios audiam mussitare indignanter, et
      dicere opportere statui per Senatum, aboleantur ut h¾c scripta,
      quibus Christiana Religio comprobetur, et vetustatis opprimatur
      auctoritas. Arnobius adversus Gentes, l. iii. p. 103, 104. He
      adds very properly, Erroris convincite Ciceronem... nam
      intercipere scripta, et publicatam velle submergere lectionem,
      non est Deum defendere sed veritatis testificationem timere.]

      142 (return) [ Lactantius (Divin. Institut. l. v. c. 2, 3) gives
      a very clear and spirited account of two of these philosophic
      adversaries of the faith. The large treatise of Porphyry against
      the Christians consisted of thirty books, and was composed in
      Sicily about the year 270.]

      143 (return) [ See Socrates, Hist. Ecclesiast. l. i. c. 9, and
      Codex Justinian. l. i. i. l. s.]




      Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
      Constantine.ÑPart VI.


      Although the policy of Diocletian and the humanity of Constantius
      inclined them to preserve inviolate the maxims of toleration, it
      was soon discovered that their two associates, Maximian and
      Galerius, entertained the most implacable aversion for the name
      and religion of the Christians. The minds of those princes had
      never been enlightened by science; education had never softened
      their temper. They owed their greatness to their swords, and in
      their most elevated fortune they still retained their
      superstitious prejudices of soldiers and peasants. In the general
      administration of the provinces they obeyed the laws which their
      benefactor had established; but they frequently found occasions
      of exercising within their camp and palaces a secret persecution,
      144 for which the imprudent zeal of the Christians sometimes
      offered the most specious pretences. A sentence of death was
      executed upon Maximilianus, an African youth, who had been
      produced by his own father 1441 before the magistrate as a
      sufficient and legal recruit, but who obstinately persisted in
      declaring, that his conscience would not permit him to embrace
      the profession of a soldier. 145 It could scarcely be expected
      that any government should suffer the action of Marcellus the
      Centurion to pass with impunity. On the day of a public festival,
      that officer threw away his belt, his arms, and the ensigns of
      his office, and exclaimed with a loud voice, that he would obey
      none but Jesus Christ the eternal King, and that he renounced
      forever the use of carnal weapons, and the service of an
      idolatrous master. The soldiers, as soon as they recovered from
      their astonishment, secured the person of Marcellus. He was
      examined in the city of Tingi by the president of that part of
      Mauritania; and as he was convicted by his own confession, he was
      condemned and beheaded for the crime of desertion. 146 Examples
      of such a nature savor much less of religious persecution than of
      martial or even civil law; but they served to alienate the mind
      of the emperors, to justify the severity of Galerius, who
      dismissed a great number of Christian officers from their
      employments; and to authorize the opinion, that a sect of
      enthusiastics, which avowed principles so repugnant to the public
      safety, must either remain useless, or would soon become
      dangerous, subjects of the empire.

      144 (return) [ Eusebius, l. viii. c. 4, c. 17. He limits the
      number of military martyrs, by a remarkable expression, of which
      neither his Latin nor French translator have rendered the energy.
      Notwithstanding the authority of Eusebius, and the silence of
      Lactantius, Ambrose, Sulpicius, Orosius, &c., it has been long
      believed, that the Theb¾an legion, consisting of 6000 Christians,
      suffered martyrdom by the order of Maximian, in the valley of the
      Pennine Alps. The story was first published about the middle of
      the 5th century, by Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, who received it
      from certain persons, who received it from Isaac, bishop of
      Geneva, who is said to have received it from Theodore, bishop of
      Octodurum. The abbey of St. Maurice still subsists, a rich
      monument of the credulity of Sigismund, king of Burgundy. See an
      excellent Dissertation in xxxvith volume of the Bibliothque
      RaisonnŽe, p. 427-454.]

      1441 (return) [ M. Guizot criticizes GibbonÕs account of this
      incident. He supposes that Maximilian was not Òproduced by his
      father as a recruit,Ó but was obliged to appear by the law, which
      compelled the sons of soldiers to serve at 21 years old. Was not
      this a law of Constantine? Neither does this circumstance appear
      in the acts. His father had clearly expected him to serve, as he
      had bought him a new dress for the occasion; yet he refused to
      force the conscience of his son. and when Maximilian was
      condemned to death, the father returned home in joy, blessing God
      for having bestowed upon him such a son.ÑM.]

      145 (return) [ See the Acta Sincera, p. 299. The accounts of his
      martyrdom and that of Marcellus, bear every mark of truth and
      authenticity.]

      146 (return) [ Acta Sincera, p. 302. * Note: M. Guizot here
      justly observes, that it was the necessity of sacrificing to the
      gods, which induced Marcellus to act in this manner.ÑM.]

      After the success of the Persian war had raised the hopes and the
      reputation of Galerius, he passed a winter with Diocletian in the
      palace of Nicomedia; and the fate of Christianity became the
      object of their secret consultations. 147 The experienced emperor
      was still inclined to pursue measures of lenity; and though he
      readily consented to exclude the Christians from holding any
      employments in the household or the army, he urged in the
      strongest terms the danger as well as cruelty of shedding the
      blood of those deluded fanatics. Galerius at length extorted 1471
      from him the permission of summoning a council, composed of a few
      persons the most distinguished in the civil and military
      departments of the state.

      The important question was agitated in their presence, and those
      ambitious courtiers easily discerned, that it was incumbent on
      them to second, by their eloquence, the importunate violence of
      the C¾sar. It may be presumed, that they insisted on every topic
      which might interest the pride, the piety, or the fears, of their
      sovereign in the destruction of Christianity. Perhaps they
      represented, that the glorious work of the deliverance of the
      empire was left imperfect, as long as an independent people was
      permitted to subsist and multiply in the heart of the provinces.
      The Christians, (it might specially be alleged,) renouncing the
      gods and the institutions of Rome, had constituted a distinct
      republic, which might yet be suppressed before it had acquired
      any military force; but which was already governed by its own
      laws and magistrates, was possessed of a public treasure, and was
      intimately connected in all its parts by the frequent assemblies
      of the bishops, to whose decrees their numerous and opulent
      congregations yielded an implicit obedience. Arguments like these
      may seem to have determined the reluctant mind of Diocletian to
      embrace a new system of persecution; but though we may suspect,
      it is not in our power to relate, the secret intrigues of the
      palace, the private views and resentments, the jealousy of women
      or eunuchs, and all those trifling but decisive causes which so
      often influence the fate of empires, and the councils of the
      wisest monarchs. 148

      147 (return) [ De M. P. c. 11. Lactantius (or whoever was the
      author of this little treatise) was, at that time, an inhabitant
      of Nicomedia; but it seems difficult to conceive how he could
      acquire so accurate a knowledge of what passed in the Imperial
      cabinet. Note: * Lactantius, who was subsequently chosen by
      Constantine to educate Crispus, might easily have learned these
      details from Constantine himself, already of sufficient age to
      interest himself in the affairs of the government, and in a
      position to obtain the best information.ÑG. This assumes the
      doubtful point of the authorship of the Treatise.ÑM.]

      1471 (return) [ This permission was not extorted from Diocletian;
      he took the step of his own accord. Lactantius says, in truth,
      Nec tamen deflectere potuit (Diocletianus) pr¾cipitis hominis
      insaniam; placuit ergo amicorum sententiam experiri. (De Mort.
      Pers. c. 11.) But this measure was in accordance with the
      artificial character of Diocletian, who wished to have the
      appearance of doing good by his own impulse and evil by the
      impulse of others. Nam erat hujus maliti¾, cum bonum quid facere
      decrevisse sine consilio faciebat, ut ipse laudaretur. Cum autem
      malum. quoniam id reprehendendum sciebat, in consilium multos
      advocabat, ut alioram culp¾ adscriberetur quicquid ipse
      deliquerat. Lact. ib. Eutropius says likewise, Miratus callide
      fuit, sagax pr¾terea et admodum subtilis ingenio, et qui
      severitatem suam aliena invidia vellet explere. Eutrop. ix. c.
      26.ÑG.ÑÑThe manner in which the coarse and unfriendly pencil of
      the author of the Treatise de Mort. Pers. has drawn the character
      of Diocletian, seems inconsistent with this profound subtilty.
      Many readers will perhaps agree with Gibbon.ÑM.]

      148 (return) [ The only circumstance which we can discover, is
      the devotion and jealousy of the mother of Galerius. She is
      described by Lactantius, as Deorum montium cultrix; mulier
      admodum superstitiosa. She had a great influence over her son,
      and was offended by the disregard of some of her Christian
      servants. * Note: This disregard consisted in the Christians
      fasting and praying instead of participating in the banquets and
      sacrifices which she celebrated with the Pagans. Dapibus
      sacrificabat pÏne quotidie ac vicariis suis epulis exhibebat.
      Christiani abstinebant, et illa cum gentibus epulante, jejuniis
      hi et oratiomibus insisteban; hine concepit odium Lact de Hist.
      Pers. c. 11.ÑG.]

      The pleasure of the emperors was at length signified to the
      Christians, who, during the course of this melancholy winter, had
      expected, with anxiety, the result of so many secret
      consultations. The twenty-third of February, which coincided with
      the Roman festival of the Terminalia, 149 was appointed (whether
      from accident or design) to set bounds to the progress of
      Christianity. At the earliest dawn of day, the Pr¾torian pr¾fect,
      150 accompanied by several generals, tribunes, and officers of
      the revenue, repaired to the principal church of Nicomedia, which
      was situated on an eminence in the most populous and beautiful
      part of the city. The doors were instantly broke open; they
      rushed into the sanctuary; and as they searched in vain for some
      visible object of worship, they were obliged to content
      themselves with committing to the flames the volumes of the holy
      Scripture. The ministers of Diocletian were followed by a
      numerous body of guards and pioneers, who marched in order of
      battle, and were provided with all the instruments used in the
      destruction of fortified cities. By their incessant labor, a
      sacred edifice, which towered above the Imperial palace, and had
      long excited the indignation and envy of the Gentiles, was in a
      few hours levelled with the ground. 151

      149 (return) [ The worship and festival of the god Terminus are
      elegantly illustrated by M. de Boze, MŽm. de lÕAcadŽmie des
      Inscriptions, tom. i. p. 50.]

      150 (return) [ In our only MS. of Lactantius, we read
      _profectus;_ but reason, and the authority of all the critics,
      allow us, instead of that word, which destroys the sense of the
      passage, to substitute _prÏfectus_.]

      151 (return) [ Lactantius, de M. P. c. 12, gives a very lively
      picture of the destruction of the church.]

      The next day the general edict of persecution was published; 152
      and though Diocletian, still averse to the effusion of blood, had
      moderated the fury of Galerius, who proposed, that every one
      refusing to offer sacrifice should immediately be burnt alive,
      the penalties inflicted on the obstinacy of the Christians might
      be deemed sufficiently rigorous and effectual. It was enacted,
      that their churches, in all the provinces of the empire, should
      be demolished to their foundations; and the punishment of death
      was denounced against all who should presume to hold any secret
      assemblies for the purpose of religious worship. The
      philosophers, who now assumed the unworthy office of directing
      the blind zeal of persecution, had diligently studied the nature
      and genius of the Christian religion; and as they were not
      ignorant that the speculative doctrines of the faith were
      supposed to be contained in the writings of the prophets, of the
      evangelists, and of the apostles, they most probably suggested
      the order, that the bishops and presbyters should deliver all
      their sacred books into the hands of the magistrates; who were
      commanded, under the severest penalties, to burn them in a public
      and solemn manner. By the same edict, the property of the church
      was at once confiscated; and the several parts of which it might
      consist were either sold to the highest bidder, united to the
      Imperial domain, bestowed on the cities and corporations, or
      granted to the solicitations of rapacious courtiers. After taking
      such effectual measures to abolish the worship, and to dissolve
      the government of the Christians, it was thought necessary to
      subject to the most intolerable hardships the condition of those
      perverse individuals who should still reject the religion of
      nature, of Rome, and of their ancestors. Persons of a liberal
      birth were declared incapable of holding any honors or
      employments; slaves were forever deprived of the hopes of
      freedom, and the whole body of the people were put out of the
      protection of the law. The judges were authorized to hear and to
      determine every action that was brought against a Christian. But
      the Christians were not permitted to complain of any injury which
      they themselves had suffered; and thus those unfortunate
      sectaries were exposed to the severity, while they were excluded
      from the benefits, of public justice. This new species of
      martyrdom, so painful and lingering, so obscure and ignominious,
      was, perhaps, the most proper to weary the constancy of the
      faithful: nor can it be doubted that the passions and interest of
      mankind were disposed on this occasion to second the designs of
      the emperors. But the policy of a well-ordered government must
      sometimes have interposed in behalf of the oppressed Christians;
      1521 nor was it possible for the Roman princes entirely to remove
      the apprehension of punishment, or to connive at every act of
      fraud and violence, without exposing their own authority and the
      rest of their subjects to the most alarming dangers. 153

      152 (return) [ Mosheim, (p. 922Ñ926,) from man scattered passages
      of Lactantius and Eusebius, has collected a very just and
      accurate notion of this edict though he sometimes deviates into
      conjecture and refinement.]

      1521 (return) [ This wants proof. The edict of Diocletian was
      executed in all its right during the rest of his reign. Euseb.
      Hist. Eccl. l viii. c. 13.ÑG.]

      153 (return) [ Many ages afterwards, Edward J. practised, with
      great success, the same mode of persecution against the clergy of
      England. See HumeÕs History of England, vol. ii. p. 300, last 4to
      edition.]

      This edict was scarcely exhibited to the public view, in the most
      conspicuous place of Nicomedia, before it was torn down by the
      hands of a Christian, who expressed at the same time, by the
      bitterest invectives, his contempt as well as abhorrence for such
      impious and tyrannical governors. His offence, according to the
      mildest laws, amounted to treason, and deserved death. And if it
      be true that he was a person of rank and education, those
      circumstances could serve only to aggravate his guilt. He was
      burnt, or rather roasted, by a slow fire; and his executioners,
      zealous to revenge the personal insult which had been offered to
      the emperors, exhausted every refinement of cruelty, without
      being able to subdue his patience, or to alter the steady and
      insulting smile which in his dying agonies he still preserved in
      his countenance. The Christians, though they confessed that his
      conduct had not been strictly conformable to the laws of
      prudence, admired the divine fervor of his zeal; and the
      excessive commendations which they lavished on the memory of
      their hero and martyr, contributed to fix a deep impression of
      terror and hatred in the mind of Diocletian. 154

      154 (return) [ Lactantius only calls him quidam, et si non recte,
      magno tamer animo, &c., c. 12. Eusebius (l. viii. c. 5) adorns
      him with secular honora Neither have condescended to mention his
      name; but the Greeks celebrate his memory under that of John. See
      Tillemont, Memones EcclŽsiastiques, tom. v. part ii. p. 320.]

      His fears were soon alarmed by the view of a danger from which he
      very narrowly escaped. Within fifteen days the palace of
      Nicomedia, and even the bed-chamber of Diocletian, were twice in
      flames; and though both times they were extinguished without any
      material damage, the singular repetition of the fire was justly
      considered as an evident proof that it had not been the effect of
      chance or negligence. The suspicion naturally fell on the
      Christians; and it was suggested, with some degree of
      probability, that those desperate fanatics, provoked by their
      present sufferings, and apprehensive of impending calamities, had
      entered into a conspiracy with their faithful brethren, the
      eunuchs of the palace, against the lives of two emperors, whom
      they detested as the irreconcilable enemies of the church of God.

      Jealousy and resentment prevailed in every breast, but especially
      in that of Diocletian. A great number of persons, distinguished
      either by the offices which they had filled, or by the favor
      which they had enjoyed, were thrown into prison. Every mode of
      torture was put in practice, and the court, as well as city, was
      polluted with many bloody executions. 155 But as it was found
      impossible to extort any discovery of this mysterious
      transaction, it seems incumbent on us either to presume the
      innocence, or to admire the resolution, of the sufferers. A few
      days afterwards Galerius hastily withdrew himself from Nicomedia,
      declaring, that if he delayed his departure from that devoted
      palace, he should fall a sacrifice to the rage of the Christians.

      The ecclesiastical historians, from whom alone we derive a
      partial and imperfect knowledge of this persecution, are at a
      loss how to account for the fears and dangers of the emperors.
      Two of these writers, a prince and a rhetorician, were
      eye-witnesses of the fire of Nicomedia. The one ascribes it to
      lightning, and the divine wrath; the other affirms, that it was
      kindled by the malice of Galerius himself. 156

      155 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 13, 14. Potentissimi
      quondam Eunuchi necati, per quos Palatium et ipse constabat.
      Eusebius (l. viii. c. 6) mentions the cruel executions of the
      eunuchs, Gorgonius and Dorotheus, and of Anthimius, bishop of
      Nicomedia; and both those writers describe, in a vague but
      tragical manner, the horrid scenes which were acted even in the
      Imperial presence.]

      156 (return) [ See Lactantius, Eusebius, and Constantine, ad
      CÏtum Sanctorum, c. xxv. Eusebius confesses his ignorance of the
      cause of this fire. Note: As the history of these times affords
      us no example of any attempts made by the Christians against
      their persecutors, we have no reason, not the slightest
      probability, to attribute to them the fire in the palace; and the
      authority of Constantine and Lactantius remains to explain it. M.
      de Tillemont has shown how they can be reconciled. Hist. des
      Empereurs, Vie de Diocletian, xix.ÑG. Had it been done by a
      Christian, it would probably have been a fanatic, who would have
      avowed and gloried in it. TillemontÕs supposition that the fire
      was first caused by lightning, and fed and increased by the
      malice of Galerius, seems singularly improbable.ÑM.]

      As the edict against the Christians was designed for a general
      law of the whole empire, and as Diocletian and Galerius, though
      they might not wait for the consent, were assured of the
      concurrence, of the Western princes, it would appear more
      consonant to our ideas of policy, that the governors of all the
      provinces should have received secret instructions to publish, on
      one and the same day, this declaration of war within their
      respective departments. It was at least to be expected, that the
      convenience of the public highways and established posts would
      have enabled the emperors to transmit their orders with the
      utmost despatch from the palace of Nicomedia to the extremities
      of the Roman world; and that they would not have suffered fifty
      days to elapse, before the edict was published in Syria, and near
      four months before it was signified to the cities of Africa. 157

      This delay may perhaps be imputed to the cautious temper of
      Diocletian, who had yielded a reluctant consent to the measures
      of persecution, and who was desirous of trying the experiment
      under his more immediate eye, before he gave way to the disorders
      and discontent which it must inevitably occasion in the distant
      provinces. At first, indeed, the magistrates were restrained from
      the effusion of blood; but the use of every other severity was
      permitted, and even recommended to their zeal; nor could the
      Christians, though they cheerfully resigned the ornaments of
      their churches, resolve to interrupt their religious assemblies,
      or to deliver their sacred books to the flames. The pious
      obstinacy of Felix, an African bishop, appears to have
      embarrassed the subordinate ministers of the government. The
      curator of his city sent him in chains to the proconsul. The
      proconsul transmitted him to the Pr¾torian pr¾fect of Italy; and
      Felix, who disdained even to give an evasive answer, was at
      length beheaded at Venusia, in Lucania, a place on which the
      birth of Horace has conferred fame. 158 This precedent, and
      perhaps some Imperial rescript, which was issued in consequence
      of it, appeared to authorize the governors of provinces, in
      punishing with death the refusal of the Christians to deliver up
      their sacred books. There were undoubtedly many persons who
      embraced this opportunity of obtaining the crown of martyrdom;
      but there were likewise too many who purchased an ignominious
      life, by discovering and betraying the holy Scripture into the
      hands of infidels. A great number even of bishops and presbyters
      acquired, by this criminal compliance, the opprobrious epithet of
      _Traditors;_ and their offence was productive of much present
      scandal and of much future discord in the African church. 159

      157 (return) [ Tillemont, MŽmoires Ecclesiast. tom. v. part i. p.
      43.]

      158 (return) [ See the Acta Sincera of Ruinart, p. 353; those of
      Felix of Thibara, or Tibiur, appear much less corrupted than in
      the other editions, which afford a lively specimen of legendary
      license.]

      159 (return) [ See the first book of Optatus of Milevis against
      the Donatiste, Paris, 1700, edit. Dupin. He lived under the reign
      of Valens.]

      The copies as well as the versions of Scripture, were already so
      multiplied in the empire, that the most severe inquisition could
      no longer be attended with any fatal consequences; and even the
      sacrifice of those volumes, which, in every congregation, were
      preserved for public use, required the consent of some
      treacherous and unworthy Christians. But the ruin of the churches
      was easily effected by the authority of the government, and by
      the labor of the Pagans. In some provinces, however, the
      magistrates contented themselves with shutting up the places of
      religious worship. In others, they more literally complied with
      the terms of the edict; and after taking away the doors, the
      benches, and the pulpit, which they burnt as it were in a funeral
      pile, they completely demolished the remainder of the edifice.
      160 It is perhaps to this melancholy occasion that we should
      apply a very remarkable story, which is related with so many
      circumstances of variety and improbability, that it serves rather
      to excite than to satisfy our curiosity. In a small town in
      Phrygia, of whose name as well as situation we are left ignorant,
      it should seem that the magistrates and the body of the people
      had embraced the Christian faith; and as some resistance might be
      apprehended to the execution of the edict, the governor of the
      province was supported by a numerous detachment of legionaries.
      On their approach the citizens threw themselves into the church,
      with the resolution either of defending by arms that sacred
      edifice, or of perishing in its ruins. They indignantly rejected
      the notice and permission which was given them to retire, till
      the soldiers, provoked by their obstinate refusal, set fire to
      the building on all sides, and consumed, by this extraordinary
      kind of martyrdom, a great number of Phrygians, with their wives
      and children. 161

      160 (return) [ The ancient monuments, published at the end of
      Optatus, p. 261, &c. describe, in a very circumstantial manner,
      the proceedings of the governors in the destruction of churches.
      They made a minute inventory of the plate, &c., which they found
      in them. That of the church of Cirta, in Numidia, is still
      extant. It consisted of two chalices of gold, and six of silver;
      six urns, one kettle, seven lamps, all likewise of silver;
      besides a large quantity of brass utensils, and wearing apparel.]

      161 (return) [ Lactantius (Institut. Divin. v. 11) confines the
      calamity to the _conventiculum_, with its congregation. Eusebius
      (viii. 11) extends it to a whole city, and introduces something
      very like a regular siege. His ancient Latin translator, Rufinus,
      adds the important circumstance of the permission given to the
      inhabitants of retiring from thence. As Phrygia reached to the
      confines of Isauria, it is possible that the restless temper of
      those independent barbarians may have contributed to this
      misfortune. Note: Universum populum. Lact. Inst. Div. v. 11.ÑG.]

      Some slight disturbances, though they were suppressed almost as
      soon as excited, in Syria and the frontiers of Armenia, afforded
      the enemies of the church a very plausible occasion to insinuate,
      that those troubles had been secretly fomented by the intrigues
      of the bishops, who had already forgotten their ostentatious
      professions of passive and unlimited obedience. 162

      The resentment, or the fears, of Diocletian, at length
      transported him beyond the bounds of moderation, which he had
      hitherto preserved, and he declared, in a series of cruel edicts,
      1621 his intention of abolishing the Christian name. By the first
      of these edicts, the governors of the provinces were directed to
      apprehend all persons of the ecclesiastical order; and the
      prisons, destined for the vilest criminals, were soon filled with
      a multitude of bishops, presbyters, deacons, readers, and
      exorcists. By a second edict, the magistrates were commanded to
      employ every method of severity, which might reclaim them from
      their odious superstition, and oblige them to return to the
      established worship of the gods. This rigorous order was
      extended, by a subsequent edict, to the whole body of Christians,
      who were exposed to a violent and general persecution. 163

      Instead of those salutary restraints, which had required the
      direct and solemn testimony of an accuser, it became the duty as
      well as the interest of the Imperial officers to discover, to
      pursue, and to torment the most obnoxious among the faithful.
      Heavy penalties were denounced against all who should presume to
      save a prescribed sectary from the just indignation of the gods,
      and of the emperors. Yet, notwithstanding the severity of this
      law, the virtuous courage of many of the Pagans, in concealing
      their friends or relations, affords an honorable proof, that the
      rage of superstition had not extinguished in their minds the
      sentiments of nature and humanity. 164

      162 (return) [ Eusebius, l. viii. c. 6. M. de Valois (with some
      probability) thinks that he has discovered the Syrian rebellion
      in an oration of Libanius; and that it was a rash attempt of the
      tribune Eugenius, who with only five hundred men seized Antioch,
      and might perhaps allure the Christians by the promise of
      religious toleration. From Eusebius, (l. ix. c. 8,) as well as
      from Moses of Chorene, (Hist. Armen. l. ii. 77, &c.,) it may be
      inferred, that Christianity was already introduced into Armenia.]

      1621 (return) [ He had already passed them in his first edict. It
      does not appear that resentment or fear had any share in the new
      persecutions: perhaps they originated in superstition, and a
      specious apparent respect for its ministers. The oracle of
      Apollo, consulted by Diocletian, gave no answer; and said that
      just men hindered it from speaking. Constantine, who assisted at
      the ceremony, affirms, with an oath, that when questioned about
      these men, the high priest named the Christians. ÒThe Emperor
      eagerly seized on this answer; and drew against the innocent a
      sword, destined only to punish the guilty: he instantly issued
      edicts, written, if I may use the expression, with a poniard; and
      ordered the judges to employ all their skill to invent new modes
      of punishment. Euseb. Vit Constant. l. ii c 54.ÓÑG.]

      163 (return) [ See Mosheim, p. 938: the text of Eusebius very
      plainly shows that the governors, whose powers were enlarged, not
      restrained, by the new laws, could punish with death the most
      obstinate Christians as an example to their brethren.]

      164 (return) [ Athanasius, p. 833, ap. Tillemont, MŽm.
      Ecclesiast. tom v part i. 90.]




      Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
      Constantine.ÑPart VII.


      Diocletian had no sooner published his edicts against the
      Christians, than, as if he had been desirous of committing to
      other hands the work of persecution, he divested himself of the
      Imperial purple. The character and situation of his colleagues
      and successors sometimes urged them to enforce and sometimes
      inclined them to suspend, the execution of these rigorous laws;
      nor can we acquire a just and distinct idea of this important
      period of ecclesiastical history, unless we separately consider
      the state of Christianity, in the different parts of the empire,
      during the space of ten years, which elapsed between the first
      edicts of Diocletian and the final peace of the church.

      The mild and humane temper of Constantius was averse to the
      oppression of any part of his subjects. The principal offices of
      his palace were exercised by Christians. He loved their persons,
      esteemed their fidelity, and entertained not any dislike to their
      religious principles. But as long as Constantius remained in the
      subordinate station of C¾sar, it was not in his power openly to
      reject the edicts of Diocletian, or to disobey the commands of
      Maximian. His authority contributed, however, to alleviate the
      sufferings which he pitied and abhorred. He consented with
      reluctance to the ruin of the churches; but he ventured to
      protect the Christians themselves from the fury of the populace,
      and from the rigor of the laws. The provinces of Gaul (under
      which we may probably include those of Britain) were indebted for
      the singular tranquillity which they enjoyed, to the gentle
      interposition of their sovereign. 165 But Datianus, the president
      or governor of Spain, actuated either by zeal or policy, chose
      rather to execute the public edicts of the emperors, than to
      understand the secret intentions of Constantius; and it can
      scarcely be doubted, that his provincial administration was
      stained with the blood of a few martyrs. 166

      The elevation of Constantius to the supreme and independent
      dignity of Augustus, gave a free scope to the exercise of his
      virtues, and the shortness of his reign did not prevent him from
      establishing a system of toleration, of which he left the precept
      and the example to his son Constantine. His fortunate son, from
      the first moment of his accession, declaring himself the
      protector of the church, at length deserved the appellation of
      the first emperor who publicly professed and established the
      Christian religion. The motives of his conversion, as they may
      variously be deduced from benevolence, from policy, from
      conviction, or from remorse, and the progress of the revolution,
      which, under his powerful influence and that of his sons,
      rendered Christianity the reigning religion of the Roman empire,
      will form a very interesting and important chapter in the present
      volume of this history. At present it may be sufficient to
      observe, that every victory of Constantine was productive of some
      relief or benefit to the church.

      165 (return) [ Eusebius, l. viii. c. 13. Lactantius de M. P. c.
      15. Dodwell (Dissertat. Cyprian. xi. 75) represents them as
      inconsistent with each other. But the former evidently speaks of
      Constantius in the station of C¾sar, and the latter of the same
      prince in the rank of Augustus.]

      166 (return) [ Datianus is mentioned, in GruterÕs Inscriptions,
      as having determined the limits between the territories of Pax
      Julia, and those of Ebora, both cities in the southern part of
      Lusitania. If we recollect the neighborhood of those places to
      Cape St. Vincent, we may suspect that the celebrated deacon and
      martyr of that name had been inaccurately assigned by Prudentius,
      &c., to Saragossa, or Valentia. See the pompous history of his
      sufferings, in the MŽmoires de Tillemont, tom. v. part ii. p.
      58-85. Some critics are of opinion, that the department of
      Constantius, as C¾sar, did not include Spain, which still
      continued under the immediate jurisdiction of Maximian.]

      The provinces of Italy and Africa experienced a short but violent
      persecution. The rigorous edicts of Diocletian were strictly and
      cheerfully executed by his associate Maximian, who had long hated
      the Christians, and who delighted in acts of blood and violence.
      In the autumn of the first year of the persecution, the two
      emperors met at Rome to celebrate their triumph; several
      oppressive laws appear to have issued from their secret
      consultations, and the diligence of the magistrates was animated
      by the presence of their sovereigns. After Diocletian had
      divested himself of the purple, Italy and Africa were
      administered under the name of Severus, and were exposed, without
      defence, to the implacable resentment of his master Galerius.
      Among the martyrs of Rome, Adauctus deserves the notice of
      posterity. He was of a noble family in Italy, and had raised
      himself, through the successive honors of the palace, to the
      important office of treasurer of the private Jemesnes. Adauctus
      is the more remarkable for being the only person of rank and
      distinction who appears to have suffered death, during the whole
      course of this general persecution. 167

      167 (return) [ Eusebius, l. viii. c. 11. Gruter, Inscrip. p.
      1171, No. 18. Rufinus has mistaken the office of Adauctus, as
      well as the place of his martyrdom. * Note: M. Guizot suggests
      the powerful cunuchs of the palace. Dorotheus, Gorgonius, and
      Andrew, admitted by Gibbon himself to have been put to death, p.
      66.]

      The revolt of Maxentius immediately restored peace to the
      churches of Italy and Africa; and the same tyrant who oppressed
      every other class of his subjects, showed himself just, humane,
      and even partial, towards the afflicted Christians. He depended
      on their gratitude and affection, and very naturally presumed,
      that the injuries which they had suffered, and the dangers which
      they still apprehended from his most inveterate enemy, would
      secure the fidelity of a party already considerable by their
      numbers and opulence. 168 Even the conduct of Maxentius towards
      the bishops of Rome and Carthage may be considered as the proof
      of his toleration, since it is probable that the most orthodox
      princes would adopt the same measures with regard to their
      established clergy. Marcellus, the former of these prelates, had
      thrown the capital into confusion, by the severe penance which he
      imposed on a great number of Christians, who, during the late
      persecution, had renounced or dissembled their religion. The rage
      of faction broke out in frequent and violent seditions; the blood
      of the faithful was shed by each otherÕs hands, and the exile of
      Marcellus, whose prudence seems to have been less eminent than
      his zeal, was found to be the only measure capable of restoring
      peace to the distracted church of Rome. 169 The behavior of
      Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, appears to have been still more
      reprehensible. A deacon of that city had published a libel
      against the emperor. The offender took refuge in the episcopal
      palace; and though it was somewhat early to advance any claims of
      ecclesiastical immunities, the bishop refused to deliver him up
      to the officers of justice. For this treasonable resistance,
      Mensurius was summoned to court, and instead of receiving a legal
      sentence of death or banishment, he was permitted, after a short
      examination, to return to his diocese. 170 Such was the happy
      condition of the Christian subjects of Maxentius, that whenever
      they were desirous of procuring for their own use any bodies of
      martyrs, they were obliged to purchase them from the most distant
      provinces of the East. A story is related of Aglae, a Roman lady,
      descended from a consular family, and possessed of so ample an
      estate, that it required the management of seventy-three
      stewards. Among these Boniface was the favorite of his mistress;
      and as Aglae mixed love with devotion, it is reported that he was
      admitted to share her bed. Her fortune enabled her to gratify the
      pious desire of obtaining some sacred relics from the East. She
      intrusted Boniface with a considerable sum of gold, and a large
      quantity of aromatics; and her lover, attended by twelve horsemen
      and three covered chariots, undertook a remote pilgrimage, as far
      as Tarsus in Cilicia. 171

      168 (return) [ Eusebius, l. viii. c. 14. But as Maxentius was
      vanquished by Constantine, it suited the purpose of Lactantius to
      place his death among those of the persecutors. * Note: M. Guizot
      directly contradicts this statement of Gibbon, and appeals to
      Eusebius. Maxentius, who assumed the power in Italy, pretended at
      first to be a Christian, to gain the favor of the Roman people;
      he ordered his ministers to cease to persecute the Christians,
      affecting a hypocritical piety, in order to appear more mild than
      his predecessors; but his actions soon proved that he was very
      different from what they had at first hoped. The actions of
      Maxentius were those of a cruel tyrant, but not those of a
      persecutor: the Christians, like the rest of his subjects,
      suffered from his vices, but they were not oppressed as a sect.
      Christian females were exposed to his lusts, as well as to the
      brutal violence of his colleague Maximian, but they were not
      selected as Christians.ÑM.]

      169 (return) [ The epitaph of Marcellus is to be found in Gruter,
      Inscrip. p 1172, No. 3, and it contains all that we know of his
      history. Marcellinus and Marcellus, whose names follow in the
      list of popes, are supposed by many critics to be different
      persons; but the learned AbbŽ de Longuerue was convinced that
      they were one and the same.

      Veridicus rector lapsis quia crimina flere
      Pr¾dixit miseris, fuit omnibus hostis amarus.
      Hinc furor, hinc odium; sequitur discordia, lites,
      Seditio, c¾des; solvuntur fÏdera pacis.
      Crimen ob alterius, Christum qui in pace negavit
      Finibus expulsus patri¾ est feritate Tyranni.
      H¾c breviter Damasus voluit comperta referre:
      Marcelli populus meritum cognoscere posset.

      We may observe that Damasus was made Bishop of Rome, A. D. 366.]

      170 (return) [ Optatus contr. Donatist. l. i. c. 17, 18. * Note:
      The words of Optatus are, Profectus (Roman) causam dixit; jussus
      con reverti Carthaginem; perhaps, in pleading his cause, he
      exculpated himself, since he received an order to return to
      Carthage.ÑG.]

      171 (return) [ The Acts of the Passion of St. Boniface, which
      abound in miracles and declamation, are published by Ruinart, (p.
      283Ñ291,) both in Greek and Latin, from the authority of very
      ancient manuscripts. Note: We are ignorant whether Aglae and
      Boniface were Christians at the time of their unlawful
      connection. See Tillemont. Mem, Eccles. Note on the Persecution
      of Domitian, tom. v. note 82. M. de Tillemont proves also that
      the history is doubtful.ÑG. ÑÑSir D. Dalrymple (Lord Hailes)
      calls the story of Aglae and Boniface as of equal authority with
      our _popular_ histories of Whittington and Hickathrift. Christian
      Antiquities, ii. 64.ÑM.]

      The sanguinary temper of Galerius, the first and principal author
      of the persecution, was formidable to those Christians whom their
      misfortunes had placed within the limits of his dominions; and it
      may fairly be presumed that many persons of a middle rank, who
      were not confined by the chains either of wealth or of poverty,
      very frequently deserted their native country, and sought a
      refuge in the milder climate of the West. 1711 As long as he
      commanded only the armies and provinces of Illyricum, he could
      with difficulty either find or make a considerable number of
      martyrs, in a warlike country, which had entertained the
      missionaries of the gospel with more coldness and reluctance than
      any other part of the empire. 172 But when Galerius had obtained
      the supreme power, and the government of the East, he indulged in
      their fullest extent his zeal and cruelty, not only in the
      provinces of Thrace and Asia, which acknowledged his immediate
      jurisdiction, but in those of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, where
      Maximin gratified his own inclination, by yielding a rigorous
      obedience to the stern commands of his benefactor. 173 The
      frequent disappointments of his ambitious views, the experience
      of six years of persecution, and the salutary reflections which a
      lingering and painful distemper suggested to the mind of
      Galerius, at length convinced him that the most violent efforts
      of despotism are insufficient to extirpate a whole people, or to
      subdue their religious prejudices. Desirous of repairing the
      mischief that he had occasioned, he published in his own name,
      and in those of Licinius and Constantine, a general edict, which,
      after a pompous recital of the Imperial titles, proceeded in the
      following manner:Ñ

      1711 (return) [ A little after this, Christianity was propagated
      to the north of the Roman provinces, among the tribes of Germany:
      a multitude of Christians, forced by the persecutions of the
      Emperors to take refuge among the Barbarians, were received with
      kindness. Euseb. de Vit. Constant. ii. 53. Semler Select. cap. H.
      E. p. 115. The Goths owed their first knowledge of Christianity
      to a young girl, a prisoner of war; she continued in the midst of
      them her exercises of piety; she fasted, prayed, and praised God
      day and night. When she was asked what good would come of so much
      painful trouble she answered, ÒIt is thus that Christ, the Son of
      God, is to be honored.Ó Sozomen, ii. c. 6.ÑG.]

      172 (return) [ During the four first centuries, there exist few
      traces of either bishops or bishoprics in the western Illyricum.
      It has been thought probable that the primate of Milan extended
      his jurisdiction over Sirmium, the capital of that great
      province. See the Geographia Sacra of Charles de St. Paul, p.
      68-76, with the observations of Lucas Holstenius.]

      173 (return) [ The viiith book of Eusebius, as well as the
      supplement concerning the martyrs of Palestine, principally
      relate to the persecution of Galerius and Maximin. The general
      lamentations with which Lactantius opens the vth book of his
      Divine Institutions allude to their cruelty.] ÒAmong the
      important cares which have occupied our mind for the utility and
      preservation of the empire, it was our intention to correct and
      reestablish all things according to the ancient laws and public
      discipline of the Romans. We were particularly desirous of
      reclaiming into the way of reason and nature, the deluded
      Christians who had renounced the religion and ceremonies
      instituted by their fathers; and presumptuously despising the
      practice of antiquity, had invented extravagant laws and
      opinions, according to the dictates of their fancy, and had
      collected a various society from the different provinces of our
      empire. The edicts, which we have published to enforce the
      worship of the gods, having exposed many of the Christians to
      danger and distress, many having suffered death, and many more,
      who still persist in their impious folly, being left destitute of
      _any_ public exercise of religion, we are disposed to extend to
      those unhappy men the effects of our wonted clemency. We permit
      them therefore freely to profess their private opinions, and to
      assemble in their conventicles without fear or molestation,
      provided always that they preserve a due respect to the
      established laws and government. By another rescript we shall
      signify our intentions to the judges and magistrates; and we hope
      that our indulgence will engage the Christians to offer up their
      prayers to the Deity whom they adore, for our safety and
      prosperity for their own, and for that of the republic.Ó 174 It
      is not usually in the language of edicts and manifestos that we
      should search for the real character or the secret motives of
      princes; but as these were the words of a dying emperor, his
      situation, perhaps, may be admitted as a pledge of his sincerity.

      174 (return) [ Eusebius (l. viii. c. 17) has given us a Greek
      version, and Lactantius (de M. P. c. 34) the Latin original, of
      this memorable edict. Neither of these writers seems to recollect
      how directly it contradicts whatever they have just affirmed of
      the remorse and repentance of Galerius. Note: But Gibbon has
      answered this by his just observation, that it is not in the
      language of edicts and manifestos that we should search * * for
      the secre motives of princes.ÑM.]

      When Galerius subscribed this edict of toleration, he was well
      assured that Licinius would readily comply with the inclinations
      of his friend and benefactor, and that any measures in favor of
      the Christians would obtain the approbation of Constantine. But
      the emperor would not venture to insert in the preamble the name
      of Maximin, whose consent was of the greatest importance, and who
      succeeded a few days afterwards to the provinces of Asia. In the
      first six months, however, of his new reign, Maximin affected to
      adopt the prudent counsels of his predecessor; and though he
      never condescended to secure the tranquillity of the church by a
      public edict, Sabinus, his Pr¾torian pr¾fect, addressed a
      circular letter to all the governors and magistrates of the
      provinces, expatiating on the Imperial clemency, acknowledging
      the invincible obstinacy of the Christians, and directing the
      officers of justice to cease their ineffectual prosecutions, and
      to connive at the secret assemblies of those enthusiasts. In
      consequence of these orders, great numbers of Christians were
      released from prison, or delivered from the mines. The
      confessors, singing hymns of triumph, returned into their own
      countries; and those who had yielded to the violence of the
      tempest, solicited with tears of repentance their readmission
      into the bosom of the church. 175

      175 (return) [ Eusebius, l. ix. c. 1. He inserts the epistle of
      the pr¾fect.]

      But this treacherous calm was of short duration; nor could the
      Christians of the East place any confidence in the character of
      their sovereign. Cruelty and superstition were the ruling
      passions of the soul of Maximin. The former suggested the means,
      the latter pointed out the objects of persecution. The emperor
      was devoted to the worship of the gods, to the study of magic,
      and to the belief of oracles. The prophets or philosophers, whom
      he revered as the favorites of Heaven, were frequently raised to
      the government of provinces, and admitted into his most secret
      councils. They easily convinced him that the Christians had been
      indebted for their victories to their regular discipline, and
      that the weakness of polytheism had principally flowed from a
      want of union and subordination among the ministers of religion.
      A system of government was therefore instituted, which was
      evidently copied from the policy of the church. In all the great
      cities of the empire, the temples were repaired and beautified by
      the order of Maximin, and the officiating priests of the various
      deities were subjected to the authority of a superior pontiff
      destined to oppose the bishop, and to promote the cause of
      paganism. These pontiffs acknowledged, in their turn, the supreme
      jurisdiction of the metropolitans or high priests of the
      province, who acted as the immediate vicegerents of the emperor
      himself. A white robe was the ensign of their dignity; and these
      new prelates were carefully selected from the most noble and
      opulent families. By the influence of the magistrates, and of the
      sacerdotal order, a great number of dutiful addresses were
      obtained, particularly from the cities of Nicomedia, Antioch, and
      Tyre, which artfully represented the well-known intentions of the
      court as the general sense of the people; solicited the emperor
      to consult the laws of justice rather than the dictates of his
      clemency; expressed their abhorrence of the Christians, and
      humbly prayed that those impious sectaries might at least be
      excluded from the limits of their respective territories. The
      answer of Maximin to the address which he obtained from the
      citizens of Tyre is still extant. He praises their zeal and
      devotion in terms of the highest satisfaction, descants on the
      obstinate impiety of the Christians, and betrays, by the
      readiness with which he consents to their banishment, that he
      considered himself as receiving, rather than as conferring, an
      obligation. The priests as well as the magistrates were empowered
      to enforce the execution of his edicts, which were engraved on
      tables of brass; and though it was recommended to them to avoid
      the effusion of blood, the most cruel and ignominious punishments
      were inflicted on the refractory Christians. 176

      176 (return) [ See Eusebius, l. viii. c. 14, l. ix. c. 2Ñ8.
      Lactantius de M. P. c. 36. These writers agree in representing
      the arts of Maximin; but the former relates the execution of
      several martyrs, while the latter expressly affirms, occidi
      servos Dei vetuit. * Note: It is easy to reconcile them; it is
      sufficient to quote the entire text of Lactantius: Nam cum
      clementiam specie tenus profiteretur, occidi servos Dei vetuit,
      debilitari jussit. Itaque confessoribus effodiebantur oculi,
      amputabantur manus, nares vel auricul¾ desecabantur. H¾c ille
      moliens Constantini litteris deterretur. Dissimulavit ergo, et
      tamen, si quis inciderit. mari occulte mergebatur. This detail of
      torments inflicted on the Christians easily reconciles Lactantius
      and Eusebius. Those who died in consequence of their tortures,
      those who were plunged into the sea, might well pass for martyrs.
      The mutilation of the words of Lactantius has alone given rise to
      the apparent contradiction.ÑG. ÑÑEusebius. ch. vi., relates the
      public martyrdom of the aged bishop of Emesa, with two others,
      who were thrown to the wild beasts, the beheading of Peter,
      bishop of Alexandria, with several others, and the death of
      Lucian, presbyter of Antioch, who was carried to Numidia, and put
      to death in prison. The contradiction is direct and undeniable,
      for although Eusebius may have misplaced the former martyrdoms,
      it may be doubted whether the authority of Maximin extended to
      Nicomedia till after the death of Galerius. The last edict of
      toleration issued by Maximin and published by Eusebius himself,
      Eccl. Hist. ix. 9. confirms the statement of Lactantius.ÑM.]

      The Asiatic Christians had every thing to dread from the severity
      of a bigoted monarch who prepared his measures of violence with
      such deliberate policy. But a few months had scarcely elapsed
      before the edicts published by the two Western emperors obliged
      Maximin to suspend the prosecution of his designs: the civil war
      which he so rashly undertook against Licinius employed all his
      attention; and the defeat and death of Maximin soon delivered the
      church from the last and most implacable of her enemies. 177

      177 (return) [ A few days before his death, he published a very
      ample edict of toleration, in which he imputes all the severities
      which the Christians suffered to the judges and governors, who
      had misunderstood his intentions.See the edict of Eusebius, l.
      ix. c. 10.]

      In this general view of the persecution, which was first
      authorized by the edicts of Diocletian, I have purposely
      refrained from describing the particular sufferings and deaths of
      the Christian martyrs. It would have been an easy task, from the
      history of Eusebius, from the declamations of Lactantius, and
      from the most ancient acts, to collect a long series of horrid
      and disgustful pictures, and to fill many pages with racks and
      scourges, with iron hooks and red-hot beds, and with all the
      variety of tortures which fire and steel, savage beasts, and more
      savage executioners, could inflict upon the human body. These
      melancholy scenes might be enlivened by a crowd of visions and
      miracles destined either to delay the death, to celebrate the
      triumph, or to discover the relics of those canonized saints who
      suffered for the name of Christ. But I cannot determine what I
      ought to transcribe, till I am satisfied how much I ought to
      believe. The gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius
      himself, indirectly confesses, that he has related whatever might
      redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed all that could
      tend to the disgrace, of religion. 178 Such an acknowledgment
      will naturally excite a suspicion that a writer who has so openly
      violated one of the fundamental laws of history, has not paid a
      very strict regard to the observance of the other; and the
      suspicion will derive additional credit from the character of
      Eusebius, 1781 which was less tinctured with credulity, and more
      practised in the arts of courts, than that of almost any of his
      contemporaries. On some particular occasions, when the
      magistrates were exasperated by some personal motives of interest
      or resentment, the rules of prudence, and perhaps of decency, to
      overturn the altars, to pour out imprecations against the
      emperors, or to strike the judge as he sat on his tribunal, it
      may be presumed, that every mode of torture which cruelty could
      invent, or constancy could endure, was exhausted on those devoted
      victims. 179 Two circumstances, however, have been unwarily
      mentioned, which insinuate that the general treatment of the
      Christians, who had been apprehended by the officers of justice,
      was less intolerable than it is usually imagined to have been. 1.
      The confessors who were condemned to work in the mines were
      permitted by the humanity or the negligence of their keepers to
      build chapels, and freely to profess their religion in the midst
      of those dreary habitations. 180 2. The bishops were obliged to
      check and to censure the forward zeal of the Christians, who
      voluntarily threw themselves into the hands of the magistrates.
      Some of these were persons oppressed by poverty and debts, who
      blindly sought to terminate a miserable existence by a glorious
      death. Others were allured by the hope that a short confinement
      would expiate the sins of a whole life; and others again were
      actuated by the less honorable motive of deriving a plentiful
      subsistence, and perhaps a considerable profit, from the alms
      which the charity of the faithful bestowed on the prisoners. 181
      After the church had triumphed over all her enemies, the interest
      as well as vanity of the captives prompted them to magnify the
      merit of their respective sufferings. A convenient distance of
      time or place gave an ample scope to the progress of fiction; and
      the frequent instances which might be alleged of holy martyrs,
      whose wounds had been instantly healed, whose strength had been
      renewed, and whose lost members had miraculously been restored,
      were extremely convenient for the purpose of removing every
      difficulty, and of silencing every objection. The most
      extravagant legends, as they conduced to the honor of the church,
      were applauded by the credulous multitude, countenanced by the
      power of the clergy, and attested by the suspicious evidence of
      ecclesiastical history.

      178 (return) [ Such is the _fair_ deduction from two remarkable
      passages in Eusebius, l. viii. c. 2, and de Martyr. Palestin. c.
      12. The prudence of the historian has exposed his own character
      to censure and suspicion. It was well known that he himself had
      been thrown into prison; and it was suggested that he had
      purchased his deliverance by some dishonorable compliance. The
      reproach was urged in his lifetime, and even in his presence, at
      the council of Tyre. See Tillemont, MŽmoires EcclŽsiastiques,
      tom. viii. part i. p. 67.]

      1781 (return) [ Historical criticism does not consist in
      rejecting indiscriminately all the facts which do not agree with
      a particular system, as Gibbon does in this chapter, in which,
      except at the last extremity, he will not consent to believe a
      martyrdom. Authorities are to be weighed, not excluded from
      examination. Now, the Pagan historians justify in many places the
      detail which have been transmitted to us by the historians of the
      church, concerning the tortures endured by the Christians. Celsus
      reproaches the Christians with holding their assemblies in
      secret, on account of the fear inspired by their sufferings, Òfor
      when you are arrested,Ó he says, Òyou are dragged to punishment:
      and, before you are put to death, you have to suffer all kinds of
      tortures.Ó Origen cont. Cels. l. i. ii. vi. viii. passing.
      Libanius, the panegyrist of Julian, says, while speaking of the
      Christians. ÒThose who followed a corrupt religion were in
      continual apprehensions; they feared lest Julian should invent
      tortures still more refined than those to which they had been
      exposed before, as mutilation, burning alive, &c.; for the
      emperors had inflicted upon them all these barbarities.Ó Lib.
      Parent in Julian. ap. Fab. Bib. Gr¾c. No. 9, No. 58, p. 283ÑG.
      ÑÑThis sentence of Gibbon has given rise to several learned
      dissertation: Mšller, de Fide Eusebii C¾sar, &c., Havni¾, 1813.
      Danzius, de Eusebio C¾s. Hist. Eccl. Scriptore, ejusque tide
      historica recte ¾stimand‰, &c., Jen¾, 1815. Kestner Commentatio
      de Eusebii Hist. Eccles. conditoris auctoritate et fide, &c. See
      also Reuterdahl, de Fontibus Histori¾ Eccles. Eusebian¾, Lond.
      Goth., 1826. GibbonÕs inference may appear stronger than the text
      will warrant, yet it is difficult, after reading the passages, to
      dismiss all suspicion of partiality from the mind.ÑM.]

      179 (return) [ The ancient, and perhaps authentic, account of the
      sufferings of Tarachus and his companions, (Acta Sincera Ruinart,
      p. 419Ñ448,) is filled with strong expressions of resentment and
      contempt, which could not fail of irritating the magistrate. The
      behavior of ®desius to Hierocles, pr¾fect of Egypt, was still
      more extraordinary. Euseb. de Martyr. Palestin. c. 5. * Note: M.
      Guizot states, that the acts of Tarachus and his companion
      contain nothing that appears dictated by violent feelings,
      (sentiment outrŽ.) Nothing can be more painful than the constant
      attempt of Gibbon throughout this discussion, to find some flaw
      in the virtue and heroism of the martyrs, some extenuation for
      the cruelty of the persecutors. But truth must not be sacrificed
      even to well-grounded moral indignation. Though the language of
      these martyrs is in great part that of calm de fiance, of noble
      firmness, yet there are many expressions which betray Òresentment
      and contempt.Ó ÒChildren of Satan, worshippers of Devils,Ó is
      their common appellation of the heathen. One of them calls the
      judge another, one curses, and declares that he will curse the
      Emperors, as pestilential and bloodthirsty tyrants, whom God will
      soon visit in his wrath. On the other hand, though at first they
      speak the milder language of persuasion, the cold barbarity of
      the judges and officers might surely have called forth one
      sentence of abhorrence from Gibbon. On the first unsatisfactory
      answer, ÒBreak his jaw,Ó is the order of the judge. They direct
      and witness the most excruciating tortures; the people, as M.
      Guizot observers, were so much revolted by the cruelty of Maximus
      that when the martyrs appeared in the amphitheatre, fear seized
      on all hearts, and general murmurs against the unjust judge rank
      through the assembly. It is singular, at least, that Gibbon
      should have quoted Òas probably authentic,Ó acts so much
      embellished with miracle as these of Tarachus are, particularly
      towards the end.ÑM. * Note: Scarcely were the authorities
      informed of this, than the president of the province, a man, says
      Eusebius, harsh and cruel, banished the confessors, some to
      Cyprus, others to different parts of Palestine, and ordered them
      to be tormented by being set to the most painful labors. Four of
      them, whom he required to abjure their faith and refused, were
      burnt alive. Euseb. de Mart. Palest. c. xiii.ÑG. Two of these
      were bishops; a fifth, Silvanus, bishop of Gaza, was the last
      martyr; another, named John was blinded, but used to officiate,
      and recite from memory long passages of the sacred writingsÑM.]

      180 (return) [ Euseb. de Martyr. Palestin. c. 13.]

      181 (return) [ Augustin. Collat. Carthagin. Dei, iii. c. 13, ap.
      Tillanant, MŽmoires EcclŽsiastiques, tom. v. part i. p. 46. The
      controversy with the Donatists, has reflected some, though
      perhaps a partial, light on the history of the African church.]




      Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
      Constantine.ÑPart VIII.


      The vague descriptions of exile and imprisonment, of pain and
      torture, are so easily exaggerated or softened by the pencil of
      an artful orator, 1811 that we are naturally induced to inquire
      into a fact of a more distinct and stubborn kind; the number of
      persons who suffered death in consequence of the edicts published
      by Diocletian, his associates, and his successors. The recent
      legendaries record whole armies and cities, which were at once
      swept away by the undistinguishing rage of persecution. The more
      ancient writers content themselves with pouring out a liberal
      effusion of loose and tragical invectives, without condescending
      to ascertain the precise number of those persons who were
      permitted to seal with their blood their belief of the gospel.
      From the history of Eusebius, it may, however, be collected, that
      only nine bishops were punished with death; and we are assured,
      by his particular enumeration of the martyrs of Palestine, 182
      that no more than ninety-two Christians were entitled to that
      honorable appellation. 1821 As we are unacquainted with the
      degree of episcopal zeal and courage which prevailed at that
      time, it is not in our power to draw any useful inferences from
      the former of these facts: but the latter may serve to justify a
      very important and probable conclusion. According to the
      distribution of Roman provinces, Palestine may be considered as
      the sixteenth part of the Eastern empire: 183 and since there
      were some governors, who from a real or affected clemency had
      preserved their hands unstained with the blood of the faithful,
      184 it is reasonable to believe, that the country which had given
      birth to Christianity, produced at least the sixteenth part of
      the martyrs who suffered death within the dominions of Galerius
      and Maximin; the whole might consequently amount to about fifteen
      hundred, a number which, if it is equally divided between the ten
      years of the persecution, will allow an annual consumption of one
      hundred and fifty martyrs. Allotting the same proportion to the
      provinces of Italy, Africa, and perhaps Spain, where, at the end
      of two or three years, the rigor of the penal laws was either
      suspended or abolished, the multitude of Christians in the Roman
      empire, on whom a capital punishment was inflicted by a judicia,
      sentence, will be reduced to somewhat less than two thousand
      persons. Since it cannot be doubted that the Christians were more
      numerous, and their enemies more exasperated, in the time of
      Diocletian, than they had ever been in any former persecution,
      this probable and moderate computation may teach us to estimate
      the number of primitive saints and martyrs who sacrificed their
      lives for the important purpose of introducing Christianity into
      the world.

      1811 (return) [ Perhaps there never was an instance of an author
      committing so deliberately the fault which he reprobates so
      strongly in others. What is the dexterous management of the more
      inartificial historians of Christianity, in exaggerating the
      numbers of the martyrs, compared to the unfair address with which
      Gibbon here quietly dismisses from the account all the horrible
      and excruciating tortures which fell short of death? The reader
      may refer to the xiith chapter (book viii.) of Eusebius for the
      description and for the scenes of these tortures.ÑM.]

      182 (return) [ Eusebius de Martyr. Palestin. c. 13. He closes his
      narration by assuring us that these were the martyrdoms inflicted
      in Palestine, during the _whole_ course of the persecution. The
      9th chapter of his viiith book, which relates to the province of
      Thebais in Egypt, may seem to contradict our moderate
      computation; but it will only lead us to admire the artful
      management of the historian. Choosing for the scene of the most
      exquisite cruelty the most remote and sequestered country of the
      Roman empire, he relates that in Thebais from ten to one hundred
      persons had frequently suffered martyrdom in the same day. But
      when he proceeds to mention his own journey into Egypt, his
      language insensibly becomes more cautious and moderate. Instead
      of a large, but definite number, he speaks of many Christians,
      and most artfully selects two ambiguous words, which may signify
      either what he had seen, or what he had heard; either the
      expectation, or the execution of the punishment. Having thus
      provided a secure evasion, he commits the equivocal passage to
      his readers and translators; justly conceiving that their piety
      would induce them to prefer the most favorable sense. There was
      perhaps some malice in the remark of Theodorus Metochita, that
      all who, like Eusebius, had been conversant with the Egyptians,
      delighted in an obscure and intricate style. (See Valesius ad
      loc.)]

      1821 (return) [ This calculation is made from the martyrs, of
      whom Eusebius speaks by name; but he recognizes a much greater
      number. Thus the ninth and tenth chapters of his work are
      entitled, ÒOf Antoninus, Zebinus, Germanus, and other martyrs; of
      Peter the monk. of Asclepius the Maroionite, and other martyrs.Ó
      [Are these vague contents of chapters very good authority?ÑM.]
      Speaking of those who suffered under Diocletian, he says, ÒI will
      only relate the death of one of these, from which, the reader may
      divine what befell the rest.Ó Hist. Eccl. viii. 6. [This relates
      only to the martyrs in the royal household.ÑM.] Dodwell had made,
      before Gibbon, this calculation and these objections; but Ruinart
      (Act. Mart. Pref p. 27, _et seq_.) has answered him in a
      peremptory manner: Nobis constat Eusebium in historia infinitos
      passim martyres admisisse. quamvis revera paucorum nomina
      recensuerit. Nec alium Eusebii interpretem quam ipsummet Eusebium
      proferimus, qui (l. iii. c. 33) ait sub Trajano plurimosa ex
      fidelibus martyrii certamen subiisse (l. v. init.) sub Antonino
      et Vero innumerabiles prope martyres per universum orbem
      enituisse affirmat. (L. vi. c. 1.) Severum persecutionem
      concitasse refert, in qua per omnes ubique locorum Ecclesias, ab
      athletis pro pietate certantibus, illustria confecta fuerunt
      martyria. Sic de Decii, sic de Valeriani, persecutionibus
      loquitur, qu¾ an Dodwelli faveant conjectionibus judicet ¾quus
      lector. Even in the persecutions which Gibbon has represented as
      much more mild than that of Diocletian, the number of martyrs
      appears much greater than that to which he limits the martyrs of
      the latter: and this number is attested by incontestable
      monuments. I will quote but one example. We find among the
      letters of St. Cyprian one from Lucianus to Celerinus, written
      from the depth of a prison, in which Lucianus names seventeen of
      his brethren dead, some in the quarries, some in the midst of
      tortures some of starvation in prison. Jussi sumus (he proceeds)
      secundum pr¾ ceptum imperatoris, fame et siti necari, et reclusi
      sumus in duabus cellis, ta ut nos afficerent fame et siti et
      ignis vapore.ÑG.]

      183 (return) [ When Palestine was divided into three, the
      pr¾fecture of the East contained forty-eight provinces. As the
      ancient distinctions of nations were long since abolished, the
      Romans distributed the provinces according to a general
      proportion of their extent and opulence.]

      184 (return) [ Ut gloriari possint nullam se innocentium
      poremisse, nam et ipse audivi aloquos gloriantes, quia
      administratio sua, in hac paris merit incruenta. Lactant.
      Institur. Divin v. 11.]

      We shall conclude this chapter by a melancholy truth, which
      obtrudes itself on the reluctant mind; that even admitting,
      without hesitation or inquiry, all that history has recorded, or
      devotion has feigned, on the subject of martyrdoms, it must still
      be acknowledged, that the Christians, in the course of their
      intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on
      each other, than they had experienced from the zeal of infidels.
      During the ages of ignorance which followed the subversion of the
      Roman empire in the West, the bishops of the Imperial city
      extended their dominion over the laity as well as clergy of the
      Latin church. The fabric of superstition which they had erected,
      and which might long have defied the feeble efforts of reason,
      was at length assaulted by a crowd of daring fanatics, who from
      the twelfth to the sixteenth century assumed the popular
      character of reformers. The church of Rome defended by violence
      the empire which she had acquired by fraud; a system of peace and
      benevolence was soon disgraced by proscriptions, war, massacres,
      and the institution of the holy office. And as the reformers were
      animated by the love of civil as well as of religious freedom,
      the Catholic princes connected their own interest with that of
      the clergy, and enforced by fire and the sword the terrors of
      spiritual censures. In the Netherlands alone, more than one
      hundred thousand of the subjects of Charles V. are said to have
      suffered by the hand of the executioner; and this extraordinary
      number is attested by Grotius, 185 a man of genius and learning,
      who preserved his moderation amidst the fury of contending sects,
      and who composed the annals of his own age and country, at a time
      when the invention of printing had facilitated the means of
      intelligence, and increased the danger of detection.

      If we are obliged to submit our belief to the authority of
      Grotius, it must be allowed, that the number of Protestants, who
      were executed in a single province and a single reign, far
      exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three
      centuries, and of the Roman empire. But if the improbability of
      the fact itself should prevail over the weight of evidence; if
      Grotius should be convicted of exaggerating the merit and
      sufferings of the Reformers; 186 we shall be naturally led to
      inquire what confidence can be placed in the doubtful and
      imperfect monuments of ancient credulity; what degree of credit
      can be assigned to a courtly bishop, and a passionate declaimer,
      1861 who, under the protection of Constantine, enjoyed the
      exclusive privilege of recording the persecutions inflicted on
      the Christians by the vanquished rivals or disregarded
      predecessors of their gracious sovereign.

      185 (return) [ Grot. Annal. de Rebus Belgicis, l. i. p. 12, edit.
      fol.]

      186 (return) [ Fra Paola (Istoria del Concilio Tridentino, l.
      iii.) reduces the number of the Belgic martyrs to 50,000. In
      learning and moderation Fra Paola was not inferior to Grotius.
      The priority of time gives some advantage to the evidence of the
      former, which he loses, on the other hand, by the distance of
      Venice from the Netherlands.]

      1861 (return) [ Eusebius and the author of the Treatise de
      Mortibus Persecutorum. It is deeply to be regretted that the
      history of this period rest so much on the loose and, it must be
      admitted, by no means scrupulous authority of Eusebius.
      Ecclesiastical history is a solemn and melancholy lesson that the
      best, even the most sacred, cause will eventually the least
      departure from truth!ÑM.]




      Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.ÑPart I.

     Foundation Of Constantinople.ÑPolitical System Constantine, And
     His Successors.ÑMilitary Discipline.ÑThe Palace.ÑThe Finances.


      The unfortunate Licinius was the last rival who opposed the
      greatness, and the last captive who adorned the triumph, of
      Constantine. After a tranquil and prosperous reign, the conquerer
      bequeathed to his family the inheritance of the Roman empire; a
      new capital, a new policy, and a new religion; and the
      innovations which he established have been embraced and
      consecrated by succeeding generations. The age of the great
      Constantine and his sons is filled with important events; but the
      historian must be oppressed by their number and variety, unless
      he diligently separates from each other the scenes which are
      connected only by the order of time. He will describe the
      political institutions that gave strength and stability to the
      empire, before he proceeds to relate the wars and revolutions
      which hastened its decline. He will adopt the division unknown to
      the ancients of civil and ecclesiastical affairs: the victory of
      the Christians, and their intestine discord, will supply copious
      and distinct materials both for edification and for scandal.

      After the defeat and abdication of Licinius, his victorious rival
      proceeded to lay the foundations of a city destined to reign in
      future times, the mistress of the East, and to survive the empire
      and religion of Constantine. The motives, whether of pride or of
      policy, which first induced Diocletian to withdraw himself from
      the ancient seat of government, had acquired additional weight by
      the example of his successors, and the habits of forty years.
      Rome was insensibly confounded with the dependent kingdoms which
      had once acknowledged her supremacy; and the country of the
      C¾sars was viewed with cold indifference by a martial prince,
      born in the neighborhood of the Danube, educated in the courts
      and armies of Asia, and invested with the purple by the legions
      of Britain. The Italians, who had received Constantine as their
      deliverer, submissively obeyed the edicts which he sometimes
      condescended to address to the senate and people of Rome; but
      they were seldom honored with the presence of their new
      sovereign. During the vigor of his age, Constantine, according to
      the various exigencies of peace and war, moved with slow dignity,
      or with active diligence, along the frontiers of his extensive
      dominions; and was always prepared to take the field either
      against a foreign or a domestic enemy. But as he gradually
      reached the summit of prosperity and the decline of life, he
      began to meditate the design of fixing in a more permanent
      station the strength as well as majesty of the throne. In the
      choice of an advantageous situation, he preferred the confines of
      Europe and Asia; to curb with a powerful arm the barbarians who
      dwelt between the Danube and the Tanais; to watch with an eye of
      jealousy the conduct of the Persian monarch, who indignantly
      supported the yoke of an ignominious treaty. With these views,
      Diocletian had selected and embellished the residence of
      Nicomedia: but the memory of Diocletian was justly abhorred by
      the protector of the church: and Constantine was not insensible
      to the ambition of founding a city which might perpetuate the
      glory of his own name. During the late operations of the war
      against Licinius, he had sufficient opportunity to contemplate,
      both as a soldier and as a statesman, the incomparable position
      of Byzantium; and to observe how strongly it was guarded by
      nature against a hostile attack, whilst it was accessible on
      every side to the benefits of commercial intercourse. Many ages
      before Constantine, one of the most judicious historians of
      antiquity1 had described the advantages of a situation, from
      whence a feeble colony of Greeks derived the command of the sea,
      and the honors of a flourishing and independent republic. 2

      1 (return) [ Polybius, l. iv. p. 423, edit. Casaubon. He observes
      that the peace of the Byzantines was frequently disturbed, and
      the extent of their territory contracted, by the inroads of the
      wild Thracians.]

      2 (return) [ The navigator Byzas, who was styled the son of
      Neptune, founded the city 656 years before the Christian ¾ra. His
      followers were drawn from Argos and Megara. Byzantium was
      afterwards rebuild and fortified by the Spartan general
      Pausanias. See Scaliger Animadvers. ad Euseb. p. 81. Ducange,
      Constantinopolis, l. i part i. cap 15, 16. With regard to the
      wars of the Byzantines against Philip, the Gauls, and the kings
      of Bithynia, we should trust none but the ancient writers who
      lived before the greatness of the Imperial city had excited a
      spirit of flattery and fiction.]

      If we survey Byzantium in the extent which it acquired with the
      august name of Constantinople, the figure of the Imperial city
      may be represented under that of an unequal triangle. The obtuse
      point, which advances towards the east and the shores of Asia,
      meets and repels the waves of the Thracian Bosphorus. The
      northern side of the city is bounded by the harbor; and the
      southern is washed by the Propontis, or Sea of Marmara. The basis
      of the triangle is opposed to the west, and terminates the
      continent of Europe. But the admirable form and division of the
      circumjacent land and water cannot, without a more ample
      explanation, be clearly or sufficiently understood. The winding
      channel through which the waters of the Euxine flow with a rapid
      and incessant course towards the Mediterranean, received the
      appellation of Bosphorus, a name not less celebrated in the
      history, than in the fables, of antiquity. 3 A crowd of temples
      and of votive altars, profusely scattered along its steep and
      woody banks, attested the unskilfulness, the terrors, and the
      devotion of the Grecian navigators, who, after the example of the
      Argonauts, explored the dangers of the inhospitable Euxine. On
      these banks tradition long preserved the memory of the palace of
      Phineus, infested by the obscene harpies; 4 and of the sylvan
      reign of Amycus, who defied the son of Leda to the combat of the
      cestus. 5 The straits of the Bosphorus are terminated by the
      Cyanean rocks, which, according to the description of the poets,
      had once floated on the face of the waters; and were destined by
      the gods to protect the entrance of the Euxine against the eye of
      profane curiosity. 6 From the Cyanean rocks to the point and
      harbor of Byzantium, the winding length of the Bosphorus extends
      about sixteen miles, 7 and its most ordinary breadth may be
      computed at about one mile and a half. The new castles of Europe
      and Asia are constructed, on either continent, upon the
      foundations of two celebrated temples, of Serapis and of Jupiter
      Urius. The _old_ castles, a work of the Greek emperors, command
      the narrowest part of the channel in a place where the opposite
      banks advance within five hundred paces of each other. These
      fortresses were destroyed and strengthened by Mahomet the Second,
      when he meditated the siege of Constantinople: 8 but the Turkish
      conqueror was most probably ignorant, that near two thousand
      years before his reign, Darius had chosen the same situation to
      connect the two continents by a bridge of boats. 9 At a small
      distance from the old castles we discover the little town of
      Chrysopolis, or Scutari, which may almost be considered as the
      Asiatic suburb of Constantinople. The Bosphorus, as it begins to
      open into the Propontis, passes between Byzantium and Chalcedon.
      The latter of those cities was built by the Greeks, a few years
      before the former; and the blindness of its founders, who
      overlooked the superior advantages of the opposite coast, has
      been stigmatized by a proverbial expression of contempt. 10

      3 (return) [ The Bosphorus has been very minutely described by
      Dionysius of Byzantium, who lived in the time of Domitian,
      (Hudson, Geograph Minor, tom. iii.,) and by Gilles or Gyllius, a
      French traveller of the XVIth century. Tournefort (Lettre XV.)
      seems to have used his own eyes, and the learning of Gyllius. Add
      Von Hammer, Constantinopolis und der Bosphoros, 8vo.ÑM.]

      4 (return) [ There are very few conjectures so happy as that of
      Le Clere, (Bibliotehque Universelle, tom. i. p. 148,) who
      supposes that the harpies were only locusts. The Syriac or
      PhÏnician name of those insects, their noisy flight, the stench
      and devastation which they occasion, and the north wind which
      drives them into the sea, all contribute to form the striking
      resemblance.]

      5 (return) [ The residence of Amycus was in Asia, between the old
      and the new castles, at a place called Laurus Insana. That of
      Phineus was in Europe, near the village of Mauromole and the
      Black Sea. See Gyllius de Bosph. l. ii. c. 23. Tournefort, Lettre
      XV.]

      6 (return) [ The deception was occasioned by several pointed
      rocks, alternately sovered and abandoned by the waves. At present
      there are two small islands, one towards either shore; that of
      Europe is distinguished by the column of Pompey.]

      7 (return) [ The ancients computed one hundred and twenty stadia,
      or fifteen Roman miles. They measured only from the new castles,
      but they carried the straits as far as the town of Chalcedon.]

      8 (return) [ Ducas. Hist. c. 34. Leunclavius Hist. Turcica
      Mussulmanica, l. xv. p. 577. Under the Greek empire these castles
      were used as state prisons, under the tremendous name of Lethe,
      or towers of oblivion.]

      9 (return) [ Darius engraved in Greek and Assyrian letters, on
      two marble columns, the names of his subject nations, and the
      amazing numbers of his land and sea forces. The Byzantines
      afterwards transported these columns into the city, and used them
      for the altars of their tutelar deities. Herodotus, l. iv. c.
      87.]

      10 (return) [ Namque arctissimo inter Europam Asiamque divortio
      Byzantium in extrem‰ Europ‰ posuere Greci, quibus, Pythium
      Apollinem consulentibus ubi conderent urbem, redditum oraculum
      est, qu¾rerent sedem _c¾cerum_ terris adversam. Ea ambage
      Chalcedonii monstrabantur quod priores illuc advecti, pr¾vis‰
      locorum utilitate pejora legissent Tacit. Annal. xii. 63.]

      The harbor of Constantinople, which may be considered as an arm
      of the Bosphorus, obtained, in a very remote period, the
      denomination of the _Golden Horn_. The curve which it describes
      might be compared to the horn of a stag, or as it should seem,
      with more propriety, to that of an ox. 11 The epithet of _golden_
      was expressive of the riches which every wind wafted from the
      most distant countries into the secure and capacious port of
      Constantinople. The River Lycus, formed by the conflux of two
      little streams, pours into the harbor a perpetual supply of fresh
      water, which serves to cleanse the bottom, and to invite the
      periodical shoals of fish to seek their retreat in that
      convenient recess. As the vicissitudes of tides are scarcely felt
      in those seas, the constant depth of the harbor allows goods to
      be landed on the quays without the assistance of boats; and it
      has been observed, that in many places the largest vessels may
      rest their prows against the houses, while their sterns are
      floating in the water. 12 From the mouth of the Lycus to that of
      the harbor, this arm of the Bosphorus is more than seven miles in
      length. The entrance is about five hundred yards broad, and a
      strong chain could be occasionally drawn across it, to guard the
      port and city from the attack of a hostile navy. 13

      11 (return) [ Strabo, l. vii. p. 492, [edit. Casaub.] Most of the
      antlers are now broken off; or, to speak less figuratively, most
      of the recesses of the harbor are filled up. See Gill. de
      Bosphoro Thracio, l. i. c. 5.]

      12 (return) [ Procopius de ®dificiis, l. i. c. 5. His description
      is confirmed by modern travellers. See Thevenot, part i. l. i. c.
      15. Tournefort, Lettre XII. Niebuhr, Voyage dÕArabie, p. 22.]

      13 (return) [ See Ducange, C. P. l. i. part i. c. 16, and his
      Observations sur Villehardouin, p. 289. The chain was drawn from
      the Acropolis near the modern Kiosk, to the tower of Galata; and
      was supported at convenient distances by large wooden piles.]

      Between the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, the shores of Europe
      and Asia, receding on either side, enclose the sea of Marmara,
      which was known to the ancients by the denomination of Propontis.
      The navigation from the issue of the Bosphorus to the entrance of
      the Hellespont is about one hundred and twenty miles.

      Those who steer their westward course through the middle of the
      Propontis, may at once descry the high lands of Thrace and
      Bithynia, and never lose sight of the lofty summit of Mount
      Olympus, covered with eternal snows. 14 They leave on the left a
      deep gulf, at the bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the
      Imperial residence of Diocletian; and they pass the small islands
      of Cyzicus and Proconnesus before they cast anchor at Gallipoli;
      where the sea, which separates Asia from Europe, is again
      contracted into a narrow channel.

      14 (return) [ Thevenot (Voyages au Levant, part i. l. i. c. 14)
      contracts the measure to 125 small Greek miles. Belon
      (Observations, l. ii. c. 1.) gives a good description of the
      Propontis, but contents himself with the vague expression of one
      day and one nightÕs sail. When SandyÕs (Travels, p. 21) talks of
      150 furlongs in length, as well as breadth we can only suppose
      some mistake of the press in the text of that judicious
      traveller.]

      The geographers who, with the most skilful accuracy, have
      surveyed the form and extent of the Hellespont, assign about
      sixty miles for the winding course, and about three miles for the
      ordinary breadth of those celebrated straits. 15 But the
      narrowest part of the channel is found to the northward of the
      old Turkish castles between the cities of Sestus and Abydus. It
      was here that the adventurous Leander braved the passage of the
      flood for the possession of his mistress. 16 It was here
      likewise, in a place where the distance between the opposite
      banks cannot exceed five hundred paces, that Xerxes imposed a
      stupendous bridge of boats, for the purpose of transporting into
      Europe a hundred and seventy myriads of barbarians. 17 A sea
      contracted within such narrow limits may seem but ill to deserve
      the singular epithet of _broad_, which Homer, as well as Orpheus,
      has frequently bestowed on the Hellespont. 1711 But our ideas of
      greatness are of a relative nature: the traveller, and especially
      the poet, who sailed along the Hellespont, who pursued the
      windings of the stream, and contemplated the rural scenery, which
      appeared on every side to terminate the prospect, insensibly lost
      the remembrance of the sea; and his fancy painted those
      celebrated straits, with all the attributes of a mighty river
      flowing with a swift current, in the midst of a woody and inland
      country, and at length, through a wide mouth, discharging itself
      into the ®gean or Archipelago. 18 Ancient Troy, 19 seated on a an
      eminence at the foot of Mount Ida, overlooked the mouth of the
      Hellespont, which scarcely received an accession of waters from
      the tribute of those immortal rivulets the Simois and Scamander.
      The Grecian camp had stretched twelve miles along the shore from
      the Sig¾an to the Rh¾tean promontory; and the flanks of the army
      were guarded by the bravest chiefs who fought under the banners
      of Agamemnon. The first of those promontories was occupied by
      Achilles with his invincible myrmidons, and the dauntless Ajax
      pitched his tents on the other. After Ajax had fallen a sacrifice
      to his disappointed pride, and to the ingratitude of the Greeks,
      his sepulchre was erected on the ground where he had defended the
      navy against the rage of Jove and of Hector; and the citizens of
      the rising town of Rh¾teum celebrated his memory with divine
      honors. 20 Before Constantine gave a just preference to the
      situation of Byzantium, he had conceived the design of erecting
      the seat of empire on this celebrated spot, from whence the
      Romans derived their fabulous origin. The extensive plain which
      lies below ancient Troy, towards the Rh¾tean promontory and the
      tomb of Ajax, was first chosen for his new capital; and though
      the undertaking was soon relinquished the stately remains of
      unfinished walls and towers attracted the notice of all who
      sailed through the straits of the Hellespont. 21

      15 (return) [ See an admirable dissertation of M. dÕAnville upon
      the Hellespont or Dardanelles, in the MŽmoires tom. xxviii. p.
      318Ñ346. Yet even that ingenious geographer is too fond of
      supposing new, and perhaps imaginary _measures_, for the purpose
      of rendering ancient writers as accurate as himself. The stadia
      employed by Herodotus in the description of the Euxine, the
      Bosphorus, &c., (l. iv. c. 85,) must undoubtedly be all of the
      same species; but it seems impossible to reconcile them either
      with truth or with each other.]

      16 (return) [ The oblique distance between Sestus and Abydus was
      thirty stadia. The improbable tale of Hero and Leander is exposed
      by M. Mahudel, but is defended on the authority of poets and
      medals by M. de la Nauze. See the AcadŽmie des Inscriptions, tom.
      vii. Hist. p. 74. elem. p. 240. Note: The practical illustration
      of the possibility of LeanderÕs feat by Lord Byron and other
      English swimmers is too well known to need particularly
      referenceÑM.]

      17 (return) [ See the seventh book of Herodotus, who has erected
      an elegant trophy to his own fame and to that of his country. The
      review appears to have been made with tolerable accuracy; but the
      vanity, first of the Persians, and afterwards of the Greeks, was
      interested to magnify the armament and the victory. I should much
      doubt whether the _invaders_ have ever outnumbered the _men_ of
      any country which they attacked.]

      1711 (return) [ Gibbon does not allow greater width between the
      two nearest points of the shores of the Hellespont than between
      those of the Bosphorus; yet all the ancient writers speak of the
      Hellespontic strait as broader than the other: they agree in
      giving it seven stadia in its narrowest width, (Herod. in Melp.
      c. 85. Polym. c. 34. Strabo, p. 591. Plin. iv. c. 12.) which make
      875 paces. It is singular that Gibbon, who in the fifteenth note
      of this chapter reproaches dÕAnville with being fond of supposing
      new and perhaps imaginary measures, has here adopted the peculiar
      measurement which dÕAnville has assigned to the stadium. This
      great geographer believes that the ancients had a stadium of
      fifty-one toises, and it is that which he applies to the walls of
      Babylon. Now, seven of these stadia are equal to about 500 paces,
      7 stadia = 2142 feet: 500 paces = 2135 feet 5 inches.ÑG. See
      Rennell, Geog. of Herod. p. 121. Add Ukert, Geographie der
      Griechen und Romer, v. i. p. 2, 71.ÑM.]

      18 (return) [ See WoodÕs Observations on Homer, p. 320. I have,
      with pleasure, selected this remark from an author who in general
      seems to have disappointed the expectation of the public as a
      critic, and still more as a traveller. He had visited the banks
      of the Hellespont; and had read Strabo; he ought to have
      consulted the Roman itineraries. How was it possible for him to
      confound Ilium and Alexandria Troas, (Observations, p. 340, 341,)
      two cities which were sixteen miles distant from each other? *
      Note: Compare WalpoleÕs Memoirs on Turkey, v. i. p. 101. Dr.
      Clarke adopted Mr. WalpoleÕs interpretation of the salt
      Hellespont. But the old interpretation is more graphic and
      Homeric. ClarkeÕs Travels, ii. 70.ÑM.]

      19 (return) [ Demetrius of Scepsis wrote sixty books on thirty
      lines of HomerÕs catalogue. The XIIIth Book of Strabo is
      sufficient for _our_ curiosity.]

      20 (return) [ Strabo, l. xiii. p. 595, [890, edit. Casaub.] The
      disposition of the ships, which were drawn upon dry land, and the
      posts of Ajax and Achilles, are very clearly described by Homer.
      See Iliad, ix. 220.]

      21 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. [c. 30,] p. 105. Sozomen, l. ii. c.
      3. Theophanes, p. 18. Nicephorus Callistus, l. vii. p. 48.
      Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 6. Zosimus places the new city
      between Ilium and Alexandria, but this apparent difference may be
      reconciled by the large extent of its circumference. Before the
      foundation of Constantinople, Thessalonica is mentioned by
      Cedrenus, (p. 283,) and Sardica by Zonaras, as the intended
      capital. They both suppose with very little probability, that the
      emperor, if he had not been prevented by a prodigy, would have
      repeated the mistake of the _blind_ Chalcedonians.]

      We are at present qualified to view the advantageous position of
      Constantinople; which appears to have been formed by nature for
      the centre and capital of a great monarchy. Situated in the
      forty-first degree of latitude, the Imperial city commanded, from
      her seven hills, 22 the opposite shores of Europe and Asia; the
      climate was healthy and temperate, the soil fertile, the harbor
      secure and capacious; and the approach on the side of the
      continent was of small extent and easy defence. The Bosphorus and
      the Hellespont may be considered as the two gates of
      Constantinople; and the prince who possessed those important
      passages could always shut them against a naval enemy, and open
      them to the fleets of commerce. The preservation of the eastern
      provinces may, in some degree, be ascribed to the policy of
      Constantine, as the barbarians of the Euxine, who in the
      preceding age had poured their armaments into the heart of the
      Mediterranean, soon desisted from the exercise of piracy, and
      despaired of forcing this insurmountable barrier. When the gates
      of the Hellespont and Bosphorus were shut, the capital still
      enjoyed within their spacious enclosure every production which
      could supply the wants, or gratify the luxury, of its numerous
      inhabitants. The sea-coasts of Thrace and Bithynia, which
      languish under the weight of Turkish oppression, still exhibit a
      rich prospect of vineyards, of gardens, and of plentiful
      harvests; and the Propontis has ever been renowned for an
      inexhaustible store of the most exquisite fish, that are taken in
      their stated seasons, without skill, and almost without labor. 23
      But when the passages of the straits were thrown open for trade,
      they alternately admitted the natural and artificial riches of
      the north and south, of the Euxine, and of the Mediterranean.
      Whatever rude commodities were collected in the forests of
      Germany and Scythia, and far as the sources of the Tanais and the
      Borysthenes; whatsoever was manufactured by the skill of Europe
      or Asia; the corn of Egypt, and the gems and spices of the
      farthest India, were brought by the varying winds into the port
      of Constantinople, which for many ages attracted the commerce of
      the ancient world. 24

      [See Basilica Of Constantinople]

      22 (return) [ PocockÕs Description of the East, vol. ii. part ii.
      p. 127. His plan of the seven hills is clear and accurate. That
      traveller is seldom unsatisfactory.]

      23 (return) [ See Belon, Observations, c. 72Ñ76. Among a variety
      of different species, the Pelamides, a sort of Thunnies, were the
      most celebrated. We may learn from Polybius, Strabo, and Tacitus,
      that the profits of the fishery constituted the principal revenue
      of Byzantium.]

      24 (return) [ See the eloquent description of Busbequius,
      epistol. i. p. 64. Est in Europa; habet in conspectu Asiam,
      Egyptum. Africamque a dextr‰: qu¾ tametsi contigu¾ non sunt,
      maris tamen navigandique commoditate veluti junguntur. A sinistra
      vero Pontus est Euxinus, &c.]

      The prospect of beauty, of safety, and of wealth, united in a
      single spot, was sufficient to justify the choice of Constantine.
      But as some decent mixture of prodigy and fable has, in every
      age, been supposed to reflect a becoming majesty on the origin of
      great cities, 25 the emperor was desirous of ascribing his
      resolution, not so much to the uncertain counsels of human
      policy, as to the infallible and eternal decrees of divine
      wisdom. In one of his laws he has been careful to instruct
      posterity, that in obedience to the commands of God, he laid the
      everlasting foundations of Constantinople: 26 and though he has
      not condescended to relate in what manner the celestial
      inspiration was communicated to his mind, the defect of his
      modest silence has been liberally supplied by the ingenuity of
      succeeding writers; who describe the nocturnal vision which
      appeared to the fancy of Constantine, as he slept within the
      walls of Byzantium. The tutelar genius of the city, a venerable
      matron sinking under the weight of years and infirmities, was
      suddenly transformed into a blooming maid, whom his own hands
      adorned with all the symbols of Imperial greatness. 27 The
      monarch awoke, interpreted the auspicious omen, and obeyed,
      without hesitation, the will of Heaven. The day which gave birth
      to a city or colony was celebrated by the Romans with such
      ceremonies as had been ordained by a generous superstition; 28
      and though Constantine might omit some rites which savored too
      strongly of their Pagan origin, yet he was anxious to leave a
      deep impression of hope and respect on the minds of the
      spectators. On foot, with a lance in his hand, the emperor
      himself led the solemn procession; and directed the line, which
      was traced as the boundary of the destined capital: till the
      growing circumference was observed with astonishment by the
      assistants, who, at length, ventured to observe, that he had
      already exceeded the most ample measure of a great city. ÒI shall
      still advance,Ó replied Constantine, Òtill He, the invisible
      guide who marches before me, thinks proper to stop.Ó 29 Without
      presuming to investigate the nature or motives of this
      extraordinary conductor, we shall content ourselves with the more
      humble task of describing the extent and limits of
      Constantinople. 30

      25 (return) [ Datur h¾c venia antiquitati, ut miscendo humana
      divinis, primordia urbium augustiora faciat. T. Liv. in proÏm.]

      26 (return) [ He says in one of his laws, pro commoditate urbis
      quam ¾terno nomine, jubente Deo, donavimus. Cod. Theodos. l.
      xiii. tit. v. leg. 7.]

      27 (return) [ The Greeks, Theophanes, Cedrenus, and the author of
      the Alexandrian Chronicle, confine themselves to vague and
      general expressions. For a more particular account of the vision,
      we are obliged to have recourse to such Latin writers as William
      of Malmesbury. See Ducange, C. P. l. i. p. 24, 25.]

      28 (return) [ See Plutarch in Romul. tom. i. p. 49, edit. Bryan.
      Among other ceremonies, a large hole, which had been dug for that
      purpose, was filled up with handfuls of earth, which each of the
      settlers brought from the place of his birth, and thus adopted
      his new country.]

      29 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 9. This incident, though
      borrowed from a suspected writer, is characteristic and
      probable.]

      30 (return) [ See in the MŽmoires de lÕAcadŽmie, tom. xxxv p.
      747-758, a dissertation of M. dÕAnville on the extent of
      Constantinople. He takes the plan inserted in the Imperium
      Orientale of Banduri as the most complete; but, by a series of
      very nice observations, he reduced the extravagant proportion of
      the scale, and instead of 9500, determines the circumference of
      the city as consisting of about 7800 French _toises_.]

      In the actual state of the city, the palace and gardens of the
      Seraglio occupy the eastern promontory, the first of the seven
      hills, and cover about one hundred and fifty acres of our own
      measure. The seat of Turkish jealousy and despotism is erected on
      the foundations of a Grecian republic; but it may be supposed
      that the Byzantines were tempted by the conveniency of the harbor
      to extend their habitations on that side beyond the modern limits
      of the Seraglio. The new walls of Constantine stretched from the
      port to the Propontis across the enlarged breadth of the
      triangle, at the distance of fifteen stadia from the ancient
      fortification; and with the city of Byzantium they enclosed five
      of the seven hills, which, to the eyes of those who approach
      Constantinople, appear to rise above each other in beautiful
      order. 31 About a century after the death of the founder, the new
      buildings, extending on one side up the harbor, and on the other
      along the Propontis, already covered the narrow ridge of the
      sixth, and the broad summit of the seventh hill. The necessity of
      protecting those suburbs from the incessant inroads of the
      barbarians engaged the younger Theodosius to surround his capital
      with an adequate and permanent enclosure of walls. 32 From the
      eastern promontory to the golden gate, the extreme length of
      Constantinople was about three Roman miles; 33 the circumference
      measured between ten and eleven; and the surface might be
      computed as equal to about two thousand English acres. It is
      impossible to justify the vain and credulous exaggerations of
      modern travellers, who have sometimes stretched the limits of
      Constantinople over the adjacent villages of the European, and
      even of the Asiatic coast. 34 But the suburbs of Pera and Galata,
      though situate beyond the harbor, may deserve to be considered as
      a part of the city; 35 and this addition may perhaps authorize
      the measure of a Byzantine historian, who assigns sixteen Greek
      (about fourteen Roman) miles for the circumference of his native
      city. 36 Such an extent may not seem unworthy of an Imperial
      residence. Yet Constantinople must yield to Babylon and Thebes,
      37 to ancient Rome, to London, and even to Paris. 38

      31 (return) [ Codinus, Antiquitat. Const. p. 12. He assigns the
      church of St. Anthony as the boundary on the side of the harbor.
      It is mentioned in Ducange, l. iv. c. 6; but I have tried,
      without success, to discover the exact place where it was
      situated.]

      32 (return) [ The new wall of Theodosius was constructed in the
      year 413. In 447 it was thrown down by an earthquake, and rebuilt
      in three months by the diligence of the pr¾fect Cyrus. The suburb
      of the Blanchern¾ was first taken into the city in the reign of
      Heraclius Ducange, Const. l. i. c. 10, 11.]

      33 (return) [ The measurement is expressed in the Notitia by
      14,075 feet. It is reasonable to suppose that these were Greek
      feet, the proportion of which has been ingeniously determined by
      M. dÕAnville. He compares the 180 feet with 78 Hashemite cubits,
      which in different writers are assigned for the heights of St.
      Sophia. Each of these cubits was equal to 27 French inches.]

      34 (return) [ The accurate Thevenot (l. i. c. 15) walked in one
      hour and three quarters round two of the sides of the triangle,
      from the Kiosk of the Seraglio to the seven towers. DÕAnville
      examines with care, and receives with confidence, this decisive
      testimony, which gives a circumference of ten or twelve miles.
      The extravagant computation of Tournefort (Lettre XI) of
      thirty-tour or thirty miles, without including Scutari, is a
      strange departure from his usual character.]

      35 (return) [ The syc¾, or fig-trees, formed the thirteenth
      region, and were very much embellished by Justinian. It has since
      borne the names of Pera and Galata. The etymology of the former
      is obvious; that of the latter is unknown. See Ducange, Const. l.
      i. c. 22, and Gyllius de Byzant. l. iv. c. 10.]

      36 (return) [ One hundred and eleven stadia, which may be
      translated into modern Greek miles each of seven stadia, or 660,
      sometimes only 600 French toises. See DÕAnville, Mesures
      Itineraires, p. 53.]

      37 (return) [ When the ancient texts, which describe the size of
      Babylon and Thebes, are settled, the exaggerations reduced, and
      the measures ascertained, we find that those famous cities filled
      the great but not incredible circumference of about twenty-five
      or thirty miles. Compare DÕAnville, MŽm. de lÕAcadŽmie, tom.
      xxviii. p. 235, with his Description de lÕEgypte, p. 201, 202.]

      38 (return) [ If we divide Constantinople and Paris into equal
      squares of 50 French _toises_, the former contains 850, and the
      latter 1160, of those divisions.]




      Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.ÑPart II.


      The master of the Roman world, who aspired to erect an eternal
      monument of the glories of his reign could employ in the
      prosecution of that great work, the wealth, the labor, and all
      that yet remained of the genius of obedient millions. Some
      estimate may be formed of the expense bestowed with Imperial
      liberality on the foundation of Constantinople, by the allowance
      of about two millions five hundred thousand pounds for the
      construction of the walls, the porticos, and the aqueducts. 39
      The forests that overshadowed the shores of the Euxine, and the
      celebrated quarries of white marble in the little island of
      Proconnesus, supplied an inexhaustible stock of materials, ready
      to be conveyed, by the convenience of a short water carriage, to
      the harbor of Byzantium. 40 A multitude of laborers and
      artificers urged the conclusion of the work with incessant toil:
      but the impatience of Constantine soon discovered, that, in the
      decline of the arts, the skill as well as numbers of his
      architects bore a very unequal proportion to the greatness of his
      designs. The magistrates of the most distant provinces were
      therefore directed to institute schools, to appoint professors,
      and by the hopes of rewards and privileges, to engage in the
      study and practice of architecture a sufficient number of
      ingenious youths, who had received a liberal education. 41 The
      buildings of the new city were executed by such artificers as the
      reign of Constantine could afford; but they were decorated by the
      hands of the most celebrated masters of the age of Pericles and
      Alexander. To revive the genius of Phidias and Lysippus,
      surpassed indeed the power of a Roman emperor; but the immortal
      productions which they had bequeathed to posterity were exposed
      without defence to the rapacious vanity of a despot. By his
      commands the cities of Greece and Asia were despoiled of their
      most valuable ornaments. 42 The trophies of memorable wars, the
      objects of religious veneration, the most finished statues of the
      gods and heroes, of the sages and poets, of ancient times,
      contributed to the splendid triumph of Constantinople; and gave
      occasion to the remark of the historian Cedrenus, 43 who
      observes, with some enthusiasm, that nothing seemed wanting
      except the souls of the illustrious men whom these admirable
      monuments were intended to represent. But it is not in the city
      of Constantine, nor in the declining period of an empire, when
      the human mind was depressed by civil and religious slavery, that
      we should seek for the souls of Homer and of Demosthenes.

      39 (return) [ Six hundred centenaries, or sixty thousand poundsÕ
      weight of gold. This sum is taken from Codinus, Antiquit. Const.
      p. 11; but unless that contemptible author had derived his
      information from some purer sources, he would probably have been
      unacquainted with so obsolete a mode of reckoning.]

      40 (return) [ For the forests of the Black Sea, consult
      Tournefort, Lettre XVI. for the marble quarries of Proconnesus,
      see Strabo, l. xiii. p. 588, (881, edit. Casaub.) The latter had
      already furnished the materials of the stately buildings of
      Cyzicus.]

      41 (return) [ See the Codex Theodos. l. xiii. tit. iv. leg. 1.
      This law is dated in the year 334, and was addressed to the
      pr¾fect of Italy, whose jurisdiction extended over Africa. The
      commentary of Godefroy on the whole title well deserves to be
      consulted.]

      42 (return) [ Constantinopolis dedicatur pÏne omnium urbium
      nuditate. Hieronym. Chron. p. 181. See Codinus, p. 8, 9. The
      author of the Antiquitat. Const. l. iii. (apud Banduri Imp.
      Orient. tom. i. p. 41) enumerates Rome, Sicily, Antioch, Athens,
      and a long list of other cities. The provinces of Greece and Asia
      Minor may be supposed to have yielded the richest booty.]

      43 (return) [ Hist. Compend. p. 369. He describes the statue, or
      rather bust, of Homer with a degree of taste which plainly
      indicates that Cadrenus copied the style of a more fortunate
      age.]

      During the siege of Byzantium, the conqueror had pitched his tent
      on the commanding eminence of the second hill. To perpetuate the
      memory of his success, he chose the same advantageous position
      for the principal Forum; 44 which appears to have been of a
      circular, or rather elliptical form. The two opposite entrances
      formed triumphal arches; the porticos, which enclosed it on every
      side, were filled with statues; and the centre of the Forum was
      occupied by a lofty column, of which a mutilated fragment is now
      degraded by the appellation of the _burnt pillar_. This column
      was erected on a pedestal of white marble twenty feet high; and
      was composed of ten pieces of porphyry, each of which measured
      about ten feet in height, and about thirty-three in
      circumference. 45 On the summit of the pillar, above one hundred
      and twenty feet from the ground, stood the colossal statue of
      Apollo. It was a bronze, had been transported either from Athens
      or from a town of Phrygia, and was supposed to be the work of
      Phidias. The artist had represented the god of day, or, as it was
      afterwards interpreted, the emperor Constantine himself, with a
      sceptre in his right hand, the globe of the world in his left,
      and a crown of rays glittering on his head. 46 The Circus, or
      Hippodrome, was a stately building about four hundred paces in
      length, and one hundred in breadth. 47 The space between the two
      _met¾_ or goals were filled with statues and obelisks; and we may
      still remark a very singular fragment of antiquity; the bodies of
      three serpents, twisted into one pillar of brass. Their triple
      heads had once supported the golden tripod which, after the
      defeat of Xerxes, was consecrated in the temple of Delphi by the
      victorious Greeks. 48 The beauty of the Hippodrome has been long
      since defaced by the rude hands of the Turkish conquerors; 4811
      but, under the similar appellation of Atmeidan, it still serves
      as a place of exercise for their horses. From the throne, whence
      the emperor viewed the Circensian games, a winding staircase 49
      descended to the palace; a magnificent edifice, which scarcely
      yielded to the residence of Rome itself, and which, together with
      the dependent courts, gardens, and porticos, covered a
      considerable extent of ground upon the banks of the Propontis
      between the Hippodrome and the church of St. Sophia. 50 We might
      likewise celebrate the baths, which still retained the name of
      Zeuxippus, after they had been enriched, by the munificence of
      Constantine, with lofty columns, various marbles, and above
      threescore statues of bronze. 51 But we should deviate from the
      design of this history, if we attempted minutely to describe the
      different buildings or quarters of the city. It may be sufficient
      to observe, that whatever could adorn the dignity of a great
      capital, or contribute to the benefit or pleasure of its numerous
      inhabitants, was contained within the walls of Constantinople. A
      particular description, composed about a century after its
      foundation, enumerates a capitol or school of learning, a circus,
      two theatres, eight public, and one hundred and fifty-three
      private baths, fifty-two porticos, five granaries, eight
      aqueducts or reservoirs of water, four spacious halls for the
      meetings of the senate or courts of justice, fourteen churches,
      fourteen palaces, and four thousand three hundred and
      eighty-eight houses, which, for their size or beauty, deserved to
      be distinguished from the multitude of plebeian inhabitants. 52

      44 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 106. Chron. Alexandrin. vel
      Paschal. p. 284, Ducange, Const. l. i. c. 24. Even the last of
      those writers seems to confound the Forum of Constantine with the
      Augusteum, or court of the palace. I am not satisfied whether I
      have properly distinguished what belongs to the one and the
      other.]

      45 (return) [ The most tolerable account of this column is given
      by Pocock. Description of the East, vol. ii. part ii. p. 131. But
      it is still in many instances perplexed and unsatisfactory.]

      46 (return) [ Ducange, Const. l. i. c. 24, p. 76, and his notes
      ad Alexiad. p. 382. The statue of Constantine or Apollo was
      thrown down under the reign of Alexius Comnenus. * Note: On this
      column (says M. von Hammer) Constantine, with singular
      shamelessness, placed his own statue with the attributes of
      Apollo and Christ. He substituted the nails of the Passion for
      the rays of the sun. Such is the direct testimony of the author
      of the Antiquit. Constantinop. apud Banduri. Constantine was
      replaced by the Ògreat and religiousÓ Julian, Julian, by
      Theodosius. A. D. 1412, the key stone was loosened by an
      earthquake. The statue fell in the reign of Alexius Comnenus, and
      was replaced by the cross. The Palladium was said to be buried
      under the pillar. Von Hammer, Constantinopolis und der Bosporos,
      i. 162.ÑM.]

      47 (return) [ Tournefort (Lettre XII.) computes the Atmeidan at
      four hundred paces. If he means geometrical paces of five feet
      each, it was three hundred _toises_ in length, about forty more
      than the great circus of Rome. See DÕAnville, Mesures
      Itineraires, p. 73.]

      48 (return) [ The guardians of the most holy relics would rejoice
      if they were able to produce such a chain of evidence as may be
      alleged on this occasion. See Banduri ad Antiquitat. Const. p.
      668. Gyllius de Byzant. l. ii. c. 13. 1. The original
      consecration of the tripod and pillar in the temple of Delphi may
      be proved from Herodotus and Pausanias. 2. The Pagan Zosimus
      agrees with the three ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius,
      Socrates, and Sozomen, that the sacred ornaments of the temple of
      Delphi were removed to Constantinople by the order of
      Constantine; and among these the serpentine pillar of the
      Hippodrome is particularly mentioned. 3. All the European
      travellers who have visited Constantinople, from Buondelmonte to
      Pocock, describe it in the same place, and almost in the same
      manner; the differences between them are occasioned only by the
      injuries which it has sustained from the Turks. Mahomet the
      Second broke the under jaw of one of the serpents with a stroke
      of his battle axe Thevenot, l. i. c. 17. * Note: See note 75, ch.
      lxviii. for Dr. ClarkeÕs rejection of ThevenotÕs authority. Von
      Hammer, however, repeats the story of Thevenot without
      questioning its authenticity.ÑM.]

      4811 (return) [ In 1808 the Janizaries revolted against the
      vizier Mustapha Baisactar, who wished to introduce a new system
      of military organization, besieged the quarter of the Hippodrome,
      in which stood the palace of the viziers, and the Hippodrome was
      consumed in the conflagration.ÑG.]

      49 (return) [ The Latin name _Cochlea_ was adopted by the Greeks,
      and very frequently occurs in the Byzantine history. Ducange,
      Const. i. c. l, p. 104.]

      50 (return) [ There are three topographical points which indicate
      the situation of the palace. 1. The staircase which connected it
      with the Hippodrome or Atmeidan. 2. A small artificial port on
      the Propontis, from whence there was an easy ascent, by a flight
      of marble steps, to the gardens of the palace. 3. The Augusteum
      was a spacious court, one side of which was occupied by the front
      of the palace, and another by the church of St. Sophia.]

      51 (return) [ Zeuxippus was an epithet of Jupiter, and the baths
      were a part of old Byzantium. The difficulty of assigning their
      true situation has not been felt by Ducange. History seems to
      connect them with St. Sophia and the palace; but the original
      plan inserted in Banduri places them on the other side of the
      city, near the harbor. For their beauties, see Chron. Paschal. p.
      285, and Gyllius de Byzant. l. ii. c. 7. Christodorus (see
      Antiquitat. Const. l. vii.) composed inscriptions in verse for
      each of the statues. He was a Theban poet in genius as well as in
      birth:ÑB¾otum in crasso jurares a‘re natum. * Note: Yet, for his
      age, the description of the statues of Hecuba and of Homer are by
      no means without merit. See Antholog. Palat. (edit. Jacobs) i.
      37ÑM.]

      52 (return) [ See the Notitia. Rome only reckoned 1780 large
      houses, _domus;_ but the word must have had a more dignified
      signification. No _insul¾_ are mentioned at Constantinople. The
      old capital consisted of 42 streets, the new of 322.]

      The populousness of his favored city was the next and most
      serious object of the attention of its founder. In the dark ages
      which succeeded the translation of the empire, the remote and the
      immediate consequences of that memorable event were strangely
      confounded by the vanity of the Greeks and the credulity of the
      Latins. 53 It was asserted, and believed, that all the noble
      families of Rome, the senate, and the equestrian order, with
      their innumerable attendants, had followed their emperor to the
      banks of the Propontis; that a spurious race of strangers and
      plebeians was left to possess the solitude of the ancient
      capital; and that the lands of Italy, long since converted into
      gardens, were at once deprived of cultivation and inhabitants. 54
      In the course of this history, such exaggerations will be reduced
      to their just value: yet, since the growth of Constantinople
      cannot be ascribed to the general increase of mankind and of
      industry, it must be admitted that this artificial colony was
      raised at the expense of the ancient cities of the empire. Many
      opulent senators of Rome, and of the eastern provinces, were
      probably invited by Constantine to adopt for their country the
      fortunate spot, which he had chosen for his own residence. The
      invitations of a master are scarcely to be distinguished from
      commands; and the liberality of the emperor obtained a ready and
      cheerful obedience. He bestowed on his favorites the palaces
      which he had built in the several quarters of the city, assigned
      them lands and pensions for the support of their dignity, 55 and
      alienated the demesnes of Pontus and Asia to grant hereditary
      estates by the easy tenure of maintaining a house in the capital.
      56 But these encouragements and obligations soon became
      superfluous, and were gradually abolished. Wherever the seat of
      government is fixed, a considerable part of the public revenue
      will be expended by the prince himself, by his ministers, by the
      officers of justice, and by the domestics of the palace. The most
      wealthy of the provincials will be attracted by the powerful
      motives of interest and duty, of amusement and curiosity. A third
      and more numerous class of inhabitants will insensibly be formed,
      of servants, of artificers, and of merchants, who derive their
      subsistence from their own labor, and from the wants or luxury of
      the superior ranks. In less than a century, Constantinople
      disputed with Rome itself the pre‘minence of riches and numbers.
      New piles of buildings, crowded together with too little regard
      to health or convenience, scarcely allowed the intervals of
      narrow streets for the perpetual throng of men, of horses, and of
      carriages. The allotted space of ground was insufficient to
      contain the increasing people; and the additional foundations,
      which, on either side, were advanced into the sea, might alone
      have composed a very considerable city. 57

      53 (return) [ Liutprand, Legatio ad Imp. Nicephornm, p. 153. The
      modern Greeks have strangely disfigured the antiquities of
      Constantinople. We might excuse the errors of the Turkish or
      Arabian writers; but it is somewhat astonishing, that the Greeks,
      who had access to the authentic materials preserved in their own
      language, should prefer fiction to truth, and loose tradition to
      genuine history. In a single page of Codinus we may detect twelve
      unpardonable mistakes; the reconciliation of Severus and Niger,
      the marriage of their son and daughter, the siege of Byzantium by
      the Macedonians, the invasion of the Gauls, which recalled
      Severus to Rome, the _sixty_ years which elapsed from his death
      to the foundation of Constantinople, &c.]

      54 (return) [ Montesquieu, Grandeur et DŽcadence des Romains, c.
      17.]

      55 (return) [ Themist. Orat. iii. p. 48, edit. Hardouin. Sozomen,
      l. ii. c. 3. Zosim. l. ii. p. 107. Anonym. Valesian. p. 715. If
      we could credit Codinus, (p. 10,) Constantine built houses for
      the senators on the exact model of their Roman palaces, and
      gratified them, as well as himself, with the pleasure of an
      agreeable surprise; but the whole story is full of fictions and
      inconsistencies.]

      56 (return) [ The law by which the younger Theodosius, in the
      year 438, abolished this tenure, may be found among the Novell¾
      of that emperor at the end of the Theodosian Code, tom. vi. nov.
      12. M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 371) has
      evidently mistaken the nature of these estates. With a grant from
      the Imperial demesnes, the same condition was accepted as a
      favor, which would justly have been deemed a hardship, if it had
      been imposed upon private property.]

      57 (return) [ The passages of Zosimus, of Eunapius, of Sozomen,
      and of Agathias, which relate to the increase of buildings and
      inhabitants at Constantinople, are collected and connected by
      Gyllius de Byzant. l. i. c. 3. Sidonius Apollinaris (in Panegyr.
      Anthem. 56, p. 279, edit. Sirmond) describes the moles that were
      pushed forwards into the sea, they consisted of the famous
      Puzzolan sand, which hardens in the water.]

      The frequent and regular distributions of wine and oil, of corn
      or bread, of money or provisions, had almost exempted the poorest
      citizens of Rome from the necessity of labor. The magnificence of
      the first C¾sars was in some measure imitated by the founder of
      Constantinople: 58 but his liberality, however it might excite
      the applause of the people, has in curred the censure of
      posterity. A nation of legislators and conquerors might assert
      their claim to the harvests of Africa, which had been purchased
      with their blood; and it was artfully contrived by Augustus,
      that, in the enjoyment of plenty, the Romans should lose the
      memory of freedom. But the prodigality of Constantine could not
      be excused by any consideration either of public or private
      interest; and the annual tribute of corn imposed upon Egypt for
      the benefit of his new capital, was applied to feed a lazy and
      insolent populace, at the expense of the husbandmen of an
      industrious province. 59 5911 Some other regulations of this
      emperor are less liable to blame, but they are less deserving of
      notice. He divided Constantinople into fourteen regions or
      quarters, 60 dignified the public council with the appellation of
      senate, 61 communicated to the citizens the privileges of Italy,
      62 and bestowed on the rising city the title of Colony, the first
      and most favored daughter of ancient Rome. The venerable parent
      still maintained the legal and acknowledged supremacy, which was
      due to her age, her dignity, and to the remembrance of her former
      greatness. 63

      58 (return) [ Sozomen, l. ii. c. 3. Philostorg. l. ii. c. 9.
      Codin. Antiquitat. Const. p. 8. It appears by Socrates, l. ii. c.
      13, that the daily allowance of the city consisted of eight
      myriads of which we may either translate, with Valesius, by the
      words modii of corn, or consider us expressive of the number of
      loaves of bread. * Note: At Rome the poorer citizens who received
      these gratuities were inscribed in a register; they had only a
      personal right. Constantine attached the right to the houses in
      his new capital, to engage the lower classes of the people to
      build their houses with expedition. Codex Therodos. l. xiv.ÑG.]

      59 (return) [ See Cod. Theodos. l. xiii. and xiv., and Cod.
      Justinian. Edict. xii. tom. ii. p. 648, edit. Genev. See the
      beautiful complaint of Rome in the poem of Claudian de Bell.
      Gildonico, ver. 46-64.ÑÑCum subiit par Roma mihi, divisaque
      sumsit ®quales aurora togas; ®gyptia rura In partem cessere
      novam.]

      5911 (return) [ This was also at the expense of Rome. The emperor
      ordered that the fleet of Alexandria should transport to
      Constantinople the grain of Egypt which it carried before to
      Rome: this grain supplied Rome during four months of the year.
      Claudian has described with force the famine occasioned by this
      measure:Ñ

     H¾c nobis, h¾c ante dabas; nunc pabula tantum Roma precor:
     miserere tu¾; pater optime, gentis: Extremam defende famem. Claud.
     de Bell. Gildon. v. 34.ÑG.

      It was scarcely this measure. Gildo had cut off the African as
      well as the Egyptian supplies.ÑM.]

      60 (return) [ The regions of Constantinople are mentioned in the
      code of Justinian, and particularly described in the Notitia of
      the younger Theodosius; but as the four last of them are not
      included within the wall of Constantine, it may be doubted
      whether this division of the city should be referred to the
      founder.]

      61 (return) [ Senatum constituit secundi ordinis; _Claros_
      vocavit. Anonym Valesian. p. 715. The senators of old Rome were
      styled _Clarissimi_. See a curious note of Valesius ad Ammian.
      Marcellin. xxii. 9. From the eleventh epistle of Julian, it
      should seem that the place of senator was considered as a burden,
      rather than as an honor; but the AbbŽ de la Bleterie (Vie de
      Jovien, tom. ii. p. 371) has shown that this epistle could not
      relate to Constantinople. Might we not read, instead of the
      celebrated name of the obscure but more probable word Bisanthe or
      RhÏdestus, now Rhodosto, was a small maritime city of Thrace. See
      Stephan. Byz. de Urbibus, p. 225, and Cellar. Geograph. tom. i.
      p. 849.]

      62 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xiv. 13. The commentary of
      Godefroy (tom. v. p. 220) is long, but perplexed; nor indeed is
      it easy to ascertain in what the Jus Italicum could consist,
      after the freedom of the city had been communicated to the whole
      empire. * Note: ÒThis right, (the Jus Italicum,) which by most
      writers is referred with out foundation to the personal condition
      of the citizens, properly related to the city as a whole, and
      contained two parts. First, the Roman or quiritarian property in
      the soil, (commercium,) and its capability of mancipation,
      usucaption, and vindication; moreover, as an inseparable
      consequence of this, exemption from land-tax. Then, secondly, a
      free constitution in the Italian form, with Duumvirs,
      Quinquennales. and ®diles, and especially with Jurisdiction.Ó
      Savigny, Geschichte des Rom. Rechts i. p. 51ÑM.]

      63 (return) [ Julian (Orat. i. p. 8) celebrates Constantinople as
      not less superior to all other cities than she was inferior to
      Rome itself. His learned commentator (Spanheim, p. 75, 76)
      justifies this language by several parallel and contemporary
      instances. Zosimus, as well as Socrates and Sozomen, flourished
      after the division of the empire between the two sons of
      Theodosius, which established a perfect _equality_ between the
      old and the new capital.]

      As Constantine urged the progress of the work with the impatience
      of a lover, the walls, the porticos, and the principal edifices
      were completed in a few years, or, according to another account,
      in a few months; 64 but this extraordinary diligence should
      excite the less admiration, since many of the buildings were
      finished in so hasty and imperfect a manner, that under the
      succeeding reign, they were preserved with difficulty from
      impending ruin. 65 But while they displayed the vigor and
      freshness of youth, the founder prepared to celebrate the
      dedication of his city. 66 The games and largesses which crowned
      the pomp of this memorable festival may easily be supposed; but
      there is one circumstance of a more singular and permanent
      nature, which ought not entirely to be overlooked. As often as
      the birthday of the city returned, the statue of Constantine,
      framed by his order, of gilt wood, and bearing in his right hand
      a small image of the genius of the place, was erected on a
      triumphal car. The guards, carrying white tapers, and clothed in
      their richest apparel, accompanied the solemn procession as it
      moved through the Hippodrome. When it was opposite to the throne
      of the reigning emperor, he rose from his seat, and with grateful
      reverence adored the memory of his predecessor. 67 At the
      festival of the dedication, an edict, engraved on a column of
      marble, bestowed the title of Second or New Rome on the city of
      Constantine. 68 But the name of Constantinople 69 has prevailed
      over that honorable epithet; and after the revolution of fourteen
      centuries, still perpetuates the fame of its author. 70

      64 (return) [ Codinus (Antiquitat. p. 8) affirms, that the
      foundations of Constantinople were laid in the year of the world
      5837, (A. D. 329,) on the 26th of September, and that the city
      was dedicated the 11th of May, 5838, (A. D. 330.) He connects
      those dates with several characteristic epochs, but they
      contradict each other; the authority of Codinus is of little
      weight, and the space which he assigns must appear insufficient.
      The term of ten years is given us by Julian, (Orat. i. p. 8;) and
      Spanheim labors to establish the truth of it, (p. 69-75,) by the
      help of two passages from Themistius, (Orat. iv. p. 58,) and of
      Philostorgius, (l. ii. c. 9,) which form a period from the year
      324 to the year 334. Modern critics are divided concerning this
      point of chronology and their different sentiments are very
      accurately described by Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv.
      p. 619-625.]

      65 (return) [ Themistius. Orat. iii. p. 47. Zosim. l. ii. p. 108.
      Constantine himself, in one of his laws, (Cod. Theod. l. xv. tit.
      i.,) betrays his impatience.]

      66 (return) [ Cedrenus and Zonaras, faithful to the mode of
      superstition which prevailed in their own times, assure us that
      Constantinople was consecrated to the virgin Mother of God.]

      67 (return) [ The earliest and most complete account of this
      extraordinary ceremony may be found in the Alexandrian Chronicle,
      p. 285. Tillemont, and the other friends of Constantine, who are
      offended with the air of Paganism which seems unworthy of a
      Christian prince, had a right to consider it as doubtful, but
      they were not authorized to omit the mention of it.]

      68 (return) [ Sozomen, l. ii. c. 2. Ducange C. P. l. i. c. 6.
      Velut ipsius Rom¾ filiam, is the expression of Augustin. de
      Civitat. Dei, l. v. c. 25.]

      69 (return) [ Eutropius, l. x. c. 8. Julian. Orat. i. p. 8.
      Ducange C. P. l. i. c. 5. The name of Constantinople is extant on
      the medals of Constantine.]

      70 (return) [ The lively Fontenelle (Dialogues des Morts, xii.)
      affects to deride the vanity of human ambition, and seems to
      triumph in the disappointment of Constantine, whose immortal name
      is now lost in the vulgar appellation of Istambol, a Turkish
      corruption of. Yet the original name is still preserved, 1. By
      the nations of Europe. 2. By the modern Greeks. 3. By the Arabs,
      whose writings are diffused over the wide extent of their
      conquests in Asia and Africa. See DÕHerbelot, Bibliothque
      Orientale, p. 275. 4. By the more learned Turks, and by the
      emperor himself in his public mandates CantemirÕs History of the
      Othman Empire, p. 51.]

      The foundation of a new capital is naturally connected with the
      establishment of a new form of civil and military administration.
      The distinct view of the complicated system of policy, introduced
      by Diocletian, improved by Constantine, and completed by his
      immediate successors, may not only amuse the fancy by the
      singular picture of a great empire, but will tend to illustrate
      the secret and internal causes of its rapid decay. In the pursuit
      of any remarkable institution, we may be frequently led into the
      more early or the more recent times of the Roman history; but the
      proper limits of this inquiry will be included within a period of
      about one hundred and thirty years, from the accession of
      Constantine to the publication of the Theodosian code; 71 from
      which, as well as from the _Notitia_ 7111 of the East and West,
      72 we derive the most copious and authentic information of the
      state of the empire. This variety of objects will suspend, for
      some time, the course of the narrative; but the interruption will
      be censured only by those readers who are insensible to the
      importance of laws and manners, while they peruse, with eager
      curiosity, the transient intrigues of a court, or the accidental
      event of a battle.

      71 (return) [ The Theodosian code was promulgated A. D. 438. See
      the Prolegomena of Godefroy, c. i. p. 185.]

      7111 (return) [ The Notitia Dignitatum Imperii is a description
      of all the offices in the court and the state, of the legions,
      &c. It resembles our court almanacs, (Red Books,) with this
      single difference, that our almanacs name the persons in office,
      the Notitia only the offices. It is of the time of the emperor
      Theodosius II., that is to say, of the fifth century, when the
      empire was divided into the Eastern and Western. It is probable
      that it was not made for the first time, and that descriptions of
      the same kind existed before.ÑG.]

      72 (return) [ Pancirolus, in his elaborate Commentary, assigns to
      the Notitia a date almost similar to that of the Theodosian Code;
      but his proofs, or rather conjectures, are extremely feeble. I
      should be rather inclined to place this useful work between the
      final division of the empire (A. D. 395) and the successful
      invasion of Gaul by the barbarians, (A. D. 407.) See Histoire des
      Anciens Peuples de lÕEurope, tom. vii. p. 40.]




      Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.ÑPart III.


      The manly pride of the Romans, content with substantial power,
      had left to the vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of
      ostentatious greatness. 73 But when they lost even the semblance
      of those virtues which were derived from their ancient freedom,
      the simplicity of Roman manners was insensibly corrupted by the
      stately affectation of the courts of Asia. The distinctions of
      personal merit and influence, so conspicuous in a republic, so
      feeble and obscure under a monarchy, were abolished by the
      despotism of the emperors; who substituted in their room a severe
      subordination of rank and office from the titled slaves who were
      seated on the steps of the throne, to the meanest instruments of
      arbitrary power. This multitude of abject dependants was
      interested in the support of the actual government from the dread
      of a revolution, which might at once confound their hopes and
      intercept the reward of their services. In this divine hierarchy
      (for such it is frequently styled) every rank was marked with the
      most scrupulous exactness, and its dignity was displayed in a
      variety of trifling and solemn ceremonies, which it was a study
      to learn, and a sacrilege to neglect. 74 The purity of the Latin
      language was debased, by adopting, in the intercourse of pride
      and flattery, a profusion of epithets, which Tully would scarcely
      have understood, and which Augustus would have rejected with
      indignation. The principal officers of the empire were saluted,
      even by the sovereign himself, with the deceitful titles of your
      _Sincerity_, your _Gravity_, your _Excellency_, your _Eminence_,
      your _sublime and wonderful Magnitude_, your _illustrious and
      magnificent Highness_. 75 The codicils or patents of their office
      were curiously emblazoned with such emblems as were best adapted
      to explain its nature and high dignity; the image or portrait of
      the reigning emperors; a triumphal car; the book of mandates
      placed on a table, covered with a rich carpet, and illuminated by
      four tapers; the allegorical figures of the provinces which they
      governed; or the appellations and standards of the troops whom
      they commanded. Some of these official ensigns were really
      exhibited in their hall of audience; others preceded their
      pompous march whenever they appeared in public; and every
      circumstance of their demeanor, their dress, their ornaments, and
      their train, was calculated to inspire a deep reverence for the
      representatives of supreme majesty. By a philosophic observer,
      the system of the Roman government might have been mistaken for a
      splendid theatre, filled with players of every character and
      degree, who repeated the language, and imitated the passions, of
      their original model. 76

      73 (return) [ Scilicet extern¾ superbi¾ sueto, non inerat notitia
      nostri, (perhaps _nostr¾;_) apud quos vis Imperii valet, inania
      transmittuntur. Tacit. Annal. xv. 31. The gradation from the
      style of freedom and simplicity, to that of form and servitude,
      may be traced in the Epistles of Cicero, of Pliny, and of
      Symmachus.]

      74 (return) [ The emperor Gratian, after confirming a law of
      precedency published by Valentinian, the father of his
      _Divinity_, thus continues: Siquis igitur indebitum sibi locum
      usurpaverit, nulla se ignoratione defendat; sitque plane
      _sacrilegii_ reus, qui _divina_ pr¾cepta neglexerit. Cod. Theod.
      l. vi. tit. v. leg. 2.]

      75 (return) [ Consult the _Notitia Dignitatum_ at the end of the
      Theodosian code, tom. vi. p. 316. * Note: Constantin, qui
      remplaca le grand Patriciat par une noblesse titree et qui
      changea avec dÕautres institutions la nature de la societe
      Latine, est le veritable fondateur de la royaute moderne, dans ce
      quelle conserva de Romain. Chateaubriand, Etud. Histor. Preface,
      i. 151. Manso, (Leben Constantins des Grossen,) p. 153, &c., has
      given a lucid view of the dignities and duties of the officers in
      the Imperial court.ÑM.]

      76 (return) [ Pancirolus ad Notitiam utriusque Imperii, p. 39.
      But his explanations are obscure, and he does not sufficiently
      distinguish the painted emblems from the effective ensigns of
      office.]

      All the magistrates of sufficient importance to find a place in
      the general state of the empire, were accurately divided into
      three classes. 1. The _Illustrious_. 2. The _Spectabiles_, or
      _Respectable_. And, 3. the _Clarissimi;_ whom we may translate by
      the word _Honorable_. In the times of Roman simplicity, the
      last-mentioned epithet was used only as a vague expression of
      deference, till it became at length the peculiar and appropriated
      title of all who were members of the senate, 77 and consequently
      of all who, from that venerable body, were selected to govern the
      provinces. The vanity of those who, from their rank and office,
      might claim a superior distinction above the rest of the
      senatorial order, was long afterwards indulged with the new
      appellation of _Respectable;_ but the title of _Illustrious_ was
      always reserved to some eminent personages who were obeyed or
      reverenced by the two subordinate classes. It was communicated
      only, I. To the consuls and patricians; II. To the Pr¾torian
      pr¾fects, with the pr¾fects of Rome and Constantinople; III. To
      the masters-general of the cavalry and the infantry; and IV. To
      the seven ministers of the palace, who exercised their _sacred_
      functions about the person of the emperor. 78 Among those
      illustrious magistrates who were esteemed coordinate with each
      other, the seniority of appointment gave place to the union of
      dignities. 79 By the expedient of honorary codicils, the
      emperors, who were fond of multiplying their favors, might
      sometimes gratify the vanity, though not the ambition, of
      impatient courtiers. 80

      77 (return) [ In the Pandects, which may be referred to the
      reigns of the Antonines, Clarissimus is the ordinary and legal
      title of a senator.]

      78 (return) [ Pancirol. p. 12-17. I have not taken any notice of
      the two inferior ranks, _Prefectissimus_ and _Egregius_, which
      were given to many persons who were not raised to the senatorial
      dignity.]

      79 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. vi. tit. vi. The rules of
      precedency are ascertained with the most minute accuracy by the
      emperors, and illustrated with equal prolixity by their learned
      interpreter.]

      80 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. vi. tit. xxii.]

      I. As long as the Roman consuls were the first magistrates of a
      free state, they derived their right to power from the choice of
      the people. As long as the emperors condescended to disguise the
      servitude which they imposed, the consuls were still elected by
      the real or apparent suffrage of the senate. From the reign of
      Diocletian, even these vestiges of liberty were abolished, and
      the successful candidates who were invested with the annual
      honors of the consulship, affected to deplore the humiliating
      condition of their predecessors. The Scipios and the Catos had
      been reduced to solicit the votes of plebeians, to pass through
      the tedious and expensive forms of a popular election, and to
      expose their dignity to the shame of a public refusal; while
      their own happier fate had reserved them for an age and
      government in which the rewards of virtue were assigned by the
      unerring wisdom of a gracious sovereign. 81 In the epistles which
      the emperor addressed to the two consuls elect, it was declared,
      that they were created by his sole authority. 82 Their names and
      portraits, engraved on gilt tables of ivory, were dispersed over
      the empire as presents to the provinces, the cities, the
      magistrates, the senate, and the people. 83 Their solemn
      inauguration was performed at the place of the Imperial
      residence; and during a period of one hundred and twenty years,
      Rome was constantly deprived of the presence of her ancient
      magistrates. 84

      81 (return) [ Ausonius (in Gratiarum Actione) basely expatiates
      on this unworthy topic, which is managed by Mamertinus (Panegyr.
      Vet. xi. [x.] 16, 19) with somewhat more freedom and ingenuity.]

      82 (return) [ Cum de Consulibus in annum creandis, solus mecum
      volutarem.... te Consulem et designavi, et declaravi, et priorem
      nuncupavi; are some of the expressions employed by the emperor
      Gratian to his preceptor, the poet Ausonius.]

      83 (return) [ Immanesque... dentes Qui secti ferro in tabulas
      auroque micantes, Inscripti rutilum cÏlato Consule nomen Per
      proceres et vulgus eant. ÑClaud. in ii. Cons. Stilichon. 456.

      Montfaucon has represented some of these tablets or dypticks see
      Supplement ˆ lÕAntiquitŽ expliquŽe, tom. iii. p. 220.]

      84 (return) [

     Consule l¾tatur post plurima seculo viso Pallanteus apex:
     agnoscunt rostra curules Auditas quondam proavis: desuetaque
     cingit Regius auratis Fora fascibus Ulpia lictor. ÑClaud. in vi.
     Cons. Honorii, 643.

      From the reign of Carus to the sixth consulship of Honorius,
      there was an interval of one hundred and twenty years, during
      which the emperors were always absent from Rome on the first day
      of January. See the Chronologie de Tillemonte, tom. iii. iv. and
      v.]

      On the morning of the first of January, the consuls assumed the
      ensigns of their dignity. Their dress was a robe of purple,
      embroidered in silk and gold, and sometimes ornamented with
      costly gems. 85 On this solemn occasion they were attended by the
      most eminent officers of the state and army, in the habit of
      senators; and the useless fasces, armed with the once formidable
      axes, were borne before them by the lictors. The procession moved
      from the palace 87 to the Forum or principal square of the city;
      where the consuls ascended their tribunal, and seated themselves
      in the curule chairs, which were framed after the fashion of
      ancient times. They immediately exercised an act of jurisdiction,
      by the manumission of a slave, who was brought before them for
      that purpose; and the ceremony was intended to represent the
      celebrated action of the elder Brutus, the author of liberty and
      of the consulship, when he admitted among his fellow-citizens the
      faithful Vindex, who had revealed the conspiracy of the Tarquins.
      88 The public festival was continued during several days in all
      the principal cities in Rome, from custom; in Constantinople,
      from imitation in Carthage, Antioch, and Alexandria, from the
      love of pleasure, and the superfluity of wealth. 89 In the two
      capitals of the empire the annual games of the theatre, the
      circus, and the amphitheatre, 90 cost four thousand pounds of
      gold, (about) one hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling: and
      if so heavy an expense surpassed the faculties or the
      inclinations of the magistrates themselves, the sum was supplied
      from the Imperial treasury. 91 As soon as the consuls had
      discharged these customary duties, they were at liberty to retire
      into the shade of private life, and to enjoy, during the
      remainder of the year, the undisturbed contemplation of their own
      greatness. They no longer presided in the national councils; they
      no longer executed the resolutions of peace or war. Their
      abilities (unless they were employed in more effective offices)
      were of little moment; and their names served only as the legal
      date of the year in which they had filled the chair of Marius and
      of Cicero. Yet it was still felt and acknowledged, in the last
      period of Roman servitude, that this empty name might be
      compared, and even preferred, to the possession of substantial
      power. The title of consul was still the most splendid object of
      ambition, the noblest reward of virtue and loyalty. The emperors
      themselves, who disdained the faint shadow of the republic, were
      conscious that they acquired an additional splendor and majesty
      as often as they assumed the annual honors of the consular
      dignity. 92

      85 (return) [ See Claudian in Cons. Prob. et Olybrii, 178, &c.;
      and in iv. Cons. Honorii, 585, &c.; though in the latter it is
      not easy to separate the ornaments of the emperor from those of
      the consul. Ausonius received from the liberality of Gratian a
      _vestis palmata_, or robe of state, in which the figure of the
      emperor Constantius was embroidered. Cernis et armorum proceres
      legumque potentes: Patricios sumunt habitus; et more Gabino
      Discolor incedit legio, positisque parumper Bellorum signis,
      sequitur vexilla Quirini. Lictori cedunt aquil¾, ridetque togatus
      Miles, et in mediis effulget curia castris. ÑClaud. in iv. Cons.
      Honorii, 5. Ñ_strictaque_ procul radiare _secures_. ÑIn Cons.
      Prob. 229]

      87 (return) [ See Valesius ad Ammian. Marcellin. l. xxii. c. 7.]

      88 (return) [ Auspice mox l¾to sonuit clamore tribunal; Te fastos
      ineunte quater; solemnia ludit Omina libertas; deductum Vindice
      morem Lex servat, famulusque jugo laxatus herili Ducitur, et
      grato remeat securior ictu. ÑClaud. in iv Cons. Honorii, 611]

      89 (return) [ Celebrant quidem solemnes istos dies omnes ubique
      urbes qu¾ sub legibus agunt; et Roma de more, et Constantinopolis
      de imitatione, et Antiochia pro luxu, et discincta Carthago, et
      domus fluminis Alexandria, sed Treviri Principis beneficio.
      Ausonius in Grat. Actione.]

      90 (return) [ Claudian (in Cons. Mall. Theodori, 279-331)
      describes, in a lively and fanciful manner, the various games of
      the circus, the theatre, and the amphitheatre, exhibited by the
      new consul. The sanguinary combats of gladiators had already been
      prohibited.]

      91 (return) [ Procopius in Hist. Arcana, c. 26.]

      92 (return) [ In Consulatu honos sine labore suscipitur.
      (Mamertin. in Panegyr. Vet. xi. [x.] 2.) This exalted idea of the
      consulship is borrowed from an oration (iii. p. 107) pronounced
      by Julian in the servile court of Constantius. See the AbbŽ de la
      Bleterie, (MŽmoires de lÕAcadŽmie, tom. xxiv. p. 289,) who
      delights to pursue the vestiges of the old constitution, and who
      sometimes finds them in his copious fancy]

      The proudest and most perfect separation which can be found in
      any age or country, between the nobles and the people, is perhaps
      that of the Patricians and the Plebeians, as it was established
      in the first age of the Roman republic. Wealth and honors, the
      offices of the state, and the ceremonies of religion, were almost
      exclusively possessed by the former who, preserving the purity of
      their blood with the most insulting jealousy, 93 held their
      clients in a condition of specious vassalage. But these
      distinctions, so incompatible with the spirit of a free people,
      were removed, after a long struggle, by the persevering efforts
      of the Tribunes. The most active and successful of the Plebeians
      accumulated wealth, aspired to honors, deserved triumphs,
      contracted alliances, and, after some generations, assumed the
      pride of ancient nobility. 94 The Patrician families, on the
      other hand, whose original number was never recruited till the
      end of the commonwealth, either failed in the ordinary course of
      nature, or were extinguished in so many foreign and domestic
      wars, or, through a want of merit or fortune, insensibly mingled
      with the mass of the people. 95 Very few remained who could
      derive their pure and genuine origin from the infancy of the
      city, or even from that of the republic, when C¾sar and Augustus,
      Claudius and Vespasian, created from the body of the senate a
      competent number of new Patrician families, in the hope of
      perpetuating an order, which was still considered as honorable
      and sacred. 96 But these artificial supplies (in which the
      reigning house was always included) were rapidly swept away by
      the rage of tyrants, by frequent revolutions, by the change of
      manners, and by the intermixture of nations. 97 Little more was
      left when Constantine ascended the throne, than a vague and
      imperfect tradition, that the Patricians had once been the first
      of the Romans. To form a body of nobles, whose influence may
      restrain, while it secures the authority of the monarch, would
      have been very inconsistent with the character and policy of
      Constantine; but had he seriously entertained such a design, it
      might have exceeded the measure of his power to ratify, by an
      arbitrary edict, an institution which must expect the sanction of
      time and of opinion. He revived, indeed, the title of Patricians,
      but he revived it as a personal, not as an hereditary
      distinction. They yielded only to the transient superiority of
      the annual consuls; but they enjoyed the pre-eminence over all
      the great officers of state, with the most familiar access to the
      person of the prince. This honorable rank was bestowed on them
      for life; and as they were usually favorites, and ministers who
      had grown old in the Imperial court, the true etymology of the
      word was perverted by ignorance and flattery; and the Patricians
      of Constantine were reverenced as the adopted _Fathers_ of the
      emperor and the republic. 98

      93 (return) [ Intermarriages between the Patricians and Plebeians
      were prohibited by the laws of the XII Tables; and the uniform
      operations of human nature may attest that the custom survived
      the law. See in Livy (iv. 1-6) the pride of family urged by the
      consul, and the rights of mankind asserted by the tribune
      Canuleius.]

      94 (return) [ See the animated picture drawn by Sallust, in the
      Jugurthine war, of the pride of the nobles, and even of the
      virtuous Metellus, who was unable to brook the idea that the
      honor of the consulship should be bestowed on the obscure merit
      of his lieutenant Marius. (c. 64.) Two hundred years before, the
      race of the Metelli themselves were confounded among the
      Plebeians of Rome; and from the etymology of their name of
      _C¾cilius_, there is reason to believe that those haughty nobles
      derived their origin from a sutler.]

      95 (return) [ In the year of Rome 800, very few remained, not
      only of the old Patrician families, but even of those which had
      been created by C¾sar and Augustus. (Tacit. Annal. xi. 25.) The
      family of Scaurus (a branch of the Patrician ®milii) was degraded
      so low that his father, who exercised the trade of a charcoal
      merchant, left him only teu slaves, and somewhat less than three
      hundred pounds sterling. (Valerius Maximus, l. iv. c. 4, n. 11.
      Aurel. Victor in Scauro.) The family was saved from oblivion by
      the merit of the son.]

      96 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xi. 25. Dion Cassius, l. iii. p. 698.
      The virtues of Agricola, who was created a Patrician by the
      emperor Vespasian, reflected honor on that ancient order; but his
      ancestors had not any claim beyond an Equestrian nobility.]

      97 (return) [ This failure would have been almost impossible if
      it were true, as Casaubon compels Aurelius Victor to affirm (ad
      Sueton, in C¾sar v. 24. See Hist. August p. 203 and Casaubon
      Comment., p. 220) that Vespasian created at once a thousand
      Patrician families. But this extravagant number is too much even
      for the whole Senatorial order. unless we should include all the
      Roman knights who were distinguished by the permission of wearing
      the laticlave.]

      98 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 118; and Godefroy ad Cod.
      Theodos. l. vi. tit. vi.]

      II. The fortunes of the Pr¾torian pr¾fects were essentially
      different from those of the consuls and Patricians. The latter
      saw their ancient greatness evaporate in a vain title.

      The former, rising by degrees from the most humble condition,
      were invested with the civil and military administration of the
      Roman world. From the reign of Severus to that of Diocletian, the
      guards and the palace, the laws and the finances, the armies and
      the provinces, were intrusted to their superintending care; and,
      like the Viziers of the East, they held with one hand the seal,
      and with the other the standard, of the empire. The ambition of
      the pr¾fects, always formidable, and sometimes fatal to the
      masters whom they served, was supported by the strength of the
      Pr¾torian bands; but after those haughty troops had been weakened
      by Diocletian, and finally suppressed by Constantine, the
      pr¾fects, who survived their fall, were reduced without
      difficulty to the station of useful and obedient ministers. When
      they were no longer responsible for the safety of the emperorÕs
      person, they resigned the jurisdiction which they had hitherto
      claimed and exercised over all the departments of the palace.
      They were deprived by Constantine of all military command, as
      soon as they had ceased to lead into the field, under their
      immediate orders, the flower of the Roman troops; and at length,
      by a singular revolution, the captains of the guards were
      transformed into the civil magistrates of the provinces.
      According to the plan of government instituted by Diocletian, the
      four princes had each their Pr¾torian pr¾fect; and after the
      monarchy was once more united in the person of Constantine, he
      still continued to create the same number of Four Pr¾fects, and
      intrusted to their care the same provinces which they already
      administered. 1. The pr¾fect of the East stretched his ample
      jurisdiction into the three parts of the globe which were subject
      to the Romans, from the cataracts of the Nile to the banks of the
      Phasis, and from the mountains of Thrace to the frontiers of
      Persia. 2. The important provinces of Pannonia, Dacia, Macedonia,
      and Greece, once acknowledged the authority of the pr¾fect of
      Illyricum. 3. The power of the pr¾fect of Italy was not confined
      to the country from whence he derived his title; it extended over
      the additional territory of Rh¾tia as far as the banks of the
      Danube, over the dependent islands of the Mediterranean, and over
      that part of the continent of Africa which lies between the
      confines of Cyrene and those of Tingitania. 4. The pr¾fect of the
      Gauls comprehended under that plural denomination the kindred
      provinces of Britain and Spain, and his authority was obeyed from
      the wall of Antoninus to the foot of Mount Atlas. 99

      99 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 109, 110. If we had not
      fortunately possessed this satisfactory account of the division
      of the power and provinces of the Pr¾torian pr¾fects, we should
      frequently have been perplexed amidst the copious details of the
      Code, and the circumstantial minuteness of the Notitia.]

      After the Pr¾torian pr¾fects had been dismissed from all military
      command, the civil functions which they were ordained to exercise
      over so many subject nations, were adequate to the ambition and
      abilities of the most consummate ministers. To their wisdom was
      committed the supreme administration of justice and of the
      finances, the two objects which, in a state of peace, comprehend
      almost all the respective duties of the sovereign and of the
      people; of the former, to protect the citizens who are obedient
      to the laws; of the latter, to contribute the share of their
      property which is required for the expenses of the state. The
      coin, the highways, the posts, the granaries, the manufactures,
      whatever could interest the public prosperity, was moderated by
      the authority of the Pr¾torian pr¾fects. As the immediate
      representatives of the Imperial majesty, they were empowered to
      explain, to enforce, and on some occasions to modify, the general
      edicts by their discretionary proclamations. They watched over
      the conduct of the provincial governors, removed the negligent,
      and inflicted punishments on the guilty. From all the inferior
      jurisdictions, an appeal in every matter of importance, either
      civil or criminal, might be brought before the tribunal of the
      pr¾fect; but _his_ sentence was final and absolute; and the
      emperors themselves refused to admit any complaints against the
      judgment or the integrity of a magistrate whom they honored with
      such unbounded confidence. 100 His appointments were suitable to
      his dignity; 101 and if avarice was his ruling passion, he
      enjoyed frequent opportunities of collecting a rich harvest of
      fees, of presents, and of perquisites. Though the emperors no
      longer dreaded the ambition of their pr¾fects, they were
      attentive to counterbalance the power of this great office by the
      uncertainty and shortness of its duration. 102

      100 (return) [ See a law of Constantine himself. A pr¾fectis
      autem pr¾torio provocare, non sinimus. Cod. Justinian. l. vii.
      tit. lxii. leg. 19. Charisius, a lawyer of the time of
      Constantine, (Heinec. Hist. Romani, p. 349,) who admits this law
      as a fundamental principle of jurisprudence, compares the
      Pr¾torian pr¾fects to the masters of the horse of the ancient
      dictators. Pandect. l. i. tit. xi.]

      101 (return) [ When Justinian, in the exhausted condition of the
      empire, instituted a Pr¾torian pr¾fect for Africa, he allowed him
      a salary of one hundred pounds of gold. Cod. Justinian. l. i.
      tit. xxvii. leg. i.]

      102 (return) [ For this, and the other dignities of the empire,
      it may be sufficient to refer to the ample commentaries of
      Pancirolus and Godefroy, who have diligently collected and
      accurately digested in their proper order all the legal and
      historical materials. From those authors, Dr. Howell (History of
      the World, vol. ii. p. 24-77) has deduced a very distinct
      abridgment of the state of the Roman empire]

      From their superior importance and dignity, Rome and
      Constantinople were alone excepted from the jurisdiction of the
      Pr¾torian pr¾fects. The immense size of the city, and the
      experience of the tardy, ineffectual operation of the laws, had
      furnished the policy of Augustus with a specious pretence for
      introducing a new magistrate, who alone could restrain a servile
      and turbulent populace by the strong arm of arbitrary power. 103
      Valerius Messalla was appointed the first pr¾fect of Rome, that
      his reputation might countenance so invidious a measure; but, at
      the end of a few days, that accomplished citizen 104 resigned his
      office, declaring, with a spirit worthy of the friend of Brutus,
      that he found himself incapable of exercising a power
      incompatible with public freedom. 105 As the sense of liberty
      became less exquisite, the advantages of order were more clearly
      understood; and the pr¾fect, who seemed to have been designed as
      a terror only to slaves and vagrants, was permitted to extend his
      civil and criminal jurisdiction over the equestrian and noble
      families of Rome. The pr¾tors, annually created as the judges of
      law and equity, could not long dispute the possession of the
      Forum with a vigorous and permanent magistrate, who was usually
      admitted into the confidence of the prince. Their courts were
      deserted, their number, which had once fluctuated between twelve
      and eighteen, 106 was gradually reduced to two or three, and
      their important functions were confined to the expensive
      obligation 107 of exhibiting games for the amusement of the
      people. After the office of the Roman consuls had been changed
      into a vain pageant, which was rarely displayed in the capital,
      the pr¾fects assumed their vacant place in the senate, and were
      soon acknowledged as the ordinary presidents of that venerable
      assembly. They received appeals from the distance of one hundred
      miles; and it was allowed as a principle of jurisprudence, that
      all municipal authority was derived from them alone. 108 In the
      discharge of his laborious employment, the governor of Rome was
      assisted by fifteen officers, some of whom had been originally
      his equals, or even his superiors. The principal departments were
      relative to the command of a numerous watch, established as a
      safeguard against fires, robberies, and nocturnal disorders; the
      custody and distribution of the public allowance of corn and
      provisions; the care of the port, of the aqueducts, of the common
      sewers, and of the navigation and bed of the Tyber; the
      inspection of the markets, the theatres, and of the private as
      well as the public works. Their vigilance insured the three
      principal objects of a regular police, safety, plenty, and
      cleanliness; and as a proof of the attention of government to
      preserve the splendor and ornaments of the capital, a particular
      inspector was appointed for the statues; the guardian, as it
      were, of that inanimate people, which, according to the
      extravagant computation of an old writer, was scarcely inferior
      in number to the living inhabitants of Rome. About thirty years
      after the foundation of Constantinople, a similar magistrate was
      created in that rising metropolis, for the same uses and with the
      same powers. A perfect equality was established between the
      dignity of the _two_ municipal, and that of the _four_ Pr¾torian
      pr¾fects. 109

      103 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. vi. 11. Euseb. in Chron. p. 155.
      Dion Cassius, in the oration of M¾cenas, (l. lvii. p. 675,)
      describes the prerogatives of the pr¾fect of the city as they
      were established in his own time.]

      104 (return) [ The fame of Messalla has been scarcely equal to
      his merit. In the earliest youth he was recommended by Cicero to
      the friendship of Brutus. He followed the standard of the
      republic till it was broken in the fields of Philippi; he then
      accepted and deserved the favor of the most moderate of the
      conquerors; and uniformly asserted his freedom and dignity in the
      court of Augustus. The triumph of Messalla was justified by the
      conquest of Aquitain. As an orator, he disputed the palm of
      eloquence with Cicero himself. Messalla cultivated every muse,
      and was the patron of every man of genius. He spent his evenings
      in philosophic conversation with Horace; assumed his place at
      table between Delia and Tibullus; and amused his leisure by
      encouraging the poetical talents of young Ovid.]

      105 (return) [ Incivilem esse potestatem contestans, says the
      translator of Eusebius. Tacitus expresses the same idea in other
      words; quasi nescius exercendi.]

      106 (return) [ See Lipsius, Excursus D. ad 1 lib. Tacit. Annal.]

      107 (return) [ Heineccii. Element. Juris Civilis secund ordinem
      Pandect i. p. 70. See, likewise, Spanheim de Usu. Numismatum,
      tom. ii. dissertat. x. p. 119. In the year 450, Marcian published
      a law, that _three_ citizens should be annually created Pr¾tors
      of Constantinople by the choice of the senate, but with their own
      consent. Cod. Justinian. li. i. tit. xxxix. leg. 2.]

      108 (return) [ Quidquid igitur intra urbem admittitur, ad P. U.
      videtur pertinere; sed et siquid intra contesimum milliarium.
      Ulpian in Pandect l. i. tit. xiii. n. 1. He proceeds to enumerate
      the various offices of the pr¾fect, who, in the code of
      Justinian, (l. i. tit. xxxix. leg. 3,) is declared to precede and
      command all city magistrates sine injuria ac detrimento honoris
      alieni.]

      109 (return) [ Besides our usual guides, we may observe that
      Felix Cantelorius has written a separate treatise, De Pr¾fecto
      Urbis; and that many curious details concerning the police of
      Rome and Constantinople are contained in the fourteenth book of
      the Theodosian Code.]




      Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.ÑPart IV.


      Those who, in the imperial hierarchy, were distinguished by the
      title of _Respectable_, formed an intermediate class between the
      _illustrious_ pr¾fects, and the _honorable_ magistrates of the
      provinces. In this class the proconsuls of Asia, Achaia, and
      Africa, claimed a pre‘minence, which was yielded to the
      remembrance of their ancient dignity; and the appeal from their
      tribunal to that of the pr¾fects was almost the only mark of
      their dependence. 110 But the civil government of the empire was
      distributed into thirteen great Dioceses, each of which equalled
      the just measure of a powerful kingdom. The first of these
      dioceses was subject to the jurisdiction of the _count_ of the
      east; and we may convey some idea of the importance and variety
      of his functions, by observing, that six hundred apparitors, who
      would be styled at present either secretaries, or clerks, or
      ushers, or messengers, were employed in his immediate office. 111
      The place of _Augustal pr¾fect_ of Egypt was no longer filled by
      a Roman knight; but the name was retained; and the extraordinary
      powers which the situation of the country, and the temper of the
      inhabitants, had once made indispensable, were still continued to
      the governor. The eleven remaining dioceses, of Asiana, Pontica,
      and Thrace; of Macedonia, Dacia, and Pannonia, or Western
      Illyricum; of Italy and Africa; of Gaul, Spain, and Britain; were
      governed by twelve _vicars_ or _vice-pr¾fects_, 112 whose name
      sufficiently explains the nature and dependence of their office.
      It may be added, that the lieutenant-generals of the Roman
      armies, the military counts and dukes, who will be hereafter
      mentioned, were allowed the rank and title of _Respectable_.

      110 (return) [ Eunapius affirms, that the proconsul of Asia was
      independent of the pr¾fect; which must, however, be understood
      with some allowance. the jurisdiction of the vice-pr¾fect he most
      assuredly disclaimed. Pancirolus, p. 161.]

      111 (return) [ The proconsul of Africa had four hundred
      apparitors; and they all received large salaries, either from the
      treasury or the province See Pancirol. p. 26, and Cod. Justinian.
      l. xii. tit. lvi. lvii.]

      112 (return) [ In Italy there was likewise the _Vicar of Rome_.
      It has been much disputed whether his jurisdiction measured one
      hundred miles from the city, or whether it stretched over the ten
      thousand provinces of Italy.]

      As the spirit of jealousy and ostentation prevailed in the
      councils of the emperors, they proceeded with anxious diligence
      to divide the substance and to multiply the titles of power. The
      vast countries which the Roman conquerors had united under the
      same simple form of administration, were imperceptibly crumbled
      into minute fragments; till at length the whole empire was
      distributed into one hundred and sixteen provinces, each of which
      supported an expensive and splendid establishment. Of these,
      three were governed by _proconsuls_, thirty-seven by _consulars_,
      five by _correctors_, and seventy-one by _presidents_. The
      appellations of these magistrates were different; they ranked in
      successive order, and the ensigns of and their situation, from
      accidental circumstances, might be more or less agreeable or
      advantageous. But they were all (excepting only the pro-consuls)
      alike included in the class of _honorable_ persons; and they were
      alike intrusted, during the pleasure of the prince, and under the
      authority of the pr¾fects or their deputies, with the
      administration of justice and the finances in their respective
      districts. The ponderous volumes of the Codes and Pandects 113
      would furnish ample materials for a minute inquiry into the
      system of provincial government, as in the space of six centuries
      it was approved by the wisdom of the Roman statesmen and lawyers.

      It may be sufficient for the historian to select two singular and
      salutary provisions, intended to restrain the abuse of authority.

      1. For the preservation of peace and order, the governors of the
      provinces were armed with the sword of justice. They inflicted
      corporal punishments, and they exercised, in capital offences,
      the power of life and death. But they were not authorized to
      indulge the condemned criminal with the choice of his own
      execution, or to pronounce a sentence of the mildest and most
      honorable kind of exile. These prerogatives were reserved to the
      pr¾fects, who alone could impose the heavy fine of fifty pounds
      of gold: their vicegerents were confined to the trifling weight
      of a few ounces. 114 This distinction, which seems to grant the
      larger, while it denies the smaller degree of authority, was
      founded on a very rational motive. The smaller degree was
      infinitely more liable to abuse. The passions of a provincial
      magistrate might frequently provoke him into acts of oppression,
      which affected only the freedom or the fortunes of the subject;
      though, from a principle of prudence, perhaps of humanity, he
      might still be terrified by the guilt of innocent blood. It may
      likewise be considered, that exile, considerable fines, or the
      choice of an easy death, relate more particularly to the rich and
      the noble; and the persons the most exposed to the avarice or
      resentment of a provincial magistrate, were thus removed from his
      obscure persecution to the more august and impartial tribunal of
      the Pr¾torian pr¾fect. 2. As it was reasonably apprehended that
      the integrity of the judge might be biased, if his interest was
      concerned, or his affections were engaged, the strictest
      regulations were established, to exclude any person, without the
      special dispensation of the emperor, from the government of the
      province where he was born; 115 and to prohibit the governor or
      his son from contracting marriage with a native, or an
      inhabitant; 116 or from purchasing slaves, lands, or houses,
      within the extent of his jurisdiction. 117 Notwithstanding these
      rigorous precautions, the emperor Constantine, after a reign of
      twenty-five years, still deplores the venal and oppressive
      administration of justice, and expresses the warmest indignation
      that the audience of the judge, his despatch of business, his
      seasonable delays, and his final sentence, were publicly sold,
      either by himself or by the officers of his court. The
      continuance, and perhaps the impunity, of these crimes, is
      attested by the repetition of impotent laws and ineffectual
      menaces. 118

      113 (return) [ Among the works of the celebrated Ulpian, there
      was one in ten books, concerning the office of a proconsul, whose
      duties in the most essential articles were the same as those of
      an ordinary governor of a province.]

      114 (return) [ The presidents, or consulars, could impose only
      two ounces; the vice-pr¾fects, three; the proconsuls, count of
      the east, and pr¾fect of Egypt, six. See Heineccii Jur. Civil.
      tom. i. p. 75. Pandect. l. xlviii. tit. xix. n. 8. Cod.
      Justinian. l. i. tit. liv. leg. 4, 6.]

      115 (return) [ Ut nulli patri¾ su¾ administratio sine speciali
      principis permissu permittatur. Cod. Justinian. l. i. tit. xli.
      This law was first enacted by the emperor Marcus, after the
      rebellion of Cassius. (Dion. l. lxxi.) The same regulation is
      observed in China, with equal strictness, and with equal effect.]

      116 (return) [ Pandect. l. xxiii. tit. ii. n. 38, 57, 63.]

      117 (return) [ In jure continetur, ne quis in administratione
      constitutus aliquid compararet. Cod. Theod. l. viii. tit. xv.
      leg. l. This maxim of common law was enforced by a series of
      edicts (see the remainder of the title) from Constantine to
      Justin. From this prohibition, which is extended to the meanest
      officers of the governor, they except only clothes and
      provisions. The purchase within five years may be recovered;
      after which on information, it devolves to the treasury.]

      118 (return) [ Cessent rapaces jam nunc officialium manus;
      cessent, inquam nam si moniti non cessaverint, gladiis
      pr¾cidentur, &c. Cod. Theod. l. i. tit. vii. leg. l. Zeno enacted
      that all governors should remain in the province, to answer any
      accusations, fifty days after the expiration of their power. Cod
      Justinian. l. ii. tit. xlix. leg. l.]

      All the civil magistrates were drawn from the profession of the
      law. The celebrated Institutes of Justinian are addressed to the
      youth of his dominions, who had devoted themselves to the study
      of Roman jurisprudence; and the sovereign condescends to animate
      their diligence, by the assurance that their skill and ability
      would in time be rewarded by an adequate share in the government
      of the republic. 119 The rudiments of this lucrative science were
      taught in all the considerable cities of the east and west; but
      the most famous school was that of Berytus, 120 on the coast of
      PhÏnicia; which flourished above three centuries from the time of
      Alexander Severus, the author perhaps of an institution so
      advantageous to his native country. After a regular course of
      education, which lasted five years, the students dispersed
      themselves through the provinces, in search of fortune and
      honors; nor could they want an inexhaustible supply of business
      in a great empire already corrupted by the multiplicity of laws,
      of arts, and of vices. The court of the Pr¾torian pr¾fect of the
      east could alone furnish employment for one hundred and fifty
      advocates, sixty-four of whom were distinguished by peculiar
      privileges, and two were annually chosen, with a salary of sixty
      pounds of gold, to defend the causes of the treasury. The first
      experiment was made of their judicial talents, by appointing them
      to act occasionally as assessors to the magistrates; from thence
      they were often raised to preside in the tribunals before which
      they had pleaded. They obtained the government of a province;
      and, by the aid of merit, of reputation, or of favor, they
      ascended, by successive steps, to the _illustrious_ dignities of
      the state. 121 In the practice of the bar, these men had
      considered reason as the instrument of dispute; they interpreted
      the laws according to the dictates of private interest and the
      same pernicious habits might still adhere to their characters in
      the public administration of the state. The honor of a liberal
      profession has indeed been vindicated by ancient and modern
      advocates, who have filled the most important stations, with pure
      integrity and consummate wisdom: but in the decline of Roman
      jurisprudence, the ordinary promotion of lawyers was pregnant
      with mischief and disgrace. The noble art, which had once been
      preserved as the sacred inheritance of the patricians, was fallen
      into the hands of freedmen and plebeians, 122 who, with cunning
      rather than with skill, exercised a sordid and pernicious trade.
      Some of them procured admittance into families for the purpose of
      fomenting differences, of encouraging suits, and of preparing a
      harvest of gain for themselves or their brethren. Others, recluse
      in their chambers, maintained the dignity of legal professors, by
      furnishing a rich client with subtleties to confound the plainest
      truths, and with arguments to color the most unjustifiable
      pretensions. The splendid and popular class was composed of the
      advocates, who filled the Forum with the sound of their turgid
      and loquacious rhetoric. Careless of fame and of justice, they
      are described, for the most part, as ignorant and rapacious
      guides, who conducted their clients through a maze of expense, of
      delay, and of disappointment; from whence, after a tedious series
      of years, they were at length dismissed, when their patience and
      fortune were almost exhausted. 123

      119 (return) [ Summ‰ igitur ope, et alacri studio has leges
      nostras accipite; et vosmetipsos sic eruditos ostendite, ut spes
      vos pulcherrima foveat; toto legitimo opere perfecto, posse etiam
      nostram rempublicam in par tibus ejus vobis credendis gubernari.
      Justinian in proem. Institutionum.]

      120 (return) [ The splendor of the school of Berytus, which
      preserved in the east the language and jurisprudence of the
      Romans, may be computed to have lasted from the third to the
      middle of the sixth century Heinecc. Jur. Rom. Hist. p. 351-356.]

      121 (return) [ As in a former period I have traced the civil and
      military promotion of Pertinax, I shall here insert the civil
      honors of Mallius Theodorus. 1. He was distinguished by his
      eloquence, while he pleaded as an advocate in the court of the
      Pr¾torian pr¾fect. 2. He governed one of the provinces of Africa,
      either as president or consular, and deserved, by his
      administration, the honor of a brass statue. 3. He was appointed
      vicar, or vice-pr¾fect, of Macedonia. 4. Qu¾stor. 5. Count of the
      sacred largesses. 6. Pr¾torian pr¾fect of the Gauls; whilst he
      might yet be represented as a young man. 7. After a retreat,
      perhaps a disgrace of many years, which Mallius (confounded by
      some critics with the poet Manilius; see Fabricius Bibliothec.
      Latin. Edit. Ernest. tom. i.c. 18, p. 501) employed in the study
      of the Grecian philosophy he was named Pr¾torian pr¾fect of
      Italy, in the year 397. 8. While he still exercised that great
      office, he was created, it the year 399, consul for the West; and
      his name, on account of the infamy of his colleague, the eunuch
      Eutropius, often stands alone in the Fasti. 9. In the year 408,
      Mallius was appointed a second time Pr¾torian pr¾fect of Italy.
      Even in the venal panegyric of Claudian, we may discover the
      merit of Mallius Theodorus, who, by a rare felicity, was the
      intimate friend, both of Symmachus and of St. Augustin. See
      Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 1110-1114.]

      122 (return) [ Mamertinus in Panegyr. Vet. xi. [x.] 20. Asterius
      apud Photium, p. 1500.]

      123 (return) [ The curious passage of Ammianus, (l. xxx. c. 4,)
      in which he paints the manners of contemporary lawyers, affords a
      strange mixture of sound sense, false rhetoric, and extravagant
      satire. Godefroy (Prolegom. ad. Cod. Theod. c. i. p. 185)
      supports the historian by similar complaints and authentic facts.
      In the fourth century, many camels might have been laden with
      law-books. Eunapius in Vit. ®desii, p. 72.]

      III. In the system of policy introduced by Augustus, the
      governors, those at least of the Imperial provinces, were
      invested with the full powers of the sovereign himself. Ministers
      of peace and war, the distribution of rewards and punishments
      depended on them alone, and they successively appeared on their
      tribunal in the robes of civil magistracy, and in complete armor
      at the head of the Roman legions. 124 The influence of the
      revenue, the authority of law, and the command of a military
      force, concurred to render their power supreme and absolute; and
      whenever they were tempted to violate their allegiance, the loyal
      province which they involved in their rebellion was scarcely
      sensible of any change in its political state. From the time of
      Commodus to the reign of Constantine, near one hundred governors
      might be enumerated, who, with various success, erected the
      standard of revolt; and though the innocent were too often
      sacrificed, the guilty might be sometimes prevented, by the
      suspicious cruelty of their master. 125 To secure his throne and
      the public tranquillity from these formidable servants,
      Constantine resolved to divide the military from the civil
      administration, and to establish, as a permanent and professional
      distinction, a practice which had been adopted only as an
      occasional expedient. The supreme jurisdiction exercised by the
      Pr¾torian pr¾fects over the armies of the empire, was transferred
      to the two _masters-general_ whom he instituted, the one for the
      _cavalry_, the other for the _infantry;_ and though each of these
      _illustrious_ officers was more peculiarly responsible for the
      discipline of those troops which were under his immediate
      inspection, they both indifferently commanded in the field the
      several bodies, whether of horse or foot, which were united in
      the same army. 126 Their number was soon doubled by the division
      of the east and west; and as separate generals of the same rank
      and title were appointed on the four important frontiers of the
      Rhine, of the Upper and the Lower Danube, and of the Euphrates,
      the defence of the Roman empire was at length committed to eight
      masters-general of the cavalry and infantry. Under their orders,
      thirty-five military commanders were stationed in the provinces:
      three in Britain, six in Gaul, one in Spain, one in Italy, five
      on the Upper, and four on the Lower Danube; in Asia, eight, three
      in Egypt, and four in Africa. The titles of _counts_, and
      _dukes_, 127 by which they were properly distinguished, have
      obtained in modern languages so very different a sense, that the
      use of them may occasion some surprise. But it should be
      recollected, that the second of those appellations is only a
      corruption of the Latin word, which was indiscriminately applied
      to any military chief. All these provincial generals were
      therefore _dukes;_ but no more than ten among them were dignified
      with the rank of _counts_ or companions, a title of honor, or
      rather of favor, which had been recently invented in the court of
      Constantine. A gold belt was the ensign which distinguished the
      office of the counts and dukes; and besides their pay, they
      received a liberal allowance sufficient to maintain one hundred
      and ninety servants, and one hundred and fifty-eight horses. They
      were strictly prohibited from interfering in any matter which
      related to the administration of justice or the revenue; but the
      command which they exercised over the troops of their department,
      was independent of the authority of the magistrates. About the
      same time that Constantine gave a legal sanction to the
      ecclesiastical order, he instituted in the Roman empire the nice
      balance of the civil and the military powers. The emulation, and
      sometimes the discord, which reigned between two professions of
      opposite interests and incompatible manners, was productive of
      beneficial and of pernicious consequences. It was seldom to be
      expected that the general and the civil governor of a province
      should either conspire for the disturbance, or should unite for
      the service, of their country. While the one delayed to offer the
      assistance which the other disdained to solicit, the troops very
      frequently remained without orders or without supplies; the
      public safety was betrayed, and the defenceless subjects were
      left exposed to the fury of the Barbarians. The divided
      administration which had been formed by Constantine, relaxed the
      vigor of the state, while it secured the tranquillity of the
      monarch.

      124 (return) [ See a very splendid example in the life of
      Agricola, particularly c. 20, 21. The lieutenant of Britain was
      intrusted with the same powers which Cicero, proconsul of
      Cilicia, had exercised in the name of the senate and people.]

      125 (return) [ The AbbŽ Dubos, who has examined with accuracy
      (see Hist. de la Monarchie Franoise, tom. i. p. 41-100, edit.
      1742) the institutions of Augustus and of Constantine, observes,
      that if Otho had been put to death the day before he executed his
      conspiracy, Otho would now appear in history as innocent as
      Corbulo.]

      126 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 110. Before the end of the
      reign of Constantius, the _magistri militum_ were already
      increased to four. See Velesius ad Ammian. l. xvi. c. 7.]

      127 (return) [ Though the military counts and dukes are
      frequently mentioned, both in history and the codes, we must have
      recourse to the Notitia for the exact knowledge of their number
      and stations. For the institution, rank, privileges, &c., of the
      counts in general see Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xii.Ñxx., with the
      commentary of Godefroy.]

      The memory of Constantine has been deservedly censured for
      another innovation, which corrupted military discipline and
      prepared the ruin of the empire. The nineteen years which
      preceded his final victory over Licinius, had been a period of
      license and intestine war. The rivals who contended for the
      possession of the Roman world, had withdrawn the greatest part of
      their forces from the guard of the general frontier; and the
      principal cities which formed the boundary of their respective
      dominions were filled with soldiers, who considered their
      countrymen as their most implacable enemies. After the use of
      these internal garrisons had ceased with the civil war, the
      conqueror wanted either wisdom or firmness to revive the severe
      discipline of Diocletian, and to suppress a fatal indulgence,
      which habit had endeared and almost confirmed to the military
      order. From the reign of Constantine, a popular and even legal
      distinction was admitted between the _Palatines_ 128 and the
      _Borderers;_ the troops of the court, as they were improperly
      styled, and the troops of the frontier. The former, elevated by
      the superiority of their pay and privileges, were permitted,
      except in the extraordinary emergencies of war, to occupy their
      tranquil stations in the heart of the provinces. The most
      flourishing cities were oppressed by the intolerable weight of
      quarters. The soldiers insensibly forgot the virtues of their
      profession, and contracted only the vices of civil life. They
      were either degraded by the industry of mechanic trades, or
      enervated by the luxury of baths and theatres. They soon became
      careless of their martial exercises, curious in their diet and
      apparel; and while they inspired terror to the subjects of the
      empire, they trembled at the hostile approach of the Barbarians.
      129 The chain of fortifications which Diocletian and his
      colleagues had extended along the banks of the great rivers, was
      no longer maintained with the same care, or defended with the
      same vigilance. The numbers which still remained under the name
      of the troops of the frontier, might be sufficient for the
      ordinary defence; but their spirit was degraded by the
      humiliating reflection, that _they_ who were exposed to the
      hardships and dangers of a perpetual warfare, were rewarded only
      with about two thirds of the pay and emoluments which were
      lavished on the troops of the court. Even the bands or legions
      that were raised the nearest to the level of those unworthy
      favorites, were in some measure disgraced by the title of honor
      which they were allowed to assume. It was in vain that
      Constantine repeated the most dreadful menaces of fire and sword
      against the Borderers who should dare desert their colors, to
      connive at the inroads of the Barbarians, or to participate in
      the spoil. 130 The mischiefs which flow from injudicious counsels
      are seldom removed by the application of partial severities; and
      though succeeding princes labored to restore the strength and
      numbers of the frontier garrisons, the empire, till the last
      moment of its dissolution, continued to languish under the mortal
      wound which had been so rashly or so weakly inflicted by the hand
      of Constantine.

      128 (return) [ Zosimus, l ii. p. 111. The distinction between the
      two classes of Roman troops, is very darkly expressed in the
      historians, the laws, and the Notitia. Consult, however, the
      copious _paratitlon_, or abstract, which Godefroy has drawn up of
      the seventh book, de Re Militari, of the Theodosian Code, l. vii.
      tit. i. leg. 18, l. viii. tit. i. leg. 10.]

      129 (return) [ Ferox erat in suos miles et rapax, ignavus vero in
      hostes et fractus. Ammian. l. xxii. c. 4. He observes, that they
      loved downy beds and houses of marble; and that their cups were
      heavier than their swords.]

      130 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. i. leg. 1, tit. xii. leg.
      i. See HowellÕs Hist. of the World, vol. ii. p. 19. That learned
      historian, who is not sufficiently known, labors to justify the
      character and policy of Constantine.]

      The same timid policy, of dividing whatever is united, of
      reducing whatever is eminent, of dreading every active power, and
      of expecting that the most feeble will prove the most obedient,
      seems to pervade the institutions of several princes, and
      particularly those of Constantine. The martial pride of the
      legions, whose victorious camps had so often been the scene of
      rebellion, was nourished by the memory of their past exploits,
      and the consciousness of their actual strength. As long as they
      maintained their ancient establishment of six thousand men, they
      subsisted, under the reign of Diocletian, each of them singly, a
      visible and important object in the military history of the Roman
      empire. A few years afterwards, these gigantic bodies were shrunk
      to a very diminutive size; and when _seven_ legions, with some
      auxiliaries, defended the city of Amida against the Persians, the
      total garrison, with the inhabitants of both sexes, and the
      peasants of the deserted country, did not exceed the number of
      twenty thousand persons. 131 From this fact, and from similar
      examples, there is reason to believe, that the constitution of
      the legionary troops, to which they partly owed their valor and
      discipline, was dissolved by Constantine; and that the bands of
      Roman infantry, which still assumed the same names and the same
      honors, consisted only of one thousand or fifteen hundred men.
      132 The conspiracy of so many separate detachments, each of which
      was awed by the sense of its own weakness, could easily be
      checked; and the successors of Constantine might indulge their
      love of ostentation, by issuing their orders to one hundred and
      thirty-two legions, inscribed on the muster-roll of their
      numerous armies. The remainder of their troops was distributed
      into several hundred cohorts of infantry, and squadrons of
      cavalry. Their arms, and titles, and ensigns, were calculated to
      inspire terror, and to display the variety of nations who marched
      under the Imperial standard. And not a vestige was left of that
      severe simplicity, which, in the ages of freedom and victory, had
      distinguished the line of battle of a Roman army from the
      confused host of an Asiatic monarch. 133 A more particular
      enumeration, drawn from the_ Notitia_, might exercise the
      diligence of an antiquary; but the historian will content himself
      with observing, that the number of permanent stations or
      garrisons established on the frontiers of the empire, amounted to
      five hundred and eighty-three; and that, under the successors of
      Constantine, the complete force of the military establishment was
      computed at six hundred and forty-five thousand soldiers. 134 An
      effort so prodigious surpassed the wants of a more ancient, and
      the faculties of a later, period.

      131 (return) [ Ammian. l. xix. c. 2. He observes, (c. 5,) that
      the desperate sallies of two Gallic legions were like a handful
      of water thrown on a great conflagration.]

      132 (return) [ Pancirolus ad Notitiam, p. 96. MŽmoires de
      lÕAcadŽmie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv. p. 491.]

      133 (return) [ Romana acies unius prope form¾ erat et hominum et
      armorum genere.ÑRegia acies varia magis multis gentibus
      dissimilitudine armorum auxiliorumque erat. T. Liv. l. xxxvii. c.
      39, 40. Flaminius, even before the event, had compared the army
      of Antiochus to a supper in which the flesh of one vile animal
      was diversified by the skill of the cooks. See the Life of
      Flaminius in Plutarch.]

      134 (return) [ Agathias, l. v. p. 157, edit. Louvre.]

      In the various states of society, armies are recruited from very
      different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war; the
      citizens of a free republic may be prompted by a principle of
      duty; the subjects, or at least the nobles, of a monarchy, are
      animated by a sentiment of honor; but the timid and luxurious
      inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into the
      service by the hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of
      punishment. The resources of the Roman treasury were exhausted by
      the increase of pay, by the repetition of donatives, and by the
      invention of new emolument and indulgences, which, in the opinion
      of the provincial youth might compensate the hardships and
      dangers of a military life. Yet, although the stature was
      lowered, 135 although slaves, least by a tacit connivance, were
      indiscriminately received into the ranks, the insurmountable
      difficulty of procuring a regular and adequate supply of
      volunteers, obliged the emperors to adopt more effectual and
      coercive methods. The lands bestowed on the veterans, as the free
      reward of their valor were henceforward granted under a condition
      which contain the first rudiments of the feudal tenures; that
      their sons, who succeeded to the inheritance, should devote
      themselves to the profession of arms, as soon as they attained
      the age of manhood; and their cowardly refusal was punished by
      the loss of honor, of fortune, or even of life. 136 But as the
      annual growth of the sons of the veterans bore a very small
      proportion to the demands of the service, levies of men were
      frequently required from the provinces, and every proprietor was
      obliged either to take up arms, or to procure a substitute, or to
      purchase his exemption by the payment of a heavy fine. The sum of
      forty-two pieces of gold, to which it was _reduced_ ascertains
      the exorbitant price of volunteers, and the reluctance with which
      the government admitted of this alternative. 137 Such was the
      horror for the profession of a soldier, which had affected the
      minds of the degenerate Romans, that many of the youth of Italy
      and the provinces chose to cut off the fingers of their right
      hand, to escape from being pressed into the service; and this
      strange expedient was so commonly practised, as to deserve the
      severe animadversion of the laws, 138 and a peculiar name in the
      Latin language. 139

      135 (return) [ Valentinian (Cod. Theodos. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg.
      3) fixes the standard at five feet seven inches, about five feet
      four inches and a half, English measure. It had formerly been
      five feet ten inches, and in the best corps, six Roman feet. Sed
      tunc erat amplior multitude se et plures sequebantur militiam
      armatam. Vegetius de Re Militari l. i. c. v.]

      136 (return) [ See the two titles, De Veteranis and De Filiis
      Veteranorum, in the seventh book of the Theodosian Code. The age
      at which their military service was required, varied from
      twenty-five to sixteen. If the sons of the veterans appeared with
      a horse, they had a right to serve in the cavalry; two horses
      gave them some valuable privileges]

      137 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg. 7. According
      to the historian Socrates, (see Godefroy ad loc.,) the same
      emperor Valens sometimes required eighty pieces of gold for a
      recruit. In the following law it is faintly expressed, that
      slaves shall not be admitted inter optimas lectissimorum militum
      turmas.]

      138 (return) [ The person and property of a Roman knight, who had
      mutilated his two sons, were sold at public auction by order of
      Augustus. (Sueton. in August. c. 27.) The moderation of that
      artful usurper proves, that this example of severity was
      justified by the spirit of the times. Ammianus makes a
      distinction between the effeminate Italians and the hardy Gauls.
      (L. xv. c. 12.) Yet only 15 years afterwards, Valentinian, in a
      law addressed to the pr¾fect of Gaul, is obliged to enact that
      these cowardly deserters shall be burnt alive. (Cod. Theod. l.
      vii. tit. xiii. leg. 5.) Their numbers in Illyricum were so
      considerable, that the province complained of a scarcity of
      recruits. (Id. leg. 10.)]

      139 (return) [ They were called _Murci. Murcidus_ is found in
      Plautus and Festus, to denote a lazy and cowardly person, who,
      according to Arnobius and Augustin, was under the immediate
      protection of the goddess _Murcia_. From this particular instance
      of cowardice, _murcare_ is used as synonymous to _mutilare_, by
      the writers of the middle Latinity. See Linder brogius and
      Valesius ad Ammian. Marcellin, l. xv. c. 12]




      Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.ÑPart V.


      The introduction of Barbarians into the Roman armies became every
      day more universal, more necessary, and more fatal. The most
      daring of the Scythians, of the Goths, and of the Germans, who
      delighted in war, and who found it more profitable to defend than
      to ravage the provinces, were enrolled, not only in the
      auxiliaries of their respective nations, but in the legions
      themselves, and among the most distinguished of the Palatine
      troops. As they freely mingled with the subjects of the empire,
      they gradually learned to despise their manners, and to imitate
      their arts. They abjured the implicit reverence which the pride
      of Rome had exacted from their ignorance, while they acquired the
      knowledge and possession of those advantages by which alone she
      supported her declining greatness. The Barbarian soldiers, who
      displayed any military talents, were advanced, without exception,
      to the most important commands; and the names of the tribunes, of
      the counts and dukes, and of the generals themselves, betray a
      foreign origin, which they no longer condescended to disguise.
      They were often intrusted with the conduct of a war against their
      countrymen; and though most of them preferred the ties of
      allegiance to those of blood, they did not always avoid the
      guilt, or at least the suspicion, of holding a treasonable
      correspondence with the enemy, of inviting his invasion, or of
      sparing his retreat. The camps and the palace of the son of
      Constantine were governed by the powerful faction of the Franks,
      who preserved the strictest connection with each other, and with
      their country, and who resented every personal affront as a
      national indignity. 140 When the tyrant Caligula was suspected of
      an intention to invest a very extraordinary candidate with the
      consular robes, the sacrilegious profanation would have scarcely
      excited less astonishment, if, instead of a horse, the noblest
      chieftain of Germany or Britain had been the object of his
      choice. The revolution of three centuries had produced so
      remarkable a change in the prejudices of the people, that, with
      the public approbation, Constantine showed his successors the
      example of bestowing the honors of the consulship on the
      Barbarians, who, by their merit and services, had deserved to be
      ranked among the first of the Romans. 141 But as these hardy
      veterans, who had been educated in the ignorance or contempt of
      the laws, were incapable of exercising any civil offices, the
      powers of the human mind were contracted by the irreconcilable
      separation of talents as well as of professions. The accomplished
      citizens of the Greek and Roman republics, whose characters could
      adapt themselves to the bar, the senate, the camp, or the
      schools, had learned to write, to speak, and to act with the same
      spirit, and with equal abilities.

      140 (return) [ MalarichusÑadhibitis Francis quorum ea tempestate
      in palatio multitudo florebat, erectius jam loquebatur
      tumultuabaturque. Ammian. l. xv. c. 5.]

      141 (return) [ Barbaros omnium primus, ad usque fasces auxerat et
      trabeas consulares. Ammian. l. xx. c. 10. Eusebius (in Vit.
      Constantin. l. iv c.7) and Aurelius Victor seem to confirm the
      truth of this assertion yet in the thirty-two consular Fasti of
      the reign of Constantine cannot discover the name of a single
      Barbarian. I should therefore interpret the liberality of that
      prince as relative to the ornaments rather than to the office, of
      the consulship.]

      IV. Besides the magistrates and generals, who at a distance from
      the court diffused their delegated authority over the provinces
      and armies, the emperor conferred the rank of _Illustrious_ on
      seven of his more immediate servants, to whose fidelity he
      intrusted his safety, or his counsels, or his treasures. 1. The
      private apartments of the palace were governed by a favorite
      eunuch, who, in the language of that age, was styled the
      _pr¾positus_, or pr¾fect of the sacred bed-chamber. His duty was
      to attend the emperor in his hours of state, or in those of
      amusement, and to perform about his person all those menial
      services, which can only derive their splendor from the influence
      of royalty. Under a prince who deserved to reign, the great
      chamberlain (for such we may call him) was a useful and humble
      domestic; but an artful domestic, who improves every occasion of
      unguarded confidence, will insensibly acquire over a feeble mind
      that ascendant which harsh wisdom and uncomplying virtue can
      seldom obtain. The degenerate grandsons of Theodosius, who were
      invisible to their subjects, and contemptible to their enemies,
      exalted the pr¾fects of their bed-chamber above the heads of all
      the ministers of the palace; 142 and even his deputy, the first
      of the splendid train of slaves who waited in the presence, was
      thought worthy to rank before the _respectable_ proconsuls of
      Greece or Asia. The jurisdiction of the chamberlain was
      acknowledged by the _counts_, or superintendents, who regulated
      the two important provinces of the magnificence of the wardrobe,
      and of the luxury of the Imperial table. 143 2. The principal
      administration of public affairs was committed to the diligence
      and abilities of the _master of the offices_. 144 He was the
      supreme magistrate of the palace, inspected the discipline of the
      civil and military _schools_, and received appeals from all parts
      of the empire, in the causes which related to that numerous army
      of privileged persons, who, as the servants of the court, had
      obtained for themselves and families a right to decline the
      authority of the ordinary judges. The correspondence between the
      prince and his subjects was managed by the four _scrinia_, or
      offices of this minister of state. The first was appropriated to
      memorials, the second to epistles, the third to petitions, and
      the fourth to papers and orders of a miscellaneous kind. Each of
      these was directed by an _inferior_ master of _respectable_
      dignity, and the whole business was despatched by a hundred and
      forty-eight secretaries, chosen for the most part from the
      profession of the law, on account of the variety of abstracts of
      reports and references which frequently occurred in the exercise
      of their several functions. From a condescension, which in former
      ages would have been esteemed unworthy the Roman majesty, a
      particular secretary was allowed for the Greek language; and
      interpreters were appointed to receive the ambassadors of the
      Barbarians; but the department of foreign affairs, which
      constitutes so essential a part of modern policy, seldom diverted
      the attention of the master of the offices. His mind was more
      seriously engaged by the general direction of the posts and
      arsenals of the empire. There were thirty-four cities, fifteen in
      the East, and nineteen in the West, in which regular companies of
      workmen were perpetually employed in fabricating defensive armor,
      offensive weapons of all sorts, and military engines, which were
      deposited in the arsenals, and occasionally delivered for the
      service of the troops. 3. In the course of nine centuries, the
      office of _qu¾stor_ had experienced a very singular revolution.
      In the infancy of Rome, two inferior magistrates were annually
      elected by the people, to relieve the consuls from the invidious
      management of the public treasure; 145 a similar assistant was
      granted to every proconsul, and to every pr¾tor, who exercised a
      military or provincial command; with the extent of conquest, the
      two qu¾stors were gradually multiplied to the number of four, of
      eight, of twenty, and, for a short time, perhaps, of forty; 146
      and the noblest citizens ambitiously solicited an office which
      gave them a seat in the senate, and a just hope of obtaining the
      honors of the republic. Whilst Augustus affected to maintain the
      freedom of election, he consented to accept the annual privilege
      of recommending, or rather indeed of nominating, a certain
      proportion of candidates; and it was his custom to select one of
      these distinguished youths, to read his orations or epistles in
      the assemblies of the senate. 147 The practice of Augustus was
      imitated by succeeding princes; the occasional commission was
      established as a permanent office; and the favored qu¾stor,
      assuming a new and more illustrious character, alone survived the
      suppression of his ancient and useless colleagues. 148 As the
      orations which he composed in the name of the emperor, 149
      acquired the force, and, at length, the form, of absolute edicts,
      he was considered as the representative of the legislative power,
      the oracle of the council, and the original source of the civil
      jurisprudence. He was sometimes invited to take his seat in the
      supreme judicature of the Imperial consistory, with the Pr¾torian
      pr¾fects, and the master of the offices; and he was frequently
      requested to resolve the doubts of inferior judges: but as he was
      not oppressed with a variety of subordinate business, his leisure
      and talents were employed to cultivate that dignified style of
      eloquence, which, in the corruption of taste and language, still
      preserves the majesty of the Roman laws. 150 In some respects,
      the office of the Imperial qu¾stor may be compared with that of a
      modern chancellor; but the use of a great seal, which seems to
      have been adopted by the illiterate barbarians, was never
      introduced to attest the public acts of the emperors. 4. The
      extraordinary title of _count of the sacred largesses_ was
      bestowed on the treasurer-general of the revenue, with the
      intention perhaps of inculcating, that every payment flowed from
      the voluntary bounty of the monarch. To conceive the almost
      infinite detail of the annual and daily expense of the civil and
      military administration in every part of a great empire, would
      exceed the powers of the most vigorous imagination.

      The actual account employed several hundred persons, distributed
      into eleven different offices, which were artfully contrived to
      examine and control their respective operations. The multitude of
      these agents had a natural tendency to increase; and it was more
      than once thought expedient to dismiss to their native homes the
      useless supernumeraries, who, deserting their honest labors, had
      pressed with too much eagerness into the lucrative profession of
      the finances. 151 Twenty-nine provincial receivers, of whom
      eighteen were honored with the title of count, corresponded with
      the treasurer; and he extended his jurisdiction over the mines
      from whence the precious metals were extracted, over the mints,
      in which they were converted into the current coin, and over the
      public treasuries of the most important cities, where they were
      deposited for the service of the state. The foreign trade of the
      empire was regulated by this minister, who directed likewise all
      the linen and woollen manufactures, in which the successive
      operations of spinning, weaving, and dyeing were executed,
      chiefly by women of a servile condition, for the use of the
      palace and army. Twenty-six of these institutions are enumerated
      in the West, where the arts had been more recently introduced,
      and a still larger proportion may be allowed for the industrious
      provinces of the East. 152 5. Besides the public revenue, which
      an absolute monarch might levy and expend according to his
      pleasure, the emperors, in the capacity of opulent citizens,
      possessed a very extensive property, which was administered by
      the _count_ or treasurer of _the private estate_. Some part had
      perhaps been the ancient demesnes of kings and republics; some
      accessions might be derived from the families which were
      successively invested with the purple; but the most considerable
      portion flowed from the impure source of confiscations and
      forfeitures. The Imperial estates were scattered through the
      provinces, from Mauritania to Britain; but the rich and fertile
      soil of Cappadocia tempted the monarch to acquire in that country
      his fairest possessions, 153 and either Constantine or his
      successors embraced the occasion of justifying avarice by
      religious zeal. They suppressed the rich temple of Comana, where
      the high priest of the goddess of war supported the dignity of a
      sovereign prince; and they applied to their private use the
      consecrated lands, which were inhabited by six thousand subjects
      or slaves of the deity and her ministers. 154 But these were not
      the valuable inhabitants: the plains that stretch from the foot
      of Mount Arg¾us to the banks of the Sarus, bred a generous race
      of horses, renowned above all others in the ancient world for
      their majestic shape and incomparable swiftness. These _sacred_
      animals, destined for the service of the palace and the Imperial
      games, were protected by the laws from the profanation of a
      vulgar master. 155 The demesnes of Cappadocia were important
      enough to require the inspection of a count; 156 officers of an
      inferior rank were stationed in the other parts of the empire;
      and the deputies of the private, as well as those of the public,
      treasurer were maintained in the exercise of their independent
      functions, and encouraged to control the authority of the
      provincial magistrates. 157 6, 7. The chosen bands of cavalry and
      infantry, which guarded the person of the emperor, were under the
      immediate command of the _two counts of the domestics_. The whole
      number consisted of three thousand five hundred men, divided into
      seven _schools_, or troops, of five hundred each; and in the
      East, this honorable service was almost entirely appropriated to
      the Armenians. Whenever, on public ceremonies, they were drawn up
      in the courts and porticos of the palace, their lofty stature,
      silent order, and splendid arms of silver and gold, displayed a
      martial pomp not unworthy of the Roman majesty. 158 From the
      seven schools two companies of horse and foot were selected, of
      the _protectors_, whose advantageous station was the hope and
      reward of the most deserving soldiers. They mounted guard in the
      interior apartments, and were occasionally despatched into the
      provinces, to execute with celerity and vigor the orders of their
      master. 159 The counts of the domestics had succeeded to the
      office of the Pr¾torian pr¾fects; like the pr¾fects, they aspired
      from the service of the palace to the command of armies.

      142 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. 8.]

      143 (return) [ By a very singular metaphor, borrowed from the
      military character of the first emperors, the steward of their
      household was styled the count of their camp, (comes castrensis.)
      Cassiodorus very seriously represents to him, that his own fame,
      and that of the empire, must depend on the opinion which foreign
      ambassadors may conceive of the plenty and magnificence of the
      royal table. (Variar. l. vi. epistol. 9.)]

      144 (return) [ Gutherius (de Officiis Domžs August¾, l. ii. c.
      20, l. iii.) has very accurately explained the functions of the
      master of the offices, and the constitution of the subordinate
      _scrinia_. But he vainly attempts, on the most doubtful
      authority, to deduce from the time of the Antonines, or even of
      Nero, the origin of a magistrate who cannot be found in history
      before the reign of Constantine.]

      145 (return) [ Tacitus (Annal. xi. 22) says, that the first
      qu¾stors were elected by the people, sixty-four years after the
      foundation of the republic; but he is of opinion, that they had,
      long before that period, been annually appointed by the consuls,
      and even by the kings. But this obscure point of antiquity is
      contested by other writers.]

      146 (return) [ Tacitus (Annal. xi. 22) seems to consider twenty
      as the highest number of qu¾stors; and Dion (l. xliii. p 374)
      insinuates, that if the dictator C¾sar once created forty, it was
      only to facilitate the payment of an immense debt of gratitude.
      Yet the augmentation which he made of pr¾tors subsisted under the
      succeeding reigns.]

      147 (return) [ Sueton. in August. c. 65, and Torrent. ad loc.
      Dion. Cas. p. 755.]

      148 (return) [ The youth and inexperience of the qu¾stors, who
      entered on that important office in their twenty-fifth year,
      (Lips. Excurs. ad Tacit. l. iii. D.,) engaged Augustus to remove
      them from the management of the treasury; and though they were
      restored by Claudius, they seem to have been finally dismissed by
      Nero. (Tacit Annal. xiii. 29. Sueton. in Aug. c. 36, in Claud. c.
      24. Dion, p. 696, 961, &c. Plin. Epistol. x. 20, et alibi.) In
      the provinces of the Imperial division, the place of the qu¾stors
      was more ably supplied by the _procurators_, (Dion Cas. p. 707.
      Tacit. in Vit. Agricol. c. 15;) or, as they were afterwards
      called, _rationales_. (Hist. August. p. 130.) But in the
      provinces of the senate we may still discover a series of
      qu¾stors till the reign of Marcus Antoninus. (See the
      Inscriptions of Gruter, the Epistles of Pliny, and a decisive
      fact in the Augustan History, p. 64.) From Ulpian we may learn,
      (Pandect. l. i. tit. 13,) that under the government of the house
      of Severus, their provincial administration was abolished; and in
      the subsequent troubles, the annual or triennial elections of
      qu¾stors must have naturally ceased.]

      149 (return) [ Cum patris nomine et epistolas ipse dictaret, et
      edicta conscrib eret, orationesque in senatu recitaret, etiam
      qu¾storis vice. Sueton, in Tit. c. 6. The office must have
      acquired new dignity, which was occasionally executed by the heir
      apparent of the empire. Trajan intrusted the same care to
      Hadrian, his qu¾stor and cousin. See Dodwell, Pr¾lection.
      Cambden, x. xi. p. 362-394.]

      150 (return) [ Terris edicta daturus; Supplicibus
      responsa.ÑOracula regis Eloquio crevere tuo; nec dignius unquam
      Majestas meminit sese Romana locutam.ÑÑClaudian in Consulat.
      Mall. Theodor. 33. See likewise Symmachus (Epistol. i. 17) and
      Cassiodorus. (Variar. iv. 5.)]

      151 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. 30. Cod. Justinian. l.
      xii. tit. 24.]

      152 (return) [ In the departments of the two counts of the
      treasury, the eastern part of the _Notitia_ happens to be very
      defective. It may be observed, that we had a treasury chest in
      London, and a gyneceum or manufacture at Winchester. But Britain
      was not thought worthy either of a mint or of an arsenal. Gaul
      alone possessed three of the former, and eight of the latter.]

      153 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxx. leg. 2, and Godefroy
      ad loc.]

      154 (return) [ Strabon. Geograph. l. xxii. p. 809, [edit.
      Casaub.] The other temple of Comana, in Pontus, was a colony from
      that of Cappadocia, l. xii. p. 835. The President Des Brosses
      (see his Saluste, tom. ii. p. 21, [edit. Causub.]) conjectures
      that the deity adored in both Comanas was Beltis, the Venus of
      the east, the goddess of generation; a very different being
      indeed from the goddess of war.]

      155 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. x. tit. vi. de Grege Dominico.
      Godefroy has collected every circumstance of antiquity relative
      to the Cappadocian horses. One of the finest breeds, the
      Palmatian, was the forfeiture of a rebel, whose estate lay about
      sixteen miles from Tyana, near the great road between
      Constantinople and Antioch.]

      156 (return) [ Justinian (Novell. 30) subjected the province of
      the count of Cappadocia to the immediate authority of the
      favorite eunuch, who presided over the sacred bed-chamber.]

      157 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxx. leg. 4, &c.]

      158 (return) [ Pancirolus, p. 102, 136. The appearance of these
      military domestics is described in the Latin poem of Corippus, de
      Laudibus Justin. l. iii. 157-179. p. 419, 420 of the Appendix
      Hist. Byzantin. Rom. 177.]

      159 (return) [ Ammianus Marcellinus, who served so many years,
      obtained only the rank of a protector. The first ten among these
      honorable soldiers were _Clarissimi_.]

      The perpetual intercourse between the court and the provinces was
      facilitated by the construction of roads and the institution of
      posts. But these beneficial establishments were accidentally
      connected with a pernicious and intolerable abuse. Two or three
      hundred _agents_ or messengers were employed, under the
      jurisdiction of the master of the offices, to announce the names
      of the annual consuls, and the edicts or victories of the
      emperors. They insensibly assumed the license of reporting
      whatever they could observe of the conduct either of magistrates
      or of private citizens; and were soon considered as the eyes of
      the monarch, 160 and the scourge of the people. Under the warm
      influence of a feeble reign, they multiplied to the incredible
      number of ten thousand, disdained the mild though frequent
      admonitions of the laws, and exercised in the profitable
      management of the posts a rapacious and insolent oppression.
      These official spies, who regularly corresponded with the palace,
      were encouraged by favor and reward, anxiously to watch the
      progress of every treasonable design, from the faint and latent
      symptoms of disaffection, to the actual preparation of an open
      revolt. Their careless or criminal violation of truth and justice
      was covered by the consecrated mask of zeal; and they might
      securely aim their poisoned arrows at the breast either of the
      guilty or the innocent, who had provoked their resentment, or
      refused to purchase their silence. A faithful subject, of Syria
      perhaps, or of Britain, was exposed to the danger, or at least to
      the dread, of being dragged in chains to the court of Milan or
      Constantinople, to defend his life and fortune against the
      malicious charge of these privileged informers. The ordinary
      administration was conducted by those methods which extreme
      necessity can alone palliate; and the defects of evidence were
      diligently supplied by the use of torture. 161

      160 (return) [ Xenophon, Cyrop¾d. l. viii. Brisson, de Regno
      Persico, l. i No 190, p. 264. The emperors adopted with pleasure
      this Persian metaphor.]

      161 (return) [ For the _Agentes in Rebus_, see Ammian. l. xv. c.
      3, l. xvi. c. 5, l. xxii. c. 7, with the curious annotations of
      Valesius. Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxvii. xxviii. xxix. Among the
      passages collected in the Commentary of Godefroy, the most
      remarkable is one from Libanius, in his discourse concerning the
      death of Julian.]

      The deceitful and dangerous experiment of the criminal
      _qu¾stion_, as it is emphatically styled, was admitted, rather
      than approved, in the jurisprudence of the Romans. They applied
      this sanguinary mode of examination only to servile bodies, whose
      sufferings were seldom weighed by those haughty republicans in
      the scale of justice or humanity; but they would never consent to
      violate the sacred person of a citizen, till they possessed the
      clearest evidence of his guilt. 162 The annals of tyranny, from
      the reign of Tiberius to that of Domitian, circumstantially
      relate the executions of many innocent victims; but, as long as
      the faintest remembrance was kept alive of the national freedom
      and honor, the last hours of a Roman were secured from the danger
      of ignominions torture. 163 The conduct of the provincial
      magistrates was not, however, regulated by the practice of the
      city, or the strict maxims of the civilians. They found the use
      of torture established not only among the slaves of oriental
      despotism, but among the Macedonians, who obeyed a limited
      monarch; among the Rhodians, who flourished by the liberty of
      commerce; and even among the sage Athenians, who had asserted and
      adorned the dignity of human kind. 164 The acquiescence of the
      provincials encouraged their governors to acquire, or perhaps to
      usurp, a discretionary power of employing the rack, to extort
      from vagrants or plebeian criminals the confession of their
      guilt, till they insensibly proceeded to confound the distinction
      of rank, and to disregard the privileges of Roman citizens. The
      apprehensions of the subjects urged them to solicit, and the
      interest of the sovereign engaged him to grant, a variety of
      special exemptions, which tacitly allowed, and even authorized,
      the general use of torture. They protected all persons of
      illustrious or honorable rank, bishops and their presbyters,
      professors of the liberal arts, soldiers and their families,
      municipal officers, and their posterity to the third generation,
      and all children under the age of puberty. 165 But a fatal maxim
      was introduced into the new jurisprudence of the empire, that in
      the case of treason, which included every offence that the
      subtlety of lawyers could derive from a _hostile intention_
      towards the prince or republic, 166 all privileges were
      suspended, and all conditions were reduced to the same
      ignominious level. As the safety of the emperor was avowedly
      preferred to every consideration of justice or humanity, the
      dignity of age and the tenderness of youth were alike exposed to
      the most cruel tortures; and the terrors of a malicious
      information, which might select them as the accomplices, or even
      as the witnesses, perhaps, of an imaginary crime, perpetually
      hung over the heads of the principal citizens of the Roman world.
      167

      162 (return) [ The Pandects (l. xlviii. tit. xviii.) contain the
      sentiments of the most celebrated civilians on the subject of
      torture. They strictly confine it to slaves; and Ulpian himself
      is ready to acknowledge that Res est fragilis, et periculosa, et
      qu¾ veritatem fallat.]

      163 (return) [ In the conspiracy of Piso against Nero, Epicharis
      (libertina mulier) was the only person tortured; the rest were
      _intacti tormentis_. It would be superfluous to add a weaker, and
      it would be difficult to find a stronger, example. Tacit. Annal.
      xv. 57.]

      164 (return) [ Dicendum... de Institutis Atheniensium, Rhodiorum,
      doctissimorum hominum, apud quos etiam (id quod acerbissimum est)
      liberi, civesque torquentur. Cicero, Partit. Orat. c. 34. We may
      learn from the trial of Philotas the practice of the Macedonians.
      (Diodor. Sicul. l. xvii. p. 604. Q. Curt. l. vi. c. 11.)]

      165 (return) [ Heineccius (Element. Jur. Civil. part vii. p. 81)
      has collected these exemptions into one view.]

      166 (return) [ This definition of the sage Ulpian (Pandect. l.
      xlviii. tit. iv.) seems to have been adapted to the court of
      Caracalla, rather than to that of Alexander Severus. See the
      Codes of Theodosius and ad leg. Juliam majestatis.]

      167 (return) [ Arcadius Charisius is the oldest lawyer quoted to
      justify the universal practice of torture in all cases of
      treason; but this maxim of tyranny, which is admitted by Ammianus
      with the most respectful terror, is enforced by several laws of
      the successors of Constantine. See Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. xxxv.
      majestatis crimine omnibus ¾qua est conditio.]

      These evils, however terrible they may appear, were confined to
      the smaller number of Roman subjects, whose dangerous situation
      was in some degree compensated by the enjoyment of those
      advantages, either of nature or of fortune, which exposed them to
      the jealousy of the monarch. The obscure millions of a great
      empire have much less to dread from the cruelty than from the
      avarice of their masters, and _their_ humble happiness is
      principally affected by the grievance of excessive taxes, which,
      gently pressing on the wealthy, descend with accelerated weight
      on the meaner and more indigent classes of society. An ingenious
      philosopher 168 has calculated the universal measure of the
      public impositions by the degrees of freedom and servitude; and
      ventures to assert, that, according to an invariable law of
      nature, it must always increase with the former, and diminish in
      a just proportion to the latter. But this reflection, which would
      tend to alleviate the miseries of despotism, is contradicted at
      least by the history of the Roman empire; which accuses the same
      princes of despoiling the senate of its authority, and the
      provinces of their wealth. Without abolishing all the various
      customs and duties on merchandises, which are imperceptibly
      discharged by the apparent choice of the purchaser, the policy of
      Constantine and his successors preferred a simple and direct mode
      of taxation, more congenial to the spirit of an arbitrary
      government. 169

      168 (return) [ Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 13.]

      169 (return) [ Mr. Hume (Essays, vol. i. p. 389) has seen this
      importance with some degree of perplexity.]




      Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.ÑPart VI.


      The name and use of the _indictions_, 170 which serve to
      ascertain the chronology of the middle ages, were derived from
      the regular practice of the Roman tributes. 171 The emperor
      subscribed with his own hand, and in purple ink, the solemn
      edict, or indiction, which was fixed up in the principal city of
      each diocese, during two months previous to the first day of
      September. And by a very easy connection of ideas, the word
      _indiction_ was transferred to the measure of tribute which it
      prescribed, and to the annual term which it allowed for the
      payment. This general estimate of the supplies was proportioned
      to the real and imaginary wants of the state; but as often as the
      expense exceeded the revenue, or the revenue fell short of the
      computation, an additional tax, under the name of
      _superindiction_, was imposed on the people, and the most
      valuable attribute of sovereignty was communicated to the
      Pr¾torian pr¾fects, who, on some occasions, were permitted to
      provide for the unforeseen and extraordinary exigencies of the
      public service. The execution of these laws (which it would be
      tedious to pursue in their minute and intricate detail) consisted
      of two distinct operations: the resolving the general imposition
      into its constituent parts, which were assessed on the provinces,
      the cities, and the individuals of the Roman world; and the
      collecting the separate contributions of the individuals, the
      cities, and the provinces, till the accumulated sums were poured
      into the Imperial treasuries. But as the account between the
      monarch and the subject was perpetually open, and as the renewal
      of the demand anticipated the perfect discharge of the preceding
      obligation, the weighty machine of the finances was moved by the
      same hands round the circle of its yearly revolution. Whatever
      was honorable or important in the administration of the revenue,
      was committed to the wisdom of the pr¾fects, and their provincia.
      representatives; the lucrative functions were claimed by a crowd
      of subordinate officers, some of whom depended on the treasurer,
      others on the governor of the province; and who, in the
      inevitable conflicts of a perplexed jurisdiction, had frequent
      opportunities of disputing with each other the spoils of the
      people. The laborious offices, which could be productive only of
      envy and reproach, of expense and danger, were imposed on the
      _Decurions_, who formed the corporations of the cities, and whom
      the severity of the Imperial laws had condemned to sustain the
      burdens of civil society. 172 The whole landed property of the
      empire (without excepting the patrimonial estates of the monarch)
      was the object of ordinary taxation; and every new purchaser
      contracted the obligations of the former proprietor. An accurate
      _census_, 173 or survey, was the only equitable mode of
      ascertaining the proportion which every citizen should be obliged
      to contribute for the public service; and from the well-known
      period of the indictions, there is reason to believe that this
      difficult and expensive operation was repeated at the regular
      distance of fifteen years. The lands were measured by surveyors,
      who were sent into the provinces; their nature, whether arable or
      pasture, or vineyards or woods, was distinctly reported; and an
      estimate was made of their common value from the average produce
      of five years. The numbers of slaves and of cattle constituted an
      essential part of the report; an oath was administered to the
      proprietors, which bound them to disclose the true state of their
      affairs; and their attempts to prevaricate, or elude the
      intention of the legislator, were severely watched, and punished
      as a capital crime, which included the double guilt of treason
      and sacrilege. 174 A large portion of the tribute was paid in
      money; and of the current coin of the empire, gold alone could be
      legally accepted. 175 The remainder of the taxes, according to
      the proportions determined by the annual indiction, was furnished
      in a manner still more direct, and still more oppressive.
      According to the different nature of lands, their real produce in
      the various articles of wine or oil, corn or barley, wood or
      iron, was transported by the labor or at the expense of the
      provincials 17511 to the Imperial magazines, from whence they
      were occasionally distributed for the use of the court, of the
      army, and of two capitals, Rome and Constantinople. The
      commissioners of the revenue were so frequently obliged to make
      considerable purchases, that they were strictly prohibited from
      allowing any compensation, or from receiving in money the value
      of those supplies which were exacted in kind. In the primitive
      simplicity of small communities, this method may be well adapted
      to collect the almost voluntary offerings of the people; but it
      is at once susceptible of the utmost latitude, and of the utmost
      strictness, which in a corrupt and absolute monarchy must
      introduce a perpetual contest between the power of oppression and
      the arts of fraud. 176 The agriculture of the Roman provinces was
      insensibly ruined, and, in the progress of despotism which tends
      to disappoint its own purpose, the emperors were obliged to
      derive some merit from the forgiveness of debts, or the remission
      of tributes, which their subjects were utterly incapable of
      paying. According to the new division of Italy, the fertile and
      happy province of Campania, the scene of the early victories and
      of the delicious retirements of the citizens of Rome, extended
      between the sea and the Apennine, from the Tiber to the Silarus.
      Within sixty years after the death of Constantine, and on the
      evidence of an actual survey, an exemption was granted in favor
      of three hundred and thirty thousand English acres of desert and
      uncultivated land; which amounted to one eighth of the whole
      surface of the province. As the footsteps of the Barbarians had
      not yet been seen in Italy, the cause of this amazing desolation,
      which is recorded in the laws, can be ascribed only to the
      administration of the Roman emperors. 177

      170 (return) [ The cycle of indictions, which may be traced as
      high as the reign of Constantius, or perhaps of his father,
      Constantine, is still employed by the Papal court; but the
      commencement of the year has been very reasonably altered to the
      first of January. See lÕArt de Verifier les Dates, p. xi.; and
      Dictionnaire Raison. de la Diplomatique, tom. ii. p. 25; two
      accurate treatises, which come from the workshop of the
      Benedictines. ÑÑ It does not appear that the establishment of the
      indiction is to be at tributed to Constantine: it existed before
      he had been created _Augustus_ at Rome, and the remission granted
      by him to the city of Autun is the proof. He would not have
      ventured while only _C¾sar_, and under the necessity of courting
      popular favor, to establish such an odious impost. Aurelius
      Victor and Lactantius agree in designating Diocletian as the
      author of this despotic institution. Aur. Vict. de C¾s. c. 39.
      Lactant. de Mort. Pers. c. 7ÑG.]

      171 (return) [ The first twenty-eight titles of the eleventh book
      of the Theodosian Code are filled with the circumstantial
      regulations on the important subject of tributes; but they
      suppose a clearer knowledge of fundamental principles than it is
      at present in our power to attain.]

      172 (return) [ The title concerning the Decurions (l. xii. tit.
      i.) is the most ample in the whole Theodosian Code; since it
      contains not less than one hundred and ninety-two distinct laws
      to ascertain the duties and privileges of that useful order of
      citizens. * Note: The Decurions were charged with assessing,
      according to the census of property prepared by the tabularii,
      the payment due from each proprietor. This odious office was
      authoritatively imposed on the richest citizens of each town;
      they had no salary, and all their compensation was, to be exempt
      from certain corporal punishments, in case they should have
      incurred them. The Decurionate was the ruin of all the rich.
      Hence they tried every way of avoiding this dangerous honor; they
      concealed themselves, they entered into military service; but
      their efforts were unavailing; they were seized, they were
      compelled to become Decurions, and the dread inspired by this
      title was termed _Impiety_.ÑG. ÑÑThe Decurions were mutually
      responsible; they were obliged to undertake for pieces of ground
      abandoned by their owners on account of the pressure of the
      taxes, and, finally, to make up all deficiencies. Savigny chichte
      des Rom. Rechts, i. 25.ÑM.]

      173 (return) [ Habemus enim et hominum numerum qui delati sunt,
      et agrun modum. Eumenius in Panegyr. Vet. viii. 6. See Cod.
      Theod. l. xiii. tit. x. xi., with GodefroyÕs Commentary.]

      174 (return) [ Siquis sacrileg‰ vitem falce succiderit, aut
      feracium ramorum fÏtus hebetaverit, quo delinet fidem Censuum, et
      mentiatur callide paupertatis ingenium, mox detectus capitale
      subibit exitium, et bona ejus in Fisci jura migrabunt. Cod.
      Theod. l. xiii. tit. xi. leg. 1. Although this law is not without
      its studied obscurity, it is, however clear enough to prove the
      minuteness of the inquisition, and the disproportion of the
      penalty.]

      175 (return) [ The astonishment of Pliny would have ceased.
      Equidem miror P. R. victis gentibus argentum semper imperitasse
      non aurum. Hist Natur. xxxiii. 15.]

      17511 (return) [ The proprietors were not charged with the
      expense of this transport in the provinces situated on the
      sea-shore or near the great rivers, there were companies of
      boatmen, and of masters of vessels, who had this commission, and
      furnished the means of transport at their own expense. In return,
      they were themselves exempt, altogether, or in part, from the
      indiction and other imposts. They had certain privileges;
      particular regulations determined their rights and obligations.
      (Cod. Theod. l. xiii. tit. v. ix.) The transports by land were
      made in the same manner, by the intervention of a privileged
      company called Bastaga; the members were called Bastagarii Cod.
      Theod. l. viii. tit. v.ÑG.]

      176 (return) [ Some precautions were taken (see Cod. Theod. l.
      xi. tit. ii. and Cod. Justinian. l. x. tit. xxvii. leg. 1, 2, 3)
      to restrain the magistrates from the abuse of their authority,
      either in the exaction or in the purchase of corn: but those who
      had learning enough to read the orations of Cicero against
      Verres, (iii. de Frumento,) might instruct themselves in all the
      various arts of oppression, with regard to the weight, the price,
      the quality, and the carriage. The avarice of an unlettered
      governor would supply the ignorance of precept or precedent.]

      177 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. xi. tit. xxviii. leg. 2, published
      the 24th of March, A. D. 395, by the emperor Honorius, only two
      months after the death of his father, Theodosius. He speaks of
      528,042 Roman jugera, which I have reduced to the English
      measure. The jugerum contained 28,800 square Roman feet.]

      Either from design or from accident, the mode of assessment
      seemed to unite the substance of a land tax with the forms of a
      capitation. 178 The returns which were sent of every province or
      district, expressed the number of tributary subjects, and the
      amount of the public impositions. The latter of these sums was
      divided by the former; and the estimate, that such a province
      contained so many _capita_, or heads of tribute; and that each
      _head_ was rated at such a price, was universally received, not
      only in the popular, but even in the legal computation. The value
      of a tributary head must have varied, according to many
      accidental, or at least fluctuating circumstances; but some
      knowledge has been preserved of a very curious fact, the more
      important, since it relates to one of the richest provinces of
      the Roman empire, and which now flourishes as the most splendid
      of the European kingdoms. The rapacious ministers of Constantius
      had exhausted the wealth of Gaul, by exacting twenty-five pieces
      of gold for the annual tribute of every head. The humane policy
      of his successor reduced the capitation to seven pieces. 179 A
      moderate proportion between these opposite extremes of
      extraordinary oppression and of transient indulgence, may
      therefore be fixed at sixteen pieces of gold, or about nine
      pounds sterling, the common standard, perhaps, of the impositions
      of Gaul. 180 But this calculation, or rather, indeed, the facts
      from whence it is deduced, cannot fail of suggesting two
      difficulties to a thinking mind, who will be at once surprised by
      the _equality_, and by the _enormity_, of the capitation. An
      attempt to explain them may perhaps reflect some light on the
      interesting subject of the finances of the declining empire.

      178 (return) [ Godefroy (Cod. Theod. tom. vi. p. 116) argues with
      weight and learning on the subject of the capitation; but while
      he explains the _caput_, as a share or measure of property, he
      too absolutely excludes the idea of a personal assessment.]

      179 (return) [ Quid profuerit (_Julianus_) anhelantibus extrem‰
      penuri‰ Gallis, hinc maxime claret, quod primitus partes eas
      ingressus, pro _capitibus_ singulis tributi nomine vicenos quinos
      aureos reperit flagitari; discedens vero septenos tantum numera
      universa complentes. Ammian. l. xvi. c. 5.]

      180 (return) [ In the calculation of any sum of money under
      Constantine and his successors, we need only refer to the
      excellent discourse of Mr. Greaves on the Denarius, for the proof
      of the following principles; 1. That the ancient and modern Roman
      pound, containing 5256 grains of Troy weight, is about one
      twelfth lighter than the English pound, which is composed of 5760
      of the same grains. 2. That the pound of gold, which had once
      been divided into forty-eight _aurei_, was at this time coined
      into seventy-two smaller pieces of the same denomination. 3. That
      five of these aurei were the legal tender for a pound of silver,
      and that consequently the pound of gold was exchanged for
      fourteen pounds eight ounces of silver, according to the Roman,
      or about thirteen pounds according to the English weight. 4. That
      the English pound of silver is coined into sixty-two shillings.
      From these elements we may compute the Roman pound of gold, the
      usual method of reckoning large sums, at forty pounds sterling,
      and we may fix the currency of the _aureus_ at somewhat more than
      eleven shillings. * Note: See, likewise, a Dissertation of M.
      Letronne, ÒConsiderations GŽnerales sur lÕEvaluation des Monnaies
      Grecques et RomainesÓ Paris, 1817ÑM.]

      I. It is obvious, that, as long as the immutable constitution of
      human nature produces and maintains so unequal a division of
      property, the most numerous part of the community would be
      deprived of their subsistence, by the equal assessment of a tax
      from which the sovereign would derive a very trifling revenue.
      Such indeed might be the theory of the Roman capitation; but in
      the practice, this unjust equality was no longer felt, as the
      tribute was collected on the principle of a _real_, not of a
      _personal_ imposition. 18011 Several indigent citizens
      contributed to compose a single _head_, or share of taxation;
      while the wealthy provincial, in proportion to his fortune, alone
      represented several of those imaginary beings. In a poetical
      request, addressed to one of the last and most deserving of the
      Roman princes who reigned in Gaul, Sidonius Apollinaris
      personifies his tribute under the figure of a triple monster, the
      Geryon of the Grecian fables, and entreats the new Hercules that
      he would most graciously be pleased to save his life by cutting
      off three of his heads. 181 The fortune of Sidonius far exceeded
      the customary wealth of a poet; but if he had pursued the
      allusion, he might have painted many of the Gallic nobles with
      the hundred heads of the deadly Hydra, spreading over the face of
      the country, and devouring the substance of a hundred families.
      II. The difficulty of allowing an annual sum of about nine pounds
      sterling, even for the average of the capitation of Gaul, may be
      rendered more evident by the comparison of the present state of
      the same country, as it is now governed by the absolute monarch
      of an industrious, wealthy, and affectionate people. The taxes of
      France cannot be magnified, either by fear or by flattery, beyond
      the annual amount of eighteen millions sterling, which ought
      perhaps to be shared among four and twenty millions of
      inhabitants. 182 Seven millions of these, in the capacity of
      fathers, or brothers, or husbands, may discharge the obligations
      of the remaining multitude of women and children; yet the equal
      proportion of each tributary subject will scarcely rise above
      fifty shillings of our money, instead of a proportion almost four
      times as considerable, which was regularly imposed on their
      Gallic ancestors. The reason of this difference may be found, not
      so much in the relative scarcity or plenty of gold and silver, as
      in the different state of society, in ancient Gaul and in modern
      France. In a country where personal freedom is the privilege of
      every subject, the whole mass of taxes, whether they are levied
      on property or on consumption, may be fairly divided among the
      whole body of the nation. But the far greater part of the lands
      of ancient Gaul, as well as of the other provinces of the Roman
      world, were cultivated by slaves, or by peasants, whose dependent
      condition was a less rigid servitude. 183 In such a state the
      poor were maintained at the expense of the masters who enjoyed
      the fruits of their labor; and as the rolls of tribute were
      filled only with the names of those citizens who possessed the
      means of an honorable, or at least of a decent subsistence, the
      comparative smallness of their numbers explains and justifies the
      high rate of their capitation. The truth of this assertion may be
      illustrated by the following example: The ®dui, one of the most
      powerful and civilized tribes or _cities_ of Gaul, occupied an
      extent of territory, which now contains about five hundred
      thousand inhabitants, in the two ecclesiastical dioceses of Autun
      and Nevers; 184 and with the probable accession of those of
      Ch‰lons and Maon, 185 the population would amount to eight
      hundred thousand souls. In the time of Constantine, the territory
      of the ®dui afforded no more than twenty-five thousand _heads_ of
      capitation, of whom seven thousand were discharged by that prince
      from the intolerable weight of tribute. 186 A just analogy would
      seem to countenance the opinion of an ingenious historian, 187
      that the free and tributary citizens did not surpass the number
      of half a million; and if, in the ordinary administration of
      government, their annual payments may be computed at about four
      millions and a half of our money, it would appear, that although
      the share of each individual was four times as considerable, a
      fourth part only of the modern taxes of France was levied on the
      Imperial province of Gaul. The exactions of Constantius may be
      calculated at seven millions sterling, which were reduced to two
      millions by the humanity or the wisdom of Julian.

      18011 (return) [ Two masterly dissertations of M. Savigny, in the
      Mem. of the Berlin Academy (1822 and 1823) have thrown new light
      on the taxation system of the Empire. Gibbon, according to M.
      Savigny, is mistaken in supposing that there was but one kind of
      capitation tax; there was a land tax, and a capitation tax,
      strictly so called. The land tax was, in its operation, a
      proprietorÕs or landlordÕs tax. But, besides this, there was a
      direct capitation tax on all who were not possessed of landed
      property. This tax dates from the time of the Roman conquests;
      its amount is not clearly known. Gradual exemptions released
      different persons and classes from this tax. One edict exempts
      painters. In Syria, all under twelve or fourteen, or above
      sixty-five, were exempted; at a later period, all under twenty,
      and all unmarried females; still later, all under twenty-five,
      widows and nuns, soldiers, veterani and clericiÑwhole dioceses,
      that of Thrace and Illyricum. Under Galerius and Licinius, the
      plebs urbana became exempt; though this, perhaps, was only an
      ordinance for the East. By degrees, however, the exemption was
      extended to all the inhabitants of towns; and as it was strictly
      capitatio plebeia, from which all possessors were exempted it
      fell at length altogether on the coloni and agricultural slaves.
      These were registered in the same cataster (capitastrum) with the
      land tax. It was paid by the proprietor, who raised it again from
      his coloni and laborers.ÑM.]

      181 (return) [

    Geryones nos esse puta, monstrumque tributum, H”c _capita_ ut
    vivam, tu mihi tolle _tria_. Sidon. Apollinar. Carm. xiii.

      The reputation of Father Sirmond led me to expect more
      satisfaction than I have found in his note (p. 144) on this
      remarkable passage. The words, suo vel _suorum_ nomine, betray
      the perplexity of the commentator.]

      182 (return) [ This assertion, however formidable it may seem, is
      founded on the original registers of births, deaths, and
      marriages, collected by public authority, and now deposited in
      the _Contr™lee General_ at Paris. The annual average of births
      throughout the whole kingdom, taken in five years, (from 1770 to
      1774, both inclusive,) is 479,649 boys, and 449,269 girls, in all
      928,918 children. The province of French Hainault alone furnishes
      9906 births; and we are assured, by an actual enumeration of the
      people, annually repeated from the year 1773 to the year 1776,
      that upon an average, Hainault contains 257,097 inhabitants. By
      the rules of fair analogy, we might infer, that the ordinary
      proportion of annual births to the whole people, is about 1 to
      26; and that the kingdom of France contains 24,151,868 persons of
      both sexes and of every age. If we content ourselves with the
      more moderate proportion of 1 to 25, the whole population will
      amount to 23,222,950. From the diligent researches of the French
      Government, (which are not unworthy of our own imitation,) we may
      hope to obtain a still greater degree of certainty on this
      important subject * Note: On no subject has so much valuable
      information been collected since the time of Gibbon, as the
      statistics of the different countries of Europe but much is still
      wanting as to our ownÑM.]

      183 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. v. tit. ix. x. xi. Cod. Justinian.
      l. xi. tit. lxiii. Coloni appellantur qui conditionem debent
      genitali solo, propter agriculturum sub dominio possessorum.
      Augustin. de Civitate Dei, l. x. c. i.]

      184 (return) [ The ancient jurisdiction of (_Augustodunum_) Autun
      in Burgundy, the capital of the ®dui, comprehended the adjacent
      territory of (_Noviodunum_) Nevers. See DÕAnville, Notice de
      lÕAncienne Gaule, p. 491. The two dioceses of Autun and Nevers
      are now composed, the former of 610, and the latter of 160
      parishes. The registers of births, taken during eleven years, in
      476 parishes of the same province of Burgundy, and multiplied by
      the moderate proportion of 25, (see Messance Recherches sur la
      Population, p. 142,) may authorizes us to assign an average
      number of 656 persons for each parish, which being again
      multiplied by the 770 parishes of the dioceses of Nevers and
      Autun, will produce the sum of 505,120 persons for the extent of
      country which was once possessed by the ®dui.]

      185 (return) [ We might derive an additional supply of 301,750
      inhabitants from the dioceses of Ch‰lons (_Cabillonum_) and of
      Maon, (_Matisco_,) since they contain, the one 200, and the
      other 260 parishes. This accession of territory might be
      justified by very specious reasons. 1. Ch‰lons and Maon were
      undoubtedly within the original jurisdiction of the ®dui. (See
      DÕAnville, Notice, p. 187, 443.) 2. In the Notitia of Gaul, they
      are enumerated not as _Civitates_, but merely as _Castra_. 3.
      They do not appear to have been episcopal seats before the fifth
      and sixth centuries. Yet there is a passage in Eumenius (Panegyr.
      Vet. viii. 7) which very forcibly deters me from extending the
      territory of the ®dui, in the reign of Constantine, along the
      beautiful banks of the navigable Sa™ne. * Note: In this passage
      of Eumenius, Savigny supposes the original number to have been
      32,000: 7000 being discharged, there remained 25,000 liable to
      the tribute. See Mem. quoted above.ÑM.]

      186 (return) [ Eumenius in Panegyr Vet. viii. 11.]

      187 (return) [ LÕAbbŽ du Bos, Hist. Critique de la M. F. tom. i.
      p. 121]

      But this tax, or capitation, on the proprietors of land, would
      have suffered a rich and numerous class of free citizens to
      escape. With the view of sharing that species of wealth which is
      derived from art or labor, and which exists in money or in
      merchandise, the emperors imposed a distinct and personal tribute
      on the trading part of their subjects. 188 Some exemptions, very
      strictly confined both in time and place, were allowed to the
      proprietors who disposed of the produce of their own estates.
      Some indulgence was granted to the profession of the liberal
      arts: but every other branch of commercial industry was affected
      by the severity of the law. The honorable merchant of Alexandria,
      who imported the gems and spices of India for the use of the
      western world; the usurer, who derived from the interest of money
      a silent and ignominious profit; the ingenious manufacturer, the
      diligent mechanic, and even the most obscure retailer of a
      sequestered village, were obliged to admit the officers of the
      revenue into the partnership of their gain; and the sovereign of
      the Roman empire, who tolerated the profession, consented to
      share the infamous salary, of public prostitutes. 18811 As this
      general tax upon industry was collected every fourth year, it was
      styled the _Lustral Contribution:_ and the historian Zosimus 189
      laments that the approach of the fatal period was announced by
      the tears and terrors of the citizens, who were often compelled
      by the impending scourge to embrace the most abhorred and
      unnatural methods of procuring the sum at which their property
      had been assessed. The testimony of Zosimus cannot indeed be
      justified from the charge of passion and prejudice; but, from the
      nature of this tribute it seems reasonable to conclude, that it
      was arbitrary in the distribution, and extremely rigorous in the
      mode of collecting. The secret wealth of commerce, and the
      precarious profits of art or labor, are susceptible only of a
      discretionary valuation, which is seldom disadvantageous to the
      interest of the treasury; and as the person of the trader
      supplies the want of a visible and permanent security, the
      payment of the imposition, which, in the case of a land tax, may
      be obtained by the seizure of property, can rarely be extorted by
      any other means than those of corporal punishments. The cruel
      treatment of the insolvent debtors of the state, is attested, and
      was perhaps mitigated by a very humane edict of Constantine, who,
      disclaiming the use of racks and of scourges, allots a spacious
      and airy prison for the place of their confinement. 190

      188 (return) [ See Cod. Theod. l. xiii. tit. i. and iv.]

      18811 (return) [ The emperor Theodosius put an end, by a law. to
      this disgraceful source of revenue. (Godef. ad Cod. Theod. xiii.
      tit. i. c. 1.) But before he deprived himself of it, he made sure
      of some way of replacing this deficit. A rich patrician,
      Florentius, indignant at this legalized licentiousness, had made
      representations on the subject to the emperor. To induce him to
      tolerate it no longer, he offered his own property to supply the
      diminution of the revenue. The emperor had the baseness to accept
      his offerÑG.]

      189 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 115. There is probably as much
      passion and prejudice in the attack of Zosimus, as in the
      elaborate defence of the memory of Constantine by the zealous Dr.
      Howell. Hist. of the World, vol. ii. p. 20.]

      190 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. xi. tit vii. leg. 3.]

      These general taxes were imposed and levied by the absolute
      authority of the monarch; but the occasional offerings of the
      _coronary gold_ still retained the name and semblance of popular
      consent. It was an ancient custom that the allies of the
      republic, who ascribed their safety or deliverance to the success
      of the Roman arms, and even the cities of Italy, who admired the
      virtues of their victorious general, adorned the pomp of his
      triumph by their voluntary gifts of crowns of gold, which after
      the ceremony were consecrated in the temple of Jupiter, to remain
      a lasting monument of his glory to future ages. The progress of
      zeal and flattery soon multiplied the number, and increased the
      size, of these popular donations; and the triumph of C¾sar was
      enriched with two thousand eight hundred and twenty-two massy
      crowns, whose weight amounted to twenty thousand four hundred and
      fourteen pounds of gold. This treasure was immediately melted
      down by the prudent dictator, who was satisfied that it would be
      more serviceable to his soldiers than to the gods: his example
      was imitated by his successors; and the custom was introduced of
      exchanging these splendid ornaments for the more acceptable
      present of the current gold coin of the empire. 191 The
      spontaneous offering was at length exacted as the debt of duty;
      and instead of being confined to the occasion of a triumph, it
      was supposed to be granted by the several cities and provinces of
      the monarchy, as often as the emperor condescended to announce
      his accession, his consulship, the birth of a son, the creation
      of a C¾sar, a victory over the Barbarians, or any other real or
      imaginary event which graced the annals of his reign. The
      peculiar free gift of the senate of Rome was fixed by custom at
      sixteen hundred pounds of gold, or about sixty-four thousand
      pounds sterling. The oppressed subjects celebrated their own
      felicity, that their sovereign should graciously consent to
      accept this feeble but voluntary testimony of their loyalty and
      gratitude. 192

      191 (return) [ See Lipsius de Magnitud. Romana, l. ii. c. 9. The
      Tarragonese Spain presented the emperor Claudius with a crown of
      gold of seven, and Gaul with another of nine, _hundred_ pounds
      weight. I have followed the rational emendation of Lipsius. *
      Note: This custom is of still earlier date, the Romans had
      borrowed it from Greece. Who is not acquainted with the famous
      oration of Demosthenes for the golden crown, which his citizens
      wished to bestow, and ®schines to deprive him of?ÑG.]

      192 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. xii. tit. xiii. The senators were
      supposed to be exempt from the _Aurum Coronarium;_ but the _Auri
      Oblatio_, which was required at their hands, was precisely of the
      same nature.]

      A people elated by pride, or soured by discontent, are seldom
      qualified to form a just estimate of their actual situation. The
      subjects of Constantine were incapable of discerning the decline
      of genius and manly virtue, which so far degraded them below the
      dignity of their ancestors; but they could feel and lament the
      rage of tyranny, the relaxation of discipline, and the increase
      of taxes. The impartial historian, who acknowledges the justice
      of their complaints, will observe some favorable circumstances
      which tended to alleviate the misery of their condition. The
      threatening tempest of Barbarians, which so soon subverted the
      foundations of Roman greatness, was still repelled, or suspended,
      on the frontiers. The arts of luxury and literature were
      cultivated, and the elegant pleasures of society were enjoyed, by
      the inhabitants of a considerable portion of the globe. The
      forms, the pomp, and the expense of the civil administration
      contributed to restrain the irregular license of the soldiers;
      and although the laws were violated by power, or perverted by
      subtlety, the sage principles of the Roman jurisprudence
      preserved a sense of order and equity, unknown to the despotic
      governments of the East. The rights of mankind might derive some
      protection from religion and philosophy; and the name of freedom,
      which could no longer alarm, might sometimes admonish, the
      successors of Augustus, that they did not reign over a nation of
      Slaves or Barbarians. 193

      193 (return) [ The great Theodosius, in his judicious advice to
      his son, (Claudian in iv. Consulat. Honorii, 214, &c.,)
      distinguishes the station of a Roman prince from that of a
      Parthian monarch. Virtue was necessary for the one; birth might
      suffice for the other.]




      Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.ÑPart I.

     Character Of Constantine.ÑGothic War.ÑDeath Of
     Constantine.ÑDivision Of The Empire Among His Three Sons.Ñ Persian
     War.ÑTragic Deaths Of Constantine The Younger And
     Constans.ÑUsurpation Of Magnentius.ÑCivil War.ÑVictory Of
     Constantius.


      The character of the prince who removed the seat of empire, and
      introduced such important changes into the civil and religious
      constitution of his country, has fixed the attention, and divided
      the opinions, of mankind. By the grateful zeal of the Christians,
      the deliverer of the church has been decorated with every
      attribute of a hero, and even of a saint; while the discontent of
      the vanquished party has compared Constantine to the most
      abhorred of those tyrants, who, by their vice and weakness,
      dishonored the Imperial purple. The same passions have in some
      degree been perpetuated to succeeding generations, and the
      character of Constantine is considered, even in the present age,
      as an object either of satire or of panegyric. By the impartial
      union of those defects which are confessed by his warmest
      admirers, and of those virtues which are acknowledged by his
      most-implacable enemies, we might hope to delineate a just
      portrait of that extraordinary man, which the truth and candor of
      history should adopt without a blush. 1 But it would soon appear,
      that the vain attempt to blend such discordant colors, and to
      reconcile such inconsistent qualities, must produce a figure
      monstrous rather than human, unless it is viewed in its proper
      and distinct lights, by a careful separation of the different
      periods of the reign of Constantine.

      1 (return) [ On ne se trompera point sur Constantin, en croyant
      tout le mal ruÕen dit Eusebe, et tout le bien quÕen dit Zosime.
      Fleury, Hist. Ecclesiastique, tom. iii. p. 233. Eusebius and
      Zosimus form indeed the two extremes of flattery and invective.
      The intermediate shades are expressed by those writers, whose
      character or situation variously tempered the influence of their
      religious zeal.]

      The person, as well as the mind, of Constantine, had been
      enriched by nature with her choicest endowments. His stature was
      lofty, his countenance majestic, his deportment graceful; his
      strength and activity were displayed in every manly exercise, and
      from his earliest youth, to a very advanced season of life, he
      preserved the vigor of his constitution by a strict adherence to
      the domestic virtues of chastity and temperance. He delighted in
      the social intercourse of familiar conversation; and though he
      might sometimes indulge his disposition to raillery with less
      reserve than was required by the severe dignity of his station,
      the courtesy and liberality of his manners gained the hearts of
      all who approached him. The sincerity of his friendship has been
      suspected; yet he showed, on some occasions, that he was not
      incapable of a warm and lasting attachment. The disadvantage of
      an illiterate education had not prevented him from forming a just
      estimate of the value of learning; and the arts and sciences
      derived some encouragement from the munificent protection of
      Constantine. In the despatch of business, his diligence was
      indefatigable; and the active powers of his mind were almost
      continually exercised in reading, writing, or meditating, in
      giving audiences to ambassadors, and in examining the complaints
      of his subjects. Even those who censured the propriety of his
      measures were compelled to acknowledge, that he possessed
      magnanimity to conceive, and patience to execute, the most
      arduous designs, without being checked either by the prejudices
      of education, or by the clamors of the multitude. In the field,
      he infused his own intrepid spirit into the troops, whom he
      conducted with the talents of a consummate general; and to his
      abilities, rather than to his fortune, we may ascribe the signal
      victories which he obtained over the foreign and domestic foes of
      the republic. He loved glory as the reward, perhaps as the
      motive, of his labors. The boundless ambition, which, from the
      moment of his accepting the purple at York, appears as the ruling
      passion of his soul, may be justified by the dangers of his own
      situation, by the character of his rivals, by the consciousness
      of superior merit, and by the prospect that his success would
      enable him to restore peace and order to the distracted empire.
      In his civil wars against Maxentius and Licinius, he had engaged
      on his side the inclinations of the people, who compared the
      undissembled vices of those tyrants with the spirit of wisdom and
      justice which seemed to direct the general tenor of the
      administration of Constantine. 2

      2 (return) [ The virtues of Constantine are collected for the
      most part from Eutropius and the younger Victor, two sincere
      pagans, who wrote after the extinction of his family. Even
      Zosimus, and the _Emperor_ Julian, acknowledge his personal
      courage and military achievements.]

      Had Constantine fallen on the banks of the Tyber, or even in the
      plains of Hadrianople, such is the character which, with a few
      exceptions, he might have transmitted to posterity. But the
      conclusion of his reign (according to the moderate and indeed
      tender sentence of a writer of the same age) degraded him from
      the rank which he had acquired among the most deserving of the
      Roman princes. 3 In the life of Augustus, we behold the tyrant of
      the republic, converted, almost by imperceptible degrees, into
      the father of his country, and of human kind. In that of
      Constantine, we may contemplate a hero, who had so long inspired
      his subjects with love, and his enemies with terror, degenerating
      into a cruel and dissolute monarch, corrupted by his fortune, or
      raised by conquest above the necessity of dissimulation. The
      general peace which he maintained during the last fourteen years
      of his reign, was a period of apparent splendor rather than of
      real prosperity; and the old age of Constantine was disgraced by
      the opposite yet reconcilable vices of rapaciousness and
      prodigality. The accumulated treasures found in the palaces of
      Maxentius and Licinius, were lavishly consumed; the various
      innovations introduced by the conqueror, were attended with an
      increasing expense; the cost of his buildings, his court, and his
      festivals, required an immediate and plentiful supply; and the
      oppression of the people was the only fund which could support
      the magnificence of the sovereign. 4 His unworthy favorites,
      enriched by the boundless liberality of their master, usurped
      with impunity the privilege of rapine and corruption. 5 A secret
      but universal decay was felt in every part of the public
      administration, and the emperor himself, though he still retained
      the obedience, gradually lost the esteem, of his subjects. The
      dress and manners, which, towards the decline of life, he chose
      to affect, served only to degrade him in the eyes of mankind. The
      Asiatic pomp, which had been adopted by the pride of Diocletian,
      assumed an air of softness and effeminacy in the person of
      Constantine. He is represented with false hair of various colors,
      laboriously arranged by the skilful artists to the times; a
      diadem of a new and more expensive fashion; a profusion of gems
      and pearls, of collars and bracelets, and a variegated flowing
      robe of silk, most curiously embroidered with flowers of gold. In
      such apparel, scarcely to be excused by the youth and folly of
      Elagabalus, we are at a loss to discover the wisdom of an aged
      monarch, and the simplicity of a Roman veteran. 6 A mind thus
      relaxed by prosperity and indulgence, was incapable of rising to
      that magnanimity which disdains suspicion, and dares to forgive.
      The deaths of Maximian and Licinius may perhaps be justified by
      the maxims of policy, as they are taught in the schools of
      tyrants; but an impartial narrative of the executions, or rather
      murders, which sullied the declining age of Constantine, will
      suggest to our most candid thoughts the idea of a prince who
      could sacrifice without reluctance the laws of justice, and the
      feelings of nature, to the dictates either of his passions or of
      his interest.

      3 (return) [ See Eutropius, x. 6. In primo Imperii tempore
      optimis principibus, ultimo mediis comparandus. From the ancient
      Greek version of Poeanius, (edit. Havercamp. p. 697,) I am
      inclined to suspect that Eutropius had originally written _vix_
      mediis; and that the offensive monosyllable was dropped by the
      wilful inadvertency of transcribers. Aurelius Victor expresses
      the general opinion by a vulgar and indeed obscure proverb.
      _Trachala_ decem annis pr¾stantissimds; duodecim sequentibus
      _latro;_ decem novissimis _pupillus_ ob immouicas profusiones.]

      4 (return) [ Julian, Orat. i. p. 8, in a flattering discourse
      pronounced before the son of Constantine; and C¾sares, p. 336.
      Zosimus, p. 114, 115. The stately buildings of Constantinople,
      &c., may be quoted as a lasting and unexceptionable proof of the
      profuseness of their founder.]

      5 (return) [ The impartial Ammianus deserves all our confidence.
      Proximorum fauces aperuit primus omnium Constantinus. L. xvi. c.
      8. Eusebius himself confesses the abuse, (Vit. Constantin. l. iv.
      c. 29, 54;) and some of the Imperial laws feebly point out the
      remedy. See above, p. 146 of this volume.]

      6 (return) [ Julian, in the C¾sars, attempts to ridicule his
      uncle. His suspicious testimony is confirmed, however, by the
      learned Spanheim, with the authority of medals, (see Commentaire,
      p. 156, 299, 397, 459.) Eusebius (Orat. c. 5) alleges, that
      Constantine dressed for the public, not for himself. Were this
      admitted, the vainest coxcomb could never want an excuse.]

      The same fortune which so invariably followed the standard of
      Constantine, seemed to secure the hopes and comforts of his
      domestic life. Those among his predecessors who had enjoyed the
      longest and most prosperous reigns, Augustus Trajan, and
      Diocletian, had been disappointed of posterity; and the frequent
      revolutions had never allowed sufficient time for any Imperial
      family to grow up and multiply under the shade of the purple. But
      the royalty of the Flavian line, which had been first ennobled by
      the Gothic Claudius, descended through several generations; and
      Constantine himself derived from his royal father the hereditary
      honors which he transmitted to his children. The emperor had been
      twice married. Minervina, the obscure but lawful object of his
      youthful attachment, 7 had left him only one son, who was called
      Crispus. By Fausta, the daughter of Maximian, he had three
      daughters, and three sons known by the kindred names of
      Constantine, Constantius, and Constans. The unambitious brothers
      of the great Constantine, Julius Constantius, Dalmatius, and
      Hannibalianus, 8 were permitted to enjoy the most honorable rank,
      and the most affluent fortune, that could be consistent with a
      private station. The youngest of the three lived without a name,
      and died without posterity. His two elder brothers obtained in
      marriage the daughters of wealthy senators, and propagated new
      branches of the Imperial race. Gallus and Julian afterwards
      became the most illustrious of the children of Julius
      Constantius, the _Patrician_. The two sons of Dalmatius, who had
      been decorated with the vain title of _Censor_, were named
      Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. The two sisters of the great
      Constantine, Anastasia and Eutropia, were bestowed on Optatus and
      Nepotianus, two senators of noble birth and of consular dignity.
      His third sister, Constantia, was distinguished by her
      pre‘minence of greatness and of misery. She remained the widow of
      the vanquished Licinius; and it was by her entreaties, that an
      innocent boy, the offspring of their marriage, preserved, for
      some time, his life, the title of C¾sar, and a precarious hope of
      the succession. Besides the females, and the allies of the
      Flavian house, ten or twelve males, to whom the language of
      modern courts would apply the title of princes of the blood,
      seemed, according to the order of their birth, to be destined
      either to inherit or to support the throne of Constantine. But in
      less than thirty years, this numerous and increasing family was
      reduced to the persons of Constantius and Julian, who alone had
      survived a series of crimes and calamities, such as the tragic
      poets have deplored in the devoted lines of Pelops and of Cadmus.

      7 (return) [ Zosimus and Zonaras agree in representing Minervina
      as the concubine of Constantine; but Ducange has very gallantly
      rescued her character, by producing a decisive passage from one
      of the panegyrics: ÒAb ipso fine pueriti¾ te matrimonii legibus
      dedisti.Ó]

      8 (return) [ Ducange (Famili¾ Byzantin¾, p. 44) bestows on him,
      after Zosimus, the name of Constantine; a name somewhat unlikely,
      as it was already occupied by the elder brother. That of
      Hannibalianus is mentioned in the Paschal Chronicle, and is
      approved by Tillemont. Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 527.]

      Crispus, the eldest son of Constantine, and the presumptive heir
      of the empire, is represented by impartial historians as an
      amiable and accomplished youth. The care of his education, or at
      least of his studies, was intrusted to Lactantius, the most
      eloquent of the Christians; a preceptor admirably qualified to
      form the taste, and the excite the virtues, of his illustrious
      disciple. 9 At the age of seventeen, Crispus was invested with
      the title of C¾sar, and the administration of the Gallic
      provinces, where the inroads of the Germans gave him an early
      occasion of signalizing his military prowess. In the civil war
      which broke out soon afterwards, the father and son divided their
      powers; and this history has already celebrated the valor as well
      as conduct displayed by the latter, in forcing the straits of the
      Hellespont, so obstinately defended by the superior fleet of
      Lacinius. This naval victory contributed to determine the event
      of the war; and the names of Constantine and of Crispus were
      united in the joyful acclamations of their eastern subjects; who
      loudly proclaimed, that the world had been subdued, and was now
      governed, by an emperor endowed with every virtue; and by his
      illustrious son, a prince beloved of Heaven, and the lively image
      of his fatherÕs perfections. The public favor, which seldom
      accompanies old age, diffused its lustre over the youth of
      Crispus. He deserved the esteem, and he engaged the affections,
      of the court, the army, and the people. The experienced merit of
      a reigning monarch is acknowledged by his subjects with
      reluctance, and frequently denied with partial and discontented
      murmurs; while, from the opening virtues of his successor, they
      fondly conceive the most unbounded hopes of private as well as
      public felicity. 10

      9 (return) [ Jerom. in Chron. The poverty of Lactantius may be
      applied either to the praise of the disinterested philosopher, or
      to the shame of the unfeeling patron. See Tillemont, MŽm.
      Ecclesiast. tom. vi. part 1. p. 345. Dupin, Bibliothque
      Ecclesiast. tom. i. p. 205. LardnerÕs Credibility of the Gospel
      History, part ii. vol. vii. p. 66.]

      10 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. x. c. 9. Eutropius (x.
      6) styles him Òegregium virum;Ó and Julian (Orat. i.) very
      plainly alludes to the exploits of Crispus in the civil war. See
      Spanheim, Comment. p. 92.]

      This dangerous popularity soon excited the attention of
      Constantine, who, both as a father and as a king, was impatient
      of an equal. Instead of attempting to secure the allegiance of
      his son by the generous ties of confidence and gratitude, he
      resolved to prevent the mischiefs which might be apprehended from
      dissatisfied ambition. Crispus soon had reason to complain, that
      while his infant brother Constantius was sent, with the title of
      C¾sar, to reign over his peculiar department of the Gallic
      provinces, 11 _he_, a prince of mature years, who had performed
      such recent and signal services, instead of being raised to the
      superior rank of Augustus, was confined almost a prisoner to his
      fatherÕs court; and exposed, without power or defence, to every
      calumny which the malice of his enemies could suggest. Under such
      painful circumstances, the royal youth might not always be able
      to compose his behavior, or suppress his discontent; and we may
      be assured, that he was encompassed by a train of indiscreet or
      perfidious followers, who assiduously studied to inflame, and who
      were perhaps instructed to betray, the unguarded warmth of his
      resentment. An edict of Constantine, published about this time,
      manifestly indicates his real or affected suspicions, that a
      secret conspiracy had been formed against his person and
      government. By all the allurements of honors and rewards, he
      invites informers of every degree to accuse without exception his
      magistrates or ministers, his friends or his most intimate
      favorites, protesting, with a solemn asseveration, that he
      himself will listen to the charge, that he himself will revenge
      his injuries; and concluding with a prayer, which discovers some
      apprehension of danger, that the providence of the Supreme Being
      may still continue to protect the safety of the emperor and of
      the empire. 12

      11 (return) [ Compare Idatius and the Paschal Chronicle, with
      Ammianus, (l, xiv. c. 5.) The _year_ in which Constantius was
      created C¾sar seems to be more accurately fixed by the two
      chronologists; but the historian who lived in his court could not
      be ignorant of the _day_ of the anniversary. For the appointment
      of the new C¾sar to the provinces of Gaul, see Julian, Orat. i.
      p. 12, Godefroy, Chronol. Legum, p. 26. and Blondel, de PrimautŽ
      de lÕEglise, p. 1183.]

      12 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. iv. Godefroy suspected the
      secret motives of this law. Comment. tom. iii. p. 9.]

      The informers, who complied with so liberal an invitation, were
      sufficiently versed in the arts of courts to select the friends
      and adherents of Crispus as the guilty persons; nor is there any
      reason to distrust the veracity of the emperor, who had promised
      an ample measure of revenge and punishment. The policy of
      Constantine maintained, however, the same appearances of regard
      and confidence towards a son, whom he began to consider as his
      most irreconcilable enemy. Medals were struck with the customary
      vows for the long and auspicious reign of the young C¾sar; 13 and
      as the people, who were not admitted into the secrets of the
      palace, still loved his virtues, and respected his dignity, a
      poet who solicits his recall from exile, adores with equal
      devotion the majesty of the father and that of the son. 14 The
      time was now arrived for celebrating the august ceremony of the
      twentieth year of the reign of Constantine; and the emperor, for
      that purpose, removed his court from Nicomedia to Rome, where the
      most splendid preparations had been made for his reception. Every
      eye, and every tongue, affected to express their sense of the
      general happiness, and the veil of ceremony and dissimulation was
      drawn for a while over the darkest designs of revenge and murder.
      15 In the midst of the festival, the unfortunate Crispus was
      apprehended by order of the emperor, who laid aside the
      tenderness of a father, without assuming the equity of a judge.
      The examination was short and private; 16 and as it was thought
      decent to conceal the fate of the young prince from the eyes of
      the Roman people, he was sent under a strong guard to Pola, in
      Istria, where, soon afterwards, he was put to death, either by
      the hand of the executioner, or by the more gentle operations of
      poison. 17 The C¾sar Licinius, a youth of amiable manners, was
      involved in the ruin of Crispus: 18 and the stern jealousy of
      Constantine was unmoved by the prayers and tears of his favorite
      sister, pleading for the life of a son, whose rank was his only
      crime, and whose loss she did not long survive. The story of
      these unhappy princes, the nature and evidence of their guilt,
      the forms of their trial, and the circumstances of their death,
      were buried in mysterious obscurity; and the courtly bishop, who
      has celebrated in an elaborate work the virtues and piety of his
      hero, observes a prudent silence on the subject of these tragic
      events. 19 Such haughty contempt for the opinion of mankind,
      whilst it imprints an indelible stain on the memory of
      Constantine, must remind us of the very different behavior of one
      of the greatest monarchs of the present age. The Czar Peter, in
      the full possession of despotic power, submitted to the judgment
      of Russia, of Europe, and of posterity, the reasons which had
      compelled him to subscribe the condemnation of a criminal, or at
      least of a degenerate son. 20

      13 (return) [ Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 28. Tillemont, tom. iv. p.
      610.]

      14 (return) [ His name was Porphyrius Optatianus. The date of his
      panegyric, written, according to the taste of the age, in vile
      acrostics, is settled by Scaliger ad Euseb. p. 250, Tillemont,
      tom. iv. p. 607, and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin, l. iv. c. 1.]

      15 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 103. Godefroy, Chronol. Legum, p.
      28.]

      16 (return) [ The elder Victor, who wrote under the next reign,
      speaks with becoming caution. ÒNatu grandior incertum qua causa,
      patris judicio occidisset.Ó If we consult the succeeding writers,
      Eutropius, the younger Victor, Orosius, Jerom, Zosimus,
      Philostorgius, and Gregory of Tours, their knowledge will appear
      gradually to increase, as their means of information must have
      diminishedÑa circumstance which frequently occurs in historical
      disquisition.]

      17 (return) [ Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 11) uses the general
      expression of peremptum Codinus (p. 34) beheads the young prince;
      but Sidonius Apollinaris (Epistol. v. 8,) for the sake perhaps of
      an antithesis to FaustaÕs _warm_ bath, chooses to administer a
      draught of _cold_ poison.]

      18 (return) [ Sororis filium, commod¾ indolis juvenem. Eutropius,
      x. 6 May I not be permitted to conjecture that Crispus had
      married Helena the daughter of the emperor Licinius, and that on
      the happy delivery of the princess, in the year 322, a general
      pardon was granted by Constantine? See Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p.
      47, and the law (l. ix. tit. xxxvii.) of the Theodosian code,
      which has so much embarrassed the interpreters. Godefroy, tom.
      iii. p. 267 * Note: This conjecture is very doubtful. The
      obscurity of the law quoted from the Theodosian code scarcely
      allows any inference, and there is extant but one meda which can
      be attributed to a Helena, wife of Crispus.]

      19 (return) [ See the life of Constantine, particularly l. ii. c.
      19, 20. Two hundred and fifty years afterwards Evagrius (l. iii.
      c. 41) deduced from the silence of Eusebius a vain argument
      against the reality of the fact.]

      20 (return) [ Histoire de Pierre le Grand, par Voltaire, part ii.
      c. 10.]

      The innocence of Crispus was so universally acknowledged, that
      the modern Greeks, who adore the memory of their founder, are
      reduced to palliate the guilt of a parricide, which the common
      feelings of human nature forbade them to justify. They pretend,
      that as soon as the afflicted father discovered the falsehood of
      the accusation by which his credulity had been so fatally misled,
      he published to the world his repentance and remorse; that he
      mourned forty days, during which he abstained from the use of the
      bath, and all the ordinary comforts of life; and that, for the
      lasting instruction of posterity, he erected a golden statue of
      Crispus, with this memorable inscription: To my son, whom I
      unjustly condemned. 21 A tale so moral and so interesting would
      deserve to be supported by less exceptionable authority; but if
      we consult the more ancient and authentic writers, they will
      inform us, that the repentance of Constantine was manifested only
      in acts of blood and revenge; and that he atoned for the murder
      of an innocent son, by the execution, perhaps, of a guilty wife.
      They ascribe the misfortunes of Crispus to the arts of his
      step-mother Fausta, whose implacable hatred, or whose
      disappointed love, renewed in the palace of Constantine the
      ancient tragedy of Hippolitus and of Ph¾dra. 22 Like the daughter
      of Minos, the daughter of Maximian accused her son-in-law of an
      incestuous attempt on the chastity of his fatherÕs wife; and
      easily obtained, from the jealousy of the emperor, a sentence of
      death against a young prince, whom she considered with reason as
      the most formidable rival of her own children. But Helena, the
      aged mother of Constantine, lamented and revenged the untimely
      fate of her grandson Crispus; nor was it long before a real or
      pretended discovery was made, that Fausta herself entertained a
      criminal connection with a slave belonging to the Imperial
      stables. 23 Her condemnation and punishment were the instant
      consequences of the charge; and the adulteress was suffocated by
      the steam of a bath, which, for that purpose, had been heated to
      an extraordinary degree. 24 By some it will perhaps be thought,
      that the remembrance of a conjugal union of twenty years, and the
      honor of their common offspring, the destined heirs of the
      throne, might have softened the obdurate heart of Constantine,
      and persuaded him to suffer his wife, however guilty she might
      appear, to expiate her offences in a solitary prison. But it
      seems a superfluous labor to weigh the propriety, unless we could
      ascertain the truth, of this singular event, which is attended
      with some circumstances of doubt and perplexity. Those who have
      attacked, and those who have defended, the character of
      Constantine, have alike disregarded two very remarkable passages
      of two orations pronounced under the succeeding reign. The former
      celebrates the virtues, the beauty, and the fortune of the
      empress Fausta, the daughter, wife, sister, and mother of so many
      princes. 25 The latter asserts, in explicit terms, that the
      mother of the younger Constantine, who was slain three years
      after his fatherÕs death, survived to weep over the fate of her
      son. 26 Notwithstanding the positive testimony of several writers
      of the Pagan as well as of the Christian religion, there may
      still remain some reason to believe, or at least to suspect, that
      Fausta escaped the blind and suspicious cruelty of her husband.
      2611 The deaths of a son and a nephew, with the execution of a
      great number of respectable, and perhaps innocent friends, 27 who
      were involved in their fall, may be sufficient, however, to
      justify the discontent of the Roman people, and to explain the
      satirical verses affixed to the palace gate, comparing the
      splendid and bloody reigns of Constantine and Nero. 28

      21 (return) [ In order to prove that the statue was erected by
      Constantine, and afterwards concealed by the malice of the
      Arians, Codinus very readily creates (p. 34) two witnesses,
      Hippolitus, and the younger Herodotus, to whose imaginary
      histories he appeals with unblushing confidence.]

      22 (return) [ Zosimus (l. ii. p. 103) may be considered as our
      original. The ingenuity of the moderns, assisted by a few hints
      from the ancients, has illustrated and improved his obscure and
      imperfect narrative.]

      23 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 4. Zosimus (l. ii. p. 104,
      116) imputes to Constantine the death of two wives, of the
      innocent Fausta, and of an adulteress, who was the mother of his
      three successors. According to Jerom, three or four years elapsed
      between the death of Crispus and that of Fausta. The elder Victor
      is prudently silent.]

      24 (return) [ If Fausta was put to death, it is reasonable to
      believe that the private apartments of the palace were the scene
      of her execution. The orator Chrysostom indulges his fancy by
      exposing the naked desert mountain to be devoured by wild
      beasts.]

      25 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. He seems to call her the mother of
      Crispus. She might assume that title by adoption. At least, she
      was not considered as his mortal enemy. Julian compares the
      fortune of Fausta with that of Parysatis, the Persian queen. A
      Roman would have more naturally recollected the second Agrippina:
      Et moi, qui sur le trone ai suivi mes anctres: Moi, fille,
      femme,sÏur, et mere de vos maitres.]

      26 (return) [ Monod. in Constantin. Jun. c. 4, ad Calcem Eutrop.
      edit. Havercamp. The orator styles her the most divine and pious
      of queens.]

      2611 (return) [ Manso (Leben Constantins, p. 65) treats this
      inference o: Gibbon, and the authorities to which he appeals,
      with too much contempt, considering the general scantiness of
      proof on this curious question.ÑM.]

      27 (return) [ Interfecit numerosos amicos. Eutrop. xx. 6.]

      28 (return) [ Saturni aurea s¾cula quis requirat? Sunt h¾c
      gemmea, sed Neroniana. Sidon. Apollinar. v. 8. ÑÑIt is somewhat
      singular that these satirical lines should be attributed, not to
      an obscure libeller, or a disappointed patriot, but to Ablavius,
      prime minister and favorite of the emperor. We may now perceive
      that the imprecations of the Roman people were dictated by
      humanity, as well as by superstition. Zosim. l. ii. p. 105.]




      Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.ÑPart II.


      By the death of Crispus, the inheritance of the empire seemed to
      devolve on the three sons of Fausta, who have been already
      mentioned under the names of Constantine, of Constantius, and of
      Constans. These young princes were successively invested with the
      title of C¾sar; and the dates of their promotion may be referred
      to the tenth, the twentieth, and the thirtieth years of the reign
      of their father. 29 This conduct, though it tended to multiply
      the future masters of the Roman world, might be excused by the
      partiality of paternal affection; but it is not so easy to
      understand the motives of the emperor, when he endangered the
      safety both of his family and of his people, by the unnecessary
      elevation of his two nephews, Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. The
      former was raised, by the title of C¾sar, to an equality with his
      cousins. In favor of the latter, Constantine invented the new and
      singular appellation of _Nobilissimus;_ 30 to which he annexed
      the flattering distinction of a robe of purple and gold. But of
      the whole series of Roman princes in any age of the empire,
      Hannibalianus alone was distinguished by the title of King; a
      name which the subjects of Tiberius would have detested, as the
      profane and cruel insult of capricious tyranny. The use of such a
      title, even as it appears under the reign of Constantine, is a
      strange and unconnected fact, which can scarcely be admitted on
      the joint authority of Imperial medals and contemporary writers.
      31 3111

      29 (return) [ Euseb. Orat. in Constantin. c. 3. These dates are
      sufficiently correct to justify the orator.]

      30 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 117. Under the predecessors of
      Constantine, _Nobilissimus_ was a vague epithet, rather than a
      legal and determined title.]

      31 (return) [ Adstruunt nummi veteres ac singulares. Spanheim de
      Usu Numismat. Dissertat. xii. vol. ii. p. 357. Ammianus speaks of
      this Roman king (l. xiv. c. l, and Valesius ad loc.) The Valesian
      fragment styles him King of kings; and the Paschal Chronicle
      acquires the weight of Latin evidence.]

      3111 (return) [ Hannibalianus is always designated in these
      authors by the title of king. There still exist medals struck to
      his honor, on which the same title is found, Fl. Hannibaliano
      Regi. See Eckhel, Doct. Num. t. viii. 204. Armeniam nationesque
      circum socias habebat, says Aur. Victor, p. 225. The writer means
      the Lesser Armenia. Though it is not possible to question a fact
      supported by such respectable authorities, Gibbon considers it
      inexplicable and incredible. It is a strange abuse of the
      privilege of doubting, to refuse all belief in a fact of such
      little importance in itself, and attested thus formally by
      contemporary authors and public monuments. St. Martin note to Le
      Beau i. 341.ÑM.]

      The whole empire was deeply interested in the education of these
      five youths, the acknowledged successors of Constantine. The
      exercise of the body prepared them for the fatigues of war and
      the duties of active life. Those who occasionally mention the
      education or talents of Constantius, allow that he excelled in
      the gymnastic arts of leaping and running that he was a dexterous
      archer, a skilful horseman, and a master of all the different
      weapons used in the service either of the cavalry or of the
      infantry. 32 The same assiduous cultivation was bestowed, though
      not perhaps with equal success, to improve the minds of the sons
      and nephews of Constantine. 33 The most celebrated professors of
      the Christian faith, of the Grecian philosophy, and of the Roman
      jurisprudence, were invited by the liberality of the emperor, who
      reserved for himself the important task of instructing the royal
      youths in the science of government, and the knowledge of
      mankind. But the genius of Constantine himself had been formed by
      adversity and experience. In the free intercourse of private
      life, and amidst the dangers of the court of Galerius, he had
      learned to command his own passions, to encounter those of his
      equals, and to depend for his present safety and future greatness
      on the prudence and firmness of his personal conduct. His
      destined successors had the misfortune of being born and educated
      in the imperial purple. Incessantly surrounded with a train of
      flatterers, they passed their youth in the enjoyment of luxury,
      and the expectation of a throne; nor would the dignity of their
      rank permit them to descend from that elevated station from
      whence the various characters of human nature appear to wear a
      smooth and uniform aspect. The indulgence of Constantine admitted
      them, at a very tender age, to share the administration of the
      empire; and they studied the art of reigning, at the expense of
      the people intrusted to their care. The younger Constantine was
      appointed to hold his court in Gaul; and his brother Constantius
      exchanged that department, the ancient patrimony of their father,
      for the more opulent, but less martial, countries of the East.
      Italy, the Western Illyricum, and Africa, were accustomed to
      revere Constans, the third of his sons, as the representative of
      the great Constantine. He fixed Dalmatius on the Gothic frontier,
      to which he annexed the government of Thrace, Macedonia, and
      Greece. The city of C¾sarea was chosen for the residence of
      Hannibalianus; and the provinces of Pontus, Cappadocia, and the
      Lesser Armenia, were destined to form the extent of his new
      kingdom. For each of these princes a suitable establishment was
      provided. A just proportion of guards, of legions, and of
      auxiliaries, was allotted for their respective dignity and
      defence. The ministers and generals, who were placed about their
      persons, were such as Constantine could trust to assist, and even
      to control, these youthful sovereigns in the exercise of their
      delegated power. As they advanced in years and experience, the
      limits of their authority were insensibly enlarged: but the
      emperor always reserved for himself the title of Augustus; and
      while he showed the _C¾sars_ to the armies and provinces, he
      maintained every part of the empire in equal obedience to its
      supreme head. 34 The tranquillity of the last fourteen years of
      his reign was scarcely interrupted by the contemptible
      insurrection of a camel-driver in the Island of Cyprus, 35 or by
      the active part which the policy of Constantine engaged him to
      assume in the wars of the Goths and Sarmatians.

      32 (return) [ His dexterity in martial exercises is celebrated by
      Julian, (Orat. i. p. 11, Orat. ii. p. 53,) and allowed by
      Ammianus, (l. xxi. c. 16.)]

      33 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 51. Julian,
      Orat. i. p. 11-16, with SpanheimÕs elaborate Commentary.
      Libanius, Orat. iii. p. 109. Constantius studied with laudable
      diligence; but the dulness of his fancy prevented him from
      succeeding in the art of poetry, or even of rhetoric.]

      34 (return) [ Eusebius, (l. iv. c. 51, 52,) with a design of
      exalting the authority and glory of Constantine, affirms, that he
      divided the Roman empire as a private citizen might have divided
      his patrimony. His distribution of the provinces may be collected
      from Eutropius, the two Victors and the Valesian fragment.]

      35 (return) [ Calocerus, the obscure leader of this rebellion, or
      rather tumult, was apprehended and burnt alive in the
      market-place of Tarsus, by the vigilance of Dalmatius. See the
      elder Victor, the Chronicle of Jerom, and the doubtful traditions
      of Theophanes and Cedrenus.]

      Among the different branches of the human race, the Sarmatians
      form a very remarkable shade; as they seem to unite the manners
      of the Asiatic barbarians with the figure and complexion of the
      ancient inhabitants of Europe. According to the various accidents
      of peace and war, of alliance or conquest, the Sarmatians were
      sometimes confined to the banks of the Tanais; and they sometimes
      spread themselves over the immense plains which lie between the
      Vistula and the Volga. 36 The care of their numerous flocks and
      herds, the pursuit of game, and the exercises of war, or rather
      of rapine, directed the vagrant motions of the Sarmatians. The
      movable camps or cities, the ordinary residence of their wives
      and children, consisted only of large wagons drawn by oxen, and
      covered in the form of tents. The military strength of the nation
      was composed of cavalry; and the custom of their warriors, to
      lead in their hand one or two spare horses, enabled them to
      advance and to retreat with a rapid diligence, which surprised
      the security, and eluded the pursuit, of a distant enemy. 37
      Their poverty of iron prompted their rude industry to invent a
      sort of cuirass, which was capable of resisting a sword or
      javelin, though it was formed only of horsesÕ hoofs, cut into
      thin and polished slices, carefully laid over each other in the
      manner of scales or feathers, and strongly sewed upon an under
      garment of coarse linen. 38 The offensive arms of the Sarmatians
      were short daggers, long lances, and a weighty bow with a quiver
      of arrows. They were reduced to the necessity of employing
      fish-bones for the points of their weapons; but the custom of
      dipping them in a venomous liquor, that poisoned the wounds which
      they inflicted, is alone sufficient to prove the most savage
      manners, since a people impressed with a sense of humanity would
      have abhorred so cruel a practice, and a nation skilled in the
      arts of war would have disdained so impotent a resource. 39
      Whenever these Barbarians issued from their deserts in quest of
      prey, their shaggy beards, uncombed locks, the furs with which
      they were covered from head to foot, and their fierce
      countenances, which seemed to express the innate cruelty of their
      minds, inspired the more civilized provincials of Rome with
      horror and dismay.

      36 (return) [ Cellarius has collected the opinions of the
      ancients concerning the European and Asiatic Sarmatia; and M.
      DÕAnville has applied them to modern geography with the skill and
      accuracy which always distinguish that excellent writer.]

      37 (return) [ Ammian. l. xvii. c. 12. The Sarmatian horses were
      castrated to prevent the mischievous accidents which might happen
      from the noisy and ungovernable passions of the males.]

      38 (return) [ Pausanius, l. i. p. 50,. edit. Kuhn. That
      inquisitive traveller had carefully examined a Sarmatian cuirass,
      which was preserved in the temple of ®sculapius at Athens.]

      39 (return) [ Aspicis et mitti sub adunco toxica ferro, Et telum
      causas mortis habere duas. Ovid, ex Ponto, l. iv. ep. 7, ver.
      7.ÑÑSee in the Recherches sur les Americains, tom. ii. p.
      236Ñ271, a very curious dissertation on poisoned darts. The venom
      was commonly extracted from the vegetable reign: but that
      employed by the Scythians appears to have been drawn from the
      viper, and a mixture of human blood.]

      The use of poisoned arms, which has been spread over both worlds,
      never preserved a savage tribe from the arms of a disciplined
      enemy. The tender Ovid, after a youth spent in the enjoyment of
      fame and luxury, was condemned to a hopeless exile on the frozen
      banks of the Danube, where he was exposed, almost without
      defence, to the fury of these monsters of the desert, with whose
      stern spirits he feared that his gentle shade might hereafter be
      confounded. In his pathetic, but sometimes unmanly lamentations,
      40 he describes in the most lively colors the dress and manners,
      the arms and inroads, of the Get¾ and Sarmatians, who were
      associated for the purposes of destruction; and from the accounts
      of history there is some reason to believe that these Sarmatians
      were the Jazyg¾, one of the most numerous and warlike tribes of
      the nation. The allurements of plenty engaged them to seek a
      permanent establishment on the frontiers of the empire. Soon
      after the reign of Augustus, they obliged the Dacians, who
      subsisted by fishing on the banks of the River Teyss or Tibiscus,
      to retire into the hilly country, and to abandon to the
      victorious Sarmatians the fertile plains of the Upper Hungary,
      which are bounded by the course of the Danube and the
      semicircular enclosure of the Carpathian Mountains. 41 In this
      advantageous position, they watched or suspended the moment of
      attack, as they were provoked by injuries or appeased by
      presents; they gradually acquired the skill of using more
      dangerous weapons, and although the Sarmatians did not illustrate
      their name by any memorable exploits, they occasionally assisted
      their eastern and western neighbors, the Goths and the Germans,
      with a formidable body of cavalry. They lived under the irregular
      aristocracy of their chieftains: 42 but after they had received
      into their bosom the fugitive Vandals, who yielded to the
      pressure of the Gothic power, they seem to have chosen a king
      from that nation, and from the illustrious race of the Astingi,
      who had formerly dwelt on the hores of the northern ocean. 43

      40 (return) [ The nine books of Poetical Epistles which Ovid
      composed during the seven first years of his melancholy exile,
      possess, beside the merit of elegance, a double value. They
      exhibit a picture of the human mind under very singular
      circumstances; and they contain many curious observations, which
      no Roman except Ovid, could have an opportunity of making. Every
      circumstance which tends to illustrate the history of the
      Barbarians, has been drawn together by the very accurate Count de
      Buat. Hist. Ancienne des Peuples de lÕEurope, tom. iv. c. xvi. p.
      286-317]

      41 (return) [ The Sarmatian Jazyg¾ were settled on the banks of
      Pathissus or Tibiscus, when Pliny, in the year 79, published his
      Natural History. See l. iv. c. 25. In the time of Strabo and
      Ovid, sixty or seventy years before, they appear to have
      inhabited beyond the Get¾, along the coast of the Euxine.]

      42 (return) [ Principes Sarmaturum Jazygum penes quos civitatis
      regimen plebem quoque et vim equitum, qua sola valent,
      offerebant. Tacit. Hist. iii. p. 5. This offer was made in the
      civil war between Vitellino and Vespasian.]

      43 (return) [ This hypothesis of a Vandal king reigning over
      Sarmatian subjects, seems necessary to reconcile the Goth
      Jornandes with the Greek and Latin historians of Constantine. It
      may be observed that Isidore, who lived in Spain under the
      dominion of the Goths, gives them for enemies, not the Vandals,
      but the Sarmatians. See his Chronicle in Grotius, p. 709. Note: I
      have already noticed the confusion which must necessarily arise
      in history, when names purely _geographical_, as this of
      Sarmatia, are taken for _historical_ names belonging to a single
      nation. We perceive it here; it has forced Gibbon to suppose,
      without any reason but the necessity of extricating himself from
      his perplexity, that the Sarmatians had taken a king from among
      the Vandals; a supposition entirely contrary to the usages of
      Barbarians Dacia, at this period, was occupied, not by
      Sarmatians, who have never formed a distinct race, but by
      Vandals, whom the ancients have often confounded under the
      general term Sarmatians. See GattererÕs Welt-Geschiehte p.
      464ÑG.]

      This motive of enmity must have inflamed the subjects of
      contention, which perpetually arise on the confines of warlike
      and independent nations. The Vandal princes were stimulated by
      fear and revenge; the Gothic kings aspired to extend their
      dominion from the Euxine to the frontiers of Germany; and the
      waters of the Maros, a small river which falls into the Teyss,
      were stained with the blood of the contending Barbarians. After
      some experience of the superior strength and numbers of their
      adversaries, the Sarmatians implored the protection of the Roman
      monarch, who beheld with pleasure the discord of the nations, but
      who was justly alarmed by the progress of the Gothic arms. As
      soon as Constantine had declared himself in favor of the weaker
      party, the haughty Araric, king of the Goths, instead of
      expecting the attack of the legions, boldly passed the Danube,
      and spread terror and devastation through the province of M¾sia.

      To oppose the inroad of this destroying host, the aged emperor
      took the field in person; but on this occasion either his conduct
      or his fortune betrayed the glory which he had acquired in so
      many foreign and domestic wars. He had the mortification of
      seeing his troops fly before an inconsiderable detachment of the
      Barbarians, who pursued them to the edge of their fortified camp,
      and obliged him to consult his safety by a precipitate and
      ignominious retreat. 4311 The event of a second and more
      successful action retrieved the honor of the Roman name; and the
      powers of art and discipline prevailed, after an obstinate
      contest, over the efforts of irregular valor. The broken army of
      the Goths abandoned the field of battle, the wasted province, and
      the passage of the Danube: and although the eldest of the sons of
      Constantine was permitted to supply the place of his father, the
      merit of the victory, which diffused universal joy, was ascribed
      to the auspicious counsels of the emperor himself.

      4311 (return) [ Gibbon states, that Constantine was defeated by
      the Goths in a first battle. No ancient author mentions such an
      event. It is, no doubt, a mistake in Gibbon. St Martin, note to
      Le Beau. i. 324.ÑM.]

      He contributed at least to improve this advantage, by his
      negotiations with the free and warlike people of Chersonesus, 44
      whose capital, situate on the western coast of the Tauric or
      Crim¾an peninsula, still retained some vestiges of a Grecian
      colony, and was governed by a perpetual magistrate, assisted by a
      council of senators, emphatically styled the Fathers of the City.

      The Chersonites were animated against the Goths, by the memory of
      the wars, which, in the preceding century, they had maintained
      with unequal forces against the invaders of their country. They
      were connected with the Romans by the mutual benefits of
      commerce; as they were supplied from the provinces of Asia with
      corn and manufactures, which they purchased with their only
      productions, salt, wax, and hides. Obedient to the requisition of
      Constantine, they prepared, under the conduct of their magistrate
      Diogenes, a considerable army, of which the principal strength
      consisted in cross-bows and military chariots. The speedy march
      and intrepid attack of the Chersonites, by diverting the
      attention of the Goths, assisted the operations of the Imperial
      generals. The Goths, vanquished on every side, were driven into
      the mountains, where, in the course of a severe campaign, above a
      hundred thousand were computed to have perished by cold and
      hunger. Peace was at length granted to their humble
      supplications; the eldest son of Araric was accepted as the most
      valuable hostage; and Constantine endeavored to convince their
      chiefs, by a liberal distribution of honors and rewards, how far
      the friendship of the Romans was preferable to their enmity. In
      the expressions of his gratitude towards the faithful
      Chersonites, the emperor was still more magnificent. The pride of
      the nation was gratified by the splendid and almost royal
      decorations bestowed on their magistrate and his successors. A
      perpetual exemption from all duties was stipulated for their
      vessels which traded to the ports of the Black Sea. A regular
      subsidy was promised, of iron, corn, oil, and of every supply
      which could be useful either in peace or war. But it was thought
      that the Sarmatians were sufficiently rewarded by their
      deliverance from impending ruin; and the emperor, perhaps with
      too strict an economy, deducted some part of the expenses of the
      war from the customary gratifications which were allowed to that
      turbulent nation.

      44 (return) [ I may stand in need of some apology for having
      used, without scruple, the authority of Constantine
      Porphyrogenitus, in all that relates to the wars and negotiations
      of the Chersonites. I am aware that he was a Greek of the tenth
      century, and that his accounts of ancient history are frequently
      confused and fabulous. But on this occasion his narrative is, for
      the most part, consistent and probable nor is there much
      difficulty in conceiving that an emperor might have access to
      some secret archives, which had escaped the diligence of meaner
      historians. For the situation and history of Chersone, see
      Peyssonel, des Peuples barbares qui ont habite les Bords du
      Danube, c. xvi. 84-90. ÑÑGibbon has confounded the inhabitants of
      the city of Cherson, the ancient Chersonesus, with the people of
      the Chersonesus Taurica. If he had read with more attention the
      chapter of Constantius Porphyrogenitus, from which this narrative
      is derived, he would have seen that the author clearly
      distinguishes the republic of Cherson from the rest of the Tauric
      Peninsula, then possessed by the kings of the Cimmerian
      Bosphorus, and that the city of Cherson alone furnished succors
      to the Romans. The English historian is also mistaken in saying
      that the Stephanephoros of the Chersonites was a perpetual
      magistrate; since it is easy to discover from the great number of
      Stephanephoroi mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, that
      they were annual magistrates, like almost all those which
      governed the Grecian republics. St. Martin, note to Le Beau i.
      326.ÑM.]

      Exasperated by this apparent neglect, the Sarmatians soon forgot,
      with the levity of barbarians, the services which they had so
      lately received, and the dangers which still threatened their
      safety. Their inroads on the territory of the empire provoked the
      indignation of Constantine to leave them to their fate; and he no
      longer opposed the ambition of Geberic, a renowned warrior, who
      had recently ascended the Gothic throne. Wisumar, the Vandal
      king, whilst alone, and unassisted, he defended his dominions
      with undaunted courage, was vanquished and slain in a decisive
      battle, which swept away the flower of the Sarmatian youth. 4411
      The remainder of the nation embraced the desperate expedient of
      arming their slaves, a hardy race of hunters and herdsmen, by
      whose tumultuary aid they revenged their defeat, and expelled the
      invader from their confines. But they soon discovered that they
      had exchanged a foreign for a domestic enemy, more dangerous and
      more implacable. Enraged by their former servitude, elated by
      their present glory, the slaves, under the name of Limigantes,
      claimed and usurped the possession of the country which they had
      saved. Their masters, unable to withstand the ungoverned fury of
      the populace, preferred the hardships of exile to the tyranny of
      their servants. Some of the fugitive Sarmatians solicited a less
      ignominious dependence, under the hostile standard of the Goths.
      A more numerous band retired beyond the Carpathian Mountains,
      among the Quadi, their German allies, and were easily admitted to
      share a superfluous waste of uncultivated land. But the far
      greater part of the distressed nation turned their eyes towards
      the fruitful provinces of Rome. Imploring the protection and
      forgiveness of the emperor, they solemnly promised, as subjects
      in peace, and as soldiers in war, the most inviolable fidelity to
      the empire which should graciously receive them into its bosom.
      According to the maxims adopted by Probus and his successors, the
      offers of this barbarian colony were eagerly accepted; and a
      competent portion of lands in the provinces of Pannonia, Thrace,
      Macedonia, and Italy, were immediately assigned for the
      habitation and subsistence of three hundred thousand Sarmatians.
      45 4511

      4411 (return) [ Gibbon supposes that this war took place because
      Constantine had deducted a part of the customary gratifications,
      granted by his predecessors to the Sarmatians. Nothing of this
      kind appears in the authors. We see, on the contrary, that after
      his victory, and to punish the Sarmatia is for the ravages they
      had committed, he withheld the sums which it had been the custom
      to bestow. St. Martin, note to Le Beau, i. 327.ÑM.]

      45 (return) [ The Gothic and Sarmatian wars are related in so
      broken and imperfect a manner, that I have been obliged to
      compare the following writers, who mutually supply, correct, and
      illustrate each other. Those who will take the same trouble, may
      acquire a right of criticizing my narrative. Ammianus, l. xvii.
      c. 12. Anonym. Valesian. p. 715. Eutropius, x. 7. Sextus Rufus de
      Provinciis, c. 26. Julian Orat. i. p. 9, and Spanheim, Comment.
      p. 94. Hieronym. in Chron. Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c.
      6. Socrates, l. i. c. 18. Sozomen, l. i. c. 8. Zosimus, l. ii. p.
      108. Jornandes de Reb. Geticis, c. 22. Isidorus in Chron. p. 709;
      in Hist. Gothorum Grotii. Constantin. Porphyrogenitus de
      Administrat. Imperii, c. 53, p. 208, edit. Meursii.]

      4511 (return) [ Compare, on this very obscure but remarkable war,
      Manso, Leben Coa xantius, p. 195ÑM.]

      By chastising the pride of the Goths, and by accepting the homage
      of a suppliant nation, Constantine asserted the majesty of the
      Roman empire; and the ambassadors of ®thiopia, Persia, and the
      most remote countries of India, congratulated the peace and
      prosperity of his government. 46 If he reckoned, among the favors
      of fortune, the death of his eldest son, of his nephew, and
      perhaps of his wife, he enjoyed an uninterrupted flow of private
      as well as public felicity, till the thirtieth year of his reign;
      a period which none of his predecessors, since Augustus, had been
      permitted to celebrate. Constantine survived that solemn festival
      about ten months; and at the mature age of sixty-four, after a
      short illness, he ended his memorable life at the palace of
      Aquyrion, in the suburbs of Nicomedia, whither he had retired for
      the benefit of the air, and with the hope of recruiting his
      exhausted strength by the use of the warm baths. The excessive
      demonstrations of grief, or at least of mourning, surpassed
      whatever had been practised on any former occasion.
      Notwithstanding the claims of the senate and people of ancient
      Rome, the corpse of the deceased emperor, according to his last
      request, was transported to the city, which was destined to
      preserve the name and memory of its founder. The body of
      Constantine adorned with the vain symbols of greatness, the
      purple and diadem, was deposited on a golden bed in one of the
      apartments of the palace, which for that purpose had been
      splendidly furnished and illuminated. The forms of the court were
      strictly maintained. Every day, at the appointed hours, the
      principal officers of the state, the army, and the household,
      approaching the person of their sovereign with bended knees and a
      composed countenance, offered their respectful homage as
      seriously as if he had been still alive. From motives of policy,
      this theatrical representation was for some time continued; nor
      could flattery neglect the opportunity of remarking that
      Constantine alone, by the peculiar indulgence of Heaven, had
      reigned after his death. 47

      46 (return) [ Eusebius (in Vit. Const. l. iv. c. 50) remarks
      three circumstances relative to these Indians. 1. They came from
      the shores of the eastern ocean; a description which might be
      applied to the coast of China or Coromandel. 2. They presented
      shining gems, and unknown animals. 3. They protested their kings
      had erected statues to represent the supreme majesty of
      Constantine.]

      47 (return) [ Funus relatum in urbem sui nominis, quod sane P. R.
      ¾gerrime tulit. Aurelius Victor. Constantine prepared for himself
      a stately tomb in the church of the Holy Apostles. Euseb. l. iv.
      c. 60. The best, and indeed almost the only account of the
      sickness, death, and funeral of Constantine, is contained in the
      fourth book of his Life by Eusebius.]

      But this reign could subsist only in empty pageantry; and it was
      soon discovered that the will of the most absolute monarch is
      seldom obeyed, when his subjects have no longer anything to hope
      from his favor, or to dread from his resentment. The same
      ministers and generals, who bowed with such referential awe
      before the inanimate corpse of their deceased sovereign, were
      engaged in secret consultations to exclude his two nephews,
      Dalmatius and Hannibalianus, from the share which he had assigned
      them in the succession of the empire. We are too imperfectly
      acquainted with the court of Constantine to form any judgment of
      the real motives which influenced the leaders of the conspiracy;
      unless we should suppose that they were actuated by a spirit of
      jealousy and revenge against the pr¾fect Ablavius, a proud
      favorite, who had long directed the counsels and abused the
      confidence of the late emperor. The arguments, by which they
      solicited the concurrence of the soldiers and people, are of a
      more obvious nature; and they might with decency, as well as
      truth, insist on the superior rank of the children of
      Constantine, the danger of multiplying the number of sovereigns,
      and the impending mischiefs which threatened the republic, from
      the discord of so many rival princes, who were not connected by
      the tender sympathy of fraternal affection. The intrigue was
      conducted with zeal and secrecy, till a loud and unanimous
      declaration was procured from the troops, that they would suffer
      none except the sons of their lamented monarch to reign over the
      Roman empire. 48 The younger Dalmatius, who was united with his
      collateral relations by the ties of friendship and interest, is
      allowed to have inherited a considerable share of the abilities
      of the great Constantine; but, on this occasion, he does not
      appear to have concerted any measure for supporting, by arms, the
      just claims which himself and his royal brother derived from the
      liberality of their uncle. Astonished and overwhelmed by the tide
      of popular fury, they seem to have remained, without the power of
      flight or of resistance, in the hands of their implacable
      enemies. Their fate was suspended till the arrival of
      Constantius, the second, and perhaps the most favored, of the
      sons of Constantine. 49

      48 (return) [ Eusebius (l. iv. c. 6) terminates his narrative by
      this loyal declaration of the troops, and avoids all the
      invidious circumstances of the subsequent massacre.]

      49 (return) [ The character of Dalmatius is advantageously,
      though concisely drawn by Eutropius. (x. 9.) Dalmatius C¾sar
      prosperrim‰ indole, neque patrou absimilis, _haud multo_ post
      oppressus est factione militari. As both Jerom and the
      Alexandrian Chronicle mention the third year of the C¾sar, which
      did not commence till the 18th or 24th of September, A. D. 337,
      it is certain that these military factions continued above four
      months.]




      Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.ÑPart III.


      The voice of the dying emperor had recommended the care of his
      funeral to the piety of Constantius; and that prince, by the
      vicinity of his eastern station, could easily prevent the
      diligence of his brothers, who resided in their distant
      government of Italy and Gaul. As soon as he had taken possession
      of the palace of Constantinople, his first care was to remove the
      apprehensions of his kinsmen, by a solemn oath which he pledged
      for their security. His next employment was to find some specious
      pretence which might release his conscience from the obligation
      of an imprudent promise. The arts of fraud were made subservient
      to the designs of cruelty; and a manifest forgery was attested by
      a person of the most sacred character. From the hands of the
      Bishop of Nicomedia, Constantius received a fatal scroll,
      affirmed to be the genuine testament of his father; in which the
      emperor expressed his suspicions that he had been poisoned by his
      brothers; and conjured his sons to revenge his death, and to
      consult their own safety, by the punishment of the guilty. 50
      Whatever reasons might have been alleged by these unfortunate
      princes to defend their life and honor against so incredible an
      accusation, they were silenced by the furious clamors of the
      soldiers, who declared themselves, at once, their enemies, their
      judges, and their executioners. The spirit, and even the forms of
      legal proceedings were repeatedly violated in a promiscuous
      massacre; which involved the two uncles of Constantius, seven of
      his cousins, of whom Dalmatius and Hannibalianus were the most
      illustrious, the Patrician Optatus, who had married a sister of
      the late emperor, and the Pr¾fect Ablavius, whose power and
      riches had inspired him with some hopes of obtaining the purple.
      If it were necessary to aggravate the horrors of this bloody
      scene, we might add, that Constantius himself had espoused the
      daughter of his uncle Julius, and that he had bestowed his sister
      in marriage on his cousin Hannibalianus. These alliances, which
      the policy of Constantine, regardless of the public prejudice, 51
      had formed between the several branches of the Imperial house,
      served only to convince mankind, that these princes were as cold
      to the endearments of conjugal affection, as they were insensible
      to the ties of consanguinity, and the moving entreaties of youth
      and innocence. Of so numerous a family, Gallus and Julian alone,
      the two youngest children of Julius Constantius, were saved from
      the hands of the assassins, till their rage, satiated with
      slaughter, had in some measure subsided. The emperor Constantius,
      who, in the absence of his brothers, was the most obnoxious to
      guilt and reproach, discovered, on some future occasions, a faint
      and transient remorse for those cruelties which the perfidious
      counsels of his ministers, and the irresistible violence of the
      troops, had extorted from his unexperienced youth. 52

      50 (return) [ I have related this singular anecdote on the
      authority of Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 16. But if such a pretext
      was ever used by Constantius and his adherents, it was laid aside
      with contempt, as soon as it served their immediate purpose.
      Athanasius (tom. i. p. 856) mention the oath which Constantius
      had taken for the security of his kinsmen. ÑÑThe authority of
      Philostorgius is so suspicious, as not to be sufficient to
      establish this fact, which Gibbon has inserted in his history as
      certain, while in the note he appears to doubt it.ÑG.]

      51 (return) [ Conjugia sobrinarum diu ignorata, tempore addito
      percrebuisse. Tacit. Annal. xii. 6, and Lipsius ad loc. The
      repeal of the ancient law, and the practice of five hundred
      years, were insufficient to eradicate the prejudices of the
      Romans, who still considered the marriages of cousins-german as a
      species of imperfect incest. (Augustin de Civitate Dei, xv. 6;)
      and Julian, whose mind was biased by superstition and resentment,
      stigmatizes these unnatural alliances between his own cousins
      with the opprobrious epithet (Orat. vii. p. 228.). The
      jurisprudence of the canons has since received and enforced this
      prohibition, without being able to introduce it either into the
      civil or the common law of Europe. See on the subject of these
      marriages, TaylorÕs Civil Law, p. 331. Brouer de Jure Connub. l.
      ii. c. 12. Hericourt des Loix EcclŽsiastiques, part iii. c. 5.
      Fleury, Institutions du Droit Canonique, tom. i. p. 331. Paris,
      1767, and Fra Paolo, Istoria del Concilio Trident, l. viii.]

      52 (return) [ Julian (ad S. P.. Q. Athen. p. 270) charges his
      cousin Constantius with the whole guilt of a massacre, from which
      he himself so narrowly escaped. His assertion is confirmed by
      Athanasius, who, for reasons of a very different nature, was not
      less an enemy of Constantius, (tom. i. p. 856.) Zosimus joins in
      the same accusation. But the three abbreviators, Eutropius and
      the Victors, use very qualifying expressions: Òsinente potius
      quam jubente;Ó Òincertum quo suasore;Ó Òvi militum.Ó]

      The massacre of the Flavian race was succeeded by a new division
      of the provinces; which was ratified in a personal interview of
      the three brothers. Constantine, the eldest of the C¾sars,
      obtained, with a certain pre‘minence of rank, the possession of
      the new capital, which bore his own name and that of his father.
      Thrace, and the countries of the East, were allotted for the
      patrimony of Constantius; and Constans was acknowledged as the
      lawful sovereign of Italy, Africa, and the Western Illyricum. The
      armies submitted to their hereditary right; and they
      condescended, after some delay, to accept from the Roman senate
      the title of _Augustus_. When they first assumed the reins of
      government, the eldest of these princes was twenty-one, the
      second twenty, and the third only seventeen, years of age. 53

      53 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 69. Zosimus,
      l. ii. p. 117. Idat. in Chron. See two notes of Tillemont, Hist.
      des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1086-1091. The reign of the eldest
      brother at Constantinople is noticed only in the Alexandrian
      Chronicle.]

      While the martial nations of Europe followed the standards of his
      brothers, Constantius, at the head of the effeminate troops of
      Asia, was left to sustain the weight of the Persian war. At the
      decease of Constantine, the throne of the East was filled by
      Sapor, son of Hormouz, or Hormisdas, and grandson of Narses, who,
      after the victory of Galerius, had humbly confessed the
      superiority of the Roman power. Although Sapor was in the
      thirtieth year of his long reign, he was still in the vigor of
      youth, as the date of his accession, by a very strange fatality,
      had preceded that of his birth. The wife of Hormouz remained
      pregnant at the time of her husbandÕs death; and the uncertainty
      of the sex, as well as of the event, excited the ambitious hopes
      of the princes of the house of Sassan. The apprehensions of civil
      war were at length removed, by the positive assurance of the
      Magi, that the widow of Hormouz had conceived, and would safely
      produce a son. Obedient to the voice of superstition, the
      Persians prepared, without delay, the ceremony of his coronation.

      A royal bed, on which the queen lay in state, was exhibited in
      the midst of the palace; the diadem was placed on the spot, which
      might be supposed to conceal the future heir of Artaxerxes, and
      the prostrate satraps adored the majesty of their invisible and
      insensible sovereign. 54 If any credit can be given to this
      marvellous tale, which seems, however, to be countenanced by the
      manners of the people, and by the extraordinary duration of his
      reign, we must admire not only the fortune, but the genius, of
      Sapor. In the soft, sequestered education of a Persian harem, the
      royal youth could discover the importance of exercising the vigor
      of his mind and body; and, by his personal merit, deserved a
      throne, on which he had been seated, while he was yet unconscious
      of the duties and temptations of absolute power. His minority was
      exposed to the almost inevitable calamities of domestic discord;
      his capital was surprised and plundered by Thair, a powerful king
      of Yemen, or Arabia; and the majesty of the royal family was
      degraded by the captivity of a princess, the sister of the
      deceased king. But as soon as Sapor attained the age of manhood,
      the presumptuous Thair, his nation, and his country, fell beneath
      the first effort of the young warrior; who used his victory with
      so judicious a mixture of rigor and clemency, that he obtained
      from the fears and gratitude of the Arabs the title of
      _Dhoulacnaf_, or protector of the nation. 55 5511

      54 (return) [ Agathias, who lived in the sixth century, is the
      author of this story, (l. iv. p. 135, edit. Louvre.) He derived
      his information from some extracts of the Persian Chronicles,
      obtained and translated by the interpreter Sergius, during his
      embassy at that country. The coronation of the mother of Sapor is
      likewise mentioned by Snikard, (Tarikh. p. 116,) and DÕHerbelot
      (Bibliothque Orientale, p. 703.) ÑÑThe author of the
      Zenut-ul-Tarikh states, that the lady herself affirmed her belief
      of this from the extraordinary liveliness of the infant, and its
      lying on the right side. Those who are sage on such subjects must
      determine what right she had to be positive from these symptoms.
      Malcolm, Hist. of Persia, i 83.ÑM.]

      55 (return) [ DÕHerbelot, Bibliothque Orientale, p. 764.]

      5511 (return) [ Gibbon, according to Sir J. Malcolm, has greatly
      mistaken the derivation of this name; it means Zoolaktaf, the
      Lord of the Shoulders, from his directing the shoulders of his
      captives to be pierced and then dislocated by a string passed
      through them. Eastern authors are agreed with respect to the
      origin of this title. Malcolm, i. 84. Gibbon took his derivation
      from DÕHerbelot, who gives both, the latter on the authority of
      the Leb. Tarikh.ÑM.]

      The ambition of the Persian, to whom his enemies ascribe the
      virtues of a soldier and a statesman, was animated by the desire
      of revenging the disgrace of his fathers, and of wresting from
      the hands of the Romans the five provinces beyond the Tigris. The
      military fame of Constantine, and the real or apparent strength
      of his government, suspended the attack; and while the hostile
      conduct of Sapor provoked the resentment, his artful negotiations
      amused the patience of the Imperial court. The death of
      Constantine was the signal of war, 56 and the actual condition of
      the Syrian and Armenian frontier seemed to encourage the Persians
      by the prospect of a rich spoil and an easy conquest. The example
      of the massacres of the palace diffused a spirit of
      licentiousness and sedition among the troops of the East, who
      were no longer restrained by their habits of obedience to a
      veteran commander. By the prudence of Constantius, who, from the
      interview with his brothers in Pannonia, immediately hastened to
      the banks of the Euphrates, the legions were gradually restored
      to a sense of duty and discipline; but the season of anarchy had
      permitted Sapor to form the siege of Nisibis, and to occupy
      several of the mo st important fortresses of Mesopotamia. 57 In
      Armenia, the renowned Tiridates had long enjoyed the peace and
      glory which he deserved by his valor and fidelity to the cause of
      Rome. 5711 The firm alliance which he maintained with Constantine
      was productive of spiritual as well as of temporal benefits; by
      the conversion of Tiridates, the character of a saint was applied
      to that of a hero, the Christian faith was preached and
      established from the Euphrates to the shores of the Caspian, and
      Armenia was attached to the empire by the double ties of policy
      and religion. But as many of the Armenian nobles still refused to
      abandon the plurality of their gods and of their wives, the
      public tranquillity was disturbed by a discontented faction,
      which insulted the feeble age of their sovereign, and impatiently
      expected the hour of his death. He died at length after a reign
      of fifty-six years, and the fortune of the Armenian monarchy
      expired with Tiridates. His lawful heir was driven into exile,
      the Christian priests were either murdered or expelled from their
      churches, the barbarous tribes of Albania were solicited to
      descend from their mountains; and two of the most powerful
      governors, usurping the ensigns or the powers of royalty,
      implored the assistance of Sapor, and opened the gates of their
      cities to the Persian garrisons. The Christian party, under the
      guidance of the Archbishop of Artaxata, the immediate successor
      of St. Gregory the Illuminator, had recourse to the piety of
      Constantius. After the troubles had continued about three years,
      Antiochus, one of the officers of the household, executed with
      success the Imperial commission of restoring Chosroes, 5712 the
      son of Tiridates, to the throne of his fathers, of distributing
      honors and rewards among the faithful servants of the house of
      Arsaces, and of proclaiming a general amnesty, which was accepted
      by the greater part of the rebellious satraps. But the Romans
      derived more honor than advantage from this revolution. Chosroes
      was a prince of a puny stature and a pusillanimous spirit.
      Unequal to the fatigues of war, averse to the society of mankind,
      he withdrew from his capital to a retired palace, which he built
      on the banks of the River Eleutherus, and in the centre of a
      shady grove; where he consumed his vacant hours in the rural
      sports of hunting and hawking. To secure this inglorious ease, he
      submitted to the conditions of peace which Sapor condescended to
      impose; the payment of an annual tribute, and the restitution of
      the fertile province of Atropatene, which the courage of
      Tiridates, and the victorious arms of Galerius, had annexed to
      the Armenian monarchy. 58 5811

      56 (return) [ Sextus Rufus, (c. 26,) who on this occasion is no
      contemptible authority, affirms, that the Persians sued in vain
      for peace, and that Constantine was preparing to march against
      them: yet the superior weight of the testimony of Eusebius
      obliges us to admit the preliminaries, if not the ratification,
      of the treaty. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p.
      420. ÑÑConstantine had endeavored to allay the fury of the
      prosecutions, which, at the instigation of the Magi and the Jews,
      Sapor had commenced against the Christians. Euseb Vit. Hist.
      Theod. i. 25. Sozom. ii. c. 8, 15.ÑM.]

      57 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 20.]

      5711 (return) [ Tiridates had sustained a war against Maximin.
      caused by the hatred of the latter against Christianity. Armenia
      was the first _nation_ which embraced Christianity. About the
      year 276 it was the religion of the king, the nobles, and the
      people of Armenia. From St. Martin, Supplement to Le Beau, v. i.
      p. 78.ÑÑCompare Preface to History of Vartan by Professor
      Neumann, p ix.ÑM.]

      5712 (return) [ Chosroes was restored probably by Licinius,
      between 314 and 319. There was an Antiochus who was pr¾fectus
      vigilum at Rome, as appears from the Theodosian Code, (l. iii. de
      inf. his qu¾ sub ty.,) in 326, and from a fragment of the same
      work published by M. Amedee Peyron, in 319. He may before this
      have been sent into Armenia. St. M. p. 407. [Is it not more
      probable that Antiochus was an officer in the service of the
      C¾sar who ruled in the East?ÑM.] Chosroes was succeeded in the
      year 322 by his son Diran. Diran was a weak prince, and in the
      sixteenth year of his reign. A. D. 337. was betrayed into the
      power of the Persians by the treachery of his chamberlain and the
      Persian governor of Atropatene or Aderbidjan. He was blinded: his
      wife and his son Arsaces shared his captivity, but the princes
      and nobles of Armenia claimed the protection of Rome; and this
      was the cause of ConstantineÕs declaration of war against the
      Persians.ÑThe king of Persia attempted to make himself master of
      Armenia; but the brave resistance of the people, the advance of
      Constantius, and a defeat which his army suffered at Oskha in
      Armenia, and the failure before Nisibis, forced Shahpour to
      submit to terms of peace. Varaz-Shahpour, the perfidious governor
      of Atropatene, was flayed alive; Diran and his son were released
      from captivity; Diran refused to ascend the throne, and retired
      to an obscure retreat: his son Arsaces was crowned king of
      Armenia. Arsaces pursued a vacillating policy between the
      influence of Rome and Persia, and the war recommenced in the year
      345. At least, that was the period of the expedition of
      Constantius to the East. See St. Martin, additions to Le Beau, i.
      442. The Persians have made an extraordinary romance out of the
      history of Shahpour, who went as a spy to Constantinople, was
      taken, harnessed like a horse, and carried to witness the
      devastation of his kingdom. Malcolm. 84ÑM.]

      58 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 20, 21. Moses of Chorene, l.
      ii. c. 89, l. iii. c. 1Ñ9, p. 226Ñ240. The perfect agreement
      between the vague hints of the contemporary orator, and the
      circumstantial narrative of the national historian, gives light
      to the former, and weight to the latter. For the credit of Moses,
      it may be likewise observed, that the name of Antiochus is found
      a few years before in a civil office of inferior dignity. See
      Godefroy, Cod. Theod. tom. vi. p. 350.]

      5811 (return) [ Gibbon has endeavored, in his History, to make
      use of the information furnished by Moses of Chorene, the only
      Armenian historian then translated into Latin. Gibbon has not
      perceived all the chronological difficulties which occur in the
      narrative of that writer. He has not thought of all the critical
      discussions which his text ought to undergo before it can be
      combined with the relations of the western writers. From want of
      this attention, Gibbon has made the facts which he has drawn from
      this source more erroneous than they are in the original. This
      judgment applies to all which the English historian has derived
      from the Armenian author. I have made the History of Moses a
      subject of particular attention; and it is with confidence that I
      offer the results, which I insert here, and which will appear in
      the course of my notes. In order to form a judgment of the
      difference which exists between me and Gibbon, I will content
      myself with remarking, that throughout he has committed an
      anachronism of thirty years, from whence it follows, that he
      assigns to the reign of Constantius many events which took place
      during that of Constantine. He could not, therefore, discern the
      true connection which exists between the Roman history and that
      of Armenia, or form a correct notion of the reasons which induced
      Constantine, at the close of his life, to make war upon the
      Persians, or of the motives which detained Constantius so long in
      the East; he does not even mention them. St. Martin, note on Le
      Beau, i. 406. I have inserted M. St. MartinÕs observations, but I
      must add, that the chronology which he proposes, is not generally
      received by Armenian scholars, not, I believe, by Professor
      Neumann.ÑM.]

      During the long period of the reign of Constantius, the provinces
      of the East were afflicted by the calamities of the Persian war.
      5813 The irregular incursions of the light troops alternately
      spread terror and devastation beyond the Tigris and beyond the
      Euphrates, from the gates of Ctesiphon to those of Antioch; and
      this active service was performed by the Arabs of the desert, who
      were divided in their interest and affections; some of their
      independent chiefs being enlisted in the party of Sapor, whilst
      others had engaged their doubtful fidelity to the emperor. 59 The
      more grave and important operations of the war were conducted
      with equal vigor; and the armies of Rome and Persia encountered
      each other in nine bloody fields, in two of which Constantius
      himself commanded in person. 60 The event of the day was most
      commonly adverse to the Romans, but in the battle of Singara,
      their imprudent valor had almost achieved a signal and decisive
      victory. The stationary troops of Singara 6011 retired on the
      approach of Sapor, who passed the Tigris over three bridges, and
      occupied near the village of Hilleh an advantageous camp, which,
      by the labor of his numerous pioneers, he surrounded in one day
      with a deep ditch and a lofty rampart. His formidable host, when
      it was drawn out in order of battle, covered the banks of the
      river, the adjacent heights, and the whole extent of a plain of
      above twelve miles, which separated the two armies. Both were
      alike impatient to engage; but the Barbarians, after a slight
      resistance, fled in disorder; unable to resist, or desirous to
      weary, the strength of the heavy legions, who, fainting with heat
      and thirst, pursued them across the plain, and cut in pieces a
      line of cavalry, clothed in complete armor, which had been posted
      before the gates of the camp to protect their retreat.
      Constantius, who was hurried along in the pursuit, attempted,
      without effect, to restrain the ardor of his troops, by
      representing to them the dangers of the approaching night, and
      the certainty of completing their success with the return of day.
      As they depended much more on their own valor than on the
      experience or the abilities of their chief, they silenced by
      their clamors his timid remonstrances; and rushing with fury to
      the charge, filled up the ditch, broke down the rampart, and
      dispersed themselves through the tents to recruit their exhausted
      strength, and to enjoy the rich harvest of their labors. But the
      prudent Sapor had watched the moment of victory. His army, of
      which the greater part, securely posted on the heights, had been
      spectators of the action, advanced in silence, and under the
      shadow of the night; and his Persian archers, guided by the
      illumination of the camp, poured a shower of arrows on a disarmed
      and licentious crowd. The sincerity of history 61 declares, that
      the Romans were vanquished with a dreadful slaughter, and that
      the flying remnant of the legions was exposed to the most
      intolerable hardships. Even the tenderness of panegyric,
      confessing that the glory of the emperor was sullied by the
      disobedience of his soldiers, chooses to draw a veil over the
      circumstances of this melancholy retreat. Yet one of those venal
      orators, so jealous of the fame of Constantius, relates, with
      amazing coolness, an act of such incredible cruelty, as, in the
      judgment of posterity, must imprint a far deeper stain on the
      honor of the Imperial name. The son of Sapor, the heir of his
      crown, had been made a captive in the Persian camp. The unhappy
      youth, who might have excited the compassion of the most savage
      enemy, was scourged, tortured, and publicly executed by the
      inhuman Romans. 62

      5813 (return) [ It was during this war that a bold flatterer
      (whose name is unknown) published the Itineraries of Alexander
      and Trajan, in order to direct the _victorious_ Constantius in
      the footsteps of those great conquerors of the East. The former
      of these has been published for the first time by M. Angelo Mai
      (Milan, 1817, reprinted at Frankfort, 1818.) It adds so little to
      our knowledge of AlexanderÕs campaigns, that it only excites our
      regret that it is not the Itinerary of Trajan, of whose eastern
      victories we have no distinct recordÑM]

      59 (return) [ Ammianus (xiv. 4) gives a lively description of the
      wandering and predatory life of the Saracens, who stretched from
      the confines of Assyria to the cataracts of the Nile. It appears
      from the adventures of Malchus, which Jerom has related in so
      entertaining a manner, that the high road between Ber¾a and
      Edessa was infested by these robbers. See Hieronym. tom. i. p.
      256.]

      60 (return) [ We shall take from Eutropius the general idea of
      the war. A Persis enim multa et gravia perpessus, s¾pe captis,
      oppidis, obsessis urbibus, c¾sis exercitibus, nullumque ei contra
      Saporem prosperum pr¾lium fuit, nisi quod apud Singaram, &c. This
      honest account is confirmed by the hints of Ammianus, Rufus, and
      Jerom. The two first orations of Julian, and the third oration of
      Libanius, exhibit a more flattering picture; but the recantation
      of both those orators, after the death of Constantius, while it
      restores us to the possession of the truth, degrades their own
      character, and that of the emperor. The Commentary of Spanheim on
      the first oration of Julian is profusely learned. See likewise
      the judicious observations of Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs,
      tom. iv. p. 656.]

      6011 (return) [ Now Sinjar, or the River Claboras.ÑM.]

      61 (return) [ Acerrim‰ nocturn‰ concertatione pugnatum est,
      nostrorum copiis ngenti strage confossis. Ammian. xviii. 5. See
      likewise Eutropius, x. 10, and S. Rufus, c. 27. ÑÑThe Persian
      historians, or romancers, do not mention the battle of Singara,
      but make the captive Shahpour escape, defeat, and take prisoner,
      the Roman emperor. The Roman captives were forced to repair all
      the ravages they had committed, even to replanting the smallest
      trees. Malcolm. i. 82.ÑM.]

      62 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. iii. p. 133, with Julian. Orat. i.
      p. 24, and SpanneismÕs Commentary, p. 179.]

      Whatever advantages might attend the arms of Sapor in the field,
      though nine repeated victories diffused among the nations the
      fame of his valor and conduct, he could not hope to succeed in
      the execution of his designs, while the fortified towns of
      Mesopotamia, and, above all, the strong and ancient city of
      Nisibis, remained in the possession of the Romans. In the space
      of twelve years, Nisibis, which, since the time of Lucullus, had
      been deservedly esteemed the bulwark of the East, sustained three
      memorable sieges against the power of Sapor; and the disappointed
      monarch, after urging his attacks above sixty, eighty, and a
      hundred days, was thrice repulsed with loss and ignominy. 63 This
      large and populous city was situate about two daysÕ journey from
      the Tigris, in the midst of a pleasant and fertile plain at the
      foot of Mount Masius. A treble enclosure of brick walls was
      defended by a deep ditch; 64 and the intrepid resistance of Count
      Lucilianus, and his garrison, was seconded by the desperate
      courage of the people. The citizens of Nisibis were animated by
      the exhortations of their bishop, 65 inured to arms by the
      presence of danger, and convinced of the intentions of Sapor to
      plant a Persian colony in their room, and to lead them away into
      distant and barbarous captivity. The event of the two former
      sieges elated their confidence, and exasperated the haughty
      spirit of the Great King, who advanced a third time towards
      Nisibis, at the head of the united forces of Persia and India.
      The ordinary machines, invented to batter or undermine the walls,
      were rendered ineffectual by the superior skill of the Romans;
      and many days had vainly elapsed, when Sapor embraced a
      resolution worthy of an eastern monarch, who believed that the
      elements themselves were subject to his power. At the stated
      season of the melting of the snows in Armenia, the River
      Mygdonius, which divides the plain and the city of Nisibis,
      forms, like the Nile, 66 an inundation over the adjacent country.
      By the labor of the Persians, the course of the river was stopped
      below the town, and the waters were confined on every side by
      solid mounds of earth. On this artificial lake, a fleet of armed
      vessels filled with soldiers, and with engines which discharged
      stones of five hundred pounds weight, advanced in order of
      battle, and engaged, almost upon a level, the troops which
      defended the ramparts. 6611 The irresistible force of the waters
      was alternately fatal to the contending parties, till at length a
      portion of the walls, unable to sustain the accumulated pressure,
      gave way at once, and exposed an ample breach of one hundred and
      fifty feet. The Persians were instantly driven to the assault,
      and the fate of Nisibis depended on the event of the day. The
      heavy-armed cavalry, who led the van of a deep column, were
      embarrassed in the mud, and great numbers were drowned in the
      unseen holes which had been filled by the rushing waters. The
      elephants, made furious by their wounds, increased the disorder,
      and trampled down thousands of the Persian archers. The Great
      King, who, from an exalted throne, beheld the misfortunes of his
      arms, sounded, with reluctant indignation, the signal of the
      retreat, and suspended for some hours the prosecution of the
      attack. But the vigilant citizens improved the opportunity of the
      night; and the return of day discovered a new wall of six feet in
      height, rising every moment to fill up the interval of the
      breach. Notwithstanding the disappointment of his hopes, and the
      loss of more than twenty thousand men, Sapor still pressed the
      reduction of Nisibis, with an obstinate firmness, which could
      have yielded only to the necessity of defending the eastern
      provinces of Persia against a formidable invasion of the
      Massaget¾. 67 Alarmed by this intelligence, he hastily
      relinquished the siege, and marched with rapid diligence from the
      banks of the Tigris to those of the Oxus. The danger and
      difficulties of the Scythian war engaged him soon afterwards to
      conclude, or at least to observe, a truce with the Roman emperor,
      which was equally grateful to both princes; as Constantius
      himself, after the death of his two brothers, was involved, by
      the revolutions of the West, in a civil contest, which required
      and seemed to exceed the most vigorous exertion of his undivided
      strength.

      63 (return) [ See Julian. Orat. i. p. 27, Orat. ii. p. 62, &c.,
      with the Commentary of Spanheim, (p. 188-202,) who illustrates
      the circumstances, and ascertains the time of the three sieges of
      Nisibis. Their dates are likewise examined by Tillemont, (Hist.
      des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 668, 671, 674.) Something is added
      from Zosimus, l. iii. p. 151, and the Alexandrine Chronicle, p.
      290.]

      64 (return) [ Sallust. Fragment. lxxxiv. edit. Brosses, and
      Plutarch in Lucull. tom. iii. p. 184. Nisibis is now reduced to
      one hundred and fifty houses: the marshy lands produce rice, and
      the fertile meadows, as far as Mosul and the Tigris, are covered
      with the ruins of towns and allages. See Niebuhr, Voyages, tom.
      ii. p. 300-309.]

      65 (return) [ The miracles which Theodoret (l. ii. c. 30)
      ascribes to St. James, Bishop of Edessa, were at least performed
      in a worthy cause, the defence of his couutry. He appeared on the
      walls under the figure of the Roman emperor, and sent an army of
      gnats to sting the trunks of the elephants, and to discomfit the
      host of the new Sennacherib.]

      66 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 27. Though Niebuhr (tom. ii. p.
      307) allows a very considerable swell to the Mygdonius, over
      which he saw a bridge of _twelve_ arches: it is difficult,
      however, to understand this parallel of a trifling rivulet with a
      mighty river. There are many circumstances obscure, and almost
      unintelligible, in the description of these stupendous
      water-works.]

      6611 (return) [ Macdonald Kinnier observes on these floating
      batteries, ÒAs the elevation of place is considerably above the
      level of the country in its immediate vicinity, and the Mygdonius
      is a very insignificant stream, it is difficult to imagine how
      this work could have been accomplished, even with the wonderful
      resources which the king must have had at his disposalÓ
      Geographical Memoir. p. 262.ÑM.]

      67 (return) [ We are obliged to Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 11)
      for this invasion of the Massaget¾, which is perfectly consistent
      with the general series of events to which we are darkly led by
      the broken history of Ammianus.]

      After the partition of the empire, three years had scarcely
      elapsed before the sons of Constantine seemed impatient to
      convince mankind that they were incapable of contenting
      themselves with the dominions which they were unqualified to
      govern. The eldest of those princes soon complained, that he was
      defrauded of his just proportion of the spoils of their murdered
      kinsmen; and though he might yield to the superior guilt and
      merit of Constantius, he exacted from Constans the cession of the
      African provinces, as an equivalent for the rich countries of
      Macedonia and Greece, which his brother had acquired by the death
      of Dalmatius. The want of sincerity, which Constantine
      experienced in a tedious and fruitless negotiation, exasperated
      the fierceness of his temper; and he eagerly listened to those
      favorites, who suggested to him that his honor, as well as his
      interest, was concerned in the prosecution of the quarrel. At the
      head of a tumultuary band, suited for rapine rather than for
      conquest, he suddenly broke onto the dominions of Constans, by
      the way of the Julian Alps, and the country round Aquileia felt
      the first effects of his resentment. The measures of Constans,
      who then resided in Dacia, were directed with more prudence and
      ability. On the news of his brotherÕs invasion, he detached a
      select and disciplined body of his Illyrian troops, proposing to
      follow them in person, with the remainder of his forces. But the
      conduct of his lieutenants soon terminated the unnatural contest.

      By the artful appearances of flight, Constantine was betrayed
      into an ambuscade, which had been concealed in a wood, where the
      rash youth, with a few attendants, was surprised, surrounded, and
      slain. His body, after it had been found in the obscure stream of
      the Alsa, obtained the honors of an Imperial sepulchre; but his
      provinces transferred their allegiance to the conqueror, who,
      refusing to admit his elder brother Constantius to any share in
      these new acquisitions, maintained the undisputed possession of
      more than two thirds of the Roman empire. 68

      68 (return) [ The causes and the events of this civil war are
      related with much perplexity and contradiction. I have chiefly
      followed Zonaras and the younger Victor. The monody (ad Calcem
      Eutrop. edit. Havercamp.) pronounced on the death of Constantine,
      might have been very instructive; but prudence and false taste
      engaged the orator to involve himself in vague declamation.]




      Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.ÑPart IV.


      The fate of Constans himself was delayed about ten years longer,
      and the revenge of his brotherÕs death was reserved for the more
      ignoble hand of a domestic traitor. The pernicious tendency of
      the system introduced by Constantine was displayed in the feeble
      administration of his sons; who, by their vices and weakness,
      soon lost the esteem and affections of their people. The pride
      assumed by Constans, from the unmerited success of his arms, was
      rendered more contemptible by his want of abilities and
      application. His fond partiality towards some German captives,
      distinguished only by the charms of youth, was an object of
      scandal to the people; 69 and Magnentius, an ambitious soldier,
      who was himself of Barbarian extraction, was encouraged by the
      public discontent to assert the honor of the Roman name. 70 The
      chosen bands of Jovians and Herculians, who acknowledged
      Magnentius as their leader, maintained the most respectable and
      important station in the Imperial camp. The friendship of
      Marcellinus, count of the sacred largesses, supplied with a
      liberal hand the means of seduction. The soldiers were convinced
      by the most specious arguments, that the republic summoned them
      to break the bonds of hereditary servitude; and, by the choice of
      an active and vigilant prince, to reward the same virtues which
      had raised the ancestors of the degenerate Constans from a
      private condition to the throne of the world. As soon as the
      conspiracy was ripe for execution, Marcellinus, under the
      pretence of celebrating his sonÕs birthday, gave a splendid
      entertainment to the _illustrious_ and _honorable_ persons of the
      court of Gaul, which then resided in the city of Autun. The
      intemperance of the feast was artfully protracted till a very
      late hour of the night; and the unsuspecting guests were tempted
      to indulge themselves in a dangerous and guilty freedom of
      conversation. On a sudden the doors were thrown open, and
      Magnentius, who had retired for a few moments, returned into the
      apartment, invested with the diadem and purple. The conspirators
      instantly saluted him with the titles of Augustus and Emperor.
      The surprise, the terror, the intoxication, the ambitious hopes,
      and the mutual ignorance of the rest of the assembly, prompted
      them to join their voices to the general acclamation. The guards
      hastened to take the oath of fidelity; the gates of the town were
      shut; and before the dawn of day, Magnentius became master of the
      troops and treasure of the palace and city of Autun. By his
      secrecy and diligence he entertained some hopes of surprising the
      person of Constans, who was pursuing in the adjacent forest his
      favorite amusement of hunting, or perhaps some pleasures of a
      more private and criminal nature. The rapid progress of fame
      allowed him, however, an instant for flight, though the desertion
      of his soldiers and subjects deprived him of the power of
      resistance. Before he could reach a seaport in Spain, where he
      intended to embark, he was overtaken near Helena, 71 at the foot
      of the Pyrenees, by a party of light cavalry, whose chief,
      regardless of the sanctity of a temple, executed his commission
      by the murder of the son of Constantine. 72

      69 (return) [ Quarum (_gentium_) obsides pretio qu¾sitos pueros
      venustiore quod cultius habuerat libidine hujusmodi arsisse _pro
      certo_ habet. Had not the depraved taste of Constans been
      publicly avowed, the elder Victor, who held a considerable office
      in his brotherÕs reign, would not have asserted it in such
      positive terms.]

      70 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. and ii. Zosim. l. ii. p. 134.
      Victor in Epitome. There is reason to believe that Magnentius was
      born in one of those Barbarian colonies which Constantius Chlorus
      had established in Gaul, (see this History, vol. i. p. 414.) His
      behavior may remind us of the patriot earl of Leicester, the
      famous Simon de Montfort, who could persuade the good people of
      England, that he, a Frenchman by birth had taken arms to deliver
      them from foreign favorites.]

      71 (return) [ This ancient city had once flourished under the
      name of Illiberis (Pomponius Mela, ii. 5.) The munificence of
      Constantine gave it new splendor, and his motherÕs name. Helena
      (it is still called Elne) became the seat of a bishop, who long
      afterwards transferred his residence to Perpignan, the capital of
      modern Rousillon. See DÕAnville. Notice de lÕAncienne Gaule, p.
      380. Longuerue, Description de la France, p. 223, and the Marca
      Hispanica, l. i. c. 2.]

      72 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 119, 120. Zonaras, tom. ii. l.
      xiii. p. 13, and the Abbreviators.]

      As soon as the death of Constans had decided this easy but
      important revolution, the example of the court of Autun was
      imitated by the provinces of the West. The authority of
      Magnentius was acknowledged through the whole extent of the two
      great pr¾fectures of Gaul and Italy; and the usurper prepared, by
      every act of oppression, to collect a treasure, which might
      discharge the obligation of an immense donative, and supply the
      expenses of a civil war. The martial countries of Illyricum, from
      the Danube to the extremity of Greece, had long obeyed the
      government of Vetranio, an aged general, beloved for the
      simplicity of his manners, and who had acquired some reputation
      by his experience and services in war. 73 Attached by habit, by
      duty, and by gratitude, to the house of Constantine, he
      immediately gave the strongest assurances to the only surviving
      son of his late master, that he would expose, with unshaken
      fidelity, his person and his troops, to inflict a just revenge on
      the traitors of Gaul. But the legions of Vetranio were seduced,
      rather than provoked, by the example of rebellion; their leader
      soon betrayed a want of firmness, or a want of sincerity; and his
      ambition derived a specious pretence from the approbation of the
      princess Constantina. That cruel and aspiring woman, who had
      obtained from the great Constantine, her father, the rank of
      _Augusta_, placed the diadem with her own hands on the head of
      the Illyrian general; and seemed to expect from his victory the
      accomplishment of those unbounded hopes, of which she had been
      disappointed by the death of her husband Hannibalianus. Perhaps
      it was without the consent of Constantina, that the new emperor
      formed a necessary, though dishonorable, alliance with the
      usurper of the West, whose purple was so recently stained with
      her brotherÕs blood. 74

      73 (return) [ Eutropius (x. 10) describes Vetranio with more
      temper, and probably with more truth, than either of the two
      Victors. Vetranio was born of obscure parents in the wildest
      parts of M¾sia; and so much had his education been neglected,
      that, after his elevation, he studied the alphabet.]

      74 (return) [ The doubtful, fluctuating conduct of Vetranio is
      described by Julian in his first oration, and accurately
      explained by Spanheim, who discusses the situation and behavior
      of Constantina.]

      The intelligence of these important events, which so deeply
      affected the honor and safety of the Imperial house, recalled the
      arms of Constantius from the inglorious prosecution of the
      Persian war. He recommended the care of the East to his
      lieutenants, and afterwards to his cousin Gallus, whom he raised
      from a prison to a throne; and marched towards Europe, with a
      mind agitated by the conflict of hope and fear, of grief and
      indignation. On his arrival at Heraclea in Thrace, the emperor
      gave audience to the ambassadors of Magnentius and Vetranio. The
      first author of the conspiracy Marcellinus, who in some measure
      had bestowed the purple on his new master, boldly accepted this
      dangerous commission; and his three colleagues were selected from
      the illustrious personages of the state and army. These deputies
      were instructed to soothe the resentment, and to alarm the fears,
      of Constantius. They were empowered to offer him the friendship
      and alliance of the western princes, to cement their union by a
      double marriage; of Constantius with the daughter of Magnentius,
      and of Magnentius himself with the ambitious Constantina; and to
      acknowledge in the treaty the pre‘minence of rank, which might
      justly be claimed by the emperor of the East. Should pride and
      mistaken piety urge him to refuse these equitable conditions, the
      ambassadors were ordered to expatiate on the inevitable ruin
      which must attend his rashness, if he ventured to provoke the
      sovereigns of the West to exert their superior strength; and to
      employ against him that valor, those abilities, and those
      legions, to which the house of Constantine had been indebted for
      so many triumphs. Such propositions and such arguments appeared
      to deserve the most serious attention; the answer of Constantius
      was deferred till the next day; and as he had reflected on the
      importance of justifying a civil war in the opinion of the
      people, he thus addressed his council, who listened with real or
      affected credulity: ÒLast night,Ó said he, Òafter I retired to
      rest, the shade of the great Constantine, embracing the corpse of
      my murdered brother, rose before my eyes; his well-known voice
      awakened me to revenge, forbade me to despair of the republic,
      and assured me of the success and immortal glory which would
      crown the justice of my arms.Ó The authority of such a vision, or
      rather of the prince who alleged it, silenced every doubt, and
      excluded all negotiation. The ignominious terms of peace were
      rejected with disdain. One of the ambassadors of the tyrant was
      dismissed with the haughty answer of Constantius; his colleagues,
      as unworthy of the privileges of the law of nations, were put in
      irons; and the contending powers prepared to wage an implacable
      war. 75

      75 (return) [ See Peter the Patrician, in the Excerpta Legationem
      p. 27.]

      Such was the conduct, and such perhaps was the duty, of the
      brother of Constans towards the perfidious usurper of Gaul. The
      situation and character of Vetranio admitted of milder measures;
      and the policy of the Eastern emperor was directed to disunite
      his antagonists, and to separate the forces of Illyricum from the
      cause of rebellion. It was an easy task to deceive the frankness
      and simplicity of Vetranio, who, fluctuating some time between
      the opposite views of honor and interest, displayed to the world
      the insincerity of his temper, and was insensibly engaged in the
      snares of an artful negotiation. Constantius acknowledged him as
      a legitimate and equal colleague in the empire, on condition that
      he would renounce his disgraceful alliance with Magnentius, and
      appoint a place of interview on the frontiers of their respective
      provinces; where they might pledge their friendship by mutual
      vows of fidelity, and regulate by common consent the future
      operations of the civil war. In consequence of this agreement,
      Vetranio advanced to the city of Sardica, 76 at the head of
      twenty thousand horse, and of a more numerous body of infantry; a
      power so far superior to the forces of Constantius, that the
      Illyrian emperor appeared to command the life and fortunes of his
      rival, who, depending on the success of his private negotiations,
      had seduced the troops, and undermined the throne, of Vetranio.
      The chiefs, who had secretly embraced the party of Constantius,
      prepared in his favor a public spectacle, calculated to discover
      and inflame the passions of the multitude. 77 The united armies
      were commanded to assemble in a large plain near the city. In the
      centre, according to the rules of ancient discipline, a military
      tribunal, or rather scaffold, was erected, from whence the
      emperors were accustomed, on solemn and important occasions, to
      harangue the troops. The well-ordered ranks of Romans and
      Barbarians, with drawn swords, or with erected spears, the
      squadrons of cavalry, and the cohorts of infantry, distinguished
      by the variety of their arms and ensigns, formed an immense
      circle round the tribunal; and the attentive silence which they
      preserved was sometimes interrupted by loud bursts of clamor or
      of applause. In the presence of this formidable assembly, the two
      emperors were called upon to explain the situation of public
      affairs: the precedency of rank was yielded to the royal birth of
      Constantius; and though he was indifferently skilled in the arts
      of rhetoric, he acquitted himself, under these difficult
      circumstances, with firmness, dexterity, and eloquence. The first
      part of his oration seemed to be pointed only against the tyrant
      of Gaul; but while he tragically lamented the cruel murder of
      Constans, he insinuated, that none, except a brother, could claim
      a right to the succession of his brother. He displayed, with some
      complacency, the glories of his Imperial race; and recalled to
      the memory of the troops the valor, the triumphs, the liberality
      of the great Constantine, to whose sons they had engaged their
      allegiance by an oath of fidelity, which the ingratitude of his
      most favored servants had tempted them to violate. The officers,
      who surrounded the tribunal, and were instructed to act their
      part in this extraordinary scene, confessed the irresistible
      power of reason and eloquence, by saluting the emperor
      Constantius as their lawful sovereign. The contagion of loyalty
      and repentance was communicated from rank to rank; till the plain
      of Sardica resounded with the universal acclamation of ÒAway with
      these upstart usurpers! Long life and victory to the son of
      Constantine! Under his banners alone we will fight and conquer.Ó
      The shout of thousands, their menacing gestures, the fierce
      clashing of their arms, astonished and subdued the courage of
      Vetranio, who stood, amidst the defection of his followers, in
      anxious and silent suspense. Instead of embracing the last refuge
      of generous despair, he tamely submitted to his fate; and taking
      the diadem from his head, in the view of both armies fell
      prostrate at the feet of his conqueror. Constantius used his
      victory with prudence and moderation; and raising from the ground
      the aged suppliant, whom he affected to style by the endearing
      name of Father, he gave him his hand to descend from the throne.
      The city of Prusa was assigned for the exile or retirement of the
      abdicated monarch, who lived six years in the enjoyment of ease
      and affluence. He often expressed his grateful sense of the
      goodness of Constantius, and, with a very amiable simplicity,
      advised his benefactor to resign the sceptre of the world, and to
      seek for content (where alone it could be found) in the peaceful
      obscurity of a private condition. 78

      76 (return) [ Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 16. The position of
      Sardica, near the modern city of Sophia, appears better suited to
      this interview than the situation of either Naissus or Sirmium,
      where it is placed by Jerom, Socrates, and Sozomen.]

      77 (return) [ See the two first orations of Julian, particularly
      p. 31; and Zosimus, l. ii. p. 122. The distinct narrative of the
      historian serves to illustrate the diffuse but vague descriptions
      of the orator.]

      78 (return) [ The younger Victor assigns to his exile the
      emphatical appellation of ÒVoluptarium otium.Ó Socrates (l. ii.
      c. 28) is the voucher for the correspondence with the emperor,
      which would seem to prove that Vetranio was indeed, prope ad
      stultitiam simplicissimus.]

      The behavior of Constantius on this memorable occasion was
      celebrated with some appearance of justice; and his courtiers
      compared the studied orations which a Pericles or a Demosthenes
      addressed to the populace of Athens, with the victorious
      eloquence which had persuaded an armed multitude to desert and
      depose the object of their partial choice. 79 The approaching
      contest with Magnentius was of a more serious and bloody kind.
      The tyrant advanced by rapid marches to encounter Constantius, at
      the head of a numerous army, composed of Gauls and Spaniards, of
      Franks and Saxons; of those provincials who supplied the strength
      of the legions, and of those barbarians who were dreaded as the
      most formidable enemies of the republic. The fertile plains 80 of
      the Lower Pannonia, between the Drave, the Save, and the Danube,
      presented a spacious theatre; and the operations of the civil war
      were protracted during the summer months by the skill or timidity
      of the combatants. 81 Constantius had declared his intention of
      deciding the quarrel in the fields of Cibalis, a name that would
      animate his troops by the remembrance of the victory, which, on
      the same auspicious ground, had been obtained by the arms of his
      father Constantine. Yet by the impregnable fortifications with
      which the emperor encompassed his camp, he appeared to decline,
      rather than to invite, a general engagement.

      It was the object of Magnentius to tempt or to compel his
      adversary to relinquish this advantageous position; and he
      employed, with that view, the various marches, evolutions, and
      stratagems, which the knowledge of the art of war could suggest
      to an experienced officer. He carried by assault the important
      town of Siscia; made an attack on the city of Sirmium, which lay
      in the rear of the Imperial camp, attempted to force a passage
      over the Save into the eastern provinces of Illyricum; and cut in
      pieces a numerous detachment, which he had allured into the
      narrow passes of Adarne. During the greater part of the summer,
      the tyrant of Gaul showed himself master of the field. The troops
      of Constantius were harassed and dispirited; his reputation
      declined in the eye of the world; and his pride condescended to
      solicit a treaty of peace, which would have resigned to the
      assassin of Constans the sovereignty of the provinces beyond the
      Alps. These offers were enforced by the eloquence of Philip the
      Imperial ambassador; and the council as well as the army of
      Magnentius were disposed to accept them. But the haughty usurper,
      careless of the remonstrances of his friends, gave orders that
      Philip should be detained as a captive, or, at least, as a
      hostage; while he despatched an officer to reproach Constantius
      with the weakness of his reign, and to insult him by the promise
      of a pardon if he would instantly abdicate the purple. ÒThat he
      should confide in the justice of his cause, and the protection of
      an avenging Deity,Ó was the only answer which honor permitted the
      emperor to return. But he was so sensible of the difficulties of
      his situation, that he no longer dared to retaliate the indignity
      which had been offered to his representative. The negotiation of
      Philip was not, however, ineffectual, since he determined
      Sylvanus the Frank, a general of merit and reputation, to desert
      with a considerable body of cavalry, a few days before the battle
      of Mursa.

      79 (return) [ Eum Constantius..... facundi¾ vi dejectum Imperio
      in pri vatum otium removit. Qu¾ gloria post natum Imperium soli
      proces sit eloquio clementi‰que, &c. Aurelius Victor, Julian, and
      Themistius (Orat. iii. and iv.) adorn this exploit with all the
      artificial and gaudy coloring of their rhetoric.]

      80 (return) [ Busbequius (p. 112) traversed the Lower Hungary and
      Sclavonia at a time when they were reduced almost to a desert, by
      the reciprocal hostilities of the Turks and Christians. Yet he
      mentions with admiration the unconquerable fertility of the soil;
      and observes that the height of the grass was sufficient to
      conceal a loaded wagon from his sight. See likewise BrowneÕs
      Travels, in HarrisÕs Collection, vol ii. p. 762 &c.]

      81 (return) [ Zosimus gives a very large account of the war, and
      the negotiation, (l. ii. p. 123-130.) But as he neither shows
      himself a soldier nor a politician, his narrative must be weighed
      with attention, and received with caution.]

      The city of Mursa, or Essek, celebrated in modern times for a
      bridge of boats, five miles in length, over the River Drave, and
      the adjacent morasses, 82 has been always considered as a place
      of importance in the wars of Hungary. Magnentius, directing his
      march towards Mursa, set fire to the gates, and, by a sudden
      assault, had almost scaled the walls of the town. The vigilance
      of the garrison extinguished the flames; the approach of
      Constantius left him no time to continue the operations of the
      siege; and the emperor soon removed the only obstacle that could
      embarrass his motions, by forcing a body of troops which had
      taken post in an adjoining amphitheatre. The field of battle
      round Mursa was a naked and level plain: on this ground the army
      of Constantius formed, with the Drave on their right; while their
      left, either from the nature of their disposition, or from the
      superiority of their cavalry, extended far beyond the right flank
      of Magnentius. 83 The troops on both sides remained under arms,
      in anxious expectation, during the greatest part of the morning;
      and the son of Constantine, after animating his soldiers by an
      eloquent speech, retired into a church at some distance from the
      field of battle, and committed to his generals the conduct of
      this decisive day. 84 They deserved his confidence by the valor
      and military skill which they exerted. They wisely began the
      action upon the left; and advancing their whole wing of cavalry
      in an oblique line, they suddenly wheeled it on the right flank
      of the enemy, which was unprepared to resist the impetuosity of
      their charge. But the Romans of the West soon rallied, by the
      habits of discipline; and the Barbarians of Germany supported the
      renown of their national bravery. The engagement soon became
      general; was maintained with various and singular turns of
      fortune; and scarcely ended with the darkness of the night. The
      signal victory which Constantius obtained is attributed to the
      arms of his cavalry. His cuirassiers are described as so many
      massy statues of steel, glittering with their scaly armor, and
      breaking with their ponderous lances the firm array of the Gallic
      legions. As soon as the legions gave way, the lighter and more
      active squadrons of the second line rode sword in hand into the
      intervals, and completed the disorder. In the mean while, the
      huge bodies of the Germans were exposed almost naked to the
      dexterity of the Oriental archers; and whole troops of those
      Barbarians were urged by anguish and despair to precipitate
      themselves into the broad and rapid stream of the Drave. 85 The
      number of the slain was computed at fifty-four thousand men, and
      the slaughter of the conquerors was more considerable than that
      of the vanquished; 86 a circumstance which proves the obstinacy
      of the contest, and justifies the observation of an ancient
      writer, that the forces of the empire were consumed in the fatal
      battle of Mursa, by the loss of a veteran army, sufficient to
      defend the frontiers, or to add new triumphs to the glory of
      Rome. 87 Notwithstanding the invectives of a servile orator,
      there is not the least reason to believe that the tyrant deserted
      his own standard in the beginning of the engagement. He seems to
      have displayed the virtues of a general and of a soldier till the
      day was irrecoverably lost, and his camp in the possession of the
      enemy. Magnentius then consulted his safety, and throwing away
      the Imperial ornaments, escaped with some difficulty from the
      pursuit of the light horse, who incessantly followed his rapid
      flight from the banks of the Drave to the foot of the Julian
      Alps. 88

      82 (return) [ This remarkable bridge, which is flanked with
      towers, and supported on large wooden piles, was constructed A.
      D. 1566, by Sultan Soliman, to facilitate the march of his armies
      into Hungary.]

      83 (return) [ This position, and the subsequent evolutions, are
      clearly, though concisely, described by Julian, Orat. i. p. 36.]

      84 (return) [ Sulpicius Severus, l. ii. p. 405. The emperor
      passed the day in prayer with Valens, the Arian bishop of Mursa,
      who gained his confidence by announcing the success of the
      battle. M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1110)
      very properly remarks the silence of Julian with regard to the
      personal prowess of Constantius in the battle of Mursa. The
      silence of flattery is sometimes equal to the most positive and
      authentic evidence.]

      85 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 36, 37; and Orat. ii. p. 59,
      60. Zonaras, tom ii. l. xiii. p. 17. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 130-133.
      The last of these celebrates the dexterity of the archer
      Menelaus, who could discharge three arrows at the same time; an
      advantage which, according to his apprehension of military
      affairs, materially contributed to the victory of Constantius.]

      86 (return) [ According to Zonaras, Constantius, out of 80,000
      men, lost 30,000; and Magnentius lost 24,000 out of 36,000. The
      other articles of this account seem probable and authentic, but
      the numbers of the tyrantÕs army must have been mistaken, either
      by the author or his transcribers. Magnentius had collected the
      whole force of the West, Romans and Barbarians, into one
      formidable body, which cannot fairly be estimated at less than
      100,000 men. Julian. Orat. i. p. 34, 35.]

      87 (return) [ Ingentes R. I. vires e‰ dimicatione consumpt¾ sunt,
      ad qu¾libet bella externa idone¾, qu¾ multum triumphorum possent
      securitatisque conferre. Eutropius, x. 13. The younger Victor
      expresses himself to the same effect.]

      88 (return) [ On this occasion, we must prefer the unsuspected
      testimony of Zosimus and Zonaras to the flattering assertions of
      Julian. The younger Victor paints the character of Magnentius in
      a singular light: ÒSermonis acer, animi tumidi, et immodice
      timidus; artifex tamen ad occultandam audaci¾ specie formidinem.Ó
      Is it most likely that in the battle of Mursa his behavior was
      governed by nature or by art should incline for the latter.]

      The approach of winter supplied the indolence of Constantius with
      specious reasons for deferring the prosecution of the war till
      the ensuing spring. Magnentius had fixed his residence in the
      city of Aquileia, and showed a seeming resolution to dispute the
      passage of the mountains and morasses which fortified the
      confines of the Venetian province. The surprisal of a castle in
      the Alps by the secret march of the Imperialists, could scarcely
      have determined him to relinquish the possession of Italy, if the
      inclinations of the people had supported the cause of their
      tyrant. 89 But the memory of the cruelties exercised by his
      ministers, after the unsuccessful revolt of Nepotian, had left a
      deep impression of horror and resentment on the minds of the
      Romans. That rash youth, the son of the princess Eutropia, and
      the nephew of Constantine, had seen with indignation the sceptre
      of the West usurped by a perfidious barbarian. Arming a desperate
      troop of slaves and gladiators, he overpowered the feeble guard
      of the domestic tranquillity of Rome, received the homage of the
      senate, and assuming the title of Augustus, precariously reigned
      during a tumult of twenty-eight days. The march of some regular
      forces put an end to his ambitious hopes: the rebellion was
      extinguished in the blood of Nepotian, of his mother Eutropia,
      and of his adherents; and the proscription was extended to all
      who had contracted a fatal alliance with the name and family of
      Constantine. 90 But as soon as Constantius, after the battle of
      Mursa, became master of the sea-coast of Dalmatia, a band of
      noble exiles, who had ventured to equip a fleet in some harbor of
      the Adriatic, sought protection and revenge in his victorious
      camp. By their secret intelligence with their countrymen, Rome
      and the Italian cities were persuaded to display the banners of
      Constantius on their walls. The grateful veterans, enriched by
      the liberality of the father, signalized their gratitude and
      loyalty to the son. The cavalry, the legions, and the auxiliaries
      of Italy, renewed their oath of allegiance to Constantius; and
      the usurper, alarmed by the general desertion, was compelled,
      with the remains of his faithful troops, to retire beyond the
      Alps into the provinces of Gaul. The detachments, however, which
      were ordered either to press or to intercept the flight of
      Magnentius, conducted themselves with the usual imprudence of
      success; and allowed him, in the plains of Pavia, an opportunity
      of turning on his pursuers, and of gratifying his despair by the
      carnage of a useless victory. 91

      89 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 38, 39. In that place, however,
      as well as in Oration ii. p. 97, he insinuates the general
      disposition of the senate, the people, and the soldiers of Italy,
      towards the party of the emperor.]

      90 (return) [ The elder Victor describes, in a pathetic manner,
      the miserable condition of Rome: ÒCujus stolidum ingenium adeo P.
      R. patribusque exitio fuit, uti passim domus, fora, vi¾,
      templaque, cruore, cadaveri busque opplerentur bustorum modo.Ó
      Athanasius (tom. i. p. 677) deplores the fate of several
      illustrious victims, and Julian (Orat. ii p 58) execrates the
      cruelty of Marcellinus, the implacable enemy of the house of
      Constantine.]

      91 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 133. Victor in Epitome. The
      panegyrists of Constantius, with their usual candor, forget to
      mention this accidental defeat.]

      The pride of Magnentius was reduced, by repeated misfortunes, to
      sue, and to sue in vain, for peace. He first despatched a
      senator, in whose abilities he confided, and afterwards several
      bishops, whose holy character might obtain a more favorable
      audience, with the offer of resigning the purple, and the promise
      of devoting the remainder of his life to the service of the
      emperor. But Constantius, though he granted fair terms of pardon
      and reconciliation to all who abandoned the standard of
      rebellion, 92 avowed his inflexible resolution to inflict a just
      punishment on the crimes of an assassin, whom he prepared to
      overwhelm on every side by the effort of his victorious arms. An
      Imperial fleet acquired the easy possession of Africa and Spain,
      confirmed the wavering faith of the Moorish nations, and landed a
      considerable force, which passed the Pyrenees, and advanced
      towards Lyons, the last and fatal station of Magnentius. 93 The
      temper of the tyrant, which was never inclined to clemency, was
      urged by distress to exercise every act of oppression which could
      extort an immediate supply from the cities of Gaul. 94 Their
      patience was at length exhausted; and Treves, the seat of
      Pr¾torian government, gave the signal of revolt, by shutting her
      gates against Decentius, who had been raised by his brother to
      the rank either of C¾sar or of Augustus. 95 From Treves,
      Decentius was obliged to retire to Sens, where he was soon
      surrounded by an army of Germans, whom the pernicious arts of
      Constantius had introduced into the civil dissensions of Rome. 96
      In the mean time, the Imperial troops forced the passages of the
      Cottian Alps, and in the bloody combat of Mount Seleucus
      irrevocably fixed the title of rebels on the party of Magnentius.
      97 He was unable to bring another army into the field; the
      fidelity of his guards was corrupted; and when he appeared in
      public to animate them by his exhortations, he was saluted with a
      unanimous shout of ÒLong live the emperor Constantius!Ó The
      tyrant, who perceived that they were preparing to deserve pardon
      and rewards by the sacrifice of the most obnoxious criminal,
      prevented their design by falling on his sword; 98 a death more
      easy and more honorable than he could hope to obtain from the
      hands of an enemy, whose revenge would have been colored with the
      specious pretence of justice and fraternal piety. The example of
      suicide was imitated by Decentius, who strangled himself on the
      news of his brotherÕs death. The author of the conspiracy,
      Marcellinus, had long since disappeared in the battle of Mursa,
      99 and the public tranquillity was confirmed by the execution of
      the surviving leaders of a guilty and unsuccessful faction. A
      severe inquisition was extended over all who, either from choice
      or from compulsion, had been involved in the cause of rebellion.
      Paul, surnamed Catena from his superior skill in the judicial
      exercise of tyranny, 9911 was sent to explore the latent remains
      of the conspiracy in the remote province of Britain. The honest
      indignation expressed by Martin, vice-pr¾fect of the island, was
      interpreted as an evidence of his own guilt; and the governor was
      urged to the necessity of turning against his breast the sword
      with which he had been provoked to wound the Imperial minister.
      The most innocent subjects of the West were exposed to exile and
      confiscation, to death and torture; and as the timid are always
      cruel, the mind of Constantius was inaccessible to mercy. 100

      92 (return) [ Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 17. Julian, in
      several places of the two orations, expatiates on the clemency of
      Constantius to the rebels.]

      93 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 133. Julian. Orat. i. p. 40, ii.
      p. 74.]

      94 (return) [ Ammian. xv. 6. Zosim. l. ii. p. 123. Julian, who
      (Orat. i. p. 40) unveighs against the cruel effects of the
      tyrantÕs despair, mentions (Orat. i. p. 34) the oppressive edicts
      which were dictated by his necessities, or by his avarice. His
      subjects were compelled to purchase the Imperial demesnes; a
      doubtful and dangerous species of property, which, in case of a
      revolution, might be imputed to them as a treasonable
      usurpation.]

      95 (return) [ The medals of Magnentius celebrate the victories of
      the _two_ Augusti, and of the C¾sar. The C¾sar was another
      brother, named Desiderius. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs,
      tom. iv. p. 757.]

      96 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 40, ii. p. 74; with Spanheim,
      p. 263. His Commentary illustrates the transactions of this civil
      war. Mons Seleuci was a small place in the Cottian Alps, a few
      miles distant from Vapincum, or Gap, an episcopal city of
      Dauphine. See DÕAnville, Notice de la Gaule, p. 464; and
      Longuerue, Description de la France, p. 327.ÑÑ The Itinerary of
      Antoninus (p. 357, ed. Wess.) places Mons Seleucu twenty-four
      miles from Vapinicum, (Gap,) and twenty-six from Lucus. (le Luc,)
      on the road to Die, (Dea Vocontiorum.) The situation answers to
      Mont Saleon, a little place on the right of the small river
      Buech, which falls into the Durance. Roman antiquities have been
      found in this place. St. Martin. Note to Le Beau, ii. 47.ÑM.]

      97 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 134. Liban. Orat. x. p. 268,
      269. The latter most vehemently arraigns this cruel and selfish
      policy of Constantius.]

      98 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 40. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 134.
      Socrates, l. ii. c. 32. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 7. The younger Victor
      describes his death with some horrid circumstances: Transfosso
      latere, ut erat vasti corporis, vulnere naribusque et ore cruorem
      effundens, exspiravit. If we can give credit to Zonaras, the
      tyrant, before he expired, had the pleasure of murdering, with
      his own hand, his mother and his brother Desiderius.]

      99 (return) [ Julian (Orat. i. p. 58, 59) seems at a loss to
      determine, whether he inflicted on himself the punishment of his
      crimes, whether he was drowned in the Drave, or whether he was
      carried by the avenging d¾mons from the field of battle to his
      destined place of eternal tortures.]

      9911 (return) [ This is scarcely correct, ut erat in complicandis
      negotiis artifex dirum made ei Caten¾ inditum est cognomentum.
      Amm. Mar. loc. cit.ÑM.]

      100 (return) [ Ammian. xiv. 5, xxi. 16.]




      Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.ÑPart I.

     Constantius Sole Emperor.ÑElevation And Death Of Gallus.Ñ Danger
     And Elevation Of Julian.ÑSarmatian And Persian Wars.ÑVictories Of
     Julian In Gaul.


      The divided provinces of the empire were again united by the
      victory of Constantius; but as that feeble prince was destitute
      of personal merit, either in peace or war; as he feared his
      generals, and distrusted his ministers; the triumph of his arms
      served only to establish the reign of the _eunuchs_ over the
      Roman world. Those unhappy beings, the ancient production of
      Oriental jealousy and despotism, 1 were introduced into Greece
      and Rome by the contagion of Asiatic luxury. 2 Their progress was
      rapid; and the eunuchs, who, in the time of Augustus, had been
      abhorred, as the monstrous retinue of an Egyptian queen, 3 were
      gradually admitted into the families of matrons, of senators, and
      of the emperors themselves. 4 Restrained by the severe edicts of
      Domitian and Nerva, cherished by the pride of Diocletian, reduced
      to an humble station by the prudence of Constantine, 6 they
      multiplied in the palaces of his degenerate sons, and insensibly
      acquired the knowledge, and at length the direction, of the
      secret councils of Constantius. The aversion and contempt which
      mankind had so uniformly entertained for that imperfect species,
      appears to have degraded their character, and to have rendered
      them almost as incapable as they were supposed to be, of
      conceiving any generous sentiment, or of performing any worthy
      action. 7 But the eunuchs were skilled in the arts of flattery
      and intrigue; and they alternately governed the mind of
      Constantius by his fears, his indolence, and his vanity. 8 Whilst
      he viewed in a deceitful mirror the fair appearance of public
      prosperity, he supinely permitted them to intercept the
      complaints of the injured provinces, to accumulate immense
      treasures by the sale of justice and of honors; to disgrace the
      most important dignities, by the promotion of those who had
      purchased at their hands the powers of oppression, 9 and to
      gratify their resentment against the few independent spirits, who
      arrogantly refused to solicit the protection of slaves. Of these
      slaves the most distinguished was the chamberlain Eusebius, who
      ruled the monarch and the palace with such absolute sway, that
      Constantius, according to the sarcasm of an impartial historian,
      possessed some credit with this haughty favorite. 10 By his
      artful suggestions, the emperor was persuaded to subscribe the
      condemnation of the unfortunate Gallus, and to add a new crime to
      the long list of unnatural murders which pollute the honor of the
      house of Constantine.

      1 (return) [ Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 6) imputes the first practice
      of castration to the cruel ingenuity of Semiramis, who is
      supposed to have reigned above nineteen hundred years before
      Christ. The use of eunuchs is of high antiquity, both in Asia and
      Egypt. They are mentioned in the law of Moses, Deuteron. xxxiii.
      1. See Goguet, Origines des Loix, &c., Part i. l. i. c. 3.]

      2 (return) [ Eunuchum dixti velle te; Quia sol¾ utuntur his
      regin¾ÑTerent. Eunuch. act i. scene 2. This play is translated
      from Meander, and the original must have appeared soon after the
      eastern conquests of Alexander.]

      3 (return) [ Miles.... spadonibus Servire rugosis potest. Horat.
      Carm. v. 9, and Dacier ad loe. By the word _spado_, the Romans
      very forcibly expressed their abhorrence of this mutilated
      condition. The Greek appellation of eunuchs, which insensibly
      prevailed, had a milder sound, and a more ambiguous sense.]

      4 (return) [ We need only mention Posides, a freedman and eunuch
      of Claudius, in whose favor the emperor prostituted some of the
      most honorable rewards of military valor. See Sueton. in Claudio,
      c. 28. Posides employed a great part of his wealth in building.

     Ut _Spado_ vincebat Capitolia Nostra Posides. Juvenal. Sat. xiv.]

      Castrari mares vetuit. Sueton. in Domitian. c. 7. See Dion
      Cassius, l. lxvii. p. 1107, l. lxviii. p. 1119.]

      6 (return) [ There is a passage in the Augustan History, p. 137,
      in which Lampridius, whilst he praises Alexander Severus and
      Constantine for restraining the tyranny of the eunuchs, deplores
      the mischiefs which they occasioned in other reigns. Huc accedit
      quod eunuchos nec in consiliis nec in ministeriis habuit; qui
      soli principes perdunt, dum eos more gentium aut regum Persarum
      volunt vivere; qui a populo etiam amicissimum semovent; qui
      internuntii sunt, aliud quam respondetur, referentes; claudentes
      principem suum, et agentes ante omnia ne quid sciat.]

      7 (return) [ Xenophon (Cyrop¾dia, l. viii. p. 540) has stated the
      specious reasons which engaged Cyrus to intrust his person to the
      guard of eunuchs. He had observed in animals, that although the
      practice of castration might tame their ungovernable fierceness,
      it did not diminish their strength or spirit; and he persuaded
      himself, that those who were separated from the rest of human
      kind, would be more firmly attached to the person of their
      benefactor. But a long experience has contradicted the judgment
      of Cyrus. Some particular instances may occur of eunuchs
      distinguished by their fidelity, their valor, and their
      abilities; but if we examine the general history of Persia,
      India, and China, we shall find that the power of the eunuchs has
      uniformly marked the decline and fall of every dynasty.]

      8 (return) [ See Ammianus Marcellinus, l. xxi. c. 16, l. xxii. c.
      4. The whole tenor of his impartial history serves to justify the
      invectives of Mamertinus, of Libanius, and of Julian himself, who
      have insulted the vices of the court of Constantius.]

      9 (return) [ Aurelius Victor censures the negligence of his
      sovereign in choosing the governors of the provinces, and the
      generals of the army, and concludes his history with a very bold
      observation, as it is much more dangerous under a feeble reign to
      attack the ministers than the master himself. ÒUti verum absolvam
      brevi, ut Imperatore ipso clarius ita apparitorum plerisque magis
      atrox nihil.Ó]

      10 (return) [ Apud quem (si vere dici debeat) multum Constantius
      potuit. Ammian. l. xviii. c. 4.]

      When the two nephews of Constantine, Gallus and Julian, were
      saved from the fury of the soldiers, the former was about twelve,
      and the latter about six, years of age; and, as the eldest was
      thought to be of a sickly constitution, they obtained with the
      less difficulty a precarious and dependent life, from the
      affected pity of Constantius, who was sensible that the execution
      of these helpless orphans would have been esteemed, by all
      mankind, an act of the most deliberate cruelty. 11 Different
      cities of Ionia and Bithynia were assigned for the places of
      their exile and education; but as soon as their growing years
      excited the jealousy of the emperor, he judged it more prudent to
      secure those unhappy youths in the strong castle of Macellum,
      near C¾sarea. The treatment which they experienced during a six
      yearsÕ confinement, was partly such as they could hope from a
      careful guardian, and partly such as they might dread from a
      suspicious tyrant. 12 Their prison was an ancient palace, the
      residence of the kings of Cappadocia; the situation was pleasant,
      the buildings stately, the enclosure spacious. They pursued their
      studies, and practised their exercises, under the tuition of the
      most skilful masters; and the numerous household appointed to
      attend, or rather to guard, the nephews of Constantine, was not
      unworthy of the dignity of their birth. But they could not
      disguise to themselves that they were deprived of fortune, of
      freedom, and of safety; secluded from the society of all whom
      they could trust or esteem, and condemned to pass their
      melancholy hours in the company of slaves devoted to the commands
      of a tyrant who had already injured them beyond the hope of
      reconciliation. At length, however, the emergencies of the state
      compelled the emperor, or rather his eunuchs, to invest Gallus,
      in the twenty-fifth year of his age, with the title of C¾sar, and
      to cement this political connection by his marriage with the
      princess Constantina. After a formal interview, in which the two
      princes mutually engaged their faith never to undertake any thing
      to the prejudice of each other, they repaired without delay to
      their respective stations. Constantius continued his march
      towards the West, and Gallus fixed his residence at Antioch; from
      whence, with a delegated authority, he administered the five
      great dioceses of the eastern pr¾fecture. 13 In this fortunate
      change, the new C¾sar was not unmindful of his brother Julian,
      who obtained the honors of his rank, the appearances of liberty,
      and the restitution of an ample patrimony. 14

      11 (return) [ Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. iii. p. 90) reproaches the
      apostate with his ingratitude towards Mark, bishop of Arethusa,
      who had contributed to save his life; and we learn, though from a
      less respectable authority, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
      iv. p. 916,) that Julian was concealed in the sanctuary of a
      church. * Note: Gallus and Julian were not sons of the same
      mother. Their father, Julius Constantius, had had Gallus by his
      first wife, named Galla: Julian was the son of Basilina, whom he
      had espoused in a second marriage. Tillemont. Hist. des Emp. Vie
      de Constantin. art. 3.ÑG.]

      12 (return) [ The most authentic account of the education and
      adventures of Julian is contained in the epistle or manifesto
      which he himself addressed to the senate and people of Athens.
      Libanius, (Orat. Parentalis,) on the side of the Pagans, and
      Socrates, (l. iii. c. 1,) on that of the Christians, have
      preserved several interesting circumstances.]

      13 (return) [ For the promotion of Gallus, see Idatius, Zosimus,
      and the two Victors. According to Philostorgius, (l. iv. c. 1,)
      Theophilus, an Arian bishop, was the witness, and, as it were,
      the guarantee of this solemn engagement. He supported that
      character with generous firmness; but M. de Tillemont (Hist. des
      Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1120) thinks it very improbable that a
      heretic should have possessed such virtue.]

      14 (return) [ Julian was at first permitted to pursue his studies
      at Constantinople, but the reputation which he acquired soon
      excited the jealousy of Constantius; and the young prince was
      advised to withdraw himself to the less conspicuous scenes of
      Bithynia and Ionia.]

      The writers the most indulgent to the memory of Gallus, and even
      Julian himself, though he wished to cast a veil over the
      frailties of his brother, are obliged to confess that the C¾sar
      was incapable of reigning. Transported from a prison to a throne,
      he possessed neither genius nor application, nor docility to
      compensate for the want of knowledge and experience. A temper
      naturally morose and violent, instead of being corrected, was
      soured by solitude and adversity; the remembrance of what he had
      endured disposed him to retaliation rather than to sympathy; and
      the ungoverned sallies of his rage were often fatal to those who
      approached his person, or were subject to his power. 15
      Constantina, his wife, is described, not as a woman, but as one
      of the infernal furies tormented with an insatiate thirst of
      human blood. 16 Instead of employing her influence to insinuate
      the mild counsels of prudence and humanity, she exasperated the
      fierce passions of her husband; and as she retained the vanity,
      though she had renounced, the gentleness of her sex, a pearl
      necklace was esteemed an equivalent price for the murder of an
      innocent and virtuous nobleman. 17 The cruelty of Gallus was
      sometimes displayed in the undissembled violence of popular or
      military executions; and was sometimes disguised by the abuse of
      law, and the forms of judicial proceedings. The private houses of
      Antioch, and the places of public resort, were besieged by spies
      and informers; and the C¾sar himself, concealed in a a plebeian
      habit, very frequently condescended to assume that odious
      character. Every apartment of the palace was adorned with the
      instruments of death and torture, and a general consternation was
      diffused through the capital of Syria. The prince of the East, as
      if he had been conscious how much he had to fear, and how little
      he deserved to reign, selected for the objects of his resentment
      the provincials accused of some imaginary treason, and his own
      courtiers, whom with more reason he suspected of incensing, by
      their secret correspondence, the timid and suspicious mind of
      Constantius. But he forgot that he was depriving himself of his
      only support, the affection of the people; whilst he furnished
      the malice of his enemies with the arms of truth, and afforded
      the emperor the fairest pretence of exacting the forfeit of his
      purple, and of his life. 18

      15 (return) [ See Julian. ad S. P. Q. A. p. 271. Jerom. in Chron.
      Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, x. 14. I shall copy the words of
      Eutropius, who wrote his abridgment about fifteen years after the
      death of Gallus, when there was no longer any motive either to
      flatter or to depreciate his character. ÒMultis incivilibus
      gestis Gallus C¾sar.... vir natura ferox et ad tyrannidem
      pronior, si suo jure imperare licuisset.Ó]

      16 (return) [ Meg¾ra quidem mortalis, inflammatrix s¾vientis
      assidua, humani cruoris avida, &c. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xiv. c.
      1. The sincerity of Ammianus would not suffer him to misrepresent
      facts or characters, but his love of _ambitious_ ornaments
      frequently betrayed him into an unnatural vehemence of
      expression.]

      17 (return) [ His name was Clematius of Alexandria, and his only
      crime was a refusal to gratify the desires of his mother-in-law;
      who solicited his death, because she had been disappointed of his
      love. Ammian. xiv. c. i.]

      18 (return) [ See in Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 1, 7) a very ample
      detail of the cruelties of Gallus. His brother Julian (p. 272)
      insinuates, that a secret conspiracy had been formed against him;
      and Zosimus names (l. ii. p. 135) the persons engaged in it; a
      minister of considerable rank, and two obscure agents, who were
      resolved to make their fortune.]

      As long as the civil war suspended the fate of the Roman world,
      Constantius dissembled his knowledge of the weak and cruel
      administration to which his choice had subjected the East; and
      the discovery of some assassins, secretly despatched to Antioch
      by the tyrant of Gaul, was employed to convince the public, that
      the emperor and the C¾sar were united by the same interest, and
      pursued by the same enemies. 19 But when the victory was decided
      in favor of Constantius, his dependent colleague became less
      useful and less formidable. Every circumstance of his conduct was
      severely and suspiciously examined, and it was privately
      resolved, either to deprive Gallus of the purple, or at least to
      remove him from the indolent luxury of Asia to the hardships and
      dangers of a German war. The death of Theophilus, consular of the
      province of Syria, who in a time of scarcity had been massacred
      by the people of Antioch, with the connivance, and almost at the
      instigation, of Gallus, was justly resented, not only as an act
      of wanton cruelty, but as a dangerous insult on the supreme
      majesty of Constantius. Two ministers of illustrious rank,
      Domitian the Oriental pr¾fect, and Montius, qu¾stor of the
      palace, were empowered by a special commission 1911 to visit and
      reform the state of the East. They were instructed to behave
      towards Gallus with moderation and respect, and, by the gentlest
      arts of persuasion, to engage him to comply with the invitation
      of his brother and colleague. The rashness of the pr¾fect
      disappointed these prudent measures, and hastened his own ruin,
      as well as that of his enemy. On his arrival at Antioch, Domitian
      passed disdainfully before the gates of the palace, and alleging
      a slight pretence of indisposition, continued several days in
      sullen retirement, to prepare an inflammatory memorial, which he
      transmitted to the Imperial court. Yielding at length to the
      pressing solicitations of Gallus, the pr¾fect condescended to
      take his seat in council; but his first step was to signify a
      concise and haughty mandate, importing that the C¾sar should
      immediately repair to Italy, and threatening that he himself
      would punish his delay or hesitation, by suspending the usual
      allowance of his household. The nephew and daughter of
      Constantine, who could ill brook the insolence of a subject,
      expressed their resentment by instantly delivering Domitian to
      the custody of a guard. The quarrel still admitted of some terms
      of accommodation. They were rendered impracticable by the
      imprudent behavior of Montius, a statesman whose arts and
      experience were frequently betrayed by the levity of his
      disposition. 20 The qu¾stor reproached Gallus in a haughty
      language, that a prince who was scarcely authorized to remove a
      municipal magistrate, should presume to imprison a Pr¾torian
      pr¾fect; convoked a meeting of the civil and military officers;
      and required them, in the name of their sovereign, to defend the
      person and dignity of his representatives. By this rash
      declaration of war, the impatient temper of Gallus was provoked
      to embrace the most desperate counsels. He ordered his guards to
      stand to their arms, assembled the populace of Antioch, and
      recommended to their zeal the care of his safety and revenge. His
      commands were too fatally obeyed. They rudely seized the pr¾fect
      and the qu¾stor, and tying their legs together with ropes, they
      dragged them through the streets of the city, inflicted a
      thousand insults and a thousand wounds on these unhappy victims,
      and at last precipitated their mangled and lifeless bodies into
      the stream of the Orontes. 21

      19 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xiii. tom. ii. p. 17, 18. The assassins
      had seduced a great number of legionaries; but their designs were
      discovered and revealed by an old woman in whose cottage they
      lodged.]

      1911 (return) [ The commission seems to have been granted to
      Domitian alone. Montius interfered to support his authority. Amm.
      Marc. loc. cit.ÑM]

      20 (return) [ In the present text of Ammianus, we read _Asper_,
      quidem, sed ad _lenitatem_ propensior; which forms a sentence of
      contradictory nonsense. With the aid of an old manuscript,
      Valesius has rectified the first of these corruptions, and we
      perceive a ray of light in the substitution of the word _vafer_.
      If we venture to change _lenitatem_ into _levitatem_, this
      alteration of a single letter will render the whole passage clear
      and consistent.]

      21 (return) [ Instead of being obliged to collect scattered and
      imperfect hints from various sources, we now enter into the full
      stream of the history of Ammianus, and need only refer to the
      seventh and ninth chapters of his fourteenth book. Philostorgius,
      however, (l. iii. c. 28) though partial to Gallus, should not be
      entirely overlooked.]

      After such a deed, whatever might have been the designs of
      Gallus, it was only in a field of battle that he could assert his
      innocence with any hope of success. But the mind of that prince
      was formed of an equal mixture of violence and weakness. Instead
      of assuming the title of Augustus, instead of employing in his
      defence the troops and treasures of the East, he suffered himself
      to be deceived by the affected tranquillity of Constantius, who,
      leaving him the vain pageantry of a court, imperceptibly recalled
      the veteran legions from the provinces of Asia. But as it still
      appeared dangerous to arrest Gallus in his capital, the slow and
      safer arts of dissimulation were practised with success. The
      frequent and pressing epistles of Constantius were filled with
      professions of confidence and friendship; exhorting the C¾sar to
      discharge the duties of his high station, to relieve his
      colleague from a part of the public cares, and to assist the West
      by his presence, his counsels, and his arms. After so many
      reciprocal injuries, Gallus had reason to fear and to distrust.
      But he had neglected the opportunities of flight and of
      resistance; he was seduced by the flattering assurances of the
      tribune Scudilo, who, under the semblance of a rough soldier,
      disguised the most artful insinuation; and he depended on the
      credit of his wife Constantina, till the unseasonable death of
      that princess completed the ruin in which he had been involved by
      her impetuous passions. 22

      22 (return) [ She had preceded her husband, but died of a fever
      on the road at a little place in Bithynia, called Coenum
      Gallicanum.]




      Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.ÑPart II.


      After a long delay, the reluctant C¾sar set forwards on his
      journey to the Imperial court. From Antioch to Hadrianople, he
      traversed the wide extent of his dominions with a numerous and
      stately train; and as he labored to conceal his apprehensions
      from the world, and perhaps from himself, he entertained the
      people of Constantinople with an exhibition of the games of the
      circus. The progress of the journey might, however, have warned
      him of the impending danger. In all the principal cities he was
      met by ministers of confidence, commissioned to seize the offices
      of government, to observe his motions, and to prevent the hasty
      sallies of his despair. The persons despatched to secure the
      provinces which he left behind, passed him with cold salutations,
      or affected disdain; and the troops, whose station lay along the
      public road, were studiously removed on his approach, lest they
      might be tempted to offer their swords for the service of a civil
      war. 23 After Gallus had been permitted to repose himself a few
      days at Hadrianople, he received a mandate, expressed in the most
      haughty and absolute style, that his splendid retinue should halt
      in that city, while the C¾sar himself, with only ten
      post-carriages, should hasten to the Imperial residence at Milan.

      In this rapid journey, the profound respect which was due to the
      brother and colleague of Constantius, was insensibly changed into
      rude familiarity; and Gallus, who discovered in the countenances
      of the attendants that they already considered themselves as his
      guards, and might soon be employed as his executioners, began to
      accuse his fatal rashness, and to recollect, with terror and
      remorse, the conduct by which he had provoked his fate. The
      dissimulation which had hitherto been preserved, was laid aside
      at Petovio, 2311 in Pannonia. He was conducted to a palace in the
      suburbs, where the general Barbatio, with a select band of
      soldiers, who could neither be moved by pity, nor corrupted by
      rewards, expected the arrival of his illustrious victim. In the
      close of the evening he was arrested, ignominiously stripped of
      the ensigns of C¾sar, and hurried away to Pola, [23b] in Istria,
      a sequestered prison, which had been so recently polluted with
      royal blood. The horror which he felt was soon increased by the
      appearance of his implacable enemy the eunuch Eusebius, who, with
      the assistance of a notary and a tribune, proceeded to
      interrogate him concerning the administration of the East. The
      C¾sar sank under the weight of shame and guilt, confessed all the
      criminal actions and all the treasonable designs with which he
      was charged; and by imputing them to the advice of his wife,
      exasperated the indignation of Constantius, who reviewed with
      partial prejudice the minutes of the examination. The emperor was
      easily convinced, that his own safety was incompatible with the
      life of his cousin: the sentence of death was signed, despatched,
      and executed; and the nephew of Constantine, with his hands tied
      behind his back, was beheaded in prison like the vilest
      malefactor. 24 Those who are inclined to palliate the cruelties
      of Constantius, assert that he soon relented, and endeavored to
      recall the bloody mandate; but that the second messenger,
      intrusted with the reprieve, was detained by the eunuchs, who
      dreaded the unforgiving temper of Gallus, and were desirous of
      reuniting to _their_ empire the wealthy provinces of the East. 25

      23 (return) [ The Theb¾an legions, which were then quartered at
      Hadrianople, sent a deputation to Gallus, with a tender of their
      services. Ammian. l. xiv. c. 11. The Notitia (s. 6, 20, 38, edit.
      Labb.) mentions three several legions which bore the name of
      Theb¾an. The zeal of M. de Voltaire to destroy a despicable
      though celebrated legion, has tempted him on the slightest
      grounds to deny the existence of a Theb¾an legion in the Roman
      armies. See Îuvres de Voltaire, tom. xv. p. 414, quarto edition.]

      2311 (return) [ Pettau in Styria.ÑM ---- Rather to Flanonia. now
      Fianone, near Pola. St. Martin.ÑM.]

      24 (return) [ See the complete narrative of the journey and death
      of Gallus in Ammianus, l. xiv. c. 11. Julian complains that his
      brother was put to death without a trial; attempts to justify, or
      at least to excuse, the cruel revenge which he had inflicted on
      his enemies; but seems at last to acknowledge that he might
      justly have been deprived of the purple.]

      25 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iv. c. 1. Zonaras, l. xiii. tom.
      ii. p. 19. But the former was partial towards an Arian monarch,
      and the latter transcribed, without choice or criticism, whatever
      he found in the writings of the ancients.]

      Besides the reigning emperor, Julian alone survived, of all the
      numerous posterity of Constantius Chlorus. The misfortune of his
      royal birth involved him in the disgrace of Gallus. From his
      retirement in the happy country of Ionia, he was conveyed under a
      strong guard to the court of Milan; where he languished above
      seven months, in the continual apprehension of suffering the same
      ignominious death, which was daily inflicted almost before his
      eyes, on the friends and adherents of his persecuted family. His
      looks, his gestures, his silence, were scrutinized with malignant
      curiosity, and he was perpetually assaulted by enemies whom he
      had never offended, and by arts to which he was a stranger. 26
      But in the school of adversity, Julian insensibly acquired the
      virtues of firmness and discretion. He defended his honor, as
      well as his life, against the insnaring subtleties of the
      eunuchs, who endeavored to extort some declaration of his
      sentiments; and whilst he cautiously suppressed his grief and
      resentment, he nobly disdained to flatter the tyrant, by any
      seeming approbation of his brotherÕs murder. Julian most devoutly
      ascribes his miraculous deliverance to the protection of the
      gods, who had exempted his innocence from the sentence of
      destruction pronounced by their justice against the impious house
      of Constantine. 27 As the most effectual instrument of their
      providence, he gratefully acknowledges the steady and generous
      friendship of the empress Eusebia, 28 a woman of beauty and
      merit, who, by the ascendant which she had gained over the mind
      of her husband, counterbalanced, in some measure, the powerful
      conspiracy of the eunuchs. By the intercession of his patroness,
      Julian was admitted into the Imperial presence: he pleaded his
      cause with a decent freedom, he was heard with favor; and,
      notwithstanding the efforts of his enemies, who urged the danger
      of sparing an avenger of the blood of Gallus, the milder
      sentiment of Eusebia prevailed in the council. But the effects of
      a second interview were dreaded by the eunuchs; and Julian was
      advised to withdraw for a while into the neighborhood of Milan,
      till the emperor thought proper to assign the city of Athens for
      the place of his honorable exile. As he had discovered, from his
      earliest youth, a propensity, or rather passion, for the
      language, the manners, the learning, and the religion of the
      Greeks, he obeyed with pleasure an order so agreeable to his
      wishes. Far from the tumult of arms, and the treachery of courts,
      he spent six months under the groves of the academy, in a free
      intercourse with the philosophers of the age, who studied to
      cultivate the genius, to encourage the vanity, and to inflame the
      devotion of their royal pupil. Their labors were not
      unsuccessful; and Julian inviolably preserved for Athens that
      tender regard which seldom fails to arise in a liberal mind, from
      the recollection of the place where it has discovered and
      exercised its growing powers. The gentleness and affability of
      manners, which his temper suggested and his situation imposed,
      insensibly engaged the affections of the strangers, as well as
      citizens, with whom he conversed. Some of his fellow-students
      might perhaps examine his behavior with an eye of prejudice and
      aversion; but Julian established, in the schools of Athens, a
      general prepossession in favor of his virtues and talents, which
      was soon diffused over the Roman world. 29

      26 (return) [ See Ammianus Marcellin. l. xv. c. 1, 3, 8. Julian
      himself in his epistle to the Athenians, draws a very lively and
      just picture of his own danger, and of his sentiments. He shows,
      however, a tendency to exaggerate his sufferings, by insinuating,
      though in obscure terms, that they lasted above a year; a period
      which cannot be reconciled with the truth of chronology.]

      27 (return) [ Julian has worked the crimes and misfortunes of the
      family of Constantine into an allegorical fable, which is happily
      conceived and agreeably related. It forms the conclusion of the
      seventh Oration, from whence it has been detached and translated
      by the AbbŽ de la Bleterie, Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 385-408.]

      28 (return) [ She was a native of Thessalonica, in Macedonia, of
      a noble family, and the daughter, as well as sister, of consuls.
      Her marriage with the emperor may be placed in the year 352. In a
      divided age, the historians of all parties agree in her praises.
      See their testimonies collected by Tillemont, Hist. des
      Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 750-754.]

      29 (return) [ Libanius and Gregory Nazianzen have exhausted the
      arts as well as the powers of their eloquence, to represent
      Julian as the first of heroes, or the worst of tyrants. Gregory
      was his fellow-student at Athens; and the symptoms which he so
      tragically describes, of the future wickedness of the apostate,
      amount only to some bodily imperfections, and to some
      peculiarities in his speech and manner. He protests, however,
      that he _then_ foresaw and foretold the calamities of the church
      and state. (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 121, 122.)]

      Whilst his hours were passed in studious retirement, the empress,
      resolute to achieve the generous design which she had undertaken,
      was not unmindful of the care of his fortune. The death of the
      late C¾sar had left Constantius invested with the sole command,
      and oppressed by the accumulated weight, of a mighty empire.
      Before the wounds of civil discord could be healed, the provinces
      of Gaul were overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians. The
      Sarmatians no longer respected the barrier of the Danube. The
      impunity of rapine had increased the boldness and numbers of the
      wild Isaurians: those robbers descended from their craggy
      mountains to ravage the adjacent country, and had even presumed,
      though without success, to besiege the important city of
      Seleucia, which was defended by a garrison of three Roman
      legions. Above all, the Persian monarch, elated by victory, again
      threatened the peace of Asia, and the presence of the emperor was
      indispensably required, both in the West and in the East. For the
      first time, Constantius sincerely acknowledged, that his single
      strength was unequal to such an extent of care and of dominion.
      30 Insensible to the voice of flattery, which assured him that
      his all-powerful virtue, and celestial fortune, would still
      continue to triumph over every obstacle, he listened with
      complacency to the advice of Eusebia, which gratified his
      indolence, without offending his suspicious pride. As she
      perceived that the remembrance of Gallus dwelt on the emperorÕs
      mind, she artfully turned his attention to the opposite
      characters of the two brothers, which from their infancy had been
      compared to those of Domitian and of Titus. 31 She accustomed her
      husband to consider Julian as a youth of a mild, unambitious
      disposition, whose allegiance and gratitude might be secured by
      the gift of the purple, and who was qualified to fill with honor
      a subordinate station, without aspiring to dispute the commands,
      or to shade the glories, of his sovereign and benefactor. After
      an obstinate, though secret struggle, the opposition of the
      favorite eunuchs submitted to the ascendency of the empress; and
      it was resolved that Julian, after celebrating his nuptials with
      Helena, sister of Constantius, should be appointed, with the
      title of C¾sar, to reign over the countries beyond the Alps. 32

      30 (return) [ Succumbere tot necessitatibus tamque crebris unum
      se, quod nunquam fecerat, aperte demonstrans. Ammian. l. xv. c.
      8. He then expresses, in their own words, the fattering
      assurances of the courtiers.]

      31 (return) [ Tantum a temperatis moribus Juliani differens
      fratris quantum inter Vespasiani filios fuit, Domitianum et
      Titum. Ammian. l. xiv. c. 11. The circumstances and education of
      the two brothers, were so nearly the same, as to afford a strong
      example of the innate difference of characters.]

      32 (return) [ Ammianus, l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 137,
      138.]

      Although the order which recalled him to court was probably
      accompanied by some intimation of his approaching greatness, he
      appeals to the people of Athens to witness his tears of
      undissembled sorrow, when he was reluctantly torn away from his
      beloved retirement. 33 He trembled for his life, for his fame,
      and even for his virtue; and his sole confidence was derived from
      the persuasion, that Minerva inspired all his actions, and that
      he was protected by an invisible guard of angels, whom for that
      purpose she had borrowed from the Sun and Moon. He approached,
      with horror, the palace of Milan; nor could the ingenuous youth
      conceal his indignation, when he found himself accosted with
      false and servile respect by the assassins of his family.
      Eusebia, rejoicing in the success of her benevolent schemes,
      embraced him with the tenderness of a sister; and endeavored, by
      the most soothing caresses, to dispel his terrors, and reconcile
      him to his fortune. But the ceremony of shaving his beard, and
      his awkward demeanor, when he first exchanged the cloak of a
      Greek philosopher for the military habit of a Roman prince,
      amused, during a few days, the levity of the Imperial court. 34

      33 (return) [ Julian. ad S. P. Q. A. p. 275, 276. Libanius, Orat.
      x. p. 268. Julian did not yield till the gods had signified their
      will by repeated visions and omens. His piety then forbade him to
      resist.]

      34 (return) [ Julian himself relates, (p. 274) with some humor,
      the circumstances of his own metamorphoses, his downcast looks,
      and his perplexity at being thus suddenly transported into a new
      world, where every object appeared strange and hostile.]

      The emperors of the age of Constantine no longer deigned to
      consult with the senate in the choice of a colleague; but they
      were anxious that their nomination should be ratified by the
      consent of the army. On this solemn occasion, the guards, with
      the other troops whose stations were in the neighborhood of
      Milan, appeared under arms; and Constantius ascended his lofty
      tribunal, holding by the hand his cousin Julian, who entered the
      same day into the twenty-fifth year of his age. 35 In a studied
      speech, conceived and delivered with dignity, the emperor
      represented the various dangers which threatened the prosperity
      of the republic, the necessity of naming a C¾sar for the
      administration of the West, and his own intention, if it was
      agreeable to their wishes, of rewarding with the honors of the
      purple the promising virtues of the nephew of Constantine. The
      approbation of the soldiers was testified by a respectful murmur;
      they gazed on the manly countenance of Julian, and observed with
      pleasure, that the fire which sparkled in his eyes was tempered
      by a modest blush, on being thus exposed, for the first time, to
      the public view of mankind. As soon as the ceremony of his
      investiture had been performed, Constantius addressed him with
      the tone of authority which his superior age and station
      permitted him to assume; and exhorting the new C¾sar to deserve,
      by heroic deeds, that sacred and immortal name, the emperor gave
      his colleague the strongest assurances of a friendship which
      should never be impaired by time, nor interrupted by their
      separation into the most distant climes. As soon as the speech
      was ended, the troops, as a token of applause, clashed their
      shields against their knees; 36 while the officers who surrounded
      the tribunal expressed, with decent reserve, their sense of the
      merits of the representative of Constantius.

      35 (return) [ See Ammian. Marcellin. l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l.
      iii. p. 139. Aurelius Victor. Victor Junior in Epitom. Eutrop. x.
      14.]

      36 (return) [ Militares omnes horrendo fragore scuta genibus
      illidentes; quod est prosperitatis indicium plenum; nam contra
      cum hastis clypei feriuntur, ir¾ documentum est et doloris... ...
      Ammianus adds, with a nice distinction, Eumque ut potiori
      reverentia servaretur, nec supra modum laudabant nec infra quam
      decebat.]

      The two princes returned to the palace in the same chariot; and
      during the slow procession, Julian repeated to himself a verse of
      his favorite Homer, which he might equally apply to his fortune
      and to his fears. 37 The four-and-twenty days which the C¾sar
      spent at Milan after his investiture, and the first months of his
      Gallic reign, were devoted to a splendid but severe captivity;
      nor could the acquisition of honor compensate for the loss of
      freedom. 38 His steps were watched, his correspondence was
      intercepted; and he was obliged, by prudence, to decline the
      visits of his most intimate friends. Of his former domestics,
      four only were permitted to attend him; two pages, his physician,
      and his librarian; the last of whom was employed in the care of a
      valuable collection of books, the gift of the empress, who
      studied the inclinations as well as the interest of her friend.
      In the room of these faithful servants, a household was formed,
      such indeed as became the dignity of a C¾sar; but it was filled
      with a crowd of slaves, destitute, and perhaps incapable, of any
      attachment for their new master, to whom, for the most part, they
      were either unknown or suspected. His want of experience might
      require the assistance of a wise council; but the minute
      instructions which regulated the service of his table, and the
      distribution of his hours, were adapted to a youth still under
      the discipline of his preceptors, rather than to the situation of
      a prince intrusted with the conduct of an important war. If he
      aspired to deserve the esteem of his subjects, he was checked by
      the fear of displeasing his sovereign; and even the fruits of his
      marriage-bed were blasted by the jealous artifices of Eusebia 39
      herself, who, on this occasion alone, seems to have been
      unmindful of the tenderness of her sex, and the generosity of her
      character. The memory of his father and of his brothers reminded
      Julian of his own danger, and his apprehensions were increased by
      the recent and unworthy fate of Sylvanus. In the summer which
      preceded his own elevation, that general had been chosen to
      deliver Gaul from the tyranny of the Barbarians; but Sylvanus
      soon discovered that he had left his most dangerous enemies in
      the Imperial court. A dexterous informer, countenanced by several
      of the principal ministers, procured from him some recommendatory
      letters; and erasing the whole of the contents, except the
      signature, filled up the vacant parchment with matters of high
      and treasonable import. By the industry and courage of his
      friends, the fraud was however detected, and in a great council
      of the civil and military officers, held in the presence of the
      emperor himself, the innocence of Sylvanus was publicly
      acknowledged. But the discovery came too late; the report of the
      calumny, and the hasty seizure of his estate, had already
      provoked the indignant chief to the rebellion of which he was so
      unjustly accused. He assumed the purple at his head- quarters of
      Cologne, and his active powers appeared to menace Italy with an
      invasion, and Milan with a siege. In this emergency, Ursicinus, a
      general of equal rank, regained, by an act of treachery, the
      favor which he had lost by his eminent services in the East.
      Exasperated, as he might speciously allege, by the injuries of a
      similar nature, he hastened with a few followers to join the
      standard, and to betray the confidence, of his too credulous
      friend. After a reign of only twenty-eight days, Sylvanus was
      assassinated: the soldiers who, without any criminal intention,
      had blindly followed the example of their leader, immediately
      returned to their allegiance; and the flatterers of Constantius
      celebrated the wisdom and felicity of the monarch who had
      extinguished a civil war without the hazard of a battle. 40

      37 (return) [ The word _purple_ which Homer had used as a vague
      but common epithet for death, was applied by Julian to express,
      very aptly, the nature and object of his own apprehensions.]

      38 (return) [ He represents, in the most pathetic terms, (p.
      277,) the distress of his new situation. The provision for his
      table was, however, so elegant and sumptuous, that the young
      philosopher rejected it with disdain. Quum legeret libellum
      assidue, quem Constantius ut privignum ad studia mittens manž su‰
      conscripserat, pr¾licenter disponens quid in convivio C¾saris
      impendi deberit: Phasianum, et vulvam et sumen exigi vetuit et
      inferri. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xvi. c. 5.]

      39 (return) [ If we recollect that Constantine, the father of
      Helena, died above eighteen years before, in a mature old age, it
      will appear probable, that the daughter, though a virgin, could
      not be very young at the time of her marriage. She was soon
      afterwards delivered of a son, who died immediately, quod
      obstetrix corrupta mercede, mox natum pr¾secto plusquam
      convenerat umbilico necavit. She accompanied the emperor and
      empress in their journey to Rome, and the latter, qu¾situm
      venenum bibere per fraudem illexit, ut quotiescunque concepisset,
      immaturum abjicerit partum. Ammian. l. xvi. c. 10. Our physicians
      will determine whether there exists such a poison. For my own
      part I am inclined to hope that the public malignity imputed the
      effects of accident as the guilt of Eusebia.]

      40 (return) [ Ammianus (xv. v.) was perfectly well informed of
      the conduct and fate of Sylvanus. He himself was one of the few
      followers who attended Ursicinus in his dangerous enterprise.]

      The protection of the Rh¾tian frontier, and the persecution of
      the Catholic church, detained Constantius in Italy above eighteen
      months after the departure of Julian. Before the emperor returned
      into the East, he indulged his pride and curiosity in a visit to
      the ancient capital. 41 He proceeded from Milan to Rome along the
      ®milian and Flaminian ways, and as soon as he approached within
      forty miles of the city, the march of a prince who had never
      vanquished a foreign enemy, assumed the appearance of a triumphal
      procession. His splendid train was composed of all the ministers
      of luxury; but in a time of profound peace, he was encompassed by
      the glittering arms of the numerous squadrons of his guards and
      cuirassiers. Their streaming banners of silk, embossed with gold,
      and shaped in the form of dragons, waved round the person of the
      emperor. Constantius sat alone in a lofty car, resplendent with
      gold and precious gems; and, except when he bowed his head to
      pass under the gates of the cities, he affected a stately
      demeanor of inflexible, and, as it might seem, of insensible
      gravity. The severe discipline of the Persian youth had been
      introduced by the eunuchs into the Imperial palace; and such were
      the habits of patience which they had inculcated, that during a
      slow and sultry march, he was never seen to move his hand towards
      his face, or to turn his eyes either to the right or to the left.
      He was received by the magistrates and senate of Rome; and the
      emperor surveyed, with attention, the civil honors of the
      republic, and the consular images of the noble families. The
      streets were lined with an innumerable multitude. Their repeated
      acclamations expressed their joy at beholding, after an absence
      of thirty-two years, the sacred person of their sovereign, and
      Constantius himself expressed, with some pleasantry, he affected
      surprise that the human race should thus suddenly be collected on
      the same spot. The son of Constantine was lodged in the ancient
      palace of Augustus: he presided in the senate, harangued the
      people from the tribunal which Cicero had so often ascended,
      assisted with unusual courtesy at the games of the Circus, and
      accepted the crowns of gold, as well as the Panegyrics which had
      been prepared for the ceremony by the deputies of the principal
      cities. His short visit of thirty days was employed in viewing
      the monuments of art and power which were scattered over the
      seven hills and the interjacent valleys. He admired the awful
      majesty of the Capitol, the vast extent of the baths of Caracalla
      and Diocletian, the severe simplicity of the Pantheon, the massy
      greatness of the amphitheatre of Titus, the elegant architecture
      of the theatre of Pompey and the Temple of Peace, and, above all,
      the stately structure of the Forum and column of Trajan;
      acknowledging that the voice of fame, so prone to invent and to
      magnify, had made an inadequate report of the metropolis of the
      world. The traveller, who has contemplated the ruins of ancient
      Rome, may conceive some imperfect idea of the sentiments which
      they must have inspired when they reared their heads in the
      splendor of unsullied beauty.

      [See The Pantheon: The severe simplicity of the Pantheon]

      41 (return) [ For the particulars of the visit of Constantius to
      Rome, see Ammianus, l. xvi. c. 10. We have only to add, that
      Themistius was appointed deputy from Constantinople, and that he
      composed his fourth oration for his ceremony.]

      The satisfaction which Constantius had received from this journey
      excited him to the generous emulation of bestowing on the Romans
      some memorial of his own gratitude and munificence. His first
      idea was to imitate the equestrian and colossal statue which he
      had seen in the Forum of Trajan; but when he had maturely weighed
      the difficulties of the execution, 42 he chose rather to
      embellish the capital by the gift of an Egyptian obelisk. In a
      remote but polished age, which seems to have preceded the
      invention of alphabetical writing, a great number of these
      obelisks had been erected, in the cities of Thebes and
      Heliopolis, by the ancient sovereigns of Egypt, in a just
      confidence that the simplicity of their form, and the hardness of
      their substance, would resist the injuries of time and violence.
      43 Several of these extraordinary columns had been transported to
      Rome by Augustus and his successors, as the most durable
      monuments of their power and victory; 44 but there remained one
      obelisk, which, from its size or sanctity, escaped for a long
      time the rapacious vanity of the conquerors. It was designed by
      Constantine to adorn his new city; 45 and, after being removed by
      his order from the pedestal where it stood before the Temple of
      the Sun at Heliopolis, was floated down the Nile to Alexandria.
      The death of Constantine suspended the execution of his purpose,
      and this obelisk was destined by his son to the ancient capital
      of the empire. A vessel of uncommon strength and capaciousness
      was provided to convey this enormous weight of granite, at least
      a hundred and fifteen feet in length, from the banks of the Nile
      to those of the Tyber. The obelisk of Constantius was landed
      about three miles from the city, and elevated, by the efforts of
      art and labor, in the great Circus of Rome. 46 4611

      42 (return) [ Hormisdas, a fugitive prince of Persia, observed to
      the emperor, that if he made such a horse, he must think of
      preparing a similar stable, (the Forum of Trajan.) Another saying
      of Hormisdas is recorded, Òthat one thing only had _displeased_
      him, to find that men died at Rome as well as elsewhere.Ó If we
      adopt this reading of the text of Ammianus, (_displicuisse_,
      instead of _placuisse_,) we may consider it as a reproof of Roman
      vanity. The contrary sense would be that of a misanthrope.]

      43 (return) [ When Germanicus visited the ancient monuments of
      Thebes, the eldest of the priests explained to him the meaning of
      these hiero glyphics. Tacit. Annal. ii. c. 60. But it seems
      probable, that before the useful invention of an alphabet, these
      natural or arbitrary signs were the common characters of the
      Egyptian nation. See WarburtonÕs Divine Legation of Moses, vol.
      iii. p. 69-243.]

      44 (return) [ See Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxvi. c. 14, 15.]

      45 (return) [ Ammian. Marcellin l. xvii. c. 4. He gives us a
      Greek interpretation of the hieroglyphics, and his commentator
      Lindenbrogius adds a Latin inscription, which, in twenty verses
      of the age of Constantius, contain a short history of the
      obelisk.]

      46 (return) [ See Donat. Roma. Antiqua, l. iii. c. 14, l. iv. c.
      12, and the learned, though confused, Dissertation of Barg¾us on
      Obelisks, inserted in the fourth volume of Gr¾viusÕs Roman
      Antiquities, p. 1897- 1936. This dissertation is dedicated to
      Pope Sixtus V., who erected the obelisk of Constantius in the
      square before the patriarchal church of at. John Lateran.]

      4611 (return) [ It is doubtful whether the obelisk transported by
      Constantius to Rome now exists. Even from the text of Ammianus,
      it is uncertain whether the interpretation of Hermapion refers to
      the older obelisk, (obelisco incisus est veteri quem videmus in
      Circo,) raised, as he himself states, in the Circus Maximus, long
      before, by Augustus, or to the one brought by Constantius. The
      obelisk in the square before the church of St. John Lateran is
      ascribed not to Rameses the Great but to Thoutmos II.
      Champollion, 1. Lettre a M. de Blacas, p. 32.ÑM]

      The departure of Constantius from Rome was hastened by the
      alarming intelligence of the distress and danger of the Illyrian
      provinces. The distractions of civil war, and the irreparable
      loss which the Roman legions had sustained in the battle of
      Mursa, exposed those countries, almost without defence, to the
      light cavalry of the Barbarians; and particularly to the inroads
      of the Quadi, a fierce and powerful nation, who seem to have
      exchanged the institutions of Germany for the arms and military
      arts of their Sarmatian allies. 47 The garrisons of the frontiers
      were insufficient to check their progress; and the indolent
      monarch was at length compelled to assemble, from the extremities
      of his dominions, the flower of the Palatine troops, to take the
      field in person, and to employ a whole campaign, with the
      preceding autumn and the ensuing spring, in the serious
      prosecution of the war. The emperor passed the Danube on a bridge
      of boats, cut in pieces all that encountered his march,
      penetrated into the heart of the country of the Quadi, and
      severely retaliated the calamities which they had inflicted on
      the Roman province. The dismayed Barbarians were soon reduced to
      sue for peace: they offered the restitution of his captive
      subjects as an atonement for the past, and the noblest hostages
      as a pledge of their future conduct. The generous courtesy which
      was shown to the first among their chieftains who implored the
      clemency of Constantius, encouraged the more timid, or the more
      obstinate, to imitate their example; and the Imperial camp was
      crowded with the princes and ambassadors of the most distant
      tribes, who occupied the plains of the Lesser Poland, and who
      might have deemed themselves secure behind the lofty ridge of the
      Carpathian Mountains. While Constantius gave laws to the
      Barbarians beyond the Danube, he distinguished, with specious
      compassion, the Sarmatian exiles, who had been expelled from
      their native country by the rebellion of their slaves, and who
      formed a very considerable accession to the power of the Quadi.
      The emperor, embracing a generous but artful system of policy,
      released the Sarmatians from the bands of this humiliating
      dependence, and restored them, by a separate treaty, to the
      dignity of a nation united under the government of a king, the
      friend and ally of the republic. He declared his resolution of
      asserting the justice of their cause, and of securing the peace
      of the provinces by the extirpation, or at least the banishment,
      of the Limigantes, whose manners were still infected with the
      vices of their servile origin. The execution of this design was
      attended with more difficulty than glory. The territory of the
      Limigantes was protected against the Romans by the Danube,
      against the hostile Barbarians by the Teyss. The marshy lands
      which lay between those rivers, and were often covered by their
      inundations, formed an intricate wilderness, pervious only to the
      inhabitants, who were acquainted with its secret paths and
      inaccessible fortresses. On the approach of Constantius, the
      Limigantes tried the efficacy of prayers, of fraud, and of arms;
      but he sternly rejected their supplications, defeated their rude
      stratagems, and repelled with skill and firmness the efforts of
      their irregular valor. One of their most warlike tribes,
      established in a small island towards the conflux of the Teyss
      and the Danube, consented to pass the river with the intention of
      surprising the emperor during the security of an amicable
      conference. They soon became the victims of the perfidy which
      they meditated. Encompassed on every side, trampled down by the
      cavalry, slaughtered by the swords of the legions, they disdained
      to ask for mercy; and with an undaunted countenance, still
      grasped their weapons in the agonies of death. After this
      victory, a considerable body of Romans was landed on the opposite
      banks of the Danube; the Taifal¾, a Gothic tribe engaged in the
      service of the empire, invaded the Limigantes on the side of the
      Teyss; and their former masters, the free Sarmatians, animated by
      hope and revenge, penetrated through the hilly country, into the
      heart of their ancient possessions. A general conflagration
      revealed the huts of the Barbarians, which were seated in the
      depth of the wilderness; and the soldier fought with confidence
      on marshy ground, which it was dangerous for him to tread. In
      this extremity, the bravest of the Limigantes were resolved to
      die in arms, rather than to yield: but the milder sentiment,
      enforced by the authority of their elders, at length prevailed;
      and the suppliant crowd, followed by their wives and children,
      repaired to the Imperial camp, to learn their fate from the mouth
      of the conqueror. After celebrating his own clemency, which was
      still inclined to pardon their repeated crimes, and to spare the
      remnant of a guilty nation, Constantius assigned for the place of
      their exile a remote country, where they might enjoy a safe and
      honorable repose. The Limigantes obeyed with reluctance; but
      before they could reach, at least before they could occupy, their
      destined habitations, they returned to the banks of the Danube,
      exaggerating the hardships of their situation, and requesting,
      with fervent professions of fidelity, that the emperor would
      grant them an undisturbed settlement within the limits of the
      Roman provinces. Instead of consulting his own experience of
      their incurable perfidy, Constantius listened to his flatterers,
      who were ready to represent the honor and advantage of accepting
      a colony of soldiers, at a time when it was much easier to obtain
      the pecuniary contributions than the military service of the
      subjects of the empire. The Limigantes were permitted to pass the
      Danube; and the emperor gave audience to the multitude in a large
      plain near the modern city of Buda. They surrounded the tribunal,
      and seemed to hear with respect an oration full of mildness and
      dignity when one of the Barbarians, casting his shoe into the
      air, exclaimed with a loud voice, _Marha! Marha!_ 4711 a word of
      defiance, which was received as a signal of the tumult. They
      rushed with fury to seize the person of the emperor; his royal
      throne and golden couch were pillaged by these rude hands; but
      the faithful defence of his guards, who died at his feet, allowed
      him a moment to mount a fleet horse, and to escape from the
      confusion. The disgrace which had been incurred by a treacherous
      surprise was soon retrieved by the numbers and discipline of the
      Romans; and the combat was only terminated by the extinction of
      the name and nation of the Limigantes. The free Sarmatians were
      reinstated in the possession of their ancient seats; and although
      Constantius distrusted the levity of their character, he
      entertained some hopes that a sense of gratitude might influence
      their future conduct. He had remarked the lofty stature and
      obsequious demeanor of Zizais, one of the noblest of their
      chiefs. He conferred on him the title of King; and Zizais proved
      that he was not unworthy to reign, by a sincere and lasting
      attachment to the interests of his benefactor, who, after this
      splendid success, received the name of _Sarmaticus_ from the
      acclamations of his victorious army. 48

      47 (return) [ The events of this Quadian and Sarmatian war are
      related by Ammianus, xvi. 10, xvii. 12, 13, xix. 11]

      4711 (return) [ Reinesius reads Warrha, Warrha, Guerre, War.
      Wagner note as a mm. Marc xix. ll.ÑM.]

      48 (return) [ Genti Sarmatarum magno decori confidens apud eos
      regem dedit. Aurelius Victor. In a pompous oration pronounced by
      Constantius himself, he expatiates on his own exploits with much
      vanity, and some truth]




      Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.ÑPart III.


      While the Roman emperor and the Persian monarch, at the distance
      of three thousand miles, defended their extreme limits against
      the Barbarians of the Danube and of the Oxus, their intermediate
      frontier experienced the vicissitudes of a languid war, and a
      precarious truce. Two of the eastern ministers of Constantius,
      the Pr¾torian pr¾fect Musonian, whose abilities were disgraced by
      the want of truth and integrity, and Cassian, duke of
      Mesopotamia, a hardy and veteran soldier, opened a secret
      negotiation with the satrap Tamsapor. 49 4911 These overtures of
      peace, translated into the servile and flattering language of
      Asia, were transmitted to the camp of the Great King; who
      resolved to signify, by an ambassador, the terms which he was
      inclined to grant to the suppliant Romans. Narses, whom he
      invested with that character, was honorably received in his
      passage through Antioch and Constantinople: he reached Sirmium
      after a long journey, and, at his first audience, respectfully
      unfolded the silken veil which covered the haughty epistle of his
      sovereign. Sapor, King of Kings, and Brother of the Sun and Moon,
      (such were the lofty titles affected by Oriental vanity,)
      expressed his satisfaction that his brother, Constantius C¾sar,
      had been taught wisdom by adversity. As the lawful successor of
      Darius Hystaspes, Sapor asserted, that the River Strymon, in
      Macedonia, was the true and ancient boundary of his empire;
      declaring, however, that as an evidence of his moderation, he
      would content himself with the provinces of Armenia and
      Mesopotamia, which had been fraudulently extorted from his
      ancestors. He alleged, that, without the restitution of these
      disputed countries, it was impossible to establish any treaty on
      a solid and permanent basis; and he arrogantly threatened, that
      if his ambassador returned in vain, he was prepared to take the
      field in the spring, and to support the justice of his cause by
      the strength of his invincible arms. Narses, who was endowed with
      the most polite and amiable manners, endeavored, as far as was
      consistent with his duty, to soften the harshness of the message.
      50 Both the style and substance were maturely weighed in the
      Imperial council, and he was dismissed with the following answer:
      ÒConstantius had a right to disclaim the officiousness of his
      ministers, who had acted without any specific orders from the
      throne: he was not, however, averse to an equal and honorable
      treaty; but it was highly indecent, as well as absurd, to propose
      to the sole and victorious emperor of the Roman world, the same
      conditions of peace which he had indignantly rejected at the time
      when his power was contracted within the narrow limits of the
      East: the chance of arms was uncertain; and Sapor should
      recollect, that if the Romans had sometimes been vanquished in
      battle, they had almost always been successful in the event of
      the war.Ó A few days after the departure of Narses, three
      ambassadors were sent to the court of Sapor, who was already
      returned from the Scythian expedition to his ordinary residence
      of Ctesiphon. A count, a notary, and a sophist, had been selected
      for this important commission; and Constantius, who was secretly
      anxious for the conclusion of the peace, entertained some hopes
      that the dignity of the first of these ministers, the dexterity
      of the second, and the rhetoric of the third, 51 would persuade
      the Persian monarch to abate of the rigor of his demands. But the
      progress of their negotiation was opposed and defeated by the
      hostile arts of Antoninus, 52 a Roman subject of Syria, who had
      fled from oppression, and was admitted into the councils of
      Sapor, and even to the royal table, where, according to the
      custom of the Persians, the most important business was
      frequently discussed. 53 The dexterous fugitive promoted his
      interest by the same conduct which gratified his revenge. He
      incessantly urged the ambition of his new master to embrace the
      favorable opportunity when the bravest of the Palatine troops
      were employed with the emperor in a distant war on the Danube. He
      pressed Sapor to invade the exhausted and defenceless provinces
      of the East, with the numerous armies of Persia, now fortified by
      the alliance and accession of the fiercest Barbarians. The
      ambassadors of Rome retired without success, and a second
      embassy, of a still more honorable rank, was detained in strict
      confinement, and threatened either with death or exile.

      49 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 9.]

      4911 (return) [ In Persian, Ten-schah-pour. St. Martin, ii.
      177.ÑM.]

      50 (return) [ Ammianus (xvii. 5) transcribes the haughty letter.
      Themistius (Orat. iv. p. 57, edit. Petav.) takes notice of the
      silken covering. Idatius and Zonaras mention the journey of the
      ambassador; and Peter the Patrician (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 58)
      has informed us of his behavior.]

      51 (return) [ Ammianus, xvii. 5, and Valesius ad loc. The
      sophist, or philosopher, (in that age these words were almost
      synonymous,) was Eustathius the Cappadocian, the disciple of
      Jamblichus, and the friend of St. Basil. Eunapius (in Vit.
      ®desii, p. 44-47) fondly attributes to this philosophic
      ambassador the glory of enchanting the Barbarian king by the
      persuasive charms of reason and eloquence. See Tillemont, Hist.
      des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 828, 1132.]

      52 (return) [ Ammian. xviii. 5, 6, 8. The decent and respectful
      behavior of Antoninus towards the Roman general, sets him in a
      very interesting light; and Ammianus himself speaks of the
      traitor with some compassion and esteem.]

      53 (return) [ This circumstance, as it is noticed by Ammianus,
      serves to prove the veracity of Herodotus, (l. i. c. 133,) and
      the permanency of the Persian manners. In every age the Persians
      have been addicted to intemperance, and the wines of Shiraz have
      triumphed over the law of Mahomet. Brisson de Regno Pers. l. ii.
      p. 462-472, and Voyages en Perse, tom, iii. p. 90.]

      The military historian, 54 who was himself despatched to observe
      the army of the Persians, as they were preparing to construct a
      bridge of boats over the Tigris, beheld from an eminence the
      plain of Assyria, as far as the edge of the horizon, covered with
      men, with horses, and with arms. Sapor appeared in the front,
      conspicuous by the splendor of his purple. On his left hand, the
      place of honor among the Orientals, Grumbates, king of the
      Chionites, displayed the stern countenance of an aged and
      renowned warrior. The monarch had reserved a similar place on his
      right hand for the king of the Albanians, who led his independent
      tribes from the shores of the Caspian. 5411 The satraps and
      generals were distributed according to their several ranks, and
      the whole army, besides the numerous train of Oriental luxury,
      consisted of more than one hundred thousand effective men, inured
      to fatigue, and selected from the bravest nations of Asia. The
      Roman deserter, who in some measure guided the councils of Sapor,
      had prudently advised, that, instead of wasting the summer in
      tedious and difficult sieges, he should march directly to the
      Euphrates, and press forwards without delay to seize the feeble
      and wealthy metropolis of Syria. But the Persians were no sooner
      advanced into the plains of Mesopotamia, than they discovered
      that every precaution had been used which could retard their
      progress, or defeat their design. The inhabitants, with their
      cattle, were secured in places of strength, the green forage
      throughout the country was set on fire, the fords of the rivers
      were fortified by sharp stakes; military engines were planted on
      the opposite banks, and a seasonable swell of the waters of the
      Euphrates deterred the Barbarians from attempting the ordinary
      passage of the bridge of Thapsacus. Their skilful guide, changing
      his plan of operations, then conducted the army by a longer
      circuit, but through a fertile territory, towards the head of the
      Euphrates, where the infant river is reduced to a shallow and
      accessible stream. Sapor overlooked, with prudent disdain, the
      strength of Nisibis; but as he passed under the walls of Amida,
      he resolved to try whether the majesty of his presence would not
      awe the garrison into immediate submission. The sacrilegious
      insult of a random dart, which glanced against the royal tiara,
      convinced him of his error; and the indignant monarch listened
      with impatience to the advice of his ministers, who conjured him
      not to sacrifice the success of his ambition to the gratification
      of his resentment. The following day Grumbates advanced towards
      the gates with a select body of troops, and required the instant
      surrender of the city, as the only atonement which could be
      accepted for such an act of rashness and insolence. His proposals
      were answered by a general discharge, and his only son, a
      beautiful and valiant youth, was pierced through the heart by a
      javelin, shot from one of the balist¾. The funeral of the prince
      of the Chionites was celebrated according to the rites of the
      country; and the grief of his aged father was alleviated by the
      solemn promise of Sapor, that the guilty city of Amida should
      serve as a funeral pile to expiate the death, and to perpetuate
      the memory, of his son.

      54 (return) [ Ammian. lxviii. 6, 7, 8, 10.]

      5411 (return) [ These perhaps were the barbarous tribes who
      inhabit the northern part of the present Schirwan, the Albania of
      the ancients. This country, now inhabited by the Lezghis, the
      terror of the neighboring districts, was then occupied by the
      same people, called by the ancients Leg¾, by the Armenians Gheg,
      or Leg. The latter represent them as constant allies of the
      Persians in their wars against Armenia and the Empire. A little
      after this period, a certain Schergir was their king, and it is
      of him doubtless Ammianus Marcellinus speaks. St. Martin, ii.
      285.ÑM.]

      The ancient city of Amid or Amida, 55 which sometimes assumes the
      provincial appellation of Diarbekir, 56 is advantageously situate
      in a fertile plain, watered by the natural and artificial
      channels of the Tigris, of which the least inconsiderable stream
      bends in a semicircular form round the eastern part of the city.
      The emperor Constantius had recently conferred on Amida the honor
      of his own name, and the additional fortifications of strong
      walls and lofty towers. It was provided with an arsenal of
      military engines, and the ordinary garrison had been reenforced
      to the amount of seven legions, when the place was invested by
      the arms of Sapor. 57 His first and most sanguine hopes depended
      on the success of a general assault. To the several nations which
      followed his standard, their respective posts were assigned; the
      south to the Vert¾; the north to the Albanians; the east to the
      Chionites, inflamed with grief and indignation; the west to the
      Segestans, the bravest of his warriors, who covered their front
      with a formidable line of Indian elephants. 58 The Persians, on
      every side, supported their efforts, and animated their courage;
      and the monarch himself, careless of his rank and safety,
      displayed, in the prosecution of the siege, the ardor of a
      youthful soldier. After an obstinate combat, the Barbarians were
      repulsed; they incessantly returned to the charge; they were
      again driven back with a dreadful slaughter, and two rebel
      legions of Gauls, who had been banished into the East, signalized
      their undisciplined courage by a nocturnal sally into the heart
      of the Persian camp. In one of the fiercest of these repeated
      assaults, Amida was betrayed by the treachery of a deserter, who
      indicated to the Barbarians a secret and neglected staircase,
      scooped out of the rock that hangs over the stream of the Tigris.
      Seventy chosen archers of the royal guard ascended in silence to
      the third story of a lofty tower, which commanded the precipice;
      they elevated on high the Persian banner, the signal of
      confidence to the assailants, and of dismay to the besieged; and
      if this devoted band could have maintained their post a few
      minutes longer, the reduction of the place might have been
      purchased by the sacrifice of their lives. After Sapor had tried,
      without success, the efficacy of force and of stratagem, he had
      recourse to the slower but more certain operations of a regular
      siege, in the conduct of which he was instructed by the skill of
      the Roman deserters. The trenches were opened at a convenient
      distance, and the troops destined for that service advanced under
      the portable cover of strong hurdles, to fill up the ditch, and
      undermine the foundations of the walls. Wooden towers were at the
      same time constructed, and moved forwards on wheels, till the
      soldiers, who were provided with every species of missile
      weapons, could engage almost on level ground with the troops who
      defended the rampart. Every mode of resistance which art could
      suggest, or courage could execute, was employed in the defence of
      Amida, and the works of Sapor were more than once destroyed by
      the fire of the Romans. But the resources of a besieged city may
      be exhausted. The Persians repaired their losses, and pushed
      their approaches; a large preach was made by the battering-ram,
      and the strength of the garrison, wasted by the sword and by
      disease, yielded to the fury of the assault. The soldiers, the
      citizens, their wives, their children, all who had not time to
      escape through the opposite gate, were involved by the conquerors
      in a promiscuous massacre.

      55 (return) [ For the description of Amida, see DÕHerbelot,
      Bebliotheque Orientale, p. Bibliothque Orientale, p. 108.
      Histoire de Timur Bec, par Cherefeddin Ali, l. iii. c. 41. Ahmed
      Arabsiades, tom. i. p. 331, c. 43. Voyages de Tavernier, tom. i.
      p. 301. Voyages dÕOtter, tom. ii. p. 273, and Voyages de Niebuhr,
      tom. ii. p. 324-328. The last of these travellers, a learned and
      accurate Dane, has given a plan of Amida, which illustrates the
      operations of the siege.]

      56 (return) [ Diarbekir, which is styled Amid, or Kara Amid, in
      the public writings of the Turks, contains above 16,000 houses,
      and is the residence of a pacha with three tails. The epithet of
      _Kara_ is derived from the _blackness_ of the stone which
      composes the strong and ancient wall of Amida. ÑÑIn my MŽm. Hist.
      sur lÕArmenie, l. i. p. 166, 173, I conceive that I have proved
      this city, still called, by the Armenians, Dirkranagerd, the city
      of Tigranes, to be the same with the famous Tigranocerta, of
      which the situation was unknown. St. Martin, i. 432. On the siege
      of Amida, see St. MartinÕs Notes, ii. 290. Faustus of Byzantium,
      nearly a contemporary, (Armenian,) states that the Persians, on
      becoming masters of it, destroyed 40,000 houses though Ammianus
      describes the city as of no great extent, (civitatis ambitum non
      nimium ampl¾.) Besides the ordinary population, and those who
      took refuge from the country, it contained 20,000 soldiers. St.
      Martin, ii. 290. This interpretation is extremely doubtful.
      Wagner (note on Ammianus) considers the whole population to
      amount only toÑM.]

      57 (return) [ The operations of the siege of Amida are very
      minutely described by Ammianus, (xix. 1-9,) who acted an
      honorable part in the defence, and escaped with difficulty when
      the city was stormed by the Persians.]

      58 (return) [ Of these four nations, the Albanians are too well
      known to require any description. The Segestans [_Sacasten. St.
      Martin._] inhabited a large and level country, which still
      preserves their name, to the south of Khorasan, and the west of
      Hindostan. (See Geographia Nubiensis. p. 133, and DÕHerbelot,
      Bibliothque Orientale, p. 797.) Notwithstanding the boasted
      victory of Bahram, (vol. i. p. 410,) the Segestans, above
      fourscore years afterwards, appear as an independent nation, the
      ally of Persia. We are ignorant of the situation of the Vert¾ and
      Chionites, but I am inclined to place them (at least the latter)
      towards the confines of India and Scythia. See Ammian. ÑÑKlaproth
      considers the real Albanians the same with the ancient Alani, and
      quotes a passage of the emperor Julian in support of his opinion.
      They are the Osset¾, now inhabiting part of Caucasus. Tableaux
      Hist. de lÕAsie, p. 179, 180.ÑM. ÑÑThe Vert¾ are still unknown.
      It is possible that the Chionites are the same as the Huns. These
      people were already known; and we find from Armenian authors that
      they were making, at this period, incursions into Asia. They were
      often at war with the Persians. The name was perhaps pronounced
      differently in the East and in the West, and this prevents us
      from recognizing it. St. Martin, ii. 177.ÑM.]

      But the ruin of Amida was the safety of the Roman provinces.

      As soon as the first transports of victory had subsided, Sapor
      was at leisure to reflect, that to chastise a disobedient city,
      he had lost the flower of his troops, and the most favorable
      season for conquest. 59 Thirty thousand of his veterans had
      fallen under the walls of Amida, during the continuance of a
      siege, which lasted seventy-three days; and the disappointed
      monarch returned to his capital with affected triumph and secret
      mortification. It is more than probable, that the inconstancy of
      his Barbarian allies was tempted to relinquish a war in which
      they had encountered such unexpected difficulties; and that the
      aged king of the Chionites, satiated with revenge, turned away
      with horror from a scene of action where he had been deprived of
      the hope of his family and nation. The strength as well as the
      spirit of the army with which Sapor took the field in the ensuing
      spring was no longer equal to the unbounded views of his
      ambition. Instead of aspiring to the conquest of the East, he was
      obliged to content himself with the reduction of two fortified
      cities of Mesopotamia, Singara and Bezabde; 60 the one situate in
      the midst of a sandy desert, the other in a small peninsula,
      surrounded almost on every side by the deep and rapid stream of
      the Tigris. Five Roman legions, of the diminutive size to which
      they had been reduced in the age of Constantine, were made
      prisoners, and sent into remote captivity on the extreme confines
      of Persia. After dismantling the walls of Singara, the conqueror
      abandoned that solitary and sequestered place; but he carefully
      restored the fortifications of Bezabde, and fixed in that
      important post a garrison or colony of veterans; amply supplied
      with every means of defence, and animated by high sentiments of
      honor and fidelity. Towards the close of the campaign, the arms
      of Sapor incurred some disgrace by an unsuccessful enterprise
      against Virtha, or Tecrit, a strong, or, as it was universally
      esteemed till the age of Tamerlane, an impregnable fortress of
      the independent Arabs. 61 6111

      59 (return) [ Ammianus has marked the chronology of this year by
      three signs, which do not perfectly coincide with each other, or
      with the series of the history. 1 The corn was ripe when Sapor
      invaded Mesopotamia; ÒCum jam stipula flaveate turgerent;Ó a
      circumstance, which, in the latitude of Aleppo, would naturally
      refer us to the month of April or May. See HarmerÕs Observations
      on Scripture vol. i. p. 41. ShawÕs Travels, p. 335, edit 4to. 2.
      The progress of Sapor was checked by the overflowing of the
      Euphrates, which generally happens in July and August. Plin.
      Hist. Nat. v. 21. Viaggi di Pietro della Valle, tom. i. p. 696.
      3. When Sapor had taken Amida, after a siege of seventy-three
      days, the autumn was far advanced. ÒAutumno pr¾cipiti h¾dorumque
      improbo sidere exorto.Ó To reconcile these apparent
      contradictions, we must allow for some delay in the Persian king,
      some inaccuracy in the historian, and some disorder in the
      seasons.]

      60 (return) [ The account of these sieges is given by Ammianus,
      xx. 6, 7. ÑÑThe Christian bishop of Bezabde went to the camp of
      the king of Persia, to persuade him to check the waste of human
      blood Amm. Mare xx. 7.ÑM.]

      61 (return) [ For the identity of Virtha and Tecrit, see
      DÕAnville, Geographie. For the siege of that castle by Timur Bec
      or Tamerlane, see Cherefeddin, l. iii. c. 33. The Persian
      biographer exaggerates the merit and difficulty of this exploit,
      which delivered the caravans of Bagdad from a formidable gang of
      robbers.]

      6111 (return) [ St. Martin doubts whether it lay so much to the
      south. ÒThe word Girtha means in Syriac a castle or fortress, and
      might be applied to many places.Ó]

      The defence of the East against the arms of Sapor required and
      would have exercised, the abilities of the most consummate
      general; and it seemed fortunate for the state, that it was the
      actual province of the brave Ursicinus, who alone deserved the
      confidence of the soldiers and people. In the hour of danger, 62
      Ursicinus was removed from his station by the intrigues of the
      eunuchs; and the military command of the East was bestowed, by
      the same influence, on Sabinian, a wealthy and subtle veteran,
      who had attained the infirmities, without acquiring the
      experience, of age. By a second order, which issued from the same
      jealous and inconstant councils, Ursicinus was again despatched
      to the frontier of Mesopotamia, and condemned to sustain the
      labors of a war, the honors of which had been transferred to his
      unworthy rival. Sabinian fixed his indolent station under the
      walls of Edessa; and while he amused himself with the idle parade
      of military exercise, and moved to the sound of flutes in the
      Pyrrhic dance, the public defence was abandoned to the boldness
      and diligence of the former general of the East. But whenever
      Ursicinus recommended any vigorous plan of operations; when he
      proposed, at the head of a light and active army, to wheel round
      the foot of the mountains, to intercept the convoys of the enemy,
      to harass the wide extent of the Persian lines, and to relieve
      the distress of Amida; the timid and envious commander alleged,
      that he was restrained by his positive orders from endangering
      the safety of the troops. Amida was at length taken; its bravest
      defenders, who had escaped the sword of the Barbarians, died in
      the Roman camp by the hand of the executioner: and Ursicinus
      himself, after supporting the disgrace of a partial inquiry, was
      punished for the misconduct of Sabinian by the loss of his
      military rank. But Constantius soon experienced the truth of the
      prediction which honest indignation had extorted from his injured
      lieutenant, that as long as such maxims of government were
      suffered to prevail, the emperor himself would find it is no easy
      task to defend his eastern dominions from the invasion of a
      foreign enemy. When he had subdued or pacified the Barbarians of
      the Danube, Constantius proceeded by slow marches into the East;
      and after he had wept over the smoking ruins of Amida, he formed,
      with a powerful army, the siege of Becabde. The walls were shaken
      by the reiterated efforts of the most enormous of the
      battering-rams; the town was reduced to the last extremity; but
      it was still defended by the patient and intrepid valor of the
      garrison, till the approach of the rainy season obliged the
      emperor to raise the siege, and ingloviously to retreat into his
      winter quarters at Antioch. 63 The pride of Constantius, and the
      ingenuity of his courtiers, were at a loss to discover any
      materials for panegyric in the events of the Persian war; while
      the glory of his cousin Julian, to whose military command he had
      intrusted the provinces of Gaul, was proclaimed to the world in
      the simple and concise narrative of his exploits.

      62 (return) [ Ammianus (xviii. 5, 6, xix. 3, xx. 2) represents
      the merit and disgrace of Ursicinus with that faithful attention
      which a soldier owed to his general. Some partiality may be
      suspected, yet the whole account is consistent and probable.]

      63 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 11. Omisso vano incepto, hiematurus
      Antiochi¾ redit in Syriam ¾rumnosam, perpessus et ulcerum sed et
      atrocia, diuque deflenda. It is _thus_ that James Gronovius has
      restored an obscure passage; and he thinks that this correction
      alone would have deserved a new edition of his author: whose
      sense may now be darkly perceived. I expected some additional
      light from the recent labors of the learned Ernestus. (Lipsi¾,
      1773.) * Note: The late editor (Wagner) has nothing better to
      suggest, and le menta with Gibbon, the silence of Ernesti.ÑM.]

      In the blind fury of civil discord, Constantius had abandoned to
      the Barbarians of Germany the countries of Gaul, which still
      acknowledged the authority of his rival. A numerous swarm of
      Franks and Alemanni were invited to cross the Rhine by presents
      and promises, by the hopes of spoil, and by a perpetual grant of
      all the territories which they should be able to subdue. 64 But
      the emperor, who for a temporary service had thus imprudently
      provoked the rapacious spirit of the Barbarians, soon discovered
      and lamented the difficulty of dismissing these formidable
      allies, after they had tasted the richness of the Roman soil.
      Regardless of the nice distinction of loyalty and rebellion,
      these undisciplined robbers treated as their natural enemies all
      the subjects of the empire, who possessed any property which they
      were desirous of acquiring Forty-five flourishing cities,
      Tongres, Cologne, Treves, Worms, Spires, Strasburgh, &c., besides
      a far greater number of towns and villages, were pillaged, and
      for the most part reduced to ashes. The Barbarians of Germany,
      still faithful to the maxims of their ancestors, abhorred the
      confinement of walls, to which they applied the odious names of
      prisons and sepulchres; and fixing their independent habitations
      on the banks of rivers, the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Meuse,
      they secured themselves against the danger of a surprise, by a
      rude and hasty fortification of large trees, which were felled
      and thrown across the roads. The Alemanni were established in the
      modern countries of Alsace and Lorraine; the Franks occupied the
      island of the Batavians, together with an extensive district of
      Brabant, which was then known by the appellation of Toxandria, 65
      and may deserve to be considered as the original seat of their
      Gallic monarchy. 66 From the sources, to the mouth, of the Rhine,
      the conquests of the Germans extended above forty miles to the
      west of that river, over a country peopled by colonies of their
      own name and nation: and the scene of their devastations was
      three times more extensive than that of their conquests. At a
      still greater distance the open towns of Gaul were deserted, and
      the inhabitants of the fortified cities, who trusted to their
      strength and vigilance, were obliged to content themselves with
      such supplies of corn as they could raise on the vacant land
      within the enclosure of their walls. The diminished legions,
      destitute of pay and provisions, of arms and discipline, trembled
      at the approach, and even at the name, of the Barbarians.

      64 (return) [ The ravages of the Germans, and the distress of
      Gaul, may be collected from Julian himself. Orat. ad S. P. Q.
      Athen. p. 277. Ammian. xv. ll. Libanius, Orat. x. Zosimus, l.
      iii. p. 140. Sozomen, l. iii. c. l. (Mamertin. Grat. Art. c.
      iv.)]

      65 (return) [ Ammianus, xvi. 8. This name seems to be derived
      from the Toxandri of Pliny, and very frequently occurs in the
      histories of the middle age. Toxandria was a country of woods and
      morasses, which extended from the neighborhood of Tongres to the
      conflux of the Vahal and the Rhine. See Valesius, Notit. Galliar.
      p. 558.]

      66 (return) [ The paradox of P. Daniel, that the Franks never
      obtained any permanent settlement on this side of the Rhine
      before the time of Clovis, is refuted with much learning and good
      sense by M. Biet, who has proved by a chain of evidence, their
      uninterrupted possession of Toxandria, one hundred and thirty
      years before the accession of Clovis. The Dissertation of M. Biet
      was crowned by the Academy of Soissons, in the year 1736, and
      seems to have been justly preferred to the discourse of his more
      celebrated competitor, the AbbŽ le BÏuf, an antiquarian, whose
      name was happily expressive of his talents.]




      Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.ÑPart IV.


      Under these melancholy circumstances, an unexperienced youth was
      appointed to save and to govern the provinces of Gaul, or rather,
      as he expressed it himself, to exhibit the vain image of Imperial
      greatness. The retired scholastic education of Julian, in which
      he had been more conversant with books than with arms, with the
      dead than with the living, left him in profound ignorance of the
      practical arts of war and government; and when he awkwardly
      repeated some military exercise which it was necessary for him to
      learn, he exclaimed with a sigh, ÒO Plato, Plato, what a task for
      a philosopher!Ó Yet even this speculative philosophy, which men
      of business are too apt to despise, had filled the mind of Julian
      with the noblest precepts and the most shining examples; had
      animated him with the love of virtue, the desire of fame, and the
      contempt of death. The habits of temperance recommended in the
      schools, are still more essential in the severe discipline of a
      camp. The simple wants of nature regulated the measure of his
      food and sleep. Rejecting with disdain the delicacies provided
      for his table, he satisfied his appetite with the coarse and
      common fare which was allotted to the meanest soldiers. During
      the rigor of a Gallic winter, he never suffered a fire in his
      bed-chamber; and after a short and interrupted slumber, he
      frequently rose in the middle of the night from a carpet spread
      on the floor, to despatch any urgent business, to visit his
      rounds, or to steal a few moments for the prosecution of his
      favorite studies. 67 The precepts of eloquence, which he had
      hitherto practised on fancied topics of declamation, were more
      usefully applied to excite or to assuage the passions of an armed
      multitude: and although Julian, from his early habits of
      conversation and literature, was more familiarly acquainted with
      the beauties of the Greek language, he had attained a competent
      knowledge of the Latin tongue. 68 Since Julian was not originally
      designed for the character of a legislator, or a judge, it is
      probable that the civil jurisprudence of the Romans had not
      engaged any considerable share of his attention: but he derived
      from his philosophic studies an inflexible regard for justice,
      tempered by a disposition to clemency; the knowledge of the
      general principles of equity and evidence, and the faculty of
      patiently investigating the most intricate and tedious questions
      which could be proposed for his discussion. The measures of
      policy, and the operations of war, must submit to the various
      accidents of circumstance and character, and the unpractised
      student will often be perplexed in the application of the most
      perfect theory.

      But in the acquisition of this important science, Julian was
      assisted by the active vigor of his own genius, as well as by the
      wisdom and experience of Sallust, and officer of rank, who soon
      conceived a sincere attachment for a prince so worthy of his
      friendship; and whose incorruptible integrity was adorned by the
      talent of insinuating the harshest truths without wounding the
      delicacy of a royal ear. 69

      67 (return) [ The private life of Julian in Gaul, and the severe
      discipline which he embraced, are displayed by Ammianus, (xvi.
      5,) who professes to praise, and by Julian himself, who affects
      to ridicule, (Misopogon, p. 340,) a conduct, which, in a prince
      of the house of Constantine, might justly excite the surprise of
      mankind.]

      68 (return) [ Aderat Latine quoque disserenti sufficiens sermo.
      Ammianus xvi. 5. But Julian, educated in the schools of Greece,
      always considered the language of the Romans as a foreign and
      popular dialect which he might use on necessary occasions.]

      69 (return) [ We are ignorant of the actual office of this
      excellent minister, whom Julian afterwards created pr¾fect of
      Gaul. Sallust was speedly recalled by the jealousy of the
      emperor; and we may still read a sensible but pedantic discourse,
      (p. 240-252,) in which Julian deplores the loss of so valuable a
      friend, to whom he acknowledges himself indebted for his
      reputation. See La Bleterie, Preface a la Vie de lovien, p. 20.]

      Immediately after Julian had received the purple at Milan, he was
      sent into Gaul with a feeble retinue of three hundred and sixty
      soldiers. At Vienna, where he passed a painful and anxious winter
      in the hands of those ministers to whom Constantius had intrusted
      the direction of his conduct, the C¾sar was informed of the siege
      and deliverance of Autun. That large and ancient city, protected
      only by a ruined wall and pusillanimous garrison, was saved by
      the generous resolution of a few veterans, who resumed their arms
      for the defence of their country. In his march from Autun,
      through the heart of the Gallic provinces, Julian embraced with
      ardor the earliest opportunity of signalizing his courage. At the
      head of a small body of archers and heavy cavalry, he preferred
      the shorter but the more dangerous of two roads; 6911 and
      sometimes eluding, and sometimes resisting, the attacks of the
      Barbarians, who were masters of the field, he arrived with honor
      and safety at the camp near Rheims, where the Roman troops had
      been ordered to assemble. The aspect of their young prince
      revived the drooping spirits of the soldiers, and they marched
      from Rheims in search of the enemy, with a confidence which had
      almost proved fatal to them. The Alemanni, familiarized to the
      knowledge of the country, secretly collected their scattered
      forces, and seizing the opportunity of a dark and rainy day,
      poured with unexpected fury on the rear-guard of the Romans.
      Before the inevitable disorder could be remedied, two legions
      were destroyed; and Julian was taught by experience that caution
      and vigilance are the most important lessons of the art of war.
      In a second and more successful action, he recovered and
      established his military fame; but as the agility of the
      Barbarians saved them from the pursuit, his victory was neither
      bloody nor decisive. He advanced, however, to the banks of the
      Rhine, surveyed the ruins of Cologne, convinced himself of the
      difficulties of the war, and retreated on the approach of winter,
      discontented with the court, with his army, and with his own
      success. 70 The power of the enemy was yet unbroken; and the
      C¾sar had no sooner separated his troops, and fixed his own
      quarters at Sens, in the centre of Gaul, than he was surrounded
      and besieged, by a numerous host of Germans. Reduced, in this
      extremity, to the resources of his own mind, he displayed a
      prudent intrepidity, which compensated for all the deficiencies
      of the place and garrison; and the Barbarians, at the end of
      thirty days, were obliged to retire with disappointed rage.

      6911 (return) [ Aliis per ArborÑquibusdam per Sedelaucum et Coram
      in debere firrantibus. Amm. Marc. xvi. 2. I do not know what
      place can be meant by the mutilated name Arbor. Sedelanus is
      Saulieu, a small town of the department of the Cote dÕOr, six
      leagues from Autun. Cora answers to the village of Cure, on the
      river of the same name, between Autun and Nevera 4; Martin, ii.
      162.ÑM. ÑÑNote: At Brocomages, Brumat, near Strasburgh. St.
      Martin, ii. 184.ÑM.]

      70 (return) [ Ammianus (xvi. 2, 3) appears much better satisfied
      with the success of his first campaign than Julian himself; who
      very fairly owns that he did nothing of consequence, and that he
      fled before the enemy.]

      The conscious pride of Julian, who was indebted only to his sword
      for this signal deliverance, was imbittered by the reflection,
      that he was abandoned, betrayed, and perhaps devoted to
      destruction, by those who were bound to assist him, by every tie
      of honor and fidelity. Marcellus, master-general of the cavalry
      in Gaul, interpreting too strictly the jealous orders of the
      court, beheld with supine indifference the distress of Julian,
      and had restrained the troops under his command from marching to
      the relief of Sens. If the C¾sar had dissembled in silence so
      dangerous an insult, his person and authority would have been
      exposed to the contempt of the world; and if an action so
      criminal had been suffered to pass with impunity, the emperor
      would have confirmed the suspicions, which received a very
      specious color from his past conduct towards the princes of the
      Flavian family. Marcellus was recalled, and gently dismissed from
      his office. 71 In his room Severus was appointed general of the
      cavalry; an experienced soldier, of approved courage and
      fidelity, who could advise with respect, and execute with zeal;
      and who submitted, without reluctance to the supreme command
      which Julian, by the inrerest of his patroness Eusebia, at length
      obtained over the armies of Gaul. 72 A very judicious plan of
      operations was adopted for the approaching campaign. Julian
      himself, at the head of the remains of the veteran bands, and of
      some new levies which he had been permitted to form, boldly
      penetrated into the centre of the German cantonments, and
      carefully reestablished the fortifications of Saverne, in an
      advantageous post, which would either check the incursions, or
      intercept the retreat, of the enemy. At the same time, Barbatio,
      general of the infantry, advanced from Milan with an army of
      thirty thousand men, and passing the mountains, prepared to throw
      a bridge over the Rhine, in the neighborhood of Basil. It was
      reasonable to expect that the Alemanni, pressed on either side by
      the Roman arms, would soon be forced to evacuate the provinces of
      Gaul, and to hasten to the defence of their native country. But
      the hopes of the campaign were defeated by the incapacity, or the
      envy, or the secret instructions, of Barbatio; who acted as if he
      had been the enemy of the C¾sar, and the secret ally of the
      Barbarians. The negligence with which he permitted a troop of
      pillagers freely to pass, and to return almost before the gates
      of his camp, may be imputed to his want of abilities; but the
      treasonable act of burning a number of boats, and a superfluous
      stock of provisions, which would have been of the most essential
      service to the army of Gaul, was an evidence of his hostile and
      criminal intentions. The Germans despised an enemy who appeared
      destitute either of power or of inclination to offend them; and
      the ignominious retreat of Barbatio deprived Julian of the
      expected support; and left him to extricate himself from a
      hazardous situation, where he could neither remain with safety,
      nor retire with honor. 73

      71 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 7. Libanius speaks rather more
      advantageously of the military talents of Marcellus, Orat. x. p.
      272. And Julian insinuates, that he would not have been so easily
      recalled, unless he had given other reasons of offence to the
      court, p. 278.]

      72 (return) [ Severus, non discors, non arrogans, sed longa
      militi¾ frugalitate compertus; et eum recta pr¾euntem secuturus,
      ut duetorem morigeran miles. Ammian xvi. 11. Zosimus, l. iii. p.
      140.]

      73 (return) [ On the design and failure of the cooperation
      between Julian and Barbatio, see Ammianus (xvi. 11) and Libanius,
      (Orat. x. p. 273.) Note: Barbatio seems to have allowed himself
      to be surprised and defeatedÑM.]

      As soon as they were delivered from the fears of invasion, the
      Alemanni prepared to chastise the Roman youth, who presumed to
      dispute the possession of that country, which they claimed as
      their own by the right of conquest and of treaties. They employed
      three days, and as many nights, in transporting over the Rhine
      their military powers. The fierce Chnodomar, shaking the
      ponderous javelin which he had victoriously wielded against the
      brother of Magnentius, led the van of the Barbarians, and
      moderated by his experience the martial ardor which his example
      inspired. 74 He was followed by six other kings, by ten princes
      of regal extraction, by a long train of high-spirited nobles, and
      by thirty-five thousand of the bravest warriors of the tribes of
      Germany. The confidence derived from the view of their own
      strength, was increased by the intelligence which they received
      from a deserter, that the C¾sar, with a feeble army of thirteen
      thousand men, occupied a post about one-and-twenty miles from
      their camp of Strasburgh. With this inadequate force, Julian
      resolved to seek and to encounter the Barbarian host; and the
      chance of a general action was preferred to the tedious and
      uncertain operation of separately engaging the dispersed parties
      of the Alemanni. The Romans marched in close order, and in two
      columns; the cavalry on the right, the infantry on the left; and
      the day was so far spent when they appeared in sight of the
      enemy, that Julian was desirous of deferring the battle till the
      next morning, and of allowing his troops to recruit their
      exhausted strength by the necessary refreshments of sleep and
      food. Yielding, however, with some reluctance, to the clamors of
      the soldiers, and even to the opinion of his council, he exhorted
      them to justify by their valor the eager impatience, which, in
      case of a defeat, would be universally branded with the epithets
      of rashness and presumption. The trumpets sounded, the military
      shout was heard through the field, and the two armies rushed with
      equal fury to the charge. The C¾sar, who conducted in person his
      right wing, depended on the dexterity of his archers, and the
      weight of his cuirassiers. But his ranks were instantly broken by
      an irregular mixture of light horse and of light infantry, and he
      had the mortification of beholding the flight of six hundred of
      his most renowned cuirassiers. 75 The fugitives were stopped and
      rallied by the presence and authority of Julian, who, careless of
      his own safety, threw himself before them, and urging every
      motive of shame and honor, led them back against the victorious
      enemy. The conflict between the two lines of infantry was
      obstinate and bloody. The Germans possessed the superiority of
      strength and stature, the Romans that of discipline and temper;
      and as the Barbarians, who served under the standard of the
      empire, united the respective advantages of both parties, their
      strenuous efforts, guided by a skilful leader, at length
      determined the event of the day. The Romans lost four tribunes,
      and two hundred and forty-three soldiers, in this memorable
      battle of Strasburgh, so glorious to the C¾sar, 76 and so
      salutary to the afflicted provinces of Gaul. Six thousand of the
      Alemanni were slain in the field, without including those who
      were drowned in the Rhine, or transfixed with darts while they
      attempted to swim across the river. 77 Chnodomar himself was
      surrounded and taken prisoner, with three of his brave
      companions, who had devoted themselves to follow in life or death
      the fate of their chieftain. Julian received him with military
      pomp in the council of his officers; and expressing a generous
      pity for the fallen state, dissembled his inward contempt for the
      abject humiliation, of his captive. Instead of exhibiting the
      vanquished king of the Alemanni, as a grateful spectacle to the
      cities of Gaul, he respectfully laid at the feet of the emperor
      this splendid trophy of his victory. Chnodomar experienced an
      honorable treatment: but the impatient Barbarian could not long
      survive his defeat, his confinement, and his exile. 78

      74 (return) [ Ammianus (xvi. 12) describes with his inflated
      eloquence the figure and character of Chnodomar. Audax et fidens
      ingenti robore lacertorum, ubi ardor prÏlii sperabatur immanis,
      equo spumante sublimior, erectus in jaculum formidand¾
      vastitatis, armorumque nitore conspicuus: antea strenuus et
      miles, et utilis pr¾ter c¾teros ductor... Decentium C¾sarem
      superavit ¾quo marte congressus.]

      75 (return) [ After the battle, Julian ventured to revive the
      rigor of ancient discipline, by exposing these fugitives in
      female apparel to the derision of the whole camp. In the next
      campaign, these troops nobly retrieved their honor. Zosimus, l.
      iii. p. 142.]

      76 (return) [ Julian himself (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 279) speaks
      of the battle of Strasburgh with the modesty of conscious merit;
      Zosimus compares it with the victory of Alexander over Darius;
      and yet we are at a loss to discover any of those strokes of
      military genius which fix the attention of ages on the conduct
      and success of a single day.]

      77 (return) [ Ammianus, xvi. 12. Libanius adds 2000 more to the
      number of the slain, (Orat. x. p. 274.) But these trifling
      differences disappear before the 60,000 Barbarians, whom Zosimus
      has sacrificed to the glory of his hero, (l. iii. p. 141.) We
      might attribute this extravagant number to the carelessness of
      transcribers, if this credulous or partial historian had not
      swelled the army of 35,000 Alemanni to an innumerable multitude
      of Barbarians,. It is our own fault if this detection does not
      inspire us with proper distrust on similar occasions.]

      78 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 12. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 276.]

      After Julian had repulsed the Alemanni from the provinces of the
      Upper Rhine, he turned his arms against the Franks, who were
      seated nearer to the ocean, on the confines of Gaul and Germany;
      and who, from their numbers, and still more from their intrepid
      valor, had ever been esteemed the most formidable of the
      Barbarians. 79 Although they were strongly actuated by the
      allurements of rapine, they professed a disinterested love of
      war; which they considered as the supreme honor and felicity of
      human nature; and their minds and bodies were so completely
      hardened by perpetual action, that, according to the lively
      expression of an orator, the snows of winter were as pleasant to
      them as the flowers of spring. In the month of December, which
      followed the battle of Strasburgh, Julian attacked a body of six
      hundred Franks, who had thrown themselves into two castles on the
      Meuse. 80 In the midst of that severe season they sustained, with
      inflexible constancy, a siege of fifty-four days; till at length,
      exhausted by hunger, and satisfied that the vigilance of the
      enemy, in breaking the ice of the river, left them no hopes of
      escape, the Franks consented, for the first time, to dispense
      with the ancient law which commanded them to conquer or to die.
      The C¾sar immediately sent his captives to the court of
      Constantius, who, accepting them as a valuable present, 81
      rejoiced in the opportunity of adding so many heroes to the
      choicest troops of his domestic guards. The obstinate resistance
      of this handful of Franks apprised Julian of the difficulties of
      the expedition which he meditated for the ensuing spring, against
      the whole body of the nation. His rapid diligence surprised and
      astonished the active Barbarians. Ordering his soldiers to
      provide themselves with biscuit for twenty days, he suddenly
      pitched his camp near Tongres, while the enemy still supposed him
      in his winter quarters of Paris, expecting the slow arrival of
      his convoys from Aquitain. Without allowing the Franks to unite
      or deliberate, he skilfully spread his legions from Cologne to
      the ocean; and by the terror, as well as by the success, of his
      arms, soon reduced the suppliant tribes to implore the clemency,
      and to obey the commands, of their conqueror. The Chamavians
      submissively retired to their former habitations beyond the
      Rhine; but the Salians were permitted to possess their new
      establishment of Toxandria, as the subjects and auxiliaries of
      the Roman empire. 82 The treaty was ratified by solemn oaths; and
      perpetual inspectors were appointed to reside among the Franks,
      with the authority of enforcing the strict observance of the
      conditions. An incident is related, interesting enough in itself,
      and by no means repugnant to the character of Julian, who
      ingeniously contrived both the plot and the catastrophe of the
      tragedy. When the Chamavians sued for peace, he required the son
      of their king, as the only hostage on whom he could rely. A
      mournful silence, interrupted by tears and groans, declared the
      sad perplexity of the Barbarians; and their aged chief lamented
      in pathetic language, that his private loss was now imbittered by
      a sense of public calamity. While the Chamavians lay prostrate at
      the foot of his throne, the royal captive, whom they believed to
      have been slain, unexpectedly appeared before their eyes; and as
      soon as the tumult of joy was hushed into attention, the C¾sar
      addressed the assembly in the following terms: ÒBehold the son,
      the prince, whom you wept. You had lost him by your fault. God
      and the Romans have restored him to you. I shall still preserve
      and educate the youth, rather as a monument of my own virtue,
      than as a pledge of your sincerity. Should you presume to violate
      the faith which you have sworn, the arms of the republic will
      avenge the perfidy, not on the innocent, but on the guilty.Ó The
      Barbarians withdrew from his presence, impressed with the warmest
      sentiments of gratitude and admiration. 83

      79 (return) [ Libanius (Orat. iii. p. 137) draws a very lively
      picture of the manners of the Franks.]

      80 (return) [ Ammianus, xvii. 2. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 278. The
      Greek orator, by misapprehending a passage of Julian, has been
      induced to represent the Franks as consisting of a thousand men;
      and as his head was always full of the Peloponnesian war, he
      compares them to the Laced¾monians, who were besieged and taken
      in the Island of Sphatoria.]

      81 (return) [ Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280. Libanius, Orat.
      x. p. 278. According to the expression of Libanius, the emperor,
      which La Bleterie understands (Vie de Julien, p. 118) as an
      honest confession, and Valesius (ad Ammian. xvii. 2) as a mean
      evasion, of the truth. Dom Bouquet, (Historiens de France, tom.
      i. p. 733,) by substituting another word, would suppress both the
      difficulty and the spirit of this passage.]

      82 (return) [ Ammian. xvii. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 146-150, (his
      narrative is darkened by a mixture of fable,) and Julian. ad S.
      P. Q. Athen. p. 280. His expression. This difference of treatment
      confirms the opinion that the Salian Franks were permitted to
      retain the settlements in Toxandria. Note: A newly discovered
      fragment of Eunapius, whom Zosimus probably transcribed,
      illustrates this transaction. ÒJulian commanded the Romans to
      abstain from all hostile measures against the Salians, neither to
      waste or ravage _their own_ country, for he called every country
      _their own_ which was surrendered without resistance or toil on
      the part of the conquerors.Ó Mai, Script. Vez Nov. Collect. ii.
      256, and Eunapius in Niebuhr, Byzant. Hist.]

      83 (return) [ This interesting story, which Zosimus has abridged,
      is related by Eunapius, (in Excerpt. Legationum, p. 15, 16, 17,)
      with all the amplifications of Grecian rhetoric: but the silence
      of Libanius, of Ammianus, and of Julian himself, renders the
      truth of it extremely suspicious.]

      It was not enough for Julian to have delivered the provinces of
      Gaul from the Barbarians of Germany. He aspired to emulate the
      glory of the first and most illustrious of the emperors; after
      whose example, he composed his own commentaries of the Gallic
      war. 84 C¾sar has related, with conscious pride, the manner in
      which he _twice_ passed the Rhine. Julian could boast, that
      before he assumed the title of Augustus, he had carried the Roman
      eagles beyond that great river in _three_ successful expeditions.
      85 The consternation of the Germans, after the battle of
      Strasburgh, encouraged him to the first attempt; and the
      reluctance of the troops soon yielded to the persuasive eloquence
      of a leader, who shared the fatigues and dangers which he imposed
      on the meanest of the soldiers. The villages on either side of
      the Meyn, which were plentifully stored with corn and cattle,
      felt the ravages of an invading army. The principal houses,
      constructed with some imitation of Roman elegance, were consumed
      by the flames; and the C¾sar boldly advanced about ten miles,
      till his progress was stopped by a dark and impenetrable forest,
      undermined by subterraneous passages, which threatened with
      secret snares and ambush every step of the assailants. The ground
      was already covered with snow; and Julian, after repairing an
      ancient castle which had been erected by Trajan, granted a truce
      of ten months to the submissive Barbarians. At the expiration of
      the truce, Julian undertook a second expedition beyond the Rhine,
      to humble the pride of Surmar and Hortaire, two of the kings of
      the Alemanni, who had been present at the battle of Strasburgh.
      They promised to restore all the Roman captives who yet remained
      alive; and as the C¾sar had procured an exact account from the
      cities and villages of Gaul, of the inhabitants whom they had
      lost, he detected every attempt to deceive him, with a degree of
      readiness and accuracy, which almost established the belief of
      his supernatural knowledge. His third expedition was still more
      splendid and important than the two former. The Germans had
      collected their military powers, and moved along the opposite
      banks of the river, with a design of destroying the bridge, and
      of preventing the passage of the Romans. But this judicious plan
      of defence was disconcerted by a skilful diversion. Three hundred
      light-armed and active soldiers were detached in forty small
      boats, to fall down the stream in silence, and to land at some
      distance from the posts of the enemy. They executed their orders
      with so much boldness and celerity, that they had almost
      surprised the Barbarian chiefs, who returned in the fearless
      confidence of intoxication from one of their nocturnal festivals.
      Without repeating the uniform and disgusting tale of slaughter
      and devastation, it is sufficient to observe, that Julian
      dictated his own conditions of peace to six of the haughtiest
      kings of the Alemanni, three of whom were permitted to view the
      severe discipline and martial pomp of a Roman camp. Followed by
      twenty thousand captives, whom he had rescued from the chains of
      the Barbarians, the C¾sar repassed the Rhine, after terminating a
      war, the success of which has been compared to the ancient
      glories of the Punic and Cimbric victories.

      84 (return) [ Libanius, the friend of Julian, clearly insinuates
      (Orat. ix. p. 178) that his hero had composed the history of his
      Gallic campaigns But Zosimus (l. iii. p, 140) seems to have
      derived his information only from the Orations and the Epistles
      of Julian. The discourse which is addressed to the Athenians
      contains an accurate, though general, account of the war against
      the Germans.]

      85 (return) [ See Ammian. xvii. 1, 10, xviii. 2, and Zosim. l.
      iii. p. 144. Julian ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280.]

      As soon as the valor and conduct of Julian had secured an
      interval of peace, he applied himself to a work more congenial to
      his humane and philosophic temper. The cities of Gaul, which had
      suffered from the inroads of the Barbarians, he diligently
      repaired; and seven important posts, between Mentz and the mouth
      of the Rhine, are particularly mentioned, as having been rebuilt
      and fortified by the order of Julian. 86 The vanquished Germans
      had submitted to the just but humiliating condition of preparing
      and conveying the necessary materials. The active zeal of Julian
      urged the prosecution of the work; and such was the spirit which
      he had diffused among the troops, that the auxiliaries
      themselves, waiving their exemption from any duties of fatigue,
      contended in the most servile labors with the diligence of the
      Roman soldiers. It was incumbent on the C¾sar to provide for the
      subsistence, as well as for the safety, of the inhabitants and of
      the garrisons. The desertion of the former, and the mutiny of the
      latter, must have been the fatal and inevitable consequences of
      famine. The tillage of the provinces of Gaul had been interrupted
      by the calamities of war; but the scanty harvests of the
      continent were supplied, by his paternal care, from the plenty of
      the adjacent island. Six hundred large barks, framed in the
      forest of the Ardennes, made several voyages to the coast of
      Britain; and returning from thence, laden with corn, sailed up
      the Rhine, and distributed their cargoes to the several towns and
      fortresses along the banks of the river. 87 The arms of Julian
      had restored a free and secure navigation, which Constantinius
      had offered to purchase at the expense of his dignity, and of a
      tributary present of two thousand pounds of silver. The emperor
      parsimoniously refused to his soldiers the sums which he granted
      with a lavish and trembling hand to the Barbarians. The
      dexterity, as well as the firmness, of Julian was put to a severe
      trial, when he took the field with a discontented army, which had
      already served two campaigns, without receiving any regular pay
      or any extraordinary donative. 88

      86 (return) [ Ammian. xviii. 2. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 279, 280.
      Of these seven posts, four are at present towns of some
      consequence; Bingen, Andernach, Bonn, and Nuyss. The other three,
      Tricesim¾, Quadriburgium, and Castra Herculis, or Heraclea, no
      longer subsist; but there is room to believe, that on the ground
      of Quadriburgium the Dutch have constructed the fort of Schenk, a
      name so offensive to the fastidious delicacy of Boileau. See
      DÕAnville, Notice de lÕAncienne Gaule, p. 183. Boileau, Epitre
      iv. and the notes. Note: Tricesim¾, Kellen, Mannert, quoted by
      Wagner. Heraclea, Erkeleus in the district of Juliers. St.
      Martin, ii. 311.ÑM.]

      87 (return) [ We may credit Julian himself, (Orat. ad S. P. Q.
      Atheniensem, p. 280,) who gives a very particular account of the
      transaction. Zosimus adds two hundred vessels more, (l. iii. p.
      145.) If we compute the 600 corn ships of Julian at only seventy
      tons each, they were capable of exporting 120,000 quarters, (see
      ArbuthnotÕs Weights and Measures, p. 237;) and the country which
      could bear so large an exportation, must already have attained an
      improved state of agriculture.]

      88 (return) [ The troops once broke out into a mutiny,
      immediately before the second passage of the Rhine. Ammian. xvii.
      9.]

      A tender regard for the peace and happiness of his subjects was
      the ruling principle which directed, or seemed to direct, the
      administration of Julian. 89 He devoted the leisure of his winter
      quarters to the offices of civil government; and affected to
      assume, with more pleasure, the character of a magistrate than
      that of a general. Before he took the field, he devolved on the
      provincial governors most of the public and private causes which
      had been referred to his tribunal; but, on his return, he
      carefully revised their proceedings, mitigated the rigor of the
      law, and pronounced a second judgment on the judges themselves.
      Superior to the last temptation of virtuous minds, an indiscreet
      and intemperate zeal for justice, he restrained, with calmness
      and dignity, the warmth of an advocate, who prosecuted, for
      extortion, the president of the Narbonnese province. ÒWho will
      ever be found guilty,Ó exclaimed the vehement Delphidius, Òif it
      be enough to deny?Ó ÒAnd who,Ó replied Julian, Òwill ever be
      innocent, if it be sufficient to affirm?Ó In the general
      administration of peace and war, the interest of the sovereign is
      commonly the same as that of his people; but Constantius would
      have thought himself deeply injured, if the virtues of Julian had
      defrauded him of any part of the tribute which he extorted from
      an oppressed and exhausted country. The prince who was invested
      with the ensigns of royalty, might sometimes presume to correct
      the rapacious insolence of his inferior agents, to expose their
      corrupt arts, and to introduce an equal and easier mode of
      collection. But the management of the finances was more safely
      intrusted to Florentius, pr¾torian pr¾fect of Gaul, an effeminate
      tyrant, incapable of pity or remorse: and the haughty minister
      complained of the most decent and gentle opposition, while Julian
      himself was rather inclined to censure the weakness of his own
      behavior. The C¾sar had rejected, with abhorrence, a mandate for
      the levy of an extraordinary tax; a new superindiction, which the
      pr¾fect had offered for his signature; and the faithful picture
      of the public misery, by which he had been obliged to justify his
      refusal, offended the court of Constantius. We may enjoy the
      pleasure of reading the sentiments of Julian, as he expresses
      them with warmth and freedom in a letter to one of his most
      intimate friends. After stating his own conduct, he proceeds in
      the following terms: ÒWas it possible for the disciple of Plato
      and Aristotle to act otherwise than I have done? Could I abandon
      the unhappy subjects intrusted to my care? Was I not called upon
      to defend them from the repeated injuries of these unfeeling
      robbers? A tribune who deserts his post is punished with death,
      and deprived of the honors of burial. With what justice could I
      pronounce _his_ sentence, if, in the hour of danger, I myself
      neglected a duty far more sacred and far more important? God has
      placed me in this elevated post; his providence will guard and
      support me. Should I be condemned to suffer, I shall derive
      comfort from the testimony of a pure and upright conscience.
      Would to Heaven that I still possessed a counsellor like Sallust!
      If they think proper to send me a successor, I shall submit
      without reluctance; and had much rather improve the short
      opportunity of doing good, than enjoy a long and lasting impunity
      of evil.Ó 90 The precarious and dependent situation of Julian
      displayed his virtues and concealed his defects. The young hero
      who supported, in Gaul, the throne of Constantius, was not
      permitted to reform the vices of the government; but he had
      courage to alleviate or to pity the distress of the people.
      Unless he had been able to revive the martial spirit of the
      Romans, or to introduce the arts of industry and refinement among
      their savage enemies, he could not entertain any rational hopes
      of securing the public tranquillity, either by the peace or
      conquest of Germany. Yet the victories of Julian suspended, for a
      short time, the inroads of the Barbarians, and delayed the ruin
      of the Western Empire.

      89 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 5, xviii. 1. Mamertinus in Panegyr.
      Vet. xi. 4]

      90 (return) [ Ammian. xvii. 3. Julian. Epistol. xv. edit.
      Spanheim. Such a conduct almost justifies the encomium of
      Mamertinus. Ita illi anni spatia divisa sunt, ut aut Barbaros
      domitet, aut civibus jura restituat, perpetuum professus, aut
      contra hostem, aut contra vitia, certamen.]

      His salutary influence restored the cities of Gaul, which had
      been so long exposed to the evils of civil discord, Barbarian
      war, and domestic tyranny; and the spirit of industry was revived
      with the hopes of enjoyment. Agriculture, manufactures, and
      commerce, again flourished under the protection of the laws; and
      the _curi¾_, or civil corporations, were again filled with useful
      and respectable members: the youth were no longer apprehensive of
      marriage; and married persons were no longer apprehensive of
      posterity: the public and private festivals were celebrated with
      customary pomp; and the frequent and secure intercourse of the
      provinces displayed the image of national prosperity. 91 A mind
      like that of Julian must have felt the general happiness of which
      he was the author; but he viewed, with particular satisfaction
      and complacency, the city of Paris; the seat of his winter
      residence, and the object even of his partial affection. 92 That
      splendid capital, which now embraces an ample territory on either
      side of the Seine, was originally confined to the small island in
      the midst of the river, from whence the inhabitants derived a
      supply of pure and salubrious water. The river bathed the foot of
      the walls; and the town was accessible only by two wooden
      bridges. A forest overspread the northern side of the Seine, but
      on the south, the ground, which now bears the name of the
      University, was insensibly covered with houses, and adorned with
      a palace and amphitheatre, baths, an aqueduct, and a field of
      Mars for the exercise of the Roman troops. The severity of the
      climate was tempered by the neighborhood of the ocean; and with
      some precautions, which experience had taught, the vine and
      fig-tree were successfully cultivated. But in remarkable winters,
      the Seine was deeply frozen; and the huge pieces of ice that
      floated down the stream, might be compared, by an Asiatic, to the
      blocks of white marble which were extracted from the quarries of
      Phrygia. The licentiousness and corruption of Antioch recalled to
      the memory of Julian the severe and simple manners of his beloved
      Lutetia; 93 where the amusements of the theatre were unknown or
      despised. He indignantly contrasted the effeminate Syrians with
      the brave and honest simplicity of the Gauls, and almost forgave
      the intemperance, which was the only stain of the Celtic
      character. 94 If Julian could now revisit the capital of France,
      he might converse with men of science and genius, capable of
      understanding and of instructing a disciple of the Greeks; he
      might excuse the lively and graceful follies of a nation, whose
      martial spirit has never been enervated by the indulgence of
      luxury; and he must applaud the perfection of that inestimable
      art, which softens and refines and embellishes the intercourse of
      social life.

      91 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parental. in Imp. Julian. c. 38, in
      Fabricius Bibliothec. Gr¾c. tom. vii. p. 263, 264.]

      92 (return) [ See Julian. in Misopogon, p. 340, 341. The
      primitive state of Paris is illustrated by Henry Valesius, (ad
      Ammian. xx. 4,) his brother Hadrian Valesius, or de Valois, and
      M. DÕAnville, (in their respective Notitias of ancient Gaul,) the
      AbbŽ de Longuerue, (Description de la France, tom. i. p. 12, 13,)
      and M. Bonamy, (in the MŽm. de lÕAcadŽmie des Inscriptions, tom.
      xv. p. 656-691.)]

      93 (return) [ Julian, in Misopogon, p. 340. Leuce tia, or
      Lutetia, was the ancient name of the city, which, according to
      the fashion of the fourth century, assumed the territorial
      appellation of _Parisii_.]

      94 (return) [ Julian in Misopogon, p. 359, 360.]

 Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.ÑPart I.

The Motives, Progress, And Effects Of The Conversion Of
Constantine.ÑLegal Establishment And Constitution Of The Christian Or
Catholic Church.

The public establishment of Christianity may be considered as one of
those important and domestic revolutions which excite the most lively
curiosity, and afford the most valuable instruction. The victories and
the civil policy of Constantine no longer influence the state of
Europe; but a considerable portion of the globe still retains the
impression which it received from the conversion of that monarch; and
the ecclesiastical institutions of his reign are still connected, by an
indissoluble chain, with the opinions, the passions, and the interests
of the present generation. In the consideration of a subject which may
be examined with impartiality, but cannot be viewed with indifference,
a difficulty immediately arises of a very unexpected nature; that of
ascertaining the real and precise date of the conversion of
Constantine. The eloquent Lactantius, in the midst of his court, seems
impatient 1 to proclaim to the world the glorious example of the
sovereign of Gaul; who, in the first moments of his reign, acknowledged
and adored the majesty of the true and only God. 2 The learned Eusebius
has ascribed the faith of Constantine to the miraculous sign which was
displayed in the heavens whilst he meditated and prepared the Italian
expedition. 3 The historian Zosimus maliciously asserts, that the
emperor had imbrued his hands in the blood of his eldest son, before he
publicly renounced the gods of Rome and of his ancestors. 4 The
perplexity produced by these discordant authorities is derived from the
behavior of Constantine himself. According to the strictness of
ecclesiastical language, the first of the _Christian_ emperors was
unworthy of that name, till the moment of his death; since it was only
during his last illness that he received, as a catechumen, the
imposition of hands, 5 and was afterwards admitted, by the initiatory
rites of baptism, into the number of the faithful. 6 The Christianity
of Constantine must be allowed in a much more vague and qualified
sense; and the nicest accuracy is required in tracing the slow and
almost imperceptible gradations by which the monarch declared himself
the protector, and at length the proselyte, of the church. It was an
arduous task to eradicate the habits and prejudices of his education,
to acknowledge the divine power of Christ, and to understand that the
truth of _his_ revelation was incompatible with the worship of the
gods. The obstacles which he had probably experienced in his own mind,
instructed him to proceed with caution in the momentous change of a
national religion; and he insensibly discovered his new opinions, as
far as he could enforce them with safety and with effect. During the
whole course of his reign, the stream of Christianity flowed with a
gentle, though accelerated, motion: but its general direction was
sometimes checked, and sometimes diverted, by the accidental
circumstances of the times, and by the prudence, or possibly by the
caprice, of the monarch. His ministers were permitted to signify the
intentions of their master in the various language which was best
adapted to their respective principles; 7 and he artfully balanced the
hopes and fears of his subjects, by publishing in the same year two
edicts; the first of which enjoined the solemn observance of Sunday, 8
and the second directed the regular consultation of the Aruspices. 9
While this important revolution yet remained in suspense, the
Christians and the Pagans watched the conduct of their sovereign with
the same anxiety, but with very opposite sentiments. The former were
prompted by every motive of zeal, as well as vanity, to exaggerate the
marks of his favor, and the evidences of his faith. The latter, till
their just apprehensions were changed into despair and resentment,
attempted to conceal from the world, and from themselves, that the gods
of Rome could no longer reckon the emperor in the number of their
votaries. The same passions and prejudices have engaged the partial
writers of the times to connect the public profession of Christianity
with the most glorious or the most ignominious ¾ra of the reign of
Constantine.

1 (return) [ The date of the Divine Institutions of Lactantius has been
accurately discussed, difficulties have been started, solutions
proposed, and an expedient imagined of two _original_ editions; the
former published during the persecution of Diocletian, the latter under
that of Licinius. See Dufresnoy, Prefat. p. v. Tillemont, MŽm.
Ecclesiast. tom. vi. p. 465-470. LardnerÕs Credibility, part ii. vol.
vii. p. 78-86. For my own part, I am _almost_ convinced that Lactantius
dedicated his Institutions to the sovereign of Gaul, at a time when
Galerius, Maximin, and even Licinius, persecuted the Christians; that
is, between the years 306 and 311.]

2 (return) [ Lactant. Divin. Instit. i. l. vii. 27. The first and most
important of these passages is indeed wanting in twenty-eight
manuscripts; but it is found in nineteen. If we weigh the comparative
value of these manuscripts, one of 900 years old, in the king of
FranceÕs library may be alleged in its favor; but the passage is
omitted in the correct manuscript of Bologna, which the P. de
Montfaucon ascribes to the sixth or seventh century (Diarium Italic. p.
489.) The taste of most of the editors (except Is¾us; see Lactant.
edit. Dufresnoy, tom. i. p. 596) has felt the genuine style of
Lactantius.]

3 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. i. c. 27-32.]

4 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 104.]

5 (return) [ That rite was _always_ used in making a catechumen, (see
BinghamÕs Antiquities. l. x. c. i. p. 419. Dom Chardon, Hist. des
Sacramens, tom. i. p. 62,) and Constantine received it for the _first_
time (Euseb. in Vit Constant. l. iv. c. 61) immediately before his
baptism and death. From the connection of these two facts, Valesius (ad
loc. Euseb.) has drawn the conclusion which is reluctantly admitted by
Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 628,) and opposed with
feeble arguments by Mosheim, (p. 968.)]

6 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 61, 62, 63. The legend
of ConstantineÕs baptism at Rome, thirteen years before his death, was
invented in the eighth century, as a proper motive for his _donation_.
Such has been the gradual progress of knowledge, that a story, of which
Cardinal Baronius (Annual Ecclesiast. A. D. 324, No. 43-49) declared
himself the unblushing advocate, is now feebly supported, even within
the verge of the Vatican. See the Antiquitates Christian¾, tom. ii. p.
232; a work published with six approbations at Rome, in the year 1751
by Father Mamachi, a learned Dominican.]

7 (return) [ The qu¾stor, or secretary, who composed the law of the
Theodosian Code, makes his master say with indifference, Òhominibus
supradict¾ religionis,Ó (l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 1.) The minister of
ecclesiastical affairs was allowed a more devout and respectful style,
[**Greek] the legal, most holy, and Catholic worship.]

8 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. ii. viii. tit. leg. 1. Cod. Justinian. l.
iii. tit. xii. leg. 3. Constantine styles the LordÕs day _dies solis_,
a name which could not offend the ears of his pagan subjects.]

9 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x. leg. l. Godefroy, in the
character of a commentator, endeavors (tom. vi. p. 257) to excuse
Constantine; but the more zealous Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 321,
No. 17) censures his profane conduct with truth and asperity.]

Whatever symptoms of Christian piety might transpire in the discourses
or actions of Constantine, he persevered till he was near forty years
of age in the practice of the established religion; 10 and the same
conduct which in the court of Nicomedia might be imputed to his fear,
could be ascribed only to the inclination or policy of the sovereign of
Gaul. His liberality restored and enriched the temples of the gods; the
medals which issued from his Imperial mint are impressed with the
figures and attributes of Jupiter and Apollo, of Mars and Hercules; and
his filial piety increased the council of Olympus by the solemn
apotheosis of his father Constantius. 11 But the devotion of
Constantine was more peculiarly directed to the genius of the Sun, the
Apollo of Greek and Roman mythology; and he was pleased to be
represented with the symbols of the God of Light and Poetry. The
unerring shafts of that deity, the brightness of his eyes, his laurel
wreath, immortal beauty, and elegant accomplishments, seem to point him
out as the patron of a young hero. The altars of Apollo were crowned
with the votive offerings of Constantine; and the credulous multitude
were taught to believe, that the emperor was permitted to behold with
mortal eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar deity; and that,
either walking or in a vision, he was blessed with the auspicious omens
of a long and victorious reign. The Sun was universally celebrated as
the invincible guide and protector of Constantine; and the Pagans might
reasonably expect that the insulted god would pursue with unrelenting
vengeance the impiety of his ungrateful favorite. 12

10 (return) [ Theodoret. (l. i. c. 18) seems to insinuate that Helena
gave her son a Christian education; but we may be assured, from the
superior authority of Eusebius, (in Vit. Constant. l. iii. c. 47,) that
she herself was indebted to Constantine for the knowledge of
Christianity.]

11 (return) [ See the medals of Constantine in Ducange and Banduri. As
few cities had retained the privilege of coining, almost all the medals
of that age issued from the mint under the sanction of the Imperial
authority.]

12 (return) [ The panegyric of Eumenius, (vii. inter Panegyr. Vet.,)
which was pronounced a few months before the Italian war, abounds with
the most unexceptionable evidence of the Pagan superstition of
Constantine, and of his particular veneration for Apollo, or the Sun;
to which Julian alludes.]

As long as Constantine exercised a limited sovereignty over the
provinces of Gaul, his Christian subjects were protected by the
authority, and perhaps by the laws, of a prince, who wisely left to the
gods the care of vindicating their own honor. If we may credit the
assertion of Constantine himself, he had been an indignant spectator of
the savage cruelties which were inflicted, by the hands of Roman
soldiers, on those citizens whose religion was their only crime. 13 In
the East and in the West, he had seen the different effects of severity
and indulgence; and as the former was rendered still more odious by the
example of Galerius, his implacable enemy, the latter was recommended
to his imitation by the authority and advice of a dying father. The son
of Constantius immediately suspended or repealed the edicts of
persecution, and granted the free exercise of their religious
ceremonies to all those who had already professed themselves members of
the church. They were soon encouraged to depend on the favor as well as
on the justice of their sovereign, who had imbibed a secret and sincere
reverence for the name of Christ, and for the God of the Christians. 14

13 (return) [ Constantin. Orat. ad Sanctos, c. 25. But it might easily
be shown, that the Greek translator has improved the sense of the Latin
original; and the aged emperor might recollect the persecution of
Diocletian with a more lively abhorrence than he had actually felt to
the days of his youth and Paganism.]

14 (return) [ See Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. viii. 13, l. ix. 9, and in
Vit. Const. l. i. c. 16, 17 Lactant. Divin. Institut. i. l. C¾cilius de
Mort. Persecut. c. 25.]

About five months after the conquest of Italy, the emperor made a
solemn and authentic declaration of his sentiments by the celebrated
edict of Milan, which restored peace to the Catholic church. In the
personal interview of the two western princes, Constantine, by the
ascendant of genius and power, obtained the ready concurrence of his
colleague, Licinius; the union of their names and authority disarmed
the fury of Maximin; and after the death of the tyrant of the East, the
edict of Milan was received as a general and fundamental law of the
Roman world. 15

15 (return) [ C¾cilius (de Mort. Persecut. c. 48) has preserved the
Latin original; and Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. l. x. c. 5) has given a
Greek translation of this perpetual edict, which refers to some
provisional regulations.]

The wisdom of the emperors provided for the restitution of all the
civil and religious rights of which the Christians had been so unjustly
deprived. It was enacted that the places of worship, and public lands,
which had been confiscated, should be restored to the church, without
dispute, without delay, and without expense; and this severe injunction
was accompanied with a gracious promise, that if any of the purchasers
had paid a fair and adequate price, they should be indemnified from the
Imperial treasury. The salutary regulations which guard the future
tranquillity of the faithful are framed on the principles of enlarged
and equal toleration; and such an equality must have been interpreted
by a recent sect as an advantageous and honorable distinction. The two
emperors proclaim to the world, that they have granted a free and
absolute power to the Christians, and to all others, of following the
religion which each individual thinks proper to prefer, to which he has
addicted his mind, and which he may deem the best adapted to his own
use. They carefully explain every ambiguous word, remove every
exception, and exact from the governors of the provinces a strict
obedience to the true and simple meaning of an edict, which was
designed to establish and secure, without any limitation, the claims of
religious liberty. They condescend to assign two weighty reasons which
have induced them to allow this universal toleration: the humane
intention of consulting the peace and happiness of their people; and
the pious hope, that, by such a conduct, they shall appease and
propitiate _the Deity_, whose seat is in heaven. They gratefully
acknowledge the many signal proofs which they have received of the
divine favor; and they trust that the same Providence will forever
continue to protect the prosperity of the prince and people. From these
vague and indefinite expressions of piety, three suppositions may be
deduced, of a different, but not of an incompatible nature. The mind of
Constantine might fluctuate between the Pagan and the Christian
religions. According to the loose and complying notions of Polytheism,
he might acknowledge the God of the Christians as _one_ of the _many_
deities who compose the hierarchy of heaven. Or perhaps he might
embrace the philosophic and pleasing idea, that, notwithstanding the
variety of names, of rites, and of opinions, all the sects, and all the
nations of mankind, are united in the worship of the common Father and
Creator of the universe. 16

16 (return) [ A panegyric of Constantine, pronounced seven or eight
months after the edict of Milan, (see Gothofred. Chronolog. Legum, p.
7, and Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 246,) uses the
following remarkable expression: ÒSumme rerum sator, cujus tot nomina
sant, quot linguas gentium esse voluisti, quem enim te ipse dici velin,
scire non possumus.Ó (Panegyr. Vet. ix. 26.) In explaining
ConstantineÕs progress in the faith, Mosheim (p. 971, &c.) is
ingenious, subtle, prolix.]

But the counsels of princes are more frequently influenced by views of
temporal advantage, than by considerations of abstract and speculative
truth. The partial and increasing favor of Constantine may naturally be
referred to the esteem which he entertained for the moral character of
the Christians; and to a persuasion, that the propagation of the gospel
would inculcate the practice of private and public virtue. Whatever
latitude an absolute monarch may assume in his own conduct, whatever
indulgence he may claim for his own passions, it is undoubtedly his
interest that all his subjects should respect the natural and civil
obligations of society. But the operation of the wisest laws is
imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot
always restrain vice. Their power is insufficient to prohibit all that
they condemn, nor can they always punish the actions which they
prohibit. The legislators of antiquity had summoned to their aid the
powers of education and of opinion. But every principle which had once
maintained the vigor and purity of Rome and Sparta, was long since
extinguished in a declining and despotic empire. Philosophy still
exercised her temperate sway over the human mind, but the cause of
virtue derived very feeble support from the influence of the Pagan
superstition. Under these discouraging circumstances, a prudent
magistrate might observe with pleasure the progress of a religion which
diffused among the people a pure, benevolent, and universal system of
ethics, adapted to every duty and every condition of life; recommended
as the will and reason of the supreme Deity, and enforced by the
sanction of eternal rewards or punishments. The experience of Greek and
Roman history could not inform the world how far the system of national
manners might be reformed and improved by the precepts of a divine
revelation; and Constantine might listen with some confidence to the
flattering, and indeed reasonable, assurances of Lactantius. The
eloquent apologist seemed firmly to expect, and almost ventured to
promise, _that_ the establishment of Christianity would restore the
innocence and felicity of the primitive age; _that_ the worship of the
true God would extinguish war and dissension among those who mutually
considered themselves as the children of a common parent; _that_ every
impure desire, every angry or selfish passion, would be restrained by
the knowledge of the gospel; and _that_ the magistrates might sheath
the sword of justice among a people who would be universally actuated
by the sentiments of truth and piety, of equity and moderation, of
harmony and universal love. 17

17 (return) [ See the elegant description of Lactantius, (Divin
Institut. v. 8,) who is much more perspicuous and positive than becomes
a discreet prophet.]

The passive and unresisting obedience, which bows under the yoke of
authority, or even of oppression, must have appeared, in the eyes of an
absolute monarch, the most conspicuous and useful of the evangelic
virtues. 18 The primitive Christians derived the institution of civil
government, not from the consent of the people, but from the decrees of
Heaven. The reigning emperor, though he had usurped the sceptre by
treason and murder, immediately assumed the sacred character of
vicegerent of the Deity. To the Deity alone he was accountable for the
abuse of his power; and his subjects were indissolubly bound, by their
oath of fidelity, to a tyrant, who had violated every law of nature and
society. The humble Christians were sent into the world as sheep among
wolves; and since they were not permitted to employ force even in the
defence of their religion, they should be still more criminal if they
were tempted to shed the blood of their fellow-creatures in disputing
the vain privileges, or the sordid possessions, of this transitory
life. Faithful to the doctrine of the apostle, who in the reign of Nero
had preached the duty of unconditional submission, the Christians of
the three first centuries preserved their conscience pure and innocent
of the guilt of secret conspiracy, or open rebellion. While they
experienced the rigor of persecution, they were never provoked either
to meet their tyrants in the field, or indignantly to withdraw
themselves into some remote and sequestered corner of the globe. 19 The
Protestants of France, of Germany, and of Britain, who asserted with
such intrepid courage their civil and religious freedom, have been
insulted by the invidious comparison between the conduct of the
primitive and of the reformed Christians. 20 Perhaps, instead of
censure, some applause may be due to the superior sense and spirit of
our ancestors, who had convinced themselves that religion cannot
abolish the unalienable rights of human nature. 21 Perhaps the patience
of the primitive church may be ascribed to its weakness, as well as to
its virtue.

A sect of unwarlike plebeians, without leaders, without arms, without
fortifications, must have encountered inevitable destruction in a rash
and fruitless resistance to the master of the Roman legions. But the
Christians, when they deprecated the wrath of Diocletian, or solicited
the favor of Constantine, could allege, with truth and confidence, that
they held the principle of passive obedience, and that, in the space of
three centuries, their conduct had always been conformable to their
principles. They might add, that the throne of the emperors would be
established on a fixed and permanent basis, if all their subjects,
embracing the Christian doctrine, should learn to suffer and to obey.

18 (return) [ The political system of the Christians is explained by
Grotius, de Jure Belli et Pacis, l. i. c. 3, 4. Grotius was a
republican and an exile, but the mildness of his temper inclined him to
support the established powers.]

19 (return) [ Tertullian. Apolog. c. 32, 34, 35, 36. Tamen nunquam
Albiniani, nec Nigriani vel Cassiani inveniri potuerunt Christiani. Ad
Scapulam, c. 2. If this assertion be strictly true, it excludes the
Christians of that age from all civil and military employments, which
would have compelled them to take an active part in the service of
their respective governors. See MoyleÕs Works, vol. ii. p. 349.]

20 (return) [ See the artful Bossuet, (Hist. des Variations des Eglises
Protestantes, tom. iii. p. 210-258.) and the malicious Bayle, (tom ii.
p. 820.) I _name_ Bayle, for he was certainly the author of the Avis
aux Refugies; consult the Dictionnaire Critique de ChauffepiŽ, tom. i.
part ii. p. 145.]

21 (return) [ Buchanan is the earliest, or at least the most
celebrated, of the reformers, who has justified the theory of
resistance. See his Dialogue de Jure Regni apud Scotos, tom. ii. p. 28,
30, edit. fol. Rudiman.]

In the general order of Providence, princes and tyrants are considered
as the ministers of Heaven, appointed to rule or to chastise the
nations of the earth. But sacred history affords many illustrious
examples of the more immediate interposition of the Deity in the
government of his chosen people. The sceptre and the sword were
committed to the hands of Moses, of Joshua, of Gideon, of David, of the
Maccabees; the virtues of those heroes were the motive or the effect of
the divine favor, the success of their arms was destined to achieve the
deliverance or the triumph of the church. If the judges of Israel were
occasional and temporary magistrates, the kings of Judah derived from
the royal unction of their great ancestor an hereditary and
indefeasible right, which could not be forfeited by their own vices,
nor recalled by the caprice of their subjects. The same extraordinary
providence, which was no longer confined to the Jewish people, might
elect Constantine and his family as the protectors of the Christian
world; and the devout Lactantius announces, in a prophetic tone, the
future glories of his long and universal reign. 22 Galerius and
Maximin, Maxentius and Licinius, were the rivals who shared with the
favorite of heaven the provinces of the empire. The tragic deaths of
Galerius and Maximin soon gratified the resentment, and fulfilled the
sanguine expectations, of the Christians. The success of Constantine
against Maxentius and Licinius removed the two formidable competitors
who still opposed the triumph of the second David, and his cause might
seem to claim the peculiar interposition of Providence. The character
of the Roman tyrant disgraced the purple and human nature; and though
the Christians might enjoy his precarious favor, they were exposed,
with the rest of his subjects, to the effects of his wanton and
capricious cruelty. The conduct of Licinius soon betrayed the
reluctance with which he had consented to the wise and humane
regulations of the edict of Milan. The convocation of provincial synods
was prohibited in his dominions; his Christian officers were
ignominiously dismissed; and if he avoided the guilt, or rather danger,
of a general persecution, his partial oppressions were rendered still
more odious by the violation of a solemn and voluntary engagement. 23
While the East, according to the lively expression of Eusebius, was
involved in the shades of infernal darkness, the auspicious rays of
celestial light warmed and illuminated the provinces of the West. The
piety of Constantine was admitted as an unexceptionable proof of the
justice of his arms; and his use of victory confirmed the opinion of
the Christians, that their hero was inspired, and conducted, by the
Lord of Hosts. The conquest of Italy produced a general edict of
toleration; and as soon as the defeat of Licinius had invested
Constantine with the sole dominion of the Roman world, he immediately,
by circular letters, exhorted all his subjects to imitate, without
delay, the example of their sovereign, and to embrace the divine truth
of Christianity. 24

22 (return) [ Lactant Divin. Institut. i. l. Eusebius in the course of
his history, his life, and his oration, repeatedly inculcates the
divine right of Constantine to the empire.]

23 (return) [ Our imperfect knowledge of the persecution of Licinius is
derived from Eusebius, (Hist. l. x. c. 8. Vit. Constantin. l. i. c.
49-56, l. ii. c. 1, 2.) Aurelius Victor mentions his cruelty in general
terms.]

24 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. ii. c. 24-42 48-60.]

 Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.ÑPart II.

The assurance that the elevation of Constantine was intimately
connected with the designs of Providence, instilled into the minds of
the Christians two opinions, which, by very different means, assisted
the accomplishment of the prophecy. Their warm and active loyalty
exhausted in his favor every resource of human industry; and they
confidently expected that their strenuous efforts would be seconded by
some divine and miraculous aid. The enemies of Constantine have imputed
to interested motives the alliance which he insensibly contracted with
the Catholic church, and which apparently contributed to the success of
his ambition. In the beginning of the fourth century, the Christians
still bore a very inadequate proportion to the inhabitants of the
empire; but among a degenerate people, who viewed the change of masters
with the indifference of slaves, the spirit and union of a religious
party might assist the popular leader, to whose service, from a
principle of conscience, they had devoted their lives and fortunes. 25
The example of his father had instructed Constantine to esteem and to
reward the merit of the Christians; and in the distribution of public
offices, he had the advantage of strengthening his government, by the
choice of ministers or generals, in whose fidelity he could repose a
just and unreserved confidence. By the influence of these dignified
missionaries, the proselytes of the new faith must have multiplied in
the court and army; the Barbarians of Germany, who filled the ranks of
the legions, were of a careless temper, which acquiesced without
resistance in the religion of their commander; and when they passed the
Alps, it may fairly be presumed, that a great number of the soldiers
had already consecrated their swords to the service of Christ and of
Constantine. 26 The habits of mankind and the interests of religion
gradually abated the horror of war and bloodshed, which had so long
prevailed among the Christians; and in the councils which were
assembled under the gracious protection of Constantine, the authority
of the bishops was seasonably employed to ratify the obligation of the
military oath, and to inflict the penalty of excommunication on those
soldiers who threw away their arms during the peace of the church. 27
While Constantine, in his own dominions, increased the number and zeal
of his faithful adherents, he could depend on the support of a powerful
faction in those provinces which were still possessed or usurped by his
rivals. A secret disaffection was diffused among the Christian subjects
of Maxentius and Licinius; and the resentment, which the latter did not
attempt to conceal, served only to engage them still more deeply in the
interest of his competitor. The regular correspondence which connected
the bishops of the most distant provinces, enabled them freely to
communicate their wishes and their designs, and to transmit without
danger any useful intelligence, or any pious contributions, which might
promote the service of Constantine, who publicly declared that he had
taken up arms for the deliverance of the church. 28

25 (return) [ In the beginning of the last century, the Papists of
England were only a _thirtieth_, and the Protestants of France only a
_fifteenth_, part of the respective nations, to whom their spirit and
power were a constant object of apprehension. See the relations which
Bentivoglio (who was then nuncio at Brussels, and afterwards cardinal)
transmitted to the court of Rome, (Relazione, tom. ii. p. 211, 241.)
Bentivoglio was curious, well informed, but somewhat partial.]

26 (return) [ This careless temper of the Germans appears almost
uniformly on the history of the conversion of each of the tribes. The
legions of Constantine were recruited with Germans, (Zosimus, l. ii. p.
86;) and the court even of his father had been filled with Christians.
See the first book of the Life of Constantine, by Eusebius.]

27 (return) [ De his qui arma projiciunt in _pace_, placuit eos
abstinere a communione. Council. Arelat. Canon. iii. The best critics
apply these words to the _peace of the church_.]

28 (return) [ Eusebius always considers the second civil war against
Licinius as a sort of religious crusade. At the invitation of the
tyrant, some Christian officers had resumed their _zones;_ or, in other
words, had returned to the military service. Their conduct was
afterwards censured by the twelfth canon of the Council of Nice; if
this particular application may be received, instead of the lo se and
general sense of the Greek interpreters, Balsamor Zonaras, and Alexis
Aristenus. See Beveridge, Pandect. Eccles. Gr¾c. tom. i. p. 72, tom.
ii. p. 73 Annotation.]

The enthusiasm which inspired the troops, and perhaps the emperor
himself, had sharpened their swords while it satisfied their
conscience. They marched to battle with the full assurance, that the
same God, who had formerly opened a passage to the Israelites through
the waters of Jordan, and had thrown down the walls of Jericho at the
sound of the trumpets of Joshua, would display his visible majesty and
power in the victory of Constantine. The evidence of ecclesiastical
history is prepared to affirm, that their expectations were justified
by the conspicuous miracle to which the conversion of the first
Christian emperor has been almost unanimously ascribed. The real or
imaginary cause of so important an event, deserves and demands the
attention of posterity; and I shall endeavor to form a just estimate of
the famous vision of Constantine, by a distinct consideration of the
_standard_, the _dream_, and the _celestial sign;_ by separating the
historical, the natural, and the marvellous parts of this extraordinary
story, which, in the composition of a specious argument, have been
artfully confounded in one splendid and brittle mass.

I. An instrument of the tortures which were inflicted only on slaves
and strangers, became on object of horror in the eyes of a Roman
citizen; and the ideas of guilt, of pain, and of ignominy, were closely
united with the idea of the cross. 29 The piety, rather than the
humanity, of Constantine soon abolished in his dominions the punishment
which the Savior of mankind had condescended to suffer; 30 but the
emperor had already learned to despise the prejudices of his education,
and of his people, before he could erect in the midst of Rome his own
statue, bearing a cross in its right hand; with an inscription which
referred the victory of his arms, and the deliverance of Rome, to the
virtue of that salutary sign, the true symbol of force and courage. 31
The same symbol sanctified the arms of the soldiers of Constantine; the
cross glittered on their helmet, was engraved on their shields, was
interwoven into their banners; and the consecrated emblems which
adorned the person of the emperor himself, were distinguished only by
richer materials and more exquisite workmanship. 32 But the principal
standard which displayed the triumph of the cross was styled the
Labarum, 33 an obscure, though celebrated name, which has been vainly
derived from almost all the languages of the world. It is described 34
as a long pike intersected by a transversal beam. The silken veil,
which hung down from the beam, was curiously inwrought with the images
of the reigning monarch and his children. The summit of the pike
supported a crown of gold which enclosed the mysterious monogram, at
once expressive of the figure of the cross, and the initial letters, of
the name of Christ. 35 The safety of the labarum was intrusted to fifty
guards, of approved valor and fidelity; their station was marked by
honors and emoluments; and some fortunate accidents soon introduced an
opinion, that as long as the guards of the labarum were engaged in the
execution of their office, they were secure and invulnerable amidst the
darts of the enemy. In the second civil war, Licinius felt and dreaded
the power of this consecrated banner, the sight of which, in the
distress of battle, animated the soldiers of Constantine with an
invincible enthusiasm, and scattered terror and dismay through the
ranks of the adverse legions. 36 The Christian emperors, who respected
the example of Constantine, displayed in all their military expeditions
the standard of the cross; but when the degenerate successors of
Theodosius had ceased to appear in person at the head of their armies,
the labarum was deposited as a venerable but useless relic in the
palace of Constantinople. 37 Its honors are still preserved on the
medals of the Flavian family. Their grateful devotion has placed the
monogram of Christ in the midst of the ensigns of Rome. The solemn
epithets of, safety of the republic, glory of the army, restoration of
public happiness, are equally applied to the religious and military
trophies; and there is still extant a medal of the emperor Constantius,
where the standard of the labarum is accompanied with these memorable
words, BY THIS SIGN THOU SHALT CONQUER. 38

29 (return) [ Nomen ipsum _crucis_ absit non modo a corpore civium
Romano rum, sed etiam a cogitatione, oculis, auribus. Cicero pro
Raberio, c. 5. The Christian writers, Justin, Minucius Felix,
Tertullian, Jerom, and Maximus of Turin, have investigated with
tolerable success the figure or likeness of a cross in almost every
object of nature or art; in the intersection of the meridian and
equator, the human face, a bird flying, a man swimming, a mast and
yard, a plough, a _standard_, &c., &c., &c. See Lipsius de Cruce, l. i.
c. 9.]

30 (return) [ See Aurelius Victor, who considers this law as one of the
examples of ConstantineÕs piety. An edict so honorable to Christianity
deserved a place in the Theodosian Code, instead of the indirect
mention of it, which seems to result from the comparison of the fifth
and eighteenth titles of the ninth book.]

31 (return) [ Eusebius, in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c. 40. This statue,
or at least the cross and inscription, may be ascribed with more
probability to the second, or even third, visit of Constantine to Rome.
Immediately after the defeat of Maxentius, the minds of the senate and
people were scarcely ripe for this public monument.]

32 (return)
[ Agnoscas, regina, libens mea signa necesse est;
In quibus effigies crucis aut gemmata refulget
Aut longis solido ex auro pr¾fertur in hastis.
Hoc signo invictus, transmissis Alpibus Ultor
Servitium solvit miserabile Constantinus.

Christus _purpureum_ gemmanti textus in auro
Signabat _Labarum_, clypeorum insignia Christus
Scripserat; ardebat summis crux addita cristis.

Prudent. in Symmachum, l. ii. 464, 486.]

33 (return) [ The derivation and meaning of the word _Labarum_ or
_Laborum_, which is employed by Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrose, Prudentius,
&c., still remain totally unknown, in spite of the efforts of the
critics, who have ineffectually tortured the Latin, Greek, Spanish,
Celtic, Teutonic, Illyric, Armenian, &c., in search of an etymology.
See Ducange, in Gloss. Med. et infim. Latinitat. sub voce _Labarum_,
and Godefroy, ad Cod. Theodos. tom. ii. p. 143.]

34 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c. 30, 31. Baronius
(Annal. Eccles. A. D. 312, No. 26) has engraved a representation of the
Labarum.]

35 (return) [ Transvers‰ X liter‰, summo capite circumflexo, Christum
in scutis notat. C¾cilius de M. P. c. 44, Cuper, (ad M. P. in edit.
Lactant. tom. ii. p. 500,) and Baronius (A. D. 312, No. 25) have
engraved from ancient monuments several specimens (as thus of these
monograms) which became extremely fashionable in the Christian world.]

36 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. ii. c. 7, 8, 9. He
introduces the Labarum before the Italian expedition; but his narrative
seems to indicate that it was never shown at the head of an army till
Constantine above ten years afterwards, declared himself the enemy of
Licinius, and the deliverer of the church.]

37 (return) [ See Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxv. Sozomen, l. i. c. 2.
Theophan. Chronograph. p. 11. Theophanes lived towards the end of the
eighth century, almost five hundred years after Constantine. The modern
Greeks were not inclined to display in the field the standard of the
empire and of Christianity; and though they depended on every
superstitious hope of _defence_, the promise of _victory_ would have
appeared too bold a fiction.]

38 (return) [ The AbbŽ du Vois’n, p. 103, &c., alleges several of these
medals, and quotes a particular dissertation of a Jesuit the Pre de
Grainville, on this subject.]

II. In all occasions of danger and distress, it was the practice of the
primitive Christians to fortify their minds and bodies by the sign of
the cross, which they used, in all their ecclesiastical rites, in all
the daily occurrences of life, as an infallible preservative against
every species of spiritual or temporal evil. 39 The authority of the
church might alone have had sufficient weight to justify the devotion
of Constantine, who in the same prudent and gradual progress
acknowledged the truth, and assumed the symbol, of Christianity. But
the testimony of a contemporary writer, who in a formal treatise has
avenged the cause of religion, bestows on the piety of the emperor a
more awful and sublime character. He affirms, with the most perfect
confidence, that in the night which preceded the last battle against
Maxentius, Constantine was admonished in a dream 39a to inscribe the
shields of his soldiers with the _celestial sign of God_, the sacred
monogram of the name of Christ; that he executed the commands of
Heaven, and that his valor and obedience were rewarded by the decisive
victory of the Milvian Bridge. Some considerations might perhaps
incline a sceptical mind to suspect the judgment or the veracity of the
rhetorician, whose pen, either from zeal or interest, was devoted to
the cause of the prevailing faction. 40 He appears to have published
his deaths of the persecutors at Nicomedia about three years after the
Roman victory; but the interval of a thousand miles, and a thousand
days, will allow an ample latitude for the invention of declaimers, the
credulity of party, and the tacit approbation of the emperor himself
who might listen without indignation to a marvellous tale, which
exalted his fame, and promoted his designs. In favor of Licinius, who
still dissembled his animosity to the Christians, the same author has
provided a similar vision, of a form of prayer, which was communicated
by an angel, and repeated by the whole army before they engaged the
legions of the tyrant Maximin. The frequent repetition of miracles
serves to provoke, where it does not subdue, the reason of mankind; 41
but if the dream of Constantine is separately considered, it may be
naturally explained either by the policy or the enthusiasm of the
emperor. Whilst his anxiety for the approaching day, which must decide
the fate of the empire, was suspended by a short and interrupted
slumber, the venerable form of Christ, and the well-known symbol of his
religion, might forcibly offer themselves to the active fancy of a
prince who reverenced the name, and had perhaps secretly implored the
power, of the God of the Christians. As readily might a consummate
statesman indulge himself in the use of one of those military
stratagems, one of those pious frauds, which Philip and Sertorius had
employed with such art and effect. 42 The pr¾ternatural origin of
dreams was universally admitted by the nations of antiquity, and a
considerable part of the Gallic army was already prepared to place
their confidence in the salutary sign of the Christian religion. The
secret vision of Constantine could be disproved only by the event; and
the intrepid hero who had passed the Alps and the Apennine, might view
with careless despair the consequences of a defeat under the walls of
Rome. The senate and people, exulting in their own deliverance from an
odious tyrant, acknowledged that the victory of Constantine surpassed
the powers of man, without daring to insinuate that it had been
obtained by the protection of the _Gods_. The triumphal arch, which was
erected about three years after the event, proclaims, in ambiguous
language, that by the greatness of his own mind, and by an _instinct_
or impulse of the Divinity, he had saved and avenged the Roman
republic. 43 The Pagan orator, who had seized an earlier opportunity of
celebrating the virtues of the conqueror, supposes that he alone
enjoyed a secret and intimate commerce with the Supreme Being, who
delegated the care of mortals to his subordinate deities; and thus
assigns a very plausible reason why the subjects of Constantine should
not presume to embrace the new religion of their sovereign. 44

39 (return) [ Tertullian de Corona, c. 3. Athanasius, tom. i. p. 101.
The learned Jesuit Petavius (Dogmata Theolog. l. xv. c. 9, 10) has
collected many similar passages on the virtues of the cross, which in
the last age embarrassed our Protestant disputants.]

39a (return) [ Manso has observed, that Gibbon ought not to have
separated the vision of Constantine from the wonderful apparition in
the sky, as the two wonders are closely connected in Eusebius. Manso,
Leben Constantine, p. 82ÑM.]

40 (return) [ C¾cilius de M. P. c. 44. It is certain, that this
historical declamation was composed and published while Licinius,
sovereign of the East, still preserved the friendship of Constantine
and of the Christians. Every reader of taste must perceive that the
style is of a very different and inferior character to that of
Lactantius; and such indeed is the judgment of Le Clerc and Lardner,
(Bibliothque Ancienne et Moderne, tom. iii. p. 438. Credibility of the
Gospel, &c., part ii. vol. vii. p. 94.) Three arguments from the title
of the book, and from the names of Donatus and C¾cilius, are produced
by the advocates for Lactantius. (See the P. Lestocq, tom. ii. p.
46-60.) Each of these proofs is singly weak and defective; but their
concurrence has great weight. I have often fluctuated, and shall
_tamely_ follow the Colbert Ms. in calling the author (whoever he was)
C¾cilius.]

41 (return) [ C¾cilius de M. P. c. 46. There seems to be some reason in
the observation of M. de Voltaire, (Îuvres, tom. xiv. p. 307.) who
ascribes to the success of Constantine the superior fame of his Labarum
above the angel of Licinius. Yet even this angel is favorably
entertained by Pagi, Tillemont, Fleury, &c., who are fond of increasing
their stock of miracles.]

42 (return) [ Besides these well-known examples, Tollius (Preface to
BoileauÕs translation of Longinus) has discovered a vision of
Antigonus, who assured his troops that he had seen a pentagon (the
symbol of safety) with these words, ÒIn this conquer.Ó But Tollius has
most inexcusably omitted to produce his authority, and his own
character, literary as well as moral, is not free from reproach. (See
ChauffepiŽ, Dictionnaire Critique, tom. iv. p. 460.) Without insisting
on the silence of Diodorus Plutarch, Justin, &c., it may be observed
that Poly¾nus, who in a separate chapter (l. iv. c. 6) has collected
nineteen military stratagems of Antigonus, is totally ignorant of this
remarkable vision.]

43 (return) [ Instinctu Divinitatis, mentis magnitudine. The
inscription on the triumphal arch of Constantine, which has been copied
by Baronius, Gruter, &c., may still be perused by every curious
traveller.]

44 (return) [ Habes profecto aliquid cum illa mente Divin‰ secretum;
qu¾ delegat‰ nostr‰ Diis Minoribus cur‰ uni se tibi dignatur ostendere
Panegyr. Vet. ix. 2.]

III. The philosopher, who with calm suspicion examines the dreams and
omens, the miracles and prodigies, of profane or even of ecclesiastical
history, will probably conclude, that if the eyes of the spectators
have sometimes been deceived by fraud, the understanding of the readers
has much more frequently been insulted by fiction. Every event, or
appearance, or accident, which seems to deviate from the ordinary
course of nature, has been rashly ascribed to the immediate action of
the Deity; and the astonished fancy of the multitude has sometimes
given shape and color, language and motion, to the fleeting but
uncommon meteors of the air. 45 Nazarius and Eusebius are the two most
celebrated orators, who, in studied panegyrics, have labored to exalt
the glory of Constantine. Nine years after the Roman victory, Nazarius
46 describes an army of divine warriors, who seemed to fall from the
sky: he marks their beauty, their spirit, their gigantic forms, the
stream of light which beamed from their celestial armor, their patience
in suffering themselves to be heard, as well as seen, by mortals; and
their declaration that they were sent, that they flew, to the
assistance of the great Constantine. For the truth of this prodigy, the
Pagan orator appeals to the whole Gallic nation, in whose presence he
was then speaking; and seems to hope that the ancient apparitions 47
would now obtain credit from this recent and public event. The
Christian fable of Eusebius, which, in the space of twenty-six years,
might arise from the original dream, is cast in a much more correct and
elegant mould. In one of the marches of Constantine, he is reported to
have seen with his own eyes the luminous trophy of the cross, placed
above the meridian sun and inscribed with the following words: BY THIS
CONQUER. This amazing object in the sky astonished the whole army, as
well as the emperor himself, who was yet undetermined in the choice of
a religion: but his astonishment was converted into faith by the vision
of the ensuing night. Christ appeared before his eyes; and displaying
the same celestial sign of the cross, he directed Constantine to frame
a similar standard, and to march, with an assurance of victory, against
Maxentius and all his enemies. 48 The learned bishop of C¾sarea appears
to be sensible, that the recent discovery of this marvellous anecdote
would excite some surprise and distrust among the most pious of his
readers. Yet, instead of ascertaining the precise circumstances of time
and place, which always serve to detect falsehood or establish truth;
49 instead of collecting and recording the evidence of so many living
witnesses who must have been spectators of this stupendous miracle; 50
Eusebius contents himself with alleging a very singular testimony; that
of the deceased Constantine, who, many years after the event, in the
freedom of conversation, had related to him this extraordinary incident
of his own life, and had attested the truth of it by a solemn oath. The
prudence and gratitude of the learned prelate forbade him to suspect
the veracity of his victorious master; but he plainly intimates, that
in a fact of such a nature, he should have refused his assent to any
meaner authority. This motive of credibility could not survive the
power of the Flavian family; and the celestial sign, which the Infidels
might afterwards deride, 51 was disregarded by the Christians of the
age which immediately followed the conversion of Constantine. 52 But
the Catholic church, both of the East and of the West, has adopted a
prodigy which favors, or seems to favor, the popular worship of the
cross. The vision of Constantine maintained an honorable place in the
legend of superstition, till the bold and sagacious spirit of criticism
presumed to depreciate the triumph, and to arraign the truth, of the
first Christian emperor. 53

45 (return) [ M. Freret (MŽmoires de lÕAcadŽmie des Inscriptions, tom.
iv. p. 411-437) explains, by physical causes, many of the prodigies of
antiquity; and Fabricius, who is abused by both parties, vainly tries
to introduce the celestial cross of Constantine among the solar halos.
Bibliothec. Gr¾c. tom. iv. p. 8-29. * Note: The great difficulty in
resolving it into a natural phenomenon, arises from the inscription;
even the most heated or awe-struck imagination would hardly discover
distinct and legible letters in a solar halo. But the inscription may
have been a later embellishment, or an interpretation of the meaning
which the sign was construed to convey. Compare Heirichen, Excur in
locum Eusebii, and the authors quoted.]

46 (return) [ Nazarius inter Panegyr. Vet. x. 14, 15. It is unnecessary
to name the moderns, whose undistinguishing and ravenous appetite has
swallowed even the Pagan bait of Nazarius.]

47 (return) [ The apparitions of Castor and Pollux, particularly to
announce the Macedonian victory, are attested by historians and public
monuments. See Cicero de Natura Deorum, ii. 2, iii. 5, 6. Florus, ii.
12. Valerius Maximus, l. i. c. 8, No. 1. Yet the most recent of these
miracles is omitted, and indirectly denied, by Livy, (xlv. i.)]

48 (return) [ Eusebius, l. i. c. 28, 29, 30. The silence of the same
Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, is deeply felt by those
advocates for the miracle who are not absolutely callous.]

49 (return) [ The narrative of Constantine seems to indicate, that he
saw the cross in the sky before he passed the Alps against Maxentius.
The scene has been fixed by provincial vanity at Trves, Besanon, &c.
See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 573.]

50 (return) [ The pious Tillemont (MŽm. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1317)
rejects with a sigh the useful Acts of Artemius, a veteran and a
martyr, who attests as an eye-witness to the vision of Constantine.]

51 (return) [ Gelasius Cyzic. in Act. Concil. Nicen. l. i. c. 4.]

52 (return) [ The advocates for the vision are unable to produce a
single testimony from the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries,
who, in their voluminous writings, repeatedly celebrate the triumph of
the church and of Constantine. As these venerable men had not any
dislike to a miracle, we may suspect, (and the suspicion is confirmed
by the ignorance of Jerom,) that they were all unacquainted with the
life of Constantine by Eusebius. This tract was recovered by the
diligence of those who translated or continued his Ecclesiastical
History, and who have represented in various colors the vision of the
cross.]

53 (return) [ Godefroy was the first, who, in the year 1643, (Not ad
Philostorgium, l. i. c. 6, p. 16,) expressed any doubt of a miracle
which had been supported with equal zeal by Cardinal Baronius, and the
Centuriators of Magdeburgh. Since that time, many of the Protestant
critics have inclined towards doubt and disbelief. The objections are
urged, with great force, by M. ChauffepiŽ, (Dictionnaire Critique, tom.
iv. p. 6Ð11;) and, in the year 1774, a doctor of Sorbonne, the AbbŽ du
Voisin published an apology, which deserves the praise of learning and
moderation. * Note: The first Excursus of Heinichen (in Vitam
Constantini, p. 507) contains a full summary of the opinions and
arguments of the later writers who have discussed this interminable
subject. As to his conversion, where interest and inclination, state
policy, and, if not a sincere conviction of its truth, at least a
respect, an esteem, an awe of Christianity, thus coincided, Constantine
himself would probably have been unable to trace the actual history of
the workings of his own mind, or to assign its real influence to each
concurrent motive.ÑM]

The Protestant and philosophic readers of the present age will incline
to believe, that in the account of his own conversion, Constantine
attested a wilful falsehood by a solemn and deliberate perjury. They
may not hesitate to pronounce, that in the choice of a religion, his
mind was determined only by a sense of interest; and that (according to
the expression of a profane poet) 54 he used the altars of the church
as a convenient footstool to the throne of the empire. A conclusion so
harsh and so absolute is not, however, warranted by our knowledge of
human nature, of Constantine, or of Christianity. In an age of
religious fervor, the most artful statesmen are observed to feel some
part of the enthusiasm which they inspire, and the most orthodox saints
assume the dangerous privilege of defending the cause of truth by the
arms of deceit and falsehood.

Personal interest is often the standard of our belief, as well as of
our practice; and the same motives of temporal advantage which might
influence the public conduct and professions of Constantine, would
insensibly dispose his mind to embrace a religion so propitious to his
fame and fortunes. His vanity was gratified by the flattering
assurance, that _he_ had been chosen by Heaven to reign over the earth;
success had justified his divine title to the throne, and that title
was founded on the truth of the Christian revelation. As real virtue is
sometimes excited by undeserved applause, the specious piety of
Constantine, if at first it was only specious, might gradually, by the
influence of praise, of habit, and of example, be matured into serious
faith and fervent devotion. The bishops and teachers of the new sect,
whose dress and manners had not qualified them for the residence of a
court, were admitted to the Imperial table; they accompanied the
monarch in his expeditions; and the ascendant which one of them, an
Egyptian or a Spaniard, 55 acquired over his mind, was imputed by the
Pagans to the effect of magic. 56 Lactantius, who has adorned the
precepts of the gospel with the eloquence of Cicero, 57 and Eusebius,
who has consecrated the learning and philosophy of the Greeks to the
service of religion, 58 were both received into the friendship and
familiarity of their sovereign; and those able masters of controversy
could patiently watch the soft and yielding moments of persuasion, and
dexterously apply the arguments which were the best adapted to his
character and understanding. Whatever advantages might be derived from
the acquisition of an Imperial proselyte, he was distinguished by the
splendor of his purple, rather than by the superiority of wisdom, or
virtue, from the many thousands of his subjects who had embraced the
doctrines of Christianity. Nor can it be deemed incredible, that the
mind of an unlettered soldier should have yielded to the weight of
evidence, which, in a more enlightened age, has satisfied or subdued
the reason of a Grotius, a Pascal, or a Locke. In the midst of the
incessant labors of his great office, this soldier employed, or
affected to employ, the hours of the night in the diligent study of the
Scriptures, and the composition of theological discourses; which he
afterwards pronounced in the presence of a numerous and applauding
audience. In a very long discourse, which is still extant, the royal
preacher expatiates on the various proofs still extant, the royal
preacher expatiates on the various proofs of religion; but he dwells
with peculiar complacency on the Sibylline verses, 59 and the fourth
eclogue of Virgil. 60 Forty years before the birth of Christ, the
Mantuan bard, as if inspired by the celestial muse of Isaiah, had
celebrated, with all the pomp of oriental metaphor, the return of the
Virgin, the fall of the serpent, the approaching birth of a godlike
child, the offspring of the great Jupiter, who should expiate the guilt
of human kind, and govern the peaceful universe with the virtues of his
father; the rise and appearance of a heavenly race, primitive nation
throughout the world; and the gradual restoration of the innocence and
felicity of the golden age. The poet was perhaps unconscious of the
secret sense and object of these sublime predictions, which have been
so unworthily applied to the infant son of a consul, or a triumvir; 61
but if a more splendid, and indeed specious interpretation of the
fourth eclogue contributed to the conversion of the first Christian
emperor, Virgil may deserve to be ranked among the most successful
missionaries of the gospel. 62

54 (return) [
     Lors Constantin dit ces propres paroles:
     JÕai renversŽ le culte des idoles:
     Sur les debris de leurs temples fumans
     Au Dieu du Ciel jÕai prodigue lÕencens.
     Mais tous mes soins pour sa grandeur supreme
          NÕeurent jamais dÕautre objt que moi-mme;

     Les saints autels nÕetoient ˆ mes regards
     QuÕun marchepiŽ du trone des CŽsars.
     LÕambition, la fureur, les delices
     Etoient mes Dieux, avoient mes sacrifices.
     LÕor des Chrtiens, leur intrigues, leur sang
         Ont cimentŽ ma fortune et mon rang.

The poem which contains these lines may be read with pleasure, but
cannot be named with decency.]

55 (return) [ This favorite was probably the great Osius, bishop of
Cordova, who preferred the pastoral care of the whole church to the
government of a particular diocese. His character is magnificently,
though concisely, expressed by Athanasius, (tom. i. p. 703.) See
Tillemont, MŽm. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 524-561. Osius was accused,
perhaps unjustly, of retiring from court with a very ample fortune.]

56 (return) [ See Eusebius (in Vit. Constant. passim) and Zosimus, l.
ii. p. 104.]

57 (return) [ The Christianity of Lactantius was of a moral rather than
of a mysterious cast. ÒErat p¾ne rudis (says the orthodox Bull)
disciplin¾ Christian¾, et in rhetorica melius quam in theologia
versatus.Ó Defensio Fidei Nicen¾, sect. ii. c. 14.]

58 (return) [ Fabricius, with his usual diligence, has collected a list
of between three and four hundred authors quoted in the Evangelical
Preparation of Eusebius. See Bibl. Gr¾c. l. v. c. 4, tom. vi. p.
37-56.]

59 (return) [ See Constantin. Orat. ad Sanctos, c. 19 20. He chiefly
depends on a mysterious acrostic, composed in the sixth age after the
Deluge, by the Erythr¾an Sibyl, and translated by Cicero into Latin.
The initial letters of the thirty-four Greek verses form this prophetic
sentence: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior of the World.]

60 (return) [ In his paraphrase of Virgil, the emperor has frequently
assisted and improved the literal sense of the Latin ext. See Blondel
des Sibylles, l. i. c. 14, 15, 16.]

61 (return) [ The different claims of an elder and younger son of
Pollio, of Julia, of Drusus, of Marcellus, are found to be incompatible
with chronology, history, and the good sense of Virgil.]

62 (return) [ See Lowth de Sacra Poesi Hebr¾orum Pr¾lect. xxi. p. 289-
293. In the examination of the fourth eclogue, the respectable bishop
of London has displayed learning, taste, ingenuity, and a temperate
enthusiasm, which exalts his fancy without degrading his judgment.]

 Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.ÑPart III.

The awful mysteries of the Christian faith and worship were concealed
from the eyes of strangers, and even of catechu mens, with an affected
secrecy, which served to excite their wonder and curiosity. 63 But the
severe rules of discipline which the prudence of the bishops had
instituted, were relaxed by the same prudence in favor of an Imperial
proselyte, whom it was so important to allure, by every gentle
condescension, into the pale of the church; and Constantine was
permitted, at least by a tacit dispensation, to enjoy _most_ of the
privileges, before he had contracted _any_ of the obligations, of a
Christian. Instead of retiring from the congregation, when the voice of
the deacon dismissed the profane multitude, he prayed with the
faithful, disputed with the bishops, preached on the most sublime and
intricate subjects of theology, celebrated with sacred rites the vigil
of Easter, and publicly declared himself, not only a partaker, but, in
some measure, a priest and hierophant of the Christian mysteries. 64
The pride of Constantine might assume, and his services had deserved,
some extraordinary distinction: and ill-timed rigor might have blasted
the unripened fruits of his conversion; and if the doors of the church
had been strictly closed against a prince who had deserted the altars
of the gods, the master of the empire would have been left destitute of
any form of religious worship. In his last visit to Rome, he piously
disclaimed and insulted the superstition of his ancestors, by refusing
to lead the military procession of the equestrian order, and to offer
the public vows to the Jupiter of the Capitoline Hill. 65 Many years
before his baptism and death, Constantine had proclaimed to the world,
that neither his person nor his image should ever more be seen within
the walls of an idolatrous temple; while he distributed through the
provinces a variety of medals and pictures, which represented the
emperor in an humble and suppliant posture of Christian devotion. 66

63 (return) [ The distinction between the public and the secret parts
of divine service, the _missa catechumenorum_ and the _missa fidelium_,
and the mysterious veil which piety or policy had cast over the latter,
are very judiciously explained by Thiers, Exposition du Saint
Sacrament, l. i. c. 8- 12, p. 59-91: but as, on this subject, the
Papists may reasonably be suspected, a Protestant reader will depend
with more confidence on the learned Bingham, Antiquities, l. x. c. 5.]

64 (return) [ See Eusebius in Vit. Const. l. iv. c. 15-32, and the
whole tenor of ConstantineÕs Sermon. The faith and devotion of the
emperor has furnished Batonics with a specious argument in favor of his
early baptism. Note: Compare Heinichen, Excursus iv. et v., where these
questions are examined with candor and acuteness, and with constant
reference to the opinions of more modern writers.ÑM.]

65 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 105.]

66 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 15, 16.]

The pride of Constantine, who refused the privileges of a catechumen,
cannot easily be explained or excused; but the delay of his baptism may
be justified by the maxims and the practice of ecclesiastical
antiquity. The sacrament of baptism 67 was regularly administered by
the bishop himself, with his assistant clergy, in the cathedral church
of the diocese, during the fifty days between the solemn festivals of
Easter and Pentecost; and this holy term admitted a numerous band of
infants and adult persons into the bosom of the church. The discretion
of parents often suspended the baptism of their children till they
could understand the obligations which they contracted: the severity of
ancient bishops exacted from the new converts a novitiate of two or
three years; and the catechumens themselves, from different motives of
a temporal or a spiritual nature, were seldom impatient to assume the
character of perfect and initiated Christians. The sacrament of baptism
was supposed to contain a full and absolute expiation of sin; and the
soul was instantly restored to its original purity, and entitled to the
promise of eternal salvation. Among the proselytes of Christianity,
there are many who judged it imprudent to precipitate a salutary rite,
which could not be repeated; to throw away an inestimable privilege,
which could never be recovered. By the delay of their baptism, they
could venture freely to indulge their passions in the enjoyments of
this world, while they still retained in their own hands the means of a
sure and easy absolution. 68 The sublime theory of the gospel had made
a much fainter impression on the heart than on the understanding of
Constantine himself. He pursued the great object of his ambition
through the dark and bloody paths of war and policy; and, after the
victory, he abandoned himself, without moderation, to the abuse of his
fortune. Instead of asserting his just superiority above the imperfect
heroism and profane philosophy of Trajan and the Antonines, the mature
age of Constantine forfeited the reputation which he had acquired in
his youth. As he gradually advanced in the knowledge of truth, he
proportionally declined in the practice of virtue; and the same year of
his reign in which he convened the council of Nice, was polluted by the
execution, or rather murder, of his eldest son. This date is alone
sufficient to refute the ignorant and malicious suggestions of Zosimus,
69 who affirms, that, after the death of Crispus, the remorse of his
father accepted from the ministers of christianity the expiation which
he had vainly solicited from the Pagan pontiffs. At the time of the
death of Crispus, the emperor could no longer hesitate in the choice of
a religion; he could no longer be ignorant that the church was
possessed of an infallible remedy, though he chose to defer the
application of it till the approach of death had removed the temptation
and danger of a relapse. The bishops whom he summoned, in his last
illness, to the palace of Nicomedia, were edified by the fervor with
which he requested and received the sacrament of baptism, by the solemn
protestation that the remainder of his life should be worthy of a
disciple of Christ, and by his humble refusal to wear the Imperial
purple after he had been clothed in the white garment of a Neophyte.
The example and reputation of Constantine seemed to countenance the
delay of baptism. 70 Future tyrants were encouraged to believe, that
the innocent blood which they might shed in a long reign would
instantly be washed away in the waters of regeneration; and the abuse
of religion dangerously undermined the foundations of moral virtue.

67 (return) [ The theory and practice of antiquity, with regard to the
sacrament of baptism, have been copiously explained by Dom Chardon,
Hist. des Sacremens, tom. i. p. 3-405; Dom Martenne de Ritibus Ecclesi¾
Antiquis, tom. i.; and by Bingham, in the tenth and eleventh books of
his Christian Antiquities. One circumstance may be observed, in which
the modern churches have materially departed from the ancient custom.
The sacrament of baptism (even when it was administered to infants) was
immediately followed by confirmation and the holy communion.]

68 (return) [ The Fathers, who censured this criminal delay, could not
deny the certain and victorious efficacy even of a death-bed baptism.
The ingenious rhetoric of Chrysostom could find only three arguments
against these prudent Christians. 1. That we should love and pursue
virtue for her own sake, and not merely for the reward. 2. That we may
be surprised by death without an opportunity of baptism. 3. That
although we shall be placed in heaven, we shall only twinkle like
little stars, when compared to the suns of righteousness who have run
their appointed course with labor, with success, and with glory.
Chrysos tom in Epist. ad Hebr¾os, Homil. xiii. apud Chardon, Hist. des
Sacremens, tom. i. p. 49. I believe that this delay of baptism, though
attended with the most pernicious consequences, was never condemned by
any general or provincial council, or by any public act or declaration
of the church. The zeal of the bishops was easily kindled on much
slighter occasion. * Note: This passage of Chrysostom, though not in
his more forcible manner, is not quite fairly represented. He is
stronger in other places, in Act. Hom. xxiii.Ñand Hom. i. Compare,
likewise, the sermon of Gregory of Nysea on this subject, and Gregory
Nazianzen. After all, to those who believed in the efficacy of baptism,
what argument could be more conclusive, than the danger of dying
without it? Orat. xl.ÑM.]

69 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 104. For this disingenuous falsehood
he has deserved and experienced the harshest treatment from all the
ecclesiastical writers, except Cardinal Baronius, (A. D. 324, No.
15-28,) who had occasion to employ the infidel on a particular service
against the Arian Eusebius. Note: Heyne, in a valuable note on this
passage of Zosimus, has shown decisively that this malicious way of
accounting for the conversion of Constantine was not an invention of
Zosimus. It appears to have been the current calumny eagerly adopted
and propagated by the exasperated Pagan party. Reitemeter, a later
editor of Zosimus, whose notes are retained in the recent edition, in
the collection of the Byzantine historians, has a disquisition on the
passage, as candid, but not more conclusive than some which have
preceded himÑM.]

70 (return) [ Eusebius, l. iv. c. 61, 62, 63. The bishop of C¾sarea
supposes the salvation of Constantine with the most perfect
confidence.]

The gratitude of the church has exalted the virtues and excused the
failings of a generous patron, who seated Christianity on the throne of
the Roman world; and the Greeks, who celebrate the festival of the
Imperial saint, seldom mention the name of Constantine without adding
the title of _equal to the Apostles_. 71 Such a comparison, if it
allude to the character of those divine missionaries, must be imputed
to the extravagance of impious flattery. But if the parallel be
confined to the extent and number of their evangelic victories the
success of Constantine might perhaps equal that of the Apostles
themselves. By the edicts of toleration, he removed the temporal
disadvantages which had hitherto retarded the progress of Christianity;
and its active and numerous ministers received a free permission, a
liberal encouragement, to recommend the salutary truths of revelation
by every argument which could affect the reason or piety of mankind.
The exact balance of the two religions continued but a moment; and the
piercing eye of ambition and avarice soon discovered, that the
profession of Christianity might contribute to the interest of the
present, as well as of a future life. 72 The hopes of wealth and
honors, the example of an emperor, his exhortations, his irresistible
smiles, diffused conviction among the venal and obsequious crowds which
usually fill the apartments of a palace. The cities which signalized a
forward zeal by the voluntary destruction of their temples, were
distinguished by municipal privileges, and rewarded with popular
donatives; and the new capital of the East gloried in the singular
advantage that Constantinople was never profaned by the worship of
idols. 73 As the lower ranks of society are governed by imitation, the
conversion of those who possessed any eminence of birth, of power, or
of riches, was soon followed by dependent multitudes. 74 The salvation
of the common people was purchased at an easy rate, if it be true that,
in one year, twelve thousand men were baptized at Rome, besides a
proportionable number of women and children, and that a white garment,
with twenty pieces of gold, had been promised by the emperor to every
convert. 75 The powerful influence of Constantine was not circumscribed
by the narrow limits of his life, or of his dominions. The education
which he bestowed on his sons and nephews secured to the empire a race
of princes, whose faith was still more lively and sincere, as they
imbibed, in their earliest infancy, the spirit, or at least the
doctrine, of Christianity. War and commerce had spread the knowledge of
the gospel beyond the confines of the Roman provinces; and the
Barbarians, who had disdained as humble and proscribed sect, soon
learned to esteem a religion which had been so lately embraced by the
greatest monarch, and the most civilized nation, of the globe. 76 The
Goths and Germans, who enlisted under the standard of Rome, revered the
cross which glittered at the head of the legions, and their fierce
countrymen received at the same time the lessons of faith and of
humanity. The kings of Iberia and Armenia76a worshipped the god of
their protector; and their subjects, who have invariably preserved the
name of Christians, soon formed a sacred and perpetual connection with
their Roman brethren. The Christians of Persia were suspected, in time
of war, of preferring their religion to their country; but as long as
peace subsisted between the two empires, the persecuting spirit of the
Magi was effectually restrained by the interposition of Constantine. 77
The rays of the gospel illuminated the coast of India. The colonies of
Jews, who had penetrated into Arabia and Ethiopia, 78 opposed the
progress of Christianity; but the labor of the missionaries was in some
measure facilitated by a previous knowledge of the Mosaic revelation;
and Abyssinia still reveres the memory of Frumentius, 78a who, in the
time of Constantine, devoted his life to the conversion of those
sequestered regions. Under the reign of his son Constantius,
Theophilus, 79 who was himself of Indian extraction, was invested with
the double character of ambassador and bishop. He embarked on the Red
Sea with two hundred horses of the purest breed of Cappadocia, which
were sent by the emperor to the prince of the Sab¾ans, or Homerites.
Theophilus was intrusted with many other useful or curious presents,
which might raise the admiration, and conciliate the friendship, of the
Barbarians; and he successfully employed several years in a pastoral
visit to the churches of the torrid zone. 80

71 (return) [ See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 429. The
Greeks, the Russians, and, in the darker ages, the Latins themselves,
have been desirous of placing Constantine in the catalogue of saints.]

72 (return) [ See the third and fourth books of his life. He was
accustomed to say, that whether Christ was preached in pretence, or in
truth, he should still rejoice, (l. iii. c. 58.)]

73 (return) [ M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 374,
616) has defended, with strength and spirit, the virgin purity of
Constantinople against some malevolent insinuations of the Pagan
Zosimus.]

74 (return) [ The author of the Histoire Politique et Philosophique des
deux Indes (tom. i. p. 9) condemns a law of Constantine, which gave
freedom to all the slaves who should embrace Christianity. The emperor
did indeed publish a law, which restrained the Jews from circumcising,
perhaps from keeping, any Christian slave. (See Euseb. in Vit.
Constant. l. iv. c. 27, and Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit. ix., with
GodefroyÕs Commentary, tom. vi. p. 247.) But this imperfect exception
related only to the Jews, and the great body of slaves, who were the
property of Christian or Pagan masters, could not improve their
temporal condition by changing their religion. I am ignorant by what
guides the AbbŽ Raynal was deceived; as the total absence of quotations
is the unpardonable blemish of his entertaining history.]

75 (return) [ See Acta Sti Silvestri, and Hist. Eccles. Nicephor.
Callist. l. vii. c. 34, ap. Baronium Annal. Eccles. A. D. 324, No. 67,
74. Such evidence is contemptible enough; but these circumstances are
in themselves so probable, that the learned Dr. Howell (History of the
World, vol. iii. p. 14) has not scrupled to adopt them.]

76 (return) [ The conversion of the Barbarians under the reign of
Constantine is celebrated by the ecclesiastical historians. (See
Sozomen, l. ii. c. 6, and Theodoret, l. i. c. 23, 24.) But Rufinus, the
Latin translator of Eusebius, deserves to be considered as an original
authority. His information was curiously collected from one of the
companions of the Apostle of ®thiopia, and from Bacurius, an Iberian
prince, who was count of the domestics. Father Mamachi has given an
ample compilation on the progress of Christianity, in the first and
second volumes of his great but imperfect work.]

76a (return) [ According to the Georgian chronicles, Iberia (Georgia)
was converted by the virgin Nino, who effected an extraordinary cure on
the wife of the king Mihran. The temple of the god Aramazt, or Armaz,
not far from the capital Mtskitha, was destroyed, and the cross erected
in its place. Le Beau, i. 202, with St. MartinÕs Notes.ÑSt. Martin has
likewise clearly shown (St. Martin, Add. to Le Beau, i. 291) Armenia
was the first _nation_ which embraced Christianity, (Addition to Le
Beau, i. 76. and MŽmoire sur lÕArmenie, i. 305.) Gibbon himself
suspected this truth.ÑÒInstead of maintaining that the conversion of
Armenia was not attempted with any degree of success, till the sceptre
was in the hands of an orthodox emperor,Ó I ought to have said, that
the seeds of the faith were deeply sown during the season of the last
and greatest persecution, that many Roman exiles might assist the
labors of Gregory, and that the renowned Tiridates, the hero of the
East, may dispute with Constantine the honor of being the first
sovereign who embraced the Christian religion Vindication]

77 (return) [ See, in Eusebius, (in Vit. l. iv. c. 9,) the pressing and
pathetic epistle of Constantine in favor of his Christian brethren of
Persia.]

78 (return) [ See Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tom. vii. p. 182, tom.
viii. p. 333, tom. ix. p. 810. The curious diligence of this writer
pursues the Jewish exiles to the extremities of the globe.]

78a (return) [ Abba Salama, or Fremonatus, is mentioned in the Tareek
Negushti, chronicle of the kings of Abyssinia. SaltÕs Travels, vol. ii.
p. 464.ÑM.]

79 (return) [ Theophilus had been given in his infancy as a hostage by
his countrymen of the Isle of Diva, and was educated by the Romans in
learning and piety. The Maldives, of which Male, or Diva, may be the
capital, are a cluster of 1900 or 2000 minute islands in the Indian
Ocean. The ancients were imperfectly acquainted with the Maldives; but
they are described in the two Mahometan travellers of the ninth
century, published by Renaudot, Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 30, 31
DÕHerbelot, Bibliothque Orientale p. 704. Hist. Generale des Voy ages,
tom. viii.ÑSee the dissertation of M. Letronne on this question. He
conceives that Theophilus was born in the island of Dahlak, in the
Arabian Gulf. His embassy was to Abyssinia rather than to India.
Letronne, Materiaux pour lÕHist. du Christianisme en Egypte Indie, et
Abyssinie. Paris, 1832 3d Dissert.ÑM.]

80 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 4, 5, 6, with GodefroyÕs
learned observations. The historical narrative is soon lost in an
inquiry concerning the seat of Paradise, strange monsters, &c.]

The irresistible power of the Roman emperors was displayed in the
important and dangerous change of the national religion. The terrors of
a military force silenced the faint and unsupported murmurs of the
Pagans, and there was reason to expect, that the cheerful submission of
the Christian clergy, as well as people, would be the result of
conscience and gratitude. It was long since established, as a
fundamental maxim of the Roman constitution, that every rank of
citizens was alike subject to the laws, and that the care of religion
was the right as well as duty of the civil magistrate. Constantine and
his successors could not easily persuade themselves that they had
forfeited, by their conversion, any branch of the Imperial
prerogatives, or that they were incapable of giving laws to a religion
which they had protected and embraced. The emperors still continued to
exercise a supreme jurisdiction over the ecclesiastical order, and the
sixteenth book of the Theodosian code represents, under a variety of
titles, the authority which they assumed in the government of the
Catholic church. But the distinction of the spiritual and temporal
powers, 81 which had never been imposed on the free spirit of Greece
and Rome, was introduced and confirmed by the legal establishment of
Christianity. The office of supreme pontiff, which, from the time of
Numa to that of Augustus, had always been exercised by one of the most
eminent of the senators, was at length united to the Imperial dignity.
The first magistrate of the state, as often as he was prompted by
superstition or policy, performed with his own hands the sacerdotal
functions; 82 nor was there any order of priests, either at Rome or in
the provinces, who claimed a more sacred character among men, or a more
intimate communication with the gods. But in the Christian church,
which instrusts the service of the altar to a perpetual succession of
consecrated ministers, the monarch, whose spiritual rank is less
honorable than that of the meanest deacon, was seated below the rails
of the sanctuary, and confounded with the rest of the faithful
multitude. 83 The emperor might be saluted as the father of his people,
but he owed a filial duty and reverence to the fathers of the church;
and the same marks of respect, which Constantine had paid to the
persons of saints and confessors, were soon exacted by the pride of the
episcopal order. 84 A secret conflict between the civil and
ecclesiastical jurisdictions embarrassed the operation of the Roman
government; and a pious emperor was alarmed by the guilt and danger of
touching with a profane hand the ark of the covenant. The separation of
men into the two orders of the clergy and of the laity was, indeed,
familiar to many nations of antiquity; and the priests of India, of
Persia, of Assyria, of Judea, of ®thiopia, of Egypt, and of Gaul,
derived from a celestial origin the temporal power and possessions
which they had acquired. These venerable institutions had gradually
assimilated themselves to the manners and government of their
respective countries; 85 but the opposition or contempt of the civil
power served to cement the discipline of the primitive church. The
Christians had been obliged to elect their own magistrates, to raise
and distribute a peculiar revenue, and to regulate the internal policy
of their republic by a code of laws, which were ratified by the consent
of the people and the practice of three hundred years. When Constantine
embraced the faith of the Christians, he seemed to contract a perpetual
alliance with a distinct and independent society; and the privileges
granted or confirmed by that emperor, or by his successors, were
accepted, not as the precarious favors of the court, but as the just
and inalienable rights of the ecclesiastical order.

81 (return) [ See the epistle of Osius, ap. Athanasium, vol. i. p. 840.
The public remonstrance which Osius was forced to address to the son,
contained the same principles of ecclesiastical and civil government
which he had secretly instilled into the mind of the father.]

82 (return) [ M. de la Bastiel has evidently proved, that Augustus and
his successors exercised in person all the sacred functions of pontifex
maximus, of high priest, of the Roman empire.]

83 (return) [ Something of a contrary practice had insensibly prevailed
in the church of Constantinople; but the rigid Ambrose commanded
Theodosius to retire below the rails, and taught him to know the
difference between a king and a priest. See Theodoret, l. v. c. 18.]

84 (return) [ At the table of the emperor Maximus, Martin, bishop of
Tours, received the cup from an attendant, and gave it to the
presbyter, his companion, before he allowed the emperor to drink; the
empress waited on Martin at table. Sulpicius Severus, in Vit. Sti
Martin, c. 23, and Dialogue ii. 7. Yet it may be doubted, whether these
extraordinary compliments were paid to the bishop or the saint. The
honors usually granted to the former character may be seen in BinghamÕs
Antiquities, l. ii. c. 9, and Vales ad Theodoret, l. iv. c. 6. See the
haughty ceremonial which Leontius, bishop of Tripoli, imposed on the
empress. Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 754. (Patres
Apostol. tom. ii. p. 179.)]

85 (return) [ Plutarch, in his treatise of Isis and Osiris, informs us
that the kings of Egypt, who were not already priests, were initiated,
after their election, into the sacerdotal order.]

The Catholic church was administered by the spiritual and legal
jurisdiction of eighteen hundred bishops; 86 of whom one thousand were
seated in the Greek, and eight hundred in the Latin, provinces of the
empire. The extent and boundaries of their respective dioceses had been
variously and accidentally decided by the zeal and success of the first
missionaries, by the wishes of the people, and by the propagation of
the gospel. Episcopal churches were closely planted along the banks of
the Nile, on the sea-coast of Africa, in the proconsular Asia, and
through the southern provinces of Italy. The bishops of Gaul and Spain,
of Thrace and Pontus, reigned over an ample territory, and delegated
their rural suffragans to execute the subordinate duties of the
pastoral office. 87 A Christian diocese might be spread over a
province, or reduced to a village; but all the bishops possessed an
equal and indelible character: they all derived the same powers and
privileges from the apostles, from the people, and from the laws. While
the _civil_ and _military_ professions were separated by the policy of
Constantine, a new and perpetual order of _ecclesiastical_ ministers,
always respectable, sometimes dangerous, was established in the church
and state. The important review of their station and attributes may be
distributed under the following heads: I. Popular Election. II.
Ordination of the Clergy. III. Property. IV. Civil Jurisdiction. V.
Spiritual censures. VI. Exercise of public oratory. VII. Privilege of
legislative assemblies.

86 (return) [ The numbers are not ascertained by any ancient writer or
original catalogue; for the partial lists of the eastern churches are
comparatively modern. The patient diligence of Charles a Sto Paolo, of
Luke Holstentius, and of Bingham, has laboriously investigated all the
episcopal sees of the Catholic church, which was almost commensurate
with the Roman empire. The ninth book of the Christian antiquities is a
very accurate map of ecclesiastical geography.]

87 (return) [ On the subject of rural bishops, or _Chorepiscopi_, who
voted in tynods, and conferred the minor orders, See Thomassin,
Discipline de lÕEglise, tom. i. p. 447, &c., and Chardon, Hist. des
Sacremens, tom. v. p. 395, &c. They do not appear till the fourth
century; and this equivocal character, which had excited the jealousy
of the prelates, was abolished before the end of the tenth, both in the
East and the West.]

I. The freedom of election subsisted long after the legal establishment
of Christianity; 88 and the subjects of Rome enjoyed in the church the
privilege which they had lost in the republic, of choosing the
magistrates whom they were bound to obey. As soon as a bishop had
closed his eyes, the metropolitan issued a commission to one of his
suffragans to administer the vacant see, and prepare, within a limited
time, the future election. The right of voting was vested in the
inferior clergy, who were best qualified to judge of the merit of the
candidates; in the senators or nobles of the city, all those who were
distinguished by their rank or property; and finally in the whole body
of the people, who, on the appointed day, flocked in multitudes from
the most remote parts of the diocese, 89 and sometimes silenced by
their tumultuous acclamations, the voice of reason and the laws of
discipline. These acclamations might accidentally fix on the head of
the most deserving competitor; of some ancient presbyter, some holy
monk, or some layman, conspicuous for his zeal and piety. But the
episcopal chair was solicited, especially in the great and opulent
cities of the empire, as a temporal rather than as a spiritual dignity.
The interested views, the selfish and angry passions, the arts of
perfidy and dissimulation, the secret corruption, the open and even
bloody violence which had formerly disgraced the freedom of election in
the commonwealths of Greece and Rome, too often influenced the choice
of the successors of the apostles. While one of the candidates boasted
the honors of his family, a second allured his judges by the delicacies
of a plentiful table, and a third, more guilty than his rivals, offered
to share the plunder of the church among the accomplices of his
sacrilegious hopes 90 The civil as well as ecclesiastical laws
attempted to exclude the populace from this solemn and important
transaction. The canons of ancient discipline, by requiring several
episcopal qualifications, of age, station, &c., restrained, in some
measure, the indiscriminate caprice of the electors. The authority of
the provincial bishops, who were assembled in the vacant church to
consecrate the choice of the people, was interposed to moderate their
passions and to correct their mistakes. The bishops could refuse to
ordain an unworthy candidate, and the rage of contending factions
sometimes accepted their impartial mediation. The submission, or the
resistance, of the clergy and people, on various occasions, afforded
different precedents, which were insensibly converted into positive
laws and provincial customs; 91 but it was every where admitted, as a
fundamental maxim of religious policy, that no bishop could be imposed
on an orthodox church, without the consent of its members. The
emperors, as the guardians of the public peace, and as the first
citizens of Rome and Constantinople, might effectually declare their
wishes in the choice of a primate; but those absolute monarchs
respected the freedom of ecclesiastical elections; and while they
distributed and resumed the honors of the state and army, they allowed
eighteen hundred perpetual magistrates to receive their important
offices from the free suffrages of the people. 92 It was agreeable to
the dictates of justice, that these magistrates should not desert an
honorable station from which they could not be removed; but the wisdom
of councils endeavored, without much success, to enforce the residence,
and to prevent the translation, of bishops. The discipline of the West
was indeed less relaxed than that of the East; but the same passions
which made those regulations necessary, rendered them ineffectual. The
reproaches which angry prelates have so vehemently urged against each
other, serve only to expose their common guilt, and their mutual
indiscretion.

88 (return) [ Thomassin (Discipline de lÕEglise, tom, ii. l. ii. c.
1-8, p. 673-721) has copiously treated of the election of bishops
during the five first centuries, both in the East and in the West; but
he shows a very partial bias in favor of the episcopal aristocracy.
Bingham, (l. iv. c. 2) is moderate; and Chardon (Hist. des Sacremens
tom. v. p. 108-128) is very clear and concise. * Note: This freedom was
extremely limited, and soon annihilated; already, from the third
century, the deacons were no longer nominated by the members of the
community, but by the bishops. Although it appears by the letters of
Cyprian, that even in his time, no priest could be elected without the
consent of the community. (Ep. 68,) that election was far from being
altogether free. The bishop proposed to his parishioners the candidate
whom he had chosen, and they were permitted to make such objections as
might be suggested by his conduct and morals. (St. Cyprian, Ep. 33.)
They lost this last right towards the middle of the fourth century.ÑG]

89 (return) [ Incredibilis multitudo, non solum ex eo oppido,
(_Tours_,) sed etiam ex vicinis urbibus ad suffragia ferenda
convenerat, &c. Sulpicius Severus, in Vit. Martin. c. 7. The council of
Laodicea, (canon xiii.) prohibits mobs and tumults; and Justinian
confines confined the right of election to the nobility. Novel. cxxiii.
l.]

90 (return) [ The epistles of Sidonius Apollinaris (iv. 25, vii. 5, 9)
exhibit some of the scandals of the Gallican church; and Gaul was less
polished and less corrupt than the East.]

91 (return) [ A compromise was sometimes introduced by law or by
consent; either the bishops or the people chose one of the three
candidates who had been named by the other party.]

92 (return) [ All the examples quoted by Thomassin (Discipline de
lÕEglise, tom. ii. l. iii. c. vi. p. 704-714) appear to be
extraordinary acts of power, and even of oppression. The confirmation
of the bishop of Alexandria is mentioned by Philostorgius as a more
regular proceeding. (Hist Eccles. l. ii. ll.) * Note: The statement of
Planck is more consistent with history: ÒFrom the middle of the fourth
century, the bishops of some of the larger churches, particularly those
of the Imperial residence, were almost always chosen under the
influence of the court, and often directly and immediately nominated by
the emperor.Ó Planck, Geschichte der Christlich-kirchlichen
Gesellschafteverfassung, verfassung, vol. i p 263.ÑM.]

II. The bishops alone possessed the faculty of _spiritual_ generation:
and this extraordinary privilege might compensate, in some degree, for
the painful celibacy 93 which was imposed as a virtue, as a duty, and
at length as a positive obligation. The religions of antiquity, which
established a separate order of priests, dedicated a holy race, a tribe
or family, to the perpetual service of the gods. 94 Such institutions
were founded for possession, rather than conquest. The children of the
priests enjoyed, with proud and indolent security, their sacred
inheritance; and the fiery spirit of enthusiasm was abated by the
cares, the pleasures, and the endearments of domestic life. But the
Christian sanctuary was open to every ambitious candidate, who aspired
to its heavenly promises or temporal possessions. This office of
priests, like that of soldiers or magistrates, was strenuously
exercised by those men, whose temper and abilities had prompted them to
embrace the ecclesiastical profession, or who had been selected by a
discerning bishop, as the best qualified to promote the glory and
interest of the church. The bishops 95 (till the abuse was restrained
by the prudence of the laws) might constrain the reluctant, and protect
the distressed; and the imposition of hands forever bestowed some of
the most valuable privileges of civil society. The whole body of the
Catholic clergy, more numerous perhaps than the legions, was exempted
[95a] by the emperors from all service, private or public, all
municipal offices, and all personal taxes and contributions, which
pressed on their fellow- citizens with intolerable weight; and the
duties of their holy profession were accepted as a full discharge of
their obligations to the republic. 96 Each bishop acquired an absolute
and indefeasible right to the perpetual obedience of the clerk whom he
ordained: the clergy of each episcopal church, with its dependent
parishes, formed a regular and permanent society; and the cathedrals of
Constantinople 97 and Carthage 98 maintained their peculiar
establishment of five hundred ecclesiastical ministers. Their ranks 99
and numbers were insensibly multiplied by the superstition of the
times, which introduced into the church the splendid ceremonies of a
Jewish or Pagan temple; and a long train of priests, deacons,
sub-deacons, acolythes, exorcists, readers, singers, and doorkeepers,
contributed, in their respective stations, to swell the pomp and
harmony of religious worship. The clerical name and privileges were
extended to many pious fraternities, who devoutly supported the
ecclesiastical throne. 100 Six hundred _parabolani_, or adventurers,
visited the sick at Alexandria; eleven hundred _copiat¾_, or
grave-diggers, buried the dead at Constantinople; and the swarms of
monks, who arose from the Nile, overspread and darkened the face of the
Christian world.

93 (return) [ The celibacy of the clergy during the first five or six
centuries, is a subject of discipline, and indeed of controversy, which
has been very diligently examined. See in particular, Thomassin,
Discipline de lÕEglise, tom. i. l. ii. c. lx. lxi. p. 886-902, and
BinghamÕs Antiquities, l. iv. c. 5. By each of these learned but
partial critics, one half of the truth is produced, and the other is
concealed.ÑNote: Compare Planck, (vol. i. p. 348.) This century, the
third, first brought forth the monks, or the spirit of monkery, the
celibacy of the clergy. Planck likewise observes, that from the history
of Eusebius alone, names of married bishops and presbyters may be
adduced by dozens.ÑM.]

94 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus attests and approves the hereditary
succession of the priesthood among the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, and
the Indians, (l. i. p. 84, l. ii. p. 142, 153, edit. Wesseling.) The
magi are described by Ammianus as a very numerous family: ÒPer s¾cula
multa ad pr¾sens un‰ e‰demque prosapi‰ multitudo creata, Deorum
cultibus dedicata.Ó (xxiii. 6.) Ausonius celebrates the _Stirps
Druidarum_, (De Professorib. Burdigal. iv.;) but we may infer from the
remark of C¾sar, (vi. 13,) that in the Celtic hierarchy, some room was
left for choice and emulation.]

95 (return) [ The subject of the vocation, ordination, obedience, &c.,
of the clergy, is laboriously discussed by Thomassin (Discipline de
lÕEglise, tom. ii. p. 1-83) and Bingham, (in the 4th book of his
Antiquities, more especially the 4th, 6th, and 7th chapters.) When the
brother of St. Jerom was ordained in Cyprus, the deacons forcibly
stopped his mouth, lest he should make a solemn protestation, which
might invalidate the holy rites.]

 [ This exemption was very much limited. The municipal offices were of
 two kinds; the one attached to the individual in his character of
 inhabitant, the other in that of _proprietor_. Constantine had
 exempted ecclesiastics from offices of the first description. (Cod.
 Theod. xvi. t. ii. leg. 1, 2 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. l. x. c. vii.)
 They sought, also, to be exempted from those of the second, (munera
 patrimoniorum.) The rich, to obtain this privilege, obtained
 subordinate situations among the clergy. Constantine published in 320
 an edict, by which he prohibited the more opulent citizens (decuriones
 and curiales) from embracing the ecclesiastical profession, and the
 bishops from admitting new ecclesiastics, before a place should be
 vacant by the death of the occupant, (Godefroy ad Cod. Theod.t. xii.
 t. i. de Decur.) Valentinian the First, by a rescript still more
 general enacted that no rich citizen should obtain a situation in the
 church, (De Episc 1. lxvii.) He also enacted that ecclesiastics, who
 wished to be exempt from offices which they were bound to discharge as
 proprietors, should be obliged to give up their property to their
 relations. Cod Theodos l. xii t. i. leb. 49ÑG.]

96 (return) [ The charter of immunities, which the clergy obtained from
the Christian emperors, is contained in the 16th book of the Theodosian
code; and is illustrated with tolerable candor by the learned Godefroy,
whose mind was balanced by the opposite prejudices of a civilian and a
Protestant.]

97 (return) [ Justinian. Novell. ciii. Sixty presbyters, or priests,
one hundred deacons, forty deaconesses, ninety sub-deacons, one hundred
and ten readers, twenty-five chanters, and one hundred door-keepers; in
all, five hundred and twenty-five. This moderate number was fixed by
the emperor to relieve the distress of the church, which had been
involved in debt and usury by the expense of a much higher
establishment.]

98 (return) [ Universus clerus ecclesi¾ Carthaginiensis.... fere
_quingenti_ vel amplius; inter quos quamplurima erant lectores
infantuli. Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. v. 9, p. 78, edit.
Ruinart. This remnant of a more prosperous state still subsisted under
the oppression of the Vandals.]

99 (return) [ The number of _seven_ orders has been fixed in the Latin
church, exclusive of the episcopal character. But the four inferior
ranks, the minor orders, are now reduced to empty and useless titles.]

100 (return) [ See Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 42, 43.
GodefroyÕs Commentary, and the Ecclesiastical History of Alexandria,
show the danger of these pious institutions, which often disturbed the
peace of that turbulent capital.]

 Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.ÑPart IV.

III. The edict of Milan secured the revenue as well as the peace of the
church. 101 The Christians not only recovered the lands and houses of
which they had been stripped by the persecuting laws of Diocletian, but
they acquired a perfect title to all the possessions which they had
hitherto enjoyed by the connivance of the magistrate. As soon as
Christianity became the religion of the emperor and the empire, the
national clergy might claim a decent and honorable maintenance; and the
payment of an annual tax might have delivered the people from the more
oppressive tribute, which superstition imposes on her votaries. But as
the wants and expenses of the church increased with her prosperity, the
ecclesiastical order was still supported and enriched by the voluntary
oblations of the faithful. Eight years after the edict of Milan,
Constantine granted to all his subjects the free and universal
permission of bequeathing their fortunes to the holy Catholic church;
102 and their devout liberality, which during their lives was checked
by luxury or avarice, flowed with a profuse stream at the hour of their
death. The wealthy Christians were encouraged by the example of their
sovereign. An absolute monarch, who is rich without patrimony, may be
charitable without merit; and Constantine too easily believed that he
should purchase the favor of Heaven, if he maintained the idle at the
expense of the industrious; and distributed among the saints the wealth
of the republic. The same messenger who carried over to Africa the head
of Maxentius, might be intrusted with an epistle to C¾cilian, bishop of
Carthage. The emperor acquaints him, that the treasurers of the
province are directed to pay into his hands the sum of three thousand
_folles_, or eighteen thousand pounds sterling, and to obey his further
requisitions for the relief of the churches of Africa, Numidia, and
Mauritania. 103 The liberality of Constantine increased in a just
proportion to his faith, and to his vices. He assigned in each city a
regular allowance of corn, to supply the fund of ecclesiastical
charity; and the persons of both sexes who embraced the monastic life
became the peculiar favorites of their sovereign. The Christian temples
of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Constantinople &c., displayed the
ostentatious piety of a prince, ambitious in a declining age to equal
the perfect labors of antiquity. 104 The form of these religious
edifices was simple and oblong; though they might sometimes swell into
the shape of a dome, and sometimes branch into the figure of a cross.
The timbers were framed for the most part of cedars of Libanus; the
roof was covered with tiles, perhaps of gilt brass; and the walls, the
columns, the pavement, were encrusted with variegated marbles. The most
precious ornaments of gold and silver, of silk and gems, were profusely
dedicated to the service of the altar; and this specious magnificence
was supported on the solid and perpetual basis of landed property. In
the space of two centuries, from the reign of Constantine to that of
Justinian, the eighteen hundred churches of the empire were enriched by
the frequent and unalienable gifts of the prince and people. An annual
income of six hundred pounds sterling may be reasonably assigned to the
bishops, who were placed at an equal distance between riches and
poverty, 105 but the standard of their wealth insensibly rose with the
dignity and opulence of the cities which they governed. An authentic
but imperfect 106 rent-roll specifies some houses, shops, gardens, and
farms, which belonged to the three _Basilic¾_ of Rome, St. Peter, St.
Paul, and St. John Lateran, in the provinces of Italy, Africa, and the
East. They produce, besides a reserved rent of oil, linen, paper,
aromatics, &c., a clear annual revenue of twenty-two thousand pieces of
gold, or twelve thousand pounds sterling. In the age of Constantine and
Justinian, the bishops no longer possessed, perhaps they no longer
deserved, the unsuspecting confidence of their clergy and people. The
ecclesiastical revenues of each diocese were divided into four parts
for the respective uses of the bishop himself, of his inferior clergy,
of the poor, and of the public worship; and the abuse of this sacred
trust was strictly and repeatedly checked. 107 The patrimony of the
church was still subject to all the public compositions of the state.
108 The clergy of Rome, Alexandria, Chessaionica, &c., might solicit
and obtain some partial exemptions; but the premature attempt of the
great council of Rimini, which aspired to universal freedom, was
successfully resisted by the son of Constantine. 109

101 (return) [ The edict of Milan (de M. P. c. 48) acknowledges, by
reciting, that there existed a species of landed property, ad jus
corporis eorum, id est, ecclesiarum non hominum singulorum pertinentia.
Such a solemn declaration of the supreme magistrate must have been
received in all the tribunals as a maxim of civil law.]

102 (return) [ Habeat unusquisque licentiam sanctissimo Catholic¾
(_ecclesi¾_) venerabilique concilio, decedens bonorum quod optavit
relinquere. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 4. This law was
published at Rome, A. D. 321, at a time when Constantine might foresee
the probability of a rupture with the emperor of the East.]

103 (return) [ Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. l. x. 6; in Vit. Constantin. l.
iv. c. 28. He repeatedly expatiates on the liberality of the Christian
hero, which the bishop himself had an opportunity of knowing, and even
of lasting.]

104 (return) [ Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. l. x. c. 2, 3, 4. The bishop of
C¾sarea who studied and gratified the taste of his master, pronounced
in public an elaborate description of the church of Jerusalem, (in Vit
Cons. l. vi. c. 46.) It no longer exists, but he has inserted in the
life of Constantine (l. iii. c. 36) a short account of the architecture
and ornaments. He likewise mentions the church of the Holy Apostles at
Constantinople, (l. iv. c. 59.)]

105 (return) [ See Justinian. Novell. cxxiii. 3. The revenue of the
patriarchs, and the most wealthy bishops, is not expressed: the highest
annual valuation of a bishopric is stated at _thirty_, and the lowest
at _two_, pounds of gold; the medium might be taken at _sixteen_, but
these valuations are much below the real value.]

106 (return) [ See Baronius, (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 324, No. 58, 65, 70,
71.) Every record which comes from the Vatican is justly suspected; yet
these rent-rolls have an ancient and authentic color; and it is at
least evident, that, if forged, they were forged in a period when
_farms_ not _kingdoms_, were the objects of papal avarice.]

107 (return) [ See Thomassin, Discipline de lÕEglise, tom. iii. l. ii.
c. 13, 14, 15, p. 689-706. The legal division of the ecclesiastical
revenue does not appear to have been established in the time of Ambrose
and Chrysostom. Simplicius and Gelasius, who were bishops of Rome in
the latter part of the fifth century, mention it in their pastoral
letters as a general law, which was already confirmed by the custom of
Italy.]

108 (return) [ Ambrose, the most strenuous assertor of ecclesiastical
privileges, submits without a murmur to the payment of the land tax.
ÒSi tri butum petit Imperator, non negamus; agri ecclesi¾ solvunt
tributum solvimus qu¾ sunt C¾saris C¾sari, et qu¾ sunt Dei Deo;
tributum C¾saris est; non negatur.Ó Baronius labors to interpret this
tribute as an act of charity rather than of duty, (Annal. Eccles. A. D.
387;) but the words, if not the intentions of Ambrose are more candidly
explained by Thomassin, Discipline de lÕEglise, tom. iii. l. i. c. 34.
p. 668.]

109 (return) [ In Ariminense synodo super ecclesiarum et clericorum
privilegiis tractatu habito, usque eo dispositio progressa est, ut juqa
qu¾ viderentur ad ecclesiam pertinere, a publica functione cessarent
inquietudine desistente; quod nostra videtur dudum sanctio repulsisse.
Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 15. Had the synod of Rimini carried
this point, such practical merit might have atoned for some speculative
heresies.]

IV. The Latin clergy, who erected their tribunal on the ruins of the
civil and common law, have modestly accepted, as the gift of
Constantine, 110 the independent jurisdiction, which was the fruit of
time, of accident, and of their own industry. But the liberality of the
Christian emperors had actually endowed them with some legal
prerogatives, which secured and dignified the sacerdotal character. 111
1. Under a despotic government, the bishops alone enjoyed and asserted
the inestimable privilege of being tried only by their _peers_, and
even in a capital accusation, a synod of their brethren were the sole
judges of their guilt or innocence. Such a tribunal, unless it was
inflamed by personal resentment or religious discord, might be
favorable, or even partial, to the sacerdotal order: but Constantine
was satisfied, 112 that secret impunity would be less pernicious than
public scandal: and the Nicene council was edited by his public
declaration, that if he surprised a bishop in the act of adultery, he
should cast his Imperial mantle over the episcopal sinner. 2. The
domestic jurisdiction of the bishops was at once a privilege and a
restraint of the ecclesiastical order, whose civil causes were decently
withdrawn from the cognizance of a secular judge. Their venial offences
were not exposed to the shame of a public trial or punishment; and the
gentle correction which the tenderness of youth may endure from its
parents or instructors, was inflicted by the temperate severity of the
bishops. But if the clergy were guilty of any crime which could not be
sufficiently expiated by their degradation from an honorable and
beneficial profession, the Roman magistrate drew the sword of justice,
without any regard to ecclesiastical immunities. 3. The arbitration of
the bishops was ratified by a positive law; and the judges were
instructed to execute, without appeal or delay, the episcopal decrees,
whose validity had hitherto depended on the consent of the parties. The
conversion of the magistrates themselves, and of the whole empire,
might gradually remove the fears and scruples of the Christians. But
they still resorted to the tribunal of the bishops, whose abilities and
integrity they esteemed; and the venerable Austin enjoyed the
satisfaction of complaining that his spiritual functions were
perpetually interrupted by the invidious labor of deciding the claim or
the possession of silver and gold, of lands and cattle. 4. The ancient
privilege of sanctuary was transferred to the Christian temples, and
extended, by the liberal piety of the younger Theodosius, to the
precincts of consecrated ground. 113 The fugitive, and even guilty
suppliants,were permitted to implore either the justice, or the mercy,
of the Deity and his ministers. The rash violence of despotism was
suspended by the mild interposition of the church; and the lives or
fortunes of the most eminent subjects might be protected by the
mediation of the bishop.

110 (return) [ From Eusebius (in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 27) and
Sozomen (l. i. c. 9) we are assured that the episcopal jurisdiction was
extended and confirmed by Constantine; but the forgery of a famous
edict, which was never fairly inserted in the Theodosian Code (see at
the end, tom. vi. p. 303,) is demonstrated by Godefroy in the most
satisfactory manner. It is strange that M. de Montesquieu, who was a
lawyer as well as a philosopher, should allege this edict of
Constantine (Esprit des Loix, l. xxix. c. 16) without intimating any
suspicion.]

111 (return) [ The subject of ecclesiastical jurisdiction has been
involved in a mist of passion, of prejudice, and of interest. Two of
the fairest books which have fallen into my hands, are the Institutes
of Canon Law, by the AbbŽ de Fleury, and the Civil History of Naples,
by Giannone. Their moderation was the effect of situation as well as of
temper. Fleury was a French ecclesiastic, who respected the authority
of the parliaments; Giannone was an Italian lawyer, who dreaded the
power of the church. And here let me observe, that as the general
propositions which I advance are the result of _many_ particular and
imperfect facts, I must either refer the reader to those modern authors
who have expressly treated the subject, or swell these notes
disproportioned size.]

112 (return) [ Tillemont has collected from Rufinus, Theodoret, &c.,
the sentiments and language of Constantine. MŽm Eccles tom. iii p. 749,
759.]

113 (return) [ See Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. xlv. leg. 4. In the works of
Fra Paolo. (tom. iv. p. 192, &c.,) there is an excellent discourse on
the origin, claims, abuses, and limits of sanctuaries. He justly
observes, that ancient Greece might perhaps contain fifteen or twenty
_azyla_ or sanctuaries; a number which at present may be found in Italy
within the walls of a single city.]

V. The bishop was the perpetual censor of the morals of his people The
discipline of penance was digested into a system of canonical
jurisprudence, 114 which accurately defined the duty of private or
public confession, the rules of evidence, the degrees of guilt, and the
measure of punishment. It was impossible to execute this spiritual
censure, if the Christian pontiff, who punished the obscure sins of the
multitude, respected the conspicuous vices and destructive crimes of
the magistrate: but it was impossible to arraign the conduct of the
magistrate, without, controlling the administration of civil
government. Some considerations of religion, or loyalty, or fear,
protected the sacred persons of the emperors from the zeal or
resentment of the bishops; but they boldly censured and excommunicated
the subordinate tyrants, who were not invested with the majesty of the
purple. St. Athanasius excommunicated one of the ministers of Egypt;
and the interdict which he pronounced, of fire and water, was solemnly
transmitted to the churches of Cappadocia. 115 Under the reign of the
younger Theodosius, the polite and eloquent Synesius, one of the
descendants of Hercules, 116 filled the episcopal seat of Ptolemais,
near the ruins of ancient Cyrene, 117 and the philosophic bishop
supported with dignity the character which he had assumed with
reluctance. 118 He vanquished the monster of Libya, the president
Andronicus, who abused the authority of a venal office, invented new
modes of rapine and torture, and aggravated the guilt of oppression by
that of sacrilege. 119 After a fruitless attempt to reclaim the haughty
magistrate by mild and religious admonition, Synesius proceeds to
inflict the last sentence of ecclesiastical justice, 120 which devotes
Andronicus, with his associates and their _families_, to the abhorrence
of earth and heaven. The impenitent sinners, more cruel than Phalaris
or Sennacherib, more destructive than war, pestilence, or a cloud of
locusts, are deprived of the name and privileges of Christians, of the
participation of the sacraments, and of the hope of Paradise. The
bishop exhorts the clergy, the magistrates, and the people, to renounce
all society with the enemies of Christ; to exclude them from their
houses and tables; and to refuse them the common offices of life, and
the decent rites of burial. The church of Ptolemais, obscure and
contemptible as she may appear, addresses this declaration to all her
sister churches of the world; and the profane who reject her decrees,
will be involved in the guilt and punishment of Andronicus and his
impious followers. These spiritual terrors were enforced by a dexterous
application to the Byzantine court; the trembling president implored
the mercy of the church; and the descendants of Hercules enjoyed the
satisfaction of raising a prostrate tyrant from the ground. 121 Such
principles and such examples insensibly prepared the triumph of the
Roman pontiffs, who have trampled on the necks of kings.

114 (return) [ The penitential jurisprudence was continually improved
by the canons of the councils. But as many cases were still left to the
discretion of the bishops, they occasionally published, after the
example of the Roman Pr¾tor, the rules of discipline which they
proposed to observe. Among the canonical epistles of the fourth
century, those of Basil the Great were the most celebrated. They are
inserted in the Pandects of Beveridge, (tom. ii. p. 47-151,) and are
translated by Chardon, Hist. des Sacremens, tom. iv. p. 219-277.]

115 (return) [ Basil, Epistol. xlvii. in Baronius, (Annal. Eccles. A.
D. 370. N. 91,) who declares that he purposely relates it, to convince
govern that they were not exempt from a sentence of excommunication his
opinion, even a royal head is not safe from the thunders of the
Vatican; and the cardinal shows himself much more consistent than the
lawyers and theologians of the Gallican church.]

116 (return) [ The long series of his ancestors, as high as
Eurysthenes, the first Doric king of Sparta, and the fifth in lineal
descent from Hercules, was inscribed in the public registers of Cyrene,
a Laced¾monian colony. (Synes. Epist. lvii. p. 197, edit. Petav.) Such
a pure and illustrious pedigree of seventeen hundred years, without
adding the royal ancestors of Hercules, cannot be equalled in the
history of mankind.]

117 (return) [ Synesius (de Regno, p. 2) pathetically deplores the
fallen and ruined state of Cyrene, [**Greek]. Ptolemais, a new city, 82
miles to the westward of Cyrene, assumed the metropolitan honors of the
Pentapolis, or Upper Libya, which were afterwards transferred to
Sozusa.]

118 (return) [ Synesius had previously represented his own
disqualifications. He loved profane studies and profane sports; he was
incapable of supporting a life of celibacy; he disbelieved the
resurrection; and he refused to preach _fables_ to the people unless he
might be permitted to _philosophize_ at home. Theophilus primate of
Egypt, who knew his merit, accepted this extraordinary compromise.]

119 (return) [ The promotion of Andronicus was illegal; since he was a
native of Berenice, in the same province. The instruments of torture
are curiously specified; the press that variously pressed on distended
the fingers, the feet, the nose, the ears, and the lips of the
victims.]

120 (return) [ The sentence of excommunication is expressed in a
rhetorical style. (Synesius, Epist. lviii. p. 201-203.) The method of
involving whole families, though somewhat unjust, was improved into
national interdicts.]

121 (return) [ See Synesius, Epist. xlvii. p. 186, 187. Epist. lxxii.
p. 218, 219 Epist. lxxxix. p. 230, 231.]

VI. Every popular government has experienced the effects of rude or
artificial eloquence. The coldest nature is animated, the firmest
reason is moved, by the rapid communication of the prevailing impulse;
and each hearer is affected by his own passions, and by those of the
surrounding multitude. The ruin of civil liberty had silenced the
demagogues of Athens, and the tribunes of Rome; the custom of preaching
which seems to constitute a considerable part of Christian devotion,
had not been introduced into the temples of antiquity; and the ears of
monarchs were never invaded by the harsh sound of popular eloquence,
till the pulpits of the empire were filled with sacred orators, who
possessed some advantages unknown to their profane predecessors. 122
The arguments and rhetoric of the tribune were instantly opposed with
equal arms, by skilful and resolute antagonists; and the cause of truth
and reason might derive an accidental support from the conflict of
hostile passions. The bishop, or some distinguished presbyter, to whom
he cautiously delegated the powers of preaching, harangued, without the
danger of interruption or reply, a submissive multitude, whose minds
had been prepared and subdued by the awful ceremonies of religion. Such
was the strict subordination of the Catholic church, that the same
concerted sounds might issue at once from a hundred pulpits of Italy or
Egypt, if they were _tuned_ 123 by the master hand of the Roman or
Alexandrian primate. The design of this institution was laudable, but
the fruits were not always salutary. The preachers recommended the
practice of the social duties; but they exalted the perfection of
monastic virtue, which is painful to the individual, and useless to
mankind. Their charitable exhortations betrayed a secret wish that the
clergy might be permitted to manage the wealth of the faithful, for the
benefit of the poor. The most sublime representations of the attributes
and laws of the Deity were sullied by an idle mixture of metaphysical
subleties, puerile rites, and fictitious miracles: and they expatiated,
with the most fervent zeal, on the religious merit of hating the
adversaries, and obeying the ministers of the church. When the public
peace was distracted by heresy and schism, the sacred orators sounded
the trumpet of discord, and, perhaps, of sedition. The understandings
of their congregations were perplexed by mystery, their passions were
inflamed by invectives; and they rushed from the Christian temples of
Antioch or Alexandria, prepared either to suffer or to inflict
martyrdom. The corruption of taste and language is strongly marked in
the vehement declamations of the Latin bishops; but the compositions of
Gregory and Chrysostom have been compared with the most splendid models
of Attic, or at least of Asiatic, eloquence. 124

122 (return) [ See Thomassin (Discipline de lÕEglise, tom. ii. l. iii.
c. 83, p. 1761-1770,) and Bingham, (Antiquities, vol. i. l. xiv. c. 4,
p. 688- 717.) Preaching was considered as the most important office of
the bishop but this function was sometimes intrusted to such presbyters
as Chrysostom and Augustin.]

123 (return) [ Queen Elizabeth used this expression, and practised this
art whenever she wished to prepossess the minds of her people in favor
of any extraordinary measure of government. The hostile effects of this
_music_ were apprehended by her successor, and severely felt by his
son. ÒWhen pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,Ó &c. See HeylinÕs Life of
Archbishop Laud, p. 153.]

124 (return) [ Those modest orators acknowledged, that, as they were
destitute of the gift of miracles, they endeavored to acquire the arts
of eloquence.]

VII. The representatives of the Christian republic were regularly
assembled in the spring and autumn of each year; and these synods
diffused the spirit of ecclesiastical discipline and legislation
through the hundred and twenty provinces of the Roman world. 125 The
archbishop or metropolitan was empowered, by the laws, to summon the
suffragan bishops of his province; to revise their conduct, to
vindicate their rights, to declare their faith, and to examine the
merits of the candidates who were elected by the clergy and people to
supply the vacancies of the episcopal college. The primates of Rome,
Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, and afterwards Constantinople, who
exercised a more ample jurisdiction, convened the numerous assembly of
their dependent bishops. But the convocation of great and extraordinary
synods was the prerogative of the emperor alone. Whenever the
emergencies of the church required this decisive measure, he despatched
a peremptory summons to the bishops, or the deputies of each province,
with an order for the use of post-horses, and a competent allowance for
the expenses of their journey. At an early period, when Constantine was
the protector, rather than the proselyte, of Christianity, he referred
the African controversy to the council of Arles; in which the bishops
of York of Trves, of Milan, and of Carthage, met as friends and
brethren, to debate in their native tongue on the common interest of
the Latin or Western church. 126 Eleven years afterwards, a more
numerous and celebrated assembly was convened at Nice in Bithynia, to
extinguish, by their final sentence, the subtle disputes which had
arisen in Egypt on the subject of the Trinity. Three hundred and
eighteen bishops obeyed the summons of their indulgent master; the
ecclesiastics of every rank, and sect, and denomination, have been
computed at two thousand and forty-eight persons; 127 the Greeks
appeared in person; and the consent of the Latins was expressed by the
legates of the Roman pontiff. The session, which lasted about two
months, was frequently honored by the presence of the emperor. Leaving
his guards at the door, he seated himself (with the permission of the
council) on a low stool in the midst of the hall. Constantine listened
with patience, and spoke with modesty: and while he influenced the
debates, he humbly professed that he was the minister, not the judge,
of the successors of the apostles, who had been established as priests
and as gods upon earth. 128 Such profound reverence of an absolute
monarch towards a feeble and unarmed assembly of his own subjects, can
only be compared to the respect with which the senate had been treated
by the Roman princes who adopted the policy of Augustus. Within the
space of fifty years, a philosophic spectator of the vicissitudes of
human affairs might have contemplated Tacitus in the senate of Rome,
and Constantine in the council of Nice. The fathers of the Capitol and
those of the church had alike degenerated from the virtues of their
founders; but as the bishops were more deeply rooted in the public
opinion, they sustained their dignity with more decent pride, and
sometimes opposed with a manly spirit the wishes of their sovereign.
The progress of time and superstition erased the memory of the
weakness, the passion, the ignorance, which disgraced these
ecclesiastical synods; and the Catholic world has unanimously submitted
129 to the _infallible_ decrees of the general councils. 130

125 (return) [ The council of Nice, in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and
seventh canons, has made some fundamental regulations concerning
synods, metropolitan, and primates. The Nicene canons have been
variously tortured, abused, interpolated, or forged, according to the
interest of the clergy. The _Suburbicarian_ churches, assigned (by
Rufinus) to the bishop of Rome, have been made the subject of vehement
controversy (See Sirmond, Opera, tom. iv. p. 1-238.)]

126 (return) [ We have only thirty-three or forty-seven episcopal
subscriptions: but Addo, a writer indeed of small account, reckons six
hundred bishops in the council of Arles. Tillemont, MŽm. Eccles. tom.
vi. p. 422.]

127 (return) [ See Tillemont, tom. vi. p. 915, and Beausobre, Hist. du
Mani cheisme, tom i p. 529. The name of _bishop_, which is given by
Eusychius to the 2048 ecclesiastics, (Annal. tom. i. p. 440, vers.
Pocock,) must be extended far beyond the limits of an orthodox or even
episcopal ordination.]

128 (return) [ See Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 6-21.
Tillemont, MŽm. EcclŽsiastiques, tom. vi. p. 669-759.]

129 (return) [ Sancimus igitur vicem legum obtinere, qu¾ a quatuor
Sanctis Conciliis.... exposit¾ sunt act firmat¾. Pr¾dictarum enim quat
uor synodorum dogmata sicut sanctas Scripturas et regulas sicut leges
observamus. Justinian. Novell. cxxxi. Beveridge (ad Pandect. proleg. p.
2) remarks, that the emperors never made new laws in ecclesiastical
matters; and Giannone observes, in a very different spirit, that they
gave a legal sanction to the canons of councils. Istoria Civile di
Napoli, tom. i. p. 136.]

130 (return) [ See the article Concile in the Eucyclopedie, tom. iii.
p. 668-879, edition de Lucques. The author, M. de docteur Bouchaud, has
discussed, according to the principles of the Gallican church, the
principal questions which relate to the form and constitution of
general, national, and provincial councils. The editors (see Preface,
p. xvi.) have reason to be proud of _this_ article. Those who consult
their immense compilation, seldom depart so well satisfied.]




      Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.ÑPart I.


     Persecution Of Heresy.ÑThe Schism Of The Donatists.ÑThe Arian
     Controversy.ÑAthanasius.ÑDistracted State Of The Church And Empire
     Under Constantine And His Sons.Ñ Toleration Of Paganism.

      The grateful applause of the clergy has consecrated the memory of
      a prince who indulged their passions and promoted their interest.
      Constantine gave them security, wealth, honors, and revenge; and
      the support of the orthodox faith was considered as the most
      sacred and important duty of the civil magistrate. The edict of
      Milan, the great charter of toleration, had confirmed to each
      individual of the Roman world the privilege of choosing and
      professing his own religion. But this inestimable privilege was
      soon violated; with the knowledge of truth, the emperor imbibed
      the maxims of persecution; and the sects which dissented from the
      Catholic church were afflicted and oppressed by the triumph of
      Christianity. Constantine easily believed that the Heretics, who
      presumed to dispute _his_ opinions, or to oppose _his_ commands,
      were guilty of the most absurd and criminal obstinacy; and that a
      seasonable application of moderate severities might save those
      unhappy men from the danger of an everlasting condemnation. Not a
      moment was lost in excluding the ministers and teachers of the
      separated congregations from any share of the rewards and
      immunities which the emperor had so liberally bestowed on the
      orthodox clergy. But as the sectaries might still exist under the
      cloud of royal disgrace, the conquest of the East was immediately
      followed by an edict which announced their total destruction. 1
      After a preamble filled with passion and reproach, Constantine
      absolutely prohibits the assemblies of the Heretics, and
      confiscates their public property to the use either of the
      revenue or of the Catholic church. The sects against whom the
      Imperial severity was directed, appear to have been the adherents
      of Paul of Samosata; the Montanists of Phrygia, who maintained an
      enthusiastic succession of prophecy; the Novatians, who sternly
      rejected the temporal efficacy of repentance; the Marcionites and
      Valentinians, under whose leading banners the various Gnostics of
      Asia and Egypt had insensibly rallied; and perhaps the
      Manich¾ans, who had recently imported from Persia a more artful
      composition of Oriental and Christian theology. 2 The design of
      extirpating the name, or at least of restraining the progress, of
      these odious Heretics, was prosecuted with vigor and effect. Some
      of the penal regulations were copied from the edicts of
      Diocletian; and this method of conversion was applauded by the
      same bishops who had felt the hand of oppression, and pleaded for
      the rights of humanity. Two immaterial circumstances may serve,
      however, to prove that the mind of Constantine was not entirely
      corrupted by the spirit of zeal and bigotry. Before he condemned
      the Manich¾ans and their kindred sects, he resolved to make an
      accurate inquiry into the nature of their religious principles.
      As if he distrusted the impartiality of his ecclesiastical
      counsellors, this delicate commission was intrusted to a civil
      magistrate, whose learning and moderation he justly esteemed, and
      of whose venal character he was probably ignorant. 3 The emperor
      was soon convinced, that he had too hastily proscribed the
      orthodox faith and the exemplary morals of the Novatians, who had
      dissented from the church in some articles of discipline which
      were not perhaps essential to salvation. By a particular edict,
      he exempted them from the general penalties of the law; 4 allowed
      them to build a church at Constantinople, respected the miracles
      of their saints, invited their bishop Acesius to the council of
      Nice; and gently ridiculed the narrow tenets of his sect by a
      familiar jest; which, from the mouth of a sovereign, must have
      been received with applause and gratitude. 5

      1 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 63, 64, 65,
      66.]

      2 (return) [ After some examination of the various opinions of
      Tillemont, Beausobre, Lardner, &c., I am convinced that Manes did
      not propagate his sect, even in Persia, before the year 270. It
      is strange, that a philosophic and foreign heresy should have
      penetrated so rapidly into the African provinces; yet I cannot
      easily reject the edict of Diocletian against the Manich¾ans,
      which may be found in Baronius. (Annal Eccl. A. D. 287.)]

      3 (return) [ Constantinus enim, cum limatius superstitionum
      qu¾roret sectas, Manich¾orum et similium, &c. Ammian. xv. 15.
      Strategius, who from this commission obtained the surname of
      _Musonianus_, was a Christian of the Arian sect. He acted as one
      of the counts at the council of Sardica. Libanius praises his
      mildness and prudence. Vales. ad locum Ammian.]

      4 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit. 5, leg. 2. As the general
      law is not inserted in the Theodosian Code, it probable that, in
      the year 438, the sects which it had condemned were already
      extinct.]

      5 (return) [ Sozomen, l. i. c. 22. Socrates, l. i. c. 10. These
      historians have been suspected, but I think without reason, of an
      attachment to the Novatian doctrine. The emperor said to the
      bishop, ÒAcesius, take a ladder, and get up to heaven by
      yourself.Ó Most of the Christian sects have, by turns, borrowed
      the ladder of Acesius.]

      The complaints and mutual accusations which assailed the throne
      of Constantine, as soon as the death of Maxentius had submitted
      Africa to his victorious arms, were ill adapted to edify an
      imperfect proselyte. He learned, with surprise, that the
      provinces of that great country, from the confines of Cyrene to
      the columns of Hercules, were distracted with religious discord.
      6 The source of the division was derived from a double election
      in the church of Carthage; the second, in rank and opulence, of
      the ecclesiastical thrones of the West. C¾cilian and Majorinus
      were the two rival prelates of Africa; and the death of the
      latter soon made room for Donatus, who, by his superior abilities
      and apparent virtues, was the firmest support of his party. The
      advantage which C¾cilian might claim from the priority of his
      ordination, was destroyed by the illegal, or at least indecent,
      haste, with which it had been performed, without expecting the
      arrival of the bishops of Numidia. The authority of these
      bishops, who, to the number of seventy, condemned C¾cilian, and
      consecrated Majorinus, is again weakened by the infamy of some of
      their personal characters; and by the female intrigues,
      sacrilegious bargains, and tumultuous proceedings, which are
      imputed to this Numidian council. 7 The bishops of the contending
      factions maintained, with equal ardor and obstinacy, that their
      adversaries were degraded, or at least dishonored, by the odious
      crime of delivering the Holy Scriptures to the officers of
      Diocletian. From their mutual reproaches, as well as from the
      story of this dark transaction, it may justly be inferred, that
      the late persecution had imbittered the zeal, without reforming
      the manners, of the African Christians. That divided church was
      incapable of affording an impartial judicature; the controversy
      was solemnly tried in five successive tribunals, which were
      appointed by the emperor; and the whole proceeding, from the
      first appeal to the final sentence, lasted above three years. A
      severe inquisition, which was taken by the Pr¾torian vicar, and
      the proconsul of Africa, the report of two episcopal visitors who
      had been sent to Carthage, the decrees of the councils of Rome
      and of Arles, and the supreme judgment of Constantine himself in
      his sacred consistory, were all favorable to the cause of
      C¾cilian; and he was unanimously acknowledged by the civil and
      ecclesiastical powers, as the true and lawful primate of Africa.
      The honors and estates of the church were attributed to _his_
      suffragan bishops, and it was not without difficulty, that
      Constantine was satisfied with inflicting the punishment of exile
      on the principal leaders of the Donatist faction. As their cause
      was examined with attention, perhaps it was determined with
      justice. Perhaps their complaint was not without foundation, that
      the credulity of the emperor had been abused by the insidious
      arts of his favorite Osius. The influence of falsehood and
      corruption might procure the condemnation of the innocent, or
      aggravate the sentence of the guilty. Such an act, however, of
      injustice, if it concluded an importunate dispute, might be
      numbered among the transient evils of a despotic administration,
      which are neither felt nor remembered by posterity.

      6 (return) [ The best materials for this part of ecclesiastical
      history may be found in the edition of Optatus Milevitanus,
      published (Paris, 1700) by M. Dupin, who has enriched it with
      critical notes, geographical discussions, original records, and
      an accurate abridgment of the whole controversy. M. de Tillemont
      has bestowed on the Donatists the greatest part of a volume,
      (tom. vi. part i.;) and I am indebted to him for an ample
      collection of all the passages of his favorite St. Augustin,
      which relate to those heretics.]

      7 (return) [ Schisma igitur illo tempore confus¾ mulieris
      iracundia peperit; ambitus nutrivit; avaritia roboravit. Optatus,
      l. i. c. 19. The language of Purpurius is that of a furious
      madman. Dicitur te necasse lilios sororis tu¾ duos. Purpurius
      respondit: Putas me terreri a te.. occidi; et occido eos qui
      contra me faciunt. Acta Concil. Cirtenais, ad calc. Optat. p.
      274. When C¾cilian was invited to an assembly of bishops,
      Purpurius said to his brethren, or rather to his accomplices,
      ÒLet him come hither to receive our imposition of hands, and we
      will break his head by way of penance.Ó Optat. l. i. c. 19.]

      But this incident, so inconsiderable that it scarcely deserves a
      place in history, was productive of a memorable schism which
      afflicted the provinces of Africa above three hundred years, and
      was extinguished only with Christianity itself. The inflexible
      zeal of freedom and fanaticism animated the Donatists to refuse
      obedience to the usurpers, whose election they disputed, and
      whose spiritual powers they denied. Excluded from the civil and
      religious communion of mankind, they boldly excommunicated the
      rest of mankind, who had embraced the impious party of C¾cilian,
      and of the Traditors, from which he derived his pretended
      ordination. They asserted with confidence, and almost with
      exultation, that the Apostolical succession was interrupted; that
      _all_ the bishops of Europe and Asia were infected by the
      contagion of guilt and schism; and that the prerogatives of the
      Catholic church were confined to the chosen portion of the
      African believers, who alone had preserved inviolate the
      integrity of their faith and discipline. This rigid theory was
      supported by the most uncharitable conduct. Whenever they
      acquired a proselyte, even from the distant provinces of the
      East, they carefully repeated the sacred rites of baptism 8 and
      ordination; as they rejected the validity of those which he had
      already received from the hands of heretics or schismatics.
      Bishops, virgins, and even spotless infants, were subjected to
      the disgrace of a public penance, before they could be admitted
      to the communion of the Donatists. If they obtained possession of
      a church which had been used by their Catholic adversaries, they
      purified the unhallowed building with the same zealous care which
      a temple of idols might have required. They washed the pavement,
      scraped the walls, burnt the altar, which was commonly of wood,
      melted the consecrated plate, and cast the Holy Eucharist to the
      dogs, with every circumstance of ignominy which could provoke and
      perpetuate the animosity of religious factions. 9 Notwithstanding
      this irreconcilable aversion, the two parties, who were mixed and
      separated in all the cities of Africa, had the same language and
      manners, the same zeal and learning, the same faith and worship.
      Proscribed by the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the empire,
      the Donatists still maintained in some provinces, particularly in
      Numidia, their superior numbers; and four hundred bishops
      acknowledged the jurisdiction of their primate. But the
      invincible spirit of the sect sometimes preyed on its own vitals:
      and the bosom of their schismatical church was torn by intestine
      divisions. A fourth part of the Donatist bishops followed the
      independent standard of the Maximianists. The narrow and solitary
      path which their first leaders had marked out, continued to
      deviate from the great society of mankind. Even the imperceptible
      sect of the Rogatians could affirm, without a blush, that when
      Christ should descend to judge the earth, he would find his true
      religion preserved only in a few nameless villages of the
      C¾sarean Mauritania. 10

      8 (return) [ The councils of Arles, of Nice, and of Trent,
      confirmed the wise and moderate practice of the church of Rome.
      The Donatists, however, had the advantage of maintaining the
      sentiment of Cyprian, and of a considerable part of the primitive
      church. Vincentius Lirinesis (p. 532, ap. Tillemont, MŽm. Eccles.
      tom. vi. p. 138) has explained why the Donatists are eternally
      burning with the Devil, while St. Cyprian reigns in heaven with
      Jesus Christ.]

      9 (return) [ See the sixth book of Optatus Milevitanus, p.
      91-100.]

      10 (return) [ Tillemont, MŽm. EcclŽsiastiques, tom. vi. part i.
      p. 253. He laughs at their partial credulity. He revered
      Augustin, the great doctor of the system of predestination.]

      The schism of the Donatists was confined to Africa: the more
      diffusive mischief of the Trinitarian controversy successively
      penetrated into every part of the Christian world. The former was
      an accidental quarrel, occasioned by the abuse of freedom; the
      latter was a high and mysterious argument, derived from the abuse
      of philosophy. From the age of Constantine to that of Clovis and
      Theodoric, the temporal interests both of the Romans and
      Barbarians were deeply involved in the theological disputes of
      Arianism. The historian may therefore be permitted respectfully
      to withdraw the veil of the sanctuary; and to deduce the progress
      of reason and faith, of error and passion from the school of
      Plato, to the decline and fall of the empire.

      The genius of Plato, informed by his own meditation, or by the
      traditional knowledge of the priests of Egypt, 11 had ventured to
      explore the mysterious nature of the Deity. When he had elevated
      his mind to the sublime contemplation of the first self-existent,
      necessary cause of the universe, the Athenian sage was incapable
      of conceiving _how_ the simple unity of his essence could admit
      the infinite variety of distinct and successive ideas which
      compose the model of the intellectual world; _how_ a Being purely
      incorporeal could execute that perfect model, and mould with a
      plastic hand the rude and independent chaos. The vain hope of
      extricating himself from these difficulties, which must ever
      oppress the feeble powers of the human mind, might induce Plato
      to consider the divine nature under the threefold modificationÑof
      the first cause, the reason, or _Logos_, and the soul or spirit
      of the universe. His poetical imagination sometimes fixed and
      animated these metaphysical abstractions; the three _archical_ on
      original principles were represented in the Platonic system as
      three Gods, united with each other by a mysterious and ineffable
      generation; and the Logos was particularly considered under the
      more accessible character of the Son of an Eternal Father, and
      the Creator and Governor of the world. Such appear to have been
      the secret doctrines which were cautiously whispered in the
      gardens of the academy; and which, according to the more recent
      disciples of Plato, 1111 could not be perfectly understood, till
      after an assiduous study of thirty years. 12

      11 (return) [ Plato ®gyptum peragravit ut a sacerdotibus Barbaris
      numeros et _c¾lestia_ acciperet. Cicero de Finibus, v. 25. The
      Egyptians might still preserve the traditional creed of the
      Patriarchs. Josephus has persuaded many of the Christian fathers,
      that Plato derived a part of his knowledge from the Jews; but
      this vain opinion cannot be reconciled with the obscure state and
      unsocial manners of the Jewish people, whose scriptures were not
      accessible to Greek curiosity till more than one hundred years
      after the death of Plato. See Marsham Canon. Chron. p. 144 Le
      Clerc, Epistol. Critic. vii. p. 177-194.]

      1111 (return) [ This exposition of the doctrine of Plato appears
      to me contrary to the true sense of that philosopherÕs writings.
      The brilliant imagination which he carried into metaphysical
      inquiries, his style, full of allegories and figures, have misled
      those interpreters who did not seek, from the whole tenor of his
      works and beyond the images which the writer employs, the system
      of this philosopher. In my opinion, there is no Trinity in Plato;
      he has established no mysterious generation between the three
      pretended principles which he is made to distinguish. Finally, he
      conceives only as _attributes_ of the Deity, or of matter, those
      ideas, of which it is supposed that he made _substances_, real
      beings.
          According to Plato, God and matter existed from all eternity.
          Before the creation of the world, matter had in itself a
          principle of motion, but without end or laws: it is this
          principle which Plato calls the irrational soul of the world,
          because, according to his doctrine, every spontaneous and
          original principle of motion is called soul. God wished to
          impress _form_ upon matter, that is to say, 1. To mould
          matter, and make it into a body; 2. To regulate its motion,
          and subject it to some end and to certain laws. The Deity, in
          this operation, could not act but according to the ideas
          existing in his intelligence: their union filled this, and
          formed the ideal type of the world. It is this ideal world,
          this divine intelligence, existing with God from all
          eternity, and called by Plato which he is supposed to
          personify, to substantialize; while an attentive examination
          is sufficient to convince us that he has never assigned it an
          existence external to the Deity, (hors de la DivinitŽ,) and
          that he considered the as the aggregate of the ideas of God,
          the divine understanding in its relation to the world. The
          contrary opinion is irreconcilable with all his philosophy:
          thus he says (Tim¾us, p. 348, edit. Bip.) that to the idea of
          the Deity is essentially united that of intelligence, of a
          _logos_. He would thus have admitted a double _logos;_ one
          inherent in the Deity as an attribute, the other
          independently existing as a substance. He affirms that the
          intelligence, the principle of order cannot exist but as an
          attribute of a soul, the principle of motion and of life, of
          which the nature is unknown to us. How, then, according to
          this, could he consider the _logos_ as a substance endowed
          with an independent existence? In other places, he explains
          it by these two words, knowledge, science, and intelligence
          which signify the attributes of the Deity. When Plato
          separates God, the ideal archetype of the world and matter,
          it is to explain how, according to his system, God has
          proceeded, at the creation, to unite the principle of order
          which he had within himself, his proper intelligence, the
          principle of motion, to the principle of motion, the
          irrational soul which was in matter. When he speaks of the
          place occupied by the ideal world, it is to designate the
          divine intelligence, which is its cause. Finally, in no part
          of his writings do we find a true personification of the
          pretended beings of which he is said to have formed a
          trinity: and if this personification existed, it would
          equally apply to many other notions, of which might be formed
          many different trinities.
          This error, into which many ancient as well as modern
          interpreters of Plato have fallen, was very natural. Besides
          the snares which were concealed in his figurative style;
          besides the necessity of comprehending as a whole the system
          of his ideas, and not to explain isolated passages, the
          nature of his doctrine itself would conduce to this error.
          When Plato appeared, the uncertainty of human knowledge, and
          the continual illusions of the senses, were acknowledged, and
          had given rise to a general scepticism. Socrates had aimed at
          raising morality above the influence of this scepticism:
          Plato endeavored to save metaphysics, by seeking in the human
          intellect a source of certainty which the senses could not
          furnish. He invented the system of innate ideas, of which the
          aggregate formed, according to him, the ideal world, and
          affirmed that these ideas were real attributes, not only
          attached to our conceptions of objects, but to the nature of
          the objects themselves; a nature of which from them we might
          obtain a knowledge. He gave, then, to these ideas a positive
          existence as attributes; his commentators could easily give
          them a real existence as substances; especially as the terms
          which he used to designate them, essential beauty, essential
          goodness, lent themselves to this substantialization,
          (hypostasis.)ÑG.
          We have retained this view of the original philosophy of
          Plato, in which there is probably much truth. The genius of
          Plato was rather metaphysical than impersonative: his poetry
          was in his language, rather than, like that of the Orientals,
          in his conceptions.ÑM.]

      12 (return) [ The modern guides who lead me to the knowledge of
      the Platonic system are Cudworth, Basnage, Le Clerc, and Brucker.
      As the learning of these writers was equal, and their intention
      different, an inquisitive observer may derive instruction from
      their disputes, and certainty from their agreement.]

      The arms of the Macedonians diffused over Asia and Egypt the
      language and learning of Greece; and the theological system of
      Plato was taught, with less reserve, and perhaps with some
      improvements, in the celebrated school of Alexandria. 13 A
      numerous colony of Jews had been invited, by the favor of the
      Ptolemies, to settle in their new capital. 14 While the bulk of
      the nation practised the legal ceremonies, and pursued the
      lucrative occupations of commerce, a few Hebrews, of a more
      liberal spirit, devoted their lives to religious and
      philosophical contemplation. 15 They cultivated with diligence,
      and embraced with ardor, the theological system of the Athenian
      sage. But their national pride would have been mortified by a
      fair confession of their former poverty: and they boldly marked,
      as the sacred inheritance of their ancestors, the gold and jewels
      which they had so lately stolen from their Egyptian masters. One
      hundred years before the birth of Christ, a philosophical
      treatise, which manifestly betrays the style and sentiments of
      the school of Plato, was produced by the Alexandrian Jews, and
      unanimously received as a genuine and valuable relic of the
      inspired Wisdom of Solomon. 16 A similar union of the Mosaic
      faith and the Grecian philosophy, distinguishes the works of
      Philo, which were composed, for the most part, under the reign of
      Augustus. 17 The material soul of the universe 18 might offend
      the piety of the Hebrews: but they applied the character of the
      Logos to the Jehovah of Moses and the patriarchs; and the Son of
      God was introduced upon earth under a visible, and even human
      appearance, to perform those familiar offices which seem
      incompatible with the nature and attributes of the Universal
      Cause. 19

      13 (return) [ Brucker, Hist. Philosoph. tom. i. p. 1349-1357. The
      Alexandrian school is celebrated by Strabo (l. xvii.) and
      Ammianus, (xxii. 6.) Note: The philosophy of Plato was not the
      only source of that professed in the school of Alexandria. That
      city, in which Greek, Jewish, and Egyptian men of letters were
      assembled, was the scene of a strange fusion of the system of
      these three people. The Greeks brought a Platonism, already much
      changed; the Jews, who had acquired at Babylon a great number of
      Oriental notions, and whose theological opinions had undergone
      great changes by this intercourse, endeavored to reconcile
      Platonism with their new doctrine, and disfigured it entirely:
      lastly, the Egyptians, who were not willing to abandon notions
      for which the Greeks themselves entertained respect, endeavored
      on their side to reconcile their own with those of their
      neighbors. It is in Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon that
      we trace the influence of Oriental philosophy rather than that of
      Platonism. We find in these books, and in those of the later
      prophets, as in Ezekiel, notions unknown to the Jews before the
      Babylonian captivity, of which we do not discover the germ in
      Plato, but which are manifestly derived from the Orientals. Thus
      God represented under the image of light, and the principle of
      evil under that of darkness; the history of the good and bad
      angels; paradise and hell, &c., are doctrines of which the
      origin, or at least the positive determination, can only be
      referred to the Oriental philosophy. Plato supposed matter
      eternal; the Orientals and the Jews considered it as a creation
      of God, who alone was eternal. It is impossible to explain the
      philosophy of the Alexandrian school solely by the blending of
      the Jewish theology with the Greek philosophy. The Oriental
      philosophy, however little it may be known, is recognized at
      every instant. Thus, according to the Zend Avesta, it is by the
      Word (honover) more ancient than the world, that Ormuzd created
      the universe. This word is the logos of Philo, consequently very
      different from that of Plato. I have shown that Plato never
      personified the logos as the ideal archetype of the world: Philo
      ventured this personification. The Deity, according to him, has a
      double logos; the first is the ideal archetype of the world, the
      ideal world, the _first-born_ of the Deity; the second is the
      word itself of God, personified under the image of a being acting
      to create the sensible world, and to make it like to the ideal
      world: it is the second-born of God. Following out his
      imaginations, Philo went so far as to personify anew the ideal
      world, under the image of a celestial man, the primitive type of
      man, and the sensible world under the image of another man less
      perfect than the celestial man. Certain notions of the Oriental
      philosophy may have given rise to this strange abuse of allegory,
      which it is sufficient to relate, to show what alterations
      Platonism had already undergone, and what was their source.
      Philo, moreover, of all the Jews of Alexandria, is the one whose
      Platonism is the most pure. It is from this mixture of
      Orientalism, Platonism, and Judaism, that Gnosticism arose, which
      had produced so many theological and philosophical
      extravagancies, and in which Oriental notions evidently
      predominate.ÑG.]

      14 (return) [ Joseph. Antiquitat, l. xii. c. 1, 3. Basnage, Hist.
      des Juifs, l. vii. c. 7.]

      15 (return) [ For the origin of the Jewish philosophy, see
      Eusebius, Pr¾parat. Evangel. viii. 9, 10. According to Philo, the
      Therapeut¾ studied philosophy; and Brucker has proved (Hist.
      Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 787) that they gave the preference to that
      of Plato.]

      16 (return) [ See Calmet, Dissertations sur la Bible, tom. ii. p.
      277. The book of the Wisdom of Solomon was received by many of
      the fathers as the work of that monarch: and although rejected by
      the Protestants for want of a Hebrew original, it has obtained,
      with the rest of the Vulgate, the sanction of the council of
      Trent.]

      17 (return) [ The Platonism of Philo, which was famous to a
      proverb, is proved beyond a doubt by Le Clerc, (Epist. Crit.
      viii. p. 211-228.) Basnage (Hist. des Juifs, l. iv. c. 5) has
      clearly ascertained, that the theological works of Philo were
      composed before the death, and most probably before the birth, of
      Christ. In such a time of darkness, the knowledge of Philo is
      more astonishing than his errors. Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. s. i.
      c. i. p. 12.]

      18 (return) [ Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore _miscet_.
      Besides this material soul, Cudworth has discovered (p. 562) in
      Amelius, Porphyry, Plotinus, and, as he thinks, in Plato himself,
      a superior, spiritual _upercosmian_ soul of the universe. But
      this double soul is exploded by Brucker, Basnage, and Le Clerc,
      as an idle fancy of the latter Platonists.]

      19 (return) [ Petav. Dogmata Theologica, tom. ii. l. viii. c. 2,
      p. 791. Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. s. i. c. l. p. 8, 13. This
      notion, till it was abused by the Arians, was freely adopted in
      the Christian theology. Tertullian (adv. Praxeam, c. 16) has a
      remarkable and dangerous passage. After contrasting, with
      indiscreet wit, the nature of God, and the actions of Jehovah, he
      concludes: Scilicet ut h¾c de filio Dei non credenda fuisse, si
      non scripta essent; fortasse non credenda de lÕatre licet
      scripta. * Note: Tertullian is here arguing against the
      Patripassians; those who asserted that the Father was born of the
      Virgin, died and was buried.ÑM.]




      Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.ÑPart II.


      The eloquence of Plato, the name of Solomon, the authority of the
      school of Alexandria, and the consent of the Jews and Greeks,
      were insufficient to establish the truth of a mysterious
      doctrine, which might please, but could not satisfy, a rational
      mind. A prophet, or apostle, inspired by the Deity, can alone
      exercise a lawful dominion over the faith of mankind: and the
      theology of Plato might have been forever confounded with the
      philosophical visions of the Academy, the Porch, and the Lyc¾um,
      if the name and divine attributes of the _Logos_ had not been
      confirmed by the celestial pen of the last and most sublime of
      the Evangelists. 20 The Christian Revelation, which was
      consummated under the reign of Nerva, disclosed to the world the
      amazing secret, that the Logos, who was with God from the
      beginning, and was God, who had made all things, and for whom all
      things had been made, was incarnate in the person of Jesus of
      Nazareth; who had been born of a virgin, and suffered death on
      the cross. Besides the general design of fixing on a perpetual
      basis the divine honors of Christ, the most ancient and
      respectable of the ecclesiastical writers have ascribed to the
      evangelic theologian a particular intention to confute two
      opposite heresies, which disturbed the peace of the primitive
      church. 21 I. The faith of the Ebionites, 22 perhaps of the
      Nazarenes, 23 was gross and imperfect. They revered Jesus as the
      greatest of the prophets, endowed with supernatural virtue and
      power. They ascribed to his person and to his future reign all
      the predictions of the Hebrew oracles which relate to the
      spiritual and everlasting kingdom of the promised Messiah. 24
      Some of them might confess that he was born of a virgin; but they
      obstinately rejected the preceding existence and divine
      perfections of the _Logos_, or Son of God, which are so clearly
      defined in the Gospel of St. John. About fifty years afterwards,
      the Ebionites, whose errors are mentioned by Justin Martyr with
      less severity than they seem to deserve, 25 formed a very
      inconsiderable portion of the Christian name. II. The Gnostics,
      who were distinguished by the epithet of _Docetes_, deviated into
      the contrary extreme; and betrayed the human, while they asserted
      the divine, nature of Christ. Educated in the school of Plato,
      accustomed to the sublime idea of the Logos, they readily
      conceived that the brightest _®on_, or _Emanation_ of the Deity,
      might assume the outward shape and visible appearances of a
      mortal; 26 but they vainly pretended, that the imperfections of
      matter are incompatible with the purity of a celestial substance.

      While the blood of Christ yet smoked on Mount Calvary, the
      Docetes invented the impious and extravagant hypothesis, that,
      instead of issuing from the womb of the Virgin, 27 he had
      descended on the banks of the Jordan in the form of perfect
      manhood; that he had imposed on the senses of his enemies, and of
      his disciples; and that the ministers of Pilate had wasted their
      impotent rage on an ury phantom, who _seemed_ to expire on the
      cross, and, after three days, to rise from the dead. 28

      20 (return) [ The Platonists admired the beginning of the Gospel
      of St. John as containing an exact transcript of their own
      principles. Augustin de Civitat. Dei, x. 29. Amelius apud Cyril.
      advers. Julian. l. viii. p. 283. But in the third and fourth
      centuries, the Platonists of Alexandria might improve their
      Trinity by the secret study of the Christian theology. Note: A
      short discussion on the sense in which St. John has used the word
      Logos, will prove that he has not borrowed it from the philosophy
      of Plato. The evangelist adopts this word without previous
      explanation, as a term with which his contemporaries were already
      familiar, and which they could at once comprehend. To know the
      sense which he gave to it, we must inquire that which it
      generally bore in his time. We find two: the one attached to the
      word _logos_ by the Jews of Palestine, the other by the school of
      Alexandria, particularly by Philo. The Jews had feared at all
      times to pronounce the name of Jehovah; they had formed a habit
      of designating God by one of his attributes; they called him
      sometimes Wisdom, sometimes the Word. _By the word of the Lord
      were the heavens made_. (Psalm xxxiii. 6.) Accustomed to
      allegories, they often addressed themselves to this attribute of
      the Deity as a real being. Solomon makes Wisdom say ÒThe Lord
      possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of
      old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever
      the earth was.Ó (Prov. viii. 22, 23.) Their residence in Persia
      only increased this inclination to sustained allegories. In the
      Ecclesiasticus of the son of Sirach, and the Book of Wisdom, we
      find allegorical descriptions of Wisdom like the following: ÒI
      came out of the mouth of the Most High; I covered the earth as a
      cloud;... I alone compassed the circuit of heaven, and walked in
      the bottom of the deep... The Creator created me from the
      beginning, before the world, and I shall never fail.Ó (Eccles.
      xxiv. 35- 39.) See also the Wisdom of Solomon, c. vii. v. 9. [The
      latter book is clearly Alexandrian.ÑM.] We see from this that the
      Jews understood from the Hebrew and Chaldaic words which signify
      Wisdom, the Word, and which were translated into Greek, a simple
      attribute of the Deity, allegorically personified, but of which
      they did not make a real particular being separate from the
      Deity.
          The school of Alexandria, on the contrary, and Philo among
          the rest, mingling Greek with Jewish and Oriental notions,
          and abandoning himself to his inclination to mysticism,
          personified the logos, and represented it a distinct being,
          created by God, and intermediate between God and man. This is
          the second _logos_ of Philo, that which acts from the
          beginning of the world, alone in its kind, creator of the
          sensible world, formed by God according to the ideal world
          which he had in himself, and which was the first logos, the
          first- born of the Deity. The logos taken in this sense,
          then, was a created being, but, anterior to the creation of
          the world, near to God, and charged with his revelations to
          mankind.
          Which of these two senses is that which St. John intended to
          assign to the word logos in the first chapter of his Gospel,
          and in all his writings? St. John was a Jew, born and
          educated in Palestine; he had no knowledge, at least very
          little, of the philosophy of the Greeks, and that of the
          Grecizing Jews: he would naturally, then, attach to the word
          _logos_ the sense attached to it by the Jews of Palestine.
          If, in fact, we compare the attributes which he assigns to
          the _logos_ with those which are assigned to it in Proverbs,
          in the Wisdom of Solomon, in Ecclesiasticus, we shall see
          that they are the same. The Word was in the world, and the
          world was made by him; in him was life, and the life was the
          light of men, (c. i. v. 10-14.) It is impossible not to trace
          in this chapter the ideas which the Jews had formed of the
          allegorized logos. The evangelist afterwards really
          personifies that which his predecessors have personified only
          poetically; for he affirms Ò_that the Word became flesh_,Ó
          (v. 14.) It was to prove this that he wrote. Closely
          examined, the ideas which he gives of the logos cannot agree
          with those of Philo and the school of Alexandria; they
          correspond, on the contrary, with those of the Jews of
          Palestine. Perhaps St. John, employing a well-known term to
          explain a doctrine which was yet unknown, has slightly
          altered the sense; it is this alteration which we appear to
          discover on comparing different passages of his writings.
          It is worthy of remark, that the Jews of Palestine, who did
          not perceive this alteration, could find nothing
          extraordinary in what St. John said of the Logos; at least
          they comprehended it without difficulty, while the Greeks and
          Grecizing Jews, on their part, brought to it prejudices and
          preconceptions easily reconciled with those of the
          evangelist, who did not expressly contradict them. This
          circumstance must have much favored the progress of
          Christianity. Thus the fathers of the church in the two first
          centuries and later, formed almost all in the school of
          Alexandria, gave to the Logos of St. John a sense nearly
          similar to that which it received from Philo. Their doctrine
          approached very near to that which in the fourth century the
          council of Nice condemned in the person of Arius.ÑG.
          M. Guizot has forgotten the long residence of St. John at
          Ephesus, the centre of the mingling opinions of the East and
          West, which were gradually growing up into Gnosticism. (See
          Matter. Hist. du Gnosticisme, vol. i. p. 154.) St. JohnÕs
          sense of the Logos seems as far removed from the simple
          allegory ascribed to the Palestinian Jews as from the
          Oriental impersonation of the Alexandrian. The simple truth
          may be that St. John took the familiar term, and, as it were
          infused into it the peculiar and Christian sense in which it
          is used in his writings.ÑM.]

      21 (return) [ See Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, tom.
      i. p. 377. The Gospel according to St. John is supposed to have
      been published about seventy years after the death of Christ.]

      22 (return) [ The sentiments of the Ebionites are fairly stated
      by Mosheim (p. 331) and Le Clerc, (Hist. Eccles. p. 535.) The
      Clementines, published among the apostolical fathers, are
      attributed by the critics to one of these sectaries.]

      23 (return) [ Stanch polemics, like a Bull, (Judicium Eccles.
      Cathol. c. 2,) insist on the orthodoxy of the Nazarenes; which
      appears less pure and certain in the eyes of Mosheim, (p. 330.)]

      24 (return) [ The humble condition and sufferings of Jesus have
      always been a stumbling-block to the Jews. ÒDeus... contrariis
      coloribus Messiam depinxerat: futurus erat Rex, Judex, Pastor,Ó
      &c. See Limborch et Orobio Amica Collat. p. 8, 19, 53-76,
      192-234. But this objection has obliged the believing Christians
      to lift up their eyes to a spiritual and everlasting kingdom.]

      25 (return) [ Justin Martyr, Dialog. cum Tryphonte, p. 143, 144.
      See Le Clerc, Hist. Eccles. p. 615. Bull and his editor Grabe
      (Judicium Eccles. Cathol. c. 7, and Appendix) attempt to distort
      either the sentiments or the words of Justin; but their violent
      correction of the text is rejected even by the Benedictine
      editors.]

      26 (return) [ The Arians reproached the orthodox party with
      borrowing their Trinity from the Valentinians and Marcionites.
      See Beausobre, Hist. de Manicheisme, l. iii. c. 5, 7.]

      27 (return) [ Non dignum est ex utero credere Deum, et Deum
      Christum.... non dignum est ut tanta majestas per sordes et
      squalores muli eris transire credatur. The Gnostics asserted the
      impurity of matter, and of marriage; and they were scandalized by
      the gross interpretations of the fathers, and even of Augustin
      himself. See Beausobre, tom. ii. p. 523, * Note: The greater part
      of the Docet¾ rejected the true divinity of Jesus Christ, as well
      as his human nature. They belonged to the Gnostics, whom some
      philosophers, in whose party Gibbon has enlisted, make to derive
      their opinions from those of Plato. These philosophers did not
      consider that Platonism had undergone continual alterations, and
      that those who gave it some analogy with the notions of the
      Gnostics were later in their origin than most of the sects
      comprehended under this name Mosheim has proved (in his Instit.
      Histor. Eccles. Major. s. i. p. 136, sqq and p. 339, sqq.) that
      the Oriental philosophy, combined with the cabalistical
      philosophy of the Jews, had given birth to Gnosticism. The
      relations which exist between this doctrine and the records which
      remain to us of that of the Orientals, the Chaldean and Persian,
      have been the source of the errors of the Gnostic Christians, who
      wished to reconcile their ancient notions with their new belief.
      It is on this account that, denying the human nature of Christ,
      they also denied his intimate union with God, and took him for
      one of the substances (¾ons) created by God. As they believed in
      the eternity of matter, and considered it to be the principle of
      evil, in opposition to the Deity, the first cause and principle
      of good, they were unwilling to admit that one of the pure
      substances, one of the ¾ons which came forth from God, had, by
      partaking in the material nature, allied himself to the principle
      of evil; and this was their motive for rejecting the real
      humanity of Jesus Christ. See Ch. G. F. Walch, Hist. of Heresies
      in Germ. t. i. p. 217, sqq. Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil. ii. p
      639.ÑG.]

      28 (return) [ Apostolis adhuc in s¾culo superstitibus apud Jud¾am
      Christi sanguine recente, et _phantasma_ corpus Domini
      asserebatur. Cotelerius thinks (Patres Apostol. tom. ii. p. 24)
      that those who will not allow the _Docetes_ to have arisen in the
      time of the Apostles, may with equal reason deny that the sun
      shines at noonday. These _Docetes_, who formed the most
      considerable party among the Gnostics, were so called, because
      they granted only a _seeming_ body to Christ. * Note: The name of
      Docet¾ was given to these sectaries only in the course of the
      second century: this name did not designate a sect, properly so
      called; it applied to all the sects who taught the non- reality
      of the material body of Christ; of this number were the
      Valentinians, the Basilidians, the Ophites, the Marcionites,
      (against whom Tertullian wrote his book, De Carne Christi,) and
      other Gnostics. In truth, Clement of Alexandria (l. iii. Strom.
      c. 13, p. 552) makes express mention of a sect of Docet¾, and
      even names as one of its heads a certain Cassianus; but every
      thing leads us to believe that it was not a distinct sect.
      Philastrius (de H¾res, c. 31) reproaches Saturninus with being a
      Docete. Iren¾us (adv. H¾r. c. 23) makes the same reproach against
      Basilides. Epiphanius and Philastrius, who have treated in detail
      on each particular heresy, do not specially name that of the
      Docet¾. Serapion, bishop of Antioch, (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. vi.
      c. 12,) and Clement of Alexandria, (l. vii. Strom. p. 900,)
      appear to be the first who have used the generic name. It is not
      found in any earlier record, though the error which it points out
      existed even in the time of the Apostles. See Ch. G. F. Walch,
      Hist. of Her. v. i. p. 283. Tillemont, Mempour servir a la Hist
      Eccles. ii. p. 50. Budd¾us de Eccles. Apost. c. 5 & 7ÑG.]

      The divine sanction, which the Apostle had bestowed on the
      fundamental principle of the theology of Plato, encouraged the
      learned proselytes of the second and third centuries to admire
      and study the writings of the Athenian sage, who had thus
      marvellously anticipated one of the most surprising discoveries
      of the Christian revelation. The respectable name of Plato was
      used by the orthodox, 29 and abused by the heretics, 30 as the
      common support of truth and error: the authority of his skilful
      commentators, and the science of dialectics, were employed to
      justify the remote consequences of his opinions and to supply the
      discreet silence of the inspired writers. The same subtle and
      profound questions concerning the nature, the generation, the
      distinction, and the equality of the three divine persons of the
      mysterious _Triad_, or _Trinity_, 31 were agitated in the
      philosophical and in the Christian schools of Alexandria. An
      eager spirit of curiosity urged them to explore the secrets of
      the abyss; and the pride of the professors, and of their
      disciples, was satisfied with the sciences of words. But the most
      sagacious of the Christian theologians, the great Athanasius
      himself, has candidly confessed, 32 that whenever he forced his
      understanding to meditate on the divinity of the _Logos_, his
      toilsome and unavailing efforts recoiled on themselves; that the
      more he thought, the less he comprehended; and the more he wrote,
      the less capable was he of expressing his thoughts. In every step
      of the inquiry, we are compelled to feel and acknowledge the
      immeasurable disproportion between the size of the object and the
      capacity of the human mind. We may strive to abstract the notions
      of time, of space, and of matter, which so closely adhere to all
      the perceptions of our experimental knowledge. But as soon as we
      presume to reason of infinite substance, of spiritual generation;
      as often as we deduce any positive conclusions from a negative
      idea, we are involved in darkness, perplexity, and inevitable
      contradiction. As these difficulties arise from the nature of the
      subject, they oppress, with the same insuperable weight, the
      philosophic and the theological disputant; but we may observe two
      essential and peculiar circumstances, which discriminated the
      doctrines of the Catholic church from the opinions of the
      Platonic school.

      29 (return) [ Some proofs of the respect which the Christians
      entertained for the person and doctrine of Plato may be found in
      De la Mothe le Vayer, tom. v. p. 135, &c., edit. 1757; and
      Basnage, Hist. des Juifs tom. iv. p. 29, 79, &c.]

      30 (return) [ Doleo bona fide, Platonem omnium her¾ticorum
      condimentarium factum. Tertullian. de Anima, c. 23. Petavius
      (Dogm. Theolog. tom. iii. proleg. 2) shows that this was a
      general complaint. Beausobre (tom. i. l. iii. c. 9, 10) has
      deduced the Gnostic errors from Platonic principles; and as, in
      the school of Alexandria, those principles were blended with the
      Oriental philosophy, (Brucker, tom. i. p. 1356,) the sentiment of
      Beausobre may be reconciled with the opinion of Mosheim, (General
      History of the Church, vol. i. p. 37.)]

      31 (return) [ If Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, (see Dupin,
      Bibliothque Ecclesiastique, tom. i. p. 66,) was the first who
      employed the word _Triad_, _Trinity_, that abstract term, which
      was already familiar to the schools of philosophy, must have been
      introduced into the theology of the Christians after the middle
      of the second century.]

      32 (return) [ Athanasius, tom. i. p. 808. His expressions have an
      uncommon energy; and as he was writing to monks, there could not
      be any occasion for him to _affect_ a rational language.]

      I. A chosen society of philosophers, men of a liberal education
      and curious disposition, might silently meditate, and temperately
      discuss in the gardens of Athens or the library of Alexandria,
      the abstruse questions of metaphysical science. The lofty
      speculations, which neither convinced the understanding, nor
      agitated the passions, of the Platonists themselves, were
      carelessly overlooked by the idle, the busy, and even the
      studious part of mankind. 33 But after the _Logos_ had been
      revealed as the sacred object of the faith, the hope, and the
      religious worship of the Christians, the mysterious system was
      embraced by a numerous and increasing multitude in every province
      of the Roman world. Those persons who, from their age, or sex, or
      occupations, were the least qualified to judge, who were the
      least exercised in the habits of abstract reasoning, aspired to
      contemplate the economy of the Divine Nature: and it is the boast
      of Tertullian, 34 that a Christian mechanic could readily answer
      such questions as had perplexed the wisest of the Grecian sages.
      Where the subject lies so far beyond our reach, the difference
      between the highest and the lowest of human understandings may
      indeed be calculated as infinitely small; yet the degree of
      weakness may perhaps be measured by the degree of obstinacy and
      dogmatic confidence. These speculations, instead of being treated
      as the amusement of a vacant hour, became the most serious
      business of the present, and the most useful preparation for a
      future, life. A theology, which it was incumbent to believe,
      which it was impious to doubt, and which it might be dangerous,
      and even fatal, to mistake, became the familiar topic of private
      meditation and popular discourse. The cold indifference of
      philosophy was inflamed by the fervent spirit of devotion; and
      even the metaphors of common language suggested the fallacious
      prejudices of sense and experience. The Christians, who abhorred
      the gross and impure generation of the Greek mythology, 35 were
      tempted to argue from the familiar analogy of the filial and
      paternal relations. The character of _Son_ seemed to imply a
      perpetual subordination to the voluntary author of his existence;
      36 but as the act of generation, in the most spiritual and
      abstracted sense, must be supposed to transmit the properties of
      a common nature, 37 they durst not presume to circumscribe the
      powers or the duration of the Son of an eternal and omnipotent
      Father. Fourscore years after the death of Christ, the Christians
      of Bithynia, declared before the tribunal of Pliny, that they
      invoked him as a god: and his divine honors have been perpetuated
      in every age and country, by the various sects who assume the
      name of his disciples. 38 Their tender reverence for the memory
      of Christ, and their horror for the profane worship of any
      created being, would have engaged them to assert the equal and
      absolute divinity of the _Logos_, if their rapid ascent towards
      the throne of heaven had not been imperceptibly checked by the
      apprehension of violating the unity and sole supremacy of the
      great Father of Christ and of the Universe. The suspense and
      fluctuation produced in the minds of the Christians by these
      opposite tendencies, may be observed in the writings of the
      theologians who flourished after the end of the apostolic age,
      and before the origin of the Arian controversy. Their suffrage is
      claimed, with equal confidence, by the orthodox and by the
      heretical parties; and the most inquisitive critics have fairly
      allowed, that if they had the good fortune of possessing the
      Catholic verity, they have delivered their conceptions in loose,
      inaccurate, and sometimes contradictory language. 39

      33 (return) [ In a treatise, which professed to explain the
      opinions of the ancient philosophers concerning the nature of the
      gods we might expect to discover the theological Trinity of
      Plato. But Cicero very honestly confessed, that although he had
      translated the Tim¾us, he could never understand that mysterious
      dialogue. See Hieronym. pr¾f. ad l. xii. in Isaiam, tom. v. p.
      154.]

      34 (return) [ Tertullian. in Apolog. c. 46. See Bayle,
      Dictionnaire, au mot _Simonide_. His remarks on the presumption
      of Tertullian are profound and interesting.]

      35 (return) [ Lactantius, iv. 8. Yet the _Probole_, or
      _Prolatio_, which the most orthodox divines borrowed without
      scruple from the Valentinians, and illustrated by the comparisons
      of a fountain and stream, the sun and its rays, &c., either meant
      nothing, or favored a material idea of the divine generation. See
      Beausobre, tom. i. l. iii. c. 7, p. 548.]

      36 (return) [ Many of the primitive writers have frankly
      confessed, that the Son owed his being to the _will_ of the
      Father.ÑÑSee ClarkeÕs Scripture Trinity, p. 280-287. On the other
      hand, Athanasius and his followers seem unwilling to grant what
      they are afraid to deny. The schoolmen extricate themselves from
      this difficulty by the distinction of a _preceding_ and a
      _concomitant_ will. Petav. Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii. l. vi. c. 8,
      p. 587-603.]

      37 (return) [ See Petav. Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii. l. ii. c. 10, p.
      159.]

      38 (return) [ Carmenque Christo quasi Deo dicere secum invicem.
      Plin. Epist. x. 97. The sense of _Deus, Elohim_, in the ancient
      languages, is critically examined by Le Clerc, (Ars Critica, p.
      150-156,) and the propriety of worshipping a very excellent
      creature is ably defended by the Socinian Emlyn, (Tracts, p.
      29-36, 51-145.)]

      39 (return) [ See Daille de Usu Patrum, and Le Clerc,
      Bibliothque Universelle, tom. x. p. 409. To arraign the faith of
      the Ante-Nicene fathers, was the object, or at least has been the
      effect, of the stupendous work of Petavius on the Trinity, (Dogm.
      Theolog. tom. ii.;) nor has the deep impression been erased by
      the learned defence of Bishop Bull. Note: Dr. BurtonÕs work on
      the doctrine of the Ante-Nicene fathers must be consulted by
      those who wish to obtain clear notions on this subject.ÑM.]




      Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.ÑPart
      III.


      II. The devotion of individuals was the first circumstance which
      distinguished the Christians from the Platonists: the second was
      the authority of the church. The disciples of philosophy asserted
      the rights of intellectual freedom, and their respect for the
      sentiments of their teachers was a liberal and voluntary tribute,
      which they offered to superior reason. But the Christians formed
      a numerous and disciplined society; and the jurisdiction of their
      laws and magistrates was strictly exercised over the minds of the
      faithful. The loose wanderings of the imagination were gradually
      confined by creeds and confessions; 40 the freedom of private
      judgment submitted to the public wisdom of synods; the authority
      of a theologian was determined by his ecclesiastical rank; and
      the episcopal successors of the apostles inflicted the censures
      of the church on those who deviated from the orthodox belief. But
      in an age of religious controversy, every act of oppression adds
      new force to the elastic vigor of the mind; and the zeal or
      obstinacy of a spiritual rebel was sometimes stimulated by secret
      motives of ambition or avarice. A metaphysical argument became
      the cause or pretence of political contests; the subtleties of
      the Platonic school were used as the badges of popular factions,
      and the distance which separated their respective tenets were
      enlarged or magnified by the acrimony of dispute. As long as the
      dark heresies of Praxeas and Sabellius labored to confound the
      _Father_ with the _Son_, 41 the orthodox party might be excused
      if they adhered more strictly and more earnestly to the
      _distinction_, than to the _equality_, of the divine persons. But
      as soon as the heat of controversy had subsided, and the progress
      of the Sabellians was no longer an object of terror to the
      churches of Rome, of Africa, or of Egypt, the tide of theological
      opinion began to flow with a gentle but steady motion towards the
      contrary extreme; and the most orthodox doctors allowed
      themselves the use of the terms and definitions which had been
      censured in the mouth of the sectaries. 42 After the edict of
      toleration had restored peace and leisure to the Christians, the
      Trinitarian controversy was revived in the ancient seat of
      Platonism, the learned, the opulent, the tumultuous city of
      Alexandria; and the flame of religious discord was rapidly
      communicated from the schools to the clergy, the people, the
      province, and the East. The abstruse question of the eternity of
      the _Logos_ was agitated in ecclesiastic conferences and popular
      sermons; and the heterodox opinions of Arius 43 were soon made
      public by his own zeal, and by that of his adversaries. His most
      implacable adversaries have acknowledged the learning and
      blameless life of that eminent presbyter, who, in a former
      election, had declared, and perhaps generously declined, his
      pretensions to the episcopal throne. 44 His competitor Alexander
      assumed the office of his judge. The important cause was argued
      before him; and if at first he seemed to hesitate, he at length
      pronounced his final sentence, as an absolute rule of faith. 45
      The undaunted presbyter, who presumed to resist the authority of
      his angry bishop, was separated from the community of the church.
      But the pride of Arius was supported by the applause of a
      numerous party. He reckoned among his immediate followers two
      bishops of Egypt, seven presbyters, twelve deacons, and (what may
      appear almost incredible) seven hundred virgins. A large majority
      of the bishops of Asia appeared to support or favor his cause;
      and their measures were conducted by Eusebius of C¾sarea, the
      most learned of the Christian prelates; and by Eusebius of
      Nicomedia, who had acquired the reputation of a statesman without
      forfeiting that of a saint. Synods in Palestine and Bithynia were
      opposed to the synods of Egypt. The attention of the prince and
      people was attracted by this theological dispute; and the
      decision, at the end of six years, 46 was referred to the supreme
      authority of the general council of Nice.

      40 (return) [ The most ancient creeds were drawn up with the
      greatest latitude. See Bull, (Judicium Eccles. Cathol.,) who
      tries to prevent Episcopius from deriving any advantage from this
      observation.]

      41 (return) [ The heresies of Praxeas, Sabellius, &c., are
      accurately explained by Mosheim (p. 425, 680-714.) Praxeas, who
      came to Rome about the end of the second century, deceived, for
      some time, the simplicity of the bishop, and was confuted by the
      pen of the angry Tertullian.]

      42 (return) [ Socrates acknowledges, that the heresy of Arius
      proceeded from his strong desire to embrace an opinion the most
      diametrically opposite to that of Sabellius.]

      43 (return) [ The figure and manners of Arius, the character and
      numbers of his first proselytes, are painted in very lively
      colors by Epiphanius, (tom. i. H¾res. lxix. 3, p. 729,) and we
      cannot but regret that he should soon forget the historian, to
      assume the task of controversy.]

      44 (return) [ See Philostorgius (l. i. c. 3,) and GodefroyÕs
      ample Commentary. Yet the credibility of Philostorgius is
      lessened, in the eyes of the orthodox, by his Arianism; and in
      those of rational critics, by his passion, his prejudice, and his
      ignorance.]

      45 (return) [ Sozomen (l. i. c. 15) represents Alexander as
      indifferent, and even ignorant, in the beginning of the
      controversy; while Socrates (l. i. c. 5) ascribes the origin of
      the dispute to the vain curiosity of his theological
      speculations. Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol.
      ii. p. 178) has censured, with his usual freedom, the conduct of
      Alexander.]

      46 (return) [ The flames of Arianism might burn for some time in
      secret; but there is reason to believe that they burst out with
      violence as early as the year 319. Tillemont, MŽm. Eccles. tom.
      vi. p. 774-780.]

      When the mysteries of the Christian faith were dangerously
      exposed to public debate, it might be observed, that the human
      understanding was capable of forming three district, though
      imperfect systems, concerning the nature of the Divine Trinity;
      and it was pronounced, that none of these systems, in a pure and
      absolute sense, were exempt from heresy and error. 47 I.
      According to the first hypothesis, which was maintained by Arius
      and his disciples, the _Logos_ was a dependent and spontaneous
      production, created from nothing by the will of the father. The
      Son, by whom all things were made, 48 had been begotten before
      all worlds, and the longest of the astronomical periods could be
      compared only as a fleeting moment to the extent of his duration;
      yet this duration was not infinite, 49 and there _had_ been a
      time which preceded the ineffable generation of the _Logos_. On
      this only-begotten Son, the Almighty Father had transfused his
      ample spirit, and impressed the effulgence of his glory. Visible
      image of invisible perfection, he saw, at an immeasurable
      distance beneath his feet, the thrones of the brightest
      archangels; yet he shone only with a reflected light, and, like
      the sons of the Romans emperors, who were invested with the
      titles of C¾sar or Augustus, 50 he governed the universe in
      obedience to the will of his Father and Monarch. II. In the
      second hypothesis, the _Logos_ possessed all the inherent,
      incommunicable perfections, which religion and philosophy
      appropriate to the Supreme God. Three distinct and infinite minds
      or substances, three co‘qual and co‘ternal beings, composed the
      Divine Essence; 51 and it would have implied contradiction, that
      any of them should not have existed, or that they should ever
      cease to exist. 52 The advocates of a system which seemed to
      establish three independent Deities, attempted to preserve the
      unity of the First Cause, so conspicuous in the design and order
      of the world, by the perpetual concord of their administration,
      and the essential agreement of their will. A faint resemblance of
      this unity of action may be discovered in the societies of men,
      and even of animals. The causes which disturb their harmony,
      proceed only from the imperfection and inequality of their
      faculties; but the omnipotence which is guided by infinite wisdom
      and goodness, cannot fail of choosing the same means for the
      accomplishment of the same ends. III. Three beings, who, by the
      self-derived necessity of their existence, possess all the divine
      attributes in the most perfect degree; who are eternal in
      duration, infinite in space, and intimately present to each
      other, and to the whole universe; irresistibly force themselves
      on the astonished mind, as one and the same being, 53 who, in the
      economy of grace, as well as in that of nature, may manifest
      himself under different forms, and be considered under different
      aspects. By this hypothesis, a real substantial trinity is
      refined into a trinity of names, and abstract modifications, that
      subsist only in the mind which conceives them. The _Logos_ is no
      longer a person, but an attribute; and it is only in a figurative
      sense that the epithet of Son can be applied to the eternal
      reason, which was with God from the beginning, and by _which_,
      not by _whom_, all things were made. The incarnation of the
      _Logos_ is reduced to a mere inspiration of the Divine Wisdom,
      which filled the soul, and directed all the actions, of the man
      Jesus. Thus, after revolving around the theological circle, we
      are surprised to find that the Sabellian ends where the Ebionite
      had begun; and that the incomprehensible mystery which excites
      our adoration, eludes our inquiry. 54

      47 (return) [ Quid credidit? Certe, _aut_ tria nomina audiens
      tres Deos esse credidit, et idololatra effectus est; _aut_ in
      tribus vocabulis trinominem credens Deum, in Sabellii h¾resim
      incurrit; _aut_ edoctus ab Arianis unum esse verum Deum Patrem,
      filium et spiritum sanctum credidit creaturas. Aut extra h¾c quid
      credere potuerit nescio. Hieronym adv. Luciferianos. Jerom
      reserves for the last the orthodox system, which is more
      complicated and difficult.]

      48 (return) [ As the doctrine of absolute creation from nothing
      was gradually introduced among the Christians, (Beausobre, tom.
      ii. p. 165- 215,) the dignity of the _workman_ very naturally
      rose with that of the _work_.]

      49 (return) [ The metaphysics of Dr. Clarke (Scripture Trinity,
      p. 276-280) could digest an eternal generation from an infinite
      cause.]

      50 (return) [ This profane and absurd simile is employed by
      several of the primitive fathers, particularly by Athenagoras, in
      his Apology to the emperor Marcus and his son; and it is alleged,
      without censure, by Bull himself. See Defens. Fid. Nicen. sect.
      iii. c. 5, No. 4.]

      51 (return) [ See CudworthÕs Intellectual System, p. 559, 579.
      This dangerous hypothesis was countenanced by the two Gregories,
      of Nyssa and Nazianzen, by Cyril of Alexandria, John of Damascus,
      &c. See Cudworth, p. 603. Le Clerc, Bibliothque Universelle, tom
      xviii. p. 97-105.]

      52 (return) [ Augustin seems to envy the freedom of the
      Philosophers. Liberis verbis loquuntur philosophi.... Nos autem
      non dicimus duo vel tria principia, duos vel tres Deos. De
      Civitat. Dei, x. 23.]

      53 (return) [ Boetius, who was deeply versed in the philosophy of
      Plato and Aristotle, explains the unity of the Trinity by the
      _indifference_ of the three persons. See the judicious remarks of
      Le Clerc, Bibliothque Choisie, tom. xvi. p. 225, &c.]

      54 (return) [ If the Sabellians were startled at this conclusion,
      they were driven another precipice into the confession, that the
      Father was born of a virgin, that _he_ had suffered on the cross;
      and thus deserved the epithet of _Patripassians_, with which they
      were branded by their adversaries. See the invectives of
      Tertullian against Praxeas, and the temperate reflections of
      Mosheim, (p. 423, 681;) and Beausobre, tom. i. l. iii. c. 6, p.
      533.]

      If the bishops of the council of Nice 55 had been permitted to
      follow the unbiased dictates of their conscience, Arius and his
      associates could scarcely have flattered themselves with the
      hopes of obtaining a majority of votes, in favor of an hypothesis
      so directly averse to the two most popular opinions of the
      Catholic world. The Arians soon perceived the danger of their
      situation, and prudently assumed those modest virtues, which, in
      the fury of civil and religious dissensions, are seldom
      practised, or even praised, except by the weaker party. They
      recommended the exercise of Christian charity and moderation;
      urged the incomprehensible nature of the controversy, disclaimed
      the use of any terms or definitions which could not be found in
      the Scriptures; and offered, by very liberal concessions, to
      satisfy their adversaries without renouncing the integrity of
      their own principles. The victorious faction received all their
      proposals with haughty suspicion; and anxiously sought for some
      irreconcilable mark of distinction, the rejection of which might
      involve the Arians in the guilt and consequences of heresy. A
      letter was publicly read, and ignominiously torn, in which their
      patron, Eusebius of Nicomedia, ingenuously confessed, that the
      admission of the Homoousion, or Consubstantial, a word already
      familiar to the Platonists, was incompatible with the principles
      of their theological system. The fortunate opportunity was
      eagerly embraced by the bishops, who governed the resolutions of
      the synod; and, according to the lively expression of Ambrose, 56
      they used the sword, which heresy itself had drawn from the
      scabbard, to cut off the head of the hated monster. The
      consubstantiality of the Father and the Son was established by
      the council of Nice, and has been unanimously received as a
      fundamental article of the Christian faith, by the consent of the
      Greek, the Latin, the Oriental, and the Protestant churches. But
      if the same word had not served to stigmatize the heretics, and
      to unite the Catholics, it would have been inadequate to the
      purpose of the majority, by whom it was introduced into the
      orthodox creed. This majority was divided into two parties,
      distinguished by a contrary tendency to the sentiments of the
      Tritheists and of the Sabellians. But as those opposite extremes
      seemed to overthrow the foundations either of natural or revealed
      religion, they mutually agreed to qualify the rigor of their
      principles; and to disavow the just, but invidious, consequences,
      which might be urged by their antagonists. The interest of the
      common cause inclined them to join their numbers, and to conceal
      their differences; their animosity was softened by the healing
      counsels of toleration, and their disputes were suspended by the
      use of the mysterious _Homoousion_, which either party was free
      to interpret according to their peculiar tenets. The Sabellian
      sense, which, about fifty years before, had obliged the council
      of Antioch 57 to prohibit this celebrated term, had endeared it
      to those theologians who entertained a secret but partial
      affection for a nominal Trinity. But the more fashionable saints
      of the Arian times, the intrepid Athanasius, the learned Gregory
      Nazianzen, and the other pillars of the church, who supported
      with ability and success the Nicene doctrine, appeared to
      consider the expression of _substance_ as if it had been
      synonymous with that of _nature;_ and they ventured to illustrate
      their meaning, by affirming that three men, as they belong to the
      same common species, are consubstantial, or homoousian to each
      other. 58 This pure and distinct equality was tempered, on the
      one hand, by the internal connection, and spiritual penetration
      which indissolubly unites the divine persons; 59 and, on the
      other, by the pre‘minence of the Father, which was acknowledged
      as far as it is compatible with the independence of the Son. 60
      Within these limits, the almost invisible and tremulous ball of
      orthodoxy was allowed securely to vibrate. On either side, beyond
      this consecrated ground, the heretics and the d¾mons lurked in
      ambush to surprise and devour the unhappy wanderer. But as the
      degrees of theological hatred depend on the spirit of the war,
      rather than on the importance of the controversy, the heretics
      who degraded, were treated with more severity than those who
      annihilated, the person of the Son. The life of Athanasius was
      consumed in irreconcilable opposition to the impious _madness_ of
      the Arians; 61 but he defended above twenty years the
      Sabellianism of Marcellus of Ancyra; and when at last he was
      compelled to withdraw himself from his communion, he continued to
      mention, with an ambiguous smile, the venial errors of his
      respectable friend. 62

      55 (return) [ The transactions of the council of Nice are related
      by the ancients, not only in a partial, but in a very imperfect
      manner. Such a picture as Fra Paolo would have drawn, can never
      be recovered; but such rude sketches as have been traced by the
      pencil of bigotry, and that of reason, may be seen in Tillemont,
      (MŽm. Eccles. tom. v. p. 669-759,) and in Le Clerc, (Bibliothque
      Universelle, tom. x p. 435-454.)]

      56 (return) [ We are indebted to Ambrose (De Fide, l. iii.)
      knowledge of this curious anecdote. Hoc verbum quod viderunt
      adversariis esse formidini; ut ipsis gladio, ipsum nefand¾ caput
      h¾reseos.]

      57 (return) [ See Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. sect. ii. c. i. p.
      25-36. He thinks it his duty to reconcile two orthodox synods.]

      58 (return) [ According to Aristotle, the stars were homoousian
      to each other. ÒThat _Homoousios_ means of one substance in
      _kind_, hath been shown by Petavius, Curcell¾us, Cudworth, Le
      Clerc, &c., and to prove it would be _actum agere_.Ó This is the
      just remark of Dr. Jortin, (vol. ii p. 212,) who examines the
      Arian controversy with learning, candor, and ingenuity.]

      59 (return) [ See Petavius, (Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii. l. iv. c.
      16, p. 453, &c.,) Cudworth, (p. 559,) Bull, (sect. iv. p.
      285-290, edit. Grab.) The _circumincessio_, is perhaps the
      deepest and darkest he whole theological abyss.]

      60 (return) [ The third section of BullÕs Defence of the Nicene
      Faith, which some of his antagonists have called nonsense, and
      others heresy, is consecrated to the supremacy of the Father.]

      61 (return) [ The ordinary appellation with which Athanasius and
      his followers chose to compliment the Arians, was that of
      _Ariomanites_.]

      62 (return) [ Epiphanius, tom i. H¾res. lxxii. 4, p. 837. See the
      adventures of Marcellus, in Tillemont, (MŽm. Eccles. tom. v. i.
      p. 880- 899.) His work, in _one_ book, of the unity of God, was
      answered in the _three_ books, which are still extant, of
      Eusebius.ÑÑAfter a long and careful examination, Petavius (tom.
      ii. l. i. c. 14, p. 78) has reluctantly pronounced the
      condemnation of Marcellus.]

      The authority of a general council, to which the Arians
      themselves had been compelled to submit, inscribed on the banners
      of the orthodox party the mysterious characters of the word
      _Homoousion_, which essentially contributed, notwithstanding some
      obscure disputes, some nocturnal combats, to maintain and
      perpetuate the uniformity of faith, or at least of language. The
      consubstantialists, who by their success have deserved and
      obtained the title of Catholics, gloried in the simplicity and
      steadiness of their own creed, and insulted the repeated
      variations of their adversaries, who were destitute of any
      certain rule of faith. The sincerity or the cunning of the Arian
      chiefs, the fear of the laws or of the people, their reverence
      for Christ, their hatred of Athanasius, all the causes, human and
      divine, that influence and disturb the counsels of a theological
      faction, introduced among the sectaries a spirit of discord and
      inconstancy, which, in the course of a few years, erected
      eighteen different models of religion, 63 and avenged the
      violated dignity of the church. The zealous Hilary, 64 who, from
      the peculiar hardships of his situation, was inclined to
      extenuate rather than to aggravate the errors of the Oriental
      clergy, declares, that in the wide extent of the ten provinces of
      Asia, to which he had been banished, there could be found very
      few prelates who had preserved the knowledge of the true God. 65
      The oppression which he had felt, the disorders of which he was
      the spectator and the victim, appeased, during a short interval,
      the angry passions of his soul; and in the following passage, of
      which I shall transcribe a few lines, the bishop of Poitiers
      unwarily deviates into the style of a Christian philosopher. ÒIt
      is a thing,Ó says Hilary, Òequally deplorable and dangerous, that
      there are as many creeds as opinions among men, as many doctrines
      as inclinations, and as many sources of blasphemy as there are
      faults among us; because we make creeds arbitrarily, and explain
      them as arbitrarily. The Homoousion is rejected, and received,
      and explained away by successive synods. The partial or total
      resemblance of the Father and of the Son is a subject of dispute
      for these unhappy times. Every year, nay, every moon, we make new
      creeds to describe invisible mysteries. We repent of what we have
      done, we defend those who repent, we anathematize those whom we
      defended. We condemn either the doctrine of others in ourselves,
      or our own in that of others; and reciprocally tearing one
      another to pieces, we have been the cause of each otherÕs ruin.Ó
      66

      63 (return) [ Athanasius, in his epistle concerning the Synods of
      Seleucia and Rimini, (tom. i. p. 886-905,) has given an ample
      list of Arian creeds, which has been enlarged and improved by the
      labors of the indefatigable Tillemont, (MŽm. Eccles. tom. vi. p.
      477.)]

      64 (return) [ Erasmus, with admirable sense and freedom, has
      delineated the just character of Hilary. To revise his text, to
      compose the annals of his life, and to justify his sentiments and
      conduct, is the province of the Benedictine editors.]

      65 (return) [ Absque episcopo Eleusio et paucis cum eo, ex majore
      parte Asian¾ decem provinci¾, inter quas consisto, vere Deum
      nesciunt. Atque utinam penitus nescirent! cum procliviore enim
      venia ignorarent quam obtrectarent. Hilar. de Synodis, sive de
      Fide Orientalium, c. 63, p. 1186, edit. Benedict. In the
      celebrated parallel between atheism and superstition, the bishop
      of Poitiers would have been surprised in the philosophic society
      of Bayle and Plutarch.]

      66 (return) [ Hilarius ad Constantium, l. i. c. 4, 5, p. 1227,
      1228. This remarkable passage deserved the attention of Mr.
      Locke, who has transcribed it (vol. iii. p. 470) into the model
      of his new common-place book.]

      It will not be expected, it would not perhaps be endured, that I
      should swell this theological digression, by a minute examination
      of the eighteen creeds, the authors of which, for the most part,
      disclaimed the odious name of their parent Arius. It is amusing
      enough to delineate the form, and to trace the vegetation, of a
      singular plant; but the tedious detail of leaves without flowers,
      and of branches without fruit, would soon exhaust the patience,
      and disappoint the curiosity, of the laborious student. One
      question, which gradually arose from the Arian controversy, may,
      however, be noticed, as it served to produce and discriminate the
      three sects, who were united only by their common aversion to the
      Homoousion of the Nicene synod. 1. If they were asked whether the
      Son was _like_ unto the Father, the question was resolutely
      answered in the negative, by the heretics who adhered to the
      principles of Arius, or indeed to those of philosophy; which seem
      to establish an infinite difference between the Creator and the
      most excellent of his creatures. This obvious consequence was
      maintained by ®tius, 67 on whom the zeal of his adversaries
      bestowed the surname of the Atheist. His restless and aspiring
      spirit urged him to try almost every profession of human life. He
      was successively a slave, or at least a husbandman, a travelling
      tinker, a goldsmith, a physician, a schoolmaster, a theologian,
      and at last the apostle of a new church, which was propagated by
      the abilities of his disciple Eunomius. 68 Armed with texts of
      Scripture, and with captious syllogisms from the logic of
      Aristotle, the subtle ®tius had acquired the fame of an
      invincible disputant, whom it was impossible either to silence or
      to convince. Such talents engaged the friendship of the Arian
      bishops, till they were forced to renounce, and even to
      persecute, a dangerous ally, who, by the accuracy of his
      reasoning, had prejudiced their cause in the popular opinion, and
      offended the piety of their most devoted followers. 2. The
      omnipotence of the Creator suggested a specious and respectful
      solution of the _likeness_ of the Father and the Son; and faith
      might humbly receive what reason could not presume to deny, that
      the Supreme God might communicate his infinite perfections, and
      create a being similar only to himself. 69 These Arians were
      powerfully supported by the weight and abilities of their
      leaders, who had succeeded to the management of the Eusebian
      interest, and who occupied the principal thrones of the East.
      They detested, perhaps with some affectation, the impiety of
      ®tius; they professed to believe, either without reserve, or
      according to the Scriptures, that the Son was different from all
      _other_ creatures, and similar only to the Father. But they
      denied, the he was either of the same, or of a similar substance;
      sometimes boldly justifying their dissent, and sometimes
      objecting to the use of the word substance, which seems to imply
      an adequate, or at least, a distinct, notion of the nature of the
      Deity. 3. The sect which deserted the doctrine of a similar
      substance, was the most numerous, at least in the provinces of
      Asia; and when the leaders of both parties were assembled in the
      council of Seleucia, 70 _their_ opinion would have prevailed by a
      majority of one hundred and five to forty-three bishops. The
      Greek word, which was chosen to express this mysterious
      resemblance, bears so close an affinity to the orthodox symbol,
      that the profane of every age have derided the furious contests
      which the difference of a single diphthong excited between the
      Homoousians and the Homoiousians. As it frequently happens, that
      the sounds and characters which approach the nearest to each
      other accidentally represent the most opposite ideas, the
      observation would be itself ridiculous, if it were possible to
      mark any real and sensible distinction between the doctrine of
      the Semi-Arians, as they were improperly styled, and that of the
      Catholics themselves. The bishop of Poitiers, who in his Phrygian
      exile very wisely aimed at a coalition of parties, endeavors to
      prove that by a pious and faithful interpretation, 71 the
      _Homoiousion_ may be reduced to a consubstantial sense. Yet he
      confesses that the word has a dark and suspicious aspect; and, as
      if darkness were congenial to theological disputes, the
      Semi-Arians, who advanced to the doors of the church, assailed
      them with the most unrelenting fury.

      67 (return) [ In Philostorgius (l. iii. c. 15) the character and
      adventures of ®tius appear singular enough, though they are
      carefully softened by the hand of a friend. The editor, Godefroy,
      (p. 153,) who was more attached to his principles than to his
      author, has collected the odious circumstances which his various
      adversaries have preserved or invented.]

      68 (return) [ According to the judgment of a man who respected
      both these sectaries, ®tius had been endowed with a stronger
      understanding and Eunomius had acquired more art and learning.
      (Philostorgius l. viii. c. 18.) The confession and apology of
      Eunomius (Fabricius, Bibliot. Gr¾c. tom. viii. p. 258-305) is one
      of the few heretical pieces which have escaped.]

      69 (return) [ Yet, according to the opinion of Estius and Bull,
      (p. 297,) there is one powerÑthat of creationÑwhich God _cannot_
      communicate to a creature. Estius, who so accurately defined the
      limits of Omnipotence was a Dutchman by birth, and by trade a
      scholastic divine. Dupin Bibliot. Eccles. tom. xvii. p. 45.]

      70 (return) [ Sabinus ap. Socrat. (l. ii. c. 39) had copied the
      acts: Athanasius and Hilary have explained the divisions of this
      Arian synod; the other circumstances which are relative to it are
      carefully collected by Baro and Tillemont]

      71 (return) [ Fideli et pi‰ intelligenti‰... De Synod. c. 77, p.
      1193. In his his short apologetical notes (first published by the
      Benedictines from a MS. of Chartres) he observes, that he used
      this cautious expression, qui intelligerum et impiam, p. 1206.
      See p. 1146. Philostorgius, who saw those objects through a
      different medium, is inclined to forget the difference of the
      important diphthong. See in particular viii. 17, and Godefroy, p.
      352.]

      The provinces of Egypt and Asia, which cultivated the language
      and manners of the Greeks, had deeply imbibed the venom of the
      Arian controversy. The familiar study of the Platonic system, a
      vain and argumentative disposition, a copious and flexible idiom,
      supplied the clergy and people of the East with an inexhaustible
      flow of words and distinctions; and, in the midst of their fierce
      contentions, they easily forgot the doubt which is recommended by
      philosophy, and the submission which is enjoined by religion. The
      inhabitants of the West were of a less inquisitive spirit; their
      passions were not so forcibly moved by invisible objects, their
      minds were less frequently exercised by the habits of dispute;
      and such was the happy ignorance of the Gallican church, that
      Hilary himself, above thirty years after the first general
      council, was still a stranger to the Nicene creed. 72 The Latins
      had received the rays of divine knowledge through the dark and
      doubtful medium of a translation. The poverty and stubbornness of
      their native tongue was not always capable of affording just
      equivalents for the Greek terms, for the technical words of the
      Platonic philosophy, 73 which had been consecrated, by the gospel
      or by the church, to express the mysteries of the Christian
      faith; and a verbal defect might introduce into the Latin
      theology a long train of error or perplexity. 74 But as the
      western provincials had the good fortune of deriving their
      religion from an orthodox source, they preserved with steadiness
      the doctrine which they had accepted with docility; and when the
      Arian pestilence approached their frontiers, they were supplied
      with the seasonable preservative of the Homoousion, by the
      paternal care of the Roman pontiff. Their sentiments and their
      temper were displayed in the memorable synod of Rimini, which
      surpassed in numbers the council of Nice, since it was composed
      of above four hundred bishops of Italy, Africa, Spain, Gaul,
      Britain, and Illyricum. From the first debates it appeared, that
      only fourscore prelates adhered to the party, though _they_
      affected to anathematize the name and memory, of Arius. But this
      inferiority was compensated by the advantages of skill, of
      experience, and of discipline; and the minority was conducted by
      Valens and Ursacius, two bishops of Illyricum, who had spent
      their lives in the intrigues of courts and councils, and who had
      been trained under the Eusebian banner in the religious wars of
      the East. By their arguments and negotiations, they embarrassed,
      they confounded, they at last deceived, the honest simplicity of
      the Latin bishops; who suffered the palladium of the faith to be
      extorted from their hand by fraud and importunity, rather than by
      open violence. The council of Rimini was not allowed to separate,
      till the members had imprudently subscribed a captious creed, in
      which some expressions, susceptible of an heretical sense, were
      inserted in the room of the Homoousion. It was on this occasion,
      that, according to Jerom, the world was surprised to find itself
      Arian. 75 But the bishops of the Latin provinces had no sooner
      reached their respective dioceses, than they discovered their
      mistake, and repented of their weakness. The ignominious
      capitulation was rejected with disdain and abhorrence; and the
      Homoousian standard, which had been shaken but not overthrown,
      was more firmly replanted in all the churches of the West. 76

      72 (return) [ Testor Deum cÏli atque terr¾ me cum neutrum
      audissem, semper tamen utrumque sensisse.... Regeneratus pridem
      et in episcopatu aliquantisper manens fidem Nicenam nunquam nisi
      exsulaturus audivi. Hilar. de Synodis, c. xci. p. 1205. The
      Benedictines are persuaded that he governed the diocese of
      Poitiers several years before his exile.]

      73 (return) [ Seneca (Epist. lviii.) complains that even the of
      the Platonists (the _ens_ of the bolder schoolmen) could not be
      expressed by a Latin noun.]

      74 (return) [ The preference which the fourth council of the
      Lateran at length gave to a _numerical_ rather than a _generical_
      unity (See Petav. tom. ii. l. v. c. 13, p. 424) was favored by
      the Latin language: seems to excite the idea of substance,
      _trinitas_ of qualities.]

      75 (return) [ Ingemuit totus orbis, et Arianum se esse miratus
      est. Hieronym. adv. Lucifer. tom. i. p. 145.]

      76 (return) [ The story of the council of Rimini is very
      elegantly told by Sulpicius Severus, (Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p.
      419-430, edit. Lugd. Bat. 1647,) and by Jerom, in his dialogue
      against the Luciferians. The design of the latter is to apologize
      for the conduct of the Latin bishops, who were deceived, and who
      repented.]




      Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.ÑPart IV.


      Such was the rise and progress, and such were the natural
      revolutions of those theological disputes, which disturbed the
      peace of Christianity under the reigns of Constantine and of his
      sons. But as those princes presumed to extend their despotism
      over the faith, as well as over the lives and fortunes, of their
      subjects, the weight of their suffrage sometimes inclined the
      ecclesiastical balance: and the prerogatives of the King of
      Heaven were settled, or changed, or modified, in the cabinet of
      an earthly monarch. The unhappy spirit of discord which pervaded
      the provinces of the East, interrupted the triumph of
      Constantine; but the emperor continued for some time to view,
      with cool and careless indifference, the object of the dispute.
      As he was yet ignorant of the difficulty of appeasing the
      quarrels of theologians, he addressed to the contending parties,
      to Alexander and to Arius, a moderating epistle; 77 which may be
      ascribed, with far greater reason, to the untutored sense of a
      soldier and statesman, than to the dictates of any of his
      episcopal counsellors. He attributes the origin of the whole
      controversy to a trifling and subtle question, concerning an
      incomprehensible point of law, which was foolishly asked by the
      bishop, and imprudently resolved by the presbyter. He laments
      that the Christian people, who had the same God, the same
      religion, and the same worship, should be divided by such
      inconsiderable distinctions; and he seriously recommends to the
      clergy of Alexandria the example of the Greek philosophers; who
      could maintain their arguments without losing their temper, and
      assert their freedom without violating their friendship. The
      indifference and contempt of the sovereign would have been,
      perhaps, the most effectual method of silencing the dispute, if
      the popular current had been less rapid and impetuous, and if
      Constantine himself, in the midst of faction and fanaticism,
      could have preserved the calm possession of his own mind. But his
      ecclesiastical ministers soon contrived to seduce the
      impartiality of the magistrate, and to awaken the zeal of the
      proselyte. He was provoked by the insults which had been offered
      to his statues; he was alarmed by the real, as well as the
      imaginary magnitude of the spreading mischief; and he
      extinguished the hope of peace and toleration, from the moment
      that he assembled three hundred bishops within the walls of the
      same palace. The presence of the monarch swelled the importance
      of the debate; his attention multiplied the arguments; and he
      exposed his person with a patient intrepidity, which animated the
      valor of the combatants. Notwithstanding the applause which has
      been bestowed on the eloquence and sagacity of Constantine, 78 a
      Roman general, whose religion might be still a subject of doubt,
      and whose mind had not been enlightened either by study or by
      inspiration, was indifferently qualified to discuss, in the Greek
      language, a metaphysical question, or an article of faith. But
      the credit of his favorite Osius, who appears to have presided in
      the council of Nice, might dispose the emperor in favor of the
      orthodox party; and a well-timed insinuation, that the same
      Eusebius of Nicomedia, who now protected the heretic, had lately
      assisted the tyrant, 79 might exasperate him against their
      adversaries. The Nicene creed was ratified by Constantine; and
      his firm declaration, that those who resisted the divine judgment
      of the synod, must prepare themselves for an immediate exile,
      annihilated the murmurs of a feeble opposition; which, from
      seventeen, was almost instantly reduced to two, protesting
      bishops. Eusebius of C¾sarea yielded a reluctant and ambiguous
      consent to the Homoousion; 80 and the wavering conduct of the
      Nicomedian Eusebius served only to delay, about three months, his
      disgrace and exile. 81 The impious Arius was banished into one of
      the remote provinces of Illyricum; his person and disciples were
      branded by law with the odious name of Porphyrians; his writings
      were condemned to the flames, and a capital punishment was
      denounced against those in whose possession they should be found.
      The emperor had now imbibed the spirit of controversy, and the
      angry, sarcastic style of his edicts was designed to inspire his
      subjects with the hatred which he had conceived against the
      enemies of Christ. 82

      77 (return) [ Eusebius, in Vit. Constant. l. ii. c. 64-72. The
      principles of toleration and religious indifference, contained in
      this epistle, have given great offence to Baronius, Tillemont,
      &c., who suppose that the emperor had some evil counsellor,
      either Satan or Eusebius, at his elbow. See CortinÕs Remarks,
      tom. ii. p. 183. * Note: Heinichen (Excursus xi.) quotes with
      approbation the term Ògolden words,Ó applied by Ziegler to this
      moderate and tolerant letter of Constantine. May an English
      clergyman venture to express his regret that Òthe fine gold soon
      became dimÓ in the Christian church?ÑM.]

      78 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 13.]

      79 (return) [ Theodoret has preserved (l. i. c. 20) an epistle
      from Constantine to the people of Nicomedia, in which the monarch
      declares himself the public accuser of one of his subjects; he
      styles Eusebius and complains of his hostile behavior during the
      civil war.]

      80 (return) [ See in Socrates, (l. i. c. 8,) or rather in
      Theodoret, (l. i. c. 12,) an original letter of Eusebius of
      C¾sarea, in which he attempts to justify his subscribing the
      Homoousion. The character of Eusebius has always been a problem;
      but those who have read the second critical epistle of Le Clerc,
      (Ars Critica, tom. iii. p. 30-69,) must entertain a very
      unfavorable opinion of the orthodoxy and sincerity of the bishop
      of C¾sarea.]

      81 (return) [ Athanasius, tom. i. p. 727. Philostorgius, l. i. c.
      10, and GodefroyÕs Commentary, p. 41.]

      82 (return) [ Socrates, l. i. c. 9. In his circular letters,
      which were addressed to the several cities, Constantine employed
      against the heretics the arms of ridicule and _comic_ raillery.]

      But, as if the conduct of the emperor had been guided by passion
      instead of principle, three years from the council of Nice were
      scarcely elapsed before he discovered some symptoms of mercy, and
      even of indulgence, towards the proscribed sect, which was
      secretly protected by his favorite sister. The exiles were
      recalled, and Eusebius, who gradually resumed his influence over
      the mind of Constantine, was restored to the episcopal throne,
      from which he had been ignominiously degraded. Arius himself was
      treated by the whole court with the respect which would have been
      due to an innocent and oppressed man. His faith was approved by
      the synod of Jerusalem; and the emperor seemed impatient to
      repair his injustice, by issuing an absolute command, that he
      should be solemnly admitted to the communion in the cathedral of
      Constantinople. On the same day, which had been fixed for the
      triumph of Arius, he expired; and the strange and horrid
      circumstances of his death might excite a suspicion, that the
      orthodox saints had contributed more efficaciously than by their
      prayers, to deliver the church from the most formidable of her
      enemies. 83 The three principal leaders of the Catholics,
      Athanasius of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, and Paul of
      Constantinople were deposed on various f accusations, by the
      sentence of numerous councils; and were afterwards banished into
      distant provinces by the first of the Christian emperors, who, in
      the last moments of his life, received the rites of baptism from
      the Arian bishop of Nicomedia. The ecclesiastical government of
      Constantine cannot be justified from the reproach of levity and
      weakness. But the credulous monarch, unskilled in the stratagems
      of theological warfare, might be deceived by the modest and
      specious professions of the heretics, whose sentiments he never
      perfectly understood; and while he protected Arius, and
      persecuted Athanasius, he still considered the council of Nice as
      the bulwark of the Christian faith, and the peculiar glory of his
      own reign. 84

      83 (return) [ We derive the original story from Athanasius, (tom.
      i. p. 670,) who expresses some reluctance to stigmatize the
      memory of the dead. He might exaggerate; but the perpetual
      commerce of Alexandria and Constantinople would have rendered it
      dangerous to invent. Those who press the literal narrative of the
      death of Arius (his bowels suddenly burst out in a privy) must
      make their option between _poison_ and _miracle_.]

      84 (return) [ The change in the sentiments, or at least in the
      conduct, of Constantine, may be traced in Eusebius, (in Vit.
      Constant. l. iii. c. 23, l. iv. c. 41,) Socrates, (l. i. c.
      23-39,) Sozomen, (l. ii. c. 16-34,) Theodoret, (l. i. c. 14-34,)
      and Philostorgius, (l. ii. c. 1-17.) But the first of these
      writers was too near the scene of action, and the others were too
      remote from it. It is singular enough, that the important task of
      continuing the history of the church should have been left for
      two laymen and a heretic.]

      The sons of Constantine must have been admitted from their
      childhood into the rank of catechumens; but they imitated, in the
      delay of their baptism, the example of their father. Like him
      they presumed to pronounce their judgment on mysteries into which
      they had never been regularly initiated; 85 and the fate of the
      Trinitarian controversy depended, in a great measure, on the
      sentiments of Constantius; who inherited the provinces of the
      East, and acquired the possession of the whole empire. The Arian
      presbyter or bishop, who had secreted for his use the testament
      of the deceased emperor, improved the fortunate occasion which
      had introduced him to the familiarity of a prince, whose public
      counsels were always swayed by his domestic favorites. The
      eunuchs and slaves diffused the spiritual poison through the
      palace, and the dangerous infection was communicated by the
      female attendants to the guards, and by the empress to her
      unsuspicious husband. 86 The partiality which Constantius always
      expressed towards the Eusebian faction, was insensibly fortified
      by the dexterous management of their leaders; and his victory
      over the tyrant Magnentius increased his inclination, as well as
      ability, to employ the arms of power in the cause of Arianism.
      While the two armies were engaged in the plains of Mursa, and the
      fate of the two rivals depended on the chance of war, the son of
      Constantine passed the anxious moments in a church of the martyrs
      under the walls of the city. His spiritual comforter, Valens, the
      Arian bishop of the diocese, employed the most artful precautions
      to obtain such early intelligence as might secure either his
      favor or his escape. A secret chain of swift and trusty
      messengers informed him of the vicissitudes of the battle; and
      while the courtiers stood trembling round their affrighted
      master, Valens assured him that the Gallic legions gave way; and
      insinuated with some presence of mind, that the glorious event
      had been revealed to him by an angel. The grateful emperor
      ascribed his success to the merits and intercession of the bishop
      of Mursa, whose faith had deserved the public and miraculous
      approbation of Heaven. 87 The Arians, who considered as their own
      the victory of Constantius, preferred his glory to that of his
      father. 88 Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, immediately composed the
      description of a celestial cross, encircled with a splendid
      rainbow; which during the festival of Pentecost, about the third
      hour of the day, had appeared over the Mount of Olives, to the
      edification of the devout pilgrims, and the people of the holy
      city. 89 The size of the meteor was gradually magnified; and the
      Arian historian has ventured to affirm, that it was conspicuous
      to the two armies in the plains of Pannonia; and that the tyrant,
      who is purposely represented as an idolater, fled before the
      auspicious sign of orthodox Christianity. 90

      85 (return) [ Quia etiam tum catechumenus sacramentum fidei
      merito videretiu potuisse nescire. Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacra, l.
      ii. p. 410.]

      86 (return) [ Socrates, l. ii. c. 2. Sozomen, l. iii. c. 18.
      Athanas. tom. i. p. 813, 834. He observes that the eunuchs are
      the natural enemies of the _Son_. Compare Dr. JortinÕs Remarks on
      Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 3 with a certain genealogy in
      _Candide_, (ch. iv.,) which ends with one of the first companions
      of Christopher Columbus.]

      87 (return) [ Sulpicius Severus in Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 405,
      406.]

      88 (return) [ Cyril (apud Baron. A. D. 353, No. 26) expressly
      observes that in the reign of Constantine, the cross had been
      found in the bowels of the earth; but that it had appeared, in
      the reign of Constantius, in the midst of the heavens. This
      opposition evidently proves, that Cyril was ignorant of the
      stupendous miracle to which the conversion of Constantine is
      attributed; and this ignorance is the more surprising, since it
      was no more than twelve years after his death that Cyril was
      consecrated bishop of Jerusalem, by the immediate successor of
      Eusebius of C¾sarea. See Tillemont, MŽm. Eccles. tom. viii. p.
      715.]

      89 (return) [ It is not easy to determine how far the ingenuity
      of Cyril might be assisted by some natural appearances of a solar
      halo.]

      90 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 26. He is followed by the
      author of the Alexandrian Chronicle, by Cedrenus, and by
      Nicephorus. (See Gothofred. Dissert. p. 188.) They could not
      refuse a miracle, even from the hand of an enemy.]

      The sentiments of a judicious stranger, who has impartially
      considered the progress of civil or ecclesiastical discord, are
      always entitled to our notice; and a short passage of Ammianus,
      who served in the armies, and studied the character of
      Constantius, is perhaps of more value than many pages of
      theological invectives. ÒThe Christian religion, which, in
      itself,Ó says that moderate historian, Òis plain and simple, _he_
      confounded by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling
      the parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and
      promulgated, by verbal disputes, the differences which his vain
      curiosity had excited. The highways were covered with troops of
      bishops galloping from every side to the assemblies, which they
      call synods; and while they labored to reduce the whole sect to
      their own particular opinions, the public establishment of the
      posts was almost ruined by their hasty and repeated journeys.Ó 91
      Our more intimate knowledge of the ecclesiastical transactions of
      the reign of Constantius would furnish an ample commentary on
      this remarkable passage, which justifies the rational
      apprehensions of Athanasius, that the restless activity of the
      clergy, who wandered round the empire in search of the true
      faith, would excite the contempt and laughter of the unbelieving
      world. 92 As soon as the emperor was relieved from the terrors of
      the civil war, he devoted the leisure of his winter quarters at
      Arles, Milan, Sirmium, and Constantinople, to the amusement or
      toils of controversy: the sword of the magistrate, and even of
      the tyrant, was unsheathed, to enforce the reasons of the
      theologian; and as he opposed the orthodox faith of Nice, it is
      readily confessed that his incapacity and ignorance were equal to
      his presumption. 93 The eunuchs, the women, and the bishops, who
      governed the vain and feeble mind of the emperor, had inspired
      him with an insuperable dislike to the Homoousion; but his timid
      conscience was alarmed by the impiety of ®tius. The guilt of that
      atheist was aggravated by the suspicious favor of the unfortunate
      Gallus; and even the death of the Imperial ministers, who had
      been massacred at Antioch, were imputed to the suggestions of
      that dangerous sophist. The mind of Constantius, which could
      neither be moderated by reason, nor fixed by faith, was blindly
      impelled to either side of the dark and empty abyss, by his
      horror of the opposite extreme; he alternately embraced and
      condemned the sentiments, he successively banished and recalled
      the leaders, of the Arian and Semi-Arian factions. 94 During the
      season of public business or festivity, he employed whole days,
      and even nights, in selecting the words, and weighing the
      syllables, which composed his fluctuating creeds. The subject of
      his meditations still pursued and occupied his slumbers: the
      incoherent dreams of the emperor were received as celestial
      visions, and he accepted with complacency the lofty title of
      bishop of bishops, from those ecclesiastics who forgot the
      interest of their order for the gratification of their passions.
      The design of establishing a uniformity of doctrine, which had
      engaged him to convene so many synods in Gaul, Italy, Illyricum,
      and Asia, was repeatedly baffled by his own levity, by the
      divisions of the Arians, and by the resistance of the Catholics;
      and he resolved, as the last and decisive effort, imperiously to
      dictate the decrees of a general council. The destructive
      earthquake of Nicomedia, the difficulty of finding a convenient
      place, and perhaps some secret motives of policy, produced an
      alteration in the summons. The bishops of the East were directed
      to meet at Seleucia, in Isauria; while those of the West held
      their deliberations at Rimini, on the coast of the Hadriatic; and
      instead of two or three deputies from each province, the whole
      episcopal body was ordered to march. The Eastern council, after
      consuming four days in fierce and unavailing debate, separated
      without any definitive conclusion. The council of the West was
      protracted till the seventh month. Taurus, the Pr¾torian pr¾fect
      was instructed not to dismiss the prelates till they should all
      be united in the same opinion; and his efforts were supported by
      the power of banishing fifteen of the most refractory, and a
      promise of the consulship if he achieved so difficult an
      adventure. His prayers and threats, the authority of the
      sovereign, the sophistry of Valens and Ursacius, the distress of
      cold and hunger, and the tedious melancholy of a hopeless exile,
      at length extorted the reluctant consent of the bishops of
      Rimini. The deputies of the East and of the West attended the
      emperor in the palace of Constantinople, and he enjoyed the
      satisfaction of imposing on the world a profession of faith which
      established the _likeness_, without expressing the
      _consubstantiality_, of the Son of God. 95 But the triumph of
      Arianism had been preceded by the removal of the orthodox clergy,
      whom it was impossible either to intimidate or to corrupt; and
      the reign of Constantius was disgraced by the unjust and
      ineffectual persecution of the great Athanasius.

      91 (return) [ So curious a passage well deserves to be
      transcribed. Christianam religionem absolutam et simplicem, anili
      superstitione confundens; in qua scrutanda perplexius, quam
      componenda gravius excitaret discidia plurima; qu¾ progressa
      fusius aluit concertatione verborum, ut catervis antistium
      jumentis publicis ultro citroque discarrentibus, per synodos
      (quas appellant) dum ritum omnem ad suum sahere conantur
      (Valesius reads _conatur_) rei vehiculari¾ concideret servos.
      Ammianus, xxi. 16.]

      92 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 870.]

      93 (return) [ Socrates, l. ii. c. 35-47. Sozomen, l. iv. c.
      12-30. Theodore li. c. 18-32. Philostorg. l. iv. c. 4Ñ12, l. v.
      c. 1-4, l. vi. c. 1-5]

      94 (return) [ Sozomen, l. iv. c. 23. Athanas. tom. i. p. 831.
      Tillemont (Mem Eccles. tom. vii. p. 947) has collected several
      instances of the haughty fanaticism of Constantius from the
      detached treatises of Lucifer of Cagliari. The very titles of
      these treaties inspire zeal and terror; ÒMoriendum pro Dei
      Filio.Ó ÒDe Regibus Apostaticis.Ó ÒDe non conveniendo cum
      H¾retico.Ó ÒDe non parcendo in Deum delinquentibus.Ó]

      95 (return) [ Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 418-430. The
      Greek historians were very ignorant of the affairs of the West.]

      We have seldom an opportunity of observing, either in active or
      speculative life, what effect may be produced, or what obstacles
      may be surmounted, by the force of a single mind, when it is
      inflexibly applied to the pursuit of a single object. The
      immortal name of Athanasius 96 will never be separated from the
      Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, to whose defence he consecrated
      every moment and every faculty of his being. Educated in the
      family of Alexander, he had vigorously opposed the early progress
      of the Arian heresy: he exercised the important functions of
      secretary under the aged prelate; and the fathers of the Nicene
      council beheld with surprise and respect the rising virtues of
      the young deacon. In a time of public danger, the dull claims of
      age and of rank are sometimes superseded; and within five months
      after his return from Nice, the deacon Athanasius was seated on
      the archiepiscopal throne of Egypt. He filled that eminent
      station above forty-six years, and his long administration was
      spent in a perpetual combat against the powers of Arianism. Five
      times was Athanasius expelled from his throne; twenty years he
      passed as an exile or a fugitive: and almost every province of
      the Roman empire was successively witness to his merit, and his
      sufferings in the cause of the Homoousion, which he considered as
      the sole pleasure and business, as the duty, and as the glory of
      his life. Amidst the storms of persecution, the archbishop of
      Alexandria was patient of labor, jealous of fame, careless of
      safety; and although his mind was tainted by the contagion of
      fanaticism, Athanasius displayed a superiority of character and
      abilities, which would have qualified him, far better than the
      degenerate sons of Constantine, for the government of a great
      monarchy. His learning was much less profound and extensive than
      that of Eusebius of C¾sarea, and his rude eloquence could not be
      compared with the polished oratory of Gregory of Basil; but
      whenever the primate of Egypt was called upon to justify his
      sentiments, or his conduct, his unpremeditated style, either of
      speaking or writing, was clear, forcible, and persuasive. He has
      always been revered, in the orthodox school, as one of the most
      accurate masters of the Christian theology; and he was supposed
      to possess two profane sciences, less adapted to the episcopal
      character, the knowledge of jurisprudence, 97 and that of
      divination. 98 Some fortunate conjectures of future events, which
      impartial reasoners might ascribe to the experience and judgment
      of Athanasius, were attributed by his friends to heavenly
      inspiration, and imputed by his enemies to infernal magic.

      96 (return) [ We may regret that Gregory Nazianzen composed a
      panegyric instead of a life of Athanasius; but we should enjoy
      and improve the advantage of drawing our most authentic materials
      from the rich fund of his own epistles and apologies, (tom. i. p.
      670-951.) I shall not imitate the example of Socrates, (l. ii. c.
      l.) who published the first edition of the history, without
      giving himself the trouble to consult the writings of Athanasius.
      Yet even Socrates, the more curious Sozomen, and the learned
      Theodoret, connect the life of Athanasius with the series of
      ecclesiastical history. The diligence of Tillemont, (tom. viii,)
      and of the Benedictine editors, has collected every fact, and
      examined every difficulty]

      97 (return) [ Sulpicius Severus (Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 396)
      calls him a lawyer, a jurisconsult. This character cannot now be
      discovered either in the life or writings of Athanasius.]

      98 (return) [ Dicebatur enim fatidicarum sortium fidem, qu¾ve
      augurales portenderent alites scientissime callens aliquoties
      pr¾dixisse futura. Ammianus, xv. 7. A prophecy, or rather a joke,
      is related by Sozomen, (l. iv c. 10,) which evidently proves (if
      the crows speak Latin) that Athanasius understood the language of
      the crows.]

      But as Athanasius was continually engaged with the prejudices and
      passions of every order of men, from the monk to the emperor, the
      knowledge of human nature was his first and most important
      science. He preserved a distinct and unbroken view of a scene
      which was incessantly shifting; and never failed to improve those
      decisive moments which are irrecoverably past before they are
      perceived by a common eye. The archbishop of Alexandria was
      capable of distinguishing how far he might boldly command, and
      where he must dexterously insinuate; how long he might contend
      with power, and when he must withdraw from persecution; and while
      he directed the thunders of the church against heresy and
      rebellion, he could assume, in the bosom of his own party, the
      flexible and indulgent temper of a prudent leader. The election
      of Athanasius has not escaped the reproach of irregularity and
      precipitation; 99 but the propriety of his behavior conciliated
      the affections both of the clergy and of the people. The
      Alexandrians were impatient to rise in arms for the defence of an
      eloquent and liberal pastor. In his distress he always derived
      support, or at least consolation, from the faithful attachment of
      his parochial clergy; and the hundred bishops of Egypt adhered,
      with unshaken zeal, to the cause of Athanasius. In the modest
      equipage which pride and policy would affect, he frequently
      performed the episcopal visitation of his provinces, from the
      mouth of the Nile to the confines of ®thiopia; familiarly
      conversing with the meanest of the populace, and humbly saluting
      the saints and hermits of the desert. 100 Nor was it only in
      ecclesiastical assemblies, among men whose education and manners
      were similar to his own, that Athanasius displayed the ascendancy
      of his genius. He appeared with easy and respectful firmness in
      the courts of princes; and in the various turns of his prosperous
      and adverse fortune he never lost the confidence of his friends,
      or the esteem of his enemies.

      99 (return) [ The irregular ordination of Athanasius was slightly
      mentioned in the councils which were held against him. See
      Philostorg. l. ii. c. 11, and Godefroy, p. 71; but it can
      scarcely be supposed that the assembly of the bishops of Egypt
      would solemnly attest a _public_ falsehood. Athanas. tom. i. p.
      726.]

      100 (return) [ See the history of the Fathers of the Desert,
      published by Rosweide; and Tillemont, MŽm. Eccles. tom. vii., in
      the lives of Antony, Pachomius, &c. Athanasius himself, who did
      not disdain to compose the life of his friend Antony, has
      carefully observed how often the holy monk deplored and
      prophesied the mischiefs of the Arian heresy Athanas. tom. ii. p.
      492, 498, &c.]

      In his youth, the primate of Egypt resisted the great
      Constantine, who had repeatedly signified his will, that Arius
      should be restored to the Catholic communion. 101 The emperor
      respected, and might forgive, this inflexible resolution; and the
      faction who considered Athanasius as their most formidable enemy,
      was constrained to dissemble their hatred, and silently to
      prepare an indirect and distant assault. They scattered rumors
      and suspicions, represented the archbishop as a proud and
      oppressive tyrant, and boldly accused him of violating the treaty
      which had been ratified in the Nicene council, with the
      schismatic followers of Meletius. 102 Athanasius had openly
      disapproved that ignominious peace, and the emperor was disposed
      to believe that he had abused his ecclesiastical and civil power,
      to prosecute those odious sectaries: that he had sacrilegiously
      broken a chalice in one of their churches of Mareotis; that he
      had whipped or imprisoned six of their bishops; and that
      Arsenius, a seventh bishop of the same party, had been murdered,
      or at least mutilated, by the cruel hand of the primate. 103
      These charges, which affected his honor and his life, were
      referred by Constantine to his brother Dalmatius the censor, who
      resided at Antioch; the synods of C¾sarea and Tyre were
      successively convened; and the bishops of the East were
      instructed to judge the cause of Athanasius, before they
      proceeded to consecrate the new church of the Resurrection at
      Jerusalem. The primate might be conscious of his innocence; but
      he was sensible that the same implacable spirit which had
      dictated the accusation, would direct the proceeding, and
      pronounce the sentence. He prudently declined the tribunal of his
      enemies; despised the summons of the synod of C¾sarea; and, after
      a long and artful delay, submitted to the peremptory commands of
      the emperor, who threatened to punish his criminal disobedience
      if he refused to appear in the council of Tyre. 104 Before
      Athanasius, at the head of fifty Egyptian prelates, sailed from
      Alexandria, he had wisely secured the alliance of the Meletians;
      and Arsenius himself, his imaginary victim, and his secret
      friend, was privately concealed in his train. The synod of Tyre
      was conducted by Eusebius of C¾sarea, with more passion, and with
      less art, than his learning and experience might promise; his
      numerous faction repeated the names of homicide and tyrant; and
      their clamors were encouraged by the seeming patience of
      Athanasius, who expected the decisive moment to produce Arsenius
      alive and unhurt in the midst of the assembly. The nature of the
      other charges did not admit of such clear and satisfactory
      replies; yet the archbishop was able to prove, that in the
      village, where he was accused of breaking a consecrated chalice,
      neither church nor altar nor chalice could really exist.

      The Arians, who had secretly determined the guilt and
      condemnation of their enemy, attempted, however, to disguise
      their injustice by the imitation of judicial forms: the synod
      appointed an episcopal commission of six delegates to collect
      evidence on the spot; and this measure which was vigorously
      opposed by the Egyptian bishops, opened new scenes of violence
      and perjury. 105 After the return of the deputies from
      Alexandria, the majority of the council pronounced the final
      sentence of degradation and exile against the primate of Egypt.
      The decree, expressed in the fiercest language of malice and
      revenge, was communicated to the emperor and the Catholic church;
      and the bishops immediately resumed a mild and devout aspect,
      such as became their holy pilgrimage to the Sepulchre of Christ.
      106

      101 (return) [ At first Constantine threatened in _speaking_, but
      requested in _writing_. His letters gradually assumed a menacing
      tone; by while he required that the entrance of the church should
      be open to _all_, he avoided the odious name of Arius.
      Athanasius, like a skilful politician, has accurately marked
      these distinctions, (tom. i. p. 788.) which allowed him some
      scope for excuse and delay]

      102 (return) [ The Meletians in Egypt, like the Donatists in
      Africa, were produced by an episcopal quarrel which arose from
      the persecution. I have not leisure to pursue the obscure
      controversy, which seems to have been misrepresented by the
      partiality of Athanasius and the ignorance of Epiphanius. See
      MosheimÕs General History of the Church, vol. i. p. 201.]

      103 (return) [ The treatment of the six bishops is specified by
      Sozomen, (l. ii. c. 25;) but Athanasius himself, so copious on
      the subject of Arsenius and the chalice, leaves this grave
      accusation without a reply. Note: This grave charge, if made,
      (and it rests entirely on the authority of Soz omen,) seems to
      have been silently dropped by the parties themselves: it is never
      alluded to in the subsequent investigations. From Sozomen
      himself, who gives the unfavorable report of the commission of
      inquiry sent to Egypt concerning the cup. it does not appear that
      they noticed this accusation of personal violence.ÑM]

      104 (return) [ Athanas, tom. i. p. 788. Socrates, l. i.c. 28.
      Sozomen, l. ii. c 25. The emperor, in his Epistle of Convocation,
      (Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 42,) seems to prejudge some
      members of the clergy and it was more than probable that the
      synod would apply those reproaches to Athanasius.]

      105 (return) [ See, in particular, the second Apology of
      Athanasius, (tom. i. p. 763-808,) and his Epistles to the Monks,
      (p. 808-866.) They are justified by original and authentic
      documents; but they would inspire more confidence if he appeared
      less innocent, and his enemies less absurd.]

      106 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 41-47.]




      Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.ÑPart V.


      But the injustice of these ecclesiastical judges had not been
      countenanced by the submission, or even by the presence, of
      Athanasius. He resolved to make a bold and dangerous experiment,
      whether the throne was inaccessible to the voice of truth; and
      before the final sentence could be pronounced at Tyre, the
      intrepid primate threw himself into a bark which was ready to
      hoist sail for the Imperial city. The request of a formal
      audience might have been opposed or eluded; but Athanasius
      concealed his arrival, watched the moment of ConstantineÕs return
      from an adjacent villa, and boldly encountered his angry
      sovereign as he passed on horseback through the principal street
      of Constantinople. So strange an apparition excited his surprise
      and indignation; and the guards were ordered to remove the
      importunate suitor; but his resentment was subdued by involuntary
      respect; and the haughty spirit of the emperor was awed by the
      courage and eloquence of a bishop, who implored his justice and
      awakened his conscience. 107 Constantine listened to the
      complaints of Athanasius with impartial and even gracious
      attention; the members of the synod of Tyre were summoned to
      justify their proceedings; and the arts of the Eusebian faction
      would have been confounded, if they had not aggravated the guilt
      of the primate, by the dexterous supposition of an unpardonable
      offence; a criminal design to intercept and detain the corn-fleet
      of Alexandria, which supplied the subsistence of the new capital.
      108 The emperor was satisfied that the peace of Egypt would be
      secured by the absence of a popular leader; but he refused to
      fill the vacancy of the archiepiscopal throne; and the sentence,
      which, after long hesitation, he pronounced, was that of a
      jealous ostracism, rather than of an ignominious exile. In the
      remote province of Gaul, but in the hospitable court of Treves,
      Athanasius passed about twenty eight months. The death of the
      emperor changed the face of public affairs and, amidst the
      general indulgence of a young reign, the primate was restored to
      his country by an honorable edict of the younger Constantine, who
      expressed a deep sense of the innocence and merit of his
      venerable guest. 109

      107 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 804. In a church dedicated to
      St. Athanasius this situation would afford a better subject for a
      picture, than most of the stories of miracles and martyrdoms.]

      108 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 729. Eunapius has related (in
      Vit. Sophist. p. 36, 37, edit. Commelin) a strange example of the
      cruelty and credulity of Constantine on a similar occasion. The
      eloquent Sopater, a Syrian philosopher, enjoyed his friendship,
      and provoked the resentment of Ablavius, his Pr¾torian pr¾fect.
      The corn-fleet was detained for want of a south wind; the people
      of Constantinople were discontented; and Sopater was beheaded, on
      a charge that he had _bound_ the winds by the power of magic.
      Suidas adds, that Constantine wished to prove, by this execution,
      that he had absolutely renounced the superstition of the
      Gentiles.]

      109 (return) [ In his return he saw Constantius twice, at
      Viminiacum, and at C¾sarea in Cappadocia, (Athanas. tom. i. p.
      676.) Tillemont supposes that Constantine introduced him to the
      meeting of the three royal brothers in Pannonia, (MŽmoires
      Eccles. tom. viii. p. 69.)]

      The death of that prince exposed Athanasius to a second
      persecution; and the feeble Constantius, the sovereign of the
      East, soon became the secret accomplice of the Eusebians. Ninety
      bishops of that sect or faction assembled at Antioch, under the
      specious pretence of dedicating the cathedral. They composed an
      ambiguous creed, which is faintly tinged with the colors of
      Semi-Arianism, and twenty-five canons, which still regulate the
      discipline of the orthodox Greeks. 110 It was decided, with some
      appearance of equity, that a bishop, deprived by a synod, should
      not resume his episcopal functions till he had been absolved by
      the judgment of an equal synod; the law was immediately applied
      to the case of Athanasius; the council of Antioch pronounced, or
      rather confirmed, his degradation: a stranger, named Gregory, was
      seated on his throne; and Philagrius, 111 the pr¾fect of Egypt,
      was instructed to support the new primate with the civil and
      military powers of the province. Oppressed by the conspiracy of
      the Asiatic prelates, Athanasius withdrew from Alexandria, and
      passed three years 112 as an exile and a suppliant on the holy
      threshold of the Vatican. 113 By the assiduous study of the Latin
      language, he soon qualified himself to negotiate with the western
      clergy; his decent flattery swayed and directed the haughty
      Julius; the Roman pontiff was persuaded to consider his appeal as
      the peculiar interest of the Apostolic see: and his innocence was
      unanimously declared in a council of fifty bishops of Italy. At
      the end of three years, the primate was summoned to the court of
      Milan by the emperor Constans, who, in the indulgence of unlawful
      pleasures, still professed a lively regard for the orthodox
      faith. The cause of truth and justice was promoted by the
      influence of gold, 114 and the ministers of Constans advised
      their sovereign to require the convocation of an ecclesiastical
      assembly, which might act as the representatives of the Catholic
      church. Ninety-four bishops of the West, seventy-six bishops of
      the East, encountered each other at Sardica, on the verge of the
      two empires, but in the dominions of the protector of Athanasius.
      Their debates soon degenerated into hostile altercations; the
      Asiatics, apprehensive for their personal safety, retired to
      Philippopolis in Thrace; and the rival synods reciprocally hurled
      their spiritual thunders against their enemies, whom they piously
      condemned as the enemies of the true God. Their decrees were
      published and ratified in their respective provinces: and
      Athanasius, who in the West was revered as a saint, was exposed
      as a criminal to the abhorrence of the East. 115 The council of
      Sardica reveals the first symptoms of discord and schism between
      the Greek and Latin churches which were separated by the
      accidental difference of faith, and the permanent distinction of
      language.

      110 (return) [ See Beveridge, Pandect. tom. i. p. 429-452, and
      tom. ii. Annotation. p. 182. Tillemont, MŽm. Eccles. tom. vi. p.
      310-324. St. Hilary of Poitiers has mentioned this synod of
      Antioch with too much favor and respect. He reckons ninety-seven
      bishops.]

      111 (return) [ This magistrate, so odious to Athanasius, is
      praised by Gregory Nazianzen, tom. i. Orat. xxi. p. 390, 391.

      S¾pe premente Deo fert Deus alter opem.

      For the credit of human nature, I am always pleased to discover
      some good qualities in those men whom party has represented as
      tyrants and monsters.]

      112 (return) [ The chronological difficulties which perplex the
      residence of Athanasius at Rome, are strenuously agitated by
      Valesius (Observat ad Calcem, tom. ii. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c.
      1-5) and Tillemont, (Men: Eccles. tom. viii. p. 674, &c.) I have
      followed the simple hypothesis of Valesius, who allows only one
      journey, after the intrusion Gregory.]

      113 (return) [ I cannot forbear transcribing a judicious
      observation of Wetstein, (Prolegomen. N.S. p. 19: ) Si tamen
      Historiam Ecclesiasticam velimus consulere, patebit jam inde a
      seculo quarto, cum, ortis controversiis, ecclesi¾ Gr¾ci¾ doctores
      in duas partes scinderentur, ingenio, eloquentia, numero, tantum
      non ¾quales, eam partem qu¾ vincere cupiebat Romam confugisse,
      majestatemque pontificis comiter coluisse, eoque pacto oppressis
      per pontificem et episcopos Latinos adversariis pr¾valuisse,
      atque orthodoxiam in conciliis stabilivisse. Eam ob causam
      Athanasius, non sine comitatu, Roman petiit, pluresque annos ibi
      h¾sit.]

      114 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 12. If any corruption
      was used to promote the interest of religion, an advocate of
      Athanasius might justify or excuse this questionable conduct, by
      the example of Cato and Sidney; the former of whom is _said_ to
      have given, and the latter to have received, a bribe in the cause
      of liberty.]

      115 (return) [ The canon which allows appeals to the Roman
      pontiffs, has almost raised the council of Sardica to the dignity
      of a general council; and its acts have been ignorantly or
      artfully confounded with those of the Nicene synod. See
      Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 689, and GeddosÕs Tracts, vol. ii. p.
      419-460.]

      During his second exile in the West, Athanasius was frequently
      admitted to the Imperial presence; at Capua, Lodi, Milan, Verona,
      Padua, Aquileia, and Treves. The bishop of the diocese usually
      assisted at these interviews; the master of the offices stood
      before the veil or curtain of the sacred apartment; and the
      uniform moderation of the primate might be attested by these
      respectable witnesses, to whose evidence he solemnly appeals. 116
      Prudence would undoubtedly suggest the mild and respectful tone
      that became a subject and a bishop. In these familiar conferences
      with the sovereign of the West, Athanasius might lament the error
      of Constantius, but he boldly arraigned the guilt of his eunuchs
      and his Arian prelates; deplored the distress and danger of the
      Catholic church; and excited Constans to emulate the zeal and
      glory of his father. The emperor declared his resolution of
      employing the troops and treasures of Europe in the orthodox
      cause; and signified, by a concise and peremptory epistle to his
      brother Constantius, that unless he consented to the immediate
      restoration of Athanasius, he himself, with a fleet and army,
      would seat the archbishop on the throne of Alexandria. 117 But
      this religious war, so horrible to nature, was prevented by the
      timely compliance of Constantius; and the emperor of the East
      condescended to solicit a reconciliation with a subject whom he
      had injured. Athanasius waited with decent pride, till he had
      received three successive epistles full of the strongest
      assurances of the protection, the favor, and the esteem of his
      sovereign; who invited him to resume his episcopal seat, and who
      added the humiliating precaution of engaging his principal
      ministers to attest the sincerity of his intentions. They were
      manifested in a still more public manner, by the strict orders
      which were despatched into Egypt to recall the adherents of
      Athanasius, to restore their privileges, to proclaim their
      innocence, and to erase from the public registers the illegal
      proceedings which had been obtained during the prevalence of the
      Eusebian faction. After every satisfaction and security had been
      given, which justice or even delicacy could require, the primate
      proceeded, by slow journeys, through the provinces of Thrace,
      Asia, and Syria; and his progress was marked by the abject homage
      of the Oriental bishops, who excited his contempt without
      deceiving his penetration. 118 At Antioch he saw the emperor
      Constantius; sustained, with modest firmness, the embraces and
      protestations of his master, and eluded the proposal of allowing
      the Arians a single church at Alexandria, by claiming, in the
      other cities of the empire, a similar toleration for his own
      party; a reply which might have appeared just and moderate in the
      mouth of an independent prince. The entrance of the archbishop
      into his capital was a triumphal procession; absence and
      persecution had endeared him to the Alexandrians; his authority,
      which he exercised with rigor, was more firmly established; and
      his fame was diffused from ®thiopia to Britain, over the whole
      extent of the Christian world. 119

      116 (return) [ As Athanasius dispersed secret invectives against
      Constantius, (see the Epistle to the Monks,) at the same time
      that he assured him of his profound respect, we might distrust
      the professions of the archbishop. Tom. i. p. 677.]

      117 (return) [ Notwithstanding the discreet silence of
      Athanasius, and the manifest forgery of a letter inserted by
      Socrates, these menaces are proved by the unquestionable evidence
      of Lucifer of Cagliari, and even of Constantius himself. See
      Tillemont, tom. viii. p. 693]

      118 (return) [ I have always entertained some doubts concerning
      the retraction of Ursacius and Valens, (Athanas. tom. i. p. 776.)
      Their epistles to Julius, bishop of Rome, and to Athanasius
      himself, are of so different a cast from each other, that they
      cannot both be genuine. The one speaks the language of criminals
      who confess their guilt and infamy; the other of enemies, who
      solicit on equal terms an honorable reconciliation. * Note: I
      cannot quite comprehend the ground of GibbonÕs doubts. Athanasius
      distinctly asserts the fact of their retractation. (Athan. Op. i.
      p. 124, edit. Benedict.) The epistles are apparently translations
      from the Latin, if, in fact, more than the substance of the
      epistles. That to Athanasius is brief, almost abrupt. Their
      retractation is likewise mentioned in the address of the orthodox
      bishops of Rimini to Constantius. Athan. de Synodis, Op t. i. p
      723-M.]

      119 (return) [ The circumstances of his second return may be
      collected from Athanasius himself, tom. i. p. 769, and 822, 843.
      Socrates, l. ii. c. 18, Sozomen, l. iii. c. 19. Theodoret, l. ii.
      c. 11, 12. Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 12.]

      But the subject who has reduced his prince to the necessity of
      dissembling, can never expect a sincere and lasting forgiveness;
      and the tragic fate of Constans soon deprived Athanasius of a
      powerful and generous protector. The civil war between the
      assassin and the only surviving brother of Constans, which
      afflicted the empire above three years, secured an interval of
      repose to the Catholic church; and the two contending parties
      were desirous to conciliate the friendship of a bishop, who, by
      the weight of his personal authority, might determine the
      fluctuating resolutions of an important province. He gave
      audience to the ambassadors of the tyrant, with whom he was
      afterwards accused of holding a secret correspondence; 120 and
      the emperor Constantius repeatedly assured his dearest father,
      the most reverend Athanasius, that, notwithstanding the malicious
      rumors which were circulated by their common enemies, he had
      inherited the sentiments, as well as the throne, of his deceased
      brother. 121 Gratitude and humanity would have disposed the
      primate of Egypt to deplore the untimely fate of Constans, and to
      abhor the guilt of Magnentius; but as he clearly understood that
      the apprehensions of Constantius were his only safeguard, the
      fervor of his prayers for the success of the righteous cause
      might perhaps be somewhat abated. The ruin of Athanasius was no
      longer contrived by the obscure malice of a few bigoted or angry
      bishops, who abused the authority of a credulous monarch. The
      monarch himself avowed the resolution, which he had so long
      suppressed, of avenging his private injuries; 122 and the first
      winter after his victory, which he passed at Arles, was employed
      against an enemy more odious to him than the vanquished tyrant of
      Gaul.

      120 (return) [ Athanasius (tom. i. p. 677, 678) defends his
      innocence by pathetic complaints, solemn assertions, and specious
      arguments. He admits that letters had been forged in his name,
      but he requests that his own secretaries and those of the tyrant
      might be examined, whether those letters had been written by the
      former, or received by the latter.]

      121 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 825-844.]

      122 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 861. Theodoret, l. ii. c. 16.
      The emperor declared that he was more desirous to subdue
      Athanasius, than he had been to vanquish Magnentius or Sylvanus.]

      If the emperor had capriciously decreed the death of the most
      eminent and virtuous citizen of the republic, the cruel order
      would have been executed without hesitation, by the ministers of
      open violence or of specious injustice. The caution, the delay,
      the difficulty with which he proceeded in the condemnation and
      punishment of a popular bishop, discovered to the world that the
      privileges of the church had already revived a sense of order and
      freedom in the Roman government. The sentence which was
      pronounced in the synod of Tyre, and subscribed by a large
      majority of the Eastern bishops, had never been expressly
      repealed; and as Athanasius had been once degraded from his
      episcopal dignity by the judgment of his brethren, every
      subsequent act might be considered as irregular, and even
      criminal. But the memory of the firm and effectual support which
      the primate of Egypt had derived from the attachment of the
      Western church, engaged Constantius to suspend the execution of
      the sentence till he had obtained the concurrence of the Latin
      bishops. Two years were consumed in ecclesiastical negotiations;
      and the important cause between the emperor and one of his
      subjects was solemnly debated, first in the synod of Arles, and
      afterwards in the great council of Milan, 123 which consisted of
      above three hundred bishops. Their integrity was gradually
      undermined by the arguments of the Arians, the dexterity of the
      eunuchs, and the pressing solicitations of a prince who gratified
      his revenge at the expense of his dignity, and exposed his own
      passions, whilst he influenced those of the clergy. Corruption,
      the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty, was
      successfully practised; honors, gifts, and immunities were
      offered and accepted as the price of an episcopal vote; 124 and
      the condemnation of the Alexandrian primate was artfully
      represented as the only measure which could restore the peace and
      union of the Catholic church. The friends of Athanasius were not,
      however, wanting to their leader, or to their cause. With a manly
      spirit, which the sanctity of their character rendered less
      dangerous, they maintained, in public debate, and in private
      conference with the emperor, the eternal obligation of religion
      and justice. They declared, that neither the hope of his favor,
      nor the fear of his displeasure, should prevail on them to join
      in the condemnation of an absent, an innocent, a respectable
      brother. 125 They affirmed, with apparent reason, that the
      illegal and obsolete decrees of the council of Tyre had long
      since been tacitly abolished by the Imperial edicts, the
      honorable reestablishment of the archbishop of Alexandria, and
      the silence or recantation of his most clamorous adversaries.
      They alleged, that his innocence had been attested by the
      unanimous bishops of Egypt, and had been acknowledged in the
      councils of Rome and Sardica, 126 by the impartial judgment of
      the Latin church. They deplored the hard condition of Athanasius,
      who, after enjoying so many years his seat, his reputation, and
      the seeming confidence of his sovereign, was again called upon to
      confute the most groundless and extravagant accusations. Their
      language was specious; their conduct was honorable: but in this
      long and obstinate contest, which fixed the eyes of the whole
      empire on a single bishop, the ecclesiastical factions were
      prepared to sacrifice truth and justice to the more interesting
      object of defending or removing the intrepid champion of the
      Nicene faith. The Arians still thought it prudent to disguise, in
      ambiguous language, their real sentiments and designs; but the
      orthodox bishops, armed with the favor of the people, and the
      decrees of a general council, insisted on every occasion, and
      particularly at Milan, that their adversaries should purge
      themselves from the suspicion of heresy, before they presumed to
      arraign the conduct of the great Athanasius. 127

      123 (return) [ The affairs of the council of Milan are so
      imperfectly and erroneously related by the Greek writers, that we
      must rejoice in the supply of some letters of Eusebius, extracted
      by Baronius from the archives of the church of Vercell¾, and of
      an old life of Dionysius of Milan, published by Bollandus. See
      Baronius, A.D. 355, and Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 1415.]

      124 (return) [ The honors, presents, feasts, which seduced so
      many bishops, are mentioned with indignation by those who were
      too pure or too proud to accept them. ÒWe combat (says Hilary of
      Poitiers) against Constantius the Antichrist; who strokes the
      belly instead of scourging the back;Ó qui non dorsa c¾dit; sed
      ventrem palpat. Hilarius contra Constant c. 5, p. 1240.]

      125 (return) [ Something of this opposition is mentioned by
      Ammianus (x. 7,) who had a very dark and superficial knowledge of
      ecclesiastical history. Liberius... perseveranter renitebatur,
      nec visum hominem, nec auditum damnare, nefas ultimum s¾pe
      exclamans; aperte scilicet recalcitrans Imperatoris arbitrio. Id
      enim ille Athanasio semper infestus, &c.]

      126 (return) [ More properly by the orthodox part of the council
      of Sardica. If the bishops of both parties had fairly voted, the
      division would have been 94 to 76. M. de Tillemont (see tom.
      viii. p. 1147-1158) is justly surprised that so small a majority
      should have proceeded as vigorously against their adversaries,
      the principal of whom they immediately deposed.]

      127 (return) [ Sulp. Severus in Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 412.]

      But the voice of reason (if reason was indeed on the side of
      Athanasius) was silenced by the clamors of a factious or venal
      majority; and the councils of Arles and Milan were not dissolved,
      till the archbishop of Alexandria had been solemnly condemned and
      deposed by the judgment of the Western, as well as of the
      Eastern, church. The bishops who had opposed, were required to
      subscribe, the sentence, and to unite in religious communion with
      the suspected leaders of the adverse party. A formulary of
      consent was transmitted by the messengers of state to the absent
      bishops: and all those who refused to submit their private
      opinion to the public and inspired wisdom of the councils of
      Arles and Milan, were immediately banished by the emperor, who
      affected to execute the decrees of the Catholic church. Among
      those prelates who led the honorable band of confessors and
      exiles, Liberius of Rome, Osius of Cordova, Paulinus of Treves,
      Dionysius of Milan, Eusebius of Vercell¾, Lucifer of Cagliari and
      Hilary of Poitiers, may deserve to be particularly distinguished.
      The eminent station of Liberius, who governed the capital of the
      empire; the personal merit and long experience of the venerable
      Osius, who was revered as the favorite of the great Constantine,
      and the father of the Nicene faith, placed those prelates at the
      head of the Latin church: and their example, either of submission
      or resistance, would probable be imitated by the episcopal crowd.
      But the repeated attempts of the emperor to seduce or to
      intimidate the bishops of Rome and Cordova, were for some time
      ineffectual. The Spaniard declared himself ready to suffer under
      Constantius, as he had suffered threescore years before under his
      grandfather Maximian. The Roman, in the presence of his
      sovereign, asserted the innocence of Athanasius and his own
      freedom. When he was banished to Ber¾a in Thrace, he sent back a
      large sum which had been offered for the accommodation of his
      journey; and insulted the court of Milan by the haughty remark,
      that the emperor and his eunuchs might want that gold to pay
      their soldiers and their bishops. 128 The resolution of Liberius
      and Osius was at length subdued by the hardships of exile and
      confinement. The Roman pontiff purchased his return by some
      criminal compliances; and afterwards expiated his guilt by a
      seasonable repentance. Persuasion and violence were employed to
      extort the reluctant signature of the decrepit bishop of Cordova,
      whose strength was broken, and whose faculties were perhaps
      impaired by the weight of a hundred years; and the insolent
      triumph of the Arians provoked some of the orthodox party to
      treat with inhuman severity the character, or rather the memory,
      of an unfortunate old man, to whose former services Christianity
      itself was so deeply indebted. 129

      128 (return) [ The exile of Liberius is mentioned by Ammianus,
      xv. 7. See Theodoret, l. ii. c. 16. Athanas. tom. i. p. 834-837.
      Hilar. Fragment l.]

      129 (return) [ The life of Osius is collected by Tillemont, (tom.
      vii. p. 524-561,) who in the most extravagant terms first
      admires, and then reprobates, the bishop of Cordova. In the midst
      of their lamentations on his fall, the prudence of Athanasius may
      be distinguished from the blind and intemperate zeal of Hilary.]

      The fall of Liberius and Osius reflected a brighter lustre on the
      firmness of those bishops who still adhered, with unshaken
      fidelity, to the cause of Athanasius and religious truth. The
      ingenious malice of their enemies had deprived them of the
      benefit of mutual comfort and advice, separated those illustrious
      exiles into distant provinces, and carefully selected the most
      inhospitable spots of a great empire. 130 Yet they soon
      experienced that the deserts of Libya, and the most barbarous
      tracts of Cappadocia, were less inhospitable than the residence
      of those cities in which an Arian bishop could satiate, without
      restraint, the exquisite rancor of theological hatred. 131 Their
      consolation was derived from the consciousness of rectitude and
      independence, from the applause, the visits, the letters, and the
      liberal alms of their adherents, 132 and from the satisfaction
      which they soon enjoyed of observing the intestine divisions of
      the adversaries of the Nicene faith. Such was the nice and
      capricious taste of the emperor Constantius; and so easily was he
      offended by the slightest deviation from his imaginary standard
      of Christian truth, that he persecuted, with equal zeal, those
      who defended the _consubstantiality_, those who asserted the
      _similar substance_, and those who denied the _likeness_ of the
      Son of God. Three bishops, degraded and banished for those
      adverse opinions, might possibly meet in the same place of exile;
      and, according to the difference of their temper, might either
      pity or insult the blind enthusiasm of their antagonists, whose
      present sufferings would never be compensated by future
      happiness.

      130 (return) [ The confessors of the West were successively
      banished to the deserts of Arabia or Thebais, the lonely places
      of Mount Taurus, the wildest parts of Phrygia, which were in the
      possession of the impious Montanists, &c. When the heretic ®tius
      was too favorably entertained at Mopsuestia in Cilicia, the place
      of his exile was changed, by the advice of Acacius, to Amblada, a
      district inhabited by savages and infested by war and pestilence.
      Philostorg. l. v. c. 2.]

      131 (return) [ See the cruel treatment and strange obstinacy of
      Eusebius, in his own letters, published by Baronius, A.D. 356,
      No. 92-102.]

      132 (return) [ C¾terum exules satis constat, totius orbis studiis
      celebratos pecuniasque eis in sumptum affatim congestas,
      legationibus quoque plebis Catholic¾ ex omnibus fere provinciis
      frequentatos. Sulp. Sever Hist. Sacra, p. 414. Athanas. tom. i.
      p. 836, 840.]

      The disgrace and exile of the orthodox bishops of the West were
      designed as so many preparatory steps to the ruin of Athanasius
      himself. 133 Six-and-twenty months had elapsed, during which the
      Imperial court secretly labored, by the most insidious arts, to
      remove him from Alexandria, and to withdraw the allowance which
      supplied his popular liberality. But when the primate of Egypt,
      deserted and proscribed by the Latin church, was left destitute
      of any foreign support, Constantius despatched two of his
      secretaries with a verbal commission to announce and execute the
      order of his banishment. As the justice of the sentence was
      publicly avowed by the whole party, the only motive which could
      restrain Constantius from giving his messengers the sanction of a
      written mandate, must be imputed to his doubt of the event; and
      to a sense of the danger to which he might expose the second
      city, and the most fertile province, of the empire, if the people
      should persist in the resolution of defending, by force of arms,
      the innocence of their spiritual father. Such extreme caution
      afforded Athanasius a specious pretence respectfully to dispute
      the truth of an order, which he could not reconcile, either with
      the equity, or with the former declarations, of his gracious
      master. The civil powers of Egypt found themselves inadequate to
      the task of persuading or compelling the primate to abdicate his
      episcopal throne; and they were obliged to conclude a treaty with
      the popular leaders of Alexandria, by which it was stipulated,
      that all proceedings and all hostilities should be suspended till
      the emperorÕs pleasure had been more distinctly ascertained. By
      this seeming moderation, the Catholics were deceived into a false
      and fatal security; while the legions of the Upper Egypt, and of
      Libya, advanced, by secret orders and hasty marches, to besiege,
      or rather to surprise, a capital habituated to sedition, and
      inflamed by religious zeal. 134 The position of Alexandria,
      between the sea and the Lake Mareotis, facilitated the approach
      and landing of the troops; who were introduced into the heart of
      the city, before any effectual measures could be taken either to
      shut the gates or to occupy the important posts of defence. At
      the hour of midnight, twenty-three days after the signature of
      the treaty, Syrianus, duke of Egypt, at the head of five thousand
      soldiers, armed and prepared for an assault, unexpectedly
      invested the church of St. Theonas, where the archbishop, with a
      part of his clergy and people, performed their nocturnal
      devotions. The doors of the sacred edifice yielded to the
      impetuosity of the attack, which was accompanied with every
      horrid circumstance of tumult and bloodshed; but, as the bodies
      of the slain, and the fragments of military weapons, remained the
      next day an unexceptionable evidence in the possession of the
      Catholics, the enterprise of Syrianus may be considered as a
      successful irruption rather than as an absolute conquest. The
      other churches of the city were profaned by similar outrages;
      and, during at least four months, Alexandria was exposed to the
      insults of a licentious army, stimulated by the ecclesiastics of
      a hostile faction. Many of the faithful were killed; who may
      deserve the name of martyrs, if their deaths were neither
      provoked nor revenged; bishops and presbyters were treated with
      cruel ignominy; consecrated virgins were stripped naked, scourged
      and violated; the houses of wealthy citizens were plundered; and,
      under the mask of religious zeal, lust, avarice, and private
      resentment were gratified with impunity, and even with applause.
      The Pagans of Alexandria, who still formed a numerous and
      discontented party, were easily persuaded to desert a bishop whom
      they feared and esteemed. The hopes of some peculiar favors, and
      the apprehension of being involved in the general penalties of
      rebellion, engaged them to promise their support to the destined
      successor of Athanasius, the famous George of Cappadocia. The
      usurper, after receiving the consecration of an Arian synod, was
      placed on the episcopal throne by the arms of Sebastian, who had
      been appointed Count of Egypt for the execution of that important
      design. In the use, as well as in the acquisition, of power, the
      tyrant, George disregarded the laws of religion, of justice, and
      of humanity; and the same scenes of violence and scandal which
      had been exhibited in the capital, were repeated in more than
      ninety episcopal cities of Egypt. Encouraged by success,
      Constantius ventured to approve the conduct of his minister. By a
      public and passionate epistle, the emperor congratulates the
      deliverance of Alexandria from a popular tyrant, who deluded his
      blind votaries by the magic of his eloquence; expatiates on the
      virtues and piety of the most reverend George, the elected
      bishop; and aspires, as the patron and benefactor of the city to
      surpass the fame of Alexander himself. But he solemnly declares
      his unalterable resolution to pursue with fire and sword the
      seditious adherents of the wicked Athanasius, who, by flying from
      justice, has confessed his guilt, and escaped the ignominious
      death which he had so often deserved. 135

      133 (return) [ Ample materials for the history of this third
      persecution of Athanasius may be found in his own works. See
      particularly his very able Apology to Constantius, (tom. i. p.
      673,) his first Apology for his flight (p. 701,) his prolix
      Epistle to the Solitaries, (p. 808,) and the original protest of
      the people of Alexandria against the violences committed by
      Syrianus, (p. 866.) Sozomen (l. iv. c. 9) has thrown into the
      narrative two or three luminous and important circumstances.]

      134 (return) [ Athanasius had lately sent for Antony, and some of
      his chosen monks. They descended from their mountains, announced
      to the Alexandrians the sanctity of Athanasius, and were
      honorably conducted by the archbishop as far as the gates of the
      city. Athanas tom. ii. p. 491, 492. See likewise Rufinus, iii.
      164, in Vit. Patr. p. 524.]

      135 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 694. The emperor, or his Arian
      secretaries while they express their resentment, betray their
      fears and esteem of Athanasius.]




      Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.ÑPart VI.


      Athanasius had indeed escaped from the most imminent dangers; and
      the adventures of that extraordinary man deserve and fix our
      attention. On the memorable night when the church of St. Theonas
      was invested by the troops of Syrianus, the archbishop, seated on
      his throne, expected, with calm and intrepid dignity, the
      approach of death. While the public devotion was interrupted by
      shouts of rage and cries of terror, he animated his trembling
      congregation to express their religious confidence, by chanting
      one of the psalms of David which celebrates the triumph of the
      God of Israel over the haughty and impious tyrant of Egypt. The
      doors were at length burst open: a cloud of arrows was discharged
      among the people; the soldiers, with drawn swords, rushed
      forwards into the sanctuary; and the dreadful gleam of their arms
      was reflected by the holy luminaries which burnt round the altar.
      136 Athanasius still rejected the pious importunity of the monks
      and presbyters, who were attached to his person; and nobly
      refused to desert his episcopal station, till he had dismissed in
      safety the last of the congregation. The darkness and tumult of
      the night favored the retreat of the archbishop; and though he
      was oppressed by the waves of an agitated multitude, though he
      was thrown to the ground, and left without sense or motion, he
      still recovered his undaunted courage, and eluded the eager
      search of the soldiers, who were instructed by their Arian
      guides, that the head of Athanasius would be the most acceptable
      present to the emperor. From that moment the primate of Egypt
      disappeared from the eyes of his enemies, and remained above six
      years concealed in impenetrable obscurity. 137

      136 (return) [ These minute circumstances are curious, as they
      are literally transcribed from the protest, which was publicly
      presented three days afterwards by the Catholics of Alexandria.
      See Athanas. tom. l. n. 867]

      137 (return) [ The Jansenists have often compared Athanasius and
      Arnauld, and have expatiated with pleasure on the faith and zeal,
      the merit and exile, of those celebrated doctors. This concealed
      parallel is very dexterously managed by the AbbŽ de la Bleterie,
      Vie de Jovien, tom. i. p. 130.]

      The despotic power of his implacable enemy filled the whole
      extent of the Roman world; and the exasperated monarch had
      endeavored, by a very pressing epistle to the Christian princes
      of Ethiopia, 13711 to exclude Athanasius from the most remote and
      sequestered regions of the earth. Counts, pr¾fects, tribunes,
      whole armies, were successively employed to pursue a bishop and a
      fugitive; the vigilance of the civil and military powers was
      excited by the Imperial edicts; liberal rewards were promised to
      the man who should produce Athanasius, either alive or dead; and
      the most severe penalties were denounced against those who should
      dare to protect the public enemy. 138 But the deserts of Thebais
      were now peopled by a race of wild, yet submissive fanatics, who
      preferred the commands of their abbot to the laws of their
      sovereign. The numerous disciples of Antony and Pachonnus
      received the fugitive primate as their father, admired the
      patience and humility with which he conformed to their strictest
      institutions, collected every word which dropped from his lips as
      the genuine effusions of inspired wisdom; and persuaded
      themselves that their prayers, their fasts, and their vigils,
      were less meritorious than the zeal which they expressed, and the
      dangers which they braved, in the defence of truth and innocence.
      139 The monasteries of Egypt were seated in lonely and desolate
      places, on the summit of mountains, or in the islands of the
      Nile; and the sacred horn or trumpet of Tabenne was the
      well-known signal which assembled several thousand robust and
      determined monks, who, for the most part, had been the peasants
      of the adjacent country. When their dark retreats were invaded by
      a military force, which it was impossible to resist, they
      silently stretched out their necks to the executioner; and
      supported their national character, that tortures could never
      wrest from an Egyptian the confession of a secret which he was
      resolved not to disclose. 140 The archbishop of Alexandria, for
      whose safety they eagerly devoted their lives, was lost among a
      uniform and well-disciplined multitude; and on the nearer
      approach of danger, he was swiftly removed, by their officious
      hands, from one place of concealment to another, till he reached
      the formidable deserts, which the gloomy and credulous temper of
      superstition had peopled with d¾mons and savage monsters. The
      retirement of Athanasius, which ended only with the life of
      Constantius, was spent, for the most part, in the society of the
      monks, who faithfully served him as guards, as secretaries, and
      as messengers; but the importance of maintaining a more intimate
      connection with the Catholic party tempted him, whenever the
      diligence of the pursuit was abated, to emerge from the desert,
      to introduce himself into Alexandria, and to trust his person to
      the discretion of his friends and adherents. His various
      adventures might have furnished the subject of a very
      entertaining romance. He was once secreted in a dry cistern,
      which he had scarcely left before he was betrayed by the
      treachery of a female slave; 141 and he was once concealed in a
      still more extraordinary asylum, the house of a virgin, only
      twenty years of age, and who was celebrated in the whole city for
      her exquisite beauty. At the hour of midnight, as she related the
      story many years afterwards, she was surprised by the appearance
      of the archbishop in a loose undress, who, advancing with hasty
      steps, conjured her to afford him the protection which he had
      been directed by a celestial vision to seek under her hospitable
      roof. The pious maid accepted and preserved the sacred pledge
      which was intrusted to her prudence and courage. Without
      imparting the secret to any one, she instantly conducted
      Athanasius into her most secret chamber, and watched over his
      safety with the tenderness of a friend and the assiduity of a
      servant. As long as the danger continued, she regularly supplied
      him with books and provisions, washed his feet, managed his
      correspondence, and dexterously concealed from the eye of
      suspicion this familiar and solitary intercourse between a saint
      whose character required the most unblemished chastity, and a
      female whose charms might excite the most dangerous emotions. 142
      During the six years of persecution and exile, Athanasius
      repeated his visits to his fair and faithful companion; and the
      formal declaration, that he _saw_ the councils of Rimini and
      Seleucia, 143 forces us to believe that he was secretly present
      at the time and place of their convocation. The advantage of
      personally negotiating with his friends, and of observing and
      improving the divisions of his enemies, might justify, in a
      prudent statesman, so bold and dangerous an enterprise: and
      Alexandria was connected by trade and navigation with every
      seaport of the Mediterranean. From the depth of his inaccessible
      retreat the intrepid primate waged an incessant and offensive war
      against the protector of the Arians; and his seasonable writings,
      which were diligently circulated and eagerly perused, contributed
      to unite and animate the orthodox party. In his public apologies,
      which he addressed to the emperor himself, he sometimes affected
      the praise of moderation; whilst at the same time, in secret and
      vehement invectives, he exposed Constantius as a weak and wicked
      prince, the executioner of his family, the tyrant of the
      republic, and the Antichrist of the church. In the height of his
      prosperity, the victorious monarch, who had chastised the
      rashness of Gallus, and suppressed the revolt of Sylvanus, who
      had taken the diadem from the head of Vetranio, and vanquished in
      the field the legions of Magnentius, received from an invisible
      hand a wound, which he could neither heal nor revenge; and the
      son of Constantine was the first of the Christian princes who
      experienced the strength of those principles, which, in the cause
      of religion, could resist the most violent exertions 144 of the
      civil power.

      13711 (return) [ These princes were called Aeizanas and
      Saiazanas. Athanasius calls them the kings of Axum. In the
      superscription of his letter, Constantius gives them no title.
      Mr. Salt, during his first journey in Ethiopia, (in 1806,)
      discovered, in the ruins of Axum, a long and very interesting
      inscription relating to these princes. It was erected to
      commemorate the victory of Aeizanas over the Bougait¾, (St.
      Martin considers them the Blemmyes, whose true name is Bedjah or
      Bodjah.) Aeizanas is styled king of the Axumites, the Homerites,
      of Raeidan, of the Ethiopians, of the Sabsuites, of Silea, of
      Tiamo, of the Bougaites, and of Kaei. It appears that at this
      time the king of the Ethiopians ruled over the Homerites, the
      inhabitants of Yemen. He was not yet a Christian, as he calls
      himself son of the invincible Mars. Another brother besides
      Saiazanas, named Adephas, is mentioned, though Aeizanas seems to
      have been sole king. See St. Martin, note on Le Beau, ii. 151.
      SaltÕs Travels. De Sacy, note in Annales des Voyages, xii. p.
      53.ÑM.]

      138 (return) [ Hinc jam toto orbe profugus Athanasius, nec ullus
      ci tutus ad latendum supererat locus. Tribuni, Pr¾fecti, Comites,
      exercitus quoque ad pervestigandum cum moventur edictis
      Imperialibus; pr¾mia dela toribus proponuntur, si quis eum vivum,
      si id minus, caput certe Atha casii detulisset. Rufin. l. i. c.
      16.]

      139 (return) [ Gregor. Nazianzen. tom. i. Orat. xxi. p. 384, 385.
      See Tillemont MŽm. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 176-410, 820-830.]

      140 (return) [ Et nulla tormentorum vis inveneri, adhuc potuit,
      qu¾ obdurato illius tractus latroni invito elicere potuit, ut
      nomen proprium dicat Ammian. xxii. 16, and Valesius ad locum.]

      141 (return) [ Rufin. l. i. c. 18. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 10. This
      and the following story will be rendered impossible, if we
      suppose that Athanasius always inhabited the asylum which he
      accidentally or occasionally had used.]

      142 (return) [ Paladius, (Hist. Lausiac. c. 136, in Vit. Patrum,
      p. 776,) the original author of this anecdote, had conversed with
      the damsel, who in her old age still remembered with pleasure so
      pious and honorable a connection. I cannot indulge the delicacy
      of Baronius, Valesius, Tillemont, &c., who almost reject a story
      so unworthy, as they deem it, of the gravity of ecclesiastical
      history.]

      143 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 869. I agree with Tillemont,
      (tom. iii. p. 1197,) that his expressions imply a personal,
      though perhaps secret visit to the synods.]

      144 (return) [ The epistle of Athanasius to the monks is filled
      with reproaches, which the public must feel to be true, (vol. i.
      p. 834, 856;) and, in compliment to his readers, he has
      introduced the comparisons of Pharaoh, Ahab, Belshazzar, &c. The
      boldness of Hilary was attended with less danger, if he published
      his invective in Gaul after the revolt of Julian; but Lucifer
      sent his libels to Constantius, and almost challenged the reward
      of martyrdom. See Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 905.]

      The persecution of Athanasius, and of so many respectable
      bishops, who suffered for the truth of their opinions, or at
      least for the integrity of their conscience, was a just subject
      of indignation and discontent to all Christians, except those who
      were blindly devoted to the Arian faction. The people regretted
      the loss of their faithful pastors, whose banishment was usually
      followed by the intrusion of a stranger 145 into the episcopal
      chair; and loudly complained, that the right of election was
      violated, and that they were condemned to obey a mercenary
      usurper, whose person was unknown, and whose principles were
      suspected. The Catholics might prove to the world, that they were
      not involved in the guilt and heresy of their ecclesiastical
      governor, by publicly testifying their dissent, or by totally
      separating themselves from his communion. The first of these
      methods was invented at Antioch, and practised with such success,
      that it was soon diffused over the Christian world. The doxology
      or sacred hymn, which celebrates the _glory_ of the Trinity, is
      susceptible of very nice, but material, inflections; and the
      substance of an orthodox, or an heretical, creed, may be
      expressed by the difference of a disjunctive, or a copulative,
      particle. Alternate responses, and a more regular psalmody, 146
      were introduced into the public service by Flavianus and
      Diodorus, two devout and active laymen, who were attached to the
      Nicene faith. Under their conduct a swarm of monks issued from
      the adjacent desert, bands of well-disciplined singers were
      stationed in the cathedral of Antioch, the Glory to the Father,
      And the Son, And the Holy Ghost, 147 was triumphantly chanted by
      a full chorus of voices; and the Catholics insulted, by the
      purity of their doctrine, the Arian prelate, who had usurped the
      throne of the venerable Eustathius. The same zeal which inspired
      their songs prompted the more scrupulous members of the orthodox
      party to form separate assemblies, which were governed by the
      presbyters, till the death of their exiled bishop allowed the
      election and consecration of a new episcopal pastor. 148 The
      revolutions of the court multiplied the number of pretenders; and
      the same city was often disputed, under the reign of Constantius,
      by two, or three, or even four, bishops, who exercised their
      spiritual jurisdiction over their respective followers, and
      alternately lost and regained the temporal possessions of the
      church. The abuse of Christianity introduced into the Roman
      government new causes of tyranny and sedition; the bands of civil
      society were torn asunder by the fury of religious factions; and
      the obscure citizen, who might calmly have surveyed the elevation
      and fall of successive emperors, imagined and experienced, that
      his own life and fortune were connected with the interests of a
      popular ecclesiastic. The example of the two capitals, Rome and
      Constantinople, may serve to represent the state of the empire,
      and the temper of mankind, under the reign of the sons of
      Constantine.

      145 (return) [ Athanasius (tom. i. p. 811) complains in general
      of this practice, which he afterwards exemplifies (p. 861) in the
      pretended election of F¾lix. Three eunuchs represented the Roman
      people, and three prelates, who followed the court, assumed the
      functions of the bishops of the Suburbicarian provinces.]

      146 (return) [ Thomassin (Discipline de lÕEglise, tom. i. l. ii.
      c. 72, 73, p. 966-984) has collected many curious facts
      concerning the origin and progress of church singing, both in the
      East and West. * Note: Arius appears to have been the first who
      availed himself of this means of impressing his doctrines on the
      popular ear: he composed songs for sailors, millers, and
      travellers, and set them to common airs; Òbeguiling the ignorant,
      by the sweetness of his music, into the impiety of his
      doctrines.Ó Philostorgius, ii. 2. Arian singers used to parade
      the streets of Constantinople by night, till Chrysostom arrayed
      against them a band of orthodox choristers. Sozomen, viii. 8.ÑM.]

      147 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 13. Godefroy has
      examined this subject with singular accuracy, (p. 147, &c.) There
      were three heterodox forms: ÒTo the Father _by_ the Son, _and_ in
      the Holy Ghost.Ó ÒTo the Father, _and_ the Son _in_ the Holy
      Ghost;Ó and ÒTo the Father _in_ the Son _and_ the Holy Ghost.Ó]

      148 (return) [ After the exile of Eustathius, under the reign of
      Constantine, the rigid party of the orthodox formed a separation
      which afterwards degenerated into a schism, and lasted about
      fourscore years. See Tillemont, MŽm. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 35-54,
      1137-1158, tom. viii. p. 537-632, 1314-1332. In many churches,
      the Arians and Homoousians, who had renounced each otherÕs
      _communion_, continued for some time to join in prayer.
      Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 14.]

      I. The Roman pontiff, as long as he maintained his station and
      his principles, was guarded by the warm attachment of a great
      people; and could reject with scorn the prayers, the menaces, and
      the oblations of an heretical prince. When the eunuchs had
      secretly pronounced the exile of Liberius, the well-grounded
      apprehension of a tumult engaged them to use the utmost
      precautions in the execution of the sentence. The capital was
      invested on every side, and the pr¾fect was commanded to seize
      the person of the bishop, either by stratagem or by open force.
      The order was obeyed, and Liberius, with the greatest difficulty,
      at the hour of midnight, was swiftly conveyed beyond the reach of
      the Roman people, before their consternation was turned into
      rage. As soon as they were informed of his banishment into
      Thrace, a general assembly was convened, and the clergy of Rome
      bound themselves, by a public and solemn oath, never to desert
      their bishop, never to acknowledge the usurper F¾lix; who, by the
      influence of the eunuchs, had been irregularly chosen and
      consecrated within the walls of a profane palace. At the end of
      two years, their pious obstinacy subsisted entire and unshaken;
      and when Constantius visited Rome, he was assailed by the
      importunate solicitations of a people, who had preserved, as the
      last remnant of their ancient freedom, the right of treating
      their sovereign with familiar insolence. The wives of many of the
      senators and most honorable citizens, after pressing their
      husbands to intercede in favor of Liberius, were advised to
      undertake a commission, which in their hands would be less
      dangerous, and might prove more successful. The emperor received
      with politeness these female deputies, whose wealth and dignity
      were displayed in the magnificence of their dress and ornaments:
      he admired their inflexible resolution of following their beloved
      pastor to the most distant regions of the earth; and consented
      that the two bishops, Liberius and F¾lix, should govern in peace
      their respective congregations. But the ideas of toleration were
      so repugnant to the practice, and even to the sentiments, of
      those times, that when the answer of Constantius was publicly
      read in the Circus of Rome, so reasonable a project of
      accommodation was rejected with contempt and ridicule. The eager
      vehemence which animated the spectators in the decisive moment of
      a horse-race, was now directed towards a different object; and
      the Circus resounded with the shout of thousands, who repeatedly
      exclaimed, ÒOne God, One Christ, One Bishop!Ó The zeal of the
      Roman people in the cause of Liberius was not confined to words
      alone; and the dangerous and bloody sedition which they excited
      soon after the departure of Constantius determined that prince to
      accept the submission of the exiled prelate, and to restore him
      to the undivided dominion of the capital. After some ineffectual
      resistance, his rival was expelled from the city by the
      permission of the emperor and the power of the opposite faction;
      the adherents of F¾lix were inhumanly murdered in the streets, in
      the public places, in the baths, and even in the churches; and
      the face of Rome, upon the return of a Christian bishop, renewed
      the horrid image of the massacres of Marius, and the
      proscriptions of Sylla. 149

      149 (return) [ See, on this ecclesiastical revolution of Rome,
      Ammianus, xv. 7 Athanas. tom. i. p. 834, 861. Sozomen, l. iv. c.
      15. Theodoret, l. ii c. 17. Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p.
      413. Hieronym. Chron. Marcellin. et Faustin. Libell. p. 3, 4.
      Tillemont, MŽm. Eccles. tom. vi. p.]

      II. Notwithstanding the rapid increase of Christians under the
      reign of the Flavian family, Rome, Alexandria, and the other
      great cities of the empire, still contained a strong and powerful
      faction of Infidels, who envied the prosperity, and who
      ridiculed, even in their theatres, the theological disputes of
      the church. Constantinople alone enjoyed the advantage of being
      born and educated in the bosom of the faith. The capital of the
      East had never been polluted by the worship of idols; and the
      whole body of the people had deeply imbibed the opinions, the
      virtues, and the passions, which distinguished the Christians of
      that age from the rest of mankind. After the death of Alexander,
      the episcopal throne was disputed by Paul and Macedonius. By
      their zeal and abilities they both deserved the eminent station
      to which they aspired; and if the moral character of Macedonius
      was less exceptionable, his competitor had the advantage of a
      prior election and a more orthodox doctrine. His firm attachment
      to the Nicene creed, which has given Paul a place in the calendar
      among saints and martyrs, exposed him to the resentment of the
      Arians. In the space of fourteen years he was five times driven
      from his throne; to which he was more frequently restored by the
      violence of the people, than by the permission of the prince; and
      the power of Macedonius could be secured only by the death of his
      rival. The unfortunate Paul was dragged in chains from the sandy
      deserts of Mesopotamia to the most desolate places of Mount
      Taurus, 150 confined in a dark and narrow dungeon, left six days
      without food, and at length strangled, by the order of Philip,
      one of the principal ministers of the emperor Constantius. 151
      The first blood which stained the new capital was spilt in this
      ecclesiastical contest; and many persons were slain on both
      sides, in the furious and obstinate seditions of the people. The
      commission of enforcing a sentence of banishment against Paul had
      been intrusted to Hermogenes, the master-general of the cavalry;
      but the execution of it was fatal to himself. The Catholics rose
      in the defence of their bishop; the palace of Hermogenes was
      consumed; the first military officer of the empire was dragged by
      the heels through the streets of Constantinople, and, after he
      expired, his lifeless corpse was exposed to their wanton insults.
      152 The fate of Hermogenes instructed Philip, the Pr¾torian
      pr¾fect, to act with more precaution on a similar occasion. In
      the most gentle and honorable terms, he required the attendance
      of Paul in the baths of Xeuxippus, which had a private
      communication with the palace and the sea. A vessel, which lay
      ready at the garden stairs, immediately hoisted sail; and, while
      the people were still ignorant of the meditated sacrilege, their
      bishop was already embarked on his voyage to Thessalonica. They
      soon beheld, with surprise and indignation, the gates of the
      palace thrown open, and the usurper Macedonius seated by the side
      of the pr¾fect on a lofty chariot, which was surrounded by troops
      of guards with drawn swords. The military procession advanced
      towards the cathedral; the Arians and the Catholics eagerly
      rushed to occupy that important post; and three thousand one
      hundred and fifty persons lost their lives in the confusion of
      the tumult. Macedonius, who was supported by a regular force,
      obtained a decisive victory; but his reign was disturbed by
      clamor and sedition; and the causes which appeared the least
      connected with the subject of dispute, were sufficient to nourish
      and to kindle the flame of civil discord. As the chapel in which
      the body of the great Constantine had been deposited was in a
      ruinous condition, the bishop transported those venerable remains
      into the church of St. Acacius. This prudent and even pious
      measure was represented as a wicked profanation by the whole
      party which adhered to the Homoousian doctrine. The factions
      immediately flew to arms, the consecrated ground was used as
      their field of battle; and one of the ecclesiastical historians
      has observed, as a real fact, not as a figure of rhetoric, that
      the well before the church overflowed with a stream of blood,
      which filled the porticos and the adjacent courts. The writer who
      should impute these tumults solely to a religious principle,
      would betray a very imperfect knowledge of human nature; yet it
      must be confessed that the motive which misled the sincerity of
      zeal, and the pretence which disguised the licentiousness of
      passion, suppressed the remorse which, in another cause, would
      have succeeded to the rage of the Christians at Constantinople.
      153

      150 (return) [ Cucusus was the last stage of his life and
      sufferings. The situation of that lonely town, on the confines of
      Cappadocia, Cilicia, and the Lesser Armenia, has occasioned some
      geographical perplexity; but we are directed to the true spot by
      the course of the Roman road from C¾sarea to Anazarbus. See
      Cellarii Geograph. tom. ii. p. 213. Wesseling ad Itinerar. p.
      179, 703.]

      151 (return) [ Athanasius (tom. i. p. 703, 813, 814) affirms, in
      the most positive terms, that Paul was murdered; and appeals, not
      only to common fame, but even to the unsuspicious testimony of
      Philagrius, one of the Arian persecutors. Yet he acknowledges
      that the heretics attributed to disease the death of the bishop
      of Constantinople. Athanasius is servilely copied by Socrates,
      (l. ii. c. 26;) but Sozomen, who discovers a more liberal temper.
      presumes (l. iv. c. 2) to insinuate a prudent doubt.]

      152 (return) [ Ammianus (xiv. 10) refers to his own account of
      this tragic event. But we no longer possess that part of his
      history. Note: The murder of Hermogenes took place at the first
      expulsion of Paul from the see of Constantinople.ÑM.]

      153 (return) [ See Socrates, l. ii. c. 6, 7, 12, 13, 15, 16, 26,
      27, 38, and Sozomen, l. iii. 3, 4, 7, 9, l. iv. c. ii. 21. The
      acts of St. Paul of Constantinople, of which Photius has made an
      abstract, (Phot. Bibliot. p. 1419-1430,) are an indifferent copy
      of these historians; but a modern Greek, who could write the life
      of a saint without adding fables and miracles, is entitled to
      some commendation.]




      Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.ÑPart
      VII.


      The cruel and arbitrary disposition of Constantius, which did not
      always require the provocations of guilt and resistance, was
      justly exasperated by the tumults of his capital, and the
      criminal behavior of a faction, which opposed the authority and
      religion of their sovereign. The ordinary punishments of death,
      exile, and confiscation, were inflicted with partial vigor; and
      the Greeks still revere the holy memory of two clerks, a reader,
      and a sub-deacon, who were accused of the murder of Hermogenes,
      and beheaded at the gates of Constantinople. By an edict of
      Constantius against the Catholics which has not been judged
      worthy of a place in the Theodosian code, those who refused to
      communicate with the Arian bishops, and particularly with
      Macedonius, were deprived of the immunities of ecclesiastics, and
      of the rights of Christians; they were compelled to relinquish
      the possession of the churches; and were strictly prohibited from
      holding their assemblies within the walls of the city. The
      execution of this unjust law, in the provinces of Thrace and Asia
      Minor, was committed to the zeal of Macedonius; the civil and
      military powers were directed to obey his commands; and the
      cruelties exercised by this Semi- Arian tyrant in the support of
      the _Homoiousion_, exceeded the commission, and disgraced the
      reign, of Constantius. The sacraments of the church were
      administered to the reluctant victims, who denied the vocation,
      and abhorred the principles, of Macedonius. The rites of baptism
      were conferred on women and children, who, for that purpose, had
      been torn from the arms of their friends and parents; the mouths
      of the communicants were held open by a wooden engine, while the
      consecrated bread was forced down their throat; the breasts of
      tender virgins were either burnt with red-hot egg-shells, or
      inhumanly compressed betweens harp and heavy boards. 154 The
      Novatians of Constantinople and the adjacent country, by their
      firm attachment to the Homoousian standard, deserved to be
      confounded with the Catholics themselves. Macedonius was
      informed, that a large district of Paphlagonia 155 was almost
      entirely inhabited by those sectaries. He resolved either to
      convert or to extirpate them; and as he distrusted, on this
      occasion, the efficacy of an ecclesiastical mission, he commanded
      a body of four thousand legionaries to march against the rebels,
      and to reduce the territory of Mantinium under his spiritual
      dominion. The Novatian peasants, animated by despair and
      religious fury, boldly encountered the invaders of their country;
      and though many of the Paphlagonians were slain, the Roman
      legions were vanquished by an irregular multitude, armed only
      with scythes and axes; and, except a few who escaped by an
      ignominious flight, four thousand soldiers were left dead on the
      field of battle. The successor of Constantius has expressed, in a
      concise but lively manner, some of the theological calamities
      which afflicted the empire, and more especially the East, in the
      reign of a prince who was the slave of his own passions, and of
      those of his eunuchs: ÒMany were imprisoned, and persecuted, and
      driven into exile. Whole troops of those who are styled heretics,
      were massacred, particularly at Cyzicus, and at Samosata. In
      Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Galatia, and in many other provinces,
      towns and villages were laid waste, and utterly destroyed.Ó 156

      154 (return) [ Socrates, l. ii. c. 27, 38. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 21.
      The principal assistants of Macedonius, in the work of
      persecution, were the two bishops of Nicomedia and Cyzicus, who
      were esteemed for their virtues, and especially for their
      charity. I cannot forbear reminding the reader, that the
      difference between the _Homoousion_ and _Homoiousion_, is almost
      invisible to the nicest theological eye.]

      155 (return) [ We are ignorant of the precise situation of
      Mantinium. In speaking of these four bands of legionaries,
      Socrates, Sozomen, and the author of the acts of St. Paul, use
      the indefinite terms of, which Nicephorus very properly
      translates thousands. Vales. ad Socrat. l. ii. c. 38.]

      156 (return) [ Julian. Epist. lii. p. 436, edit. Spanheim.]

      While the flames of the Arian controversy consumed the vitals of
      the empire, the African provinces were infested by their peculiar
      enemies, the savage fanatics, who, under the name of
      _Circumcellions_, formed the strength and scandal of the Donatist
      party. 157 The severe execution of the laws of Constantine had
      excited a spirit of discontent and resistance, the strenuous
      efforts of his son Constans, to restore the unity of the church,
      exasperated the sentiments of mutual hatred, which had first
      occasioned the separation; and the methods of force and
      corruption employed by the two Imperial commissioners, Paul and
      Macarius, furnished the schismatics with a specious contrast
      between the maxims of the apostles and the conduct of their
      pretended successors. 158 The peasants who inhabited the villages
      of Numidia and Mauritania, were a ferocious race, who had been
      imperfectly reduced under the authority of the Roman laws; who
      were imperfectly converted to the Christian faith; but who were
      actuated by a blind and furious enthusiasm in the cause of their
      Donatist teachers. They indignantly supported the exile of their
      bishops, the demolition of their churches, and the interruption
      of their secret assemblies. The violence of the officers of
      justice, who were usually sustained by a military guard, was
      sometimes repelled with equal violence; and the blood of some
      popular ecclesiastics, which had been shed in the quarrel,
      inflamed their rude followers with an eager desire of revenging
      the death of these holy martyrs. By their own cruelty and
      rashness, the ministers of persecution sometimes provoked their
      fate; and the guilt of an accidental tumult precipitated the
      criminals into despair and rebellion. Driven from their native
      villages, the Donatist peasants assembled in formidable gangs on
      the edge of the Getulian desert; and readily exchanged the habits
      of labor for a life of idleness and rapine, which was consecrated
      by the name of religion, and faintly condemned by the doctors of
      the sect. The leaders of the Circumcellions assumed the title of
      captains of the saints; their principal weapon, as they were
      indifferently provided with swords and spears, was a huge and
      weighty club, which they termed an _Israelite;_ and the
      well-known sound of ÒPraise be to God,Ó which they used as their
      cry of war, diffused consternation over the unarmed provinces of
      Africa. At first their depredations were colored by the plea of
      necessity; but they soon exceeded the measure of subsistence,
      indulged without control their intemperance and avarice, burnt
      the villages which they had pillaged, and reigned the licentious
      tyrants of the open country. The occupations of husbandry, and
      the administration of justice, were interrupted; and as the
      Circumcellions pretended to restore the primitive equality of
      mankind, and to reform the abuses of civil society, they opened a
      secure asylum for the slaves and debtors, who flocked in crowds
      to their holy standard. When they were not resisted, they usually
      contented themselves with plunder, but the slightest opposition
      provoked them to acts of violence and murder; and some Catholic
      priests, who had imprudently signalized their zeal, were tortured
      by the fanatics with the most refined and wanton barbarity. The
      spirit of the Circumcellions was not always exerted against their
      defenceless enemies; they engaged, and sometimes defeated, the
      troops of the province; and in the bloody action of Bagai, they
      attacked in the open field, but with unsuccessful valor, an
      advanced guard of the Imperial cavalry. The Donatists who were
      taken in arms, received, and they soon deserved, the same
      treatment which might have been shown to the wild beasts of the
      desert. The captives died, without a murmur, either by the sword,
      the axe, or the fire; and the measures of retaliation were
      multiplied in a rapid proportion, which aggravated the horrors of
      rebellion, and excluded the hope of mutual forgiveness. In the
      beginning of the present century, the example of the
      Circumcellions has been renewed in the persecution, the boldness,
      the crimes, and the enthusiasm of the Camisards; and if the
      fanatics of Languedoc surpassed those of Numidia, by their
      military achievements, the Africans maintained their fierce
      independence with more resolution and perseverance. 159

      157 (return) [ See Optatus Milevitanus, (particularly iii. 4,)
      with the Donatis history, by M. Dupin, and the original pieces at
      the end of his edition. The numerous circumstances which Augustin
      has mentioned, of the fury of the Circumcellions against others,
      and against themselves, have been laboriously collected by
      Tillemont, MŽm. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 147-165; and he has often,
      though without design, exposed injuries which had provoked those
      fanatics.]

      158 (return) [ It is amusing enough to observe the language of
      opposite parties, when they speak of the same men and things.
      Gratus, bishop of Carthage, begins the acclamations of an
      orthodox synod, ÒGratias Deo omnipotenti et Christu Jesu... qui
      imperavit religiosissimo Constanti Imperatori, ut votum gereret
      unitatis, et mitteret ministros sancti operis _famulos Dei_
      Paulum et Macarium.Ó Monument. Vet. ad Calcem Optati, p. 313.
      ÒEcce subito,Ó (says the Donatist author of the Passion of
      Marculus), Òde Constantis regif tyrannica domo.. pollutum
      Macarian¾ persecutionis murmur increpuit, et _duabus bestiis_ ad
      Africam missis, eodem scilicet Macario et Paulo, execrandum
      prorsus ac dirum ecclesi¾ certamen indictum est; ut populus
      Christianus ad unionem cum traditoribus faciendam, nudatis
      militum gladiis et draconum pr¾sentibus signis, et tubarum
      vocibus cogeretur.Ó Monument. p. 304.]

      159 (return) [ The Histoire des Camisards, in 3 vols. 12mo.
      Villefranche, 1760 may be recommended as accurate and impartial.
      It requires some attention to discover the religion of the
      author.]

      Such disorders are the natural effects of religious tyranny, but
      the rage of the Donatists was inflamed by a frenzy of a very
      extraordinary kind; and which, if it really prevailed among them
      in so extravagant a degree, cannot surely be paralleled in any
      country or in any age. Many of these fanatics were possessed with
      the horror of life, and the desire of martyrdom; and they deemed
      it of little moment by what means, or by what hands, they
      perished, if their conduct was sanctified by the intention of
      devoting themselves to the glory of the true faith, and the hope
      of eternal happiness. 160 Sometimes they rudely disturbed the
      festivals, and profaned the temples of Paganism, with the design
      of exciting the most zealous of the idolaters to revenge the
      insulted honor of their gods. They sometimes forced their way
      into the courts of justice, and compelled the affrighted judge to
      give orders for their immediate execution. They frequently
      stopped travellers on the public highways, and obliged them to
      inflict the stroke of martyrdom, by the promise of a reward, if
      they consented, and by the threat of instant death, if they
      refused to grant so very singular a favor. When they were
      disappointed of every other resource, they announced the day on
      which, in the presence of their friends and brethren, they should
      cast themselves headlong from some lofty rock; and many
      precipices were shown, which had acquired fame by the number of
      religious suicides. In the actions of these desperate
      enthusiasts, who were admired by one party as the martyrs of God,
      and abhorred by the other as the victims of Satan, an impartial
      philosopher may discover the influence and the last abuse of that
      inflexible spirit which was originally derived from the character
      and principles of the Jewish nation.

      160 (return) [ The Donatist suicides alleged in their
      justification the example of Razias, which is related in the 14th
      chapter of the second book of the Maccabees.]

      The simple narrative of the intestine divisions, which distracted
      the peace, and dishonored the triumph, of the church, will
      confirm the remark of a Pagan historian, and justify the
      complaint of a venerable bishop. The experience of Ammianus had
      convinced him, that the enmity of the Christians towards each
      other, surpassed the fury of savage beasts against man; 161 and
      Gregory Nazianzen most pathetically laments, that the kingdom of
      heaven was converted, by discord, into the image of chaos, of a
      nocturnal tempest, and of hell itself. 162 The fierce and partial
      writers of the times, ascribing _all_ virtue to themselves, and
      imputing _all_ guilt to their adversaries, have painted the
      battle of the angels and d¾mons. Our calmer reason will reject
      such pure and perfect monsters of vice or sanctity, and will
      impute an equal, or at least an indiscriminate, measure of good
      and evil to the hostile sectaries, who assumed and bestowed the
      appellations of orthodox and heretics. They had been educated in
      the same religion and the same civil society. Their hopes and
      fears in the present, or in a future life, were balanced in the
      same proportion. On either side, the error might be innocent, the
      faith sincere, the practice meritorious or corrupt. Their
      passions were excited by similar objects; and they might
      alternately abuse the favor of the court, or of the people. The
      metaphysical opinions of the Athanasians and the Arians could not
      influence their moral character; and they were alike actuated by
      the intolerant spirit which has been extracted from the pure and
      simple maxims of the gospel.

      161 (return) [ Nullus infestas hominibus bestias, ut sunt sibi
      ferales plerique Christianorum, expertus. Ammian. xxii. 5.]

      162 (return) [ Gregor, Nazianzen, Orav. i. p. 33. See Tillemont,
      tom vi. p. 501, qua to edit.]

      A modern writer, who, with a just confidence, has prefixed to his
      own history the honorable epithets of political and
      philosophical, 163 accuses the timid prudence of Montesquieu, for
      neglecting to enumerate, among the causes of the decline of the
      empire, a law of Constantine, by which the exercise of the Pagan
      worship was absolutely suppressed, and a considerable part of his
      subjects was left destitute of priests, of temples, and of any
      public religion. The zeal of the philosophic historian for the
      rights of mankind, has induced him to acquiesce in the ambiguous
      testimony of those ecclesiastics, who have too lightly ascribed
      to their favorite hero the _merit_ of a general persecution. 164
      Instead of alleging this imaginary law, which would have blazed
      in the front of the Imperial codes, we may safely appeal to the
      original epistle, which Constantine addressed to the followers of
      the ancient religion; at a time when he no longer disguised his
      conversion, nor dreaded the rivals of his throne. He invites and
      exhorts, in the most pressing terms, the subjects of the Roman
      empire to imitate the example of their master; but he declares,
      that those who still refuse to open their eyes to the celestial
      light, may freely enjoy their temples and their fancied gods. A
      report, that the ceremonies of paganism were suppressed, is
      formally contradicted by the emperor himself, who wisely assigns,
      as the principle of his moderation, the invincible force of
      habit, of prejudice, and of superstition. 165 Without violating
      the sanctity of his promise, without alarming the fears of the
      Pagans, the artful monarch advanced, by slow and cautious steps,
      to undermine the irregular and decayed fabric of polytheism. The
      partial acts of severity which he occasionally exercised, though
      they were secretly promoted by a Christian zeal, were colored by
      the fairest pretences of justice and the public good; and while
      Constantine designed to ruin the foundations, he seemed to reform
      the abuses, of the ancient religion. After the example of the
      wisest of his predecessors, he condemned, under the most rigorous
      penalties, the occult and impious arts of divination; which
      excited the vain hopes, and sometimes the criminal attempts, of
      those who were discontented with their present condition. An
      ignominious silence was imposed on the oracles, which had been
      publicly convicted of fraud and falsehood; the effeminate priests
      of the Nile were abolished; and Constantine discharged the duties
      of a Roman censor, when he gave orders for the demolition of
      several temples of PhÏnicia; in which every mode of prostitution
      was devoutly practised in the face of day, and to the honor of
      Venus. 166 The Imperial city of Constantinople was, in some
      measure, raised at the expense, and was adorned with the spoils,
      of the opulent temples of Greece and Asia; the sacred property
      was confiscated; the statues of gods and heroes were transported,
      with rude familiarity, among a people who considered them as
      objects, not of adoration, but of curiosity; the gold and silver
      were restored to circulation; and the magistrates, the bishops,
      and the eunuchs, improved the fortunate occasion of gratifying,
      at once, their zeal, their avarice, and their resentment. But
      these depredations were confined to a small part of the Roman
      world; and the provinces had been long since accustomed to endure
      the same sacrilegious rapine, from the tyranny of princes and
      proconsuls, who could not be suspected of any design to subvert
      the established religion. 167

      163 (return) [ Histoire Politique et Philosophique des
      Etablissemens des Europeens dans les deux Indes, tom. i. p. 9.]

      164 (return) [ According to Eusebius, (in Vit. Constantin. l. ii.
      c. 45,) the emperor prohibited, both in cities and in the
      country, the abominable acts or parts of idolatry. l Socrates (l.
      i. c. 17) and Sozomen (l. ii. c. 4, 5) have represented the
      conduct of Constantine with a just regard to truth and history;
      which has been neglected by Theodoret (l. v. c. 21) and Orosius,
      (vii. 28.) Tum deinde (says the latter) primus Constantinus
      _justo_ ordine et _pio_ vicem vertit edicto; siquidem statuit
      citra ullam hominum c¾dem, paganorum templa claudi.]

      165 (return) [ See Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. ii. c. 56, 60.
      In the sermon to the assembly of saints, which the emperor
      pronounced when he was mature in years and piety, he declares to
      the idolaters (c. xii.) that they are permitted to offer
      sacrifices, and to exercise every part of their religious
      worship.]

      166 (return) [ See Eusebius, in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c.
      54-58, and l. iv. c. 23, 25. These acts of authority may be
      compared with the suppression of the Bacchanals, and the
      demolition of the temple of Isis, by the magistrates of Pagan
      Rome.]

      167 (return) [ Eusebius (in Vit. Constan. l. iii. c. 54-58) and
      Libanius (Orat. pro Templis, p. 9, 10, edit. Gothofred) both
      mention the pious sacrilege of Constantine, which they viewed in
      very different lights. The latter expressly declares, that Òhe
      made use of the sacred money, but made no alteration in the legal
      worship; the temples indeed were impoverished, but the sacred
      rites were performed there.Ó LardnerÕs Jewish and Heathen
      Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 140.]

      The sons of Constantine trod in the footsteps of their father,
      with more zeal, and with less discretion. The pretences of rapine
      and oppression were insensibly multiplied; 168 every indulgence
      was shown to the illegal behavior of the Christians; every doubt
      was explained to the disadvantage of Paganism; and the demolition
      of the temples was celebrated as one of the auspicious events of
      the reign of Constans and Constantius. 169 The name of
      Constantius is prefixed to a concise law, which might have
      superseded the necessity of any future prohibitions. ÒIt is our
      pleasure, that in all places, and in all cities, the temples be
      immediately shut, and carefully guarded, that none may have the
      power of offending. It is likewise our pleasure, that all our
      subjects should abstain from sacrifices. If any one should be
      guilty of such an act, let him feel the sword of vengeance, and
      after his execution, let his property be confiscated to the
      public use. We denounce the same penalties against the governors
      of the provinces, if they neglect to punish the criminals.Ó 170
      But there is the strongest reason to believe, that this
      formidable edict was either composed without being published, or
      was published without being executed. The evidence of facts, and
      the monuments which are still extant of brass and marble,
      continue to prove the public exercise of the Pagan worship during
      the whole reign of the sons of Constantine. In the East, as well
      as in the West, in cities, as well as in the country, a great
      number of temples were respected, or at least were spared; and
      the devout multitude still enjoyed the luxury of sacrifices, of
      festivals, and of processions, by the permission, or by the
      connivance, of the civil government. About four years after the
      supposed date of this bloody edict, Constantius visited the
      temples of Rome; and the decency of his behavior is recommended
      by a pagan orator as an example worthy of the imitation of
      succeeding princes. ÒThat emperor,Ó says Symmachus, Òsuffered the
      privileges of the vestal virgins to remain inviolate; he bestowed
      the sacerdotal dignities on the nobles of Rome, granted the
      customary allowance to defray the expenses of the public rites
      and sacrifices; and, though he had embraced a different religion,
      he never attempted to deprive the empire of the sacred worship of
      antiquity.Ó 171 The senate still presumed to consecrate, by
      solemn decrees, the _divine_ memory of their sovereigns; and
      Constantine himself was associated, after his death, to those
      gods whom he had renounced and insulted during his life. The
      title, the ensigns, the prerogatives, of sovereign pontiff, which
      had been instituted by Numa, and assumed by Augustus, were
      accepted, without hesitation, by seven Christian emperors; who
      were invested with a more absolute authority over the religion
      which they had deserted, than over that which they professed. 172

      168 (return) [ Ammianus (xxii. 4) speaks of some court eunuchs
      who were spoliis templorum pasti. Libanius says (Orat. pro Templ.
      p. 23) that the emperor often gave away a temple, like a dog, or
      a horse, or a slave, or a gold cup; but the devout philosopher
      takes care to observe that these sacrilegious favorites very
      seldom prospered.]

      169 (return) [ See Gothofred. Cod. Theodos. tom. vi. p. 262.
      Liban. Orat. Parental c. x. in Fabric. Bibl. Gr¾c. tom. vii. p.
      235.]

      170 (return) [ Placuit omnibus locis atque urbibus universis
      claudi protinus empla, et accessu vetitis omnibus licentiam
      delinquendi perditis abnegari. Volumus etiam cunctos a
      sacrificiis abstinere. Quod siquis aliquid forte hujusmodi
      perpetraverit, gladio sternatur: facultates etiam perempti fisco
      decernimus vindicari: et similiter adfligi rectores provinciarum
      si facinora vindicare neglexerint. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x.
      leg. 4. Chronology has discovered some contradiction in the date
      of this extravagant law; the only one, perhaps, by which the
      negligence of magistrates is punished by death and confiscation.
      M. de la Bastie (MŽm. de lÕAcadŽmie, tom. xv. p. 98) conjectures,
      with a show of reason, that this was no more than the minutes of
      a law, the heads of an intended bill, which were found in
      Scriniis Memori¾ among the papers of Constantius, and afterwards
      inserted, as a worthy model, in the Theodosian Code.]

      171 (return) [ Symmach. Epistol. x. 54.]

      172 (return) [ The fourth Dissertation of M. de la Bastie, sur le
      Souverain Pontificat des Empereurs Romains, (in the MŽm. de
      lÕAcad. tom. xv. p. 75- 144,) is a very learned and judicious
      performance, which explains the state, and prove the toleration,
      of Paganism from Constantino to Gratian. The assertion of
      Zosimus, that Gratian was the first who refused the pontifical
      robe, is confirmed beyond a doubt; and the murmurs of bigotry on
      that subject are almost silenced.]

      The divisions of Christianity suspended the ruin of _Paganism;_
      173 and the holy war against the infidels was less vigorously
      prosecuted by princes and bishops, who were more immediately
      alarmed by the guilt and danger of domestic rebellion. The
      extirpation of _idolatry_ 174 might have been justified by the
      established principles of intolerance: but the hostile sects,
      which alternately reigned in the Imperial court were mutually
      apprehensive of alienating, and perhaps exasperating, the minds
      of a powerful, though declining faction. Every motive of
      authority and fashion, of interest and reason, now militated on
      the side of Christianity; but two or three generations elapsed,
      before their victorious influence was universally felt. The
      religion which had so long and so lately been established in the
      Roman empire was still revered by a numerous people, less
      attached indeed to speculative opinion, than to ancient custom.
      The honors of the state and army were indifferently bestowed on
      all the subjects of Constantine and Constantius; and a
      considerable portion of knowledge and wealth and valor was still
      engaged in the service of polytheism. The superstition of the
      senator and of the peasant, of the poet and the philosopher, was
      derived from very different causes, but they met with equal
      devotion in the temples of the gods. Their zeal was insensibly
      provoked by the insulting triumph of a proscribed sect; and their
      hopes were revived by the well-grounded confidence, that the
      presumptive heir of the empire, a young and valiant hero, who had
      delivered Gaul from the arms of the Barbarians, had secretly
      embraced the religion of his ancestors.

      173 (return) [ As I have freely anticipated the use of _pagans_
      and _paganism_, I shall now trace the singular revolutions of
      those celebrated words. 1. in the Doric dialect, so familiar to
      the Italians, signifies a fountain; and the rural neighborhood,
      which frequented the same fountain, derived the common
      appellation of _pagus_ and _pagans_. (Festus sub voce, and
      Servius ad Virgil. Georgic. ii. 382.) 2. By an easy extension of
      the word, pagan and rural became almost synonymous, (Plin. Hist.
      Natur. xxviii. 5;) and the meaner rustics acquired that name,
      which has been corrupted into _peasants_ in the modern languages
      of Europe. 3. The amazing increase of the military order
      introduced the necessity of a correlative term, (HumeÕs Essays,
      vol. i. p. 555;) and all the _people_ who were not enlisted in
      the service of the prince were branded with the contemptuous
      epithets of pagans. (Tacit. Hist. iii. 24, 43, 77. Juvenal.
      Satir. 16. Tertullian de Pallio, c. 4.) 4. The Christians were
      the soldiers of Christ; their adversaries, who refused his
      _sacrament_, or military oath of baptism might deserve the
      metaphorical name of pagans; and this popular reproach was
      introduced as early as the reign of Valentinian (A. D. 365) into
      Imperial laws (Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 18) and
      theological writings. 5. Christianity gradually filled the cities
      of the empire: the old religion, in the time of Prudentius
      (advers. Symmachum, l. i. ad fin.) and Orosius, (in Pr¾fat.
      Hist.,) retired and languished in obscure villages; and the word
      _pagans_, with its new signification, reverted to its primitive
      origin. 6. Since the worship of Jupiter and his family has
      expired, the vacant title of pagans has been successively applied
      to all the idolaters and polytheists of the old and new world. 7.
      The Latin Christians bestowed it, without scruple, on their
      mortal enemies, the Mahometans; and the purest _Unitarians_ were
      branded with the unjust reproach of idolatry and paganism. See
      Gerard Vossius, Etymologicon Lingu¾ Latin¾, in his works, tom. i.
      p. 420; GodefroyÕs Commentary on the Theodosian Code, tom. vi. p.
      250; and Ducange, Medi¾ et Infim¾ Latinitat. Glossar.]

      174 (return) [ In the pure language of Ionia and Athens were
      ancient and familiar words. The former expressed a likeness, an
      apparition (Homer. Odys. xi. 601,) a representation, an _image_,
      created either by fancy or art. The latter denoted any sort of
      _service_ or slavery. The Jews of Egypt, who translated the
      Hebrew Scriptures, restrained the use of these words (Exod. xx.
      4, 5) to the religious worship of an image. The peculiar idiom of
      the Hellenists, or Grecian Jews, has been adopted by the sacred
      and ecclesiastical writers and the reproach of _idolatry_ has
      stigmatized that visible and abject mode of superstition, which
      some sects of Christianity should not hastily impute to the
      polytheists of Greece and Rome.]




      Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.ÑPart I.

     Julian Is Declared Emperor By The Legions Of Gaul.ÑHis March And
     Success.ÑThe Death Of Constantius.ÑCivil Administration Of Julian.


      While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of
      eunuchs and bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with
      transport in every part of the empire, except in the palace of
      Constantius. The barbarians of Germany had felt, and still
      dreaded, the arms of the young C¾sar; his soldiers were the
      companions of his victory; the grateful provincials enjoyed the
      blessings of his reign; but the favorites, who had opposed his
      elevation, were offended by his virtues; and they justly
      considered the friend of the people as the enemy of the court. As
      long as the fame of Julian was doubtful, the buffoons of the
      palace, who were skilled in the language of satire, tried the
      efficacy of those arts which they had so often practised with
      success. They easily discovered, that his simplicity was not
      exempt from affectation: the ridiculous epithets of a hairy
      savage, of an ape invested with the purple, were applied to the
      dress and person of the philosophic warrior; and his modest
      despatches were stigmatized as the vain and elaborate fictions of
      a loquacious Greek, a speculative soldier, who had studied the
      art of war amidst the groves of the academy. 1 The voice of
      malicious folly was at length silenced by the shouts of victory;
      the conqueror of the Franks and Alemanni could no longer be
      painted as an object of contempt; and the monarch himself was
      meanly ambitious of stealing from his lieutenant the honorable
      reward of his labors. In the letters crowned with laurel, which,
      according to ancient custom, were addressed to the provinces, the
      name of Julian was omitted. ÒConstantius had made his
      dispositions in person; _he_ had signalized his valor in the
      foremost ranks; _his_ military conduct had secured the victory;
      and the captive king of the barbarians was presented to _him_ on
      the field of battle,Ó from which he was at that time distant
      about forty daysÕ journey. 2 So extravagant a fable was
      incapable, however, of deceiving the public credulity, or even of
      satisfying the pride of the emperor himself. Secretly conscious
      that the applause and favor of the Romans accompanied the rising
      fortunes of Julian, his discontented mind was prepared to receive
      the subtle poison of those artful sycophants, who colored their
      mischievous designs with the fairest appearances of truth and
      candor. 3 Instead of depreciating the merits of Julian, they
      acknowledged, and even exaggerated, his popular fame, superior
      talents, and important services. But they darkly insinuated, that
      the virtues of the C¾sar might instantly be converted into the
      most dangerous crimes, if the inconstant multitude should prefer
      their inclinations to their duty; or if the general of a
      victorious army should be tempted from his allegiance by the
      hopes of revenge and independent greatness. The personal fears of
      Constantius were interpreted by his council as a laudable anxiety
      for the public safety; whilst in private, and perhaps in his own
      breast, he disguised, under the less odious appellation of fear,
      the sentiments of hatred and envy, which he had secretly
      conceived for the inimitable virtues of Julian.

      1 (return) [ Omnes qui plus poterant in palatio, adulandi
      professores jam docti, recte consulta, prospereque completa
      vertebant in deridiculum: talia sine modo strepentes insulse; in
      odium venit cum victoriis suis; capella, non homo; ut hirsutum
      Julianum carpentes, appellantesque loquacem talpam, et purpuratam
      simiam, et litterionem Gr¾cum: et his congruentia plurima atque
      vernacula principi resonantes, audire h¾c taliaque gestienti,
      virtutes ejus obruere verbis impudentibus conabantur, et segnem
      incessentes et timidum et umbratilem, gestaque secus verbis
      comptioribus exornantem. Ammianus, s. xvii. 11. * Note: The
      philosophers retaliated on the courtiers. Marius (says Eunapius
      in a newly-discovered fragment) was wont to call his antagonist
      Sylla a beast half lion and half fox. Constantius had nothing of
      the lion, but was surrounded by a whole litter of foxes. Mai.
      Script. Byz. Nov. Col. ii. 238. Niebuhr. Byzant. Hist. 66.ÑM.]

      2 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 12. The orator Themistius (iv. p. 56,
      57) believed whatever was contained in the Imperial letters,
      which were addressed to the senate of Constantinople Aurelius
      Victor, who published his Abridgment in the last year of
      Constantius, ascribes the German victories to the _wisdom_ of the
      emperor, and the _fortune_ of the C¾sar. Yet the historian, soon
      afterwards, was indebted to the favor or esteem of Julian for the
      honor of a brass statue, and the important offices of consular of
      the second Pannonia, and pr¾fect of the city, Ammian. xxi. 10.]

      3 (return) [ Callido nocendi artificio, accusatoriam diritatem
      laudum titulis peragebant. .. H¾ voces fuerunt ad inflammanda
      odia probria omnibus potentiores. See Mamertin, in Actione
      Gratiarum in Vet Panegyr. xi. 5, 6.]

      The apparent tranquillity of Gaul, and the imminent danger of the
      eastern provinces, offered a specious pretence for the design
      which was artfully concerted by the Imperial ministers. They
      resolved to disarm the C¾sar; to recall those faithful troops who
      guarded his person and dignity; and to employ, in a distant war
      against the Persian monarch, the hardy veterans who had
      vanquished, on the banks of the Rhine, the fiercest nations of
      Germany. While Julian used the laborious hours of his winter
      quarters at Paris in the administration of power, which, in his
      hands, was the exercise of virtue, he was surprised by the hasty
      arrival of a tribune and a notary, with positive orders, from the
      emperor, which _they_ were directed to execute, and _he_ was
      commanded not to oppose. Constantius signified his pleasure, that
      four entire legions, the Celt¾, and Petulants, the Heruli, and
      the Batavians, should be separated from the standard of Julian,
      under which they had acquired their fame and discipline; that in
      each of the remaining bands three hundred of the bravest youths
      should be selected; and that this numerous detachment, the
      strength of the Gallic army, should instantly begin their march,
      and exert their utmost diligence to arrive, before the opening of
      the campaign, on the frontiers of Persia. 4 The C¾sar foresaw and
      lamented the consequences of this fatal mandate. Most of the
      auxiliaries, who engaged their voluntary service, had stipulated,
      that they should never be obliged to pass the Alps. The public
      faith of Rome, and the personal honor of Julian, had been pledged
      for the observance of this condition. Such an act of treachery
      and oppression would destroy the confidence, and excite the
      resentment, of the independent warriors of Germany, who
      considered truth as the noblest of their virtues, and freedom as
      the most valuable of their possessions. The legionaries, who
      enjoyed the title and privileges of Romans, were enlisted for the
      general defence of the republic; but those mercenary troops heard
      with cold indifference the antiquated names of the republic and
      of Rome. Attached, either from birth or long habit, to the
      climate and manners of Gaul, they loved and admired Julian; they
      despised, and perhaps hated, the emperor; they dreaded the
      laborious march, the Persian arrows, and the burning deserts of
      Asia. They claimed as their own the country which they had saved;
      and excused their want of spirit, by pleading the sacred and more
      immediate duty of protecting their families and friends.

      The apprehensions of the Gauls were derived from the knowledge of
      the impending and inevitable danger. As soon as the provinces
      were exhausted of their military strength, the Germans would
      violate a treaty which had been imposed on their fears; and
      notwithstanding the abilities and valor of Julian, the general of
      a nominal army, to whom the public calamities would be imputed,
      must find himself, after a vain resistance, either a prisoner in
      the camp of the barbarians, or a criminal in the palace of
      Constantius. If Julian complied with the orders which he had
      received, he subscribed his own destruction, and that of a people
      who deserved his affection. But a positive refusal was an act of
      rebellion, and a declaration of war. The inexorable jealousy of
      the emperor, the peremptory, and perhaps insidious, nature of his
      commands, left not any room for a fair apology, or candid
      interpretation; and the dependent station of the C¾sar scarcely
      allowed him to pause or to deliberate. Solitude increased the
      perplexity of Julian; he could no longer apply to the faithful
      counsels of Sallust, who had been removed from his office by the
      judicious malice of the eunuchs: he could not even enforce his
      representations by the concurrence of the ministers, who would
      have been afraid or ashamed to approve the ruin of Gaul. The
      moment had been chosen, when Lupicinus, 5 the general of the
      cavalry, was despatched into Britain, to repulse the inroads of
      the Scots and Picts; and Florentius was occupied at Vienna by the
      assessment of the tribute. The latter, a crafty and corrupt
      statesman, declining to assume a responsible part on this
      dangerous occasion, eluded the pressing and repeated invitations
      of Julian, who represented to him, that in every important
      measure, the presence of the pr¾fect was indispensable in the
      council of the prince. In the mean while the C¾sar was oppressed
      by the rude and importunate solicitations of the Imperial
      messengers, who presumed to suggest, that if he expected the
      return of his ministers, he would charge himself with the guilt
      of the delay, and reserve for them the merit of the execution.
      Unable to resist, unwilling to comply, Julian expressed, in the
      most serious terms, his wish, and even his intention, of
      resigning the purple, which he could not preserve with honor, but
      which he could not abdicate with safety.

      4 (return) [ The minute interval, which may be interposed,
      between the _hyeme adult‰_ and the _primo vere_ of Ammianus, (xx.
      l. 4,) instead of allowing a sufficient space for a march of
      three thousand miles, would render the orders of Constantius as
      extravagant as they were unjust. The troops of Gaul could not
      have reached Syria till the end of autumn. The memory of Ammianus
      must have been inaccurate, and his language incorrect. * Note:
      The late editor of Ammianus attempts to vindicate his author from
      the charge of inaccuracy. ÒIt is clear, from the whole course of
      the narrative, that Constantius entertained this design of
      demanding his troops from Julian, immediately after the taking of
      Amida, in the autumn of the preceding year, and had transmitted
      his orders into Gaul, before it was known that Lupicinus had gone
      into Britain with the Herulians and Batavians.Ó Wagner, note to
      Amm. xx. 4. But it seems also clear that the troops were in
      winter quarters (hiemabant) when the orders arrived. Ammianus can
      scarcely be acquitted of incorrectness in his language at
      least.ÑM]

      5 (return) [ Ammianus, xx. l. The valor of Lupicinus, and his
      military skill, are acknowledged by the historian, who, in his
      affected language, accuses the general of exalting the horns of
      his pride, bellowing in a tragic tone, and exciting a doubt
      whether he was more cruel or avaricious. The danger from the
      Scots and Picts was so serious that Julian himself had some
      thoughts of passing over into the island.]

      After a painful conflict, Julian was compelled to acknowledge,
      that obedience was the virtue of the most eminent subject, and
      that the sovereign alone was entitled to judge of the public
      welfare. He issued the necessary orders for carrying into
      execution the commands of Constantius; a part of the troops began
      their march for the Alps; and the detachments from the several
      garrisons moved towards their respective places of assembly. They
      advanced with difficulty through the trembling and affrighted
      crowds of provincials, who attempted to excite their pity by
      silent despair, or loud lamentations, while the wives of the
      soldiers, holding their infants in their arms, accused the
      desertion of their husbands, in the mixed language of grief, of
      tenderness, and of indignation. This scene of general distress
      afflicted the humanity of the C¾sar; he granted a sufficient
      number of post-wagons to transport the wives and families of the
      soldiers, 6 endeavored to alleviate the hardships which he was
      constrained to inflict, and increased, by the most laudable arts,
      his own popularity, and the discontent of the exiled troops. The
      grief of an armed multitude is soon converted into rage; their
      licentious murmurs, which every hour were communicated from tent
      to tent with more boldness and effect, prepared their minds for
      the most daring acts of sedition; and by the connivance of their
      tribunes, a seasonable libel was secretly dispersed, which
      painted in lively colors the disgrace of the C¾sar, the
      oppression of the Gallic army, and the feeble vices of the tyrant
      of Asia. The servants of Constantius were astonished and alarmed
      by the progress of this dangerous spirit. They pressed the C¾sar
      to hasten the departure of the troops; but they imprudently
      rejected the honest and judicious advice of Julian; who proposed
      that they should not march through Paris, and suggested the
      danger and temptation of a last interview.

      6 (return) [ He granted them the permission of the _cursus
      clavularis_, or _clabularis_. These post-wagons are often
      mentioned in the Code, and were supposed to carry fifteen hundred
      pounds weight. See Vales. ad Ammian. xx. 4.]

      As soon as the approach of the troops was announced, the C¾sar
      went out to meet them, and ascended his tribunal, which had been
      erected in a plain before the gates of the city. After
      distinguishing the officers and soldiers, who by their rank or
      merit deserved a peculiar attention, Julian addressed himself in
      a studied oration to the surrounding multitude: he celebrated
      their exploits with grateful applause; encouraged them to accept,
      with alacrity, the honor of serving under the eye of a powerful
      and liberal monarch; and admonished them, that the commands of
      Augustus required an instant and cheerful obedience. The
      soldiers, who were apprehensive of offending their general by an
      indecent clamor, or of belying their sentiments by false and
      venal acclamations, maintained an obstinate silence; and after a
      short pause, were dismissed to their quarters. The principal
      officers were entertained by the C¾sar, who professed, in the
      warmest language of friendship, his desire and his inability to
      reward, according to their deserts, the brave companions of his
      victories. They retired from the feast, full of grief and
      perplexity; and lamented the hardship of their fate, which tore
      them from their beloved general and their native country. The
      only expedient which could prevent their separation was boldly
      agitated and approved; the popular resentment was insensibly
      moulded into a regular conspiracy; their just reasons of
      complaint were heightened by passion, and their passions were
      inflamed by wine; as, on the eve of their departure, the troops
      were indulged in licentious festivity. At the hour of midnight,
      the impetuous multitude, with swords, and bows, and torches in
      their hands, rushed into the suburbs; encompassed the palace; 7
      and, careless of future dangers, pronounced the fatal and
      irrevocable words, Julian Augustus! The prince, whose anxious
      suspense was interrupted by their disorderly acclamations,
      secured the doors against their intrusion; and as long as it was
      in his power, secluded his person and dignity from the accidents
      of a nocturnal tumult. At the dawn of day, the soldiers, whose
      zeal was irritated by opposition, forcibly entered the palace,
      seized, with respectful violence, the object of their choice,
      guarded Julian with drawn swords through the streets of Paris,
      placed him on the tribunal, and with repeated shouts saluted him
      as their emperor. Prudence, as well as loyalty, inculcated the
      propriety of resisting their treasonable designs; and of
      preparing, for his oppressed virtue, the excuse of violence.
      Addressing himself by turns to the multitude and to individuals,
      he sometimes implored their mercy, and sometimes expressed his
      indignation; conjured them not to sully the fame of their
      immortal victories; and ventured to promise, that if they would
      immediately return to their allegiance, he would undertake to
      obtain from the emperor not only a free and gracious pardon, but
      even the revocation of the orders which had excited their
      resentment. But the soldiers, who were conscious of their guilt,
      chose rather to depend on the gratitude of Julian, than on the
      clemency of the emperor. Their zeal was insensibly turned into
      impatience, and their impatience into rage. The inflexible C¾sar
      sustained, till the third hour of the day, their prayers, their
      reproaches, and their menaces; nor did he yield, till he had been
      repeatedly assured, that if he wished to live, he must consent to
      reign. He was exalted on a shield in the presence, and amidst the
      unanimous acclamations, of the troops; a rich military collar,
      which was offered by chance, supplied the want of a diadem; 8 the
      ceremony was concluded by the promise of a moderate donative; and
      the new emperor, overwhelmed with real or affected grief retired
      into the most secret recesses of his apartment. 10

      7 (return) [ Most probably the palace of the baths,
      (_Thermarum_,) of which a solid and lofty hall still subsists in
      the _Rue de la Harpe_. The buildings covered a considerable space
      of the modern quarter of the university; and the gardens, under
      the Merovingian kings, communicated with the abbey of St. Germain
      des Prez. By the injuries of time and the Normans, this ancient
      palace was reduced, in the twelfth century, to a maze of ruins,
      whose dark recesses were the scene of licentious love.

     Explicat aula sinus montemque amplectitur alis; Multiplici latebra
     scelerum tersura ruborem. .... pereuntis s¾pe pudoris Celatura
     nefas, Venerisque accommoda furtis.

      (These lines are quoted from the Architrenius, l. iv. c. 8, a
      poetical work of John de Hauteville, or Hanville, a monk of St.
      AlbanÕs, about the year 1190. See WartonÕs History of English
      Poetry, vol. i. dissert. ii.) Yet such _thefts_ might be less
      pernicious to mankind than the theological disputes of the
      Sorbonne, which have been since agitated on the same ground.
      Bonamy, MŽm. de lÕAcadŽmie, tom. xv. p. 678-632]

      8 (return) [ Even in this tumultuous moment, Julian attended to
      the forms of superstitious ceremony, and obstinately refused the
      inauspicious use of a female necklace, or a horse collar, which
      the impatient soldiers would have employed in the room of a
      diadem. ----An equal proportion of gold and silver, five pieces
      of the former one pound of the latter; the whole amounting to
      about five pounds ten shillings of our money.]

      10 (return) [ For the whole narrative of this revolt, we may
      appeal to authentic and original materials; Julian himself, (ad
      S. P. Q. Atheniensem, p. 282, 283, 284,) Libanius, (Orat.
      Parental. c. 44-48, in Fabricius, Bibliot. Gr¾c. tom. vii. p.
      269-273,) Ammianus, (xx. 4,) and Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 151, 152,
      153.) who, in the reign of Julian, appears to follow the more
      respectable authority of Eunapius. With such guides we _might_
      neglect the abbreviators and ecclesiastical historians.]

      The grief of Julian could proceed only from his innocence; out
      his innocence must appear extremely doubtful 11 in the eyes of
      those who have learned to suspect the motives and the professions
      of princes. His lively and active mind was susceptible of the
      various impressions of hope and fear, of gratitude and revenge,
      of duty and of ambition, of the love of fame, and of the fear of
      reproach. But it is impossible for us to calculate the respective
      weight and operation of these sentiments; or to ascertain the
      principles of action which might escape the observation, while
      they guided, or rather impelled, the steps of Julian himself. The
      discontent of the troops was produced by the malice of his
      enemies; their tumult was the natural effect of interest and of
      passion; and if Julian had tried to conceal a deep design under
      the appearances of chance, he must have employed the most
      consummate artifice without necessity, and probably without
      success. He solemnly declares, in the presence of Jupiter, of the
      Sun, of Mars, of Minerva, and of all the other deities, that till
      the close of the evening which preceded his elevation, he was
      utterly ignorant of the designs of the soldiers; 12 and it may
      seem ungenerous to distrust the honor of a hero and the truth of
      a philosopher. Yet the superstitious confidence that Constantius
      was the enemy, and that he himself was the favorite, of the gods,
      might prompt him to desire, to solicit, and even to hasten the
      auspicious moment of his reign, which was predestined to restore
      the ancient religion of mankind. When Julian had received the
      intelligence of the conspiracy, he resigned himself to a short
      slumber; and afterwards related to his friends that he had seen
      the genius of the empire waiting with some impatience at his
      door, pressing for admittance, and reproaching his want of spirit
      and ambition. 13 Astonished and perplexed, he addressed his
      prayers to the great Jupiter, who immediately signified, by a
      clear and manifest omen, that he should submit to the will of
      heaven and of the army. The conduct which disclaims the ordinary
      maxims of reason, excites our suspicion and eludes our inquiry.
      Whenever the spirit of fanaticism, at once so credulous and so
      crafty, has insinuated itself into a noble mind, it insensibly
      corrodes the vital principles of virtue and veracity.

      11 (return) [ Eutropius, a respectable witness, uses a doubtful
      expression, Òconsensu militum.Ó (x. 15.) Gregory Nazianzen, whose
      ignorance night excuse his fanaticism, directly charges the
      apostate with presumption, madness, and impious rebellion, Orat.
      iii. p. 67.]

      12 (return) [ Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 284. The _devout_
      AbbŽ de la Bleterie (Vie de Julien, p. 159) is almost inclined to
      respect the _devout_ protestations of a Pagan.]

      13 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 5, with the note of Lindenbrogius on
      the Genius of the empire. Julian himself, in a confidential
      letter to his friend and physician, Oribasius, (Epist. xvii. p.
      384,) mentions another dream, to which, before the event, he gave
      credit; of a stately tree thrown to the ground, of a small plant
      striking a deep root into the earth. Even in his sleep, the mind
      of the C¾sar must have been agitated by the hopes and fears of
      his fortune. Zosimus (l. iii. p. 155) relates a subsequent
      dream.]

      To moderate the zeal of his party, to protect the persons of his
      enemies, 14 to defeat and to despise the secret enterprises which
      were formed against his life and dignity, were the cares which
      employed the first days of the reign of the new emperor. Although
      he was firmly resolved to maintain the station which he had
      assumed, he was still desirous of saving his country from the
      calamities of civil war, of declining a contest with the superior
      forces of Constantius, and of preserving his own character from
      the reproach of perfidy and ingratitude. Adorned with the ensigns
      of military and imperial pomp, Julian showed himself in the field
      of Mars to the soldiers, who glowed with ardent enthusiasm in the
      cause of their pupil, their leader, and their friend. He
      recapitulated their victories, lamented their sufferings,
      applauded their resolution, animated their hopes, and checked
      their impetuosity; nor did he dismiss the assembly, till he had
      obtained a solemn promise from the troops, that if the emperor of
      the East would subscribe an equitable treaty, they would renounce
      any views of conquest, and satisfy themselves with the tranquil
      possession of the Gallic provinces. On this foundation he
      composed, in his own name, and in that of the army, a specious
      and moderate epistle, 15 which was delivered to Pentadius, his
      master of the offices, and to his chamberlain Eutherius; two
      ambassadors whom he appointed to receive the answer, and observe
      the dispositions of Constantius. This epistle is inscribed with
      the modest appellation of C¾sar; but Julian solicits in a
      peremptory, though respectful, manner, the confirmation of the
      title of Augustus. He acknowledges the irregularity of his own
      election, while he justifies, in some measure, the resentment and
      violence of the troops which had extorted his reluctant consent.
      He allows the supremacy of his brother Constantius; and engages
      to send him an annual present of Spanish horses, to recruit his
      army with a select number of barbarian youths, and to accept from
      his choice a Pr¾torian pr¾fect of approved discretion and
      fidelity. But he reserves for himself the nomination of his other
      civil and military officers, with the troops, the revenue, and
      the sovereignty of the provinces beyond the Alps. He admonishes
      the emperor to consult the dictates of justice; to distrust the
      arts of those venal flatterers, who subsist only by the discord
      of princes; and to embrace the offer of a fair and honorable
      treaty, equally advantageous to the republic and to the house of
      Constantine. In this negotiation Julian claimed no more than he
      already possessed. The delegated authority which he had long
      exercised over the provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, was
      still obeyed under a name more independent and august. The
      soldiers and the people rejoiced in a revolution which was not
      stained even with the blood of the guilty. Florentius was a
      fugitive; Lupicinus a prisoner. The persons who were disaffected
      to the new government were disarmed and secured; and the vacant
      offices were distributed, according to the recommendation of
      merit, by a prince who despised the intrigues of the palace, and
      the clamors of the soldiers. 16

      14 (return) [ The difficult situation of the prince of a
      rebellious army is finely described by Tacitus, (Hist. 1, 80-85.)
      But Otho had much more guilt, and much less abilities, than
      Julian.]

      15 (return) [ To this ostensible epistle he added, says Ammianus,
      private letters, objurgatorias et mordaces, which the historian
      had not seen, and would not have published. Perhaps they never
      existed.]

      16 (return) [ See the first transactions of his reign, in Julian.
      ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 285, 286. Ammianus, xx. 5, 8. Liban. Orat.
      Parent. c. 49, 50, p. 273-275.]

      The negotiations of peace were accompanied and supported by the
      most vigorous preparations for war. The army, which Julian held
      in readiness for immediate action, was recruited and augmented by
      the disorders of the times. The cruel persecutions of the faction
      of Magnentius had filled Gaul with numerous bands of outlaws and
      robbers. They cheerfully accepted the offer of a general pardon
      from a prince whom they could trust, submitted to the restraints
      of military discipline, and retained only their implacable hatred
      to the person and government of Constantius. 17 As soon as the
      season of the year permitted Julian to take the field, he
      appeared at the head of his legions; threw a bridge over the
      Rhine in the neighborhood of Cleves; and prepared to chastise the
      perfidy of the Attuarii, a tribe of Franks, who presumed that
      they might ravage, with impunity, the frontiers of a divided
      empire. The difficulty, as well as glory, of this enterprise,
      consisted in a laborious march; and Julian had conquered, as soon
      as he could penetrate into a country, which former princes had
      considered as inaccessible. After he had given peace to the
      Barbarians, the emperor carefully visited the fortifications
      along the Qhine from Cleves to Basil; surveyed, with peculiar
      attention, the territories which he had recovered from the hands
      of the Alemanni, passed through Besanon, 18 which had severely
      suffered from their fury, and fixed his headquarters at Vienna
      for the ensuing winter. The barrier of Gaul was improved and
      strengthened with additional fortifications; and Julian
      entertained some hopes that the Germans, whom he had so often
      vanquished, might, in his absence, be restrained by the terror of
      his name. Vadomair 19 was the only prince of the Alemanni whom he
      esteemed or feared and while the subtle Barbarian affected to
      observe the faith of treaties, the progress of his arms
      threatened the state with an unseasonable and dangerous war. The
      policy of Julian condescended to surprise the prince of the
      Alemanni by his own arts: and Vadomair, who, in the character of
      a friend, had incautiously accepted an invitation from the Roman
      governors, was seized in the midst of the entertainment, and sent
      away prisoner into the heart of Spain. Before the Barbarians were
      recovered from their amazement, the emperor appeared in arms on
      the banks of the Rhine, and, once more crossing the river,
      renewed the deep impressions of terror and respect which had been
      already made by four preceding expeditions. 20

      17 (return) [ Liban. Orat. Parent. c. 50, p. 275, 276. A strange
      disorder, since it continued above seven years. In the factions
      of the Greek republics, the exiles amounted to 20,000 persons;
      and Isocrates assures Philip, that it would be easier to raise an
      army from the vagabonds than from the cities. See HumeÕs Essays,
      tom. i. p. 426, 427.]

      18 (return) [ Julian (Epist. xxxviii. p. 414) gives a short
      description of Vesontio, or Besanon; a rocky peninsula almost
      encircled by the River Doux; once a magnificent city, filled with
      temples, &c., now reduced to a small town, emerging, however,
      from its ruins.]

      19 (return) [ Vadomair entered into the Roman service, and was
      promoted from a barbarian kingdom to the military rank of duke of
      PhÏnicia. He still retained the same artful character, (Ammian.
      xxi. 4;) but under the reign of Valens, he signalized his valor
      in the Armenian war, (xxix. 1.)]

      20 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 10, xxi. 3, 4. Zosimus, l. iii. p.
      155.]




      Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.ÑPart II.


      The ambassadors of Julian had been instructed to execute, with
      the utmost diligence, their important commission. But, in their
      passage through Italy and Illyricum, they were detained by the
      tedious and affected delays of the provincial governors; they
      were conducted by slow journeys from Constantinople to C¾sarea in
      Cappadocia; and when at length they were admitted to the presence
      of Constantius, they found that he had already conceived, from
      the despatches of his own officers, the most unfavorable opinion
      of the conduct of Julian, and of the Gallic army. The letters
      were heard with impatience; the trembling messengers were
      dismissed with indignation and contempt; and the looks, gestures,
      the furious language of the monarch, expressed the disorder of
      his soul. The domestic connection, which might have reconciled
      the brother and the husband of Helena, was recently dissolved by
      the death of that princess, whose pregnancy had been several
      times fruitless, and was at last fatal to herself. 21 The empress
      Eusebia had preserved, to the last moment of her life, the warm,
      and even jealous, affection which she had conceived for Julian;
      and her mild influence might have moderated the resentment of a
      prince, who, since her death, was abandoned to his own passions,
      and to the arts of his eunuchs. But the terror of a foreign
      invasion obliged him to suspend the punishment of a private
      enemy: he continued his march towards the confines of Persia, and
      thought it sufficient to signify the conditions which might
      entitle Julian and his guilty followers to the clemency of their
      offended sovereign. He required, that the presumptuous C¾sar
      should expressly renounce the appellation and rank of Augustus,
      which he had accepted from the rebels; that he should descend to
      his former station of a limited and dependent minister; that he
      should vest the powers of the state and army in the hands of
      those officers who were appointed by the Imperial court; and that
      he should trust his safety to the assurances of pardon, which
      were announced by Epictetus, a Gallic bishop, and one of the
      Arian favorites of Constantius. Several months were ineffectually
      consumed in a treaty which was negotiated at the distance of
      three thousand miles between Paris and Antioch; and, as soon as
      Julian perceived that his modest and respectful behavior served
      only to irritate the pride of an implacable adversary, he boldly
      resolved to commit his life and fortune to the chance of a civil
      war. He gave a public and military audience to the qu¾stor
      Leonas: the haughty epistle of Constantius was read to the
      attentive multitude; and Julian protested, with the most
      flattering deference, that he was ready to resign the title of
      Augustus, if he could obtain the consent of those whom he
      acknowledged as the authors of his elevation. The faint proposal
      was impetuously silenced; and the acclamations of ÒJulian
      Augustus, continue to reign, by the authority of the army, of the
      people, of the republic which you have saved,Ó thundered at once
      from every part of the field, and terrified the pale ambassador
      of Constantius. A part of the letter was afterwards read, in
      which the emperor arraigned the ingratitude of Julian, whom he
      had invested with the honors of the purple; whom he had educated
      with so much care and tenderness; whom he had preserved in his
      infancy, when he was left a helpless orphan.

      ÒAn orphan!Ó interrupted Julian, who justified his cause by
      indulging his passions: Òdoes the assassin of my family reproach
      me that I was left an orphan? He urges me to revenge those
      injuries which I have long studied to forget.Ó The assembly was
      dismissed; and Leonas, who, with some difficulty, had been
      protected from the popular fury, was sent back to his master with
      an epistle, in which Julian expressed, in a strain of the most
      vehement eloquence, the sentiments of contempt, of hatred, and of
      resentment, which had been suppressed and imbittered by the
      dissimulation of twenty years. After this message, which might be
      considered as a signal of irreconcilable war, Julian, who, some
      weeks before, had celebrated the Christian festival of the
      Epiphany, 22 made a public declaration that he committed the care
      of his safety to the Immortal Gods; and thus publicly renounced
      the religion as well as the friendship of Constantius. 23

      21 (return) [ Her remains were sent to Rome, and interred near
      those of her sister Constantina, in the suburb of the _Via
      Nomentana_. Ammian. xxi. 1. Libanius has composed a very weak
      apology, to justify his hero from a very absurd charge of
      poisoning his wife, and rewarding her physician with his motherÕs
      jewels. (See the seventh of seventeen new orations, published at
      Venice, 1754, from a MS. in St. MarkÕs Library, p. 117-127.)
      Elpidius, the Pr¾torian pr¾fect of the East, to whose evidence
      the accuser of Julian appeals, is arraigned by Libanius, as
      _effeminate_ and ungrateful; yet the religion of Elpidius is
      praised by Jerom, (tom. i. p. 243,) and his Ammianus (xxi. 6.)]

      22 (return) [ Feriarum die quem celebrantes mense Januario,
      Christiani _Epiphania_ dictitant, progressus in eorum ecclesiam,
      solemniter numine orato discessit. Ammian. xxi. 2. Zonaras
      observes, that it was on Christmas day, and his assertion is not
      inconsistent; since the churches of Egypt, Asia, and perhaps
      Gaul, celebrated on the same day (the sixth of January) the
      nativity and the baptism of their Savior. The Romans, as ignorant
      as their brethren of the real date of his birth, fixed the solemn
      festival to the 25th of December, the _Brumalia_, or winter
      solstice, when the Pagans annually celebrated the birth of the
      sun. See BinghamÕs Antiquities of the Christian Church, l. xx. c.
      4, and Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheismo tom. ii. p.
      690-700.]

      23 (return) [ The public and secret negotiations between
      Constantius and Julian must be extracted, with some caution, from
      Julian himself. (Orat. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286.) Libanius,
      (Orat. Parent. c. 51, p. 276,) Ammianus, (xx. 9,) Zosimus, (l.
      iii. p. 154,) and even Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 20, 21,
      22,) who, on this occasion, appears to have possessed and used
      some valuable materials.]

      The situation of Julian required a vigorous and immediate
      resolution. He had discovered, from intercepted letters, that his
      adversary, sacrificing the interest of the state to that of the
      monarch, had again excited the Barbarians to invade the provinces
      of the West. The position of two magazines, one of them collected
      on the banks of the Lake of Constance, the other formed at the
      foot of the Cottian Alps, seemed to indicate the march of two
      armies; and the size of those magazines, each of which consisted
      of six hundred thousand quarters of wheat, or rather flour, 24
      was a threatening evidence of the strength and numbers of the
      enemy who prepared to surround him. But the Imperial legions were
      still in their distant quarters of Asia; the Danube was feebly
      guarded; and if Julian could occupy, by a sudden incursion, the
      important provinces of Illyricum, he might expect that a people
      of soldiers would resort to his standard, and that the rich mines
      of gold and silver would contribute to the expenses of the civil
      war. He proposed this bold enterprise to the assembly of the
      soldiers; inspired them with a just confidence in their general,
      and in themselves; and exhorted them to maintain their reputation
      of being terrible to the enemy, moderate to their
      fellow-citizens, and obedient to their officers. His spirited
      discourse was received with the loudest acclamations, and the
      same troops which had taken up arms against Constantius, when he
      summoned them to leave Gaul, now declared with alacrity, that
      they would follow Julian to the farthest extremities of Europe or
      Asia. The oath of fidelity was administered; and the soldiers,
      clashing their shields, and pointing their drawn swords to their
      throats, devoted themselves, with horrid imprecations, to the
      service of a leader whom they celebrated as the deliverer of Gaul
      and the conqueror of the Germans. 25 This solemn engagement,
      which seemed to be dictated by affection rather than by duty, was
      singly opposed by Nebridius, who had been admitted to the office
      of Pr¾torian pr¾fect. That faithful minister, alone and
      unassisted, asserted the rights of Constantius, in the midst of
      an armed and angry multitude, to whose fury he had almost fallen
      an honorable, but useless sacrifice. After losing one of his
      hands by the stroke of a sword, he embraced the knees of the
      prince whom he had offended. Julian covered the pr¾fect with his
      Imperial mantle, and, protecting him from the zeal of his
      followers, dismissed him to his own house, with less respect than
      was perhaps due to the virtue of an enemy. 26 The high office of
      Nebridius was bestowed on Sallust; and the provinces of Gaul,
      which were now delivered from the intolerable oppression of
      taxes, enjoyed the mild and equitable administration of the
      friend of Julian, who was permitted to practise those virtues
      which he had instilled into the mind of his pupil. 27

      24 (return) [ Three hundred myriads, or three millions of
      _medimni_, a corn measure familiar to the Athenians, and which
      contained six Roman _modii_. Julian explains, like a soldier and
      a statesman, the danger of his situation, and the necessity and
      advantages of an offensive war, (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286,
      287.)]

      25 (return) [ See his oration, and the behavior of the troops, in
      Ammian. xxi. 5.]

      26 (return) [ He sternly refused his hand to the suppliant
      pr¾fect, whom he sent into Tuscany. (Ammian. xxi. 5.) Libanius,
      with savage fury, insults Nebridius, applauds the soldiers, and
      almost censures the humanity of Julian. (Orat. Parent. c. 53, p.
      278.)]

      27 (return) [ Ammian. xxi. 8. In this promotion, Julian obeyed
      the law which he publicly imposed on himself. Neque civilis
      quisquam judex nec militaris rector, alio quodam pr¾ter merita
      suffragante, ad potiorem veniat gradum. (Ammian. xx. 5.) Absence
      did not weaken his regard for Sallust, with whose name (A. D.
      363) he honored the consulship.]

      The hopes of Julian depended much less on the number of his
      troops, than on the celerity of his motions. In the execution of
      a daring enterprise, he availed himself of every precaution, as
      far as prudence could suggest; and where prudence could no longer
      accompany his steps, he trusted the event to valor and to
      fortune. In the neighborhood of Basil he assembled and divided
      his army. 28 One body, which consisted of ten thousand men, was
      directed under the command of Nevitta, general of the cavalry, to
      advance through the midland parts of Rh¾tia and Noricum. A
      similar division of troops, under the orders of Jovius and
      Jovinus, prepared to follow the oblique course of the highways,
      through the Alps, and the northern confines of Italy. The
      instructions to the generals were conceived with energy and
      precision: to hasten their march in close and compact columns,
      which, according to the disposition of the ground, might readily
      be changed into any order of battle; to secure themselves against
      the surprises of the night by strong posts and vigilant guards;
      to prevent resistance by their unexpected arrival; to elude
      examination by their sudden departure; to spread the opinion of
      their strength, and the terror of his name; and to join their
      sovereign under the walls of Sirmium. For himself Julian had
      reserved a more difficult and extraordinary part. He selected
      three thousand brave and active volunteers, resolved, like their
      leader, to cast behind them every hope of a retreat; at the head
      of this faithful band, he fearlessly plunged into the recesses of
      the Marcian, or Black Forest, which conceals the sources of the
      Danube; 29 and, for many days, the fate of Julian was unknown to
      the world. The secrecy of his march, his diligence, and vigor,
      surmounted every obstacle; he forced his way over mountains and
      morasses, occupied the bridges or swam the rivers, pursued his
      direct course, 30 without reflecting whether he traversed the
      territory of the Romans or of the Barbarians, and at length
      emerged, between Ratisbon and Vienna, at the place where he
      designed to embark his troops on the Danube. By a well-concerted
      stratagem, he seized a fleet of light brigantines, 31 as it lay
      at anchor; secured a apply of coarse provisions sufficient to
      satisfy the indelicate, and voracious, appetite of a Gallic army;
      and boldly committed himself to the stream of the Danube. The
      labors of the mariners, who plied their oars with incessant
      diligence, and the steady continuance of a favorable wind,
      carried his fleet above seven hundred miles in eleven days; 32
      and he had already disembarked his troops at Bononia, 3211 only
      nineteen miles from Sirmium, before his enemies could receive any
      certain intelligence that he had left the banks of the Rhine. In
      the course of this long and rapid navigation, the mind of Julian
      was fixed on the object of his enterprise; and though he accepted
      the deputations of some cities, which hastened to claim the merit
      of an early submission, he passed before the hostile stations,
      which were placed along the river, without indulging the
      temptation of signalizing a useless and ill-timed valor. The
      banks of the Danube were crowded on either side with spectators,
      who gazed on the military pomp, anticipated the importance of the
      event, and diffused through the adjacent country the fame of a
      young hero, who advanced with more than mortal speed at the head
      of the innumerable forces of the West. Lucilian, who, with the
      rank of general of the cavalry, commanded the military powers of
      Illyricum, was alarmed and perplexed by the doubtful reports,
      which he could neither reject nor believe. He had taken some slow
      and irresolute measures for the purpose of collecting his troops,
      when he was surprised by Dagalaiphus, an active officer, whom
      Julian, as soon as he landed at Bononia, had pushed forwards with
      some light infantry. The captive general, uncertain of his life
      or death, was hastily thrown upon a horse, and conducted to the
      presence of Julian; who kindly raised him from the ground, and
      dispelled the terror and amazement which seemed to stupefy his
      faculties. But Lucilian had no sooner recovered his spirits, than
      he betrayed his want of discretion, by presuming to admonish his
      conqueror that he had rashly ventured, with a handful of men, to
      expose his person in the midst of his enemies. ÒReserve for your
      master Constantius these timid remonstrances,Ó replied Julian,
      with a smile of contempt: Òwhen I gave you my purple to kiss, I
      received you not as a counsellor, but as a suppliant.Ó Conscious
      that success alone could justify his attempt, and that boldness
      only could command success, he instantly advanced, at the head of
      three thousand soldiers, to attack the strongest and most
      populous city of the Illyrian provinces. As he entered the long
      suburb of Sirmium, he was received by the joyful acclamations of
      the army and people; who, crowned with flowers, and holding
      lighted tapers in their hands, conducted their acknowledged
      sovereign to his Imperial residence. Two days were devoted to the
      public joy, which was celebrated by the games of the circus; but,
      early on the morning of the third day, Julian marched to occupy
      the narrow pass of Succi, in the defiles of Mount H¾mus; which,
      almost in the midway between Sirmium and Constantinople,
      separates the provinces of Thrace and Dacia, by an abrupt descent
      towards the former, and a gentle declivity on the side of the
      latter. 33 The defence of this important post was intrusted to
      the brave Nevitta; who, as well as the generals of the Italian
      division, successfully executed the plan of the march and
      junction which their master had so ably conceived. 34

      28 (return) [ Ammianus (xxi. 8) ascribes the same practice, and
      the same motive, to Alexander the Great and other skilful
      generals.]

      29 (return) [ This wood was a part of the great Hercynian forest,
      which, is the time of C¾sar, stretched away from the country of
      the Rauraci (Basil) into the boundless regions of the north. See
      Cluver, Germania Antiqua. l. iii. c. 47.]

      30 (return) [ Compare Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 53, p. 278, 279,
      with Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 68. Even the saint admires
      the speed and secrecy of this march. A modern divine might apply
      to the progress of Julian the lines which were originally
      designed for another apostate:Ñ

     ÑSo eagerly the fiend, OÕer bog, or steep, through strait, rough,
     dense, or rare, With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
     And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.]

      31 (return) [ In that interval the _Notitia_ places two or three
      fleets, the Lauriacensis, (at Lauriacum, or Lorch,) the
      Arlapensis, the Maginensis; and mentions five legions, or
      cohorts, of Libernarii, who should be a sort of marines. Sect.
      lviii. edit. Labb.]

      32 (return) [ Zosimus alone (l. iii. p. 156) has specified this
      interesting circumstance. Mamertinus, (in Panegyr. Vet. xi. 6, 7,
      8,) who accompanied Julian, as count of the sacred largesses,
      describes this voyage in a florid and picturesque manner,
      challenges Triptolemus and the Argonauts of Greece, &c.]

      3211 (return) [ Banostar. _Mannert_.ÑM.]

      33 (return) [ The description of Ammianus, which might be
      supported by collateral evidence, ascertains the precise
      situation of the _Angusti¾ Succorum_, or passes of _Succi_. M.
      dÕAnville, from the trifling resemblance of names, has placed
      them between Sardica and Naissus. For my own justification I am
      obliged to mention the _only_ error which I have discovered in
      the maps or writings of that admirable geographer.]

      34 (return) [ Whatever circumstances we may borrow elsewhere,
      Ammianus (xx. 8, 9, 10) still supplies the series of the
      narrative.]

      The homage which Julian obtained, from the fears or the
      inclination of the people, extended far beyond the immediate
      effect of his arms. 35 The pr¾fectures of Italy and Illyricum
      were administered by Taurus and Florentius, who united that
      important office with the vain honors of the consulship; and as
      those magistrates had retired with precipitation to the court of
      Asia, Julian, who could not always restrain the levity of his
      temper, stigmatized their flight by adding, in all the Acts of
      the Year, the epithet of _fugitive_ to the names of the two
      consuls. The provinces which had been deserted by their first
      magistrates acknowledged the authority of an emperor, who,
      conciliating the qualities of a soldier with those of a
      philosopher, was equally admired in the camps of the Danube and
      in the cities of Greece. From his palace, or, more properly, from
      his head-quarters of Sirmium and Naissus, he distributed to the
      principal cities of the empire, a labored apology for his own
      conduct; published the secret despatches of Constantius; and
      solicited the judgment of mankind between two competitors, the
      one of whom had expelled, and the other had invited, the
      Barbarians. 36 Julian, whose mind was deeply wounded by the
      reproach of ingratitude, aspired to maintain, by argument as well
      as by arms, the superior merits of his cause; and to excel, not
      only in the arts of war, but in those of composition. His epistle
      to the senate and people of Athens 37 seems to have been dictated
      by an elegant enthusiasm; which prompted him to submit his
      actions and his motives to the degenerate Athenians of his own
      times, with the same humble deference as if he had been pleading,
      in the days of Aristides, before the tribunal of the Areopagus.
      His application to the senate of Rome, which was still permitted
      to bestow the titles of Imperial power, was agreeable to the
      forms of the expiring republic. An assembly was summoned by
      Tertullus, pr¾fect of the city; the epistle of Julian was read;
      and, as he appeared to be master of Italy his claims were
      admitted without a dissenting voice. His oblique censure of the
      innovations of Constantine, and his passionate invective against
      the vices of Constantius, were heard with less satisfaction; and
      the senate, as if Julian had been present, unanimously exclaimed,
      ÒRespect, we beseech you, the author of your own fortune.Ó 38 An
      artful expression, which, according to the chance of war, might
      be differently explained; as a manly reproof of the ingratitude
      of the usurper, or as a flattering confession, that a single act
      of such benefit to the state ought to atone for all the failings
      of Constantius.

      35 (return) [ Ammian. xxi. 9, 10. Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 54,
      p. 279, 280. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 156, 157.]

      36 (return) [ Julian (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286) positively
      asserts, that he intercepted the letters of Constantius to the
      Barbarians; and Libanius as positively affirms, that he read them
      on his march to the troops and the cities. Yet Ammianus (xxi. 4)
      expresses himself with cool and candid hesitation, si _fam¾
      solius_ admittenda est fides. He specifies, however, an
      intercepted letter from Vadomair to Constantius, which supposes
      an intimate correspondence between them. Òdisciplinam non
      habet.Ó]

      37 (return) [ Zosimus mentions his epistles to the Athenians, the
      Corinthians, and the Laced¾monians. The substance was probably
      the same, though the address was properly varied. The epistle to
      the Athenians is still extant, (p. 268-287,) and has afforded
      much valuable information. It deserves the praises of the AbbŽ de
      la Bleterie, (Pref. a lÕHistoire de Jovien, p. 24, 25,) and is
      one of the best manifestoes to be found in any language.]

      38 (return) [ _Auctori tuo reverentiam rogamus_. Ammian. xxi. 10.
      It is amusing enough to observe the secret conflicts of the
      senate between flattery and fear. See Tacit. Hist. i. 85.]

      The intelligence of the march and rapid progress of Julian was
      speedily transmitted to his rival, who, by the retreat of Sapor,
      had obtained some respite from the Persian war. Disguising the
      anguish of his soul under the semblance of contempt, Constantius
      professed his intention of returning into Europe, and of giving
      chase to Julian; for he never spoke of his military expedition in
      any other light than that of a hunting party. 39 In the camp of
      Hierapolis, in Syria, he communicated this design to his army;
      slightly mentioned the guilt and rashness of the C¾sar; and
      ventured to assure them, that if the mutineers of Gaul presumed
      to meet them in the field, they would be unable to sustain the
      fire of their eyes, and the irresistible weight of their shout of
      onset. The speech of the emperor was received with military
      applause, and Theodotus, the president of the council of
      Hierapolis, requested, with tears of adulation, that _his_ city
      might be adorned with the head of the vanquished rebel. 40 A
      chosen detachment was despatched away in post-wagons, to secure,
      if it were yet possible, the pass of Succi; the recruits, the
      horses, the arms, and the magazines, which had been prepared
      against Sapor, were appropriated to the service of the civil war;
      and the domestic victories of Constantius inspired his partisans
      with the most sanguine assurances of success. The notary
      Gaudentius had occupied in his name the provinces of Africa; the
      subsistence of Rome was intercepted; and the distress of Julian
      was increased by an unexpected event, which might have been
      productive of fatal consequences. Julian had received the
      submission of two legions and a cohort of archers, who were
      stationed at Sirmium; but he suspected, with reason, the fidelity
      of those troops which had been distinguished by the emperor; and
      it was thought expedient, under the pretence of the exposed state
      of the Gallic frontier, to dismiss them from the most important
      scene of action. They advanced, with reluctance, as far as the
      confines of Italy; but as they dreaded the length of the way, and
      the savage fierceness of the Germans, they resolved, by the
      instigation of one of their tribunes, to halt at Aquileia, and to
      erect the banners of Constantius on the walls of that impregnable
      city. The vigilance of Julian perceived at once the extent of the
      mischief, and the necessity of applying an immediate remedy. By
      his order, Jovinus led back a part of the army into Italy; and
      the siege of Aquileia was formed with diligence, and prosecuted
      with vigor. But the legionaries, who seemed to have rejected the
      yoke of discipline, conducted the defence of the place with skill
      and perseverance; vited the rest of Italy to imitate the example
      of their courage and loyalty; and threatened the retreat of
      Julian, if he should be forced to yield to the superior numbers
      of the armies of the East. 41

      39 (return) [ Tanquam venaticiam pr¾dam caperet: hoc enim ad
      Jeniendum suorum metum subinde pr¾dicabat. Ammian. xxii. 7.]

      40 (return) [ See the speech and preparations in Ammianus, xxi.
      13. The vile Theodotus afterwards implored and obtained his
      pardon from the merciful conqueror, who signified his wish of
      diminishing his enemies and increasing the numbers of his
      friends, (xxii. 14.)]

      41 (return) [ Ammian. xxi. 7, 11, 12. He seems to describe, with
      superfluous labor, the operations of the siege of Aquileia,
      which, on this occasion, maintained its impregnable fame. Gregory
      Nazianzen (Orat. iii. p. 68) ascribes this accidental revolt to
      the wisdom of Constantius, whose assured victory he announces
      with some appearance of truth. Constantio quem credebat procul
      dubio fore victorem; nemo enim omnium tunc ab hac constanti
      sententia discrepebat. Ammian. xxi. 7.]

      But the humanity of Julian was preserved from the cruel
      alternative which he pathetically laments, of destroying or of
      being himself destroyed: and the seasonable death of Constantius
      delivered the Roman empire from the calamities of civil war. The
      approach of winter could not detain the monarch at Antioch; and
      his favorites durst not oppose his impatient desire of revenge. A
      slight fever, which was perhaps occasioned by the agitation of
      his spirits, was increased by the fatigues of the journey; and
      Constantius was obliged to halt at the little town of Mopsucrene,
      twelve miles beyond Tarsus, where he expired, after a short
      illness, in the forty-fifth year of his age, and the
      twenty-fourth of his reign. 42 His genuine character, which was
      composed of pride and weakness, of superstition and cruelty, has
      been fully displayed in the preceding narrative of civil and
      ecclesiastical events. The long abuse of power rendered him a
      considerable object in the eyes of his contemporaries; but as
      personal merit can alone deserve the notice of posterity, the
      last of the sons of Constantine may be dismissed from the world,
      with the remark, that he inherited the defects, without the
      abilities, of his father. Before Constantius expired, he is said
      to have named Julian for his successor; nor does it seem
      improbable, that his anxious concern for the fate of a young and
      tender wife, whom he left with child, may have prevailed, in his
      last moments, over the harsher passions of hatred and revenge.
      Eusebius, and his guilty associates, made a faint attempt to
      prolong the reign of the eunuchs, by the election of another
      emperor; but their intrigues were rejected with disdain, by an
      army which now abhorred the thought of civil discord; and two
      officers of rank were instantly despatched, to assure Julian,
      that every sword in the empire would be drawn for his service.
      The military designs of that prince, who had formed three
      different attacks against Thrace, were prevented by this
      fortunate event. Without shedding the blood of his
      fellow-citizens, he escaped the dangers of a doubtful conflict,
      and acquired the advantages of a complete victory. Impatient to
      visit the place of his birth, and the new capital of the empire,
      he advanced from Naissus through the mountains of H¾mus, and the
      cities of Thrace. When he reached Heraclea, at the distance of
      sixty miles, all Constantinople was poured forth to receive him;
      and he made his triumphal entry amidst the dutiful acclamations
      of the soldiers, the people, and the senate. An innumerable
      multitude pressed around him with eager respect and were perhaps
      disappointed when they beheld the small stature and simple garb
      of a hero, whose unexperienced youth had vanquished the
      Barbarians of Germany, and who had now traversed, in a successful
      career, the whole continent of Europe, from the shores of the
      Atlantic to those of the Bosphorus. 43 A few days afterwards,
      when the remains of the deceased emperor were landed in the
      harbor, the subjects of Julian applauded the real or affected
      humanity of their sovereign. On foot, without his diadem, and
      clothed in a mourning habit, he accompanied the funeral as far as
      the church of the Holy Apostles, where the body was deposited:
      and if these marks of respect may be interpreted as a selfish
      tribute to the birth and dignity of his Imperial kinsman, the
      tears of Julian professed to the world that he had forgot the
      injuries, and remembered only the obligations, which he had
      received from Constantius. 44 As soon as the legions of Aquileia
      were assured of the death of the emperor, they opened the gates
      of the city, and, by the sacrifice of their guilty leaders,
      obtained an easy pardon from the prudence or lenity of Julian;
      who, in the thirty-second year of his age, acquired the
      undisputed possession of the Roman empire. 45

      42 (return) [ His death and character are faithfully delineated
      by Ammianus, (xxi. 14, 15, 16;) and we are authorized to despise
      and detest the foolish calumny of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 68,)
      who accuses Julian of contriving the death of his benefactor. The
      private repentance of the emperor, that he had spared and
      promoted Julian, (p. 69, and Orat. xxi. p. 389,) is not
      improbable in itself, nor incompatible with the public verbal
      testament which prudential considerations might dictate in the
      last moments of his life. Note: Wagner thinks this sudden change
      of sentiment altogether a fiction of the attendant courtiers and
      chiefs of the army. who up to this time had been hostile to
      Julian. Note in loco Ammian.ÑM.]

      43 (return) [ In describing the triumph of Julian, Ammianus
      (xxii. l, 2) assumes the lofty tone of an orator or poet; while
      Libanius (Orat. Parent, c. 56, p. 281) sinks to the grave
      simplicity of an historian.]

      44 (return) [ The funeral of Constantius is described by
      Ammianus, (xxi. 16.) Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 119,)
      Mamertinus, in (Panegyr. Vet. xi. 27,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent.
      c. lvi. p. 283,) and Philostorgius, (l. vi. c. 6, with GodefroyÕs
      Dissertations, p. 265.) These writers, and their followers,
      Pagans, Catholics, Arians, beheld with very different eyes both
      the dead and the living emperor.]

      45 (return) [ The day and year of the birth of Julian are not
      perfectly ascertained. The day is probably the sixth of November,
      and the year must be either 331 or 332. Tillemont, Hist. des
      Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 693. Ducange, Fam. Byzantin. p. 50. I have
      preferred the earlier date.]




      Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.ÑPart III.


      Philosophy had instructed Julian to compare the advantages of
      action and retirement; but the elevation of his birth, and the
      accidents of his life, never allowed him the freedom of choice.
      He might perhaps sincerely have preferred the groves of the
      academy, and the society of Athens; but he was constrained, at
      first by the will, and afterwards by the injustice, of
      Constantius, to expose his person and fame to the dangers of
      Imperial greatness; and to make himself accountable to the world,
      and to posterity, for the happiness of millions. 46 Julian
      recollected with terror the observation of his master Plato, 47
      that the government of our flocks and herds is always committed
      to beings of a superior species; and that the conduct of nations
      requires and deserves the celestial powers of the gods or of the
      genii. From this principle he justly concluded, that the man who
      presumes to reign, should aspire to the perfection of the divine
      nature; that he should purify his soul from her mortal and
      terrestrial part; that he should extinguish his appetites,
      enlighten his understanding, regulate his passions, and subdue
      the wild beast, which, according to the lively metaphor of
      Aristotle, 48 seldom fails to ascend the throne of a despot. The
      throne of Julian, which the death of Constantius fixed on an
      independent basis, was the seat of reason, of virtue, and perhaps
      of vanity. He despised the honors, renounced the pleasures, and
      discharged with incessant diligence the duties, of his exalted
      station; and there were few among his subjects who would have
      consented to relieve him from the weight of the diadem, had they
      been obliged to submit their time and their actions to the
      rigorous laws which that philosophic emperor imposed on himself.
      One of his most intimate friends, 49 who had often shared the
      frugal simplicity of his table, has remarked, that his light and
      sparing diet (which was usually of the vegetable kind) left his
      mind and body always free and active, for the various and
      important business of an author, a pontiff, a magistrate, a
      general, and a prince. In one and the same day, he gave audience
      to several ambassadors, and wrote, or dictated, a great number of
      letters to his generals, his civil magistrates, his private
      friends, and the different cities of his dominions. He listened
      to the memorials which had been received, considered the subject
      of the petitions, and signified his intentions more rapidly than
      they could be taken in short-hand by the diligence of his
      secretaries. He possessed such flexibility of thought, and such
      firmness of attention, that he could employ his hand to write,
      his ear to listen, and his voice to dictate; and pursue at once
      three several trains of ideas without hesitation, and without
      error. While his ministers reposed, the prince flew with agility
      from one labor to another, and, after a hasty dinner, retired
      into his library, till the public business, which he had
      appointed for the evening, summoned him to interrupt the
      prosecution of his studies. The supper of the emperor was still
      less substantial than the former meal; his sleep was never
      clouded by the fumes of indigestion; and except in the short
      interval of a marriage, which was the effect of policy rather
      than love, the chaste Julian never shared his bed with a female
      companion. 50 He was soon awakened by the entrance of fresh
      secretaries, who had slept the preceding day; and his servants
      were obliged to wait alternately while their indefatigable master
      allowed himself scarcely any other refreshment than the change of
      occupation. The predecessors of Julian, his uncle, his brother,
      and his cousin, indulged their puerile taste for the games of the
      Circus, under the specious pretence of complying with the
      inclinations of the people; and they frequently remained the
      greatest part of the day as idle spectators, and as a part of the
      splendid spectacle, till the ordinary round of twenty-four races
      51 was completely finished. On solemn festivals, Julian, who felt
      and professed an unfashionable dislike to these frivolous
      amusements, condescended to appear in the Circus; and after
      bestowing a careless glance at five or six of the races, he
      hastily withdrew with the impatience of a philosopher, who
      considered every moment as lost that was not devoted to the
      advantage of the public or the improvement of his own mind. 52 By
      this avarice of time, he seemed to protract the short duration of
      his reign; and if the dates were less securely ascertained, we
      should refuse to believe, that only sixteen months elapsed
      between the death of Constantius and the departure of his
      successor for the Persian war. The actions of Julian can only be
      preserved by the care of the historian; but the portion of his
      voluminous writings, which is still extant, remains as a monument
      of the application, as well as of the genius, of the emperor. The
      Misopogon, the C¾sars, several of his orations, and his elaborate
      work against the Christian religion, were composed in the long
      nights of the two winters, the former of which he passed at
      Constantinople, and the latter at Antioch.

      46 (return) [ Julian himself (p. 253-267) has expressed these
      philosophical ideas with much eloquence and some affectation, in
      a very elaborate epistle to Themistius. The AbbŽ de la Bleterie,
      (tom. ii. p. 146-193,) who has given an elegant translation, is
      inclined to believe that it was the celebrated Themistius, whose
      orations are still extant.]

      47 (return) [ Julian. ad Themist. p. 258. Petavius (not. p. 95)
      observes that this passage is taken from the fourth book De
      Legibus; but either Julian quoted from memory, or his MSS. were
      different from ours Xenophon opens the Cyrop¾dia with a similar
      reflection.]

      48 (return) [ Aristot. ap. Julian. p. 261. The MS. of Vossius,
      unsatisfied with the single beast, affords the stronger reading
      of which the experience of despotism may warrant.]

      49 (return) [ Libanius (Orat. Parentalis, c. lxxxiv. lxxxv. p.
      310, 311, 312) has given this interesting detail of the private
      life of Julian. He himself (in Misopogon, p. 350) mentions his
      vegetable diet, and upbraids the gross and sensual appetite of
      the people of Antioch.]

      50 (return) [ Lectulus... Vestalium toris purior, is the praise
      which Mamertinus (Panegyr. Vet. xi. 13) addresses to Julian
      himself. Libanius affirms, in sober peremptory language, that
      Julian never knew a woman before his marriage, or after the death
      of his wife, (Orat. Parent. c. lxxxviii. p. 313.) The chastity of
      Julian is confirmed by the impartial testimony of Ammianus, (xxv.
      4,) and the partial silence of the Christians. Yet Julian
      ironically urges the reproach of the people of Antioch, that he
      _almost always_ (in Misopogon, p. 345) lay alone. This suspicious
      expression is explained by the AbbŽ de la Bleterie (Hist. de
      Jovien, tom. ii. p. 103-109) with candor and ingenuity.]

      51 (return) [ See Salmasius ad Sueton in Claud. c. xxi. A
      twenty-fifth race, or _missus_, was added, to complete the number
      of one hundred chariots, four of which, the four colors, started
      each heat.

      Centum quadrijugos agitabo ad flumina currus.

      It appears, that they ran five or seven times round the _Meta_
      (Sueton. in Domitian. c. 4;) and (from the measure of the Circus
      Maximus at Rome, the Hippodrome at Constantinople, &c.) it might
      be about a four mile course.]

      52 (return) [ Julian. in Misopogon, p. 340. Julius C¾sar had
      offended the Roman people by reading his despatches during the
      actual race. Augustus indulged their taste, or his own, by his
      constant attention to the important business of the Circus, for
      which he professed the warmest inclination. Sueton. in August. c.
      xlv.]

      The reformation of the Imperial court was one of the first and
      most necessary acts of the government of Julian. 53 Soon after
      his entrance into the palace of Constantinople, he had occasion
      for the service of a barber. An officer, magnificently dressed,
      immediately presented himself. ÒIt is a barber,Ó exclaimed the
      prince, with affected surprise, Òthat I want, and not a
      receiver-general of the finances.Ó 54 He questioned the man
      concerning the profits of his employment and was informed, that
      besides a large salary, and some valuable perquisites, he enjoyed
      a daily allowance for twenty servants, and as many horses. A
      thousand barbers, a thousand cup-bearers, a thousand cooks, were
      distributed in the several offices of luxury; and the number of
      eunuchs could be compared only with the insects of a summerÕs
      day. The monarch who resigned to his subjects the superiority of
      merit and virtue, was distinguished by the oppressive
      magnificence of his dress, his table, his buildings, and his
      train. The stately palaces erected by Constantine and his sons,
      were decorated with many colored marbles, and ornaments of massy
      gold. The most exquisite dainties were procured, to gratify their
      pride, rather than their taste; birds of the most distant
      climates, fish from the most remote seas, fruits out of their
      natural season, winter roses, and summer snows. 56 The domestic
      crowd of the palace surpassed the expense of the legions; yet the
      smallest part of this costly multitude was subservient to the
      use, or even to the splendor, of the throne. The monarch was
      disgraced, and the people was injured, by the creation and sale
      of an infinite number of obscure, and even titular employments;
      and the most worthless of mankind might purchase the privilege of
      being maintained, without the necessity of labor, from the public
      revenue. The waste of an enormous household, the increase of fees
      and perquisites, which were soon claimed as a lawful debt, and
      the bribes which they extorted from those who feared their
      enmity, or solicited their favor, suddenly enriched these haughty
      menials. They abused their fortune, without considering their
      past, or their future, condition; and their rapine and venality
      could be equalled only by the extravagance of their dissipations.
      Their silken robes were embroidered with gold, their tables were
      served with delicacy and profusion; the houses which they built
      for their own use, would have covered the farm of an ancient
      consul; and the most honorable citizens were obliged to dismount
      from their horses, and respectfully to salute a eunuch whom they
      met on the public highway. The luxury of the palace excited the
      contempt and indignation of Julian, who usually slept on the
      ground, who yielded with reluctance to the indispensable calls of
      nature; and who placed his vanity, not in emulating, but in
      despising, the pomp of royalty.

      53 (return) [ The reformation of the palace is described by
      Ammianus, (xxii. 4,) Libanius, Orat. (Parent. c. lxii. p. 288,
      &c.,) Mamertinus, in Panegyr. (Vet. xi. 11,) Socrates, (l. iii.
      c. l.,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 24.)]

      54 (return) [ Ego non _rationalem_ jussi sed tonsorem acciri.
      Zonaras uses the less natural image of a senator. Yet an officer
      of the finances, who was satisfied with wealth, might desire and
      obtain the honors of the senate.]

      56 (return) [ The expressions of Mamertinus are lively and
      forcible. Quis etiam prandiorum et c¾narum laboratas magnitudines
      Romanus populus sensit; cum qu¾sitissim¾ dapes non gustu sed
      difficultatibus ¾stimarentur; miracula avium, longinqui maris
      pisces, aheni temporis poma, ¾stiv¾ nives, hybern¾ ros¾]

      By the total extirpation of a mischief which was magnified even
      beyond its real extent, he was impatient to relieve the distress,
      and to appease the murmurs of the people; who support with less
      uneasiness the weight of taxes, if they are convinced that the
      fruits of their industry are appropriated to the service of the
      state. But in the execution of this salutary work, Julian is
      accused of proceeding with too much haste and inconsiderate
      severity. By a single edict, he reduced the palace of
      Constantinople to an immense desert, and dismissed with ignominy
      the whole train of slaves and dependants, 57 without providing
      any just, or at least benevolent, exceptions, for the age, the
      services, or the poverty, of the faithful domestics of the
      Imperial family. Such indeed was the temper of Julian, who seldom
      recollected the fundamental maxim of Aristotle, that true virtue
      is placed at an equal distance between the opposite vices.

      The splendid and effeminate dress of the Asiatics, the curls and
      paint, the collars and bracelets, which had appeared so
      ridiculous in the person of Constantine, were consistently
      rejected by his philosophic successor. But with the fopperies,
      Julian affected to renounce the decencies of dress; and seemed to
      value himself for his neglect of the laws of cleanliness. In a
      satirical performance, which was designed for the public eye, the
      emperor descants with pleasure, and even with pride, on the
      length of his nails, and the inky blackness of his hands;
      protests, that although the greatest part of his body was covered
      with hair, the use of the razor was confined to his head alone;
      and celebrates, with visible complacency, the shaggy and
      _populous_ 58 beard, which he fondly cherished, after the example
      of the philosophers of Greece. Had Julian consulted the simple
      dictates of reason, the first magistrate of the Romans would have
      scorned the affectation of Diogenes, as well as that of Darius.

      57 (return) [ Yet Julian himself was accused of bestowing whole
      towns on the eunuchs, (Orat. vii. against Polyclet. p. 117-127.)
      Libanius contents himself with a cold but positive denial of the
      fact, which seems indeed to belong more properly to Constantius.
      This charge, however, may allude to some unknown circumstance.]

      58 (return) [ In the Misopogon (p. 338, 339) he draws a very
      singular picture of himself, and the following words are
      strangely characteristic. The friends of the AbbŽ de la Bleterie
      adjured him, in the name of the French nation, not to translate
      this passage, so offensive to their delicacy, (Hist. de Jovien,
      tom. ii. p. 94.) Like him, I have contented myself with a
      transient allusion; but the little animal which Julian _names_,
      is a beast familiar to man, and signifies love.]

      But the work of public reformation would have remained imperfect,
      if Julian had only corrected the abuses, without punishing the
      crimes, of his predecessorÕs reign. ÒWe are now delivered,Ó says
      he, in a familiar letter to one of his intimate friends, Òwe are
      now surprisingly delivered from the voracious jaws of the Hydra.
      59 I do not mean to apply the epithet to my brother Constantius.
      He is no more; may the earth lie light on his head! But his
      artful and cruel favorites studied to deceive and exasperate a
      prince, whose natural mildness cannot be praised without some
      efforts of adulation. It is not, however, my intention, that even
      those men should be oppressed: they are accused, and they shall
      enjoy the benefit of a fair and impartial trial.Ó To conduct this
      inquiry, Julian named six judges of the highest rank in the state
      and army; and as he wished to escape the reproach of condemning
      his personal enemies, he fixed this extraordinary tribunal at
      Chalcedon, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; and transferred
      to the commissioners an absolute power to pronounce and execute
      their final sentence, without delay, and without appeal. The
      office of president was exercised by the venerable pr¾fect of the
      East, a _second_ Sallust, 60 whose virtues conciliated the esteem
      of Greek sophists, and of Christian bishops. He was assisted by
      the eloquent Mamertinus, 61 one of the consuls elect, whose merit
      is loudly celebrated by the doubtful evidence of his own
      applause. But the civil wisdom of two magistrates was
      overbalanced by the ferocious violence of four generals, Nevitta,
      Agilo, Jovinus, and Arbetio. Arbetio, whom the public would have
      seen with less surprise at the bar than on the bench, was
      supposed to possess the secret of the commission; the armed and
      angry leaders of the Jovian and Herculian bands encompassed the
      tribunal; and the judges were alternately swayed by the laws of
      justice, and by the clamors of faction. 62

      59 (return) [ Julian, epist. xxiii. p. 389. He uses the words in
      writing to his friend Hermogenes, who, like himself, was
      conversant with the Greek poets.]

      60 (return) [ The two Sallusts, the pr¾fect of Gaul, and the
      pr¾fect of the East, must be carefully distinguished, (Hist. des
      Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 696.) I have used the surname of
      _Secundus_, as a convenient epithet. The second Sallust extorted
      the esteem of the Christians themselves; and Gregory Nazianzen,
      who condemned his religion, has celebrated his virtues, (Orat.
      iii. p. 90.) See a curious note of the AbbŽ de la Bleterie, Vie
      de Julien, p. 363. Note: Gibbonus secundum habet pro numero, quod
      tamen est viri agnomen Wagner, nota in loc. Amm. It is not a
      mistake; it is rather an error in taste. Wagner inclines to
      transfer the chief guilt to Arbetio.ÑM.]

      61 (return) [ Mamertinus praises the emperor (xi. l.) for
      bestowing the offices of Treasurer and Pr¾fect on a man of
      wisdom, firmness, integrity, &c., like himself. Yet Ammianus
      ranks him (xxi. l.) among the ministers of Julian, quorum merita
      norat et fidem.]

      62 (return) [ The proceedings of this chamber of justice are
      related by Ammianus, (xxii. 3,) and praised by Libanius, (Orat.
      Parent. c. 74, p. 299, 300.)]

      The chamberlain Eusebius, who had so long abused the favor of
      Constantius, expiated, by an ignominious death, the insolence,
      the corruption, and cruelty of his servile reign. The executions
      of Paul and Apodemius (the former of whom was burnt alive) were
      accepted as an inadequate atonement by the widows and orphans of
      so many hundred Romans, whom those legal tyrants had betrayed and
      murdered. But justice herself (if we may use the pathetic
      expression of Ammianus) 63 appeared to weep over the fate of
      Ursulus, the treasurer of the empire; and his blood accused the
      ingratitude of Julian, whose distress had been seasonably
      relieved by the intrepid liberality of that honest minister. The
      rage of the soldiers, whom he had provoked by his indiscretion,
      was the cause and the excuse of his death; and the emperor,
      deeply wounded by his own reproaches and those of the public,
      offered some consolation to the family of Ursulus, by the
      restitution of his confiscated fortunes. Before the end of the
      year in which they had been adorned with the ensigns of the
      prefecture and consulship, 64 Taurus and Florentius were reduced
      to implore the clemency of the inexorable tribunal of Chalcedon.
      The former was banished to Vercell¾ in Italy, and a sentence of
      death was pronounced against the latter. A wise prince should
      have rewarded the crime of Taurus: the faithful minister, when he
      was no longer able to oppose the progress of a rebel, had taken
      refuge in the court of his benefactor and his lawful sovereign.
      But the guilt of Florentius justified the severity of the judges;
      and his escape served to display the magnanimity of Julian, who
      nobly checked the interested diligence of an informer, and
      refused to learn what place concealed the wretched fugitive from
      his just resentment. 65 Some months after the tribunal of
      Chalcedon had been dissolved, the pr¾torian vicegerent of Africa,
      the notary Gaudentius, and Artemius 66 duke of Egypt, were
      executed at Antioch. Artemius had reigned the cruel and corrupt
      tyrant of a great province; Gaudentius had long practised the
      arts of calumny against the innocent, the virtuous, and even the
      person of Julian himself. Yet the circumstances of their trial
      and condemnation were so unskillfully managed, that these wicked
      men obtained, in the public opinion, the glory of suffering for
      the obstinate loyalty with which they had supported the cause of
      Constantius. The rest of his servants were protected by a general
      act of oblivion; and they were left to enjoy with impunity the
      bribes which they had accepted, either to defend the oppressed,
      or to oppress the friendless. This measure, which, on the
      soundest principles of policy, may deserve our approbation, was
      executed in a manner which seemed to degrade the majesty of the
      throne. Julian was tormented by the importunities of a multitude,
      particularly of Egyptians, who loudly redemanded the gifts which
      they had imprudently or illegally bestowed; he foresaw the
      endless prosecution of vexatious suits; and he engaged a promise,
      which ought always to have been sacred, that if they would repair
      to Chalcedon, he would meet them in person, to hear and determine
      their complaints. But as soon as they were landed, he issued an
      absolute order, which prohibited the watermen from transporting
      any Egyptian to Constantinople; and thus detained his
      disappointed clients on the Asiatic shore till, their patience
      and money being utterly exhausted, they were obliged to return
      with indignant murmurs to their native country. 67

      63 (return) [ Ursuli vero necem ipsa mihi videtur flesse
      justitia. Libanius, who imputes his death to the soldiers,
      attempts to criminate the court of the largesses.]

      64 (return) [ Such respect was still entertained for the
      venerable names of the commonwealth, that the public was
      surprised and scandalized to hear Taurus summoned as a criminal
      under the consulship of Taurus. The summons of his colleague
      Florentius was probably delayed till the commencement of the
      ensuing year.]

      65 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 7.]

      66 (return) [ For the guilt and punishment of Artemius, see
      Julian (Epist. x. p. 379) and Ammianus, (xxii. 6, and Vales, ad
      hoc.) The merit of Artemius, who demolished temples, and was put
      to death by an apostate, has tempted the Greek and Latin churches
      to honor him as a martyr. But as ecclesiastical history attests
      that he was not only a tyrant, but an Arian, it is not altogether
      easy to justify this indiscreet promotion. Tillemont, MŽm.
      Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1319.]

      67 (return) [ See Ammian. xxii. 6, and Vales, ad locum; and the
      Codex Theodosianus, l. ii. tit. xxxix. leg. i.; and GodefroyÕs
      Commentary, tom. i. p. 218, ad locum.]




      Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.ÑPart IV.


      The numerous army of spies, of agents, and informers enlisted by
      Constantius to secure the repose of one man, and to interrupt
      that of millions, was immediately disbanded by his generous
      successor. Julian was slow in his suspicions, and gentle in his
      punishments; and his contempt of treason was the result of
      judgment, of vanity, and of courage. Conscious of superior merit,
      he was persuaded that few among his subjects would dare to meet
      him in the field, to attempt his life, or even to seat themselves
      on his vacant throne. The philosopher could excuse the hasty
      sallies of discontent; and the hero could despise the ambitious
      projects which surpassed the fortune or the abilities of the rash
      conspirators. A citizen of Ancyra had prepared for his own use a
      purple garment; and this indiscreet action, which, under the
      reign of Constantius, would have been considered as a capital
      offence, 68 was reported to Julian by the officious importunity
      of a private enemy. The monarch, after making some inquiry into
      the rank and character of his rival, despatched the informer with
      a present of a pair of purple slippers, to complete the
      magnificence of his Imperial habit. A more dangerous conspiracy
      was formed by ten of the domestic guards, who had resolved to
      assassinate Julian in the field of exercise near Antioch. Their
      intemperance revealed their guilt; and they were conducted in
      chains to the presence of their injured sovereign, who, after a
      lively representation of the wickedness and folly of their
      enterprise, instead of a death of torture, which they deserved
      and expected, pronounced a sentence of exile against the two
      principal offenders. The only instance in which Julian seemed to
      depart from his accustomed clemency, was the execution of a rash
      youth, who, with a feeble hand, had aspired to seize the reins of
      empire. But that youth was the son of Marcellus, the general of
      cavalry, who, in the first campaign of the Gallic war, had
      deserted the standard of the C¾sar and the republic. Without
      appearing to indulge his personal resentment, Julian might easily
      confound the crime of the son and of the father; but he was
      reconciled by the distress of Marcellus, and the liberality of
      the emperor endeavored to heal the wound which had been inflicted
      by the hand of justice. 69

      68 (return) [ The president Montesquieu (Considerations sur la
      Grandeur, &c., des Romains, c. xiv. in his works, tom. iii. p.
      448, 449,) excuses this minute and absurd tyranny, by supposing
      that actions the most indifferent in our eyes might excite, in a
      Roman mind, the idea of guilt and danger. This strange apology is
      supported by a strange misapprehension of the English laws, Òchez
      une nation.... o il est dŽfendu de boire ˆ la santŽ dÕune
      certaine personne.Ó]

      69 (return) [ The clemency of Julian, and the conspiracy which
      was formed against his life at Antioch, are described by Ammianus
      (xxii. 9, 10, and Vales, ad loc.) and Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c.
      99, p. 323.)]

      Julian was not insensible of the advantages of freedom. 70 From
      his studies he had imbibed the spirit of ancient sages and
      heroes; his life and fortunes had depended on the caprice of a
      tyrant; and when he ascended the throne, his pride was sometimes
      mortified by the reflection, that the slaves who would not dare
      to censure his defects were not worthy to applaud his virtues. 71
      He sincerely abhorred the system of Oriental despotism, which
      Diocletian, Constantine, and the patient habits of fourscore
      years, had established in the empire. A motive of superstition
      prevented the execution of the design, which Julian had
      frequently meditated, of relieving his head from the weight of a
      costly diadem; 72 but he absolutely refused the title of
      _Dominus_, or _Lord_, 73 a word which was grown so familiar to
      the ears of the Romans, that they no longer remembered its
      servile and humiliating origin. The office, or rather the name,
      of consul, was cherished by a prince who contemplated with
      reverence the ruins of the republic; and the same behavior which
      had been assumed by the prudence of Augustus was adopted by
      Julian from choice and inclination. On the calends of January, at
      break of day, the new consuls, Mamertinus and Nevitta, hastened
      to the palace to salute the emperor. As soon as he was informed
      of their approach, he leaped from his throne, eagerly advanced to
      meet them, and compelled the blushing magistrates to receive the
      demonstrations of his affected humility. From the palace they
      proceeded to the senate. The emperor, on foot, marched before
      their litters; and the gazing multitude admired the image of
      ancient times, or secretly blamed a conduct, which, in their
      eyes, degraded the majesty of the purple. 74 But the behavior of
      Julian was uniformly supported. During the games of the Circus,
      he had, imprudently or designedly, performed the manumission of a
      slave in the presence of the consul. The moment he was reminded
      that he had trespassed on the jurisdiction of _another_
      magistrate, he condemned himself to pay a fine of ten pounds of
      gold; and embraced this public occasion of declaring to the
      world, that he was subject, like the rest of his fellow-citizens,
      to the laws, 75 and even to the forms, of the republic. The
      spirit of his administration, and his regard for the place of his
      nativity, induced Julian to confer on the senate of
      Constantinople the same honors, privileges, and authority, which
      were still enjoyed by the senate of ancient Rome. 76 A legal
      fiction was introduced, and gradually established, that one half
      of the national council had migrated into the East; and the
      despotic successors of Julian, accepting the title of Senators,
      acknowledged themselves the members of a respectable body, which
      was permitted to represent the majesty of the Roman name. From
      Constantinople, the attention of the monarch was extended to the
      municipal senates of the provinces. He abolished, by repeated
      edicts, the unjust and pernicious exemptions which had withdrawn
      so many idle citizens from the services of their country; and by
      imposing an equal distribution of public duties, he restored the
      strength, the splendor, or, according to the glowing expression
      of Libanius, 77 the soul of the expiring cities of his empire.
      The venerable age of Greece excited the most tender compassion in
      the mind of Julian, which kindled into rapture when he
      recollected the gods, the heroes, and the men superior to heroes
      and to gods, who have bequeathed to the latest posterity the
      monuments of their genius, or the example of their virtues. He
      relieved the distress, and restored the beauty, of the cities of
      Epirus and Peloponnesus. 78 Athens acknowledged him for her
      benefactor; Argos, for her deliverer. The pride of Corinth, again
      rising from her ruins with the honors of a Roman colony, exacted
      a tribute from the adjacent republics, for the purpose of
      defraying the games of the Isthmus, which were celebrated in the
      amphitheatre with the hunting of bears and panthers. From this
      tribute the cities of Elis, of Delphi, and of Argos, which had
      inherited from their remote ancestors the sacred office of
      perpetuating the Olympic, the Pythian, and the Nemean games,
      claimed a just exemption. The immunity of Elis and Delphi was
      respected by the Corinthians; but the poverty of Argos tempted
      the insolence of oppression; and the feeble complaints of its
      deputies were silenced by the decree of a provincial magistrate,
      who seems to have consulted only the interest of the capital in
      which he resided. Seven years after this sentence, Julian 79
      allowed the cause to be referred to a superior tribunal; and his
      eloquence was interposed, most probably with success, in the
      defence of a city, which had been the royal seat of Agamemnon, 80
      and had given to Macedonia a race of kings and conquerors. 81

      70 (return) [ According to some, says Aristotle, (as he is quoted
      by Julian ad Themist. p. 261,) the form of absolute government is
      contrary to nature. Both the prince and the philosopher choose,
      how ever to involve this eternal truth in artful and labored
      obscurity.]

      71 (return) [ That sentiment is expressed almost in the words of
      Julian himself. Ammian. xxii. 10.]

      72 (return) [ Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 95, p. 320,) who
      mentions the wish and design of Julian, insinuates, in mysterious
      language that the emperor was restrained by some particular
      revelation.]

      73 (return) [ Julian in Misopogon, p. 343. As he never abolished,
      by any public law, the proud appellations of _Despot_, or
      _Dominus_, they are still extant on his medals, (Ducange, Fam.
      Byzantin. p. 38, 39;) and the private displeasure which he
      affected to express, only gave a different tone to the servility
      of the court. The AbbŽ de la Bleterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii.
      p. 99-102) has curiously traced the origin and progress of the
      word _Dominus_ under the Imperial government.]

      74 (return) [ Ammian. xxii. 7. The consul Mamertinus (in Panegyr.
      Vet. xi. 28, 29, 30) celebrates the auspicious day, like an
      elegant slave, astonished and intoxicated by the condescension of
      his master.]

      75 (return) [ Personal satire was condemned by the laws of the
      twelve tables: Si male condiderit in quem quis carmina, jus est
      JudiciumqueÑHorat. Sat. ii. 1. 82. ÑÑJulian (in Misopogon, p.
      337) owns himself subject to the law; and the AbbŽ de la Bleterie
      (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 92) has eagerly embraced a
      declaration so agreeable to his own system, and, indeed, to the
      true spirit of the Imperial constitution.]

      76 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iii. p. 158.]

      77 (return) [ See Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 71, p. 296,)
      Ammianus, (xxii. 9,) and the Theodosian Code (l. xii. tit. i.
      leg. 50-55.) with GodefroyÕs Commentary, (tom. iv. p. 390-402.)
      Yet the whole subject of the _Curia_, notwithstanding very ample
      materials, still remains the most obscure in the legal history of
      the empire.]

      78 (return) [ Qu¾ paulo ante arida et siti anhelantia visebantur,
      ea nunc perlui, mundari, madere; Fora, Deambulacra, Gymnasia,
      l¾tis et gaudentibus populis frequentari; dies festos, et
      celebrari veteres, et novos in honorem principis consecrari,
      (Mamertin. xi. 9.) He particularly restored the city of Nicopolis
      and the Actiac games, which had been instituted by Augustus.]

      79 (return) [ Julian. Epist. xxxv. p. 407-411. This epistle,
      which illustrates the declining age of Greece, is omitted by the
      AbbŽ de la Bleterie, and strangely disfigured by the Latin
      translator, who, by rendering _tributum_, and _populus_, directly
      contradicts the sense of the original.]

      80 (return) [ He reigned in Mycen¾ at the distance of fifty
      stadia, or six miles from Argos: but these cities, which
      alternately flourished, are confounded by the Greek poets.
      Strabo, l. viii. p. 579, edit. Amstel. 1707.]

      81 (return) [ Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 421. This pedigree from
      Temenus and Hercules may be suspicious; yet it was allowed, after
      a strict inquiry, by the judges of the Olympic games, (Herodot.
      l. v. c. 22,) at a time when the Macedonian kings were obscure
      and unpopular in Greece. When the Ach¾an league declared against
      Philip, it was thought decent that the deputies of Argos should
      retire, (T. Liv. xxxii. 22.)]

      The laborious administration of military and civil affairs, which
      were multiplied in proportion to the extent of the empire,
      exercised the abilities of Julian; but he frequently assumed the
      two characters of Orator 82 and of Judge, 83 which are almost
      unknown to the modern sovereigns of Europe. The arts of
      persuasion, so diligently cultivated by the first C¾sars, were
      neglected by the military ignorance and Asiatic pride of their
      successors; and if they condescended to harangue the soldiers,
      whom they feared, they treated with silent disdain the senators,
      whom they despised. The assemblies of the senate, which
      Constantius had avoided, were considered by Julian as the place
      where he could exhibit, with the most propriety, the maxims of a
      republican, and the talents of a rhetorician. He alternately
      practised, as in a school of declamation, the several modes of
      praise, of censure, of exhortation; and his friend Libanius has
      remarked, that the study of Homer taught him to imitate the
      simple, concise style of Menelaus, the copiousness of Nestor,
      whose words descended like the flakes of a winterÕs snow, or the
      pathetic and forcible eloquence of Ulysses. The functions of a
      judge, which are sometimes incompatible with those of a prince,
      were exercised by Julian, not only as a duty, but as an
      amusement; and although he might have trusted the integrity and
      discernment of his Pr¾torian pr¾fects, he often placed himself by
      their side on the seat of judgment. The acute penetration of his
      mind was agreeably occupied in detecting and defeating the
      chicanery of the advocates, who labored to disguise the truths of
      facts, and to pervert the sense of the laws. He sometimes forgot
      the gravity of his station, asked indiscreet or unseasonable
      questions, and betrayed, by the loudness of his voice, and the
      agitation of his body, the earnest vehemence with which he
      maintained his opinion against the judges, the advocates, and
      their clients. But his knowledge of his own temper prompted him
      to encourage, and even to solicit, the reproof of his friends and
      ministers; and whenever they ventured to oppose the irregular
      sallies of his passions, the spectators could observe the shame,
      as well as the gratitude, of their monarch. The decrees of Julian
      were almost always founded on the principles of justice; and he
      had the firmness to resist the two most dangerous temptations,
      which assault the tribunal of a sovereign, under the specious
      forms of compassion and equity. He decided the merits of the
      cause without weighing the circumstances of the parties; and the
      poor, whom he wished to relieve, were condemned to satisfy the
      just demands of a wealthy and noble adversary. He carefully
      distinguished the judge from the legislator; 84 and though he
      meditated a necessary reformation of the Roman jurisprudence, he
      pronounced sentence according to the strict and literal
      interpretation of those laws, which the magistrates were bound to
      execute, and the subjects to obey.

      82 (return) [ His eloquence is celebrated by Libanius, (Orat.
      Parent. c. 75, 76, p. 300, 301,) who distinctly mentions the
      orators of Homer. Socrates (l. iii. c. 1) has rashly asserted
      that Julian was the only prince, since Julius C¾sar, who
      harangued the senate. All the predecessors of Nero, (Tacit.
      Annal. xiii. 3,) and many of his successors, possessed the
      faculty of speaking in public; and it might be proved by various
      examples, that they frequently exercised it in the senate.]

      83 (return) [ Ammianus (xxi. 10) has impartially stated the
      merits and defects of his judicial proceedings. Libanius (Orat.
      Parent. c. 90, 91, p. 315, &c.) has seen only the fair side, and
      his picture, if it flatters the person, expresses at least the
      duties, of the judge. Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 120,) who
      suppresses the virtues, and exaggerates even the venial faults of
      the Apostate, triumphantly asks, whether such a judge was fit to
      be seated between Minos and Rhadamanthus, in the Elysian Fields.]

      84 (return) [ Of the laws which Julian enacted in a reign of
      sixteen months, fifty-four have been admitted into the codes of
      Theodosius and Justinian. (Gothofred. Chron. Legum, p. 64-67.)
      The AbbŽ de la Bleterie (tom. ii. p. 329-336) has chosen one of
      these laws to give an idea of JulianÕs Latin style, which is
      forcible and elaborate, but less pure than his Greek.]

      The generality of princes, if they were stripped of their purple,
      and cast naked into the world, would immediately sink to the
      lowest rank of society, without a hope of emerging from their
      obscurity. But the personal merit of Julian was, in some measure,
      independent of his fortune. Whatever had been his choice of life,
      by the force of intrepid courage, lively wit, and intense
      application, he would have obtained, or at least he would have
      deserved, the highest honors of his profession; and Julian might
      have raised himself to the rank of minister, or general, of the
      state in which he was born a private citizen. If the jealous
      caprice of power had disappointed his expectations, if he had
      prudently declined the paths of greatness, the employment of the
      same talents in studious solitude would have placed beyond the
      reach of kings his present happiness and his immortal fame. When
      we inspect, with minute, or perhaps malevolent attention, the
      portrait of Julian, something seems wanting to the grace and
      perfection of the whole figure. His genius was less powerful and
      sublime than that of C¾sar; nor did he possess the consummate
      prudence of Augustus. The virtues of Trajan appear more steady
      and natural, and the philosophy of Marcus is more simple and
      consistent. Yet Julian sustained adversity with firmness, and
      prosperity with moderation. After an interval of one hundred and
      twenty years from the death of Alexander Severus, the Romans
      beheld an emperor who made no distinction between his duties and
      his pleasures; who labored to relieve the distress, and to revive
      the spirit, of his subjects; and who endeavored always to connect
      authority with merit, and happiness with virtue. Even faction,
      and religious faction, was constrained to acknowledge the
      superiority of his genius, in peace as well as in war, and to
      confess, with a sigh, that the apostate Julian was a lover of his
      country, and that he deserved the empire of the world. 85

      85 (return) [

     ... Ductor fortissimus armis; Conditor et legum celeberrimus; ore
     manžque Consultor patri¾; sed non consultor habend¾ Religionis;
     amans tercentum millia Divžm. Pertidus ille Deo, sed non et
     perfidus orbi. Prudent. Apotheosis, 450, &c.

      The consciousness of a generous sentiment seems to have raised
      the Christian post above his usual mediocrity.]




      Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.ÑPart I.

     The Religion Of Julian.ÑUniversal Toleration.ÑHe Attempts To
     Restore And Reform The Pagan WorshipÑTo Rebuild The Temple Of
     JerusalemÑHis Artful Persecution Of The Christians.ÑMutual Zeal
     And Injustice.


      The character of Apostate has injured the reputation of Julian;
      and the enthusiasm which clouded his virtues has exaggerated the
      real and apparent magnitude of his faults. Our partial ignorance
      may represent him as a philosophic monarch, who studied to
      protect, with an equal hand, the religious factions of the
      empire; and to allay the theological fever which had inflamed the
      minds of the people, from the edicts of Diocletian to the exile
      of Athanasius. A more accurate view of the character and conduct
      of Julian will remove this favorable prepossession for a prince
      who did not escape the general contagion of the times. We enjoy
      the singular advantage of comparing the pictures which have been
      delineated by his fondest admirers and his implacable enemies.
      The actions of Julian are faithfully related by a judicious and
      candid historian, the impartial spectator of his life and death.
      The unanimous evidence of his contemporaries is confirmed by the
      public and private declarations of the emperor himself; and his
      various writings express the uniform tenor of his religious
      sentiments, which policy would have prompted him to dissemble
      rather than to affect. A devout and sincere attachment for the
      gods of Athens and Rome constituted the ruling passion of Julian;
      1 the powers of an enlightened understanding were betrayed and
      corrupted by the influence of superstitious prejudice; and the
      phantoms which existed only in the mind of the emperor had a real
      and pernicious effect on the government of the empire. The
      vehement zeal of the Christians, who despised the worship, and
      overturned the altars of those fabulous deities, engaged their
      votary in a state of irreconcilable hostility with a very
      numerous party of his subjects; and he was sometimes tempted by
      the desire of victory, or the shame of a repulse, to violate the
      laws of prudence, and even of justice. The triumph of the party,
      which he deserted and opposed, has fixed a stain of infamy on the
      name of Julian; and the unsuccessful apostate has been
      overwhelmed with a torrent of pious invectives, of which the
      signal was given by the sonorous trumpet 2 of Gregory Nazianzen.
      3 The interesting nature of the events which were crowded into
      the short reign of this active emperor, deserve a just and
      circumstantial narrative. His motives, his counsels, and his
      actions, as far as they are connected with the history of
      religion, will be the subject of the present chapter.

      1 (return) [ I shall transcribe some of his own expressions from
      a short religious discourse which the Imperial pontiff composed
      to censure the bold impiety of a Cynic. Orat. vii. p. 212. The
      variety and copiousness of the Greek tongue seem inadequate to
      the fervor of his devotion.]

      2 (return) [ The orator, with some eloquence, much enthusiasm,
      and more vanity, addresses his discourse to heaven and earth, to
      men and angels, to the living and the dead; and above all, to the
      great Constantius, an odd Pagan expression. He concludes with a
      bold assurance, that he has erected a monument not less durable,
      and much more portable, than the columns of Hercules. See Greg.
      Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 50, iv. p. 134.]

      3 (return) [ See this long invective, which has been
      injudiciously divided into two orations in GregoryÕs works, tom.
      i. p. 49-134, Paris, 1630. It was published by Gregory and his
      friend Basil, (iv. p. 133,) about six months after the death of
      Julian, when his remains had been carried to Tarsus, (iv. p.
      120;) but while Jovian was still on the throne, (iii. p. 54, iv.
      p. 117) I have derived much assistance from a French version and
      remarks, printed at Lyons, 1735.]

      The cause of his strange and fatal apostasy may be derived from
      the early period of his life, when he was left an orphan in the
      hands of the murderers of his family. The names of Christ and of
      Constantius, the ideas of slavery and of religion, were soon
      associated in a youthful imagination, which was susceptible of
      the most lively impressions. The care of his infancy was
      intrusted to Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, 4 who was related to
      him on the side of his mother; and till Julian reached the
      twentieth year of his age, he received from his Christian
      preceptors the education, not of a hero, but of a saint. The
      emperor, less jealous of a heavenly than of an earthly crown,
      contented himself with the imperfect character of a catechumen,
      while he bestowed the advantages of baptism 5 on the nephews of
      Constantine. 6 They were even admitted to the inferior offices of
      the ecclesiastical order; and Julian publicly read the Holy
      Scriptures in the church of Nicomedia. The study of religion,
      which they assiduously cultivated, appeared to produce the
      fairest fruits of faith and devotion. 7 They prayed, they fasted,
      they distributed alms to the poor, gifts to the clergy, and
      oblations to the tombs of the martyrs; and the splendid monument
      of St. Mamas, at C¾sarea, was erected, or at least was
      undertaken, by the joint labor of Gallus and Julian. 8 They
      respectfully conversed with the bishops, who were eminent for
      superior sanctity, and solicited the benediction of the monks and
      hermits, who had introduced into Cappadocia the voluntary
      hardships of the ascetic life. 9 As the two princes advanced
      towards the years of manhood, they discovered, in their religious
      sentiments, the difference of their characters. The dull and
      obstinate understanding of Gallus embraced, with implicit zeal,
      the doctrines of Christianity; which never influenced his
      conduct, or moderated his passions. The mild disposition of the
      younger brother was less repugnant to the precepts of the gospel;
      and his active curiosity might have been gratified by a
      theological system, which explains the mysterious essence of the
      Deity, and opens the boundless prospect of invisible and future
      worlds. But the independent spirit of Julian refused to yield the
      passive and unresisting obedience which was required, in the name
      of religion, by the haughty ministers of the church. Their
      speculative opinions were imposed as positive laws, and guarded
      by the terrors of eternal punishments; but while they prescribed
      the rigid formulary of the thoughts, the words, and the actions
      of the young prince; whilst they silenced his objections, and
      severely checked the freedom of his inquiries, they secretly
      provoked his impatient genius to disclaim the authority of his
      ecclesiastical guides. He was educated in the Lesser Asia, amidst
      the scandals of the Arian controversy. 10 The fierce contests of
      the Eastern bishops, the incessant alterations of their creeds,
      and the profane motives which appeared to actuate their conduct,
      insensibly strengthened the prejudice of Julian, that they
      neither understood nor believed the religion for which they so
      fiercely contended. Instead of listening to the proofs of
      Christianity with that favorable attention which adds weight to
      the most respectable evidence, he heard with suspicion, and
      disputed with obstinacy and acuteness, the doctrines for which he
      already entertained an invincible aversion. Whenever the young
      princes were directed to compose declamations on the subject of
      the prevailing controversies, Julian always declared himself the
      advocate of Paganism; under the specious excuse that, in the
      defence of the weaker cause, his learning and ingenuity might be
      more advantageously exercised and displayed.

      4 (return) [ Nicomedi¾ ab Eusebio educatus Episcopo, quem genere
      longius contingebat, (Ammian. xxii. 9.) Julian never expresses
      any gratitude towards that Arian prelate; but he celebrates his
      preceptor, the eunuch Mardonius, and describes his mode of
      education, which inspired his pupil with a passionate admiration
      for the genius, and perhaps the religion of Homer. Misopogon, p.
      351, 352.]

      5 (return) [ Greg. Naz. iii. p. 70. He labored to effect that
      holy mark in the blood, perhaps of a Taurobolium. Baron. Annal.
      Eccles. A. D. 361, No. 3, 4.]

      6 (return) [ Julian himself (Epist. li. p. 454) assures the
      Alexandrians that he had been a Christian (he must mean a sincere
      one) till the twentieth year of his age.]

      7 (return) [ See his Christian, and even ecclesiastical
      education, in Gregory, (iii. p. 58,) Socrates, (l. iii. c. 1,)
      and Sozomen, (l. v. c. 2.) He escaped very narrowly from being a
      bishop, and perhaps a saint.]

      8 (return) [ The share of the work which had been allotted to
      Gallus, was prosecuted with vigor and success; but the earth
      obstinately rejected and subverted the structures which were
      imposed by the sacrilegious hand of Julian. Greg. iii. p. 59, 60,
      61. Such a partial earthquake, attested by many living
      spectators, would form one of the clearest miracles in
      ecclesiastical story.]

      9 (return) [ The _philosopher_ (Fragment, p. 288,) ridicules the
      iron chains, &c, of these solitary fanatics, (see Tillemont, MŽm.
      Eccles. tom. ix. p. 661, 632,) who had forgot that man is by
      nature a gentle and social animal. The _Pagan_ supposes, that
      because they had renounced the gods, they were possessed and
      tormented by evil d¾mons.]

      10 (return) [ See Julian apud Cyril, l. vi. p. 206, l. viii. p.
      253, 262. ÒYou persecute,Ó says he, Òthose heretics who do not
      mourn the dead man precisely in the way which you approve.Ó He
      shows himself a tolerable theologian; but he maintains that the
      Christian Trinity is not derived from the doctrine of Paul, of
      Jesus, or of Moses.]

      As soon as Gallus was invested with the honors of the purple,
      Julian was permitted to breathe the air of freedom, of
      literature, and of Paganism. 11 The crowd of sophists, who were
      attracted by the taste and liberality of their royal pupil, had
      formed a strict alliance between the learning and the religion of
      Greece; and the poems of Homer, instead of being admired as the
      original productions of human genius, were seriously ascribed to
      the heavenly inspiration of Apollo and the muses. The deities of
      Olympus, as they are painted by the immortal bard, imprint
      themselves on the minds which are the least addicted to
      superstitious credulity. Our familiar knowledge of their names
      and characters, their forms and attributes, _seems_ to bestow on
      those airy beings a real and substantial existence; and the
      pleasing enchantment produces an imperfect and momentary assent
      of the imagination to those fables, which are the most repugnant
      to our reason and experience. In the age of Julian, every
      circumstance contributed to prolong and fortify the illusion; the
      magnificent temples of Greece and Asia; the works of those
      artists who had expressed, in painting or in sculpture, the
      divine conceptions of the poet; the pomp of festivals and
      sacrifices; the successful arts of divination; the popular
      traditions of oracles and prodigies; and the ancient practice of
      two thousand years. The weakness of polytheism was, in some
      measure, excused by the moderation of its claims; and the
      devotion of the Pagans was not incompatible with the most
      licentious scepticism. 12 Instead of an indivisible and regular
      system, which occupies the whole extent of the believing mind,
      the mythology of the Greeks was composed of a thousand loose and
      flexible parts, and the servant of the gods was at liberty to
      define the degree and measure of his religious faith. The creed
      which Julian adopted for his own use was of the largest
      dimensions; and, by strange contradiction, he disdained the
      salutary yoke of the gospel, whilst he made a voluntary offering
      of his reason on the altars of Jupiter and Apollo. One of the
      orations of Julian is consecrated to the honor of Cybele, the
      mother of the gods, who required from her effeminate priests the
      bloody sacrifice, so rashly performed by the madness of the
      Phrygian boy. The pious emperor condescends to relate, without a
      blush, and without a smile, the voyage of the goddess from the
      shores of Pergamus to the mouth of the Tyber, and the stupendous
      miracle, which convinced the senate and people of Rome that the
      lump of clay, which their ambassadors had transported over the
      seas, was endowed with life, and sentiment, and divine power. 13
      For the truth of this prodigy he appeals to the public monuments
      of the city; and censures, with some acrimony, the sickly and
      affected taste of those men, who impertinently derided the sacred
      traditions of their ancestors. 14

      11 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parentalis, c. 9, 10, p. 232, &c.
      Greg. Nazianzen. Orat. iii. p 61. Eunap. Vit. Sophist. in Maximo,
      p. 68, 69, 70, edit Commelin.]

      12 (return) [ A modern philosopher has ingeniously compared the
      different operation of theism and polytheism, with regard to the
      doubt or conviction which they produce in the human mind. See
      HumeÕs Essays vol. ii. p. 444- 457, in 8vo. edit. 1777.]

      13 (return) [ The Id¾an mother landed in Italy about the end of
      the second Punic war. The miracle of Claudia, either virgin or
      matron, who cleared her fame by disgracing the graver modesty of
      the Roman Indies, is attested by a cloud of witnesses. Their
      evidence is collected by Drakenborch, (ad Silium Italicum, xvii.
      33;) but we may observe that Livy (xxix. 14) slides over the
      transaction with discreet ambiguity.]

      14 (return) [ I cannot refrain from transcribing the emphatical
      words of Julian: Orat. v. p. 161. Julian likewise declares his
      firm belief in the ancilia, the holy shields, which dropped from
      heaven on the Quirinal hill; and pities the strange blindness of
      the Christians, who preferred the cross to these celestial
      trophies. Apud Cyril. l. vi. p. 194.]

      But the devout philosopher, who sincerely embraced, and warmly
      encouraged, the superstition of the people, reserved for himself
      the privilege of a liberal interpretation; and silently withdrew
      from the foot of the altars into the sanctuary of the temple. The
      extravagance of the Grecian mythology proclaimed, with a clear
      and audible voice, that the pious inquirer, instead of being
      scandalized or satisfied with the literal sense, should
      diligently explore the occult wisdom, which had been disguised,
      by the prudence of antiquity, under the mask of folly and of
      fable. 15 The philosophers of the Platonic school, 16 Plotinus,
      Porphyry, and the divine Iamblichus, were admired as the most
      skilful masters of this allegorical science, which labored to
      soften and harmonize the deformed features of Paganism. Julian
      himself, who was directed in the mysterious pursuit by ®desius,
      the venerable successor of Iamblichus, aspired to the possession
      of a treasure, which he esteemed, if we may credit his solemn
      asseverations, far above the empire of the world. 17 It was
      indeed a treasure, which derived its value only from opinion; and
      every artist who flattered himself that he had extracted the
      precious ore from the surrounding dross, claimed an equal right
      of stamping the name and figure the most agreeable to his
      peculiar fancy. The fable of Atys and Cybele had been already
      explained by Porphyry; but his labors served only to animate the
      pious industry of Julian, who invented and published his own
      allegory of that ancient and mystic tale. This freedom of
      interpretation, which might gratify the pride of the Platonists,
      exposed the vanity of their art. Without a tedious detail, the
      modern reader could not form a just idea of the strange
      allusions, the forced etymologies, the solemn trifling, and the
      impenetrable obscurity of these sages, who professed to reveal
      the system of the universe. As the traditions of Pagan mythology
      were variously related, the sacred interpreters were at liberty
      to select the most convenient circumstances; and as they
      translated an arbitrary cipher, they could extract from _any_
      fable _any_ sense which was adapted to their favorite system of
      religion and philosophy. The lascivious form of a naked Venus was
      tortured into the discovery of some moral precept, or some
      physical truth; and the castration of Atys explained the
      revolution of the sun between the tropics, or the separation of
      the human soul from vice and error. 18

      15 (return) [ See the principles of allegory, in Julian, (Orat.
      vii. p. 216, 222.) His reasoning is less absurd than that of some
      modern theologians, who assert that an extravagant or
      contradictory doctrine must be divine; since no man alive could
      have thought of inventing it.]

      16 (return) [ Eunapius has made these sophists the subject of a
      partial and fanatical history; and the learned Brucker (Hist.
      Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 217-303) has employed much labor to
      illustrate their obscure lives and incomprehensible doctrines.]

      17 (return) [ Julian, Orat. vii p 222. He swears with the most
      fervent and enthusiastic devotion; and trembles, lest he should
      betray too much of these holy mysteries, which the profane might
      deride with an impious Sardonic laugh.]

      18 (return) [ See the fifth oration of Julian. But all the
      allegories which ever issued from the Platonic school are not
      worth the short poem of Catullus on the same extraordinary
      subject. The transition of Atys, from the wildest enthusiasm to
      sober, pathetic complaint, for his irretrievable loss, must
      inspire a man with pity, a eunuch with despair.]

      The theological system of Julian appears to have contained the
      sublime and important principles of natural religion. But as the
      faith, which is not founded on revelation, must remain destitute
      of any firm assurance, the disciple of Plato imprudently relapsed
      into the habits of vulgar superstition; and the popular and
      philosophic notion of the Deity seems to have been confounded in
      the practice, the writings, and even in the mind of Julian. 19
      The pious emperor acknowledged and adored the Eternal Cause of
      the universe, to whom he ascribed all the perfections of an
      infinite nature, invisible to the eyes and inaccessible to the
      understanding, of feeble mortals. The Supreme God had created, or
      rather, in the Platonic language, had generated, the gradual
      succession of dependent spirits, of gods, of d¾mons, of heroes,
      and of men; and every being which derived its existence
      immediately from the First Cause, received the inherent gift of
      immortality. That so precious an advantage might not be lavished
      upon unworthy objects, the Creator had intrusted to the skill and
      power of the inferior gods the office of forming the human body,
      and of arranging the beautiful harmony of the animal, the
      vegetable, and the mineral kingdoms. To the conduct of these
      divine ministers he delegated the temporal government of this
      lower world; but their imperfect administration is not exempt
      from discord or error. The earth and its inhabitants are divided
      among them, and the characters of Mars or Minerva, of Mercury or
      Venus, may be distinctly traced in the laws and manners of their
      peculiar votaries. As long as our immortal souls are confined in
      a mortal prison, it is our interest, as well as our duty, to
      solicit the favor, and to deprecate the wrath, of the powers of
      heaven; whose pride is gratified by the devotion of mankind; and
      whose grosser parts may be supposed to derive some nourishment
      from the fumes of sacrifice. 20 The inferior gods might sometimes
      condescend to animate the statues, and to inhabit the temples,
      which were dedicated to their honor. They might occasionally
      visit the earth, but the heavens were the proper throne and
      symbol of their glory. The invariable order of the sun, moon, and
      stars, was hastily admitted by Julian, as a proof of their
      _eternal_ duration; and their eternity was a sufficient evidence
      that they were the workmanship, not of an inferior deity, but of
      the Omnipotent King. In the system of Platonists, the visible was
      a type of the invisible world. The celestial bodies, as they were
      informed by a divine spirit, might be considered as the objects
      the most worthy of religious worship. The Sun, whose genial
      influence pervades and sustains the universe, justly claimed the
      adoration of mankind, as the bright representative of the Logos,
      the lively, the rational, the beneficent image of the
      intellectual Father. 21

      19 (return) [ The true religion of Julian may be deduced from the
      C¾sars, p. 308, with SpanheimÕs notes and illustrations, from the
      fragments in Cyril, l. ii. p. 57, 58, and especially from the
      theological oration in Solem Regem, p. 130-158, addressed in the
      confidence of friendship, to the pr¾fect Sallust.]

      20 (return) [ Julian adopts this gross conception by ascribing to
      his favorite Marcus Antoninus, (C¾sares, p. 333.) The Stoics and
      Platonists hesitated between the analogy of bodies and the purity
      of spirits; yet the gravest philosophers inclined to the
      whimsical fancy of Aristophanes and Lucian, that an unbelieving
      age might starve the immortal gods. See Observations de Spanheim,
      p. 284, 444, &c.]

      21 (return) [ Julian. Epist. li. In another place, (apud Cyril.
      l. ii. p. 69,) he calls the Sun God, and the throne of God.
      Julian believed the Platonician Trinity; and only blames the
      Christians for preferring a mortal to an immortal _Logos_.]

      In every age, the absence of genuine inspiration is supplied by
      the strong illusions of enthusiasm, and the mimic arts of
      imposture. If, in the time of Julian, these arts had been
      practised only by the pagan priests, for the support of an
      expiring cause, some indulgence might perhaps be allowed to the
      interest and habits of the sacerdotal character. But it may
      appear a subject of surprise and scandal, that the philosophers
      themselves should have contributed to abuse the superstitious
      credulity of mankind, 22 and that the Grecian mysteries should
      have been supported by the magic or theurgy of the modern
      Platonists. They arrogantly pretended to control the order of
      nature, to explore the secrets of futurity, to command the
      service of the inferior d¾mons, to enjoy the view and
      conversation of the superior gods, and by disengaging the soul
      from her material bands, to reunite that immortal particle with
      the Infinite and Divine Spirit.

      22 (return) [ The sophists of Eunapias perform as many miracles
      as the saints of the desert; and the only circumstance in their
      favor is, that they are of a less gloomy complexion. Instead of
      devils with horns and tails, Iamblichus evoked the genii of love,
      Eros and Anteros, from two adjacent fountains. Two beautiful boys
      issued from the water, fondly embraced him as their father, and
      retired at his command, p. 26, 27.]

      The devout and fearless curiosity of Julian tempted the
      philosophers with the hopes of an easy conquest; which, from the
      situation of their young proselyte, might be productive of the
      most important consequences. 23 Julian imbibed the first
      rudiments of the Platonic doctrines from the mouth of ®desius,
      who had fixed at Pergamus his wandering and persecuted school.
      But as the declining strength of that venerable sage was unequal
      to the ardor, the diligence, the rapid conception of his pupil,
      two of his most learned disciples, Chrysanthes and Eusebius,
      supplied, at his own desire, the place of their aged master.
      These philosophers seem to have prepared and distributed their
      respective parts; and they artfully contrived, by dark hints and
      affected disputes, to excite the impatient hopes of the
      _aspirant_, till they delivered him into the hands of their
      associate, Maximus, the boldest and most skilful master of the
      Theurgic science. By his hands, Julian was secretly initiated at
      Ephesus, in the twentieth year of his age. His residence at
      Athens confirmed this unnatural alliance of philosophy and
      superstition.

      He obtained the privilege of a solemn initiation into the
      mysteries of Eleusis, which, amidst the general decay of the
      Grecian worship, still retained some vestiges of their prim¾val
      sanctity; and such was the zeal of Julian, that he afterwards
      invited the Eleusinian pontiff to the court of Gaul, for the sole
      purpose of consummating, by mystic rites and sacrifices, the
      great work of his sanctification. As these ceremonies were
      performed in the depth of caverns, and in the silence of the
      night, and as the inviolable secret of the mysteries was
      preserved by the discretion of the initiated, I shall not presume
      to describe the horrid sounds, and fiery apparitions, which were
      presented to the senses, or the imagination, of the credulous
      aspirant, 24 till the visions of comfort and knowledge broke upon
      him in a blaze of celestial light. 25 In the caverns of Ephesus
      and Eleusis, the mind of Julian was penetrated with sincere,
      deep, and unalterable enthusiasm; though he might sometimes
      exhibit the vicissitudes of pious fraud and hypocrisy, which may
      be observed, or at least suspected, in the characters of the most
      conscientious fanatics. From that moment he consecrated his life
      to the service of the gods; and while the occupations of war, of
      government, and of study, seemed to claim the whole measure of
      his time, a stated portion of the hours of the night was
      invariably reserved for the exercise of private devotion. The
      temperance which adorned the severe manners of the soldier and
      the philosopher was connected with some strict and frivolous
      rules of religious abstinence; and it was in honor of Pan or
      Mercury, of Hecate or Isis, that Julian, on particular days,
      denied himself the use of some particular food, which might have
      been offensive to his tutelar deities. By these voluntary fasts,
      he prepared his senses and his understanding for the frequent and
      familiar visits with which he was honored by the celestial
      powers. Notwithstanding the modest silence of Julian himself, we
      may learn from his faithful friend, the orator Libanius, that he
      lived in a perpetual intercourse with the gods and goddesses;
      that they descended upon earth to enjoy the conversation of their
      favorite hero; that they gently interrupted his slumbers by
      touching his hand or his hair; that they warned him of every
      impending danger, and conducted him, by their infallible wisdom,
      in every action of his life; and that he had acquired such an
      intimate knowledge of his heavenly guests, as readily to
      distinguish the voice of Jupiter from that of Minerva, and the
      form of Apollo from the figure of Hercules. 26 These sleeping or
      waking visions, the ordinary effects of abstinence and
      fanaticism, would almost degrade the emperor to the level of an
      Egyptian monk. But the useless lives of Antony or Pachomius were
      consumed in these vain occupations. Julian could break from the
      dream of superstition to arm himself for battle; and after
      vanquishing in the field the enemies of Rome, he calmly retired
      into his tent, to dictate the wise and salutary laws of an
      empire, or to indulge his genius in the elegant pursuits of
      literature and philosophy.

      23 (return) [ The dexterous management of these sophists, who
      played their credulous pupil into each otherÕs hands, is fairly
      told by Eunapius (p. 69- 79) with unsuspecting simplicity. The
      AbbŽ de la Bleterie understands, and neatly describes, the whole
      comedy, (Vie de Julian, p. 61-67.)]

      24 (return) [ When Julian, in a momentary panic, made the sign of
      the cross the d¾mons instantly disappeared, (Greg. Naz. Orat.
      iii. p. 71.) Gregory supposes that they were frightened, but the
      priests declared that they were indignant. The reader, according
      to the measure of his faith, will determine this profound
      question.]

      25 (return) [ A dark and distant view of the terrors and joys of
      initiation is shown by Dion Chrysostom, Themistius, Proclus, and
      Stob¾us. The learned author of the Divine Legation has exhibited
      their words, (vol. i. p. 239, 247, 248, 280, edit. 1765,) which
      he dexterously or forcibly applies to his own hypothesis.]

      26 (return) [ JulianÕs modesty confined him to obscure and
      occasional hints: but Libanius expiates with pleasure on the
      facts and visions of the religious hero. (Legat. ad Julian. p.
      157, and Orat. Parental. c. lxxxiii. p. 309, 310.)]

      The important secret of the apostasy of Julian was intrusted to
      the fidelity of the _initiated_, with whom he was united by the
      sacred ties of friendship and religion. 27 The pleasing rumor was
      cautiously circulated among the adherents of the ancient worship;
      and his future greatness became the object of the hopes, the
      prayers, and the predictions of the Pagans, in every province of
      the empire. From the zeal and virtues of their royal proselyte,
      they fondly expected the cure of every evil, and the restoration
      of every blessing; and instead of disapproving of the ardor of
      their pious wishes, Julian ingenuously confessed, that he was
      ambitious to attain a situation in which he might be useful to
      his country and to his religion. But this religion was viewed
      with a hostile eye by the successor of Constantine, whose
      capricious passions altercately saved and threatened the life of
      Julian. The arts of magic and divination were strictly prohibited
      under a despotic government, which condescended to fear them; and
      if the Pagans were reluctantly indulged in the exercise of their
      superstition, the rank of Julian would have excepted him from the
      general toleration. The apostate soon became the presumptive heir
      of the monarchy, and his death could alone have appeased the just
      apprehensions of the Christians. 28 But the young prince, who
      aspired to the glory of a hero rather than of a martyr, consulted
      his safety by dissembling his religion; and the easy temper of
      polytheism permitted him to join in the public worship of a sect
      which he inwardly despised. Libanius has considered the hypocrisy
      of his friend as a subject, not of censure, but of praise. ÒAs
      the statues of the gods,Ó says that orator, Òwhich have been
      defiled with filth, are again placed in a magnificent temple, so
      the beauty of truth was seated in the mind of Julian, after it
      had been purified from the errors and follies of his education.
      His sentiments were changed; but as it would have been dangerous
      to have avowed his sentiments, his conduct still continued the
      same. Very different from the ass in ®sop, who disguised himself
      with a lionÕs hide, our lion was obliged to conceal himself under
      the skin of an ass; and, while he embraced the dictates of
      reason, to obey the laws of prudence and necessity.Ó 29 The
      dissimulation of Julian lasted about ten years, from his secret
      initiation at Ephesus to the beginning of the civil war; when he
      declared himself at once the implacable enemy of Christ and of
      Constantius. This state of constraint might contribute to
      strengthen his devotion; and as soon as he had satisfied the
      obligation of assisting, on solemn festivals, at the assemblies
      of the Christians, Julian returned, with the impatience of a
      lover, to burn his free and voluntary incense on the domestic
      chapels of Jupiter and Mercury. But as every act of dissimulation
      must be painful to an ingenuous spirit, the profession of
      Christianity increased the aversion of Julian for a religion
      which oppressed the freedom of his mind, and compelled him to
      hold a conduct repugnant to the noblest attributes of human
      nature, sincerity and courage.

      27 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. x. p. 233, 234. Gallus
      had some reason to suspect the secret apostasy of his brother;
      and in a letter, which may be received as genuine, he exhorts
      Julian to adhere to the religion of their _ancestors;_ an
      argument which, as it should seem, was not yet perfectly ripe.
      See Julian, Op. p. 454, and Hist. de Jovien tom ii. p. 141.]

      28 (return) [ Gregory, (iii. p. 50,) with inhuman zeal, censures
      Constantius for paring the infant apostate. His French translator
      (p. 265) cautiously observes, that such expressions must not be
      prises ˆ la lettre.]

      29 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parental. c ix. p. 233.]




      Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.ÑPart II.


      The inclination of Julian might prefer the gods of Homer, and of
      the Scipios, to the new faith, which his uncle had established in
      the Roman empire; and in which he himself had been sanctified by
      the sacrament of baptism. But, as a philosopher, it was incumbent
      on him to justify his dissent from Christianity, which was
      supported by the number of its converts, by the chain of
      prophecy, the splendor of miracles, and the weight of evidence.
      The elaborate work, 30 which he composed amidst the preparations
      of the Persian war, contained the substance of those arguments
      which he had long revolved in his mind. Some fragments have been
      transcribed and preserved, by his adversary, the vehement Cyril
      of Alexandria; 31 and they exhibit a very singular mixture of wit
      and learning, of sophistry and fanaticism. The elegance of the
      style and the rank of the author, recommended his writings to the
      public attention; 32 and in the impious list of the enemies of
      Christianity, the celebrated name of Porphyry was effaced by the
      superior merit or reputation of Julian. The minds of the faithful
      were either seduced, or scandalized, or alarmed; and the pagans,
      who sometimes presumed to engage in the unequal dispute, derived,
      from the popular work of their Imperial missionary, an
      inexhaustible supply of fallacious objections. But in the
      assiduous prosecution of these theological studies, the emperor
      of the Romans imbibed the illiberal prejudices and passions of a
      polemic divine. He contracted an irrevocable obligation to
      maintain and propagate his religious opinions; and whilst he
      secretly applauded the strength and dexterity with which he
      wielded the weapons of controversy, he was tempted to distrust
      the sincerity, or to despise the understandings, of his
      antagonists, who could obstinately resist the force of reason and
      eloquence.

      30 (return) [ Fabricius (Biblioth. Gr¾c. l. v. c. viii, p. 88-90)
      and Lardner (Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 44-47) have
      accurately compiled all that can now be discovered of JulianÕs
      work against the Christians.]

      31 (return) [ About seventy years after the death of Julian, he
      executed a task which had been feebly attempted by Philip of
      Side, a prolix and contemptible writer. Even the work of Cyril
      has not entirely satisfied the most favorable judges; and the
      AbbŽ de la Bleterie (Preface a lÕHist. de Jovien, p. 30, 32)
      wishes that some _theologien philosophe_ (a strange centaur)
      would undertake the refutation of Julian.]

      32 (return) [ Libanius, (Orat. Parental. c. lxxxvii. p. 313,) who
      has been suspected of assisting his friend, prefers this divine
      vindication (Orat. ix in necem Julian. p. 255, edit. Morel.) to
      the writings of Porphyry. His judgment may be arraigned,
      (Socrates, l. iii. c. 23,) but Libanius cannot be accused of
      flattery to a dead prince.]

      The Christians, who beheld with horror and indignation the
      apostasy of Julian, had much more to fear from his power than
      from his arguments. The pagans, who were conscious of his fervent
      zeal, expected, perhaps with impatience, that the flames of
      persecution should be immediately kindled against the enemies of
      the gods; and that the ingenious malice of Julian would invent
      some cruel refinements of death and torture which had been
      unknown to the rude and inexperienced fury of his predecessors.
      But the hopes, as well as the fears, of the religious factions
      were apparently disappointed, by the prudent humanity of a
      prince, 33 who was careful of his own fame, of the public peace,
      and of the rights of mankind. Instructed by history and
      reflection, Julian was persuaded, that if the diseases of the
      body may sometimes be cured by salutary violence, neither steel
      nor fire can eradicate the erroneous opinions of the mind. The
      reluctant victim may be dragged to the foot of the altar; but the
      heart still abhors and disclaims the sacrilegious act of the
      hand. Religious obstinacy is hardened and exasperated by
      oppression; and, as soon as the persecution subsides, those who
      have yielded are restored as penitents, and those who have
      resisted are honored as saints and martyrs. If Julian adopted the
      unsuccessful cruelty of Diocletian and his colleagues, he was
      sensible that he should stain his memory with the name of a
      tyrant, and add new glories to the Catholic church, which had
      derived strength and increase from the severity of the pagan
      magistrates. Actuated by these motives, and apprehensive of
      disturbing the repose of an unsettled reign, Julian surprised the
      world by an edict, which was not unworthy of a statesman, or a
      philosopher. He extended to all the inhabitants of the Roman
      world the benefits of a free and equal toleration; and the only
      hardship which he inflicted on the Christians, was to deprive
      them of the power of tormenting their fellow-subjects, whom they
      stigmatized with the odious titles of idolaters and heretics. The
      pagans received a gracious permission, or rather an express
      order, to open All their temples; 34 and they were at once
      delivered from the oppressive laws, and arbitrary vexations,
      which they had sustained under the reign of Constantine, and of
      his sons. At the same time the bishops and clergy, who had been
      banished by the Arian monarch, were recalled from exile, and
      restored to their respective churches; the Donatists, the
      Novatians, the Macedonians, the Eunomians, and those who, with a
      more prosperous fortune, adhered to the doctrine of the Council
      of Nice. Julian, who understood and derided their theological
      disputes, invited to the palace the leaders of the hostile sects,
      that he might enjoy the agreeable spectacle of their furious
      encounters. The clamor of controversy sometimes provoked the
      emperor to exclaim, ÒHear me! the Franks have heard me, and the
      Alemanni;Ó but he soon discovered that he was now engaged with
      more obstinate and implacable enemies; and though he exerted the
      powers of oratory to persuade them to live in concord, or at
      least in peace, he was perfectly satisfied, before he dismissed
      them from his presence, that he had nothing to dread from the
      union of the Christians. The impartial Ammianus has ascribed this
      affected clemency to the desire of fomenting the intestine
      divisions of the church, and the insidious design of undermining
      the foundations of Christianity, was inseparably connected with
      the zeal which Julian professed, to restore the ancient religion
      of the empire. 35

      33 (return) [ Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. lviii. p. 283, 284) has
      eloquently explained the tolerating principles and conduct of his
      Imperial friend. In a very remarkable epistle to the people of
      Bostra, Julian himself (Epist. lii.) professes his moderation,
      and betrays his zeal, which is acknowledged by Ammianus, and
      exposed by Gregory (Orat. iii. p.72)]

      34 (return) [ In Greece the temples of Minerva were opened by his
      express command, before the death of Constantius, (Liban. Orat.
      Parent. c. 55, p. 280;) and Julian declares himself a Pagan in
      his public manifesto to the Athenians. This unquestionable
      evidence may correct the hasty assertion of Ammianus, who seems
      to suppose Constantinople to be the place where he discovered his
      attachment to the gods]

      35 (return) [ Ammianus, xxii. 5. Sozomen, l. v. c. 5. Bestia
      moritur, tranquillitas redit.... omnes episcopi qui de propriis
      sedibus fuerant exterminati per indulgentiam novi principis ad
      acclesias redeunt. Jerom. adversus Luciferianos, tom. ii. p. 143.
      Optatus accuses the Donatists for owing their safety to an
      apostate, (l. ii. c. 16, p. 36, 37, edit. Dupin.)]

      As soon as he ascended the throne, he assumed, according to the
      custom of his predecessors, the character of supreme pontiff; not
      only as the most honorable title of Imperial greatness, but as a
      sacred and important office; the duties of which he was resolved
      to execute with pious diligence. As the business of the state
      prevented the emperor from joining every day in the public
      devotion of his subjects, he dedicated a domestic chapel to his
      tutelar deity the Sun; his gardens were filled with statues and
      altars of the gods; and each apartment of the palace displaced
      the appearance of a magnificent temple. Every morning he saluted
      the parent of light with a sacrifice; the blood of another victim
      was shed at the moment when the Sun sunk below the horizon; and
      the Moon, the Stars, and the Genii of the night received their
      respective and seasonable honors from the indefatigable devotion
      of Julian. On solemn festivals, he regularly visited the temple
      of the god or goddess to whom the day was peculiarly consecrated,
      and endeavored to excite the religion of the magistrates and
      people by the example of his own zeal. Instead of maintaining the
      lofty state of a monarch, distinguished by the splendor of his
      purple, and encompassed by the golden shields of his guards,
      Julian solicited, with respectful eagerness, the meanest offices
      which contributed to the worship of the gods. Amidst the sacred
      but licentious crowd of priests, of inferior ministers, and of
      female dancers, who were dedicated to the service of the temple,
      it was the business of the emperor to bring the wood, to blow the
      fire, to handle the knife, to slaughter the victim, and,
      thrusting his bloody hands into the bowels of the expiring
      animal, to draw forth the heart or liver, and to read, with the
      consummate skill of an haruspex, imaginary signs of future
      events. The wisest of the Pagans censured this extravagant
      superstition, which affected to despise the restraints of
      prudence and decency. Under the reign of a prince, who practised
      the rigid maxims of economy, the expense of religious worship
      consumed a very large portion of the revenue; a constant supply
      of the scarcest and most beautiful birds was transported from
      distant climates, to bleed on the altars of the gods; a hundred
      oxen were frequently sacrificed by Julian on one and the same
      day; and it soon became a popular jest, that if he should return
      with conquest from the Persian war, the breed of horned cattle
      must infallibly be extinguished. Yet this expense may appear
      inconsiderable, when it is compared with the splendid presents
      which were offered either by the hand, or by order, of the
      emperor, to all the celebrated places of devotion in the Roman
      world; and with the sums allotted to repair and decorate the
      ancient temples, which had suffered the silent decay of time, or
      the recent injuries of Christian rapine. Encouraged by the
      example, the exhortations, the liberality, of their pious
      sovereign, the cities and families resumed the practice of their
      neglected ceremonies. ÒEvery part of the world,Ó exclaims
      Libanius, with devout transport, Òdisplayed the triumph of
      religion; and the grateful prospect of flaming altars, bleeding
      victims, the smoke of incense, and a solemn train of priests and
      prophets, without fear and without danger. The sound of prayer
      and of music was heard on the tops of the highest mountains; and
      the same ox afforded a sacrifice for the gods, and a supper for
      their joyous votaries.Ó 36

      36 (return) [ The restoration of the Pagan worship is described
      by Julian, (Misopogon, p. 346,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 60,
      p. 286, 287, and Orat. Consular. ad Julian. p. 245, 246, edit.
      Morel.,) Ammianus, (xxii. 12,) and Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv.
      p. 121.) These writers agree in the essential, and even minute,
      facts; but the different lights in which they view the extreme
      devotion of Julian, are expressive of the gradations of
      self-applause, passionate admiration, mild reproof, and partial
      invective.]

      But the genius and power of Julian were unequal to the enterprise
      of restoring a religion which was destitute of theological
      principles, of moral precepts, and of ecclesiastical discipline;
      which rapidly hastened to decay and dissolution, and was not
      susceptible of any solid or consistent reformation. The
      jurisdiction of the supreme pontiff, more especially after that
      office had been united with the Imperial dignity, comprehended
      the whole extent of the Roman empire. Julian named for his
      vicars, in the several provinces, the priests and philosophers
      whom he esteemed the best qualified to cooperate in the execution
      of his great design; and his pastoral letters, 37 if we may use
      that name, still represent a very curious sketch of his wishes
      and intentions. He directs, that in every city the sacerdotal
      order should be composed, without any distinction of birth and
      fortune, of those persons who were the most conspicuous for the
      love of the gods, and of men. ÒIf they are guilty,Ó continues he,
      Òof any scandalous offence, they should be censured or degraded
      by the superior pontiff; but as long as they retain their rank,
      they are entitled to the respect of the magistrates and people.
      Their humility may be shown in the plainness of their domestic
      garb; their dignity, in the pomp of holy vestments. When they are
      summoned in their turn to officiate before the altar, they ought
      not, during the appointed number of days, to depart from the
      precincts of the temple; nor should a single day be suffered to
      elapse, without the prayers and the sacrifice, which they are
      obliged to offer for the prosperity of the state, and of
      individuals. The exercise of their sacred functions requires an
      immaculate purity, both of mind and body; and even when they are
      dismissed from the temple to the occupations of common life, it
      is incumbent on them to excel in decency and virtue the rest of
      their fellow-citizens. The priest of the gods should never be
      seen in theatres or taverns. His conversation should be chaste,
      his diet temperate, his friends of honorable reputation; and if
      he sometimes visits the Forum or the Palace, he should appear
      only as the advocate of those who have vainly solicited either
      justice or mercy. His studies should be suited to the sanctity of
      his profession. Licentious tales, or comedies, or satires, must
      be banished from his library, which ought solely to consist of
      historical or philosophical writings; of history, which is
      founded in truth, and of philosophy, which is connected with
      religion. The impious opinions of the Epicureans and sceptics
      deserve his abhorrence and contempt; 38 but he should diligently
      study the systems of Pythagoras, of Plato, and of the Stoics,
      which unanimously teach that there _are_ gods; that the world is
      governed by their providence; that their goodness is the source
      of every temporal blessing; and that they have prepared for the
      human soul a future state of reward or punishment.Ó The Imperial
      pontiff inculcates, in the most persuasive language, the duties
      of benevolence and hospitality; exhorts his inferior clergy to
      recommend the universal practice of those virtues; promises to
      assist their indigence from the public treasury; and declares his
      resolution of establishing hospitals in every city, where the
      poor should be received without any invidious distinction of
      country or of religion. Julian beheld with envy the wise and
      humane regulations of the church; and he very frankly confesses
      his intention to deprive the Christians of the applause, as well
      as advantage, which they had acquired by the exclusive practice
      of charity and beneficence. 39 The same spirit of imitation might
      dispose the emperor to adopt several ecclesiastical institutions,
      the use and importance of which were approved by the success of
      his enemies. But if these imaginary plans of reformation had been
      realized, the forced and imperfect copy would have been less
      beneficial to Paganism, than honorable to Christianity. 40 The
      Gentiles, who peaceably followed the customs of their ancestors,
      were rather surprised than pleased with the introduction of
      foreign manners; and in the short period of his reign, Julian had
      frequent occasions to complain of the want of fervor of his own
      party. 41

      37 (return) [ See Julian. Epistol. xlix. lxii. lxiii., and a long
      and curious fragment, without beginning or end, (p. 288-305.) The
      supreme pontiff derides the Mosaic history and the Christian
      discipline, prefers the Greek poets to the Hebrew prophets, and
      palliates, with the skill of a Jesuit the _relative_ worship of
      images.]

      38 (return) [ The exultation of Julian (p. 301) that these
      impious sects and even their writings, are extinguished, may be
      consistent enough with the sacerdotal character; but it is
      unworthy of a philosopher to wish that any opinions and arguments
      the most repugnant to his own should be concealed from the
      knowledge of mankind.]

      39 (return) [ Yet he insinuates, that the Christians, under the
      pretence of charity, inveigled children from their religion and
      parents, conveyed them on shipboard, and devoted those victims to
      a life of poverty or pervitude in a remote country, (p. 305.) Had
      the charge been proved it was his duty, not to complain, but to
      punish.]

      40 (return) [ Gregory Nazianzen is facetious, ingenious, and
      argumentative, (Orat. iii. p. 101, 102, &c.) He ridicules the
      folly of such vain imitation; and amuses himself with inquiring,
      what lessons, moral or theological, could be extracted from the
      Grecian fables.]

      41 (return) [ He accuses one of his pontiffs of a secret
      confederacy with the Christian bishops and presbyters, (Epist.
      lxii.) &c. Epist. lxiii.]

      The enthusiasm of Julian prompted him to embrace the friends of
      Jupiter as his personal friends and brethren; and though he
      partially overlooked the merit of Christian constancy, he admired
      and rewarded the noble perseverance of those Gentiles who had
      preferred the favor of the gods to that of the emperor. 42 If
      they cultivated the literature, as well as the religion, of the
      Greeks, they acquired an additional claim to the friendship of
      Julian, who ranked the Muses in the number of his tutelar
      deities. In the religion which he had adopted, piety and learning
      were almost synonymous; 43 and a crowd of poets, of rhetoricians,
      and of philosophers, hastened to the Imperial court, to occupy
      the vacant places of the bishops, who had seduced the credulity
      of Constantius. His successor esteemed the ties of common
      initiation as far more sacred than those of consanguinity; he
      chose his favorites among the sages, who were deeply skilled in
      the occult sciences of magic and divination; and every impostor,
      who pretended to reveal the secrets of futurity, was assured of
      enjoying the present hour in honor and affluence. 44 Among the
      philosophers, Maximus obtained the most eminent rank in the
      friendship of his royal disciple, who communicated, with
      unreserved confidence, his actions, his sentiments, and his
      religious designs, during the anxious suspense of the civil war.
      45 As soon as Julian had taken possession of the palace of
      Constantinople, he despatched an honorable and pressing
      invitation to Maximus, who then resided at Sardes in Lydia, with
      Chrysanthius, the associate of his art and studies. The prudent
      and superstitious Chrysanthius refused to undertake a journey
      which showed itself, according to the rules of divination, with
      the most threatening and malignant aspect: but his companion,
      whose fanaticism was of a bolder cast, persisted in his
      interrogations, till he had extorted from the gods a seeming
      consent to his own wishes, and those of the emperor. The journey
      of Maximus through the cities of Asia displayed the triumph of
      philosophic vanity; and the magistrates vied with each other in
      the honorable reception which they prepared for the friend of
      their sovereign. Julian was pronouncing an oration before the
      senate, when he was informed of the arrival of Maximus. The
      emperor immediately interrupted his discourse, advanced to meet
      him, and after a tender embrace, conducted him by the hand into
      the midst of the assembly; where he publicly acknowledged the
      benefits which he had derived from the instructions of the
      philosopher. Maximus, 46 who soon acquired the confidence, and
      influenced the councils of Julian, was insensibly corrupted by
      the temptations of a court. His dress became more splendid, his
      demeanor more lofty, and he was exposed, under a succeeding
      reign, to a disgraceful inquiry into the means by which the
      disciple of Plato had accumulated, in the short duration of his
      favor, a very scandalous proportion of wealth. Of the other
      philosophers and sophists, who were invited to the Imperial
      residence by the choice of Julian, or by the success of Maximus,
      few were able to preserve their innocence or their reputation.
      The liberal gifts of money, lands, and houses, were insufficient
      to satiate their rapacious avarice; and the indignation of the
      people was justly excited by the remembrance of their abject
      poverty and disinterested professions. The penetration of Julian
      could not always be deceived: but he was unwilling to despise the
      characters of those men whose talents deserved his esteem: he
      desired to escape the double reproach of imprudence and
      inconstancy; and he was apprehensive of degrading, in the eyes of
      the profane, the honor of letters and of religion. 47 48

      42 (return) [ He praises the fidelity of Callixene, priestess of
      Ceres, who had been twice as constant as Penelope, and rewards
      her with the priesthood of the Phrygian goddess at Pessinus,
      (Julian. Epist. xxi.) He applauds the firmness of Sopater of
      Hierapolis, who had been repeatedly pressed by Constantius and
      Gallus to _apostatize_, (Epist. xxvii p. 401.)]

      43 (return) [ Orat. Parent. c. 77, p. 202. The same sentiment is
      frequently inculcated by Julian, Libanius, and the rest of their
      party.]

      44 (return) [ The curiosity and credulity of the emperor, who
      tried every mode of divination, are fairly exposed by Ammianus,
      xxii. 12.]

      45 (return) [ Julian. Epist. xxxviii. Three other epistles, (xv.
      xvi. xxxix.,) in the same style of friendship and confidence, are
      addressed to the philosopher Maximus.]

      46 (return) [ Eunapius (in Maximo, p. 77, 78, 79, and in
      Chrysanthio, p. 147, 148) has minutely related these anecdotes,
      which he conceives to be the most important events of the age.
      Yet he fairly confesses the frailty of Maximus. His reception at
      Constantinople is described by Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 86, p.
      301) and Ammianus, (xxii. 7.) * Note: Eunapius wrote a
      continuation of the History of Dexippus. Some valuable fragments
      of this work have been recovered by M. Mai, and reprinted in
      NiebuhrÕs edition of the Byzantine Historians.ÑM.]

      47 (return) [ Chrysanthius, who had refused to quit Lydia, was
      created high priest of the province. His cautious and temperate
      use of power secured him after the revolution; and he lived in
      peace, while Maximus, Priscus, &c., were persecuted by the
      Christian ministers. See the adventures of those fanatic
      sophists, collected by Brucker, tom ii. p. 281-293.]

      48 (return) [ Sec Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 101, 102, p. 324,
      325, 326) and Eunapius, (Vit. Sophist. in Pro¾resio, p. 126.)
      Some students, whose expectations perhaps were groundless, or
      extravagant, retired in disgust, (Greg. Naz. Orat. iv. p. 120.)
      It is strange that we should not be able to contradict the title
      of one of TillemontÕs chapters, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p.
      960,) ÒLa Cour de Julien est pleine de philosphes et de gens
      perdus.Ó]

      The favor of Julian was almost equally divided between the
      Pagans, who had firmly adhered to the worship of their ancestors,
      and the Christians, who prudently embraced the religion of their
      sovereign. The acquisition of new proselytes 49 gratified the
      ruling passions of his soul, superstition and vanity; and he was
      heard to declare, with the enthusiasm of a missionary, that if he
      could render each individual richer than Midas, and every city
      greater than Babylon, he should not esteem himself the benefactor
      of mankind, unless, at the same time, he could reclaim his
      subjects from their impious revolt against the immortal gods. 50
      A prince who had studied human nature, and who possessed the
      treasures of the Roman empire, could adapt his arguments, his
      promises, and his rewards, to every order of Christians; 51 and
      the merit of a seasonable conversion was allowed to supply the
      defects of a candidate, or even to expiate the guilt of a
      criminal. As the army is the most forcible engine of absolute
      power, Julian applied himself, with peculiar diligence, to
      corrupt the religion of his troops, without whose hearty
      concurrence every measure must be dangerous and unsuccessful; and
      the natural temper of soldiers made this conquest as easy as it
      was important. The legions of Gaul devoted themselves to the
      faith, as well as to the fortunes, of their victorious leader;
      and even before the death of Constantius, he had the satisfaction
      of announcing to his friends, that they assisted with fervent
      devotion, and voracious appetite, at the sacrifices, which were
      repeatedly offered in his camp, of whole hecatombs of fat oxen.
      52 The armies of the East, which had been trained under the
      standard of the cross, and of Constantius, required a more artful
      and expensive mode of persuasion. On the days of solemn and
      public festivals, the emperor received the homage, and rewarded
      the merit, of the troops. His throne of state was encircled with
      the military ensigns of Rome and the republic; the holy name of
      Christ was erased from the _Labarum;_ and the symbols of war, of
      majesty, and of pagan superstition, were so dexterously blended,
      that the faithful subject incurred the guilt of idolatry, when he
      respectfully saluted the person or image of his sovereign. The
      soldiers passed successively in review; and each of them, before
      he received from the hand of Julian a liberal donative,
      proportioned to his rank and services, was required to cast a few
      grains of incense into the flame which burnt upon the altar. Some
      Christian confessors might resist, and others might repent; but
      the far greater number, allured by the prospect of gold, and awed
      by the presence of the emperor, contracted the criminal
      engagement; and their future perseverance in the worship of the
      gods was enforced by every consideration of duty and of interest.

      By the frequent repetition of these arts, and at the expense of
      sums which would have purchased the service of half the nations
      of Scythia, Julian gradually acquired for his troops the
      imaginary protection of the gods, and for himself the firm and
      effectual support of the Roman legions. 53 It is indeed more than
      probable, that the restoration and encouragement of Paganism
      revealed a multitude of pretended Christians, who, from motives
      of temporal advantage, had acquiesced in the religion of the
      former reign; and who afterwards returned, with the same
      flexibility of conscience, to the faith which was professed by
      the successors of Julian.

      49 (return) [ Under the reign of Lewis XIV. his subjects of every
      rank aspired to the glorious title of _Convertisseur_, expressive
      of their zea and success in making proselytes. The word and the
      idea are growing obsolete in France may they never be introduced
      into England.]

      50 (return) [ See the strong expressions of Libanius, which were
      probably those of Julian himself, (Orat. Parent. c. 59, p. 285.)]

      51 (return) [ When Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. x. p. 167) is
      desirous to magnify the Christian firmness of his brother
      C¾sarius, physician to the Imperial court, he owns that C¾sarius
      disputed with a formidable adversary. In his invectives he
      scarcely allows any share of wit or courage to the apostate.]

      52 (return) [ Julian, Epist. xxxviii. Ammianus, xxii. 12. Adeo ut
      in dies p¾ne singulos milites carnis distentiore sagina
      victitantes incultius, potusque aviditate correpti, humeris
      impositi transeuntium per plateas, ex publicis ¾dibus..... ad sua
      diversoria portarentur. The devout prince and the indignant
      historian describe the same scene; and in Illyricum or Antioch,
      similar causes must have produced similar effects.]

      53 (return) [ Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 74, 75, 83-86) and Libanius,
      (Orat. Parent. c. lxxxi. lxxxii. p. 307, 308,). The sophist owns
      and justifies the expense of these military conversions.]

      While the devout monarch incessantly labored to restore and
      propagate the religion of his ancestors, he embraced the
      extraordinary design of rebuilding the temple of Jerusalem. In a
      public epistle 54 to the nation or community of the Jews,
      dispersed through the provinces, he pities their misfortunes,
      condemns their oppressors, praises their constancy, declares
      himself their gracious protector, and expresses a pious hope,
      that after his return from the Persian war, he may be permitted
      to pay his grateful vows to the Almighty in his holy city of
      Jerusalem. The blind superstition, and abject slavery, of those
      unfortunate exiles, must excite the contempt of a philosophic
      emperor; but they deserved the friendship of Julian, by their
      implacable hatred of the Christian name. The barren synagogue
      abhorred and envied the fecundity of the rebellious church; the
      power of the Jews was not equal to their malice; but their
      gravest rabbis approved the private murder of an apostate; 55 and
      their seditious clamors had often awakened the indolence of the
      Pagan magistrates. Under the reign of Constantine, the Jews
      became the subjects of their revolted children nor was it long
      before they experienced the bitterness of domestic tyranny. The
      civil immunities which had been granted, or confirmed, by
      Severus, were gradually repealed by the Christian princes; and a
      rash tumult, excited by the Jews of Palestine, 56 seemed to
      justify the lucrative modes of oppression which were invented by
      the bishops and eunuchs of the court of Constantius. The Jewish
      patriarch, who was still permitted to exercise a precarious
      jurisdiction, held his residence at Tiberias; 57 and the
      neighboring cities of Palestine were filled with the remains of a
      people who fondly adhered to the promised land. But the edict of
      Hadrian was renewed and enforced; and they viewed from afar the
      walls of the holy city, which were profaned in their eyes by the
      triumph of the cross and the devotion of the Christians. 58

      54 (return) [ JulianÕs epistle (xxv.) is addressed to the
      community of the Jews. Aldus (Venet. 1499) has branded it with
      an; but this stigma is justly removed by the subsequent editors,
      Petavius and Spanheim. This epistle is mentioned by Sozomen, (l.
      v. c. 22,) and the purport of it is confirmed by Gregory, (Orat.
      iv. p. 111.) and by Julian himself (Fragment. p. 295.)]

      55 (return) [ The Misnah denounced death against those who
      abandoned the foundation. The judgment of zeal is explained by
      Marsham (Canon. Chron. p. 161, 162, edit. fol. London, 1672) and
      Basnage, (Hist. des Juifs, tom. viii. p. 120.) Constantine made a
      law to protect Christian converts from Judaism. Cod. Theod. l.
      xvi. tit. viii. leg. 1. Godefroy, tom. vi. p. 215.]

      56 (return) [ Et interea (during the civil war of Magnentius)
      Jud¾orum seditio, qui Patricium, nefarie in regni speciem
      sustulerunt, oppressa. Aurelius Victor, in Constantio, c. xlii.
      See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 379, in 4to.]

      57 (return) [ The city and synagogue of Tiberias are curiously
      described by Reland. Palestin. tom. ii. p. 1036-1042.]

      58 (return) [ Basnage has fully illustrated the state of the Jews
      under Constantine and his successors, (tom. viii. c. iv. p.
      111-153.)]




      Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.ÑPart III.


      In the midst of a rocky and barren country, the walls of
      Jerusalem 59 enclosed the two mountains of Sion and Acra, within
      an oval figure of about three English miles. 60 Towards the
      south, the upper town, and the fortress of David, were erected on
      the lofty ascent of Mount Sion: on the north side, the buildings
      of the lower town covered the spacious summit of Mount Acra; and
      a part of the hill, distinguished by the name of Moriah, and
      levelled by human industry, was crowned with the stately temple
      of the Jewish nation. After the final destruction of the temple
      by the arms of Titus and Hadrian, a ploughshare was drawn over
      the consecrated ground, as a sign of perpetual interdiction. Sion
      was deserted; and the vacant space of the lower city was filled
      with the public and private edifices of the ®lian colony, which
      spread themselves over the adjacent hill of Calvary. The holy
      places were polluted with mountains of idolatry; and, either from
      design or accident, a chapel was dedicated to Venus, on the spot
      which had been sanctified by the death and resurrection of
      Christ. 61 6111 Almost three hundred years after those stupendous
      events, the profane chapel of Venus was demolished by the order
      of Constantine; and the removal of the earth and stones revealed
      the holy sepulchre to the eyes of mankind. A magnificent church
      was erected on that mystic ground, by the first Christian
      emperor; and the effects of his pious munificence were extended
      to every spot which had been consecrated by the footstep of
      patriarchs, of prophets, and of the Son of God. 62

      59 (return) [ Reland (Palestin. l. i. p. 309, 390, l. iii. p.
      838) describes, with learning and perspicuity, Jerusalem, and the
      face of the adjacent country.]

      60 (return) [ I have consulted a rare and curious treatise of M.
      DÕAnville, (sur lÕAncienne Jerusalem, Paris, 1747, p. 75.) The
      circumference of the ancient city (Euseb. Preparat. Evangel. l.
      ix. c. 36) was 27 stadia, or 2550 _toises_. A plan, taken on the
      spot, assigns no more than 1980 for the modern town. The circuit
      is defined by natural landmarks, which cannot be mistaken or
      removed.]

      61 (return) [ See two curious passages in Jerom, (tom. i. p. 102,
      tom. vi. p. 315,) and the ample details of Tillemont, (Hist, des
      Empereurs, tom. i. p. 569. tom. ii. p. 289, 294, 4to edition.)]

      6111 (return) [ On the site of the Holy Sepulchre, compare the
      chapter in Professor RobinsonÕs Travels in Palestine, which has
      renewed the old controversy with great vigor. To me, this temple
      of Venus, said to have been erected by Hadrian to insult the
      Christians, is not the least suspicious part of the whole
      legend.-M. 1845.]

      62 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 25-47,
      51-53. The emperor likewise built churches at Bethlem, the Mount
      of Olives, and the oa of Mambre. The holy sepulchre is described
      by Sandys, (Travels, p. 125-133,) and curiously delineated by Le
      Bruyn, (Voyage au Levant, p. 28-296.)]

      The passionate desire of contemplating the original monuments of
      their redemption attracted to Jerusalem a successive crowd of
      pilgrims, from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, and the most
      distant countries of the East; 63 and their piety was authorized
      by the example of the empress Helena, who appears to have united
      the credulity of age with the warm feelings of a recent
      conversion. Sages and heroes, who have visited the memorable
      scenes of ancient wisdom or glory, have confessed the inspiration
      of the genius of the place; 64 and the Christian who knelt before
      the holy sepulchre, ascribed his lively faith, and his fervent
      devotion, to the more immediate influence of the Divine Spirit.
      The zeal, perhaps the avarice, of the clergy of Jerusalem,
      cherished and multiplied these beneficial visits. They fixed, by
      unquestionable tradition, the scene of each memorable event. They
      exhibited the instruments which had been used in the passion of
      Christ; the nails and the lance that had pierced his hands, his
      feet, and his side; the crown of thorns that was planted on his
      head; the pillar at which he was scourged; and, above all, they
      showed the cross on which he suffered, and which was dug out of
      the earth in the reign of those princes, who inserted the symbol
      of Christianity in the banners of the Roman legions. 65 Such
      miracles as seemed necessary to account for its extraordinary
      preservation, and seasonable discovery, were gradually propagated
      without opposition. The custody of the _true cross_, which on
      Easter Sunday was solemnly exposed to the people, was intrusted
      to the bishop of Jerusalem; and he alone might gratify the
      curious devotion of the pilgrims, by the gift of small pieces,
      which they encased in gold or gems, and carried away in triumph
      to their respective countries. But as this gainful branch of
      commerce must soon have been annihilated, it was found convenient
      to suppose, that the marvelous wood possessed a secret power of
      vegetation; and that its substance, though continually
      diminished, still remained entire and unimpaired. 66 It might
      perhaps have been expected, that the influence of the place and
      the belief of a perpetual miracle, should have produced some
      salutary effects on the morals, as well as on the faith, of the
      people. Yet the most respectable of the ecclesiastical writers
      have been obliged to confess, not only that the streets of
      Jerusalem were filled with the incessant tumult of business and
      pleasure, 67 but that every species of viceÑadultery, theft,
      idolatry, poisoning, murderÑwas familiar to the inhabitants of
      the holy city. 68 The wealth and pre‘minence of the church of
      Jerusalem excited the ambition of Arian, as well as orthodox,
      candidates; and the virtues of Cyril, who, since his death, has
      been honored with the title of Saint, were displayed in the
      exercise, rather than in the acquisition, of his episcopal
      dignity. 69

      63 (return) [ The Itinerary from Bourdeaux to Jerusalem was
      composed in the year 333, for the use of pilgrims; among whom
      Jerom (tom. i. p. 126) mentions the Britons and the Indians. The
      causes of this superstitious fashion are discussed in the learned
      and judicious preface of Wesseling. (Itinarar. p. 537-545.)
      ÑÑMuch curious information on this subject is collected in the
      first chapter of Wilken, Geschichte der KreuzzŸge.ÑM.]

      64 (return) [ Cicero (de Finibus, v. 1) has beautifully expressed
      the common sense of mankind.]

      65 (return) [ Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 326, No. 42-50) and
      Tillemont (MŽm. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 8-16) are the historians and
      champions of the miraculous _invention_ of the cross, under the
      reign of Constantine. Their oldest witnesses are Paulinus,
      Sulpicius Severus, Rufinus, Ambrose, and perhaps Cyril of
      Jerusalem. The silence of Eusebius, and the Bourdeaux pilgrim,
      which satisfies those who think perplexes those who believe. See
      JortinÕs sensible remarks, vol. ii. p 238-248.]

      66 (return) [ This multiplication is asserted by Paulinus,
      (Epist. xxxvi. See Dupin. Bibliot. Eccles. tom. iii. p. 149,) who
      seems to have improved a rhetorical flourish of Cyril into a real
      fact. The same supernatural privilege must have been communicated
      to the VirginÕs milk, (Erasmi Opera, tom. i. p. 778, Lugd. Batav.
      1703, in Colloq. de Peregrinat. Religionis ergo,) saintsÕ heads,
      &c. and other relics, which are repeated in so many different
      churches. * Note: Lord Mahon, in a memoir read before the Society
      of Antiquaries, (Feb. 1831,) has traced in a brief but
      interesting manner, the singular adventures of the ÒtrueÓ cross.
      It is curious to inquire, what authority we have, except of
      _late_ tradition, for the _Hill_ of Calvary. There is none in the
      sacred writings; the uniform use of the common word, instead of
      any word expressing assent or acclivity, is against the
      notion.ÑM.]

      67 (return) [ Jerom, (tom. i. p. 103,) who resided in the
      neighboring village of Bethlem, describes the vices of Jerusalem
      from his personal experience.]

      68 (return) [ Gregor. Nyssen, apud Wesseling, p. 539. The whole
      epistle, which condemns either the use or the abuse of religious
      pilgrimage, is painful to the Catholic divines, while it is dear
      and familiar to our Protestant polemics.]

      69 (return) [ He renounced his orthodox ordination, officiated as
      a deacon, and was re-ordained by the hands of the Arians. But
      Cyril afterwards changed with the times, and prudently conformed
      to the Nicene faith. Tillemont, (MŽm. Eccles. tom. viii.,) who
      treats his memory with tenderness and respect, has thrown his
      virtues into the text, and his faults into the notes, in decent
      obscurity, at the end of the volume.]

      The vain and ambitious mind of Julian might aspire to restore the
      ancient glory of the temple of Jerusalem. 70 As the Christians
      were firmly persuaded that a sentence of everlasting destruction
      had been pronounced against the whole fabric of the Mosaic law,
      the Imperial sophist would have converted the success of his
      undertaking into a specious argument against the faith of
      prophecy, and the truth of revelation. 71 He was displeased with
      the spiritual worship of the synagogue; but he approved the
      institutions of Moses, who had not disdained to adopt many of the
      rites and ceremonies of Egypt. 72 The local and national deity of
      the Jews was sincerely adored by a polytheist, who desired only
      to multiply the number of the gods; 73 and such was the appetite
      of Julian for bloody sacrifice, that his emulation might be
      excited by the piety of Solomon, who had offered, at the feast of
      the dedication, twenty-two thousand oxen, and one hundred and
      twenty thousand sheep. 74 These considerations might influence
      his designs; but the prospect of an immediate and important
      advantage would not suffer the impatient monarch to expect the
      remote and uncertain event of the Persian war. He resolved to
      erect, without delay, on the commanding eminence of Moriah, a
      stately temple, which might eclipse the splendor of the church of
      the resurrection on the adjacent hill of Calvary; to establish an
      order of priests, whose interested zeal would detect the arts,
      and resist the ambition, of their Christian rivals; and to invite
      a numerous colony of Jews, whose stern fanaticism would be always
      prepared to second, and even to anticipate, the hostile measures
      of the Pagan government. Among the friends of the emperor (if the
      names of emperor, and of friend, are not incompatible) the first
      place was assigned, by Julian himself, to the virtuous and
      learned Alypius. 75 The humanity of Alypius was tempered by
      severe justice and manly fortitude; and while he exercised his
      abilities in the civil administration of Britain, he imitated, in
      his poetical compositions, the harmony and softness of the odes
      of Sappho. This minister, to whom Julian communicated, without
      reserve, his most careless levities, and his most serious
      counsels, received an extraordinary commission to restore, in its
      pristine beauty, the temple of Jerusalem; and the diligence of
      Alypius required and obtained the strenuous support of the
      governor of Palestine. At the call of their great deliverer, the
      Jews, from all the provinces of the empire, assembled on the holy
      mountain of their fathers; and their insolent triumph alarmed and
      exasperated the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem. The desire of
      rebuilding the temple has in every age been the ruling passion of
      the children of Israel. In this propitious moment the men forgot
      their avarice, and the women their delicacy; spades and pickaxes
      of silver were provided by the vanity of the rich, and the
      rubbish was transported in mantles of silk and purple. Every
      purse was opened in liberal contributions, every hand claimed a
      share in the pious labor, and the commands of a great monarch
      were executed by the enthusiasm of a whole people. 76

      70 (return) [ Imperii sui memoriam magnitudine operum gestiens
      propagare Ammian. xxiii. 1. The temple of Jerusalem had been
      famous even among the Gentiles. _They_ had many temples in each
      city, (at Sichem five, at Gaza eight, at Rome four hundred and
      twenty-four;) but the wealth and religion of the Jewish nation
      was centred in one spot.]

      71 (return) [ The secret intentions of Julian are revealed by the
      late bishop of Gloucester, the learned and dogmatic Warburton;
      who, with the authority of a theologian, prescribes the motives
      and conduct of the Supreme Being. The discourse entitled _Julian_
      (2d edition, London, 1751) is strongly marked with all the
      peculiarities which are imputed to the Warburtonian school.]

      72 (return) [ I shelter myself behind Maimonides, Marsham,
      Spencer, Le Clerc, Warburton, &c., who have fairly derided the
      fears, the folly, and the falsehood of some superstitious
      divines. See Divine Legation, vol. iv. p. 25, &c.]

      73 (return) [ Julian (Fragment. p. 295) respectfully styles him,
      and mentions him elsewhere (Epist. lxiii.) with still higher
      reverence. He doubly condemns the Christians for believing, and
      for renouncing, the religion of the Jews. Their Deity was a
      _true_, but not the _only_, God Apul Cyril. l. ix. p. 305, 306.]

      74 (return) [ 1 Kings, viii. 63. 2 Chronicles, vii. 5. Joseph.
      Antiquitat. Judaic. l. viii. c. 4, p. 431, edit. Havercamp. As
      the blood and smoke of so many hecatombs might be inconvenient,
      Lightfoot, the Christian Rabbi, removes them by a miracle. Le
      Clerc (ad loca) is bold enough to suspect to fidelity of the
      numbers. * Note: According to the historian Kotobeddym, quoted by
      Burckhardt, (Travels in Arabia, p. 276,) the Khalif Mokteder
      sacrificed, during his pilgrimage to Mecca, in the year of the
      Hejira 350, forty thousand camels and cows, and fifty thousand
      sheep. Barthema describes thirty thousand oxen slain, and their
      carcasses given to the poor. Quarterly Review, xiii.p.39ÑM.]

      75 (return) [ Julian, epist. xxix. xxx. La Bleterie has neglected
      to translate the second of these epistles.]

      76 (return) [ See the zeal and impatience of the Jews in Gregory
      Nazianzen (Orat. iv. p. 111) and Theodoret. (l. iii. c. 20.)]

      Yet, on this occasion, the joint efforts of power and enthusiasm
      were unsuccessful; and the ground of the Jewish temple, which is
      now covered by a Mahometan mosque, 77 still continued to exhibit
      the same edifying spectacle of ruin and desolation. Perhaps the
      absence and death of the emperor, and the new maxims of a
      Christian reign, might explain the interruption of an arduous
      work, which was attempted only in the last six months of the life
      of Julian. 78 But the Christians entertained a natural and pious
      expectation, that, in this memorable contest, the honor of
      religion would be vindicated by some signal miracle. An
      earthquake, a whirlwind, and a fiery eruption, which overturned
      and scattered the new foundations of the temple, are attested,
      with some variations, by contemporary and respectable evidence.
      79 This public event is described by Ambrose, 80 bishop of Milan,
      in an epistle to the emperor Theodosius, which must provoke the
      severe animadversion of the Jews; by the eloquent Chrysostom, 81
      who might appeal to the memory of the elder part of his
      congregation at Antioch; and by Gregory Nazianzen, 82 who
      published his account of the miracle before the expiration of the
      same year. The last of these writers has boldly declared, that
      this preternatural event was not disputed by the infidels; and
      his assertion, strange as it may seem is confirmed by the
      unexceptionable testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus. 83 The
      philosophic soldier, who loved the virtues, without adopting the
      prejudices, of his master, has recorded, in his judicious and
      candid history of his own times, the extraordinary obstacles
      which interrupted the restoration of the temple of Jerusalem.
      ÒWhilst Alypius, assisted by the governor of the province, urged,
      with vigor and diligence, the execution of the work, horrible
      balls of fire breaking out near the foundations, with frequent
      and reiterated attacks, rendered the place, from time to time,
      inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen; and the
      victorious element continuing in this manner obstinately and
      resolutely bent, as it were, to drive them to a distance, the
      undertaking was abandoned.Ó 8311 Such authority should satisfy a
      believing, and must astonish an incredulous, mind. Yet a
      philosopher may still require the original evidence of impartial
      and intelligent spectators. At this important crisis, any
      singular accident of nature would assume the appearance, and
      produce the effects of a real prodigy. This glorious deliverance
      would be speedily improved and magnified by the pious art of the
      clergy of Jerusalem, and the active credulity of the Christian
      world and, at the distance of twenty years, a Roman historian,
      careless of theological disputes, might adorn his work with the
      specious and splendid miracle. 84

      77 (return) [ Built by Omar, the second Khalif, who died A. D.
      644. This great mosque covers the whole consecrated ground of the
      Jewish temple, and constitutes almost a square of 760 _toises_,
      or one Roman mile in circumference. See DÕAnville, Jerusalem, p.
      45.]

      78 (return) [ Ammianus records the consults of the year 363,
      before he proceeds to mention the _thoughts_ of Julian. Templum.
      ... instaurare sumptibus _cogitabat_ immodicis. Warburton has a
      secret wish to anticipate the design; but he must have
      understood, from former examples, that the execution of such a
      work would have demanded many years.]

      79 (return) [ The subsequent witnesses, Socrates, Sozomen,
      Theodoret, Philostorgius, &c., add contradictions rather than
      authority. Compare the objections of Basnage (Hist. des Juifs,
      tom. viii. p. 156-168) with WarburtonÕs answers, (Julian, p.
      174-258.) The bishop has ingeniously explained the miraculous
      crosses which appeared on the garments of the spectators by a
      similar instance, and the natural effects of lightning.]

      80 (return) [ Ambros. tom. ii. epist. xl. p. 946, edit.
      Benedictin. He composed this fanatic epistle (A. D. 388) to
      justify a bishop who had been condemned by the civil magistrate
      for burning a synagogue.]

      81 (return) [ Chrysostom, tom. i. p. 580, advers. Jud¾os et
      Gentes, tom. ii. p. 574, de Sto Babyla, edit. Montfaucon. I have
      followed the common and natural supposition; but the learned
      Benedictine, who dates the composition of these sermons in the
      year 383, is confident they were never pronounced from the
      pulpit.]

      82 (return) [ Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 110-113.]

      83 (return) [ Ammian. xxiii. 1. Cum itaque rei fortiter instaret
      Alypius, juvaretque provinci¾ rector, metuendi globi flammarum
      prope fundamenta crebris assultibus erumpentes fecere locum
      exustis aliquoties operantibus inaccessum; hocque modo elemento
      destinatius repellente, cessavit inceptum. Warburton labors (p.
      60-90) to extort a confession of the miracle from the mouths of
      Julian and Libanius, and to employ the evidence of a rabbi who
      lived in the fifteenth century. Such witnesses can only be
      received by a very favorable judge.]

      8311 (return) [ Michaelis has given an ingenious and sufficiently
      probable explanation of this remarkable incident, which the
      positive testimony of Ammianus, a contemporary and a pagan, will
      not permit us to call in question. It was suggested by a passage
      in Tacitus. That historian, speaking of Jerusalem, says, [I omit
      the first part of the quotation adduced by M. Guizot, which only
      by a most extraordinary mistranslation of muri introrsus sinuati
      by Ò_enfoncemens_Ó could be made to bear on the question.ÑM.]
      ÒThe Temple itself was a kind of citadel, which had its own
      walls, superior in their workmanship and construction to those of
      the city. The porticos themselves, which surrounded the temple,
      were an excellent fortification. There was a fountain of
      constantly running water; _subterranean excavations under the
      mountain; reservoirs and cisterns to collect the rain-water_.Ó
      Tac. Hist. v. ii. 12. These excavations and reservoirs must have
      been very considerable. The latter furnished water during the
      whole siege of Jerusalem to 1,100,000 inhabitants, for whom the
      fountain of Siloe could not have sufficed, and who had no fresh
      rain-water, the siege having taken place from the month of April
      to the month of August, a period of the year during which it
      rarely rains in Jerusalem. As to the excavations, they served
      after, and even before, the return of the Jews from Babylon, to
      contain not only magazines of oil, wine, and corn, but also the
      treasures which were laid up in the Temple. Josephus has related
      several incidents which show their extent. When Jerusalem was on
      the point of being taken by Titus, the rebel chiefs, placing
      their last hopes in these vast subterranean cavities, formed a
      design of concealing themselves there, and remaining during the
      conflagration of the city, and until the Romans had retired to a
      distance. The greater part had not time to execute their design;
      but one of them, Simon, the Son of Gioras, having provided
      himself with food, and tools to excavate the earth descended into
      this retreat with some companions: he remained there till Titus
      had set out for Rome: under the pressure of famine he issued
      forth on a sudden in the very place where the Temple had stood,
      and appeared in the midst of the Roman guard. He was seized and
      carried to Rome for the triumph. His appearance made it be
      suspected that other Jews might have chosen the same asylum;
      search was made, and a great number discovered. Joseph. de Bell.
      Jud. l. vii. c. 2. It is probable that the greater part of these
      excavations were the remains of the time of Solomon, when it was
      the custom to work to a great extent under ground: no other date
      can be assigned to them. The Jews, on their return from the
      captivity, were too poor to undertake such works; and, although
      Herod, on rebuilding the Temple, made some excavations, (Joseph.
      Ant. Jud. xv. 11, vii.,) the haste with which that building was
      completed will not allow us to suppose that they belonged to that
      period. Some were used for sewers and drains, others served to
      conceal the immense treasures of which Crassus, a hundred and
      twenty years before, plundered the Jews, and which doubtless had
      been since replaced. The Temple was destroyed A. C. 70; the
      attempt of Julian to rebuild it, and the fact related by
      Ammianus, coincide with the year 363. There had then elapsed
      between these two epochs an interval of near 300 years, during
      which the excavations, choked up with ruins, must have become
      full of inflammable air. The workmen employed by Julian as they
      were digging, arrived at the excavations of the Temple; they
      would take torches to explore them; sudden flames repelled those
      who approached; explosions were heard, and these phenomena were
      renewed every time that they penetrated into new subterranean
      passages. This explanation is confirmed by the relation of an
      event nearly similar, by Josephus. King Herod having heard that
      immense treasures had been concealed in the sepulchre of David,
      he descended into it with a few confidential persons; he found in
      the first subterranean chamber only jewels and precious stuffs:
      but having wished to penetrate into a second chamber, which had
      been long closed, he was repelled, when he opened it, by flames
      which killed those who accompanied him. (Ant. Jud. xvi. 7, i.) As
      here there is no room for miracle, this fact may be considered as
      a new proof of the veracity of that related by Ammianus and the
      contemporary writers.ÑG. ÑÑTo the illustrations of the extent of
      the subterranean chambers adduced by Michaelis, may be added,
      that when John of Gischala, during the siege, surprised the
      Temple, the party of Eleazar took refuge within them. Bell. Jud.
      vi. 3, i. The sudden sinking of the hill of Sion when Jerusalem
      was occupied by Barchocab, may have been connected with similar
      excavations. Hist. of Jews, vol. iii. 122 and 186.ÑM. ÑÑIt is a
      fact now popularly known, that when mines which have been long
      closed are opened, one of two things takes place; either the
      torches are extinguished and the men fall first into a swoor and
      soon die; or, if the air is inflammable, a little flame is seen
      to flicker round the lamp, which spreads and multiplies till the
      conflagration becomes general, is followed by an explosion, and
      kill all who are in the way.ÑG.]

      84 (return) [ Dr. Lardner, perhaps alone of the Christian
      critics, presumes to doubt the truth of this famous miracle.
      (Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 47-71.)]

      The silence of Jerom would lead to a suspicion that the same
      story which was celebrated at a distance, might be despised on
      the spot. * Note: Gibbon has forgotten Basnage, to whom Warburton
      replied.ÑM.




      Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.ÑPart IV.


      The restoration of the Jewish temple was secretly connected with
      the ruin of the Christian church. Julian still continued to
      maintain the freedom of religious worship, without distinguishing
      whether this universal toleration proceeded from his justice or
      his clemency. He affected to pity the unhappy Christians, who
      were mistaken in the most important object of their lives; but
      his pity was degraded by contempt, his contempt was embittered by
      hatred; and the sentiments of Julian were expressed in a style of
      sarcastic wit, which inflicts a deep and deadly wound, whenever
      it issues from the mouth of a sovereign. As he was sensible that
      the Christians gloried in the name of their Redeemer, he
      countenanced, and perhaps enjoined, the use of the less honorable
      appellation of Galil¾ans. 85 He declared, that by the folly of
      the Galil¾ans, whom he describes as a sect of fanatics,
      contemptible to men, and odious to the gods, the empire had been
      reduced to the brink of destruction; and he insinuates in a
      public edict, that a frantic patient might sometimes be cured by
      salutary violence. 86 An ungenerous distinction was admitted into
      the mind and counsels of Julian, that, according to the
      difference of their religious sentiments, one part of his
      subjects deserved his favor and friendship, while the other was
      entitled only to the common benefits that his justice could not
      refuse to an obedient people. According to a principle, pregnant
      with mischief and oppression, the emperor transferred to the
      pontiffs of his own religion the management of the liberal
      allowances from the public revenue, which had been granted to the
      church by the piety of Constantine and his sons. The proud system
      of clerical honors and immunities, which had been constructed
      with so much art and labor, was levelled to the ground; the hopes
      of testamentary donations were intercepted by the rigor of the
      laws; and the priests of the Christian sect were confounded with
      the last and most ignominious class of the people. Such of these
      regulations as appeared necessary to check the ambition and
      avarice of the ecclesiastics, were soon afterwards imitated by
      the wisdom of an orthodox prince. The peculiar distinctions which
      policy has bestowed, or superstition has lavished, on the
      sacerdotal order, _must_ be confined to those priests who profess
      the religion of the state. But the will of the legislator was not
      exempt from prejudice and passion; and it was the object of the
      insidious policy of Julian, to deprive the Christians of all the
      temporal honors and advantages which rendered them respectable in
      the eyes of the world. 88

      85 (return) [ Greg. Naz. Orat. iii. p. 81. And this law was
      confirmed by the invariable practice of Julian himself. Warburton
      has justly observed (p. 35,) that the Platonists believed in the
      mysterious virtue of words and JulianÕs dislike for the name of
      Christ might proceed from superstition, as well as from
      contempt.]

      86 (return) [ Fragment. Julian. p. 288. He derides the (Epist.
      vii.,) and so far loses sight of the principles of toleration, as
      to wish (Epist. xlii.).]

      88 (return) [ These laws, which affected the clergy, may be found
      in the slight hints of Julian himself, (Epist. lii.) in the vague
      declamations of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 86, 87,) and in the
      positive assertions of Sozomen, (l. v. c. 5.)]

      A just and severe censure has been inflicted on the law which
      prohibited the Christians from teaching the arts of grammar and
      rhetoric. 89 The motives alleged by the emperor to justify this
      partial and oppressive measure, might command, during his
      lifetime, the silence of slaves and the applause of Gatterers.
      Julian abuses the ambiguous meaning of a word which might be
      indifferently applied to the language and the religion of the
      Greeks: he contemptuously observes, that the men who exalt the
      merit of implicit faith are unfit to claim or to enjoy the
      advantages of science; and he vainly contends, that if they
      refuse to adore the gods of Homer and Demosthenes, they ought to
      content themselves with expounding Luke and Matthew in the church
      of the Galil¾ans. 90 In all the cities of the Roman world, the
      education of the youth was intrusted to masters of grammar and
      rhetoric; who were elected by the magistrates, maintained at the
      public expense, and distinguished by many lucrative and honorable
      privileges. The edict of Julian appears to have included the
      physicians, and professors of all the liberal arts; and the
      emperor, who reserved to himself the approbation of the
      candidates, was authorized by the laws to corrupt, or to punish,
      the religious constancy of the most learned of the Christians. 91
      As soon as the resignation of the more obstinate 92 teachers had
      established the unrivalled dominion of the Pagan sophists, Julian
      invited the rising generation to resort with freedom to the
      public schools, in a just confidence, that their tender minds
      would receive the impressions of literature and idolatry. If the
      greatest part of the Christian youth should be deterred by their
      own scruples, or by those of their parents, from accepting this
      dangerous mode of instruction, they must, at the same time,
      relinquish the benefits of a liberal education. Julian had reason
      to expect that, in the space of a few years, the church would
      relapse into its prim¾val simplicity, and that the theologians,
      who possessed an adequate share of the learning and eloquence of
      the age, would be succeeded by a generation of blind and ignorant
      fanatics, incapable of defending the truth of their own
      principles, or of exposing the various follies of Polytheism. 93

      89 (return) [ Inclemens.... perenni obruendum silentio. Ammian.
      xxii. 10, ixv. 5.]

      90 (return) [ The edict itself, which is still extant among the
      epistles of Julian, (xlii.,) may be compared with the loose
      invectives of Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 96.) Tillemont (MŽm. Eccles.
      tom. vii. p. 1291-1294) has collected the seeming differences of
      ancients and moderns. They may be easily reconciled. The
      Christians were _directly_ forbid to teach, they were
      _indirectly_ forbid to learn; since they would not frequent the
      schools of the Pagans.]

      91 (return) [ Codex Theodos. l. xiii. tit. iii. de medicis et
      professoribus, leg. 5, (published the 17th of June, received, at
      Spoleto in Italy, the 29th of July, A. D. 363,) with GodefroyÕs
      Illustrations, tom. v. p. 31.]

      92 (return) [ Orosius celebrates their disinterested resolution,
      Sicut a majori bus nostris compertum habemus, omnes ubique
      propemodum... officium quam fidem deserere maluerunt, vii. 30.
      Pro¾resius, a Christian sophist, refused to accept the partial
      favor of the emperor Hieronym. in Chron. p. 185, edit. Scaliger.
      Eunapius in Pro¾resio p. 126.]

      93 (return) [ They had recourse to the expedient of composing
      books for their own schools. Within a few months Apollinaris
      produced his Christian imitations of Homer, (a sacred history in
      twenty-four books,) Pindar, Euripides, and Menander; and Sozomen
      is satisfied, that they equalled, or excelled, the originals. *
      Note: Socrates, however, implies that, on the death of Julian,
      they were contemptuously thrown aside by the Christians. Socr.
      Hist. iii.16.ÑM.]

      It was undoubtedly the wish and design of Julian to deprive the
      Christians of the advantages of wealth, of knowledge, and of
      power; but the injustice of excluding them from all offices of
      trust and profit seems to have been the result of his general
      policy, rather than the immediate consequence of any positive
      law. 94 Superior merit might deserve and obtain, some
      extraordinary exceptions; but the greater part of the Christian
      officers were gradually removed from their employments in the
      state, the army, and the provinces. The hopes of future
      candidates were extinguished by the declared partiality of a
      prince, who maliciously reminded them, that it was unlawful for a
      Christian to use the sword, either of justice, or of war; and who
      studiously guarded the camp and the tribunals with the ensigns of
      idolatry. The powers of government were intrusted to the pagans,
      who professed an ardent zeal for the religion of their ancestors;
      and as the choice of the emperor was often directed by the rules
      of divination, the favorites whom he preferred as the most
      agreeable to the gods, did not always obtain the approbation of
      mankind. 95 Under the administration of their enemies, the
      Christians had much to suffer, and more to apprehend. The temper
      of Julian was averse to cruelty; and the care of his reputation,
      which was exposed to the eyes of the universe, restrained the
      philosophic monarch from violating the laws of justice and
      toleration, which he himself had so recently established. But the
      provincial ministers of his authority were placed in a less
      conspicuous station. In the exercise of arbitrary power, they
      consulted the wishes, rather than the commands, of their
      sovereign; and ventured to exercise a secret and vexatious
      tyranny against the sectaries, on whom they were not permitted to
      confer the honors of martyrdom. The emperor, who dissembled as
      long as possible his knowledge of the injustice that was
      exercised in his name, expressed his real sense of the conduct of
      his officers, by gentle reproofs and substantial rewards. 96

      94 (return) [ It was the instruction of Julian to his
      magistrates, (Epist. vii.,). Sozomen (l. v. c. 18) and Socrates
      (l. iii. c. 13) must be reduced to the standard of Gregory,
      (Orat. iii. p. 95,) not less prone to exaggeration, but more
      restrained by the actual knowledge of his contemporary readers.]

      95 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. 88, p. 814.]

      96 (return) [ Greg. Naz. Orat. iii. p. 74, 91, 92. Socrates, l.
      iii. c. 14. The doret, l. iii. c. 6. Some drawback may, however,
      be allowed for the violence of _their_ zeal, not less partial
      than the zeal of Julian]

      The most effectual instrument of oppression, with which they were
      armed, was the law that obliged the Christians to make full and
      ample satisfaction for the temples which they had destroyed under
      the preceding reign. The zeal of the triumphant church had not
      always expected the sanction of the public authority; and the
      bishops, who were secure of impunity, had often marched at the
      head of their congregation, to attack and demolish the fortresses
      of the prince of darkness. The consecrated lands, which had
      increased the patrimony of the sovereign or of the clergy, were
      clearly defined, and easily restored. But on these lands, and on
      the ruins of Pagan superstition, the Christians had frequently
      erected their own religious edifices: and as it was necessary to
      remove the church before the temple could be rebuilt, the justice
      and piety of the emperor were applauded by one party, while the
      other deplored and execrated his sacrilegious violence. 97 After
      the ground was cleared, the restitution of those stately
      structures which had been levelled with the dust, and of the
      precious ornaments which had been converted to Christian uses,
      swelled into a very large account of damages and debt. The
      authors of the injury had neither the ability nor the inclination
      to discharge this accumulated demand: and the impartial wisdom of
      a legislator would have been displayed in balancing the adverse
      claims and complaints, by an equitable and temperate arbitration.

      But the whole empire, and particularly the East, was thrown into
      confusion by the rash edicts of Julian; and the Pagan
      magistrates, inflamed by zeal and revenge, abused the rigorous
      privilege of the Roman law, which substitutes, in the place of
      his inadequate property, the person of the insolvent debtor.
      Under the preceding reign, Mark, bishop of Arethusa, 98 had
      labored in the conversion of his people with arms more effectual
      than those of persuasion. 99 The magistrates required the full
      value of a temple which had been destroyed by his intolerant
      zeal: but as they were satisfied of his poverty, they desired
      only to bend his inflexible spirit to the promise of the
      slightest compensation. They apprehended the aged prelate, they
      inhumanly scourged him, they tore his beard; and his naked body,
      annointed with honey, was suspended, in a net, between heaven and
      earth, and exposed to the stings of insects and the rays of a
      Syrian sun. 100 From this lofty station, Mark still persisted to
      glory in his crime, and to insult the impotent rage of his
      persecutors. He was at length rescued from their hands, and
      dismissed to enjoy the honor of his divine triumph. The Arians
      celebrated the virtue of their pious confessor; the Catholics
      ambitiously claimed his alliance; 101 and the Pagans, who might
      be susceptible of shame or remorse, were deterred from the
      repetition of such unavailing cruelty. 102 Julian spared his
      life: but if the bishop of Arethusa had saved the infancy of
      Julian, 103 posterity will condemn the ingratitude, instead of
      praising the clemency, of the emperor.

      97 (return) [ If we compare the gentle language of Libanius
      (Orat. Parent c. 60. p. 286) with the passionate exclamations of
      Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 86, 87,) we may find it difficult to
      persuade ourselves that the two orators are really describing the
      same events.]

      98 (return) [ Restan, or Arethusa, at the equal distance of
      sixteen miles between Emesa (_Hems_) and Epiphania, (_Hamath_,)
      was founded, or at least named, by Seleucus Nicator. Its peculiar
      ¾ra dates from the year of Rome 685, according to the medals of
      the city. In the decline of the Seleucides, Emesa and Arethusa
      were usurped by the Arab Sampsiceramus, whose posterity, the
      vassals of Rome, were not extinguished in the reign of
      Vespasian.ÑÑSee DÕAnvilleÕs Maps and Geographie Ancienne, tom.
      ii. p. 134. Wesseling, Itineraria, p. 188, and Noris. Epoch
      Syro-Macedon, p. 80, 481, 482.]

      99 (return) [ Sozomen, l. v. c. 10. It is surprising, that
      Gregory and Theodoret should suppress a circumstance, which, in
      their eyes, must have enhanced the religious merit of the
      confessor.]

      100 (return) [ The sufferings and constancy of Mark, which
      Gregory has so tragically painted, (Orat. iii. p. 88-91,) are
      confirmed by the unexceptionable and reluctant evidence of
      Libanius. Epist. 730, p. 350, 351. Edit. Wolf. Amstel. 1738.]

      101 (return) [ Certatim eum sibi (Christiani) vindicant. It is
      thus that La Croze and Wolfius (ad loc.) have explained a Greek
      word, whose true signification had been mistaken by former
      interpreters, and even by Le Clerc, (Bibliothque Ancienne et
      Moderne, tom. iii. p. 371.) Yet Tillemont is strangely puzzled to
      understand (MŽm. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1309) _how_ Gregory and
      Theodoret could mistake a Semi-Arian bishop for a saint.]

      102 (return) [ See the probable advice of Sallust, (Greg.
      Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 90, 91.) Libanius intercedes for a
      similar offender, lest they should find many _Marks;_ yet he
      allows, that if Orion had secreted the consecrated wealth, he
      deserved to suffer the punishment of Marsyas; to be flayed alive,
      (Epist. 730, p. 349-351.)]

      103 (return) [ Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 90) is satisfied that, by
      saving the apostate, Mark had deserved still more than he had
      suffered.]

      At the distance of five miles from Antioch, the Macedonian kings
      of Syria had consecrated to Apollo one of the most elegant places
      of devotion in the Pagan world. 104 A magnificent temple rose in
      honor of the god of light; and his colossal figure 105 almost
      filled the capacious sanctuary, which was enriched with gold and
      gems, and adorned by the skill of the Grecian artists. The deity
      was represented in a bending attitude, with a golden cup in his
      hand, pouring out a libation on the earth; as if he supplicated
      the venerable mother to give to his arms the cold and beauteous
      Daphne: for the spot was ennobled by fiction; and the fancy of
      the Syrian poets had transported the amorous tale from the banks
      of the Peneus to those of the Orontes. The ancient rites of
      Greece were imitated by the royal colony of Antioch. A stream of
      prophecy, which rivalled the truth and reputation of the Delphic
      oracle, flowed from the _Castalian_ fountain of Daphne. 106 In
      the adjacent fields a stadium was built by a special privilege,
      107 which had been purchased from Elis; the Olympic games were
      celebrated at the expense of the city; and a revenue of thirty
      thousand pounds sterling was annually applied to the public
      pleasures. 108 The perpetual resort of pilgrims and spectators
      insensibly formed, in the neighborhood of the temple, the stately
      and populous village of Daphne, which emulated the splendor,
      without acquiring the title, of a provincial city. The temple and
      the village were deeply bosomed in a thick grove of laurels and
      cypresses, which reached as far as a circumference of ten miles,
      and formed in the most sultry summers a cool and impenetrable
      shade. A thousand streams of the purest water, issuing from every
      hill, preserved the verdure of the earth, and the temperature of
      the air; the senses were gratified with harmonious sounds and
      aromatic odors; and the peaceful grove was consecrated to health
      and joy, to luxury and love. The vigorous youth pursued, like
      Apollo, the object of his desires; and the blushing maid was
      warned, by the fate of Daphne, to shun the folly of unseasonable
      coyness. The soldier and the philosopher wisely avoided the
      temptation of this sensual paradise: 109 where pleasure, assuming
      the character of religion, imperceptibly dissolved the firmness
      of manly virtue. But the groves of Daphne continued for many ages
      to enjoy the veneration of natives and strangers; the privileges
      of the holy ground were enlarged by the munificence of succeeding
      emperors; and every generation added new ornaments to the
      splendor of the temple. 110

      104 (return) [ The grove and temple of Daphne are described by
      Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1089, 1090, edit. Amstel. 1707,) Libanius,
      (N¾nia, p. 185-188. Antiochic. Orat. xi. p. 380, 381,) and
      Sozomen, (l. v. c. 19.) Wesseling (Itinerar. p. 581) and Casaubon
      (ad Hist. August. p. 64) illustrate this curious subject.]

      105 (return) [ Simulacrum in eo Olympiaci Jovis imitamenti
      ¾quiparans magnitudinem. Ammian. xxii. 13. The Olympic Jupiter
      was sixty feet high, and his bulk was consequently equal to that
      of a thousand men. See a curious _MŽmoire_ of the AbbŽ Gedoyn,
      (AcadŽmie des Inscriptions, tom. ix. p. 198.)]

      106 (return) [ Hadrian read the history of his future fortunes on
      a leaf dipped in the Castalian stream; a trick which, according
      to the physician Vandale, (de Oraculis, p. 281, 282,) might be
      easily performed by chemical preparations. The emperor stopped
      the source of such dangerous knowledge; which was again opened by
      the devout curiosity of Julian.]

      107 (return) [ It was purchased, A. D. 44, in the year 92 of the
      ¾ra of Antioch, (Noris. Epoch. Syro-Maced. p. 139-174,) for the
      term of ninety Olympiads. But the Olympic games of Antioch were
      not regularly celebrated till the reign of Commodus. See the
      curious details in the Chronicle of John Malala, (tom. i. p. 290,
      320, 372-381,) a writer whose merit and authority are confined
      within the limits of his native city.]

      108 (return) [ Fifteen talents of gold, bequeathed by Sosibius,
      who died in the reign of Augustus. The theatrical merits of the
      Syrian cities in the reign of Constantine, are computed in the
      Expositio totius Murd, p. 8, (Hudson, Geograph. Minor tom. iii.)]

      109 (return) [ Avidio Cassio Syriacas legiones dedi luxuria
      diffluentes et _Daphnicis_ moribus. These are the words of the
      emperor Marcus Antoninus in an original letter preserved by his
      biographer in Hist. August. p. 41. Cassius dismissed or punished
      every soldier who was seen at Daphne.]

      110 (return) [ Aliquantum agrorum Daphnensibus dedit, (_Pompey_,)
      quo lucus ibi spatiosior fieret; delectatus amÏnitate loci et
      aquarum abundantiz, Eutropius, vi. 14. Sextus Rufus, de
      Provinciis, c. 16.]

      When Julian, on the day of the annual festival, hastened to adore
      the Apollo of Daphne, his devotion was raised to the highest
      pitch of eagerness and impatience. His lively imagination
      anticipated the grateful pomp of victims, of libations and of
      incense; a long procession of youths and virgins, clothed in
      white robes, the symbol of their innocence; and the tumultuous
      concourse of an innumerable people. But the zeal of Antioch was
      diverted, since the reign of Christianity, into a different
      channel. Instead of hecatombs of fat oxen sacrificed by the
      tribes of a wealthy city to their tutelar deity the emperor
      complains that he found only a single goose, provided at the
      expense of a priest, the pale and solitary inhabitant of this
      decayed temple. 111 The altar was deserted, the oracle had been
      reduced to silence, and the holy ground was profaned by the
      introduction of Christian and funereal rites. After Babylas 112
      (a bishop of Antioch, who died in prison in the persecution of
      Decius) had rested near a century in his grave, his body, by the
      order of C¾sar Gallus, was transported into the midst of the
      grove of Daphne. A magnificent church was erected over his
      remains; a portion of the sacred lands was usurped for the
      maintenance of the clergy, and for the burial of the Christians
      at Antioch, who were ambitious of lying at the feet of their
      bishop; and the priests of Apollo retired, with their affrighted
      and indignant votaries. As soon as another revolution seemed to
      restore the fortune of Paganism, the church of St. Babylas was
      demolished, and new buildings were added to the mouldering
      edifice which had been raised by the piety of Syrian kings. But
      the first and most serious care of Julian was to deliver his
      oppressed deity from the odious presence of the dead and living
      Christians, who had so effectually suppressed the voice of fraud
      or enthusiasm. 113 The scene of infection was purified, according
      to the forms of ancient rituals; the bodies were decently
      removed; and the ministers of the church were permitted to convey
      the remains of St. Babylas to their former habitation within the
      walls of Antioch. The modest behavior which might have assuaged
      the jealousy of a hostile government was neglected, on this
      occasion, by the zeal of the Christians. The lofty car, that
      transported the relics of Babylas, was followed, and accompanied,
      and received, by an innumerable multitude; who chanted, with
      thundering acclamations, the Psalms of David the most expressive
      of their contempt for idols and idolaters. The return of the
      saint was a triumph; and the triumph was an insult on the
      religion of the emperor, who exerted his pride to dissemble his
      resentment. During the night which terminated this indiscreet
      procession, the temple of Daphne was in flames; the statue of
      Apollo was consumed; and the walls of the edifice were left a
      naked and awful monument of ruin. The Christians of Antioch
      asserted, with religious confidence, that the powerful
      intercession of St. Babylas had pointed the lightnings of heaven
      against the devoted roof: but as Julian was reduced to the
      alternative of believing either a crime or a miracle, he chose,
      without hesitation, without evidence, but with some color of
      probability, to impute the fire of Daphne to the revenge of the
      Galil¾ans. 114 Their offence, had it been sufficiently proved,
      might have justified the retaliation, which was immediately
      executed by the order of Julian, of shutting the doors, and
      confiscating the wealth, of the cathedral of Antioch. To discover
      the criminals who were guilty of the tumult, of the fire, or of
      secreting the riches of the church, several of the ecclesiastics
      were tortured; 115 and a Presbyter, of the name of Theodoret, was
      beheaded by the sentence of the Count of the East. But this hasty
      act was blamed by the emperor; who lamented, with real or
      affected concern, that the imprudent zeal of his ministers would
      tarnish his reign with the disgrace of persecution. 116

      111 (return) [ Julian (Misopogon, p. 367, 362) discovers his own
      character with _na•vetŽ_, that unconscious simplicity which
      always constitutes genuine humor.]

      112 (return) [ Babylas is named by Eusebius in the succession of
      the bishops of Antioch, (Hist. Eccles. l. vi. c. 29, 39.) His
      triumph over two emperors (the first fabulous, the second
      historical) is diffusely celebrated by Chrysostom, (tom. ii. p.
      536-579, edit. Montfaucon.) Tillemont (MŽm. Eccles. tom. iii.
      part ii. p. 287-302, 459-465) becomes almost a sceptic.]

      113 (return) [ Ecclesiastical critics, particularly those who
      love relics, exult in the confession of Julian (Misopogon, p.
      361) and Libanius, (L¾nia, p. 185,) that Apollo was disturbed by
      the vicinity of _one_ dead man. Yet Ammianus (xxii. 12) clears
      and purifies the whole ground, according to the rites which the
      Athenians formerly practised in the Isle of Delos.]

      114 (return) [ Julian (in Misopogon, p. 361) rather insinuates,
      than affirms, their guilt. Ammianus (xxii. 13) treats the
      imputation as _levissimus rumor_, and relates the story with
      extraordinary candor.]

      115 (return) [ Quo tam atroci casu repente consumpto, ad id usque
      e imperatoris ira provexit, ut qu¾stiones agitare juberet solito
      acriores, (yet Julian blames the lenity of the magistrates of
      Antioch,) et majorem ecclesiam Antiochi¾ claudi. This
      interdiction was performed with some circumstances of indignity
      and profanation; and the seasonable death of the principal actor,
      JulianÕs uncle, is related with much superstitious complacency by
      the AbbŽ de la Bleterie. Vie de Julien, p. 362-369.]

      116 (return) [ Besides the ecclesiastical historians, who are
      more or less to be suspected, we may allege the passion of St.
      Theodore, in the Acta Sincera of Ruinart, p. 591. The complaint
      of Julian gives it an original and authentic air.]




      Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.ÑPart V.


      The zeal of the ministers of Julian was instantly checked by the
      frown of their sovereign; but when the father of his country
      declares himself the leader of a faction, the license of popular
      fury cannot easily be restrained, nor consistently punished.
      Julian, in a public composition, applauds the devotion and
      loyalty of the holy cities of Syria, whose pious inhabitants had
      destroyed, at the first signal, the sepulchres of the Galil¾ans;
      and faintly complains, that they had revenged the injuries of the
      gods with less moderation than he should have recommended. 117
      This imperfect and reluctant confession may appear to confirm the
      ecclesiastical narratives; that in the cities of Gaza, Ascalon,
      C¾sarea, Heliopolis, &c., the Pagans abused, without prudence or
      remorse, the moment of their prosperity. That the unhappy objects
      of their cruelty were released from torture only by death; and as
      their mangled bodies were dragged through the streets, they were
      pierced (such was the universal rage) by the spits of cooks, and
      the distaffs of enraged women; and that the entrails of Christian
      priests and virgins, after they had been tasted by those bloody
      fanatics, were mixed with barley, and contemptuously thrown to
      the unclean animals of the city. 118 Such scenes of religious
      madness exhibit the most contemptible and odious picture of human
      nature; but the massacre of Alexandria attracts still more
      attention, from the certainty of the fact, the rank of the
      victims, and the splendor of the capital of Egypt.

      117 (return) [ Julian. Misopogon, p. 361.]

      118 (return) [ See Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iii. p. 87.) Sozomen
      (l. v. c. 9) may be considered as an original, though not
      impartial, witness. He was a native of Gaza, and had conversed
      with the confessor Zeno, who, as bishop of Maiuma, lived to the
      age of a hundred, (l. vii. c. 28.) Philostorgius (l. vii. c. 4,
      with GodefroyÕs Dissertations, p. 284) adds some tragic
      circumstances, of Christians who were _literally_ sacrificed at
      the altars of the gods, &c.]

      George, 119 from his parents or his education, surnamed the
      Cappadocian, was born at Epiphania in Cilicia, in a fullerÕs
      shop. From this obscure and servile origin he raised himself by
      the talents of a parasite; and the patrons, whom he assiduously
      flattered, procured for their worthless dependent a lucrative
      commission, or contract, to supply the army with bacon. His
      employment was mean; he rendered it infamous. He accumulated
      wealth by the basest arts of fraud and corruption; but his
      malversations were so notorious, that George was compelled to
      escape from the pursuits of justice. After this disgrace, in
      which he appears to have saved his fortune at the expense of his
      honor, he embraced, with real or affected zeal, the profession of
      Arianism. From the love, or the ostentation, of learning, he
      collected a valuable library of history rhetoric, philosophy, and
      theology, 120 and the choice of the prevailing faction promoted
      George of Cappadocia to the throne of Athanasius. The entrance of
      the new archbishop was that of a Barbarian conqueror; and each
      moment of his reign was polluted by cruelty and avarice. The
      Catholics of Alexandria and Egypt were abandoned to a tyrant,
      qualified, by nature and education, to exercise the office of
      persecution; but he oppressed with an impartial hand the various
      inhabitants of his extensive diocese. The primate of Egypt
      assumed the pomp and insolence of his lofty station; but he still
      betrayed the vices of his base and servile extraction. The
      merchants of Alexandria were impoverished by the unjust, and
      almost universal, monopoly, which he acquired, of nitre, salt,
      paper, funerals, &c.: and the spiritual father of a great people
      condescended to practise the vile and pernicious arts of an
      informer. The Alexandrians could never forget, nor forgive, the
      tax, which he suggested, on all the houses of the city; under an
      obsolete claim, that the royal founder had conveyed to his
      successors, the Ptolemies and the C¾sars, the perpetual property
      of the soil. The Pagans, who had been flattered with the hopes of
      freedom and toleration, excited his devout avarice; and the rich
      temples of Alexandria were either pillaged or insulted by the
      haughty prince, who exclaimed, in a loud and threatening tone,
      ÒHow long will these sepulchres be permitted to stand?Ó Under the
      reign of Constantius, he was expelled by the fury, or rather by
      the justice, of the people; and it was not without a violent
      struggle, that the civil and military powers of the state could
      restore his authority, and gratify his revenge. The messenger who
      proclaimed at Alexandria the accession of Julian, announced the
      downfall of the archbishop. George, with two of his obsequious
      ministers, Count Diodorus, and Dracontius, master of the mint
      were ignominiously dragged in chains to the public prison. At the
      end of twenty-four days, the prison was forced open by the rage
      of a superstitious multitude, impatient of the tedious forms of
      judicial proceedings. The enemies of gods and men expired under
      their cruel insults; the lifeless bodies of the archbishop and
      his associates were carried in triumph through the streets on the
      back of a camel; 12011 and the inactivity of the Athanasian party
      121 was esteemed a shining example of evangelical patience. The
      remains of these guilty wretches were thrown into the sea; and
      the popular leaders of the tumult declared their resolution to
      disappoint the devotion of the Christians, and to intercept the
      future honors of these _martyrs_, who had been punished, like
      their predecessors, by the enemies of their religion. 122 The
      fears of the Pagans were just, and their precautions ineffectual.
      The meritorious death of the archbishop obliterated the memory of
      his life. The rival of Athanasius was dear and sacred to the
      Arians, and the seeming conversion of those sectaries introduced
      his worship into the bosom of the Catholic church. 123 The odious
      stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place,
      assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; 124
      and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed 125
      into the renowned St. George of England, the patron of arms, of
      chivalry, and of the garter. 126

      119 (return) [ The life and death of George of Cappadocia are
      described by Ammianus, (xxii. 11,) Gregory of Nazianzen, (Orat.
      xxi. p. 382, 385, 389, 390,) and Epiphanius, (H¾res. lxxvi.) The
      invectives of the two saints might not deserve much credit,
      unless they were confirmed by the testimony of the cool and
      impartial infidel.]

      120 (return) [ After the massacre of George, the emperor Julian
      repeatedly sent orders to preserve the library for his own use,
      and to torture the slaves who might be suspected of secreting any
      books. He praises the merit of the collection, from whence he had
      borrowed and transcribed several manuscripts while he pursued his
      studies in Cappadocia. He could wish, indeed, that the works of
      the Gali¾ans might perish but he requires an exact account even
      of those theological volumes lest other treatises more valuable
      should be confounded in their less Julian. Epist. ix. xxxvi.]

      12011 (return) [ Julian himself says, that they tore him to
      pieces like dogs, Epist. x.ÑM.]

      121 (return) [ Philostorgius, with cautious malice, insinuates
      their guilt, l. vii. c. ii. Godefroy p. 267.]

      122 (return) [ Cineres projecit in mare, id metuens ut clamabat,
      ne, collectis supremis, ¾des illis exstruerentur ut reliquis, qui
      deviare a religione compulsi, pertulere, cruciabiles pÏnas,
      adusque gloriosam mortem intemerat‰ fide progressi, et nunc
      Martyres appellantur. Ammian. xxii. 11. Epiphanius proves to the
      Arians, that George was not a martyr.]

      123 (return) [ Some Donatists (Optatus Milev. p. 60, 303, edit.
      Dupin; and Tillemont, MŽm. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 713, in 4to.) and
      Priscillianists (Tillemont, MŽm. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 517, in
      4to.) have in like manner usurped the honors of the Catholic
      saints and martyrs.]

      124 (return) [ The saints of Cappadocia, Basil, and the
      Gregories, were ignorant of their holy companion. Pope Gelasius,
      (A. D. 494,) the first Catholic who acknowledges St. George,
      places him among the martyrs Òqui Deo magis quam hominibus noti
      sunt.Ó He rejects his Acts as the composition of heretics. Some,
      perhaps, not the oldest, of the spurious Acts, are still extant;
      and, through a cloud of fiction, we may yet distinguish the
      combat which St. George of Cappadocia sustained, in the presence
      of Queen _Alexandria_, against the _magician Athanasius_.]

      125 (return) [ This transformation is not given as absolutely
      certain, but as _extremely_ probable. See the Longueruana, tom.
      i. p. 194. ÑÑNote: The late Dr. Milner (the Roman Catholic
      bishop) wrote a tract to vindicate the existence and the
      orthodoxy of the tutelar saint of England. He succeeds, I think,
      in tracing the worship of St. George up to a period which makes
      it improbable that so notorious an Arian could be palmed upon the
      Catholic church as a saint and a martyr. The Acts rejected by
      Gelasius may have been of Arian origin, and designed to ingraft
      the story of their hero on the obscure adventures of some earlier
      saint. See an Historical and Critical Inquiry into the Existence
      and Character of Saint George, in a letter to the Earl of
      Leicester, by the Rev. J. Milner. F. S. A. London 1792.ÑM.]

      126 (return) [ A curious history of the worship of St. George,
      from the sixth century, (when he was already revered in
      Palestine, in Armenia at Rome, and at Treves in Gaul,) might be
      extracted from Dr. Heylin (History of St. George, 2d edition,
      London, 1633, in 4to. p. 429) and the Bollandists, (Act. Ss.
      Mens. April. tom. iii. p. 100-163.) His fame and popularity in
      Europe, and especially in England, proceeded from the Crusades.]

      About the same time that Julian was informed of the tumult of
      Alexandria, he received intelligence from Edessa, that the proud
      and wealthy faction of the Arians had insulted the weakness of
      the Valentinians, and committed such disorders as ought not to be
      suffered with impunity in a well-regulated state. Without
      expecting the slow forms of justice, the exasperated prince
      directed his mandate to the magistrates of Edessa, 127 by which
      he confiscated the whole property of the church: the money was
      distributed among the soldiers; the lands were added to the
      domain; and this act of oppression was aggravated by the most
      ungenerous irony. ÒI show myself,Ó says Julian, Òthe true friend
      of the Galil¾ans. Their _admirable_ law has promised the kingdom
      of heaven to the poor; and they will advance with more diligence
      in the paths of virtue and salvation, when they are relieved by
      my assistance from the load of temporal possessions. Take care,Ó
      pursued the monarch, in a more serious tone, Òtake care how you
      provoke my patience and humanity. If these disorders continue, I
      will revenge on the magistrates the crimes of the people; and you
      will have reason to dread, not only confiscation and exile, but
      fire and the sword.Ó The tumults of Alexandria were doubtless of
      a more bloody and dangerous nature: but a Christian bishop had
      fallen by the hands of the Pagans; and the public epistle of
      Julian affords a very lively proof of the partial spirit of his
      administration. His reproaches to the citizens of Alexandria are
      mingled with expressions of esteem and tenderness; and he
      laments, that, on this occasion, they should have departed from
      the gentle and generous manners which attested their Grecian
      extraction. He gravely censures the offence which they had
      committed against the laws of justice and humanity; but he
      recapitulates, with visible complacency, the intolerable
      provocations which they had so long endured from the impious
      tyranny of George of Cappadocia. Julian admits the principle,
      that a wise and vigorous government should chastise the insolence
      of the people; yet, in consideration of their founder Alexander,
      and of Serapis their tutelar deity, he grants a free and gracious
      pardon to the guilty city, for which he again feels the affection
      of a brother. 128

      127 (return) [ Julian. Epist. xliii.]

      128 (return) [ Julian. Epist. x. He allowed his friends to
      assuage his anger Ammian. xxii. 11.]

      After the tumult of Alexandria had subsided, Athanasius, amidst
      the public acclamations, seated himself on the throne from whence
      his unworthy competitor had been precipitated: and as the zeal of
      the archbishop was tempered with discretion, the exercise of his
      authority tended not to inflame, but to reconcile, the minds of
      the people. His pastoral labors were not confined to the narrow
      limits of Egypt. The state of the Christian world was present to
      his active and capacious mind; and the age, the merit, the
      reputation of Athanasius, enabled him to assume, in a moment of
      danger, the office of Ecclesiastical Dictator. 129 Three years
      were not yet elapsed since the majority of the bishops of the
      West had ignorantly, or reluctantly, subscribed the Confession of
      Rimini. They repented, they believed, but they dreaded the
      unseasonable rigor of their orthodox brethren; and if their pride
      was stronger than their faith, they might throw themselves into
      the arms of the Arians, to escape the indignity of a public
      penance, which must degrade them to the condition of obscure
      laymen. At the same time the domestic differences concerning the
      union and distinction of the divine persons, were agitated with
      some heat among the Catholic doctors; and the progress of this
      metaphysical controversy seemed to threaten a public and lasting
      division of the Greek and Latin churches. By the wisdom of a
      select synod, to which the name and presence of Athanasius gave
      the authority of a general council, the bishops, who had unwarily
      deviated into error, were admitted to the communion of the
      church, on the easy condition of subscribing the Nicene Creed;
      without any formal acknowledgment of their past fault, or any
      minute definition of their scholastic opinions. The advice of the
      primate of Egypt had already prepared the clergy of Gaul and
      Spain, of Italy and Greece, for the reception of this salutary
      measure; and, notwithstanding the opposition of some ardent
      spirits, 130 the fear of the common enemy promoted the peace and
      harmony of the Christians. 131

      129 (return) [ See Athanas. ad Rufin. tom. ii. p. 40, 41, and
      Greg. Nazianzen Orat. iii. p. 395, 396; who justly states the
      temperate zeal of the primate, as much more meritorious than his
      prayers, his fasts, his persecutions, &c.]

      130 (return) [ I have not leisure to follow the blind obstinacy
      of Lucifer of Cagliari. See his adventures in Tillemont, (MŽm.
      Eccles. tom. vii. p. 900-926;) and observe how the color of the
      narrative insensibly changes, as the confessor becomes a
      schismatic.]

      131 (return) [ Assensus est huic sententi¾ Occidens, et, per tam
      necessarium conilium, Satan¾ faucibus mundus ereptus. The lively
      and artful dialogue of Jerom against the Luciferians (tom. ii. p.
      135-155) exhibits an original picture of the ecclesiastical
      policy of the times.]

      The skill and diligence of the primate of Egypt had improved the
      season of tranquillity, before it was interrupted by the hostile
      edicts of the emperor. 132 Julian, who despised the Christians,
      honored Athanasius with his sincere and peculiar hatred. For his
      sake alone, he introduced an arbitrary distinction, repugnant at
      least to the spirit of his former declarations. He maintained,
      that the Galil¾ans, whom he had recalled from exile, were not
      restored, by that general indulgence, to the possession of their
      respective churches; and he expressed his astonishment, that a
      criminal, who had been repeatedly condemned by the judgment of
      the emperors, should dare to insult the majesty of the laws, and
      insolently usurp the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria, without
      expecting the orders of his sovereign. As a punishment for the
      imaginary offence, he again banished Athanasius from the city;
      and he was pleased to suppose, that this act of justice would be
      highly agreeable to his pious subjects. The pressing
      solicitations of the people soon convinced him, that the majority
      of the Alexandrians were Christians; and that the greatest part
      of the Christians were firmly attached to the cause of their
      oppressed primate. But the knowledge of their sentiments, instead
      of persuading him to recall his decree, provoked him to extend to
      all Egypt the term of the exile of Athanasius. The zeal of the
      multitude rendered Julian still more inexorable: he was alarmed
      by the danger of leaving at the head of a tumultuous city, a
      daring and popular leader; and the language of his resentment
      discovers the opinion which he entertained of the courage and
      abilities of Athanasius. The execution of the sentence was still
      delayed, by the caution or negligence of Ecdicius, pr¾fect of
      Egypt, who was at length awakened from his lethargy by a severe
      reprimand. ÒThough you neglect,Ó says Julian, Òto write to me on
      any other subject, at least it is your duty to inform me of your
      conduct towards Athanasius, the enemy of the gods. My intentions
      have been long since communicated to you. I swear by the great
      Serapis, that unless, on the calends of December, Athanasius has
      departed from Alexandria, nay, from Egypt, the officers of your
      government shall pay a fine of one hundred pounds of gold. You
      know my temper: I am slow to condemn, but I am still slower to
      forgive.Ó This epistle was enforced by a short postscript,
      written with the emperorÕs own hand. ÒThe contempt that is shown
      for all the gods fills me with grief and indignation. There is
      nothing that I should see, nothing that I should hear, with more
      pleasure, than the expulsion of Athanasius from all Egypt. The
      abominable wretch! Under my reign, the baptism of several Grecian
      ladies of the highest rank has been the effect of his
      persecutions.Ó 133 The death of Athanasius was not _expressly_
      commanded; but the pr¾fect of Egypt understood that it was safer
      for him to exceed, than to neglect, the orders of an irritated
      master. The archbishop prudently retired to the monasteries of
      the Desert; eluded, with his usual dexterity, the snares of the
      enemy; and lived to triumph over the ashes of a prince, who, in
      words of formidable import, had declared his wish that the whole
      venom of the Galil¾an school were contained in the single person
      of Athanasius. 134 13411

      132 (return) [ Tillemont, who supposes that George was massacred
      in August crowds the actions of Athanasius into a narrow space,
      (MŽm. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 360.) An original fragment, published
      by the Marquis Maffei, from the old Chapter library of Verona,
      (Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. iii. p. 60-92,) affords many
      important dates, which are authenticated by the computation of
      Egyptian months.]

      133 (return) [ I have preserved the ambiguous sense of the last
      word, the ambiguity of a tyrant who wished to find, or to create,
      guilt.]

      134 (return) [ The three epistles of Julian, which explain his
      intentions and conduct with regard to Athanasius, should be
      disposed in the following chronological order, xxvi. x. vi. * See
      likewise, Greg. Nazianzen xxi. p. 393. Sozomen, l. v. c. 15.
      Socrates, l. iii. c. 14. Theodoret, l iii. c. 9, and Tillemont,
      MŽm. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 361-368, who has used some materials
      prepared by the Bollandists.]

      13411 (return) [ The sentence in the text is from Epist. li.
      addressed to the people of Alexandria.ÑM.]

      I have endeavored faithfully to represent the artful system by
      which Julian proposed to obtain the effects, without incurring
      the guilt, or reproach, of persecution. But if the deadly spirit
      of fanaticism perverted the heart and understanding of a virtuous
      prince, it must, at the same time, be confessed that the _real_
      sufferings of the Christians were inflamed and magnified by human
      passions and religious enthusiasm. The meekness and resignation
      which had distinguished the primitive disciples of the gospel,
      was the object of the applause, rather than of the imitation of
      their successors. The Christians, who had now possessed above
      forty years the civil and ecclesiastical government of the
      empire, had contracted the insolent vices of prosperity, 135 and
      the habit of believing that the saints alone were entitled to
      reign over the earth. As soon as the enmity of Julian deprived
      the clergy of the privileges which had been conferred by the
      favor of Constantine, they complained of the most cruel
      oppression; and the free toleration of idolaters and heretics was
      a subject of grief and scandal to the orthodox party. 136 The
      acts of violence, which were no longer countenanced by the
      magistrates, were still committed by the zeal of the people. At
      Pessinus, the altar of Cybele was overturned almost in the
      presence of the emperor; and in the city of C¾sarea in
      Cappadocia, the temple of Fortune, the sole place of worship
      which had been left to the Pagans, was destroyed by the rage of a
      popular tumult. On these occasions, a prince, who felt for the
      honor of the gods, was not disposed to interrupt the course of
      justice; and his mind was still more deeply exasperated, when he
      found that the fanatics, who had deserved and suffered the
      punishment of incendiaries, were rewarded with the honors of
      martyrdom. 137 The Christian subjects of Julian were assured of
      the hostile designs of their sovereign; and, to their jealous
      apprehension, every circumstance of his government might afford
      some grounds of discontent and suspicion. In the ordinary
      administration of the laws, the Christians, who formed so large a
      part of the people, must frequently be condemned: but their
      indulgent brethren, without examining the merits of the cause,
      presumed their innocence, allowed their claims, and imputed the
      severity of their judge to the partial malice of religious
      persecution. 138 These present hardships, intolerable as they
      might appear, were represented as a slight prelude of the
      impending calamities. The Christians considered Julian as a cruel
      and crafty tyrant; who suspended the execution of his revenge
      till he should return victorious from the Persian war. They
      expected, that as soon as he had triumphed over the foreign
      enemies of Rome, he would lay aside the irksome mask of
      dissimulation; that the amphitheatre would stream with the blood
      of hermits and bishops; and that the Christians who still
      persevered in the profession of the faith, would be deprived of
      the common benefits of nature and society. 139 Every calumny 140
      that could wound the reputation of the Apostate, was credulously
      embraced by the fears and hatred of his adversaries; and their
      indiscreet clamors provoked the temper of a sovereign, whom it
      was their duty to respect, and their interest to flatter.

      They still protested, that prayers and tears were their only
      weapons against the impious tyrant, whose head they devoted to
      the justice of offended Heaven. But they insinuated, with sullen
      resolution, that their submission was no longer the effect of
      weakness; and that, in the imperfect state of human virtue, the
      patience, which is founded on principle, may be exhausted by
      persecution. It is impossible to determine how far the zeal of
      Julian would have prevailed over his good sense and humanity; but
      if we seriously reflect on the strength and spirit of the church,
      we shall be convinced, that before the emperor could have
      extinguished the religion of Christ, he must have involved his
      country in the horrors of a civil war. 141

      135 (return) [ See the fair confession of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p.
      61, 62.)]

      136 (return) [ Hear the furious and absurd complaint of Optatus,
      (de Schismat Denatist. l. ii. c. 16, 17.)]

      137 (return) [ Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 91, iv. p. 133. He
      praises the rioters of C¾sarea. See Sozomen, l. v. 4, 11.
      Tillemont (MŽm. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 649, 650) owns, that their
      behavior was not dans lÕordre commun: but he is perfectly
      satisfied, as the great St. Basil always celebrated the festival
      of these blessed martyrs.]

      138 (return) [ Julian determined a lawsuit against the new
      Christian city at Maiuma, the port of Gaza; and his sentence,
      though it might be imputed to bigotry, was never reversed by his
      successors. Sozomen, l. v. c. 3. Reland, Palestin. tom. ii. p.
      791.]

      139 (return) [ Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 93, 94, 95. Orat. iv. p.
      114) pretends to speak from the information of JulianÕs
      confidants, whom Orosius (vii. 30) could not have seen.]

      140 (return) [ Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 91) charges the Apostate
      with secret sacrifices of boys and girls; and positively affirms,
      that the dead bodies were thrown into the Orontes. See Theodoret,
      l. iii. c. 26, 27; and the equivocal candor of the AbbŽ de la
      Bleterie, Vie de Julien, p. 351, 352. Yet _contemporary_ malice
      could not impute to Julian the troops of martyrs, more especially
      in the West, which Baronius so greedily swallows, and Tillemont
      so faintly rejects, (MŽm. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1295-1315.)]

      141 (return) [ The resignation of Gregory is truly edifying,
      (Orat. iv. p. 123, 124.) Yet, when an officer of Julian attempted
      to seize the church of Nazianzus, he would have lost his life, if
      he had not yielded to the zeal of the bishop and people, (Orat.
      xix. p. 308.) See the reflections of Chrysostom, as they are
      alleged by Tillemont, (MŽm. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 575.)]




      Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.ÑPart I.

     Residence Of Julian At Antioch.ÑHis Successful Expedition Against
     The Persians.ÑPassage Of The TigrisÑThe Retreat And Death Of
     Julian.ÑElection Of Jovian.ÑHe Saves The Roman Army By A
     Disgraceful Treaty.


      The philosophical fable which Julian composed under the name of
      the C¾sars, 1 is one of the most agreeable and instructive
      productions of ancient wit. 2 During the freedom and equality of
      the days of the Saturnalia, Romulus prepared a feast for the
      deities of Olympus, who had adopted him as a worthy associate,
      and for the Roman princes, who had reigned over his martial
      people, and the vanquished nations of the earth. The immortals
      were placed in just order on their thrones of state, and the
      table of the C¾sars was spread below the Moon in the upper region
      of the air. The tyrants, who would have disgraced the society of
      gods and men, were thrown headlong, by the inexorable Nemesis,
      into the Tartarean abyss. The rest of the C¾sars successively
      advanced to their seats; and as they passed, the vices, the
      defects, the blemishes of their respective characters, were
      maliciously noticed by old Silenus, a laughing moralist, who
      disguised the wisdom of a philosopher under the mask of a
      Bacchanal. 3 As soon as the feast was ended, the voice of Mercury
      proclaimed the will of Jupiter, that a celestial crown should be
      the reward of superior merit. Julius C¾sar, Augustus, Trajan, and
      Marcus Antoninus, were selected as the most illustrious
      candidates; the effeminate Constantine 4 was not excluded from
      this honorable competition, and the great Alexander was invited
      to dispute the prize of glory with the Roman heroes. Each of the
      candidates was allowed to display the merit of his own exploits;
      but, in the judgment of the gods, the modest silence of Marcus
      pleaded more powerfully than the elaborate orations of his
      haughty rivals. When the judges of this awful contest proceeded
      to examine the heart, and to scrutinize the springs of action,
      the superiority of the Imperial Stoic appeared still more
      decisive and conspicuous. 5 Alexander and C¾sar, Augustus,
      Trajan, and Constantine, acknowledged, with a blush, that fame,
      or power, or pleasure had been the important object of _their_
      labors: but the gods themselves beheld, with reverence and love,
      a virtuous mortal, who had practised on the throne the lessons of
      philosophy; and who, in a state of human imperfection, had
      aspired to imitate the moral attributes of the Deity. The value
      of this agreeable composition (the C¾sars of Julian) is enhanced
      by the rank of the author. A prince, who delineates, with
      freedom, the vices and virtues of his predecessors, subscribes,
      in every line, the censure or approbation of his own conduct.

      1 (return) [ See this fable or satire, p. 306-336 of the Leipsig
      edition of JulianÕs works. The French version of the learned
      Ezekiel Spanheim (Paris, 1683) is coarse, languid, and correct;
      and his notes, proofs, illustrations, &c., are piled on each
      other till they form a mass of 557 close-printed quarto pages.
      The AbbŽÕ de la Bleterie (Vie de Jovien, tom. i. p. 241-393) has
      more happily expressed the spirit, as well as the sense, of the
      original, which he illustrates with some concise and curious
      notes.]

      2 (return) [ Spanheim (in his preface) has most learnedly
      discussed the etymology, origin, resemblance, and disagreement of
      the Greek _satyrs_, a dramatic piece, which was acted after the
      tragedy; and the Latin _satires_, (from _Satura_,) a
      _miscellaneous_ composition, either in prose or verse. But the
      C¾sars of Julian are of such an original cast, that the critic is
      perplexed to which class he should ascribe them. * Note: See also
      Casaubon de Satira, with RambachÕs observations.ÑM.]

      3 (return) [ This mixed character of Silenus is finely painted in
      the sixth eclogue of Virgil.]

      4 (return) [ Every impartial reader must perceive and condemn the
      partiality of Julian against his uncle Constantine, and the
      Christian religion. On this occasion, the interpreters are
      compelled, by a most sacred interest, to renounce their
      allegiance, and to desert the cause of their author.]

      5 (return) [ Julian was secretly inclined to prefer a Greek to a
      Roman. But when he seriously compared a hero with a philosopher,
      he was sensible that mankind had much greater obligations to
      Socrates than to Alexander, (Orat. ad Themistium, p. 264.)]

      In the cool moments of reflection, Julian preferred the useful
      and benevolent virtues of Antoninus; but his ambitious spirit was
      inflamed by the glory of Alexander; and he solicited, with equal
      ardor, the esteem of the wise, and the applause of the multitude.
      In the season of life when the powers of the mind and body enjoy
      the most active vigor, the emperor who was instructed by the
      experience, and animated by the success, of the German war,
      resolved to signalize his reign by some more splendid and
      memorable achievement. The ambassadors of the East, from the
      continent of India, and the Isle of Ceylon, 6 had respectfully
      saluted the Roman purple. 7 The nations of the West esteemed and
      dreaded the personal virtues of Julian, both in peace and war. He
      despised the trophies of a Gothic victory, and was satisfied that
      the rapacious Barbarians of the Danube would be restrained from
      any future violation of the faith of treaties by the terror of
      his name, and the additional fortifications with which he
      strengthened the Thracian and Illyrian frontiers. The successor
      of Cyrus and Artaxerxes was the only rival whom he deemed worthy
      of his arms; and he resolved, by the final conquest of Persia, to
      chastise the naughty nation which had so long resisted and
      insulted the majesty of Rome. 9 As soon as the Persian monarch
      was informed that the throne of Constantius was filled by a
      prince of a very different character, he condescended to make
      some artful, or perhaps sincere, overtures towards a negotiation
      of peace. But the pride of Sapor was astonished by the firmness
      of Julian; who sternly declared, that he would never consent to
      hold a peaceful conference among the flames and ruins of the
      cities of Mesopotamia; and who added, with a smile of contempt,
      that it was needless to treat by ambassadors, as he himself had
      determined to visit speedily the court of Persia. The impatience
      of the emperor urged the diligence of the military preparations.
      The generals were named; and Julian, marching from Constantinople
      through the provinces of Asia Minor, arrived at Antioch about
      eight months after the death of his predecessor. His ardent
      desire to march into the heart of Persia, was checked by the
      indispensable duty of regulating the state of the empire; by his
      zeal to revive the worship of the gods; and by the advice of his
      wisest friends; who represented the necessity of allowing the
      salutary interval of winter quarters, to restore the exhausted
      strength of the legions of Gaul, and the discipline and spirit of
      the Eastern troops. Julian was persuaded to fix, till the ensuing
      spring, his residence at Antioch, among a people maliciously
      disposed to deride the haste, and to censure the delays, of their
      sovereign. 10

      6 (return) [ Inde nationibus Indicis certatim cum aonis optimates
      mittentibus.... ab usque Divis et _Serendivis_. Ammian. xx. 7.
      This island, to which the names of Taprobana, Serendib, and
      Ceylon, have been successively applied, manifests how imperfectly
      the seas and lands to the east of Cape Comorin were known to the
      Romans. 1. Under the reign of Claudius, a freedman, who farmed
      the customs of the Red Sea, was accidentally driven by the winds
      upon this strange and undiscovered coast: he conversed six months
      with the natives; and the king of Ceylon, who heard, for the
      first time, of the power and justice of Rome, was persuaded to
      send an embassy to the emperor. (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 24.) 2. The
      geographers (and even Ptolemy) have magnified, above fifteen
      times, the real size of this new world, which they extended as
      far as the equator, and the neighborhood of China. * Note: The
      name of Diva gens or Divorum regio, according to the probable
      conjecture of M. Letronne, (Trois MŽm. Acad. p. 127,) was applied
      by the ancients to the whole eastern coast of the Indian
      Peninsula, from Ceylon to the Canges. The name may be traced in
      Devipatnam, Devidan, Devicotta, Divinelly, the point of Divy.ÑÑM.
      Letronne, p.121, considers the freedman with his embassy from
      Ceylon to have been an impostor.ÑM.]

      7 (return) [ These embassies had been sent to Constantius.
      Ammianus, who unwarily deviates into gross flattery, must have
      forgotten the length of the way, and the short duration of the
      reign of Julian. ÑÑGothos s¾pe fallaces et perfidos; hostes
      qu¾rere se meliores aiebat: illis enim sufficere mercators
      Galatas per quos ubique sine conditionis discrimine venumdantur.
      (Ammian. xxii. 7.) Within less than fifteen years, these Gothic
      slaves threatened and subdued their masters.]

      9 (return) [ Alexander reminds his rival C¾sar, who depreciated
      the fame and merit of an Asiatic victory, that Crassus and Antony
      had felt the Persian arrows; and that the Romans, in a war of
      three hundred years, had not yet subdued the single province of
      Mesopotamia or Assyria, (C¾sares, p. 324.)]

      10 (return) [ The design of the Persian war is declared by
      Ammianus, (xxii. 7, 12,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 79, 80, p.
      305, 306,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 158,) and Socrates, (l. iii. c.
      19.)]

      If Julian had flattered himself, that his personal connection
      with the capital of the East would be productive of mutual
      satisfaction to the prince and people, he made a very false
      estimate of his own character, and of the manners of Antioch. 11
      The warmth of the climate disposed the natives to the most
      intemperate enjoyment of tranquillity and opulence; and the
      lively licentiousness of the Greeks was blended with the
      hereditary softness of the Syrians. Fashion was the only law,
      pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendor of dress and
      furniture was the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch.
      The arts of luxury were honored; the serious and manly virtues
      were the subject of ridicule; and the contempt for female modesty
      and reverent age announced the universal corruption of the
      capital of the East. The love of spectacles was the taste, or
      rather passion, of the Syrians; the most skilful artists were
      procured from the adjacent cities; 12 a considerable share of the
      revenue was devoted to the public amusements; and the
      magnificence of the games of the theatre and circus was
      considered as the happiness and as the glory of Antioch. The
      rustic manners of a prince who disdained such glory, and was
      insensible of such happiness, soon disgusted the delicacy of his
      subjects; and the effeminate Orientals could neither imitate, nor
      admire, the severe simplicity which Julian always maintained, and
      sometimes affected. The days of festivity, consecrated, by
      ancient custom, to the honor of the gods, were the only occasions
      in which Julian relaxed his philosophic severity; and those
      festivals were the only days in which the Syrians of Antioch
      could reject the allurements of pleasure. The majority of the
      people supported the glory of the Christian name, which had been
      first invented by their ancestors: 13 they contended themselves
      with disobeying the moral precepts, but they were scrupulously
      attached to the speculative doctrines of their religion. The
      church of Antioch was distracted by heresy and schism; but the
      Arians and the Athanasians, the followers of Meletius and those
      of Paulinus, 14 were actuated by the same pious hatred of their
      common adversary.

      11 (return) [ The Satire of Julian, and the Homilies of St.
      Chrysostom, exhibit the same picture of Antioch. The miniature
      which the AbbŽ de la Bleterie has copied from thence, (Vie de
      Julian, p. 332,) is elegant and correct.]

      12 (return) [ Laodicea furnished charioteers; Tyre and Berytus,
      comedians; C¾sarea, pantomimes; Heliopolis, singers; Gaza,
      gladiators, Ascalon, wrestlers; and Castabala, rope-dancers. See
      the Expositio totius Mundi, p. 6, in the third tome of HudsonÕs
      Minor Geographers.]

      13 (return) [ The people of Antioch ingenuously professed their
      attachment to the _Chi_, (Christ,) and the _Kappa_,
      (Constantius.) Julian in Misopogon, p. 357.]

      14 (return) [ The schism of Antioch, which lasted eighty-five
      years, (A. D. 330-415,) was inflamed, while Julian resided in
      that city, by the indiscreet ordination of Paulinus. See
      Tillemont, MŽm. Eccles. tom. iii. p. 803 of the quarto edition,
      (Paris, 1701, &c,) which henceforward I shall quote.]

      The strongest prejudice was entertained against the character of
      an apostate, the enemy and successor of a prince who had engaged
      the affections of a very numerous sect; and the removal of St.
      Babylas excited an implacable opposition to the person of Julian.
      His subjects complained, with superstitious indignation, that
      famine had pursued the emperorÕs steps from Constantinople to
      Antioch; and the discontent of a hungry people was exasperated by
      the injudicious attempt to relieve their distress. The inclemency
      of the season had affected the harvests of Syria; and the price
      of bread, 15 in the markets of Antioch, had naturally risen in
      proportion to the scarcity of corn. But the fair and reasonable
      proportion was soon violated by the rapacious arts of monopoly.
      In this unequal contest, in which the produce of the land is
      claimed by one party as his exclusive property, is used by
      another as a lucrative object of trade, and is required by a
      third for the daily and necessary support of life, all the
      profits of the intermediate agents are accumulated on the head of
      the defenceless customers. The hardships of their situation were
      exaggerated and increased by their own impatience and anxiety;
      and the apprehension of a scarcity gradually produced the
      appearances of a famine. When the luxurious citizens of Antioch
      complained of the high price of poultry and fish, Julian publicly
      declared, that a frugal city ought to be satisfied with a regular
      supply of wine, oil, and bread; but he acknowledged, that it was
      the duty of a sovereign to provide for the subsistence of his
      people. With this salutary view, the emperor ventured on a very
      dangerous and doubtful step, of fixing, by legal authority, the
      value of corn. He enacted, that, in a time of scarcity, it should
      be sold at a price which had seldom been known in the most
      plentiful years; and that his own example might strengthen his
      laws, he sent into the market four hundred and twenty-two
      thousand _modii_, or measures, which were drawn by his order from
      the granaries of Hierapolis, of Chalcis, and even of Egypt. The
      consequences might have been foreseen, and were soon felt. The
      Imperial wheat was purchased by the rich merchants; the
      proprietors of land, or of corn, withheld from the city the
      accustomed supply; and the small quantities that appeared in the
      market were secretly sold at an advanced and illegal price.
      Julian still continued to applaud his own policy, treated the
      complaints of the people as a vain and ungrateful murmur, and
      convinced Antioch that he had inherited the obstinacy, though not
      the cruelty, of his brother Gallus. 16 The remonstrances of the
      municipal senate served only to exasperate his inflexible mind.
      He was persuaded, perhaps with truth, that the senators of
      Antioch who possessed lands, or were concerned in trade, had
      themselves contributed to the calamities of their country; and he
      imputed the disrespectful boldness which they assumed, to the
      sense, not of public duty, but of private interest. The whole
      body, consisting of two hundred of the most noble and wealthy
      citizens, were sent, under a guard, from the palace to the
      prison; and though they were permitted, before the close of
      evening, to return to their respective houses, 17 the emperor
      himself could not obtain the forgiveness which he had so easily
      granted. The same grievances were still the subject of the same
      complaints, which were industriously circulated by the wit and
      levity of the Syrian Greeks. During the licentious days of the
      Saturnalia, the streets of the city resounded with insolent
      songs, which derided the laws, the religion, the personal
      conduct, and even the _beard_, of the emperor; the spirit of
      Antioch was manifested by the connivance of the magistrates, and
      the applause of the multitude. 18 The disciple of Socrates was
      too deeply affected by these popular insults; but the monarch,
      endowed with a quick sensibility, and possessed of absolute
      power, refused his passions the gratification of revenge. A
      tyrant might have proscribed, without distinction, the lives and
      fortunes of the citizens of Antioch; and the unwarlike Syrians
      must have patiently submitted to the lust, the rapaciousness and
      the cruelty, of the faithful legions of Gaul. A milder sentence
      might have deprived the capital of the East of its honors and
      privileges; and the courtiers, perhaps the subjects, of Julian,
      would have applauded an act of justice, which asserted the
      dignity of the supreme magistrate of the republic. 19 But instead
      of abusing, or exerting, the authority of the state, to revenge
      his personal injuries, Julian contented himself with an
      inoffensive mode of retaliation, which it would be in the power
      of few princes to employ. He had been insulted by satires and
      libels; in his turn, he composed, under the title of the _Enemy
      of the Beard_, an ironical confession of his own faults, and a
      severe satire on the licentious and effeminate manners of
      Antioch. This Imperial reply was publicly exposed before the
      gates of the palace; and the Misopogon 20 still remains a
      singular monument of the resentment, the wit, the humanity, and
      the indiscretion of Julian. Though he affected to laugh, he could
      not forgive. 21 His contempt was expressed, and his revenge might
      be gratified, by the nomination of a governor 22 worthy only of
      such subjects; and the emperor, forever renouncing the ungrateful
      city, proclaimed his resolution to pass the ensuing winter at
      Tarsus in Cilicia. 23

      15 (return) [ Julian states three different proportions, of five,
      ten, or fifteen _modii_ of wheat for one piece of gold, according
      to the degrees of plenty and scarcity, (in Misopogon, p. 369.)
      From this fact, and from some collateral examples, I conclude,
      that under the successors of Constantine, the moderate price of
      wheat was about thirty-two shillings the English quarter, which
      is equal to the average price of the sixty-four first years of
      the present century. See ArbuthnotÕs Tables of Coins, Weights,
      and Measures, p. 88, 89. Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 12. MŽm. de
      lÕAcadŽmie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 718-721. SmithÕs
      Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, vol.
      i. p 246. This last I am proud to quote as the work of a sage and
      a friend.]

      16 (return) [ Nunquam a proposito declinabat, Galli similis
      fratris, licet incruentus. Ammian. xxii. 14. The ignorance of the
      most enlightened princes may claim some excuse; but we cannot be
      satisfied with JulianÕs own defence, (in Misopogon, p. 363, 369,)
      or the elaborate apology of Libanius, (Orat. Parental c. xcvii.
      p. 321.)]

      17 (return) [ Their short and easy confinement is gently touched
      by Libanius, (Orat. Parental. c. xcviii. p. 322, 323.)]

      18 (return) [ Libanius, (ad Antiochenos de Imperatoris ira, c.
      17, 18, 19, in Fabricius, Bibliot. Gr¾c. tom. vii. p. 221-223,)
      like a skilful advocate, severely censures the folly of the
      people, who suffered for the crime of a few obscure and drunken
      wretches.]

      19 (return) [ Libanius (ad Antiochen. c. vii. p. 213) reminds
      Antioch of the recent chastisement of C¾sarea; and even Julian
      (in Misopogon, p. 355) insinuates how severely Tarentum had
      expiated the insult to the Roman ambassadors.]

      20 (return) [ On the subject of the Misopogon, see Ammianus,
      (xxii. 14,) Libanius, (Orat. Parentalis, c. xcix. p. 323,)
      Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 133) and the Chronicle of
      Antioch, by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 15, 16.) I have essential
      obligations to the translation and notes of the AbbŽ de la
      Bleterie, (Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 1-138.)]

      21 (return) [ Ammianus very justly remarks, Coactus dissimulare
      pro tempore ira sufflabatur interna. The elaborate irony of
      Julian at length bursts forth into serious and direct invective.]

      22 (return) [ Ipse autem Antiochiam egressurus, Heliopoliten
      quendam Alexandrum Syriac¾ jurisdictioni pr¾fecit, turbulentum et
      s¾vum; dicebatque non illum meruisse, sed Antiochensibus avaris
      et contumeliosis hujusmodi judicem convenire. Ammian. xxiii. 2.
      Libanius, (Epist. 722, p. 346, 347,) who confesses to Julian
      himself, that he had shared the general discontent, pretends that
      Alexander was a useful, though harsh, reformer of the manners and
      religion of Antioch.]

      23 (return) [ Julian, in Misopogon, p. 364. Ammian. xxiii. 2, and
      Valesius, ad loc. Libanius, in a professed oration, invites him
      to return to his loyal and penitent city of Antioch.]

      Yet Antioch possessed one citizen, whose genius and virtues might
      atone, in the opinion of Julian, for the vice and folly of his
      country. The sophist Libanius was born in the capital of the
      East; he publicly professed the arts of rhetoric and declamation
      at Nice, Nicomedia, Constantinople, Athens, and, during the
      remainder of his life, at Antioch. His school was assiduously
      frequented by the Grecian youth; his disciples, who sometimes
      exceeded the number of eighty, celebrated their incomparable
      master; and the jealousy of his rivals, who persecuted him from
      one city to another, confirmed the favorable opinion which
      Libanius ostentatiously displayed of his superior merit. The
      preceptors of Julian had extorted a rash but solemn assurance,
      that he would never attend the lectures of their adversary: the
      curiosity of the royal youth was checked and inflamed: he
      secretly procured the writings of this dangerous sophist, and
      gradually surpassed, in the perfect imitation of his style, the
      most laborious of his domestic pupils. 24 When Julian ascended
      the throne, he declared his impatience to embrace and reward the
      Syrian sophist, who had preserved, in a degenerate age, the
      Grecian purity of taste, of manners, and of religion. The
      emperorÕs prepossession was increased and justified by the
      discreet pride of his favorite. Instead of pressing, with the
      foremost of the crowd, into the palace of Constantinople,
      Libanius calmly expected his arrival at Antioch; withdrew from
      court on the first symptoms of coldness and indifference;
      required a formal invitation for each visit; and taught his
      sovereign an important lesson, that he might command the
      obedience of a subject, but that he must deserve the attachment
      of a friend. The sophists of every age, despising, or affecting
      to despise, the accidental distinctions of birth and fortune, 25
      reserve their esteem for the superior qualities of the mind, with
      which they themselves are so plentifully endowed. Julian might
      disdain the acclamations of a venal court, who adored the
      Imperial purple; but he was deeply flattered by the praise, the
      admonition, the freedom, and the envy of an independent
      philosopher, who refused his favors, loved his person, celebrated
      his fame, and protected his memory. The voluminous writings of
      Libanius still exist; for the most part, they are the vain and
      idle compositions of an orator, who cultivated the science of
      words; the productions of a recluse student, whose mind,
      regardless of his contemporaries, was incessantly fixed on the
      Trojan war and the Athenian commonwealth. Yet the sophist of
      Antioch sometimes descended from this imaginary elevation; he
      entertained a various and elaborate correspondence; 26 he praised
      the virtues of his own times; he boldly arraigned the abuse of
      public and private life; and he eloquently pleaded the cause of
      Antioch against the just resentment of Julian and Theodosius. It
      is the common calamity of old age, 27 to lose whatever might have
      rendered it desirable; but Libanius experienced the peculiar
      misfortune of surviving the religion and the sciences, to which
      he had consecrated his genius. The friend of Julian was an
      indignant spectator of the triumph of Christianity; and his
      bigotry, which darkened the prospect of the visible world, did
      not inspire Libanius with any lively hopes of celestial glory and
      happiness. 28

      24 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. vii. p. 230, 231.]

      25 (return) [ Eunapius reports, that Libanius refused the
      honorary rank of Pr¾torian pr¾fect, as less illustrious than the
      title of Sophist, (in Vit. Sophist. p. 135.) The critics have
      observed a similar sentiment in one of the epistles (xviii. edit.
      Wolf) of Libanius himself.]

      26 (return) [ Near two thousand of his lettersÑa mode of
      composition in which Libanius was thought to excelÑare still
      extant, and already published. The critics may praise their
      subtle and elegant brevity; yet Dr. Bentley (Dissertation upon
      Phalaris, p. 48) might justly, though quaintly observe, that Òyou
      feel, by the emptiness and deadness of them, that you converse
      with some dreaming pedant, with his elbow on his desk.Ó]

      27 (return) [ His birth is assigned to the year 314. He mentions
      the seventy-sixth year of his age, (A. D. 390,) and seems to
      allude to some events of a still later date.]

      28 (return) [ Libanius has composed the vain, prolix, but curious
      narrative of his own life, (tom. ii. p. 1-84, edit. Morell,) of
      which Eunapius (p. 130-135) has left a concise and unfavorable
      account. Among the moderns, Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
      iv. p. 571-576,) Fabricius, (Bibliot. Gr¾c. tom. vii. p.
      376-414,) and Lardner, (Heathen Testimonies, tom. iv. p.
      127-163,) have illustrated the character and writings of this
      famous sophist.]




      Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.ÑPart II.


      The martial impatience of Julian urged him to take the field in
      the beginning of the spring; and he dismissed, with contempt and
      reproach, the senate of Antioch, who accompanied the emperor
      beyond the limits of their own territory, to which he was
      resolved never to return. After a laborious march of two days, 29
      he halted on the third at Ber¾a, or Aleppo, where he had the
      mortification of finding a senate almost entirely Christian; who
      received with cold and formal demonstrations of respect the
      eloquent sermon of the apostle of paganism. The son of one of the
      most illustrious citizens of Ber¾a, who had embraced, either from
      interest or conscience, the religion of the emperor, was
      disinherited by his angry parent. The father and the son were
      invited to the Imperial table. Julian, placing himself between
      them, attempted, without success, to inculcate the lesson and
      example of toleration; supported, with affected calmness, the
      indiscreet zeal of the aged Christian, who seemed to forget the
      sentiments of nature, and the duty of a subject; and at length,
      turning towards the afflicted youth, ÒSince you have lost a
      father,Ó said he, Òfor my sake, it is incumbent on me to supply
      his place.Ó 30 The emperor was received in a manner much more
      agreeable to his wishes at Batn¾, 3011 a small town pleasantly
      seated in a grove of cypresses, about twenty miles from the city
      of Hierapolis. The solemn rites of sacrifice were decently
      prepared by the inhabitants of Batn¾, who seemed attached to the
      worship of their tutelar deities, Apollo and Jupiter; but the
      serious piety of Julian was offended by the tumult of their
      applause; and he too clearly discerned, that the smoke which
      arose from their altars was the incense of flattery, rather than
      of devotion. The ancient and magnificent temple which had
      sanctified, for so many ages, the city of Hierapolis, 31 no
      longer subsisted; and the consecrated wealth, which afforded a
      liberal maintenance to more than three hundred priests, might
      hasten its downfall. Yet Julian enjoyed the satisfaction of
      embracing a philosopher and a friend, whose religious firmness
      had withstood the pressing and repeated solicitations of
      Constantius and Gallus, as often as those princes lodged at his
      house, in their passage through Hierapolis. In the hurry of
      military preparation, and the careless confidence of a familiar
      correspondence, the zeal of Julian appears to have been lively
      and uniform. He had now undertaken an important and difficult
      war; and the anxiety of the event rendered him still more
      attentive to observe and register the most trifling presages,
      from which, according to the rules of divination, any knowledge
      of futurity could be derived. 32 He informed Libanius of his
      progress as far as Hierapolis, by an elegant epistle, 33 which
      displays the facility of his genius, and his tender friendship
      for the sophist of Antioch.

      29 (return) [ From Antioch to Litarbe, on the territory of
      Chalcis, the road, over hills and through morasses, was extremely
      bad; and the loose stones were cemented only with sand, (Julian.
      epist. xxvii.) It is singular enough that the Romans should have
      neglected the great communication between Antioch and the
      Euphrates. See Wesseling Itinerar. p. 190 Bergier, Hist des
      Grands Chemins, tom. ii. p. 100]

      30 (return) [ Julian alludes to this incident, (epist. xxvii.,)
      which is more distinctly related by Theodoret, (l. iii. c. 22.)
      The intolerant spirit of the father is applauded by Tillemont,
      (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 534.) and even by La Bleterie,
      (Vie de Julien, p. 413.)]

      3011 (return) [ This name, of Syriac origin, is found in the
      Arabic, and means a place in a valley where waters meet. Julian
      says, the name of the city is Barbaric, the situation Greek. The
      geographer Abulfeda (tab. Syriac. p. 129, edit. Koehler) speaks
      of it in a manner to justify the praises of Julian.ÑSt. Martin.
      Notes to Le Beau, iii. 56.ÑM.]

      31 (return) [ See the curious treatise de De‰ Syri‰, inserted
      among the works of Lucian, (tom. iii. p. 451-490, edit. Reitz.)
      The singular appellation of _Ninus vetus_ (Ammian. xiv. 8) might
      induce a suspicion, that Heirapolis had been the royal seat of
      the Assyrians.]

      32 (return) [ Julian (epist. xxviii.) kept a regular account of
      all the fortunate omens; but he suppresses the inauspicious
      signs, which Ammianus (xxiii. 2) has carefully recorded.]

      33 (return) [ Julian. epist. xxvii. p. 399-402.]

      Hierapolis, 3311 situate almost on the banks of the Euphrates, 34
      had been appointed for the general rendezvous of the Roman
      troops, who immediately passed the great river on a bridge of
      boats, which was previously constructed. 35 If the inclinations
      of Julian had been similar to those of his predecessor, he might
      have wasted the active and important season of the year in the
      circus of Samosata or in the churches of Edessa. But as the
      warlike emperor, instead of Constantius, had chosen Alexander for
      his model, he advanced without delay to Carrh¾, 36 a very ancient
      city of Mesopotamia, at the distance of fourscore miles from
      Hierapolis. The temple of the Moon attracted the devotion of
      Julian; but the halt of a few days was principally employed in
      completing the immense preparations of the Persian war. The
      secret of the expedition had hitherto remained in his own breast;
      but as Carrh¾ is the point of separation of the two great roads,
      he could no longer conceal whether it was his design to attack
      the dominions of Sapor on the side of the Tigris, or on that of
      the Euphrates. The emperor detached an army of thirty thousand
      men, under the command of his kinsman Procopius, and of
      Sebastian, who had been duke of Egypt. They were ordered to
      direct their march towards Nisibis, and to secure the frontier
      from the desultory incursions of the enemy, before they attempted
      the passage of the Tigris. Their subsequent operations were left
      to the discretion of the generals; but Julian expected, that
      after wasting with fire and sword the fertile districts of Media
      and Adiabene, they might arrive under the walls of Ctesiphon at
      the same time that he himself, advancing with equal steps along
      the banks of the Euphrates, should besiege the capital of the
      Persian monarchy. The success of this well-concerted plan
      depended, in a great measure, on the powerful and ready
      assistance of the king of Armenia, who, without exposing the
      safety of his own dominions, might detach an army of four
      thousand horse, and twenty thousand foot, to the assistance of
      the Romans. 37 But the feeble Arsaces Tiranus, 38 king of
      Armenia, had degenerated still more shamefully than his father
      Chosroes, from the manly virtues of the great Tiridates; and as
      the pusillanimous monarch was averse to any enterprise of danger
      and glory, he could disguise his timid indolence by the more
      decent excuses of religion and gratitude. He expressed a pious
      attachment to the memory of Constantius, from whose hands he had
      received in marriage Olympias, the daughter of the pr¾fect
      Ablavius; and the alliance of a female, who had been educated as
      the destined wife of the emperor Constans, exalted the dignity of
      a Barbarian king. 39 Tiranus professed the Christian religion; he
      reigned over a nation of Christians; and he was restrained, by
      every principle of conscience and interest, from contributing to
      the victory, which would consummate the ruin of the church. The
      alienated mind of Tiranus was exasperated by the indiscretion of
      Julian, who treated the king of Armenia as _his_ slave, and as
      the enemy of the gods. The haughty and threatening style of the
      Imperial mandates 40 awakened the secret indignation of a prince,
      who, in the humiliating state of dependence, was still conscious
      of his royal descent from the Arsacides, the lords of the East,
      and the rivals of the Roman power. 4011

      3311 (return) [ Or Bambyce, now Bambouch; Manbedj Arab., or
      Maboug, Syr. It was twenty-four Roman miles from the
      Euphrates.ÑM.]

      34 (return) [ I take the earliest opportunity of acknowledging my
      obligations to M. dÕAnville, for his recent geography of the
      Euphrates and Tigris, (Paris, 1780, in 4to.,) which particularly
      illustrates the expedition of Julian.]

      35 (return) [ There are three passages within a few miles of each
      other; 1. Zeugma, celebrated by the ancients; 2. Bir, frequented
      by the moderns; and, 3. The bridge of Menbigz, or Hierapolis, at
      the distance of four parasangs from the city. ÑÑ Djisr Manbedj is
      the same with the ancient Zeugma. St. Martin, iii. 58ÑM.]

      36 (return) [ Haran, or Carrh¾, was the ancient residence of the
      Sab¾ans, and of Abraham. See the Index Geographicus of Schultens,
      (ad calcem Vit. Saladin.,) a work from which I have obtained much
      _Oriental_ knowledge concerning the ancient and modern geography
      of Syria and the adjacent countries. ÑÑOn an inedited medal in
      the collection of the late M. Tochon. of the Academy of
      Inscriptions, it is read Xappan. St. Martin. iii 60ÑM.]

      37 (return) [ See Xenophon. Cyrop¾d. l. iii. p. 189, edit.
      Hutchinson. Artavasdes might have supplied Marc Antony with
      16,000 horse, armed and disciplined after the Parthian manner,
      (Plutarch, in M. Antonio. tom. v. p. 117.)]

      38 (return) [ Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armeniac. l. iii. c. 11, p.
      242) fixes his accession (A. D. 354) to the 17th year of
      Constantius. ÑÑArsaces Tiranus, or Diran, had ceased to reign
      twenty-five years before, in 337. The intermediate changes in
      Armenia, and the character of this Arsaces, the son of Diran, are
      traced by M. St. Martin, at considerable length, in his
      supplement to Le Beau, ii. 208-242. As long as his Grecian queen
      Olympias maintained her influence, Arsaces was faithful to the
      Roman and _Christian_ alliance. On the accession of Julian, the
      same influence made his fidelity to waver; but Olympias having
      been poisoned in the sacramental bread by the agency of
      Pharandcem, the former wife of Arsaces, another change took place
      in Armenian politics unfavorable to the Christian interest. The
      patriarch Narses retired from the impious court to a safe
      seclusion. Yet Pharandsem was equally hostile to the Persian
      influence, and Arsaces began to support with vigor the cause of
      Julian. He made an inroad into the Persian dominions with a body
      of Rans and Alans as auxiliaries; wasted Aderbidgan and Sapor,
      who had been defeated near Tauriz, was engaged in making head
      against his troops in Persarmenia, at the time of the death of
      Julian. Such is M. St. MartinÕs view, (ii. 276, et sqq.,) which
      rests on the Armenian historians, Faustos of Byzantium, and
      Mezrob the biographer of the Partriarch Narses. In the history of
      Armenia by Father Chamitch, and translated by Avdall, Tiran is
      still king of Armenia, at the time of JulianÕs death. F. Chamitch
      follows Moses of Chorene, The authority of Gibbon.ÑM.]

      39 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 11. Athanasius (tom. i. p. 856) says,
      in general terms, that Constantius gave to his brotherÕs widow,
      an expression more suitable to a Roman than a Christian.]

      40 (return) [ Ammianus (xxiii. 2) uses a word much too soft for
      the occasion, _monuerat_. Muratori (Fabricius, Bibliothec. Gr¾c.
      tom. vii. p. 86) has published an epistle from Julian to the
      satrap Arsaces; fierce, vulgar, and (though it might deceive
      Sozomen, l. vi. c. 5) most probably spurious. La Bleterie (Hist.
      de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 339) translates and rejects it. Note: St.
      Martin considers it genuine: the Armenian writers mention such a
      letter, iii. 37.ÑM.]

      4011 (return) [ Arsaces did not abandon the Roman alliance, but
      gave it only feeble support. St. Martin, iii. 41ÑM.]

      The military dispositions of Julian were skilfully contrived to
      deceive the spies and to divert the attention of Sapor. The
      legions appeared to direct their march towards Nisibis and the
      Tigris. On a sudden they wheeled to the right; traversed the
      level and naked plain of Carrh¾; and reached, on the third day,
      the banks of the Euphrates, where the strong town of Nicephorium,
      or Callinicum, had been founded by the Macedonian kings. From
      thence the emperor pursued his march, above ninety miles, along
      the winding stream of the Euphrates, till, at length, about one
      month after his departure from Antioch, he discovered the towers
      of Circesium, 4012 the extreme limit of the Roman dominions. The
      army of Julian, the most numerous that any of the C¾sars had ever
      led against Persia, consisted of sixty-five thousand effective
      and well-disciplined soldiers. The veteran bands of cavalry and
      infantry, of Romans and Barbarians, had been selected from the
      different provinces; and a just pre‘minence of loyalty and valor
      was claimed by the hardy Gauls, who guarded the throne and person
      of their beloved prince. A formidable body of Scythian
      auxiliaries had been transported from another climate, and almost
      from another world, to invade a distant country, of whose name
      and situation they were ignorant. The love of rapine and war
      allured to the Imperial standard several tribes of Saracens, or
      roving Arabs, whose service Julian had commanded, while he
      sternly refused the payment of the accustomed subsidies. The
      broad channel of the Euphrates 41 was crowded by a fleet of
      eleven hundred ships, destined to attend the motions, and to
      satisfy the wants, of the Roman army. The military strength of
      the fleet was composed of fifty armed galleys; and these were
      accompanied by an equal number of flat-bottomed boats, which
      might occasionally be connected into the form of temporary
      bridges. The rest of the ships, partly constructed of timber, and
      partly covered with raw hides, were laden with an almost
      inexhaustible supply of arms and engines, of utensils and
      provisions. The vigilant humanity of Julian had embarked a very
      large magazine of vinegar and biscuit for the use of the
      soldiers, but he prohibited the indulgence of wine; and
      rigorously stopped a long string of superfluous camels that
      attempted to follow the rear of the army. The River Chaboras
      falls into the Euphrates at Circesium; 42 and as soon as the
      trumpet gave the signal of march, the Romans passed the little
      stream which separated two mighty and hostile empires. The custom
      of ancient discipline required a military oration; and Julian
      embraced every opportunity of displaying his eloquence. He
      animated the impatient and attentive legions by the example of
      the inflexible courage and glorious triumphs of their ancestors.
      He excited their resentment by a lively picture of the insolence
      of the Persians; and he exhorted them to imitate his firm
      resolution, either to extirpate that perfidious nation, or to
      devote his life in the cause of the republic. The eloquence of
      Julian was enforced by a donative of one hundred and thirty
      pieces of silver to every soldier; and the bridge of the Chaboras
      was instantly cut away, to convince the troops that they must
      place their hopes of safety in the success of their arms. Yet the
      prudence of the emperor induced him to secure a remote frontier,
      perpetually exposed to the inroads of the hostile Arabs. A
      detachment of four thousand men was left at Circesium, which
      completed, to the number of ten thousand, the regular garrison of
      that important fortress. 43

      4012 (return) [ Kirkesia the Carchemish of the Scriptures.ÑM.]

      41 (return) [ Latissimum flumen Euphraten artabat. Ammian. xxiii.
      3 Somewhat higher, at the fords of Thapsacus, the river is four
      stadia or 800 yards, almost half an English mile, broad.
      (Xenophon, Anabasis, l. i. p. 41, edit. Hutchinson, with FosterÕs
      Observations, p. 29, &c., in the 2d volume of SpelmanÕs
      translation.) If the breadth of the Euphrates at Bir and Zeugma
      is no more than 130 yards, (Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 335,)
      the enormous difference must chiefly arise from the depth of the
      channel.]

      42 (return) [ Munimentum tutissimum et fabre politum, Abora (the
      Orientals aspirate Chaboras or Chabour) et Euphrates ambiunt
      flumina, velut spatium insulare fingentes. Ammian. xxiii. 5.]

      43 (return) [ The enterprise and armament of Julian are described
      by himself, (Epist. xxvii.,) Ammianus Marcellinus, (xxiii. 3, 4,
      5,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 108, 109, p. 332, 333,) Zosimus,
      (l. iii. p. 160, 161, 162) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. l,) and John
      Malala, (tom. ii. p. 17.)]

      From the moment that the Romans entered the enemyÕs country, 44
      the country of an active and artful enemy, the order of march was
      disposed in three columns. 45 The strength of the infantry, and
      consequently of the whole army was placed in the centre, under
      the peculiar command of their master-general Victor. On the
      right, the brave Nevitta led a column of several legions along
      the banks of the Euphrates, and almost always in sight of the
      fleet. The left flank of the army was protected by the column of
      cavalry. Hormisdas and Arinth¾us were appointed generals of the
      horse; and the singular adventures of Hormisdas 46 are not
      undeserving of our notice. He was a Persian prince, of the royal
      race of the Sassanides, who, in the troubles of the minority of
      Sapor, had escaped from prison to the hospitable court of the
      great Constantine. Hormisdas at first excited the compassion, and
      at length acquired the esteem, of his new masters; his valor and
      fidelity raised him to the military honors of the Roman service;
      and though a Christian, he might indulge the secret satisfaction
      of convincing his ungrateful country, that an oppressed subject
      may prove the most dangerous enemy. Such was the disposition of
      the three principal columns. The front and flanks of the army
      were covered by Lucilianus with a flying detachment of fifteen
      hundred light-armed soldiers, whose active vigilance observed the
      most distant signs, and conveyed the earliest notice, of any
      hostile approach. Dagalaiphus, and Secundinus duke of Osrhoene,
      conducted the troops of the rear-guard; the baggage securely
      proceeded in the intervals of the columns; and the ranks, from a
      motive either of use or ostentation, were formed in such open
      order, that the whole line of march extended almost ten miles.
      The ordinary post of Julian was at the head of the centre column;
      but as he preferred the duties of a general to the state of a
      monarch, he rapidly moved, with a small escort of light cavalry,
      to the front, the rear, the flanks, wherever his presence could
      animate or protect the march of the Roman army. The country which
      they traversed from the Chaboras, to the cultivated lands of
      Assyria, may be considered as a part of the desert of Arabia, a
      dry and barren waste, which could never be improved by the most
      powerful arts of human industry. Julian marched over the same
      ground which had been trod above seven hundred years before by
      the footsteps of the younger Cyrus, and which is described by one
      of the companions of his expedition, the sage and heroic
      Xenophon. 47 ÒThe country was a plain throughout, as even as the
      sea, and full of wormwood; and if any other kind of shrubs or
      reeds grew there, they had all an aromatic smell, but no trees
      could be seen. Bustards and ostriches, antelopes and wild asses,
      48 appeared to be the only inhabitants of the desert; and the
      fatigues of the march were alleviated by the amusements of the
      chase.Ó The loose sand of the desert was frequently raised by the
      wind into clouds of dust; and a great number of the soldiers of
      Julian, with their tents, were suddenly thrown to the ground by
      the violence of an unexpected hurricane.

      44 (return) [ Before he enters Persia, Ammianus copiously
      describes (xxiii. p. 396-419, edit. Gronov. in 4to.) the eighteen
      great provinces, (as far as the Seric, or Chinese frontiers,)
      which were subject to the Sassanides.]

      45 (return) [ Ammianus (xxiv. 1) and Zosimus (l. iii. p. 162,
      163) rately expressed the order of march.]

      46 (return) [ The adventures of Hormisdas are related with some
      mixture of fable, (Zosimus, l. ii. p. 100-102; Tillemont, Hist.
      des Empereurs tom. iv. p. 198.) It is almost impossible that he
      should be the brother (frater germanus) of an _eldest_ and
      _posthumous_ child: nor do I recollect that Ammianus ever gives
      him that title. * Note: St. Martin conceives that he was an elder
      brother by another mother who had several children, ii. 24ÑM.]

      47 (return) [ See the first book of the Anabasis, p. 45, 46. This
      pleasing work is original and authentic. Yet XenophonÕs memory,
      perhaps many years after the expedition, has sometimes betrayed
      him; and the distances which he marks are often larger than
      either a soldier or a geographer will allow.]

      48 (return) [ Mr. Spelman, the English translator of the
      Anabasis, (vol. i. p. 51,) confounds the antelope with the
      roebuck, and the wild ass with the zebra.]

      The sandy plains of Mesopotamia were abandoned to the antelopes
      and wild asses of the desert; but a variety of populous towns and
      villages were pleasantly situated on the banks of the Euphrates,
      and in the islands which are occasionally formed by that river.
      The city of Annah, or Anatho, 49 the actual residence of an
      Arabian emir, is composed of two long streets, which enclose,
      within a natural fortification, a small island in the midst, and
      two fruitful spots on either side, of the Euphrates. The warlike
      inhabitants of Anatho showed a disposition to stop the march of a
      Roman emperor; till they were diverted from such fatal
      presumption by the mild exhortations of Prince Hormisdas, and the
      approaching terrors of the fleet and army. They implored, and
      experienced, the clemency of Julian, who transplanted the people
      to an advantageous settlement, near Chalcis in Syria, and
      admitted Pus¾us, the governor, to an honorable rank in his
      service and friendship. But the impregnable fortress of Thilutha
      could scorn the menace of a siege; and the emperor was obliged to
      content himself with an insulting promise, that, when he had
      subdued the interior provinces of Persia, Thilutha would no
      longer refuse to grace the triumph of the emperor. The
      inhabitants of the open towns, unable to resist, and unwilling to
      yield, fled with precipitation; and their houses, filled with
      spoil and provisions, were occupied by the soldiers of Julian,
      who massacred, without remorse and without punishment, some
      defenceless women. During the march, the Surenas, 4911 or Persian
      general, and Malek Rodosaces, the renowned emir of the tribe of
      Gassan, 50 incessantly hovered round the army; every straggler
      was intercepted; every detachment was attacked; and the valiant
      Hormisdas escaped with some difficulty from their hands. But the
      Barbarians were finally repulsed; the country became every day
      less favorable to the operations of cavalry; and when the Romans
      arrived at Macepracta, they perceived the ruins of the wall,
      which had been constructed by the ancient kings of Assyria, to
      secure their dominions from the incursions of the Medes. These
      preliminaries of the expedition of Julian appear to have employed
      about fifteen days; and we may compute near three hundred miles
      from the fortress of Circesium to the wall of Macepracta. 51

      49 (return) [ See Voyages de Tavernier, part i. l. iii. p. 316,
      and more especially Viaggi di Pietro della Valle, tom. i. lett.
      xvii. p. 671, &c. He was ignorant of the old name and condition
      of Annah. Our blind travellers _seldom_ possess any previous
      knowledge of the countries which they visit. Shaw and Tournefort
      deserve an honorable exception.]

      4911 (return) [ This is not a title, but the name of a great
      Persian family. St. Martin, iii. 79.ÑM.]

      50 (return) [ Famosi nominis latro, says Ammianus; a high
      encomium for an Arab. The tribe of Gassan had settled on the edge
      of Syria, and reigned some time in Damascus, under a dynasty of
      thirty-one kings, or emirs, from the time of Pompey to that of
      the Khalif Omar. DÕHerbelot, Bibliothque Orientale, p. 360.
      Pococke, Specimen Hist. Arabic¾, p. 75-78. The name of Rodosaces
      does not appear in the list. * Note: Rodosaces-malek is king. St.
      Martin considers that Gibbon has fallen into an error in bringing
      the tribe of Gassan to the Euphrates. In Ammianus it is Assan. M.
      St. Martin would read Massanitarum, the same with the Mauzanit¾
      of Malala.ÑM.]

      51 (return) [ See Ammianus, (xxiv. 1, 2,) Libanius, (Orat.
      Parental. c. 110, 111, p. 334,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 164-168.) *
      Note: This Syriac or Chaldaic has relation to its position; it
      easily bears the signification of the division of the waters. M.
      St. M. considers it the Missice of Pliny, v. 26. St. Martin, iii.
      83.ÑM.]

      The fertile province of Assyria, 52 which stretched beyond the
      Tigris, as far as the mountains of Media, 53 extended about four
      hundred miles from the ancient wall of Macepracta, to the
      territory of Basra, where the united streams of the Euphrates and
      Tigris discharge themselves into the Persian Gulf. 54 The whole
      country might have claimed the peculiar name of Mesopotamia; as
      the two rivers, which are never more distant than fifty,
      approach, between Bagdad and Babylon, within twenty-five miles,
      of each other. A multitude of artificial canals, dug without much
      labor in a soft and yielding soil connected the rivers, and
      intersected the plain of Assyria. The uses of these artificial
      canals were various and important. They served to discharge the
      superfluous waters from one river into the other, at the season
      of their respective inundations. Subdividing themselves into
      smaller and smaller branches, they refreshed the dry lands, and
      supplied the deficiency of rain. They facilitated the intercourse
      of peace and commerce; and, as the dams could be speedily broke
      down, they armed the despair of the Assyrians with the means of
      opposing a sudden deluge to the progress of an invading army. To
      the soil and climate of Assyria, nature had denied some of her
      choicest gifts, the vine, the olive, and the fig-tree; 5411 but
      the food which supports the life of man, and particularly wheat
      and barley, were produced with inexhaustible fertility; and the
      husbandman, who committed his seed to the earth, was frequently
      rewarded with an increase of two, or even of three, hundred. The
      face of the country was interspersed with groves of innumerable
      palm-trees; 55 and the diligent natives celebrated, either in
      verse or prose, the three hundred and sixty uses to which the
      trunk, the branches, the leaves, the juice, and the fruit, were
      skilfully applied. Several manufactures, especially those of
      leather and linen, employed the industry of a numerous people,
      and afforded valuable materials for foreign trade; which appears,
      however, to have been conducted by the hands of strangers.
      Babylon had been converted into a royal park; but near the ruins
      of the ancient capital, new cities had successively arisen, and
      the populousness of the country was displayed in the multitude of
      towns and villages, which were built of bricks dried in the sun,
      and strongly cemented with bitumen; the natural and peculiar
      production of the Babylonian soil. While the successors of Cyrus
      reigned over Asia, the province of Syria alone maintained, during
      a third part of the year, the luxurious plenty of the table and
      household of the Great King. Four considerable villages were
      assigned for the subsistence of his Indian dogs; eight hundred
      stallions, and sixteen thousand mares, were constantly kept, at
      the expense of the country, for the royal stables; and as the
      daily tribute, which was paid to the satrap, amounted to one
      English bushe of silver, we may compute the annual revenue of
      Assyria at more than twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling. 56

      52 (return) [ The description of Assyria, is furnished by
      Herodotus, (l. i. c. 192, &c.,) who sometimes writes for
      children, and sometimes for philosophers; by Strabo, (l. xvi. p.
      1070-1082,) and by Ammianus, (l.xxiii. c. 6.) The most useful of
      the modern travellers are Tavernier, (part i. l. ii. p. 226-258,)
      Otter, (tom. ii. p. 35-69, and 189-224,) and Niebuhr, (tom. ii.
      p. 172-288.) Yet I much regret that the _Irak Arabi_ of Abulfeda
      has not been translated.]

      53 (return) [ Ammianus remarks, that the primitive Assyria, which
      comprehended Ninus, (Nineveh,) and Arbela, had assumed the more
      recent and peculiar appellation of Adiabene; and he seems to fix
      Teredon, Vologesia, and Apollonia, as the _extreme_ cities of the
      actual province of Assyria.]

      54 (return) [ The two rivers unite at Apamea, or Corna, (one
      hundred miles from the Persian Gulf,) into the broad stream of
      the Pasitigris, or Shutul-Arab. The Euphrates formerly reached
      the sea by a separate channel, which was obstructed and diverted
      by the citizens of Orchoe, about twenty miles to the south-east
      of modern Basra. (DÕAnville, in the MŽmoires de lÕAcad. des
      Inscriptions, tom.xxx. p. 171-191.)]

      5411 (return) [ We are informed by Mr. Gibbon, that nature has
      denied to the soil an climate of Assyria some of her choicest
      gifts, the vine, the olive, and the fig-tree. This might have
      been the case ir the age of Ammianus Marcellinus, but it is not
      so at the present day; and it is a curious fact that the grape,
      the olive, and the fig, are the most common fruits in the
      province, and may be seen in every garden. Macdonald Kinneir,
      Geogr. Mem. on Persia 239ÑM.]

      55 (return) [ The learned K¾mpfer, as a botanist, an antiquary,
      and a traveller, has exhausted (AmÏnitat. Exotic¾, Fasicul. iv.
      p. 660-764) the whole subject of palm-trees.]

      56 (return) [ Assyria yielded to the Persian satrap an _Artaba_
      of silver each day. The well-known proportion of weights and
      measures (see Bishop HooperÕs elaborate Inquiry,) the specific
      gravity of water and silver, and the value of that metal, will
      afford, after a short process, the annual revenue which I have
      stated. Yet the Great King received no more than 1000 Euboic, or
      Tyrian, talents (252,000l.) from Assyria. The comparison of two
      passages in Herodotus, (l. i. c. 192, l. iii. c. 89-96) reveals
      an important difference between the _gross_, and the _net_,
      revenue of Persia; the sums paid by the province, and the gold or
      silver deposited in the royal treasure. The monarch might
      annually save three millions six hundred thousand pounds, of the
      seventeen or eighteen millions raised upon the people.]




      Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.ÑPart III.


      The fields of Assyria were devoted by Julian to the calamities of
      war; and the philosopher retaliated on a guiltless people the
      acts of rapine and cruelty which had been committed by their
      haughty master in the Roman provinces. The trembling Assyrians
      summoned the rivers to their assistance; and completed, with
      their own hands, the ruin of their country. The roads were
      rendered impracticable; a flood of waters was poured into the
      camp; and, during several days, the troops of Julian were obliged
      to contend with the most discouraging hardships. But every
      obstacle was surmounted by the perseverance of the legionaries,
      who were inured to toil as well as to danger, and who felt
      themselves animated by the spirit of their leader. The damage was
      gradually repaired; the waters were restored to their proper
      channels; whole groves of palm-trees were cut down, and placed
      along the broken parts of the road; and the army passed over the
      broad and deeper canals, on bridges of floating rafts, which were
      supported by the help of bladders. Two cities of Assyria presumed
      to resist the arms of a Roman emperor: and they both paid the
      severe penalty of their rashness. At the distance of fifty miles
      from the royal residence of Ctesiphon, Perisabor, 5711 or Anbar,
      held the second rank in the province; a city, large, populous,
      and well fortified, surrounded with a double wall, almost
      encompassed by a branch of the Euphrates, and defended by the
      valor of a numerous garrison. The exhortations of Hormisdas were
      repulsed with contempt; and the ears of the Persian prince were
      wounded by a just reproach, that, unmindful of his royal birth,
      he conducted an army of strangers against his king and country.
      The Assyrians maintained their loyalty by a skilful, as well as
      vigorous, defence; till the lucky stroke of a battering-ram,
      having opened a large breach, by shattering one of the angles of
      the wall, they hastily retired into the fortifications of the
      interior citadel. The soldiers of Julian rushed impetuously into
      the town, and after the full gratification of every military
      appetite, Perisabor was reduced to ashes; and the engines which
      assaulted the citadel were planted on the ruins of the smoking
      houses. The contest was continued by an incessant and mutual
      discharge of missile weapons; and the superiority which the
      Romans might derive from the mechanical powers of their balist¾
      and catapult¾ was counterbalanced by the advantage of the ground
      on the side of the besieged. But as soon as an _Helepolis_ had
      been constructed, which could engage on equal terms with the
      loftiest ramparts, the tremendous aspect of a moving turret, that
      would leave no hope of resistance or mercy, terrified the
      defenders of the citadel into an humble submission; and the place
      was surrendered only two days after Julian first appeared under
      the walls of Perisabor. Two thousand five hundred persons, of
      both sexes, the feeble remnant of a flourishing people, were
      permitted to retire; the plentiful magazines of corn, of arms,
      and of splendid furniture, were partly distributed among the
      troops, and partly reserved for the public service; the useless
      stores were destroyed by fire or thrown into the stream of the
      Euphrates; and the fate of Amida was revenged by the total ruin
      of Perisabor.

      5711 (return) [ Libanius says that it was a great city of
      Assyria, called after the name of the reigning king. The orator
      of Antioch is not mistaken. The Persians and Syrians called it
      Fyrouz Schapour or Fyrouz Schahbour; in Persian, the victory of
      Schahpour. It owed that name to Sapor the First. It was before
      called Anbar St. Martin, iii. 85.ÑM.]

      The city or rather fortress, of Maogamalcha, which was defended
      by sixteen large towers, a deep ditch, and two strong and solid
      walls of brick and bitumen, appears to have been constructed at
      the distance of eleven miles, as the safeguard of the capital of
      Persia. The emperor, apprehensive of leaving such an important
      fortress in his rear, immediately formed the siege of
      Maogamalcha; and the Roman army was distributed, for that
      purpose, into three divisions. Victor, at the head of the
      cavalry, and of a detachment of heavy-armed foot, was ordered to
      clear the country, as far as the banks of the Tigris, and the
      suburbs of Ctesiphon. The conduct of the attack was assumed by
      Julian himself, who seemed to place his whole dependence in the
      military engines which he erected against the walls; while he
      secretly contrived a more efficacious method of introducing his
      troops into the heart of the city. Under the direction of Nevitta
      and Dagalaiphus, the trenches were opened at a considerable
      distance, and gradually prolonged as far as the edge of the
      ditch. The ditch was speedily filled with earth; and, by the
      incessant labor of the troops, a mine was carried under the
      foundations of the walls, and sustained, at sufficient intervals,
      by props of timber. Three chosen cohorts, advancing in a single
      file, silently explored the dark and dangerous passage; till
      their intrepid leader whispered back the intelligence, that he
      was ready to issue from his confinement into the streets of the
      hostile city. Julian checked their ardor, that he might insure
      their success; and immediately diverted the attention of the
      garrison, by the tumult and clamor of a general assault. The
      Persians, who, from their walls, contemptuously beheld the
      progress of an impotent attack, celebrated with songs of triumph
      the glory of Sapor; and ventured to assure the emperor, that he
      might ascend the starry mansion of Ormusd, before he could hope
      to take the impregnable city of Maogamalcha. The city was already
      taken. History has recorded the name of a private soldier the
      first who ascended from the mine into a deserted tower. The
      passage was widened by his companions, who pressed forwards with
      impatient valor. Fifteen hundred enemies were already in the
      midst of the city. The astonished garrison abandoned the walls,
      and their only hope of safety; the gates were instantly burst
      open; and the revenge of the soldier, unless it were suspended by
      lust or avarice, was satiated by an undistinguishing massacre.
      The governor, who had yielded on a promise of mercy, was burnt
      alive, a few days afterwards, on a charge of having uttered some
      disrespectful words against the honor of Prince Hormisdas. The
      fortifications were razed to the ground; and not a vestige was
      left, that the city of Maogamalcha had ever existed. The
      neighborhood of the capital of Persia was adorned with three
      stately palaces, laboriously enriched with every production that
      could gratify the luxury and pride of an Eastern monarch. The
      pleasant situation of the gardens along the banks of the Tigris,
      was improved, according to the Persian taste, by the symmetry of
      flowers, fountains, and shady walks: and spacious parks were
      enclosed for the reception of the bears, lions, and wild boars,
      which were maintained at a considerable expense for the pleasure
      of the royal chase. The park walls were broken down, the savage
      game was abandoned to the darts of the soldiers, and the palaces
      of Sapor were reduced to ashes, by the command of the Roman
      emperor. Julian, on this occasion, showed himself ignorant, or
      careless, of the laws of civility, which the prudence and
      refinement of polished ages have established between hostile
      princes. Yet these wanton ravages need not excite in our breasts
      any vehement emotions of pity or resentment. A simple, naked
      statue, finished by the hand of a Grecian artist, is of more
      genuine value than all these rude and costly monuments of
      Barbaric labor; and, if we are more deeply affected by the ruin
      of a palace than by the conflagration of a cottage, our humanity
      must have formed a very erroneous estimate of the miseries of
      human life. 57

      57 (return) [ The operations of the Assyrian war are
      circumstantially related by Ammianus, (xxiv. 2, 3, 4, 5,)
      Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 112-123, p. 335-347,) Zosimus, (l.
      iii. p. 168-180,) and Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat iv. p. 113, 144.)
      The _military_ criticisms of the saint are devoutly copied by
      Tillemont, his faithful slave.]

      Julian was an object of hatred and terror to the Persian and the
      painters of that nation represented the invader of their country
      under the emblem of a furious lion, who vomited from his mouth a
      consuming fire. 58 To his friends and soldiers the philosophic
      hero appeared in a more amiable light; and his virtues were never
      more conspicuously displayed, than in the last and most active
      period of his life. He practised, without effort, and almost
      without merit, the habitual qualities of temperance and sobriety.
      According to the dictates of that artificial wisdom, which
      assumes an absolute dominion over the mind and body, he sternly
      refused himself the indulgence of the most natural appetites. 59
      In the warm climate of Assyria, which solicited a luxurious
      people to the gratification of every sensual desire, 60 a
      youthful conqueror preserved his chastity pure and inviolate; nor
      was Julian ever tempted, even by a motive of curiosity, to visit
      his female captives of exquisite beauty, 61 who, instead of
      resisting his power, would have disputed with each other the
      honor of his embraces. With the same firmness that he resisted
      the allurements of love, he sustained the hardships of war. When
      the Romans marched through the flat and flooded country, their
      sovereign, on foot, at the head of his legions, shared their
      fatigues and animated their diligence. In every useful labor, the
      hand of Julian was prompt and strenuous; and the Imperial purple
      was wet and dirty as the coarse garment of the meanest soldier.
      The two sieges allowed him some remarkable opportunities of
      signalizing his personal valor, which, in the improved state of
      the military art, can seldom be exerted by a prudent general. The
      emperor stood before the citadel of Perisabor, insensible of his
      extreme danger, and encouraged his troops to burst open the gates
      of iron, till he was almost overwhelmed under a cloud of missile
      weapons and huge stones, that were directed against his person.
      As he examined the exterior fortifications of Maogamalcha, two
      Persians, devoting themselves for their country, suddenly rushed
      upon him with drawn cimeters: the emperor dexterously received
      their blows on his uplifted shield; and, with a steady and
      well-aimed thrust, laid one of his adversaries dead at his feet.
      The esteem of a prince who possesses the virtues which he
      approves, is the noblest recompense of a deserving subject; and
      the authority which Julian derived from his personal merit,
      enabled him to revive and enforce the rigor of ancient
      discipline. He punished with death or ignominy the misbehavior of
      three troops of horse, who, in a skirmish with the Surenas, had
      lost their honor and one of their standards: and he distinguished
      with _obsidional_ 62 crowns the valor of the foremost soldiers,
      who had ascended into the city of Maogamalcha.

      After the siege of Perisabor, the firmness of the emperor was
      exercised by the insolent avarice of the army, who loudly
      complained, that their services were rewarded by a trifling
      donative of one hundred pieces of silver. His just indignation
      was expressed in the grave and manly language of a Roman. ÒRiches
      are the object of your desires; those riches are in the hands of
      the Persians; and the spoils of this fruitful country are
      proposed as the prize of your valor and discipline. Believe me,Ó
      added Julian, Òthe Roman republic, which formerly possessed such
      immense treasures, is now reduced to want and wretchedness once
      our princes have been persuaded, by weak and interested
      ministers, to purchase with gold the tranquillity of the
      Barbarians. The revenue is exhausted; the cities are ruined; the
      provinces are dispeopled. For myself, the only inheritance that I
      have received from my royal ancestors is a soul incapable of
      fear; and as long as I am convinced that every real advantage is
      seated in the mind, I shall not blush to acknowledge an honorable
      poverty, which, in the days of ancient virtue, was considered as
      the glory of Fabricius. That glory, and that virtue, may be your
      own, if you will listen to the voice of Heaven and of your
      leader. But if you will rashly persist, if you are determined to
      renew the shameful and mischievous examples of old seditions,
      proceed. As it becomes an emperor who has filled the first rank
      among men, I am prepared to die, standing; and to despise a
      precarious life, which, every hour, may depend on an accidental
      fever. If I have been found unworthy of the command, there are
      now among you, (I speak it with pride and pleasure,) there are
      many chiefs whose merit and experience are equal to the conduct
      of the most important war. Such has been the temper of my reign,
      that I can retire, without regret, and without apprehension, to
      the obscurity of a private stationÓ 63 The modest resolution of
      Julian was answered by the unanimous applause and cheerful
      obedience of the Romans, who declared their confidence of
      victory, while they fought under the banners of their heroic
      prince. Their courage was kindled by his frequent and familiar
      asseverations, (for such wishes were the oaths of Julian,) ÒSo
      may I reduce the Persians under the yoke!Ó ÒThus may I restore
      the strength and splendor of the republic!Ó The love of fame was
      the ardent passion of his soul: but it was not before he trampled
      on the ruins of Maogamalcha, that he allowed himself to say, ÒWe
      have now provided some materials for the sophist of Antioch.Ó 64

      58 (return) [ Libanius de ulciscenda Juliani nece, c. 13, p.
      162.]

      59 (return) [ The famous examples of Cyrus, Alexander, and
      Scipio, were acts of justice. JulianÕs chastity was voluntary,
      and, in his opinion, meritorious.]

      60 (return) [ Sallust (ap. Vet. Scholiast. Juvenal. Satir. i.
      104) observes, that nihil corruptius moribus. The matrons and
      virgins of Babylon freely mingled with the men in licentious
      banquets; and as they felt the intoxication of wine and love,
      they gradually, and almost completely, threw aside the
      encumbrance of dress; ad ultimum ima corporum velamenta
      projiciunt. Q. Curtius, v. 1.]

      61 (return) [ Ex virginibus autem qu¾ specios¾ sunt capt¾, et in
      Perside, ubi f¾minarum pulchritudo excellit, nec contrectare
      aliquam votuit nec videre. Ammian. xxiv. 4. The native race of
      Persians is small and ugly; but it has been improved by the
      perpetual mixture of Circassian blood, (Herodot. l. iii. c. 97.
      Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 420.)]

      62 (return) [ Obsidionalibus coronis donati. Ammian. xxiv. 4.
      Either Julian or his historian were unskillful antiquaries. He
      should have given mural crowns. The _obsidional_ were the reward
      of a general who had delivered a besieged city, (Aulus Gellius,
      Noct. Attic. v. 6.)]

      63 (return) [ I give this speech as original and genuine.
      Ammianus might hear, could transcribe, and was incapable of
      inventing, it. I have used some slight freedoms, and conclude
      with the most forcibic sentence.]

      64 (return) [ Ammian. xxiv. 3. Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 122, p.
      346.]

      The successful valor of Julian had triumphed over all the
      obstacles that opposed his march to the gates of Ctesiphon. But
      the reduction, or even the siege, of the capital of Persia, was
      still at a distance: nor can the military conduct of the emperor
      be clearly apprehended, without a knowledge of the country which
      was the theatre of his bold and skilful operations. 65 Twenty
      miles to the south of Bagdad, and on the eastern bank of the
      Tigris, the curiosity of travellers has observed some ruins of
      the palaces of Ctesiphon, which, in the time of Julian, was a
      great and populous city. The name and glory of the adjacent
      Seleucia were forever extinguished; and the only remaining
      quarter of that Greek colony had resumed, with the Assyrian
      language and manners, the primitive appellation of Coche. Coche
      was situate on the western side of the Tigris; but it was
      naturally considered as a suburb of Ctesiphon, with which we may
      suppose it to have been connected by a permanent bridge of boats.

      The united parts contribute to form the common epithet of Al
      Modain, the cities, which the Orientals have bestowed on the
      winter residence of the Sassinadees; and the whole circumference
      of the Persian capital was strongly fortified by the waters of
      the river, by lofty walls, and by impracticable morasses. Near
      the ruins of Seleucia, the camp of Julian was fixed, and secured,
      by a ditch and rampart, against the sallies of the numerous and
      enterprising garrison of Coche. In this fruitful and pleasant
      country, the Romans were plentifully supplied with water and
      forage: and several forts, which might have embarrassed the
      motions of the army, submitted, after some resistance, to the
      efforts of their valor. The fleet passed from the Euphrates into
      an artificial derivation of that river, which pours a copious and
      navigable stream into the Tigris, at a small distance _below_ the
      great city. If they had followed this royal canal, which bore the
      name of Nahar-Malcha, 66 the intermediate situation of Coche
      would have separated the fleet and army of Julian; and the rash
      attempt of steering against the current of the Tigris, and
      forcing their way through the midst of a hostile capital, must
      have been attended with the total destruction of the Roman navy.
      The prudence of the emperor foresaw the danger, and provided the
      remedy. As he had minutely studied the operations of Trajan in
      the same country, he soon recollected that his warlike
      predecessor had dug a new and navigable canal, which, leaving
      Coche on the right hand, conveyed the waters of the Nahar-Malcha
      into the river Tigris, at some distance _above_ the cities. From
      the information of the peasants, Julian ascertained the vestiges
      of this ancient work, which were almost obliterated by design or
      accident. By the indefatigable labor of the soldiers, a broad and
      deep channel was speedily prepared for the reception of the
      Euphrates. A strong dike was constructed to interrupt the
      ordinary current of the Nahar-Malcha: a flood of waters rushed
      impetuously into their new bed; and the Roman fleet, steering
      their triumphant course into the Tigris, derided the vain and
      ineffectual barriers which the Persians of Ctesiphon had erected
      to oppose their passage.

      65 (return) [ M. dÕAnville, (MŽm. de lÕAcadŽmie des Inscriptions,
      tom. xxxviii p. 246-259) has ascertained the true position and
      distance of Babylon, Seleucia, Ctesiphon, Bagdad, &c. The Roman
      traveller, Pietro della Valle, (tom. i. lett. xvii. p. 650-780,)
      seems to be the most intelligent spectator of that famous
      province. He is a gentleman and a scholar, but intolerably vain
      and prolix.]

      66 (return) [ The Royal Canal (_Nahar-Malcha_) might be
      successively restored, altered, divided, &c., (Cellarius,
      Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 453;) and these changes may serve to
      explain the seeming contradictions of antiquity. In the time of
      Julian, it must have fallen into the Euphrates _below_
      Ctesiphon.]

      As it became necessary to transport the Roman army over the
      Tigris, another labor presented itself, of less toil, but of more
      danger, than the preceding expedition. The stream was broad and
      rapid; the ascent steep and difficult; and the intrenchments
      which had been formed on the ridge of the opposite bank, were
      lined with a numerous army of heavy cuirrasiers, dexterous
      archers, and huge elephants; who (according to the extravagant
      hyperbole of Libanius) could trample with the same ease a field
      of corn, or a legion of Romans. 67 In the presence of such an
      enemy, the construction of a bridge was impracticable; and the
      intrepid prince, who instantly seized the only possible
      expedient, concealed his design, till the moment of execution,
      from the knowledge of the Barbarians, of his own troops, and even
      of his generals themselves. Under the specious pretence of
      examining the state of the magazines, fourscore vessels 6711 were
      gradually unladen; and a select detachment, apparently destined
      for some secret expedition, was ordered to stand to their arms on
      the first signal. Julian disguised the silent anxiety of his own
      mind with smiles of confidence and joy; and amused the hostile
      nations with the spectacle of military games, which he
      insultingly celebrated under the walls of Coche. The day was
      consecrated to pleasure; but, as soon as the hour of supper was
      passed, the emperor summoned the generals to his tent, and
      acquainted them that he had fixed that night for the passage of
      the Tigris. They stood in silent and respectful astonishment;
      but, when the venerable Sallust assumed the privilege of his age
      and experience, the rest of the chiefs supported with freedom the
      weight of his prudent remonstrances. 68 Julian contented himself
      with observing, that conquest and safety depended on the attempt;
      that instead of diminishing, the number of their enemies would be
      increased, by successive reenforcements; and that a longer delay
      would neither contract the breadth of the stream, nor level the
      height of the bank. The signal was instantly given, and obeyed;
      the most impatient of the legionaries leaped into five vessels
      that lay nearest to the bank; and as they plied their oars with
      intrepid diligence, they were lost, after a few moments, in the
      darkness of the night. A flame arose on the opposite side; and
      Julian, who too clearly understood that his foremost vessels, in
      attempting to land, had been fired by the enemy, dexterously
      converted their extreme danger into a presage of victory. ÒOur
      fellow-soldiers,Ó he eagerly exclaimed, Òare already masters of
      the bank; seeÑthey make the appointed signal; let us hasten to
      emulate and assist their courage.Ó The united and rapid motion of
      a great fleet broke the violence of the current, and they reached
      the eastern shore of the Tigris with sufficient speed to
      extinguish the flames, and rescue their adventurous companions.
      The difficulties of a steep and lofty ascent were increased by
      the weight of armor, and the darkness of the night. A shower of
      stones, darts, and fire, was incessantly discharged on the heads
      of the assailants; who, after an arduous struggle, climbed the
      bank and stood victorious upon the rampart. As soon as they
      possessed a more equal field, Julian, who, with his light
      infantry, had led the attack, 69 darted through the ranks a
      skilful and experienced eye: his bravest soldiers, according to
      the precepts of Homer, 70 were distributed in the front and rear:
      and all the trumpets of the Imperial army sounded to battle. The
      Romans, after sending up a military shout, advanced in measured
      steps to the animating notes of martial music; launched their
      formidable javelins; and rushed forwards with drawn swords, to
      deprive the Barbarians, by a closer onset, of the advantage of
      their missile weapons. The whole engagement lasted above twelve
      hours; till the gradual retreat of the Persians was changed into
      a disorderly flight, of which the shameful example was given by
      the principal leader, and the Surenas himself. They were pursued
      to the gates of Ctesiphon; and the conquerors might have entered
      the dismayed city, 71 if their general, Victor, who was
      dangerously wounded with an arrow, had not conjured them to
      desist from a rash attempt, which must be fatal, if it were not
      successful. On _their_ side, the Romans acknowledged the loss of
      only seventy-five men; while they affirmed, that the Barbarians
      had left on the field of battle two thousand five hundred, or
      even six thousand, of their bravest soldiers. The spoil was such
      as might be expected from the riches and luxury of an Oriental
      camp; large quantities of silver and gold, splendid arms and
      trappings, and beds and tables of massy silver. 7111 The
      victorious emperor distributed, as the rewards of valor, some
      honorable gifts, civic, and mural, and naval crowns; which he,
      and perhaps he alone, esteemed more precious than the wealth of
      Asia. A solemn sacrifice was offered to the god of war, but the
      appearances of the victims threatened the most inauspicious
      events; and Julian soon discovered, by less ambiguous signs, that
      he had now reached the term of his prosperity. 72

      67 (return) [ Rien nÕest beau que le vrai; a maxim which should
      be inscribed on the desk of every rhetorician.]

      6711 (return) [ This is a mistake; each vessel (according to
      Zosimus two, according to Ammianus five) had eighty men. Amm.
      xxiv. 6, with WagnerÕs note. Gibbon must have read _octogenas_
      for _octogenis_. The five vessels selected for this service were
      remarkably large and strong provision transports. The strength of
      the fleet remained with Julian to carry over the armyÑM.]

      68 (return) [ Libanius alludes to the most powerful of the
      generals. I have ventured to name _Sallust_. Ammianus says, of
      all the leaders, quod acri metž territ acrimetu territi duces
      concordi precatž precaut fieri prohibere tentarent. * Note: It is
      evident that Gibbon has mistaken the sense of Libanius; his words
      can only apply to a commander of a detachment, not to so eminent
      a person as the Pr¾fect of the East. St. Martin, iii. 313.ÑM.]

      69 (return) [ Hinc Imperator.... (says Ammianus) ipse cum levis
      armatur¾ auxiliis per prima postremaque discurrens, &c. Yet
      Zosimus, his friend, does not allow him to pass the river till
      two days after the battle.]

      70 (return) [ Secundum Homericam dispositionem. A similar
      disposition is ascribed to the wise Nestor, in the fourth book of
      the Iliad; and Homer was never absent from the mind of Julian.]

      71 (return) [ Persas terrore subito miscuerunt, versisque
      agminibus totius gentis, apertas Ctesiphontis portas victor miles
      intr‰sset, ni major pr¾darum occasio fuisset, quam cura victori¾,
      (Sextus Rufus de Provinciis c. 28.) Their avarice might dispose
      them to hear the advice of Victor.]

      7111 (return) [ The suburbs of Ctesiphon, according to a new
      fragment of Eunapius, were so full of provisions, that the
      soldiers were in danger of suffering from excess. Mai, p. 260.
      Eunapius in Niebuhr. Nov. Byz. Coll. 68. Julian exhibited warlike
      dances and games in his camp to recreate the soldiers Ibid.ÑM.]

      72 (return) [ The labor of the canal, the passage of the Tigris,
      and the victory, are described by Ammianus, (xxiv. 5, 6,)
      Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 124-128, p. 347-353,) Greg.
      Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 115,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 181-183,) and
      Sextus Rufus, (de Provinciis, c. 28.)]

      On the second day after the battle, the domestic guards, the
      Jovians and Herculians, and the remaining troops, which composed
      near two thirds of the whole army, were securely wafted over the
      Tigris. 73 While the Persians beheld from the walls of Ctesiphon
      the desolation of the adjacent country, Julian cast many an
      anxious look towards the North, in full expectation, that as he
      himself had victoriously penetrated to the capital of Sapor, the
      march and junction of his lieutenants, Sebastian and Procopius,
      would be executed with the same courage and diligence. His
      expectations were disappointed by the treachery of the Armenian
      king, who permitted, and most probably directed, the desertion of
      his auxiliary troops from the camp of the Romans; 74 and by the
      dissensions of the two generals, who were incapable of forming or
      executing any plan for the public service. When the emperor had
      relinquished the hope of this important reenforcement, he
      condescended to hold a council of war, and approved, after a full
      debate, the sentiment of those generals, who dissuaded the siege
      of Ctesiphon, as a fruitless and pernicious undertaking. It is
      not easy for us to conceive, by what arts of fortification a city
      thrice besieged and taken by the predecessors of Julian could be
      rendered impregnable against an army of sixty thousand Romans,
      commanded by a brave and experienced general, and abundantly
      supplied with ships, provisions, battering engines, and military
      stores. But we may rest assured, from the love of glory, and
      contempt of danger, which formed the character of Julian, that he
      was not discouraged by any trivial or imaginary obstacles. 75 At
      the very time when he declined the siege of Ctesiphon, he
      rejected, with obstinacy and disdain, the most flattering offers
      of a negotiation of peace. Sapor, who had been so long accustomed
      to the tardy ostentation of Constantius, was surprised by the
      intrepid diligence of his successor. As far as the confines of
      India and Scythia, the satraps of the distant provinces were
      ordered to assemble their troops, and to march, without delay, to
      the assistance of their monarch. But their preparations were
      dilatory, their motions slow; and before Sapor could lead an army
      into the field, he received the melancholy intelligence of the
      devastation of Assyria, the ruin of his palaces, and the
      slaughter of his bravest troops, who defended the passage of the
      Tigris. The pride of royalty was humbled in the dust; he took his
      repasts on the ground; and the disorder of his hair expressed the
      grief and anxiety of his mind. Perhaps he would not have refused
      to purchase, with one half of his kingdom, the safety of the
      remainder; and he would have gladly subscribed himself, in a
      treaty of peace, the faithful and dependent ally of the Roman
      conqueror. Under the pretence of private business, a minister of
      rank and confidence was secretly despatched to embrace the knees
      of Hormisdas, and to request, in the language of a suppliant,
      that he might be introduced into the presence of the emperor. The
      Sassanian prince, whether he listened to the voice of pride or
      humanity, whether he consulted the sentiments of his birth, or
      the duties of his situation, was equally inclined to promote a
      salutary measure, which would terminate the calamities of Persia,
      and secure the triumph of Rome. He was astonished by the
      inflexible firmness of a hero, who remembered, most unfortunately
      for himself and for his country, that Alexander had uniformly
      rejected the propositions of Darius. But as Julian was sensible,
      that the hope of a safe and honorable peace might cool the ardor
      of his troops, he earnestly requested that Hormisdas would
      privately dismiss the minister of Sapor, and conceal this
      dangerous temptation from the knowledge of the camp. 76

      73 (return) [ The fleet and army were formed in three divisions,
      of which the first only had passed during the night.]

      74 (return) [ Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armen. l. iii. c. 15, p.
      246) supplies us with a national tradition, and a spurious
      letter. I have borrowed only the leading circumstance, which is
      consistent with truth, probability, and Libanius, (Orat. Parent.
      c. 131, p. 355.)]

      75 (return) [ Civitas inexpugnabilis, facinus audax et
      importunum. Ammianus, xxiv. 7. His fellow-soldier, Eutropius,
      turns aside from the difficulty, Assyriamque populatus, castra
      apud Ctesiphontem stativa aliquandiu habuit: remeansbue victor,
      &c. x. 16. Zosimus is artful or ignorant, and Socrates
      inaccurate.]

      76 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 130, p. 354, c. 139, p.
      361. Socrates, l. iii. c. 21. The ecclesiastical historian
      imputes the refusal of peace to the advice of Maximus. Such
      advice was unworthy of a philosopher; but the philosopher was
      likewise a magician, who flattered the hopes and passions of his
      master.]




      Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.ÑPart IV.


      The honor, as well as interest, of Julian, forbade him to consume
      his time under the impregnable walls of Ctesiphon and as often as
      he defied the Barbarians, who defended the city, to meet him on
      the open plain, they prudently replied, that if he desired to
      exercise his valor, he might seek the army of the Great King. He
      felt the insult, and he accepted the advice. Instead of confining
      his servile march to the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris, he
      resolved to imitate the adventurous spirit of Alexander, and
      boldly to advance into the inland provinces, till he forced his
      rival to contend with him, perhaps in the plains of Arbela, for
      the empire of Asia. The magnanimity of Julian was applauded and
      betrayed, by the arts of a noble Persian, who, in the cause of
      his country, had generously submitted to act a part full of
      danger, of falsehood, and of shame. 77 With a train of faithful
      followers, he deserted to the Imperial camp; exposed, in a
      specious tale, the injuries which he had sustained; exaggerated
      the cruelty of Sapor, the discontent of the people, and the
      weakness of the monarchy; and confidently offered himself as the
      hostage and guide of the Roman march. The most rational grounds
      of suspicion were urged, without effect, by the wisdom and
      experience of Hormisdas; and the credulous Julian, receiving the
      traitor into his bosom, was persuaded to issue a hasty order,
      which, in the opinion of mankind, appeared to arraign his
      prudence, and to endanger his safety. He destroyed, in a single
      hour, the whole navy, which had been transported above five
      hundred miles, at so great an expense of toil, of treasure, and
      of blood. Twelve, or, at the most, twenty-two small vessels were
      saved, to accompany, on carriages, the march of the army, and to
      form occasional bridges for the passage of the rivers. A supply
      of twenty daysÕ provisions was reserved for the use of the
      soldiers; and the rest of the magazines, with a fleet of eleven
      hundred vessels, which rode at anchor in the Tigris, were
      abandoned to the flames, by the absolute command of the emperor.
      The Christian bishops, Gregory and Augustin, insult the madness
      of the Apostate, who executed, with his own hands, the sentence
      of divine justice. Their authority, of less weight, perhaps, in a
      military question, is confirmed by the cool judgment of an
      experienced soldier, who was himself spectator of the
      conflagration, and who could not disapprove the reluctant murmurs
      of the troops. 78 Yet there are not wanting some specious, and
      perhaps solid, reasons, which might justify the resolution of
      Julian. The navigation of the Euphrates never ascended above
      Babylon, nor that of the Tigris above Opis. 79 The distance of
      the last-mentioned city from the Roman camp was not very
      considerable: and Julian must soon have renounced the vain and
      impracticable attempt of forcing upwards a great fleet against
      the stream of a rapid river, 80 which in several places was
      embarrassed by natural or artificial cataracts. 81 The power of
      sails and oars was insufficient; it became necessary to tow the
      ships against the current of the river; the strength of twenty
      thousand soldiers was exhausted in this tedious and servile
      labor, and if the Romans continued to march along the banks of
      the Tigris, they could only expect to return home without
      achieving any enterprise worthy of the genius or fortune of their
      leader. If, on the contrary, it was advisable to advance into the
      inland country, the destruction of the fleet and magazines was
      the only measure which could save that valuable prize from the
      hands of the numerous and active troops which might suddenly be
      poured from the gates of Ctesiphon. Had the arms of Julian been
      victorious, we should now admire the conduct, as well as the
      courage, of a hero, who, by depriving his soldiers of the hopes
      of a retreat, left them only the alternative of death or
      conquest. 82

      77 (return) [ The arts of this new Zopyrus (Greg. Nazianzen,
      Orat. iv. p. 115, 116) may derive some credit from the testimony
      of two abbreviators, (Sextus Rufus and Victor,) and the casual
      hints of Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 134, p. 357) and Ammianus,
      (xxiv. 7.) The course of genuine history is interrupted by a most
      unseasonable chasm in the text of Ammianus.]

      78 (return) [ See Ammianus, (xxiv. 7,) Libanius, (Orat.
      Parentalis, c. 132, 133, p. 356, 357,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 183,)
      Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 26) Gregory, (Orat. iv. p. 116,)
      and Augustin, (de Civitate Dei, l. iv. c. 29, l. v. c. 21.) Of
      these Libanius alone attempts a faint apology for his hero; who,
      according to Ammianus, pronounced his own condemnation by a tardy
      and ineffectual attempt to extinguish the flames.]

      79 (return) [ Consult Herodotus, (l. i. c. 194,) Strabo, (l. xvi.
      p. 1074,) and Tavernier, (part i. l. ii. p. 152.)]

      80 (return) [ A celeritate Tigris incipit vocari, ita appellant
      Medi sagittam. Plin. Hist. Natur. vi. 31.]

      81 (return) [ One of these dikes, which produces an artificial
      cascade or cataract, is described by Tavernier (part i. l. ii. p.
      226) and Thevenot, (part ii. l. i. p. 193.) The Persians, or
      Assyrians, labored to interrupt the navigation of the river,
      (Strabo, l. xv. p. 1075. DÕAnville, lÕEuphrate et le Tigre, p.
      98, 99.)]

      82 (return) [ Recollect the successful and applauded rashness of
      Agathocles and Cortez, who burnt their ships on the coast of
      Africa and Mexico.]

      The cumbersome train of artillery and wagons, which retards the
      operations of a modern army, were in a great measure unknown in
      the camps of the Romans. 83 Yet, in every age, the subsistence of
      sixty thousand men must have been one of the most important cares
      of a prudent general; and that subsistence could only be drawn
      from his own or from the enemyÕs country. Had it been possible
      for Julian to maintain a bridge of communication on the Tigris,
      and to preserve the conquered places of Assyria, a desolated
      province could not afford any large or regular supplies, in a
      season of the year when the lands were covered by the inundation
      of the Euphrates, 84 and the unwholesome air was darkened with
      swarms of innumerable insects. 85 The appearance of the hostile
      country was far more inviting. The extensive region that lies
      between the River Tigris and the mountains of Media, was filled
      with villages and towns; and the fertile soil, for the most part,
      was in a very improved state of cultivation. Julian might expect,
      that a conqueror, who possessed the two forcible instruments of
      persuasion, steel and gold, would easily procure a plentiful
      subsistence from the fears or avarice of the natives. But, on the
      approach of the Romans, the rich and smiling prospect was
      instantly blasted. Wherever they moved, the inhabitants deserted
      the open villages, and took shelter in the fortified towns; the
      cattle was driven away; the grass and ripe corn were consumed
      with fire; and, as soon as the flames had subsided which
      interrupted the march of Julian, he beheld the melancholy face of
      a smoking and naked desert. This desperate but effectual method
      of defence can only be executed by the enthusiasm of a people who
      prefer their independence to their property; or by the rigor of
      an arbitrary government, which consults the public safety without
      submitting to their inclinations the liberty of choice. On the
      present occasion the zeal and obedience of the Persians seconded
      the commands of Sapor; and the emperor was soon reduced to the
      scanty stock of provisions, which continually wasted in his
      hands. Before they were entirely consumed, he might still have
      reached the wealthy and unwarlike cities of Ecbatana or Susa, by
      the effort of a rapid and well-directed march; 86 but he was
      deprived of this last resource by his ignorance of the roads, and
      by the perfidy of his guides. The Romans wandered several days in
      the country to the eastward of Bagdad; the Persian deserter, who
      had artfully led them into the snare, escaped from their
      resentment; and his followers, as soon as they were put to the
      torture, confessed the secret of the conspiracy. The visionary
      conquests of Hyrcania and India, which had so long amused, now
      tormented, the mind of Julian. Conscious that his own imprudence
      was the cause of the public distress, he anxiously balanced the
      hopes of safety or success, without obtaining a satisfactory
      answer, either from gods or men. At length, as the only
      practicable measure, he embraced the resolution of directing his
      steps towards the banks of the Tigris, with the design of saving
      the army by a hasty march to the confines of Corduene; a fertile
      and friendly province, which acknowledged the sovereignty of
      Rome. The desponding troops obeyed the signal of the retreat,
      only seventy days after they had passed the Chaboras, with the
      sanguine expectation of subverting the throne of Persia. 87

      83 (return) [ See the judicious reflections of the author of the
      Essai sur la Tactique, tom. ii. p. 287-353, and the learned
      remarks of M. Guichardt Nouveaux MŽmoires Militaires, tom. i. p.
      351-382, on the baggage and subsistence of the Roman armies.]

      84 (return) [ The Tigris rises to the south, the Euphrates to the
      north, of the Armenian mountains. The former overflows in March,
      the latter in July. These circumstances are well explained in the
      Geographical Dissertation of Foster, inserted in SpelmanÕs
      Expedition of Cyras, vol. ii. p. 26.]

      85 (return) [ Ammianus (xxiv. 8) describes, as he had felt, the
      inconveniency of the flood, the heat, and the insects. The lands
      of Assyria, oppressed by the Turks, and ravaged by the Curds or
      Arabs, yield an increase of ten, fifteen, and twenty fold, for
      the seed which is cast into the ground by the wretched and
      unskillful husbandmen. Voyage de Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 279, 285.]

      86 (return) [ Isidore of Charax (Mansion. Parthic. p. 5, 6, in
      Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. ii.) reckons 129 sch¾ni from
      Seleucia, and Thevenot, (part i. l. i. ii. p. 209-245,) 128 hours
      of march from Bagdad to Ecbatana, or Hamadan. These measures
      cannot exceed an ordinary parasang, or three Roman miles.]

      87 (return) [ The march of Julian from Ctesiphon is
      circumstantially, but not clearly, described by Ammianus, (xxiv.
      7, 8,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 134, p. 357,) and Zosimus, (l.
      iii. p. 183.) The two last seem ignorant that their conqueror was
      retreating; and Libanius absurdly confines him to the banks of
      the Tigris.]

      As long as the Romans seemed to advance into the country, their
      march was observed and insulted from a distance, by several
      bodies of Persian cavalry; who, showing themselves sometimes in
      loose, and sometimes in close order, faintly skirmished with the
      advanced guards. These detachments were, however, supported by a
      much greater force; and the heads of the columns were no sooner
      pointed towards the Tigris than a cloud of dust arose on the
      plain. The Romans, who now aspired only to the permission of a
      safe and speedy retreat, endeavored to persuade themselves, that
      this formidable appearance was occasioned by a troop of wild
      asses, or perhaps by the approach of some friendly Arabs. They
      halted, pitched their tents, fortified their camp, passed the
      whole night in continual alarms; and discovered at the dawn of
      day, that they were surrounded by an army of Persians. This army,
      which might be considered only as the van of the Barbarians, was
      soon followed by the main body of cuirassiers, archers, and
      elephants, commanded by Meranes, a general of rank and
      reputation. He was accompanied by two of the kingÕs sons, and
      many of the principal satraps; and fame and expectation
      exaggerated the strength of the remaining powers, which slowly
      advanced under the conduct of Sapor himself. As the Romans
      continued their march, their long array, which was forced to bend
      or divide, according to the varieties of the ground, afforded
      frequent and favorable opportunities to their vigilant enemies.
      The Persians repeatedly charged with fury; they were repeatedly
      repulsed with firmness; and the action at Maronga, which almost
      deserved the name of a battle, was marked by a considerable loss
      of satraps and elephants, perhaps of equal value in the eyes of
      their monarch. These splendid advantages were not obtained
      without an adequate slaughter on the side of the Romans: several
      officers of distinction were either killed or wounded; and the
      emperor himself, who, on all occasions of danger, inspired and
      guided the valor of his troops, was obliged to expose his person,
      and exert his abilities. The weight of offensive and defensive
      arms, which still constituted the strength and safety of the
      Romans, disabled them from making any long or effectual pursuit;
      and as the horsemen of the East were trained to dart their
      javelins, and shoot their arrows, at full speed, and in every
      possible direction, 88 the cavalry of Persia was never more
      formidable than in the moment of a rapid and disorderly flight.
      But the most certain and irreparable loss of the Romans was that
      of time. The hardy veterans, accustomed to the cold climate of
      Gaul and Germany, fainted under the sultry heat of an Assyrian
      summer; their vigor was exhausted by the incessant repetition of
      march and combat; and the progress of the army was suspended by
      the precautions of a slow and dangerous retreat, in the presence
      of an active enemy. Every day, every hour, as the supply
      diminished, the value and price of subsistence increased in the
      Roman camp. 89 Julian, who always contented himself with such
      food as a hungry soldier would have disdained, distributed, for
      the use of the troops, the provisions of the Imperial household,
      and whatever could be spared, from the sumpter-horses, of the
      tribunes and generals. But this feeble relief served only to
      aggravate the sense of the public distress; and the Romans began
      to entertain the most gloomy apprehensions that, before they
      could reach the frontiers of the empire, they should all perish,
      either by famine, or by the sword of the Barbarians. 90

      88 (return) [ Chardin, the most judicious of modern travellers,
      describes (tom. ii. p. 57, 58, &c., edit. in 4to.) the education
      and dexterity of the Persian horsemen. Brissonius (de Regno
      Persico, p. 650 651, &c.,) has collected the testimonies of
      antiquity.]

      89 (return) [ In Mark AntonyÕs retreat, an attic chÏnix sold for
      fifty drachm¾, or, in other words, a pound of flour for twelve or
      fourteen shillings barley bread was sold for its weight in
      silver. It is impossible to peruse the interesting narrative of
      Plutarch, (tom. v. p. 102-116,) without perceiving that Mark
      Antony and Julian were pursued by the same enemies, and involved
      in the same distress.]

      90 (return) [ Ammian. xxiv. 8, xxv. 1. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 184,
      185, 186. Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 134, 135, p. 357, 358, 359.
      The sophist of Antioch appears ignorant that the troops were
      hungry.]

      While Julian struggled with the almost insuperable difficulties
      of his situation, the silent hours of the night were still
      devoted to study and contemplation. Whenever he closed his eyes
      in short and interrupted slumbers, his mind was agitated with
      painful anxiety; nor can it be thought surprising, that the
      Genius of the empire should once more appear before him, covering
      with a funeral veil his head, and his horn of abundance, and
      slowly retiring from the Imperial tent. The monarch started from
      his couch, and stepping forth to refresh his wearied spirits with
      the coolness of the midnight air, he beheld a fiery meteor, which
      shot athwart the sky, and suddenly vanished. Julian was convinced
      that he had seen the menacing countenance of the god of war; 91
      the council which he summoned, of Tuscan Haruspices, 92
      unanimously pronounced that he should abstain from action; but on
      this occasion, necessity and reason were more prevalent than
      superstition; and the trumpets sounded at the break of day. The
      army marched through a hilly country; and the hills had been
      secretly occupied by the Persians. Julian led the van with the
      skill and attention of a consummate general; he was alarmed by
      the intelligence that his rear was suddenly attacked. The heat of
      the weather had tempted him to lay aside his cuirass; but he
      snatched a shield from one of his attendants, and hastened, with
      a sufficient reenforcement, to the relief of the rear-guard. A
      similar danger recalled the intrepid prince to the defence of the
      front; and, as he galloped through the columns, the centre of the
      left was attacked, and almost overpowered by the furious charge
      of the Persian cavalry and elephants. This huge body was soon
      defeated, by the well-timed evolution of the light infantry, who
      aimed their weapons, with dexterity and effect, against the backs
      of the horsemen, and the legs of the elephants. The Barbarians
      fled; and Julian, who was foremost in every danger, animated the
      pursuit with his voice and gestures. His trembling guards,
      scattered and oppressed by the disorderly throng of friends and
      enemies, reminded their fearless sovereign that he was without
      armor; and conjured him to decline the fall of the impending
      ruin. As they exclaimed, 93 a cloud of darts and arrows was
      discharged from the flying squadrons; and a javelin, after razing
      the skin of his arm, transpierced the ribs, and fixed in the
      inferior part of the liver. Julian attempted to draw the deadly
      weapon from his side; but his fingers were cut by the sharpness
      of the steel, and he fell senseless from his horse. His guards
      flew to his relief; and the wounded emperor was gently raised
      from the ground, and conveyed out of the tumult of the battle
      into an adjacent tent. The report of the melancholy event passed
      from rank to rank; but the grief of the Romans inspired them with
      invincible valor, and the desire of revenge. The bloody and
      obstinate conflict was maintained by the two armies, till they
      were separated by the total darkness of the night. The Persians
      derived some honor from the advantage which they obtained against
      the left wing, where Anatolius, master of the offices, was slain,
      and the pr¾fect Sallust very narrowly escaped. But the event of
      the day was adverse to the Barbarians. They abandoned the field;
      their two generals, Meranes and Nohordates, 94 fifty nobles or
      satraps, and a multitude of their bravest soldiers; and the
      success of the Romans, if Julian had survived, might have been
      improved into a decisive and useful victory.

      91 (return) [ Ammian. xxv. 2. Julian had sworn in a passion,
      nunquam se Marti sacra facturum, (xxiv. 6.) Such whimsical
      quarrels were not uncommon between the gods and their insolent
      votaries; and even the prudent Augustus, after his fleet had been
      twice shipwrecked, excluded Neptune from the honors of public
      processions. See HumeÕs Philosophical Reflections. Essays, vol.
      ii. p. 418.]

      92 (return) [ They still retained the monopoly of the vain but
      lucrative science, which had been invented in Hetruria; and
      professed to derive their knowledge of signs and omens from the
      ancient books of Tarquitius, a Tuscan sage.]

      93 (return) [ Clambant hinc inde _candidati_ (see the note of
      Valesius) quos terror, ut fugientium molem tanquam ruinam male
      compositi culminis declinaret. Ammian. xxv 3.]

      94 (return) [ Sapor himself declared to the Romans, that it was
      his practice to comfort the families of his deceased satraps, by
      sending them, as a present, the heads of the guards and officers
      who had not fallen by their masterÕs side. Libanius, de nece
      Julian. ulcis. c. xiii. p. 163.]

      The first words that Julian uttered, after his recovery from the
      fainting fit into which he had been thrown by loss of blood, were
      expressive of his martial spirit. He called for his horse and
      arms, and was impatient to rush into the battle. His remaining
      strength was exhausted by the painful effort; and the surgeons,
      who examined his wound, discovered the symptoms of approaching
      death. He employed the awful moments with the firm temper of a
      hero and a sage; the philosophers who had accompanied him in this
      fatal expedition, compared the tent of Julian with the prison of
      Socrates; and the spectators, whom duty, or friendship, or
      curiosity, had assembled round his couch, listened with
      respectful grief to the funeral oration of their dying emperor.
      95 ÒFriends and fellow-soldiers, the seasonable period of my
      departure is now arrived, and I discharge, with the cheerfulness
      of a ready debtor, the demands of nature. I have learned from
      philosophy, how much the soul is more excellent than the body;
      and that the separation of the nobler substance should be the
      subject of joy, rather than of affliction. I have learned from
      religion, that an early death has often been the reward of piety;
      96 and I accept, as a favor of the gods, the mortal stroke that
      secures me from the danger of disgracing a character, which has
      hitherto been supported by virtue and fortitude. I die without
      remorse, as I have lived without guilt. I am pleased to reflect
      on the innocence of my private life; and I can affirm with
      confidence, that the supreme authority, that emanation of the
      Divine Power, has been preserved in my hands pure and immaculate.
      Detesting the corrupt and destructive maxims of despotism, I have
      considered the happiness of the people as the end of government.
      Submitting my actions to the laws of prudence, of justice, and of
      moderation, I have trusted the event to the care of Providence.
      Peace was the object of my counsels, as long as peace was
      consistent with the public welfare; but when the imperious voice
      of my country summoned me to arms, I exposed my person to the
      dangers of war, with the clear foreknowledge (which I had
      acquired from the art of divination) that I was destined to fall
      by the sword. I now offer my tribute of gratitude to the Eternal
      Being, who has not suffered me to perish by the cruelty of a
      tyrant, by the secret dagger of conspiracy, or by the slow
      tortures of lingering disease. He has given me, in the midst of
      an honorable career, a splendid and glorious departure from this
      world; and I hold it equally absurd, equally base, to solicit, or
      to decline, the stroke of fate. This much I have attempted to
      say; but my strength fails me, and I feel the approach of death.
      I shall cautiously refrain from any word that may tend to
      influence your suffrages in the election of an emperor. My choice
      might be imprudent or injudicious; and if it should not be
      ratified by the consent of the army, it might be fatal to the
      person whom I should recommend. I shall only, as a good citizen,
      express my hopes, that the Romans may be blessed with the
      government of a virtuous sovereign.Ó After this discourse, which
      Julian pronounced in a firm and gentle tone of voice, he
      distributed, by a military testament, 97 the remains of his
      private fortune; and making some inquiry why Anatolius was not
      present, he understood, from the answer of Sallust, that
      Anatolius was killed; and bewailed, with amiable inconsistency,
      the loss of his friend. At the same time he reproved the
      immoderate grief of the spectators; and conjured them not to
      disgrace, by unmanly tears, the fate of a prince, who in a few
      moments would be united with heaven, and with the stars. 98 The
      spectators were silent; and Julian entered into a metaphysical
      argument with the philosophers Priscus and Maximus, on the nature
      of the soul. The efforts which he made, of mind as well as body,
      most probably hastened his death. His wound began to bleed with
      fresh violence; his respiration was embarrassed by the swelling
      of the veins; he called for a draught of cold water, and, as soon
      as he had drank it, expired without pain, about the hour of
      midnight. Such was the end of that extraordinary man, in the
      thirty-second year of his age, after a reign of one year and
      about eight months, from the death of Constantius. In his last
      moments he displayed, perhaps with some ostentation, the love of
      virtue and of fame, which had been the ruling passions of his
      life. 99

      95 (return) [ The character and situation of Julian might
      countenance the suspicion that he had previously composed the
      elaborate oration, which Ammianus heard, and has transcribed. The
      version of the AbbŽ de la Bleterie is faithful and elegant. I
      have followed him in expressing the Platonic idea of emanations,
      which is darkly insinuated in the original.]

      96 (return) [ Herodotus (l. i. c. 31,) has displayed that
      doctrine in an agreeable tale. Yet the Jupiter, (in the 16th book
      of the Iliad,) who laments with tears of blood the death of
      Sarpedon his son, had a very imperfect notion of happiness or
      glory beyond the grave.]

      97 (return) [ The soldiers who made their verbal or nuncupatory
      testaments, upon actual service, (in procinctu,) were exempted
      from the formalities of the Roman law. See Heineccius, (Antiquit.
      Jur. Roman. tom. i. p. 504,) and Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix,
      l. xxvii.)]

      98 (return) [ This union of the human soul with the divine
      ¾thereal substance of the universe, is the ancient doctrine of
      Pythagoras and Plato: but it seems to exclude any personal or
      conscious immortality. See WarburtonÕs learned and rational
      observations. Divine Legation, vol ii. p. 199-216.]

      99 (return) [ The whole relation of the death of Julian is given
      by Ammianus, (xxv. 3,) an intelligent spectator. Libanius, who
      turns with horror from the scene, has supplied some
      circumstances, (Orat. Parental. c 136-140, p. 359-362.) The
      calumnies of Gregory, and the legends of more recent saints, may
      now be _silently_ despised. * Note: A very remarkable fragment of
      Eunapius describes, not without spirit, the struggle between the
      terror of the army on account of their perilous situation, and
      their grief for the death of Julian. ÒEven the vulgar felt that
      they would soon provide a general, but such a general as Julian
      they would never find, even though a god in the form of
      manÑJulian, who, with a mind equal to the divinity, triumphed
      over the evil propensities of human nature,Ñ* * who held commerce
      with immaterial beings while yet in the material bodyÑwho
      condescended to rule because a ruler was necessary to the welfare
      of mankind.Ó Mai, Nov. Coll. ii. 261. Eunapius in Niebuhr, 69.]

      The triumph of Christianity, and the calamities of the empire,
      may, in some measure, be ascribed to Julian himself, who had
      neglected to secure the future execution of his designs, by the
      timely and judicious nomination of an associate and successor.
      But the royal race of Constantius Chlorus was reduced to his own
      person; and if he entertained any serious thoughts of investing
      with the purple the most worthy among the Romans, he was diverted
      from his resolution by the difficulty of the choice, the jealousy
      of power, the fear of ingratitude, and the natural presumption of
      health, of youth, and of prosperity. His unexpected death left
      the empire without a master, and without an heir, in a state of
      perplexity and danger, which, in the space of fourscore years,
      had never been experienced, since the election of Diocletian. In
      a government which had almost forgotten the distinction of pure
      and noble blood, the superiority of birth was of little moment;
      the claims of official rank were accidental and precarious; and
      the candidates, who might aspire to ascend the vacant throne
      could be supported only by the consciousness of personal merit,
      or by the hopes of popular favor. But the situation of a famished
      army, encompassed on all sides by a host of Barbarians, shortened
      the moments of grief and deliberation. In this scene of terror
      and distress, the body of the deceased prince, according to his
      own directions, was decently embalmed; and, at the dawn of day,
      the generals convened a military senate, at which the commanders
      of the legions, and the officers both of cavalry and infantry,
      were invited to assist. Three or four hours of the night had not
      passed away without some secret cabals; and when the election of
      an emperor was proposed, the spirit of faction began to agitate
      the assembly. Victor and Arinth¾us collected the remains of the
      court of Constantius; the friends of Julian attached themselves
      to the Gallic chiefs, Dagalaiphus and Nevitta; and the most fatal
      consequences might be apprehended from the discord of two
      factions, so opposite in their character and interest, in their
      maxims of government, and perhaps in their religious principles.
      The superior virtues of Sallust could alone reconcile their
      divisions, and unite their suffrages; and the venerable pr¾fect
      would immediately have been declared the successor of Julian, if
      he himself, with sincere and modest firmness, had not alleged his
      age and infirmities, so unequal to the weight of the diadem. The
      generals, who were surprised and perplexed by his refusal, showed
      some disposition to adopt the salutary advice of an inferior
      officer, 100 that they should act as they would have acted in the
      absence of the emperor; that they should exert their abilities to
      extricate the army from the present distress; and, if they were
      fortunate enough to reach the confines of Mesopotamia, they
      should proceed with united and deliberate counsels in the
      election of a lawful sovereign. While they debated, a few voices
      saluted Jovian, who was no more than _first_ 101 of the
      domestics, with the names of Emperor and Augustus. The tumultuary
      acclamation 10111 was instantly repeated by the guards who
      surrounded the tent, and passed, in a few minutes, to the
      extremities of the line. The new prince, astonished with his own
      fortune was hastily invested with the Imperial ornaments, and
      received an oath of fidelity from the generals, whose favor and
      protection he so lately solicited. The strongest recommendation
      of Jovian was the merit of his father, Count Varronian, who
      enjoyed, in honorable retirement, the fruit of his long services.
      In the obscure freedom of a private station, the son indulged his
      taste for wine and women; yet he supported, with credit, the
      character of a Christian 102 and a soldier. Without being
      conspicuous for any of the ambitious qualifications which excite
      the admiration and envy of mankind, the comely person of Jovian,
      his cheerful temper, and familiar wit, had gained the affection
      of his fellow-soldiers; and the generals of both parties
      acquiesced in a popular election, which had not been conducted by
      the arts of their enemies. The pride of this unexpected elevation
      was moderated by the just apprehension, that the same day might
      terminate the life and reign of the new emperor. The pressing
      voice of necessity was obeyed without delay; and the first orders
      issued by Jovian, a few hours after his predecessor had expired,
      were to prosecute a march, which could alone extricate the Romans
      from their actual distress. 103

      100 (return) [ Honoratior aliquis miles; perhaps Ammianus
      himself. The modest and judicious historian describes the scene
      of the election, at which he was undoubtedly present, (xxv. 5.)]

      101 (return) [ The _primus_ or _primicerius_ enjoyed the dignity
      of a senator, and though only a tribune, he ranked with the
      military dukes. Cod. Theodosian. l. vi. tit. xxiv. These
      privileges are perhaps more recent than the time of Jovian.]

      10111 (return) [ The soldiers supposed that the acclamations
      proclaimed the name of Julian, restored, as they fondly thought,
      to health, not that of Jovian. loc.ÑM.]

      102 (return) [ The ecclesiastical historians, Socrates, (l. iii.
      c. 22,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 3,) and Theodoret, (l. iv. c. 1,)
      ascribe to Jovian the merit of a confessor under the preceding
      reign; and piously suppose that he refused the purple, till the
      whole army unanimously exclaimed that they were Christians.
      Ammianus, calmly pursuing his narrative, overthrows the legend by
      a single sentence. Hostiis pro Joviano extisque inspectis,
      pronuntiatum est, &c., xxv. 6.]

      103 (return) [ Ammianus (xxv. 10) has drawn from the life an
      impartial portrait of Jovian; to which the younger Victor has
      added some remarkable strokes. The AbbŽ de la Bleterie (Histoire
      de Jovien, tom. i. p. 1-238) has composed an elaborate history of
      his short reign; a work remarkably distinguished by elegance of
      style, critical disquisition, and religious prejudice.]




      Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.ÑPart V.


      The esteem of an enemy is most sincerely expressed by his fears;
      and the degree of fear may be accurately measured by the joy with
      which he celebrates his deliverance. The welcome news of the
      death of Julian, which a deserter revealed to the camp of Sapor,
      inspired the desponding monarch with a sudden confidence of
      victory. He immediately detached the royal cavalry, perhaps the
      ten thousand _Immortals_, 104 to second and support the pursuit;
      and discharged the whole weight of his united forces on the
      rear-guard of the Romans. The rear-guard was thrown into
      disorder; the renowned legions, which derived their titles from
      Diocletian, and his warlike colleague, were broke and trampled
      down by the elephants; and three tribunes lost their lives in
      attempting to stop the flight of their soldiers. The battle was
      at length restored by the persevering valor of the Romans; the
      Persians were repulsed with a great slaughter of men and
      elephants; and the army, after marching and fighting a long
      summerÕs day, arrived, in the evening, at Samara, on the banks of
      the Tigris, about one hundred miles above Ctesiphon. 105 On the
      ensuing day, the Barbarians, instead of harassing the march,
      attacked the camp, of Jovian; which had been seated in a deep and
      sequestered valley. From the hills, the archers of Persia
      insulted and annoyed the wearied legionaries; and a body of
      cavalry, which had penetrated with desperate courage through the
      Pr¾torian gate, was cut in pieces, after a doubtful conflict,
      near the Imperial tent. In the succeeding night, the camp of
      Carche was protected by the lofty dikes of the river; and the
      Roman army, though incessantly exposed to the vexatious pursuit
      of the Saracens, pitched their tents near the city of Dura, 106
      four days after the death of Julian. The Tigris was still on
      their left; their hopes and provisions were almost consumed; and
      the impatient soldiers, who had fondly persuaded themselves that
      the frontiers of the empire were not far distant, requested their
      new sovereign, that they might be permitted to hazard the passage
      of the river. With the assistance of his wisest officers, Jovian
      endeavored to check their rashness; by representing, that if they
      possessed sufficient skill and vigor to stem the torrent of a
      deep and rapid stream, they would only deliver themselves naked
      and defenceless to the Barbarians, who had occupied the opposite
      banks, Yielding at length to their clamorous importunities, he
      consented, with reluctance, that five hundred Gauls and Germans,
      accustomed from their infancy to the waters of the Rhine and
      Danube, should attempt the bold adventure, which might serve
      either as an encouragement, or as a warning, for the rest of the
      army. In the silence of the night, they swam the Tigris,
      surprised an unguarded post of the enemy, and displayed at the
      dawn of day the signal of their resolution and fortune. The
      success of this trial disposed the emperor to listen to the
      promises of his architects, who propose to construct a floating
      bridge of the inflated skins of sheep, oxen, and goats, covered
      with a floor of earth and fascines. 107 Two important days were
      spent in the ineffectual labor; and the Romans, who already
      endured the miseries of famine, cast a look of despair on the
      Tigris, and upon the Barbarians; whose numbers and obstinacy
      increased with the distress of the Imperial army. 108

      104 (return) [ Regius equitatus. It appears, from Irocopius, that
      the Immortals, so famous under Cyrus and his successors, were
      revived, if we may use that improper word, by the Sassanides.
      Brisson de Regno Persico, p. 268, &c.]

      105 (return) [ The obscure villages of the inland country are
      irrecoverably lost; nor can we name the field of battle where
      Julian fell: but M. DÕAnville has demonstrated the precise
      situation of Sumere, Carche, and Dura, along the banks of the
      Tigris, (Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 248 LÕEuphrate et le
      Tigre, p. 95, 97.) In the ninth century, Sumere, or Samara,
      became, with a slight change of name, the royal residence of the
      khalifs of the house of Abbas. * Note: Sormanray, called by the
      Arabs Samira, where DÕAnville placed Samara, is too much to the
      south; and is a modern town built by Caliph Morasen.
      Serra-man-rai means, in Arabic, it rejoices every one who sees
      it. St. Martin, iii. 133.ÑM.]

      106 (return) [ Dura was a fortified place in the wars of
      Antiochus against the rebels of Media and Persia, (Polybius, l.
      v. c. 48, 52, p. 548, 552 edit. Casaubon, in 8vo.)]

      107 (return) [ A similar expedient was proposed to the leaders of
      the ten thousand, and wisely rejected. Xenophon, Anabasis, l.
      iii. p. 255, 256, 257. It appears, from our modern travellers,
      that rafts floating on bladders perform the trade and navigation
      of the Tigris.]

      108 (return) [ The first military acts of the reign of Jovian are
      related by Ammianus, (xxv. 6,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 146,
      p. 364,) and Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 189, 190, 191.) Though we may
      distrust the fairness of Libanius, the ocular testimony of
      Eutropius (uno a Persis atque altero prÏlio victus, x. 17) must
      incline us to suspect that Ammianus had been too jealous of the
      honor of the Roman arms.]

      In this hopeless condition, the fainting spirits of the Romans
      were revived by the sound of peace. The transient presumption of
      Sapor had vanished: he observed, with serious concern, that, in
      the repetition of doubtful combats, he had lost his most faithful
      and intrepid nobles, his bravest troops, and the greatest part of
      his train of elephants: and the experienced monarch feared to
      provoke the resistance of despair, the vicissitudes of fortune,
      and the unexhausted powers of the Roman empire; which might soon
      advance to elieve, or to revenge, the successor of Julian. The
      Surenas himself, accompanied by another satrap, appeared in the
      camp of Jovian; 109 and declared, that the clemency of his
      sovereign was not averse to signify the conditions on which he
      would consent to spare and to dismiss the C¾sar with the relics
      of his captive army. 10911 The hopes of safety subdued the
      firmness of the Romans; the emperor was compelled, by the advice
      of his council, and the cries of his soldiers, to embrace the
      offer of peace; 10912 and the pr¾fect Sallust was immediately
      sent, with the general Arinth¾us, to understand the pleasure of
      the Great King. The crafty Persian delayed, under various
      pretenses, the conclusion of the agreement; started difficulties,
      required explanations, suggested expedients, receded from his
      concessions, increased his demands, and wasted four days in the
      arts of negotiation, till he had consumed the stock of provisions
      which yet remained in the camp of the Romans. Had Jovian been
      capable of executing a bold and prudent measure, he would have
      continued his march, with unremitting diligence; the progress of
      the treaty would have suspended the attacks of the Barbarians;
      and, before the expiration of the fourth day, he might have
      safely reached the fruitful province of Corduene, at the distance
      only of one hundred miles. 110 The irresolute emperor, instead of
      breaking through the toils of the enemy, expected his fate with
      patient resignation; and accepted the humiliating conditions of
      peace, which it was no longer in his power to refuse. The five
      provinces beyond the Tigris, which had been ceded by the
      grandfather of Sapor, were restored to the Persian monarchy. He
      acquired, by a single article, the impregnable city of Nisibis;
      which had sustained, in three successive sieges, the effort of
      his arms. Singara, and the castle of the Moors, one of the
      strongest places of Mesopotamia, were likewise dismembered from
      the empire. It was considered as an indulgence, that the
      inhabitants of those fortresses were permitted to retire with
      their effects; but the conqueror rigorously insisted, that the
      Romans should forever abandon the king and kingdom of Armenia.
      11011 A peace, or rather a long truce, of thirty years, was
      stipulated between the hostile nations; the faith of the treaty
      was ratified by solemn oaths and religious ceremonies; and
      hostages of distinguished rank were reciprocally delivered to
      secure the performance of the conditions. 111

      109 (return) [ Sextus Rufus (de Provinciis, c. 29) embraces a
      poor subterfuge of national vanity. Tanta reverentia nominis
      Romani fuit, ut a Persis _primus_ de pace sermo haberetur. ÑÑHe
      is called Junius by John Malala; the same, M. St. Martin
      conjectures, with a satrap of Gordyene named Jovianus, or
      Jovinianus; mentioned in Ammianus Marcellinus, xviii. 6.ÑM.]

      10911 (return) [ The Persian historians couch the message of
      Shah-pour in these Oriental terms: ÒI have reassembled my
      numerous army. I am resolved to revenge my subjects, who have
      been plundered, made captives, and slain. It is for this that I
      have bared my arm, and girded my loins. If you consent to pay the
      price of the blood which has been shed, to deliver up the booty
      which has been plundered, and to restore the city of Nisibis,
      which is in Irak, and belongs to our empire, though now in your
      possession, I will sheathe the sword of war; but should you
      refuse these terms, the hoofs of my horse, which are hard as
      steel, shall efface the name of the Romans from the earth; and my
      glorious cimeter, that destroys like fire, shall exterminate the
      people of your empire.Ó These authorities do not mention the
      death of Julian. MalcolmÕs Persia, i. 87.ÑM.]

      10912 (return) [ The Paschal chronicle, not, as M. St. Martin
      says, supported by John Malala, places the mission of this
      ambassador before the death of Julian. The king of Persia was
      then in Persarmenia, ignorant of the death of Julian; he only
      arrived at the army subsequent to that event. St. Martin adopts
      this view, and finds or extorts support for it, from Libanius and
      Ammianus, iii. 158.ÑM.]

      110 (return) [ It is presumptuous to controvert the opinion of
      Ammianus, a soldier and a spectator. Yet it is difficult to
      understand _how_ the mountains of Corduene could extend over the
      plains of Assyria, as low as the conflux of the Tigris and the
      great Zab; or _how_ an army of sixty thousand men could march one
      hundred miles in four days. Note: * Yet this appears to be the
      case (in modern maps: ) the march is the difficulty.ÑM.]

      11011 (return) [ Sapor availed himself, a few years after, of the
      dissolution of the alliance between the Romans and the Armenians.
      See St. M. iii. 163.ÑM.]

      111 (return) [ The treaty of Dura is recorded with grief or
      indignation by Ammianus, (xxv. 7,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c.
      142, p. 364,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 190, 191,) Gregory Nazianzen,
      (Orat. iv. p. 117, 118, who imputes the distress to Julian, the
      deliverance to Jovian,) and Eutropius, (x. 17.) The
      last-mentioned writer, who was present in military station,
      styles this peace necessarium quidem sed ignoblem.]

      The sophist of Antioch, who saw with indignation the sceptre of
      his hero in the feeble hand of a Christian successor, professes
      to admire the moderation of Sapor, in contenting himself with so
      small a portion of the Roman empire. If he had stretched as far
      as the Euphrates the claims of his ambition, he might have been
      secure, says Libanius, of not meeting with a refusal. If he had
      fixed, as the boundary of Persia, the Orontes, the Cydnus, the
      Sangarius, or even the Thracian Bosphorus, flatterers would not
      have been wanting in the court of Jovian to convince the timid
      monarch, that his remaining provinces would still afford the most
      ample gratifications of power and luxury. 112 Without adopting in
      its full force this malicious insinuation, we must acknowledge,
      that the conclusion of so ignominious a treaty was facilitated by
      the private ambition of Jovian. The obscure domestic, exalted to
      the throne by fortune, rather than by merit, was impatient to
      escape from the hands of the Persians, that he might prevent the
      designs of Procopius, who commanded the army of Mesopotamia, and
      establish his doubtful reign over the legions and provinces which
      were still ignorant of the hasty and tumultuous choice of the
      camp beyond the Tigris. 113 In the neighborhood of the same
      river, at no very considerable distance from the fatal station of
      Dura, 114 the ten thousand Greeks, without generals, or guides,
      or provisions, were abandoned, above twelve hundred miles from
      their native country, to the resentment of a victorious monarch.
      The difference of _their_ conduct and success depended much more
      on their character than on their situation. Instead of tamely
      resigning themselves to the secret deliberations and private
      views of a single person, the united councils of the Greeks were
      inspired by the generous enthusiasm of a popular assembly; where
      the mind of each citizen is filled with the love of glory, the
      pride of freedom, and the contempt of death. Conscious of their
      superiority over the Barbarians in arms and discipline, they
      disdained to yield, they refused to capitulate: every obstacle
      was surmounted by their patience, courage, and military skill;
      and the memorable retreat of the ten thousand exposed and
      insulted the weakness of the Persian monarchy. 115

      112 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 143, p. 364, 365.]

      113 (return) [ Conditionibus..... dispendiosis Roman¾ reipublic¾
      impositis.... quibus cupidior regni quam glori¾ Jovianus, imperio
      rudis, adquievit. Sextus Rufus de Provinciis, c. 29. La Bleterie
      has expressed, in a long, direct oration, these specious
      considerations of public and private interest, (Hist. de Jovien,
      tom. i. p. 39, &c.)]

      114 (return) [ The generals were murdered on the bauks of the
      Zabatus, (Ana basis, l. ii. p. 156, l. iii. p. 226,) or great
      Zab, a river of Assyria, 400 feet broad, which falls into the
      Tigris fourteen hours below Mosul. The error of the Greeks
      bestowed on the greater and lesser Zab the names of the _Wolf_,
      (Lycus,) and the _Goat_, (Capros.) They created these animals to
      attend the _Tiger_ of the East.]

      115 (return) [ The _Cyrop¾dia_ is vague and languid; the
      _Anabasis_ circumstance and animated. Such is the eternal
      difference between fiction and truth.]

      As the price of his disgraceful concessions, the emperor might
      perhaps have stipulated, that the camp of the hungry Romans
      should be plentifully supplied; 116 and that they should be
      permitted to pass the Tigris on the bridge which was constructed
      by the hands of the Persians. But, if Jovian presumed to solicit
      those equitable terms, they were sternly refused by the haughty
      tyrant of the East, whose clemency had pardoned the invaders of
      his country. The Saracens sometimes intercepted the stragglers of
      the march; but the generals and troops of Sapor respected the
      cessation of arms; and Jovian was suffered to explore the most
      convenient place for the passage of the river. The small vessels,
      which had been saved from the conflagration of the fleet,
      performed the most essential service. They first conveyed the
      emperor and his favorites; and afterwards transported, in many
      successive voyages, a great part of the army. But, as every man
      was anxious for his personal safety, and apprehensive of being
      left on the hostile shore, the soldiers, who were too impatient
      to wait the slow returns of the boats, boldly ventured themselves
      on light hurdles, or inflated skins; and, drawing after them
      their horses, attempted, with various success, to swim across the
      river. Many of these daring adventurers were swallowed by the
      waves; many others, who were carried along by the violence of the
      stream, fell an easy prey to the avarice or cruelty of the wild
      Arabs: and the loss which the army sustained in the passage of
      the Tigris, was not inferior to the carnage of a day of battle.
      As soon as the Romans were landed on the western bank, they were
      delivered from the hostile pursuit of the Barbarians; but, in a
      laborious march of two hundred miles over the plains of
      Mesopotamia, they endured the last extremities of thirst and
      hunger. They were obliged to traverse the sandy desert, which, in
      the extent of seventy miles, did not afford a single blade of
      sweet grass, nor a single spring of fresh water; and the rest of
      the inhospitable waste was untrod by the footsteps either of
      friends or enemies. Whenever a small measure of flour could be
      discovered in the camp, twenty pounds weight were greedily
      purchased with ten pieces of gold: 117 the beasts of burden were
      slaughtered and devoured; and the desert was strewed with the
      arms and baggage of the Roman soldiers, whose tattered garments
      and meagre countenances displayed their past sufferings and
      actual misery. A small convoy of provisions advanced to meet the
      army as far as the castle of Ur; and the supply was the more
      grateful, since it declared the fidelity of Sebastian and
      Procopius. At Thilsaphata, 118 the emperor most graciously
      received the generals of Mesopotamia; and the remains of a once
      flourishing army at length reposed themselves under the walls of
      Nisibis. The messengers of Jovian had already proclaimed, in the
      language of flattery, his election, his treaty, and his return;
      and the new prince had taken the most effectual measures to
      secure the allegiance of the armies and provinces of Europe, by
      placing the military command in the hands of those officers, who,
      from motives of interest, or inclination, would firmly support
      the cause of their benefactor. 119

      116 (return) [ According to Rufinus, an immediate supply of
      provisions was stipulated by the treaty, and Theodoret affirms,
      that the obligation was faithfully discharged by the Persians.
      Such a fact is probable but undoubtedly false. See Tillemont,
      Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 702.]

      117 (return) [ We may recollect some lines of Lucan, (Pharsal.
      iv. 95,) who describes a similar distress of C¾sarÕs army in
      Spain:Ñ ÑÑS¾va fames aderatÑMiles eget: toto censu non prodigus
      emit Exiguam Cererem. Proh lucri pallida tabes! Non deest prolato
      jejunus venditor auro. See Guichardt (Nouveaux MŽmoires
      Militaires, tom. i. p. 370-382.) His analysis of the two
      campaigns in Spain and Africa is the noblest monument that has
      ever been raised to the fame of C¾sar.]

      118 (return) [ M. dÕAnville (see his Maps, and lÕEuphrate et le
      Tigre, p. 92, 93) traces their march, and assigns the true
      position of Hatra, Ur, and Thilsaphata, which Ammianus has
      mentioned. ÑÑHe does not complain of the Samiel, the deadly hot
      wind, which Thevenot (Voyages, part ii. l. i. p. 192) so much
      dreaded. ÑÑHatra, now Kadhr. Ur, Kasr or Skervidgi. Thilsaphata
      is unknownÑM.]

      119 (return) [ The retreat of Jovian is described by Ammianus,
      (xxv. 9,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 143, p. 365,) and Zosimus,
      (l. iii. p. 194.)]

      The friends of Julian had confidently announced the success of
      his expedition. They entertained a fond persuasion that the
      temples of the gods would be enriched with the spoils of the
      East; that Persia would be reduced to the humble state of a
      tributary province, governed by the laws and magistrates of Rome;
      that the Barbarians would adopt the dress, and manners, and
      language of their conquerors; and that the youth of Ecbatana and
      Susa would study the art of rhetoric under Grecian masters. 120
      The progress of the arms of Julian interrupted his communication
      with the empire; and, from the moment that he passed the Tigris,
      his affectionate subjects were ignorant of the fate and fortunes
      of their prince. Their contemplation of fancied triumphs was
      disturbed by the melancholy rumor of his death; and they
      persisted to doubt, after they could no longer deny, the truth of
      that fatal event. 121 The messengers of Jovian promulgated the
      specious tale of a prudent and necessary peace; the voice of
      fame, louder and more sincere, revealed the disgrace of the
      emperor, and the conditions of the ignominious treaty. The minds
      of the people were filled with astonishment and grief, with
      indignation and terror, when they were informed, that the
      unworthy successor of Julian relinquished the five provinces
      which had been acquired by the victory of Galerius; and that he
      shamefully surrendered to the Barbarians the important city of
      Nisibis, the firmest bulwark of the provinces of the East. 122
      The deep and dangerous question, how far the public faith should
      be observed, when it becomes incompatible with the public safety,
      was freely agitated in popular conversation; and some hopes were
      entertained that the emperor would redeem his pusillanimous
      behavior by a splendid act of patriotic perfidy. The inflexible
      spirit of the Roman senate had always disclaimed the unequal
      conditions which were extorted from the distress of their captive
      armies; and, if it were necessary to satisfy the national honor,
      by delivering the guilty general into the hands of the
      Barbarians, the greatest part of the subjects of Jovian would
      have cheerfully acquiesced in the precedent of ancient times. 123

      120 (return) [ Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 145, p. 366.) Such
      were the natural hopes and wishes of a rhetorician.]

      121 (return) [ The people of Carrh¾, a city devoted to Paganism,
      buried the inauspicious messenger under a pile of stones,
      (Zosimus, l. iii. p. 196.) Libanius, when he received the fatal
      intelligence, cast his eye on his sword; but he recollected that
      Plato had condemned suicide, and that he must live to compose the
      Panegyric of Julian, (Libanius de Vita sua, tom. ii. p. 45, 46.)]

      122 (return) [ Ammianus and Eutropius may be admitted as fair and
      credible witnesses of the public language and opinions. The
      people of Antioch reviled an ignominious peace, which exposed
      them to the Persians, on a naked and defenceless frontier,
      (Excerpt. Valesiana, p. 845, ex Johanne Antiocheno.)]

      123 (return) [ The AbbŽ de la Bleterie, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. i.
      p. 212-227.) though a severe casuist, has pronounced that Jovian
      was not bound to execute his promise; since he _could not_
      dismember the empire, nor alienate, without their consent, the
      allegiance of his people. I have never found much delight or
      instruction in such political metaphysics.]

      But the emperor, whatever might be the limits of his
      constitutional authority, was the absolute master of the laws and
      arms of the state; and the same motives which had forced him to
      subscribe, now pressed him to execute, the treaty of peace. He
      was impatient to secure an empire at the expense of a few
      provinces; and the respectable names of religion and honor
      concealed the personal fears and ambition of Jovian.
      Notwithstanding the dutiful solicitations of the inhabitants,
      decency, as well as prudence, forbade the emperor to lodge in the
      palace of Nisibis; but the next morning after his arrival,
      Bineses, the ambassador of Persia, entered the place, displayed
      from the citadel the standard of the Great King, and proclaimed,
      in his name, the cruel alternative of exile or servitude. The
      principal citizens of Nisibis, who, till that fatal moment, had
      confided in the protection of their sovereign, threw themselves
      at his feet. They conjured him not to abandon, or, at least, not
      to deliver, a faithful colony to the rage of a Barbarian tyrant,
      exasperated by the three successive defeats which he had
      experienced under the walls of Nisibis. They still possessed arms
      and courage to repel the invaders of their country: they
      requested only the permission of using them in their own defence;
      and, as soon as they had asserted their independence, they should
      implore the favor of being again admitted into the ranks of his
      subjects. Their arguments, their eloquence, their tears, were
      ineffectual. Jovian alleged, with some confusion, the sanctity of
      oaths; and, as the reluctance with which he accepted the present
      of a crown of gold, convinced the citizens of their hopeless
      condition, the advocate Sylvanus was provoked to exclaim, ÒO
      emperor! may you thus be crowned by all the cities of your
      dominions!Ó Jovian, who in a few weeks had assumed the habits of
      a prince, 124 was displeased with freedom, and offended with
      truth: and as he reasonably supposed, that the discontent of the
      people might incline them to submit to the Persian government, he
      published an edict, under pain of death, that they should leave
      the city within the term of three days. Ammianus has delineated
      in lively colors the scene of universal despair, which he seems
      to have viewed with an eye of compassion. 125 The martial youth
      deserted, with indignant grief, the walls which they had so
      gloriously defended: the disconsolate mourner dropped a last tear
      over the tomb of a son or husband, which must soon be profaned by
      the rude hand of a Barbarian master; and the aged citizen kissed
      the threshold, and clung to the doors, of the house where he had
      passed the cheerful and careless hours of infancy. The highways
      were crowded with a trembling multitude: the distinctions of
      rank, and sex, and age, were lost in the general calamity. Every
      one strove to bear away some fragment from the wreck of his
      fortunes; and as they could not command the immediate service of
      an adequate number of horses or wagons, they were obliged to
      leave behind them the greatest part of their valuable effects.
      The savage insensibility of Jovian appears to have aggravated the
      hardships of these unhappy fugitives. They were seated, however,
      in a new-built quarter of Amida; and that rising city, with the
      reenforcement of a very considerable colony, soon recovered its
      former splendor, and became the capital of Mesopotamia. 126
      Similar orders were despatched by the emperor for the evacuation
      of Singara and the castle of the Moors; and for the restitution
      of the five provinces beyond the Tigris. Sapor enjoyed the glory
      and the fruits of his victory; and this ignominious peace has
      justly been considered as a memorable ¾ra in the decline and fall
      of the Roman empire. The predecessors of Jovian had sometimes
      relinquished the dominion of distant and unprofitable provinces;
      but, since the foundation of the city, the genius of Rome, the
      god Terminus, who guarded the boundaries of the republic, had
      never retired before the sword of a victorious enemy. 127

      124 (return) [ At Nisibis he performed a _royal_ act. A brave
      officer, his namesake, who had been thought worthy of the purple,
      was dragged from supper, thrown into a well, and stoned to death
      without any form of trial or evidence of guilt. Anomian. xxv. 8.]

      125 (return) [ See xxv. 9, and Zosimus, l. iii. p. 194, 195.]

      126 (return) [ Chron. Paschal. p. 300. The ecclesiastical Notiti¾
      may be consulted.]

      127 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iii. p. 192, 193. Sextus Rufus de
      Provinciis, c. 29. Augustin de Civitat. Dei, l. iv. c. 29. This
      general position must be applied and interpreted with some
      caution.]

      After Jovian had performed those engagements which the voice of
      his people might have tempted him to violate, he hastened away
      from the scene of his disgrace, and proceeded with his whole
      court to enjoy the luxury of Antioch. 128 Without consulting the
      dictates of religious zeal, he was prompted, by humanity and
      gratitude, to bestow the last honors on the remains of his
      deceased sovereign: 129 and Procopius, who sincerely bewailed the
      loss of his kinsman, was removed from the command of the army,
      under the decent pretence of conducting the funeral. The corpse
      of Julian was transported from Nisibis to Tarsus, in a slow march
      of fifteen days; and, as it passed through the cities of the
      East, was saluted by the hostile factions, with mournful
      lamentations and clamorous insults. The Pagans already placed
      their beloved hero in the rank of those gods whose worship he had
      restored; while the invectives of the Christians pursued the soul
      of the Apostate to hell, and his body to the grave. 130 One party
      lamented the approaching ruin of their altars; the other
      celebrated the marvellous deliverance of their church. The
      Christians applauded, in lofty and ambiguous strains, the stroke
      of divine vengeance, which had been so long suspended over the
      guilty head of Julian. They acknowledge, that the death of the
      tyrant, at the instant he expired beyond the Tigris, was
      _revealed_ to the saints of Egypt, Syria, and Cappadocia; 131 and
      instead of suffering him to fall by the Persian darts, their
      indiscretion ascribed the heroic deed to the obscure hand of some
      mortal or immortal champion of the faith. 132 Such imprudent
      declarations were eagerly adopted by the malice, or credulity, of
      their adversaries; 133 who darkly insinuated, or confidently
      asserted, that the governors of the church had instigated and
      directed the fanaticism of a domestic assassin. 134 Above sixteen
      years after the death of Julian, the charge was solemnly and
      vehemently urged, in a public oration, addressed by Libanius to
      the emperor Theodosius. His suspicions are unsupported by fact or
      argument; and we can only esteem the generous zeal of the sophist
      of Antioch for the cold and neglected ashes of his friend. 135

      128 (return) [ Ammianus, xxv. 9. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 196. He
      might be edax, vino Venerique indulgens. But I agree with La
      Bleterie (tom. i. p. 148-154) in rejecting the foolish report of
      a Bacchanalian riot (ap. Suidam) celebrated at Antioch, by the
      emperor, his _wife_, and a troop of concubines.]

      129 (return) [ The AbbŽ de la Bleterie (tom. i. p. 156-209)
      handsomely exposes the brutal bigotry of Baronius, who would have
      thrown Julian to the dogs, ne cespititia quidem sepultura
      dignus.]

      130 (return) [ Compare the sophist and the saint, (Libanius,
      Monod. tom. ii. p. 251, and Orat. Parent. c. 145, p. 367, c. 156,
      p. 377, with Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 125-132.) The
      Christian orator faintly mutters some exhortations to modesty and
      forgiveness; but he is well satisfied, that the real sufferings
      of Julian will far exceed the fabulous torments of Ixion or
      Tantalus.]

      131 (return) [ Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 549)
      has collected these visions. Some saint or angel was observed to
      be absent in the night, on a secret expedition, &c.]

      132 (return) [ Sozomen (l. vi. 2) applauds the Greek doctrine of
      _tyrannicide;_ but the whole passage, which a Jesuit might have
      translated, is prudently suppressed by the president Cousin.]

      133 (return) [ Immediately after the death of Julian, an
      uncertain rumor was scattered, telo cecidisse Romano. It was
      carried, by some deserters to the Persian camp; and the Romans
      were reproached as the assassins of the emperor by Sapor and his
      subjects, (Ammian. xxv. 6. Libanius de ulciscenda Juliani nece,
      c. xiii. p. 162, 163.) It was urged, as a decisive proof, that no
      Persian had appeared to claim the promised reward, (Liban. Orat.
      Parent. c. 141, p. 363.) But the flying horseman, who darted the
      fatal javelin, might be ignorant of its effect; or he might be
      slain in the same action. Ammianus neither feels nor inspires a
      suspicion.]

      134 (return) [ This dark and ambiguous expression may point to
      Athanasius, the first, without a rival, of the Christian clergy,
      (Libanius de ulcis. Jul. nece, c. 5, p. 149. La Bleterie, Hist.
      de Jovien, tom. i. p. 179.)]

      135 (return) [ The orator (Fabricius, Bibliot. Gr¾c. tom. vii. p.
      145-179) scatters suspicions, demands an inquiry, and insinuates,
      that proofs might still be obtained. He ascribes the success of
      the Huns to the criminal neglect of revenging JulianÕs death.]

      It was an ancient custom in the funerals, as well as in the
      triumphs, of the Romans, that the voice of praise should be
      corrected by that of satire and ridicule; and that, in the midst
      of the splendid pageants, which displayed the glory of the living
      or of the dead, their imperfections should not be concealed from
      the eyes of the world. 136 This custom was practised in the
      funeral of Julian. The comedians, who resented his contempt and
      aversion for the theatre, exhibited, with the applause of a
      Christian audience, the lively and exaggerated representation of
      the faults and follies of the deceased emperor. His various
      character and singular manners afforded an ample scope for
      pleasantry and ridicule. 137 In the exercise of his uncommon
      talents, he often descended below the majesty of his rank.
      Alexander was transformed into Diogenes; the philosopher was
      degraded into a priest. The purity of his virtue was sullied by
      excessive vanity; his superstition disturbed the peace, and
      endangered the safety, of a mighty empire; and his irregular
      sallies were the less entitled to indulgence, as they appeared to
      be the laborious efforts of art, or even of affectation. The
      remains of Julian were interred at Tarsus in Cilicia; but his
      stately tomb, which arose in that city, on the banks of the cold
      and limpid Cydnus, 138 was displeasing to the faithful friends,
      who loved and revered the memory of that extraordinary man. The
      philosopher expressed a very reasonable wish, that the disciple
      of Plato might have reposed amidst the groves of the academy; 139
      while the soldier exclaimed, in bolder accents, that the ashes of
      Julian should have been mingled with those of C¾sar, in the field
      of Mars, and among the ancient monuments of Roman virtue. 140 The
      history of princes does not very frequently renew the examples of
      a similar competition.

      136 (return) [ At the funeral of Vespasian, the comedian who
      personated that frugal emperor, anxiously inquired how much it
      cost. Fourscore thousand pounds, (centies.) Give me the tenth
      part of the sum, and throw my body into the Tiber. Sueton, in
      Vespasian, c. 19, with the notes of Casaubon and Gronovius.]

      137 (return) [ Gregory (Orat. iv. p. 119, 120) compares this
      supposed ignominy and ridicule to the funeral honors of
      Constantius, whose body was chanted over Mount Taurus by a choir
      of angels.]

      138 (return) [ Quintus Curtius, l. iii. c. 4. The luxuriancy of
      his descriptions has been often censured. Yet it was almost the
      duty of the historian to describe a river, whose waters had
      nearly proved fatal to Alexander.]

      139 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 156, p. 377. Yet he
      acknowledges with gratitude the liberality of the two royal
      brothers in decorating the tomb of Julian, (de ulcis. Jul. nece,
      c. 7, p. 152.)]

      140 (return) [ Cujus suprema et cineres, si qui tunc juste
      consuleret, non Cydnus videre deberet, quamvis gratissimus amnis
      et liquidus: sed ad perpetuandam gloriam recte factorum
      pr¾terlambere Tiberis, intersecans urbem ¾ternam, divorumque
      veterum monumenta pr¾stringens Ammian. xxv. 10.]




      Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
      Empire.ÑPart I.

     The Government And Death Of Jovian.ÑElection Of Valentinian, Who
     Associates His Brother Valens, And Makes The Final Division Of The
     Eastern And Western Empires.Ñ Revolt Of Procopius.ÑCivil And
     Ecclesiastical Administration.ÑGermany. ÑBritain.ÑAfrica.ÑThe
     East.Ñ The Danube.ÑDeath Of Valentinian.ÑHis Two Sons, Gratian And
     Valentinian II., Succeed To The Western Empire.


      The death of Julian had left the public affairs of the empire in
      a very doubtful and dangerous situation. The Roman army was saved
      by an inglorious, perhaps a necessary treaty; 1 and the first
      moments of peace were consecrated by the pious Jovian to restore
      the domestic tranquility of the church and state. The
      indiscretion of his predecessor, instead of reconciling, had
      artfully fomented the religious war: and the balance which he
      affected to preserve between the hostile factions, served only to
      perpetuate the contest, by the vicissitudes of hope and fear, by
      the rival claims of ancient possession and actual favor. The
      Christians had forgotten the spirit of the gospel; and the Pagans
      had imbibed the spirit of the church. In private families, the
      sentiments of nature were extinguished by the blind fury of zeal
      and revenge: the majesty of the laws was violated or abused; the
      cities of the East were stained with blood; and the most
      implacable enemies of the Romans were in the bosom of their
      country. Jovian was educated in the profession of Christianity;
      and as he marched from Nisibis to Antioch, the banner of the
      Cross, the Labarum of Constantine, which was again displayed at
      the head of the legions, announced to the people the faith of
      their new emperor. As soon as he ascended the throne, he
      transmitted a circular epistle to all the governors of provinces;
      in which he confessed the divine truth, and secured the legal
      establishment, of the Christian religion. The insidious edicts of
      Julian were abolished; the ecclesiastical immunities were
      restored and enlarged; and Jovian condescended to lament, that
      the distress of the times obliged him to diminish the measure of
      charitable distributions. 2 The Christians were unanimous in the
      loud and sincere applause which they bestowed on the pious
      successor of Julian. But they were still ignorant what creed, or
      what synod, he would choose for the standard of orthodoxy; and
      the peace of the church immediately revived those eager disputes
      which had been suspended during the season of persecution. The
      episcopal leaders of the contending sects, convinced, from
      experience, how much their fate would depend on the earliest
      impressions that were made on the mind of an untutored soldier,
      hastened to the court of Edessa, or Antioch. The highways of the
      East were crowded with Homoousian, and Arian, and Semi-Arian, and
      Eunomian bishops, who struggled to outstrip each other in the
      holy race: the apartments of the palace resounded with their
      clamors; and the ears of the prince were assaulted, and perhaps
      astonished, by the singular mixture of metaphysical argument and
      passionate invective. 3 The moderation of Jovian, who recommended
      concord and charity, and referred the disputants to the sentence
      of a future council, was interpreted as a symptom of
      indifference: but his attachment to the Nicene creed was at
      length discovered and declared, by the reverence which he
      expressed for the _celestial_ 4 virtues of the great Athanasius.
      The intrepid veteran of the faith, at the age of seventy, had
      issued from his retreat on the first intelligence of the tyrantÕs
      death. The acclamations of the people seated him once more on the
      archiepiscopal throne; and he wisely accepted, or anticipated,
      the invitation of Jovian. The venerable figure of Athanasius, his
      calm courage, and insinuating eloquence, sustained the reputation
      which he had already acquired in the courts of four successive
      princes. 5 As soon as he had gained the confidence, and secured
      the faith, of the Christian emperor, he returned in triumph to
      his diocese, and continued, with mature counsels and undiminished
      vigor, to direct, ten years longer, 6 the ecclesiastical
      government of Alexandria, Egypt, and the Catholic church. Before
      his departure from Antioch, he assured Jovian that his orthodox
      devotion would be rewarded with a long and peaceful reign.
      Athanasius, had reason to hope, that he should be allowed either
      the merit of a successful prediction, or the excuse of a grateful
      though ineffectual prayer. 7

      1 (return) [ The medals of Jovian adorn him with victories,
      laurel crowns, and prostrate captives. Ducange, Famil. Byzantin.
      p. 52. Flattery is a foolish suicide; she destroys herself with
      her own hands.]

      2 (return) [ Jovian restored to the church a forcible and
      comprehensive expression, (Philostorgius, l. viii. c. 5, with
      GodefroyÕs Dissertations, p. 329. Sozomen, l. vi. c. 3.) The new
      law which condemned the rape or marriage of nuns (Cod. Theod. l.
      ix. tit. xxv. leg. 2) is exaggerated by Sozomen; who supposes,
      that an amorous glance, the adultery of the heart, was punished
      with death by the evangelic legislator.]

      3 (return) [ Compare Socrates, l. iii. c. 25, and Philostorgius,
      l. viii. c. 6, with GodefroyÕs Dissertations, p. 330.]

      4 (return) [ The word _celestial_ faintly expresses the impious
      and extravagant flattery of the emperor to the archbishop. (See
      the original epistle in Athanasius, tom. ii. p. 33.) Gregory
      Nazianzen (Orat. xxi. p. 392) celebrates the friendship of Jovian
      and Athanasius. The primateÕs journey was advised by the Egyptian
      monks, (Tillemont, MŽm. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 221.)]

      5 (return) [ Athanasius, at the court of Antioch, is agreeably
      represented by La Bleterie, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. i. p.
      121-148;) he translates the singular and original conferences of
      the emperor, the primate of Egypt, and the Arian deputies. The
      AbbŽ is not satisfied with the coarse pleasantry of Jovian; but
      his partiality for Athanasius assumes, in _his_ eyes, the
      character of justice.]

      6 (return) [ The true area of his death is perplexed with some
      difficulties, (Tillemont, MŽm. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 719-723.)
      But the date (A. D. 373, May 2) which seems the most consistent
      with history and reason, is ratified by his authentic life,
      (Maffei Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. iii. p. 81.)]

      7 (return) [ See the observations of Valesius and Jortin (Remarks
      on Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 38) on the original letter
      of Athanasius; which is preserved by Theodoret, (l. iv. c. 3.) In
      some Mss. this indiscreet promise is omitted; perhaps by the
      Catholics, jealous of the prophetic fame of their leader.]

      The slightest force, when it is applied to assist and guide the
      natural descent of its object, operates with irresistible weight;
      and Jovian had the good fortune to embrace the religious opinions
      which were supported by the spirit of the times, and the zeal and
      numbers of the most powerful sect. 8 Under his reign,
      Christianity obtained an easy and lasting victory; and as soon as
      the smile of royal patronage was withdrawn, the genius of
      Paganism, which had been fondly raised and cherished by the arts
      of Julian, sunk irrecoverably in the. In many cities, the temples
      were shut or deserted: the philosophers who had abused their
      transient favor, thought it prudent to shave their beards, and
      disguise their profession; and the Christians rejoiced, that they
      were now in a condition to forgive, or to revenge, the injuries
      which they had suffered under the preceding reign. 9 The
      consternation of the Pagan world was dispelled by a wise and
      gracious edict of toleration; in which Jovian explicitly
      declared, that although he should severely punish the
      sacrilegious rites of magic, his subjects might exercise, with
      freedom and safety, the ceremonies of the ancient worship. The
      memory of this law has been preserved by the orator Themistius,
      who was deputed by the senate of Constantinople to express their
      royal devotion for the new emperor. Themistius expatiates on the
      clemency of the Divine Nature, the facility of human error, the
      rights of conscience, and the independence of the mind; and, with
      some eloquence, inculcates the principles of philosophical
      toleration; whose aid Superstition herself, in the hour of her
      distress, is not ashamed to implore. He justly observes, that in
      the recent changes, both religions had been alternately disgraced
      by the seeming acquisition of worthless proselytes, of those
      votaries of the reigning purple, who could pass, without a
      reason, and without a blush, from the church to the temple, and
      from the altars of Jupiter to the sacred table of the Christians.
      10

      8 (return) [ Athanasius (apud Theodoret, l. iv. c. 3) magnifies
      the number of the orthodox, who composed the whole world. This
      assertion was verified in the space of thirty and forty years.]

      9 (return) [ Socrates, l. iii. c. 24. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat.
      iv. p. 131) and Libanius (Orat. Parentalis, c. 148, p. 369)
      expresses the _living_ sentiments of their respective factions.]

      10 (return) [ Themistius, Orat. v. p. 63-71, edit. Harduin,
      Paris, 1684. The AbbŽ de la Bleterie judiciously remarks, (Hist.
      de Jovien, tom. i. p. 199,) that Sozomen has forgot the general
      toleration; and Themistius the establishment of the Catholic
      religion. Each of them turned away from the object which he
      disliked, and wished to suppress the part of the edict the least
      honorable, in his opinion, to the emperor.]

      In the space of seven months, the Roman troops, who were now
      returned to Antioch, had performed a march of fifteen hundred
      miles; in which they had endured all the hardships of war, of
      famine, and of climate. Notwithstanding their services, their
      fatigues, and the approach of winter, the timid and impatient
      Jovian allowed only, to the men and horses, a respite of six
      weeks. The emperor could not sustain the indiscreet and malicious
      raillery of the people of Antioch. 11 He was impatient to possess
      the palace of Constantinople; and to prevent the ambition of some
      competitor, who might occupy the vacant allegiance of Europe. But
      he soon received the grateful intelligence, that his authority
      was acknowledged from the Thracian Bosphorus to the Atlantic
      Ocean. By the first letters which he despatched from the camp of
      Mesopotamia, he had delegated the military command of Gaul and
      Illyricum to Malarich, a brave and faithful officer of the nation
      of the Franks; and to his father-in-law, Count Lucillian, who had
      formerly distinguished his courage and conduct in the defence of
      Nisibis. Malarich had declined an office to which he thought
      himself unequal; and Lucillian was massacred at Rheims, in an
      accidental mutiny of the Batavian cohorts. 12 But the moderation
      of Jovinus, master-general of the cavalry, who forgave the
      intention of his disgrace, soon appeased the tumult, and
      confirmed the uncertain minds of the soldiers. The oath of
      fidelity was administered and taken, with loyal acclamations; and
      the deputies of the Western armies 13 saluted their new sovereign
      as he descended from Mount Taurus to the city of Tyana in
      Cappadocia. From Tyana he continued his hasty march to Ancyra,
      capital of the province of Galatia; where Jovian assumed, with
      his infant son, the name and ensigns of the consulship. 14
      Dadastana, 15 an obscure town, almost at an equal distance
      between Ancyra and Nice, was marked for the fatal term of his
      journey and life. After indulging himself with a plentiful,
      perhaps an intemperate, supper, he retired to rest; and the next
      morning the emperor Jovian was found dead in his bed. The cause
      of this sudden death was variously understood. By some it was
      ascribed to the consequences of an indigestion, occasioned either
      by the quantity of the wine, or the quality of the mushrooms,
      which he had swallowed in the evening. According to others, he
      was suffocated in his sleep by the vapor of charcoal, which
      extracted from the walls of the apartment the unwholesome
      moisture of the fresh plaster. 16 But the want of a regular
      inquiry into the death of a prince, whose reign and person were
      soon forgotten, appears to have been the only circumstance which
      countenanced the malicious whispers of poison and domestic guilt.
      17 The body of Jovian was sent to Constantinople, to be interred
      with his predecessors, and the sad procession was met on the road
      by his wife Charito, the daughter of Count Lucillian; who still
      wept the recent death of her father, and was hastening to dry her
      tears in the embraces of an Imperial husband. Her disappointment
      and grief were imbittered by the anxiety of maternal tenderness.
      Six weeks before the death of Jovian, his infant son had been
      placed in the curule chair, adorned with the title of
      _Nobilissimus_, and the vain ensigns of the consulship.
      Unconscious of his fortune, the royal youth, who, from his
      grandfather, assumed the name of Varronian, was reminded only by
      the jealousy of the government, that he was the son of an
      emperor. Sixteen years afterwards he was still alive, but he had
      already been deprived of an eye; and his afflicted mother
      expected every hour, that the innocent victim would be torn from
      her arms, to appease, with his blood, the suspicions of the
      reigning prince. 18

      11 (return) [ Johan. Antiochen. in Excerpt. Valesian. p. 845. The
      libels of Antioch may be admitted on very slight evidence.]

      12 (return) [ Compare Ammianus, (xxv. 10,) who omits the name of
      the Batarians, with Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 197,) who removes the
      scene of action from Rheims to Sirmium.]

      13 (return) [ Quos capita scholarum ordo castrensis appellat.
      Ammian. xxv. 10, and Vales. ad locum.]

      14 (return) [ Cugus vagitus, pertinaciter reluctantis, ne in
      curuli sella veheretur ex more, id quod mox accidit protendebat.
      Augustus and his successors respectfully solicited a dispensation
      of age for the sons or nephews whom they raised to the
      consulship. But the curule chair of the first Brutus had never
      been dishonored by an infant.]

      15 (return) [ The Itinerary of Antoninus fixes Dadastana 125
      Roman miles from Nice; 117 from Ancyra, (Wesseling, Itinerar. p.
      142.) The pilgrim of Bourdeaux, by omitting some stages, reduces
      the whole space from 242 to 181 miles. Wesseling, p. 574. * Note:
      Dadastana is supposed to be Castabat.ÑM.]

      16 (return) [ See Ammianus, (xxv. 10,) Eutropius, (x. 18.) who
      might likewise be present, Jerom, (tom. i. p. 26, ad Heliodorum.)
      Orosius, (vii. 31,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 6,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p.
      197, 198,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 28, 29.) We cannot
      expect a perfect agreement, and we shall not discuss minute
      differences.]

      17 (return) [ Ammianus, unmindful of his usual candor and good
      sense, compares the death of the harmless Jovian to that of the
      second Africanus, who had excited the fears and resentment of the
      popular faction.]

      18 (return) [ Chrysostom, tom. i. p. 336, 344, edit. Montfaucon.
      The Christian orator attempts to comfort a widow by the examples
      of illustrious misfortunes; and observes, that of nine emperors
      (including the C¾sar Gallus) who had reigned in his time, only
      two (Constantine and Constantius) died a natural death. Such
      vague consolations have never wiped away a single tear.]

      After the death of Jovian, the throne of the Roman world remained
      ten days, 19 without a master. The ministers and generals still
      continued to meet in council; to exercise their respective
      functions; to maintain the public order; and peaceably to conduct
      the army to the city of Nice in Bithynia, which was chosen for
      the place of the election. 20 In a solemn assembly of the civil
      and military powers of the empire, the diadem was again
      unanimously offered to the pr¾fect Sallust. He enjoyed the glory
      of a second refusal: and when the virtues of the father were
      alleged in favor of his son, the pr¾fect, with the firmness of a
      disinterested patriot, declared to the electors, that the feeble
      age of the one, and the unexperienced youth of the other, were
      equally incapable of the laborious duties of government. Several
      candidates were proposed; and, after weighing the objections of
      character or situation, they were successively rejected; but, as
      soon as the name of Valentinian was pronounced, the merit of that
      officer united the suffrages of the whole assembly, and obtained
      the sincere approbation of Sallust himself. Valentinian 21 was
      the son of Count Gratian, a native of Cibalis, in Pannonia, who
      from an obscure condition had raised himself, by matchless
      strength and dexterity, to the military commands of Africa and
      Britain; from which he retired with an ample fortune and
      suspicious integrity. The rank and services of Gratian
      contributed, however, to smooth the first steps of the promotion
      of his son; and afforded him an early opportunity of displaying
      those solid and useful qualifications, which raised his character
      above the ordinary level of his fellow-soldiers. The person of
      Valentinian was tall, graceful, and majestic. His manly
      countenance, deeply marked with the impression of sense and
      spirit, inspired his friends with awe, and his enemies with fear;
      and to second the efforts of his undaunted courage, the son of
      Gratian had inherited the advantages of a strong and healthy
      constitution. By the habits of chastity and temperance, which
      restrain the appetites and invigorate the faculties, Valentinian
      preserved his own and the public esteem. The avocations of a
      military life had diverted his youth from the elegant pursuits of
      literature; 2111 he was ignorant of the Greek language, and the
      arts of rhetoric; but as the mind of the orator was never
      disconcerted by timid perplexity, he was able, as often as the
      occasion prompted him, to deliver his decided sentiments with
      bold and ready elocution. The laws of martial discipline were the
      only laws that he had studied; and he was soon distinguished by
      the laborious diligence, and inflexible severity, with which he
      discharged and enforced the duties of the camp. In the time of
      Julian he provoked the danger of disgrace, by the contempt which
      he publicly expressed for the reigning religion; 22 and it should
      seem, from his subsequent conduct, that the indiscreet and
      unseasonable freedom of Valentinian was the effect of military
      spirit, rather than of Christian zeal. He was pardoned, however,
      and still employed by a prince who esteemed his merit; 23 and in
      the various events of the Persian war, he improved the reputation
      which he had already acquired on the banks of the Rhine. The
      celerity and success with which he executed an important
      commission, recommended him to the favor of Jovian; and to the
      honorable command of the second _school_, or company, of
      Targetiers, of the domestic guards. In the march from Antioch, he
      had reached his quarters at Ancyra, when he was unexpectedly
      summoned, without guilt and without intrigue, to assume, in the
      forty-third year of his age, the absolute government of the Roman
      empire.

      19 (return) [ Ten days appear scarcely sufficient for the march
      and election. But it may be observed, 1. That the generals might
      command the expeditious use of the public posts for themselves,
      their attendants, and messengers. 2. That the troops, for the
      ease of the cities, marched in many divisions; and that the head
      of the column might arrive at Nice, when the rear halted at
      Ancyra.]

      20 (return) [ Ammianus, xxvi. 1. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 198.
      Philostorgius, l. viii. c. 8, and Godefroy, Dissertat. p. 334.
      Philostorgius, who appears to have obtained some curious and
      authentic intelligence, ascribes the choice of Valentinian to the
      pr¾fect Sallust, the master-general Arintheus, Dagalaiphus count
      of the domestics, and the patrician Datianus, whose pressing
      recommendations from Ancyra had a weighty influence in the
      election.]

      21 (return) [ Ammianus (xxx. 7, 9) and the younger Victor have
      furnished the portrait of Valentinian, which naturally precedes
      and illustrates the history of his reign. * Note: Symmachus, in a
      fragment of an oration published by M. Mai, describes Valentinian
      as born among the snows of Illyria, and habituated to military
      labor amid the heat and dust of Libya: genitus in frigoribus,
      educatus is solibus Sym. Orat. Frag. edit. Niebuhr, p. 5.ÑM.]

      2111 (return) [ According to Ammianus, he wrote elegantly, and
      was skilled in painting and modelling. Scribens decore,
      venusteque pingens et fingens. xxx. 7.ÑM.]

      22 (return) [ At Antioch, where he was obliged to attend the
      emperor to the table, he struck a priest, who had presumed to
      purify him with lustral water, (Sozomen, l. vi. c. 6. Theodoret,
      l. iii. c. 15.) Such public defiance might become Valentinian;
      but it could leave no room for the unworthy delation of the
      philosopher Maximus, which supposes some more private offence,
      (Zosimus, l. iv. p. 200, 201.)]

      23 (return) [ Socrates, l. iv. A previous exile to Melitene, or
      Thebais (the first might be possible,) is interposed by Sozomen
      (l. vi. c. 6) and Philostorgius, (l. vii. c. 7, with GodefroyÕs
      Dissertations, p. 293.)]

      The invitation of the ministers and generals at Nice was of
      little moment, unless it were confirmed by the voice of the army.

      The aged Sallust, who had long observed the irregular
      fluctuations of popular assemblies, proposed, under pain of
      death, that none of those persons, whose rank in the service
      might excite a party in their favor, should appear in public on
      the day of the inauguration. Yet such was the prevalence of
      ancient superstition, that a whole day was voluntarily added to
      this dangerous interval, because it happened to be the
      intercalation of the Bissextile. 24 At length, when the hour was
      supposed to be propitious, Valentinian showed himself from a
      lofty tribunal; the judicious choice was applauded; and the new
      prince was solemnly invested with the diadem and the purple,
      amidst the acclamation of the troops, who were disposed in
      martial order round the tribunal. But when he stretched forth his
      hand to address the armed multitude, a busy whisper was
      accidentally started in the ranks, and insensibly swelled into a
      loud and imperious clamor, that he should name, without delay, a
      colleague in the empire. The intrepid calmness of Valentinian
      obtained silence, and commanded respect; and he thus addressed
      the assembly: ÒA few minutes since it was in _your_ power,
      fellow-soldiers, to have left me in the obscurity of a private
      station. Judging, from the testimony of my past life, that I
      deserved to reign, you have placed me on the throne. It is now
      _my_ duty to consult the safety and interest of the republic. The
      weight of the universe is undoubtedly too great for the hands of
      a feeble mortal. I am conscious of the limits of my abilities,
      and the uncertainty of my life; and far from declining, I am
      anxious to solicit, the assistance of a worthy colleague. But,
      where discord may be fatal, the choice of a faithful friend
      requires mature and serious deliberation. That deliberation shall
      be _my_ care. Let _your_ conduct be dutiful and consistent.
      Retire to your quarters; refresh your minds and bodies; and
      expect the accustomed donative on the accession of a new
      emperor.Ó 25 The astonished troops, with a mixture of pride, of
      satisfaction, and of terror, confessed the voice of their master.

      Their angry clamors subsided into silent reverence; and
      Valentinian, encompassed with the eagles of the legions, and the
      various banners of the cavalry and infantry, was conducted, in
      warlike pomp, to the palace of Nice. As he was sensible, however,
      of the importance of preventing some rash declaration of the
      soldiers, he consulted the assembly of the chiefs; and their real
      sentiments were concisely expressed by the generous freedom of
      Dagalaiphus. ÒMost excellent prince,Ó said that officer, Òif you
      consider only your family, you have a brother; if you love the
      republic, look round for the most deserving of the Romans.Ó 26
      The emperor, who suppressed his displeasure, without altering his
      intention, slowly proceeded from Nice to Nicomedia and
      Constantinople. In one of the suburbs of that capital, 27 thirty
      days after his own elevation, he bestowed the title of Augustus
      on his brother Valens; 2711 and as the boldest patriots were
      convinced, that their opposition, without being serviceable to
      their country, would be fatal to themselves, the declaration of
      his absolute will was received with silent submission. Valens was
      now in the thirty-sixth year of his age; but his abilities had
      never been exercised in any employment, military or civil; and
      his character had not inspired the world with any sanguine
      expectations. He possessed, however, one quality, which
      recommended him to Valentinian, and preserved the domestic peace
      of the empire; devout and grateful attachment to his benefactor,
      whose superiority of genius, as well as of authority, Valens
      humbly and cheerfully acknowledged in every action of his life.
      28

      24 (return) [ Ammianus, in a long, because unseasonable,
      digression, (xxvi. l, and Valesius, ad locum,) rashly supposes
      that he understands an astronomical question, of which his
      readers are ignorant. It is treated with more judgment and
      propriety by Censorinus (de Die Natali, c. 20) and Macrobius,
      (Saturnal. i. c. 12-16.) The appellation of _Bissextile_, which
      marks the inauspicious year, (Augustin. ad Januarium, Epist.
      119,) is derived from the _repetition_ of the _sixth_ day of the
      calends of March.]

      25 (return) [ ValentinianÕs first speech is in Ammianus, (xxvi.
      2;) concise and sententious in Philostorgius, (l. viii. c. 8.)]

      26 (return) [ Si tuos amas, Imperator optime, habes fratrem; si
      Rempublicam qu¾re quem vestias. Ammian. xxvi. 4. In the division
      of the empire, Valentinian retained that sincere counsellor for
      himself, (c.6.)]

      27 (return) [ In suburbano, Ammian. xxvi. 4. The famous
      _Hebdomon_, or field of Mars, was distant from Constantinople
      either seven stadia, or seven miles. See Valesius, and his
      brother, ad loc., and Ducange, Const. l. ii. p. 140, 141, 172,
      173.]

      2711 (return) [ Symmachus praises the liberality of Valentinian
      in raising his brother at once to the rank of Augustus, not
      training him through the slow and probationary degree of C¾sar.
      Exigui animi vices munerum partiuntur, liberalitas desideriis
      nihil reliquit. Symm. Orat. p. 7. edit. Niebuhr, 1816, reprinted
      from Mai.ÑM.]

      28 (return) [ Participem quidem legitimum potestatis; sed in
      modum apparitoris morigerum, ut progrediens aperiet textus.
      Ammian. xxvi. 4.]




      Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
      Empire.ÑPart II.


      Before Valentinian divided the provinces, he reformed the
      administration of the empire. All ranks of subjects, who had been
      injured or oppressed under the reign of Julian, were invited to
      support their public accusations. The silence of mankind attested
      the spotless integrity of the pr¾fect Sallust; 29 and his own
      pressing solicitations, that he might be permitted to retire from
      the business of the state, were rejected by Valentinian with the
      most honorable expressions of friendship and esteem. But among
      the favorites of the late emperor, there were many who had abused
      his credulity or superstition; and who could no longer hope to be
      protected either by favor or justice. 30 The greater part of the
      ministers of the palace, and the governors of the provinces, were
      removed from their respective stations; yet the eminent merit of
      some officers was distinguished from the obnoxious crowd; and,
      notwithstanding the opposite clamors of zeal and resentment, the
      whole proceedings of this delicate inquiry appear to have been
      conducted with a reasonable share of wisdom and moderation. 31
      The festivity of a new reign received a short and suspicious
      interruption from the sudden illness of the two princes; but as
      soon as their health was restored, they left Constantinople in
      the beginning of the spring. In the castle, or palace, of
      Mediana, only three miles from Naissus, they executed the solemn
      and final division of the Roman empire. 32 Valentinian bestowed
      on his brother the rich pr¾fecture of the _East_, from the Lower
      Danube to the confines of Persia; whilst he reserved for his
      immediate government the warlike 3211 pr¾fectures of _Illyricum,
      Italy_, and _Gaul_, from the extremity of Greece to the
      Caledonian rampart, and from the rampart of Caledonia to the foot
      of Mount Atlas. The provincial administration remained on its
      former basis; but a double supply of generals and magistrates was
      required for two councils, and two courts: the division was made
      with a just regard to their peculiar merit and situation, and
      seven master-generals were soon created, either of the cavalry or
      infantry. When this important business had been amicably
      transacted, Valentinian and Valens embraced for the last time.
      The emperor of the West established his temporary residence at
      Milan; and the emperor of the East returned to Constantinople, to
      assume the dominion of fifty provinces, of whose language he was
      totally ignorant. 33

      29 (return) [ Notwithstanding the evidence of Zonaras, Suidas,
      and the Paschal Chronicle, M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs,
      tom. v. p. 671) _wishes_ to disbelieve those stories, si
      avantageuses ˆ un payen.]

      30 (return) [ Eunapius celebrates and exaggerates the sufferings
      of Maximus. (p. 82, 83;) yet he allows that the sophist or
      magician, the guilty favorite of Julian, and the personal enemy
      of Valentinian, was dismissed on the payment of a small fine.]

      31 (return) [ The loose assertions of a general disgrace
      (Zosimus, l. iv. p. 201), are detected and refuted by Tillemont,
      (tom. v. p. 21.)]

      32 (return) [ Ammianus, xxvi. 5.]

      3211 (return) [ Ipse supra impacati Rhen semibarbaras ripas
      raptim vexilla constituens * * Princeps creatus ad difficilem
      militiam revertisti. Symm. Orat. 81.ÑM.]

      33 (return) [ Ammianus says, in general terms, subagrestis
      ingenii, nec bellicis nec liberalibus studiis eruditus. Ammian.
      xxxi. 14. The orator Themistius, with the genuine impertinence of
      a Greek, wishes for the first time to speak the Latin language,
      the dialect of his sovereign. Orat. vi. p. 71.]

      The tranquility of the East was soon disturbed by rebellion; and
      the throne of Valens was threatened by the daring attempts of a
      rival whose affinity to the emperor Julian 34 was his sole merit,
      and had been his only crime. Procopius had been hastily promoted
      from the obscure station of a tribune, and a notary, to the joint
      command of the army of Mesopotamia; the public opinion already
      named him as the successor of a prince who was destitute of
      natural heirs; and a vain rumor was propagated by his friends, or
      his enemies, that Julian, before the altar of the Moon at Carrh¾,
      had privately invested Procopius with the Imperial purple. 35 He
      endeavored, by his dutiful and submissive behavior, to disarm the
      jealousy of Jovian; resigned, without a contest, his military
      command; and retired, with his wife and family, to cultivate the
      ample patrimony which he possessed in the province of Cappadocia.
      These useful and innocent occupations were interrupted by the
      appearance of an officer with a band of soldiers, who, in the
      name of his new sovereigns, Valentinian and Valens, was
      despatched to conduct the unfortunate Procopius either to a
      perpetual prison or an ignominious death. His presence of mind
      procured him a longer respite, and a more splendid fate. Without
      presuming to dispute the royal mandate, he requested the
      indulgence of a few moments to embrace his weeping family; and
      while the vigilance of his guards was relaxed by a plentiful
      entertainment, he dexterously escaped to the sea-coast of the
      Euxine, from whence he passed over to the country of Bosphorus.
      In that sequestered region he remained many months, exposed to
      the hardships of exile, of solitude, and of want; his melancholy
      temper brooding over his misfortunes, and his mind agitated by
      the just apprehension, that, if any accident should discover his
      name, the faithless Barbarians would violate, without much
      scruple, the laws of hospitality. In a moment of impatience and
      despair, Procopius embarked in a merchant vessel, which made sail
      for Constantinople; and boldly aspired to the rank of a
      sovereign, because he was not allowed to enjoy the security of a
      subject. At first he lurked in the villages of Bithynia,
      continually changing his habitation and his disguise. 36 By
      degrees he ventured into the capital, trusted his life and
      fortune to the fidelity of two friends, a senator and a eunuch,
      and conceived some hopes of success, from the intelligence which
      he obtained of the actual state of public affairs. The body of
      the people was infected with a spirit of discontent: they
      regretted the justice and the abilities of Sallust, who had been
      imprudently dismissed from the pr¾fecture of the East. They
      despised the character of Valens, which was rude without vigor,
      and feeble without mildness. They dreaded the influence of his
      father-in-law, the patrician Petronius, a cruel and rapacious
      minister, who rigorously exacted all the arrears of tribute that
      might remain unpaid since the reign of the emperor Aurelian. The
      circumstances were propitious to the designs of a usurper. The
      hostile measures of the Persians required the presence of Valens
      in Syria: from the Danube to the Euphrates the troops were in
      motion; and the capital was occasionally filled with the soldiers
      who passed or repassed the Thracian Bosphorus. Two cohorts of
      Gaul were persuaded to listen to the secret proposals of the
      conspirators; which were recommended by the promise of a liberal
      donative; and, as they still revered the memory of Julian, they
      easily consented to support the hereditary claim of his
      proscribed kinsman. At the dawn of day they were drawn up near
      the baths of Anastasia; and Procopius, clothed in a purple
      garment, more suitable to a player than to a monarch, appeared,
      as if he rose from the dead, in the midst of Constantinople. The
      soldiers, who were prepared for his reception, saluted their
      trembling prince with shouts of joy and vows of fidelity. Their
      numbers were soon increased by a band of sturdy peasants,
      collected from the adjacent country; and Procopius, shielded by
      the arms of his adherents, was successively conducted to the
      tribunal, the senate, and the palace. During the first moments of
      his tumultuous reign, he was astonished and terrified by the
      gloomy silence of the people; who were either ignorant of the
      cause, or apprehensive of the event. But his military strength
      was superior to any actual resistance: the malcontents flocked to
      the standard of rebellion; the poor were excited by the hopes,
      and the rich were intimidated by the fear, of a general pillage;
      and the obstinate credulity of the multitude was once more
      deceived by the promised advantages of a revolution. The
      magistrates were seized; the prisons and arsenals broke open; the
      gates, and the entrance of the harbor, were diligently occupied;
      and, in a few hours, Procopius became the absolute, though
      precarious, master of the Imperial city. 3611 The usurper
      improved this unexpected success with some degree of courage and
      dexterity. He artfully propagated the rumors and opinions the
      most favorable to his interest; while he deluded the populace by
      giving audience to the frequent, but imaginary, ambassadors of
      distant nations. The large bodies of troops stationed in the
      cities of Thrace and the fortresses of the Lower Danube, were
      gradually involved in the guilt of rebellion: and the Gothic
      princes consented to supply the sovereign of Constantinople with
      the formidable strength of several thousand auxiliaries. His
      generals passed the Bosphorus, and subdued, without an effort,
      the unarmed, but wealthy provinces of Bithynia and Asia. After an
      honorable defence, the city and island of Cyzicus yielded to his
      power; the renowned legions of the Jovians and Herculeans
      embraced the cause of the usurper, whom they were ordered to
      crush; and, as the veterans were continually augmented with new
      levies, he soon appeared at the head of an army, whose valor, as
      well as numbers, were not unequal to the greatness of the
      contest. The son of Hormisdas, 37 a youth of spirit and ability,
      condescended to draw his sword against the lawful emperor of the
      East; and the Persian prince was immediately invested with the
      ancient and extraordinary powers of a Roman Proconsul. The
      alliance of Faustina, the widow of the emperor Constantius, who
      intrusted herself and her daughter to the hands of the usurper,
      added dignity and reputation to his cause. The princess
      Constantia, who was then about five years of age, accompanied, in
      a litter, the march of the army. She was shown to the multitude
      in the arms of her adopted father; and, as often as she passed
      through the ranks, the tenderness of the soldiers was inflamed
      into martial fury: 38 they recollected the glories of the house
      of Constantine, and they declared, with loyal acclamation, that
      they would shed the last drop of their blood in the defence of
      the royal infant. 39

      34 (return) [ The uncertain degree of alliance, or consanguinity,
      is expressed by the words, cognatus, consobrinus, (see Valesius
      ad Ammian. xxiii. 3.) The mother of Procopius might be a sister
      of Basilina and Count Julian, the mother and uncle of the
      Apostate. Ducange, Fam. Byzantin. p. 49.]

      35 (return) [ Ammian. xxiii. 3, xxvi. 6. He mentions the report
      with much hesitation: susurravit obscurior fama; nemo enim dicti
      auctor exstitit verus. It serves, however, to remark, that
      Procopius was a Pagan. Yet his religion does not appear to have
      promoted, or obstructed, his pretensions.]

      36 (return) [ One of his retreats was a country-house of
      Eunomius, the heretic. The master was absent, innocent, ignorant;
      yet he narrowly escaped a sentence of death, and was banished
      into the remote parts of Mauritania, (Philostorg. l. ix. c. 5, 8,
      and GodefroyÕs Dissert. p. 369-378.)]

      3611 (return) [ It may be suspected, from a fragment of Eunapius,
      that the heathen and philosophic party espoused the cause of
      Procopius. Heraclius, the Cynic, a man who had been honored by a
      philosophic controversy with Julian, striking the ground with his
      staff, incited him to courage with the line of Homer Eunapius.
      Mai, p. 207 or in NiebuhrÕs edition, p. 73.ÑM.]

      37 (return) [ Hormisd¾ maturo juveni Hormisd¾ regalis illius
      filio, potestatem Proconsulis detulit; et civilia, more veterum,
      et bella, recturo. Ammian. xxvi. 8. The Persian prince escaped
      with honor and safety, and was afterwards (A. D. 380) restored to
      the same extraordinary office of proconsul of Bithynia,
      (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 204) I am ignorant
      whether the race of Sassan was propagated. I find (A. D. 514) a
      pope Hormisdas; but he was a native of Frusino, in Italy, (Pagi
      Brev. Pontific. tom. i. p. 247)]

      38 (return) [ The infant rebel was afterwards the wife of the
      emperor Gratian but she died young, and childless. See Ducange,
      Fam. Byzantin. p. 48, 59.]

      39 (return) [ Sequimini culminis summi prosapiam, was the
      language of Procopius, who affected to despise the obscure birth,
      and fortuitous election of the upstart Pannonian. Ammian. xxvi.
      7.]

      In the mean while Valentinian was alarmed and perplexed by the
      doubtful intelligence of the revolt of the East. 3911 The
      difficulties of a German war forced him to confine his immediate
      care to the safety of his own dominions; and, as every channel of
      communication was stopped or corrupted, he listened, with
      doubtful anxiety, to the rumors which were industriously spread,
      that the defeat and death of Valens had left Procopius sole
      master of the Eastern provinces. Valens was not dead: but on the
      news of the rebellion, which he received at C¾sarea, he basely
      despaired of his life and fortune; proposed to negotiate with the
      usurper, and discovered his secret inclination to abdicate the
      Imperial purple. The timid monarch was saved from disgrace and
      ruin by the firmness of his ministers, and their abilities soon
      decided in his favor the event of the civil war. In a season of
      tranquillity, Sallust had resigned without a murmur; but as soon
      as the public safety was attacked, he ambitiously solicited the
      pre‘minence of toil and danger; and the restoration of that
      virtuous minister to the pr¾fecture of the East, was the first
      step which indicated the repentance of Valens, and satisfied the
      minds of the people. The reign of Procopius was apparently
      supported by powerful armies and obedient provinces. But many of
      the principal officers, military as well as civil, had been
      urged, either by motives of duty or interest, to withdraw
      themselves from the guilty scene; or to watch the moment of
      betraying, and deserting, the cause of the usurper. Lupicinus
      advanced by hasty marches, to bring the legions of Syria to the
      aid of Valens. Arintheus, who, in strength, beauty, and valor,
      excelled all the heroes of the age, attacked with a small troop a
      superior body of the rebels. When he beheld the faces of the
      soldiers who had served under his banner, he commanded them, with
      a loud voice, to seize and deliver up their pretended leader; and
      such was the ascendant of his genius, that this extraordinary
      order was instantly obeyed. 40 Arbetio, a respectable veteran of
      the great Constantine, who had been distinguished by the honors
      of the consulship, was persuaded to leave his retirement, and
      once more to conduct an army into the field. In the heat of
      action, calmly taking off his helmet, he showed his gray hairs
      and venerable countenance: saluted the soldiers of Procopius by
      the endearing names of children and companions, and exhorted them
      no longer to support the desperate cause of a contemptible
      tyrant; but to follow their old commander, who had so often led
      them to honor and victory. In the two engagements of Thyatira 41
      and Nacolia, the unfortunate Procopius was deserted by his
      troops, who were seduced by the instructions and example of their
      perfidious officers. After wandering some time among the woods
      and mountains of Phyrgia, he was betrayed by his desponding
      followers, conducted to the Imperial camp, and immediately
      beheaded. He suffered the ordinary fate of an unsuccessful
      usurper; but the acts of cruelty which were exercised by the
      conqueror, under the forms of legal justice, excited the pity and
      indignation of mankind. 42

      3911 (return) [ Symmachus describes his embarrassment. ÒThe
      Germans are the common enemies of the state, Procopius the
      private foe of the Emperor; his first care must be victory, his
      second revenge.Ó Symm. Orat. p. 11.ÑM.]

      40 (return) [ Et dedignatus hominem superare certamine
      despicabilem, auctoritatis et celsi fiducia corporis ipsis
      hostibus jussit, suum vincire rectorem: atque ita turmarum,
      antesignanus umbratilis comprensus suorum manibus. The strength
      and beauty of Arintheus, the new Hercules, are celebrated by St.
      Basil, who supposed that God had created him as an inimitable
      model of the human species. The painters and sculptors could not
      express his figure: the historians appeared fabulous when they
      related his exploits, (Ammian. xxvi. and Vales. ad loc.)]

      41 (return) [ The same field of battle is placed by Ammianus in
      Lycia, and by Zosimus at Thyatira, which are at the distance of
      150 miles from each other. But Thyatira alluitur _Lyco_, (Plin.
      Hist. Natur. v. 31, Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 79;)
      and the transcribers might easily convert an obscure river into a
      well-known province. * Note: Ammianus and Zosimus place the last
      battle at Nacolia in _Phrygia;_ Ammianus altogether omits the
      former battle near Thyatira. Procopius was on his march (iter
      tendebat) towards Lycia. See WagnerÕs note, in c.ÑM.]

      42 (return) [ The adventures, usurpation, and fall of Procopius,
      are related, in a regular series, by Ammianus, (xxvi. 6, 7, 8, 9,
      10,) and Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 203-210.) They often illustrate, and
      seldom contradict, each other. Themistius (Orat. vii. p. 91, 92)
      adds some base panegyric; and Euna pius (p. 83, 84) some
      malicious satire. ÑÑSymmachus joins with Themistius in praising
      the clemency of Valens dic victori¾ moderatus est, quasi contra
      se nemo pugnavit. Symm. Orat. p. 12.ÑM.]

      Such indeed are the common and natural fruits of despotism and
      rebellion. But the inquisition into the crime of magic, 4211
      which, under the reign of the two brothers, was so rigorously
      prosecuted both at Rome and Antioch, was interpreted as the fatal
      symptom, either of the displeasure of Heaven, or of the depravity
      of mankind. 43 Let us not hesitate to indulge a liberal pride,
      that, in the present age, the enlightened part of Europe has
      abolished 44 a cruel and odious prejudice, which reigned in every
      climate of the globe, and adhered to every system of religious
      opinions. 45 The nations, and the sects, of the Roman world,
      admitted with equal credulity, and similar abhorrence, the
      reality of that infernal art, 46 which was able to control the
      eternal order of the planets, and the voluntary operations of the
      human mind. They dreaded the mysterious power of spells and
      incantations, of potent herbs, and execrable rites; which could
      extinguish or recall life, inflame the passions of the soul,
      blast the works of creation, and extort from the reluctant d¾mons
      the secrets of futurity. They believed, with the wildest
      inconsistency, that this preternatural dominion of the air, of
      earth, and of hell, was exercised, from the vilest motives of
      malice or gain, by some wrinkled hags and itinerant sorcerers,
      who passed their obscure lives in penury and contempt. 47 The
      arts of magic were equally condemned by the public opinion, and
      by the laws of Rome; but as they tended to gratify the most
      imperious passions of the heart of man, they were continually
      proscribed, and continually practised. 48 An imaginary cause was
      capable of producing the most serious and mischievous effects.
      The dark predictions of the death of an emperor, or the success
      of a conspiracy, were calculated only to stimulate the hopes of
      ambition, and to dissolve the ties of fidelity; and the
      intentional guilt of magic was aggravated by the actual crimes of
      treason and sacrilege. 49 Such vain terrors disturbed the peace
      of society, and the happiness of individuals; and the harmless
      flame which insensibly melted a waxen image, might derive a
      powerful and pernicious energy from the affrighted fancy of the
      person whom it was maliciously designed to represent. 50 From the
      infusion of those herbs, which were supposed to possess a
      supernatural influence, it was an easy step to the use of more
      substantial poison; and the folly of mankind sometimes became the
      instrument, and the mask, of the most atrocious crimes. As soon
      as the zeal of informers was encouraged by the ministers of
      Valens and Valentinian, they could not refuse to listen to
      another charge, too frequently mingled in the scenes of domestic
      guilt; a charge of a softer and less malignant nature, for which
      the pious, though excessive, rigor of Constantine had recently
      decreed the punishment of death. 51 This deadly and incoherent
      mixture of treason and magic, of poison and adultery, afforded
      infinite gradations of guilt and innocence, of excuse and
      aggravation, which in these proceedings appear to have been
      confounded by the angry or corrupt passions of the judges. They
      easily discovered that the degree of their industry and
      discernment was estimated, by the Imperial court, according to
      the number of executions that were furnished from the respective
      tribunals. It was not without extreme reluctance that they
      pronounced a sentence of acquittal; but they eagerly admitted
      such evidence as was stained with perjury, or procured by
      torture, to prove the most improbable charges against the most
      respectable characters. The progress of the inquiry continually
      opened new subjects of criminal prosecution; the audacious
      informer, whose falsehood was detected, retired with impunity;
      but the wretched victim, who discovered his real or pretended
      accomplices, were seldom permitted to receive the price of his
      infamy. From the extremity of Italy and Asia, the young, and the
      aged, were dragged in chains to the tribunals of Rome and
      Antioch. Senators, matrons, and philosophers, expired in
      ignominious and cruel tortures. The soldiers, who were appointed
      to guard the prisons, declared, with a murmur of pity and
      indignation, that their numbers were insufficient to oppose the
      flight, or resistance, of the multitude of captives. The
      wealthiest families were ruined by fines and confiscations; the
      most innocent citizens trembled for their safety; and we may form
      some notion of the magnitude of the evil, from the extravagant
      assertion of an ancient writer, that, in the obnoxious provinces,
      the prisoners, the exiles, and the fugitives, formed the greatest
      part of the inhabitants. 52

      4211 (return) [ This infamous inquisition into sorcery and
      witchcraft has been of greater influence on human affairs than is
      commonly supposed. The persecutions against philosophers and
      their libraries was carried on with so much fury, that from this
      time (A. D. 374) the names of the Gentile philosophers became
      almost extinct; and the Christian philosophy and religion,
      particularly in the East, established their ascendency. I am
      surprised that Gibbon has not made this observation. Heyne, Note
      on Zosimus, l. iv. 14, p. 637. Besides vast heaps of manuscripts
      publicly destroyed throughout the East, men of letters burned
      their whole libraries, lest some fatal volume should expose them
      to the malice of the informers and the extreme penalty of the
      law. Amm. Marc. xxix. 11.ÑM.]

      43 (return) [ Libanius de ulciscend. Julian. nece, c. ix. p. 158,
      159. The sophist deplores the public frenzy, but he does not
      (after their deaths) impeach the justice of the emperors.]

      44 (return) [ The French and English lawyers, of the present age,
      allow the _theory_, and deny the _practice_, of witchcraft,
      (Denisart, Recueil de Decisions de Jurisprudence, au mot
      _Sorciers_, tom. iv. p. 553. BlackstoneÕs Commentaries, vol. iv.
      p. 60.) As private reason always prevents, or outstrips, public
      wisdom, the president Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 5,
      6) rejects the _existence_ of magic.]

      45 (return) [ See Îuvres de Bayle, tom. iii. p. 567-589. The
      sceptic of Rotterdam exhibits, according to his custom, a strange
      medley of loose knowledge and lively wit.]

      46 (return) [ The Pagans distinguished between good and bad
      magic, the Theurgic and the Goetic, (Hist. de lÕAcadŽmie, &c.,
      tom. vii. p. 25.) But they could not have defended this obscure
      distinction against the acute logic of Bayle. In the Jewish and
      Christian system, _all_ d¾mons are infernal spirits; and _all_
      commerce with them is idolatry, apostasy &c., which deserves
      death and damnation.]

      47 (return) [ The Canidia of Horace (Carm. l. v. Od. 5, with
      DacierÕs and SanadonÕs illustrations) is a vulgar witch. The
      Erictho of Lucan (Pharsal. vi. 430-830) is tedious, disgusting,
      but sometimes sublime. She chides the delay of the Furies, and
      threatens, with tremendous obscurity, to pronounce their real
      names; to reveal the true infernal countenance of Hecate; to
      invoke the secret powers that lie below hell, &c.]

      48 (return) [ Genus hominum potentibus infidum, sperantibus
      fallax, quod in civitate nostr‰ et vetabitur semper et
      retinebitur. Tacit. Hist. i. 22. See Augustin. de Civitate Dei,
      l. viii. c. 19, and the Theodosian Code l. ix. tit. xvi., with
      GodefroyÕs Commentary.]

      49 (return) [ The persecution of Antioch was occasioned by a
      criminal consultation. The twenty-four letters of the alphabet
      were arranged round a magic tripod: and a dancing ring, which had
      been placed in the centre, pointed to the four first letters in
      the name of the future emperor, O. E. O Triangle. Theodorus
      (perhaps with many others, who owned the fatal syllables) was
      executed. Theodosius succeeded. Lardner (Heathen Testimonies,
      vol. iv. p. 353-372) has copiously and fairly examined this dark
      transaction of the reign of Valens.]

      50 (return) [

  Limus ut hic durescit, et h¾c ut cera liquescit Uno eodemque
  igniÑVirgil. Bucolic. viii. 80.
  Devovet absentes, simulacraque cerea figit. ÑOvid. in Epist. Hypsil.
  ad Jason 91.

      Such vain incantations could affect the mind, and increase the
      disease of Germanicus. Tacit. Annal. ii. 69.]

      51 (return) [ See Heineccius, Antiquitat. Juris Roman. tom. ii.
      p. 353, &c. Cod. Theodosian. l. ix. tit. 7, with GodefroyÕs
      Commentary.]

      52 (return) [ The cruel persecution of Rome and Antioch is
      described, and most probably exaggerated, by Ammianus (xxvii. 1.
      xxix. 1, 2) and Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 216-218.) The philosopher
      Maximus, with some justice, was involved in the charge of magic,
      (Eunapius in Vit. Sophist. p. 88, 89;) and young Chrysostom, who
      had accidentally found one of the proscribed books, gave himself
      up for lost, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 340.)]

      When Tacitus describes the deaths of the innocent and illustrious
      Romans, who were sacrificed to the cruelty of the first C¾sars,
      the art of the historian, or the merit of the sufferers, excites
      in our breast the most lively sensations of terror, of
      admiration, and of pity. The coarse and undistinguishing pencil
      of Ammianus has delineated his bloody figures with tedious and
      disgusting accuracy. But as our attention is no longer engaged by
      the contrast of freedom and servitude, of recent greatness and of
      actual misery, we should turn with horror from the frequent
      executions, which disgraced, both at Rome and Antioch, the reign
      of the two brothers. 53 Valens was of a timid, 54 and Valentinian
      of a choleric, disposition. 55 An anxious regard to his personal
      safety was the ruling principle of the administration of Valens.
      In the condition of a subject, he had kissed, with trembling awe,
      the hand of the oppressor; and when he ascended the throne, he
      reasonably expected, that the same fears, which had subdued his
      own mind, would secure the patient submission of his people. The
      favorites of Valens obtained, by the privilege of rapine and
      confiscation, the wealth which his economy would have refused. 56
      They urged, with persuasive eloquence, _that_, in all cases of
      treason, suspicion is equivalent to proof; _that_ the power
      supposes the intention, of mischief; _that_ the intention is not
      less criminal than the act; and _that_ a subject no longer
      deserves to live, if his life may threaten the safety, or disturb
      the repose, of his sovereign. The judgment of Valentinian was
      sometimes deceived, and his confidence abused; but he would have
      silenced the informers with a contemptuous smile, had they
      presumed to alarm his fortitude by the sound of danger. They
      praised his inflexible love of justice; and, in the pursuit of
      justice, the emperor was easily tempted to consider clemency as a
      weakness, and passion as a virtue. As long as he wrestled with
      his equals, in the bold competition of an active and ambitious
      life, Valentinian was seldom injured, and never insulted, with
      impunity: if his prudence was arraigned, his spirit was
      applauded; and the proudest and most powerful generals were
      apprehensive of provoking the resentment of a fearless soldier.
      After he became master of the world, he unfortunately forgot,
      that where no resistance can be made, no courage can be exerted;
      and instead of consulting the dictates of reason and magnanimity,
      he indulged the furious emotions of his temper, at a time when
      they were disgraceful to himself, and fatal to the defenceless
      objects of his displeasure. In the government of his household,
      or of his empire, slight, or even imaginary, offencesÑa hasty
      word, a casual omission, an involuntary delayÑwere chastised by a
      sentence of immediate death. The expressions which issued the
      most readily from the mouth of the emperor of the West were,
      ÒStrike off his head;Ó ÒBurn him alive;Ó ÒLet him be beaten with
      clubs till he expires;Ó 57 and his most favored ministers soon
      understood, that, by a rash attempt to dispute, or suspend, the
      execution of his sanguinary commands, they might involve
      themselves in the guilt and punishment of disobedience. The
      repeated gratification of this savage justice hardened the mind
      of Valentinian against pity and remorse; and the sallies of
      passion were confirmed by the habits of cruelty. 58 He could
      behold with calm satisfaction the convulsive agonies of torture
      and death; he reserved his friendship for those faithful servants
      whose temper was the most congenial to his own. The merit of
      Maximin, who had slaughtered the noblest families of Rome, was
      rewarded with the royal approbation, and the pr¾fecture of Gaul.

      Two fierce and enormous bears, distinguished by the appellations
      of _Innocence_, and _Mica Aurea_, could alone deserve to share
      the favor of Maximin. The cages of those trusty guards were
      always placed near the bed-chamber of Valentinian, who frequently
      amused his eyes with the grateful spectacle of seeing them tear
      and devour the bleeding limbs of the malefactors who were
      abandoned to their rage. Their diet and exercises were carefully
      inspected by the Roman emperor; and when _Innocence_ had earned
      her discharge, by a long course of meritorious service, the
      faithful animal was again restored to the freedom of her native
      woods. 59

      53 (return) [ Consult the six last books of Ammianus, and more
      particularly the portraits of the two royal brothers, (xxx. 8, 9,
      xxxi. 14.) Tillemont has collected (tom. v. p. 12-18, p. 127-133)
      from all antiquity their virtues and vices.]

      54 (return) [ The younger Victor asserts, that he was valde
      timidus: yet he behaved, as almost every man would do, with
      decent resolution at the _head_ of an army. The same historian
      attempts to prove that his anger was harmless. Ammianus observes,
      with more candor and judgment, incidentia crimina ad contemptam
      vel l¾sam principis amplitudinem trahens, in sanguinem s¾viebat.]

      55 (return) [ Cum esset ad acerbitatem natur¾ calore propensior.
      .. pÏnas perignes augebat et gladios. Ammian. xxx. 8. See xxvii.
      7]

      56 (return) [ I have transferred the reproach of avarice from
      Valens to his servant. Avarice more properly belongs to ministers
      than to kings; in whom that passion is commonly extinguished by
      absolute possession.]

      57 (return) [ He sometimes expressed a sentence of death with a
      tone of pleasantry: ÒAbi, Comes, et muta ei caput, qui sibi
      mutari provinciam cupit.Ó A boy, who had slipped too hastily a
      Spartan bound; an armorer, who had made a polished cuirass that
      wanted some grains of the legitimate weight, &c., were the
      victims of his fury.]

      58 (return) [ The innocents of Milan were an agent and three
      apparitors, whom Valentinian condemned for signifying a legal
      summons. Ammianus (xxvii. 7) strangely supposes, that all who had
      been unjustly executed were worshipped as martyrs by the
      Christians. His impartial silence does not allow us to believe,
      that the great chamberlain Rhodanus was burnt alive for an act of
      oppression, (Chron. Paschal. p. 392.) * Note: Ammianus does not
      say that they were worshipped as _martyrs_. Quorum memoriam apud
      Mediolanum colentes nunc usque Christiani loculos ubi sepulti
      sunt, _ad innocentes_ appellant. WagnerÕs note in loco. Yet if
      the next paragraph refers to that transaction, which is not quite
      clear. Gibbon is right.ÑM.]

      59 (return) [ Ut bene meritam in sylvas jussit abire _Innoxiam_.
      Ammian. xxix. and Valesius ad locum.]




      Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
      Empire.ÑPart III.


      But in the calmer moments of reflection, when the mind of Valens
      was not agitated by fear, or that of Valentinian by rage, the
      tyrant resumed the sentiments, or at least the conduct, of the
      father of his country. The dispassionate judgment of the Western
      emperor could clearly perceive, and accurately pursue, his own
      and the public interest; and the sovereign of the East, who
      imitated with equal docility the various examples which he
      received from his elder brother, was sometimes guided by the
      wisdom and virtue of the pr¾fect Sallust. Both princes invariably
      retained, in the purple, the chaste and temperate simplicity
      which had adorned their private life; and, under their reign, the
      pleasures of the court never cost the people a blush or a sigh.
      They gradually reformed many of the abuses of the times of
      Constantius; judiciously adopted and improved the designs of
      Julian and his successor; and displayed a style and spirit of
      legislation which might inspire posterity with the most favorable
      opinion of their character and government. It is not from the
      master of _Innocence_, that we should expect the tender regard
      for the welfare of his subjects, which prompted Valentinian to
      condemn the exposition of new-born infants; 60 and to establish
      fourteen skilful physicians, with stipends and privileges, in the
      fourteen quarters of Rome. The good sense of an illiterate
      soldier founded a useful and liberal institution for the
      education of youth, and the support of declining science. 61 It
      was his intention, that the arts of rhetoric and grammar should
      be taught in the Greek and Latin languages, in the metropolis of
      every province; and as the size and dignity of the school was
      usually proportioned to the importance of the city, the academies
      of Rome and Constantinople claimed a just and singular
      pre‘minence. The fragments of the literary edicts of Valentinian
      imperfectly represent the school of Constantinople, which was
      gradually improved by subsequent regulations. That school
      consisted of thirty-one professors in different branches of
      learning. One philosopher, and two lawyers; five sophists, and
      ten grammarians for the Greek, and three orators, and ten
      grammarians for the Latin tongue; besides seven scribes, or, as
      they were then styled, antiquarians, whose laborious pens
      supplied the public library with fair and correct copies of the
      classic writers. The rule of conduct, which was prescribed to the
      students, is the more curious, as it affords the first outlines
      of the form and discipline of a modern university. It was
      required, that they should bring proper certificates from the
      magistrates of their native province. Their names, professions,
      and places of abode, were regularly entered in a public register.

      60 (return) [ See the Code of Justinian, l. viii. tit. lii. leg.
      2. Unusquisque sabolem suam nutriat. Quod si exponendam putaverit
      animadversioni qu¾ constituta est subjacebit. For the present I
      shall not interfere in the dispute between Noodt and Binkershoek;
      how far, or how long this unnatural practice had been condemned
      or abolished by law philosophy, and the more civilized state of
      society.]

      61 (return) [ These salutary institutions are explained in the
      Theodosian Code, l. xiii. tit. iii. _De Professoribus et
      Medicis_, and l. xiv. tit. ix. _De Studiis liberalibus Urbis
      Rom¾_. Besides our usual guide, (Godefroy,) we may consult
      Giannone, (Istoria di Napoli, tom. i. p. 105-111,) who has
      treated the interesting subject with the zeal and curiosity of a
      man of latters who studies his domestic history.]

      The studious youth were severely prohibited from wasting their
      time in feasts, or in the theatre; and the term of their
      education was limited to the age of twenty. The pr¾fect of the
      city was empowered to chastise the idle and refractory by stripes
      or expulsion; and he was directed to make an annual report to the
      master of the offices, that the knowledge and abilities of the
      scholars might be usefully applied to the public service. The
      institutions of Valentinian contributed to secure the benefits of
      peace and plenty; and the cities were guarded by the
      establishment of the _Defensors;_ 62 freely elected as the
      tribunes and advocates of the people, to support their rights,
      and to expose their grievances, before the tribunals of the civil
      magistrates, or even at the foot of the Imperial throne. The
      finances were diligently administered by two princes, who had
      been so long accustomed to the rigid economy of a private
      fortune; but in the receipt and application of the revenue, a
      discerning eye might observe some difference between the
      government of the East and of the West. Valens was persuaded,
      that royal liberality can be supplied only by public oppression,
      and his ambition never aspired to secure, by their actual
      distress, the future strength and prosperity of his people.
      Instead of increasing the weight of taxes, which, in the space of
      forty years, had been gradually doubled, he reduced, in the first
      years of his reign, one fourth of the tribute of the East. 63
      Valentinian appears to have been less attentive and less anxious
      to relieve the burdens of his people. He might reform the abuses
      of the fiscal administration; but he exacted, without scruple, a
      very large share of the private property; as he was convinced,
      that the revenues, which supported the luxury of individuals,
      would be much more advantageously employed for the defence and
      improvement of the state. The subjects of the East, who enjoyed
      the present benefit, applauded the indulgence of their prince.
      The solid but less splendid, merit of Valentinian was felt and
      acknowledged by the subsequent generation. 64

      62 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. i. tit. xi. with GodefroyÕs
      _Paratitlon_, which diligently gleans from the rest of the code.]

      63 (return) [ Three lines of Ammianus (xxxi. 14) countenance a
      whole oration of Themistius, (viii. p. 101-120,) full of
      adulation, pedantry, and common-place morality. The eloquent M.
      Thomas (tom. i. p. 366-396) has amused himself with celebrating
      the virtues and genius of Themistius, who was not unworthy of the
      age in which he lived.]

      64 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 202. Ammian. xxx. 9. His
      reformation of costly abuses might entitle him to the praise of,
      in provinciales admodum parcus, tributorum ubique molliens
      sarcinas. By some his frugality was styled avarice, (Jerom.
      Chron. p. 186)]

      But the most honorable circumstance of the character of
      Valentinian, is the firm and temperate impartiality which he
      uniformly preserved in an age of religious contention. His strong
      sense, unenlightened, but uncorrupted, by study, declined, with
      respectful indifference, the subtle questions of theological
      debate. The government of the _Earth_ claimed his vigilance, and
      satisfied his ambition; and while he remembered that he was the
      disciple of the church, he never forgot that he was the sovereign
      of the clergy. Under the reign of an apostate, he had signalized
      his zeal for the honor of Christianity: he allowed to his
      subjects the privilege which he had assumed for himself; and they
      might accept, with gratitude and confidence, the general
      toleration which was granted by a prince addicted to passion, but
      incapable of fear or of disguise. 65 The Pagans, the Jews, and
      all the various sects which acknowledged the divine authority of
      Christ, were protected by the laws from arbitrary power or
      popular insult; nor was any mode of worship prohibited by
      Valentinian, except those secret and criminal practices, which
      abused the name of religion for the dark purposes of vice and
      disorder. The art of magic, as it was more cruelly punished, was
      more strictly proscribed: but the emperor admitted a formal
      distinction to protect the ancient methods of divination, which
      were approved by the senate, and exercised by the Tuscan
      haruspices. He had condemned, with the consent of the most
      rational Pagans, the license of nocturnal sacrifices; but he
      immediately admitted the petition of Pr¾textatus, proconsul of
      Achaia, who represented, that the life of the Greeks would become
      dreary and comfortless, if they were deprived of the invaluable
      blessing of the Eleusinian mysteries. Philosophy alone can boast,
      (and perhaps it is no more than the boast of philosophy,) that
      her gentle hand is able to eradicate from the human mind the
      latent and deadly principle of fanaticism. But this truce of
      twelve years, which was enforced by the wise and vigorous
      government of Valentinian, by suspending the repetition of mutual
      injuries, contributed to soften the manners, and abate the
      prejudices, of the religious factions.

      65 (return) [ Testes sunt leges a me in exordio Imperii mei dat¾;
      quibus unicuique quod animo imbibisset colendi libera facultas
      tributa est. Cod. Theodos. l. ix. tit. xvi. leg. 9. To this
      declaration of Valentinian, we may add the various testimonies of
      Ammianus, (xxx. 9,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 204,) and Sozomen, (l.
      vi. c. 7, 21.) Baronius would naturally blame such rational
      toleration, (Annal. Eccles A. D. 370, No. 129-132, A. D. 376, No.
      3, 4.) ÑÑComme il sÕŽtait prescrit pour rgle de ne point se
      mler de disputes de religion, son histoire est presque
      entirement dŽgagŽe des affaires ecclŽsiastiques. Le Beau. iii.
      214.ÑM.]

      The friend of toleration was unfortunately placed at a distance
      from the scene of the fiercest controversies. As soon as the
      Christians of the West had extricated themselves from the snares
      of the creed of Rimini, they happily relapsed into the slumber of
      orthodoxy; and the small remains of the Arian party, that still
      subsisted at Sirmium or Milan, might be considered rather as
      objects of contempt than of resentment. But in the provinces of
      the East, from the Euxine to the extremity of Thebais, the
      strength and numbers of the hostile factions were more equally
      balanced; and this equality, instead of recommending the counsels
      of peace, served only to perpetuate the horrors of religious war.
      The monks and bishops supported their arguments by invectives;
      and their invectives were sometimes followed by blows. Athanasius
      still reigned at Alexandria; the thrones of Constantinople and
      Antioch were occupied by Arian prelates, and every episcopal
      vacancy was the occasion of a popular tumult. The Homoousians
      were fortified by the reconciliation of fifty-nine Macelonian, or
      Semi-Arian, bishops; but their secret reluctance to embrace the
      divinity of the Holy Ghost, clouded the splendor of the triumph;
      and the declaration of Valens, who, in the first years of his
      reign, had imitated the impartial conduct of his brother, was an
      important victory on the side of Arianism. The two brothers had
      passed their private life in the condition of catechumens; but
      the piety of Valens prompted him to solicit the sacrament of
      baptism, before he exposed his person to the dangers of a Gothic
      war. He naturally addressed himself to Eudoxus, 66 6611 bishop of
      the Imperial city; and if the ignorant monarch was instructed by
      that Arian pastor in the principles of heterodox theology, his
      misfortune, rather than his guilt, was the inevitable consequence
      of his erroneous choice. Whatever had been the determination of
      the emperor, he must have offended a numerous party of his
      Christian subjects; as the leaders both of the Homoousians and of
      the Arians believed, that, if they were not suffered to reign,
      they were most cruelly injured and oppressed. After he had taken
      this decisive step, it was extremely difficult for him to
      preserve either the virtue, or the reputation of impartiality. He
      never aspired, like Constantius, to the fame of a profound
      theologian; but as he had received with simplicity and respect
      the tenets of Euxodus, Valens resigned his conscience to the
      direction of his ecclesiastical guides, and promoted, by the
      influence of his authority, the reunion of the _Athanasian
      heretics_ to the body of the Catholic church. At first, he pitied
      their blindness; by degrees he was provoked at their obstinacy;
      and he insensibly hated those sectaries to whom he was an object
      of hatred. 67 The feeble mind of Valens was always swayed by the
      persons with whom he familiarly conversed; and the exile or
      imprisonment of a private citizen are the favors the most readily
      granted in a despotic court. Such punishments were frequently
      inflicted on the leaders of the Homoousian party; and the
      misfortune of fourscore ecclesiastics of Constantinople, who,
      perhaps accidentally, were burned on shipboard, was imputed to
      the cruel and premeditated malice of the emperor, and his Arian
      ministers. In every contest, the Catholics (if we may anticipate
      that name) were obliged to pay the penalty of their own faults,
      and of those of their adversaries. In every election, the claims
      of the Arian candidate obtained the preference; and if they were
      opposed by the majority of the people, he was usually supported
      by the authority of the civil magistrate, or even by the terrors
      of a military force. The enemies of Athanasius attempted to
      disturb the last years of his venerable age; and his temporary
      retreat to his fatherÕs sepulchre has been celebrated as a fifth
      exile. But the zeal of a great people, who instantly flew to
      arms, intimidated the pr¾fect: and the archbishop was permitted
      to end his life in peace and in glory, after a reign of
      forty-seven years. The death of Athanasius was the signal of the
      persecution of Egypt; and the Pagan minister of Valens, who
      forcibly seated the worthless Lucius on the archiepiscopal
      throne, purchased the favor of the reigning party, by the blood
      and sufferings of their Christian brethren. The free toleration
      of the heathen and Jewish worship was bitterly lamented, as a
      circumstance which aggravated the misery of the Catholics, and
      the guilt of the impious tyrant of the East. 68

      66 (return) [ Eudoxus was of a mild and timid disposition. When
      he baptized Valens, (A. D. 367,) he must have been extremely old;
      since he had studied theology fifty-five years before, under
      Lucian, a learned and pious martyr. Philostorg. l. ii. c. 14-16,
      l. iv. c. 4, with Godefroy, p 82, 206, and Tillemont, MŽm.
      Eccles. tom. v. p. 471-480, &c.]

      6611 (return) [ Through the influence of his wife say the
      ecclesiastical writers.ÑM.]

      67 (return) [ Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. xxv. p. 432) insults the
      persecuting spirit of the Arians, as an infallible symptom of
      error and heresy.]

      68 (return) [ This sketch of the ecclesiastical government of
      Valens is drawn from Socrates, (l. iv.,) Sozomen, (l. vi.,)
      Theodoret, (l. iv.,) and the immense compilations of Tillemont,
      (particularly tom. vi. viii. and ix.)]

      The triumph of the orthodox party has left a deep stain of
      persecution on the memory of Valens; and the character of a
      prince who derived his virtues, as well as his vices, from a
      feeble understanding and a pusillanimous temper, scarcely
      deserves the labor of an apology. Yet candor may discover some
      reasons to suspect that the ecclesiastical ministers of Valens
      often exceeded the orders, or even the intentions, of their
      master; and that the real measure of facts has been very
      liberally magnified by the vehement declamation and easy
      credulity of his antagonists. 69 1. The silence of Valentinian
      may suggest a probable argument that the partial severities,
      which were exercised in the name and provinces of his colleague,
      amounted only to some obscure and inconsiderable deviations from
      the established system of religious toleration: and the judicious
      historian, who has praised the equal temper of the elder brother,
      has not thought himself obliged to contrast the tranquillity of
      the West with the cruel persecution of the East. 70 2. Whatever
      credit may be allowed to vague and distant reports, the
      character, or at least the behavior, of Valens, may be most
      distinctly seen in his personal transactions with the eloquent
      Basil, archbishop of C¾sarea, who had succeeded Athanasius in the
      management of the Trinitarian cause. 71 The circumstantial
      narrative has been composed by the friends and admirers of Basil;
      and as soon as we have stripped away a thick coat of rhetoric and
      miracle, we shall be astonished by the unexpected mildness of the
      Arian tyrant, who admired the firmness of his character, or was
      apprehensive, if he employed violence, of a general revolt in the
      province of Cappadocia. The archbishop, who asserted, with
      inflexible pride, 72 the truth of his opinions, and the dignity
      of his rank, was left in the free possession of his conscience
      and his throne. The emperor devoutly assisted at the solemn
      service of the cathedral; and, instead of a sentence of
      banishment, subscribed the donation of a valuable estate for the
      use of a hospital, which Basil had lately founded in the
      neighborhood of C¾sarea. 73 3. I am not able to discover, that
      any law (such as Theodosius afterwards enacted against the
      Arians) was published by Valens against the Athanasian sectaries;
      and the edict which excited the most violent clamors, may not
      appear so extremely reprehensible. The emperor had observed, that
      several of his subjects, gratifying their lazy disposition under
      the pretence of religion, had associated themselves with the
      monks of Egypt; and he directed the count of the East to drag
      them from their solitude; and to compel these deserters of
      society to accept the fair alternative of renouncing their
      temporal possessions, or of discharging the public duties of men
      and citizens. 74 The ministers of Valens seem to have extended
      the sense of this penal statute, since they claimed a right of
      enlisting the young and ablebodied monks in the Imperial armies.
      A detachment of cavalry and infantry, consisting of three
      thousand men, marched from Alexandria into the adjacent desert of
      Nitria, 75 which was peopled by five thousand monks. The soldiers
      were conducted by Arian priests; and it is reported, that a
      considerable slaughter was made in the monasteries which
      disobeyed the commands of their sovereign. 76

      69 (return) [ Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol.
      iv. p. 78) has already conceived and intimated the same
      suspicion.]

      70 (return) [ This reflection is so obvious and forcible, that
      Orosius (l. vii. c. 32, 33,) delays the persecution till after
      the death of Valentinian. Socrates, on the other hand, supposes,
      (l. iii. c. 32,) that it was appeased by a philosophical oration,
      which Themistius pronounced in the year 374, (Orat. xii. p. 154,
      in Latin only.) Such contradictions diminish the evidence, and
      reduce the term, of the persecution of Valens.]

      71 (return) [ Tillemont, whom I follow and abridge, has extracted
      (MŽm. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 153-167) the most authentic
      circumstances from the Panegyrics of the two Gregories; the
      brother, and the friend, of Basil. The letters of Basil himself
      (Dupin, Bibliothque, Ecclesiastique, tom. ii. p. 155-180) do not
      present the image of a very lively persecution.]

      72 (return) [ Basilius C¾sariensis episcopus Cappadoci¾ clarus
      habetur... qui multa continenti¾ et ingenii bona uno superbi¾
      malo perdidit. This irreverent passage is perfectly in the style
      and character of St. Jerom. It does not appear in ScaligerÕs
      edition of his Chronicle; but Isaac Vossius found it in some old
      Mss. which had not been reformed by the monks.]

      73 (return) [ This noble and charitable foundation (almost a new
      city) surpassed in merit, if not in greatness, the pyramids, or
      the walls of Babylon. It was principally intended for the
      reception of lepers, (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. xx. p. 439.)]

      74 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xii. tit. i. leg. 63. Godefroy
      (tom. iv. p. 409-413) performs the duty of a commentator and
      advocate. Tillemont (MŽm. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 808) _supposes_ a
      second law to excuse his orthodox friends, who had misrepresented
      the edict of Valens, and suppressed the liberty of choice.]

      75 (return) [ See DÕAnville, Description de lÕEgypte, p. 74.
      Hereafter I shall consider the monastic institutions.]

      76 (return) [ Socrates, l. iv. c. 24, 25. Orosius, l. vii. c. 33.
      Jerom. in Chron. p. 189, and tom. ii. p. 212. The monks of Egypt
      performed many miracles, which prove the truth of their faith.
      Right, says Jortin, (Remarks, vol iv. p. 79,) but what proves the
      truth of those miracles.]

      The strict regulations which have been framed by the wisdom of
      modern legislators to restrain the wealth and avarice of the
      clergy, may be originally deduced from the example of the emperor
      Valentinian. His edict, 77 addressed to Damasus, bishop of Rome,
      was publicly read in the churches of the city. He admonished the
      ecclesiastics and monks not to frequent the houses of widows and
      virgins; and menaced their disobedience with the animadversion of
      the civil judge. The director was no longer permitted to receive
      any gift, or legacy, or inheritance, from the liberality of his
      spiritual-daughter: every testament contrary to this edict was
      declared null and void; and the illegal donation was confiscated
      for the use of the treasury. By a subsequent regulation, it
      should seem, that the same provisions were extended to nuns and
      bishops; and that all persons of the ecclesiastical order were
      rendered incapable of receiving any testamentary gifts, and
      strictly confined to the natural and legal rights of inheritance.
      As the guardian of domestic happiness and virtue, Valentinian
      applied this severe remedy to the growing evil. In the capital of
      the empire, the females of noble and opulent houses possessed a
      very ample share of independent property: and many of those
      devout females had embraced the doctrines of Christianity, not
      only with the cold assent of the understanding, but with the
      warmth of affection, and perhaps with the eagerness of fashion.
      They sacrificed the pleasures of dress and luxury; and renounced,
      for the praise of chastity, the soft endearments of conjugal
      society. Some ecclesiastic, of real or apparent sanctity, was
      chosen to direct their timorous conscience, and to amuse the
      vacant tenderness of their heart: and the unbounded confidence,
      which they hastily bestowed, was often abused by knaves and
      enthusiasts; who hastened from the extremities of the East, to
      enjoy, on a splendid theatre, the privileges of the monastic
      profession. By their contempt of the world, they insensibly
      acquired its most desirable advantages; the lively attachment,
      perhaps of a young and beautiful woman, the delicate plenty of an
      opulent household, and the respectful homage of the slaves, the
      freedmen, and the clients of a senatorial family. The immense
      fortunes of the Roman ladies were gradually consumed in lavish
      alms and expensive pilgrimages; and the artful monk, who had
      assigned himself the first, or possibly the sole place, in the
      testament of his spiritual daughter, still presumed to declare,
      with the smooth face of hypocrisy, that _he_ was only the
      instrument of charity, and the steward of the poor. The
      lucrative, but disgraceful, trade, 78 which was exercised by the
      clergy to defraud the expectations of the natural heirs, had
      provoked the indignation of a superstitious age: and two of the
      most respectable of the Latin fathers very honestly confess, that
      the ignominious edict of Valentinian was just and necessary; and
      that the Christian priests had deserved to lose a privilege,
      which was still enjoyed by comedians, charioteers, and the
      ministers of idols. But the wisdom and authority of the
      legislator are seldom victorious in a contest with the vigilant
      dexterity of private interest; and Jerom, or Ambrose, might
      patiently acquiesce in the justice of an ineffectual or salutary
      law. If the ecclesiastics were checked in the pursuit of personal
      emolument, they would exert a more laudable industry to increase
      the wealth of the church; and dignify their covetousness with the
      specious names of piety and patriotism. 79

      77 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 20. Godefroy,
      (tom. vi. p. 49,) after the example of Baronius, impartially
      collects all that the fathers have said on the subject of this
      important law; whose spirit was long afterwards revived by the
      emperor Frederic II., Edward I. of England, and other Christian
      princes who reigned after the twelfth century.]

      78 (return) [ The expressions which I have used are temperate and
      feeble, if compared with the vehement invectives of Jerom, (tom.
      i. p. 13, 45, 144, &c.) In _his_ turn he was reproached with the
      guilt which he imputed to his brother monks; and the
      _Sceleratus_, the _Versipellis_, was publicly accused as the
      lover of the widow Paula, (tom. ii. p. 363.) He undoubtedly
      possessed the affection, both of the mother and the daughter; but
      he declares that he never abused his influence to any selfish or
      sensual purpose.]

      79 (return) [ Pudet dicere, sacerdotes idolorum, mimi et aurig¾,
      et scorta, h¾reditates capiunt: solis _clericis_ ac _monachis_
      hac lege prohibetur. Et non prohibetur a persecutoribus, sed a
      principibus Christianis. Nec de lege queror; sed doleo cur
      _meruerimus_ hanc legem. Jerom (tom. i. p. 13) discreetly
      insinuates the secret policy of his patron Damasus.]

      Damasus, bishop of Rome, who was constrained to stigmatize the
      avarice of his clergy by the publication of the law of
      Valentinian, had the good sense, or the good fortune, to engage
      in his service the zeal and abilities of the learned Jerom; and
      the grateful saint has celebrated the merit and purity of a very
      ambiguous character. 80 But the splendid vices of the church of
      Rome, under the reign of Valentinian and Damasus, have been
      curiously observed by the historian Ammianus, who delivers his
      impartial sense in these expressive words: ÒThe pr¾fecture of
      Juventius was accompanied with peace and plenty, but the
      tranquillity of his government was soon disturbed by a bloody
      sedition of the distracted people. The ardor of Damasus and
      Ursinus, to seize the episcopal seat, surpassed the ordinary
      measure of human ambition. They contended with the rage of party;
      the quarrel was maintained by the wounds and death of their
      followers; and the pr¾fect, unable to resist or appease the
      tumult, was constrained, by superior violence, to retire into the
      suburbs. Damasus prevailed: the well-disputed victory remained on
      the side of his faction; one hundred and thirty-seven dead bodies
      81 were found in the _Basilica_ of Sicininus, 82 where the
      Christians hold their religious assemblies; and it was long
      before the angry minds of the people resumed their accustomed
      tranquillity. When I consider the splendor of the capital, I am
      not astonished that so valuable a prize should inflame the
      desires of ambitious men, and produce the fiercest and most
      obstinate contests. The successful candidate is secure, that he
      will be enriched by the offerings of matrons; 83 that, as soon as
      his dress is composed with becoming care and elegance, he may
      proceed, in his chariot, through the streets of Rome; 84 and that
      the sumptuousness of the Imperial table will not equal the
      profuse and delicate entertainments provided by the taste, and at
      the expense, of the Roman pontiffs. How much more rationally
      (continues the honest Pagan) would those pontiffs consult their
      true happiness, if, instead of alleging the greatness of the city
      as an excuse for their manners, they would imitate the exemplary
      life of some provincial bishops, whose temperance and sobriety,
      whose mean apparel and downcast looks, recommend their pure and
      modest virtue to the Deity and his true worshippers!Ó 85 The
      schism of Damasus and Ursinus was extinguished by the exile of
      the latter; and the wisdom of the pr¾fect Pr¾textatus 86 restored
      the tranquillity of the city. Pr¾textatus was a philosophic
      Pagan, a man of learning, of taste, and politeness; who disguised
      a reproach in the form of a jest, when he assured Damasus, that
      if he could obtain the bishopric of Rome, he himself would
      immediately embrace the Christian religion. 87 This lively
      picture of the wealth and luxury of the popes in the fourth
      century becomes the more curious, as it represents the
      intermediate degree between the humble poverty of the apostolic
      fishermen, and the royal state of a temporal prince, whose
      dominions extend from the confines of Naples to the banks of the
      Po.

      80 (return) [ Three words of Jerom, _sanct¾ memori¾ Damasus_
      (tom. ii. p. 109,) wash away all his stains, and blind the devout
      eyes of Tillemont. (Mem Eccles. tom. viii. p. 386-424.)]

      81 (return) [ Jerom himself is forced to allow, crudelissim¾
      interfectiones diversi sexžs perpetrat¾, (in Chron. p. 186.) But
      an original _libel_, or petition of two presbyters of the adverse
      party, has unaccountably escaped. They affirm that the doors of
      the Basilica were burnt, and that the roof was untiled; that
      Damasus marched at the head of his own clergy, grave-diggers,
      charioteers, and hired gladiators; that none of _his_ party were
      killed, but that one hundred and sixty dead bodies were found.
      This petition is published by the P. Sirmond, in the first volume
      of his work.]

      82 (return) [ The _Basilica_ of Sicininus, or Liberius, is
      probably the church of Sancta Maria Maggiore, on the Esquiline
      hill. Baronius, A. D. 367 No. 3; and Donatus, Roma Antiqua et
      Nova, l. iv. c. 3, p. 462.]

      83 (return) [ The enemies of Damasus styled him _Auriscalpius
      Matronarum_ the ladiesÕ ear-scratcher.]

      84 (return) [ Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. xxxii. p. 526) describes
      the pride and luxury of the prelates who reigned in the Imperial
      cities; their gilt car, fiery steeds, numerous train, &c. The
      crowd gave way as to a wild beast.]

      85 (return) [ Ammian. xxvii. 3. Perpetuo Numini, _verisque_ ejus
      cultoribus. The incomparable pliancy of a polytheist!]

      86 (return) [ Ammianus, who makes a fair report of his pr¾fecture
      (xxvii. 9) styles him pr¾clar¾ indolis, gravitatisque senator,
      (xxii. 7, and Vales. ad loc.) A curious inscription (Grutor MCII.
      No. 2) records, in two columns, his religious and civil honors.
      In one line he was Pontiff of the Sun, and of Vesta, Augur,
      Quindecemvir, Hierophant, &c., &c. In the other, 1. Qu¾stor
      candidatus, more probably titular. 2. Pr¾tor. 3. Corrector of
      Tuscany and Umbria. 4. Consular of Lusitania. 5. Proconsul of
      Achaia. 6. Pr¾fect of Rome. 7. Pr¾torian pr¾fect of Italy. 8. Of
      Illyricum. 9. Consul elect; but he died before the beginning of
      the year 385. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom v. p. 241,
      736.]

      87 (return) [ Facite me Roman¾ urbis episcopum; et ero protinus
      Christianus (Jerom, tom. ii. p. 165.) It is more than probable
      that Damasus would not have purchased his conversion at such a
      price.]




      Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
      Empire.ÑPart IV.


      When the suffrage of the generals and of the army committed the
      sceptre of the Roman empire to the hands of Valentinian, his
      reputation in arms, his military skill and experience, and his
      rigid attachment to the forms, as well as spirit, of ancient
      discipline, were the principal motives of their judicious choice.

      The eagerness of the troops, who pressed him to nominate his
      colleague, was justified by the dangerous situation of public
      affairs; and Valentinian himself was conscious, that the
      abilities of the most active mind were unequal to the defence of
      the distant frontiers of an invaded monarchy. As soon as the
      death of Julian had relieved the Barbarians from the terror of
      his name, the most sanguine hopes of rapine and conquest excited
      the nations of the East, of the North, and of the South. Their
      inroads were often vexatious, and sometimes formidable; but,
      during the twelve years of the reign of Valentinian, his firmness
      and vigilance protected his own dominions; and his powerful
      genius seemed to inspire and direct the feeble counsels of his
      brother. Perhaps the method of annals would more forcibly express
      the urgent and divided cares of the two emperors; but the
      attention of the reader, likewise, would be distracted by a
      tedious and desultory narrative. A separate view of the five
      great theatres of war; I. Germany; II. Britain; III. Africa; IV.
      The East; and, V. The Danube; will impress a more distinct image
      of the military state of the empire under the reigns of
      Valentinian and Valens.

      I. The ambassadors of the Alemanni had been offended by the harsh
      and haughty behavior of Ursacius, master of the offices; 88 who
      by an act of unseasonable parsimony, had diminished the value, as
      well as the quantity, of the presents to which they were
      entitled, either from custom or treaty, on the accession of a new
      emperor. They expressed, and they communicated to their
      countrymen, their strong sense of the national affront. The
      irascible minds of the chiefs were exasperated by the suspicion
      of contempt; and the martial youth crowded to their standard.
      Before Valentinian could pass the Alps, the villages of Gaul were
      in flames; before his general Degalaiphus could encounter the
      Alemanni, they had secured the captives and the spoil in the
      forests of Germany. In the beginning of the ensuing year, the
      military force of the whole nation, in deep and solid columns,
      broke through the barrier of the Rhine, during the severity of a
      northern winter. Two Roman counts were defeated and mortally
      wounded; and the standard of the Heruli and Batavians fell into
      the hands of the conquerors, who displayed, with insulting shouts
      and menaces, the trophy of their victory. The standard was
      recovered; but the Batavians had not redeemed the shame of their
      disgrace and flight in the eyes of their severe judge. It was the
      opinion of Valentinian, that his soldiers must learn to fear
      their commander, before they could cease to fear the enemy. The
      troops were solemnly assembled; and the trembling Batavians were
      enclosed within the circle of the Imperial army. Valentinian then
      ascended his tribunal; and, as if he disdained to punish
      cowardice with death, he inflicted a stain of indelible ignominy
      on the officers, whose misconduct and pusillanimity were found to
      be the first occasion of the defeat. The Batavians were degraded
      from their rank, stripped of their arms, and condemned to be sold
      for slaves to the highest bidder. At this tremendous sentence,
      the troops fell prostrate on the ground, deprecated the
      indignation of their sovereign, and protested, that, if he would
      indulge them in another trial, they would approve themselves not
      unworthy of the name of Romans, and of his soldiers. Valentinian,
      with affected reluctance, yielded to their entreaties; the
      Batavians resumed their arms, and with their arms, the invincible
      resolution of wiping away their disgrace in the blood of the
      Alemanni. 89 The principal command was declined by Dagalaiphus;
      and that experienced general, who had represented, perhaps with
      too much prudence, the extreme difficulties of the undertaking,
      had the mortification, before the end of the campaign, of seeing
      his rival Jovinus convert those difficulties into a decisive
      advantage over the scattered forces of the Barbarians. At the
      head of a well-disciplined army of cavalry, infantry, and light
      troops, Jovinus advanced, with cautious and rapid steps, to
      Scarponna, 90 9011 in the territory of Metz, where he surprised a
      large division of the Alemanni, before they had time to run to
      their arms; and flushed his soldiers with the confidence of an
      easy and bloodless victory. Another division, or rather army, of
      the enemy, after the cruel and wanton devastation of the adjacent
      country, reposed themselves on the shady banks of the Moselle.
      Jovinus, who had viewed the ground with the eye of a general,
      made a silent approach through a deep and woody vale, till he
      could distinctly perceive the indolent security of the Germans.
      Some were bathing their huge limbs in the river; others were
      combing their long and flaxen hair; others again were swallowing
      large draughts of rich and delicious wine. On a sudden they heard
      the sound of the Roman trumpet; they saw the enemy in their camp.
      Astonishment produced disorder; disorder was followed by flight
      and dismay; and the confused multitude of the bravest warriors
      was pierced by the swords and javelins of the legionaries and
      auxiliaries. The fugitives escaped to the third, and most
      considerable, camp, in the Catalonian plains, near Ch‰lons in
      Champagne: the straggling detachments were hastily recalled to
      their standard; and the Barbarian chiefs, alarmed and admonished
      by the fate of their companions, prepared to encounter, in a
      decisive battle, the victorious forces of the lieutenant of
      Valentinian. The bloody and obstinate conflict lasted a whole
      summerÕs day, with equal valor, and with alternate success. The
      Romans at length prevailed, with the loss of about twelve hundred
      men. Six thousand of the Alemanni were slain, four thousand were
      wounded; and the brave Jovinus, after chasing the flying remnant
      of their host as far as the banks of the Rhine, returned to
      Paris, to receive the applause of his sovereign, and the ensigns
      of the consulship for the ensuing year. 91 The triumph of the
      Romans was indeed sullied by their treatment of the captive king,
      whom they hung on a gibbet, without the knowledge of their
      indignant general. This disgraceful act of cruelty, which might
      be imputed to the fury of the troops, was followed by the
      deliberate murder of Withicab, the son of Vadomair; a German
      prince, of a weak and sickly constitution, but of a daring and
      formidable spirit. The domestic assassin was instigated and
      protected by the Romans; 92 and the violation of the laws of
      humanity and justice betrayed their secret apprehension of the
      weakness of the declining empire. The use of the dagger is seldom
      adopted in public councils, as long as they retain any confidence
      in the power of the sword.

      88 (return) [ Ammian, xxvi. 5. Valesius adds a long and good note
      on the master of the offices.]

      89 (return) [ Ammian. xxvii. 1. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 208. The
      disgrace of the Batavians is suppressed by the contemporary
      soldier, from a regard for military honor, which could not affect
      a Greek rhetorician of the succeeding age.]

      90 (return) [ See DÕAnville, Notice de lÕAncienne Gaule, p. 587.
      The name of the Moselle, which is not specified by Ammianus, is
      clearly understood by Mascou, (Hist. of the Ancient Germans, vii.
      2)]

      9011 (return) [ Charpeigne on the Moselle. MannertÑM.]

      91 (return) [ The battles are described by Ammianus, (xxvii. 2,)
      and by Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 209,) who supposes Valentinian to have
      been present.]

      92 (return) [ Studio solicitante nostrorum, occubuit. Ammian
      xxvii. 10.]

      While the Alemanni appeared to be humbled by their recent
      calamities, the pride of Valentinian was mortified by the
      unexpected surprisal of Moguntiacum, or Mentz, the principal city
      of the Upper Germany. In the unsuspicious moment of a Christian
      festival, 9211 Rando, a bold and artful chieftain, who had long
      meditated his attempt, suddenly passed the Rhine; entered the
      defenceless town, and retired with a multitude of captives of
      either sex. Valentinian resolved to execute severe vengeance on
      the whole body of the nation. Count Sebastian, with the bands of
      Italy and Illyricum, was ordered to invade their country, most
      probably on the side of Rh¾tia. The emperor in person,
      accompanied by his son Gratian, passed the Rhine at the head of a
      formidable army, which was supported on both flanks by Jovinus
      and Severus, the two masters-general of the cavalry and infantry
      of the West. The Alemanni, unable to prevent the devastation of
      their villages, fixed their camp on a lofty, and almost
      inaccessible, mountain, in the modern duchy of Wirtemberg, and
      resolutely expected the approach of the Romans. The life of
      Valentinian was exposed to imminent danger by the intrepid
      curiosity with which he persisted to explore some secret and
      unguarded path. A troop of Barbarians suddenly rose from their
      ambuscade: and the emperor, who vigorously spurred his horse down
      a steep and slippery descent, was obliged to leave behind him his
      armor-bearer, and his helmet, magnificently enriched with gold
      and precious stones. At the signal of the general assault, the
      Roman troops encompassed and ascended the mountain of Solicinium
      on three different sides. 9212 Every step which they gained,
      increased their ardor, and abated the resistance of the enemy:
      and after their united forces had occupied the summit of the
      hill, they impetuously urged the Barbarians down the northern
      descent, where Count Sebastian was posted to intercept their
      retreat. After this signal victory, Valentinian returned to his
      winter quarters at Treves; where he indulged the public joy by
      the exhibition of splendid and triumphal games. 93 But the wise
      monarch, instead of aspiring to the conquest of Germany, confined
      his attention to the important and laborious defence of the
      Gallic frontier, against an enemy whose strength was renewed by a
      stream of daring volunteers, which incessantly flowed from the
      most distant tribes of the North. 94 The banks of the Rhine 9411
      from its source to the straits of the ocean, were closely planted
      with strong castles and convenient towers; new works, and new
      arms, were invented by the ingenuity of a prince who was skilled
      in the mechanical arts; and his numerous levies of Roman and
      Barbarian youth were severely trained in all the exercises of
      war. The progress of the work, which was sometimes opposed by
      modest representations, and sometimes by hostile attempts,
      secured the tranquillity of Gaul during the nine subsequent years
      of the administration of Valentinian. 95

      9211 (return) [ Probably Easter. Wagner.ÑM.]

      9212 (return) [ Mannert is unable to fix the position of
      Solicinium. Haefelin (in Comm Acad Elect. Palat. v. 14)
      conjectures Schwetzingen, near Heidelberg. See WagnerÕs note. St.
      Martin, Sultz in Wirtemberg, near the sources of the Neckar St.
      Martin, iii. 339.ÑM.]

      93 (return) [ The expedition of Valentinian is related by
      Ammianus, (xxvii. 10;) and celebrated by Ausonius, (Mosell. 421,
      &c.,) who foolishly supposes, that the Romans were ignorant of
      the sources of the Danube.]

      94 (return) [ Immanis enim natio, jam inde ab incunabulis primis
      varietate casuum imminuta; ita s¾pius adolescit, ut fuisse longis
      s¾culis ¾stimetur intacta. Ammianus, xxviii. 5. The Count de Buat
      (Hist. des Peuples de lÕEurope, tom. vi. p. 370) ascribes the
      fecundity of the Alemanni to their easy adoption of strangers.
      ÑÑNote: ÒThis explanation,Ó says Mr. Malthus, Òonly removes the
      difficulty a little farther off. It makes the earth rest upon the
      tortoise, but does not tell us on what the tortoise rests. We may
      still ask what northern reservoir supplied this incessant stream
      of daring adventurers. MontesquieuÕs solution of the problem
      will, I think, hardly be admitted, (Grandeur et DŽcadence des
      Romains, c. 16, p. 187.) * * * The whole difficulty, however, is
      at once removed, if we apply to the German nations, at that time,
      a fact which is so generally known to have occurred in America,
      and suppose that, when not checked by wars and famine, they
      increased at a rate that would double their numbers in
      twenty-five or thirty years. The propriety, and even the
      necessity, of applying this rate of increase to the inhabitants
      of ancient Germany, will strikingly appear from that most
      valuable picture of their manners which has been left us by
      Tacitus, (Tac. de Mor. Germ. 16 to 20.) * * * With these manners,
      and a habit of enterprise and emigration, which would naturally
      remove all fears about providing for a family, it is difficult to
      conceive a society with a stronger principle of increase in it,
      and we see at once that prolific source of armies and colonies
      against which the force of the Roman empire so long struggled
      with difficulty, and under which it ultimately sunk. It is not
      probable that, for two periods together, or even for one, the
      population within the confines of Germany ever doubled itself in
      twenty-five years. Their perpetual wars, the rude state of
      agriculture, and particularly the very strange custom adopted by
      most of the tribes of marking their barriers by extensive
      deserts, would prevent any very great actual increase of numbers.
      At no one period could the country be called well peopled, though
      it was often redundant in population. * * * Instead of clearing
      their forests, draining their swamps, and rendering their soil
      fit to support an extended population, they found it more
      congenial to their martial habits and impatient dispositions to
      go in quest of food, of plunder, or of glory, into other
      countries.Ó Malthus on Population, i. p. 128.ÑG.]

      9411 (return) [ The course of the Neckar was likewise strongly
      guarded. The hyperbolical eulogy of Symmachus asserts that the
      Neckar first became known to the Romans by the conquests and
      fortifications of Valentinian. Nunc primum victoriis tuis
      externus fluvius publicatur. Gaudeat servitute, captivus
      innotuit. Symm. Orat. p. 22.ÑM.]

      95 (return) [ Ammian. xxviii. 2. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 214. The
      younger Victor mentions the mechanical genius of Valentinian,
      nova arma meditari fingere terra seu limo simulacra.]

      That prudent emperor, who diligently practised the wise maxims of
      Diocletian, was studious to foment and excite the intestine
      divisions of the tribes of Germany. About the middle of the
      fourth century, the countries, perhaps of Lusace and Thuringia,
      on either side of the Elbe, were occupied by the vague dominion
      of the Burgundians; a warlike and numerous people, 9511 of the
      Vandal race, 96 whose obscure name insensibly swelled into a
      powerful kingdom, and has finally settled on a flourishing
      province. The most remarkable circumstance in the ancient manners
      of the Burgundians appears to have been the difference of their
      civil and ecclesiastical constitution. The appellation of
      _Hendinos_ was given to the king or general, and the title of
      _Sinistus_ to the high priest, of the nation. The person of the
      priest was sacred, and his dignity perpetual; but the temporal
      government was held by a very precarious tenure. If the events of
      war accuses the courage or conduct of the king, he was
      immediately deposed; and the injustice of his subjects made him
      responsible for the fertility of the earth, and the regularity of
      the seasons, which seemed to fall more properly within the
      sacerdotal department. 97 The disputed possession of some
      salt-pits 98 engaged the Alemanni and the Burgundians in frequent
      contests: the latter were easily tempted, by the secret
      solicitations and liberal offers of the emperor; and their
      fabulous descent from the Roman soldiers, who had formerly been
      left to garrison the fortresses of Drusus, was admitted with
      mutual credulity, as it was conducive to mutual interest. 99 An
      army of fourscore thousand Burgundians soon appeared on the banks
      of the Rhine; and impatiently required the support and subsidies
      which Valentinian had promised: but they were amused with excuses
      and delays, till at length, after a fruitless expectation, they
      were compelled to retire. The arms and fortifications of the
      Gallic frontier checked the fury of their just resentment; and
      their massacre of the captives served to imbitter the hereditary
      feud of the Burgundians and the Alemanni. The inconstancy of a
      wise prince may, perhaps, be explained by some alteration of
      circumstances; and perhaps it was the original design of
      Valentinian to intimidate, rather than to destroy; as the balance
      of power would have been equally overturned by the extirpation of
      either of the German nations. Among the princes of the Alemanni,
      Macrianus, who, with a Roman name, had assumed the arts of a
      soldier and a statesman, deserved his hatred and esteem. The
      emperor himself, with a light and unencumbered band, condescended
      to pass the Rhine, marched fifty miles into the country, and
      would infallibly have seized the object of his pursuit, if his
      judicious measures had not been defeated by the impatience of the
      troops. Macrianus was afterwards admitted to the honor of a
      personal conference with the emperor; and the favors which he
      received, fixed him, till the hour of his death, a steady and
      sincere friend of the republic. 100

      9511 (return) [ According to the general opinion, the Burgundians
      formed a Gothic o Vandalic tribe, who, from the banks of the
      Lower Vistula, made incursions, on one side towards Transylvania,
      on the other towards the centre of Germany. All that remains of
      the Burgundian language is Gothic. * * * Nothing in their customs
      indicates a different origin. Malte Brun, Geog. tom. i. p. 396.
      (edit. 1831.)ÑM.]

      96 (return) [ Bellicosos et pubis immens¾ viribus affluentes; et
      ideo metuendos finitimis universis. Ammian. xxviii. 5.]

      97 (return) [ I am always apt to suspect historians and
      travellers of improving extraordinary facts into general laws.
      Ammianus ascribes a similar custom to Egypt; and the Chinese have
      imputed it to the Ta-tsin, or Roman empire, (De Guignes, Hist.
      des Huns, tom. ii. part. 79.)]

      98 (return) [ Salinarum finiumque causa Alemannis s¾pe jurgabant.
      Ammian xxviii. 5. Possibly they disputed the possession of the
      _Sala_, a river which produced salt, and which had been the
      object of ancient contention. Tacit. Annal. xiii. 57, and Lipsius
      ad loc.]

      99 (return) [ Jam inde temporibus priscis sobolem se esse Romanam
      Burgundii sciunt: and the vague tradition gradually assumed a
      more regular form, (Oros. l. vii. c. 32.) It is annihilated by
      the decisive authority of Pliny, who composed the History of
      Drusus, and served in Germany, (Plin. Secund. Epist. iii. 5,)
      within sixty years after the death of that hero. _Germanorum
      genera_ quinque; Vindili, quorum pars _Burgundiones_, &c., (Hist.
      Natur. iv. 28.)]

      100 (return) [ The wars and negotiations relative to the
      Burgundians and Alemanni, are distinctly related by Ammianus
      Marcellinus, (xxviii. 5, xxix 4, xxx. 3.) Orosius, (l. vii. c.
      32,) and the Chronicles of Jerom and Cassiodorus, fix some dates,
      and add some circumstances.]

      The land was covered by the fortifications of Valentinian; but
      the sea-coast of Gaul and Britain was exposed to the depredations
      of the Saxons. That celebrated name, in which we have a dear and
      domestic interest, escaped the notice of Tacitus; and in the maps
      of Ptolemy, it faintly marks the narrow neck of the Cimbric
      peninsula, and three small islands towards the mouth of the Elbe.
      101 This contracted territory, the present duchy of Sleswig, or
      perhaps of Holstein, was incapable of pouring forth the
      inexhaustible swarms of Saxons who reigned over the ocean, who
      filled the British island with their language, their laws, and
      their colonies; and who so long defended the liberty of the North
      against the arms of Charlemagne. 102 The solution of this
      difficulty is easily derived from the similar manners, and loose
      constitution, of the tribes of Germany; which were blended with
      each other by the slightest accidents of war or friendship. The
      situation of the native Saxons disposed them to embrace the
      hazardous professions of fishermen and pirates; and the success
      of their first adventures would naturally excite the emulation of
      their bravest countrymen, who were impatient of the gloomy
      solitude of their woods and mountains. Every tide might float
      down the Elbe whole fleets of canoes, filled with hardy and
      intrepid associates, who aspired to behold the unbounded prospect
      of the ocean, and to taste the wealth and luxury of unknown
      worlds. It should seem probable, however, that the most numerous
      auxiliaries of the Saxons were furnished by the nations who dwelt
      along the shores of the Baltic. They possessed arms and ships,
      the art of navigation, and the habits of naval war; but the
      difficulty of issuing through the northern columns of Hercules
      103 (which, during several months of the year, are obstructed
      with ice) confined their skill and courage within the limits of a
      spacious lake. The rumor of the successful armaments which sailed
      from the mouth of the Elbe, would soon provoke them to cross the
      narrow isthmus of Sleswig, and to launch their vessels on the
      great sea. The various troops of pirates and adventurers, who
      fought under the same standard, were insensibly united in a
      permanent society, at first of rapine, and afterwards of
      government. A military confederation was gradually moulded into a
      national body, by the gentle operation of marriage and
      consanguinity; and the adjacent tribes, who solicited the
      alliance, accepted the name and laws, of the Saxons. If the fact
      were not established by the most unquestionable evidence, we
      should appear to abuse the credulity of our readers, by the
      description of the vessels in which the Saxon pirates ventured to
      sport in the waves of the German Ocean, the British Channel, and
      the Bay of Biscay. The keel of their large flat-bottomed boats
      were framed of light timber, but the sides and upper works
      consisted only of wicker, with a covering of strong hides. 104 In
      the course of their slow and distant navigations, they must
      always have been exposed to the danger, and very frequently to
      the misfortune, of shipwreck; and the naval annals of the Saxons
      were undoubtedly filled with the accounts of the losses which
      they sustained on the coasts of Britain and Gaul. But the daring
      spirit of the pirates braved the perils both of the sea and of
      the shore: their skill was confirmed by the habits of enterprise;
      the meanest of their mariners was alike capable of handling an
      oar, of rearing a sail, or of conducting a vessel, and the Saxons
      rejoiced in the appearance of a tempest, which concealed their
      design, and dispersed the fleets of the enemy. 105 After they had
      acquired an accurate knowledge of the maritime provinces of the
      West, they extended the scene of their depredations, and the most
      sequestered places had no reason to presume on their security.
      The Saxon boats drew so little water that they could easily
      proceed fourscore or a hundred miles up the great rivers; their
      weight was so inconsiderable, that they were transported on
      wagons from one river to another; and the pirates who had entered
      the mouth of the Seine, or of the Rhine, might descend, with the
      rapid stream of the Rhone, into the Mediterranean. Under the
      reign of Valentinian, the maritime provinces of Gaul were
      afflicted by the Saxons: a military count was stationed for the
      defence of the sea-coast, or Armorican limit; and that officer,
      who found his strength, or his abilities, unequal to the task,
      implored the assistance of Severus, master-general of the
      infantry. The Saxons, surrounded and outnumbered, were forced to
      relinquish their spoil, and to yield a select band of their tall
      and robust youth to serve in the Imperial armies. They stipulated
      only a safe and honorable retreat; and the condition was readily
      granted by the Roman general, who meditated an act of perfidy,
      106 imprudent as it was inhuman, while a Saxon remained alive,
      and in arms, to revenge the fate of their countrymen. The
      premature eagerness of the infantry, who were secretly posted in
      a deep valley, betrayed the ambuscade; and they would perhaps
      have fallen the victims of their own treachery, if a large body
      of cuirassiers, alarmed by the noise of the combat, had not
      hastily advanced to extricate their companions, and to overwhelm
      the undaunted valor of the Saxons. Some of the prisoners were
      saved from the edge of the sword, to shed their blood in the
      amphitheatre; and the orator Symmachus complains, that
      twenty-nine of those desperate savages, by strangling themselves
      with their own hands, had disappointed the amusement of the
      public. Yet the polite and philosophic citizens of Rome were
      impressed with the deepest horror, when they were informed, that
      the Saxons consecrated to the gods the tithe of their _human_
      spoil; and that they ascertained by lot the objects of the
      barbarous sacrifice. 107

      101 (return) [ At the northern extremity of the peninsula, (the
      Cimbric promontory of Pliny, iv. 27,) Ptolemy fixes the remnant
      of the _Cimbri_. He fills the interval between the _Saxons_ and
      the Cimbri with six obscure tribes, who were united, as early as
      the sixth century, under the national appellation of _Danes_. See
      Cluver. German. Antiq. l. iii. c. 21, 22, 23.]

      102 (return) [ M. DÕAnville (Establissement des Etats de
      lÕEurope, &c., p. 19-26) has marked the extensive limits of the
      Saxony of Charlemagne.]

      103 (return) [ The fleet of Drusus had failed in their attempt to
      pass, or even to approach, the _Sound_, (styled, from an obvious
      resemblance, the columns of Hercules,) and the naval enterprise
      was never resumed, (Tacit. de Moribus German. c. 34.) The
      knowledge which the Romans acquired of the naval powers of the
      Baltic, (c. 44, 45) was obtained by their land journeys in search
      of amber.]

      104 (return) [ Quin et Aremoricus piratam _Saxona_ tractus
      Sperabat; cui pelle salum sulcare Britannum
      Ludus; et assuto glaucum mare findere lembo.
      Sidon. in Panegyr. Avit. 369.

      The genius of C¾sar imitated, for a particular service, these
      rude, but light vessels, which were likewise used by the natives
      of Britain. (Comment. de Bell. Civil. i. 51, and Guichardt,
      Nouveaux MŽmoires Militaires, tom. ii. p. 41, 42.) The British
      vessels would now astonish the genius of C¾sar.]

      105 (return) [ The best original account of the Saxon pirates may
      be found in Sidonius Apollinaris, (l. viii. epist. 6, p. 223,
      edit. Sirmond,) and the best commentary in the AbbŽ du Bos,
      (Hist. Critique de la Monarchie Franoise, &c. tom. i. l. i. c.
      16, p. 148-155. See likewise p. 77, 78.)]

      106 (return) [ Ammian. (xxviii. 5) justifies this breach of faith
      to pirates and robbers; and Orosius (l. vii. c. 32) more clearly
      expresses their real guilt; virtute atque agilitate terribeles.]

      107 (return) [ Symmachus (l. ii. epist. 46) still presumes to
      mention the sacred name of Socrates and philosophy. Sidonius,
      bishop of Clermont, might condemn, (l. viii. epist. 6,) with
      _less_ inconsistency, the human sacrifices of the Saxons.]

      II. The fabulous colonies of Egyptians and Trojans, of
      Scandinavians and Spaniards, which flattered the pride, and
      amused the credulity, of our rude ancestors, have insensibly
      vanished in the light of science and philosophy. 108 The present
      age is satisfied with the simple and rational opinion, that the
      islands of Great Britain and Ireland were gradually peopled from
      the adjacent continent of Gaul. From the coast of Kent, to the
      extremity of Caithness and Ulster, the memory of a Celtic origin
      was distinctly preserved, in the perpetual resemblance of
      language, of religion, and of manners; and the peculiar
      characters of the British tribes might be naturally ascribed to
      the influence of accidental and local circumstances. 109 The
      Roman Province was reduced to the state of civilized and peaceful
      servitude; the rights of savage freedom were contracted to the
      narrow limits of Caledonia. The inhabitants of that northern
      region were divided, as early as the reign of Constantine,
      between the two great tribes of the Scots and of the Picts, 110
      who have since experienced a very different fortune. The power,
      and almost the memory, of the Picts have been extinguished by
      their successful rivals; and the Scots, after maintaining for
      ages the dignity of an independent kingdom, have multiplied, by
      an equal and voluntary union, the honors of the English name. The
      hand of nature had contributed to mark the ancient distinctions
      of the Scots and Picts. The former were the men of the hills, and
      the latter those of the plain. The eastern coast of Caledonia may
      be considered as a level and fertile country, which, even in a
      rude state of tillage, was capable of producing a considerable
      quantity of corn; and the epithet of _cruitnich_, or
      wheat-eaters, expressed the contempt or envy of the carnivorous
      highlander. The cultivation of the earth might introduce a more
      accurate separation of property, and the habits of a sedentary
      life; but the love of arms and rapine was still the ruling
      passion of the Picts; and their warriors, who stripped themselves
      for a day of battle, were distinguished, in the eyes of the
      Romans, by the strange fashion of painting their naked bodies
      with gaudy colors and fantastic figures. The western part of
      Caledonia irregularly rises into wild and barren hills, which
      scarcely repay the toil of the husbandman, and are most
      profitably used for the pasture of cattle. The highlanders were
      condemned to the occupations of shepherds and hunters; and, as
      they seldom were fixed to any permanent habitation, they acquired
      the expressive name of Scots, which, in the Celtic tongue, is
      said to be equivalent to that of _wanderers_, or _vagrants_. The
      inhabitants of a barren land were urged to seek a fresh supply of
      food in the waters. The deep lakes and bays which intersect their
      country, are plentifully supplied with fish; and they gradually
      ventured to cast their nets in the waves of the ocean. The
      vicinity of the Hebrides, so profusely scattered along the
      western coast of Scotland, tempted their curiosity, and improved
      their skill; and they acquired, by slow degrees, the art, or
      rather the habit, of managing their boats in a tempestuous sea,
      and of steering their nocturnal course by the light of the
      well-known stars. The two bold headlands of Caledonia almost
      touch the shores of a spacious island, which obtained, from its
      luxuriant vegetation, the epithet of _Green;_ and has preserved,
      with a slight alteration, the name of Erin, or Ierne, or Ireland.
      It is _probable_, that in some remote period of antiquity, the
      fertile plains of Ulster received a colony of hungry Scots; and
      that the strangers of the North, who had dared to encounter the
      arms of the legions, spread their conquests over the savage and
      unwarlike natives of a solitary island. It is _certain_, that, in
      the declining age of the Roman empire, Caledonia, Ireland, and
      the Isle of Man, were inhabited by the Scots, and that the
      kindred tribes, who were often associated in military enterprise,
      were deeply affected by the various accidents of their mutual
      fortunes. They long cherished the lively tradition of their
      common name and origin; and the missionaries of the Isle of
      Saints, who diffused the light of Christianity over North
      Britain, established the vain opinion, that their Irish
      countrymen were the natural, as well as spiritual, fathers of the
      Scottish race. The loose and obscure tradition has been preserved
      by the venerable Bede, who scattered some rays of light over the
      darkness of the eighth century. On this slight foundation, a huge
      superstructure of fable was gradually reared, by the bards and
      the monks; two orders of men, who equally abused the privilege of
      fiction. The Scottish nation, with mistaken pride, adopted their
      Irish genealogy; and the annals of a long line of imaginary kings
      have been adorned by the fancy of Boethius, and the classic
      elegance of Buchanan. 111

      108 (return) [ In the beginning of the last century, the learned
      Camden was obliged to undermine, with respectful scepticism, the
      romance of _Brutus_, the Trojan; who is now buried in silent
      oblivion with _Scota_, the daughter of Pharaoh, and her numerous
      progeny. Yet I am informed, that some champions of the _Milesian
      colony_ may still be found among the original natives of Ireland.
      A people dissatisfied with their present condition, grasp at any
      visions of their past or future glory.]

      109 (return) [ Tacitus, or rather his father-in-law, Agricola,
      might remark the German or Spanish complexion of some British
      tribes. But it was their sober, deliberate opinion: ÒIn universum
      tamen ¾stimanti Gallos cicinum solum occup‰sse credibile est.
      Eorum sacra deprehendas.... ermo haud multum diversus,Ó (in Vit.
      Agricol. c. xi.) C¾sar had observed their common religion,
      (Comment. de Bello Gallico, vi. 13;) and in his time the
      emigration from the Belgic Gaul was a recent, or at least an
      historical event, (v. 10.) Camden, the British Strabo, has
      modestly ascertained our genuine antiquities, (Britannia, vol. i.
      Introduction, p. ii.Ñxxxi.)]

      110 (return) [ In the dark and doubtful paths of Caledonian
      antiquity, I have chosen for my guides two learned and ingenious
      Highlanders, whom their birth and education had peculiarly
      qualified for that office. See Critical Dissertations on the
      Origin and Antiquities, &c., of the Caledonians, by Dr. John
      Macpherson, London 1768, in 4to.; and Introduction to the History
      of Great Britain and Ireland, by James Macpherson, Esq., London
      1773, in 4to., third edit. Dr. Macpherson was a minister in the
      Isle of Sky: and it is a circumstance honorable for the present
      age, that a work, replete with erudition and criticism, should
      have been composed in the most remote of the Hebrides.]

      111 (return) [ The Irish descent of the Scots has been revived in
      the last moments of its decay, and strenuously supported, by the
      Rev. Mr. Whitaker, (Hist. of Manchester, vol. i. p. 430, 431; and
      Genuine History of the Britons asserted, &c., p. 154-293) Yet he
      acknowledges, 1. _That_ the Scots of Ammianus Marcellinus (A.D.
      340) were already settled in Caledonia; and that the Roman
      authors do not afford any hints of their emigration from another
      country. 2. _That_ all the accounts of such emigrations, which
      have been asserted or received, by Irish bards, Scotch
      historians, or English antiquaries, (Buchanan, Camden, Usher,
      Stillingfleet, &c.,) are totally fabulous. 3. _That_ three of the
      Irish tribes, which are mentioned by Ptolemy, (A.D. 150,) were of
      Caledonian extraction. 4. _That_ a younger branch of Caledonian
      princes, of the house of Fingal, acquired and possessed the
      monarchy of Ireland. After these concessions, the remaining
      difference between Mr. Whitaker and his adversaries is minute and
      obscure. The _genuine history_, which he produces, of a Fergus,
      the cousin of Ossian, who was transplanted (A.D. 320) from
      Ireland to Caledonia, is built on a conjectural supplement to the
      Erse poetry, and the feeble evidence of Richard of Cirencester, a
      monk of the fourteenth century. The lively spirit of the learned
      and ingenious antiquarian has tempted him to forget the nature of
      a question, which he so _vehemently_ debates, and so _absolutely_
      decides. * Note: This controversy has not slumbered since the
      days of Gibbon. We have strenuous advocates of the PhÏnician
      origin of the Irish, and each of the old theories, with several
      new ones, maintains its partisans. It would require several pages
      fairly to bring down the dispute to our own days, and perhaps we
      should be no nearer to any satisfactory theory than Gibbon
      was.ÑM.]




      Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
      Empire.ÑPart V.


      Six years after the death of Constantine, the destructive inroads
      of the Scots and Picts required the presence of his youngest son,
      who reigned in the Western empire. Constans visited his British
      dominions: but we may form some estimate of the importance of his
      achievements, by the language of panegyric, which celebrates only
      his triumph over the elements or, in other words, the good
      fortune of a safe and easy passage from the port of Boulogne to
      the harbor of Sandwich. 112 The calamities which the afflicted
      provincials continued to experience, from foreign war and
      domestic tyranny, were aggravated by the feeble and corrupt
      administration of the eunuchs of Constantius; and the transient
      relief which they might obtain from the virtues of Julian, was
      soon lost by the absence and death of their benefactor. The sums
      of gold and silver, which had been painfully collected, or
      liberally transmitted, for the payment of the troops, were
      intercepted by the avarice of the commanders; discharges, or, at
      least, exemptions, from the military service, were publicly sold;
      the distress of the soldiers, who were injuriously deprived of
      their legal and scanty subsistence, provoked them to frequent
      desertion; the nerves of discipline were relaxed, and the
      highways were infested with robbers. 113 The oppression of the
      good, and the impunity of the wicked, equally contributed to
      diffuse through the island a spirit of discontent and revolt; and
      every ambitious subject, every desperate exile, might entertain a
      reasonable hope of subverting the weak and distracted government
      of Britain. The hostile tribes of the North, who detested the
      pride and power of the King of the World, suspended their
      domestic feuds; and the Barbarians of the land and sea, the
      Scots, the Picts, and the Saxons, spread themselves with rapid
      and irresistible fury, from the wall of Antoninus to the shores
      of Kent. Every production of art and nature, every object of
      convenience and luxury, which they were incapable of creating by
      labor or procuring by trade, was accumulated in the rich and
      fruitful province of Britain. 114 A philosopher may deplore the
      eternal discords of the human race, but he will confess, that the
      desire of spoil is a more rational provocation than the vanity of
      conquest. From the age of Constantine to the Plantagenets, this
      rapacious spirit continued to instigate the poor and hardy
      Caledonians; but the same people, whose generous humanity seems
      to inspire the songs of Ossian, was disgraced by a savage
      ignorance of the virtues of peace, and of the laws of war. Their
      southern neighbors have felt, and perhaps exaggerated, the cruel
      depredations of the Scots and Picts; 115 and a valiant tribe of
      Caledonia, the Attacotti, 116 the enemies, and afterwards the
      soldiers, of Valentinian, are accused, by an eye-witness, of
      delighting in the taste of human flesh. When they hunted the
      woods for prey, it is said, that they attacked the shepherd
      rather than his flock; and that they curiously selected the most
      delicate and brawny parts, both of males and females, which they
      prepared for their horrid repasts. 117 If, in the neighborhood of
      the commercial and literary town of Glasgow, a race of cannibals
      has really existed, we may contemplate, in the period of the
      Scottish history, the opposite extremes of savage and civilized
      life. Such reflections tend to enlarge the circle of our ideas;
      and to encourage the pleasing hope, that New Zealand may produce,
      in some future age, the Hume of the Southern Hemisphere.

      112 (return) [ Hyeme tumentes ac s¾vientes undas calc‰stis Oceani
      sub remis vestris;... insperatam imperatoris faciem Britannus
      expavit. Julius Fermicus Maternus de Errore Profan. Relig. p.
      464. edit. Gronov. ad calcem Minuc. F¾l. See Tillemont, (Hist.
      des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 336.)]

      113 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. xxxix. p. 264. This
      curious passage has escaped the diligence of our British
      antiquaries.]

      114 (return) [ The Caledonians praised and coveted the gold, the
      steeds, the lights, &c., of the _stranger_. See Dr. BlairÕs
      Dissertation on Ossian, vol ii. p. 343; and Mr. MacphersonÕs
      Introduction, p. 242-286.]

      115 (return) [ Lord Lyttelton has circumstantially related,
      (History of Henry II. vol. i. p. 182,) and Sir David Dalrymple
      has slightly mentioned, (Annals of Scotland, vol. i. p. 69,) a
      barbarous inroad of the Scots, at a time (A.D. 1137) when law,
      religion, and society must have softened their primitive
      manners.]

      116 (return) [ Attacotti bellicosa hominum natio. Ammian. xxvii.
      8. Camden (Introduct. p. clii.) has restored their true name in
      the text of Jerom. The bands of Attacotti, which Jerom had seen
      in Gaul, were afterwards stationed in Italy and Illyricum,
      (Notitia, S. viii. xxxix. xl.)]

      117 (return) [ Cum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia viderim
      Attacottos (or Scotos) gentem Britannicam humanis vesci carnibus;
      et cum per silvas porcorum greges, et armentorum percudumque
      reperiant, pastorum _nates_ et feminarum _papillas_ solere
      abscindere; et has solas ciborum delicias arbitrari. Such is the
      evidence of Jerom, (tom. ii. p. 75,) whose veracity I find no
      reason to question. * Note: See Dr. ParrÕs works, iii. 93, where
      he questions the propriety of GibbonÕs translation of this
      passage. The learned doctor approves of the version proposed by a
      Mr. Gaches, who would make out that it was the delicate parts of
      the swine and the cattle, which were eaten by these ancestors of
      the Scotch nation. I confess that even to acquit them of this
      charge. I cannot agree to the new version, which, in my opinion,
      is directly contrary both to the meaning of the words, and the
      general sense of the passage. But I would suggest, did Jerom, as
      a boy, accompany these savages in any of their hunting
      expeditions? If he did not, how could he be an eye-witness of
      this practice? The Attacotti in Gaul must have been in the
      service of Rome. Were they permitted to indulge these cannibal
      propensities at the expense, not of the flocks, but of the
      shepherds of the provinces? These sanguinary trophies of plunder
      would scarceÕy have been publicly exhibited in a Roman city or a
      Roman camp. I must leave the hereditary pride of our northern
      neighbors at issue with the veracity of St. Jerom.ÑM.]

      Every messenger who escaped across the British Channel, conveyed
      the most melancholy and alarming tidings to the ears of
      Valentinian; and the emperor was soon informed that the two
      military commanders of the province had been surprised and cut
      off by the Barbarians. Severus, count of the domestics, was
      hastily despatched, and as suddenly recalled, by the court of
      Treves. The representations of Jovinus served only to indicate
      the greatness of the evil; and, after a long and serious
      consultation, the defence, or rather the recovery, of Britain was
      intrusted to the abilities of the brave Theodosius. The exploits
      of that general, the father of a line of emperors, have been
      celebrated, with peculiar complacency, by the writers of the age:
      but his real merit deserved their applause; and his nomination
      was received, by the army and province, as a sure presage of
      approaching victory. He seized the favorable moment of
      navigation, and securely landed the numerous and veteran bands of
      the Heruli and Batavians, the Jovians and the Victors. In his
      march from Sandwich to London, Theodosius defeated several
      parties of the Barbarians, released a multitude of captives, and,
      after distributing to his soldiers a small portion of the spoil,
      established the fame of disinterested justice, by the restitution
      of the remainder to the rightful proprietors. The citizens of
      London, who had almost despaired of their safety, threw open
      their gates; and as soon as Theodosius had obtained from the
      court of Treves the important aid of a military lieutenant, and a
      civil governor, he executed, with wisdom and vigor, the laborious
      task of the deliverance of Britain. The vagrant soldiers were
      recalled to their standard; an edict of amnesty dispelled the
      public apprehensions; and his cheerful example alleviated the
      rigor of martial discipline. The scattered and desultory warfare
      of the Barbarians, who infested the land and sea, deprived him of
      the glory of a signal victory; but the prudent spirit, and
      consummate art, of the Roman general, were displayed in the
      operations of two campaigns, which successively rescued every
      part of the province from the hands of a cruel and rapacious
      enemy. The splendor of the cities, and the security of the
      fortifications, were diligently restored, by the paternal care of
      Theodosius; who with a strong hand confined the trembling
      Caledonians to the northern angle of the island; and perpetuated,
      by the name and settlement of the new province of _Valentia_, the
      glories of the reign of Valentinian. 118 The voice of poetry and
      panegyric may add, perhaps with some degree of truth, that the
      unknown regions of Thule were stained with the blood of the
      Picts; that the oars of Theodosius dashed the waves of the
      Hyperborean ocean; and that the distant Orkneys were the scene of
      his naval victory over the Saxon pirates. 119 He left the
      province with a fair, as well as splendid, reputation; and was
      immediately promoted to the rank of master-general of the
      cavalry, by a prince who could applaud, without envy, the merit
      of his servants. In the important station of the Upper Danube,
      the conqueror of Britain checked and defeated the armies of the
      Alemanni, before he was chosen to suppress the revolt of Africa.

      118 (return) [ Ammianus has concisely represented (xx. l. xxvi.
      4, xxvii. 8 xxviii. 3) the whole series of the British war.]

      119 (return) [ Horrescit.... ratibus.... impervia Thule. Ille....
      nec falso nomine Pictos Edomuit. Scotumque vago mucrone secutus,
      Fregit Hyperboreas remis audacibus undas. Claudian, in iii. Cons.
      Honorii, ver. 53, &cÑMadurunt Saxone fuso Orcades: incaluit
      Pictorum sanguine Thule, Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis Ierne.
      In iv. Cons. Hon. ver. 31, &c. ÑÑSee likewise Pacatus, (in
      Panegyr. Vet. xii. 5.) But it is not easy to appreciate the
      intrinsic value of flattery and metaphor. Compare the _British_
      victories of Bolanus (Statius, Silv. v. 2) with his real
      character, (Tacit. in Vit. Agricol. c. 16.)]

      III. The prince who refuses to be the judge, instructs the people
      to consider him as the accomplice, of his ministers. The military
      command of Africa had been long exercised by Count Romanus, and
      his abilities were not inadequate to his station; but, as sordid
      interest was the sole motive of his conduct, he acted, on most
      occasions, as if he had been the enemy of the province, and the
      friend of the Barbarians of the desert. The three flourishing
      cities of Oea, Leptis, and Sobrata, which, under the name of
      Tripoli, had long constituted a federal union, 120 were obliged,
      for the first time, to shut their gates against a hostile
      invasion; several of their most honorable citizens were surprised
      and massacred; the villages, and even the suburbs, were pillaged;
      and the vines and fruit trees of that rich territory were
      extirpated by the malicious savages of Getulia. The unhappy
      provincials implored the protection of Romanus; but they soon
      found that their military governor was not less cruel and
      rapacious than the Barbarians. As they were incapable of
      furnishing the four thousand camels, and the exorbitant present,
      which he required, before he would march to the assistance of
      Tripoli; his demand was equivalent to a refusal, and he might
      justly be accused as the author of the public calamity. In the
      annual assembly of the three cities, they nominated two deputies,
      to lay at the feet of Valentinian the customary offering of a
      gold victory; and to accompany this tribute of duty, rather than
      of gratitude, with their humble complaint, that they were ruined
      by the enemy, and betrayed by their governor. If the severity of
      Valentinian had been rightly directed, it would have fallen on
      the guilty head of Romanus. But the count, long exercised in the
      arts of corruption, had despatched a swift and trusty messenger
      to secure the venal friendship of Remigius, master of the
      offices. The wisdom of the Imperial council was deceived by
      artifice; and their honest indignation was cooled by delay. At
      length, when the repetition of complaint had been justified by
      the repetition of public misfortunes, the notary Palladius was
      sent from the court of Treves, to examine the state of Africa,
      and the conduct of Romanus. The rigid impartiality of Palladius
      was easily disarmed: he was tempted to reserve for himself a part
      of the public treasure, which he brought with him for the payment
      of the troops; and from the moment that he was conscious of his
      own guilt, he could no longer refuse to attest the innocence and
      merit of the count. The charge of the Tripolitans was declared to
      be false and frivolous; and Palladius himself was sent back from
      Treves to Africa, with a special commission to discover and
      prosecute the authors of this impious conspiracy against the
      representatives of the sovereign. His inquiries were managed with
      so much dexterity and success, that he compelled the citizens of
      Leptis, who had sustained a recent siege of eight days, to
      contradict the truth of their own decrees, and to censure the
      behavior of their own deputies. A bloody sentence was pronounced,
      without hesitation, by the rash and headstrong cruelty of
      Valentinian. The president of Tripoli, who had presumed to pity
      the distress of the province, was publicly executed at Utica;
      four distinguished citizens were put to death, as the accomplices
      of the imaginary fraud; and the tongues of two others were cut
      out, by the express order of the emperor. Romanus, elated by
      impunity, and irritated by resistance, was still continued in the
      military command; till the Africans were provoked, by his
      avarice, to join the rebellious standard of Firmus, the Moor. 121

      120 (return) [ Ammianus frequently mentions their concilium
      annuum, legitimum, &c. Leptis and Sabrata are long since ruined;
      but the city of Oea, the native country of Apuleius, still
      flourishes under the provincial denomination of _Tripoli_. See
      Cellarius (Geograph. Antiqua, tom. ii. part ii. p. 81,)
      DÕAnville, (Geographie Ancienne, tom. iii. p. 71, 72,) and
      Marmol, (Arrique, tom. ii. p. 562.)]

      121 (return) [ Ammian. xviii. 6. Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs,
      tom. v. p 25, 676) has discussed the chronological difficulties
      of the history of Count Romanus.]

      His father Nabal was one of the richest and most powerful of the
      Moorish princes, who acknowledged the supremacy of Rome. But as
      he left, either by his wives or concubines, a very numerous
      posterity, the wealthy inheritance was eagerly disputed; and
      Zamma, one of his sons, was slain in a domestic quarrel by his
      brother Firmus. The implacable zeal, with which Romanus
      prosecuted the legal revenge of this murder, could be ascribed
      only to a motive of avarice, or personal hatred; but, on this
      occasion, his claims were just; his influence was weighty; and
      Firmus clearly understood, that he must either present his neck
      to the executioner, or appeal from the sentence of the Imperial
      consistory, to his sword, and to the people. 122 He was received
      as the deliverer of his country; and, as soon as it appeared that
      Romanus was formidable only to a submissive province, the tyrant
      of Africa became the object of universal contempt. The ruin of
      C¾sarea, which was plundered and burnt by the licentious
      Barbarians, convinced the refractory cities of the danger of
      resistance; the power of Firmus was established, at least in the
      provinces of Mauritania and Numidia; and it seemed to be his only
      doubt whether he should assume the diadem of a Moorish king, or
      the purple of a Roman emperor. But the imprudent and unhappy
      Africans soon discovered, that, in this rash insurrection, they
      had not sufficiently consulted their own strength, or the
      abilities of their leader. Before he could procure any certain
      intelligence, that the emperor of the West had fixed the choice
      of a general, or that a fleet of transports was collected at the
      mouth of the Rhone, he was suddenly informed that the great
      Theodosius, with a small band of veterans, had landed near
      Igilgilis, or Gigeri, on the African coast; and the timid usurper
      sunk under the ascendant of virtue and military genius. Though
      Firmus possessed arms and treasures, his despair of victory
      immediately reduced him to the use of those arts, which, in the
      same country, and in a similar situation, had formerly been
      practised by the crafty Jugurtha. He attempted to deceive, by an
      apparent submission, the vigilance of the Roman general; to
      seduce the fidelity of his troops; and to protract the duration
      of the war, by successively engaging the independent tribes of
      Africa to espouse his quarrel, or to protect his flight.
      Theodosius imitated the example, and obtained the success, of his
      predecessor Metellus. When Firmus, in the character of a
      suppliant, accused his own rashness, and humbly solicited the
      clemency of the emperor, the lieutenant of Valentinian received
      and dismissed him with a friendly embrace: but he diligently
      required the useful and substantial pledges of a sincere
      repentance; nor could he be persuaded, by the assurances of
      peace, to suspend, for an instant, the operations of an active
      war. A dark conspiracy was detected by the penetration of
      Theodosius; and he satisfied, without much reluctance, the public
      indignation, which he had secretly excited. Several of the guilty
      accomplices of Firmus were abandoned, according to ancient
      custom, to the tumult of a military execution; many more, by the
      amputation of both their hands, continued to exhibit an
      instructive spectacle of horror; the hatred of the rebels was
      accompanied with fear; and the fear of the Roman soldiers was
      mingled with respectful admiration. Amidst the boundless plains
      of Getulia, and the innumerable valleys of Mount Atlas, it was
      impossible to prevent the escape of Firmus; and if the usurper
      could have tired the patience of his antagonist, he would have
      secured his person in the depth of some remote solitude, and
      expected the hopes of a future revolution. He was subdued by the
      perseverance of Theodosius; who had formed an inflexible
      determination, that the war should end only by the death of the
      tyrant; and that every nation of Africa, which presumed to
      support his cause, should be involved in his ruin. At the head of
      a small body of troops, which seldom exceeded three thousand five
      hundred men, the Roman general advanced, with a steady prudence,
      devoid of rashness or of fear, into the heart of a country, where
      he was sometimes attacked by armies of twenty thousand Moors. The
      boldness of his charge dismayed the irregular Barbarians; they
      were disconcerted by his seasonable and orderly retreats; they
      were continually baffled by the unknown resources of the military
      art; and they felt and confessed the just superiority which was
      assumed by the leader of a civilized nation. When Theodosius
      entered the extensive dominions of Igmazen, king of the
      Isaflenses, the haughty savage required, in words of defiance,
      his name, and the object of his expedition. ÒI am,Ó replied the
      stern and disdainful count, ÒI am the general of Valentinian, the
      lord of the world; who has sent me hither to pursue and punish a
      desperate robber. Deliver him instantly into my hands; and be
      assured, that if thou dost not obey the commands of my invincible
      sovereign, thou, and the people over whom thou reignest, shall be
      utterly extirpated.Ó 12211 As soon as Igmazen was satisfied, that
      his enemy had strength and resolution to execute the fatal
      menace, he consented to purchase a necessary peace by the
      sacrifice of a guilty fugitive. The guards that were placed to
      secure the person of Firmus deprived him of the hopes of escape;
      and the Moorish tyrant, after wine had extinguished the sense of
      danger, disappointed the insulting triumph of the Romans, by
      strangling himself in the night. His dead body, the only present
      which Igmazen could offer to the conqueror, was carelessly thrown
      upon a camel; and Theodosius, leading back his victorious troops
      to Sitifi, was saluted by the warmest acclamations of joy and
      loyalty. 123

      122 (return) [ The Chronology of Ammianus is loose and obscure;
      and Orosius (i. vii. c. 33, p. 551, edit. Havercamp) seems to
      place the revolt of Firmus after the deaths of Valentinian and
      Valens. Tillemont (Hist. des. Emp. tom. v. p. 691) endeavors to
      pick his way. The patient and sure-foot mule of the Alps may be
      trusted in the most slippery paths.]

      12211 (return) [ The war was longer protracted than this sentence
      would lead us to suppose: it was not till defeated more than once
      that Igmazen yielded Amm. xxix. 5.ÑM]

      123 (return) [ Ammian xxix. 5. The text of this long chapter
      (fifteen quarto pages) is broken and corrupted; and the narrative
      is perplexed by the want of chronological and geographical
      landmarks.]

      Africa had been lost by the vices of Romanus; it was restored by
      the virtues of Theodosius; and our curiosity may be usefully
      directed to the inquiry of the respective treatment which the two
      generals received from the Imperial court. The authority of Count
      Romanus had been suspended by the master-general of the cavalry;
      and he was committed to safe and honorable custody till the end
      of the war. His crimes were proved by the most authentic
      evidence; and the public expected, with some impatience, the
      decree of severe justice. But the partial and powerful favor of
      Mellobaudes encouraged him to challenge his legal judges, to
      obtain repeated delays for the purpose of procuring a crowd of
      friendly witnesses, and, finally, to cover his guilty conduct, by
      the additional guilt of fraud and forgery. About the same time,
      the restorer of Britain and Africa, on a vague suspicion that his
      name and services were superior to the rank of a subject, was
      ignominiously beheaded at Carthage. Valentinian no longer
      reigned; and the death of Theodosius, as well as the impunity of
      Romanus, may justly be imputed to the arts of the ministers, who
      abused the confidence, and deceived the inexperienced youth, of
      his sons. 124

      124 (return) [ Ammian xxviii. 4. Orosius, l. vii. c. 33, p. 551,
      552. Jerom. in Chron. p. 187.]

      If the geographical accuracy of Ammianus had been fortunately
      bestowed on the British exploits of Theodosius, we should have
      traced, with eager curiosity, the distinct and domestic footsteps
      of his march. But the tedious enumeration of the unknown and
      uninteresting tribes of Africa may be reduced to the general
      remark, that they were all of the swarthy race of the Moors; that
      they inhabited the back settlements of the Mauritanian and
      Numidian province, the country, as they have since been termed by
      the Arabs, of dates and of locusts; 125 and that, as the Roman
      power declined in Africa, the boundary of civilized manners and
      cultivated land was insensibly contracted. Beyond the utmost
      limits of the Moors, the vast and inhospitable desert of the
      South extends above a thousand miles to the banks of the Niger.
      The ancients, who had a very faint and imperfect knowledge of the
      great peninsula of Africa, were sometimes tempted to believe,
      that the torrid zone must ever remain destitute of inhabitants;
      126 and they sometimes amused their fancy by filling the vacant
      space with headless men, or rather monsters; 127 with horned and
      cloven-footed satyrs; 128 with fabulous centaurs; 129 and with
      human pygmies, who waged a bold and doubtful warfare against the
      cranes. 130 Carthage would have trembled at the strange
      intelligence that the countries on either side of the equator
      were filled with innumerable nations, who differed only in their
      color from the ordinary appearance of the human species: and the
      subjects of the Roman empire might have anxiously expected, that
      the swarms of Barbarians, which issued from the North, would soon
      be encountered from the South by new swarms of Barbarians,
      equally fierce and equally formidable. These gloomy terrors would
      indeed have been dispelled by a more intimate acquaintance with
      the character of their African enemies. The inaction of the
      negroes does not seem to be the effect either of their virtue or
      of their pusillanimity. They indulge, like the rest of mankind,
      their passions and appetites; and the adjacent tribes are engaged
      in frequent acts of hostility. 131 But their rude ignorance has
      never invented any effectual weapons of defence, or of
      destruction; they appear incapable of forming any extensive plans
      of government, or conquest; and the obvious inferiority of their
      mental faculties has been discovered and abused by the nations of
      the temperate zone. Sixty thousand blacks are annually embarked
      from the coast of Guinea, never to return to their native
      country; but they are embarked in chains; 132 and this constant
      emigration, which, in the space of two centuries, might have
      furnished armies to overrun the globe, accuses the guilt of
      Europe, and the weakness of Africa.

      125 (return) [ Leo Africanus (in the Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i.
      fol. 78-83) has traced a curious picture of the people and the
      country; which are more minutely described in the Afrique de
      Marmol, tom. iii. p. 1-54.]

      126 (return) [ This uninhabitable zone was gradually reduced by
      the improvements of ancient geography, from forty-five to
      twenty-four, or even sixteen degrees of latitude. See a learned
      and judicious note of Dr. Robertson, Hist. of America, vol. i. p.
      426.]

      127 (return) [ Intra, si credere libet, vix jam homines et magis
      semiferi... Blemmyes, Satyri, &c. Pomponius Mela, i. 4, p. 26,
      edit. Voss. in 8vo. Pliny _philosophically_ explains (vi. 35) the
      irregularities of nature, which he had _credulously_ admitted,
      (v. 8.)]

      128 (return) [ If the satyr was the Orang-outang, the great human
      ape, (Buffon, Hist. Nat. tom. xiv. p. 43, &c.,) one of that
      species might actually be shown alive at Alexandria, in the reign
      of Constantine. Yet some difficulty will still remain about the
      conversation which St. Anthony held with one of these pious
      savages, in the desert of Thebais. (Jerom. in Vit. Paul. Eremit.
      tom. i. p. 238.)]

      129 (return) [ St. Anthony likewise met one of _these_ monsters;
      whose existence was seriously asserted by the emperor Claudius.
      The public laughed; but his pr¾fect of Egypt had the address to
      send an artful preparation, the embalmed corpse of a
      _Hippocentaur_, which was preserved almost a century afterwards
      in the Imperial palace. See Pliny, (Hist. Natur. vii. 3,) and the
      judicious observations of Freret. (MŽmoires de lÕAcad. tom. vii.
      p. 321, &c.)]

      130 (return) [ The fable of the pygmies is as old as Homer,
      (Iliad. iii. 6) The pygmies of India and ®thiopia were
      (trispithami) twenty-seven inches high. Every spring their
      cavalry (mounted on rams and goats) marched, in battle array, to
      destroy the cranesÕ eggs, aliter (says Pliny) futuris gregibus
      non resisti. Their houses were built of mud, feathers, and
      egg-shells. See Pliny, (vi. 35, vii. 2,) and Strabo, (l. ii. p.
      121.)]

      131 (return) [ The third and fourth volumes of the valuable
      Histoire des Voyages describe the present state of the Negroes.
      The nations of the sea-coast have been polished by European
      commerce; and those of the inland country have been improved by
      Moorish colonies. * Note: The martial tribes in chain armor,
      discovered by Denham, are Mahometan; the great question of the
      inferiority of the African tribes in their mental faculties will
      probably be experimentally resolved before the close of the
      century; but the Slave Trade still continues, and will, it is to
      be feared, till the spirit of gain is subdued by the spirit of
      Christian humanity.ÑM.]

      132 (return) [ Histoire Philosophique et Politique, &c., tom. iv.
      p. 192.]




      Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
      Empire.ÑPart VI.


      IV. The ignominious treaty, which saved the army of Jovian, had
      been faithfully executed on the side of the Romans; and as they
      had solemnly renounced the sovereignty and alliance of Armenia
      and Iberia, those tributary kingdoms were exposed, without
      protection, to the arms of the Persian monarch. 133 Sapor entered
      the Armenian territories at the head of a formidable host of
      cuirassiers, of archers, and of mercenary foot; but it was the
      invariable practice of Sapor to mix war and negotiation, and to
      consider falsehood and perjury as the most powerful instruments
      of regal policy. He affected to praise the prudent and moderate
      conduct of the king of Armenia; and the unsuspicious Tiranus was
      persuaded, by the repeated assurances of insidious friendship, to
      deliver his person into the hands of a faithless and cruel enemy.
      In the midst of a splendid entertainment, he was bound in chains
      of silver, as an honor due to the blood of the Arsacides; and,
      after a short confinement in the Tower of Oblivion at Ecbatana,
      he was released from the miseries of life, either by his own
      dagger, or by that of an assassin. 13311 The kingdom of Armenia
      was reduced to the state of a Persian province; the
      administration was shared between a distinguished satrap and a
      favorite eunuch; and Sapor marched, without delay, to subdue the
      martial spirit of the Iberians. Sauromaces, who reigned in that
      country by the permission of the emperors, was expelled by a
      superior force; and, as an insult on the majesty of Rome, the
      king of kings placed a diadem on the head of his abject vassal
      Aspacuras. The city of Artogerassa 134 was the only place of
      Armenia 13411 which presumed to resist the efforts of his arms.
      The treasure deposited in that strong fortress tempted the
      avarice of Sapor; but the danger of Olympias, the wife or widow
      of the Armenian king, excited the public compassion, and animated
      the desperate valor of her subjects and soldiers. 13412 The
      Persians were surprised and repulsed under the walls of
      Artogerassa, by a bold and well-concerted sally of the besieged.
      But the forces of Sapor were continually renewed and increased;
      the hopeless courage of the garrison was exhausted; the strength
      of the walls yielded to the assault; and the proud conqueror,
      after wasting the rebellious city with fire and sword, led away
      captive an unfortunate queen; who, in a more auspicious hour, had
      been the destined bride of the son of Constantine. 135 Yet if
      Sapor already triumphed in the easy conquest of two dependent
      kingdoms, he soon felt, that a country is unsubdued as long as
      the minds of the people are actuated by a hostile and
      contumacious spirit. The satraps, whom he was obliged to trust,
      embraced the first opportunity of regaining the affection of
      their countrymen, and of signalizing their immortal hatred to the
      Persian name. Since the conversion of the Armenians and Iberians,
      these nations considered the Christians as the favorites, and the
      Magians as the adversaries, of the Supreme Being: the influence
      of the clergy, over a superstitious people was uniformly exerted
      in the cause of Rome; and as long as the successors of
      Constantine disputed with those of Artaxerxes the sovereignty of
      the intermediate provinces, the religious connection always threw
      a decisive advantage into the scale of the empire. A numerous and
      active party acknowledged Para, the son of Tiranus, as the lawful
      sovereign of Armenia, and his title to the throne was deeply
      rooted in the hereditary succession of five hundred years. By the
      unanimous consent of the Iberians, the country was equally
      divided between the rival princes; and Aspacuras, who owed his
      diadem to the choice of Sapor, was obliged to declare, that his
      regard for his children, who were detained as hostages by the
      tyrant, was the only consideration which prevented him from
      openly renouncing the alliance of Persia. The emperor Valens, who
      respected the obligations of the treaty, and who was apprehensive
      of involving the East in a dangerous war, ventured, with slow and
      cautious measures, to support the Roman party in the kingdoms of
      Iberia and Armenia. 13511 Twelve legions established the
      authority of Sauromaces on the banks of the Cyrus. The Euphrates
      was protected by the valor of Arintheus. A powerful army, under
      the command of Count Trajan, and of Vadomair, king of the
      Alemanni, fixed their camp on the confines of Armenia. But they
      were strictly enjoined not to commit the first hostilities, which
      might be understood as a breach of the treaty: and such was the
      implicit obedience of the Roman general, that they retreated,
      with exemplary patience, under a shower of Persian arrows till
      they had clearly acquired a just title to an honorable and
      legitimate victory. Yet these appearances of war insensibly
      subsided in a vain and tedious negotiation. The contending
      parties supported their claims by mutual reproaches of perfidy
      and ambition; and it should seem, that the original treaty was
      expressed in very obscure terms, since they were reduced to the
      necessity of making their inconclusive appeal to the partial
      testimony of the generals of the two nations, who had assisted at
      the negotiations. 136 The invasion of the Goths and Huns which
      soon afterwards shook the foundations of the Roman empire,
      exposed the provinces of Asia to the arms of Sapor. But the
      declining age, and perhaps the infirmities, of the monarch
      suggested new maxims of tranquillity and moderation. His death,
      which happened in the full maturity of a reign of seventy years,
      changed in a moment the court and councils of Persia; and their
      attention was most probably engaged by domestic troubles, and the
      distant efforts of a Carmanian war. 137 The remembrance of
      ancient injuries was lost in the enjoyment of peace. The kingdoms
      of Armenia and Iberia were permitted, by the mutual,though tacit
      consent of both empires, to resume their doubtful neutrality. In
      the first years of the reign of Theodosius, a Persian embassy
      arrived at Constantinople, to excuse the unjustifiable measures
      of the former reign; and to offer, as the tribute of friendship,
      or even of respect, a splendid present of gems, of silk, and of
      Indian elephants. 138

      133 (return) [ The evidence of Ammianus is original and decisive,
      (xxvii. 12.) Moses of Chorene, (l. iii. c. 17, p. 249, and c. 34,
      p. 269,) and Procopius, (de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 5, p. 17,
      edit. Louvre,) have been consulted: but those historians who
      confound distinct facts, repeat the same events, and introduce
      strange stories, must be used with diffidence and caution. Note:
      The statement of Ammianus is more brief and succinct, but
      harmonizes with the more complicated history developed by M. St.
      Martin from the Armenian writers, and from Procopius, who wrote,
      as he states from Armenian authorities.ÑM.]

      13311 (return) [ According to M. St. Martin, Sapor, though
      supported by the two apostate Armenian princes, Meroujan the
      Ardzronnian and Vahan the Mamigonian, was gallantly resisted by
      Arsaces, and his brave though impious wife Pharandsem. His troops
      were defeated by Vasag, the high constable of the kingdom. (See
      M. St. Martin.) But after four yearsÕ courageous defence of his
      kingdom, Arsaces was abandoned by his nobles, and obliged to
      accept the perfidious hospitality of Sapor. He was blinded and
      imprisoned in the ÒCastle of Oblivion;Ó his brave general Vasag
      was flayed alive; his skin stuffed and placed near the king in
      his lonely prison. It was not till many years after (A.D. 371)
      that he stabbed himself, according to the romantic story, (St. M.
      iii. 387, 389,) in a paroxysm of excitement at his restoration to
      royal honors. St. Martin, Additions to Le Beau, iii. 283,
      296.ÑM.]

      134 (return) [ Perhaps Artagera, or Ardis; under whose walls
      Caius, the grandson of Augustus, was wounded. This fortress was
      situate above Amida, near one of the sources of the Tigris. See
      DÕAnville, Geographie Ancienue, tom. ii. p. 106. * Note: St.
      Martin agrees with Gibbon, that it was the same fortress with
      Ardis Note, p. 373.ÑM.]

      13411 (return) [ Artaxata, Vagharschabad, or Edchmiadzin,
      Erovantaschad, and many other cities, in all of which there was a
      considerable Jewish population were taken and destroyed.ÑM.]

      13412 (return) [ Pharandsem, not Olympias, refusing the orders of
      her captive husband to surrender herself to Sapor, threw herself
      into Artogerassa St. Martin, iii. 293, 302. She defended herself
      for fourteen months, till famine and disease had left few
      survivors out of 11,000 soldiers and 6000 women who had taken
      refuge in the fortress. She then threw open the gates with her
      own hand. M. St. Martin adds, what even the horrors of Oriental
      warfare will scarcely permit us to credit, that she was exposed
      by Sapor on a public scaffold to the brutal lusts of his
      soldiery, and afterwards empaled, iii. 373, &c.ÑM.]

      135 (return) [ Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 701)
      proves, from chronology, that Olympias must have been the mother
      of Para. Note *: An error according to St. M. 273.ÑM.]

      13511 (return) [ According to Themistius, quoted by St. Martin,
      he once advanced to the Tigris, iii. 436.ÑM.]

      136 (return) [ Ammianus (xxvii. 12, xix. 1. xxx. 1, 2) has
      described the events, without the dates, of the Persian war.
      Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armen. l. iii. c. 28, p. 261, c. 31, p.
      266, c. 35, p. 271) affords some additional facts; but it is
      extremely difficult to separate truth from fable.]

      137 (return) [ Artaxerxes was the successor and brother (_the
      cousin-german_) of the great Sapor; and the guardian of his son,
      Sapor III. (Agathias, l. iv. p. 136, edit. Louvre.) See the
      Universal History, vol. xi. p. 86, 161. The authors of that
      unequal work have compiled the Sassanian dynasty with erudition
      and diligence; but it is a preposterous arrangement to divide the
      Roman and Oriental accounts into two distinct histories. * Note:
      On the war of Sapor with the Bactrians, which diverted from
      Armenia, see St. M. iii. 387.ÑM.]

      138 (return) [ Pacatus in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 22, and Orosius, l.
      vii. c. 34. Ictumque tum fÏdus est, quo universus Oriens usque ad
      num (A. D. 416) tranquillissime fruitur.]

      In the general picture of the affairs of the East under the reign
      of Valens, the adventures of Para form one of the most striking
      and singular objects. The noble youth, by the persuasion of his
      mother Olympias, had escaped through the Persian host that
      besieged Artogerassa, and implored the protection of the emperor
      of the East. By his timid councils, Para was alternately
      supported, and recalled, and restored, and betrayed. The hopes of
      the Armenians were sometimes raised by the presence of their
      natural sovereign, 13811 and the ministers of Valens were
      satisfied, that they preserved the integrity of the public faith,
      if their vassal was not suffered to assume the diadem and title
      of King. But they soon repented of their own rashness. They were
      confounded by the reproaches and threats of the Persian monarch.
      They found reason to distrust the cruel and inconstant temper of
      Para himself; who sacrificed, to the slightest suspicions, the
      lives of his most faithful servants, and held a secret and
      disgraceful correspondence with the assassin of his father and
      the enemy of his country. Under the specious pretence of
      consulting with the emperor on the subject of their common
      interest, Para was persuaded to descend from the mountains of
      Armenia, where his party was in arms, and to trust his
      independence and safety to the discretion of a perfidious court.
      The king of Armenia, for such he appeared in his own eyes and in
      those of his nation, was received with due honors by the
      governors of the provinces through which he passed; but when he
      arrived at Tarsus in Cilicia, his progress was stopped under
      various pretences; his motions were watched with respectful
      vigilance, and he gradually discovered, that he was a prisoner in
      the hands of the Romans. Para suppressed his indignation,
      dissembled his fears, and after secretly preparing his escape,
      mounted on horseback with three hundred of his faithful
      followers. The officer stationed at the door of his apartment
      immediately communicated his flight to the consular of Cilicia,
      who overtook him in the suburbs, and endeavored without success,
      to dissuade him from prosecuting his rash and dangerous design. A
      legion was ordered to pursue the royal fugitive; but the pursuit
      of infantry could not be very alarming to a body of light
      cavalry; and upon the first cloud of arrows that was discharged
      into the air, they retreated with precipitation to the gates of
      Tarsus. After an incessant march of two days and two nights, Para
      and his Armenians reached the banks of the Euphrates; but the
      passage of the river which they were obliged to swim, 13812 was
      attended with some delay and some loss. The country was alarmed;
      and the two roads, which were only separated by an interval of
      three miles had been occupied by a thousand archers on horseback,
      under the command of a count and a tribune. Para must have
      yielded to superior force, if the accidental arrival of a
      friendly traveller had not revealed the danger and the means of
      escape. A dark and almost impervious path securely conveyed the
      Armenian troop through the thicket; and Para had left behind him
      the count and the tribune, while they patiently expected his
      approach along the public highways. They returned to the Imperial
      court to excuse their want of diligence or success; and seriously
      alleged, that the king of Armenia, who was a skilful magician,
      had transformed himself and his followers, and passed before
      their eyes under a borrowed shape. 13813 After his return to his
      native kingdom, Para still continued to profess himself the
      friend and ally of the Romans: but the Romans had injured him too
      deeply ever to forgive, and the secret sentence of his death was
      signed in the council of Valens. The execution of the bloody deed
      was committed to the subtle prudence of Count Trajan; and he had
      the merit of insinuating himself into the confidence of the
      credulous prince, that he might find an opportunity of stabbing
      him to the heart Para was invited to a Roman banquet, which had
      been prepared with all the pomp and sensuality of the East; the
      hall resounded with cheerful music, and the company was already
      heated with wine; when the count retired for an instant, drew his
      sword, and gave the signal of the murder. A robust and desperate
      Barbarian instantly rushed on the king of Armenia; and though he
      bravely defended his life with the first weapon that chance
      offered to his hand, the table of the Imperial general was
      stained with the royal blood of a guest, and an ally. Such were
      the weak and wicked maxims of the Roman administration, that, to
      attain a doubtful object of political interest the laws of
      nations, and the sacred rights of hospitality were inhumanly
      violated in the face of the world. 139

      13811 (return) [ On the reconquest of Armenia by Para, or rather
      by Mouschegh, the Mamigonian see St. M. iii. 375, 383.ÑM.]

      13812 (return) [ On planks floated by bladders.ÑM.]

      13813 (return) [ It is curious enough that the Armenian
      historian, Faustus of Byzandum, represents Para as a magician.
      His impious mother Pharandac had devoted him to the demons on his
      birth. St. M. iv. 23.ÑM.]

      139 (return) [ See in Ammianus (xxx. 1) the adventures of Para.
      Moses of Chorene calls him Tiridates; and tells a long, and not
      improbable story of his son Gnelus, who afterwards made himself
      popular in Armenia, and provoked the jealousy of the reigning
      king, (l. iii. c 21, &c., p. 253, &c.) * Note: This note is a
      tissue of mistakes. Tiridates and Para are two totally different
      persons. Tiridates was the father of Gnel first husband of
      Pharandsem, the mother of Para. St. Martin, iv. 27ÑM.]

      V. During a peaceful interval of thirty years, the Romans secured
      their frontiers, and the Goths extended their dominions. The
      victories of the great Hermanric, 140 king of the Ostrogoths, and
      the most noble of the race of the Amali, have been compared, by
      the enthusiasm of his countrymen, to the exploits of Alexander;
      with this singular, and almost incredible, difference, that the
      martial spirit of the Gothic hero, instead of being supported by
      the vigor of youth, was displayed with glory and success in the
      extreme period of human life, between the age of fourscore and
      one hundred and ten years. The independent tribes were persuaded,
      or compelled, to acknowledge the king of the Ostrogoths as the
      sovereign of the Gothic nation: the chiefs of the Visigoths, or
      Thervingi, renounced the royal title, and assumed the more humble
      appellation of _Judges;_ and, among those judges, Athanaric,
      Fritigern, and Alavivus, were the most illustrious, by their
      personal merit, as well as by their vicinity to the Roman
      provinces. These domestic conquests, which increased the military
      power of Hermanric, enlarged his ambitious designs. He invaded
      the adjacent countries of the North; and twelve considerable
      nations, whose names and limits cannot be accurately defined,
      successively yielded to the superiority of the Gothic arms. 141
      The Heruli, who inhabited the marshy lands near the lake M¾otis,
      were renowned for their strength and agility; and the assistance
      of their light infantry was eagerly solicited, and highly
      esteemed, in all the wars of the Barbarians. But the active
      spirit of the Heruli was subdued by the slow and steady
      perseverance of the Goths; and, after a bloody action, in which
      the king was slain, the remains of that warlike tribe became a
      useful accession to the camp of Hermanric.

      He then marched against the Venedi; unskilled in the use of arms,
      and formidable only by their numbers, which filled the wide
      extent of the plains of modern Poland. The victorious Goths, who
      were not inferior in numbers, prevailed in the contest, by the
      decisive advantages of exercise and discipline. After the
      submission of the Venedi, the conqueror advanced, without
      resistance, as far as the confines of the ®stii; 142 an ancient
      people, whose name is still preserved in the province of
      Esthonia. Those distant inhabitants of the Baltic coast were
      supported by the labors of agriculture, enriched by the trade of
      amber, and consecrated by the peculiar worship of the Mother of
      the Gods. But the scarcity of iron obliged the ®stian warriors to
      content themselves with wooden clubs; and the reduction of that
      wealthy country is ascribed to the prudence, rather than to the
      arms, of Hermanric. His dominions, which extended from the Danube
      to the Baltic, included the native seats, and the recent
      acquisitions, of the Goths; and he reigned over the greatest part
      of Germany and Scythia with the authority of a conqueror, and
      sometimes with the cruelty of a tyrant. But he reigned over a
      part of the globe incapable of perpetuating and adorning the
      glory of its heroes. The name of Hermanric is almost buried in
      oblivion; his exploits are imperfectly known; and the Romans
      themselves appeared unconscious of the progress of an aspiring
      power which threatened the liberty of the North, and the peace of
      the empire. 143

      140 (return) [ The concise account of the reign and conquests of
      Hermanric seems to be one of the valuable fragments which
      Jornandes (c 28) borrowed from the Gothic histories of Ablavius,
      or Cassiodorus.]

      141 (return) [ M. d. Buat. (Hist. des Peuples de lÕEurope, tom.
      vi. p. 311-329) investigates, with more industry than success,
      the nations subdued by the arms of Hermanric. He denies the
      existence of the _Vasinobronc¾_, on account of the immoderate
      length of their name. Yet the French envoy to Ratisbon, or
      Dresden, must have traversed the country of the _Mediomatrici_.]

      142 (return) [ The edition of Grotius (Jornandes, p. 642)
      exhibits the name of _®stri_. But reason and the Ambrosian MS.
      have restored the _®stii_, whose manners and situation are
      expressed by the pencil of Tacitus, (Germania, c. 45.)]

      143 (return) [ Ammianus (xxxi. 3) observes, in general terms,
      Ermenrichi.... nobilissimi Regis, et per multa variaque fortiter
      facta, vicinigentibus formidati, &c.]

      The Goths had contracted an hereditary attachment for the
      Imperial house of Constantine, of whose power and liberality they
      had received so many signal proofs. They respected the public
      peace; and if a hostile band sometimes presumed to pass the Roman
      limit, their irregular conduct was candidly ascribed to the
      ungovernable spirit of the Barbarian youth. Their contempt for
      two new and obscure princes, who had been raised to the throne by
      a popular election, inspired the Goths with bolder hopes; and,
      while they agitated some design of marching their confederate
      force under the national standard, 144 they were easily tempted
      to embrace the party of Procopius; and to foment, by their
      dangerous aid, the civil discord of the Romans. The public treaty
      might stipulate no more than ten thousand auxiliaries; but the
      design was so zealously adopted by the chiefs of the Visigoths,
      that the army which passed the Danube amounted to the number of
      thirty thousand men. 145 They marched with the proud confidence,
      that their invincible valor would decide the fate of the Roman
      empire; and the provinces of Thrace groaned under the weight of
      the Barbarians, who displayed the insolence of masters and the
      licentiousness of enemies. But the intemperance which gratified
      their appetites, retarded their progress; and before the Goths
      could receive any certain intelligence of the defeat and death of
      Procopius, they perceived, by the hostile state of the country,
      that the civil and military powers were resumed by his successful
      rival. A chain of posts and fortifications, skilfully disposed by
      Valens, or the generals of Valens, resisted their march,
      prevented their retreat, and intercepted their subsistence. The
      fierceness of the Barbarians was tamed and suspended by hunger;
      they indignantly threw down their arms at the feet of the
      conqueror, who offered them food and chains: the numerous
      captives were distributed in all the cities of the East; and the
      provincials, who were soon familiarized with their savage
      appearance, ventured, by degrees, to measure their own strength
      with these formidable adversaries, whose name had so long been
      the object of their terror. The king of Scythia (and Hermanric
      alone could deserve so lofty a title) was grieved and exasperated
      by this national calamity. His ambassadors loudly complained, at
      the court of Valens, of the infraction of the ancient and solemn
      alliance, which had so long subsisted between the Romans and the
      Goths. They alleged, that they had fulfilled the duty of allies,
      by assisting the kinsman and successor of the emperor Julian;
      they required the immediate restitution of the noble captives;
      and they urged a very singular claim, that the Gothic generals
      marching in arms, and in hostile array, were entitled to the
      sacred character and privileges of ambassadors. The decent, but
      peremptory, refusal of these extravagant demands, was signified
      to the Barbarians by Victor, master-general of the cavalry; who
      expressed, with force and dignity, the just complaints of the
      emperor of the East. 146 The negotiation was interrupted; and the
      manly exhortations of Valentinian encouraged his timid brother to
      vindicate the insulted majesty of the empire. 147

      144 (return) [ Valens. ... docetur relationibus Ducum, gentem
      Gothorum, ea tempestate intactam ideoque s¾vissimam, conspirantem
      in unum, ad pervadenda parari collimitia Thraciarum. Ammian. xxi.
      6.]

      145 (return) [ M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de lÕEurope, tom.
      vi. p. 332) has curiously ascertained the real number of these
      auxiliaries. The 3000 of Ammianus, and the 10,000 of Zosimus,
      were only the first divisions of the Gothic army. * Note: M. St.
      Martin (iii. 246) denies that there is any authority for these
      numbers.ÑM.]

      146 (return) [ The march, and subsequent negotiation, are
      described in the Fragments of Eunapius, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 18,
      edit. Louvre.) The provincials who afterwards became familiar
      with the Barbarians, found that their strength was more apparent
      than real. They were tall of stature; but their legs were clumsy,
      and their shoulders were narrow.]

      147 (return) [ Valens enim, ut consulto placuerat fratri, cujus
      regebatur arbitrio, arma concussit in Gothos ratione just‰
      permotus. Ammianus (xxvii. 4) then proceeds to describe, not the
      country of the Goths, but the peaceful and obedient province of
      Thrace, which was not affected by the war.]

      The splendor and magnitude of this Gothic war are celebrated by a
      contemporary historian: 148 but the events scarcely deserve the
      attention of posterity, except as the preliminary steps of the
      approaching decline and fall of the empire. Instead of leading
      the nations of Germany and Scythia to the banks of the Danube, or
      even to the gates of Constantinople, the aged monarch of the
      Goths resigned to the brave Athanaric the danger and glory of a
      defensive war, against an enemy, who wielded with a feeble hand
      the powers of a mighty state. A bridge of boats was established
      upon the Danube; the presence of Valens animated his troops; and
      his ignorance of the art of war was compensated by personal
      bravery, and a wise deference to the advice of Victor and
      Arintheus, his masters-general of the cavalry and infantry. The
      operations of the campaign were conducted by their skill and
      experience; but they found it impossible to drive the Visigoths
      from their strong posts in the mountains; and the devastation of
      the plains obliged the Romans themselves to repass the Danube on
      the approach of winter. The incessant rains, which swelled the
      waters of the river, produced a tacit suspension of arms, and
      confined the emperor Valens, during the whole course of the
      ensuing summer, to his camp of Marcianopolis. The third year of
      the war was more favorable to the Romans, and more pernicious to
      the Goths. The interruption of trade deprived the Barbarians of
      the objects of luxury, which they already confounded with the
      necessaries of life; and the desolation of a very extensive tract
      of country threatened them with the horrors of famine. Athanaric
      was provoked, or compelled, to risk a battle, which he lost, in
      the plains; and the pursuit was rendered more bloody by the cruel
      precaution of the victorious generals, who had promised a large
      reward for the head of every Goth that was brought into the
      Imperial camp. The submission of the Barbarians appeased the
      resentment of Valens and his council: the emperor listened with
      satisfaction to the flattering and eloquent remonstrance of the
      senate of Constantinople, which assumed, for the first time, a
      share in the public deliberations; and the same generals, Victor
      and Arintheus, who had successfully directed the conduct of the
      war, were empowered to regulate the conditions of peace. The
      freedom of trade, which the Goths had hitherto enjoyed, was
      restricted to two cities on the Danube; the rashness of their
      leaders was severely punished by the suppression of their
      pensions and subsidies; and the exception, which was stipulated
      in favor of Athanaric alone, was more advantageous than honorable
      to the Judge of the Visigoths. Athanaric, who, on this occasion,
      appears to have consulted his private interest, without expecting
      the orders of his sovereign, supported his own dignity, and that
      of his tribe, in the personal interview which was proposed by the
      ministers of Valens. He persisted in his declaration, that it was
      impossible for him, without incurring the guilt of perjury, ever
      to set his foot on the territory of the empire; and it is more
      than probable, that his regard for the sanctity of an oath was
      confirmed by the recent and fatal examples of Roman treachery.
      The Danube, which separated the dominions of the two independent
      nations, was chosen for the scene of the conference. The emperor
      of the East, and the Judge of the Visigoths, accompanied by an
      equal number of armed followers, advanced in their respective
      barges to the middle of the stream. After the ratification of the
      treaty, and the delivery of hostages, Valens returned in triumph
      to Constantinople; and the Goths remained in a state of
      tranquillity about six years; till they were violently impelled
      against the Roman empire by an innumerable host of Scythians, who
      appeared to issue from the frozen regions of the North. 149

      148 (return) [ Eunapius, in Excerpt. Legat. p. 18, 19. The Greek
      sophist must have considered as _one_ and the _same_ war, the
      whole series of Gothic history till the victories and peace of
      Theodosius.]

      149 (return) [ The Gothic war is described by Ammianus, (xxvii.
      6,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 211-214,) and Themistius, (Orat. x. p.
      129-141.) The orator Themistius was sent from the senate of
      Constantinople to congratulate the victorious emperor; and his
      servile eloquence compares Valens on the Danube to Achilles in
      the Scamander. Jornandes forgets a war peculiar to the
      _Visi_-Goths, and inglorious to the Gothic name, (MasconÕs Hist.
      of the Germans, vii. 3.)]

      The emperor of the West, who had resigned to his brother the
      command of the Lower Danube, reserved for his immediate care the
      defence of the Rh¾tian and Illyrian provinces, which spread so
      many hundred miles along the greatest of the European rivers. The
      active policy of Valentinian was continually employed in adding
      new fortifications to the security of the frontier: but the abuse
      of this policy provoked the just resentment of the Barbarians.
      The Quadi complained, that the ground for an intended fortress
      had been marked out on their territories; and their complaints
      were urged with so much reason and moderation, that Equitius,
      master-general of Illyricum, consented to suspend the prosecution
      of the work, till he should be more clearly informed of the will
      of his sovereign. This fair occasion of injuring a rival, and of
      advancing the fortune of his son, was eagerly embraced by the
      inhuman Maximin, the pr¾fect, or rather tyrant, of Gaul. The
      passions of Valentinian were impatient of control; and he
      credulously listened to the assurances of his favorite, that if
      the government of Valeria, and the direction of the work, were
      intrusted to the zeal of his son Marcellinus, the emperor should
      no longer be importuned with the audacious remonstrances of the
      Barbarians. The subjects of Rome, and the natives of Germany,
      were insulted by the arrogance of a young and worthless minister,
      who considered his rapid elevation as the proof and reward of his
      superior merit. He affected, however, to receive the modest
      application of Gabinius, king of the Quadi, with some attention
      and regard: but this artful civility concealed a dark and bloody
      design, and the credulous prince was persuaded to accept the
      pressing invitation of Marcellinus. I am at a loss how to vary
      the narrative of similar crimes; or how to relate, that, in the
      course of the same year, but in remote parts of the empire, the
      inhospitable table of two Imperial generals was stained with the
      royal blood of two guests and allies, inhumanly murdered by their
      order, and in their presence. The fate of Gabinius, and of Para,
      was the same: but the cruel death of their sovereign was resented
      in a very different manner by the servile temper of the
      Armenians, and the free and daring spirit of the Germans. The
      Quadi were much declined from that formidable power, which, in
      the time of Marcus Antoninus, had spread terror to the gates of
      Rome. But they still possessed arms and courage; their courage
      was animated by despair, and they obtained the usual
      reenforcement of the cavalry of their Sarmatian allies. So
      improvident was the assassin Marcellinus, that he chose the
      moment when the bravest veterans had been drawn away, to suppress
      the revolt of Firmus; and the whole province was exposed, with a
      very feeble defence, to the rage of the exasperated Barbarians.
      They invaded Pannonia in the season of harvest; unmercifully
      destroyed every object of plunder which they could not easily
      transport; and either disregarded, or demolished, the empty
      fortifications. The princess Constantia, the daughter of the
      emperor Constantius, and the granddaughter of the great
      Constantine, very narrowly escaped. That royal maid, who had
      innocently supported the revolt of Procopius, was now the
      destined wife of the heir of the Western empire. She traversed
      the peaceful province with a splendid and unarmed train. Her
      person was saved from danger, and the republic from disgrace, by
      the active zeal of Messala, governor of the provinces. As soon as
      he was informed that the village, where she stopped only to dine,
      was almost encompassed by the Barbarians, he hastily placed her
      in his own chariot, and drove full speed till he reached the
      gates of Sirmium, which were at the distance of six-and-twenty
      miles. Even Sirmium might not have been secure, if the Quadi and
      Sarmatians had diligently advanced during the general
      consternation of the magistrates and people. Their delay allowed
      Probus, the Pr¾torian pr¾fect, sufficient time to recover his own
      spirits, and to revive the courage of the citizens. He skilfully
      directed their strenuous efforts to repair and strengthen the
      decayed fortifications; and procured the seasonable and effectual
      assistance of a company of archers, to protect the capital of the
      Illyrian provinces. Disappointed in their attempts against the
      walls of Sirmium, the indignant Barbarians turned their arms
      against the master general of the frontier, to whom they unjustly
      attributed the murder of their king. Equitius could bring into
      the field no more than two legions; but they contained the
      veteran strength of the M¾sian and Pannonian bands. The obstinacy
      with which they disputed the vain honors of rank and precedency,
      was the cause of their destruction; and while they acted with
      separate forces and divided councils, they were surprised and
      slaughtered by the active vigor of the Sarmatian horse. The
      success of this invasion provoked the emulation of the bordering
      tribes; and the province of M¾sia would infallibly have been
      lost, if young Theodosius, the duke, or military commander, of
      the frontier, had not signalized, in the defeat of the public
      enemy, an intrepid genius, worthy of his illustrious father, and
      of his future greatness. 150

      150 (return) [ Ammianus (xxix. 6) and Zosimus (I. iv. p. 219,
      220) carefully mark the origin and progress of the Quadic and
      Sarmatian war.]




      Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
      Empire.ÑPart VII.


      The mind of Valentinian, who then resided at Treves, was deeply
      affected by the calamities of Illyricum; but the lateness of the
      season suspended the execution of his designs till the ensuing
      spring. He marched in person, with a considerable part of the
      forces of Gaul, from the banks of the Moselle: and to the
      suppliant ambassadors of the Sarmatians, who met him on the way,
      he returned a doubtful answer, that, as soon as he reached the
      scene of action, he should examine, and pronounce. When he
      arrived at Sirmium, he gave audience to the deputies of the
      Illyrian provinces; who loudly congratulated their own felicity
      under the auspicious government of Probus, his Pr¾torian pr¾fect.
      151 Valentinian, who was flattered by these demonstrations of
      their loyalty and gratitude, imprudently asked the deputy of
      Epirus, a Cynic philosopher of intrepid sincerity, 152 whether he
      was freely sent by the wishes of the province. ÒWith tears and
      groans am I sent,Ó replied Iphicles, Òby a reluctant people.Ó The
      emperor paused: but the impunity of his ministers established the
      pernicious maxim, that they might oppress his subjects, without
      injuring his service. A strict inquiry into their conduct would
      have relieved the public discontent. The severe condemnation of
      the murder of Gabinius, was the only measure which could restore
      the confidence of the Germans, and vindicate the honor of the
      Roman name. But the haughty monarch was incapable of the
      magnanimity which dares to acknowledge a fault. He forgot the
      provocation, remembered only the injury, and advanced into the
      country of the Quadi with an insatiate thirst of blood and
      revenge. The extreme devastation, and promiscuous massacre, of a
      savage war, were justified, in the eyes of the emperor, and
      perhaps in those of the world, by the cruel equity of
      retaliation: 153 and such was the discipline of the Romans, and
      the consternation of the enemy, that Valentinian repassed the
      Danube without the loss of a single man. As he had resolved to
      complete the destruction of the Quadi by a second campaign, he
      fixed his winter quarters at Bregetio, on the Danube, near the
      Hungarian city of Presburg. While the operations of war were
      suspended by the severity of the weather, the Quadi made an
      humble attempt to deprecate the wrath of their conqueror; and, at
      the earnest persuasion of Equitius, their ambassadors were
      introduced into the Imperial council. They approached the throne
      with bended bodies and dejected countenances; and without daring
      to complain of the murder of their king, they affirmed, with
      solemn oaths, that the late invasion was the crime of some
      irregular robbers, which the public council of the nation
      condemned and abhorred. The answer of the emperor left them but
      little to hope from his clemency or compassion. He reviled, in
      the most intemperate language, their baseness, their ingratitude,
      their insolence. His eyes, his voice, his color, his gestures,
      expressed the violence of his ungoverned fury; and while his
      whole frame was agitated with convulsive passion, a large blood
      vessel suddenly burst in his body; and Valentinian fell
      speechless into the arms of his attendants. Their pious care
      immediately concealed his situation from the crowd; but, in a few
      minutes, the emperor of the West expired in an agony of pain,
      retaining his senses till the last; and struggling, without
      success, to declare his intentions to the generals and ministers,
      who surrounded the royal couch. Valentinian was about fifty-four
      years of age; and he wanted only one hundred days to accomplish
      the twelve years of his reign. 154

      151 (return) [ Ammianus, (xxx. 5,) who acknowledges the merit,
      has censured, with becoming asperity, the oppressive
      administration of Petronius Probus. When Jerom translated and
      continued the Chronicle of Eusebius, (A. D. 380; see Tillemont,
      MŽm. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 53, 626,) he expressed the truth, or at
      least the public opinion of his country, in the following words:
      ÒProbus P. P. Illyrici inquissimus tributorum exactionibus, ante
      provincias quas regebat, quam a Barbaris vastarentur, _erasit_.Ó
      (Chron. edit. Scaliger, p. 187. Animadvers p. 259.) The Saint
      afterwards formed an intimate and tender friendship with the
      widow of Probus; and the name of Count Equitius with less
      propriety, but without much injustice, has been substituted in
      the text.]

      152 (return) [ Julian (Orat. vi. p. 198) represents his friend
      Iphicles, as a man of virtue and merit, who had made himself
      ridiculous and unhappy by adopting the extravagant dress and
      manners of the Cynics.]

      153 (return) [ Ammian. xxx. v. Jerom, who exaggerates the
      misfortune of Valentinian, refuses him even this last consolation
      of revenge. Genitali vastato solo et _inultam_ patriam
      derelinquens, (tom. i. p. 26.)]

      154 (return) [ See, on the death of Valentinian, Ammianus, (xxx.
      6,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 221,) Victor, (in Epitom.,) Socrates, (l.
      iv. c. 31,) and Jerom, (in Chron. p. 187, and tom. i. p. 26, ad
      Heliodor.) There is much variety of circumstances among them; and
      Ammianus is so eloquent, that he writes nonsense.]

      The polygamy of Valentinian is seriously attested by an
      ecclesiastical historian. 155 ÒThe empress Severa (I relate the
      fable) admitted into her familiar society the lovely Justina, the
      daughter of an Italian governor: her admiration of those naked
      charms, which she had often seen in the bath, was expressed with
      such lavish and imprudent praise, that the emperor was tempted to
      introduce a second wife into his bed; and his public edict
      extended to all the subjects of the empire the same domestic
      privilege which he had assumed for himself.Ó But we may be
      assured, from the evidence of reason as well as history, that the
      two marriages of Valentinian, with Severa, and with Justina, were
      _successively_ contracted; and that he used the ancient
      permission of divorce, which was still allowed by the laws,
      though it was condemned by the church. Severa was the mother of
      Gratian, who seemed to unite every claim which could entitle him
      to the undoubted succession of the Western empire. He was the
      eldest son of a monarch whose glorious reign had confirmed the
      free and honorable choice of his fellow-soldiers. Before he had
      attained the ninth year of his age, the royal youth received from
      the hands of his indulgent father the purple robe and diadem,
      with the title of Augustus; the election was solemnly ratified by
      the consent and applause of the armies of Gaul; 156 and the name
      of Gratian was added to the names of Valentinian and Valens, in
      all the legal transactions of the Roman government. By his
      marriage with the granddaughter of Constantine, the son of
      Valentinian acquired all the hereditary rights of the Flavian
      family; which, in a series of three Imperial generations, were
      sanctified by time, religion, and the reverence of the people. At
      the death of his father, the royal youth was in the seventeenth
      year of his age; and his virtues already justified the favorable
      opinion of the army and the people. But Gratian resided, without
      apprehension, in the palace of Treves; whilst, at the distance of
      many hundred miles, Valentinian suddenly expired in the camp of
      Bregetio. The passions, which had been so long suppressed by the
      presence of a master, immediately revived in the Imperial
      council; and the ambitious design of reigning in the name of an
      infant, was artfully executed by Mellobaudes and Equitius, who
      commanded the attachment of the Illyrian and Italian bands. They
      contrived the most honorable pretences to remove the popular
      leaders, and the troops of Gaul, who might have asserted the
      claims of the lawful successor; they suggested the necessity of
      extinguishing the hopes of foreign and domestic enemies, by a
      bold and decisive measure. The empress Justina, who had been left
      in a palace about one hundred miles from Bregetio, was
      respectively invited to appear in the camp, with the son of the
      deceased emperor. On the sixth day after the death of
      Valentinian, the infant prince of the same name, who was only
      four years old, was shown, in the arms of his mother, to the
      legions; and solemnly invested, by military acclamation, with the
      titles and ensigns of supreme power. The impending dangers of a
      civil war were seasonably prevented by the wise and moderate
      conduct of the emperor Gratian. He cheerfully accepted the choice
      of the army; declared that he should always consider the son of
      Justina as a brother, not as a rival; and advised the empress,
      with her son Valentinian to fix their residence at Milan, in the
      fair and peaceful province of Italy; while he assumed the more
      arduous command of the countries beyond the Alps. Gratian
      dissembled his resentment till he could safely punish, or
      disgrace, the authors of the conspiracy; and though he uniformly
      behaved with tenderness and regard to his infant colleague, he
      gradually confounded, in the administration of the Western
      empire, the office of a guardian with the authority of a
      sovereign. The government of the Roman world was exercised in the
      united names of Valens and his two nephews; but the feeble
      emperor of the East, who succeeded to the rank of his elder
      brother, never obtained any weight or influence in the councils
      of the West. 157

      155 (return) [ Socrates (l. iv. c. 31) is the only original
      witness of this foolish story, so repugnant to the laws and
      manners of the Romans, that it scarcely deserved the formal and
      elaborate dissertation of M. Bonamy, (MŽm. de lÕAcadŽmie, tom.
      xxx. p. 394-405.) Yet I would preserve the natural circumstance
      of the bath; instead of following Zosimus who represents Justina
      as an old woman, the widow of Magnentius.]

      156 (return) [ Ammianus (xxvii. 6) describes the form of this
      military election, and _august_ investiture. Valentinian does not
      appear to have consulted, or even informed, the senate of Rome.]

      157 (return) [ Ammianus, xxx. 10. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 222, 223.
      Tillemont has proved (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 707-709)
      that Gratian _reigned_ in Italy, Africa, and Illyricum. I have
      endeavored to express his authority over his brotherÕs dominions,
      as he used it, in an ambiguous style.]




      Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.ÑPart I.

     Manners Of The Pastoral Nations.ÑProgress Of The Huns, From China
     To Europe.ÑFlight Of The Goths.ÑThey Pass The Danube.ÑGothic
     War.ÑDefeat And Death Of Valens.ÑGratian Invests Theodosius With
     The Eastern Empire.ÑHis Character And Success.ÑPeace And
     Settlement Of The Goths.


      In the second year of the reign of Valentinian and Valens, on the
      morning of the twenty-first day of July, the greatest part of the
      Roman world was shaken by a violent and destructive earthquake.
      The impression was communicated to the waters; the shores of the
      Mediterranean were left dry, by the sudden retreat of the sea;
      great quantities of fish were caught with the hand; large vessels
      were stranded on the mud; and a curious spectator 1 amused his
      eye, or rather his fancy, by contemplating the various appearance
      of valleys and mountains, which had never, since the formation of
      the globe, been exposed to the sun. But the tide soon returned,
      with the weight of an immense and irresistible deluge, which was
      severely felt on the coasts of Sicily, of Dalmatia, of Greece,
      and of Egypt: large boats were transported, and lodged on the
      roofs of houses, or at the distance of two miles from the shore;
      the people, with their habitations, were swept away by the
      waters; and the city of Alexandria annually commemorated the
      fatal day, on which fifty thousand persons had lost their lives
      in the inundation. This calamity, the report of which was
      magnified from one province to another, astonished and terrified
      the subjects of Rome; and their affrighted imagination enlarged
      the real extent of a momentary evil. They recollected the
      preceding earthquakes, which had subverted the cities of
      Palestine and Bithynia: they considered these alarming strokes as
      the prelude only of still more dreadful calamities, and their
      fearful vanity was disposed to confound the symptoms of a
      declining empire and a sinking world. 2 It was the fashion of the
      times to attribute every remarkable event to the particular will
      of the Deity; the alterations of nature were connected, by an
      invisible chain, with the moral and metaphysical opinions of the
      human mind; and the most sagacious divines could distinguish,
      according to the color of their respective prejudices, that the
      establishment of heresy tended to produce an earthquake; or that
      a deluge was the inevitable consequence of the progress of sin
      and error. Without presuming to discuss the truth or propriety of
      these lofty speculations, the historian may content himself with
      an observation, which seems to be justified by experience, that
      man has much more to fear from the passions of his
      fellow-creatures, than from the convulsions of the elements. 3
      The mischievous effects of an earthquake, or deluge, a hurricane,
      or the eruption of a volcano, bear a very inconsiderable portion
      to the ordinary calamities of war, as they are now moderated by
      the prudence or humanity of the princes of Europe, who amuse
      their own leisure, and exercise the courage of their subjects, in
      the practice of the military art. But the laws and manners of
      modern nations protect the safety and freedom of the vanquished
      soldier; and the peaceful citizen has seldom reason to complain,
      that his life, or even his fortune, is exposed to the rage of
      war. In the disastrous period of the fall of the Roman empire,
      which may justly be dated from the reign of Valens, the happiness
      and security of each individual were personally attacked; and the
      arts and labors of ages were rudely defaced by the Barbarians of
      Scythia and Germany. The invasion of the Huns precipitated on the
      provinces of the West the Gothic nation, which advanced, in less
      than forty years, from the Danube to the Atlantic, and opened a
      way, by the success of their arms, to the inroads of so many
      hostile tribes, more savage than themselves. The original
      principle of motion was concealed in the remote countries of the
      North; and the curious observation of the pastoral life of the
      Scythians, 4 or Tartars, 5 will illustrate the latent cause of
      these destructive emigrations.

      1 (return) [ Such is the bad taste of Ammianus, (xxvi. 10,) that
      it is not easy to distinguish his facts from his metaphors. Yet
      he positively affirms, that he saw the rotten carcass of a ship,
      _ad decundum lapidem_, at Mothone, or Modon, in Peloponnesus.]

      2 (return) [ The earthquakes and inundations are variously
      described by Libanius, (Orat. de ulciscenda Juliani nece, c. x.,
      in Fabricius, Bibl. Gr¾c. tom. vii. p. 158, with a learned note
      of Olearius,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 221,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 2,)
      Cedrenus, (p. 310, 314,) and Jerom, (in Chron. p. 186, and tom.
      i. p. 250, in Vit. Hilarion.) Epidaurus must have been
      overwhelmed, had not the prudent citizens placed St. Hilarion, an
      Egyptian monk, on the beach. He made the sign of the Cross; the
      mountain-wave stopped, bowed, and returned.]

      3 (return) [ Dic¾archus, the Peripatetic, composed a formal
      treatise, to prove this obvious truth; which is not the most
      honorable to the human species. (Cicero, de Officiis, ii. 5.)]

      4 (return) [ The original Scythians of Herodotus (l. iv. c.
      47Ñ57, 99Ñ101) were confined, by the Danube and the Palus M¾otis,
      within a square of 4000 stadia, (400 Roman miles.) See DÕAnville
      (MŽm. de lÕAcadŽmie, tom. xxxv. p. 573Ñ591.) Diodorus Siculus
      (tom. i. l. ii. p. 155, edit. Wesseling) has marked the gradual
      progress of the _name_ and nation.]

      5 (return) [ The _Tatars_, or Tartars, were a primitive tribe,
      the rivals, and at length the subjects, of the Moguls. In the
      victorious armies of Zingis Khan, and his successors, the Tartars
      formed the vanguard; and the name, which first reached the ears
      of foreigners, was applied to the whole nation, (Freret, in the
      Hist. de lÕAcadŽmie, tom. xviii. p. 60.) In speaking of all, or
      any of the northern shepherds of Europe, or Asia, I indifferently
      use the appellations of _Scythians_ or _Tartars_. * Note: The
      Moguls, (Mongols,) according to M. Klaproth, are a tribe of the
      Tartar nation. Tableaux Hist. de lÕAsie, p. 154.ÑM.]

      The different characters that mark the civilized nations of the
      globe, may be ascribed to the use, and the abuse, of reason;
      which so variously shapes, and so artificially composes, the
      manners and opinions of a European, or a Chinese. But the
      operation of instinct is more sure and simple than that of
      reason: it is much easier to ascertain the appetites of a
      quadruped than the speculations of a philosopher; and the savage
      tribes of mankind, as they approach nearer to the condition of
      animals, preserve a stronger resemblance to themselves and to
      each other. The uniform stability of their manners is the natural
      consequence of the imperfection of their faculties. Reduced to a
      similar situation, their wants, their desires, their enjoyments,
      still continue the same: and the influence of food or climate,
      which, in a more improved state of society, is suspended, or
      subdued, by so many moral causes, most powerfully contributes to
      form, and to maintain, the national character of Barbarians. In
      every age, the immense plains of Scythia, or Tartary, have been
      inhabited by vagrant tribes of hunters and shepherds, whose
      indolence refuses to cultivate the earth, and whose restless
      spirit disdains the confinement of a sedentary life. In every
      age, the Scythians, and Tartars, have been renowned for their
      invincible courage and rapid conquests. The thrones of Asia have
      been repeatedly overturned by the shepherds of the North; and
      their arms have spread terror and devastation over the most
      fertile and warlike countries of Europe. 6 On this occasion, as
      well as on many others, the sober historian is forcibly awakened
      from a pleasing vision; and is compelled, with some reluctance,
      to confess, that the pastoral manners, which have been adorned
      with the fairest attributes of peace and innocence, are much
      better adapted to the fierce and cruel habits of a military life.
      To illustrate this observation, I shall now proceed to consider a
      nation of shepherds and of warriors, in the three important
      articles of, I. Their diet; II. Their habitations; and, III.
      Their exercises. The narratives of antiquity are justified by the
      experience of modern times; 7 and the banks of the Borysthenes,
      of the Volga, or of the Selinga, will indifferently present the
      same uniform spectacle of similar and native manners. 8

      6 (return) [ Imperium Asi¾ _ter_ qu¾sivere: ipsi perpetuo ab
      alieno imperio, aut intacti aut invicti, mansere. Since the time
      of Justin, (ii. 2,) they have multiplied this account. Voltaire,
      in a few words, (tom. x. p. 64, Hist. Generale, c. 156,) has
      abridged the Tartar conquests.

      Oft oÕer the trembling nations from afar,
      Has Scythia breathed the living cloud of war.
      Note *: Gray.ÑM.]

      7 (return) [ The fourth book of Herodotus affords a curious
      though imperfect, portrait of the Scythians. Among the moderns,
      who describe the uniform scene, the Khan of Khowaresm, Abulghazi
      Bahadur, expresses his native feelings; and his genealogical
      history of the Tartars has been copiously illustrated by the
      French and English editors. Carpin, Ascelin, and Rubruquis (in
      the Hist. des Voyages, tom. vii.) represent the Moguls of the
      fourteenth century. To these guides I have added Gerbillon, and
      the other Jesuits, (Description de la China par du Halde, tom.
      iv.,) who accurately surveyed the Chinese Tartary; and that
      honest and intelligent traveller, Bell, of Antermony, (two
      volumes in 4to. Glasgow, 1763.) * Note: Of the various works
      published since the time of Gibbon, which throw fight on the
      nomadic population of Central Asia, may be particularly remarked
      the Travels and Dissertations of Pallas; and above all, the very
      curious work of Bergman, Nomadische Streifereyen. Riga, 1805.ÑM.]

      8 (return) [ The Uzbecks are the most altered from their
      primitive manners; 1. By the profession of the Mahometan
      religion; and 2. By the possession of the cities and harvests of
      the great Bucharia.]

      I. The corn, or even the rice, which constitutes the ordinary and
      wholesome food of a civilized people, can be obtained only by the
      patient toil of the husbandman. Some of the happy savages, who
      dwell between the tropics, are plentifully nourished by the
      liberality of nature; but in the climates of the North, a nation
      of shepherds is reduced to their flocks and herds. The skilful
      practitioners of the medical art will determine (if they are able
      to determine) how far the temper of the human mind may be
      affected by the use of animal, or of vegetable, food; and whether
      the common association of carniverous and cruel deserves to be
      considered in any other light than that of an innocent, perhaps a
      salutary, prejudice of humanity. 9 Yet, if it be true, that the
      sentiment of compassion is imperceptibly weakened by the sight
      and practice of domestic cruelty, we may observe, that the horrid
      objects which are disguised by the arts of European refinement,
      are exhibited in their naked and most disgusting simplicity in
      the tent of a Tartarian shepherd. The ox, or the sheep, are
      slaughtered by the same hand from which they were accustomed to
      receive their daily food; and the bleeding limbs are served, with
      very little preparation, on the table of their unfeeling
      murderer. In the military profession, and especially in the
      conduct of a numerous army, the exclusive use of animal food
      appears to be productive of the most solid advantages. Corn is a
      bulky and perishable commodity; and the large magazines, which
      are indispensably necessary for the subsistence of our troops,
      must be slowly transported by the labor of men or horses. But the
      flocks and herds, which accompany the march of the Tartars,
      afford a sure and increasing supply of flesh and milk: in the far
      greater part of the uncultivated waste, the vegetation of the
      grass is quick and luxuriant; and there are few places so
      extremely barren, that the hardy cattle of the North cannot find
      some tolerable pasture.

      The supply is multiplied and prolonged by the undistinguishing
      appetite, and patient abstinence, of the Tartars. They
      indifferently feed on the flesh of those animals that have been
      killed for the table, or have died of disease. Horseflesh, which
      in every age and country has been proscribed by the civilized
      nations of Europe and Asia, they devour with peculiar greediness;
      and this singular taste facilitates the success of their military
      operations. The active cavalry of Scythia is always followed, in
      their most distant and rapid incursions, by an adequate number of
      spare horses, who may be occasionally used, either to redouble
      the speed, or to satisfy the hunger, of the Barbarians. Many are
      the resources of courage and poverty. When the forage round a
      camp of Tartars is almost consumed, they slaughter the greatest
      part of their cattle, and preserve the flesh, either smoked, or
      dried in the sun. On the sudden emergency of a hasty march, they
      provide themselves with a sufficient quantity of little balls of
      cheese, or rather of hard curd, which they occasionally dissolve
      in water; and this unsubstantial diet will support, for many
      days, the life, and even the spirits, of the patient warrior. But
      this extraordinary abstinence, which the Stoic would approve, and
      the hermit might envy, is commonly succeeded by the most
      voracious indulgence of appetite. The wines of a happier climate
      are the most grateful present, or the most valuable commodity,
      that can be offered to the Tartars; and the only example of their
      industry seems to consist in the art of extracting from mareÕs
      milk a fermented liquor, which possesses a very strong power of
      intoxication. Like the animals of prey, the savages, both of the
      old and new world, experience the alternate vicissitudes of
      famine and plenty; and their stomach is inured to sustain,
      without much inconvenience, the opposite extremes of hunger and
      of intemperance.

      9 (return) [ Il est certain que les grands mangeurs de viande
      sont en gŽnŽral cruels et fŽroces plus que les autres hommes.
      Cette observation est de tous les lieux, et de tous les temps: la
      barbarie Angloise est connue, &c. Emile de Rousseau, tom. i. p.
      274. Whatever we may think of the general observation, _we_ shall
      not easily allow the truth of his example. The good-natured
      complaints of Plutarch, and the pathetic lamentations of Ovid,
      seduce our reason, by exciting our sensibility.]

      II. In the ages of rustic and martial simplicity, a people of
      soldiers and husbandmen are dispersed over the face of an
      extensive and cultivated country; and some time must elapse
      before the warlike youth of Greece or Italy could be assembled
      under the same standard, either to defend their own confines, or
      to invade the territories of the adjacent tribes. The progress of
      manufactures and commerce insensibly collects a large multitude
      within the walls of a city: but these citizens are no longer
      soldiers; and the arts which adorn and improve the state of civil
      society, corrupt the habits of the military life. The pastoral
      manners of the Scythians seem to unite the different advantages
      of simplicity and refinement. The individuals of the same tribe
      are constantly assembled, but they are assembled in a camp; and
      the native spirit of these dauntless shepherds is animated by
      mutual support and emulation. The houses of the Tartars are no
      more than small tents, of an oval form, which afford a cold and
      dirty habitation, for the promiscuous youth of both sexes. The
      palaces of the rich consist of wooden huts, of such a size that
      they may be conveniently fixed on large wagons, and drawn by a
      team perhaps of twenty or thirty oxen. The flocks and herds,
      after grazing all day in the adjacent pastures, retire, on the
      approach of night, within the protection of the camp. The
      necessity of preventing the most mischievous confusion, in such a
      perpetual concourse of men and animals, must gradually introduce,
      in the distribution, the order, and the guard, of the encampment,
      the rudiments of the military art. As soon as the forage of a
      certain district is consumed, the tribe, or rather army, of
      shepherds, makes a regular march to some fresh pastures; and thus
      acquires, in the ordinary occupations of the pastoral life, the
      practical knowledge of one of the most important and difficult
      operations of war. The choice of stations is regulated by the
      difference of the seasons: in the summer, the Tartars advance
      towards the North, and pitch their tents on the banks of a river,
      or, at least, in the neighborhood of a running stream. But in the
      winter, they return to the South, and shelter their camp, behind
      some convenient eminence, against the winds, which are chilled in
      their passage over the bleak and icy regions of Siberia. These
      manners are admirably adapted to diffuse, among the wandering
      tribes, the spirit of emigration and conquest. The connection
      between the people and their territory is of so frail a texture,
      that it may be broken by the slightest accident. The camp, and
      not the soil, is the native country of the genuine Tartar. Within
      the precincts of that camp, his family, his companions, his
      property, are always included; and, in the most distant marches,
      he is still surrounded by the objects which are dear, or
      valuable, or familiar in his eyes. The thirst of rapine, the
      fear, or the resentment of injury, the impatience of servitude,
      have, in every age, been sufficient causes to urge the tribes of
      Scythia boldly to advance into some unknown countries, where they
      might hope to find a more plentiful subsistence or a less
      formidable enemy. The revolutions of the North have frequently
      determined the fate of the South; and in the conflict of hostile
      nations, the victor and the vanquished have alternately drove,
      and been driven, from the confines of China to those of Germany.
      10 These great emigrations, which have been sometimes executed
      with almost incredible diligence, were rendered more easy by the
      peculiar nature of the climate. It is well known that the cold of
      Tartary is much more severe than in the midst of the temperate
      zone might reasonably be expected; this uncommon rigor is
      attributed to the height of the plains, which rise, especially
      towards the East, more than half a mile above the level of the
      sea; and to the quantity of saltpetre with which the soil is
      deeply impregnated. 11 In the winter season, the broad and rapid
      rivers, that discharge their waters into the Euxine, the Caspian,
      or the Icy Sea, are strongly frozen; the fields are covered with
      a bed of snow; and the fugitive, or victorious, tribes may
      securely traverse, with their families, their wagons, and their
      cattle, the smooth and hard surface of an immense plain.

      10 (return) [ These Tartar emigrations have been discovered by M.
      de Guignes (Histoire des Huns, tom. i. ii.) a skilful and
      laborious interpreter of the Chinese language; who has thus laid
      open new and important scenes in the history of mankind.]

      11 (return) [ A plain in the Chinese Tartary, only eighty leagues
      from the great wall, was found by the missionaries to be three
      thousand geometrical paces above the level of the sea.
      Montesquieu, who has used, and abused, the relations of
      travellers, deduces the revolutions of Asia from this important
      circumstance, that heat and cold, weakness and strength, touch
      each other without any temperate zone, (Esprit des Loix, l. xvii.
      c. 3.)]

      III. The pastoral life, compared with the labors of agriculture
      and manufactures, is undoubtedly a life of idleness; and as the
      most honorable shepherds of the Tartar race devolve on their
      captives the domestic management of the cattle, their own leisure
      is seldom disturbed by any servile and assiduous cares. But this
      leisure, instead of being devoted to the soft enjoyments of love
      and harmony, is usefully spent in the violent and sanguinary
      exercise of the chase. The plains of Tartary are filled with a
      strong and serviceable breed of horses, which are easily trained
      for the purposes of war and hunting. The Scythians of every age
      have been celebrated as bold and skilful riders; and constant
      practice had seated them so firmly on horseback, that they were
      supposed by strangers to perform the ordinary duties of civil
      life, to eat, to drink, and even to sleep, without dismounting
      from their steeds. They excel in the dexterous management of the
      lance; the long Tartar bow is drawn with a nervous arm; and the
      weighty arrow is directed to its object with unerring aim and
      irresistible force. These arrows are often pointed against the
      harmless animals of the desert, which increase and multiply in
      the absence of their most formidable enemy; the hare, the goat,
      the roebuck, the fallow-deer, the stag, the elk, and the
      antelope. The vigor and patience, both of the men and horses, are
      continually exercised by the fatigues of the chase; and the
      plentiful supply of game contributes to the subsistence, and even
      luxury, of a Tartar camp. But the exploits of the hunters of
      Scythia are not confined to the destruction of timid or innoxious
      beasts; they boldly encounter the angry wild boar, when he turns
      against his pursuers, excite the sluggish courage of the bear,
      and provoke the fury of the tiger, as he slumbers in the thicket.
      Where there is danger, there may be glory; and the mode of
      hunting, which opens the fairest field to the exertions of valor,
      may justly be considered as the image, and as the school, of war.
      The general hunting matches, the pride and delight of the Tartar
      princes, compose an instructive exercise for their numerous
      cavalry. A circle is drawn, of many miles in circumference, to
      encompass the game of an extensive district; and the troops that
      form the circle regularly advance towards a common centre; where
      the captive animals, surrounded on every side, are abandoned to
      the darts of the hunters. In this march, which frequently
      continues many days, the cavalry are obliged to climb the hills,
      to swim the rivers, and to wind through the valleys, without
      interrupting the prescribed order of their gradual progress. They
      acquire the habit of directing their eye, and their steps, to a
      remote object; of preserving their intervals of suspending or
      accelerating their pace, according to the motions of the troops
      on their right and left; and of watching and repeating the
      signals of their leaders. Their leaders study, in this practical
      school, the most important lesson of the military art; the prompt
      and accurate judgment of ground, of distance, and of time. To
      employ against a human enemy the same patience and valor, the
      same skill and discipline, is the only alteration which is
      required in real war; and the amusements of the chase serve as a
      prelude to the conquest of an empire. 12

      12 (return) [ Petit de la Croix (Vie de Gengiscan, l. iii. c. 6)
      represents the full glory and extent of the Mogul chase. The
      Jesuits Gerbillon and Verbiest followed the emperor Khamhi when
      he hunted in Tartary, (Duhalde, DŽscription de la Chine, tom. iv.
      p. 81, 290, &c., folio edit.) His grandson, Kienlong, who unites
      the Tartar discipline with the laws and learning of China,
      describes (Eloge de Moukden, p. 273Ñ285) as a poet the pleasures
      which he had often enjoyed as a sportsman.]

      The political society of the ancient Germans has the appearance
      of a voluntary alliance of independent warriors. The tribes of
      Scythia, distinguished by the modern appellation of _Hords_,
      assume the form of a numerous and increasing family; which, in
      the course of successive generations, has been propagated from
      the same original stock. The meanest, and most ignorant, of the
      Tartars, preserve, with conscious pride, the inestimable treasure
      of their genealogy; and whatever distinctions of rank may have
      been introduced, by the unequal distribution of pastoral wealth,
      they mutually respect themselves, and each other, as the
      descendants of the first founder of the tribe. The custom, which
      still prevails, of adopting the bravest and most faithful of the
      captives, may countenance the very probable suspicion, that this
      extensive consanguinity is, in a great measure, legal and
      fictitious. But the useful prejudice, which has obtained the
      sanction of time and opinion, produces the effects of truth; the
      haughty Barbarians yield a cheerful and voluntary obedience to
      the head of their blood; and their chief, or _mursa_, as the
      representative of their great father, exercises the authority of
      a judge in peace, and of a leader in war. In the original state
      of the pastoral world, each of the _mursas_ (if we may continue
      to use a modern appellation) acted as the independent chief of a
      large and separate family; and the limits of their peculiar
      territories were gradually fixed by superior force, or mutual
      consent. But the constant operation of various and permanent
      causes contributed to unite the vagrant Hords into national
      communities, under the command of a supreme head. The weak were
      desirous of support, and the strong were ambitious of dominion;
      the power, which is the result of union, oppressed and collected
      the divided force of the adjacent tribes; and, as the vanquished
      were freely admitted to share the advantages of victory, the most
      valiant chiefs hastened to range themselves and their followers
      under the formidable standard of a confederate nation. The most
      successful of the Tartar princes assumed the military command, to
      which he was entitled by the superiority, either of merit or of
      power. He was raised to the throne by the acclamations of his
      equals; and the title of _Khan_ expresses, in the language of the
      North of Asia, the full extent of the regal dignity. The right of
      hereditary succession was long confined to the blood of the
      founder of the monarchy; and at this moment all the Khans, who
      reign from Crimea to the wall of China, are the lineal
      descendants of the renowned Zingis. 13 But, as it is the
      indispensable duty of a Tartar sovereign to lead his warlike
      subjects into the field, the claims of an infant are often
      disregarded; and some royal kinsman, distinguished by his age and
      valor, is intrusted with the sword and sceptre of his
      predecessor. Two distinct and regular taxes are levied on the
      tribes, to support the dignity of the national monarch, and of
      their peculiar chief; and each of those contributions amounts to
      the tithe, both of their property, and of their spoil. A Tartar
      sovereign enjoys the tenth part of the wealth of his people; and
      as his own domestic riches of flocks and herds increase in a much
      larger proportion, he is able plentifully to maintain the rustic
      splendor of his court, to reward the most deserving, or the most
      favored of his followers, and to obtain, from the gentle
      influence of corruption, the obedience which might be sometimes
      refused to the stern mandates of authority. The manners of his
      subjects, accustomed, like himself, to blood and rapine, might
      excuse, in their eyes, such partial acts of tyranny, as would
      excite the horror of a civilized people; but the power of a
      despot has never been acknowledged in the deserts of Scythia. The
      immediate jurisdiction of the khan is confined within the limits
      of his own tribe; and the exercise of his royal prerogative has
      been moderated by the ancient institution of a national council.
      The Coroulai, 14 or Diet, of the Tartars, was regularly held in
      the spring and autumn, in the midst of a plain; where the princes
      of the reigning family, and the mursas of the respective tribes,
      may conveniently assemble on horseback, with their martial and
      numerous trains; and the ambitious monarch, who reviewed the
      strength, must consult the inclination of an armed people. The
      rudiments of a feudal government may be discovered in the
      constitution of the Scythian or Tartar nations; but the perpetual
      conflict of those hostile nations has sometimes terminated in the
      establishment of a powerful and despotic empire. The victor,
      enriched by the tribute, and fortified by the arms of dependent
      kings, has spread his conquests over Europe or Asia: the
      successful shepherds of the North have submitted to the
      confinement of arts, of laws, and of cities; and the introduction
      of luxury, after destroying the freedom of the people, has
      undermined the foundations of the throne. 15

      13 (return) [ See the second volume of the Genealogical History
      of the Tartars; and the list of the Khans, at the end of the life
      of GengÕs, or Zingis. Under the reign of Timur, or Tamerlane, one
      of his subjects, a descendant of Zingis, still bore the regal
      appellation of Khan and the conqueror of Asia contented himself
      with the title of Emir or Sultan. Abulghazi, part v. c. 4.
      DÕHerbelot, Bibliothque Orien tale, p. 878.]

      14 (return) [ See the Diets of the ancient Huns, (De Guignes,
      tom. ii. p. 26,) and a curious description of those of Zingis,
      (Vie de Gengiscan, l. i. c. 6, l. iv. c. 11.) Such assemblies are
      frequently mentioned in the Persian history of Timur; though they
      served only to countenance the resolutions of their master.]

      15 (return) [ Montesquieu labors to explain a difference, which
      has not existed, between the liberty of the Arabs, and the
      _perpetual_ slavery of the Tartars. (Esprit des Loix, l. xvii. c.
      5, l. xviii. c. 19, &c.)]

      The memory of past events cannot long be preserved in the
      frequent and remote emigrations of illiterate Barbarians. The
      modern Tartars are ignorant of the conquests of their ancestors;
      16 and our knowledge of the history of the Scythians is derived
      from their intercourse with the learned and civilized nations of
      the South, the Greeks, the Persians, and the Chinese. The Greeks,
      who navigated the Euxine, and planted their colonies along the
      sea-coast, made the gradual and imperfect discovery of Scythia;
      from the Danube, and the confines of Thrace, as far as the frozen
      M¾otis, the seat of eternal winter, and Mount Caucasus, which, in
      the language of poetry, was described as the utmost boundary of
      the earth. They celebrated, with simple credulity, the virtues of
      the pastoral life: 17 they entertained a more rational
      apprehension of the strength and numbers of the warlike
      Barbarians, 18 who contemptuously baffled the immense armament of
      Darius, the son of Hystaspes. 19 The Persian monarchs had
      extended their western conquests to the banks of the Danube, and
      the limits of European Scythia. The eastern provinces of their
      empire were exposed to the Scythians of Asia; the wild
      inhabitants of the plains beyond the Oxus and the Jaxartes, two
      mighty rivers, which direct their course towards the Caspian Sea.
      The long and memorable quarrel of Iran and Touran is still the
      theme of history or romance: the famous, perhaps the fabulous,
      valor of the Persian heroes, Rustan and Asfendiar, was
      signalized, in the defence of their country, against the
      Afrasiabs of the North; 20 and the invincible spirit of the same
      Barbarians resisted, on the same ground, the victorious arms of
      Cyrus and Alexander. 21 In the eyes of the Greeks and Persians,
      the real geography of Scythia was bounded, on the East, by the
      mountains of Imaus, or Caf; and their distant prospect of the
      extreme and inaccessible parts of Asia was clouded by ignorance,
      or perplexed by fiction. But those inaccessible regions are the
      ancient residence of a powerful and civilized nation, 22 which
      ascends, by a probable tradition, above forty centuries; 23 and
      which is able to verify a series of near two thousand years, by
      the perpetual testimony of accurate and contemporary historians.
      24 The annals of China 25 illustrate the state and revolutions of
      the pastoral tribes, which may still be distinguished by the
      vague appellation of Scythians, or Tartars; the vassals, the
      enemies, and sometimes the conquerors, of a great empire; whose
      policy has uniformly opposed the blind and impetuous valor of the
      Barbarians of the North. From the mouth of the Danube to the Sea
      of Japan, the whole longitude of Scythia is about one hundred and
      ten degrees, which, in that parallel, are equal to more than five
      thousand miles. The latitude of these extensive deserts cannot be
      so easily, or so accurately, measured; but, from the fortieth
      degree, which touches the wall of China, we may securely advance
      above a thousand miles to the northward, till our progress is
      stopped by the excessive cold of Siberia. In that dreary climate,
      instead of the animated picture of a Tartar camp, the smoke that
      issues from the earth, or rather from the snow, betrays the
      subterraneous dwellings of the Tongouses, and the Samoides: the
      want of horses and oxen is imperfectly supplied by the use of
      reindeer, and of large dogs; and the conquerors of the earth
      insensibly degenerate into a race of deformed and diminutive
      savages, who tremble at the sound of arms. 26

      16 (return) [ Abulghasi Khan, in the two first parts of his
      Genealogical History, relates the miserable tales and traditions
      of the Uzbek Tartars concerning the times which preceded the
      reign of Zingis. * Note: The differences between the various
      pastoral tribes and nations comprehended by the ancients under
      the vague name of Scythians, and by Gibbon under inst of Tartars,
      have received some, and still, perhaps, may receive more, light
      from the comparisons of their dialects and languages by modern
      scholars.ÑM]

      17 (return) [ In the thirteenth book of the Iliad, Jupiter turns
      away his eyes from the bloody fields of Troy, to the plains of
      Thrace and Scythia. He would not, by changing the prospect,
      behold a more peaceful or innocent scene.]

      18 (return) [ Thucydides, l. ii. c. 97.]

      19 (return) [ See the fourth book of Herodotus. When Darius
      advanced into the Moldavian desert, between the Danube and the
      Niester, the king of the Scythians sent him a mouse, a frog, a
      bird, and five arrows; a tremendous allegory!]

      20 (return) [ These wars and heroes may be found under their
      respective _titles_, in the Bibliothque Orientale of DÕHerbelot.
      They have been celebrated in an epic poem of sixty thousand
      rhymed couplets, by Ferdusi, the Homer of Persia. See the history
      of Nadir Shah, p. 145, 165. The public must lament that Mr. Jones
      has suspended the pursuit of Oriental learning. Note: Ferdusi is
      yet imperfectly known to European readers. An abstract of the
      whole poem has been published by Goerres in German, under the
      title Òdas Heldenbuch des Iran.Ó In English, an abstract with
      poetical translations, by Mr. Atkinson, has appeared, under the
      auspices of the Oriental Fund. But to translate a poet a man must
      be a poet. The best account of the poem is in an article by Von
      Hammer in the Vienna Jahrbucher, 1820: or perhaps in a masterly
      article in CochraneÕs Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 1, 1835. A
      splendid and critical edition of the whole work has been
      published by a very learned English Orientalist, Captain Macan,
      at the expense of the king of Oude. As to the number of 60,000
      couplets, Captain Macan (Preface, p. 39) states that he never saw
      a MS. containing more than 56,685, including doubtful and
      spurious passages and episodes.ÑM. * Note: The later studies of
      Sir W. Jones were more in unison with the wishes of the public,
      thus expressed by Gibbon.ÑM.]

      21 (return) [ The Caspian Sea, with its rivers and adjacent
      tribes, are laboriously illustrated in the Examen Critique des
      Historiens dÕAlexandre, which compares the true geography, and
      the errors produced by the vanity or ignorance of the Greeks.]

      22 (return) [ The original seat of the nation appears to have
      been in the Northwest of China, in the provinces of Chensi and
      Chansi. Under the two first dynasties, the principal town was
      still a movable camp; the villages were thinly scattered; more
      land was employed in pasture than in tillage; the exercise of
      hunting was ordained to clear the country from wild beasts;
      Petcheli (where Pekin stands) was a desert, and the Southern
      provinces were peopled with Indian savages. The dynasty of the
      _Han_ (before Christ 206) gave the empire its actual form and
      extent.]

      23 (return) [ The ¾ra of the Chinese monarchy has been variously
      fixed from 2952 to 2132 years before Christ; and the year 2637
      has been chosen for the lawful epoch, by the authority of the
      present emperor. The difference arises from the uncertain
      duration of the two first dynasties; and the vacant space that
      lies beyond them, as far as the real, or fabulous, times of Fohi,
      or Hoangti. Sematsien dates his authentic chronology from the
      year 841; the thirty-six eclipses of Confucius (thirty-one of
      which have been verified) were observed between the years 722 and
      480 before Christ. The _historical_ period of China does not
      ascend above the Greek Olympiads.]

      24 (return) [ After several ages of anarchy and despotism, the
      dynasty of the Han (before Christ 206) was the ¾ra of the revival
      of learning. The fragments of ancient literature were restored;
      the characters were improved and fixed; and the future
      preservation of books was secured by the useful inventions of
      ink, paper, and the art of printing. Ninety-seven years before
      Christ, Sematsien published the first history of China. His
      labors were illustrated, and continued, by a series of one
      hundred and eighty historians. The substance of their works is
      still extant; and the most considerable of them are now deposited
      in the king of FranceÕs library.]

      25 (return) [ China has been illustrated by the labors of the
      French; of the missionaries at Pekin, and Messrs. Freret and De
      Guignes at Paris. The substance of the three preceding notes is
      extracted from the Chou-king, with the preface and notes of M. de
      Guignes, Paris, 1770. The _Tong-Kien-Kang-Mou_, translated by P.
      de Mailla, under the name of Hist. GŽnerale de la Chine, tom. i.
      p. xlix.Ñcc.; the MŽmoires sur la Chine, Paris, 1776, &c., tom.
      i. p. 1Ñ323; tom. ii. p. 5Ñ364; the Histoire des Huns, tom. i. p.
      4Ñ131, tom. v. p. 345Ñ362; and the MŽmoires de lÕAcadŽmie des
      Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 377Ñ402; tom. xv. p. 495Ñ564; tom.
      xviii. p. 178Ñ295; xxxvi. p. 164Ñ238.]

      26 (return) [ See the Histoire Generale des Voyages, tom. xviii.,
      and the Genealogical History, vol. ii. p. 620Ñ664.]




      Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.ÑPart II.


      The Huns, who under the reign of Valens threatened the empire of
      Rome, had been formidable, in a much earlier period, to the
      empire of China. 27 Their ancient, perhaps their original, seat
      was an extensive, though dry and barren, tract of country,
      immediately on the north side of the great wall. Their place is
      at present occupied by the forty-nine Hords or Banners of the
      Mongous, a pastoral nation, which consists of about two hundred
      thousand families. 28 But the valor of the Huns had extended the
      narrow limits of their dominions; and their rustic chiefs, who
      assumed the appellation of _Tanjou_, gradually became the
      conquerors, and the sovereigns of a formidable empire. Towards
      the East, their victorious arms were stopped only by the ocean;
      and the tribes, which are thinly scattered between the Amoor and
      the extreme peninsula of Corea, adhered, with reluctance, to the
      standard of the Huns. On the West, near the head of the Irtish,
      in the valleys of Imaus, they found a more ample space, and more
      numerous enemies. One of the lieutenants of the Tanjou subdued,
      in a single expedition, twenty-six nations; the Igours, 29
      distinguished above the Tartar race by the use of letters, were
      in the number of his vassals; and, by the strange connection of
      human events, the flight of one of those vagrant tribes recalled
      the victorious Parthians from the invasion of Syria. 30 On the
      side of the North, the ocean was assigned as the limit of the
      power of the Huns. Without enemies to resist their progress, or
      witnesses to contradict their vanity, they might securely achieve
      a real, or imaginary, conquest of the frozen regions of Siberia.
      The _Northern Sea_ was fixed as the remote boundary of their
      empire. But the name of that sea, on whose shores the patriot
      Sovou embraced the life of a shepherd and an exile, 31 may be
      transferred, with much more probability, to the Baikal, a
      capacious basin, above three hundred miles in length, which
      disdains the modest appellation of a lake 32 and which actually
      communicates with the seas of the North, by the long course of
      the Angara, the Tongusha, and the Jenissea. The submission of so
      many distant nations might flatter the pride of the Tanjou; but
      the valor of the Huns could be rewarded only by the enjoyment of
      the wealth and luxury of the empire of the South. In the third
      century 3211 before the Christian ¾ra, a wall of fifteen hundred
      miles in length was constructed, to defend the frontiers of China
      against the inroads of the Huns; 33 but this stupendous work,
      which holds a conspicuous place in the map of the world, has
      never contributed to the safety of an unwarlike people. The
      cavalry of the Tanjou frequently consisted of two or three
      hundred thousand men, formidable by the matchless dexterity with
      which they managed their bows and their horses: by their hardy
      patience in supporting the inclemency of the weather; and by the
      incredible speed of their march, which was seldom checked by
      torrents, or precipices, by the deepest rivers, or by the most
      lofty mountains. They spread themselves at once over the face of
      the country; and their rapid impetuosity surprised, astonished,
      and disconcerted the grave and elaborate tactics of a Chinese
      army. The emperor Kaoti, 34 a soldier of fortune, whose personal
      merit had raised him to the throne, marched against the Huns with
      those veteran troops which had been trained in the civil wars of
      China. But he was soon surrounded by the Barbarians; and, after a
      siege of seven days, the monarch, hopeless of relief, was reduced
      to purchase his deliverance by an ignominious capitulation. The
      successors of Kaoti, whose lives were dedicated to the arts of
      peace, or the luxury of the palace, submitted to a more permanent
      disgrace. They too hastily confessed the insufficiency of arms
      and fortifications. They were too easily convinced, that while
      the blazing signals announced on every side the approach of the
      Huns, the Chinese troops, who slept with the helmet on their
      head, and the cuirass on their back, were destroyed by the
      incessant labor of ineffectual marches. 35 A regular payment of
      money, and silk, was stipulated as the condition of a temporary
      and precarious peace; and the wretched expedient of disguising a
      real tribute, under the names of a gift or subsidy, was practised
      by the emperors of China as well as by those of Rome. But there
      still remained a more disgraceful article of tribute, which
      violated the sacred feelings of humanity and nature. The
      hardships of the savage life, which destroy in their infancy the
      children who are born with a less healthy and robust
      constitution, introduced a remarkable disproportion between the
      numbers of the two sexes. The Tartars are an ugly and even
      deformed race; and while they consider their own women as the
      instruments of domestic labor, their desires, or rather their
      appetites, are directed to the enjoyment of more elegant beauty.
      A select band of the fairest maidens of China was annually
      devoted to the rude embraces of the Huns; 36 and the alliance of
      the haughty Tanjous was secured by their marriage with the
      genuine, or adopted, daughters of the Imperial family, which
      vainly attempted to escape the sacrilegious pollution. The
      situation of these unhappy victims is described in the verses of
      a Chinese princess, who laments that she had been condemned by
      her parents to a distant exile, under a Barbarian husband; who
      complains that sour milk was her only drink, raw flesh her only
      food, a tent her only palace; and who expresses, in a strain of
      pathetic simplicity, the natural wish, that she were transformed
      into a bird, to fly back to her dear country; the object of her
      tender and perpetual regret. 37

      27 (return) [ M. de Guignes (tom. ii. p. 1Ñ124) has given the
      original history of the ancient Hiong-nou, or Huns. The Chinese
      geography of their country (tom. i. part. p. lv.Ñlxiii.) seems to
      comprise a part of their conquests. * Note: The theory of De
      Guignes on the early history of the Huns is, in general, rejected
      by modern writers. De Guignes advanced no valid proof of the
      identity of the Hioung-nou of the Chinese writers with the Huns,
      except the similarity of name. Schlozer, (Allgemeine Nordische
      Geschichte, p. 252,) Klaproth, (Tableaux Historiques de lÕAsie,
      p. 246,) St. Martin, iv. 61, and A. Remusat, (Recherches sur les
      Langues Tartares, D. P. xlvi, and p. 328; though in the latter
      passage he considers the theory of De Guignes not absolutely
      disproved,) concur in considering the Huns as belonging to the
      Finnish stock, distinct from the Moguls the Mandscheus, and the
      Turks. The Hiong-nou, according to Klaproth, were Turks. The
      names of the Hunnish chiefs could not be pronounced by a Turk;
      and, according to the same author, the Hioung-nou, which is
      explained in Chinese as _detestable slaves_, as early as the year
      91 J. C., were dispersed by the Chinese, and assumed the name of
      Yue-po or Yue-pan. M. St. Martin does not consider it impossible
      that the appellation of Hioung-nou may have belonged to the Huns.
      But all agree in considering the Madjar or Magyar of modern
      Hungary the descendants of the Huns. Their language (compare
      Gibbon, c. lv. n. 22) is nearly related to the Lapponian and
      Vogoul. The noble forms of the modern Hungarians, so strongly
      contrasted with the hideous pictures which the fears and the
      hatred of the Romans give of the Huns, M. Klaproth accounts for
      by the intermingling with other races, Turkish and Slavonian. The
      present state of the question is thus stated in the last edition
      of Malte Brun, and a new and ingenious hypothesis suggested to
      resolve all the difficulties of the question.
          Were the Huns Finns? This obscure question has not been
          debated till very recently, and is yet very far from being
          decided. We are of opinion that it will be so hereafter in
          the same manner as that with regard to the Scythians. We
          shall trace in the portrait of Attila a dominant tribe or
          Mongols, or Kalmucks, with all the hereditary ugliness of
          that race; but in the mass of the Hunnish army and nation
          will be recognized the Chuni and the Ounni of the Greek
          Geography. the Kuns of the Hungarians, the European Huns, and
          a race in close relationship with the Flemish stock. Malte
          Brun, vi. p. 94. This theory is more fully and ably
          developed, p. 743. Whoever has seen the emperor of AustriaÕs
          Hungarian guard, will not readily admit their descent from
          the Huns described by Sidonius Appolinaris.ÑM]

      28 (return) [ See in Duhalde (tom. iv. p. 18Ñ65) a circumstantial
      description, with a correct map, of the country of the Mongous.]

      29 (return) [ The Igours, or Vigours, were divided into three
      branches; hunters, shepherds, and husbandmen; and the last class
      was despised by the two former. See Abulghazi, part ii. c. 7. *
      Note: On the Ouigour or Igour characters, see the work of M. A.
      Remusat, Sur les Langues Tartares. He conceives the Ouigour
      alphabet of sixteen letters to have been formed from the Syriac,
      and introduced by the Nestorian Christians.ÑCh. ii. M.]

      30 (return) [ MŽmoires de lÕAcadŽmie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv.
      p. 17Ñ33. The comprehensive view of M. de Guignes has compared
      these distant events.]

      31 (return) [ The fame of Sovou, or So-ou, his merit, and his
      singular adventurers, are still celebrated in China. See the
      Eloge de Moukden, p. 20, and notes, p. 241Ñ247; and MŽmoires sur
      la Chine, tom. iii. p. 317Ñ360.]

      32 (return) [ See Isbrand Ives in HarrisÕs Collection, vol. ii.
      p. 931; BellÕs Travels, vol. i. p. 247Ñ254; and Gmelin, in the
      Hist. Generale des Voyages, tom. xviii. 283Ñ329. They all remark
      the vulgar opinion that the _holy sea_ grows angry and
      tempestuous if any one presumes to call it a _lake_. This
      grammatical nicety often excites a dispute between the absurd
      superstition of the mariners and the absurd obstinacy of
      travellers.]

      3211 (return) [ 224 years before Christ. It was built by
      Chi-hoang-ti of the Dynasty Thsin. It is from twenty to
      twenty-five feet high. Ce monument, aussi gigantesque
      quÕimpuissant, arreterait bien les incursions de quelques
      Nomades; mais il nÕa jamais empŽchŽ les invasions des Turcs, des
      Mongols, et des Mandchous. Abe Remusat Rech. Asiat. 2d ser. vol.
      i. p. 58ÑM.]

      33 (return) [ The construction of the wall of China is mentioned
      by Duhalde (tom. ii. p. 45) and De Guignes, (tom. ii. p. 59.)]

      34 (return) [ See the life of Lieoupang, or Kaoti, in the Hist,
      de la Chine, published at Paris, 1777, &c., tom. i. p. 442Ñ522.
      This voluminous work is the translation (by the P. de Mailla) of
      the _Tong- Kien-Kang-Mou_, the celebrated abridgment of the great
      History of Semakouang (A.D. 1084) and his continuators.]

      35 (return) [ See a free and ample memorial, presented by a
      Mandarin to the emperor Venti, (before Christ 180Ñ157,) in
      Duhalde, (tom. ii. p. 412Ñ426,) from a collection of State papers
      marked with the red pencil by Kamhi himself, (p. 354Ñ612.)
      Another memorial from the minister of war (Kang-Mou, tom. ii. p
      555) supplies some curious circumstances of the manners of the
      Huns.]

      36 (return) [ A supply of women is mentioned as a customary
      article of treaty and tribute, (Hist. de la Conquete de la Chine,
      par les Tartares Mantcheoux, tom. i. p. 186, 187, with the note
      of the editor.)]

      37 (return) [ De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 62.]

      The conquest of China has been twice achieved by the pastoral
      tribes of the North: the forces of the Huns were not inferior to
      those of the Moguls, or of the Mantcheoux; and their ambition
      might entertain the most sanguine hopes of success. But their
      pride was humbled, and their progress was checked, by the arms
      and policy of Vouti, 38 the fifth emperor of the powerful dynasty
      of the Han. In his long reign of fifty- four years, the
      Barbarians of the southern provinces submitted to the laws and
      manners of China; and the ancient limits of the monarchy were
      enlarged, from the great river of Kiang, to the port of Canton.
      Instead of confining himself to the timid operations of a
      defensive war, his lieutenants penetrated many hundred miles into
      the country of the Huns. In those boundless deserts, where it is
      impossible to form magazines, and difficult to transport a
      sufficient supply of provisions, the armies of Vouti were
      repeatedly exposed to intolerable hardships: and, of one hundred
      and forty thousand soldiers, who marched against the Barbarians,
      thirty thousand only returned in safety to the feet of their
      master. These losses, however, were compensated by splendid and
      decisive success. The Chinese generals improved the superiority
      which they derived from the temper of their arms, their chariots
      of war, and the service of their Tartar auxiliaries. The camp of
      the Tanjou was surprised in the midst of sleep and intemperance;
      and, though the monarch of the Huns bravely cut his way through
      the ranks of the enemy, he left above fifteen thousand of his
      subjects on the field of battle. Yet this signal victory, which
      was preceded and followed by many bloody engagements, contributed
      much less to the destruction of the power of the Huns than the
      effectual policy which was employed to detach the tributary
      nations from their obedience. Intimidated by the arms, or allured
      by the promises, of Vouti and his successors, the most
      considerable tribes, both of the East and of the West, disclaimed
      the authority of the Tanjou. While some acknowledged themselves
      the allies or vassals of the empire, they all became the
      implacable enemies of the Huns; and the numbers of that haughty
      people, as soon as they were reduced to their native strength,
      might, perhaps, have been contained within the walls of one of
      the great and populous cities of China. 39 The desertion of his
      subjects, and the perplexity of a civil war, at length compelled
      the Tanjou himself to renounce the dignity of an independent
      sovereign, and the freedom of a warlike and high-spirited nation.
      He was received at Sigan, the capital of the monarchy, by the
      troops, the mandarins, and the emperor himself, with all the
      honors that could adorn and disguise the triumph of Chinese
      vanity. 40 A magnificent palace was prepared for his reception;
      his place was assigned above all the princes of the royal family;
      and the patience of the Barbarian king was exhausted by the
      ceremonies of a banquet, which consisted of eight courses of
      meat, and of nine solemn pieces of music. But he performed, on
      his knees, the duty of a respectful homage to the emperor of
      China; pronounced, in his own name, and in the name of his
      successors, a perpetual oath of fidelity; and gratefully accepted
      a seal, which was bestowed as the emblem of his regal dependence.
      After this humiliating submission, the Tanjous sometimes departed
      from their allegiance and seized the favorable moments of war and
      rapine; but the monarchy of the Huns gradually declined, till it
      was broken, by civil dissension, into two hostile and separate
      kingdoms. One of the princes of the nation was urged, by fear and
      ambition, to retire towards the South with eight hords, which
      composed between forty and fifty thousand families. He obtained,
      with the title of Tanjou, a convenient territory on the verge of
      the Chinese provinces; and his constant attachment to the service
      of the empire was secured by weakness, and the desire of revenge.
      From the time of this fatal schism, the Huns of the North
      continued to languish about fifty years; till they were oppressed
      on every side by their foreign and domestic enemies. The proud
      inscription 41 of a column, erected on a lofty mountain,
      announced to posterity, that a Chinese army had marched seven
      hundred miles into the heart of their country. The Sienpi, 42 a
      tribe of Oriental Tartars, retaliated the injuries which they had
      formerly sustained; and the power of the Tanjous, after a reign
      of thirteen hundred years, was utterly destroyed before the end
      of the first century of the Christian ¾ra. 43

      38 (return) [ See the reign of the emperor Vouti, in the
      Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 1Ñ98. His various and inconsistent
      character seems to be impartially drawn.]

      39 (return) [ This expression is used in the memorial to the
      emperor Venti, (Duhalde, tom. ii. p. 411.) Without adopting the
      exaggerations of Marco Polo and Isaac Vossius, we may rationally
      allow for Pekin two millions of inhabitants. The cities of the
      South, which contain the manufactures of China, are still more
      populous.]

      40 (return) [ See the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 150, and the
      subsequent events under the proper years. This memorable festival
      is celebrated in the Eloge de Moukden, and explained in a note by
      the P. Gaubil, p. 89, 90.]

      41 (return) [ This inscription was composed on the spot by
      Parkou, President of the Tribunal of History (Kang-Mou, tom. iii.
      p. 392.) Similar monuments have been discovered in many parts of
      Tartary, (Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 122.)]

      42 (return) [ M. de Guignes (tom. i. p. 189) has inserted a short
      account of the Sienpi.]

      43 (return) [ The ¾ra of the Huns is placed, by the Chinese, 1210
      years before Christ. But the series of their kings does not
      commence till the year 230, (Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 21,
      123.)]

      The fate of the vanquished Huns was diversified by the various
      influence of character and situation. 44 Above one hundred
      thousand persons, the poorest, indeed, and the most pusillanimous
      of the people, were contented to remain in their native country,
      to renounce their peculiar name and origin, and to mingle with
      the victorious nation of the Sienpi. Fifty-eight hords, about two
      hundred thousand men, ambitious of a more honorable servitude,
      retired towards the South; implored the protection of the
      emperors of China; and were permitted to inhabit, and to guard,
      the extreme frontiers of the province of Chansi and the territory
      of Ortous. But the most warlike and powerful tribes of the Huns
      maintained, in their adverse fortune, the undaunted spirit of
      their ancestors. The Western world was open to their valor; and
      they resolved, under the conduct of their hereditary chieftains,
      to conquer and subdue some remote country, which was still
      inaccessible to the arms of the Sienpi, and to the laws of China.
      45 The course of their emigration soon carried them beyond the
      mountains of Imaus, and the limits of the Chinese geography; but
      _we_ are able to distinguish the two great divisions of these
      formidable exiles, which directed their march towards the Oxus,
      and towards the Volga. The first of these colonies established
      their dominion in the fruitful and extensive plains of Sogdiana,
      on the eastern side of the Caspian; where they preserved the name
      of Huns, with the epithet of Euthalites, or Nepthalites. 4511
      Their manners were softened, and even their features were
      insensibly improved, by the mildness of the climate, and their
      long residence in a flourishing province, 46 which might still
      retain a faint impression of the arts of Greece. 47 The _white_
      Huns, a name which they derived from the change of their
      complexions, soon abandoned the pastoral life of Scythia. Gorgo,
      which, under the appellation of Carizme, has since enjoyed a
      temporary splendor, was the residence of the king, who exercised
      a legal authority over an obedient people. Their luxury was
      maintained by the labor of the Sogdians; and the only vestige of
      their ancient barbarism, was the custom which obliged all the
      companions, perhaps to the number of twenty, who had shared the
      liberality of a wealthy lord, to be buried alive in the same
      grave. 48 The vicinity of the Huns to the provinces of Persia,
      involved them in frequent and bloody contests with the power of
      that monarchy. But they respected, in peace, the faith of
      treaties; in war, the dictates of humanity; and their memorable
      victory over Peroses, or Firuz, displayed the moderation, as well
      as the valor, of the Barbarians. The _second_ division of their
      countrymen, the Huns, who gradually advanced towards the
      North-west, were exercised by the hardships of a colder climate,
      and a more laborious march. Necessity compelled them to exchange
      the silks of China for the furs of Siberia; the imperfect
      rudiments of civilized life were obliterated; and the native
      fierceness of the Huns was exasperated by their intercourse with
      the savage tribes, who were compared, with some propriety, to the
      wild beasts of the desert. Their independent spirit soon rejected
      the hereditary succession of the Tanjous; and while each horde
      was governed by its peculiar mursa, their tumultuary council
      directed the public measures of the whole nation. As late as the
      thirteenth century, their transient residence on the eastern
      banks of the Volga was attested by the name of Great Hungary. 49
      In the winter, they descended with their flocks and herds towards
      the mouth of that mighty river; and their summer excursions
      reached as high as the latitude of Saratoff, or perhaps the
      conflux of the Kama. Such at least were the recent limits of the
      black Calmucks, 50 who remained about a century under the
      protection of Russia; and who have since returned to their native
      seats on the frontiers of the Chinese empire. The march, and the
      return, of those wandering Tartars, whose united camp consists of
      fifty thousand tents or families, illustrate the distant
      emigrations of the ancient Huns. 51

      44 (return) [ The various accidents, the downfall, and the flight
      of the Huns, are related in the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 88, 91,
      95, 139, &c. The small numbers of each horde may be due to their
      losses and divisions.]

      45 (return) [ M. de Guignes has skilfully traced the footsteps of
      the Huns through the vast deserts of Tartary, (tom. ii. p. 123,
      277, &c., 325, &c.)]

      4511 (return) [ The Armenian authors often mention this people
      under the name of Hepthal. St. Martin considers that the name of
      Nepthalites is an error of a copyist. St. Martin, iv. 254.ÑM.]

      46 (return) [ Mohammed, sultan of Carizme, reigned in Sogdiana
      when it was invaded (A.D. 1218) by Zingis and his moguls. The
      Oriental historians (see DÕHerbelot, Petit de la Croix, &c.,)
      celebrate the populous cities which he ruined, and the fruitful
      country which he desolated. In the next century, the same
      provinces of Chorasmia and Nawaralnahr were described by
      Abulfeda, (Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. iii.) Their actual
      misery may be seen in the Genealogical History of the Tartars, p.
      423Ñ469.]

      47 (return) [ Justin (xli. 6) has left a short abridgment of the
      Greek kings of Bactriana. To their industry I should ascribe the
      new and extraordinary trade, which transported the merchandises
      of India into Europe, by the Oxus, the Caspian, the Cyrus, the
      Phasis, and the Euxine. The other ways, both of the land and sea,
      were possessed by the Seleucides and the Ptolemies. (See lÕEsprit
      des Loix, l. xxi.)]

      48 (return) [ Procopius de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 3, p. 9.]

      49 (return) [ In the thirteenth century, the monk Rubruquis (who
      traversed the immense plain of Kipzak, in his journey to the
      court of the Great Khan) observed the remarkable name of
      _Hungary_, with the traces of a common language and origin,
      (Hist. des Voyages, tom. vii. p. 269.)]

      50 (return) [ Bell, (vol. i. p. 29Ñ34,) and the editors of the
      Genealogical History, (p. 539,) have described the Calmucks of
      the Volga in the beginning of the present century.]

      51 (return) [ This great transmigration of 300,000 Calmucks, or
      Torgouts, happened in the year 1771. The original narrative of
      Kien-long, the reigning emperor of China, which was intended for
      the inscription of a column, has been translated by the
      missionaries of Pekin, (MŽmoires sur la Chine, tom. i. p.
      401Ñ418.) The emperor affects the smooth and specious language of
      the Son of Heaven, and the Father of his People.]

      It is impossible to fill the dark interval of time, which
      elapsed, after the Huns of the Volga were lost in the eyes of the
      Chinese, and before they showed themselves to those of the
      Romans. There is some reason, however, to apprehend, that the
      same force which had driven them from their native seats, still
      continued to impel their march towards the frontiers of Europe.
      The power of the Sienpi, their implacable enemies, which extended
      above three thousand miles from East to West, 52 must have
      gradually oppressed them by the weight and terror of a formidable
      neighborhood; and the flight of the tribes of Scythia would
      inevitably tend to increase the strength or to contract the
      territories, of the Huns. The harsh and obscure appellations of
      those tribes would offend the ear, without informing the
      understanding, of the reader; but I cannot suppress the very
      natural suspicion, _that_ the Huns of the North derived a
      considerable reenforcement from the ruin of the dynasty of the
      South, which, in the course of the third century, submitted to
      the dominion of China; _that_ the bravest warriors marched away
      in search of their free and adventurous countrymen; _and_ that,
      as they had been divided by prosperity, they were easily reunited
      by the common hardships of their adverse fortune. 53 The Huns,
      with their flocks and herds, their wives and children, their
      dependents and allies, were transported to the west of the Volga,
      and they boldly advanced to invade the country of the Alani, a
      pastoral people, who occupied, or wasted, an extensive tract of
      the deserts of Scythia. The plains between the Volga and the
      Tanais were covered with the tents of the Alani, but their name
      and manners were diffused over the wide extent of their
      conquests; and the painted tribes of the Agathyrsi and Geloni
      were confounded among their vassals. Towards the North, they
      penetrated into the frozen regions of Siberia, among the savages
      who were accustomed, in their rage or hunger, to the taste of
      human flesh; and their Southern inroads were pushed as far as the
      confines of Persia and India. The mixture of Samartic and German
      blood had contributed to improve the features of the Alani, 5311
      to whiten their swarthy complexions, and to tinge their hair with
      a yellowish cast, which is seldom found in the Tartar race. They
      were less deformed in their persons, less brutish in their
      manners, than the Huns; but they did not yield to those
      formidable Barbarians in their martial and independent spirit; in
      the love of freedom, which rejected even the use of domestic
      slaves; and in the love of arms, which considered war and rapine
      as the pleasure and the glory of mankind. A naked cimeter, fixed
      in the ground, was the only object of their religious worship;
      the scalps of their enemies formed the costly trappings of their
      horses; and they viewed, with pity and contempt, the
      pusillanimous warriors, who patiently expected the infirmities of
      age, and the tortures of lingering disease. 54 On the banks of
      the Tanais, the military power of the Huns and the Alani
      encountered each other with equal valor, but with unequal
      success. The Huns prevailed in the bloody contest; the king of
      the Alani was slain; and the remains of the vanquished nation
      were dispersed by the ordinary alternative of flight or
      submission. 55 A colony of exiles found a secure refuge in the
      mountains of Caucasus, between the Euxine and the Caspian, where
      they still preserve their name and their independence. Another
      colony advanced, with more intrepid courage, towards the shores
      of the Baltic; associated themselves with the Northern tribes of
      Germany; and shared the spoil of the Roman provinces of Gaul and
      Spain. But the greatest part of the nation of the Alani embraced
      the offers of an honorable and advantageous union; and the Huns,
      who esteemed the valor of their less fortunate enemies,
      proceeded, with an increase of numbers and confidence, to invade
      the limits of the Gothic empire.

      52 (return) [ The Khan-Mou (tom. iii. p. 447) ascribes to their
      conquests a space of 14,000 _lis_. According to the present
      standard, 200 _lis_ (or more accurately 193) are equal to one
      degree of latitude; and one English mile consequently exceeds
      three miles of China. But there are strong reasons to believe
      that the ancient _li_ scarcely equalled one half of the modern.
      See the elaborate researches of M. DÕAnville, a geographer who is
      not a stranger in any age or climate of the globe. (MŽmoires de
      lÕAcad. tom. ii. p. 125-502. Itineraires, p. 154-167.)]

      53 (return) [ See Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 125Ñ144. The
      subsequent history (p. 145Ñ277) of three or four Hunnic dynasties
      evidently proves that their martial spirit was not impaired by a
      long residence in China.]

      5311 (return) [ Compare M. KlaprothÕs curious speculations on the
      Alani. He supposes them to have been the people, known by the
      Chinese, at the time of their first expeditions to the West,
      under the name of Yath-sai or A-lanna, the Alan‰n of Persian
      tradition, as preserved in Ferdusi; the same, according to
      Ammianus, with the Massaget¾, and with the Albani. The remains of
      the nation still exist in the Osset¾ of Mount Caucasus. Klaproth,
      Tableaux Historiques de lÕAsie, p. 174.ÑM. Compare Shafarik
      Slawische alterthŸmer, i. p. 350.ÑM. 1845.]

      54 (return) [ Utque hominibus quietis et placidis otium est
      voluptabile, ita illos pericula juvent et bella. Judicatur ibi
      beatus qui in prÏlio profuderit animam: senescentes etiam et
      fortuitis mortibus mundo digressos, ut degeneres et ignavos,
      conviciis atrocibus insectantur. [Ammian. xxxi. 11.] We must
      think highly of the conquerors of _such_ men.]

      55 (return) [ On the subject of the Alani, see Ammianus, (xxxi.
      2,) Jornandes, (de Rebus Geticis, c. 24,) M. de Guignes, (Hist.
      des Huns, tom. ii. p. 279,) and the Genealogical History of the
      Tartars, (tom. ii. p. 617.)]

      The great Hermanric, whose dominions extended from the Baltic to
      the Euxine, enjoyed, in the full maturity of age and reputation,
      the fruit of his victories, when he was alarmed by the formidable
      approach of a host of unknown enemies, 56 on whom his barbarous
      subjects might, without injustice, bestow the epithet of
      Barbarians. The numbers, the strength, the rapid motions, and the
      implacable cruelty of the Huns, were felt, and dreaded, and
      magnified, by the astonished Goths; who beheld their fields and
      villages consumed with flames, and deluged with indiscriminate
      slaughter. To these real terrors they added the surprise and
      abhorrence which were excited by the shrill voice, the uncouth
      gestures, and the strange deformity of the Huns. 5611 These
      savages of Scythia were compared (and the picture had some
      resemblance) to the animals who walk very awkwardly on two legs
      and to the misshapen figures, the _Termini_, which were often
      placed on the bridges of antiquity. They were distinguished from
      the rest of the human species by their broad shoulders, flat
      noses, and small black eyes, deeply buried in the head; and as
      they were almost destitute of beards, they never enjoyed either
      the manly grace of youth, or the venerable aspect of age. 57 A
      fabulous origin was assigned, worthy of their form and manners;
      that the witches of Scythia, who, for their foul and deadly
      practices, had been driven from society, had copulated in the
      desert with infernal spirits; and that the Huns were the
      offspring of this execrable conjunction. 58 The tale, so full of
      horror and absurdity, was greedily embraced by the credulous
      hatred of the Goths; but, while it gratified their hatred, it
      increased their fear, since the posterity of d¾mons and witches
      might be supposed to inherit some share of the pr¾ternatural
      powers, as well as of the malignant temper, of their parents.
      Against these enemies, Hermanric prepared to exert the united
      forces of the Gothic state; but he soon discovered that his
      vassal tribes, provoked by oppression, were much more inclined to
      second, than to repel, the invasion of the Huns. One of the
      chiefs of the Roxolani 59 had formerly deserted the standard of
      Hermanric, and the cruel tyrant had condemned the innocent wife
      of the traitor to be torn asunder by wild horses. The brothers of
      that unfortunate woman seized the favorable moment of revenge.

      The aged king of the Goths languished some time after the
      dangerous wound which he received from their daggers; but the
      conduct of the war was retarded by his infirmities; and the
      public councils of the nation were distracted by a spirit of
      jealousy and discord. His death, which has been imputed to his
      own despair, left the reins of government in the hands of
      Withimer, who, with the doubtful aid of some Scythian
      mercenaries, maintained the unequal contest against the arms of
      the Huns and the Alani, till he was defeated and slain in a
      decisive battle. The Ostrogoths submitted to their fate; and the
      royal race of the Amali will hereafter be found among the
      subjects of the haughty Attila. But the person of Witheric, the
      infant king, was saved by the diligence of Alatheus and Saphrax;
      two warriors of approved valor and fiedlity, who, by cautious
      marches, conducted the independent remains of the nation of the
      Ostrogoths towards the Danastus, or Niester; a considerable
      river, which now separates the Turkish dominions from the empire
      of Russia. On the banks of the Niester, the prudent Athanaric,
      more attentive to his own than to the general safety, had fixed
      the camp of the Visigoths; with the firm resolution of opposing
      the victorious Barbarians, whom he thought it less advisable to
      provoke. The ordinary speed of the Huns was checked by the weight
      of baggage, and the encumbrance of captives; but their military
      skill deceived, and almost destroyed, the army of Athanaric.
      While the Judge of the Visigoths defended the banks of the
      Niester, he was encompassed and attacked by a numerous detachment
      of cavalry, who, by the light of the moon, had passed the river
      in a fordable place; and it was not without the utmost efforts of
      courage and conduct, that he was able to effect his retreat
      towards the hilly country. The undaunted general had already
      formed a new and judicious plan of defensive war; and the strong
      lines, which he was preparing to construct between the mountains,
      the Pruth, and the Danube, would have secured the extensive and
      fertile territory that bears the modern name of Walachia, from
      the destructive inroads of the Huns. 60 But the hopes and
      measures of the Judge of the Visigoths was soon disappointed, by
      the trembling impatience of his dismayed countrymen; who were
      persuaded by their fears, that the interposition of the Danube
      was the only barrier that could save them from the rapid pursuit,
      and invincible valor, of the Barbarians of Scythia. Under the
      command of Fritigern and Alavivus, 61 the body of the nation
      hastily advanced to the banks of the great river, and implored
      the protection of the Roman emperor of the East. Athanaric
      himself, still anxious to avoid the guilt of perjury, retired,
      with a band of faithful followers, into the mountainous country
      of Caucaland; which appears to have been guarded, and almost
      concealed, by the impenetrable forests of Transylvania. 62 6211

      56 (return) [ As we are possessed of the authentic history of the
      Huns, it would be impertinent to repeat, or to refute, the fables
      which misrepresent their origin and progress, their passage of
      the mud or water of the M¾otis, in pursuit of an ox or stag, les
      Indes quÕils avoient dŽcouvertes, &c., (Zosimus, l. iv. p. 224.
      Sozomen, l. vi. c. 37. Procopius, Hist. Miscell. c. 5. Jornandes,
      c. 24. Grandeur et DŽcadence, &c., des Romains, c. 17.)]

      5611 (return) [ Art added to their native ugliness; in fact, it
      is difficult to ascribe the proper share in the features of this
      hideous picture to nature, to the barbarous skill with which they
      were self-disfigured, or to the terror and hatred of the Romans.
      Their noses were flattened by their nurses, their cheeks were
      gashed by an iron instrument, that the scars might look more
      fearful, and prevent the growth of the beard. Jornandes and
      Sidonius Apollinaris:Ñ

     Obtundit teneras circumdata fascia nares, Ut galeis cedant.

      Yet he adds that their forms were robust and manly, their height
      of a middle size, but, from the habit of riding, disproportioned.

     Stant pectora vasta, Insignes humer, succincta sub ilibus alvus.
     Forma quidem pediti media est, procera sed extat Si cernas
     equites, sic longi s¾pe putantur Si sedeant.]

      57 (return) [ Prodigios¾ form¾, et pandi; ut bipedes existimes
      bestias; vel quales in commarginandis pontibus, effigiati
      stipites dolantur incompte. Ammian. xxxi. i. Jornandes (c. 24)
      draws a strong caricature of a Calmuck face. Species pavenda
      nigredine... qu¾dam deformis offa, non fecies; habensque magis
      puncta quam lumina. See Buffon. Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii. 380.]

      58 (return) [ This execrable origin, which Jornandes (c. 24)
      describes with the rancor of a Goth, might be originally derived
      from a more pleasing fable of the Greeks. (Herodot. l. iv. c. 9,
      &c.)]

      59 (return) [ The Roxolani may be the fathers of the the
      _Russians_, (DÕAnville, Empire de Russie, p. 1Ñ10,) whose
      residence (A.D. 862) about Novogrod Veliki cannot be very remote
      from that which the Geographer of Ravenna (i. 12, iv. 4, 46, v.
      28, 30) assigns to the Roxolani, (A.D. 886.) * Note: See, on the
      origin of the Russ, Schlozer, Nordische Geschichte, p. 78ÑM.]

      60 (return) [ The text of Ammianus seems to be imperfect or
      corrupt; but the nature of the ground explains, and almost
      defines, the Gothic rampart. MŽmoires de lÕAcadŽmie, &c., tom.
      xxviii. p. 444Ñ462.]

      61 (return) [ M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de lÕEurope, tom. vi.
      p. 407) has conceived a strange idea, that Alavivus was the same
      person as Ulphilas, the Gothic bishop; and that Ulphilas, the
      grandson of a Cappadocian captive, became a temporal prince of
      the Goths.]

      62 (return) [ Ammianus (xxxi. 3) and Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis,
      c. 24) describe the subversion of the Gothic empire by the Huns.]

      6211 (return) [ The most probable opinion as to the position of
      this land is that of M. Malte-Brun. He thinks that Caucaland is
      the territory of the Cacoenses, placed by Ptolemy (l. iii. c. 8)
      towards the Carpathian Mountains, on the side of the present
      Transylvania, and therefore the canton of Cacava, to the south of
      Hermanstadt, the capital of the principality. Caucaland it is
      evident, is the Gothic form of these different names. St. Martin,
      iv 103.ÑM.]




      Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.ÑPart III.


      After Valens had terminated the Gothic war with some appearance
      of glory and success, he made a progress through his dominions of
      Asia, and at length fixed his residence in the capital of Syria.
      The five years 63 which he spent at Antioch was employed to
      watch, from a secure distance, the hostile designs of the Persian
      monarch; to check the depredations of the Saracens and Isaurians;
      64 to enforce, by arguments more prevalent than those of reason
      and eloquence, the belief of the Arian theology; and to satisfy
      his anxious suspicions by the promiscuous execution of the
      innocent and the guilty. But the attention of the emperor was
      most seriously engaged, by the important intelligence which he
      received from the civil and military officers who were intrusted
      with the defence of the Danube. He was informed, that the North
      was agitated by a furious tempest; that the irruption of the
      Huns, an unknown and monstrous race of savages, had subverted the
      power of the Goths; and that the suppliant multitudes of that
      warlike nation, whose pride was now humbled in the dust, covered
      a space of many miles along the banks of the river. With
      outstretched arms, and pathetic lamentations, they loudly
      deplored their past misfortunes and their present danger;
      acknowledged that their only hope of safety was in the clemency
      of the Roman government; and most solemnly protested, that if the
      gracious liberality of the emperor would permit them to cultivate
      the waste lands of Thrace, they should ever hold themselves
      bound, by the strongest obligations of duty and gratitude, to
      obey the laws, and to guard the limits, of the republic. These
      assurances were confirmed by the ambassadors of the Goths, 6411
      who impatiently expected from the mouth of Valens an answer that
      must finally determine the fate of their unhappy countrymen. The
      emperor of the East was no longer guided by the wisdom and
      authority of his elder brother, whose death happened towards the
      end of the preceding year; and as the distressful situation of
      the Goths required an instant and peremptory decision, he was
      deprived of the favorite resources of feeble and timid minds, who
      consider the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as the most
      admirable efforts of consummate prudence. As long as the same
      passions and interests subsist among mankind, the questions of
      war and peace, of justice and policy, which were debated in the
      councils of antiquity, will frequently present themselves as the
      subject of modern deliberation. But the most experienced
      statesman of Europe has never been summoned to consider the
      propriety, or the danger, of admitting, or rejecting, an
      innumerable multitude of Barbarians, who are driven by despair
      and hunger to solicit a settlement on the territories of a
      civilized nation. When that important proposition, so essentially
      connected with the public safety, was referred to the ministers
      of Valens, they were perplexed and divided; but they soon
      acquiesced in the flattering sentiment which seemed the most
      favorable to the pride, the indolence, and the avarice of their
      sovereign. The slaves, who were decorated with the titles of
      pr¾fects and generals, dissembled or disregarded the terrors of
      this national emigration; so extremely different from the partial
      and accidental colonies, which had been received on the extreme
      limits of the empire. But they applauded the liberality of
      fortune, which had conducted, from the most distant countries of
      the globe, a numerous and invincible army of strangers, to defend
      the throne of Valens; who might now add to the royal treasures
      the immense sums of gold supplied by the provincials to
      compensate their annual proportion of recruits. The prayers of
      the Goths were granted, and their service was accepted by the
      Imperial court: and orders were immediately despatched to the
      civil and military governors of the Thracian diocese, to make the
      necessary preparations for the passage and subsistence of a great
      people, till a proper and sufficient territory could be allotted
      for their future residence. The liberality of the emperor was
      accompanied, however, with two harsh and rigorous conditions,
      which prudence might justify on the side of the Romans; but which
      distress alone could extort from the indignant Goths. Before they
      passed the Danube, they were required to deliver their arms: and
      it was insisted, that their children should be taken from them,
      and dispersed through the provinces of Asia; where they might be
      civilized by the arts of education, and serve as hostages to
      secure the fidelity of their parents.

      63 (return) [ The Chronology of Ammianus is obscure and
      imperfect. Tillemont has labored to clear and settle the annals
      of Valens.]

      64 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 223. Sozomen, l. vi. c. 38. The
      Isaurians, each winter, infested the roads of Asia Minor, as far
      as the neighborhood of Constantinople. Basil, Epist. cel. apud
      Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 106.]

      6411 (return) [ Sozomen and Philostorgius say that the bishop
      Ulphilas was one of these ambassadors.ÑM.]

      During the suspense of a doubtful and distant negotiation, the
      impatient Goths made some rash attempts to pass the Danube,
      without the permission of the government, whose protection they
      had implored. Their motions were strictly observed by the
      vigilance of the troops which were stationed along the river and
      their foremost detachments were defeated with considerable
      slaughter; yet such were the timid councils of the reign of
      Valens, that the brave officers who had served their country in
      the execution of their duty, were punished by the loss of their
      employments, and narrowly escaped the loss of their heads. The
      Imperial mandate was at length received for transporting over the
      Danube the whole body of the Gothic nation; 65 but the execution
      of this order was a task of labor and difficulty. The stream of
      the Danube, which in those parts is above a mile broad, 66 had
      been swelled by incessant rains; and in this tumultuous passage,
      many were swept away, and drowned, by the rapid violence of the
      current. A large fleet of vessels, of boats, and of canoes, was
      provided; many days and nights they passed and repassed with
      indefatigable toil; and the most strenuous diligence was exerted
      by the officers of Valens, that not a single Barbarian, of those
      who were reserved to subvert the foundations of Rome, should be
      left on the opposite shore. It was thought expedient that an
      accurate account should be taken of their numbers; but the
      persons who were employed soon desisted, with amazement and
      dismay, from the prosecution of the endless and impracticable
      task: 67 and the principal historian of the age most seriously
      affirms, that the prodigious armies of Darius and Xerxes, which
      had so long been considered as the fables of vain and credulous
      antiquity, were now justified, in the eyes of mankind, by the
      evidence of fact and experience. A probable testimony has fixed
      the number of the Gothic warriors at two hundred thousand men:
      and if we can venture to add the just proportion of women, of
      children, and of slaves, the whole mass of people which composed
      this formidable emigration, must have amounted to near a million
      of persons, of both sexes, and of all ages. The children of the
      Goths, those at least of a distinguished rank, were separated
      from the multitude. They were conducted, without delay, to the
      distant seats assigned for their residence and education; and as
      the numerous train of hostages or captives passed through the
      cities, their gay and splendid apparel, their robust and martial
      figure, excited the surprise and envy of the Provincials. 6711
      But the stipulation, the most offensive to the Goths, and the
      most important to the Romans, was shamefully eluded. The
      Barbarians, who considered their arms as the ensigns of honor and
      the pledges of safety, were disposed to offer a price, which the
      lust or avarice of the Imperial officers was easily tempted to
      accept. To preserve their arms, the haughty warriors consented,
      with some reluctance, to prostitute their wives or their
      daughters; the charms of a beauteous maid, or a comely boy,
      secured the connivance of the inspectors; who sometimes cast an
      eye of covetousness on the fringed carpets and linen garments of
      their new allies, 68 or who sacrificed their duty to the mean
      consideration of filling their farms with cattle, and their
      houses with slaves. The Goths, with arms in their hands, were
      permitted to enter the boats; and when their strength was
      collected on the other side of the river, the immense camp which
      was spread over the plains and the hills of the Lower M¾sia,
      assumed a threatening and even hostile aspect. The leaders of the
      Ostrogoths, Alatheus and Saphrax, the guardians of their infant
      king, appeared soon afterwards on the Northern banks of the
      Danube; and immediately despatched their ambassadors to the court
      of Antioch, to solicit, with the same professions of allegiance
      and gratitude, the same favor which had been granted to the
      suppliant Visigoths. The absolute refusal of Valens suspended
      their progress, and discovered the repentance, the suspicions,
      and the fears, of the Imperial council.

      65 (return) [ The passage of the Danube is exposed by Ammianus,
      (xxxi. 3, 4,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 223, 224,) Eunapius in Excerpt.
      Legat. (p. 19, 20,) and Jornandes, (c. 25, 26.) Ammianus declares
      (c. 5) that he means only, ispas rerum digerere _summitates_. But
      he often takes a false measure of their importance; and his
      superfluous prolixity is disagreeably balanced by his
      unseasonable brevity.]

      66 (return) [ Chishull, a curious traveller, has remarked the
      breadth of the Danube, which he passed to the south of Bucharest
      near the conflux of the Argish, (p. 77.) He admires the beauty
      and spontaneous plenty of M¾sia, or Bulgaria.]

      67 (return) [

     Quem sci scire velit, Libyci velit ¾quoris idem Discere quam mult¾
     Zephyro turbentur haren¾.

      Ammianus has inserted, in his prose, these lines of Virgil,
      (Georgia l. ii. 105,) originally designed by the poet to express
      the impossibility of numbering the different sorts of vines. See
      Plin. Hist. Natur l. xiv.]

      6711 (return) [ A very curious, but obscure, passage of Eunapius,
      appears to me to have been misunderstood by M. Mai, to whom we
      owe its discovery. The substance is as follows: ÒThe Goths
      transported over the river their native deities, with their
      priests of both sexes; but concerning their rites they maintained
      a deep and Ô_adamantine_ silence.Õ To the Romans they pretended
      to be generally Christians, and placed certain persons to
      represent bishops in a conspicuous manner on their wagons. There
      was even among them a sort of what are called monks, persons whom
      it was not difficult to mimic; it was enough to wear black
      raiment, to be wicked, and held in respect.Ó (Eunapius hated the
      Òblack-robed monks,Ó as appears in another passage, with the
      cordial detestation of a heathen philosopher.) ÒThus, while they
      faithfully but secretly adhered to their own religion, the Romans
      were weak enough to suppose them perfect Christians.Ó Mai, 277.
      Eunapius in Niebuhr, 82.ÑM]

      68 (return) [ Eunapius and Zosimus curiously specify these
      articles of Gothic wealth and luxury. Yet it must be presumed,
      that they were the manufactures of the provinces; which the
      Barbarians had acquired as the spoils of war; or as the gifts, or
      merchandise, of peace.]

      An undisciplined and unsettled nation of Barbarians required the
      firmest temper, and the most dexterous management. The daily
      subsistence of near a million of extraordinary subjects could be
      supplied only by constant and skilful diligence, and might
      continually be interrupted by mistake or accident. The insolence,
      or the indignation, of the Goths, if they conceived themselves to
      be the objects either of fear or of contempt, might urge them to
      the most desperate extremities; and the fortune of the state
      seemed to depend on the prudence, as well as the integrity, of
      the generals of Valens. At this important crisis, the military
      government of Thrace was exercised by Lupicinus and Maximus, in
      whose venal minds the slightest hope of private emolument
      outweighed every consideration of public advantage; and whose
      guilt was only alleviated by their incapacity of discerning the
      pernicious effects of their rash and criminal administration.

      Instead of obeying the orders of their sovereign, and satisfying,
      with decent liberality, the demands of the Goths, they levied an
      ungenerous and oppressive tax on the wants of the hungry
      Barbarians. The vilest food was sold at an extravagant price;
      and, in the room of wholesome and substantial provisions, the
      markets were filled with the flesh of dogs, and of unclean
      animals, who had died of disease. To obtain the valuable
      acquisition of a pound of bread, the Goths resigned the
      possession of an expensive, though serviceable, slave; and a
      small quantity of meat was greedily purchased with ten pounds of
      a precious, but useless metal, 69 when their property was
      exhausted, they continued this necessary traffic by the sale of
      their sons and daughters; and notwithstanding the love of
      freedom, which animated every Gothic breast, they submitted to
      the humiliating maxim, that it was better for their children to
      be maintained in a servile condition, than to perish in a state
      of wretched and helpless independence. The most lively resentment
      is excited by the tyranny of pretended benefactors, who sternly
      exact the debt of gratitude which they have cancelled by
      subsequent injuries: a spirit of discontent insensibly arose in
      the camp of the Barbarians, who pleaded, without success, the
      merit of their patient and dutiful behavior; and loudly
      complained of the inhospitable treatment which they had received
      from their new allies. They beheld around them the wealth and
      plenty of a fertile province, in the midst of which they suffered
      the intolerable hardships of artificial famine. But the means of
      relief, and even of revenge, were in their hands; since the
      rapaciousness of their tyrants had left to an injured people the
      possession and the use of arms. The clamors of a multitude,
      untaught to disguise their sentiments, announced the first
      symptoms of resistance, and alarmed the timid and guilty minds of
      Lupicinus and Maximus. Those crafty ministers, who substituted
      the cunning of temporary expedients to the wise and salutary
      counsels of general policy, attempted to remove the Goths from
      their dangerous station on the frontiers of the empire; and to
      disperse them, in separate quarters of cantonment, through the
      interior provinces. As they were conscious how ill they had
      deserved the respect, or confidence, of the Barbarians, they
      diligently collected, from every side, a military force, that
      might urge the tardy and reluctant march of a people, who had not
      yet renounced the title, or the duties, of Roman subjects. But
      the generals of Valens, while their attention was solely directed
      to the discontented Visigoths, imprudently disarmed the ships and
      the fortifications which constituted the defence of the Danube.
      The fatal oversight was observed, and improved, by Alatheus and
      Saphrax, who anxiously watched the favorable moment of escaping
      from the pursuit of the Huns. By the help of such rafts and
      vessels as could be hastily procured, the leaders of the
      Ostrogoths transported, without opposition, their king and their
      army; and boldly fixed a hostile and independent camp on the
      territories of the empire. 70

      69 (return) [ _Decem libras;_ the word _silver_ must be
      understood. Jornandes betrays the passions and prejudices of a
      Goth. The servile Geeks, Eunapius and Zosimus, disguise the Roman
      oppression, and execrate the perfidy of the Barbarians. Ammianus,
      a patriot historian, slightly, and reluctantly, touches on the
      odious subject. Jerom, who wrote almost on the spot, is fair,
      though concise. Per avaritaim aximi ducis, ad rebellionem fame
      _coacti_ sunt, (in Chron.) * Note: A new passage from the history
      of Eunapius is nearer to the truth. ÔIt appeared to our
      commanders a legitimate source of gain to be bribed by the
      Barbarians: Edit. Niebuhr, p. 82.ÑM.]

      70 (return) [ Ammianus, xxxi. 4, 5.]

      Under the name of Judges, Alavivus and Fritigern were the leaders
      of the Visigoths in peace and war; and the authority which they
      derived from their birth was ratified by the free consent of the
      nation. In a season of tranquility, their power might have been
      equal, as well as their rank; but, as soon as their countrymen
      were exasperated by hunger and oppression, the superior abilities
      of Fritigern assumed the military command, which he was qualified
      to exercise for the public welfare. He restrained the impatient
      spirit of the Visigoths till the injuries and the insults of
      their tyrants should justify their resistance in the opinion of
      mankind: but he was not disposed to sacrifice any solid
      advantages for the empty praise of justice and moderation.
      Sensible of the benefits which would result from the union of the
      Gothic powers under the same standard, he secretly cultivated the
      friendship of the Ostrogoths; and while he professed an implicit
      obedience to the orders of the Roman generals, he proceeded by
      slow marches towards Marcianopolis, the capital of the Lower
      M¾sia, about seventy miles from the banks of the Danube. On that
      fatal spot, the flames of discord and mutual hatred burst forth
      into a dreadful conflagration. Lupicinus had invited the Gothic
      chiefs to a splendid entertainment; and their martial train
      remained under arms at the entrance of the palace. But the gates
      of the city were strictly guarded, and the Barbarians were
      sternly excluded from the use of a plentiful market, to which
      they asserted their equal claim of subjects and allies. Their
      humble prayers were rejected with insolence and derision; and as
      their patience was now exhausted, the townsmen, the soldiers, and
      the Goths, were soon involved in a conflict of passionate
      altercation and angry reproaches. A blow was imprudently given; a
      sword was hastily drawn; and the first blood that was spilt in
      this accidental quarrel, became the signal of a long and
      destructive war. In the midst of noise and brutal intemperance,
      Lupicinus was informed, by a secret messenger, that many of his
      soldiers were slain, and despoiled of their arms; and as he was
      already inflamed by wine, and oppressed by sleep he issued a rash
      command, that their death should be revenged by the massacre of
      the guards of Fritigern and Alavivus.

      The clamorous shouts and dying groans apprised Fritigern of his
      extreme danger; and, as he possessed the calm and intrepid spirit
      of a hero, he saw that he was lost if he allowed a moment of
      deliberation to the man who had so deeply injured him. ÒA
      trifling dispute,Ó said the Gothic leader, with a firm but gentle
      tone of voice, Òappears to have arisen between the two nations;
      but it may be productive of the most dangerous consequences,
      unless the tumult is immediately pacified by the assurance of our
      safety, and the authority of our presence.Ó At these words,
      Fritigern and his companions drew their swords, opened their
      passage through the unresisting crowd, which filled the palace,
      the streets, and the gates, of Marcianopolis, and, mounting their
      horses, hastily vanished from the eyes of the astonished Romans.
      The generals of the Goths were saluted by the fierce and joyful
      acclamations of the camp; war was instantly resolved, and the
      resolution was executed without delay: the banners of the nation
      were displayed according to the custom of their ancestors; and
      the air resounded with the harsh and mournful music of the
      Barbarian trumpet. 71 The weak and guilty Lupicinus, who had
      dared to provoke, who had neglected to destroy, and who still
      presumed to despise, his formidable enemy, marched against the
      Goths, at the head of such a military force as could be collected
      on this sudden emergency. The Barbarians expected his approach
      about nine miles from Marcianopolis; and on this occasion the
      talents of the general were found to be of more prevailing
      efficacy than the weapons and discipline of the troops. The valor
      of the Goths was so ably directed by the genius of Fritigern,
      that they broke, by a close and vigorous attack, the ranks of the
      Roman legions. Lupicinus left his arms and standards, his
      tribunes and his bravest soldiers, on the field of battle; and
      their useless courage served only to protect the ignominious
      flight of their leader. ÒThat successful day put an end to the
      distress of the Barbarians, and the security of the Romans: from
      that day, the Goths, renouncing the precarious condition of
      strangers and exiles, assumed the character of citizens and
      masters, claimed an absolute dominion over the possessors of
      land, and held, in their own right, the northern provinces of the
      empire, which are bounded by the Danube.Ó Such are the words of
      the Gothic historian, 72 who celebrates, with rude eloquence, the
      glory of his countrymen. But the dominion of the Barbarians was
      exercised only for the purposes of rapine and destruction. As
      they had been deprived, by the ministers of the emperor, of the
      common benefits of nature, and the fair intercourse of social
      life, they retaliated the injustice on the subjects of the
      empire; and the crimes of Lupicinus were expiated by the ruin of
      the peaceful husbandmen of Thrace, the conflagration of their
      villages, and the massacre, or captivity, of their innocent
      families. The report of the Gothic victory was soon diffused over
      the adjacent country; and while it filled the minds of the Romans
      with terror and dismay, their own hasty imprudence contributed to
      increase the forces of Fritigern, and the calamities of the
      province. Some time before the great emigration, a numerous body
      of Goths, under the command of Suerid and Colias, had been
      received into the protection and service of the empire. 73 They
      were encamped under the walls of Hadrianople; but the ministers
      of Valens were anxious to remove them beyond the Hellespont, at a
      distance from the dangerous temptation which might so easily be
      communicated by the neighborhood, and the success, of their
      countrymen. The respectful submission with which they yielded to
      the order of their march, might be considered as a proof of their
      fidelity; and their moderate request of a sufficient allowance of
      provisions, and of a delay of only two days was expressed in the
      most dutiful terms. But the first magistrate of Hadrianople,
      incensed by some disorders which had been committed at his
      country-house, refused this indulgence; and arming against them
      the inhabitants and manufacturers of a populous city, he urged,
      with hostile threats, their instant departure. The Barbarians
      stood silent and amazed, till they were exasperated by the
      insulting clamors, and missile weapons, of the populace: but when
      patience or contempt was fatigued, they crushed the undisciplined
      multitude, inflicted many a shameful wound on the backs of their
      flying enemies, and despoiled them of the splendid armor, 74
      which they were unworthy to bear. The resemblance of their
      sufferings and their actions soon united this victorious
      detachment to the nation of the Visigoths; the troops of Colias
      and Suerid expected the approach of the great Fritigern, ranged
      themselves under his standard, and signalized their ardor in the
      siege of Hadrianople. But the resistance of the garrison informed
      the Barbarians, that in the attack of regular fortifications, the
      efforts of unskillful courage are seldom effectual. Their general
      acknowledged his error, raised the siege, declared that Òhe was
      at peace with stone walls,Ó 75 and revenged his disappointment on
      the adjacent country. He accepted, with pleasure, the useful
      reenforcement of hardy workmen, who labored in the gold mines of
      Thrace, 76 for the emolument, and under the lash, of an unfeeling
      master: 77 and these new associates conducted the Barbarians,
      through the secret paths, to the most sequestered places, which
      had been chosen to secure the inhabitants, the cattle, and the
      magazines of corn. With the assistance of such guides, nothing
      could remain impervious or inaccessible; resistance was fatal;
      flight was impracticable; and the patient submission of helpless
      innocence seldom found mercy from the Barbarian conqueror. In the
      course of these depredations, a great number of the children of
      the Goths, who had been sold into captivity, were restored to the
      embraces of their afflicted parents; but these tender interviews,
      which might have revived and cherished in their minds some
      sentiments of humanity, tended only to stimulate their native
      fierceness by the desire of revenge. They listened, with eager
      attention, to the complaints of their captive children, who had
      suffered the most cruel indignities from the lustful or angry
      passions of their masters, and the same cruelties, the same
      indignities, were severely retaliated on the sons and daughters
      of the Romans. 78

      71 (return) [ Vexillis de _more_ sublatis, auditisque _triste
      sonantibus classicis_. Ammian. xxxi. 5. These are the _rauca
      cornua_ of Claudian, (in Rufin. ii. 57,) the large horns of the
      _Uri_, or wild bull; such as have been more recently used by the
      Swiss Cantons of Uri and Underwald. (Simler de Republic‰ Helvet,
      l. ii. p. 201, edit. Fuselin. Tigur 1734.) Their military horn is
      finely, though perhaps casually, introduced in an original
      narrative of the battle of Nancy, (A.D. 1477.) ÒAttendant le
      combat le dit cor fut cornŽ par trois fois, tant que le vent du
      souffler pouvoit durer: ce qui esbahit fort Monsieur de
      Bourgoigne; _car deja ˆ Morat lÕavoit ouy_.Ó (See the Pices
      Justificatives in the 4to. edition of Philippe de Comines, tom.
      iii. p. 493.)]

      72 (return) [ Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 26, p. 648, edit.
      Grot. These _splendidi panni_ (they are comparatively such) are
      undoubtedly transcribed from the larger histories of Priscus,
      Ablavius, or Cassiodorus.]

      73 (return) [ Cum populis suis longe ante suscepti. We are
      ignorant of the precise date and circumstances of their
      transmigration.]

      74 (return) [ An Imperial manufacture of shields, &c., was
      established at Hadrianople; and the populace were headed by the
      Fabricenses, or workmen. (Vales. ad Ammian. xxxi. 6.)]

      75 (return) [ Pacem sibi esse cum parietibus memorans. Ammian.
      xxxi. 7.]

      76 (return) [ These mines were in the country of the Bessi, in
      the ridge of mountains, the Rhodope, that runs between Philippi
      and Philippopolis; two Macedonian cities, which derived their
      name and origin from the father of Alexander. From the mines of
      Thrace he annually received the value, not the weight, of a
      thousand talents, (200,000l.,) a revenue which paid the phalanx,
      and corrupted the orators of Greece. See Diodor. Siculus, tom.
      ii. l. xvi. p. 88, edit. Wesseling. GodefroyÕs Commentary on the
      Theodosian Code, tom. iii. p. 496. Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq.
      tom. i. p. 676, 857. D Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p.
      336.]

      77 (return) [ As those unhappy workmen often ran away, Valens had
      enacted severe laws to drag them from their hiding-places. Cod.
      Theodosian, l. x. tit xix leg. 5, 7.]

      78 (return) [ See Ammianus, xxxi. 5, 6. The historian of the
      Gothic war loses time and space, by an unseasonable
      recapitulation of the ancient inroads of the Barbarians.]

      The imprudence of Valens and his ministers had introduced into
      the heart of the empire a nation of enemies; but the Visigoths
      might even yet have been reconciled, by the manly confession of
      past errors, and the sincere performance of former engagements.
      These healing and temperate measures seemed to concur with the
      timorous disposition of the sovereign of the East: but, on this
      occasion alone, Valens was brave; and his unseasonable bravery
      was fatal to himself and to his subjects. He declared his
      intention of marching from Antioch to Constantinople, to subdue
      this dangerous rebellion; and, as he was not ignorant of the
      difficulties of the enterprise, he solicited the assistance of
      his nephew, the emperor Gratian, who commanded all the forces of
      the West. The veteran troops were hastily recalled from the
      defence of Armenia; that important frontier was abandoned to the
      discretion of Sapor; and the immediate conduct of the Gothic war
      was intrusted, during the absence of Valens, to his lieutenants
      Trajan and Profuturus, two generals who indulged themselves in a
      very false and favorable opinion of their own abilities. On their
      arrival in Thrace, they were joined by Richomer, count of the
      domestics; and the auxiliaries of the West, that marched under
      his banner, were composed of the Gallic legions, reduced indeed,
      by a spirit of desertion, to the vain appearances of strength and
      numbers. In a council of war, which was influenced by pride,
      rather than by reason, it was resolved to seek, and to encounter,
      the Barbarians, who lay encamped in the spacious and fertile
      meadows, near the most southern of the six mouths of the Danube.
      79 Their camp was surrounded by the usual fortification of
      wagons; 80 and the Barbarians, secure within the vast circle of
      the enclosure, enjoyed the fruits of their valor, and the spoils
      of the province. In the midst of riotous intemperance, the
      watchful Fritigern observed the motions, and penetrated the
      designs, of the Romans. He perceived, that the numbers of the
      enemy were continually increasing: and, as he understood their
      intention of attacking his rear, as soon as the scarcity of
      forage should oblige him to remove his camp, he recalled to their
      standard his predatory detachments, which covered the adjacent
      country. As soon as they descried the flaming beacons, 81 they
      obeyed, with incredible speed, the signal of their leader: the
      camp was filled with the martial crowd of Barbarians; their
      impatient clamors demanded the battle, and their tumultuous zeal
      was approved and animated by the spirit of their chiefs. The
      evening was already far advanced; and the two armies prepared
      themselves for the approaching combat, which was deferred only
      till the dawn of day.

      While the trumpets sounded to arms, the undaunted courage of the
      Goths was confirmed by the mutual obligation of a solemn oath;
      and as they advanced to meet the enemy, the rude songs, which
      celebrated the glory of their forefathers, were mingled with
      their fierce and dissonant outcries, and opposed to the
      artificial harmony of the Roman shout. Some military skill was
      displayed by Fritigern to gain the advantage of a commanding
      eminence; but the bloody conflict, which began and ended with the
      light, was maintained on either side, by the personal and
      obstinate efforts of strength, valor, and agility. The legions of
      Armenia supported their fame in arms; but they were oppressed by
      the irresistible weight of the hostile multitude the left wing of
      the Romans was thrown into disorder and the field was strewed
      with their mangled carcasses. This partial defeat was balanced,
      however, by partial success; and when the two armies, at a late
      hour of the evening, retreated to their respective camps, neither
      of them could claim the honors, or the effects, of a decisive
      victory. The real loss was more severely felt by the Romans, in
      proportion to the smallness of their numbers; but the Goths were
      so deeply confounded and dismayed by this vigorous, and perhaps
      unexpected, resistance, that they remained seven days within the
      circle of their fortifications. Such funeral rites, as the
      circumstances of time and place would admit, were piously
      discharged to some officers of distinguished rank; but the
      indiscriminate vulgar was left unburied on the plain. Their flesh
      was greedily devoured by the birds of prey, who in that age
      enjoyed very frequent and delicious feasts; and several years
      afterwards the white and naked bones, which covered the wide
      extent of the fields, presented to the eyes of Ammianus a
      dreadful monument of the battle of Salices. 82

      79 (return) [ The Itinerary of Antoninus (p. 226, 227, edit.
      Wesseling) marks the situation of this place about sixty miles
      north of Tomi, OvidÕs exile; and the name of _Salices_ (the
      willows) expresses the nature of the soil.]

      80 (return) [ This circle of wagons, the _Carrago_, was the usual
      fortification of the Barbarians. (Vegetius de Re Militari, l.
      iii. c. 10. Valesius ad Ammian. xxxi. 7.) The practice and the
      name were preserved by their descendants as late as the fifteenth
      century. The _Charroy_, which surrounded the _Ost_, is a word
      familiar to the readers of Froissard, or Comines.]

      81 (return) [ Statim ut accensi malleoli. I have used the literal
      sense of real torches or beacons; but I almost suspect, that it
      is only one of those turgid metaphors, those false ornaments,
      that perpetually disfigure to style of Ammianus.]

      82 (return) [ Indicant nunc usque albentes ossibus campi. Ammian.
      xxxi. 7. The historian might have viewed these plains, either as
      a soldier, or as a traveller. But his modesty has suppressed the
      adventures of his own life subsequent to the Persian wars of
      Constantius and Julian. We are ignorant of the time when he
      quitted the service, and retired to Rome, where he appears to
      have composed his History of his Own Times.]

      The progress of the Goths had been checked by the doubtful event
      of that bloody day; and the Imperial generals, whose army would
      have been consumed by the repetition of such a contest, embraced
      the more rational plan of destroying the Barbarians by the wants
      and pressure of their own multitudes. They prepared to confine
      the Visigoths in the narrow angle of land between the Danube, the
      desert of Scythia, and the mountains of H¾mus, till their
      strength and spirit should be insensibly wasted by the inevitable
      operation of famine. The design was prosecuted with some conduct
      and success: the Barbarians had almost exhausted their own
      magazines, and the harvests of the country; and the diligence of
      Saturninus, the master-general of the cavalry, was employed to
      improve the strength, and to contract the extent, of the Roman
      fortifications. His labors were interrupted by the alarming
      intelligence, that new swarms of Barbarians had passed the
      unguarded Danube, either to support the cause, or to imitate the
      example, of Fritigern. The just apprehension, that he himself
      might be surrounded, and overwhelmed, by the arms of hostile and
      unknown nations, compelled Saturninus to relinquish the siege of
      the Gothic camp; and the indignant Visigoths, breaking from their
      confinement, satiated their hunger and revenge by the repeated
      devastation of the fruitful country, which extends above three
      hundred miles from the banks of the Danube to the straits of the
      Hellespont. 83 The sagacious Fritigern had successfully appealed
      to the passions, as well as to the interest, of his Barbarian
      allies; and the love of rapine, and the hatred of Rome, seconded,
      or even prevented, the eloquence of his ambassadors. He cemented
      a strict and useful alliance with the great body of his
      countrymen, who obeyed Alatheus and Saphrax as the guardians of
      their infant king: the long animosity of rival tribes was
      suspended by the sense of their common interest; the independent
      part of the nation was associated under one standard; and the
      chiefs of the Ostrogoths appear to have yielded to the superior
      genius of the general of the Visigoths. He obtained the
      formidable aid of the Taifal¾, 8311 whose military renown was
      disgraced and polluted by the public infamy of their domestic
      manners. Every youth, on his entrance into the world, was united
      by the ties of honorable friendship, and brutal love, to some
      warrior of the tribe; nor could he hope to be released from this
      unnatural connection, till he had approved his manhood by
      slaying, in single combat, a huge bear, or a wild boar of the
      forest. 84 But the most powerful auxiliaries of the Goths were
      drawn from the camp of those enemies who had expelled them from
      their native seats. The loose subordination, and extensive
      possessions, of the Huns and the Alani, delayed the conquests,
      and distracted the councils, of that victorious people. Several
      of the hords were allured by the liberal promises of Fritigern;
      and the rapid cavalry of Scythia added weight and energy to the
      steady and strenuous efforts of the Gothic infantry. The
      Sarmatians, who could never forgive the successor of Valentinian,
      enjoyed and increased the general confusion; and a seasonable
      irruption of the Alemanni, into the provinces of Gaul, engaged
      the attention, and diverted the forces, of the emperor of the
      West. 85

      83 (return) [ Ammian. xxxi. 8.]

      8311 (return) [ The Taifal¾, who at this period inhabited the
      country which now forms the principality of Wallachia, were, in
      my opinion, the last remains of the great and powerful nation of
      the Dacians, (Daci or Dah¾.) which has given its name to these
      regions, over which they had ruled so long. The Taifal¾ passed
      with the Goths into the territory of the empire. A great number
      of them entered the Roman service, and were quartered in
      different provinces. They are mentioned in the Notitia Imperii.
      There was a considerable body in the country of the Pictavi, now
      Poithou. They long retained their manners and language, and
      caused the name of the Theofalgicus pagus to be given to the
      district they inhabited. Two places in the department of La
      Vendee, Tiffanges and La Tiffardire, still preserve evident
      traces of this denomination. St. Martin, iv. 118.ÑM.]

      84 (return) [ Hanc Taifalorum gentem turpem, et obscen¾ vit¾
      flagitiis ita accipimus mersam; ut apud eos nefandi concubitžs
      fÏdere copulentur mares puberes, ¾tatis viriditatem in eorum
      pollutis usibus consumpturi. Porro, siqui jam adultus aprum
      exceperit solus, vel interemit ursum immanem, colluvione
      liberatur incesti. Ammian. xxxi. 9. ÑÑAmong the Greeks, likewise,
      more especially among the Cretans, the holy bands of friendship
      were confirmed, and sullied, by unnatural love.]

      85 (return) [ Ammian. xxxi. 8, 9. Jerom (tom. i. p. 26)
      enumerates the nations and marks a calamitous period of twenty
      years. This epistle to Heliodorus was composed in the year 397,
      (Tillemont, MŽm. Eccles tom xii. p. 645.)]




      Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.ÑPart IV.


      One of the most dangerous inconveniences of the introduction of
      the Barbarians into the army and the palace, was sensibly felt in
      their correspondence with their hostile countrymen; to whom they
      imprudently, or maliciously, revealed the weakness of the Roman
      empire. A soldier, of the lifeguards of Gratian, was of the
      nation of the Alemanni, and of the tribe of the Lentienses, who
      dwelt beyond the Lake of Constance. Some domestic business
      obliged him to request a leave of absence. In a short visit to
      his family and friends, he was exposed to their curious
      inquiries: and the vanity of the loquacious soldier tempted him
      to display his intimate acquaintance with the secrets of the
      state, and the designs of his master. The intelligence, that
      Gratian was preparing to lead the military force of Gaul, and of
      the West, to the assistance of his uncle Valens, pointed out to
      the restless spirit of the Alemanni the moment, and the mode, of
      a successful invasion. The enterprise of some light detachments,
      who, in the month of February, passed the Rhine upon the ice, was
      the prelude of a more important war. The boldest hopes of rapine,
      perhaps of conquest, outweighed the considerations of timid
      prudence, or national faith. Every forest, and every village,
      poured forth a band of hardy adventurers; and the great army of
      the Alemanni, which, on their approach, was estimated at forty
      thousand men by the fears of the people, was afterwards magnified
      to the number of seventy thousand by the vain and credulous
      flattery of the Imperial court. The legions, which had been
      ordered to march into Pannonia, were immediately recalled, or
      detained, for the defence of Gaul; the military command was
      divided between Nanienus and Mellobaudes; and the youthful
      emperor, though he respected the long experience and sober wisdom
      of the former, was much more inclined to admire, and to follow,
      the martial ardor of his colleague; who was allowed to unite the
      incompatible characters of count of the domestics, and of king of
      the Franks. His rival Priarius, king of the Alemanni, was guided,
      or rather impelled, by the same headstrong valor; and as their
      troops were animated by the spirit of their leaders, they met,
      they saw, they encountered each other, near the town of
      Argentaria, or Colmar, 86 in the plains of Alsace. The glory of
      the day was justly ascribed to the missile weapons, and
      well-practised evolutions, of the Roman soldiers; the Alemanni,
      who long maintained their ground, were slaughtered with
      unrelenting fury; five thousand only of the Barbarians escaped to
      the woods and mountains; and the glorious death of their king on
      the field of battle saved him from the reproaches of the people,
      who are always disposed to accuse the justice, or policy, of an
      unsuccessful war. After this signal victory, which secured the
      peace of Gaul, and asserted the honor of the Roman arms, the
      emperor Gratian appeared to proceed without delay on his Eastern
      expedition; but as he approached the confines of the Alemanni, he
      suddenly inclined to the left, surprised them by his unexpected
      passage of the Rhine, and boldly advanced into the heart of their
      country. The Barbarians opposed to his progress the obstacles of
      nature and of courage; and still continued to retreat, from one
      hill to another, till they were satisfied, by repeated trials, of
      the power and perseverance of their enemies. Their submission was
      accepted as a proof, not indeed of their sincere repentance, but
      of their actual distress; and a select number of their brave and
      robust youth was exacted from the faithless nation, as the most
      substantial pledge of their future moderation. The subjects of
      the empire, who had so often experienced that the Alemanni could
      neither be subdued by arms, nor restrained by treaties, might not
      promise themselves any solid or lasting tranquillity: but they
      discovered, in the virtues of their young sovereign, the prospect
      of a long and auspicious reign. When the legions climbed the
      mountains, and scaled the fortifications of the Barbarians, the
      valor of Gratian was distinguished in the foremost ranks; and the
      gilt and variegated armor of his guards was pierced and shattered
      by the blows which they had received in their constant attachment
      to the person of their sovereign. At the age of nineteen, the son
      of Valentinian seemed to possess the talents of peace and war;
      and his personal success against the Alemanni was interpreted as
      a sure presage of his Gothic triumphs. 87

      86 (return) [ The field of battle, _Argentaria_ or
      _Argentovaria_, is accurately fixed by M. DÕAnville (Notice de
      lÕAncienne Gaule, p. 96Ñ99) at twenty-three Gallic leagues, or
      thirty-four and a half Roman miles to the south of Strasburg.
      From its ruins the adjacent town of _Colmar_ has arisen. Note: It
      is rather Horburg, on the right bank of the River Ill, opposite
      to Colmar. From Schoepflin, Alsatia Illustrata. St. Martin, iv.
      121.ÑM.]

      87 (return) [ The full and impartial narrative of Ammianus (xxxi.
      10) may derive some additional light from the Epitome of Victor,
      the Chronicle of Jerom, and the History of Orosius, (l. vii. c.
      33, p. 552, edit. Havercamp.)]

      While Gratian deserved and enjoyed the applause of his subjects,
      the emperor Valens, who, at length, had removed his court and
      army from Antioch, was received by the people of Constantinople
      as the author of the public calamity. Before he had reposed
      himself ten days in the capital, he was urged by the licentious
      clamors of the Hippodrome to march against the Barbarians, whom
      he had invited into his dominions; and the citizens, who are
      always brave at a distance from any real danger, declared, with
      confidence, that, if they were supplied with arms, _they_ alone
      would undertake to deliver the province from the ravages of an
      insulting foe. 88 The vain reproaches of an ignorant multitude
      hastened the downfall of the Roman empire; they provoked the
      desperate rashness of Valens; who did not find, either in his
      reputation or in his mind, any motives to support with firmness
      the public contempt. He was soon persuaded, by the successful
      achievements of his lieutenants, to despise the power of the
      Goths, who, by the diligence of Fritigern, were now collected in
      the neighborhood of Hadrianople. The march of the Taifal¾ had
      been intercepted by the valiant Frigeric: the king of those
      licentious Barbarians was slain in battle; and the suppliant
      captives were sent into distant exile to cultivate the lands of
      Italy, which were assigned for their settlement in the vacant
      territories of Modena and Parma. 89 The exploits of Sebastian, 90
      who was recently engaged in the service of Valens, and promoted
      to the rank of master-general of the infantry, were still more
      honorable to himself, and useful to the republic. He obtained the
      permission of selecting three hundred soldiers from each of the
      legions; and this separate detachment soon acquired the spirit of
      discipline, and the exercise of arms, which were almost forgotten
      under the reign of Valens. By the vigor and conduct of Sebastian,
      a large body of the Goths were surprised in their camp; and the
      immense spoil, which was recovered from their hands, filled the
      city of Hadrianople, and the adjacent plain. The splendid
      narratives, which the general transmitted of his own exploits,
      alarmed the Imperial court by the appearance of superior merit;
      and though he cautiously insisted on the difficulties of the
      Gothic war, his valor was praised, his advice was rejected; and
      Valens, who listened with pride and pleasure to the flattering
      suggestions of the eunuchs of the palace, was impatient to seize
      the glory of an easy and assured conquest. His army was
      strengthened by a numerous reenforcement of veterans; and his
      march from Constantinople to Hadrianople was conducted with so
      much military skill, that he prevented the activity of the
      Barbarians, who designed to occupy the intermediate defiles, and
      to intercept either the troops themselves, or their convoys of
      provisions. The camp of Valens, which he pitched under the walls
      of Hadrianople, was fortified, according to the practice of the
      Romans, with a ditch and rampart; and a most important council
      was summoned, to decide the fate of the emperor and of the
      empire. The party of reason and of delay was strenuously
      maintained by Victor, who had corrected, by the lessons of
      experience, the native fierceness of the Sarmatian character;
      while Sebastian, with the flexible and obsequious eloquence of a
      courtier, represented every precaution, and every measure, that
      implied a doubt of immediate victory, as unworthy of the courage
      and majesty of their invincible monarch. The ruin of Valens was
      precipitated by the deceitful arts of Fritigern, and the prudent
      admonitions of the emperor of the West. The advantages of
      negotiating in the midst of war were perfectly understood by the
      general of the Barbarians; and a Christian ecclesiastic was
      despatched, as the holy minister of peace, to penetrate, and to
      perplex, the councils of the enemy. The misfortunes, as well as
      the provocations, of the Gothic nation, were forcibly and truly
      described by their ambassador; who protested, in the name of
      Fritigern, that he was still disposed to lay down his arms, or to
      employ them only in the defence of the empire; if he could secure
      for his wandering countrymen a tranquil settlement on the waste
      lands of Thrace, and a sufficient allowance of corn and cattle.
      But he added, in a whisper of confidential friendship, that the
      exasperated Barbarians were averse to these reasonable
      conditions; and that Fritigern was doubtful whether he could
      accomplish the conclusion of the treaty, unless he found himself
      supported by the presence and terrors of an Imperial army. About
      the same time, Count Richomer returned from the West to announce
      the defeat and submission of the Alemanni, to inform Valens that
      his nephew advanced by rapid marches at the head of the veteran
      and victorious legions of Gaul, and to request, in the name of
      Gratian and of the republic, that every dangerous and decisive
      measure might be suspended, till the junction of the two emperors
      should insure the success of the Gothic war. But the feeble
      sovereign of the East was actuated only by the fatal illusions of
      pride and jealousy. He disdained the importunate advice; he
      rejected the humiliating aid; he secretly compared the
      ignominious, at least the inglorious, period of his own reign,
      with the fame of a beardless youth; and Valens rushed into the
      field, to erect his imaginary trophy, before the diligence of his
      colleague could usurp any share of the triumphs of the day.

      88 (return) [ Moratus paucissimos dies, seditione popularium
      levium pulsus Ammian. xxxi. 11. Socrates (l. iv. c. 38) supplies
      the dates and some circumstances. * Note: Compare fragment of
      Eunapius. Mai, 272, in Niebuhr, p. 77.ÑM]

      89 (return) [ Vivosque omnes circa Mutinam, Regiumque, et Parmam,
      Italica oppida, rura culturos exterminavit. Ammianus, xxxi. 9.
      Those cities and districts, about ten years after the colony of
      the Taifal¾, appear in a very desolate state. See Muratori,
      Dissertazioni sopra le Antichitˆ Italiane, tom. i. Dissertat.
      xxi. p. 354.]

      90 (return) [ Ammian. xxxi. 11. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 228Ñ230. The
      latter expatiates on the desultory exploits of Sebastian, and
      despatches, in a few lines, the important battle of Hadrianople.
      According to the ecclesiastical critics, who hate Sebastian, the
      praise of Zosimus is disgrace, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs,
      tom. v. p. 121.) His prejudice and ignorance undoubtedly render
      him a very questionable judge of merit.]

      On the ninth of August, a day which has deserved to be marked
      among the most inauspicious of the Roman Calendar, 91 the emperor
      Valens, leaving, under a strong guard, his baggage and military
      treasure, marched from Hadrianople to attack the Goths, who were
      encamped about twelve miles from the city. 92 By some mistake of
      the orders, or some ignorance of the ground, the right wing, or
      column of cavalry arrived in sight of the enemy, whilst the left
      was still at a considerable distance; the soldiers were
      compelled, in the sultry heat of summer, to precipitate their
      pace; and the line of battle was formed with tedious confusion
      and irregular delay. The Gothic cavalry had been detached to
      forage in the adjacent country; and Fritigern still continued to
      practise his customary arts. He despatched messengers of peace,
      made proposals, required hostages, and wasted the hours, till the
      Romans, exposed without shelter to the burning rays of the sun,
      were exhausted by thirst, hunger, and intolerable fatigue. The
      emperor was persuaded to send an ambassador to the Gothic camp;
      the zeal of Richomer, who alone had courage to accept the
      dangerous commission, was applauded; and the count of the
      domestics, adorned with the splendid ensigns of his dignity, had
      proceeded some way in the space between the two armies, when he
      was suddenly recalled by the alarm of battle. The hasty and
      imprudent attack was made by Bacurius the Iberian, who commanded
      a body of archers and targeteers; and as they advanced with
      rashness, they retreated with loss and disgrace. In the same
      moment, the flying squadrons of Alatheus and Saphrax, whose
      return was anxiously expected by the general of the Goths,
      descended like a whirlwind from the hills, swept across the
      plain, and added new terrors to the tumultuous, but irresistible
      charge of the Barbarian host. The event of the battle of
      Hadrianople, so fatal to Valens and to the empire, may be
      described in a few words: the Roman cavalry fled; the infantry
      was abandoned, surrounded, and cut in pieces. The most skilful
      evolutions, the firmest courage, are scarcely sufficient to
      extricate a body of foot, encompassed, on an open plain, by
      superior numbers of horse; but the troops of Valens, oppressed by
      the weight of the enemy and their own fears, were crowded into a
      narrow space, where it was impossible for them to extend their
      ranks, or even to use, with effect, their swords and javelins. In
      the midst of tumult, of slaughter, and of dismay, the emperor,
      deserted by his guards and wounded, as it was supposed, with an
      arrow, sought protection among the Lancearii and the Mattiarii,
      who still maintained their ground with some appearance of order
      and firmness. His faithful generals, Trajan and Victor, who
      perceived his danger, loudly exclaimed that all was lost, unless
      the person of the emperor could be saved. Some troops, animated
      by their exhortation, advanced to his relief: they found only a
      bloody spot, covered with a heap of broken arms and mangled
      bodies, without being able to discover their unfortunate prince,
      either among the living or the dead. Their search could not
      indeed be successful, if there is any truth in the circumstances
      with which some historians have related the death of the emperor.

      By the care of his attendants, Valens was removed from the field
      of battle to a neighboring cottage, where they attempted to dress
      his wound, and to provide for his future safety. But this humble
      retreat was instantly surrounded by the enemy: they tried to
      force the door, they were provoked by a discharge of arrows from
      the roof, till at length, impatient of delay, they set fire to a
      pile of dry magots, and consumed the cottage with the Roman
      emperor and his train. Valens perished in the flames; and a
      youth, who dropped from the window, alone escaped, to attest the
      melancholy tale, and to inform the Goths of the inestimable prize
      which they had lost by their own rashness. A great number of
      brave and distinguished officers perished in the battle of
      Hadrianople, which equalled in the actual loss, and far surpassed
      in the fatal consequences, the misfortune which Rome had formerly
      sustained in the fields of Cann¾. 93 Two master-generals of the
      cavalry and infantry, two great officers of the palace, and
      thirty-five tribunes, were found among the slain; and the death
      of Sebastian might satisfy the world, that he was the victim, as
      well as the author, of the public calamity. Above two thirds of
      the Roman army were destroyed: and the darkness of the night was
      esteemed a very favorable circumstance, as it served to conceal
      the flight of the multitude, and to protect the more orderly
      retreat of Victor and Richomer, who alone, amidst the general
      consternation, maintained the advantage of calm courage and
      regular discipline. 94

      91 (return) [ Ammianus (xxxi. 12, 13) almost alone describes the
      councils and actions which were terminated by the fatal battle of
      Hadrianople. We might censure the vices of his style, the
      disorder and perplexity of his narrative: but we must now take
      leave of this impartial historian; and reproach is silenced by
      our regret for such an irreparable loss.]

      92 (return) [ The difference of the eight miles of Ammianus, and
      the twelve of Idatius, can only embarrass those critics (Valesius
      ad loc.,) who suppose a great army to be a mathematical point,
      without space or dimensions.]

      93 (return) [ Nec ulla annalibus, pr¾ter Cannensem pugnam, ita ad
      internecionem res legitur gesta. Ammian. xxxi. 13. According to
      the grave Polybius, no more than 370 horse, and 3,000 foot,
      escaped from the field of Cann¾: 10,000 were made prisoners; and
      the number of the slain amounted to 5,630 horse, and 70,000 foot,
      (Polyb. l. iii. p 371, edit. Casaubon, 8vo.) Livy (xxii. 49) is
      somewhat less bloody: he slaughters only 2,700 horse, and 40,000
      foot. The Roman army was supposed to consist of 87,200 effective
      men, (xxii. 36.)]

      94 (return) [ We have gained some faint light from Jerom, (tom.
      i. p. 26 and in Chron. p. 188,) Victor, (in Epitome,) Orosius,
      (l. vii. c. 33, p. 554,) Jornandes, (c. 27,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p.
      230,) Socrates, (l. iv. c. 38,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 40,) Idatius,
      (in Chron.) But their united evidence, if weighed against
      Ammianus alone, is light and unsubstantial.]

      While the impressions of grief and terror were still recent in
      the minds of men, the most celebrated rhetorician of the age
      composed the funeral oration of a vanquished army, and of an
      unpopular prince, whose throne was already occupied by a
      stranger. ÒThere are not wanting,Ó says the candid Libanius,
      Òthose who arraign the prudence of the emperor, or who impute the
      public misfortune to the want of courage and discipline in the
      troops. For my own part, I reverence the memory of their former
      exploits: I reverence the glorious death, which they bravely
      received, standing, and fighting in their ranks: I reverence the
      field of battle, stained with _their_ blood, and the blood of the
      Barbarians. Those honorable marks have been already washed away
      by the rains; but the lofty monuments of their bones, the bones
      of generals, of centurions, and of valiant warriors, claim a
      longer period of duration. The king himself fought and fell in
      the foremost ranks of the battle. His attendants presented him
      with the fleetest horses of the Imperial stable, that would soon
      have carried him beyond the pursuit of the enemy. They vainly
      pressed him to reserve his important life for the future service
      of the republic. He still declared that he was unworthy to
      survive so many of the bravest and most faithful of his subjects;
      and the monarch was nobly buried under a mountain of the slain.
      Let none, therefore, presume to ascribe the victory of the
      Barbarians to the fear, the weakness, or the imprudence, of the
      Roman troops. The chiefs and the soldiers were animated by the
      virtue of their ancestors, whom they equalled in discipline and
      the arts of war. Their generous emulation was supported by the
      love of glory, which prompted them to contend at the same time
      with heat and thirst, with fire and the sword; and cheerfully to
      embrace an honorable death, as their refuge against flight and
      infamy. The indignation of the gods has been the only cause of
      the success of our enemies.Ó The truth of history may disclaim
      some parts of this panegyric, which cannot strictly be reconciled
      with the character of Valens, or the circumstances of the battle:
      but the fairest commendation is due to the eloquence, and still
      more to the generosity, of the sophist of Antioch. 95

      95 (return) [ Libanius de ulciscend. Julian. nece, c. 3, in
      Fabricius, Bibliot Gr¾c. tom. vii. p. 146Ñ148.]

      The pride of the Goths was elated by this memorable victory; but
      their avarice was disappointed by the mortifying discovery, that
      the richest part of the Imperial spoil had been within the walls
      of Hadrianople. They hastened to possess the reward of their
      valor; but they were encountered by the remains of a vanquished
      army, with an intrepid resolution, which was the effect of their
      despair, and the only hope of their safety. The walls of the
      city, and the ramparts of the adjacent camp, were lined with
      military engines, that threw stones of an enormous weight; and
      astonished the ignorant Barbarians by the noise, and velocity,
      still more than by the real effects, of the discharge. The
      soldiers, the citizens, the provincials, the domestics of the
      palace, were united in the danger, and in the defence: the
      furious assault of the Goths was repulsed; their secret arts of
      treachery and treason were discovered; and, after an obstinate
      conflict of many hours, they retired to their tents; convinced,
      by experience, that it would be far more advisable to observe the
      treaty, which their sagacious leader had tacitly stipulated with
      the fortifications of great and populous cities. After the hasty
      and impolitic massacre of three hundred deserters, an act of
      justice extremely useful to the discipline of the Roman armies,
      the Goths indignantly raised the siege of Hadrianople. The scene
      of war and tumult was instantly converted into a silent solitude:
      the multitude suddenly disappeared; the secret paths of the woods
      and mountains were marked with the footsteps of the trembling
      fugitives, who sought a refuge in the distant cities of Illyricum
      and Macedonia; and the faithful officers of the household, and
      the treasury, cautiously proceeded in search of the emperor, of
      whose death they were still ignorant. The tide of the Gothic
      inundation rolled from the walls of Hadrianople to the suburbs of
      Constantinople. The Barbarians were surprised with the splendid
      appearance of the capital of the East, the height and extent of
      the walls, the myriads of wealthy and affrighted citizens who
      crowded the ramparts, and the various prospect of the sea and
      land. While they gazed with hopeless desire on the inaccessible
      beauties of Constantinople, a sally was made from one of the
      gates by a party of Saracens, 96 who had been fortunately engaged
      in the service of Valens. The cavalry of Scythia was forced to
      yield to the admirable swiftness and spirit of the Arabian
      horses: their riders were skilled in the evolutions of irregular
      war; and the Northern Barbarians were astonished and dismayed, by
      the inhuman ferocity of the Barbarians of the South.

      A Gothic soldier was slain by the dagger of an Arab; and the
      hairy, naked savage, applying his lips to the wound, expressed a
      horrid delight, while he sucked the blood of his vanquished
      enemy. 97 The army of the Goths, laden with the spoils of the
      wealthy suburbs and the adjacent territory, slowly moved, from
      the Bosphorus, to the mountains which form the western boundary
      of Thrace. The important pass of Succi was betrayed by the fear,
      or the misconduct, of Maurus; and the Barbarians, who no longer
      had any resistance to apprehend from the scattered and vanquished
      troops of the East, spread themselves over the face of a fertile
      and cultivated country, as far as the confines of Italy and the
      Hadriatic Sea. 98

      96 (return) [ Valens had gained, or rather purchased, the
      friendship of the Saracens, whose vexatious inroads were felt on
      the borders of PhÏnicia, Palestine, and Egypt. The Christian
      faith had been lately introduced among a people, reserved, in a
      future age, to propagate another religion, (Tillemont, Hist. des
      Empereurs, tom. v. p. 104, 106, 141. MŽm. Eccles. tom. vii. p.
      593.)]

      97 (return) [ Crinitus quidam, nudus omnia pr¾ter pubem,
      subraunum et ugubre strepens. Ammian. xxxi. 16, and Vales. ad
      loc. The Arabs often fought naked; a custom which may be ascribed
      to their sultry climate, and ostentatious bravery. The
      description of this unknown savage is the lively portrait of
      Derar, a name so dreadful to the Christians of Syria. See
      OckleyÕs Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 72, 84, 87.]

      98 (return) [ The series of events may still be traced in the
      last pages of Ammianus, (xxxi. 15, 16.) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 227,
      231,) whom we are now reduced to cherish, misplaces the sally of
      the Arabs before the death of Valens. Eunapius (in Excerpt.
      Legat. p. 20) praises the fertility of Thrace, Macedonia, &c.]

      The Romans, who so coolly, and so concisely, mention the acts of
      _justice_ which were exercised by the legions, 99 reserve their
      compassion, and their eloquence, for their own sufferings, when
      the provinces were invaded, and desolated, by the arms of the
      successful Barbarians. The simple circumstantial narrative (did
      such a narrative exist) of the ruin of a single town, of the
      misfortunes of a single family, 100 might exhibit an interesting
      and instructive picture of human manners: but the tedious
      repetition of vague and declamatory complaints would fatigue the
      attention of the most patient reader. The same censure may be
      applied, though not perhaps in an equal degree, to the profane,
      and the ecclesiastical, writers of this unhappy period; that
      their minds were inflamed by popular and religious animosity; and
      that the true size and color of every object is falsified by the
      exaggerations of their corrupt eloquence. The vehement Jerom 101
      might justly deplore the calamities inflicted by the Goths, and
      their barbarous allies, on his native country of Pannonia, and
      the wide extent of the provinces, from the walls of
      Constantinople to the foot of the Julian Alps; the rapes, the
      massacres, the conflagrations; and, above all, the profanation of
      the churches, that were turned into stables, and the contemptuous
      treatment of the relics of holy martyrs. But the Saint is surely
      transported beyond the limits of nature and history, when he
      affirms, Òthat, in those desert countries, nothing was left
      except the sky and the earth; that, after the destruction of the
      cities, and the extirpation of the human race, the land was
      overgrown with thick forests and inextricable brambles; and that
      the universal desolation, announced by the prophet Zephaniah, was
      accomplished, in the scarcity of the beasts, the birds, and even
      of the fish.Ó These complaints were pronounced about twenty years
      after the death of Valens; and the Illyrian provinces, which were
      constantly exposed to the invasion and passage of the Barbarians,
      still continued, after a calamitous period of ten centuries, to
      supply new materials for rapine and destruction. Could it even be
      supposed, that a large tract of country had been left without
      cultivation and without inhabitants, the consequences might not
      have been so fatal to the inferior productions of animated
      nature. The useful and feeble animals, which are nourished by the
      hand of man, might suffer and perish, if they were deprived of
      his protection; but the beasts of the forest, his enemies or his
      victims, would multiply in the free and undisturbed possession of
      their solitary domain. The various tribes that people the air, or
      the waters, are still less connected with the fate of the human
      species; and it is highly probable that the fish of the Danube
      would have felt more terror and distress, from the approach of a
      voracious pike, than from the hostile inroad of a Gothic army.

      99 (return) [ Observe with how much indifference C¾sar relates,
      in the Commentaries of the Gallic war, _that_ he put to death the
      whole senate of the Veneti, who had yielded to his mercy, (iii.
      16;) _that_ he labored to extirpate the whole nation of the
      Eburones, (vi. 31;) _that_ forty thousand persons were massacred
      at Bourges by the just revenge of his soldiers, who spared
      neither age nor sex, (vii. 27,) &c.]

      100 (return) [ Such are the accounts of the sack of Magdeburgh,
      by the ecclesiastic and the fisherman, which Mr. Harte has
      transcribed, (Hist. of Gustavus Adolphus, vol. i. p. 313Ñ320,)
      with some apprehension of violating the _dignity_ of history.]

      101 (return) [ Et vastatis urbibus, hominibusque interfectis,
      solitudinem et _raritatem bestiarum_ quoque fieri, _et
      volatilium, pisciumque:_ testis Illyricum est, testis Thracia,
      testis in quo ortus sum solum, (Pannonia;) ubi pr¾ter cÏlum et
      terram, et crescentes vepres, et condensa sylvarum _cuncta
      perierunt_. Tom. vii. p. 250, l, Cap. Sophonias and tom. i. p.
      26.]




      Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.ÑPart V.


      Whatever may have been the just measure of the calamities of
      Europe, there was reason to fear that the same calamities would
      soon extend to the peaceful countries of Asia. The sons of the
      Goths had been judiciously distributed through the cities of the
      East; and the arts of education were employed to polish, and
      subdue, the native fierceness of their temper. In the space of
      about twelve years, their numbers had continually increased; and
      the children, who, in the first emigration, were sent over the
      Hellespont, had attained, with rapid growth, the strength and
      spirit of perfect manhood. 102 It was impossible to conceal from
      their knowledge the events of the Gothic war; and, as those
      daring youths had not studied the language of dissimulation, they
      betrayed their wish, their desire, perhaps their intention, to
      emulate the glorious example of their fathers. The danger of the
      times seemed to justify the jealous suspicions of the
      provincials; and these suspicions were admitted as unquestionable
      evidence, that the Goths of Asia had formed a secret and
      dangerous conspiracy against the public safety. The death of
      Valens had left the East without a sovereign; and Julius, who
      filled the important station of master-general of the troops,
      with a high reputation of diligence and ability, thought it his
      duty to consult the senate of Constantinople; which he
      considered, during the vacancy of the throne, as the
      representative council of the nation. As soon as he had obtained
      the discretionary power of acting as he should judge most
      expedient for the good of the republic, he assembled the
      principal officers, and privately concerted effectual measures
      for the execution of his bloody design. An order was immediately
      promulgated, that, on a stated day, the Gothic youth should
      assemble in the capital cities of their respective provinces;
      and, as a report was industriously circulated, that they were
      summoned to receive a liberal gift of lands and money, the
      pleasing hope allayed the fury of their resentment, and, perhaps,
      suspended the motions of the conspiracy. On the appointed day,
      the unarmed crowd of the Gothic youth was carefully collected in
      the square or Forum; the streets and avenues were occupied by the
      Roman troops, and the roofs of the houses were covered with
      archers and slingers. At the same hour, in all the cities of the
      East, the signal was given of indiscriminate slaughter; and the
      provinces of Asia were delivered by the cruel prudence of Julius,
      from a domestic enemy, who, in a few months, might have carried
      fire and sword from the Hellespont to the Euphrates. 103 The
      urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly
      authorize the violation of every positive law. How far that, or
      any other, consideration may operate to dissolve the natural
      obligations of humanity and justice, is a doctrine of which I
      still desire to remain ignorant.

      102 (return) [ Eunapius (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 20) foolishly
      supposes a pr¾ternatural growth of the young Goths, that he may
      introduce CadmusÕs armed men, who sprang from the dragonÕs teeth,
      &c. Such was the Greek eloquence of the times.]

      103 (return) [ Ammianus evidently approves this execution,
      efficacia velox et salutaris, which concludes his work, (xxxi.
      16.) Zosimus, who is curious and copious, (l. iv. p. 233Ñ236,)
      mistakes the date, and labors to find the reason, why Julius did
      not consult the emperor Theodosius who had not yet ascended the
      throne of the East.]

      The emperor Gratian was far advanced on his march towards the
      plains of Hadrianople, when he was informed, at first by the
      confused voice of fame, and afterwards by the more accurate
      reports of Victor and Richomer, that his impatient colleague had
      been slain in battle, and that two thirds of the Roman army were
      exterminated by the sword of the victorious Goths. Whatever
      resentment the rash and jealous vanity of his uncle might
      deserve, the resentment of a generous mind is easily subdued by
      the softer emotions of grief and compassion; and even the sense
      of pity was soon lost in the serious and alarming consideration
      of the state of the republic. Gratian was too late to assist, he
      was too weak to revenge, his unfortunate colleague; and the
      valiant and modest youth felt himself unequal to the support of a
      sinking world. A formidable tempest of the Barbarians of Germany
      seemed ready to burst over the provinces of Gaul; and the mind of
      Gratian was oppressed and distracted by the administration of the
      Western empire. In this important crisis, the government of the
      East, and the conduct of the Gothic war, required the undivided
      attention of a hero and a statesman. A subject invested with such
      ample command would not long have preserved his fidelity to a
      distant benefactor; and the Imperial council embraced the wise
      and manly resolution of conferring an obligation, rather than of
      yielding to an insult. It was the wish of Gratian to bestow the
      purple as the reward of virtue; but, at the age of nineteen, it
      is not easy for a prince, educated in the supreme rank, to
      understand the true characters of his ministers and generals. He
      attempted to weigh, with an impartial hand, their various merits
      and defects; and, whilst he checked the rash confidence of
      ambition, he distrusted the cautious wisdom which despaired of
      the republic. As each moment of delay diminished something of the
      power and resources of the future sovereign of the East, the
      situation of the times would not allow a tedious debate. The
      choice of Gratian was soon declared in favor of an exile, whose
      father, only three years before, had suffered, under the sanction
      of _his_ authority, an unjust and ignominious death. The great
      Theodosius, a name celebrated in history, and dear to the
      Catholic church, 104 was summoned to the Imperial court, which
      had gradually retreated from the confines of Thrace to the more
      secure station of Sirmium. Five months after the death of Valens,
      the emperor Gratian produced before the assembled troops _his_
      colleague and _their_ master; who, after a modest, perhaps a
      sincere, resistance, was compelled to accept, amidst the general
      acclamations, the diadem, the purple, and the equal title of
      Augustus. 105 The provinces of Thrace, Asia, and Egypt, over
      which Valens had reigned, were resigned to the administration of
      the new emperor; but, as he was specially intrusted with the
      conduct of the Gothic war, the Illyrian pr¾fecture was
      dismembered; and the two great dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia
      were added to the dominions of the Eastern empire. 106

      104 (return) [ A life of Theodosius the Great was composed in the
      last century, (Paris, 1679, in 4to-1680, 12mo.,) to inflame the
      mind of the young Dauphin with Catholic zeal. The author,
      Flechier, afterwards bishop of Nismes, was a celebrated preacher;
      and his history is adorned, or tainted, with pulpit eloquence;
      but he takes his learning from Baronius, and his principles from
      St. Ambrose and St Augustin.]

      105 (return) [ The birth, character, and elevation of Theodosius
      are marked in Pacatus, (in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 10, 11, 12,)
      Themistius, (Orat. xiv. p. 182,) (Zosimus, l. iv. p. 231,)
      Augustin. (de Civitat. Dei. v. 25,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 34,)
      Sozomen, (l. vii. c. 2,) Socrates, (l. v. c. 2,) Theodoret, (l.
      v. c. 5,) Philostorgius, (l. ix. c. 17, with Godefroy, p. 393,)
      the Epitome of Victor, and the Chronicles of Prosper, Idatius,
      and Marcellinus, in the Thesaurus Temporum of Scaliger. * Note:
      Add a hostile fragment of Eunapius. Mai, p. 273, in Niebuhr, p
      178ÑM.]

      106 (return) [ Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 716,
      &c.]

      The same province, and perhaps the same city, 107 which had given
      to the throne the virtues of Trajan, and the talents of Hadrian,
      was the orignal seat of another family of Spaniards, who, in a
      less fortunate age, possessed, near fourscore years, the
      declining empire of Rome. 108 They emerged from the obscurity of
      municipal honors by the active spirit of the elder Theodosius, a
      general whose exploits in Britain and Africa have formed one of
      the most splendid parts of the annals of Valentinian. The son of
      that general, who likewise bore the name of Theodosius, was
      educated, by skilful preceptors, in the liberal studies of youth;
      but he was instructed in the art of war by the tender care and
      severe discipline of his father. 109 Under the standard of such a
      leader, young Theodosius sought glory and knowledge, in the most
      distant scenes of military action; inured his constitution to the
      difference of seasons and climates; distinguished his valor by
      sea and land; and observed the various warfare of the Scots, the
      Saxons, and the Moors. His own merit, and the recommendation of
      the conqueror of Africa, soon raised him to a separate command;
      and, in the station of Duke of M¾sia, he vanquished an army of
      Sarmatians; saved the province; deserved the love of the
      soldiers; and provoked the envy of the court. 110 His rising
      fortunes were soon blasted by the disgrace and execution of his
      illustrious father; and Theodosius obtained, as a favor, the
      permission of retiring to a private life in his native province
      of Spain. He displayed a firm and temperate character in the ease
      with which he adapted himself to this new situation. His time was
      almost equally divided between the town and country; the spirit,
      which had animated his public conduct, was shown in the active
      and affectionate performance of every social duty; and the
      diligence of the soldier was profitably converted to the
      improvement of his ample patrimony, 111 which lay between
      Valladolid and Segovia, in the midst of a fruitful district,
      still famous for a most exquisite breed of sheep. 112 From the
      innocent, but humble labors of his farm, Theodosius was
      transported, in less than four months, to the throne of the
      Eastern empire; and the whole period of the history of the world
      will not perhaps afford a similar example, of an elevation at the
      same time so pure and so honorable. The princes who peaceably
      inherit the sceptre of their fathers, claim and enjoy a legal
      right, the more secure as it is absolutely distinct from the
      merits of their personal characters. The subjects, who, in a
      monarchy, or a popular state, acquire the possession of supreme
      power, may have raised themselves, by the superiority either of
      genius or virtue, above the heads of their equals; but their
      virtue is seldom exempt from ambition; and the cause of the
      successful candidate is frequently stained by the guilt of
      conspiracy, or civil war. Even in those governments which allow
      the reigning monarch to declare a colleague or a successor, his
      partial choice, which may be influenced by the blindest passions,
      is often directed to an unworthy object But the most suspicious
      malignity cannot ascribe to Theodosius, in his obscure solitude
      of Caucha, the arts, the desires, or even the hopes, of an
      ambitious statesman; and the name of the Exile would long since
      have been forgotten, if his genuine and distinguished virtues had
      not left a deep impression in the Imperial court. During the
      season of prosperity, he had been neglected; but, in the public
      distress, his superior merit was universally felt and
      acknowledged. What confidence must have been reposed in his
      integrity, since Gratian could trust, that a pious son would
      forgive, for the sake of the republic, the murder of his father!
      What expectations must have been formed of his abilities to
      encourage the hope, that a single man could save, and restore,
      the empire of the East! Theodosius was invested with the purple
      in the thirty-third year of his age. The vulgar gazed with
      admiration on the manly beauty of his face, and the graceful
      majesty of his person, which they were pleased to compare with
      the pictures and medals of the emperor Trajan; whilst intelligent
      observers discovered, in the qualities of his heart and
      understanding, a more important resemblance to the best and
      greatest of the Roman princes.

      107 (return) [ _Italica_, founded by Scipio Africanus for his
      wounded veterans of _Italy_. The ruins still appear, about a
      league above Seville, but on the opposite bank of the river. See
      the Hispania Illustrata of Nonius, a short though valuable
      treatise, c. xvii. p. 64Ñ67.]

      108 (return) [ I agree with Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
      v. p. 726) in suspecting the royal pedigree, which remained a
      secret till the promotion of Theodosius. Even after that event,
      the silence of Pacatus outweighs the venal evidence of
      Themistius, Victor, and Claudian, who connect the family of
      Theodosius with the blood of Trajan and Hadrian.]

      109 (return) [ Pacatas compares, and consequently prefers, the
      youth of Theodosius to the military education of Alexander,
      Hannibal, and the second Africanus; who, like him, had served
      under their fathers, (xii. 8.)]

      110 (return) [ Ammianus (xxix. 6) mentions this victory of
      Theodosius Junior Dux M¾si¾, prima etiam tum lanugine juvenis,
      princeps postea perspectissimus. The same fact is attested by
      Themistius and Zosimus but Theodoret, (l. v. c. 5,) who adds some
      curious circumstances, strangely applies it to the time of the
      interregnum.]

      111 (return) [ Pacatus (in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 9) prefers the
      rustic life of Theodosius to that of Cincinnatus; the one was the
      effect of choice, the other of poverty.]

      112 (return) [ M. DÕAnville (Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 25)
      has fixed the situation of Caucha, or Coca, in the old province
      of Gallicia, where Zosimus and Idatius have placed the birth, or
      patrimony, of Theodosius.]

      It is not without the most sincere regret, that I must now take
      leave of an accurate and faithful guide, who has composed the
      history of his own times, without indulging the prejudices and
      passions, which usually affect the mind of a contemporary.
      Ammianus Marcellinus, who terminates his useful work with the
      defeat and death of Valens, recommends the more glorious subject
      of the ensuing reign to the youthful vigor and eloquence of the
      rising generation. 113 The rising generation was not disposed to
      accept his advice or to imitate his example; 114 and, in the
      study of the reign of Theodosius, we are reduced to illustrate
      the partial narrative of Zosimus, by the obscure hints of
      fragments and chronicles, by the figurative style of poetry or
      panegyric, and by the precarious assistance of the ecclesiastical
      writers, who, in the heat of religious faction, are apt to
      despise the profane virtues of sincerity and moderation.
      Conscious of these disadvantages, which will continue to involve
      a considerable portion of the decline and fall of the Roman
      empire, I shall proceed with doubtful and timorous steps. Yet I
      may boldly pronounce, that the battle of Hadrianople was never
      revenged by any signal or decisive victory of Theodosius over the
      Barbarians: and the expressive silence of his venal orators may
      be confirmed by the observation of the condition and
      circumstances of the times. The fabric of a mighty state, which
      has been reared by the labors of successive ages, could not be
      overturned by the misfortune of a single day, if the fatal power
      of the imagination did not exaggerate the real measure of the
      calamity. The loss of forty thousand Romans, who fell in the
      plains of Hadrianople, might have been soon recruited in the
      populous provinces of the East, which contained so many millions
      of inhabitants. The courage of a soldier is found to be the
      cheapest, and most common, quality of human nature; and
      sufficient skill to encounter an undisciplined foe might have
      been speedily taught by the care of the surviving centurions. If
      the Barbarians were mounted on the horses, and equipped with the
      armor, of their vanquished enemies, the numerous studs of
      Cappadocia and Spain would have supplied new squadrons of
      cavalry; the thirty-four arsenals of the empire were plentifully
      stored with magazines of offensive and defensive arms: and the
      wealth of Asia might still have yielded an ample fund for the
      expenses of the war. But the effects which were produced by the
      battle of Hadrianople on the minds of the Barbarians and of the
      Romans, extended the victory of the former, and the defeat of the
      latter, far beyond the limits of a single day. A Gothic chief was
      heard to declare, with insolent moderation, that, for his own
      part, he was fatigued with slaughter: but that he was astonished
      how a people, who fled before him like a flock of sheep, could
      still presume to dispute the possession of their treasures and
      provinces. 115 The same terrors which the name of the Huns had
      spread among the Gothic tribes, were inspired, by the formidable
      name of the Goths, among the subjects and soldiers of the Roman
      empire. 116 If Theodosius, hastily collecting his scattered
      forces, had led them into the field to encounter a victorious
      enemy, his army would have been vanquished by their own fears;
      and his rashness could not have been excused by the chance of
      success. But the _great_ Theodosius, an epithet which he
      honorably deserved on this momentous occasion, conducted himself
      as the firm and faithful guardian of the republic. He fixed his
      head-quarters at Thessalonica, the capital of the Macedonian
      diocese; 117 from whence he could watch the irregular motions of
      the Barbarians, and direct the operations of his lieutenants,
      from the gates of Constantinople to the shores of the Hadriatic.
      The fortifications and garrisons of the cities were strengthened;
      and the troops, among whom a sense of order and discipline was
      revived, were insensibly emboldened by the confidence of their
      own safety. From these secure stations, they were encouraged to
      make frequent sallies on the Barbarians, who infested the
      adjacent country; and, as they were seldom allowed to engage,
      without some decisive superiority, either of ground or of
      numbers, their enterprises were, for the most part, successful;
      and they were soon convinced, by their own experience, of the
      possibility of vanquishing their _invincible_ enemies. The
      detachments of these separate garrisons were generally united
      into small armies; the same cautious measures were pursued,
      according to an extensive and well-concerted plan of operations;
      the events of each day added strength and spirit to the Roman
      arms; and the artful diligence of the emperor, who circulated the
      most favorable reports of the success of the war, contributed to
      subdue the pride of the Barbarians, and to animate the hopes and
      courage of his subjects. If, instead of this faint and imperfect
      outline, we could accurately represent the counsels and actions
      of Theodosius, in four successive campaigns, there is reason to
      believe, that his consummate skill would deserve the applause of
      every military reader. The republic had formerly been saved by
      the delays of Fabius; and, while the splendid trophies of Scipio,
      in the field of Zama, attract the eyes of posterity, the camps
      and marches of the dictator among the hills of the Campania, may
      claim a juster proportion of the solid and independent fame,
      which the general is not compelled to share, either with fortune
      or with his troops. Such was likewise the merit of Theodosius;
      and the infirmities of his body, which most unseasonably
      languished under a long and dangerous disease, could not oppress
      the vigor of his mind, or divert his attention from the public
      service. 118

      113 (return) [ Let us hear Ammianus himself. H¾c, ut miles
      quondam et Gr¾cus, a principatu C¾saris Nerv¾ exorsus, adusque
      Valentis inter, pro virium explicavi mensur‰: opus veritatem
      professum nun quam, ut arbitror, sciens, silentio ausus
      corrumpere vel mendacio. Scribant reliqua potiores ¾tate,
      doctrinisque florentes. Quos id, si libuerit, aggressuros,
      procudere linguas ad majores moneo stilos. Ammian. xxxi. 16. The
      first thirteen books, a superficial epitome of two hundred and
      fifty-seven years, are now lost: the last eighteen, which contain
      no more than twenty-five years, still preserve the copious and
      authentic history of his own times.]

      114 (return) [ Ammianus was the last subject of Rome who composed
      a profane history in the Latin language. The East, in the next
      century, produced some rhetorical historians, Zosimus,
      Olympiedorus, Malchus, Candidus &c. See Vossius de Historicis
      Gr¾cis, l. ii. c. 18, de Historicis Latinis l. ii. c. 10, &c.]

      115 (return) [ Chrysostom, tom. i. p. 344, edit. Montfaucon. I
      have verified and examined this passage: but I should never,
      without the aid of Tillemont, (Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 152,)
      have detected an historical anecdote, in a strange medley of
      moral and mystic exhortations, addressed, by the preacher of
      Antioch, to a young widow.]

      116 (return) [ Eunapius, in Excerpt. Legation. p. 21.]

      117 (return) [ See GodefroyÕs Chronology of the Laws. Codex
      Theodos tom. l. Prolegomen. p. xcix.Ñciv.]

      118 (return) [ Most writers insist on the illness, and long
      repose, of Theodosius, at Thessalonica: Zosimus, to diminish his
      glory; Jornandes, to favor the Goths; and the ecclesiastical
      writers, to introduce his baptism.]

      The deliverance and peace of the Roman provinces 119 was the work
      of prudence, rather than of valor: the prudence of Theodosius was
      seconded by fortune: and the emperor never failed to seize, and
      to improve, every favorable circumstance. As long as the superior
      genius of Fritigern preserved the union, and directed the motions
      of the Barbarians, their power was not inadequate to the conquest
      of a great empire. The death of that hero, the predecessor and
      master of the renowned Alaric, relieved an impatient multitude
      from the intolerable yoke of discipline and discretion. The
      Barbarians, who had been restrained by his authority, abandoned
      themselves to the dictates of their passions; and their passions
      were seldom uniform or consistent. An army of conquerors was
      broken into many disorderly bands of savage robbers; and their
      blind and irregular fury was not less pernicious to themselves,
      than to their enemies. Their mischievous disposition was shown in
      the destruction of every object which they wanted strength to
      remove, or taste to enjoy; and they often consumed, with
      improvident rage, the harvests, or the granaries, which soon
      afterwards became necessary for their own subsistence. A spirit
      of discord arose among the independent tribes and nations, which
      had been united only by the bands of a loose and voluntary
      alliance. The troops of the Huns and the Alani would naturally
      upbraid the flight of the Goths; who were not disposed to use
      with moderation the advantages of their fortune; the ancient
      jealousy of the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths could not long be
      suspended; and the haughty chiefs still remembered the insults
      and injuries, which they had reciprocally offered, or sustained,
      while the nation was seated in the countries beyond the Danube.
      The progress of domestic faction abated the more diffusive
      sentiment of national animosity; and the officers of Theodosius
      were instructed to purchase, with liberal gifts and promises, the
      retreat or service of the discontented party. The acquisition of
      Modar, a prince of the royal blood of the Amali, gave a bold and
      faithful champion to the cause of Rome. The illustrious deserter
      soon obtained the rank of master-general, with an important
      command; surprised an army of his countrymen, who were immersed
      in wine and sleep; and, after a cruel slaughter of the astonished
      Goths, returned with an immense spoil, and four thousand wagons,
      to the Imperial camp. 120 In the hands of a skilful politician,
      the most different means may be successfully applied to the same
      ends; and the peace of the empire, which had been forwarded by
      the divisions, was accomplished by the reunion, of the Gothic
      nation. Athanaric, who had been a patient spectator of these
      extraordinary events, was at length driven, by the chance of
      arms, from the dark recesses of the woods of Caucaland. He no
      longer hesitated to pass the Danube; and a very considerable part
      of the subjects of Fritigern, who already felt the inconveniences
      of anarchy, were easily persuaded to acknowledge for their king a
      Gothic Judge, whose birth they respected, and whose abilities
      they had frequently experienced. But age had chilled the daring
      spirit of Athanaric; and, instead of leading his people to the
      field of battle and victory, he wisely listened to the fair
      proposal of an honorable and advantageous treaty. Theodosius, who
      was acquainted with the merit and power of his new ally,
      condescended to meet him at the distance of several miles from
      Constantinople; and entertained him in the Imperial city, with
      the confidence of a friend, and the magnificence of a monarch.
      ÒThe Barbarian prince observed, with curious attention, the
      variety of objects which attracted his notice, and at last broke
      out into a sincere and passionate exclamation of wonder. I now
      behold (said he) what I never could believe, the glories of this
      stupendous capital! And as he cast his eyes around, he viewed,
      and he admired, the commanding situation of the city, the
      strength and beauty of the walls and public edifices, the
      capacious harbor, crowded with innumerable vessels, the perpetual
      concourse of distant nations, and the arms and discipline of the
      troops. Indeed, (continued Athanaric,) the emperor of the Romans
      is a god upon earth; and the presumptuous man, who dares to lift
      his hand against him, is guilty of his own blood.Ó 121 The Gothic
      king did not long enjoy this splendid and honorable reception;
      and, as temperance was not the virtue of his nation, it may
      justly be suspected, that his mortal disease was contracted
      amidst the pleasures of the Imperial banquets. But the policy of
      Theodosius derived more solid benefit from the death, than he
      could have expected from the most faithful services, of his ally.
      The funeral of Athanaric was performed with solemn rites in the
      capital of the East; a stately monument was erected to his
      memory; and his whole army, won by the liberal courtesy, and
      decent grief, of Theodosius, enlisted under the standard of the
      Roman empire. 122 The submission of so great a body of the
      Visigoths was productive of the most salutary consequences; and
      the mixed influence of force, of reason, and of corruption,
      became every day more powerful, and more extensive. Each
      independent chieftain hastened to obtain a separate treaty, from
      the apprehension that an obstinate delay might expose _him_,
      alone and unprotected, to the revenge, or justice, of the
      conqueror. The general, or rather the final, capitulation of the
      Goths, may be dated four years, one month, and twenty-five days,
      after the defeat and death of the emperor Valens. 123

      119 (return) [ Compare Themistius (Orat, xiv. p. 181) with
      Zosimus (l. iv. p. 232,) Jornandes, (c. xxvii. p. 649,) and the
      prolix Commentary of M. de Buat, (Hist. de Peuples, &c., tom. vi.
      p. 477Ñ552.) The Chronicles of Idatius and Marcellinus allude, in
      general terms, to magna certamina, _magna multaque_ pr¾lia. The
      two epithets are not easily reconciled.]

      120 (return) [ Zosimus (l. iv. p. 232) styles him a Scythian, a
      name which the more recent Greeks seem to have appropriated to
      the Goths.]

      121 (return) [ The reader will not be displeased to see the
      original words of Jornandes, or the author whom he transcribed.
      Regiam urbem ingressus est, miransque, En, inquit, cerno quod
      s¾pe incredulus audiebam, famam videlicet tant¾ urbis. Et huc
      illuc oculos volvens, nunc situm urbis, commeatumque navium, nunc
      mÏnia clara pro spectans, miratur; populosque diversarum gentium,
      quasi fonte in uno e diversis partibus scaturiente unda, sic
      quoque militem ordinatum aspiciens; Deus, inquit, sine dubio est
      terrenus Imperator, et quisquis adversus eum manum moverit, ipse
      sui sanguinis reus existit Jornandes (c. xxviii. p. 650) proceeds
      to mention his death and funeral.]

      122 (return) [ Jornandes, c. xxviii. p. 650. Even Zosimus (l. v.
      p. 246) is compelled to approve the generosity of Theodosius, so
      honorable to himself, and so beneficial to the public.]

      123 (return) [ The short, but authentic, hints in the _Fasti_ of
      Idatius (Chron. Scaliger. p. 52) are stained with contemporary
      passion. The fourteenth oration of Themistius is a compliment to
      Peace, and the consul Saturninus, (A.D. 383.)]

      The provinces of the Danube had been already relieved from the
      oppressive weight of the Gruthungi, or Ostrogoths, by the
      voluntary retreat of Alatheus and Saphrax, whose restless spirit
      had prompted them to seek new scenes of rapine and glory. Their
      destructive course was pointed towards the West; but we must be
      satisfied with a very obscure and imperfect knowledge of their
      various adventures. The Ostrogoths impelled several of the German
      tribes on the provinces of Gaul; concluded, and soon violated, a
      treaty with the emperor Gratian; advanced into the unknown
      countries of the North; and, after an interval of more than four
      years, returned, with accumulated force, to the banks of the
      Lower Danube. Their troops were recruited with the fiercest
      warriors of Germany and Scythia; and the soldiers, or at least
      the historians, of the empire, no longer recognized the name and
      countenances of their former enemies. 124 The general who
      commanded the military and naval powers of the Thracian frontier,
      soon perceived that his superiority would be disadvantageous to
      the public service; and that the Barbarians, awed by the presence
      of his fleet and legions, would probably defer the passage of the
      river till the approaching winter. The dexterity of the spies,
      whom he sent into the Gothic camp, allured the Barbarians into a
      fatal snare. They were persuaded that, by a bold attempt, they
      might surprise, in the silence and darkness of the night, the
      sleeping army of the Romans; and the whole multitude was hastily
      embarked in a fleet of three thousand canoes. 125 The bravest of
      the Ostrogoths led the van; the main body consisted of the
      remainder of their subjects and soldiers; and the women and
      children securely followed in the rear. One of the nights without
      a moon had been selected for the execution of their design; and
      they had almost reached the southern bank of the Danube, in the
      firm confidence that they should find an easy landing and an
      unguarded camp. But the progress of the Barbarians was suddenly
      stopped by an unexpected obstacle a triple line of vessels,
      strongly connected with each other, and which formed an
      impenetrable chain of two miles and a half along the river. While
      they struggled to force their way in the unequal conflict, their
      right flank was overwhelmed by the irresistible attack of a fleet
      of galleys, which were urged down the stream by the united
      impulse of oars and of the tide. The weight and velocity of those
      ships of war broke, and sunk, and dispersed, the rude and feeble
      canoes of the Barbarians; their valor was ineffectual; and
      Alatheus, the king, or general, of the Ostrogoths, perished with
      his bravest troops, either by the sword of the Romans, or in the
      waves of the Danube. The last division of this unfortunate fleet
      might regain the opposite shore; but the distress and disorder of
      the multitude rendered them alike incapable, either of action or
      counsel; and they soon implored the clemency of the victorious
      enemy. On this occasion, as well as on many others, it is a
      difficult task to reconcile the passions and prejudices of the
      writers of the age of Theodosius. The partial and malignant
      historian, who misrepresents every action of his reign, affirms,
      that the emperor did not appear in the field of battle till the
      Barbarians had been vanquished by the valor and conduct of his
      lieutenant Promotus. 126 The flattering poet, who celebrated, in
      the court of Honorius, the glory of the father and of the son,
      ascribes the victory to the personal prowess of Theodosius; and
      almost insinuates, that the king of the Ostrogoths was slain by
      the hand of the emperor. 127 The truth of history might perhaps
      be found in a just medium between these extreme and contradictory
      assertions.

      124 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 252.]

      125 (return) [ I am justified, by reason and example, in applying
      this Indian name to the the Barbarians, the single trees hollowed
      into the shape of a boat. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 253. Ausi Danubium
      quondam tranare Gruthungi In lintres fregere nemus: ter mille
      ruebant Per fluvium plen¾ cuneis immanibus alni. Claudian, in iv.
      Cols. Hon. 623.]

      126 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 252Ñ255. He too frequently
      betrays his poverty of judgment by disgracing the most serious
      narratives with trifling and incredible circumstances.]

      127 (return) [ÑOdoth¾i Regis _opima_ RetulitÑVer. 632. The
      _opima_ were the spoils which a Roman general could only win from
      the king, or general, of the enemy, whom he had slain with his
      own hands: and no more than three such examples are celebrated in
      the victorious ages of Rome.]

      The original treaty which fixed the settlement of the Goths,
      ascertained their privileges, and stipulated their obligations,
      would illustrate the history of Theodosius and his successors.
      The series of their history has imperfectly preserved the spirit
      and substance of this single agreement. 128 The ravages of war
      and tyranny had provided many large tracts of fertile but
      uncultivated land for the use of those Barbarians who might not
      disdain the practice of agriculture. A numerous colony of the
      Visigoths was seated in Thrace; the remains of the Ostrogoths
      were planted in Phrygia and Lydia; their immediate wants were
      supplied by a distribution of corn and cattle; and their future
      industry was encouraged by an exemption from tribute, during a
      certain term of years. The Barbarians would have deserved to feel
      the cruel and perfidious policy of the Imperial court, if they
      had suffered themselves to be dispersed through the provinces.
      They required, and they obtained, the sole possession of the
      villages and districts assigned for their residence; they still
      cherished and propagated their native manners and language;
      asserted, in the bosom of despotism, the freedom of their
      domestic government; and acknowledged the sovereignty of the
      emperor, without submitting to the inferior jurisdiction of the
      laws and magistrates of Rome. The hereditary chiefs of the tribes
      and families were still permitted to command their followers in
      peace and war; but the royal dignity was abolished; and the
      generals of the Goths were appointed and removed at the pleasure
      of the emperor. An army of forty thousand Goths was maintained
      for the perpetual service of the empire of the East; and those
      haughty troops, who assumed the title of _F¾derati_, or allies,
      were distinguished by their gold collars, liberal pay, and
      licentious privileges. Their native courage was improved by the
      use of arms and the knowledge of discipline; and, while the
      republic was guarded, or threatened, by the doubtful sword of the
      Barbarians, the last sparks of the military flame were finally
      extinguished in the minds of the Romans. 129 Theodosius had the
      address to persuade his allies, that the conditions of peace,
      which had been extorted from him by prudence and necessity, were
      the voluntary expressions of his sincere friendship for the
      Gothic nation. 130 A different mode of vindication or apology was
      opposed to the complaints of the people; who loudly censured
      these shameful and dangerous concessions. 131 The calamities of
      the war were painted in the most lively colors; and the first
      symptoms of the return of order, of plenty, and security, were
      diligently exaggerated. The advocates of Theodosius could affirm,
      with some appearance of truth and reason, that it was impossible
      to extirpate so many warlike tribes, who were rendered desperate
      by the loss of their native country; and that the exhausted
      provinces would be revived by a fresh supply of soldiers and
      husbandmen. The Barbarians still wore an angry and hostile
      aspect; but the experience of past times might encourage the
      hope, that they would acquire the habits of industry and
      obedience; that their manners would be polished by time,
      education, and the influence of Christianity; and that their
      posterity would insensibly blend with the great body of the Roman
      people. 132

      128 (return) [ See Themistius, Orat. xvi. p. 211. Claudian (in
      Eutrop. l. ii. 112) mentions the Phrygian colony:ÑÑOstrogothis
      colitur mistisque Gruthungis Phyrx agerÑÑand then proceeds to
      name the rivers of Lydia, the Pactolus, and Herreus.]

      129 (return) [ Compare Jornandes, (c. xx. 27,) who marks the
      condition and number of the Gothic _F¾derati_, with Zosimus, (l.
      iv. p. 258,) who mentions their golden collars; and Pacatus, (in
      Panegyr. Vet. xii. 37,) who applauds, with false or foolish joy,
      their bravery and discipline.]

      130 (return) [ Amator pacis generisque Gothorum, is the praise
      bestowed by the Gothic historian, (c. xxix.,) who represents his
      nation as innocent, peaceable men, slow to anger, and patient of
      injuries. According to Livy, the Romans conquered the world in
      their own defence.]

      131 (return) [ Besides the partial invectives of Zosimus, (always
      discontented with the Christian reigns,) see the grave
      representations which Synesius addresses to the emperor Arcadius,
      (de Regno, p. 25, 26, edit. Petav.) The philosophic bishop of
      Cyrene was near enough to judge; and he was sufficiently removed
      from the temptation of fear or flattery.]

      132 (return) [ Themistius (Orat. xvi. p. 211, 212) composes an
      elaborate and rational apology, which is not, however, exempt
      from the puerilities of Greek rhetoric. Orpheus could _only_
      charm the wild beasts of Thrace; but Theodosius enchanted the men
      and women, whose predecessors in the same country had torn
      Orpheus in pieces, &c.]

      Notwithstanding these specious arguments, and these sanguine
      expectations, it was apparent to every discerning eye, that the
      Goths would long remain the enemies, and might soon become the
      conquerors of the Roman empire. Their rude and insolent behavior
      expressed their contempt of the citizens and provincials, whom
      they insulted with impunity. 133 To the zeal and valor of the
      Barbarians Theodosius was indebted for the success of his arms:
      but their assistance was precarious; and they were sometimes
      seduced, by a treacherous and inconstant disposition, to abandon
      his standard, at the moment when their service was the most
      essential. During the civil war against Maximus, a great number
      of Gothic deserters retired into the morasses of Macedonia,
      wasted the adjacent provinces, and obliged the intrepid monarch
      to expose his person, and exert his power, to suppress the rising
      flame of rebellion. 134 The public apprehensions were fortified
      by the strong suspicion, that these tumults were not the effect
      of accidental passion, but the result of deep and premeditated
      design. It was generally believed, that the Goths had signed the
      treaty of peace with a hostile and insidious spirit; and that
      their chiefs had previously bound themselves, by a solemn and
      secret oath, never to keep faith with the Romans; to maintain the
      fairest show of loyalty and friendship, and to watch the
      favorable moment of rapine, of conquest, and of revenge. But as
      the minds of the Barbarians were not insensible to the power of
      gratitude, several of the Gothic leaders sincerely devoted
      themselves to the service of the empire, or, at least, of the
      emperor; the whole nation was insensibly divided into two
      opposite factions, and much sophistry was employed in
      conversation and dispute, to compare the obligations of their
      first, and second, engagements. The Goths, who considered
      themselves as the friends of peace, of justice, and of Rome, were
      directed by the authority of Fravitta, a valiant and honorable
      youth, distinguished above the rest of his countrymen by the
      politeness of his manners, the liberality of his sentiments, and
      the mild virtues of social life. But the more numerous faction
      adhered to the fierce and faithless Priulf, 13411 who inflamed
      the passions, and asserted the independence, of his warlike
      followers. On one of the solemn festivals, when the chiefs of
      both parties were invited to the Imperial table, they were
      insensibly heated by wine, till they forgot the usual restraints
      of discretion and respect, and betrayed, in the presence of
      Theodosius, the fatal secret of their domestic disputes. The
      emperor, who had been the reluctant witness of this extraordinary
      controversy, dissembled his fears and resentment, and soon
      dismissed the tumultuous assembly. Fravitta, alarmed and
      exasperated by the insolence of his rival, whose departure from
      the palace might have been the signal of a civil war, boldly
      followed him; and, drawing his sword, laid Priulf dead at his
      feet. Their companions flew to arms; and the faithful champion of
      Rome would have been oppressed by superior numbers, if he had not
      been protected by the seasonable interposition of the Imperial
      guards. 135 Such were the scenes of Barbaric rage, which
      disgraced the palace and table of the Roman emperor; and, as the
      impatient Goths could only be restrained by the firm and
      temperate character of Theodosius, the public safety seemed to
      depend on the life and abilities of a single man. 136

      133 (return) [ Constantinople was deprived half a day of the
      public allowance of bread, to expiate the murder of a Gothic
      soldier: was the guilt of the people. Libanius, Orat. xii. p.
      394, edit. Morel.]

      134 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 267-271. He tells a long and
      ridiculous story of the adventurous prince, who roved the country
      with only five horsemen, of a spy whom they detected, whipped,
      and killed in an old womanÕs cottage, &c.]

      13411 (return) [ Eunapius.ÑM.]

      135 (return) [ Compare Eunapius (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 21, 22)
      with Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 279.) The difference of circumstances
      and names must undoubtedly be applied to the same story.
      Fravitta, or Travitta, was afterwards consul, (A.D. 401.) and
      still continued his faithful services to the eldest son of
      Theodosius. (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 467.)]

      136 (return) [ Les Goths ravagerent tout depuis le Danube
      jusquÕau Bosphore; exterminerent Valens et son armŽe; et ne
      repasserent le Danube, que pour abandonner lÕaffreuse solitude
      quÕils avoient faite, (Îuvres de Montesquieu, tom. iii. p. 479.
      Considerations sur les _Causes_ de la Grandeur et de la DŽcadence
      des Romains, c. xvii.) The president Montesquieu seems ignorant
      that the Goths, after the defeat of Valens, _never_ abandoned the
      Roman territory. It is now thirty years, says Claudian, (de Bello
      Getico, 166, &c., A.D. 404,) Ex quo jam patrios gens h¾c oblita
      Triones, Atque Istrum transvecta semel, vestigia fixit Threicio
      funesta soloÑthe error is inexcusable; since it disguises the
      principal and immediate cause of the fall of the Western empire
      of Rome.]




VOLUME THREE




      Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part I.

     Death Of Gratian.—Ruin Of Arianism.—St. Ambrose.—First Civil War,
     Against Maximus.—Character, Administration, And Penance Of
     Theodosius.—Death Of Valentinian II.—Second Civil War, Against
     Eugenius.—Death Of Theodosius.

      The fame of Gratian, before he had accomplished the twentieth
      year of his age, was equal to that of the most celebrated
      princes. His gentle and amiable disposition endeared him to his
      private friends, the graceful affability of his manners engaged
      the affection of the people: the men of letters, who enjoyed the
      liberality, acknowledged the taste and eloquence, of their
      sovereign; his valor and dexterity in arms were equally applauded
      by the soldiers; and the clergy considered the humble piety of
      Gratian as the first and most useful of his virtues. The victory
      of Colmar had delivered the West from a formidable invasion; and
      the grateful provinces of the East ascribed the merits of
      Theodosius to the author of his greatness, and of the public
      safety. Gratian survived those memorable events only four or five
      years; but he survived his reputation; and, before he fell a
      victim to rebellion, he had lost, in a great measure, the respect
      and confidence of the Roman world.

      The remarkable alteration of his character or conduct may not be
      imputed to the arts of flattery, which had besieged the son of
      Valentinian from his infancy; nor to the headstrong passions
      which the that gentle youth appears to have escaped. A more
      attentive view of the life of Gratian may perhaps suggest the
      true cause of the disappointment of the public hopes. His
      apparent virtues, instead of being the hardy productions of
      experience and adversity, were the premature and artificial
      fruits of a royal education. The anxious tenderness of his father
      was continually employed to bestow on him those advantages, which
      he might perhaps esteem the more highly, as he himself had been
      deprived of them; and the most skilful masters of every science,
      and of every art, had labored to form the mind and body of the
      young prince. 1 The knowledge which they painfully communicated
      was displayed with ostentation, and celebrated with lavish
      praise. His soft and tractable disposition received the fair
      impression of their judicious precepts, and the absence of
      passion might easily be mistaken for the strength of reason. His
      preceptors gradually rose to the rank and consequence of
      ministers of state: 2 and, as they wisely dissembled their secret
      authority, he seemed to act with firmness, with propriety, and
      with judgment, on the most important occasions of his life and
      reign. But the influence of this elaborate instruction did not
      penetrate beyond the surface; and the skilful preceptors, who so
      accurately guided the steps of their royal pupil, could not
      infuse into his feeble and indolent character the vigorous and
      independent principle of action which renders the laborious
      pursuit of glory essentially necessary to the happiness, and
      almost to the existence, of the hero. As soon as time and
      accident had removed those faithful counsellors from the throne,
      the emperor of the West insensibly descended to the level of his
      natural genius; abandoned the reins of government to the
      ambitious hands which were stretched forwards to grasp them; and
      amused his leisure with the most frivolous gratifications. A
      public sale of favor and injustice was instituted, both in the
      court and in the provinces, by the worthless delegates of his
      power, whose merit it was made sacrilege to question. 3 The
      conscience of the credulous prince was directed by saints and
      bishops; 4 who procured an Imperial edict to punish, as a capital
      offence, the violation, the neglect, or even the ignorance, of
      the divine law. 5 Among the various arts which had exercised the
      youth of Gratian, he had applied himself, with singular
      inclination and success, to manage the horse, to draw the bow,
      and to dart the javelin; and these qualifications, which might be
      useful to a soldier, were prostituted to the viler purposes of
      hunting. Large parks were enclosed for the Imperial pleasures,
      and plentifully stocked with every species of wild beasts; and
      Gratian neglected the duties, and even the dignity, of his rank,
      to consume whole days in the vain display of his dexterity and
      boldness in the chase. The pride and wish of the Roman emperor to
      excel in an art, in which he might be surpassed by the meanest of
      his slaves, reminded the numerous spectators of the examples of
      Nero and Commodus, but the chaste and temperate Gratian was a
      stranger to their monstrous vices; and his hands were stained
      only with the blood of animals. 6 The behavior of Gratian, which
      degraded his character in the eyes of mankind, could not have
      disturbed the security of his reign, if the army had not been
      provoked to resent their peculiar injuries. As long as the young
      emperor was guided by the instructions of his masters, he
      professed himself the friend and pupil of the soldiers; many of
      his hours were spent in the familiar conversation of the camp;
      and the health, the comforts, the rewards, the honors, of his
      faithful troops, appeared to be the objects of his attentive
      concern. But, after Gratian more freely indulged his prevailing
      taste for hunting and shooting, he naturally connected himself
      with the most dexterous ministers of his favorite amusement. A
      body of the Alani was received into the military and domestic
      service of the palace; and the admirable skill, which they were
      accustomed to display in the unbounded plains of Scythia, was
      exercised, on a more narrow theatre, in the parks and enclosures
      of Gaul. Gratian admired the talents and customs of these
      favorite guards, to whom alone he intrusted the defence of his
      person; and, as if he meant to insult the public opinion, he
      frequently showed himself to the soldiers and people, with the
      dress and arms, the long bow, the sounding quiver, and the fur
      garments of a Scythian warrior. The unworthy spectacle of a Roman
      prince, who had renounced the dress and manners of his country,
      filled the minds of the legions with grief and indignation. 7
      Even the Germans, so strong and formidable in the armies of the
      empire, affected to disdain the strange and horrid appearance of
      the savages of the North, who, in the space of a few years, had
      wandered from the banks of the Volga to those of the Seine. A
      loud and licentious murmur was echoed through the camps and
      garrisons of the West; and as the mild indolence of Gratian
      neglected to extinguish the first symptoms of discontent, the
      want of love and respect was not supplied by the influence of
      fear. But the subversion of an established government is always a
      work of some real, and of much apparent, difficulty; and the
      throne of Gratian was protected by the sanctions of custom, law,
      religion, and the nice balance of the civil and military powers,
      which had been established by the policy of Constantine. It is
      not very important to inquire from what cause the revolt of
      Britain was produced. Accident is commonly the parent of
      disorder; the seeds of rebellion happened to fall on a soil which
      was supposed to be more fruitful than any other in tyrants and
      usurpers; 8 the legions of that sequestered island had been long
      famous for a spirit of presumption and arrogance; 9 and the name
      of Maximus was proclaimed, by the tumultuary, but unanimous
      voice, both of the soldiers and of the provincials. The emperor,
      or the rebel,—for this title was not yet ascertained by
      fortune,—was a native of Spain, the countryman, the
      fellow-soldier, and the rival of Theodosius whose elevation he
      had not seen without some emotions of envy and resentment: the
      events of his life had long since fixed him in Britain; and I
      should not be unwilling to find some evidence for the marriage,
      which he is said to have contracted with the daughter of a
      wealthy lord of Caernarvonshire. 10 But this provincial rank
      might justly be considered as a state of exile and obscurity; and
      if Maximus had obtained any civil or military office, he was not
      invested with the authority either of governor or general. 11 His
      abilities, and even his integrity, are acknowledged by the
      partial writers of the age; and the merit must indeed have been
      conspicuous that could extort such a confession in favor of the
      vanquished enemy of Theodosius. The discontent of Maximus might
      incline him to censure the conduct of his sovereign, and to
      encourage, perhaps, without any views of ambition, the murmurs of
      the troops. But in the midst of the tumult, he artfully, or
      modestly, refused to ascend the throne; and some credit appears
      to have been given to his own positive declaration, that he was
      compelled to accept the dangerous present of the Imperial purple.
      12

      1 (return) [ Valentinian was less attentive to the religion of
      his son; since he intrusted the education of Gratian to Ausonius,
      a professed Pagan. (Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xv.
      p. 125-138). The poetical fame of Ausonius condemns the taste of
      his age.]

      2 (return) [ Ausonius was successively promoted to the Praetorian
      praefecture of Italy, (A.D. 377,) and of Gaul, (A.D. 378;) and
      was at length invested with the consulship, (A.D. 379.) He
      expressed his gratitude in a servile and insipid piece of
      flattery, (Actio Gratiarum, p. 699-736,) which has survived more
      worthy productions.]

      3 (return) [ Disputare de principali judicio non oportet.
      Sacrilegii enim instar est dubitare, an is dignus sit, quem
      elegerit imperator. Codex Justinian, l. ix. tit. xxix. leg. 3.
      This convenient law was revived and promulgated, after the death
      of Gratian, by the feeble court of Milan.]

      4 (return) [ Ambrose composed, for his instruction, a theological
      treatise on the faith of the Trinity: and Tillemont, (Hist. des
      Empereurs, tom. v. p. 158, 169,) ascribes to the archbishop the
      merit of Gratian’s intolerant laws.]

      5 (return) [ Qui divinae legis sanctitatem nesciendo omittunt,
      aut negligende violant, et offendunt, sacrilegium committunt.
      Codex Justinian. l. ix. tit. xxix. leg. 1. Theodosius indeed may
      claim his share in the merit of this comprehensive law.]

      6 (return) [ Ammianus (xxxi. 10) and the younger Victor
      acknowledge the virtues of Gratian; and accuse, or rather lament,
      his degenerate taste. The odious parallel of Commodus is saved by
      “licet incruentus;” and perhaps Philostorgius (l. x. c. 10, and
      Godefroy, p. 41) had guarded with some similar reserve, the
      comparison of Nero.]

      7 (return) [ Zosimus (l. iv. p. 247) and the younger Victor
      ascribe the revolution to the favor of the Alani, and the
      discontent of the Roman troops Dum exercitum negligeret, et
      paucos ex Alanis, quos ingenti auro ad sa transtulerat,
      anteferret veteri ac Romano militi.]

      8 (return) [ Britannia fertilis provincia tyrannorum, is a
      memorable expression, used by Jerom in the Pelagian controversy,
      and variously tortured in the disputes of our national
      antiquaries. The revolutions of the last age appeared to justify
      the image of the sublime Bossuet, “sette ile, plus orageuse que
      les mers qui l’environment.“]

      9 (return) [ Zosimus says of the British soldiers.]

      10 (return) [ Helena, the daughter of Eudda. Her chapel may still
      be seen at Caer-segont, now Caer-narvon. (Carte’s Hist. of
      England, vol. i. p. 168, from Rowland’s Mona Antiqua.) The
      prudent reader may not perhaps be satisfied with such Welsh
      evidence.]

      11 (return) [ Camden (vol. i. introduct. p. ci.) appoints him
      governor at Britain; and the father of our antiquities is
      followed, as usual, by his blind progeny. Pacatus and Zosimus had
      taken some pains to prevent this error, or fable; and I shall
      protect myself by their decisive testimonies. Regali habitu
      exulem suum, illi exules orbis induerunt, (in Panegyr. Vet. xii.
      23,) and the Greek historian still less equivocally, (Maximus)
      (l. iv. p. 248.)]

      12 (return) [ Sulpicius Severus, Dialog. ii. 7. Orosius, l. vii.
      c. 34. p. 556. They both acknowledge (Sulpicius had been his
      subject) his innocence and merit. It is singular enough, that
      Maximus should be less favorably treated by Zosimus, the partial
      adversary of his rival.]

      But there was danger likewise in refusing the empire; and from
      the moment that Maximus had violated his allegiance to his lawful
      sovereign, he could not hope to reign, or even to live, if he
      confined his moderate ambition within the narrow limits of
      Britain. He boldly and wisely resolved to prevent the designs of
      Gratian; the youth of the island crowded to his standard, and he
      invaded Gaul with a fleet and army, which were long afterwards
      remembered, as the emigration of a considerable part of the
      British nation. 13 The emperor, in his peaceful residence of
      Paris, was alarmed by their hostile approach; and the darts which
      he idly wasted on lions and bears, might have been employed more
      honorably against the rebels. But his feeble efforts announced
      his degenerate spirit and desperate situation; and deprived him
      of the resources, which he still might have found, in the support
      of his subjects and allies. The armies of Gaul, instead of
      opposing the march of Maximus, received him with joyful and loyal
      acclamations; and the shame of the desertion was transferred from
      the people to the prince. The troops, whose station more
      immediately attached them to the service of the palace, abandoned
      the standard of Gratian the first time that it was displayed in
      the neighborhood of Paris. The emperor of the West fled towards
      Lyons, with a train of only three hundred horse; and, in the
      cities along the road, where he hoped to find refuge, or at least
      a passage, he was taught, by cruel experience, that every gate is
      shut against the unfortunate. Yet he might still have reached, in
      safety, the dominions of his brother; and soon have returned with
      the forces of Italy and the East; if he had not suffered himself
      to be fatally deceived by the perfidious governor of the Lyonnese
      province. Gratian was amused by protestations of doubtful
      fidelity, and the hopes of a support, which could not be
      effectual; till the arrival of Andragathius, the general of the
      cavalry of Maximus, put an end to his suspense. That resolute
      officer executed, without remorse, the orders or the intention of
      the usurper. Gratian, as he rose from supper, was delivered into
      the hands of the assassin: and his body was denied to the pious
      and pressing entreaties of his brother Valentinian. 14 The death
      of the emperor was followed by that of his powerful general
      Mellobaudes, the king of the Franks; who maintained, to the last
      moment of his life, the ambiguous reputation, which is the just
      recompense of obscure and subtle policy. 15 These executions
      might be necessary to the public safety: but the successful
      usurper, whose power was acknowledged by all the provinces of the
      West, had the merit, and the satisfaction, of boasting, that,
      except those who had perished by the chance of war, his triumph
      was not stained by the blood of the Romans. 16

      13 (return) [ Archbishop Usher (Antiquat. Britan. Eccles. p. 107,
      108) has diligently collected the legends of the island, and the
      continent. The whole emigration consisted of 30,000 soldiers, and
      100,000 plebeians, who settled in Bretagne. Their destined
      brides, St. Ursula with 11,000 noble, and 60,000 plebeian,
      virgins, mistook their way; landed at Cologne, and were all most
      cruelly murdered by the Huns. But the plebeian sisters have been
      defrauded of their equal honors; and what is still harder, John
      Trithemius presumes to mention the children of these British
      virgins.]

      14 (return) [ Zosimus (l. iv. p. 248, 249) has transported the
      death of Gratian from Lugdunum in Gaul (Lyons) to Singidunum in
      Moesia. Some hints may be extracted from the Chronicles; some
      lies may be detected in Sozomen (l. vii. c. 13) and Socrates, (l.
      v. c. 11.) Ambrose is our most authentic evidence, (tom. i.
      Enarrat. in Psalm lxi. p. 961, tom ii. epist. xxiv. p. 888 &c.,
      and de Obitu Valentinian Consolat. Ner. 28, p. 1182.)]

      15 (return) [ Pacatus (xii. 28) celebrates his fidelity; while
      his treachery is marked in Prosper’s Chronicle, as the cause of
      the ruin of Gratian. Ambrose, who has occasion to exculpate
      himself, only condemns the death of Vallio, a faithful servant of
      Gratian, (tom. ii. epist. xxiv. p. 891, edit. Benedict.) * Note:
      Le Beau contests the reading in the chronicle of Prosper upon
      which this charge rests. Le Beau, iv. 232.—M. * Note: According
      to Pacatus, the Count Vallio, who commanded the army, was carried
      to Chalons to be burnt alive; but Maximus, dreading the
      imputation of cruelty, caused him to be secretly strangled by his
      Bretons. Macedonius also, master of the offices, suffered the
      death which he merited. Le Beau, iv. 244.—M.]

      16 (return) [ He protested, nullum ex adversariis nisi in acissie
      occubu. Sulp. Jeverus in Vit. B. Martin, c. 23. The orator
      Theodosius bestows reluctant, and therefore weighty, praise on
      his clemency. Si cui ille, pro ceteris sceleribus suis, minus
      crudelis fuisse videtur, (Panegyr. Vet. xii. 28.)]

      The events of this revolution had passed in such rapid
      succession, that it would have been impossible for Theodosius to
      march to the relief of his benefactor, before he received the
      intelligence of his defeat and death. During the season of
      sincere grief, or ostentatious mourning, the Eastern emperor was
      interrupted by the arrival of the principal chamberlain of
      Maximus; and the choice of a venerable old man, for an office
      which was usually exercised by eunuchs, announced to the court of
      Constantinople the gravity and temperance of the British usurper.

      The ambassador condescended to justify, or excuse, the conduct of
      his master; and to protest, in specious language, that the murder
      of Gratian had been perpetrated, without his knowledge or
      consent, by the precipitate zeal of the soldiers. But he
      proceeded, in a firm and equal tone, to offer Theodosius the
      alternative of peace, or war. The speech of the ambassador
      concluded with a spirited declaration, that although Maximus, as
      a Roman, and as the father of his people, would choose rather to
      employ his forces in the common defence of the republic, he was
      armed and prepared, if his friendship should be rejected, to
      dispute, in a field of battle, the empire of the world. An
      immediate and peremptory answer was required; but it was
      extremely difficult for Theodosius to satisfy, on this important
      occasion, either the feelings of his own mind, or the
      expectations of the public. The imperious voice of honor and
      gratitude called aloud for revenge. From the liberality of
      Gratian, he had received the Imperial diadem; his patience would
      encourage the odious suspicion, that he was more deeply sensible
      of former injuries, than of recent obligations; and if he
      accepted the friendship, he must seem to share the guilt, of the
      assassin. Even the principles of justice, and the interest of
      society, would receive a fatal blow from the impunity of Maximus;
      and the example of successful usurpation would tend to dissolve
      the artificial fabric of government, and once more to replunge
      the empire in the crimes and calamities of the preceding age.
      But, as the sentiments of gratitude and honor should invariably
      regulate the conduct of an individual, they may be overbalanced
      in the mind of a sovereign, by the sense of superior duties; and
      the maxims both of justice and humanity must permit the escape of
      an atrocious criminal, if an innocent people would be involved in
      the consequences of his punishment. The assassin of Gratian had
      usurped, but he actually possessed, the most warlike provinces of
      the empire: the East was exhausted by the misfortunes, and even
      by the success, of the Gothic war; and it was seriously to be
      apprehended, that, after the vital strength of the republic had
      been wasted in a doubtful and destructive contest, the feeble
      conqueror would remain an easy prey to the Barbarians of the
      North. These weighty considerations engaged Theodosius to
      dissemble his resentment, and to accept the alliance of the
      tyrant. But he stipulated, that Maximus should content himself
      with the possession of the countries beyond the Alps. The brother
      of Gratian was confirmed and secured in the sovereignty of Italy,
      Africa, and the Western Illyricum; and some honorable conditions
      were inserted in the treaty, to protect the memory, and the laws,
      of the deceased emperor. 17 According to the custom of the age,
      the images of the three Imperial colleagues were exhibited to the
      veneration of the people; nor should it be lightly supposed,
      that, in the moment of a solemn reconciliation, Theodosius
      secretly cherished the intention of perfidy and revenge. 18

      17 (return) [ Ambrose mentions the laws of Gratian, quas non
      abrogavit hostia (tom. ii epist. xvii. p. 827.)]

      18 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 251, 252. We may disclaim his
      odious suspicions; but we cannot reject the treaty of peace which
      the friends of Theodosius have absolutely forgotten, or slightly
      mentioned.]

      The contempt of Gratian for the Roman soldiers had exposed him to
      the fatal effects of their resentment. His profound veneration
      for the Christian clergy was rewarded by the applause and
      gratitude of a powerful order, which has claimed, in every age,
      the privilege of dispensing honors, both on earth and in heaven.
      19 The orthodox bishops bewailed his death, and their own
      irreparable loss; but they were soon comforted by the discovery,
      that Gratian had committed the sceptre of the East to the hands
      of a prince, whose humble faith and fervent zeal, were supported
      by the spirit and abilities of a more vigorous character. Among
      the benefactors of the church, the fame of Constantine has been
      rivalled by the glory of Theodosius. If Constantine had the
      advantage of erecting the standard of the cross, the emulation of
      his successor assumed the merit of subduing the Arian heresy, and
      of abolishing the worship of idols in the Roman world. Theodosius
      was the first of the emperors baptized in the true faith of the
      Trinity. Although he was born of a Christian family, the maxims,
      or at least the practice, of the age, encouraged him to delay the
      ceremony of his initiation; till he was admonished of the danger
      of delay, by the serious illness which threatened his life,
      towards the end of the first year of his reign. Before he again
      took the field against the Goths, he received the sacrament of
      baptism 20 from Acholius, the orthodox bishop of Thessalonica: 21
      and, as the emperor ascended from the holy font, still glowing
      with the warm feelings of regeneration, he dictated a solemn
      edict, which proclaimed his own faith, and prescribed the
      religion of his subjects. “It is our pleasure (such is the
      Imperial style) that all the nations, which are governed by our
      clemency and moderation, should steadfastly adhere to the
      religion which was taught by St. Peter to the Romans; which
      faithful tradition has preserved; and which is now professed by
      the pontiff Damasus, and by Peter, bishop of Alexandria, a man of
      apostolic holiness. According to the discipline of the apostles,
      and the doctrine of the gospel, let us believe the sole deity of
      the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; under an equal majesty,
      and a pious Trinity. We authorize the followers of this doctrine
      to assume the title of Catholic Christians; and as we judge, that
      all others are extravagant madmen, we brand them with the
      infamous name of Heretics; and declare that their conventicles
      shall no longer usurp the respectable appellation of churches.
      Besides the condemnation of divine justice, they must expect to
      suffer the severe penalties, which our authority, guided by
      heavenly wisdom, shall think proper to inflict upon them.“ 22 The
      faith of a soldier is commonly the fruit of instruction, rather
      than of inquiry; but as the emperor always fixed his eyes on the
      visible landmarks of orthodoxy, which he had so prudently
      constituted, his religious opinions were never affected by the
      specious texts, the subtle arguments, and the ambiguous creeds of
      the Arian doctors. Once indeed he expressed a faint inclination
      to converse with the eloquent and learned Eunomius, who lived in
      retirement at a small distance from Constantinople. But the
      dangerous interview was prevented by the prayers of the empress
      Flaccilla, who trembled for the salvation of her husband; and the
      mind of Theodosius was confirmed by a theological argument,
      adapted to the rudest capacity. He had lately bestowed on his
      eldest son, Arcadius, the name and honors of Augustus, and the
      two princes were seated on a stately throne to receive the homage
      of their subjects. A bishop, Amphilochius of Iconium, approached
      the throne, and after saluting, with due reverence, the person of
      his sovereign, he accosted the royal youth with the same familiar
      tenderness which he might have used towards a plebeian child.
      Provoked by this insolent behavior, the monarch gave orders, that
      the rustic priest should be instantly driven from his presence.
      But while the guards were forcing him to the door, the dexterous
      polemic had time to execute his design, by exclaiming, with a
      loud voice, “Such is the treatment, O emperor! which the King of
      heaven has prepared for those impious men, who affect to worship
      the Father, but refuse to acknowledge the equal majesty of his
      divine Son.“ Theodosius immediately embraced the bishop of
      Iconium, and never forgot the important lesson, which he had
      received from this dramatic parable. 23

      19 (return) [ Their oracle, the archbishop of Milan, assigns to
      his pupil Gratian, a high and respectable place in heaven, (tom.
      ii. de Obit. Val. Consol p. 1193.)]

      20 (return) [ For the baptism of Theodosius, see Sozomen, (l.
      vii. c. 4,) Socrates, (l. v. c. 6,) and Tillemont, (Hist. des
      Empereurs, tom. v. p. 728.)]

      21 (return) [ Ascolius, or Acholius, was honored by the
      friendship, and the praises, of Ambrose; who styles him murus
      fidei atque sanctitatis, (tom. ii. epist. xv. p. 820;) and
      afterwards celebrates his speed and diligence in running to
      Constantinople, Italy, &c., (epist. xvi. p. 822.) a virtue which
      does not appertain either to a wall, or a bishop.]

      22 (return) [ Codex Theodos. l. xvi. tit. i. leg. 2, with
      Godefroy’s Commentary, tom. vi. p. 5-9. Such an edict deserved
      the warmest praises of Baronius, auream sanctionem, edictum pium
      et salutare.—Sic itua ad astra.]

      23 (return) [ Sozomen, l. vii. c. 6. Theodoret, l. v. c. 16.
      Tillemont is displeased (Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 627, 628) with
      the terms of “rustic bishop,“ “obscure city.“ Yet I must take
      leave to think, that both Amphilochius and Iconium were objects
      of inconsiderable magnitude in the Roman empire.]




      Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part II.

      Constantinople was the principal seat and fortress of Arianism;
      and, in a long interval of forty years, 24 the faith of the
      princes and prelates, who reigned in the capital of the East, was
      rejected in the purer schools of Rome and Alexandria. The
      archiepiscopal throne of Macedonius, which had been polluted with
      so much Christian blood, was successively filled by Eudoxus and
      Damophilus. Their diocese enjoyed a free importation of vice and
      error from every province of the empire; the eager pursuit of
      religious controversy afforded a new occupation to the busy
      idleness of the metropolis; and we may credit the assertion of an
      intelligent observer, who describes, with some pleasantry, the
      effects of their loquacious zeal. “This city,“ says he, “is full
      of mechanics and slaves, who are all of them profound
      theologians; and preach in the shops, and in the streets. If you
      desire a man to change a piece of silver, he informs you, wherein
      the Son differs from the Father; if you ask the price of a loaf,
      you are told by way of reply, that the Son is inferior to the
      Father; and if you inquire, whether the bath is ready, the answer
      is, that the Son was made out of nothing.“ 25 The heretics, of
      various denominations, subsisted in peace under the protection of
      the Arians of Constantinople; who endeavored to secure the
      attachment of those obscure sectaries, while they abused, with
      unrelenting severity, the victory which they had obtained over
      the followers of the council of Nice. During the partial reigns
      of Constantius and Valens, the feeble remnant of the Homoousians
      was deprived of the public and private exercise of their
      religion; and it has been observed, in pathetic language, that
      the scattered flock was left without a shepherd to wander on the
      mountains, or to be devoured by rapacious wolves. 26 But, as
      their zeal, instead of being subdued, derived strength and vigor
      from oppression, they seized the first moments of imperfect
      freedom, which they had acquired by the death of Valens, to form
      themselves into a regular congregation, under the conduct of an
      episcopal pastor. Two natives of Cappadocia, Basil, and Gregory
      Nazianzen, 27 were distinguished above all their contemporaries,
      28 by the rare union of profane eloquence and of orthodox piety.

      These orators, who might sometimes be compared, by themselves,
      and by the public, to the most celebrated of the ancient Greeks,
      were united by the ties of the strictest friendship. They had
      cultivated, with equal ardor, the same liberal studies in the
      schools of Athens; they had retired, with equal devotion, to the
      same solitude in the deserts of Pontus; and every spark of
      emulation, or envy, appeared to be totally extinguished in the
      holy and ingenuous breasts of Gregory and Basil. But the
      exaltation of Basil, from a private life to the archiepiscopal
      throne of Caesarea, discovered to the world, and perhaps to
      himself, the pride of his character; and the first favor which he
      condescended to bestow on his friend, was received, and perhaps
      was intended, as a cruel insult. 29 Instead of employing the
      superior talents of Gregory in some useful and conspicuous
      station, the haughty prelate selected, among the fifty bishoprics
      of his extensive province, the wretched village of Sasima, 30
      without water, without verdure, without society, situate at the
      junction of three highways, and frequented only by the incessant
      passage of rude and clamorous wagoners. Gregory submitted with
      reluctance to this humiliating exile; he was ordained bishop of
      Sasima; but he solemnly protests, that he never consummated his
      spiritual marriage with this disgusting bride. He afterwards
      consented to undertake the government of his native church of
      Nazianzus, 31 of which his father had been bishop above
      five-and-forty years. But as he was still conscious that he
      deserved another audience, and another theatre, he accepted, with
      no unworthy ambition, the honorable invitation, which was
      addressed to him from the orthodox party of Constantinople. On
      his arrival in the capital, Gregory was entertained in the house
      of a pious and charitable kinsman; the most spacious room was
      consecrated to the uses of religious worship; and the name of
      Anastasia was chosen to express the resurrection of the Nicene
      faith. This private conventicle was afterwards converted into a
      magnificent church; and the credulity of the succeeding age was
      prepared to believe the miracles and visions, which attested the
      presence, or at least the protection, of the Mother of God. 32
      The pulpit of the Anastasia was the scene of the labors and
      triumphs of Gregory Nazianzen; and, in the space of two years, he
      experienced all the spiritual adventures which constitute the
      prosperous or adverse fortunes of a missionary. 33 The Arians,
      who were provoked by the boldness of his enterprise, represented
      his doctrine, as if he had preached three distinct and equal
      Deities; and the devout populace was excited to suppress, by
      violence and tumult, the irregular assemblies of the Athanasian
      heretics. From the cathedral of St. Sophia there issued a motley
      crowd “of common beggars, who had forfeited their claim to pity;
      of monks, who had the appearance of goats or satyrs; and of
      women, more terrible than so many Jezebels.“ The doors of the
      Anastasia were broke open; much mischief was perpetrated, or
      attempted, with sticks, stones, and firebrands; and as a man lost
      his life in the affray, Gregory, who was summoned the next
      morning before the magistrate, had the satisfaction of supposing,
      that he publicly confessed the name of Christ. After he was
      delivered from the fear and danger of a foreign enemy, his infant
      church was disgraced and distracted by intestine faction. A
      stranger who assumed the name of Maximus, 34 and the cloak of a
      Cynic philosopher, insinuated himself into the confidence of
      Gregory; deceived and abused his favorable opinion; and forming a
      secret connection with some bishops of Egypt, attempted, by a
      clandestine ordination, to supplant his patron in the episcopal
      seat of Constantinople. These mortifications might sometimes
      tempt the Cappadocian missionary to regret his obscure solitude.
      But his fatigues were rewarded by the daily increase of his fame
      and his congregation; and he enjoyed the pleasure of observing,
      that the greater part of his numerous audience retired from his
      sermons satisfied with the eloquence of the preacher, 35 or
      dissatisfied with the manifold imperfections of their faith and
      practice. 36

      24 (return) [ Sozomen, l. vii. c. v. Socrates, l. v. c. 7.
      Marcellin. in Chron. The account of forty years must be dated
      from the election or intrusion of Eusebius, who wisely exchanged
      the bishopric of Nicomedia for the throne of Constantinople.]

      25 (return) [ See Jortin’s Remarks on Ecclesiastical History,
      vol. iv. p. 71. The thirty-third Oration of Gregory Nazianzen
      affords indeed some similar ideas, even some still more
      ridiculous; but I have not yet found the words of this remarkable
      passage, which I allege on the faith of a correct and liberal
      scholar.]

      26 (return) [ See the thirty-second Oration of Gregory Nazianzen,
      and the account of his own life, which he has composed in 1800
      iambics. Yet every physician is prone to exaggerate the
      inveterate nature of the disease which he has cured.]

      27 (return) [ I confess myself deeply indebted to the two lives
      of Gregory Nazianzen, composed, with very different views, by
      Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. ix. p. 305-560, 692-731) and Le
      Clerc, (Bibliotheque Universelle, tom. xviii. p. 1-128.)]

      28 (return) [ Unless Gregory Nazianzen mistook thirty years in
      his own age, he was born, as well as his friend Basil, about the
      year 329. The preposterous chronology of Suidas has been
      graciously received, because it removes the scandal of Gregory’s
      father, a saint likewise, begetting children after he became a
      bishop, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. ix. p. 693-697.)]

      29 (return) [ Gregory’s Poem on his own Life contains some
      beautiful lines, (tom. ii. p. 8,) which burst from the heart, and
      speak the pangs of injured and lost friendship. ——In the
      Midsummer Night’s Dream, Helena addresses the same pathetic
      complaint to her friend Hermia:—Is all the counsel that we two
      have shared. The sister’s vows, &c. Shakspeare had never read the
      poems of Gregory Nazianzen; he was ignorant of the Greek
      language; but his mother tongue, the language of Nature, is the
      same in Cappadocia and in Britain.]

      30 (return) [ This unfavorable portrait of Sasimae is drawn by
      Gregory Nazianzen, (tom. ii. de Vita sua, p. 7, 8.) Its precise
      situation, forty-nine miles from Archelais, and thirty-two from
      Tyana, is fixed in the Itinerary of Antoninus, (p. 144, edit.
      Wesseling.)]

      31 (return) [ The name of Nazianzus has been immortalized by
      Gregory; but his native town, under the Greek or Roman title of
      Diocaesarea, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. ix. p. 692,) is
      mentioned by Pliny, (vi. 3,) Ptolemy, and Hierocles, (Itinerar.
      Wesseling, p. 709). It appears to have been situate on the edge
      of Isauria.]

      32 (return) [ See Ducange, Constant. Christiana, l. iv. p. 141,
      142. The Sozomen (l. vii. c. 5) is interpreted to mean the Virgin
      Mary.]

      33 (return) [ Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. ix. p. 432, &c.)
      diligently collects, enlarges, and explains, the oratorical and
      poetical hints of Gregory himself.]

      34 (return) [ He pronounced an oration (tom. i. Orat. xxiii. p.
      409) in his praise; but after their quarrel, the name of Maximus
      was changed into that of Heron, (see Jerom, tom. i. in Catalog.
      Script. Eccles. p. 301). I touch slightly on these obscure and
      personal squabbles.]

      35 (return) [ Under the modest emblem of a dream, Gregory (tom.
      ii. Carmen ix. p. 78) describes his own success with some human
      complacency. Yet it should seem, from his familiar conversation
      with his auditor St. Jerom, (tom. i. Epist. ad Nepotian. p. 14,)
      that the preacher understood the true value of popular applause.]

      36 (return) [ Lachrymae auditorum laudes tuae sint, is the lively
      and judicious advice of St. Jerom.]

      The Catholics of Constantinople were animated with joyful
      confidence by the baptism and edict of Theodosius; and they
      impatiently waited the effects of his gracious promise. Their
      hopes were speedily accomplished; and the emperor, as soon as he
      had finished the operations of the campaign, made his public
      entry into the capital at the head of a victorious army. The next
      day after his arrival, he summoned Damophilus to his presence,
      and offered that Arian prelate the hard alternative of
      subscribing the Nicene creed, or of instantly resigning, to the
      orthodox believers, the use and possession of the episcopal
      palace, the cathedral of St. Sophia, and all the churches of
      Constantinople. The zeal of Damophilus, which in a Catholic saint
      would have been justly applauded, embraced, without hesitation, a
      life of poverty and exile, 37 and his removal was immediately
      followed by the purification of the Imperial city. The Arians
      might complain, with some appearance of justice, that an
      inconsiderable congregation of sectaries should usurp the hundred
      churches, which they were insufficient to fill; whilst the far
      greater part of the people was cruelly excluded from every place
      of religious worship. Theodosius was still inexorable; but as the
      angels who protected the Catholic cause were only visible to the
      eyes of faith, he prudently reenforced those heavenly legions
      with the more effectual aid of temporal and carnal weapons; and
      the church of St. Sophia was occupied by a large body of the
      Imperial guards. If the mind of Gregory was susceptible of pride,
      he must have felt a very lively satisfaction, when the emperor
      conducted him through the streets in solemn triumph; and, with
      his own hand, respectfully placed him on the archiepiscopal
      throne of Constantinople. But the saint (who had not subdued the
      imperfections of human virtue) was deeply affected by the
      mortifying consideration, that his entrance into the fold was
      that of a wolf, rather than of a shepherd; that the glittering
      arms which surrounded his person, were necessary for his safety;
      and that he alone was the object of the imprecations of a great
      party, whom, as men and citizens, it was impossible for him to
      despise. He beheld the innumerable multitude of either sex, and
      of every age, who crowded the streets, the windows, and the roofs
      of the houses; he heard the tumultuous voice of rage, grief,
      astonishment, and despair; and Gregory fairly confesses, that on
      the memorable day of his installation, the capital of the East
      wore the appearance of a city taken by storm, and in the hands of
      a Barbarian conqueror. 38 About six weeks afterwards, Theodosius
      declared his resolution of expelling from all the churches of his
      dominions the bishops and their clergy who should obstinately
      refuse to believe, or at least to profess, the doctrine of the
      council of Nice. His lieutenant, Sapor, was armed with the ample
      powers of a general law, a special commission, and a military
      force; 39 and this ecclesiastical revolution was conducted with
      so much discretion and vigor, that the religion of the emperor
      was established, without tumult or bloodshed, in all the
      provinces of the East. The writings of the Arians, if they had
      been permitted to exist, 40 would perhaps contain the lamentable
      story of the persecution, which afflicted the church under the
      reign of the impious Theodosius; and the sufferings of their holy
      confessors might claim the pity of the disinterested reader. Yet
      there is reason to imagine, that the violence of zeal and revenge
      was, in some measure, eluded by the want of resistance; and that,
      in their adversity, the Arians displayed much less firmness than
      had been exerted by the orthodox party under the reigns of
      Constantius and Valens. The moral character and conduct of the
      hostile sects appear to have been governed by the same common
      principles of nature and religion: but a very material
      circumstance may be discovered, which tended to distinguish the
      degrees of their theological faith. Both parties, in the schools,
      as well as in the temples, acknowledged and worshipped the divine
      majesty of Christ; and, as we are always prone to impute our own
      sentiments and passions to the Deity, it would be deemed more
      prudent and respectful to exaggerate, than to circumscribe, the
      adorable perfections of the Son of God. The disciple of
      Athanasius exulted in the proud confidence, that he had entitled
      himself to the divine favor; while the follower of Arius must
      have been tormented by the secret apprehension, that he was
      guilty, perhaps, of an unpardonable offence, by the scanty
      praise, and parsimonious honors, which he bestowed on the Judge
      of the World. The opinions of Arianism might satisfy a cold and
      speculative mind: but the doctrine of the Nicene creed, most
      powerfully recommended by the merits of faith and devotion, was
      much better adapted to become popular and successful in a
      believing age.

      37 (return) [ Socrates (l. v. c. 7) and Sozomen (l. vii. c. 5)
      relate the evangelical words and actions of Damophilus without a
      word of approbation. He considered, says Socrates, that it is
      difficult to resist the powerful, but it was easy, and would have
      been profitable, to submit.]

      38 (return) [ See Gregory Nazianzen, tom. ii. de Vita sua, p. 21,
      22. For the sake of posterity, the bishop of Constantinople
      records a stupendous prodigy. In the month of November, it was a
      cloudy morning, but the sun broke forth when the procession
      entered the church.]

      39 (return) [ Of the three ecclesiastical historians, Theodoret
      alone (l. v. c. 2) has mentioned this important commission of
      Sapor, which Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 728)
      judiciously removes from the reign of Gratian to that of
      Theodosius.]

      40 (return) [ I do not reckon Philostorgius, though he mentions
      (l. ix. c. 19) the explosion of Damophilus. The Eunomian
      historian has been carefully strained through an orthodox sieve.]

      The hope, that truth and wisdom would be found in the assemblies
      of the orthodox clergy, induced the emperor to convene, at
      Constantinople, a synod of one hundred and fifty bishops, who
      proceeded, without much difficulty or delay, to complete the
      theological system which had been established in the council of
      Nice. The vehement disputes of the fourth century had been
      chiefly employed on the nature of the Son of God; and the various
      opinions which were embraced, concerning the Second, were
      extended and transferred, by a natural analogy, to the Third
      person of the Trinity. 41 Yet it was found, or it was thought,
      necessary, by the victorious adversaries of Arianism, to explain
      the ambiguous language of some respectable doctors; to confirm
      the faith of the Catholics; and to condemn an unpopular and
      inconsistent sect of Macedonians; who freely admitted that the
      Son was consubstantial to the Father, while they were fearful of
      seeming to acknowledge the existence of Three Gods. A final and
      unanimous sentence was pronounced to ratify the equal Deity of
      the Holy Ghost: the mysterious doctrine has been received by all
      the nations, and all the churches of the Christian world; and
      their grateful reverence has assigned to the bishops of
      Theodosius the second rank among the general councils. 42 Their
      knowledge of religious truth may have been preserved by
      tradition, or it may have been communicated by inspiration; but
      the sober evidence of history will not allow much weight to the
      personal authority of the Fathers of Constantinople. In an age
      when the ecclesiastics had scandalously degenerated from the
      model of apostolic purity, the most worthless and corrupt were
      always the most eager to frequent, and disturb, the episcopal
      assemblies. The conflict and fermentation of so many opposite
      interests and tempers inflamed the passions of the bishops: and
      their ruling passions were, the love of gold, and the love of
      dispute. Many of the same prelates who now applauded the orthodox
      piety of Theodosius, had repeatedly changed, with prudent
      flexibility, their creeds and opinions; and in the various
      revolutions of the church and state, the religion of their
      sovereign was the rule of their obsequious faith. When the
      emperor suspended his prevailing influence, the turbulent synod
      was blindly impelled by the absurd or selfish motives of pride,
      hatred, or resentment. The death of Meletius, which happened at
      the council of Constantinople, presented the most favorable
      opportunity of terminating the schism of Antioch, by suffering
      his aged rival, Paulinus, peaceably to end his days in the
      episcopal chair. The faith and virtues of Paulinus were
      unblemished. But his cause was supported by the Western churches;
      and the bishops of the synod resolved to perpetuate the mischiefs
      of discord, by the hasty ordination of a perjured candidate, 43
      rather than to betray the imagined dignity of the East, which had
      been illustrated by the birth and death of the Son of God. Such
      unjust and disorderly proceedings forced the gravest members of
      the assembly to dissent and to secede; and the clamorous majority
      which remained masters of the field of battle, could be compared
      only to wasps or magpies, to a flight of cranes, or to a flock of
      geese. 44

      41 (return) [ Le Clerc has given a curious extract (Bibliotheque
      Universelle, tom. xviii. p. 91-105) of the theological sermons
      which Gregory Nazianzen pronounced at Constantinople against the
      Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians, &c. He tells the Macedonians, who
      deified the Father and the Son without the Holy Ghost, that they
      might as well be styled Tritheists as Ditheists. Gregory himself
      was almost a Tritheist; and his monarchy of heaven resembles a
      well-regulated aristocracy.]

      42 (return) [ The first general council of Constantinople now
      triumphs in the Vatican; but the popes had long hesitated, and
      their hesitation perplexes, and almost staggers, the humble
      Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. ix. p. 499, 500.)]

      43 (return) [ Before the death of Meletius, six or eight of his
      most popular ecclesiastics, among whom was Flavian, had abjured,
      for the sake of peace, the bishopric of Antioch, (Sozomen, l.
      vii. c. 3, 11. Socrates, l. v. c. v.) Tillemont thinks it his
      duty to disbelieve the story; but he owns that there are many
      circumstances in the life of Flavian which seem inconsistent with
      the praises of Chrysostom, and the character of a saint, (Mem.
      Eccles. tom. x. p. 541.)]

      44 (return) [ Consult Gregory Nazianzen, de Vita sua, tom. ii. p.
      25-28. His general and particular opinion of the clergy and their
      assemblies may be seen in verse and prose, (tom. i. Orat. i. p.
      33. Epist. lv. p. 814, tom. ii. Carmen x. p. 81.) Such passages
      are faintly marked by Tillemont, and fairly produced by Le
      Clerc.]

      A suspicion may possibly arise, that so unfavorable a picture of
      ecclesiastical synods has been drawn by the partial hand of some
      obstinate heretic, or some malicious infidel. But the name of the
      sincere historian who has conveyed this instructive lesson to the
      knowledge of posterity, must silence the impotent murmurs of
      superstition and bigotry. He was one of the most pious and
      eloquent bishops of the age; a saint, and a doctor of the church;
      the scourge of Arianism, and the pillar of the orthodox faith; a
      distinguished member of the council of Constantinople, in which,
      after the death of Meletius, he exercised the functions of
      president; in a word—Gregory Nazianzen himself. The harsh and
      ungenerous treatment which he experienced, 45 instead of
      derogating from the truth of his evidence, affords an additional
      proof of the spirit which actuated the deliberations of the
      synod. Their unanimous suffrage had confirmed the pretensions
      which the bishop of Constantinople derived from the choice of the
      people, and the approbation of the emperor. But Gregory soon
      became the victim of malice and envy. The bishops of the East,
      his strenuous adherents, provoked by his moderation in the
      affairs of Antioch, abandoned him, without support, to the
      adverse faction of the Egyptians; who disputed the validity of
      his election, and rigorously asserted the obsolete canon, that
      prohibited the licentious practice of episcopal translations. The
      pride, or the humility, of Gregory prompted him to decline a
      contest which might have been imputed to ambition and avarice;
      and he publicly offered, not without some mixture of indignation,
      to renounce the government of a church which had been restored,
      and almost created, by his labors. His resignation was accepted
      by the synod, and by the emperor, with more readiness than he
      seems to have expected. At the time when he might have hoped to
      enjoy the fruits of his victory, his episcopal throne was filled
      by the senator Nectarius; and the new archbishop, accidentally
      recommended by his easy temper and venerable aspect, was obliged
      to delay the ceremony of his consecration, till he had previously
      despatched the rites of his baptism. 46 After this remarkable
      experience of the ingratitude of princes and prelates, Gregory
      retired once more to his obscure solitude of Cappadocia; where he
      employed the remainder of his life, about eight years, in the
      exercises of poetry and devotion. The title of Saint has been
      added to his name: but the tenderness of his heart, 47 and the
      elegance of his genius, reflect a more pleasing lustre on the
      memory of Gregory Nazianzen.

      45 (return) [ See Gregory, tom. ii. de Vita sua, p. 28-31. The
      fourteenth, twenty-seventh, and thirty-second Orations were
      pronounced in the several stages of this business. The peroration
      of the last, (tom. i. p. 528,) in which he takes a solemn leave
      of men and angels, the city and the emperor, the East and the
      West, &c., is pathetic, and almost sublime.]

      46 (return) [ The whimsical ordination of Nectarius is attested
      by Sozomen, (l. vii. c. 8;) but Tillemont observes, (Mem. Eccles.
      tom. ix. p. 719,) Apres tout, ce narre de Sozomene est si
      honteux, pour tous ceux qu’il y mele, et surtout pour Theodose,
      qu’il vaut mieux travailler a le detruire, qu’a le soutenir; an
      admirable canon of criticism!]

      47 (return) [ I can only be understood to mean, that such was his
      natural temper when it was not hardened, or inflamed, by
      religious zeal. From his retirement, he exhorts Nectarius to
      prosecute the heretics of Constantinople.]

      It was not enough that Theodosius had suppressed the insolent
      reign of Arianism, or that he had abundantly revenged the
      injuries which the Catholics sustained from the zeal of
      Constantius and Valens. The orthodox emperor considered every
      heretic as a rebel against the supreme powers of heaven and of
      earth; and each of those powers might exercise their peculiar
      jurisdiction over the soul and body of the guilty. The decrees of
      the council of Constantinople had ascertained the true standard
      of the faith; and the ecclesiastics, who governed the conscience
      of Theodosius, suggested the most effectual methods of
      persecution. In the space of fifteen years, he promulgated at
      least fifteen severe edicts against the heretics; 48 more
      especially against those who rejected the doctrine of the
      Trinity; and to deprive them of every hope of escape, he sternly
      enacted, that if any laws or rescripts should be alleged in their
      favor, the judges should consider them as the illegal productions
      either of fraud or forgery. The penal statutes were directed
      against the ministers, the assemblies, and the persons of the
      heretics; and the passions of the legislator were expressed in
      the language of declamation and invective. I. The heretical
      teachers, who usurped the sacred titles of Bishops, or
      Presbyters, were not only excluded from the privileges and
      emoluments so liberally granted to the orthodox clergy, but they
      were exposed to the heavy penalties of exile and confiscation, if
      they presumed to preach the doctrine, or to practise the rites,
      of their accursed sects. A fine of ten pounds of gold (above four
      hundred pounds sterling) was imposed on every person who should
      dare to confer, or receive, or promote, an heretical ordination:
      and it was reasonably expected, that if the race of pastors could
      be extinguished, their helpless flocks would be compelled, by
      ignorance and hunger, to return within the pale of the Catholic
      church. II. The rigorous prohibition of conventicles was
      carefully extended to every possible circumstance, in which the
      heretics could assemble with the intention of worshipping God and
      Christ according to the dictates of their conscience. Their
      religious meetings, whether public or secret, by day or by night,
      in cities or in the country, were equally proscribed by the
      edicts of Theodosius; and the building, or ground, which had been
      used for that illegal purpose, was forfeited to the Imperial
      domain. III. It was supposed, that the error of the heretics
      could proceed only from the obstinate temper of their minds; and
      that such a temper was a fit object of censure and punishment.
      The anathemas of the church were fortified by a sort of civil
      excommunication; which separated them from their fellow-citizens,
      by a peculiar brand of infamy; and this declaration of the
      supreme magistrate tended to justify, or at least to excuse, the
      insults of a fanatic populace. The sectaries were gradually
      disqualified from the possession of honorable or lucrative
      employments; and Theodosius was satisfied with his own justice,
      when he decreed, that, as the Eunomians distinguished the nature
      of the Son from that of the Father, they should be incapable of
      making their wills or of receiving any advantage from
      testamentary donations. The guilt of the Manichaean heresy was
      esteemed of such magnitude, that it could be expiated only by the
      death of the offender; and the same capital punishment was
      inflicted on the Audians, or Quartodecimans, 49 who should dare
      to perpetrate the atrocious crime of celebrating on an improper
      day the festival of Easter. Every Roman might exercise the right
      of public accusation; but the office of Inquisitors of the Faith,
      a name so deservedly abhorred, was first instituted under the
      reign of Theodosius. Yet we are assured, that the execution of
      his penal edicts was seldom enforced; and that the pious emperor
      appeared less desirous to punish, than to reclaim, or terrify,
      his refractory subjects. 50

      48 (return) [ See the Theodosian Code, l. xvi. tit. v. leg. 6—23,
      with Godefroy’s commentary on each law, and his general summary,
      or Paratitlon, tom vi. p. 104-110.]

      49 (return) [ They always kept their Easter, like the Jewish
      Passover, on the fourteenth day of the first moon after the
      vernal equinox; and thus pertinaciously opposed the Roman Church
      and Nicene synod, which had fixed Easter to a Sunday. Bingham’s
      Antiquities, l. xx. c. 5, vol. ii. p. 309, fol. edit.]

      50 (return) [ Sozomen, l. vii. c. 12.]

      The theory of persecution was established by Theodosius, whose
      justice and piety have been applauded by the saints: but the
      practice of it, in the fullest extent, was reserved for his rival
      and colleague, Maximus, the first, among the Christian princes,
      who shed the blood of his Christian subjects on account of their
      religious opinions. The cause of the Priscillianists, 51 a recent
      sect of heretics, who disturbed the provinces of Spain, was
      transferred, by appeal, from the synod of Bordeaux to the
      Imperial consistory of Treves; and by the sentence of the
      Praetorian praefect, seven persons were tortured, condemned, and
      executed. The first of these was Priscillian 52 himself, bishop
      of Avila, in Spain; who adorned the advantages of birth and
      fortune, by the accomplishments of eloquence and learning. 53 Two
      presbyters, and two deacons, accompanied their beloved master in
      his death, which they esteemed as a glorious martyrdom; and the
      number of religious victims was completed by the execution of
      Latronian, a poet, who rivalled the fame of the ancients; and of
      Euchrocia, a noble matron of Bordeaux, the widow of the orator
      Delphidius. 54 Two bishops who had embraced the sentiments of
      Priscillian, were condemned to a distant and dreary exile; 55 and
      some indulgence was shown to the meaner criminals, who assumed
      the merit of an early repentance. If any credit could be allowed
      to confessions extorted by fear or pain, and to vague reports,
      the offspring of malice and credulity, the heresy of the
      Priscillianists would be found to include the various
      abominations of magic, of impiety, and of lewdness. 56
      Priscillian, who wandered about the world in the company of his
      spiritual sisters, was accused of praying stark naked in the
      midst of the congregation; and it was confidently asserted, that
      the effects of his criminal intercourse with the daughter of
      Euchrocia had been suppressed, by means still more odious and
      criminal. But an accurate, or rather a candid, inquiry will
      discover, that if the Priscillianists violated the laws of
      nature, it was not by the licentiousness, but by the austerity,
      of their lives. They absolutely condemned the use of the
      marriage-bed; and the peace of families was often disturbed by
      indiscreet separations. They enjoyed, or recommended, a total
      abstinence from all animal food; and their continual prayers,
      fasts, and vigils, inculcated a rule of strict and perfect
      devotion. The speculative tenets of the sect, concerning the
      person of Christ, and the nature of the human soul, were derived
      from the Gnostic and Manichaean system; and this vain philosophy,
      which had been transported from Egypt to Spain, was ill adapted
      to the grosser spirits of the West. The obscure disciples of
      Priscillian suffered languished, and gradually disappeared: his
      tenets were rejected by the clergy and people, but his death was
      the subject of a long and vehement controversy; while some
      arraigned, and others applauded, the justice of his sentence. It
      is with pleasure that we can observe the humane inconsistency of
      the most illustrious saints and bishops, Ambrose of Milan, 57 and
      Martin of Tours, 58 who, on this occasion, asserted the cause of
      toleration. They pitied the unhappy men, who had been executed at
      Treves; they refused to hold communion with their episcopal
      murderers; and if Martin deviated from that generous resolution,
      his motives were laudable, and his repentance was exemplary. The
      bishops of Tours and Milan pronounced, without hesitation, the
      eternal damnation of heretics; but they were surprised, and
      shocked, by the bloody image of their temporal death, and the
      honest feelings of nature resisted the artificial prejudices of
      theology. The humanity of Ambrose and Martin was confirmed by the
      scandalous irregularity of the proceedings against Priscillian
      and his adherents. The civil and ecclesiastical ministers had
      transgressed the limits of their respective provinces. The
      secular judge had presumed to receive an appeal, and to pronounce
      a definitive sentence, in a matter of faith, and episcopal
      jurisdiction. The bishops had disgraced themselves, by exercising
      the functions of accusers in a criminal prosecution. The cruelty
      of Ithacius, 59 who beheld the tortures, and solicited the death,
      of the heretics, provoked the just indignation of mankind; and
      the vices of that profligate bishop were admitted as a proof,
      that his zeal was instigated by the sordid motives of interest.
      Since the death of Priscillian, the rude attempts of persecution
      have been refined and methodized in the holy office, which
      assigns their distinct parts to the ecclesiastical and secular
      powers. The devoted victim is regularly delivered by the priest
      to the magistrate, and by the magistrate to the executioner; and
      the inexorable sentence of the church, which declares the
      spiritual guilt of the offender, is expressed in the mild
      language of pity and intercession.

      51 (return) [ See the Sacred History of Sulpicius Severus, (l.
      ii. p. 437-452, edit. Ludg. Bat. 1647,) a correct and original
      writer. Dr. Lardner (Credibility, &c., part ii. vol. ix. p.
      256-350) has labored this article with pure learning, good sense,
      and moderation. Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 491-527)
      has raked together all the dirt of the fathers; a useful
      scavenger!]

      52 (return) [ Severus Sulpicius mentions the arch-heretic with
      esteem and pity Faelix profecto, si non pravo studio corrupisset
      optimum ingenium prorsus multa in eo animi et corporis bona
      cerneres. (Hist. Sacra, l ii. p. 439.) Even Jerom (tom. i. in
      Script. Eccles. p. 302) speaks with temper of Priscillian and
      Latronian.]

      53 (return) [ The bishopric (in Old Castile) is now worth 20,000
      ducats a year, (Busching’s Geography, vol. ii. p. 308,) and is
      therefore much less likely to produce the author of a new
      heresy.]

      54 (return) [ Exprobrabatur mulieri viduae nimia religio, et
      diligentius culta divinitas, (Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 29.)
      Such was the idea of a humane, though ignorant, polytheist.]

      55 (return) [ One of them was sent in Sillinam insulam quae ultra
      Britannianest. What must have been the ancient condition of the
      rocks of Scilly? (Camden’s Britannia, vol. ii. p. 1519.)]

      56 (return) [ The scandalous calumnies of Augustin, Pope Leo,
      &c., which Tillemont swallows like a child, and Lardner refutes
      like a man, may suggest some candid suspicions in favor of the
      older Gnostics.]

      57 (return) [ Ambros. tom. ii. Epist. xxiv. p. 891.]

      58 (return) [ In the Sacred History, and the Life of St. Martin,
      Sulpicius Severus uses some caution; but he declares himself more
      freely in the Dialogues, (iii. 15.) Martin was reproved, however,
      by his own conscience, and by an angel; nor could he afterwards
      perform miracles with so much ease.]

      59 (return) [ The Catholic Presbyter (Sulp. Sever. l. ii. p. 448)
      and the Pagan Orator (Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 29) reprobate,
      with equal indignation, the character and conduct of Ithacius.]




      Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part III.

      Among the ecclesiastics, who illustrated the reign of Theodosius,
      Gregory Nazianzen was distinguished by the talents of an eloquent
      preacher; the reputation of miraculous gifts added weight and
      dignity to the monastic virtues of Martin of Tours; 60 but the
      palm of episcopal vigor and ability was justly claimed by the
      intrepid Ambrose. 61 He was descended from a noble family of
      Romans; his father had exercised the important office of
      Praetorian praefect of Gaul; and the son, after passing through
      the studies of a liberal education, attained, in the regular
      gradation of civil honors, the station of consular of Liguria, a
      province which included the Imperial residence of Milan. At the
      age of thirty-four, and before he had received the sacrament of
      baptism, Ambrose, to his own surprise, and to that of the world,
      was suddenly transformed from a governor to an archbishop.
      Without the least mixture, as it is said, of art or intrigue, the
      whole body of the people unanimously saluted him with the
      episcopal title; the concord and perseverance of their
      acclamations were ascribed to a praeternatural impulse; and the
      reluctant magistrate was compelled to undertake a spiritual
      office, for which he was not prepared by the habits and
      occupations of his former life. But the active force of his
      genius soon qualified him to exercise, with zeal and prudence,
      the duties of his ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and while he
      cheerfully renounced the vain and splendid trappings of temporal
      greatness, he condescended, for the good of the church, to direct
      the conscience of the emperors, and to control the administration
      of the empire. Gratian loved and revered him as a father; and the
      elaborate treatise on the faith of the Trinity was designed for
      the instruction of the young prince. After his tragic death, at a
      time when the empress Justina trembled for her own safety, and
      for that of her son Valentinian, the archbishop of Milan was
      despatched, on two different embassies, to the court of Treves.
      He exercised, with equal firmness and dexterity, the powers of
      his spiritual and political characters; and perhaps contributed,
      by his authority and eloquence, to check the ambition of Maximus,
      and to protect the peace of Italy. 62 Ambrose had devoted his
      life, and his abilities, to the service of the church. Wealth was
      the object of his contempt; he had renounced his private
      patrimony; and he sold, without hesitation, the consecrated
      plate, for the redemption of captives. The clergy and people of
      Milan were attached to their archbishop; and he deserved the
      esteem, without soliciting the favor, or apprehending the
      displeasure, of his feeble sovereigns.

      60 (return) [ The Life of St. Martin, and the Dialogues
      concerning his miracles contain facts adapted to the grossest
      barbarism, in a style not unworthy of the Augustan age. So
      natural is the alliance between good taste and good sense, that I
      am always astonished by this contrast.]

      61 (return) [ The short and superficial Life of St. Ambrose, by
      his deacon Paulinus, (Appendix ad edit. Benedict. p. i.—xv.,) has
      the merit of original evidence. Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. x.
      p. 78-306) and the Benedictine editors (p. xxxi.—lxiii.) have
      labored with their usual diligence.]

      62 (return) [ Ambrose himself (tom. ii. Epist. xxiv. p. 888—891)
      gives the emperor a very spirited account of his own embassy.]

      The government of Italy, and of the young emperor, naturally
      devolved to his mother Justina, a woman of beauty and spirit, but
      who, in the midst of an orthodox people, had the misfortune of
      professing the Arian heresy, which she endeavored to instil into
      the mind of her son. Justina was persuaded, that a Roman emperor
      might claim, in his own dominions, the public exercise of his
      religion; and she proposed to the archbishop, as a moderate and
      reasonable concession, that he should resign the use of a single
      church, either in the city or the suburbs of Milan. But the
      conduct of Ambrose was governed by very different principles. 63
      The palaces of the earth might indeed belong to Caesar; but the
      churches were the houses of God; and, within the limits of his
      diocese, he himself, as the lawful successor of the apostles, was
      the only minister of God. The privileges of Christianity,
      temporal as well as spiritual, were confined to the true
      believers; and the mind of Ambrose was satisfied, that his own
      theological opinions were the standard of truth and orthodoxy.
      The archbishop, who refused to hold any conference, or
      negotiation, with the instruments of Satan, declared, with modest
      firmness, his resolution to die a martyr, rather than to yield to
      the impious sacrilege; and Justina, who resented the refusal as
      an act of insolence and rebellion, hastily determined to exert
      the Imperial prerogative of her son. As she desired to perform
      her public devotions on the approaching festival of Easter,
      Ambrose was ordered to appear before the council. He obeyed the
      summons with the respect of a faithful subject, but he was
      followed, without his consent, by an innumerable people; they
      pressed, with impetuous zeal, against the gates of the palace;
      and the affrighted ministers of Valentinian, instead of
      pronouncing a sentence of exile on the archbishop of Milan,
      humbly requested that he would interpose his authority, to
      protect the person of the emperor, and to restore the tranquility
      of the capital. But the promises which Ambrose received and
      communicated were soon violated by a perfidious court; and,
      during six of the most solemn days, which Christian piety had set
      apart for the exercise of religion, the city was agitated by the
      irregular convulsions of tumult and fanaticism. The officers of
      the household were directed to prepare, first, the Portian, and
      afterwards, the new, Basilica, for the immediate reception of the
      emperor and his mother. The splendid canopy and hangings of the
      royal seat were arranged in the customary manner; but it was
      found necessary to defend them. by a strong guard, from the
      insults of the populace. The Arian ecclesiastics, who ventured to
      show themselves in the streets, were exposed to the most imminent
      danger of their lives; and Ambrose enjoyed the merit and
      reputation of rescuing his personal enemies from the hands of the
      enraged multitude.

      63 (return) [ His own representation of his principles and
      conduct (tom. ii. Epist. xx xxi. xxii. p. 852-880) is one of the
      curious monuments of ecclesiastical antiquity. It contains two
      letters to his sister Marcellina, with a petition to Valentinian
      and the sermon de Basilicis non madendis.]

      But while he labored to restrain the effects of their zeal, the
      pathetic vehemence of his sermons continually inflamed the angry
      and seditious temper of the people of Milan. The characters of
      Eve, of the wife of Job, of Jezebel, of Herodias, were indecently
      applied to the mother of the emperor; and her desire to obtain a
      church for the Arians was compared to the most cruel persecutions
      which Christianity had endured under the reign of Paganism. The
      measures of the court served only to expose the magnitude of the
      evil. A fine of two hundred pounds of gold was imposed on the
      corporate body of merchants and manufacturers: an order was
      signified, in the name of the emperor, to all the officers, and
      inferior servants, of the courts of justice, that, during the
      continuance of the public disorders, they should strictly confine
      themselves to their houses; and the ministers of Valentinian
      imprudently confessed, that the most respectable part of the
      citizens of Milan was attached to the cause of their archbishop.
      He was again solicited to restore peace to his country, by timely
      compliance with the will of his sovereign. The reply of Ambrose
      was couched in the most humble and respectful terms, which might,
      however, be interpreted as a serious declaration of civil war.
      “His life and fortune were in the hands of the emperor; but he
      would never betray the church of Christ, or degrade the dignity
      of the episcopal character. In such a cause he was prepared to
      suffer whatever the malice of the daemon could inflict; and he
      only wished to die in the presence of his faithful flock, and at
      the foot of the altar; he had not contributed to excite, but it
      was in the power of God alone to appease, the rage of the people:
      he deprecated the scenes of blood and confusion which were likely
      to ensue; and it was his fervent prayer, that he might not
      survive to behold the ruin of a flourishing city, and perhaps the
      desolation of all Italy.“ 64 The obstinate bigotry of Justina
      would have endangered the empire of her son, if, in this contest
      with the church and people of Milan, she could have depended on
      the active obedience of the troops of the palace. A large body of
      Goths had marched to occupy the Basilica, which was the object of
      the dispute: and it might be expected from the Arian principles,
      and barbarous manners, of these foreign mercenaries, that they
      would not entertain any scruples in the execution of the most
      sanguinary orders. They were encountered, on the sacred
      threshold, by the archbishop, who, thundering against them a
      sentence of excommunication, asked them, in the tone of a father
      and a master, whether it was to invade the house of God, that
      they had implored the hospitable protection of the republic. The
      suspense of the Barbarians allowed some hours for a more
      effectual negotiation; and the empress was persuaded, by the
      advice of her wisest counsellors, to leave the Catholics in
      possession of all the churches of Milan; and to dissemble, till a
      more convenient season, her intentions of revenge. The mother of
      Valentinian could never forgive the triumph of Ambrose; and the
      royal youth uttered a passionate exclamation, that his own
      servants were ready to betray him into the hands of an insolent
      priest.

      64 (return) [ Retz had a similar message from the queen, to
      request that he would appease the tumult of Paris. It was no
      longer in his power, &c. A quoi j’ajoutai tout ce que vous pouvez
      vous imaginer de respect de douleur, de regret, et de soumission,
      &c. (Memoires, tom. i. p. 140.) Certainly I do not compare either
      the causes or the men yet the coadjutor himself had some idea (p.
      84) of imitating St. Ambrose]

      The laws of the empire, some of which were inscribed with the
      name of Valentinian, still condemned the Arian heresy, and seemed
      to excuse the resistance of the Catholics. By the influence of
      Justina, an edict of toleration was promulgated in all the
      provinces which were subject to the court of Milan; the free
      exercise of their religion was granted to those who professed the
      faith of Rimini; and the emperor declared, that all persons who
      should infringe this sacred and salutary constitution, should be
      capitally punished, as the enemies of the public peace. 65 The
      character and language of the archbishop of Milan may justify the
      suspicion, that his conduct soon afforded a reasonable ground, or
      at least a specious pretence, to the Arian ministers; who watched
      the opportunity of surprising him in some act of disobedience to
      a law which he strangely represents as a law of blood and
      tyranny. A sentence of easy and honorable banishment was
      pronounced, which enjoined Ambrose to depart from Milan without
      delay; whilst it permitted him to choose the place of his exile,
      and the number of his companions. But the authority of the
      saints, who have preached and practised the maxims of passive
      loyalty, appeared to Ambrose of less moment than the extreme and
      pressing danger of the church. He boldly refused to obey; and his
      refusal was supported by the unanimous consent of his faithful
      people. 66 They guarded by turns the person of their archbishop;
      the gates of the cathedral and the episcopal palace were strongly
      secured; and the Imperial troops, who had formed the blockade,
      were unwilling to risk the attack, of that impregnable fortress.
      The numerous poor, who had been relieved by the liberality of
      Ambrose, embraced the fair occasion of signalizing their zeal and
      gratitude; and as the patience of the multitude might have been
      exhausted by the length and uniformity of nocturnal vigils, he
      prudently introduced into the church of Milan the useful
      institution of a loud and regular psalmody. While he maintained
      this arduous contest, he was instructed, by a dream, to open the
      earth in a place where the remains of two martyrs, Gervasius and
      Protasius, 67 had been deposited above three hundred years.
      Immediately under the pavement of the church two perfect
      skeletons were found, 68 with the heads separated from their
      bodies, and a plentiful effusion of blood. The holy relics were
      presented, in solemn pomp, to the veneration of the people; and
      every circumstance of this fortunate discovery was admirably
      adapted to promote the designs of Ambrose. The bones of the
      martyrs, their blood, their garments, were supposed to contain a
      healing power; and the praeternatural influence was communicated
      to the most distant objects, without losing any part of its
      original virtue. The extraordinary cure of a blind man, 69 and
      the reluctant confessions of several daemoniacs, appeared to
      justify the faith and sanctity of Ambrose; and the truth of those
      miracles is attested by Ambrose himself, by his secretary
      Paulinus, and by his proselyte, the celebrated Augustin, who, at
      that time, professed the art of rhetoric in Milan. The reason of
      the present age may possibly approve the incredulity of Justina
      and her Arian court; who derided the theatrical representations
      which were exhibited by the contrivance, and at the expense, of
      the archbishop. 70 Their effect, however, on the minds of the
      people, was rapid and irresistible; and the feeble sovereign of
      Italy found himself unable to contend with the favorite of
      Heaven. The powers likewise of the earth interposed in the
      defence of Ambrose: the disinterested advice of Theodosius was
      the genuine result of piety and friendship; and the mask of
      religious zeal concealed the hostile and ambitious designs of the
      tyrant of Gaul. 71

      65 (return) [ Sozomen alone (l. vii. c. 13) throws this luminous
      fact into a dark and perplexed narrative.]

      66 (return) [ Excubabat pia plebs in ecclesia, mori parata cum
      episcopo suo.... Nos, adhuc frigidi, excitabamur tamen civitate
      attonita atque curbata. Augustin. Confession. l. ix. c. 7]

      67 (return) [ Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. ii. p. 78, 498. Many
      churches in Italy, Gaul, &c., were dedicated to these unknown
      martyrs, of whom St. Gervaise seems to have been more fortunate
      than his companion.]

      68 (return) [ Invenimus mirae magnitudinis viros duos, ut prisca
      aetas ferebat, tom. ii. Epist. xxii. p. 875. The size of these
      skeletons was fortunately, or skillfully, suited to the popular
      prejudice of the gradual decrease of the human stature, which has
      prevailed in every age since the time of Homer.—Grandiaque
      effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris.]

      69 (return) [ Ambros. tom. ii. Epist. xxii. p. 875. Augustin.
      Confes, l. ix. c. 7, de Civitat. Dei, l. xxii. c. 8. Paulin. in
      Vita St. Ambros. c. 14, in Append. Benedict. p. 4. The blind
      man’s name was Severus; he touched the holy garment, recovered
      his sight, and devoted the rest of his life (at least twenty-five
      years) to the service of the church. I should recommend this
      miracle to our divines, if it did not prove the worship of
      relics, as well as the Nicene creed.]

      70 (return) [ Paulin, in Tit. St. Ambros. c. 5, in Append.
      Benedict. p. 5.]

      71 (return) [ Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. x. p. 190, 750. He
      partially allow the mediation of Theodosius, and capriciously
      rejects that of Maximus, though it is attested by Prosper,
      Sozomen, and Theodoret.]

      The reign of Maximus might have ended in peace and prosperity,
      could he have contented himself with the possession of three
      ample countries, which now constitute the three most flourishing
      kingdoms of modern Europe. But the aspiring usurper, whose sordid
      ambition was not dignified by the love of glory and of arms,
      considered his actual forces as the instruments only of his
      future greatness, and his success was the immediate cause of his
      destruction. The wealth which he extorted 72 from the oppressed
      provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, was employed in levying
      and maintaining a formidable army of Barbarians, collected, for
      the most part, from the fiercest nations of Germany. The conquest
      of Italy was the object of his hopes and preparations: and he
      secretly meditated the ruin of an innocent youth, whose
      government was abhorred and despised by his Catholic subjects.
      But as Maximus wished to occupy, without resistance, the passes
      of the Alps, he received, with perfidious smiles, Domninus of
      Syria, the ambassador of Valentinian, and pressed him to accept
      the aid of a considerable body of troops, for the service of a
      Pannonian war. The penetration of Ambrose had discovered the
      snares of an enemy under the professions of friendship; 73 but
      the Syrian Domninus was corrupted, or deceived, by the liberal
      favor of the court of Treves; and the council of Milan
      obstinately rejected the suspicion of danger, with a blind
      confidence, which was the effect, not of courage, but of fear.
      The march of the auxiliaries was guided by the ambassador; and
      they were admitted, without distrust, into the fortresses of the
      Alps. But the crafty tyrant followed, with hasty and silent
      footsteps, in the rear; and, as he diligently intercepted all
      intelligence of his motions, the gleam of armor, and the dust
      excited by the troops of cavalry, first announced the hostile
      approach of a stranger to the gates of Milan. In this extremity,
      Justina and her son might accuse their own imprudence, and the
      perfidious arts of Maximus; but they wanted time, and force, and
      resolution, to stand against the Gauls and Germans, either in the
      field, or within the walls of a large and disaffected city.
      Flight was their only hope, Aquileia their only refuge; and as
      Maximus now displayed his genuine character, the brother of
      Gratian might expect the same fate from the hands of the same
      assassin. Maximus entered Milan in triumph; and if the wise
      archbishop refused a dangerous and criminal connection with the
      usurper, he might indirectly contribute to the success of his
      arms, by inculcating, from the pulpit, the duty of resignation,
      rather than that of resistance. 74 The unfortunate Justina
      reached Aquileia in safety; but she distrusted the strength of
      the fortifications: she dreaded the event of a siege; and she
      resolved to implore the protection of the great Theodosius, whose
      power and virtue were celebrated in all the countries of the
      West. A vessel was secretly provided to transport the Imperial
      family; they embarked with precipitation in one of the obscure
      harbors of Venetia, or Istria; traversed the whole extent of the
      Adriatic and Ionian Seas; turned the extreme promontory of
      Peloponnesus; and, after a long, but successful navigation,
      reposed themselves in the port of Thessalonica. All the subjects
      of Valentinian deserted the cause of a prince, who, by his
      abdication, had absolved them from the duty of allegiance; and if
      the little city of Aemona, on the verge of Italy, had not
      presumed to stop the career of his inglorious victory, Maximus
      would have obtained, without a struggle, the sole possession of
      the Western empire.

      72 (return) [ The modest censure of Sulpicius (Dialog. iii. 15)
      inflicts a much deeper wound than the declamation of Pacatus,
      (xii. 25, 26.)]

      73 (return) [ Esto tutior adversus hominem, pacis involurco
      tegentem, was the wise caution of Ambrose (tom. ii. p. 891) after
      his return from his second embassy.]

      74 (return) [ Baronius (A.D. 387, No. 63) applies to this season
      of public distress some of the penitential sermons of the
      archbishop.]

      Instead of inviting his royal guests to take the palace of
      Constantinople, Theodosius had some unknown reasons to fix their
      residence at Thessalonica; but these reasons did not proceed from
      contempt or indifference, as he speedily made a visit to that
      city, accompanied by the greatest part of his court and senate.
      After the first tender expressions of friendship and sympathy,
      the pious emperor of the East gently admonished Justina, that the
      guilt of heresy was sometimes punished in this world, as well as
      in the next; and that the public profession of the Nicene faith
      would be the most efficacious step to promote the restoration of
      her son, by the satisfaction which it must occasion both on earth
      and in heaven. The momentous question of peace or war was
      referred, by Theodosius, to the deliberation of his council; and
      the arguments which might be alleged on the side of honor and
      justice, had acquired, since the death of Gratian, a considerable
      degree of additional weight. The persecution of the Imperial
      family, to which Theodosius himself had been indebted for his
      fortune, was now aggravated by recent and repeated injuries.
      Neither oaths nor treaties could restrain the boundless ambition
      of Maximus; and the delay of vigorous and decisive measures,
      instead of prolonging the blessings of peace, would expose the
      Eastern empire to the danger of a hostile invasion. The
      Barbarians, who had passed the Danube, had lately assumed the
      character of soldiers and subjects, but their native fierceness
      was yet untamed: and the operations of a war, which would
      exercise their valor, and diminish their numbers, might tend to
      relieve the provinces from an intolerable oppression.
      Notwithstanding these specious and solid reasons, which were
      approved by a majority of the council, Theodosius still hesitated
      whether he should draw the sword in a contest which could no
      longer admit any terms of reconciliation; and his magnanimous
      character was not disgraced by the apprehensions which he felt
      for the safety of his infant sons, and the welfare of his
      exhausted people. In this moment of anxious doubt, while the fate
      of the Roman world depended on the resolution of a single man,
      the charms of the princess Galla most powerfully pleaded the
      cause of her brother Valentinian. 75 The heart of Theodosius wa
      softened by the tears of beauty; his affections were insensibly
      engaged by the graces of youth and innocence: the art of Justina
      managed and directed the impulse of passion; and the celebration
      of the royal nuptials was the assurance and signal of the civil
      war. The unfeeling critics, who consider every amorous weakness
      as an indelible stain on the memory of a great and orthodox
      emperor, are inclined, on this occasion, to dispute the
      suspicious evidence of the historian Zosimus. For my own part, I
      shall frankly confess, that I am willing to find, or even to
      seek, in the revolutions of the world, some traces of the mild
      and tender sentiments of domestic life; and amidst the crowd of
      fierce and ambitious conquerors, I can distinguish, with peculiar
      complacency, a gentle hero, who may be supposed to receive his
      armor from the hands of love. The alliance of the Persian king
      was secured by the faith of treaties; the martial Barbarians were
      persuaded to follow the standard, or to respect the frontiers, of
      an active and liberal monarch; and the dominions of Theodosius,
      from the Euphrates to the Adriatic, resounded with the
      preparations of war both by land and sea. The skilful disposition
      of the forces of the East seemed to multiply their numbers, and
      distracted the attention of Maximus. He had reason to fear, that
      a chosen body of troops, under the command of the intrepid
      Arbogastes, would direct their march along the banks of the
      Danube, and boldly penetrate through the Rhaetian provinces into
      the centre of Gaul. A powerful fleet was equipped in the harbors
      of Greece and Epirus, with an apparent design, that, as soon as
      the passage had been opened by a naval victory, Valentinian and
      his mother should land in Italy, proceed, without delay, to Rome,
      and occupy the majestic seat of religion and empire. In the mean
      while, Theodosius himself advanced at the head of a brave and
      disciplined army, to encounter his unworthy rival, who, after the
      siege of Aemona, 7511 had fixed his camp in the neighborhood of
      Siscia, a city of Pannonia, strongly fortified by the broad and
      rapid stream of the Save.

      75 (return) [ The flight of Valentinian, and the love of
      Theodosius for his sister, are related by Zosimus, (l. iv. p.
      263, 264.) Tillemont produces some weak and ambiguous evidence to
      antedate the second marriage of Theodosius, (Hist. des Empereurs,
      to. v. p. 740,) and consequently to refute ces contes de Zosime,
      qui seroient trop contraires a la piete de Theodose.]

      7511 (return) [ Aemonah, Laybach. Siscia Sciszek.—M.]




      Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part IV.

      The veterans, who still remembered the long resistance, and
      successive resources, of the tyrant Magnentius, might prepare
      themselves for the labors of three bloody campaigns. But the
      contest with his successor, who, like him, had usurped the throne
      of the West, was easily decided in the term of two months, 76 and
      within the space of two hundred miles. The superior genius of the
      emperor of the East might prevail over the feeble Maximus, who,
      in this important crisis, showed himself destitute of military
      skill, or personal courage; but the abilities of Theodosius were
      seconded by the advantage which he possessed of a numerous and
      active cavalry. The Huns, the Alani, and, after their example,
      the Goths themselves, were formed into squadrons of archers; who
      fought on horseback, and confounded the steady valor of the Gauls
      and Germans, by the rapid motions of a Tartar war. After the
      fatigue of a long march, in the heat of summer, they spurred
      their foaming horses into the waters of the Save, swam the river
      in the presence of the enemy, and instantly charged and routed
      the troops who guarded the high ground on the opposite side.
      Marcellinus, the tyrant’s brother, advanced to support them with
      the select cohorts, which were considered as the hope and
      strength of the army. The action, which had been interrupted by
      the approach of night, was renewed in the morning; and, after a
      sharp conflict, the surviving remnant of the bravest soldiers of
      Maximus threw down their arms at the feet of the conqueror.
      Without suspending his march, to receive the loyal acclamations
      of the citizens of Aemona, Theodosius pressed forwards to
      terminate the war by the death or captivity of his rival, who
      fled before him with the diligence of fear. From the summit of
      the Julian Alps, he descended with such incredible speed into the
      plain of Italy, that he reached Aquileia on the evening of the
      first day; and Maximus, who found himself encompassed on all
      sides, had scarcely time to shut the gates of the city. But the
      gates could not long resist the effort of a victorious enemy; and
      the despair, the disaffection, the indifference of the soldiers
      and people, hastened the downfall of the wretched Maximus. He was
      dragged from his throne, rudely stripped of the Imperial
      ornaments, the robe, the diadem, and the purple slippers; and
      conducted, like a malefactor, to the camp and presence of
      Theodosius, at a place about three miles from Aquileia. The
      behavior of the emperor was not intended to insult, and he showed
      disposition to pity and forgive, the tyrant of the West, who had
      never been his personal enemy, and was now become the object of
      his contempt. Our sympathy is the most forcibly excited by the
      misfortunes to which we are exposed; and the spectacle of a proud
      competitor, now prostrate at his feet, could not fail of
      producing very serious and solemn thoughts in the mind of the
      victorious emperor. But the feeble emotion of involuntary pity
      was checked by his regard for public justice, and the memory of
      Gratian; and he abandoned the victim to the pious zeal of the
      soldiers, who drew him out of the Imperial presence, and
      instantly separated his head from his body. The intelligence of
      his defeat and death was received with sincere or well-dissembled
      joy: his son Victor, on whom he had conferred the title of
      Augustus, died by the order, perhaps by the hand, of the bold
      Arbogastes; and all the military plans of Theodosius were
      successfully executed. When he had thus terminated the civil war,
      with less difficulty and bloodshed than he might naturally
      expect, he employed the winter months of his residence at Milan,
      to restore the state of the afflicted provinces; and early in the
      spring he made, after the example of Constantine and Constantius,
      his triumphal entry into the ancient capital of the Roman empire.
      77

      76 (return) [ See Godefroy’s Chronology of the Laws, Cod.
      Theodos, tom l. p. cxix.]

      77 (return) [ Besides the hints which may be gathered from
      chronicles and ecclesiastical history, Zosimus (l. iv. p.
      259—267,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 35,) and Pacatus, (in Panegyr.
      Vet. xii. 30-47,) supply the loose and scanty materials of this
      civil war. Ambrose (tom. ii. Epist. xl. p. 952, 953) darkly
      alludes to the well-known events of a magazine surprised, an
      action at Petovio, a Sicilian, perhaps a naval, victory, &c.,
      Ausonius (p. 256, edit. Toll.) applauds the peculiar merit and
      good fortune of Aquileia.]

      The orator, who may be silent without danger, may praise without
      difficulty, and without reluctance; 78 and posterity will
      confess, that the character of Theodosius 79 might furnish the
      subject of a sincere and ample panegyric. The wisdom of his laws,
      and the success of his arms, rendered his administration
      respectable in the eyes both of his subjects and of his enemies.
      He loved and practised the virtues of domestic life, which seldom
      hold their residence in the palaces of kings. Theodosius was
      chaste and temperate; he enjoyed, without excess, the sensual and
      social pleasures of the table; and the warmth of his amorous
      passions was never diverted from their lawful objects. The proud
      titles of Imperial greatness were adorned by the tender names of
      a faithful husband, an indulgent father; his uncle was raised, by
      his affectionate esteem, to the rank of a second parent:
      Theodosius embraced, as his own, the children of his brother and
      sister; and the expressions of his regard were extended to the
      most distant and obscure branches of his numerous kindred. His
      familiar friends were judiciously selected from among those
      persons, who, in the equal intercourse of private life, had
      appeared before his eyes without a mask; the consciousness of
      personal and superior merit enabled him to despise the accidental
      distinction of the purple; and he proved by his conduct, that he
      had forgotten all the injuries, while he most gratefully
      remembered all the favors and services, which he had received
      before he ascended the throne of the Roman empire. The serious or
      lively tone of his conversation was adapted to the age, the rank,
      or the character of his subjects, whom he admitted into his
      society; and the affability of his manners displayed the image of
      his mind. Theodosius respected the simplicity of the good and
      virtuous: every art, every talent, of a useful, or even of an
      innocent nature, was rewarded by his judicious liberality; and,
      except the heretics, whom he persecuted with implacable hatred,
      the diffusive circle of his benevolence was circumscribed only by
      the limits of the human race. The government of a mighty empire
      may assuredly suffice to occupy the time, and the abilities, of a
      mortal: yet the diligent prince, without aspiring to the
      unsuitable reputation of profound learning, always reserved some
      moments of his leisure for the instructive amusement of reading.
      History, which enlarged his experience, was his favorite study.
      The annals of Rome, in the long period of eleven hundred years,
      presented him with a various and splendid picture of human life:
      and it has been particularly observed, that whenever he perused
      the cruel acts of Cinna, of Marius, or of Sylla, he warmly
      expressed his generous detestation of those enemies of humanity
      and freedom. His disinterested opinion of past events was
      usefully applied as the rule of his own actions; and Theodosius
      has deserved the singular commendation, that his virtues always
      seemed to expand with his fortune: the season of his prosperity
      was that of his moderation; and his clemency appeared the most
      conspicuous after the danger and success of a civil war. The
      Moorish guards of the tyrant had been massacred in the first heat
      of the victory, and a small number of the most obnoxious
      criminals suffered the punishment of the law. But the emperor
      showed himself much more attentive to relieve the innocent than
      to chastise the guilty. The oppressed subjects of the West, who
      would have deemed themselves happy in the restoration of their
      lands, were astonished to receive a sum of money equivalent to
      their losses; and the liberality of the conqueror supported the
      aged mother, and educated the orphan daughters, of Maximus. 80 A
      character thus accomplished might almost excuse the extravagant
      supposition of the orator Pacatus; that, if the elder Brutus
      could be permitted to revisit the earth, the stern republican
      would abjure, at the feet of Theodosius, his hatred of kings; and
      ingenuously confess, that such a monarch was the most faithful
      guardian of the happiness and dignity of the Roman people. 81

      78 (return) [ Quam promptum laudare principem, tam tutum siluisse
      de principe, (Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 2.) Latinus Pacatus
      Drepanius, a native of Gaul, pronounced this oration at Rome,
      (A.D. 388.) He was afterwards proconsul of Africa; and his friend
      Ausonius praises him as a poet second only to Virgil. See
      Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 303.]

      79 (return) [ See the fair portrait of Theodosius, by the younger
      Victor; the strokes are distinct, and the colors are mixed. The
      praise of Pacatus is too vague; and Claudian always seems afraid
      of exalting the father above the son.]

      80 (return) [ Ambros. tom. ii. Epist. xl. p. 55. Pacatus, from
      the want of skill or of courage, omits this glorious
      circumstance.]

      81 (return) [ Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 20.]

      Yet the piercing eye of the founder of the republic must have
      discerned two essential imperfections, which might, perhaps, have
      abated his recent love of despostism. The virtuous mind of
      Theodosius was often relaxed by indolence, 82 and it was
      sometimes inflamed by passion. 83 In the pursuit of an important
      object, his active courage was capable of the most vigorous
      exertions; but, as soon as the design was accomplished, or the
      danger was surmounted, the hero sunk into inglorious repose; and,
      forgetful that the time of a prince is the property of his
      people, resigned himself to the enjoyment of the innocent, but
      trifling, pleasures of a luxurious court. The natural disposition
      of Theodosius was hasty and choleric; and, in a station where
      none could resist, and few would dissuade, the fatal consequence
      of his resentment, the humane monarch was justly alarmed by the
      consciousness of his infirmity and of his power. It was the
      constant study of his life to suppress, or regulate, the
      intemperate sallies of passion and the success of his efforts
      enhanced the merit of his clemency. But the painful virtue which
      claims the merit of victory, is exposed to the danger of defeat;
      and the reign of a wise and merciful prince was polluted by an
      act of cruelty which would stain the annals of Nero or Domitian.
      Within the space of three years, the inconsistent historian of
      Theodosius must relate the generous pardon of the citizens of
      Antioch, and the inhuman massacre of the people of Thessalonica.

      82 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 271, 272. His partial evidence
      is marked by an air of candor and truth. He observes these
      vicissitudes of sloth and activity, not as a vice, but as a
      singularity in the character of Theodosius.]

      83 (return) [ This choleric temper is acknowledged and excused by
      Victor Sed habes (says Ambrose, in decent and many language, to
      his sovereign) nature impetum, quem si quis lenire velit, cito
      vertes ad misericordiam: si quis stimulet, in magis exsuscitas,
      ut eum revocare vix possis, (tom. ii. Epist. li. p. 998.)
      Theodosius (Claud. in iv. Hon. 266, &c.) exhorts his son to
      moderate his anger.]

      The lively impatience of the inhabitants of Antioch was never
      satisfied with their own situation, or with the character and
      conduct of their successive sovereigns. The Arian subjects of
      Theodosius deplored the loss of their churches; and as three
      rival bishops disputed the throne of Antioch, the sentence which
      decided their pretensions excited the murmurs of the two
      unsuccessful congregations. The exigencies of the Gothic war, and
      the inevitable expense that accompanied the conclusion of the
      peace, had constrained the emperor to aggravate the weight of the
      public impositions; and the provinces of Asia, as they had not
      been involved in the distress were the less inclined to
      contribute to the relief, of Europe. The auspicious period now
      approached of the tenth year of his reign; a festival more
      grateful to the soldiers, who received a liberal donative, than
      to the subjects, whose voluntary offerings had been long since
      converted into an extraordinary and oppressive burden. The edicts
      of taxation interrupted the repose, and pleasures, of Antioch;
      and the tribunal of the magistrate was besieged by a suppliant
      crowd; who, in pathetic, but, at first, in respectful language,
      solicited the redress of their grievances. They were gradually
      incensed by the pride of their haughty rulers, who treated their
      complaints as a criminal resistance; their satirical wit
      degenerated into sharp and angry invectives; and, from the
      subordinate powers of government, the invectives of the people
      insensibly rose to attack the sacred character of the emperor
      himself. Their fury, provoked by a feeble opposition, discharged
      itself on the images of the Imperial family, which were erected,
      as objects of public veneration, in the most conspicuous places
      of the city. The statues of Theodosius, of his father, of his
      wife Flaccilla, of his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius, were
      insolently thrown down from their pedestals, broken in pieces, or
      dragged with contempt through the streets; and the indignities
      which were offered to the representations of Imperial majesty,
      sufficiently declared the impious and treasonable wishes of the
      populace. The tumult was almost immediately suppressed by the
      arrival of a body of archers: and Antioch had leisure to reflect
      on the nature and consequences of her crime. 84 According to the
      duty of his office, the governor of the province despatched a
      faithful narrative of the whole transaction: while the trembling
      citizens intrusted the confession of their crime, and the
      assurances of their repentance, to the zeal of Flavian, their
      bishop, and to the eloquence of the senator Hilarius, the friend,
      and most probably the disciple, of Libanius; whose genius, on
      this melancholy occasion, was not useless to his country. 85 But
      the two capitals, Antioch and Constantinople, were separated by
      the distance of eight hundred miles; and, notwithstanding the
      diligence of the Imperial posts, the guilty city was severely
      punished by a long and dreadful interval of suspense. Every rumor
      agitated the hopes and fears of the Antiochians, and they heard
      with terror, that their sovereign, exasperated by the insult
      which had been offered to his own statues, and more especially,
      to those of his beloved wife, had resolved to level with the
      ground the offending city; and to massacre, without distinction
      of age or sex, the criminal inhabitants; 86 many of whom were
      actually driven, by their apprehensions, to seek a refuge in the
      mountains of Syria, and the adjacent desert. At length,
      twenty-four days after the sedition, the general Hellebicus and
      Caesarius, master of the offices, declared the will of the
      emperor, and the sentence of Antioch. That proud capital was
      degraded from the rank of a city; and the metropolis of the East,
      stripped of its lands, its privileges, and its revenues, was
      subjected, under the humiliating denomination of a village, to
      the jurisdiction of Laodicea. 87 The baths, the Circus, and the
      theatres were shut: and, that every source of plenty and pleasure
      might at the same time be intercepted, the distribution of corn
      was abolished, by the severe instructions of Theodosius. His
      commissioners then proceeded to inquire into the guilt of
      individuals; of those who had perpetrated, and of those who had
      not prevented, the destruction of the sacred statues. The
      tribunal of Hellebicus and Caesarius, encompassed with armed
      soldiers, was erected in the midst of the Forum. The noblest, and
      most wealthy, of the citizens of Antioch appeared before them in
      chains; the examination was assisted by the use of torture, and
      their sentence was pronounced or suspended, according to the
      judgment of these extraordinary magistrates. The houses of the
      criminals were exposed to sale, their wives and children were
      suddenly reduced, from affluence and luxury, to the most abject
      distress; and a bloody execution was expected to conclude the
      horrors of the day, 88 which the preacher of Antioch, the
      eloquent Chrysostom, has represented as a lively image of the
      last and universal judgment of the world. But the ministers of
      Theodosius performed, with reluctance, the cruel task which had
      been assigned them; they dropped a gentle tear over the
      calamities of the people; and they listened with reverence to the
      pressing solicitations of the monks and hermits, who descended in
      swarms from the mountains. 89 Hellebicus and Caesarius were
      persuaded to suspend the execution of their sentence; and it was
      agreed that the former should remain at Antioch, while the latter
      returned, with all possible speed, to Constantinople; and
      presumed once more to consult the will of his sovereign. The
      resentment of Theodosius had already subsided; the deputies of
      the people, both the bishop and the orator, had obtained a
      favorable audience; and the reproaches of the emperor were the
      complaints of injured friendship, rather than the stern menaces
      of pride and power. A free and general pardon was granted to the
      city and citizens of Antioch; the prison doors were thrown open;
      the senators, who despaired of their lives, recovered the
      possession of their houses and estates; and the capital of the
      East was restored to the enjoyment of her ancient dignity and
      splendor. Theodosius condescended to praise the senate of
      Constantinople, who had generously interceded for their
      distressed brethren: he rewarded the eloquence of Hilarius with
      the government of Palestine; and dismissed the bishop of Antioch
      with the warmest expressions of his respect and gratitude. A
      thousand new statues arose to the clemency of Theodosius; the
      applause of his subjects was ratified by the approbation of his
      own heart; and the emperor confessed, that, if the exercise of
      justice is the most important duty, the indulgence of mercy is
      the most exquisite pleasure, of a sovereign. 90

      84 (return) [ The Christians and Pagans agreed in believing that
      the sedition of Antioch was excited by the daemons. A gigantic
      woman (says Sozomen, l. vii. c. 23) paraded the streets with a
      scourge in her hand. An old man, says Libanius, (Orat. xii. p.
      396,) transformed himself into a youth, then a boy, &c.]

      85 (return) [ Zosimus, in his short and disingenuous account, (l.
      iv. p. 258, 259,) is certainly mistaken in sending Libanius
      himself to Constantinople. His own orations fix him at Antioch.]

      86 (return) [ Libanius (Orat. i. p. 6, edit. Venet.) declares,
      that under such a reign the fear of a massacre was groundless and
      absurd, especially in the emperor’s absence, for his presence,
      according to the eloquent slave, might have given a sanction to
      the most bloody acts.]

      87 (return) [ Laodicea, on the sea-coast, sixty-five miles from
      Antioch, (see Noris Epoch. Syro-Maced. Dissert. iii. p. 230.) The
      Antiochians were offended, that the dependent city of Seleucia
      should presume to intercede for them.]

      88 (return) [ As the days of the tumult depend on the movable
      festival of Easter, they can only be determined by the previous
      determination of the year. The year 387 has been preferred, after
      a laborious inquiry, by Tillemont (Hist. des. Emp. tom. v. p.
      741-744) and Montfaucon, (Chrysostom, tom. xiii. p. 105-110.)]

      89 (return) [ Chrysostom opposes their courage, which was not
      attended with much risk, to the cowardly flight of the Cynics.]

      90 (return) [ The sedition of Antioch is represented in a lively,
      and almost dramatic, manner by two orators, who had their
      respective shares of interest and merit. See Libanius (Orat. xiv.
      xv. p. 389-420, edit. Morel. Orat. i. p. 1-14, Venet. 1754) and
      the twenty orations of St. John Chrysostom, de Statuis, (tom. ii.
      p. 1-225, edit. Montfaucon.) I do not pretend to much personal
      acquaintance with Chrysostom but Tillemont (Hist. des. Empereurs,
      tom. v. p. 263-283) and Hermant (Vie de St. Chrysostome, tom. i.
      p. 137-224) had read him with pious curiosity and diligence.]

      The sedition of Thessalonica is ascribed to a more shameful
      cause, and was productive of much more dreadful consequences.
      That great city, the metropolis of all the Illyrian provinces,
      had been protected from the dangers of the Gothic war by strong
      fortifications and a numerous garrison. Botheric, the general of
      those troops, and, as it should seem from his name, a Barbarian,
      had among his slaves a beautiful boy, who excited the impure
      desires of one of the charioteers of the Circus. The insolent and
      brutal lover was thrown into prison by the order of Botheric; and
      he sternly rejected the importunate clamors of the multitude,
      who, on the day of the public games, lamented the absence of
      their favorite; and considered the skill of a charioteer as an
      object of more importance than his virtue. The resentment of the
      people was imbittered by some previous disputes; and, as the
      strength of the garrison had been drawn away for the service of
      the Italian war, the feeble remnant, whose numbers were reduced
      by desertion, could not save the unhappy general from their
      licentious fury. Botheric, and several of his principal officers,
      were inhumanly murdered; their mangled bodies were dragged about
      the streets; and the emperor, who then resided at Milan, was
      surprised by the intelligence of the audacious and wanton cruelty
      of the people of Thessalonica. The sentence of a dispassionate
      judge would have inflicted a severe punishment on the authors of
      the crime; and the merit of Botheric might contribute to
      exasperate the grief and indignation of his master.

      The fiery and choleric temper of Theodosius was impatient of the
      dilatory forms of a judicial inquiry; and he hastily resolved,
      that the blood of his lieutenant should be expiated by the blood
      of the guilty people. Yet his mind still fluctuated between the
      counsels of clemency and of revenge; the zeal of the bishops had
      almost extorted from the reluctant emperor the promise of a
      general pardon; his passion was again inflamed by the flattering
      suggestions of his minister Rufinus; and, after Theodosius had
      despatched the messengers of death, he attempted, when it was too
      late, to prevent the execution of his orders. The punishment of a
      Roman city was blindly committed to the undistinguishing sword of
      the Barbarians; and the hostile preparations were concerted with
      the dark and perfidious artifice of an illegal conspiracy. The
      people of Thessalonica were treacherously invited, in the name of
      their sovereign, to the games of the Circus; and such was their
      insatiate avidity for those amusements, that every consideration
      of fear, or suspicion, was disregarded by the numerous
      spectators. As soon as the assembly was complete, the soldiers,
      who had secretly been posted round the Circus, received the
      signal, not of the races, but of a general massacre. The
      promiscuous carnage continued three hours, without discrimination
      of strangers or natives, of age or sex, of innocence or guilt;
      the most moderate accounts state the number of the slain at seven
      thousand; and it is affirmed by some writers that more than
      fifteen thousand victims were sacrificed to the names of
      Botheric. A foreign merchant, who had probably no concern in his
      murder, offered his own life, and all his wealth, to supply the
      place of one of his two sons; but, while the father hesitated
      with equal tenderness, while he was doubtful to choose, and
      unwilling to condemn, the soldiers determined his suspense, by
      plunging their daggers at the same moment into the breasts of the
      defenceless youths. The apology of the assassins, that they were
      obliged to produce the prescribed number of heads, serves only to
      increase, by an appearance of order and design, the horrors of
      the massacre, which was executed by the commands of Theodosius.
      The guilt of the emperor is aggravated by his long and frequent
      residence at Thessalonica. The situation of the unfortunate city,
      the aspect of the streets and buildings, the dress and faces of
      the inhabitants, were familiar, and even present, to his
      imagination; and Theodosius possessed a quick and lively sense of
      the existence of the people whom he destroyed. 91

      91 (return) [ The original evidence of Ambrose, (tom. ii. Epist.
      li. p. 998.) Augustin, (de Civitat. Dei, v. 26,) and Paulinus,
      (in Vit. Ambros. c. 24,) is delivered in vague expressions of
      horror and pity. It is illustrated by the subsequent and unequal
      testimonies of Sozomen, (l. vii. c. 25,) Theodoret, (l. v. c.
      17,) Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 62,) Cedrenus, (p. 317,) and
      Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 34.) Zosimus alone, the partial
      enemy of Theodosius, most unaccountably passes over in silence
      the worst of his actions.]

      The respectful attachment of the emperor for the orthodox clergy,
      had disposed him to love and admire the character of Ambrose; who
      united all the episcopal virtues in the most eminent degree. The
      friends and ministers of Theodosius imitated the example of their
      sovereign; and he observed, with more surprise than displeasure,
      that all his secret counsels were immediately communicated to the
      archbishop; who acted from the laudable persuasion, that every
      measure of civil government may have some connection with the
      glory of God, and the interest of the true religion. The monks
      and populace of Callinicum, 9111 an obscure town on the frontier
      of Persia, excited by their own fanaticism, and by that of their
      bishop, had tumultuously burnt a conventicle of the Valentinians,
      and a synagogue of the Jews. The seditious prelate was condemned,
      by the magistrate of the province, either to rebuild the
      synagogue, or to repay the damage; and this moderate sentence was
      confirmed by the emperor. But it was not confirmed by the
      archbishop of Milan. 92 He dictated an epistle of censure and
      reproach, more suitable, perhaps, if the emperor had received the
      mark of circumcision, and renounced the faith of his baptism.
      Ambrose considers the toleration of the Jewish, as the
      persecution of the Christian, religion; boldly declares that he
      himself, and every true believer, would eagerly dispute with the
      bishop of Callinicum the merit of the deed, and the crown of
      martyrdom; and laments, in the most pathetic terms, that the
      execution of the sentence would be fatal to the fame and
      salvation of Theodosius. As this private admonition did not
      produce an immediate effect, the archbishop, from his pulpit, 93
      publicly addressed the emperor on his throne; 94 nor would he
      consent to offer the oblation of the altar, till he had obtained
      from Theodosius a solemn and positive declaration, which secured
      the impunity of the bishop and monks of Callinicum. The
      recantation of Theodosius was sincere; 95 and, during the term of
      his residence at Milan, his affection for Ambrose was continually
      increased by the habits of pious and familiar conversation.

      9111 (return) [ Raeca, on the Euphrates—M.]

      92 (return) [ See the whole transaction in Ambrose, (tom. ii.
      Epist. xl. xli. p. 950-956,) and his biographer Paulinus, (c.
      23.) Bayle and Barbeyrac (Morales des Peres, c. xvii. p. 325,
      &c.) have justly condemned the archbishop.]

      93 (return) [ His sermon is a strange allegory of Jeremiah’s rod,
      of an almond tree, of the woman who washed and anointed the feet
      of Christ. But the peroration is direct and personal.]

      94 (return) [ Hodie, Episcope, de me proposuisti. Ambrose
      modestly confessed it; but he sternly reprimanded Timasius,
      general of the horse and foot, who had presumed to say that the
      monks of Callinicum deserved punishment.]

      95 (return) [ Yet, five years afterwards, when Theodosius was
      absent from his spiritual guide, he tolerated the Jews, and
      condemned the destruction of their synagogues. Cod. Theodos. l.
      xvi. tit. viii. leg. 9, with Godefroy’s Commentary, tom. vi. p.
      225.]

      When Ambrose was informed of the massacre of Thessalonica, his
      mind was filled with horror and anguish. He retired into the
      country to indulge his grief, and to avoid the presence of
      Theodosius. But as the archbishop was satisfied that a timid
      silence would render him the accomplice of his guilt, he
      represented, in a private letter, the enormity of the crime;
      which could only be effaced by the tears of penitence. The
      episcopal vigor of Ambrose was tempered by prudence; and he
      contented himself with signifying 96 an indirect sort of
      excommunication, by the assurance, that he had been warned in a
      vision not to offer the oblation in the name, or in the presence,
      of Theodosius; and by the advice, that he would confine himself
      to the use of prayer, without presuming to approach the altar of
      Christ, or to receive the holy eucharist with those hands that
      were still polluted with the blood of an innocent people. The
      emperor was deeply affected by his own reproaches, and by those
      of his spiritual father; and after he had bewailed the
      mischievous and irreparable consequences of his rash fury, he
      proceeded, in the accustomed manner, to perform his devotions in
      the great church of Milan. He was stopped in the porch by the
      archbishop; who, in the tone and language of an ambassador of
      Heaven, declared to his sovereign, that private contrition was
      not sufficient to atone for a public fault, or to appease the
      justice of the offended Deity. Theodosius humbly represented,
      that if he had contracted the guilt of homicide, David, the man
      after God’s own heart, had been guilty, not only of murder, but
      of adultery. “You have imitated David in his crime, imitate then
      his repentance,“ was the reply of the undaunted Ambrose. The
      rigorous conditions of peace and pardon were accepted; and the
      public penance of the emperor Theodosius has been recorded as one
      of the most honorable events in the annals of the church.
      According to the mildest rules of ecclesiastical discipline,
      which were established in the fourth century, the crime of
      homicide was expiated by the penitence of twenty years: 97 and as
      it was impossible, in the period of human life, to purge the
      accumulated guilt of the massacre of Thessalonica, the murderer
      should have been excluded from the holy communion till the hour
      of his death. But the archbishop, consulting the maxims of
      religious policy, granted some indulgence to the rank of his
      illustrious penitent, who humbled in the dust the pride of the
      diadem; and the public edification might be admitted as a weighty
      reason to abridge the duration of his punishment. It was
      sufficient, that the emperor of the Romans, stripped of the
      ensigns of royalty, should appear in a mournful and suppliant
      posture; and that, in the midst of the church of Milan, he should
      humbly solicit, with sighs and tears, the pardon of his sins. 98
      In this spiritual cure, Ambrose employed the various methods of
      mildness and severity. After a delay of about eight months,
      Theodosius was restored to the communion of the faithful; and the
      edict which interposes a salutary interval of thirty days between
      the sentence and the execution, may be accepted as the worthy
      fruits of his repentance. 99 Posterity has applauded the virtuous
      firmness of the archbishop; and the example of Theodosius may
      prove the beneficial influence of those principles, which could
      force a monarch, exalted above the apprehension of human
      punishment, to respect the laws, and ministers, of an invisible
      Judge. “The prince,“ says Montesquieu, “who is actuated by the
      hopes and fears of religion, may be compared to a lion, docile
      only to the voice, and tractable to the hand, of his keeper.“ 100
      The motions of the royal animal will therefore depend on the
      inclination, and interest, of the man who has acquired such
      dangerous authority over him; and the priest, who holds in his
      hands the conscience of a king, may inflame, or moderate, his
      sanguinary passions. The cause of humanity, and that of
      persecution, have been asserted, by the same Ambrose, with equal
      energy, and with equal success.

      96 (return) [ Ambros. tom. ii. Epist. li. p. 997-1001. His
      epistle is a miserable rhapsody on a noble subject. Ambrose could
      act better than he could write. His compositions are destitute of
      taste, or genius; without the spirit of Tertullian, the copious
      elegance of Lactantius the lively wit of Jerom, or the grave
      energy of Augustin.]

      97 (return) [ According to the discipline of St. Basil, (Canon
      lvi.,) the voluntary homicide was four years a mourner; five a
      hearer; seven in a prostrate state; and four in a standing
      posture. I have the original (Beveridge, Pandect. tom. ii. p.
      47-151) and a translation (Chardon, Hist. des Sacremens, tom. iv.
      p. 219-277) of the Canonical Epistles of St. Basil.]

      98 (return) [ The penance of Theodosius is authenticated by
      Ambrose, (tom. vi. de Obit. Theodos. c. 34, p. 1207,) Augustin,
      (de Civitat. Dei, v. 26,) and Paulinus, (in Vit. Ambros. c. 24.)
      Socrates is ignorant; Sozomen (l. vii. c. 25) concise; and the
      copious narrative of Theodoret (l. v. c. 18) must be used with
      precaution.]

      99 (return) [ Codex Theodos. l. ix. tit. xl. leg. 13. The date
      and circumstances of this law are perplexed with difficulties;
      but I feel myself inclined to favor the honest efforts of
      Tillemont (Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 721) and Pagi, (Critica,
      tom. i. p. 578.)]

      100 (return) [ Un prince qui aime la religion, et qui la craint,
      est un lion qui cede a la main qui le flatte, ou a la voix qui
      l’appaise. Esprit des Loix, l. xxiv. c. 2.]




      Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part V.

      After the defeat and death of the tyrant of Gaul, the Roman world
      was in the possession of Theodosius. He derived from the choice
      of Gratian his honorable title to the provinces of the East: he
      had acquired the West by the right of conquest; and the three
      years which he spent in Italy were usefully employed to restore
      the authority of the laws, and to correct the abuses which had
      prevailed with impunity under the usurpation of Maximus, and the
      minority of Valentinian. The name of Valentinian was regularly
      inserted in the public acts: but the tender age, and doubtful
      faith, of the son of Justina, appeared to require the prudent
      care of an orthodox guardian; and his specious ambition might
      have excluded the unfortunate youth, without a struggle, and
      almost without a murmur, from the administration, and even from
      the inheritance, of the empire. If Theodosius had consulted the
      rigid maxims of interest and policy, his conduct would have been
      justified by his friends; but the generosity of his behavior on
      this memorable occasion has extorted the applause of his most
      inveterate enemies. He seated Valentinian on the throne of Milan;
      and, without stipulating any present or future advantages,
      restored him to the absolute dominion of all the provinces, from
      which he had been driven by the arms of Maximus. To the
      restitution of his ample patrimony, Theodosius added the free and
      generous gift of the countries beyond the Alps, which his
      successful valor had recovered from the assassin of Gratian. 101
      Satisfied with the glory which he had acquired, by revenging the
      death of his benefactor, and delivering the West from the yoke of
      tyranny, the emperor returned from Milan to Constantinople; and,
      in the peaceful possession of the East, insensibly relapsed into
      his former habits of luxury and indolence. Theodosius discharged
      his obligation to the brother, he indulged his conjugal
      tenderness to the sister, of Valentinian; and posterity, which
      admires the pure and singular glory of his elevation, must
      applaud his unrivalled generosity in the use of victory.

      101 (return) [ It is the niggard praise of Zosimus himself, (l.
      iv. p. 267.) Augustin says, with some happiness of expression,
      Valentinianum.... misericordissima veneratione restituit.]

      The empress Justina did not long survive her return to Italy;
      and, though she beheld the triumph of Theodosius, she was not
      allowed to influence the government of her son. 102 The
      pernicious attachment to the Arian sect, which Valentinian had
      imbibed from her example and instructions, was soon erased by the
      lessons of a more orthodox education. His growing zeal for the
      faith of Nice, and his filial reverence for the character and
      authority of Ambrose, disposed the Catholics to entertain the
      most favorable opinion of the virtues of the young emperor of the
      West. 103 They applauded his chastity and temperance, his
      contempt of pleasure, his application to business, and his tender
      affection for his two sisters; which could not, however, seduce
      his impartial equity to pronounce an unjust sentence against the
      meanest of his subjects. But this amiable youth, before he had
      accomplished the twentieth year of his age, was oppressed by
      domestic treason; and the empire was again involved in the
      horrors of a civil war. Arbogastes, 104 a gallant soldier of the
      nation of the Franks, held the second rank in the service of
      Gratian. On the death of his master he joined the standard of
      Theodosius; contributed, by his valor and military conduct, to
      the destruction of the tyrant; and was appointed, after the
      victory, master-general of the armies of Gaul. His real merit,
      and apparent fidelity, had gained the confidence both of the
      prince and people; his boundless liberality corrupted the
      allegiance of the troops; and, whilst he was universally esteemed
      as the pillar of the state, the bold and crafty Barbarian was
      secretly determined either to rule, or to ruin, the empire of the
      West. The important commands of the army were distributed among
      the Franks; the creatures of Arbogastes were promoted to all the
      honors and offices of the civil government; the progress of the
      conspiracy removed every faithful servant from the presence of
      Valentinian; and the emperor, without power and without
      intelligence, insensibly sunk into the precarious and dependent
      condition of a captive. 105 The indignation which he expressed,
      though it might arise only from the rash and impatient temper of
      youth, may be candidly ascribed to the generous spirit of a
      prince, who felt that he was not unworthy to reign. He secretly
      invited the archbishop of Milan to undertake the office of a
      mediator; as the pledge of his sincerity, and the guardian of his
      safety. He contrived to apprise the emperor of the East of his
      helpless situation, and he declared, that, unless Theodosius
      could speedily march to his assistance, he must attempt to escape
      from the palace, or rather prison, of Vienna in Gaul, where he
      had imprudently fixed his residence in the midst of the hostile
      faction. But the hopes of relief were distant, and doubtful: and,
      as every day furnished some new provocation, the emperor, without
      strength or counsel, too hastily resolved to risk an immediate
      contest with his powerful general. He received Arbogastes on the
      throne; and, as the count approached with some appearance of
      respect, delivered to him a paper, which dismissed him from all
      his employments. “My authority,“ replied Arbogastes, with
      insulting coolness, “does not depend on the smile or the frown of
      a monarch;” and he contemptuously threw the paper on the ground.
      The indignant monarch snatched at the sword of one of the guards,
      which he struggled to draw from its scabbard; and it was not
      without some degree of violence that he was prevented from using
      the deadly weapon against his enemy, or against himself. A few
      days after this extraordinary quarrel, in which he had exposed
      his resentment and his weakness, the unfortunate Valentinian was
      found strangled in his apartment; and some pains were employed to
      disguise the manifest guilt of Arbogastes, and to persuade the
      world, that the death of the young emperor had been the voluntary
      effect of his own despair. 106 His body was conducted with decent
      pomp to the sepulchre of Milan; and the archbishop pronounced a
      funeral oration to commemorate his virtues and his misfortunes.
      107 On this occasion the humanity of Ambrose tempted him to make
      a singular breach in his theological system; and to comfort the
      weeping sisters of Valentinian, by the firm assurance, that their
      pious brother, though he had not received the sacrament of
      baptism, was introduced, without difficulty, into the mansions of
      eternal bliss. 108

      102 (return) [ Sozomen, l. vii. c. 14. His chronology is very
      irregular.]

      103 (return) [ See Ambrose, (tom. ii. de Obit. Valentinian. c.
      15, &c. p. 1178. c. 36, &c. p. 1184.) When the young emperor gave
      an entertainment, he fasted himself; he refused to see a handsome
      actress, &c. Since he ordered his wild beasts to to be killed, it
      is ungenerous in Philostor (l. xi. c. 1) to reproach him with the
      love of that amusement.]

      104 (return) [ Zosimus (l. iv. p. 275) praises the enemy of
      Theodosius. But he is detested by Socrates (l. v. c. 25) and
      Orosius, (l. vii. c. 35.)]

      105 (return) [ Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. 9, p. 165, in the
      second volume of the Historians of France) has preserved a
      curious fragment of Sulpicius Alexander, an historian far more
      valuable than himself.]

      106 (return) [ Godefroy (Dissertat. ad. Philostorg. p. 429-434)
      has diligently collected all the circumstances of the death of
      Valentinian II. The variations, and the ignorance, of
      contemporary writers, prove that it was secret.]

      107 (return) [ De Obitu Valentinian. tom. ii. p. 1173-1196. He is
      forced to speak a discreet and obscure language: yet he is much
      bolder than any layman, or perhaps any other ecclesiastic, would
      have dared to be.]

      108 (return) [ See c. 51, p. 1188, c. 75, p. 1193. Dom Chardon,
      (Hist. des Sacramens, tom. i. p. 86,) who owns that St. Ambrose
      most strenuously maintains the indispensable necessity of
      baptism, labors to reconcile the contradiction.]

      The prudence of Arbogastes had prepared the success of his
      ambitious designs: and the provincials, in whose breast every
      sentiment of patriotism or loyalty was extinguished, expected,
      with tame resignation, the unknown master, whom the choice of a
      Frank might place on the Imperial throne. But some remains of
      pride and prejudice still opposed the elevation of Arbogastes
      himself; and the judicious Barbarian thought it more advisable to
      reign under the name of some dependent Roman. He bestowed the
      purple on the rhetorician Eugenius; 109 whom he had already
      raised from the place of his domestic secretary to the rank of
      master of the offices. In the course, both of his private and
      public service, the count had always approved the attachment and
      abilities of Eugenius; his learning and eloquence, supported by
      the gravity of his manners, recommended him to the esteem of the
      people; and the reluctance with which he seemed to ascend the
      throne, may inspire a favorable prejudice of his virtue and
      moderation. The ambassadors of the new emperor were immediately
      despatched to the court of Theodosius, to communicate, with
      affected grief, the unfortunate accident of the death of
      Valentinian; and, without mentioning the name of Arbogastes, to
      request, that the monarch of the East would embrace, as his
      lawful colleague, the respectable citizen, who had obtained the
      unanimous suffrage of the armies and provinces of the West. 110
      Theodosius was justly provoked, that the perfidy of a Barbarian,
      should have destroyed, in a moment, the labors, and the fruit, of
      his former victory; and he was excited by the tears of his
      beloved wife, 111 to revenge the fate of her unhappy brother, and
      once more to assert by arms the violated majesty of the throne.
      But as the second conquest of the West was a task of difficulty
      and danger, he dismissed, with splendid presents, and an
      ambiguous answer, the ambassadors of Eugenius; and almost two
      years were consumed in the preparations of the civil war. Before
      he formed any decisive resolution, the pious emperor was anxious
      to discover the will of Heaven; and as the progress of
      Christianity had silenced the oracles of Delphi and Dodona, he
      consulted an Egyptian monk, who possessed, in the opinion of the
      age, the gift of miracles, and the knowledge of futurity.
      Eutropius, one of the favorite eunuchs of the palace of
      Constantinople, embarked for Alexandria, from whence he sailed up
      the Nile, as far as the city of Lycopolis, or of Wolves, in the
      remote province of Thebais. 112 In the neighborhood of that city,
      and on the summit of a lofty mountain, the holy John 113 had
      constructed, with his own hands, an humble cell, in which he had
      dwelt above fifty years, without opening his door, without seeing
      the face of a woman, and without tasting any food that had been
      prepared by fire, or any human art. Five days of the week he
      spent in prayer and meditation; but on Saturdays and Sundays he
      regularly opened a small window, and gave audience to the crowd
      of suppliants who successively flowed from every part of the
      Christian world. The eunuch of Theodosius approached the window
      with respectful steps, proposed his questions concerning the
      event of the civil war, and soon returned with a favorable
      oracle, which animated the courage of the emperor by the
      assurance of a bloody, but infallible victory. 114 The
      accomplishment of the prediction was forwarded by all the means
      that human prudence could supply. The industry of the two
      master-generals, Stilicho and Timasius, was directed to recruit
      the numbers, and to revive the discipline of the Roman legions.
      The formidable troops of Barbarians marched under the ensigns of
      their national chieftains. The Iberian, the Arab, and the Goth,
      who gazed on each other with mutual astonishment, were enlisted
      in the service of the same prince; 1141 and the renowned Alaric
      acquired, in the school of Theodosius, the knowledge of the art
      of war, which he afterwards so fatally exerted for the
      destruction of Rome. 115

      109 (return) [ Quem sibi Germanus famulam delegerat exul, is the
      contemptuous expression of Claudian, (iv. Cons. Hon. 74.)
      Eugenius professed Christianity; but his secret attachment to
      Paganism (Sozomen, l. vii. c. 22, Philostorg. l. xi. c. 2) is
      probable in a grammarian, and would secure the friendship of
      Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 276, 277.)]

      110 (return) [ Zosimus (l. iv. p. 278) mentions this embassy; but
      he is diverted by another story from relating the event.]

      111 (return) [ Zosim. l. iv. p. 277. He afterwards says (p. 280)
      that Galla died in childbed; and intimates, that the affliction
      of her husband was extreme but short.]

      112 (return) [ Lycopolis is the modern Siut, or Osiot, a town of
      Said, about the size of St. Denys, which drives a profitable
      trade with the kingdom of Senaar, and has a very convenient
      fountain, “cujus potu signa virgini tatis eripiuntur.“ See
      D’Anville, Description de l’Egypte, p. 181 Abulfeda, Descript.
      Egypt. p. 14, and the curious Annotations, p. 25, 92, of his
      editor Michaelis.]

      113 (return) [ The Life of John of Lycopolis is described by his
      two friends, Rufinus (l. ii. c. i. p. 449) and Palladius, (Hist.
      Lausiac. c. 43, p. 738,) in Rosweyde’s great Collection of the
      Vitae Patrum. Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. x. p. 718, 720) has
      settled the chronology.]

      114 (return) [ Sozomen, l. vii. c. 22. Claudian (in Eutrop. l. i.
      312) mentions the eunuch’s journey; but he most contemptuously
      derides the Egyptian dreams, and the oracles of the Nile.]

      1141 (return) [ Gibbon has embodied the picturesque verses of
      Claudian:—

     .... Nec tantis dissona linguis Turba, nec armorum cultu diversion
     unquam]

      115 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 280. Socrates, l. vii. 10.
      Alaric himself (de Bell. Getico, 524) dwells with more
      complacency on his early exploits against the Romans.

.... Tot Augustos Hebro qui teste fugavi.

      Yet his vanity could scarcely have proved this plurality of
      flying emperors.]

      The emperor of the West, or, to speak more properly, his general
      Arbogastes, was instructed by the misconduct and misfortune of
      Maximus, how dangerous it might prove to extend the line of
      defence against a skilful antagonist, who was free to press, or
      to suspend, to contract, or to multiply, his various methods of
      attack. 116 Arbogastes fixed his station on the confines of
      Italy; the troops of Theodosius were permitted to occupy, without
      resistance, the provinces of Pannonia, as far as the foot of the
      Julian Alps; and even the passes of the mountains were
      negligently, or perhaps artfully, abandoned to the bold invader.
      He descended from the hills, and beheld, with some astonishment,
      the formidable camp of the Gauls and Germans, that covered with
      arms and tents the open country which extends to the walls of
      Aquileia, and the banks of the Frigidus, 117 or Cold River. 118
      This narrow theatre of the war, circumscribed by the Alps and the
      Adriatic, did not allow much room for the operations of military
      skill; the spirit of Arbogastes would have disdained a pardon;
      his guilt extinguished the hope of a negotiation; and Theodosius
      was impatient to satisfy his glory and revenge, by the
      chastisement of the assassins of Valentinian. Without weighing
      the natural and artificial obstacles that opposed his efforts,
      the emperor of the East immediately attacked the fortifications
      of his rivals, assigned the post of honorable danger to the
      Goths, and cherished a secret wish, that the bloody conflict
      might diminish the pride and numbers of the conquerors. Ten
      thousand of those auxiliaries, and Bacurius, general of the
      Iberians, died bravely on the field of battle. But the victory
      was not purchased by their blood; the Gauls maintained their
      advantage; and the approach of night protected the disorderly
      flight, or retreat, of the troops of Theodosius. The emperor
      retired to the adjacent hills; where he passed a disconsolate
      night, without sleep, without provisions, and without hopes; 119
      except that strong assurance, which, under the most desperate
      circumstances, the independent mind may derive from the contempt
      of fortune and of life. The triumph of Eugenius was celebrated by
      the insolent and dissolute joy of his camp; whilst the active and
      vigilant Arbogastes secretly detached a considerable body of
      troops to occupy the passes of the mountains, and to encompass
      the rear of the Eastern army. The dawn of day discovered to the
      eyes of Theodosius the extent and the extremity of his danger;
      but his apprehensions were soon dispelled, by a friendly message
      from the leaders of those troops who expressed their inclination
      to desert the standard of the tyrant. The honorable and lucrative
      rewards, which they stipulated as the price of their perfidy,
      were granted without hesitation; and as ink and paper could not
      easily be procured, the emperor subscribed, on his own tablets,
      the ratification of the treaty. The spirit of his soldiers was
      revived by this seasonable reenforcement; and they again marched,
      with confidence, to surprise the camp of a tyrant, whose
      principal officers appeared to distrust, either the justice or
      the success of his arms. In the heat of the battle, a violent
      tempest, 120 such as is often felt among the Alps, suddenly arose
      from the East. The army of Theodosius was sheltered by their
      position from the impetuosity of the wind, which blew a cloud of
      dust in the faces of the enemy, disordered their ranks, wrested
      their weapons from their hands, and diverted, or repelled, their
      ineffectual javelins. This accidental advantage was skilfully
      improved, the violence of the storm was magnified by the
      superstitious terrors of the Gauls; and they yielded without
      shame to the invisible powers of heaven, who seemed to militate
      on the side of the pious emperor. His victory was decisive; and
      the deaths of his two rivals were distinguished only by the
      difference of their characters. The rhetorician Eugenius, who had
      almost acquired the dominion of the world, was reduced to implore
      the mercy of the conqueror; and the unrelenting soldiers
      separated his head from his body as he lay prostrate at the feet
      of Theodosius. Arbogastes, after the loss of a battle, in which
      he had discharged the duties of a soldier and a general, wandered
      several days among the mountains. But when he was convinced that
      his cause was desperate, and his escape impracticable, the
      intrepid Barbarian imitated the example of the ancient Romans,
      and turned his sword against his own breast. The fate of the
      empire was determined in a narrow corner of Italy; and the
      legitimate successor of the house of Valentinian embraced the
      archbishop of Milan, and graciously received the submission of
      the provinces of the West. Those provinces were involved in the
      guilt of rebellion; while the inflexible courage of Ambrose alone
      had resisted the claims of successful usurpation. With a manly
      freedom, which might have been fatal to any other subject, the
      archbishop rejected the gifts of Eugenius, 1201 declined his
      correspondence, and withdrew himself from Milan, to avoid the
      odious presence of a tyrant, whose downfall he predicted in
      discreet and ambiguous language. The merit of Ambrose was
      applauded by the conqueror, who secured the attachment of the
      people by his alliance with the church; and the clemency of
      Theodosius is ascribed to the humane intercession of the
      archbishop of Milan. 121

      116 (return) [ Claudian (in iv. Cons. Honor. 77, &c.) contrasts
      the military plans of the two usurpers:—

     .... Novitas audere priorem Suadebat; cautumque dabant exempla
     sequentem. Hic nova moliri praeceps: hic quaerere tuta Providus. 
     Hic fusis; colectis viribus ille. Hic vagus excurrens; hic
     claustra reductus Dissimiles, sed morte pares......]

      117 (return) [ The Frigidus, a small, though memorable, stream in
      the country of Goretz, now called the Vipao, falls into the
      Sontius, or Lisonzo, above Aquileia, some miles from the
      Adriatic. See D’Anville’s ancient and modern maps, and the Italia
      Antiqua of Cluverius, (tom. i. c. 188.)]

      118 (return) [ Claudian’s wit is intolerable: the snow was dyed
      red; the cold ver smoked; and the channel must have been choked
      with carcasses the current had not been swelled with blood.
      Confluxit populus: totam pater undique secum Moverat Aurorem;
      mixtis hic Colchus Iberis, Hic mitra velatus Arabs, hic crine
      decoro Armenius, hic picta Saces, fucataque Medus, Hic gemmata
      tiger tentoria fixerat Indus.—De Laud. Stil. l. 145.—M.]

      119 (return) [ Theodoret affirms, that St. John, and St. Philip,
      appeared to the waking, or sleeping, emperor, on horseback, &c.
      This is the first instance of apostolic chivalry, which
      afterwards became so popular in Spain, and in the Crusades.]

      120 (return) [ Te propter, gelidis Aquilo de monte procellis

    Obruit adversas acies; revolutaque tela Vertit in auctores, et
    turbine reppulit hastas
    O nimium dilecte Deo, cui fundit ab antris Aeolus armatas hyemes;
    cui militat Aether, Et conjurati veniunt ad classica venti.

      These famous lines of Claudian (in iii. Cons. Honor. 93, &c. A.D.
      396) are alleged by his contemporaries, Augustin and Orosius; who
      suppress the Pagan deity of Aeolus, and add some circumstances
      from the information of eye-witnesses. Within four months after
      the victory, it was compared by Ambrose to the miraculous
      victories of Moses and Joshua.]

      1201 (return) [ Arbogastes and his emperor had openly espoused
      the Pagan party, according to Ambrose and Augustin. See Le Beau,
      v. 40. Beugnot (Histoire de la Destruction du Paganisme) is more
      full, and perhaps somewhat fanciful, on this remarkable reaction
      in favor of Paganism, but compare p 116.—M.]

      121 (return) [ The events of this civil war are gathered from
      Ambrose, (tom. ii. Epist. lxii. p. 1022,) Paulinus, (in Vit.
      Ambros. c. 26-34,) Augustin, (de Civitat. Dei, v. 26,) Orosius,
      (l. vii. c. 35,) Sozomen, (l. vii. c. 24,) Theodoret, (l. v. c.
      24,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 281, 282,) Claudian, (in iii. Cons. Hon.
      63-105, in iv. Cons. Hon. 70-117,) and the Chronicles published
      by Scaliger.]

      After the defeat of Eugenius, the merit, as well as the
      authority, of Theodosius was cheerfully acknowledged by all the
      inhabitants of the Roman world. The experience of his past
      conduct encouraged the most pleasing expectations of his future
      reign; and the age of the emperor, which did not exceed fifty
      years, seemed to extend the prospect of the public felicity. His
      death, only four months after his victory, was considered by the
      people as an unforeseen and fatal event, which destroyed, in a
      moment, the hopes of the rising generation. But the indulgence of
      ease and luxury had secretly nourished the principles of disease.
      122 The strength of Theodosius was unable to support the sudden
      and violent transition from the palace to the camp; and the
      increasing symptoms of a dropsy announced the speedy dissolution
      of the emperor. The opinion, and perhaps the interest, of the
      public had confirmed the division of the Eastern and Western
      empires; and the two royal youths, Arcadius and Honorius, who had
      already obtained, from the tenderness of their father, the title
      of Augustus, were destined to fill the thrones of Constantinople
      and of Rome. Those princes were not permitted to share the danger
      and glory of the civil war; 123 but as soon as Theodosius had
      triumphed over his unworthy rivals, he called his younger son,
      Honorius, to enjoy the fruits of the victory, and to receive the
      sceptre of the West from the hands of his dying father. The
      arrival of Honorius at Milan was welcomed by a splendid
      exhibition of the games of the Circus; and the emperor, though he
      was oppressed by the weight of his disorder, contributed by his
      presence to the public joy. But the remains of his strength were
      exhausted by the painful effort which he made to assist at the
      spectacles of the morning. Honorius supplied, during the rest of
      the day, the place of his father; and the great Theodosius
      expired in the ensuing night. Notwithstanding the recent
      animosities of a civil war, his death was universally lamented.
      The Barbarians, whom he had vanquished and the churchmen, by whom
      he had been subdued, celebrated, with loud and sincere applause,
      the qualities of the deceased emperor, which appeared the most
      valuable in their eyes. The Romans were terrified by the
      impending dangers of a feeble and divided administration, and
      every disgraceful moment of the unfortunate reigns of Arcadius
      and Honorius revived the memory of their irreparable loss.

      122 (return) [ This disease, ascribed by Socrates (l. v. c. 26)
      to the fatigues of war, is represented by Philostorgius (l. xi.
      c. 2) as the effect of sloth and intemperance; for which Photius
      calls him an impudent liar, (Godefroy, Dissert. p. 438.)]

      123 (return) [ Zosimus supposes, that the boy Honorius
      accompanied his father, (l. iv. p. 280.) Yet the quanto
      flagrabrant pectora voto is all that flattery would allow to a
      contemporary poet; who clearly describes the emperor’s refusal,
      and the journey of Honorius, after the victory (Claudian in iii.
      Cons. 78-125.)]

      In the faithful picture of the virtues of Theodosius, his
      imperfections have not been dissembled; the act of cruelty, and
      the habits of indolence, which tarnished the glory of one of the
      greatest of the Roman princes. An historian, perpetually adverse
      to the fame of Theodosius, has exaggerated his vices, and their
      pernicious effects; he boldly asserts, that every rank of
      subjects imitated the effeminate manners of their sovereign; and
      that every species of corruption polluted the course of public
      and private life; and that the feeble restraints of order and
      decency were insufficient to resist the progress of that
      degenerate spirit, which sacrifices, without a blush, the
      consideration of duty and interest to the base indulgence of
      sloth and appetite. 124 The complaints of contemporary writers,
      who deplore the increase of luxury, and depravation of manners,
      are commonly expressive of their peculiar temper and situation.
      There are few observers, who possess a clear and comprehensive
      view of the revolutions of society; and who are capable of
      discovering the nice and secret springs of action, which impel,
      in the same uniform direction, the blind and capricious passions
      of a multitude of individuals. If it can be affirmed, with any
      degree of truth, that the luxury of the Romans was more shameless
      and dissolute in the reign of Theodosius than in the age of
      Constantine, perhaps, or of Augustus, the alteration cannot be
      ascribed to any beneficial improvements, which had gradually
      increased the stock of national riches. A long period of calamity
      or decay must have checked the industry, and diminished the
      wealth, of the people; and their profuse luxury must have been
      the result of that indolent despair, which enjoys the present
      hour, and declines the thoughts of futurity. The uncertain
      condition of their property discouraged the subjects of
      Theodosius from engaging in those useful and laborious
      undertakings which require an immediate expense, and promise a
      slow and distant advantage. The frequent examples of ruin and
      desolation tempted them not to spare the remains of a patrimony,
      which might, every hour, become the prey of the rapacious Goth.
      And the mad prodigality which prevails in the confusion of a
      shipwreck, or a siege, may serve to explain the progress of
      luxury amidst the misfortunes and terrors of a sinking nation.

      124 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 244.]

      The effeminate luxury, which infected the manners of courts and
      cities, had instilled a secret and destructive poison into the
      camps of the legions; and their degeneracy has been marked by the
      pen of a military writer, who had accurately studied the genuine
      and ancient principles of Roman discipline. It is the just and
      important observation of Vegetius, that the infantry was
      invariably covered with defensive armor, from the foundation of
      the city, to the reign of the emperor Gratian. The relaxation of
      discipline, and the disuse of exercise, rendered the soldiers
      less able, and less willing, to support the fatigues of the
      service; they complained of the weight of the armor, which they
      seldom wore; and they successively obtained the permission of
      laying aside both their cuirasses and their helmets. The heavy
      weapons of their ancestors, the short sword, and the formidable
      pilum, which had subdued the world, insensibly dropped from their
      feeble hands. As the use of the shield is incompatible with that
      of the bow, they reluctantly marched into the field; condemned to
      suffer either the pain of wounds, or the ignominy of flight, and
      always disposed to prefer the more shameful alternative. The
      cavalry of the Goths, the Huns, and the Alani, had felt the
      benefits, and adopted the use, of defensive armor; and, as they
      excelled in the management of missile weapons, they easily
      overwhelmed the naked and trembling legions, whose heads and
      breasts were exposed, without defence, to the arrows of the
      Barbarians. The loss of armies, the destruction of cities, and
      the dishonor of the Roman name, ineffectually solicited the
      successors of Gratian to restore the helmets and the cuirasses of
      the infantry. The enervated soldiers abandoned their own and the
      public defence; and their pusillanimous indolence may be
      considered as the immediate cause of the downfall of the empire.
      125

      125 (return) [ Vegetius, de Re Militari, l. i. c. 10. The series
      of calamities which he marks, compel us to believe, that the
      Hero, to whom he dedicates his book, is the last and most
      inglorious of the Valentinians.]




      Chapter XXVIII: Destruction Of Paganism.—Part I.

     Final Destruction Of Paganism.—Introduction Of The Worship Of
     Saints, And Relics, Among The Christians.

      The ruin of Paganism, in the age of Theodosius, is perhaps the
      only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular
      superstition; and may therefore deserve to be considered as a
      singular event in the history of the human mind. The Christians,
      more especially the clergy, had impatiently supported the prudent
      delays of Constantine, and the equal toleration of the elder
      Valentinian; nor could they deem their conquest perfect or
      secure, as long as their adversaries were permitted to exist. The
      influence which Ambrose and his brethren had acquired over the
      youth of Gratian, and the piety of Theodosius, was employed to
      infuse the maxims of persecution into the breasts of their
      Imperial proselytes. Two specious principles of religious
      jurisprudence were established, from whence they deduced a direct
      and rigorous conclusion, against the subjects of the empire who
      still adhered to the ceremonies of their ancestors: that the
      magistrate is, in some measure, guilty of the crimes which he
      neglects to prohibit, or to punish; and, that the idolatrous
      worship of fabulous deities, and real daemons, is the most
      abominable crime against the supreme majesty of the Creator. The
      laws of Moses, and the examples of Jewish history, 1 were
      hastily, perhaps erroneously, applied, by the clergy, to the mild
      and universal reign of Christianity. 2 The zeal of the emperors
      was excited to vindicate their own honor, and that of the Deity:
      and the temples of the Roman world were subverted, about sixty
      years after the conversion of Constantine.

      1 (return) [ St. Ambrose (tom. ii. de Obit. Theodos. p. 1208)
      expressly praises and recommends the zeal of Josiah in the
      destruction of idolatry The language of Julius Firmicus Maternus
      on the same subject (de Errore Profan. Relig. p. 467, edit.
      Gronov.) is piously inhuman. Nec filio jubet (the Mosaic Law)
      parci, nec fratri, et per amatam conjugera gladium vindicem
      ducit, &c.]

      2 (return) [ Bayle (tom. ii. p. 406, in his Commentaire
      Philosophique) justifies, and limits, these intolerant laws by
      the temporal reign of Jehovah over the Jews. The attempt is
      laudable.]

      From the age of Numa to the reign of Gratian, the Romans
      preserved the regular succession of the several colleges of the
      sacerdotal order. 3 Fifteen Pontiffs exercised their supreme
      jurisdiction over all things, and persons, that were consecrated
      to the service of the gods; and the various questions which
      perpetually arose in a loose and traditionary system, were
      submitted to the judgment of their holy tribunal. Fifteen grave
      and learned Augurs observed the face of the heavens, and
      prescribed the actions of heroes, according to the flight of
      birds. Fifteen keepers of the Sibylline books (their name of
      Quindecemvirs was derived from their number) occasionally
      consulted the history of future, and, as it should seem, of
      contingent, events. Six Vestals devoted their virginity to the
      guard of the sacred fire, and of the unknown pledges of the
      duration of Rome; which no mortal had been suffered to behold
      with impunity. 4 Seven Epulos prepared the table of the gods,
      conducted the solemn procession, and regulated the ceremonies of
      the annual festival. The three Flamens of Jupiter, of Mars, and
      of Quirinus, were considered as the peculiar ministers of the
      three most powerful deities, who watched over the fate of Rome
      and of the universe. The King of the Sacrifices represented the
      person of Numa, and of his successors, in the religious
      functions, which could be performed only by royal hands. The
      confraternities of the Salians, the Lupercals, &c., practised
      such rites as might extort a smile of contempt from every
      reasonable man, with a lively confidence of recommending
      themselves to the favor of the immortal gods. The authority,
      which the Roman priests had formerly obtained in the counsels of
      the republic, was gradually abolished by the establishment of
      monarchy, and the removal of the seat of empire. But the dignity
      of their sacred character was still protected by the laws, and
      manners of their country; and they still continued, more
      especially the college of pontiffs, to exercise in the capital,
      and sometimes in the provinces, the rights of their
      ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction. Their robes of purple,
      chariotz of state, and sumptuous entertainments, attracted the
      admiration of the people; and they received, from the consecrated
      lands, and the public revenue, an ample stipend, which liberally
      supported the splendor of the priesthood, and all the expenses of
      the religious worship of the state. As the service of the altar
      was not incompatible with the command of armies, the Romans,
      after their consulships and triumphs, aspired to the place of
      pontiff, or of augur; the seats of Cicero 5 and Pompey were
      filled, in the fourth century, by the most illustrious members of
      the senate; and the dignity of their birth reflected additional
      splendor on their sacerdotal character. The fifteen priests, who
      composed the college of pontiffs, enjoyed a more distinguished
      rank as the companions of their sovereign; and the Christian
      emperors condescended to accept the robe and ensigns, which were
      appropriated to the office of supreme pontiff. But when Gratian
      ascended the throne, more scrupulous or more enlightened, he
      sternly rejected those profane symbols; 6 applied to the service
      of the state, or of the church, the revenues of the priests and
      vestals; abolished their honors and immunities; and dissolved the
      ancient fabric of Roman superstition, which was supported by the
      opinions and habits of eleven hundred years. Paganism was still
      the constitutional religion of the senate. The hall, or temple,
      in which they assembled, was adorned by the statue and altar of
      Victory; 7 a majestic female standing on a globe, with flowing
      garments, expanded wings, and a crown of laurel in her
      outstretched hand. 8 The senators were sworn on the altar of the
      goddess to observe the laws of the emperor and of the empire: and
      a solemn offering of wine and incense was the ordinary prelude of
      their public deliberations. 9 The removal of this ancient
      monument was the only injury which Constantius had offered to the
      superstition of the Romans. The altar of Victory was again
      restored by Julian, tolerated by Valentinian, and once more
      banished from the senate by the zeal of Gratian. 10 But the
      emperor yet spared the statues of the gods which were exposed to
      the public veneration: four hundred and twenty-four temples, or
      chapels, still remained to satisfy the devotion of the people;
      and in every quarter of Rome the delicacy of the Christians was
      offended by the fumes of idolatrous sacrifice. 11

      3 (return) [ See the outlines of the Roman hierarchy in Cicero,
      (de Legibus, ii. 7, 8,) Livy, (i. 20,) Dionysius
      Halicarnassensis, (l. ii. p. 119-129, edit. Hudson,) Beaufort,
      (Republique Romaine, tom. i. p. 1-90,) and Moyle, (vol. i. p.
      10-55.) The last is the work of an English whig, as well as of a
      Roman antiquary.]

      4 (return) [ These mystic, and perhaps imaginary, symbols have
      given birth to various fables and conjectures. It seems probable,
      that the Palladium was a small statue (three cubits and a half
      high) of Minerva, with a lance and distaff; that it was usually
      enclosed in a seria, or barrel; and that a similar barrel was
      placed by its side to disconcert curiosity, or sacrilege. See
      Mezeriac (Comment. sur les Epitres d’Ovide, tom i. p. 60—66) and
      Lipsius, (tom. iii. p. 610 de Vesta, &c. c 10.)]

      5 (return) [ Cicero frankly (ad Atticum, l. ii. Epist. 5) or
      indirectly (ad Familiar. l. xv. Epist. 4) confesses that the
      Augurate is the supreme object of his wishes. Pliny is proud to
      tread in the footsteps of Cicero, (l. iv. Epist. 8,) and the
      chain of tradition might be continued from history and marbles.]

      6 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 249, 250. I have suppressed the
      foolish pun about Pontifex and Maximus.]

      7 (return) [ This statue was transported from Tarentum to Rome,
      placed in the Curia Julia by Caesar, and decorated by Augustus
      with the spoils of Egypt.]

      8 (return) [ Prudentius (l. ii. in initio) has drawn a very
      awkward portrait of Victory; but the curious reader will obtain
      more satisfaction from Montfaucon’s Antiquities, (tom. i. p.
      341.)]

      9 (return) [ See Suetonius (in August. c. 35) and the Exordium of
      Pliny’s Panegyric.]

      10 (return) [ These facts are mutually allowed by the two
      advocates, Symmachus and Ambrose.]

      11 (return) [ The Notitia Urbis, more recent than Constantine,
      does not find one Christian church worthy to be named among the
      edifices of the city. Ambrose (tom. ii. Epist. xvii. p. 825)
      deplores the public scandals of Rome, which continually offended
      the eyes, the ears, and the nostrils of the faithful.]

      But the Christians formed the least numerous party in the senate
      of Rome: 12 and it was only by their absence, that they could
      express their dissent from the legal, though profane, acts of a
      Pagan majority. In that assembly, the dying embers of freedom
      were, for a moment, revived and inflamed by the breath of
      fanaticism. Four respectable deputations were successively voted
      to the Imperial court, 13 to represent the grievances of the
      priesthood and the senate, and to solicit the restoration of the
      altar of Victory. The conduct of this important business was
      intrusted to the eloquent Symmachus, 14 a wealthy and noble
      senator, who united the sacred characters of pontiff and augur
      with the civil dignities of proconsul of Africa and praefect of
      the city. The breast of Symmachus was animated by the warmest
      zeal for the cause of expiring Paganism; and his religious
      antagonists lamented the abuse of his genius, and the inefficacy
      of his moral virtues. 15 The orator, whose petition is extant to
      the emperor Valentinian, was conscious of the difficulty and
      danger of the office which he had assumed. He cautiously avoids
      every topic which might appear to reflect on the religion of his
      sovereign; humbly declares, that prayers and entreaties are his
      only arms; and artfully draws his arguments from the schools of
      rhetoric, rather than from those of philosophy. Symmachus
      endeavors to seduce the imagination of a young prince, by
      displaying the attributes of the goddess of victory; he
      insinuates, that the confiscation of the revenues, which were
      consecrated to the service of the gods, was a measure unworthy of
      his liberal and disinterested character; and he maintains, that
      the Roman sacrifices would be deprived of their force and energy,
      if they were no longer celebrated at the expense, as well as in
      the name, of the republic. Even scepticism is made to supply an
      apology for superstition. The great and incomprehensible secret
      of the universe eludes the inquiry of man. Where reason cannot
      instruct, custom may be permitted to guide; and every nation
      seems to consult the dictates of prudence, by a faithful
      attachment to those rites and opinions, which have received the
      sanction of ages. If those ages have been crowned with glory and
      prosperity, if the devout people have frequently obtained the
      blessings which they have solicited at the altars of the gods, it
      must appear still more advisable to persist in the same salutary
      practice; and not to risk the unknown perils that may attend any
      rash innovations. The test of antiquity and success was applied
      with singular advantage to the religion of Numa; and Rome
      herself, the celestial genius that presided over the fates of the
      city, is introduced by the orator to plead her own cause before
      the tribunal of the emperors. “Most excellent princes,“ says the
      venerable matron, “fathers of your country! pity and respect my
      age, which has hitherto flowed in an uninterrupted course of
      piety. Since I do not repent, permit me to continue in the
      practice of my ancient rites. Since I am born free, allow me to
      enjoy my domestic institutions. This religion has reduced the
      world under my laws. These rites have repelled Hannibal from the
      city, and the Gauls from the Capitol. Were my gray hairs reserved
      for such intolerable disgrace? I am ignorant of the new system
      that I am required to adopt; but I am well assured, that the
      correction of old age is always an ungrateful and ignominious
      office.“ 16 The fears of the people supplied what the discretion
      of the orator had suppressed; and the calamities, which
      afflicted, or threatened, the declining empire, were unanimously
      imputed, by the Pagans, to the new religion of Christ and of
      Constantine.

      12 (return) [ Ambrose repeatedly affirms, in contradiction to
      common sense (Moyle’s Works, vol. ii. p. 147,) that the
      Christians had a majority in the senate.]

      13 (return) [ The first (A.D. 382) to Gratian, who refused them
      audience; the second (A.D. 384) to Valentinian, when the field
      was disputed by Symmachus and Ambrose; the third (A.D. 388) to
      Theodosius; and the fourth (A.D. 392) to Valentinian. Lardner
      (Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 372-399) fairly represents the
      whole transaction.]

      14 (return) [ Symmachus, who was invested with all the civil and
      sacerdotal honors, represented the emperor under the two
      characters of Pontifex Maximus, and Princeps Senatus. See the
      proud inscription at the head of his works. * Note: Mr. Beugnot
      has made it doubtful whether Symmachus was more than Pontifex
      Major. Destruction du Paganisme, vol. i. p. 459.—M.]

      15 (return) [ As if any one, says Prudentius (in Symmach. i. 639)
      should dig in the mud with an instrument of gold and ivory. Even
      saints, and polemic saints, treat this adversary with respect and
      civility.]

      16 (return) [ See the fifty-fourth Epistle of the tenth book of
      Symmachus. In the form and disposition of his ten books of
      Epistles, he imitated the younger Pliny; whose rich and florid
      style he was supposed, by his friends, to equal or excel,
      (Macrob. Saturnal. l. v. c. i.) But the luxcriancy of Symmachus
      consists of barren leaves, without fruits, and even without
      flowers. Few facts, and few sentiments, can be extracted from his
      verbose correspondence.]

      But the hopes of Symmachus were repeatedly baffled by the firm
      and dexterous opposition of the archbishop of Milan, who
      fortified the emperors against the fallacious eloquence of the
      advocate of Rome. In this controversy, Ambrose condescends to
      speak the language of a philosopher, and to ask, with some
      contempt, why it should be thought necessary to introduce an
      imaginary and invisible power, as the cause of those victories,
      which were sufficiently explained by the valor and discipline of
      the legions. He justly derides the absurd reverence for
      antiquity, which could only tend to discourage the improvements
      of art, and to replunge the human race into their original
      barbarism. From thence, gradually rising to a more lofty and
      theological tone, he pronounces, that Christianity alone is the
      doctrine of truth and salvation; and that every mode of
      Polytheism conducts its deluded votaries, through the paths of
      error, to the abyss of eternal perdition. 17 Arguments like
      these, when they were suggested by a favorite bishop, had power
      to prevent the restoration of the altar of Victory; but the same
      arguments fell, with much more energy and effect, from the mouth
      of a conqueror; and the gods of antiquity were dragged in triumph
      at the chariot-wheels of Theodosius. 18 In a full meeting of the
      senate, the emperor proposed, according to the forms of the
      republic, the important question, Whether the worship of Jupiter,
      or that of Christ, should be the religion of the Romans. 1811 The
      liberty of suffrages, which he affected to allow, was destroyed
      by the hopes and fears that his presence inspired; and the
      arbitrary exile of Symmachus was a recent admonition, that it
      might be dangerous to oppose the wishes of the monarch. On a
      regular division of the senate, Jupiter was condemned and
      degraded by the sense of a very large majority; and it is rather
      surprising, that any members should be found bold enough to
      declare, by their speeches and votes, that they were still
      attached to the interest of an abdicated deity. 19 The hasty
      conversion of the senate must be attributed either to
      supernatural or to sordid motives; and many of these reluctant
      proselytes betrayed, on every favorable occasion, their secret
      disposition to throw aside the mask of odious dissimulation. But
      they were gradually fixed in the new religion, as the cause of
      the ancient became more hopeless; they yielded to the authority
      of the emperor, to the fashion of the times, and to the
      entreaties of their wives and children, 20 who were instigated
      and governed by the clergy of Rome and the monks of the East. The
      edifying example of the Anician family was soon imitated by the
      rest of the nobility: the Bassi, the Paullini, the Gracchi,
      embraced the Christian religion; and “the luminaries of the
      world, the venerable assembly of Catos (such are the high-flown
      expressions of Prudentius) were impatient to strip themselves of
      their pontifical garment; to cast the skin of the old serpent; to
      assume the snowy robes of baptismal innocence, and to humble the
      pride of the consular fasces before tombs of the martyrs.“ 21 The
      citizens, who subsisted by their own industry, and the populace,
      who were supported by the public liberality, filled the churches
      of the Lateran, and Vatican, with an incessant throng of devout
      proselytes. The decrees of the senate, which proscribed the
      worship of idols, were ratified by the general consent of the
      Romans; 22 the splendor of the Capitol was defaced, and the
      solitary temples were abandoned to ruin and contempt. 23 Rome
      submitted to the yoke of the Gospel; and the vanquished provinces
      had not yet lost their reverence for the name and authority of
      Rome. 2311

      17 (return) [ See Ambrose, (tom. ii. Epist. xvii. xviii. p.
      825-833.) The former of these epistles is a short caution; the
      latter is a formal reply of the petition or libel of Symmachus.
      The same ideas are more copiously expressed in the poetry, if it
      may deserve that name, of Prudentius; who composed his two books
      against Symmachus (A.D. 404) while that senator was still alive.
      It is whimsical enough that Montesquieu (Considerations, &c. c.
      xix. tom. iii. p. 487) should overlook the two professed
      antagonists of Symmachus, and amuse himself with descanting on
      the more remote and indirect confutations of Orosius, St.
      Augustin, and Salvian.]

      18 (return) [ See Prudentius (in Symmach. l. i. 545, &c.) The
      Christian agrees with the Pagan Zosimus (l. iv. p. 283) in
      placing this visit of Theodosius after the second civil war,
      gemini bis victor caede Tyranni, (l. i. 410.) But the time and
      circumstances are better suited to his first triumph.]

      1811 (return) [ M. Beugnot (in his Histoire de la Destruction du
      Paganisme en Occident, i. p. 483-488) questions, altogether, the
      truth of this statement. It is very remarkable that Zosimus and
      Prudentius concur in asserting the fact of the question being
      solemnly deliberated by the senate, though with directly opposite
      results. Zosimus declares that the majority of the assembly
      adhered to the ancient religion of Rome; Gibbon has adopted the
      authority of Prudentius, who, as a Latin writer, though a poet,
      deserves more credit than the Greek historian. Both concur in
      placing this scene after the second triumph of Theodosius; but it
      has been almost demonstrated (and Gibbon—see the preceding
      note—seems to have acknowledged this) by Pagi and Tillemont, that
      Theodosius did not visit Rome after the defeat of Eugenius. M.
      Beugnot urges, with much force, the improbability that the
      Christian emperor would submit such a question to the senate,
      whose authority was nearly obsolete, except on one occasion,
      which was almost hailed as an epoch in the restoration of her
      ancient privileges. The silence of Ambrose and of Jerom on an
      event so striking, and redounding so much to the honor of
      Christianity, is of considerable weight. M. Beugnot would ascribe
      the whole scene to the poetic imagination of Prudentius; but I
      must observe, that, however Prudentius is sometimes elevated by
      the grandeur of his subject to vivid and eloquent language, this
      flight of invention would be so much bolder and more vigorous
      than usual with this poet, that I cannot but suppose there must
      have been some foundation for the story, though it may have been
      exaggerated by the poet, or misrepresented by the historian.—M]

      19 (return) [ Prudentius, after proving that the sense of the
      senate is declared by a legal majority, proceeds to say, (609,
      &c.)—

     Adspice quam pleno subsellia nostra Senatu Decernant infame Jovis
     pulvinar, et omne Idolum longe purgata ex urbe fugandum, Qua vocat
     egregii sententia Principis, illuc Libera, cum pedibus, tum corde,
     frequentia transit.

      Zosimus ascribes to the conscript fathers a heathenish courage,
      which few of them are found to possess.]

      20 (return) [ Jerom specifies the pontiff Albinus, who was
      surrounded with such a believing family of children and
      grandchildren, as would have been sufficient to convert even
      Jupiter himself; an extraordinary proselyted (tom. i. ad Laetam,
      p. 54.)]

      21 (return) [

     Exultare Patres videas, pulcherrima mundi Lumina; Conciliumque
     senum gestire Catonum Candidiore toga niveum pietatis amictum
     Sumere; et exuvias deponere pontificales.

      The fancy of Prudentius is warmed and elevated by victory]

      22 (return) [ Prudentius, after he has described the conversion
      of the senate and people, asks, with some truth and confidence,

    Et dubitamus adhuc Romam, tibi, Christe, dicatam In leges transisse
    tuas?]

      23 (return) [ Jerom exults in the desolation of the Capitol, and
      the other temples of Rome, (tom. i. p. 54, tom. ii. p. 95.)]

      2311 (return) [ M. Beugnot is more correct in his general
      estimate of the measures enforced by Theodosius for the abolition
      of Paganism. He seized (according to Zosimus) the funds bestowed
      by the public for the expense of sacrifices. The public
      sacrifices ceased, not because they were positively prohibited,
      but because the public treasury would no longer bear the expense.
      The public and the private sacrifices in the provinces, which
      were not under the same regulations with those of the capital,
      continued to take place. In Rome itself, many pagan ceremonies,
      which were without sacrifice, remained in full force. The gods,
      therefore, were invoked, the temples were frequented, the
      pontificates inscribed, according to ancient usage, among the
      family titles of honor; and it cannot be asserted that idolatry
      was completely destroyed by Theodosius. See Beugnot, p. 491.—M.]




      Chapter XXVIII: Destruction Of Paganism.—Part II.

      The filial piety of the emperors themselves engaged them to
      proceed, with some caution and tenderness, in the reformation of
      the eternal city. Those absolute monarchs acted with less regard
      to the prejudices of the provincials. The pious labor which had
      been suspended near twenty years since the death of Constantius,
      24 was vigorously resumed, and finally accomplished, by the zeal
      of Theodosius. Whilst that warlike prince yet struggled with the
      Goths, not for the glory, but for the safety, of the republic, he
      ventured to offend a considerable party of his subjects, by some
      acts which might perhaps secure the protection of Heaven, but
      which must seem rash and unseasonable in the eye of human
      prudence. The success of his first experiments against the Pagans
      encouraged the pious emperor to reiterate and enforce his edicts
      of proscription: the same laws which had been originally
      published in the provinces of the East, were applied, after the
      defeat of Maximus, to the whole extent of the Western empire; and
      every victory of the orthodox Theodosius contributed to the
      triumph of the Christian and Catholic faith. 25 He attacked
      superstition in her most vital part, by prohibiting the use of
      sacrifices, which he declared to be criminal as well as infamous;
      and if the terms of his edicts more strictly condemned the
      impious curiosity which examined the entrails of the victim, 26
      every subsequent explanation tended to involve in the same guilt
      the general practice of immolation, which essentially constituted
      the religion of the Pagans. As the temples had been erected for
      the purpose of sacrifice, it was the duty of a benevolent prince
      to remove from his subjects the dangerous temptation of offending
      against the laws which he had enacted. A special commission was
      granted to Cynegius, the Praetorian praefect of the East, and
      afterwards to the counts Jovius and Gaudentius, two officers of
      distinguished rank in the West; by which they were directed to
      shut the temples, to seize or destroy the instruments of
      idolatry, to abolish the privileges of the priests, and to
      confiscate the consecrated property for the benefit of the
      emperor, of the church, or of the army. 27 Here the desolation
      might have stopped: and the naked edifices, which were no longer
      employed in the service of idolatry, might have been protected
      from the destructive rage of fanaticism. Many of those temples
      were the most splendid and beautiful monuments of Grecian
      architecture; and the emperor himself was interested not to
      deface the splendor of his own cities, or to diminish the value
      of his own possessions. Those stately edifices might be suffered
      to remain, as so many lasting trophies of the victory of Christ.
      In the decline of the arts they might be usefully converted into
      magazines, manufactures, or places of public assembly: and
      perhaps, when the walls of the temple had been sufficiently
      purified by holy rites, the worship of the true Deity might be
      allowed to expiate the ancient guilt of idolatry. But as long as
      they subsisted, the Pagans fondly cherished the secret hope, that
      an auspicious revolution, a second Julian, might again restore
      the altars of the gods: and the earnestness with which they
      addressed their unavailing prayers to the throne, 28 increased
      the zeal of the Christian reformers to extirpate, without mercy,
      the root of superstition. The laws of the emperors exhibit some
      symptoms of a milder disposition: 29 but their cold and languid
      efforts were insufficient to stem the torrent of enthusiasm and
      rapine, which was conducted, or rather impelled, by the spiritual
      rulers of the church. In Gaul, the holy Martin, bishop of Tours,
      30 marched at the head of his faithful monks to destroy the
      idols, the temples, and the consecrated trees of his extensive
      diocese; and, in the execution of this arduous task, the prudent
      reader will judge whether Martin was supported by the aid of
      miraculous powers, or of carnal weapons. In Syria, the divine and
      excellent Marcellus, 31 as he is styled by Theodoret, a bishop
      animated with apostolic fervor, resolved to level with the ground
      the stately temples within the diocese of Apamea. His attack was
      resisted by the skill and solidity with which the temple of
      Jupiter had been constructed. The building was seated on an
      eminence: on each of the four sides, the lofty roof was supported
      by fifteen massy columns, sixteen feet in circumference; and the
      large stone, of which they were composed, were firmly cemented
      with lead and iron. The force of the strongest and sharpest tools
      had been tried without effect. It was found necessary to
      undermine the foundations of the columns, which fell down as soon
      as the temporary wooden props had been consumed with fire; and
      the difficulties of the enterprise are described under the
      allegory of a black daemon, who retarded, though he could not
      defeat, the operations of the Christian engineers. Elated with
      victory, Marcellus took the field in person against the powers of
      darkness; a numerous troop of soldiers and gladiators marched
      under the episcopal banner, and he successively attacked the
      villages and country temples of the diocese of Apamea. Whenever
      any resistance or danger was apprehended, the champion of the
      faith, whose lameness would not allow him either to fight or fly,
      placed himself at a convenient distance, beyond the reach of
      darts. But this prudence was the occasion of his death: he was
      surprised and slain by a body of exasperated rustics; and the
      synod of the province pronounced, without hesitation, that the
      holy Marcellus had sacrificed his life in the cause of God. In
      the support of this cause, the monks, who rushed with tumultuous
      fury from the desert, distinguished themselves by their zeal and
      diligence. They deserved the enmity of the Pagans; and some of
      them might deserve the reproaches of avarice and intemperance; of
      avarice, which they gratified with holy plunder, and of
      intemperance, which they indulged at the expense of the people,
      who foolishly admired their tattered garments, loud psalmody, and
      artificial paleness. 32 A small number of temples was protected
      by the fears, the venality, the taste, or the prudence, of the
      civil and ecclesiastical governors. The temple of the Celestial
      Venus at Carthage, whose sacred precincts formed a circumference
      of two miles, was judiciously converted into a Christian church;
      33 and a similar consecration has preserved inviolate the
      majestic dome of the Pantheon at Rome. 34 But in almost every
      province of the Roman world, an army of fanatics, without
      authority, and without discipline, invaded the peaceful
      inhabitants; and the ruin of the fairest structures of antiquity
      still displays the ravages of those Barbarians, who alone had
      time and inclination to execute such laborious destruction.

      24 (return) [ Libanius (Orat. pro Templis, p. 10, Genev. 1634,
      published by James Godefroy, and now extremely scarce) accuses
      Valentinian and Valens of prohibiting sacrifices. Some partial
      order may have been issued by the Eastern emperor; but the idea
      of any general law is contradicted by the silence of the Code,
      and the evidence of ecclesiastical history. Note: See in Reiske’s
      edition of Libanius, tom. ii. p. 155. Sacrific was prohibited by
      Valens, but not the offering of incense.—M.]

      25 (return) [ See his laws in the Theodosian Code, l. xvi. tit.
      x. leg. 7-11.]

      26 (return) [ Homer’s sacrifices are not accompanied with any
      inquisition of entrails, (see Feithius, Antiquitat. Homer. l. i.
      c. 10, 16.) The Tuscans, who produced the first Haruspices,
      subdued both the Greeks and the Romans, (Cicero de Divinatione,
      ii. 23.)]

      27 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 245, 249. Theodoret. l. v. c.
      21. Idatius in Chron. Prosper. Aquitan. l. iii. c. 38, apud
      Baronium, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 389, No. 52. Libanius (pro Templis,
      p. 10) labors to prove that the commands of Theodosius were not
      direct and positive. * Note: Libanius appears to be the best
      authority for the East, where, under Theodosius, the work of
      devastation was carried on with very different degrees of
      violence, according to the temper of the local authorities and of
      the clergy; and more especially the neighborhood of the more
      fanatican monks. Neander well observes, that the prohibition of
      sacrifice would be easily misinterpreted into an authority for
      the destruction of the buildings in which sacrifices were
      performed. (Geschichte der Christlichen religion ii. p. 156.) An
      abuse of this kind led to this remarkable oration of Libanius.
      Neander, however, justly doubts whether this bold vindication or
      at least exculpation, of Paganism was ever delivered before, or
      even placed in the hands of the Christian emperor.—M.]

      28 (return) [ Cod. Theodos, l. xvi. tit. x. leg. 8, 18. There is
      room to believe, that this temple of Edessa, which Theodosius
      wished to save for civil uses, was soon afterwards a heap of
      ruins, (Libanius pro Templis, p. 26, 27, and Godefroy’s notes, p.
      59.)]

      29 (return) [ See this curious oration of Libanius pro Templis,
      pronounced, or rather composed, about the year 390. I have
      consulted, with advantage, Dr. Lardner’s version and remarks,
      (Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 135-163.)]

      30 (return) [ See the Life of Martin by Sulpicius Severus, c.
      9-14. The saint once mistook (as Don Quixote might have done) a
      harmless funeral for an idolatrous procession, and imprudently
      committed a miracle.]

      31 (return) [ Compare Sozomen, (l. vii. c. 15) with Theodoret,
      (l. v. c. 21.) Between them, they relate the crusade and death of
      Marcellus.]

      32 (return) [ Libanius, pro Templis, p. 10-13. He rails at these
      black-garbed men, the Christian monks, who eat more than
      elephants. Poor elephants! they are temperate animals.]

      33 (return) [ Prosper. Aquitan. l. iii. c. 38, apud Baronium;
      Annal. Eccles. A.D. 389, No. 58, &c. The temple had been shut
      some time, and the access to it was overgrown with brambles.]

      34 (return) [ Donatus, Roma Antiqua et Nova, l. iv. c. 4, p. 468.
      This consecration was performed by Pope Boniface IV. I am
      ignorant of the favorable circumstances which had preserved the
      Pantheon above two hundred years after the reign of Theodosius.]

      In this wide and various prospect of devastation, the spectator
      may distinguish the ruins of the temple of Serapis, at
      Alexandria. 35 Serapis does not appear to have been one of the
      native gods, or monsters, who sprung from the fruitful soil of
      superstitious Egypt. 36 The first of the Ptolemies had been
      commanded, by a dream, to import the mysterious stranger from the
      coast of Pontus, where he had been long adored by the inhabitants
      of Sinope; but his attributes and his reign were so imperfectly
      understood, that it became a subject of dispute, whether he
      represented the bright orb of day, or the gloomy monarch of the
      subterraneous regions. 37 The Egyptians, who were obstinately
      devoted to the religion of their fathers, refused to admit this
      foreign deity within the walls of their cities. 38 But the
      obsequious priests, who were seduced by the liberality of the
      Ptolemies, submitted, without resistance, to the power of the god
      of Pontus: an honorable and domestic genealogy was provided; and
      this fortunate usurper was introduced into the throne and bed of
      Osiris, 39 the husband of Isis, and the celestial monarch of
      Egypt. Alexandria, which claimed his peculiar protection, gloried
      in the name of the city of Serapis. His temple, 40 which rivalled
      the pride and magnificence of the Capitol, was erected on the
      spacious summit of an artificial mount, raised one hundred steps
      above the level of the adjacent parts of the city; and the
      interior cavity was strongly supported by arches, and distributed
      into vaults and subterraneous apartments. The consecrated
      buildings were surrounded by a quadrangular portico; the stately
      halls, and exquisite statues, displayed the triumph of the arts;
      and the treasures of ancient learning were preserved in the
      famous Alexandrian library, which had arisen with new splendor
      from its ashes. 41 After the edicts of Theodosius had severely
      prohibited the sacrifices of the Pagans, they were still
      tolerated in the city and temple of Serapis; and this singular
      indulgence was imprudently ascribed to the superstitious terrors
      of the Christians themselves; as if they had feared to abolish
      those ancient rites, which could alone secure the inundations of
      the Nile, the harvests of Egypt, and the subsistence of
      Constantinople. 42

      35 (return) [ Sophronius composed a recent and separate history,
      (Jerom, in Script. Eccles. tom. i. p. 303,) which has furnished
      materials to Socrates, (l. v. c. 16.) Theodoret, (l. v. c. 22,)
      and Rufinus, (l. ii. c. 22.) Yet the last, who had been at
      Alexandria before and after the event, may deserve the credit of
      an original witness.]

      36 (return) [ Gerard Vossius (Opera, tom. v. p. 80, and de
      Idoloaltria, l. i. c. 29) strives to support the strange notion
      of the Fathers; that the patriarch Joseph was adored in Egypt, as
      the bull Apis, and the god Serapis. * Note: Consult du Dieu
      Serapis et son Origine, par J D. Guigniaut, (the translator of
      Creuzer’s Symbolique,) Paris, 1828; and in the fifth volume of
      Bournouf’s translation of Tacitus.—M.]

      37 (return) [ Origo dei nondum nostris celebrata. Aegyptiorum
      antistites sic memorant, &c., Tacit. Hist. iv. 83. The Greeks,
      who had travelled into Egypt, were alike ignorant of this new
      deity.]

      38 (return) [ Macrobius, Saturnal, l. i. c. 7. Such a living fact
      decisively proves his foreign extraction.]

      39 (return) [ At Rome, Isis and Serapis were united in the same
      temple. The precedency which the queen assumed, may seem to
      betray her unequal alliance with the stranger of Pontus. But the
      superiority of the female sex was established in Egypt as a civil
      and religious institution, (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. i. p. 31,
      edit. Wesseling,) and the same order is observed in Plutarch’s
      Treatise of Isis and Osiris; whom he identifies with Serapis.]

      40 (return) [ Ammianus, (xxii. 16.) The Expositio totius Mundi,
      (p. 8, in Hudson’s Geograph. Minor. tom. iii.,) and Rufinus, (l.
      ii. c. 22,) celebrate the Serapeum, as one of the wonders of the
      world.]

      41 (return) [ See Memoires de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. ix.
      p. 397-416. The old library of the Ptolemies was totally consumed
      in Caesar’s Alexandrian war. Marc Antony gave the whole
      collection of Pergamus (200,000 volumes) to Cleopatra, as the
      foundation of the new library of Alexandria.]

      42 (return) [ Libanius (pro Templis, p. 21) indiscreetly provokes
      his Christian masters by this insulting remark.]

      At that time 43 the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria was
      filled by Theophilus, 44 the perpetual enemy of peace and virtue;
      a bold, bad man, whose hands were alternately polluted with gold
      and with blood. His pious indignation was excited by the honors
      of Serapis; and the insults which he offered to an ancient temple
      of Bacchus, 4411 convinced the Pagans that he meditated a more
      important and dangerous enterprise. In the tumultuous capital of
      Egypt, the slightest provocation was sufficient to inflame a
      civil war. The votaries of Serapis, whose strength and numbers
      were much inferior to those of their antagonists, rose in arms at
      the instigation of the philosopher Olympius, 45 who exhorted them
      to die in the defence of the altars of the gods. These Pagan
      fanatics fortified themselves in the temple, or rather fortress,
      of Serapis; repelled the besiegers by daring sallies, and a
      resolute defence; and, by the inhuman cruelties which they
      exercised on their Christian prisoners, obtained the last
      consolation of despair. The efforts of the prudent magistrate
      were usefully exerted for the establishment of a truce, till the
      answer of Theodosius should determine the fate of Serapis. The
      two parties assembled, without arms, in the principal square; and
      the Imperial rescript was publicly read. But when a sentence of
      destruction against the idols of Alexandria was pronounced, the
      Christians set up a shout of joy and exultation, whilst the
      unfortunate Pagans, whose fury had given way to consternation,
      retired with hasty and silent steps, and eluded, by their flight
      or obscurity, the resentment of their enemies. Theophilus
      proceeded to demolish the temple of Serapis, without any other
      difficulties, than those which he found in the weight and
      solidity of the materials: but these obstacles proved so
      insuperable, that he was obliged to leave the foundations; and to
      content himself with reducing the edifice itself to a heap of
      rubbish, a part of which was soon afterwards cleared away, to
      make room for a church, erected in honor of the Christian
      martyrs. The valuable library of Alexandria was pillaged or
      destroyed; and near twenty years afterwards, the appearance of
      the empty shelves excited the regret and indignation of every
      spectator, whose mind was not totally darkened by religious
      prejudice. 46 The compositions of ancient genius, so many of
      which have irretrievably perished, might surely have been
      excepted from the wreck of idolatry, for the amusement and
      instruction of succeeding ages; and either the zeal or the
      avarice of the archbishop, 47 might have been satiated with the
      rich spoils, which were the reward of his victory. While the
      images and vases of gold and silver were carefully melted, and
      those of a less valuable metal were contemptuously broken, and
      cast into the streets, Theophilus labored to expose the frauds
      and vices of the ministers of the idols; their dexterity in the
      management of the loadstone; their secret methods of introducing
      a human actor into a hollow statue; 4711 and their scandalous
      abuse of the confidence of devout husbands and unsuspecting
      females. 48 Charges like these may seem to deserve some degree of
      credit, as they are not repugnant to the crafty and interested
      spirit of superstition. But the same spirit is equally prone to
      the base practice of insulting and calumniating a fallen enemy;
      and our belief is naturally checked by the reflection, that it is
      much less difficult to invent a fictitious story, than to support
      a practical fraud. The colossal statue of Serapis 49 was involved
      in the ruin of his temple and religion. A great number of plates
      of different metals, artificially joined together, composed the
      majestic figure of the deity, who touched on either side the
      walls of the sanctuary. The aspect of Serapis, his sitting
      posture, and the sceptre, which he bore in his left hand, were
      extremely similar to the ordinary representations of Jupiter. He
      was distinguished from Jupiter by the basket, or bushel, which
      was placed on his head; and by the emblematic monster which he
      held in his right hand; the head and body of a serpent branching
      into three tails, which were again terminated by the triple heads
      of a dog, a lion, and a wolf. It was confidently affirmed, that
      if any impious hand should dare to violate the majesty of the
      god, the heavens and the earth would instantly return to their
      original chaos. An intrepid soldier, animated by zeal, and armed
      with a weighty battle-axe, ascended the ladder; and even the
      Christian multitude expected, with some anxiety, the event of the
      combat. 50 He aimed a vigorous stroke against the cheek of
      Serapis; the cheek fell to the ground; the thunder was still
      silent, and both the heavens and the earth continued to preserve
      their accustomed order and tranquillity. The victorious soldier
      repeated his blows: the huge idol was overthrown, and broken in
      pieces; and the limbs of Serapis were ignominiously dragged
      through the streets of Alexandria. His mangled carcass was burnt
      in the Amphitheatre, amidst the shouts of the populace; and many
      persons attributed their conversion to this discovery of the
      impotence of their tutelar deity. The popular modes of religion,
      that propose any visible and material objects of worship, have
      the advantage of adapting and familiarizing themselves to the
      senses of mankind: but this advantage is counterbalanced by the
      various and inevitable accidents to which the faith of the
      idolater is exposed. It is scarcely possible, that, in every
      disposition of mind, he should preserve his implicit reverence
      for the idols, or the relics, which the naked eye, and the
      profane hand, are unable to distinguish from the most common
      productions of art or nature; and if, in the hour of danger,
      their secret and miraculous virtue does not operate for their own
      preservation, he scorns the vain apologies of his priests, and
      justly derides the object, and the folly, of his superstitious
      attachment. 51 After the fall of Serapis, some hopes were still
      entertained by the Pagans, that the Nile would refuse his annual
      supply to the impious masters of Egypt; and the extraordinary
      delay of the inundation seemed to announce the displeasure of the
      river-god. But this delay was soon compensated by the rapid swell
      of the waters. They suddenly rose to such an unusual height, as
      to comfort the discontented party with the pleasing expectation
      of a deluge; till the peaceful river again subsided to the
      well-known and fertilizing level of sixteen cubits, or about
      thirty English feet. 52

      43 (return) [ We may choose between the date of Marcellinus (A.D.
      389) or that of Prosper, ( A.D. 391.) Tillemont (Hist. des Emp.
      tom. v. p. 310, 756) prefers the former, and Pagi the latter.]

      44 (return) [ Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xi. p. 441-500. The
      ambiguous situation of Theophilus—a saint, as the friend of Jerom
      a devil, as the enemy of Chrysostom—produces a sort of
      impartiality; yet, upon the whole, the balance is justly inclined
      against him.]

      4411 (return) [ No doubt a temple of Osiris. St. Martin, iv
      398-M.]

      45 (return) [ Lardner (Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 411) has
      alleged beautiful passage from Suidas, or rather from Damascius,
      which show the devout and virtuous Olympius, not in the light of
      a warrior, but of a prophet.]

      46 (return) [ Nos vidimus armaria librorum, quibus direptis,
      exinanita ea a nostris hominibus, nostris temporibus memorant.
      Orosius, l. vi. c. 15, p. 421, edit. Havercamp. Though a bigot,
      and a controversial writer. Orosius seems to blush.]

      47 (return) [ Eunapius, in the Lives of Antoninus and Aedesius,
      execrates the sacrilegious rapine of Theophilus. Tillemont (Mem.
      Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 453) quotes an epistle of Isidore of
      Pelusium, which reproaches the primate with the idolatrous
      worship of gold, the auri sacra fames.]

      4711 (return) [ An English traveller, Mr. Wilkinson, has
      discovered the secret of the vocal Memnon. There was a cavity in
      which a person was concealed, and struck a stone, which gave a
      ringing sound like brass. The Arabs, who stood below when Mr.
      Wilkinson performed the miracle, described sound just as the
      author of the epigram.—M.]

      48 (return) [ Rufinus names the priest of Saturn, who, in the
      character of the god, familiarly conversed with many pious ladies
      of quality, till he betrayed himself, in a moment of transport,
      when he could not disguise the tone of his voice. The authentic
      and impartial narrative of Aeschines, (see Bayle, Dictionnaire
      Critique, Scamandre,) and the adventure of Mudus, (Joseph.
      Antiquitat. Judaic. l. xviii. c. 3, p. 877 edit. Havercamp,) may
      prove that such amorous frauds have been practised with success.]

      49 (return) [ See the images of Serapis, in Montfaucon, (tom. ii.
      p. 297:) but the description of Macrobius (Saturnal. l. i. c. 20)
      is much more picturesque and satisfactory.]

      50 (return) [

     Sed fortes tremuere manus, motique verenda Majestate loci, si
     robora sacra ferirent In sua credebant redituras membra secures.

      (Lucan. iii. 429.) “Is it true,“ (said Augustus to a veteran of
      Italy, at whose house he supped) “that the man who gave the first
      blow to the golden statue of Anaitis, was instantly deprived of
      his eyes, and of his life?“—“I was that man, (replied the
      clear-sighted veteran,) and you now sup on one of the legs of the
      goddess.“ (Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 24)]

      51 (return) [ The history of the reformation affords frequent
      examples of the sudden change from superstition to contempt.]

      52 (return) [ Sozomen, l. vii. c. 20. I have supplied the
      measure. The same standard, of the inundation, and consequently
      of the cubit, has uniformly subsisted since the time of
      Herodotus. See Freret, in the Mem. de l’Academie des
      Inscriptions, tom. xvi. p. 344-353. Greaves’s Miscellaneous
      Works, vol. i. p. 233. The Egyptian cubit is about twenty-two
      inches of the English measure. * Note: Compare Wilkinson’s Thebes
      and Egypt, p. 313.—M.]

      The temples of the Roman empire were deserted, or destroyed; but
      the ingenious superstition of the Pagans still attempted to elude
      the laws of Theodosius, by which all sacrifices had been severely
      prohibited. The inhabitants of the country, whose conduct was
      less opposed to the eye of malicious curiosity, disguised their
      religious, under the appearance of convivial, meetings. On the
      days of solemn festivals, they assembled in great numbers under
      the spreading shade of some consecrated trees; sheep and oxen
      were slaughtered and roasted; and this rural entertainment was
      sanctified by the use of incense, and by the hymns which were
      sung in honor of the gods. But it was alleged, that, as no part
      of the animal was made a burnt-offering, as no altar was provided
      to receive the blood, and as the previous oblation of salt cakes,
      and the concluding ceremony of libations, were carefully omitted,
      these festal meetings did not involve the guests in the guilt, or
      penalty, of an illegal sacrifice. 53 Whatever might be the truth
      of the facts, or the merit of the distinction, 54 these vain
      pretences were swept away by the last edict of Theodosius, which
      inflicted a deadly wound on the superstition of the Pagans. 55
      5511 This prohibitory law is expressed in the most absolute and
      comprehensive terms. “It is our will and pleasure,“ says the
      emperor, “that none of our subjects, whether magistrates or
      private citizens, however exalted or however humble may be their
      rank and condition, shall presume, in any city or in any place,
      to worship an inanimate idol, by the sacrifice of a guiltless
      victim.“ The act of sacrificing, and the practice of divination
      by the entrails of the victim, are declared (without any regard
      to the object of the inquiry) a crime of high treason against the
      state, which can be expiated only by the death of the guilty. The
      rites of Pagan superstition, which might seem less bloody and
      atrocious, are abolished, as highly injurious to the truth and
      honor of religion; luminaries, garlands, frankincense, and
      libations of wine, are specially enumerated and condemned; and
      the harmless claims of the domestic genius, of the household
      gods, are included in this rigorous proscription. The use of any
      of these profane and illegal ceremonies, subjects the offender to
      the forfeiture of the house or estate, where they have been
      performed; and if he has artfully chosen the property of another
      for the scene of his impiety, he is compelled to discharge,
      without delay, a heavy fine of twenty-five pounds of gold, or
      more than one thousand pounds sterling. A fine, not less
      considerable, is imposed on the connivance of the secret enemies
      of religion, who shall neglect the duty of their respective
      stations, either to reveal, or to punish, the guilt of idolatry.
      Such was the persecuting spirit of the laws of Theodosius, which
      were repeatedly enforced by his sons and grandsons, with the loud
      and unanimous applause of the Christian world. 56

      53 (return) [ Libanius (pro Templis, p. 15, 16, 17) pleads their
      cause with gentle and insinuating rhetoric. From the earliest
      age, such feasts had enlivened the country: and those of Bacchus
      (Georgic. ii. 380) had produced the theatre of Athens. See
      Godefroy, ad loc. Liban. and Codex Theodos. tom. vi. p. 284.]

      54 (return) [ Honorius tolerated these rustic festivals, (A.D.
      399.) “Absque ullo sacrificio, atque ulla superstitione
      damnabili.“ But nine years afterwards he found it necessary to
      reiterate and enforce the same proviso, (Codex Theodos. l. xvi.
      tit. x. leg. 17, 19.)]

      55 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x. leg. 12. Jortin
      (Remarks on Eccles. History, vol. iv. p. 134) censures, with
      becoming asperity, the style and sentiments of this intolerant
      law.]

      5511 (return) [ Paganism maintained its ground for a considerable
      time in the rural districts. Endelechius, a poet who lived at the
      beginning of the fifth century, speaks of the cross as Signum
      quod perhibent esse crucis Dei, Magnis qui colitur solus
      inurbibus. In the middle of the same century, Maximus, bishop of
      Turin, writes against the heathen deities as if their worship was
      still in full vigor in the neighborhood of his city. Augustine
      complains of the encouragement of the Pagan rites by heathen
      landowners; and Zeno of Verona, still later, reproves the apathy
      of the Christian proprietors in conniving at this abuse. (Compare
      Neander, ii. p. 169.) M. Beugnot shows that this was the case
      throughout the north and centre of Italy and in Sicily. But
      neither of these authors has adverted to one fact, which must
      have tended greatly to retard the progress of Christianity in
      these quarters. It was still chiefly a slave population which
      cultivated the soil; and however, in the towns, the better class
      of Christians might be eager to communicate “the blessed liberty
      of the gospel” to this class of mankind; however their condition
      could not but be silently ameliorated by the humanizing influence
      of Christianity; yet, on the whole, no doubt the servile class
      would be the least fitted to receive the gospel; and its general
      propagation among them would be embarrassed by many peculiar
      difficulties. The rural population was probably not entirely
      converted before the general establishment of the monastic
      institutions. Compare Quarterly Review of Beugnot. vol lvii. p.
      52—M.]

      56 (return) [ Such a charge should not be lightly made; but it
      may surely be justified by the authority of St. Augustin, who
      thus addresses the Donatists: “Quis nostrum, quis vestrum non
      laudat leges ab Imperatoribus datas adversus sacrificia
      Paganorum? Et certe longe ibi poera severior constituta est;
      illius quippe impietatis capitale supplicium est.“ Epist. xciii.
      No. 10, quoted by Le Clerc, (Bibliotheque Choisie, tom. viii. p.
      277,) who adds some judicious reflections on the intolerance of
      the victorious Christians. * Note: Yet Augustine, with laudable
      inconsistency, disapproved of the forcible demolition of the
      temples. “Let us first extirpate the idolatry of the hearts of
      the heathen, and they will either themselves invite us or
      anticipate us in the execution of this good work,“ tom. v. p. 62.
      Compare Neander, ii. 169, and, in p. 155, a beautiful passage
      from Chrysostom against all violent means of propagating
      Christianity.—M.]




      Chapter XXVIII: Destruction Of Paganism.—Part III.

      In the cruel reigns of Decius and Diocletian, Christianity had
      been proscribed, as a revolt from the ancient and hereditary
      religion of the empire; and the unjust suspicions which were
      entertained of a dark and dangerous faction, were, in some
      measure, countenanced by the inseparable union and rapid
      conquests of the Catholic church. But the same excuses of fear
      and ignorance cannot be applied to the Christian emperors who
      violated the precepts of humanity and of the Gospel. The
      experience of ages had betrayed the weakness, as well as folly,
      of Paganism; the light of reason and of faith had already
      exposed, to the greatest part of mankind, the vanity of idols;
      and the declining sect, which still adhered to their worship,
      might have been permitted to enjoy, in peace and obscurity, the
      religious costumes of their ancestors. Had the Pagans been
      animated by the undaunted zeal which possessed the minds of the
      primitive believers, the triumph of the Church must have been
      stained with blood; and the martyrs of Jupiter and Apollo might
      have embraced the glorious opportunity of devoting their lives
      and fortunes at the foot of their altars. But such obstinate zeal
      was not congenial to the loose and careless temper of Polytheism.
      The violent and repeated strokes of the orthodox princes were
      broken by the soft and yielding substance against which they were
      directed; and the ready obedience of the Pagans protected them
      from the pains and penalties of the Theodosian Code. 57 Instead
      of asserting, that the authority of the gods was superior to that
      of the emperor, they desisted, with a plaintive murmur, from the
      use of those sacred rites which their sovereign had condemned. If
      they were sometimes tempted by a sally of passion, or by the
      hopes of concealment, to indulge their favorite superstition,
      their humble repentance disarmed the severity of the Christian
      magistrate, and they seldom refused to atone for their rashness,
      by submitting, with some secret reluctance, to the yoke of the
      Gospel. The churches were filled with the increasing multitude of
      these unworthy proselytes, who had conformed, from temporal
      motives, to the reigning religion; and whilst they devoutly
      imitated the postures, and recited the prayers, of the faithful,
      they satisfied their conscience by the silent and sincere
      invocation of the gods of antiquity. 58 If the Pagans wanted
      patience to suffer they wanted spirit to resist; and the
      scattered myriads, who deplored the ruin of the temples, yielded,
      without a contest, to the fortune of their adversaries. The
      disorderly opposition 59 of the peasants of Syria, and the
      populace of Alexandria, to the rage of private fanaticism, was
      silenced by the name and authority of the emperor. The Pagans of
      the West, without contributing to the elevation of Eugenius,
      disgraced, by their partial attachment, the cause and character
      of the usurper. The clergy vehemently exclaimed, that he
      aggravated the crime of rebellion by the guilt of apostasy; that,
      by his permission, the altar of victory was again restored; and
      that the idolatrous symbols of Jupiter and Hercules were
      displayed in the field, against the invincible standard of the
      cross. But the vain hopes of the Pagans were soon annihilated by
      the defeat of Eugenius; and they were left exposed to the
      resentment of the conqueror, who labored to deserve the favor of
      Heaven by the extirpation of idolatry. 60

      57 (return) [ Orosius, l. vii. c. 28, p. 537. Augustin (Enarrat.
      in Psalm cxl apud Lardner, Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 458)
      insults their cowardice. “Quis eorum comprehensus est in
      sacrificio (cum his legibus sta prohiberentur) et non negavit?“]

      58 (return) [ Libanius (pro Templis, p. 17, 18) mentions, without
      censure the occasional conformity, and as it were theatrical
      play, of these hypocrites.]

      59 (return) [ Libanius concludes his apology (p. 32) by declaring
      to the emperor, that unless he expressly warrants the destruction
      of the temples, the proprietors will defend themselves and the
      laws.]

      60 (return) [ Paulinus, in Vit. Ambros. c. 26. Augustin de
      Civitat. Dei, l. v. c. 26. Theodoret, l. v. c. 24.]

      A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of
      their master, who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not
      proceed to the last extremes of injustice and oppression.
      Theodosius might undoubtedly have proposed to his Pagan subjects
      the alternative of baptism or of death; and the eloquent Libanius
      has praised the moderation of a prince, who never enacted, by any
      positive law, that all his subjects should immediately embrace
      and practise the religion of their sovereign. 61 The profession
      of Christianity was not made an essential qualification for the
      enjoyment of the civil rights of society, nor were any peculiar
      hardships imposed on the sectaries, who credulously received the
      fables of Ovid, and obstinately rejected the miracles of the
      Gospel. The palace, the schools, the army, and the senate, were
      filled with declared and devout Pagans; they obtained, without
      distinction, the civil and military honors of the empire. 6111
      Theodosius distinguished his liberal regard for virtue and genius
      by the consular dignity, which he bestowed on Symmachus; 62 and
      by the personal friendship which he expressed to Libanius; 63 and
      the two eloquent apologists of Paganism were never required
      either to change or to dissemble their religious opinions. The
      Pagans were indulged in the most licentious freedom of speech and
      writing; the historical and philosophic remains of Eunapius,
      Zosimus, 64 and the fanatic teachers of the school of Plato,
      betray the most furious animosity, and contain the sharpest
      invectives, against the sentiments and conduct of their
      victorious adversaries. If these audacious libels were publicly
      known, we must applaud the good sense of the Christian princes,
      who viewed, with a smile of contempt, the last struggles of
      superstition and despair. 65 But the Imperial laws, which
      prohibited the sacrifices and ceremonies of Paganism, were
      rigidly executed; and every hour contributed to destroy the
      influence of a religion, which was supported by custom, rather
      than by argument. The devotion or the poet, or the philosopher,
      may be secretly nourished by prayer, meditation, and study; but
      the exercise of public worship appears to be the only solid
      foundation of the religious sentiments of the people, which
      derive their force from imitation and habit. The interruption of
      that public exercise may consummate, in the period of a few
      years, the important work of a national revolution. The memory of
      theological opinions cannot long be preserved, without the
      artificial helps of priests, of temples, and of books. 66 The
      ignorant vulgar, whose minds are still agitated by the blind
      hopes and terrors of superstition, will be soon persuaded by
      their superiors to direct their vows to the reigning deities of
      the age; and will insensibly imbibe an ardent zeal for the
      support and propagation of the new doctrine, which spiritual
      hunger at first compelled them to accept. The generation that
      arose in the world after the promulgation of the Imperial laws,
      was attracted within the pale of the Catholic church: and so
      rapid, yet so gentle, was the fall of Paganism, that only
      twenty-eight years after the death of Theodosius, the faint and
      minute vestiges were no longer visible to the eye of the
      legislator. 67

      61 (return) [ Libanius suggests the form of a persecuting edict,
      which Theodosius might enact, (pro Templis, p. 32;) a rash joke,
      and a dangerous experiment. Some princes would have taken his
      advice.]

      6111 (return) [ The most remarkable instance of this, at a much
      later period, occurs in the person of Merobaudes, a general and a
      poet, who flourished in the first half of the fifth century. A
      statue in honor of Merobaudes was placed in the Forum of Trajan,
      of which the inscription is still extant. Fragments of his poems
      have been recovered by the industry and sagacity of Niebuhr. In
      one passage, Merobaudes, in the genuine heathen spirit,
      attributes the ruin of the empire to the abolition of Paganism,
      and almost renews the old accusation of Atheism against
      Christianity. He impersonates some deity, probably Discord, who
      summons Bellona to take arms for the destruction of Rome; and in
      a strain of fierce irony recommends to her other fatal measures,
      to extirpate the gods of Rome:—

     Roma, ipsique tremant furialia murmura reges. Jam superos terris
     atque hospita numina pelle: Romanos populare Deos, et nullus in
     aris Vestoe exoratoe fotus strue palleat ignis. Ilis instructa
     dolis palatia celsa subibo; Majorum mores, et pectora prisca
     fugabo Funditus; atque simul, nullo discrimine rerum, Spernantur
     fortes, nec sic reverentia justis. Attica neglecto pereat facundia
     Phoebo: Indignis contingat honos, et pondera rerum; Non virtus sed
     casus agat; tristique cupido; Pectoribus saevi demens furor
     aestuet aevi; Omniaque hoec sine mente Jovis, sine numine sumimo.

      Merobaudes in Niebuhr’s edit. of the Byzantines, p. 14.—M.]

      62 (return) [ Denique pro meritis terrestribus aequa rependens

     Munera, sacricolis summos impertit honores.
     Dux bonus, et certare sinit cum laude suorum, Nec pago implicitos
     per debita culmina mundi Ire viros prohibet. Ipse magistratum tibi
     consulis, ipse tribunal
     Contulit. Prudent. in Symmach. i. 617, &c.

      Note: I have inserted some lines omitted by Gibbon.—M.]

      63 (return) [ Libanius (pro Templis, p. 32) is proud that
      Theodosius should thus distinguish a man, who even in his
      presence would swear by Jupiter. Yet this presence seems to be no
      more than a figure of rhetoric.]

      64 (return) [ Zosimus, who styles himself Count and Ex-advocate
      of the Treasury, reviles, with partial and indecent bigotry, the
      Christian princes, and even the father of his sovereign. His work
      must have been privately circulated, since it escaped the
      invectives of the ecclesiastical historians prior to Evagrius,
      (l. iii. c. 40-42,) who lived towards the end of the sixth
      century. * Note: Heyne in his Disquisitio in Zosimum Ejusque
      Fidem. places Zosimum towards the close of the fifth century.
      Zosim. Heynii, p. xvii.—M.]

      65 (return) [ Yet the Pagans of Africa complained, that the times
      would not allow them to answer with freedom the City of God; nor
      does St. Augustin (v. 26) deny the charge.]

      66 (return) [ The Moors of Spain, who secretly preserved the
      Mahometan religion above a century, under the tyranny of the
      Inquisition, possessed the Koran, with the peculiar use of the
      Arabic tongue. See the curious and honest story of their
      expulsion in Geddes, (Miscellanies, vol. i. p. 1-198.)]

      67 (return) [ Paganos qui supersunt, quanquam jam nullos esse
      credamus, &c. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x. leg. 22, A.D. 423.
      The younger Theodosius was afterwards satisfied, that his
      judgment had been somewhat premature. Note: The statement of
      Gibbon is much too strongly worded. M. Beugnot has traced the
      vestiges of Paganism in the West, after this period, in monuments
      and inscriptions with curious industry. Compare likewise note, p.
      112, on the more tardy progress of Christianity in the rural
      districts.—M.]

      The ruin of the Pagan religion is described by the sophists as a
      dreadful and amazing prodigy, which covered the earth with
      darkness, and restored the ancient dominion of chaos and of
      night. They relate, in solemn and pathetic strains, that the
      temples were converted into sepulchres, and that the holy places,
      which had been adorned by the statues of the gods, were basely
      polluted by the relics of Christian martyrs. “The monks” (a race
      of filthy animals, to whom Eunapius is tempted to refuse the name
      of men) “are the authors of the new worship, which, in the place
      of those deities who are conceived by the understanding, has
      substituted the meanest and most contemptible slaves. The heads,
      salted and pickled, of those infamous malefactors, who for the
      multitude of their crimes have suffered a just and ignominious
      death; their bodies still marked by the impression of the lash,
      and the scars of those tortures which were inflicted by the
      sentence of the magistrate; such” (continues Eunapius) “are the
      gods which the earth produces in our days; such are the martyrs,
      the supreme arbitrators of our prayers and petitions to the
      Deity, whose tombs are now consecrated as the objects of the
      veneration of the people.“ 68 Without approving the malice, it is
      natural enough to share the surprise of the sophist, the
      spectator of a revolution, which raised those obscure victims of
      the laws of Rome to the rank of celestial and invisible
      protectors of the Roman empire. The grateful respect of the
      Christians for the martyrs of the faith, was exalted, by time and
      victory, into religious adoration; and the most illustrious of
      the saints and prophets were deservedly associated to the honors
      of the martyrs. One hundred and fifty years after the glorious
      deaths of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Vatican and the Ostian road
      were distinguished by the tombs, or rather by the trophies, of
      those spiritual heroes. 69 In the age which followed the
      conversion of Constantine, the emperors, the consuls, and the
      generals of armies, devoutly visited the sepulchres of a
      tentmaker and a fisherman; 70 and their venerable bones were
      deposited under the altars of Christ, on which the bishops of the
      royal city continually offered the unbloody sacrifice. 71 The new
      capital of the Eastern world, unable to produce any ancient and
      domestic trophies, was enriched by the spoils of dependent
      provinces. The bodies of St. Andrew, St. Luke, and St. Timothy,
      had reposed near three hundred years in the obscure graves, from
      whence they were transported, in solemn pomp, to the church of
      the apostles, which the magnificence of Constantine had founded
      on the banks of the Thracian Bosphorus. 72 About fifty years
      afterwards, the same banks were honored by the presence of
      Samuel, the judge and prophet of the people of Israel. His ashes,
      deposited in a golden vase, and covered with a silken veil, were
      delivered by the bishops into each other’s hands. The relics of
      Samuel were received by the people with the same joy and
      reverence which they would have shown to the living prophet; the
      highways, from Palestine to the gates of Constantinople, were
      filled with an uninterrupted procession; and the emperor Arcadius
      himself, at the head of the most illustrious members of the
      clergy and senate, advanced to meet his extraordinary guest, who
      had always deserved and claimed the homage of kings. 73 The
      example of Rome and Constantinople confirmed the faith and
      discipline of the Catholic world. The honors of the saints and
      martyrs, after a feeble and ineffectual murmur of profane reason,
      74 were universally established; and in the age of Ambrose and
      Jerom, something was still deemed wanting to the sanctity of a
      Christian church, till it had been consecrated by some portion of
      holy relics, which fixed and inflamed the devotion of the
      faithful.

      68 (return) [ See Eunapius, in the Life of the sophist Aedesius;
      in that of Eustathius he foretells the ruin of Paganism.]

      69 (return) [ Caius, (apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. ii. c. 25,) a
      Roman presbyter, who lived in the time of Zephyrinus, (A.D.
      202-219,) is an early witness of this superstitious practice.]

      70 (return) [ Chrysostom. Quod Christus sit Deus. Tom. i. nov.
      edit. No. 9. I am indebted for this quotation to Benedict the
      XIVth’s pastoral letter on the Jubilee of the year 1759. See the
      curious and entertaining letters of M. Chais, tom. iii.]

      71 (return) [ Male facit ergo Romanus episcopus? qui, super
      mortuorum hominum, Petri & Pauli, secundum nos, ossa veneranda
      ... offeri Domino sacrificia, et tumulos eorum, Christi
      arbitratur altaria. Jerom. tom. ii. advers. Vigilant. p. 183.]

      72 (return) [ Jerom (tom. ii. p. 122) bears witness to these
      translations, which are neglected by the ecclesiastical
      historians. The passion of St. Andrew at Patrae is described in
      an epistle from the clergy of Achaia, which Baronius (Annal.
      Eccles. A.D. 60, No. 34) wishes to believe, and Tillemont is
      forced to reject. St. Andrew was adopted as the spiritual founder
      of Constantinople, (Mem. Eccles. tom. i. p. 317-323, 588-594.)]

      73 (return) [ Jerom (tom. ii. p. 122) pompously describes the
      translation of Samuel, which is noticed in all the chronicles of
      the times.]

      74 (return) [ The presbyter Vigilantius, the Protestant of his
      age, firmly, though ineffectually, withstood the superstition of
      monks, relics, saints, fasts, &c., for which Jerom compares him
      to the Hydra, Cerberus, the Centaurs, &c., and considers him only
      as the organ of the Daemon, (tom. ii. p. 120-126.) Whoever will
      peruse the controversy of St. Jerom and Vigilantius, and St.
      Augustin’s account of the miracles of St. Stephen, may speedily
      gain some idea of the spirit of the Fathers.]

      In the long period of twelve hundred years, which elapsed between
      the reign of Constantine and the reformation of Luther, the
      worship of saints and relics corrupted the pure and perfect
      simplicity of the Christian model: and some symptoms of
      degeneracy may be observed even in the first generations which
      adopted and cherished this pernicious innovation.

      I. The satisfactory experience, that the relics of saints were
      more valuable than gold or precious stones, 75 stimulated the
      clergy to multiply the treasures of the church. Without much
      regard for truth or probability, they invented names for
      skeletons, and actions for names. The fame of the apostles, and
      of the holy men who had imitated their virtues, was darkened by
      religious fiction. To the invincible band of genuine and
      primitive martyrs, they added myriads of imaginary heroes, who
      had never existed, except in the fancy of crafty or credulous
      legendaries; and there is reason to suspect, that Tours might not
      be the only diocese in which the bones of a malefactor were
      adored, instead of those of a saint. 76 A superstitious practice,
      which tended to increase the temptations of fraud, and credulity,
      insensibly extinguished the light of history, and of reason, in
      the Christian world.

      75 (return) [ M. de Beausobre (Hist. du Manicheisme, tom. ii. p.
      648) has applied a worldly sense to the pious observation of the
      clergy of Smyrna, who carefully preserved the relics of St.
      Polycarp the martyr.]

      76 (return) [ Martin of Tours (see his Life, c. 8, by Sulpicius
      Severus) extorted this confession from the mouth of the dead man.
      The error is allowed to be natural; the discovery is supposed to
      be miraculous. Which of the two was likely to happen most
      frequently?]

      II. But the progress of superstition would have been much less
      rapid and victorious, if the faith of the people had not been
      assisted by the seasonable aid of visions and miracles, to
      ascertain the authenticity and virtue of the most suspicious
      relics. In the reign of the younger Theodosius, Lucian, 77 a
      presbyter of Jerusalem, and the ecclesiastical minister of the
      village of Caphargamala, about twenty miles from the city,
      related a very singular dream, which, to remove his doubts, had
      been repeated on three successive Saturdays. A venerable figure
      stood before him, in the silence of the night, with a long beard,
      a white robe, and a gold rod; announced himself by the name of
      Gamaliel, and revealed to the astonished presbyter, that his own
      corpse, with the bodies of his son Abibas, his friend Nicodemus,
      and the illustrious Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian
      faith, were secretly buried in the adjacent field. He added, with
      some impatience, that it was time to release himself and his
      companions from their obscure prison; that their appearance would
      be salutary to a distressed world; and that they had made choice
      of Lucian to inform the bishop of Jerusalem of their situation
      and their wishes. The doubts and difficulties which still
      retarded this important discovery were successively removed by
      new visions; and the ground was opened by the bishop, in the
      presence of an innumerable multitude. The coffins of Gamaliel, of
      his son, and of his friend, were found in regular order; but when
      the fourth coffin, which contained the remains of Stephen, was
      shown to the light, the earth trembled, and an odor, such as that
      of paradise, was smelt, which instantly cured the various
      diseases of seventy-three of the assistants. The companions of
      Stephen were left in their peaceful residence of Caphargamala:
      but the relics of the first martyr were transported, in solemn
      procession, to a church constructed in their honor on Mount Sion;
      and the minute particles of those relics, a drop of blood, 78 or
      the scrapings of a bone, were acknowledged, in almost every
      province of the Roman world, to possess a divine and miraculous
      virtue. The grave and learned Augustin, 79 whose understanding
      scarcely admits the excuse of credulity, has attested the
      innumerable prodigies which were performed in Africa by the
      relics of St. Stephen; and this marvellous narrative is inserted
      in the elaborate work of the City of God, which the bishop of
      Hippo designed as a solid and immortal proof of the truth of
      Christianity. Augustin solemnly declares, that he has selected
      those miracles only which were publicly certified by the persons
      who were either the objects, or the spectators, of the power of
      the martyr. Many prodigies were omitted, or forgotten; and Hippo
      had been less favorably treated than the other cities of the
      province. And yet the bishop enumerates above seventy miracles,
      of which three were resurrections from the dead, in the space of
      two years, and within the limits of his own diocese. 80 If we
      enlarge our view to all the dioceses, and all the saints, of the
      Christian world, it will not be easy to calculate the fables, and
      the errors, which issued from this inexhaustible source. But we
      may surely be allowed to observe, that a miracle, in that age of
      superstition and credulity, lost its name and its merit, since it
      could scarcely be considered as a deviation from the ordinary and
      established laws of nature.

      77 (return) [ Lucian composed in Greek his original narrative,
      which has been translated by Avitus, and published by Baronius,
      (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 415, No. 7-16.) The Benedictine editors of
      St. Augustin have given (at the end of the work de Civitate Dei)
      two several copies, with many various readings. It is the
      character of falsehood to be loose and inconsistent. The most
      incredible parts of the legend are smoothed and softened by
      Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. ii. p. 9, &c.)]

      78 (return) [ A phial of St. Stephen’s blood was annually
      liquefied at Naples, till he was superseded by St. Jamarius,
      (Ruinart. Hist. Persecut. Vandal p. 529.)]

      79 (return) [ Augustin composed the two-and-twenty books de
      Civitate Dei in the space of thirteen years, A.D. 413-426.
      Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 608, &c.) His learning is
      too often borrowed, and his arguments are too often his own; but
      the whole work claims the merit of a magnificent design,
      vigorously, and not unskilfully, executed.]

      80 (return) [ See Augustin de Civitat. Dei, l. xxii. c. 22, and
      the Appendix, which contains two books of St. Stephen’s miracles,
      by Evodius, bishop of Uzalis. Freculphus (apud Basnage, Hist. des
      Juifs, tom. vii. p. 249) has preserved a Gallic or a Spanish
      proverb, “Whoever pretends to have read all the miracles of St.
      Stephen, he lies.“]

      III. The innumerable miracles, of which the tombs of the martyrs
      were the perpetual theatre, revealed to the pious believer the
      actual state and constitution of the invisible world; and his
      religious speculations appeared to be founded on the firm basis
      of fact and experience. Whatever might be the condition of vulgar
      souls, in the long interval between the dissolution and the
      resurrection of their bodies, it was evident that the superior
      spirits of the saints and martyrs did not consume that portion of
      their existence in silent and inglorious sleep. 81 It was evident
      (without presuming to determine the place of their habitation, or
      the nature of their felicity) that they enjoyed the lively and
      active consciousness of their happiness, their virtue, and their
      powers; and that they had already secured the possession of their
      eternal reward. The enlargement of their intellectual faculties
      surpassed the measure of the human imagination; since it was
      proved by experience, that they were capable of hearing and
      understanding the various petitions of their numerous votaries;
      who, in the same moment of time, but in the most distant parts of
      the world, invoked the name and assistance of Stephen or of
      Martin. 82 The confidence of their petitioners was founded on the
      persuasion, that the saints, who reigned with Christ, cast an eye
      of pity upon earth; that they were warmly interested in the
      prosperity of the Catholic Church; and that the individuals, who
      imitated the example of their faith and piety, were the peculiar
      and favorite objects of their most tender regard. Sometimes,
      indeed, their friendship might be influenced by considerations of
      a less exalted kind: they viewed with partial affection the
      places which had been consecrated by their birth, their
      residence, their death, their burial, or the possession of their
      relics. The meaner passions of pride, avarice, and revenge, may
      be deemed unworthy of a celestial breast; yet the saints
      themselves condescended to testify their grateful approbation of
      the liberality of their votaries; and the sharpest bolts of
      punishment were hurled against those impious wretches, who
      violated their magnificent shrines, or disbelieved their
      supernatural power. 83 Atrocious, indeed, must have been the
      guilt, and strange would have been the scepticism, of those men,
      if they had obstinately resisted the proofs of a divine agency,
      which the elements, the whole range of the animal creation, and
      even the subtle and invisible operations of the human mind, were
      compelled to obey. 84 The immediate, and almost instantaneous,
      effects that were supposed to follow the prayer, or the offence,
      satisfied the Christians of the ample measure of favor and
      authority which the saints enjoyed in the presence of the Supreme
      God; and it seemed almost superfluous to inquire whether they
      were continually obliged to intercede before the throne of grace;
      or whether they might not be permitted to exercise, according to
      the dictates of their benevolence and justice, the delegated
      powers of their subordinate ministry. The imagination, which had
      been raised by a painful effort to the contemplation and worship
      of the Universal Cause, eagerly embraced such inferior objects of
      adoration as were more proportioned to its gross conceptions and
      imperfect faculties. The sublime and simple theology of the
      primitive Christians was gradually corrupted; and the Monarchy of
      heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was degraded
      by the introduction of a popular mythology, which tended to
      restore the reign of polytheism. 85

      81 (return) [ Burnet (de Statu Mortuorum, p. 56-84) collects the
      opinions of the Fathers, as far as they assert the sleep, or
      repose, of human souls till the day of judgment. He afterwards
      exposes (p. 91, &c.) the inconveniences which must arise, if they
      possessed a more active and sensible existence.]

      82 (return) [ Vigilantius placed the souls of the prophets and
      martyrs, either in the bosom of Abraham, (in loco refrigerii,) or
      else under the altar of God. Nec posse suis tumulis et ubi
      voluerunt adesse praesentes. But Jerom (tom. ii. p. 122) sternly
      refutes this blasphemy. Tu Deo leges pones? Tu apostolis vincula
      injicies, ut usque ad diem judicii teneantur custodia, nec sint
      cum Domino suo; de quibus scriptum est, Sequuntur Agnum quocunque
      vadit. Si Agnus ubique, ergo, et hi, qui cum Agno sunt, ubique
      esse credendi sunt. Et cum diabolus et daemones tote vagentur in
      orbe, &c.]

      83 (return) [ Fleury Discours sur l’Hist. Ecclesiastique, iii p.
      80.]

      84 (return) [ At Minorca, the relics of St. Stephen converted, in
      eight days, 540 Jews; with the help, indeed, of some wholesome
      severities, such as burning the synagogue, driving the obstinate
      infidels to starve among the rocks, &c. See the original letter
      of Severus, bishop of Minorca (ad calcem St. Augustin. de Civ.
      Dei,) and the judicious remarks of Basnage, (tom. viii. p.
      245-251.)]

      85 (return) [ Mr. Hume (Essays, vol. ii. p. 434) observes, like a
      philosopher, the natural flux and reflux of polytheism and
      theism.]

      IV. As the objects of religion were gradually reduced to the
      standard of the imagination, the rites and ceremonies were
      introduced that seemed most powerfully to affect the senses of
      the vulgar. If, in the beginning of the fifth century, 86
      Tertullian, or Lactantius, 87 had been suddenly raised from the
      dead, to assist at the festival of some popular saint, or martyr,
      88 they would have gazed with astonishment, and indignation, on
      the profane spectacle, which had succeeded to the pure and
      spiritual worship of a Christian congregation. As soon as the
      doors of the church were thrown open, they must have been
      offended by the smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the
      glare of lamps and tapers, which diffused, at noonday, a gaudy,
      superfluous, and, in their opinion, a sacrilegious light. If they
      approached the balustrade of the altar, they made their way
      through the prostrate crowd, consisting, for the most part, of
      strangers and pilgrims, who resorted to the city on the vigil of
      the feast; and who already felt the strong intoxication of
      fanaticism, and, perhaps, of wine. Their devout kisses were
      imprinted on the walls and pavement of the sacred edifice; and
      their fervent prayers were directed, whatever might be the
      language of their church, to the bones, the blood, or the ashes
      of the saint, which were usually concealed, by a linen or silken
      veil, from the eyes of the vulgar. The Christians frequented the
      tombs of the martyrs, in the hope of obtaining, from their
      powerful intercession, every sort of spiritual, but more
      especially of temporal, blessings. They implored the preservation
      of their health, or the cure of their infirmities; the
      fruitfulness of their barren wives, or the safety and happiness
      of their children. Whenever they undertook any distant or
      dangerous journey, they requested, that the holy martyrs would be
      their guides and protectors on the road; and if they returned
      without having experienced any misfortune, they again hastened to
      the tombs of the martyrs, to celebrate, with grateful
      thanksgivings, their obligations to the memory and relics of
      those heavenly patrons. The walls were hung round with symbols of
      the favors which they had received; eyes, and hands, and feet, of
      gold and silver: and edifying pictures, which could not long
      escape the abuse of indiscreet or idolatrous devotion,
      represented the image, the attributes, and the miracles of the
      tutelar saint. The same uniform original spirit of superstition
      might suggest, in the most distant ages and countries, the same
      methods of deceiving the credulity, and of affecting the senses
      of mankind: 89 but it must ingenuously be confessed, that the
      ministers of the Catholic church imitated the profane model,
      which they were impatient to destroy. The most respectable
      bishops had persuaded themselves that the ignorant rustics would
      more cheerfully renounce the superstitions of Paganism, if they
      found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of
      Christianity. The religion of Constantine achieved, in less than
      a century, the final conquest of the Roman empire: but the
      victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their
      vanquished rivals. 90 9011

      86 (return) [ D’Aubigne (see his own Memoires, p. 156-160)
      frankly offered, with the consent of the Huguenot ministers, to
      allow the first 400 years as the rule of faith. The Cardinal du
      Perron haggled for forty years more, which were indiscreetly
      given. Yet neither party would have found their account in this
      foolish bargain.]

      87 (return) [ The worship practised and inculcated by Tertullian,
      Lactantius Arnobius, &c., is so extremely pure and spiritual,
      that their declamations against the Pagan sometimes glance
      against the Jewish, ceremonies.]

      88 (return) [ Faustus the Manichaean accuses the Catholics of
      idolatry. Vertitis idola in martyres.... quos votis similibus
      colitis. M. de Beausobre, (Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, tom.
      ii. p. 629-700,) a Protestant, but a philosopher, has
      represented, with candor and learning, the introduction of
      Christian idolatry in the fourth and fifth centuries.]

      89 (return) [ The resemblance of superstition, which could not be
      imitated, might be traced from Japan to Mexico. Warburton has
      seized this idea, which he distorts, by rendering it too general
      and absolute, (Divine Legation, vol. iv. p. 126, &c.)]

      90 (return) [ The imitation of Paganism is the subject of Dr.
      Middleton’s agreeable letter from Rome. Warburton’s
      animadversions obliged him to connect (vol. iii. p. 120-132,) the
      history of the two religions, and to prove the antiquity of the
      Christian copy.]

      9011 (return) [ But there was always this important difference
      between Christian and heathen Polytheism. In Paganism this was
      the whole religion; in the darkest ages of Christianity, some,
      however obscure and vague, Christian notions of future
      retribution, of the life after death, lurked at the bottom, and
      operated, to a certain extent, on the thoughts and feelings,
      sometimes on the actions.—M.]




      Chapter XXIX: Division Of Roman Empire Between Sons Of
      Theodosius.—Part I.

     Final Division Of The Roman Empire Between The Sons Of
     Theodosius.—Reign Of Arcadius And Honorius—Administration Of
     Rufinus And Stilicho.—Revolt And Defeat Of Gildo In Africa.

      The genius of Rome expired with Theodosius; the last of the
      successors of Augustus and Constantine, who appeared in the field
      at the head of their armies, and whose authority was universally
      acknowledged throughout the whole extent of the empire. The
      memory of his virtues still continued, however, to protect the
      feeble and inexperienced youth of his two sons. After the death
      of their father, Arcadius and Honorius were saluted, by the
      unanimous consent of mankind, as the lawful emperors of the East,
      and of the West; and the oath of fidelity was eagerly taken by
      every order of the state; the senates of old and new Rome, the
      clergy, the magistrates, the soldiers, and the people. Arcadius,
      who was then about eighteen years of age, was born in Spain, in
      the humble habitation of a private family. But he received a
      princely education in the palace of Constantinople; and his
      inglorious life was spent in that peaceful and splendid seat of
      royalty, from whence he appeared to reign over the provinces of
      Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, from the Lower Danube to
      the confines of Persia and Aethiopia. His younger brother
      Honorius, assumed, in the eleventh year of his age, the nominal
      government of Italy, Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Britain; and the
      troops, which guarded the frontiers of his kingdom, were opposed,
      on one side, to the Caledonians, and on the other, to the Moors.
      The great and martial praefecture of Illyricum was divided
      between the two princes: the defence and possession of the
      provinces of Noricum, Pannonia, and Dalmatia still belonged to
      the Western empire; but the two large dioceses of Dacia and
      Macedonia, which Gratian had intrusted to the valor of
      Theodosius, were forever united to the empire of the East. The
      boundary in Europe was not very different from the line which now
      separates the Germans and the Turks; and the respective
      advantages of territory, riches, populousness, and military
      strength, were fairly balanced and compensated, in this final and
      permanent division of the Roman empire. The hereditary sceptre of
      the sons of Theodosius appeared to be the gift of nature, and of
      their father; the generals and ministers had been accustomed to
      adore the majesty of the royal infants; and the army and people
      were not admonished of their rights, and of their power, by the
      dangerous example of a recent election. The gradual discovery of
      the weakness of Arcadius and Honorius, and the repeated
      calamities of their reign, were not sufficient to obliterate the
      deep and early impressions of loyalty. The subjects of Rome, who
      still reverenced the persons, or rather the names, of their
      sovereigns, beheld, with equal abhorrence, the rebels who
      opposed, and the ministers who abused, the authority of the
      throne.

      Theodosius had tarnished the glory of his reign by the elevation
      of Rufinus; an odious favorite, who, in an age of civil and
      religious faction, has deserved, from every party, the imputation
      of every crime. The strong impulse of ambition and avarice 1 had
      urged Rufinus to abandon his native country, an obscure corner of
      Gaul, 2 to advance his fortune in the capital of the East: the
      talent of bold and ready elocution, 3 qualified him to succeed in
      the lucrative profession of the law; and his success in that
      profession was a regular step to the most honorable and important
      employments of the state. He was raised, by just degrees, to the
      station of master of the offices. In the exercise of his various
      functions, so essentially connected with the whole system of
      civil government, he acquired the confidence of a monarch, who
      soon discovered his diligence and capacity in business, and who
      long remained ignorant of the pride, the malice, and the
      covetousness of his disposition. These vices were concealed
      beneath the mask of profound dissimulation; 4 his passions were
      subservient only to the passions of his master; yet in the horrid
      massacre of Thessalonica, the cruel Rufinus inflamed the fury,
      without imitating the repentance, of Theodosius. The minister,
      who viewed with proud indifference the rest of mankind, never
      forgave the appearance of an injury; and his personal enemies had
      forfeited, in his opinion, the merit of all public services.
      Promotus, the master-general of the infantry, had saved the
      empire from the invasion of the Ostrogoths; but he indignantly
      supported the preeminence of a rival, whose character and
      profession he despised; and in the midst of a public council, the
      impatient soldier was provoked to chastise with a blow the
      indecent pride of the favorite. This act of violence was
      represented to the emperor as an insult, which it was incumbent
      on his dignity to resent. The disgrace and exile of Promotus were
      signified by a peremptory order, to repair, without delay, to a
      military station on the banks of the Danube; and the death of
      that general (though he was slain in a skirmish with the
      Barbarians) was imputed to the perfidious arts of Rufinus. 5 The
      sacrifice of a hero gratified his revenge; the honors of the
      consulship elated his vanity; but his power was still imperfect
      and precarious, as long as the important posts of praefect of the
      East, and of praefect of Constantinople, were filled by Tatian, 6
      and his son Proculus; whose united authority balanced, for some
      time, the ambition and favor of the master of the offices. The
      two praefects were accused of rapine and corruption in the
      administration of the laws and finances. For the trial of these
      illustrious offenders, the emperor constituted a special
      commission: several judges were named to share the guilt and
      reproach of injustice; but the right of pronouncing sentence was
      reserved to the president alone, and that president was Rufinus
      himself. The father, stripped of the praefecture of the East, was
      thrown into a dungeon; but the son, conscious that few ministers
      can be found innocent, where an enemy is their judge, had
      secretly escaped; and Rufinus must have been satisfied with the
      least obnoxious victim, if despotism had not condescended to
      employ the basest and most ungenerous artifice. The prosecution
      was conducted with an appearance of equity and moderation, which
      flattered Tatian with the hope of a favorable event: his
      confidence was fortified by the solemn assurances, and perfidious
      oaths, of the president, who presumed to interpose the sacred
      name of Theodosius himself; and the unhappy father was at last
      persuaded to recall, by a private letter, the fugitive Proculus.
      He was instantly seized, examined, condemned, and beheaded, in
      one of the suburbs of Constantinople, with a precipitation which
      disappointed the clemency of the emperor. Without respecting the
      misfortunes of a consular senator, the cruel judges of Tatian
      compelled him to behold the execution of his son: the fatal cord
      was fastened round his own neck; but in the moment when he
      expected. and perhaps desired, the relief of a speedy death, he
      was permitted to consume the miserable remnant of his old age in
      poverty and exile. 7 The punishment of the two praefects might,
      perhaps, be excused by the exceptionable parts of their own
      conduct; the enmity of Rufinus might be palliated by the jealous
      and unsociable nature of ambition. But he indulged a spirit of
      revenge equally repugnant to prudence and to justice, when he
      degraded their native country of Lycia from the rank of Roman
      provinces; stigmatized a guiltless people with a mark of
      ignominy; and declared, that the countrymen of Tatian and
      Proculus should forever remain incapable of holding any
      employment of honor or advantage under the Imperial government. 8
      The new praefect of the East (for Rufinus instantly succeeded to
      the vacant honors of his adversary) was not diverted, however, by
      the most criminal pursuits, from the performance of the religious
      duties, which in that age were considered as the most essential
      to salvation. In the suburb of Chalcedon, surnamed the Oak, he
      had built a magnificent villa; to which he devoutly added a
      stately church, consecrated to the apostles St. Peter and St.
      Paul, and continually sanctified by the prayers and penance of a
      regular society of monks. A numerous, and almost general, synod
      of the bishops of the Eastern empire, was summoned to celebrate,
      at the same time, the dedication of the church, and the baptism
      of the founder. This double ceremony was performed with
      extraordinary pomp; and when Rufinus was purified, in the holy
      font, from all the sins that he had hitherto committed, a
      venerable hermit of Egypt rashly proposed himself as the sponsor
      of a proud and ambitious statesman. 9

      1 (return) [ Alecto, envious of the public felicity, convenes an
      infernal synod Megaera recommends her pupil Rufinus, and excites
      him to deeds of mischief, &c. But there is as much difference
      between Claudian’s fury and that of Virgil, as between the
      characters of Turnus and Rufinus.]

      2 (return) [ It is evident, (Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p.
      770,) though De Marca is ashamed of his countryman, that Rufinus
      was born at Elusa, the metropolis of Novempopulania, now a small
      village of Gassony, (D’Anville, Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, p.
      289.)]

      3 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. xi c. 3, with Godefroy’s Dissert.
      p. 440.]

      4 (return) [ A passage of Suidas is expressive of his profound
      dissimulation.]

      5 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 272, 273.]

      6 (return) [ Zosimus, who describes the fall of Tatian and his
      son, (l. iv. p. 273, 274,) asserts their innocence; and even his
      testimony may outweigh the charges of their enemies, (Cod. Theod.
      tom. iv. p. 489,) who accuse them of oppressing the Curiae. The
      connection of Tatian with the Arians, while he was praefect of
      Egypt, (A.D. 373,) inclines Tillemont to believe that he was
      guilty of every crime, (Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 360. Mem.
      Eccles. tom vi. p. 589.)]

      7 (return) [—Juvenum rorantia colla Ante patrum vultus stricta
      cecidere securi.

     Ibat grandaevus nato moriente superstes Post trabeas exsul. —-In
     Rufin. i. 248.

      The facts of Zosimus explain the allusions of Claudian; but his
      classic interpreters were ignorant of the fourth century. The
      fatal cord, I found, with the help of Tillemont, in a sermon of
      St. Asterius of Amasea.]

      8 (return) [ This odious law is recited and repealed by Arcadius,
      (A.D. 296,) on the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. xxxviii. leg. 9.
      The sense as it is explained by Claudian, (in Rufin. i. 234,) and
      Godefroy, (tom. iii. p. 279,) is perfectly clear.

    —-Exscindere cives Funditus; et nomen gentis delere laborat.

      The scruples of Pagi and Tillemont can arise only from their zeal
      for the glory of Theodosius.]

      9 (return) [ Ammonius.... Rufinum propriis manibus suscepit sacro
      fonte mundatum. See Rosweyde’s Vitae Patrum, p. 947. Sozomen (l.
      viii. c. 17) mentions the church and monastery; and Tillemont
      (Mem. Eccles. tom. ix. p. 593) records this synod, in which St.
      Gregory of Nyssa performed a conspicuous part.]

      The character of Theodosius imposed on his minister the task of
      hypocrisy, which disguised, and sometimes restrained, the abuse
      of power; and Rufinus was apprehensive of disturbing the indolent
      slumber of a prince still capable of exerting the abilities and
      the virtue, which had raised him to the throne. 10 But the
      absence, and, soon afterwards, the death, of the emperor,
      confirmed the absolute authority of Rufinus over the person and
      dominions of Arcadius; a feeble youth, whom the imperious
      praefect considered as his pupil, rather than his sovereign.
      Regardless of the public opinion, he indulged his passions
      without remorse, and without resistance; and his malignant and
      rapacious spirit rejected every passion that might have
      contributed to his own glory, or the happiness of the people. His
      avarice, 11 which seems to have prevailed, in his corrupt mind,
      over every other sentiment, attracted the wealth of the East, by
      the various arts of partial and general extortion; oppressive
      taxes, scandalous bribery, immoderate fines, unjust
      confiscations, forced or fictitious testaments, by which the
      tyrant despoiled of their lawful inheritance the children of
      strangers, or enemies; and the public sale of justice, as well as
      of favor, which he instituted in the palace of Constantinople.
      The ambitious candidate eagerly solicited, at the expense of the
      fairest part of his patrimony, the honors and emoluments of some
      provincial government; the lives and fortunes of the unhappy
      people were abandoned to the most liberal purchaser; and the
      public discontent was sometimes appeased by the sacrifice of an
      unpopular criminal, whose punishment was profitable only to the
      praefect of the East, his accomplice and his judge. If avarice
      were not the blindest of the human passions, the motives of
      Rufinus might excite our curiosity; and we might be tempted to
      inquire with what view he violated every principle of humanity
      and justice, to accumulate those immense treasures, which he
      could not spend without folly, nor possess without danger.
      Perhaps he vainly imagined, that he labored for the interest of
      an only daughter, on whom he intended to bestow his royal pupil,
      and the august rank of Empress of the East. Perhaps he deceived
      himself by the opinion, that his avarice was the instrument of
      his ambition. He aspired to place his fortune on a secure and
      independent basis, which should no longer depend on the caprice
      of the young emperor; yet he neglected to conciliate the hearts
      of the soldiers and people, by the liberal distribution of those
      riches, which he had acquired with so much toil, and with so much
      guilt. The extreme parsimony of Rufinus left him only the
      reproach and envy of ill-gotten wealth; his dependants served him
      without attachment; the universal hatred of mankind was repressed
      only by the influence of servile fear. The fate of Lucian
      proclaimed to the East, that the praefect, whose industry was
      much abated in the despatch of ordinary business, was active and
      indefatigable in the pursuit of revenge. Lucian, the son of the
      praefect Florentius, the oppressor of Gaul, and the enemy of
      Julian, had employed a considerable part of his inheritance, the
      fruit of rapine and corruption, to purchase the friendship of
      Rufinus, and the high office of Count of the East. But the new
      magistrate imprudently departed from the maxims of the court, and
      of the times; disgraced his benefactor by the contrast of a
      virtuous and temperate administration; and presumed to refuse an
      act of injustice, which might have tended to the profit of the
      emperor’s uncle. Arcadius was easily persuaded to resent the
      supposed insult; and the praefect of the East resolved to execute
      in person the cruel vengeance, which he meditated against this
      ungrateful delegate of his power. He performed with incessant
      speed the journey of seven or eight hundred miles, from
      Constantinople to Antioch, entered the capital of Syria at the
      dead of night, and spread universal consternation among a people
      ignorant of his design, but not ignorant of his character. The
      Count of the fifteen provinces of the East was dragged, like the
      vilest malefactor, before the arbitrary tribunal of Rufinus.
      Notwithstanding the clearest evidence of his integrity, which was
      not impeached even by the voice of an accuser, Lucian was
      condemned, almost with out a trial, to suffer a cruel and
      ignominious punishment. The ministers of the tyrant, by the
      orders, and in the presence, of their master, beat him on the
      neck with leather thongs armed at the extremities with lead; and
      when he fainted under the violence of the pain, he was removed in
      a close litter, to conceal his dying agonies from the eyes of the
      indignant city. No sooner had Rufinus perpetrated this inhuman
      act, the sole object of his expedition, than he returned, amidst
      the deep and silent curses of a trembling people, from Antioch to
      Constantinople; and his diligence was accelerated by the hope of
      accomplishing, without delay, the nuptials of his daughter with
      the emperor of the East. 12

      10 (return) [ Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 12)
      praises one of the laws of Theodosius addressed to the praefect
      Rufinus, (l. ix. tit. iv. leg. unic.,) to discourage the
      prosecution of treasonable, or sacrilegious, words. A tyrannical
      statute always proves the existence of tyranny; but a laudable
      edict may only contain the specious professions, or ineffectual
      wishes, of the prince, or his ministers. This, I am afraid, is a
      just, though mortifying, canon of criticism.]

      11 (return) [

     —fluctibus auri Expleri sitis ista nequit— ***** Congestae
     cumulantur opes; orbisque ruinas Accipit una domus.

      This character (Claudian, in. Rufin. i. 184-220) is confirmed by
      Jerom, a disinterested witness, (dedecus insatiabilis avaritiae,
      tom. i. ad Heliodor. p. 26,) by Zosimus, (l. v. p. 286,) and by
      Suidas, who copied the history of Eunapius.]

      12 (return) [

     —Caetera segnis; Ad facinus velox; penitus regione remotas Impiger
     ire vias.

      This allusion of Claudian (in Rufin. i. 241) is again explained
      by the circumstantial narrative of Zosimus, (l. v. p. 288, 289.)]

      But Rufinus soon experienced, that a prudent minister should
      constantly secure his royal captive by the strong, though
      invisible chain of habit; and that the merit, and much more
      easily the favor, of the absent, are obliterated in a short time
      from the mind of a weak and capricious sovereign. While the
      praefect satiated his revenge at Antioch, a secret conspiracy of
      the favorite eunuchs, directed by the great chamberlain
      Eutropius, undermined his power in the palace of Constantinople.
      They discovered that Arcadius was not inclined to love the
      daughter of Rufinus, who had been chosen, without his consent,
      for his bride; and they contrived to substitute in her place the
      fair Eudoxia, the daughter of Bauto, 13 a general of the Franks
      in the service of Rome; and who was educated, since the death of
      her father, in the family of the sons of Promotus. The young
      emperor, whose chastity had been strictly guarded by the pious
      care of his tutor Arsenius, 14 eagerly listened to the artful and
      flattering descriptions of the charms of Eudoxia: he gazed with
      impatient ardor on her picture, and he understood the necessity
      of concealing his amorous designs from the knowledge of a
      minister who was so deeply interested to oppose the consummation
      of his happiness. Soon after the return of Rufinus, the
      approaching ceremony of the royal nuptials was announced to the
      people of Constantinople, who prepared to celebrate, with false
      and hollow acclamations, the fortune of his daughter. A splendid
      train of eunuchs and officers issued, in hymeneal pomp, from the
      gates of the palace; bearing aloft the diadem, the robes, and the
      inestimable ornaments, of the future empress. The solemn
      procession passed through the streets of the city, which were
      adorned with garlands, and filled with spectators; but when it
      reached the house of the sons of Promotus, the principal eunuch
      respectfully entered the mansion, invested the fair Eudoxia with
      the Imperial robes, and conducted her in triumph to the palace
      and bed of Arcadius. 15 The secrecy and success with which this
      conspiracy against Rufinus had been conducted, imprinted a mark
      of indelible ridicule on the character of a minister, who had
      suffered himself to be deceived, in a post where the arts of
      deceit and dissimulation constitute the most distinguished merit.
      He considered, with a mixture of indignation and fear, the
      victory of an aspiring eunuch, who had secretly captivated the
      favor of his sovereign; and the disgrace of his daughter, whose
      interest was inseparably connected with his own, wounded the
      tenderness, or, at least, the pride of Rufinus. At the moment
      when he flattered himself that he should become the father of a
      line of kings, a foreign maid, who had been educated in the house
      of his implacable enemies, was introduced into the Imperial bed;
      and Eudoxia soon displayed a superiority of sense and spirit, to
      improve the ascendant which her beauty must acquire over the mind
      of a fond and youthful husband. The emperor would soon be
      instructed to hate, to fear, and to destroy the powerful subject,
      whom he had injured; and the consciousness of guilt deprived
      Rufinus of every hope, either of safety or comfort, in the
      retirement of a private life. But he still possessed the most
      effectual means of defending his dignity, and perhaps of
      oppressing his enemies. The praefect still exercised an
      uncontrolled authority over the civil and military government of
      the East; and his treasures, if he could resolve to use them,
      might be employed to procure proper instruments for the execution
      of the blackest designs, that pride, ambition, and revenge could
      suggest to a desperate statesman. The character of Rufinus seemed
      to justify the accusations that he conspired against the person
      of his sovereign, to seat himself on the vacant throne; and that
      he had secretly invited the Huns and the Goths to invade the
      provinces of the empire, and to increase the public confusion.
      The subtle praefect, whose life had been spent in the intrigues
      of the palace, opposed, with equal arms, the artful measures of
      the eunuch Eutropius; but the timid soul of Rufinus was
      astonished by the hostile approach of a more formidable rival, of
      the great Stilicho, the general, or rather the master, of the
      empire of the West. 16

      13 (return) [ Zosimus (l. iv. p. 243) praises the valor,
      prudence, and integrity of Bauto the Frank. See Tillemont, Hist.
      des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 771.]

      14 (return) [ Arsenius escaped from the palace of Constantinople,
      and passed fifty-five years in rigid penance in the monasteries
      of Egypt. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 676-702; and
      Fleury, Hist Eccles. tom. v. p. 1, &c.; but the latter, for want
      of authentic materials, has given too much credit to the legend
      of Metaphrastes.]

      15 (return) [ This story (Zosimus, l. v. p. 290) proves that the
      hymeneal rites of antiquity were still practised, without
      idolatry, by the Christians of the East; and the bride was
      forcibly conducted from the house of her parents to that of her
      husband. Our form of marriage requires, with less delicacy, the
      express and public consent of a virgin.]

      16 (return) [ Zosimus, (l. v. p. 290,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 37,)
      and the Chronicle of Marcellinus. Claudian (in Rufin. ii. 7-100)
      paints, in lively colors, the distress and guilt of the
      praefect.]

      The celestial gift, which Achilles obtained, and Alexander
      envied, of a poet worthy to celebrate the actions of heroes has
      been enjoyed by Stilicho, in a much higher degree than might have
      been expected from the declining state of genius, and of art. The
      muse of Claudian, 17 devoted to his service, was always prepared
      to stigmatize his adversaries, Rufinus, or Eutropius, with
      eternal infamy; or to paint, in the most splendid colors, the
      victories and virtues of a powerful benefactor. In the review of
      a period indifferently supplied with authentic materials, we
      cannot refuse to illustrate the annals of Honorius, from the
      invectives, or the panegyrics, of a contemporary writer; but as
      Claudian appears to have indulged the most ample privilege of a
      poet and a courtier, some criticism will be requisite to
      translate the language of fiction or exaggeration, into the truth
      and simplicity of historic prose. His silence concerning the
      family of Stilicho may be admitted as a proof, that his patron
      was neither able, nor desirous, to boast of a long series of
      illustrious progenitors; and the slight mention of his father, an
      officer of Barbarian cavalry in the service of Valens, seems to
      countenance the assertion, that the general, who so long
      commanded the armies of Rome, was descended from the savage and
      perfidious race of the Vandals. 18 If Stilicho had not possessed
      the external advantages of strength and stature, the most
      flattering bard, in the presence of so many thousand spectators,
      would have hesitated to affirm, that he surpassed the measure of
      the demi-gods of antiquity; and that whenever he moved, with
      lofty steps, through the streets of the capital, the astonished
      crowd made room for the stranger, who displayed, in a private
      condition, the awful majesty of a hero. From his earliest youth
      he embraced the profession of arms; his prudence and valor were
      soon distinguished in the field; the horsemen and archers of the
      East admired his superior dexterity; and in each degree of his
      military promotions, the public judgment always prevented and
      approved the choice of the sovereign. He was named, by
      Theodosius, to ratify a solemn treaty with the monarch of Persia;
      he supported, during that important embassy, the dignity of the
      Roman name; and after he returned to Constantinople, his merit
      was rewarded by an intimate and honorable alliance with the
      Imperial family. Theodosius had been prompted, by a pious motive
      of fraternal affection, to adopt, for his own, the daughter of
      his brother Honorius; the beauty and accomplishments of Serena 19
      were universally admired by the obsequious court; and Stilicho
      obtained the preference over a crowd of rivals, who ambitiously
      disputed the hand of the princess, and the favor of her adopted
      father. 20 The assurance that the husband of Serena would be
      faithful to the throne, which he was permitted to approach,
      engaged the emperor to exalt the fortunes, and to employ the
      abilities, of the sagacious and intrepid Stilicho. He rose,
      through the successive steps of master of the horse, and count of
      the domestics, to the supreme rank of master-general of all the
      cavalry and infantry of the Roman, or at least of the Western,
      empire; 21 and his enemies confessed, that he invariably
      disdained to barter for gold the rewards of merit, or to defraud
      the soldiers of the pay and gratifications which they deserved or
      claimed, from the liberality of the state. 22 The valor and
      conduct which he afterwards displayed, in the defence of Italy,
      against the arms of Alaric and Radagaisus, may justify the fame
      of his early achievements and in an age less attentive to the
      laws of honor, or of pride, the Roman generals might yield the
      preeminence of rank, to the ascendant of superior genius. 23 He
      lamented, and revenged, the murder of Promotus, his rival and his
      friend; and the massacre of many thousands of the flying
      Bastarnae is represented by the poet as a bloody sacrifice, which
      the Roman Achilles offered to the manes of another Patroclus. The
      virtues and victories of Stilicho deserved the hatred of Rufinus:
      and the arts of calumny might have been successful if the tender
      and vigilant Serena had not protected her husband against his
      domestic foes, whilst he vanquished in the field the enemies of
      the empire. 24 Theodosius continued to support an unworthy
      minister, to whose diligence he delegated the government of the
      palace, and of the East; but when he marched against the tyrant
      Eugenius, he associated his faithful general to the labors and
      glories of the civil war; and in the last moments of his life,
      the dying monarch recommended to Stilicho the care of his sons,
      and of the republic. 25 The ambition and the abilities of
      Stilicho were not unequal to the important trust; and he claimed
      the guardianship of the two empires, during the minority of
      Arcadius and Honorius. 26 The first measure of his
      administration, or rather of his reign, displayed to the nations
      the vigor and activity of a spirit worthy to command. He passed
      the Alps in the depth of winter; descended the stream of the
      Rhine, from the fortress of Basil to the marshes of Batavia;
      reviewed the state of the garrisons; repressed the enterprises of
      the Germans; and, after establishing along the banks a firm and
      honorable peace, returned, with incredible speed, to the palace
      of Milan. 27 The person and court of Honorius were subject to the
      master-general of the West; and the armies and provinces of
      Europe obeyed, without hesitation, a regular authority, which was
      exercised in the name of their young sovereign. Two rivals only
      remained to dispute the claims, and to provoke the vengeance, of
      Stilicho. Within the limits of Africa, Gildo, the Moor,
      maintained a proud and dangerous independence; and the minister
      of Constantinople asserted his equal reign over the emperor, and
      the empire, of the East.

      17 (return) [ Stilicho, directly or indirectly, is the perpetual
      theme of Claudian. The youth and private life of the hero are
      vaguely expressed in the poem on his first consulship, 35-140.]

      18 (return) [ Vandalorum, imbellis, avarae, perfidae, et dolosae,
      gentis, genere editus. Orosius, l. vii. c. 38. Jerom (tom. i. ad
      Gerontiam, p. 93) call him a Semi-Barbarian.]

      19 (return) [ Claudian, in an imperfect poem, has drawn a fair,
      perhaps a flattering, portrait of Serena. That favorite niece of
      Theodosius was born, as well as here sister Thermantia, in Spain;
      from whence, in their earliest youth, they were honorably
      conducted to the palace of Constantinople.]

      20 (return) [ Some doubt may be entertained, whether this
      adoption was legal or only metaphorical, (see Ducange, Fam.
      Byzant. p. 75.) An old inscription gives Stilicho the singular
      title of Pro-gener Divi Theodosius]

      21 (return) [ Claudian (Laus Serenae, 190, 193) expresses, in
      poetic language “the dilectus equorum,“ and the “gemino mox idem
      culmine duxit agmina.“ The inscription adds, “count of the
      domestics,“ an important command, which Stilicho, in the height
      of his grandeur, might prudently retain.]

      22 (return) [ The beautiful lines of Claudian (in i. Cons.
      Stilich. ii. 113) displays his genius; but the integrity of
      Stilicho (in the military administration) is much more firmly
      established by the unwilling evidence of Zosimus, (l. v. p.
      345.)]

      23 (return) [—Si bellica moles Ingrueret, quamvis annis et jure
      minori,

    Cedere grandaevos equitum peditumque magistros

      Adspiceres. Claudian, Laus Seren. p. 196, &c. A modern general
      would deem their submission either heroic patriotism or abject
      servility.]

      24 (return) [ Compare the poem on the first consulship (i.
      95-115) with the Laus Serenoe (227-237, where it unfortunately
      breaks off.) We may perceive the deep, inveterate malice of
      Rufinus.]

      25 (return) [—Quem fratribus ipse Discedens, clypeum
      defensoremque dedisti. Yet the nomination (iv. Cons. Hon. 432)
      was private, (iii. Cons. Hon. 142,) cunctos discedere... jubet;
      and may therefore be suspected. Zosimus and Suidas apply to
      Stilicho and Rufinus the same equal title of guardians, or
      procurators.]

      26 (return) [ The Roman law distinguishes two sorts of minority,
      which expired at the age of fourteen, and of twenty-five. The one
      was subject to the tutor, or guardian, of the person; the other,
      to the curator, or trustee, of the estate, (Heineccius,
      Antiquitat. Rom. ad Jurisprudent. pertinent. l. i. tit. xxii.
      xxiii. p. 218-232.) But these legal ideas were never accurately
      transferred into the constitution of an elective monarchy.]

      27 (return) [ See Claudian, (i. Cons. Stilich. i. 188-242;) but
      he must allow more than fifteen days for the journey and return
      between Milan and Leyden.]




      Chapter XXIX: Division Of Roman Empire Between Sons Of
      Theodosius.—Part II.

      The impartiality which Stilicho affected, as the common guardian
      of the royal brothers, engaged him to regulate the equal division
      of the arms, the jewels, and the magnificent wardrobe and
      furniture of the deceased emperor. 28 But the most important
      object of the inheritance consisted of the numerous legions,
      cohorts, and squadrons, of Romans, or Barbarians, whom the event
      of the civil war had united under the standard of Theodosius. The
      various multitudes of Europe and Asia, exasperated by recent
      animosities, were overawed by the authority of a single man; and
      the rigid discipline of Stilicho protected the lands of the
      citizens from the rapine of the licentious soldier. 29 Anxious,
      however, and impatient, to relieve Italy from the presence of
      this formidable host, which could be useful only on the frontiers
      of the empire, he listened to the just requisition of the
      minister of Arcadius, declared his intention of reconducting in
      person the troops of the East, and dexterously employed the rumor
      of a Gothic tumult to conceal his private designs of ambition and
      revenge. 30 The guilty soul of Rufinus was alarmed by the
      approach of a warrior and a rival, whose enmity he deserved; he
      computed, with increasing terror, the narrow space of his life
      and greatness; and, as the last hope of safety, he interposed the
      authority of the emperor Arcadius. Stilicho, who appears to have
      directed his march along the sea-coast of the Adriatic, was not
      far distant from the city of Thessalonica, when he received a
      peremptory message, to recall the troops of the East, and to
      declare, that his nearer approach would be considered, by the
      Byzantine court, as an act of hostility. The prompt and
      unexpected obedience of the general of the West, convinced the
      vulgar of his loyalty and moderation; and, as he had already
      engaged the affection of the Eastern troops, he recommended to
      their zeal the execution of his bloody design, which might be
      accomplished in his absence, with less danger, perhaps, and with
      less reproach. Stilicho left the command of the troops of the
      East to Gainas, the Goth, on whose fidelity he firmly relied,
      with an assurance, at least, that the hardy Barbarians would
      never be diverted from his purpose by any consideration of fear
      or remorse. The soldiers were easily persuaded to punish the
      enemy of Stilicho and of Rome; and such was the general hatred
      which Rufinus had excited, that the fatal secret, communicated to
      thousands, was faithfully preserved during the long march from
      Thessalonica to the gates of Constantinople. As soon as they had
      resolved his death, they condescended to flatter his pride; the
      ambitious praefect was seduced to believe, that those powerful
      auxiliaries might be tempted to place the diadem on his head; and
      the treasures which he distributed, with a tardy and reluctant
      hand, were accepted by the indignant multitude as an insult,
      rather than as a gift. At the distance of a mile from the
      capital, in the field of Mars, before the palace of Hebdomon, the
      troops halted: and the emperor, as well as his minister,
      advanced, according to ancient custom, respectfully to salute the
      power which supported their throne. As Rufinus passed along the
      ranks, and disguised, with studied courtesy, his innate
      haughtiness, the wings insensibly wheeled from the right and
      left, and enclosed the devoted victim within the circle of their
      arms. Before he could reflect on the danger of his situation,
      Gainas gave the signal of death; a daring and forward soldier
      plunged his sword into the breast of the guilty praefect, and
      Rufinus fell, groaned, and expired, at the feet of the affrighted
      emperor. If the agonies of a moment could expiate the crimes of a
      whole life, or if the outrages inflicted on a breathless corpse
      could be the object of pity, our humanity might perhaps be
      affected by the horrid circumstances which accompanied the murder
      of Rufinus. His mangled body was abandoned to the brutal fury of
      the populace of either sex, who hastened in crowds, from every
      quarter of the city, to trample on the remains of the haughty
      minister, at whose frown they had so lately trembled. His right
      hand was cut off, and carried through the streets of
      Constantinople, in cruel mockery, to extort contributions for the
      avaricious tyrant, whose head was publicly exposed, borne aloft
      on the point of a long lance. 31 According to the savage maxims
      of the Greek republics, his innocent family would have shared the
      punishment of his crimes. The wife and daughter of Rufinus were
      indebted for their safety to the influence of religion. Her
      sanctuary protected them from the raging madness of the people;
      and they were permitted to spend the remainder of their lives in
      the exercise of Christian devotions, in the peaceful retirement
      of Jerusalem. 32

      28 (return) [ I. Cons. Stilich. ii. 88-94. Not only the robes and
      diadems of the deceased emperor, but even the helmets,
      sword-hilts, belts, rasses, &c., were enriched with pearls,
      emeralds, and diamonds.]

      29 (return) [—Tantoque remoto Principe, mutatas orbis non sensit
      habenas. This high commendation (i. Cons. Stil. i. 149) may be
      justified by the fears of the dying emperor, (de Bell. Gildon.
      292-301;) and the peace and good order which were enjoyed after
      his death, (i. Cons. Stil i. 150-168.)]

      30 (return) [ Stilicho’s march, and the death of Rufinus, are
      described by Claudian, (in Rufin. l. ii. 101-453, Zosimus, l. v.
      p. 296, 297,) Sozomen (l. viii. c. 1,) Socrates, l. vi. c. 1,)
      Philostorgius, (l. xi c. 3, with Godefory, p. 441,) and the
      Chronicle of Marcellinus.]

      31 (return) [ The dissection of Rufinus, which Claudian performs
      with the savage coolness of an anatomist, (in Rufin. ii.
      405-415,) is likewise specified by Zosimus and Jerom, (tom. i. p.
      26.)]

      32 (return) [ The Pagan Zosimus mentions their sanctuary and
      pilgrimage. The sister of Rufinus, Sylvania, who passed her life
      at Jerusalem, is famous in monastic history. 1. The studious
      virgin had diligently, and even repeatedly, perused the
      commentators on the Bible, Origen, Gregory, Basil, &c., to the
      amount of five millions of lines. 2. At the age of threescore,
      she could boast, that she had never washed her hands, face, or
      any part of her whole body, except the tips of her fingers to
      receive the communion. See the Vitae Patrum, p. 779, 977.]

      The servile poet of Stilicho applauds, with ferocious joy, this
      horrid deed, which, in the execution, perhaps, of justice,
      violated every law of nature and society, profaned the majesty of
      the prince, and renewed the dangerous examples of military
      license. The contemplation of the universal order and harmony had
      satisfied Claudian of the existence of the Deity; but the
      prosperous impunity of vice appeared to contradict his moral
      attributes; and the fate of Rufinus was the only event which
      could dispel the religious doubts of the poet. 33 Such an act
      might vindicate the honor of Providence, but it did not much
      contribute to the happiness of the people. In less than three
      months they were informed of the maxims of the new
      administration, by a singular edict, which established the
      exclusive right of the treasury over the spoils of Rufinus; and
      silenced, under heavy penalties, the presumptuous claims of the
      subjects of the Eastern empire, who had been injured by his
      rapacious tyranny. 34 Even Stilicho did not derive from the
      murder of his rival the fruit which he had proposed; and though
      he gratified his revenge, his ambition was disappointed. Under
      the name of a favorite, the weakness of Arcadius required a
      master, but he naturally preferred the obsequious arts of the
      eunuch Eutropius, who had obtained his domestic confidence: and
      the emperor contemplated, with terror and aversion, the stern
      genius of a foreign warrior. Till they were divided by the
      jealousy of power, the sword of Gainas, and the charms of
      Eudoxia, supported the favor of the great chamberlain of the
      palace: the perfidious Goth, who was appointed master-general of
      the East, betrayed, without scruple, the interest of his
      benefactor; and the same troops, who had so lately massacred the
      enemy of Stilicho, were engaged to support, against him, the
      independence of the throne of Constantinople. The favorites of
      Arcadius fomented a secret and irreconcilable war against a
      formidable hero, who aspired to govern, and to defend, the two
      empires of Rome, and the two sons of Theodosius. They incessantly
      labored, by dark and treacherous machinations, to deprive him of
      the esteem of the prince, the respect of the people, and the
      friendship of the Barbarians. The life of Stilicho was repeatedly
      attempted by the dagger of hired assassins; and a decree was
      obtained from the senate of Constantinople, to declare him an
      enemy of the republic, and to confiscate his ample possessions in
      the provinces of the East. At a time when the only hope of
      delaying the ruin of the Roman name depended on the firm union,
      and reciprocal aid, of all the nations to whom it had been
      gradually communicated, the subjects of Arcadius and Honorius
      were instructed, by their respective masters, to view each other
      in a foreign, and even hostile, light; to rejoice in their mutual
      calamities, and to embrace, as their faithful allies, the
      Barbarians, whom they excited to invade the territories of their
      countrymen. 35 The natives of Italy affected to despise the
      servile and effeminate Greeks of Byzantium, who presumed to
      imitate the dress, and to usurp the dignity, of Roman senators;
      36 and the Greeks had not yet forgot the sentiments of hatred and
      contempt, which their polished ancestors had so long entertained
      for the rude inhabitants of the West. The distinction of two
      governments, which soon produced the separation of two nations,
      will justify my design of suspending the series of the Byzantine
      history, to prosecute, without interruption, the disgraceful, but
      memorable, reign of Honorius.

      33 (return) [ See the beautiful exordium of his invective against
      Rufinus, which is curiously discussed by the sceptic Bayle,
      Dictionnaire Critique, Rufin. Not. E.]

      34 (return) [ See the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. xlii. leg. 14,
      15. The new ministers attempted, with inconsistent avarice, to
      seize the spoils of their predecessor, and to provide for their
      own future security.]

      35 (return) [ See Claudian, (i. Cons. Stilich, l. i. 275, 292,
      296, l. ii. 83,) and Zosimus, (l. v. p. 302.)]

      36 (return) [ Claudian turns the consulship of the eunuch
      Eutropius into a national reflection, (l. ii. 134):—

    —-Plaudentem cerne senatum, Et Byzantinos proceres Graiosque
    Quirites: O patribus plebes, O digni consule patres.

      It is curious to observe the first symptoms of jealousy and
      schism between old and new Rome, between the Greeks and Latins.]

      The prudent Stilicho, instead of persisting to force the
      inclinations of a prince, and people, who rejected his
      government, wisely abandoned Arcadius to his unworthy favorites;
      and his reluctance to involve the two empires in a civil war
      displayed the moderation of a minister, who had so often
      signalized his military spirit and abilities. But if Stilicho had
      any longer endured the revolt of Africa, he would have betrayed
      the security of the capital, and the majesty of the Western
      emperor, to the capricious insolence of a Moorish rebel. Gildo,
      37 the brother of the tyrant Firmus, had preserved and obtained,
      as the reward of his apparent fidelity, the immense patrimony
      which was forfeited by treason: long and meritorious service, in
      the armies of Rome, raised him to the dignity of a military
      count; the narrow policy of the court of Theodosius had adopted
      the mischievous expedient of supporting a legal government by the
      interest of a powerful family; and the brother of Firmus was
      invested with the command of Africa. His ambition soon usurped
      the administration of justice, and of the finances, without
      account, and without control; and he maintained, during a reign
      of twelve years, the possession of an office, from which it was
      impossible to remove him, without the danger of a civil war.
      During those twelve years, the provinces of Africa groaned under
      the dominion of a tyrant, who seemed to unite the unfeeling
      temper of a stranger with the partial resentments of domestic
      faction. The forms of law were often superseded by the use of
      poison; and if the trembling guests, who were invited to the
      table of Gildo, presumed to express fears, the insolent suspicion
      served only to excite his fury, and he loudly summoned the
      ministers of death. Gildo alternately indulged the passions of
      avarice and lust; 38 and if his days were terrible to the rich,
      his nights were not less dreadful to husbands and parents. The
      fairest of their wives and daughters were prostituted to the
      embraces of the tyrant; and afterwards abandoned to a ferocious
      troop of Barbarians and assassins, the black, or swarthy, natives
      of the desert; whom Gildo considered as the only guardians of his
      throne. In the civil war between Theodosius and Eugenius, the
      count, or rather the sovereign, of Africa, maintained a haughty
      and suspicious neutrality; refused to assist either of the
      contending parties with troops or vessels, expected the
      declaration of fortune, and reserved for the conqueror the vain
      professions of his allegiance. Such professions would not have
      satisfied the master of the Roman world; but the death of
      Theodosius, and the weakness and discord of his sons, confirmed
      the power of the Moor; who condescended, as a proof of his
      moderation, to abstain from the use of the diadem, and to supply
      Rome with the customary tribute, or rather subsidy, of corn. In
      every division of the empire, the five provinces of Africa were
      invariably assigned to the West; and Gildo had to govern that
      extensive country in the name of Honorius, but his knowledge of
      the character and designs of Stilicho soon engaged him to address
      his homage to a more distant and feeble sovereign. The ministers
      of Arcadius embraced the cause of a perfidious rebel; and the
      delusive hope of adding the numerous cities of Africa to the
      empire of the East, tempted them to assert a claim, which they
      were incapable of supporting, either by reason or by arms. 39

      37 (return) [ Claudian may have exaggerated the vices of Gildo;
      but his Moorish extraction, his notorious actions, and the
      complaints of St. Augustin, may justify the poet’s invectives.
      Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 398, No. 35-56) has treated the
      African rebellion with skill and learning.]

      38 (return) [

     Instat terribilis vivis, morientibus haeres, Virginibus raptor,
     thalamis obscoenus adulter. Nulla quies: oritur praeda cessante
     libido, Divitibusque dies, et nox metuenda maritis. Mauris
     clarissima quaeque Fastidita datur. ——De Bello Gildonico, 165,
     189.

      Baronius condemns, still more severely, the licentiousness of
      Gildo; as his wife, his daughter, and his sister, were examples
      of perfect chastity. The adulteries of the African soldiers are
      checked by one of the Imperial laws.]

      39 (return) [ Inque tuam sortem numerosas transtulit urbes.
      Claudian (de Bell. Gildonico, 230-324) has touched, with
      political delicacy, the intrigues of the Byzantine court, which
      are likewise mentioned by Zosimus, (l. v. p. 302.)]

      When Stilicho had given a firm and decisive answer to the
      pretensions of the Byzantine court, he solemnly accused the
      tyrant of Africa before the tribunal, which had formerly judged
      the kings and nations of the earth; and the image of the republic
      was revived, after a long interval, under the reign of Honorius.
      The emperor transmitted an accurate and ample detail of the
      complaints of the provincials, and the crimes of Gildo, to the
      Roman senate; and the members of that venerable assembly were
      required to pronounce the condemnation of the rebel. Their
      unanimous suffrage declared him the enemy of the republic; and
      the decree of the senate added a sacred and legitimate sanction
      to the Roman arms. 40 A people, who still remembered that their
      ancestors had been the masters of the world, would have
      applauded, with conscious pride, the representation of ancient
      freedom; if they had not since been accustomed to prefer the
      solid assurance of bread to the unsubstantial visions of liberty
      and greatness. The subsistence of Rome depended on the harvests
      of Africa; and it was evident, that a declaration of war would be
      the signal of famine. The praefect Symmachus, who presided in the
      deliberations of the senate, admonished the minister of his just
      apprehension, that as soon as the revengeful Moor should prohibit
      the exportation of corn, tranquility and perhaps the safety, of
      the capital would be threatened by the hungry rage of a turbulent
      multitude. 41 The prudence of Stilicho conceived and executed,
      without delay, the most effectual measure for the relief of the
      Roman people. A large and seasonable supply of corn, collected in
      the inland provinces of Gaul, was embarked on the rapid stream of
      the Rhone, and transported, by an easy navigation, from the Rhone
      to the Tyber. During the whole term of the African war, the
      granaries of Rome were continually filled, her dignity was
      vindicated from the humiliating dependence, and the minds of an
      immense people were quieted by the calm confidence of peace and
      plenty. 42

      40 (return) [ Symmachus (l. iv. epist. 4) expresses the judicial
      forms of the senate; and Claudian (i. Cons. Stilich. l. i. 325,
      &c.) seems to feel the spirit of a Roman.]

      41 (return) [ Claudian finely displays these complaints of
      Symmachus, in a speech of the goddess of Rome, before the throne
      of Jupiter, (de Bell Gildon. 28-128.)]

      42 (return) [ See Claudian (in Eutrop. l. i 401, &c. i. Cons.
      Stil. l. i. 306, &c. i. Cons. Stilich. 91, &c.)]

      The cause of Rome, and the conduct of the African war, were
      intrusted by Stilicho to a general, active and ardent to avenge
      his private injuries on the head of the tyrant. The spirit of
      discord which prevailed in the house of Nabal, had excited a
      deadly quarrel between two of his sons, Gildo and Mascezel. 43
      The usurper pursued, with implacable rage, the life of his
      younger brother, whose courage and abilities he feared; and
      Mascezel, oppressed by superior power, refuge in the court of
      Milan, where he soon received the cruel intelligence that his two
      innocent and helpless children had been murdered by their inhuman
      uncle. The affliction of the father was suspended only by the
      desire of revenge. The vigilant Stilicho already prepared to
      collect the naval and military force of the Western empire; and
      he had resolved, if the tyrant should be able to wage an equal
      and doubtful war, to march against him in person. But as Italy
      required his presence, and as it might be dangerous to weaken the
      of the frontier, he judged it more advisable, that Mascezel
      should attempt this arduous adventure at the head of a chosen
      body of Gallic veterans, who had lately served exhorted to
      convince the world that they could subvert, as well as defend the
      throne of a usurper, consisted of the Jovian, the Herculian, and
      the Augustan legions; of the Nervian auxiliaries; of the soldiers
      who displayed in their banners the symbol of a lion, and of the
      troops which were distinguished by the auspicious names of
      Fortunate, and Invincible. Yet such was the smallness of their
      establishments, or the difficulty of recruiting, that these seven
      bands, 44 of high dignity and reputation in the service of Rome,
      amounted to no more than five thousand effective men. 45 The
      fleet of galleys and transports sailed in tempestuous weather
      from the port of Pisa, in Tuscany, and steered their course to
      the little island of Capraria; which had borrowed that name from
      the wild goats, its original inhabitants, whose place was
      occupied by a new colony of a strange and savage appearance. “The
      whole island (says an ingenious traveller of those times) is
      filled, or rather defiled, by men who fly from the light. They
      call themselves Monks, or solitaries, because they choose to live
      alone, without any witnesses of their actions. They fear the
      gifts of fortune, from the apprehension of losing them; and, lest
      they should be miserable, they embrace a life of voluntary
      wretchedness. How absurd is their choice! how perverse their
      understanding! to dread the evils, without being able to support
      the blessings, of the human condition. Either this melancholy
      madness is the effect of disease, or exercise on their own bodies
      the tortures which are inflicted on fugitive slaves by the hand
      of justice.“ 46 Such was the contempt of a profane magistrate for
      the monks as the chosen servants of God. 47 Some of them were
      persuaded, by his entreaties, to embark on board the fleet; and
      it is observed, to the praise of the Roman general, that his days
      and nights were employed in prayer, fasting, and the occupation
      of singing psalms. The devout leader, who, with such a
      reenforcement, appeared confident of victory, avoided the
      dangerous rocks of Corsica, coasted along the eastern side of
      Sardinia, and secured his ships against the violence of the south
      wind, by casting anchor in the and capacious harbor of Cagliari,
      at the distance of one hundred and forty miles from the African
      shores. 48

      43 (return) [ He was of a mature age; since he had formerly (A.D.
      373) served against his brother Firmus (Ammian. xxix. 5.)
      Claudian, who understood the court of Milan, dwells on the
      injuries, rather than the merits, of Mascezel, (de Bell. Gild.
      389-414.) The Moorish war was not worthy of Honorius, or
      Stilicho, &c.]

      44 (return) [ Claudian, Bell. Gild. 415-423. The change of
      discipline allowed him to use indifferently the names of Legio
      Cohors, Manipulus. See Notitia Imperii, S. 38, 40.]

      45 (return) [ Orosius (l. vii. c. 36, p. 565) qualifies this
      account with an expression of doubt, (ut aiunt;) and it scarcely
      coincides with Zosimus, (l. v. p. 303.) Yet Claudian, after some
      declamation about Cadmus, soldiers, frankly owns that Stilicho
      sent a small army lest the rebels should fly, ne timeare times,
      (i. Cons. Stilich. l. i. 314 &c.)]

      46 (return) [ Claud. Rutil. Numatian. Itinerar. i. 439-448. He
      afterwards (515-526) mentions a religious madman on the Isle of
      Gorgona. For such profane remarks, Rutilius and his accomplices
      are styled, by his commentator, Barthius, rabiosi canes diaboli.
      Tillemont (Mem. Eccles com. xii. p. 471) more calmly observes,
      that the unbelieving poet praises where he means to censure.]

      47 (return) [ Orosius, l. vii. c. 36, p. 564. Augustin commends
      two of these savage saints of the Isle of Goats, (epist. lxxxi.
      apud Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 317, and Baronius,
      Annal Eccles. A.D. 398 No. 51.)]

      48 (return) [ Here the first book of the Gildonic war is
      terminated. The rest of Claudian’s poem has been lost; and we are
      ignorant how or where the army made good their landing in Afica.]

      Gildo was prepared to resist the invasion with all the forces of
      Africa. By the liberality of his gifts and promises, he
      endeavored to secure the doubtful allegiance of the Roman
      soldiers, whilst he attracted to his standard the distant tribes
      of Gaetulia and Aethiopia. He proudly reviewed an army of seventy
      thousand men, and boasted, with the rash presumption which is the
      forerunner of disgrace, that his numerous cavalry would trample
      under their horses’ feet the troops of Mascezel, and involve, in
      a cloud of burning sand, the natives of the cold regions of Gaul
      and Germany. 49 But the Moor, who commanded the legions of
      Honorius, was too well acquainted with the manners of his
      countrymen, to entertain any serious apprehension of a naked and
      disorderly host of Barbarians; whose left arm, instead of a
      shield, was protected only by mantle; who were totally disarmed
      as soon as they had darted their javelin from their right hand;
      and whose horses had never been in combat. He fixed his camp of
      five thousand veterans in the face of a superior enemy, and,
      after the delay of three days, gave the signal of a general
      engagement. 50 As Mascezel advanced before the front with fair
      offers of peace and pardon, he encountered one of the foremost
      standard-bearers of the Africans, and, on his refusal to yield,
      struck him on the arm with his sword. The arm, and the standard,
      sunk under the weight of the blow; and the imaginary act of
      submission was hastily repeated by all the standards of the line.
      At this the disaffected cohorts proclaimed the name of their
      lawful sovereign; the Barbarians, astonished by the defection of
      their Roman allies, dispersed, according to their custom, in
      tumultuary flight; and Mascezel obtained the of an easy, and
      almost bloodless, victory. 51 The tyrant escaped from the field
      of battle to the sea-shore; and threw himself into a small
      vessel, with the hope of reaching in safety some friendly port of
      the empire of the East; but the obstinacy of the wind drove him
      back into the harbor of Tabraca, 52 which had acknowledged, with
      the rest of the province, the dominion of Honorius, and the
      authority of his lieutenant. The inhabitants, as a proof of their
      repentance and loyalty, seized and confined the person of Gildo
      in a dungeon; and his own despair saved him from the intolerable
      torture of supporting the presence of an injured and victorious
      brother. 53 The captives and the spoils of Africa were laid at
      the feet of the emperor; but more sincere, in the midst of
      prosperity, still affected to consult the laws of the republic;
      and referred to the senate and people of Rome the judgment of the
      most illustrious criminals. 54 Their trial was public and solemn;
      but the judges, in the exercise of this obsolete and precarious
      jurisdiction, were impatient to punish the African magistrates,
      who had intercepted the subsistence of the Roman people. The rich
      and guilty province was oppressed by the Imperial ministers, who
      had a visible interest to multiply the number of the accomplices
      of Gildo; and if an edict of Honorius seems to check the
      malicious industry of informers, a subsequent edict, at the
      distance of ten years, continues and renews the prosecution of
      the offences which had been committed in the time of the general
      rebellion. 55 The adherents of the tyrant who escaped the first
      fury of the soldiers, and the judges, might derive some
      consolation from the tragic fate of his brother, who could never
      obtain his pardon for the extraordinary services which he had
      performed. After he had finished an important war in the space of
      a single winter, Mascezel was received at the court of Milan with
      loud applause, affected gratitude, and secret jealousy; 56 and
      his death, which, perhaps, was the effect of passage of a bridge,
      the Moorish prince, who accompanied the master-general of the
      West, was suddenly thrown from his horse into the river; the
      officious haste of the attendants was on the countenance of
      Stilicho; and while they delayed the necessary assistance, the
      unfortunate Mascezel was irrecoverably drowned. 57

      49 (return) [ Orosius must be responsible for the account. The
      presumption of Gildo and his various train of Barbarians is
      celebrated by Claudian, Cons. Stil. l. i. 345-355.]

      50 (return) [ St. Ambrose, who had been dead about a year,
      revealed, in a vision, the time and place of the victory.
      Mascezel afterwards related his dream to Paulinus, the original
      biographer of the saint, from whom it might easily pass to
      Orosius.]

      51 (return) [ Zosimus (l. v. p. 303) supposes an obstinate
      combat; but the narrative of Orosius appears to conceal a real
      fact, under the disguise of a miracle.]

      52 (return) [ Tabraca lay between the two Hippos, (Cellarius,
      tom. ii. p. 112; D’Anville, tom. iii. p. 84.) Orosius has
      distinctly named the field of battle, but our ignorance cannot
      define the precise situation.]

      53 (return) [ The death of Gildo is expressed by Claudian (i.
      Cons. Stil. 357) and his best interpreters, Zosimus and Orosius.]

      54 (return) [ Claudian (ii. Cons. Stilich. 99-119) describes
      their trial (tremuit quos Africa nuper, cernunt rostra reos,) and
      applauds the restoration of the ancient constitution. It is here
      that he introduces the famous sentence, so familiar to the
      friends of despotism:

    —-Nunquam libertas gratior exstat, Quam sub rege pio.

      But the freedom which depends on royal piety, scarcely deserves
      appellation]

      55 (return) [ See the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. xxxix. leg. 3,
      tit. xl. leg. 19.]

      56 (return) [ Stilicho, who claimed an equal share in all the
      victories of Theodosius and his son, particularly asserts, that
      Africa was recovered by the wisdom of his counsels, (see an
      inscription produced by Baronius.)]

      57 (return) [ I have softened the narrative of Zosimus, which, in
      its crude simplicity, is almost incredible, (l. v. p. 303.)
      Orosius damns the victorious general (p. 538) for violating the
      right of sanctuary.]

      The joy of the African triumph was happily connected with the
      nuptials of the emperor Honorius, and of his cousin Maria, the
      daughter of Stilicho: and this equal and honorable alliance
      seemed to invest the powerful minister with the authority of a
      parent over his submissive pupil. The muse of Claudian was not
      silent on this propitious day; 58 he sung, in various and lively
      strains, the happiness of the royal pair; and the glory of the
      hero, who confirmed their union, and supported their throne. The
      ancient fables of Greece, which had almost ceased to be the
      object of religious faith, were saved from oblivion by the genius
      of poetry. The picture of the Cyprian grove, the seat of harmony
      and love; the triumphant progress of Venus over her native seas,
      and the mild influence which her presence diffused in the palace
      of Milan, express to every age the natural sentiments of the
      heart, in the just and pleasing language of allegorical fiction.
      But the amorous impatience which Claudian attributes to the young
      prince, 59 must excite the smiles of the court; and his beauteous
      spouse (if she deserved the praise of beauty) had not much to
      fear or to hope from the passions of her lover. Honorius was only
      in the fourteenth year of his age; Serena, the mother of his
      bride, deferred, by art of persuasion, the consummation of the
      royal nuptials; Maria died a virgin, after she had been ten years
      a wife; and the chastity of the emperor was secured by the
      coldness, perhaps, the debility,of his constitution. 60 His
      subjects, who attentively studied the character of their young
      sovereign, discovered that Honorius was without passions, and
      consequently without talents; and that his feeble and languid
      disposition was alike incapable of discharging the duties of his
      rank, or of enjoying the pleasures of his age. In his early youth
      he made some progress in the exercises of riding and drawing the
      bow: but he soon relinquished these fatiguing occupations, and
      the amusement of feeding poultry became the serious and daily
      care of the monarch of the West, 61 who resigned the reins of
      empire to the firm and skilful hand of his guardian Stilicho. The
      experience of history will countenance the suspicion that a
      prince who was born in the purple, received a worse education
      than the meanest peasant of his dominions; and that the ambitious
      minister suffered him to attain the age of manhood, without
      attempting to excite his courage, or to enlighten his under
      standing. 62 The predecessors of Honorius were accustomed to
      animate by their example, or at least by their presence, the
      valor of the legions; and the dates of their laws attest the
      perpetual activity of their motions through the provinces of the
      Roman world. But the son of Theodosius passed the slumber of his
      life, a captive in his palace, a stranger in his country, and the
      patient, almost the indifferent, spectator of the ruin of the
      Western empire, which was repeatedly attacked, and finally
      subverted, by the arms of the Barbarians. In the eventful history
      of a reign of twenty-eight years, it will seldom be necessary to
      mention the name of the emperor Honorius.

      58 (return) [ Claudian,as the poet laureate, composed a serious
      and elaborate epithalamium of 340 lines; besides some gay
      Fescennines, which were sung, in a more licentious tone, on the
      wedding night.]

      59 (return) [

     Calet obvius ire Jam princeps, tardumque cupit discedere solem.
     Nobilis haud aliter sonipes.

      (De Nuptiis Honor. et Mariae, and more freely in the Fescennines
      112-116)

     Dices, O quoties,hoc mihi dulcius Quam flavos decics vincere
     Sarmatas. .... Tum victor madido prosilias toro, Nocturni referens
     vulnera proelii.]

      60 (return) [ See Zosimus, l. v. p. 333.]

      61 (return) [ Procopius de Bell. Gothico, l. i. c. 2. I have
      borrowed the general practice of Honorius, without adopting the
      singular, and indeed improbable tale, which is related by the
      Greek historian.]

      62 (return) [ The lessons of Theodosius, or rather Claudian, (iv.
      Cons. Honor 214-418,) might compose a fine institution for the
      future prince of a great and free nation. It was far above
      Honorius, and his degenerate subjects.]




      Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part I.

     Revolt Of The Goths.—They Plunder Greece.—Two Great Invasions Of
     Italy By Alaric And Radagaisus.—They Are Repulsed By Stilicho.—The
     Germans Overrun Gaul.—Usurpation Of Constantine In The
     West.—Disgrace And Death Of Stilicho.

      If the subjects of Rome could be ignorant of their obligations to
      the great Theodosius, they were too soon convinced, how painfully
      the spirit and abilities of their deceased emperor had supported
      the frail and mouldering edifice of the republic. He died in the
      month of January; and before the end of the winter of the same
      year, the Gothic nation was in arms. 1 The Barbarian auxiliaries
      erected their independent standard; and boldly avowed the hostile
      designs, which they had long cherished in their ferocious minds.
      Their countrymen, who had been condemned, by the conditions of
      the last treaty, to a life of tranquility and labor, deserted
      their farms at the first sound of the trumpet; and eagerly
      resumed the weapons which they had reluctantly laid down. The
      barriers of the Danube were thrown open; the savage warriors of
      Scythia issued from their forests; and the uncommon severity of
      the winter allowed the poet to remark, “that they rolled their
      ponderous wagons over the broad and icy back of the indignant
      river.“ 2 The unhappy natives of the provinces to the south of
      the Danube submitted to the calamities, which, in the course of
      twenty years, were almost grown familiar to their imagination;
      and the various troops of Barbarians, who gloried in the Gothic
      name, were irregularly spread from woody shores of Dalmatia, to
      the walls of Constantinople. 3 The interruption, or at least the
      diminution, of the subsidy, which the Goths had received from the
      prudent liberality of Theodosius, was the specious pretence of
      their revolt: the affront was imbittered by their contempt for
      the unwarlike sons of Theodosius; and their resentment was
      inflamed by the weakness, or treachery, of the minister of
      Arcadius. The frequent visits of Rufinus to the camp of the
      Barbarians whose arms and apparel he affected to imitate, were
      considered as a sufficient evidence of his guilty correspondence,
      and the public enemy, from a motive either of gratitude or of
      policy, was attentive, amidst the general devastation, to spare
      the private estates of the unpopular praefect. The Goths, instead
      of being impelled by the blind and headstrong passions of their
      chiefs, were now directed by the bold and artful genius of
      Alaric. That renowned leader was descended from the noble race of
      the Balti; 4 which yielded only to the royal dignity of the
      Amali: he had solicited the command of the Roman armies; and the
      Imperial court provoked him to demonstrate the folly of their
      refusal, and the importance of their loss. Whatever hopes might
      be entertained of the conquest of Constantinople, the judicious
      general soon abandoned an impracticable enterprise. In the midst
      of a divided court and a discontented people, the emperor
      Arcadius was terrified by the aspect of the Gothic arms; but the
      want of wisdom and valor was supplied by the strength of the
      city; and the fortifications, both of the sea and land, might
      securely brave the impotent and random darts of the Barbarians.
      Alaric disdained to trample any longer on the prostrate and
      ruined countries of Thrace and Dacia, and he resolved to seek a
      plentiful harvest of fame and riches in a province which had
      hitherto escaped the ravages of war. 5

      1 (return) [ The revolt of the Goths, and the blockade of
      Constantinople, are distinctly mentioned by Claudian, (in Rufin.
      l. ii. 7-100,) Zosimus, (l. v. 292,) and Jornandes, (de Rebus
      Geticis, c. 29.)]

      2 (return) [—

     Alii per toga ferocis Danubii solidata ruunt; expertaque remis
     Frangunt stagna rotis.

      Claudian and Ovid often amuse their fancy by interchanging the
      metaphors and properties of liquid water, and solid ice. Much
      false wit has been expended in this easy exercise.]

      3 (return) [ Jerom, tom. i. p. 26. He endeavors to comfort his
      friend Heliodorus, bishop of Altinum, for the loss of his nephew,
      Nepotian, by a curious recapitulation of all the public and
      private misfortunes of the times. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles.
      tom. xii. p. 200, &c.]

      4 (return) [ Baltha or bold: origo mirifica, says Jornandes, (c.
      29.) This illustrious race long continued to flourish in France,
      in the Gothic province of Septimania, or Languedoc; under the
      corrupted appellation of Boax; and a branch of that family
      afterwards settled in the kingdom of Naples (Grotius in Prolegom.
      ad Hist. Gothic. p. 53.) The lords of Baux, near Arles, and of
      seventy-nine subordinate places, were independent of the counts
      of Provence, (Longuerue, Description de la France, tom. i. p.
      357).]

      5 (return) [ Zosimus (l. v. p. 293-295) is our best guide for the
      conquest of Greece: but the hints and allusion of Claudian are so
      many rays of historic light.]

      The character of the civil and military officers, on whom Rufinus
      had devolved the government of Greece, confirmed the public
      suspicion, that he had betrayed the ancient seat of freedom and
      learning to the Gothic invader. The proconsul Antiochus was the
      unworthy son of a respectable father; and Gerontius, who
      commanded the provincial troops, was much better qualified to
      execute the oppressive orders of a tyrant, than to defend, with
      courage and ability, a country most remarkably fortified by the
      hand of nature. Alaric had traversed, without resistance, the
      plains of Macedonia and Thessaly, as far as the foot of Mount
      Oeta, a steep and woody range of hills, almost impervious to his
      cavalry. They stretched from east to west, to the edge of the
      sea-shore; and left, between the precipice and the Malian Gulf,
      an interval of three hundred feet, which, in some places, was
      contracted to a road capable of admitting only a single carriage.
      6 In this narrow pass of Thermopylae, where Leonidas and the
      three hundred Spartans had gloriously devoted their lives, the
      Goths might have been stopped, or destroyed, by a skilful
      general; and perhaps the view of that sacred spot might have
      kindled some sparks of military ardor in the breasts of the
      degenerate Greeks. The troops which had been posted to defend the
      Straits of Thermopylae, retired, as they were directed, without
      attempting to disturb the secure and rapid passage of Alaric; 7
      and the fertile fields of Phocis and Boeotia were instantly
      covered by a deluge of Barbarians who massacred the males of an
      age to bear arms, and drove away the beautiful females, with the
      spoil and cattle of the flaming villages. The travellers, who
      visited Greece several years afterwards, could easily discover
      the deep and bloody traces of the march of the Goths; and Thebes
      was less indebted for her preservation to the strength of her
      seven gates, than to the eager haste of Alaric, who advanced to
      occupy the city of Athens, and the important harbor of the
      Piraeus. The same impatience urged him to prevent the delay and
      danger of a siege, by the offer of a capitulation; and as soon as
      the Athenians heard the voice of the Gothic herald, they were
      easily persuaded to deliver the greatest part of their wealth, as
      the ransom of the city of Minerva and its inhabitants. The treaty
      was ratified by solemn oaths, and observed with mutual fidelity.
      The Gothic prince, with a small and select train, was admitted
      within the walls; he indulged himself in the refreshment of the
      bath, accepted a splendid banquet, which was provided by the
      magistrate, and affected to show that he was not ignorant of the
      manners of civilized nations. 8 But the whole territory of
      Attica, from the promontory of Sunium to the town of Megara, was
      blasted by his baleful presence; and, if we may use the
      comparison of a contemporary philosopher, Athens itself resembled
      the bleeding and empty skin of a slaughtered victim. The distance
      between Megara and Corinth could not much exceed thirty miles;
      but the bad road, an expressive name, which it still bears among
      the Greeks, was, or might easily have been made, impassable for
      the march of an enemy. The thick and gloomy woods of Mount
      Cithaeron covered the inland country; the Scironian rocks
      approached the water’s edge, and hung over the narrow and winding
      path, which was confined above six miles along the sea-shore. 9
      The passage of those rocks, so infamous in every age, was
      terminated by the Isthmus of Corinth; and a small a body of firm
      and intrepid soldiers might have successfully defended a
      temporary intrenchment of five or six miles from the Ionian to
      the Aegean Sea. The confidence of the cities of Peloponnesus in
      their natural rampart, had tempted them to neglect the care of
      their antique walls; and the avarice of the Roman governors had
      exhausted and betrayed the unhappy province. 10 Corinth, Argos,
      Sparta, yielded without resistance to the arms of the Goths; and
      the most fortunate of the inhabitants were saved, by death, from
      beholding the slavery of their families and the conflagration of
      their cities. 11 The vases and statues were distributed among the
      Barbarians, with more regard to the value of the materials, than
      to the elegance of the workmanship; the female captives submitted
      to the laws of war; the enjoyment of beauty was the reward of
      valor; and the Greeks could not reasonably complain of an abuse
      which was justified by the example of the heroic times. 12 The
      descendants of that extraordinary people, who had considered
      valor and discipline as the walls of Sparta, no longer remembered
      the generous reply of their ancestors to an invader more
      formidable than Alaric. “If thou art a god, thou wilt not hurt
      those who have never injured thee; if thou art a man,
      advance:—and thou wilt find men equal to thyself.“ 13 From
      Thermopylae to Sparta, the leader of the Goths pursued his
      victorious march without encountering any mortal antagonists: but
      one of the advocates of expiring Paganism has confidently
      asserted, that the walls of Athens were guarded by the goddess
      Minerva, with her formidable Aegis, and by the angry phantom of
      Achilles; 14 and that the conqueror was dismayed by the presence
      of the hostile deities of Greece. In an age of miracles, it would
      perhaps be unjust to dispute the claim of the historian Zosimus
      to the common benefit: yet it cannot be dissembled, that the mind
      of Alaric was ill prepared to receive, either in sleeping or
      waking visions, the impressions of Greek superstition. The songs
      of Homer, and the fame of Achilles, had probably never reached
      the ear of the illiterate Barbarian; and the Christian faith,
      which he had devoutly embraced, taught him to despise the
      imaginary deities of Rome and Athens. The invasion of the Goths,
      instead of vindicating the honor, contributed, at least
      accidentally, to extirpate the last remains of Paganism: and the
      mysteries of Ceres, which had subsisted eighteen hundred years,
      did not survive the destruction of Eleusis, and the calamities of
      Greece. 15

      6 (return) [ Compare Herodotus (l. vii. c. 176) and Livy, (xxxvi.
      15.) The narrow entrance of Greece was probably enlarged by each
      successive ravisher.]

      7 (return) [ He passed, says Eunapius, (in Vit. Philosoph. p. 93,
      edit. Commelin, 1596,) through the straits, of Thermopylae.]

      8 (return) [ In obedience to Jerom and Claudian, (in Rufin. l.
      ii. 191,) I have mixed some darker colors in the mild
      representation of Zosimus, who wished to soften the calamities of
      Athens.

     Nec fera Cecropias traxissent vincula matres.

      Synesius (Epist. clvi. p. 272, edit. Petav.) observes, that
      Athens, whose sufferings he imputes to the proconsul’s avarice,
      was at that time less famous for her schools of philosophy than
      for her trade of honey.]

      9 (return) [—

     Vallata mari Scironia rupes, Et duo continuo connectens aequora
     muro Isthmos. —Claudian de Bel. Getico, 188.

      The Scironian rocks are described by Pausanias, (l. i. c. 44, p.
      107, edit. Kuhn,) and our modern travellers, Wheeler (p. 436) and
      Chandler, (p. 298.) Hadrian made the road passable for two
      carriages.]

      10 (return) [ Claudian (in Rufin. l. ii. 186, and de Bello
      Getico, 611, &c.) vaguely, though forcibly, delineates the scene
      of rapine and destruction.]

      11 (return) [ These generous lines of Homer (Odyss. l. v. 306)
      were transcribed by one of the captive youths of Corinth: and the
      tears of Mummius may prove that the rude conqueror, though he was
      ignorant of the value of an original picture, possessed the
      purest source of good taste, a benevolent heart, (Plutarch,
      Symposiac. l. ix. tom. ii. p. 737, edit. Wechel.)]

      12 (return) [ Homer perpetually describes the exemplary patience
      of those female captives, who gave their charms, and even their
      hearts, to the murderers of their fathers, brothers, &c. Such a
      passion (of Eriphile for Achilles) is touched with admirable
      delicacy by Racine.]

      13 (return) [ Plutarch (in Pyrrho, tom. ii. p. 474, edit. Brian)
      gives the genuine answer in the Laconic dialect. Pyrrhus attacked
      Sparta with 25,000 foot, 2000 horse, and 24 elephants, and the
      defence of that open town is a fine comment on the laws of
      Lycurgus, even in the last stage of decay.]

      14 (return) [ Such, perhaps, as Homer (Iliad, xx. 164) had so
      nobly painted him.]

      15 (return) [ Eunapius (in Vit. Philosoph. p. 90-93) intimates
      that a troop of monks betrayed Greece, and followed the Gothic
      camp. * Note: The expression is curious: Vit. Max. t. i. p. 53,
      edit. Boissonade.—M.]

      The last hope of a people who could no longer depend on their
      arms, their gods, or their sovereign, was placed in the powerful
      assistance of the general of the West; and Stilicho, who had not
      been permitted to repulse, advanced to chastise, the invaders of
      Greece. 16 A numerous fleet was equipped in the ports of Italy;
      and the troops, after a short and prosperous navigation over the
      Ionian Sea, were safely disembarked on the isthmus, near the
      ruins of Corinth. The woody and mountainous country of Arcadia,
      the fabulous residence of Pan and the Dryads, became the scene of
      a long and doubtful conflict between the two generals not
      unworthy of each other. The skill and perseverance of the Roman
      at length prevailed; and the Goths, after sustaining a
      considerable loss from disease and desertion, gradually retreated
      to the lofty mountain of Pholoe, near the sources of the Peneus,
      and on the frontiers of Elis; a sacred country, which had
      formerly been exempted from the calamities of war. 17 The camp of
      the Barbarians was immediately besieged; the waters of the river
      18 were diverted into another channel; and while they labored
      under the intolerable pressure of thirst and hunger, a strong
      line of circumvallation was formed to prevent their escape. After
      these precautions, Stilicho, too confident of victory, retired to
      enjoy his triumph, in the theatrical games, and lascivious
      dances, of the Greeks; his soldiers, deserting their standards,
      spread themselves over the country of their allies, which they
      stripped of all that had been saved from the rapacious hands of
      the enemy. Alaric appears to have seized the favorable moment to
      execute one of those hardy enterprises, in which the abilities of
      a general are displayed with more genuine lustre, than in the
      tumult of a day of battle. To extricate himself from the prison
      of Peloponnesus, it was necessary that he should pierce the
      intrenchments which surrounded his camp; that he should perform a
      difficult and dangerous march of thirty miles, as far as the Gulf
      of Corinth; and that he should transport his troops, his
      captives, and his spoil, over an arm of the sea, which, in the
      narrow interval between Rhium and the opposite shore, is at least
      half a mile in breadth. 19 The operations of Alaric must have
      been secret, prudent, and rapid; since the Roman general was
      confounded by the intelligence, that the Goths, who had eluded
      his efforts, were in full possession of the important province of
      Epirus. This unfortunate delay allowed Alaric sufficient time to
      conclude the treaty, which he secretly negotiated, with the
      ministers of Constantinople. The apprehension of a civil war
      compelled Stilicho to retire, at the haughty mandate of his
      rivals, from the dominions of Arcadius; and he respected, in the
      enemy of Rome, the honorable character of the ally and servant of
      the emperor of the East.

      16 (return) [ For Stilicho’s Greek war, compare the honest
      narrative of Zosimus (l. v. p. 295, 296) with the curious
      circumstantial flattery of Claudian, (i. Cons. Stilich. l. i.
      172-186, iv. Cons. Hon. 459-487.) As the event was not glorious,
      it is artfully thrown into the shade.]

      17 (return) [ The troops who marched through Elis delivered up
      their arms. This security enriched the Eleans, who were lovers of
      a rural life. Riches begat pride: they disdained their privilege,
      and they suffered. Polybius advises them to retire once more
      within their magic circle. See a learned and judicious discourse
      on the Olympic games, which Mr. West has prefixed to his
      translation of Pindar.]

      18 (return) [ Claudian (in iv. Cons. Hon. 480) alludes to the
      fact without naming the river; perhaps the Alpheus, (i. Cons.
      Stil. l. i. 185.)

   —-Et Alpheus Geticis angustus acervis Tardior ad Siculos etiamnum
   pergit amores.

      Yet I should prefer the Peneus, a shallow stream in a wide and
      deep bed, which runs through Elis, and falls into the sea below
      Cyllene. It had been joined with the Alpheus to cleanse the
      Augean stable. (Cellarius, tom. i. p. 760. Chandler’s Travels, p.
      286.)]

      19 (return) [ Strabo, l. viii. p. 517. Plin. Hist. Natur. iv. 3.
      Wheeler, p. 308. Chandler, p. 275. They measured from different
      points the distance between the two lands.]

      A Grecian philosopher, 20 who visited Constantinople soon after
      the death of Theodosius, published his liberal opinions
      concerning the duties of kings, and the state of the Roman
      republic. Synesius observes, and deplores, the fatal abuse, which
      the imprudent bounty of the late emperor had introduced into the
      military service. The citizens and subjects had purchased an
      exemption from the indispensable duty of defending their country;
      which was supported by the arms of Barbarian mercenaries. The
      fugitives of Scythia were permitted to disgrace the illustrious
      dignities of the empire; their ferocious youth, who disdained the
      salutary restraint of laws, were more anxious to acquire the
      riches, than to imitate the arts, of a people, the object of
      their contempt and hatred; and the power of the Goths was the
      stone of Tantalus, perpetually suspended over the peace and
      safety of the devoted state. The measures which Synesius
      recommends, are the dictates of a bold and generous patriot. He
      exhorts the emperor to revive the courage of his subjects, by the
      example of manly virtue; to banish luxury from the court and from
      the camp; to substitute, in the place of the Barbarian
      mercenaries, an army of men, interested in the defence of their
      laws and of their property; to force, in such a moment of public
      danger, the mechanic from his shop, and the philosopher from his
      school; to rouse the indolent citizen from his dream of pleasure,
      and to arm, for the protection of agriculture, the hands of the
      laborious husbandman. At the head of such troops, who might
      deserve the name, and would display the spirit, of Romans, he
      animates the son of Theodosius to encounter a race of Barbarians,
      who were destitute of any real courage; and never to lay down his
      arms, till he had chased them far away into the solitudes of
      Scythia; or had reduced them to the state of ignominious
      servitude, which the Lacedaemonians formerly imposed on the
      captive Helots. 21 The court of Arcadius indulged the zeal,
      applauded the eloquence, and neglected the advice, of Synesius.
      Perhaps the philosopher who addresses the emperor of the East in
      the language of reason and virtue, which he might have used to a
      Spartan king, had not condescended to form a practicable scheme,
      consistent with the temper, and circumstances, of a degenerate
      age. Perhaps the pride of the ministers, whose business was
      seldom interrupted by reflection, might reject, as wild and
      visionary, every proposal, which exceeded the measure of their
      capacity, and deviated from the forms and precedents of office.
      While the oration of Synesius, and the downfall of the
      Barbarians, were the topics of popular conversation, an edict was
      published at Constantinople, which declared the promotion of
      Alaric to the rank of master-general of the Eastern Illyricum.
      The Roman provincials, and the allies, who had respected the
      faith of treaties, were justly indignant, that the ruin of Greece
      and Epirus should be so liberally rewarded. The Gothic conqueror
      was received as a lawful magistrate, in the cities which he had
      so lately besieged. The fathers, whose sons he had massacred, the
      husbands, whose wives he had violated, were subject to his
      authority; and the success of his rebellion encouraged the
      ambition of every leader of the foreign mercenaries. The use to
      which Alaric applied his new command, distinguishes the firm and
      judicious character of his policy. He issued his orders to the
      four magazines and manufactures of offensive and defensive arms,
      Margus, Ratiaria, Naissus, and Thessalonica, to provide his
      troops with an extraordinary supply of shields, helmets, swords,
      and spears; the unhappy provincials were compelled to forge the
      instruments of their own destruction; and the Barbarians removed
      the only defect which had sometimes disappointed the efforts of
      their courage. 22 The birth of Alaric, the glory of his past
      exploits, and the confidence in his future designs, insensibly
      united the body of the nation under his victorious standard; and,
      with the unanimous consent of the Barbarian chieftains, the
      master-general of Illyricum was elevated, according to ancient
      custom, on a shield, and solemnly proclaimed king of the
      Visigoths. 23 Armed with this double power, seated on the verge
      of the two empires, he alternately sold his deceitful promises to
      the courts of Arcadius and Honorius; till he declared and
      executed his resolution of invading the dominions of the West.
      The provinces of Europe which belonged to the Eastern emperor,
      were already exhausted; those of Asia were inaccessible; and the
      strength of Constantinople had resisted his attack. But he was
      tempted by the fame, the beauty, the wealth of Italy, which he
      had twice visited; and he secretly aspired to plant the Gothic
      standard on the walls of Rome, and to enrich his army with the
      accumulated spoils of three hundred triumphs. 25

      20 (return) [ Synesius passed three years (A.D. 397-400) at
      Constantinople, as deputy from Cyrene to the emperor Arcadius. He
      presented him with a crown of gold, and pronounced before him the
      instructive oration de Regno, (p. 1-32, edit. Petav. Paris,
      1612.) The philosopher was made bishop of Ptolemais, A.D. 410,
      and died about 430. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 490,
      554, 683-685.]

      21 (return) [ Synesius de Regno, p. 21-26.]

      22 (return) [—qui foedera rumpit

      Ditatur: qui servat, eget: vastator Achivae Gentis, et Epirum
      nuper populatus inultam, Praesidet Illyrico: jam, quos obsedit,
      amicos Ingreditur muros; illis responsa daturus, Quorum
      conjugibus potitur, natosque peremit.

      Claudian in Eutrop. l. ii. 212. Alaric applauds his own policy
      (de Bell Getic. 533-543) in the use which he had made of this
      Illyrian jurisdiction.]

      23 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 29, p. 651. The Gothic historian
      adds, with unusual spirit, Cum suis deliberans suasit suo labore
      quaerere regna, quam alienis per otium subjacere.

     Discors odiisque anceps civilibus orbis, Non sua vis tutata diu,
     dum foedera fallax Ludit, et alternae perjuria venditat aulae.
     —-Claudian de Bell. Get. 565]

      25 (return) [ Alpibus Italiae ruptis penetrabis ad Urbem. This
      authentic prediction was announced by Alaric, or at least by
      Claudian, (de Bell. Getico, 547,) seven years before the event.
      But as it was not accomplished within the term which has been
      rashly fixed the interpreters escaped through an ambiguous
      meaning.]

      The scarcity of facts, 26 and the uncertainty of dates, 27 oppose
      our attempts to describe the circumstances of the first invasion
      of Italy by the arms of Alaric. His march, perhaps from
      Thessalonica, through the warlike and hostile country of
      Pannonia, as far as the foot of the Julian Alps; his passage of
      those mountains, which were strongly guarded by troops and
      intrenchments; the siege of Aquileia, and the conquest of the
      provinces of Istria and Venetia, appear to have employed a
      considerable time. Unless his operations were extremely cautious
      and slow, the length of the interval would suggest a probable
      suspicion, that the Gothic king retreated towards the banks of
      the Danube; and reenforced his army with fresh swarms of
      Barbarians, before he again attempted to penetrate into the heart
      of Italy. Since the public and important events escape the
      diligence of the historian, he may amuse himself with
      contemplating, for a moment, the influence of the arms of Alaric
      on the fortunes of two obscure individuals, a presbyter of
      Aquileia and a husbandman of Verona. The learned Rufinus, who was
      summoned by his enemies to appear before a Roman synod, 28 wisely
      preferred the dangers of a besieged city; and the Barbarians, who
      furiously shook the walls of Aquileia, might save him from the
      cruel sentence of another heretic, who, at the request of the
      same bishops, was severely whipped, and condemned to perpetual
      exile on a desert island. 29 The old man, 30 who had passed his
      simple and innocent life in the neighborhood of Verona, was a
      stranger to the quarrels both of kings and of bishops; his
      pleasures, his desires, his knowledge, were confined within the
      little circle of his paternal farm; and a staff supported his
      aged steps, on the same ground where he had sported in his
      infancy. Yet even this humble and rustic felicity (which Claudian
      describes with so much truth and feeling) was still exposed to
      the undistinguishing rage of war. His trees, his old contemporary
      trees, 31 must blaze in the conflagration of the whole country; a
      detachment of Gothic cavalry might sweep away his cottage and his
      family; and the power of Alaric could destroy this happiness,
      which he was not able either to taste or to bestow. “Fame,“ says
      the poet, “encircling with terror her gloomy wings, proclaimed
      the march of the Barbarian army, and filled Italy with
      consternation:” the apprehensions of each individual were
      increased in just proportion to the measure of his fortune: and
      the most timid, who had already embarked their valuable effects,
      meditated their escape to the Island of Sicily, or the African
      coast. The public distress was aggravated by the fears and
      reproaches of superstition. 32 Every hour produced some horrid
      tale of strange and portentous accidents; the Pagans deplored the
      neglect of omens, and the interruption of sacrifices; but the
      Christians still derived some comfort from the powerful
      intercession of the saints and martyrs. 33

      26 (return) [ Our best materials are 970 verses of Claudian in
      the poem on the Getic war, and the beginning of that which
      celebrates the sixth consulship of Honorius. Zosimus is totally
      silent; and we are reduced to such scraps, or rather crumbs, as
      we can pick from Orosius and the Chronicles.]

      27 (return) [ Notwithstanding the gross errors of Jornandes, who
      confounds the Italian wars of Alaric, (c. 29,) his date of the
      consulship of Stilicho and Aurelian (A.D. 400) is firm and
      respectable. It is certain from Claudian (Tillemont, Hist. des
      Emp. tom. v. p. 804) that the battle of Polentia was fought A.D.
      403; but we cannot easily fill the interval.]

      28 (return) [ Tantum Romanae urbis judicium fugis, ut magis
      obsidionem barbaricam, quam pacatoe urbis judicium velis
      sustinere. Jerom, tom. ii. p. 239. Rufinus understood his own
      danger; the peaceful city was inflamed by the beldam Marcella,
      and the rest of Jerom’s faction.]

      29 (return) [ Jovinian, the enemy of fasts and of celibacy, who
      was persecuted and insulted by the furious Jerom, (Jortin’s
      Remarks, vol. iv. p. 104, &c.) See the original edict of
      banishment in the Theodosian Code, xvi. tit. v. leg. 43.]

      30 (return) [ This epigram (de Sene Veronensi qui suburbium
      nusquam egres sus est) is one of the earliest and most pleasing
      compositions of Claudian. Cowley’s imitation (Hurd’s edition,
      vol. ii. p. 241) has some natural and happy strokes: but it is
      much inferior to the original portrait, which is evidently drawn
      from the life.]

      31 (return) [

     Ingentem meminit parvo qui germine quercum Aequaevumque videt
     consenuisse nemus.
     A neighboring wood born with himself he sees, And loves his old
     contemporary trees.

      In this passage, Cowley is perhaps superior to his original; and
      the English poet, who was a good botanist, has concealed the oaks
      under a more general expression.]

      32 (return) [ Claudian de Bell. Get. 199-266. He may seem prolix:
      but fear and superstition occupied as large a space in the minds
      of the Italians.]

      33 (return) [ From the passages of Paulinus, which Baronius has
      produced, (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 403, No. 51,) it is manifest that
      the general alarm had pervaded all Italy, as far as Nola in
      Campania, where that famous penitent had fixed his abode.]




      Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part II.

      The emperor Honorius was distinguished, above his subjects, by
      the preeminence of fear, as well as of rank. The pride and luxury
      in which he was educated, had not allowed him to suspect, that
      there existed on the earth any power presumptuous enough to
      invade the repose of the successor of Augustus. The arts of
      flattery concealed the impending danger, till Alaric approached
      the palace of Milan. But when the sound of war had awakened the
      young emperor, instead of flying to arms with the spirit, or even
      the rashness, of his age, he eagerly listened to those timid
      counsellors, who proposed to convey his sacred person, and his
      faithful attendants, to some secure and distant station in the
      provinces of Gaul. Stilicho alone 34 had courage and authority to
      resist his disgraceful measure, which would have abandoned Rome
      and Italy to the Barbarians; but as the troops of the palace had
      been lately detached to the Rhaetian frontier, and as the
      resource of new levies was slow and precarious, the general of
      the West could only promise, that if the court of Milan would
      maintain their ground during his absence, he would soon return
      with an army equal to the encounter of the Gothic king. Without
      losing a moment, (while each moment was so important to the
      public safety,) Stilicho hastily embarked on the Larian Lake,
      ascended the mountains of ice and snow, amidst the severity of an
      Alpine winter, and suddenly repressed, by his unexpected
      presence, the enemy, who had disturbed the tranquillity of
      Rhaetia. 35 The Barbarians, perhaps some tribes of the Alemanni,
      respected the firmness of a chief, who still assumed the language
      of command; and the choice which he condescended to make, of a
      select number of their bravest youth, was considered as a mark of
      his esteem and favor. The cohorts, who were delivered from the
      neighboring foe, diligently repaired to the Imperial standard;
      and Stilicho issued his orders to the most remote troops of the
      West, to advance, by rapid marches, to the defence of Honorius
      and of Italy. The fortresses of the Rhine were abandoned; and the
      safety of Gaul was protected only by the faith of the Germans,
      and the ancient terror of the Roman name. Even the legion, which
      had been stationed to guard the wall of Britain against the
      Caledonians of the North, was hastily recalled; 36 and a numerous
      body of the cavalry of the Alani was persuaded to engage in the
      service of the emperor, who anxiously expected the return of his
      general. The prudence and vigor of Stilicho were conspicuous on
      this occasion, which revealed, at the same time, the weakness of
      the falling empire. The legions of Rome, which had long since
      languished in the gradual decay of discipline and courage, were
      exterminated by the Gothic and civil wars; and it was found
      impossible, without exhausting and exposing the provinces, to
      assemble an army for the defence of Italy.

      34 (return) [ Solus erat Stilicho, &c., is the exclusive
      commendation which Claudian bestows, (del Bell. Get. 267,)
      without condescending to except the emperor. How insignificant
      must Honorius have appeared in his own court.]

      35 (return) [ The face of the country, and the hardiness of
      Stilicho, are finely described, (de Bell. Get. 340-363.)]

      36 (return) [

    Venit et extremis legio praetenta Britannis, Quae Scoto dat frena
    truci. —-De Bell. Get. 416.

      Yet the most rapid march from Edinburgh, or Newcastle, to Milan,
      must have required a longer space of time than Claudian seems
      willing to allow for the duration of the Gothic war.]




      Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part III.

      When Stilicho seemed to abandon his sovereign in the unguarded
      palace of Milan, he had probably calculated the term of his
      absence, the distance of the enemy, and the obstacles that might
      retard their march. He principally depended on the rivers of
      Italy, the Adige, the Mincius, the Oglio, and the Addua, which,
      in the winter or spring, by the fall of rains, or by the melting
      of the snows, are commonly swelled into broad and impetuous
      torrents. 37 But the season happened to be remarkably dry: and
      the Goths could traverse, without impediment, the wide and stony
      beds, whose centre was faintly marked by the course of a shallow
      stream. The bridge and passage of the Addua were secured by a
      strong detachment of the Gothic army; and as Alaric approached
      the walls, or rather the suburbs, of Milan, he enjoyed the proud
      satisfaction of seeing the emperor of the Romans fly before him.
      Honorius, accompanied by a feeble train of statesmen and eunuchs,
      hastily retreated towards the Alps, with a design of securing his
      person in the city of Arles, which had often been the royal
      residence of his predecessors. 3711 But Honorius 38 had scarcely
      passed the Po, before he was overtaken by the speed of the Gothic
      cavalry; 39 since the urgency of the danger compelled him to seek
      a temporary shelter within the fortifications of Asta, a town of
      Liguria or Piemont, situate on the banks of the Tanarus. 40 The
      siege of an obscure place, which contained so rich a prize, and
      seemed incapable of a long resistance, was instantly formed, and
      indefatigably pressed, by the king of the Goths; and the bold
      declaration, which the emperor might afterwards make, that his
      breast had never been susceptible of fear, did not probably
      obtain much credit, even in his own court. 41 In the last, and
      almost hopeless extremity, after the Barbarians had already
      proposed the indignity of a capitulation, the Imperial captive
      was suddenly relieved by the fame, the approach, and at length
      the presence, of the hero, whom he had so long expected. At the
      head of a chosen and intrepid vanguard, Stilicho swam the stream
      of the Addua, to gain the time which he must have lost in the
      attack of the bridge; the passage of the Po was an enterprise of
      much less hazard and difficulty; and the successful action, in
      which he cut his way through the Gothic camp under the walls of
      Asta, revived the hopes, and vindicated the honor, of Rome.
      Instead of grasping the fruit of his victory, the Barbarian was
      gradually invested, on every side, by the troops of the West, who
      successively issued through all the passes of the Alps; his
      quarters were straitened; his convoys were intercepted; and the
      vigilance of the Romans prepared to form a chain of
      fortifications, and to besiege the lines of the besiegers. A
      military council was assembled of the long-haired chiefs of the
      Gothic nation; of aged warriors, whose bodies were wrapped in
      furs, and whose stern countenances were marked with honorable
      wounds. They weighed the glory of persisting in their attempt
      against the advantage of securing their plunder; and they
      recommended the prudent measure of a seasonable retreat. In this
      important debate, Alaric displayed the spirit of the conqueror of
      Rome; and after he had reminded his countrymen of their
      achievements and of their designs, he concluded his animating
      speech by the solemn and positive assurance that he was resolved
      to find in Italy either a kingdom or a grave. 42

      37 (return) [ Every traveller must recollect the face of
      Lombardy, (see Fonvenelle, tom. v. p. 279,) which is often
      tormented by the capricious and irregular abundance of waters.
      The Austrians, before Genoa, were encamped in the dry bed of the
      Polcevera. “Ne sarebbe” (says Muratori) “mai passato per mente a
      que’ buoni Alemanni, che quel picciolo torrente potesse, per cosi
      dire, in un instante cangiarsi in un terribil gigante.“ (Annali
      d’Italia, tom. xvi. p. 443, Milan, 1752, 8vo edit.)]

      3711 (return) [ According to Le Beau and his commentator M. St.
      Martin, Honorius did not attempt to fly. Settlements were offered
      to the Goths in Lombardy, and they advanced from the Po towards
      the Alps to take possession of them. But it was a treacherous
      stratagem of Stilicho, who surprised them while they were
      reposing on the faith of this treaty. Le Beau, v. x.]

      38 (return) [ Claudian does not clearly answer our question,
      Where was Honorius himself? Yet the flight is marked by the
      pursuit; and my idea of the Gothic was is justified by the
      Italian critics, Sigonius (tom. P, ii. p. 369, de Imp. Occident.
      l. x.) and Muratori, (Annali d’Italia. tom. iv. p. 45.)]

      39 (return) [ One of the roads may be traced in the Itineraries,
      (p. 98, 288, 294, with Wesseling’s Notes.) Asta lay some miles on
      the right hand.]

      40 (return) [ Asta, or Asti, a Roman colony, is now the capital
      of a pleasant country, which, in the sixteenth century, devolved
      to the dukes of Savoy, (Leandro Alberti Descrizzione d’Italia, p.
      382.)]

      41 (return) [ Nec me timor impulit ullus. He might hold this
      proud language the next year at Rome, five hundred miles from the
      scene of danger (vi. Cons. Hon. 449.)]

      42 (return) [ Hanc ego vel victor regno, vel morte tenebo Victus,
      humum.——The speeches (de Bell. Get. 479-549) of the Gothic
      Nestor, and Achilles, are strong, characteristic, adapted to the
      circumstances; and possibly not less genuine than those of Livy.]

      The loose discipline of the Barbarians always exposed them to the
      danger of a surprise; but, instead of choosing the dissolute
      hours of riot and intemperance, Stilicho resolved to attack the
      Christian Goths, whilst they were devoutly employed in
      celebrating the festival of Easter. 43 The execution of the
      stratagem, or, as it was termed by the clergy of the sacrilege,
      was intrusted to Saul, a Barbarian and a Pagan, who had served,
      however, with distinguished reputation among the veteran generals
      of Theodosius. The camp of the Goths, which Alaric had pitched in
      the neighborhood of Pollentia, 44 was thrown into confusion by
      the sudden and impetuous charge of the Imperial cavalry; but, in
      a few moments, the undaunted genius of their leader gave them an
      order, and a field of battle; and, as soon as they had recovered
      from their astonishment, the pious confidence, that the God of
      the Christians would assert their cause, added new strength to
      their native valor. In this engagement, which was long maintained
      with equal courage and success, the chief of the Alani, whose
      diminutive and savage form concealed a magnanimous soul approved
      his suspected loyalty, by the zeal with which he fought, and
      fell, in the service of the republic; and the fame of this
      gallant Barbarian has been imperfectly preserved in the verses of
      Claudian, since the poet, who celebrates his virtue, has omitted
      the mention of his name. His death was followed by the flight and
      dismay of the squadrons which he commanded; and the defeat of the
      wing of cavalry might have decided the victory of Alaric, if
      Stilicho had not immediately led the Roman and Barbarian infantry
      to the attack. The skill of the general, and the bravery of the
      soldiers, surmounted every obstacle. In the evening of the bloody
      day, the Goths retreated from the field of battle; the
      intrenchments of their camp were forced, and the scene of rapine
      and slaughter made some atonement for the calamities which they
      had inflicted on the subjects of the empire. 45 The magnificent
      spoils of Corinth and Argos enriched the veterans of the West;
      the captive wife of Alaric, who had impatiently claimed his
      promise of Roman jewels and Patrician handmaids, 46 was reduced
      to implore the mercy of the insulting foe; and many thousand
      prisoners, released from the Gothic chains, dispersed through the
      provinces of Italy the praises of their heroic deliverer. The
      triumph of Stilicho 47 was compared by the poet, and perhaps by
      the public, to that of Marius; who, in the same part of Italy,
      had encountered and destroyed another army of Northern
      Barbarians. The huge bones, and the empty helmets, of the Cimbri
      and of the Goths, would easily be confounded by succeeding
      generations; and posterity might erect a common trophy to the
      memory of the two most illustrious generals, who had vanquished,
      on the same memorable ground, the two most formidable enemies of
      Rome. 48

      43 (return) [ Orosius (l. vii. c. 37) is shocked at the impiety
      of the Romans, who attacked, on Easter Sunday, such pious
      Christians. Yet, at the same time, public prayers were offered at
      the shrine of St. Thomas of Edessa, for the destruction of the
      Arian robber. See Tillemont (Hist des Emp. tom. v. p. 529) who
      quotes a homily, which has been erroneously ascribed to St.
      Chrysostom.]

      44 (return) [ The vestiges of Pollentia are twenty-five miles to
      the south-east of Turin. Urbs, in the same neighborhood, was a
      royal chase of the kings of Lombardy, and a small river, which
      excused the prediction, “penetrabis ad urbem,“ (Cluver. Ital.
      Antiq tom. i. p. 83-85.)]

      45 (return) [ Orosius wishes, in doubtful words, to insinuate the
      defeat of the Romans. “Pugnantes vicimus, victores victi sumus.“
      Prosper (in Chron.) makes it an equal and bloody battle, but the
      Gothic writers Cassiodorus (in Chron.) and Jornandes (de Reb.
      Get. c. 29) claim a decisive victory.]

      46 (return) [ Demens Ausonidum gemmata monilia matrum, Romanasque
      alta famulas cervice petebat. De Bell. Get. 627.]

      47 (return) [ Claudian (de Bell. Get. 580-647) and Prudentius (in
      Symmach. n. 694-719) celebrate, without ambiguity, the Roman
      victory of Pollentia. They are poetical and party writers; yet
      some credit is due to the most suspicious witnesses, who are
      checked by the recent notoriety of facts.]

      48 (return) [ Claudian’s peroration is strong and elegant; but
      the identity of the Cimbric and Gothic fields must be understood
      (like Virgil’s Philippi, Georgic i. 490) according to the loose
      geography of a poet. Verselle and Pollentia are sixty miles from
      each other; and the latitude is still greater, if the Cimbri were
      defeated in the wide and barren plain of Verona, (Maffei, Verona
      Illustrata, P. i. p. 54-62.)]

      The eloquence of Claudian 49 has celebrated, with lavish
      applause, the victory of Pollentia, one of the most glorious days
      in the life of his patron; but his reluctant and partial muse
      bestows more genuine praise on the character of the Gothic king.
      His name is, indeed, branded with the reproachful epithets of
      pirate and robber, to which the conquerors of every age are so
      justly entitled; but the poet of Stilicho is compelled to
      acknowledge that Alaric possessed the invincible temper of mind,
      which rises superior to every misfortune, and derives new
      resources from adversity. After the total defeat of his infantry,
      he escaped, or rather withdrew, from the field of battle, with
      the greatest part of his cavalry entire and unbroken. Without
      wasting a moment to lament the irreparable loss of so many brave
      companions, he left his victorious enemy to bind in chains the
      captive images of a Gothic king; 50 and boldly resolved to break
      through the unguarded passes of the Apennine, to spread
      desolation over the fruitful face of Tuscany, and to conquer or
      die before the gates of Rome. The capital was saved by the active
      and incessant diligence of Stilicho; but he respected the despair
      of his enemy; and, instead of committing the fate of the republic
      to the chance of another battle, he proposed to purchase the
      absence of the Barbarians. The spirit of Alaric would have
      rejected such terms, the permission of a retreat, and the offer
      of a pension, with contempt and indignation; but he exercised a
      limited and precarious authority over the independent chieftains
      who had raised him, for their service, above the rank of his
      equals; they were still less disposed to follow an unsuccessful
      general, and many of them were tempted to consult their interest
      by a private negotiation with the minister of Honorius. The king
      submitted to the voice of his people, ratified the treaty with
      the empire of the West, and repassed the Po with the remains of
      the flourishing army which he had led into Italy. A considerable
      part of the Roman forces still continued to attend his motions;
      and Stilicho, who maintained a secret correspondence with some of
      the Barbarian chiefs, was punctually apprised of the designs that
      were formed in the camp and council of Alaric. The king of the
      Goths, ambitious to signalize his retreat by some splendid
      achievement, had resolved to occupy the important city of Verona,
      which commands the principal passage of the Rhaetian Alps; and,
      directing his march through the territories of those German
      tribes, whose alliance would restore his exhausted strength, to
      invade, on the side of the Rhine, the wealthy and unsuspecting
      provinces of Gaul. Ignorant of the treason which had already
      betrayed his bold and judicious enterprise, he advanced towards
      the passes of the mountains, already possessed by the Imperial
      troops; where he was exposed, almost at the same instant, to a
      general attack in the front, on his flanks, and in the rear. In
      this bloody action, at a small distance from the walls of Verona,
      the loss of the Goths was not less heavy than that which they had
      sustained in the defeat of Pollentia; and their valiant king, who
      escaped by the swiftness of his horse, must either have been
      slain or made prisoner, if the hasty rashness of the Alani had
      not disappointed the measures of the Roman general. Alaric
      secured the remains of his army on the adjacent rocks; and
      prepared himself, with undaunted resolution, to maintain a siege
      against the superior numbers of the enemy, who invested him on
      all sides. But he could not oppose the destructive progress of
      hunger and disease; nor was it possible for him to check the
      continual desertion of his impatient and capricious Barbarians.
      In this extremity he still found resources in his own courage, or
      in the moderation of his adversary; and the retreat of the Gothic
      king was considered as the deliverance of Italy. 51 Yet the
      people, and even the clergy, incapable of forming any rational
      judgment of the business of peace and war, presumed to arraign
      the policy of Stilicho, who so often vanquished, so often
      surrounded, and so often dismissed the implacable enemy of the
      republic. The first momen of the public safety is devoted to
      gratitude and joy; but the second is diligently occupied by envy
      and calumny. 52

      49 (return) [ Claudian and Prudentius must be strictly examined,
      to reduce the figures, and extort the historic sense, of those
      poets.]

      50 (return) [

     Et gravant en airain ses freles avantages De mes etats conquis
     enchainer les images.

      The practice of exposing in triumph the images of kings and
      provinces was familiar to the Romans. The bust of Mithridates
      himself was twelve feet high, of massy gold, (Freinshem.
      Supplement. Livian. ciii. 47.)]

      51 (return) [ The Getic war, and the sixth consulship of
      Honorius, obscurely connect the events of Alaric’s retreat and
      losses.]

      52 (return) [ Taceo de Alarico... saepe visto, saepe concluso,
      semperque dimisso. Orosius, l. vii. c. 37, p. 567. Claudian (vi.
      Cons. Hon. 320) drops the curtain with a fine image.]

      The citizens of Rome had been astonished by the approach of
      Alaric; and the diligence with which they labored to restore the
      walls of the capital, confessed their own fears, and the decline
      of the empire. After the retreat of the Barbarians, Honorius was
      directed to accept the dutiful invitation of the senate, and to
      celebrate, in the Imperial city, the auspicious aera of the
      Gothic victory, and of his sixth consulship. 53 The suburbs and
      the streets, from the Milvian bridge to the Palatine mount, were
      filled by the Roman people, who, in the space of a hundred years,
      had only thrice been honored with the presence of their
      sovereigns. While their eyes were fixed on the chariot where
      Stilicho was deservedly seated by the side of his royal pupil,
      they applauded the pomp of a triumph, which was not stained, like
      that of Constantine, or of Theodosius, with civil blood. The
      procession passed under a lofty arch, which had been purposely
      erected: but in less than seven years, the Gothic conquerors of
      Rome might read, if they were able to read, the superb
      inscription of that monument, which attested the total defeat and
      destruction of their nation. 54 The emperor resided several
      months in the capital, and every part of his behavior was
      regulated with care to conciliate the affection of the clergy,
      the senate, and the people of Rome. The clergy was edified by his
      frequent visits and liberal gifts to the shrines of the apostles.
      The senate, who, in the triumphal procession, had been excused
      from the humiliating ceremony of preceding on foot the Imperial
      chariot, was treated with the decent reverence which Stilicho
      always affected for that assembly. The people was repeatedly
      gratified by the attention and courtesy of Honorius in the public
      games, which were celebrated on that occasion with a magnificence
      not unworthy of the spectator. As soon as the appointed number of
      chariot-races was concluded, the decoration of the Circus was
      suddenly changed; the hunting of wild beasts afforded a various
      and splendid entertainment; and the chase was succeeded by a
      military dance, which seems, in the lively description of
      Claudian, to present the image of a modern tournament.

      53 (return) [ The remainder of Claudian’s poem on the sixth
      consulship of Honorius, describes the journey, the triumph, and
      the games, (330-660.)]

      54 (return) [ See the inscription in Mascou’s History of the
      Ancient Germans, viii. 12. The words are positive and indiscreet:
      Getarum nationem in omne aevum domitam, &c.]

      In these games of Honorius, the inhuman combats of gladiators 55
      polluted, for the last time, the amphitheater of Rome. The first
      Christian emperor may claim the honor of the first edict which
      condemned the art and amusement of shedding human blood; 56 but
      this benevolent law expressed the wishes of the prince, without
      reforming an inveterate abuse, which degraded a civilized nation
      below the condition of savage cannibals. Several hundred, perhaps
      several thousand, victims were annually slaughtered in the great
      cities of the empire; and the month of December, more peculiarly
      devoted to the combats of gladiators, still exhibited to the eyes
      of the Roman people a grateful spectacle of blood and cruelty.
      Amidst the general joy of the victory of Pollentia, a Christian
      poet exhorted the emperor to extirpate, by his authority, the
      horrid custom which had so long resisted the voice of humanity
      and religion. 57 The pathetic representations of Prudentius were
      less effectual than the generous boldness of Telemachus, an
      Asiatic monk, whose death was more useful to mankind than his
      life. 58 The Romans were provoked by the interruption of their
      pleasures; and the rash monk, who had descended into the arena to
      separate the gladiators, was overwhelmed under a shower of
      stones. But the madness of the people soon subsided; they
      respected the memory of Telemachus, who had deserved the honors
      of martyrdom; and they submitted, without a murmur, to the laws
      of Honorius, which abolished forever the human sacrifices of the
      amphitheater. 5811 The citizens, who adhered to the manners of
      their ancestors, might perhaps insinuate that the last remains of
      a martial spirit were preserved in this school of fortitude,
      which accustomed the Romans to the sight of blood, and to the
      contempt of death; a vain and cruel prejudice, so nobly confuted
      by the valor of ancient Greece, and of modern Europe! 59

      55 (return) [ On the curious, though horrid, subject of the
      gladiators, consult the two books of the Saturnalia of Lipsius,
      who, as an antiquarian, is inclined to excuse the practice of
      antiquity, (tom. iii. p. 483-545.)]

      56 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xv. tit. xii. leg. i. The
      Commentary of Godefroy affords large materials (tom. v. p. 396)
      for the history of gladiators.]

      57 (return) [ See the peroration of Prudentius (in Symmach. l.
      ii. 1121-1131) who had doubtless read the eloquent invective of
      Lactantius, (Divin. Institut. l. vi. c. 20.) The Christian
      apologists have not spared these bloody games, which were
      introduced in the religious festivals of Paganism.]

      58 (return) [ Theodoret, l. v. c. 26. I wish to believe the story
      of St. Telemachus. Yet no church has been dedicated, no altar has
      been erected, to the only monk who died a martyr in the cause of
      humanity.]

      5811 (return) [ Muller, in his valuable Treatise, de Genio,
      moribus et luxu aevi Theodosiani, is disposed to question the
      effect produced by the heroic, or rather saintly, death of
      Telemachus. No prohibitory law of Honorius is to be found in the
      Theodosian Code, only the old and imperfect edict of Constantine.
      But Muller has produced no evidence or allusion to gladiatorial
      shows after this period. The combats with wild beasts certainly
      lasted till the fall of the Western empire; but the gladiatorial
      combats ceased either by common consent, or by Imperial
      edict.—M.]

      59 (return) [ Crudele gladiatorum spectaculum et inhumanum
      nonnullis videri solet, et haud scio an ita sit, ut nunc fit.
      Cicero Tusculan. ii. 17. He faintly censures the abuse, and
      warmly defends the use, of these sports; oculis nulla poterat
      esse fortior contra dolorem et mortem disciplina. Seneca (epist.
      vii.) shows the feelings of a man.]

      The recent danger, to which the person of the emperor had been
      exposed in the defenceless palace of Milan, urged him to seek a
      retreat in some inaccessible fortress of Italy, where he might
      securely remain, while the open country was covered by a deluge
      of Barbarians. On the coast of the Adriatic, about ten or twelve
      miles from the most southern of the seven mouths of the Po, the
      Thessalians had founded the ancient colony of Ravenna, 60 which
      they afterwards resigned to the natives of Umbria. Augustus, who
      had observed the opportunity of the place, prepared, at the
      distance of three miles from the old town, a capacious harbor,
      for the reception of two hundred and fifty ships of war. This
      naval establishment, which included the arsenals and magazines,
      the barracks of the troops, and the houses of the artificers,
      derived its origin and name from the permanent station of the
      Roman fleet; the intermediate space was soon filled with
      buildings and inhabitants, and the three extensive and populous
      quarters of Ravenna gradually contributed to form one of the most
      important cities of Italy. The principal canal of Augustus poured
      a copious stream of the waters of the Po through the midst of the
      city, to the entrance of the harbor; the same waters were
      introduced into the profound ditches that encompassed the walls;
      they were distributed by a thousand subordinate canals, into
      every part of the city, which they divided into a variety of
      small islands; the communication was maintained only by the use
      of boats and bridges; and the houses of Ravenna, whose appearance
      may be compared to that of Venice, were raised on the foundation
      of wooden piles. The adjacent country, to the distance of many
      miles, was a deep and impassable morass; and the artificial
      causeway, which connected Ravenna with the continent, might be
      easily guarded or destroyed, on the approach of a hostile army
      These morasses were interspersed, however, with vineyards: and
      though the soil was exhausted by four or five crops, the town
      enjoyed a more plentiful supply of wine than of fresh water. 61
      The air, instead of receiving the sickly, and almost
      pestilential, exhalations of low and marshy grounds, was
      distinguished, like the neighborhood of Alexandria, as uncommonly
      pure and salubrious; and this singular advantage was ascribed to
      the regular tides of the Adriatic, which swept the canals,
      interrupted the unwholesome stagnation of the waters, and
      floated, every day, the vessels of the adjacent country into the
      heart of Ravenna. The gradual retreat of the sea has left the
      modern city at the distance of four miles from the Adriatic; and
      as early as the fifth or sixth century of the Christian aera, the
      port of Augustus was converted into pleasant orchards; and a
      lonely grove of pines covered the ground where the Roman fleet
      once rode at anchor. 62 Even this alteration contributed to
      increase the natural strength of the place, and the shallowness
      of the water was a sufficient barrier against the large ships of
      the enemy. This advantageous situation was fortified by art and
      labor; and in the twentieth year of his age, the emperor of the
      West, anxious only for his personal safety, retired to the
      perpetual confinement of the walls and morasses of Ravenna. The
      example of Honorius was imitated by his feeble successors, the
      Gothic kings, and afterwards the Exarchs, who occupied the throne
      and palace of the emperors; and till the middle of the eight
      century, Ravenna was considered as the seat of government, and
      the capital of Italy. 63

      60 (return) [ This account of Ravenna is drawn from Strabo, (l.
      v. p. 327,) Pliny, (iii. 20,) Stephen of Byzantium, (sub voce, p.
      651, edit. Berkel,) Claudian, (in vi. Cons. Honor. 494, &c.,)
      Sidonius Apollinaris, (l. i. epist. 5, 8,) Jornandes, (de Reb.
      Get. c. 29,) Procopius (de Bell, (lothic, l. i. c. i. p. 309,
      edit. Louvre,) and Cluverius, (Ital. Antiq tom i. p. 301-307.)
      Yet I still want a local antiquarian and a good topographical
      map.]

      61 (return) [ Martial (Epigram iii. 56, 57) plays on the trick of
      the knave, who had sold him wine instead of water; but he
      seriously declares that a cistern at Ravenna is more valuable
      than a vineyard. Sidonius complains that the town is destitute of
      fountains and aqueducts; and ranks the want of fresh water among
      the local evils, such as the croaking of frogs, the stinging of
      gnats, &c.]

      62 (return) [ The fable of Theodore and Honoria, which Dryden has
      so admirably transplanted from Boccaccio, (Giornata iii. novell.
      viii.,) was acted in the wood of Chiassi, a corrupt word from
      Classis, the naval station which, with the intermediate road, or
      suburb the Via Caesaris, constituted the triple city of Ravenna.]

      63 (return) [ From the year 404, the dates of the Theodosian Code
      become sedentary at Constantinople and Ravenna. See Godefroy’s
      Chronology of the Laws, tom. i. p. cxlviii., &c.]

      The fears of Honorius were not without foundation, nor were his
      precautions without effect. While Italy rejoiced in her
      deliverance from the Goths, a furious tempest was excited among
      the nations of Germany, who yielded to the irresistible impulse
      that appears to have been gradually communicated from the eastern
      extremity of the continent of Asia. The Chinese annals, as they
      have been interpreted by the earned industry of the present age,
      may be usefully applied to reveal the secret and remote causes of
      the fall of the Roman empire. The extensive territory to the
      north of the great wall was possessed, after the flight of the
      Huns, by the victorious Sienpi, who were sometimes broken into
      independent tribes, and sometimes reunited under a supreme chief;
      till at length, styling themselves Topa, or masters of the earth,
      they acquired a more solid consistence, and a more formidable
      power. The Topa soon compelled the pastoral nations of the
      eastern desert to acknowledge the superiority of their arms; they
      invaded China in a period of weakness and intestine discord; and
      these fortunate Tartars, adopting the laws and manners of the
      vanquished people, founded an Imperial dynasty, which reigned
      near one hundred and sixty years over the northern provinces of
      the monarchy. Some generations before they ascended the throne of
      China, one of the Topa princes had enlisted in his cavalry a
      slave of the name of Moko, renowned for his valor, but who was
      tempted, by the fear of punishment, to desert his standard, and
      to range the desert at the head of a hundred followers. This gang
      of robbers and outlaws swelled into a camp, a tribe, a numerous
      people, distinguished by the appellation of Geougen; and their
      hereditary chieftains, the posterity of Moko the slave, assumed
      their rank among the Scythian monarchs. The youth of Toulun, the
      greatest of his descendants, was exercised by those misfortunes
      which are the school of heroes. He bravely struggled with
      adversity, broke the imperious yoke of the Topa, and became the
      legislator of his nation, and the conqueror of Tartary. His
      troops were distributed into regular bands of a hundred and of a
      thousand men; cowards were stoned to death; the most splendid
      honors were proposed as the reward of valor; and Toulun, who had
      knowledge enough to despise the learning of China, adopted only
      such arts and institutions as were favorable to the military
      spirit of his government. His tents, which he removed in the
      winter season to a more southern latitude, were pitched, during
      the summer, on the fruitful banks of the Selinga. His conquests
      stretched from Corea far beyond the River Irtish. He vanquished,
      in the country to the north of the Caspian Sea, the nation of the
      Huns; and the new title of Khan, or Cagan, expressed the fame and
      power which he derived from this memorable victory. 64

      64 (return) [ See M. de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p.
      179-189, tom ii p. 295, 334-338.]

      The chain of events is interrupted, or rather is concealed, as it
      passes from the Volga to the Vistula, through the dark interval
      which separates the extreme limits of the Chinese, and of the
      Roman, geography. Yet the temper of the Barbarians, and the
      experience of successive emigrations, sufficiently declare, that
      the Huns, who were oppressed by the arms of the Geougen, soon
      withdrew from the presence of an insulting victor. The countries
      towards the Euxine were already occupied by their kindred tribes;
      and their hasty flight, which they soon converted into a bold
      attack, would more naturally be directed towards the rich and
      level plains, through which the Vistula gently flows into the
      Baltic Sea. The North must again have been alarmed, and agitated,
      by the invasion of the Huns; 6411 and the nations who retreated
      before them must have pressed with incumbent weight on the
      confines of Germany. 65 The inhabitants of those regions, which
      the ancients have assigned to the Suevi, the Vandals, and the
      Burgundians, might embrace the resolution of abandoning to the
      fugitives of Sarmatia their woods and morasses; or at least of
      discharging their superfluous numbers on the provinces of the
      Roman empire. 66 About four years after the victorious Toulun had
      assumed the title of Khan of the Geougen, another Barbarian, the
      haughty Rhodogast, or Radagaisus, 67 marched from the northern
      extremities of Germany almost to the gates of Rome, and left the
      remains of his army to achieve the destruction of the West. The
      Vandals, the Suevi, and the Burgundians, formed the strength of
      this mighty host; but the Alani, who had found a hospitable
      reception in their new seats, added their active cavalry to the
      heavy infantry of the Germans; and the Gothic adventurers crowded
      so eagerly to the standard of Radagaisus, that by some
      historians, he has been styled the King of the Goths. Twelve
      thousand warriors, distinguished above the vulgar by their noble
      birth, or their valiant deeds, glittered in the van; 68 and the
      whole multitude, which was not less than two hundred thousand
      fighting men, might be increased, by the accession of women, of
      children, and of slaves, to the amount of four hundred thousand
      persons. This formidable emigration issued from the same coast of
      the Baltic, which had poured forth the myriads of the Cimbri and
      Teutones, to assault Rome and Italy in the vigor of the republic.
      After the departure of those Barbarians, their native country,
      which was marked by the vestiges of their greatness, long
      ramparts, and gigantic moles, 69 remained, during some ages, a
      vast and dreary solitude; till the human species was renewed by
      the powers of generation, and the vacancy was filled by the
      influx of new inhabitants. The nations who now usurp an extent of
      land which they are unable to cultivate, would soon be assisted
      by the industrious poverty of their neighbors, if the government
      of Europe did not protect the claims of dominion and property.

      6411 (return) [ There is no authority which connects this inroad
      of the Teutonic tribes with the movements of the Huns. The Huns
      can hardly have reached the shores of the Baltic, and probably
      the greater part of the forces of Radagaisus, particularly the
      Vandals, had long occupied a more southern position.—M.]

      65 (return) [ Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. iii. p. 182)
      has observed an emigration from the Palus Maeotis to the north of
      Germany, which he ascribes to famine. But his views of ancient
      history are strangely darkened by ignorance and error.]

      66 (return) [ Zosimus (l. v. p. 331) uses the general description
      of the nations beyond the Danube and the Rhine. Their situation,
      and consequently their names, are manifestly shown, even in the
      various epithets which each ancient writer may have casually
      added.]

      67 (return) [ The name of Rhadagast was that of a local deity of
      the Obotrites, (in Mecklenburg.) A hero might naturally assume
      the appellation of his tutelar god; but it is not probable that
      the Barbarians should worship an unsuccessful hero. See Mascou,
      Hist. of the Germans, viii. 14. * Note: The god of war and of
      hospitality with the Vends and all the Sclavonian races of
      Germany bore the name of Radegast, apparently the same with
      Rhadagaisus. His principal temple was at Rhetra in Mecklenburg.
      It was adorned with great magnificence. The statue of the gold
      was of gold. St. Martin, v. 255. A statue of Radegast, of much
      coarser materials, and of the rudest workmanship, was discovered
      between 1760 and 1770, with those of other Wendish deities, on
      the supposed site of Rhetra. The names of the gods were cut upon
      them in Runic characters. See the very curious volume on these
      antiquities—Die Gottesdienstliche Alterthumer der Obotriter—Masch
      and Wogen. Berlin, 1771.—M.]

      68 (return) [ Olympiodorus (apud Photium, p. 180), uses the Greek
      word which does not convey any precise idea. I suspect that they
      were the princes and nobles with their faithful companions; the
      knights with their squires, as they would have been styled some
      centuries afterwards.]

      69 (return) [ Tacit. de Moribus Germanorum, c. 37.]




      Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part IV.

      The correspondence of nations was, in that age, so imperfect and
      precarious, that the revolutions of the North might escape the
      knowledge of the court of Ravenna; till the dark cloud, which was
      collected along the coast of the Baltic, burst in thunder upon
      the banks of the Upper Danube. The emperor of the West, if his
      ministers disturbed his amusements by the news of the impending
      danger, was satisfied with being the occasion, and the spectator,
      of the war. 70 The safety of Rome was intrusted to the counsels,
      and the sword, of Stilicho; but such was the feeble and exhausted
      state of the empire, that it was impossible to restore the
      fortifications of the Danube, or to prevent, by a vigorous
      effort, the invasion of the Germans. 71 The hopes of the vigilant
      minister of Honorius were confined to the defence of Italy. He
      once more abandoned the provinces, recalled the troops, pressed
      the new levies, which were rigorously exacted, and
      pusillanimously eluded; employed the most efficacious means to
      arrest, or allure, the deserters; and offered the gift of
      freedom, and of two pieces of gold, to all the slaves who would
      enlist. 72 By these efforts he painfully collected, from the
      subjects of a great empire, an army of thirty or forty thousand
      men, which, in the days of Scipio or Camillus, would have been
      instantly furnished by the free citizens of the territory of
      Rome. 73 The thirty legions of Stilicho were reenforced by a
      large body of Barbarian auxiliaries; the faithful Alani were
      personally attached to his service; and the troops of Huns and of
      Goths, who marched under the banners of their native princes,
      Huldin and Sarus, were animated by interest and resentment to
      oppose the ambition of Radagaisus. The king of the confederate
      Germans passed, without resistance, the Alps, the Po, and the
      Apennine; leaving on one hand the inaccessible palace of
      Honorius, securely buried among the marshes of Ravenna; and, on
      the other, the camp of Stilicho, who had fixed his head-quarters
      at Ticinum, or Pavia, but who seems to have avoided a decisive
      battle, till he had assembled his distant forces. Many cities of
      Italy were pillaged, or destroyed; and the siege of Florence, 74
      by Radagaisus, is one of the earliest events in the history of
      that celebrated republic; whose firmness checked and delayed the
      unskillful fury of the Barbarians. The senate and people trembled
      at their approach within a hundred and eighty miles of Rome; and
      anxiously compared the danger which they had escaped, with the
      new perils to which they were exposed. Alaric was a Christian and
      a soldier, the leader of a disciplined army; who understood the
      laws of war, who respected the sanctity of treaties, and who had
      familiarly conversed with the subjects of the empire in the same
      camps, and the same churches. The savage Radagaisus was a
      stranger to the manners, the religion, and even the language, of
      the civilized nations of the South. The fierceness of his temper
      was exasperated by cruel superstition; and it was universally
      believed, that he had bound himself, by a solemn vow, to reduce
      the city into a heap of stones and ashes, and to sacrifice the
      most illustrious of the Roman senators on the altars of those
      gods who were appeased by human blood. The public danger, which
      should have reconciled all domestic animosities, displayed the
      incurable madness of religious faction. The oppressed votaries of
      Jupiter and Mercury respected, in the implacable enemy of Rome,
      the character of a devout Pagan; loudly declared, that they were
      more apprehensive of the sacrifices, than of the arms, of
      Radagaisus; and secretly rejoiced in the calamities of their
      country, which condemned the faith of their Christian
      adversaries. 75 7511

      70 (return) [

     Cujus agendi Spectator vel causa fui, —-(Claudian, vi. Cons. Hon.
     439,)

      is the modest language of Honorius, in speaking of the Gothic
      war, which he had seen somewhat nearer.]

      71 (return) [ Zosimus (l. v. p. 331) transports the war, and the
      victory of Stilisho, beyond the Danube. A strange error, which is
      awkwardly and imperfectly cured (Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom.
      v. p. 807.) In good policy, we must use the service of Zosimus,
      without esteeming or trusting him.]

      72 (return) [ Codex Theodos. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg. 16. The date
      of this law A.D. 406. May 18 satisfies me, as it had done
      Godefroy, (tom. ii. p. 387,) of the true year of the invasion of
      Radagaisus. Tillemont, Pagi, and Muratori, prefer the preceding
      year; but they are bound, by certain obligations of civility and
      respect, to St. Paulinus of Nola.]

      73 (return) [ Soon after Rome had been taken by the Gauls, the
      senate, on a sudden emergency, armed ten legions, 3000 horse, and
      42,000 foot; a force which the city could not have sent forth
      under Augustus, (Livy, xi. 25.) This declaration may puzzle an
      antiquary, but it is clearly explained by Montesquieu.]

      74 (return) [ Machiavel has explained, at least as a philosopher,
      the origin of Florence, which insensibly descended, for the
      benefit of trade, from the rock of Faesulae to the banks of the
      Arno, (Istoria Fiorentina, tom. i. p. 36. Londra, 1747.) The
      triumvirs sent a colony to Florence, which, under Tiberius,
      (Tacit. Annal. i. 79,) deserved the reputation and name of a
      flourishing city. See Cluver. Ital. Antiq. tom. i. p. 507, &c.]

      75 (return) [ Yet the Jupiter of Radagaisus, who worshipped Thor
      and Woden, was very different from the Olympic or Capitoline
      Jove. The accommodating temper of Polytheism might unite those
      various and remote deities; but the genuine Romans ahhorred the
      human sacrifices of Gaul and Germany.]

      7511 (return) [ Gibbon has rather softened the language of
      Augustine as to this threatened insurrection of the Pagans, in
      order to restore the prohibited rites and ceremonies of Paganism;
      and their treasonable hopes that the success of Radagaisus would
      be the triumph of idolatry. Compare ii. 25—M.]

      Florence was reduced to the last extremity; and the fainting
      courage of the citizens was supported only by the authority of
      St. Ambrose; who had communicated, in a dream, the promise of a
      speedy deliverance. 76 On a sudden, they beheld, from their
      walls, the banners of Stilicho, who advanced, with his united
      force, to the relief of the faithful city; and who soon marked
      that fatal spot for the grave of the Barbarian host. The apparent
      contradictions of those writers who variously relate the defeat
      of Radagaisus, may be reconciled without offering much violence
      to their respective testimonies. Orosius and Augustin, who were
      intimately connected by friendship and religion, ascribed this
      miraculous victory to the providence of God, rather than to the
      valor of man. 77 They strictly exclude every idea of chance, or
      even of bloodshed; and positively affirm, that the Romans, whose
      camp was the scene of plenty and idleness, enjoyed the distress
      of the Barbarians, slowly expiring on the sharp and barren ridge
      of the hills of Faesulae, which rise above the city of Florence.
      Their extravagant assertion that not a single soldier of the
      Christian army was killed, or even wounded, may be dismissed with
      silent contempt; but the rest of the narrative of Augustin and
      Orosius is consistent with the state of the war, and the
      character of Stilicho. Conscious that he commanded the last army
      of the republic, his prudence would not expose it, in the open
      field, to the headstrong fury of the Germans. The method of
      surrounding the enemy with strong lines of circumvallation, which
      he had twice employed against the Gothic king, was repeated on a
      larger scale, and with more considerable effect. The examples of
      Caesar must have been familiar to the most illiterate of the
      Roman warriors; and the fortifications of Dyrrachium, which
      connected twenty-four castles, by a perpetual ditch and rampart
      of fifteen miles, afforded the model of an intrenchment which
      might confine, and starve, the most numerous host of Barbarians.
      78 The Roman troops had less degenerated from the industry, than
      from the valor, of their ancestors; and if their servile and
      laborious work offended the pride of the soldiers, Tuscany could
      supply many thousand peasants, who would labor, though, perhaps,
      they would not fight, for the salvation of their native country.
      The imprisoned multitude of horses and men 79 was gradually
      destroyed, by famine rather than by the sword; but the Romans
      were exposed, during the progress of such an extensive work, to
      the frequent attacks of an impatient enemy. The despair of the
      hungry Barbarians would precipitate them against the
      fortifications of Stilicho; the general might sometimes indulge
      the ardor of his brave auxiliaries, who eagerly pressed to
      assault the camp of the Germans; and these various incidents
      might produce the sharp and bloody conflicts which dignify the
      narrative of Zosimus, and the Chronicles of Prosper and
      Marcellinus. 80 A seasonable supply of men and provisions had
      been introduced into the walls of Florence, and the famished host
      of Radagaisus was in its turn besieged. The proud monarch of so
      many warlike nations, after the loss of his bravest warriors, was
      reduced to confide either in the faith of a capitulation, or in
      the clemency of Stilicho. 81 But the death of the royal captive,
      who was ignominiously beheaded, disgraced the triumph of Rome and
      of Christianity; and the short delay of his execution was
      sufficient to brand the conqueror with the guilt of cool and
      deliberate cruelty. 82 The famished Germans, who escaped the fury
      of the auxiliaries, were sold as slaves, at the contemptible
      price of as many single pieces of gold; but the difference of
      food and climate swept away great numbers of those unhappy
      strangers; and it was observed, that the inhuman purchasers,
      instead of reaping the fruits of their labor were soon obliged to
      provide the expense of their interment Stilicho informed the
      emperor and the senate of his success; and deserved, a second
      time, the glorious title of Deliverer of Italy. 83

      76 (return) [ Paulinus (in Vit. Ambros c. 50) relates this story,
      which he received from the mouth of Pansophia herself, a
      religious matron of Florence. Yet the archbishop soon ceased to
      take an active part in the business of the world, and never
      became a popular saint.]

      77 (return) [ Augustin de Civitat. Dei, v. 23. Orosius, l. vii.
      c. 37, p. 567-571. The two friends wrote in Africa, ten or twelve
      years after the victory; and their authority is implicitly
      followed by Isidore of Seville, (in Chron. p. 713, edit. Grot.)
      How many interesting facts might Orosius have inserted in the
      vacant space which is devoted to pious nonsense!]

      78 (return) [

     Franguntur montes, planumque per ardua Caesar Ducit opus: pandit
     fossas, turritaque summis Disponit castella jugis, magnoque
     necessu Amplexus fines, saltus, memorosaque tesqua Et silvas,
     vastaque feras indagine claudit.!

      Yet the simplicity of truth (Caesar, de Bell. Civ. iii. 44) is
      far greater than the amplifications of Lucan, (Pharsal. l. vi.
      29-63.)]

      79 (return) [ The rhetorical expressions of Orosius, “in arido et
      aspero montis jugo;” “in unum ac parvum verticem,“ are not very
      suitable to the encampment of a great army. But Faesulae, only
      three miles from Florence, might afford space for the
      head-quarters of Radagaisus, and would be comprehended within the
      circuit of the Roman lines.]

      80 (return) [ See Zosimus, l. v. p. 331, and the Chronicles of
      Prosper and Marcellinus.]

      81 (return) [ Olympiodorus (apud Photium, p. 180) uses an
      expression which would denote a strict and friendly alliance, and
      render Stilicho still more criminal. The paulisper detentus,
      deinde interfectus, of Orosius, is sufficiently odious. * Note:
      Gibbon, by translating this passage of Olympiodorus, as if it had
      been good Greek, has probably fallen into an error. The natural
      order of the words is as Gibbon translates it; but it is almost
      clear, refers to the Gothic chiefs, “whom Stilicho, after he had
      defeated Radagaisus, attached to his army.“ So in the version
      corrected by Classen for Niebuhr’s edition of the Byzantines, p.
      450.—M.]

      82 (return) [ Orosius, piously inhuman, sacrifices the king and
      people, Agag and the Amalekites, without a symptom of compassion.
      The bloody actor is less detestable than the cool, unfeeling
      historian.——Note: Considering the vow, which he was universally
      believed to have made, to destroy Rome, and to sacrifice the
      senators on the altars, and that he is said to have immolated his
      prisoners to his gods, the execution of Radagaisus, if, as it
      appears, he was taken in arms, cannot deserve Gibbon’s severe
      condemnation. Mr. Herbert (notes to his poem of Attila, p. 317)
      justly observes, that “Stilicho had probably authority for
      hanging him on the first tree.“ Marcellinus, adds Mr. Herbert,
      attributes the execution to the Gothic chiefs Sarus.—M.]

      83 (return) [ And Claudian’s muse, was she asleep? had she been
      ill paid! Methinks the seventh consulship of Honorius (A.D. 407)
      would have furnished the subject of a noble poem. Before it was
      discovered that the state could no longer be saved, Stilicho
      (after Romulus, Camillus and Marius) might have been worthily
      surnamed the fourth founder of Rome.]

      The fame of the victory, and more especially of the miracle, has
      encouraged a vain persuasion, that the whole army, or rather
      nation, of Germans, who migrated from the shores of the Baltic,
      miserably perished under the walls of Florence. Such indeed was
      the fate of Radagaisus himself, of his brave and faithful
      companions, and of more than one third of the various multitude
      of Sueves and Vandals, of Alani and Burgundians, who adhered to
      the standard of their general. 84 The union of such an army might
      excite our surprise, but the causes of separation are obvious and
      forcible; the pride of birth, the insolence of valor, the
      jealousy of command, the impatience of subordination, and the
      obstinate conflict of opinions, of interests, and of passions,
      among so many kings and warriors, who were untaught to yield, or
      to obey. After the defeat of Radagaisus, two parts of the German
      host, which must have exceeded the number of one hundred thousand
      men, still remained in arms, between the Apennine and the Alps,
      or between the Alps and the Danube. It is uncertain whether they
      attempted to revenge the death of their general; but their
      irregular fury was soon diverted by the prudence and firmness of
      Stilicho, who opposed their march, and facilitated their retreat;
      who considered the safety of Rome and Italy as the great object
      of his care, and who sacrificed, with too much indifference, the
      wealth and tranquillity of the distant provinces. 85 The
      Barbarians acquired, from the junction of some Pannonian
      deserters, the knowledge of the country, and of the roads; and
      the invasion of Gaul, which Alaric had designed, was executed by
      the remains of the great army of Radagaisus. 86

      84 (return) [ A luminous passage of Prosper’s Chronicle, “In tres
      partes, pes diversos principes, diversus exercitus,“ reduces the
      miracle of Florence and connects the history of Italy, Gaul, and
      Germany.]

      85 (return) [ Orosius and Jerom positively charge him with
      instigating the in vasion. “Excitatae a Stilichone gentes,“ &c.
      They must mean a directly. He saved Italy at the expense of Gaul]

      86 (return) [ The Count de Buat is satisfied, that the Germans
      who invaded Gaul were the two thirds that yet remained of the
      army of Radagaisus. See the Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de
      l’Europe, (tom. vii. p. 87, 121. Paris, 1772;) an elaborate work,
      which I had not the advantage of perusing till the year 1777. As
      early as 1771, I find the same idea expressed in a rough draught
      of the present History. I have since observed a similar
      intimation in Mascou, (viii. 15.) Such agreement, without mutual
      communication, may add some weight to our common sentiment.]

      Yet if they expected to derive any assistance from the tribes of
      Germany, who inhabited the banks of the Rhine, their hopes were
      disappointed. The Alemanni preserved a state of inactive
      neutrality; and the Franks distinguished their zeal and courage
      in the defence of the of the empire. In the rapid progress down
      the Rhine, which was the first act of the administration of
      Stilicho, he had applied himself, with peculiar attention, to
      secure the alliance of the warlike Franks, and to remove the
      irreconcilable enemies of peace and of the republic. Marcomir,
      one of their kings, was publicly convicted, before the tribunal
      of the Roman magistrate, of violating the faith of treaties. He
      was sentenced to a mild, but distant exile, in the province of
      Tuscany; and this degradation of the regal dignity was so far
      from exciting the resentment of his subjects, that they punished
      with death the turbulent Sunno, who attempted to revenge his
      brother; and maintained a dutiful allegiance to the princes, who
      were established on the throne by the choice of Stilicho. 87 When
      the limits of Gaul and Germany were shaken by the northern
      emigration, the Franks bravely encountered the single force of
      the Vandals; who, regardless of the lessons of adversity, had
      again separated their troops from the standard of their Barbarian
      allies. They paid the penalty of their rashness; and twenty
      thousand Vandals, with their king Godigisclus, were slain in the
      field of battle. The whole people must have been extirpated, if
      the squadrons of the Alani, advancing to their relief, had not
      trampled down the infantry of the Franks; who, after an honorable
      resistance, were compelled to relinquish the unequal contest. The
      victorious confederates pursued their march, and on the last day
      of the year, in a season when the waters of the Rhine were most
      probably frozen, they entered, without opposition, the
      defenceless provinces of Gaul. This memorable passage of the
      Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never
      afterwards retreated, may be considered as the fall of the Roman
      empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the barriers, which
      had so long separated the savage and the civilized nations of the
      earth, were from that fatal moment levelled with the ground. 88

      87 (return) [

     Provincia missos Expellet citius fasces, quam Francia reges Quos
     dederis.

      Claudian (i. Cons. Stil. l. i. 235, &c.) is clear and
      satisfactory. These kings of France are unknown to Gregory of
      Tours; but the author of the Gesta Francorum mentions both Sunno
      and Marcomir, and names the latter as the father of Pharamond,
      (in tom. ii. p. 543.) He seems to write from good materials,
      which he did not understand.]

      88 (return) [ See Zosimus, (l. vi. p. 373,) Orosius, (l. vii. c.
      40, p. 576,) and the Chronicles. Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. 9,
      p. 165, in the second volume of the Historians of France) has
      preserved a valuable fragment of Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus,
      whose three names denote a Christian, a Roman subject, and a
      Semi-Barbarian.]

      While the peace of Germany was secured by the attachment of the
      Franks, and the neutrality of the Alemanni, the subjects of Rome,
      unconscious of their approaching calamities, enjoyed the state of
      quiet and prosperity, which had seldom blessed the frontiers of
      Gaul. Their flocks and herds were permitted to graze in the
      pastures of the Barbarians; their huntsmen penetrated, without
      fear or danger, into the darkest recesses of the Hercynian wood.
      89 The banks of the Rhine were crowned, like those of the Tyber,
      with elegant houses, and well-cultivated farms; and if a poet
      descended the river, he might express his doubt, on which side
      was situated the territory of the Romans. 90 This scene of peace
      and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert; and the prospect
      of the smoking ruins could alone distinguish the solitude of
      nature from the desolation of man. The flourishing city of Mentz
      was surprised and destroyed; and many thousand Christians were
      inhumanly massacred in the church. Worms perished after a long
      and obstinate siege; Strasburgh, Spires, Rheims, Tournay, Arras,
      Amiens, experienced the cruel oppression of the German yoke; and
      the consuming flames of war spread from the banks of the Rhine
      over the greatest part of the seventeen provinces of Gaul. That
      rich and extensive country, as far as the ocean, the Alps, and
      the Pyrenees, was delivered to the Barbarians, who drove before
      them, in a promiscuous crowd, the bishop, the senator, and the
      virgin, laden with the spoils of their houses and altars. 91 The
      ecclesiastics, to whom we are indebted for this vague description
      of the public calamities, embraced the opportunity of exhorting
      the Christians to repent of the sins which had provoked the
      Divine Justice, and to renounce the perishable goods of a
      wretched and deceitful world. But as the Pelagian controversy, 92
      which attempts to sound the abyss of grace and predestination,
      soon became the serious employment of the Latin clergy, the
      Providence which had decreed, or foreseen, or permitted, such a
      train of moral and natural evils, was rashly weighed in the
      imperfect and fallacious balance of reason. The crimes, and the
      misfortunes, of the suffering people, were presumptuously
      compared with those of their ancestors; and they arraigned the
      Divine Justice, which did not exempt from the common destruction
      the feeble, the guiltless, the infant portion of the human
      species. These idle disputants overlooked the invariable laws of
      nature, which have connected peace with innocence, plenty with
      industry, and safety with valor. The timid and selfish policy of
      the court of Ravenna might recall the Palatine legions for the
      protection of Italy; the remains of the stationary troops might
      be unequal to the arduous task; and the Barbarian auxiliaries
      might prefer the unbounded license of spoil to the benefits of a
      moderate and regular stipend. But the provinces of Gaul were
      filled with a numerous race of hardy and robust youth, who, in
      the defence of their houses, their families, and their altars, if
      they had dared to die, would have deserved to vanquish. The
      knowledge of their native country would have enabled them to
      oppose continual and insuperable obstacles to the progress of an
      invader; and the deficiency of the Barbarians, in arms, as well
      as in discipline, removed the only pretence which excuses the
      submission of a populous country to the inferior numbers of a
      veteran army. When France was invaded by Charles V., he inquired
      of a prisoner, how many days Paris might be distant from the
      frontier; “Perhaps twelve, but they will be days of battle:” 93
      such was the gallant answer which checked the arrogance of that
      ambitious prince. The subjects of Honorius, and those of Francis
      I., were animated by a very different spirit; and in less than
      two years, the divided troops of the savages of the Baltic, whose
      numbers, were they fairly stated, would appear contemptible,
      advanced, without a combat, to the foot of the Pyrenean
      Mountains.

      89 (return) [ Claudian (i. Cons. Stil. l. i. 221, &c., l. ii.
      186) describes the peace and prosperity of the Gallic frontier.
      The Abbe Dubos (Hist. Critique, &c., tom. i. p. 174) would read
      Alba (a nameless rivulet of the Ardennes) instead of Albis; and
      expatiates on the danger of the Gallic cattle grazing beyond the
      Elbe. Foolish enough! In poetical geography, the Elbe, and the
      Hercynian, signify any river, or any wood, in Germany. Claudian
      is not prepared for the strict examination of our antiquaries.]

      90 (return) [—Germinasque viator Cum videat ripas, quae sit
      Romana requirat.]

      91 (return) [ Jerom, tom. i. p. 93. See in the 1st vol. of the
      Historians of France, p. 777, 782, the proper extracts from the
      Carmen de Providentil Divina, and Salvian. The anonymous poet was
      himself a captive, with his bishop and fellow-citizens.]

      92 (return) [ The Pelagian doctrine, which was first agitated
      A.D. 405, was condemned, in the space of ten years, at Rome and
      Carthage. St Augustin fought and conquered; but the Greek church
      was favorable to his adversaries; and (what is singular enough)
      the people did not take any part in a dispute which they could
      not understand.]

      93 (return) [ See the Memoires de Guillaume du Bellay, l. vi. In
      French, the original reproof is less obvious, and more pointed,
      from the double sense of the word journee, which alike signifies,
      a day’s travel, or a battle.]

      In the early part of the reign of Honorius, the vigilance of
      Stilicho had successfully guarded the remote island of Britain
      from her incessant enemies of the ocean, the mountains, and the
      Irish coast. 94 But those restless Barbarians could not neglect
      the fair opportunity of the Gothic war, when the walls and
      stations of the province were stripped of the Roman troops. If
      any of the legionaries were permitted to return from the Italian
      expedition, their faithful report of the court and character of
      Honorius must have tended to dissolve the bonds of allegiance,
      and to exasperate the seditious temper of the British army. The
      spirit of revolt, which had formerly disturbed the age of
      Gallienus, was revived by the capricious violence of the
      soldiers; and the unfortunate, perhaps the ambitious, candidates,
      who were the objects of their choice, were the instruments, and
      at length the victims, of their passion. 95 Marcus was the first
      whom they placed on the throne, as the lawful emperor of Britain
      and of the West. They violated, by the hasty murder of Marcus,
      the oath of fidelity which they had imposed on themselves; and
      their disapprobation of his manners may seem to inscribe an
      honorable epitaph on his tomb. Gratian was the next whom they
      adorned with the diadem and the purple; and, at the end of four
      months, Gratian experienced the fate of his predecessor. The
      memory of the great Constantine, whom the British legions had
      given to the church and to the empire, suggested the singular
      motive of their third choice. They discovered in the ranks a
      private soldier of the name of Constantine, and their impetuous
      levity had already seated him on the throne, before they
      perceived his incapacity to sustain the weight of that glorious
      appellation. 96 Yet the authority of Constantine was less
      precarious, and his government was more successful, than the
      transient reigns of Marcus and of Gratian. The danger of leaving
      his inactive troops in those camps, which had been twice polluted
      with blood and sedition, urged him to attempt the reduction of
      the Western provinces. He landed at Boulogne with an
      inconsiderable force; and after he had reposed himself some days,
      he summoned the cities of Gaul, which had escaped the yoke of the
      Barbarians, to acknowledge their lawful sovereign. They obeyed
      the summons without reluctance. The neglect of the court of
      Ravenna had absolved a deserted people from the duty of
      allegiance; their actual distress encouraged them to accept any
      circumstances of change, without apprehension, and, perhaps, with
      some degree of hope; and they might flatter themselves, that the
      troops, the authority, and even the name of a Roman emperor, who
      fixed his residence in Gaul, would protect the unhappy country
      from the rage of the Barbarians. The first successes of
      Constantine against the detached parties of the Germans, were
      magnified by the voice of adulation into splendid and decisive
      victories; which the reunion and insolence of the enemy soon
      reduced to their just value. His negotiations procured a short
      and precarious truce; and if some tribes of the Barbarians were
      engaged, by the liberality of his gifts and promises, to
      undertake the defence of the Rhine, these expensive and uncertain
      treaties, instead of restoring the pristine vigor of the Gallic
      frontier, served only to disgrace the majesty of the prince, and
      to exhaust what yet remained of the treasures of the republic.
      Elated, however, with this imaginary triumph, the vain deliverer
      of Gaul advanced into the provinces of the South, to encounter a
      more pressing and personal danger. Sarus the Goth was ordered to
      lay the head of the rebel at the feet of the emperor Honorius;
      and the forces of Britain and Italy were unworthily consumed in
      this domestic quarrel. After the loss of his two bravest
      generals, Justinian and Nevigastes, the former of whom was slain
      in the field of battle, the latter in a peaceful but treacherous
      interview, Constantine fortified himself within the walls of
      Vienna. The place was ineffectually attacked seven days; and the
      Imperial army supported, in a precipitate retreat, the ignominy
      of purchasing a secure passage from the freebooters and outlaws
      of the Alps. 97 Those mountains now separated the dominions of
      two rival monarchs; and the fortifications of the double frontier
      were guarded by the troops of the empire, whose arms would have
      been more usefully employed to maintain the Roman limits against
      the Barbarians of Germany and Scythia.

      94 (return) [ Claudian, (i. Cons. Stil. l. ii. 250.) It is
      supposed that the Scots of Ireland invaded, by sea, the whole
      western coast of Britain: and some slight credit may be given
      even to Nennius and the Irish traditions, (Carte’s Hist. of
      England, vol. i. p. 169.) Whitaker’s Genuine History of the
      Britons, p. 199. The sixty-six lives of St. Patrick, which were
      extant in the ninth century, must have contained as many thousand
      lies; yet we may believe, that, in one of these Irish inroads the
      future apostle was led away captive, (Usher, Antiquit. Eccles
      Britann. p. 431, and Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 45 782,
      &c.)]

      95 (return) [ The British usurpers are taken from Zosimus, (l.
      vi. p. 371-375,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 40, p. 576, 577,)
      Olympiodorus, (apud Photium, p. 180, 181,) the ecclesiastical
      historians, and the Chronicles. The Latins are ignorant of
      Marcus.]

      96 (return) [ Cum in Constantino inconstantiam... execrarentur,
      (Sidonius Apollinaris, l. v. epist. 9, p. 139, edit. secund.
      Sirmond.) Yet Sidonius might be tempted, by so fair a pun, to
      stigmatize a prince who had disgraced his grandfather.]

      97 (return) [ Bagaudoe is the name which Zosimus applies to them;
      perhaps they deserved a less odious character, (see Dubos, Hist.
      Critique, tom. i. p. 203, and this History, vol. i. p. 407.) We
      shall hear of them again.]




      Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part V.

      On the side of the Pyrenees, the ambition of Constantine might be
      justified by the proximity of danger; but his throne was soon
      established by the conquest, or rather submission, of Spain;
      which yielded to the influence of regular and habitual
      subordination, and received the laws and magistrates of the
      Gallic praefecture. The only opposition which was made to the
      authority of Constantine proceeded not so much from the powers of
      government, or the spirit of the people, as from the private zeal
      and interest of the family of Theodosius. Four brothers 98 had
      obtained, by the favor of their kinsman, the deceased emperor, an
      honorable rank and ample possessions in their native country; and
      the grateful youths resolved to risk those advantages in the
      service of his son. After an unsuccessful effort to maintain
      their ground at the head of the stationary troops of Lusitania,
      they retired to their estates; where they armed and levied, at
      their own expense, a considerable body of slaves and dependants,
      and boldly marched to occupy the strong posts of the Pyrenean
      Mountains. This domestic insurrection alarmed and perplexed the
      sovereign of Gaul and Britain; and he was compelled to negotiate
      with some troops of Barbarian auxiliaries, for the service of the
      Spanish war. They were distinguished by the title of Honorians;
      99 a name which might have reminded them of their fidelity to
      their lawful sovereign; and if it should candidly be allowed that
      the Scots were influenced by any partial affection for a British
      prince, the Moors and the Marcomanni could be tempted only by the
      profuse liberality of the usurper, who distributed among the
      Barbarians the military, and even the civil, honors of Spain. The
      nine bands of Honorians, which may be easily traced on the
      establishment of the Western empire, could not exceed the number
      of five thousand men: yet this inconsiderable force was
      sufficient to terminate a war, which had threatened the power and
      safety of Constantine. The rustic army of the Theodosian family
      was surrounded and destroyed in the Pyrenees: two of the brothers
      had the good fortune to escape by sea to Italy, or the East; the
      other two, after an interval of suspense, were executed at Arles;
      and if Honorius could remain insensible of the public disgrace,
      he might perhaps be affected by the personal misfortunes of his
      generous kinsmen. Such were the feeble arms which decided the
      possession of the Western provinces of Europe, from the wall of
      Antoninus to the columns of Hercules. The events of peace and war
      have undoubtedly been diminished by the narrow and imperfect view
      of the historians of the times, who were equally ignorant of the
      causes, and of the effects, of the most important revolutions.
      But the total decay of the national strength had annihilated even
      the last resource of a despotic government; and the revenue of
      exhausted provinces could no longer purchase the military service
      of a discontented and pusillanimous people.

      98 (return) [ Verinianus, Didymus, Theodosius, and Lagodius, who
      in modern courts would be styled princes of the blood, were not
      distinguished by any rank or privileges above the rest of their
      fellow-subjects.]

      99 (return) [ These Honoriani, or Honoriaci, consisted of two
      bands of Scots, or Attacotti, two of Moors, two of Marcomanni,
      the Victores, the Asca in, and the Gallicani, (Notitia Imperii,
      sect. xxxiii. edit. Lab.) They were part of the sixty-five
      Auxilia Palatina, and are properly styled by Zosimus, (l. vi.
      374.)]

      The poet, whose flattery has ascribed to the Roman eagle the
      victories of Pollentia and Verona, pursues the hasty retreat of
      Alaric, from the confines of Italy, with a horrid train of
      imaginary spectres, such as might hover over an army of
      Barbarians, which was almost exterminated by war, famine, and
      disease. 100 In the course of this unfortunate expedition, the
      king of the Goths must indeed have sustained a considerable loss;
      and his harassed forces required an interval of repose, to
      recruit their numbers and revive their confidence. Adversity had
      exercised and displayed the genius of Alaric; and the fame of his
      valor invited to the Gothic standard the bravest of the Barbarian
      warriors; who, from the Euxine to the Rhine, were agitated by the
      desire of rapine and conquest. He had deserved the esteem, and he
      soon accepted the friendship, of Stilicho himself. Renouncing the
      service of the emperor of the East, Alaric concluded, with the
      court of Ravenna, a treaty of peace and alliance, by which he was
      declared master-general of the Roman armies throughout the
      praefecture of Illyricum; as it was claimed, according to the
      true and ancient limits, by the minister of Honorius. 101 The
      execution of the ambitious design, which was either stipulated,
      or implied, in the articles of the treaty, appears to have been
      suspended by the formidable irruption of Radagaisus; and the
      neutrality of the Gothic king may perhaps be compared to the
      indifference of Caesar, who, in the conspiracy of Catiline,
      refused either to assist, or to oppose, the enemy of the
      republic. After the defeat of the Vandals, Stilicho resumed his
      pretensions to the provinces of the East; appointed civil
      magistrates for the administration of justice, and of the
      finances; and declared his impatience to lead to the gates of
      Constantinople the united armies of the Romans and of the Goths.
      The prudence, however, of Stilicho, his aversion to civil war,
      and his perfect knowledge of the weakness of the state, may
      countenance the suspicion, that domestic peace, rather than
      foreign conquest, was the object of his policy; and that his
      principal care was to employ the forces of Alaric at a distance
      from Italy. This design could not long escape the penetration of
      the Gothic king, who continued to hold a doubtful, and perhaps a
      treacherous, correspondence with the rival courts; who
      protracted, like a dissatisfied mercenary, his languid operations
      in Thessaly and Epirus, and who soon returned to claim the
      extravagant reward of his ineffectual services. From his camp
      near Aemona, 102 on the confines of Italy, he transmitted to the
      emperor of the West a long account of promises, of expenses, and
      of demands; called for immediate satisfaction, and clearly
      intimated the consequences of a refusal. Yet if his conduct was
      hostile, his language was decent and dutiful. He humbly professed
      himself the friend of Stilicho, and the soldier of Honorius;
      offered his person and his troops to march, without delay,
      against the usurper of Gaul; and solicited, as a permanent
      retreat for the Gothic nation, the possession of some vacant
      province of the Western empire.

      100 (return) [

     Comitatur euntem Pallor, et atra fames; et saucia lividus ora
     Luctus; et inferno stridentes agmine morbi. —-Claudian in vi.
     Cons. Hon. 821, &c.]

      101 (return) [ These dark transactions are investigated by the
      Count de Bual (Hist. des Peuples de l’Europe, tom. vii. c.
      iii.—viii. p. 69-206,) whose laborious accuracy may sometimes
      fatigue a superficial reader.]

      102 (return) [ See Zosimus, l. v. p. 334, 335. He interrupts his
      scanty narrative to relate the fable of Aemona, and of the ship
      Argo; which was drawn overland from that place to the Adriatic.
      Sozomen (l. viii. c. 25, l. ix. c. 4) and Socrates (l. vii. c.
      10) cast a pale and doubtful light; and Orosius (l. vii. c. 38,
      p. 571) is abominably partial.]

      The political and secret transactions of two statesmen, who
      labored to deceive each other and the world, must forever have
      been concealed in the impenetrable darkness of the cabinet, if
      the debates of a popular assembly had not thrown some rays of
      light on the correspondence of Alaric and Stilicho. The necessity
      of finding some artificial support for a government, which, from
      a principle, not of moderation, but of weakness, was reduced to
      negotiate with its own subjects, had insensibly revived the
      authority of the Roman senate; and the minister of Honorius
      respectfully consulted the legislative council of the republic.
      Stilicho assembled the senate in the palace of the Caesars;
      represented, in a studied oration, the actual state of affairs;
      proposed the demands of the Gothic king, and submitted to their
      consideration the choice of peace or war. The senators, as if
      they had been suddenly awakened from a dream of four hundred
      years, appeared, on this important occasion, to be inspired by
      the courage, rather than by the wisdom, of their predecessors.
      They loudly declared, in regular speeches, or in tumultuary
      acclamations, that it was unworthy of the majesty of Rome to
      purchase a precarious and disgraceful truce from a Barbarian
      king; and that, in the judgment of a magnanimous people, the
      chance of ruin was always preferable to the certainty of
      dishonor. The minister, whose pacific intentions were seconded
      only by the voice of a few servile and venal followers, attempted
      to allay the general ferment, by an apology for his own conduct,
      and even for the demands of the Gothic prince. “The payment of a
      subsidy, which had excited the indignation of the Romans, ought
      not (such was the language of Stilicho) to be considered in the
      odious light, either of a tribute, or of a ransom, extorted by
      the menaces of a Barbarian enemy. Alaric had faithfully asserted
      the just pretensions of the republic to the provinces which were
      usurped by the Greeks of Constantinople: he modestly required the
      fair and stipulated recompense of his services; and if he had
      desisted from the prosecution of his enterprise, he had obeyed,
      in his retreat, the peremptory, though private, letters of the
      emperor himself. These contradictory orders (he would not
      dissemble the errors of his own family) had been procured by the
      intercession of Serena. The tender piety of his wife had been too
      deeply affected by the discord of the royal brothers, the sons of
      her adopted father; and the sentiments of nature had too easily
      prevailed over the stern dictates of the public welfare.“ These
      ostensible reasons, which faintly disguise the obscure intrigues
      of the palace of Ravenna, were supported by the authority of
      Stilicho; and obtained, after a warm debate, the reluctant
      approbation of the senate. The tumult of virtue and freedom
      subsided; and the sum of four thousand pounds of gold was
      granted, under the name of a subsidy, to secure the peace of
      Italy, and to conciliate the friendship of the king of the Goths.
      Lampadius alone, one of the most illustrious members of the
      assembly, still persisted in his dissent; exclaimed, with a loud
      voice, “This is not a treaty of peace, but of servitude;” 103 and
      escaped the danger of such bold opposition by immediately
      retiring to the sanctuary of a Christian church. [See Palace Of
      The Caesars]

      103 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 338, 339. He repeats the words
      of Lampadius, as they were spoke in Latin, “Non est ista pax, sed
      pactio servi tutis,“ and then translates them into Greek for the
      benefit of his readers. * Note: From Cicero’s XIIth Philippic,
      14.—M.]

      But the reign of Stilicho drew towards its end; and the proud
      minister might perceive the symptoms of his approaching disgrace.
      The generous boldness of Lampadius had been applauded; and the
      senate, so patiently resigned to a long servitude, rejected with
      disdain the offer of invidious and imaginary freedom. The troops,
      who still assumed the name and prerogatives of the Roman legions,
      were exasperated by the partial affection of Stilicho for the
      Barbarians: and the people imputed to the mischievous policy of
      the minister the public misfortunes, which were the natural
      consequence of their own degeneracy. Yet Stilicho might have
      continued to brave the clamors of the people, and even of the
      soldiers, if he could have maintained his dominion over the
      feeble mind of his pupil. But the respectful attachment of
      Honorius was converted into fear, suspicion, and hatred. The
      crafty Olympius, 104 who concealed his vices under the mask of
      Christian piety, had secretly undermined the benefactor, by whose
      favor he was promoted to the honorable offices of the Imperial
      palace. Olympius revealed to the unsuspecting emperor, who had
      attained the twenty-fifth year of his age, that he was without
      weight, or authority, in his own government; and artfully alarmed
      his timid and indolent disposition by a lively picture of the
      designs of Stilicho, who already meditated the death of his
      sovereign, with the ambitious hope of placing the diadem on the
      head of his son Eucherius. The emperor was instigated, by his new
      favorite, to assume the tone of independent dignity; and the
      minister was astonished to find, that secret resolutions were
      formed in the court and council, which were repugnant to his
      interest, or to his intentions. Instead of residing in the palace
      of Rome, Honorius declared that it was his pleasure to return to
      the secure fortress of Ravenna. On the first intelligence of the
      death of his brother Arcadius, he prepared to visit
      Constantinople, and to regulate, with the authority of a
      guardian, the provinces of the infant Theodosius. 105 The
      representation of the difficulty and expense of such a distant
      expedition, checked this strange and sudden sally of active
      diligence; but the dangerous project of showing the emperor to
      the camp of Pavia, which was composed of the Roman troops, the
      enemies of Stilicho, and his Barbarian auxiliaries, remained
      fixed and unalterable. The minister was pressed, by the advice of
      his confidant, Justinian, a Roman advocate, of a lively and
      penetrating genius, to oppose a journey so prejudicial to his
      reputation and safety. His strenuous but ineffectual efforts
      confirmed the triumph of Olympius; and the prudent lawyer
      withdrew himself from the impending ruin of his patron.

      104 (return) [ He came from the coast of the Euxine, and
      exercised a splendid office. His actions justify his character,
      which Zosimus (l. v. p. 340) exposes with visible satisfaction.
      Augustin revered the piety of Olympius, whom he styles a true son
      of the church, (Baronius, Annal. Eccles, Eccles. A.D. 408, No.
      19, &c. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 467, 468.) But
      these praises, which the African saint so unworthily bestows,
      might proceed as well from ignorance as from adulation.]

      105 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 338, 339. Sozomen, l. ix. c. 4.
      Stilicho offered to undertake the journey to Constantinople, that
      he might divert Honorius from the vain attempt. The Eastern
      empire would not have obeyed, and could not have been conquered.]

      In the passage of the emperor through Bologna, a mutiny of the
      guards was excited and appeased by the secret policy of Stilicho;
      who announced his instructions to decimate the guilty, and
      ascribed to his own intercession the merit of their pardon. After
      this tumult, Honorius embraced, for the last time, the minister
      whom he now considered as a tyrant, and proceeded on his way to
      the camp of Pavia; where he was received by the loyal
      acclamations of the troops who were assembled for the service of
      the Gallic war. On the morning of the fourth day, he pronounced,
      as he had been taught, a military oration in the presence of the
      soldiers, whom the charitable visits, and artful discourses, of
      Olympius had prepared to execute a dark and bloody conspiracy. At
      the first signal, they massacred the friends of Stilicho, the
      most illustrious officers of the empire; two Praetorian
      praefects, of Gaul and of Italy; two masters-general of the
      cavalry and infantry; the master of the offices; the quaestor,
      the treasurer, and the count of the domestics. Many lives were
      lost; many houses were plundered; the furious sedition continued
      to rage till the close of the evening; and the trembling emperor,
      who was seen in the streets of Pavia without his robes or diadem,
      yielded to the persuasions of his favorite; condemned the memory
      of the slain; and solemnly approved the innocence and fidelity of
      their assassins. The intelligence of the massacre of Pavia filled
      the mind of Stilicho with just and gloomy apprehensions; and he
      instantly summoned, in the camp of Bologna, a council of the
      confederate leaders, who were attached to his service, and would
      be involved in his ruin. The impetuous voice of the assembly
      called aloud for arms, and for revenge; to march, without a
      moment’s delay, under the banners of a hero, whom they had so
      often followed to victory; to surprise, to oppress, to extirpate
      the guilty Olympius, and his degenerate Romans; and perhaps to
      fix the diadem on the head of their injured general. Instead of
      executing a resolution, which might have been justified by
      success, Stilicho hesitated till he was irrecoverably lost. He
      was still ignorant of the fate of the emperor; he distrusted the
      fidelity of his own party; and he viewed with horror the fatal
      consequences of arming a crowd of licentious Barbarians against
      the soldiers and people of Italy. The confederates, impatient of
      his timorous and doubtful delay, hastily retired, with fear and
      indignation. At the hour of midnight, Sarus, a Gothic warrior,
      renowned among the Barbarians themselves for his strength and
      valor, suddenly invaded the camp of his benefactor, plundered the
      baggage, cut in pieces the faithful Huns, who guarded his person,
      and penetrated to the tent, where the minister, pensive and
      sleepless, meditated on the dangers of his situation. Stilicho
      escaped with difficulty from the sword of the Goths and, after
      issuing a last and generous admonition to the cities of Italy, to
      shut their gates against the Barbarians, his confidence, or his
      despair, urged him to throw himself into Ravenna, which was
      already in the absolute possession of his enemies. Olympius, who
      had assumed the dominion of Honorius, was speedily informed, that
      his rival had embraced, as a suppliant the altar of the Christian
      church. The base and cruel disposition of the hypocrite was
      incapable of pity or remorse; but he piously affected to elude,
      rather than to violate, the privilege of the sanctuary. Count
      Heraclian, with a troop of soldiers, appeared, at the dawn of
      day, before the gates of the church of Ravenna. The bishop was
      satisfied by a solemn oath, that the Imperial mandate only
      directed them to secure the person of Stilicho: but as soon as
      the unfortunate minister had been tempted beyond the holy
      threshold, he produced the warrant for his instant execution.
      Stilicho supported, with calm resignation, the injurious names of
      traitor and parricide; repressed the unseasonable zeal of his
      followers, who were ready to attempt an ineffectual rescue; and,
      with a firmness not unworthy of the last of the Roman generals,
      submitted his neck to the sword of Heraclian. 106

      106 (return) [ Zosimus (l. v. p. 336-345) has copiously, though
      not clearly, related the disgrace and death of Stilicho.
      Olympiodorus, (apud Phot. p. 177.) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 38, p.
      571, 572,) Sozomen, (l. ix. c. 4,) and Philostorgius, (l. xi. c.
      3, l. xii. c. 2,) afford supplemental hints.]

      The servile crowd of the palace, who had so long adored the
      fortune of Stilicho, affected to insult his fall; and the most
      distant connection with the master-general of the West, which had
      so lately been a title to wealth and honors, was studiously
      denied, and rigorously punished. His family, united by a triple
      alliance with the family of Theodosius, might envy the condition
      of the meanest peasant. The flight of his son Eucherius was
      intercepted; and the death of that innocent youth soon followed
      the divorce of Thermantia, who filled the place of her sister
      Maria; and who, like Maria, had remained a virgin in the Imperial
      bed. 107 The friends of Stilicho, who had escaped the massacre of
      Pavia, were persecuted by the implacable revenge of Olympius; and
      the most exquisite cruelty was employed to extort the confession
      of a treasonable and sacrilegious conspiracy. They died in
      silence: their firmness justified the choice, 108 and perhaps
      absolved the innocence of their patron: and the despotic power,
      which could take his life without a trial, and stigmatize his
      memory without a proof, has no jurisdiction over the impartial
      suffrage of posterity. 109 The services of Stilicho are great and
      manifest; his crimes, as they are vaguely stated in the language
      of flattery and hatred, are obscure at least, and improbable.
      About four months after his death, an edict was published, in the
      name of Honorius, to restore the free communication of the two
      empires, which had been so long interrupted by the public enemy.
      110 The minister, whose fame and fortune depended on the
      prosperity of the state, was accused of betraying Italy to the
      Barbarians; whom he repeatedly vanquished at Pollentia, at
      Verona, and before the walls of Florence. His pretended design of
      placing the diadem on the head of his son Eucherius, could not
      have been conducted without preparations or accomplices; and the
      ambitious father would not surely have left the future emperor,
      till the twentieth year of his age, in the humble station of
      tribune of the notaries. Even the religion of Stilicho was
      arraigned by the malice of his rival. The seasonable, and almost
      miraculous, deliverance was devoutly celebrated by the applause
      of the clergy; who asserted, that the restoration of idols, and
      the persecution of the church, would have been the first measure
      of the reign of Eucherius. The son of Stilicho, however, was
      educated in the bosom of Christianity, which his father had
      uniformly professed, and zealously supported. 111 1111 Serena had
      borrowed her magnificent necklace from the statue of Vesta; 112
      and the Pagans execrated the memory of the sacrilegious minister,
      by whose order the Sibylline books, the oracles of Rome, had been
      committed to the flames. 113 The pride and power of Stilicho
      constituted his real guilt. An honorable reluctance to shed the
      blood of his countrymen appears to have contributed to the
      success of his unworthy rival; and it is the last humiliation of
      the character of Honorius, that posterity has not condescended to
      reproach him with his base ingratitude to the guardian of his
      youth, and the support of his empire.

      107 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 333. The marriage of a Christian
      with two sisters, scandalizes Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs,
      tom. v. p. 557;) who expects, in vain, that Pope Innocent I.
      should have done something in the way either of censure or of
      dispensation.]

      108 (return) [ Two of his friends are honorably mentioned,
      (Zosimus, l. v. p. 346:) Peter, chief of the school of notaries,
      and the great chamberlain Deuterius. Stilicho had secured the
      bed-chamber; and it is surprising that, under a feeble prince,
      the bed-chamber was not able to secure him.]

      109 (return) [ Orosius (l. vii. c. 38, p. 571, 572) seems to copy
      the false and furious manifestos, which were dispersed through
      the provinces by the new administration.]

      110 (return) [ See the Theodosian code, l. vii. tit. xvi. leg. 1,
      l. ix. tit. xlii. leg. 22. Stilicho is branded with the name of
      proedo publicus, who employed his wealth, ad omnem ditandam,
      inquietandamque Barbariem.]

      111 (return) [ Augustin himself is satisfied with the effectual
      laws, which Stilicho had enacted against heretics and idolaters;
      and which are still extant in the Code. He only applies to
      Olympius for their confirmation, (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D.
      408, No. 19.)]

      112 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 351. We may observe the bad
      taste of the age, in dressing their statues with such awkward
      finery.]

      113 (return) [ See Rutilius Numatianus, (Itinerar. l. ii. 41-60,)
      to whom religious enthusiasm has dictated some elegant and
      forcible lines. Stilicho likewise stripped the gold plates from
      the doors of the Capitol, and read a prophetic sentence which was
      engraven under them, (Zosimus, l. v. p. 352.) These are foolish
      stories: yet the charge of impiety adds weight and credit to the
      praise which Zosimus reluctantly bestows on his virtues. Note:
      One particular in the extorted praise of Zosimus, deserved the
      notice of the historian, as strongly opposed to the former
      imputations of Zosimus himself, and indicative of he corrupt
      practices of a declining age. “He had never bartered promotion in
      the army for bribes, nor peculated in the supplies of provisions
      for the army.“ l. v. c. xxxiv.—M.]

      1111 (return) [ Hence, perhaps, the accusation of treachery is
      countenanced by Hatilius:—

     Quo magis est facinus diri Stilichonis iniquum Proditor arcani
     quod fuit imperii. Romano generi dum nititur esse superstes,
     Crudelis summis miscuit ima furor. Dumque timet, quicquid se
     fecerat ipso timeri, Immisit Latiae barbara tela neci.  Rutil.
     Itin. II. 41.—M.] Among the train of dependants whose wealth and
     dignity attracted the notice of their own times, our curiosity is
     excited by the celebrated name of the poet Claudian, who enjoyed
     the favor of Stilicho, and was overwhelmed in the ruin of his
     patron.]

      The titular offices of tribune and notary fixed his rank in the
      Imperial court: he was indebted to the powerful intercession of
      Serena for his marriage with a very rich heiress of the province
      of Africa; 114 and the statute of Claudian, erected in the forum
      of Trajan, was a monument of the taste and liberality of the
      Roman senate. 115 After the praises of Stilicho became offensive
      and criminal, Claudian was exposed to the enmity of a powerful
      and unforgiving courtier, whom he had provoked by the insolence
      of wit. He had compared, in a lively epigram, the opposite
      characters of two Praetorian praefects of Italy; he contrasts the
      innocent repose of a philosopher, who sometimes resigned the
      hours of business to slumber, perhaps to study, with the
      interesting diligence of a rapacious minister, indefatigable in
      the pursuit of unjust or sacrilegious, gain. “How happy,“
      continues Claudian, “how happy might it be for the people of
      Italy, if Mallius could be constantly awake, and if Hadrian would
      always sleep!“ 116 The repose of Mallius was not disturbed by
      this friendly and gentle admonition; but the cruel vigilance of
      Hadrian watched the opportunity of revenge, and easily obtained,
      from the enemies of Stilicho, the trifling sacrifice of an
      obnoxious poet. The poet concealed himself, however, during the
      tumult of the revolution; and, consulting the dictates of
      prudence rather than of honor, he addressed, in the form of an
      epistle, a suppliant and humble recantation to the offended
      praefect. He deplores, in mournful strains, the fatal
      indiscretion into which he had been hurried by passion and folly;
      submits to the imitation of his adversary the generous examples
      of the clemency of gods, of heroes, and of lions; and expresses
      his hope that the magnanimity of Hadrian will not trample on a
      defenceless and contemptible foe, already humbled by disgrace and
      poverty, and deeply wounded by the exile, the tortures, and the
      death of his dearest friends. 117 Whatever might be the success
      of his prayer, or the accidents of his future life, the period of
      a few years levelled in the grave the minister and the poet: but
      the name of Hadrian is almost sunk in oblivion, while Claudian is
      read with pleasure in every country which has retained, or
      acquired, the knowledge of the Latin language. If we fairly
      balance his merits and his defects, we shall acknowledge that
      Claudian does not either satisfy, or silence, our reason. It
      would not be easy to produce a passage that deserves the epithet
      of sublime or pathetic; to select a verse that melts the heart or
      enlarges the imagination. We should vainly seek, in the poems of
      Claudian, the happy invention, and artificial conduct, of an
      interesting fable; or the just and lively representation of the
      characters and situations of real life. For the service of his
      patron, he published occasional panegyrics and invectives: and
      the design of these slavish compositions encouraged his
      propensity to exceed the limits of truth and nature. These
      imperfections, however, are compensated in some degree by the
      poetical virtues of Claudian. He was endowed with the rare and
      precious talent of raising the meanest, of adorning the most
      barren, and of diversifying the most similar, topics: his
      coloring, more especially in descriptive poetry, is soft and
      splendid; and he seldom fails to display, and even to abuse, the
      advantages of a cultivated understanding, a copious fancy, an
      easy, and sometimes forcible, expression; and a perpetual flow of
      harmonious versification. To these commendations, independent of
      any accidents of time and place, we must add the peculiar merit
      which Claudian derived from the unfavorable circumstances of his
      birth. In the decline of arts, and of empire, a native of Egypt,
      118 who had received the education of a Greek, assumed, in a
      mature age, the familiar use, and absolute command, of the Latin
      language; 119 soared above the heads of his feeble
      contemporaries; and placed himself, after an interval of three
      hundred years, among the poets of ancient Rome. 120

      114 (return) [ At the nuptials of Orpheus (a modest comparison!)
      all the parts of animated nature contributed their various gifts;
      and the gods themselves enriched their favorite. Claudian had
      neither flocks, nor herds, nor vines, nor olives. His wealthy
      bride was heiress to them all. But he carried to Africa a
      recommendatory letter from Serena, his Juno, and was made happy,
      (Epist. ii. ad Serenam.)]

      115 (return) [ Claudian feels the honor like a man who deserved
      it, (in praefat Bell. Get.) The original inscription, on marble,
      was found at Rome, in the fifteenth century, in the house of
      Pomponius Laetus. The statue of a poet, far superior to Claudian,
      should have been erected, during his lifetime, by the men of
      letters, his countrymen and contemporaries. It was a noble
      design.]

      116 (return) [ See Epigram xxx.

     Mallius indulget somno noctesque diesque: Insomnis Pharius sacra,
     profana, rapit. Omnibus, hoc, Italae gentes, exposcite votis;
     Mallius ut vigilet, dormiat ut Pharius.

      Hadrian was a Pharian, (of Alexandrian.) See his public life in
      Godefroy, Cod. Theodos. tom. vi. p. 364. Mallius did not always
      sleep. He composed some elegant dialogues on the Greek systems of
      natural philosophy, (Claud, in Mall. Theodor. Cons. 61-112.)]

      117 (return) [ See Claudian’s first Epistle. Yet, in some places,
      an air of irony and indignation betrays his secret reluctance. *
      Note: M. Beugnot has pointed out one remarkable characteristic of
      Claudian’s poetry, and of the times—his extraordinary religious
      indifference. Here is a poet writing at the actual crisis of the
      complete triumph of the new religion, the visible extinction of
      the old: if we may so speak, a strictly historical poet, whose
      works, excepting his Mythological poem on the rape of Proserpine,
      are confined to temporary subjects, and to the politics of his
      own eventful day; yet, excepting in one or two small and
      indifferent pieces, manifestly written by a Christian, and
      interpolated among his poems, there is no allusion whatever to
      the great religious strife. No one would know the existence of
      Christianity at that period of the world, by reading the works of
      Claudian. His panegyric and his satire preserve the same
      religious impartiality; award their most lavish praise or their
      bitterest invective on Christian or Pagan; he insults the fall of
      Eugenius, and glories in the victories of Theodosius. Under the
      child,—and Honorius never became more than a child,—Christianity
      continued to inflict wounds more and more deadly on expiring
      Paganism. Are the gods of Olympus agitated with apprehension at
      the birth of this new enemy? They are introduced as rejoicing at
      his appearance, and promising long years of glory. The whole
      prophetic choir of Paganism, all the oracles throughout the
      world, are summoned to predict the felicity of his reign. His
      birth is compared to that of Apollo, but the narrow limits of an
      island must not confine the new deity—

     ... Non littora nostro Sufficerent angusta Deo.

      Augury and divination, the shrines of Ammon, and of Delphi, the
      Persian Magi, and the Etruscan seers, the Chaldean astrologers,
      the Sibyl herself, are described as still discharging their
      prophetic functions, and celebrating the natal day of this
      Christian prince. They are noble lines, as well as curious
      illustrations of the times:

     ... Quae tunc documenta futuri? Quae voces avium? quanti per inane
     volatus? Quis vatum discursus erat?  Tibi corniger Ammon, Et dudum
     taciti rupere silentia Delphi. Te Persae cecinere Magi, te sensit
     Etruscus Augur, et inspectis Babylonius horruit astris; Chaldaei
     stupuere senes, Cumanaque rursus Itonuit rupes, rabidae delubra
     Sibyllae. —Claud. iv. Cons. Hon. 141.

      From the Quarterly Review of Beugnot. Hist. de la Paganisme en
      Occident, Q. R. v. lvii. p. 61.—M.]

      118 (return) [ National vanity has made him a Florentine, or a
      Spaniard. But the first Epistle of Claudian proves him a native
      of Alexandria, (Fabricius, Bibliot. Latin. tom. iii. p. 191-202,
      edit. Ernest.)]

      119 (return) [ His first Latin verses were composed during the
      consulship of Probinus, A.D. 395.

      Romanos bibimus primum, te consule, fontes, Et Latiae cessit
      Graia Thalia togae.

      Besides some Greek epigrams, which are still extant, the Latin
      poet had composed, in Greek, the Antiquities of Tarsus,
      Anazarbus, Berytus, Nice, &c. It is more easy to supply the loss
      of good poetry, than of authentic history.]

      120 (return) [ Strada (Prolusion v. vi.) allows him to contend
      with the five heroic poets, Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and
      Statius. His patron is the accomplished courtier Balthazar
      Castiglione. His admirers are numerous and passionate. Yet the
      rigid critics reproach the exotic weeds, or flowers, which spring
      too luxuriantly in his Latian soil]




      Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
      Barbarians.—Part I.

     Invasion Of Italy By Alaric.—Manners Of The Roman Senate And
     People.—Rome Is Thrice Besieged, And At Length Pillaged, By The
     Goths.—Death Of Alaric.—The Goths Evacuate Italy.—Fall Of
     Constantine.—Gaul And Spain Are Occupied By The Barbarians.
     —Independence Of Britain.

      The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may often
      assume the appearance, and produce the effects, of a treasonable
      correspondence with the public enemy. If Alaric himself had been
      introduced into the council of Ravenna, he would probably have
      advised the same measures which were actually pursued by the
      ministers of Honorius. 1 The king of the Goths would have
      conspired, perhaps with some reluctance, to destroy the
      formidable adversary, by whose arms, in Italy, as well as in
      Greece, he had been twice overthrown. Their active and interested
      hatred laboriously accomplished the disgrace and ruin of the
      great Stilicho. The valor of Sarus, his fame in arms, and his
      personal, or hereditary, influence over the confederate
      Barbarians, could recommend him only to the friends of their
      country, who despised, or detested, the worthless characters of
      Turpilio, Varanes, and Vigilantius. By the pressing instances of
      the new favorites, these generals, unworthy as they had shown
      themselves of the names of soldiers, 2 were promoted to the
      command of the cavalry, of the infantry, and of the domestic
      troops. The Gothic prince would have subscribed with pleasure the
      edict which the fanaticism of Olympius dictated to the simple and
      devout emperor. Honorius excluded all persons, who were adverse
      to the Catholic church, from holding any office in the state;
      obstinately rejected the service of all those who dissented from
      his religion; and rashly disqualified many of his bravest and
      most skilful officers, who adhered to the Pagan worship, or who
      had imbibed the opinions of Arianism. 3 These measures, so
      advantageous to an enemy, Alaric would have approved, and might
      perhaps have suggested; but it may seem doubtful, whether the
      Barbarian would have promoted his interest at the expense of the
      inhuman and absurd cruelty which was perpetrated by the
      direction, or at least with the connivance of the Imperial
      ministers. The foreign auxiliaries, who had been attached to the
      person of Stilicho, lamented his death; but the desire of revenge
      was checked by a natural apprehension for the safety of their
      wives and children; who were detained as hostages in the strong
      cities of Italy, where they had likewise deposited their most
      valuable effects. At the same hour, and as if by a common signal,
      the cities of Italy were polluted by the same horrid scenes of
      universal massacre and pillage, which involved, in promiscuous
      destruction, the families and fortunes of the Barbarians.
      Exasperated by such an injury, which might have awakened the
      tamest and most servile spirit, they cast a look of indignation
      and hope towards the camp of Alaric, and unanimously swore to
      pursue, with just and implacable war, the perfidious nation who
      had so basely violated the laws of hospitality. By the imprudent
      conduct of the ministers of Honorius, the republic lost the
      assistance, and deserved the enmity, of thirty thousand of her
      bravest soldiers; and the weight of that formidable army, which
      alone might have determined the event of the war, was transferred
      from the scale of the Romans into that of the Goths.

      1 (return) [ The series of events, from the death of Stilicho to
      the arrival of Alaric before Rome, can only be found in Zosimus,
      l. v. p. 347-350.]

      2 (return) [ The expression of Zosimus is strong and lively,
      sufficient to excite the contempt of the enemy.]

      3 (return) [ Eos qui catholicae sectae sunt inimici, intra
      palatium militare pro hibemus. Nullus nobis sit aliqua ratione
      conjunctus, qui a nobis fidest religione discordat. Cod. Theodos.
      l. xvi. tit. v. leg. 42, and Godefroy’s Commentary, tom. vi. p.
      164. This law was applied in the utmost latitude, and rigorously
      executed. Zosimus, l. v. p. 364.]

      In the arts of negotiation, as well as in those of war, the
      Gothic king maintained his superior ascendant over an enemy,
      whose seeming changes proceeded from the total want of counsel
      and design. From his camp, on the confines of Italy, Alaric
      attentively observed the revolutions of the palace, watched the
      progress of faction and discontent, disguised the hostile aspect
      of a Barbarian invader, and assumed the more popular appearance
      of the friend and ally of the great Stilicho: to whose virtues,
      when they were no longer formidable, he could pay a just tribute
      of sincere praise and regret. The pressing invitation of the
      malecontents, who urged the king of the Goths to invade Italy,
      was enforced by a lively sense of his personal injuries; and he
      might especially complain, that the Imperial ministers still
      delayed and eluded the payment of the four thousand pounds of
      gold which had been granted by the Roman senate, either to reward
      his services, or to appease his fury. His decent firmness was
      supported by an artful moderation, which contributed to the
      success of his designs. He required a fair and reasonable
      satisfaction; but he gave the strongest assurances, that, as soon
      as he had obtained it, he would immediately retire. He refused to
      trust the faith of the Romans, unless Aetius and Jason, the sons
      of two great officers of state, were sent as hostages to his
      camp; but he offered to deliver, in exchange, several of the
      noblest youths of the Gothic nation. The modesty of Alaric was
      interpreted, by the ministers of Ravenna, as a sure evidence of
      his weakness and fear. They disdained either to negotiate a
      treaty, or to assemble an army; and with a rash confidence,
      derived only from their ignorance of the extreme danger,
      irretrievably wasted the decisive moments of peace and war. While
      they expected, in sullen silence, that the Barbarians would
      evacuate the confines of Italy, Alaric, with bold and rapid
      marches, passed the Alps and the Po; hastily pillaged the cities
      of Aquileia, Altinum, Concordia, and Cremona, which yielded to
      his arms; increased his forces by the accession of thirty
      thousand auxiliaries; and, without meeting a single enemy in the
      field, advanced as far as the edge of the morass which protected
      the impregnable residence of the emperor of the West. Instead of
      attempting the hopeless siege of Ravenna, the prudent leader of
      the Goths proceeded to Rimini, stretched his ravages along the
      sea-coast of the Hadriatic, and meditated the conquest of the
      ancient mistress of the world. An Italian hermit, whose zeal and
      sanctity were respected by the Barbarians themselves, encountered
      the victorious monarch, and boldly denounced the indignation of
      Heaven against the oppressors of the earth; but the saint himself
      was confounded by the solemn asseveration of Alaric, that he felt
      a secret and praeternatural impulse, which directed, and even
      compelled, his march to the gates of Rome. He felt, that his
      genius and his fortune were equal to the most arduous
      enterprises; and the enthusiasm which he communicated to the
      Goths, insensibly removed the popular, and almost superstitious,
      reverence of the nations for the majesty of the Roman name. His
      troops, animated by the hopes of spoil, followed the course of
      the Flaminian way, occupied the unguarded passes of the Apennine,
      4 descended into the rich plains of Umbria; and, as they lay
      encamped on the banks of the Clitumnus, might wantonly slaughter
      and devour the milk-white oxen, which had been so long reserved
      for the use of Roman triumphs. A lofty situation, and a
      seasonable tempest of thunder and lightning, preserved the little
      city of Narni; but the king of the Goths, despising the ignoble
      prey, still advanced with unabated vigor; and after he had passed
      through the stately arches, adorned with the spoils of Barbaric
      victories, he pitched his camp under the walls of Rome. 6

      4 (return) [ Addison (see his Works, vol. ii. p. 54, edit.
      Baskerville) has given a very picturesque description of the road
      through the Apennine. The Goths were not at leisure to observe
      the beauties of the prospect; but they were pleased to find that
      the Saxa Intercisa, a narrow passage which Vespasian had cut
      through the rock, (Cluver. Italia Antiq. tom. i. p. 168,) was
      totally neglected.

     Hine albi, Clitumne, greges, et maxima taurus Victima, saepe tuo
     perfusi flumine sacro, Romanos ad templa Deum duxere triumphos.
     —Georg. ii. 147.

      Besides Virgil, most of the Latin poets, Propertius, Lucan,
      Silius Italicus, Claudian, &c., whose passages may be found in
      Cluverius and Addison, have celebrated the triumphal victims of
      the Clitumnus.]

      6 (return) [ Some ideas of the march of Alaric are borrowed from
      the journey of Honorius over the same ground. (See Claudian in
      vi. Cons. Hon. 494-522.) The measured distance between Ravenna
      and Rome was 254 Roman miles. Itinerar. Wesseling, p. 126.]

      During a period of six hundred and nineteen years, the seat of
      empire had never been violated by the presence of a foreign
      enemy. The unsuccessful expedition of Hannibal 7 served only to
      display the character of the senate and people; of a senate
      degraded, rather than ennobled, by the comparison of an assembly
      of kings; and of a people, to whom the ambassador of Pyrrhus
      ascribed the inexhaustible resources of the Hydra. 8 Each of the
      senators, in the time of the Punic war, had accomplished his term
      of the military service, either in a subordinate or a superior
      station; and the decree, which invested with temporary command
      all those who had been consuls, or censors, or dictators, gave
      the republic the immediate assistance of many brave and
      experienced generals. In the beginning of the war, the Roman
      people consisted of two hundred and fifty thousand citizens of an
      age to bear arms. 9 Fifty thousand had already died in the
      defence of their country; and the twenty-three legions which were
      employed in the different camps of Italy, Greece, Sardinia,
      Sicily, and Spain, required about one hundred thousand men. But
      there still remained an equal number in Rome, and the adjacent
      territory, who were animated by the same intrepid courage; and
      every citizen was trained, from his earliest youth, in the
      discipline and exercises of a soldier. Hannibal was astonished by
      the constancy of the senate, who, without raising the siege of
      Capua, or recalling their scattered forces, expected his
      approach. He encamped on the banks of the Anio, at the distance
      of three miles from the city; and he was soon informed, that the
      ground on which he had pitched his tent, was sold for an adequate
      price at a public auction; 911 and that a body of troops was
      dismissed by an opposite road, to reenforce the legions of Spain.
      10 He led his Africans to the gates of Rome, where he found three
      armies in order of battle, prepared to receive him; but Hannibal
      dreaded the event of a combat, from which he could not hope to
      escape, unless he destroyed the last of his enemies; and his
      speedy retreat confessed the invincible courage of the Romans.

      7 (return) [ The march and retreat of Hannibal are described by
      Livy, l. xxvi. c. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; and the reader is made a
      spectator of the interesting scene.]

      8 (return) [ These comparisons were used by Cyneas, the
      counsellor of Pyrrhus, after his return from his embassy, in
      which he had diligently studied the discipline and manners of
      Rome. See Plutarch in Pyrrho. tom. ii. p. 459.]

      9 (return) [ In the three census which were made of the Roman
      people, about the time of the second Punic war, the numbers stand
      as follows, (see Livy, Epitom. l. xx. Hist. l. xxvii. 36. xxix.
      37:) 270,213, 137,108 214,000. The fall of the second, and the
      rise of the third, appears so enormous, that several critics,
      notwithstanding the unanimity of the Mss., have suspected some
      corruption of the text of Livy. (See Drakenborch ad xxvii. 36,
      and Beaufort, Republique Romaine, tom. i. p. 325.) They did not
      consider that the second census was taken only at Rome, and that
      the numbers were diminished, not only by the death, but likewise
      by the absence, of many soldiers. In the third census, Livy
      expressly affirms, that the legions were mustered by the care of
      particular commissaries. From the numbers on the list we must
      always deduct one twelfth above threescore, and incapable of
      bearing arms. See Population de la France, p. 72.]

      911 (return) [ Compare the remarkable transaction in Jeremiah
      xxxii. 6, to 44, where the prophet purchases his uncle’s estate
      at the approach of the Babylonian captivity, in his undoubting
      confidence in the future restoration of the people. In the one
      case it is the triumph of religious faith, in the other of
      national pride.—M.]

      10 (return) [ Livy considers these two incidents as the effects
      only of chance and courage. I suspect that they were both managed
      by the admirable policy of the senate.]

      From the time of the Punic war, the uninterrupted succession of
      senators had preserved the name and image of the republic; and
      the degenerate subjects of Honorius ambitiously derived their
      descent from the heroes who had repulsed the arms of Hannibal,
      and subdued the nations of the earth. The temporal honors which
      the devout Paula 11 inherited and despised, are carefully
      recapitulated by Jerom, the guide of her conscience, and the
      historian of her life. The genealogy of her father, Rogatus,
      which ascended as high as Agamemnon, might seem to betray a
      Grecian origin; but her mother, Blaesilla, numbered the Scipios,
      Aemilius Paulus, and the Gracchi, in the list of her ancestors;
      and Toxotius, the husband of Paula, deduced his royal lineage
      from Aeneas, the father of the Julian line. The vanity of the
      rich, who desired to be noble, was gratified by these lofty
      pretensions. Encouraged by the applause of their parasites, they
      easily imposed on the credulity of the vulgar; and were
      countenanced, in some measure, by the custom of adopting the name
      of their patron, which had always prevailed among the freedmen
      and clients of illustrious families. Most of those families,
      however, attacked by so many causes of external violence or
      internal decay, were gradually extirpated; and it would be more
      reasonable to seek for a lineal descent of twenty generations,
      among the mountains of the Alps, or in the peaceful solitude of
      Apulia, than on the theatre of Rome, the seat of fortune, of
      danger, and of perpetual revolutions. Under each successive
      reign, and from every province of the empire, a crowd of hardy
      adventurers, rising to eminence by their talents or their vices,
      usurped the wealth, the honors, and the palaces of Rome; and
      oppressed, or protected, the poor and humble remains of consular
      families; who were ignorant, perhaps, of the glory of their
      ancestors. 12

      11 (return) [ See Jerom, tom. i. p. 169, 170, ad Eustochium; he
      bestows on Paula the splendid titles of Gracchorum stirps,
      soboles Scipionum, Pauli haeres, cujus vocabulum trahit, Martiae
      Papyriae Matris Africani vera et germana propago. This particular
      description supposes a more solid title than the surname of
      Julius, which Toxotius shared with a thousand families of the
      western provinces. See the Index of Tacitus, of Gruter’s
      Inscriptions, &c.]

      12 (return) [ Tacitus (Annal. iii. 55) affirms, that between the
      battle of Actium and the reign of Vespasian, the senate was
      gradually filled with new families from the Municipia and
      colonies of Italy.]

      In the time of Jerom and Claudian, the senators unanimously
      yielded the preeminence to the Anician line; and a slight view of
      their history will serve to appreciate the rank and antiquity of
      the noble families, which contended only for the second place. 13
      During the five first ages of the city, the name of the Anicians
      was unknown; they appear to have derived their origin from
      Praeneste; and the ambition of those new citizens was long
      satisfied with the Plebeian honors of tribunes of the people. 14
      One hundred and sixty-eight years before the Christian aera, the
      family was ennobled by the Praetorship of Anicius, who gloriously
      terminated the Illyrian war, by the conquest of the nation, and
      the captivity of their king. 15 From the triumph of that general,
      three consulships, in distant periods, mark the succession of the
      Anician name. 16 From the reign of Diocletian to the final
      extinction of the Western empire, that name shone with a lustre
      which was not eclipsed, in the public estimation, by the majesty
      of the Imperial purple. 17 The several branches, to whom it was
      communicated, united, by marriage or inheritance, the wealth and
      titles of the Annian, the Petronian, and the Olybrian houses; and
      in each generation the number of consulships was multiplied by an
      hereditary claim. 18 The Anician family excelled in faith and in
      riches: they were the first of the Roman senate who embraced
      Christianity; and it is probable that Anicius Julian, who was
      afterwards consul and praefect of the city, atoned for his
      attachment to the party of Maxentius, by the readiness with which
      he accepted the religion of Constantine. 19 Their ample patrimony
      was increased by the industry of Probus, the chief of the Anician
      family; who shared with Gratian the honors of the consulship, and
      exercised, four times, the high office of Praetorian praefect. 20
      His immense estates were scattered over the wide extent of the
      Roman world; and though the public might suspect or disapprove
      the methods by which they had been acquired, the generosity and
      magnificence of that fortunate statesman deserved the gratitude
      of his clients, and the admiration of strangers. 21 Such was the
      respect entertained for his memory, that the two sons of Probus,
      in their earliest youth, and at the request of the senate, were
      associated in the consular dignity; a memorable distinction,
      without example, in the annals of Rome. 22

      13 (return) [

     Nec quisquam Procerum tentet (licet aere vetusto Floreat, et claro
     cingatur Roma senatu) Se jactare parem; sed prima sede relicta
     Aucheniis, de jure licet certare secundo. —-Claud. in Prob. et
     Olybrii Coss. 18.

      Such a compliment paid to the obscure name of the Auchenii has
      amazed the critics; but they all agree, that whatever may be the
      true reading, the sense of Claudian can be applied only to the
      Anician family.]

      14 (return) [ The earliest date in the annals of Pighius, is that
      of M. Anicius Gallus. Trib. Pl. A. U. C. 506. Another tribune, Q.
      Anicius, A. U. C. 508, is distinguished by the epithet of
      Praenestinus. Livy (xlv. 43) places the Anicii below the great
      families of Rome.]

      15 (return) [ Livy, xliv. 30, 31, xlv. 3, 26, 43. He fairly
      appreciates the merit of Anicius, and justly observes, that his
      fame was clouded by the superior lustre of the Macedonian, which
      preceded the Illyrian triumph.]

      16 (return) [ The dates of the three consulships are, A. U. C.
      593, 818, 967 the two last under the reigns of Nero and
      Caracalla. The second of these consuls distinguished himself only
      by his infamous flattery, (Tacit. Annal. xv. 74;) but even the
      evidence of crimes, if they bear the stamp of greatness and
      antiquity, is admitted, without reluctance, to prove the
      genealogy of a noble house.]

      17 (return) [ In the sixth century, the nobility of the Anician
      name is mentioned (Cassiodor. Variar. l. x. Ep. 10, 12) with
      singular respect by the minister of a Gothic king of Italy.]

      18 (return) [

     Fixus in omnes Cognatos procedit honos; quemcumque requiras Hac de
     stirpe virum, certum est de Consule nasci. Per fasces numerantur
     Avi, semperque renata Nobilitate virent, et prolem fata sequuntur.

      (Claudian in Prob. et Olyb. Consulat. 12, &c.) The Annii, whose
      name seems to have merged in the Anician, mark the Fasti with
      many consulships, from the time of Vespasian to the fourth
      century.]

      19 (return) [ The title of first Christian senator may be
      justified by the authority of Prudentius (in Symmach. i. 553) and
      the dislike of the Pagans to the Anician family. See Tillemont,
      Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 183, v. p. 44. Baron. Annal.
      A.D. 312, No. 78, A.D. 322, No. 2.]

      20 (return) [ Probus... claritudine generis et potentia et opum
      magnitudine, cognitus Orbi Romano, per quem universum poene
      patrimonia sparsa possedit, juste an secus non judicioli est
      nostri. Ammian Marcellin. xxvii. 11. His children and widow
      erected for him a magnificent tomb in the Vatican, which was
      demolished in the time of Pope Nicholas V. to make room for the
      new church of St. Peter Baronius, who laments the ruin of this
      Christian monument, has diligently preserved the inscriptions and
      basso-relievos. See Annal. Eccles. A.D. 395, No. 5-17.]

      21 (return) [ Two Persian satraps travelled to Milan and Rome, to
      hear St. Ambrose, and to see Probus, (Paulin. in Vit. Ambros.)
      Claudian (in Cons. Probin. et Olybr. 30-60) seems at a loss how
      to express the glory of Probus.]

      22 (return) [ See the poem which Claudian addressed to the two
      noble youths.]




      Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
      Barbarians.—Part II.

      “The marbles of the Anician palace,“ were used as a proverbial
      expression of opulence and splendor; 23 but the nobles and
      senators of Rome aspired, in due gradation, to imitate that
      illustrious family. The accurate description of the city, which
      was composed in the Theodosian age, enumerates one thousand seven
      hundred and eighty houses, the residence of wealthy and honorable
      citizens. 24 Many of these stately mansions might almost excuse
      the exaggeration of the poet; that Rome contained a multitude of
      palaces, and that each palace was equal to a city: since it
      included within its own precincts every thing which could be
      subservient either to use or luxury; markets, hippodromes,
      temples, fountains, baths, porticos, shady groves, and artificial
      aviaries. 25 The historian Olympiodorus, who represents the state
      of Rome when it was besieged by the Goths, 26 continues to
      observe, that several of the richest senators received from their
      estates an annual income of four thousand pounds of gold, above
      one hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling; without computing
      the stated provision of corn and wine, which, had they been sold,
      might have equalled in value one third of the money. Compared to
      this immoderate wealth, an ordinary revenue of a thousand or
      fifteen hundred pounds of gold might be considered as no more
      than adequate to the dignity of the senatorian rank, which
      required many expenses of a public and ostentatious kind. Several
      examples are recorded, in the age of Honorius, of vain and
      popular nobles, who celebrated the year of their praetorship by a
      festival, which lasted seven days, and cost above one hundred
      thousand pounds sterling. 27 The estates of the Roman senators,
      which so far exceeded the proportion of modern wealth, were not
      confined to the limits of Italy. Their possessions extended far
      beyond the Ionian and Aegean Seas, to the most distant provinces:
      the city of Nicopolis, which Augustus had founded as an eternal
      monument of the Actian victory, was the property of the devout
      Paula; 28 and it is observed by Seneca, that the rivers, which
      had divided hostile nations, now flowed through the lands of
      private citizens. 29 According to their temper and circumstances,
      the estates of the Romans were either cultivated by the labor of
      their slaves, or granted, for a certain and stipulated rent, to
      the industrious farmer. The economical writers of antiquity
      strenuously recommend the former method, wherever it may be
      practicable; but if the object should be removed, by its distance
      or magnitude, from the immediate eye of the master, they prefer
      the active care of an old hereditary tenant, attached to the
      soil, and interested in the produce, to the mercenary
      administration of a negligent, perhaps an unfaithful, steward. 30

      23 (return) [ Secundinus, the Manichaean, ap. Baron. Annal.
      Eccles. A.D. 390, No. 34.]

      24 (return) [ See Nardini, Roma Antica, p. 89, 498, 500.]

      25 (return) [

    Quid loquar inclusas inter laquearia sylvas; Vernula queis vario
    carmine ludit avis.

      Claud. Rutil. Numatian. Itinerar. ver. 111. The poet lived at the
      time of the Gothic invasion. A moderate palace would have covered
      Cincinnatus’s farm of four acres (Val. Max. iv. 4.) In laxitatem
      ruris excurrunt, says Seneca, Epist. 114. See a judicious note of
      Mr. Hume, Essays, vol. i. p. 562, last 8vo edition.]

      26 (return) [ This curious account of Rome, in the reign of
      Honorius, is found in a fragment of the historian Olympiodorus,
      ap. Photium, p. 197.]

      27 (return) [ The sons of Alypius, of Symmachus, and of Maximus,
      spent, during their respective praetorships, twelve, or twenty,
      or forty, centenaries, (or hundred weight of gold.) See
      Olympiodor. ap. Phot. p. 197. This popular estimation allows some
      latitude; but it is difficult to explain a law in the Theodosian
      Code, (l. vi. leg. 5,) which fixes the expense of the first
      praetor at 25,000, of the second at 20,000, and of the third at
      15,000 folles. The name of follis (see Mem. de l’Academie des
      Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 727) was equally applied to a purse
      of 125 pieces of silver, and to a small copper coin of the value
      of 1/2625 part of that purse. In the former sense, the 25,000
      folles would be equal to 150,000 L.; in the latter, to five or
      six ponuds sterling The one appears extravagant, the other is
      ridiculous. There must have existed some third and middle value,
      which is here understood; but ambiguity is an excusable fault in
      the language of laws.]

      28 (return) [ Nicopolis...... in Actiaco littore sita
      possessioris vestra nunc pars vel maxima est. Jerom. in Praefat.
      Comment. ad Epistol. ad Titum, tom. ix. p. 243. M. D. Tillemont
      supposes, strangely enough, that it was part of Agamemnon’s
      inheritance. Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 85.]

      29 (return) [ Seneca, Epist. lxxxix. His language is of the
      declamatory kind: but declamation could scarcely exaggerate the
      avarice and luxury of the Romans. The philosopher himself
      deserved some share of the reproach, if it be true that his
      rigorous exaction of Quadringenties, above three hundred thousand
      pounds which he had lent at high interest, provoked a rebellion
      in Britain, (Dion Cassius, l. lxii. p. 1003.) According to the
      conjecture of Gale (Antoninus’s Itinerary in Britain, p. 92,) the
      same Faustinus possessed an estate near Bury, in Suffolk and
      another in the kingdom of Naples.]

      30 (return) [ Volusius, a wealthy senator, (Tacit. Annal. iii.
      30,) always preferred tenants born on the estate. Columella, who
      received this maxim from him, argues very judiciously on the
      subject. De Re Rustica, l. i. c. 7, p. 408, edit. Gesner.
      Leipsig, 1735.]

      The opulent nobles of an immense capital, who were never excited
      by the pursuit of military glory, and seldom engaged in the
      occupations of civil government, naturally resigned their leisure
      to the business and amusements of private life. At Rome, commerce
      was always held in contempt: but the senators, from the first age
      of the republic, increased their patrimony, and multiplied their
      clients, by the lucrative practice of usury; and the obselete
      laws were eluded, or violated, by the mutual inclinations and
      interest of both parties. 31 A considerable mass of treasure must
      always have existed at Rome, either in the current coin of the
      empire, or in the form of gold and silver plate; and there were
      many sideboards in the time of Pliny which contained more solid
      silver, than had been transported by Scipio from vanquished
      Carthage. 32 The greater part of the nobles, who dissipated their
      fortunes in profuse luxury, found themselves poor in the midst of
      wealth, and idle in a constant round of dissipation. Their
      desires were continually gratified by the labor of a thousand
      hands; of the numerous train of their domestic slaves, who were
      actuated by the fear of punishment; and of the various
      professions of artificers and merchants, who were more powerfully
      impelled by the hopes of gain. The ancients were destitute of
      many of the conveniences of life, which have been invented or
      improved by the progress of industry; and the plenty of glass and
      linen has diffused more real comforts among the modern nations of
      Europe, than the senators of Rome could derive from all the
      refinements of pompous or sensual luxury. 33 Their luxury, and
      their manners, have been the subject of minute and laborious
      disposition: but as such inquiries would divert me too long from
      the design of the present work, I shall produce an authentic
      state of Rome and its inhabitants, which is more peculiarly
      applicable to the period of the Gothic invasion. Ammianus
      Marcellinus, who prudently chose the capital of the empire as the
      residence the best adapted to the historian of his own times, has
      mixed with the narrative of public events a lively representation
      of the scenes with which he was familiarly conversant. The
      judicious reader will not always approve of the asperity of
      censure, the choice of circumstances, or the style of expression;
      he will perhaps detect the latent prejudices, and personal
      resentments, which soured the temper of Ammianus himself; but he
      will surely observe, with philosophic curiosity, the interesting
      and original picture of the manners of Rome. 34

      31 (return) [ Valesius (ad Ammian. xiv. 6) has proved, from
      Chrysostom and Augustin, that the senators were not allowed to
      lend money at usury. Yet it appears from the Theodosian Code,
      (see Godefroy ad l. ii. tit. xxxiii. tom. i. p. 230-289,) that
      they were permitted to take six percent., or one half of the
      legal interest; and, what is more singular, this permission was
      granted to the young senators.]

      32 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 50. He states the silver
      at only 4380 pounds, which is increased by Livy (xxx. 45) to
      100,023: the former seems too little for an opulent city, the
      latter too much for any private sideboard.]

      33 (return) [ The learned Arbuthnot (Tables of Ancient Coins, &c.
      p. 153) has observed with humor, and I believe with truth, that
      Augustus had neither glass to his windows, nor a shirt to his
      back. Under the lower empire, the use of linen and glass became
      somewhat more common. * Note: The discovery of glass in such
      common use at Pompeii, spoils the argument of Arbuthnot. See Sir
      W. Gell. Pompeiana, 2d ser. p. 98.—M.]

      34 (return) [ It is incumbent on me to explain the liberties
      which I have taken with the text of Ammianus. 1. I have melted
      down into one piece the sixth chapter of the fourteenth and the
      fourth of the twenty-eighth book. 2. I have given order and
      connection to the confused mass of materials. 3. I have softened
      some extravagant hyperbeles, and pared away some superfluities of
      the original. 4. I have developed some observations which were
      insinuated rather than expressed. With these allowances, my
      version will be found, not literal indeed, but faithful and
      exact.]

      “The greatness of Rome”—such is the language of the
      historian—“was founded on the rare, and almost incredible,
      alliance of virtue and of fortune. The long period of her infancy
      was employed in a laborious struggle against the tribes of Italy,
      the neighbors and enemies of the rising city. In the strength and
      ardor of youth, she sustained the storms of war; carried her
      victorious arms beyond the seas and the mountains; and brought
      home triumphal laurels from every country of the globe. At
      length, verging towards old age, and sometimes conquering by the
      terror only of her name, she sought the blessings of ease and
      tranquillity. The venerable city, which had trampled on the necks
      of the fiercest nations, and established a system of laws, the
      perpetual guardians of justice and freedom, was content, like a
      wise and wealthy parent, to devolve on the Caesars, her favorite
      sons, the care of governing her ample patrimony. 35 A secure and
      profound peace, such as had been once enjoyed in the reign of
      Numa, succeeded to the tumults of a republic; while Rome was
      still adored as the queen of the earth; and the subject nations
      still reverenced the name of the people, and the majesty of the
      senate. But this native splendor,“ continues Ammianus, “is
      degraded, and sullied, by the conduct of some nobles, who,
      unmindful of their own dignity, and of that of their country,
      assume an unbounded license of vice and folly. They contend with
      each other in the empty vanity of titles and surnames; and
      curiously select, or invent, the most lofty and sonorous
      appellations, Reburrus, or Fabunius, Pagonius, or Tarasius, 36
      which may impress the ears of the vulgar with astonishment and
      respect. From a vain ambition of perpetuating their memory, they
      affect to multiply their likeness, in statues of bronze and
      marble; nor are they satisfied, unless those statues are covered
      with plates of gold; an honorable distinction, first granted to
      Acilius the consul, after he had subdued, by his arms and
      counsels, the power of King Antiochus. The ostentation of
      displaying, of magnifying, perhaps, the rent-roll of the estates
      which they possess in all the provinces, from the rising to the
      setting sun, provokes the just resentment of every man, who
      recollects, that their poor and invincible ancestors were not
      distinguished from the meanest of the soldiers, by the delicacy
      of their food, or the splendor of their apparel. But the modern
      nobles measure their rank and consequence according to the
      loftiness of their chariots, 37 and the weighty magnificence of
      their dress. Their long robes of silk and purple float in the
      wind; and as they are agitated, by art or accident, they
      occasionally discover the under garments, the rich tunics,
      embroidered with the figures of various animals. 38 Followed by a
      train of fifty servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move
      along the streets with the same impetuous speed as if they
      travelled with post-horses; and the example of the senators is
      boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered
      carriages are continually driving round the immense space of the
      city and suburbs. Whenever these persons of high distinction
      condescend to visit the public baths, they assume, on their
      entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and appropriate to
      their own use the conveniences which were designed for the Roman
      people. If, in these places of mixed and general resort, they
      meet any of the infamous ministers of their pleasures, they
      express their affection by a tender embrace; while they proudly
      decline the salutations of their fellow-citizens, who are not
      permitted to aspire above the honor of kissing their hands, or
      their knees. As soon as they have indulged themselves in the
      refreshment of the bath, they resume their rings, and the other
      ensigns of their dignity, select from their private wardrobe of
      the finest linen, such as might suffice for a dozen persons, the
      garments the most agreeable to their fancy, and maintain till
      their departure the same haughty demeanor; which perhaps might
      have been excused in the great Marcellus, after the conquest of
      Syracuse. Sometimes, indeed, these heroes undertake more arduous
      achievements; they visit their estates in Italy, and procure
      themselves, by the toil of servile hands, the amusements of the
      chase. 39 If at any time, but more especially on a hot day, they
      have courage to sail, in their painted galleys, from the Lucrine
      Lake 40 to their elegant villas on the seacoast of Puteoli and
      Cayeta, 41 they compare their own expeditions to the marches of
      Caesar and Alexander. Yet should a fly presume to settle on the
      silken folds of their gilded umbrellas; should a sunbeam
      penetrate through some unguarded and imperceptible chink, they
      deplore their intolerable hardships, and lament, in affected
      language, that they were not born in the land of the Cimmerians,
      42 the regions of eternal darkness. In these journeys into the
      country, 43 the whole body of the household marches with their
      master. In the same manner as the cavalry and infantry, the heavy
      and the light armed troops, the advanced guard and the rear, are
      marshalled by the skill of their military leaders; so the
      domestic officers, who bear a rod, as an ensign of authority,
      distribute and arrange the numerous train of slaves and
      attendants. The baggage and wardrobe move in the front; and are
      immediately followed by a multitude of cooks, and inferior
      ministers, employed in the service of the kitchens, and of the
      table. The main body is composed of a promiscuous crowd of
      slaves, increased by the accidental concourse of idle or
      dependent plebeians. The rear is closed by the favorite band of
      eunuchs, distributed from age to youth, according to the order of
      seniority. Their numbers and their deformity excite the horror of
      the indignant spectators, who are ready to execrate the memory of
      Semiramis, for the cruel art which she invented, of frustrating
      the purposes of nature, and of blasting in the bud the hopes of
      future generations. In the exercise of domestic jurisdiction, the
      nobles of Rome express an exquisite sensibility for any personal
      injury, and a contemptuous indifference for the rest of the human
      species. When they have called for warm water, if a slave has
      been tardy in his obedience, he is instantly chastised with three
      hundred lashes: but should the same slave commit a wilful murder,
      the master will mildly observe, that he is a worthless fellow;
      but that, if he repeats the offence, he shall not escape
      punishment. Hospitality was formerly the virtue of the Romans;
      and every stranger, who could plead either merit or misfortune,
      was relieved, or rewarded by their generosity. At present, if a
      foreigner, perhaps of no contemptible rank, is introduced to one
      of the proud and wealthy senators, he is welcomed indeed in the
      first audience, with such warm professions, and such kind
      inquiries, that he retires, enchanted with the affability of his
      illustrious friend, and full of regret that he had so long
      delayed his journey to Rome, the active seat of manners, as well
      as of empire. Secure of a favorable reception, he repeats his
      visit the ensuing day, and is mortified by the discovery, that
      his person, his name, and his country, are already forgotten. If
      he still has resolution to persevere, he is gradually numbered in
      the train of dependants, and obtains the permission to pay his
      assiduous and unprofitable court to a haughty patron, incapable
      of gratitude or friendship; who scarcely deigns to remark his
      presence, his departure, or his return. Whenever the rich prepare
      a solemn and popular entertainment; 44 whenever they celebrate,
      with profuse and pernicious luxury, their private banquets; the
      choice of the guests is the subject of anxious deliberation. The
      modest, the sober, and the learned, are seldom preferred; and the
      nomenclators, who are commonly swayed by interested motives, have
      the address to insert, in the list of invitations, the obscure
      names of the most worthless of mankind. But the frequent and
      familiar companions of the great, are those parasites, who
      practise the most useful of all arts, the art of flattery; who
      eagerly applaud each word, and every action, of their immortal
      patron; gaze with rapture on his marble columns and variegated
      pavements; and strenuously praise the pomp and elegance which he
      is taught to consider as a part of his personal merit. At the
      Roman tables, the birds, the squirrels, 45 or the fish, which
      appear of an uncommon size, are contemplated with curious
      attention; a pair of scales is accurately applied, to ascertain
      their real weight; and, while the more rational guests are
      disgusted by the vain and tedious repetition, notaries are
      summoned to attest, by an authentic record, the truth of such a
      marvelous event. Another method of introduction into the houses
      and society of the great, is derived from the profession of
      gaming, or, as it is more politely styled, of play. The
      confederates are united by a strict and indissoluble bond of
      friendship, or rather of conspiracy; a superior degree of skill
      in the Tesserarian art (which may be interpreted the game of dice
      and tables) 46 is a sure road to wealth and reputation. A master
      of that sublime science, who in a supper, or assembly, is placed
      below a magistrate, displays in his countenance the surprise and
      indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel, when he was
      refused the praetorship by the votes of a capricious people. The
      acquisition of knowledge seldom engages the curiosity of nobles,
      who abhor the fatigue, and disdain the advantages, of study; and
      the only books which they peruse are the Satires of Juvenal, and
      the verbose and fabulous histories of Marius Maximus. 47 The
      libraries, which they have inherited from their fathers, are
      secluded, like dreary sepulchres, from the light of day. 48 But
      the costly instruments of the theatre, flutes, and enormous
      lyres, and hydraulic organs, are constructed for their use; and
      the harmony of vocal and instrumental music is incessantly
      repeated in the palaces of Rome. In those palaces, sound is
      preferred to sense, and the care of the body to that of the
      mind.“

      It is allowed as a salutary maxim, that the light and frivolous
      suspicion of a contagious malady, is of sufficient weight to
      excuse the visits of the most intimate friends; and even the
      servants, who are despatched to make the decent inquiries, are
      not suffered to return home, till they have undergone the
      ceremony of a previous ablution. Yet this selfish and unmanly
      delicacy occasionally yields to the more imperious passion of
      avarice. The prospect of gain will urge a rich and gouty senator
      as far as Spoleto; every sentiment of arrogance and dignity is
      subdued by the hopes of an inheritance, or even of a legacy; and
      a wealthy childless citizen is the most powerful of the Romans.
      The art of obtaining the signature of a favorable testament, and
      sometimes of hastening the moment of its execution, is perfectly
      understood; and it has happened, that in the same house, though
      in different apartments, a husband and a wife, with the laudable
      design of overreaching each other, have summoned their respective
      lawyers, to declare, at the same time, their mutual, but
      contradictory, intentions. The distress which follows and
      chastises extravagant luxury, often reduces the great to the use
      of the most humiliating expedients. When they desire to borrow,
      they employ the base and supplicating style of the slave in the
      comedy; but when they are called upon to pay, they assume the
      royal and tragic declamation of the grandsons of Hercules. If the
      demand is repeated, they readily procure some trusty sycophant,
      instructed to maintain a charge of poison, or magic, against the
      insolent creditor; who is seldom released from prison, till he
      has signed a discharge of the whole debt. These vices, which
      degrade the moral character of the Romans, are mixed with a
      puerile superstition, that disgraces their understanding. They
      listen with confidence to the predictions of haruspices, who
      pretend to read, in the entrails of victims, the signs of future
      greatness and prosperity; and there are many who do not presume
      either to bathe, or to dine, or to appear in public, till they
      have diligently consulted, according to the rules of astrology,
      the situation of Mercury, and the aspect of the moon. 49 It is
      singular enough, that this vain credulity may often be discovered
      among the profane sceptics, who impiously doubt, or deny, the
      existence of a celestial power.“

      35 (return) [ Claudian, who seems to have read the history of
      Ammianus, speaks of this great revolution in a much less courtly
      style:—

     Postquam jura ferox in se communia Caesar Transtulit; et lapsi
     mores; desuetaque priscis Artibus, in gremium pacis servile
     recessi. —De Be. Gildonico, p. 49.]

      36 (return) [ The minute diligence of antiquarians has not been
      able to verify these extraordinary names. I am of opinion that
      they were invented by the historian himself, who was afraid of
      any personal satire or application. It is certain, however, that
      the simple denominations of the Romans were gradually lengthened
      to the number of four, five, or even seven, pompous surnames; as,
      for instance, Marcus Maecius Maemmius Furius Balburius
      Caecilianus Placidus. See Noris Cenotaph Piran Dissert. iv. p.
      438.]

      37 (return) [ The or coaches of the romans, were often of solid
      silver, curiously carved and engraved; and the trappings of the
      mules, or horses, were embossed with gold. This magnificence
      continued from the reign of Nero to that of Honorius; and the
      Appian way was covered with the splendid equipages of the nobles,
      who came out to meet St. Melania, when she returned to Rome, six
      years before the Gothic siege, (Seneca, epist. lxxxvii. Plin.
      Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 49. Paulin. Nolan. apud Baron. Annal.
      Eccles. A.D. 397, No. 5.) Yet pomp is well exchange for
      convenience; and a plain modern coach, that is hung upon springs,
      is much preferable to the silver or gold carts of antiquity,
      which rolled on the axle-tree, and were exposed, for the most
      part, to the inclemency of the weather.]

      38 (return) [ In a homily of Asterius, bishop of Amasia, M. de
      Valois has discovered (ad Ammian. xiv. 6) that this was a new
      fashion; that bears, wolves lions, and tigers, woods,
      hunting-matches, &c., were represented in embroidery: and that
      the more pious coxcombs substituted the figure or legend of some
      favorite saint.]

      39 (return) [ See Pliny’s Epistles, i. 6. Three large wild boars
      were allured and taken in the toils without interrupting the
      studies of the philosophic sportsman.]

      40 (return) [ The change from the inauspicious word Avernus,
      which stands in the text, is immaterial. The two lakes, Avernus
      and Lucrinus, communicated with each other, and were fashioned by
      the stupendous moles of Agrippa into the Julian port, which
      opened, through a narrow entrance, into the Gulf of Puteoli.
      Virgil, who resided on the spot, has described (Georgic ii. 161)
      this work at the moment of its execution: and his commentators,
      especially Catrou, have derived much light from Strabo,
      Suetonius, and Dion. Earthquakes and volcanoes have changed the
      face of the country, and turned the Lucrine Lake, since the year
      1538, into the Monte Nuovo. See Camillo Pellegrino Discorsi della
      Campania Felice, p. 239, 244, &c. Antonii Sanfelicii Campania, p.
      13, 88—Note: Compare Lyell’s Geology, ii. 72.—M.]

      41 (return) [ The regna Cumana et Puteolana; loca caetiroqui
      valde expe tenda, interpellantium autem multitudine paene
      fugienda. Cicero ad Attic. xvi. 17.]

      42 (return) [ The proverbial expression of Cimmerian darkness was
      originally borrowed from the description of Homer, (in the
      eleventh book of the Odyssey,) which he applies to a remote and
      fabulous country on the shores of the ocean. See Erasmi Adagia,
      in his works, tom. ii. p. 593, the Leyden edition.]

      43 (return) [ We may learn from Seneca (epist. cxxiii.) three
      curious circumstances relative to the journeys of the Romans. 1.
      They were preceded by a troop of Numidian light horse, who
      announced, by a cloud of dust, the approach of a great man. 2.
      Their baggage mules transported not only the precious vases, but
      even the fragile vessels of crystal and murra, which last is
      almost proved, by the learned French translator of Seneca, (tom.
      iii. p. 402-422,) to mean the porcelain of China and Japan. 3.
      The beautiful faces of the young slaves were covered with a
      medicated crust, or ointment, which secured them against the
      effects of the sun and frost.]

      44 (return) [ Distributio solemnium sportularum. The sportuloe,
      or sportelloe, were small baskets, supposed to contain a quantity
      of hot provisions of the value of 100 quadrantes, or twelvepence
      halfpenny, which were ranged in order in the hall, and
      ostentatiously distributed to the hungry or servile crowd who
      waited at the door. This indelicate custom is very frequently
      mentioned in the epigrams of Martial, and the satires of Juvenal.
      See likewise Suetonius, in Claud. c. 21, in Neron. c. 16, in
      Domitian, c. 4, 7. These baskets of provisions were afterwards
      converted into large pieces of gold and silver coin, or plate,
      which were mutually given and accepted even by persons of the
      highest rank, (see Symmach. epist. iv. 55, ix. 124, and Miscell.
      p. 256,) on solemn occasions, of consulships, marriages, &c.]

      45 (return) [ The want of an English name obliges me to refer to
      the common genus of squirrels, the Latin glis, the French loir; a
      little animal, who inhabits the woods, and remains torpid in cold
      weather, (see Plin. Hist. Natur. viii. 82. Buffon, Hist.
      Naturelle, tom. viii. 153. Pennant’s Synopsis of Quadrupeds, p.
      289.) The art of rearing and fattening great numbers of glires
      was practised in Roman villas as a profitable article of rural
      economy, (Varro, de Re Rustica, iii. 15.) The excessive demand of
      them for luxurious tables was increased by the foolish
      prohibitions of the censors; and it is reported that they are
      still esteemed in modern Rome, and are frequently sent as
      presents by the Colonna princes, (see Brotier, the last editor of
      Pliny tom. ii. p. 453. epud Barbou, 1779.)—Note: Is it not the
      dormouse?—M.]

      46 (return) [ This game, which might be translated by the more
      familiar names of trictrac, or backgammon, was a favorite
      amusement of the gravest Romans; and old Mucius Scaevola, the
      lawyer, had the reputation of a very skilful player. It was
      called ludus duodecim scriptorum, from the twelve scripta, or
      lines, which equally divided the alvevolus or table. On these,
      the two armies, the white and the black, each consisting of
      fifteen men, or catculi, were regularly placed, and alternately
      moved according to the laws of the game, and the chances of the
      tesseroe, or dice. Dr. Hyde, who diligently traces the history
      and varieties of the nerdiludium (a name of Persic etymology)
      from Ireland to Japan, pours forth, on this trifling subject, a
      copious torrent of classic and Oriental learning. See Syntagma
      Dissertat. tom. ii. p. 217-405.]

      47 (return) [ Marius Maximus, homo omnium verbosissimus, qui, et
      mythistoricis se voluminibus implicavit. Vopiscus in Hist.
      August. p. 242. He wrote the lives of the emperors, from Trajan
      to Alexander Severus. See Gerard Vossius de Historicis Latin. l.
      ii. c. 3, in his works, vol. iv. p. 47.]

      48 (return) [ This satire is probably exaggerated. The Saturnalia
      of Macrobius, and the epistles of Jerom, afford satisfactory
      proofs, that Christian theology and classic literature were
      studiously cultivated by several Romans, of both sexes, and of
      the highest rank.]

      49 (return) [ Macrobius, the friend of these Roman nobles,
      considered the siara as the cause, or at least the signs, of
      future events, (de Somn. Scipion l. i. c 19. p. 68.)]




      Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
      Barbarians.—Part III.

      In populous cities, which are the seat of commerce and
      manufactures, the middle ranks of inhabitants, who derive their
      subsistence from the dexterity or labor of their hands, are
      commonly the most prolific, the most useful, and, in that sense,
      the most respectable part of the community. But the plebeians of
      Rome, who disdained such sedentary and servile arts, had been
      oppressed from the earliest times by the weight of debt and
      usury; and the husbandman, during the term of his military
      service, was obliged to abandon the cultivation of his farm. 50
      The lands of Italy which had been originally divided among the
      families of free and indigent proprietors, were insensibly
      purchased or usurped by the avarice of the nobles; and in the age
      which preceded the fall of the republic, it was computed that
      only two thousand citizens were possessed of an independent
      substance. 51 Yet as long as the people bestowed, by their
      suffrages, the honors of the state, the command of the legions,
      and the administration of wealthy provinces, their conscious
      pride alleviated in some measure, the hardships of poverty; and
      their wants were seasonably supplied by the ambitious liberality
      of the candidates, who aspired to secure a venal majority in the
      thirty-five tribes, or the hundred and ninety-three centuries, of
      Rome. But when the prodigal commons had not only imprudently
      alienated the use, but the inheritance of power, they sunk, under
      the reign of the Caesars, into a vile and wretched populace,
      which must, in a few generations, have been totally extinguished,
      if it had not been continually recruited by the manumission of
      slaves, and the influx of strangers. As early as the time of
      Hadrian, it was the just complaint of the ingenuous natives, that
      the capital had attracted the vices of the universe, and the
      manners of the most opposite nations. The intemperance of the
      Gauls, the cunning and levity of the Greeks, the savage obstinacy
      of the Egyptians and Jews, the servile temper of the Asiatics,
      and the dissolute, effeminate prostitution of the Syrians, were
      mingled in the various multitude, which, under the proud and
      false denomination of Romans, presumed to despise their
      fellow-subjects, and even their sovereigns, who dwelt beyond the
      precincts of the Eternal City. 52

      50 (return) [ The histories of Livy (see particularly vi. 36) are
      full of the extortions of the rich, and the sufferings of the
      poor debtors. The melancholy story of a brave old soldier
      (Dionys. Hal. l. vi. c. 26, p. 347, edit. Hudson, and Livy, ii.
      23) must have been frequently repeated in those primitive times,
      which have been so undeservedly praised.]

      51 (return) [ Non esse in civitate duo millia hominum qui rem
      habereni. Cicero. Offic. ii. 21, and Comment. Paul. Manut. in
      edit. Graev. This vague computation was made A. U. C. 649, in a
      speech of the tribune Philippus, and it was his object, as well
      as that of the Gracchi, (see Plutarch,) to deplore, and perhaps
      to exaggerate, the misery of the common people.]

      52 (return) [ See the third Satire (60-125) of Juvenal, who
      indignantly complains,

     Quamvis quota portio faecis Achaei! Jampridem Syrus in Tiberem
     defluxit Orontes; Et linguam et mores, &c.

      Seneca, when he proposes to comfort his mother (Consolat. ad
      Helv. c. 6) by the reflection, that a great part of mankind were
      in a state of exile, reminds her how few of the inhabitants of
      Rome were born in the city.]

      Yet the name of that city was still pronounced with respect: the
      frequent and capricious tumults of its inhabitants were indulged
      with impunity; and the successors of Constantine, instead of
      crushing the last remains of the democracy by the strong arm of
      military power, embraced the mild policy of Augustus, and studied
      to relieve the poverty, and to amuse the idleness, of an
      innumerable people. 53 I. For the convenience of the lazy
      plebeians, the monthly distributions of corn were converted into
      a daily allowance of bread; a great number of ovens were
      constructed and maintained at the public expense; and at the
      appointed hour, each citizen, who was furnished with a ticket,
      ascended the flight of steps, which had been assigned to his
      peculiar quarter or division, and received, either as a gift, or
      at a very low price, a loaf of bread of the weight of three
      pounds, for the use of his family. II. The forest of Lucania,
      whose acorns fattened large droves of wild hogs, 54 afforded, as
      a species of tribute, a plentiful supply of cheap and wholesome
      meat. During five months of the year, a regular allowance of
      bacon was distributed to the poorer citizens; and the annual
      consumption of the capital, at a time when it was much declined
      from its former lustre, was ascertained, by an edict from
      Valentinian the Third, at three millions six hundred and
      twenty-eight thousand pounds. 55 III. In the manners of
      antiquity, the use of oil was indispensable for the lamp, as well
      as for the bath; and the annual tax, which was imposed on Africa
      for the benefit of Rome, amounted to the weight of three millions
      of pounds, to the measure, perhaps, of three hundred thousand
      English gallons. IV. The anxiety of Augustus to provide the
      metropolis with sufficient plenty of corn, was not extended
      beyond that necessary article of human subsistence; and when the
      popular clamor accused the dearness and scarcity of wine, a
      proclamation was issued, by the grave reformer, to remind his
      subjects that no man could reasonably complain of thirst, since
      the aqueducts of Agrippa had introduced into the city so many
      copious streams of pure and salubrious water. 56 This rigid
      sobriety was insensibly relaxed; and, although the generous
      design of Aurelian 57 does not appear to have been executed in
      its full extent, the use of wine was allowed on very easy and
      liberal terms. The administration of the public cellars was
      delegated to a magistrate of honorable rank; and a considerable
      part of the vintage of Campania was reserved for the fortunate
      inhabitants of Rome.

      53 (return) [ Almost all that is said of the bread, bacon, oil,
      wine, &c., may be found in the fourteenth book of the Theodosian
      Code; which expressly treats of the police of the great cities.
      See particularly the titles iii. iv. xv. xvi. xvii. xxiv. The
      collateral testimonies are produced in Godefroy’s Commentary, and
      it is needless to transcribe them. According to a law of
      Theodosius, which appreciates in money the military allowance, a
      piece of gold (eleven shillings) was equivalent to eighty pounds
      of bacon, or to eighty pounds of oil, or to twelve modii (or
      pecks) of salt, (Cod. Theod. l. viii. tit. iv. leg. 17.) This
      equation, compared with another of seventy pounds of bacon for an
      amphora, (Cod. Theod. l. xiv. tit. iv. leg. 4,) fixes the price
      of wine at about sixteenpence the gallon.]

      54 (return) [ The anonymous author of the Description of the
      World (p. 14. in tom. iii. Geograph. Minor. Hudson) observes of
      Lucania, in his barbarous Latin, Regio optima, et ipsa omnibus
      habundans, et lardum multum foras. Proptor quod est in montibus,
      cujus aescam animalium rariam, &c.]

      55 (return) [ See Novell. ad calcem Cod. Theod. D. Valent. l. i.
      tit. xv. This law was published at Rome, June 29th, A.D. 452.]

      56 (return) [ Sueton. in August. c. 42. The utmost debauch of the
      emperor himself, in his favorite wine of Rhaetia, never exceeded
      a sextarius, (an English pint.) Id. c. 77. Torrentius ad loc. and
      Arbuthnot’s Tables, p. 86.]

      57 (return) [ His design was to plant vineyards along the
      sea-coast of Hetruria, (Vopiscus, in Hist. August. p. 225;) the
      dreary, unwholesome, uncultivated Maremme of modern Tuscany]

      The stupendous aqueducts, so justly celebrated by the praises of
      Augustus himself, replenished the Thermoe, or baths, which had
      been constructed in every part of the city, with Imperial
      magnificence. The baths of Antoninus Caracalla, which were open,
      at stated hours, for the indiscriminate service of the senators
      and the people, contained above sixteen hundred seats of marble;
      and more than three thousand were reckoned in the baths of
      Diocletian. 58 The walls of the lofty apartments were covered
      with curious mosaics, that imitated the art of the pencil in the
      elegance of design, and the variety of colors. The Egyptian
      granite was beautifully encrusted with the precious green marble
      of Numidia; the perpetual stream of hot water was poured into the
      capacious basins, through so many wide mouths of bright and massy
      silver; and the meanest Roman could purchase, with a small copper
      coin, the daily enjoyment of a scene of pomp and luxury, which
      might excite the envy of the kings of Asia. 59 From these stately
      palaces issued a swarm of dirty and ragged plebeians, without
      shoes and without a mantle; who loitered away whole days in the
      street of Forum, to hear news and to hold disputes; who
      dissipated in extravagant gaming, the miserable pittance of their
      wives and children; and spent the hours of the night in the
      obscure taverns, and brothels, in the indulgence of gross and
      vulgar sensuality. 60

      58 (return) [ Olympiodor. apud Phot. p. 197.]

      59 (return) [ Seneca (epistol. lxxxvi.) compares the baths of
      Scipio Africanus, at his villa of Liternum, with the magnificence
      (which was continually increasing) of the public baths of Rome,
      long before the stately Thermae of Antoninus and Diocletian were
      erected. The quadrans paid for admission was the quarter of the
      as, about one eighth of an English penny.]

      60 (return) [ Ammianus, (l. xiv. c. 6, and l. xxviii. c. 4,)
      after describing the luxury and pride of the nobles of Rome,
      exposes, with equal indignation, the vices and follies of the
      common people.]

      But the most lively and splendid amusement of the idle multitude,
      depended on the frequent exhibition of public games and
      spectacles. The piety of Christian princes had suppressed the
      inhuman combats of gladiators; but the Roman people still
      considered the Circus as their home, their temple, and the seat
      of the republic. The impatient crowd rushed at the dawn of day to
      secure their places, and there were many who passed a sleepless
      and anxious night in the adjacent porticos. From the morning to
      the evening, careless of the sun, or of the rain, the spectators,
      who sometimes amounted to the number of four hundred thousand,
      remained in eager attention; their eyes fixed on the horses and
      charioteers, their minds agitated with hope and fear, for the
      success of the colors which they espoused: and the happiness of
      Rome appeared to hang on the event of a race. 61 The same
      immoderate ardor inspired their clamors and their applause, as
      often as they were entertained with the hunting of wild beasts,
      and the various modes of theatrical representation. These
      representations in modern capitals may deserve to be considered
      as a pure and elegant school of taste, and perhaps of virtue. But
      the Tragic and Comic Muse of the Romans, who seldom aspired
      beyond the imitation of Attic genius, 62 had been almost totally
      silent since the fall of the republic; 63 and their place was
      unworthily occupied by licentious farce, effeminate music, and
      splendid pageantry. The pantomimes, 64 who maintained their
      reputation from the age of Augustus to the sixth century,
      expressed, without the use of words, the various fables of the
      gods and heroes of antiquity; and the perfection of their art,
      which sometimes disarmed the gravity of the philosopher, always
      excited the applause and wonder of the people. The vast and
      magnificent theatres of Rome were filled by three thousand female
      dancers, and by three thousand singers, with the masters of the
      respective choruses. Such was the popular favor which they
      enjoyed, that, in a time of scarcity, when all strangers were
      banished from the city, the merit of contributing to the public
      pleasures exempted them from a law, which was strictly executed
      against the professors of the liberal arts. 65

      61 (return) [ Juvenal. Satir. xi. 191, &c. The expressions of the
      historian Ammianus are not less strong and animated than those of
      the satirist and both the one and the other painted from the
      life. The numbers which the great Circus was capable of receiving
      are taken from the original Notitioe of the city. The differences
      between them prove that they did not transcribe each other; but
      the same may appear incredible, though the country on these
      occasions flocked to the city.]

      62 (return) [ Sometimes indeed they composed original pieces.

     Vestigia Graeca Ausi deserere et celeb rare domestica facta.

      Horat. Epistol. ad Pisones, 285, and the learned, though
      perplexed note of Dacier, who might have allowed the name of
      tragedies to the Brutus and the Decius of Pacuvius, or to the
      Cato of Maternus. The Octavia, ascribed to one of the Senecas,
      still remains a very unfavorable specimen of Roman tragedy.]

      63 (return) [ In the time of Quintilian and Pliny, a tragic poet
      was reduced to the imperfect method of hiring a great room, and
      reading his play to the company, whom he invited for that
      purpose. (See Dialog. de Oratoribus, c. 9, 11, and Plin. Epistol.
      vii. 17.)]

      64 (return) [ See the dialogue of Lucian, entitled the
      Saltatione, tom. ii. p. 265-317, edit. Reitz. The pantomimes
      obtained the honorable name; and it was required, that they
      should be conversant with almost every art and science. Burette
      (in the Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. i. p. 127,
      &c.) has given a short history of the art of pantomimes.]

      65 (return) [ Ammianus, l. xiv. c. 6. He complains, with decent
      indignation that the streets of Rome were filled with crowds of
      females, who might have given children to the state, but whose
      only occupation was to curl and dress their hair, and jactari
      volubilibus gyris, dum experimunt innumera simulacra, quae
      finxere fabulae theatrales.]

      It is said, that the foolish curiosity of Elagabalus attempted to
      discover, from the quantity of spiders’ webs, the number of the
      inhabitants of Rome. A more rational method of inquiry might not
      have been undeserving of the attention of the wisest princes, who
      could easily have resolved a question so important for the Roman
      government, and so interesting to succeeding ages. The births and
      deaths of the citizens were duly registered; and if any writer of
      antiquity had condescended to mention the annual amount, or the
      common average, we might now produce some satisfactory
      calculation, which would destroy the extravagant assertions of
      critics, and perhaps confirm the modest and probable conjectures
      of philosophers. 66 The most diligent researches have collected
      only the following circumstances; which, slight and imperfect as
      they are, may tend, in some degree, to illustrate the question of
      the populousness of ancient Rome. I. When the capital of the
      empire was besieged by the Goths, the circuit of the walls was
      accurately measured, by Ammonius, the mathematician, who found it
      equal to twenty-one miles. 67 It should not be forgotten that the
      form of the city was almost that of a circle; the geometrical
      figure which is known to contain the largest space within any
      given circumference. II. The architect Vitruvius, who flourished
      in the Augustan age, and whose evidence, on this occasion, has
      peculiar weight and authority, observes, that the innumerable
      habitations of the Roman people would have spread themselves far
      beyond the narrow limits of the city; and that the want of
      ground, which was probably contracted on every side by gardens
      and villas, suggested the common, though inconvenient, practice
      of raising the houses to a considerable height in the air. 68 But
      the loftiness of these buildings, which often consisted of hasty
      work and insufficient materials, was the cause of frequent and
      fatal accidents; and it was repeatedly enacted by Augustus, as
      well as by Nero, that the height of private edifices within the
      walls of Rome, should not exceed the measure of seventy feet from
      the ground. 69 III. Juvenal 70 laments, as it should seem from
      his own experience, the hardships of the poorer citizens, to whom
      he addresses the salutary advice of emigrating, without delay,
      from the smoke of Rome, since they might purchase, in the little
      towns of Italy, a cheerful commodious dwelling, at the same price
      which they annually paid for a dark and miserable lodging.
      House-rent was therefore immoderately dear: the rich acquired, at
      an enormous expense, the ground, which they covered with palaces
      and gardens; but the body of the Roman people was crowded into a
      narrow space; and the different floors, and apartments, of the
      same house, were divided, as it is still the custom of Paris, and
      other cities, among several families of plebeians. IV. The total
      number of houses in the fourteen regions of the city, is
      accurately stated in the description of Rome, composed under the
      reign of Theodosius, and they amount to forty-eight thousand
      three hundred and eighty-two. 71 The two classes of domus and of
      insuloe, into which they are divided, include all the habitations
      of the capital, of every rank and condition from the marble
      palace of the Anicii, with a numerous establishment of freedmen
      and slaves, to the lofty and narrow lodging-house, where the poet
      Codrus and his wife were permitted to hire a wretched garret
      immediately under the tiles. If we adopt the same average, which,
      under similar circumstances, has been found applicable to Paris,
      72 and indifferently allow about twenty-five persons for each
      house, of every degree, we may fairly estimate the inhabitants of
      Rome at twelve hundred thousand: a number which cannot be thought
      excessive for the capital of a mighty empire, though it exceeds
      the populousness of the greatest cities of modern Europe. 73 7311

      66 (return) [ Lipsius (tom. iii. p. 423, de Magnitud. Romana, l.
      iii. c. 3) and Isaac Vossius (Observant. Var. p. 26-34) have
      indulged strange dreams, of four, or eight, or fourteen, millions
      in Rome. Mr. Hume, (Essays, vol. i. p. 450-457,) with admirable
      good sense and scepticism betrays some secret disposition to
      extenuate the populousness of ancient times.]

      67 (return) [ Olympiodor. ap. Phot. p. 197. See Fabricius, Bibl.
      Graec. tom. ix. p. 400.]

      68 (return) [ In ea autem majestate urbis, et civium infinita
      frequentia, innumerabiles habitationes opus fuit explicare. Ergo
      cum recipero non posset area plana tantam multitudinem in urbe,
      ad auxilium altitudinis aedificiorum res ipsa coegit devenire.
      Vitruv. ii. 8. This passage, which I owe to Vossius, is clear,
      strong, and comprehensive.]

      69 (return) [ The successive testimonies of Pliny, Aristides,
      Claudian, Rutilius, &c., prove the insufficiency of these
      restrictive edicts. See Lipsius, de Magnitud. Romana, l. iii. c.
      4.

     Tabulata tibi jam tertia fumant; Tu nescis; nam si gradibus
     trepidatur ab imis Ultimus ardebit, quem tegula sola tuetur A
     pluvia. —-Juvenal. Satir. iii. 199]

      70 (return) [ Read the whole third satire, but particularly 166,
      223, &c. The description of a crowded insula, or lodging-house,
      in Petronius, (c. 95, 97,) perfectly tallies with the complaints
      of Juvenal; and we learn from legal authority, that, in the time
      of Augustus, (Heineccius, Hist. Juris. Roman. c. iv. p. 181,) the
      ordinary rent of the several coenacula, or apartments of an
      insula, annually produced forty thousand sesterces, between three
      and four hundred pounds sterling, (Pandect. l. xix. tit. ii. No.
      30,) a sum which proves at once the large extent, and high value,
      of those common buildings.]

      71 (return) [ This sum total is composed of 1780 domus, or great
      houses of 46,602 insuloe, or plebeian habitations, (see Nardini,
      Roma Antica, l. iii. p. 88;) and these numbers are ascertained by
      the agreement of the texts of the different Notitioe. Nardini, l.
      viii. p. 498, 500.]

      72 (return) [ See that accurate writer M. de Messance, Recherches
      sur la Population, p. 175-187. From probable, or certain grounds,
      he assigns to Paris 23,565 houses, 71,114 families, and 576,630
      inhabitants.]

      73 (return) [ This computation is not very different from that
      which M. Brotier, the last editor of Tacitus, (tom. ii. p. 380,)
      has assumed from similar principles; though he seems to aim at a
      degree of precision which it is neither possible nor important to
      obtain.]

      7311 (return) [ M. Dureau de la Malle (Economic Politique des
      Romaines, t. i. p. 369) quotes a passage from the xvth chapter of
      Gibbon, in which he estimates the population of Rome at not less
      than a million, and adds (omitting any reference to this
      passage,) that he (Gibbon) could not have seriously studied the
      question. M. Dureau de la Malle proceeds to argue that Rome, as
      contained within the walls of Servius Tullius, occupying an area
      only one fifth of that of Paris, could not have contained 300,000
      inhabitants; within those of Aurelian not more than 560,000,
      inclusive of soldiers and strangers. The suburbs, he endeavors to
      show, both up to the time of Aurelian, and after his reign, were
      neither so extensive, nor so populous, as generally supposed. M.
      Dureau de la Malle has but imperfectly quoted the important
      passage of Dionysius, that which proves that when he wrote (in
      the time of Augustus) the walls of Servius no longer marked the
      boundary of the city. In many places they were so built upon,
      that it was impossible to trace them. There was no certain limit,
      where the city ended and ceased to be the city; it stretched out
      to so boundless an extent into the country. Ant. Rom. iv. 13.
      None of M. de la Malle’s arguments appear to me to prove, against
      this statement, that these irregular suburbs did not extend so
      far in many parts, as to make it impossible to calculate
      accurately the inhabited area of the city. Though no doubt the
      city, as reconstructed by Nero, was much less closely built and
      with many more open spaces for palaces, temples, and other public
      edifices, yet many passages seem to prove that the laws
      respecting the height of houses were not rigidly enforced. A
      great part of the lower especially of the slave population, were
      very densely crowded, and lived, even more than in our modern
      towns, in cellars and subterranean dwellings under the public
      edifices. Nor do M. de la Malle’s arguments, by which he would
      explain the insulae insulae (of which the Notitiae Urbis give us
      the number) as rows of shops, with a chamber or two within the
      domus, or houses of the wealthy, satisfy me as to their soundness
      of their scholarship. Some passages which he adduces directly
      contradict his theory; none, as appears to me, distinctly prove
      it. I must adhere to the old interpretation of the word, as
      chiefly dwellings for the middling or lower classes, or clusters
      of tenements, often perhaps, under the same roof. On this point,
      Zumpt, in the Dissertation before quoted, entirely disagrees with
      M. de la Malle. Zumpt has likewise detected the mistake of M. de
      la Malle as to the “canon” of corn, mentioned in the life of
      Septimius Severus by Spartianus. On this canon the French writer
      calculates the inhabitants of Rome at that time. But the “canon”
      was not the whole supply of Rome, but that quantity which the
      state required for the public granaries to supply the gratuitous
      distributions to the people, and the public officers and slaves;
      no doubt likewise to keep down the general price. M. Zumpt
      reckons the population of Rome at 2,000,000. After careful
      consideration, I should conceive the number in the text,
      1,200,000, to be nearest the truth—M. 1845.]

      Such was the state of Rome under the reign of Honorius; at the
      time when the Gothic army formed the siege, or rather the
      blockade, of the city. 74 By a skilful disposition of his
      numerous forces, who impatiently watched the moment of an
      assault, Alaric encompassed the walls, commanded the twelve
      principal gates, intercepted all communication with the adjacent
      country, and vigilantly guarded the navigation of the Tyber, from
      which the Romans derived the surest and most plentiful supply of
      provisions. The first emotions of the nobles, and of the people,
      were those of surprise and indignation, that a vile Barbarian
      should dare to insult the capital of the world: but their
      arrogance was soon humbled by misfortune; and their unmanly rage,
      instead of being directed against an enemy in arms, was meanly
      exercised on a defenceless and innocent victim. Perhaps in the
      person of Serena, the Romans might have respected the niece of
      Theodosius, the aunt, nay, even the adoptive mother, of the
      reigning emperor: but they abhorred the widow of Stilicho; and
      they listened with credulous passion to the tale of calumny,
      which accused her of maintaining a secret and criminal
      correspondence with the Gothic invader. Actuated, or overawed, by
      the same popular frenzy, the senate, without requiring any
      evidence of his guilt, pronounced the sentence of her death.
      Serena was ignominiously strangled; and the infatuated multitude
      were astonished to find, that this cruel act of injustice did not
      immediately produce the retreat of the Barbarians, and the
      deliverance of the city. That unfortunate city gradually
      experienced the distress of scarcity, and at length the horrid
      calamities of famine. The daily allowance of three pounds of
      bread was reduced to one half, to one third, to nothing; and the
      price of corn still continued to rise in a rapid and extravagant
      proportion. The poorer citizens, who were unable to purchase the
      necessaries of life, solicited the precarious charity of the
      rich; and for a while the public misery was alleviated by the
      humanity of Laeta, the widow of the emperor Gratian, who had
      fixed her residence at Rome, and consecrated to the use of the
      indigent the princely revenue which she annually received from
      the grateful successors of her husband. 75 But these private and
      temporary donatives were insufficient to appease the hunger of a
      numerous people; and the progress of famine invaded the marble
      palaces of the senators themselves. The persons of both sexes,
      who had been educated in the enjoyment of ease and luxury,
      discovered how little is requisite to supply the demands of
      nature; and lavished their unavailing treasures of gold and
      silver, to obtain the coarse and scanty sustenance which they
      would formerly have rejected with disdain. The food the most
      repugnant to sense or imagination, the aliments the most
      unwholesome and pernicious to the constitution, were eagerly
      devoured, and fiercely disputed, by the rage of hunger. A dark
      suspicion was entertained, that some desperate wretches fed on
      the bodies of their fellow-creatures, whom they had secretly
      murdered; and even mothers, (such was the horrid conflict of the
      two most powerful instincts implanted by nature in the human
      breast,) even mothers are said to have tasted the flesh of their
      slaughtered infants! 76 Many thousands of the inhabitants of Rome
      expired in their houses, or in the streets, for want of
      sustenance; and as the public sepulchres without the walls were
      in the power of the enemy the stench, which arose from so many
      putrid and unburied carcasses, infected the air; and the miseries
      of famine were succeeded and aggravated by the contagion of a
      pestilential disease. The assurances of speedy and effectual
      relief, which were repeatedly transmitted from the court of
      Ravenna, supported for some time, the fainting resolution of the
      Romans, till at length the despair of any human aid tempted them
      to accept the offers of a praeternatural deliverance. Pompeianus,
      praefect of the city, had been persuaded, by the art or
      fanaticism of some Tuscan diviners, that, by the mysterious force
      of spells and sacrifices, they could extract the lightning from
      the clouds, and point those celestial fires against the camp of
      the Barbarians. 77 The important secret was communicated to
      Innocent, the bishop of Rome; and the successor of St. Peter is
      accused, perhaps without foundation, of preferring the safety of
      the republic to the rigid severity of the Christian worship. But
      when the question was agitated in the senate; when it was
      proposed, as an essential condition, that those sacrifices should
      be performed in the Capitol, by the authority, and in the
      presence, of the magistrates, the majority of that respectable
      assembly, apprehensive either of the Divine or of the Imperial
      displeasure, refused to join in an act, which appeared almost
      equivalent to the public restoration of Paganism. 78

      74 (return) [ For the events of the first siege of Rome, which
      are often confounded with those of the second and third, see
      Zosimus, l. v. p. 350-354, Sozomen, l. ix. c. 6, Olympiodorus,
      ap. Phot. p. 180, Philostorgius, l. xii. c. 3, and Godefroy,
      Dissertat. p. 467-475.]

      75 (return) [ The mother of Laeta was named Pissumena. Her
      father, family, and country, are unknown. Ducange, Fam.
      Byzantium, p. 59.]

      76 (return) [ Ad nefandos cibos erupit esurientium rabies, et sua
      invicem membra laniarunt, dum mater non parcit lactenti
      infantiae; et recipit utero, quem paullo ante effuderat. Jerom.
      ad Principiam, tom. i. p. 121. The same horrid circumstance is
      likewise told of the sieges of Jerusalem and Paris. For the
      latter, compare the tenth book of the Henriade, and the Journal
      de Henri IV. tom. i. p. 47-83; and observe that a plain narrative
      of facts is much more pathetic, than the most labored
      descriptions of epic poetry]

      77 (return) [ Zosimus (l. v. p. 355, 356) speaks of these
      ceremonies like a Greek unacquainted with the national
      superstition of Rome and Tuscany. I suspect, that they consisted
      of two parts, the secret and the public; the former were probably
      an imitation of the arts and spells, by which Numa had drawn down
      Jupiter and his thunder on Mount Aventine.

     Quid agant laqueis, quae carmine dicant, Quaque trahant superis
     sedibus arte Jovem, Scire nefas homini.

      The ancilia, or shields of Mars, the pignora Imperii, which were
      carried in solemn procession on the calends of March, derived
      their origin from this mysterious event, (Ovid. Fast. iii.
      259-398.) It was probably designed to revive this ancient
      festival, which had been suppressed by Theodosius. In that case,
      we recover a chronological date (March the 1st, A.D. 409) which
      has not hitherto been observed. * Note: On this curious question
      of the knowledge of conducting lightning, processed by the
      ancients, consult Eusebe Salverte, des Sciences Occultes, l.
      xxiv. Paris, 1829.—M.]

      78 (return) [ Sozomen (l. ix. c. 6) insinuates that the
      experiment was actually, though unsuccessfully, made; but he does
      not mention the name of Innocent: and Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles.
      tom. x. p. 645) is determined not to believe, that a pope could
      be guilty of such impious condescension.]

      The last resource of the Romans was in the clemency, or at least
      in the moderation, of the king of the Goths. The senate, who in
      this emergency assumed the supreme powers of government,
      appointed two ambassadors to negotiate with the enemy. This
      important trust was delegated to Basilius, a senator, of Spanish
      extraction, and already conspicuous in the administration of
      provinces; and to John, the first tribune of the notaries, who
      was peculiarly qualified, by his dexterity in business, as well
      as by his former intimacy with the Gothic prince. When they were
      introduced into his presence, they declared, perhaps in a more
      lofty style than became their abject condition, that the Romans
      were resolved to maintain their dignity, either in peace or war;
      and that, if Alaric refused them a fair and honorable
      capitulation, he might sound his trumpets, and prepare to give
      battle to an innumerable people, exercised in arms, and animated
      by despair. “The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed,“ was
      the concise reply of the Barbarian; and this rustic metaphor was
      accompanied by a loud and insulting laugh, expressive of his
      contempt for the menaces of an unwarlike populace, enervated by
      luxury before they were emaciated by famine. He then condescended
      to fix the ransom, which he would accept as the price of his
      retreat from the walls of Rome: all the gold and silver in the
      city, whether it were the property of the state, or of
      individuals; all the rich and precious movables; and all the
      slaves that could prove their title to the name of Barbarians.
      The ministers of the senate presumed to ask, in a modest and
      suppliant tone, “If such, O king, are your demands, what do you
      intend to leave us?“ “Your Lives!“ replied the haughty conqueror:
      they trembled, and retired. Yet, before they retired, a short
      suspension of arms was granted, which allowed some time for a
      more temperate negotiation. The stern features of Alaric were
      insensibly relaxed; he abated much of the rigor of his terms; and
      at length consented to raise the siege, on the immediate payment
      of five thousand pounds of gold, of thirty thousand pounds of
      silver, of four thousand robes of silk, of three thousand pieces
      of fine scarlet cloth, and of three thousand pounds weight of
      pepper. 79 But the public treasury was exhausted; the annual
      rents of the great estates in Italy and the provinces, had been
      exchanged, during the famine, for the vilest sustenance; the
      hoards of secret wealth were still concealed by the obstinacy of
      avarice; and some remains of consecrated spoils afforded the only
      resource that could avert the impending ruin of the city. As soon
      as the Romans had satisfied the rapacious demands of Alaric, they
      were restored, in some measure, to the enjoyment of peace and
      plenty. Several of the gates were cautiously opened; the
      importation of provisions from the river and the adjacent country
      was no longer obstructed by the Goths; the citizens resorted in
      crowds to the free market, which was held during three days in
      the suburbs; and while the merchants who undertook this gainful
      trade made a considerable profit, the future subsistence of the
      city was secured by the ample magazines which were deposited in
      the public and private granaries. A more regular discipline than
      could have been expected, was maintained in the camp of Alaric;
      and the wise Barbarian justified his regard for the faith of
      treaties, by the just severity with which he chastised a party of
      licentious Goths, who had insulted some Roman citizens on the
      road to Ostia. His army, enriched by the contributions of the
      capital, slowly advanced into the fair and fruitful province of
      Tuscany, where he proposed to establish his winter quarters; and
      the Gothic standard became the refuge of forty thousand Barbarian
      slaves, who had broke their chains, and aspired, under the
      command of their great deliverer, to revenge the injuries and the
      disgrace of their cruel servitude. About the same time, he
      received a more honorable reenforcement of Goths and Huns, whom
      Adolphus, 80 the brother of his wife, had conducted, at his
      pressing invitation, from the banks of the Danube to those of the
      Tyber, and who had cut their way, with some difficulty and loss,
      through the superior number of the Imperial troops. A victorious
      leader, who united the daring spirit of a Barbarian with the art
      and discipline of a Roman general, was at the head of a hundred
      thousand fighting men; and Italy pronounced, with terror and
      respect, the formidable name of Alaric. 81

      79 (return) [ Pepper was a favorite ingredient of the most
      expensive Roman cookery, and the best sort commonly sold for
      fifteen denarii, or ten shillings, the pound. See Pliny, Hist.
      Natur. xii. 14. It was brought from India; and the same country,
      the coast of Malabar, still affords the greatest plenty: but the
      improvement of trade and navigation has multiplied the quantity
      and reduced the price. See Histoire Politique et Philosophique,
      &c., tom. i. p. 457.]

      80 (return) [ This Gothic chieftain is called by Jornandes and
      Isidore, Athaulphus; by Zosimus and Orosius, Ataulphus; and by
      Olympiodorus, Adaoulphus. I have used the celebrated name of
      Adolphus, which seems to be authorized by the practice of the
      Swedes, the sons or brothers of the ancient Goths.]

      81 (return) [ The treaty between Alaric and the Romans, &c., is
      taken from Zosimus, l. v. p. 354, 355, 358, 359, 362, 363. The
      additional circumstances are too few and trifling to require any
      other quotation.]




      Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
      Barbarians.—Part IV.

      At the distance of fourteen centuries, we may be satisfied with
      relating the military exploits of the conquerors of Rome, without
      presuming to investigate the motives of their political conduct.
      In the midst of his apparent prosperity, Alaric was conscious,
      perhaps, of some secret weakness, some internal defect; or
      perhaps the moderation which he displayed, was intended only to
      deceive and disarm the easy credulity of the ministers of
      Honorius. The king of the Goths repeatedly declared, that it was
      his desire to be considered as the friend of peace, and of the
      Romans. Three senators, at his earnest request, were sent
      ambassadors to the court of Ravenna, to solicit the exchange of
      hostages, and the conclusion of the treaty; and the proposals,
      which he more clearly expressed during the course of the
      negotiations, could only inspire a doubt of his sincerity, as
      they might seem inadequate to the state of his fortune. The
      Barbarian still aspired to the rank of master-general of the
      armies of the West; he stipulated an annual subsidy of corn and
      money; and he chose the provinces of Dalmatia, Noricum, and
      Venetia, for the seat of his new kingdom, which would have
      commanded the important communication between Italy and the
      Danube. If these modest terms should be rejected, Alaric showed a
      disposition to relinquish his pecuniary demands, and even to
      content himself with the possession of Noricum; an exhausted and
      impoverished country, perpetually exposed to the inroads of the
      Barbarians of Germany. 82 But the hopes of peace were
      disappointed by the weak obstinacy, or interested views, of the
      minister Olympius. Without listening to the salutary
      remonstrances of the senate, he dismissed their ambassadors under
      the conduct of a military escort, too numerous for a retinue of
      honor, and too feeble for any army of defence. Six thousand
      Dalmatians, the flower of the Imperial legions, were ordered to
      march from Ravenna to Rome, through an open country which was
      occupied by the formidable myriads of the Barbarians. These brave
      legionaries, encompassed and betrayed, fell a sacrifice to
      ministerial folly; their general, Valens, with a hundred
      soldiers, escaped from the field of battle; and one of the
      ambassadors, who could no longer claim the protection of the law
      of nations, was obliged to purchase his freedom with a ransom of
      thirty thousand pieces of gold. Yet Alaric, instead of resenting
      this act of impotent hostility, immediately renewed his proposals
      of peace; and the second embassy of the Roman senate, which
      derived weight and dignity from the presence of Innocent, bishop
      of the city, was guarded from the dangers of the road by a
      detachment of Gothic soldiers. 83

      82 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 367 368, 369.]

      83 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 360, 361, 362. The bishop, by
      remaining at Ravenna, escaped the impending calamities of the
      city. Orosius, l. vii. c. 39, p. 573.]

      Olympius 84 might have continued to insult the just resentment of
      a people who loudly accused him as the author of the public
      calamities; but his power was undermined by the secret intrigues
      of the palace. The favorite eunuchs transferred the government of
      Honorius, and the empire, to Jovius, the Praetorian praefect; an
      unworthy servant, who did not atone, by the merit of personal
      attachment, for the errors and misfortunes of his administration.
      The exile, or escape, of the guilty Olympius, reserved him for
      more vicissitudes of fortune: he experienced the adventures of an
      obscure and wandering life; he again rose to power; he fell a
      second time into disgrace; his ears were cut off; he expired
      under the lash; and his ignominious death afforded a grateful
      spectacle to the friends of Stilicho. After the removal of
      Olympius, whose character was deeply tainted with religious
      fanaticism, the Pagans and heretics were delivered from the
      impolitic proscription, which excluded them from the dignities of
      the state. The brave Gennerid, 85 a soldier of Barbarian origin,
      who still adhered to the worship of his ancestors, had been
      obliged to lay aside the military belt: and though he was
      repeatedly assured by the emperor himself, that laws were not
      made for persons of his rank or merit, he refused to accept any
      partial dispensation, and persevered in honorable disgrace, till
      he had extorted a general act of justice from the distress of the
      Roman government. The conduct of Gennerid in the important
      station to which he was promoted or restored, of master-general
      of Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Rhaetia, seemed to revive the
      discipline and spirit of the republic. From a life of idleness
      and want, his troops were soon habituated to severe exercise and
      plentiful subsistence; and his private generosity often supplied
      the rewards, which were denied by the avarice, or poverty, of the
      court of Ravenna. The valor of Gennerid, formidable to the
      adjacent Barbarians, was the firmest bulwark of the Illyrian
      frontier; and his vigilant care assisted the empire with a
      reenforcement of ten thousand Huns, who arrived on the confines
      of Italy, attended by such a convoy of provisions, and such a
      numerous train of sheep and oxen, as might have been sufficient,
      not only for the march of an army, but for the settlement of a
      colony. But the court and councils of Honorius still remained a
      scene of weakness and distraction, of corruption and anarchy.
      Instigated by the praefect Jovius, the guards rose in furious
      mutiny, and demanded the heads of two generals, and of the two
      principal eunuchs. The generals, under a perfidious promise of
      safety, were sent on shipboard, and privately executed; while the
      favor of the eunuchs procured them a mild and secure exile at
      Milan and Constantinople. Eusebius the eunuch, and the Barbarian
      Allobich, succeeded to the command of the bed-chamber and of the
      guards; and the mutual jealousy of these subordinate ministers
      was the cause of their mutual destruction. By the insolent order
      of the count of the domestics, the great chamberlain was
      shamefully beaten to death with sticks, before the eyes of the
      astonished emperor; and the subsequent assassination of Allobich,
      in the midst of a public procession, is the only circumstance of
      his life, in which Honorius discovered the faintest symptom of
      courage or resentment. Yet before they fell, Eusebius and
      Allobich had contributed their part to the ruin of the empire, by
      opposing the conclusion of a treaty which Jovius, from a selfish,
      and perhaps a criminal, motive, had negotiated with Alaric, in a
      personal interview under the walls of Rimini. During the absence
      of Jovius, the emperor was persuaded to assume a lofty tone of
      inflexible dignity, such as neither his situation, nor his
      character, could enable him to support; and a letter, signed with
      the name of Honorius, was immediately despatched to the
      Praetorian praefect, granting him a free permission to dispose of
      the public money, but sternly refusing to prostitute the military
      honors of Rome to the proud demands of a Barbarian. This letter
      was imprudently communicated to Alaric himself; and the Goth, who
      in the whole transaction had behaved with temper and decency,
      expressed, in the most outrageous language, his lively sense of
      the insult so wantonly offered to his person and to his nation.
      The conference of Rimini was hastily interrupted; and the
      praefect Jovius, on his return to Ravenna, was compelled to
      adopt, and even to encourage, the fashionable opinions of the
      court. By his advice and example, the principal officers of the
      state and army were obliged to swear, that, without listening, in
      any circumstances, to any conditions of peace, they would still
      persevere in perpetual and implacable war against the enemy of
      the republic. This rash engagement opposed an insuperable bar to
      all future negotiation. The ministers of Honorius were heard to
      declare, that, if they had only in voked the name of the Deity,
      they would consult the public safety, and trust their souls to
      the mercy of Heaven: but they had sworn by the sacred head of the
      emperor himself; they had sworn by the sacred head of the emperor
      himself; they had touched, in solemn ceremony, that august seat
      of majesty and wisdom; and the violation of their oath would
      exposethem to the temporal penalties of sacrilege and rebellion.
      86

      84 (return) [ For the adventures of Olympius, and his successors
      in the ministry, see Zosimus, l. v. p. 363, 365, 366, and
      Olympiodor. ap. Phot. p. 180, 181. ]

      85 (return) [ Zosimus (l. v. p. 364) relates this circumstance
      with visible complacency, and celebrates the character of
      Gennerid as the last glory of expiring Paganism. Very different
      were the sentiments of the council of Carthage, who deputed four
      bishops to the court of Ravenna to complain of the law, which had
      been just enacted, that all conversions to Christianity should be
      free and voluntary. See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 409, No.
      12, A.D. 410, No. 47, 48.]

      86 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 367, 368, 369. This custom of
      swearing by the head, or life, or safety, or genius, of the
      sovereign, was of the highest antiquity, both in Egypt (Genesis,
      xlii. 15) and Scythia. It was soon transferred, by flattery, to
      the Caesars; and Tertullian complains, that it was the only oath
      which the Romans of his time affected to reverence. See an
      elegant Dissertation of the Abbe Mossieu on the Oaths of the
      Ancients, in the Mem de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. i. p.
      208, 209.]

      While the emperor and his court enjoyed, with sullen pride, the
      security of the marches and fortifications of Ravenna, they
      abandoned Rome, almost without defence, to the resentment of
      Alaric. Yet such was the moderation which he still preserved, or
      affected, that, as he moved with his army along the Flaminian
      way, he successively despatched the bishops of the towns of Italy
      to reiterate his offers of peace, and to congradulate the
      emperor, that he would save the city and its inhabitants from
      hostile fire, and the sword of the Barbarians. 87 These impending
      calamities were, however, averted, not indeed by the wisdom of
      Honorius, but by the prudence or humanity of the Gothic king; who
      employed a milder, though not less effectual, method of conquest.
      Instead of assaulting the capital, he successfully directed his
      efforts against the Port of Ostia, one of the boldest and most
      stupendous works of Roman magnificence. 88 The accidents to which
      the precarious subsistence of the city was continually exposed in
      a winter navigation, and an open road, had suggested to the
      genius of the first Caesar the useful design, which was executed
      under the reign of Claudius. The artificial moles, which formed
      the narrow entrance, advanced far into the sea, and firmly
      repelled the fury of the waves, while the largest vessels
      securely rode at anchor within three deep and capacious basins,
      which received the northern branch of the Tyber, about two miles
      from the ancient colony of Ostia. 89 The Roman Port insensibly
      swelled to the size of an episcopal city, 90 where the corn of
      Africa was deposited in spacious granaries for the use of the
      capital. As soon as Alaric was in possession of that important
      place, he summoned the city to surrender at discretion; and his
      demands were enforced by the positive declaration, that a
      refusal, or even a delay, should be instantly followed by the
      destruction of the magazines, on which the life of the Roman
      people depended. The clamors of that people, and the terror of
      famine, subdued the pride of the senate; they listened, without
      reluctance, to the proposal of placing a new emperor on the
      throne of the unworthy Honorius; and the suffrage of the Gothic
      conqueror bestowed the purple on Attalus, praefect of the city.
      The grateful monarch immediately acknowledged his protector as
      master-general of the armies of the West; Adolphus, with the rank
      of count of the domestics, obtained the custody of the person of
      Attalus; and the two hostile nations seemed to be united in the
      closest bands of friendship and alliance. 91

      87 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 368, 369. I have softened the
      expressions of Alaric, who expatiates, in too florid a manner, on
      the history of Rome]

      88 (return) [ See Sueton. in Claud. c. 20. Dion Cassius, l. lx.
      p. 949, edit Reimar, and the lively description of Juvenal,
      Satir. xii. 75, &c. In the sixteenth century, when the remains of
      this Augustan port were still visible, the antiquarians sketched
      the plan, (see D’Anville, Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions,
      tom. xxx. p. 198,) and declared, with enthusiasm, that all the
      monarchs of Europe would be unable to execute so great a work,
      (Bergier, Hist. des grands Chemins des Romains, tom. ii. p.
      356.)]

      89 (return) [ The Ostia Tyberina, (see Cluver. Italia Antiq. l.
      iii. p. 870-879,) in the plural number, the two mouths of the
      Tyber, were separated by the Holy Island, an equilateral
      triangle, whose sides were each of them computed at about two
      miles. The colony of Ostia was founded immediately beyond the
      left, or southern, and the Port immediately beyond the right, or
      northern, branch of hte river; and the distance between their
      remains measures something more than two miles on Cingolani’s
      map. In the time of Strabo, the sand and mud deposited by the
      Tyber had choked the harbor of Ostia; the progress of the same
      cause has added much to the size of the Holy Islands, and
      gradually left both Ostia and the Port at a considerable distance
      from the shore. The dry channels (fiumi morti) and the large
      estuaries (stagno di Ponente, di Levante) mark the changes of the
      river, and the efforts of the sea. Consult, for the present state
      of this dreary and desolate tract, the excellent map of the
      ecclesiastical state by the mathematicians of Benedict XIV.; an
      actual survey of the Agro Romano, in six sheets, by Cingolani,
      which contains 113,819 rubbia, (about 570,000 acres;) and the
      large topographical map of Ameti, in eight sheets.]

      90 (return) [ As early as the third, (Lardner’s Credibility of
      the Gospel, part ii. vol. iii. p. 89-92,) or at least the fourth,
      century, (Carol. a Sancta Paulo, Notit. Eccles. p. 47,) the Port
      of Rome was an episcopal city, which was demolished, as it should
      seem in the ninth century, by Pope Gregory IV., during the
      incursions of the Arabs. It is now reduced to an inn, a church,
      and the house, or palace, of the bishop; who ranks as one of six
      cardinal-bishops of the Roman church. See Eschinard, Deserizione
      di Roman et dell’ Agro Romano, p. 328. * Note: Compare Sir W.
      Gell. Rome and its Vicinity vol. ii p. 134.—M.]

      91 (return) [ For the elevation of Attalus, consult Zosimus, l.
      vi. p. 377-380, Sozomen, l. ix. c. 8, 9, Olympiodor. ap. Phot. p.
      180, 181, Philostorg. l. xii. c. 3, and Godefroy’s Dissertat. p.
      470.]

      The gates of the city were thrown open, and the new emperor of
      the Romans, encompassed on every side by the Gothic arms, was
      conducted, in tumultuous procession, to the palace of Augustus
      and Trajan. After he had distributed the civil and military
      dignities among his favorites and followers, Attalus convened an
      assembly of the senate; before whom, in a formal and florid
      speech, he asserted his resolution of restoring the majesty of
      the republic, and of uniting to the empire the provinces of Egypt
      and the East, which had once acknowledged the sovereignty of
      Rome. Such extravagant promises inspired every reasonable citizen
      with a just contempt for the character of an unwarlike usurper,
      whose elevation was the deepest and most ignominious wound which
      the republic had yet sustained from the insolence of the
      Barbarians. But the populace, with their usual levity, applauded
      the change of masters. The public discontent was favorable to the
      rival of Honorius; and the sectaries, oppressed by his
      persecuting edicts, expected some degree of countenance, or at
      least of toleration, from a prince, who, in his native country of
      Ionia, had been educated in the Pagan superstition, and who had
      since received the sacrament of baptism from the hands of an
      Arian bishop. 92 The first days of the reign of Attalus were fair
      and prosperous. An officer of confidence was sent with an
      inconsiderable body of troops to secure the obedience of Africa;
      the greatest part of Italy submitted to the terror of the Gothic
      powers; and though the city of Bologna made a vigorous and
      effectual resistance, the people of Milan, dissatisfied perhaps
      with the absence of Honorius, accepted, with loud acclamations,
      the choice of the Roman senate. At the head of a formidable army,
      Alaric conducted his royal captive almost to the gates of
      Ravenna; and a solemn embassy of the principal ministers, of
      Jovius, the Praetorian praefect, of Valens, master of the cavalry
      and infantry, of the quaestor Potamius, and of Julian, the first
      of the notaries, was introduced, with martial pomp, into the
      Gothic camp. In the name of their sovereign, they consented to
      acknowledge the lawful election of his competitor, and to divide
      the provinces of Italy and the West between the two emperors.
      Their proposals were rejected with disdain; and the refusal was
      aggravated by the insulting clemency of Attalus, who condescended
      to promise, that, if Honorius would instantly resign the purple,
      he should be permitted to pass the remainder of his life in the
      peaceful exile of some remote island. 93 So desperate indeed did
      the situation of the son of Theodosius appear, to those who were
      the best acquainted with his strength and resources, that Jovius
      and Valens, his minister and his general, betrayed their trust,
      infamously deserted the sinking cause of their benefactor, and
      devoted their treacherous allegiance to the service of his more
      fortunate rival. Astonished by such examples of domestic treason,
      Honorius trembled at the approach of every servant, at the
      arrival of every messenger. He dreaded the secret enemies, who
      might lurk in his capital, his palace, his bed-chamber; and some
      ships lay ready in the harbor of Ravenna, to transport the
      abdicated monarch to the dominions of his infant nephew, the
      emperor of the East.

      92 (return) [ We may admit the evidence of Sozomen for the Arian
      baptism, and that of Philostorgius for the Pagan education, of
      Attalus. The visible joy of Zosimus, and the discontent which he
      imputes to the Anician family, are very unfavorable to the
      Christianity of the new emperor.]

      93 (return) [ He carried his insolence so far, as to declare that
      he should mutilate Honorius before he sent him into exile. But
      this assertion of Zosimus is destroyed by the more impartial
      testimony of Olympiodorus; who attributes the ungenerous proposal
      (which was absolutely rejected by Attalus) to the baseness, and
      perhaps the treachery, of Jovius.]

      But there is a Providence (such at least was the opinion of the
      historian Procopius) 94 that watches over innocence and folly;
      and the pretensions of Honorius to its peculiar care cannot
      reasonably be disputed. At the moment when his despair, incapable
      of any wise or manly resolution, meditated a shameful flight, a
      seasonable reenforcement of four thousand veterans unexpectedly
      landed in the port of Ravenna. To these valiant strangers, whose
      fidelity had not been corrupted by the factions of the court, he
      committed the walls and gates of the city; and the slumbers of
      the emperor were no longer disturbed by the apprehension of
      imminent and internal danger. The favorable intelligence which
      was received from Africa suddenly changed the opinions of men,
      and the state of public affairs. The troops and officers, whom
      Attalus had sent into that province, were defeated and slain; and
      the active zeal of Heraclian maintained his own allegiance, and
      that of his people. The faithful count of Africa transmitted a
      large sum of money, which fixed the attachment of the Imperial
      guards; and his vigilance, in preventing the exportation of corn
      and oil, introduced famine, tumult, and discontent, into the
      walls of Rome. The failure of the African expedition was the
      source of mutual complaint and recrimination in the party of
      Attalus; and the mind of his protector was insensibly alienated
      from the interest of a prince, who wanted spirit to command, or
      docility to obey. The most imprudent measures were adopted,
      without the knowledge, or against the advice, of Alaric; and the
      obstinate refusal of the senate, to allow, in the embarkation,
      the mixture even of five hundred Goths, betrayed a suspicious and
      distrustful temper, which, in their situation, was neither
      generous nor prudent. The resentment of the Gothic king was
      exasperated by the malicious arts of Jovius, who had been raised
      to the rank of patrician, and who afterwards excused his double
      perfidy, by declaring, without a blush, that he had only seemed
      to abandon the service of Honorius, more effectually to ruin the
      cause of the usurper. In a large plain near Rimini, and in the
      presence of an innumerable multitude of Romans and Barbarians,
      the wretched Attalus was publicly despoiled of the diadem and
      purple; and those ensigns of royalty were sent by Alaric, as the
      pledge of peace and friendship, to the son of Theodosius. 95 The
      officers who returned to their duty, were reinstated in their
      employments, and even the merit of a tardy repentance was
      graciously allowed; but the degraded emperor of the Romans,
      desirous of life, and insensible of disgrace, implored the
      permission of following the Gothic camp, in the train of a
      haughty and capricious Barbarian. 96

      94 (return) [ Procop. de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 2.]

      95 (return) [ See the cause and circumstances of the fall of
      Attalus in Zosimus, l. vi. p. 380-383. Sozomen, l. ix. c. 8.
      Philostorg. l. xii. c. 3. The two acts of indemnity in the
      Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. xxxviii. leg. 11, 12, which were
      published the 12th of February, and the 8th of August, A.D. 410,
      evidently relate to this usurper.]

      96 (return) [ In hoc, Alaricus, imperatore, facto, infecto,
      refecto, ac defecto... Mimum risit, et ludum spectavit imperii.
      Orosius, l. vii. c. 42, p. 582.]

      The degradation of Attalus removed the only real obstacle to the
      conclusion of the peace; and Alaric advanced within three miles
      of Ravenna, to press the irresolution of the Imperial ministers,
      whose insolence soon returned with the return of fortune. His
      indignation was kindled by the report, that a rival chieftain,
      that Sarus, the personal enemy of Adolphus, and the hereditary
      foe of the house of Balti, had been received into the palace. At
      the head of three hundred followers, that fearless Barbarian
      immediately sallied from the gates of Ravenna; surprised, and cut
      in pieces, a considerable body of Goths; reentered the city in
      triumph; and was permitted to insult his adversary, by the voice
      of a herald, who publicly declared that the guilt of Alaric had
      forever excluded him from the friendship and alliance of the
      emperor. 97 The crime and folly of the court of Ravenna was
      expiated, a third time, by the calamities of Rome. The king of
      the Goths, who no longer dissembled his appetite for plunder and
      revenge, appeared in arms under the walls of the capital; and the
      trembling senate, without any hopes of relief, prepared, by a
      desperate resistance, to defray the ruin of their country. But
      they were unable to guard against the secret conspiracy of their
      slaves and domestics; who, either from birth or interest, were
      attached to the cause of the enemy. At the hour of midnight, the
      Salarian gate was silently opened, and the inhabitants were
      awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet. Eleven
      hundred and sixty-three years after the foundation of Rome, the
      Imperial city, which had subdued and civilized so considerable a
      part of mankind, was delivered to the licentious fury of the
      tribes of Germany and Scythia. 98

      97 (return) [ Zosimus, l. vi. p. 384. Sozomen, l. ix. c. 9.
      Philostorgius, l. xii. c. 3. In this place the text of Zosimus is
      mutilated, and we have lost the remainder of his sixth and last
      book, which ended with the sack of Rome. Credulous and partial as
      he is, we must take our leave of that historian with some
      regret.]

      98 (return) [ Adest Alaricus, trepidam Romam obsidet, turbat,
      irrumpit. Orosius, l. vii. c. 39, p. 573. He despatches this
      great event in seven words; but he employs whole pages in
      celebrating the devotion of the Goths. I have extracted from an
      improbable story of Procopius, the circumstances which had an air
      of probability. Procop. de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 2. He supposes
      that the city was surprised while the senators slept in the
      afternoon; but Jerom, with more authority and more reason,
      affirms, that it was in the night, nocte Moab capta est. nocte
      cecidit murus ejus, tom. i. p. 121, ad Principiam.]

      The proclamation of Alaric, when he forced his entrance into a
      vanquished city, discovered, however, some regard for the laws of
      humanity and religion. He encouraged his troops boldly to seize
      the rewards of valor, and to enrich themselves with the spoils of
      a wealthy and effeminate people: but he exhorted them, at the
      same time, to spare the lives of the unresisting citizens, and to
      respect the churches of the apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, as
      holy and inviolable sanctuaries. Amidst the horrors of a
      nocturnal tumult, several of the Christian Goths displayed the
      fervor of a recent conversion; and some instances of their
      uncommon piety and moderation are related, and perhaps adorned,
      by the zeal of ecclesiastical writers. 99 While the Barbarians
      roamed through the city in quest of prey, the humble dwelling of
      an aged virgin, who had devoted her life to the service of the
      altar, was forced open by one of the powerful Goths. He
      immediately demanded, though in civil language, all the gold and
      silver in her possession; and was astonished at the readiness
      with which she conducted him to a splendid hoard of massy plate,
      of the richest materials, and the most curious workmanship. The
      Barbarian viewed with wonder and delight this valuable
      acquisition, till he was interrupted by a serious admonition,
      addressed to him in the following words: “These,“ said she, “are
      the consecrated vessels belonging to St. Peter: if you presume to
      touch them, the sacrilegious deed will remain on your conscience.
      For my part, I dare not keep what I am unable to defend.“ The
      Gothic captain, struck with reverential awe, despatched a
      messenger to inform the king of the treasure which he had
      discovered; and received a peremptory order from Alaric, that all
      the consecrated plate and ornaments should be transported,
      without damage or delay, to the church of the apostle. From the
      extremity, perhaps, of the Quirinal hill, to the distant quarter
      of the Vatican, a numerous detachment of Goths, marching in order
      of battle through the principal streets, protected, with
      glittering arms, the long train of their devout companions, who
      bore aloft, on their heads, the sacred vessels of gold and
      silver; and the martial shouts of the Barbarians were mingled
      with the sound of religious psalmody. From all the adjacent
      houses, a crowd of Christians hastened to join this edifying
      procession; and a multitude of fugitives, without distinction of
      age, or rank, or even of sect, had the good fortune to escape to
      the secure and hospitable sanctuary of the Vatican. The learned
      work, concerning the City of God, was professedly composed by St.
      Augustin, to justify the ways of Providence in the destruction of
      the Roman greatness. He celebrates, with peculiar satisfaction,
      this memorable triumph of Christ; and insults his adversaries, by
      challenging them to produce some similar example of a town taken
      by storm, in which the fabulous gods of antiquity had been able
      to protect either themselves or their deluded votaries. 100

      99 (return) [ Orosius (l. vii. c. 39, p. 573-576) applauds the
      piety of the Christian Goths, without seeming to perceive that
      the greatest part of them were Arian heretics. Jornandes (c. 30,
      p. 653) and Isidore of Seville, (Chron. p. 417, edit. Grot.,) who
      were both attached to the Gothic cause, have repeated and
      embellished these edifying tales. According to Isidore, Alaric
      himself was heard to say, that he waged war with the Romans, and
      not with the apostles. Such was the style of the seventh century;
      two hundred years before, the fame and merit had been ascribed,
      not to the apostles, but to Christ.]

      100 (return) [ See Augustin, de Civitat. Dei, l. i. c. 1-6. He
      particularly appeals to the examples of Troy, Syracuse, and
      Tarentum.]

      In the sack of Rome, some rare and extraordinary examples of
      Barbarian virtue have been deservedly applauded. But the holy
      precincts of the Vatican, and the apostolic churches, could
      receive a very small proportion of the Roman people; many
      thousand warriors, more especially of the Huns, who served under
      the standard of Alaric, were strangers to the name, or at least
      to the faith, of Christ; and we may suspect, without any breach
      of charity or candor, that in the hour of savage license, when
      every passion was inflamed, and every restraint was removed, the
      precepts of the Gospel seldom influenced the behavior of the
      Gothic Christians. The writers, the best disposed to exaggerate
      their clemency, have freely confessed, that a cruel slaughter was
      made of the Romans; 101 and that the streets of the city were
      filled with dead bodies, which remained without burial during the
      general consternation. The despair of the citizens was sometimes
      converted into fury: and whenever the Barbarians were provoked by
      opposition, they extended the promiscuous massacre to the feeble,
      the innocent, and the helpless. The private revenge of forty
      thousand slaves was exercised without pity or remorse; and the
      ignominious lashes, which they had formerly received, were washed
      away in the blood of the guilty, or obnoxious, families. The
      matrons and virgins of Rome were exposed to injuries more
      dreadful, in the apprehension of chastity, than death itself; and
      the ecclesiastical historian has selected an example of female
      virtue, for the admiration of future ages. 102 A Roman lady, of
      singular beauty and orthodox faith, had excited the impatient
      desires of a young Goth, who, according to the sagacious remark
      of Sozomen, was attached to the Arian heresy. Exasperated by her
      obstinate resistance, he drew his sword, and, with the anger of a
      lover, slightly wounded her neck. The bleeding heroine still
      continued to brave his resentment, and to repel his love, till
      the ravisher desisted from his unavailing efforts, respectfully
      conducted her to the sanctuary of the Vatican, and gave six
      pieces of gold to the guards of the church, on condition that
      they should restore her inviolate to the arms of her husband.
      Such instances of courage and generosity were not extremely
      common. The brutal soldiers satisfied their sensual appetites,
      without consulting either the inclination or the duties of their
      female captives: and a nice question of casuistry was seriously
      agitated, Whether those tender victims, who had inflexibly
      refused their consent to the violation which they sustained, had
      lost, by their misfortune, the glorious crown of virginity. 103
      Their were other losses indeed of a more substantial kind, and
      more general concern. It cannot be presumed, that all the
      Barbarians were at all times capable of perpetrating such amorous
      outrages; and the want of youth, or beauty, or chastity,
      protected the greatest part of the Roman women from the danger of
      a rape. But avarice is an insatiate and universal passion; since
      the enjoyment of almost every object that can afford pleasure to
      the different tastes and tempers of mankind may be procured by
      the possession of wealth. In the pillage of Rome, a just
      preference was given to gold and jewels, which contain the
      greatest value in the smallest compass and weight: but, after
      these portable riches had been removed by the more diligent
      robbers, the palaces of Rome were rudely stripped of their
      splendid and costly furniture. The sideboards of massy plate, and
      the variegated wardrobes of silk and purple, were irregularly
      piled in the wagons, that always followed the march of a Gothic
      army. The most exquisite works of art were roughly handled, or
      wantonly destroyed; many a statue was melted for the sake of the
      precious materials; and many a vase, in the division of the
      spoil, was shivered into fragments by the stroke of a battle-axe.

      The acquisition of riches served only to stimulate the avarice of
      the rapacious Barbarians, who proceeded, by threats, by blows,
      and by tortures, to force from their prisoners the confession of
      hidden treasure. 104 Visible splendor and expense were alleged as
      the proof of a plentiful fortune; the appearance of poverty was
      imputed to a parsimonious disposition; and the obstinacy of some
      misers, who endured the most cruel torments before they would
      discover the secret object of their affection, was fatal to many
      unhappy wretches, who expired under the lash, for refusing to
      reveal their imaginary treasures. The edifices of Rome, though
      the damage has been much exaggerated, received some injury from
      the violence of the Goths. At their entrance through the Salarian
      gate, they fired the adjacent houses to guide their march, and to
      distract the attention of the citizens; the flames, which
      encountered no obstacle in the disorder of the night, consumed
      many private and public buildings; and the ruins of the palace of
      Sallust 105 remained, in the age of Justinian, a stately monument
      of the Gothic conflagration. 106 Yet a contemporary historian has
      observed, that fire could scarcely consume the enormous beams of
      solid brass, and that the strength of man was insufficient to
      subvert the foundations of ancient structures. Some truth may
      possibly be concealed in his devout assertion, that the wrath of
      Heaven supplied the imperfections of hostile rage; and that the
      proud Forum of Rome, decorated with the statues of so many gods
      and heroes, was levelled in the dust by the stroke of lightning.
      107

      101 (return) [ Jerom (tom. i. p. 121, ad Principiam) has applied
      to the sack of Rome all the strong expressions of Virgil:—

     Quis cladem illius noctis, quis funera fando, Explicet, &c.

      Procopius (l. i. c. 2) positively affirms that great numbers were
      slain by the Goths. Augustin (de Civ. Dei, l. i. c. 12, 13)
      offers Christian comfort for the death of those whose bodies
      (multa corpora) had remained (in tanta strage) unburied.
      Baronius, from the different writings of the Fathers, has thrown
      some light on the sack of Rome. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 410, No.
      16-34.]

      102 (return) [ Sozomen. l. ix. c. 10. Augustin (de Civitat. Dei,
      l. i. c. 17) intimates, that some virgins or matrons actually
      killed themselves to escape violation; and though he admires
      their spirit, he is obliged, by his theology, to condemn their
      rash presumption. Perhaps the good bishop of Hippo was too easy
      in the belief, as well as too rigid in the censure, of this act
      of female heroism. The twenty maidens (if they ever existed) who
      threw themselves into the Elbe, when Magdeburgh was taken by
      storm, have been multiplied to the number of twelve hundred. See
      Harte’s History of Gustavus Adolphus, vol. i. p. 308.]

      103 (return) [ See Augustin de Civitat. Dei, l. i. c. 16, 18. He
      treats the subject with remarkable accuracy: and after admitting
      that there cannot be any crime where there is no consent, he
      adds, Sed quia non solum quod ad dolorem, verum etiam quod ad
      libidinem, pertinet, in corpore alieno pepetrari potest; quicquid
      tale factum fuerit, etsi retentam constantissimo animo pudicitiam
      non excutit, pudorem tamen incutit, ne credatur factum cum mentis
      etiam voluntate, quod fieri fortasse sine carnis aliqua voluptate
      non potuit. In c. 18 he makes some curious distinctions between
      moral and physical virginity.]

      104 (return) [ Marcella, a Roman lady, equally respectable for
      her rank, her age, and her piety, was thrown on the ground, and
      cruelly beaten and whipped, caesam fustibus flagellisque, &c.
      Jerom, tom. i. p. 121, ad Principiam. See Augustin, de Civ. Dei,
      l. c. 10. The modern Sacco di Roma, p. 208, gives an idea of the
      various methods of torturing prisoners for gold.]

      105 (return) [ The historian Sallust, who usefully practiced the
      vices which he has so eloquently censured, employed the plunder
      of Numidia to adorn his palace and gardens on the Quirinal hill.
      The spot where the house stood is now marked by the church of St.
      Susanna, separated only by a street from the baths of Diocletian,
      and not far distant from the Salarian gate. See Nardini, Roma
      Antica, p. 192, 193, and the great I’lan of Modern Rome, by
      Nolli.]

      106 (return) [ The expressions of Procopius are distinct and
      moderate, (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 2.) The Chronicle of
      Marcellinus speaks too strongly partem urbis Romae cremavit; and
      the words of Philostorgius (l. xii. c. 3) convey a false and
      exaggerated idea. Bargaeus has composed a particular dissertation
      (see tom. iv. Antiquit. Rom. Graev.) to prove that the edifices
      of Rome were not subverted by the Goths and Vandals.]

      107 (return) [ Orosius, l. ii. c. 19, p. 143. He speaks as if he
      disapproved all statues; vel Deum vel hominem mentiuntur. They
      consisted of the kings of Alba and Rome from Aeneas, the Romans,
      illustrious either in arms or arts, and the deified Caesars. The
      expression which he uses of Forum is somewhat ambiguous, since
      there existed five principal Fora; but as they were all
      contiguous and adjacent, in the plain which is surrounded by the
      Capitoline, the Quirinal, the Esquiline, and the Palatine hills,
      they might fairly be considered as one. See the Roma Antiqua of
      Donatus, p. 162-201, and the Roma Antica of Nardini, p. 212-273.
      The former is more useful for the ancient descriptions, the
      latter for the actual topography.]




      Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
      Barbarians.—Part V.

      Whatever might be the numbers of equestrian or plebeian rank, who
      perished in the massacre of Rome, it is confidently affirmed that
      only one senator lost his life by the sword of the enemy. 108 But
      it was not easy to compute the multitudes, who, from an honorable
      station and a prosperous fortune, were suddenly reduced to the
      miserable condition of captives and exiles. As the Barbarians had
      more occasion for money than for slaves, they fixed at a moderate
      price the redemption of their indigent prisoners; and the ransom
      was often paid by the benevolence of their friends, or the
      charity of strangers. 109 The captives, who were regularly sold,
      either in open market, or by private contract, would have legally
      regained their native freedom, which it was impossible for a
      citizen to lose, or to alienate. 110 But as it was soon
      discovered that the vindication of their liberty would endanger
      their lives; and that the Goths, unless they were tempted to
      sell, might be provoked to murder, their useless prisoners; the
      civil jurisprudence had been already qualified by a wise
      regulation, that they should be obliged to serve the moderate
      term of five years, till they had discharged by their labor the
      price of their redemption. 111 The nations who invaded the Roman
      empire, had driven before them, into Italy, whole troops of
      hungry and affrighted provincials, less apprehensive of servitude
      than of famine. The calamities of Rome and Italy dispersed the
      inhabitants to the most lonely, the most secure, the most distant
      places of refuge. While the Gothic cavalry spread terror and
      desolation along the sea-coast of Campania and Tuscany, the
      little island of Igilium, separated by a narrow channel from the
      Argentarian promontory, repulsed, or eluded, their hostile
      attempts; and at so small a distance from Rome, great numbers of
      citizens were securely concealed in the thick woods of that
      sequestered spot. 112 The ample patrimonies, which many
      senatorian families possessed in Africa, invited them, if they
      had time, and prudence, to escape from the ruin of their country,
      to embrace the shelter of that hospitable province. The most
      illustrious of these fugitives was the noble and pious Proba, 113
      the widow of the praefect Petronius. After the death of her
      husband, the most powerful subject of Rome, she had remained at
      the head of the Anician family, and successively supplied, from
      her private fortune, the expense of the consulships of her three
      sons. When the city was besieged and taken by the Goths, Proba
      supported, with Christian resignation, the loss of immense
      riches; embarked in a small vessel, from whence she beheld, at
      sea, the flames of her burning palace, and fled with her daughter
      Laeta, and her granddaughter, the celebrated virgin, Demetrias,
      to the coast of Africa. The benevolent profusion with which the
      matron distributed the fruits, or the price, of her estates,
      contributed to alleviate the misfortunes of exile and captivity.
      But even the family of Proba herself was not exempt from the
      rapacious oppression of Count Heraclian, who basely sold, in
      matrimonial prostitution, the noblest maidens of Rome to the lust
      or avarice of the Syrian merchants. The Italian fugitives were
      dispersed through the provinces, along the coast of Egypt and
      Asia, as far as Constantinople and Jerusalem; and the village of
      Bethlem, the solitary residence of St. Jerom and his female
      converts, was crowded with illustrious beggars of either sex, and
      every age, who excited the public compassion by the remembrance
      of their past fortune. 114 This awful catastrophe of Rome filled
      the astonished empire with grief and terror. So interesting a
      contrast of greatness and ruin, disposed the fond credulity of
      the people to deplore, and even to exaggerate, the afflictions of
      the queen of cities. The clergy, who applied to recent events the
      lofty metaphors of oriental prophecy, were sometimes tempted to
      confound the destruction of the capital and the dissolution of
      the globe.

      108 (return) [ Orosius (l. ii. c. 19, p. 142) compares the
      cruelty of the Gauls and the clemency of the Goths. Ibi vix
      quemquam inventum senatorem, qui vel absens evaserit; hic vix
      quemquam requiri, qui forte ut latens perierit. But there is an
      air of rhetoric, and perhaps of falsehood, in this antithesis;
      and Socrates (l. vii. c. 10) affirms, perhaps by an opposite
      exaggeration, that many senators were put to death with various
      and exquisite tortures.]

      109 (return) [ Multi... Christiani incaptivitatem ducti sunt.
      Augustin, de Civ Dei, l. i. c. 14; and the Christians experienced
      no peculiar hardships.]

      110 (return) [ See Heineccius, Antiquitat. Juris Roman. tom. i.
      p. 96.]

      111 (return) [ Appendix Cod. Theodos. xvi. in Sirmond. Opera,
      tom. i. p. 735. This edict was published on the 11th of December,
      A.D. 408, and is more reasonable than properly belonged to the
      ministers of Honorius.]

      112 (return) [ Eminus Igilii sylvosa cacumina miror; Quem
      fraudare nefas laudis honore suae.

     Haec proprios nuper tutata est insula saltus;
     Sive loci ingenio, seu Domini genio. Gurgite cum modico
     victricibus obstitit armis, Tanquam longinquo dissociata mari.
     Haec multos lacera suscepit ab urbe fugates,
     Hic fessis posito certa timore salus. Plurima terreno populaverat
     aequora bello,
     Contra naturam classe timendus eques: Unum, mira fides, vario
     discrimine portum!
     Tam prope Romanis, tam procul esse Getis.
    —-Rutilius, in Itinerar. l. i. 325

      The island is now called Giglio. See Cluver. Ital. Antiq. l. ii.
      ]

      113 (return) [ As the adventures of Proba and her family are
      connected with the life of St. Augustin, they are diligently
      illustrated by Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 620-635.
      Some time after their arrival in Africa, Demetrias took the veil,
      and made a vow of virginity; an event which was considered as of
      the highest importance to Rome and to the world. All the Saints
      wrote congratulatory letters to her; that of Jerom is still
      extant, (tom. i. p. 62-73, ad Demetriad. de servand Virginitat.,)
      and contains a mixture of absurd reasoning, spirited declamation,
      and curious facts, some of which relate to the siege and sack of
      Rome.]

      114 (return) [ See the pathetic complaint of Jerom, (tom. v. p.
      400,) in his preface to the second book of his Commentaries on
      the Prophet Ezekiel.]

      There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate
      the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.
      Yet, when the first emotions had subsided, and a fair estimate
      was made of the real damage, the more learned and judicious
      contemporaries were forced to confess, that infant Rome had
      formerly received more essential injury from the Gauls, than she
      had now sustained from the Goths in her declining age. 115 The
      experience of eleven centuries has enabled posterity to produce a
      much more singular parallel; and to affirm with confidence, that
      the ravages of the Barbarians, whom Alaric had led from the banks
      of the Danube, were less destructive than the hostilities
      exercised by the troops of Charles the Fifth, a Catholic prince,
      who styled himself Emperor of the Romans. 116 The Goths evacuated
      the city at the end of six days, but Rome remained above nine
      months in the possession of the Imperialists; and every hour was
      stained by some atrocious act of cruelty, lust, and rapine. The
      authority of Alaric preserved some order and moderation among the
      ferocious multitude which acknowledged him for their leader and
      king; but the constable of Bourbon had gloriously fallen in the
      attack of the walls; and the death of the general removed every
      restraint of discipline from an army which consisted of three
      independent nations, the Italians, the Spaniards, and the
      Germans. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the manners
      of Italy exhibited a remarkable scene of the depravity of
      mankind. They united the sanguinary crimes that prevail in an
      unsettled state of society, with the polished vices which spring
      from the abuse of art and luxury; and the loose adventurers, who
      had violated every prejudice of patriotism and superstition to
      assault the palace of the Roman pontiff, must deserve to be
      considered as the most profligate of the Italians. At the same
      aera, the Spaniards were the terror both of the Old and New
      World: but their high-spirited valor was disgraced by gloomy
      pride, rapacious avarice, and unrelenting cruelty. Indefatigable
      in the pursuit of fame and riches, they had improved, by repeated
      practice, the most exquisite and effectual methods of torturing
      their prisoners: many of the Castilians, who pillaged Rome, were
      familiars of the holy inquisition; and some volunteers, perhaps,
      were lately returned from the conquest of Mexico The Germans were
      less corrupt than the Italians, less cruel than the Spaniards;
      and the rustic, or even savage, aspect of those Tramontane
      warriors, often disguised a simple and merciful disposition. But
      they had imbibed, in the first fervor of the reformation, the
      spirit, as well as the principles of Luther. It was their
      favorite amusement to insult, or destroy, the consecrated objects
      of Catholic superstition; they indulged, without pity or remorse,
      a devout hatred against the clergy of every denomination and
      degree, who form so considerable a part of the inhabitants of
      modern Rome; and their fanatic zeal might aspire to subvert the
      throne of Anti-christ, to purify, with blood and fire, the
      abominations of the spiritual Babylon. 117

      115 (return) [ Orosius, though with some theological partiality,
      states this comparison, l. ii. c. 19, p. 142, l. vii. c. 39, p.
      575. But, in the history of the taking of Rome by the Gauls,
      every thing is uncertain, and perhaps fabulous. See Beaufort sur
      l’Incertitude, &c., de l’Histoire Romaine, p. 356; and Melot, in
      the Mem. de l’Academie des Inscript. tom. xv. p. 1-21.]

      116 (return) [ The reader who wishes to inform himself of the
      circumstances of his famous event, may peruse an admirable
      narrative in Dr. Robertson’s History of Charles V. vol. ii. p.
      283; or consult the Annali d’Italia of the learned Muratori, tom.
      xiv. p. 230-244, octavo edition. If he is desirous of examining
      the originals, he may have recourse to the eighteenth book of the
      great, but unfinished, history of Guicciardini. But the account
      which most truly deserves the name of authentic and original, is
      a little book, entitled, Il Sacco di Roma, composed, within less
      than a month after the assault of the city, by the brother of the
      historian Guicciardini, who appears to have been an able
      magistrate and a dispassionate writer.]

      117 (return) [ The furious spirit of Luther, the effect of temper
      and enthusiasm, has been forcibly attacked, (Bossuet, Hist. des
      Variations des Eglises Protestantes, livre i. p. 20-36,) and
      feebly defended, (Seckendorf. Comment. de Lutheranismo,
      especially l. i. No. 78, p. 120, and l. iii. No. 122, p. 556.)]

      The retreat of the victorious Goths, who evacuated Rome on the
      sixth day, 118 might be the result of prudence; but it was not
      surely the effect of fear. 119 At the head of an army encumbered
      with rich and weighty spoils, their intrepid leader advanced
      along the Appian way into the southern provinces of Italy,
      destroying whatever dared to oppose his passage, and contenting
      himself with the plunder of the unresisting country. The fate of
      Capua, the proud and luxurious metropolis of Campania, and which
      was respected, even in its decay, as the eighth city of the
      empire, 120 is buried in oblivion; whilst the adjacent town of
      Nola 121 has been illustrated, on this occasion, by the sanctity
      of Paulinus, 122 who was successively a consul, a monk, and a
      bishop. At the age of forty, he renounced the enjoyment of wealth
      and honor, of society and literature, to embrace a life of
      solitude and penance; and the loud applause of the clergy
      encouraged him to despise the reproaches of his worldly friends,
      who ascribed this desperate act to some disorder of the mind or
      body. 123 An early and passionate attachment determined him to
      fix his humble dwelling in one of the suburbs of Nola, near the
      miraculous tomb of St. Faelix, which the public devotion had
      already surrounded with five large and populous churches. The
      remains of his fortune, and of his understanding, were dedicated
      to the service of the glorious martyr; whose praise, on the day
      of his festival, Paulinus never failed to celebrate by a solemn
      hymn; and in whose name he erected a sixth church, of superior
      elegance and beauty, which was decorated with many curious
      pictures, from the history of the Old and New Testament. Such
      assiduous zeal secured the favor of the saint, 124 or at least of
      the people; and, after fifteen years’ retirement, the Roman
      consul was compelled to accept the bishopric of Nola, a few
      months before the city was invested by the Goths. During the
      siege, some religious persons were satisfied that they had seen,
      either in dreams or visions, the divine form of their tutelar
      patron; yet it soon appeared by the event, that Faelix wanted
      power, or inclination, to preserve the flock of which he had
      formerly been the shepherd. Nola was not saved from the general
      devastation; 125 and the captive bishop was protected only by the
      general opinion of his innocence and poverty. Above four years
      elapsed from the successful invasion of Italy by the arms of
      Alaric, to the voluntary retreat of the Goths under the conduct
      of his successor Adolphus; and, during the whole time, they
      reigned without control over a country, which, in the opinion of
      the ancients, had united all the various excellences of nature
      and art. The prosperity, indeed, which Italy had attained in the
      auspicious age of the Antonines, had gradually declined with the
      decline of the empire.

      The fruits of a long peace perished under the rude grasp of the
      Barbarians; and they themselves were incapable of tasting the
      more elegant refinements of luxury, which had been prepared for
      the use of the soft and polished Italians. Each soldier, however,
      claimed an ample portion of the substantial plenty, the corn and
      cattle, oil and wine, that was daily collected and consumed in
      the Gothic camp; and the principal warriors insulted the villas
      and gardens, once inhabited by Lucullus and Cicero, along the
      beauteous coast of Campania. Their trembling captives, the sons
      and daughters of Roman senators, presented, in goblets of gold
      and gems, large draughts of Falernian wine to the haughty
      victors; who stretched their huge limbs under the shade of
      plane-trees, 126 artificially disposed to exclude the scorching
      rays, and to admit the genial warmth, of the sun. These delights
      were enhanced by the memory of past hardships: the comparison of
      their native soil, the bleak and barren hills of Scythia, and the
      frozen banks of the Elbe and Danube, added new charms to the
      felicity of the Italian climate. 127

      118 (return) [ Marcellinus, in Chron. Orosius, (l. vii. c. 39, p.
      575,) asserts, that he left Rome on the third day; but this
      difference is easily reconciled by the successive motions of
      great bodies of troops.]

      119 (return) [ Socrates (l. vii. c. 10) pretends, without any
      color of truth, or reason, that Alaric fled on the report that
      the armies of the Eastern empire were in full march to attack
      him.]

      120 (return) [ Ausonius de Claris Urbibus, p. 233, edit. Toll.
      The luxury of Capua had formerly surpassed that of Sybaris
      itself. See Athenaeus Deipnosophist. l. xii. p. 528, edit.
      Casaubon.]

      121 (return) [ Forty-eight years before the foundation of Rome,
      (about 800 before the Christian aera,) the Tuscans built Capua
      and Nola, at the distance of twenty-three miles from each other;
      but the latter of the two cities never emerged from a state of
      mediocrity.]

      122 (return) [ Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 1-46) has
      compiled, with his usual diligence, all that relates to the life
      and writings of Paulinus, whose retreat is celebrated by his own
      pen, and by the praises of St. Ambrose, St. Jerom, St. Augustin,
      Sulpicius Severus, &c., his Christian friends and
      contemporaries.]

      123 (return) [ See the affectionate letters of Ausonius (epist.
      xix.—xxv. p. 650-698, edit. Toll.) to his colleague, his friend,
      and his disciple, Paulinus. The religion of Ausonius is still a
      problem, (see Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xv. p.
      123-138.) I believe that it was such in his own time, and,
      consequently, that in his heart he was a Pagan.]

      124 (return) [ The humble Paulinus once presumed to say, that he
      believed St. Faelix did love him; at least, as a master loves his
      little dog.]

      125 (return) [ See Jornandes, de Reb. Get. c. 30, p. 653.
      Philostorgius, l. xii. c. 3. Augustin. de Civ. Dei, l.i.c. 10.
      Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 410, No. 45, 46.]

      126 (return) [ The platanus, or plane-tree, was a favorite of the
      ancients, by whom it was propagated, for the sake of shade, from
      the East to Gaul. Plin. Hist. Natur. xii. 3, 4, 5. He mentions
      several of an enormous size; one in the Imperial villa, at
      Velitrae, which Caligula called his nest, as the branches were
      capable of holding a large table, the proper attendants, and the
      emperor himself, whom Pliny quaintly styles pars umbroe; an
      expression which might, with equal reason, be applied to Alaric]

      127 (return) [ The prostrate South to the destroyer yields

     Her boasted titles, and her golden fields; With grim delight the
     brood of winter view A brighter day, and skies of azure hue; Scent
     the new fragrance of the opening rose, And quaff the pendent
     vintage as it grows.

      See Gray’s Poems, published by Mr. Mason, p. 197. Instead of
      compiling tables of chronology and natural history, why did not
      Mr. Gray apply the powers of his genius to finish the philosophic
      poem, of which he has left such an exquisite specimen?]

      Whether fame, or conquest, or riches, were the object or Alaric,
      he pursued that object with an indefatigable ardor, which could
      neither be quelled by adversity nor satiated by success. No
      sooner had he reached the extreme land of Italy, than he was
      attracted by the neighboring prospect of a fertile and peaceful
      island. Yet even the possession of Sicily he considered only as
      an intermediate step to the important expedition, which he
      already meditated against the continent of Africa. The Straits of
      Rhegium and Messina 128 are twelve miles in length, and, in the
      narrowest passage, about one mile and a half broad; and the
      fabulous monsters of the deep, the rocks of Scylla, and the
      whirlpool of Charybdis, could terrify none but the most timid and
      unskilful mariners. Yet as soon as the first division of the
      Goths had embarked, a sudden tempest arose, which sunk, or
      scattered, many of the transports; their courage was daunted by
      the terrors of a new element; and the whole design was defeated
      by the premature death of Alaric, which fixed, after a short
      illness, the fatal term of his conquests. The ferocious character
      of the Barbarians was displayed in the funeral of a hero whose
      valor and fortune they celebrated with mournful applause. By the
      labor of a captive multitude, they forcibly diverted the course
      of the Busentinus, a small river that washes the walls of
      Consentia. The royal sepulchre, adorned with the splendid spoils
      and trophies of Rome, was constructed in the vacant bed; the
      waters were then restored to their natural channel; and the
      secret spot, where the remains of Alaric had been deposited, was
      forever concealed by the inhuman massacre of the prisoners, who
      had been employed to execute the work. 129

      128 (return) [ For the perfect description of the Straits of
      Messina, Scylla, Clarybdis, &c., see Cluverius, (Ital. Antiq. l.
      iv. p. 1293, and Sicilia Antiq. l. i. p. 60-76), who had
      diligently studied the ancients, and surveyed with a curious eye
      the actual face of the country.]

      129 (return) [ Jornandes, de Reb Get. c. 30, p. 654.]




      Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
      Barbarians.—Part VI.

      The personal animosities and hereditary feuds of the Barbarians
      were suspended by the strong necessity of their affairs; and the
      brave Adolphus, the brother-in-law of the deceased monarch, was
      unanimously elected to succeed to his throne. The character and
      political system of the new king of the Goths may be best
      understood from his own conversation with an illustrious citizen
      of Narbonne; who afterwards, in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land,
      related it to St. Jerom, in the presence of the historian
      Orosius. “In the full confidence of valor and victory, I once
      aspired (said Adolphus) to change the face of the universe; to
      obliterate the name of Rome; to erect on its ruins the dominion
      of the Goths; and to acquire, like Augustus, the immortal fame of
      the founder of a new empire. By repeated experiments, I was
      gradually convinced, that laws are essentially necessary to
      maintain and regulate a well-constituted state; and that the
      fierce, untractable humor of the Goths was incapable of bearing
      the salutary yoke of laws and civil government. From that moment
      I proposed to myself a different object of glory and ambition;
      and it is now my sincere wish that the gratitude of future ages
      should acknowledge the merit of a stranger, who employed the
      sword of the Goths, not to subvert, but to restore and maintain,
      the prosperity of the Roman empire.“ 130 With these pacific
      views, the successor of Alaric suspended the operations of war;
      and seriously negotiated with the Imperial court a treaty of
      friendship and alliance. It was the interest of the ministers of
      Honorius, who were now released from the obligation of their
      extravagant oath, to deliver Italy from the intolerable weight of
      the Gothic powers; and they readily accepted their service
      against the tyrants and Barbarians who infested the provinces
      beyond the Alps. 131 Adolphus, assuming the character of a Roman
      general, directed his march from the extremity of Campania to the
      southern provinces of Gaul. His troops, either by force of
      agreement, immediately occupied the cities of Narbonne,
      Thoulouse, and Bordeaux; and though they were repulsed by Count
      Boniface from the walls of Marseilles, they soon extended their
      quarters from the Mediterranean to the Ocean.

      The oppressed provincials might exclaim, that the miserable
      remnant, which the enemy had spared, was cruelly ravished by
      their pretended allies; yet some specious colors were not wanting
      to palliate, or justify the violence of the Goths. The cities of
      Gaul, which they attacked, might perhaps be considered as in a
      state of rebellion against the government of Honorius: the
      articles of the treaty, or the secret instructions of the court,
      might sometimes be alleged in favor of the seeming usurpations of
      Adolphus; and the guilt of any irregular, unsuccessful act of
      hostility might always be imputed, with an appearance of truth,
      to the ungovernable spirit of a Barbarian host, impatient of
      peace or discipline. The luxury of Italy had been less effectual
      to soften the temper, than to relax the courage, of the Goths;
      and they had imbibed the vices, without imitating the arts and
      institutions, of civilized society. 132

      130 (return) [ Orosius, l. vii. c. 43, p. 584, 585. He was sent
      by St. Augustin in the year 415, from Africa to Palestine, to
      visit St. Jerom, and to consult with him on the subject of the
      Pelagian controversy.]

      131 (return) [ Jornandes supposes, without much probability, that
      Adolphus visited and plundered Rome a second time, (more
      locustarum erasit) Yet he agrees with Orosius in supposing that a
      treaty of peace was concluded between the Gothic prince and
      Honorius. See Oros. l. vii. c. 43 p. 584, 585. Jornandes, de Reb.
      Geticis, c. 31, p. 654, 655.]

      132 (return) [ The retreat of the Goths from Italy, and their
      first transactions in Gaul, are dark and doubtful. I have derived
      much assistance from Mascou, (Hist. of the Ancient Germans, l.
      viii. c. 29, 35, 36, 37,) who has illustrated, and connected, the
      broken chronicles and fragments of the times.]

      The professions of Adolphus were probably sincere, and his
      attachment to the cause of the republic was secured by the
      ascendant which a Roman princess had acquired over the heart and
      understanding of the Barbarian king. Placidia, 133 the daughter
      of the great Theodosius, and of Galla, his second wife, had
      received a royal education in the palace of Constantinople; but
      the eventful story of her life is connected with the revolutions
      which agitated the Western empire under the reign of her brother
      Honorius. When Rome was first invested by the arms of Alaric,
      Placidia, who was then about twenty years of age, resided in the
      city; and her ready consent to the death of her cousin Serena has
      a cruel and ungrateful appearance, which, according to the
      circumstances of the action, may be aggravated, or excused, by
      the consideration of her tender age. 134 The victorious
      Barbarians detained, either as a hostage or a captive, 135 the
      sister of Honorius; but, while she was exposed to the disgrace of
      following round Italy the motions of a Gothic camp, she
      experienced, however, a decent and respectful treatment. The
      authority of Jornandes, who praises the beauty of Placidia, may
      perhaps be counterbalanced by the silence, the expressive
      silence, of her flatterers: yet the splendor of her birth, the
      bloom of youth, the elegance of manners, and the dexterous
      insinuation which she condescended to employ, made a deep
      impression on the mind of Adolphus; and the Gothic king aspired
      to call himself the brother of the emperor. The ministers of
      Honorius rejected with disdain the proposal of an alliance so
      injurious to every sentiment of Roman pride; and repeatedly urged
      the restitution of Placidia, as an indispensable condition of the
      treaty of peace. But the daughter of Theodosius submitted,
      without reluctance, to the desires of the conqueror, a young and
      valiant prince, who yielded to Alaric in loftiness of stature,
      but who excelled in the more attractive qualities of grace and
      beauty. The marriage of Adolphus and Placidia 136 was consummated
      before the Goths retired from Italy; and the solemn, perhaps the
      anniversary day of their nuptials was afterwards celebrated in
      the house of Ingenuus, one of the most illustrious citizens of
      Narbonne in Gaul. The bride, attired and adorned like a Roman
      empress, was placed on a throne of state; and the king of the
      Goths, who assumed, on this occasion, the Roman habit, contented
      himself with a less honorable seat by her side. The nuptial gift,
      which, according to the custom of his nation, 137 was offered to
      Placidia, consisted of the rare and magnificent spoils of her
      country. Fifty beautiful youths, in silken robes, carried a basin
      in each hand; and one of these basins was filled with pieces of
      gold, the other with precious stones of an inestimable value.
      Attalus, so long the sport of fortune, and of the Goths, was
      appointed to lead the chorus of the Hymeneal song; and the
      degraded emperor might aspire to the praise of a skilful
      musician. The Barbarians enjoyed the insolence of their triumph;
      and the provincials rejoiced in this alliance, which tempered, by
      the mild influence of love and reason, the fierce spirit of their
      Gothic lord. 138

      133 (return) [ See an account of Placidia in Ducange Fam. Byzant.
      p. 72; and Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 260, 386,
      &c. tom. vi. p. 240.]

      134 (return) [ Zosim. l. v. p. 350.]

      135 (return) [ Zosim. l. vi. p. 383. Orosius, (l. vii. c. 40, p.
      576,) and the Chronicles of Marcellinus and Idatius, seem to
      suppose, that the Goths did not carry away Placidia till after
      the last siege of Rome.]

      136 (return) [ See the pictures of Adolphus and Placidia, and the
      account of their marriage, in Jornandes, de Reb. Geticis, c. 31,
      p. 654, 655. With regard to the place where the nuptials were
      stipulated, or consummated, or celebrated, the Mss. of Jornandes
      vary between two neighboring cities, Forli and Imola, (Forum
      Livii and Forum Cornelii.) It is fair and easy to reconcile the
      Gothic historian with Olympiodorus, (see Mascou, l. viii. c. 46:)
      but Tillemont grows peevish, and swears that it is not worth
      while to try to conciliate Jornandes with any good authors.]

      137 (return) [ The Visigoths (the subjects of Adolphus)
      restrained by subsequent laws, the prodigality of conjugal love.
      It was illegal for a husband to make any gift or settlement for
      the benefit of his wife during the first year of their marriage;
      and his liberality could not at any time exceed the tenth part of
      his property. The Lombards were somewhat more indulgent: they
      allowed the morgingcap immediately after the wedding night; and
      this famous gift, the reward of virginity might equal the fourth
      part of the husband’s substance. Some cautious maidens, indeed,
      were wise enough to stipulate beforehand a present, which they
      were too sure of not deserving. See Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix,
      l. xix. c. 25. Muratori, delle Antichita Italiane, tom. i.
      Dissertazion, xx. p. 243.]

      138 (return) [ We owe the curious detail of this nuptial feast to
      the historian Olympiodorus, ap. Photium, p. 185, 188.]

      The hundred basins of gold and gems, presented to Placidia at her
      nuptial feast, formed an inconsiderable portion of the Gothic
      treasures; of which some extraordinary specimens may be selected
      from the history of the successors of Adolphus. Many curious and
      costly ornaments of pure gold, enriched with jewels, were found
      in their palace of Narbonne, when it was pillaged, in the sixth
      century, by the Franks: sixty cups, caps, or chalices; fifteen
      patens, or plates, for the use of the communion; twenty boxes, or
      cases, to hold the books of the Gospels: this consecrated wealth
      139 was distributed by the son of Clovis among the churches of
      his dominions, and his pious liberality seems to upbraid some
      former sacrilege of the Goths. They possessed, with more security
      of conscience, the famous missorium, or great dish for the
      service of the table, of massy gold, of the weight of five
      hundred pounds, and of far superior value, from the precious
      stones, the exquisite workmanship, and the tradition, that it had
      been presented by Aetius, the patrician, to Torismond, king of
      the Goths. One of the successors of Torismond purchased the aid
      of the French monarch by the promise of this magnificent gift.
      When he was seated on the throne of Spain, he delivered it with
      reluctance to the ambassadors of Dagobert; despoiled them on the
      road; stipulated, after a long negotiation, the inadequate ransom
      of two hundred thousand pieces of gold; and preserved the
      missorium, as the pride of the Gothic treasury. 140 When that
      treasury, after the conquest of Spain, was plundered by the
      Arabs, they admired, and they have celebrated, another object
      still more remarkable; a table of considerable size, of one
      single piece of solid emerald, 141 encircled with three rows of
      fine pearls, supported by three hundred and sixty-five feet of
      gems and massy gold, and estimated at the price of five hundred
      thousand pieces of gold. 142 Some portion of the Gothic treasures
      might be the gift of friendship, or the tribute of obedience; but
      the far greater part had been the fruits of war and rapine, the
      spoils of the empire, and perhaps of Rome.

      139 (return) [ See in the great collection of the Historians of
      France by Dom Bouquet, tom. ii. Greg. Turonens. l. iii. c. 10, p.
      191. Gesta Regum Francorum, c. 23, p. 557. The anonymous writer,
      with an ignorance worthy of his times, supposes that these
      instruments of Christian worship had belonged to the temple of
      Solomon. If he has any meaning it must be, that they were found
      in the sack of Rome.]

      140 (return) [ Consult the following original testimonies in the
      Historians of France, tom. ii. Fredegarii Scholastici Chron. c.
      73, p. 441. Fredegar. Fragment. iii. p. 463. Gesta Regis
      Dagobert, c. 29, p. 587. The accession of Sisenand to the throne
      of Spain happened A.D. 631. The 200,000 pieces of gold were
      appropriated by Dagobert to the foundation of the church of St.
      Denys.]

      141 (return) [ The president Goguet (Origine des Loix, &c., tom.
      ii. p. 239) is of opinion, that the stupendous pieces of emerald,
      the statues and columns which antiquity has placed in Egypt, at
      Gades, at Constantinople, were in reality artificial compositions
      of colored glass. The famous emerald dish, which is shown at
      Genoa, is supposed to countenance the suspicion.]

      142 (return) [ Elmacin. Hist. Saracenica, l. i. p. 85. Roderic.
      Tolet. Hist. Arab. c. 9. Cardonne, Hist. de l’Afrique et de
      l’Espagne sous les Arabes tom. i. p. 83. It was called the Table
      of Solomon, according to the custom of the Orientals, who ascribe
      to that prince every ancient work of knowledge or magnificence.]

      After the deliverance of Italy from the oppression of the Goths,
      some secret counsellor was permitted, amidst the factions of the
      palace, to heal the wounds of that afflicted country. 143 By a
      wise and humane regulation, the eight provinces which had been
      the most deeply injured, Campania, Tuscany, Picenum, Samnium,
      Apulia, Calabria, Bruttium, and Lucania, obtained an indulgence
      of five years: the ordinary tribute was reduced to one fifth, and
      even that fifth was destined to restore and support the useful
      institution of the public posts. By another law, the lands which
      had been left without inhabitants or cultivation, were granted,
      with some diminution of taxes, to the neighbors who should
      occupy, or the strangers who should solicit them; and the new
      possessors were secured against the future claims of the fugitive
      proprietors. About the same time a general amnesty was published
      in the name of Honorius, to abolish the guilt and memory of all
      the involuntary offences which had been committed by his unhappy
      subjects, during the term of the public disorder and calamity A
      decent and respectful attention was paid to the restoration of
      the capital; the citizens were encouraged to rebuild the edifices
      which had been destroyed or damaged by hostile fire; and
      extraordinary supplies of corn were imported from the coast of
      Africa. The crowds that so lately fled before the sword of the
      Barbarians, were soon recalled by the hopes of plenty and
      pleasure; and Albinus, praefect of Rome, informed the court, with
      some anxiety and surprise, that, in a single day, he had taken an
      account of the arrival of fourteen thousand strangers. 144 In
      less than seven years, the vestiges of the Gothic invasion were
      almost obliterated; and the city appeared to resume its former
      splendor and tranquillity. The venerable matron replaced her
      crown of laurel, which had been ruffled by the storms of war; and
      was still amused, in the last moment of her decay, with the
      prophecies of revenge, of victory, and of eternal dominion. 145

      143 (return) [ His three laws are inserted in the Theodosian
      Code, l. xi. tit. xxviii. leg. 7. L. xiii. tit. xi. leg. 12. L.
      xv. tit. xiv. leg. 14 The expressions of the last are very
      remarkable; since they contain not only a pardon, but an
      apology.]

      144 (return) [ Olympiodorus ap. Phot. p. 188. Philostorgius (l.
      xii. c. 5) observes, that when Honorius made his triumphal entry,
      he encouraged the Romans, with his hand and voice, to rebuild
      their city; and the Chronicle of Prosper commends Heraclian, qui
      in Romanae urbis reparationem strenuum exhibuerat ministerium.]

      145 (return) [ The date of the voyage of Claudius Rutilius
      Numatianus is clogged with some difficulties; but Scaliger has
      deduced from astronomical characters, that he left Rome the 24th
      of September and embarked at Porto the 9th of October, A.D. 416.
      See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom, v. p. 820. In this
      poetical Itinerary, Rutilius (l. i. 115, &c.) addresses Rome in a
      high strain of congratulation:—

      Erige crinales lauros, seniumque sacrati Verticis in virides,
      Roma, recinge comas, &c.]

      This apparent tranquillity was soon disturbed by the approach of
      a hostile armament from the country which afforded the daily
      subsistence of the Roman people. Heraclian, count of Africa, who,
      under the most difficult and distressful circumstances, had
      supported, with active loyalty, the cause of Honorius, was
      tempted, in the year of his consulship, to assume the character
      of a rebel, and the title of emperor. The ports of Africa were
      immediately filled with the naval forces, at the head of which he
      prepared to invade Italy: and his fleet, when it cast anchor at
      the mouth of the Tyber, indeed surpassed the fleets of Xerxes and
      Alexander, if all the vessels, including the royal galley, and
      the smallest boat, did actually amount to the incredible number
      of three thousand two hundred. 146 Yet with such an armament,
      which might have subverted, or restored, the greatest empires of
      the earth, the African usurper made a very faint and feeble
      impression on the provinces of his rival. As he marched from the
      port, along the road which leads to the gates of Rome, he was
      encountered, terrified, and routed, by one of the Imperial
      captains; and the lord of this mighty host, deserting his fortune
      and his friends, ignominiously fled with a single ship. 147 When
      Heraclian landed in the harbor of Carthage, he found that the
      whole province, disdaining such an unworthy ruler, had returned
      to their allegiance. The rebel was beheaded in the ancient temple
      of Memory; his consulship was abolished: 148 and the remains of
      his private fortune, not exceeding the moderate sum of four
      thousand pounds of gold, were granted to the brave Constantius,
      who had already defended the throne, which he afterwards shared
      with his feeble sovereign. Honorius viewed, with supine
      indifference, the calamities of Rome and Italy; 149 but the
      rebellious attempts of Attalus and Heraclian, against his
      personal safety, awakened, for a moment, the torpid instinct of
      his nature. He was probably ignorant of the causes and events
      which preserved him from these impending dangers; and as Italy
      was no longer invaded by any foreign or domestic enemies, he
      peaceably existed in the palace of Ravenna, while the tyrants
      beyond the Alps were repeatedly vanquished in the name, and by
      the lieutenants, of the son of Theodosius. 150 In the course of a
      busy and interesting narrative I might possibly forget to mention
      the death of such a prince: and I shall therefore take the
      precaution of observing, in this place, that he survived the last
      siege of Rome about thirteen years.

      146 (return) [ Orosius composed his history in Africa, only two
      years after the event; yet his authority seems to be overbalanced
      by the improbability of the fact. The Chronicle of Marcellinus
      gives Heraclian 700 ships and 3000 men: the latter of these
      numbers is ridiculously corrupt; but the former would please me
      very much.]

      147 (return) [ The Chronicle of Idatius affirms, without the
      least appearance of truth, that he advanced as far as Otriculum,
      in Umbria, where he was overthrown in a great battle, with the
      loss of 50,000 men.]

      148 (return) [ See Cod. Theod. l. xv. tit. xiv. leg. 13. The
      legal acts performed in his name, even the manumission of slaves,
      were declared invalid, till they had been formally repeated.]

      149 (return) [ I have disdained to mention a very foolish, and
      probably a false, report, (Procop. de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 2,)
      that Honorius was alarmed by the loss of Rome, till he understood
      that it was not a favorite chicken of that name, but only the
      capital of the world, which had been lost. Yet even this story is
      some evidence of the public opinion.]

      150 (return) [ The materials for the lives of all these tyrants
      are taken from six contemporary historians, two Latins and four
      Greeks: Orosius, l. vii. c. 42, p. 581, 582, 583; Renatus
      Profuturus Frigeridus, apud Gregor Turon. l. ii. c. 9, in the
      Historians of France, tom. ii. p. 165, 166; Zosimus, l. v. p.
      370, 371; Olympiodorus, apud Phot. p. 180, 181, 184, 185;
      Sozomen, l. ix. c. 12, 13, 14, 15; and Philostorgius, l. xii. c.
      5, 6, with Godefroy’s Dissertation, p. 477-481; besides the four
      Chronicles of Prosper Tyro, Prosper of Aquitain, Idatius, and
      Marcellinus.]

      The usurpation of Constantine, who received the purple from the
      legions of Britain, had been successful, and seemed to be secure.
      His title was acknowledged, from the wall of Antoninus to the
      columns of Hercules; and, in the midst of the public disorder he
      shared the dominion, and the plunder, of Gaul and Spain, with the
      tribes of Barbarians, whose destructive progress was no longer
      checked by the Rhine or Pyrenees. Stained with the blood of the
      kinsmen of Honorius, he extorted, from the court of Ravenna, with
      which he secretly corresponded, the ratification of his
      rebellious claims. Constantine engaged himself, by a solemn
      promise, to deliver Italy from the Goths; advanced as far as the
      banks of the Po; and after alarming, rather than assisting, his
      pusillanimous ally, hastily returned to the palace of Arles, to
      celebrate, with intemperate luxury, his vain and ostentatious
      triumph. But this transient prosperity was soon interrupted and
      destroyed by the revolt of Count Gerontius, the bravest of his
      generals; who, during the absence of his son Constans, a prince
      already invested with the Imperial purple, had been left to
      command in the provinces of Spain. From some reason, of which we
      are ignorant, Gerontius, instead of assuming the diadem, placed
      it on the head of his friend Maximus, who fixed his residence at
      Tarragona, while the active count pressed forwards, through the
      Pyrenees, to surprise the two emperors, Constantine and Constans,
      before they could prepare for their defence. The son was made
      prisoner at Vienna, and immediately put to death: and the
      unfortunate youth had scarcely leisure to deplore the elevation
      of his family; which had tempted, or compelled him,
      sacrilegiously to desert the peaceful obscurity of the monastic
      life. The father maintained a siege within the walls of Arles;
      but those walls must have yielded to the assailants, had not the
      city been unexpectedly relieved by the approach of an Italian
      army. The name of Honorius, the proclamation of a lawful emperor,
      astonished the contending parties of the rebels. Gerontius,
      abandoned by his own troops, escaped to the confines of Spain;
      and rescued his name from oblivion, by the Roman courage which
      appeared to animate the last moments of his life. In the middle
      of the night, a great body of his perfidious soldiers surrounded
      and attacked his house, which he had strongly barricaded. His
      wife, a valiant friend of the nation of the Alani, and some
      faithful slaves, were still attached to his person; and he used,
      with so much skill and resolution, a large magazine of darts and
      arrows, that above three hundred of the assailants lost their
      lives in the attempt. His slaves when all the missile weapons
      were spent, fled at the dawn of day; and Gerontius, if he had not
      been restrained by conjugal tenderness, might have imitated their
      example; till the soldiers, provoked by such obstinate
      resistance, applied fire on all sides to the house. In this fatal
      extremity, he complied with the request of his Barbarian friend,
      and cut off his head. The wife of Gerontius, who conjured him not
      to abandon her to a life of misery and disgrace, eagerly
      presented her neck to his sword; and the tragic scene was
      terminated by the death of the count himself, who, after three
      ineffectual strokes, drew a short dagger, and sheathed it in his
      heart. 151 The unprotected Maximus, whom he had invested with the
      purple, was indebted for his life to the contempt that was
      entertained of his power and abilities. The caprice of the
      Barbarians, who ravaged Spain, once more seated this Imperial
      phantom on the throne: but they soon resigned him to the justice
      of Honorius; and the tyrant Maximus, after he had been shown to
      the people of Ravenna and Rome, was publicly executed.

      151 (return) [ The praises which Sozomen has bestowed on this act
      of despair, appear strange and scandalous in the mouth of an
      ecclesiastical historian. He observes (p. 379) that the wife of
      Gerontius was a Christian; and that her death was worthy of her
      religion, and of immortal fame.]

      The general, (Constantius was his name,) who raised by his
      approach the siege of Arles, and dissipated the troops of
      Gerontius, was born a Roman; and this remarkable distinction is
      strongly expressive of the decay of military spirit among the
      subjects of the empire. The strength and majesty which were
      conspicuous in the person of that general, 152 marked him, in the
      popular opinion, as a candidate worthy of the throne, which he
      afterwards ascended. In the familiar intercourse of private life,
      his manners were cheerful and engaging; nor would he sometimes
      disdain, in the license of convivial mirth, to vie with the
      pantomimes themselves, in the exercises of their ridiculous
      profession. But when the trumpet summoned him to arms; when he
      mounted his horse, and, bending down (for such was his singular
      practice) almost upon the neck, fiercely rolled his large
      animated eyes round the field, Constantius then struck terror
      into his foes, and inspired his soldiers with the assurance of
      victory. He had received from the court of Ravenna the important
      commission of extirpating rebellion in the provinces of the West;
      and the pretended emperor Constantine, after enjoying a short and
      anxious respite, was again besieged in his capital by the arms of
      a more formidable enemy. Yet this interval allowed time for a
      successful negotiation with the Franks and Alemanni and his
      ambassador, Edobic, soon returned at the head of an army, to
      disturb the operations of the siege of Arles. The Roman general,
      instead of expecting the attack in his lines, boldly and perhaps
      wisely, resolved to pass the Rhone, and to meet the Barbarians.
      His measures were conducted with so much skill and secrecy, that,
      while they engaged the infantry of Constantius in the front, they
      were suddenly attacked, surrounded, and destroyed, by the cavalry
      of his lieutenant Ulphilas, who had silently gained an
      advantageous post in their rear. The remains of the army of
      Edobic were preserved by flight or submission, and their leader
      escaped from the field of battle to the house of a faithless
      friend; who too clearly understood, that the head of his
      obnoxious guest would be an acceptable and lucrative present for
      the Imperial general. On this occasion, Constantius behaved with
      the magnanimity of a genuine Roman. Subduing, or suppressing,
      every sentiment of jealousy, he publicly acknowledged the merit
      and services of Ulphilas; but he turned with horror from the
      assassin of Edobic; and sternly intimated his commands, that the
      camp should no longer be polluted by the presence of an
      ungrateful wretch, who had violated the laws of friendship and
      hospitality. The usurper, who beheld, from the walls of Arles,
      the ruin of his last hopes, was tempted to place some confidence
      in so generous a conqueror. He required a solemn promise for his
      security; and after receiving, by the imposition of hands, the
      sacred character of a Christian Presbyter, he ventured to open
      the gates of the city. But he soon experienced that the
      principles of honor and integrity, which might regulate the
      ordinary conduct of Constantius, were superseded by the loose
      doctrines of political morality. The Roman general, indeed,
      refused to sully his laurels with the blood of Constantine; but
      the abdicated emperor, and his son Julian, were sent under a
      strong guard into Italy; and before they reached the palace of
      Ravenna, they met the ministers of death.

      152 (return) [ It is the expression of Olympiodorus, which he
      seems to have borrowed from Aeolus, a tragedy of Euripides, of
      which some fragments only are now extant, (Euripid. Barnes, tom.
      ii. p. 443, ver 38.) This allusion may prove, that the ancient
      tragic poets were still familiar to the Greeks of the fifth
      century.]

      At a time when it was universally confessed, that almost every
      man in the empire was superior in personal merit to the princes
      whom the accident of their birth had seated on the throne, a
      rapid succession of usurpers, regardless of the fate of their
      predecessors, still continued to arise. This mischief was
      peculiarly felt in the provinces of Spain and Gaul, where the
      principles of order and obedience had been extinguished by war
      and rebellion. Before Constantine resigned the purple, and in the
      fourth month of the siege of Arles, intelligence was received in
      the Imperial camp, that Jovinus has assumed the diadem at Mentz,
      in the Upper Germany, at the instigation of Goar, king of the
      Alani, and of Guntiarius, king of the Burgundians; and that the
      candidate, on whom they had bestowed the empire, advanced with a
      formidable host of Barbarians, from the banks of the Rhine to
      those of the Rhone. Every circumstance is dark and extraordinary
      in the short history of the reign of Jovinus. It was natural to
      expect, that a brave and skilful general, at the head of a
      victorious army, would have asserted, in a field of battle, the
      justice of the cause of Honorius. The hasty retreat of
      Constantius might be justified by weighty reasons; but he
      resigned, without a struggle, the possession of Gaul; and
      Dardanus, the Praetorian praefect, is recorded as the only
      magistrate who refused to yield obedience to the usurper. 153
      When the Goths, two years after the siege of Rome, established
      their quarters in Gaul, it was natural to suppose that their
      inclinations could be divided only between the emperor Honorius,
      with whom they had formed a recent alliance, and the degraded
      Attalus, whom they reserved in their camp for the occasional
      purpose of acting the part of a musician or a monarch. Yet in a
      moment of disgust, (for which it is not easy to assign a cause,
      or a date,) Adolphus connected himself with the usurper of Gaul;
      and imposed on Attalus the ignominious task of negotiating the
      treaty, which ratified his own disgrace. We are again surprised
      to read, that, instead of considering the Gothic alliance as the
      firmest support of his throne, Jovinus upbraided, in dark and
      ambiguous language, the officious importunity of Attalus; that,
      scorning the advice of his great ally, he invested with the
      purple his brother Sebastian; and that he most imprudently
      accepted the service of Sarus, when that gallant chief, the
      soldier of Honorius, was provoked to desert the court of a
      prince, who knew not how to reward or punish. Adolphus, educated
      among a race of warriors, who esteemed the duty of revenge as the
      most precious and sacred portion of their inheritance, advanced
      with a body of ten thousand Goths to encounter the hereditary
      enemy of the house of Balti. He attacked Sarus at an unguarded
      moment, when he was accompanied only by eighteen or twenty of his
      valiant followers. United by friendship, animated by despair, but
      at length oppressed by multitudes, this band of heroes deserved
      the esteem, without exciting the compassion, of their enemies;
      and the lion was no sooner taken in the toils, 154 than he was
      instantly despatched. The death of Sarus dissolved the loose
      alliance which Adolphus still maintained with the usurpers of
      Gaul. He again listened to the dictates of love and prudence; and
      soon satisfied the brother of Placidia, by the assurance that he
      would immediately transmit to the palace of Ravenna the heads of
      the two tyrants, Jovinus and Sebastian. The king of the Goths
      executed his promise without difficulty or delay; the helpless
      brothers, unsupported by any personal merit, were abandoned by
      their Barbarian auxiliaries; and the short opposition of Valentia
      was expiated by the ruin of one of the noblest cities of Gaul.
      The emperor, chosen by the Roman senate, who had been promoted,
      degraded, insulted, restored, again degraded, and again insulted,
      was finally abandoned to his fate; but when the Gothic king
      withdrew his protection, he was restrained, by pity or contempt,
      from offering any violence to the person of Attalus. The
      unfortunate Attalus, who was left without subjects or allies,
      embarked in one of the ports of Spain, in search of some secure
      and solitary retreat: but he was intercepted at sea, conducted to
      the presence of Honorius, led in triumph through the streets of
      Rome or Ravenna, and publicly exposed to the gazing multitude, on
      the second step of the throne of his invincible conqueror. The
      same measure of punishment, with which, in the days of his
      prosperity, he was accused of menacing his rival, was inflicted
      on Attalus himself; he was condemned, after the amputation of two
      fingers, to a perpetual exile in the Isle of Lipari, where he was
      supplied with the decent necessaries of life. The remainder of
      the reign of Honorius was undisturbed by rebellion; and it may be
      observed, that, in the space of five years, seven usurpers had
      yielded to the fortune of a prince, who was himself incapable
      either of counsel or of action.

      153 (return) [ Sidonius Apollinaris, (l. v. epist. 9, p. 139, and
      Not. Sirmond. p. 58,) after stigmatizing the inconstancy of
      Constantine, the facility of Jovinus, the perfidy of Gerontius,
      continues to observe, that all the vices of these tyrants were
      united in the person of Dardanus. Yet the praefect supported a
      respectable character in the world, and even in the church; held
      a devout correspondence with St. Augustin and St. Jerom; and was
      complimented by the latter (tom. iii. p. 66) with the epithets of
      Christianorum Nobilissime, and Nobilium Christianissime.]

      154 (return) [ The expression may be understood almost literally:
      Olympiodorus says a sack, or a loose garment; and this method of
      entangling and catching an enemy, laciniis contortis, was much
      practised by the Huns, (Ammian. xxxi. 2.) Il fut pris vif avec
      des filets, is the translation of Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs,
      tom. v. p. 608. * Note: Bekker in his Photius reads something,
      but in the new edition of the Bysantines, he retains the old
      version, which is translated Scutis, as if they protected him
      with their shields, in order to take him alive. Photius, Bekker,
      p. 58.—M]




      Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
      Barbarians.—Part VII.

      The situation of Spain, separated, on all sides, from the enemies
      of Rome, by the sea, by the mountains, and by intermediate
      provinces, had secured the long tranquillity of that remote and
      sequestered country; and we may observe, as a sure symptom of
      domestic happiness, that, in a period of four hundred years,
      Spain furnished very few materials to the history of the Roman
      empire. The footsteps of the Barbarians, who, in the reign of
      Gallienus, had penetrated beyond the Pyrenees, were soon
      obliterated by the return of peace; and in the fourth century of
      the Christian aera, the cities of Emerita, or Merida, of Corduba,
      Seville, Bracara, and Tarragona, were numbered with the most
      illustrious of the Roman world. The various plenty of the animal,
      the vegetable, and the mineral kingdoms, was improved and
      manufactured by the skill of an industrious people; and the
      peculiar advantages of naval stores contributed to support an
      extensive and profitable trade. 155 The arts and sciences
      flourished under the protection of the emperors; and if the
      character of the Spaniards was enfeebled by peace and servitude,
      the hostile approach of the Germans, who had spread terror and
      desolation from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, seemed to rekindle
      some sparks of military ardor. As long as the defence of the
      mountains was intrusted to the hardy and faithful militia of the
      country, they successfully repelled the frequent attempts of the
      Barbarians. But no sooner had the national troops been compelled
      to resign their post to the Honorian bands, in the service of
      Constantine, than the gates of Spain were treacherously betrayed
      to the public enemy, about ten months before the sack of Rome by
      the Goths. 156 The consciousness of guilt, and the thirst of
      rapine, prompted the mercenary guards of the Pyrenees to desert
      their station; to invite the arms of the Suevi, the Vandals, and
      the Alani; and to swell the torrent which was poured with
      irresistible violence from the frontiers of Gaul to the sea of
      Africa. The misfortunes of Spain may be described in the language
      of its most eloquent historian, who has concisely expressed the
      passionate, and perhaps exaggerated, declamations of contemporary
      writers. 157 “The irruption of these nations was followed by the
      most dreadful calamities; as the Barbarians exercised their
      indiscriminate cruelty on the fortunes of the Romans and the
      Spaniards, and ravaged with equal fury the cities and the open
      country. The progress of famine reduced the miserable inhabitants
      to feed on the flesh of their fellow-creatures; and even the wild
      beasts, who multiplied, without control, in the desert, were
      exasperated, by the taste of blood, and the impatience of hunger,
      boldly to attack and devour their human prey. Pestilence soon
      appeared, the inseparable companion of famine; a large proportion
      of the people was swept away; and the groans of the dying excited
      only the envy of their surviving friends. At length the
      Barbarians, satiated with carnage and rapine, and afflicted by
      the contagious evils which they themselves had introduced, fixed
      their permanent seats in the depopulated country. The ancient
      Gallicia, whose limits included the kingdom of Old Castille, was
      divided between the Suevi and the Vandals; the Alani were
      scattered over the provinces of Carthagena and Lusitania, from
      the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean; and the fruitful
      territory of Boetica was allotted to the Silingi, another branch
      of the Vandalic nation. After regulating this partition, the
      conquerors contracted with their new subjects some reciprocal
      engagements of protection and obedience: the lands were again
      cultivated; and the towns and villages were again occupied by a
      captive people. The greatest part of the Spaniards was even
      disposed to prefer this new condition of poverty and barbarism,
      to the severe oppressions of the Roman government; yet there were
      many who still asserted their native freedom; and who refused,
      more especially in the mountains of Gallicia, to submit to the
      Barbarian yoke.“ 158

      155 (return) [ Without recurring to the more ancient writers, I
      shall quote three respectable testimonies which belong to the
      fourth and seventh centuries; the Expositio totius Mundi, (p. 16,
      in the third volume of Hudson’s Minor Geographers,) Ausonius, (de
      Claris Urbibus, p. 242, edit. Toll.,) and Isidore of Seville,
      (Praefat. ad. Chron. ap. Grotium, Hist. Goth. 707.) Many
      particulars relative to the fertility and trade of Spain may be
      found in Nonnius, Hispania Illustrata; and in Huet, Hist. du
      Commerce des Anciens, c. 40. p. 228-234.]

      156 (return) [ The date is accurately fixed in the Fasti, and the
      Chronicle of Idatius. Orosius (l. vii. c. 40, p. 578) imputes the
      loss of Spain to the treachery of the Honorians; while Sozomen
      (l. ix. c. 12) accuses only their negligence.]

      157 (return) [ Idatius wishes to apply the prophecies of Daniel
      to these national calamities; and is therefore obliged to
      accommodate the circumstances of the event to the terms of the
      prediction.]

      158 (return) [ Mariana de Rebus Hispanicis, l. v. c. 1, tom. i.
      p. 148. Comit. 1733. He had read, in Orosius, (l. vii. c. 41, p.
      579,) that the Barbarians had turned their swords into
      ploughshares; and that many of the Provincials had preferred
      inter Barbaros pauperem libertatem, quam inter Romanos
      tributariam solicitudinem, sustinere.]

      The important present of the heads of Jovinus and Sebastian had
      approved the friendship of Adolphus, and restored Gaul to the
      obedience of his brother Honorius. Peace was incompatible with
      the situation and temper of the king of the Goths. He readily
      accepted the proposal of turning his victorious arms against the
      Barbarians of Spain; the troops of Constantius intercepted his
      communication with the seaports of Gaul, and gently pressed his
      march towards the Pyrenees: 159 he passed the mountains, and
      surprised, in the name of the emperor, the city of Barcelona. The
      fondness of Adolphus for his Roman bride, was not abated by time
      or possession: and the birth of a son, surnamed, from his
      illustrious grandsire, Theodosius, appeared to fix him forever in
      the interest of the republic. The loss of that infant, whose
      remains were deposited in a silver coffin in one of the churches
      near Barcelona, afflicted his parents; but the grief of the
      Gothic king was suspended by the labors of the field; and the
      course of his victories was soon interrupted by domestic treason.

      He had imprudently received into his service one of the followers
      of Sarus; a Barbarian of a daring spirit, but of a diminutive
      stature; whose secret desire of revenging the death of his
      beloved patron was continually irritated by the sarcasms of his
      insolent master. Adolphus was assassinated in the palace of
      Barcelona; the laws of the succession were violated by a
      tumultuous faction; 160 and a stranger to the royal race,
      Singeric, the brother of Sarus himself, was seated on the Gothic
      throne. The first act of his reign was the inhuman murder of the
      six children of Adolphus, the issue of a former marriage, whom he
      tore, without pity, from the feeble arms of a venerable bishop.
      161 The unfortunate Placidia, instead of the respectful
      compassion, which she might have excited in the most savage
      breasts, was treated with cruel and wanton insult. The daughter
      of the emperor Theodosius, confounded among a crowd of vulgar
      captives, was compelled to march on foot above twelve miles,
      before the horse of a Barbarian, the assassin of a husband whom
      Placidia loved and lamented. 162

      159 (return) [ This mixture of force and persuasion may be fairly
      inferred from comparing Orosius and Jornandes, the Roman and the
      Gothic historian.]

      160 (return) [ According to the system of Jornandes, (c. 33, p.
      659,) the true hereditary right to the Gothic sceptre was vested
      in the Amali; but those princes, who were the vassals of the
      Huns, commanded the tribes of the Ostrogoths in some distant
      parts of Germany or Scythia.]

      161 (return) [ The murder is related by Olympiodorus: but the
      number of the children is taken from an epitaph of suspected
      authority.]

      162 (return) [ The death of Adolphus was celebrated at
      Constantinople with illuminations and Circensian games. (See
      Chron. Alexandrin.) It may seem doubtful whether the Greeks were
      actuated, on this occasion, be their hatred of the Barbarians, or
      of the Latins.]

      But Placidia soon obtained the pleasure of revenge, and the view
      of her ignominious sufferings might rouse an indignant people
      against the tyrant, who was assassinated on the seventh day of
      his usurpation. After the death of Singeric, the free choice of
      the nation bestowed the Gothic sceptre on Wallia; whose warlike
      and ambitious temper appeared, in the beginning of his reign,
      extremely hostile to the republic. He marched in arms from
      Barcelona to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, which the ancients
      revered and dreaded as the boundary of the world. But when he
      reached the southern promontory of Spain, 163 and, from the rock
      now covered by the fortress of Gibraltar, contemplated the
      neighboring and fertile coast of Africa, Wallia resumed the
      designs of conquest, which had been interrupted by the death of
      Alaric. The winds and waves again disappointed the enterprise of
      the Goths; and the minds of a superstitious people were deeply
      affected by the repeated disasters of storms and shipwrecks. In
      this disposition the successor of Adolphus no longer refused to
      listen to a Roman ambassador, whose proposals were enforced by
      the real, or supposed, approach of a numerous army, under the
      conduct of the brave Constantius. A solemn treaty was stipulated
      and observed; Placidia was honorably restored to her brother; six
      hundred thousand measures of wheat were delivered to the hungry
      Goths; 164 and Wallia engaged to draw his sword in the service of
      the empire. A bloody war was instantly excited among the
      Barbarians of Spain; and the contending princes are said to have
      addressed their letters, their ambassadors, and their hostages,
      to the throne of the Western emperor, exhorting him to remain a
      tranquil spectator of their contest; the events of which must be
      favorable to the Romans, by the mutual slaughter of their common
      enemies. 165 The Spanish war was obstinately supported, during
      three campaigns, with desperate valor, and various success; and
      the martial achievements of Wallia diffused through the empire
      the superior renown of the Gothic hero. He exterminated the
      Silingi, who had irretrievably ruined the elegant plenty of the
      province of Boetica. He slew, in battle, the king of the Alani;
      and the remains of those Scythian wanderers, who escaped from the
      field, instead of choosing a new leader, humbly sought a refuge
      under the standard of the Vandals, with whom they were ever
      afterwards confounded. The Vandals themselves, and the Suevi,
      yielded to the efforts of the invincible Goths. The promiscuous
      multitude of Barbarians, whose retreat had been intercepted, were
      driven into the mountains of Gallicia; where they still
      continued, in a narrow compass and on a barren soil, to exercise
      their domestic and implacable hostilities. In the pride of
      victory, Wallia was faithful to his engagements: he restored his
      Spanish conquests to the obedience of Honorius; and the tyranny
      of the Imperial officers soon reduced an oppressed people to
      regret the time of their Barbarian servitude. While the event of
      the war was still doubtful, the first advantages obtained by the
      arms of Wallia had encouraged the court of Ravenna to decree the
      honors of a triumph to their feeble sovereign. He entered Rome
      like the ancient conquerors of nations; and if the monuments of
      servile corruption had not long since met with the fate which
      they deserved, we should probably find that a crowd of poets and
      orators, of magistrates and bishops, applauded the fortune, the
      wisdom, and the invincible courage, of the emperor Honorius. 166

      163 (return) [

     Quod Tartessiacis avus hujus Vallia terris Vandalicas turmas, et
     juncti Martis Alanos Stravit, et occiduam texere cadavera Calpen.

      Sidon. Apollinar. in Panegyr. Anthem. 363 p. 300, edit. Sirmond.]

      164 (return) [ This supply was very acceptable: the Goths were
      insulted by the Vandals of Spain with the epithet of Truli,
      because in their extreme distress, they had given a piece of gold
      for a trula, or about half a pound of flour. Olympiod. apud Phot.
      p. 189.]

      165 (return) [ Orosius inserts a copy of these pretended letters.
      Tu cum omnibus pacem habe, omniumque obsides accipe; nos nobis
      confligimus nobis perimus, tibi vincimus; immortalis vero
      quaestus erit Reipublicae tuae, si utrique pereamus. The idea is
      just; but I cannot persuade myself that it was entertained or
      expressed by the Barbarians.]

      166 (return) [ Roman triumphans ingreditur, is the formal
      expression of Prosper’s Chronicle. The facts which relate to the
      death of Adolphus, and the exploits of Wallia, are related from
      Olympiodorus, (ap. Phot. p. 188,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 43 p.
      584-587,) Jornandes, (de Rebus p. 31, 32,) and the chronicles of
      Idatius and Isidore.]

      Such a triumph might have been justly claimed by the ally of
      Rome, if Wallia, before he repassed the Pyrenees, had extirpated
      the seeds of the Spanish war. His victorious Goths, forty-three
      years after they had passed the Danube, were established,
      according to the faith of treaties, in the possession of the
      second Aquitain; a maritime province between the Garonne and the
      Loire, under the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction of
      Bourdeaux. That metropolis, advantageously situated for the trade
      of the ocean, was built in a regular and elegant form; and its
      numerous inhabitants were distinguished among the Gauls by their
      wealth, their learning, and the politeness of their manners. The
      adjacent province, which has been fondly compared to the garden
      of Eden, is blessed with a fruitful soil, and a temperate
      climate; the face of the country displayed the arts and the
      rewards of industry; and the Goths, after their martial toils,
      luxuriously exhausted the rich vineyards of Aquitain. 167 The
      Gothic limits were enlarged by the additional gift of some
      neighboring dioceses; and the successors of Alaric fixed their
      royal residence at Thoulouse, which included five populous
      quarters, or cities, within the spacious circuit of its walls.
      About the same time, in the last years of the reign of Honorius,
      the Goths, the Burgundians, and the Franks, obtained a permanent
      seat and dominion in the provinces of Gaul. The liberal grant of
      the usurper Jovinus to his Burgundian allies, was confirmed by
      the lawful emperor; the lands of the First, or Upper, Germany,
      were ceded to those formidable Barbarians; and they gradually
      occupied, either by conquest or treaty, the two provinces which
      still retain, with the titles of Duchy and County, the national
      appellation of Burgundy. 168 The Franks, the valiant and faithful
      allies of the Roman republic, were soon tempted to imitate the
      invaders, whom they had so bravely resisted. Treves, the capital
      of Gaul, was pillaged by their lawless bands; and the humble
      colony, which they so long maintained in the district of
      Toxandia, in Brabant, insensibly multiplied along the banks of
      the Meuse and Scheld, till their independent power filled the
      whole extent of the Second, or Lower Germany. These facts may be
      sufficiently justified by historic evidence; but the foundation
      of the French monarchy by Pharamond, the conquests, the laws, and
      even the existence, of that hero, have been justly arraigned by
      the impartial severity of modern criticism. 169

      167 (return) [ Ausonius (de Claris Urbibus, p. 257-262)
      celebrates Bourdeaux with the partial affection of a native. See
      in Salvian (de Gubern. Dei, p. 228. Paris, 1608) a florid
      description of the provinces of Aquitain and Novempopulania.]

      168 (return) [ Orosius (l. vii. c. 32, p. 550) commends the
      mildness and modesty of these Burgundians, who treated their
      subjects of Gaul as their Christian brethren. Mascou has
      illustrated the origin of their kingdom in the four first
      annotations at the end of his laborious History of the Ancient
      Germans, vol. ii. p. 555-572, of the English translation.]

      169 (return) [ See Mascou, l. viii. c. 43, 44, 45. Except in a
      short and suspicious line of the Chronicle of Prosper, (in tom.
      i. p. 638,) the name of Pharamond is never mentioned before the
      seventh century. The author of the Gesta Francorum (in tom. ii.
      p. 543) suggests, probably enough, that the choice of Pharamond,
      or at least of a king, was recommended to the Franks by his
      father Marcomir, who was an exile in Tuscany. Note: The first
      mention of Pharamond is in the Gesta Francorum, assigned to about
      the year 720. St. Martin, iv. 469. The modern French writers in
      general subscribe to the opinion of Thierry: Faramond fils de
      Markomir, quo que son nom soit bien germanique, et son regne
      possible, ne figure pas dans les histoires les plus dignes de
      foi. A. Thierry, Lettres l’Histoire de France, p. 90.—M.]

      The ruin of the opulent provinces of Gaul may be dated from the
      establishment of these Barbarians, whose alliance was dangerous
      and oppressive, and who were capriciously impelled, by interest
      or passion, to violate the public peace. A heavy and partial
      ransom was imposed on the surviving provincials, who had escaped
      the calamities of war; the fairest and most fertile lands were
      assigned to the rapacious strangers, for the use of their
      families, their slaves, and their cattle; and the trembling
      natives relinquished with a sigh the inheritance of their
      fathers. Yet these domestic misfortunes, which are seldom the lot
      of a vanquished people, had been felt and inflicted by the Romans
      themselves, not only in the insolence of foreign conquest, but in
      the madness of civil discord. The Triumvirs proscribed eighteen
      of the most flourishing colonies of Italy; and distributed their
      lands and houses to the veterans who revenged the death of
      Caesar, and oppressed the liberty of their country. Two poets of
      unequal fame have deplored, in similar circumstances, the loss of
      their patrimony; but the legionaries of Augustus appear to have
      surpassed, in violence and injustice, the Barbarians who invaded
      Gaul under the reign of Honorius. It was not without the utmost
      difficulty that Virgil escaped from the sword of the Centurion,
      who had usurped his farm in the neighborhood of Mantua; 170 but
      Paulinus of Bourdeaux received a sum of money from his Gothic
      purchaser, which he accepted with pleasure and surprise; and
      though it was much inferior to the real value of his estate, this
      act of rapine was disguised by some colors of moderation and
      equity. 171 The odious name of conquerors was softened into the
      mild and friendly appellation of the guests of the Romans; and
      the Barbarians of Gaul, more especially the Goths, repeatedly
      declared, that they were bound to the people by the ties of
      hospitality, and to the emperor by the duty of allegiance and
      military service. The title of Honorius and his successors, their
      laws, and their civil magistrates, were still respected in the
      provinces of Gaul, of which they had resigned the possession to
      the Barbarian allies; and the kings, who exercised a supreme and
      independent authority over their native subjects, ambitiously
      solicited the more honorable rank of master-generals of the
      Imperial armies. 172 Such was the involuntary reverence which the
      Roman name still impressed on the minds of those warriors, who
      had borne away in triumph the spoils of the Capitol.

      170 (return) [ O Lycida, vivi pervenimus: advena nostri (Quod
      nunquam veriti sumus) ut possessor agelli Diseret: Haec mea sunt;
      veteres migrate coloni. Nunc victi tristes, &c.——See the whole of
      the ninth eclogue, with the useful Commentary of Servius. Fifteen
      miles of the Mantuan territory were assigned to the veterans,
      with a reservation, in favor of the inhabitants, of three miles
      round the city. Even in this favor they were cheated by Alfenus
      Varus, a famous lawyer, and one of the commissioners, who
      measured eight hundred paces of water and morass.]

      171 (return) [ See the remarkable passage of the Eucharisticon of
      Paulinus, 575, apud Mascou, l. viii. c. 42.]

      172 (return) [ This important truth is established by the
      accuracy of Tillemont, (Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 641,) and by
      the ingenuity of the Abbe Dubos, (Hist. de l’Etablissement de la
      Monarchie Francoise dans les Gaules, tom. i. p. 259.)]

      Whilst Italy was ravaged by the Goths, and a succession of feeble
      tyrants oppressed the provinces beyond the Alps, the British
      island separated itself from the body of the Roman empire. The
      regular forces, which guarded that remote province, had been
      gradually withdrawn; and Britain was abandoned without defence to
      the Saxon pirates, and the savages of Ireland and Caledonia. The
      Britons, reduced to this extremity, no longer relied on the tardy
      and doubtful aid of a declining monarchy. They assembled in arms,
      repelled the invaders, and rejoiced in the important discovery of
      their own strength. 173 Afflicted by similar calamities, and
      actuated by the same spirit, the Armorican provinces (a name
      which comprehended the maritime countries of Gaul between the
      Seine and the Loire 174 resolved to imitate the example of the
      neighboring island. They expelled the Roman magistrates, who
      acted under the authority of the usurper Constantine; and a free
      government was established among a people who had so long been
      subject to the arbitrary will of a master. The independence of
      Britain and Armorica was soon confirmed by Honorius himself, the
      lawful emperor of the West; and the letters, by which he
      committed to the new states the care of their own safety, might
      be interpreted as an absolute and perpetual abdication of the
      exercise and rights of sovereignty. This interpretation was, in
      some measure, justified by the event.

      After the usurpers of Gaul had successively fallen, the maritime
      provinces were restored to the empire. Yet their obedience was
      imperfect and precarious: the vain, inconstant, rebellious
      disposition of the people, was incompatible either with freedom
      or servitude; 175 and Armorica, though it could not long maintain
      the form of a republic, 176 was agitated by frequent and
      destructive revolts. Britain was irrecoverably lost. 177 But as
      the emperors wisely acquiesced in the independence of a remote
      province, the separation was not imbittered by the reproach of
      tyranny or rebellion; and the claims of allegiance and protection
      were succeeded by the mutual and voluntary offices of national
      friendship. 178

      173 (return) [ Zosimus (l. vi. 376, 383) relates in a few words
      the revolt of Britain and Armorica. Our antiquarians, even the
      great Cambder himself, have been betrayed into many gross errors,
      by their imperfect knowledge of the history of the continent.]

      174 (return) [ The limits of Armorica are defined by two national
      geographers, Messieurs De Valois and D’Anville, in their Notitias
      of Ancient Gaul. The word had been used in a more extensive, and
      was afterwards contracted to a much narrower, signification.]

      175 (return) [ Gens inter geminos notissima clauditur amnes,

     Armoricana prius veteri cognomine dicta. Torva, ferox, ventosa,
     procax, incauta, rebellis; Inconstans, disparque sibi novitatis
     amore; Prodiga verborum, sed non et prodiga facti.

      Erricus, Monach. in Vit. St. Germani. l. v. apud Vales. Notit.
      Galliarum, p. 43. Valesius alleges several testimonies to confirm
      this character; to which I shall add the evidence of the
      presbyter Constantine, (A.D. 488,) who, in the life of St.
      Germain, calls the Armorican rebels mobilem et indisciplinatum
      populum. See the Historians of France, tom. i. p. 643.]

      176 (return) [ I thought it necessary to enter my protest against
      this part of the system of the Abbe Dubos, which Montesquieu has
      so vigorously opposed. See Esprit des Loix, l. xxx. c. 24. Note:
      See Memoires de Gallet sur l’Origine des Bretons, quoted by Daru
      Histoire de Bretagne, i. p. 57. According to the opinion of these
      authors, the government of Armorica was monarchical from the
      period of its independence on the Roman empire.—M.]

      177 (return) [ The words of Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c.
      2, p. 181, Louvre edition) in a very important passage, which has
      been too much neglected Even Bede (Hist. Gent. Anglican. l. i. c.
      12, p. 50, edit. Smith) acknowledges that the Romans finally left
      Britain in the reign of Honorius. Yet our modern historians and
      antiquaries extend the term of their dominion; and there are some
      who allow only the interval of a few months between their
      departure and the arrival of the Saxons.]

      178 (return) [ Bede has not forgotten the occasional aid of the
      legions against the Scots and Picts; and more authentic proof
      will hereafter be produced, that the independent Britons raised
      12,000 men for the service of the emperor Anthemius, in Gaul.]

      This revolution dissolved the artificial fabric of civil and
      military government; and the independent country, during a period
      of forty years, till the descent of the Saxons, was ruled by the
      authority of the clergy, the nobles, and the municipal towns. 179
      I. Zosimus, who alone has preserved the memory of this singular
      transaction, very accurately observes, that the letters of
      Honorius were addressed to the cities of Britain. 180 Under the
      protection of the Romans, ninety-two considerable towns had
      arisen in the several parts of that great province; and, among
      these, thirty-three cities were distinguished above the rest by
      their superior privileges and importance. 181 Each of these
      cities, as in all the other provinces of the empire, formed a
      legal corporation, for the purpose of regulating their domestic
      policy; and the powers of municipal government were distributed
      among annual magistrates, a select senate, and the assembly of
      the people, according to the original model of the Roman
      constitution. 182 The management of a common revenue, the
      exercise of civil and criminal jurisdiction, and the habits of
      public counsel and command, were inherent to these petty
      republics; and when they asserted their independence, the youth
      of the city, and of the adjacent districts, would naturally range
      themselves under the standard of the magistrate. But the desire
      of obtaining the advantages, and of escaping the burdens, of
      political society, is a perpetual and inexhaustible source of
      discord; nor can it reasonably be presumed, that the restoration
      of British freedom was exempt from tumult and faction. The
      preeminence of birth and fortune must have been frequently
      violated by bold and popular citizens; and the haughty nobles,
      who complained that they were become the subjects of their own
      servants, 183 would sometimes regret the reign of an arbitrary
      monarch.

      II. The jurisdiction of each city over the adjacent country, was
      supported by the patrimonial influence of the principal senators;
      and the smaller towns, the villages, and the proprietors of land,
      consulted their own safety by adhering to the shelter of these
      rising republics. The sphere of their attraction was proportioned
      to the respective degrees of their wealth and populousness; but
      the hereditary lords of ample possessions, who were not oppressed
      by the neighborhood of any powerful city, aspired to the rank of
      independent princes, and boldly exercised the rights of peace and
      war. The gardens and villas, which exhibited some faint imitation
      of Italian elegance, would soon be converted into strong castles,
      the refuge, in time of danger, of the adjacent country: 184 the
      produce of the land was applied to purchase arms and horses; to
      maintain a military force of slaves, of peasants, and of
      licentious followers; and the chieftain might assume, within his
      own domain, the powers of a civil magistrate. Several of these
      British chiefs might be the genuine posterity of ancient kings;
      and many more would be tempted to adopt this honorable genealogy,
      and to vindicate their hereditary claims, which had been
      suspended by the usurpation of the Caesars. 185 Their situation
      and their hopes would dispose them to affect the dress, the
      language, and the customs of their ancestors. If the princes of
      Britain relapsed into barbarism, while the cities studiously
      preserved the laws and manners of Rome, the whole island must
      have been gradually divided by the distinction of two national
      parties; again broken into a thousand subdivisions of war and
      faction, by the various provocations of interest and resentment.
      The public strength, instead of being united against a foreign
      enemy, was consumed in obscure and intestine quarrels; and the
      personal merit which had placed a successful leader at the head
      of his equals, might enable him to subdue the freedom of some
      neighboring cities; and to claim a rank among the tyrants, 186
      who infested Britain after the dissolution of the Roman
      government. III. The British church might be composed of thirty
      or forty bishops, 187 with an adequate proportion of the inferior
      clergy; and the want of riches (for they seem to have been poor
      188 would compel them to deserve the public esteem, by a decent
      and exemplary behavior.

      The interest, as well as the temper of the clergy, was favorable
      to the peace and union of their distracted country: those
      salutary lessons might be frequently inculcated in their popular
      discourses; and the episcopal synods were the only councils that
      could pretend to the weight and authority of a national assembly.

      In such councils, where the princes and magistrates sat
      promiscuously with the bishops, the important affairs of the
      state, as well as of the church, might be freely debated;
      differences reconciled, alliances formed, contributions imposed,
      wise resolutions often concerted, and sometimes executed; and
      there is reason to believe, that, in moments of extreme danger, a
      Pendragon, or Dictator, was elected by the general consent of the
      Britons. These pastoral cares, so worthy of the episcopal
      character, were interrupted, however, by zeal and superstition;
      and the British clergy incessantly labored to eradicate the
      Pelagian heresy, which they abhorred, as the peculiar disgrace of
      their native country. 189

      179 (return) [ I owe it to myself, and to historic truth, to
      declare, that some circumstances in this paragraph are founded
      only on conjecture and analogy. The stubbornness of our language
      has sometimes forced me to deviate from the conditional into the
      indicative mood.]

      180 (return) [ Zosimus, l. vi. p. 383.]

      181 (return) [ Two cities of Britain were municipia, nine
      colonies, ten Latii jure donatoe, twelve stipendiarioe of eminent
      note. This detail is taken from Richard of Cirencester, de Situ
      Britanniae, p. 36; and though it may not seem probable that he
      wrote from the Mss. of a Roman general, he shows a genuine
      knowledge of antiquity, very extraordinary for a monk of the
      fourteenth century.

      Note: The names may be found in Whitaker’s Hist. of Manchester
      vol. ii. 330, 379. Turner, Hist. Anglo-Saxons, i. 216.—M.]

      182 (return) [ See Maffei Verona Illustrata, part i. l. v. p.
      83-106.]

      183 (return) [ Leges restituit, libertatemque reducit, Et servos
      famulis non sinit esse suis. Itinerar. Rutil. l. i. 215.]

      184 (return) [ An inscription (apud Sirmond, Not. ad Sidon.
      Apollinar. p. 59) describes a castle, cum muris et portis,
      tutioni omnium, erected by Dardanus on his own estate, near
      Sisteron, in the second Narbonnese, and named by him Theopolis.]

      185 (return) [ The establishment of their power would have been
      easy indeed, if we could adopt the impracticable scheme of a
      lively and learned antiquarian; who supposes that the British
      monarchs of the several tribes continued to reign, though with
      subordinate jurisdiction, from the time of Claudius to that of
      Honorius. See Whitaker’s History of Manchester, vol. i. p.
      247-257.]

      186 (return) [ Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 3, p. 181.
      Britannia fertilis provincia tyrannorum, was the expression of
      Jerom, in the year 415 (tom. ii. p. 255, ad Ctesiphont.) By the
      pilgrims, who resorted every year to the Holy Land, the monk of
      Bethlem received the earliest and most accurate intelligence.]

      187 (return) [ See Bingham’s Eccles. Antiquities, vol. i. l. ix.
      c. 6, p. 394.]

      188 (return) [ It is reported of three British bishops who
      assisted at the council of Rimini, A.D. 359, tam pauperes fuisse
      ut nihil haberent. Sulpicius Severus, Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 420.
      Some of their brethren however, were in better circumstances.]

      189 (return) [ Consult Usher, de Antiq. Eccles. Britannicar. c.
      8-12.]

      It is somewhat remarkable, or rather it is extremely natural,
      that the revolt of Britain and Armorica should have introduced an
      appearance of liberty into the obedient provinces of Gaul. In a
      solemn edict, 190 filled with the strongest assurances of that
      paternal affection which princes so often express, and so seldom
      feel, the emperor Honorius promulgated his intention of convening
      an annual assembly of the seven provinces: a name peculiarly
      appropriated to Aquitain and the ancient Narbonnese, which had
      long since exchanged their Celtic rudeness for the useful and
      elegant arts of Italy. 191 Arles, the seat of government and
      commerce, was appointed for the place of the assembly; which
      regularly continued twenty-eight days, from the fifteenth of
      August to the thirteenth of September, of every year. It
      consisted of the Praetorian praefect of the Gauls; of seven
      provincial governors, one consular, and six presidents; of the
      magistrates, and perhaps the bishops, of about sixty cities; and
      of a competent, though indefinite, number of the most honorable
      and opulent possessors of land, who might justly be considered as
      the representatives of their country. They were empowered to
      interpret and communicate the laws of their sovereign; to expose
      the grievances and wishes of their constituents; to moderate the
      excessive or unequal weight of taxes; and to deliberate on every
      subject of local or national importance, that could tend to the
      restoration of the peace and prosperity of the seven provinces.
      If such an institution, which gave the people an interest in
      their own government, had been universally established by Trajan
      or the Antonines, the seeds of public wisdom and virtue might
      have been cherished and propagated in the empire of Rome. The
      privileges of the subject would have secured the throne of the
      monarch; the abuses of an arbitrary administration might have
      been prevented, in some degree, or corrected, by the
      interposition of these representative assemblies; and the country
      would have been defended against a foreign enemy by the arms of
      natives and freemen. Under the mild and generous influence of
      liberty, the Roman empire might have remained invincible and
      immortal; or if its excessive magnitude, and the instability of
      human affairs, had opposed such perpetual continuance, its vital
      and constituent members might have separately preserved their
      vigor and independence. But in the decline of the empire, when
      every principle of health and life had been exhausted, the tardy
      application of this partial remedy was incapable of producing any
      important or salutary effects. The emperor Honorius expresses his
      surprise, that he must compel the reluctant provinces to accept a
      privilege which they should ardently have solicited. A fine of
      three, or even five, pounds of gold, was imposed on the absent
      representatives; who seem to have declined this imaginary gift of
      a free constitution, as the last and most cruel insult of their
      oppressors.

      190 (return) [ See the correct text of this edict, as published
      by Sirmond, (Not. ad Sidon. Apollin. p. 148.) Hincmar of Rheims,
      who assigns a place to the bishops, had probably seen (in the
      ninth century) a more perfect copy. Dubos, Hist. Critique de la
      Monarchie Francoise, tom. i. p. 241-255]

      191 (return) [ It is evident from the Notitia, that the seven
      provinces were the Viennensis, the maritime Alps, the first and
      second Narbonnese Novempopulania, and the first and second
      Aquitain. In the room of the first Aquitain, the Abbe Dubos, on
      the authority of Hincmar, desires to introduce the first
      Lugdunensis, or Lyonnese.]




      Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part
      I.

     Arcadius Emperor Of The East.—Administration And Disgrace Of
     Eutropius.—Revolt Of Gainas.—Persecution Of St. John
     Chrysostom.—Theodosius II. Emperor Of The East.—His Sister
     Pulcheria.—His Wife Eudocia.—The Persian War, And Division Of
     Armenia.

      The division of the Roman world between the sons of Theodosius
      marks the final establishment of the empire of the East, which,
      from the reign of Arcadius to the taking of Constantinople by the
      Turks, subsisted one thousand and fifty-eight years, in a state
      of premature and perpetual decay. The sovereign of that empire
      assumed, and obstinately retained, the vain, and at length
      fictitious, title of Emperor of the Romans; and the hereditary
      appellation of Caesar and Augustus continued to declare, that he
      was the legitimate successor of the first of men, who had reigned
      over the first of nations. The place of Constantinople rivalled,
      and perhaps excelled, the magnificence of Persia; and the
      eloquent sermons of St. Chrysostom 1 celebrate, while they
      condemn, the pompous luxury of the reign of Arcadius. “The
      emperor,“ says he, “wears on his head either a diadem, or a crown
      of gold, decorated with precious stones of inestimable value.
      These ornaments, and his purple garments, are reserved for his
      sacred person alone; and his robes of silk are embroidered with
      the figures of golden dragons. His throne is of massy gold.
      Whenever he appears in public, he is surrounded by his courtiers,
      his guards, and his attendants. Their spears, their shields,
      their cuirasses, the bridles and trappings of their horses, have
      either the substance or the appearance of gold; and the large
      splendid boss in the midst of their shield is encircled with
      smaller bosses, which represent the shape of the human eye. The
      two mules that drew the chariot of the monarch are perfectly
      white, and shining all over with gold. The chariot itself, of
      pure and solid gold, attracts the admiration of the spectators,
      who contemplate the purple curtains, the snowy carpet, the size
      of the precious stones, and the resplendent plates of gold, that
      glitter as they are agitated by the motion of the carriage. The
      Imperial pictures are white, on a blue ground; the emperor
      appears seated on his throne, with his arms, his horses, and his
      guards beside him; and his vanquished enemies in chains at his
      feet.“ The successors of Constantine established their perpetual
      residence in the royal city, which he had erected on the verge of
      Europe and Asia. Inaccessible to the menaces of their enemies,
      and perhaps to the complaints of their people, they received,
      with each wind, the tributary productions of every climate; while
      the impregnable strength of their capital continued for ages to
      defy the hostile attempts of the Barbarians. Their dominions were
      bounded by the Adriatic and the Tigris; and the whole interval of
      twenty-five days’ navigation, which separated the extreme cold of
      Scythia from the torrid zone of Aethiopia, 2 was comprehended
      within the limits of the empire of the East. The populous
      countries of that empire were the seat of art and learning, of
      luxury and wealth; and the inhabitants, who had assumed the
      language and manners of Greeks, styled themselves, with some
      appearance of truth, the most enlightened and civilized portion
      of the human species. The form of government was a pure and
      simple monarchy; the name of the Roman Republic, which so long
      preserved a faint tradition of freedom, was confined to the Latin
      provinces; and the princes of Constantinople measured their
      greatness by the servile obedience of their people. They were
      ignorant how much this passive disposition enervates and degrades
      every faculty of the mind. The subjects, who had resigned their
      will to the absolute commands of a master, were equally incapable
      of guarding their lives and fortunes against the assaults of the
      Barbarians, or of defending their reason from the terrors of
      superstition.

      1 (return) [ Father Montfaucon, who, by the command of his
      Benedictine superiors, was compelled (see Longueruana, tom. i. p.
      205) to execute the laborious edition of St. Chrysostom, in
      thirteen volumes in folio, (Paris, 1738,) amused himself with
      extracting from that immense collection of morals, some curious
      antiquities, which illustrate the manners of the Theodosian age,
      (see Chrysostom, Opera, tom. xiii. p. 192-196,) and his French
      Dissertation, in the Memoires de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, tom.
      xiii. p. 474-490.]

      2 (return) [ According to the loose reckoning, that a ship could
      sail, with a fair wind, 1000 stadia, or 125 miles, in the
      revolution of a day and night, Diodorus Siculus computes ten days
      from the Palus Moeotis to Rhodes, and four days from Rhodes to
      Alexandria. The navigation of the Nile from Alexandria to Syene,
      under the tropic of Cancer, required, as it was against the
      stream, ten days more. Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. iii. p. 200,
      edit. Wesseling. He might, without much impropriety, measure the
      extreme heat from the verge of the torrid zone; but he speaks of
      the Moeotis in the 47th degree of northern latitude, as if it lay
      within the polar circle.]

      The first events of the reign of Arcadius and Honorius are so
      intimately connected, that the rebellion of the Goths, and the
      fall of Rufinus, have already claimed a place in the history of
      the West. It has already been observed, that Eutropius, 3 one of
      the principal eunuchs of the palace of Constantinople, succeeded
      the haughty minister whose ruin he had accomplished, and whose
      vices he soon imitated. Every order of the state bowed to the new
      favorite; and their tame and obsequious submission encouraged him
      to insult the laws, and, what is still more difficult and
      dangerous, the manners of his country. Under the weakest of the
      predecessors of Arcadius, the reign of the eunuchs had been
      secret and almost invisible. They insinuated themselves into the
      confidence of the prince; but their ostensible functions were
      confined to the menial service of the wardrobe and Imperial
      bed-chamber. They might direct, in a whisper, the public
      counsels, and blast, by their malicious suggestions, the fame and
      fortunes of the most illustrious citizens; but they never
      presumed to stand forward in the front of empire, 4 or to profane
      the public honors of the state. Eutropius was the first of his
      artificial sex, who dared to assume the character of a Roman
      magistrate and general. Sometimes, in the presence of the
      blushing senate, he ascended the tribunal to pronounce judgment,
      or to repeat elaborate harangues; and, sometimes, appeared on
      horseback, at the head of his troops, in the dress and armor of a
      hero. The disregard of custom and decency always betrays a weak
      and ill-regulated mind; nor does Eutropius seem to have
      compensated for the folly of the design by any superior merit or
      ability in the execution. His former habits of life had not
      introduced him to the study of the laws, or the exercises of the
      field; his awkward and unsuccessful attempts provoked the secret
      contempt of the spectators; the Goths expressed their wish that
      such a general might always command the armies of Rome; and the
      name of the minister was branded with ridicule, more pernicious,
      perhaps, than hatred, to a public character. The subjects of
      Arcadius were exasperated by the recollection, that this deformed
      and decrepit eunuch, 6 who so perversely mimicked the actions of
      a man, was born in the most abject condition of servitude; that
      before he entered the Imperial palace, he had been successively
      sold and purchased by a hundred masters, who had exhausted his
      youthful strength in every mean and infamous office, and at
      length dismissed him, in his old age, to freedom and poverty. 7
      While these disgraceful stories were circulated, and perhaps
      exaggerated, in private conversation, the vanity of the favorite
      was flattered with the most extraordinary honors. In the senate,
      in the capital, in the provinces, the statues of Eutropius were
      erected, in brass, or marble, decorated with the symbols of his
      civil and military virtues, and inscribed with the pompous title
      of the third founder of Constantinople. He was promoted to the
      rank of patrician, which began to signify in a popular, and even
      legal, acceptation, the father of the emperor; and the last year
      of the fourth century was polluted by the consulship of a eunuch
      and a slave. This strange and inexpiable prodigy 8 awakened,
      however, the prejudices of the Romans. The effeminate consul was
      rejected by the West, as an indelible stain to the annals of the
      republic; and without invoking the shades of Brutus and Camillus,
      the colleague of Eutropius, a learned and respectable magistrate,
      9 sufficiently represented the different maxims of the two
      administrations.

      3 (return) [ Barthius, who adored his author with the blind
      superstition of a commentator, gives the preference to the two
      books which Claudian composed against Eutropius, above all his
      other productions, (Baillet Jugemens des Savans, tom. iv. p.
      227.) They are indeed a very elegant and spirited satire; and
      would be more valuable in an historical light, if the invective
      were less vague and more temperate.]

      4 (return) [ After lamenting the progress of the eunuchs in the
      Roman palace, and defining their proper functions, Claudian adds,

     A fronte recedant. Imperii. —-In Eutrop. i. 422.

      Yet it does not appear that the eunuchs had assumed any of the
      efficient offices of the empire, and he is styled only
      Praepositun sacri cubiculi, in the edict of his banishment. See
      Cod. Theod. l. leg 17.

     Jamque oblita sui, nec sobria divitiis mens In miseras leges
     hominumque negotia ludit Judicat eunuchus....... Arma etiam
     violare parat......

      Claudian, (i. 229-270,) with that mixture of indignation and
      humor which always pleases in a satiric poet, describes the
      insolent folly of the eunuch, the disgrace of the empire, and the
      joy of the Goths.

     Gaudet, cum viderit, hostis, Et sentit jam deesse viros.]

      6 (return) [ The poet’s lively description of his deformity (i.
      110-125) is confirmed by the authentic testimony of Chrysostom,
      (tom. iii. p. 384, edit Montfaucon;) who observes, that when the
      paint was washed away the face of Eutropius appeared more ugly
      and wrinkled than that of an old woman. Claudian remarks, (i.
      469,) and the remark must have been founded on experience, that
      there was scarcely an interval between the youth and the decrepit
      age of a eunuch.]

      7 (return) [ Eutropius appears to have been a native of Armenia
      or Assyria. His three services, which Claudian more particularly
      describes, were these: 1. He spent many years as the catamite of
      Ptolemy, a groom or soldier of the Imperial stables. 2. Ptolemy
      gave him to the old general Arintheus, for whom he very skilfully
      exercised the profession of a pimp. 3. He was given, on her
      marriage, to the daughter of Arintheus; and the future consul was
      employed to comb her hair, to present the silver ewer to wash and
      to fan his mistress in hot weather. See l. i. 31-137.]

      8 (return) [ Claudian, (l. i. in Eutrop. l.—22,) after
      enumerating the various prodigies of monstrous births, speaking
      animals, showers of blood or stones, double suns, &c., adds, with
      some exaggeration,

      Omnia cesserunt eunucho consule monstra.

      The first book concludes with a noble speech of the goddess of
      Rome to her favorite Honorius, deprecating the new ignominy to
      which she was exposed.]

      9 (return) [ Fl. Mallius Theodorus, whose civil honors, and
      philosophical works, have been celebrated by Claudian in a very
      elegant panegyric.]

      The bold and vigorous mind of Rufinus seems to have been actuated
      by a more sanguinary and revengeful spirit; but the avarice of
      the eunuch was not less insatiate than that of the praefect. 10
      As long as he despoiled the oppressors, who had enriched
      themselves with the plunder of the people, Eutropius might
      gratify his covetous disposition without much envy or injustice:
      but the progress of his rapine soon invaded the wealth which had
      been acquired by lawful inheritance, or laudable industry. The
      usual methods of extortion were practised and improved; and
      Claudian has sketched a lively and original picture of the public
      auction of the state. “The impotence of the eunuch,“ says that
      agreeable satirist, “has served only to stimulate his avarice:
      the same hand which in his servile condition, was exercised in
      petty thefts, to unlock the coffers of his master, now grasps the
      riches of the world; and this infamous broker of the empire
      appreciates and divides the Roman provinces from Mount Haemus to
      the Tigris. One man, at the expense of his villa, is made
      proconsul of Asia; a second purchases Syria with his wife’s
      jewels; and a third laments that he has exchanged his paternal
      estate for the government of Bithynia. In the antechamber of
      Eutropius, a large tablet is exposed to public view, which marks
      the respective prices of the provinces. The different value of
      Pontus, of Galatia, of Lydia, is accurately distinguished. Lycia
      may be obtained for so many thousand pieces of gold; but the
      opulence of Phrygia will require a more considerable sum. The
      eunuch wishes to obliterate, by the general disgrace, his
      personal ignominy; and as he has been sold himself, he is
      desirous of selling the rest of mankind. In the eager contention,
      the balance, which contains the fate and fortunes of the
      province, often trembles on the beam; and till one of the scales
      is inclined, by a superior weight, the mind of the impartial
      judge remains in anxious suspense. Such,“ continues the indignant
      poet, “are the fruits of Roman valor, of the defeat of Antiochus,
      and of the triumph of Pompey.“ This venal prostitution of public
      honors secured the impunity of future crimes; but the riches,
      which Eutropius derived from confiscation, were already stained
      with injustice; since it was decent to accuse, and to condemn,
      the proprietors of the wealth, which he was impatient to
      confiscate. Some noble blood was shed by the hand of the
      executioner; and the most inhospitable extremities of the empire
      were filled with innocent and illustrious exiles. Among the
      generals and consuls of the East, Abundantius 12 had reason to
      dread the first effects of the resentment of Eutropius. He had
      been guilty of the unpardonable crime of introducing that abject
      slave to the palace of Constantinople; and some degree of praise
      must be allowed to a powerful and ungrateful favorite, who was
      satisfied with the disgrace of his benefactor. Abundantius was
      stripped of his ample fortunes by an Imperial rescript, and
      banished to Pityus, on the Euxine, the last frontier of the Roman
      world; where he subsisted by the precarious mercy of the
      Barbarians, till he could obtain, after the fall of Eutropius, a
      milder exile at Sidon, in Phoenicia. The destruction of Timasius
      13 required a more serious and regular mode of attack. That great
      officer, the master-general of the armies of Theodosius, had
      signalized his valor by a decisive victory, which he obtained
      over the Goths of Thessaly; but he was too prone, after the
      example of his sovereign, to enjoy the luxury of peace, and to
      abandon his confidence to wicked and designing flatterers.
      Timasius had despised the public clamor, by promoting an infamous
      dependant to the command of a cohort; and he deserved to feel the
      ingratitude of Bargus, who was secretly instigated by the
      favorite to accuse his patron of a treasonable conspiracy. The
      general was arraigned before the tribunal of Arcadius himself;
      and the principal eunuch stood by the side of the throne to
      suggest the questions and answers of his sovereign. But as this
      form of trial might be deemed partial and arbitrary, the further
      inquiry into the crimes of Timasius was delegated to Saturninus
      and Procopius; the former of consular rank, the latter still
      respected as the father-in-law of the emperor Valens. The
      appearances of a fair and legal proceeding were maintained by the
      blunt honesty of Procopius; and he yielded with reluctance to the
      obsequious dexterity of his colleague, who pronounced a sentence
      of condemnation against the unfortunate Timasius. His immense
      riches were confiscated in the name of the emperor, and for the
      benefit of the favorite; and he was doomed to perpetual exile a
      Oasis, a solitary spot in the midst of the sandy deserts of
      Libya. 14 Secluded from all human converse, the master-general of
      the Roman armies was lost forever to the world; but the
      circumstances of his fate have been related in a various and
      contradictory manner. It is insinuated that Eutropius despatched
      a private order for his secret execution. 15 It was reported,
      that, in attempting to escape from Oasis, he perished in the
      desert, of thirst and hunger; and that his dead body was found on
      the sands of Libya. 16 It has been asserted, with more
      confidence, that his son Syagrius, after successfully eluding the
      pursuit of the agents and emissaries of the court, collected a
      band of African robbers; that he rescued Timasius from the place
      of his exile; and that both the father and the son disappeared
      from the knowledge of mankind. 17 But the ungrateful Bargus,
      instead of being suffered to possess the reward of guilt was soon
      after circumvented and destroyed, by the more powerful villany of
      the minister himself, who retained sense and spirit enough to
      abhor the instrument of his own crimes.

      10 (return) [ Drunk with riches, is the forcible expression of
      Zosimus, (l. v. p. 301;) and the avarice of Eutropius is equally
      execrated in the Lexicon of Suidas and the Chronicle of
      Marcellinus Chrysostom had often admonished the favorite of the
      vanity and danger of immoderate wealth, tom. iii. p. 381.
      -certantum saepe duorum Diversum suspendit onus: cum pondere
      judex Vergit, et in geminas nutat provincia lances. Claudian (i.
      192-209) so curiously distinguishes the circumstances of the
      sale, that they all seem to allude to particular anecdotes.]

      12 (return) [ Claudian (i. 154-170) mentions the guilt and exile
      of Abundantius; nor could he fail to quote the example of the
      artist, who made the first trial of the brazen bull, which he
      presented to Phalaris. See Zosimus, l. v. p. 302. Jerom, tom. i.
      p. 26. The difference of place is easily reconciled; but the
      decisive authority of Asterius of Amasia (Orat. iv. p. 76, apud
      Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 435) must turn the
      scale in favor of Pityus.]

      13 (return) [ Suidas (most probably from the history of Eunapius)
      has given a very unfavorable picture of Timasius. The account of
      his accuser, the judges, trial, &c., is perfectly agreeable to
      the practice of ancient and modern courts. (See Zosimus, l. v. p.
      298, 299, 300.) I am almost tempted to quote the romance of a
      great master, (Fielding’s Works, vol. iv. p. 49, &c., 8vo.
      edit.,) which may be considered as the history of human nature.]

      14 (return) [ The great Oasis was one of the spots in the sands
      of Libya, watered with springs, and capable of producing wheat,
      barley, and palm-trees. It was about three days’ journey from
      north to south, about half a day in breadth, and at the distance
      of about five days’ march to the west of Abydus, on the Nile. See
      D’Anville, Description de l’Egypte, p. 186, 187, 188. The barren
      desert which encompasses Oasis (Zosimus, l. v. p. 300) has
      suggested the idea of comparative fertility, and even the epithet
      of the happy island ]

      15 (return) [ The line of Claudian, in Eutrop. l. i. 180,

     Marmaricus claris violatur caedibus Hammon,

      evidently alludes to his persuasion of the death of Timasius. *
      Note: A fragment of Eunapius confirms this account. “Thus having
      deprived this great person of his life—a eunuch, a man, a slave,
      a consul, a minister of the bed-chamber, one bred in camps.“ Mai,
      p. 283, in Niebuhr. 87—M.]

      16 (return) [ Sozomen, l. viii. c. 7. He speaks from report.]

      17 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 300. Yet he seems to suspect that
      this rumor was spread by the friends of Eutropius.]

      The public hatred, and the despair of individuals, continually
      threatened, or seemed to threaten, the personal safety of
      Eutropius; as well as of the numerous adherents, who were
      attached to his fortune, and had been promoted by his venal
      favor. For their mutual defence, he contrived the safeguard of a
      law, which violated every principal of humanity and justice. 18
      I. It is enacted, in the name, and by the authority of Arcadius,
      that all those who should conspire, either with subjects or with
      strangers, against the lives of any of the persons whom the
      emperor considers as the members of his own body, shall be
      punished with death and confiscation. This species of fictitious
      and metaphorical treason is extended to protect, not only the
      illustrious officers of the state and army, who were admitted
      into the sacred consistory, but likewise the principal domestics
      of the palace, the senators of Constantinople, the military
      commanders, and the civil magistrates of the provinces; a vague
      and indefinite list, which, under the successors of Constantine,
      included an obscure and numerous train of subordinate ministers.
      II. This extreme severity might perhaps be justified, had it been
      only directed to secure the representatives of the sovereign from
      any actual violence in the execution of their office. But the
      whole body of Imperial dependants claimed a privilege, or rather
      impunity, which screened them, in the loosest moments of their
      lives, from the hasty, perhaps the justifiable, resentment of
      their fellow-citizens; and, by a strange perversion of the laws,
      the same degree of guilt and punishment was applied to a private
      quarrel, and to a deliberate conspiracy against the emperor and
      the empire. The edicts of Arcadius most positively and most
      absurdly declares, that in such cases of treason, thoughts and
      actions ought to be punished with equal severity; that the
      knowledge of a mischievous intention, unless it be instantly
      revealed, becomes equally criminal with the intention itself; 19
      and that those rash men, who shall presume to solicit the pardon
      of traitors, shall themselves be branded with public and
      perpetual infamy. III. “With regard to the sons of the traitors,“
      (continues the emperor,) “although they ought to share the
      punishment, since they will probably imitate the guilt, of their
      parents, yet, by the special effect of our Imperial lenity, we
      grant them their lives; but, at the same time, we declare them
      incapable of inheriting, either on the father’s or on the
      mother’s side, or of receiving any gift or legacy, from the
      testament either of kinsmen or of strangers. Stigmatized with
      hereditary infamy, excluded from the hopes of honors or fortune,
      let them endure the pangs of poverty and contempt, till they
      shall consider life as a calamity, and death as a comfort and
      relief.“ In such words, so well adapted to insult the feelings of
      mankind, did the emperor, or rather his favorite eunuch, applaud
      the moderation of a law, which transferred the same unjust and
      inhuman penalties to the children of all those who had seconded,
      or who had not disclosed, their fictitious conspiracies. Some of
      the noblest regulations of Roman jurisprudence have been suffered
      to expire; but this edict, a convenient and forcible engine of
      ministerial tyranny, was carefully inserted in the codes of
      Theodosius and Justinian; and the same maxims have been revived
      in modern ages, to protect the electors of Germany, and the
      cardinals of the church of Rome. 20

      18 (return) [ See the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. 14, ad legem
      Corneliam de Sicariis, leg. 3, and the Code of Justinian, l. ix.
      tit. viii, viii. ad legem Juliam de Majestate, leg. 5. The
      alteration of the title, from murder to treason, was an
      improvement of the subtle Tribonian. Godefroy, in a formal
      dissertation, which he has inserted in his Commentary,
      illustrates this law of Arcadius, and explains all the difficult
      passages which had been perverted by the jurisconsults of the
      darker ages. See tom. iii. p. 88-111.]

      19 (return) [ Bartolus understands a simple and naked
      consciousness, without any sign of approbation or concurrence.
      For this opinion, says Baldus, he is now roasting in hell. For my
      own part, continues the discreet Heineccius, (Element. Jur. Civil
      l. iv. p. 411,) I must approve the theory of Bartolus; but in
      practice I should incline to the sentiments of Baldus. Yet
      Bartolus was gravely quoted by the lawyers of Cardinal Richelieu;
      and Eutropius was indirectly guilty of the murder of the virtuous
      De Thou.]

      20 (return) [ Godefroy, tom. iii. p. 89. It is, however,
      suspected, that this law, so repugnant to the maxims of Germanic
      freedom, has been surreptitiously added to the golden bull.]

      Yet these sanguinary laws, which spread terror among a disarmed
      and dispirited people, were of too weak a texture to restrain the
      bold enterprise of Tribigild 21 the Ostrogoth. The colony of that
      warlike nation, which had been planted by Theodosius in one of
      the most fertile districts of Phrygia, 22 impatiently compared
      the slow returns of laborious husbandry with the successful
      rapine and liberal rewards of Alaric; and their leader resented,
      as a personal affront, his own ungracious reception in the palace
      of Constantinople. A soft and wealthy province, in the heart of
      the empire, was astonished by the sound of war; and the faithful
      vassal who had been disregarded or oppressed, was again
      respected, as soon as he resumed the hostile character of a
      Barbarian. The vineyards and fruitful fields, between the rapid
      Marsyas and the winding Maeander, 23 were consumed with fire; the
      decayed walls of the cities crumbled into dust, at the first
      stroke of an enemy; the trembling inhabitants escaped from a
      bloody massacre to the shores of the Hellespont; and a
      considerable part of Asia Minor was desolated by the rebellion of
      Tribigild. His rapid progress was checked by the resistance of
      the peasants of Pamphylia; and the Ostrogoths, attacked in a
      narrow pass, between the city of Selgae, 24 a deep morass, and
      the craggy cliffs of Mount Taurus, were defeated with the loss of
      their bravest troops. But the spirit of their chief was not
      daunted by misfortune; and his army was continually recruited by
      swarms of Barbarians and outlaws, who were desirous of exercising
      the profession of robbery, under the more honorable names of war
      and conquest. The rumors of the success of Tribigild might for
      some time be suppressed by fear, or disguised by flattery; yet
      they gradually alarmed both the court and the capital. Every
      misfortune was exaggerated in dark and doubtful hints; and the
      future designs of the rebels became the subject of anxious
      conjecture. Whenever Tribigild advanced into the inland country,
      the Romans were inclined to suppose that he meditated the passage
      of Mount Taurus, and the invasion of Syria. If he descended
      towards the sea, they imputed, and perhaps suggested, to the
      Gothic chief, the more dangerous project of arming a fleet in the
      harbors of Ionia, and of extending his depredations along the
      maritime coast, from the mouth of the Nile to the port of
      Constantinople. The approach of danger, and the obstinacy of
      Tribigild, who refused all terms of accommodation, compelled
      Eutropius to summon a council of war. 25 After claiming for
      himself the privilege of a veteran soldier, the eunuch intrusted
      the guard of Thrace and the Hellespont to Gainas the Goth, and
      the command of the Asiatic army to his favorite, Leo; two
      generals, who differently, but effectually, promoted the cause of
      the rebels. Leo, 26 who, from the bulk of his body, and the
      dulness of his mind, was surnamed the Ajax of the East, had
      deserted his original trade of a woolcomber, to exercise, with
      much less skill and success, the military profession; and his
      uncertain operations were capriciously framed and executed, with
      an ignorance of real difficulties, and a timorous neglect of
      every favorable opportunity. The rashness of the Ostrogoths had
      drawn them into a disadvantageous position between the Rivers
      Melas and Eurymedon, where they were almost besieged by the
      peasants of Pamphylia; but the arrival of an Imperial army,
      instead of completing their destruction, afforded the means of
      safety and victory. Tribigild surprised the unguarded camp of the
      Romans, in the darkness of the night; seduced the faith of the
      greater part of the Barbarian auxiliaries, and dissipated,
      without much effort, the troops, which had been corrupted by the
      relaxation of discipline, and the luxury of the capital. The
      discontent of Gainas, who had so boldly contrived and executed
      the death of Rufinus, was irritated by the fortune of his
      unworthy successor; he accused his own dishonorable patience
      under the servile reign of a eunuch; and the ambitious Goth was
      convicted, at least in the public opinion, of secretly fomenting
      the revolt of Tribigild, with whom he was connected by a
      domestic, as well as by a national alliance. 27 When Gainas
      passed the Hellespont, to unite under his standard the remains of
      the Asiatic troops, he skilfully adapted his motions to the
      wishes of the Ostrogoths; abandoning, by his retreat, the country
      which they desired to invade; or facilitating, by his approach,
      the desertion of the Barbarian auxiliaries. To the Imperial court
      he repeatedly magnified the valor, the genius, the inexhaustible
      resources of Tribigild; confessed his own inability to prosecute
      the war; and extorted the permission of negotiating with his
      invincible adversary. The conditions of peace were dictated by
      the haughty rebel; and the peremptory demand of the head of
      Eutropius revealed the author and the design of this hostile
      conspiracy.

      21 (return) [ A copious and circumstantial narrative (which he
      might have reserved for more important events) is bestowed by
      Zosimus (l. v. p. 304-312) on the revolt of Tribigild and Gainas.
      See likewise Socrates, l. vi. c. 6, and Sozomen, l. viii. c. 4.
      The second book of Claudian against Eutropius, is a fine, though
      imperfect, piece of history.]

      22 (return) [ Claudian (in Eutrop. l. ii. 237-250) very
      accurately observes, that the ancient name and nation of the
      Phrygians extended very far on every side, till their limits were
      contracted by the colonies of the Bithvnians of Thrace, of the
      Greeks, and at last of the Gauls. His description (ii. 257-272)
      of the fertility of Phrygia, and of the four rivers that produced
      gold, is just and picturesque.]

      23 (return) [ Xenophon, Anabasis, l. i. p. 11, 12, edit.
      Hutchinson. Strabo, l. xii p. 865, edit. Amstel. Q. Curt. l. iii.
      c. 1. Claudian compares the junction of the Marsyas and Maeander
      to that of the Saone and the Rhone, with this difference,
      however, that the smaller of the Phrygian rivers is not
      accelerated, but retarded, by the larger.]

      24 (return) [ Selgae, a colony of the Lacedaemonians, had
      formerly numbered twenty thousand citizens; but in the age of
      Zosimus it was reduced to a small town. See Cellarius, Geograph.
      Antiq tom. ii. p. 117.]

      25 (return) [ The council of Eutropius, in Claudian, may be
      compared to that of Domitian in the fourth Satire of Juvenal. The
      principal members of the former were juvenes protervi lascivique
      senes; one of them had been a cook, a second a woolcomber. The
      language of their original profession exposes their assumed
      dignity; and their trifling conversation about tragedies,
      dancers, &c., is made still more ridiculous by the importance of
      the debate.]

      26 (return) [ Claudian (l. ii. 376-461) has branded him with
      infamy; and Zosimus, in more temperate language, confirms his
      reproaches. L. v. p. 305.]

      27 (return) [ The conspiracy of Gainas and Tribigild, which is
      attested by the Greek historian, had not reached the ears of
      Claudian, who attributes the revolt of the Ostrogoth to his own
      martial spirit, and the advice of his wife.]




      Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part
      II.

      The bold satirist, who has indulged his discontent by the partial
      and passionate censure of the Christian emperors, violates the
      dignity, rather than the truth, of history, by comparing the son
      of Theodosius to one of those harmless and simple animals, who
      scarcely feel that they are the property of their shepherd. Two
      passions, however, fear and conjugal affection, awakened the
      languid soul of Arcadius: he was terrified by the threats of a
      victorious Barbarian; and he yielded to the tender eloquence of
      his wife Eudoxia, who, with a flood of artificial tears,
      presenting her infant children to their father, implored his
      justice for some real or imaginary insult, which she imputed to
      the audacious eunuch. 28 The emperor’s hand was directed to sign
      the condemnation of Eutropius; the magic spell, which during four
      years had bound the prince and the people, was instantly
      dissolved; and the acclamations that so lately hailed the merit
      and fortune of the favorite, were converted into the clamors of
      the soldiers and people, who reproached his crimes, and pressed
      his immediate execution. In this hour of distress and despair,
      his only refuge was in the sanctuary of the church, whose
      privileges he had wisely or profanely attempted to circumscribe;
      and the most eloquent of the saints, John Chrysostom, enjoyed the
      triumph of protecting a prostrate minister, whose choice had
      raised him to the ecclesiastical throne of Constantinople. The
      archbishop, ascending the pulpit of the cathedral, that he might
      be distinctly seen and heard by an innumerable crowd of either
      sex and of every age, pronounced a seasonable and pathetic
      discourse on the forgiveness of injuries, and the instability of
      human greatness. The agonies of the pale and affrighted wretch,
      who lay grovelling under the table of the altar, exhibited a
      solemn and instructive spectacle; and the orator, who was
      afterwards accused of insulting the misfortunes of Eutropius,
      labored to excite the contempt, that he might assuage the fury,
      of the people. 29 The powers of humanity, of superstition, and of
      eloquence, prevailed. The empress Eudoxia was restrained by her
      own prejudices, or by those of her subjects, from violating the
      sanctuary of the church; and Eutropius was tempted to capitulate,
      by the milder arts of persuasion, and by an oath, that his life
      should be spared. 30 Careless of the dignity of their sovereign,
      the new ministers of the palace immediately published an edict to
      declare, that his late favorite had disgraced the names of consul
      and patrician, to abolish his statues, to confiscate his wealth,
      and to inflict a perpetual exile in the Island of Cyprus. 31 A
      despicable and decrepit eunuch could no longer alarm the fears of
      his enemies; nor was he capable of enjoying what yet remained,
      the comforts of peace, of solitude, and of a happy climate. But
      their implacable revenge still envied him the last moments of a
      miserable life, and Eutropius had no sooner touched the shores of
      Cyprus, than he was hastily recalled. The vain hope of eluding,
      by a change of place, the obligation of an oath, engaged the
      empress to transfer the scene of his trial and execution from
      Constantinople to the adjacent suburb of Chalcedon. The consul
      Aurelian pronounced the sentence; and the motives of that
      sentence expose the jurisprudence of a despotic government. The
      crimes which Eutropius had committed against the people might
      have justified his death; but he was found guilty of harnessing
      to his chariot the sacred animals, who, from their breed or
      color, were reserved for the use of the emperor alone. 32

      28 (return) [ This anecdote, which Philostorgius alone has
      preserved, (l xi. c. 6, and Gothofred. Dissertat. p. 451-456) is
      curious and important; since it connects the revolt of the Goths
      with the secret intrigues of the palace.]

      29 (return) [ See the Homily of Chrysostom, tom. iii. p. 381-386,
      which the exordium is particularly beautiful. Socrates, l. vi. c.
      5. Sozomen, l. viii. c. 7. Montfaucon (in his Life of Chrysostom,
      tom. xiii. p. 135) too hastily supposes that Tribigild was
      actually in Constantinople; and that he commanded the soldiers
      who were ordered to seize Eutropius Even Claudian, a Pagan poet,
      (praefat. ad l. ii. in Eutrop. 27,) has mentioned the flight of
      the eunuch to the sanctuary.

     Suppliciterque pias humilis prostratus ad aras, Mitigat iratas
     voce tremente nurus,]

      30 (return) [ Chrysostom, in another homily, (tom. iii. p. 386,)
      affects to declare that Eutropius would not have been taken, had
      he not deserted the church. Zosimus, (l. v. p. 313,) on the
      contrary, pretends, that his enemies forced him from the
      sanctuary. Yet the promise is an evidence of some treaty; and the
      strong assurance of Claudian, (Praefat. ad l. ii. 46,) Sed tamen
      exemplo non feriere tuo, may be considered as an evidence of some
      promise.]

      31 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. xi. leg. 14. The date of
      that law (Jan. 17, A.D. 399) is erroneous and corrupt; since the
      fall of Eutropius could not happen till the autumn of the same
      year. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 780.]

      32 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 313. Philostorgius, l. xi. c. 6.]

      While this domestic revolution was transacted, Gainas 33 openly
      revolted from his allegiance; united his forces at Thyatira in
      Lydia, with those of Tribigild; and still maintained his superior
      ascendant over the rebellious leader of the Ostrogoths. The
      confederate armies advanced, without resistance, to the straits
      of the Hellespont and the Bosphorus; and Arcadius was instructed
      to prevent the loss of his Asiatic dominions, by resigning his
      authority and his person to the faith of the Barbarians. The
      church of the holy martyr Euphemia, situate on a lofty eminence
      near Chalcedon, 34 was chosen for the place of the interview.
      Gainas bowed with reverence at the feet of the emperor, whilst he
      required the sacrifice of Aurelian and Saturninus, two ministers
      of consular rank; and their naked necks were exposed, by the
      haughty rebel, to the edge of the sword, till he condescended to
      grant them a precarious and disgraceful respite. The Goths,
      according to the terms of the agreement, were immediately
      transported from Asia into Europe; and their victorious chief,
      who accepted the title of master-general of the Roman armies,
      soon filled Constantinople with his troops, and distributed among
      his dependants the honors and rewards of the empire. In his early
      youth, Gainas had passed the Danube as a suppliant and a
      fugitive: his elevation had been the work of valor and fortune;
      and his indiscreet or perfidious conduct was the cause of his
      rapid downfall. Notwithstanding the vigorous opposition of the
      archbishop, he importunately claimed for his Arian sectaries the
      possession of a peculiar church; and the pride of the Catholics
      was offended by the public toleration of heresy. 35 Every quarter
      of Constantinople was filled with tumult and disorder; and the
      Barbarians gazed with such ardor on the rich shops of the
      jewellers, and the tables of the bankers, which were covered with
      gold and silver, that it was judged prudent to remove those
      dangerous temptations from their sight. They resented the
      injurious precaution; and some alarming attempts were made,
      during the night, to attack and destroy with fire the Imperial
      palace. 36 In this state of mutual and suspicious hostility, the
      guards and the people of Constantinople shut the gates, and rose
      in arms to prevent or to punish the conspiracy of the Goths.
      During the absence of Gainas, his troops were surprised and
      oppressed; seven thousand Barbarians perished in this bloody
      massacre. In the fury of the pursuit, the Catholics uncovered the
      roof, and continued to throw down flaming logs of wood, till they
      overwhelmed their adversaries, who had retreated to the church or
      conventicle of the Arians. Gainas was either innocent of the
      design, or too confident of his success; he was astonished by the
      intelligence that the flower of his army had been ingloriously
      destroyed; that he himself was declared a public enemy; and that
      his countryman, Fravitta, a brave and loyal confederate, had
      assumed the management of the war by sea and land. The
      enterprises of the rebel, against the cities of Thrace, were
      encountered by a firm and well-ordered defence; his hungry
      soldiers were soon reduced to the grass that grew on the margin
      of the fortifications; and Gainas, who vainly regretted the
      wealth and luxury of Asia, embraced a desperate resolution of
      forcing the passage of the Hellespont. He was destitute of
      vessels; but the woods of the Chersonesus afforded materials for
      rafts, and his intrepid Barbarians did not refuse to trust
      themselves to the waves. But Fravitta attentively watched the
      progress of their undertaking. As soon as they had gained the
      middle of the stream, the Roman galleys, 37 impelled by the full
      force of oars, of the current, and of a favorable wind, rushed
      forwards in compact order, and with irresistible weight; and the
      Hellespont was covered with the fragments of the Gothic
      shipwreck. After the destruction of his hopes, and the loss of
      many thousands of his bravest soldiers, Gainas, who could no
      longer aspire to govern or to subdue the Romans, determined to
      resume the independence of a savage life. A light and active body
      of Barbarian horse, disengaged from their infantry and baggage,
      might perform in eight or ten days a march of three hundred miles
      from the Hellespont to the Danube; 38 the garrisons of that
      important frontier had been gradually annihilated; the river, in
      the month of December, would be deeply frozen; and the unbounded
      prospect of Scythia was opened to the ambition of Gainas. This
      design was secretly communicated to the national troops, who
      devoted themselves to the fortunes of their leader; and before
      the signal of departure was given, a great number of provincial
      auxiliaries, whom he suspected of an attachment to their native
      country, were perfidiously massacred. The Goths advanced, by
      rapid marches, through the plains of Thrace; and they were soon
      delivered from the fear of a pursuit, by the vanity of Fravitta,
      3811 who, instead of extinguishing the war, hastened to enjoy the
      popular applause, and to assume the peaceful honors of the
      consulship. But a formidable ally appeared in arms to vindicate
      the majesty of the empire, and to guard the peace and liberty of
      Scythia. 39 The superior forces of Uldin, king of the Huns,
      opposed the progress of Gainas; a hostile and ruined country
      prohibited his retreat; he disdained to capitulate; and after
      repeatedly attempting to cut his way through the ranks of the
      enemy, he was slain, with his desperate followers, in the field
      of battle. Eleven days after the naval victory of the Hellespont,
      the head of Gainas, the inestimable gift of the conqueror, was
      received at Constantinople with the most liberal expressions of
      gratitude; and the public deliverance was celebrated by festivals
      and illuminations. The triumphs of Arcadius became the subject of
      epic poems; 40 and the monarch, no longer oppressed by any
      hostile terrors, resigned himself to the mild and absolute
      dominion of his wife, the fair and artful Eudoxia, who was
      sullied her fame by the persecution of St. John Chrysostom.

      33 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 313-323,) Socrates, (l. vi. c.
      4,) Sozomen, (l. viii. c. 4,) and Theodoret, (l. v. c. 32, 33,)
      represent, though with some various circumstances, the
      conspiracy, defeat, and death of Gainas.]

      34 (return) [ It is the expression of Zosimus himself, (l. v. p.
      314,) who inadvertently uses the fashionable language of the
      Christians. Evagrius describes (l. ii. c. 3) the situation,
      architecture, relics, and miracles, of that celebrated church, in
      which the general council of Chalcedon was afterwards held.]

      35 (return) [ The pious remonstrances of Chrysostom, which do not
      appear in his own writings, are strongly urged by Theodoret; but
      his insinuation, that they were successful, is disproved by
      facts. Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 383) has
      discovered that the emperor, to satisfy the rapacious demands of
      Gainas, was obliged to melt the plate of the church of the
      apostles.]

      36 (return) [ The ecclesiastical historians, who sometimes guide,
      and sometimes follow, the public opinion, most confidently
      assert, that the palace of Constantinople was guarded by legions
      of angels.]

      37 (return) [ Zosmius (l. v. p. 319) mentions these galleys by
      the name of Liburnians, and observes that they were as swift
      (without explaining the difference between them) as the vessels
      with fifty oars; but that they were far inferior in speed to the
      triremes, which had been long disused. Yet he reasonably
      concludes, from the testimony of Polybius, that galleys of a
      still larger size had been constructed in the Punic wars. Since
      the establishment of the Roman empire over the Mediterranean, the
      useless art of building large ships of war had probably been
      neglected, and at length forgotten.]

      38 (return) [ Chishull (Travels, p. 61-63, 72-76) proceeded from
      Gallipoli, through Hadrianople to the Danube, in about fifteen
      days. He was in the train of an English ambassador, whose baggage
      consisted of seventy-one wagons. That learned traveller has the
      merit of tracing a curious and unfrequented route.]

      3811 (return) [ Fravitta, according to Zosimus, though a Pagan,
      received the honors of the consulate. Zosim, v. c. 20. On
      Fravitta, see a very imperfect fragment of Eunapius. Mai. ii.
      290, in Niebuhr. 92.—M.]

      39 (return) [ The narrative of Zosimus, who actually leads Gainas
      beyond the Danube, must be corrected by the testimony of
      Socrates, aud Sozomen, that he was killed in Thrace; and by the
      precise and authentic dates of the Alexandrian, or Paschal,
      Chronicle, p. 307. The naval victory of the Hellespont is fixed
      to the month Apellaeus, the tenth of the Calends of January,
      (December 23;) the head of Gainas was brought to Constantinople
      the third of the nones of January, (January 3,) in the month
      Audynaeus.]

      40 (return) [ Eusebius Scholasticus acquired much fame by his
      poem on the Gothic war, in which he had served. Near forty years
      afterwards Ammonius recited another poem on the same subject, in
      the presence of the emperor Theodosius. See Socrates, l. vi. c.
      6.]

      After the death of the indolent Nectarius, the successor of
      Gregory Nazianzen, the church of Constantinople was distracted by
      the ambition of rival candidates, who were not ashamed to
      solicit, with gold or flattery, the suffrage of the people, or of
      the favorite. On this occasion Eutropius seems to have deviated
      from his ordinary maxims; and his uncorrupted judgment was
      determined only by the superior merit of a stranger. In a late
      journey into the East, he had admired the sermons of John, a
      native and presbyter of Antioch, whose name has been
      distinguished by the epithet of Chrysostom, or the Golden Mouth.
      41 A private order was despatched to the governor of Syria; and
      as the people might be unwilling to resign their favorite
      preacher, he was transported, with speed and secrecy in a
      post-chariot, from Antioch to Constantinople. The unanimous and
      unsolicited consent of the court, the clergy, and the people,
      ratified the choice of the minister; and, both as a saint and as
      an orator, the new archbishop surpassed the sanguine expectations
      of the public. Born of a noble and opulent family, in the capital
      of Syria, Chrysostom had been educated, by the care of a tender
      mother, under the tuition of the most skilful masters. He studied
      the art of rhetoric in the school of Libanius; and that
      celebrated sophist, who soon discovered the talents of his
      disciple, ingenuously confessed that John would have deserved to
      succeed him, had he not been stolen away by the Christians. His
      piety soon disposed him to receive the sacrament of baptism; to
      renounce the lucrative and honorable profession of the law; and
      to bury himself in the adjacent desert, where he subdued the
      lusts of the flesh by an austere penance of six years. His
      infirmities compelled him to return to the society of mankind;
      and the authority of Meletius devoted his talents to the service
      of the church: but in the midst of his family, and afterwards on
      the archiepiscopal throne, Chrysostom still persevered in the
      practice of the monastic virtues. The ample revenues, which his
      predecessors had consumed in pomp and luxury, he diligently
      applied to the establishment of hospitals; and the multitudes,
      who were supported by his charity, preferred the eloquent and
      edifying discourses of their archbishop to the amusements of the
      theatre or the circus. The monuments of that eloquence, which was
      admired near twenty years at Antioch and Constantinople, have
      been carefully preserved; and the possession of near one thousand
      sermons, or homilies has authorized the critics 42 of succeeding
      times to appreciate the genuine merit of Chrysostom. They
      unanimously attribute to the Christian orator the free command of
      an elegant and copious language; the judgment to conceal the
      advantages which he derived from the knowledge of rhetoric and
      philosophy; an inexhaustible fund of metaphors and similitudes of
      ideas and images, to vary and illustrate the most familiar
      topics; the happy art of engaging the passions in the service of
      virtue; and of exposing the folly, as well as the turpitude, of
      vice, almost with the truth and spirit of a dramatic
      representation.

      41 (return) [ The sixth book of Socrates, the eighth of Sozomen,
      and the fifth of Theodoret, afford curious and authentic
      materials for the life of John Chrysostom. Besides those general
      historians, I have taken for my guides the four principal
      biographers of the saint. 1. The author of a partial and
      passionate Vindication of the archbishop of Constantinople,
      composed in the form of a dialogue, and under the name of his
      zealous partisan, Palladius, bishop of Helenopolis, (Tillemont,
      Mem. Eccles. tom. xi. p. 500-533.) It is inserted among the works
      of Chrysostom. tom. xiii. p. 1-90, edit. Montfaucon. 2. The
      moderate Erasmus, (tom. iii. epist. Mcl. p. 1331-1347, edit.
      Lugd. Bat.) His vivacity and good sense were his own; his errors,
      in the uncultivated state of ecclesiastical antiquity, were
      almost inevitable. 3. The learned Tillemont, (Mem.
      Ecclesiastiques, tom. xi. p. 1-405, 547-626, &c. &c.,) who
      compiles the lives of the saints with incredible patience and
      religious accuracy. He has minutely searched the voluminous works
      of Chrysostom himself. 4. Father Montfaucon, who has perused
      those works with the curious diligence of an editor, discovered
      several new homilies, and again reviewed and composed the Life of
      Chrysostom, (Opera Chrysostom. tom. xiii. p. 91-177.)]

      42 (return) [ As I am almost a stranger to the voluminous sermons
      of Chrysostom, I have given my confidence to the two most
      judicious and moderate of the ecclesiastical critics, Erasmus
      (tom. iii. p. 1344) and Dupin, (Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom.
      iii. p. 38:) yet the good taste of the former is sometimes
      vitiated by an excessive love of antiquity; and the good sense of
      the latter is always restrained by prudential considerations.]

      The pastoral labors of the archbishop of Constantinople provoked,
      and gradually united against him, two sorts of enemies; the
      aspiring clergy, who envied his success, and the obstinate
      sinners, who were offended by his reproofs. When Chrysostom
      thundered, from the pulpit of St. Sophia, against the degeneracy
      of the Christians, his shafts were spent among the crowd, without
      wounding, or even marking, the character of any individual. When
      he declaimed against the peculiar vices of the rich, poverty
      might obtain a transient consolation from his invectives; but the
      guilty were still sheltered by their numbers; and the reproach
      itself was dignified by some ideas of superiority and enjoyment.
      But as the pyramid rose towards the summit, it insensibly
      diminished to a point; and the magistrates, the ministers, the
      favorite eunuchs, the ladies of the court, 43 the empress Eudoxia
      herself, had a much larger share of guilt to divide among a
      smaller proportion of criminals. The personal applications of the
      audience were anticipated, or confirmed, by the testimony of
      their own conscience; and the intrepid preacher assumed the
      dangerous right of exposing both the offence and the offender to
      the public abhorrence. The secret resentment of the court
      encouraged the discontent of the clergy and monks of
      Constantinople, who were too hastily reformed by the fervent zeal
      of their archbishop. He had condemned, from the pulpit, the
      domestic females of the clergy of Constantinople, who, under the
      name of servants, or sisters, afforded a perpetual occasion
      either of sin or of scandal. The silent and solitary ascetics,
      who had secluded themselves from the world, were entitled to the
      warmest approbation of Chrysostom; but he despised and
      stigmatized, as the disgrace of their holy profession, the crowd
      of degenerate monks, who, from some unworthy motives of pleasure
      or profit, so frequently infested the streets of the capital. To
      the voice of persuasion, the archbishop was obliged to add the
      terrors of authority; and his ardor, in the exercise of
      ecclesiastical jurisdiction, was not always exempt from passion;
      nor was it always guided by prudence. Chrysostom was naturally of
      a choleric disposition. 44 Although he struggled, according to
      the precepts of the gospel, to love his private enemies, he
      indulged himself in the privilege of hating the enemies of God
      and of the church; and his sentiments were sometimes delivered
      with too much energy of countenance and expression. He still
      maintained, from some considerations of health or abstinence, his
      former habits of taking his repasts alone; and this inhospitable
      custom, 45 which his enemies imputed to pride, contributed, at
      least, to nourish the infirmity of a morose and unsocial humor.
      Separated from that familiar intercourse, which facilitates the
      knowledge and the despatch of business, he reposed an
      unsuspecting confidence in his deacon Serapion; and seldom
      applied his speculative knowledge of human nature to the
      particular character, either of his dependants, or of his equals.

      Conscious of the purity of his intentions, and perhaps of the
      superiority of his genius, the archbishop of Constantinople
      extended the jurisdiction of the Imperial city, that he might
      enlarge the sphere of his pastoral labors; and the conduct which
      the profane imputed to an ambitious motive, appeared to
      Chrysostom himself in the light of a sacred and indispensable
      duty. In his visitation through the Asiatic provinces, he deposed
      thirteen bishops of Lydia and Phrygia; and indiscreetly declared
      that a deep corruption of simony and licentiousness had infected
      the whole episcopal order. 46 If those bishops were innocent,
      such a rash and unjust condemnation must excite a well-grounded
      discontent. If they were guilty, the numerous associates of their
      guilt would soon discover that their own safety depended on the
      ruin of the archbishop; whom they studied to represent as the
      tyrant of the Eastern church.

      43 (return) [ The females of Constantinople distinguished
      themselves by their enmity or their attachment to Chrysostom.
      Three noble and opulent widows, Marsa, Castricia, and Eugraphia,
      were the leaders of the persecution, (Pallad. Dialog. tom. xiii.
      p. 14.) It was impossible that they should forgive a preacher who
      reproached their affectation to conceal, by the ornaments of
      dress, their age and ugliness, (Pallad p. 27.) Olympias, by equal
      zeal, displayed in a more pious cause, has obtained the title of
      saint. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xi p. 416-440.]

      44 (return) [ Sozomen, and more especially Socrates, have defined
      the real character of Chrysostom with a temperate and impartial
      freedom, very offensive to his blind admirers. Those historians
      lived in the next generation, when party violence was abated, and
      had conversed with many persons intimately acquainted with the
      virtues and imperfections of the saint.]

      45 (return) [ Palladius (tom. xiii. p. 40, &c.) very seriously
      defends the archbishop 1. He never tasted wine. 2. The weakness
      of his stomach required a peculiar diet. 3. Business, or study,
      or devotion, often kept him fasting till sunset. 4. He detested
      the noise and levity of great dinners. 5. He saved the expense
      for the use of the poor. 6. He was apprehensive, in a capital
      like Constantinople, of the envy and reproach of partial
      invitations.]

      46 (return) [ Chrysostom declares his free opinion (tom. ix. hom.
      iii in Act. Apostol. p. 29) that the number of bishops, who might
      be saved, bore a very small proportion to those who would be
      damned.]

      This ecclesiastical conspiracy was managed by Theophilus, 47
      archbishop of Alexandria, an active and ambitious prelate, who
      displayed the fruits of rapine in monuments of ostentation. His
      national dislike to the rising greatness of a city which degraded
      him from the second to the third rank in the Christian world, was
      exasperated by some personal dispute with Chrysostom himself. 48
      By the private invitation of the empress, Theophilus landed at
      Constantinople with a stou body of Egyptian mariners, to
      encounter the populace; and a train of dependent bishops, to
      secure, by their voices, the majority of a synod. The synod 49
      was convened in the suburb of Chalcedon, surnamed the Oak, where
      Rufinus had erected a stately church and monastery; and their
      proceedings were continued during fourteen days, or sessions. A
      bishop and a deacon accused the archbishop of Constantinople; but
      the frivolous or improbable nature of the forty-seven articles
      which they presented against him, may justly be considered as a
      fair and unexceptional panegyric. Four successive summons were
      signified to Chrysostom; but he still refused to trust either his
      person or his reputation in the hands of his implacable enemies,
      who, prudently declining the examination of any particular
      charges, condemned his contumacious disobedience, and hastily
      pronounced a sentence of deposition. The synod of the Oak
      immediately addressed the emperor to ratify and execute their
      judgment, and charitably insinuated, that the penalties of
      treason might be inflicted on the audacious preacher, who had
      reviled, under the name of Jezebel, the empress Eudoxia herself.
      The archbishop was rudely arrested, and conducted through the
      city, by one of the Imperial messengers, who landed him, after a
      short navigation, near the entrance of the Euxine; from whence,
      before the expiration of two days, he was gloriously recalled.

      47 (return) [ See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xi. p. 441-500.]

      48 (return) [ I have purposely omitted the controversy which
      arose among the monks of Egypt, concerning Origenism and
      Anthropomorphism; the dissimulation and violence of Theophilus;
      his artful management of the simplicity of Epiphanius; the
      persecution and flight of the long, or tall, brothers; the
      ambiguous support which they received at Constantinople from
      Chrysostom, &c. &c.]

      49 (return) [ Photius (p. 53-60) has preserved the original acts
      of the synod of the Oak; which destroys the false assertion, that
      Chrysostom was condemned by no more than thirty-six bishops, of
      whom twenty-nine were Egyptians. Forty-five bishops subscribed
      his sentence. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xi. p. 595. *
      Note: Tillemont argues strongly for the number of thirty-six—M]

      The first astonishment of his faithful people had been mute and
      passive: they suddenly rose with unanimous and irresistible fury.
      Theophilus escaped, but the promiscuous crowd of monks and
      Egyptian mariners was slaughtered without pity in the streets of
      Constantinople. 50 A seasonable earthquake justified the
      interposition of Heaven; the torrent of sedition rolled forwards
      to the gates of the palace; and the empress, agitated by fear or
      remorse, threw herself at the feet of Arcadius, and confessed
      that the public safety could be purchased only by the restoration
      of Chrysostom. The Bosphorus was covered with innumerable
      vessels; the shores of Europe and Asia were profusely
      illuminated; and the acclamations of a victorious people
      accompanied, from the port to the cathedral, the triumph of the
      archbishop; who, too easily, consented to resume the exercise of
      his functions, before his sentence had been legally reversed by
      the authority of an ecclesiastical synod. Ignorant, or careless,
      of the impending danger, Chrysostom indulged his zeal, or perhaps
      his resentment; declaimed with peculiar asperity against female
      vices; and condemned the profane honors which were addressed,
      almost in the precincts of St. Sophia, to the statue of the
      empress. His imprudence tempted his enemies to inflame the
      haughty spirit of Eudoxia, by reporting, or perhaps inventing,
      the famous exordium of a sermon, “Herodias is again furious;
      Herodias again dances; she once more requires the head of John;”
      an insolent allusion, which, as a woman and a sovereign, it was
      impossible for her to forgive. 51 The short interval of a
      perfidious truce was employed to concert more effectual measures
      for the disgrace and ruin of the archbishop. A numerous council
      of the Eastern prelates, who were guided from a distance by the
      advice of Theophilus, confirmed the validity, without examining
      the justice, of the former sentence; and a detachment of
      Barbarian troops was introduced into the city, to suppress the
      emotions of the people. On the vigil of Easter, the solemn
      administration of baptism was rudely interrupted by the soldiers,
      who alarmed the modesty of the naked catechumens, and violated,
      by their presence, the awful mysteries of the Christian worship.
      Arsacius occupied the church of St. Sophia, and the
      archiepiscopal throne. The Catholics retreated to the baths of
      Constantine, and afterwards to the fields; where they were still
      pursued and insulted by the guards, the bishops, and the
      magistrates. The fatal day of the second and final exile of
      Chrysostom was marked by the conflagration of the cathedral, of
      the senate-house, and of the adjacent buildings; and this
      calamity was imputed, without proof, but not without probability,
      to the despair of a persecuted faction. 52

      50 (return) [ Palladius owns (p. 30) that if the people of
      Constantinople had found Theophilus, they would certainly have
      thrown him into the sea. Socrates mentions (l. vi. c. 17) a
      battle between the mob and the sailors of Alexandria, in which
      many wounds were given, and some lives were lost. The massacre of
      the monks is observed only by the Pagan Zosimus, (l. v. p. 324,)
      who acknowledges that Chrysostom had a singular talent to lead
      the illiterate multitude.]

      51 (return) [ See Socrates, l. vi. c. 18. Sozomen, l. viii. c.
      20. Zosimus (l. v. p 324, 327) mentions, in general terms, his
      invectives against Eudoxia. The homily, which begins with those
      famous words, is rejected as spurious. Montfaucon, tom. xiii. p.
      151. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom xi. p. 603.]

      52 (return) [ We might naturally expect such a charge from
      Zosimus, (l. v. p. 327;) but it is remarkable enough, that it
      should be confirmed by Socrates, (l. vi. c. 18,) and the Paschal
      Chronicle, (p. 307.)]

      Cicero might claim some merit, if his voluntary banishment
      preserved the peace of the republic; 53 but the submission of
      Chrysostom was the indispensable duty of a Christian and a
      subject. Instead of listening to his humble prayer, that he might
      be permitted to reside at Cyzicus, or Nicomedia, the inflexible
      empress assigned for his exile the remote and desolate town of
      Cucusus, among the ridges of Mount Taurus, in the Lesser Armenia.
      A secret hope was entertained, that the archbishop might perish
      in a difficult and dangerous march of seventy days, in the heat
      of summer, through the provinces of Asia Minor, where he was
      continually threatened by the hostile attacks of the Isaurians,
      and the more implacable fury of the monks. Yet Chrysostom arrived
      in safety at the place of his confinement; and the three years
      which he spent at Cucusus, and the neighboring town of Arabissus,
      were the last and most glorious of his life. His character was
      consecrated by absence and persecution; the faults of his
      administration were no longer remembered; but every tongue
      repeated the praises of his genius and virtue: and the respectful
      attention of the Christian world was fixed on a desert spot among
      the mountains of Taurus. From that solitude the archbishop, whose
      active mind was invigorated by misfortunes, maintained a strict
      and frequent correspondence 54 with the most distant provinces;
      exhorted the separate congregation of his faithful adherents to
      persevere in their allegiance; urged the destruction of the
      temples of Phoenicia, and the extirpation of heresy in the Isle
      of Cyprus; extended his pastoral care to the missions of Persia
      and Scythia; negotiated, by his ambassadors, with the Roman
      pontiff and the emperor Honorius; and boldly appealed, from a
      partial synod, to the supreme tribunal of a free and general
      council. The mind of the illustrious exile was still independent;
      but his captive body was exposed to the revenge of the
      oppressors, who continued to abuse the name and authority of
      Arcadius. 55 An order was despatched for the instant removal of
      Chrysostom to the extreme desert of Pityus: and his guards so
      faithfully obeyed their cruel instructions, that, before he
      reached the sea-coast of the Euxine, he expired at Comana, in
      Pontus, in the sixtieth year of his age. The succeeding
      generation acknowledged his innocence and merit. The archbishops
      of the East, who might blush that their predecessors had been the
      enemies of Chrysostom, were gradually disposed, by the firmness
      of the Roman pontiff, to restore the honors of that venerable
      name. 56 At the pious solicitation of the clergy and people of
      Constantinople, his relics, thirty years after his death, were
      transported from their obscure sepulchre to the royal city. 57
      The emperor Theodosius advanced to receive them as far as
      Chalcedon; and, falling prostrate on the coffin, implored, in the
      name of his guilty parents, Arcadius and Eudoxia, the forgiveness
      of the injured saint. 58

      53 (return) [ He displays those specious motives (Post Reditum,
      c. 13, 14) in the language of an orator and a politician.]

      54 (return) [ Two hundred and forty-two of the epistles of
      Chrysostom are still extant, (Opera, tom. iii. p. 528-736.) They
      are addressed to a great variety of persons, and show a firmness
      of mind much superior to that of Cicero in his exile. The
      fourteenth epistle contains a curious narrative of the dangers of
      his journey.]

      55 (return) [ After the exile of Chrysostom, Theophilus published
      an enormous and horrible volume against him, in which he
      perpetually repeats the polite expressions of hostem humanitatis,
      sacrilegorum principem, immundum daemonem; he affirms, that John
      Chrysostom had delivered his soul to be adulterated by the devil;
      and wishes that some further punishment, adequate (if possible)
      to the magnitude of his crimes, may be inflicted on him. St.
      Jerom, at the request of his friend Theophilus, translated this
      edifying performance from Greek into Latin. See Facundus Hermian.
      Defens. pro iii. Capitul. l. vi. c. 5 published by Sirmond.
      Opera, tom. ii. p. 595, 596, 597.]

      56 (return) [ His name was inserted by his successor Atticus in
      the Dyptics of the church of Constantinople, A.D. 418. Ten years
      afterwards he was revered as a saint. Cyril, who inherited the
      place, and the passions, of his uncle Theophilus, yielded with
      much reluctance. See Facund. Hermian. l. 4, c. 1. Tillemont, Mem.
      Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 277-283.]

      57 (return) [ Socrates, l. vii. c. 45. Theodoret, l. v. c. 36.
      This event reconciled the Joannites, who had hitherto refused to
      acknowledge his successors. During his lifetime, the Joannites
      were respected, by the Catholics, as the true and orthodox
      communion of Constantinople. Their obstinacy gradually drove them
      to the brink of schism.]

      58 (return) [ According to some accounts, (Baronius, Annal.
      Eccles. A.D. 438 No. 9, 10,) the emperor was forced to send a
      letter of invitation and excuses, before the body of the
      ceremonious saint could be moved from Comana.]




      Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part
      III.

      Yet a reasonable doubt may be entertained, whether any stain of
      hereditary guilt could be derived from Arcadius to his successor.
      Eudoxia was a young and beautiful woman, who indulged her
      passions, and despised her husband; Count John enjoyed, at least,
      the familiar confidence of the empress; and the public named him
      as the real father of Theodosius the younger. 59 The birth of a
      son was accepted, however, by the pious husband, as an event the
      most fortunate and honorable to himself, to his family, and to
      the Eastern world: and the royal infant, by an unprecedented
      favor, was invested with the titles of Caesar and Augustus. In
      less than four years afterwards, Eudoxia, in the bloom of youth,
      was destroyed by the consequences of a miscarriage; and this
      untimely death confounded the prophecy of a holy bishop, 60 who,
      amidst the universal joy, had ventured to foretell, that she
      should behold the long and auspicious reign of her glorious son.
      The Catholics applauded the justice of Heaven, which avenged the
      persecution of St. Chrysostom; and perhaps the emperor was the
      only person who sincerely bewailed the loss of the haughty and
      rapacious Eudoxia. Such a domestic misfortune afflicted him more
      deeply than the public calamities of the East; 61 the licentious
      excursions, from Pontus to Palestine, of the Isaurian robbers,
      whose impunity accused the weakness of the government; and the
      earthquakes, the conflagrations, the famine, and the flights of
      locusts, 62 which the popular discontent was equally disposed to
      attribute to the incapacity of the monarch. At length, in the
      thirty-first year of his age, after a reign (if we may abuse that
      word) of thirteen years, three months, and fifteen days, Arcadius
      expired in the palace of Constantinople. It is impossible to
      delineate his character; since, in a period very copiously
      furnished with historical materials, it has not been possible to
      remark one action that properly belongs to the son of the great
      Theodosius.

      59 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 315. The chastity of an empress
      should not be impeached without producing a witness; but it is
      astonishing, that the witness should write and live under a
      prince whose legitimacy he dared to attack. We must suppose that
      his history was a party libel, privately read and circulated by
      the Pagans. Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 782) is
      not averse to brand the reputation of Eudoxia.]

      60 (return) [ Porphyry of Gaza. His zeal was transported by the
      order which he had obtained for the destruction of eight Pagan
      temples of that city. See the curious details of his life,
      (Baronius, A.D. 401, No. 17-51,) originally written in Greek, or
      perhaps in Syriac, by a monk, one of his favorite deacons.]

      61 (return) [ Philostorg. l. xi. c. 8, and Godefroy, Dissertat.
      p. 457.]

      62 (return) [ Jerom (tom. vi. p. 73, 76) describes, in lively
      colors, the regular and destructive march of the locusts, which
      spread a dark cloud, between heaven and earth, over the land of
      Palestine. Seasonable winds scattered them, partly into the Dead
      Sea, and partly into the Mediterranean.]

      The historian Procopius 63 has indeed illuminated the mind of the
      dying emperor with a ray of human prudence, or celestial wisdom.
      Arcadius considered, with anxious foresight, the helpless
      condition of his son Theodosius, who was no more than seven years
      of age, the dangerous factions of a minority, and the aspiring
      spirit of Jezdegerd, the Persian monarch. Instead of tempting the
      allegiance of an ambitious subject, by the participation of
      supreme power, he boldly appealed to the magnanimity of a king;
      and placed, by a solemn testament, the sceptre of the East in the
      hands of Jezdegerd himself. The royal guardian accepted and
      discharged this honorable trust with unexampled fidelity; and the
      infancy of Theodosius was protected by the arms and councils of
      Persia. Such is the singular narrative of Procopius; and his
      veracity is not disputed by Agathias, 64 while he presumes to
      dissent from his judgment, and to arraign the wisdom of a
      Christian emperor, who, so rashly, though so fortunately,
      committed his son and his dominions to the unknown faith of a
      stranger, a rival, and a heathen. At the distance of one hundred
      and fifty years, this political question might be debated in the
      court of Justinian; but a prudent historian will refuse to
      examine the propriety, till he has ascertained the truth, of the
      testament of Arcadius. As it stands without a parallel in the
      history of the world, we may justly require, that it should be
      attested by the positive and unanimous evidence of
      contemporaries. The strange novelty of the event, which excites
      our distrust, must have attracted their notice; and their
      universal silence annihilates the vain tradition of the
      succeeding age.

      63 (return) [ Procopius, de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 2, p. 8, edit.
      Louvre.]

      64 (return) [ Agathias, l. iv. p. 136, 137. Although he confesses
      the prevalence of the tradition, he asserts, that Procopius was
      the first who had committed it to writing. Tillemont (Hist. des
      Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 597) argues very sensibly on the merits of
      this fable. His criticism was not warped by any ecclesiastical
      authority: both Procopius and Agathias are half Pagans. * Note:
      See St Martin’s article on Jezdegerd, in the Biographie
      Universelle de Michand.—M.]

      The maxims of Roman jurisprudence, if they could fairly be
      transferred from private property to public dominion, would have
      adjudged to the emperor Honorius the guardianship of his nephew,
      till he had attained, at least, the fourteenth year of his age.
      But the weakness of Honorius, and the calamities of his reign,
      disqualified him from prosecuting this natural claim; and such
      was the absolute separation of the two monarchies, both in
      interest and affection, that Constantinople would have obeyed,
      with less reluctance, the orders of the Persian, than those of
      the Italian, court. Under a prince whose weakness is disguised by
      the external signs of manhood and discretion, the most worthless
      favorites may secretly dispute the empire of the palace; and
      dictate to submissive provinces the commands of a master, whom
      they direct and despise. But the ministers of a child, who is
      incapable of arming them with the sanction of the royal name,
      must acquire and exercise an independent authority. The great
      officers of the state and army, who had been appointed before the
      death of Arcadius, formed an aristocracy, which might have
      inspired them with the idea of a free republic; and the
      government of the Eastern empire was fortunately assumed by the
      praefect Anthemius, 65 who obtained, by his superior abilities, a
      lasting ascendant over the minds of his equals. The safety of the
      young emperor proved the merit and integrity of Anthemius; and
      his prudent firmness sustained the force and reputation of an
      infant reign. Uldin, with a formidable host of Barbarians, was
      encamped in the heart of Thrace; he proudly rejected all terms of
      accommodation; and, pointing to the rising sun, declared to the
      Roman ambassadors, that the course of that planet should alone
      terminate the conquest of the Huns. But the desertion of his
      confederates, who were privately convinced of the justice and
      liberality of the Imperial ministers, obliged Uldin to repass the
      Danube: the tribe of the Scyrri, which composed his rear-guard,
      was almost extirpated; and many thousand captives were dispersed
      to cultivate, with servile labor, the fields of Asia. 66 In the
      midst of the public triumph, Constantinople was protected by a
      strong enclosure of new and more extensive walls; the same
      vigilant care was applied to restore the fortifications of the
      Illyrian cities; and a plan was judiciously conceived, which, in
      the space of seven years, would have secured the command of the
      Danube, by establishing on that river a perpetual fleet of two
      hundred and fifty armed vessels. 67

      65 (return) [ Socrates, l. vii. c. l. Anthemius was the grandson
      of Philip, one of the ministers of Constantius, and the
      grandfather of the emperor Anthemius. After his return from the
      Persian embassy, he was appointed consul and Praetorian praefect
      of the East, in the year 405 and held the praefecture about ten
      years. See his honors and praises in Godefroy, Cod. Theod. tom.
      vi. p. 350. Tillemont, Hist. des Emptom. vi. p. 1. &c.]

      66 (return) [ Sozomen, l. ix. c. 5. He saw some Scyrri at work
      near Mount Olympus, in Bithynia, and cherished the vain hope that
      those captives were the last of the nation.]

      67 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. xvi. l. xv. tit. i. leg.
      49.]

      But the Romans had so long been accustomed to the authority of a
      monarch, that the first, even among the females, of the Imperial
      family, who displayed any courage or capacity, was permitted to
      ascend the vacant throne of Theodosius. His sister Pulcheria, 68
      who was only two years older than himself, received, at the age
      of sixteen, the title of Augusta; and though her favor might be
      sometimes clouded by caprice or intrigue, she continued to govern
      the Eastern empire near forty years; during the long minority of
      her brother, and after his death, in her own name, and in the
      name of Marcian, her nominal husband. From a motive either of
      prudence or religion, she embraced a life of celibacy; and
      notwithstanding some aspersions on the chastity of Pulcheria, 69
      this resolution, which she communicated to her sisters Arcadia
      and Marina, was celebrated by the Christian world, as the sublime
      effort of heroic piety. In the presence of the clergy and people,
      the three daughters of Arcadius 70 dedicated their virginity to
      God; and the obligation of their solemn vow was inscribed on a
      tablet of gold and gems; which they publicly offered in the great
      church of Constantinople. Their palace was converted into a
      monastery; and all males, except the guides of their conscience,
      the saints who had forgotten the distinction of sexes, were
      scrupulously excluded from the holy threshold. Pulcheria, her two
      sisters, and a chosen train of favorite damsels, formed a
      religious community: they denounced the vanity of dress;
      interrupted, by frequent fasts, their simple and frugal diet;
      allotted a portion of their time to works of embroidery; and
      devoted several hours of the day and night to the exercises of
      prayer and psalmody. The piety of a Christian virgin was adorned
      by the zeal and liberality of an empress. Ecclesiastical history
      describes the splendid churches, which were built at the expense
      of Pulcheria, in all the provinces of the East; her charitable
      foundations for the benefit of strangers and the poor; the ample
      donations which she assigned for the perpetual maintenance of
      monastic societies; and the active severity with which she
      labored to suppress the opposite heresies of Nestorius and
      Eutyches. Such virtues were supposed to deserve the peculiar
      favor of the Deity: and the relics of martyrs, as well as the
      knowledge of future events, were communicated in visions and
      revelations to the Imperial saint. 71 Yet the devotion of
      Pulcheria never diverted her indefatigable attention from
      temporal affairs; and she alone, among all the descendants of the
      great Theodosius, appears to have inherited any share of his
      manly spirit and abilities. The elegant and familiar use which
      she had acquired, both of the Greek and Latin languages, was
      readily applied to the various occasions of speaking or writing,
      on public business: her deliberations were maturely weighed; her
      actions were prompt and decisive; and, while she moved, without
      noise or ostentation, the wheel of government, she discreetly
      attributed to the genius of the emperor the long tranquillity of
      his reign. In the last years of his peaceful life, Europe was
      indeed afflicted by the arms of war; but the more extensive
      provinces of Asia still continued to enjoy a profound and
      permanent repose. Theodosius the younger was never reduced to the
      disgraceful necessity of encountering and punishing a rebellious
      subject: and since we cannot applaud the vigor, some praise may
      be due to the mildness and prosperity, of the administration of
      Pulcheria.

      68 (return) [ Sozomen has filled three chapters with a
      magnificent panegyric of Pulcheria, (l. ix. c. 1, 2, 3;) and
      Tillemont (Memoires Eccles. tom. xv. p. 171-184) has dedicated a
      separate article to the honor of St. Pulcheria, virgin and
      empress. * Note: The heathen Eunapius gives a frightful picture
      of the venality and a justice of the court of Pulcheria. Fragm.
      Eunap. in Mai, ii. 293, in p. 97.—M.]

      69 (return) [ Suidas, (Excerpta, p. 68, in Script. Byzant.)
      pretends, on the credit of the Nestorians, that Pulcheria was
      exasperated against their founder, because he censured her
      connection with the beautiful Paulinus, and her incest with her
      brother Theodosius.]

      70 (return) [ See Ducange, Famil. Byzantin. p. 70. Flaccilla, the
      eldest daughter, either died before Arcadius, or, if she lived
      till the year 431, (Marcellin. Chron.,) some defect of mind or
      body must have excluded her from the honors of her rank.]

      71 (return) [ She was admonished, by repeated dreams, of the
      place where the relics of the forty martyrs had been buried. The
      ground had successively belonged to the house and garden of a
      woman of Constantinople, to a monastery of Macedonian monks, and
      to a church of St. Thyrsus, erected by Caesarius, who was consul
      A.D. 397; and the memory of the relics was almost obliterated.
      Notwithstanding the charitable wishes of Dr. Jortin, (Remarks,
      tom. iv. p. 234,) it is not easy to acquit Pulcheria of some
      share in the pious fraud; which must have been transacted when
      she was more than five-and-thirty years of age.]

      The Roman world was deeply interested in the education of its
      master. A regular course of study and exercise was judiciously
      instituted; of the military exercises of riding, and shooting
      with the bow; of the liberal studies of grammar, rhetoric, and
      philosophy: the most skilful masters of the East ambitiously
      solicited the attention of their royal pupil; and several noble
      youths were introduced into the palace, to animate his diligence
      by the emulation of friendship. Pulcheria alone discharged the
      important task of instructing her brother in the arts of
      government; but her precepts may countenance some suspicions of
      the extent of her capacity, or of the purity of her intentions.
      She taught him to maintain a grave and majestic deportment; to
      walk, to hold his robes, to seat himself on his throne, in a
      manner worthy of a great prince; to abstain from laughter; to
      listen with condescension; to return suitable answers; to assume,
      by turns, a serious or a placid countenance: in a word, to
      represent with grace and dignity the external figure of a Roman
      emperor. But Theodosius 72 was never excited to support the
      weight and glory of an illustrious name: and, instead of aspiring
      to support his ancestors, he degenerated (if we may presume to
      measure the degrees of incapacity) below the weakness of his
      father and his uncle. Arcadius and Honorius had been assisted by
      the guardian care of a parent, whose lessons were enforced by his
      authority and example. But the unfortunate prince, who is born in
      the purple, must remain a stranger to the voice of truth; and the
      son of Arcadius was condemned to pass his perpetual infancy
      encompassed only by a servile train of women and eunuchs. The
      ample leisure which he acquired by neglecting the essential
      duties of his high office, was filled by idle amusements and
      unprofitable studies. Hunting was the only active pursuit that
      could tempt him beyond the limits of the palace; but he most
      assiduously labored, sometimes by the light of a midnight lamp,
      in the mechanic occupations of painting and carving; and the
      elegance with which he transcribed religious books entitled the
      Roman emperor to the singular epithet of Calligraphes, or a fair
      writer. Separated from the world by an impenetrable veil,
      Theodosius trusted the persons whom he loved; he loved those who
      were accustomed to amuse and flatter his indolence; and as he
      never perused the papers that were presented for the royal
      signature, the acts of injustice the most repugnant to his
      character were frequently perpetrated in his name. The emperor
      himself was chaste, temperate, liberal, and merciful; but these
      qualities, which can only deserve the name of virtues when they
      are supported by courage and regulated by discretion, were seldom
      beneficial, and they sometimes proved mischievous, to mankind.
      His mind, enervated by a royal education, was oppressed and
      degraded by abject superstition: he fasted, he sung psalms, he
      blindly accepted the miracles and doctrines with which his faith
      was continually nourished. Theodosius devoutly worshipped the
      dead and living saints of the Catholic church; and he once
      refused to eat, till an insolent monk, who had cast an
      excommunication on his sovereign, condescended to heal the
      spiritual wound which he had inflicted. 73

      72 (return) [ There is a remarkable difference between the two
      ecclesiastical historians, who in general bear so close a
      resemblance. Sozomen (l. ix. c. 1) ascribes to Pulcheria the
      government of the empire, and the education of her brother, whom
      he scarcely condescends to praise. Socrates, though he affectedly
      disclaims all hopes of favor or fame, composes an elaborate
      panegyric on the emperor, and cautiously suppresses the merits of
      his sister, (l. vii. c. 22, 42.) Philostorgius (l. xii. c. 7)
      expresses the influence of Pulcheria in gentle and courtly
      language. Suidas (Excerpt. p. 53) gives a true character of
      Theodosius; and I have followed the example of Tillemont (tom.
      vi. p. 25) in borrowing some strokes from the modern Greeks.]

      73 (return) [ Theodoret, l. v. c. 37. The bishop of Cyrrhus, one
      of the first men of his age for his learning and piety, applauds
      the obedience of Theodosius to the divine laws.]

      The story of a fair and virtuous maiden, exalted from a private
      condition to the Imperial throne, might be deemed an incredible
      romance, if such a romance had not been verified in the marriage
      of Theodosius. The celebrated Athenais 74 was educated by her
      father Leontius in the religion and sciences of the Greeks; and
      so advantageous was the opinion which the Athenian philosopher
      entertained of his contemporaries, that he divided his patrimony
      between his two sons, bequeathing to his daughter a small legacy
      of one hundred pieces of gold, in the lively confidence that her
      beauty and merit would be a sufficient portion. The jealousy and
      avarice of her brothers soon compelled Athenais to seek a refuge
      at Constantinople; and, with some hopes, either of justice or
      favor, to throw herself at the feet of Pulcheria. That sagacious
      princess listened to her eloquent complaint; and secretly
      destined the daughter of the philosopher Leontius for the future
      wife of the emperor of the East, who had now attained the
      twentieth year of his age. She easily excited the curiosity of
      her brother, by an interesting picture of the charms of Athenais;
      large eyes, a well-proportioned nose, a fair complexion, golden
      locks, a slender person, a graceful demeanor, an understanding
      improved by study, and a virtue tried by distress. Theodosius,
      concealed behind a curtain in the apartment of his sister, was
      permitted to behold the Athenian virgin: the modest youth
      immediately declared his pure and honorable love; and the royal
      nuptials were celebrated amidst the acclamations of the capital
      and the provinces. Athenais, who was easily persuaded to renounce
      the errors of Paganism, received at her baptism the Christian
      name of Eudocia; but the cautious Pulcheria withheld the title of
      Augusta, till the wife of Theodosius had approved her
      fruitfulness by the birth of a daughter, who espoused, fifteen
      years afterwards, the emperor of the West. The brothers of
      Eudocia obeyed, with some anxiety, her Imperial summons; but as
      she could easily forgive their unfortunate unkindness, she
      indulged the tenderness, or perhaps the vanity, of a sister, by
      promoting them to the rank of consuls and praefects. In the
      luxury of the palace, she still cultivated those ingenuous arts
      which had contributed to her greatness; and wisely dedicated her
      talents to the honor of religion, and of her husband. Eudocia
      composed a poetical paraphrase of the first eight books of the
      Old Testament, and of the prophecies of Daniel and Zechariah; a
      cento of the verses of Homer, applied to the life and miracles of
      Christ, the legend of St. Cyprian, and a panegyric on the Persian
      victories of Theodosius; and her writings, which were applauded
      by a servile and superstitious age, have not been disdained by
      the candor of impartial criticism. 75 The fondness of the emperor
      was not abated by time and possession; and Eudocia, after the
      marriage of her daughter, was permitted to discharge her grateful
      vows by a solemn pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Her ostentatious
      progress through the East may seem inconsistent with the spirit
      of Christian humility; she pronounced, from a throne of gold and
      gems, an eloquent oration to the senate of Antioch, declared her
      royal intention of enlarging the walls of the city, bestowed a
      donative of two hundred pounds of gold to restore the public
      baths, and accepted the statues, which were decreed by the
      gratitude of Antioch. In the Holy Land, her alms and pious
      foundations exceeded the munificence of the great Helena, and
      though the public treasure might be impoverished by this
      excessive liberality, she enjoyed the conscious satisfaction of
      returning to Constantinople with the chains of St. Peter, the
      right arm of St. Stephen, and an undoubted picture of the Virgin,
      painted by St. Luke. 76 But this pilgrimage was the fatal term of
      the glories of Eudocia. Satiated with empty pomp, and unmindful,
      perhaps, of her obligations to Pulcheria, she ambitiously aspired
      to the government of the Eastern empire; the palace was
      distracted by female discord; but the victory was at last
      decided, by the superior ascendant of the sister of Theodosius.
      The execution of Paulinus, master of the offices, and the
      disgrace of Cyrus, Praetorian praefect of the East, convinced the
      public that the favor of Eudocia was insufficient to protect her
      most faithful friends; and the uncommon beauty of Paulinus
      encouraged the secret rumor, that his guilt was that of a
      successful lover. 77 As soon as the empress perceived that the
      affection of Theodosius was irretrievably lost, she requested the
      permission of retiring to the distant solitude of Jerusalem. She
      obtained her request; but the jealousy of Theodosius, or the
      vindictive spirit of Pulcheria, pursued her in her last retreat;
      and Saturninus, count of the domestics, was directed to punish
      with death two ecclesiastics, her most favored servants. Eudocia
      instantly revenged them by the assassination of the count; the
      furious passions which she indulged on this suspicious occasion,
      seemed to justify the severity of Theodosius; and the empress,
      ignominiously stripped of the honors of her rank, 78 was
      disgraced, perhaps unjustly, in the eyes of the world. The
      remainder of the life of Eudocia, about sixteen years, was spent
      in exile and devotion; and the approach of age, the death of
      Theodosius, the misfortunes of her only daughter, who was led a
      captive from Rome to Carthage, and the society of the Holy Monks
      of Palestine, insensibly confirmed the religious temper of her
      mind. After a full experience of the vicissitudes of human life,
      the daughter of the philosopher Leontius expired, at Jerusalem,
      in the sixty-seventh year of her age; protesting, with her dying
      breath, that she had never transgressed the bounds of innocence
      and friendship. 79

      74 (return) [ Socrates (l. vii. c. 21) mentions her name,
      (Athenais, the daughter of Leontius, an Athenian sophist,) her
      baptism, marriage, and poetical genius. The most ancient account
      of her history is in John Malala (part ii. p. 20, 21, edit.
      Venet. 1743) and in the Paschal Chronicle, (p. 311, 312.) Those
      authors had probably seen original pictures of the empress
      Eudocia. The modern Greeks, Zonaras, Cedrenus, &c., have
      displayed the love, rather than the talent of fiction. From
      Nicephorus, indeed, I have ventured to assume her age. The writer
      of a romance would not have imagined, that Athenais was near
      twenty eight years old when she inflamed the heart of a young
      emperor.]

      75 (return) [ Socrates, l. vii. c. 21, Photius, p. 413-420. The
      Homeric cento is still extant, and has been repeatedly printed:
      but the claim of Eudocia to that insipid performance is disputed
      by the critics. See Fabricius, Biblioth. Graec. tom. i. p. 357.
      The Ionia, a miscellaneous dictionary of history and fable, was
      compiled by another empress of the name of Eudocia, who lived in
      the eleventh century: and the work is still extant in
      manuscript.]

      76 (return) [ Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 438, 439) is copious
      and florid, but he is accused of placing the lies of different
      ages on the same level of authenticity.]

      77 (return) [ In this short view of the disgrace of Eudocia, I
      have imitated the caution of Evagrius (l. i. c. 21) and Count
      Marcellinus, (in Chron A.D. 440 and 444.) The two authentic dates
      assigned by the latter, overturn a great part of the Greek
      fictions; and the celebrated story of the apple, &c., is fit only
      for the Arabian Nights, where something not very unlike it may be
      found.]

      78 (return) [ Priscus, (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 69,) a
      contemporary, and a courtier, dryly mentions her Pagan and
      Christian names, without adding any title of honor or respect.]

      79 (return) [ For the two pilgrimages of Eudocia, and her long
      residence at Jerusalem, her devotion, alms, &c., see Socrates (l.
      vii. c. 47) and Evagrius, (l. i. c. 21, 22.) The Paschal
      Chronicle may sometimes deserve regard; and in the domestic
      history of Antioch, John Malala becomes a writer of good
      authority. The Abbe Guenee, in a memoir on the fertility of
      Palestine, of which I have only seen an extract, calculates the
      gifts of Eudocia at 20,488 pounds of gold, above 800,000 pounds
      sterling.]

      The gentle mind of Theodosius was never inflamed by the ambition
      of conquest, or military renown; and the slight alarm of a
      Persian war scarcely interrupted the tranquillity of the East.
      The motives of this war were just and honorable. In the last year
      of the reign of Jezdegerd, the supposed guardian of Theodosius, a
      bishop, who aspired to the crown of martyrdom, destroyed one of
      the fire-temples of Susa. 80 His zeal and obstinacy were revenged
      on his brethren: the Magi excited a cruel persecution; and the
      intolerant zeal of Jezdegerd was imitated by his son Varanes, or
      Bahram, who soon afterwards ascended the throne. Some Christian
      fugitives, who escaped to the Roman frontier, were sternly
      demanded, and generously refused; and the refusal, aggravated by
      commercial disputes, soon kindled a war between the rival
      monarchies. The mountains of Armenia, and the plains of
      Mesopotamia, were filled with hostile armies; but the operations
      of two successive campaigns were not productive of any decisive
      or memorable events. Some engagements were fought, some towns
      were besieged, with various and doubtful success: and if the
      Romans failed in their attempt to recover the long-lost
      possession of Nisibis, the Persians were repulsed from the walls
      of a Mesopotamian city, by the valor of a martial bishop, who
      pointed his thundering engine in the name of St. Thomas the
      Apostle. Yet the splendid victories which the incredible speed of
      the messenger Palladius repeatedly announced to the palace of
      Constantinople, were celebrated with festivals and panegyrics.
      From these panegyrics the historians 81 of the age might borrow
      their extraordinary, and, perhaps, fabulous tales; of the proud
      challenge of a Persian hero, who was entangled by the net, and
      despatched by the sword, of Areobindus the Goth; of the ten
      thousand Immortals, who were slain in the attack of the Roman
      camp; and of the hundred thousand Arabs, or Saracens, who were
      impelled by a panic terror to throw themselves headlong into the
      Euphrates. Such events may be disbelieved or disregarded; but the
      charity of a bishop, Acacius of Amida, whose name might have
      dignified the saintly calendar, shall not be lost in oblivion.
      Boldly declaring, that vases of gold and silver are useless to a
      God who neither eats nor drinks, the generous prelate sold the
      plate of the church of Amida; employed the price in the
      redemption of seven thousand Persian captives; supplied their
      wants with affectionate liberality; and dismissed them to their
      native country, to inform their king of the true spirit of the
      religion which he persecuted. The practice of benevolence in the
      midst of war must always tend to assuage the animosity of
      contending nations; and I wish to persuade myself, that Acacius
      contributed to the restoration of peace. In the conference which
      was held on the limits of the two empires, the Roman ambassadors
      degraded the personal character of their sovereign, by a vain
      attempt to magnify the extent of his power; when they seriously
      advised the Persians to prevent, by a timely accommodation, the
      wrath of a monarch, who was yet ignorant of this distant war. A
      truce of one hundred years was solemnly ratified; and although
      the revolutions of Armenia might threaten the public
      tranquillity, the essential conditions of this treaty were
      respected near fourscore years by the successors of Constantine
      and Artaxerxes.

      80 (return) [ Theodoret, l. v. c. 39 Tillemont. Mem. Eccles tom.
      xii. 356-364. Assemanni, Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iii. p. 396,
      tom. iv. p. 61. Theodoret blames the rashness of Abdas, but
      extols the constancy of his martyrdom. Yet I do not clearly
      understand the casuistry which prohibits our repairing the damage
      which we have unlawfully committed.]

      81 (return) [ Socrates (l. vii. c. 18, 19, 20, 21) is the best
      author for the Persian war. We may likewise consult the three
      Chronicles, the Paschal and those of Marcellinus and Malala.]

      Since the Roman and Parthian standards first encountered on the
      banks of the Euphrates, the kingdom of Armenia 82 was alternately
      oppressed by its formidable protectors; and in the course of this
      History, several events, which inclined the balance of peace and
      war, have been already related. A disgraceful treaty had resigned
      Armenia to the ambition of Sapor; and the scale of Persia
      appeared to preponderate. But the royal race of Arsaces
      impatiently submitted to the house of Sassan; the turbulent
      nobles asserted, or betrayed, their hereditary independence; and
      the nation was still attached to the Christian princes of
      Constantinople. In the beginning of the fifth century, Armenia
      was divided by the progress of war and faction; 83 and the
      unnatural division precipitated the downfall of that ancient
      monarchy. Chosroes, the Persian vassal, reigned over the Eastern
      and most extensive portion of the country; while the Western
      province acknowledged the jurisdiction of Arsaces, and the
      supremacy of the emperor Arcadius. 8111 After the death of
      Arsaces, the Romans suppressed the regal government, and imposed
      on their allies the condition of subjects. The military command
      was delegated to the count of the Armenian frontier; the city of
      Theodosiopolis 84 was built and fortified in a strong situation,
      on a fertile and lofty ground, near the sources of the Euphrates;
      and the dependent territories were ruled by five satraps, whose
      dignity was marked by a peculiar habit of gold and purple. The
      less fortunate nobles, who lamented the loss of their king, and
      envied the honors of their equals, were provoked to negotiate
      their peace and pardon at the Persian court; and returning, with
      their followers, to the palace of Artaxata, acknowledged Chosroes
      8411 for their lawful sovereign. About thirty years afterwards,
      Artasires, the nephew and successor of Chosroes, fell under the
      displeasure of the haughty and capricious nobles of Armenia; and
      they unanimously desired a Persian governor in the room of an
      unworthy king. The answer of the archbishop Isaac, whose sanction
      they earnestly solicited, is expressive of the character of a
      superstitious people. He deplored the manifest and inexcusable
      vices of Artasires; and declared, that he should not hesitate to
      accuse him before the tribunal of a Christian emperor, who would
      punish, without destroying, the sinner. “Our king,“ continued
      Isaac, “is too much addicted to licentious pleasures, but he has
      been purified in the holy waters of baptism. He is a lover of
      women, but he does not adore the fire or the elements. He may
      deserve the reproach of lewdness, but he is an undoubted
      Catholic; and his faith is pure, though his manners are
      flagitious. I will never consent to abandon my sheep to the rage
      of devouring wolves; and you would soon repent your rash exchange
      of the infirmities of a believer, for the specious virtues of a
      heathen.“ 85 Exasperated by the firmness of Isaac, the factious
      nobles accused both the king and the archbishop as the secret
      adherents of the emperor; and absurdly rejoiced in the sentence
      of condemnation, which, after a partial hearing, was solemnly
      pronounced by Bahram himself. The descendants of Arsaces were
      degraded from the royal dignity, 86 which they had possessed
      above five hundred and sixty years; 87 and the dominions of the
      unfortunate Artasires, 8711 under the new and significant
      appellation of Persarmenia, were reduced into the form of a
      province. This usurpation excited the jealousy of the Roman
      government; but the rising disputes were soon terminated by an
      amicable, though unequal, partition of the ancient kingdom of
      Armenia: 8712 and a territorial acquisition, which Augustus might
      have despised, reflected some lustre on the declining empire of
      the younger Theodosius.

      82 (return) [ This account of the ruin and division of the
      kingdom of Armenia is taken from the third book of the Armenian
      history of Moses of Chorene. Deficient as he is in every
      qualification of a good historian, his local information, his
      passions, and his prejudices are strongly expressive of a native
      and contemporary. Procopius (de Edificiis, l. iii. c. 1, 5)
      relates the same facts in a very different manner; but I have
      extracted the circumstances the most probable in themselves, and
      the least inconsistent with Moses of Chorene.]

      83 (return) [ The western Armenians used the Greek language and
      characters in their religious offices; but the use of that
      hostile tongue was prohibited by the Persians in the Eastern
      provinces, which were obliged to use the Syriac, till the
      invention of the Armenian letters by Mesrobes, in the beginning
      of the fifth century, and the subsequent version of the Bible
      into the Armenian language; an event which relaxed to the
      connection of the church and nation with Constantinople.]

      84 (return) [ Moses Choren. l. iii. c. 59, p. 309, and p. 358.
      Procopius, de Edificiis, l. iii. c. 5. Theodosiopolis stands, or
      rather stood, about thirty-five miles to the east of Arzeroum,
      the modern capital of Turkish Armenia. See D’Anville, Geographie
      Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 99, 100.]

      8111 (return) [ The division of Armenia, according to M. St.
      Martin, took place much earlier, A. C. 390. The Eastern or
      Persian division was four times as large as the Western or Roman.
      This partition took place during the reigns of Theodosius the
      First, and Varanes (Bahram) the Fourth. St. Martin, Sup. to Le
      Beau, iv. 429. This partition was but imperfectly accomplished,
      as both parts were afterwards reunited under Chosroes, who paid
      tribute both to the Roman emperor and to the Persian king. v.
      439.—M.]

      8411 (return) [ Chosroes, according to Procopius (who calls him
      Arsaces, the common name of the Armenian kings) and the Armenian
      writers, bequeathed to his two sons, to Tigranes the Persian, to
      Arsaces the Roman, division of Armenia, A. C. 416. With the
      assistance of the discontented nobles the Persian king placed his
      son Sapor on the throne of the Eastern division; the Western at
      the same time was united to the Roman empire, and called the
      Greater Armenia. It was then that Theodosiopolis was built. Sapor
      abandoned the throne of Armenia to assert his rights to that of
      Persia; he perished in the struggle, and after a period of
      anarchy, Bahram V., who had ascended the throne of Persia, placed
      the last native prince, Ardaschir, son of Bahram Schahpour, on
      the throne of the Persian division of Armenia. St. Martin, v.
      506. This Ardaschir was the Artasires of Gibbon. The archbishop
      Isaac is called by the Armenians the Patriarch Schag. St. Martin,
      vi. 29.—M.]

      85 (return) [ Moses Choren, l. iii. c. 63, p. 316. According to
      the institution of St. Gregory, the Apostle of Armenia, the
      archbishop was always of the royal family; a circumstance which,
      in some degree, corrected the influence of the sacerdotal
      character, and united the mitre with the crown.]

      86 (return) [ A branch of the royal house of Arsaces still
      subsisted with the rank and possessions (as it should seem) of
      Armenian satraps. See Moses Choren. l. iii. c. 65, p. 321.]

      87 (return) [ Valarsaces was appointed king of Armenia by his
      brother the Parthian monarch, immediately after the defeat of
      Antiochus Sidetes, (Moses Choren. l. ii. c. 2, p. 85,) one
      hundred and thirty years before Christ. Without depending on the
      various and contradictory periods of the reigns of the last
      kings, we may be assured, that the ruin of the Armenian kingdom
      happened after the council of Chalcedon, A.D. 431, (l. iii. c.
      61, p. 312;) and under Varamus, or Bahram, king of Persia, (l.
      iii. c. 64, p. 317,) who reigned from A.D. 420 to 440. See
      Assemanni, Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iii. p. 396. * Note: Five
      hundred and eighty. St. Martin, ibid. He places this event A. C
      429.—M.——Note: According to M. St. Martin, vi. 32, Vagharschah,
      or Valarsaces, was appointed king by his brother Mithridates the
      Great, king of Parthia.—M.]

      8711 (return) [ Artasires or Ardaschir was probably sent to the
      castle of Oblivion. St. Martin, vi. 31.—M.]

      8712 (return) [ The duration of the Armenian kingdom according to
      M. St. Martin, was 580 years.—M]




      Chapter XXXIII: Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.—Part I.

     Death Of Honorius.—Valentinian III.—Emperor Of The East.
     —Administration Of His Mother Placidia—Aetius And
     Boniface.—Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.

      During a long and disgraceful reign of twenty-eight years,
      Honorius, emperor of the West, was separated from the friendship
      of his brother, and afterwards of his nephew, who reigned over
      the East; and Constantinople beheld, with apparent indifference
      and secret joy, the calamities of Rome. The strange adventures of
      Placidia 1 gradually renewed and cemented the alliance of the two
      empires. The daughter of the great Theodosius had been the
      captive, and the queen, of the Goths; she lost an affectionate
      husband; she was dragged in chains by his insulting assassin; she
      tasted the pleasure of revenge, and was exchanged, in the treaty
      of peace, for six hundred thousand measures of wheat. After her
      return from Spain to Italy, Placidia experienced a new
      persecution in the bosom of her family. She was averse to a
      marriage, which had been stipulated without her consent; and the
      brave Constantius, as a noble reward for the tyrants whom he had
      vanquished, received, from the hand of Honorius himself, the
      struggling and the reluctant hand of the widow of Adolphus. But
      her resistance ended with the ceremony of the nuptials: nor did
      Placidia refuse to become the mother of Honoria and Valentinian
      the Third, or to assume and exercise an absolute dominion over
      the mind of her grateful husband. The generous soldier, whose
      time had hitherto been divided between social pleasure and
      military service, was taught new lessons of avarice and ambition:
      he extorted the title of Augustus: and the servant of Honorius
      was associated to the empire of the West. The death of
      Constantius, in the seventh month of his reign, instead of
      diminishing, seemed to inerease the power of Placidia; and the
      indecent familiarity 2 of her brother, which might be no more
      than the symptoms of a childish affection, were universally
      attributed to incestuous love. On a sudden, by some base
      intrigues of a steward and a nurse, this excessive fondness was
      converted into an irreconcilable quarrel: the debates of the
      emperor and his sister were not long confined within the walls of
      the palace; and as the Gothic soldiers adhered to their queen,
      the city of Ravenna was agitated with bloody and dangerous
      tumults, which could only be appeased by the forced or voluntary
      retreat of Placidia and her children. The royal exiles landed at
      Constantinople, soon after the marriage of Theodosius, during the
      festival of the Persian victories. They were treated with
      kindness and magnificence; but as the statues of the emperor
      Constantius had been rejected by the Eastern court, the title of
      Augusta could not decently be allowed to his widow. Within a few
      months after the arrival of Placidia, a swift messenger announced
      the death of Honorius, the consequence of a dropsy; but the
      important secret was not divulged, till the necessary orders had
      been despatched for the march of a large body of troops to the
      sea-coast of Dalmatia. The shops and the gates of Constantinople
      remained shut during seven days; and the loss of a foreign
      prince, who could neither be esteemed nor regretted, was
      celebrated with loud and affected demonstrations of the public
      grief.

      1 (return) [ See vol. iii. p. 296.]

      2 (return) [ It is the expression of Olympiodorus (apud Phetium
      p. 197;) who means, perhaps, to describe the same caresses which
      Mahomet bestowed on his daughter Phatemah. Quando, (says the
      prophet himself,) quando subit mihi desiderium Paradisi, osculor
      eam, et ingero linguam meam in os ejus. But this sensual
      indulgence was justified by miracle and mystery; and the anecdote
      has been communicated to the public by the Reverend Father
      Maracci in his Version and Confutation of the Koran, tom. i. p.
      32.]

      While the ministers of Constantinople deliberated, the vacant
      throne of Honorius was usurped by the ambition of a stranger. The
      name of the rebel was John; he filled the confidential office of
      Primicerius, or principal secretary, and history has attributed
      to his character more virtues, than can easily be reconciled with
      the violation of the most sacred duty. Elated by the submission
      of Italy, and the hope of an alliance with the Huns, John
      presumed to insult, by an embassy, the majesty of the Eastern
      emperor; but when he understood that his agents had been
      banished, imprisoned, and at length chased away with deserved
      ignominy, John prepared to assert, by arms, the injustice of his
      claims. In such a cause, the grandson of the great Theodosius
      should have marched in person: but the young emperor was easily
      diverted, by his physicians, from so rash and hazardous a design;
      and the conduct of the Italian expedition was prudently intrusted
      to Ardaburius, and his son Aspar, who had already signalized
      their valor against the Persians. It was resolved, that
      Ardaburius should embark with the infantry; whilst Aspar, at the
      head of the cavalry, conducted Placidia and her son Valentinian
      along the sea-coast of the Adriatic. The march of the cavalry was
      performed with such active diligence, that they surprised,
      without resistance, the important city of Aquileia: when the
      hopes of Aspar were unexpectedly confounded by the intelligence,
      that a storm had dispersed the Imperial fleet; and that his
      father, with only two galleys, was taken and carried a prisoner
      into the port of Ravenna. Yet this incident, unfortunate as it
      might seem, facilitated the conquest of Italy. Ardaburius
      employed, or abused, the courteous freedom which he was permitted
      to enjoy, to revive among the troops a sense of loyalty and
      gratitude; and as soon as the conspiracy was ripe for execution,
      he invited, by private messages, and pressed the approach of,
      Aspar. A shepherd, whom the popular credulity transformed into an
      angel, guided the eastern cavalry by a secret, and, it was
      thought, an impassable road, through the morasses of the Po: the
      gates of Ravenna, after a short struggle, were thrown open; and
      the defenceless tyrant was delivered to the mercy, or rather to
      the cruelty, of the conquerors. His right hand was first cut off;
      and, after he had been exposed, mounted on an ass, to the public
      derision, John was beheaded in the circus of Aquileia. The
      emperor Theodosius, when he received the news of the victory,
      interrupted the horse-races; and singing, as he marched through
      the streets, a suitable psalm, conducted his people from the
      Hippodrome to the church, where he spent the remainder of the day
      in grateful devotion. 3

      3 (return) [ For these revolutions of the Western empire, consult
      Olympiodor, apud Phot. p. 192, 193, 196, 197, 200; Sozomen, l.
      ix. c. 16; Socrates, l. vii. 23, 24; Philostorgius, l. xii. c.
      10, 11, and Godefroy, Dissertat p. 486; Procopius, de Bell.
      Vandal. l. i. c. 3, p. 182, 183, in Chronograph, p. 72, 73, and
      the Chronicles.]

      In a monarchy, which, according to various precedents, might be
      considered as elective, or hereditary, or patrimonial, it was
      impossible that the intricate claims of female and collateral
      succession should be clearly defined; 4 and Theodosius, by the
      right of consanguinity or conquest, might have reigned the sole
      legitimate emperor of the Romans. For a moment, perhaps, his eyes
      were dazzled by the prospect of unbounded sway; but his indolent
      temper gradually acquiesced in the dictates of sound policy. He
      contented himself with the possession of the East; and wisely
      relinquished the laborious task of waging a distant and doubtful
      war against the Barbarians beyond the Alps; or of securing the
      obedience of the Italians and Africans, whose minds were
      alienated by the irreconcilable difference of language and
      interest. Instead of listening to the voice of ambition,
      Theodosius resolved to imitate the moderation of his grandfather,
      and to seat his cousin Valentinian on the throne of the West. The
      royal infant was distinguished at Constantinople by the title of
      Nobilissimus: he was promoted, before his departure from
      Thessalonica, to the rank and dignity of Caesar; and after the
      conquest of Italy, the patrician Helion, by the authority of
      Theodosius, and in the presence of the senate, saluted
      Valentinian the Third by the name of Augustus, and solemnly
      invested him with the diadem and the Imperial purple. 5 By the
      agreement of the three females who governed the Roman world, the
      son of Placidia was betrothed to Eudoxia, the daughter of
      Theodosius and Athenais; and as soon as the lover and his bride
      had attained the age of puberty, this honorable alliance was
      faithfully accomplished. At the same time, as a compensation,
      perhaps, for the expenses of the war, the Western Illyricum was
      detached from the Italian dominions, and yielded to the throne of
      Constantinople. 6 The emperor of the East acquired the useful
      dominion of the rich and maritime province of Dalmatia, and the
      dangerous sovereignty of Pannonia and Noricum, which had been
      filled and ravaged above twenty years by a promiscuous crowd of
      Huns, Ostrogoths, Vandals, and Bavarians. Theodosius and
      Valentinian continued to respect the obligations of their public
      and domestic alliance; but the unity of the Roman government was
      finally dissolved. By a positive declaration, the validity of all
      future laws was limited to the dominions of their peculiar
      author; unless he should think proper to communicate them,
      subscribed with his own hand, for the approbation of his
      independent colleague. 7

      4 (return) [ See Grotius de Jure Belli et Pacis, l. ii. c. 7. He
      has laboriously out vainly, attempted to form a reasonable system
      of jurisprudence from the various and discordant modes of royal
      succession, which have been introduced by fraud or force, by time
      or accident.]

      5 (return) [ The original writers are not agreed (see Muratori,
      Annali d’Italia tom. iv. p. 139) whether Valentinian received the
      Imperial diadem at Rome or Ravenna. In this uncertainty, I am
      willing to believe, that some respect was shown to the senate.]

      6 (return) [ The count de Buat (Hist. des Peup es de l’Europe,
      tom. vii. p. 292-300) has established the reality, explained the
      motives, and traced the consequences, of this remarkable
      cession.]

      7 (return) [ See the first Novel of Theodosius, by which he
      ratifies and communicates (A.D. 438) the Theodosian Code. About
      forty years before that time, the unity of legislation had been
      proved by an exception. The Jews, who were numerous in the cities
      of Apulia and Calabria, produced a law of the East to justify
      their exemption from municipal offices, (Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit.
      viii. leg. 13;) and the Western emperor was obliged to
      invalidate, by a special edict, the law, quam constat meis
      partibus esse damnosam. Cod. Theod. l. xi. tit. i. leg. 158.]

      Valentinian, when he received the title of Augustus, was no more
      than six years of age; and his long minority was intrusted to the
      guardian care of a mother, who might assert a female claim to the
      succession of the Western empire. Placidia envied, but she could
      not equal, the reputation and virtues of the wife and sister of
      Theodosius, the elegant genius of Eudocia, the wise and
      successful policy of Pulcheria. The mother of Valentinian was
      jealous of the power which she was incapable of exercising; 8 she
      reigned twenty-five years, in the name of her son; and the
      character of that unworthy emperor gradually countenanced the
      suspicion that Placidia had enervated his youth by a dissolute
      education, and studiously diverted his attention from every manly
      and honorable pursuit. Amidst the decay of military spirit, her
      armies were commanded by two generals, Aetius 9 and Boniface, 10
      who may be deservedly named as the last of the Romans. Their
      union might have supported a sinking empire; their discord was
      the fatal and immediate cause of the loss of Africa. The invasion
      and defeat of Attila have immortalized the fame of Aetius; and
      though time has thrown a shade over the exploits of his rival,
      the defence of Marseilles, and the deliverance of Africa, attest
      the military talents of Count Boniface. In the field of battle,
      in partial encounters, in single combats, he was still the terror
      of the Barbarians: the clergy, and particularly his friend
      Augustin, were edified by the Christian piety which had once
      tempted him to retire from the world; the people applauded his
      spotless integrity; the army dreaded his equal and inexorable
      justice, which may be displayed in a very singular example. A
      peasant, who complained of the criminal intimacy between his wife
      and a Gothic soldier, was directed to attend his tribunal the
      following day: in the evening the count, who had diligently
      informed himself of the time and place of the assignation,
      mounted his horse, rode ten miles into the country, surprised the
      guilty couple, punished the soldier with instant death, and
      silenced the complaints of the husband by presenting him, the
      next morning, with the head of the adulterer. The abilities of
      Aetius and Boniface might have been usefully employed against the
      public enemies, in separate and important commands; but the
      experience of their past conduct should have decided the real
      favor and confidence of the empress Placidia. In the melancholy
      season of her exile and distress, Boniface alone had maintained
      her cause with unshaken fidelity: and the troops and treasures of
      Africa had essentially contributed to extinguish the rebellion.
      The same rebellion had been supported by the zeal and activity of
      Aetius, who brought an army of sixty thousand Huns from the
      Danube to the confines of Italy, for the service of the usurper.
      The untimely death of John compelled him to accept an
      advantageous treaty; but he still continued, the subject and the
      soldier of Valentinian, to entertain a secret, perhaps a
      treasonable, correspondence with his Barbarian allies, whose
      retreat had been purchased by liberal gifts, and more liberal
      promises. But Aetius possessed an advantage of singular moment in
      a female reign; he was present: he besieged, with artful and
      assiduous flattery, the palace of Ravenna; disguised his dark
      designs with the mask of loyalty and friendship; and at length
      deceived both his mistress and his absent rival, by a subtle
      conspiracy, which a weak woman and a brave man could not easily
      suspect. He had secretly persuaded 11 Placidia to recall Boniface
      from the government of Africa; he secretly advised Boniface to
      disobey the Imperial summons: to the one, he represented the
      order as a sentence of death; to the other, he stated the refusal
      as a signal of revolt; and when the credulous and unsuspectful
      count had armed the province in his defence, Aetius applauded his
      sagacity in foreseeing the rebellion, which his own perfidy had
      excited. A temperate inquiry into the real motives of Boniface
      would have restored a faithful servant to his duty and to the
      republic; but the arts of Aetius still continued to betray and to
      inflame, and the count was urged, by persecution, to embrace the
      most desperate counsels. The success with which he eluded or
      repelled the first attacks, could not inspire a vain confidence,
      that at the head of some loose, disorderly Africans, he should be
      able to withstand the regular forces of the West, commanded by a
      rival, whose military character it was impossible for him to
      despise. After some hesitation, the last struggles of prudence
      and loyalty, Boniface despatched a trusty friend to the court, or
      rather to the camp, of Gonderic, king of the Vandals, with the
      proposal of a strict alliance, and the offer of an advantageous
      and perpetual settlement.

      8 (return) [ Cassiodorus (Variar. l. xi. Epist. i. p. 238) has
      compared the regencies of Placidia and Amalasuntha. He arraigns
      the weakness of the mother of Valentinian, and praises the
      virtues of his royal mistress. On this occasion, flattery seems
      to have spoken the language of truth.]

      9 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. xii. c. 12, and Godefroy’s
      Dissertat. p. 493, &c.; and Renatus Frigeridus, apud Gregor.
      Turon. l. ii. c. 8, in tom. ii. p. 163. The father of Aetius was
      Gaudentius, an illustrious citizen of the province of Scythia,
      and master-general of the cavalry; his mother was a rich and
      noble Italian. From his earliest youth, Aetius, as a soldier and
      a hostage, had conversed with the Barbarians.]

      10 (return) [ For the character of Boniface, see Olympiodorus,
      apud Phot. p. 196; and St. Augustin apud Tillemont, Memoires
      Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 712-715, 886. The bishop of Hippo at length
      deplored the fall of his friend, who, after a solemn vow of
      chastity, had married a second wife of the Arian sect, and who
      was suspected of keeping several concubines in his house.]

      11 (return) [ Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 3, 4, p.
      182-186) relates the fraud of Aetius, the revolt of Boniface, and
      the loss of Africa. This anecdote, which is supported by some
      collateral testimony, (see Ruinart, Hist. Persecut. Vandal. p.
      420, 421,) seems agreeable to the practice of ancient and modern
      courts, and would be naturally revealed by the repentance of
      Boniface.]

      After the retreat of the Goths, the authority of Honorius had
      obtained a precarious establishment in Spain; except only in the
      province of Gallicia, where the Suevi and the Vandals had
      fortified their camps, in mutual discord and hostile
      independence. The Vandals prevailed; and their adversaries were
      besieged in the Nervasian hills, between Leon and Oviedo, till
      the approach of Count Asterius compelled, or rather provoked, the
      victorious Barbarians to remove the scene of the war to the
      plains of Boetica. The rapid progress of the Vandals soon
      acquired a more effectual opposition; and the master-general
      Castinus marched against them with a numerous army of Romans and
      Goths. Vanquished in battle by an inferior army, Castinus fled
      with dishonor to Tarragona; and this memorable defeat, which has
      been represented as the punishment, was most probably the effect,
      of his rash presumption. 12 Seville and Carthagena became the
      reward, or rather the prey, of the ferocious conquerors; and the
      vessels which they found in the harbor of Carthagena might easily
      transport them to the Isles of Majorca and Minorca, where the
      Spanish fugitives, as in a secure recess, had vainly concealed
      their families and their fortunes. The experience of navigation,
      and perhaps the prospect of Africa, encouraged the Vandals to
      accept the invitation which they received from Count Boniface;
      and the death of Gonderic served only to forward and animate the
      bold enterprise. In the room of a prince not conspicuous for any
      superior powers of the mind or body, they acquired his bastard
      brother, the terrible Genseric; 13 a name, which, in the
      destruction of the Roman empire, has deserved an equal rank with
      the names of Alaric and Attila. The king of the Vandals is
      described to have been of a middle stature, with a lameness in
      one leg, which he had contracted by an accidental fall from his
      horse. His slow and cautious speech seldom declared the deep
      purposes of his soul; he disdained to imitate the luxury of the
      vanquished; but he indulged the sterner passions of anger and
      revenge. The ambition of Genseric was without bounds and without
      scruples; and the warrior could dexterously employ the dark
      engines of policy to solicit the allies who might be useful to
      his success, or to scatter among his enemies the seeds of hatred
      and contention. Almost in the moment of his departure he was
      informed that Hermanric, king of the Suevi, had presumed to
      ravage the Spanish territories, which he was resolved to abandon.

      Impatient of the insult, Genseric pursued the hasty retreat of
      the Suevi as far as Merida; precipitated the king and his army
      into the River Anas, and calmly returned to the sea-shore to
      embark his victorious troops. The vessels which transported the
      Vandals over the modern Straits of Gibraltar, a channel only
      twelve miles in breadth, were furnished by the Spaniards, who
      anxiously wished their departure; and by the African general, who
      had implored their formidable assistance. 14

      12 (return) [ See the Chronicles of Prosper and Idatius. Salvian
      (de Gubernat. Dei, l. vii. p. 246, Paris, 1608) ascribes the
      victory of the Vandals to their superior piety. They fasted, they
      prayed, they carried a Bible in the front of the Host, with the
      design, perhaps, of reproaching the perfidy and sacrilege of
      their enemies.]

      13 (return) [ Gizericus (his name is variously expressed) statura
      mediocris et equi casu claudicans, animo profundus, sermone
      rarus, luxuriae contemptor, ira turbidus, habendi cupidus, ad
      solicitandas gentes providentissimus, semina contentionum jacere,
      odia miscere paratus. Jornandes, de Rebus Geticis, c. 33, p. 657.
      This portrait, which is drawn with some skill, and a strong
      likeness, must have been copied from the Gothic history of
      Cassiodorus.]

      14 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Idatius. That bishop, a
      Spaniard and a contemporary, places the passage of the Vandals in
      the month of May, of the year of Abraham, (which commences in
      October,) 2444. This date, which coincides with A.D. 429, is
      confirmed by Isidore, another Spanish bishop, and is justly
      preferred to the opinion of those writers who have marked for
      that event one of the two preceding years. See Pagi Critica, tom.
      ii. p. 205, &c.]

      Our fancy, so long accustomed to exaggerate and multiply the
      martial swarms of Barbarians that seemed to issue from the North,
      will perhaps be surprised by the account of the army which
      Genseric mustered on the coast of Mauritania. The Vandals, who in
      twenty years had penetrated from the Elbe to Mount Atlas, were
      united under the command of their warlike king; and he reigned
      with equal authority over the Alani, who had passed, within the
      term of human life, from the cold of Scythia to the excessive
      heat of an African climate. The hopes of the bold enterprise had
      excited many brave adventurers of the Gothic nation; and many
      desperate provincials were tempted to repair their fortunes by
      the same means which had occasioned their ruin. Yet this various
      multitude amounted only to fifty thousand effective men; and
      though Genseric artfully magnified his apparent strength, by
      appointing eighty chinarchs, or commanders of thousands, the
      fallacious increase of old men, of children, and of slaves, would
      scarcely have swelled his army to the number of four-score
      thousand persons. 15 But his own dexterity, and the discontents
      of Africa, soon fortified the Vandal powers, by the accession of
      numerous and active allies. The parts of Mauritania which border
      on the Great Desert and the Atlantic Ocean, were filled with a
      fierce and untractable race of men, whose savage temper had been
      exasperated, rather than reclaimed, by their dread of the Roman
      arms. The wandering Moors, 16 as they gradually ventured to
      approach the seashore, and the camp of the Vandals, must have
      viewed with terror and astonishment the dress, the armor, the
      martial pride and discipline of the unknown strangers who had
      landed on their coast; and the fair complexions of the blue-eyed
      warriors of Germany formed a very singular contrast with the
      swarthy or olive hue which is derived from the neighborhood of
      the torrid zone. After the first difficulties had in some measure
      been removed, which arose from the mutual ignorance of their
      respective language, the Moors, regardless of any future
      consequence, embraced the alliance of the enemies of Rome; and a
      crowd of naked savages rushed from the woods and valleys of Mount
      Atlas, to satiate their revenge on the polished tyrants, who had
      injuriously expelled them from the native sovereignty of the
      land.

      15 (return) [ Compare Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p.
      190) and Victor Vitensis, (de Persecutione Vandal. l. i. c. 1, p.
      3, edit. Ruinart.) We are assured by Idatius, that Genseric
      evacuated Spain, cum Vandalis omnibus eorumque familiis; and
      Possidius (in Vit. Augustin. c. 28, apud Ruinart, p. 427)
      describes his army as manus ingens immanium gentium Vandalorum et
      Alanorum, commixtam secum babens Gothorum gentem, aliarumque
      diversarum personas.]

      16 (return) [ For the manners of the Moors, see Procopius, (de
      Bell. Vandal. l. ii. c. 6, p. 249;) for their figure and
      complexion, M. de Buffon, (Histoire Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 430.)
      Procopius says in general, that the Moors had joined the Vandals
      before the death of Valentinian, (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p.
      190;) and it is probable that the independent tribes did not
      embrace any uniform system of policy.]

      The persecution of the Donatists 17 was an event not less
      favorable to the designs of Genseric. Seventeen years before he
      landed in Africa, a public conference was held at Carthage, by
      the order of the magistrate. The Catholics were satisfied, that,
      after the invincible reasons which they had alleged, the
      obstinacy of the schismatics must be inexcusable and voluntary;
      and the emperor Honorius was persuaded to inflict the most
      rigorous penalties on a faction which had so long abused his
      patience and clemency. Three hundred bishops, 18 with many
      thousands of the inferior clergy, were torn from their churches,
      stripped of their ecclesiastical possessions, banished to the
      islands, and proscribed by the laws, if they presumed to conceal
      themselves in the provinces of Africa. Their numerous
      congregations, both in cities and in the country, were deprived
      of the rights of citizens, and of the exercise of religious
      worship. A regular scale of fines, from ten to two hundred pounds
      of silver, was curiously ascertained, according to the
      distinction of rank and fortune, to punish the crime of assisting
      at a schismatic conventicle; and if the fine had been levied five
      times, without subduing the obstinacy of the offender, his future
      punishment was referred to the discretion of the Imperial court.
      19 By these severities, which obtained the warmest approbation of
      St. Augustin, 20 great numbers of Donatists were reconciled to
      the Catholic Church; but the fanatics, who still persevered in
      their opposition, were provoked to madness and despair; the
      distracted country was filled with tumult and bloodshed; the
      armed troops of Circumcellions alternately pointed their rage
      against themselves, or against their adversaries; and the
      calendar of martyrs received on both sides a considerable
      augmentation. 21 Under these circumstances, Genseric, a
      Christian, but an enemy of the orthodox communion, showed himself
      to the Donatists as a powerful deliverer, from whom they might
      reasonably expect the repeal of the odious and oppressive edicts
      of the Roman emperors. 22 The conquest of Africa was facilitated
      by the active zeal, or the secret favor, of a domestic faction;
      the wanton outrages against the churches and the clergy of which
      the Vandals are accused, may be fairly imputed to the fanaticism
      of their allies; and the intolerant spirit which disgraced the
      triumph of Christianity, contributed to the loss of the most
      important province of the West. 23

      17 (return) [ See Tillemont, Memoires Eccles. tom. xiii. p.
      516-558; and the whole series of the persecution, in the original
      monuments, published by Dupin at the end of Optatus, p. 323-515.]

      18 (return) [ The Donatist Bishops, at the conference of
      Carthage, amounted to 279; and they asserted that their whole
      number was not less than 400. The Catholics had 286 present, 120
      absent, besides sixty four vacant bishoprics.]

      19 (return) [ The fifth title of the sixteenth book of the
      Theodosian Code exhibits a series of the Imperial laws against
      the Donatists, from the year 400 to the year 428. Of these the
      54th law, promulgated by Honorius, A.D. 414, is the most severe
      and effectual.]

      20 (return) [ St. Augustin altered his opinion with regard tosthe
      proper treatment of heretics. His pathetic declaration of pity
      and indulgence for the Manichaeans, has been inserted by Mr.
      Locke (vol. iii. p. 469) among the choice specimens of his
      common-place book. Another philosopher, the celebrated Bayle,
      (tom. ii. p. 445-496,) has refuted, with superfluous diligence
      and ingenuity, the arguments by which the bishop of Hippo
      justified, in his old age, the persecution of the Donatists.]

      21 (return) [ See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 586-592,
      806. The Donatists boasted of thousands of these voluntary
      martyrs. Augustin asserts, and probably with truth, that these
      numbers were much exaggerated; but he sternly maintains, that it
      was better that some should burn themselves in this world, than
      that all should burn in hell flames.]

      22 (return) [ According to St. Augustin and Theodoret, the
      Donatists were inclined to the principles, or at least to the
      party, of the Arians, which Genseric supported. Tillemont, Mem.
      Eccles. tom. vi. p. 68.]

      23 (return) [ See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 428, No. 7, A.D.
      439, No. 35. The cardinal, though more inclined to seek the cause
      of great events in heaven than on the earth, has observed the
      apparent connection of the Vandals and the Donatists. Under the
      reign of the Barbarians, the schismatics of Africa enjoyed an
      obscure peace of one hundred years; at the end of which we may
      again trace them by the fight of the Imperial persecutions. See
      Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 192. &c.]

      The court and the people were astonished by the strange
      intelligence, that a virtuous hero, after so many favors, and so
      many services, had renounced his allegiance, and invited the
      Barbarians to destroy the province intrusted to his command. The
      friends of Boniface, who still believed that his criminal
      behavior might be excused by some honorable motive, solicited,
      during the absence of Aetius, a free conference with the Count of
      Africa; and Darius, an officer of high distinction, was named for
      the important embassy. 24 In their first interview at Carthage,
      the imaginary provocations were mutually explained; the opposite
      letters of Aetius were produced and compared; and the fraud was
      easily detected. Placidia and Boniface lamented their fatal
      error; and the count had sufficient magnanimity to confide in the
      forgiveness of his sovereign, or to expose his head to her future
      resentment. His repentance was fervent and sincere; but he soon
      discovered that it was no longer in his power to restore the
      edifice which he had shaken to its foundations. Carthage and the
      Roman garrisons returned with their general to the allegiance of
      Valentinian; but the rest of Africa was still distracted with war
      and faction; and the inexorable king of the Vandals, disdaining
      all terms of accommodation, sternly refused to relinquish the
      possession of his prey. The band of veterans who marched under
      the standard of Boniface, and his hasty levies of provincial
      troops, were defeated with considerable loss; the victorious
      Barbarians insulted the open country; and Carthage, Cirta, and
      Hippo Regius, were the only cities that appeared to rise above
      the general inundation.

      24 (return) [ In a confidential letter to Count Boniface, St.
      Augustin, without examining the grounds of the quarrel, piously
      exhorts him to discharge the duties of a Christian and a subject:
      to extricate himself without delay from his dangerous and guilty
      situation; and even, if he could obtain the consent of his wife,
      to embrace a life of celibacy and penance, (Tillemont, Mem.
      Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 890.) The bishop was intimately connected
      with Darius, the minister of peace, (Id. tom. xiii. p. 928.)]

      The long and narrow tract of the African coast was filled with
      frequent monuments of Roman art and magnificence; and the
      respective degrees of improvement might be accurately measured by
      the distance from Carthage and the Mediterranean. A simple
      reflection will impress every thinking mind with the clearest
      idea of fertility and cultivation: the country was extremely
      populous; the inhabitants reserved a liberal subsistence for
      their own use; and the annual exportation, particularly of wheat,
      was so regular and plentiful, that Africa deserved the name of
      the common granary of Rome and of mankind. On a sudden the seven
      fruitful provinces, from Tangier to Tripoli, were overwhelmed by
      the invasion of the Vandals; whose destructive rage has perhaps
      been exaggerated by popular animosity, religious zeal, and
      extravagant declamation. War, in its fairest form, implies a
      perpetual violation of humanity and justice; and the hostilities
      of Barbarians are inflamed by the fierce and lawless spirit which
      incessantly disturbs their peaceful and domestic society. The
      Vandals, where they found resistance, seldom gave quarter; and
      the deaths of their valiant countrymen were expiated by the ruin
      of the cities under whose walls they had fallen. Careless of the
      distinctions of age, or sex, or rank, they employed every species
      of indignity and torture, to force from the captives a discovery
      of their hidden wealth. The stern policy of Genseric justified
      his frequent examples of military execution: he was not always
      the master of his own passions, or of those of his followers; and
      the calamities of war were aggravated by the licentiousness of
      the Moors, and the fanaticism of the Donatists. Yet I shall not
      easily be persuaded, that it was the common practice of the
      Vandals to extirpate the olives, and other fruit trees, of a
      country where they intended to settle: nor can I believe that it
      was a usual stratagem to slaughter great numbers of their
      prisoners before the walls of a besieged city, for the sole
      purpose of infecting the air, and producing a pestilence, of
      which they themselves must have been the first victims. 25

      25 (return) [ The original complaints of the desolation of Africa
      are contained 1. In a letter from Capreolus, bishop of Carthage,
      to excuse his absence from the council of Ephesus, (ap. Ruinart,
      p. 427.) 2. In the life of St. Augustin, by his friend and
      colleague Possidius, (ap. Ruinart, p. 427.) 3. In the history of
      the Vandalic persecution, by Victor Vitensis, (l. i. c. 1, 2, 3,
      edit. Ruinart.) The last picture, which was drawn sixty years
      after the event, is more expressive of the author’s passions than
      of the truth of facts.]

      The generous mind of Count Boniface was tortured by the exquisite
      distress of beholding the ruin which he had occasioned, and whose
      rapid progress he was unable to check. After the loss of a battle
      he retired into Hippo Regius; where he was immediately besieged
      by an enemy, who considered him as the real bulwark of Africa.
      The maritime colony of Hippo, 26 about two hundred miles westward
      of Carthage, had formerly acquired the distinguishing epithet of
      Regius, from the residence of Numidian kings; and some remains of
      trade and populousness still adhere to the modern city, which is
      known in Europe by the corrupted name of Bona. The military
      labors, and anxious reflections, of Count Boniface, were
      alleviated by the edifying conversation of his friend St.
      Augustin; 27 till that bishop, the light and pillar of the
      Catholic church, was gently released, in the third month of the
      siege, and in the seventy-sixth year of his age, from the actual
      and the impending calamities of his country. The youth of
      Augustin had been stained by the vices and errors which he so
      ingenuously confesses; but from the moment of his conversion to
      that of his death, the manners of the bishop of Hippo were pure
      and austere: and the most conspicuous of his virtues was an
      ardent zeal against heretics of every denomination; the
      Manichaeans, the Donatists, and the Pelagians, against whom he
      waged a perpetual controversy. When the city, some months after
      his death, was burnt by the Vandals, the library was fortunately
      saved, which contained his voluminous writings; two hundred and
      thirty-two separate books or treatises on theological subjects,
      besides a complete exposition of the psalter and the gospel, and
      a copious magazine of epistles and homilies. 28 According to the
      judgment of the most impartial critics, the superficial learning
      of Augustin was confined to the Latin language; 29 and his style,
      though sometimes animated by the eloquence of passion, is usually
      clouded by false and affected rhetoric. But he possessed a
      strong, capacious, argumentative mind; he boldly sounded the dark
      abyss of grace, predestination, free will, and original sin; and
      the rigid system of Christianity which he framed or restored, 30
      has been entertained, with public applause, and secret
      reluctance, by the Latin church. 31

      26 (return) [ See Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. part ii.
      p. 112. Leo African. in Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 70. L’Afrique de
      Marmol, tom. ii. p. 434, 437. Shaw’s Travels, p. 46, 47. The old
      Hippo Regius was finally destroyed by the Arabs in the seventh
      century; but a new town, at the distance of two miles, was built
      with the materials; and it contained, in the sixteenth century,
      about three hundred families of industrious, but turbulent
      manufacturers. The adjacent territory is renowned for a pure air,
      a fertile soil, and plenty of exquisite fruits.]

      27 (return) [ The life of St. Augustin, by Tillemont, fills a
      quarto volume (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii.) of more than one thousand
      pages; and the diligence of that learned Jansenist was excited,
      on this occasion, by factious and devout zeal for the founder of
      his sect.]

      28 (return) [ Such, at least, is the account of Victor Vitensis,
      (de Persecut. Vandal. l. i. c. 3;) though Gennadius seems to
      doubt whether any person had read, or even collected, all the
      works of St. Augustin, (see Hieronym. Opera, tom. i. p. 319, in
      Catalog. Scriptor. Eccles.) They have been repeatedly printed;
      and Dupin (Bibliotheque Eccles. tom. iii. p. 158-257) has given a
      large and satisfactory abstract of them as they stand in the last
      edition of the Benedictines. My personal acquaintance with the
      bishop of Hippo does not extend beyond the Confessions, and the
      City of God.]

      29 (return) [ In his early youth (Confess. i. 14) St. Augustin
      disliked and neglected the study of Greek; and he frankly owns
      that he read the Platonists in a Latin version, (Confes. vii. 9.)
      Some modern critics have thought, that his ignorance of Greek
      disqualified him from expounding the Scriptures; and Cicero or
      Quintilian would have required the knowledge of that language in
      a professor of rhetoric.]

      30 (return) [ These questions were seldom agitated, from the time
      of St. Paul to that of St. Augustin. I am informed that the Greek
      fathers maintain the natural sentiments of the Semi-Pelagians;
      and that the orthodoxy of St. Augustin was derived from the
      Manichaean school.]

      31 (return) [ The church of Rome has canonized Augustin, and
      reprobated Calvin. Yet as the real difference between them is
      invisible even to a theological microscope, the Molinists are
      oppressed by the authority of the saint, and the Jansenists are
      disgraced by their resemblance to the heretic. In the mean while,
      the Protestant Arminians stand aloof, and deride the mutual
      perplexity of the disputants, (see a curious Review of the
      Controversy, by Le Clerc, Bibliotheque Universelle, tom. xiv. p.
      144-398.) Perhaps a reasoner still more independent may smile in
      his turn, when he peruses an Arminian Commentary on the Epistle
      to the Romans.]




      Chapter XXXIII: Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.—Part II.

      By the skill of Boniface, and perhaps by the ignorance of the
      Vandals, the siege of Hippo was protracted above fourteen months:
      the sea was continually open; and when the adjacent country had
      been exhausted by irregular rapine, the besiegers themselves were
      compelled by famine to relinquish their enterprise. The
      importance and danger of Africa were deeply felt by the regent of
      the West. Placidia implored the assistance of her eastern ally;
      and the Italian fleet and army were reenforced by Asper, who
      sailed from Constantinople with a powerful armament. As soon as
      the force of the two empires was united under the command of
      Boniface, he boldly marched against the Vandals; and the loss of
      a second battle irretrievably decided the fate of Africa. He
      embarked with the precipitation of despair; and the people of
      Hippo were permitted, with their families and effects, to occupy
      the vacant place of the soldiers, the greatest part of whom were
      either slain or made prisoners by the Vandals. The count, whose
      fatal credulity had wounded the vitals of the republic, might
      enter the palace of Ravenna with some anxiety, which was soon
      removed by the smiles of Placidia. Boniface accepted with
      gratitude the rank of patrician, and the dignity of
      master-general of the Roman armies; but he must have blushed at
      the sight of those medals, in which he was represented with the
      name and attributes of victory. 32 The discovery of his fraud,
      the displeasure of the empress, and the distinguished favor of
      his rival, exasperated the haughty and perfidious soul of Aetius.
      He hastily returned from Gaul to Italy, with a retinue, or rather
      with an army, of Barbarian followers; and such was the weakness
      of the government, that the two generals decided their private
      quarrel in a bloody battle. Boniface was successful; but he
      received in the conflict a mortal wound from the spear of his
      adversary, of which he expired within a few days, in such
      Christian and charitable sentiments, that he exhorted his wife, a
      rich heiress of Spain, to accept Aetius for her second husband.
      But Aetius could not derive any immediate advantage from the
      generosity of his dying enemy: he was proclaimed a rebel by the
      justice of Placidia; and though he attempted to defend some
      strong fortresses, erected on his patrimonial estate, the
      Imperial power soon compelled him to retire into Pannonia, to the
      tents of his faithful Huns. The republic was deprived, by their
      mutual discord, of the service of her two most illustrious
      champions. 33

      32 (return) [ Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 67. On one side, the head
      of Valentinian; on the reverse, Boniface, with a scourge in one
      hand, and a palm in the other, standing in a triumphal car, which
      is drawn by four horses, or, in another medal, by four stags; an
      unlucky emblem! I should doubt whether another example can be
      found of the head of a subject on the reverse of an Imperial
      medal. See Science des Medailles, by the Pere Jobert, tom. i. p.
      132-150, edit. of 1739, by the haron de la Bastie. * Note: Lord
      Mahon, Life of Belisarius, p. 133, mentions one of Belisarius on
      the authority of Cedrenus—M.]

      33 (return) [ Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 3, p. 185)
      continues the history of Boniface no further than his return to
      Italy. His death is mentioned by Prosper and Marcellinus; the
      expression of the latter, that Aetius, the day before, had
      provided himself with a longer spear, implies something like a
      regular duel.]

      It might naturally be expected, after the retreat of Boniface,
      that the Vandals would achieve, without resistance or delay, the
      conquest of Africa. Eight years, however, elapsed, from the
      evacuation of Hippo to the reduction of Carthage. In the midst of
      that interval, the ambitious Genseric, in the full tide of
      apparent prosperity, negotiated a treaty of peace, by which he
      gave his son Hunneric for a hostage; and consented to leave the
      Western emperor in the undisturbed possession of the three
      Mauritanias. 34 This moderation, which cannot be imputed to the
      justice, must be ascribed to the policy, of the conqueror.

      His throne was encompassed with domestic enemies, who accused the
      baseness of his birth, and asserted the legitimate claims of his
      nephews, the sons of Gonderic. Those nephews, indeed, he
      sacrificed to his safety; and their mother, the widow of the
      deceased king, was precipitated, by his order, into the river
      Ampsaga. But the public discontent burst forth in dangerous and
      frequent conspiracies; and the warlike tyrant is supposed to have
      shed more Vandal blood by the hand of the executioner, than in
      the field of battle. 35 The convulsions of Africa, which had
      favored his attack, opposed the firm establishment of his power;
      and the various seditions of the Moors and Germans, the Donatists
      and Catholics, continually disturbed, or threatened, the
      unsettled reign of the conqueror. As he advanced towards
      Carthage, he was forced to withdraw his troops from the Western
      provinces; the sea-coast was exposed to the naval enterprises of
      the Romans of Spain and Italy; and, in the heart of Numidia, the
      strong inland city of Corta still persisted in obstinate
      independence. 36 These difficulties were gradually subdued by the
      spirit, the perseverance, and the cruelty of Genseric; who
      alternately applied the arts of peace and war to the
      establishment of his African kingdom. He subscribed a solemn
      treaty, with the hope of deriving some advantage from the term of
      its continuance, and the moment of its violation. The vigilance
      of his enemies was relaxed by the protestations of friendship,
      which concealed his hostile approach; and Carthage was at length
      surprised by the Vandals, five hundred and eighty-five years
      after the destruction of the city and republic by the younger
      Scipio. 37

      34 (return) [ See Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 4, p. 186.
      Valentinian published several humane laws, to relieve the
      distress of his Numidian and Mauritanian subjects; he discharged
      them, in a great measure, from the payment of their debts,
      reduced their tribute to one eighth, and gave them a right of
      appeal from their provincial magistrates to the praefect of Rome.
      Cod. Theod. tom. vi. Novell. p. 11, 12.]

      35 (return) [ Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. l. ii. c. 5,
      p. 26. The cruelties of Genseric towards his subjects are
      strongly expressed in Prosper’s Chronicle, A.D. 442.]

      36 (return) [ Possidius, in Vit. Augustin. c. 28, apud Ruinart,
      p. 428.]

      37 (return) [ See the Chronicles of Idatius, Isidore, Prosper,
      and Marcellinus. They mark the same year, but different days, for
      the surprisal of Carthage.]

      A new city had arisen from its ruins, with the title of a colony;
      and though Carthage might yield to the royal prerogatives of
      Constantinople, and perhaps to the trade of Alexandria, or the
      splendor of Antioch, she still maintained the second rank in the
      West; as the Rome (if we may use the style of contemporaries) of
      the African world. That wealthy and opulent metropolis 38
      displayed, in a dependent condition, the image of a flourishing
      republic. Carthage contained the manufactures, the arms, and the
      treasures of the six provinces. A regular subordination of civil
      honors gradually ascended from the procurators of the streets and
      quarters of the city, to the tribunal of the supreme magistrate,
      who, with the title of proconsul, represented the state and
      dignity of a consul of ancient Rome. Schools and gymnasia were
      instituted for the education of the African youth; and the
      liberal arts and manners, grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy, were
      publicly taught in the Greek and Latin languages. The buildings
      of Carthage were uniform and magnificent; a shady grove was
      planted in the midst of the capital; the new port, a secure and
      capacious harbor, was subservient to the commercial indus try of
      citizens and strangers; and the splendid games of the circus and
      theatre were exhibited almost in the presence of the Barbarians.
      The reputation of the Carthaginians was not equal to that of
      their country, and the reproach of Punic faith still adhered to
      their subtle and faithless character. 39 The habits of trade, and
      the abuse of luxury, had corrupted their manners; but their
      impious contempt of monks, and the shameless practice of
      unnatural lusts, are the two abominations which excite the pious
      vehemence of Salvian, the preacher of the age. 40 The king of the
      Vandals severely reformed the vices of a voluptuous people; and
      the ancient, noble, ingenuous freedom of Carthage (these
      expressions of Victor are not without energy) was reduced by
      Genseric into a state of ignominious servitude. After he had
      permitted his licentious troops to satiate their rage and
      avarice, he instituted a more regular system of rapine and
      oppression. An edict was promulgated, which enjoined all persons,
      without fraud or delay, to deliver their gold, silver, jewels,
      and valuable furniture or apparel, to the royal officers; and the
      attempt to secrete any part of their patrimony was inexorably
      punished with death and torture, as an act of treason against the
      state. The lands of the proconsular province, which formed the
      immediate district of Carthage, were accurately measured, and
      divided among the Barbarians; and the conqueror reserved for his
      peculiar domain the fertile territory of Byzacium, and the
      adjacent parts of Numidia and Getulia. 41

      38 (return) [ The picture of Carthage; as it flourished in the
      fourth and fifth centuries, is taken from the Expositio totius
      Mundi, p. 17, 18, in the third volume of Hudson’s Minor
      Geographers, from Ausonius de Claris Urbibus, p. 228, 229; and
      principally from Salvian, de Gubernatione Dei, l. vii. p. 257,
      258.]

      39 (return) [ The anonymous author of the Expositio totius Mundi
      compares in his barbarous Latin, the country and the inhabitants;
      and, after stigmatizing their want of faith, he coolly concludes,
      Difficile autem inter eos invenitur bonus, tamen in multis pauci
      boni esse possunt P. 18.]

      40 (return) [ He declares, that the peculiar vices of each
      country were collected in the sink of Carthage, (l. vii. p. 257.)
      In the indulgence of vice, the Africans applauded their manly
      virtue. Et illi se magis virilis fortitudinis esse crederent, qui
      maxime vires foeminei usus probositate fregissent, (p. 268.) The
      streets of Carthage were polluted by effeminate wretches, who
      publicly assumed the countenance, the dress, and the character of
      women, (p. 264.) If a monk appeared in the city, the holy man was
      pursued with impious scorn and ridicule; de testantibus ridentium
      cachinnis, (p. 289.)]

      41 (return) [ Compare Procopius de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p.
      189, 190, and Victor Vitensis, de Persecut Vandal. l. i. c. 4.]

      It was natural enough that Genseric should hate those whom he had
      injured: the nobility and senators of Carthage were exposed to
      his jealousy and resentment; and all those who refused the
      ignominious terms, which their honor and religion forbade them to
      accept, were compelled by the Arian tyrant to embrace the
      condition of perpetual banishment. Rome, Italy, and the provinces
      of the East, were filled with a crowd of exiles, of fugitives,
      and of ingenuous captives, who solicited the public compassion;
      and the benevolent epistles of Theod oret still preserve the
      names and misfortunes of Caelestian and Maria. 42 The Syrian
      bishop deplores the misfortunes of Caelestian, who, from the
      state of a noble and opulent senator of Carthage, was reduced,
      with his wife and family, and servants, to beg his bread in a
      foreign country; but he applauds the resignation of the Christian
      exile, and the philosophic temper, which, under the pressure of
      such calamities, could enjoy more real happiness than was the
      ordinary lot of wealth and prosperity. The story of Maria, the
      daughter of the magnificent Eudaemon, is singular and
      interesting. In the sack of Carthage, she was purchased from the
      Vandals by some merchants of Syria, who afterwards sold her as a
      slave in their native country. A female attendant, transported in
      the same ship, and sold in the same family, still continued to
      respect a mistress whom fortune had reduced to the common level
      of servitude; and the daughter of Eudaemon received from her
      grateful affection the domestic services which she had once
      required from her obedience. This remarkable behavior divulged
      the real condition of Maria, who, in the absence of the bishop of
      Cyrrhus, was redeemed from slavery oy the generosity of some
      soldiers of the garrison. The liberality of Theodoret provided
      for her decent maintenance; and she passed ten months among the
      deaconesses of the church; till she was unexpectedly informed,
      that her father, who had escaped from the ruin of Carthage,
      exercised an honorable office in one of the Western provinces.
      Her filial impatience was seconded by the pious bishop:
      Theodoret, in a letter still extant, recommends Maria to the
      bishop of Aegae, a maritime city of Cilicia, which was
      frequented, during the annual fair, by the vessels of the West;
      most earnestly requesting, that his colleague would use the
      maiden with a tenderness suitable to her birth; and that he would
      intrust her to the care of such faithful merchants, as would
      esteem it a sufficient gain, if they restored a daughter, lost
      beyond all human hope, to the arms of her afflicted parent.

      42 (return) [ Ruinart (p. 441-457) has collected from Theodoret,
      and other authors, the misfortunes, real and fabulous, of the
      inhabitants of Carthage.]

      Among the insipid legends of ecclesiastical history, I am tempted
      to distinguish the memorable fable of the Seven Sleepers; 43
      whose imaginary date corresponds with the reign of the younger
      Theodosius, and the conquest of Africa by the Vandals. 44 When
      the emperor Decius persecuted the Christians, seven noble youths
      of Ephesus concealed themselves in a spacious cavern in the side
      of an adjacent mountain; where they were doomed to perish by the
      tyrant, who gave orders that the entrance should be firmly
      secured by the a pile of huge stones. They immediately fell into
      a deep slumber, which was miraculously prolonged without injuring
      the powers of life, during a period of one hundred and
      eighty-seven years. At the end of that time, the slaves of
      Adolius, to whom the inheritance of the mountain had descended,
      removed the stones to supply materials for some rustic edifice:
      the light of the sun darted into the cavern, and the Seven
      Sleepers were permitted to awake. After a slumber, as they
      thought of a few hours, they were pressed by the calls of hunger;
      and resolved that Jamblichus, one of their number, should
      secretly return to the city to purchase bread for the use of his
      companions. The youth (if we may still employ that appellation)
      could no longer recognize the once familiar aspect of his native
      country; and his surprise was increased by the appearance of a
      large cross, triumphantly erected over the principal gate of
      Ephesus. His singular dress, and obsolete language, confounded
      the baker, to whom he offered an ancient medal of Decius as the
      current coin of the empire; and Jamblichus, on the suspicion of a
      secret treasure, was dragged before the judge. Their mutual
      inquiries produced the amazing discovery, that two centuries were
      almost elapsed since Jamblichus and his friends had escaped from
      the rage of a Pagan tyrant. The bishop of Ephesus, the clergy,
      the magistrates, the people, and, as it is said, the emperor
      Theodosius himself, hastened to visit the cavern of the Seven
      Sleepers; who bestowed their benediction, related their story,
      and at the same instant peaceably expired. The origin of this
      marvellous fable cannot be ascribed to the pious fraud and
      credulity of the modern Greeks, since the authentic tradition may
      be traced within half a century of the supposed miracle. James of
      Sarug, a Syrian bishop, who was born only two years after the
      death of the younger Theodosius, has devoted one of his two
      hundred and thirty homilies to the praise of the young men of
      Ephesus. 45 Their legend, before the end of the sixth century,
      was translated from the Syriac into the Latin language, by the
      care of Gregory of Tours. The hostile communions of the East
      preserve their memory with equal reverence; and their names are
      honorably inscribed in the Roman, the Abyssinian, and the Russian
      calendar. 46 Nor has their reputation been confined to the
      Christian world. This popular tale, which Mahomet might learn
      when he drove his camels to the fairs of Syria, is introduced as
      a divine revelation, into the Koran. 47 The story of the Seven
      Sleepers has been adopted and adorned by the nations, from Bengal
      to Africa, who profess the Mahometan religion; 48 and some
      vestiges of a similar tradition have been discovered in the
      remote extremities of Scandinavia. 49 This easy and universal
      belief, so expressive of the sense of mankind, may be ascribed to
      the genuine merit of the fable itself. We imperceptibly advance
      from youth to age, without observing the gradual, but incessant,
      change of human affairs; and even in our larger experience of
      history, the imagination is accustomed, by a perpetual series of
      causes and effects, to unite the most distant revolutions. But if
      the interval between two memorable aeras could be instantly
      annihilated; if it were possible, after a momentary slumber of
      two hundred years, to display the new world to the eyes of a
      spectator, who still retained a lively and recent impression of
      the old, his surprise and his reflections would furnish the
      pleasing subject of a philosophical romance. The scene could not
      be more advantageously placed, than in the two centuries which
      elapsed between the reigns of Decius and of Theodosius the
      Younger. During this period, the seat of government had been
      transported from Rome to a new city on the banks of the Thracian
      Bosphorus; and the abuse of military spirit had been suppressed
      by an artificial system of tame and ceremonious servitude. The
      throne of the persecuting Decius was filled by a succession of
      Christian and orthodox princes, who had extirpated the fabulous
      gods of antiquity: and the public devotion of the age was
      impatient to exalt the saints and martyrs of the Catholic church,
      on the altars of Diana and Hercules. The union of the Roman
      empire was dissolved; its genius was humbled in the dust; and
      armies of unknown Barbarians, issuing from the frozen regions of
      the North, had established their victorious reign over the
      fairest provinces of Europe and Africa.

      43 (return) [ The choice of fabulous circumstances is of small
      importance; yet I have confined myself to the narrative which was
      translated from the Syriac by the care of Gregory of Tours, (de
      Gloria Martyrum, l. i. c. 95, in Max. Bibliotheca Patrum, tom.
      xi. p. 856,) to the Greek acts of their martyrdom (apud Photium,
      p. 1400, 1401) and to the Annals of the Patriarch Eutychius,
      (tom. i. p. 391, 531, 532, 535, Vers. Pocock.)]

      44 (return) [ Two Syriac writers, as they are quoted by
      Assemanni, (Bibliot. Oriental. tom. i. p. 336, 338,) place the
      resurrection of the Seven Sleepers in the year 736 (A.D. 425) or
      748, (A.D. 437,) of the aera of the Seleucides. Their Greek acts,
      which Photius had read, assign the date of the thirty-eighth year
      of the reign of Theodosius, which may coincide either with A.D.
      439, or 446. The period which had elapsed since the persecution
      of Decius is easily ascertained; and nothing less than the
      ignorance of Mahomet, or the legendaries, could suppose an
      internal of three or four hundred years.]

      45 (return) [ James, one of the orthodox fathers of the Syrian
      church, was born A.D. 452; he began to compose his sermons A.D.
      474; he was made bishop of Batnae, in the district of Sarug, and
      province of Mesopotamia, A.D. 519, and died A.D. 521. (Assemanni,
      tom. i. p. 288, 289.) For the homily de Pueris Ephesinis, see p.
      335-339: though I could wish that Assemanni had translated the
      text of James of Sarug, instead of answering the objections of
      Baronius.]

      46 (return) [ See the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists, Mensis
      Julii, tom. vi. p. 375-397. This immense calendar of Saints, in
      one hundred and twenty-six years, (1644-1770,) and in fifty
      volumes in folio, has advanced no further than the 7th day of
      October. The suppression of the Jesuits has most probably checked
      an undertaking, which, through the medium of fable and
      superstition, communicates much historical and philosophical
      instruction.]

      47 (return) [ See Maracci Alcoran. Sura xviii. tom. ii. p.
      420-427, and tom. i. part iv. p. 103. With such an ample
      privilege, Mahomet has not shown much taste or ingenuity. He has
      invented the dog (Al Rakim) the Seven Sleepers; the respect of
      the sun, who altered his course twice a day, that he might not
      shine into the cavern; and the care of God himself, who preserved
      their bodies from putrefaction, by turning them to the right and
      left.]

      48 (return) [ See D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 139; and
      Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alexandrin. p. 39, 40.]

      49 (return) [ Paul, the deacon of Aquileia, (de Gestis
      Langobardorum, l. i. c. 4, p. 745, 746, edit. Grot.,) who lived
      towards the end of the eight century, has placed in a cavern,
      under a rock, on the shore of the ocean, the Seven Sleepers of
      the North, whose long repose was respected by the Barbarians.
      Their dress declared them to be Romans and the deacon
      conjectures, that they were reserved by Providence as the future
      apostles of those unbelieving countries.]




      Chapter XXXIV: Attila.—Part I.

     The Character, Conquests, And Court Of Attila, King Of The
     Huns.—Death Of Theodosius The Younger.—Elevation Of Marcian To The
     Empire Of The East.

      The Western world was oppressed by the Goths and Vandals, who
      fled before the Huns; but the achievements of the Huns themselves
      were not adequate to their power and prosperity. Their victorious
      hordes had spread from the Volga to the Danube; but the public
      force was exhausted by the discord of independent chieftains;
      their valor was idly consumed in obscure and predatory
      excursions; and they often degraded their national dignity, by
      condescending, for the hopes of spoil, to enlist under the
      banners of their fugitive enemies. In the reign of Attila, 1 the
      Huns again became the terror of the world; and I shall now
      describe the character and actions of that formidable Barbarian;
      who alternately insulted and invaded the East and the West, and
      urged the rapid downfall of the Roman empire.

      1 (return) [ The authentic materials for the history of Attila,
      may be found in Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 34-50, p.
      668-688, edit. Grot.) and Priscus (Excerpta de Legationibus, p.
      33-76, Paris, 1648.) I have not seen the Lives of Attila,
      composed by Juvencus Caelius Calanus Dalmatinus, in the twelfth
      century, or by Nicholas Olahus, archbishop of Gran, in the
      sixteenth. See Mascou’s History of the Germans, ix., and Maffei
      Osservazioni Litterarie, tom. i. p. 88, 89. Whatever the modern
      Hungarians have added must be fabulous; and they do not seem to
      have excelled in the art of fiction. They suppose, that when
      Attila invaded Gaul and Italy, married innumerable wives, &c., he
      was one hundred and twenty years of age. Thewrocz Chron. c. i. p.
      22, in Script. Hunger. tom. i. p. 76.]

      In the tide of emigration which impetuously rolled from the
      confines of China to those of Germany, the most powerful and
      populous tribes may commonly be found on the verge of the Roman
      provinces. The accumulated weight was sustained for a while by
      artificial barriers; and the easy condescension of the emperors
      invited, without satisfying, the insolent demands of the
      Barbarians, who had acquired an eager appetite for the luxuries
      of civilized life. The Hungarians, who ambitiously insert the
      name of Attila among their native kings, may affirm with truth
      that the hordes, which were subject to his uncle Roas, or
      Rugilas, had formed their encampments within the limits of modern
      Hungary, 2 in a fertile country, which liberally supplied the
      wants of a nation of hunters and shepherds. In this advantageous
      situation, Rugilas, and his valiant brothers, who continually
      added to their power and reputation, commanded the alternative of
      peace or war with the two empires. His alliance with the Romans
      of the West was cemented by his personal friendship for the great
      Aetius; who was always secure of finding, in the Barbarian camp,
      a hospitable reception and a powerful support. At his
      solicitation, and in the name of John the usurper, sixty thousand
      Huns advanced to the confines of Italy; their march and their
      retreat were alike expensive to the state; and the grateful
      policy of Aetius abandoned the possession of Pannonia to his
      faithful confederates. The Romans of the East were not less
      apprehensive of the arms of Rugilas, which threatened the
      provinces, or even the capital. Some ecclesiastical historians
      have destroyed the Barbarians with lightning and pestilence; 3
      but Theodosius was reduced to the more humble expedient of
      stipulating an annual payment of three hundred and fifty pounds
      of gold, and of disguising this dishonorable tribute by the title
      of general, which the king of the Huns condescended to accept.
      The public tranquillity was frequently interrupted by the fierce
      impatience of the Barbarians, and the perfidious intrigues of the
      Byzantine court. Four dependent nations, among whom we may
      distinguish the Barbarians, disclaimed the sovereignty of the
      Huns; and their revolt was encouraged and protected by a Roman
      alliance; till the just claims, and formidable power, of Rugilas,
      were effectually urged by the voice of Eslaw his ambassador.
      Peace was the unanimous wish of the senate: their decree was
      ratified by the emperor; and two ambassadors were named,
      Plinthas, a general of Scythian extraction, but of consular rank;
      and the quaestor Epigenes, a wise and experienced statesman, who
      was recommended to that office by his ambitious colleague.

      2 (return) [ Hungary has been successively occupied by three
      Scythian colonies. 1. The Huns of Attila; 2. The Abares, in the
      sixth century; and, 3. The Turks or Magiars, A.D. 889; the
      immediate and genuine ancestors of the modern Hungarians, whose
      connection with the two former is extremely faint and remote. The
      Prodromus and Notitia of Matthew Belius appear to contain a rich
      fund of information concerning ancient and modern Hungary. I have
      seen the extracts in Bibli otheque Ancienne et Moderne, tom.
      xxii. p. 1-51, and Bibliotheque Raisonnee, tom. xvi. p. 127-175.
      * Note: Mailath (in his Geschichte der Magyaren) considers the
      question of the origin of the Magyars as still undecided. The old
      Hungarian chronicles unanimously derived them from the Huns of
      Attila See note, vol. iv. pp. 341, 342. The later opinion,
      adopted by Schlozer, Belnay, and Dankowsky, ascribes them, from
      their language, to the Finnish race. Fessler, in his history of
      Hungary, agrees with Gibbon in supposing them Turks. Mailath has
      inserted an ingenious dissertation of Fejer, which attempts to
      connect them with the Parthians. Vol. i. Ammerkungen p. 50—M.]

      3 (return) [ Socrates, l. vii. c. 43. Theodoret, l. v. c. 36.
      Tillemont, who always depends on the faith of his ecclesiastical
      authors, strenuously contends (Hist. des Emp. tom. vi. p. 136,
      607) that the wars and personages were not the same.]

      The death of Rugilas suspended the progress of the treaty. His
      two nephews, Attila and Bleda, who succeeded to the throne of
      their uncle, consented to a personal interview with the
      ambassadors of Constantinople; but as they proudly refused to
      dismount, the business was transacted on horseback, in a spacious
      plain near the city of Margus, in the Upper Maesia. The kings of
      the Huns assumed the solid benefits, as well as the vain honors,
      of the negotiation. They dictated the conditions of peace, and
      each condition was an insult on the majesty of the empire.
      Besides the freedom of a safe and plentiful market on the banks
      of the Danube, they required that the annual contribution should
      be augmented from three hundred and fifty to seven hundred pounds
      of gold; that a fine or ransom of eight pieces of gold should be
      paid for every Roman captive who had escaped from his Barbarian
      master; that the emperor should renounce all treaties and
      engagements with the enemies of the Huns; and that all the
      fugitives who had taken refuge in the court or provinces of
      Theodosius, should be delivered to the justice of their offended
      sovereign. This justice was rigorously inflicted on some
      unfortunate youths of a royal race. They were crucified on the
      territories of the empire, by the command of Attila: and as soon
      as the king of the Huns had impressed the Romans with the terror
      of his name, he indulged them in a short and arbitrary respite,
      whilst he subdued the rebellious or independent nations of
      Scythia and Germany. 4

      4 (return) [ See Priscus, p. 47, 48, and Hist. de Peuples de
      l’Europe, tom. v. i. c. xii, xiii, xiv, xv.]

      Attila, the son of Mundzuk, deduced his noble, perhaps his regal,
      descent 5 from the ancient Huns, who had formerly contended with
      the monarchs of China. His features, according to the observation
      of a Gothic historian, bore the stamp of his national origin; and
      the portrait of Attila exhibits the genuine deformity of a modern
      Calmuk; 6 a large head, a swarthy complexion, small, deep-seated
      eyes, a flat nose, a few hairs in the place of a beard, broad
      shoulders, and a short square body, of nervous strength, though
      of a disproportioned form. The haughty step and demeanor of the
      king of the Huns expressed the consciousness of his superiority
      above the rest of mankind; and he had a custom of fiercely
      rolling his eyes, as if he wished to enjoy the terror which he
      inspired. Yet this savage hero was not inaccessible to pity; his
      suppliant enemies might confide in the assurance of peace or
      pardon; and Attila was considered by his subjects as a just and
      indulgent master. He delighted in war; but, after he had ascended
      the throne in a mature age, his head, rather than his hand,
      achieved the conquest of the North; and the fame of an
      adventurous soldier was usefully exchanged for that of a prudent
      and successful general. The effects of personal valor are so
      inconsiderable, except in poetry or romance, that victory, even
      among Barbarians, must depend on the degree of skill with which
      the passions of the multitude are combined and guided for the
      service of a single man. The Scythian conquerors, Attila and
      Zingis, surpassed their rude countrymen in art rather than in
      courage; and it may be observed that the monarchies, both of the
      Huns and of the Moguls, were erected by their founders on the
      basis of popular superstition The miraculous conception, which
      fraud and credulity ascribed to the virgin-mother of Zingis,
      raised him above the level of human nature; and the naked
      prophet, who in the name of the Deity invested him with the
      empire of the earth, pointed the valor of the Moguls with
      irresistible enthusiasm. 7 The religious arts of Attila were not
      less skillfully adapted to the character of his age and country.
      It was natural enough that the Scythians should adore, with
      peculiar devotion, the god of war; but as they were incapable of
      forming either an abstract idea, or a corporeal representation,
      they worshipped their tutelar deity under the symbol of an iron
      cimeter. 8 One of the shepherds of the Huns perceived, that a
      heifer, who was grazing, had wounded herself in the foot, and
      curiously followed the track of the blood, till he discovered,
      among the long grass, the point of an ancient sword, which he dug
      out of the ground and presented to Attila. That magnanimous, or
      rather that artful, prince accepted, with pious gratitude, this
      celestial favor; and, as the rightful possessor of the sword of
      Mars, asserted his divine and indefeasible claim to the dominion
      of the earth. 9 If the rites of Scythia were practised on this
      solemn occasion, a lofty altar, or rather pile of fagots, three
      hundred yards in length and in breadth, was raised in a spacious
      plain; and the sword of Mars was placed erect on the summit of
      this rustic altar, which was annually consecrated by the blood of
      sheep, horses, and of the hundredth captive. 10 Whether human
      sacrifices formed any part of the worship of Attila, or whether
      he propitiated the god of war with the victims which he
      continually offered in the field of battle, the favorite of Mars
      soon acquired a sacred character, which rended his conquests more
      easy and more permanent; and the Barbarian princes confessed, in
      the language of devotion or flattery, that they could not presume
      to gaze, with a steady eye, on the divine majesty of the king of
      the Huns. 11 His brother Bleda, who reigned over a considerable
      part of the nation, was compelled to resign his sceptre and his
      life. Yet even this cruel act was attributed to a supernatural
      impulse; and the vigor with which Attila wielded the sword of
      Mars, convinced the world that it had been reserved alone for his
      invincible arm. 12 But the extent of his empire affords the only
      remaining evidence of the number and importance of his victories;
      and the Scythian monarch, however ignorant of the value of
      science and philosophy, might perhaps lament that his illiterate
      subjects were destitute of the art which could perpetuate the
      memory of his exploits.

      5 (return) [ Priscus, p. 39. The modern Hungarians have deduced
      his genealogy, which ascends, in the thirty-fifth degree, to Ham,
      the son of Noah; yet they are ignorant of his father’s real name.
      (De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 297.)]

      6 (return) [ Compare Jornandes (c. 35, p. 661) with Buffon, Hist.
      Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 380. The former had a right to observe,
      originis suae sigua restituens. The character and portrait of
      Attila are probably transcribed from Cassiodorus.]

      7 (return) [ Abulpharag. Pocock, p. 281. Genealogical History of
      the Tartars, by Abulghazi Bahader Khan, part iii c. 15, part iv
      c. 3. Vie de Gengiscan, par Petit de la Croix, l. 1, c. 1, 6. The
      relations of the missionaries, who visited Tartary in the
      thirteenth century, (see the seventh volume of the Histoire des
      Voyages,) express the popular language and opinions; Zingis is
      styled the son of God, &c. &c.]

      8 (return) [ Nec templum apud eos visitur, aut delubrum, ne
      tugurium quidem culmo tectum cerni usquam potest; sed gladius
      Barbarico ritu humi figitur nudus, eumque ut Martem regionum quas
      circumcircant praesulem verecundius colunt. Ammian. Marcellin.
      xxxi. 2, and the learned Notes of Lindenbrogius and Valesius.]

      9 (return) [ Priscus relates this remarkable story, both in his
      own text (p. 65) and in the quotation made by Jornandes, (c. 35,
      p. 662.) He might have explained the tradition, or fable, which
      characterized this famous sword, and the name, as well as
      attributes, of the Scythian deity, whom he has translated into
      the Mars of the Greeks and Romans.]

      10 (return) [ Herodot. l. iv. c. 62. For the sake of economy, I
      have calculated by the smallest stadium. In the human sacrifices,
      they cut off the shoulder and arm of the victim, which they threw
      up into the air, and drew omens and presages from the manner of
      their falling on the pile]

      11 (return) [ Priscus, p. 65. A more civilized hero, Augustus
      himself, was pleased, if the person on whom he fixed his eyes
      seemed unable to support their divine lustre. Sueton. in August.
      c. 79.]

      12 (return) [ The Count de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l’Europe,
      tom. vii. p. 428, 429) attempts to clear Attila from the murder
      of his brother; and is almost inclined to reject the concurrent
      testimony of Jornandes, and the contemporary Chronicles.]

      If a line of separation were drawn between the civilized and the
      savage climates of the globe; between the inhabitants of cities,
      who cultivated the earth, and the hunters and shepherds, who
      dwelt in tents, Attila might aspire to the title of supreme and
      sole monarch of the Barbarians. 13 He alone, among the conquerors
      of ancient and modern times, united the two mighty kingdoms of
      Germany and Scythia; and those vague appellations, when they are
      applied to his reign, may be understood with an ample latitude.
      Thuringia, which stretched beyond its actual limits as far as the
      Danube, was in the number of his provinces; he interposed, with
      the weight of a powerful neighbor, in the domestic affairs of the
      Franks; and one of his lieutenants chastised, and almost
      exterminated, the Burgundians of the Rhine.

      He subdued the islands of the ocean, the kingdoms of Scandinavia,
      encompassed and divided by the waters of the Baltic; and the Huns
      might derive a tribute of furs from that northern region, which
      has been protected from all other conquerors by the severity of
      the climate, and the courage of the natives. Towards the East, it
      is difficult to circumscribe the dominion of Attila over the
      Scythian deserts; yet we may be assured, that he reigned on the
      banks of the Volga; that the king of the Huns was dreaded, not
      only as a warrior, but as a magician; 14 that he insulted and
      vanquished the khan of the formidable Geougen; and that he sent
      ambassadors to negotiate an equal alliance with the empire of
      China. In the proud review of the nations who acknowledged the
      sovereignty of Attila, and who never entertained, during his
      lifetime, the thought of a revolt, the Gepidae and the Ostrogoths
      were distinguished by their numbers, their bravery, and the
      personal merits of their chiefs. The renowned Ardaric, king of
      the Gepidae, was the faithful and sagacious counsellor of the
      monarch, who esteemed his intrepid genius, whilst he loved the
      mild and discreet virtues of the noble Walamir, king of the
      Ostrogoths. The crowd of vulgar kings, the leaders of so many
      martial tribes, who served under the standard of Attila, were
      ranged in the submissive order of guards and domestics round the
      person of their master. They watched his nod; they trembled at
      his frown; and at the first signal of his will, they executed,
      without murmur or hesitation, his stern and absolute commands. In
      time of peace, the dependent princes, with their national troops,
      attended the royal camp in regular succession; but when Attila
      collected his military force, he was able to bring into the field
      an army of five, or, according to another account, of seven
      hundred thousand Barbarians. 15

      13 (return) [ Fortissimarum gentium dominus, qui inaudita ante se
      potentia colus Scythica et Germanica regna possedit. Jornandes,
      c. 49, p. 684. Priscus, p. 64, 65. M. de Guignes, by his
      knowledge of the Chinese, has acquired (tom. ii. p. 295-301) an
      adequate idea of the empire of Attila.]

      14 (return) [ See Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 296. The Geougen
      believed that the Huns could excite, at pleasure, storms of wind
      and rain. This phenomenon was produced by the stone Gezi; to
      whose magic power the loss of a battle was ascribed by the
      Mahometan Tartars of the fourteenth century. See Cherefeddin Ali,
      Hist. de Timur Bec, tom. i. p. 82, 83.]

      15 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 35, p. 661, c. 37, p. 667. See
      Tillemont, Hist. dea Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 129, 138. Corneille
      has represented the pride of Attila to his subject kings, and his
      tragedy opens with these two ridiculous lines:—

     Ils ne sont pas venus, nos deux rois!  qu’on leur die Qu’ils se
     font trop attendre, et qu’Attila s’ennuie.

      The two kings of the Gepidae and the Ostrogoths are profound
      politicians and sentimental lovers, and the whole piece exhibits
      the defects without the genius, of the poet.]

      The ambassadors of the Huns might awaken the attention of
      Theodosius, by reminding him that they were his neighbors both in
      Europe and Asia; since they touched the Danube on one hand, and
      reached, with the other, as far as the Tanais. In the reign of
      his father Arcadius, a band of adventurous Huns had ravaged the
      provinces of the East; from whence they brought away rich spoils
      and innumerable captives. 16 They advanced, by a secret path,
      along the shores of the Caspian Sea; traversed the snowy
      mountains of Armenia; passed the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the
      Halys; recruited their weary cavalry with the generous breed of
      Cappadocian horses; occupied the hilly country of Cilicia, and
      disturbed the festal songs and dances of the citizens of Antioch.
      Egypt trembled at their approach; and the monks and pilgrims of
      the Holy Land prepared to escape their fury by a speedy
      embarkation. The memory of this invasion was still recent in the
      minds of the Orientals. The subjects of Attila might execute,
      with superior forces, the design which these adventurers had so
      boldly attempted; and it soon became the subject of anxious
      conjecture, whether the tempest would fall on the dominions of
      Rome, or of Persia. Some of the great vassals of the king of the
      Huns, who were themselves in the rank of powerful princes, had
      been sent to ratify an alliance and society of arms with the
      emperor, or rather with the general of the West. They related,
      during their residence at Rome, the circumstances of an
      expedition, which they had lately made into the East. After
      passing a desert and a morass, supposed by the Romans to be the
      Lake Maeotis, they penetrated through the mountains, and arrived,
      at the end of fifteen days’ march, on the confines of Media;
      where they advanced as far as the unknown cities of Basic and
      Cursic. 1611 They encountered the Persian army in the plains of
      Media and the air, according to their own expression, was
      darkened by a cloud of arrows. But the Huns were obliged to
      retire before the numbers of the enemy. Their laborious retreat
      was effected by a different road; they lost the greatest part of
      their booty; and at length returned to the royal camp, with some
      knowledge of the country, and an impatient desire of revenge. In
      the free conversation of the Imperial ambassadors, who discussed,
      at the court of Attila, the character and designs of their
      formidable enemy, the ministers of Constantinople expressed their
      hope, that his strength might be diverted and employed in a long
      and doubtful contest with the princes of the house of Sassan. The
      more sagacious Italians admonished their Eastern brethren of the
      folly and danger of such a hope; and convinced them, that the
      Medes and Persians were incapable of resisting the arms of the
      Huns; and that the easy and important acquisition would exalt the
      pride, as well as power, of the conqueror. Instead of contenting
      himself with a moderate contribution, and a military title, which
      equalled him only to the generals of Theodosius, Attila would
      proceed to impose a disgraceful and intolerable yoke on the necks
      of the prostrate and captive Romans, who would then be
      encompassed, on all sides, by the empire of the Huns. 17

      16 (return) [

     Alii per Caspia claustra Armeniasque nives, inopino tramite ducti
     Invadunt Orientis opes: jam pascua fumant Cappadocum, volucrumque
     parens Argaeus equorum. Jam rubet altus Halys, nec se defendit
     iniquo Monte Cilix; Syriae tractus vestantur amoeni Assuetumque
     choris, et laeta plebe canorum, Proterit imbellem sonipes hostilis
     Orontem. —-Claudian, in Rufin. l. ii. 28-35.

      See likewise, in Eutrop. l. i. 243-251, and the strong
      description of Jerom, who wrote from his feelings, tom. i. p. 26,
      ad Heliodor. p. 200 ad Ocean. Philostorgius (l. ix. c. 8)
      mentions this irruption.]

      1611 (return) [ Gibbon has made a curious mistake; Basic and
      Cursic were the names of the commanders of the Huns. Priscus,
      edit. Bonn, p. 200.—M.]

      17 (return) [ See the original conversation in Priscus, p. 64,
      65.]

      While the powers of Europe and Asia were solicitous to avert the
      impending danger, the alliance of Attila maintained the Vandals
      in the possession of Africa. An enterprise had been concerted
      between the courts of Ravenna and Constantinople, for the
      recovery of that valuable province; and the ports of Sicily were
      already filled with the military and naval forces of Theodosius.
      But the subtle Genseric, who spread his negotiations round the
      world, prevented their designs, by exciting the king of the Huns
      to invade the Eastern empire; and a trifling incident soon became
      the motive, or pretence, of a destructive war. 18 Under the faith
      of the treaty of Margus, a free market was held on the Northern
      side of the Danube, which was protected by a Roman fortress
      surnamed Constantia. A troop of Barbarians violated the
      commercial security; killed, or dispersed, the unsuspecting
      traders; and levelled the fortress with the ground. The Huns
      justified this outrage as an act of reprisal; alleged, that the
      bishop of Margus had entered their territories, to discover and
      steal a secret treasure of their kings; and sternly demanded the
      guilty prelate, the sacrilegious spoil, and the fugitive
      subjects, who had escaped from the justice of Attila. The refusal
      of the Byzantine court was the signal of war; and the Maesians at
      first applauded the generous firmness of their sovereign. But
      they were soon intimidated by the destruction of Viminiacum and
      the adjacent towns; and the people was persuaded to adopt the
      convenient maxim, that a private citizen, however innocent or
      respectable, may be justly sacrificed to the safety of his
      country. The bishop of Margus, who did not possess the spirit of
      a martyr, resolved to prevent the designs which he suspected. He
      boldly treated with the princes of the Huns: secured, by solemn
      oaths, his pardon and reward; posted a numerous detachment of
      Barbarians, in silent ambush, on the banks of the Danube; and, at
      the appointed hour, opened, with his own hand, the gates of his
      episcopal city. This advantage, which had been obtained by
      treachery, served as a prelude to more honorable and decisive
      victories. The Illyrian frontier was covered by a line of castles
      and fortresses; and though the greatest part of them consisted
      only of a single tower, with a small garrison, they were commonly
      sufficient to repel, or to intercept, the inroads of an enemy,
      who was ignorant of the art, and impatient of the delay, of a
      regular siege. But these slight obstacles were instantly swept
      away by the inundation of the Huns. 19 They destroyed, with fire
      and sword, the populous cities of Sirmium and Singidunum, of
      Ratiaria and Marcianopolis, of Naissus and Sardica; where every
      circumstance of the discipline of the people, and the
      construction of the buildings, had been gradually adapted to the
      sole purpose of defence. The whole breadth of Europe, as it
      extends above five hundred miles from the Euxine to the
      Hadriatic, was at once invaded, and occupied, and desolated, by
      the myriads of Barbarians whom Attila led into the field. The
      public danger and distress could not, however, provoke Theodosius
      to interrupt his amusements and devotion, or to appear in person
      at the head of the Roman legions. But the troops, which had been
      sent against Genseric, were hastily recalled from Sicily; the
      garrisons, on the side of Persia, were exhausted; and a military
      force was collected in Europe, formidable by their arms and
      numbers, if the generals had understood the science of command,
      and the soldiers the duty of obedience. The armies of the Eastern
      empire were vanquished in three successive engagements; and the
      progress of Attila may be traced by the fields of battle.

      The two former, on the banks of the Utus, and under the walls of
      Marcianopolis, were fought in the extensive plains between the
      Danube and Mount Haemus. As the Romans were pressed by a
      victorious enemy, they gradually, and unskilfully, retired
      towards the Chersonesus of Thrace; and that narrow peninsula, the
      last extremity of the land, was marked by their third, and
      irreparable, defeat. By the destruction of this army, Attila
      acquired the indisputable possession of the field. From the
      Hellespont to Thermopylae, and the suburbs of Constantinople, he
      ravaged, without resistance, and without mercy, the provinces of
      Thrace and Macedonia. Heraclea and Hadrianople might, perhaps,
      escape this dreadful irruption of the Huns; but the words, the
      most expressive of total extirpation and erasure, are applied to
      the calamities which they inflicted on seventy cities of the
      Eastern empire. 20 Theodosius, his court, and the unwarlike
      people, were protected by the walls of Constantinople; but those
      walls had been shaken by a recent earthquake, and the fall of
      fifty-eight towers had opened a large and tremendous breach. The
      damage indeed was speedily repaired; but this accident was
      aggravated by a superstitious fear, that Heaven itself had
      delivered the Imperial city to the shepherds of Scythia, who were
      strangers to the laws, the language, and the religion, of the
      Romans. 21

      18 (return) [ Priscus, p. 331. His history contained a copious
      and elegant account of the war, (Evagrius, l. i. c. 17;) but the
      extracts which relate to the embassies are the only parts that
      have reached our times. The original work was accessible,
      however, to the writers from whom we borrow our imperfect
      knowledge, Jornandes, Theophanes, Count Marcellinus,
      Prosper-Tyro, and the author of the Alexandrian, or Paschal,
      Chronicle. M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l’Europe, tom. vii.
      c. xv.) has examined the cause, the circumstances, and the
      duration of this war; and will not allow it to extend beyond the
      year 44.]

      19 (return) [ Procopius, de Edificiis, l. 4, c. 5. These
      fortresses were afterwards restored, strengthened, and enlarged
      by the emperor Justinian, but they were soon destroyed by the
      Abares, who succeeded to the power and possessions of the Huns.]

      20 (return) [ Septuaginta civitates (says Prosper-Tyro)
      depredatione vastatoe. The language of Count Marcellinus is still
      more forcible. Pene totam Europam, invasis excisisque civitatibus
      atque castellis, conrasit.]

      21 (return) [ Tillemont (Hist des Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 106,
      107) has paid great attention to this memorable earthquake; which
      was felt as far from Constantinople as Antioch and Alexandria,
      and is celebrated by all the ecclesiastical writers. In the hands
      of a popular preacher, an earthquake is an engine of admirable
      effect.]

      In all their invasions of the civilized empires of the South, the
      Scythian shepherds have been uniformly actuated by a savage and
      destructive spirit. The laws of war, that restrain the exercise
      of national rapine and murder, are founded on two principles of
      substantial interest: the knowledge of the permanent benefits
      which may be obtained by a moderate use of conquest; and a just
      apprehension, lest the desolation which we inflict on the enemy’s
      country may be retaliated on our own. But these considerations of
      hope and fear are almost unknown in the pastoral state of
      nations. The Huns of Attila may, without injustice, be compared
      to the Moguls and Tartars, before their primitive manners were
      changed by religion and luxury; and the evidence of Oriental
      history may reflect some light on the short and imperfect annals
      of Rome. After the Moguls had subdued the northern provinces of
      China, it was seriously proposed, not in the hour of victory and
      passion, but in calm deliberate council, to exterminate all the
      inhabitants of that populous country, that the vacant land might
      be converted to the pasture of cattle. The firmness of a Chinese
      mandarin, 22 who insinuated some principles of rational policy
      into the mind of Zingis, diverted him from the execution of this
      horrid design. But in the cities of Asia, which yielded to the
      Moguls, the inhuman abuse of the rights of war was exercised with
      a regular form of discipline, which may, with equal reason,
      though not with equal authority, be imputed to the victorious
      Huns. The inhabitants, who had submitted to their discretion,
      were ordered to evacuate their houses, and to assemble in some
      plain adjacent to the city; where a division was made of the
      vanquished into three parts. The first class consisted of the
      soldiers of the garrison, and of the young men capable of bearing
      arms; and their fate was instantly decided: they were either
      enlisted among the Moguls, or they were massacred on the spot by
      the troops, who, with pointed spears and bended bows, had formed
      a circle round the captive multitude. The second class, composed
      of the young and beautiful women, of the artificers of every rank
      and profession, and of the more wealthy or honorable citizens,
      from whom a private ransom might be expected, was distributed in
      equal or proportionable lots. The remainder, whose life or death
      was alike useless to the conquerors, were permitted to return to
      the city; which, in the mean while, had been stripped of its
      valuable furniture; and a tax was imposed on those wretched
      inhabitants for the indulgence of breathing their native air.
      Such was the behavior of the Moguls, when they were not conscious
      of any extraordinary rigor. 23 But the most casual provocation,
      the slightest motive of caprice or convenience, often provoked
      them to involve a whole people in an indiscriminate massacre; and
      the ruin of some flourishing cities was executed with such
      unrelenting perseverance, that, according to their own
      expression, horses might run, without stumbling, over the ground
      where they had once stood. The three great capitals of Khorasan,
      Maru, Neisabour, and Herat, were destroyed by the armies of
      Zingis; and the exact account which was taken of the slain
      amounted to four millions three hundred and forty-seven thousand
      persons. 24 Timur, or Tamerlane, was educated in a less barbarous
      age, and in the profession of the Mahometan religion; yet, if
      Attila equalled the hostile ravages of Tamerlane, 25 either the
      Tartar or the Hun might deserve the epithet of the Scourge of
      God. 26

      22 (return) [ He represented to the emperor of the Moguls that
      the four provinces, (Petcheli, Chantong, Chansi, and
      Leaotong,)which he already possessed, might annually produce,
      under a mild administration, 500,000 ounces of silver, 400,000
      measures of rice, and 800,000 pieces of silk. Gaubil, Hist. de la
      Dynastie des Mongous, p. 58, 59. Yelut chousay (such was the name
      of the mandarin) was a wise and virtuous minister, who saved his
      country, and civilized the conquerors. * Note: Compare the life
      of this remarkable man, translated from the Chinese by M. Abel
      Remusat. Nouveaux Melanges Asiatiques, t. ii. p. 64.—M]

      23 (return) [ Particular instances would be endless; but the
      curious reader may consult the life of Gengiscan, by Petit de la
      Croix, the Histoire des Mongous, and the fifteenth book of the
      History of the Huns.]

      24 (return) [ At Maru, 1,300,000; at Herat, 1,600,000; at
      Neisabour, 1,747,000. D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 380,
      381. I use the orthography of D’Anville’s maps. It must, however,
      be allowed, that the Persians were disposed to exaggerate their
      losses and the Moguls to magnify their exploits.]

      25 (return) [ Cherefeddin Ali, his servile panegyrist, would
      afford us many horrid examples. In his camp before Delhi, Timour
      massacred 100,000 Indian prisoners, who had smiled when the army
      of their countrymen appeared in sight, (Hist. de Timur Bec, tom.
      iii. p. 90.) The people of Ispahan supplied 70,000 human skulls
      for the structure of several lofty towers, (id. tom. i. p. 434.)
      A similar tax was levied on the revolt of Bagdad, (tom. iii. p.
      370;) and the exact account, which Cherefeddin was not able to
      procure from the proper officers, is stated by another historian
      (Ahmed Arabsiada, tom. ii. p. 175, vera Manger) at 90,000 heads.]

      26 (return) [ The ancients, Jornandes, Priscus, &c., are ignorant
      of this epithet. The modern Hungarians have imagined, that it was
      applied, by a hermit of Gaul, to Attila, who was pleased to
      insert it among the titles of his royal dignity. Mascou, ix. 23,
      and Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 143.]




      Chapter XXXIV: Attila.—Part II.

      It may be affirmed, with bolder assurance, that the Huns
      depopulated the provinces of the empire, by the number of Roman
      subjects whom they led away into captivity. In the hands of a
      wise legislator, such an industrious colony might have
      contributed to diffuse through the deserts of Scythia the
      rudiments of the useful and ornamental arts; but these captives,
      who had been taken in war, were accidentally dispersed among the
      hordes that obeyed the empire of Attila. The estimate of their
      respective value was formed by the simple judgment of
      unenlightened and unprejudiced Barbarians. Perhaps they might not
      understand the merit of a theologian, profoundly skilled in the
      controversies of the Trinity and the Incarnation; yet they
      respected the ministers of every religion and the active zeal of
      the Christian missionaries, without approaching the person or the
      palace of the monarch, successfully labored in the propagation of
      the gospel. 27 The pastoral tribes, who were ignorant of the
      distinction of landed property, must have disregarded the use, as
      well as the abuse, of civil jurisprudence; and the skill of an
      eloquent lawyer could excite only their contempt or their
      abhorrence. 28 The perpetual intercourse of the Huns and the
      Goths had communicated the familiar knowledge of the two national
      dialects; and the Barbarians were ambitious of conversing in
      Latin, the military idiom even of the Eastern empire. 29 But they
      disdained the language and the sciences of the Greeks; and the
      vain sophist, or grave philosopher, who had enjoyed the
      flattering applause of the schools, was mortified to find that
      his robust servant was a captive of more value and importance
      than himself. The mechanic arts were encouraged and esteemed, as
      they tended to satisfy the wants of the Huns. An architect in the
      service of Onegesius, one of the favorites of Attila, was
      employed to construct a bath; but this work was a rare example of
      private luxury; and the trades of the smith, the carpenter, the
      armorer, were much more adapted to supply a wandering people with
      the useful instruments of peace and war. But the merit of the
      physician was received with universal favor and respect: the
      Barbarians, who despised death, might be apprehensive of disease;
      and the haughty conqueror trembled in the presence of a captive,
      to whom he ascribed, perhaps, an imaginary power of prolonging or
      preserving his life. 30 The Huns might be provoked to insult the
      misery of their slaves, over whom they exercised a despotic
      command; 31 but their manners were not susceptible of a refined
      system of oppression; and the efforts of courage and diligence
      were often recompensed by the gift of freedom. The historian
      Priscus, whose embassy is a source of curious instruction, was
      accosted in the camp of Attila by a stranger, who saluted him in
      the Greek language, but whose dress and figure displayed the
      appearance of a wealthy Scythian. In the siege of Viminiacum, he
      had lost, according to his own account, his fortune and liberty;
      he became the slave of Onegesius; but his faithful services,
      against the Romans and the Acatzires, had gradually raised him to
      the rank of the native Huns; to whom he was attached by the
      domestic pledges of a new wife and several children. The spoils
      of war had restored and improved his private property; he was
      admitted to the table of his former lord; and the apostate Greek
      blessed the hour of his captivity, since it had been the
      introduction to a happy and independent state; which he held by
      the honorable tenure of military service. This reflection
      naturally produced a dispute on the advantages and defects of the
      Roman government, which was severely arraigned by the apostate,
      and defended by Priscus in a prolix and feeble declamation. The
      freedman of Onegesius exposed, in true and lively colors, the
      vices of a declining empire, of which he had so long been the
      victim; the cruel absurdity of the Roman princes, unable to
      protect their subjects against the public enemy, unwilling to
      trust them with arms for their own defence; the intolerable
      weight of taxes, rendered still more oppressive by the intricate
      or arbitrary modes of collection; the obscurity of numerous and
      contradictory laws; the tedious and expensive forms of judicial
      proceedings; the partial administration of justice; and the
      universal corruption, which increased the influence of the rich,
      and aggravated the misfortunes of the poor. A sentiment of
      patriotic sympathy was at length revived in the breast of the
      fortunate exile; and he lamented, with a flood of tears, the
      guilt or weakness of those magistrates who had perverted the
      wisest and most salutary institutions. 32

      27 (return) [ The missionaries of St. Chrysostom had converted
      great numbers of the Scythians, who dwelt beyond the Danube in
      tents and wagons. Theodoret, l. v. c. 31. Photius, p. 1517. The
      Mahometans, the Nestorians, and the Latin Christians, thought
      themselves secure of gaining the sons and grandsons of Zingis,
      who treated the rival missionaries with impartial favor.]

      28 (return) [ The Germans, who exterminated Varus and his
      legions, had been particularly offended with the Roman laws and
      lawyers. One of the Barbarians, after the effectual precautions
      of cutting out the tongue of an advocate, and sewing up his
      mouth, observed, with much satisfaction, that the viper could no
      longer hiss. Florus, iv. 12.]

      29 (return) [ Priscus, p. 59. It should seem that the Huns
      preferred the Gothic and Latin languages to their own; which was
      probably a harsh and barren idiom.]

      30 (return) [ Philip de Comines, in his admirable picture of the
      last moments of Lewis XI., (Memoires, l. vi. c. 12,) represents
      the insolence of his physician, who, in five months, extorted
      54,000 crowns, and a rich bishopric, from the stern, avaricious
      tyrant.]

      31 (return) [ Priscus (p. 61) extols the equity of the Roman
      laws, which protected the life of a slave. Occidere solent (says
      Tacitus of the Germans) non disciplina et severitate, sed impetu
      et ira, ut inimicum, nisi quod impune. De Moribus Germ. c. 25.
      The Heruli, who were the subjects of Attila, claimed, and
      exercised, the power of life and death over their slaves. See a
      remarkable instance in the second book of Agathias]

      32 (return) [ See the whole conversation in Priscus, p. 59-62.]

      The timid or selfish policy of the Western Romans had abandoned
      the Eastern empire to the Huns. 33 The loss of armies, and the
      want of discipline or virtue, were not supplied by the personal
      character of the monarch. Theodosius might still affect the
      style, as well as the title, of Invincible Augustus; but he was
      reduced to solicit the clemency of Attila, who imperiously
      dictated these harsh and humiliating conditions of peace. I. The
      emperor of the East resigned, by an express or tacit convention,
      an extensive and important territory, which stretched along the
      southern banks of the Danube, from Singidunum, or Belgrade, as
      far as Novae, in the diocese of Thrace. The breadth was defined
      by the vague computation of fifteen 3311 days’ journey; but, from
      the proposal of Attila to remove the situation of the national
      market, it soon appeared, that he comprehended the ruined city of
      Naissus within the limits of his dominions. II. The king of the
      Huns required and obtained, that his tribute or subsidy should be
      augmented from seven hundred pounds of gold to the annual sum of
      two thousand one hundred; and he stipulated the immediate payment
      of six thousand pounds of gold, to defray the expenses, or to
      expiate the guilt, of the war. One might imagine, that such a
      demand, which scarcely equalled the measure of private wealth,
      would have been readily discharged by the opulent empire of the
      East; and the public distress affords a remarkable proof of the
      impoverished, or at least of the disorderly, state of the
      finances. A large proportion of the taxes extorted from the
      people was detained and intercepted in their passage, though the
      foulest channels, to the treasury of Constantinople. The revenue
      was dissipated by Theodosius and his favorites in wasteful and
      profuse luxury; which was disguised by the names of Imperial
      magnificence, or Christian charity. The immediate supplies had
      been exhausted by the unforeseen necessity of military
      preparations. A personal contribution, rigorously, but
      capriciously, imposed on the members of the senatorian order, was
      the only expedient that could disarm, without loss of time, the
      impatient avarice of Attila; and the poverty of the nobles
      compelled them to adopt the scandalous resource of exposing to
      public auction the jewels of their wives, and the hereditary
      ornaments of their palaces. 34 III. The king of the Huns appears
      to have established, as a principle of national jurisprudence,
      that he could never lose the property, which he had once
      acquired, in the persons who had yielded either a voluntary, or
      reluctant, submission to his authority. From this principle he
      concluded, and the conclusions of Attila were irrevocable laws,
      that the Huns, who had been taken prisoner in war, should be
      released without delay, and without ransom; that every Roman
      captive, who had presumed to escape, should purchase his right to
      freedom at the price of twelve pieces of gold; and that all the
      Barbarians, who had deserted the standard of Attila, should be
      restored, without any promise or stipulation of pardon.

      In the execution of this cruel and ignominious treaty, the
      Imperial officers were forced to massacre several loyal and noble
      deserters, who refused to devote themselves to certain death; and
      the Romans forfeited all reasonable claims to the friendship of
      any Scythian people, by this public confession, that they were
      destitute either of faith, or power, to protect the suppliant,
      who had embraced the throne of Theodosius. 35

      33 (return) [ Nova iterum Orienti assurgit ruina... quum nulla ab
      Cocidentalibus ferrentur auxilia. Prosper Tyro composed his
      Chronicle in the West; and his observation implies a censure.]

      3311 (return) [ Five in the last edition of Priscus. Niebuhr,
      Byz. Hist. p 147—M]

      34 (return) [ According to the description, or rather invective,
      of Chrysostom, an auction of Byzantine luxury must have been very
      productive. Every wealthy house possessed a semicircular table of
      massy silver such as two men could scarcely lift, a vase of solid
      gold of the weight of forty pounds, cups, dishes, of the same
      metal, &c.]

      35 (return) [ The articles of the treaty, expressed without much
      order or precision, may be found in Priscus, (p. 34, 35, 36, 37,
      53, &c.) Count Marcellinus dispenses some comfort, by observing,
      1. That Attila himself solicited the peace and presents, which he
      had formerly refused; and, 2dly, That, about the same time, the
      ambassadors of India presented a fine large tame tiger to the
      emperor Theodosius.]

      The firmness of a single town, so obscure, that, except on this
      occasion, it has never been mentioned by any historian or
      geographer, exposed the disgrace of the emperor and empire.
      Azimus, or Azimuntium, a small city of Thrace on the Illyrian
      borders, 36 had been distinguished by the martial spirit of its
      youth, the skill and reputation of the leaders whom they had
      chosen, and their daring exploits against the innumerable host of
      the Barbarians. Instead of tamely expecting their approach, the
      Azimuntines attacked, in frequent and successful sallies, the
      troops of the Huns, who gradually declined the dangerous
      neighborhood, rescued from their hands the spoil and the
      captives, and recruited their domestic force by the voluntary
      association of fugitives and deserters. After the conclusion of
      the treaty, Attila still menaced the empire with implacable war,
      unless the Azimuntines were persuaded, or compelled, to comply
      with the conditions which their sovereign had accepted. The
      ministers of Theodosius confessed with shame, and with truth,
      that they no longer possessed any authority over a society of
      men, who so bravely asserted their natural independence; and the
      king of the Huns condescended to negotiate an equal exchange with
      the citizens of Azimus. They demanded the restitution of some
      shepherds, who, with their cattle, had been accidentally
      surprised. A strict, though fruitless, inquiry was allowed: but
      the Huns were obliged to swear, that they did not detain any
      prisoners belonging to the city, before they could recover two
      surviving countrymen, whom the Azimuntines had reserved as
      pledges for the safety of their lost companions. Attila, on his
      side, was satisfied, and deceived, by their solemn asseveration,
      that the rest of the captives had been put to the sword; and that
      it was their constant practice, immediately to dismiss the Romans
      and the deserters, who had obtained the security of the public
      faith. This prudent and officious dissimulation may be condemned,
      or excused, by the casuists, as they incline to the rigid decree
      of St. Augustin, or to the milder sentiment of St. Jerom and St.
      Chrysostom: but every soldier, every statesman, must acknowledge,
      that, if the race of the Azimuntines had been encouraged and
      multiplied, the Barbarians would have ceased to trample on the
      majesty of the empire. 37

      36 (return) [ Priscus, p. 35, 36. Among the hundred and
      eighty-two forts, or castles, of Thrace, enumerated by Procopius,
      (de Edificiis, l. iv. c. xi. tom. ii. p. 92, edit. Paris,) there
      is one of the name of Esimontou, whose position is doubtfully
      marked, in the neighborhood of Anchialus and the Euxine Sea. The
      name and walls of Azimuntium might subsist till the reign of
      Justinian; but the race of its brave defenders had been carefully
      extirpated by the jealousy of the Roman princes]

      37 (return) [ The peevish dispute of St. Jerom and St. Augustin,
      who labored, by different expedients, to reconcile the seeming
      quarrel of the two apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, depends on
      the solution of an important question, (Middleton’s Works, vol.
      ii. p. 5-20,) which has been frequently agitated by Catholic and
      Protestant divines, and even by lawyers and philosophers of every
      age.]

      It would have been strange, indeed, if Theodosius had purchased,
      by the loss of honor, a secure and solid tranquillity, or if his
      tameness had not invited the repetition of injuries. The
      Byzantine court was insulted by five or six successive embassies;
      38 and the ministers of Attila were uniformly instructed to press
      the tardy or imperfect execution of the last treaty; to produce
      the names of fugitives and deserters, who were still protected by
      the empire; and to declare, with seeming moderation, that, unless
      their sovereign obtained complete and immediate satisfaction, it
      would be impossible for him, were it even his wish, to check the
      resentment of his warlike tribes. Besides the motives of pride
      and interest, which might prompt the king of the Huns to continue
      this train of negotiation, he was influenced by the less
      honorable view of enriching his favorites at the expense of his
      enemies. The Imperial treasury was exhausted, to procure the
      friendly offices of the ambassadors and their principal
      attendants, whose favorable report might conduce to the
      maintenance of peace. The Barbarian monarch was flattered by the
      liberal reception of his ministers; he computed, with pleasure,
      the value and splendor of their gifts, rigorously exacted the
      performance of every promise which would contribute to their
      private emolument, and treated as an important business of state
      the marriage of his secretary Constantius. 39 That Gallic
      adventurer, who was recommended by Aetius to the king of the
      Huns, had engaged his service to the ministers of Constantinople,
      for the stipulated reward of a wealthy and noble wife; and the
      daughter of Count Saturninus was chosen to discharge the
      obligations of her country. The reluctance of the victim, some
      domestic troubles, and the unjust confiscation of her fortune,
      cooled the ardor of her interested lover; but he still demanded,
      in the name of Attila, an equivalent alliance; and, after many
      ambiguous delays and excuses, the Byzantine court was compelled
      to sacrifice to this insolent stranger the widow of Armatius,
      whose birth, opulence, and beauty, placed her in the most
      illustrious rank of the Roman matrons. For these importunate and
      oppressive embassies, Attila claimed a suitable return: he
      weighed, with suspicious pride, the character and station of the
      Imperial envoys; but he condescended to promise that he would
      advance as far as Sardica to receive any ministers who had been
      invested with the consular dignity. The council of Theodosius
      eluded this proposal, by representing the desolate and ruined
      condition of Sardica, and even ventured to insinuate that every
      officer of the army or household was qualified to treat with the
      most powerful princes of Scythia. Maximin, 40 a respectable
      courtier, whose abilities had been long exercised in civil and
      military employments, accepted, with reluctance, the troublesome,
      and perhaps dangerous, commission of reconciling the angry spirit
      of the king of the Huns. His friend, the historian Priscus, 41
      embraced the opportunity of observing the Barbarian hero in the
      peaceful and domestic scenes of life: but the secret of the
      embassy, a fatal and guilty secret, was intrusted only to the
      interpreter Vigilius. The two last ambassadors of the Huns,
      Orestes, a noble subject of the Pannonian province, and Edecon, a
      valiant chieftain of the tribe of the Scyrri, returned at the
      same time from Constantinople to the royal camp. Their obscure
      names were afterwards illustrated by the extraordinary fortune
      and the contrast of their sons: the two servants of Attila became
      the fathers of the last Roman emperor of the West, and of the
      first Barbarian king of Italy.

      38 (return) [ Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur, &c. c.
      xix.) has delineated, with a bold and easy pencil, some of the
      most striking circumstances of the pride of Attila, and the
      disgrace of the Romans. He deserves the praise of having read the
      Fragments of Priscus, which have been too much disregarded.]

      39 (return) [ See Priscus, p. 69, 71, 72, &c. I would fain
      believe, that this adventurer was afterwards crucified by the
      order of Attila, on a suspicion of treasonable practices; but
      Priscus (p. 57) has too plainly distinguished two persons of the
      name of Constantius, who, from the similar events of their lives,
      might have been easily confounded.]

      40 (return) [ In the Persian treaty, concluded in the year 422,
      the wise and eloquent Maximin had been the assessor of
      Ardaburius, (Socrates, l. vii. c. 20.) When Marcian ascended the
      throne, the office of Great Chamberlain was bestowed on Maximin,
      who is ranked, in the public edict, among the four principal
      ministers of state, (Novell. ad Calc. Cod. Theod. p. 31.) He
      executed a civil and military commission in the Eastern
      provinces; and his death was lamented by the savages of
      Aethiopia, whose incursions he had repressed. See Priscus, p. 40,
      41.]

      41 (return) [ Priscus was a native of Panium in Thrace, and
      deserved, by his eloquence, an honorable place among the sophists
      of the age. His Byzantine history, which related to his own
      times, was comprised in seven books. See Fabricius, Bibliot.
      Graec. tom. vi. p. 235, 236. Notwithstanding the charitable
      judgment of the critics, I suspect that Priscus was a Pagan. *
      Note: Niebuhr concurs in this opinion. Life of Priscus in the new
      edition of the Byzantine historians.—M]

      The ambassadors, who were followed by a numerous train of men and
      horses, made their first halt at Sardica, at the distance of
      three hundred and fifty miles, or thirteen days’ journey, from
      Constantinople. As the remains of Sardica were still included
      within the limits of the empire, it was incumbent on the Romans
      to exercise the duties of hospitality. They provided, with the
      assistance of the provincials, a sufficient number of sheep and
      oxen, and invited the Huns to a splendid, or at least, a
      plentiful supper. But the harmony of the entertainment was soon
      disturbed by mutual prejudice and indiscretion. The greatness of
      the emperor and the empire was warmly maintained by their
      ministers; the Huns, with equal ardor, asserted the superiority
      of their victorious monarch: the dispute was inflamed by the rash
      and unseasonable flattery of Vigilius, who passionately rejected
      the comparison of a mere mortal with the divine Theodosius; and
      it was with extreme difficulty that Maximin and Priscus were able
      to divert the conversation, or to soothe the angry minds, of the
      Barbarians. When they rose from table, the Imperial ambassador
      presented Edecon and Orestes with rich gifts of silk robes and
      Indian pearls, which they thankfully accepted. Yet Orestes could
      not forbear insinuating that he had not always been treated with
      such respect and liberality: and the offensive distinction which
      was implied, between his civil office and the hereditary rank of
      his colleague seems to have made Edecon a doubtful friend, and
      Orestes an irreconcilable enemy. After this entertainment, they
      travelled about one hundred miles from Sardica to Naissus. That
      flourishing city, which has given birth to the great Constantine,
      was levelled with the ground: the inhabitants were destroyed or
      dispersed; and the appearance of some sick persons, who were
      still permitted to exist among the ruins of the churches, served
      only to increase the horror of the prospect. The surface of the
      country was covered with the bones of the slain; and the
      ambassadors, who directed their course to the north-west, were
      obliged to pass the hills of modern Servia, before they descended
      into the flat and marshy grounds which are terminated by the
      Danube. The Huns were masters of the great river: their
      navigation was performed in large canoes, hollowed out of the
      trunk of a single tree; the ministers of Theodosius were safely
      landed on the opposite bank; and their Barbarian associates
      immediately hastened to the camp of Attila, which was equally
      prepared for the amusements of hunting or of war. No sooner had
      Maximin advanced about two miles 4111 from the Danube, than he
      began to experience the fastidious insolence of the conqueror. He
      was sternly forbid to pitch his tents in a pleasant valley, lest
      he should infringe the distant awe that was due to the royal
      mansion. 4112 The ministers of Attila pressed them to communicate
      the business, and the instructions, which he reserved for the ear
      of their sovereign. When Maximin temperately urged the contrary
      practice of nations, he was still more confounded to find that
      the resolutions of the Sacred Consistory, those secrets (says
      Priscus) which should not be revealed to the gods themselves, had
      been treacherously disclosed to the public enemy. On his refusal
      to comply with such ignominious terms, the Imperial envoy was
      commanded instantly to depart; the order was recalled; it was
      again repeated; and the Huns renewed their ineffectual attempts
      to subdue the patient firmness of Maximin. At length, by the
      intercession of Scotta, the brother of Onegesius, whose
      friendship had been purchased by a liberal gift, he was admitted
      to the royal presence; but, in stead of obtaining a decisive
      answer, he was compelled to undertake a remote journey towards
      the north, that Attila might enjoy the proud satisfaction of
      receiving, in the same camp, the ambassadors of the Eastern and
      Western empires. His journey was regulated by the guides, who
      obliged him to halt, to hasten his march, or to deviate from the
      common road, as it best suited the convenience of the king. The
      Romans, who traversed the plains of Hungary, suppose that they
      passed several navigable rivers, either in canoes or portable
      boats; but there is reason to suspect that the winding stream of
      the Teyss, or Tibiscus, might present itself in different places
      under different names. From the contiguous villages they received
      a plentiful and regular supply of provisions; mead instead of
      wine, millet in the place of bread, and a certain liquor named
      camus, which according to the report of Priscus, was distilled
      from barley. 42 Such fare might appear coarse and indelicate to
      men who had tasted the luxury of Constantinople; but, in their
      accidental distress, they were relieved by the gentleness and
      hospitality of the same Barbarians, so terrible and so merciless
      in war. The ambassadors had encamped on the edge of a large
      morass. A violent tempest of wind and rain, of thunder and
      lightning, overturned their tents, immersed their baggage and
      furniture in the water, and scattered their retinue, who wandered
      in the darkness of the night, uncertain of their road, and
      apprehensive of some unknown danger, till they awakened by their
      cries the inhabitants of a neighboring village, the property of
      the widow of Bleda. A bright illumination, and, in a few moments,
      a comfortable fire of reeds, was kindled by their officious
      benevolence; the wants, and even the desires, of the Romans were
      liberally satisfied; and they seem to have been embarrassed by
      the singular politeness of Bleda’s widow, who added to her other
      favors the gift, or at least the loan, of a sufficient number of
      beautiful and obsequious damsels. The sunshine of the succeeding
      day was dedicated to repose, to collect and dry the baggage, and
      to the refreshment of the men and horses: but, in the evening,
      before they pursued their journey, the ambassadors expressed
      their gratitude to the bounteous lady of the village, by a very
      acceptable present of silver cups, red fleeces, dried fruits, and
      Indian pepper. Soon after this adventure, they rejoined the march
      of Attila, from whom they had been separated about six days, and
      slowly proceeded to the capital of an empire, which did not
      contain, in the space of several thousand miles, a single city.

      4111 (return) [ 70 stadia. Priscus, 173.—M.]

      4112 (return) [ He was forbidden to pitch his tents on an
      eminence because Attila’s were below on the plain. Ibid.—M.]

      42 (return) [ The Huns themselves still continued to despise the
      labors of agriculture: they abused the privilege of a victorious
      nation; and the Goths, their industrious subjects, who cultivated
      the earth, dreaded their neighborhood, like that of so many
      ravenous wolves, (Priscus, p. 45.) In the same manner the Sarts
      and Tadgics provide for their own subsistence, and for that of
      the Usbec Tartars, their lazy and rapacious sovereigns. See
      Genealogical History of the Tartars, p. 423 455, &c.]

      As far as we may ascertain the vague and obscure geography of
      Priscus, this capital appears to have been seated between the
      Danube, the Teyss, and the Carpathian hills, in the plains of
      Upper Hungary, and most probably in the neighborhood of Jezberin,
      Agria, or Tokay. 43 In its origin it could be no more than an
      accidental camp, which, by the long and frequent residence of
      Attila, had insensibly swelled into a huge village, for the
      reception of his court, of the troops who followed his person,
      and of the various multitude of idle or industrious slaves and
      retainers. 44 The baths, constructed by Onegesius, were the only
      edifice of stone; the materials had been transported from
      Pannonia; and since the adjacent country was destitute even of
      large timber, it may be presumed, that the meaner habitations of
      the royal village consisted of straw, or mud, or of canvass. The
      wooden houses of the more illustrious Huns were built and adorned
      with rude magnificence, according to the rank, the fortune, or
      the taste of the proprietors. They seem to have been distributed
      with some degree of order and symmetry; and each spot became more
      honorable as it approached the person of the sovereign. The
      palace of Attila, which surpassed all other houses in his
      dominions, was built entirely of wood, and covered an ample space
      of ground. The outward enclosure was a lofty wall, or palisade,
      of smooth square timber, intersected with high towers, but
      intended rather for ornament than defence. This wall, which seems
      to have encircled the declivity of a hill, comprehended a great
      variety of wooden edifices, adapted to the uses of royalty.

      A separate house was assigned to each of the numerous wives of
      Attila; and, instead of the rigid and illiberal confinement
      imposed by Asiatic jealousy they politely admitted the Roman
      ambassadors to their presence, their table, and even to the
      freedom of an innocent embrace. When Maximin offered his presents
      to Cerca, 4411 the principal queen, he admired the singular
      architecture on her mansion, the height of the round columns, the
      size and beauty of the wood, which was curiously shaped or turned
      or polished or carved; and his attentive eye was able to discover
      some taste in the ornaments and some regularity in the
      proportions. After passing through the guards, who watched before
      the gate, the ambassadors were introduced into the private
      apartment of Cerca. The wife of Attila received their visit
      sitting, or rather lying, on a soft couch; the floor was covered
      with a carpet; the domestics formed a circle round the queen; and
      her damsels, seated on the ground, were employed in working the
      variegated embroidery which adorned the dress of the Barbaric
      warriors. The Huns were ambitious of displaying those riches
      which were the fruit and evidence of their victories: the
      trappings of their horses, their swords, and even their shoes,
      were studded with gold and precious stones; and their tables were
      profusely spread with plates, and goblets, and vases of gold and
      silver, which had been fashioned by the labor of Grecian artists.

      The monarch alone assumed the superior pride of still adhering to
      the simplicity of his Scythian ancestors. 45 The dress of Attila,
      his arms, and the furniture of his horse, were plain, without
      ornament, and of a single color. The royal table was served in
      wooden cups and platters; flesh was his only food; and the
      conqueror of the North never tasted the luxury of bread.

      43 (return) [ It is evident that Priscus passed the Danube and
      the Teyss, and that he did not reach the foot of the Carpathian
      hills. Agria, Tokay, and Jazberin, are situated in the plains
      circumscribed by this definition. M. de Buat (Histoire des
      Peuples, &c., tom. vii. p. 461) has chosen Tokay; Otrokosci, (p.
      180, apud Mascou, ix. 23,) a learned Hungarian, has preferred
      Jazberin, a place about thirty-six miles westward of Buda and the
      Danube. * Note: M. St. Martin considers the narrative of Priscus,
      the only authority of M. de Buat and of Gibbon, too vague to fix
      the position of Attila’s camp. “It is worthy of remark, that in
      the Hungarian traditions collected by Thwrocz, l. 2, c. 17,
      precisely on the left branch of the Danube, where Attila’s
      residence was situated, in the same parallel stands the present
      city of Buda, in Hungarian Buduvur. It is for this reason that
      this city has retained for a long time among the Germans of
      Hungary the name of Etzelnburgh or Etzela-burgh, i. e., the city
      of Attila. The distance of Buda from the place where Priscus
      crossed the Danube, on his way from Naissus, is equal to that
      which he traversed to reach the residence of the king of the
      Huns. I see no good reason for not acceding to the relations of
      the Hungarian historians.“ St. Martin, vi. 191.—M]

      44 (return) [ The royal village of Attila may be compared to the
      city of Karacorum, the residence of the successors of Zingis;
      which, though it appears to have been a more stable habitation,
      did not equal the size or splendor of the town and abbey of St.
      Denys, in the 13th century. (See Rubruquis, in the Histoire
      Generale des Voyages, tom. vii p. 286.) The camp of Aurengzebe,
      as it is so agreeably described by Bernier, (tom. ii. p.
      217-235,) blended the manners of Scythia with the magnificence
      and luxury of Hindostan.]

      4411 (return) [ The name of this queen occurs three times in
      Priscus, and always in a different form—Cerca, Creca, and Rheca.
      The Scandinavian poets have preserved her memory under the name
      of Herkia. St. Martin, vi. 192.—M.]

      45 (return) [ When the Moguls displayed the spoils of Asia, in
      the diet of Toncat, the throne of Zingis was still covered with
      the original black felt carpet, on which he had been seated, when
      he was raised to the command of his warlike countrymen. See Vie
      de Gengiscan, v. c. 9.]

      When Attila first gave audience to the Roman ambassadors on the
      banks of the Danube, his tent was encompassed with a formidable
      guard. The monarch himself was seated in a wooden chair. His
      stern countenance, angry gestures, and impatient tone, astonished
      the firmness of Maximin; but Vigilius had more reason to tremble,
      since he distinctly understood the menace, that if Attila did not
      respect the law of nations, he would nail the deceitful
      interpreter to the cross. and leave his body to the vultures. The
      Barbarian condescended, by producing an accurate list, to expose
      the bold falsehood of Vigilius, who had affirmed that no more
      than seventeen deserters could be found. But he arrogantly
      declared, that he apprehended only the disgrace of contending
      with his fugitive slaves; since he despised their impotent
      efforts to defend the provinces which Theodosius had intrusted to
      their arms: “For what fortress,“ (added Attila,) “what city, in
      the wide extent of the Roman empire, can hope to exist, secure
      and impregnable, if it is our pleasure that it should be erased
      from the earth?“ He dismissed, however, the interpreter, who
      returned to Constantinople with his peremptory demand of more
      complete restitution, and a more splendid embassy.

      His anger gradually subsided, and his domestic satisfaction in a
      marriage which he celebrated on the road with the daughter of
      Eslam, 4511 might perhaps contribute to mollify the native
      fierceness of his temper. The entrance of Attila into the royal
      village was marked by a very singular ceremony. A numerous troop
      of women came out to meet their hero and their king. They marched
      before him, distributed into long and regular files; the
      intervals between the files were filled by white veils of thin
      linen, which the women on either side bore aloft in their hands,
      and which formed a canopy for a chorus of young virgins, who
      chanted hymns and songs in the Scythian language. The wife of his
      favorite Onegesius, with a train of female attendants, saluted
      Attila at the door of her own house, on his way to the palace;
      and offered, according to the custom of the country, her
      respectful homage, by entreating him to taste the wine and meat
      which she had prepared for his reception. As soon as the monarch
      had graciously accepted her hospitable gift, his domestics lifted
      a small silver table to a convenient height, as he sat on
      horseback; and Attila, when he had touched the goblet with his
      lips, again saluted the wife of Onegesius, and continued his
      march. During his residence at the seat of empire, his hours were
      not wasted in the recluse idleness of a seraglio; and the king of
      the Huns could maintain his superior dignity, without concealing
      his person from the public view. He frequently assembled his
      council, and gave audience to the ambassadors of the nations; and
      his people might appeal to the supreme tribunal, which he held at
      stated times, and, according to the Eastern custom, before the
      principal gate of his wooden palace. The Romans, both of the East
      and of the West, were twice invited to the banquets, where Attila
      feasted with the princes and nobles of Scythia. Maximin and his
      colleagues were stopped on the threshold, till they had made a
      devout libation to the health and prosperity of the king of the
      Huns; and were conducted, after this ceremony, to their
      respective seats in a spacious hall. The royal table and couch,
      covered with carpets and fine linen, was raised by several steps
      in the midst of the hall; and a son, an uncle, or perhaps a
      favorite king, were admitted to share the simple and homely
      repast of Attila. Two lines of small tables, each of which
      contained three or four guests, were ranged in order on either
      hand; the right was esteemed the most honorable, but the Romans
      ingenuously confess, that they were placed on the left; and that
      Beric, an unknown chieftain, most probably of the Gothic race,
      preceded the representatives of Theodosius and Valentinian. The
      Barbarian monarch received from his cup-bearer a goblet filled
      with wine, and courteously drank to the health of the most
      distinguished guest; who rose from his seat, and expressed, in
      the same manner, his loyal and respectful vows. This ceremony was
      successively performed for all, or at least for the illustrious
      persons of the assembly; and a considerable time must have been
      consumed, since it was thrice repeated as each course or service
      was placed on the table. But the wine still remained after the
      meat had been removed; and the Huns continued to indulge their
      intemperance long after the sober and decent ambassadors of the
      two empires had withdrawn themselves from the nocturnal banquet.
      Yet before they retired, they enjoyed a singular opportunity of
      observing the manners of the nation in their convivial
      amusements. Two Scythians stood before the couch of Attila, and
      recited the verses which they had composed, to celebrate his
      valor and his victories. 4512 A profound silence prevailed in the
      hall; and the attention of the guests was captivated by the vocal
      harmony, which revived and perpetuated the memory of their own
      exploits; a martial ardor flashed from the eyes of the warriors,
      who were impatient for battle; and the tears of the old men
      expressed their generous despair, that they could no longer
      partake the danger and glory of the field. 46 This entertainment,
      which might be considered as a school of military virtue, was
      succeeded by a farce, that debased the dignity of human nature. A
      Moorish and a Scythian buffcon successively excited the mirth of
      the rude spectators, by their deformed figure, ridiculous dress,
      antic gestures, absurd speeches, and the strange, unintelligible
      confusion of the Latin, the Gothic, and the Hunnic languages; and
      the hall resounded with loud and licentious peals of laughter. In
      the midst of this intemperate riot, Attila alone, without a
      change of countenance, maintained his steadfast and inflexible
      gravity; which was never relaxed, except on the entrance of
      Irnac, the youngest of his sons: he embraced the boy with a smile
      of paternal tenderness, gently pinched him by the cheek, and
      betrayed a partial affection, which was justified by the
      assurance of his prophets, that Irnac would be the future support
      of his family and empire. Two days afterwards, the ambassadors
      received a second invitation; and they had reason to praise the
      politeness, as well as the hospitality, of Attila. The king of
      the Huns held a long and familiar conversation with Maximin; but
      his civility was interrupted by rude expressions and haughty
      reproaches; and he was provoked, by a motive of interest, to
      support, with unbecoming zeal, the private claims of his
      secretary Constantius.

      “The emperor” (said Attila) “has long promised him a rich wife:
      Constantius must not be disappointed; nor should a Roman emperor
      deserve the name of liar.“ On the third day, the ambassadors were
      dismissed; the freedom of several captives was granted, for a
      moderate ransom, to their pressing entreaties; and, besides the
      royal presents, they were permitted to accept from each of the
      Scythian nobles the honorable and useful gift of a horse. Maximin
      returned, by the same road, to Constantinople; and though he was
      involved in an accidental dispute with Beric, the new ambassador
      of Attila, he flattered himself that he had contributed, by the
      laborious journey, to confirm the peace and alliance of the two
      nations.

      4511 (return) [ Was this his own daughter, or the daughter of a
      person named Escam? (Gibbon has written incorrectly Eslam, an
      unknown name. The officer of Attila, called Eslas.) In either
      case the construction is imperfect: a good Greek writer would
      have introduced an article to determine the sense. Nor is it
      quite clear, whether Scythian usage is adduced to excuse the
      polygamy, or a marriage, which would be considered incestuous in
      other countries. The Latin version has carefully preserved the
      ambiguity, filiam Escam uxorem. I am not inclined to construe it
      ‘his own daughter’ though I have too little confidence in the
      uniformity of the grammatical idioms of the Byzantines (though
      Priscus is one of the best) to express myself without
      hesitation.-M.]

      4512 (return) [ This passage is remarkable from the connection of
      the name of Attila with that extraordinary cycle of poetry, which
      is found in different forms in almost all the Teutonic
      languages.]

      A Latin poem, de prima expeditione Attilae, Regis Hunnorum, in
      Gallias, was published in the year 1780, by Fischer at Leipsic.
      It contains, with the continuation, 1452 lines. It abounds in
      metrical faults, but is occasionally not without some rude spirit
      and some copiousness of fancy in the variation of the
      circumstances in the different combats of the hero Walther,
      prince of Aquitania. It contains little which can be supposed
      historical, and still less which is characteristic concerning
      Attila. It relates to a first expedition of Attila into Europe
      which cannot be traced in history, during which the kings of the
      Franks, of the Burgundians, and of Aquitaine, submit themselves,
      and give hostages to Attila: the king of the Franks, a personage
      who seems the same with the Hagen of Teutonic romance; the king
      of Burgundy, his daughter Heldgund; the king of Aquitaine, his
      son Walther. The main subject of the poem is the escape of
      Walther and Heldgund from the camp of Attila, and the combat
      between Walther and Gunthar, king of the Franks. with his twelve
      peers, among whom is Hagen. Walther had been betrayed while he
      passed through Worms, the city of the Frankish king. by paying
      for his ferry over the Rhine with some strange fish, which he had
      caught during his flight, and which were unknown in the waters of
      the Rhine. Gunthar was desirous of plundering him of the
      treasure, which Walther had carried off from the camp of Attila.
      The author of this poem is unknown, nor can I, on the vague and
      rather doubtful allusion to Thule, as Iceland, venture to assign
      its date. It was, evidently, recited in a monastery, as appears
      by the first line; and no doubt composed there. The faults of
      metre would point out a late date; and it may have been formed
      upon some local tradition, as Walther, the hero, seems to have
      turned monk.

      This poem, however, in its character and its incidents, bears no
      relation to the Teutonic cycle, of which the Nibelungen Lied is
      the most complete form. In this, in the Heldenbuch, in some of
      the Danish Sagas. in countess lays and ballads in all the
      dialects of Scandinavia, appears King Etzel (Attila) in strife
      with the Burgundians and the Franks. With these appears, by a
      poetic anachronism, Dietrich of Berne. (Theodoric of Verona,) the
      celebrated Ostrogothic king; and many other very singular
      coincidences of historic names, which appear in the poems. (See
      Lachman Kritik der Sage in his volume of various readings to the
      Nibelungen; Berlin, 1836, p. 336.)




      Chapter XXXIV: Attila.—Part III.

      I must acknowledge myself unable to form any satisfactory theory
      as to the connection of these poems with the history of the time,
      or the period, from which they may date their origin;
      notwithstanding the laborious investigations and critical
      sagacity of the Schlegels, the Grimms, of P. E. Muller and
      Lachman, and a whole host of German critics and antiquaries; not
      to omit our own countryman, Mr. Herbert, whose theory concerning
      Attila is certainly neither deficient in boldness nor
      originality. I conceive the only way to obtain any thing like a
      clear conception on this point would be what Lachman has begun,
      (see above,) patiently to collect and compare the various forms
      which the traditions have assumed, without any preconceived,
      either mythical or poetical, theory, and, if possible, to
      discover the original basis of the whole rich and fantastic
      legend. One point, which to me is strongly in favor of the
      antiquity of this poetic cycle, is, that the manners are so
      clearly anterior to chivalry, and to the influence exercised on
      the poetic literature of Europe by the chivalrous poems and
      romances. I think I find some traces of that influence in the
      Latin poem, though strained through the imagination of a monk.
      The English reader will find an amusing account of the German
      Nibelungen and Heldenbuch, and of some of the Scandinavian Sagas,
      in the volume of Northern Antiquities published by Weber, the
      friend of Sir Walter Scott. Scott himself contributed a
      considerable, no doubt far the most valuable, part to the work.
      4612 4712

      See also the various German editions of the Nibelungen, to which
      Lachman, with true German perseverance, has compiled a thick
      volume of various readings; the Heldenbuch, the old Danish poems
      by Grimm, the Eddas, &c. Herbert’s Attila, p. 510, et seq.—M.]

      46 (return) [ If we may believe Plutarch, (in Demetrio, tom. v.
      p. 24,) it was the custom of the Scythians, when they indulged in
      the pleasures of the table, to awaken their languid courage by
      the martial harmony of twanging their bow-strings.]

      4612 (return) [ The Scythian was an idiot or lunatic; the Moor a
      regular buffcon—M.]

      4712 (return) [ The curious narrative of this embassy, which
      required few observations, and was not susceptible of any
      collateral evidence, may be found in Priscus, p. 49-70. But I
      have not confined myself to the same order; and I had previously
      extracted the historical circumstances, which were less
      intimately connected with the journey, and business, of the Roman
      ambassadors.]

      But the Roman ambassador was ignorant of the treacherous design,
      which had been concealed under the mask of the public faith. The
      surprise and satisfaction of Edecon, when he contemplated the
      splendor of Constantinople, had encouraged the interpreter
      Vigilius to procure for him a secret interview with the eunuch
      Chrysaphius, 48 who governed the emperor and the empire. After
      some previous conversation, and a mutual oath of secrecy, the
      eunuch, who had not, from his own feelings or experience, imbibed
      any exalted notions of ministerial virtue, ventured to propose
      the death of Attila, as an important service, by which Edecon
      might deserve a liberal share of the wealth and luxury which he
      admired. The ambassador of the Huns listened to the tempting
      offer; and professed, with apparent zeal, his ability, as well as
      readiness, to execute the bloody deed; the design was
      communicated to the master of the offices, and the devout
      Theodosius consented to the assassination of his invincible
      enemy. But this perfidious conspiracy was defeated by the
      dissimulation, or the repentance, of Edecon; and though he might
      exaggerate his inward abhorrence for the treason, which he seemed
      to approve, he dexterously assumed the merit of an early and
      voluntary confession. If we now review the embassy of Maximin,
      and the behavior of Attila, we must applaud the Barbarian, who
      respected the laws of hospitality, and generously entertained and
      dismissed the minister of a prince who had conspired against his
      life. But the rashness of Vigilius will appear still more
      extraordinary, since he returned, conscious of his guilt and
      danger, to the royal camp, accompanied by his son, and carrying
      with him a weighty purse of gold, which the favorite eunuch had
      furnished, to satisfy the demands of Edecon, and to corrupt the
      fidelity of the guards. The interpreter was instantly seized, and
      dragged before the tribunal of Attila, where he asserted his
      innocence with specious firmness, till the threat of inflicting
      instant death on his son extorted from him a sincere discovery of
      the criminal transaction. Under the name of ransom, or
      confiscation, the rapacious king of the Huns accepted two hundred
      pounds of gold for the life of a traitor, whom he disdained to
      punish. He pointed his just indignation against a nobler object.
      His ambassadors, Eslaw and Orestes, were immediately despatched
      to Constantinople, with a peremptory instruction, which it was
      much safer for them to execute than to disobey. They boldly
      entered the Imperial presence, with the fatal purse hanging down
      from the neck of Orestes; who interrogated the eunuch
      Chrysaphius, as he stood beside the throne, whether he recognized
      the evidence of his guilt. But the office of reproof was reserved
      for the superior dignity of his colleague Eslaw, who gravely
      addressed the emperor of the East in the following words:
      “Theodosius is the son of an illustrious and respectable parent:
      Attila likewise is descended from a noble race; and he has
      supported, by his actions, the dignity which he inherited from
      his father Mundzuk. But Theodosius has forfeited his paternal
      honors, and, by consenting to pay tribute has degraded himself to
      the condition of a slave. It is therefore just, that he should
      reverence the man whom fortune and merit have placed above him;
      instead of attempting, like a wicked slave, clandestinely to
      conspire against his master.“ The son of Arcadius, who was
      accustomed only to the voice of flattery, heard with astonishment
      the severe language of truth: he blushed and trembled; nor did he
      presume directly to refuse the head of Chrysaphius, which Eslaw
      and Orestes were instructed to demand. A solemn embassy, armed
      with full powers and magnificent gifts, was hastily sent to
      deprecate the wrath of Attila; and his pride was gratified by the
      choice of Nomius and Anatolius, two ministers of consular or
      patrician rank, of whom the one was great treasurer, and the
      other was master-general of the armies of the East. He
      condescended to meet these ambassadors on the banks of the River
      Drenco; and though he at first affected a stern and haughty
      demeanor, his anger was insensibly mollified by their eloquence
      and liberality. He condescended to pardon the emperor, the
      eunuch, and the interpreter; bound himself by an oath to observe
      the conditions of peace; released a great number of captives;
      abandoned the fugitives and deserters to their fate; and resigned
      a large territory, to the south of the Danube, which he had
      already exhausted of its wealth and inhabitants. But this treaty
      was purchased at an expense which might have supported a vigorous
      and successful war; and the subjects of Theodosius were compelled
      to redeem the safety of a worthless favorite by oppressive taxes,
      which they would more cheerfully have paid for his destruction.
      49

      48 (return) [ M. de Tillemont has very properly given the
      succession of chamberlains, who reigned in the name of
      Theodosius. Chrysaphius was the last, and, according to the
      unanimous evidence of history, the worst of these favorites, (see
      Hist. des Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 117-119. Mem. Eccles. tom. xv.
      p. 438.) His partiality for his godfather the heresiarch
      Eutyches, engaged him to persecute the orthodox party]

      49 (return) [ This secret conspiracy and its important
      consequences, may be traced in the fragments of Priscus, p. 37,
      38, 39, 54, 70, 71, 72. The chronology of that historian is not
      fixed by any precise date; but the series of negotiations between
      Attila and the Eastern empire must be included within the three
      or four years which are terminated, A.D. 450. by the death of
      Theodosius.]

      The emperor Theodosius did not long survive the most humiliating
      circumstance of an inglorious life. As he was riding, or hunting,
      in the neighborhood of Constantinople, he was thrown from his
      horse into the River Lycus: the spine of the back was injured by
      the fall; and he expired some days afterwards, in the fiftieth
      year of his age, and the forty-third of his reign. 50 His sister
      Pulcheria, whose authority had been controlled both in civil and
      ecclesiastical affairs by the pernicious influence of the
      eunuchs, was unanimously proclaimed Empress of the East; and the
      Romans, for the first time, submitted to a female reign. No
      sooner had Pulcheria ascended the throne, than she indulged her
      own and the public resentment, by an act of popular justice.
      Without any legal trial, the eunuch Chrysaphius was executed
      before the gates of the city; and the immense riches which had
      been accumulated by the rapacious favorite, served only to hasten
      and to justify his punishment. 51 Amidst the general acclamations
      of the clergy and people, the empress did not forget the
      prejudice and disadvantage to which her sex was exposed; and she
      wisely resolved to prevent their murmurs by the choice of a
      colleague, who would always respect the superior rank and virgin
      chastity of his wife. She gave her hand to Marcian, a senator,
      about sixty years of age; and the nominal husband of Pulcheria
      was solemnly invested with the Imperial purple. The zeal which he
      displayed for the orthodox creed, as it was established by the
      council of Chalcedon, would alone have inspired the grateful
      eloquence of the Catholics. But the behavior of Marcian in a
      private life, and afterwards on the throne, may support a more
      rational belief, that he was qualified to restore and invigorate
      an empire, which had been almost dissolved by the successive
      weakness of two hereditary monarchs. He was born in Thrace, and
      educated to the profession of arms; but Marcian’s youth had been
      severely exercised by poverty and misfortune, since his only
      resource, when he first arrived at Constantinople, consisted in
      two hundred pieces of gold, which he had borrowed of a friend. He
      passed nineteen years in the domestic and military service of
      Aspar, and his son Ardaburius; followed those powerful generals
      to the Persian and African wars; and obtained, by their
      influence, the honorable rank of tribune and senator. His mild
      disposition, and useful talents, without alarming the jealousy,
      recommended Marcian to the esteem and favor of his patrons; he
      had seen, perhaps he had felt, the abuses of a venal and
      oppressive administration; and his own example gave weight and
      energy to the laws, which he promulgated for the reformation of
      manners. 52

      50 (return) [ Theodorus the Reader, (see Vales. Hist. Eccles.
      tom. iii. p. 563,) and the Paschal Chronicle, mention the fall,
      without specifying the injury: but the consequence was so likely
      to happen, and so unlikely to be invented, that we may safely
      give credit to Nicephorus Callistus, a Greek of the fourteenth
      century.]

      51 (return) [ Pulcheriae nutu (says Count Marcellinus) sua cum
      avaritia interemptus est. She abandoned the eunuch to the pious
      revenge of a son, whose father had suffered at his instigation.
      Note: Might not the execution of Chrysaphius have been a
      sacrifice to avert the anger of Attila, whose assassination the
      eunuch had attempted to contrive?—M.]

      52 (return) [ de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 4. Evagrius, l. ii. c. 1.
      Theophanes, p. 90, 91. Novell. ad Calcem. Cod. Theod. tom. vi. p.
      30. The praises which St. Leo and the Catholics have bestowed on
      Marcian, are diligently transcribed by Baronius, as an
      encouragement for future princes.]




      Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila.—Part I.

     Invasion Of Gaul By Attila.—He Is Repulsed By Aetius And The
     Visigoths.—Attila Invades And Evacuates Italy.—The Deaths Of
     Attila, Aetius, And Valentinian The Third.

      It was the opinion of Marcian, that war should be avoided, as
      long as it is possible to preserve a secure and honorable peace;
      but it was likewise his opinion, that peace cannot be honorable
      or secure, if the sovereign betrays a pusillanimous aversion to
      war. This temperate courage dictated his reply to the demands of
      Attila, who insolently pressed the payment of the annual tribute.
      The emperor signified to the Barbarians, that they must no longer
      insult the majesty of Rome by the mention of a tribute; that he
      was disposed to reward, with becoming liberality, the faithful
      friendship of his allies; but that, if they presumed to violate
      the public peace, they should feel that he possessed troops, and
      arms, and resolution, to repel their attacks. The same language,
      even in the camp of the Huns, was used by his ambassador
      Apollonius, whose bold refusal to deliver the presents, till he
      had been admitted to a personal interview, displayed a sense of
      dignity, and a contempt of danger, which Attila was not prepared
      to expect from the degenerate Romans. 1 He threatened to chastise
      the rash successor of Theodosius; but he hesitated whether he
      should first direct his invincible arms against the Eastern or
      the Western empire. While mankind awaited his decision with awful
      suspense, he sent an equal defiance to the courts of Ravenna and
      Constantinople; and his ministers saluted the two emperors with
      the same haughty declaration. “Attila, my lord, and thy lord,
      commands thee to provide a palace for his immediate reception.“ 2
      But as the Barbarian despised, or affected to despise, the Romans
      of the East, whom he had so often vanquished, he soon declared
      his resolution of suspending the easy conquest, till he had
      achieved a more glorious and important enterprise. In the
      memorable invasions of Gaul and Italy, the Huns were naturally
      attracted by the wealth and fertility of those provinces; but the
      particular motives and provocations of Attila can only be
      explained by the state of the Western empire under the reign of
      Valentinian, or, to speak more correctly, under the
      administration of Aetius. 3

      1 (return) [ See Priscus, p. 39, 72.]

      2 (return) [ The Alexandrian or Paschal Chronicle, which
      introduces this haughty message, during the lifetime of
      Theodosius, may have anticipated the date; but the dull annalist
      was incapable of inventing the original and genuine style of
      Attila.]

      3 (return) [ The second book of the Histoire Critique de
      l’Etablissement de la Monarchie Francoise tom. i. p. 189-424,
      throws great light on the state of Gaul, when it was invaded by
      Attila; but the ingenious author, the Abbe Dubos, too often
      bewilders himself in system and conjecture.]

      After the death of his rival Boniface, Aetius had prudently
      retired to the tents of the Huns; and he was indebted to their
      alliance for his safety and his restoration. Instead of the
      suppliant language of a guilty exile, he solicited his pardon at
      the head of sixty thousand Barbarians; and the empress Placidia
      confessed, by a feeble resistance, that the condescension, which
      might have been ascribed to clemency, was the effect of weakness
      or fear. She delivered herself, her son Valentinian, and the
      Western empire, into the hands of an insolent subject; nor could
      Placidia protect the son-in-law of Boniface, the virtuous and
      faithful Sebastian, 4 from the implacable persecution which urged
      him from one kingdom to another, till he miserably perished in
      the service of the Vandals. The fortunate Aetius, who was
      immediately promoted to the rank of patrician, and thrice
      invested with the honors of the consulship, assumed, with the
      title of master of the cavalry and infantry, the whole military
      power of the state; and he is sometimes styled, by contemporary
      writers, the duke, or general, of the Romans of the West. His
      prudence, rather than his virtue, engaged him to leave the
      grandson of Theodosius in the possession of the purple; and
      Valentinian was permitted to enjoy the peace and luxury of Italy,
      while the patrician appeared in the glorious light of a hero and
      a patriot, who supported near twenty years the ruins of the
      Western empire. The Gothic historian ingenuously confesses, that
      Aetius was born for the salvation of the Roman republic; 5 and
      the following portrait, though it is drawn in the fairest colors,
      must be allowed to contain a much larger proportion of truth than
      of flattery. 411 “His mother was a wealthy and noble Italian, and
      his father Gaudentius, who held a distinguished rank in the
      province of Scythia, gradually rose from the station of a
      military domestic, to the dignity of master of the cavalry. Their
      son, who was enrolled almost in his infancy in the guards, was
      given as a hostage, first to Alaric, and afterwards to the Huns;
      412 and he successively obtained the civil and military honors of
      the palace, for which he was equally qualified by superior merit.
      The graceful figure of Aetius was not above the middle stature;
      but his manly limbs were admirably formed for strength, beauty,
      and agility; and he excelled in the martial exercises of managing
      a horse, drawing the bow, and darting the javelin. He could
      patiently endure the want of food, or of sleep; and his mind and
      body were alike capable of the most laborious efforts. He
      possessed the genuine courage that can despise not only dangers,
      but injuries: and it was impossible either to corrupt, or
      deceive, or intimidate the firm integrity of his soul.“ 6 The
      Barbarians, who had seated themselves in the Western provinces,
      were insensibly taught to respect the faith and valor of the
      patrician Aetius. He soothed their passions, consulted their
      prejudices, balanced their interests, and checked their ambition.
      611 A seasonable treaty, which he concluded with Genseric,
      protected Italy from the depredations of the Vandals; the
      independent Britons implored and acknowledged his salutary aid;
      the Imperial authority was restored and maintained in Gaul and
      Spain; and he compelled the Franks and the Suevi, whom he had
      vanquished in the field, to become the useful confederates of the
      republic.

      4 (return) [ Victor Vitensis (de Persecut. Vandal. l. i. 6, p. 8,
      edit. Ruinart) calls him, acer consilio et strenuus in bello: but
      his courage, when he became unfortunate, was censured as
      desperate rashness; and Sebastian deserved, or obtained, the
      epithet of proeceps, (Sidon. Apollinar Carmen ix. 181.) His
      adventures in Constantinople, in Sicily, Gaul, Spain, and Africa,
      are faintly marked in the Chronicles of Marcellinus and Idatius.
      In his distress he was always followed by a numerous train; since
      he could ravage the Hellespont and Propontis, and seize the city
      of Barcelona.]

      5 (return) [ Reipublicae Romanae singulariter natus, qui
      superbiam Suevorum, Francorumque barbariem immensis caedibus
      servire Imperio Romano coegisset. Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c.
      34, p. 660.]

      411 (return) [ Some valuable fragments of a poetical panegyric on
      Aetius by Merobaudes, a Spaniard, have been recovered from a
      palimpsest MS. by the sagacity and industry of Niebuhr. They have
      been reprinted in the new edition of the Byzantine Historians.
      The poet speaks in glowing terms of the long (annosa) peace
      enjoyed under the administration of Aetius. The verses are very
      spirited. The poet was rewarded by a statue publicly dedicated to
      his honor in Rome.

     Danuvii cum pace redit, Tanaimque furore Exuit, et nigro candentes
     aethere terras Marte suo caruisse jubet.  Dedit otia ferro
     Caucasus, et saevi condemnant praelia reges. Addidit hiberni
     famulantia foedera Rhenus Orbis...... Lustrat Aremoricos jam
     mitior incola saltus; Perdidit et mores tellus, adsuetaque saevo
     Crimine quaesitas silvis celare rapinas, Discit inexpertis Cererem
     committere campis; Caesareoque diu manus obluctata labori Sustinet
     acceptas nostro sub consule leges; Et quamvis Geticis sulcum
     confundat aratris, Barbara vicinae refugit consortia gentis.
     —Merobaudes, p. 1]

      412 (return) [—cum Scythicis succumberet ensibus orbis,

     Telaque Tarpeias premerent Arctoa secures, Hostilem fregit rabiem,
     pignus quesuperbi Foederis et mundi pretium fuit.  Hinc modo voti
     Rata fides, validis quod dux premat impiger armis Edomuit quos
     pace puer; bellumque repressit Ignarus quid bella forent. 
     Stupuere feroces In tenero jam membra Getae.  Rex ipse, verendum
     Miratus pueri decus et prodentia fatum Lumina, primaevas dederat
     gestare faretras, Laudabatque manus librantem et tela gerentem
     Oblitus quod noster erat Pro nescia regis Corda, feris quanto
     populis discrimine constet Quod Latium docet arma ducem.
     —Merobaudes, Panegyr. p. 15.—M.]

      6 (return) [ This portrait is drawn by Renetus Profuturus
      Frigeridus, a contemporary historian, known only by some
      extracts, which are preserved by Gregory of Tours, (l. ii. c. 8,
      in tom. ii. p. 163.) It was probably the duty, or at least the
      interest, of Renatus, to magnify the virtues of Aetius; but he
      would have shown more dexterity if he had not insisted on his
      patient, forgiving disposition.]

      611 (return) [

     Insessor Libyes, quamvis, fatalibus armis Ausus Elisaei solium
     rescindere regni, Milibus Arctois Tyrias compleverat arces, Nunc
     hostem exutus pactis proprioribus arsit
     Romanam vincire fidem, Latiosque parentes Adnumerare sib,
     sociamque intexere prolem. —-Merobaudes, p. 12.—M.]

      From a principle of interest, as well as gratitude, Aetius
      assiduously cultivated the alliance of the Huns. While he resided
      in their tents as a hostage, or an exile, he had familiarly
      conversed with Attila himself, the nephew of his benefactor; and
      the two famous antagonists appeared to have been connected by a
      personal and military friendship, which they afterwards confirmed
      by mutual gifts, frequent embassies, and the education of
      Carpilio, the son of Aetius, in the camp of Attila. By the
      specious professions of gratitude and voluntary attachment, the
      patrician might disguise his apprehensions of the Scythian
      conqueror, who pressed the two empires with his innumerable
      armies. His demands were obeyed or eluded. When he claimed the
      spoils of a vanquished city, some vases of gold, which had been
      fraudulently embezzled, the civil and military governors of
      Noricum were immediately despatched to satisfy his complaints: 7
      and it is evident, from their conversation with Maximin and
      Priscus, in the royal village, that the valor and prudence of
      Aetius had not saved the Western Romans from the common ignominy
      of tribute. Yet his dexterous policy prolonged the advantages of
      a salutary peace; and a numerous army of Huns and Alani, whom he
      had attached to his person, was employed in the defence of Gaul.
      Two colonies of these Barbarians were judiciously fixed in the
      territories of Valens and Orleans; 8 and their active cavalry
      secured the important passages of the Rhone and of the Loire.
      These savage allies were not indeed less formidable to the
      subjects than to the enemies of Rome. Their original settlement
      was enforced with the licentious violence of conquest; and the
      province through which they marched was exposed to all the
      calamities of a hostile invasion. 9 Strangers to the emperor or
      the republic, the Alani of Gaul was devoted to the ambition of
      Aetius, and though he might suspect, that, in a contest with
      Attila himself, they would revolt to the standard of their
      national king, the patrician labored to restrain, rather than to
      excite, their zeal and resentment against the Goths, the
      Burgundians, and the Franks.

      7 (return) [ The embassy consisted of Count Romulus; of Promotus,
      president of Noricum; and of Romanus, the military duke. They
      were accompanied by Tatullus, an illustrious citizen of Petovio,
      in the same province, and father of Orestes, who had married the
      daughter of Count Romulus. See Priscus, p. 57, 65. Cassiodorus
      (Variar. i. 4) mentions another embassy, which was executed by
      his father and Carpilio, the son of Aetius; and, as Attila was no
      more, he could safely boast of their manly, intrepid behavior in
      his presence.]

      8 (return) [ Deserta Valentinae urbis rura Alanis partienda
      traduntur. Prosper. Tyronis Chron. in Historiens de France, tom.
      i. p. 639. A few lines afterwards, Prosper observes, that lands
      in the ulterior Gaul were assigned to the Alani. Without
      admitting the correction of Dubos, (tom. i. p. 300,) the
      reasonable supposition of two colonies or garrisons of Alani will
      confirm his arguments, and remove his objections.]

      9 (return) [ See Prosper. Tyro, p. 639. Sidonius (Panegyr. Avit.
      246) complains, in the name of Auvergne, his native country,

     Litorius Scythicos equites tunc forte subacto Celsus Aremorico,
     Geticum rapiebat in agmen Per terras, Averne, tuas, qui proxima
     quaedue Discursu, flammis, ferro, feritate, rapinis, Delebant;
     pacis fallentes nomen inane.

      another poet, Paulinus of Perigord, confirms the complaint:—

     Nam socium vix ferre queas, qui durior hoste. —-See Dubos, tom. i.
     p. 330.]

      The kingdom established by the Visigoths in the southern
      provinces of Gaul, had gradually acquired strength and maturity;
      and the conduct of those ambitious Barbarians, either in peace or
      war, engaged the perpetual vigilance of Aetius. After the death
      of Wallia, the Gothic sceptre devolved to Theodoric, the son of
      the great Alaric; 10 and his prosperous reign of more than thirty
      years, over a turbulent people, may be allowed to prove, that his
      prudence was supported by uncommon vigor, both of mind and body.
      Impatient of his narrow limits, Theodoric aspired to the
      possession of Arles, the wealthy seat of government and commerce;
      but the city was saved by the timely approach of Aetius; and the
      Gothic king, who had raised the siege with some loss and
      disgrace, was persuaded, for an adequate subsidy, to divert the
      martial valor of his subjects in a Spanish war. Yet Theodoric
      still watched, and eagerly seized, the favorable moment of
      renewing his hostile attempts. The Goths besieged Narbonne, while
      the Belgic provinces were invaded by the Burgundians; and the
      public safety was threatened on every side by the apparent union
      of the enemies of Rome. On every side, the activity of Aetius,
      and his Scythian cavalry, opposed a firm and successful
      resistance. Twenty thousand Burgundians were slain in battle; and
      the remains of the nation humbly accepted a dependent seat in the
      mountains of Savoy. 11 The walls of Narbonne had been shaken by
      the battering engines, and the inhabitants had endured the last
      extremities of famine, when Count Litorius, approaching in
      silence, and directing each horseman to carry behind him two
      sacks of flour, cut his way through the intrenchments of the
      besiegers. The siege was immediately raised; and the more
      decisive victory, which is ascribed to the personal conduct of
      Aetius himself, was marked with the blood of eight thousand
      Goths. But in the absence of the patrician, who was hastily
      summoned to Italy by some public or private interest, Count
      Litorius succeeded to the command; and his presumption soon
      discovered that far different talents are required to lead a wing
      of cavalry, or to direct the operations of an important war. At
      the head of an army of Huns, he rashly advanced to the gates of
      Thoulouse, full of careless contempt for an enemy whom his
      misfortunes had rendered prudent, and his situation made
      desperate. The predictions of the augurs had inspired Litorius
      with the profane confidence that he should enter the Gothic
      capital in triumph; and the trust which he reposed in his Pagan
      allies, encouraged him to reject the fair conditions of peace,
      which were repeatedly proposed by the bishops in the name of
      Theodoric. The king of the Goths exhibited in his distress the
      edifying contrast of Christian piety and moderation; nor did he
      lay aside his sackcloth and ashes till he was prepared to arm for
      the combat. His soldiers, animated with martial and religious
      enthusiasm, assaulted the camp of Litorius. The conflict was
      obstinate; the slaughter was mutual. The Roman general, after a
      total defeat, which could be imputed only to his unskilful
      rashness, was actually led through the streets of Thoulouse, not
      in his own, but in a hostile triumph; and the misery which he
      experienced, in a long and ignominious captivity, excited the
      compassion of the Barbarians themselves. 12 Such a loss, in a
      country whose spirit and finances were long since exhausted,
      could not easily be repaired; and the Goths, assuming, in their
      turn, the sentiments of ambition and revenge, would have planted
      their victorious standards on the banks of the Rhone, if the
      presence of Aetius had not restored strength and discipline to
      the Romans. 13 The two armies expected the signal of a decisive
      action; but the generals, who were conscious of each other’s
      force, and doubtful of their own superiority, prudently sheathed
      their swords in the field of battle; and their reconciliation was
      permanent and sincere. Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, appears
      to have deserved the love of his subjects, the confidence of his
      allies, and the esteem of mankind. His throne was surrounded by
      six valiant sons, who were educated with equal care in the
      exercises of the Barbarian camp, and in those of the Gallic
      schools: from the study of the Roman jurisprudence, they acquired
      the theory, at least, of law and justice; and the harmonious
      sense of Virgil contributed to soften the asperity of their
      native manners. 14 The two daughters of the Gothic king were
      given in marriage to the eldest sons of the kings of the Suevi
      and of the Vandals, who reigned in Spain and Africa: but these
      illustrious alliances were pregnant with guilt and discord. The
      queen of the Suevi bewailed the death of a husband inhumanly
      massacred by her brother. The princess of the Vandals was the
      victim of a jealous tyrant, whom she called her father. The cruel
      Genseric suspected that his son’s wife had conspired to poison
      him; the supposed crime was punished by the amputation of her
      nose and ears; and the unhappy daughter of Theodoric was
      ignominiously returned to the court of Thoulouse in that deformed
      and mutilated condition. This horrid act, which must seem
      incredible to a civilized age drew tears from every spectator;
      but Theodoric was urged, by the feelings of a parent and a king,
      to revenge such irreparable injuries. The Imperial ministers, who
      always cherished the discord of the Barbarians, would have
      supplied the Goths with arms, and ships, and treasures, for the
      African war; and the cruelty of Genseric might have been fatal to
      himself, if the artful Vandal had not armed, in his cause, the
      formidable power of the Huns. His rich gifts and pressing
      solicitations inflamed the ambition of Attila; and the designs of
      Aetius and Theodoric were prevented by the invasion of Gaul. 15

      10 (return) [ Theodoric II., the son of Theodoric I., declares to
      Avitus his resolution of repairing, or expiating, the faults
      which his grandfather had committed,—

      Quae noster peccavit avus, quem fuscat id unum, Quod te, Roma,
      capit.

      Sidon. Panegyric. Avit. 505.

      This character, applicable only to the great Alaric, establishes
      the genealogy of the Gothic kings, which has hitherto been
      unnoticed.]

      11 (return) [ The name of Sapaudia, the origin of Savoy, is first
      mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus; and two military posts are
      ascertained by the Notitia, within the limits of that province; a
      cohort was stationed at Grenoble in Dauphine; and Ebredunum, or
      Iverdun, sheltered a fleet of small vessels, which commanded the
      Lake of Neufchatel. See Valesius, Notit. Galliarum, p. 503.
      D’Anville, Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 284, 579.]

      12 (return) [ Salvian has attempted to explain the moral
      government of the Deity; a task which may be readily performed by
      supposing that the calamities of the wicked are judgments, and
      those of the righteous, trials.]

      13 (return) [

     —Capto terrarum damna patebant Litorio, in Rhodanum proprios
     producere fines, Thendoridae fixum; nec erat pugnare  necesse, Sed
     migrare Getis; rabidam trux asperat iram Victor; quod sensit
     Scythicum sub moenibus hostem Imputat, et nihil estgravius, si
     forsitan unquam Vincerecontingat, trepido. —Panegyr. Avit. 300,
     &c.

      Sitionius then proceeds, according to the duty of a panegyrist,
      to transfer the whole merit from Aetius to his minister Avitus.]

      14 (return) [ Theodoric II. revered, in the person of Avitus, the
      character of his preceptor.

     Mihi Romula dudum Per te jura placent; parvumque ediscere jussit
     Ad tua verba pater, docili quo prisca Maronis Carmine molliret
     Scythicos mihi pagina mores. —-Sidon. Panegyr. Avit. 495 &c.]

      15 (return) [ Our authorities for the reign of Theodoric I. are,
      Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 34, 36, and the Chronicles of
      Idatius, and the two Prospers, inserted in the historians of
      France, tom. i. p. 612-640. To these we may add Salvian de
      Gubernatione Dei, l. vii. p. 243, 244, 245, and the panegyric of
      Avitus, by Sidonius.]

      The Franks, whose monarchy was still confined to the neighborhood
      of the Lower Rhine, had wisely established the right of
      hereditary succession in the noble family of the Merovingians. 16
      These princes were elevated on a buckler, the symbol of military
      command; 17 and the royal fashion of long hair was the ensign of
      their birth and dignity. Their flaxen locks, which they combed
      and dressed with singular care, hung down in flowing ringlets on
      their back and shoulders; while the rest of the nation were
      obliged, either by law or custom, to shave the hinder part of
      their head, to comb their hair over the forehead, and to content
      themselves with the ornament of two small whiskers. 18 The lofty
      stature of the Franks, and their blue eyes, denoted a Germanic
      origin; their close apparel accurately expressed the figure of
      their limbs; a weighty sword was suspended from a broad belt;
      their bodies were protected by a large shield; and these warlike
      Barbarians were trained, from their earliest youth, to run, to
      leap, to swim; to dart the javelin, or battle-axe, with unerring
      aim; to advance, without hesitation, against a superior enemy;
      and to maintain, either in life or death, the invincible
      reputation of their ancestors. 19 Clodion, the first of their
      long-haired kings, whose name and actions are mentioned in
      authentic history, held his residence at Dispargum, 20 a village
      or fortress, whose place may be assigned between Louvain and
      Brussels. From the report of his spies, the king of the Franks
      was informed, that the defenceless state of the second Belgic
      must yield, on the slightest attack, to the valor of his
      subjects. He boldly penetrated through the thickets and morasses
      of the Carbonarian forest; 21 occupied Tournay and Cambray, the
      only cities which existed in the fifth century, and extended his
      conquests as far as the River Somme, over a desolate country,
      whose cultivation and populousness are the effects of more recent
      industry. 22 While Clodion lay encamped in the plains of Artois,
      23 and celebrated, with vain and ostentatious security, the
      marriage, perhaps, of his son, the nuptial feast was interrupted
      by the unexpected and unwelcome presence of Aetius, who had
      passed the Somme at the head of his light cavalry. The tables,
      which had been spread under the shelter of a hill, along the
      banks of a pleasant stream, were rudely overturned; the Franks
      were oppressed before they could recover their arms, or their
      ranks; and their unavailing valor was fatal only to themselves.
      The loaded wagons, which had followed their march, afforded a
      rich booty; and the virgin-bride, with her female attendants,
      submitted to the new lovers, who were imposed on them by the
      chance of war. This advance, which had been obtained by the skill
      and activity of Aetius, might reflect some disgrace on the
      military prudence of Clodion; but the king of the Franks soon
      regained his strength and reputation, and still maintained the
      possession of his Gallic kingdom from the Rhine to the Somme. 24
      Under his reign, and most probably from the enterprising spirit
      of his subjects, his three capitals, Mentz, Treves, and Cologne,
      experienced the effects of hostile cruelty and avarice. The
      distress of Cologne was prolonged by the perpetual dominion of
      the same Barbarians, who evacuated the ruins of Treves; and
      Treves, which in the space of forty years had been four times
      besieged and pillaged, was disposed to lose the memory of her
      afflictions in the vain amusements of the Circus. 25 The death of
      Clodion, after a reign of twenty years, exposed his kingdom to
      the discord and ambition of his two sons. Meroveus, the younger,
      26 was persuaded to implore the protection of Rome; he was
      received at the Imperial court, as the ally of Valentinian, and
      the adopted son of the patrician Aetius; and dismissed to his
      native country, with splendid gifts, and the strongest assurances
      of friendship and support. During his absence, his elder brother
      had solicited, with equal ardor, the formidable aid of Attila;
      and the king of the Huns embraced an alliance, which facilitated
      the passage of the Rhine, and justified, by a specious and
      honorable pretence, the invasion of Gaul. 27

      16 (return) [ Reges Crinitos se creavisse de prima, et ut ita
      dicam nobiliori suorum familia, (Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 9, p.
      166, of the second volume of the Historians of France.) Gregory
      himself does not mention the Merovingian name, which may be
      traced, however, to the beginning of the seventh century, as the
      distinctive appellation of the royal family, and even of the
      French monarchy. An ingenious critic has deduced the Merovingians
      from the great Maroboduus; and he has clearly proved, that the
      prince, who gave his name to the first race, was more ancient
      than the father of Childeric. See Memoires de l’Academie des
      Inscriptions, tom. xx. p. 52-90, tom. xxx. p. 557-587.]

      17 (return) [ This German custom, which may be traced from
      Tacitus to Gregory of Tours, was at length adopted by the
      emperors of Constantinople. From a MS. of the tenth century,
      Montfaucon has delineated the representation of a similar
      ceremony, which the ignorance of the age had applied to King
      David. See Monumens de la Monarchie Francoise, tom. i. Discours
      Preliminaire.]

      18 (return) [ Caesaries prolixa... crinium flagellis per terga
      dimissis, &c. See the Preface to the third volume of the
      Historians of France, and the Abbe Le Boeuf, (Dissertat. tom.
      iii. p. 47-79.) This peculiar fashion of the Merovingians has
      been remarked by natives and strangers; by Priscus, (tom. i. p.
      608,) by Agathias, (tom. ii. p. 49,) and by Gregory of Tours, (l.
      viii. 18, vi. 24, viii. 10, tom. ii. p. 196, 278, 316.)]

      19 (return) [ See an original picture of the figure, dress, arms,
      and temper of the ancient Franks, in Sidonius Apollinaris,
      (Panegyr. Majorian. 238-254;) and such pictures, though coarsely
      drawn, have a real and intrinsic value. Father Daniel (History de
      la Milice Francoise, tom. i. p. 2-7) has illustrated the
      description.]

      20 (return) [ Dubos, Hist. Critique, &c., tom. i. p. 271, 272.
      Some geographers have placed Dispargum on the German side of the
      Rhine. See a note of the Benedictine Editors, to the Historians
      of France, tom. ii p. 166.]

      21 (return) [ The Carbonarian wood was that part of the great
      forest of the Ardennes which lay between the Escaut, or Scheldt,
      and the Meuse. Vales. Notit. Gall. p. 126.]

      22 (return) [ Gregor. Turon. l. ii. c. 9, in tom. ii. p. 166,
      167. Fredegar. Epitom. c. 9, p. 395. Gesta Reg. Francor. c. 5, in
      tom. ii. p. 544. Vit St. Remig. ab Hincmar, in tom. iii. p. 373.]

      23 (return) [

     —Francus qua Cloio patentes Atrebatum terras pervaserat. —Panegyr.
     Majorian 213

      The precise spot was a town or village, called Vicus Helena; and
      both the name and place are discovered by modern geographers at
      Lens See Vales. Notit. Gall. p. 246. Longuerue, Description de la
      France tom. ii. p. 88.]

      24 (return) [ See a vague account of the action in Sidonius.
      Panegyr. Majorian 212-230. The French critics, impatient to
      establish their monarchy in Gaul, have drawn a strong argument
      from the silence of Sidonius, who dares not insinuate, that the
      vanquished Franks were compelled to repass the Rhine. Dubos, tom.
      i. p. 322.]

      25 (return) [ Salvian (de Gubernat. Dei, l. vi.) has expressed,
      in vague and declamatory language, the misfortunes of these three
      cities, which are distinctly ascertained by the learned Mascou,
      Hist. of the Ancient Germans, ix. 21.]

      26 (return) [ Priscus, in relating the contest, does not name the
      two brothers; the second of whom he had seen at Rome, a beardless
      youth, with long, flowing hair, (Historians of France, tom. i. p.
      607, 608.) The Benedictine Editors are inclined to believe, that
      they were the sons of some unknown king of the Franks, who
      reigned on the banks of the Neckar; but the arguments of M. de
      Foncemagne (Mem. de l’Academie, tom. viii. p. 464) seem to prove
      that the succession of Clodion was disputed by his two sons, and
      that the younger was Meroveus, the father of Childeric. * Note:
      The relationship of Meroveus to Clodion is extremely doubtful.—By
      some he is called an illegitimate son; by others merely of his
      race. Tur ii. c. 9, in Sismondi, Hist. des Francais, i. 177. See
      Mezeray.]

      27 (return) [ Under the Merovingian race, the throne was
      hereditary; but all the sons of the deceased monarch were equally
      entitled to their share of his treasures and territories. See the
      Dissertations of M. de Foncemagne, in the sixth and eighth
      volumes of the Memoires de l’Academie.]




      Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila.—Part II.

      When Attila declared his resolution of supporting the cause of
      his allies, the Vandals and the Franks, at the same time, and
      almost in the spirit of romantic chivalry, the savage monarch
      professed himself the lover and the champion of the princess
      Honoria. The sister of Valentinian was educated in the palace of
      Ravenna; and as her marriage might be productive of some danger
      to the state, she was raised, by the title of Augusta, 28 above
      the hopes of the most presumptuous subject. But the fair Honoria
      had no sooner attained the sixteenth year of her age, than she
      detested the importunate greatness which must forever exclude her
      from the comforts of honorable love; in the midst of vain and
      unsatisfactory pomp, Honoria sighed, yielded to the impulse of
      nature, and threw herself into the arms of her chamberlain
      Eugenius. Her guilt and shame (such is the absurd language of
      imperious man) were soon betrayed by the appearances of
      pregnancy; but the disgrace of the royal family was published to
      the world by the imprudence of the empress Placidia who dismissed
      her daughter, after a strict and shameful confinement, to a
      remote exile at Constantinople. The unhappy princess passed
      twelve or fourteen years in the irksome society of the sisters of
      Theodosius, and their chosen virgins; to whose crown Honoria
      could no longer aspire, and whose monastic assiduity of prayer,
      fasting, and vigils, she reluctantly imitated. Her impatience of
      long and hopeless celibacy urged her to embrace a strange and
      desperate resolution. The name of Attila was familiar and
      formidable at Constantinople; and his frequent embassies
      entertained a perpetual intercourse between his camp and the
      Imperial palace. In the pursuit of love, or rather of revenge,
      the daughter of Placidia sacrificed every duty and every
      prejudice; and offered to deliver her person into the arms of a
      Barbarian, of whose language she was ignorant, whose figure was
      scarcely human, and whose religion and manners she abhorred. By
      the ministry of a faithful eunuch, she transmitted to Attila a
      ring, the pledge of her affection; and earnestly conjured him to
      claim her as a lawful spouse, to whom he had been secretly
      betrothed. These indecent advances were received, however, with
      coldness and disdain; and the king of the Huns continued to
      multiply the number of his wives, till his love was awakened by
      the more forcible passions of ambition and avarice. The invasion
      of Gaul was preceded, and justified, by a formal demand of the
      princess Honoria, with a just and equal share of the Imperial
      patrimony. His predecessors, the ancient Tanjous, had often
      addressed, in the same hostile and peremptory manner, the
      daughters of China; and the pretensions of Attila were not less
      offensive to the majesty of Rome. A firm, but temperate, refusal
      was communicated to his ambassadors. The right of female
      succession, though it might derive a specious argument from the
      recent examples of Placidia and Pulcheria, was strenuously
      denied; and the indissoluble engagements of Honoria were opposed
      to the claims of her Scythian lover. 29 On the discovery of her
      connection with the king of the Huns, the guilty princess had
      been sent away, as an object of horror, from Constantinople to
      Italy: her life was spared; but the ceremony of her marriage was
      performed with some obscure and nominal husband, before she was
      immured in a perpetual prison, to bewail those crimes and
      misfortunes, which Honoria might have escaped, had she not been
      born the daughter of an emperor. 30

      28 (return) [ A medal is still extant, which exhibits the
      pleasing countenance of Honoria, with the title of Augusta; and
      on the reverse, the improper legend of Salus Reipublicoe round
      the monogram of Christ. See Ducange, Famil. Byzantin. p. 67, 73.]

      29 (return) [ See Priscus, p, 39, 40. It might be fairly alleged,
      that if females could succeed to the throne, Valentinian himself,
      who had married the daughter and heiress of the younger
      Theodosius, would have asserted her right to the Eastern empire.]

      30 (return) [ The adventures of Honoria are imperfectly related
      by Jornandes, de Successione Regn. c. 97, and de Reb. Get. c. 42,
      p. 674; and in the Chronicles of Prosper and Marcellinus; but
      they cannot be made consistent, or probable, unless we separate,
      by an interval of time and place, her intrigue with Eugenius, and
      her invitation of Attila.]

      A native of Gaul, and a contemporary, the learned and eloquent
      Sidonius, who was afterwards bishop of Clermont, had made a
      promise to one of his friends, that he would compose a regular
      history of the war of Attila. If the modesty of Sidonius had not
      discouraged him from the prosecution of this interesting work, 31
      the historian would have related, with the simplicity of truth,
      those memorable events, to which the poet, in vague and doubtful
      metaphors, has concisely alluded. 32 The kings and nations of
      Germany and Scythia, from the Volga perhaps to the Danube, obeyed
      the warlike summons of Attila. From the royal village, in the
      plains of Hungary his standard moved towards the West; and after
      a march of seven or eight hundred miles, he reached the conflux
      of the Rhine and the Neckar, where he was joined by the Franks,
      who adhered to his ally, the elder of the sons of Clodion. A
      troop of light Barbarians, who roamed in quest of plunder, might
      choose the winter for the convenience of passing the river on the
      ice; but the innumerable cavalry of the Huns required such plenty
      of forage and provisions, as could be procured only in a milder
      season; the Hercynian forest supplied materials for a bridge of
      boats; and the hostile myriads were poured, with resistless
      violence, into the Belgic provinces. 33 The consternation of Gaul
      was universal; and the various fortunes of its cities have been
      adorned by tradition with martyrdoms and miracles. 34 Troyes was
      saved by the merits of St. Lupus; St. Servatius was removed from
      the world, that he might not behold the ruin of Tongres; and the
      prayers of St. Genevieve diverted the march of Attila from the
      neighborhood of Paris. But as the greatest part of the Gallic
      cities were alike destitute of saints and soldiers, they were
      besieged and stormed by the Huns; who practised, in the example
      of Metz, 35 their customary maxims of war. They involved, in a
      promiscuous massacre, the priests who served at the altar, and
      the infants, who, in the hour of danger, had been providently
      baptized by the bishop; the flourishing city was delivered to the
      flames, and a solitary chapel of St. Stephen marked the place
      where it formerly stood. From the Rhine and the Moselle, Attila
      advanced into the heart of Gaul; crossed the Seine at Auxerre;
      and, after a long and laborious march, fixed his camp under the
      walls of Orleans. He was desirous of securing his conquests by
      the possession of an advantageous post, which commanded the
      passage of the Loire; and he depended on the secret invitation of
      Sangiban, king of the Alani, who had promised to betray the city,
      and to revolt from the service of the empire. But this
      treacherous conspiracy was detected and disappointed: Orleans had
      been strengthened with recent fortifications; and the assaults of
      the Huns were vigorously repelled by the faithful valor of the
      soldiers, or citizens, who defended the place. The pastoral
      diligence of Anianus, a bishop of primitive sanctity and
      consummate prudence, exhausted every art of religious policy to
      support their courage, till the arrival of the expected succors.
      After an obstinate siege, the walls were shaken by the battering
      rams; the Huns had already occupied the suburbs; and the people,
      who were incapable of bearing arms, lay prostrate in prayer.
      Anianus, who anxiously counted the days and hours, despatched a
      trusty messenger to observe, from the rampari, the face of the
      distant country. He returned twice, without any intelligence that
      could inspire hope or comfort; but, in his third report, he
      mentioned a small cloud, which he had faintly descried at the
      extremity of the horizon. “It is the aid of God!“ exclaimed the
      bishop, in a tone of pious confidence; and the whole multitude
      repeated after him, “It is the aid of God.“ The remote object, on
      which every eye was fixed, became each moment larger, and more
      distinct; the Roman and Gothic banners were gradually perceived;
      and a favorable wind blowing aside the dust, discovered, in deep
      array, the impatient squadrons of Aetius and Theodoric, who
      pressed forwards to the relief of Orleans.

      31 (return) [ Exegeras mihi, ut promitterem tibi, Attilae bellum
      stylo me posteris intimaturum.... coeperam scribere, sed operis
      arrepti fasce perspecto, taeduit inchoasse. Sidon. Apoll. l.
      viii. epist. 15, p. 235]

      32 (return) [

     Subito cum rupta tumultu Barbaries totas in te transfuderat
     Arctos,
     Gallia.  Pugnacem Rugum comitante Gelono, Gepida trux sequitur;
     Scyrum Burgundio cogit:
     Chunus, Bellonotus, Neurus, Basterna, Toringus,
     Bructerus, ulvosa vel quem Nicer abluit unda

      Prorumpit Francus. Cecidit cito secta bipenni Hercynia in
      lintres, et Rhenum texuit alno. Et jam terrificis diffuderat
      Attila turmis In campos se, Belga, tuos. Panegyr. Avit.]

      33 (return) [ The most authentic and circumstantial account of
      this war is contained in Jornandes, (de Reb. Geticis, c. 36-41,
      p. 662-672,) who has sometimes abridged, and sometimes
      transcribed, the larger history of Cassiodorus. Jornandes, a
      quotation which it would be superfluous to repeat, may be
      corrected and illustrated by Gregory of Tours, l. ii. c. 5, 6, 7,
      and the Chronicles of Idatius, Isidore, and the two Prospers. All
      the ancient testimonies are collected and inserted in the
      Historians of France; but the reader should be cautioned against
      a supposed extract from the Chronicle of Idatius, (among the
      fragments of Fredegarius, tom. ii. p. 462,) which often
      contradicts the genuine text of the Gallician bishop.]

      34 (return) [ The ancient legendaries deserve some regard, as
      they are obliged to connect their fables with the real history of
      their own times. See the lives of St. Lupus, St. Anianus, the
      bishops of Metz, Ste. Genevieve, &c., in the Historians of
      France, tom. i. p. 644, 645, 649, tom. iii. p. 369.]

      35 (return) [ The scepticism of the count de Buat (Hist. des
      Peuples, tom. vii. p. 539, 540) cannot be reconciled with any
      principles of reason or criticism. Is not Gregory of Tours
      precise and positive in his account of the destruction of Metz?
      At the distance of no more than a hundred years, could he be
      ignorant, could the people be ignorant of the fate of a city, the
      actual residence of his sovereigns, the kings of Austrasia? The
      learned count, who seems to have undertaken the apology of Attila
      and the Barbarians, appeals to the false Idatius, parcens
      Germaniae et Galliae, and forgets that the true Idatius had
      explicitly affirmed, plurimae civitates effractoe, among which he
      enumerates Metz.]

      The facility with which Attila had penetrated into the heart of
      Gaul, may be ascribed to his insidious policy, as well as to the
      terror of his arms. His public declarations were skilfully
      mitigated by his private assurances; he alternately soothed and
      threatened the Romans and the Goths; and the courts of Ravenna
      and Thoulouse, mutually suspicious of each other’s intentions,
      beheld, with supine indifference, the approach of their common
      enemy. Aetius was the sole guardian of the public safety; but his
      wisest measures were embarrassed by a faction, which, since the
      death of Placidia, infested the Imperial palace: the youth of
      Italy trembled at the sound of the trumpet; and the Barbarians,
      who, from fear or affection, were inclined to the cause of
      Attila, awaited with doubtful and venal faith, the event of the
      war. The patrician passed the Alps at the head of some troops,
      whose strength and numbers scarcely deserved the name of an army.
      36 But on his arrival at Arles, or Lyons, he was confounded by
      the intelligence, that the Visigoths, refusing to embrace the
      defence of Gaul, had determined to expect, within their own
      territories, the formidable invader, whom they professed to
      despise. The senator Avitus, who, after the honorable exercise of
      the Praetorian praefecture, had retired to his estate in
      Auvergne, was persuaded to accept the important embassy, which he
      executed with ability and success. He represented to Theodoric,
      that an ambitious conqueror, who aspired to the dominion of the
      earth, could be resisted only by the firm and unanimous alliance
      of the powers whom he labored to oppress. The lively eloquence of
      Avitus inflamed the Gothic warriors, by the description of the
      injuries which their ancestors had suffered from the Huns; whose
      implacable fury still pursued them from the Danube to the foot of
      the Pyrenees. He strenuously urged, that it was the duty of every
      Christian to save, from sacrilegious violation, the churches of
      God, and the relics of the saints: that it was the interest of
      every Barbarian, who had acquired a settlement in Gaul, to defend
      the fields and vineyards, which were cultivated for his use,
      against the desolation of the Scythian shepherds. Theodoric
      yielded to the evidence of truth; adopted the measure at once the
      most prudent and the most honorable; and declared, that, as the
      faithful ally of Aetius and the Romans, he was ready to expose
      his life and kingdom for the common safety of Gaul. 37 The
      Visigoths, who, at that time, were in the mature vigor of their
      fame and power, obeyed with alacrity the signal of war; prepared
      their arms and horses, and assembled under the standard of their
      aged king, who was resolved, with his two eldest sons, Torismond
      and Theodoric, to command in person his numerous and valiant
      people. The example of the Goths determined several tribes or
      nations, that seemed to fluctuate between the Huns and the
      Romans. The indefatigable diligence of the patrician gradually
      collected the troops of Gaul and Germany, who had formerly
      acknowledged themselves the subjects, or soldiers, of the
      republic, but who now claimed the rewards of voluntary service,
      and the rank of independent allies; the Laeti, the Armoricans,
      the Breones the Saxons, the Burgundians, the Sarmatians, or
      Alani, the Ripuarians, and the Franks who followed Meroveus as
      their lawful prince. Such was the various army, which, under the
      conduct of Aetius and Theodoric, advanced, by rapid marches to
      relieve Orleans, and to give battle to the innumerable host of
      Attila. 38

      36 (return) [

     Vix liquerat Alpes Aetius, tenue, et rarum sine milite ducens
     Robur, in auxiliis Geticum male credulus agmen Incassum propriis
     praesumens adfore castris. —-Panegyr. Avit. 328, &c.]

      37 (return) [ The policy of Attila, of Aetius, and of the
      Visigoths, is imperfectly described in the Panegyric of Avitus,
      and the thirty-sixth chapter of Jornandes. The poet and the
      historian were both biased by personal or national prejudices.
      The former exalts the merit and importance of Avitus; orbis,
      Avite, salus, &c.! The latter is anxious to show the Goths in the
      most favorable light. Yet their agreement when they are fairly
      interpreted, is a proof of their veracity.]

      38 (return) [ The review of the army of Aetius is made by
      Jornandes, c. 36, p. 664, edit. Grot. tom. ii. p. 23, of the
      Historians of France, with the notes of the Benedictine editor.
      The Loeti were a promiscuous race of Barbarians, born or
      naturalized in Gaul; and the Riparii, or Ripuarii, derived their
      name from their post on the three rivers, the Rhine, the Meuse,
      and the Moselle; the Armoricans possessed the independent cities
      between the Seine and the Loire. A colony of Saxons had been
      planted in the diocese of Bayeux; the Burgundians were settled in
      Savoy; and the Breones were a warlike tribe of Rhaetians, to the
      east of the Lake of Constance.]

      On their approach the king of the Huns immediately raised the
      siege, and sounded a retreat to recall the foremost of his troops
      from the pillage of a city which they had already entered. 39 The
      valor of Attila was always guided by his prudence; and as he
      foresaw the fatal consequences of a defeat in the heart of Gaul,
      he repassed the Seine, and expected the enemy in the plains of
      Chalons, whose smooth and level surface was adapted to the
      operations of his Scythian cavalry. But in this tumultuary
      retreat, the vanguard of the Romans and their allies continually
      pressed, and sometimes engaged, the troops whom Attila had posted
      in the rear; the hostile columns, in the darkness of the night
      and the perplexity of the roads, might encounter each other
      without design; and the bloody conflict of the Franks and
      Gepidae, in which fifteen thousand 40 Barbarians were slain, was
      a prelude to a more general and decisive action. The Catalaunian
      fields 41 spread themselves round Chalons, and extend, according
      to the vague measurement of Jornandes, to the length of one
      hundred and fifty, and the breadth of one hundred miles, over the
      whole province, which is entitled to the appellation of a
      champaign country. 42 This spacious plain was distinguished,
      however, by some inequalities of ground; and the importance of a
      height, which commanded the camp of Attila, was understood and
      disputed by the two generals. The young and valiant Torismond
      first occupied the summit; the Goths rushed with irresistible
      weight on the Huns, who labored to ascend from the opposite side:
      and the possession of this advantageous post inspired both the
      troops and their leaders with a fair assurance of victory. The
      anxiety of Attila prompted him to consult his priests and
      haruspices. It was reported, that, after scrutinizing the
      entrails of victims, and scraping their bones, they revealed, in
      mysterious language, his own defeat, with the death of his
      principal adversary; and that the Barbarians, by accepting the
      equivalent, expressed his involuntary esteem for the superior
      merit of Aetius. But the unusual despondency, which seemed to
      prevail among the Huns, engaged Attila to use the expedient, so
      familiar to the generals of antiquity, of animating his troops by
      a military oration; and his language was that of a king, who had
      often fought and conquered at their head. 43 He pressed them to
      consider their past glory, their actual danger, and their future
      hopes. The same fortune, which opened the deserts and morasses of
      Scythia to their unarmed valor, which had laid so many warlike
      nations prostrate at their feet, had reserved the joys of this
      memorable field for the consummation of their victories. The
      cautious steps of their enemies, their strict alliance, and their
      advantageous posts, he artfully represented as the effects, not
      of prudence, but of fear. The Visigoths alone were the strength
      and nerves of the opposite army; and the Huns might securely
      trample on the degenerate Romans, whose close and compact order
      betrayed their apprehensions, and who were equally incapable of
      supporting the dangers or the fatigues of a day of battle. The
      doctrine of predestination, so favorable to martia virtue, was
      carefully inculcated by the king of the Huns; who assured his
      subjects, that the warriors, protected by Heaven, were safe and
      invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy; but that the unerring
      Fates would strike their victims in the bosom of inglorious
      peace. “I myself,“ continued Attila, “will throw the first
      javelin, and the wretch who refuses to imitate the example of his
      sovereign, is devoted to inevitable death.“ The spirit of the
      Barbarians was rekindled by the presence, the voice, and the
      example of their intrepid leader; and Attila, yielding to their
      impatience, immediately formed his order of battle. At the head
      of his brave and faithful Huns, he occupied in person the centre
      of the line. The nations subject to his empire, the Rugians, the
      Heruli, the Thuringians, the Franks, the Burgundians, were
      extended on either hand, over the ample space of the Catalaunian
      fields; the right wing was commanded by Ardaric, king of the
      Gepidae; and the three valiant brothers, who reigned over the
      Ostrogoths, were posted on the left to oppose the kindred tribes
      of the Visigoths. The disposition of the allies was regulated by
      a different principle. Sangiban, the faithless king of the Alani,
      was placed in the centre, where his motions might be strictly
      watched, and that the treachery might be instantly punished.
      Aetius assumed the command of the left, and Theodoric of the
      right wing; while Torismond still continued to occupy the heights
      which appear to have stretched on the flank, and perhaps the
      rear, of the Scythian army. The nations from the Volga to the
      Atlantic were assembled on the plain of Chalons; but many of
      these nations had been divided by faction, or conquest, or
      emigration; and the appearance of similar arms and ensigns, which
      threatened each other, presented the image of a civil war.

      39 (return) [ Aurelianensis urbis obsidio, oppugnatio, irruptio,
      nec direptio, l. v. Sidon. Apollin. l. viii. Epist. 15, p. 246.
      The preservation of Orleans might easily be turned into a
      miracle, obtained and foretold by the holy bishop.]

      40 (return) [ The common editions read xcm but there is some
      authority of manuscripts (and almost any authority is sufficient)
      for the more reasonable number of xvm.]

      41 (return) [ Chalons, or Duro-Catalaunum, afterwards Catalauni,
      had formerly made a part of the territory of Rheims from whence
      it is distant only twenty-seven miles. See Vales, Notit. Gall. p.
      136. D’Anville, Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 212, 279.]

      42 (return) [ The name of Campania, or Champagne, is frequently
      mentioned by Gregory of Tours; and that great province, of which
      Rheims was the capital, obeyed the command of a duke. Vales.
      Notit. p. 120-123.]

      43 (return) [ I am sensible that these military orations are
      usually composed by the historian; yet the old Ostrogoths, who
      had served under Attila, might repeat his discourse to
      Cassiodorus; the ideas, and even the expressions, have an
      original Scythian cast; and I doubt, whether an Italian of the
      sixth century would have thought of the hujus certaminis gaudia.]

      The discipline and tactics of the Greeks and Romans form an
      interesting part of their national manners. The attentive study
      of the military operations of Xenophon, or Caesar, or Frederic,
      when they are described by the same genius which conceived and
      executed them, may tend to improve (if such improvement can be
      wished) the art of destroying the human species. But the battle
      of Chalons can only excite our curiosity by the magnitude of the
      object; since it was decided by the blind impetuosity of
      Barbarians, and has been related by partial writers, whose civil
      or ecclesiastical profession secluded them from the knowledge of
      military affairs. Cassiolorus, however, had familiarly conversed
      with many Gothic warriors, who served in that memorable
      engagement; “a conflict,“ as they informed him, “fierce, various,
      obstinate, and bloody; such as could not be paralleled either in
      the present or in past ages.“ The number of the slain amounted to
      one hundred and sixty-two thousand, or, according to another
      account, three hundred thousand persons; 44 and these incredible
      exaggerations suppose a real and effective loss sufficient to
      justify the historian’s remark, that whole generations may be
      swept away by the madness of kings, in the space of a single
      hour. After the mutual and repeated discharge of missile weapons,
      in which the archers of Scythia might signalize their superior
      dexterity, the cavalry and infantry of the two armies were
      furiously mingled in closer combat. The Huns, who fought under
      the eyes of their king pierced through the feeble and doubtful
      centre of the allies, separated their wings from each other, and
      wheeling, with a rapid effort, to the left, directed their whole
      force against the Visigoths. As Theodoric rode along the ranks,
      to animate his troops, he received a mortal stroke from the
      javelin of Andages, a noble Ostrogoth, and immediately fell from
      his horse. The wounded king was oppressed in the general
      disorder, and trampled under the feet of his own cavalry; and
      this important death served to explain the ambiguous prophecy of
      the haruspices. Attila already exulted in the confidence of
      victory, when the valiant Torismond descended from the hills, and
      verified the remainder of the prediction. The Visigoths, who had
      been thrown into confusion by the flight or defection of the
      Alani, gradually restored their order of battle; and the Huns
      were undoubtedly vanquished, since Attila was compelled to
      retreat. He had exposed his person with the rashness of a private
      soldier; but the intrepid troops of the centre had pushed
      forwards beyond the rest of the line; their attack was faintly
      supported; their flanks were unguarded; and the conquerors of
      Scythia and Germany were saved by the approach of the night from
      a total defeat. They retired within the circle of wagons that
      fortified their camp; and the dismounted squadrons prepared
      themselves for a defence, to which neither their arms, nor their
      temper, were adapted. The event was doubtful: but Attila had
      secured a last and honorable resource. The saddles and rich
      furniture of the cavalry were collected, by his order, into a
      funeral pile; and the magnanimous Barbarian had resolved, if his
      intrenchments should be forced, to rush headlong into the flames,
      and to deprive his enemies of the glory which they might have
      acquired, by the death or captivity of Attila. 45

      44 (return) [ The expressions of Jornandes, or rather of
      Cassiodorus, are extremely strong. Bellum atrox, multiplex,
      immane, pertinax, cui simile nulla usquam narrat antiquitas: ubi
      talia gesta referuntur, ut nihil esset quod in vita sua
      conspicere potuisset egregius, qui hujus miraculi privaretur
      aspectu. Dubos (Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 392, 393) attempts to
      reconcile the 162,000 of Jornandes with the 300,000 of Idatius
      and Isidore, by supposing that the larger number included the
      total destruction of the war, the effects of disease, the
      slaughter of the unarmed people, &c.]

      45 (return) [ The count de Buat, (Hist. des Peuples, &c., tom.
      vii. p. 554-573,) still depending on the false, and again
      rejecting the true, Idatius, has divided the defeat of Attila
      into two great battles; the former near Orleans, the latter in
      Champagne: in the one, Theodoric was slain in the other, he was
      revenged.]

      But his enemies had passed the night in equal disorder and
      anxiety. The inconsiderate courage of Torismond was tempted to
      urge the pursuit, till he unexpectedly found himself, with a few
      followers, in the midst of the Scythian wagons. In the confusion
      of a nocturnal combat, he was thrown from his horse; and the
      Gothic prince must have perished like his father, if his youthful
      strength, and the intrepid zeal of his companions, had not
      rescued him from this dangerous situation. In the same manner,
      but on the left of the line, Aetius himself, separated from his
      allies, ignorant of their victory, and anxious for their fate,
      encountered and escaped the hostile troops that were scattered
      over the plains of Chalons; and at length reached the camp of the
      Goths, which he could only fortify with a slight rampart of
      shields, till the dawn of day. The Imperial general was soon
      satisfied of the defeat of Attila, who still remained inactive
      within his intrenchments; and when he contemplated the bloody
      scene, he observed, with secret satisfaction, that the loss had
      principally fallen on the Barbarians. The body of Theodoric,
      pierced with honorable wounds, was discovered under a heap of the
      slain: is subjects bewailed the death of their king and father;
      but their tears were mingled with songs and acclamations, and his
      funeral rites were performed in the face of a vanquished enemy.
      The Goths, clashing their arms, elevated on a buckler his eldest
      son Torismond, to whom they justly ascribed the glory of their
      success; and the new king accepted the obligation of revenge as a
      sacred portion of his paternal inheritance. Yet the Goths
      themselves were astonished by the fierce and undaunted aspect of
      their formidable antagonist; and their historian has compared
      Attila to a lion encompassed in his den, and threatening his
      hunters with redoubled fury. The kings and nations who might have
      deserted his standard in the hour of distress, were made sensible
      that the displeasure of their monarch was the most imminent and
      inevitable danger. All his instruments of martial music
      incessantly sounded a loud and animating strain of defiance; and
      the foremost troops who advanced to the assault were checked or
      destroyed by showers of arrows from every side of the
      intrenchments. It was determined, in a general council of war, to
      besiege the king of the Huns in his camp, to intercept his
      provisions, and to reduce him to the alternative of a disgraceful
      treaty or an unequal combat. But the impatience of the Barbarians
      soon disdained these cautious and dilatory measures; and the
      mature policy of Aetius was apprehensive that, after the
      extirpation of the Huns, the republic would be oppressed by the
      pride and power of the Gothic nation. The patrician exerted the
      superior ascendant of authority and reason to calm the passions,
      which the son of Theodoric considered as a duty; represented,
      with seeming affection and real truth, the dangers of absence and
      delay and persuaded Torismond to disappoint, by his speedy
      return, the ambitious designs of his brothers, who might occupy
      the throne and treasures of Thoulouse. 46 After the departure of
      the Goths, and the separation of the allied army, Attila was
      surprised at the vast silence that reigned over the plains of
      Chalons: the suspicion of some hostile stratagem detained him
      several days within the circle of his wagons, and his retreat
      beyond the Rhine confessed the last victory which was achieved in
      the name of the Western empire. Meroveus and his Franks,
      observing a prudent distance, and magnifying the opinion of their
      strength by the numerous fires which they kindled every night,
      continued to follow the rear of the Huns till they reached the
      confines of Thuringia. The Thuringians served in the army of
      Attila: they traversed, both in their march and in their return,
      the territories of the Franks; and it was perhaps in this war
      that they exercised the cruelties which, about fourscore years
      afterwards, were revenged by the son of Clovis. They massacred
      their hostages, as well as their captives: two hundred young
      maidens were tortured with exquisite and unrelenting rage; their
      bodies were torn asunder by wild horses, or their bones were
      crushed under the weight of rolling wagons; and their unburied
      limbs were abandoned on the public roads, as a prey to dogs and
      vultures. Such were those savage ancestors, whose imaginary
      virtues have sometimes excited the praise and envy of civilized
      ages. 47

      46 (return) [ Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 41, p. 671. The
      policy of Aetius, and the behavior of Torismond, are extremely
      natural; and the patrician, according to Gregory of Tours, (l.
      ii. c. 7, p. 163,) dismissed the prince of the Franks, by
      suggesting to him a similar apprehension. The false Idatius
      ridiculously pretends, that Aetius paid a clandestine nocturnal
      visit to the kings of the Huns and of the Visigoths; from each of
      whom he obtained a bribe of ten thousand pieces of gold, as the
      price of an undisturbed retreat.]

      47 (return) [ These cruelties, which are passionately deplored by
      Theodoric, the son of Clovis, (Gregory of Tours, l. iii. c. 10,
      p. 190,) suit the time and circumstances of the invasion of
      Attila. His residence in Thuringia was long attested by popular
      tradition; and he is supposed to have assembled a couroultai, or
      diet, in the territory of Eisenach. See Mascou, ix. 30, who
      settles with nice accuracy the extent of ancient Thuringia, and
      derives its name from the Gothic tribe of the Therungi]




      Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila.—Part III.

      Neither the spirit, nor the forces, nor the reputation, of
      Attila, were impaired by the failure of the Gallic expedition In
      the ensuing spring he repeated his demand of the princess
      Honoria, and her patrimonial treasures. The demand was again
      rejected, or eluded; and the indignant lover immediately took the
      field, passed the Alps, invaded Italy, and besieged Aquileia with
      an innumerable host of Barbarians. Those Barbarians were
      unskilled in the methods of conducting a regular siege, which,
      even among the ancients, required some knowledge, or at least
      some practice, of the mechanic arts. But the labor of many
      thousand provincials and captives, whose lives were sacrificed
      without pity, might execute the most painful and dangerous work.
      The skill of the Roman artists might be corrupted to the
      destruction of their country. The walls of Aquileia were
      assaulted by a formidable train of battering rams, movable
      turrets, and engines, that threw stones, darts, and fire; 48 and
      the monarch of the Huns employed the forcible impulse of hope,
      fear, emulation, and interest, to subvert the only barrier which
      delayed the conquest of Italy. Aquileia was at that period one of
      the richest, the most populous, and the strongest of the maritime
      cities of the Adriatic coast. The Gothic auxiliaries, who
      appeared to have served under their native princes, Alaric and
      Antala, communicated their intrepid spirit; and the citizens
      still remembered the glorious and successful resistance which
      their ancestors had opposed to a fierce, inexorable Barbarian,
      who disgraced the majesty of the Roman purple. Three months were
      consumed without effect in the siege of the Aquileia; till the
      want of provisions, and the clamors of his army, compelled Attila
      to relinquish the enterprise; and reluctantly to issue his
      orders, that the troops should strike their tents the next
      morning, and begin their retreat. But as he rode round the walls,
      pensive, angry, and disappointed, he observed a stork preparing
      to leave her nest, in one of the towers, and to fly with her
      infant family towards the country. He seized, with the ready
      penetration of a statesman, this trifling incident, which chance
      had offered to superstition; and exclaimed, in a loud and
      cheerful tone, that such a domestic bird, so constantly attached
      to human society, would never have abandoned her ancient seats,
      unless those towers had been devoted to impending ruin and
      solitude. 49 The favorable omen inspired an assurance of victory;
      the siege was renewed and prosecuted with fresh vigor; a large
      breach was made in the part of the wall from whence the stork had
      taken her flight; the Huns mounted to the assault with
      irresistible fury; and the succeeding generation could scarcely
      discover the ruins of Aquileia. 50 After this dreadful
      chastisement, Attila pursued his march; and as he passed, the
      cities of Altinum, Concordia, and Padua, were reduced into heaps
      of stones and ashes. The inland towns, Vicenza, Verona, and
      Bergamo, were exposed to the rapacious cruelty of the Huns. Milan
      and Pavia submitted, without resistance, to the loss of their
      wealth; and applauded the unusual clemency which preserved from
      the flames the public, as well as private, buildings, and spared
      the lives of the captive multitude. The popular traditions of
      Comum, Turin, or Modena, may justly be suspected; yet they concur
      with more authentic evidence to prove, that Attila spread his
      ravages over the rich plains of modern Lombardy; which are
      divided by the Po, and bounded by the Alps and Apennine. 51 When
      he took possession of the royal palace of Milan, he was surprised
      and offended at the sight of a picture which represented the
      Caesars seated on their throne, and the princes of Scythia
      prostrate at their feet. The revenge which Attila inflicted on
      this monument of Roman vanity, was harmless and ingenious. He
      commanded a painter to reverse the figures and the attitudes; and
      the emperors were delineated on the same canvas, approaching in a
      suppliant posture to empty their bags of tributary gold before
      the throne of the Scythian monarch. 52 The spectators must have
      confessed the truth and propriety of the alteration; and were
      perhaps tempted to apply, on this singular occasion, the
      well-known fable of the dispute between the lion and the man. 53

      48 (return) [ Machinis constructis, omnibusque tormentorum
      generibus adhibitis. Jornandes, c. 42, p. 673. In the thirteenth
      century, the Moguls battered the cities of China with large
      engines, constructed by the Mahometans or Christians in their
      service, which threw stones from 150 to 300 pounds weight. In the
      defence of their country, the Chinese used gunpowder, and even
      bombs, above a hundred years before they were known in Europe;
      yet even those celestial, or infernal, arms were insufficient to
      protect a pusillanimous nation. See Gaubil. Hist. des Mongous, p.
      70, 71, 155, 157, &c.]

      49 (return) [ The same story is told by Jornandes, and by
      Procopius, (de Bell Vandal. l. i. c. 4, p. 187, 188:) nor is it
      easy to decide which is the original. But the Greek historian is
      guilty of an inexcusable mistake, in placing the siege of
      Aquileia after the death of Aetius.]

      50 (return) [ Jornandes, about a hundred years afterwards,
      affirms, that Aquileia was so completely ruined, ita ut vix ejus
      vestigia, ut appareant, reliquerint. See Jornandes de Reb.
      Geticis, c. 42, p. 673. Paul. Diacon. l. ii. c. 14, p. 785.
      Liutprand, Hist. l. iii. c. 2. The name of Aquileia was sometimes
      applied to Forum Julii, (Cividad del Friuli,) the more recent
      capital of the Venetian province. * Note: Compare the curious
      Latin poems on the destruction of Aquileia, published by M.
      Endlicher in his valuable catalogue of Latin Mss. in the library
      of Vienna, p. 298, &c.

 Repleta quondam domibus sublimibus, ornatis mire, niveis, marmorels,
 Nune ferax frugum metiris funiculo ruricolarum.

      The monkish poet has his consolation in Attila’s sufferings in
      soul and body.

 Vindictam tamen non evasit impius destructor tuus Attila sevissimus,
 Nunc igni simul gehennae et vermibus excruciatur—P. 290.—M.]

      51 (return) [ In describing this war of Attila, a war so famous,
      but so imperfectly known, I have taken for my guides two learned
      Italians, who considered the subject with some peculiar
      advantages; Sigonius, de Imperio Occidentali, l. xiii. in his
      works, tom. i. p. 495-502; and Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom.
      iv. p. 229-236, 8vo. edition.]

      52 (return) [ This anecdote may be found under two different
      articles of the miscellaneous compilation of Suidas.]

      53 (return) [

     Leo respondit, humana, hoc pictum manu: Videres hominem dejectum,
     si pingere Leones scirent. —Appendix ad Phaedrum, Fab. xxv.

      The lion in Phaedrus very foolishly appeals from pictures to the
      amphitheatre; and I am glad to observe, that the native taste of
      La Fontaine (l. iii. fable x.) has omitted this most lame and
      impotent conclusion.]

      It is a saying worthy of the ferocious pride of Attila, that the
      grass never grew on the spot where his horse had trod. Yet the
      savage destroyer undesignedly laid the foundation of a republic,
      which revived, in the feudal state of Europe, the art and spirit
      of commercial industry. The celebrated name of Venice, or
      Venetia, 54 was formerly diffused over a large and fertile
      province of Italy, from the confines of Pannonia to the River
      Addua, and from the Po to the Rhaetian and Julian Alps. Before
      the irruption of the Barbarians, fifty Venetian cities flourished
      in peace and prosperity: Aquileia was placed in the most
      conspicuous station: but the ancient dignity of Padua was
      supported by agriculture and manufactures; and the property of
      five hundred citizens, who were entitled to the equestrian rank,
      must have amounted, at the strictest computation, to one million
      seven hundred thousand pounds. Many families of Aquileia, Padua,
      and the adjacent towns, who fled from the sword of the Huns,
      found a safe, though obscure, refuge in the neighboring islands.
      55 At the extremity of the Gulf, where the Adriatic feebly
      imitates the tides of the ocean, near a hundred small islands are
      separated by shallow water from the continent, and protected from
      the waves by several long slips of land, which admit the entrance
      of vessels through some secret and narrow channels. 56 Till the
      middle of the fifth century, these remote and sequestered spots
      remained without cultivation, with few inhabitants, and almost
      without a name. But the manners of the Venetian fugitives, their
      arts and their government, were gradually formed by their new
      situation; and one of the epistles of Cassiodorus, 57 which
      describes their condition about seventy years afterwards, may be
      considered as the primitive monument of the republic. 571 The
      minister of Theodoric compares them, in his quaint declamatory
      style, to water-fowl, who had fixed their nests on the bosom of
      the waves; and though he allows, that the Venetian provinces had
      formerly contained many noble families, he insinuates, that they
      were now reduced by misfortune to the same level of humble
      poverty. Fish was the common, and almost the universal, food of
      every rank: their only treasure consisted in the plenty of salt,
      which they extracted from the sea: and the exchange of that
      commodity, so essential to human life, was substituted in the
      neighboring markets to the currency of gold and silver. A people,
      whose habitations might be doubtfully assigned to the earth or
      water, soon became alike familiar with the two elements; and the
      demands of avarice succeeded to those of necessity. The
      islanders, who, from Grado to Chiozza, were intimately connected
      with each other, penetrated into the heart of Italy, by the
      secure, though laborious, navigation of the rivers and inland
      canals. Their vessels, which were continually increasing in size
      and number, visited all the harbors of the Gulf; and the marriage
      which Venice annually celebrates with the Adriatic, was
      contracted in her early infancy. The epistle of Cassiodorus, the
      Praetorian praefect, is addressed to the maritime tribunes; and
      he exhorts them, in a mild tone of authority, to animate the zeal
      of their countrymen for the public service, which required their
      assistance to transport the magazines of wine and oil from the
      province of Istria to the royal city of Ravenna. The ambiguous
      office of these magistrates is explained by the tradition, that,
      in the twelve principal islands, twelve tribunes, or judges, were
      created by an annual and popular election. The existence of the
      Venetian republic under the Gothic kingdom of Italy, is attested
      by the same authentic record, which annihilates their lofty claim
      of original and perpetual independence. 58

      54 (return) [ Paul the Deacon (de Gestis Langobard. l. ii. c. 14,
      p. 784) describes the provinces of Italy about the end of the
      eighth century Venetia non solum in paucis insulis quas nunc
      Venetias dicimus, constat; sed ejus terminus a Pannoniae finibus
      usque Adduam fluvium protelatur. The history of that province
      till the age of Charlemagne forms the first and most interesting
      part of the Verona (Illustrata, p. 1-388,) in which the marquis
      Scipio Maffei has shown himself equally capable of enlarged views
      and minute disquisitions.]

      55 (return) [ This emigration is not attested by any contemporary
      evidence; but the fact is proved by the event, and the
      circumstances might be preserved by tradition. The citizens of
      Aquileia retired to the Isle of Gradus, those of Padua to Rivus
      Altus, or Rialto, where the city of Venice was afterwards built,
      &c.]

      56 (return) [ The topography and antiquities of the Venetian
      islands, from Gradus to Clodia, or Chioggia, are accurately
      stated in the Dissertatio Chorographica de Italia Medii Aevi. p.
      151-155.]

      57 (return) [ Cassiodor. Variar. l. xii. epist. 24. Maffei
      (Verona Illustrata, part i. p. 240-254) has translated and
      explained this curious letter, in the spirit of a learned
      antiquarian and a faithful subject, who considered Venice as the
      only legitimate offspring of the Roman republic. He fixes the
      date of the epistle, and consequently the praefecture, of
      Cassiodorus, A.D. 523; and the marquis’s authority has the more
      weight, as he prepared an edition of his works, and actually
      published a dissertation on the true orthography of his name. See
      Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. ii. p. 290-339.]

      571 (return) [ The learned count Figliasi has proved, in his
      memoirs upon the Veneti (Memorie de’ Veneti primi e secondi del
      conte Figliasi, t. vi. Veneziai, 796,) that from the most remote
      period, this nation, which occupied the country which has since
      been called the Venetian States or Terra Firma, likewise
      inhabited the islands scattered upon the coast, and that from
      thence arose the names of Venetia prima and secunda, of which the
      first applied to the main land and the second to the islands and
      lagunes. From the time of the Pelasgi and of the Etrurians, the
      first Veneti, inhabiting a fertile and pleasant country, devoted
      themselves to agriculture: the second, placed in the midst of
      canals, at the mouth of several rivers, conveniently situated
      with regard to the islands of Greece, as well as the fertile
      plains of Italy, applied themselves to navigation and commerce.
      Both submitted to the Romans a short time before the second Punic
      war; yet it was not till after the victory of Marius over the
      Cimbri, that their country was reduced to a Roman province. Under
      the emperors, Venetia Prima obtained more than once, by its
      calamities, a place in history. * * But the maritime province was
      occupied in salt works, fisheries, and commerce. The Romans have
      considered the inhabitants of this part as beneath the dignity of
      history, and have left them in obscurity. * * * They dwelt there
      until the period when their islands afforded a retreat to their
      ruined and fugitive compatriots. Sismondi. Hist. des Rep.
      Italiens, v. i. p. 313.—G. ——Compare, on the origin of Venice,
      Daru, Hist. de Venise, vol. i. c. l.—M.]

      58 (return) [ See, in the second volume of Amelot de la Houssaie,
      Histoire du Gouvernement de Venise, a translation of the famous
      Squittinio. This book, which has been exalted far above its
      merits, is stained, in every line, with the disingenuous
      malevolence of party: but the principal evidence, genuine and
      apocryphal, is brought together and the reader will easily choose
      the fair medium.]

      The Italians, who had long since renounced the exercise of arms,
      were surprised, after forty years’ peace, by the approach of a
      formidable Barbarian, whom they abhorred, as the enemy of their
      religion, as well as of their republic. Amidst the general
      consternation, Aetius alone was incapable of fear; but it was
      impossible that he should achieve, alone and unassisted, any
      military exploits worthy of his former renown. The Barbarians who
      had defended Gaul, refused to march to the relief of Italy; and
      the succors promised by the Eastern emperor were distant and
      doubtful. Since Aetius, at the head of his domestic troops, still
      maintained the field, and harassed or retarded the march of
      Attila, he never showed himself more truly great, than at the
      time when his conduct was blamed by an ignorant and ungrateful
      people. 59 If the mind of Valentinian had been susceptible of any
      generous sentiments, he would have chosen such a general for his
      example and his guide. But the timid grandson of Theodosius,
      instead of sharing the dangers, escaped from the sound of war;
      and his hasty retreat from Ravenna to Rome, from an impregnable
      fortress to an open capital, betrayed his secret intention of
      abandoning Italy, as soon as the danger should approach his
      Imperial person. This shameful abdication was suspended, however,
      by the spirit of doubt and delay, which commonly adheres to
      pusillanimous counsels, and sometimes corrects their pernicious
      tendency. The Western emperor, with the senate and people of
      Rome, embraced the more salutary resolution of deprecating, by a
      solemn and suppliant embassy, the wrath of Attila. This important
      commission was accepted by Avienus, who, from his birth and
      riches, his consular dignity, the numerous train of his clients,
      and his personal abilities, held the first rank in the Roman
      senate. The specious and artful character of Avienus 60 was
      admirably qualified to conduct a negotiation either of public or
      private interest: his colleague Trigetius had exercised the
      Praetorian praefecture of Italy; and Leo, bishop of Rome,
      consented to expose his life for the safety of his flock. The
      genius of Leo 61 was exercised and displayed in the public
      misfortunes; and he has deserved the appellation of Great, by the
      successful zeal with which he labored to establish his opinions
      and his authority, under the venerable names of orthodox faith
      and ecclesiastical discipline. The Roman ambassadors were
      introduced to the tent of Attila, as he lay encamped at the place
      where the slow-winding Mincius is lost in the foaming waves of
      the Lake Benacus, 62 and trampled, with his Scythian cavalry, the
      farms of Catullus and Virgil. 63 The Barbarian monarch listened
      with favorable, and even respectful, attention; and the
      deliverance of Italy was purchased by the immense ransom, or
      dowry, of the princess Honoria. The state of his army might
      facilitate the treaty, and hasten his retreat. Their martial
      spirit was relaxed by the wealth and idolence of a warm climate.
      The shepherds of the North, whose ordinary food consisted of milk
      and raw flesh, indulged themselves too freely in the use of
      bread, of wine, and of meat, prepared and seasoned by the arts of
      cookery; and the progress of disease revenged in some measure the
      injuries of the Italians. 64 When Attila declared his resolution
      of carrying his victorious arms to the gates of Rome, he was
      admonished by his friends, as well as by his enemies, that Alaric
      had not long survived the conquest of the eternal city. His mind,
      superior to real danger, was assaulted by imaginary terrors; nor
      could he escape the influence of superstition, which had so often
      been subservient to his designs. 65 The pressing eloquence of
      Leo, his majestic aspect and sacerdotal robes, excited the
      veneration of Attila for the spiritual father of the Christians.
      The apparition of the two apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, who
      menaced the Barbarian with instant death, if he rejected the
      prayer of their successor, is one of the noblest legends of
      ecclesiastical tradition. The safety of Rome might deserve the
      interposition of celestial beings; and some indulgence is due to
      a fable, which has been represented by the pencil of Raphael, and
      the chisel of Algardi. 66

      59 (return) [ Sirmond (Not. ad Sidon. Apollin. p. 19) has
      published a curious passage from the Chronicle of Prosper.
      Attila, redintegratis viribus, quas in Gallia amiserat, Italiam
      ingredi per Pannonias intendit; nihil duce nostro Aetio secundum
      prioris belli opera prospiciente, &c. He reproaches Aetius with
      neglecting to guard the Alps, and with a design to abandon Italy;
      but this rash censure may at least be counterbalanced by the
      favorable testimonies of Idatius and Isidore.]

      60 (return) [ See the original portraits of Avienus and his rival
      Basilius, delineated and contrasted in the epistles (i. 9. p. 22)
      of Sidonius. He had studied the characters of the two chiefs of
      the senate; but he attached himself to Basilius, as the more
      solid and disinterested friend.]

      61 (return) [ The character and principles of Leo may be traced
      in one hundred and forty-one original epistles, which illustrate
      the ecclesiastical history of his long and busy pontificate, from
      A.D. 440 to 461. See Dupin, Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom.
      iii. part ii p. 120-165.]

      62 (return) [

     Tardis ingens ubi flexibus errat Mincius, et tenera praetexit
     arundine ripas ———- Anne lacus tantos, te Lari maxime, teque
     Fluctibus, et fremitu assurgens Benace marino.]

      63 (return) [ The marquis Maffei (Verona Illustrata, part i. p.
      95, 129, 221, part ii. p. 2, 6) has illustrated with taste and
      learning this interesting topography. He places the interview of
      Attila and St. Leo near Ariolica, or Ardelica, now Peschiera, at
      the conflux of the lake and river; ascertains the villa of
      Catullus, in the delightful peninsula of Sirmio, and discovers
      the Andes of Virgil, in the village of Bandes, precisely situate,
      qua se subducere colles incipiunt, where the Veronese hills
      imperceptibly slope down into the plain of Mantua. * Note: Gibbon
      has made a singular mistake: the Mincius flows out of the Bonacus
      at Peschiera, not into it. The interview is likewise placed at
      Ponte Molino. and at Governolo, at the conflux of the Mincio and
      the Gonzaga. bishop of Mantua, erected a tablet in the year 1616,
      in the church of the latter place, commemorative of the event.
      Descrizione di Verona a de la sua provincia. C. 11, p. 126.—M.]

      64 (return) [ Si statim infesto agmine urbem petiissent, grande
      discrimen esset: sed in Venetia quo fere tractu Italia mollissima
      est, ipsa soli coelique clementia robur elanquit. Ad hoc panis
      usu carnisque coctae, et dulcedine vini mitigatos, &c. This
      passage of Florus (iii. 3) is still more applicable to the Huns
      than to the Cimbri, and it may serve as a commentary on the
      celestial plague, with which Idatius and Isidore have afflicted
      the troops of Attila.]

      65 (return) [ The historian Priscus had positively mentioned the
      effect which this example produced on the mind of Attila.
      Jornandes, c. 42, p. 673]

      66 (return) [ The picture of Raphael is in the Vatican; the basso
      (or perhaps the alto) relievo of Algardi, on one of the altars of
      St. Peter, (see Dubos, Reflexions sur la Poesie et sur la
      Peinture, tom. i. p. 519, 520.) Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D.
      452, No. 57, 58) bravely sustains the truth of the apparition;
      which is rejected, however, by the most learned and pious
      Catholics.]

      Before the king of the Huns evacuated Italy, he threatened to
      return more dreadful, and more implacable, if his bride, the
      princess Honoria, were not delivered to his ambassadors within
      the term stipulated by the treaty. Yet, in the mean while, Attila
      relieved his tender anxiety, by adding a beautiful maid, whose
      name was Ildico, to the list of his innumerable wives. 67 Their
      marriage was celebrated with barbaric pomp and festivity, at his
      wooden palace beyond the Danube; and the monarch, oppressed with
      wine and sleep, retired at a late hour from the banquet to the
      nuptial bed. His attendants continued to respect his pleasures,
      or his repose, the greatest part of the ensuing day, till the
      unusual silence alarmed their fears and suspicions; and, after
      attempting to awaken Attila by loud and repeated cries, they at
      length broke into the royal apartment. They found the trembling
      bride sitting by the bedside, hiding her face with her veil, and
      lamenting her own danger, as well as the death of the king, who
      had expired during the night. 68 An artery had suddenly burst:
      and as Attila lay in a supine posture, he was suffocated by a
      torrent of blood, which, instead of finding a passage through the
      nostrils, regurgitated into the lungs and stomach. His body was
      solemnly exposed in the midst of the plain, under a silken
      pavilion; and the chosen squadrons of the Huns, wheeling round in
      measured evolutions, chanted a funeral song to the memory of a
      hero, glorious in his life, invincible in his death, the father
      of his people, the scourge of his enemies, and the terror of the
      world. According to their national custom, the Barbarians cut off
      a part of their hair, gashed their faces with unseemly wounds,
      and bewailed their valiant leader as he deserved, not with the
      tears of women, but with the blood of warriors. The remains of
      Attila were enclosed within three coffins, of gold, of silver,
      and of iron, and privately buried in the night: the spoils of
      nations were thrown into his grave; the captives who had opened
      the ground were inhumanly massacred; and the same Huns, who had
      indulged such excessive grief, feasted, with dissolute and
      intemperate mirth, about the recent sepulchre of their king. It
      was reported at Constantinople, that on the fortunate night on
      which he expired, Marcian beheld in a dream the bow of Attila
      broken asunder: and the report may be allowed to prove, how
      seldom the image of that formidable Barbarian was absent from the
      mind of a Roman emperor. 69

      67 (return) [ Attila, ut Priscus historicus refert, extinctionis
      suae tempore, puellam Ildico nomine, decoram, valde, sibi
      matrimonium post innumerabiles uxores... socians. Jornandes, c.
      49, p. 683, 684.

      He afterwards adds, (c. 50, p. 686,) Filii Attilae, quorum per
      licentiam libidinis poene populus fuit. Polygamy has been
      established among the Tartars of every age. The rank of plebeian
      wives is regulated only by their personal charms; and the faded
      matron prepares, without a murmur, the bed which is destined for
      her blooming rival. But in royal families, the daughters of Khans
      communicate to their sons a prior right. See Genealogical
      History, p. 406, 407, 408.]

      68 (return) [ The report of her guilt reached Constantinople,
      where it obtained a very different name; and Marcellinus
      observes, that the tyrant of Europe was slain in the night by the
      hand, and the knife, of a woman Corneille, who has adapted the
      genuine account to his tragedy, describes the irruption of blood
      in forty bombast lines, and Attila exclaims, with ridiculous
      fury,

     S’il ne veut s’arreter, (his blood.) (Dit-il) on me payera ce qui
     m’en va couter.]

      69 (return) [ The curious circumstances of the death and funeral
      of Attila are related by Jornandes, (c. 49, p. 683, 684, 685,)
      and were probably transcribed from Priscus.]

      The revolution which subverted the empire of the Huns,
      established the fame of Attila, whose genius alone had sustained
      the huge and disjointed fabric. After his death, the boldest
      chieftains aspired to the rank of kings; the most powerful kings
      refused to acknowledge a superior; and the numerous sons, whom so
      many various mothers bore to the deceased monarch, divided and
      disputed, like a private inheritance, the sovereign command of
      the nations of Germany and Scythia. The bold Ardaric felt and
      represented the disgrace of this servile partition; and his
      subjects, the warlike Gepidae, with the Ostrogoths, under the
      conduct of three valiant brothers, encouraged their allies to
      vindicate the rights of freedom and royalty. In a bloody and
      decisive conflict on the banks of the River Netad, in Pannonia,
      the lance of the Gepidae, the sword of the Goths, the arrows of
      the Huns, the Suevic infantry, the light arms of the Heruli, and
      the heavy weapons of the Alani, encountered or supported each
      other; and the victory of the Ardaric was accompanied with the
      slaughter of thirty thousand of his enemies. Ellac, the eldest
      son of Attila, lost his life and crown in the memorable battle of
      Netad: his early valor had raised him to the throne of the
      Acatzires, a Scythian people, whom he subdued; and his father,
      who loved the superior merit, would have envied the death of
      Ellac. 70 His brother, Dengisich, with an army of Huns, still
      formidable in their flight and ruin, maintained his ground above
      fifteen years on the banks of the Danube. The palace of Attila,
      with the old country of Dacia, from the Carpathian hills to the
      Euxine, became the seat of a new power, which was erected by
      Ardaric, king of the Gepidae. The Pannonian conquests from Vienna
      to Sirmium, were occupied by the Ostrogoths; and the settlements
      of the tribes, who had so bravely asserted their native freedom,
      were irregularly distributed, according to the measure of their
      respective strength. Surrounded and oppressed by the multitude of
      his father’s slaves, the kingdom of Dengisich was confined to the
      circle of his wagons; his desperate courage urged him to invade
      the Eastern empire: he fell in battle; and his head ignominiously
      exposed in the Hippodrome, exhibited a grateful spectacle to the
      people of Constantinople. Attila had fondly or superstitiously
      believed, that Irnac, the youngest of his sons, was destined to
      perpetuate the glories of his race. The character of that prince,
      who attempted to moderate the rashness of his brother Dengisich,
      was more suitable to the declining condition of the Huns; and
      Irnac, with his subject hordes, retired into the heart of the
      Lesser Scythia. They were soon overwhelmed by a torrent of new
      Barbarians, who followed the same road which their own ancestors
      had formerly discovered. The Geougen, or Avares, whose residence
      is assigned by the Greek writers to the shores of the ocean,
      impelled the adjacent tribes; till at length the Igours of the
      North, issuing from the cold Siberian regions, which produce the
      most valuable furs, spread themselves over the desert, as far as
      the Borysthenes and the Caspian gates; and finally extinguished
      the empire of the Huns. 71

      70 (return) [ See Jornandes, de Rebus Geticis, c. 50, p. 685,
      686, 687, 688. His distinction of the national arms is curious
      and important. Nan ibi admirandum reor fuisse spectaculum, ubi
      cernere erat cunctis, pugnantem Gothum ense furentem, Gepidam in
      vulnere suorum cuncta tela frangentem, Suevum pede, Hunnum
      sagitta praesumere, Alanum gravi Herulum levi, armatura, aciem
      instruere. I am not precisely informed of the situation of the
      River Netad.]

      71 (return) [ Two modern historians have thrown much new light on
      the ruin and division of the empire of Attila; M. de Buat, by his
      laborious and minute diligence, (tom. viii. p. 3-31, 68-94,) and
      M. de Guignes, by his extraordinary knowledge of the Chinese
      language and writers. See Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 315-319.]

      Such an event might contribute to the safety of the Eastern
      empire, under the reign of a prince who conciliated the
      friendship, without forfeiting the esteem, of the Barbarians. But
      the emperor of the West, the feeble and dissolute Valentinian,
      who had reached his thirty-fifth year without attaining the age
      of reason or courage, abused this apparent security, to undermine
      the foundations of his own throne, by the murder of the patrician
      Aetius. From the instinct of a base and jealous mind, he hated
      the man who was universally celebrated as the terror of the
      Barbarians, and the support of the republic; 711 and his new
      favorite, the eunuch Heraclius, awakened the emperor from the
      supine lethargy, which might be disguised, during the life of
      Placidia, 72 by the excuse of filial piety. The fame of Aetius,
      his wealth and dignity, the numerous and martial train of
      Barbarian followers, his powerful dependants, who filled the
      civil offices of the state, and the hopes of his son Gaudentius,
      who was already contracted to Eudoxia, the emperor’s daughter,
      had raised him above the rank of a subject. The ambitious
      designs, of which he was secretly accused, excited the fears, as
      well as the resentment, of Valentinian. Aetius himself, supported
      by the consciousness of his merit, his services, and perhaps his
      innocence, seems to have maintained a haughty and indiscreet
      behavior. The patrician offended his sovereign by a hostile
      declaration; he aggravated the offence, by compelling him to
      ratify, with a solemn oath, a treaty of reconciliation and
      alliance; he proclaimed his suspicions, he neglected his safety;
      and from a vain confidence that the enemy, whom he despised, was
      incapable even of a manly crime, he rashly ventured his person in
      the palace of Rome. Whilst he urged, perhaps with intemperate
      vehemence, the marriage of his son, Valentinian, drawing his
      sword, the first sword he had ever drawn, plunged it in the
      breast of a general who had saved his empire: his courtiers and
      eunuchs ambitiously struggled to imitate their master; and
      Aetius, pierced with a hundred wounds, fell dead in the royal
      presence. Boethius, the Praetorian praefect, was killed at the
      same moment, and before the event could be divulged, the
      principal friends of the patrician were summoned to the palace,
      and separately murdered. The horrid deed, palliated by the
      specious names of justice and necessity, was immediately
      communicated by the emperor to his soldiers, his subjects, and
      his allies. The nations, who were strangers or enemies to Aetius,
      generously deplored the unworthy fate of a hero: the Barbarians,
      who had been attached to his service, dissembled their grief and
      resentment: and the public contempt, which had been so long
      entertained for Valentinian, was at once converted into deep and
      universal abhorrence. Such sentiments seldom pervade the walls of
      a palace; yet the emperor was confounded by the honest reply of a
      Roman, whose approbation he had not disdained to solicit. “I am
      ignorant, sir, of your motives or provocations; I only know, that
      you have acted like a man who cuts off his right hand with his
      left.“ 73

      711 (return) [ The praises awarded by Gibbon to the character of
      Aetius have been animadverted upon with great severity. (See Mr.
      Herbert’s Attila. p. 321.) I am not aware that Gibbon has
      dissembled or palliated any of the crimes or treasons of Aetius:
      but his position at the time of his murder was certainly that of
      the preserver of the empire, the conqueror of the most dangerous
      of the barbarians: it is by no means clear that he was not
      “innocent” of any treasonable designs against Valentinian. If the
      early acts of his life, the introduction of the Huns into Italy,
      and of the Vandals into Africa, were among the proximate causes
      of the ruin of the empire, his murder was the signal for its
      almost immediate downfall.—M.]

      72 (return) [ Placidia died at Rome, November 27, A.D. 450. She
      was buried at Ravenna, where her sepulchre, and even her corpse,
      seated in a chair of cypress wood, were preserved for ages. The
      empress received many compliments from the orthodox clergy; and
      St. Peter Chrysologus assured her, that her zeal for the Trinity
      had been recompensed by an august trinity of children. See
      Tillemont, Uist. Jer Emp. tom. vi. p. 240.]

      73 (return) [ Aetium Placidus mactavit semivir amens, is the
      expression of Sidonius, (Panegyr. Avit. 359.) The poet knew the
      world, and was not inclined to flatter a minister who had injured
      or disgraced Avitus and Majorian, the successive heroes of his
      song.]

      The luxury of Rome seems to have attracted the long and frequent
      visits of Valentinian; who was consequently more despised at Rome
      than in any other part of his dominions. A republican spirit was
      insensibly revived in the senate, as their authority, and even
      their supplies, became necessary for the support of his feeble
      government. The stately demeano of an hereditary monarch offended
      their pride; and the pleasures of Valentinian were injurious to
      the peace and honor of noble families. The birth of the empress
      Eudoxia was equal to his own, and her charms and tender affection
      deserved those testimonies of love which her inconstant husband
      dissipated in vague and unlawful amours. Petronius Maximus, a
      wealthy senator of the Anician family, who had been twice consul,
      was possessed of a chaste and beautiful wife: her obstinate
      resistance served only to irritate the desires of Valentinian;
      and he resolved to accomplish them, either by stratagem or force.
      Deep gaming was one of the vices of the court: the emperor, who,
      by chance or contrivance, had gained from Maximus a considerable
      sum, uncourteously exacted his ring as a security for the debt;
      and sent it by a trusty messenger to his wife, with an order, in
      her husband’s name, that she should immediately attend the
      empress Eudoxia. The unsuspecting wife of Maximus was conveyed in
      her litter to the Imperial palace; the emissaries of her
      impatient lover conducted her to a remote and silent bed-chamber;
      and Valentinian violated, without remorse, the laws of
      hospitality. Her tears, when she returned home, her deep
      affliction, and her bitter reproaches against a husband whom she
      considered as the accomplice of his own shame, excited Maximus to
      a just revenge; the desire of revenge was stimulated by ambition;
      and he might reasonably aspire, by the free suffrage of the Roman
      senate, to the throne of a detested and despicable rival.
      Valentinian, who supposed that every human breast was devoid,
      like his own, of friendship and gratitude, had imprudently
      admitted among his guards several domestics and followers of
      Aetius. Two of these, of Barbarian race were persuaded to execute
      a sacred and honorable duty, by punishing with death the assassin
      of their patron; and their intrepid courage did not long expect a
      favorable moment. Whilst Valentinian amused himself, in the field
      of Mars, with the spectacle of some military sports, they
      suddenly rushed upon him with drawn weapons, despatched the
      guilty Heraclius, and stabbed the emperor to the heart, without
      the least opposition from his numerous train, who seemed to
      rejoice in the tyrant’s death. Such was the fate of Valentinian
      the Third, 74 the last Roman emperor of the family of Theodosius.
      He faithfully imitated the hereditary weakness of his cousin and
      his two uncles, without inheriting the gentleness, the purity,
      the innocence, which alleviate, in their characters, the want of
      spirit and ability. Valentinian was less excusable, since he had
      passions, without virtues: even his religion was questionable;
      and though he never deviated into the paths of heresy, he
      scandalized the pious Christians by his attachment to the profane
      arts of magic and divination.

      74 (return) [ With regard to the cause and circumstances of the
      deaths of Aetius and Valentinian, our information is dark and
      imperfect. Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 4, p. 186, 187,
      188) is a fabulous writer for the events which precede his own
      memory. His narrative must therefore be supplied and corrected by
      five or six Chronicles, none of which were composed in Rome or
      Italy; and which can only express, in broken sentences, the
      popular rumors, as they were conveyed to Gaul, Spain, Africa,
      Constantinople, or Alexandria.]

      As early as the time of Cicero and Varro, it was the opinion of
      the Roman augurs, that the twelve vultures which Romulus had
      seen, represented the twelve centuries, assigned for the fatal
      period of his city. 75 This prophecy, disregarded perhaps in the
      season of health and prosperity, inspired the people with gloomy
      apprehensions, when the twelfth century, clouded with disgrace
      and misfortune, was almost elapsed; 76 and even posterity must
      acknowledge with some surprise, that the arbitrary interpretation
      of an accidental or fabulous circumstance has been seriously
      verified in the downfall of the Western empire. But its fall was
      announced by a clearer omen than the flight of vultures: the
      Roman government appeared every day less formidable to its
      enemies, more odious and oppressive to its subjects. 77 The taxes
      were multiplied with the public distress; economy was neglected
      in proportion as it became necessary; and the injustice of the
      rich shifted the unequal burden from themselves to the people,
      whom they defrauded of the indulgences that might sometimes have
      alleviated their misery. The severe inquisition which confiscated
      their goods, and tortured their persons, compelled the subjects
      of Valentinian to prefer the more simple tyranny of the
      Barbarians, to fly to the woods and mountains, or to embrace the
      vile and abject condition of mercenary servants. They abjured and
      abhorred the name of Roman citizens, which had formerly excited
      the ambition of mankind. The Armorican provinces of Gaul, and the
      greatest part of Spain, were-thrown into a state of disorderly
      independence, by the confederations of the Bagaudae; and the
      Imperial ministers pursued with proscriptive laws, and
      ineffectual arms, the rebels whom they had made. 78 If all the
      Barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour, their
      total destruction would not have restored the empire of the West:
      and if Rome still survived, she survived the loss of freedom, of
      virtue, and of honor.

      75 (return) [ This interpretation of Vettius, a celebrated augur,
      was quoted by Varro, in the xviiith book of his Antiquities.
      Censorinus, de Die Natali, c. 17, p. 90, 91, edit. Havercamp.]

      76 (return) [ According to Varro, the twelfth century would
      expire A.D. 447, but the uncertainty of the true aera of Rome
      might allow some latitude of anticipation or delay. The poets of
      the age, Claudian (de Bell Getico, 265) and Sidonius, (in
      Panegyr. Avit. 357,) may be admitted as fair witnesses of the
      popular opinion.

     Jam reputant annos, interceptoque volatu Vulturis, incidunt
     properatis saecula metis. ....... Jam prope fata tui bissenas
     Vulturis alas Implebant; seis namque tuos, scis, Roma, labores.
     —See Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 340-346.]

      77 (return) [ The fifth book of Salvian is filled with pathetic
      lamentations and vehement invectives. His immoderate freedom
      serves to prove the weakness, as well as the corruption, of the
      Roman government. His book was published after the loss of
      Africa, (A.D. 439,) and before Attila’s war, (A.D. 451.)]

      78 (return) [ The Bagaudae of Spain, who fought pitched battles
      with the Roman troops, are repeatedly mentioned in the Chronicle
      of Idatius. Salvian has described their distress and rebellion in
      very forcible language. Itaque nomen civium Romanorum... nunc
      ultro repudiatur ac fugitur, nec vile tamen sed etiam abominabile
      poene habetur... Et hinc est ut etiam hi quid ad Barbaros non
      confugiunt, Barbari tamen esse coguntur, scilicet ut est pars
      magna Hispanorum, et non minima Gallorum.... De Bagaudis nunc
      mihi sermo est, qui per malos judices et cruentos spoliati,
      afflicti, necati postquam jus Romanae libertatis amiserant, etiam
      honorem Romani nominis perdiderunt.... Vocamus rabelles, vocamus
      perditos quos esse compulimua criminosos. De Gubernat. Dei, l. v.
      p. 158, 159.]




      Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part I.

     Sack Of Rome By Genseric, King Of The Vandals.—His Naval
     Depredations.—Succession Of The Last Emperors Of The West,
     Maximus, Avitus, Majorian, Severus, Anthemius, Olybrius,
     Glycerius, Nepos, Augustulus.—Total Extinction Of The Western
     Empire.—Reign Of Odoacer, The First Barbarian King Of Italy.

      The loss or desolation of the provinces, from the Ocean to the
      Alps, impaired the glory and greatness of Rome: her internal
      prosperity was irretrievably destroyed by the separation of
      Africa. The rapacious Vandals confiscated the patrimonial estates
      of the senators, and intercepted the regular subsidies, which
      relieved the poverty and encouraged the idleness of the
      plebeians. The distress of the Romans was soon aggravated by an
      unexpected attack; and the province, so long cultivated for their
      use by industrious and obedient subjects, was armed against them
      by an ambitious Barbarian. The Vandals and Alani, who followed
      the successful standard of Genseric, had acquired a rich and
      fertile territory, which stretched along the coast above ninety
      days’ journey from Tangier to Tripoli; but their narrow limits
      were pressed and confined, on either side, by the sandy desert
      and the Mediterranean. The discovery and conquest of the Black
      nations, that might dwell beneath the torrid zone, could not
      tempt the rational ambition of Genseric; but he cast his eyes
      towards the sea; he resolved to create a naval power, and his
      bold resolution was executed with steady and active perseverance.

      The woods of Mount Atlas afforded an inexhaustible nursery of
      timber: his new subjects were skilled in the arts of navigation
      and ship-building; he animated his daring Vandals to embrace a
      mode of warfare which would render every maritime country
      accessible to their arms; the Moors and Africans were allured by
      the hopes of plunder; and, after an interval of six centuries,
      the fleets that issued from the port of Carthage again claimed
      the empire of the Mediterranean. The success of the Vandals, the
      conquest of Sicily, the sack of Palermo, and the frequent
      descents on the coast of Lucania, awakened and alarmed the mother
      of Valentinian, and the sister of Theodosius. Alliances were
      formed; and armaments, expensive and ineffectual, were prepared,
      for the destruction of the common enemy; who reserved his courage
      to encounter those dangers which his policy could not prevent or
      elude. The designs of the Roman government were repeatedly
      baffled by his artful delays, ambiguous promises, and apparent
      concessions; and the interposition of his formidable confederate,
      the king of the Huns, recalled the emperors from the conquest of
      Africa to the care of their domestic safety. The revolutions of
      the palace, which left the Western empire without a defender, and
      without a lawful prince, dispelled the apprehensions, and
      stimulated the avarice, of Genseric. He immediately equipped a
      numerous fleet of Vandals and Moors, and cast anchor at the mouth
      of the Tyber, about three months after the death of Valentinian,
      and the elevation of Maximus to the Imperial throne.

      The private life of the senator Petronius Maximus 1 was often
      alleged as a rare example of human felicity. His birth was noble
      and illustrious, since he descended from the Anician family; his
      dignity was supported by an adequate patrimony in land and money;
      and these advantages of fortune were accompanied with liberal
      arts and decent manners, which adorn or imitate the inestimable
      gifts of genius and virtue. The luxury of his palace and table
      was hospitable and elegant. Whenever Maximus appeared in public,
      he was surrounded by a train of grateful and obsequious clients;
      2 and it is possible that among these clients, he might deserve
      and possess some real friends. His merit was rewarded by the
      favor of the prince and senate: he thrice exercised the office of
      Praetorian praefect of Italy; he was twice invested with the
      consulship, and he obtained the rank of patrician. These civil
      honors were not incompatible with the enjoyment of leisure and
      tranquillity; his hours, according to the demands of pleasure or
      reason, were accurately distributed by a water-clock; and this
      avarice of time may be allowed to prove the sense which Maximus
      entertained of his own happiness. The injury which he received
      from the emperor Valentinian appears to excuse the most bloody
      revenge. Yet a philosopher might have reflected, that, if the
      resistance of his wife had been sincere, her chastity was still
      inviolate, and that it could never be restored if she had
      consented to the will of the adulterer. A patriot would have
      hesitated before he plunged himself and his country into those
      inevitable calamities which must follow the extinction of the
      royal house of Theodosius. The imprudent Maximus disregarded
      these salutary considerations; he gratified his resentment and
      ambition; he saw the bleeding corpse of Valentinian at his feet;
      and he heard himself saluted Emperor by the unanimous voice of
      the senate and people. But the day of his inauguration was the
      last day of his happiness. He was imprisoned (such is the lively
      expression of Sidonius) in the palace; and after passing a
      sleepless night, he sighed that he had attained the summit of his
      wishes, and aspired only to descend from the dangerous elevation.
      Oppressed by the weight of the diadem, he communicated his
      anxious thoughts to his friend and quaestor Fulgentius; and when
      he looked back with unavailing regret on the secure pleasures of
      his former life, the emperor exclaimed, “O fortunate Damocles, 3
      thy reign began and ended with the same dinner;” a well-known
      allusion, which Fulgentius afterwards repeated as an instructive
      lesson for princes and subjects.

      1 (return) [ Sidonius Apollinaris composed the thirteenth epistle
      of the second book, to refute the paradox of his friend Serranus,
      who entertained a singular, though generous, enthusiasm for the
      deceased emperor. This epistle, with some indulgence, may claim
      the praise of an elegant composition; and it throws much light on
      the character of Maximus.]

      2 (return) [ Clientum, praevia, pedisequa, circumfusa,
      populositas, is the train which Sidonius himself (l. i. epist. 9)
      assigns to another senator of rank]

      3 (return) [

     Districtus ensis cui super impia Cervice pendet, non Siculoe dapes
     Dulcem elaborabunt saporem: Non avium citharaeque cantus Somnum
     reducent. —Horat. Carm. iii. 1.

      Sidonius concludes his letter with the story of Damocles, which
      Cicero (Tusculan. v. 20, 21) had so inimitably told.]

      The reign of Maximus continued about three months. His hours, of
      which he had lost the command, were disturbed by remorse, or
      guilt, or terror, and his throne was shaken by the seditions of
      the soldiers, the people, and the confederate Barbarians. The
      marriage of his son Paladius with the eldest daughter of the late
      emperor, might tend to establish the hereditary succession of his
      family; but the violence which he offered to the empress Eudoxia,
      could proceed only from the blind impulse of lust or revenge. His
      own wife, the cause of these tragic events, had been seasonably
      removed by death; and the widow of Valentinian was compelled to
      violate her decent mourning, perhaps her real grief, and to
      submit to the embraces of a presumptuous usurper, whom she
      suspected as the assassin of her deceased husband. These
      suspicions were soon justified by the indiscreet confession of
      Maximus himself; and he wantonly provoked the hatred of his
      reluctant bride, who was still conscious that she was descended
      from a line of emperors. From the East, however, Eudoxia could
      not hope to obtain any effectual assistance; her father and her
      aunt Pulcheria were dead; her mother languished at Jerusalem in
      disgrace and exile; and the sceptre of Constantinople was in the
      hands of a stranger. She directed her eyes towards Carthage;
      secretly implored the aid of the king of the Vandals; and
      persuaded Genseric to improve the fair opportunity of disguising
      his rapacious designs by the specious names of honor, justice,
      and compassion. 4 Whatever abilities Maximus might have shown in
      a subordinate station, he was found incapable of administering an
      empire; and though he might easily have been informed of the
      naval preparations which were made on the opposite shores of
      Africa, he expected with supine indifference the approach of the
      enemy, without adopting any measures of defence, of negotiation,
      or of a timely retreat. When the Vandals disembarked at the mouth
      of the Tyber, the emperor was suddenly roused from his lethargy
      by the clamors of a trembling and exasperated multitude. The only
      hope which presented itself to his astonished mind was that of a
      precipitate flight, and he exhorted the senators to imitate the
      example of their prince. But no sooner did Maximus appear in the
      streets, than he was assaulted by a shower of stones; a Roman, or
      a Burgundian soldier, claimed the honor of the first wound; his
      mangled body was ignominiously cast into the Tyber; the Roman
      people rejoiced in the punishment which they had inflicted on the
      author of the public calamities; and the domestics of Eudoxia
      signalized their zeal in the service of their mistress. 5

      4 (return) [ Notwithstanding the evidence of Procopius, Evagrius,
      Idatius Marcellinus, &c., the learned Muratori (Annali d’Italia,
      tom. iv. p. 249) doubts the reality of this invitation, and
      observes, with great truth, “Non si puo dir quanto sia facile il
      popolo a sognare e spacciar voci false.“ But his argument, from
      the interval of time and place, is extremely feeble. The figs
      which grew near Carthage were produced to the senate of Rome on
      the third day.]

      5 (return) [

     Infidoque tibi Burgundio ductu Extorquet trepidas mactandi
     principis iras. —-Sidon. in Panegyr. Avit. 442.

      A remarkable line, which insinuates that Rome and Maximus were
      betrayed by their Burgundian mercenaries.]

      On the third day after the tumult, Genseric boldly advanced from
      the port of Ostia to the gates of the defenceless city. Instead
      of a sally of the Roman youth, there issued from the gates an
      unarmed and venerable procession of the bishop at the head of his
      clergy. 6 The fearless spirit of Leo, his authority and
      eloquence, again mitigated the fierceness of a Barbarian
      conqueror; the king of the Vandals promised to spare the
      unresisting multitude, to protect the buildings from fire, and to
      exempt the captives from torture; and although such orders were
      neither seriously given, nor strictly obeyed, the mediation of
      Leo was glorious to himself, and in some degree beneficial to his
      country. But Rome and its inhabitants were delivered to the
      licentiousness of the Vandals and Moors, whose blind passions
      revenged the injuries of Carthage. The pillage lasted fourteen
      days and nights; and all that yet remained of public or private
      wealth, of sacred or profane treasure, was diligently transported
      to the vessels of Genseric. Among the spoils, the splendid relics
      of two temples, or rather of two religions, exhibited a memorable
      example of the vicissitudes of human and divine things.

      Since the abolition of Paganism, the Capitol had been violated
      and abandoned; yet the statues of the gods and heroes were still
      respected, and the curious roof of gilt bronze was reserved for
      the rapacious hands of Genseric. 7 The holy instruments of the
      Jewish worship, 8 the gold table, and the gold candlestick with
      seven branches, originally framed according to the particular
      instructions of God himself, and which were placed in the
      sanctuary of his temple, had been ostentatiously displayed to the
      Roman people in the triumph of Titus. They were afterwards
      deposited in the temple of Peace; and at the end of four hundred
      years, the spoils of Jerusalem were transferred from Rome to
      Carthage, by a Barbarian who derived his origin from the shores
      of the Baltic. These ancient monuments might attract the notice
      of curiosity, as well as of avarice. But the Christian churches,
      enriched and adorned by the prevailing superstition of the times,
      afforded more plentiful materials for sacrilege; and the pious
      liberality of Pope Leo, who melted six silver vases, the gift of
      Constantine, each of a hundred pounds weight, is an evidence of
      the damage which he attempted to repair. In the forty-five years
      that had elapsed since the Gothic invasion, the pomp and luxury
      of Rome were in some measure restored; and it was difficult
      either to escape, or to satisfy, the avarice of a conqueror, who
      possessed leisure to collect, and ships to transport, the wealth
      of the capital. The Imperial ornaments of the palace, the
      magnificent furniture and wardrobe, the sideboards of massy
      plate, were accumulated with disorderly rapine; the gold and
      silver amounted to several thousand talents; yet even the brass
      and copper were laboriously removed. Eudoxia herself, who
      advanced to meet her friend and deliverer, soon bewailed the
      imprudence of her own conduct. She was rudely stripped of her
      jewels; and the unfortunate empress, with her two daughters, the
      only surviving remains of the great Theodosius, was compelled, as
      a captive, to follow the haughty Vandal; who immediately hoisted
      sail, and returned with a prosperous navigation to the port of
      Carthage. 9 Many thousand Romans of both sexes, chosen for some
      useful or agreeable qualifications, reluctantly embarked on board
      the fleet of Genseric; and their distress was aggravated by the
      unfeeling Barbarians, who, in the division of the booty,
      separated the wives from their husbands, and the children from
      their parents. The charity of Deogratias, bishop of Carthage, 10
      was their only consolation and support. He generously sold the
      gold and silver plate of the church to purchase the freedom of
      some, to alleviate the slavery of others, and to assist the wants
      and infirmities of a captive multitude, whose health was impaired
      by the hardships which they had suffered in their passage from
      Italy to Africa. By his order, two spacious churches were
      converted into hospitals; the sick were distributed into
      convenient beds, and liberally supplied with food and medicines;
      and the aged prelate repeated his visits both in the day and
      night, with an assiduity that surpassed his strength, and a
      tender sympathy which enhanced the value of his services. Compare
      this scene with the field of Cannae; and judge between Hannibal
      and the successor of St. Cyprian. 11

      6 (return) [The apparant success of Pope Leo may be justified by
      Prosper, and the Historia Miscellan.; but the improbable notion
      of Baronius A.D. 455, (No. 13) that Genseric spared the three
      apostolical churches, is not countenanced even by the doubtful
      testimony of the Liber Pontificalis.]

      7 (return) [ The profusion of Catulus, the first who gilt the
      roof of the Capitol, was not universally approved, (Plin. Hist.
      Natur. xxxiii. 18;) but it was far exceeded by the emperor’s, and
      the external gilding of the temple cost Domitian 12,000 talents,
      (2,400,000 L.) The expressions of Claudian and Rutilius (luce
      metalli oemula.... fastigia astris, and confunduntque vagos
      delubra micantia visus) manifestly prove, that this splendid
      covering was not removed either by the Christians or the Goths,
      (see Donatus, Roma Antiqua, l. ii. c. 6, p. 125.) It should seem
      that the roof of the Capitol was decorated with gilt statues, and
      chariots drawn by four horses.]

      8 (return) [ The curious reader may consult the learned and
      accurate treatise of Hadrian Reland, de Spoliis Templi
      Hierosolymitani in Arcu Titiano Romae conspicuis, in 12mo.
      Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1716.]

      9 (return) [ The vessel which transported the relics of the
      Capitol was the only one of the whole fleet that suffered
      shipwreck. If a bigoted sophist, a Pagan bigot, had mentioned the
      accident, he might have rejoiced that this cargo of sacrilege was
      lost in the sea.]

      10 (return) [ See Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. l. i. c.
      8, p. 11, 12, edit. Ruinart. Deogratius governed the church of
      Carthage only three years. If he had not been privately buried,
      his corpse would have been torn piecemeal by the mad devotion of
      the people.]

      11 (return) [ The general evidence for the death of Maximus, and
      the sack of Rome by the Vandals, is comprised in Sidonius,
      (Panegyr. Avit. 441-450,) Procopius, (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c.
      4, 5, p. 188, 189, and l. ii. c. 9, p. 255,) Evagrius, (l. ii. c.
      7,) Jornandes, (de Reb. Geticis, c. 45, p. 677,) and the
      Chronicles of Idatius, Prosper, Marcellinus, and Theophanes,
      under the proper year.]

      The deaths of Aetius and Valentinian had relaxed the ties which
      held the Barbarians of Gaul in peace and subordination. The
      sea-coast was infested by the Saxons; the Alemanni and the Franks
      advanced from the Rhine to the Seine; and the ambition of the
      Goths seemed to meditate more extensive and permanent conquests.
      The emperor Maximus relieved himself, by a judicious choice, from
      the weight of these distant cares; he silenced the solicitations
      of his friends, listened to the voice of fame, and promoted a
      stranger to the general command of the forces of Gaul.

      Avitus, 12 the stranger, whose merit was so nobly rewarded,
      descended from a wealthy and honorable family in the diocese of
      Auvergne. The convulsions of the times urged him to embrace, with
      the same ardor, the civil and military professions: and the
      indefatigable youth blended the studies of literature and
      jurisprudence with the exercise of arms and hunting. Thirty years
      of his life were laudably spent in the public service; he
      alternately displayed his talents in war and negotiation; and the
      soldier of Aetius, after executing the most important embassies,
      was raised to the station of Praetorian praefect of Gaul. Either
      the merit of Avitus excited envy, or his moderation was desirous
      of repose, since he calmly retired to an estate, which he
      possessed in the neighborhood of Clermont. A copious stream,
      issuing from the mountain, and falling headlong in many a loud
      and foaming cascade, discharged its waters into a lake about two
      miles in length, and the villa was pleasantly seated on the
      margin of the lake. The baths, the porticos, the summer and
      winter apartments, were adapted to the purposes of luxury and
      use; and the adjacent country afforded the various prospects of
      woods, pastures, and meodows. 13 In this retreat, where Avitus
      amused his leisure with books, rural sports, the practice of
      husbandry, and the society of his friends, 14 he received the
      Imperial diploma, which constituted him master-general of the
      cavalry and infantry of Gaul. He assumed the military command;
      the Barbarians suspended their fury; and whatever means he might
      employ, whatever concessions he might be forced to make, the
      people enjoyed the benefits of actual tranquillity. But the fate
      of Gaul depended on the Visigoths; and the Roman general, less
      attentive to his dignity than to the public interest, did not
      disdain to visit Thoulouse in the character of an ambassador. He
      was received with courteous hospitality by Theodoric, the king of
      the Goths; but while Avitus laid the foundations of a solid
      alliance with that powerful nation, he was astonished by the
      intelligence, that the emperor Maximus was slain, and that Rome
      had been pillaged by the Vandals. A vacant throne, which he might
      ascend without guilt or danger, tempted his ambition; 15 and the
      Visigoths were easily persuaded to support his claim by their
      irresistible suffrage. They loved the person of Avitus; they
      respected his virtues; and they were not insensible of the
      advantage, as well as honor, of giving an emperor to the West.
      The season was now approaching, in which the annual assembly of
      the seven provinces was held at Arles; their deliberations might
      perhaps be influenced by the presence of Theodoric and his
      martial brothers; but their choice would naturally incline to the
      most illustrious of their countrymen. Avitus, after a decent
      resistance, accepted the Imperial diadem from the representatives
      of Gaul; and his election was ratified by the acclamations of the
      Barbarians and provincials. The formal consent of Marcian,
      emperor of the East, was solicited and obtained; but the senate,
      Rome, and Italy, though humbled by their recent calamities,
      submitted with a secret murmur to the presumption of the Gallic
      usurper.

      12 (return) [ The private life and elevation of Avitus must be
      deduced, with becoming suspicion, from the panegyric pronounced
      by Sidonius Apollinaris, his subject, and his son-in-law.]

      13 (return) [ After the example of the younger Pliny, Sidonius
      (l. ii. c. 2) has labored the florid, prolix, and obscure
      description of his villa, which bore the name, (Avitacum,) and
      had been the property of Avitus. The precise situation is not
      ascertained. Consult, however, the notes of Savaron and Sirmond.]

      14 (return) [ Sidonius (l. ii. epist. 9) has described the
      country life of the Gallic nobles, in a visit which he made to
      his friends, whose estates were in the neighborhood of Nismes.
      The morning hours were spent in the sphoeristerium, or
      tennis-court; or in the library, which was furnished with Latin
      authors, profane and religious; the former for the men, the
      latter for the ladies. The table was twice served, at dinner and
      supper, with hot meat (boiled and roast) and wine. During the
      intermediate time, the company slept, took the air on horseback,
      and need the warm bath.]

      15 (return) [ Seventy lines of panegyric (505-575) which describe
      the importunity of Theodoric and of Gaul, struggling to overcome
      the modest reluctance of Avitus, are blown away by three words of
      an honest historian. Romanum ambisset Imperium, (Greg. Turon. l.
      ii. c. 1l, in tom. ii. p. 168.)]

      Theodoric, to whom Avitus was indebted for the purple, had
      acquired the Gothic sceptre by the murder of his elder brother
      Torismond; and he justified this atrocious deed by the design
      which his predecessor had formed of violating his alliance with
      the empire. 16 Such a crime might not be incompatible with the
      virtues of a Barbarian; but the manners of Theodoric were gentle
      and humane; and posterity may contemplate without terror the
      original picture of a Gothic king, whom Sidonius had intimately
      observed, in the hours of peace and of social intercourse. In an
      epistle, dated from the court of Thoulouse, the orator satisfies
      the curiosity of one of his friends, in the following
      description: 17 “By the majesty of his appearance, Theodoric
      would command the respect of those who are ignorant of his merit;
      and although he is born a prince, his merit would dignify a
      private station. He is of a middle stature, his body appears
      rather plump than fat, and in his well-proportioned limbs agility
      is united with muscular strength. 18 If you examine his
      countenance, you will distinguish a high forehead, large shaggy
      eyebrows, an aquiline nose, thin lips, a regular set of white
      teeth, and a fair complexion, that blushes more frequently from
      modesty than from anger. The ordinary distribution of his time,
      as far as it is exposed to the public view, may be concisely
      represented. Before daybreak, he repairs, with a small train, to
      his domestic chapel, where the service is performed by the Arian
      clergy; but those who presume to interpret his secret sentiments,
      consider this assiduous devotion as the effect of habit and
      policy. The rest of the morning is employed in the administration
      of his kingdom. His chair is surrounded by some military officers
      of decent aspect and behavior: the noisy crowd of his Barbarian
      guards occupies the hall of audience; but they are not permitted
      to stand within the veils or curtains that conceal the
      council-chamber from vulgar eyes. The ambassadors of the nations
      are successively introduced: Theodoric listens with attention,
      answers them with discreet brevity, and either announces or
      delays, according to the nature of their business, his final
      resolution. About eight (the second hour) he rises from his
      throne, and visits either his treasury or his stables. If he
      chooses to hunt, or at least to exercise himself on horseback,
      his bow is carried by a favorite youth; but when the game is
      marked, he bends it with his own hand, and seldom misses the
      object of his aim: as a king, he disdains to bear arms in such
      ignoble warfare; but as a soldier, he would blush to accept any
      military service which he could perform himself. On common days,
      his dinner is not different from the repast of a private citizen,
      but every Saturday, many honorable guests are invited to the
      royal table, which, on these occasions, is served with the
      elegance of Greece, the plenty of Gaul, and the order and
      diligence of Italy. 19 The gold or silver plate is less
      remarkable for its weight than for the brightness and curious
      workmanship: the taste is gratified without the help of foreign
      and costly luxury; the size and number of the cups of wine are
      regulated with a strict regard to the laws of temperance; and the
      respectful silence that prevails, is interrupted only by grave
      and instructive conversation. After dinner, Theodoric sometimes
      indulges himself in a short slumber; and as soon as he wakes, he
      calls for the dice and tables, encourages his friends to forget
      the royal majesty, and is delighted when they freely express the
      passions which are excited by the incidents of play. At this
      game, which he loves as the image of war, he alternately displays
      his eagerness, his skill, his patience, and his cheerful temper.
      If he loses, he laughs; he is modest and silent if he wins. Yet,
      notwithstanding this seeming indifference, his courtiers choose
      to solicit any favor in the moments of victory; and I myself, in
      my applications to the king, have derived some benefit from my
      losses. 20 About the ninth hour (three o’clock) the tide of
      business again returns, and flows incessantly till after sunset,
      when the signal of the royal supper dismisses the weary crowd of
      suppliants and pleaders. At the supper, a more familiar repast,
      buffoons and pantomimes are sometimes introduced, to divert, not
      to offend, the company, by their ridiculous wit: but female
      singers, and the soft, effeminate modes of music, are severely
      banished, and such martial tunes as animate the soul to deeds of
      valor are alone grateful to the ear of Theodoric. He retires from
      table; and the nocturnal guards are immediately posted at the
      entrance of the treasury, the palace, and the private
      apartments.“

      16 (return) [ Isidore, archbishop of Seville, who was himself of
      the blood royal of the Goths, acknowledges, and almost justifies,
      (Hist. Goth. p. 718,) the crime which their slave Jornandes had
      basely dissembled, (c 43, p. 673.)]

      17 (return) [ This elaborate description (l. i. ep. ii. p. 2-7)
      was dictated by some political motive. It was designed for the
      public eye, and had been shown by the friends of Sidonius, before
      it was inserted in the collection of his epistles. The first book
      was published separately. See Tillemont, Memoires Eccles. tom.
      xvi. p. 264.]

      18 (return) [ I have suppressed, in this portrait of Theodoric,
      several minute circumstances, and technical phrases, which could
      be tolerable, or indeed intelligible, to those only who, like the
      contemporaries of Sidonius, had frequented the markets where
      naked slaves were exposed to male, (Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom.
      i. p. 404.)]

      19 (return) [ Videas ibi elegantiam Graecam, abundantiam
      Gallicanam; celeritatem Italam; publicam pompam, privatam
      diligentiam, regiam disciplinam.]

      20 (return) [ Tunc etiam ego aliquid obsecraturus feliciter
      vincor, et mihi tabula perit ut causa salvetur. Sidonius of
      Auvergne was not a subject of Theodoric; but he might be
      compelled to solicit either justice or favor at the court of
      Thoulouse.]

      When the king of the Visigoths encouraged Avitus to assume the
      purple, he offered his person and his forces, as a faithful
      soldier of the republic. 21 The exploits of Theodoric soon
      convinced the world that he had not degenerated from the warlike
      virtues of his ancestors. After the establishment of the Goths in
      Aquitain, and the passage of the Vandals into Africa, the Suevi,
      who had fixed their kingdom in Gallicia, aspired to the conquest
      of Spain, and threatened to extinguish the feeble remains of the
      Roman dominion. The provincials of Carthagena and Tarragona,
      afflicted by a hostile invasion, represented their injuries and
      their apprehensions. Count Fronto was despatched, in the name of
      the emperor Avitus, with advantageous offers of peace and
      alliance; and Theodoric interposed his weighty mediation, to
      declare, that, unless his brother-in-law, the king of the Suevi,
      immediately retired, he should be obliged to arm in the cause of
      justice and of Rome. “Tell him,“ replied the haughty Rechiarius,
      “that I despise his friendship and his arms; but that I shall
      soon try whether he will dare to expect my arrival under the
      walls of Thoulouse.“ Such a challenge urged Theodoric to prevent
      the bold designs of his enemy; he passed the Pyrenees at the head
      of the Visigoths: the Franks and Burgundians served under his
      standard; and though he professed himself the dutiful servant of
      Avitus, he privately stipulated, for himself and his successors,
      the absolute possession of his Spanish conquests. The two armies,
      or rather the two nations, encountered each other on the banks of
      the River Urbicus, about twelve miles from Astorga; and the
      decisive victory of the Goths appeared for a while to have
      extirpated the name and kingdom of the Suevi. From the field of
      battle Theodoric advanced to Braga, their metropolis, which still
      retained the splendid vestiges of its ancient commerce and
      dignity. 22 His entrance was not polluted with blood; and the
      Goths respected the chastity of their female captives, more
      especially of the consecrated virgins: but the greatest part of
      the clergy and people were made slaves, and even the churches and
      altars were confounded in the universal pillage. The unfortunate
      king of the Suevi had escaped to one of the ports of the ocean;
      but the obstinacy of the winds opposed his flight: he was
      delivered to his implacable rival; and Rechiarius, who neither
      desired nor expected mercy, received, with manly constancy, the
      death which he would probably have inflicted. After this bloody
      sacrifice to policy or resentment, Theodoric carried his
      victorious arms as far as Merida, the principal town of
      Lusitania, without meeting any resistance, except from the
      miraculous powers of St. Eulalia; but he was stopped in the full
      career of success, and recalled from Spain before he could
      provide for the security of his conquests. In his retreat towards
      the Pyrenees, he revenged his disappointment on the country
      through which he passed; and, in the sack of Pollentia and
      Astorga, he showed himself a faithless ally, as well as a cruel
      enemy. Whilst the king of the Visigoths fought and vanquished in
      the name of Avitus, the reign of Avitus had expired; and both the
      honor and the interest of Theodoric were deeply wounded by the
      disgrace of a friend, whom he had seated on the throne of the
      Western empire. 23

      21 (return) [ Theodoric himself had given a solemn and voluntary
      promise of fidelity, which was understood both in Gaul and Spain.

     Romae sum, te duce, Amicus, Principe te, Miles. Sidon. Panegyr.
     Avit. 511.]

      22 (return) [ Quaeque sinu pelagi jactat se Bracara dives. Auson.
      de Claris Urbibus, p. 245. ——From the design of the king of the
      Suevi, it is evident that the navigation from the ports of
      Gallicia to the Mediterranean was known and practised. The ships
      of Bracara, or Braga, cautiously steered along the coast, without
      daring to lose themselves in the Atlantic.]

      23 (return) [ This Suevic war is the most authentic part of the
      Chronicle of Idatius, who, as bishop of Iria Flavia, was himself
      a spectator and a sufferer. Jornandes (c. 44, p. 675, 676, 677)
      has expatiated, with pleasure, on the Gothic victory.]




      Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part II.

      The pressing solicitations of the senate and people persuaded the
      emperor Avitus to fix his residence at Rome, and to accept the
      consulship for the ensuing year. On the first day of January, his
      son-in-law, Sidonius Apollinaris, celebrated his praises in a
      panegyric of six hundred verses; but this composition, though it
      was rewarded with a brass statue, 24 seems to contain a very
      moderate proportion, either of genius or of truth. The poet, if
      we may degrade that sacred name, exaggerates the merit of a
      sovereign and a father; and his prophecy of a long and glorious
      reign was soon contradicted by the event. Avitus, at a time when
      the Imperial dignity was reduced to a preeminence of toil and
      danger, indulged himself in the pleasures of Italian luxury: age
      had not extinguished his amorous inclinations; and he is accused
      of insulting, with indiscreet and ungenerous raillery, the
      husbands whose wives he had seduced or violated. 25 But the
      Romans were not inclined either to excuse his faults or to
      acknowledge his virtues. The several parts of the empire became
      every day more alienated from each other; and the stranger of
      Gaul was the object of popular hatred and contempt. The senate
      asserted their legitimate claim in the election of an emperor;
      and their authority, which had been originally derived from the
      old constitution, was again fortified by the actual weakness of a
      declining monarchy. Yet even such a monarchy might have resisted
      the votes of an unarmed senate, if their discontent had not been
      supported, or perhaps inflamed, by the Count Ricimer, one of the
      principal commanders of the Barbarian troops, who formed the
      military defence of Italy. The daughter of Wallia, king of the
      Visigoths, was the mother of Ricimer; but he was descended, on
      the father’s side, from the nation of the Suevi; 26 his pride or
      patriotism might be exasperated by the misfortunes of his
      countrymen; and he obeyed, with reluctance, an emperor in whose
      elevation he had not been consulted. His faithful and important
      services against the common enemy rendered him still more
      formidable; 27 and, after destroying on the coast of Corsica a
      fleet of Vandals, which consisted of sixty galleys, Ricimer
      returned in triumph with the appellation of the Deliverer of
      Italy. He chose that moment to signify to Avitus, that his reign
      was at an end; and the feeble emperor, at a distance from his
      Gothic allies, was compelled, after a short and unavailing
      struggle to abdicate the purple. By the clemency, however, or the
      contempt, of Ricimer, 28 he was permitted to descend from the
      throne to the more desirable station of bishop of Placentia: but
      the resentment of the senate was still unsatisfied; and their
      inflexible severity pronounced the sentence of his death He fled
      towards the Alps, with the humble hope, not of arming the
      Visigoths in his cause, but of securing his person and treasures
      in the sanctuary of Julian, one of the tutelar saints of
      Auvergne. 29 Disease, or the hand of the executioner, arrested
      him on the road; yet his remains were decently transported to
      Brivas, or Brioude, in his native province, and he reposed at the
      feet of his holy patron. 30 Avitus left only one daughter, the
      wife of Sidonius Apollinaris, who inherited the patrimony of his
      father-in-law; lamenting, at the same time, the disappointment of
      his public and private expectations. His resentment prompted him
      to join, or at least to countenance, the measures of a rebellious
      faction in Gaul; and the poet had contracted some guilt, which it
      was incumbent on him to expiate, by a new tribute of flattery to
      the succeeding emperor. 31

      24 (return) [ In one of the porticos or galleries belonging to
      Trajan’s library, among the statues of famous writers and
      orators. Sidon. Apoll. l. ix. epist, 16, p. 284. Carm. viii. p.
      350.]

      25 (return) [ Luxuriose agere volens a senatoribus projectus est,
      is the concise expression of Gregory of Tours, (l. ii. c. xi. in
      tom. ii. p. 168.) An old Chronicle (in tom. ii. p. 649) mentions
      an indecent jest of Avitus, which seems more applicable to Rome
      than to Treves.]

      26 (return) [ Sidonius (Panegyr. Anthem. 302, &c.) praises the
      royal birth of Ricimer, the lawful heir, as he chooses to
      insinuate, both of the Gothic and Suevic kingdoms.]

      27 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Idatius. Jornandes (c. xliv.
      p. 676) styles him, with some truth, virum egregium, et pene tune
      in Italia ad ex ercitum singularem.]

      28 (return) [ Parcens innocentiae Aviti, is the compassionate,
      but contemptuous, language of Victor Tunnunensis, (in Chron. apud
      Scaliger Euseb.) In another place, he calls him, vir totius
      simplicitatis. This commendation is more humble, but it is more
      solid and sincere, than the praises of Sidonius]

      29 (return) [ He suffered, as it is supposed, in the persecution
      of Diocletian, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. v. p. 279, 696.)
      Gregory of Tours, his peculiar votary, has dedicated to the glory
      of Julian the Martyr an entire book, (de Gloria Martyrum, l. ii.
      in Max. Bibliot. Patrum, tom. xi. p. 861-871,) in which he
      relates about fifty foolish miracles performed by his relics.]

      30 (return) [ Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. xi. p. 168) is concise,
      but correct, in the reign of his countryman. The words of
      Idatius, “cadet imperio, caret et vita,“ seem to imply, that the
      death of Avitus was violent; but it must have been secret, since
      Evagrius (l. ii. c. 7) could suppose, that he died of the
      plaque.]

      31 (return) [ After a modest appeal to the examples of his
      brethren, Virgil and Horace, Sidonius honestly confesses the
      debt, and promises payment.

     Sic mihi diverso nuper sub Marte cadenti Jussisti placido Victor
     ut essem animo. Serviat ergo tibi servati lingua poetae, Atque
     meae vitae laus tua sit pretium. —Sidon. Apoll. Carm. iv. p. 308

      See Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 448, &c.]

      The successor of Avitus presents the welcome discovery of a great
      and heroic character, such as sometimes arise, in a degenerate
      age, to vindicate the honor of the human species. The emperor
      Majorian has deserved the praises of his contemporaries, and of
      posterity; and these praises may be strongly expressed in the
      words of a judicious and disinterested historian: “That he was
      gentle to his subjects; that he was terrible to his enemies; and
      that he excelled, in every virtue, all his predecessors who had
      reigned over the Romans.“ 32 Such a testimony may justify at
      least the panegyric of S donius; and we may acquiesce in the
      assurance, that, although the obsequious orator would have
      flattered, with equal zeal, the most worthless of princes, the
      extraordinary merit of his object confined him, on this occasion,
      within the bounds of truth. 33 Majorian derived his name from his
      maternal grandfather, who, in the reign of the great Theodosius,
      had commanded the troops of the Illyrian frontier. He gave his
      daughter in marriage to the father of Majorian, a respectable
      officer, who administered the revenues of Gaul with skill and
      integrity; and generously preferred the friendship of Aetius to
      the tempting offer of an insidious court. His son, the future
      emperor, who was educated in the profession of arms, displayed,
      from his early youth, intrepid courage, premature wisdom, and
      unbounded liberality in a scanty fortune. He followed the
      standard of Aetius, contributed to his success, shared, and
      sometimes eclipsed, his glory, and at last excited the jealousy
      of the patrician, or rather of his wife, who forced him to retire
      from the service. 34 Majorian, after the death of Aetius, was
      recalled and promoted; and his intimate connection with Count
      Ricimer was the immediate step by which he ascended the throne of
      the Western empire. During the vacancy that succeeded the
      abdication of Avitus, the ambitious Barbarian, whose birth
      excluded him from the Imperial dignity, governed Italy with the
      title of Patrician; resigned to his friend the conspicuous
      station of master-general of the cavalry and infantry; and, after
      an interval of some months, consented to the unanimous wish of
      the Romans, whose favor Majorian had solicited by a recent
      victory over the Alemanni. 35 He was invested with the purple at
      Ravenna: and the epistle which he addressed to the senate, will
      best describe his situation and his sentiments. “Your election,
      Conscript Fathers! and the ordinance of the most valiant army,
      have made me your emperor. 36 May the propitious Deity direct and
      prosper the counsels and events of my administration, to your
      advantage and to the public welfare! For my own part, I did not
      aspire, I have submitted to reign; nor should I have discharged
      the obligations of a citizen if I had refused, with base and
      selfish ingratitude, to support the weight of those labors, which
      were imposed by the republic. Assist, therefore, the prince whom
      you have made; partake the duties which you have enjoined; and
      may our common endeavors promote the happiness of an empire,
      which I have accepted from your hands. Be assured, that, in our
      times, justice shall resume her ancient vigor, and that virtue
      shall become, not only innocent, but meritorious. Let none,
      except the authors themselves, be apprehensive of delations, 37
      which, as a subject, I have always condemned, and, as a prince,
      will severely punish. Our own vigilance, and that of our father,
      the patrician Ricimer, shall regulate all military affairs, and
      provide for the safety of the Roman world, which we have saved
      from foreign and domestic enemies. 38 You now understand the
      maxims of my government; you may confide in the faithful love and
      sincere assurances of a prince who has formerly been the
      companion of your life and dangers; who still glories in the name
      of senator, and who is anxious that you should never repent the
      judgment which you have pronounced in his favor.“ The emperor,
      who, amidst the ruins of the Roman world, revived the ancient
      language of law and liberty, which Trajan would not have
      disclaimed, must have derived those generous sentiments from his
      own heart; since they were not suggested to his imitation by the
      customs of his age, or the example of his predecessors. 39

      32 (return) [ The words of Procopius deserve to be transcribed
      (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 7, p. 194;) a concise but
      comprehensive definition of royal virtue.]

      33 (return) [ The Panegyric was pronounced at Lyons before the
      end of the year 458, while the emperor was still consul. It has
      more art than genius, and more labor than art. The ornaments are
      false and trivial; the expression is feeble and prolix; and
      Sidonius wants the skill to exhibit the principal figure in a
      strong and distinct light. The private life of Majorian occupies
      about two hundred lines, 107-305.]

      34 (return) [ She pressed his immediate death, and was scarcely
      satisfied with his disgrace. It should seem that Aetius, like
      Belisarius and Marlborough, was governed by his wife; whose
      fervent piety, though it might work miracles, (Gregor. Turon. l.
      ii. c. 7, p. 162,) was not incompatible with base and sanguinary
      counsels.]

      35 (return) [ The Alemanni had passed the Rhaetian Alps, and were
      defeated in the Campi Canini, or Valley of Bellinzone, through
      which the Tesin flows, in its descent from Mount Adula to the
      Lago Maggiore, (Cluver Italia Antiq. tom. i. p. 100, 101.) This
      boasted victory over nine hundred Barbarians (Panegyr. Majorian.
      373, &c.) betrays the extreme weakness of Italy.]

      36 (return) [ Imperatorem me factum, P.C. electionis vestrae
      arbitrio, et fortissimi exercitus ordinatione agnoscite, (Novell.
      Majorian. tit. iii. p. 34, ad Calcem. Cod. Theodos.) Sidonius
      proclaims the unanimous voice of the empire:—

     Postquam ordine vobis Ordo omnis regnum dederat; plebs, curia,
     nules, —-Et collega simul. 386.

      This language is ancient and constitutional; and we may observe,
      that the clergy were not yet considered as a distinct order of
      the state.]

      37 (return) [ Either dilationes, or delationes would afford a
      tolerable reading, but there is much more sense and spirit in the
      latter, to which I have therefore given the preference.]

      38 (return) [ Ab externo hoste et a domestica clade liberavimus:
      by the latter, Majorian must understand the tyranny of Avitus;
      whose death he consequently avowed as a meritorious act. On this
      occasion, Sidonius is fearful and obscure; he describes the
      twelve Caesars, the nations of Africa, &c., that he may escape
      the dangerous name of Avitus (805-369.)]

      39 (return) [ See the whole edict or epistle of Majorian to the
      senate, (Novell. tit. iv. p. 34.) Yet the expression, regnum
      nostrum, bears some taint of the age, and does not mix kindly
      with the word respublica, which he frequently repeats.]

      The private and public actions of Majorian are very imperfectly
      known: but his laws, remarkable for an original cast of thought
      and expression, faithfully represent the character of a sovereign
      who loved his people, who sympathized in their distress, who had
      studied the causes of the decline of the empire, and who was
      capable of applying (as far as such reformation was practicable)
      judicious and effectual remedies to the public disorders. 40 His
      regulations concerning the finances manifestly tended to remove,
      or at least to mitigate, the most intolerable grievances. I. From
      the first hour of his reign, he was solicitous (I translate his
      own words) to relieve the weary fortunes of the provincials,
      oppressed by the accumulated weight of indictions and
      superindictions. 41 With this view he granted a universal
      amnesty, a final and absolute discharge of all arrears of
      tribute, of all debts, which, under any pretence, the fiscal
      officers might demand from the people. This wise dereliction of
      obsolete, vexatious, and unprofitable claims, improved and
      purified the sources of the public revenue; and the subject who
      could now look back without despair, might labor with hope and
      gratitude for himself and for his country. II. In the assessment
      and collection of taxes, Majorian restored the ordinary
      jurisdiction of the provincial magistrates; and suppressed the
      extraordinary commissions which had been introduced, in the name
      of the emperor himself, or of the Praetorian praefects. The
      favorite servants, who obtained such irregular powers, were
      insolent in their behavior, and arbitrary in their demands: they
      affected to despise the subordinate tribunals, and they were
      discontented, if their fees and profits did not twice exceed the
      sum which they condescended to pay into the treasury. One
      instance of their extortion would appear incredible, were it not
      authenticated by the legislator himself. They exacted the whole
      payment in gold: but they refused the current coin of the empire,
      and would accept only such ancient pieces as were stamped with
      the names of Faustina or the Antonines. The subject, who was
      unprovided with these curious medals, had recourse to the
      expedient of compounding with their rapacious demands; or if he
      succeeded in the research, his imposition was doubled, according
      to the weight and value of the money of former times. 42 III.
      “The municipal corporations, (says the emperor,) the lesser
      senates, (so antiquity has justly styled them,) deserve to be
      considered as the heart of the cities, and the sinews of the
      republic. And yet so low are they now reduced, by the injustice
      of magistrates and the venality of collectors, that many of their
      members, renouncing their dignity and their country, have taken
      refuge in distant and obscure exile.“ He urges, and even compels,
      their return to their respective cities; but he removes the
      grievance which had forced them to desert the exercise of their
      municipal functions. They are directed, under the authority of
      the provincial magistrates, to resume their office of levying the
      tribute; but, instead of being made responsible for the whole sum
      assessed on their district, they are only required to produce a
      regular account of the payments which they have actually
      received, and of the defaulters who are still indebted to the
      public. IV. But Majorian was not ignorant that these corporate
      bodies were too much inclined to retaliate the injustice and
      oppression which they had suffered; and he therefore revives the
      useful office of the defenders of cities. He exhorts the people
      to elect, in a full and free assembly, some man of discretion and
      integrity, who would dare to assert their privileges, to
      represent their grievances, to protect the poor from the tyranny
      of the rich, and to inform the emperor of the abuses that were
      committed under the sanction of his name and authority.

      40 (return) [ See the laws of Majorian (they are only nine in
      number, but very long, and various) at the end of the Theodosian
      Code, Novell. l. iv. p. 32-37. Godefroy has not given any
      commentary on these additional pieces.]

      41 (return) [ Fessas provincialium varia atque multiplici
      tributorum exactione fortunas, et extraordinariis fiscalium
      solutionum oneribus attritas, &c. Novell. Majorian. tit. iv. p.
      34.]

      42 (return) [ The learned Greaves (vol. i. p. 329, 330, 331) has
      found, by a diligent inquiry, that aurei of the Antonines weighed
      one hundred and eighteen, and those of the fifth century only
      sixty-eight, English grains. Majorian gives currency to all gold
      coin, excepting only the Gallic solidus, from its deficiency, not
      in the weight, but in the standard.]

      The spectator who casts a mournful view over the ruins of ancient
      Rome, is tempted to accuse the memory of the Goths and Vandals,
      for the mischief which they had neither leisure, nor power, nor
      perhaps inclination, to perpetrate. The tempest of war might
      strike some lofty turrets to the ground; but the destruction
      which undermined the foundations of those massy fabrics was
      prosecuted, slowly and silently, during a period of ten
      centuries; and the motives of interest, that afterwards operated
      without shame or control, were severely checked by the taste and
      spirit of the emperor Majorian. The decay of the city had
      gradually impaired the value of the public works. The circus and
      theatres might still excite, but they seldom gratified, the
      desires of the people: the temples, which had escaped the zeal of
      the Christians, were no longer inhabited, either by gods or men;
      the diminished crowds of the Romans were lost in the immense
      space of their baths and porticos; and the stately libraries and
      halls of justice became useless to an indolent generation, whose
      repose was seldom disturbed, either by study or business. The
      monuments of consular, or Imperial, greatness were no longer
      revered, as the immortal glory of the capital: they were only
      esteemed as an inexhaustible mine of materials, cheaper, and more
      convenient than the distant quarry. Specious petitions were
      continually addressed to the easy magistrates of Rome, which
      stated the want of stones or bricks, for some necessary service:
      the fairest forms of architecture were rudely defaced, for the
      sake of some paltry, or pretended, repairs; and the degenerate
      Romans, who converted the spoil to their own emolument,
      demolished, with sacrilegious hands, the labors of their
      ancestors. Majorian, who had often sighed over the desolation of
      the city, applied a severe remedy to the growing evil. 43 He
      reserved to the prince and senate the sole cognizance of the
      extreme cases which might justify the destruction of an ancient
      edifice; imposed a fine of fifty pounds of gold (two thousand
      pounds sterling) on every magistrate who should presume to grant
      such illegal and scandalous license, and threatened to chastise
      the criminal obedience of their subordinate officers, by a severe
      whipping, and the amputation of both their hands. In the last
      instance, the legislator might seem to forget the proportion of
      guilt and punishment; but his zeal arose from a generous
      principle, and Majorian was anxious to protect the monuments of
      those ages, in which he would have desired and deserved to live.
      The emperor conceived, that it was his interest to increase the
      number of his subjects; and that it was his duty to guard the
      purity of the marriage-bed: but the means which he employed to
      accomplish these salutary purposes are of an ambiguous, and
      perhaps exceptionable, kind. The pious maids, who consecrated
      their virginity to Christ, were restrained from taking the veil
      till they had reached their fortieth year. Widows under that age
      were compelled to form a second alliance within the term of five
      years, by the forfeiture of half their wealth to their nearest
      relations, or to the state. Unequal marriages were condemned or
      annulled. The punishment of confiscation and exile was deemed so
      inadequate to the guilt of adultery, that, if the criminal
      returned to Italy, he might, by the express declaration of
      Majorian, be slain with impunity. 44

      43 (return) [ The whole edict (Novell. Majorian. tit. vi. p. 35)
      is curious. “Antiquarum aedium dissipatur speciosa constructio;
      et ut aliquid reparetur, magna diruuntur. Hinc jam occasio
      nascitur, ut etiam unusquisque privatum aedificium construens,
      per gratiam judicum..... praesumere de publicis locis necessaria,
      et transferre non dubitet” &c. With equal zeal, but with less
      power, Petrarch, in the fourteenth century, repeated the same
      complaints. (Vie de Petrarque, tom. i. p. 326, 327.) If I
      prosecute this history, I shall not be unmindful of the decline
      and fall of the city of Rome; an interesting object to which any
      plan was originally confined.]

      44 (return) [ The emperor chides the lenity of Rogatian, consular
      of Tuscany in a style of acrimonious reproof, which sounds almost
      like personal resentment, (Novell. tit. ix. p. 47.) The law of
      Majorian, which punished obstinate widows, was soon afterwards
      repealed by his successor Severus, (Novell. Sever. tit. i. p.
      37.)]

      While the emperor Majorian assiduously labored to restore the
      happiness and virtue of the Romans, he encountered the arms of
      Genseric, from his character and situation their most formidable
      enemy. A fleet of Vandals and Moors landed at the mouth of the
      Liris, or Garigliano; but the Imperial troops surprised and
      attacked the disorderly Barbarians, who were encumbered with the
      spoils of Campania; they were chased with slaughter to their
      ships, and their leader, the king’s brother-in-law, was found in
      the number of the slain. 45 Such vigilance might announce the
      character of the new reign; but the strictest vigilance, and the
      most numerous forces, were insufficient to protect the
      long-extended coast of Italy from the depredations of a naval
      war. The public opinion had imposed a nobler and more arduous
      task on the genius of Majorian. Rome expected from him alone the
      restitution of Africa; and the design, which he formed, of
      attacking the Vandals in their new settlements, was the result of
      bold and judicious policy. If the intrepid emperor could have
      infused his own spirit into the youth of Italy; if he could have
      revived in the field of Mars, the manly exercises in which he had
      always surpassed his equals; he might have marched against
      Genseric at the head of a Roman army. Such a reformation of
      national manners might be embraced by the rising generation; but
      it is the misfortune of those princes who laboriously sustain a
      declining monarchy, that, to obtain some immediate advantage, or
      to avert some impending danger, they are forced to countenance,
      and even to multiply, the most pernicious abuses. Majorian, like
      the weakest of his predecessors, was reduced to the disgraceful
      expedient of substituting Barbarian auxiliaries in the place of
      his unwarlike subjects: and his superior abilities could only be
      displayed in the vigor and dexterity with which he wielded a
      dangerous instrument, so apt to recoil on the hand that used it.
      Besides the confederates, who were already engaged in the service
      of the empire, the fame of his liberality and valor attracted the
      nations of the Danube, the Borysthenes, and perhaps of the
      Tanais. Many thousands of the bravest subjects of Attila, the
      Gepidae, the Ostrogoths, the Rugians, the Burgundians, the Suevi,
      the Alani, assembled in the plains of Liguria; and their
      formidable strength was balanced by their mutual animosities. 46
      They passed the Alps in a severe winter. The emperor led the way,
      on foot, and in complete armor; sounding, with his long staff,
      the depth of the ice, or snow, and encouraging the Scythians, who
      complained of the extreme cold, by the cheerful assurance, that
      they should be satisfied with the heat of Africa. The citizens of
      Lyons had presumed to shut their gates; they soon implored, and
      experienced, the clemency of Majorian. He vanquished Theodoric in
      the field; and admitted to his friendship and alliance a king
      whom he had found not unworthy of his arms. The beneficial,
      though precarious, reunion of the greater part of Gaul and Spain,
      was the effect of persuasion, as well as of force; 47 and the
      independent Bagaudae, who had escaped, or resisted, the
      oppression, of former reigns, were disposed to confide in the
      virtues of Majorian. His camp was filled with Barbarian allies;
      his throne was supported by the zeal of an affectionate people;
      but the emperor had foreseen, that it was impossible, without a
      maritime power, to achieve the conquest of Africa. In the first
      Punic war, the republic had exerted such incredible diligence,
      that, within sixty days after the first stroke of the axe had
      been given in the forest, a fleet of one hundred and sixty
      galleys proudly rode at anchor in the sea. 48 Under circumstances
      much less favorable, Majorian equalled the spirit and
      perseverance of the ancient Romans. The woods of the Apennine
      were felled; the arsenals and manufactures of Ravenna and Misenum
      were restored; Italy and Gaul vied with each other in liberal
      contributions to the public service; and the Imperial navy of
      three hundred large galleys, with an adequate proportion of
      transports and smaller vessels, was collected in the secure and
      capacious harbor of Carthagena in Spain. 49 The intrepid
      countenance of Majorian animated his troops with a confidence of
      victory; and, if we might credit the historian Procopius, his
      courage sometimes hurried him beyond the bounds of prudence.
      Anxious to explore, with his own eyes, the state of the Vandals,
      he ventured, after disguising the color of his hair, to visit
      Carthage, in the character of his own ambassador: and Genseric
      was afterwards mortified by the discovery, that he had
      entertained and dismissed the emperor of the Romans. Such an
      anecdote may be rejected as an improbable fiction; but it is a
      fiction which would not have been imagined, unless in the life of
      a hero. 50

      45 (return) [ Sidon. Panegyr. Majorian, 385-440.]

      46 (return) [ The review of the army, and passage of the Alps,
      contain the most tolerable passages of the Panegyric, (470-552.)
      M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples, &c., tom. viii. p. 49-55) is a
      more satisfactory commentator, than either Savaron or Sirmond.]

      47 (return) [ It is the just and forcible distinction of Priscus,
      (Excerpt. Legat. p. 42,) in a short fragment, which throws much
      light on the history of Majorian. Jornandes has suppressed the
      defeat and alliance of the Visigoths, which were solemnly
      proclaimed in Gallicia; and are marked in the Chronicle of
      Idatius.]

      48 (return) [ Florus, l. ii. c. 2. He amuses himself with the
      poetical fancy, that the trees had been transformed into ships;
      and indeed the whole transaction, as it is related in the first
      book of Polybius, deviates too much from the probable course of
      human events.]

      49 (return) [

     Iterea duplici texis dum littore classem Inferno superoque mari,
     cadit omnis in aequor Sylva tibi, &c. —-Sidon. Panegyr. Majorian,
     441-461.

      The number of ships, which Priscus fixed at 300, is magnified, by
      an indefinite comparison with the fleets of Agamemnon, Xerxes,
      and Augustus.]

      50 (return) [ Procopius de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 8, p. 194. When
      Genseric conducted his unknown guest into the arsenal of
      Carthage, the arms clashed of their own accord. Majorian had
      tinged his yellow locks with a black color.]




      Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part III.

      Without the help of a personal interview, Genseric was
      sufficiently acquainted with the genius and designs of his
      adversary. He practiced his customary arts of fraud and delay,
      but he practiced them without success. His applications for peace
      became each hour more submissive, and perhaps more sincere; but
      the inflexible Majorian had adopted the ancient maxim, that Rome
      could not be safe, as long as Carthage existed in a hostile
      state. The king of the Vandals distrusted the valor of his native
      subjects, who were enervated by the luxury of the South; 51 he
      suspected the fidelity of the vanquished people, who abhorred him
      as an Arian tyrant; and the desperate measure, which he executed,
      of reducing Mauritania into a desert, 52 could not defeat the
      operations of the Roman emperor, who was at liberty to land his
      troops on any part of the African coast. But Genseric was saved
      from impending and inevitable ruin by the treachery of some
      powerful subjects, envious, or apprehensive, of their master’s
      success. Guided by their secret intelligence, he surprised the
      unguarded fleet in the Bay of Carthagena: many of the ships were
      sunk, or taken, or burnt; and the preparations of three years
      were destroyed in a single day. 53 After this event, the behavior
      of the two antagonists showed them superior to their fortune. The
      Vandal, instead of being elated by this accidental victory,
      immediately renewed his solicitations for peace. The emperor of
      the West, who was capable of forming great designs, and of
      supporting heavy disappointments, consented to a treaty, or
      rather to a suspension of arms; in the full assurance that,
      before he could restore his navy, he should be supplied with
      provocations to justify a second war. Majorian returned to Italy,
      to prosecute his labors for the public happiness; and, as he was
      conscious of his own integrity, he might long remain ignorant of
      the dark conspiracy which threatened his throne and his life. The
      recent misfortune of Carthagena sullied the glory which had
      dazzled the eyes of the multitude; almost every description of
      civil and military officers were exasperated against the
      Reformer, since they all derived some advantage from the abuses
      which he endeavored to suppress; and the patrician Ricimer
      impelled the inconstant passions of the Barbarians against a
      prince whom he esteemed and hated. The virtues of Majorian could
      not protect him from the impetuous sedition, which broke out in
      the camp near Tortona, at the foot of the Alps. He was compelled
      to abdicate the Imperial purple: five days after his abdication,
      it was reported that he died of a dysentery; 54 and the humble
      tomb, which covered his remains, was consecrated by the respect
      and gratitude of succeeding generations. 55 The private character
      of Majorian inspired love and respect. Malicious calumny and
      satire excited his indignation, or, if he himself were the
      object, his contempt; but he protected the freedom of wit, and,
      in the hours which the emperor gave to the familiar society of
      his friends, he could indulge his taste for pleasantry, without
      degrading the majesty of his rank. 56

      51 (return) [

     Spoliisque potitus Immensis, robux luxu jam perdidit omne, Quo
     valuit dum pauper erat. —Panegyr. Majorian, 330.

      He afterwards applies to Genseric, unjustly, as it should seem,
      the vices of his subjects.]

      52 (return) [ He burnt the villages, and poisoned the springs,
      (Priscus, p. 42.) Dubos (Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 475)
      observes, that the magazines which the Moors buried in the earth
      might escape his destructive search. Two or three hundred pits
      are sometimes dug in the same place; and each pit contains at
      least four hundred bushels of corn Shaw’s Travels, p. 139.]

      53 (return) [ Idatius, who was safe in Gallicia from the power of
      Recimer boldly and honestly declares, Vandali per proditeres
      admoniti, &c: i. e. dissembles, however, the name of the
      traitor.]

      54 (return) [ Procop. de Bell. Vandal. l. i. i. c. 8, p. 194. The
      testimony of Idatius is fair and impartial: “Majorianum de
      Galliis Romam redeuntem, et Romano imperio vel nomini res
      necessarias ordinantem; Richimer livore percitus, et invidorum
      consilio fultus, fraude interficit circumventum.“ Some read
      Suevorum, and I am unwilling to efface either of the words, as
      they express the different accomplices who united in the
      conspiracy against Majorian.]

      55 (return) [ See the Epigrams of Ennodius, No. cxxxv. inter
      Sirmond. Opera, tom. i. p. 1903. It is flat and obscure; but
      Ennodius was made bishop of Pavia fifty years after the death of
      Majorian, and his praise deserves credit and regard.]

      56 (return) [ Sidonius gives a tedious account (l. i. epist. xi.
      p. 25-31) of a supper at Arles, to which he was invited by
      Majorian, a short time before his death. He had no intention of
      praising a deceased emperor: but a casual disinterested remark,
      “Subrisit Augustus; ut erat, auctoritate servata, cum se
      communioni dedisset, joci plenus,“ outweighs the six hundred
      lines of his venal panegyric.]

      It was not, perhaps, without some regret, that Ricimer sacrificed
      his friend to the interest of his ambition: but he resolved, in a
      second choice, to avoid the imprudent preference of superior
      virtue and merit. At his command, the obsequious senate of Rome
      bestowed the Imperial title on Libius Severus, who ascended the
      throne of the West without emerging from the obscurity of a
      private condition. History has scarcely deigned to notice his
      birth, his elevation, his character, or his death. Severus
      expired, as soon as his life became inconvenient to his patron;
      57 and it would be useless to discriminate his nominal reign in
      the vacant interval of six years, between the death of Majorian
      and the elevation of Anthemius. During that period, the
      government was in the hands of Ricimer alone; and, although the
      modest Barbarian disclaimed the name of king, he accumulated
      treasures, formed a separate army, negotiated private alliances,
      and ruled Italy with the same independent and despotic authority,
      which was afterwards exercised by Odoacer and Theodoric. But his
      dominions were bounded by the Alps; and two Roman generals,
      Marcellinus and Aegidius, maintained their allegiance to the
      republic, by rejecting, with disdain, the phantom which he styled
      an emperor. Marcellinus still adhered to the old religion; and
      the devout Pagans, who secretly disobeyed the laws of the church
      and state, applauded his profound skill in the science of
      divination. But he possessed the more valuable qualifications of
      learning, virtue, and courage; 58 the study of the Latin
      literature had improved his taste; and his military talents had
      recommended him to the esteem and confidence of the great Aetius,
      in whose ruin he was involved. By a timely flight, Marcellinus
      escaped the rage of Valentinian, and boldly asserted his liberty
      amidst the convulsions of the Western empire. His voluntary, or
      reluctant, submission to the authority of Majorian, was rewarded
      by the government of Sicily, and the command of an army,
      stationed in that island to oppose, or to attack, the Vandals;
      but his Barbarian mercenaries, after the emperor’s death, were
      tempted to revolt by the artful liberality of Ricimer. At the
      head of a band of faithful followers, the intrepid Marcellinus
      occupied the province of Dalmatia, assumed the title of patrician
      of the West, secured the love of his subjects by a mild and
      equitable reign, built a fleet which claimed the dominion of the
      Adriatic, and alternately alarmed the coasts of Italy and of
      Africa. 59 Aegidius, the master-general of Gaul, who equalled, or
      at least who imitated, the heroes of ancient Rome, 60 proclaimed
      his immortal resentment against the assassins of his beloved
      master. A brave and numerous army was attached to his standard:
      and, though he was prevented by the arts of Ricimer, and the arms
      of the Visigoths, from marching to the gates of Rome, he
      maintained his independent sovereignty beyond the Alps, and
      rendered the name of Aegidius, respectable both in peace and war.
      The Franks, who had punished with exile the youthful follies of
      Childeric, elected the Roman general for their king: his vanity,
      rather than his ambition, was gratified by that singular honor;
      and when the nation, at the end of four years, repented of the
      injury which they had offered to the Merovingian family, he
      patiently acquiesced in the restoration of the lawful prince. The
      authority of Aegidius ended only with his life, and the
      suspicions of poison and secret violence, which derived some
      countenance from the character of Ricimer, were eagerly
      entertained by the passionate credulity of the Gauls. 61

      57 (return) [ Sidonius (Panegyr. Anthem. 317) dismisses him to
      heaven:—Auxerat Augustus naturae lege Severus—Divorum numerum.
      And an old list of the emperors, composed about the time of
      Justinian, praises his piety, and fixes his residence at Rome,
      (Sirmond. Not. ad Sidon. p. 111, 112.)]

      58 (return) [ Tillemont, who is always scandalized by the virtues
      of infidels, attributes this advantageous portrait of Marcellinus
      (which Suidas has preserved) to the partial zeal of some Pagan
      historian, (Hist. des Empereurs. tom. vi. p. 330.)]

      59 (return) [ Procopius de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 6, p. 191. In
      various circumstances of the life of Marcellinus, it is not easy
      to reconcile the Greek historian with the Latin Chronicles of the
      times.]

      60 (return) [ I must apply to Aegidius the praises which Sidonius
      (Panegyr Majorian, 553) bestows on a nameless master-general, who
      commanded the rear-guard of Majorian. Idatius, from public
      report, commends his Christian piety; and Priscus mentions (p.
      42) his military virtues.]

      61 (return) [ Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 12, in tom. ii. p. 168. The
      Pere Daniel, whose ideas were superficial and modern, has started
      some objections against the story of Childeric, (Hist. de France,
      tom. i. Preface Historique, p. lxxvii., &c.:) but they have been
      fairly satisfied by Dubos, (Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 460-510,)
      and by two authors who disputed the prize of the Academy of
      Soissons, (p. 131-177, 310-339.) With regard to the term of
      Childeric’s exile, it is necessary either to prolong the life of
      Aegidius beyond the date assigned by the Chronicle of Idatius or
      to correct the text of Gregory, by reading quarto anno, instead
      of octavo.]

      The kingdom of Italy, a name to which the Western empire was
      gradually reduced, was afflicted, under the reign of Ricimer, by
      the incessant depredations of the Vandal pirates. 62 In the
      spring of each year, they equipped a formidable navy in the port
      of Carthage; and Genseric himself, though in a very advanced age,
      still commanded in person the most important expeditions. His
      designs were concealed with impenetrable secrecy, till the moment
      that he hoisted sail. When he was asked, by his pilot, what
      course he should steer, “Leave the determination to the winds,
      (replied the Barbarian, with pious arrogance;) they will
      transport us to the guilty coast, whose inhabitants have provoked
      the divine justice;” but if Genseric himself deigned to issue
      more precise orders, he judged the most wealthy to be the most
      criminal. The Vandals repeatedly visited the coasts of Spain,
      Liguria, Tuscany, Campania, Lucania, Bruttium, Apulia, Calabria,
      Venetia, Dalmatia, Epirus, Greece, and Sicily: they were tempted
      to subdue the Island of Sardinia, so advantageously placed in the
      centre of the Mediterranean; and their arms spread desolation, or
      terror, from the columns of Hercules to the mouth of the Nile. As
      they were more ambitious of spoil than of glory, they seldom
      attacked any fortified cities, or engaged any regular troops in
      the open field. But the celerity of their motions enabled them,
      almost at the same time, to threaten and to attack the most
      distant objects, which attracted their desires; and as they
      always embarked a sufficient number of horses, they had no sooner
      landed, than they swept the dismayed country with a body of light
      cavalry. Yet, notwithstanding the example of their king, the
      native Vandals and Alani insensibly declined this toilsome and
      perilous warfare; the hardy generation of the first conquerors
      was almost extinguished, and their sons, who were born in Africa,
      enjoyed the delicious baths and gardens which had been acquired
      by the valor of their fathers. Their place was readily supplied
      by a various multitude of Moors and Romans, of captives and
      outlaws; and those desperate wretches, who had already violated
      the laws of their country, were the most eager to promote the
      atrocious acts which disgrace the victories of Genseric. In the
      treatment of his unhappy prisoners, he sometimes consulted his
      avarice, and sometimes indulged his cruelty; and the massacre of
      five hundred noble citizens of Zant or Zacynthus, whose mangled
      bodies he cast into the Ionian Sea, was imputed, by the public
      indignation, to his latest posterity.

      62 (return) [ The naval war of Genseric is described by Priscus,
      (Excerpta Legation. p. 42,) Procopius, (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c.
      5, p. 189, 190, and c. 22, p. 228,) Victor Vitensis, (de
      Persecut. Vandal. l. i. c. 17, and Ruinart, p. 467-481,) and in
      three panegyrics of Sidonius, whose chronological order is
      absurdly transposed in the editions both of Savaron and Sirmond.
      (Avit. Carm. vii. 441-451. Majorian. Carm. v. 327-350, 385-440.
      Anthem. Carm. ii. 348-386) In one passage the poet seems inspired
      by his subject, and expresses a strong idea by a lively image:—

     Hinc Vandalus hostis Urget; et in nostrum numerosa classe
     quotannis Militat excidium; conversoque ordine Fati Torrida
     Caucaseos infert mihi Byrsa furoree]

      Such crimes could not be excused by any provocations; but the
      war, which the king of the Vandals prosecuted against the Roman
      empire was justified by a specious and reasonable motive. The
      widow of Valentinian, Eudoxia, whom he had led captive from Rome
      to Carthage, was the sole heiress of the Theodosian house; her
      elder daughter, Eudocia, became the reluctant wife of Hunneric,
      his eldest son; and the stern father, asserting a legal claim,
      which could not easily be refuted or satisfied, demanded a just
      proportion of the Imperial patrimony. An adequate, or at least a
      valuable, compensation, was offered by the Eastern emperor, to
      purchase a necessary peace. Eudoxia and her younger daughter,
      Placidia, were honorably restored, and the fury of the Vandals
      was confined to the limits of the Western empire. The Italians,
      destitute of a naval force, which alone was capable of protecting
      their coasts, implored the aid of the more fortunate nations of
      the East; who had formerly acknowledged, in peace and war, the
      supremacy of Rome. But the perpetual divisions of the two empires
      had alienated their interest and their inclinations; the faith of
      a recent treaty was alleged; and the Western Romans, instead of
      arms and ships, could only obtain the assistance of a cold and
      ineffectual mediation. The haughty Ricimer, who had long
      struggled with the difficulties of his situation, was at length
      reduced to address the throne of Constantinople, in the humble
      language of a subject; and Italy submitted, as the price and
      security to accept a master from the choice of the emperor of the
      East. 63 It is not the purpose of the present chapter, or even of
      the present volume, to continue the distinct series of the
      Byzantine history; but a concise view of the reign and character
      of the emperor Leo, may explain the last efforts that were
      attempted to save the falling empire of the West. 64

      63 (return) [ The poet himself is compelled to acknowledge the
      distress of Ricimer:—

     Praeterea invictus Ricimer, quem publica fata Respiciunt, proprio
     solas vix Marte repellit Piratam per rura vagum.

      Italy addresses her complaint to the Tyber, and Rome, at the
      solicitation of the river god, transports herself to
      Constantinople, renounces her ancient claims, and implores the
      friendship of Aurora, the goddess of the East. This fabulous
      machinery, which the genius of Claudian had used and abused, is
      the constant and miserable resource of the muse of Sidonius.]

      64 (return) [ The original authors of the reigns of Marcian, Leo,
      and Zeno, are reduced to some imperfect fragments, whose
      deficiencies must be supplied from the more recent compilations
      of Theophanes, Zonaras, and Cedrenus.]

      Since the death of the younger Theodosius, the domestic repose of
      Constantinople had never been interrupted by war or faction.
      Pulcheria had bestowed her hand, and the sceptre of the East, on
      the modest virtue of Marcian: he gratefully reverenced her august
      rank and virgin chastity; and, after her death, he gave his
      people the example of the religious worship that was due to the
      memory of the Imperial saint. 65 Attentive to the prosperity of
      his own dominions, Marcian seemed to behold, with indifference,
      the misfortunes of Rome; and the obstinate refusal of a brave and
      active prince, to draw his sword against the Vandals, was
      ascribed to a secret promise, which had formerly been exacted
      from him when he was a captive in the power of Genseric. 66 The
      death of Marcian, after a reign of seven years, would have
      exposed the East to the danger of a popular election; if the
      superior weight of a single family had not been able to incline
      the balance in favor of the candidate whose interest they
      supported. The patrician Aspar might have placed the diadem on
      his own head, if he would have subscribed the Nicene creed. 67
      During three generations, the armies of the East were
      successively commanded by his father, by himself, and by his son
      Ardaburius; his Barbarian guards formed a military force that
      overawed the palace and the capital; and the liberal distribution
      of his immense treasures rendered Aspar as popular as he was
      powerful. He recommended the obscure name of Leo of Thrace, a
      military tribune, and the principal steward of his household. His
      nomination was unanimously ratified by the senate; and the
      servant of Aspar received the Imperial crown from the hands of
      the patriarch or bishop, who was permitted to express, by this
      unusual ceremony, the suffrage of the Deity. 68 This emperor, the
      first of the name of Leo, has been distinguished by the title of
      the Great; from a succession of princes, who gradually fixed in
      the opinion of the Greeks a very humble standard of heroic, or at
      least of royal, perfection. Yet the temperate firmness with which
      Leo resisted the oppression of his benefactor, showed that he was
      conscious of his duty and of his prerogative. Aspar was
      astonished to find that his influence could no longer appoint a
      praefect of Constantinople: he presumed to reproach his sovereign
      with a breach of promise, and insolently shaking his purple, “It
      is not proper, (said he,) that the man who is invested with this
      garment, should be guilty of lying.“ “Nor is it proper, (replied
      Leo,) that a prince should be compelled to resign his own
      judgment, and the public interest, to the will of a subject.“69
      After this extraordinary scene, it was impossible that the
      reconciliation of the emperor and the patrician could be sincere;
      or, at least, that it could be solid and permanent. An army of
      Isaurians 70 was secretly levied, and introduced into
      Constantinople; and while Leo undermined the authority, and
      prepared the disgrace, of the family of Aspar, his mild and
      cautious behavior restrained them from any rash and desperate
      attempts, which might have been fatal to themselves, or their
      enemies. The measures of peace and war were affected by this
      internal revolution. As long as Aspar degraded the majesty of the
      throne, the secret correspondence of religion and interest
      engaged him to favor the cause of Genseric. When Leo had
      delivered himself from that ignominious servitude, he listened to
      the complaints of the Italians; resolved to extirpate the tyranny
      of the Vandals; and declared his alliance with his colleague,
      Anthemius, whom he solemnly invested with the diadem and purple
      of the West.

      65 (return) [ St. Pulcheria died A.D. 453, four years before her
      nominal husband; and her festival is celebrated on the 10th of
      September by the modern Greeks: she bequeathed an immense
      patrimony to pious, or, at least, to ecclesiastical, uses. See
      Tillemont, Memoires Eccles. tom. xv p. 181-184.]

      66 (return) [ See Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 4, p.
      185.]

      67 (return) [ From this disability of Aspar to ascend the throne,
      it may be inferred that the stain of Heresy was perpetual and
      indelible, while that of Barbarism disappeared in the second
      generation.]

      68 (return) [ Theophanes, p. 95. This appears to be the first
      origin of a ceremony, which all the Christian princes of the
      world have since adopted and from which the clergy have deduced
      the most formidable consequences.]

      69 (return) [ Cedrenus, (p. 345, 346,) who was conversant with
      the writers of better days, has preserved the remarkable words of
      Aspar.]

      70 (return) [ The power of the Isaurians agitated the Eastern
      empire in the two succeeding reigns of Zeno and Anastasius; but
      it ended in the destruction of those Barbarians, who maintained
      their fierce independences about two hundred and thirty years.]

      The virtues of Anthemius have perhaps been magnified, since the
      Imperial descent, which he could only deduce from the usurper
      Procopius, has been swelled into a line of emperors. 71 But the
      merit of his immediate parents, their honors, and their riches,
      rendered Anthemius one of the most illustrious subjects of the
      East. His father, Procopius, obtained, after his Persian embassy,
      the rank of general and patrician; and the name of Anthemius was
      derived from his maternal grandfather, the celebrated praefect,
      who protected, with so much ability and success, the infant reign
      of Theodosius. The grandson of the praefect was raised above the
      condition of a private subject, by his marriage with Euphemia,
      the daughter of the emperor Marcian. This splendid alliance,
      which might supersede the necessity of merit, hastened the
      promotion of Anthemius to the successive dignities of count, of
      master-general, of consul, and of patrician; and his merit or
      fortune claimed the honors of a victory, which was obtained on
      the banks of the Danube, over the Huns. Without indulging an
      extravagant ambition, the son-in-law of Marcian might hope to be
      his successor; but Anthemius supported the disappointment with
      courage and patience; and his subsequent elevation was
      universally approved by the public, who esteemed him worthy to
      reign, till he ascended the throne. 72 The emperor of the West
      marched from Constantinople, attended by several counts of high
      distinction, and a body of guards almost equal to the strength
      and numbers of a regular army: he entered Rome in triumph, and
      the choice of Leo was confirmed by the senate, the people, and
      the Barbarian confederates of Italy. 73 The solemn inauguration
      of Anthemius was followed by the nuptials of his daughter and the
      patrician Ricimer; a fortunate event, which was considered as the
      firmest security of the union and happiness of the state. The
      wealth of two empires was ostentatiously displayed; and many
      senators completed their ruin, by an expensive effort to disguise
      their poverty. All serious business was suspended during this
      festival; the courts of justice were shut; the streets of Rome,
      the theatres, the places of public and private resort, resounded
      with hymeneal songs and dances: and the royal bride, clothed in
      silken robes, with a crown on her head, was conducted to the
      palace of Ricimer, who had changed his military dress for the
      habit of a consul and a senator. On this memorable occasion,
      Sidonius, whose early ambition had been so fatally blasted,
      appeared as the orator of Auvergne, among the provincial deputies
      who addressed the throne with congratulations or complaints. 74
      The calends of January were now approaching, and the venal poet,
      who had loved Avitus, and esteemed Majorian, was persuaded by his
      friends to celebrate, in heroic verse, the merit, the felicity,
      the second consulship, and the future triumphs, of the emperor
      Anthemius. Sidonius pronounced, with assurance and success, a
      panegyric which is still extant; and whatever might be the
      imperfections, either of the subject or of the composition, the
      welcome flatterer was immediately rewarded with the praefecture
      of Rome; a dignity which placed him among the illustrious
      personages of the empire, till he wisely preferred the more
      respectable character of a bishop and a saint. 75

      71 (return) [

     Tali tu civis ab urbe Procopio genitore micas; cui prisca propago
     Augustis venit a proavis.

      The poet (Sidon. Panegyr. Anthem. 67-306) then proceeds to relate
      the private life and fortunes of the future emperor, with which
      he must have been imperfectly acquainted.]

      72 (return) [ Sidonius discovers, with tolerable ingenuity, that
      this disappointment added new lustre to the virtues of Anthemius,
      (210, &c.,) who declined one sceptre, and reluctantly accepted
      another, (22, &c.)]

      73 (return) [ The poet again celebrates the unanimity of all
      orders of the state, (15-22;) and the Chronicle of Idatius
      mentions the forces which attended his march.]

      74 (return) [ Interveni autem nuptiis Patricii Ricimeris, cui
      filia perennis Augusti in spem publicae securitatis copulabator.
      The journey of Sidonius from Lyons, and the festival of Rome, are
      described with some spirit. L. i. epist. 5, p. 9-13, epist. 9, p.
      21.]

      75 (return) [ Sidonius (l. i. epist. 9, p. 23, 24) very fairly
      states his motive, his labor, and his reward. “Hic ipse
      Panegyricus, si non judicium, certa eventum, boni operis,
      accepit.“ He was made bishop of Clermont, A.D. 471. Tillemont,
      Mem. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 750.]

      The Greeks ambitiously commend the piety and catholic faith of
      the emperor whom they gave to the West; nor do they forget to
      observe, that when he left Constantinople, he converted his
      palace into the pious foundation of a public bath, a church, and
      a hospital for old men. 76 Yet some suspicious appearances are
      found to sully the theological fame of Anthemius. From the
      conversation of Philotheus, a Macedonian sectary, he had imbibed
      the spirit of religious toleration; and the Heretics of Rome
      would have assembled with impunity, if the bold and vehement
      censure which Pope Hilary pronounced in the church of St. Peter,
      had not obliged him to abjure the unpopular indulgence. 77 Even
      the Pagans, a feeble and obscure remnant, conceived some vain
      hopes, from the indifference, or partiality, of Anthemius; and
      his singular friendship for the philosopher Severus, whom he
      promoted to the consulship, was ascribed to a secret project, of
      reviving the ancient worship of the gods. 78 These idols were
      crumbled into dust: and the mythology which had once been the
      creed of nations, was so universally disbelieved, that it might
      be employed without scandal, or at least without suspicion, by
      Christian poets. 79 Yet the vestiges of superstition were not
      absolutely obliterated, and the festival of the Lupercalia, whose
      origin had preceded the foundation of Rome, was still celebrated
      under the reign of Anthemius. The savage and simple rites were
      expressive of an early state of society before the invention of
      arts and agriculture. The rustic deities who presided over the
      toils and pleasures of the pastoral life, Pan, Faunus, and their
      train of satyrs, were such as the fancy of shepherds might
      create, sportive, petulant, and lascivious; whose power was
      limited, and whose malice was inoffensive. A goat was the
      offering the best adapted to their character and attributes; the
      flesh of the victim was roasted on willow spits; and the riotous
      youths, who crowded to the feast, ran naked about the fields,
      with leather thongs in their hands, communicating, as it was
      supposed, the blessing of fecundity to the women whom they
      touched. 80 The altar of Pan was erected, perhaps by Evander the
      Arcadian, in a dark recess in the side of the Palantine hill,
      watered by a perpetual fountain, and shaded by a hanging grove. A
      tradition, that, in the same place, Romulus and Remus were
      suckled by the wolf, rendered it still more sacred and venerable
      in the eyes of the Romans; and this sylvan spot was gradually
      surrounded by the stately edifices of the Forum. 81 After the
      conversion of the Imperial city, the Christians still continued,
      in the month of February, the annual celebration of the
      Lupercalia; to which they ascribed a secret and mysterious
      influence on the genial powers of the animal and vegetable world.

      The bishops of Rome were solicitous to abolish a profane custom,
      so repugnant to the spirit of Christianity; but their zeal was
      not supported by the authority of the civil magistrate: the
      inveterate abuse subsisted till the end of the fifth century, and
      Pope Gelasius, who purified the capital from the last stain of
      idolatry, appeased by a formal apology, the murmurs of the senate
      and people. 82

      76 (return) [ The palace of Anthemius stood on the banks of the
      Propontis. In the ninth century, Alexius, the son-in-law of the
      emperor Theophilus, obtained permission to purchase the ground;
      and ended his days in a monastery which he founded on that
      delightful spot. Ducange Constantinopolis Christiana, p. 117,
      152.]

      77 (return) [ Papa Hilarius... apud beatum Petrum Apostolum,
      palam ne id fieret, clara voce constrinxit, in tantum ut non ea
      facienda cum interpositione juramenti idem promitteret Imperator.
      Gelasius Epistol ad Andronicum, apud Baron. A.D. 467, No. 3. The
      cardinal observes, with some complacency, that it was much easier
      to plant heresies at Constantinople, than at Rome.]

      78 (return) [ Damascius, in the life of the philosopher Isidore,
      apud Photium, p. 1049. Damascius, who lived under Justinian,
      composed another work, consisting of 570 praeternatural stories
      of souls, daemons, apparitions, the dotage of Platonic Paganism.]

      79 (return) [ In the poetical works of Sidonius, which he
      afterwards condemned, (l. ix. epist. 16, p. 285,) the fabulous
      deities are the principal actors. If Jerom was scourged by the
      angels for only reading Virgil, the bishop of Clermont, for such
      a vile imitation, deserved an additional whipping from the
      Muses.]

      80 (return) [ Ovid (Fast. l. ii. 267-452) has given an amusing
      description of the follies of antiquity, which still inspired so
      much respect, that a grave magistrate, running naked through the
      streets, was not an object of astonishment or laughter.]

      81 (return) [ See Dionys. Halicarn. l. i. p. 25, 65, edit.
      Hudson. The Roman antiquaries Donatus (l. ii. c. 18, p. 173, 174)
      and Nardini (p. 386, 387) have labored to ascertain the true
      situation of the Lupercal.]

      82 (return) [ Baronius published, from the MSS. of the Vatican,
      this epistle of Pope Gelasius, (A.D. 496, No. 28-45,) which is
      entitled Adversus Andromachum Senatorem, caeterosque Romanos, qui
      Lupercalia secundum morem pristinum colenda constituebant.
      Gelasius always supposes that his adversaries are nominal
      Christians, and, that he may not yield to them in absurd
      prejudice, he imputes to this harmless festival all the
      calamities of the age.]




      Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part IV.

      In all his public declarations, the emperor Leo assumes the
      authority, and professes the affection, of a father, for his son
      Anthemius, with whom he had divided the administration of the
      universe. 83 The situation, and perhaps the character, of Leo,
      dissuaded him from exposing his person to the toils and dangers
      of an African war. But the powers of the Eastern empire were
      strenuously exerted to deliver Italy and the Mediterranean from
      the Vandals; and Genseric, who had so long oppressed both the
      land and sea, was threatened from every side with a formidable
      invasion. The campaign was opened by a bold and successful
      enterprise of the praefect Heraclius. 84 The troops of Egypt,
      Thebais, and Libya, were embarked, under his command; and the
      Arabs, with a train of horses and camels, opened the roads of the
      desert. Heraclius landed on the coast of Tripoli, surprised and
      subdued the cities of that province, and prepared, by a laborious
      march, which Cato had formerly executed, 85 to join the Imperial
      army under the walls of Carthage. The intelligence of this loss
      extorted from Genseric some insidious and ineffectual
      propositions of peace; but he was still more seriously alarmed by
      the reconciliation of Marcellinus with the two empires. The
      independent patrician had been persuaded to acknowledge the
      legitimate title of Anthemius, whom he accompanied in his journey
      to Rome; the Dalmatian fleet was received into the harbors of
      Italy; the active valor of Marcellinus expelled the Vandals from
      the Island of Sardinia; and the languid efforts of the West added
      some weight to the immense preparations of the Eastern Romans.
      The expense of the naval armament, which Leo sent against the
      Vandals, has been distinctly ascertained; and the curious and
      instructive account displays the wealth of the declining empire.
      The Royal demesnes, or private patrimony of the prince, supplied
      seventeen thousand pounds of gold; forty-seven thousand pounds of
      gold, and seven hundred thousand of silver, were levied and paid
      into the treasury by the Praetorian praefects. But the cities
      were reduced to extreme poverty; and the diligent calculation of
      fines and forfeitures, as a valuable object of the revenue, does
      not suggest the idea of a just or merciful administration. The
      whole expense, by whatsoever means it was defrayed, of the
      African campaign, amounted to the sum of one hundred and thirty
      thousand pounds of gold, about five millions two hundred thousand
      pounds sterling, at a time when the value of money appears, from
      the comparative price of corn, to have been somewhat higher than
      in the present age. 86 The fleet that sailed from Constantinople
      to Carthage, consisted of eleven hundred and thirteen ships, and
      the number of soldiers and mariners exceeded one hundred thousand
      men. Basiliscus, the brother of the empress Vorina, was intrusted
      with this important command. His sister, the wife of Leo, had
      exaggerated the merit of his former exploits against the
      Scythians. But the discovery of his guilt, or incapacity, was
      reserved for the African war; and his friends could only save his
      military reputation by asserting, that he had conspired with
      Aspar to spare Genseric, and to betray the last hope of the
      Western empire.

      83 (return) [ Itaque nos quibus totius mundi regimen commisit
      superna provisio.... Pius et triumphator semper Augustus filius
      noster Anthemius, licet Divina Majestas et nostra creatio pietati
      ejus plenam Imperii commiserit potestatem, &c..... Such is the
      dignified style of Leo, whom Anthemius respectfully names,
      Dominus et Pater meus Princeps sacratissimus Leo. See Novell.
      Anthem. tit. ii. iii. p. 38, ad calcem Cod. Theod.]

      84 (return) [ The expedition of Heraclius is clouded with
      difficulties, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 640,)
      and it requires some dexterity to use the circumstances afforded
      by Theophanes, without injury to the more respectable evidence of
      Procopius.]

      85 (return) [ The march of Cato from Berenice, in the province of
      Cyrene, was much longer than that of Heraclius from Tripoli. He
      passed the deep sandy desert in thirty days, and it was found
      necessary to provide, besides the ordinary supplies, a great
      number of skins filled with water, and several Psylli, who were
      supposed to possess the art of sucking the wounds which had been
      made by the serpents of their native country. See Plutarch in
      Caton. Uticens. tom. iv. p. 275. Straben Geograph. l. xxii. p.
      1193.]

      86 (return) [ The principal sum is clearly expressed by
      Procopius, (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 6, p. 191;) the smaller
      constituent parts, which Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
      vi. p. 396) has laboriously collected from the Byzantine writers,
      are less certain, and less important. The historian Malchus
      laments the public misery, (Excerpt. ex Suida in Corp. Hist.
      Byzant. p. 58;) but he is surely unjust, when he charges Leo with
      hoarding the treasures which he extorted from the people. * Note:
      Compare likewise the newly-discovered work of Lydus, de
      Magistratibus, ed. Hase, Paris, 1812, (and in the new collection
      of the Byzantines,) l. iii. c. 43. Lydus states the expenditure
      at 65,000 lbs. of gold, 700,000 of silver. But Lydus exaggerates
      the fleet to the incredible number of 10,000 long ships,
      (Liburnae,) and the troops to 400,000 men. Lydus describes this
      fatal measure, of which he charges the blame on Basiliscus, as
      the shipwreck of the state. From that time all the revenues of
      the empire were anticipated; and the finances fell into
      inextricable confusion.—M.]

      Experience has shown, that the success of an invader most
      commonly depends on the vigor and celerity of his operations. The
      strength and sharpness of the first impression are blunted by
      delay; the health and spirit of the troops insensibly languish in
      a distant climate; the naval and military force, a mighty effort
      which perhaps can never be repeated, is silently consumed; and
      every hour that is wasted in negotiation, accustoms the enemy to
      contemplate and examine those hostile terrors, which, on their
      first appearance, he deemed irresistible. The formidable navy of
      Basiliscus pursued its prosperous navigation from the Thracian
      Bosphorus to the coast of Africa. He landed his troops at Cape
      Bona, or the promontory of Mercury, about forty miles from
      Carthage. 87 The army of Heraclius, and the fleet of Marcellinus,
      either joined or seconded the Imperial lieutenant; and the
      Vandals who opposed his progress by sea or land, were
      successively vanquished. 88 If Basiliscus had seized the moment
      of consternation, and boldly advanced to the capital, Carthage
      must have surrendered, and the kingdom of the Vandals was
      extinguished. Genseric beheld the danger with firmness, and
      eluded it with his veteran dexterity. He protested, in the most
      respectful language, that he was ready to submit his person, and
      his dominions, to the will of the emperor; but he requested a
      truce of five days to regulate the terms of his submission; and
      it was universally believed, that his secret liberality
      contributed to the success of this public negotiation. Instead of
      obstinately refusing whatever indulgence his enemy so earnestly
      solicited, the guilty, or the credulous, Basiliscus consented to
      the fatal truce; and his imprudent security seemed to proclaim,
      that he already considered himself as the conqueror of Africa.
      During this short interval, the wind became favorable to the
      designs of Genseric. He manned his largest ships of war with the
      bravest of the Moors and Vandals; and they towed after them many
      large barks, filled with combustible materials. In the obscurity
      of the night, these destructive vessels were impelled against the
      unguarded and unsuspecting fleet of the Romans, who were awakened
      by the sense of their instant danger. Their close and crowded
      order assisted the progress of the fire, which was communicated
      with rapid and irresistible violence; and the noise of the wind,
      the crackling of the flames, the dissonant cries of the soldiers
      and mariners, who could neither command nor obey, increased the
      horror of the nocturnal tumult. Whilst they labored to extricate
      themselves from the fire-ships, and to save at least a part of
      the navy, the galleys of Genseric assaulted them with temperate
      and disciplined valor; and many of the Romans, who escaped the
      fury of the flames, were destroyed or taken by the victorious
      Vandals. Among the events of that disastrous night, the heroic,
      or rather desperate, courage of John, one of the principal
      officers of Basiliscus, has rescued his name from oblivion. When
      the ship, which he had bravely defended, was almost consumed, he
      threw himself in his armor into the sea, disdainfully rejected
      the esteem and pity of Genso, the son of Genseric, who pressed
      him to accept honorable quarter, and sunk under the waves;
      exclaiming, with his last breath, that he would never fall alive
      into the hands of those impious dogs. Actuated by a far different
      spirit, Basiliscus, whose station was the most remote from
      danger, disgracefully fled in the beginning of the engagement,
      returned to Constantinople with the loss of more than half of his
      fleet and army, and sheltered his guilty head in the sanctuary of
      St. Sophia, till his sister, by her tears and entreaties, could
      obtain his pardon from the indignant emperor. Heraclius effected
      his retreat through the desert; Marcellinus retired to Sicily,
      where he was assassinated, perhaps at the instigation of Ricimer,
      by one of his own captains; and the king of the Vandals expressed
      his surprise and satisfaction, that the Romans themselves should
      remove from the world his most formidable antagonists. 89 After
      the failure of this great expedition, 891 Genseric again became
      the tyrant of the sea: the coasts of Italy, Greece, and Asia,
      were again exposed to his revenge and avarice; Tripoli and
      Sardinia returned to his obedience; he added Sicily to the number
      of his provinces; and before he died, in the fulness of years and
      of glory, he beheld the final extinction of the empire of the
      West. 90

      87 (return) [ This promontory is forty miles from Carthage,
      (Procop. l. i. c. 6, p. 192,) and twenty leagues from Sicily,
      (Shaw’s Travels, p. 89.) Scipio landed farther in the bay, at the
      fair promontory; see the animated description of Livy, xxix. 26,
      27.]

      88 (return) [ Theophanes (p. 100) affirms that many ships of the
      Vandals were sunk. The assertion of Jornandes, (de Successione
      Regn.,) that Basiliscus attacked Carthage, must be understood in
      a very qualified sense]

      89 (return) [ Damascius in Vit. Isidor. apud Phot. p. 1048. It
      will appear, by comparing the three short chronicles of the
      times, that Marcellinus had fought near Carthage, and was killed
      in Sicily.]

      891 (return) [ According to Lydus, Leo, distracted by this and
      the other calamities of his reign, particularly a dreadful fire
      at Constantinople, abandoned the palace, like another Orestes,
      and was preparing to quit Constantinople forever l iii. c. 44, p.
      230.—M.]

      90 (return) [ For the African war, see Procopius, de Bell.
      (Vandal. l. i. c. 6, p. 191, 192, 193,) Theophanes, (p. 99, 100,
      101,) Cedrenus, (p. 349, 350,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiv. p.
      50, 51.) Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur, &c., c. xx.
      tom. iii. p. 497) has made a judicious observation on the failure
      of these great naval armaments.]

      During his long and active reign, the African monarch had
      studiously cultivated the friendship of the Barbarians of Europe,
      whose arms he might employ in a seasonable and effectual
      diversion against the two empires. After the death of Attila, he
      renewed his alliance with the Visigoths of Gaul; and the sons of
      the elder Theodoric, who successively reigned over that warlike
      nation, were easily persuaded, by the sense of interest, to
      forget the cruel affront which Genseric had inflicted on their
      sister. 91 The death of the emperor Majorian delivered Theodoric
      the Second from the restraint of fear, and perhaps of honor; he
      violated his recent treaty with the Romans; and the ample
      territory of Narbonne, which he firmly united to his dominions,
      became the immediate reward of his perfidy. The selfish policy of
      Ricimer encouraged him to invade the provinces which were in the
      possession of Aegidius, his rival; but the active count, by the
      defence of Arles, and the victory of Orleans, saved Gaul, and
      checked, during his lifetime, the progress of the Visigoths.
      Their ambition was soon rekindled; and the design of
      extinguishing the Roman empire in Spain and Gaul was conceived,
      and almost completed, in the reign of Euric, who assassinated his
      brother Theodoric, and displayed, with a more savage temper,
      superior abilities, both in peace and war. He passed the Pyrenees
      at the head of a numerous army, subdued the cities of Saragossa
      and Pampeluna, vanquished in battle the martial nobles of the
      Tarragonese province, carried his victorious arms into the heart
      of Lusitania, and permitted the Suevi to hold the kingdom of
      Gallicia under the Gothic monarchy of Spain. 92 The efforts of
      Euric were not less vigorous, or less successful, in Gaul; and
      throughout the country that extends from the Pyrenees to the
      Rhone and the Loire, Berry and Auvergne were the only cities, or
      dioceses, which refused to acknowledge him as their master. 93 In
      the defence of Clermont, their principal town, the inhabitants of
      Auvergne sustained, with inflexible resolution, the miseries of
      war, pestilence, and famine; and the Visigoths, relinquishing the
      fruitless siege, suspended the hopes of that important conquest.
      The youth of the province were animated by the heroic, and almost
      incredible, valor of Ecdicius, the son of the emperor Avitus, 94
      who made a desperate sally with only eighteen horsemen, boldly
      attacked the Gothic army, and, after maintaining a flying
      skirmish, retired safe and victorious within the walls of
      Clermont. His charity was equal to his courage: in a time of
      extreme scarcity, four thousand poor were fed at his expense; and
      his private influence levied an army of Burgundians for the
      deliverance of Auvergne. From his virtues alone the faithful
      citizens of Gaul derived any hopes of safety or freedom; and even
      such virtues were insufficient to avert the impending ruin of
      their country, since they were anxious to learn, from his
      authority and example, whether they should prefer the alternative
      of exile or servitude. 95 The public confidence was lost; the
      resources of the state were exhausted; and the Gauls had too much
      reason to believe, that Anthemius, who reigned in Italy, was
      incapable of protecting his distressed subjects beyond the Alps.
      The feeble emperor could only procure for their defence the
      service of twelve thousand British auxiliaries. Riothamus, one of
      the independent kings, or chieftains, of the island, was
      persuaded to transport his troops to the continent of Gaul: he
      sailed up the Loire, and established his quarters in Berry, where
      the people complained of these oppressive allies, till they were
      destroyed or dispersed by the arms of the Visigoths. 96

      91 (return) [ Jornandes is our best guide through the reigns of
      Theodoric II. and Euric, (de Rebus Geticis, c. 44, 45, 46, 47, p.
      675-681.) Idatius ends too soon, and Isidore is too sparing of
      the information which he might have given on the affairs of
      Spain. The events that relate to Gaul are laboriously illustrated
      in the third book of the Abbe Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom. i. p.
      424-620.]

      92 (return) [ See Mariana, Hist. Hispan. tom. i. l. v. c. 5. p.
      162.]

      93 (return) [ An imperfect, but original, picture of Gaul, more
      especially of Auvergne, is shown by Sidonius; who, as a senator,
      and afterwards as a bishop, was deeply interested in the fate of
      his country. See l. v. epist. 1, 5, 9, &c.]

      94 (return) [ Sidonius, l. iii. epist. 3, p. 65-68. Greg. Turon.
      l. ii. c. 24, in tom. ii. p. 174. Jornandes, c. 45, p. 675.
      Perhaps Ecdicius was only the son-in-law of Avitus, his wife’s
      son by another husband.]

      95 (return) [ Si nullae a republica vires, nulla praesidia; si
      nullae, quantum rumor est, Anthemii principis opes; statuit, te
      auctore, nobilitas, seu patriaca dimittere seu capillos, (Sidon.
      l. ii. epist. 1, p. 33.) The last words Sirmond, (Not. p. 25) may
      likewise denote the clerical tonsure, which was indeed the choice
      of Sidonius himself.]

      96 (return) [ The history of these Britons may be traced in
      Jornandes, (c. 45, p. 678,) Sidonius, (l. iii. epistol. 9, p. 73,
      74,) and Gregory of Tours, (l. ii. c. 18, in tom. ii. p. 170.)
      Sidonius (who styles these mercenary troops argutos, armatos,
      tumultuosos, virtute numero, contul ernio, contumaces) addresses
      their general in a tone of friendship and familiarity.]

      One of the last acts of jurisdiction, which the Roman senate
      exercised over their subjects of Gaul, was the trial and
      condemnation of Arvandus, the Praetorian praefect. Sidonius, who
      rejoices that he lived under a reign in which he might pity and
      assist a state criminal, has expressed, with tenderness and
      freedom, the faults of his indiscreet and unfortunate friend. 97
      From the perils which he had escaped, Arvandus imbibed confidence
      rather than wisdom; and such was the various, though uniform,
      imprudence of his behavior, that his prosperity must appear much
      more surprising than his downfall. The second praefecture, which
      he obtained within the term of five years, abolished the merit
      and popularity of his preceding administration. His easy temper
      was corrupted by flattery, and exasperated by opposition; he was
      forced to satisfy his importunate creditors with the spoils of
      the province; his capricious insolence offended the nobles of
      Gaul, and he sunk under the weight of the public hatred. The
      mandate of his disgrace summoned him to justify his conduct
      before the senate; and he passed the Sea of Tuscany with a
      favorable wind, the presage, as he vainly imagined, of his future
      fortunes. A decent respect was still observed for the
      Proefectorian rank; and on his arrival at Rome, Arvandus was
      committed to the hospitality, rather than to the custody, of
      Flavius Asellus, the count of the sacred largesses, who resided
      in the Capitol. 98 He was eagerly pursued by his accusers, the
      four deputies of Gaul, who were all distinguished by their birth,
      their dignities, or their eloquence. In the name of a great
      province, and according to the forms of Roman jurisprudence, they
      instituted a civil and criminal action, requiring such
      restitution as might compensate the losses of individuals, and
      such punishment as might satisfy the justice of the state. Their
      charges of corrupt oppression were numerous and weighty; but they
      placed their secret dependence on a letter which they had
      intercepted, and which they could prove, by the evidence of his
      secretary, to have been dictated by Arvandus himself. The author
      of this letter seemed to dissuade the king of the Goths from a
      peace with the Greek emperor: he suggested the attack of the
      Britons on the Loire; and he recommended a division of Gaul,
      according to the law of nations, between the Visigoths and the
      Burgundians. 99 These pernicious schemes, which a friend could
      only palliate by the reproaches of vanity and indiscretion, were
      susceptible of a treasonable interpretation; and the deputies had
      artfully resolved not to produce their most formidable weapons
      till the decisive moment of the contest. But their intentions
      were discovered by the zeal of Sidonius. He immediately apprised
      the unsuspecting criminal of his danger; and sincerely lamented,
      without any mixture of anger, the haughty presumption of
      Arvandus, who rejected, and even resented, the salutary advice of
      his friends. Ignorant of his real situation, Arvandus showed
      himself in the Capitol in the white robe of a candidate, accepted
      indiscriminate salutations and offers of service, examined the
      shops of the merchants, the silks and gems, sometimes with the
      indifference of a spectator, and sometimes with the attention of
      a purchaser; and complained of the times, of the senate, of the
      prince, and of the delays of justice. His complaints were soon
      removed. An early day was fixed for his trial; and Arvandus
      appeared, with his accusers, before a numerous assembly of the
      Roman senate. The mournful garb which they affected, excited the
      compassion of the judges, who were scandalized by the gay and
      splendid dress of their adversary: and when the praefect
      Arvandus, with the first of the Gallic deputies, were directed to
      take their places on the senatorial benches, the same contrast of
      pride and modesty was observed in their behavior. In this
      memorable judgment, which presented a lively image of the old
      republic, the Gauls exposed, with force and freedom, the
      grievances of the province; and as soon as the minds of the
      audience were sufficiently inflamed, they recited the fatal
      epistle. The obstinacy of Arvandus was founded on the strange
      supposition, that a subject could not be convicted of treason,
      unless he had actually conspired to assume the purple. As the
      paper was read, he repeatedly, and with a loud voice,
      acknowledged it for his genuine composition; and his astonishment
      was equal to his dismay, when the unanimous voice of the senate
      declared him guilty of a capital offence. By their decree, he was
      degraded from the rank of a praefect to the obscure condition of
      a plebeian, and ignominiously dragged by servile hands to the
      public prison. After a fortnight’s adjournment, the senate was
      again convened to pronounce the sentence of his death; but while
      he expected, in the Island of Aesculapius, the expiration of the
      thirty days allowed by an ancient law to the vilest malefactors,
      100 his friends interposed, the emperor Anthemius relented, and
      the praefect of Gaul obtained the milder punishment of exile and
      confiscation. The faults of Arvandus might deserve compassion;
      but the impunity of Seronatus accused the justice of the
      republic, till he was condemned and executed, on the complaint of
      the people of Auvergne. That flagitious minister, the Catiline of
      his age and country, held a secret correspondence with the
      Visigoths, to betray the province which he oppressed: his
      industry was continually exercised in the discovery of new taxes
      and obsolete offences; and his extravagant vices would have
      inspired contempt, if they had not excited fear and abhorrence.
      101

      97 (return) [ See Sidonius, l. i. epist. 7, p. 15-20, with
      Sirmond’s notes. This letter does honor to his heart, as well as
      to his understanding. The prose of Sidonius, however vitiated by
      a false and affected taste, is much superior to his insipid
      verses.]

      98 (return) [ When the Capitol ceased to be a temple, it was
      appropriated to the use of the civil magistrate; and it is still
      the residence of the Roman senator. The jewellers, &c., might be
      allowed to expose then precious wares in the porticos.]

      99 (return) [ Haec ad regem Gothorum, charta videbatur emitti,
      pacem cum Graeco Imperatore dissuadens, Britannos super Ligerim
      sitos impugnari oportere, demonstrans, cum Burgundionibus jure
      gentium Gallias dividi debere confirmans.]

      100 (return) [ Senatusconsultum Tiberianum, (Sirmond Not. p. 17;)
      but that law allowed only ten days between the sentence and
      execution; the remaining twenty were added in the reign of
      Theodosius.]

      101 (return) [ Catilina seculi nostri. Sidonius, l. ii. epist. 1,
      p. 33; l. v. epist 13, p. 143; l. vii. epist. vii. p. 185. He
      execrates the crimes, and applauds the punishment, of Seronatus,
      perhaps with the indignation of a virtuous citizen, perhaps with
      the resentment of a personal enemy.]

      Such criminals were not beyond the reach of justice; but whatever
      might be the guilt of Ricimer, that powerful Barbarian was able
      to contend or to negotiate with the prince, whose alliance he had
      condescended to accept. The peaceful and prosperous reign which
      Anthemius had promised to the West, was soon clouded by
      misfortune and discord. Ricimer, apprehensive, or impatient, of a
      superior, retired from Rome, and fixed his residence at Milan; an
      advantageous situation either to invite or to repel the warlike
      tribes that were seated between the Alps and the Danube. 102
      Italy was gradually divided into two independent and hostile
      kingdoms; and the nobles of Liguria, who trembled at the near
      approach of a civil war, fell prostrate at the feet of the
      patrician, and conjured him to spare their unhappy country. “For
      my own part,“ replied Ricimer, in a tone of insolent moderation,
      “I am still inclined to embrace the friendship of the Galatian;
      103 but who will undertake to appease his anger, or to mitigate
      the pride, which always rises in proportion to our submission?“
      They informed him, that Epiphanius, bishop of Pavia, 104 united
      the wisdom of the serpent with the innocence of the dove; and
      appeared confident, that the eloquence of such an ambassador must
      prevail against the strongest opposition, either of interest or
      passion. Their recommendation was approved; and Epiphanius,
      assuming the benevolent office of mediation, proceeded without
      delay to Rome, where he was received with the honors due to his
      merit and reputation. The oration of a bishop in favor of peace
      may be easily supposed; he argued, that, in all possible
      circumstances, the forgiveness of injuries must be an act of
      mercy, or magnanimity, or prudence; and he seriously admonished
      the emperor to avoid a contest with a fierce Barbarian, which
      might be fatal to himself, and must be ruinous to his dominions.
      Anthemius acknowledged the truth of his maxims; but he deeply
      felt, with grief and indignation, the behavior of Ricimer, and
      his passion gave eloquence and energy to his discourse. “What
      favors,“ he warmly exclaimed, “have we refused to this ungrateful
      man? What provocations have we not endured! Regardless of the
      majesty of the purple, I gave my daughter to a Goth; I sacrificed
      my own blood to the safety of the republic. The liberality which
      ought to have secured the eternal attachment of Ricimer has
      exasperated him against his benefactor. What wars has he not
      excited against the empire! How often has he instigated and
      assisted the fury of hostile nations! Shall I now accept his
      perfidious friendship? Can I hope that he will respect the
      engagements of a treaty, who has already violated the duties of a
      son?“ But the anger of Anthemius evaporated in these passionate
      exclamations: he insensibly yielded to the proposals of
      Epiphanius; and the bishop returned to his diocese with the
      satisfaction of restoring the peace of Italy, by a
      reconciliation, 105 of which the sincerity and continuance might
      be reasonably suspected. The clemency of the emperor was extorted
      from his weakness; and Ricimer suspended his ambitious designs
      till he had secretly prepared the engines with which he resolved
      to subvert the throne of Anthemius. The mask of peace and
      moderation was then thrown aside. The army of Ricimer was
      fortified by a numerous reenforcement of Burgundians and Oriental
      Suevi: he disclaimed all allegiance to the Greek emperor, marched
      from Milan to the Gates of Rome, and fixing his camp on the banks
      of the Anio, impatiently expected the arrival of Olybrius, his
      Imperial candidate.

      102 (return) [ Ricimer, under the reign of Anthemius, defeated
      and slew in battle Beorgor, king of the Alani, (Jornandes, c. 45,
      p. 678.) His sister had married the king of the Burgundians, and
      he maintained an intimate connection with the Suevic colony
      established in Pannonia and Noricum.]

      103 (return) [ Galatam concitatum. Sirmond (in his notes to
      Ennodius) applies this appellation to Anthemius himself. The
      emperor was probably born in the province of Galatia, whose
      inhabitants, the Gallo-Grecians, were supposed to unite the vices
      of a savage and a corrupted people.]

      104 (return) [ Epiphanius was thirty years bishop of Pavia, (A.D.
      467-497;) see Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 788. His name
      and actions would have been unknown to posterity, if Ennodius,
      one of his successors, had not written his life; (Sirmond, Opera
      tom. i. p. 1647-1692;) in which he represents him as one of the
      greatest characters of the age]

      105 (return) [ Ennodius (p. 1659-1664) has related this embassy
      of Epiphanius; and his narrative, verbose and turgid as it must
      appear, illustrates some curious passages in the fall of the
      Western empire.]

      The senator Olybrius, of the Anician family, might esteem himself
      the lawful heir of the Western empire. He had married Placidia,
      the younger daughter of Valentinian, after she was restored by
      Genseric; who still detained her sister Eudoxia, as the wife, or
      rather as the captive, of his son. The king of the Vandals
      supported, by threats and solicitations, the fair pretensions of
      his Roman ally; and assigned, as one of the motives of the war,
      the refusal of the senate and people to acknowledge their lawful
      prince, and the unworthy preference which they had given to a
      stranger. 106 The friendship of the public enemy might render
      Olybrius still more unpopular to the Italians; but when Ricimer
      meditated the ruin of the emperor Anthemius, he tempted, with the
      offer of a diadem, the candidate who could justify his rebellion
      by an illustrious name and a royal alliance. The husband of
      Placidia, who, like most of his ancestors, had been invested with
      the consular dignity, might have continued to enjoy a secure and
      splendid fortune in the peaceful residence of Constantinople; nor
      does he appear to have been tormented by such a genius as cannot
      be amused or occupied, unless by the administration of an empire.
      Yet Olybrius yielded to the importunities of his friends, perhaps
      of his wife; rashly plunged into the dangers and calamities of a
      civil war; and, with the secret connivance of the emperor Leo,
      accepted the Italian purple, which was bestowed, and resumed, at
      the capricious will of a Barbarian. He landed without obstacle
      (for Genseric was master of the sea) either at Ravenna, or the
      port of Ostia, and immediately proceeded to the camp of Ricimer,
      where he was received as the sovereign of the Western world. 107

      106 (return) [ Priscus, Excerpt. Legation p. 74. Procopius de
      Bell. Vandel l. i. c. 6, p. 191. Eudoxia and her daughter were
      restored after the death of Majorian. Perhaps the consulship of
      Olybrius (A.D. 464) was bestowed as a nuptial present.]

      107 (return) [ The hostile appearance of Olybrius is fixed
      (notwithstanding the opinion of Pagi) by the duration of his
      reign. The secret connivance of Leo is acknowledged by Theophanes
      and the Paschal Chronicle. We are ignorant of his motives; but in
      this obscure period, our ignorance extends to the most public and
      important facts.]

      The patrician, who had extended his posts from the Anio to the
      Melvian bridge, already possessed two quarters of Rome, the
      Vatican and the Janiculum, which are separated by the Tyber from
      the rest of the city; 108 and it may be conjectured, that an
      assembly of seceding senators imitated, in the choice of
      Olybrius, the forms of a legal election. But the body of the
      senate and people firmly adhered to the cause of Anthemius; and
      the more effectual support of a Gothic army enabled him to
      prolong his reign, and the public distress, by a resistance of
      three months, which produced the concomitant evils of famine and
      pestilence. At length Ricimer made a furious assault on the
      bridge of Hadrian, or St. Angelo; and the narrow pass was
      defended with equal valor by the Goths, till the death of
      Gilimer, their leader. The victorious troops, breaking down every
      barrier, rushed with irresistible violence into the heart of the
      city, and Rome (if we may use the language of a contemporary
      pope) was subverted by the civil fury of Anthemius and Ricimer.
      109 The unfortunate Anthemius was dragged from his concealment,
      and inhumanly massacred by the command of his son-in-law; who
      thus added a third, or perhaps a fourth, emperor to the number of
      his victims. The soldiers, who united the rage of factious
      citizens with the savage manners of Barbarians, were indulged,
      without control, in the license of rapine and murder: the crowd
      of slaves and plebeians, who were unconcerned in the event, could
      only gain by the indiscriminate pillage; and the face of the city
      exhibited the strange contrast of stern cruelty and dissolute
      intemperance. 110 Forty days after this calamitous event, the
      subject, not of glory, but of guilt, Italy was delivered, by a
      painful disease, from the tyrant Ricimer, who bequeathed the
      command of his army to his nephew Gundobald, one of the princes
      of the Burgundians. In the same year all the principal actors in
      this great revolution were removed from the stage; and the whole
      reign of Olybrius, whose death does not betray any symptoms of
      violence, is included within the term of seven months. He left
      one daughter, the offspring of his marriage with Placidia; and
      the family of the great Theodosius, transplanted from Spain to
      Constantinople, was propagated in the female line as far as the
      eighth generation. 111

      108 (return) [ Of the fourteen regions, or quarters, into which
      Rome was divided by Augustus, only one, the Janiculum, lay on the
      Tuscan side of the Tyber. But, in the fifth century, the Vatican
      suburb formed a considerable city; and in the ecclesiastical
      distribution, which had been recently made by Simplicius, the
      reigning pope, two of the seven regions, or parishes of Rome,
      depended on the church of St. Peter. See Nardini Roma Antica, p.
      67. It would require a tedious dissertation to mark the
      circumstances, in which I am inclined to depart from the
      topography of that learned Roman.]

      109 (return) [ Nuper Anthemii et Ricimeris civili furore subversa
      est. Gelasius in Epist. ad Andromach. apud Baron. A.D. 496, No.
      42, Sigonius (tom. i. l. xiv. de Occidentali Imperio, p. 542,
      543,) and Muratori (Annali d’Italia, tom. iv. p. 308, 309,) with
      the aid of a less imperfect Ms. of the Historia Miscella., have
      illustrated this dark and bloody transaction.]

      110 (return) [ Such had been the saeva ac deformis urbe tota
      facies, when Rome was assaulted and stormed by the troops of
      Vespasian, (see Tacit. Hist. iii. 82, 83;) and every cause of
      mischief had since acquired much additional energy. The
      revolution of ages may bring round the same calamities; but ages
      may revolve without producing a Tacitus to describe them.]

      111 (return) [ See Ducange, Familiae Byzantin. p. 74, 75.
      Areobindus, who appears to have married the niece of the emperor
      Justinian, was the eighth descendant of the elder Theodosius.]




      Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part V.

      Whilst the vacant throne of Italy was abandoned to lawless
      Barbarians, 112 the election of a new colleague was seriously
      agitated in the council of Leo. The empress Verina, studious to
      promote the greatness of her own family, had married one of her
      nieces to Julius Nepos, who succeeded his uncle Marcellinus in
      the sovereignty of Dalmatia, a more solid possession than the
      title which he was persuaded to accept, of Emperor of the West.
      But the measures of the Byzantine court were so languid and
      irresolute, that many months elapsed after the death of
      Anthemius, and even of Olybrius, before their destined successor
      could show himself, with a respectable force, to his Italian
      subjects. During that interval, Glycerius, an obscure soldier,
      was invested with the purple by his patron Gundobald; but the
      Burgundian prince was unable, or unwilling, to support his
      nomination by a civil war: the pursuits of domestic ambition
      recalled him beyond the Alps, 113 and his client was permitted to
      exchange the Roman sceptre for the bishopric of Salona. After
      extinguishing such a competitor, the emperor Nepos was
      acknowledged by the senate, by the Italians, and by the
      provincials of Gaul; his moral virtues, and military talents,
      were loudly celebrated; and those who derived any private benefit
      from his government, announced, in prophetic strains, the
      restoration of the public felicity. 114 Their hopes (if such
      hopes had been entertained) were confounded within the term of a
      single year, and the treaty of peace, which ceded Auvergue to the
      Visigoths, is the only event of his short and inglorious reign.
      The most faithful subjects of Gaul were sacrificed, by the
      Italian emperor, to the hope of domestic security; 115 but his
      repose was soon invaded by a furious sedition of the Barbarian
      confederates, who, under the command of Orestes, their general,
      were in full march from Rome to Ravenna. Nepos trembled at their
      approach; and, instead of placing a just confidence in the
      strength of Ravenna, he hastily escaped to his ships, and retired
      to his Dalmatian principality, on the opposite coast of the
      Adriatic. By this shameful abdication, he protracted his life
      about five years, in a very ambiguous state, between an emperor
      and an exile, till he was assassinated at Salona by the
      ungrateful Glycerius, who was translated, perhaps as the reward
      of his crime, to the archbishopric of Milan. 116

      112 (return) [ The last revolutions of the Western empire are
      faintly marked in Theophanes, (p. 102,) Jornandes, (c. 45, p.
      679,) the Chronicle of Marcellinus, and the Fragments of an
      anonymous writer, published by Valesius at the end of Ammianus,
      (p. 716, 717.) If Photius had not been so wretchedly concise, we
      should derive much information from the contemporary histories of
      Malchus and Candidus. See his Extracts, p. 172-179.]

      113 (return) [ See Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 28, in tom. ii. p. 175.
      Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 613. By the murder or death of
      his two brothers, Gundobald acquired the sole possession of the
      kingdom of Burgundy, whose ruin was hastened by their discord.]

      114 (return) [ Julius Nepos armis pariter summus Augustus ac
      moribus. Sidonius, l. v. ep. 16, p. 146. Nepos had given to
      Ecdicius the title of Patrician, which Anthemius had promised,
      decessoris Anthemii fidem absolvit. See l. viii. ep. 7, p. 224.]

      115 (return) [ Epiphanius was sent ambassador from Nepos to the
      Visigoths, for the purpose of ascertaining the fines Imperii
      Italici, (Ennodius in Sirmond, tom. i. p. 1665-1669.) His
      pathetic discourse concealed the disgraceful secret which soon
      excited the just and bitter complaints of the bishop of
      Clermont.]

      116 (return) [ Malchus, apud Phot. p. 172. Ennod. Epigram.
      lxxxii. in Sirmond. Oper. tom. i. p. 1879. Some doubt may,
      however, be raised on the identity of the emperor and the
      archbishop.]

      The nations who had asserted their independence after the death
      of Attila, were established, by the right of possession or
      conquest, in the boundless countries to the north of the Danube;
      or in the Roman provinces between the river and the Alps. But the
      bravest of their youth enlisted in the army of confederates, who
      formed the defence and the terror of Italy; 117 and in this
      promiscuous multitude, the names of the Heruli, the Scyrri, the
      Alani, the Turcilingi, and the Rugians, appear to have
      predominated. The example of these warriors was imitated by
      Orestes, 118 the son of Tatullus, and the father of the last
      Roman emperor of the West. Orestes, who has been already
      mentioned in this History, had never deserted his country. His
      birth and fortunes rendered him one of the most illustrious
      subjects of Pannonia. When that province was ceded to the Huns,
      he entered into the service of Attila, his lawful sovereign,
      obtained the office of his secretary, and was repeatedly sent
      ambassador to Constantinople, to represent the person, and
      signify the commands, of the imperious monarch. The death of that
      conqueror restored him to his freedom; and Orestes might
      honorably refuse either to follow the sons of Attila into the
      Scythian desert, or to obey the Ostrogoths, who had usurped the
      dominion of Pannonia. He preferred the service of the Italian
      princes, the successors of Valentinian; and as he possessed the
      qualifications of courage, industry, and experience, he advanced
      with rapid steps in the military profession, till he was
      elevated, by the favor of Nepos himself, to the dignities of
      patrician, and master-general of the troops. These troops had
      been long accustomed to reverence the character and authority of
      Orestes, who affected their manners, conversed with them in their
      own language, and was intimately connected with their national
      chieftains, by long habits of familiarity and friendship. At his
      solicitation they rose in arms against the obscure Greek, who
      presumed to claim their obedience; and when Orestes, from some
      secret motive, declined the purple, they consented, with the same
      facility, to acknowledge his son Augustulus as the emperor of the
      West. By the abdication of Nepos, Orestes had now attained the
      summit of his ambitious hopes; but he soon discovered, before the
      end of the first year, that the lessons of perjury and
      ingratitude, which a rebel must inculcate, will be resorted to
      against himself; and that the precarious sovereign of Italy was
      only permitted to choose, whether he would be the slave, or the
      victim, of his Barbarian mercenaries. The dangerous alliance of
      these strangers had oppressed and insulted the last remains of
      Roman freedom and dignity. At each revolution, their pay and
      privileges were augmented; but their insolence increased in a
      still more extravagant degree; they envied the fortune of their
      brethren in Gaul, Spain, and Africa, whose victorious arms had
      acquired an independent and perpetual inheritance; and they
      insisted on their peremptory demand, that a third part of the
      lands of Italy should be immediately divided among them. Orestes,
      with a spirit, which, in another situation, might be entitled to
      our esteem, chose rather to encounter the rage of an armed
      multitude, than to subscribe the ruin of an innocent people. He
      rejected the audacious demand; and his refusal was favorable to
      the ambition of Odoacer; a bold Barbarian, who assured his
      fellow-soldiers, that, if they dared to associate under his
      command, they might soon extort the justice which had been denied
      to their dutiful petitions. From all the camps and garrisons of
      Italy, the confederates, actuated by the same resentment and the
      same hopes, impatiently flocked to the standard of this popular
      leader; and the unfortunate patrician, overwhelmed by the
      torrent, hastily retreated to the strong city of Pavia, the
      episcopal seat of the holy Epiphanites. Pavia was immediately
      besieged, the fortifications were stormed, the town was pillaged;
      and although the bishop might labor, with much zeal and some
      success, to save the property of the church, and the chastity of
      female captives, the tumult could only be appeased by the
      execution of Orestes. 119 His brother Paul was slain in an action
      near Ravenna; and the helpless Augustulus, who could no longer
      command the respect, was reduced to implore the clemency, of
      Odoacer.

      117 (return) [ Our knowledge of these mercenaries, who subverted
      the Western empire, is derived from Procopius, (de Bell. Gothico,
      l. i. c. i. p. 308.) The popular opinion, and the recent
      historians, represent Odoacer in the false light of a stranger,
      and a king, who invaded Italy with an army of foreigners, his
      native subjects.]

      118 (return) [ Orestes, qui eo tempore quando Attila ad Italiam
      venit, se illi unxit, ejus notarius factus fuerat. Anonym. Vales.
      p. 716. He is mistaken in the date; but we may credit his
      assertion, that the secretary of Attila was the father of
      Augustulus]

      119 (return) [ See Ennodius, (in Vit. Epiphan. Sirmond, tom. i.
      p. 1669, 1670.) He adds weight to the narrative of Procopius,
      though we may doubt whether the devil actually contrived the
      siege of Pavia, to distress the bishop and his flock.]

      That successful Barbarian was the son of Edecon; who, in some
      remarkable transactions, particularly described in a preceding
      chapter, had been the colleague of Orestes himself. 1191 The
      honor of an ambassador should be exempt from suspicion; and
      Edecon had listened to a conspiracy against the life of his
      sovereign. But this apparent guilt was expiated by his merit or
      repentance; his rank was eminent and conspicuous; he enjoyed the
      favor of Attila; and the troops under his command, who guarded,
      in their turn, the royal village, consisted of a tribe of Scyrri,
      his immediate and hereditary subjects. In the revolt of the
      nations, they still adhered to the Huns; and more than twelve
      years afterwards, the name of Edecon is honorably mentioned, in
      their unequal contests with the Ostrogoths; which was terminated,
      after two bloody battles, by the defeat and dispersion of the
      Scyrri. 120 Their gallant leader, who did not survive this
      national calamity, left two sons, Onulf and Odoacer, to struggle
      with adversity, and to maintain as they might, by rapine or
      service, the faithful followers of their exile. Onulf directed
      his steps towards Constantinople, where he sullied, by the
      assassination of a generous benefactor, the fame which he had
      acquired in arms. His brother Odoacer led a wandering life among
      the Barbarians of Noricum, with a mind and a fortune suited to
      the most desperate adventures; and when he had fixed his choice,
      he piously visited the cell of Severinus, the popular saint of
      the country, to solicit his approbation and blessing. The lowness
      of the door would not admit the lofty stature of Odoacer: he was
      obliged to stoop; but in that humble attitude the saint could
      discern the symptoms of his future greatness; and addressing him
      in a prophetic tone, “Pursue” (said he) “your design; proceed to
      Italy; you will soon cast away this coarse garment of skins; and
      your wealth will be adequate to the liberality of your mind.“ 121
      The Barbarian, whose daring spirit accepted and ratified the
      prediction, was admitted into the service of the Western empire,
      and soon obtained an honorable rank in the guards. His manners
      were gradually polished, his military skill was improved, and the
      confederates of Italy would not have elected him for their
      general, unless the exploits of Odoacer had established a high
      opinion of his courage and capacity. 122 Their military
      acclamations saluted him with the title of king; but he
      abstained, during his whole reign, from the use of the purple and
      diadem, 123 lest he should offend those princes, whose subjects,
      by their accidental mixture, had formed the victorious army,
      which time and policy might insensibly unite into a great nation.

      1191 (return) [ Manso observes that the evidence which identifies
      Edecon, the father of Odoacer, with the colleague of Orestes, is
      not conclusive. Geschichte des Ost-Gothischen Reiches, p. 32. But
      St. Martin inclines to agree with Gibbon, note, vi. 75.—M.]

      120 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 53, 54, p. 692-695. M. de Buat
      (Hist. des Peuples de l’Europe, tom. viii. p. 221-228) has
      clearly explained the origin and adventures of Odoacer. I am
      almost inclined to believe that he was the same who pillaged
      Angers, and commanded a fleet of Saxon pirates on the ocean.
      Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 18, in tom. ii. p. 170. 8 Note: According
      to St. Martin there is no foundation for this conjecture, vii
      5—M.]

      121 (return) [ Vade ad Italiam, vade vilissimis nunc pellibus
      coopertis: sed multis cito plurima largiturus. Anonym. Vales. p.
      717. He quotes the life of St. Severinus, which is extant, and
      contains much unknown and valuable history; it was composed by
      his disciple Eugippius (A.D. 511) thirty years after his death.
      See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 168-181.]

      122 (return) [ Theophanes, who calls him a Goth, affirms, that he
      was educated, aursed in Italy, (p. 102;) and as this strong
      expression will not bear a literal interpretation, it must be
      explained by long service in the Imperial guards.]

      123 (return) [ Nomen regis Odoacer assumpsit, cum tamen neque
      purpura nee regalibus uteretur insignibus. Cassiodor. in Chron.
      A.D. 476. He seems to have assumed the abstract title of a king,
      without applying it to any particular nation or country. 8 Note:
      Manso observes that Odoacer never called himself king of Italy,
      assume the purple, and no coins are extant with his name.
      Gescnichte Osi Goth. Reiches, p. 36—M.]

      Royalty was familiar to the Barbarians, and the submissive people
      of Italy was prepared to obey, without a murmur, the authority
      which he should condescend to exercise as the vicegerent of the
      emperor of the West. But Odoacer had resolved to abolish that
      useless and expensive office; and such is the weight of antique
      prejudice, that it required some boldness and penetration to
      discover the extreme facility of the enterprise. The unfortunate
      Augustulus was made the instrument of his own disgrace: he
      signified his resignation to the senate; and that assembly, in
      their last act of obedience to a Roman prince, still affected the
      spirit of freedom, and the forms of the constitution. An epistle
      was addressed, by their unanimous decree, to the emperor Zeno,
      the son-in-law and successor of Leo; who had lately been
      restored, after a short rebellion, to the Byzantine throne. They
      solemnly “disclaim the necessity, or even the wish, of continuing
      any longer the Imperial succession in Italy; since, in their
      opinion, the majesty of a sole monarch is sufficient to pervade
      and protect, at the same time, both the East and the West. In
      their own name, and in the name of the people, they consent that
      the seat of universal empire shall be transferred from Rome to
      Constantinople; and they basely renounce the right of choosing
      their master, the only vestige that yet remained of the authority
      which had given laws to the world. The republic (they repeat that
      name without a blush) might safely confide in the civil and
      military virtues of Odoacer; and they humbly request, that the
      emperor would invest him with the title of Patrician, and the
      administration of the diocese of Italy.“ The deputies of the
      senate were received at Constantinople with some marks of
      displeasure and indignation: and when they were admitted to the
      audience of Zeno, he sternly reproached them with their treatment
      of the two emperors, Anthemius and Nepos, whom the East had
      successively granted to the prayers of Italy. “The first”
      (continued he) “you have murdered; the second you have expelled;
      but the second is still alive, and whilst he lives he is your
      lawful sovereign.“ But the prudent Zeno soon deserted the
      hopeless cause of his abdicated colleague. His vanity was
      gratified by the title of sole emperor, and by the statues
      erected to his honor in the several quarters of Rome; he
      entertained a friendly, though ambiguous, correspondence with the
      patrician Odoacer; and he gratefully accepted the Imperial
      ensigns, the sacred ornaments of the throne and palace, which the
      Barbarian was not unwilling to remove from the sight of the
      people. 124

      124 (return) [ Malchus, whose loss excites our regret, has
      preserved (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 93) this extraordinary embassy
      from the senate to Zeno. The anonymous fragment, (p. 717,) and
      the extract from Candidus, (apud Phot. p. 176,) are likewise of
      some use.]

      In the space of twenty years since the death of Valentinian, nine
      emperors had successively disappeared; and the son of Orestes, a
      youth recommended only by his beauty, would be the least entitled
      to the notice of posterity, if his reign, which was marked by the
      extinction of the Roman empire in the West, did not leave a
      memorable era in the history of mankind. 125 The patrician
      Orestes had married the daughter of Count Romulus, of Petovio in
      Noricum: the name of Augustus, notwithstanding the jealousy of
      power, was known at Aquileia as a familiar surname; and the
      appellations of the two great founders, of the city and of the
      monarchy, were thus strangely united in the last of their
      successors. 126 The son of Orestes assumed and disgraced the
      names of Romulus Augustus; but the first was corrupted into
      Momyllus, by the Greeks, and the second has been changed by the
      Latins into the contemptible diminutive Augustulus. The life of
      this inoffensive youth was spared by the generous clemency of
      Odoacer; who dismissed him, with his whole family, from the
      Imperial palace, fixed his annual allowance at six thousand
      pieces of gold, and assigned the castle of Lucullus, in Campania,
      for the place of his exile or retirement. 127 As soon as the
      Romans breathed from the toils of the Punic war, they were
      attracted by the beauties and the pleasures of Campania; and the
      country-house of the elder Scipio at Liternum exhibited a lasting
      model of their rustic simplicity. 128 The delicious shores of the
      Bay of Naples were crowded with villas; and Sylla applauded the
      masterly skill of his rival, who had seated himself on the lofty
      promontory of Misenum, that commands, on every side, the sea and
      land, as far as the boundaries of the horizon. 129 The villa of
      Marius was purchased, within a few years, by Lucullus, and the
      price had increased from two thousand five hundred, to more than
      fourscore thousand, pounds sterling. 130 It was adorned by the
      new proprietor with Grecian arts and Asiatic treasures; and the
      houses and gardens of Lucullus obtained a distinguished rank in
      the list of Imperial palaces. 131 When the Vandals became
      formidable to the sea-coast, the Lucullan villa, on the
      promontory of Misenum, gradually assumed the strength and
      appellation of a strong castle, the obscure retreat of the last
      emperor of the West. About twenty years after that great
      revolution, it was converted into a church and monastery, to
      receive the bones of St. Severinus. They securely reposed, amidst
      the the broken trophies of Cimbric and Armenian victories,till
      the beginning of the tenth century; when the fortifications,
      which might afford a dangerous shelter to the Saracens, were
      demolished by the people of Naples. 132

      125 (return) [ The precise year in which the Western empire was
      extinguished, is not positively ascertained. The vulgar era of
      A.D. 476 appears to have the sanction of authentic chronicles.
      But the two dates assigned by Jornandes (c. 46, p. 680) would
      delay that great event to the year 479; and though M. de Buat has
      overlooked his evidence, he produces (tom. viii. p. 261-288) many
      collateral circumstances in support of the same opinion.]

      126 (return) [ See his medals in Ducange, (Fam. Byzantin. p. 81,)
      Priscus, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 56,) Maffei, (Osservazioni
      Letterarie, tom. ii p. 314.) We may allege a famous and similar
      case. The meanest subjects of the Roman empire assumed the
      illustrious name of Patricius, which, by the conversion of
      Ireland has been communicated to a whole nation.]

      127 (return) [ Ingrediens autem Ravennam deposuit Augustulum de
      regno, cujus infantiam misertus concessit ei sanguinem; et quia
      pulcher erat, tamen donavit ei reditum sex millia solidos, et
      misit eum intra Campaniam cum parentibus suis libere vivere.
      Anonym. Vales. p. 716. Jornandes says, (c 46, p. 680,) in
      Lucullano Campaniae castello exilii poena damnavit.]

      128 (return) [ See the eloquent Declamation of Seneca, (Epist.
      lxxxvi.) The philosopher might have recollected, that all luxury
      is relative; and that the elder Scipio, whose manners were
      polished by study and conversation, was himself accused of that
      vice by his ruder contemporaries, (Livy, xxix. 19.)]

      129 (return) [ Sylla, in the language of a soldier, praised his
      peritia castrametandi, (Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 7.) Phaedrus,
      who makes its shady walks (loeta viridia) the scene of an insipid
      fable, (ii. 5,) has thus described the situation:—

     Caesar Tiberius quum petens Neapolim, In Misenensem villam
     venissit suam; Quae monte summo posita Luculli manu Prospectat
     Siculum et prospicit Tuscum mare.]

      130 (return) [ From seven myriads and a half to two hundred and
      fifty myriads of drachmae. Yet even in the possession of Marius,
      it was a luxurious retirement. The Romans derided his indolence;
      they soon bewailed his activity. See Plutarch, in Mario, tom. ii.
      p. 524.]

      131 (return) [ Lucullus had other villa of equal, though various,
      magnificence, at Baiae, Naples, Tusculum, &c., He boasted that he
      changed his climate with the storks and cranes. Plutarch, in
      Lucull. tom. iii. p. 193.]

      132 (return) [ Severinus died in Noricum, A.D. 482. Six years
      afterwards, his body, which scattered miracles as it passed, was
      transported by his disciples into Italy. The devotion of a
      Neapolitan lady invited the saint to the Lucullan villa, in the
      place of Augustulus, who was probably no more. See Baronius
      (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 496, No. 50, 51) and Tillemont, (Mem.
      Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 178-181,) from the original life by
      Eugippius. The narrative of the last migration of Severinus to
      Naples is likewise an authentic piece.]

      Odoacer was the first Barbarian who reigned in Italy, over a
      people who had once asserted their just superiority above the
      rest of mankind. The disgrace of the Romans still excites our
      respectful compassion, and we fondly sympathize with the
      imaginary grief and indignation of their degenerate posterity.
      But the calamities of Italy had gradually subdued the proud
      consciousness of freedom and glory. In the age of Roman virtue
      the provinces were subject to the arms, and the citizens to the
      laws, of the republic; till those laws were subverted by civil
      discord, and both the city and the province became the servile
      property of a tyrant. The forms of the constitution, which
      alleviated or disguised their abject slavery, were abolished by
      time and violence; the Italians alternately lamented the presence
      or the absence of the sovereign, whom they detested or despised;
      and the succession of five centuries inflicted the various evils
      of military license, capricious despotism, and elaborate
      oppression. During the same period, the Barbarians had emerged
      from obscurity and contempt, and the warriors of Germany and
      Scythia were introduced into the provinces, as the servants, the
      allies, and at length the masters, of the Romans, whom they
      insulted or protected. The hatred of the people was suppressed by
      fear; they respected the spirit and splendor of the martial
      chiefs who were invested with the honors of the empire; and the
      fate of Rome had long depended on the sword of those formidable
      strangers. The stern Ricimer, who trampled on the ruins of Italy,
      had exercised the power, without assuming the title, of a king;
      and the patient Romans were insensibly prepared to acknowledge
      the royalty of Odoacer and his Barbaric successors. The king of
      Italy was not unworthy of the high station to which his valor and
      fortune had exalted him: his savage manners were polished by the
      habits of conversation; and he respected, though a conqueror and
      a Barbarian, the institutions, and even the prejudices, of his
      subjects. After an interval of seven years, Odoacer restored the
      consulship of the West. For himself, he modestly, or proudly,
      declined an honor which was still accepted by the emperors of the
      East; but the curule chair was successively filled by eleven of
      the most illustrious senators; 133 and the list is adorned by the
      respectable name of Basilius, whose virtues claimed the
      friendship and grateful applause of Sidonius, his client. 134 The
      laws of the emperors were strictly enforced, and the civil
      administration of Italy was still exercised by the Praetorian
      praefect and his subordinate officers. Odoacer devolved on the
      Roman magistrates the odious and oppressive task of collecting
      the public revenue; but he reserved for himself the merit of
      seasonable and popular indulgence. 135 Like the rest of the
      Barbarians, he had been instructed in the Arian heresy; but he
      revered the monastic and episcopal characters; and the silence of
      the Catholics attest the toleration which they enjoyed. The peace
      of the city required the interposition of his praefect Basilius
      in the choice of a Roman pontiff: the decree which restrained the
      clergy from alienating their lands was ultimately designed for
      the benefit of the people, whose devotions would have been taxed
      to repair the dilapidations of the church. 136 Italy was
      protected by the arms of its conqueror; and its frontiers were
      respected by the Barbarians of Gaul and Germany, who had so long
      insulted the feeble race of Theodosius. Odoacer passed the
      Adriatic, to chastise the assassins of the emperor Nepos, and to
      acquire the maritime province of Dalmatia. He passed the Alps, to
      rescue the remains of Noricum from Fava, or Feletheus, king of
      the Rugians, who held his residence beyond the Danube. The king
      was vanquished in battle, and led away prisoner; a numerous
      colony of captives and subjects was transplanted into Italy; and
      Rome, after a long period of defeat and disgrace, might claim the
      triumph of her Barbarian master. 137

      133 (return) [ The consular Fasti may be found in Pagi or
      Muratori. The consuls named by Odoacer, or perhaps by the Roman
      senate, appear to have been acknowledged in the Eastern empire.]

      134 (return) [ Sidonius Apollinaris (l. i. epist. 9, p. 22, edit.
      Sirmond) has compared the two leading senators of his time, (A.D.
      468,) Gennadius Avienus and Caecina Basilius. To the former he
      assigns the specious, to the latter the solid, virtues of public
      and private life. A Basilius junior, possibly his son, was consul
      in the year 480.]

      135 (return) [ Epiphanius interceded for the people of Pavia; and
      the king first granted an indulgence of five years, and
      afterwards relieved them from the oppression of Pelagius, the
      Praetorian praefect, (Ennodius in Vit St. Epiphan., in Sirmond,
      Oper. tom. i. p. 1670-1672.)]

      136 (return) [ See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 483, No. 10-15.
      Sixteen years afterwards the irregular proceedings of Basilius
      were condemned by Pope Symmachus in a Roman synod.]

      137 (return) [ The wars of Odoacer are concisely mentioned by
      Paul the Deacon, (de Gest. Langobard. l. i. c. 19, p. 757, edit.
      Grot.,) and in the two Chronicles of Cassiodorus and Cuspinian.
      The life of St. Severinus by Eugippius, which the count de Buat
      (Hist. des Peuples, &c., tom. viii. c. 1, 4, 8, 9) has diligently
      studied, illustrates the ruin of Noricum and the Bavarian
      antiquities]

      Notwithstanding the prudence and success of Odoacer, his kingdom
      exhibited the sad prospect of misery and desolation. Since the
      age of Tiberius, the decay of agriculture had been felt in Italy;
      and it was a just subject of complaint, that the life of the
      Roman people depended on the accidents of the winds and waves.
      138 In the division and the decline of the empire, the tributary
      harvests of Egypt and Africa were withdrawn; the numbers of the
      inhabitants continually diminished with the means of subsistence;
      and the country was exhausted by the irretrievable losses of war,
      famine, 139 and pestilence. St. Ambrose has deplored the ruin of
      a populous district, which had been once adorned with the
      flourishing cities of Bologna, Modena, Regium, and Placentia. 140
      Pope Gelasius was a subject of Odoacer; and he affirms, with
      strong exaggeration, that in Aemilia, Tuscany, and the adjacent
      provinces, the human species was almost extirpated. 141 The
      plebeians of Rome, who were fed by the hand of their master,
      perished or disappeared, as soon as his liberality was
      suppressed; the decline of the arts reduced the industrious
      mechanic to idleness and want; and the senators, who might
      support with patience the ruin of their country, bewailed their
      private loss of wealth and luxury. 1411 One third of those ample
      estates, to which the ruin of Italy is originally imputed, 142
      was extorted for the use of the conquerors. Injuries were
      aggravated by insults; the sense of actual sufferings was
      imbittered by the fear of more dreadful evils; and as new lands
      were allotted to the new swarms of Barbarians, each senator was
      apprehensive lest the arbitrary surveyors should approach his
      favorite villa, or his most profitable farm. The least
      unfortunate were those who submitted without a murmur to the
      power which it was impossible to resist. Since they desired to
      live, they owed some gratitude to the tyrant who had spared their
      lives; and since he was the absolute master of their fortunes,
      the portion which he left must be accepted as his pure and
      voluntary gift. 143 The distress of Italy 1431 was mitigated by
      the prudence and humanity of Odoacer, who had bound himself, as
      the price of his elevation, to satisfy the demands of a
      licentious and turbulent multitude. The kings of the Barbarians
      were frequently resisted, deposed, or murdered, by their native
      subjects, and the various bands of Italian mercenaries, who
      associated under the standard of an elective general, claimed a
      larger privilege of freedom and rapine. A monarchy destitute of
      national union, and hereditary right, hastened to its
      dissolution. After a reign of fourteen years, Odoacer was
      oppressed by the superior genius of Theodoric, king of the
      Ostrogoths; a hero alike excellent in the arts of war and of
      government, who restored an age of peace and prosperity, and
      whose name still excites and deserves the attention of mankind.

      138 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. iii. 53. The Recherches sur
      l’Administration des Terres chez les Romains (p. 351-361) clearly
      state the progress of internal decay.]

      139 (return) [ A famine, which afflicted Italy at the time of the
      irruption of Odoacer, king of the Heruli, is eloquently
      described, in prose and verse, by a French poet, (Les Mois, tom.
      ii. p. 174, 205, edit. in 12 mo.) I am ignorant from whence he
      derives his information; but I am well assured that he relates
      some facts incompatible with the truth of history]

      140 (return) [ See the xxxixth epistle of St. Ambrose, as it is
      quoted by Muratori, sopra le Antichita Italiane, tom. i. Dissert.
      xxi. p. 354.]

      141 (return) [ Aemilia, Tuscia, ceteraeque provinciae in quibus
      hominum propenullus exsistit. Gelasius, Epist. ad Andromachum,
      ap. Baronium, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 496, No. 36.]

      1411 (return) [ Denina supposes that the Barbarians were
      compelled by necessity to turn their attention to agriculture.
      Italy, either imperfectly cultivated, or not at all, by the
      indolent or ruined proprietors, not only could not furnish the
      imposts, on which the pay of the soldiery depended, but not even
      a certain supply of the necessaries of life. The neighboring
      countries were now occupied by warlike nations; the supplies of
      corn from Africa were cut off; foreign commerce nearly destroyed;
      they could not look for supplies beyond the limits of Italy,
      throughout which the agriculture had been long in a state of
      progressive but rapid depression. (Denina, Rev. d’Italia t. v. c.
      i.)—M.]

      142 (return) [ Verumque confitentibus, latifundia perdidere
      Italiam. Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 7.]

      143 (return) [ Such are the topics of consolation, or rather of
      patience, which Cicero (ad Familiares, lib. ix. Epist. 17)
      suggests to his friend Papirius Paetus, under the military
      despotism of Caesar. The argument, however, of “vivere
      pulcherrimum duxi,“ is more forcibly addressed to a Roman
      philosopher, who possessed the free alternative of life or death]

      1431 (return) [ Compare, on the desolation and change of property
      in Italy, Manno des Ost-Gothischen Reiches, Part ii. p. 73, et
      seq.—M.]




      Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To
      Christianity.—Part I.

     Origin Progress, And Effects Of The Monastic Life.— Conversion Of
     The Barbarians To Christianity And Arianism.— Persecution Of The
     Vandals In Africa.—Extinction Of Arianism Among The Barbarians.

      The indissoluble connection of civil and ecclesiastical affairs
      has compelled, and encouraged, me to relate the progress, the
      persecutions, the establishment, the divisions, the final
      triumph, and the gradual corruption, of Christianity. I have
      purposely delayed the consideration of two religious events,
      interesting in the study of human nature, and important in the
      decline and fall of the Roman empire. I. The institution of the
      monastic life; 1 and, II. The conversion of the northern
      Barbarians.

      1 (return) [ The origin of the monastic institution has been
      laboriously discussed by Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom.
      i. p. 1119-1426) and Helyot, (Hist. des Ordres Monastiques, tom.
      i. p. 1-66.) These authors are very learned, and tolerably
      honest, and their difference of opinion shows the subject in its
      full extent. Yet the cautious Protestant, who distrusts any
      popish guides, may consult the seventh book of Bingham’s
      Christian Antiquities.]

      I. Prosperity and peace introduced the distinction of the vulgar
      and the Ascetic Christians. 2 The loose and imperfect practice of
      religion satisfied the conscience of the multitude. The prince or
      magistrate, the soldier or merchant, reconciled their fervent
      zeal, and implicit faith, with the exercise of their profession,
      the pursuit of their interest, and the indulgence of their
      passions: but the Ascetics, who obeyed and abused the rigid
      precepts of the gospel, were inspired by the savage enthusiasm
      which represents man as a criminal, and God as a tyrant. They
      seriously renounced the business, and the pleasures, of the age;
      abjured the use of wine, of flesh, and of marriage; chastised
      their body, mortified their affections, and embraced a life of
      misery, as the price of eternal happiness. In the reign of
      Constantine, the Ascetics fled from a profane and degenerate
      world, to perpetual solitude, or religious society. Like the
      first Christians of Jerusalem, 3 311 they resigned the use, or
      the property of their temporal possessions; established regular
      communities of the same sex, and a similar disposition; and
      assumed the names of Hermits, Monks, and Anachorets, expressive
      of their lonely retreat in a natural or artificial desert. They
      soon acquired the respect of the world, which they despised; and
      the loudest applause was bestowed on this Divine Philosophy, 4
      which surpassed, without the aid of science or reason, the
      laborious virtues of the Grecian schools. The monks might indeed
      contend with the Stoics, in the contempt of fortune, of pain, and
      of death: the Pythagorean silence and submission were revived in
      their servile discipline; and they disdained, as firmly as the
      Cynics themselves, all the forms and decencies of civil society.
      But the votaries of this Divine Philosophy aspired to imitate a
      purer and more perfect model. They trod in the footsteps of the
      prophets, who had retired to the desert; 5 and they restored the
      devout and contemplative life, which had been instituted by the
      Essenians, in Palestine and Egypt. The philosophic eye of Pliny
      had surveyed with astonishment a solitary people, who dwelt among
      the palm-trees near the Dead Sea; who subsisted without money,
      who were propagated without women; and who derived from the
      disgust and repentance of mankind a perpetual supply of voluntary
      associates. 6

      2 (return) [ See Euseb. Demonstrat. Evangel., (l. i. p. 20, 21,
      edit. Graec. Rob. Stephani, Paris, 1545.) In his Ecclesiastical
      History, published twelve years after the Demonstration, Eusebius
      (l. ii. c. 17) asserts the Christianity of the Therapeutae; but
      he appears ignorant that a similar institution was actually
      revived in Egypt.]

      3 (return) [ Cassian (Collat. xviii. 5.) claims this origin for
      the institution of the Coenobites, which gradually decayed till
      it was restored by Antony and his disciples.]

      311 (return) [ It has before been shown that the first Christian
      community was not strictly coenobitic. See vol. ii.—M.]

      4 (return) [ These are the expressive words of Sozomen, who
      copiously and agreeably describes (l. i. c. 12, 13, 14) the
      origin and progress of this monkish philosophy, (see Suicer.
      Thesau, Eccles., tom. ii. p. 1441.) Some modern writers, Lipsius
      (tom. iv. p. 448. Manuduct. ad Philosoph. Stoic. iii. 13) and La
      Mothe le Vayer, (tom. ix. de la Vertu des Payens, p. 228-262,)
      have compared the Carmelites to the Pythagoreans, and the Cynics
      to the Capucins.]

      5 (return) [ The Carmelites derive their pedigree, in regular
      succession, from the prophet Elijah, (see the Theses of Beziers,
      A.D. 1682, in Bayle’s Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres,
      Oeuvres, tom. i. p. 82, &c., and the prolix irony of the Ordres
      Monastiques, an anonymous work, tom. i. p. 1-433, Berlin, 1751.)
      Rome, and the inquisition of Spain, silenced the profane
      criticism of the Jesuits of Flanders, (Helyot, Hist. des Ordres
      Monastiques, tom. i. p. 282-300,) and the statue of Elijah, the
      Carmelite, has been erected in the church of St. Peter, (Voyages
      du P. Labat tom. iii. p. 87.)]

      6 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. v. 15. Gens sola, et in toto orbe
      praeter ceteras mira, sine ulla femina, omni venere abdicata,
      sine pecunia, socia palmarum. Ita per seculorum millia
      (incredibile dictu) gens aeterna est in qua nemo nascitur. Tam
      foecunda illis aliorum vitae poenitentia est. He places them just
      beyond the noxious influence of the lake, and names Engaddi and
      Massada as the nearest towns. The Laura, and monastery of St.
      Sabas, could not be far distant from this place. See Reland.
      Palestin., tom. i. p. 295; tom. ii. p. 763, 874, 880, 890.]

      Egypt, the fruitful parent of superstition, afforded the first
      example of the monastic life. Antony, 7 an illiterate 8 youth of
      the lower parts of Thebais, distributed his patrimony, 9 deserted
      his family and native home, and executed his monastic penance
      with original and intrepid fanaticism. After a long and painful
      novitiate, among the tombs, and in a ruined tower, he boldly
      advanced into the desert three days’ journey to the eastward of
      the Nile; discovered a lonely spot, which possessed the
      advantages of shade and water, and fixed his last residence on
      Mount Colzim, near the Red Sea; where an ancient monastery still
      preserves the name and memory of the saint. 10 The curious
      devotion of the Christians pursued him to the desert; and when he
      was obliged to appear at Alexandria, in the face of mankind, he
      supported his fame with discretion and dignity. He enjoyed the
      friendship of Athanasius, whose doctrine he approved; and the
      Egyptian peasant respectfully declined a respectful invitation
      from the emperor Constantine. The venerable patriarch (for Antony
      attained the age of one hundred and five years) beheld the
      numerous progeny which had been formed by his example and his
      lessons. The prolific colonies of monks multiplied with rapid
      increase on the sands of Libya, upon the rocks of Thebais, and in
      the cities of the Nile. To the south of Alexandria, the mountain,
      and adjacent desert, of Nitria, were peopled by five thousand
      anachorets; and the traveller may still investigate the ruins of
      fifty monasteries, which were planted in that barren soil by the
      disciples of Antony. 11 In the Upper Thebais, the vacant island
      of Tabenne, 12 was occupied by Pachomius and fourteen hundred of
      his brethren. That holy abbot successively founded nine
      monasteries of men, and one of women; and the festival of Easter
      sometimes collected fifty thousand religious persons, who
      followed his angelic rule of discipline. 13 The stately and
      populous city of Oxyrinchus, the seat of Christian orthodoxy, had
      devoted the temples, the public edifices, and even the ramparts,
      to pious and charitable uses; and the bishop, who might preach in
      twelve churches, computed ten thousand females and twenty
      thousand males, of the monastic profession. 14 The Egyptians, who
      gloried in this marvellous revolution, were disposed to hope, and
      to believe, that the number of the monks was equal to the
      remainder of the people; 15 and posterity might repeat the
      saying, which had formerly been applied to the sacred animals of
      the same country, That in Egypt it was less difficult to find a
      god than a man.

      7 (return) [ See Athanas. Op. tom. ii. p. 450-505, and the Vit.
      Patrum, p. 26-74, with Rosweyde’s Annotations. The former is the
      Greek original the latter, a very ancient Latin version by
      Evagrius, the friend of St. Jerom.]

      8 (return) [ Athanas. tom. ii. in Vit. St. Anton. p. 452; and the
      assertion of his total ignorance has been received by many of the
      ancients and moderns. But Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p.
      666) shows, by some probable arguments, that Antony could read
      and write in the Coptic, his native tongue; and that he was only
      a stranger to the Greek letters. The philosopher Synesius (p. 51)
      acknowledges that the natural genius of Antony did not require
      the aid of learning.]

      9 (return) [ Aruroe autem erant ei trecentae uberes, et valde
      optimae, (Vit. Patr. l. v. p. 36.) If the Arura be a square
      measure, of a hundred Egyptian cubits, (Rosweyde, Onomasticon ad
      Vit. Patrum, p. 1014, 1015,) and the Egyptian cubit of all ages
      be equal to twenty-two English inches, (Greaves, vol. i. p. 233,)
      the arura will consist of about three quarters of an English
      acre.]

      10 (return) [ The description of the monastery is given by Jerom
      (tom. i. p. 248, 249, in Vit. Hilarion) and the P. Sicard,
      (Missions du Levant tom. v. p. 122-200.) Their accounts cannot
      always be reconciled the father painted from his fancy, and the
      Jesuit from his experience.]

      11 (return) [ Jerom, tom. i. p. 146, ad Eustochium. Hist.
      Lausiac. c. 7, in Vit. Patrum, p. 712. The P. Sicard (Missions du
      Levant, tom. ii. p. 29-79) visited and has described this desert,
      which now contains four monasteries, and twenty or thirty monks.
      See D’Anville, Description de l’Egypte, p. 74.]

      12 (return) [ Tabenne is a small island in the Nile, in the
      diocese of Tentyra or Dendera, between the modern town of Girge
      and the ruins of ancient Thebes, (D’Anville, p. 194.) M. de
      Tillemont doubts whether it was an isle; but I may conclude, from
      his own facts, that the primitive name was afterwards transferred
      to the great monastery of Bau or Pabau, (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii.
      p. 678, 688.)]

      13 (return) [ See in the Codex Regularum (published by Lucas
      Holstenius, Rome, 1661) a preface of St. Jerom to his Latin
      version of the Rule of Pachomius, tom. i. p. 61.]

      14 (return) [ Rufin. c. 5, in Vit. Patrum, p. 459. He calls it
      civitas ampla ralde et populosa, and reckons twelve churches.
      Strabo (l. xvii. p. 1166) and Ammianus (xxii. 16) have made
      honorable mention of Oxyrinchus, whose inhabitants adored a small
      fish in a magnificent temple.]

      15 (return) [ Quanti populi habentur in urbibus, tantae paene
      habentur in desertis multitudines monachorum. Rufin. c. 7, in
      Vit. Patrum, p. 461. He congratulates the fortunate change.]

      Athanasius introduced into Rome the knowledge and practice of the
      monastic life; and a school of this new philosophy was opened by
      the disciples of Antony, who accompanied their primate to the
      holy threshold of the Vatican. The strange and savage appearance
      of these Egyptians excited, at first, horror and contempt, and,
      at length, applause and zealous imitation. The senators, and more
      especially the matrons, transformed their palaces and villas into
      religious houses; and the narrow institution of six vestals was
      eclipsed by the frequent monasteries, which were seated on the
      ruins of ancient temples, and in the midst of the Roman forum. 16
      Inflamed by the example of Antony, a Syrian youth, whose name was
      Hilarion, 17 fixed his dreary abode on a sandy beach, between the
      sea and a morass, about seven miles from Gaza. The austere
      penance, in which he persisted forty-eight years, diffused a
      similar enthusiasm; and the holy man was followed by a train of
      two or three thousand anachorets, whenever he visited the
      innumerable monasteries of Palestine. The fame of Basil 18 is
      immortal in the monastic history of the East. With a mind that
      had tasted the learning and eloquence of Athens; with an ambition
      scarcely to be satisfied with the archbishopric of Caesarea,
      Basil retired to a savage solitude in Pontus; and deigned, for a
      while, to give laws to the spiritual colonies which he profusely
      scattered along the coast of the Black Sea. In the West, Martin
      of Tours, 19 a soldier, a hermit, a bishop, and a saint,
      established the monasteries of Gaul; two thousand of his
      disciples followed him to the grave; and his eloquent historian
      challenges the deserts of Thebais to produce, in a more favorable
      climate, a champion of equal virtue. The progress of the monks
      was not less rapid, or universal, than that of Christianity
      itself. Every province, and, at last, every city, of the empire,
      was filled with their increasing multitudes; and the bleak and
      barren isles, from Lerins to Lipari, that arose out of the Tuscan
      Sea, were chosen by the anachorets for the place of their
      voluntary exile. An easy and perpetual intercourse by sea and
      land connected the provinces of the Roman world; and the life of
      Hilarion displays the facility with which an indigent hermit of
      Palestine might traverse Egypt, embark for Sicily, escape to
      Epirus, and finally settle in the Island of Cyprus. 20 The Latin
      Christians embraced the religious institutions of Rome. The
      pilgrims, who visited Jerusalem, eagerly copied, in the most
      distant climates of the earth, the faithful model of the monastic
      life. The disciples of Antony spread themselves beyond the
      tropic, over the Christian empire of Aethiopia. 21 The monastery
      of Banchor, 22 in Flintshire, which contained above two thousand
      brethren, dispersed a numerous colony among the Barbarians of
      Ireland; 23 and Iona, one of the Hebrides, which was planted by
      the Irish monks, diffused over the northern regions a doubtful
      ray of science and superstition. 24

      16 (return) [ The introduction of the monastic life into Rome and
      Italy is occasionally mentioned by Jerom, tom. i. p. 119, 120,
      199.]

      17 (return) [ See the Life of Hilarion, by St. Jerom, (tom. i. p.
      241, 252.) The stories of Paul, Hilarion, and Malchus, by the
      same author, are admirably told: and the only defect of these
      pleasing compositions is the want of truth and common sense.]

      18 (return) [ His original retreat was in a small village on the
      banks of the Iris, not far from Neo-Caesarea. The ten or twelve
      years of his monastic life were disturbed by long and frequent
      avocations. Some critics have disputed the authenticity of his
      Ascetic rules; but the external evidence is weighty, and they can
      only prove that it is the work of a real or affected enthusiast.
      See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles tom. ix. p. 636-644. Helyot, Hist. des
      Ordres Monastiques tom. i. p. 175-181]

      19 (return) [ See his Life, and the three Dialogues by Sulpicius
      Severus, who asserts (Dialog. i. 16) that the booksellers of Rome
      were delighted with the quick and ready sale of his popular
      work.]

      20 (return) [ When Hilarion sailed from Paraetonium to Cape
      Pachynus, he offered to pay his passage with a book of the
      Gospels. Posthumian, a Gallic monk, who had visited Egypt, found
      a merchant ship bound from Alexandria to Marseilles, and
      performed the voyage in thirty days, (Sulp. Sever. Dialog. i. 1.)
      Athanasius, who addressed his Life of St. Antony to the foreign
      monks, was obliged to hasten the composition, that it might be
      ready for the sailing of the fleets, (tom. ii. p. 451.)]

      21 (return) [ See Jerom, (tom. i. p. 126,) Assemanni, Bibliot.
      Orient. tom. iv. p. 92, p. 857-919, and Geddes, Church History of
      Aethiopia, p. 29-31. The Abyssinian monks adhere very strictly to
      the primitive institution.]

      22 (return) [ Camden’s Britannia, vol. i. p. 666, 667.]

      23 (return) [ All that learning can extract from the rubbish of
      the dark ages is copiously stated by Archbishop Usher in his
      Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates, cap. xvi. p. 425-503.]

      24 (return) [ This small, though not barren, spot, Iona, Hy, or
      Columbkill, only two miles in length, aud one mile in breadth,
      has been distinguished, 1. By the monastery of St. Columba,
      founded A.D. 566; whose abbot exercised an extraordinary
      jurisdiction over the bishops of Caledonia; 2. By a classic
      library, which afforded some hopes of an entire Livy; and, 3. By
      the tombs of sixty kings, Scots, Irish, and Norwegians, who
      reposed in holy ground. See Usher (p. 311, 360-370) and Buchanan,
      (Rer. Scot. l. ii. p. 15, edit. Ruddiman.)]

      These unhappy exiles from social life were impelled by the dark
      and implacable genius of superstition. Their mutual resolution
      was supported by the example of millions, of either sex, of every
      age, and of every rank; and each proselyte who entered the gates
      of a monastery, was persuaded that he trod the steep and thorny
      path of eternal happiness. 25 But the operation of these
      religious motives was variously determined by the temper and
      situation of mankind. Reason might subdue, or passion might
      suspend, their influence: but they acted most forcibly on the
      infirm minds of children and females; they were strengthened by
      secret remorse, or accidental misfortune; and they might derive
      some aid from the temporal considerations of vanity or interest.
      It was naturally supposed, that the pious and humble monks, who
      had renounced the world to accomplish the work of their
      salvation, were the best qualified for the spiritual government
      of the Christians. The reluctant hermit was torn from his cell,
      and seated, amidst the acclamations of the people, on the
      episcopal throne: the monasteries of Egypt, of Gaul, and of the
      East, supplied a regular succession of saints and bishops; and
      ambition soon discovered the secret road which led to the
      possession of wealth and honors. 26 The popular monks, whose
      reputation was connected with the fame and success of the order,
      assiduously labored to multiply the number of their
      fellow-captives. They insinuated themselves into noble and
      opulent families; and the specious arts of flattery and seduction
      were employed to secure those proselytes who might bestow wealth
      or dignity on the monastic profession. The indignant father
      bewailed the loss, perhaps, of an only son; 27 the credulous maid
      was betrayed by vanity to violate the laws of nature; and the
      matron aspired to imaginary perfection, by renouncing the virtues
      of domestic life. Paula yielded to the persuasive eloquence of
      Jerom; 28 and the profane title of mother-in-law of God 29
      tempted that illustrious widow to consecrate the virginity of her
      daughter Eustochium. By the advice, and in the company, of her
      spiritual guide, Paula abandoned Rome and her infant son; retired
      to the holy village of Bethlem; founded a hospital and four
      monasteries; and acquired, by her alms and penance, an eminent
      and conspicuous station in the Catholic church. Such rare and
      illustrious penitents were celebrated as the glory and example of
      their age; but the monasteries were filled by a crowd of obscure
      and abject plebeians, 30 who gained in the cloister much more
      than they had sacrificed in the world. Peasants, slaves, and
      mechanics, might escape from poverty and contempt to a safe and
      honorable profession; whose apparent hardships are mitigated by
      custom, by popular applause, and by the secret relaxation of
      discipline. 31 The subjects of Rome, whose persons and fortunes
      were made responsible for unequal and exorbitant tributes,
      retired from the oppression of the Imperial government; and the
      pusillanimous youth preferred the penance of a monastic, to the
      dangers of a military, life. The affrighted provincials of every
      rank, who fled before the Barbarians, found shelter and
      subsistence: whole legions were buried in these religious
      sanctuaries; and the same cause, which relieved the distress of
      individuals, impaired the strength and fortitude of the empire.
      32

      25 (return) [ Chrysostom (in the first tome of the Benedictine
      edition) has consecrated three books to the praise and defence of
      the monastic life. He is encouraged, by the example of the ark,
      to presume that none but the elect (the monks) can possibly be
      saved (l. i. p. 55, 56.) Elsewhere, indeed, he becomes more
      merciful, (l. iii. p. 83, 84,) and allows different degrees of
      glory, like the sun, moon, and stars. In his lively comparison of
      a king and a monk, (l. iii. p. 116-121,) he supposes (what is
      hardly fair) that the king will be more sparingly rewarded, and
      more rigorously punished.]

      26 (return) [ Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise tom. i. p.
      1426-1469) and Mabillon, (Oeuvres Posthumes, tom. ii. p.
      115-158.) The monks were gradually adopted as a part of the
      ecclesiastical hierarchy.]

      27 (return) [ Dr. Middleton (vol. i. p. 110) liberally censures
      the conduct and writings of Chrysostom, one of the most eloquent
      and successful advocates for the monastic life.]

      28 (return) [ Jerom’s devout ladies form a very considerable
      portion of his works: the particular treatise, which he styles
      the Epitaph of Paula, (tom. i. p. 169-192,) is an elaborate and
      extravagant panegyric. The exordium is ridiculously turgid: “If
      all the members of my body were changed into tongues, and if all
      my limbs resounded with a human voice, yet should I be
      incapable,“ &c.]

      29 (return) [ Socrus Dei esse coepisti, (Jerom, tom. i. p. 140,
      ad Eustochium.) Rufinus, (in Hieronym. Op. tom. iv. p. 223,) who
      was justly scandalized, asks his adversary, from what Pagan poet
      he had stolen an expression so impious and absurd.]

      30 (return) [ Nunc autem veniunt plerumque ad hanc professionem
      servitutis Dei, et ex conditione servili, vel etiam liberati, vel
      propter hoc a Dominis liberati sive liberandi; et ex vita
      rusticana et ex opificum exercitatione, et plebeio labore.
      Augustin, de Oper. Monach. c. 22, ap. Thomassin, Discipline de
      l’Eglise, tom. iii. p. 1094. The Egyptian, who blamed Arsenius,
      owned that he led a more comfortable life as a monk than as a
      shepherd. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 679.]

      31 (return) [ A Dominican friar, (Voyages du P. Labat, tom. i. p.
      10,) who lodged at Cadiz in a convent of his brethren, soon
      understood that their repose was never interrupted by nocturnal
      devotion; “quoiqu’on ne laisse pas de sonner pour l’edification
      du peuple.“]

      32 (return) [ See a very sensible preface of Lucas Holstenius to
      the Codex Regularum. The emperors attempted to support the
      obligation of public and private duties; but the feeble dikes
      were swept away by the torrent of superstition; and Justinian
      surpassed the most sanguine wishes of the monks, (Thomassin, tom.
      i. p. 1782-1799, and Bingham, l. vii. c. iii. p. 253.) Note: The
      emperor Valens, in particular, promulgates a law contra ignavise
      quosdam sectatores, qui desertis civitatum muneribus, captant
      solitudines secreta, et specie religionis cum coetibus monachorum
      congregantur. Cad. Theod l. xii. tit. i. leg. 63.—G.]

      The monastic profession of the ancients 33 was an act of
      voluntary devotion. The inconstant fanatic was threatened with
      the eternal vengeance of the God whom he deserted; but the doors
      of the monastery were still open for repentance. Those monks,
      whose conscience was fortified by reason or passion, were at
      liberty to resume the character of men and citizens; and even the
      spouses of Christ might accept the legal embraces of an earthly
      lover. 34 The examples of scandal, and the progress of
      superstition, suggested the propriety of more forcible
      restraints. After a sufficient trial, the fidelity of the novice
      was secured by a solemn and perpetual vow; and his irrevocable
      engagement was ratified by the laws of the church and state. A
      guilty fugitive was pursued, arrested, and restored to his
      perpetual prison; and the interposition of the magistrate
      oppressed the freedom and the merit, which had alleviated, in
      some degree, the abject slavery of the monastic discipline. 35
      The actions of a monk, his words, and even his thoughts, were
      determined by an inflexible rule, 36 or a capricious superior:
      the slightest offences were corrected by disgrace or confinement,
      extraordinary fasts, or bloody flagellation; and disobedience,
      murmur, or delay, were ranked in the catalogue of the most
      heinous sins. 37 A blind submission to the commands of the abbot,
      however absurd, or even criminal, they might seem, was the ruling
      principle, the first virtue of the Egyptian monks; and their
      patience was frequently exercised by the most extravagant trials.
      They were directed to remove an enormous rock; assiduously to
      water a barren staff, that was planted in the ground, till, at
      the end of three years, it should vegetate and blossom like a
      tree; to walk into a fiery furnace; or to cast their infant into
      a deep pond: and several saints, or madmen, have been
      immortalized in monastic story, by their thoughtless and fearless
      obedience. 38 The freedom of the mind, the source of every
      generous and rational sentiment, was destroyed by the habits of
      credulity and submission; and the monk, contracting the vices of
      a slave, devoutly followed the faith and passions of his
      ecclesiastical tyrant. The peace of the Eastern church was
      invaded by a swarm of fanatics, incapable of fear, or reason, or
      humanity; and the Imperial troops acknowledged, without shame,
      that they were much less apprehensive of an encounter with the
      fiercest Barbarians. 39

      33 (return) [ The monastic institutions, particularly those of
      Egypt, about the year 400, are described by four curious and
      devout travellers; Rufinus, (Vit. Patrum, l. ii. iii. p.
      424-536,) Posthumian, (Sulp. Sever. Dialog. i.) Palladius, (Hist.
      Lausiac. in Vit. Patrum, p. 709-863,) and Cassian, (see in tom.
      vii. Bibliothec. Max. Patrum, his four first books of Institutes,
      and the twenty-four Collations or Conferences.)]

      34 (return) [ The example of Malchus, (Jerom, tom. i. p. 256,)
      and the design of Cassian and his friend, (Collation. xxiv. 1,)
      are incontestable proofs of their freedom; which is elegantly
      described by Erasmus in his Life of St. Jerom. See Chardon, Hist.
      des Sacremens, tom. vi. p. 279-300.]

      35 (return) [ See the Laws of Justinian, (Novel. cxxiii. No. 42,)
      and of Lewis the Pious, (in the Historians of France, tom vi. p.
      427,) and the actual jurisprudence of France, in Denissart,
      (Decisions, &c., tom. iv. p. 855,) &c.]

      36 (return) [ The ancient Codex Regularum, collected by Benedict
      Anianinus, the reformer of the monks in the beginning of the
      ninth century, and published in the seventeenth, by Lucas
      Holstenius, contains thirty different rules for men and women. Of
      these, seven were composed in Egypt, one in the East, one in
      Cappadocia, one in Italy, one in Africa, four in Spain, eight in
      Gaul, or France, and one in England.]

      37 (return) [ The rule of Columbanus, so prevalent in the West,
      inflicts one hundred lashes for very slight offences, (Cod. Reg.
      part ii. p. 174.) Before the time of Charlemagne, the abbots
      indulged themselves in mutilating their monks, or putting out
      their eyes; a punishment much less cruel than the tremendous vade
      in pace (the subterraneous dungeon or sepulchre) which was
      afterwards invented. See an admirable discourse of the learned
      Mabillon, (Oeuvres Posthumes, tom. ii. p. 321-336,) who, on this
      occasion, seems to be inspired by the genius of humanity. For
      such an effort, I can forgive his defence of the holy tear of
      Vendeme (p. 361-399.)]

      38 (return) [ Sulp. Sever. Dialog. i. 12, 13, p. 532, &c.
      Cassian. Institut. l. iv. c. 26, 27. “Praecipua ibi virtus et
      prima est obedientia.“ Among the Verba seniorum, (in Vit. Patrum,
      l. v. p. 617,) the fourteenth libel or discourse is on the
      subject of obedience; and the Jesuit Rosweyde, who published that
      huge volume for the use of convents, has collected all the
      scattered passages in his two copious indexes.]

      39 (return) [ Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol.
      iv. p. 161) has observed the scandalous valor of the Cappadocian
      monks, which was exemplified in the banishment of Chrysostom.]

      Superstition has often framed and consecrated the fantastic
      garments of the monks: 40 but their apparent singularity
      sometimes proceeds from their uniform attachment to a simple and
      primitive model, which the revolutions of fashion have made
      ridiculous in the eyes of mankind. The father of the Benedictines
      expressly disclaims all idea of choice of merit; and soberly
      exhorts his disciples to adopt the coarse and convenient dress of
      the countries which they may inhabit. 41 The monastic habits of
      the ancients varied with the climate, and their mode of life; and
      they assumed, with the same indifference, the sheep-skin of the
      Egyptian peasants, or the cloak of the Grecian philosophers. They
      allowed themselves the use of linen in Egypt, where it was a
      cheap and domestic manufacture; but in the West they rejected
      such an expensive article of foreign luxury. 42 It was the
      practice of the monks either to cut or shave their hair; they
      wrapped their heads in a cowl to escape the sight of profane
      objects; their legs and feet were naked, except in the extreme
      cold of winter; and their slow and feeble steps were supported by
      a long staff. The aspect of a genuine anachoret was horrid and
      disgusting: every sensation that is offensive to man was thought
      acceptable to God; and the angelic rule of Tabenne condemned the
      salutary custom of bathing the limbs in water, and of anointing
      them with oil. 43 431 The austere monks slept on the ground, on a
      hard mat, or a rough blanket; and the same bundle of palm-leaves
      served them as a seat in the lay, and a pillow in the night.
      Their original cells were low, narrow huts, built of the
      slightest materials; which formed, by the regular distribution of
      the streets, a large and populous village, enclosing, within the
      common wall, a church, a hospital, perhaps a library, some
      necessary offices, a garden, and a fountain or reservoir of fresh
      water. Thirty or forty brethren composed a family of separate
      discipline and diet; and the great monasteries of Egypt consisted
      of thirty or forty families.

      40 (return) [ Cassian has simply, though copiously, described the
      monastic habit of Egypt, (Institut. l. i.,) to which Sozomen (l.
      iii. c. 14) attributes such allegorical meaning and virtue.]

      41 (return) [ Regul. Benedict. No. 55, in Cod. Regul. part ii. p.
      51.]

      42 (return) [ See the rule of Ferreolus, bishop of Usez, (No. 31,
      in Cod. Regul part ii. p. 136,) and of Isidore, bishop of
      Seville, (No. 13, in Cod. Regul part ii. p. 214.)]

      43 (return) [ Some partial indulgences were granted for the hands
      and feet “Totum autem corpus nemo unguet nisi causa infirmitatis,
      nec lavabitur aqua nudo corpore, nisi languor perspicuus sit,“
      (Regul. Pachom xcii. part i. p. 78.)]

      431 (return) [ Athanasius (Vit. Ant. c. 47) boasts of Antony’s
      holy horror of clear water, by which his feet were uncontaminated
      except under dire necessity—M.]




      Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To
      Christianity.—Part II.

      Pleasure and guilt are synonymous terms in the language of the
      monks, and they discovered, by experience, that rigid fasts, and
      abstemious diet, are the most effectual preservatives against the
      impure desires of the flesh. 44 The rules of abstinence which
      they imposed, or practised, were not uniform or perpetual: the
      cheerful festival of the Pentecost was balanced by the
      extraordinary mortification of Lent; the fervor of new
      monasteries was insensibly relaxed; and the voracious appetite of
      the Gauls could not imitate the patient and temperate virtue of
      the Egyptians. 45 The disciples of Antony and Pachomius were
      satisfied with their daily pittance, 46 of twelve ounces of
      bread, or rather biscuit, 47 which they divided into two frugal
      repasts, of the afternoon and of the evening. It was esteemed a
      merit, and almost a duty, to abstain from the boiled vegetables
      which were provided for the refectory; but the extraordinary
      bounty of the abbot sometimes indulged them with the luxury of
      cheese, fruit, salad, and the small dried fish of the Nile. 48 A
      more ample latitude of sea and river fish was gradually allowed
      or assumed; but the use of flesh was long confined to the sick or
      travellers; and when it gradually prevailed in the less rigid
      monasteries of Europe, a singular distinction was introduced; as
      if birds, whether wild or domestic, had been less profane than
      the grosser animals of the field. Water was the pure and innocent
      beverage of the primitive monks; and the founder of the
      Benedictines regrets the daily portion of half a pint of wine,
      which had been extorted from him by the intemperance of the age.
      49 Such an allowance might be easily supplied by the vineyards of
      Italy; and his victorious disciples, who passed the Alps, the
      Rhine, and the Baltic, required, in the place of wine, an
      adequate compensation of strong beer or cider.

      44 (return) [ St. Jerom, in strong, but indiscreet, language,
      expresses the most important use of fasting and abstinence: “Non
      quod Deus universitatis Creator et Dominus, intestinorum
      nostrorum rugitu, et inanitate ventris, pulmonisque ardore
      delectetur, sed quod aliter pudicitia tuta esse non possit.“ (Op.
      tom. i. p. 32, ad Eustochium.) See the twelfth and twenty-second
      Collations of Cassian, de Castitate and de Illusionibus
      Nocturnis.]

      45 (return) [ Edacitas in Graecis gula est, in Gallis natura,
      (Dialog. i. c. 4 p. 521.) Cassian fairly owns, that the perfect
      model of abstinence cannot be imitated in Gaul, on account of the
      aerum temperies, and the qualitas nostrae fragilitatis,
      (Institut. iv. 11.) Among the Western rules, that of Columbanus
      is the most austere; he had been educated amidst the poverty of
      Ireland, as rigid, perhaps, and inflexible as the abstemious
      virtue of Egypt. The rule of Isidore of Seville is the mildest;
      on holidays he allows the use of flesh.]

      46 (return) [ “Those who drink only water, and have no nutritious
      liquor, ought, at least, to have a pound and a half (twenty-four
      ounces) of bread every day.“ State of Prisons, p. 40, by Mr.
      Howard.]

      47 (return) [ See Cassian. Collat. l. ii. 19-21. The small
      loaves, or biscuit, of six ounces each, had obtained the name of
      Paximacia, (Rosweyde, Onomasticon, p. 1045.) Pachomius, however,
      allowed his monks some latitude in the quantity of their food;
      but he made them work in proportion as they ate, (Pallad. in
      Hist. Lausiac. c. 38, 39, in Vit. Patrum, l. viii. p. 736, 737.)]

      48 (return) [ See the banquet to which Cassian (Collation viii.
      1) was invited by Serenus, an Egyptian abbot.]

      49 (return) [ See the Rule of St. Benedict, No. 39, 40, (in Cod.
      Reg. part ii. p. 41, 42.) Licet legamus vinum omnino monachorum
      non esse, sed quia nostris temporibus id monachis persuaderi non
      potest; he allows them a Roman hemina, a measure which may be
      ascertained from Arbuthnot’s Tables.]

      The candidate who aspired to the virtue of evangelical poverty,
      abjured, at his first entrance into a regular community, the
      idea, and even the name, of all separate or exclusive
      possessions. 50 The brethren were supported by their manual
      labor; and the duty of labor was strenuously recommended as a
      penance, as an exercise, and as the most laudable means of
      securing their daily subsistence. 51 The garden and fields, which
      the industry of the monks had often rescued from the forest or
      the morass, were diligently cultivated by their hands. They
      performed, without reluctance, the menial offices of slaves and
      domestics; and the several trades that were necessary to provide
      their habits, their utensils, and their lodging, were exercised
      within the precincts of the great monasteries. The monastic
      studies have tended, for the most part, to darken, rather than to
      dispel, the cloud of superstition. Yet the curiosity or zeal of
      some learned solitaries has cultivated the ecclesiastical, and
      even the profane, sciences; and posterity must gratefully
      acknowledge, that the monuments of Greek and Roman literature
      have been preserved and multiplied by their indefatigable pens.
      52 But the more humble industry of the monks, especially in
      Egypt, was contented with the silent, sedentary occupation of
      making wooden sandals, or of twisting the leaves of the palm-tree
      into mats and baskets. The superfluous stock, which was not
      consumed in domestic use, supplied, by trade, the wants of the
      community: the boats of Tabenne, and the other monasteries of
      Thebais, descended the Nile as far as Alexandria; and, in a
      Christian market, the sanctity of the workmen might enhance the
      intrinsic value of the work.

      50 (return) [ Such expressions as my book, my cloak, my shoes,
      (Cassian Institut. l. iv. c. 13,) were not less severely
      prohibited among the Western monks, (Cod. Regul. part ii. p. 174,
      235, 288;) and the rule of Columbanus punished them with six
      lashes. The ironical author of the Ordres Monastiques, who laughs
      at the foolish nicety of modern convents, seems ignorant that the
      ancients were equally absurd.]

      51 (return) [ Two great masters of ecclesiastical science, the P.
      Thomassin, (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. iii. p. 1090-1139,) and
      the P. Mabillon, (Etudes Monastiques, tom. i. p. 116-155,) have
      seriously examined the manual labor of the monks, which the
      former considers as a merit and the latter as a duty.]

      52 (return) [ Mabillon (Etudes Monastiques, tom. i. p. 47-55) has
      collected many curious facts to justify the literary labors of
      his predecessors, both in the East and West. Books were copied in
      the ancient monasteries of Egypt, (Cassian. Institut. l. iv. c.
      12,) and by the disciples of St. Martin, (Sulp. Sever. in Vit.
      Martin. c. 7, p. 473.) Cassiodorus has allowed an ample scope for
      the studies of the monks; and we shall not be scandalized, if
      their pens sometimes wandered from Chrysostom and Augustin to
      Homer and Virgil. But the necessity of manual labor was
      insensibly superseded.]

      The novice was tempted to bestow his fortune on the saints, in
      whose society he was resolved to spend the remainder of his life;
      and the pernicious indulgence of the laws permitted him to
      receive, for their use, any future accessions of legacy or
      inheritance. 53 Melania contributed her plate, three hundred
      pounds weight of silver; and Paula contracted an immense debt,
      for the relief of their favorite monks; who kindly imparted the
      merits of their prayers and penance to a rich and liberal sinner.
      54 Time continually increased, and accidents could seldom
      diminish, the estates of the popular monasteries, which spread
      over the adjacent country and cities: and, in the first century
      of their institution, the infidel Zosimus has maliciously
      observed, that, for the benefit of the poor, the Christian monks
      had reduced a great part of mankind to a state of beggary. 55 As
      long as they maintained their original fervor, they approved
      themselves, however, the faithful and benevolent stewards of the
      charity, which was entrusted to their care. But their discipline
      was corrupted by prosperity: they gradually assumed the pride of
      wealth, and at last indulged the luxury of expense. Their public
      luxury might be excused by the magnificence of religious worship,
      and the decent motive of erecting durable habitations for an
      immortal society. But every age of the church has accused the
      licentiousness of the degenerate monks; who no longer remembered
      the object of their institution, embraced the vain and sensual
      pleasures of the world, which they had renounced, 56 and
      scandalously abused the riches which had been acquired by the
      austere virtues of their founders. 57 Their natural descent, from
      such painful and dangerous virtue, to the common vices of
      humanity, will not, perhaps, excite much grief or indignation in
      the mind of a philosopher.

      53 (return) [ Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. iii. p.
      118, 145, 146, 171-179) has examined the revolution of the civil,
      canon, and common law. Modern France confirms the death which
      monks have inflicted on themselves, and justly deprives them of
      all right of inheritance.]

      54 (return) [ See Jerom, (tom. i. p. 176, 183.) The monk Pambo
      made a sublime answer to Melania, who wished to specify the value
      of her gift: “Do you offer it to me, or to God? If to God, He who
      suspends the mountain in a balance, need not be informed of the
      weight of your plate.“ (Pallad. Hist. Lausiac. c. 10, in the Vit.
      Patrum, l. viii. p. 715.)]

      55 (return) [ Zosim. l. v. p. 325. Yet the wealth of the Eastern
      monks was far surpassed by the princely greatness of the
      Benedictines.]

      56 (return) [ The sixth general council (the Quinisext in Trullo,
      Canon xlvii in Beveridge, tom. i. p. 213) restrains women from
      passing the night in a male, or men in a female, monastery. The
      seventh general council (the second Nicene, Canon xx. in
      Beveridge, tom. i. p. 325) prohibits the erection of double or
      promiscuous monasteries of both sexes; but it appears from
      Balsamon, that the prohibition was not effectual. On the
      irregular pleasures and expenses of the clergy and monks, see
      Thomassin, tom. iii. p. 1334-1368.]

      57 (return) [ I have somewhere heard or read the frank confession
      of a Benedictine abbot: “My vow of poverty has given me a hundred
      thousand crowns a year; my vow of obedience has raised me to the
      rank of a sovereign prince.“—I forget the consequences of his vow
      of chastity.]

      The lives of the primitive monks were consumed in penance and
      solitude; undisturbed by the various occupations which fill the
      time, and exercise the faculties, of reasonable, active, and
      social beings. Whenever they were permitted to step beyond the
      precincts of the monastery, two jealous companions were the
      mutual guards and spies of each other’s actions; and, after their
      return, they were condemned to forget, or, at least, to suppress,
      whatever they had seen or heard in the world. Strangers, who
      professed the orthodox faith, were hospitably entertained in a
      separate apartment; but their dangerous conversation was
      restricted to some chosen elders of approved discretion and
      fidelity. Except in their presence, the monastic slave might not
      receive the visits of his friends or kindred; and it was deemed
      highly meritorious, if he afflicted a tender sister, or an aged
      parent, by the obstinate refusal of a word or look. 58 The monks
      themselves passed their lives, without personal attachments,
      among a crowd which had been formed by accident, and was
      detained, in the same prison, by force or prejudice. Recluse
      fanatics have few ideas or sentiments to communicate: a special
      license of the abbot regulated the time and duration of their
      familiar visits; and, at their silent meals, they were enveloped
      in their cowls, inaccessible, and almost invisible, to each
      other. 59 Study is the resource of solitude: but education had
      not prepared and qualified for any liberal studies the mechanics
      and peasants who filled the monastic communities. They might
      work: but the vanity of spiritual perfection was tempted to
      disdain the exercise of manual labor; and the industry must be
      faint and languid, which is not excited by the sense of personal
      interest.

      58 (return) [ Pior, an Egyptian monk, allowed his sister to see
      him; but he shut his eyes during the whole visit. See Vit.
      Patrum, l. iii. p. 504. Many such examples might be added.]

      59 (return) [ The 7th, 8th, 29th, 30th, 31st, 34th, 57th, 60th,
      86th, and 95th articles of the Rule of Pachomius, impose most
      intolerable laws of silence and mortification.]

      According to their faith and zeal, they might employ the day,
      which they passed in their cells, either in vocal or mental
      prayer: they assembled in the evening, and they were awakened in
      the night, for the public worship of the monastery. The precise
      moment was determined by the stars, which are seldom clouded in
      the serene sky of Egypt; and a rustic horn, or trumpet, the
      signal of devotion, twice interrupted the vast silence of the
      desert. 60 Even sleep, the last refuge of the unhappy, was
      rigorously measured: the vacant hours of the monk heavily rolled
      along, without business or pleasure; and, before the close of
      each day, he had repeatedly accused the tedious progress of the
      sun. 61 In this comfortless state, superstition still pursued and
      tormented her wretched votaries. 62 The repose which they had
      sought in the cloister was disturbed by a tardy repentance,
      profane doubts, and guilty desires; and, while they considered
      each natural impulse as an unpardonable sin, they perpetually
      trembled on the edge of a flaming and bottomless abyss. From the
      painful struggles of disease and despair, these unhappy victims
      were sometimes relieved by madness or death; and, in the sixth
      century, a hospital was founded at Jerusalem for a small portion
      of the austere penitents, who were deprived of their senses. 63
      Their visions, before they attained this extreme and acknowledged
      term of frenzy, have afforded ample materials of supernatural
      history. It was their firm persuasion, that the air, which they
      breathed, was peopled with invisible enemies; with innumerable
      demons, who watched every occasion, and assumed every form, to
      terrify, and above all to tempt, their unguarded virtue. The
      imagination, and even the senses, were deceived by the illusions
      of distempered fanaticism; and the hermit, whose midnight prayer
      was oppressed by involuntary slumber, might easily confound the
      phantoms of horror or delight, which had occupied his sleeping
      and his waking dreams. 64

      60 (return) [ The diurnal and nocturnal prayers of the monks are
      copiously discussed by Cassian, in the third and fourth books of
      his Institutions; and he constantly prefers the liturgy, which an
      angel had dictated to the monasteries of Tebennoe.]

      61 (return) [ Cassian, from his own experience, describes the
      acedia, or listlessness of mind and body, to which a monk was
      exposed, when he sighed to find himself alone. Saepiusque
      egreditur et ingreditur cellam, et Solem velut ad occasum tardius
      properantem crebrius intuetur, (Institut. x. l.)]

      62 (return) [ The temptations and sufferings of Stagirius were
      communicated by that unfortunate youth to his friend St.
      Chrysostom. See Middleton’s Works, vol. i. p. 107-110. Something
      similar introduces the life of every saint; and the famous Inigo,
      or Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, (vide d’Inigo de
      Guiposcoa, tom. i. p. 29-38,) may serve as a memorable example.]

      63 (return) [ Fleury, Hist. Ecclesiastique, tom. vii. p. 46. I
      have read somewhere, in the Vitae Patrum, but I cannot recover
      the place that several, I believe many, of the monks, who did not
      reveal their temptations to the abbot, became guilty of suicide.]

      64 (return) [ See the seventh and eighth Collations of Cassian,
      who gravely examines, why the demons were grown less active and
      numerous since the time of St. Antony. Rosweyde’s copious index
      to the Vitae Patrum will point out a variety of infernal scenes.
      The devils were most formidable in a female shape.]

      The monks were divided into two classes: the Coenobites, who
      lived under a common and regular discipline; and the Anachorets,
      who indulged their unsocial, independent fanaticism. 65 The most
      devout, or the most ambitious, of the spiritual brethren,
      renounced the convent, as they had renounced the world. The
      fervent monasteries of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, were
      surrounded by a Laura, 66 a distant circle of solitary cells; and
      the extravagant penance of Hermits was stimulated by applause and
      emulation. 67 They sunk under the painful weight of crosses and
      chains; and their emaciated limbs were confined by collars,
      bracelets, gauntlets, and greaves of massy and rigid iron. All
      superfluous encumbrance of dress they contemptuously cast away;
      and some savage saints of both sexes have been admired, whose
      naked bodies were only covered by their long hair. They aspired
      to reduce themselves to the rude and miserable state in which the
      human brute is scarcely distinguishable above his kindred
      animals; and the numerous sect of Anachorets derived their name
      from their humble practice of grazing in the fields of
      Mesopotamia with the common herd. 68 They often usurped the den
      of some wild beast whom they affected to resemble; they buried
      themselves in some gloomy cavern, which art or nature had scooped
      out of the rock; and the marble quarries of Thebais are still
      inscribed with the monuments of their penance. 69 The most
      perfect Hermits are supposed to have passed many days without
      food, many nights without sleep, and many years without speaking;
      and glorious was the man ( I abuse that name) who contrived any
      cell, or seat, of a peculiar construction, which might expose
      him, in the most inconvenient posture, to the inclemency of the
      seasons.

      65 (return) [ For the distinction of the Coenobites and the
      Hermits, especially in Egypt, see Jerom, (tom. i. p. 45, ad
      Rusticum,) the first Dialogue of Sulpicius Severus, Rufinus, (c.
      22, in Vit. Patrum, l. ii. p. 478,) Palladius, (c. 7, 69, in Vit.
      Patrum, l. viii. p. 712, 758,) and, above all, the eighteenth and
      nineteenth Collations of Cassian. These writers, who compare the
      common and solitary life, reveal the abuse and danger of the
      latter.]

      66 (return) [ Suicer. Thesaur. Ecclesiast. tom. ii. p. 205, 218.
      Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p. 1501, 1502) gives a
      good account of these cells. When Gerasimus founded his monastery
      in the wilderness of Jordan, it was accompanied by a Laura of
      seventy cells.]

      67 (return) [ Theodoret, in a large volume, (the Philotheus in
      Vit. Patrum, l. ix. p. 793-863,) has collected the lives and
      miracles of thirty Anachorets. Evagrius (l. i. c. 12) more
      briefly celebrates the monks and hermits of Palestine.]

      68 (return) [ Sozomen, l. vi. c. 33. The great St. Ephrem
      composed a panegyric on these or grazing monks, (Tillemont, Mem.
      Eccles. tom. viii. p. 292.)]

      69 (return) [ The P. Sicard (Missions du Levant, tom. ii. p.
      217-233) examined the caverns of the Lower Thebais with wonder
      and devotion. The inscriptions are in the old Syriac character,
      which was used by the Christians of Abyssinia.]

      Among these heroes of the monastic life, the name and genius of
      Simeon Stylites 70 have been immortalized by the singular
      invention of an aerial penance. At the age of thirteen, the young
      Syrian deserted the profession of a shepherd, and threw himself
      into an austere monastery. After a long and painful novitiate, in
      which Simeon was repeatedly saved from pious suicide, he
      established his residence on a mountain, about thirty or forty
      miles to the east of Antioch. Within the space of a mandra, or
      circle of stones, to which he had attached himself by a ponderous
      chain, he ascended a column, which was successively raised from
      the height of nine, to that of sixty, feet from the ground. 71 In
      this last and lofty station, the Syrian Anachoret resisted the
      heat of thirty summers, and the cold of as many winters. Habit
      and exercise instructed him to maintain his dangerous situation
      without fear or giddiness, and successively to assume the
      different postures of devotion. He sometimes prayed in an erect
      attitude, with his outstretched arms in the figure of a cross,
      but his most familiar practice was that of bending his meagre
      skeleton from the forehead to the feet; and a curious spectator,
      after numbering twelve hundred and forty-four repetitions, at
      length desisted from the endless account. The progress of an
      ulcer in his thigh 72 might shorten, but it could not disturb,
      this celestial life; and the patient Hermit expired, without
      descending from his column. A prince, who should capriciously
      inflict such tortures, would be deemed a tyrant; but it would
      surpass the power of a tyrant to impose a long and miserable
      existence on the reluctant victims of his cruelty. This voluntary
      martyrdom must have gradually destroyed the sensibility both of
      the mind and body; nor can it be presumed that the fanatics, who
      torment themselves, are susceptible of any lively affection for
      the rest of mankind. A cruel, unfeeling temper has distinguiseed
      the monks of every age and country: their stern indifference,
      which is seldom mollified by personal friendship, is inflamed by
      religious hatred; and their merciless zeal has strenuously
      administered the holy office of the Inquisition.

      70 (return) [ See Theodoret (in Vit. Patrum, l. ix. p. 848-854,)
      Antony, (in Vit. Patrum, l. i. p. 170-177,) Cosmas, (in Asseman.
      Bibliot. Oriental tom. i. p. 239-253,) Evagrius, (l. i. c. 13,
      14,) and Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xv. p. 347-392.)]

      71 (return) [ The narrow circumference of two cubits, or three
      feet, which Evagrius assigns for the summit of the column is
      inconsistent with reason, with facts, and with the rules of
      architecture. The people who saw it from below might be easily
      deceived.]

      72 (return) [ I must not conceal a piece of ancient scandal
      concerning the origin of this ulcer. It has been reported that
      the Devil, assuming an angelic form, invited him to ascend, like
      Elijah, into a fiery chariot. The saint too hastily raised his
      foot, and Satan seized the moment of inflicting this chastisement
      on his vanity.]

      The monastic saints, who excite only the contempt and pity of a
      philosopher, were respected, and almost adored, by the prince and
      people. Successive crowds of pilgrims from Gaul and India saluted
      the divine pillar of Simeon: the tribes of Saracens disputed in
      arms the honor of his benediction; the queens of Arabia and
      Persia gratefully confessed his supernatural virtue; and the
      angelic Hermit was consulted by the younger Theodosius, in the
      most important concerns of the church and state. His remains were
      transported from the mountain of Telenissa, by a solemn
      procession of the patriarch, the master-general of the East, six
      bishops, twenty-one counts or tribunes, and six thousand
      soldiers; and Antioch revered his bones, as her glorious ornament
      and impregnable defence. The fame of the apostles and martyrs was
      gradually eclipsed by these recent and popular Anachorets; the
      Christian world fell prostrate before their shrines; and the
      miracles ascribed to their relics exceeded, at least in number
      and duration, the spiritual exploits of their lives. But the
      golden legend of their lives 73 was embellished by the artful
      credulity of their interested brethren; and a believing age was
      easily persuaded, that the slightest caprice of an Egyptian or a
      Syrian monk had been sufficient to interrupt the eternal laws of
      the universe. The favorites of Heaven were accustomed to cure
      inveterate diseases with a touch, a word, or a distant message;
      and to expel the most obstinate demons from the souls or bodies
      which they possessed. They familiarly accosted, or imperiously
      commanded, the lions and serpents of the desert; infused
      vegetation into a sapless trunk; suspended iron on the surface of
      the water; passed the Nile on the back of a crocodile, and
      refreshed themselves in a fiery furnace. These extravagant tales,
      which display the fiction without the genius, of poetry, have
      seriously affected the reason, the faith, and the morals, of the
      Christians. Their credulity debased and vitiated the faculties of
      the mind: they corrupted the evidence of history; and
      superstition gradually extinguished the hostile light of
      philosophy and science. Every mode of religious worship which had
      been practised by the saints, every mysterious doctrine which
      they believed, was fortified by the sanction of divine
      revelation, and all the manly virtues were oppressed by the
      servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks. If it be possible
      to measure the interval between the philosophic writings of
      Cicero and the sacred legend of Theodoret, between the character
      of Cato and that of Simeon, we may appreciate the memorable
      revolution which was accomplished in the Roman empire within a
      period of five hundred years.

      73 (return) [ I know not how to select or specify the miracles
      contained in the Vitae Patrum of Rosweyde, as the number very
      much exceeds the thousand pages of that voluminous work. An
      elegant specimen may be found in the dialogues of Sulpicius
      Severus, and his Life of St. Martin. He reveres the monks of
      Egypt; yet he insults them with the remark, that they never
      raised the dead; whereas the bishop of Tours had restored three
      dead men to life.]

      II. The progress of Christianity has been marked by two glorious
      and decisive victories: over the learned and luxurious citizens
      of the Roman empire; and over the warlike Barbarians of Scythia
      and Germany, who subverted the empire, and embraced the religion,
      of the Romans. The Goths were the foremost of these savage
      proselytes; and the nation was indebted for its conversion to a
      countryman, or, at least, to a subject, worthy to be ranked among
      the inventors of useful arts, who have deserved the remembrance
      and gratitude of posterity. A great number of Roman provincials
      had been led away into captivity by the Gothic bands, who ravaged
      Asia in the time of Gallienus; and of these captives, many were
      Christians, and several belonged to the ecclesiastical order.
      Those involuntary missionaries, dispersed as slaves in the
      villages of Dacia, successively labored for the salvation of
      their masters. The seeds which they planted, of the evangelic
      doctrine, were gradually propagated; and before the end of a
      century, the pious work was achieved by the labors of Ulphilas,
      whose ancestors had been transported beyond the Danube from a
      small town of Cappadocia.

      Ulphilas, the bishop and apostle of the Goths, 74 acquired their
      love and reverence by his blameless life and indefatigable zeal;
      and they received, with implicit confidence, the doctrines of
      truth and virtue which he preached and practised. He executed the
      arduous task of translating the Scriptures into their native
      tongue, a dialect of the German or Teutonic language; but he
      prudently suppressed the four books of Kings, as they might tend
      to irritate the fierce and sanguinary spirit of the Barbarians.
      The rude, imperfect idiom of soldiers and shepherds, so ill
      qualified to communicate any spiritual ideas, was improved and
      modulated by his genius: and Ulphilas, before he could frame his
      version, was obliged to compose a new alphabet of twenty-four
      letters; 741 four of which he invented, to express the peculiar
      sounds that were unknown to the Greek and Latin pronunciation. 75
      But the prosperous state of the Gothic church was soon afflicted
      by war and intestine discord, and the chieftains were divided by
      religion as well as by interest. Fritigern, the friend of the
      Romans, became the proselyte of Ulphilas; while the haughty soul
      of Athanaric disdained the yoke of the empire and of the gospel
      The faith of the new converts was tried by the persecution which
      he excited. A wagon, bearing aloft the shapeless image of Thor,
      perhaps, or of Woden, was conducted in solemn procession through
      the streets of the camp; and the rebels, who refused to worship
      the god of their fathers, were immediately burnt, with their
      tents and families. The character of Ulphilas recommended him to
      the esteem of the Eastern court, where he twice appeared as the
      minister of peace; he pleaded the cause of the distressed Goths,
      who implored the protection of Valens; and the name of Moses was
      applied to this spiritual guide, who conducted his people through
      the deep waters of the Danube to the Land of Promise. 76 The
      devout shepherds, who were attached to his person, and tractable
      to his voice, acquiesced in their settlement, at the foot of the
      Maesian mountains, in a country of woodlands and pastures, which
      supported their flocks and herds, and enabled them to purchase
      the corn and wine of the more plentiful provinces. These harmless
      Barbarians multiplied in obscure peace and the profession of
      Christianity. 77

      74 (return) [ On the subject of Ulphilas, and the conversion of
      the Goths, see Sozomen, l. vi. c. 37. Socrates, l. iv. c. 33.
      Theodoret, l. iv. c. 37. Philostorg. l. ii. c. 5. The heresy of
      Philostorgius appears to have given him superior means of
      information.]

      741 (return) [ This is the Moeso-Gothic alphabet of which many of
      the letters are evidently formed from the Greek and Roman. M. St.
      Martin, however contends, that it is impossible but that some
      written alphabet must have been known long before among the
      Goths. He supposes that their former letters were those inscribed
      on the runes, which, being inseparably connected with the old
      idolatrous superstitions, were proscribed by the Christian
      missionaries. Everywhere the runes, so common among all the
      German tribes, disappear after the propagation of Christianity.
      S. Martin iv. p. 97, 98.—M.]

      75 (return) [ A mutilated copy of the four Gospels, in the Gothic
      version, was published A.D. 1665, and is esteemed the most
      ancient monument of the Teutonic language, though Wetstein
      attempts, by some frivolous conjectures, to deprive Ulphilas of
      the honor of the work. Two of the four additional letters express
      the W, and our own Th. See Simon, Hist. Critique du Nouveau
      Testament, tom ii. p. 219-223. Mill. Prolegom p. 151, edit.
      Kuster. Wetstein, Prolegom. tom. i. p. 114. * Note: The Codex
      Argenteus, found in the sixteenth century at Wenden, near
      Cologne, and now preserved at Upsal, contains almost the entire
      four Gospels. The best edition is that of J. Christ. Zahn,
      Weissenfels, 1805. In 1762 Knettel discovered and published from
      a Palimpsest MS. four chapters of the Epistle to the Romans: they
      were reprinted at Upsal, 1763. M. Mai has since that time
      discovered further fragments, and other remains of Moeso-Gothic
      literature, from a Palimpsest at Milan. See Ulphilae partium
      inedi arum in Ambrosianis Palimpsestis ab Ang. Maio repertarum
      specimen Milan. Ito. 1819.—M.]

      76 (return) [ Philostorgius erroneously places this passage under
      the reign of Constantine; but I am much inclined to believe that
      it preceded the great emigration.]

      77 (return) [ We are obliged to Jornandes (de Reb. Get. c. 51, p.
      688) for a short and lively picture of these lesser Goths. Gothi
      minores, populus immensus, cum suo Pontifice ipsoque primate
      Wulfila. The last words, if they are not mere tautology, imply
      some temporal jurisdiction.]

      Their fiercer brethren, the formidable Visigoths, universally
      adopted the religion of the Romans, with whom they maintained a
      perpetual intercourse, of war, of friendship, or of conquest. In
      their long and victorious march from the Danube to the Atlantic
      Ocean, they converted their allies; they educated the rising
      generation; and the devotion which reigned in the camp of Alaric,
      or the court of Thoulouse, might edify or disgrace the palaces of
      Rome and Constantinople. 78 During the same period, Christianity
      was embraced by almost all the Barbarians, who established their
      kingdoms on the ruins of the Western empire; the Burgundians in
      Gaul, the Suevi in Spain, the Vandals in Africa, the Ostrogoths
      in Pannonia, and the various bands of mercenaries, that raised
      Odoacer to the throne of Italy. The Franks and the Saxons still
      persevered in the errors of Paganism; but the Franks obtained the
      monarchy of Gaul by their submission to the example of Clovis;
      and the Saxon conquerors of Britain were reclaimed from their
      savage superstition by the missionaries of Rome. These Barbarian
      proselytes displayed an ardent and successful zeal in the
      propagation of the faith. The Merovingian kings, and their
      successors, Charlemagne and the Othos, extended, by their laws
      and victories, the dominion of the cross. England produced the
      apostle of Germany; and the evangelic light was gradually
      diffused from the neighborhood of the Rhine, to the nations of
      the Elbe, the Vistula, and the Baltic. 79

      78 (return) [ At non ita Gothi non ita Vandali; malis licet
      doctoribus instituti meliores tamen etiam in hac parte quam
      nostri. Salvian, de Gubern, Dei, l. vii. p. 243.]

      79 (return) [ Mosheim has slightly sketched the progress of
      Christianity in the North, from the fourth to the fourteenth
      century. The subject would afford materials for an ecclesiastical
      and even philosophical, history]




      Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To
      Christianity.—Part III.

      The different motives which influenced the reason, or the
      passions, of the Barbarian converts, cannot easily be
      ascertained. They were often capricious and accidental; a dream,
      an omen, the report of a miracle, the example of some priest, or
      hero, the charms of a believing wife, and, above all, the
      fortunate event of a prayer, or vow, which, in a moment of
      danger, they had addressed to the God of the Christians. 80 The
      early prejudices of education were insensibly erased by the
      habits of frequent and familiar society, the moral precepts of
      the gospel were protected by the extravagant virtues of the
      monks; and a spiritual theology was supported by the visible
      power of relics, and the pomp of religious worship. But the
      rational and ingenious mode of persuasion, which a Saxon bishop
      81 suggested to a popular saint, might sometimes be employed by
      the missionaries, who labored for the conversion of infidels.
      “Admit,“ says the sagacious disputant, “whatever they are pleased
      to assert of the fabulous, and carnal, genealogy of their gods
      and goddesses, who are propagated from each other. From this
      principle deduce their imperfect nature, and human infirmities,
      the assurance they were born, and the probability that they will
      die. At what time, by what means, from what cause, were the
      eldest of the gods or goddesses produced? Do they still continue,
      or have they ceased, to propagate? If they have ceased, summon
      your antagonists to declare the reason of this strange
      alteration. If they still continue, the number of the gods must
      become infinite; and shall we not risk, by the indiscreet worship
      of some impotent deity, to excite the resentment of his jealous
      superior? The visible heavens and earth, the whole system of the
      universe, which may be conceived by the mind, is it created or
      eternal? If created, how, or where, could the gods themselves
      exist before creation? If eternal, how could they assume the
      empire of an independent and preexisting world? Urge these
      arguments with temper and moderation; insinuate, at seasonable
      intervals, the truth and beauty of the Christian revelation; and
      endeavor to make the unbelievers ashamed, without making them
      angry.“ This metaphysical reasoning, too refined, perhaps, for
      the Barbarians of Germany, was fortified by the grosser weight of
      authority and popular consent. The advantage of temporal
      prosperity had deserted the Pagan cause, and passed over to the
      service of Christianity. The Romans themselves, the most powerful
      and enlightened nation of the globe, had renounced their ancient
      superstition; and, if the ruin of their empire seemed to accuse
      the efficacy of the new faith, the disgrace was already retrieved
      by the conversion of the victorious Goths. The valiant and
      fortunate Barbarians, who subdued the provinces of the West,
      successively received, and reflected, the same edifying example.
      Before the age of Charlemagne, the Christian nations of Europe
      might exult in the exclusive possession of the temperate
      climates, of the fertile lands, which produced corn, wine, and
      oil; while the savage idolaters, and their helpless idols, were
      confined to the extremities of the earth, the dark and frozen
      regions of the North. 82

      80 (return) [ To such a cause has Socrates (l. vii. c. 30)
      ascribed the conversion of the Burgundians, whose Christian piety
      is celebrated by Orosius, (l. vii. c. 19.)]

      81 (return) [ See an original and curious epistle from Daniel,
      the first bishop of Winchester, (Beda, Hist. Eccles. Anglorum, l.
      v. c. 18, p. 203, edit Smith,) to St. Boniface, who preached the
      gospel among the savages of Hesse and Thuringia. Epistol.
      Bonifacii, lxvii., in the Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum, tom. xiii.
      p. 93]

      82 (return) [ The sword of Charlemagne added weight to the
      argument; but when Daniel wrote this epistle, (A.D. 723,) the
      Mahometans, who reigned from India to Spain, might have retorted
      it against the Christians.]

      Christianity, which opened the gates of Heaven to the Barbarians,
      introduced an important change in their moral and political
      condition. They received, at the same time, the use of letters,
      so essential to a religion whose doctrines are contained in a
      sacred book; and while they studied the divine truth, their minds
      were insensibly enlarged by the distant view of history, of
      nature, of the arts, and of society. The version of the
      Scriptures into their native tongue, which had facilitated their
      conversion, must excite among their clergy some curiosity to read
      the original text, to understand the sacred liturgy of the
      church, and to examine, in the writings of the fathers, the chain
      of ecclesiastical tradition. These spiritual gifts were preserved
      in the Greek and Latin languages, which concealed the inestimable
      monuments of ancient learning. The immortal productions of
      Virgil, Cicero, and Livy, which were accessible to the Christian
      Barbarians, maintained a silent intercourse between the reign of
      Augustus and the times of Clovis and Charlemagne. The emulation
      of mankind was encouraged by the remembrance of a more perfect
      state; and the flame of science was secretly kept alive, to warm
      and enlighten the mature age of the Western world.

      In the most corrupt state of Christianity, the Barbarians might
      learn justice from the law, and mercy from the gospel; and if the
      knowledge of their duty was insufficient to guide their actions,
      or to regulate their passions, they were sometimes restrained by
      conscience, and frequently punished by remorse. But the direct
      authority of religion was less effectual than the holy communion,
      which united them with their Christian brethren in spiritual
      friendship. The influence of these sentiments contributed to
      secure their fidelity in the service, or the alliance, of the
      Romans, to alleviate the horrors of war, to moderate the
      insolence of conquest, and to preserve, in the downfall of the
      empire, a permanent respect for the name and institutions of
      Rome. In the days of Paganism, the priests of Gaul and Germany
      reigned over the people, and controlled the jurisdiction of the
      magistrates; and the zealous proselytes transferred an equal, or
      more ample, measure of devout obedience, to the pontiffs of the
      Christian faith. The sacred character of the bishops was
      supported by their temporal possessions; they obtained an
      honorable seat in the legislative assemblies of soldiers and
      freemen; and it was their interest, as well as their duty, to
      mollify, by peaceful counsels, the fierce spirit of the
      Barbarians. The perpetual correspondence of the Latin clergy, the
      frequent pilgrimages to Rome and Jerusalem, and the growing
      authority of the popes, cemented the union of the Christian
      republic, and gradually produced the similar manners, and common
      jurisprudence, which have distinguished, from the rest of
      mankind, the independent, and even hostile, nations of modern
      Europe.

      But the operation of these causes was checked and retarded by the
      unfortunate accident, which infused a deadly poison into the cup
      of Salvation. Whatever might be the early sentiments of Ulphilas,
      his connections with the empire and the church were formed during
      the reign of Arianism. The apostle of the Goths subscribed the
      creed of Rimini; professed with freedom, and perhaps with
      sincerity, that the Son was not equal, or consubstantial to the
      Father; 83 communicated these errors to the clergy and people;
      and infected the Barbaric world with a heresy, 84 which the great
      Theodosius proscribed and extinguished among the Romans. The
      temper and understanding of the new proselytes were not adapted
      to metaphysical subtilties; but they strenuously maintained, what
      they had piously received, as the pure and genuine doctrines of
      Christianity. The advantage of preaching and expounding the
      Scriptures in the Teutonic language promoted the apostolic labors
      of Ulphilas and his successors; and they ordained a competent
      number of bishops and presbyters for the instruction of the
      kindred tribes. The Ostrogoths, the Burgundians, the Suevi, and
      the Vandals, who had listened to the eloquence of the Latin
      clergy, 85 preferred the more intelligible lessons of their
      domestic teachers; and Arianism was adopted as the national faith
      of the warlike converts, who were seated on the ruins of the
      Western empire. This irreconcilable difference of religion was a
      perpetual source of jealousy and hatred; and the reproach of
      Barbarian was imbittered by the more odious epithet of Heretic.
      The heroes of the North, who had submitted, with some reluctance,
      to believe that all their ancestors were in hell, 86 were
      astonished and exasperated to learn, that they themselves had
      only changed the mode of their eternal condemnation. Instead of
      the smooth applause, which Christian kings are accustomed to
      expect from their royal prelates, the orthodox bishops and their
      clergy were in a state of opposition to the Arian courts; and
      their indiscreet opposition frequently became criminal, and might
      sometimes be dangerous. 87 The pulpit, that safe and sacred organ
      of sedition, resounded with the names of Pharaoh and Holofernes;
      88 the public discontent was inflamed by the hope or promise of a
      glorious deliverance; and the seditious saints were tempted to
      promote the accomplishment of their own predictions.
      Notwithstanding these provocations, the Catholics of Gaul, Spain,
      and Italy, enjoyed, under the reign of the Arians, the free and
      peaceful exercise of their religion. Their haughty masters
      respected the zeal of a numerous people, resolved to die at the
      foot of their altars; and the example of their devout constancy
      was admired and imitated by the Barbarians themselves. The
      conquerors evaded, however, the disgraceful reproach, or
      confession, of fear, by attributing their toleration to the
      liberal motives of reason and humanity; and while they affected
      the language, they imperceptiby imbibed the spirit, of genuine
      Christianity.

      83 (return) [ The opinions of Ulphilas and the Goths inclined to
      semi-Arianism, since they would not say that the Son was a
      creature, though they held communion with those who maintained
      that heresy. Their apostle represented the whole controversy as a
      question of trifling moment, which had been raised by the
      passions of the clergy. Theodoret l. iv. c. 37.]

      84 (return) [ The Arianism of the Goths has been imputed to the
      emperor Valens: “Itaque justo Dei judicio ipsi eum vivum
      incenderunt, qui propter eum etiam mortui, vitio erroris arsuri
      sunt.“ Orosius, l. vii. c. 33, p. 554. This cruel sentence is
      confirmed by Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 604-610,) who
      coolly observes, “un seul homme entraina dans l’enfer un nombre
      infini de Septentrionaux, &c.“ Salvian (de Gubern. Dei, l. v p.
      150, 151) pities and excuses their involuntary error.]

      85 (return) [ Orosius affirms, in the year 416, (l. vii. c. 41,
      p. 580,) that the Churches of Christ (of the Catholics) were
      filled with Huns, Suevi, Vandals, Burgundians.]

      86 (return) [ Radbod, king of the Frisons, was so much
      scandalized by this rash declaration of a missionary, that he
      drew back his foot after he had entered the baptismal font. See
      Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. ix p. 167.]

      87 (return) [ The epistles of Sidonius, bishop of Clermont, under
      the Visigotha, and of Avitus, bishop of Vienna, under the
      Burgundians, explain sometimes in dark hints, the general
      dispositions of the Catholics. The history of Clovis and
      Theodoric will suggest some particular facts]

      88 (return) [ Genseric confessed the resemblance, by the severity
      with which he punished such indiscreet allusions. Victor
      Vitensis, l. 7, p. 10.]

      The peace of the church was sometimes interrupted. The Catholics
      were indiscreet, the Barbarians were impatient; and the partial
      acts of severity or injustice, which had been recommended by the
      Arian clergy, were exaggerated by the orthodox writers. The guilt
      of persecution may be imputed to Euric, king of the Visigoths;
      who suspended the exercise of ecclesiastical, or, at least, of
      episcopal functions; and punished the popular bishops of Aquitain
      with imprisonment, exile, and confiscation. 89 But the cruel and
      absurd enterprise of subduing the minds of a whole people was
      undertaken by the Vandals alone. Genseric himself, in his early
      youth, had renounced the orthodox communion; and the apostate
      could neither grant, nor expect, a sincere forgiveness. He was
      exasperated to find that the Africans, who had fled before him in
      the field, still presumed to dispute his will in synods and
      churches; and his ferocious mind was incapable of fear or of
      compassion. His Catholic subjects were oppressed by intolerant
      laws and arbitrary punishments. The language of Genseric was
      furious and formidable; the knowledge of his intentions might
      justify the most unfavorable interpretation of his actions; and
      the Arians were reproached with the frequent executions which
      stained the palace and the dominions of the tyrant. Arms and
      ambition were, however, the ruling passions of the monarch of the
      sea. But Hunneric, his inglorious son, who seemed to inherit only
      his vices, tormented the Catholics with the same unrelenting fury
      which had been fatal to his brother, his nephews, and the friends
      and favorites of his father; and even to the Arian patriarch, who
      was inhumanly burnt alive in the midst of Carthage. The religious
      war was preceded and prepared by an insidious truce; persecution
      was made the serious and important business of the Vandal court;
      and the loathsome disease which hastened the death of Hunneric,
      revenged the injuries, without contributing to the deliverance,
      of the church. The throne of Africa was successively filled by
      the two nephews of Hunneric; by Gundamund, who reigned about
      twelve, and by Thrasimund, who governed the nation about
      twenty-seven, years. Their administration was hostile and
      oppressive to the orthodox party. Gundamund appeared to emulate,
      or even to surpass, the cruelty of his uncle; and, if at length
      he relented, if he recalled the bishops, and restored the freedom
      of Athanasian worship, a premature death intercepted the benefits
      of his tardy clemency. His brother, Thrasimund, was the greatest
      and most accomplished of the Vandal kings, whom he excelled in
      beauty, prudence, and magnanimity of soul. But this magnanimous
      character was degraded by his intolerant zeal and deceitful
      clemency. Instead of threats and tortures, he employed the
      gentle, but efficacious, powers of seduction. Wealth, dignity,
      and the royal favor, were the liberal rewards of apostasy; the
      Catholics, who had violated the laws, might purchase their pardon
      by the renunciation of their faith; and whenever Thrasimund
      meditated any rigorous measure, he patiently waited till the
      indiscretion of his adversaries furnished him with a specious
      opportunity. Bigotry was his last sentiment in the hour of death;
      and he exacted from his successor a solemn oath, that he would
      never tolerate the sectaries of Athanasius. But his successor,
      Hilderic, the gentle son of the savage Hunneric, preferred the
      duties of humanity and justice to the vain obligation of an
      impious oath; and his accession was gloriously marked by the
      restoration of peace and universal freedom. The throne of that
      virtuous, though feeble monarch, was usurped by his cousin
      Gelimer, a zealous Arian: but the Vandal kingdom, before he could
      enjoy or abuse his power, was subverted by the arms of
      Belisarius; and the orthodox party retaliated the injuries which
      they had endured. 90

      89 (return) [ Such are the contemporary complaints of Sidonius,
      bishop of Clermont (l. vii. c. 6, p. 182, &c., edit. Sirmond.)
      Gregory of Tours who quotes this Epistle, (l. ii. c. 25, in tom.
      ii. p. 174,) extorts an unwarrantable assertion, that of the nine
      vacancies in Aquitain, some had been produced by episcopal
      martyrdoms]

      90 (return) [ The original monuments of the Vandal persecution
      are preserved in the five books of the history of Victor
      Vitensis, (de Persecutione Vandalica,) a bishop who was exiled by
      Hunneric; in the life of St. Fulgentius, who was distinguished in
      the persecution of Thrasimund (in Biblioth. Max. Patrum, tom. ix.
      p. 4-16;) and in the first book of the Vandalic War, by the
      impartial Procopius, (c. 7, 8, p. 196, 197, 198, 199.) Dom
      Ruinart, the last editor of Victor, has illustrated the whole
      subject with a copious and learned apparatus of notes and
      supplement (Paris, 1694.)]

      The passionate declamations of the Catholics, the sole historians
      of this persecution, cannot afford any distinct series of causes
      and events; any impartial view of the characters, or counsels;
      but the most remarkable circumstances that deserve either credit
      or notice, may be referred to the following heads; I. In the
      original law, which is still extant, 91 Hunneric expressly
      declares, (and the declaration appears to be correct,) that he
      had faithfully transcribed the regulations and penalties of the
      Imperial edicts, against the heretical congregations, the clergy,
      and the people, who dissented from the established religion. If
      the rights of conscience had been understood, the Catholics must
      have condemned their past conduct or acquiesced in their actual
      suffering. But they still persisted to refuse the indulgence
      which they claimed. While they trembled under the lash of
      persecution, they praised the laudable severity of Hunneric
      himself, who burnt or banished great numbers of Manichaeans; 92
      and they rejected, with horror, the ignominious compromise, that
      the disciples of Arius and of Athanasius should enjoy a
      reciprocal and similar toleration in the territories of the
      Romans, and in those of the Vandals. 93 II. The practice of a
      conference, which the Catholics had so frequently used to insult
      and punish their obstinate antagonists, was retorted against
      themselves. 94 At the command of Hunneric, four hundred and
      sixty-six orthodox bishops assembled at Carthage; but when they
      were admitted into the hall of audience, they had the
      mortification of beholding the Arian Cyrila exalted on the
      patriarchal throne. The disputants were separated, after the
      mutual and ordinary reproaches of noise and silence, of delay and
      precipitation, of military force and of popular clamor. One
      martyr and one confessor were selected among the Catholic
      bishops; twenty-eight escaped by flight, and eighty-eight by
      conformity; forty-six were sent into Corsica to cut timber for
      the royal navy; and three hundred and two were banished to the
      different parts of Africa, exposed to the insults of their
      enemies, and carefully deprived of all the temporal and spiritual
      comforts of life. 95 The hardships of ten years’ exile must have
      reduced their numbers; and if they had complied with the law of
      Thrasimund, which prohibited any episcopal consecrations, the
      orthodox church of Africa must have expired with the lives of its
      actual members. They disobeyed, and their disobedience was
      punished by a second exile of two hundred and twenty bishops into
      Sardinia; where they languished fifteen years, till the accession
      of the gracious Hilderic. 96 The two islands were judiciously
      chosen by the malice of their Arian tyrants. Seneca, from his own
      experience, has deplored and exaggerated the miserable state of
      Corsica, 97 and the plenty of Sardinia was overbalanced by the
      unwholesome quality of the air. 98 III. The zeal of Generic and
      his successors, for the conversion of the Catholics, must have
      rendered them still more jealous to guard the purity of the
      Vandal faith. Before the churches were finally shut, it was a
      crime to appear in a Barbarian dress; and those who presumed to
      neglect the royal mandate were rudely dragged backwards by their
      long hair. 99 The palatine officers, who refused to profess the
      religion of their prince, were ignominiously stripped of their
      honors and employments; banished to Sardinia and Sicily; or
      condemned to the servile labors of slaves and peasants in the
      fields of Utica. In the districts which had been peculiarly
      allotted to the Vandals, the exercise of the Catholic worship was
      more strictly prohibited; and severe penalties were denounced
      against the guilt both of the missionary and the proselyte. By
      these arts, the faith of the Barbarians was preserved, and their
      zeal was inflamed: they discharged, with devout fury, the office
      of spies, informers, or executioners; and whenever their cavalry
      took the field, it was the favorite amusement of the march to
      defile the churches, and to insult the clergy of the adverse
      faction. 100 IV. The citizens who had been educated in the luxury
      of the Roman province, were delivered, with exquisite cruelty, to
      the Moors of the desert. A venerable train of bishops,
      presbyters, and deacons, with a faithful crowd of four thousand
      and ninety-six persons, whose guilt is not precisely ascertained,
      were torn from their native homes, by the command of Hunneric.
      During the night they were confined, like a herd of cattle,
      amidst their own ordure: during the day they pursued their march
      over the burning sands; and if they fainted under the heat and
      fatigue, they were goaded, or dragged along, till they expired in
      the hands of their tormentors. 101 These unhappy exiles, when
      they reached the Moorish huts, might excite the compassion of a
      people, whose native humanity was neither improved by reason, nor
      corrupted by fanaticism: but if they escaped the dangers, they
      were condemned to share the distress of a savage life. V. It is
      incumbent on the authors of persecution previously to reflect,
      whether they are determined to support it in the last extreme.
      They excite the flame which they strive to extinguish; and it
      soon becomes necessary to chastise the contumacy, as well as the
      crime, of the offender. The fine, which he is unable or unwilling
      to discharge, exposes his person to the severity of the law; and
      his contempt of lighter penalties suggests the use and propriety
      of capital punishment. Through the veil of fiction and
      declamation we may clearly perceive, that the Catholics more
      especially under the reign of Hunneric, endured the most cruel
      and ignominious treatment. 102 Respectable citizens, noble
      matrons, and consecrated virgins, were stripped naked, and raised
      in the air by pulleys, with a weight suspended at their feet. In
      this painful attitude their naked bodies were torn with scourges,
      or burnt in the most tender parts with red-hot plates of iron.
      The amputation of the ears the nose, the tongue, and the right
      hand, was inflicted by the Arians; and although the precise
      number cannot be defined, it is evident that many persons, among
      whom a bishop 103 and a proconsul 104 may be named, were entitled
      to the crown of martyrdom. The same honor has been ascribed to
      the memory of Count Sebastian, who professed the Nicene creed
      with unshaken constancy; and Genseric might detest, as a heretic,
      the brave and ambitious fugitive whom he dreaded as a rival. 105
      VI. A new mode of conversion, which might subdue the feeble, and
      alarm the timorous, was employed by the Arian ministers. They
      imposed, by fraud or violence, the rites of baptism; and punished
      the apostasy of the Catholics, if they disclaimed this odious and
      profane ceremony, which scandalously violated the freedom of the
      will, and the unity of the sacrament. 106 The hostile sects had
      formerly allowed the validity of each other’s baptism; and the
      innovation, so fiercely maintained by the Vandals, can be imputed
      only to the example and advice of the Donatists. VII. The Arian
      clergy surpassed in religious cruelty the king and his Vandals;
      but they were incapable of cultivating the spiritual vineyard,
      which they were so desirous to possess. A patriarch 107 might
      seat himself on the throne of Carthage; some bishops, in the
      principal cities, might usurp the place of their rivals; but the
      smallness of their numbers, and their ignorance of the Latin
      language, 108 disqualified the Barbarians for the ecclesiastical
      ministry of a great church; and the Africans, after the loss of
      their orthodox pastors, were deprived of the public exercise of
      Christianity. VIII. The emperors were the natural protectors of
      the Homoousian doctrine; and the faithful people of Africa, both
      as Romans and as Catholics, preferred their lawful sovereignty to
      the usurpation of the Barbarous heretics. During an interval of
      peace and friendship, Hunneric restored the cathedral of
      Carthage; at the intercession of Zeno, who reigned in the East,
      and of Placidia, the daughter and relict of emperors, and the
      sister of the queen of the Vandals. 109 But this decent regard
      was of short duration; and the haughty tyrant displayed his
      contempt for the religion of the empire, by studiously arranging
      the bloody images of persecution, in all the principal streets
      through which the Roman ambassador must pass in his way to the
      palace. 110 An oath was required from the bishops, who were
      assembled at Carthage, that they would support the succession of
      his son Hilderic, and that they would renounce all foreign or
      transmarine correspondence. This engagement, consistent, as it
      should seem, with their moral and religious duties, was refused
      by the more sagacious members 111 of the assembly. Their refusal,
      faintly colored by the pretence that it is unlawful for a
      Christian to swear, must provoke the suspicions of a jealous
      tyrant.

      91 (return) [ Victor, iv. 2, p. 65. Hunneric refuses the name of
      Catholics to the Homoousians. He describes, as the veri Divinae
      Majestatis cultores, his own party, who professed the faith,
      confirmed by more than a thousand bishops, in the synods of
      Rimini and Seleucia.]

      92 (return) [ Victor, ii, 1, p. 21, 22: Laudabilior... videbatur.
      In the Mss which omit this word, the passage is unintelligible.
      See Ruinart Not. p. 164.]

      93 (return) [ Victor, ii. p. 22, 23. The clergy of Carthage
      called these conditions periculosoe; and they seem, indeed, to
      have been proposed as a snare to entrap the Catholic bishops.]

      94 (return) [ See the narrative of this conference, and the
      treatment of the bishops, in Victor, ii. 13-18, p. 35-42 and the
      whole fourth book p. 63-171. The third book, p. 42-62, is
      entirely filled by their apology or confession of faith.]

      95 (return) [ See the list of the African bishops, in Victor, p.
      117-140, and Ruinart’s notes, p. 215-397. The schismatic name of
      Donatus frequently occurs, and they appear to have adopted (like
      our fanatics of the last age) the pious appellations of Deodatus,
      Deogratias, Quidvultdeus, Habetdeum, &c. Note: These names appear
      to have been introduced by the Donatists.—M.]

      96 (return) [ Fulgent. Vit. c. 16-29. Thrasimund affected the
      praise of moderation and learning; and Fulgentius addressed three
      books of controversy to the Arian tyrant, whom he styles piissime
      Rex. Biblioth. Maxim. Patrum, tom. ix. p. 41. Only sixty bishops
      are mentioned as exiles in the life of Fulgentius; they are
      increased to one hundred and twenty by Victor Tunnunensis and
      Isidore; but the number of two hundred and twenty is specified in
      the Historia Miscella, and a short authentic chronicle of the
      times. See Ruinart, p. 570, 571.]

      97 (return) [ See the base and insipid epigrams of the Stoic, who
      could not support exile with more fortitude than Ovid. Corsica
      might not produce corn, wine, or oil; but it could not be
      destitute of grass, water, and even fire.]

      98 (return) [ Si ob gravitatem coeli interissent vile damnum.
      Tacit. Annal. ii. 85. In this application, Thrasimund would have
      adopted the reading of some critics, utile damnum.]

      99 (return) [ See these preludes of a general persecution, in
      Victor, ii. 3, 4, 7 and the two edicts of Hunneric, l. ii. p. 35,
      l. iv. p. 64.]

      100 (return) [ See Procopius de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 7, p. 197,
      198. A Moorish prince endeavored to propitiate the God of the
      Christians, by his diligence to erase the marks of the Vandal
      sacrilege.]

      101 (return) [ See this story in Victor. ii. 8-12, p. 30-34.
      Victor describes the distress of these confessors as an
      eye-witness.]

      102 (return) [ See the fifth book of Victor. His passionate
      complaints are confirmed by the sober testimony of Procopius, and
      the public declaration of the emperor Justinian. Cod. l. i. tit.
      xxvii.]

      103 (return) [ Victor, ii. 18, p. 41.]

      104 (return) [ Victor, v. 4, p. 74, 75. His name was Victorianus,
      and he was a wealthy citizen of Adrumetum, who enjoyed the
      confidence of the king; by whose favor he had obtained the
      office, or at least the title, of proconsul of Africa.]

      105 (return) [ Victor, i. 6, p. 8, 9. After relating the firm
      resistance and dexterous reply of Count Sebastian, he adds, quare
      alio generis argumento postea bellicosum virum eccidit.]

      106 (return) [ Victor, v. 12, 13. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom.
      vi. p. 609.]

      107 (return) [ Primate was more properly the title of the bishop
      of Carthage; but the name of patriarch was given by the sects and
      nations to their principal ecclesiastic. See Thomassin,
      Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p. 155, 158.]

      108 (return) [ The patriarch Cyrila himself publicly declared,
      that he did not understand Latin (Victor, ii. 18, p. 42:) Nescio
      Latine; and he might converse with tolerable ease, without being
      capable of disputing or preaching in that language. His Vandal
      clergy were still more ignorant; and small confidence could be
      placed in the Africans who had conformed.]

      109 (return) [ Victor, ii. 1, 2, p. 22.]

      110 (return) [ Victor, v. 7, p. 77. He appeals to the ambassador
      himself, whose name was Uranius.]

      111 (return) [ Astutiores, Victor, iv. 4, p. 70. He plainly
      intimates that their quotation of the gospel “Non jurabitis in
      toto,“ was only meant to elude the obligation of an inconvenient
      oath. The forty-six bishops who refused were banished to Corsica;
      the three hundred and two who swore were distributed through the
      provinces of Africa.]




      Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To
      Christianity.—Part IV.

      The Catholics, oppressed by royal and military force, were far
      superior to their adversaries in numbers and learning. With the
      same weapons which the Greek 112 and Latin fathers had already
      provided for the Arian controversy, they repeatedly silenced, or
      vanquished, the fierce and illiterate successors of Ulphilas. The
      consciousness of their own superiority might have raised them
      above the arts and passions of religious warfare. Yet, instead of
      assuming such honorable pride, the orthodox theologians were
      tempted, by the assurance of impunity, to compose fictions, which
      must be stigmatized with the epithets of fraud and forgery. They
      ascribed their own polemical works to the most venerable names of
      Christian antiquity; the characters of Athanasius and Augustin
      were awkwardly personated by Vigilius and his disciples; 113 and
      the famous creed, which so clearly expounds the mysteries of the
      Trinity and the Incarnation, is deduced, with strong probability,
      from this African school. 114 Even the Scriptures themselves were
      profaned by their rash and sacrilegious hands. The memorable
      text, which asserts the unity of the three who bear witness in
      heaven, 115 is condemned by the universal silence of the orthodox
      fathers, ancient versions, and authentic manuscripts. 116 It was
      first alleged by the Catholic bishops whom Hunneric summoned to
      the conference of Carthage. 117 An allegorical interpretation, in
      the form, perhaps, of a marginal note, invaded the text of the
      Latin Bibles, which were renewed and corrected in a dark period
      of ten centuries. 118 After the invention of printing, 119 the
      editors of the Greek Testament yielded to their own prejudices,
      or those of the times; 120 and the pious fraud, which was
      embraced with equal zeal at Rome and at Geneva, has been
      infinitely multiplied in every country and every language of
      modern Europe.

      112 (return) [ Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspae, in the Byzacene
      province, was of a senatorial family, and had received a liberal
      education. He could repeat all Homer and Menander before he was
      allowed to study Latin his native tongue, (Vit. Fulgent. c. l.)
      Many African bishops might understand Greek, and many Greek
      theologians were translated into Latin.]

      113 (return) [ Compare the two prefaces to the Dialogue of
      Vigilius of Thapsus, (p. 118, 119, edit. Chiflet.) He might amuse
      his learned reader with an innocent fiction; but the subject was
      too grave, and the Africans were too ignorant.]

      114 (return) [ The P. Quesnel started this opinion, which has
      been favorably received. But the three following truths, however
      surprising they may seem, are now universally acknowledged,
      (Gerard Vossius, tom. vi. p. 516-522. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles.
      tom. viii. p. 667-671.) 1. St. Athanasius is not the author of
      the creed which is so frequently read in our churches. 2. It does
      not appear to have existed within a century after his death. 3.
      It was originally composed in the Latin tongue, and, consequently
      in the Western provinces. Gennadius patriarch of Constantinople,
      was so much amazed by this extraordinary composition, that he
      frankly pronounced it to be the work of a drunken man. Petav.
      Dogmat. Theologica, tom. ii. l. vii. c. 8, p. 687.]

      115 (return) [ 1 John, v. 7. See Simon, Hist. Critique du Nouveau
      Testament, part i. c. xviii. p. 203-218; and part ii. c. ix. p.
      99-121; and the elaborate Prolegomena and Annotations of Dr. Mill
      and Wetstein to their editions of the Greek Testament. In 1689,
      the papist Simon strove to be free; in 1707, the Protestant Mill
      wished to be a slave; in 1751, the Armenian Wetstein used the
      liberty of his times, and of his sect. * Note: This controversy
      has continued to be agitated, but with declining interest even in
      the more religious part of the community; and may now be
      considered to have terminated in an almost general acquiescence
      of the learned to the conclusions of Porson in his Letters to
      Travis. See the pamphlets of the late Bishop of Salisbury and of
      Crito Cantabrigiensis, Dr. Turton of Cambridge.—M.]

      116 (return) [ Of all the Mss. now extant, above fourscore in
      number, some of which are more than 1200 years old, (Wetstein ad
      loc.) The orthodox copies of the Vatican, of the Complutensian
      editors, of Robert Stephens, are become invisible; and the two
      Mss. of Dublin and Berlin are unworthy to form an exception. See
      Emlyn’s Works, vol. ii. p 227-255, 269-299; and M. de Missy’s
      four ingenious letters, in tom. viii. and ix. of the Journal
      Britannique.]

      117 (return) [ Or, more properly, by the four bishops who
      composed and published the profession of faith in the name of
      their brethren. They styled this text, luce clarius, (Victor
      Vitensis de Persecut. Vandal. l. iii. c. 11, p. 54.) It is quoted
      soon afterwards by the African polemics, Vigilius and
      Fulgentius.]

      118 (return) [ In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Bibles
      were corrected by Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, and by
      Nicholas, cardinal and librarian of the Roman church, secundum
      orthodoxam fidem, (Wetstein, Prolegom. p. 84, 85.)
      Notwithstanding these corrections, the passage is still wanting
      in twenty-five Latin Mss., (Wetstein ad loc.,) the oldest and the
      fairest; two qualities seldom united, except in manuscripts.]

      119 (return) [ The art which the Germans had invented was applied
      in Italy to the profane writers of Rome and Greece. The original
      Greek of the New Testament was published about the same time
      (A.D. 1514, 1516, 1520,) by the industry of Erasmus, and the
      munificence of Cardinal Ximenes. The Complutensian Polyglot cost
      the cardinal 50,000 ducats. See Mattaire, Annal. Typograph. tom.
      ii. p. 2-8, 125-133; and Wetstein, Prolegomena, p. 116-127.]

      120 (return) [ The three witnesses have been established in our
      Greek Testaments by the prudence of Erasmus; the honest bigotry
      of the Complutensian editors; the typographical fraud, or error,
      of Robert Stephens, in the placing a crotchet; and the deliberate
      falsehood, or strange misapprehension, of Theodore Beza.]

      The example of fraud must excite suspicion: and the specious
      miracles by which the African Catholics have defended the truth
      and justice of their cause, may be ascribed, with more reason, to
      their own industry, than to the visible protection of Heaven. Yet
      the historian, who views this religious conflict with an
      impartial eye, may condescend to mention one preternatural event,
      which will edify the devout, and surprise the incredulous.
      Tipasa, 121 a maritime colony of Mauritania, sixteen miles to the
      east of Caesarea, had been distinguished, in every age, by the
      orthodox zeal of its inhabitants. They had braved the fury of the
      Donatists; 122 they resisted, or eluded, the tyranny of the
      Arians. The town was deserted on the approach of an heretical
      bishop: most of the inhabitants who could procure ships passed
      over to the coast of Spain; and the unhappy remnant, refusing all
      communion with the usurper, still presumed to hold their pious,
      but illegal, assemblies. Their disobedience exasperated the
      cruelty of Hunneric. A military count was despatched from
      Carthage to Tipasa: he collected the Catholics in the Forum, and,
      in the presence of the whole province, deprived the guilty of
      their right hands and their tongues. But the holy confessors
      continued to speak without tongues; and this miracle is attested
      by Victor, an African bishop, who published a history of the
      persecution within two years after the event. 123 “If any one,“
      says Victor, “should doubt of the truth, let him repair to
      Constantinople, and listen to the clear and perfect language of
      Restitutus, the sub-deacon, one of these glorious sufferers, who
      is now lodged in the palace of the emperor Zeno, and is respected
      by the devout empress.“ At Constantinople we are astonished to
      find a cool, a learned, and unexceptionable witness, without
      interest, and without passion. Aeneas of Gaza, a Platonic
      philosopher, has accurately described his own observations on
      these African sufferers. “I saw them myself: I heard them speak:
      I diligently inquired by what means such an articulate voice
      could be formed without any organ of speech: I used my eyes to
      examine the report of my ears; I opened their mouth, and saw that
      the whole tongue had been completely torn away by the roots; an
      operation which the physicians generally suppose to be mortal.“
      124 The testimony of Aeneas of Gaza might be confirmed by the
      superfluous evidence of the emperor Justinian, in a perpetual
      edict; of Count Marcellinus, in his Chronicle of the times; and
      of Pope Gregory the First, who had resided at Constantinople, as
      the minister of the Roman pontiff. 125 They all lived within the
      compass of a century; and they all appeal to their personal
      knowledge, or the public notoriety, for the truth of a miracle,
      which was repeated in several instances, displayed on the
      greatest theatre of the world, and submitted, during a series of
      years, to the calm examination of the senses. This supernatural
      gift of the African confessors, who spoke without tongues, will
      command the assent of those, and of those only, who already
      believe, that their language was pure and orthodox. But the
      stubborn mind of an infidel, is guarded by secret, incurable
      suspicion; and the Arian, or Socinian, who has seriously rejected
      the doctrine of a Trinity, will not be shaken by the most
      plausible evidence of an Athanasian miracle.

      121 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natural. v. 1. Itinerar. Wesseling, p.
      15. Cellanius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. part ii. p. 127. This
      Tipasa (which must not be confounded with another in Numidia) was
      a town of some note since Vespasian endowed it with the right of
      Latium.]

      122 (return) [ Optatus Milevitanus de Schism. Donatist. l. ii. p.
      38.]

      123 (return) [ Victor Vitensis, v. 6, p. 76. Ruinart, p.
      483-487.]

      124 (return) [ Aeneas Gazaeus in Theophrasto, in Biblioth.
      Patrum, tom. viii. p. 664, 665. He was a Christian, and composed
      this Dialogue (the Theophrastus) on the immortality of the soul,
      and the resurrection of the body; besides twenty-five Epistles,
      still extant. See Cave, (Hist. Litteraria, p. 297,) and
      Fabricius, (Biblioth. Graec. tom. i. p. 422.)]

      125 (return) [ Justinian. Codex. l. i. tit. xxvii. Marcellin. in
      Chron. p. 45, in Thesaur. Temporum Scaliger. Procopius, de Bell.
      Vandal. l. i. c. 7. p. 196. Gregor. Magnus, Dialog. iii. 32. None
      of these witnesses have specified the number of the confessors,
      which is fixed at sixty in an old menology, (apud Ruinart. p.
      486.) Two of them lost their speech by fornication; but the
      miracle is enhanced by the singular instance of a boy who had
      never spoken before his tongue was cut out. ]

      The Vandals and the Ostrogoths persevered in the profession of
      Arianism till the final ruin of the kingdoms which they had
      founded in Africa and Italy. The Barbarians of Gaul submitted to
      the orthodox dominion of the Franks; and Spain was restored to
      the Catholic church by the voluntary conversion of the Visigoths.

      This salutary revolution 126 was hastened by the example of a
      royal martyr, whom our calmer reason may style an ungrateful
      rebel. Leovigild, the Gothic monarch of Spain, deserved the
      respect of his enemies, and the love of his subjects; the
      Catholics enjoyed a free toleration, and his Arian synods
      attempted, without much success, to reconcile their scruples by
      abolishing the unpopular rite of a second baptism. His eldest son
      Hermenegild, who was invested by his father with the royal
      diadem, and the fair principality of Boetica, contracted an
      honorable and orthodox alliance with a Merovingian princess, the
      daughter of Sigebert, king of Austrasia, and of the famous
      Brunechild. The beauteous Ingundis, who was no more than thirteen
      years of age, was received, beloved, and persecuted, in the Arian
      court of Toledo; and her religious constancy was alternately
      assaulted with blandishments and violence by Goisvintha, the
      Gothic queen, who abused the double claim of maternal authority.
      127 Incensed by her resistance, Goisvintha seized the Catholic
      princess by her long hair, inhumanly dashed her against the
      ground, kicked her till she was covered with blood, and at last
      gave orders that she should be stripped, and thrown into a basin,
      or fish-pond. 128 Love and honor might excite Hermenegild to
      resent this injurious treatment of his bride; and he was
      gradually persuaded that Ingundis suffered for the cause of
      divine truth. Her tender complaints, and the weighty arguments of
      Le ander, archbishop of Seville, accomplished his conversion and
      the heir of the Gothic monarchy was initiated in the Nicene faith
      by the solemn rites of confirmation. 129 The rash youth, inflamed
      by zeal, and perhaps by ambition, was tempted to violate the
      duties of a son and a subject; and the Catholics of Spain,
      although they could not complain of persecution, applauded his
      pious rebellion against an heretical father. The civil war was
      protracted by the long and obstinate sieges of Merida, Cordova,
      and Seville, which had strenuously espoused the party of
      Hermenegild He invited the orthodox Barbarians, the Seuvi, and
      the Franks, to the destruction of his native land; he solicited
      the dangerous aid of the Romans, who possessed Africa, and a part
      of the Spanish coast; and his holy ambassador, the archbishop
      Leander, effectually negotiated in person with the Byzantine
      court. But the hopes of the Catholics were crushed by the active
      diligence of the monarch who commanded the troops and treasures
      of Spain; and the guilty Hermenegild, after his vain attempts to
      resist or to escape, was compelled to surrender himself into the
      hands of an incensed father. Leovigild was still mindful of that
      sacred character; and the rebel, despoiled of the regal
      ornaments, was still permitted, in a decent exile, to profess the
      Catholic religion. His repeated and unsuccessful treasons at
      length provoked the indignation of the Gothic king; and the
      sentence of death, which he pronounced with apparent reluctance,
      was privately executed in the tower of Seville. The inflexible
      constancy with which he refused to accept the Arian communion, as
      the price of his safety, may excuse the honors that have been
      paid to the memory of St. Hermenegild. His wife and infant son
      were detained by the Romans in ignominious captivity; and this
      domestic misfortune tarnished the glories of Leovigild, and
      imbittered the last moments of his life.

      126 (return) [ See the two general historians of Spain, Mariana
      (Hist. de Rebus Hispaniae, tom. i. l. v. c. 12-15, p. 182-194)
      and Ferreras, (French translation, tom. ii. p. 206-247.) Mariana
      almost forgets that he is a Jesuit, to assume the style and
      spirit of a Roman classic. Ferreras, an industrious compiler,
      reviews his facts, and rectifies his chronology.]

      127 (return) [ Goisvintha successively married two kings of the
      Visigoths: Athanigild, to whom she bore Brunechild, the mother of
      Ingundis; and Leovigild, whose two sons, Hermenegild and Recared,
      were the issue of a former marriage.]

      128 (return) [ Iracundiae furore succensa, adprehensam per comam
      capitis puellam in terram conlidit, et diu calcibus verberatam,
      ac sanguins cruentatam, jussit exspoliari, et piscinae immergi.
      Greg. Turon. l. v. c. 39. in tom. ii. p. 255. Gregory is one of
      our best originals for this portion of history.]

      129 (return) [ The Catholics who admitted the baptism of heretics
      repeated the rite, or, as it was afterwards styled, the
      sacrament, of confirmation, to which they ascribed many mystic
      and marvellous prerogatives both visible and invisible. See
      Chardon. Hist. des Sacremens, tom. 1. p. 405-552.]

      His son and successor, Recared, the first Catholic king of Spain,
      had imbibed the faith of his unfortunate brother, which he
      supported with more prudence and success. Instead of revolting
      against his father, Recared patiently expected the hour of his
      death. Instead of condemning his memory, he piously supposed,
      that the dying monarch had abjured the errors of Arianism, and
      recommended to his son the conversion of the Gothic nation. To
      accomplish that salutary end, Recared convened an assembly of the
      Arian clergy and nobles, declared himself a Catholic, and
      exhorted them to imitate the example of their prince. The
      laborious interpretation of doubtful texts, or the curious
      pursuit of metaphysical arguments, would have excited an endless
      controversy; and the monarch discreetly proposed to his
      illiterate audience two substantial and visible arguments,—the
      testimony of Earth, and of Heaven. The Earth had submitted to the
      Nicene synod: the Romans, the Barbarians, and the inhabitants of
      Spain, unanimously professed the same orthodox creed; and the
      Visigoths resisted, almost alone, the consent of the Christian
      world. A superstitious age was prepared to reverence, as the
      testimony of Heaven, the preternatural cures, which were
      performed by the skill or virtue of the Catholic clergy; the
      baptismal fonts of Osset in Boetica, 130 which were spontaneously
      replenished every year, on the vigil of Easter; 131 and the
      miraculous shrine of St. Martin of Tours, which had already
      converted the Suevic prince and people of Gallicia. 132 The
      Catholic king encountered some difficulties on this important
      change of the national religion. A conspiracy, secretly fomented
      by the queen-dowager, was formed against his life; and two counts
      excited a dangerous revolt in the Narbonnese Gaul. But Recared
      disarmed the conspirators, defeated the rebels, and executed
      severe justice; which the Arians, in their turn, might brand with
      the reproach of persecution. Eight bishops, whose names betray
      their Barbaric origin, abjured their errors; and all the books of
      Arian theology were reduced to ashes, with the house in which
      they had been purposely collected. The whole body of the
      Visigoths and Suevi were allured or driven into the pale of the
      Catholic communion; the faith, at least of the rising generation,
      was fervent and sincere: and the devout liberality of the
      Barbarians enriched the churches and monasteries of Spain.
      Seventy bishops, assembled in the council of Toledo, received the
      submission of their conquerors; and the zeal of the Spaniards
      improved the Nicene creed, by declaring the procession of the
      Holy Ghost from the Son, as well as from the Father; a weighty
      point of doctrine, which produced, long afterwards, the schism of
      the Greek and Latin churches. 133 The royal proselyte immediately
      saluted and consulted Pope Gregory, surnamed the Great, a learned
      and holy prelate, whose reign was distinguished by the conversion
      of heretics and infidels. The ambassadors of Recared respectfully
      offered on the threshold of the Vatican his rich presents of gold
      and gems; they accepted, as a lucrative exchange, the hairs of
      St. John the Baptist; a cross, which enclosed a small piece of
      the true wood; and a key, that contained some particles of iron
      which had been scraped from the chains of St. Peter. 134

      130 (return) [ Osset, or Julia Constantia, was opposite to
      Seville, on the northern side of the Boetis, (Plin. Hist. Natur.
      iii. 3:) and the authentic reference of Gregory of Tours (Hist.
      Francor. l. vi. c. 43, p. 288) deserves more credit than the name
      of Lusitania, (de Gloria Martyr. c. 24,) which has been eagerly
      embraced by the vain and superstitious Portuguese, (Ferreras,
      Hist. d’Espagne, tom. ii. p. 166.)]

      131 (return) [ This miracle was skilfully performed. An Arian
      king sealed the doors, and dug a deep trench round the church,
      without being able to intercept the Easter supply of baptismal
      water.]

      132 (return) [ Ferreras (tom. ii. p. 168-175, A.D. 550) has
      illustrated the difficulties which regard the time and
      circumstances of the conversion of the Suevi. They had been
      recently united by Leovigild to the Gothic monarchy of Spain.]

      133 (return) [ This addition to the Nicene, or rather the
      Constantinopolitan creed, was first made in the eighth council of
      Toledo, A.D. 653; but it was expressive of the popular doctrine,
      (Gerard Vossius, tom. vi. p. 527, de tribus Symbolis.)]

      134 (return) [ See Gregor. Magn. l. vii. epist. 126, apud
      Baronium, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 559, No. 25, 26.]

      The same Gregory, the spiritual conqueror of Britain, encouraged
      the pious Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, to propagate the
      Nicene faith among the victorious savages, whose recent
      Christianity was polluted by the Arian heresy. Her devout labors
      still left room for the industry and success of future
      missionaries; and many cities of Italy were still disputed by
      hostile bishops. But the cause of Arianism was gradually
      suppressed by the weight of truth, of interest, and of example;
      and the controversy, which Egypt had derived from the Platonic
      school, was terminated, after a war of three hundred years, by
      the final conversion of the Lombards of Italy. 135

      135 (return) [ Paul Warnefrid (de Gestis Langobard. l. iv. c. 44,
      p. 153, edit Grot.) allows that Arianism still prevailed under
      the reign of Rotharis, (A.D. 636-652.) The pious deacon does not
      attempt to mark the precise era of the national conversion, which
      was accomplished, however, before the end of the seventh
      century.]

      The first missionaries who preached the gospel to the Barbarians,
      appealed to the evidence of reason, and claimed the benefit of
      toleration. 136 But no sooner had they established their
      spiritual dominion, than they exhorted the Christian kings to
      extirpate, without mercy, the remains of Roman or Barbaric
      superstition. The successors of Clovis inflicted one hundred
      lashes on the peasants who refused to destroy their idols; the
      crime of sacrificing to the demons was punished by the
      Anglo-Saxon laws with the heavier penalties of imprisonment and
      confiscation; and even the wise Alfred adopted, as an
      indispensable duty, the extreme rigor of the Mosaic institutions.
      137 But the punishment and the crime were gradually abolished
      among a Christian people; the theological disputes of the schools
      were suspended by propitious ignorance; and the intolerant spirit
      which could find neither idolaters nor heretics, was reduced to
      the persecution of the Jews. That exiled nation had founded some
      synagogues in the cities of Gaul; but Spain, since the time of
      Hadrian, was filled with their numerous colonies. 138 The wealth
      which they accumulated by trade, and the management of the
      finances, invited the pious avarice of their masters; and they
      might be oppressed without danger, as they had lost the use, and
      even the remembrance, of arms. Sisebut, a Gothic king, who
      reigned in the beginning of the seventh century, proceeded at
      once to the last extremes of persecution. 139 Ninety thousand
      Jews were compelled to receive the sacrament of baptism; the
      fortunes of the obstinate infidels were confiscated, their bodies
      were tortured; and it seems doubtful whether they were permitted
      to abandon their native country. The excessive zeal of the
      Catholic king was moderated, even by the clergy of Spain, who
      solemnly pronounced an inconsistent sentence: that the sacraments
      should not be forcibly imposed; but that the Jews who had been
      baptized should be constrained, for the honor of the church, to
      persevere in the external practice of a religion which they
      disbelieved and detested. Their frequent relapses provoked one of
      the successors of Sisebut to banish the whole nation from his
      dominions; and a council of Toledo published a decree, that every
      Gothic king should swear to maintain this salutary edict. But the
      tyrants were unwilling to dismiss the victims, whom they
      delighted to torture, or to deprive themselves of the industrious
      slaves, over whom they might exercise a lucrative oppression. The
      Jews still continued in Spain, under the weight of the civil and
      ecclesiastical laws, which in the same country have been
      faithfully transcribed in the Code of the Inquisition. The Gothic
      kings and bishops at length discovered, that injuries will
      produce hatred, and that hatred will find the opportunity of
      revenge. A nation, the secret or professed enemies of
      Christianity, still multiplied in servitude and distress; and the
      intrigues of the Jews promoted the rapid success of the Arabian
      conquerors. 140

      136 (return) [ Quorum fidei et conversioni ita congratulatus esse
      rex perhibetur, ut nullum tamen cogeret ad Christianismum....
      Didiceret enim a doctoribus auctoribusque suae salutis, servitium
      Christi voluntarium non coactitium esse debere. Bedae Hist.
      Ecclesiastic. l. i. c. 26, p. 62, edit. Smith.]

      137 (return) [ See the Historians of France, tom. iv. p. 114; and
      Wilkins, Leges Anglo-Saxonicae, p. 11, 31. Siquis sacrificium
      immolaverit praeter Deo soli morte moriatur.]

      138 (return) [ The Jews pretend that they were introduced into
      Spain by the fleets of Solomon, and the arms of Nebuchadnezzar;
      that Hadrian transported forty thousand families of the tribe of
      Judah, and ten thousand of the tribe of Benjamin, &c. Basnage,
      Hist. des Juifs, tom. vii. c. 9, p. 240-256.]

      139 (return) [ Isidore, at that time archbishop of Seville,
      mentions, disapproves and congratulates, the zeal of Sisebut
      (Chron. Goth. p. 728.) Barosins (A.D. 614, No. 41) assigns the
      number of the evidence of Almoin, (l. iv. c. 22;) but the
      evidence is weak, and I have not been able to verify the
      quotation, (Historians of France, tom. iii. p. 127.)]

      140 (return) [ Basnage (tom. viii. c. 13, p. 388-400) faithfully
      represents the state of the Jews; but he might have added from
      the canons of the Spanish councils, and the laws of the
      Visigoths, many curious circumstances, essential to his subject,
      though they are foreign to mine. * Note: Compare Milman, Hist. of
      Jews iii. 256—M]

      As soon as the Barbarians withdrew their powerful support, the
      unpopular heresy of Arius sunk into contempt and oblivion. But
      the Greeks still retained their subtle and loquacious
      disposition: the establishment of an obscure doctrine suggested
      new questions, and new disputes; and it was always in the power
      of an ambitious prelate, or a fanatic monk, to violate the peace
      of the church, and, perhaps, of the empire. The historian of the
      empire may overlook those disputes which were confined to the
      obscurity of schools and synods. The Manichaeans, who labored to
      reconcile the religions of Christ and of Zoroaster, had secretly
      introduced themselves into the provinces: but these foreign
      sectaries were involved in the common disgrace of the Gnostics,
      and the Imperial laws were executed by the public hatred. The
      rational opinions of the Pelagians were propagated from Britain
      to Rome, Africa, and Palestine, and silently expired in a
      superstitious age. But the East was distracted by the Nestorian
      and Eutychian controversies; which attempted to explain the
      mystery of the incarnation, and hastened the ruin of Christianity
      in her native land. These controversies were first agitated under
      the reign of the younger Theodosius: but their important
      consequences extend far beyond the limits of the present volume.
      The metaphysical chain of argument, the contests of
      ecclesiastical ambition, and their political influence on the
      decline of the Byzantine empire, may afford an interesting and
      instructive series of history, from the general councils of
      Ephesus and Chalcedon, to the conquest of the East by the
      successors of Mahomet.




      Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part I.

     Reign And Conversion Of Clovis.—His Victories Over The Alemanni,
     Burgundians, And Visigoths.—Establishment Of The French Monarchy
     In Gaul.—Laws Of The Barbarians.—State Of The Romans.—The
     Visigoths Of Spain.—Conquest Of Britain By The Saxons.

      The Gauls, 1 who impatiently supported the Roman yoke, received a
      memorable lesson from one of the lieutenants of Vespasian, whose
      weighty sense has been refined and expressed by the genius of
      Tacitus. 2 “The protection of the republic has delivered Gaul
      from internal discord and foreign invasions. By the loss of
      national independence, you have acquired the name and privileges
      of Roman citizens. You enjoy, in common with yourselves, the
      permanent benefits of civil government; and your remote situation
      is less exposed to the accidental mischiefs of tyranny. Instead
      of exercising the rights of conquest, we have been contented to
      impose such tributes as are requisite for your own preservation.
      Peace cannot be secured without armies; and armies must be
      supported at the expense of the people. It is for your sake, not
      for our own, that we guard the barrier of the Rhine against the
      ferocious Germans, who have so often attempted, and who will
      always desire, to exchange the solitude of their woods and
      morasses for the wealth and fertility of Gaul. The fall of Rome
      would be fatal to the provinces; and you would be buried in the
      ruins of that mighty fabric, which has been raised by the valor
      and wisdom of eight hundred years. Your imaginary freedom would
      be insulted and oppressed by a savage master; and the expulsion
      of the Romans would be succeeded by the eternal hostilities of
      the Barbarian conquerors.“ 3 This salutary advice was accepted,
      and this strange prediction was accomplished. In the space of
      four hundred years, the hardy Gauls, who had encountered the arms
      of Caesar, were imperceptibly melted into the general mass of
      citizens and subjects: the Western empire was dissolved; and the
      Germans, who had passed the Rhine, fiercely contended for the
      possession of Gaul, and excited the contempt, or abhorrence, of
      its peaceful and polished inhabitants. With that conscious pride
      which the preeminence of knowledge and luxury seldom fails to
      inspire, they derided the hairy and gigantic savages of the
      North; their rustic manners, dissonant joy, voracious appetite,
      and their horrid appearance, equally disgusting to the sight and
      to the smell. The liberal studies were still cultivated in the
      schools of Autun and Bordeaux; and the language of Cicero and
      Virgil was familiar to the Gallic youth. Their ears were
      astonished by the harsh and unknown sounds of the Germanic
      dialect, and they ingeniously lamented that the trembling muses
      fled from the harmony of a Burgundian lyre. The Gauls were
      endowed with all the advantages of art and nature; but as they
      wanted courage to defend them, they were justly condemned to
      obey, and even to flatter, the victorious Barbarians, by whose
      clemency they held their precarious fortunes and their lives. 4

      1 (return) [ In this chapter I shall draw my quotations from the
      Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, Paris,
      1738-1767, in eleven volumes in folio. By the labor of Dom
      Bouquet, and the other Benedictines, all the original
      testimonies, as far as A.D. 1060, are disposed in chronological
      order, and illustrated with learned notes. Such a national work,
      which will be continued to the year 1500, might provoke our
      emulation.]

      2 (return) [ Tacit. Hist. iv. 73, 74, in tom. i. p. 445. To
      abridge Tacitus would indeed be presumptuous; but I may select
      the general ideas which he applies to the present state and
      future revelations of Gaul.]

      3 (return) [ Eadem semper causa Germanis transcendendi in Gallias
      libido atque avaritiae et mutandae sedis amor; ut relictis
      paludibus et solitudinibus, suis, fecundissimum hoc solum vosque
      ipsos possiderent.... Nam pulsis Romanis quid aliud quam bella
      omnium inter se gentium exsistent?]

      4 (return) [ Sidonius Apollinaris ridicules, with affected wit
      and pleasantry, the hardships of his situation, (Carm. xii. in
      tom. i. p. 811.)]

      As soon as Odoacer had extinguished the Western empire, he sought
      the friendship of the most powerful of the Barbarians. The new
      sovereign of Italy resigned to Euric, king of the Visigoths, all
      the Roman conquests beyond the Alps, as far as the Rhine and the
      Ocean: 5 and the senate might confirm this liberal gift with some
      ostentation of power, and without any real loss of revenue and
      dominion. The lawful pretensions of Euric were justified by
      ambition and success; and the Gothic nation might aspire, under
      his command, to the monarchy of Spain and Gaul. Arles and
      Marseilles surrendered to his arms: he oppressed the freedom of
      Auvergne; and the bishop condescended to purchase his recall from
      exile by a tribute of just, but reluctant praise. Sidonius waited
      before the gates of the palace among a crowd of ambassadors and
      suppliants; and their various business at the court of Bordeaux
      attested the power, and the renown, of the king of the Visigoths.
      The Heruli of the distant ocean, who painted their naked bodies
      with its coerulean color, implored his protection; and the Saxons
      respected the maritime provinces of a prince, who was destitute
      of any naval force. The tall Burgundians submitted to his
      authority; nor did he restore the captive Franks, till he had
      imposed on that fierce nation the terms of an unequal peace. The
      Vandals of Africa cultivated his useful friendship; and the
      Ostrogoths of Pannonia were supported by his powerful aid against
      the oppression of the neighboring Huns. The North (such are the
      lofty strains of the poet) was agitated or appeased by the nod of
      Euric; the great king of Persia consulted the oracle of the West;
      and the aged god of the Tyber was protected by the swelling
      genius of the Garonne. 6 The fortune of nations has often
      depended on accidents; and France may ascribe her greatness to
      the premature death of the Gothic king, at a time when his son
      Alaric was a helpless infant, and his adversary Clovis 7 an
      ambitious and valiant youth.

      5 (return) [ See Procopius de Bell. Gothico, l. i. c. 12, in tom.
      ii. p. 81. The character of Grotius inclines me to believe, that
      he has not substituted the Rhine for the Rhone (Hist. Gothorum,
      p. 175) without the authority of some Ms.]

      6 (return) [ Sidonius, l. viii. epist. 3, 9, in tom. i. p. 800.
      Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 47 p. 680) justifies, in some
      measure, this portrait of the Gothic hero.]

      7 (return) [ I use the familiar appellation of Clovis, from the
      Latin Chlodovechus, or Chlodovoeus. But the Ch expresses only the
      German aspiration, and the true name is not different from Lewis,
      (Mem. de ‘Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xx. p. 68.)]

      While Childeric, the father of Clovis, lived an exile in Germany,
      he was hospitably entertained by the queen, as well as by the
      king, of the Thuringians. After his restoration, Basina escaped
      from her husband’s bed to the arms of her lover; freely
      declaring, that if she had known a man wiser, stronger, or more
      beautiful, than Childeric, that man should have been the object
      of her preference. 8 9 Clovis was the offspring of this voluntary
      union; and, when he was no more than fifteen years of age, he
      succeeded, by his father’s death, to the command of the Salian
      tribe. The narrow limits of his kingdom were confined to the
      island of the Batavians, with the ancient dioceses of Tournay and
      Arras; 10 and at the baptism of Clovis the number of his warriors
      could not exceed five thousand. The kindred tribes of the Franks,
      who had seated themselves along the Belgic rivers, the Scheld,
      the Meuse, the Moselle, and the Rhine, were governed by their
      independent kings, of the Merovingian race; the equals, the
      allies, and sometimes the enemies of the Salic prince. But the
      Germans, who obeyed, in peace, the hereditary jurisdiction of
      their chiefs, were free to follow the standard of a popular and
      victorious general; and the superior merit of Clovis attracted
      the respect and allegiance of the national confederacy. When he
      first took the field, he had neither gold and silver in his
      coffers, nor wine and corn in his magazine; 11 but he imitated
      the example of Caesar, who, in the same country, had acquired
      wealth by the sword, and purchased soldiers with the fruits of
      conquest. After each successful battle or expedition, the spoils
      were accumulated in one common mass; every warrior received his
      proportionable share; and the royal prerogative submitted to the
      equal regulations of military law. The untamed spirit of the
      Barbarians was taught to acknowledge the advantages of regular
      discipline. 12 At the annual review of the month of March, their
      arms were diligently inspected; and when they traversed a
      peaceful territory, they were prohibited from touching a blade of
      grass. The justice of Clovis was inexorable; and his careless or
      disobedient soldiers were punished with instant death. It would
      be superfluous to praise the valor of a Frank; but the valor of
      Clovis was directed by cool and consummate prudence. 13 In all
      his transactions with mankind, he calculated the weight of
      interest, of passion, and of opinion; and his measures were
      sometimes adapted to the sanguinary manners of the Germans, and
      sometimes moderated by the milder genius of Rome, and
      Christianity. He was intercepted in the career of victory, since
      he died in the forty-fifth year of his age: but he had already
      accomplished, in a reign of thirty years, the establishment of
      the French monarchy in Gaul.

      8 (return) [ Greg. l. ii. c. 12, in tom. i. p. 168. Basina speaks
      the language of nature; the Franks, who had seen her in their
      youth, might converse with Gregory in their old age; and the
      bishop of Tours could not wish to defame the mother of the first
      Christian king.]

      9 (return) [ The Abbe Dubos (Hist. Critique de l’Etablissement de
      la Monarchie Francoise dans les Gaules, tom. i. p. 630-650) has
      the merit of defining the primitive kingdom of Clovis, and of
      ascertaining the genuine number of his subjects.]

      10 (return) [ Ecclesiam incultam ac negligentia civium Paganorum
      praetermis sam, veprium densitate oppletam, &c. Vit. St. Vedasti,
      in tom. iii. p. 372. This description supposes that Arras was
      possessed by the Pagans many years before the baptism of Clovis.]

      11 (return) [ Gregory of Tours (l v. c. i. tom. ii. p. 232)
      contrasts the poverty of Clovis with the wealth of his grandsons.
      Yet Remigius (in tom. iv. p. 52) mentions his paternas opes, as
      sufficient for the redemption of captives.]

      12 (return) [ See Gregory, (l. ii. c. 27, 37, in tom. ii. p. 175,
      181, 182.) The famous story of the vase of Soissons explains both
      the power and the character of Clovis. As a point of controversy,
      it has been strangely tortured by Boulainvilliers Dubos, and the
      other political antiquarians.]

      13 (return) [ The duke of Nivernois, a noble statesman, who has
      managed weighty and delicate negotiations, ingeniously
      illustrates (Mem. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. xx. p.
      147-184) the political system of Clovis.]

      The first exploit of Clovis was the defeat of Syagrius, the son
      of Aegidius; and the public quarrel might, on this occasion, be
      inflamed by private resentment. The glory of the father still
      insulted the Merovingian race; the power of the son might excite
      the jealous ambition of the king of the Franks. Syagrius
      inherited, as a patrimonial estate, the city and diocese of
      Soissons: the desolate remnant of the second Belgic, Rheims and
      Troyes, Beauvais and Amiens, would naturally submit to the count
      or patrician: 14 and after the dissolution of the Western empire,
      he might reign with the title, or at least with the authority, of
      king of the Romans. 15 As a Roman, he had been educated in the
      liberal studies of rhetoric and jurisprudence; but he was engaged
      by accident and policy in the familiar use of the Germanic idiom.
      The independent Barbarians resorted to the tribunal of a
      stranger, who possessed the singular talent of explaining, in
      their native tongue, the dictates of reason and equity. The
      diligence and affability of their judge rendered him popular, the
      impartial wisdom of his decrees obtained their voluntary
      obedience, and the reign of Syagrius over the Franks and
      Burgundians seemed to revive the original institution of civil
      society. 16 In the midst of these peaceful occupations, Syagrius
      received, and boldly accepted, the hostile defiance of Clovis;
      who challenged his rival in the spirit, and almost in the
      language, of chivalry, to appoint the day and the field 17 of
      battle. In the time of Caesar Soissons would have poured forth a
      body of fifty thousand horse and such an army might have been
      plentifully supplied with shields, cuirasses, and military
      engines, from the three arsenals or manufactures of the city. 18
      But the courage and numbers of the Gallic youth were long since
      exhausted; and the loose bands of volunteers, or mercenaries, who
      marched under the standard of Syagrius, were incapable of
      contending with the national valor of the Franks. It would be
      ungenerous without some more accurate knowledge of his strength
      and resources, to condemn the rapid flight of Syagrius, who
      escaped, after the loss of a battle, to the distant court of
      Thoulouse. The feeble minority of Alaric could not assist or
      protect an unfortunate fugitive; the pusillanimous 19 Goths were
      intimidated by the menaces of Clovis; and the Roman king, after a
      short confinement, was delivered into the hands of the
      executioner. The Belgic cities surrendered to the king of the
      Franks; and his dominions were enlarged towards the East by the
      ample diocese of Tongres 20 which Clovis subdued in the tenth
      year of his reign.

      14 (return) [ M. Biet (in a Dissertation which deserved the prize
      of the Academy of Soissons, p. 178-226,) has accurately defined
      the nature and extent of the kingdom of Syagrius and his father;
      but he too readily allows the slight evidence of Dubos (tom. ii.
      p. 54-57) to deprive him of Beauvais and Amiens.]

      15 (return) [ I may observe that Fredegarius, in his epitome of
      Gregory of Tours, (tom. ii. p. 398,) has prudently substituted
      the name of Patricius for the incredible title of Rex Romanorum.]

      16 (return) [ Sidonius, (l. v. Epist. 5, in tom. i. p. 794,) who
      styles him the Solon, the Amphion, of the Barbarians, addresses
      this imaginary king in the tone of friendship and equality. From
      such offices of arbitration, the crafty Dejoces had raised
      himself to the throne of the Medes, (Herodot. l. i. c. 96-100.)]

      17 (return) [ Campum sibi praeparari jussit. M. Biet (p. 226-251)
      has diligently ascertained this field of battle, at Nogent, a
      Benedictine abbey, about ten miles to the north of Soissons. The
      ground was marked by a circle of Pagan sepulchres; and Clovis
      bestowed the adjacent lands of Leully and Coucy on the church of
      Rheims.]

      18 (return) [ See Caesar. Comment. de Bell. Gallic. ii. 4, in
      tom. i. p. 220, and the Notitiae, tom. i. p. 126. The three
      Fabricae of Soissons were, Seutaria, Balistaria, and Clinabaria.
      The last supplied the complete armor of the heavy cuirassiers.]

      19 (return) [ The epithet must be confined to the circumstances;
      and history cannot justify the French prejudice of Gregory, (l.
      ii. c. 27, in tom. ii. p. 175,) ut Gothorum pavere mos est.]

      20 (return) [ Dubos has satisfied me (tom. i. p. 277-286) that
      Gregory of Tours, his transcribers, or his readers, have
      repeatedly confounded the German kingdom of Thuringia, beyond the
      Rhine, and the Gallic city of Tongria, on the Meuse, which was
      more anciently the country of the Eburones, and more recently the
      diocese of Liege.]

      The name of the Alemanni has been absurdly derived from their
      imaginary settlement on the banks of the Leman Lake. 21 That
      fortunate district, from the lake to the Avenche, and Mount Jura,
      was occupied by the Burgundians. 22 The northern parts of
      Helvetia had indeed been subdued by the ferocious Alemanni, who
      destroyed with their own hands the fruits of their conquest. A
      province, improved and adorned by the arts of Rome, was again
      reduced to a savage wilderness; and some vestige of the stately
      Vindonissa may still be discovered in the fertile and populous
      valley of the Aar. 23 From the source of the Rhine to its conflux
      with the Mein and the Moselle, the formidable swarms of the
      Alemanni commanded either side of the river, by the right of
      ancient possession, or recent victory. They had spread themselves
      into Gaul, over the modern provinces of Alsace and Lorraine; and
      their bold invasion of the kingdom of Cologne summoned the Salic
      prince to the defence of his Ripuarian allies.

      Clovis encountered the invaders of Gaul in the plain of Tolbiac,
      about twenty-four miles from Cologne; and the two fiercest
      nations of Germany were mutually animated by the memory of past
      exploits, and the prospect of future greatness. The Franks, after
      an obstinate struggle, gave way; and the Alemanni, raising a
      shout of victory, impetuously pressed their retreat. But the
      battle was restored by the valor, and the conduct, and perhaps by
      the piety, of Clovis; and the event of the bloody day decided
      forever the alternative of empire or servitude. The last king of
      the Alemanni was slain in the field, and his people were
      slaughtered or pursued, till they threw down their arms, and
      yielded to the mercy of the conqueror. Without discipline it was
      impossible for them to rally: they had contemptuously demolished
      the walls and fortifications which might have protected their
      distress; and they were followed into the heart of their forests
      by an enemy not less active, or intrepid, than themselves. The
      great Theodoric congratulated the victory of Clovis, whose sister
      Albofleda the king of Italy had lately married; but he mildly
      interceded with his brother in favor of the suppliants and
      fugitives, who had implored his protection. The Gallic
      territories, which were possessed by the Alemanni, became the
      prize of their conqueror; and the haughty nation, invincible, or
      rebellious, to the arms of Rome, acknowledged the sovereignty of
      the Merovingian kings, who graciously permitted them to enjoy
      their peculiar manners and institutions, under the government of
      official, and, at length, of hereditary, dukes. After the
      conquest of the Western provinces, the Franks alone maintained
      their ancient habitations beyond the Rhine. They gradually
      subdued, and civilized, the exhausted countries, as far as the
      Elbe, and the mountains of Bohemia; and the peace of Europe was
      secured by the obedience of Germany. 24

      21 (return) [ Populi habitantes juxta Lemannum lacum, Alemanni
      dicuntur. Servius, ad Virgil. Georgic. iv. 278. Don Bouquet (tom.
      i. p. 817) has only alleged the more recent and corrupt text of
      Isidore of Seville.]

      22 (return) [ Gregory of Tours sends St. Lupicinus inter illa
      Jurensis deserti secreta, quae, inter Burgundiam Alamanniamque
      sita, Aventicae adja cent civitati, in tom. i. p. 648. M. de
      Watteville (Hist. de la Confederation Helvetique, tom. i. p. 9,
      10) has accurately defined the Helvetian limits of the Duchy of
      Alemannia, and the Transjurane Burgundy. They were commensurate
      with the dioceses of Constance and Avenche, or Lausanne, and are
      still discriminated, in modern Switzerland, by the use of the
      German, or French, language.]

      23 (return) [ See Guilliman de Rebus Helveticis, l i. c. 3, p.
      11, 12. Within the ancient walls of Vindonissa, the castle of
      Hapsburgh, the abbey of Konigsfield, and the town of Bruck, have
      successively risen. The philosophic traveller may compare the
      monuments of Roman conquest of feudal or Austrian tyranny, of
      monkish superstition, and of industrious freedom. If he be truly
      a philosopher, he will applaud the merit and happiness of his own
      times.]

      24 (return) [ Gregory of Tours, (l. ii. 30, 37, in tom. ii. p.
      176, 177, 182,) the Gesta Francorum, (in tom. ii. p. 551,) and
      the epistle of Theodoric, (Cassiodor. Variar. l. ii. c. 41, in
      tom. iv. p. 4,) represent the defeat of the Alemanni. Some of
      their tribes settled in Rhaetia, under the protection of
      Theodoric; whose successors ceded the colony and their country to
      the grandson of Clovis. The state of the Alemanni under the
      Merovingian kings may be seen in Mascou (Hist. of the Ancient
      Germans, xi. 8, &c. Annotation xxxvi.) and Guilliman, (de Reb.
      Helvet. l. ii. c. 10-12, p. 72-80.)]

      Till the thirtieth year of his age, Clovis continued to worship
      the gods of his ancestors. 25 His disbelief, or rather disregard,
      of Christianity, might encourage him to pillage with less remorse
      the churches of a hostile territory: but his subjects of Gaul
      enjoyed the free exercise of religious worship; and the bishops
      entertained a more favorable hope of the idolater, than of the
      heretics. The Merovingian prince had contracted a fortunate
      alliance with the fair Clotilda, the niece of the king of
      Burgundy, who, in the midst of an Arian court, was educated in
      the profession of the Catholic faith. It was her interest, as
      well as her duty, to achieve the conversion 26 of a Pagan
      husband; and Clovis insensibly listened to the voice of love and
      religion. He consented (perhaps such terms had been previously
      stipulated) to the baptism of his eldest son; and though the
      sudden death of the infant excited some superstitious fears, he
      was persuaded, a second time, to repeat the dangerous experiment.
      In the distress of the battle of Tolbiac, Clovis loudly invoked
      the God of Clotilda and the Christians; and victory disposed him
      to hear, with respectful gratitude, the eloquent 27 Remigius, 28
      bishop of Rheims, who forcibly displayed the temporal and
      spiritual advantages of his conversion. The king declared himself
      satisfied of the truth of the Catholic faith; and the political
      reasons which might have suspended his public profession, were
      removed by the devout or loyal acclamations of the Franks, who
      showed themselves alike prepared to follow their heroic leader to
      the field of battle, or to the baptismal font. The important
      ceremony was performed in the cathedral of Rheims, with every
      circumstance of magnificence and solemnity that could impress an
      awful sense of religion on the minds of its rude proselytes. 29
      The new Constantine was immediately baptized, with three thousand
      of his warlike subjects; and their example was imitated by the
      remainder of the gentle Barbarians, who, in obedience to the
      victorious prelate, adored the cross which they had burnt, and
      burnt the idols which they had formerly adored. 30 The mind of
      Clovis was susceptible of transient fervor: he was exasperated by
      the pathetic tale of the passion and death of Christ; and,
      instead of weighing the salutary consequences of that mysterious
      sacrifice, he exclaimed, with indiscreet fury, “Had I been
      present at the head of my valiant Franks, I would have revenged
      his injuries.“ 31 But the savage conqueror of Gaul was incapable
      of examining the proofs of a religion, which depends on the
      laborious investigation of historic evidence and speculative
      theology. He was still more incapable of feeling the mild
      influence of the gospel, which persuades and purifies the heart
      of a genuine convert. His ambitious reign was a perpetual
      violation of moral and Christian duties: his hands were stained
      with blood in peace as well as in war; and, as soon as Clovis had
      dismissed a synod of the Gallican church, he calmly assassinated
      all the princes of the Merovingian race. 32 Yet the king of the
      Franks might sincerely worship the Christian God, as a Being more
      excellent and powerful than his national deities; and the signal
      deliverance and victory of Tolbiac encouraged Clovis to confide
      in the future protection of the Lord of Hosts. Martin, the most
      popular of the saints, had filled the Western world with the fame
      of those miracles which were incessantly performed at his holy
      sepulchre of Tours. His visible or invisible aid promoted the
      cause of a liberal and orthodox prince; and the profane remark of
      Clovis himself, that St.Martin was an expensive friend, 33 need
      not be interpreted as the symptom of any permanent or rational
      scepticism. But earth, as well as heaven, rejoiced in the
      conversion of the Franks. On the memorable day when Clovis
      ascended from the baptismal font, he alone, in the Christian
      world, deserved the name and prerogatives of a Catholic king. The
      emperor Anastasius entertained some dangerous errors concerning
      the nature of the divine incarnation; and the Barbarians of
      Italy, Africa, Spain, and Gaul, were involved in the Arian
      heresy. The eldest, or rather the only, son of the church, was
      acknowledged by the clergy as their lawful sovereign, or glorious
      deliverer; and the armies of Clovis were strenuously supported by
      the zeal and fervor of the Catholic faction. 34

      25 (return) [ Clotilda, or rather Gregory, supposes that Clovis
      worshipped the gods of Greece and Rome. The fact is incredible,
      and the mistake only shows how completely, in less than a
      century, the national religion of the Franks had been abolished
      and even forgotten]

      26 (return) [ Gregory of Tours relates the marriage and
      conversion of Clovis, (l. ii. c. 28-31, in tom. ii. p. 175-178.)
      Even Fredegarius, or the nameless Epitomizer, (in tom. ii. p.
      398-400,) the author of the Gesta Francorum, (in tom. ii. p.
      548-552,) and Aimoin himself, (l. i. c. 13, in tom. iii. p.
      37-40,) may be heard without disdain. Tradition might long
      preserve some curious circumstances of these important
      transactions.]

      27 (return) [ A traveller, who returned from Rheims to Auvergne,
      had stolen a copy of his declamations from the secretary or
      bookseller of the modest archbishop, (Sidonius Apollinar. l. ix.
      epist. 7.) Four epistles of Remigius, which are still extant, (in
      tom. iv. p. 51, 52, 53,) do not correspond with the splendid
      praise of Sidonius.]

      28 (return) [ Hincmar, one of the successors of Remigius, (A.D.
      845-882,) had composed his life, (in tom. iii. p. 373-380.) The
      authority of ancient MSS. of the church of Rheims might inspire
      some confidence, which is destroyed, however, by the selfish and
      audacious fictions of Hincmar. It is remarkable enough, that
      Remigius, who was consecrated at the age of twenty-two, (A.D.
      457,) filled the episcopal chair seventy-four years, (Pagi
      Critica, in Baron tom. ii. p. 384, 572.)]

      29 (return) [ A phial (the Sainte Ampoulle of holy, or rather
      celestial, oil,) was brought down by a white dove, for the
      baptism of Clovis; and it is still used and renewed, in the
      coronation of the kings of France. Hincmar (he aspired to the
      primacy of Gaul) is the first author of this fable, (in tom. iii.
      p. 377,) whose slight foundations the Abbe de Vertot (Memoires de
      l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. ii. p. 619-633) has undermined,
      with profound respect and consummate dexterity.]

      30 (return) [ Mitis depone colla, Sicamber: adora quod
      incendisti, incende quod adorasti. Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 31, in
      tom. ii. p. 177.]

      31 (return) [ Si ego ibidem cum Francis meis fuissem, injurias
      ejus vindicassem. This rash expression, which Gregory has
      prudently concealed, is celebrated by Fredegarius, (Epitom. c.
      21, in tom. ii. p. 400,) Ai moin, (l. i. c. 16, in tom. iii. p.
      40,) and the Chroniques de St. Denys, (l. i. c. 20, in tom. iii.
      p. 171,) as an admirable effusion of Christian zeal.]

      32 (return) [ Gregory, (l. ii. c. 40-43, in tom. ii. p. 183-185,)
      after coolly relating the repeated crimes, and affected remorse,
      of Clovis, concludes, perhaps undesignedly, with a lesson, which
      ambition will never hear. “His ita transactis obiit.“]

      33 (return) [ After the Gothic victory, Clovis made rich
      offerings to St. Martin of Tours. He wished to redeem his
      war-horse by the gift of one hundred pieces of gold, but the
      enchanted steed could not remove from the stable till the price
      of his redemption had been doubled. This miracle provoked the
      king to exclaim, Vere B. Martinus est bonus in auxilio, sed carus
      in negotio. (Gesta Francorum, in tom. ii. p. 554, 555.)]

      34 (return) [ See the epistle from Pope Anastasius to the royal
      convert, (in Com. iv. p. 50, 51.) Avitus, bishop of Vienna,
      addressed Clovis on the same subject, (p. 49;) and many of the
      Latin bishops would assure him of their joy and attachment.]

      Under the Roman empire, the wealth and jurisdiction of the
      bishops, their sacred character, and perpetual office, their
      numerous dependants, popular eloquence, and provincial
      assemblies, had rendered them always respectable, and sometimes
      dangerous. Their influence was augmented with the progress of
      superstition; and the establishment of the French monarchy may,
      in some degree, be ascribed to the firm alliance of a hundred
      prelates, who reigned in the discontented, or independent, cities
      of Gaul. The slight foundations of the Armorican republic had
      been repeatedly shaken, or overthrown; but the same people still
      guarded their domestic freedom; asserted the dignity of the Roman
      name; and bravely resisted the predatory inroads, and regular
      attacks, of Clovis, who labored to extend his conquests from the
      Seine to the Loire. Their successful opposition introduced an
      equal and honorable union. The Franks esteemed the valor of the
      Armoricans 35 and the Armoricans were reconciled by the religion
      of the Franks. The military force which had been stationed for
      the defence of Gaul, consisted of one hundred different bands of
      cavalry or infantry; and these troops, while they assumed the
      title and privileges of Roman soldiers, were renewed by an
      incessant supply of the Barbarian youth. The extreme
      fortifications, and scattered fragments of the empire, were still
      defended by their hopeless courage. But their retreat was
      intercepted, and their communication was impracticable: they were
      abandoned by the Greek princes of Constantinople, and they
      piously disclaimed all connection with the Arian usurpers of
      Gaul. They accepted, without shame or reluctance, the generous
      capitulation, which was proposed by a Catholic hero; and this
      spurious, or legitimate, progeny of the Roman legions, was
      distinguished in the succeeding age by their arms, their ensigns,
      and their peculiar dress and institutions. But the national
      strength was increased by these powerful and voluntary
      accessions; and the neighboring kingdoms dreaded the numbers, as
      well as the spirit, of the Franks. The reduction of the Northern
      provinces of Gaul, instead of being decided by the chance of a
      single battle, appears to have been slowly effected by the
      gradual operation of war and treaty and Clovis acquired each
      object of his ambition, by such efforts, or such concessions, as
      were adequate to its real value. His savage character, and the
      virtues of Henry IV., suggest the most opposite ideas of human
      nature; yet some resemblance may be found in the situation of two
      princes, who conquered France by their valor, their policy, and
      the merits of a seasonable conversion. 36

      35 (return) [ Instead of an unknown people, who now appear on the
      text of Procopious, Hadrian de Valois has restored the proper
      name of the easy correction has been almost universally approved.
      Yet an unprejudiced reader would naturally suppose, that
      Procopius means to describe a tribe of Germans in the alliance of
      Rome; and not a confederacy of Gallic cities, which had revolted
      from the empire. * Note: Compare Hallam’s Europe during the
      Middle Ages, vol i. p. 2, Daru, Hist. de Bretagne vol. i. p.
      129—M.]

      36 (return) [ This important digression of Procopius (de Bell.
      Gothic. l. i. c. 12, in tom. ii. p. 29-36) illustrates the origin
      of the French monarchy. Yet I must observe, 1. That the Greek
      historian betrays an inexcusable ignorance of the geography of
      the West. 2. That these treaties and privileges, which should
      leave some lasting traces, are totally invisible in Gregory of
      Tours, the Salic laws, &c.]

      The kingdom of the Burgundians, which was defined by the course
      of two Gallic rivers, the Saone and the Rhone, extended from the
      forest of Vosges to the Alps and the sea of Marscilles. 37 The
      sceptre was in the hands of Gundobald. That valiant and ambitious
      prince had reduced the number of royal candidates by the death of
      two brothers, one of whom was the father of Clotilda; 38 but his
      imperfect prudence still permitted Godegisel, the youngest of his
      brothers, to possess the dependent principality of Geneva. The
      Arian monarch was justly alarmed by the satisfaction, and the
      hopes, which seemed to animate his clergy and people after the
      conversion of Clovis; and Gundobald convened at Lyons an assembly
      of his bishops, to reconcile, if it were possible, their
      religious and political discontents. A vain conference was
      agitated between the two factions. The Arians upbraided the
      Catholics with the worship of three Gods: the Catholics defended
      their cause by theological distinctions; and the usual arguments,
      objections, and replies were reverberated with obstinate clamor;
      till the king revealed his secret apprehensions, by an abrupt but
      decisive question, which he addressed to the orthodox bishops.
      “If you truly profess the Christian religion, why do you not
      restrain the king of the Franks? He has declared war against me,
      and forms alliances with my enemies for my destruction. A
      sanguinary and covetous mind is not the symptom of a sincere
      conversion: let him show his faith by his works.“ The answer of
      Avitus, bishop of Vienna, who spoke in the name of his brethren,
      was delivered with the voice and countenance of an angel. “We are
      ignorant of the motives and intentions of the king of the Franks:
      but we are taught by Scripture, that the kingdoms which abandon
      the divine law are frequently subverted; and that enemies will
      arise on every side against those who have made God their enemy.
      Return, with thy people, to the law of God, and he will give
      peace and security to thy dominions.“ The king of Burgundy, who
      was not prepared to accept the condition which the Catholics
      considered as essential to the treaty, delayed and dismissed the
      ecclesiastical conference; after reproaching his bishops, that
      Clovis, their friend and proselyte, had privately tempted the
      allegiance of his brother. 39

      37 (return) [ Regnum circa Rhodanum aut Ararim cum provincia
      Massiliensi retinebant. Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 32, in tom. ii. p.
      178. The province of Marseilles, as far as the Durance, was
      afterwards ceded to the Ostrogoths; and the signatures of
      twenty-five bishops are supposed to represent the kingdom of
      Burgundy, A.D. 519. (Concil. Epaon, in tom. iv. p. 104, 105.) Yet
      I would except Vindonissa. The bishop, who lived under the Pagan
      Alemanni, would naturally resort to the synods of the next
      Christian kingdom. Mascou (in his four first annotations) has
      explained many circumstances relative to the Burgundian
      monarchy.]

      38 (return) [ Mascou, (Hist. of the Germans, xi. 10,) who very
      reasonably distracts the testimony of Gregory of Tours, has
      produced a passage from Avitus (epist. v.) to prove that
      Gundobald affected to deplore the tragic event, which his
      subjects affected to applaud.]

      39 (return) [ See the original conference, (in tom. iv. p.
      99-102.) Avitus, the principal actor, and probably the secretary
      of the meeting, was bishop of Vienna. A short account of his
      person and works may be fouud in Dupin, (Bibliotheque
      Ecclesiastique, tom. v. p. 5-10.)]




      Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part II.

      The allegiance of his brother was already seduced; and the
      obedience of Godegisel, who joined the royal standard with the
      troops of Geneva, more effectually promoted the success of the
      conspiracy. While the Franks and Burgundians contended with equal
      valor, his seasonable desertion decided the event of the battle;
      and as Gundobald was faintly supported by the disaffected Gauls,
      he yielded to the arms of Clovis, and hastily retreated from the
      field, which appears to have been situate between Langres and
      Dijon. He distrusted the strength of Dijon, a quadrangular
      fortress, encompassed by two rivers, and by a wall thirty feet
      high, and fifteen thick, with four gates, and thirty-three
      towers: 40 he abandoned to the pursuit of Clovis the important
      cities of Lyons and Vienna; and Gundobald still fled with
      precipitation, till he had reached Avignon, at the distance of
      two hundred and fifty miles from the field of battle.

      A long siege and an artful negotiation, admonished the king of
      the Franks of the danger and difficulty of his enterprise. He
      imposed a tribute on the Burgundian prince, compelled him to
      pardon and reward his brother’s treachery, and proudly returned
      to his own dominions, with the spoils and captives of the
      southern provinces. This splendid triumph was soon clouded by the
      intelligence, that Gundobald had violated his recent obligations,
      and that the unfortunate Godegisel, who was left at Vienna with a
      garrison of five thousand Franks, 41 had been besieged,
      surprised, and massacred by his inhuman brother. Such an outrage
      might have exasperated the patience of the most peaceful
      sovereign; yet the conqueror of Gaul dissembled the injury,
      released the tribute, and accepted the alliance, and military
      service, of the king of Burgundy. Clovis no longer possessed
      those advantages which had assured the success of the preceding
      war; and his rival, instructed by adversity, had found new
      resources in the affections of his people. The Gauls or Romans
      applauded the mild and impartial laws of Gundobald, which almost
      raised them to the same level with their conquerors. The bishops
      were reconciled, and flattered, by the hopes, which he artfully
      suggested, of his approaching conversion; and though he eluded
      their accomplishment to the last moment of his life, his
      moderation secured the peace, and suspended the ruin, of the
      kingdom of Burgundy. 42

      40 (return) [ Gregory of Tours (l. iii. c. 19, in tom. ii. p.
      197) indulges his genius, or rather describes some more eloquent
      writer, in the description of Dijon; a castle, which already
      deserved the title of a city. It depended on the bishops of
      Langres till the twelfth century, and afterwards became the
      capital of the dukes of Burgundy Longuerue Description de la
      France, part i. p. 280.]

      41 (return) [ The Epitomizer of Gregory of Tours (in tom. ii. p.
      401) has supplied this number of Franks; but he rashly supposes
      that they were cut in pieces by Gundobald. The prudent Burgundian
      spared the soldiers of Clovis, and sent these captives to the
      king of the Visigoths, who settled them in the territory of
      Thoulouse.]

      42 (return) [ In this Burgundian war I have followed Gregory of
      Tours, (l. ii. c. 32, 33, in tom. ii. p. 178, 179,) whose
      narrative appears so incompatible with that of Procopius, (de
      Bell. Goth. l. i. c. 12, in tom. ii. p. 31, 32,) that some
      critics have supposed two different wars. The Abbe Dubos (Hist.
      Critique, &c., tom. ii. p. 126-162) has distinctly represented
      the causes and the events.]

      I am impatient to pursue the final ruin of that kingdom, which
      was accomplished under the reign of Sigismond, the son of
      Gundobald. The Catholic Sigismond has acquired the honors of a
      saint and martyr; 43 but the hands of the royal saint were
      stained with the blood of his innocent son, whom he inhumanly
      sacrificed to the pride and resentment of a step-mother. He soon
      discovered his error, and bewailed the irreparable loss. While
      Sigismond embraced the corpse of the unfortunate youth, he
      received a severe admonition from one of his attendants: “It is
      not his situation, O king! it is thine which deserves pity and
      lamentation.“ The reproaches of a guilty conscience were
      alleviated, however, by his liberal donations to the monastery of
      Agaunum, or St. Maurice, in Vallais; which he himself had founded
      in honor of the imaginary martyrs of the Thebaean legion. 44 A
      full chorus of perpetual psalmody was instituted by the pious
      king; he assiduously practised the austere devotion of the monks;
      and it was his humble prayer, that Heaven would inflict in this
      world the punishment of his sins. His prayer was heard: the
      avengers were at hand: and the provinces of Burgundy were
      overwhelmed by an army of victorious Franks. After the event of
      an unsuccessful battle, Sigismond, who wished to protract his
      life that he might prolong his penance, concealed himself in the
      desert in a religious habit, till he was discovered and betrayed
      by his subjects, who solicited the favor of their new masters.
      The captive monarch, with his wife and two children, was
      transported to Orleans, and buried alive in a deep well, by the
      stern command of the sons of Clovis; whose cruelty might derive
      some excuse from the maxims and examples of their barbarous age.
      Their ambition, which urged them to achieve the conquest of
      Burgundy, was inflamed, or disguised, by filial piety: and
      Clotilda, whose sanctity did not consist in the forgiveness of
      injuries, pressed them to revenge her father’s death on the
      family of his assassin. The rebellious Burgundians (for they
      attempted to break their chains) were still permitted to enjoy
      their national laws under the obligation of tribute and military
      service; and the Merovingian princes peaceably reigned over a
      kingdom, whose glory and greatness had been first overthrown by
      the arms of Clovis. 45

      43 (return) [ See his life or legend, (in tom. iii. p. 402.) A
      martyr! how strangely has that word been distorted from its
      original sense of a common witness. St. Sigismond was remarkable
      for the cure of fevers]

      44 (return) [ Before the end of the fifth century, the church of
      St. Maurice, and his Thebaean legion, had rendered Agaunum a
      place of devout pilgrimage. A promiscuous community of both sexes
      had introduced some deeds of darkness, which were abolished (A.D.
      515) by the regular monastery of Sigismond. Within fifty years,
      his angels of light made a nocturnal sally to murder their
      bishop, and his clergy. See in the Bibliotheque Raisonnee (tom.
      xxxvi. p. 435-438) the curious remarks of a learned librarian of
      Geneva.]

      45 (return) [ Marius, bishop of Avenche, (Chron. in tom. ii. p.
      15,) has marked the authentic dates, and Gregory of Tours (l.
      iii. c. 5, 6, in tom. ii. p. 188, 189) has expressed the
      principal facts, of the life of Sigismond, and the conquest of
      Burgundy. Procopius (in tom. ii. p. 34) and Agathias (in tom. ii.
      p. 49) show their remote and imperfect knowledge.]

      The first victory of Clovis had insulted the honor of the Goths.
      They viewed his rapid progress with jealousy and terror; and the
      youthful fame of Alaric was oppressed by the more potent genius
      of his rival. Some disputes inevitably arose on the edge of their
      contiguous dominions; and after the delays of fruitless
      negotiation, a personal interview of the two kings was proposed
      and accepted. The conference of Clovis and Alaric was held in a
      small island of the Loire, near Amboise. They embraced,
      familiarly conversed, and feasted together; and separated with
      the warmest professions of peace and brotherly love. But their
      apparent confidence concealed a dark suspicion of hostile and
      treacherous designs; and their mutual complaints solicited,
      eluded, and disclaimed, a final arbitration. At Paris, which he
      already considered as his royal seat, Clovis declared to an
      assembly of the princes and warriors, the pretence, and the
      motive, of a Gothic war. “It grieves me to see that the Arians
      still possess the fairest portion of Gaul. Let us march against
      them with the aid of God; and, having vanquished the heretics, we
      will possess and divide their fertile provinces.“ 46 The Franks,
      who were inspired by hereditary valor and recent zeal, applauded
      the generous design of their monarch; expressed their resolution
      to conquer or die, since death and conquest would be equally
      profitable; and solemnly protested that they would never shave
      their beards till victory should absolve them from that
      inconvenient vow. The enterprise was promoted by the public or
      private exhortations of Clotilda. She reminded her husband how
      effectually some pious foundation would propitiate the Deity, and
      his servants: and the Christian hero, darting his battle-axe with
      a skilful and nervous band, “There, (said he,) on that spot where
      my Francisca, 47 shall fall, will I erect a church in honor of
      the holy apostles.“ This ostentatious piety confirmed and
      justified the attachment of the Catholics, with whom he secretly
      corresponded; and their devout wishes were gradually ripened into
      a formidable conspiracy. The people of Aquitain were alarmed by
      the indiscreet reproaches of their Gothic tyrants, who justly
      accused them of preferring the dominion of the Franks: and their
      zealous adherent Quintianus, bishop of Rodez, 48 preached more
      forcibly in his exile than in his diocese. To resist these
      foreign and domestic enemies, who were fortified by the alliance
      of the Burgundians, Alaric collected his troops, far more
      numerous than the military powers of Clovis. The Visigoths
      resumed the exercise of arms, which they had neglected in a long
      and luxurious peace; 49 a select band of valiant and robust
      slaves attended their masters to the field; 50 and the cities of
      Gaul were compelled to furnish their doubtful and reluctant aid.
      Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who reigned in Italy, had
      labored to maintain the tranquillity of Gaul; and he assumed, or
      affected, for that purpose, the impartial character of a
      mediator. But the sagacious monarch dreaded the rising empire of
      Clovis, and he was firmly engaged to support the national and
      religious cause of the Goths.

      46 (return) [ Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. 37, in tom. ii. p. 181)
      inserts the short but persuasive speech of Clovis. Valde moleste
      fero, quod hi Ariani partem teneant Galliarum, (the author of the
      Gesta Francorum, in tom. ii. p. 553, adds the precious epithet of
      optimam,) camus cum Dei adjutorio, et, superatis eis, redigamus
      terram in ditionem nostram.]

      47 (return) [ Tunc rex projecit a se in directum Bipennem suam
      quod est Francisca, &c. (Gesta Franc. in tom. ii. p. 554.) The
      form and use of this weapon are clearly described by Procopius,
      (in tom. ii. p. 37.) Examples of its national appellation in
      Latin and French may be found in the Glossary of Ducange, and the
      large Dictionnaire de Trevoux.]

      48 (return) [ It is singular enough that some important and
      authentic facts should be found in a Life of Quintianus, composed
      in rhyme in the old Patois of Rouergue, (Dubos, Hist. Critique,
      &c., tom. ii. p. 179.)]

      49 (return) [ Quamvis fortitudini vestrae confidentiam tribuat
      parentum ves trorum innumerabilis multitudo; quamvis Attilam
      potentem reminiscamini Visigotharum viribus inclinatum; tamen
      quia populorum ferocia corda longa pace mollescunt, cavete subito
      in alean aleam mittere, quos constat tantis temporibus exercitia
      non habere. Such was the salutary, but fruitless, advice of peace
      of reason, and of Theodoric, (Cassiodor. l. iii. ep. 2.)]

      50 (return) [ Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xv. c. 14)
      mentions and approves the law of the Visigoths, (l. ix. tit. 2,
      in tom. iv. p. 425,) which obliged all masters to arm, and send,
      or lead, into the field a tenth of their slaves.]

      The accidental, or artificial, prodigies which adorned the
      expedition of Clovis, were accepted by a superstitious age, as
      the manifest declaration of the divine favor. He marched from
      Paris; and as he proceeded with decent reverence through the holy
      diocese of Tours, his anxiety tempted him to consult the shrine
      of St. Martin, the sanctuary and the oracle of Gaul. His
      messengers were instructed to remark the words of the Psalm which
      should happen to be chanted at the precise moment when they
      entered the church. Those words most fortunately expressed the
      valor and victory of the champions of Heaven, and the application
      was easily transferred to the new Joshua, the new Gideon, who
      went forth to battle against the enemies of the Lord. 51 Orleans
      secured to the Franks a bridge on the Loire; but, at the distance
      of forty miles from Poitiers, their progress was intercepted by
      an extraordinary swell of the River Vigenna or Vienne; and the
      opposite banks were covered by the encampment of the Visigoths.
      Delay must be always dangerous to Barbarians, who consume the
      country through which they march; and had Clovis possessed
      leisure and materials, it might have been impracticable to
      construct a bridge, or to force a passage, in the face of a
      superior enemy. But the affectionate peasants who were impatient
      to welcome their deliverer, could easily betray some unknown or
      unguarded ford: the merit of the discovery was enhanced by the
      useful interposition of fraud or fiction; and a white hart, of
      singular size and beauty, appeared to guide and animate the march
      of the Catholic army. The counsels of the Visigoths were
      irresolute and distracted. A crowd of impatient warriors,
      presumptuous in their strength, and disdaining to fly before the
      robbers of Germany, excited Alaric to assert in arms the name and
      blood of the conquerors of Rome. The advice of the graver
      chieftains pressed him to elude the first ardor of the Franks;
      and to expect, in the southern provinces of Gaul, the veteran and
      victorious Ostrogoths, whom the king of Italy had already sent to
      his assistance. The decisive moments were wasted in idle
      deliberation the Goths too hastily abandoned, perhaps, an
      advantageous post; and the opportunity of a secure retreat was
      lost by their slow and disorderly motions. After Clovis had
      passed the ford, as it is still named, of the Hart, he advanced
      with bold and hasty steps to prevent the escape of the enemy. His
      nocturnal march was directed by a flaming meteor, suspended in
      the air above the cathedral of Poitiers; and this signal, which
      might be previously concerted with the orthodox successor of St.
      Hilary, was compared to the column of fire that guided the
      Israelites in the desert. At the third hour of the day, about ten
      miles beyond Poitiers, Clovis overtook, and instantly attacked,
      the Gothic army; whose defeat was already prepared by terror and
      confusion. Yet they rallied in their extreme distress, and the
      martial youths, who had clamorously demanded the battle, refused
      to survive the ignominy of flight. The two kings encountered each
      other in single combat. Alaric fell by the hand of his rival; and
      the victorious Frank was saved by the goodness of his cuirass,
      and the vigor of his horse, from the spears of two desperate
      Goths, who furiously rode against him to revenge the death of
      their sovereign. The vague expression of a mountain of the slain,
      serves to indicate a cruel though indefinite slaughter; but
      Gregory has carefully observed, that his valiant countryman
      Apollinaris, the son of Sidonius, lost his life at the head of
      the nobles of Auvergne. Perhaps these suspected Catholics had
      been maliciously exposed to the blind assault of the enemy; and
      perhaps the influence of religion was superseded by personal
      attachment or military honor. 52

      51 (return) [ This mode of divination, by accepting as an omen
      the first sacred words, which in particular circumstances should
      be presented to the eye or ear, was derived from the Pagans; and
      the Psalter, or Bible, was substituted to the poems of Homer and
      Virgil. From the fourth to the fourteenth century, these sortes
      sanctorum, as they are styled, were repeatedly condemned by the
      decrees of councils, and repeatedly practised by kings, bishops,
      and saints. See a curious dissertation of the Abbe du Resnel, in
      the Memoires de l’Academie, tom. xix. p. 287-310]

      52 (return) [ After correcting the text, or excusing the mistake,
      of Procopius, who places the defeat of Alaric near Carcassone, we
      may conclude, from the evidence of Gregory, Fortunatus, and the
      author of the Gesta Francorum, that the battle was fought in
      campo Vocladensi, on the banks of the Clain, about ten miles to
      the south of Poitiers. Clovis overtook and attacked the Visigoths
      near Vivonne, and the victory was decided near a village still
      named Champagne St. Hilaire. See the Dissertations of the Abbe le
      Boeuf, tom. i. p. 304-331.]

      Such is the empire of Fortune, (if we may still disguise our
      ignorance under that popular name,) that it is almost equally
      difficult to foresee the events of war, or to explain their
      various consequences. A bloody and complete victory has sometimes
      yielded no more than the possession of the field and the loss of
      ten thousand men has sometimes been sufficient to destroy, in a
      single day, the work of ages. The decisive battle of Poitiers was
      followed by the conquest of Aquitain. Alaric had left behind him
      an infant son, a bastard competitor, factious nobles, and a
      disloyal people; and the remaining forces of the Goths were
      oppressed by the general consternation, or opposed to each other
      in civil discord. The victorious king of the Franks proceeded
      without delay to the siege of Angouleme. At the sound of his
      trumpets the walls of the city imitated the example of Jericho,
      and instantly fell to the ground; a splendid miracle, which may
      be reduced to the supposition, that some clerical engineers had
      secretly undermined the foundations of the rampart. 53 At
      Bordeaux, which had submitted without resistance, Clovis
      established his winter quarters; and his prudent economy
      transported from Thoulouse the royal treasures, which were
      deposited in the capital of the monarchy. The conqueror
      penetrated as far as the confines of Spain; 54 restored the
      honors of the Catholic church; fixed in Aquitain a colony of
      Franks; 55 and delegated to his lieutenants the easy task of
      subduing, or extirpating, the nation of the Visigoths. But the
      Visigoths were protected by the wise and powerful monarch of
      Italy. While the balance was still equal, Theodoric had perhaps
      delayed the march of the Ostrogoths; but their strenuous efforts
      successfully resisted the ambition of Clovis; and the army of the
      Franks, and their Burgundian allies, was compelled to raise the
      siege of Arles, with the loss, as it is said, of thirty thousand
      men. These vicissitudes inclined the fierce spirit of Clovis to
      acquiesce in an advantageous treaty of peace. The Visigoths were
      suffered to retain the possession of Septimania, a narrow tract
      of sea-coast, from the Rhone to the Pyrenees; but the ample
      province of Aquitain, from those mountains to the Loire, was
      indissolubly united to the kingdom of France. 56

      53 (return) [ Angouleme is in the road from Poitiers to Bordeaux;
      and although Gregory delays the siege, I can more readily believe
      that he confounded the order of history, than that Clovis
      neglected the rules of war.]

      54 (return) [ Pyrenaeos montes usque Perpinianum subjecit, is the
      expression of Rorico, which betrays his recent date; since
      Perpignan did not exist before the tenth century, (Marca
      Hispanica, p. 458.) This florid and fabulous writer (perhaps a
      monk of Amiens—see the Abbe le Boeuf, Mem. de l’Academie, tom.
      xvii. p. 228-245) relates, in the allegorical character of a
      shepherd, the general history of his countrymen the Franks; but
      his narrative ends with the death of Clovis.]

      55 (return) [ The author of the Gesta Francorum positively
      affirms, that Clovis fixed a body of Franks in the Saintonge and
      Bourdelois: and he is not injudiciously followed by Rorico,
      electos milites, atque fortissimos, cum parvulis, atque
      mulieribus. Yet it should seem that they soon mingled with the
      Romans of Aquitain, till Charlemagne introduced a more numerous
      and powerful colony, (Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom. ii. p. 215.)]

      56 (return) [ In the composition of the Gothic war, I have used
      the following materials, with due regard to their unequal value.
      Four epistles from Theodoric, king of Italy, (Cassiodor l. iii.
      epist. 1-4. in tom. iv p. 3-5;) Procopius, (de Bell. Goth. l. i.
      c 12, in tom. ii. p. 32, 33;) Gregory of Tours, (l. ii. c. 35,
      36, 37, in tom. ii. p. 181-183;) Jornandes, (de Reb. Geticis, c.
      58, in tom. ii. p. 28;) Fortunatas, (in Vit. St. Hilarii, in tom.
      iii. p. 380;) Isidore, (in Chron. Goth. in tom. ii. p. 702;) the
      Epitome of Gregory of Tours, (in tom. ii. p. 401;) the author of
      the Gesta Francorum, (in tom. ii. p. 553-555;) the Fragments of
      Fredegarius, (in tom. ii. p. 463;) Aimoin, (l. i. c. 20, in tom.
      iii. p. 41, 42,) and Rorico, (l. iv. in tom. iii. p. 14-19.)]

      After the success of the Gothic war, Clovis accepted the honors
      of the Roman consulship. The emperor Anastasius ambitiously
      bestowed on the most powerful rival of Theodoric the title and
      ensigns of that eminent dignity; yet, from some unknown cause,
      the name of Clovis has not been inscribed in the Fasti either of
      the East or West. 57 On the solemn day, the monarch of Gaul,
      placing a diadem on his head, was invested, in the church of St.
      Martin, with a purple tunic and mantle. From thence he proceeded
      on horseback to the cathedral of Tours; and, as he passed through
      the streets, profusely scattered, with his own hand, a donative
      of gold and silver to the joyful multitude, who incessantly
      repeated their acclamations of Consul and Augustus. The actual or
      legal authority of Clovis could not receive any new accessions
      from the consular dignity. It was a name, a shadow, an empty
      pageant; and if the conqueror had been instructed to claim the
      ancient prerogatives of that high office, they must have expired
      with the period of its annual duration. But the Romans were
      disposed to revere, in the person of their master, that antique
      title which the emperors condescended to assume: the Barbarian
      himself seemed to contract a sacred obligation to respect the
      majesty of the republic; and the successors of Theodosius, by
      soliciting his friendship, tacitly forgave, and almost ratified,
      the usurpation of Gaul.

      57 (return) [ The Fasti of Italy would naturally reject a consul,
      the enemy of their sovereign; but any ingenious hypothesis that
      might explain the silence of Constantinople and Egypt, (the
      Chronicle of Marcellinus, and the Paschal,) is overturned by the
      similar silence of Marius, bishop of Avenche, who composed his
      Fasti in the kingdom of Burgundy. If the evidence of Gregory of
      Tours were less weighty and positive, (l. ii. c. 38, in tom. ii.
      p. 183,) I could believe that Clovis, like Odoacer, received the
      lasting title and honors of Patrician, (Pagi Critica, tom. ii. p.
      474, 492.)]

      Twenty-five years after the death of Clovis this important
      concession was more formally declared, in a treaty between his
      sons and the emperor Justinian. The Ostrogoths of Italy, unable
      to defend their distant acquisitions, had resigned to the Franks
      the cities of Arles and Marseilles; of Arles, still adorned with
      the seat of a Praetorian praefect, and of Marseilles, enriched by
      the advantages of trade and navigation. 58 This transaction was
      confirmed by the Imperial authority; and Justinian, generously
      yielding to the Franks the sovereignty of the countries beyond
      the Alps, which they already possessed, absolved the provincials
      from their allegiance; and established on a more lawful, though
      not more solid, foundation, the throne of the Merovingians. 59
      From that era they enjoyed the right of celebrating at Arles the
      games of the circus; and by a singular privilege, which was
      denied even to the Persian monarch, the gold coin, impressed with
      their name and image, obtained a legal currency in the empire. 60
      A Greek historian of that age has praised the private and public
      virtues of the Franks, with a partial enthusiasm, which cannot be
      sufficiently justified by their domestic annals. 61 He celebrates
      their politeness and urbanity, their regular government, and
      orthodox religion; and boldly asserts, that these Barbarians
      could be distinguished only by their dress and language from the
      subjects of Rome. Perhaps the Franks already displayed the social
      disposition, and lively graces, which, in every age, have
      disguised their vices, and sometimes concealed their intrinsic
      merit. Perhaps Agathias, and the Greeks, were dazzled by the
      rapid progress of their arms, and the splendor of their empire.
      Since the conquest of Burgundy, Gaul, except the Gothic province
      of Septimania, was subject, in its whole extent, to the sons of
      Clovis. They had extinguished the German kingdom of Thuringia,
      and their vague dominion penetrated beyond the Rhine, into the
      heart of their native forests. The Alemanni, and Bavarians, who
      had occupied the Roman provinces of Rhaetia and Noricum, to the
      south of the Danube, confessed themselves the humble vassals of
      the Franks; and the feeble barrier of the Alps was incapable of
      resisting their ambition. When the last survivor of the sons of
      Clovis united the inheritance and conquests of the Merovingians,
      his kingdom extended far beyond the limits of modern France. Yet
      modern France, such has been the progress of arts and policy, far
      surpasses, in wealth, populousness, and power, the spacious but
      savage realms of Clotaire or Dagobert. 62

      58 (return) [ Under the Merovingian kings, Marseilles still
      imported from the East paper, wine, oil, linen, silk, precious
      stones, spices, &c. The Gauls, or Franks, traded to Syria, and
      the Syrians were established in Gaul. See M. de Guignes, Mem. de
      l’Academie, tom. xxxvii. p. 471-475.]

      59 (return) [ This strong declaration of Procopius (de Bell.
      Gothic. l. iii. cap. 33, in tom. ii. p. 41) would almost suffice
      to justify the Abbe Dubos.]

      60 (return) [ The Franks, who probably used the mints of Treves,
      Lyons, and Arles, imitated the coinage of the Roman emperors of
      seventy-two solidi, or pieces, to the pound of gold. But as the
      Franks established only a decuple proportion of gold and silver,
      ten shillings will be a sufficient valuation of their solidus of
      gold. It was the common standard of the Barbaric fines, and
      contained forty denarii, or silver three pences. Twelve of these
      denarii made a solidus, or shilling, the twentieth part of the
      ponderal and numeral livre, or pound of silver, which has been so
      strangely reduced in modern France. See La Blanc, Traite
      Historique des Monnoyes de France, p. 36-43, &c.]

      61 (return) [ Agathias, in tom. ii. p. 47. Gregory of Tours
      exhibits a very different picture. Perhaps it would not be easy,
      within the same historical space, to find more vice and less
      virtue. We are continually shocked by the union of savage and
      corrupt manners.]

      62 (return) [ M. de Foncemagne has traced, in a correct and
      elegant dissertation, (Mem. de l’Academie, tom. viii. p.
      505-528,) the extent and limits of the French monarchy.]

      The Franks, or French, are the only people of Europe who can
      deduce a perpetual succession from the conquerors of the Western
      empire. But their conquest of Gaul was followed by ten centuries
      of anarchy and ignorance. On the revival of learning, the
      students, who had been formed in the schools of Athens and Rome,
      disdained their Barbarian ancestors; and a long period elapsed
      before patient labor could provide the requisite materials to
      satisfy, or rather to excite, the curiosity of more enlightened
      times. 63 At length the eye of criticism and philosophy was
      directed to the antiquities of France; but even philosophers have
      been tainted by the contagion of prejudice and passion. The most
      extreme and exclusive systems, of the personal servitude of the
      Gauls, or of their voluntary and equal alliance with the Franks,
      have been rashly conceived, and obstinately defended; and the
      intemperate disputants have accused each other of conspiring
      against the prerogative of the crown, the dignity of the nobles,
      or the freedom of the people. Yet the sharp conflict has usefully
      exercised the adverse powers of learning and genius; and each
      antagonist, alternately vanquished and victorious has extirpated
      some ancient errors, and established some interesting truths. An
      impartial stranger, instructed by their discoveries, their
      disputes, and even their faults, may describe, from the same
      original materials, the state of the Roman provincials, after
      Gaul had submitted to the arms and laws of the Merovingian kings.
      64

      63 (return) [ The Abbe Dubos (Histoire Critique, tom. i. p.
      29-36) has truly and agreeably represented the slow progress of
      these studies; and he observes, that Gregory of Tours was only
      once printed before the year 1560. According to the complaint of
      Heineccius, (Opera, tom. iii. Sylloge, iii. p. 248, &c.,) Germany
      received with indifference and contempt the codes of Barbaric
      laws, which were published by Heroldus, Lindenbrogius, &c. At
      present those laws, (as far as they relate to Gaul,) the history
      of Gregory of Tours, and all the monuments of the Merovingian
      race, appear in a pure and perfect state, in the first four
      volumes of the Historians of France.]

      64 (return) [ In the space of [about] thirty years (1728-1765)
      this interesting subject has been agitated by the free spirit of
      the count de Boulainvilliers, (Memoires Historiques sur l’Etat de
      la France, particularly tom. i. p. 15-49;) the learned ingenuity
      of the Abbe Dubos, (Histoire Critique de l’Etablissement de la
      Monarchie Francoise dans les Gaules, 2 vols. in 4to;) the
      comprehensive genius of the president de Montesquieu, (Esprit des
      Loix, particularly l. xxviii. xxx. xxxi.;) and the good sense and
      diligence of the Abbe de Mably, (Observations sur l’Histoire de
      France, 2 vols. 12mo.)]

      The rudest, or the most servile, condition of human society, is
      regulated, however, by some fixed and general rules. When Tacitus
      surveyed the primitive simplicity of the Germans, he discovered
      some permanent maxims, or customs, of public and private life,
      which were preserved by faithful tradition till the introduction
      of the art of writing, and of the Latin tongue. 65 Before the
      election of the Merovingian kings, the most powerful tribe, or
      nation, of the Franks, appointed four venerable chieftains to
      compose the Salic laws; 66 and their labors were examined and
      approved in three successive assemblies of the people. After the
      baptism of Clovis, he reformed several articles that appeared
      incompatible with Christianity: the Salic law was again amended
      by his sons; and at length, under the reign of Dagobert, the code
      was revised and promulgated in its actual form, one hundred years
      after the establishment of the French monarchy. Within the same
      period, the customs of the Ripuarians were transcribed and
      published; and Charlemagne himself, the legislator of his age and
      country, had accurately studied the two national laws, which
      still prevailed among the Franks. 67 The same care was extended
      to their vassals; and the rude institutions of the Alemanni and
      Bavarians were diligently compiled and ratified by the supreme
      authority of the Merovingian kings. The Visigoths and
      Burgundians, whose conquests in Gaul preceded those of the
      Franks, showed less impatience to attain one of the principal
      benefits of civilized society. Euric was the first of the Gothic
      princes who expressed, in writing, the manners and customs of his
      people; and the composition of the Burgundian laws was a measure
      of policy rather than of justice; to alleviate the yoke, and
      regain the affections, of their Gallic subjects. 68 Thus, by a
      singular coincidence, the Germans framed their artless
      institutions, at a time when the elaborate system of Roman
      jurisprudence was finally consummated. In the Salic laws, and the
      Pandects of Justinian, we may compare the first rudiments, and
      the full maturity, of civil wisdom; and whatever prejudices may
      be suggested in favor of Barbarism, our calmer reflections will
      ascribe to the Romans the superior advantages, not only of
      science and reason, but of humanity and justice. Yet the laws 681
      of the Barbarians were adapted to their wants and desires, their
      occupations and their capacity; and they all contributed to
      preserve the peace, and promote the improvement, of the society
      for whose use they were originally established. The Merovingians,
      instead of imposing a uniform rule of conduct on their various
      subjects, permitted each people, and each family, of their
      empire, freely to enjoy their domestic institutions; 69 nor were
      the Romans excluded from the common benefits of this legal
      toleration. 70 The children embraced the law of their parents,
      the wife that of her husband, the freedman that of his patron;
      and in all causes where the parties were of different nations,
      the plaintiff or accuser was obliged to follow the tribunal of
      the defendant, who may always plead a judicial presumption of
      right, or innocence. A more ample latitude was allowed, if every
      citizen, in the presence of the judge, might declare the law
      under which he desired to live, and the national society to which
      he chose to belong. Such an indulgence would abolish the partial
      distinctions of victory: and the Roman provincials might
      patiently acquiesce in the hardships of their condition; since it
      depended on themselves to assume the privilege, if they dared to
      assert the character, of free and warlike Barbarians. 71

      65 (return) [ I have derived much instruction from two learned
      works of Heineccius, the History, and the Elements, of the
      Germanic law. In a judicious preface to the Elements, he
      considers, and tries to excuse the defects of that barbarous
      jurisprudence.]

      66 (return) [ Latin appears to have been the original language of
      the Salic law. It was probably composed in the beginning of the
      fifth century, before the era (A.D. 421) of the real or fabulous
      Pharamond. The preface mentions the four cantons which produced
      the four legislators; and many provinces, Franconia, Saxony,
      Hanover, Brabant, &c., have claimed them as their own. See an
      excellent Dissertation of Heinecties de Lege Salica, tom. iii.
      Sylloge iii. p. 247-267. * Note: The relative antiquity of the
      two copies of the Salic law has been contested with great
      learning and ingenuity. The work of M. Wiarda, History and
      Explanation of the Salic Law, Bremen, 1808, asserts that what is
      called the Lex Antiqua, or Vetustior in which many German words
      are mingled with the Latin, has no claim to superior antiquity,
      and may be suspected to be more modern. M. Wiarda has been
      opposed by M. Fuer bach, who maintains the higher age of the
      “ancient” Code, which has been greatly corrupted by the
      transcribers. See Guizot, Cours de l’Histoire Moderne, vol. i.
      sect. 9: and the preface to the useful republication of five of
      the different texts of the Salic law, with that of the Ripuarian
      in parallel columns. By E. A. I. Laspeyres, Halle, 1833.—M.]

      67 (return) [ Eginhard, in Vit. Caroli Magni, c. 29, in tom. v.
      p. 100. By these two laws, most critics understand the Salic and
      the Ripuarian. The former extended from the Carbonarian forest to
      the Loire, (tom. iv. p. 151,) and the latter might be obeyed from
      the same forest to the Rhine, (tom. iv. p. 222.)]

      68 (return) [ Consult the ancient and modern prefaces of the
      several codes, in the fourth volume of the Historians of France.
      The original prologue to the Salic law expresses (though in a
      foreign dialect) the genuine spirit of the Franks more forcibly
      than the ten books of Gregory of Tours.]

      69 (return) [ The Ripuarian law declares, and defines, this
      indulgence in favor of the plaintiff, (tit. xxxi. in tom. iv. p.
      240;) and the same toleration is understood, or expressed, in all
      the codes, except that of the Visigoths of Spain. Tanta
      diversitas legum (says Agobard in the ninth century) quanta non
      solum in regionibus, aut civitatibus, sed etiam in multis domibus
      habetur. Nam plerumque contingit ut simul eant aut sedeant
      quinque homines, et nullus eorum communem legem cum altero
      habeat, (in tom. vi. p. 356.) He foolishly proposes to introduce
      a uniformity of law, as well as of faith. * Note: It is the
      object of the important work of M. Savigny, Geschichte des
      Romisches Rechts in Mittelalter, to show the perpetuity of the
      Roman law from the 5th to the 12th century.—M.]

      681 (return) [ The most complete collection of these codes is in
      the “Barbarorum leges antiquae,“ by P. Canciani, 5 vols. folio,
      Venice, 1781-9.—M.]

      70 (return) [ Inter Romanos negotia causarum Romanis legibus
      praecipimus terminari. Such are the words of a general
      constitution promulgated by Clotaire, the son of Clovis, the sole
      monarch of the Franks (in tom. iv. p. 116) about the year 560.]

      71 (return) [ This liberty of choice has been aptly deduced
      (Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. 2) from the constitution of Lothaire
      I. (Leg. Langobard. l. ii. tit. lvii. in Codex Lindenbrog. p.
      664;) though the example is too recent and partial. From a
      various reading in the Salic law, (tit. xliv. not. xlv.) the Abbe
      de Mably (tom. i. p. 290-293) has conjectured, that, at first, a
      Barbarian only, and afterwards any man, (consequently a Roman,)
      might live according to the law of the Franks. I am sorry to
      offend this ingenious conjecture by observing, that the stricter
      sense (Barbarum) is expressed in the reformed copy of
      Charlemagne; which is confirmed by the Royal and Wolfenbuttle
      MSS. The looser interpretation (hominem) is authorized only by
      the MS. of Fulda, from from whence Heroldus published his
      edition. See the four original texts of the Salic law in tom. iv.
      p. 147, 173, 196, 220. * Note: Gibbon appears to have doubted the
      evidence on which this “liberty of choice” rested. His doubts
      have been confirmed by the researches of M. Savigny, who has not
      only confuted but traced with convincing sagacity the origin and
      progress of this error. As a general principle, though liable to
      some exceptions, each lived according to his native law. Romische
      Recht. vol. i. p. 123-138—M. * Note: This constitution of
      Lothaire at first related only to the duchy of Rome; it
      afterwards found its way into the Lombard code. Savigny. p.
      138.—M.]




      Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part III.

      When justice inexorably requires the death of a murderer, each
      private citizen is fortified by the assurance, that the laws, the
      magistrate, and the whole community, are the guardians of his
      personal safety. But in the loose society of the Germans, revenge
      was always honorable, and often meritorious: the independent
      warrior chastised, or vindicated, with his own hand, the injuries
      which he had offered or received; and he had only to dread the
      resentment of the sons and kinsmen of the enemy, whom he had
      sacrificed to his selfish or angry passions. The magistrate,
      conscious of his weakness, interposed, not to punish, but to
      reconcile; and he was satisfied if he could persuade or compel
      the contending parties to pay and to accept the moderate fine
      which had been ascertained as the price of blood. 72 The fierce
      spirit of the Franks would have opposed a more rigorous sentence;
      the same fierceness despised these ineffectual restraints; and,
      when their simple manners had been corrupted by the wealth of
      Gaul, the public peace was continually violated by acts of hasty
      or deliberate guilt. In every just government the same penalty is
      inflicted, or at least is imposed, for the murder of a peasant or
      a prince. But the national inequality established by the Franks,
      in their criminal proceedings, was the last insult and abuse of
      conquest. 73 In the calm moments of legislation, they solemnly
      pronounced, that the life of a Roman was of smaller value than
      that of a Barbarian. The Antrustion, 74 a name expressive of the
      most illustrious birth or dignity among the Franks, was
      appreciated at the sum of six hundred pieces of gold; while the
      noble provincial, who was admitted to the king’s table, might be
      legally murdered at the expense of three hundred pieces.

      Two hundred were deemed sufficient for a Frank of ordinary
      condition; but the meaner Romans were exposed to disgrace and
      danger by a trifling compensation of one hundred, or even fifty,
      pieces of gold. Had these laws been regulated by any principle of
      equity or reason, the public protection should have supplied, in
      just proportion, the want of personal strength. But the
      legislator had weighed in the scale, not of justice, but of
      policy, the loss of a soldier against that of a slave: the head
      of an insolent and rapacious Barbarian was guarded by a heavy
      fine; and the slightest aid was afforded to the most defenceless
      subjects. Time insensibly abated the pride of the conquerors and
      the patience of the vanquished; and the boldest citizen was
      taught, by experience, that he might suffer more injuries than he
      could inflict. As the manners of the Franks became less
      ferocious, their laws were rendered more severe; and the
      Merovingian kings attempted to imitate the impartial rigor of the
      Visigoths and Burgundians. 75 Under the empire of Charlemagne,
      murder was universally punished with death; and the use of
      capital punishments has been liberally multiplied in the
      jurisprudence of modern Europe. 76

      72 (return) [ In the heroic times of Greece, the guilt of murder
      was expiated by a pecuniary satisfaction to the family of the
      deceased, (Feithius Antiquitat. Homeric. l. ii. c. 8.)
      Heineccius, in his preface to the Elements of Germanic Law,
      favorably suggests, that at Rome and Athens homicide was only
      punished with exile. It is true: but exile was a capital
      punishment for a citizen of Rome or Athens.]

      73 (return) [ This proportion is fixed by the Salic (tit. xliv.
      in tom. iv. p. 147) and the Ripuarian (tit. vii. xi. xxxvi. in
      tom. iv. p. 237, 241) laws: but the latter does not distinguish
      any difference of Romans. Yet the orders of the clergy are placed
      above the Franks themselves, and the Burgundians and Alemanni
      between the Franks and the Romans.]

      74 (return) [ The Antrustiones, qui in truste Dominica sunt,
      leudi, fideles, undoubtedly represent the first order of Franks;
      but it is a question whether their rank was personal or
      hereditary. The Abbe de Mably (tom. i. p. 334-347) is not
      displeased to mortify the pride of birth (Esprit, l. xxx. c. 25)
      by dating the origin of the French nobility from the reign
      Clotaire II. (A.D. 615.)]

      75 (return) [ See the Burgundian laws, (tit. ii. in tom. iv. p.
      257,) the code of the Visigoths, (l. vi. tit. v. in tom. p. 384,)
      and the constitution of Childebert, not of Paris, but most
      evidently of Austrasia, (in tom. iv. p. 112.) Their premature
      severity was sometimes rash, and excessive. Childebert condemned
      not only murderers but robbers; quomodo sine lege involavit, sine
      lege moriatur; and even the negligent judge was involved in the
      same sentence. The Visigoths abandoned an unsuccessful surgeon to
      the family of his deceased patient, ut quod de eo facere
      voluerint habeant potestatem, (l. xi. tit. i. in tom. iv. p.
      435.)]

      76 (return) [ See, in the sixth volume of the works of
      Heineccius, the Elementa Juris Germanici, l. ii. p. 2, No. 261,
      262, 280-283. Yet some vestiges of these pecuniary compositions
      for murder have been traced in Germany as late as the sixteenth
      century.]

      The civil and military professions, which had been separated by
      Constantine, were again united by the Barbarians. The harsh sound
      of the Teutonic appellations was mollified into the Latin titles
      of Duke, of Count, or of Praefect; and the same officer assumed,
      within his district, the command of the troops, and the
      administration of justice. 77 But the fierce and illiterate
      chieftain was seldom qualified to discharge the duties of a
      judge, which required all the faculties of a philosophic mind,
      laboriously cultivated by experience and study; and his rude
      ignorance was compelled to embrace some simple, and visible,
      methods of ascertaining the cause of justice. In every religion,
      the Deity has been invoked to confirm the truth, or to punish the
      falsehood of human testimony; but this powerful instrument was
      misapplied and abused by the simplicity of the German
      legislators. The party accused might justify his innocence, by
      producing before their tribunal a number of friendly witnesses,
      who solemnly declared their belief, or assurance, that he was not
      guilty. According to the weight of the charge, this legal number
      of compurgators was multiplied; seventy-two voices were required
      to absolve an incendiary or assassin: and when the chastity of a
      queen of France was suspected, three hundred gallant nobles
      swore, without hesitation, that the infant prince had been
      actually begotten by her deceased husband. 78 The sin and scandal
      of manifest and frequent perjuries engaged the magistrates to
      remove these dangerous temptations; and to supply the defects of
      human testimony by the famous experiments of fire and water.
      These extraordinary trials were so capriciously contrived, that,
      in some cases, guilt, and innocence in others, could not be
      proved without the interposition of a miracle. Such miracles were
      really provided by fraud and credulity; the most intricate causes
      were determined by this easy and infallible method, and the
      turbulent Barbarians, who might have disdained the sentence of
      the magistrate, submissively acquiesced in the judgment of God.
      79

      77 (return) [ The whole subject of the Germanic judges, and their
      jurisdiction, is copiously treated by Heineccius, (Element. Jur.
      Germ. l. iii. No. 1-72.) I cannot find any proof that, under the
      Merovingian race, the scabini, or assessors, were chosen by the
      people. * Note: The question of the scabini is treated at
      considerable length by Savigny. He questions the existence of the
      scabini anterior to Charlemagne. Before this time the decision
      was by an open court of the freemen, the boni Romische Recht,
      vol. i. p. 195. et seq.—M.]

      78 (return) [ Gregor. Turon. l. viii. c. 9, in tom. ii. p. 316.
      Montesquieu observes, (Esprit des Loix. l. xxviii. c. 13,) that
      the Salic law did not admit these negative proofs so universally
      established in the Barbaric codes. Yet this obscure concubine
      (Fredegundis,) who became the wife of the grandson of Clovis,
      must have followed the Salic law.]

      79 (return) [ Muratori, in the Antiquities of Italy, has given
      two Dissertations (xxxvii. xxxix.) on the judgments of God. It
      was expected that fire would not burn the innocent; and that the
      pure element of water would not allow the guilty to sink into its
      bosom.]

      But the trials by single combat gradually obtained superior
      credit and authority, among a warlike people, who could not
      believe that a brave man deserved to suffer, or that a coward
      deserved to live. 80 Both in civil and criminal proceedings, the
      plaintiff, or accuser, the defendant, or even the witness, were
      exposed to mortal challenge from the antagonist who was destitute
      of legal proofs; and it was incumbent on them either to desert
      their cause, or publicly to maintain their honor, in the lists of
      battle. They fought either on foot, or on horseback, according to
      the custom of their nation; 81 and the decision of the sword, or
      lance, was ratified by the sanction of Heaven, of the judge, and
      of the people. This sanguinary law was introduced into Gaul by
      the Burgundians; and their legislator Gundobald 82 condescended
      to answer the complaints and objections of his subject Avitus.
      “Is it not true,“ said the king of Burgundy to the bishop, “that
      the event of national wars, and private combats, is directed by
      the judgment of God; and that his providence awards the victory
      to the juster cause?“ By such prevailing arguments, the absurd
      and cruel practice of judicial duels, which had been peculiar to
      some tribes of Germany, was propagated and established in all the
      monarchies of Europe, from Sicily to the Baltic. At the end of
      ten centuries, the reign of legal violence was not totally
      extinguished; and the ineffectual censures of saints, of popes,
      and of synods, may seem to prove, that the influence of
      superstition is weakened by its unnatural alliance with reason
      and humanity. The tribunals were stained with the blood, perhaps,
      of innocent and respectable citizens; the law, which now favors
      the rich, then yielded to the strong; and the old, the feeble,
      and the infirm, were condemned, either to renounce their fairest
      claims and possessions, to sustain the dangers of an unequal
      conflict, 83 or to trust the doubtful aid of a mercenary
      champion. This oppressive jurisprudence was imposed on the
      provincials of Gaul, who complained of any injuries in their
      persons and property. Whatever might be the strength, or courage,
      of individuals, the victorious Barbarians excelled in the love
      and exercise of arms; and the vanquished Roman was unjustly
      summoned to repeat, in his own person, the bloody contest which
      had been already decided against his country. 84

      80 (return) [ Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. c. 17) has
      condescended to explain and excuse “la maniere de penser de nos
      peres,“ on the subject of judicial combats. He follows this
      strange institution from the age of Gundobald to that of St.
      Lewis; and the philosopher is some times lost in the legal
      antiquarian.]

      81 (return) [ In a memorable duel at Aix-la-Chapelle, (A.D. 820,)
      before the emperor Lewis the Pious, his biographer observes,
      secundum legem propriam, utpote quia uterque Gothus erat,
      equestri pugna est, (Vit. Lud. Pii, c. 33, in tom. vi. p. 103.)
      Ermoldus Nigellus, (l. iii. 543-628, in tom. vi. p. 48-50,) who
      describes the duel, admires the ars nova of fighting on
      horseback, which was unknown to the Franks.]

      82 (return) [ In his original edict, published at Lyons, (A.D.
      501,) establishes and justifies the use of judicial combat, (Les
      Burgund. tit. xlv. in tom. ii. p. 267, 268.) Three hundred years
      afterwards, Agobard, bishop of Lyons, solicited Lewis the Pious
      to abolish the law of an Arian tyrant, (in tom. vi. p. 356-358.)
      He relates the conversation of Gundobald and Avitus.]

      83 (return) [ “Accidit, (says Agobard,) ut non solum valentes
      viribus, sed etiam infirmi et senes lacessantur ad pugnam, etiam
      pro vilissimis rebus. Quibus foralibus certaminibus contingunt
      homicidia injusta; et crudeles ac perversi eventus judiciorum.“
      Like a prudent rhetorician, he suppresses the legal privilege of
      hiring champions.]

      84 (return) [ Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, xxviii. c. 14,) who
      understands why the judicial combat was admitted by the
      Burgundians, Ripuarians, Alemanni, Bavarians, Lombards,
      Thuringians, Frisons, and Saxons, is satisfied (and Agobard seems
      to countenance the assertion) that it was not allowed by the
      Salic law. Yet the same custom, at least in case of treason, is
      mentioned by Ermoldus, Nigellus (l. iii. 543, in tom. vi. p. 48,)
      and the anonymous biographer of Lewis the Pious, (c. 46, in tom.
      vi. p. 112,) as the “mos antiquus Francorum, more Francis
      solito,“ &c., expressions too general to exclude the noblest of
      their tribes.]

      A devouring host of one hundred and twenty thousand Germans had
      formerly passed the Rhine under the command of Ariovistus. One
      third part of the fertile lands of the Sequani was appropriated
      to their use; and the conqueror soon repeated his oppressive
      demand of another third, for the accommodation of a new colony of
      twenty-four thousand Barbarians, whom he had invited to share the
      rich harvest of Gaul. 85 At the distance of five hundred years,
      the Visigoths and Burgundians, who revenged the defeat of
      Ariovistus, usurped the same unequal proportion of two thirds of
      the subject lands. But this distribution, instead of spreading
      over the province, may be reasonably confined to the peculiar
      districts where the victorious people had been planted by their
      own choice, or by the policy of their leader. In these districts,
      each Barbarian was connected by the ties of hospitality with some
      Roman provincial. To this unwelcome guest, the proprietor was
      compelled to abandon two thirds of his patrimony, but the German,
      a shepherd and a hunter, might sometimes content himself with a
      spacious range of wood and pasture, and resign the smallest,
      though most valuable, portion, to the toil of the industrious
      husbandman. 86 The silence of ancient and authentic testimony has
      encouraged an opinion, that the rapine of the Franks was not
      moderated, or disguised, by the forms of a legal division; that
      they dispersed themselves over the provinces of Gaul, without
      order or control; and that each victorious robber, according to
      his wants, his avarice, and his strength, measured with his sword
      the extent of his new inheritance. At a distance from their
      sovereign, the Barbarians might indeed be tempted to exercise
      such arbitrary depredation; but the firm and artful policy of
      Clovis must curb a licentious spirit, which would aggravate the
      misery of the vanquished, whilst it corrupted the union and
      discipline of the conquerors. 861 The memorable vase of Soissons
      is a monument and a pledge of the regular distribution of the
      Gallic spoils. It was the duty and the interest of Clovis to
      provide rewards for a successful army, settlements for a numerous
      people; without inflicting any wanton or superfluous injuries on
      the loyal Catholics of Gaul. The ample fund, which he might
      lawfully acquire, of the Imperial patrimony, vacant lands, and
      Gothic usurpations, would diminish the cruel necessity of seizure
      and confiscation, and the humble provincials would more patiently
      acquiesce in the equal and regular distribution of their loss. 87

      85 (return) [ Caesar de Bell. Gall. l. i. c. 31, in tom. i. p.
      213.]

      86 (return) [ The obscure hints of a division of lands
      occasionally scattered in the laws of the Burgundians, (tit. liv.
      No. 1, 2, in tom. iv. p. 271, 272,) and Visigoths, (l. x. tit. i.
      No. 8, 9, 16, in tom. iv. p. 428, 429, 430,) are skillfully
      explained by the president Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxx.
      c. 7, 8, 9.) I shall only add, that among the Goths, the division
      seems to have been ascertained by the judgment of the
      neighborhood, that the Barbarians frequently usurped the
      remaining third; and that the Romans might recover their right,
      unless they were barred by a prescription of fifty years.]

      861 (return) [ Sismondi (Hist des Francais, vol. i. p. 197)
      observes, they were not a conquering people, who had emigrated
      with their families, like the Goths or Burgundians. The women,
      the children, the old, had not followed Clovis: they remained in
      their ancient possessions on the Waal and the Rhine. The
      adventurers alone had formed the invading force, and they always
      considered themselves as an army, not as a colony. Hence their
      laws retained no traces of the partition of the Roman properties.
      It is curious to observe the recoil from the national vanity of
      the French historians of the last century. M. Sismondi compares
      the position of the Franks with regard to the conquered people
      with that of the Dey of Algiers and his corsair troops to the
      peaceful inhabitants of that province: M. Thierry (Lettres sur
      l’Histoire de France, p. 117) with that of the Turks towards the
      Raias or Phanariotes, the mass of the Greeks.—M.]

      87 (return) [ It is singular enough that the president de
      Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xxx. c. 7) and the Abbe de Mably
      (Observations, tom i. p. 21, 22) agree in this strange
      supposition of arbitrary and private rapine. The Count de
      Boulainvilliers (Etat de la France, tom. i. p. 22, 23) shows a
      strong understanding through a cloud of ignorance and prejudice.
      Note: Sismondi supposes that the Barbarians, if a farm were
      conveniently situated, would show no great respect for the laws
      of property; but in general there would have been vacant land
      enough for the lots assigned to old or worn-out warriors, (Hist.
      des Francais, vol. i. p. 196.)—M.]

      The wealth of the Merovingian princes consisted in their
      extensive domain. After the conquest of Gaul, they still
      delighted in the rustic simplicity of their ancestors; the cities
      were abandoned to solitude and decay; and their coins, their
      charters, and their synods, are still inscribed with the names of
      the villas, or rural palaces, in which they successively resided.

      One hundred and sixty of these palaces, a title which need not
      excite any unseasonable ideas of art or luxury, were scattered
      through the provinces of their kingdom; and if some might claim
      the honors of a fortress, the far greater part could be esteemed
      only in the light of profitable farms. The mansion of the
      long-haired kings was surrounded with convenient yards and
      stables, for the cattle and the poultry; the garden was planted
      with useful vegetables; the various trades, the labors of
      agriculture, and even the arts of hunting and fishing, were
      exercised by servile hands for the emolument of the sovereign;
      his magazines were filled with corn and wine, either for sale or
      consumption; and the whole administration was conducted by the
      strictest maxims of private economy. 88 This ample patrimony was
      appropriated to supply the hospitable plenty of Clovis and his
      successors; and to reward the fidelity of their brave companions
      who, both in peace and war, were devoted to their persona
      service. Instead of a horse, or a suit of armor, each companion,
      according to his rank, or merit, or favor, was invested with a
      benefice, the primitive name, and most simple form, of the feudal
      possessions. These gifts might be resumed at the pleasure of the
      sovereign; and his feeble prerogative derived some support from
      the influence of his liberality. 881 But this dependent tenure
      was gradually abolished 89 by the independent and rapacious
      nobles of France, who established the perpetual property, and
      hereditary succession, of their benefices; a revolution salutary
      to the earth, which had been injured, or neglected, by its
      precarious masters. 90 Besides these royal and beneficiary
      estates, a large proportion had been assigned, in the division of
      Gaul, of allodial and Salic lands: they were exempt from tribute,
      and the Salic lands were equally shared among the male
      descendants of the Franks. 91

      88 (return) [ See the rustic edict, or rather code, of
      Charlemagne, which contains seventy distinct and minute
      regulations of that great monarch (in tom. v. p. 652-657.) He
      requires an account of the horns and skins of the goats, allows
      his fish to be sold, and carefully directs, that the larger
      villas (Capitaneoe) shall maintain one hundred hens and thirty
      geese; and the smaller (Mansionales) fifty hens and twelve geese.
      Mabillon (de Re Diplomatica) has investigated the names, the
      number, and the situation of the Merovingian villas.]

      881 (return) [ The resumption of benefices at the pleasure of the
      sovereign, (the general theory down to his time,) is ably
      contested by Mr. Hallam; “for this resumption some delinquency
      must be imputed to the vassal.“ Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 162. The
      reader will be interested by the singular analogies with the
      beneficial and feudal system of Europe in a remote part of the
      world, indicated by Col. Tod in his splendid work on Raja’sthan,
      vol. ii p. 129, &c.—M.]

      89 (return) [ From a passage of the Burgundian law (tit. i. No.
      4, in tom. iv. p. 257) it is evident, that a deserving son might
      expect to hold the lands which his father had received from the
      royal bounty of Gundobald. The Burgundians would firmly maintain
      their privilege, and their example might encourage the
      Beneficiaries of France.]

      90 (return) [ The revolutions of the benefices and fiefs are
      clearly fixed by the Abbe de Mably. His accurate distinction of
      times gives him a merit to which even Montesquieu is a stranger.]

      91 (return) [ See the Salic law, (tit. lxii. in tom. iv. p. 156.)
      The origin and nature of these Salic lands, which, in times of
      ignorance, were perfectly understood, now perplex our most
      learned and sagacious critics. * Note: No solution seems more
      probable, than that the ancient lawgivers of the Salic Franks
      prohibited females from inheriting the lands assigned to the
      nation, upon its conquest of Gaul, both in compliance with their
      ancient usages, and in order to secure the military service of
      every proprietor. But lands subsequently acquired by purchase or
      other means, though equally bound to the public defence, were
      relieved from the severity of this rule, and presumed not to
      belong to the class of Sallic. Hallam’s Middle Ages, vol. i. p.
      145. Compare Sismondi, vol. i. p. 196.—M.]

      In the bloody discord and silent decay of the Merovingian line, a
      new order of tyrants arose in the provinces, who, under the
      appellation of Seniors, or Lords, usurped a right to govern, and
      a license to oppress, the subjects of their peculiar territory.
      Their ambition might be checked by the hostile resistance of an
      equal: but the laws were extinguished; and the sacrilegious
      Barbarians, who dared to provoke the vengeance of a saint or
      bishop, 92 would seldom respect the landmarks of a profane and
      defenceless neighbor. The common or public rights of nature, such
      as they had always been deemed by the Roman jurisprudence, 93
      were severely restrained by the German conquerors, whose
      amusement, or rather passion, was the exercise of hunting. The
      vague dominion which Man has assumed over the wild inhabitants of
      the earth, the air, and the waters, was confined to some
      fortunate individuals of the human species. Gaul was again
      overspread with woods; and the animals, who were reserved for the
      use or pleasure of the lord, might ravage with impunity the
      fields of his industrious vassals. The chase was the sacred
      privilege of the nobles and their domestic servants. Plebeian
      transgressors were legally chastised with stripes and
      imprisonment; 94 but in an age which admitted a slight
      composition for the life of a citizen, it was a capital crime to
      destroy a stag or a wild bull within the precincts of the royal
      forests. 95

      92 (return) [ Many of the two hundred and six miracles of St.
      Martin (Greg Turon. in Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum, tom. xi. p.
      896-932) were repeatedly performed to punish sacrilege. Audite
      haec omnes (exclaims the bishop of Tours) protestatem habentes,
      after relating, how some horses ran mad, that had been turned
      into a sacred meadow.]

      93 (return) [ Heinec. Element. Jur. German. l. ii. p. 1, No. 8.]

      94 (return) [ Jonas, bishop of Orleans, (A.D. 821-826. Cave,
      Hist. Litteraria, p. 443,) censures the legal tyranny of the
      nobles. Pro feris, quas cura hominum non aluit, sed Deus in
      commune mortalibus ad utendum concessit, pauperes a potentioribus
      spoliantur, flagellantur, ergastulis detruduntur, et multa alia
      patiuntur. Hoc enim qui faciunt, lege mundi se facere juste posse
      contendant. De Institutione Laicorum, l. ii. c. 23, apud
      Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. iii. p. 1348.]

      95 (return) [ On a mere suspicion, Chundo, a chamberlain of
      Gontram, king of Burgundy, was stoned to death, (Greg. Turon. l.
      x. c. 10, in tom. ii. p. 369.) John of Salisbury (Policrat. l. i.
      c. 4) asserts the rights of nature, and exposes the cruel
      practice of the twelfth century. See Heineccius, Elem. Jur. Germ.
      l. ii. p. 1, No. 51-57.]

      According to the maxims of ancient war, the conqueror became the
      lawful master of the enemy whom he had subdued and spared: 96 and
      the fruitful cause of personal slavery, which had been almost
      suppressed by the peaceful sovereignty of Rome, was again revived
      and multiplied by the perpetual hostilities of the independent
      Barbarians. The Goth, the Burgundian, or the Frank, who returned
      from a successful expedition, dragged after him a long train of
      sheep, of oxen, and of human captives, whom he treated with the
      same brutal contempt. The youths of an elegant form and an
      ingenuous aspect were set apart for the domestic service; a
      doubtful situation, which alternately exposed them to the
      favorable or cruel impulse of passion. The useful mechanics and
      servants (smiths, carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, cooks,
      gardeners, dyers, and workmen in gold and silver, &c.) employed
      their skill for the use, or profit, of their master. But the
      Roman captives, who were destitute of art, but capable of labor,
      were condemned, without regard to their former rank, to tend the
      cattle and cultivate the lands of the Barbarians. The number of
      the hereditary bondsmen, who were attached to the Gallic estates,
      was continually increased by new supplies; and the servile
      people, according to the situation and temper of their lords, was
      sometimes raised by precarious indulgence, and more frequently
      depressed by capricious despotism. 97 An absolute power of life
      and death was exercised by these lords; and when they married
      their daughters, a train of useful servants, chained on the
      wagons to prevent their escape, was sent as a nuptial present
      into a distant country. 98 The majesty of the Roman laws
      protected the liberty of each citizen, against the rash effects
      of his own distress or despair. But the subjects of the
      Merovingian kings might alienate their personal freedom; and this
      act of legal suicide, which was familiarly practised, is
      expressed in terms most disgraceful and afflicting to the dignity
      of human nature. 99 The example of the poor, who purchased life
      by the sacrifice of all that can render life desirable, was
      gradually imitated by the feeble and the devout, who, in times of
      public disorder, pusillanimously crowded to shelter themselves
      under the battlements of a powerful chief, and around the shrine
      of a popular saint. Their submission was accepted by these
      temporal or spiritual patrons; and the hasty transaction
      irrecoverably fixed their own condition, and that of their latest
      posterity. From the reign of Clovis, during five successive
      centuries, the laws and manners of Gaul uniformly tended to
      promote the increase, and to confirm the duration, of personal
      servitude. Time and violence almost obliterated the intermediate
      ranks of society; and left an obscure and narrow interval between
      the noble and the slave. This arbitrary and recent division has
      been transformed by pride and prejudice into a national
      distinction, universally established by the arms and the laws of
      the Merovingians. The nobles, who claimed their genuine or
      fabulous descent from the independent and victorious Franks, have
      asserted and abused the indefeasible right of conquest over a
      prostrate crowd of slaves and plebeians, to whom they imputed the
      imaginary disgrace of Gallic or Roman extraction.

      96 (return) [ The custom of enslaving prisoners of war was
      totally extinguished in the thirteenth century, by the prevailing
      influence of Christianity; but it might be proved, from frequent
      passages of Gregory of Tours, &c., that it was practised, without
      censure, under the Merovingian race; and even Grotius himself,
      (de Jure Belli et Pacis l. iii. c. 7,) as well as his commentator
      Barbeyrac, have labored to reconcile it with the laws of nature
      and reason.]

      97 (return) [ The state, professions, &c., of the German,
      Italian, and Gallic slaves, during the middle ages, are explained
      by Heineccius, (Element Jur. Germ. l. i. No. 28-47,) Muratori,
      (Dissertat. xiv. xv.,) Ducange, (Gloss. sub voce Servi,) and the
      Abbe de Mably, (Observations, tom. ii. p. 3, &c., p. 237, &c.)
      Note: Compare Hallam, vol. i. p. 216.—M.]

      98 (return) [ Gregory of Tours (l. vi. c. 45, in tom. ii. p. 289)
      relates a memorable example, in which Chilperic only abused the
      private rights of a master. Many families which belonged to his
      domus fiscales in the neighborhood of Paris, were forcibly sent
      away into Spain.]

      99 (return) [ Licentiam habeatis mihi qualemcunque volueritis
      disciplinam ponere; vel venumdare, aut quod vobis placuerit de me
      facere Marculf. Formul. l. ii. 28, in tom. iv. p. 497. The
      Formula of Lindenbrogius, (p. 559,) and that of Anjou, (p. 565,)
      are to the same effect Gregory of Tours (l. vii. c. 45, in tom.
      ii. p. 311) speak of many person who sold themselves for bread,
      in a great famine.]

      The general state and revolutions of France, a name which was
      imposed by the conquerors, may be illustrated by the particular
      example of a province, a diocese, or a senatorial family.
      Auvergne had formerly maintained a just preeminence among the
      independent states and cities of Gaul. The brave and numerous
      inhabitants displayed a singular trophy; the sword of Caesar
      himself, which he had lost when he was repulsed before the walls
      of Gergovia. 100 As the common offspring of Troy, they claimed a
      fraternal alliance with the Romans; 101 and if each province had
      imitated the courage and loyalty of Auvergne, the fall of the
      Western empire might have been prevented or delayed. They firmly
      maintained the fidelity which they had reluctantly sworn to the
      Visigoths, out when their bravest nobles had fallen in the battle
      of Poitiers, they accepted, without resistance, a victorious and
      Catholic sovereign. This easy and valuable conquest was achieved
      and possessed by Theodoric, the eldest son of Clovis: but the
      remote province was separated from his Austrasian dominions, by
      the intermediate kingdoms of Soissons, Paris, and Orleans, which
      formed, after their father’s death, the inheritance of his three
      brothers. The king of Paris, Childebert, was tempted by the
      neighborhood and beauty of Auvergne. 102 The Upper country, which
      rises towards the south into the mountains of the Cevennes,
      presented a rich and various prospect of woods and pastures; the
      sides of the hills were clothed with vines; and each eminence was
      crowned with a villa or castle. In the Lower Auvergne, the River
      Allier flows through the fair and spacious plain of Limagne; and
      the inexhaustible fertility of the soil supplied, and still
      supplies, without any interval of repose, the constant repetition
      of the same harvests. 103 On the false report, that their lawful
      sovereign had been slain in Germany, the city and diocese of
      Auvergne were betrayed by the grandson of Sidonius Apollinaris.
      Childebert enjoyed this clandestine victory; and the free
      subjects of Theodoric threatened to desert his standard, if he
      indulged his private resentment, while the nation was engaged in
      the Burgundian war. But the Franks of Austrasia soon yielded to
      the persuasive eloquence of their king. “Follow me,“ said
      Theodoric, “into Auvergne; I will lead you into a province, where
      you may acquire gold, silver, slaves, cattle, and precious
      apparel, to the full extent of your wishes. I repeat my promise;
      I give you the people and their wealth as your prey; and you may
      transport them at pleasure into your own country.“ By the
      execution of this promise, Theodoric justly forfeited the
      allegiance of a people whom he devoted to destruction. His
      troops, reenforced by the fiercest Barbarians of Germany, 104
      spread desolation over the fruitful face of Auvergne; and two
      places only, a strong castle and a holy shrine, were saved or
      redeemed from their licentious fury. The castle of Meroliac 105
      was seated on a lofty rock, which rose a hundred feet above the
      surface of the plain; and a large reservoir of fresh water was
      enclosed, with some arable lands, within the circle of its
      fortifications. The Franks beheld with envy and despair this
      impregnable fortress; but they surprised a party of fifty
      stragglers; and, as they were oppressed by the number of their
      captives, they fixed, at a trifling ransom, the alternative of
      life or death for these wretched victims, whom the cruel
      Baroarians were prepared to massacre on the refusal of the
      garrison. Another detachment penetrated as far as Brivas, or
      Brioude, where the inhabitants, with their valuable effects, had
      taken refuge in the sanctuary of St. Julian. The doors of the
      church resisted the assault; but a daring soldier entered through
      a window of the choir, and opened a passage to his companions.
      The clergy and people, the sacred and the profane spoils, were
      rudely torn from the altar; and the sacrilegious division was
      made at a small distance from the town of Brioude. But this act
      of impiety was severely chastised by the devout son of Clovis. He
      punished with death the most atrocious offenders; left their
      secret accomplices to the vengeance of St. Julian; released the
      captives; restored the plunder; and extended the rights of
      sanctuary five miles round the sepulchre of the holy martyr. 106

      100 (return) [ When Caesar saw it, he laughed, (Plutarch. in
      Caesar. in tom. i. p. 409:) yet he relates his unsuccessful siege
      of Gergovia with less frankness than we might expect from a great
      man to whom victory was familiar. He acknowledges, however, that
      in one attack he lost forty-six centurions and seven hundred men,
      (de Bell. Gallico, l. vi. c. 44-53, in tom. i. p. 270-272.)]

      101 (return) [ Audebant se quondam fatres Latio dicere, et
      sanguine ab Iliaco populos computare, (Sidon. Apollinar. l. vii.
      epist. 7, in tom i. p. 799.) I am not informed of the degrees and
      circumstances of this fabulous pedigree.]

      102 (return) [ Either the first, or second, partition among the
      sons of Clovis, had given Berry to Childebert, (Greg. Turon. l.
      iii. c. 12, in tom. ii. p. 192.) Velim (said he) Arvernam
      Lemanem, quae tanta jocunditatis gratia refulgere dicitur, oculis
      cernere, (l. iii. c. p. 191.) The face of the country was
      concealed by a thick fog, when the king of Paris made his entry
      into Clermen.]

      103 (return) [ For the description of Auvergne, see Sidonius, (l.
      iv. epist. 21, in tom. i. p. 703,) with the notes of Savaron and
      Sirmond, (p. 279, and 51, of their respective editions.)
      Boulainvilliers, (Etat de la France, tom. ii. p. 242-268,) and
      the Abbe de la Longuerue, (Description de la France, part i. p.
      132-139.)]

      104 (return) [Furorem gentium, quae de ulteriore Rheni amnis
      parte venerant, superare non poterat, (Greg. Turon. l. iv. c. 50,
      in tom. ii. 229.) was the excuse of another king of Austrasia
      (A.D. 574) for the ravages which his troops committed in the
      neighborhood of Paris.]

      105 (return) [ From the name and situation, the Benedictine
      editors of Gregory of Tours (in tom. ii. p. 192) have fixed this
      fortress at a place named Castel Merliac, two miles from Mauriac,
      in the Upper Auvergne. In this description, I translate infra as
      if I read intra; the two are perpetually confounded by Gregory,
      or his transcribed and the sense must always decide.]

      106 (return) [ See these revolutions, and wars, of Auvergne, in
      Gregory of Tours, (l. ii. c. 37, in tom. ii. p. 183, and l. iii.
      c. 9, 12, 13, p. 191, 192, de Miraculis St. Julian. c. 13, in
      tom. ii. p. 466.) He frequently betrays his extraordinary
      attention to his native country.]




      Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part IV.

      Before the Austrasian army retreated from Auvergne, Theodoric
      exacted some pledges of the future loyalty of a people, whose
      just hatred could be restrained only by their fear. A select band
      of noble youths, the sons of the principal senators, was
      delivered to the conqueror, as the hostages of the faith of
      Childebert, and of their countrymen. On the first rumor of war,
      or conspiracy, these guiltless youths were reduced to a state of
      servitude; and one of them, Attalus, 107 whose adventures are
      more particularly related, kept his master’s horses in the
      diocese of Treves. After a painful search, he was discovered, in
      this unworthy occupation, by the emissaries of his grandfather,
      Gregory bishop of Langres; but his offers of ransom were sternly
      rejected by the avarice of the Barbarian, who required an
      exorbitant sum of ten pounds of gold for the freedom of his noble
      captive. His deliverance was effected by the hardy stratagem of
      Leo, a slave belonging to the kitchens of the bishop of Langres.
      108 An unknown agent easily introduced him into the same family.
      The Barbarian purchased Leo for the price of twelve pieces of
      gold; and was pleased to learn that he was deeply skilled in the
      luxury of an episcopal table: “Next Sunday,“ said the Frank, “I
      shall invite my neighbors and kinsmen. Exert thy art, and force
      them to confess, that they have never seen, or tasted, such an
      entertainment, even in the king’s house.“ Leo assured him, that
      if he would provide a sufficient quantity of poultry, his wishes
      should be satisfied. The master who already aspired to the merit
      of elegant hospitality, assumed, as his own, the praise which the
      voracious guests unanimously bestowed on his cook; and the
      dexterous Leo insensibly acquired the trust and management of his
      household. After the patient expectation of a whole year, he
      cautiously whispered his design to Attalus, and exhorted him to
      prepare for flight in the ensuing night. At the hour of midnight,
      the intemperate guests retired from the table; and the Frank’s
      son-in-law, whom Leo attended to his apartment with a nocturnal
      potation, condescended to jest on the facility with which he
      might betray his trust. The intrepid slave, after sustaining this
      dangerous raillery, entered his master’s bedchamber; removed his
      spear and shield; silently drew the fleetest horses from the
      stable; unbarred the ponderous gates; and excited Attalus to save
      his life and liberty by incessant diligence. Their apprehensions
      urged them to leave their horses on the banks of the Meuse; 109
      they swam the river, wandered three days in the adjacent forest,
      and subsisted only by the accidental discovery of a wild
      plum-tree. As they lay concealed in a dark thicket, they heard
      the noise of horses; they were terrified by the angry countenance
      of their master, and they anxiously listened to his declaration,
      that, if he could seize the guilty fugitives, one of them he
      would cut in pieces with his sword, and would expose the other on
      a gibbet. A length, Attalus and his faithful Leo reached the
      friendly habitation of a presbyter of Rheims, who recruited their
      fainting strength with bread and wine, concealed them from the
      search of their enemy, and safely conducted them beyond the
      limits of the Austrasian kingdom, to the episcopal palace of
      Langres. Gregory embraced his grandson with tears of joy,
      gratefully delivered Leo, with his whole family, from the yoke of
      servitude, and bestowed on him the property of a farm, where he
      might end his days in happiness and freedom. Perhaps this
      singular adventure, which is marked with so many circumstances of
      truth and nature, was related by Attalus himself, to his cousin
      or nephew, the first historian of the Franks. Gregory of Tours
      110 was born about sixty years after the death of Sidonius
      Apollinaris; and their situation was almost similar, since each
      of them was a native of Auvergne, a senator, and a bishop. The
      difference of their style and sentiments may, therefore, express
      the decay of Gaul; and clearly ascertain how much, in so short a
      space, the human mind had lost of its energy and refinement. 111

      107 (return) [ The story of Attalus is related by Gregory of
      Tours, (l. iii. c. 16, tom. ii. p. 193-195.) His editor, the P.
      Ruinart, confounds this Attalus, who was a youth (puer) in the
      year 532, with a friend of Silonius of the same name, who was
      count of Autun, fifty or sixty years before. Such an error, which
      cannot be imputed to ignorance, is excused, in some degree, by
      its own magnitude.]

      108 (return) [ This Gregory, the great grandfather of Gregory of
      Tours, (in tom. ii. p. 197, 490,) lived ninety-two years; of
      which he passed forty as count of Autun, and thirty-two as bishop
      of Langres. According to the poet Fortunatus, he displayed equal
      merit in these different stations. Nobilis antiqua decurrens
      prole parentum, Nobilior gestis, nunc super astra manet. Arbiter
      ante ferox, dein pius ipse sacerdos, Quos domuit judex, fovit
      amore patris.]

      109 (return) [ As M. de Valois, and the P. Ruinart, are
      determined to change the Mosella of the text into Mosa, it
      becomes me to acquiesce in the alteration. Yet, after some
      examination of the topography. I could defend the common
      reading.]

      110 (return) [ The parents of Gregory (Gregorius Florentius
      Georgius) were of noble extraction, (natalibus... illustres,) and
      they possessed large estates (latifundia) both in Auvergne and
      Burgundy. He was born in the year 539, was consecrated bishop of
      Tours in 573, and died in 593 or 595, soon after he had
      terminated his history. See his life by Odo, abbot of Clugny, (in
      tom. ii. p. 129-135,) and a new Life in the Memoires de
      l’Academie, &c., tom. xxvi. p. 598-637.]

      111 (return) [ Decedente atque immo potius pereunte ab urbibus
      Gallicanis liberalium cultura literarum, &c., (in praefat. in
      tom. ii. p. 137,) is the complaint of Gregory himself, which he
      fully verifies by his own work. His style is equally devoid of
      elegance and simplicity. In a conspicuous station, he still
      remained a stranger to his own age and country; and in a prolific
      work (the five last books contain ten years) he has omitted
      almost every thing that posterity desires to learn. I have
      tediously acquired, by a painful perusal, the right of
      pronouncing this unfavorable sentence]

      We are now qualified to despise the opposite, and, perhaps,
      artful, misrepresentations, which have softened, or exaggerated,
      the oppression of the Romans of Gaul under the reign of the
      Merovingians. The conquerors never promulgated any universal
      edict of servitude, or confiscation; but a degenerate people, who
      excused their weakness by the specious names of politeness and
      peace, was exposed to the arms and laws of the ferocious
      Barbarians, who contemptuously insulted their possessions, their
      freedom, and their safety. Their personal injuries were partial
      and irregular; but the great body of the Romans survived the
      revolution, and still preserved the property, and privileges, of
      citizens. A large portion of their lands was exacted for the use
      of the Franks: but they enjoyed the remainder, exempt from
      tribute; 112 and the same irresistible violence which swept away
      the arts and manufactures of Gaul, destroyed the elaborate and
      expensive system of Imperial despotism. The Provincials must
      frequently deplore the savage jurisprudence of the Salic or
      Ripuarian laws; but their private life, in the important concerns
      of marriage, testaments, or inheritance, was still regulated by
      the Theodosian Code; and a discontented Roman might freely
      aspire, or descend, to the title and character of a Barbarian.
      The honors of the state were accessible to his ambition: the
      education and temper of the Romans more peculiarly qualified them
      for the offices of civil government; and, as soon as emulation
      had rekindled their military ardor, they were permitted to march
      in the ranks, or even at the head, of the victorious Germans. I
      shall not attempt to enumerate the generals and magistrates,
      whose names 113 attest the liberal policy of the Merovingians.
      The supreme command of Burgundy, with the title of Patrician, was
      successively intrusted to three Romans; and the last, and most
      powerful, Mummolus, 114 who alternately saved and disturbed the
      monarchy, had supplanted his father in the station of count of
      Autun, and left a treasury of thirty talents of gold, and two
      hundred and fifty talents of silver. The fierce and illiterate
      Barbarians were excluded, during several generations, from the
      dignities, and even from the orders, of the church. 115 The
      clergy of Gaul consisted almost entirely of native provincials;
      the haughty Franks fell at the feet of their subjects, who were
      dignified with the episcopal character: and the power and riches
      which had been lost in war, were insensibly recovered by
      superstition. 116 In all temporal affairs, the Theodosian Code
      was the universal law of the clergy; but the Barbaric
      jurisprudence had liberally provided for their personal safety; a
      sub-deacon was equivalent to two Franks; the antrustion, and
      priest, were held in similar estimation: and the life of a bishop
      was appreciated far above the common standard, at the price of
      nine hundred pieces of gold. 117 The Romans communicated to their
      conquerors the use of the Christian religion and Latin language;
      118 but their language and their religion had alike degenerated
      from the simple purity of the Augustan, and Apostolic age. The
      progress of superstition and Barbarism was rapid and universal:
      the worship of the saints concealed from vulgar eyes the God of
      the Christians; and the rustic dialect of peasants and soldiers
      was corrupted by a Teutonic idiom and pronunciation. Yet such
      intercourse of sacred and social communion eradicated the
      distinctions of birth and victory; and the nations of Gaul were
      gradually confounded under the name and government of the Franks.

      112 (return) [ The Abbe de Mably (tom. p. i. 247-267) has
      diligently confirmed this opinion of the President de
      Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxx. c. 13.)]

      113 (return) [ See Dubos, Hist. Critique de la Monarchie
      Francoise, tom. ii. l. vi. c. 9, 10. The French antiquarians
      establish as a principle, that the Romans and Barbarians may be
      distinguished by their names. Their names undoubtedly form a
      reasonable presumption; yet in reading Gregory of Tours, I have
      observed Gondulphus, of Senatorian, or Roman, extraction, (l. vi.
      c. 11, in tom. ii. p. 273,) and Claudius, a Barbarian, (l. vii.
      c. 29, p. 303.)]

      114 (return) [ Eunius Mummolus is repeatedly mentioned by Gregory
      of Tours, from the fourth (c. 42, p. 224) to the seventh (c. 40,
      p. 310) book. The computation by talents is singular enough; but
      if Gregory attached any meaning to that obsolete word, the
      treasures of Mummolus must have exceeded 100,000 L. sterling.]

      115 (return) [ See Fleury, Discours iii. sur l’Histoire
      Ecclesiastique.]

      116 (return) [ The bishop of Tours himself has recorded the
      complaint of Chilperic, the grandson of Clovis. Ecce pauper
      remansit Fiscus noster; ecce divitiae nostrae ad ecclesias sunt
      translatae; nulli penitus nisi soli Episcopi regnant, (l. vi. c.
      46, in tom. ii. p. 291.)]

      117 (return) [ See the Ripuarian Code, (tit. xxxvi in tom. iv. p.
      241.) The Salic law does not provide for the safety of the
      clergy; and we might suppose, on the behalf of the more civilized
      tribe, that they had not foreseen such an impious act as the
      murder of a priest. Yet Praetextatus, archbishop of Rouen, was
      assassinated by the order of Queen Fredegundis before the altar,
      (Greg. Turon. l. viii. c. 31, in tom. ii. p. 326.)]

      118 (return) [ M. Bonamy (Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions,
      tom. xxiv. p. 582-670) has ascertained the Lingua Romana Rustica,
      which, through the medium of the Romance, has gradually been
      polished into the actual form of the French language. Under the
      Carlovingian race, the kings and nobles of France still
      understood the dialect of their German ancestors.]

      The Franks, after they mingled with their Gallic subjects, might
      have imparted the most valuable of human gifts, a spirit and
      system of constitutional liberty. Under a king, hereditary, but
      limited, the chiefs and counsellors might have debated at Paris,
      in the palace of the Caesars: the adjacent field, where the
      emperors reviewed their mercenary legions. would have admitted
      the legislative assembly of freemen and warriors; and the rude
      model, which had been sketched in the woods of Germany, 119 might
      have been polished and improved by the civil wisdom of the
      Romans. But the careless Barbarians, secure of their personal
      independence, disdained the labor of government: the annual
      assemblies of the month of March were silently abolished; and the
      nation was separated, and almost dissolved, by the conquest of
      Gaul. 120 The monarchy was left without any regular establishment
      of justice, of arms, or of revenue. The successors of Clovis
      wanted resolution to assume, or strength to exercise, the
      legislative and executive powers, which the people had abdicated:
      the royal prerogative was distinguished only by a more ample
      privilege of rapine and murder; and the love of freedom, so often
      invigorated and disgraced by private ambition, was reduced, among
      the licentious Franks, to the contempt of order, and the desire
      of impunity. Seventy-five years after the death of Clovis, his
      grandson, Gontran, king of Burgundy, sent an army to invade the
      Gothic possessions of Septimania, or Languedoc. The troops of
      Burgundy, Berry, Auvergne, and the adjacent territories, were
      excited by the hopes of spoil. They marched, without discipline,
      under the banners of German, or Gallic, counts: their attack was
      feeble and unsuccessful; but the friendly and hostile provinces
      were desolated with indiscriminate rage. The cornfields, the
      villages, the churches themselves, were consumed by fire: the
      inhabitants were massacred, or dragged into captivity; and, in
      the disorderly retreat, five thousand of these inhuman savages
      were destroyed by hunger or intestine discord. When the pious
      Gontran reproached the guilt or neglect of their leaders, and
      threatened to inflict, not a legal sentence, but instant and
      arbitrary execution, they accused the universal and incurable
      corruption of the people. “No one,“ they said, “any longer fears
      or respects his king, his duke, or his count. Each man loves to
      do evil, and freely indulges his criminal inclinations. The most
      gentle correction provokes an immediate tumult, and the rash
      magistrate, who presumes to censure or restrain his seditious
      subjects, seldom escapes alive from their revenge.“ 121 It has
      been reserved for the same nation to expose, by their intemperate
      vices, the most odious abuse of freedom; and to supply its loss
      by the spirit of honor and humanity, which now alleviates and
      dignifies their obedience to an absolute sovereign. 1211

      119 (return) [ Ce beau systeme a ete trouve dans les bois.
      Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xi. c. 6.]

      120 (return) [ See the Abbe de Mably. Observations, &c., tom. i.
      p. 34-56. It should seem that the institution of national
      assemblies, which are with the French nation, has never been
      congenial to its temper.]

      121 (return) [ Gregory of Tours (l. viii. c. 30, in tom. ii. p.
      325, 326) relates, with much indifference, the crimes, the
      reproof, and the apology. Nullus Regem metuit, nullus Ducem,
      nullus Comitem reveretur; et si fortassis alicui ista displicent,
      et ea, pro longaevitate vitae vestrae, emendare conatur, statim
      seditio in populo, statim tumultus exoritur, et in tantum
      unusquisque contra seniorem saeva intentione grassatur, ut vix se
      credat evadere, si tandem silere nequiverit.]

      1211 (return) [ This remarkable passage was published in 1779—M.]

      The Visigoths had resigned to Clovis the greatest part of their
      Gallic possessions; but their loss was amply compensated by the
      easy conquest, and secure enjoyment, of the provinces of Spain.
      From the monarchy of the Goths, which soon involved the Suevic
      kingdom of Gallicia, the modern Spaniards still derive some
      national vanity; but the historian of the Roman empire is neither
      invited, nor compelled, to pursue the obscure and barren series
      of their annals. 122 The Goths of Spain were separated from the
      rest of mankind by the lofty ridge of the Pyrenaean mountains:
      their manners and institutions, as far as they were common to the
      Germanic tribes, have been already explained. I have anticipated,
      in the preceding chapter, the most important of their
      ecclesiastical events, the fall of Arianism, and the persecution
      of the Jews; and it only remains to observe some interesting
      circumstances which relate to the civil and ecclesiastical
      constitution of the Spanish kingdom.

      122 (return) [ Spain, in these dark ages, has been peculiarly
      unfortunate. The Franks had a Gregory of Tours; the Saxons, or
      Angles, a Bede; the Lombards, a Paul Warnefrid, &c. But the
      history of the Visigoths is contained in the short and imperfect
      Chronicles of Isidore of Seville and John of Biclar]

      After their conversion from idolatry or heresy, the Frank and the
      Visigoths were disposed to embrace, with equal submission, the
      inherent evils and the accidental benefits, of superstition. But
      the prelates of France, long before the extinction of the
      Merovingian race, had degenerated into fighting and hunting
      Barbarians. They disdained the use of synods; forgot the laws of
      temperance and chastity; and preferred the indulgence of private
      ambition and luxury to the general interest of the sacerdotal
      profession. 123 The bishops of Spain respected themselves, and
      were respected by the public: their indissoluble union disguised
      their vices, and confirmed their authority; and the regular
      discipline of the church introduced peace, order, and stability,
      into the government of the state. From the reign of Recared, the
      first Catholic king, to that of Witiza, the immediate predecessor
      of the unfortunate Roderic, sixteen national councils were
      successively convened. The six metropolitans, Toledo, Seville,
      Merida, Braga, Tarragona, and Narbonne, presided according to
      their respective seniority; the assembly was composed of their
      suffragan bishops, who appeared in person, or by their proxies;
      and a place was assigned to the most holy, or opulent, of the
      Spanish abbots. During the first three days of the convocation,
      as long as they agitated the ecclesiastical question of doctrine
      and discipline, the profane laity was excluded from their
      debates; which were conducted, however, with decent solemnity.
      But, on the morning of the fourth day, the doors were thrown open
      for the entrance of the great officers of the palace, the dukes
      and counts of the provinces, the judges of the cities, and the
      Gothic nobles, and the decrees of Heaven were ratified by the
      consent of the people.

      The same rules were observed in the provincial assemblies, the
      annual synods, which were empowered to hear complaints, and to
      redress grievances; and a legal government was supported by the
      prevailing influence of the Spanish clergy. The bishops, who, in
      each revolution, were prepared to flatter the victorious, and to
      insult the prostrate labored, with diligence and success, to
      kindle the flames of persecution, and to exalt the mitre above
      the crown. Yet the national councils of Toledo, in which the free
      spirit of the Barbarians was tempered and guided by episcopal
      policy, have established some prudent laws for the common benefit
      of the king and people. The vacancy of the throne was supplied by
      the choice of the bishops and palatines; and after the failure of
      the line of Alaric, the regal dignity was still limited to the
      pure and noble blood of the Goths. The clergy, who anointed their
      lawful prince, always recommended, and sometimes practised, the
      duty of allegiance; and the spiritual censures were denounced on
      the heads of the impious subjects, who should resist his
      authority, conspire against his life, or violate, by an indecent
      union, the chastity even of his widow. But the monarch himself,
      when he ascended the throne, was bound by a reciprocal oath to
      God and his people, that he would faithfully execute this
      important trust. The real or imaginary faults of his
      administration were subject to the control of a powerful
      aristocracy; and the bishops and palatines were guarded by a
      fundamental privilege, that they should not be degraded,
      imprisoned, tortured, nor punished with death, exile, or
      confiscation, unless by the free and public judgment of their
      peers. 124

      123 (return) [ Such are the complaints of St. Boniface, the
      apostle of Germany, and the reformer of Gaul, (in tom. iv. p.
      94.) The fourscore years, which he deplores, of license and
      corruption, would seem to insinuate that the Barbarians were
      admitted into the clergy about the year 660.]

      124 (return) [ The acts of the councils of Toledo are still the
      most authentic records of the church and constitution of Spain.
      The following passages are particularly important, (iii. 17, 18;
      iv. 75; v. 2, 3, 4, 5, 8; vi. 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18; vii. 1;
      xiii. 2 3 6.) I have found Mascou (Hist. of the Ancient Germans,
      xv. 29, and Annotations, xxvi. and xxxiii.) and Ferreras (Hist.
      Generale de l’Espagne, tom. ii.) very useful and accurate
      guides.]

      One of these legislative councils of Toledo examined and ratified
      the code of laws which had been compiled by a succession of
      Gothic kings, from the fierce Euric, to the devout Egica. As long
      as the Visigoths themselves were satisfied with the rude customs
      of their ancestors, they indulged their subjects of Aquitain and
      Spain in the enjoyment of the Roman law. Their gradual
      improvement in arts, in policy, and at length in religion,
      encouraged them to imitate, and to supersede, these foreign
      institutions; and to compose a code of civil and criminal
      jurisprudence, for the use of a great and united people. The same
      obligations, and the same privileges, were communicated to the
      nations of the Spanish monarchy; and the conquerors, insensibly
      renouncing the Teutonic idiom, submitted to the restraints of
      equity, and exalted the Romans to the participation of freedom.
      The merit of this impartial policy was enhanced by the situation
      of Spain under the reign of the Visigoths. The provincials were
      long separated from their Arian masters by the irreconcilable
      difference of religion. After the conversion of Recared had
      removed the prejudices of the Catholics, the coasts, both of the
      Ocean and Mediterranean, were still possessed by the Eastern
      emperors; who secretly excited a discontented people to reject
      the yoke of the Barbarians, and to assert the name and dignity of
      Roman citizens. The allegiance of doubtful subjects is indeed
      most effectually secured by their own persuasion, that they
      hazard more in a revolt, than they can hope to obtain by a
      revolution; but it has appeared so natural to oppress those whom
      we hate and fear, that the contrary system well deserves the
      praise of wisdom and moderation. 125

      125 (return) [ The Code of the Visigoths, regularly divided into
      twelve books, has been correctly published by Dom Bouquet, (in
      tom. iv. p. 273-460.) It has been treated by the President de
      Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. c. 1) with excessive
      severity. I dislike the style; I detest the superstition; but I
      shall presume to think, that the civil jurisprudence displays a
      more civilized and enlightened state of society, than that of the
      Burgundians, or even of the Lombards.]

      While the kingdom of the Franks and Visigoths were established in
      Gaul and Spain, the Saxons achieved the conquest of Britain, the
      third great diocese of the Praefecture of the West. Since Britain
      was already separated from the Roman empire, I might, without
      reproach, decline a story familiar to the most illiterate, and
      obscure to the most learned, of my readers. The Saxons, who
      excelled in the use of the oar, or the battle-axe, were ignorant
      of the art which could alone perpetuate the fame of their
      exploits; the Provincials, relapsing into barbarism, neglected to
      describe the ruin of their country; and the doubtful tradition
      was almost extinguished, before the missionaries of Rome restored
      the light of science and Christianity. The declamations of
      Gildas, the fragments, or fables, of Nennius, the obscure hints
      of the Saxon laws and chronicles, and the ecclesiastical tales of
      the venerable Bede, 126 have been illustrated by the diligence,
      and sometimes embellished by the fancy, of succeeding writers,
      whose works I am not ambitious either to censure or to
      transcribe. 127 Yet the historian of the empire may be tempted to
      pursue the revolutions of a Roman province, till it vanishes from
      his sight; and an Englishman may curiously trace the
      establishment of the Barbarians, from whom he derives his name,
      his laws, and perhaps his origin.

      126 (return) [ See Gildas de Excidio Britanniae, c. 11-25, p.
      4-9, edit. Gale. Nennius, Hist. Britonum, c. 28, 35-65, p.
      105-115, edit. Gale. Bede, Hist. Ecclesiast. Gentis Angloruml. i.
      c. 12-16, p. 49-53. c. 22, p. 58, edit. Smith. Chron. Saxonicum,
      p. 11-23, &c., edit. Gibson. The Anglo-Saxon laws were published
      by Wilkins, London, 1731, in folio; and the Leges Wallicae, by
      Wotton and Clarke, London, 1730, in folio.]

      127 (return) [ The laborious Mr. Carte, and the ingenious Mr.
      Whitaker, are the two modern writers to whom I am principally
      indebted. The particular historian of Manchester embraces, under
      that obscure title, a subject almost as extensive as the general
      history of England. * Note: Add the Anglo-Saxon History of Mr. S.
      Turner; and Sir F. Palgrave Sketch of the “Early History of
      England.“—M.]

      About forty years after the dissolution of the Roman government,
      Vortigern appears to have obtained the supreme, though precarious
      command of the princes and cities of Britain. That unfortunate
      monarch has been almost unanimously condemned for the weak and
      mischievous policy of inviting 128 a formidable stranger, to
      repel the vexatious inroads of a domestic foe. His ambassadors
      are despatched, by the gravest historians, to the coast of
      Germany: they address a pathetic oration to the general assembly
      of the Saxons, and those warlike Barbarians resolve to assist
      with a fleet and army the suppliants of a distant and unknown
      island. If Britain had indeed been unknown to the Saxons, the
      measure of its calamities would have been less complete. But the
      strength of the Roman government could not always guard the
      maritime province against the pirates of Germany; the independent
      and divided states were exposed to their attacks; and the Saxons
      might sometimes join the Scots and the Picts, in a tacit, or
      express, confederacy of rapine and destruction. Vortigern could
      only balance the various perils, which assaulted on every side
      his throne and his people; and his policy may deserve either
      praise or excuse, if he preferred the alliance of those
      Barbarians, whose naval power rendered them the most dangerous
      enemies and the most serviceable allies. Hengist and Horsa, as
      they ranged along the Eastern coast with three ships, were
      engaged, by the promise of an ample stipend, to embrace the
      defence of Britain; and their intrepid valor soon delivered the
      country from the Caledonian invaders. The Isle of Thanet, a
      secure and fertile district, was allotted for the residence of
      these German auxiliaries, and they were supplied, according to
      the treaty, with a plentiful allowance of clothing and
      provisions. This favorable reception encouraged five thousand
      warriors to embark with their families in seventeen vessels, and
      the infant power of Hengist was fortified by this strong and
      seasonable reenforcement. The crafty Barbarian suggested to
      Vortigern the obvious advantage of fixing, in the neighborhood of
      the Picts, a colony of faithful allies: a third fleet of forty
      ships, under the command of his son and nephew, sailed from
      Germany, ravaged the Orkneys, and disembarked a new army on the
      coast of Northumberland, or Lothian, at the opposite extremity of
      the devoted land. It was easy to foresee, but it was impossible
      to prevent, the impending evils. The two nations were soon
      divided and exasperated by mutual jealousies. The Saxons
      magnified all that they had done and suffered in the cause of an
      ungrateful people; while the Britons regretted the liberal
      rewards which could not satisfy the avarice of those haughty
      mercenaries. The causes of fear and hatred were inflamed into an
      irreconcilable quarrel. The Saxons flew to arms; and if they
      perpetrated a treacherous massacre during the security of a
      feast, they destroyed the reciprocal confidence which sustains
      the intercourse of peace and war. 129

      128 (return) [ This invitation, which may derive some countenance
      from the loose expressions of Gildas and Bede, is framed into a
      regular story by Witikind, a Saxon monk of the tenth century,
      (see Cousin, Hist. de l’Empire d’Occident, tom. ii. p. 356.)
      Rapin, and even Hume, have too freely used this suspicious
      evidence, without regarding the precise and probable testimony of
      Tennius: Iterea venerunt tres Chinlae a exilio pulsoe, in quibus
      erant Hors et Hengist.]

      129 (return) [ Nennius imputes to the Saxons the murder of three
      hundred British chiefs; a crime not unsuitable to their savage
      manners. But we are not obliged to believe (see Jeffrey of
      Monmouth, l. viii. c. 9-12) that Stonehenge is their monument,
      which the giants had formerly transported from Africa to Ireland,
      and which was removed to Britain by the order of Ambrosius, and
      the art of Merlin. * Note: Sir f. Palgrave (Hist. of England, p.
      36) is inclined to resolve the whole of these stories, as Niebuhr
      the older Roman history, into poetry. To the editor they
      appeared, in early youth, so essentially poetic, as to justify
      the rash attempt to embody them in an Epic Poem, called Samor,
      commenced at Eton, and finished before he had arrived at the
      maturer taste of manhood.—M.]

      Hengist, who boldly aspired to the conquest of Britain, exhorted
      his countrymen to embrace the glorious opportunity: he painted in
      lively colors the fertility of the soil, the wealth of the
      cities, the pusillanimous temper of the natives, and the
      convenient situation of a spacious solitary island, accessible on
      all sides to the Saxon fleets. The successive colonies which
      issued, in the period of a century, from the mouths of the Elbe,
      the Weser, and the Rhine, were principally composed of three
      valiant tribes or nations of Germany; the Jutes, the old Saxons,
      and the Angles. The Jutes, who fought under the peculiar banner
      of Hengist, assumed the merit of leading their countrymen in the
      paths of glory, and of erecting, in Kent, the first independent
      kingdom. The fame of the enterprise was attributed to the
      primitive Saxons; and the common laws and language of the
      conquerors are described by the national appellation of a people,
      which, at the end of four hundred years, produced the first
      monarchs of South Britain. The Angles were distinguished by their
      numbers and their success; and they claimed the honor of fixing a
      perpetual name on the country, of which they occupied the most
      ample portion. The Barbarians, who followed the hopes of rapine
      either on the land or sea, were insensibly blended with this
      triple confederacy; the Frisians, who had been tempted by their
      vicinity to the British shores, might balance, during a short
      space, the strength and reputation of the native Saxons; the
      Danes, the Prussians, the Rugians, are faintly described; and
      some adventurous Huns, who had wandered as far as the Baltic,
      might embark on board the German vessels, for the conquest of a
      new world. 130 But this arduous achievement was not prepared or
      executed by the union of national powers. Each intrepid
      chieftain, according to the measure of his fame and fortunes,
      assembled his followers; equipped a fleet of three, or perhaps of
      sixty, vessels; chose the place of the attack; and conducted his
      subsequent operations according to the events of the war, and the
      dictates of his private interest. In the invasion of Britain many
      heroes vanquished and fell; but only seven victorious leaders
      assumed, or at least maintained, the title of kings. Seven
      independent thrones, the Saxon Heptarchy, 1301 were founded by
      the conquerors, and seven families, one of which has been
      continued, by female succession, to our present sovereign,
      derived their equal and sacred lineage from Woden, the god of
      war. It has been pretended, that this republic of kings was
      moderated by a general council and a supreme magistrate. But such
      an artificial scheme of policy is repugnant to the rude and
      turbulent spirit of the Saxons: their laws are silent; and their
      imperfect annals afford only a dark and bloody prospect of
      intestine discord. 131

      130 (return) [ All these tribes are expressly enumerated by Bede,
      (l. i. c. 15, p. 52, l. v. c. 9, p. 190;) and though I have
      considered Mr. Whitaker’s remarks, (Hist. of Manchester, vol. ii.
      p. 538-543,) I do not perceive the absurdity of supposing that
      the Frisians, &c., were mingled with the Anglo-Saxons.]

      1301 (return) [ This term (the Heptarchy) must be rejected
      because an idea is conveyed thereby which is substantially wrong.
      At no one period were there ever seven kingdoms independent of
      each other. Palgrave, vol. i. p. 46. Mr. Sharon Turner has the
      merit of having first confuted the popular notion on this
      subject. Anglo-Saxon History, vol. i. p. 302.—M.]

      131 (return) [ Bede has enumerated seven kings, two Saxons, a
      Jute, and four Angles, who successively acquired in the heptarchy
      an indefinite supremacy of power and renown. But their reign was
      the effect, not of law, but of conquest; and he observes, in
      similar terms, that one of them subdued the Isles of Man and
      Anglesey; and that another imposed a tribute on the Scots and
      Picts. (Hist. Eccles. l. ii. c. 5, p. 83.)]

      A monk, who, in the profound ignorance of human life, has
      presumed to exercise the office of historian, strangely
      disfigures the state of Britain at the time of its separation
      from the Western empire. Gildas 132 describes in florid language
      the improvements of agriculture, the foreign trade which flowed
      with every tide into the Thames and the Severn the solid and
      lofty construction of public and private edifices; he accuses the
      sinful luxury of the British people; of a people, according to
      the same writer, ignorant of the most simple arts, and incapable,
      without the aid of the Romans, of providing walls of stone, or
      weapons of iron, for the defence of their native land. 133 Under
      the long dominion of the emperors, Britain had been insensibly
      moulded into the elegant and servile form of a Roman province,
      whose safety was intrusted to a foreign power. The subjects of
      Honorius contemplated their new freedom with surprise and terror;
      they were left destitute of any civil or military constitution;
      and their uncertain rulers wanted either skill, or courage, or
      authority, to direct the public force against the common enemy.
      The introduction of the Saxons betrayed their internal weakness,
      and degraded the character both of the prince and people. Their
      consternation magnified the danger; the want of union diminished
      their resources; and the madness of civil factions was more
      solicitous to accuse, than to remedy, the evils, which they
      imputed to the misconduct of their adversaries.

      Yet the Britons were not ignorant, they could not be ignorant, of
      the manufacture or the use of arms; the successive and disorderly
      attacks of the Saxons allowed them to recover from their
      amazement, and the prosperous or adverse events of the war added
      discipline and experience to their native valor.

      132 (return) [ See Gildas de Excidio Britanniae, c. i. p. l.
      edit. Gale.]

      133 (return) [ Mr. Whitaker (Hist. of Manchester, vol. ii. p.
      503, 516) has smartly exposed this glaring absurdity, which had
      passed unnoticed by the general historians, as they were
      hastening to more interesting and important events]

      While the continent of Europe and Africa yielded, without
      resistance, to the Barbarians, the British island, alone and
      unaided, maintained a long, a vigorous, though an unsuccessful,
      struggle, against the formidable pirates, who, almost at the same
      instant, assaulted the Northern, the Eastern, and the Southern
      coasts. The cities which had been fortified with skill, were
      defended with resolution; the advantages of ground, hills,
      forests, and morasses, were diligently improved by the
      inhabitants; the conquest of each district was purchased with
      blood; and the defeats of the Saxons are strongly attested by the
      discreet silence of their annalist. Hengist might hope to achieve
      the conquest of Britain; but his ambition, in an active reign of
      thirty-five years, was confined to the possession of Kent; and
      the numerous colony which he had planted in the North, was
      extirpated by the sword of the Britons. The monarchy of the West
      Saxons was laboriously founded by the persevering efforts of
      three martial generations. The life of Cerdic, one of the bravest
      of the children of Woden, was consumed in the conquest of
      Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight; and the loss which he sustained
      in the battle of Mount Badon, reduced him to a state of
      inglorious repose. Kenric, his valiant son, advanced into
      Wiltshire; besieged Salisbury, at that time seated on a
      commanding eminence; and vanquished an army which advanced to the
      relief of the city. In the subsequent battle of Marlborough, 134
      his British enemies displayed their military science. Their
      troops were formed in three lines; each line consisted of three
      distinct bodies, and the cavalry, the archers, and the pikemen,
      were distributed according to the principles of Roman tactics.
      The Saxons charged in one weighty column, boldly encountered with
      their shord swords the long lances of the Britons, and maintained
      an equal conflict till the approach of night. Two decisive
      victories, the death of three British kings, and the reduction of
      Cirencester, Bath, and Gloucester, established the fame and power
      of Ceaulin, the grandson of Cerdic, who carried his victorious
      arms to the banks of the Severn.

      134 (return) [ At Beran-birig, or Barbury-castle, near
      Marlborough. The Saxon chronicle assigns the name and date.
      Camden (Britannia, vol. i. p. 128) ascertains the place; and
      Henry of Huntingdon (Scriptores pest Bedam, p. 314) relates the
      circumstances of this battle. They are probable and
      characteristic; and the historians of the twelfth century might
      consult some materials that no longer exist.] After a war of a
      hundred years, the independent Britons still occupied the whole
      extent of the Western coast, from the wall of Antoninus to the
      extreme promontory of Cornwall; and the principal cities of the
      inland country still opposed the arms of the Barbarians.
      Resistance became more languid, as the number and boldness of the
      assailants continually increased. Winning their way by slow and
      painful efforts, the Saxons, the Angles, and their various
      confederates, advanced from the North, from the East, and from
      the South, till their victorious banners were united in the
      centre of the island. Beyond the Severn the Britons still
      asserted their national freedom, which survived the heptarchy,
      and even the monarchy, of the Saxons. The bravest warriors, who
      preferred exile to slavery, found a secure refuge in the
      mountains of Wales: the reluctant submission of Cornwall was
      delayed for some ages; 135 and a band of fugitives acquired a
      settlement in Gaul, by their own valor, or the liberality of the
      Merovingian kings. 136 The Western angle of Armorica acquired the
      new appellations of Cornwall, and the Lesser Britain; and the
      vacant lands of the Osismii were filled by a strange people, who,
      under the authority of their counts and bishops, preserved the
      laws and language of their ancestors. To the feeble descendants
      of Clovis and Charlemagne, the Britons of Armorica refused the
      customary tribute, subdued the neighboring dioceses of Vannes,
      Rennes, and Nantes, and formed a powerful, though vassal, state,
      which has been united to the crown of France. 137

      135 (return) [ Cornwall was finally subdued by Athelstan, (A.D.
      927-941,) who planted an English colony at Exeter, and confined
      the Britons beyond the River Tamar. See William of Malmsbury, l.
      ii., in the Scriptores post Bedam, p. 50. The spirit of the
      Cornish knights was degraded by servitude: and it should seem,
      from the Romance of Sir Tristram, that their cowardice was almost
      proverbial.]

      136 (return) [ The establishment of the Britons in Gaul is proved
      in the sixth century, by Procopius, Gregory of Tours, the second
      council of Tours, (A.D. 567,) and the least suspicious of their
      chronicles and lives of saints. The subscription of a bishop of
      the Britons to the first council of Tours, (A.D. 461, or rather
      481,) the army of Riothamus, and the loose declamation of Gildas,
      (alii transmarinas petebant regiones, c. 25, p. 8,) may
      countenance an emigration as early as the middle of the fifth
      century. Beyond that era, the Britons of Armorica can be found
      only in romance; and I am surprised that Mr. Whitaker (Genuine
      History of the Britons, p. 214-221) should so faithfully
      transcribe the gross ignorance of Carte, whose venial errors he
      has so rigorously chastised.]

      137 (return) [ The antiquities of Bretagne, which have been the
      subject even of political controversy, are illustrated by Hadrian
      Valesius, (Notitia Galliarum, sub voce Britannia Cismarina, p.
      98-100.) M. D’Anville, (Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, Corisopiti,
      Curiosolites, Osismii, Vorganium, p. 248, 258, 508, 720, and
      Etats de l’Europe, p. 76-80,) Longuerue, (Description de la
      France, tom. i. p. 84-94,) and the Abbe de Vertot, (Hist.
      Critique de l’Etablissement des Bretons dans les Gaules, 2 vols.
      in 12 mo., Paris, 1720.) I may assume the merit of examining the
      original evidence which they have produced. * Note: Compare
      Gallet, Memoires sur la Bretagne, and Daru, Histoire de Bretagne.
      These authors appear to me to establish the point of the
      independence of Bretagne at the time that the insular Britons
      took refuge in their country, and that the greater part landed as
      fugitives rather than as conquerors. I observe that M. Lappenberg
      (Geschichte von England, vol. i. p. 56) supposes the settlement
      of a military colony formed of British soldiers, (Milites
      limitanei, laeti,) during the usurpation of Maximus, (381, 388,)
      who gave their name and peculiar civilization to Bretagne. M.
      Lappenberg expresses his surprise that Gibbon here rejects the
      authority which he follows elsewhere.—M.]




      Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part V.

      In a century of perpetual, or at least implacable, war, much
      courage, and some skill, must have been exerted for the defence
      of Britain. Yet if the memory of its champions is almost buried
      in oblivion, we need not repine; since every age, however
      destitute of science or virtue, sufficiently abounds with acts of
      blood and military renown. The tomb of Vortimer, the son of
      Vortigern, was erected on the margin of the sea-shore, as a
      landmark formidable to the Saxons, whom he had thrice vanquished
      in the fields of Kent. Ambrosius Aurelian was descended from a
      noble family of Romans; 138 his modesty was equal to his valor,
      and his valor, till the last fatal action, 139 was crowned with
      splendid success. But every British name is effaced by the
      illustrious name of Arthur, 140 the hereditary prince of the
      Silures, in South Wales, and the elective king or general of the
      nation. According to the most rational account, he defeated, in
      twelve successive battles, the Angles of the North, and the
      Saxons of the West; but the declining age of the hero was
      imbittered by popular ingratitude and domestic misfortunes. The
      events of his life are less interesting than the singular
      revolutions of his fame. During a period of five hundred years
      the tradition of his exploits was preserved, and rudely
      embellished, by the obscure bards of Wales and Armorica, who were
      odious to the Saxons, and unknown to the rest of mankind. The
      pride and curiosity of the Norman conquerors prompted them to
      inquire into the ancient history of Britain: they listened with
      fond credulity to the tale of Arthur, and eagerly applauded the
      merit of a prince who had triumphed over the Saxons, their common
      enemies. His romance, transcribed in the Latin of Jeffrey of
      Monmouth, and afterwards translated into the fashionable idiom of
      the times, was enriched with the various, though incoherent,
      ornaments which were familiar to the experience, the learning, or
      the fancy, of the twelfth century. The progress of a Phrygian
      colony, from the Tyber to the Thames, was easily ingrafted on the
      fable of the Aeneid; and the royal ancestors of Arthur derived
      their origin from Troy, and claimed their alliance with the
      Caesars. His trophies were decorated with captive provinces and
      Imperial titles; and his Danish victories avenged the recent
      injuries of his country. The gallantry and superstition of the
      British hero, his feasts and tournaments, and the memorable
      institution of his Knights of the Round Table, were faithfully
      copied from the reigning manners of chivalry; and the fabulous
      exploits of Uther’s son appear less incredible than the
      adventures which were achieved by the enterprising valor of the
      Normans. Pilgrimage, and the holy wars, introduced into Europe
      the specious miracles of Arabian magic. Fairies and giants,
      flying dragons, and enchanted palaces, were blended with the more
      simple fictions of the West; and the fate of Britain depended on
      the art, or the predictions, of Merlin. Every nation embraced and
      adorned the popular romance of Arthur, and the Knights of the
      Round Table: their names were celebrated in Greece and Italy; and
      the voluminous tales of Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram were
      devoutly studied by the princes and nobles, who disregarded the
      genuine heroes and historians of antiquity. At length the light
      of science and reason was rekindled; the talisman was broken; the
      visionary fabric melted into air; and by a natural, though
      unjust, reverse of the public opinion, the severity of the
      present age is inclined to question the existence of Arthur. 141

      138 (return) [ Bede, who in his chronicle (p. 28) places
      Ambrosius under the reign of Zeno, (A.D. 474-491,) observes, that
      his parents had been “purpura induti;” which he explains, in his
      ecclesiastical history, by “regium nomen et insigne ferentibus,“
      (l. i. c. 16, p. 53.) The expression of Nennius (c. 44, p. 110,
      edit. Gale) is still more singular, “Unus de consulibus gentis
      Romanicae est pater meus.“]

      139 (return) [ By the unanimous, though doubtful, conjecture of
      our antiquarians, Ambrosius is confounded with Natanleod, who
      (A.D. 508) lost his own life, and five thousand of his subjects,
      in a battle against Cerdic, the West Saxon, (Chron. Saxon. p. 17,
      18.)]

      140 (return) [ As I am a stranger to the Welsh bards, Myrdhin,
      Llomarch, and Taliessin, my faith in the existence and exploits
      of Arthur principally rests on the simple and circumstantial
      testimony of Nennius. (Hist. Brit. c. 62, 63, p. 114.) Mr.
      Whitaker, (Hist. of Manchester, vol. ii. p. 31-71) had framed an
      interesting, and even probable, narrative of the wars of Arthur:
      though it is impossible to allow the reality of the round table.
      * Note: I presume that Gibbon means Llywarch Hen, or the
      Aged.—The Elegies of this Welsh prince and bard have been
      published by Mr. Owen; to whose works and in the Myvyrian
      Archaeology, slumbers much curious information on the subject of
      Welsh tradition and poetry. But the Welsh antiquarians have never
      obtained a hearing from the public; they have had no Macpherson
      to compensate for his corruption of their poetic legends by
      forcing them into popularity.—See also Mr. Sharon Turner’s Essay
      on the Welsh Bards.—M.]

      141 (return) [ The progress of romance, and the state of
      learning, in the middle ages, are illustrated by Mr. Thomas
      Warton, with the taste of a poet, and the minute diligence of an
      antiquarian. I have derived much instruction from the two learned
      dissertations prefixed to the first volume of his History of
      English Poetry. * Note: These valuable dissertations should not
      now be read without the notes and preliminary essay of the late
      editor, Mr. Price, which, in point of taste and fulness of
      information, are worthy of accompanying and completing those of
      Warton.—M.]

      Resistance, if it cannot avert, must increase the miseries of
      conquest; and conquest has never appeared more dreadful and
      destructive than in the hands of the Saxons; who hated the valor
      of their enemies, disdained the faith of treaties, and violated,
      without remorse, the most sacred objects of the Christian
      worship. The fields of battle might be traced, almost in every
      district, by monuments of bones; the fragments of falling towers
      were stained with blood; the last of the Britons, without
      distinction of age or sex, was massacred, 142 in the ruins of
      Anderida; 143 and the repetition of such calamities was frequent
      and familiar under the Saxon heptarchy. The arts and religion,
      the laws and language, which the Romans had so carefully planted
      in Britain, were extirpated by their barbarous successors. After
      the destruction of the principal churches, the bishops, who had
      declined the crown of martyrdom, retired with the holy relics
      into Wales and Armorica; the remains of their flocks were left
      destitute of any spiritual food; the practice, and even the
      remembrance, of Christianity were abolished; and the British
      clergy might obtain some comfort from the damnation of the
      idolatrous strangers. The kings of France maintained the
      privileges of their Roman subjects; but the ferocious Saxons
      trampled on the laws of Rome, and of the emperors. The
      proceedings of civil and criminal jurisdiction, the titles of
      honor, the forms of office, the ranks of society, and even the
      domestic rights of marriage, testament, and inheritance, were
      finally suppressed; and the indiscriminate crowd of noble and
      plebeian slaves was governed by the traditionary customs, which
      had been coarsely framed for the shepherds and pirates of
      Germany. The language of science, of business, and of
      conversation, which had been introduced by the Romans, was lost
      in the general desolation. A sufficient number of Latin or Celtic
      words might be assumed by the Germans, to express their new wants
      and ideas; 144 but those illiterate Pagans preserved and
      established the use of their national dialect. 145 Almost every
      name, conspicuous either in the church or state, reveals its
      Teutonic origin; 146 and the geography of England was universally
      inscribed with foreign characters and appellations. The example
      of a revolution, so rapid and so complete, may not easily be
      found; but it will excite a probable suspicion, that the arts of
      Rome were less deeply rooted in Britain than in Gaul or Spain;
      and that the native rudeness of the country and its inhabitants
      was covered by a thin varnish of Italian manners.

      142 (return) [ Hoc anno (490) Aella et Cissa obsederunt
      Andredes-Ceaster; et interfecerunt omnes qui id incoluerunt; adeo
      ut ne unus Brito ibi superstes fuerit, (Chron. Saxon. p. 15;) an
      expression more dreadful in its simplicity, than all the vague
      and tedious lamentations of the British Jeremiah.]

      143 (return) [ Andredes-Ceaster, or Anderida, is placed by Camden
      (Britannia, vol. i. p. 258) at Newenden, in the marshy grounds of
      Kent, which might be formerly covered by the sea, and on the edge
      of the great forest (Anderida) which overspread so large a
      portion of Hampshire and Sussex.]

      144 (return) [ Dr. Johnson affirms, that few English words are of
      British extraction. Mr. Whitaker, who understands the British
      language, has discovered more than three thousand, and actually
      produces a long and various catalogue, (vol. ii. p. 235-329.) It
      is possible, indeed, that many of these words may have been
      imported from the Latin or Saxon into the native idiom of
      Britain. * Note: Dr. Prichard’s very curious researches, which
      connect the Celtic, as well as the Teutonic languages with the
      Indo-European class, make it still more difficult to decide
      between the Celtic or Teutonic origin of English words.—See
      Prichard on the Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations Oxford,
      1831.—M.]

      145 (return) [ In the beginning of the seventh century, the
      Franks and the Anglo-Saxons mutually understood each other’s
      language, which was derived from the same Teutonic root, (Bede,
      l. i. c. 25, p. 60.)]

      146 (return) [ After the first generation of Italian, or
      Scottish, missionaries, the dignities of the church were filled
      with Saxon proselytes.]

      This strange alteration has persuaded historians, and even
      philosophers, that the provincials of Britain were totally
      exterminated; and that the vacant land was again peopled by the
      perpetual influx, and rapid increase, of the German colonies.
      Three hundred thousand Saxons are said to have obeyed the summons
      of Hengist; 147 the entire emigation of the Angles was attested,
      in the age of Bede, by the solitude of their native country; 148
      and our experience has shown the free propagation of the human
      race, if they are cast on a fruitful wilderness, where their
      steps are unconfined, and their subsistence is plentiful. The
      Saxon kingdoms displayed the face of recent discovery and
      cultivation; the towns were small, the villages were distant; the
      husbandry was languid and unskilful; four sheep were equivalent
      to an acre of the best land; 149 an ample space of wood and
      morass was resigned to the vague dominion of nature; and the
      modern bishopric of Durham, the whole territory from the Tyne to
      the Tees, had returned to its primitive state of a savage and
      solitary forest. 150 Such imperfect population might have been
      supplied, in some generations, by the English colonies; but
      neither reason nor facts can justify the unnatural supposition,
      that the Saxons of Britain remained alone in the desert which
      they had subdued. After the sanguinary Barbarians had secured
      their dominion, and gratified their revenge, it was their
      interest to preserve the peasants as well as the cattle, of the
      unresisting country. In each successive revolution, the patient
      herd becomes the property of its new masters; and the salutary
      compact of food and labor is silently ratified by their mutual
      necessities. Wilfrid, the apostle of Sussex, 151 accepted from
      his royal convert the gift of the Vpeninsula of Selsey, near
      Chichester, with the persons and property of its inhabitants, who
      then amounted to eighty-seven families. He released them at once
      from spiritual and temporal bondage; and two hundred and fifty
      slaves of both sexes were baptized by their indulgent master. The
      kingdom of Sussex, which spread from the sea to the Thames,
      contained seven thousand families; twelve hundred were ascribed
      to the Isle of Wight; and, if we multiply this vague computation,
      it may seem probable, that England was cultivated by a million of
      servants, or villains, who were attached to the estates of their
      arbitrary landlords. The indigent Barbarians were often tempted
      to sell their children, or themselves into perpetual, and even
      foreign, bondage; 152 yet the special exemptions which were
      granted to national slaves, 153 sufficiently declare that they
      were much less numerous than the strangers and captives, who had
      lost their liberty, or changed their masters, by the accidents of
      war. When time and religion had mitigated the fierce spirit of
      the Anglo-Saxons, the laws encouraged the frequent practice of
      manumission; and their subjects, of Welsh or Cambrian extraction,
      assumed the respectable station of inferior freemen, possessed of
      lands, and entitled to the rights of civil society. 154 Such
      gentle treatment might secure the allegiance of a fierce people,
      who had been recently subdued on the confines of Wales and
      Cornwall. The sage Ina, the legislator of Wessex, united the two
      nations in the bands of domestic alliance; and four British lords
      of Somersetshire may be honorably distinguished in the court of a
      Saxon monarch. 155

      147 (return) [ Carte’s History of England, vol. i. p. 195. He
      quotes the British historians; but I much fear, that Jeffrey of
      Monmouth (l. vi. c. 15) is his only witness.]

      148 (return) [ Bede, Hist. Ecclesiast. l. i. c. 15, p. 52. The
      fact is probable, and well attested: yet such was the loose
      intermixture of the German tribes, that we find, in a subsequent
      period, the law of the Angli and Warini of Germany, (Lindenbrog.
      Codex, p. 479-486.)]

      149 (return) [ See Dr. Henry’s useful and laborious History of
      Great Britain, vol. ii. p. 388.]

      150 (return) [ Quicquid (says John of Tinemouth) inter Tynam et
      Tesam fluvios extitit, sola eremi vastitudo tunc temporis fuit,
      et idcirco nullius ditioni servivit, eo quod sola indomitorum et
      sylvestrium animalium spelunca et habitatio fuit, (apud Carte,
      vol. i. p. 195.) From bishop Nicholson (English Historical
      Library, p. 65, 98) I understand that fair copies of John of
      Tinemouth’s ample collections are preserved in the libraries of
      Oxford, Lambeth, &c.]

      151 (return) [ See the mission of Wilfrid, &c., in Bede, Hist.
      Eccles. l. iv. c. 13, 16, p. 155, 156, 159.]

      152 (return) [ From the concurrent testimony of Bede (l. ii. c.
      1, p. 78) and William of Malmsbury, (l. iii. p. 102,) it appears,
      that the Anglo-Saxons, from the first to the last age, persisted
      in this unnatural practice. Their youths were publicly sold in
      the market of Rome.]

      153 (return) [ According to the laws of Ina, they could not be
      lawfully sold beyond the seas.]

      154 (return) [ The life of a Wallus, or Cambricus, homo, who
      possessed a hyde of land, is fixed at 120 shillings, by the same
      laws (of Ina, tit. xxxii. in Leg. Anglo-Saxon. p. 20) which
      allowed 200 shillings for a free Saxon, 1200 for a Thane, (see
      likewise Leg. Anglo-Saxon. p. 71.) We may observe, that these
      legislators, the West Saxons and Mercians, continued their
      British conquests after they became Christians. The laws of the
      four kings of Kent do not condescend to notice the existence of
      any subject Britons.]

      155 (return) [ See Carte’s Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 278.]

      The independent Britons appear to have relapsed into the state of
      original barbarism, from whence they had been imperfectly
      reclaimed. Separated by their enemies from the rest of mankind,
      they soon became an object of scandal and abhorrence to the
      Catholic world. 156 Christianity was still professed in the
      mountains of Wales; but the rude schismatics, in the form of the
      clerical tonsure, and in the day of the celebration of Easter,
      obstinately resisted the imperious mandates of the Roman
      pontiffs. The use of the Latin language was insensibly abolished,
      and the Britons were deprived of the art and learning which Italy
      communicated to her Saxon proselytes. In Wales and Armorica, the
      Celtic tongue, the native idiom of the West, was preserved and
      propagated; and the Bards, who had been the companions of the
      Druids, were still protected, in the sixteenth century, by the
      laws of Elizabeth. Their chief, a respectable officer of the
      courts of Pengwern, or Aberfraw, or Caermarthen, accompanied the
      king’s servants to war: the monarchy of the Britons, which he
      sung in the front of battle, excited their courage, and justified
      their depredations; and the songster claimed for his legitimate
      prize the fairest heifer of the spoil. His subordinate ministers,
      the masters and disciples of vocal and instrumental music,
      visited, in their respective circuits, the royal, the noble, and
      the plebeian houses; and the public poverty, almost exhausted by
      the clergy, was oppressed by the importunate demands of the
      bards. Their rank and merit were ascertained by solemn trials,
      and the strong belief of supernatural inspiration exalted the
      fancy of the poet, and of his audience. 157 The last retreats of
      Celtic freedom, the extreme territories of Gaul and Britain, were
      less adapted to agriculture than to pasturage: the wealth of the
      Britons consisted in their flocks and herds; milk and flesh were
      their ordinary food; and bread was sometimes esteemed, or
      rejected, as a foreign luxury. Liberty had peopled the mountains
      of Wales and the morasses of Armorica; but their populousness has
      been maliciously ascribed to the loose practice of polygamy; and
      the houses of these licentious barbarians have been supposed to
      contain ten wives, and perhaps fifty children. 158 Their
      disposition was rash and choleric; they were bold in action and
      in speech; 159 and as they were ignorant of the arts of peace,
      they alternately indulged their passions in foreign and domestic
      war. The cavalry of Armorica, the spearmen of Gwent, and the
      archers of Merioneth, were equally formidable; but their poverty
      could seldom procure either shields or helmets; and the
      inconvenient weight would have retarded the speed and agility of
      their desultory operations. One of the greatest of the English
      monarchs was requested to satisfy the curiosity of a Greek
      emperor concerning the state of Britain; and Henry II. could
      assert, from his personal experience, that Wales was inhabited by
      a race of naked warriors, who encountered, without fear, the
      defensive armor of their enemies. 160

      156 (return) [ At the conclusion of his history, (A.D. 731,) Bede
      describes the ecclesiastical state of the island, and censures
      the implacable, though impotent, hatred of the Britons against
      the English nation, and the Catholic church, (l. v. c. 23, p.
      219.)]

      157 (return) [ Mr. Pennant’s Tour in Wales (p. 426-449) has
      furnished me with a curious and interesting account of the Welsh
      bards. In the year 1568, a session was held at Caerwys by the
      special command of Queen Elizabeth, and regular degrees in vocal
      and instrumental music were conferred on fifty-five minstrels.
      The prize (a silver harp) was adjudged by the Mostyn family.]

      158 (return) [ Regio longe lateque diffusa, milite, magis quam
      credibile sit, referta. Partibus equidem in illis miles unus
      quinquaginta generat, sortitus more barbaro denas aut amplius
      uxores. This reproach of William of Poitiers (in the Historians
      of France, tom. xi. p. 88) is disclaimed by the Benedictine
      editors.]

      159 (return) [ Giraldus Cambrensis confines this gift of bold and
      ready eloquence to the Romans, the French, and the Britons. The
      malicious Welshman insinuates that the English taciturnity might
      possibly be the effect of their servitude under the Normans.]

      160 (return) [ The picture of Welsh and Armorican manners is
      drawn from Giraldus, (Descript. Cambriae, c. 6-15, inter Script.
      Camden. p. 886-891,) and the authors quoted by the Abbe de
      Vertot, (Hist. Critique tom. ii. p. 259-266.)]

      By the revolution of Britain, the limits of science, as well as
      of empire, were contracted. The dark cloud, which had been
      cleared by the Phoenician discoveries, and finally dispelled by
      the arms of Caesar, again settled on the shores of the Atlantic,
      and a Roman province was again lost among the fabulous Islands of
      the Ocean. One hundred and fifty years after the reign of
      Honorius, the gravest historian of the times 161 describes the
      wonders of a remote isle, whose eastern and western parts are
      divided by an antique wall, the boundary of life and death, or,
      more properly, of truth and fiction. The east is a fair country,
      inhabited by a civilized people: the air is healthy, the waters
      are pure and plentiful, and the earth yields her regular and
      fruitful increase. In the west, beyond the wall, the air is
      infectious and mortal; the ground is covered with serpents; and
      this dreary solitude is the region of departed spirits, who are
      transported from the opposite shores in substantial boats, and by
      living rowers. Some families of fishermen, the subjects of the
      Franks, are excused from tribute, in consideration of the
      mysterious office which is performed by these Charons of the
      ocean. Each in his turn is summoned, at the hour of midnight, to
      hear the voices, and even the names, of the ghosts: he is
      sensible of their weight, and he feels himself impelled by an
      unknown, but irresistible power. After this dream of fancy, we
      read with astonishment, that the name of this island is Brittia;
      that it lies in the ocean, against the mouth of the Rhine, and
      less than thirty miles from the continent; that it is possessed
      by three nations, the Frisians, the Angles, and the Britons; and
      that some Angles had appeared at Constantinople, in the train of
      the French ambassadors. From these ambassadors Procopius might be
      informed of a singular, though not improbable, adventure, which
      announces the spirit, rather than the delicacy, of an English
      heroine. She had been betrothed to Radiger, king of the Varni, a
      tribe of Germans who touched the ocean and the Rhine; but the
      perfidious lover was tempted, by motives of policy, to prefer his
      father’s widow, the sister of Theodebert, king of the Franks. 162
      The forsaken princess of the Angles, instead of bewailing,
      revenged her disgrace. Her warlike subjects are said to have been
      ignorant of the use, and even of the form, of a horse; but she
      boldly sailed from Britain to the mouth of the Rhine, with a
      fleet of four hundred ships, and an army of one hundred thousand
      men. After the loss of a battle, the captive Radiger implored the
      mercy of his victorious bride, who generously pardoned his
      offence, dismissed her rival, and compelled the king of the Varni
      to discharge with honor and fidelity the duties of a husband. 163
      This gallant exploit appears to be the last naval enterprise of
      the Anglo-Saxons. The arts of navigation, by which they acquired
      the empire of Britain and of the sea, were soon neglected by the
      indolent Barbarians, who supinely renounced all the commercial
      advantages of their insular situation. Seven independent kingdoms
      were agitated by perpetual discord; and the British world was
      seldom connected, either in peace or war, with the nations of the
      Continent. 164

      161 (return) [ See Procopius de Bell. Gothic. l. iv. c. 20, p.
      620-625. The Greek historian is himself so confounded by the
      wonders which he relates, that he weakly attempts to distinguish
      the islands of Britia and Britain, which he has identified by so
      many inseparable circumstances.]

      162 (return) [ Theodebert, grandson of Clovis, and king of
      Austrasia, was the most powerful and warlike prince of the age;
      and this remarkable adventure may be placed between the years 534
      and 547, the extreme terms of his reign. His sister Theudechildis
      retired to Sens, where she founded monasteries, and distributed
      alms, (see the notes of the Benedictine editors, in tom. ii. p.
      216.) If we may credit the praises of Fortunatus, (l. vi. carm.
      5, in tom. ii. p. 507,) Radiger was deprived of a most valuable
      wife.]

      163 (return) [ Perhaps she was the sister of one of the princes
      or chiefs of the Angles, who landed in 527, and the following
      years, between the Humber and the Thames, and gradually founded
      the kingdoms of East Anglia and Mercia. The English writers are
      ignorant of her name and existence: but Procopius may have
      suggested to Mr. Rowe the character and situation of Rodogune in
      the tragedy of the Royal Convert.]

      164 (return) [ In the copious history of Gregory of Tours, we
      cannot find any traces of hostile or friendly intercourse between
      France and England except in the marriage of the daughter of
      Caribert, king of Paris, quam regis cujusdam in Cantia filius
      matrimonio copulavit, (l. ix. c. 28, in tom. ii. p. 348.) The
      bishop of Tours ended his history and his life almost immediately
      before the conversion of Kent.]

      I have now accomplished the laborious narrative of the decline
      and fall of the Roman empire, from the fortunate age of Trajan
      and the Antonines, to its total extinction in the West, about
      five centuries after the Christian era. At that unhappy period,
      the Saxons fiercely struggled with the natives for the possession
      of Britain: Gaul and Spain were divided between the powerful
      monarchies of the Franks and Visigoths, and the dependent
      kingdoms of the Suevi and Burgundians: Africa was exposed to the
      cruel persecution of the Vandals, and the savage insults of the
      Moors: Rome and Italy, as far as the banks of the Danube, were
      afflicted by an army of Barbarian mercenaries, whose lawless
      tyranny was succeeded by the reign of Theodoric the Ostrogoth.
      All the subjects of the empire, who, by the use of the Latin
      language, more particularly deserved the name and privileges of
      Romans, were oppressed by the disgrace and calamities of foreign
      conquest; and the victorious nations of Germany established a new
      system of manners and government in the western countries of
      Europe. The majesty of Rome was faintly represented by the
      princes of Constantinople, the feeble and imaginary successors of
      Augustus. Yet they continued to reign over the East, from the
      Danube to the Nile and Tigris; the Gothic and Vandal kingdoms of
      Italy and Africa were subverted by the arms of Justinian; and the
      history of the Greek emperors may still afford a long series of
      instructive lessons, and interesting revolutions.




      Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part VI.

    General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West.

      The Greeks, after their country had been reduced into a province,
      imputed the triumphs of Rome, not to the merit, but to the
      fortune, of the republic. The inconstant goddess, who so blindly
      distributes and resumes her favors, had now consented (such was
      the language of envious flattery) to resign her wings, to descend
      from her globe, and to fix her firm and immutable throne on the
      banks of the Tyber. 1000 A wiser Greek, who has composed, with a
      philosophic spirit, the memorable history of his own times,
      deprived his countrymen of this vain and delusive comfort, by
      opening to their view the deep foundations of the greatness of
      Rome. 2000 The fidelity of the citizens to each other, and to the
      state, was confirmed by the habits of education, and the
      prejudices of religion. Honor, as well as virtue, was the
      principle of the republic; the ambitious citizens labored to
      deserve the solemn glories of a triumph; and the ardor of the
      Roman youth was kindled into active emulation, as often as they
      beheld the domestic images of their ancestors. 3000 The temperate
      struggles of the patricians and plebeians had finally established
      the firm and equal balance of the constitution; which united the
      freedom of popular assemblies, with the authority and wisdom of a
      senate, and the executive powers of a regal magistrate. When the
      consul displayed the standard of the republic, each citizen bound
      himself, by the obligation of an oath, to draw his sword in the
      cause of his country, till he had discharged the sacred duty by a
      military service of ten years. This wise institution continually
      poured into the field the rising generations of freemen and
      soldiers; and their numbers were reenforced by the warlike and
      populous states of Italy, who, after a brave resistance, had
      yielded to the valor and embraced the alliance, of the Romans.
      The sage historian, who excited the virtue of the younger Scipio,
      and beheld the ruin of Carthage, 4000 has accurately described
      their military system; their levies, arms, exercises,
      subordination, marches, encampments; and the invincible legion,
      superior in active strength to the Macedonian phalanx of Philip
      and Alexander. From these institutions of peace and war Polybius
      has deduced the spirit and success of a people, incapable of
      fear, and impatient of repose. The ambitious design of conquest,
      which might have been defeated by the seasonable conspiracy of
      mankind, was attempted and achieved; and the perpetual violation
      of justice was maintained by the political virtues of prudence
      and courage. The arms of the republic, sometimes vanquished in
      battle, always victorious in war, advanced with rapid steps to
      the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and the Ocean; and the
      images of gold, or silver, or brass, that might serve to
      represent the nations and their kings, were successively broken
      by the iron monarchy of Rome. 5000

      1000 (return) [ Such are the figurative expressions of Plutarch,
      (Opera, tom. ii. p. 318, edit. Wechel,) to whom, on the faith of
      his son Lamprias, (Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. iii. p. 341,)
      I shall boldly impute the malicious declamation. The same
      opinions had prevailed among the Greeks two hundred and fifty
      years before Plutarch; and to confute them is the professed
      intention of Polybius, (Hist. l. i. p. 90, edit. Gronov. Amstel.
      1670.)]

      2000 (return) [ See the inestimable remains of the sixth book of
      Polybius, and many other parts of his general history,
      particularly a digression in the seventeenth book, in which he
      compares the phalanx and the legion.]

      3000 (return) [ Sallust, de Bell. Jugurthin. c. 4. Such were the
      generous professions of P. Scipio and Q. Maximus. The Latin
      historian had read and most probably transcribes, Polybius, their
      contemporary and friend.]

      4000 (return) [ While Carthage was in flames, Scipio repeated two
      lines of the Iliad, which express the destruction of Troy,
      acknowledging to Polybius, his friend and preceptor, (Polyb. in
      Excerpt. de Virtut. et Vit. tom. ii. p. 1455-1465,) that while he
      recollected the vicissitudes of human affairs, he inwardly
      applied them to the future calamities of Rome, (Appian. in
      Libycis, p. 136, edit. Toll.)]

      5000 (return) [ See Daniel, ii. 31-40. “And the fourth kingdom
      shall be strong as iron; forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and
      subdueth all things.“ The remainder of the prophecy (the mixture
      of iron and clay) was accomplished, according to St. Jerom, in
      his own time. Sicut enim in principio nihil Romano Imperio
      fortius et durius, ita in fine rerum nihil imbecillius; quum et
      in bellis civilibus et adversus diversas nationes, aliarum
      gentium barbararum auxilio indigemus, (Opera, tom. v. p. 572.)]

      The rise of a city, which swelled into an empire, may deserve, as
      a singular prodigy, the reflection of a philosophic mind. But the
      decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of
      immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay;
      the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest;
      and as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial
      supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its
      own weight. The story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and
      instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we
      should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. The
      victorious legions, who, in distant wars, acquired the vices of
      strangers and mercenaries, first oppressed the freedom of the
      republic, and afterwards violated the majesty of the purple. The
      emperors, anxious for their personal safety and the public peace,
      were reduced to the base expedient of corrupting the discipline
      which rendered them alike formidable to their sovereign and to
      the enemy; the vigor of the military government was relaxed, and
      finally dissolved, by the partial institutions of Constantine;
      and the Roman world was overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians.

      The decay of Rome has been frequently ascribed to the translation
      of the seat of empire; but this History has already shown, that
      the powers of government were divided, rather than removed. The
      throne of Constantinople was erected in the East; while the West
      was still possessed by a series of emperors who held their
      residence in Italy, and claimed their equal inheritance of the
      legions and provinces. This dangerous novelty impaired the
      strength, and fomented the vices, of a double reign: the
      instruments of an oppressive and arbitrary system were
      multiplied; and a vain emulation of luxury, not of merit, was
      introduced and supported between the degenerate successors of
      Theodosius. Extreme distress, which unites the virtue of a free
      people, imbitters the factions of a declining monarchy. The
      hostile favorites of Arcadius and Honorius betrayed the republic
      to its common enemies; and the Byzantine court beheld with
      indifference, perhaps with pleasure, the disgrace of Rome, the
      misfortunes of Italy, and the loss of the West. Under the
      succeeding reigns, the alliance of the two empires was restored;
      but the aid of the Oriental Romans was tardy, doubtful, and
      ineffectual; and the national schism of the Greeks and Latins was
      enlarged by the perpetual difference of language and manners, of
      interests, and even of religion. Yet the salutary event approved
      in some measure the judgment of Constantine. During a long period
      of decay, his impregnable city repelled the victorious armies of
      Barbarians, protected the wealth of Asia, and commanded, both in
      peace and war, the important straits which connect the Euxine and
      Mediterranean Seas. The foundation of Constantinople more
      essentially contributed to the preservation of the East, than to
      the ruin of the West.

      As the happiness of a future life is the great object of
      religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal, that the
      introduction or at least the abuse, of Christianity had some
      influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy
      successfully preached the doctrines of patience and
      pusillanimity: the active virtues of society were discouraged;
      and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the
      cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was
      consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and
      the soldiers’ pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both
      sexes, who could only plead the merits of abstinence and
      chastity. 511 Faith, zeal, curiosity, and the more earthly
      passions of malice and ambition, kindled the flame of theological
      discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by
      religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody, and
      always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted
      from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new
      species of tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secret
      enemies of their country. Yet party spirit, however pernicious or
      absurd, is a principle of union as well as of dissension. The
      bishops, from eighteen hundred pulpits, inculcated the duty of
      passive obedience to a lawful and orthodox sovereign; their
      frequent assemblies, and perpetual correspondence, maintained the
      communion of distant churches; and the benevolent temper of the
      gospel was strengthened, though confined, by the spiritual
      alliance of the Catholics. The sacred indolence of the monks was
      devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age; but if
      superstition had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices
      would have tempted the unworthy Romans to desert, from baser
      motives, the standard of the republic. Religious precepts are
      easily obeyed, which indulge and sanctify the natural
      inclinations of their votaries; but the pure and genuine
      influence of Christianity may be traced in its beneficial, though
      imperfect, effects on the Barbarian proselytes of the North. If
      the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of
      Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the
      fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors.

      511 (return) [ It might be a curious speculation, how far the
      purer morals of the genuine and more active Christians may have
      compensated, in the population of the Roman empire, for the
      secession of such numbers into inactive and unproductive
      celibacy.—M.]

      This awful revolution may be usefully applied to the instruction
      of the present age. It is the duty of a patriot to prefer and
      promote the exclusive interest and glory of his native country:
      but a philosmay be permitted to enlarge his views, and to
      consider Europe as one great republic whose various inhabitants
      have obtained almost the same level of politeness and
      cultivation. The balance of power will continue to fluctuate, and
      the prosperity of our own, or the neighboring kingdoms, may be
      alternately exalted or depressed; but these partial events cannot
      essentially injure our general state of happiness, the system of
      arts, and laws, and manners, which so advantageously distinguish,
      above the rest of mankind, the Europeans and their colonies. The
      savage nations of the globe are the common enemies of civilized
      society; and we may inquire, with anxious curiosity, whether
      Europe is still threatened with a repetition of those calamities,
      which formerly oppressed the arms and institutions of Rome.
      Perhaps the same reflections will illustrate the fall of that
      mighty empire, and explain the probable causes of our actual
      security.

      I. The Romans were ignorant of the extent of their danger, and
      the number of their enemies. Beyond the Rhine and Danube, the
      Northern countries of Europe and Asia were filled with
      innumerable tribes of hunters and shepherds, poor, voracious, and
      turbulent; bold in arms, and impatient to ravish the fruits of
      industry. The Barbarian world was agitated by the rapid impulse
      of war; and the peace of Gaul or Italy was shaken by the distant
      revolutions of China. The Huns, who fled before a victorious
      enemy, directed their march towards the West; and the torrent was
      swelled by the gradual accession of captives and allies. The
      flying tribes who yielded to the Huns assumed in their turn the
      spirit of conquest; the endless column of Barbarians pressed on
      the Roman empire with accumulated weight; and, if the foremost
      were destroyed, the vacant space was instantly replenished by new
      assailants. Such formidable emigrations can no longer issue from
      the North; and the long repose, which has been imputed to the
      decrease of population, is the happy consequence of the progress
      of arts and agriculture. Instead of some rude villages, thinly
      scattered among its woods and morasses, Germany now produces a
      list of two thousand three hundred walled towns: the Christian
      kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Poland, have been successively
      established; and the Hanse merchants, with the Teutonic knights,
      have extended their colonies along the coast of the Baltic, as
      far as the Gulf of Finland. From the Gulf of Finland to the
      Eastern Ocean, Russia now assumes the form of a powerful and
      civilized empire. The plough, the loom, and the forge, are
      introduced on the banks of the Volga, the Oby, and the Lena; and
      the fiercest of the Tartar hordes have been taught to tremble and
      obey. The reign of independent Barbarism is now contracted to a
      narrow span; and the remnant of Calmucks or Uzbecks, whose forces
      may be almost numbered, cannot seriously excite the apprehensions
      of the great republic of Europe. 6000 Yet this apparent security
      should not tempt us to forget, that new enemies, and unknown
      dangers, may possibly arise from some obscure people, scarcely
      visible in the map of the world, The Arabs or Saracens, who
      spread their conquests from India to Spain, had languished in
      poverty and contempt, till Mahomet breathed into those savage
      bodies the soul of enthusiasm.

      6000 (return) [ The French and English editors of the
      Genealogical History of the Tartars have subjoined a curious,
      though imperfect, description, of their present state. We might
      question the independence of the Calmucks, or Eluths, since they
      have been recently vanquished by the Chinese, who, in the year
      1759, subdued the Lesser Bucharia, and advanced into the country
      of Badakshan, near the source of the Oxus, (Memoires sur les
      Chinois, tom. i. p. 325-400.) But these conquests are precarious,
      nor will I venture to insure the safety of the Chinese empire.]

      II. The empire of Rome was firmly established by the singular and
      perfect coalition of its members. The subject nations, resigning
      the hope, and even the wish, of independence, embraced the
      character of Roman citizens; and the provinces of the West were
      reluctantly torn by the Barbarians from the bosom of their mother
      country. 7000 But this union was purchased by the loss of
      national freedom and military spirit; and the servile provinces,
      destitute of life and motion, expected their safety from the
      mercenary troops and governors, who were directed by the orders
      of a distant court. The happiness of a hundred millions depended
      on the personal merit of one or two men, perhaps children, whose
      minds were corrupted by education, luxury, and despotic power.
      The deepest wounds were inflicted on the empire during the
      minorities of the sons and grandsons of Theodosius; and, after
      those incapable princes seemed to attain the age of manhood, they
      abandoned the church to the bishops, the state to the eunuchs,
      and the provinces to the Barbarians. Europe is now divided into
      twelve powerful, though unequal kingdoms, three respectable
      commonwealths, and a variety of smaller, though independent,
      states: the chances of royal and ministerial talents are
      multiplied, at least, with the number of its rulers; and a
      Julian, or Semiramis, may reign in the North, while Arcadius and
      Honorius again slumber on the thrones of the South. The abuses of
      tyranny are restrained by the mutual influence of fear and shame;
      republics have acquired order and stability; monarchies have
      imbibed the principles of freedom, or, at least, of moderation;
      and some sense of honor and justice is introduced into the most
      defective constitutions by the general manners of the times. In
      peace, the progress of knowledge and industry is accelerated by
      the emulation of so many active rivals: in war, the European
      forces are exercised by temperate and undecisive contests. If a
      savage conqueror should issue from the deserts of Tartary, he
      must repeatedly vanquish the robust peasants of Russia, the
      numerous armies of Germany, the gallant nobles of France, and the
      intrepid freemen of Britain; who, perhaps, might confederate for
      their common defence. Should the victorious Barbarians carry
      slavery and desolation as far as the Atlantic Ocean, ten thousand
      vessels would transport beyond their pursuit the remains of
      civilized society; and Europe would revive and flourish in the
      American world, which is already filled with her colonies and
      institutions. 8000

      7000 (return) [ The prudent reader will determine how far this
      general proposition is weakened by the revolt of the Isaurians,
      the independence of Britain and Armorica, the Moorish tribes, or
      the Bagaudae of Gaul and Spain, (vol. i. p. 328, vol. iii. p.
      315, vol. iii. p. 372, 480.)]

      8000 (return) [ America now contains about six millions of
      European blood and descent; and their numbers, at least in the
      North, are continually increasing. Whatever may be the changes of
      their political situation, they must preserve the manners of
      Europe; and we may reflect with some pleasure, that the English
      language will probably be diffused ever an immense and populous
      continent.]

      III. Cold, poverty, and a life of danger and fatigue, fortify the
      strength and courage of Barbarians. In every age they have
      oppressed the polite and peaceful nations of China, India, and
      Persia, who neglected, and still neglect, to counterbalance these
      natural powers by the resources of military art. The warlike
      states of antiquity, Greece, Macedonia, and Rome, educated a race
      of soldiers; exercised their bodies, disciplined their courage,
      multiplied their forces by regular evolutions, and converted the
      iron, which they possessed, into strong and serviceable weapons.
      But this superiority insensibly declined with their laws and
      manners; and the feeble policy of Constantine and his successors
      armed and instructed, for the ruin of the empire, the rude valor
      of the Barbarian mercenaries. The military art has been changed
      by the invention of gunpowder; which enables man to command the
      two most powerful agents of nature, air and fire. Mathematics,
      chemistry, mechanics, architecture, have been applied to the
      service of war; and the adverse parties oppose to each other the
      most elaborate modes of attack and of defence. Historians may
      indignantly observe, that the preparations of a siege would found
      and maintain a flourishing colony; 9000 yet we cannot be
      displeased, that the subversion of a city should be a work of
      cost and difficulty; or that an industrious people should be
      protected by those arts, which survive and supply the decay of
      military virtue. Cannon and fortifications now form an
      impregnable barrier against the Tartar horse; and Europe is
      secure from any future irruptions of Barbarians; since, before
      they can conquer, they must cease to be barbarous. Their gradual
      advances in the science of war would always be accompanied, as we
      may learn from the example of Russia, with a proportionable
      improvement in the arts of peace and civil policy; and they
      themselves must deserve a place among the polished nations whom
      they subdue.

      9000 (return) [ On avoit fait venir (for the siege of Turin) 140
      pieces de canon; et il est a remarquer que chaque gros canon
      monte revient a environ ecus: il y avoit 100,000 boulets; 106,000
      cartouches d’une facon, et 300,000 d’une autre; 21,000 bombes;
      27,700 grenades, 15,000 sacs a terre, 30,000 instruments pour la
      pionnage; 1,200,000 livres de poudre. Ajoutez a ces munitions, le
      plomb, le fer, et le fer-blanc, les cordages, tout ce qui sert
      aux mineurs, le souphre, le salpetre, les outils de toute espece.
      Il est certain que les frais de tous ces preparatifs de
      destruction suffiroient pour fonder et pour faire fleurir la plus
      aombreuse colonie. Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV. c. xx. in his
      Works. tom. xi. p. 391.]

      Should these speculations be found doubtful or fallacious, there
      still remains a more humble source of comfort and hope. The
      discoveries of ancient and modern navigators, and the domestic
      history, or tradition, of the most enlightened nations, represent
      the human savage, naked both in body and mind and destitute of
      laws, of arts, of ideas, and almost of language. 1001 From this
      abject condition, perhaps the primitive and universal state of
      man, he has gradually arisen to command the animals, to fertilize
      the earth, to traverse the ocean and to measure the heavens. His
      progress in the improvement and exercise of his mental and
      corporeal faculties 1101 has been irregular and various;
      infinitely slow in the beginning, and increasing by degrees with
      redoubled velocity: ages of laborious ascent have been followed
      by a moment of rapid downfall; and the several climates of the
      globe have felt the vicissitudes of light and darkness. Yet the
      experience of four thousand years should enlarge our hopes, and
      diminish our apprehensions: we cannot determine to what height
      the human species may aspire in their advances towards
      perfection; but it may safely be presumed, that no people, unless
      the face of nature is changed, will relapse into their original
      barbarism. The improvements of society may be viewed under a
      threefold aspect. 1. The poet or philosopher illustrates his age
      and country by the efforts of a single mind; but those superior
      powers of reason or fancy are rare and spontaneous productions;
      and the genius of Homer, or Cicero, or Newton, would excite less
      admiration, if they could be created by the will of a prince, or
      the lessons of a preceptor. 2. The benefits of law and policy, of
      trade and manufactures, of arts and sciences, are more solid and
      permanent: and many individuals may be qualified, by education
      and discipline, to promote, in their respective stations, the
      interest of the community. But this general order is the effect
      of skill and labor; and the complex machinery may be decayed by
      time, or injured by violence.

      3. Fortunately for mankind, the more useful, or, at least, more
      necessary arts, can be performed without superior talents, or
      national subordination: without the powers of one, or the union
      of many. Each village, each family, each individual, must always
      possess both ability and inclination to perpetuate the use of
      fire 1201 and of metals; the propagation and service of domestic
      animals; the methods of hunting and fishing; the rudiments of
      navigation; the imperfect cultivation of corn, or other nutritive
      grain; and the simple practice of the mechanic trades. Private
      genius and public industry may be extirpated; but these hardy
      plants survive the tempest, and strike an everlasting root into
      the most unfavorable soil. The splendid days of Augustus and
      Trajan were eclipsed by a cloud of ignorance; and the Barbarians
      subverted the laws and palaces of Rome. But the scythe, the
      invention or emblem of Saturn, 1302 still continued annually to
      mow the harvests of Italy; and the human feasts of the
      Laestrigons 1401 have never been renewed on the coast of
      Campania.

      1001 (return) [ It would be an easy, though tedious, task, to
      produce the authorities of poets, philosophers, and historians. I
      shall therefore content myself with appealing to the decisive and
      authentic testimony of Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l. i. p. 11,
      12, l. iii. p. 184, &c., edit. Wesseling.) The Icthyophagi, who
      in his time wandered along the shores of the Red Sea, can only be
      compared to the natives of New Holland, (Dampier’s Voyages, vol.
      i. p. 464-469.) Fancy, or perhaps reason, may still suppose an
      extreme and absolute state of nature far below the level of these
      savages, who had acquired some arts and instruments.]

      1101 (return) [ See the learned and rational work of the
      president Goguet, de l’Origine des Loix, des Arts, et des
      Sciences. He traces from facts, or conjectures, (tom. i. p.
      147-337, edit. 12mo.,) the first and most difficult steps of
      human invention.]

      1201 (return) [ It is certain, however strange, that many nations
      have been ignorant of the use of fire. Even the ingenious natives
      of Otaheite, who are destitute of metals, have not invented any
      earthen vessels capable of sustaining the action of fire, and of
      communicating the heat to the liquids which they contain.]

      1302 (return) [ Plutarch. Quaest. Rom. in tom. ii. p. 275.
      Macrob. Saturnal. l. i. c. 8, p. 152, edit. London. The arrival
      of Saturn (of his religious worship) in a ship, may indicate,
      that the savage coast of Latium was first discovered and
      civilized by the Phoenicians.]

      1401 (return) [ In the ninth and tenth books of the Odyssey,
      Homer has embellished the tales of fearful and credulous sailors,
      who transformed the cannibals of Italy and Sicily into monstrous
      giants.]

      Since the first discovery of the arts, war, commerce, and
      religious zeal have diffused, among the savages of the Old and
      New World, these inestimable gifts: they have been successively
      propagated; they can never be lost. We may therefore acquiesce in
      the pleasing conclusion, that every age of the world has
      increased, and still increases, the real wealth, the happiness,
      the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race. 1501

      1501 (return) [ The merit of discovery has too often been stained
      with avarice, cruelty, and fanaticism; and the intercourse of
      nations has produced the communication of disease and prejudice.
      A singular exception is due to the virtue of our own times and
      country. The five great voyages, successively undertaken by the
      command of his present Majesty, were inspired by the pure and
      generous love of science and of mankind. The same prince,
      adapting his benefactions to the different stages of society, has
      founded his school of painting in his capital; and has introduced
      into the islands of the South Sea the vegetables and animals most
      useful to human life.]




VOLUME FOUR




      Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part I.

     Zeno And Anastasius, Emperors Of The East.—Birth, Education, And
     First Exploits Of Theodoric The Ostrogoth.— His Invasion And
     Conquest Of Italy.—The Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—State Of The
     West.—Military And Civil Government.— The Senator Boethius.—Last
     Acts And Death Of Theodoric.

      After the fall of the Roman empire in the West, an interval of
      fifty years, till the memorable reign of Justinian, is faintly
      marked by the obscure names and imperfect annals of Zeno,
      Anastasius, and Justin, who successively ascended to the throne
      of Constantinople. During the same period, Italy revived and
      flourished under the government of a Gothic king, who might have
      deserved a statue among the best and bravest of the ancient
      Romans.

      Theodoric the Ostrogoth, the fourteenth in lineal descent of the
      royal line of the Amali, 1 was born in the neighborhood of Vienna
      2 two years after the death of Attila. 2111 A recent victory had
      restored the independence of the Ostrogoths; and the three
      brothers, Walamir, Theodemir, and Widimir, who ruled that warlike
      nation with united counsels, had separately pitched their
      habitations in the fertile though desolate province of Pannonia.
      The Huns still threatened their revolted subjects, but their
      hasty attack was repelled by the single forces of Walamir, and
      the news of his victory reached the distant camp of his brother
      in the same auspicious moment that the favorite concubine of
      Theodemir was delivered of a son and heir. In the eighth year of
      his age, Theodoric was reluctantly yielded by his father to the
      public interest, as the pledge of an alliance which Leo, emperor
      of the East, had consented to purchase by an annual subsidy of
      three hundred pounds of gold. The royal hostage was educated at
      Constantinople with care and tenderness. His body was formed to
      all the exercises of war, his mind was expanded by the habits of
      liberal conversation; he frequented the schools of the most
      skilful masters; but he disdained or neglected the arts of
      Greece, and so ignorant did he always remain of the first
      elements of science, that a rude mark was contrived to represent
      the signature of the illiterate king of Italy. 3 As soon as he
      had attained the age of eighteen, he was restored to the wishes
      of the Ostrogoths, whom the emperor aspired to gain by liberality
      and confidence. Walamir had fallen in battle; the youngest of the
      brothers, Widimir, had led away into Italy and Gaul an army of
      Barbarians, and the whole nation acknowledged for their king the
      father of Theodoric. His ferocious subjects admired the strength
      and stature of their young prince; 4 and he soon convinced them
      that he had not degenerated from the valor of his ancestors. At
      the head of six thousand volunteers, he secretly left the camp in
      quest of adventures, descended the Danube as far as Singidunum,
      or Belgrade, and soon returned to his father with the spoils of a
      Sarmatian king whom he had vanquished and slain. Such triumphs,
      however, were productive only of fame, and the invincible
      Ostrogoths were reduced to extreme distress by the want of
      clothing and food. They unanimously resolved to desert their
      Pannonian encampments, and boldly to advance into the warm and
      wealthy neighborhood of the Byzantine court, which already
      maintained in pride and luxury so many bands of confederate
      Goths. After proving, by some acts of hostility, that they could
      be dangerous, or at least troublesome, enemies, the Ostrogoths
      sold at a high price their reconciliation and fidelity, accepted
      a donative of lands and money, and were intrusted with the
      defence of the Lower Danube, under the command of Theodoric, who
      succeeded after his father’s death to the hereditary throne of
      the Amali. 5

      1 (return) [ Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 13, 14, p. 629, 630,
      edit. Grot.) has drawn the pedigree of Theodoric from Gapt, one
      of the Anses or Demigods, who lived about the time of Domitian.
      Cassiodorus, the first who celebrates the royal race of the
      Amali, (Viriar. viii. 5, ix. 25, x. 2, xi. 1,) reckons the
      grandson of Theodoric as the xviith in descent. Peringsciold (the
      Swedish commentator of Cochloeus, Vit. Theodoric. p. 271, &c.,
      Stockholm, 1699) labors to connect this genealogy with the
      legends or traditions of his native country. * Note: Amala was a
      name of hereditary sanctity and honor among the Visigoths. It
      enters into the names of Amalaberga, Amala suintha, (swinther
      means strength,) Amalafred, Amalarich. In the poem of the
      Nibelungen written three hundred years later, the Ostrogoths are
      called the Amilungen. According to Wachter it means, unstained,
      from the privative a, and malo a stain. It is pure Sanscrit,
      Amala, immaculatus. Schlegel. Indische Bibliothek, 1. p. 233.—M.]

      2 (return) [ More correctly on the banks of the Lake Pelso,
      (Nieusiedler-see,) near Carnuntum, almost on the same spot where
      Marcus Antoninus composed his meditations, Jornandes, c. 52, p.
      659. Severin. Pannonia Illustrata, p. 22. Cellarius, Geograph.
      Antiq. (tom. i. p. 350.)]

      2111 (return) [ The date of Theodoric’s birth is not accurately
      determined. We can hardly err, observes Manso, in placing it
      between the years 453 and 455, Manso, Geschichte des Ost
      Gothischen Reichs, p. 14.—M.]

      3 (return) [ The four first letters of his name were inscribed on
      a gold plate, and when it was fixed on the paper, the king drew
      his pen through the intervals (Anonym. Valesian. ad calcem Amm.
      Marcellin p. 722.) This authentic fact, with the testimony of
      Procopius, or at least of the contemporary Goths, (Gothic. 1. i.
      c. 2, p. 311,) far outweighs the vague praises of Ennodius
      (Sirmond Opera, tom. i. p. 1596) and Theophanes, (Chronograph. p.
      112.) * Note: Le Beau and his Commentator, M. St. Martin,
      support, though with no very satisfactory evidence, the opposite
      opinion. But Lord Mahon (Life of Belisarius, p. 19) urges the
      much stronger argument, the Byzantine education of Theodroic.—M.]

      4 (return) [ Statura est quae resignet proceritate regnantem,
      (Ennodius, p. 1614.) The bishop of Pavia (I mean the ecclesiastic
      who wished to be a bishop) then proceeds to celebrate the
      complexion, eyes, hands, &c, of his sovereign.]

      5 (return) [ The state of the Ostrogoths, and the first years of
      Theodoric, are found in Jornandes, (c. 52—56, p. 689—696) and
      Malchus, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 78—80,) who erroneously styles him
      the son of Walamir.]

      A hero, descended from a race of kings, must have despised the
      base Isaurian who was invested with the Roman purple, without any
      endowment of mind or body, without any advantages of royal birth,
      or superior qualifications. After the failure of the Theodosian
      line, the choice of Pulcheria and of the senate might be
      justified in some measure by the characters of Martin and Leo,
      but the latter of these princes confirmed and dishonored his
      reign by the perfidious murder of Aspar and his sons, who too
      rigorously exacted the debt of gratitude and obedience. The
      inheritance of Leo and of the East was peaceably devolved on his
      infant grandson, the son of his daughter Ariadne; and her
      Isaurian husband, the fortunate Trascalisseus, exchanged that
      barbarous sound for the Grecian appellation of Zeno. After the
      decease of the elder Leo, he approached with unnatural respect
      the throne of his son, humbly received, as a gift, the second
      rank in the empire, and soon excited the public suspicion on the
      sudden and premature death of his young colleague, whose life
      could no longer promote the success of his ambition. But the
      palace of Constantinople was ruled by female influence, and
      agitated by female passions: and Verina, the widow of Leo,
      claiming his empire as her own, pronounced a sentence of
      deposition against the worthless and ungrateful servant on whom
      she alone had bestowed the sceptre of the East. 6 As soon as she
      sounded a revolt in the ears of Zeno, he fled with precipitation
      into the mountains of Isauria, and her brother Basiliscus,
      already infamous by his African expedition, 7 was unanimously
      proclaimed by the servile senate. But the reign of the usurper
      was short and turbulent. Basiliscus presumed to assassinate the
      lover of his sister; he dared to offend the lover of his wife,
      the vain and insolent Harmatius, who, in the midst of Asiatic
      luxury, affected the dress, the demeanor, and the surname of
      Achilles. 8 By the conspiracy of the malcontent s, Zeno was
      recalled from exile; the armies, the capital, the person, of
      Basiliscus, were betrayed; and his whole family was condemned to
      the long agony of cold and hunger by the inhuman conqueror, who
      wanted courage to encounter or to forgive his enemies. 811 The
      haughty spirit of Verina was still incapable of submission or
      repose. She provoked the enmity of a favorite general, embraced
      his cause as soon as he was disgraced, created a new emperor in
      Syria and Egypt, 812 raised an army of seventy thousand men, and
      persisted to the last moment of her life in a fruitless
      rebellion, which, according to the fashion of the age, had been
      predicted by Christian hermits and Pagan magicians. While the
      East was afflicted by the passions of Verina, her daughter
      Ariadne was distinguished by the female virtues of mildness and
      fidelity; she followed her husband in his exile, and after his
      restoration, she implored his clemency in favor of her mother. On
      the decease of Zeno, Ariadne, the daughter, the mother, and the
      widow of an emperor, gave her hand and the Imperial title to
      Anastasius, an aged domestic of the palace, who survived his
      elevation above twenty-seven years, and whose character is
      attested by the acclamation of the people, “Reign as you have
      lived!” 9 912

      6 (return) [ Theophanes (p. 111) inserts a copy of her sacred
      letters to the provinces. Such female pretensions would have
      astonished the slaves of the first Caesars.]

      7 (return) [ Vol. iii. p. 504—508.]

      8 (return) [ Suidas, tom. i. p. 332, 333, edit. Kuster.]

      811 (return) [ Joannes Lydus accuses Zeno of timidity, or,
      rather, of cowardice; he purchased an ignominious peace from the
      enemies of the empire, whom he dared not meet in battle; and
      employed his whole time at home in confiscations and executions.
      Lydus, de Magist. iii. 45, p. 230.—M.]

      812 (return) [ Named Illus.—M.]

      9 (return) [ The contemporary histories of Malchus and Candidus
      are lost; but some extracts or fragments have been saved by
      Photius, (lxxviii. lxxix. p. 100—102,) Constantine
      Porphyrogenitus, (Excerpt. Leg. p. 78—97,) and in various
      articles of the Lexicon of Suidas. The Chronicles of Marcellinus
      (Imago Historiae) are originals for the reigns of Zeno and
      Anastasius; and I must acknowledge, almost for the last time, my
      obligations to the large and accurate collections of Tillemont,
      (Hist. des Emp. tom. vi. p. 472—652).]

      912 (return) [ The Panegyric of Procopius of Gaza, (edited by
      Villoison in his Anecdota Graeca, and reprinted in the new
      edition of the Byzantine historians by Niebuhr, in the same vol.
      with Dexippus and Eunapius, viii. p. 488 516,) was unknown to
      Gibbon. It is vague and pedantic, and contains few facts. The
      same criticism will apply to the poetical panegyric of Priscian
      edited from the Ms. of Bobbio by Ang. Mai. Priscian, the gram
      marian, Niebuhr argues from this work, must have been born in the
      African, not in either of the Asiatic Caesareas. Pref. p. xi.—M.]

      Whatever fear of affection could bestow, was profusely lavished
      by Zeno on the king of the Ostrogoths; the rank of patrician and
      consul, the command of the Palatine troops, an equestrian statue,
      a treasure in gold and silver of many thousand pounds, the name
      of son, and the promise of a rich and honorable wife. As long as
      Theodoric condescended to serve, he supported with courage and
      fidelity the cause of his benefactor; his rapid march contributed
      to the restoration of Zeno; and in the second revolt, the
      Walamirs, as they were called, pursued and pressed the Asiatic
      rebels, till they left an easy victory to the Imperial troops. 10
      But the faithful servant was suddenly converted into a formidable
      enemy, who spread the flames of war from Constantinople to the
      Adriatic; many flourishing cities were reduced to ashes, and the
      agriculture of Thrace was almost extirpated by the wanton cruelty
      of the Goths, who deprived their captive peasants of the right
      hand that guided the plough. 11 On such occasions, Theodoric
      sustained the loud and specious reproach of disloyalty, of
      ingratitude, and of insatiate avarice, which could be only
      excused by the hard necessity of his situation. He reigned, not
      as the monarch, but as the minister of a ferocious people, whose
      spirit was unbroken by slavery, and impatient of real or
      imaginary insults. Their poverty was incurable; since the most
      liberal donatives were soon dissipated in wasteful luxury, and
      the most fertile estates became barren in their hands; they
      despised, but they envied, the laborious provincials; and when
      their subsistence had failed, the Ostrogoths embraced the
      familiar resources of war and rapine. It had been the wish of
      Theodoric (such at least was his declaration) to lead a peaceful,
      obscure, obedient life on the confines of Scythia, till the
      Byzantine court, by splendid and fallacious promises, seduced him
      to attack a confederate tribe of Goths, who had been engaged in
      the party of Basiliscus. He marched from his station in Maesia,
      on the solemn assurance that before he reached Adrianople, he
      should meet a plentiful convoy of provisions, and a reenforcement
      of eight thousand horse and thirty thousand foot, while the
      legions of Asia were encamped at Heraclea to second his
      operations. These measures were disappointed by mutual jealousy.
      As he advanced into Thrace, the son of Theodemir found an
      inhospitable solitude, and his Gothic followers, with a heavy
      train of horses, of mules, and of wagons, were betrayed by their
      guides among the rocks and precipices of Mount Sondis, where he
      was assaulted by the arms and invectives of Theodoric the son of
      Triarius. From a neighboring height, his artful rival harangued
      the camp of the Walamirs, and branded their leader with the
      opprobrious names of child, of madman, of perjured traitor, the
      enemy of his blood and nation. “Are you ignorant,” exclaimed the
      son of Triarius, “that it is the constant policy of the Romans to
      destroy the Goths by each other’s swords? Are you insensible that
      the victor in this unnatural contest will be exposed, and justly
      exposed, to their implacable revenge? Where are those warriors,
      my kinsmen and thy own, whose widows now lament that their lives
      were sacrificed to thy rash ambition? Where is the wealth which
      thy soldiers possessed when they were first allured from their
      native homes to enlist under thy standard? Each of them was then
      master of three or four horses; they now follow thee on foot,
      like slaves, through the deserts of Thrace; those men who were
      tempted by the hope of measuring gold with a bushel, those brave
      men who are as free and as noble as thyself.” A language so well
      suited to the temper of the Goths excited clamor and discontent;
      and the son of Theodemir, apprehensive of being left alone, was
      compelled to embrace his brethren, and to imitate the example of
      Roman perfidy. 12 1211

      10 (return) [ In ipsis congressionis tuae foribus cessit invasor,
      cum profugo per te sceptra redderentur de salute dubitanti.
      Ennodius then proceeds (p. 1596, 1597, tom. i. Sirmond.) to
      transport his hero (on a flying dragon?) into Aethiopia, beyond
      the tropic of Cancer. The evidence of the Valesian Fragment, (p.
      717,) Liberatus, (Brev. Eutych. c. 25 p. 118,) and Theophanes,
      (p. 112,) is more sober and rational.]

      11 (return) [ This cruel practice is specially imputed to the
      Triarian Goths, less barbarous, as it should seem, than the
      Walamirs; but the son of Theodemir is charged with the ruin of
      many Roman cities, (Malchus, Excerpt. Leg. p. 95.)]

      12 (return) [ Jornandes (c. 56, 57, p. 696) displays the services
      of Theodoric, confesses his rewards, but dissembles his revolt,
      of which such curious details have been preserved by Malchus,
      (Excerpt. Legat. p. 78—97.) Marcellinus, a domestic of Justinian,
      under whose ivth consulship (A.D. 534) he composed his Chronicle,
      (Scaliger, Thesaurus Temporum, P. ii, p. 34—57,) betrays his
      prejudice and passion: in Graeciam debacchantem ...Zenonis
      munificentia pene pacatus...beneficiis nunquam satiatus, &c.]

      1211 (return) [ Gibbon has omitted much of the complicated
      intrigues of the Byzantine court with the two Theodorics. The
      weak emperor attempted to play them one against the other, and
      was himself in turn insulted, and the empire ravaged, by both.
      The details of the successive alliance and revolt, of hostility
      and of union, between the two Gothic chieftains, to dictate terms
      to the emperor, may be found in Malchus.—M.]

      In every state of his fortune, the prudence and firmness of
      Theodoric were equally conspicuous; whether he threatened
      Constantinople at the head of the confederate Goths, or retreated
      with a faithful band to the mountains and sea-coast of Epirus. At
      length the accidental death of the son of Triarius 13 destroyed
      the balance which the Romans had been so anxious to preserve, the
      whole nation acknowledged the supremacy of the Amali, and the
      Byzantine court subscribed an ignominious and oppressive treaty.
      14 The senate had already declared, that it was necessary to
      choose a party among the Goths, since the public was unequal to
      the support of their united forces; a subsidy of two thousand
      pounds of gold, with the ample pay of thirteen thousand men, were
      required for the least considerable of their armies; 15 and the
      Isaurians, who guarded not the empire but the emperor, enjoyed,
      besides the privilege of rapine, an annual pension of five
      thousand pounds. The sagacious mind of Theodoric soon perceived
      that he was odious to the Romans, and suspected by the
      Barbarians: he understood the popular murmur, that his subjects
      were exposed in their frozen huts to intolerable hardships, while
      their king was dissolved in the luxury of Greece, and he
      prevented the painful alternative of encountering the Goths, as
      the champion, or of leading them to the field, as the enemy, of
      Zeno. Embracing an enterprise worthy of his courage and ambition,
      Theodoric addressed the emperor in the following words: “Although
      your servant is maintained in affluence by your liberality,
      graciously listen to the wishes of my heart! Italy, the
      inheritance of your predecessors, and Rome itself, the head and
      mistress of the world, now fluctuate under the violence and
      oppression of Odoacer the mercenary. Direct me, with my national
      troops, to march against the tyrant. If I fall, you will be
      relieved from an expensive and troublesome friend: if, with the
      divine permission, I succeed, I shall govern in your name, and to
      your glory, the Roman senate, and the part of the republic
      delivered from slavery by my victorious arms.” The proposal of
      Theodoric was accepted, and perhaps had been suggested, by the
      Byzantine court. But the forms of the commission, or grant,
      appear to have been expressed with a prudent ambiguity, which
      might be explained by the event; and it was left doubtful,
      whether the conqueror of Italy should reign as the lieutenant,
      the vassal, or the ally, of the emperor of the East. [16

      13 (return) [ As he was riding in his own camp, an unruly horse
      threw him against the point of a spear which hung before a tent,
      or was fixed on a wagon, (Marcellin. in Chron. Evagrius, l. iii.
      c. 25.)]

      14 (return) [ See Malchus (p. 91) and Evagrius, (l. iii. c. 35.)]

      15 (return) [ Malchus, p. 85. In a single action, which was
      decided by the skill and discipline of Sabinian, Theodoric could
      lose 5000 men.] [Footnote 16: Jornandes (c. 57, p. 696, 697) has
      abridged the great history of Cassiodorus. See, compare, and
      reconcile Procopius, (Gothic. l. i. c. i.,) the Valesian
      Fragment, (p. 718,) Theophanes, (p. 113,) and Marcellinus, (in
      Chron.)]

      The reputation both of the leader and of the war diffused a
      universal ardor; the Walamirs were multiplied by the Gothic
      swarms already engaged in the service, or seated in the
      provinces, of the empire; and each bold Barbarian, who had heard
      of the wealth and beauty of Italy, was impatient to seek, through
      the most perilous adventures, the possession of such enchanting
      objects. The march of Theodoric must be considered as the
      emigration of an entire people; the wives and children of the
      Goths, their aged parents, and most precious effects, were
      carefully transported; and some idea may be formed of the heavy
      baggage that now followed the camp, by the loss of two thousand
      wagons, which had been sustained in a single action in the war of
      Epirus. For their subsistence, the Goths depended on the
      magazines of corn which was ground in portable mills by the hands
      of their women; on the milk and flesh of their flocks and herds;
      on the casual produce of the chase, and upon the contributions
      which they might impose on all who should presume to dispute the
      passage, or to refuse their friendly assistance. Notwithstanding
      these precautions, they were exposed to the danger, and almost to
      the distress, of famine, in a march of seven hundred miles, which
      had been undertaken in the depth of a rigorous winter. Since the
      fall of the Roman power, Dacia and Pannonia no longer exhibited
      the rich prospect of populous cities, well-cultivated fields, and
      convenient highways: the reign of barbarism and desolation was
      restored, and the tribes of Bulgarians, Gepidae, and Sarmatians,
      who had occupied the vacant province, were prompted by their
      native fierceness, or the solicitations of Odoacer, to resist the
      progress of his enemy. In many obscure though bloody battles,
      Theodoric fought and vanquished; till at length, surmounting
      every obstacle by skilful conduct and persevering courage, he
      descended from the Julian Alps, and displayed his invincible
      banners on the confines of Italy. 17

      17 (return) [ Theodoric’s march is supplied and illustrated by
      Ennodius, (p. 1598—1602,) when the bombast of the oration is
      translated into the language of common sense.]

      Odoacer, a rival not unworthy of his arms, had already occupied
      the advantageous and well-known post of the River Sontius, near
      the ruins of Aquileia, at the head of a powerful host, whose
      independent kings 18 or leaders disdained the duties of
      subordination and the prudence of delays. No sooner had Theodoric
      gained a short repose and refreshment to his wearied cavalry,
      than he boldly attacked the fortifications of the enemy; the
      Ostrogoths showed more ardor to acquire, than the mercenaries to
      defend, the lands of Italy; and the reward of the first victory
      was the possession of the Venetian province as far as the walls
      of Verona. In the neighborhood of that city, on the steep banks
      of the rapid Adige, he was opposed by a new army, reenforced in
      its numbers, and not impaired in its courage: the contest was
      more obstinate, but the event was still more decisive; Odoacer
      fled to Ravenna, Theodoric advanced to Milan, and the vanquished
      troops saluted their conqueror with loud acclamations of respect
      and fidelity. But their want either of constancy or of faith soon
      exposed him to the most imminent danger; his vanguard, with
      several Gothic counts, which had been rashly intrusted to a
      deserter, was betrayed and destroyed near Faenza by his double
      treachery; Odoacer again appeared master of the field, and the
      invader, strongly intrenched in his camp of Pavia, was reduced to
      solicit the aid of a kindred nation, the Visigoths of Gaul. In
      the course of this History, the most voracious appetite for war
      will be abundantly satiated; nor can I much lament that our dark
      and imperfect materials do not afford a more ample narrative of
      the distress of Italy, and of the fierce conflict, which was
      finally decided by the abilities, experience, and valor of the
      Gothic king. Immediately before the battle of Verona, he visited
      the tent of his mother 19 and sister, and requested, that on a
      day, the most illustrious festival of his life, they would adorn
      him with the rich garments which they had worked with their own
      hands. “Our glory,” said he, “is mutual and inseparable. You are
      known to the world as the mother of Theodoric; and it becomes me
      to prove, that I am the genuine offspring of those heroes from
      whom I claim my descent.” The wife or concubine of Theodemir was
      inspired with the spirit of the German matrons, who esteemed
      their sons’ honor far above their safety; and it is reported,
      that in a desperate action, when Theodoric himself was hurried
      along by the torrent of a flying crowd, she boldly met them at
      the entrance of the camp, and, by her generous reproaches, drove
      them back on the swords of the enemy. 20

      18 (return) [ Tot reges, &c., (Ennodius, p. 1602.) We must
      recollect how much the royal title was multiplied and degraded,
      and that the mercenaries of Italy were the fragments of many
      tribes and nations.]

      19 (return) [ See Ennodius, p. 1603, 1604. Since the orator, in
      the king’s presence, could mention and praise his mother, we may
      conclude that the magnanimity of Theodoric was not hurt by the
      vulgar reproaches of concubine and bastard. * Note: Gibbon here
      assumes that the mother of Theodoric was the concubine of
      Theodemir, which he leaves doubtful in the text.—M.]

      20 (return) [ This anecdote is related on the modern but
      respectable authority of Sigonius, (Op. tom. i. p. 580. De
      Occident. Impl. l. xv.:) his words are curious: “Would you
      return?” &c. She presented and almost displayed the original
      recess. * Note: The authority of Sigonius would scarcely have
      weighed with Gibboa except for an indecent anecdote. I have a
      recollection of a similar story in some of the Italian wars.—M.]

      From the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, Theodoric reigned by
      the right of conquest; the Vandal ambassadors surrendered the
      Island of Sicily, as a lawful appendage of his kingdom; and he
      was accepted as the deliverer of Rome by the senate and people,
      who had shut their gates against the flying usurper. 21 Ravenna
      alone, secure in the fortifications of art and nature, still
      sustained a siege of almost three years; and the daring sallies
      of Odoacer carried slaughter and dismay into the Gothic camp. At
      length, destitute of provisions and hopeless of relief, that
      unfortunate monarch yielded to the groans of his subjects and the
      clamors of his soldiers. A treaty of peace was negotiated by the
      bishop of Ravenna; the Ostrogoths were admitted into the city,
      and the hostile kings consented, under the sanction of an oath,
      to rule with equal and undivided authority the provinces of
      Italy. The event of such an agreement may be easily foreseen.
      After some days had been devoted to the semblance of joy and
      friendship, Odoacer, in the midst of a solemn banquet, was
      stabbed by the hand, or at least by the command, of his rival.
      Secret and effectual orders had been previously despatched; the
      faithless and rapacious mercenaries, at the same moment, and
      without resistance, were universally massacred; and the royalty
      of Theodoric was proclaimed by the Goths, with the tardy,
      reluctant, ambiguous consent of the emperor of the East. The
      design of a conspiracy was imputed, according to the usual forms,
      to the prostrate tyrant; but his innocence, and the guilt of his
      conqueror, 22 are sufficiently proved by the advantageous treaty
      which force would not sincerely have granted, nor weakness have
      rashly infringed. The jealousy of power, and the mischiefs of
      discord, may suggest a more decent apology, and a sentence less
      rigorous may be pronounced against a crime which was necessary to
      introduce into Italy a generation of public felicity. The living
      author of this felicity was audaciously praised in his own
      presence by sacred and profane orators; 23 but history (in his
      time she was mute and inglorious) has not left any just
      representation of the events which displayed, or of the defects
      which clouded, the virtues of Theodoric. 24 One record of his
      fame, the volume of public epistles composed by Cassiodorus in
      the royal name, is still extant, and has obtained more implicit
      credit than it seems to deserve. 25 They exhibit the forms,
      rather than the substance, of his government; and we should
      vainly search for the pure and spontaneous sentiments of the
      Barbarian amidst the declamation and learning of a sophist, the
      wishes of a Roman senator, the precedents of office, and the
      vague professions, which, in every court, and on every occasion,
      compose the language of discreet ministers. The reputation of
      Theodoric may repose with more confidence on the visible peace
      and prosperity of a reign of thirty-three years; the unanimous
      esteem of his own times, and the memory of his wisdom and
      courage, his justice and humanity, which was deeply impressed on
      the minds of the Goths and Italians.

      21 (return) [ Hist. Miscell. l. xv., a Roman history from Janus
      to the ixth century, an Epitome of Eutropius, Paulus Diaconus,
      and Theophanes which Muratori has published from a Ms. in the
      Ambrosian library, (Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. i. p. 100.)]

      22 (return) [ Procopius (Gothic. l. i. c. i.) approves himself an
      impartial sceptic. Cassiodorus (in Chron.) and Ennodius (p. 1604)
      are loyal and credulous, and the testimony of the Valesian
      Fragment (p. 718) may justify their belief. Marcellinus spits the
      venom of a Greek subject—perjuriis illectus, interfectusque est,
      (in Chron.)]

      23 (return) [ The sonorous and servile oration of Ennodius was
      pronounced at Milan or Ravenna in the years 507 or 508, (Sirmond,
      tom. i. p. 615.) Two or three years afterwards, the orator was
      rewarded with the bishopric of Pavia, which he held till his
      death in the year 521. (Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. tom. v. p. 11-14.
      See Saxii Onomasticon, tom. ii. p. 12.)]

      24 (return) [ Our best materials are occasional hints from
      Procopius and the Valesian Fragment, which was discovered by
      Sirmond, and is published at the end of Ammianus Marcellinus. The
      author’s name is unknown, and his style is barbarous; but in his
      various facts he exhibits the knowledge, without the passions, of
      a contemporary. The president Montesquieu had formed the plan of
      a history of Theodoric, which at a distance might appear a rich
      and interesting subject.]

      25 (return) [ The best edition of the Variarum Libri xii. is that
      of Joh. Garretius, (Rotomagi, 1679, in Opp. Cassiodor. 2 vols. in
      fol.;) but they deserved and required such an editor as the
      Marquis Scipio Maffei, who thought of publishing them at Verona.
      The Barbara Eleganza (as it is ingeniously named by Tiraboschi)
      is never simple, and seldom perspicuous]

      The partition of the lands of Italy, of which Theodoric assigned
      the third part to his soldiers, is honorably arraigned as the
      sole injustice of his life. 2511 And even this act may be fairly
      justified by the example of Odoacer, the rights of conquest, the
      true interest of the Italians, and the sacred duty of subsisting
      a whole people, who, on the faith of his promises, had
      transported themselves into a distant land. 26 Under the reign of
      Theodoric, and in the happy climate of Italy, the Goths soon
      multiplied to a formidable host of two hundred thousand men, 27
      and the whole amount of their families may be computed by the
      ordinary addition of women and children. Their invasion of
      property, a part of which must have been already vacant, was
      disguised by the generous but improper name of hospitality; these
      unwelcome guests were irregularly dispersed over the face of
      Italy, and the lot of each Barbarian was adequate to his birth
      and office, the number of his followers, and the rustic wealth
      which he possessed in slaves and cattle. The distinction of noble
      and plebeian were acknowledged; 28 but the lands of every freeman
      were exempt from taxes, 2811 and he enjoyed the inestimable
      privilege of being subject only to the laws of his country. 29
      Fashion, and even convenience, soon persuaded the conquerors to
      assume the more elegant dress of the natives, but they still
      persisted in the use of their mother-tongue; and their contempt
      for the Latin schools was applauded by Theodoric himself, who
      gratified their prejudices, or his own, by declaring, that the
      child who had trembled at a rod, would never dare to look upon a
      sword. 30 Distress might sometimes provoke the indigent Roman to
      assume the ferocious manners which were insensibly relinquished
      by the rich and luxurious Barbarian; 31 but these mutual
      conversions were not encouraged by the policy of a monarch who
      perpetuated the separation of the Italians and Goths; reserving
      the former for the arts of peace, and the latter for the service
      of war. To accomplish this design, he studied to protect his
      industrious subjects, and to moderate the violence, without
      enervating the valor, of his soldiers, who were maintained for
      the public defence. They held their lands and benefices as a
      military stipend: at the sound of the trumpet, they were prepared
      to march under the conduct of their provincial officers; and the
      whole extent of Italy was distributed into the several quarters
      of a well-regulated camp. The service of the palace and of the
      frontiers was performed by choice or by rotation; and each
      extraordinary fatigue was recompensed by an increase of pay and
      occasional donatives. Theodoric had convinced his brave
      companions, that empire must be acquired and defended by the same
      arts. After his example, they strove to excel in the use, not
      only of the lance and sword, the instruments of their victories,
      but of the missile weapons, which they were too much inclined to
      neglect; and the lively image of war was displayed in the daily
      exercise and annual reviews of the Gothic cavalry. A firm though
      gentle discipline imposed the habits of modesty, obedience, and
      temperance; and the Goths were instructed to spare the people, to
      reverence the laws, to understand the duties of civil society,
      and to disclaim the barbarous license of judicial combat and
      private revenge. 32

      2511 (return) [ Compare Gibbon, ch. xxxvi. vol. iii. p. 459,
      &c.—Manso observes that this division was conducted not in a
      violent and irregular, but in a legal and orderly, manner. The
      Barbarian, who could not show a title of grant from the officers
      of Theodoric appointed for the purpose, or a prescriptive right
      of thirty years, in case he had obtained the property before the
      Ostrogothic conquest, was ejected from the estate. He conceives
      that estates too small to bear division paid a third of their
      produce.—Geschichte des Os Gothischen Reiches, p. 82.—M.]

      26 (return) [ Procopius, Gothic, l. i. c. i. Variarum, ii. Maffei
      (Verona Illustrata, P. i. p. 228) exaggerates the injustice of
      the Goths, whom he hated as an Italian noble. The plebeian
      Muratori crouches under their oppression.]

      27 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. iii. c. 421. Ennodius describes
      (p. 1612, 1613) the military arts and increasing numbers of the
      Goths.]

      28 (return) [ When Theodoric gave his sister to the king of the
      Vandals she sailed for Africa with a guard of 1000 noble Goths,
      each of whom was attended by five armed followers, (Procop.
      Vandal. l. i. c. 8.) The Gothic nobility must have been as
      numerous as brave.]

      2811 (return) [ Manso (p. 100) quotes two passages from
      Cassiodorus to show that the Goths were not exempt from the
      fiscal claims.—Cassiodor, i. 19, iv. 14—M.]

      29 (return) [ See the acknowledgment of Gothic liberty, (Var. v.
      30.)]

      30 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 2. The Roman boys learnt
      the language (Var. viii. 21) of the Goths. Their general
      ignorance is not destroyed by the exceptions of Amalasuntha, a
      female, who might study without shame, or of Theodatus, whose
      learning provoked the indignation and contempt of his
      countrymen.]

      31 (return) [ A saying of Theodoric was founded on experience:
      “Romanus miser imitatur Gothum; ut utilis (dives) Gothus imitatur
      Romanum.” (See the Fragment and Notes of Valesius, p. 719.)]

      32 (return) [ The view of the military establishment of the Goths
      in Italy is collected from the Epistles of Cassiodorus (Var. i.
      24, 40; iii. 3, 24, 48; iv. 13, 14; v. 26, 27; viii. 3, 4, 25.)
      They are illustrated by the learned Mascou, (Hist. of the
      Germans, l. xi. 40—44, Annotation xiv.) Note: Compare Manso,
      Geschichte des Ost Gothischen Reiches, p. 114.—M.]




      Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part II.

      Among the Barbarians of the West, the victory of Theodoric had
      spread a general alarm. But as soon as it appeared that he was
      satisfied with conquest and desirous of peace, terror was changed
      into respect, and they submitted to a powerful mediation, which
      was uniformly employed for the best purposes of reconciling their
      quarrels and civilizing their manners. 33 The ambassadors who
      resorted to Ravenna from the most distant countries of Europe,
      admired his wisdom, magnificence, 34 and courtesy; and if he
      sometimes accepted either slaves or arms, white horses or strange
      animals, the gift of a sun-dial, a water-clock, or a musician,
      admonished even the princes of Gaul of the superior art and
      industry of his Italian subjects. His domestic alliances, 35 a
      wife, two daughters, a sister, and a niece, united the family of
      Theodoric with the kings of the Franks, the Burgundians, the
      Visigoths, the Vandals, and the Thuringians, and contributed to
      maintain the harmony, or at least the balance, of the great
      republic of the West. 36 It is difficult in the dark forests of
      Germany and Poland to pursue the emigrations of the Heruli, a
      fierce people who disdained the use of armor, and who condemned
      their widows and aged parents not to survive the loss of their
      husbands, or the decay of their strength. 37 The king of these
      savage warriors solicited the friendship of Theodoric, and was
      elevated to the rank of his son, according to the barbaric rites
      of a military adoption. 38 From the shores of the Baltic, the
      Aestians or Livonians laid their offerings of native amber 39 at
      the feet of a prince, whose fame had excited them to undertake an
      unknown and dangerous journey of fifteen hundred miles. With the
      country 40 from whence the Gothic nation derived their origin, he
      maintained a frequent and friendly correspondence: the Italians
      were clothed in the rich sables 41 of Sweden; and one of its
      sovereigns, after a voluntary or reluctant abdication, found a
      hospitable retreat in the palace of Ravenna. He had reigned over
      one of the thirteen populous tribes who cultivated a small
      portion of the great island or peninsula of Scandinavia, to which
      the vague appellation of Thule has been sometimes applied. That
      northern region was peopled, or had been explored, as high as the
      sixty-eighth degree of latitude, where the natives of the polar
      circle enjoy and lose the presence of the sun at each summer and
      winter solstice during an equal period of forty days. 42 The long
      night of his absence or death was the mournful season of distress
      and anxiety, till the messengers, who had been sent to the
      mountain tops, descried the first rays of returning light, and
      proclaimed to the plain below the festival of his resurrection.
      43

      33 (return) [ See the clearness and vigor of his negotiations in
      Ennodius, (p. 1607,) and Cassiodorus, (Var. iii. 1, 2, 3, 4; iv.
      13; v. 43, 44,) who gives the different styles of friendship,
      counsel expostulation, &c.]

      34 (return) [ Even of his table (Var. vi. 9) and palace, (vii.
      5.) The admiration of strangers is represented as the most
      rational motive to justify these vain expenses, and to stimulate
      the diligence of the officers to whom these provinces were
      intrusted.]

      35 (return) [ See the public and private alliances of the Gothic
      monarch, with the Burgundians, (Var. i. 45, 46,) with the Franks,
      (ii. 40,) with the Thuringians, (iv. 1,) and with the Vandals,
      (v. 1;) each of these epistles affords some curious knowledge of
      the policy and manners of the Barbarians.]

      36 (return) [ His political system may be observed in
      Cassiodorus, (Var. iv. l ix. l,) Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 698, 699,)
      and the Valesian Fragment, (p. 720, 721.) Peace, honorable peace,
      was the constant aim of Theodoric.]

      37 (return) [ The curious reader may contemplate the Heruli of
      Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 14,) and the patient reader may
      plunge into the dark and minute researches of M. de Buat, (Hist.
      des Peuples Anciens, tom. ix. p. 348—396. * Note: Compare Manso,
      Ost Gothische Reich. Beylage, vi. Malte-Brun brings them from
      Scandinavia: their names, the only remains of their language, are
      Gothic. “They fought almost naked, like the Icelandic Berserkirs
      their bravery was like madness: few in number, they were mostly
      of royal blood. What ferocity, what unrestrained license, sullied
      their victories! The Goth respects the church, the priests, the
      senate; the Heruli mangle all in a general massacre: there is no
      pity for age, no refuge for chastity. Among themselves there is
      the same ferocity: the sick and the aged are put to death. at
      their own request, during a solemn festival; the widow ends her
      days by hanging herself upon the tree which shadows her husband’s
      tomb. All these circumstances, so striking to a mind familiar
      with Scandinavian history, lead us to discover among the Heruli
      not so much a nation as a confederacy of princes and nobles,
      bound by an oath to live and die together with their arms in
      their hands. Their name, sometimes written Heruli or Eruli.
      sometimes Aeruli, signified, according to an ancient author,
      (Isid. Hispal. in gloss. p. 24, ad calc. Lex. Philolog. Martini,
      ll,) nobles, and appears to correspond better with the
      Scandinavian word iarl or earl, than with any of those numerous
      derivations proposed by etymologists.” Malte-Brun, vol. i. p.
      400, (edit. 1831.) Of all the Barbarians who threw themselves on
      the ruins of the Roman empire, it is most difficult to trace the
      origin of the Heruli. They seem never to have been very powerful
      as a nation, and branches of them are found in countries very
      remote from each other. In my opinion they belong to the Gothic
      race, and have a close affinity with the Scyrri or Hirri. They
      were, possibly, a division of that nation. They are often mingled
      and confounded with the Alani. Though brave and formidable. they
      were never numerous. nor did they found any state.—St. Martin,
      vol. vi. p. 375.—M. Schafarck considers them descendants of the
      Hirri. of which Heruli is a diminutive,—Slawische Alter
      thinner—M. 1845.]

      38 (return) [ Variarum, iv. 2. The spirit and forms of this
      martial institution are noticed by Cassiodorus; but he seems to
      have only translated the sentiments of the Gothic king into the
      language of Roman eloquence.]

      39 (return) [ Cassiodorus, who quotes Tacitus to the Aestians,
      the unlettered savages of the Baltic, (Var. v. 2,) describes the
      amber for which their shores have ever been famous, as the gum of
      a tree, hardened by the sun, and purified and wafted by the
      waves. When that singular substance is analyzed by the chemists,
      it yields a vegetable oil and a mineral acid.]

      40 (return) [ Scanzia, or Thule, is described by Jornandes (c. 3,
      p. 610—613) and Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 15.) Neither the Goth
      nor the Greek had visited the country: both had conversed with
      the natives in their exile at Ravenna or Constantinople.]

      41 (return) [ Sapherinas pelles. In the time of Jornandes they
      inhabited Suethans, the proper Sweden; but that beautiful race of
      animals has gradually been driven into the eastern parts of
      Siberia. See Buffon, (Hist. Nat. tom. xiii. p. 309—313, quarto
      edition;) Pennant, (System of Quadrupeds, vol. i. p. 322—328;)
      Gmelin, (Hist. Gen des. Voyages, tom. xviii. p. 257, 258;) and
      Levesque, (Hist. de Russie, tom. v. p. 165, 166, 514, 515.)]

      42 (return) [ In the system or romance of Mr. Bailly, (Lettres
      sur les Sciences et sur l’Atlantide, tom. i. p. 249—256, tom. ii.
      p. 114—139,) the phoenix of the Edda, and the annual death and
      revival of Adonis and Osiris, are the allegorical symbols of the
      absence and return of the sun in the Arctic regions. This
      ingenious writer is a worthy disciple of the great Buffon; nor is
      it easy for the coldest reason to withstand the magic of their
      philosophy.]

      43 (return) [ Says Procopius. At present a rude Manicheism
      (generous enough) prevails among the Samoyedes in Greenland and
      in Lapland, (Hist. des Voyages, tom. xviii. p. 508, 509, tom.
      xix. p. 105, 106, 527, 528;) yet, according to Orotius Samojutae
      coelum atque astra adorant, numina haud aliis iniquiora, (de
      Rebus Belgicis, l. iv. p. 338, folio edition) a sentence which
      Tacitus would not have disowned.]

      The life of Theodoric represents the rare and meritorious example
      of a Barbarian, who sheathed his sword in the pride of victory
      and the vigor of his age. A reign of three and thirty years was
      consecrated to the duties of civil government, and the
      hostilities, in which he was sometimes involved, were speedily
      terminated by the conduct of his lieutenants, the discipline of
      his troops, the arms of his allies, and even by the terror of his
      name. He reduced, under a strong and regular government, the
      unprofitable countries of Rhaetia, Noricum, Dalmatia, and
      Pannonia, from the source of the Danube and the territory of the
      Bavarians, 44 to the petty kingdom erected by the Gepidae on the
      ruins of Sirmium. His prudence could not safely intrust the
      bulwark of Italy to such feeble and turbulent neighbors; and his
      justice might claim the lands which they oppressed, either as a
      part of his kingdom, or as the inheritance of his father. The
      greatness of a servant, who was named perfidious because he was
      successful, awakened the jealousy of the emperor Anastasius; and
      a war was kindled on the Dacian frontier, by the protection which
      the Gothic king, in the vicissitude of human affairs, had granted
      to one of the descendants of Attila. Sabinian, a general
      illustrious by his own and father’s merit, advanced at the head
      of ten thousand Romans; and the provisions and arms, which filled
      a long train of wagons, were distributed to the fiercest of the
      Bulgarian tribes. But in the fields of Margus, the eastern powers
      were defeated by the inferior forces of the Goths and Huns; the
      flower and even the hope of the Roman armies was irretrievably
      destroyed; and such was the temperance with which Theodoric had
      inspired his victorious troops, that, as their leader had not
      given the signal of pillage, the rich spoils of the enemy lay
      untouched at their feet. 45 Exasperated by this disgrace, the
      Byzantine court despatched two hundred ships and eight thousand
      men to plunder the sea-coast of Calabria and Apulia: they
      assaulted the ancient city of Tarentum, interrupted the trade and
      agriculture of a happy country, and sailed back to the
      Hellespont, proud of their piratical victory over a people whom
      they still presumed to consider as their Roman brethren. 46 Their
      retreat was possibly hastened by the activity of Theodoric; Italy
      was covered by a fleet of a thousand light vessels, 47 which he
      constructed with incredible despatch; and his firm moderation was
      soon rewarded by a solid and honorable peace. He maintained, with
      a powerful hand, the balance of the West, till it was at length
      overthrown by the ambition of Clovis; and although unable to
      assist his rash and unfortunate kinsman, the king of the
      Visigoths, he saved the remains of his family and people, and
      checked the Franks in the midst of their victorious career. I am
      not desirous to prolong or repeat 48 this narrative of military
      events, the least interesting of the reign of Theodoric; and
      shall be content to add, that the Alemanni were protected, 49
      that an inroad of the Burgundians was severely chastised, and
      that the conquest of Arles and Marseilles opened a free
      communication with the Visigoths, who revered him as their
      national protector, and as the guardian of his grandchild, the
      infant son of Alaric. Under this respectable character, the king
      of Italy restored the praetorian praefecture of the Gauls,
      reformed some abuses in the civil government of Spain, and
      accepted the annual tribute and apparent submission of its
      military governor, who wisely refused to trust his person in the
      palace of Ravenna. 50 The Gothic sovereignty was established from
      Sicily to the Danube, from Sirmium or Belgrade to the Atlantic
      Ocean; and the Greeks themselves have acknowledged that Theodoric
      reigned over the fairest portion of the Western empire. 51

      44 (return) [ See the Hist. des Peuples Anciens, &c., tom. ix. p.
      255—273, 396—501. The count de Buat was French minister at the
      court of Bavaria: a liberal curiosity prompted his inquiries into
      the antiquities of the country, and that curiosity was the germ
      of twelve respectable volumes.]

      45 (return) [ See the Gothic transactions on the Danube and the
      Illyricum, in Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 699;) Ennodius, (p.
      1607-1610;) Marcellmus (in Chron. p. 44, 47, 48;) and
      Cassiodorus, in (in Chron and Var. iii. 29 50, iv. 13, vii. 4 24,
      viii. 9, 10, 11, 21, ix. 8, 9.)]

      46 (return) [ I cannot forbear transcribing the liberal and
      classic style of Count Marcellinus: Romanus comes domesticorum,
      et Rusticus comes scholariorum cum centum armatis navibus,
      totidemque dromonibus, octo millia militum armatorum secum
      ferentibus, ad devastanda Italiae littora processerunt, ut usque
      ad Tarentum antiquissimam civitatem aggressi sunt; remensoque
      mari in honestam victoriam quam piratico ausu Romani ex Romanis
      rapuerunt, Anastasio Caesari reportarunt, (in Chron. p. 48.) See
      Variar. i. 16, ii. 38.]

      47 (return) [ See the royal orders and instructions, (Var. iv.
      15, v. 16—20.) These armed boats should be still smaller than the
      thousand vessels of Agamemnon at the siege of Troy. (Manso, p.
      121.)]

      48 (return) [ Vol. iii. p. 581—585.]

      49 (return) [ Ennodius (p. 1610) and Cassiodorus, in the royal
      name, (Var. ii 41,) record his salutary protection of the
      Alemanni.]

      50 (return) [ The Gothic transactions in Gaul and Spain are
      represented with some perplexity in Cassiodorus, (Var. iii. 32,
      38, 41, 43, 44, v. 39.) Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 698, 699,) and
      Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 12.) I will neither hear nor reconcile
      the long and contradictory arguments of the Abbe Dubos and the
      Count de Buat, about the wars of Burgundy.]

      51 (return) [ Theophanes, p. 113.]

      The union of the Goths and Romans might have fixed for ages the
      transient happiness of Italy; and the first of nations, a new
      people of free subjects and enlightened soldiers, might have
      gradually arisen from the mutual emulation of their respective
      virtues. But the sublime merit of guiding or seconding such a
      revolution was not reserved for the reign of Theodoric: he wanted
      either the genius or the opportunities of a legislator; 52 and
      while he indulged the Goths in the enjoyment of rude liberty, he
      servilely copied the institutions, and even the abuses, of the
      political system which had been framed by Constantine and his
      successors. From a tender regard to the expiring prejudices of
      Rome, the Barbarian declined the name, the purple, and the
      diadem, of the emperors; but he assumed, under the hereditary
      title of king, the whole substance and plenitude of Imperial
      prerogative. 53 His addresses to the eastern throne were
      respectful and ambiguous: he celebrated, in pompous style, the
      harmony of the two republics, applauded his own government as the
      perfect similitude of a sole and undivided empire, and claimed
      above the kings of the earth the same preeminence which he
      modestly allowed to the person or rank of Anastasius. The
      alliance of the East and West was annually declared by the
      unanimous choice of two consuls; but it should seem that the
      Italian candidate who was named by Theodoric accepted a formal
      confirmation from the sovereign of Constantinople. 54 The Gothic
      palace of Ravenna reflected the image of the court of Theodosius
      or Valentinian. The Praetorian praefect, the praefect of Rome,
      the quaestor, the master of the offices, with the public and
      patrimonial treasurers, 5411 whose functions are painted in gaudy
      colors by the rhetoric of Cassiodorus, still continued to act as
      the ministers of state. And the subordinate care of justice and
      the revenue was delegated to seven consulars, three correctors,
      and five presidents, who governed the fifteen regions of Italy
      according to the principles, and even the forms, of Roman
      jurisprudence. 55 The violence of the conquerors was abated or
      eluded by the slow artifice of judicial proceedings; the civil
      administration, with its honors and emoluments, was confined to
      the Italians; and the people still preserved their dress and
      language, their laws and customs, their personal freedom, and two
      thirds of their landed property. 5511 It had been the object of
      Augustus to conceal the introduction of monarchy; it was the
      policy of Theodoric to disguise the reign of a Barbarian. 56 If
      his subjects were sometimes awakened from this pleasing vision of
      a Roman government, they derived more substantial comfort from
      the character of a Gothic prince, who had penetration to discern,
      and firmness to pursue, his own and the public interest.
      Theodoric loved the virtues which he possessed, and the talents
      of which he was destitute. Liberius was promoted to the office of
      Praetorian praefect for his unshaken fidelity to the unfortunate
      cause of Odoacer. The ministers of Theodoric, Cassiodorus, 57 and
      Boethius, have reflected on his reign the lustre of their genius
      and learning. More prudent or more fortunate than his colleague,
      Cassiodorus preserved his own esteem without forfeiting the royal
      favor; and after passing thirty years in the honors of the world,
      he was blessed with an equal term of repose in the devout and
      studious solitude of Squillace. 5711

      52 (return) [ Procopius affirms that no laws whatsoever were
      promulgated by Theodoric and the succeeding kings of Italy,
      (Goth. l. ii. c. 6.) He must mean in the Gothic language. A Latin
      edict of Theodoric is still extant, in one hundred and fifty-four
      articles. * Note: See Manso, 92. Savigny, vol. ii. p. 164, et
      seq.—M.]

      53 (return) [ The image of Theodoric is engraved on his coins:
      his modest successors were satisfied with adding their own name
      to the head of the reigning emperor, (Muratori, Antiquitat.
      Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. ii. dissert. xxvii. p. 577—579.
      Giannone, Istoria Civile di Napoli tom. i. p. 166.)]

      54 (return) [ The alliance of the emperor and the king of Italy
      are represented by Cassiodorus (Var. i. l, ii. 1, 2, 3, vi. l)
      and Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 6, l. iii. c. 21,) who celebrate
      the friendship of Anastasius and Theodoric; but the figurative
      style of compliment was interpreted in a very different sense at
      Constantinople and Ravenna.]

      5411 (return) [ All causes between Roman and Roman were judged by
      the old Roman courts. The comes Gothorum judged between Goth and
      Goth; between Goths and Romans, (without considering which was
      the plaintiff.) the comes Gothorum, with a Roman jurist as his
      assessor, making a kind of mixed jurisdiction, but with a natural
      predominance to the side of the Goth Savigny, vol. i. p. 290.—M.]

      55 (return) [ To the xvii. provinces of the Notitia, Paul
      Warnefrid the deacon (De Reb. Longobard. l. ii. c. 14—22) has
      subjoined an xviiith, the Apennine, (Muratori, Script. Rerum
      Italicarum, tom. i. p. 431—443.) But of these Sardinia and
      Corsica were possessed by the Vandals, and the two Rhaetias, as
      well as the Cottian Alps, seem to have been abandoned to a
      military government. The state of the four provinces that now
      form the kingdom of Naples is labored by Giannone (tom. i. p.
      172, 178) with patriotic diligence.]

      5511 (return) [ Manso enumerates and develops at some length the
      following sources of the royal revenue of Theodoric: 1. A domain,
      either by succession to that of Odoacer, or a part of the third
      of the lands was reserved for the royal patrimony. 1. Regalia,
      including mines, unclaimed estates, treasure-trove, and
      confiscations. 3. Land tax. 4. Aurarium, like the Chrysargyrum, a
      tax on certain branches of trade. 5. Grant of Monopolies. 6.
      Siliquaticum, a small tax on the sale of all kinds of
      commodities. 7. Portoria, customs Manso, 96, 111. Savigny (i.
      285) supposes that in many cases the property remained in the
      original owner, who paid his tertia, a third of the produce to
      the crown, vol. i. p. 285.—M.]

      56 (return) [ See the Gothic history of Procopius, (l. i. c. 1,
      l. ii. c. 6,) the Epistles of Cassiodorus, passim, but especially
      the vth and vith books, which contain the formulae, or patents of
      offices,) and the Civil History of Giannone, (tom. i. l. ii.
      iii.) The Gothic counts, which he places in every Italian city,
      are annihilated, however, by Maffei, (Verona Illustrata, P. i. l.
      viii. p. 227; for those of Syracuse and Naples (Var vi. 22, 23)
      were special and temporary commissions.]

      57 (return) [ Two Italians of the name of Cassiodorus, the father
      (Var. i. 24, 40) and the son, (ix. 24, 25,) were successively
      employed in the administration of Theodoric. The son was born in
      the year 479: his various epistles as quaestor, master of the
      offices, and Praetorian praefect, extend from 509 to 539, and he
      lived as a monk about thirty years, (Tiraboschi Storia della
      Letteratura Italiana, tom. iii. p. 7—24. Fabricius, Bibliot. Lat.
      Med. Aevi, tom. i. p. 357, 358, edit. Mansi.)]

      5711 (return) [ Cassiodorus was of an ancient and honorable
      family; his grandfather had distinguished himself in the defence
      of Sicily against the ravages of Genseric; his father held a high
      rank at the court of Valentinian III., enjoyed the friendship of
      Aetius, and was one of the ambassadors sent to arrest the
      progress of Attila. Cassiodorus himself was first the treasurer
      of the private expenditure to Odoacer, afterwards “count of the
      sacred largesses.” Yielding with the rest of the Romans to the
      dominion of Theodoric, he was instrumental in the peaceable
      submission of Sicily; was successively governor of his native
      provinces of Bruttium and Lucania, quaestor, magister, palatii,
      Praetorian praefect, patrician, consul, and private secretary,
      and, in fact, first minister of the king. He was five times
      Praetorian praefect under different sovereigns, the last time in
      the reign of Vitiges. This is the theory of Manso, which is not
      unencumbered with difficulties. M. Buat had supposed that it was
      the father of Cassiodorus who held the office first named.
      Compare Manso, p. 85, &c., and Beylage, vii. It certainly appears
      improbable that Cassiodorus should have been count of the sacred
      largesses at twenty years old.—M.]

      As the patron of the republic, it was the interest and duty of
      the Gothic king to cultivate the affections of the senate 58 and
      people. The nobles of Rome were flattered by sonorous epithets
      and formal professions of respect, which had been more justly
      applied to the merit and authority of their ancestors. The people
      enjoyed, without fear or danger, the three blessings of a
      capital, order, plenty, and public amusements. A visible
      diminution of their numbers may be found even in the measure of
      liberality; 59 yet Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, poured their
      tribute of corn into the granaries of Rome an allowance of bread
      and meat was distributed to the indigent citizens; and every
      office was deemed honorable which was consecrated to the care of
      their health and happiness. The public games, such as the Greek
      ambassador might politely applaud, exhibited a faint and feeble
      copy of the magnificence of the Caesars: yet the musical, the
      gymnastic, and the pantomime arts, had not totally sunk in
      oblivion; the wild beasts of Africa still exercised in the
      amphitheatre the courage and dexterity of the hunters; and the
      indulgent Goth either patiently tolerated or gently restrained
      the blue and green factions, whose contests so often filled the
      circus with clamor and even with blood. 60 In the seventh year of
      his peaceful reign, Theodoric visited the old capital of the
      world; the senate and people advanced in solemn procession to
      salute a second Trajan, a new Valentinian; and he nobly supported
      that character by the assurance of a just and legal government,
      61 in a discourse which he was not afraid to pronounce in public,
      and to inscribe on a tablet of brass. Rome, in this august
      ceremony, shot a last ray of declining glory; and a saint, the
      spectator of this pompous scene, could only hope, in his pious
      fancy, that it was excelled by the celestial splendor of the new
      Jerusalem. 62 During a residence of six months, the fame, the
      person, and the courteous demeanor of the Gothic king, excited
      the admiration of the Romans, and he contemplated, with equal
      curiosity and surprise, the monuments that remained of their
      ancient greatness. He imprinted the footsteps of a conqueror on
      the Capitoline hill, and frankly confessed that each day he
      viewed with fresh wonder the forum of Trajan and his lofty
      column. The theatre of Pompey appeared, even in its decay, as a
      huge mountain artificially hollowed, and polished, and adorned by
      human industry; and he vaguely computed, that a river of gold
      must have been drained to erect the colossal amphitheatre of
      Titus. 63 From the mouths of fourteen aqueducts, a pure and
      copious stream was diffused into every part of the city; among
      these the Claudian water, which arose at the distance of
      thirty-eight miles in the Sabine mountains, was conveyed along a
      gentle though constant declivity of solid arches, till it
      descended on the summit of the Aventine hill. The long and
      spacious vaults which had been constructed for the purpose of
      common sewers, subsisted, after twelve centuries, in their
      pristine strength; and these subterraneous channels have been
      preferred to all the visible wonders of Rome. 64 The Gothic
      kings, so injuriously accused of the ruin of antiquity, were
      anxious to preserve the monuments of the nation whom they had
      subdued. 65 The royal edicts were framed to prevent the abuses,
      the neglect, or the depredations of the citizens themselves; and
      a professed architect, the annual sum of two hundred pounds of
      gold, twenty-five thousand tiles, and the receipt of customs from
      the Lucrine port, were assigned for the ordinary repairs of the
      walls and public edifices. A similar care was extended to the
      statues of metal or marble of men or animals. The spirit of the
      horses, which have given a modern name to the Quirinal, was
      applauded by the Barbarians; 66 the brazen elephants of the Via
      sacra were diligently restored; 67 the famous heifer of Myron
      deceived the cattle, as they were driven through the forum of
      peace; 68 and an officer was created to protect those works of
      art, which Theodoric considered as the noblest ornament of his
      kingdom.

      58 (return) [ See his regard for the senate in Cochlaeus, (Vit.
      Theod. viii. p. 72—80.)]

      59 (return) [ No more than 120,000 modii, or four thousand
      quarters, (Anonym. Valesian. p. 721, and Var. i. 35, vi. 18, xi.
      5, 39.)]

      60 (return) [ See his regard and indulgence for the spectacles of
      the circus, the amphitheatre, and the theatre, in the Chronicle
      and Epistles of Cassiodorus, (Var. i. 20, 27, 30, 31, 32, iii.
      51, iv. 51, illustrated by the xivth Annotation of Mascou’s
      History), who has contrived to sprinkle the subject with
      ostentatious, though agreeable, learning.]

      61 (return) [ Anonym. Vales. p. 721. Marius Aventicensis in
      Chron. In the scale of public and personal merit, the Gothic
      conqueror is at least as much above Valentinian, as he may seem
      inferior to Trajan.]

      62 (return) [ Vit. Fulgentii in Baron. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 500,
      No. 10.]

      63 (return) [ Cassiodorus describes in his pompous style the
      Forum of Trajan (Var. vii. 6,) the theatre of Marcellus, (iv.
      51,) and the amphitheatre of Titus, (v. 42;) and his descriptions
      are not unworthy of the reader’s perusal. According to the modern
      prices, the Abbe Barthelemy computes that the brick work and
      masonry of the Coliseum would now cost twenty millions of French
      livres, (Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p.
      585, 586.) How small a part of that stupendous fabric!]

      64 (return) [ For the aqueducts and cloacae, see Strabo, (l. v.
      p. 360;) Pliny, (Hist. Natur. xxxvi. 24; Cassiodorus, Var. iii.
      30, 31, vi. 6;) Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 19;) and Nardini,
      (Roma Antica, p. 514—522.) How such works could be executed by a
      king of Rome, is yet a problem. Note: See Niebuhr, vol. i. p.
      402. These stupendous works are among the most striking
      confirmations of Niebuhr’s views of the early Roman history; at
      least they appear to justify his strong sentence—“These works and
      the building of the Capitol attest with unquestionable evidence
      that this Rome of the later kings was the chief city of a great
      state.”—Page 110—M.]

      65 (return) [ For the Gothic care of the buildings and statues,
      see Cassiodorus (Var. i. 21, 25, ii. 34, iv. 30, vii. 6, 13, 15)
      and the Valesian Fragment, (p. 721.)]

      66 (return) [ Var. vii. 15. These horses of Monte Cavallo had
      been transported from Alexandria to the baths of Constantine,
      (Nardini, p. 188.) Their sculpture is disdained by the Abbe
      Dubos, (Reflexions sur la Poesie et sur la Peinture, tom. i.
      section 39,) and admired by Winkelman, (Hist. de l’Art, tom. ii.
      p. 159.)]

      67 (return) [ Var. x. 10. They were probably a fragment of some
      triumphal car, (Cuper de Elephantis, ii. 10.)]

      68 (return) [ Procopius (Goth. l. iv. c. 21) relates a foolish
      story of Myron’s cow, which is celebrated by the false with of
      thirty-six Greek epigrams, (Antholog. l. iv. p. 302—306, edit.
      Hen. Steph.; Auson. Epigram. xiii.—lxviii.)]




      Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part III.

      After the example of the last emperors, Theodoric preferred the
      residence of Ravenna, where he cultivated an orchard with his own
      hands. 69 As often as the peace of his kingdom was threatened
      (for it was never invaded) by the Barbarians, he removed his
      court to Verona 70 on the northern frontier, and the image of his
      palace, still extant on a coin, represents the oldest and most
      authentic model of Gothic architecture. These two capitals, as
      well as Pavia, Spoleto, Naples, and the rest of the Italian
      cities, acquired under his reign the useful or splendid
      decorations of churches, aqueducts, baths, porticos, and palaces.
      71 But the happiness of the subject was more truly conspicuous in
      the busy scene of labor and luxury, in the rapid increase and
      bold enjoyment of national wealth. From the shades of Tibur and
      Praeneste, the Roman senators still retired in the winter season
      to the warm sun, and salubrious springs of Baiae; and their
      villas, which advanced on solid moles into the Bay of Naples,
      commanded the various prospect of the sky, the earth, and the
      water. On the eastern side of the Adriatic, a new Campania was
      formed in the fair and fruitful province of Istria, which
      communicated with the palace of Ravenna by an easy navigation of
      one hundred miles. The rich productions of Lucania and the
      adjacent provinces were exchanged at the Marcilian fountain, in a
      populous fair annually dedicated to trade, intemperance, and
      superstition. In the solitude of Comum, which had once been
      animated by the mild genius of Pliny, a transparent basin above
      sixty miles in length still reflected the rural seats which
      encompassed the margin of the Larian lake; and the gradual ascent
      of the hills was covered by a triple plantation of olives, of
      vines, and of chestnut trees. 72 Agriculture revived under the
      shadow of peace, and the number of husbandmen was multiplied by
      the redemption of captives. 73 The iron mines of Dalmatia, a gold
      mine in Bruttium, were carefully explored, and the Pomptine
      marshes, as well as those of Spoleto, were drained and cultivated
      by private undertakers, whose distant reward must depend on the
      continuance of the public prosperity. 74 Whenever the seasons
      were less propitious, the doubtful precautions of forming
      magazines of corn, fixing the price, and prohibiting the
      exportation, attested at least the benevolence of the state; but
      such was the extraordinary plenty which an industrious people
      produced from a grateful soil, that a gallon of wine was
      sometimes sold in Italy for less than three farthings, and a
      quarter of wheat at about five shillings and sixpence. 75 A
      country possessed of so many valuable objects of exchange soon
      attracted the merchants of the world, whose beneficial traffic
      was encouraged and protected by the liberal spirit of Theodoric.
      The free intercourse of the provinces by land and water was
      restored and extended; the city gates were never shut either by
      day or by night; and the common saying, that a purse of gold
      might be safely left in the fields, was expressive of the
      conscious security of the inhabitants.

      69 (return) [See an epigram of Ennodius (ii. 3, p. 1893, 1894) on
      this garden and the royal gardener.]

      70 (return) [ His affection for that city is proved by the
      epithet of “Verona tua,” and the legend of the hero; under the
      barbarous name of Dietrich of Bern, (Peringsciold and Cochloeum,
      p. 240,) Maffei traces him with knowledge and pleasure in his
      native country, (l. ix. p. 230—236.)]

      71 (return) [ See Maffei, (Verona Illustrata, Part i. p. 231,
      232, 308, &c.) His amputes Gothic architecture, like the
      corruption of language, writing &c., not to the Barbarians, but
      to the Italians themselves. Compare his sentiments with those of
      Tiraboschi, (tom. iii. p. 61.) * Note: Mr. Hallam (vol. iii. p.
      432) observes that “the image of Theodoric’s palace” is
      represented in Maffei, not from a coin, but from a seal. Compare
      D’Agincourt (Storia dell’arte, Italian Transl., Arcitecttura,
      Plate xvii. No. 2, and Pittura, Plate xvi. No. 15,) where there
      is likewise an engraving from a mosaic in the church of St.
      Apollinaris in Ravenna, representing a building ascribed to
      Theodoric in that city. Neither of these, as Mr. Hallam justly
      observes, in the least approximates to what is called the Gothic
      style. They are evidently the degenerate Roman architecture, and
      more resemble the early attempts of our architects to get back
      from our national Gothic into a classical Greek style. One of
      them calls to mind Inigo Jones inner quadrangle in St. John’s
      College Oxford. Compare Hallam and D’Agincon vol. i. p.
      140—145.—M]

      72 (return) [ The villas, climate, and landscape of Baiae, (Var.
      ix. 6; see Cluver Italia Antiq. l. iv. c. 2, p. 1119, &c.,)
      Istria, (Var. xii. 22, 26,) and Comum, (Var. xi. 14; compare with
      Pliny’s two villas, ix. 7,) are agreeably painted in the Epistles
      of Cassiodorus.]

      73 (return) [ In Liguria numerosa agricolarum progenies,
      (Ennodius, p. 1678, 1679, 1680.) St. Epiphanius of Pavia redeemed
      by prayer or ransom 6000 captives from the Burgundians of Lyons
      and Savoy. Such deeds are the best of miracles.]

      74 (return) [ The political economy of Theodoric (see Anonym.
      Vales. p. 721, and Cassiodorus, in Chron.) may be distinctly
      traced under the following heads: iron mine, (Var. iii. 23;) gold
      mine, (ix. 3;) Pomptine marshes, (ii. 32, 33;) Spoleto, (ii. 21;)
      corn, (i. 34, x. 27, 28, xi. 11, 12;) trade, (vi. 7, vii. 9, 23;)
      fair of Leucothoe or St. Cyprian in Lucania, (viii. 33;) plenty,
      (xii. 4;) the cursus, or public post, (i. 29, ii. 31, iv. 47, v.
      5, vi 6, vii. 33;) the Flaminian way, (xii. 18.) * Note: The
      inscription commemorative of the draining of the Pomptine marshes
      may be found in many works; in Gruter, Inscript. Ant. Heidelberg,
      p. 152, No. 8. With variations, in Nicolai De’ bonificamenti
      delle terre Pontine, p. 103. In Sartorius, in his prize essay on
      the reign of Theodoric, and Manse Beylage, xi.—M.]

      75 (return) [ LX modii tritici in solidum ipsius tempore fuerunt,
      et vinum xxx amphoras in solidum, (Fragment. Vales.) Corn was
      distributed from the granaries at xv or xxv modii for a piece of
      gold, and the price was still moderate.]

      A difference of religion is always pernicious, and often fatal,
      to the harmony of the prince and people: the Gothic conqueror had
      been educated in the profession of Arianism, and Italy was
      devoutly attached to the Nicene faith. But the persuasion of
      Theodoric was not infected by zeal; and he piously adhered to the
      heresy of his fathers, without condescending to balance the
      subtile arguments of theological metaphysics. Satisfied with the
      private toleration of his Arian sectaries, he justly conceived
      himself to be the guardian of the public worship, and his
      external reverence for a superstition which he despised, may have
      nourished in his mind the salutary indifference of a statesman or
      philosopher. The Catholics of his dominions acknowledged, perhaps
      with reluctance, the peace of the church; their clergy, according
      to the degrees of rank or merit, were honorably entertained in
      the palace of Theodoric; he esteemed the living sanctity of
      Caesarius 76 and Epiphanius, 77 the orthodox bishops of Arles and
      Pavia; and presented a decent offering on the tomb of St. Peter,
      without any scrupulous inquiry into the creed of the apostle. 78
      His favorite Goths, and even his mother, were permitted to retain
      or embrace the Athanasian faith, and his long reign could not
      afford the example of an Italian Catholic, who, either from
      choice or compulsion, had deviated into the religion of the
      conqueror. 79 The people, and the Barbarians themselves, were
      edified by the pomp and order of religious worship; the
      magistrates were instructed to defend the just immunities of
      ecclesiastical persons and possessions; the bishops held their
      synods, the metropolitans exercised their jurisdiction, and the
      privileges of sanctuary were maintained or moderated according to
      the spirit of the Roman jurisprudence. 80 With the protection,
      Theodoric assumed the legal supremacy, of the church; and his
      firm administration restored or extended some useful prerogatives
      which had been neglected by the feeble emperors of the West. He
      was not ignorant of the dignity and importance of the Roman
      pontiff, to whom the venerable name of Pope was now appropriated.
      The peace or the revolt of Italy might depend on the character of
      a wealthy and popular bishop, who claimed such ample dominion
      both in heaven and earth; who had been declared in a numerous
      synod to be pure from all sin, and exempt from all judgment. 81
      When the chair of St. Peter was disputed by Symmachus and
      Laurence, they appeared at his summons before the tribunal of an
      Arian monarch, and he confirmed the election of the most worthy
      or the most obsequious candidate. At the end of his life, in a
      moment of jealousy and resentment, he prevented the choice of the
      Romans, by nominating a pope in the palace of Ravenna. The danger
      and furious contests of a schism were mildly restrained, and the
      last decree of the senate was enacted to extinguish, if it were
      possible, the scandalous venality of the papal elections. 82

      76 (return) [ See the life of St. Caesarius in Baronius, (A.D.
      508, No. 12, 13, 14.) The king presented him with 300 gold
      solidi, and a discus of silver of the weight of sixty pounds.]

      77 (return) [ Ennodius in Vit. St. Epiphanii, in Sirmond, Op.
      tom. i. p. 1672—1690. Theodoric bestowed some important favors on
      this bishop, whom he used as a counsellor in peace and war.]

      78 (return) [ Devotissimus ac si Catholicus, (Anonym. Vales. p.
      720;) yet his offering was no more than two silver candlesticks
      (cerostrata) of the weight of seventy pounds, far inferior to the
      gold and gems of Constantinople and France, (Anastasius in Vit.
      Pont. in Hormisda, p. 34, edit. Paris.)]

      79 (return) [ The tolerating system of his reign (Ennodius, p.
      1612. Anonym. Vales. p. 719. Procop. Goth. l. i. c. 1, l. ii. c.
      6) may be studied in the Epistles of Cassiodorous, under the
      following heads: bishops, (Var. i. 9, vii. 15, 24, xi. 23;)
      immunities, (i. 26, ii. 29, 30;) church lands (iv. 17, 20;)
      sanctuaries, (ii. 11, iii. 47;) church plate, (xii. 20;)
      discipline, (iv. 44;) which prove, at the same time, that he was
      the head of the church as well as of the state. * Note: He
      recommended the same toleration to the emperor Justin.—M.]

      80 (return) [ We may reject a foolish tale of his beheading a
      Catholic deacon who turned Arian, (Theodor. Lector. No. 17.) Why
      is Theodoric surnamed After? From Vafer? (Vales. ad loc.) A light
      conjecture.]

      81 (return) [ Ennodius, p. 1621, 1622, 1636, 1638. His libel was
      approved and registered (synodaliter) by a Roman council,
      (Baronius, A.D. 503, No. 6, Franciscus Pagi in Breviar. Pont.
      Rom. tom. i. p. 242.)]

      82 (return) [ See Cassiodorus, (Var. viii. 15, ix. 15, 16,)
      Anastasius, (in Symmacho, p. 31,) and the xviith Annotation of
      Mascou. Baronius, Pagi, and most of the Catholic doctors,
      confess, with an angry growl, this Gothic usurpation.]

      I have descanted with pleasure on the fortunate condition of
      Italy; but our fancy must not hastily conceive that the golden
      age of the poets, a race of men without vice or misery, was
      realized under the Gothic conquest. The fair prospect was
      sometimes overcast with clouds; the wisdom of Theodoric might be
      deceived, his power might be resisted and the declining age of
      the monarch was sullied with popular hatred and patrician blood.
      In the first insolence of victory, he had been tempted to deprive
      the whole party of Odoacer of the civil and even the natural
      rights of society; 83 a tax unseasonably imposed after the
      calamities of war, would have crushed the rising agriculture of
      Liguria; a rigid preemption of corn, which was intended for the
      public relief, must have aggravated the distress of Campania.
      These dangerous projects were defeated by the virtue and
      eloquence of Epiphanius and Boethius, who, in the presence of
      Theodoric himself, successfully pleaded the cause of the people:
      84 but if the royal ear was open to the voice of truth, a saint
      and a philosopher are not always to be found at the ear of kings.

      The privileges of rank, or office, or favor, were too frequently
      abused by Italian fraud and Gothic violence, and the avarice of
      the king’s nephew was publicly exposed, at first by the
      usurpation, and afterwards by the restitution of the estates
      which he had unjustly extorted from his Tuscan neighbors. Two
      hundred thousand Barbarians, formidable even to their master,
      were seated in the heart of Italy; they indignantly supported the
      restraints of peace and discipline; the disorders of their march
      were always felt and sometimes compensated; and where it was
      dangerous to punish, it might be prudent to dissemble, the
      sallies of their native fierceness. When the indulgence of
      Theodoric had remitted two thirds of the Ligurian tribute, he
      condescended to explain the difficulties of his situation, and to
      lament the heavy though inevitable burdens which he imposed on
      his subjects for their own defence. 85 These ungrateful subjects
      could never be cordially reconciled to the origin, the religion,
      or even the virtues of the Gothic conqueror; past calamities were
      forgotten, and the sense or suspicion of injuries was rendered
      still more exquisite by the present felicity of the times.

      83 (return) [ He disabled them—alicentia testandi; and all Italy
      mourned—lamentabili justitio. I wish to believe, that these
      penalties were enacted against the rebels who had violated their
      oath of allegiance; but the testimony of Ennodius (p. 1675-1678)
      is the more weighty, as he lived and died under the reign of
      Theodoric.]

      84 (return) [ Ennodius, in Vit. Epiphan. p. 1589, 1690. Boethius
      de Consolatione Philosphiae, l. i. pros. iv. p. 45, 46, 47.
      Respect, but weigh the passions of the saint and the senator; and
      fortify and alleviate their complaints by the various hints of
      Cassiodorus, (ii. 8, iv. 36, viii. 5.)]

      85 (return) [ Immanium expensarum pondus...pro ipsorum salute,
      &c.; yet these are no more than words.]

      Even the religious toleration which Theodoric had the glory of
      introducing into the Christian world, was painful and offensive
      to the orthodox zeal of the Italians. They respected the armed
      heresy of the Goths; but their pious rage was safely pointed
      against the rich and defenceless Jews, who had formed their
      establishments at Naples, Rome, Ravenna, Milan, and Genoa, for
      the benefit of trade, and under the sanction of the laws. 86
      Their persons were insulted, their effects were pillaged, and
      their synagogues were burned by the mad populace of Ravenna and
      Rome, inflamed, as it should seem, by the most frivolous or
      extravagant pretences. The government which could neglect, would
      have deserved such an outrage. A legal inquiry was instantly
      directed; and as the authors of the tumult had escaped in the
      crowd, the whole community was condemned to repair the damage;
      and the obstinate bigots, who refused their contributions, were
      whipped through the streets by the hand of the executioner. 8611
      This simple act of justice exasperated the discontent of the
      Catholics, who applauded the merit and patience of these holy
      confessors. Three hundred pulpits deplored the persecution of the
      church; and if the chapel of St. Stephen at Verona was demolished
      by the command of Theodoric, it is probable that some miracle
      hostile to his name and dignity had been performed on that sacred
      theatre. At the close of a glorious life, the king of Italy
      discovered that he had excited the hatred of a people whose
      happiness he had so assiduously labored to promote; and his mind
      was soured by indignation, jealousy, and the bitterness of
      unrequited love. The Gothic conqueror condescended to disarm the
      unwarlike natives of Italy, interdicting all weapons of offence,
      and excepting only a small knife for domestic use. The deliverer
      of Rome was accused of conspiring with the vilest informers
      against the lives of senators whom he suspected of a secret and
      treasonable correspondence with the Byzantine court. 87 After the
      death of Anastasius, the diadem had been placed on the head of a
      feeble old man; but the powers of government were assumed by his
      nephew Justinian, who already meditated the extirpation of
      heresy, and the conquest of Italy and Africa. A rigorous law,
      which was published at Constantinople, to reduce the Arians by
      the dread of punishment within the pale of the church, awakened
      the just resentment of Theodoric, who claimed for his distressed
      brethren of the East the same indulgence which he had so long
      granted to the Catholics of his dominions. 8711 At his stern
      command, the Roman pontiff, with four illustrious senators,
      embarked on an embassy, of which he must have alike dreaded the
      failure or the success. The singular veneration shown to the
      first pope who had visited Constantinople was punished as a crime
      by his jealous monarch; the artful or peremptory refusal of the
      Byzantine court might excuse an equal, and would provoke a
      larger, measure of retaliation; and a mandate was prepared in
      Italy, to prohibit, after a stated day, the exercise of the
      Catholic worship. By the bigotry of his subjects and enemies, the
      most tolerant of princes was driven to the brink of persecution;
      and the life of Theodoric was too long, since he lived to condemn
      the virtue of Boethius and Symmachus. 88

      86 (return) [ The Jews were settled at Naples, (Procopius, Goth.
      l. i. c. 8,) at Genoa, (Var. ii. 28, iv. 33,) Milan, (v. 37,)
      Rome, (iv. 43.) See likewise Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tom. viii.
      c. 7, p. 254.]

      8611 (return) [ See History of the Jews vol. iii. p. 217.—M.]

      87 (return) [ Rex avidus communis exitii, &c., (Boethius, l. i.
      p. 59:) rex colum Romanis tendebat, (Anonym. Vales. p. 723.)
      These are hard words: they speak the passions of the Italians and
      those (I fear) of Theodoric himself.]

      8711 (return) [ Gibbon should not have omitted the golden words
      of Theodoric in a letter which he addressed to Justin: That to
      pretend to a dominion over the conscience is to usurp the
      prerogative of God; that by the nature of things the power of
      sovereigns is confined to external government; that they have no
      right of punishment but over those who disturb the public peace,
      of which they are the guardians; that the most dangerous heresy
      is that of a sovereign who separates from himself a part of his
      subjects because they believe not according to his belief.
      Compare Le Beau, vol viii. p. 68.—M]

      88 (return) [ I have labored to extract a rational narrative from
      the dark, concise, and various hints of the Valesian Fragment,
      (p. 722, 723, 724,) Theophanes, (p. 145,) Anastasius, (in
      Johanne, p. 35,) and the Hist Miscella, (p. 103, edit. Muratori.)
      A gentle pressure and paraphrase of their words is no violence.
      Consult likewise Muratori (Annali d’ Italia, tom. iv. p.
      471-478,) with the Annals and Breviary (tom. i. p. 259—263) of
      the two Pagis, the uncle and the nephew.]

      The senator Boethius 89 is the last of the Romans whom Cato or
      Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman. As a wealthy
      orphan, he inherited the patrimony and honors of the Anician
      family, a name ambitiously assumed by the kings and emperors of
      the age; and the appellation of Manlius asserted his genuine or
      fabulous descent from a race of consuls and dictators, who had
      repulsed the Gauls from the Capitol, and sacrificed their sons to
      the discipline of the republic. In the youth of Boethius the
      studies of Rome were not totally abandoned; a Virgil 90 is now
      extant, corrected by the hand of a consul; and the professors of
      grammar, rhetoric, and jurisprudence, were maintained in their
      privileges and pensions by the liberality of the Goths. But the
      erudition of the Latin language was insufficient to satiate his
      ardent curiosity: and Boethius is said to have employed eighteen
      laborious years in the schools of Athens, 91 which were supported
      by the zeal, the learning, and the diligence of Proclus and his
      disciples. The reason and piety of their Roman pupil were
      fortunately saved from the contagion of mystery and magic, which
      polluted the groves of the academy; but he imbibed the spirit,
      and imitated the method, of his dead and living masters, who
      attempted to reconcile the strong and subtile sense of Aristotle
      with the devout contemplation and sublime fancy of Plato. After
      his return to Rome, and his marriage with the daughter of his
      friend, the patrician Symmachus, Boethius still continued, in a
      palace of ivory and marble, to prosecute the same studies. 92 The
      church was edified by his profound defence of the orthodox creed
      against the Arian, the Eutychian, and the Nestorian heresies; and
      the Catholic unity was explained or exposed in a formal treatise
      by the indifference of three distinct though consubstantial
      persons. For the benefit of his Latin readers, his genius
      submitted to teach the first elements of the arts and sciences of
      Greece. The geometry of Euclid, the music of Pythagoras, the
      arithmetic of Nicomachus, the mechanics of Archimedes, the
      astronomy of Ptolemy, the theology of Plato, and the logic of
      Aristotle, with the commentary of Porphyry, were translated and
      illustrated by the indefatigable pen of the Roman senator. And he
      alone was esteemed capable of describing the wonders of art, a
      sun-dial, a water-clock, or a sphere which represented the
      motions of the planets. From these abstruse speculations,
      Boethius stooped, or, to speak more truly, he rose to the social
      duties of public and private life: the indigent were relieved by
      his liberality; and his eloquence, which flattery might compare
      to the voice of Demosthenes or Cicero, was uniformly exerted in
      the cause of innocence and humanity. Such conspicuous merit was
      felt and rewarded by a discerning prince: the dignity of Boethius
      was adorned with the titles of consul and patrician, and his
      talents were usefully employed in the important station of master
      of the offices. Notwithstanding the equal claims of the East and
      West, his two sons were created, in their tender youth, the
      consuls of the same year. 93 On the memorable day of their
      inauguration, they proceeded in solemn pomp from their palace to
      the forum amidst the applause of the senate and people; and their
      joyful father, the true consul of Rome, after pronouncing an
      oration in the praise of his royal benefactor, distributed a
      triumphal largess in the games of the circus. Prosperous in his
      fame and fortunes, in his public honors and private alliances, in
      the cultivation of science and the consciousness of virtue,
      Boethius might have been styled happy, if that precarious epithet
      could be safely applied before the last term of the life of man.

      89 (return) [ Le Clerc has composed a critical and philosophical
      life of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boetius, (Bibliot. Choisie,
      tom. xvi. p. 168—275;) and both Tiraboschi (tom. iii.) and
      Fabricius (Bibliot Latin.) may be usefully consulted. The date of
      his birth may be placed about the year 470, and his death in 524,
      in a premature old age, (Consol. Phil. Metrica. i. p. 5.)]

      90 (return) [ For the age and value of this Ms., now in the
      Medicean library at Florence, see the Cenotaphia Pisana (p.
      430-447) of Cardinal Noris.]

      91 (return) [ The Athenian studies of Boethius are doubtful,
      (Baronius, A.D. 510, No. 3, from a spurious tract, De Disciplina
      Scholarum,) and the term of eighteen years is doubtless too long:
      but the simple fact of a visit to Athens is justified by much
      internal evidence, (Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. iii. p.
      524—527,) and by an expression (though vague and ambiguous) of
      his friend Cassiodorus, (Var. i. 45,) “longe positas Athenas
      intrioisti.”]

      92 (return) [ Bibliothecae comptos ebore ac vitro * parietes,
      &c., (Consol. Phil. l. i. pros. v. p. 74.) The Epistles of
      Ennodius (vi. 6, vii. 13, viii. 1 31, 37, 40) and Cassiodorus
      (Var. i. 39, iv. 6, ix. 21) afford many proofs of the high
      reputation which he enjoyed in his own times. It is true, that
      the bishop of Pavia wanted to purchase of him an old house at
      Milan, and praise might be tendered and accepted in part of
      payment. * Note: Gibbon translated vitro, marble; under the
      impression, no doubt that glass was unknown.—M.]

      93 (return) [ Pagi, Muratori, &c., are agreed that Boethius
      himself was consul in the year 510, his two sons in 522, and in
      487, perhaps, his father. A desire of ascribing the last of these
      consulships to the philosopher had perplexed the chronology of
      his life. In his honors, alliances, children, he celebrates his
      own felicity—his past felicity, (p. 109 110)]

      A philosopher, liberal of his wealth and parsimonious of his
      time, might be insensible to the common allurements of ambition,
      the thirst of gold and employment. And some credit may be due to
      the asseveration of Boethius, that he had reluctantly obeyed the
      divine Plato, who enjoins every virtuous citizen to rescue the
      state from the usurpation of vice and ignorance. For the
      integrity of his public conduct he appeals to the memory of his
      country. His authority had restrained the pride and oppression of
      the royal officers, and his eloquence had delivered Paulianus
      from the dogs of the palace. He had always pitied, and often
      relieved, the distress of the provincials, whose fortunes were
      exhausted by public and private rapine; and Boethius alone had
      courage to oppose the tyranny of the Barbarians, elated by
      conquest, excited by avarice, and, as he complains, encouraged by
      impunity. In these honorable contests his spirit soared above the
      consideration of danger, and perhaps of prudence; and we may
      learn from the example of Cato, that a character of pure and
      inflexible virtue is the most apt to be misled by prejudice, to
      be heated by enthusiasm, and to confound private enmities with
      public justice. The disciple of Plato might exaggerate the
      infirmities of nature, and the imperfections of society; and the
      mildest form of a Gothic kingdom, even the weight of allegiance
      and gratitude, must be insupportable to the free spirit of a
      Roman patriot. But the favor and fidelity of Boethius declined in
      just proportion with the public happiness; and an unworthy
      colleague was imposed to divide and control the power of the
      master of the offices. In the last gloomy season of Theodoric, he
      indignantly felt that he was a slave; but as his master had only
      power over his life, he stood without arms and without fear
      against the face of an angry Barbarian, who had been provoked to
      believe that the safety of the senate was incompatible with his
      own. The senator Albinus was accused and already convicted on the
      presumption of hoping, as it was said, the liberty of Rome. “If
      Albinus be criminal,” exclaimed the orator, “the senate and
      myself are all guilty of the same crime. If we are innocent,
      Albinus is equally entitled to the protection of the laws.” These
      laws might not have punished the simple and barren wish of an
      unattainable blessing; but they would have shown less indulgence
      to the rash confession of Boethius, that, had he known of a
      conspiracy, the tyrant never should. 94 The advocate of Albinus
      was soon involved in the danger and perhaps the guilt of his
      client; their signature (which they denied as a forgery) was
      affixed to the original address, inviting the emperor to deliver
      Italy from the Goths; and three witnesses of honorable rank,
      perhaps of infamous reputation, attested the treasonable designs
      of the Roman patrician. 95 Yet his innocence must be presumed,
      since he was deprived by Theodoric of the means of justification,
      and rigorously confined in the tower of Pavia, while the senate,
      at the distance of five hundred miles, pronounced a sentence of
      confiscation and death against the most illustrious of its
      members. At the command of the Barbarians, the occult science of
      a philosopher was stigmatized with the names of sacrilege and
      magic. 96 A devout and dutiful attachment to the senate was
      condemned as criminal by the trembling voices of the senators
      themselves; and their ingratitude deserved the wish or prediction
      of Boethius, that, after him, none should be found guilty of the
      same offence. 97

      94 (return) [ Si ego scissem tu nescisses. Beothius adopts this
      answer (l. i. pros. 4, p. 53) of Julius Canus, whose philosophic
      death is described by Seneca, (De Tranquillitate Animi, c. 14.)]

      95 (return) [ The characters of his two delators, Basilius (Var.
      ii. 10, 11, iv. 22) and Opilio, (v. 41, viii. 16,) are
      illustrated, not much to their honor, in the Epistles of
      Cassiodorus, which likewise mention Decoratus, (v. 31,) the
      worthless colleague of Beothius, (l. iii. pros. 4, p. 193.)]

      96 (return) [ A severe inquiry was instituted into the crime of
      magic, (Var. iv 22, 23, ix. 18;) and it was believed that many
      necromancers had escaped by making their jailers mad: for mad I
      should read drunk.]

      97 (return) [ Boethius had composed his own Apology, (p. 53,)
      perhaps more interesting than his Consolation. We must be content
      with the general view of his honors, principles, persecution,
      &c., (l. i. pros. 4, p. 42—62,) which may be compared with the
      short and weighty words of the Valesian Fragment, (p. 723.) An
      anonymous writer (Sinner, Catalog. Mss. Bibliot. Bern. tom. i. p.
      287) charges him home with honorable and patriotic treason.]

      While Boethius, oppressed with fetters, expected each moment the
      sentence or the stroke of death, he composed, in the tower of
      Pavia, the Consolation of Philosophy; a golden volume not
      unworthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully, but which claims
      incomparable merit from the barbarism of the times and the
      situation of the author. The celestial guide, whom he had so long
      invoked at Rome and Athens, now condescended to illumine his
      dungeon, to revive his courage, and to pour into his wounds her
      salutary balm. She taught him to compare his long prosperity and
      his recent distress, and to conceive new hopes from the
      inconstancy of fortune. Reason had informed him of the precarious
      condition of her gifts; experience had satisfied him of their
      real value; he had enjoyed them without guilt; he might resign
      them without a sigh, and calmly disdain the impotent malice of
      his enemies, who had left him happiness, since they had left him
      virtue. From the earth, Boethius ascended to heaven in search of
      the Supreme Good; explored the metaphysical labyrinth of chance
      and destiny, of prescience and free will, of time and eternity;
      and generously attempted to reconcile the perfect attributes of
      the Deity with the apparent disorders of his moral and physical
      government. Such topics of consolation so obvious, so vague, or
      so abstruse, are ineffectual to subdue the feelings of human
      nature. Yet the sense of misfortune may be diverted by the labor
      of thought; and the sage who could artfully combine in the same
      work the various riches of philosophy, poetry, and eloquence,
      must already have possessed the intrepid calmness which he
      affected to seek. Suspense, the worst of evils, was at length
      determined by the ministers of death, who executed, and perhaps
      exceeded, the inhuman mandate of Theodoric. A strong cord was
      fastened round the head of Boethius, and forcibly tightened, till
      his eyes almost started from their sockets; and some mercy may be
      discovered in the milder torture of beating him with clubs till
      he expired. 98 But his genius survived to diffuse a ray of
      knowledge over the darkest ages of the Latin world; the writings
      of the philosopher were translated by the most glorious of the
      English kings, 99 and the third emperor of the name of Otho
      removed to a more honorable tomb the bones of a Catholic saint,
      who, from his Arian persecutors, had acquired the honors of
      martyrdom, and the fame of miracles. 100 In the last hours of
      Boethius, he derived some comfort from the safety of his two
      sons, of his wife, and of his father-in-law, the venerable
      Symmachus. But the grief of Symmachus was indiscreet, and perhaps
      disrespectful: he had presumed to lament, he might dare to
      revenge, the death of an injured friend. He was dragged in chains
      from Rome to the palace of Ravenna; and the suspicions of
      Theodoric could only be appeased by the blood of an innocent and
      aged senator. 101

      98 (return) [ He was executed in Agro Calventiano, (Calvenzano,
      between Marignano and Pavia,) Anonym. Vales. p. 723, by order of
      Eusebius, count of Ticinum or Pavia. This place of confinement is
      styled the baptistery, an edifice and name peculiar to
      cathedrals. It is claimed by the perpetual tradition of the
      church of Pavia. The tower of Boethius subsisted till the year
      1584, and the draught is yet preserved, (Tiraboschi, tom. iii. p.
      47, 48.)]

      99 (return) [ See the Biographia Britannica, Alfred, tom. i. p.
      80, 2d edition. The work is still more honorable if performed
      under the learned eye of Alfred by his foreign and domestic
      doctors. For the reputation of Boethius in the middle ages,
      consult Brucker, (Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. iii. p. 565, 566.)]

      100 (return) [ The inscription on his new tomb was composed by
      the preceptor of Otho III., the learned Pope Silvester II., who,
      like Boethius himself, was styled a magician by the ignorance of
      the times. The Catholic martyr had carried his head in his hands
      a considerable way, (Baronius, A.D. 526, No. 17, 18;) and yet on
      a similar tale, a lady of my acquaintance once observed, “La
      distance n’y fait rien; il n’y a que lo remier pas qui coute.”
      Note: Madame du Deffand. This witticism referred to the miracle
      of St. Denis.—G.]

      101 (return) [ Boethius applauds the virtues of his
      father-in-law, (l. i. pros. 4, p. 59, l. ii. pros. 4, p. 118.)
      Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. i.,) the Valesian Fragment, (p. 724,)
      and the Historia Miscella, (l. xv. p. 105,) agree in praising the
      superior innocence or sanctity of Symmachus; and in the
      estimation of the legend, the guilt of his murder is equal to the
      imprisonment of a pope.]

      Humanity will be disposed to encourage any report which testifies
      the jurisdiction of conscience and the remorse of kings; and
      philosophy is not ignorant that the most horrid spectres are
      sometimes created by the powers of a disordered fancy, and the
      weakness of a distempered body. After a life of virtue and glory,
      Theodoric was now descending with shame and guilt into the grave;
      his mind was humbled by the contrast of the past, and justly
      alarmed by the invisible terrors of futurity. One evening, as it
      is related, when the head of a large fish was served on the royal
      table, 102 he suddenly exclaimed, that he beheld the angry
      countenance of Symmachus, his eyes glaring fury and revenge, and
      his mouth armed with long sharp teeth, which threatened to devour
      him. The monarch instantly retired to his chamber, and, as he
      lay, trembling with aguish cold, under a weight of bed-clothes,
      he expressed, in broken murmurs to his physician Elpidius, his
      deep repentance for the murders of Boethius and Symmachus. 103
      His malady increased, and after a dysentery which continued three
      days, he expired in the palace of Ravenna, in the thirty-third,
      or, if we compute from the invasion of Italy, in the
      thirty-seventh year of his reign. Conscious of his approaching
      end, he divided his treasures and provinces between his two
      grandsons, and fixed the Rhone as their common boundary. 104
      Amalaric was restored to the throne of Spain. Italy, with all the
      conquests of the Ostrogoths, was bequeathed to Athalaric; whose
      age did not exceed ten years, but who was cherished as the last
      male offspring of the line of Amali, by the short-lived marriage
      of his mother Amalasuntha with a royal fugitive of the same
      blood. 105 In the presence of the dying monarch, the Gothic
      chiefs and Italian magistrates mutually engaged their faith and
      loyalty to the young prince, and to his guardian mother; and
      received, in the same awful moment, his last salutary advice, to
      maintain the laws, to love the senate and people of Rome, and to
      cultivate with decent reverence the friendship of the emperor.
      106 The monument of Theodoric was erected by his daughter
      Amalasuntha, in a conspicuous situation, which commanded the city
      of Ravenna, the harbor, and the adjacent coast. A chapel of a
      circular form, thirty feet in diameter, is crowned by a dome of
      one entire piece of granite: from the centre of the dome four
      columns arose, which supported, in a vase of porphyry, the
      remains of the Gothic king, surrounded by the brazen statues of
      the twelve apostles. 107 His spirit, after some previous
      expiation, might have been permitted to mingle with the
      benefactors of mankind, if an Italian hermit had not been
      witness, in a vision, to the damnation of Theodoric, 108 whose
      soul was plunged, by the ministers of divine vengeance, into the
      volcano of Lipari, one of the flaming mouths of the infernal
      world. 109

      102 (return) [ In the fanciful eloquence of Cassiodorus, the
      variety of sea and river fish are an evidence of extensive
      dominion; and those of the Rhine, of Sicily, and of the Danube,
      were served on the table of Theodoric, (Var. xii. 14.) The
      monstrous turbot of Domitian (Juvenal Satir. iii. 39) had been
      caught on the shores of the Adriatic.]

      103 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 1. But he might have
      informed us, whether he had received this curious anecdote from
      common report or from the mouth of the royal physician.]

      104 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 1, 2, 12, 13. This
      partition had been directed by Theodoric, though it was not
      executed till after his death, Regni hereditatem superstes
      reliquit, (Isidor. Chron. p. 721, edit. Grot.)]

      105 (return) [ Berimund, the third in descent from Hermanric,
      king of the Ostrogoths, had retired into Spain, where he lived
      and died in obscurity, (Jornandes, c. 33, p. 202, edit.
      Muratori.) See the discovery, nuptials, and death of his grandson
      Eutharic, (c. 58, p. 220.) His Roman games might render him
      popular, (Cassiodor. in Chron.,) but Eutharic was asper in
      religione, (Anonym. Vales. p. 723.)]

      106 (return) [ See the counsels of Theodoric, and the professions
      of his successor, in Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 1, 2,) Jornandes,
      (c. 59, p. 220, 221,) and Cassiodorus, (Var. viii. 1—7.) These
      epistles are the triumph of his ministerial eloquence.]

      107 (return) [ Anonym. Vales. p. 724. Agnellus de Vitis. Pont.
      Raven. in Muratori Script. Rerum Ital. tom. ii. P. i. p. 67.
      Alberti Descrittione d’ Italia, p. 311. * Note: The Mausoleum of
      Theodoric, now Sante Maria della Rotonda, is engraved in
      D’Agincourt, Histoire de l’Art, p xviii. of the Architectural
      Prints.—M]

      108 (return) [ This legend is related by Gregory I., (Dialog. iv.
      36,) and approved by Baronius, (A.D. 526, No. 28;) and both the
      pope and cardinal are grave doctors, sufficient to establish a
      probable opinion.]

      109 (return) [ Theodoric himself, or rather Cassiodorus, had
      described in tragic strains the volcanos of Lipari (Cluver.
      Sicilia, p. 406—410) and Vesuvius, (v 50.)]




      Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part I.

     Elevation Of Justin The Elder.—Reign Of Justinian.—I. The Empress
     Theodora.—II.  Factions Of The Circus, And Sedition Of
     Constantinople.—III.  Trade And Manufacture Of Silk.— IV. Finances
     And Taxes.—V. Edifices Of Justinian.—Church Of St.
     Sophia.—Fortifications And Frontiers Of The Eastern
     Empire.—Abolition Of The Schools Of Athens, And The Consulship Of
     Rome.

      The emperor Justinian was born 1 near the ruins of Sardica, (the
      modern Sophia,) of an obscure race 2 of Barbarians, 3 the
      inhabitants of a wild and desolate country, to which the names of
      Dardania, of Dacia, and of Bulgaria, have been successively
      applied. His elevation was prepared by the adventurous spirit of
      his uncle Justin, who, with two other peasants of the same
      village, deserted, for the profession of arms, the more useful
      employment of husbandmen or shepherds. 4 On foot, with a scanty
      provision of biscuit in their knapsacks, the three youths
      followed the high road of Constantinople, and were soon enrolled,
      for their strength and stature, among the guards of the emperor
      Leo. Under the two succeeding reigns, the fortunate peasant
      emerged to wealth and honors; and his escape from some dangers
      which threatened his life was afterwards ascribed to the guardian
      angel who watches over the fate of kings. His long and laudable
      service in the Isaurian and Persian wars would not have preserved
      from oblivion the name of Justin; yet they might warrant the
      military promotion, which in the course of fifty years he
      gradually obtained; the rank of tribune, of count, and of
      general; the dignity of senator, and the command of the guards,
      who obeyed him as their chief, at the important crisis when the
      emperor Anastasius was removed from the world. The powerful
      kinsmen whom he had raised and enriched were excluded from the
      throne; and the eunuch Amantius, who reigned in the palace, had
      secretly resolved to fix the diadem on the head of the most
      obsequious of his creatures. A liberal donative, to conciliate
      the suffrage of the guards, was intrusted for that purpose in the
      hands of their commander. But these weighty arguments were
      treacherously employed by Justin in his own favor; and as no
      competitor presumed to appear, the Dacian peasant was invested
      with the purple by the unanimous consent of the soldiers, who
      knew him to be brave and gentle, of the clergy and people, who
      believed him to be orthodox, and of the provincials, who yielded
      a blind and implicit submission to the will of the capital. The
      elder Justin, as he is distinguished from another emperor of the
      same family and name, ascended the Byzantine throne at the age of
      sixty-eight years; and, had he been left to his own guidance,
      every moment of a nine years’ reign must have exposed to his
      subjects the impropriety of their choice. His ignorance was
      similar to that of Theodoric; and it is remarkable that in an age
      not destitute of learning, two contemporary monarchs had never
      been instructed in the knowledge of the alphabet. 411 But the
      genius of Justin was far inferior to that of the Gothic king: the
      experience of a soldier had not qualified him for the government
      of an empire; and though personally brave, the consciousness of
      his own weakness was naturally attended with doubt, distrust, and
      political apprehension. But the official business of the state
      was diligently and faithfully transacted by the quaestor Proclus;
      5 and the aged emperor adopted the talents and ambition of his
      nephew Justinian, an aspiring youth, whom his uncle had drawn
      from the rustic solitude of Dacia, and educated at
      Constantinople, as the heir of his private fortune, and at length
      of the Eastern empire.

      1 (return) [ There is some difficulty in the date of his birth
      (Ludewig in Vit. Justiniani, p. 125;) none in the place—the
      district Bederiana—the village Tauresium, which he afterwards
      decorated with his name and splendor, (D’Anville, Hist. de
      l’Acad. &c., tom. xxxi. p. 287—292.)]

      2 (return) [ The names of these Dardanian peasants are Gothic,
      and almost English: Justinian is a translation of uprauda,
      (upright;) his father Sabatius (in Graeco-barbarous language
      stipes) was styled in his village Istock, (Stock;) his mother
      Bigleniza was softened into Vigilantia.]

      3 (return) [ Ludewig (p. 127—135) attempts to justify the Anician
      name of Justinian and Theodora, and to connect them with a family
      from which the house of Austria has been derived.]

      4 (return) [ See the anecdotes of Procopius, (c. 6,) with the
      notes of N. Alemannus. The satirist would not have sunk, in the
      vague and decent appellation of Zonaras. Yet why are those names
      disgraceful?—and what German baron would not be proud to descend
      from the Eumaeus of the Odyssey! Note: It is whimsical enough
      that, in our own days, we should have, even in jest, a claimant
      to lineal descent from the godlike swineherd not in the person of
      a German baron, but in that of a professor of the Ionian
      University. Constantine Koliades, or some malicious wit under
      this name, has written a tall folio to prove Ulysses to be Homer,
      and himself the descendant, the heir (?), of the Eumaeus of the
      Odyssey.—M]

      411 (return) [ St. Martin questions the fact in both cases. The
      ignorance of Justin rests on the secret history of Procopius,
      vol. viii. p. 8. St. Martin’s notes on Le Beau.—M]

      5 (return) [ His virtues are praised by Procopius, (Persic. l. i.
      c. 11.) The quaestor Proclus was the friend of Justinian, and the
      enemy of every other adoption.]

      Since the eunuch Amantius had been defrauded of his money, it
      became necessary to deprive him of his life. The task was easily
      accomplished by the charge of a real or fictitious conspiracy;
      and the judges were informed, as an accumulation of guilt, that
      he was secretly addicted to the Manichaean heresy. 6 Amantius
      lost his head; three of his companions, the first domestics of
      the palace, were punished either with death or exile; and their
      unfortunate candidate for the purple was cast into a deep
      dungeon, overwhelmed with stones, and ignominiously thrown,
      without burial, into the sea. The ruin of Vitalian was a work of
      more difficulty and danger. That Gothic chief had rendered
      himself popular by the civil war which he boldly waged against
      Anastasius for the defence of the orthodox faith, and after the
      conclusion of an advantageous treaty, he still remained in the
      neighborhood of Constantinople at the head of a formidable and
      victorious army of Barbarians. By the frail security of oaths, he
      was tempted to relinquish this advantageous situation, and to
      trust his person within the walls of a city, whose inhabitants,
      particularly the blue faction, were artfully incensed against him
      by the remembrance even of his pious hostilities. The emperor and
      his nephew embraced him as the faithful and worthy champion of
      the church and state; and gratefully adorned their favorite with
      the titles of consul and general; but in the seventh month of his
      consulship, Vitalian was stabbed with seventeen wounds at the
      royal banquet; 7 and Justinian, who inherited the spoil, was
      accused as the assassin of a spiritual brother, to whom he had
      recently pledged his faith in the participation of the Christian
      mysteries. 8 After the fall of his rival, he was promoted,
      without any claim of military service, to the office of
      master-general of the Eastern armies, whom it was his duty to
      lead into the field against the public enemy. But, in the pursuit
      of fame, Justinian might have lost his present dominion over the
      age and weakness of his uncle; and instead of acquiring by
      Scythian or Persian trophies the applause of his countrymen, 9
      the prudent warrior solicited their favor in the churches, the
      circus, and the senate, of Constantinople. The Catholics were
      attached to the nephew of Justin, who, between the Nestorian and
      Eutychian heresies, trod the narrow path of inflexible and
      intolerant orthodoxy. 10 In the first days of the new reign, he
      prompted and gratified the popular enthusiasm against the memory
      of the deceased emperor. After a schism of thirty-four years, he
      reconciled the proud and angry spirit of the Roman pontiff, and
      spread among the Latins a favorable report of his pious respect
      for the apostolic see. The thrones of the East were filled with
      Catholic bishops, devoted to his interest, the clergy and the
      monks were gained by his liberality, and the people were taught
      to pray for their future sovereign, the hope and pillar of the
      true religion. The magnificence of Justinian was displayed in the
      superior pomp of his public spectacles, an object not less sacred
      and important in the eyes of the multitude than the creed of Nice
      or Chalcedon: the expense of his consulship was esteemed at two
      hundred and twenty-eight thousand pieces of gold; twenty lions,
      and thirty leopards, were produced at the same time in the
      amphitheatre, and a numerous train of horses, with their rich
      trappings, was bestowed as an extraordinary gift on the
      victorious charioteers of the circus. While he indulged the
      people of Constantinople, and received the addresses of foreign
      kings, the nephew of Justin assiduously cultivated the friendship
      of the senate. That venerable name seemed to qualify its members
      to declare the sense of the nation, and to regulate the
      succession of the Imperial throne: the feeble Anastasius had
      permitted the vigor of government to degenerate into the form or
      substance of an aristocracy; and the military officers who had
      obtained the senatorial rank were followed by their domestic
      guards, a band of veterans, whose arms or acclamations might fix
      in a tumultuous moment the diadem of the East. The treasures of
      the state were lavished to procure the voices of the senators,
      and their unanimous wish, that he would be pleased to adopt
      Justinian for his colleague, was communicated to the emperor. But
      this request, which too clearly admonished him of his approaching
      end, was unwelcome to the jealous temper of an aged monarch,
      desirous to retain the power which he was incapable of
      exercising; and Justin, holding his purple with both his hands,
      advised them to prefer, since an election was so profitable, some
      older candidate. Not withstanding this reproach, the senate
      proceeded to decorate Justinian with the royal epithet of
      nobilissimus; and their decree was ratified by the affection or
      the fears of his uncle. After some time the languor of mind and
      body, to which he was reduced by an incurable wound in his thigh,
      indispensably required the aid of a guardian. He summoned the
      patriarch and senators; and in their presence solemnly placed the
      diadem on the head of his nephew, who was conducted from the
      palace to the circus, and saluted by the loud and joyful applause
      of the people. The life of Justin was prolonged about four
      months; but from the instant of this ceremony, he was considered
      as dead to the empire, which acknowledged Justinian, in the
      forty-fifth year of his age, for the lawful sovereign of the
      East. 11

      6 (return) [ Manichaean signifies Eutychian. Hear the furious
      acclamations of Constantinople and Tyre, the former no more than
      six days after the decease of Anastasius. They produced, the
      latter applauded, the eunuch’s death, (Baronius, A.D. 518, P. ii.
      No. 15. Fleury, Hist Eccles. tom. vii. p. 200, 205, from the
      Councils, tom. v. p. 182, 207.)]

      7 (return) [ His power, character, and intentions, are perfectly
      explained by the court de Buat, (tom. ix. p. 54—81.) He was
      great-grandson of Aspar, hereditary prince in the Lesser Scythia,
      and count of the Gothic foederati of Thrace. The Bessi, whom he
      could influence, are the minor Goths of Jornandes, (c. 51.)]

      8 (return) [ Justiniani patricii factione dicitur interfectus
      fuisse, (Victor Tu nunensis, Chron. in Thesaur. Temp. Scaliger,
      P. ii. p. 7.) Procopius (Anecdot. c. 7) styles him a tyrant, but
      acknowledges something which is well explained by Alemannus.]

      9 (return) [ In his earliest youth (plane adolescens) he had
      passed some time as a hostage with Theodoric. For this curious
      fact, Alemannus (ad Procop. Anecdot. c. 9, p. 34, of the first
      edition) quotes a Ms. history of Justinian, by his preceptor
      Theophilus. Ludewig (p. 143) wishes to make him a soldier.]

      10 (return) [ The ecclesiastical history of Justinian will be
      shown hereafter. See Baronius, A.D. 518—521, and the copious
      article Justinianas in the index to the viith volume of his
      Annals.]

      11 (return) [ The reign of the elder Justin may be found in the
      three Chronicles of Marcellinus, Victor, and John Malala, (tom.
      ii. p. 130—150,) the last of whom (in spite of Hody, Prolegom.
      No. 14, 39, edit. Oxon.) lived soon after Justinian, (Jortin’s
      Remarks, &c., vol. iv p. 383:) in the Ecclesiastical History of
      Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 1, 2, 3, 9,) and the Excerpta of Theodorus
      Lector, (No. 37,) and in Cedrenus, (p. 362—366,) and Zonaras, (l.
      xiv. p. 58—61,) who may pass for an original. * Note: Dindorf, in
      his preface to the new edition of Malala, p. vi., concurs with
      this opinion of Gibbon, which was also that of Reiske, as to the
      age of the chronicler.—M.]

      From his elevation to his death, Justinian governed the Roman
      empire thirty-eight years, seven months, and thirteen days.

      The events of his reign, which excite our curious attention by
      their number, variety, and importance, are diligently related by
      the secretary of Belisarius, a rhetorician, whom eloquence had
      promoted to the rank of senator and praefect of Constantinople.
      According to the vicissitudes of courage or servitude, of favor
      or disgrace, Procopius 12 successively composed the history, the
      panegyric, and the satire of his own times. The eight books of
      the Persian, Vandalic, and Gothic wars, 13 which are continued in
      the five books of Agathias, deserve our esteem as a laborious and
      successful imitation of the Attic, or at least of the Asiatic,
      writers of ancient Greece. His facts are collected from the
      personal experience and free conversation of a soldier, a
      statesman, and a traveller; his style continually aspires, and
      often attains, to the merit of strength and elegance; his
      reflections, more especially in the speeches, which he too
      frequently inserts, contain a rich fund of political knowledge;
      and the historian, excited by the generous ambition of pleasing
      and instructing posterity, appears to disdain the prejudices of
      the people, and the flattery of courts. The writings of Procopius
      14 were read and applauded by his contemporaries: 15 but,
      although he respectfully laid them at the foot of the throne, the
      pride of Justinian must have been wounded by the praise of a
      hero, who perpetually eclipses the glory of his inactive
      sovereign. The conscious dignity of independence was subdued by
      the hopes and fears of a slave; and the secretary of Belisarius
      labored for pardon and reward in the six books of the Imperial
      edifices. He had dexterously chosen a subject of apparent
      splendor, in which he could loudly celebrate the genius, the
      magnificence, and the piety of a prince, who, both as a conqueror
      and legislator, had surpassed the puerile virtues of Themistocles
      and Cyrus. 16 Disappointment might urge the flatterer to secret
      revenge; and the first glance of favor might again tempt him to
      suspend and suppress a libel, 17 in which the Roman Cyrus is
      degraded into an odious and contemptible tyrant, in which both
      the emperor and his consort Theodora are seriously represented as
      two daemons, who had assumed a human form for the destruction of
      mankind. 18 Such base inconsistency must doubtless sully the
      reputation, and detract from the credit, of Procopius: yet, after
      the venom of his malignity has been suffered to exhale, the
      residue of the anecdotes, even the most disgraceful facts, some
      of which had been tenderly hinted in his public history, are
      established by their internal evidence, or the authentic
      monuments of the times. 19 1911 From these various materials, I
      shall now proceed to describe the reign of Justinian, which will
      deserve and occupy an ample space. The present chapter will
      explain the elevation and character of Theodora, the factions of
      the circus, and the peaceful administration of the sovereign of
      the East. In the three succeeding chapters, I shall relate the
      wars of Justinian, which achieved the conquest of Africa and
      Italy; and I shall follow the victories of Belisarius and Narses,
      without disguising the vanity of their triumphs, or the hostile
      virtue of the Persian and Gothic heroes. The series of this and
      the following volume will embrace the jurisprudence and theology
      of the emperor; the controversies and sects which still divide
      the Oriental church; the reformation of the Roman law which is
      obeyed or respected by the nations of modern Europe.

      12 (return) [ See the characters of Procopius and Agathias in La
      Mothe le Vayer, (tom. viii. p. 144—174,) Vossius, (de Historicis
      Graecis, l. ii. c. 22,) and Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. l. v. c.
      5, tom. vi. p. 248—278.) Their religion, an honorable problem,
      betrays occasional conformity, with a secret attachment to
      Paganism and Philosophy.]

      13 (return) [ In the seven first books, two Persic, two Vandalic,
      and three Gothic, Procopius has borrowed from Appian the division
      of provinces and wars: the viiith book, though it bears the name
      of Gothic, is a miscellaneous and general supplement down to the
      spring of the year 553, from whence it is continued by Agathias
      till 559, (Pagi, Critica, A.D. 579, No. 5.)]

      14 (return) [ The literary fate of Procopius has been somewhat
      unlucky.

      1. His book de Bello Gothico were stolen by Leonard Aretin, and
      published (Fulginii, 1470, Venet. 1471, apud Janson. Mattaire,
      Annal Typograph. tom. i. edit. posterior, p. 290, 304, 279, 299,)
      in his own name, (see Vossius de Hist. Lat. l. iii. c. 5, and the
      feeble defence of the Venice Giornale de Letterati, tom. xix. p.
      207.)

      2. His works were mutilated by the first Latin translators,
      Christopher Persona, (Giornale, tom. xix. p. 340—348,) and
      Raphael de Volaterra, (Huet, de Claris Interpretibus, p. 166,)
      who did not even consult the Ms. of the Vatican library, of which
      they were praefects, (Aleman. in Praefat Anecdot.) 3. The Greek
      text was not printed till 1607, by Hoeschelius of Augsburg,
      (Dictionnaire de Bayle, tom. ii. p. 782.)

      4. The Paris edition was imperfectly executed by Claude Maltret,
      a Jesuit of Toulouse, (in 1663,) far distant from the Louvre
      press and the Vatican Ms., from which, however, he obtained some
      supplements. His promised commentaries, &c., have never appeared.
      The Agathias of Leyden (1594) has been wisely reprinted by the
      Paris editor, with the Latin version of Bonaventura Vulcanius, a
      learned interpreter, (Huet, p. 176.)

      * Note: Procopius forms a part of the new Byzantine collection
      under the superintendence of Dindorf.—M.]

      15 (return) [ Agathias in Praefat. p. 7, 8, l. iv. p. 137.
      Evagrius, l. iv. c. 12. See likewise Photius, cod. lxiii. p. 65.]

      16 (return) [ Says, he, Praefat. ad l. de Edificiis is no more
      than a pun! In these five books, Procopius affects a Christian as
      well as a courtly style.]

      17 (return) [ Procopius discloses himself, (Praefat. ad Anecdot.
      c. 1, 2, 5,) and the anecdotes are reckoned as the ninth book by
      Suidas, (tom. iii. p. 186, edit. Kuster.) The silence of Evagrius
      is a poor objection. Baronius (A.D. 548, No. 24) regrets the loss
      of this secret history: it was then in the Vatican library, in
      his own custody, and was first published sixteen years after his
      death, with the learned, but partial notes of Nicholas Alemannus,
      (Lugd. 1623.)]

      18 (return) [ Justinian an ass—the perfect likeness of
      Domitian—Anecdot. c. 8.—Theodora’s lovers driven from her bed by
      rival daemons—her marriage foretold with a great daemon—a monk
      saw the prince of the daemons, instead of Justinian, on the
      throne—the servants who watched beheld a face without features, a
      body walking without a head, &c., &c. Procopius declares his own
      and his friends’ belief in these diabolical stories, (c. 12.)]

      19 (return) [ Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur et la
      Decadence des Romains, c. xx.) gives credit to these anecdotes,
      as connected, 1. with the weakness of the empire, and, 2. with
      the instability of Justinian’s laws.]

      1911 (return) [ The Anecdota of Procopius, compared with the
      former works of the same author, appear to me the basest and most
      disgraceful work in literature. The wars, which he has described
      in the former volumes as glorious or necessary, are become
      unprofitable and wanton massacres; the buildings which he
      celebrated, as raised to the immortal honor of the great emperor,
      and his admirable queen, either as magnificent embellishments of
      the city, or useful fortifications for the defence of the
      frontier, are become works of vain prodigality and useless
      ostentation. I doubt whether Gibbon has made sufficient allowance
      for the “malignity” of the Anecdota; at all events, the extreme
      and disgusting profligacy of Theodora’s early life rests entirely
      on this viratent libel—M.]

      I. In the exercise of supreme power, the first act of Justinian
      was to divide it with the woman whom he loved, the famous
      Theodora, 20 whose strange elevation cannot be applauded as the
      triumph of female virtue. Under the reign of Anastasius, the care
      of the wild beasts maintained by the green faction at
      Constantinople was intrusted to Acacius, a native of the Isle of
      Cyprus, who, from his employment, was surnamed the master of the
      bears. This honorable office was given after his death to another
      candidate, notwithstanding the diligence of his widow, who had
      already provided a husband and a successor. Acacius had left
      three daughters, Comito, 21 Theodora, and Anastasia, the eldest
      of whom did not then exceed the age of seven years. On a solemn
      festival, these helpless orphans were sent by their distressed
      and indignant mother, in the garb of suppliants, into the midst
      of the theatre: the green faction received them with contempt,
      the blues with compassion; and this difference, which sunk deep
      into the mind of Theodora, was felt long afterwards in the
      administration of the empire. As they improved in age and beauty,
      the three sisters were successively devoted to the public and
      private pleasures of the Byzantine people: and Theodora, after
      following Comito on the stage, in the dress of a slave, with a
      stool on her head, was at length permitted to exercise her
      independent talents. She neither danced, nor sung, nor played on
      the flute; her skill was confined to the pantomime arts; she
      excelled in buffoon characters, and as often as the comedian
      swelled her cheeks, and complained with a ridiculous tone and
      gesture of the blows that were inflicted, the whole theatre of
      Constantinople resounded with laughter and applause. The beauty
      of Theodora 22 was the subject of more flattering praise, and the
      source of more exquisite delight. Her features were delicate and
      regular; her complexion, though somewhat pale, was tinged with a
      natural color; every sensation was instantly expressed by the
      vivacity of her eyes; her easy motions displayed the graces of a
      small but elegant figure; and either love or adulation might
      proclaim, that painting and poetry were incapable of delineating
      the matchless excellence of her form. But this form was degraded
      by the facility with which it was exposed to the public eye, and
      prostituted to licentious desire. Her venal charms were abandoned
      to a promiscuous crowd of citizens and strangers of every rank,
      and of every profession: the fortunate lover who had been
      promised a night of enjoyment, was often driven from her bed by a
      stronger or more wealthy favorite; and when she passed through
      the streets, her presence was avoided by all who wished to escape
      either the scandal or the temptation. The satirical historian has
      not blushed 23 to describe the naked scenes which Theodora was
      not ashamed to exhibit in the theatre. 24 After exhausting the
      arts of sensual pleasure, 25 she most ungratefully murmured
      against the parsimony of Nature; 26 but her murmurs, her
      pleasures, and her arts, must be veiled in the obscurity of a
      learned language. After reigning for some time, the delight and
      contempt of the capital, she condescended to accompany Ecebolus,
      a native of Tyre, who had obtained the government of the African
      Pentapolis. But this union was frail and transient; Ecebolus soon
      rejected an expensive or faithless concubine; she was reduced at
      Alexandria to extreme distress; and in her laborious return to
      Constantinople, every city of the East admired and enjoyed the
      fair Cyprian, whose merit appeared to justify her descent from
      the peculiar island of Venus. The vague commerce of Theodora, and
      the most detestable precautions, preserved her from the danger
      which she feared; yet once, and once only, she became a mother.
      The infant was saved and educated in Arabia, by his father, who
      imparted to him on his death-bed, that he was the son of an
      empress. Filled with ambitious hopes, the unsuspecting youth
      immediately hastened to the palace of Constantinople, and was
      admitted to the presence of his mother. As he was never more
      seen, even after the decease of Theodora, she deserves the foul
      imputation of extinguishing with his life a secret so offensive
      to her Imperial virtue. 2611

      20 (return) [ For the life and manners of the empress Theodora
      see the Anecdotes; more especially c. 1—5, 9, 10—15, 16, 17, with
      the learned notes of Alemannus—a reference which is always
      implied.]

      21 (return) [ Comito was afterwards married to Sittas, duke of
      Armenia, the father, perhaps, at least she might be the mother,
      of the empress Sophia. Two nephews of Theodora may be the sons of
      Anastasia, (Aleman. p. 30, 31.)]

      22 (return) [ Her statute was raised at Constantinople, on a
      porphyry column. See Procopius, (de Edif. l. i. c. 11,) who gives
      her portrait in the Anecdotes, (c. 10.) Aleman. (p. 47) produces
      one from a Mosaic at Ravenna, loaded with pearls and jewels, and
      yet handsome.]

      23 (return) [ A fragment of the Anecdotes, (c. 9,) somewhat too
      naked, was suppressed by Alemannus, though extant in the Vatican
      Ms.; nor has the defect been supplied in the Paris or Venice
      editions. La Mothe le Vayer (tom. viii. p. 155) gave the first
      hint of this curious and genuine passage, (Jortin’s Remarks, vol.
      iv. p. 366,) which he had received from Rome, and it has been
      since published in the Menagiana (tom. iii. p. 254—259) with a
      Latin version.]

      24 (return) [ After the mention of a narrow girdle, (as none
      could appear stark naked in the theatre,) Procopius thus
      proceeds. I have heard that a learned prelate, now deceased, was
      fond of quoting this passage in conversation.]

      25 (return) [ Theodora surpassed the Crispa of Ausonius, (Epigram
      lxxi.,) who imitated the capitalis luxus of the females of Nola.
      See Quintilian Institut. viii. 6, and Torrentius ad Horat.
      Sermon. l. i. sat. 2, v. 101. At a memorable supper, thirty
      slaves waited round the table ten young men feasted with
      Theodora. Her charity was universal. Et lassata viris, necdum
      satiata, recessit.]

      26 (return) [ She wished for a fourth altar, on which she might
      pour libations to the god of love.]

      2611 (return) [ Gibbon should have remembered the axiom which he
      quotes in another piece, scelera ostendi oportet dum puniantur
      abscondi flagitia.—M.]

      In the most abject state of her fortune, and reputation, some
      vision, either of sleep or of fancy, had whispered to Theodora
      the pleasing assurance that she was destined to become the spouse
      of a potent monarch. Conscious of her approaching greatness, she
      returned from Paphlagonia to Constantinople; assumed, like a
      skilful actress, a more decent character; relieved her poverty by
      the laudable industry of spinning wool; and affected a life of
      chastity and solitude in a small house, which she afterwards
      changed into a magnificent temple. 27 Her beauty, assisted by art
      or accident, soon attracted, captivated, and fixed, the patrician
      Justinian, who already reigned with absolute sway under the name
      of his uncle. Perhaps she contrived to enhance the value of a
      gift which she had so often lavished on the meanest of mankind;
      perhaps she inflamed, at first by modest delays, and at last by
      sensual allurements, the desires of a lover, who, from nature or
      devotion, was addicted to long vigils and abstemious diet. When
      his first transports had subsided, she still maintained the same
      ascendant over his mind, by the more solid merit of temper and
      understanding. Justinian delighted to ennoble and enrich the
      object of his affection; the treasures of the East were poured at
      her feet, and the nephew of Justin was determined, perhaps by
      religious scruples, to bestow on his concubine the sacred and
      legal character of a wife. But the laws of Rome expressly
      prohibited the marriage of a senator with any female who had been
      dishonored by a servile origin or theatrical profession: the
      empress Lupicina, or Euphemia, a Barbarian of rustic manners, but
      of irreproachable virtue, refused to accept a prostitute for her
      niece; and even Vigilantia, the superstitious mother of
      Justinian, though she acknowledged the wit and beauty of
      Theodora, was seriously apprehensive, lest the levity and
      arrogance of that artful paramour might corrupt the piety and
      happiness of her son. These obstacles were removed by the
      inflexible constancy of Justinian. He patiently expected the
      death of the empress; he despised the tears of his mother, who
      soon sunk under the weight of her affliction; and a law was
      promulgated in the name of the emperor Justin, which abolished
      the rigid jurisprudence of antiquity. A glorious repentance (the
      words of the edict) was left open for the unhappy females who had
      prostituted their persons on the theatre, and they were permitted
      to contract a legal union with the most illustrious of the
      Romans. 28 This indulgence was speedily followed by the solemn
      nuptials of Justinian and Theodora; her dignity was gradually
      exalted with that of her lover, and, as soon as Justin had
      invested his nephew with the purple, the patriarch of
      Constantinople placed the diadem on the heads of the emperor and
      empress of the East. But the usual honors which the severity of
      Roman manners had allowed to the wives of princes, could not
      satisfy either the ambition of Theodora or the fondness of
      Justinian. He seated her on the throne as an equal and
      independent colleague in the sovereignty of the empire, and an
      oath of allegiance was imposed on the governors of the provinces
      in the joint names of Justinian and Theodora. 29 The Eastern
      world fell prostrate before the genius and fortune of the
      daughter of Acacius. The prostitute who, in the presence of
      innumerable spectators, had polluted the theatre of
      Constantinople, was adored as a queen in the same city, by grave
      magistrates, orthodox bishops, victorious generals, and captive
      monarchs. 30

      27 (return) [ Anonym. de Antiquitat. C. P. l. iii. 132, in
      Banduri Imperium Orient. tom. i. p. 48. Ludewig (p. 154) argues
      sensibly that Theodora would not have immortalized a brothel: but
      I apply this fact to her second and chaster residence at
      Constantinople.]

      28 (return) [ See the old law in Justinian’s Code, (l. v. tit. v.
      leg. 7, tit. xxvii. leg. 1,) under the years 336 and 454. The new
      edict (about the year 521 or 522, Aleman. p. 38, 96) very
      awkwardly repeals no more than the clause of mulieres scenicoe,
      libertinae, tabernariae. See the novels 89 and 117, and a Greek
      rescript from Justinian to the bishops, (Aleman. p. 41.)]

      29 (return) [ I swear by the Father, &c., by the Virgin Mary, by
      the four Gospels, quae in manibus teneo, and by the Holy
      Archangels Michael and Gabriel, puram conscientiam germanumque
      servitium me servaturum, sacratissimis DDNN. Justiniano et
      Theodorae conjugi ejus, (Novell. viii. tit. 3.) Would the oath
      have been binding in favor of the widow? Communes tituli et
      triumphi, &c., (Aleman. p. 47, 48.)]

      30 (return) [ “Let greatness own her, and she’s mean no more,”
      &c. Without Warburton’s critical telescope, I should never have
      seen, in this general picture of triumphant vice, any personal
      allusion to Theodora.]




      Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part II.

      Those who believe that the female mind is totally depraved by the
      loss of chastity, will eagerly listen to all the invectives of
      private envy, or popular resentment which have dissembled the
      virtues of Theodora, exaggerated her vices, and condemned with
      rigor the venal or voluntary sins of the youthful harlot. From a
      motive of shame, or contempt, she often declined the servile
      homage of the multitude, escaped from the odious light of the
      capital, and passed the greatest part of the year in the palaces
      and gardens which were pleasantly seated on the sea-coast of the
      Propontis and the Bosphorus. Her private hours were devoted to
      the prudent as well as grateful care of her beauty, the luxury of
      the bath and table, and the long slumber of the evening and the
      morning. Her secret apartments were occupied by the favorite
      women and eunuchs, whose interests and passions she indulged at
      the expense of justice; the most illustrious personages of the
      state were crowded into a dark and sultry antechamber, and when
      at last, after tedious attendance, they were admitted to kiss the
      feet of Theodora, they experienced, as her humor might suggest,
      the silent arrogance of an empress, or the capricious levity of a
      comedian. Her rapacious avarice to accumulate an immense
      treasure, may be excused by the apprehension of her husband’s
      death, which could leave no alternative between ruin and the
      throne; and fear as well as ambition might exasperate Theodora
      against two generals, who, during the malady of the emperor, had
      rashly declared that they were not disposed to acquiesce in the
      choice of the capital. But the reproach of cruelty, so repugnant
      even to her softer vices, has left an indelible stain on the
      memory of Theodora. Her numerous spies observed, and zealously
      reported, every action, or word, or look, injurious to their
      royal mistress. Whomsoever they accused were cast into her
      peculiar prisons, 31 inaccessible to the inquiries of justice;
      and it was rumored, that the torture of the rack, or scourge, had
      been inflicted in the presence of the female tyrant, insensible
      to the voice of prayer or of pity. 32 Some of these unhappy
      victims perished in deep, unwholesome dungeons, while others were
      permitted, after the loss of their limbs, their reason, or their
      fortunes, to appear in the world, the living monuments of her
      vengeance, which was commonly extended to the children of those
      whom she had suspected or injured. The senator or bishop, whose
      death or exile Theodora had pronounced, was delivered to a trusty
      messenger, and his diligence was quickened by a menace from her
      own mouth. “If you fail in the execution of my commands, I swear
      by Him who liveth forever, that your skin shall be flayed from
      your body.” 33

      31 (return) [ Her prisons, a labyrinth, a Tartarus, (Anecdot. c.
      4,) were under the palace. Darkness is propitious to cruelty, but
      it is likewise favorable to calumny and fiction.]

      32 (return) [ A more jocular whipping was inflicted on
      Saturninus, for presuming to say that his wife, a favorite of the
      empress, had not been found. (Anecdot. c. 17.)]

      33 (return) [ Per viventem in saecula excoriari te faciam.
      Anastasius de Vitis Pont. Roman. in Vigilio, p. 40.]

      If the creed of Theodora had not been tainted with heresy, her
      exemplary devotion might have atoned, in the opinion of her
      contemporaries, for pride, avarice, and cruelty. But, if she
      employed her influence to assuage the intolerant fury of the
      emperor, the present age will allow some merit to her religion,
      and much indulgence to her speculative errors. 34 The name of
      Theodora was introduced, with equal honor, in all the pious and
      charitable foundations of Justinian; and the most benevolent
      institution of his reign may be ascribed to the sympathy of the
      empress for her less fortunate sisters, who had been seduced or
      compelled to embrace the trade of prostitution. A palace, on the
      Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, was converted into a stately and
      spacious monastery, and a liberal maintenance was assigned to
      five hundred women, who had been collected from the streets and
      brothels of Constantinople. In this safe and holy retreat, they
      were devoted to perpetual confinement; and the despair of some,
      who threw themselves headlong into the sea, was lost in the
      gratitude of the penitents, who had been delivered from sin and
      misery by their generous benefactress. 35 The prudence of
      Theodora is celebrated by Justinian himself; and his laws are
      attributed to the sage counsels of his most reverend wife whom he
      had received as the gift of the Deity. 36 Her courage was
      displayed amidst the tumult of the people and the terrors of the
      court. Her chastity, from the moment of her union with Justinian,
      is founded on the silence of her implacable enemies; and although
      the daughter of Acacius might be satiated with love, yet some
      applause is due to the firmness of a mind which could sacrifice
      pleasure and habit to the stronger sense either of duty or
      interest. The wishes and prayers of Theodora could never obtain
      the blessing of a lawful son, and she buried an infant daughter,
      the sole offspring of her marriage. 37 Notwithstanding this
      disappointment, her dominion was permanent and absolute; she
      preserved, by art or merit, the affections of Justinian; and
      their seeming dissensions were always fatal to the courtiers who
      believed them to be sincere. Perhaps her health had been impaired
      by the licentiousness of her youth; but it was always delicate,
      and she was directed by her physicians to use the Pythian warm
      baths. In this journey, the empress was followed by the
      Praetorian praefect, the great treasurer, several counts and
      patricians, and a splendid train of four thousand attendants: the
      highways were repaired at her approach; a palace was erected for
      her reception; and as she passed through Bithynia, she
      distributed liberal alms to the churches, the monasteries, and
      the hospitals, that they might implore Heaven for the restoration
      of her health. 38 At length, in the twenty-fourth year of her
      marriage, and the twenty-second of her reign, she was consumed by
      a cancer; 39 and the irreparable loss was deplored by her
      husband, who, in the room of a theatrical prostitute, might have
      selected the purest and most noble virgin of the East. 40

      34 (return) [ Ludewig, p. 161—166. I give him credit for the
      charitable attempt, although he hath not much charity in his
      temper.]

      35 (return) [ Compare the anecdotes (c. 17) with the Edifices (l.
      i. c. 9)—how differently may the same fact be stated! John Malala
      (tom. ii. p. 174, 175) observes, that on this, or a similar
      occasion, she released and clothed the girls whom she had
      purchased from the stews at five aurei apiece.]

      36 (return) [ Novel. viii. 1. An allusion to Theodora. Her
      enemies read the name Daemonodora, (Aleman. p. 66.)]

      37 (return) [ St. Sabas refused to pray for a son of Theodora,
      lest he should prove a heretic worse than Anastasius himself,
      (Cyril in Vit. St. Sabae, apud Aleman. p. 70, 109.)]

      38 (return) [ See John Malala, tom. ii. p. 174. Theophanes, p.
      158. Procopius de Edific. l. v. c. 3.]

      39 (return) [ Theodora Chalcedonensis synodi inimica canceris
      plaga toto corpore perfusa vitam prodigiose finivit, (Victor
      Tununensis in Chron.) On such occasions, an orthodox mind is
      steeled against pity. Alemannus (p. 12, 13) understands of
      Theophanes as civil language, which does not imply either piety
      or repentance; yet two years after her death, St. Theodora is
      celebrated by Paul Silentiarius, (in proem. v. 58—62.)]

      40 (return) [ As she persecuted the popes, and rejected a
      council, Baronius exhausts the names of Eve, Dalila, Herodias,
      &c.; after which he has recourse to his infernal dictionary:
      civis inferni—alumna daemonum—satanico agitata spiritu-oestro
      percita diabolico, &c., &c., (A.D. 548, No. 24.)]

      II. A material difference may be observed in the games of
      antiquity: the most eminent of the Greeks were actors, the Romans
      were merely spectators. The Olympic stadium was open to wealth,
      merit, and ambition; and if the candidates could depend on their
      personal skill and activity, they might pursue the footsteps of
      Diomede and Menelaus, and conduct their own horses in the rapid
      career. 41 Ten, twenty, forty chariots were allowed to start at
      the same instant; a crown of leaves was the reward of the victor;
      and his fame, with that of his family and country, was chanted in
      lyric strains more durable than monuments of brass and marble.
      But a senator, or even a citizen, conscious of his dignity, would
      have blushed to expose his person, or his horses, in the circus
      of Rome. The games were exhibited at the expense of the republic,
      the magistrates, or the emperors: but the reins were abandoned to
      servile hands; and if the profits of a favorite charioteer
      sometimes exceeded those of an advocate, they must be considered
      as the effects of popular extravagance, and the high wages of a
      disgraceful profession. The race, in its first institution, was a
      simple contest of two chariots, whose drivers were distinguished
      by white and red liveries: two additional colors, a light green,
      and a caerulean blue, were afterwards introduced; and as the
      races were repeated twenty-five times, one hundred chariots
      contributed in the same day to the pomp of the circus. The four
      factions soon acquired a legal establishment, and a mysterious
      origin, and their fanciful colors were derived from the various
      appearances of nature in the four seasons of the year; the red
      dogstar of summer, the snows of winter, the deep shades of
      autumn, and the cheerful verdure of the spring. 42 Another
      interpretation preferred the elements to the seasons, and the
      struggle of the green and blue was supposed to represent the
      conflict of the earth and sea. Their respective victories
      announced either a plentiful harvest or a prosperous navigation,
      and the hostility of the husbandmen and mariners was somewhat
      less absurd than the blind ardor of the Roman people, who devoted
      their lives and fortunes to the color which they had espoused.
      Such folly was disdained and indulged by the wisest princes; but
      the names of Caligula, Nero, Vitellius, Verus, Commodus,
      Caracalla, and Elagabalus, were enrolled in the blue or green
      factions of the circus; they frequented their stables, applauded
      their favorites, chastised their antagonists, and deserved the
      esteem of the populace, by the natural or affected imitation of
      their manners. The bloody and tumultuous contest continued to
      disturb the public festivity, till the last age of the spectacles
      of Rome; and Theodoric, from a motive of justice or affection,
      interposed his authority to protect the greens against the
      violence of a consul and a patrician, who were passionately
      addicted to the blue faction of the circus. 43

      41 (return) [ Read and feel the xxiid book of the Iliad, a living
      picture of manners, passions, and the whole form and spirit of
      the chariot race West’s Dissertation on the Olympic Games (sect.
      xii.—xvii.) affords much curious and authentic information.]

      42 (return) [ The four colors, albati, russati, prasini, veneti,
      represent the four seasons, according to Cassiodorus, (Var. iii.
      51,) who lavishes much wit and eloquence on this theatrical
      mystery. Of these colors, the three first may be fairly
      translated white, red, and green. Venetus is explained by
      coeruleus, a word various and vague: it is properly the sky
      reflected in the sea; but custom and convenience may allow blue
      as an equivalent, (Robert. Stephan. sub voce. Spence’s Polymetis,
      p. 228.)]

      43 (return) [ See Onuphrius Panvinius de Ludis Circensibus, l. i.
      c. 10, 11; the xviith Annotation on Mascou’s History of the
      Germans; and Aleman ad c. vii.]

      Constantinople adopted the follies, though not the virtues, of
      ancient Rome; and the same factions which had agitated the
      circus, raged with redoubled fury in the hippodrome. Under the
      reign of Anastasius, this popular frenzy was inflamed by
      religious zeal; and the greens, who had treacherously concealed
      stones and daggers under baskets of fruit, massacred, at a solemn
      festival, three thousand of their blue adversaries. 44 From this
      capital, the pestilence was diffused into the provinces and
      cities of the East, and the sportive distinction of two colors
      produced two strong and irreconcilable factions, which shook the
      foundations of a feeble government. 45 The popular dissensions,
      founded on the most serious interest, or holy pretence, have
      scarcely equalled the obstinacy of this wanton discord, which
      invaded the peace of families, divided friends and brothers, and
      tempted the female sex, though seldom seen in the circus, to
      espouse the inclinations of their lovers, or to contradict the
      wishes of their husbands. Every law, either human or divine, was
      trampled under foot, and as long as the party was successful, its
      deluded followers appeared careless of private distress or public
      calamity. The license, without the freedom, of democracy, was
      revived at Antioch and Constantinople, and the support of a
      faction became necessary to every candidate for civil or
      ecclesiastical honors. A secret attachment to the family or sect
      of Anastasius was imputed to the greens; the blues were zealously
      devoted to the cause of orthodoxy and Justinian, 46 and their
      grateful patron protected, above five years, the disorders of a
      faction, whose seasonable tumults overawed the palace, the
      senate, and the capitals of the East. Insolent with royal favor,
      the blues affected to strike terror by a peculiar and Barbaric
      dress, the long hair of the Huns, their close sleeves and ample
      garments, a lofty step, and a sonorous voice. In the day they
      concealed their two-edged poniards, but in the night they boldly
      assembled in arms, and in numerous bands, prepared for every act
      of violence and rapine. Their adversaries of the green faction,
      or even inoffensive citizens, were stripped and often murdered by
      these nocturnal robbers, and it became dangerous to wear any gold
      buttons or girdles, or to appear at a late hour in the streets of
      a peaceful capital. A daring spirit, rising with impunity,
      proceeded to violate the safeguard of private houses; and fire
      was employed to facilitate the attack, or to conceal the crimes
      of these factious rioters. No place was safe or sacred from their
      depredations; to gratify either avarice or revenge, they
      profusely spilt the blood of the innocent; churches and altars
      were polluted by atrocious murders; and it was the boast of the
      assassins, that their dexterity could always inflict a mortal
      wound with a single stroke of their dagger. The dissolute youth
      of Constantinople adopted the blue livery of disorder; the laws
      were silent, and the bonds of society were relaxed: creditors
      were compelled to resign their obligations; judges to reverse
      their sentence; masters to enfranchise their slaves; fathers to
      supply the extravagance of their children; noble matrons were
      prostituted to the lust of their servants; beautiful boys were
      torn from the arms of their parents; and wives, unless they
      preferred a voluntary death, were ravished in the presence of
      their husbands. 47 The despair of the greens, who were persecuted
      by their enemies, and deserted by the magistrates, assumed the
      privilege of defence, perhaps of retaliation; but those who
      survived the combat were dragged to execution, and the unhappy
      fugitives, escaping to woods and caverns, preyed without mercy on
      the society from whence they were expelled. Those ministers of
      justice who had courage to punish the crimes, and to brave the
      resentment, of the blues, became the victims of their indiscreet
      zeal; a praefect of Constantinople fled for refuge to the holy
      sepulchre, a count of the East was ignominiously whipped, and a
      governor of Cilicia was hanged, by the order of Theodora, on the
      tomb of two assassins whom he had condemned for the murder of his
      groom, and a daring attack upon his own life. 48 An aspiring
      candidate may be tempted to build his greatness on the public
      confusion, but it is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign
      to maintain the authority of the laws. The first edict of
      Justinian, which was often repeated, and sometimes executed,
      announced his firm resolution to support the innocent, and to
      chastise the guilty, of every denomination and color. Yet the
      balance of justice was still inclined in favor of the blue
      faction, by the secret affection, the habits, and the fears of
      the emperor; his equity, after an apparent struggle, submitted,
      without reluctance, to the implacable passions of Theodora, and
      the empress never forgot, or forgave, the injuries of the
      comedian. At the accession of the younger Justin, the
      proclamation of equal and rigorous justice indirectly condemned
      the partiality of the former reign. “Ye blues, Justinian is no
      more! ye greens, he is still alive!” 49

      44 (return) [ Marcellin. in Chron. p. 47. Instead of the vulgar
      word venata he uses the more exquisite terms of coerulea and
      coerealis. Baronius (A.D. 501, No. 4, 5, 6) is satisfied that the
      blues were orthodox; but Tillemont is angry at the supposition,
      and will not allow any martyrs in a playhouse, (Hist. des Emp.
      tom. vi. p. 554.)]

      45 (return) [ See Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 24.) In describing
      the vices of the factions and of the government, the public, is
      not more favorable than the secret, historian. Aleman. (p. 26)
      has quoted a fine passage from Gregory Nazianzen, which proves
      the inveteracy of the evil.]

      46 (return) [ The partiality of Justinian for the blues (Anecdot.
      c. 7) is attested by Evagrius, (Hist. Eccles. l. iv. c. 32,) John
      Malala, (tom ii p. 138, 139,) especially for Antioch; and
      Theophanes, (p. 142.)]

      47 (return) [ A wife, (says Procopius,) who was seized and almost
      ravished by a blue-coat, threw herself into the Bosphorus. The
      bishops of the second Syria (Aleman. p. 26) deplore a similar
      suicide, the guilt or glory of female chastity, and name the
      heroine.]

      48 (return) [ The doubtful credit of Procopius (Anecdot. c. 17)
      is supported by the less partial Evagrius, who confirms the fact,
      and specifies the names. The tragic fate of the praefect of
      Constantinople is related by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 139.)]

      49 (return) [ See John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 147;) yet he owns
      that Justinian was attached to the blues. The seeming discord of
      the emperor and Theodora is, perhaps, viewed with too much
      jealousy and refinement by Procopius, (Anecdot. c. 10.) See
      Aleman. Praefat. p. 6.]

      A sedition, which almost laid Constantinople in ashes, was
      excited by the mutual hatred and momentary reconciliation of the
      two factions. In the fifth year of his reign, Justinian
      celebrated the festival of the ides of January; the games were
      incessantly disturbed by the clamorous discontent of the greens:
      till the twenty-second race, the emperor maintained his silent
      gravity; at length, yielding to his impatience, he condescended
      to hold, in abrupt sentences, and by the voice of a crier, the
      most singular dialogue 50 that ever passed between a prince and
      his subjects. Their first complaints were respectful and modest;
      they accused the subordinate ministers of oppression, and
      proclaimed their wishes for the long life and victory of the
      emperor. “Be patient and attentive, ye insolent railers!”
      exclaimed Justinian; “be mute, ye Jews, Samaritans, and
      Manichaeans!” The greens still attempted to awaken his
      compassion. “We are poor, we are innocent, we are injured, we
      dare not pass through the streets: a general persecution is
      exercised against our name and color. Let us die, O emperor! but
      let us die by your command, and for your service!” But the
      repetition of partial and passionate invectives degraded, in
      their eyes, the majesty of the purple; they renounced allegiance
      to the prince who refused justice to his people; lamented that
      the father of Justinian had been born; and branded his son with
      the opprobrious names of a homicide, an ass, and a perjured
      tyrant. “Do you despise your lives?” cried the indignant monarch:
      the blues rose with fury from their seats; their hostile clamors
      thundered in the hippodrome; and their adversaries, deserting the
      unequal contest spread terror and despair through the streets of
      Constantinople. At this dangerous moment, seven notorious
      assassins of both factions, who had been condemned by the
      praefect, were carried round the city, and afterwards transported
      to the place of execution in the suburb of Pera. Four were
      immediately beheaded; a fifth was hanged: but when the same
      punishment was inflicted on the remaining two, the rope broke,
      they fell alive to the ground, the populace applauded their
      escape, and the monks of St. Conon, issuing from the neighboring
      convent, conveyed them in a boat to the sanctuary of the church.
      51 As one of these criminals was of the blue, and the other of
      the green livery, the two factions were equally provoked by the
      cruelty of their oppressor, or the ingratitude of their patron;
      and a short truce was concluded till they had delivered their
      prisoners and satisfied their revenge. The palace of the
      praefect, who withstood the seditious torrent, was instantly
      burnt, his officers and guards were massacred, the prisons were
      forced open, and freedom was restored to those who could only use
      it for the public destruction. A military force, which had been
      despatched to the aid of the civil magistrate, was fiercely
      encountered by an armed multitude, whose numbers and boldness
      continually increased; and the Heruli, the wildest Barbarians in
      the service of the empire, overturned the priests and their
      relics, which, from a pious motive, had been rashly interposed to
      separate the bloody conflict. The tumult was exasperated by this
      sacrilege, the people fought with enthusiasm in the cause of God;
      the women, from the roofs and windows, showered stones on the
      heads of the soldiers, who darted fire brands against the houses;
      and the various flames, which had been kindled by the hands of
      citizens and strangers, spread without control over the face of
      the city. The conflagration involved the cathedral of St. Sophia,
      the baths of Zeuxippus, a part of the palace, from the first
      entrance to the altar of Mars, and the long portico from the
      palace to the forum of Constantine: a large hospital, with the
      sick patients, was consumed; many churches and stately edifices
      were destroyed and an immense treasure of gold and silver was
      either melted or lost. From such scenes of horror and distress,
      the wise and wealthy citizens escaped over the Bosphorus to the
      Asiatic side; and during five days Constantinople was abandoned
      to the factions, whose watchword, Nika, vanquish! has given a
      name to this memorable sedition. 52

      50 (return) [ This dialogue, which Theophanes has preserved,
      exhibits the popular language, as well as the manners, of
      Constantinople, in the vith century. Their Greek is mingled with
      many strange and barbarous words, for which Ducange cannot always
      find a meaning or etymology.]

      51 (return) [ See this church and monastery in Ducange, C. P.
      Christiana, l. iv p 182.]

      52 (return) [ The history of the Nika sedition is extracted from
      Marcellinus, (in Chron.,) Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 26,) John
      Malala, (tom. ii. p. 213—218,) Chron. Paschal., (p. 336—340,)
      Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 154—158) and Zonaras, (l. xiv. p.
      61—63.)]

      As long as the factions were divided, the triumphant blues, and
      desponding greens, appeared to behold with the same indifference
      the disorders of the state. They agreed to censure the corrupt
      management of justice and the finance; and the two responsible
      ministers, the artful Tribonian, and the rapacious John of
      Cappadocia, were loudly arraigned as the authors of the public
      misery. The peaceful murmurs of the people would have been
      disregarded: they were heard with respect when the city was in
      flames; the quaestor, and the praefect, were instantly removed,
      and their offices were filled by two senators of blameless
      integrity. After this popular concession, Justinian proceeded to
      the hippodrome to confess his own errors, and to accept the
      repentance of his grateful subjects; but they distrusted his
      assurances, though solemnly pronounced in the presence of the
      holy Gospels; and the emperor, alarmed by their distrust,
      retreated with precipitation to the strong fortress of the
      palace. The obstinacy of the tumult was now imputed to a secret
      and ambitious conspiracy, and a suspicion was entertained, that
      the insurgents, more especially the green faction, had been
      supplied with arms and money by Hypatius and Pompey, two
      patricians, who could neither forget with honor, nor remember
      with safety, that they were the nephews of the emperor
      Anastasius. Capriciously trusted, disgraced, and pardoned, by the
      jealous levity of the monarch, they had appeared as loyal
      servants before the throne; and, during five days of the tumult,
      they were detained as important hostages; till at length, the
      fears of Justinian prevailing over his prudence, he viewed the
      two brothers in the light of spies, perhaps of assassins, and
      sternly commanded them to depart from the palace. After a
      fruitless representation, that obedience might lead to
      involuntary treason, they retired to their houses, and in the
      morning of the sixth day, Hypatius was surrounded and seized by
      the people, who, regardless of his virtuous resistance, and the
      tears of his wife, transported their favorite to the forum of
      Constantine, and instead of a diadem, placed a rich collar on his
      head. If the usurper, who afterwards pleaded the merit of his
      delay, had complied with the advice of his senate, and urged the
      fury of the multitude, their first irresistible effort might have
      oppressed or expelled his trembling competitor. The Byzantine
      palace enjoyed a free communication with the sea; vessels lay
      ready at the garden stairs; and a secret resolution was already
      formed, to convey the emperor with his family and treasures to a
      safe retreat, at some distance from the capital.

      Justinian was lost, if the prostitute whom he raised from the
      theatre had not renounced the timidity, as well as the virtues,
      of her sex. In the midst of a council, where Belisarius was
      present, Theodora alone displayed the spirit of a hero; and she
      alone, without apprehending his future hatred, could save the
      emperor from the imminent danger, and his unworthy fears. “If
      flight,” said the consort of Justinian, “were the only means of
      safety, yet I should disdain to fly. Death is the condition of
      our birth; but they who have reigned should never survive the
      loss of dignity and dominion. I implore Heaven, that I may never
      be seen, not a day, without my diadem and purple; that I may no
      longer behold the light, when I cease to be saluted with the name
      of queen. If you resolve, O Caesar! to fly, you have treasures;
      behold the sea, you have ships; but tremble lest the desire of
      life should expose you to wretched exile and ignominious death.
      For my own part, I adhere to the maxim of antiquity, that the
      throne is a glorious sepulchre.” The firmness of a woman restored
      the courage to deliberate and act, and courage soon discovers the
      resources of the most desperate situation. It was an easy and a
      decisive measure to revive the animosity of the factions; the
      blues were astonished at their own guilt and folly, that a
      trifling injury should provoke them to conspire with their
      implacable enemies against a gracious and liberal benefactor;
      they again proclaimed the majesty of Justinian; and the greens,
      with their upstart emperor, were left alone in the hippodrome.
      The fidelity of the guards was doubtful; but the military force
      of Justinian consisted in three thousand veterans, who had been
      trained to valor and discipline in the Persian and Illyrian wars.

      Under the command of Belisarius and Mundus, they silently marched
      in two divisions from the palace, forced their obscure way
      through narrow passages, expiring flames, and falling edifices,
      and burst open at the same moment the two opposite gates of the
      hippodrome. In this narrow space, the disorderly and affrighted
      crowd was incapable of resisting on either side a firm and
      regular attack; the blues signalized the fury of their
      repentance; and it is computed, that above thirty thousand
      persons were slain in the merciless and promiscuous carnage of
      the day. Hypatius was dragged from his throne, and conducted,
      with his brother Pompey, to the feet of the emperor: they
      implored his clemency; but their crime was manifest, their
      innocence uncertain, and Justinian had been too much terrified to
      forgive. The next morning the two nephews of Anastasius, with
      eighteen illustrious accomplices, of patrician or consular rank,
      were privately executed by the soldiers; their bodies were thrown
      into the sea, their palaces razed, and their fortunes
      confiscated. The hippodrome itself was condemned, during several
      years, to a mournful silence: with the restoration of the games,
      the same disorders revived; and the blue and green factions
      continued to afflict the reign of Justinian, and to disturb the
      tranquility of the Eastern empire. 53

      53 (return) [ Marcellinus says in general terms, innumeris
      populis in circotrucidatis. Procopius numbers 30,000 victims: and
      the 35,000 of Theophanes are swelled to 40,000 by the more recent
      Zonaras. Such is the usual progress of exaggeration.]

      III. That empire, after Rome was barbarous, still embraced the
      nations whom she had conquered beyond the Adriatic, and as far as
      the frontiers of Aethiopia and Persia. Justinian reigned over
      sixty-four provinces, and nine hundred and thirty-five cities; 54
      his dominions were blessed by nature with the advantages of soil,
      situation, and climate: and the improvements of human art had
      been perpetually diffused along the coast of the Mediterranean
      and the banks of the Nile from ancient Troy to the Egyptian
      Thebes. Abraham 55 had been relieved by the well-known plenty of
      Egypt; the same country, a small and populous tract, was still
      capable of exporting, each year, two hundred and sixty thousand
      quarters of wheat for the use of Constantinople; 56 and the
      capital of Justinian was supplied with the manufactures of Sidon,
      fifteen centuries after they had been celebrated in the poems of
      Homer. 57 The annual powers of vegetation, instead of being
      exhausted by two thousand harvests, were renewed and invigorated
      by skilful husbandry, rich manure, and seasonable repose. The
      breed of domestic animals was infinitely multiplied. Plantations,
      buildings, and the instruments of labor and luxury, which are
      more durable than the term of human life, were accumulated by the
      care of successive generations. Tradition preserved, and
      experience simplified, the humble practice of the arts: society
      was enriched by the division of labor and the facility of
      exchange; and every Roman was lodged, clothed, and subsisted, by
      the industry of a thousand hands. The invention of the loom and
      distaff has been piously ascribed to the gods. In every age, a
      variety of animal and vegetable productions, hair, skins, wool,
      flax, cotton, and at length silk, have been skilfully
      manufactured to hide or adorn the human body; they were stained
      with an infusion of permanent colors; and the pencil was
      successfully employed to improve the labors of the loom. In the
      choice of those colors 58 which imitate the beauties of nature,
      the freedom of taste and fashion was indulged; but the deep
      purple 59 which the Phoenicians extracted from a shell-fish, was
      restrained to the sacred person and palace of the emperor; and
      the penalties of treason were denounced against the ambitious
      subjects who dared to usurp the prerogative of the throne. 60

      54 (return) [ Hierocles, a contemporary of Justinian, composed
      his (Itineraria, p. 631,) review of the eastern provinces and
      cities, before the year 535, (Wesseling, in Praefat. and Not. ad
      p. 623, &c.)]

      55 (return) [ See the Book of Genesis (xii. 10) and the
      administration of Joseph. The annals of the Greeks and Hebrews
      agree in the early arts and plenty of Egypt: but this antiquity
      supposes a long series of improvement; and Warburton, who is
      almost stifled by the Hebrew calls aloud for the Samaritan,
      Chronology, (Divine Legation, vol. iii. p. 29, &c.) * Note: The
      recent extraordinary discoveries in Egyptian antiquities strongly
      confirm the high notion of the early Egyptian civilization, and
      imperatively demand a longer period for their development. As to
      the common Hebrew chronology, as far as such a subject is capable
      of demonstration, it appears to me to have been framed, with a
      particular view, by the Jews of Tiberias. It was not the
      chronology of the Samaritans, not that of the LXX., not that of
      Josephus, not that of St. Paul.—M.]

      56 (return) [ Eight millions of Roman modii, besides a
      contribution of 80,000 aurei for the expenses of water-carriage,
      from which the subject was graciously excused. See the 13th Edict
      of Justinian: the numbers are checked and verified by the
      agreement of the Greek and Latin texts.]

      57 (return) [ Homer’s Iliad, vi. 289. These veils, were the work
      of the Sidonian women. But this passage is more honorable to the
      manufactures than to the navigation of Phoenicia, from whence
      they had been imported to Troy in Phrygian bottoms.]

      58 (return) [ See in Ovid (de Arte Amandi, iii. 269, &c.) a
      poetical list of twelve colors borrowed from flowers, the
      elements, &c. But it is almost impossible to discriminate by
      words all the nice and various shades both of art and nature.]

      59 (return) [ By the discovery of cochineal, &c., we far surpass
      the colors of antiquity. Their royal purple had a strong smell,
      and a dark cast as deep as bull’s blood—obscuritas rubens, (says
      Cassiodorus, Var. 1, 2,) nigredo saguinea. The president Goguet
      (Origine des Loix et des Arts, part ii. l. ii. c. 2, p. 184—215)
      will amuse and satisfy the reader. I doubt whether his book,
      especially in England, is as well known as it deserves to be.]

      60 (return) [ Historical proofs of this jealousy have been
      occasionally introduced, and many more might have been added; but
      the arbitrary acts of despotism were justified by the sober and
      general declarations of law, (Codex Theodosian. l. x. tit. 21,
      leg. 3. Codex Justinian. l. xi. tit. 8, leg. 5.) An inglorious
      permission, and necessary restriction, was applied to the mince,
      the female dancers, (Cod. Theodos. l. xv. tit. 7, leg. 11.)]




      Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part III.

      I need not explain that silk 61 is originally spun from the
      bowels of a caterpillar, and that it composes the golden tomb,
      from whence a worm emerges in the form of a butterfly. Till the
      reign of Justinian, the silk-worm who feed on the leaves of the
      white mulberry-tree were confined to China; those of the pine,
      the oak, and the ash, were common in the forests both of Asia and
      Europe; but as their education is more difficult, and their
      produce more uncertain, they were generally neglected, except in
      the little island of Ceos, near the coast of Attica. A thin gauze
      was procured from their webs, and this Cean manufacture, the
      invention of a woman, for female use, was long admired both in
      the East and at Rome. Whatever suspicions may be raised by the
      garments of the Medes and Assyrians, Virgil is the most ancient
      writer, who expressly mentions the soft wool which was combed
      from the trees of the Seres or Chinese; 62 and this natural
      error, less marvellous than the truth, was slowly corrected by
      the knowledge of a valuable insect, the first artificer of the
      luxury of nations. That rare and elegant luxury was censured, in
      the reign of Tiberius, by the gravest of the Romans; and Pliny,
      in affected though forcible language, has condemned the thirst of
      gain, which explores the last confines of the earth, for the
      pernicious purpose of exposing to the public eye naked draperies
      and transparent matrons. 63 6311 A dress which showed the turn of
      the limbs, and color of the skin, might gratify vanity, or
      provoke desire; the silks which had been closely woven in China
      were sometimes unravelled by the Phoenician women, and the
      precious materials were multiplied by a looser texture, and the
      intermixture of linen threads. 64 Two hundred years after the age
      of Pliny, the use of pure, or even of mixed silks, was confined
      to the female sex, till the opulent citizens of Rome and the
      provinces were insensibly familiarized with the example of
      Elagabalus, the first who, by this effeminate habit, had sullied
      the dignity of an emperor and a man. Aurelian complained, that a
      pound of silk was sold at Rome for twelve ounces of gold; but the
      supply increased with the demand, and the price diminished with
      the supply. If accident or monopoly sometimes raised the value
      even above the standard of Aurelian, the manufacturers of Tyre
      and Berytus were sometimes compelled, by the operation of the
      same causes, to content themselves with a ninth part of that
      extravagant rate. 65 A law was thought necessary to discriminate
      the dress of comedians from that of senators; and of the silk
      exported from its native country the far greater part was
      consumed by the subjects of Justinian. They were still more
      intimately acquainted with a shell-fish of the Mediterranean,
      surnamed the silk-worm of the sea: the fine wool or hair by which
      the mother-of-pearl affixes itself to the rock is now
      manufactured for curiosity rather than use; and a robe obtained
      from the same singular materials was the gift of the Roman
      emperor to the satraps of Armenia. 66

      61 (return) [ In the history of insects (far more wonderful than
      Ovid’s Metamorphoses) the silk-worm holds a conspicuous place.
      The bombyx of the Isle of Ceos, as described by Pliny, (Hist.
      Natur. xi. 26, 27, with the notes of the two learned Jesuits,
      Hardouin and Brotier,) may be illustrated by a similar species in
      China, (Memoires sur les Chinois, tom. ii. p. 575—598;) but our
      silk-worm, as well as the white mulberry-tree, were unknown to
      Theophrastus and Pliny.]

      62 (return) [ Georgic. ii. 121. Serica quando venerint in usum
      planissime non acio: suspicor tamen in Julii Caesaris aevo, nam
      ante non invenio, says Justus Lipsius, (Excursus i. ad Tacit.
      Annal. ii. 32.) See Dion Cassius, (l. xliii. p. 358, edit.
      Reimar,) and Pausanius, (l. vi. p. 519,) the first who describes,
      however strangely, the Seric insect.]

      63 (return) [ Tam longinquo orbe petitur, ut in publico matrona
      transluceat...ut denudet foeminas vestis, (Plin. vi. 20, xi. 21.)
      Varro and Publius Syrus had already played on the Toga vitrea,
      ventus texilis, and nebula linen, (Horat. Sermon. i. 2, 101, with
      the notes of Torrentius and Dacier.)]

      6311 (return) [ Gibbon must have written transparent draperies
      and naked matrons. Through sometimes affected, he is never
      inaccurate.—M.]

      64 (return) [ On the texture, colors, names, and use of the silk,
      half silk, and liuen garments of antiquity, see the profound,
      diffuse, and obscure researches of the great Salmasius, (in Hist.
      August. p. 127, 309, 310, 339, 341, 342, 344, 388—391, 395, 513,)
      who was ignorant of the most common trades of Dijon or Leyden.]

      65 (return) [ Flavius Vopiscus in Aurelian. c. 45, in Hist.
      August. p. 224. See Salmasius ad Hist. Aug. p. 392, and Plinian.
      Exercitat. in Solinum, p. 694, 695. The Anecdotes of Procopius
      (c. 25) state a partial and imperfect rate of the price of silk
      in the time of Justinian.]

      66 (return) [ Procopius de Edit. l. iii. c. 1. These pinnes de
      mer are found near Smyrna, Sicily, Corsica, and Minorca; and a
      pair of gloves of their silk was presented to Pope Benedict XIV.]

      A valuable merchandise of small bulk is capable of defraying the
      expense of land-carriage; and the caravans traversed the whole
      latitude of Asia in two hundred and forty-three days from the
      Chinese Ocean to the sea-coast of Syria. Silk was immediately
      delivered to the Romans by the Persian merchants, 67 who
      frequented the fairs of Armenia and Nisibis; but this trade,
      which in the intervals of truce was oppressed by avarice and
      jealousy, was totally interrupted by the long wars of the rival
      monarchies. The great king might proudly number Sogdiana, and
      even Serica, among the provinces of his empire; but his real
      dominion was bounded by the Oxus and his useful intercourse with
      the Sogdoites, beyond the river, depended on the pleasure of
      their conquerors, the white Huns, and the Turks, who successively
      reigned over that industrious people. Yet the most savage
      dominion has not extirpated the seeds of agriculture and
      commerce, in a region which is celebrated as one of the four
      gardens of Asia; the cities of Samarcand and Bochara are
      advantageously seated for the exchange of its various
      productions; and their merchants purchased from the Chinese, 68
      the raw or manufactured silk which they transported into Persia
      for the use of the Roman empire. In the vain capital of China,
      the Sogdian caravans were entertained as the suppliant embassies
      of tributary kingdoms, and if they returned in safety, the bold
      adventure was rewarded with exorbitant gain. But the difficult
      and perilous march from Samarcand to the first town of Shensi,
      could not be performed in less than sixty, eighty, or one hundred
      days: as soon as they had passed the Jaxartes they entered the
      desert; and the wandering hordes, unless they are restrained by
      armies and garrisons, have always considered the citizen and the
      traveller as the objects of lawful rapine. To escape the Tartar
      robbers, and the tyrants of Persia, the silk caravans explored a
      more southern road; they traversed the mountains of Thibet,
      descended the streams of the Ganges or the Indus, and patiently
      expected, in the ports of Guzerat and Malabar, the annual fleets
      of the West. 69 But the dangers of the desert were found less
      intolerable than toil, hunger, and the loss of time; the attempt
      was seldom renewed, and the only European who has passed that
      unfrequented way, applauds his own diligence, that, in nine
      months after his departure from Pekin, he reached the mouth of
      the Indus. The ocean, however, was open to the free communication
      of mankind. From the great river to the tropic of Cancer, the
      provinces of China were subdued and civilized by the emperors of
      the North; they were filled about the time of the Christian aera
      with cities and men, mulberry-trees and their precious
      inhabitants; and if the Chinese, with the knowledge of the
      compass, had possessed the genius of the Greeks or Phoenicians,
      they might have spread their discoveries over the southern
      hemisphere. I am not qualified to examine, and I am not disposed
      to believe, their distant voyages to the Persian Gulf, or the
      Cape of Good Hope; but their ancestors might equal the labors and
      success of the present race, and the sphere of their navigation
      might extend from the Isles of Japan to the Straits of Malacca,
      the pillars, if we may apply that name, of an Oriental Hercules.
      70 Without losing sight of land, they might sail along the coast
      to the extreme promontory of Achin, which is annually visited by
      ten or twelve ships laden with the productions, the manufactures,
      and even the artificers of China; the Island of Sumatra and the
      opposite peninsula are faintly delineated 71 as the regions of
      gold and silver; and the trading cities named in the geography of
      Ptolemy may indicate, that this wealth was not solely derived
      from the mines. The direct interval between Sumatra and Ceylon is
      about three hundred leagues: the Chinese and Indian navigators
      were conducted by the flight of birds and periodical winds; and
      the ocean might be securely traversed in square-built ships,
      which, instead of iron, were sewed together with the strong
      thread of the cocoanut. Ceylon, Serendib, or Taprobana, was
      divided between two hostile princes; one of whom possessed the
      mountains, the elephants, and the luminous carbuncle, and the
      other enjoyed the more solid riches of domestic industry, foreign
      trade, and the capacious harbor of Trinquemale, which received
      and dismissed the fleets of the East and West. In this hospitable
      isle, at an equal distance (as it was computed) from their
      respective countries, the silk merchants of China, who had
      collected in their voyages aloes, cloves, nutmeg, and sandal
      wood, maintained a free and beneficial commerce with the
      inhabitants of the Persian Gulf. The subjects of the great king
      exalted, without a rival, his power and magnificence: and the
      Roman, who confounded their vanity by comparing his paltry coin
      with a gold medal of the emperor Anastasius, had sailed to
      Ceylon, in an Aethiopian ship, as a simple passenger. 72

      67 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 20, l. ii. c. 25;
      Gothic. l. iv. c. 17. Menander in Excerpt. Legat. p. 107. Of the
      Parthian or Persian empire, Isidore of Charax (in Stathmis
      Parthicis, p. 7, 8, in Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. ii.) has
      marked the roads, and Ammianus Marcellinus (l. xxiii. c. 6, p.
      400) has enumerated the provinces. * Note: See St. Martin, Mem.
      sur l’Armenie, vol. ii. p. 41.—M.]

      68 (return) [ The blind admiration of the Jesuits confounds the
      different periods of the Chinese history. They are more
      critically distinguished by M. de Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom.
      i. part i. in the Tables, part ii. in the Geography. Memoires de
      l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxii. xxxvi. xlii. xliii.,)
      who discovers the gradual progress of the truth of the annals and
      the extent of the monarchy, till the Christian aera. He has
      searched, with a curious eye, the connections of the Chinese with
      the nations of the West; but these connections are slight,
      casual, and obscure; nor did the Romans entertain a suspicion
      that the Seres or Sinae possessed an empire not inferior to their
      own. * Note: An abstract of the various opinions of the learned
      modern writers, Gosselin, Mannert, Lelewel, Malte-Brun, Heeren,
      and La Treille, on the Serica and the Thinae of the ancients, may
      be found in the new edition of Malte-Brun, vol. vi. p. 368,
      382.—M.]

      69 (return) [ The roads from China to Persia and Hindostan may be
      investigated in the relations of Hackluyt and Thevenot, the
      ambassadors of Sharokh, Anthony Jenkinson, the Pere Greuber, &c.
      See likewise Hanway’s Travels, vol. i. p. 345—357. A
      communication through Thibet has been lately explored by the
      English sovereigns of Bengal.]

      70 (return) [ For the Chinese navigation to Malacca and Achin,
      perhaps to Ceylon, see Renaudot, (on the two Mahometan
      Travellers, p. 8—11, 13—17, 141—157;) Dampier, (vol. ii. p. 136;)
      the Hist. Philosophique des deux Indes, (tom. i. p. 98,) and
      Hist. Generale des Voyages, (tom. vi. p. 201.)]

      71 (return) [ The knowledge, or rather ignorance, of Strabo,
      Pliny, Ptolemy, Arrian, Marcian, &c., of the countries eastward
      of Cape Comorin, is finely illustrated by D’Anville, (Antiquite
      Geographique de l’Inde, especially p. 161—198.) Our geography of
      India is improved by commerce and conquest; and has been
      illustrated by the excellent maps and memoirs of Major Rennel. If
      he extends the sphere of his inquiries with the same critical
      knowledge and sagacity, he will succeed, and may surpass, the
      first of modern geographers.]

      72 (return) [ The Taprobane of Pliny, (vi. 24,) Solinus, (c. 53,)
      and Salmas. Plinianae Exercitat., (p. 781, 782,) and most of the
      ancients, who often confound the islands of Ceylon and Sumatra,
      is more clearly described by Cosmas Indicopleustes; yet even the
      Christian topographer has exaggerated its dimensions. His
      information on the Indian and Chinese trade is rare and curious,
      (l. ii. p. 138, l. xi. p. 337, 338, edit. Montfaucon.)]

      As silk became of indispensable use, the emperor Justinian saw
      with concern that the Persians had occupied by land and sea the
      monopoly of this important supply, and that the wealth of his
      subjects was continually drained by a nation of enemies and
      idolaters. An active government would have restored the trade of
      Egypt and the navigation of the Red Sea, which had decayed with
      the prosperity of the empire; and the Roman vessels might have
      sailed, for the purchase of silk, to the ports of Ceylon, of
      Malacca, or even of China. Justinian embraced a more humble
      expedient, and solicited the aid of his Christian allies, the
      Aethiopians of Abyssinia, who had recently acquired the arts of
      navigation, the spirit of trade, and the seaport of Adulis, 73
      7311 still decorated with the trophies of a Grecian conqueror.
      Along the African coast, they penetrated to the equator in search
      of gold, emeralds, and aromatics; but they wisely declined an
      unequal competition, in which they must be always prevented by
      the vicinity of the Persians to the markets of India; and the
      emperor submitted to the disappointment, till his wishes were
      gratified by an unexpected event. The gospel had been preached to
      the Indians: a bishop already governed the Christians of St.
      Thomas on the pepper-coast of Malabar; a church was planted in
      Ceylon, and the missionaries pursued the footsteps of commerce to
      the extremities of Asia. 74 Two Persian monks had long resided in
      China, perhaps in the royal city of Nankin, the seat of a monarch
      addicted to foreign superstitions, and who actually received an
      embassy from the Isle of Ceylon. Amidst their pious occupations,
      they viewed with a curious eye the common dress of the Chinese,
      the manufactures of silk, and the myriads of silk-worms, whose
      education (either on trees or in houses) had once been considered
      as the labor of queens. 75 They soon discovered that it was
      impracticable to transport the short-lived insect, but that in
      the eggs a numerous progeny might be preserved and multiplied in
      a distant climate. Religion or interest had more power over the
      Persian monks than the love of their country: after a long
      journey, they arrived at Constantinople, imparted their project
      to the emperor, and were liberally encouraged by the gifts and
      promises of Justinian. To the historians of that prince, a
      campaign at the foot of Mount Caucasus has seemed more deserving
      of a minute relation than the labors of these missionaries of
      commerce, who again entered China, deceived a jealous people by
      concealing the eggs of the silk-worm in a hollow cane, and
      returned in triumph with the spoils of the East. Under their
      direction, the eggs were hatched at the proper season by the
      artificial heat of dung; the worms were fed with mulberry leaves;
      they lived and labored in a foreign climate; a sufficient number
      of butterflies was saved to propagate the race, and trees were
      planted to supply the nourishment of the rising generations.
      Experience and reflection corrected the errors of a new attempt,
      and the Sogdoite ambassadors acknowledged, in the succeeding
      reign, that the Romans were not inferior to the natives of China
      in the education of the insects, and the manufactures of silk, 76
      in which both China and Constantinople have been surpassed by the
      industry of modern Europe. I am not insensible of the benefits of
      elegant luxury; yet I reflect with some pain, that if the
      importers of silk had introduced the art of printing, already
      practised by the Chinese, the comedies of Menander and the entire
      decads of Livy would have been perpetuated in the editions of the
      sixth century.

      A larger view of the globe might at least have promoted the
      improvement of speculative science, but the Christian geography
      was forcibly extracted from texts of Scripture, and the study of
      nature was the surest symptom of an unbelieving mind. The
      orthodox faith confined the habitable world to one temperate
      zone, and represented the earth as an oblong surface, four
      hundred days’ journey in length, two hundred in breadth,
      encompassed by the ocean, and covered by the solid crystal of the
      firmament. 77

      73 (return) [ See Procopius, Persic. (l. ii. c. 20.) Cosmas
      affords some interesting knowledge of the port and inscription of
      Adulis, (Topograph. Christ. l. ii. p. 138, 140—143,) and of the
      trade of the Axumites along the African coast of Barbaria or
      Zingi, (p. 138, 139,) and as far as Taprobane, (l. xi. p. 339.)]

      7311 (return) [ Mr. Salt obtained information of considerable
      ruins of an ancient town near Zulla, called Azoole, which answers
      to the position of Adulis. Mr. Salt was prevented by illness, Mr.
      Stuart, whom he sent, by the jealousy of the natives, from
      investigating these ruins: of their existence there seems no
      doubt. Salt’s 2d Journey, p. 452.—M.]

      74 (return) [ See the Christian missions in India, in Cosmas, (l.
      iii. p. 178, 179, l. xi. p. 337,) and consult Asseman. Bibliot.
      Orient. (tom. iv. p. 413—548.)]

      75 (return) [ The invention, manufacture, and general use of silk
      in China, may be seen in Duhalde, (Description Generale de la
      Chine, tom. ii. p. 165, 205—223.) The province of Chekian is the
      most renowned both for quantity and quality.]

      76 (return) [ Procopius, (l. viii. Gothic. iv. c. 17. Theophanes
      Byzant. apud Phot. Cod. lxxxiv. p. 38. Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv.
      p. 69. Pagi tom. ii. p. 602) assigns to the year 552 this
      memorable importation. Menander (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 107)
      mentions the admiration of the Sogdoites; and Theophylact
      Simocatta (l. vii. c. 9) darkly represents the two rival kingdoms
      in (China) the country of silk.]

      77 (return) [ Cosmas, surnamed Indicopleustes, or the Indian
      navigator, performed his voyage about the year 522, and composed
      at Alexandria, between 535, and 547, Christian Topography,
      (Montfaucon, Praefat. c. i.,) in which he refutes the impious
      opinion, that the earth is a globe; and Photius had read this
      work, (Cod. xxxvi. p. 9, 10,) which displays the prejudices of a
      monk, with the knowledge of a merchant; the most valuable part
      has been given in French and in Greek by Melchisedec Thevenot,
      (Relations Curieuses, part i.,) and the whole is since published
      in a splendid edition by Pere Montfaucon, (Nova Collectio Patrum,
      Paris, 1707, 2 vols. in fol., tom. ii. p. 113—346.) But the
      editor, a theologian, might blush at not discovering the
      Nestorian heresy of Cosmas, which has been detected by La Croz
      (Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 40—56.)]

      IV. The subjects of Justinian were dissatisfied with the times,
      and with the government. Europe was overrun by the Barbarians,
      and Asia by the monks: the poverty of the West discouraged the
      trade and manufactures of the East: the produce of labor was
      consumed by the unprofitable servants of the church, the state,
      and the army; and a rapid decrease was felt in the fixed and
      circulating capitals which constitute the national wealth. The
      public distress had been alleviated by the economy of Anastasius,
      and that prudent emperor accumulated an immense treasure, while
      he delivered his people from the most odious or oppressive taxes.
      7711 Their gratitude universally applauded the abolition of the
      gold of affliction, a personal tribute on the industry of the
      poor, 78 but more intolerable, as it should seem, in the form
      than in the substance, since the flourishing city of Edessa paid
      only one hundred and forty pounds of gold, which was collected in
      four years from ten thousand artificers. 79 Yet such was the
      parsimony which supported this liberal disposition, that, in a
      reign of twenty-seven years, Anastasius saved, from his annual
      revenue, the enormous sum of thirteen millions sterling, or three
      hundred and twenty thousand pounds of gold. 80 His example was
      neglected, and his treasure was abused, by the nephew of Justin.
      The riches of Justinian were speedily exhausted by alms and
      buildings, by ambitious wars, and ignominious treaties. His
      revenues were found inadequate to his expenses. Every art was
      tried to extort from the people the gold and silver which he
      scattered with a lavish hand from Persia to France: 81 his reign
      was marked by the vicissitudes or rather by the combat, of
      rapaciousness and avarice, of splendor and poverty; he lived with
      the reputation of hidden treasures, 82 and bequeathed to his
      successor the payment of his debts. 83 Such a character has been
      justly accused by the voice of the people and of posterity: but
      public discontent is credulous; private malice is bold; and a
      lover of truth will peruse with a suspicious eye the instructive
      anecdotes of Procopius. The secret historian represents only the
      vices of Justinian, and those vices are darkened by his
      malevolent pencil. Ambiguous actions are imputed to the worst
      motives; error is confounded with guilt, accident with design,
      and laws with abuses; the partial injustice of a moment is
      dexterously applied as the general maxim of a reign of thirty-two
      years; the emperor alone is made responsible for the faults of
      his officers, the disorders of the times, and the corruption of
      his subjects; and even the calamities of nature, plagues,
      earthquakes, and inundations, are imputed to the prince of the
      daemons, who had mischievously assumed the form of Justinian. 84

      7711 (return) [ See the character of Anastasius in Joannes Lydus
      de Magistratibus, iii. c. 45, 46, p. 230—232. His economy is
      there said to have degenerated into parsimony. He is accused of
      having taken away the levying of taxes and payment of the troops
      from the municipal authorities, (the decurionate) in the Eastern
      cities, and intrusted it to an extortionate officer named Mannus.
      But he admits that the imperial revenue was enormously increased
      by this measure. A statue of iron had been erected to Anastasius
      in the Hippodrome, on which appeared one morning this pasquinade.
      This epigram is also found in the Anthology. Jacobs, vol. iv. p.
      114 with some better readings. This iron statue meetly do we
      place To thee, world-wasting king, than brass more base; For all
      the death, the penury, famine, woe, That from thy wide-destroying
      avarice flow, This fell Charybdis, Scylla, near to thee, This
      fierce devouring Anastasius, see; And tremble, Scylla! on thee,
      too, his greed, Coining thy brazen deity, may feed. But Lydus,
      with no uncommon inconsistency in such writers, proceeds to paint
      the character of Anastasius as endowed with almost every virtue,
      not excepting the utmost liberality. He was only prevented by
      death from relieving his subjects altogether from the capitation
      tax, which he greatly diminished.—M.]

      78 (return) [ Evagrius (l. ii. c. 39, 40) is minute and grateful,
      but angry with Zosimus for calumniating the great Constantine. In
      collecting all the bonds and records of the tax, the humanity of
      Anastasius was diligent and artful: fathers were sometimes
      compelled to prostitute their daughters, (Zosim. Hist. l. ii. c.
      38, p. 165, 166, Lipsiae, 1784.) Timotheus of Gaza chose such an
      event for the subject of a tragedy, (Suidas, tom. iii. p. 475,)
      which contributed to the abolition of the tax, (Cedrenus, p.
      35,)—a happy instance (if it be true) of the use of the theatre.]

      79 (return) [ See Josua Stylites, in the Bibliotheca Orientalis
      of Asseman, (tom. p. 268.) This capitation tax is slightly
      mentioned in the Chronicle of Edessa.]

      80 (return) [ Procopius (Anecdot. c. 19) fixes this sum from the
      report of the treasurers themselves. Tiberias had vicies ter
      millies; but far different was his empire from that of
      Anastasius.]

      81 (return) [ Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 30,) in the next generation,
      was moderate and well informed; and Zonaras, (l. xiv. c. 61,) in
      the xiith century, had read with care, and thought without
      prejudice; yet their colors are almost as black as those of the
      anecdotes.]

      82 (return) [ Procopius (Anecdot. c. 30) relates the idle
      conjectures of the times. The death of Justinian, says the secret
      historian, will expose his wealth or poverty.]

      83 (return) [ See Corippus de Laudibus Justini Aug. l. ii. 260,
      &c., 384, &c “Plurima sunt vivo nimium neglecta parenti, Unde tot
      exhaustus contraxit debita fiscus.” Centenaries of gold were
      brought by strong men into the Hippodrome, “Debita persolvit,
      genitoris cauta recepit.”]

      84 (return) [ The Anecdotes (c. 11—14, 18, 20—30) supply many
      facts and more complaints. * Note: The work of Lydus de
      Magistratibus (published by Hase at Paris, 1812, and reprinted in
      the new edition of the Byzantine Historians,) was written during
      the reign of Justinian. This work of Lydus throws no great light
      on the earlier history of the Roman magistracy, but gives some
      curious details of the changes and retrenchments in the offices
      of state, which took place at this time. The personal history of
      the author, with the account of his early and rapid advancement,
      and the emoluments of the posts which he successively held, with
      the bitter disappointment which he expresses, at finding himself,
      at the height of his ambition, in an unpaid place, is an
      excellent illustration of this statement. Gibbon has before, c.
      iv. n. 45, and c. xvii. n. 112, traced the progress of a Roman
      citizen to the highest honors of the state under the empire; the
      steps by which Lydus reached his humbler eminence may likewise
      throw light on the civil service at this period. He was first
      received into the office of the Praetorian praefect; became a
      notary in that office, and made in one year 1000 golden solidi,
      and that without extortion. His place and the influence of his
      relatives obtained him a wife with 400 pounds of gold for her
      dowry. He became chief chartularius, with an annual stipend of
      twenty-four solidi, and considerable emoluments for all the
      various services which he performed. He rose to an Augustalis,
      and finally to the dignity of Corniculus, the highest, and at one
      time the most lucrative office in the department. But the
      Praetorian praefect had gradually been deprived of his powers and
      his honors. He lost the superintendence of the supply and
      manufacture of arms; the uncontrolled charge of the public posts;
      the levying of the troops; the command of the army in war when
      the emperors ceased nominally to command in person, but really
      through the Praetorian praefect; that of the household troops,
      which fell to the magister aulae. At length the office was so
      completely stripped of its power, as to be virtually abolished,
      (see de Magist. l. iii. c. 40, p. 220, &c.) This diminution of
      the office of the praefect destroyed the emoluments of his
      subordinate officers, and Lydus not only drew no revenue from his
      dignity, but expended upon it all the gains of his former
      services. Lydus gravely refers this calamitous, and, as he
      considers it, fatal degradation of the Praetorian office to the
      alteration in the style of the official documents from Latin to
      Greek; and refers to a prophecy of a certain Fonteius, which
      connected the ruin of the Roman empire with its abandonment of
      its language. Lydus chiefly owed his promotion to his knowledge
      of Latin!—M.]

      After this precaution, I shall briefly relate the anecdotes of
      avarice and rapine under the following heads: I. Justinian was so
      profuse that he could not be liberal. The civil and military
      officers, when they were admitted into the service of the palace,
      obtained an humble rank and a moderate stipend; they ascended by
      seniority to a station of affluence and repose; the annual
      pensions, of which the most honorable class was abolished by
      Justinian, amounted to four hundred thousand pounds; and this
      domestic economy was deplored by the venal or indigent courtiers
      as the last outrage on the majesty of the empire. The posts, the
      salaries of physicians, and the nocturnal illuminations, were
      objects of more general concern; and the cities might justly
      complain, that he usurped the municipal revenues which had been
      appropriated to these useful institutions. Even the soldiers were
      injured; and such was the decay of military spirit, that they
      were injured with impunity. The emperor refused, at the return of
      each fifth year, the customary donative of five pieces of gold,
      reduced his veterans to beg their bread, and suffered unpaid
      armies to melt away in the wars of Italy and Persia. II. The
      humanity of his predecessors had always remitted, in some
      auspicious circumstance of their reign, the arrears of the public
      tribute, and they dexterously assumed the merit of resigning
      those claims which it was impracticable to enforce. “Justinian,
      in the space of thirty-two years, has never granted a similar
      indulgence; and many of his subjects have renounced the
      possession of those lands whose value is insufficient to satisfy
      the demands of the treasury. To the cities which had suffered by
      hostile inroads Anastasius promised a general exemption of seven
      years: the provinces of Justinian have been ravaged by the
      Persians and Arabs, the Huns and Sclavonians; but his vain and
      ridiculous dispensation of a single year has been confined to
      those places which were actually taken by the enemy.” Such is the
      language of the secret historian, who expressly denies that any
      indulgence was granted to Palestine after the revolt of the
      Samaritans; a false and odious charge, confuted by the authentic
      record which attests a relief of thirteen centenaries of gold
      (fifty-two thousand pounds) obtained for that desolate province
      by the intercession of St. Sabas. 85 III. Procopius has not
      condescended to explain the system of taxation, which fell like a
      hail-storm upon the land, like a devouring pestilence on its
      inhabitants: but we should become the accomplices of his
      malignity, if we imputed to Justinian alone the ancient though
      rigorous principle, that a whole district should be condemned to
      sustain the partial loss of the persons or property of
      individuals. The Annona, or supply of corn for the use of the
      army and capital, was a grievous and arbitrary exaction, which
      exceeded, perhaps in a tenfold proportion, the ability of the
      farmer; and his distress was aggravated by the partial injustice
      of weights and measures, and the expense and labor of distant
      carriage. In a time of scarcity, an extraordinary requisition was
      made to the adjacent provinces of Thrace, Bithynia, and Phrygia:
      but the proprietors, after a wearisome journey and perilous
      navigation, received so inadequate a compensation, that they
      would have chosen the alternative of delivering both the corn and
      price at the doors of their granaries. These precautions might
      indicate a tender solicitude for the welfare of the capital; yet
      Constantinople did not escape the rapacious despotism of
      Justinian. Till his reign, the Straits of the Bosphorus and
      Hellespont were open to the freedom of trade, and nothing was
      prohibited except the exportation of arms for the service of the
      Barbarians. At each of these gates of the city, a praetor was
      stationed, the minister of Imperial avarice; heavy customs were
      imposed on the vessels and their merchandise; the oppression was
      retaliated on the helpless consumer; the poor were afflicted by
      the artificial scarcity, and exorbitant price of the market; and
      a people, accustomed to depend on the liberality of their prince,
      might sometimes complain of the deficiency of water and bread. 86
      The aerial tribute, without a name, a law, or a definite object,
      was an annual gift of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds,
      which the emperor accepted from his Praetorian praefect; and the
      means of payment were abandoned to the discretion of that
      powerful magistrate.

      IV. Even such a tax was less intolerable than the privilege of
      monopolies, 8611 which checked the fair competition of industry,
      and, for the sake of a small and dishonest gain, imposed an
      arbitrary burden on the wants and luxury of the subject. “As
      soon” (I transcribe the Anecdotes) “as the exclusive sale of silk
      was usurped by the Imperial treasurer, a whole people, the
      manufacturers of Tyre and Berytus, was reduced to extreme misery,
      and either perished with hunger, or fled to the hostile dominions
      of Persia.” A province might suffer by the decay of its
      manufactures, but in this example of silk, Procopius has
      partially overlooked the inestimable and lasting benefit which
      the empire received from the curiosity of Justinian. His addition
      of one seventh to the ordinary price of copper money may be
      interpreted with the same candor; and the alteration, which might
      be wise, appears to have been innocent; since he neither alloyed
      the purity, nor enhanced the value, of the gold coin, 87 the
      legal measure of public and private payments. V. The ample
      jurisdiction required by the farmers of the revenue to accomplish
      their engagements might be placed in an odious light, as if they
      had purchased from the emperor the lives and fortunes of their
      fellow-citizens. And a more direct sale of honors and offices was
      transacted in the palace, with the permission, or at least with
      the connivance, of Justinian and Theodora. The claims of merit,
      even those of favor, were disregarded, and it was almost
      reasonable to expect, that the bold adventurer, who had
      undertaken the trade of a magistrate, should find a rich
      compensation for infamy, labor, danger, the debts which he had
      contracted, and the heavy interest which he paid. A sense of the
      disgrace and mischief of this venal practice, at length awakened
      the slumbering virtue of Justinian; and he attempted, by the
      sanction of oaths 88 and penalties, to guard the integrity of his
      government: but at the end of a year of perjury, his rigorous
      edict was suspended, and corruption licentiously abused her
      triumph over the impotence of the laws. VI. The testament of
      Eulalius, count of the domestics, declared the emperor his sole
      heir, on condition, however, that he should discharge his debts
      and legacies, allow to his three daughters a decent maintenance,
      and bestow each of them in marriage, with a portion of ten pounds
      of gold. But the splendid fortune of Eulalius had been consumed
      by fire, and the inventory of his goods did not exceed the
      trifling sum of five hundred and sixty-four pieces of gold. A
      similar instance, in Grecian history, admonished the emperor of
      the honorable part prescribed for his imitation. He checked the
      selfish murmurs of the treasury, applauded the confidence of his
      friend, discharged the legacies and debts, educated the three
      virgins under the eye of the empress Theodora, and doubled the
      marriage portion which had satisfied the tenderness of their
      father. 89 The humanity of a prince (for princes cannot be
      generous) is entitled to some praise; yet even in this act of
      virtue we may discover the inveterate custom of supplanting the
      legal or natural heirs, which Procopius imputes to the reign of
      Justinian. His charge is supported by eminent names and
      scandalous examples; neither widows nor orphans were spared; and
      the art of soliciting, or extorting, or supposing testaments, was
      beneficially practised by the agents of the palace. This base and
      mischievous tyranny invades the security of private life; and the
      monarch who has indulged an appetite for gain, will soon be
      tempted to anticipate the moment of succession, to interpret
      wealth as an evidence of guilt, and to proceed, from the claim of
      inheritance, to the power of confiscation. VII. Among the forms
      of rapine, a philosopher may be permitted to name the conversion
      of Pagan or heretical riches to the use of the faithful; but in
      the time of Justinian this holy plunder was condemned by the
      sectaries alone, who became the victims of his orthodox avarice.
      90

      85 (return) [ One to Scythopolis, capital of the second
      Palestine, and twelve for the rest of the province. Aleman. (p.
      59) honestly produces this fact from a Ms. life of St. Sabas, by
      his disciple Cyril, in the Vatican Library, and since published
      by Cotelerius.]

      86 (return) [ John Malala (tom. ii. p. 232) mentions the want of
      bread, and Zonaras (l. xiv. p. 63) the leaden pipes, which
      Justinian, or his servants, stole from the aqueducts.]

      8611 (return) [ Hullman (Geschichte des Byzantinischen Handels.
      p. 15) shows that the despotism of the government was aggravated
      by the unchecked rapenity of the officers. This state monopoly,
      even of corn, wine, and oil, was to force at the time of the
      first crusade.—M.]

      87 (return) [ For an aureus, one sixth of an ounce of gold,
      instead of 210, he gave no more than 180 folles, or ounces of
      copper. A disproportion of the mint, below the market price, must
      have soon produced a scarcity of small money. In England twelve
      pence in copper would sell for no more than seven pence, (Smith’s
      Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations, vol. i. p. 49.) For
      Justinian’s gold coin, see Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 30.)]

      88 (return) [ The oath is conceived in the most formidable words,
      (Novell. viii. tit. 3.) The defaulters imprecate on themselves,
      quicquid haben: telorum armamentaria coeli: the part of Judas,
      the leprosy of Gieza, the tremor of Cain, &c., besides all
      temporal pains.]

      89 (return) [ A similar or more generous act of friendship is
      related by Lucian of Eudamidas of Corinth, (in Toxare, c. 22, 23,
      tom. ii. p. 530,) and the story has produced an ingenious, though
      feeble, comedy of Fontenelle.]

      90 (return) [ John Malala, tom. ii. p. 101, 102, 103.]




      Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part IV.

      Dishonor might be ultimately reflected on the character of
      Justinian; but much of the guilt, and still more of the profit,
      was intercepted by the ministers, who were seldom promoted for
      their virtues, and not always selected for their talents. 91 The
      merits of Tribonian the quaestor will hereafter be weighed in the
      reformation of the Roman law; but the economy of the East was
      subordinate to the Praetorian praefect, and Procopius has
      justified his anecdotes by the portrait which he exposes in his
      public history, of the notorious vices of John of Cappadocia. 92

      921 His knowledge was not borrowed from the schools, 93 and his
      style was scarcely legible; but he excelled in the powers of
      native genius, to suggest the wisest counsels, and to find
      expedients in the most desperate situations. The corruption of
      his heart was equal to the vigor of his understanding. Although
      he was suspected of magic and Pagan superstition, he appeared
      insensible to the fear of God or the reproaches of man; and his
      aspiring fortune was raised on the death of thousands, the
      poverty of millions, the ruins of cities, and the desolation of
      provinces. From the dawn of light to the moment of dinner, he
      assiduously labored to enrich his master and himself at the
      expense of the Roman world; the remainder of the day was spent in
      sensual and obscene pleasures, 931 and the silent hours of the
      night were interrupted by the perpetual dread of the justice of
      an assassin. His abilities, perhaps his vices, recommended him to
      the lasting friendship of Justinian: the emperor yielded with
      reluctance to the fury of the people; his victory was displayed
      by the immediate restoration of their enemy; and they felt above
      ten years, under his oppressive administration, that he was
      stimulated by revenge, rather than instructed by misfortune.
      Their murmurs served only to fortify the resolution of Justinian;
      but the resentment of Theodora, disdained a power before which
      every knee was bent, and attempted to sow the seeds of discord
      between the emperor and his beloved consort. Even Theodora
      herself was constrained to dissemble, to wait a favorable moment,
      and, by an artful conspiracy, to render John of Coppadocia the
      accomplice of his own destruction. 932 At a time when Belisarius,
      unless he had been a hero, must have shown himself a rebel, his
      wife Antonina, who enjoyed the secret confidence of the empress,
      communicated his feigned discontent to Euphemia, the daughter of
      the praefect; the credulous virgin imparted to her father the
      dangerous project, and John, who might have known the value of
      oaths and promises, was tempted to accept a nocturnal, and almost
      treasonable, interview with the wife of Belisarius. An ambuscade
      of guards and eunuchs had been posted by the command of Theodora;
      they rushed with drawn swords to seize or to punish the guilty
      minister: he was saved by the fidelity of his attendants; but
      instead of appealing to a gracious sovereign, who had privately
      warned him of his danger, he pusillanimously fled to the
      sanctuary of the church. The favorite of Justinian was sacrificed
      to conjugal tenderness or domestic tranquility; the conversion of
      a praefect into a priest extinguished his ambitious hopes: but
      the friendship of the emperor alleviated his disgrace, and he
      retained in the mild exile of Cyzicus an ample portion of his
      riches. Such imperfect revenge could not satisfy the unrelenting
      hatred of Theodora; the murder of his old enemy, the bishop of
      Cyzicus, afforded a decent pretence; and John of Cappadocia,
      whose actions had deserved a thousand deaths, was at last
      condemned for a crime of which he was innocent. A great minister,
      who had been invested with the honors of consul and patrician,
      was ignominiously scourged like the vilest of malefactors; a
      tattered cloak was the sole remnant of his fortunes; he was
      transported in a bark to the place of his banishment at
      Antinopolis in Upper Egypt, and the praefect of the East begged
      his bread through the cities which had trembled at his name.
      During an exile of seven years, his life was protracted and
      threatened by the ingenious cruelty of Theodora; and when her
      death permitted the emperor to recall a servant whom he had
      abandoned with regret, the ambition of John of Cappadocia was
      reduced to the humble duties of the sacerdotal profession. His
      successors convinced the subjects of Justinian, that the arts of
      oppression might still be improved by experience and industry;
      the frauds of a Syrian banker were introduced into the
      administration of the finances; and the example of the praefect
      was diligently copied by the quaestor, the public and private
      treasurer, the governors of provinces, and the principal
      magistrates of the Eastern empire. 94

      91 (return) [ One of these, Anatolius, perished in an
      earthquake—doubtless a judgment! The complaints and clamors of
      the people in Agathias (l. v. p. 146, 147) are almost an echo of
      the anecdote. The aliena pecunia reddenda of Corippus (l. ii.
      381, &c.,) is not very honorable to Justinian’s memory.]

      92 (return) [ See the history and character of John of Cappadocia
      in Procopius. (Persic, l. i. c. 35, 25, l. ii. c. 30. Vandal. l.
      i. c. 13. Anecdot. c. 2, 17, 22.) The agreement of the history
      and anecdotes is a mortal wound to the reputation of the
      praefct.]

      921 (return) [ This view, particularly of the cruelty of John of
      Cappadocia, is confirmed by the testimony of Joannes Lydus, who
      was in the office of the praefect, and eye-witness of the
      tortures inflicted by his command on the miserable debtors, or
      supposed debtors, of the state. He mentions one horrible instance
      of a respectable old man, with whom he was personally acquainted,
      who, being suspected of possessing money, was hung up by the
      hands till he was dead. Lydus de Magist. lib. iii. c. 57, p.
      254.—M.]

      93 (return) [ A forcible expression.]

      931 (return) [ Joannes Lydus is diffuse on this subject, lib.
      iii. c. 65, p. 268. But the indignant virtue of Lydus seems
      greatly stimulated by the loss of his official fees, which he
      ascribes to the innovations of the minister.—M.]

      932 (return) [ According to Lydus, Theodora disclosed the crimes
      and unpopularity of the minister to Justinian, but the emperor
      had not the courage to remove, and was unable to replace, a
      servant, under whom his finances seemed to prosper. He attributes
      the sedition and conflagration to the popular resentment against
      the tyranny of John, lib. iii. c 70, p. 278. Unfortunately there
      is a large gap in his work just at this period.—M.]

      94 (return) [ The chronology of Procopius is loose and obscure;
      but with the aid of Pagi I can discern that John was appointed
      Praetorian praefect of the East in the year 530—that he was
      removed in January, 532—restored before June, 533—banished in
      541—and recalled between June, 548, and April 1, 549. Aleman. (p.
      96, 97) gives the list of his ten successors—a rapid series in a
      part of a single reign. * Note: Lydus gives a high character of
      Phocas, his successor tom. iii. c. 78 p. 288.—M.]

      V. The edifices of Justinian were cemented with the blood and
      treasure of his people; but those stately structures appeared to
      announce the prosperity of the empire, and actually displayed the
      skill of their architects. Both the theory and practice of the
      arts which depend on mathematical science and mechanical power,
      were cultivated under the patronage of the emperors; the fame of
      Archimedes was rivalled by Proclus and Anthemius; and if their
      miracles had been related by intelligent spectators, they might
      now enlarge the speculations, instead of exciting the distrust,
      of philosophers. A tradition has prevailed, that the Roman fleet
      was reduced to ashes in the port of Syracuse, by the
      burning-glasses of Archimedes; 95 and it is asserted, that a
      similar expedient was employed by Proclus to destroy the Gothic
      vessels in the harbor of Constantinople, and to protect his
      benefactor Anastasius against the bold enterprise of Vitalian. 96
      A machine was fixed on the walls of the city, consisting of a
      hexagon mirror of polished brass, with many smaller and movable
      polygons to receive and reflect the rays of the meridian sun; and
      a consuming flame was darted, to the distance, perhaps of two
      hundred feet. 97 The truth of these two extraordinary facts is
      invalidated by the silence of the most authentic historians; and
      the use of burning-glasses was never adopted in the attack or
      defence of places. 98 Yet the admirable experiments of a French
      philosopher 99 have demonstrated the possibility of such a
      mirror; and, since it is possible, I am more disposed to
      attribute the art to the greatest mathematicians of antiquity,
      than to give the merit of the fiction to the idle fancy of a monk
      or a sophist. According to another story, Proclus applied sulphur
      to the destruction of the Gothic fleet; 100 in a modern
      imagination, the name of sulphur is instantly connected with the
      suspicion of gunpowder, and that suspicion is propagated by the
      secret arts of his disciple Anthemius. 101 A citizen of Tralles
      in Asia had five sons, who were all distinguished in their
      respective professions by merit and success. Olympius excelled in
      the knowledge and practice of the Roman jurisprudence. Dioscorus
      and Alexander became learned physicians; but the skill of the
      former was exercised for the benefit of his fellow-citizens,
      while his more ambitious brother acquired wealth and reputation
      at Rome. The fame of Metrodorus the grammarian, and of Anthemius
      the mathematician and architect, reached the ears of the emperor
      Justinian, who invited them to Constantinople; and while the one
      instructed the rising generation in the schools of eloquence, the
      other filled the capital and provinces with more lasting
      monuments of his art. In a trifling dispute relative to the walls
      or windows of their contiguous houses, he had been vanquished by
      the eloquence of his neighbor Zeno; but the orator was defeated
      in his turn by the master of mechanics, whose malicious, though
      harmless, stratagems are darkly represented by the ignorance of
      Agathias. In a lower room, Anthemius arranged several vessels or
      caldrons of water, each of them covered by the wide bottom of a
      leathern tube, which rose to a narrow top, and was artificially
      conveyed among the joists and rafters of the adjacent building. A
      fire was kindled beneath the caldron; the steam of the boiling
      water ascended through the tubes; the house was shaken by the
      efforts of imprisoned air, and its trembling inhabitants might
      wonder that the city was unconscious of the earthquake which they
      had felt. At another time, the friends of Zeno, as they sat at
      table, were dazzled by the intolerable light which flashed in
      their eyes from the reflecting mirrors of Anthemius; they were
      astonished by the noise which he produced from the collision of
      certain minute and sonorous particles; and the orator declared in
      tragic style to the senate, that a mere mortal must yield to the
      power of an antagonist, who shook the earth with the trident of
      Neptune, and imitated the thunder and lightning of Jove himself.
      The genius of Anthemius, and his colleague Isidore the Milesian,
      was excited and employed by a prince, whose taste for
      architecture had degenerated into a mischievous and costly
      passion. His favorite architects submitted their designs and
      difficulties to Justinian, and discreetly confessed how much
      their laborious meditations were surpassed by the intuitive
      knowledge of celestial inspiration of an emperor, whose views
      were always directed to the benefit of his people, the glory of
      his reign, and the salvation of his soul. 102

      95 (return) [ This conflagration is hinted by Lucian (in Hippia,
      c. 2) and Galen, (l. iii. de Temperamentis, tom. i. p. 81, edit.
      Basil.) in the second century. A thousand years afterwards, it is
      positively affirmed by Zonaras, (l. ix. p. 424,) on the faith of
      Dion Cassius, Tzetzes, (Chiliad ii. 119, &c.,) Eustathius, (ad
      Iliad. E. p. 338,) and the scholiast of Lucian. See Fabricius,
      (Bibliot. Graec. l. iii. c. 22, tom. ii. p. 551, 552,) to whom I
      am more or less indebted for several of these quotations.]

      96 (return) [ Zonaras (l. xi. c. p. 55) affirms the fact, without
      quoting any evidence.]

      97 (return) [ Tzetzes describes the artifice of these
      burning-glasses, which he had read, perhaps, with no learned
      eyes, in a mathematical treatise of Anthemius. That treatise has
      been lately published, translated, and illustrated, by M. Dupuys,
      a scholar and a mathematician, (Memoires de l’Academie des
      Inscriptions, tom xlii p. 392—451.)]

      98 (return) [ In the siege of Syracuse, by the silence of
      Polybius, Plutarch, Livy; in the siege of Constantinople, by that
      of Marcellinus and all the contemporaries of the vith century.]

      99 (return) [ Without any previous knowledge of Tzetzes or
      Anthemius, the immortal Buffon imagined and executed a set of
      burning-glasses, with which he could inflame planks at the
      distance of 200 feet, (Supplement a l’Hist. Naturelle, tom. i.
      399—483, quarto edition.) What miracles would not his genius have
      performed for the public service, with royal expense, and in the
      strong sun of Constantinople or Syracuse?]

      100 (return) [ John Malala (tom. ii. p. 120—124) relates the
      fact; but he seems to confound the names or persons of Proclus
      and Marinus.]

      101 (return) [ Agathias, l. v. p. 149—152. The merit of Anthemius
      as an architect is loudly praised by Procopius (de Edif. l. i. c.
      1) and Paulus Silentiarius, (part i. 134, &c.)]

      102 (return) [ See Procopius, (de Edificiis, l. i. c. 1, 2, l.
      ii. c. 3.) He relates a coincidence of dreams, which supposes
      some fraud in Justinian or his architect. They both saw, in a
      vision, the same plan for stopping an inundation at Dara. A stone
      quarry near Jerusalem was revealed to the emperor, (l. v. c. 6:)
      an angel was tricked into the perpetual custody of St. Sophia,
      (Anonym. de Antiq. C. P. l. iv. p. 70.)]

      The principal church, which was dedicated by the founder of
      Constantinople to St. Sophia, or the eternal wisdom, had been
      twice destroyed by fire; after the exile of John Chrysostom, and
      during the Nika of the blue and green factions. No sooner did the
      tumult subside, than the Christian populace deplored their
      sacrilegious rashness; but they might have rejoiced in the
      calamity, had they foreseen the glory of the new temple, which at
      the end of forty days was strenuously undertaken by the piety of
      Justinian. 103 The ruins were cleared away, a more spacious plan
      was described, and as it required the consent of some proprietors
      of ground, they obtained the most exorbitant terms from the eager
      desires and timorous conscience of the monarch. Anthemius formed
      the design, and his genius directed the hands of ten thousand
      workmen, whose payment in pieces of fine silver was never delayed
      beyond the evening. The emperor himself, clad in a linen tunic,
      surveyed each day their rapid progress, and encouraged their
      diligence by his familiarity, his zeal, and his rewards. The new
      Cathedral of St. Sophia was consecrated by the patriarch, five
      years, eleven months, and ten days from the first foundation; and
      in the midst of the solemn festival Justinian exclaimed with
      devout vanity, “Glory be to God, who hath thought me worthy to
      accomplish so great a work; I have vanquished thee, O Solomon!”
      104 But the pride of the Roman Solomon, before twenty years had
      elapsed, was humbled by an earthquake, which overthrew the
      eastern part of the dome. Its splendor was again restored by the
      perseverance of the same prince; and in the thirty-sixth year of
      his reign, Justinian celebrated the second dedication of a temple
      which remains, after twelve centuries, a stately monument of his
      fame. The architecture of St. Sophia, which is now converted into
      the principal mosch, has been imitated by the Turkish sultans,
      and that venerable pile continues to excite the fond admiration
      of the Greeks, and the more rational curiosity of European
      travellers. The eye of the spectator is disappointed by an
      irregular prospect of half-domes and shelving roofs: the western
      front, the principal approach, is destitute of simplicity and
      magnificence; and the scale of dimensions has been much surpassed
      by several of the Latin cathedrals. But the architect who first
      erected and aerial cupola, is entitled to the praise of bold
      design and skilful execution. The dome of St. Sophia, illuminated
      by four-and-twenty windows, is formed with so small a curve, that
      the depth is equal only to one sixth of its diameter; the measure
      of that diameter is one hundred and fifteen feet, and the lofty
      centre, where a crescent has supplanted the cross, rises to the
      perpendicular height of one hundred and eighty feet above the
      pavement. The circle which encompasses the dome, lightly reposes
      on four strong arches, and their weight is firmly supported by
      four massy piles, whose strength is assisted, on the northern and
      southern sides, by four columns of Egyptian granite.

      A Greek cross, inscribed in a quadrangle, represents the form of
      the edifice; the exact breadth is two hundred and forty-three
      feet, and two hundred and sixty-nine may be assigned for the
      extreme length from the sanctuary in the east, to the nine
      western doors, which open into the vestibule, and from thence
      into the narthex or exterior portico. That portico was the humble
      station of the penitents. The nave or body of the church was
      filled by the congregation of the faithful; but the two sexes
      were prudently distinguished, and the upper and lower galleries
      were allotted for the more private devotion of the women. Beyond
      the northern and southern piles, a balustrade, terminated on
      either side by the thrones of the emperor and the patriarch,
      divided the nave from the choir; and the space, as far as the
      steps of the altar, was occupied by the clergy and singers. The
      altar itself, a name which insensibly became familiar to
      Christian ears, was placed in the eastern recess, artificially
      built in the form of a demi-cylinder; and this sanctuary
      communicated by several doors with the sacristy, the vestry, the
      baptistery, and the contiguous buildings, subservient either to
      the pomp of worship, or the private use of the ecclesiastical
      ministers. The memory of past calamities inspired Justinian with
      a wise resolution, that no wood, except for the doors, should be
      admitted into the new edifice; and the choice of the materials
      was applied to the strength, the lightness, or the splendor of
      the respective parts. The solid piles which contained the cupola
      were composed of huge blocks of freestone, hewn into squares and
      triangles, fortified by circles of iron, and firmly cemented by
      the infusion of lead and quicklime: but the weight of the cupola
      was diminished by the levity of its substance, which consists
      either of pumice-stone that floats in the water, or of bricks
      from the Isle of Rhodes, five times less ponderous than the
      ordinary sort. The whole frame of the edifice was constructed of
      brick; but those base materials were concealed by a crust of
      marble; and the inside of St. Sophia, the cupola, the two larger,
      and the six smaller, semi-domes, the walls, the hundred columns,
      and the pavement, delight even the eyes of Barbarians, with a
      rich and variegated picture. A poet, 105 who beheld the primitive
      lustre of St. Sophia, enumerates the colors, the shades, and the
      spots of ten or twelve marbles, jaspers, and porphyries, which
      nature had profusely diversified, and which were blended and
      contrasted as it were by a skilful painter. The triumph of Christ
      was adorned with the last spoils of Paganism, but the greater
      part of these costly stones was extracted from the quarries of
      Asia Minor, the isles and continent of Greece, Egypt, Africa, and
      Gaul. Eight columns of porphyry, which Aurelian had placed in the
      temple of the sun, were offered by the piety of a Roman matron;
      eight others of green marble were presented by the ambitious zeal
      of the magistrates of Ephesus: both are admirable by their size
      and beauty, but every order of architecture disclaims their
      fantastic capital. A variety of ornaments and figures was
      curiously expressed in mosaic; and the images of Christ, of the
      Virgin, of saints, and of angels, which have been defaced by
      Turkish fanaticism, were dangerously exposed to the superstition
      of the Greeks. According to the sanctity of each object, the
      precious metals were distributed in thin leaves or in solid
      masses. The balustrade of the choir, the capitals of the pillars,
      the ornaments of the doors and galleries, were of gilt bronze;
      the spectator was dazzled by the glittering aspect of the cupola;
      the sanctuary contained forty thousand pounds weight of silver;
      and the holy vases and vestments of the altar were of the purest
      gold, enriched with inestimable gems. Before the structure of the
      church had arisen two cubits above the ground, forty-five
      thousand two hundred pounds were already consumed; and the whole
      expense amounted to three hundred and twenty thousand: each
      reader, according to the measure of his belief, may estimate
      their value either in gold or silver; but the sum of one million
      sterling is the result of the lowest computation. A magnificent
      temple is a laudable monument of national taste and religion; and
      the enthusiast who entered the dome of St. Sophia might be
      tempted to suppose that it was the residence, or even the
      workmanship, of the Deity. Yet how dull is the artifice, how
      insignificant is the labor, if it be compared with the formation
      of the vilest insect that crawls upon the surface of the temple!

      103 (return) [Among the crowd of ancients and moderns who have
      celebrated the edifice of St. Sophia, I shall distinguish and
      follow, 1. Four original spectators and historians: Procopius,
      (de Edific. l. i. c. 1,) Agathias, (l. v. p. 152, 153,) Paul
      Silentiarius, (in a poem of 1026 hexameters, and calcem Annae
      Commen. Alexiad.,) and Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 31.) 2. Two legendary
      Greeks of a later period: George Codinus, (de Origin. C. P. p.
      64-74,) and the anonymous writer of Banduri, (Imp. Orient. tom.
      i. l. iv. p. 65—80.)3. The great Byzantine antiquarian. Ducange,
      (Comment. ad Paul Silentiar. p. 525—598, and C. P. Christ. l.
      iii. p. 5—78.) 4. Two French travellers—the one, Peter Gyllius,
      (de Topograph. C. P. l. ii. c. 3, 4,) in the xvith; the other,
      Grelot, (Voyage de C. P. p. 95—164, Paris, 1680, in 4to:) he has
      given plans, prospects, and inside views of St. Sophia; and his
      plans, though on a smaller scale, appear more correct than those
      of Ducange. I have adopted and reduced the measures of Grelot:
      but as no Christian can now ascend the dome, the height is
      borrowed from Evagrius, compared with Gyllius, Greaves, and the
      Oriental Geographer.]

      104 (return) [ Solomon’s temple was surrounded with courts,
      porticos, &c.; but the proper structure of the house of God was
      no more (if we take the Egyptian or Hebrew cubic at 22 inches)
      than 55 feet in height, 36 2/3 in breadth, and 110 in length—a
      small parish church, says Prideaux, (Connection, vol. i. p. 144,
      folio;) but few sanctuaries could be valued at four or five
      millions sterling! * Note *: Hist of Jews, vol i p 257.—M]

      105 (return) [ Paul Silentiarius, in dark and poetic language,
      describes the various stones and marbles that were employed in
      the edifice of St. Sophia, (P. ii. p. 129, 133, &c., &c.:)

      1. The Carystian—pale, with iron veins.

      2. The Phrygian—of two sorts, both of a rosy hue; the one with a
      white shade, the other purple, with silver flowers.

      3. The Porphyry of Egypt—with small stars.

      4. The green marble of Laconia.

      5. The Carian—from Mount Iassis, with oblique veins, white and
      red. 6. The Lydian—pale, with a red flower.

      7. The African, or Mauritanian—of a gold or saffron hue. 8. The
      Celtic—black, with white veins.

      9. The Bosphoric—white, with black edges. Besides the
      Proconnesian which formed the pavement; the Thessalian,
      Molossian, &c., which are less distinctly painted.]

      So minute a description of an edifice which time has respected,
      may attest the truth, and excuse the relation, of the innumerable
      works, both in the capital and provinces, which Justinian
      constructed on a smaller scale and less durable foundations. 106
      In Constantinople alone and the adjacent suburbs, he dedicated
      twenty-five churches to the honor of Christ, the Virgin, and the
      saints: most of these churches were decorated with marble and
      gold; and their various situation was skilfully chosen in a
      populous square, or a pleasant grove; on the margin of the
      sea-shore, or on some lofty eminence which overlooked the
      continents of Europe and Asia. The church of the Holy Apostles at
      Constantinople, and that of St. John at Ephesus, appear to have
      been framed on the same model: their domes aspired to imitate the
      cupolas of St. Sophia; but the altar was more judiciously placed
      under the centre of the dome, at the junction of four stately
      porticos, which more accurately expressed the figure of the Greek
      cross. The Virgin of Jerusalem might exult in the temple erected
      by her Imperial votary on a most ungrateful spot, which afforded
      neither ground nor materials to the architect. A level was formed
      by raising part of a deep valley to the height of the mountain.
      The stones of a neighboring quarry were hewn into regular forms;
      each block was fixed on a peculiar carriage, drawn by forty of
      the strongest oxen, and the roads were widened for the passage of
      such enormous weights. Lebanon furnished her loftiest cedars for
      the timbers of the church; and the seasonable discovery of a vein
      of red marble supplied its beautiful columns, two of which, the
      supporters of the exterior portico, were esteemed the largest in
      the world. The pious munificence of the emperor was diffused over
      the Holy Land; and if reason should condemn the monasteries of
      both sexes which were built or restored by Justinian, yet charity
      must applaud the wells which he sunk, and the hospitals which he
      founded, for the relief of the weary pilgrims. The schismatical
      temper of Egypt was ill entitled to the royal bounty; but in
      Syria and Africa, some remedies were applied to the disasters of
      wars and earthquakes, and both Carthage and Antioch, emerging
      from their ruins, might revere the name of their gracious
      benefactor. 107 Almost every saint in the calendar acquired the
      honors of a temple; almost every city of the empire obtained the
      solid advantages of bridges, hospitals, and aqueducts; but the
      severe liberality of the monarch disdained to indulge his
      subjects in the popular luxury of baths and theatres. While
      Justinian labored for the public service, he was not unmindful of
      his own dignity and ease. The Byzantine palace, which had been
      damaged by the conflagration, was restored with new magnificence;
      and some notion may be conceived of the whole edifice, by the
      vestibule or hall, which, from the doors perhaps, or the roof,
      was surnamed chalce, or the brazen. The dome of a spacious
      quadrangle was supported by massy pillars; the pavement and walls
      were incrusted with many-colored marbles—the emerald green of
      Laconia, the fiery red, and the white Phrygian stone, intersected
      with veins of a sea-green hue: the mosaic paintings of the dome
      and sides represented the glories of the African and Italian
      triumphs. On the Asiatic shore of the Propontis, at a small
      distance to the east of Chalcedon, the costly palace and gardens
      of Heraeum 108 were prepared for the summer residence of
      Justinian, and more especially of Theodora. The poets of the age
      have celebrated the rare alliance of nature and art, the harmony
      of the nymphs of the groves, the fountains, and the waves: yet
      the crowd of attendants who followed the court complained of
      their inconvenient lodgings, 109 and the nymphs were too often
      alarmed by the famous Porphyrio, a whale of ten cubits in
      breadth, and thirty in length, who was stranded at the mouth of
      the River Sangaris, after he had infested more than half a
      century the seas of Constantinople. 110

      106 (return) [ The six books of the Edifices of Procopius are
      thus distributed the first is confined to Constantinople: the
      second includes Mesopotamia and Syria the third, Armenia and the
      Euxine; the fourth, Europe; the fifth, Asia Minor and Palestine;
      the sixth, Egypt and Africa. Italy is forgot by the emperor or
      the historian, who published this work of adulation before the
      date (A.D. 555) of its final conquest.]

      107 (return) [ Justinian once gave forty-five centenaries of gold
      (180,000 L.) for the repairs of Antioch after the earthquake,
      (John Malala, tom. ii p 146—149.)]

      108 (return) [ For the Heraeum, the palace of Theodora, see
      Gyllius, (de Bosphoro Thracio, l. iii. c. xi.,) Aleman. (Not. ad.
      Anec. p. 80, 81, who quotes several epigrams of the Anthology,)
      and Ducange, (C. P. Christ. l. iv. c. 13, p. 175, 176.)]

      109 (return) [ Compare, in the Edifices, (l. i. c. 11,) and in
      the Anecdotes, (c. 8, 15.) the different styles of adulation and
      malevolence: stripped of the paint, or cleansed from the dirt,
      the object appears to be the same.]

      110 (return) [ Procopius, l. viii. 29; most probably a stranger
      and wanderer, as the Mediterranean does not breed whales.
      Balaenae quoque in nostra maria penetrant, (Plin. Hist. Natur.
      ix. 2.) Between the polar circle and the tropic, the cetaceous
      animals of the ocean grow to the length of 50, 80, or 100 feet,
      (Hist. des Voyages, tom. xv. p. 289. Pennant’s British Zoology,
      vol. iii. p. 35.)]

      The fortifications of Europe and Asia were multiplied by
      Justinian; but the repetition of those timid and fruitless
      precautions exposes, to a philosophic eye, the debility of the
      empire. 111 From Belgrade to the Euxine, from the conflux of the
      Save to the mouth of the Danube, a chain of above fourscore
      fortified places was extended along the banks of the great river.
      Single watch-towers were changed into spacious citadels; vacant
      walls, which the engineers contracted or enlarged according to
      the nature of the ground, were filled with colonies or garrisons;
      a strong fortress defended the ruins of Trajan’s bridge, 112 and
      several military stations affected to spread beyond the Danube
      the pride of the Roman name. But that name was divested of its
      terrors; the Barbarians, in their annual inroads, passed, and
      contemptuously repassed, before these useless bulwarks; and the
      inhabitants of the frontier, instead of reposing under the shadow
      of the general defence, were compelled to guard, with incessant
      vigilance, their separate habitations. The solitude of ancient
      cities, was replenished; the new foundations of Justinian
      acquired, perhaps too hastily, the epithets of impregnable and
      populous; and the auspicious place of his own nativity attracted
      the grateful reverence of the vainest of princes. Under the name
      of Justiniana prima, the obscure village of Tauresium became the
      seat of an archbishop and a praefect, whose jurisdiction extended
      over seven warlike provinces of Illyricum; 113 and the corrupt
      appellation of Giustendil still indicates, about twenty miles to
      the south of Sophia, the residence of a Turkish sanjak. 114 For
      the use of the emperor’s countryman, a cathedral, a place, and an
      aqueduct, were speedily constructed; the public and private
      edifices were adapted to the greatness of a royal city; and the
      strength of the walls resisted, during the lifetime of Justinian,
      the unskilful assaults of the Huns and Sclavonians. Their
      progress was sometimes retarded, and their hopes of rapine were
      disappointed, by the innumerable castles which, in the provinces
      of Dacia, Epirus, Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace, appeared to
      cover the whole face of the country. Six hundred of these forts
      were built or repaired by the emperor; but it seems reasonable to
      believe, that the far greater part consisted only of a stone or
      brick tower, in the midst of a square or circular area, which was
      surrounded by a wall and ditch, and afforded in a moment of
      danger some protection to the peasants and cattle of the
      neighboring villages. 115 Yet these military works, which
      exhausted the public treasure, could not remove the just
      apprehensions of Justinian and his European subjects. The warm
      baths of Anchialus in Thrace were rendered as safe as they were
      salutary; but the rich pastures of Thessalonica were foraged by
      the Scythian cavalry; the delicious vale of Tempe, three hundred
      miles from the Danube, was continually alarmed by the sound of
      war; 116 and no unfortified spot, however distant or solitary,
      could securely enjoy the blessings of peace. The Straits of
      Thermopylae, which seemed to protect, but which had so often
      betrayed, the safety of Greece, were diligently strengthened by
      the labors of Justinian. From the edge of the sea-shore, through
      the forests and valleys, and as far as the summit of the
      Thessalian mountains, a strong wall was continued, which occupied
      every practicable entrance. Instead of a hasty crowd of peasants,
      a garrison of two thousand soldiers was stationed along the
      rampart; granaries of corn and reservoirs of water were provided
      for their use; and by a precaution that inspired the cowardice
      which it foresaw, convenient fortresses were erected for their
      retreat. The walls of Corinth, overthrown by an earthquake, and
      the mouldering bulwarks of Athens and Plataea, were carefully
      restored; the Barbarians were discouraged by the prospect of
      successive and painful sieges: and the naked cities of
      Peloponnesus were covered by the fortifications of the Isthmus of
      Corinth. At the extremity of Europe, another peninsula, the
      Thracian Chersonesus, runs three days’ journey into the sea, to
      form, with the adjacent shores of Asia, the Straits of the
      Hellespont. The intervals between eleven populous towns were
      filled by lofty woods, fair pastures, and arable lands; and the
      isthmus, of thirty seven stadia or furlongs, had been fortified
      by a Spartan general nine hundred years before the reign of
      Justinian. 117 In an age of freedom and valor, the slightest
      rampart may prevent a surprise; and Procopius appears insensible
      of the superiority of ancient times, while he praises the solid
      construction and double parapet of a wall, whose long arms
      stretched on either side into the sea; but whose strength was
      deemed insufficient to guard the Chersonesus, if each city, and
      particularly Gallipoli and Sestus, had not been secured by their
      peculiar fortifications. The long wall, as it was emphatically
      styled, was a work as disgraceful in the object, as it was
      respectable in the execution. The riches of a capital diffuse
      themselves over the neighboring country, and the territory of
      Constantinople a paradise of nature, was adorned with the
      luxurious gardens and villas of the senators and opulent
      citizens. But their wealth served only to attract the bold and
      rapacious Barbarians; the noblest of the Romans, in the bosom of
      peaceful indolence, were led away into Scythian captivity, and
      their sovereign might view from his palace the hostile flames
      which were insolently spread to the gates of the Imperial city.
      At the distance only of forty miles, Anastasius was constrained
      to establish a last frontier; his long wall, of sixty miles from
      the Propontis to the Euxine, proclaimed the impotence of his
      arms; and as the danger became more imminent, new fortifications
      were added by the indefatigable prudence of Justinian. 118

      111 (return) [ Montesquieu observes, (tom. iii. p. 503,
      Considerations sur la Grandeur et la Decadence des Romains, c.
      xx.,) that Justinian’s empire was like France in the time of the
      Norman inroads—never so weak as when every village was
      fortified.]

      112 (return) [ Procopius affirms (l. iv. c. 6) that the Danube
      was stopped by the ruins of the bridge. Had Apollodorus, the
      architect, left a description of his own work, the fabulous
      wonders of Dion Cassius (l lxviii. p. 1129) would have been
      corrected by the genuine picture Trajan’s bridge consisted of
      twenty or twenty-two stone piles with wooden arches; the river is
      shallow, the current gentle, and the whole interval no more than
      443 (Reimer ad Dion. from Marsigli) or 5l7 toises, (D’Anville,
      Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 305.)]

      113 (return) [ Of the two Dacias, Mediterranea and Ripensis,
      Dardania, Pravalitana, the second Maesia, and the second
      Macedonia. See Justinian (Novell. xi.,) who speaks of his castles
      beyond the Danube, and on omines semper bellicis sudoribus
      inhaerentes.]

      114 (return) [ See D’Anville, (Memoires de l’Academie, &c., tom.
      xxxi p. 280, 299,) Rycaut, (Present State of the Turkish Empire,
      p. 97, 316,) Max sigli, (Stato Militare del Imperio Ottomano, p.
      130.) The sanjak of Giustendil is one of the twenty under the
      beglerbeg of Rurselis, and his district maintains 48 zaims and
      588 timariots.]

      115 (return) [ These fortifications may be compared to the
      castles in Mingrelia (Chardin, Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 60,
      131)—a natural picture.]

      116 (return) [ The valley of Tempe is situate along the River
      Peneus, between the hills of Ossa and Olympus: it is only five
      miles long, and in some places no more than 120 feet in breadth.
      Its verdant beauties are elegantly described by Pliny, (Hist.
      Natur. l. iv. 15,) and more diffusely by Aelian, (Hist. Var. l.
      iii. c. i.)]

      117 (return) [ Xenophon Hellenic. l. iii. c. 2. After a long and
      tedious conversation with the Byzantine declaimers, how
      refreshing is the truth, the simplicity, the elegance of an Attic
      writer!]

      118 (return) [ See the long wall in Evagarius, (l. iv. c. 38.)
      This whole article is drawn from the fourth book of the Edifices,
      except Anchialus, (l. iii. c. 7.)]

      Asia Minor, after the submission of the Isaurians, 119 remained
      without enemies and without fortifications. Those bold savages,
      who had disdained to be the subjects of Gallienus, persisted two
      hundred and thirty years in a life of independence and rapine.
      The most successful princes respected the strength of the
      mountains and the despair of the natives; their fierce spirit was
      sometimes soothed with gifts, and sometimes restrained by terror;
      and a military count, with three legions, fixed his permanent and
      ignominious station in the heart of the Roman provinces. 120 But
      no sooner was the vigilance of power relaxed or diverted, than
      the light-armed squadrons descended from the hills, and invaded
      the peaceful plenty of Asia. Although the Isaurians were not
      remarkable for stature or bravery, want rendered them bold, and
      experience made them skilful in the exercise of predatory war.
      They advanced with secrecy and speed to the attack of villages
      and defenceless towns; their flying parties have sometimes
      touched the Hellespont, the Euxine, and the gates of Tarsus,
      Antioch, or Damascus; 121 and the spoil was lodged in their
      inaccessible mountains, before the Roman troops had received
      their orders, or the distant province had computed its loss. The
      guilt of rebellion and robbery excluded them from the rights of
      national enemies; and the magistrates were instructed, by an
      edict, that the trial or punishment of an Isaurian, even on the
      festival of Easter, was a meritorious act of justice and piety.
      122 If the captives were condemned to domestic slavery, they
      maintained, with their sword or dagger, the private quarrel of
      their masters; and it was found expedient for the public
      tranquillity to prohibit the service of such dangerous retainers.
      When their countryman Tarcalissaeus or Zeno ascended the throne,
      he invited a faithful and formidable band of Isaurians, who
      insulted the court and city, and were rewarded by an annual
      tribute of five thousand pounds of gold. But the hopes of fortune
      depopulated the mountains, luxury enervated the hardiness of
      their minds and bodies, and in proportion as they mixed with
      mankind, they became less qualified for the enjoyment of poor and
      solitary freedom. After the death of Zeno, his successor
      Anastasius suppressed their pensions, exposed their persons to
      the revenge of the people, banished them from Constantinople, and
      prepared to sustain a war, which left only the alternative of
      victory or servitude. A brother of the last emperor usurped the
      title of Augustus; his cause was powerfully supported by the
      arms, the treasures, and the magazines, collected by Zeno; and
      the native Isaurians must have formed the smallest portion of the
      hundred and fifty thousand Barbarians under his standard, which
      was sanctified, for the first time, by the presence of a fighting
      bishop. Their disorderly numbers were vanquished in the plains of
      Phrygia by the valor and discipline of the Goths; but a war of
      six years almost exhausted the courage of the emperor. 123 The
      Isaurians retired to their mountains; their fortresses were
      successively besieged and ruined; their communication with the
      sea was intercepted; the bravest of their leaders died in arms;
      the surviving chiefs, before their execution, were dragged in
      chains through the hippodrome; a colony of their youth was
      transplanted into Thrace, and the remnant of the people submitted
      to the Roman government. Yet some generations elapsed before
      their minds were reduced to the level of slavery. The populous
      villages of Mount Taurus were filled with horsemen and archers:
      they resisted the imposition of tributes, but they recruited the
      armies of Justinian; and his civil magistrates, the proconsul of
      Cappadocia, the count of Isauria, and the praetors of Lycaonia
      and Pisidia, were invested with military power to restrain the
      licentious practice of rapes and assassinations. 124

      119 (return) [ Turn back to vol. i. p. 328. In the course of this
      History, I have sometimes mentioned, and much oftener slighted,
      the hasty inroads of the Isaurians, which were not attended with
      any consequences.]

      120 (return) [ Trebellius Pollio in Hist. August. p. 107, who
      lived under Diocletian, or Constantine. See likewise Pancirolus
      ad Notit. Imp. Orient c. 115, 141. See Cod. Theodos. l. ix. tit.
      35, leg. 37, with a copious collective Annotation of Godefroy,
      tom. iii. p. 256, 257.]

      121 (return) [ See the full and wide extent of their inroads in
      Philostorgius (Hist. Eccles. l. xi. c. 8,) with Godefroy’s
      learned Dissertations.]

      122 (return) [ Cod. Justinian. l. ix. tit. 12, leg. 10. The
      punishments are severs—a fine of a hundred pounds of gold,
      degradation, and even death. The public peace might afford a
      pretence, but Zeno was desirous of monopolizing the valor and
      service of the Isaurians.]

      123 (return) [ The Isaurian war and the triumph of Anastasius are
      briefly and darkly represented by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 106,
      107,) Evagrius, (l. iii. c. 35,) Theophanes, (p. 118—120,) and
      the Chronicle of Marcellinus.]

      124 (return) [ Fortes ea regio (says Justinian) viros habet, nec
      in ullo differt ab Isauria, though Procopius (Persic. l. i. c.
      18) marks an essential difference between their military
      character; yet in former times the Lycaonians and Pisidians had
      defended their liberty against the great king, Xenophon.
      (Anabasis, l. iii. c. 2.) Justinian introduces some false and
      ridiculous erudition of the ancient empire of the Pisidians, and
      of Lycaon, who, after visiting Rome, (long before Aeenas,) gave a
      name and people to Lycaoni, (Novell. 24, 25, 27, 30.)]




      Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part V.

      If we extend our view from the tropic to the mouth of the Tanais,
      we may observe, on one hand, the precautions of Justinian to curb
      the savages of Aethiopia, 125 and on the other, the long walls
      which he constructed in Crimaea for the protection of his
      friendly Goths, a colony of three thousand shepherds and
      warriors. 126 From that peninsula to Trebizond, the eastern curve
      of the Euxine was secured by forts, by alliance, or by religion;
      and the possession of Lazica, the Colchos of ancient, the
      Mingrelia of modern, geography, soon became the object of an
      important war. Trebizond, in after-times the seat of a romantic
      empire, was indebted to the liberality of Justinian for a church,
      an aqueduct, and a castle, whose ditches are hewn in the solid
      rock. From that maritime city, frontier line of five hundred
      miles may be drawn to the fortress of Circesium, the last Roman
      station on the Euphrates. 127 Above Trebizond immediately, and
      five days’ journey to the south, the country rises into dark
      forests and craggy mountains, as savage though not so lofty as
      the Alps and the Pyrenees. In this rigorous climate, 128 where
      the snows seldom melt, the fruits are tardy and tasteless, even
      honey is poisonous: the most industrious tillage would be
      confined to some pleasant valleys; and the pastoral tribes
      obtained a scanty sustenance from the flesh and milk of their
      cattle. The Chalybians 129 derived their name and temper from the
      iron quality of the soil; and, since the days of Cyrus, they
      might produce, under the various appellations of Cha daeans and
      Zanians, an uninterrupted prescription of war and rapine. Under
      the reign of Justinian, they acknowledged the god and the emperor
      of the Romans, and seven fortresses were built in the most
      accessible passages, to exclude the ambition of the Persian
      monarch. 130 The principal source of the Euphrates descends from
      the Chalybian mountains, and seems to flow towards the west and
      the Euxine: bending to the south-west, the river passes under the
      walls of Satala and Melitene, (which were restored by Justinian
      as the bulwarks of the Lesser Armenia,) and gradually approaches
      the Mediterranean Sea; till at length, repelled by Mount Taurus,
      131 the Euphrates inclines its long and flexible course to the
      south-east and the Gulf of Persia. Among the Roman cities beyond
      the Euphrates, we distinguish two recent foundations, which were
      named from Theodosius, and the relics of the martyrs; and two
      capitals, Amida and Edessa, which are celebrated in the history
      of every age. Their strength was proportioned by Justinian to the
      danger of their situation. A ditch and palisade might be
      sufficient to resist the artless force of the cavalry of Scythia;
      but more elaborate works were required to sustain a regular siege
      against the arms and treasures of the great king. His skilful
      engineers understood the methods of conducting deep mines, and of
      raising platforms to the level of the rampart: he shook the
      strongest battlements with his military engines, and sometimes
      advanced to the assault with a line of movable turrets on the
      backs of elephants. In the great cities of the East, the
      disadvantage of space, perhaps of position, was compensated by
      the zeal of the people, who seconded the garrison in the defence
      of their country and religion; and the fabulous promise of the
      Son of God, that Edessa should never be taken, filled the
      citizens with valiant confidence, and chilled the besiegers with
      doubt and dismay. 132 The subordinate towns of Armenia and
      Mesopotamia were diligently strengthened, and the posts which
      appeared to have any command of ground or water were occupied by
      numerous forts, substantially built of stone, or more hastily
      erected with the obvious materials of earth and brick. The eye of
      Justinian investigated every spot; and his cruel precautions
      might attract the war into some lonely vale, whose peaceful
      natives, connected by trade and marriage, were ignorant of
      national discord and the quarrels of princes. Westward of the
      Euphrates, a sandy desert extends above six hundred miles to the
      Red Sea. Nature had interposed a vacant solitude between the
      ambition of two rival empires; the Arabians, till Mahomet arose,
      were formidable only as robbers; and in the proud security of
      peace the fortifications of Syria were neglected on the most
      vulnerable side.

      125 (return) [ See Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 19. The altar of
      national concern, of annual sacrifice and oaths, which Diocletian
      had created in the Isla of Elephantine, was demolished by
      Justinian with less policy than]

      126 (return) [ Procopius de Edificiis, l. iii. c. 7. Hist. l.
      viii. c. 3, 4. These unambitious Goths had refused to follow the
      standard of Theodoric. As late as the xvth and xvith century, the
      name and nation might be discovered between Caffa and the Straits
      of Azoph, (D’Anville, Memoires de l’academie, tom. xxx. p. 240.)
      They well deserved the curiosity of Busbequius, (p. 321-326;) but
      seem to have vanished in the more recent account of the Missions
      du Levant, (tom. i.,) Tott, Peysonnnel, &c.]

      127 (return) [ For the geography and architecture of this
      Armenian border, see the Persian Wars and Edifices (l. ii. c.
      4-7, l. iii. c. 2—7) of Procopius.]

      128 (return) [ The country is described by Tournefort, (Voyage au
      Levant, tom. iii. lettre xvii. xviii.) That skilful botanist soon
      discovered the plant that infects the honey, (Plin. xxi. 44, 45:)
      he observes, that the soldiers of Lucullus might indeed be
      astonished at the cold, since, even in the plain of Erzerum, snow
      sometimes falls in June, and the harvest is seldom finished
      before September. The hills of Armenia are below the fortieth
      degree of latitude; but in the mountainous country which I
      inhabit, it is well known that an ascent of some hours carries
      the traveller from the climate of Languedoc to that of Norway;
      and a general theory has been introduced, that, under the line,
      an elevation of 2400 toises is equivalent to the cold of the
      polar circle, (Remond, Observations sur les Voyages de Coxe dans
      la Suisse, tom. ii. p. 104.)]

      129 (return) [ The identity or proximity of the Chalybians, or
      Chaldaeana may be investigated in Strabo, (l. xii. p. 825, 826,)
      Cellarius, (Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 202—204,) and Freret,
      (Mem. de Academie, tom. iv. p. 594) Xenophon supposes, in his
      romance, (Cyropaed l. iii.,) the same Barbarians, against whom he
      had fought in his retreat, (Anabasis, l. iv.)]

      130 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 15. De Edific. l. iii.
      c. 6.]

      131 (return) [ Ni Taurus obstet in nostra maria venturus,
      (Pomponius Mela, iii. 8.) Pliny, a poet as well as a naturalist,
      (v. 20,) personifies the river and mountain, and describes their
      combat. See the course of the Tigris and Euphrates in the
      excellent treatise of D’Anville.]

      132 (return) [ Procopius (Persic. l. ii. c. 12) tells the story
      with the tone, half sceptical, half superstitious, of Herodotus.
      The promise was not in the primitive lie of Eusebius, but dates
      at least from the year 400; and a third lie, the Veronica, was
      soon raised on the two former, (Evagrius, l. iv. c. 27.) As
      Edessa has been taken, Tillemont must disclaim the promise, (Mem.
      Eccles. tom. i. p. 362, 383, 617.)]

      But the national enmity, at least the effects of that enmity, had
      been suspended by a truce, which continued above fourscore years.
      An ambassador from the emperor Zeno accompanied the rash and
      unfortunate Perozes, 1321 in his expedition against the
      Nepthalites, 1322 or white Huns, whose conquests had been
      stretched from the Caspian to the heart of India, whose throne
      was enriched with emeralds, 133 and whose cavalry was supported
      by a line of two thousand elephants. 134 The Persians 1341 were
      twice circumvented, in a situation which made valor useless and
      flight impossible; and the double victory of the Huns was
      achieved by military stratagem. They dismissed their royal
      captive after he had submitted to adore the majesty of a
      Barbarian; and the humiliation was poorly evaded by the
      casuistical subtlety of the Magi, who instructed Perozes to
      direct his attention to the rising sun. 1342 The indignant
      successor of Cyrus forgot his danger and his gratitude; he
      renewed the attack with headstrong fury, and lost both his army
      and his life. 135 The death of Perozes abandoned Persia to her
      foreign and domestic enemies; 1351 and twelve years of confusion
      elapsed before his son Cabades, or Kobad, could embrace any
      designs of ambition or revenge. The unkind parsimony of
      Anastasius was the motive or pretence of a Roman war; 136 the
      Huns and Arabs marched under the Persian standard, and the
      fortifications of Armenia and Mesopotamia were, at that time, in
      a ruinous or imperfect condition. The emperor returned his thanks
      to the governor and people of Martyropolis for the prompt
      surrender of a city which could not be successfully defended, and
      the conflagration of Theodosiopolis might justify the conduct of
      their prudent neighbors. Amida sustained a long and destructive
      siege: at the end of three months the loss of fifty thousand of
      the soldiers of Cabades was not balanced by any prospect of
      success, and it was in vain that the Magi deduced a flattering
      prediction from the indecency of the women 1361 on the ramparts,
      who had revealed their most secret charms to the eyes of the
      assailants. At length, in a silent night, they ascended the most
      accessible tower, which was guarded only by some monks,
      oppressed, after the duties of a festival, with sleep and wine.
      Scaling-ladders were applied at the dawn of day; the presence of
      Cabades, his stern command, and his drawn sword, compelled the
      Persians to vanquish; and before it was sheathed, fourscore
      thousand of the inhabitants had expiated the blood of their
      companions. After the siege of Amida, the war continued three
      years, and the unhappy frontier tasted the full measure of its
      calamities. The gold of Anastasius was offered too late, the
      number of his troops was defeated by the number of their
      generals; the country was stripped of its inhabitants, and both
      the living and the dead were abandoned to the wild beasts of the
      desert. The resistance of Edessa, and the deficiency of spoil,
      inclined the mind of Cabades to peace: he sold his conquests for
      an exorbitant price; and the same line, though marked with
      slaughter and devastation, still separated the two empires. To
      avert the repetition of the same evils, Anastasius resolved to
      found a new colony, so strong, that it should defy the power of
      the Persian, so far advanced towards Assyria, that its stationary
      troops might defend the province by the menace or operation of
      offensive war. For this purpose, the town of Dara, 137 fourteen
      miles from Nisibis, and four days’ journey from the Tigris, was
      peopled and adorned; the hasty works of Anastasius were improved
      by the perseverance of Justinian; and, without insisting on
      places less important, the fortifications of Dara may represent
      the military architecture of the age. The city was surrounded
      with two walls, and the interval between them, of fifty paces,
      afforded a retreat to the cattle of the besieged. The inner wall
      was a monument of strength and beauty: it measured sixty feet
      from the ground, and the height of the towers was one hundred
      feet; the loopholes, from whence an enemy might be annoyed with
      missile weapons, were small, but numerous; the soldiers were
      planted along the rampart, under the shelter of double galleries,
      and a third platform, spacious and secure, was raised on the
      summit of the towers. The exterior wall appears to have been less
      lofty, but more solid; and each tower was protected by a
      quadrangular bulwark. A hard, rocky soil resisted the tools of
      the miners, and on the south-east, where the ground was more
      tractable, their approach was retarded by a new work, which
      advanced in the shape of a half-moon. The double and treble
      ditches were filled with a stream of water; and in the management
      of the river, the most skilful labor was employed to supply the
      inhabitants, to distress the besiegers, and to prevent the
      mischiefs of a natural or artificial inundation. Dara continued
      more than sixty years to fulfil the wishes of its founders, and
      to provoke the jealousy of the Persians, who incessantly
      complained, that this impregnable fortress had been constructed
      in manifest violation of the treaty of peace between the two
      empires. 1371

      1321 (return) [ Firouz the Conqueror—unfortunately so named. See
      St. Martin, vol. vi. p. 439.—M.]

      1322 (return) [ Rather Hepthalites.—M.]

      133 (return) [ They were purchased from the merchants of Adulis
      who traded to India, (Cosmas, Topograph. Christ. l. xi. p. 339;)
      yet, in the estimate of precious stones, the Scythian emerald was
      the first, the Bactrian the second, the Aethiopian only the
      third, (Hill’s Theophrastus, p. 61, &c., 92.) The production,
      mines, &c., of emeralds, are involved in darkness; and it is
      doubtful whether we possess any of the twelve sorts known to the
      ancients, (Goguet, Origine des Loix, &c., part ii. l. ii. c. 2,
      art. 3.) In this war the Huns got, or at least Perozes lost, the
      finest pearl in the world, of which Procopius relates a
      ridiculous fable.]

      134 (return) [ The Indo-Scythae continued to reign from the time
      of Augustus (Dionys. Perieget. 1088, with the Commentary of
      Eustathius, in Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. iv.) to that of the
      elder Justin, (Cosmas, Topograph. Christ. l. xi. p. 338, 339.) On
      their origin and conquests, see D’Anville, (sur l’Inde, p. 18,
      45, &c., 69, 85, 89.) In the second century they were masters of
      Larice or Guzerat.]

      1341 (return) [ According to the Persian historians, he was
      misled by guides who used he old stratagem of Zopyrus. Malcolm,
      vol. i. p. 101.—M.]

      1342 (return) [ In the Ms. Chronicle of Tabary, it is said that
      the Moubedan Mobed, or Grand Pontiff, opposed with all his
      influence the violation of the treaty. St. Martin, vol. vii. p.
      254.—M.]

      135 (return) [ See the fate of Phirouz, or Perozes, and its
      consequences, in Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 3—6,) who may be
      compared with the fragments of Oriental history, (D’Herbelot,
      Bibliot. Orient. p. 351, and Texeira, History of Persia,
      translated or abridged by Stephens, l. i. c. 32, p. 132—138.) The
      chronology is ably ascertained by Asseman. (Bibliot. Orient. tom.
      iii. p. 396—427.)]

      1351 (return) [ When Firoze advanced, Khoosh-Nuaz (the king of
      the Huns) presented on the point of a lance the treaty to which
      he had sworn, and exhorted him yet to desist before he destroyed
      his fame forever. Malcolm, vol. i. p. 103.—M.]

      136 (return) [ The Persian war, under the reigns of Anastasius
      and Justin, may be collected from Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 7,
      8, 9,) Theophanes, (in Chronograph. p. 124—127,) Evagrius, (l.
      iii. c. 37,) Marcellinus, (in Chron. p. 47,) and Josue Stylites,
      (apud Asseman. tom. i. p. 272—281.)]

      1361 (return) [ Gibbon should have written “some prostitutes.”
      Proc Pers. vol. 1 p. 7.—M.]

      137 (return) [ The description of Dara is amply and correctly
      given by Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 10, l. ii. c. 13. De
      Edific. l. ii. c. 1, 2, 3, l. iii. c. 5.) See the situation in
      D’Anville, (l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 53, 54, 55,) though he
      seems to double the interval between Dara and Nisibis.]

      1371 (return) [ The situation (of Dara) does not appear to give
      it strength, as it must have been commanded on three sides by the
      mountains, but opening on the south towards the plains of
      Mesopotamia. The foundation of the walls and towers, built of
      large hewn stone, may be traced across the valley, and over a
      number of low rocky hills which branch out from the foot of Mount
      Masius. The circumference I conceive to be nearly two miles and a
      half; and a small stream, which flows through the middle of the
      place, has induced several Koordish and Armenian families to fix
      their residence within the ruins. Besides the walls and towers,
      the remains of many other buildings attest the former grandeur of
      Dara; a considerable part of the space within the walls is arched
      and vaulted underneath, and in one place we perceived a large
      cavern, supported by four ponderous columns, somewhat resembling
      the great cistern of Constantinople. In the centre of the village
      are the ruins of a palace (probably that mentioned by Procopius)
      or church, one hundred paces in length, and sixty in breadth. The
      foundations, which are quite entire, consist of a prodigious
      number of subterraneous vaulted chambers, entered by a narrow
      passage forty paces in length. The gate is still standing; a
      considerable part of the wall has bid defiance to time, &c. M
      Donald Kinneir’s Journey, p. 438.—M]

      Between the Euxine and the Caspian, the countries of Colchos,
      Iberia, and Albania, are intersected in every direction by the
      branches of Mount Caucasus; and the two principal gates, or
      passes, from north to south, have been frequently confounded in
      the geography both of the ancients and moderns. The name of
      Caspian or Albanian gates is properly applied to Derbend, 138
      which occupies a short declivity between the mountains and the
      sea: the city, if we give credit to local tradition, had been
      founded by the Greeks; and this dangerous entrance was fortified
      by the kings of Persia with a mole, double walls, and doors of
      iron. The Iberian gates 139 1391 are formed by a narrow passage
      of six miles in Mount Caucasus, which opens from the northern
      side of Iberia, or Georgia, into the plain that reaches to the
      Tanais and the Volga. A fortress, designed by Alexander perhaps,
      or one of his successors, to command that important pass, had
      descended by right of conquest or inheritance to a prince of the
      Huns, who offered it for a moderate price to the emperor; but
      while Anastasius paused, while he timorously computed the cost
      and the distance, a more vigilant rival interposed, and Cabades
      forcibly occupied the Straits of Caucasus. The Albanian and
      Iberian gates excluded the horsemen of Scythia from the shortest
      and most practicable roads, and the whole front of the mountains
      was covered by the rampart of Gog and Magog, the long wall which
      has excited the curiosity of an Arabian caliph 140 and a Russian
      conqueror. 141 According to a recent description, huge stones,
      seven feet thick, and twenty-one feet in length or height, are
      artificially joined without iron or cement, to compose a wall,
      which runs above three hundred miles from the shores of Derbend,
      over the hills, and through the valleys of Daghestan and Georgia.

      Without a vision, such a work might be undertaken by the policy
      of Cabades; without a miracle, it might be accomplished by his
      son, so formidable to the Romans, under the name of Chosroes; so
      dear to the Orientals, under the appellation of Nushirwan. The
      Persian monarch held in his hand the keys both of peace and war;
      but he stipulated, in every treaty, that Justinian should
      contribute to the expense of a common barrier, which equally
      protected the two empires from the inroads of the Scythians. 142

      138 (return) [ For the city and pass of Derbend, see D’Herbelot,
      (Bibliot. Orient. p. 157, 291, 807,) Petit de la Croix. (Hist. de
      Gengiscan, l. iv. c. 9,) Histoire Genealogique des Tatars, (tom.
      i. p. 120,) Olearius, (Voyage en Perse, p. 1039—1041,) and
      Corneille le Bruyn, (Voyages, tom. i. p. 146, 147:) his view may
      be compared with the plan of Olearius, who judges the wall to be
      of shells and gravel hardened by time.]

      139 (return) [ Procopius, though with some confusion, always
      denominates them Caspian, (Persic. l. i. c. 10.) The pass is now
      styled Tatar-topa, the Tartar-gates, (D’Anville, Geographie
      Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 119, 120.)]

      1391 (return) [ Malte-Brun. tom. viii. p. 12, makes three passes:
      1. The central, which leads from Mosdok to Teflis. 2. The
      Albanian, more inland than the Derbend Pass. 3. The Derbend—the
      Caspian Gates. But the narrative of Col. Monteith, in the Journal
      of the Geographical Society of London. vol. iii. p. i. p. 39,
      clearly shows that there are but two passes between the Black Sea
      and the Caspian; the central, the Caucasian, or, as Col. Monteith
      calls it, the Caspian Gates, and the pass of Derbend, though it
      is practicable to turn this position (of Derbend) by a road a few
      miles distant through the mountains, p. 40.—M.]

      140 (return) [ The imaginary rampart of Gog and Magog, which was
      seriously explored and believed by a caliph of the ninth century,
      appears to be derived from the gates of Mount Caucasus, and a
      vague report of the wall of China, (Geograph. Nubiensis, p.
      267-270. Memoires de l’Academie, tom. xxxi. p. 210—219.)]

      141 (return) [ See a learned dissertation of Baier, de muro
      Caucaseo, in Comment. Acad. Petropol. ann. 1726, tom. i. p.
      425-463; but it is destitute of a map or plan. When the czar
      Peter I. became master of Derbend in the year 1722, the measure
      of the wall was found to be 3285 Russian orgyioe, or fathom, each
      of seven feet English; in the whole somewhat more than four miles
      in length.]

      142 (return) [ See the fortifications and treaties of Chosroes,
      or Nushirwan, in Procopius (Persic. l. i. c. 16, 22, l. ii.) and
      D’Herbelot, (p. 682.)] VII. Justinian suppressed the schools of
      Athens and the consulship of Rome, which had given so many sages
      and heroes to mankind. Both these institutions had long since
      degenerated from their primitive glory; yet some reproach may be
      justly inflicted on the avarice and jealousy of a prince, by
      whose hand such venerable ruins were destroyed.

      Athens, after her Persian triumphs, adopted the philosophy of
      Ionia and the rhetoric of Sicily; and these studies became the
      patrimony of a city, whose inhabitants, about thirty thousand
      males, condensed, within the period of a single life, the genius
      of ages and millions. Our sense of the dignity of human nature is
      exalted by the simple recollection, that Isocrates 143 was the
      companion of Plato and Xenophon; that he assisted, perhaps with
      the historian Thucydides, at the first representation of the
      Oedipus of Sophocles and the Iphigenia of Euripides; and that his
      pupils Aeschines and Demosthenes contended for the crown of
      patriotism in the presence of Aristotle, the master of
      Theophrastus, who taught at Athens with the founders of the Stoic
      and Epicurean sects. 144 The ingenuous youth of Attica enjoyed
      the benefits of their domestic education, which was communicated
      without envy to the rival cities. Two thousand disciples heard
      the lessons of Theophrastus; 145 the schools of rhetoric must
      have been still more populous than those of philosophy; and a
      rapid succession of students diffused the fame of their teachers
      as far as the utmost limits of the Grecian language and name.
      Those limits were enlarged by the victories of Alexander; the
      arts of Athens survived her freedom and dominion; and the Greek
      colonies which the Macedonians planted in Egypt, and scattered
      over Asia, undertook long and frequent pilgrimages to worship the
      Muses in their favorite temple on the banks of the Ilissus. The
      Latin conquerors respectfully listened to the instructions of
      their subjects and captives; the names of Cicero and Horace were
      enrolled in the schools of Athens; and after the perfect
      settlement of the Roman empire, the natives of Italy, of Africa,
      and of Britain, conversed in the groves of the academy with their
      fellow-students of the East. The studies of philosophy and
      eloquence are congenial to a popular state, which encourages the
      freedom of inquiry, and submits only to the force of persuasion.
      In the republics of Greece and Rome, the art of speaking was the
      powerful engine of patriotism or ambition; and the schools of
      rhetoric poured forth a colony of statesmen and legislators. When
      the liberty of public debate was suppressed, the orator, in the
      honorable profession of an advocate, might plead the cause of
      innocence and justice; he might abuse his talents in the more
      profitable trade of panegyric; and the same precepts continued to
      dictate the fanciful declamations of the sophist, and the chaster
      beauties of historical composition. The systems which professed
      to unfold the nature of God, of man, and of the universe,
      entertained the curiosity of the philosophic student; and
      according to the temper of his mind, he might doubt with the
      Sceptics, or decide with the Stoics, sublimely speculate with
      Plato, or severely argue with Aristotle. The pride of the adverse
      sects had fixed an unattainable term of moral happiness and
      perfection; but the race was glorious and salutary; the disciples
      of Zeno, and even those of Epicurus, were taught both to act and
      to suffer; and the death of Petronius was not less effectual than
      that of Seneca, to humble a tyrant by the discovery of his
      impotence. The light of science could not indeed be confined
      within the walls of Athens. Her incomparable writers address
      themselves to the human race; the living masters emigrated to
      Italy and Asia; Berytus, in later times, was devoted to the study
      of the law; astronomy and physic were cultivated in the musaeum
      of Alexandria; but the Attic schools of rhetoric and philosophy
      maintained their superior reputation from the Peloponnesian war
      to the reign of Justinian. Athens, though situate in a barren
      soil, possessed a pure air, a free navigation, and the monuments
      of ancient art. That sacred retirement was seldom disturbed by
      the business of trade or government; and the last of the
      Athenians were distinguished by their lively wit, the purity of
      their taste and language, their social manners, and some traces,
      at least in discourse, of the magnanimity of their fathers. In
      the suburbs of the city, the academy of the Platonists, the
      lycaeum of the Peripatetics, the portico of the Stoics, and the
      garden of the Epicureans, were planted with trees and decorated
      with statues; and the philosophers, instead of being immured in a
      cloister, delivered their instructions in spacious and pleasant
      walks, which, at different hours, were consecrated to the
      exercises of the mind and body. The genius of the founders still
      lived in those venerable seats; the ambition of succeeding to the
      masters of human reason excited a generous emulation; and the
      merit of the candidates was determined, on each vacancy, by the
      free voices of an enlightened people. The Athenian professors
      were paid by their disciples: according to their mutual wants and
      abilities, the price appears to have varied; and Isocrates
      himself, who derides the avarice of the sophists, required, in
      his school of rhetoric, about thirty pounds from each of his
      hundred pupils. The wages of industry are just and honorable, yet
      the same Isocrates shed tears at the first receipt of a stipend:
      the Stoic might blush when he was hired to preach the contempt of
      money; and I should be sorry to discover that Aristotle or Plato
      so far degenerated from the example of Socrates, as to exchange
      knowledge for gold. But some property of lands and houses was
      settled by the permission of the laws, and the legacies of
      deceased friends, on the philosophic chairs of Athens. Epicurus
      bequeathed to his disciples the gardens which he had purchased
      for eighty minae or two hundred and fifty pounds, with a fund
      sufficient for their frugal subsistence and monthly festivals;
      146 and the patrimony of Plato afforded an annual rent, which, in
      eight centuries, was gradually increased from three to one
      thousand pieces of gold. 147 The schools of Athens were protected
      by the wisest and most virtuous of the Roman princes. The
      library, which Hadrian founded, was placed in a portico adorned
      with pictures, statues, and a roof of alabaster, and supported by
      one hundred columns of Phrygian marble. The public salaries were
      assigned by the generous spirit of the Antonines; and each
      professor of politics, of rhetoric, of the Platonic, the
      Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean philosophy, received an
      annual stipend of ten thousand drachmae, or more than three
      hundred pounds sterling. 148 After the death of Marcus, these
      liberal donations, and the privileges attached to the thrones of
      science, were abolished and revived, diminished and enlarged; but
      some vestige of royal bounty may be found under the successors of
      Constantine; and their arbitrary choice of an unworthy candidate
      might tempt the philosophers of Athens to regret the days of
      independence and poverty. 149 It is remarkable, that the
      impartial favor of the Antonines was bestowed on the four adverse
      sects of philosophy, which they considered as equally useful, or
      at least, as equally innocent. Socrates had formerly been the
      glory and the reproach of his country; and the first lessons of
      Epicurus so strangely scandalized the pious ears of the
      Athenians, that by his exile, and that of his antagonists, they
      silenced all vain disputes concerning the nature of the gods. But
      in the ensuing year they recalled the hasty decree, restored the
      liberty of the schools, and were convinced by the experience of
      ages, that the moral character of philosophers is not affected by
      the diversity of their theological speculations. 150

      143 (return) [ The life of Isocrates extends from Olymp. lxxxvi.
      1. to cx. 3, (ante Christ. 436—438.) See Dionys. Halicarn. tom.
      ii. p. 149, 150, edit. Hudson. Plutarch (sive anonymus) in Vit.
      X. Oratorum, p. 1538—1543, edit. H. Steph. Phot. cod. cclix. p.
      1453.]

      144 (return) [ The schools of Athens are copiously though
      concisely represented in the Fortuna Attica of Meursius, (c.
      viii. p. 59—73, in tom. i. Opp.) For the state and arts of the
      city, see the first book of Pausanias, and a small tract of
      Dicaearchus, in the second volume of Hudson’s Geographers, who
      wrote about Olymp. cxvii. (Dodwell’s Dissertia sect. 4.)]

      145 (return) [ Diogen Laert. de Vit. Philosoph. l. v. segm. 37,
      p. 289.]

      146 (return) [ See the Testament of Epicurus in Diogen. Laert. l.
      x. segm. 16—20, p. 611, 612. A single epistle (ad Familiares,
      xiii. l.) displays the injustice of the Areopagus, the fidelity
      of the Epicureans, the dexterous politeness of Cicero, and the
      mixture of contempt and esteem with which the Roman senators
      considered the philosophy and philosophers of Greece.]

      147 (return) [ Damascius, in Vit. Isidor. apud Photium, cod.
      ccxlii. p. 1054.]

      148 (return) [ See Lucian (in Eunuch. tom. ii. p. 350—359, edit.
      Reitz,) Philostratus (in Vit. Sophist. l. ii. c. 2,) and Dion
      Cassius, or Xiphilin, (lxxi. p. 1195,) with their editors Du
      Soul, Olearius, and Reimar, and, above all, Salmasius, (ad Hist.
      August. p. 72.) A judicious philosopher (Smith’s Wealth of
      Nations, vol. ii. p. 340—374) prefers the free contributions of
      the students to a fixed stipend for the professor.]

      149 (return) [ Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 310,
      &c.]

      150 (return) [ The birth of Epicurus is fixed to the year 342
      before Christ, (Bayle,) Olympiad cix. 3; and he opened his school
      at Athens, Olmp. cxviii. 3, 306 years before the same aera. This
      intolerant law (Athenaeus, l. xiii. p. 610. Diogen. Laertius, l.
      v. s. 38. p. 290. Julius Pollux, ix. 5) was enacted in the same
      or the succeeding year, (Sigonius, Opp. tom. v. p. 62. Menagius
      ad Diogen. Laert. p. 204. Corsini, Fasti Attici, tom. iv. p. 67,
      68.) Theophrastus chief of the Peripatetics, and disciple of
      Aristotle, was involved in the same exile.]

      The Gothic arms were less fatal to the schools of Athens than the
      establishment of a new religion, whose ministers superseded the
      exercise of reason, resolved every question by an article of
      faith, and condemned the infidel or sceptic to eternal flames. In
      many a volume of laborious controversy, they exposed the weakness
      of the understanding and the corruption of the heart, insulted
      human nature in the sages of antiquity, and proscribed the spirit
      of philosophical inquiry, so repugnant to the doctrine, or at
      least to the temper, of an humble believer. The surviving sects
      of the Platonists, whom Plato would have blushed to acknowledge,
      extravagantly mingled a sublime theory with the practice of
      superstition and magic; and as they remained alone in the midst
      of a Christian world, they indulged a secret rancor against the
      government of the church and state, whose severity was still
      suspended over their heads. About a century after the reign of
      Julian, 151 Proclus 152 was permitted to teach in the philosophic
      chair of the academy; and such was his industry, that he
      frequently, in the same day, pronounced five lessons, and
      composed seven hundred lines. His sagacious mind explored the
      deepest questions of morals and metaphysics, and he ventured to
      urge eighteen arguments against the Christian doctrine of the
      creation of the world. But in the intervals of study, he
      personally conversed with Pan, Aesculapius, and Minerva, in whose
      mysteries he was secretly initiated, and whose prostrate statues
      he adored; in the devout persuasion that the philosopher, who is
      a citizen of the universe, should be the priest of its various
      deities. An eclipse of the sun announced his approaching end; and
      his life, with that of his scholar Isidore, 153 compiled by two
      of their most learned disciples, exhibits a deplorable picture of
      the second childhood of human reason. Yet the golden chain, as it
      was fondly styled, of the Platonic succession, continued
      forty-four years from the death of Proclus to the edict of
      Justinian, 154 which imposed a perpetual silence on the schools
      of Athens, and excited the grief and indignation of the few
      remaining votaries of Grecian science and superstition. Seven
      friends and philosophers, Diogenes and Hermias, Eulalius and
      Priscian, Damascius, Isidore, and Simplicius, who dissented from
      the religion of their sovereign, embraced the resolution of
      seeking in a foreign land the freedom which was denied in their
      native country. They had heard, and they credulously believed,
      that the republic of Plato was realized in the despotic
      government of Persia, and that a patriot king reigned ever the
      happiest and most virtuous of nations. They were soon astonished
      by the natural discovery, that Persia resembled the other
      countries of the globe; that Chosroes, who affected the name of a
      philosopher, was vain, cruel, and ambitious; that bigotry, and a
      spirit of intolerance, prevailed among the Magi; that the nobles
      were haughty, the courtiers servile, and the magistrates unjust;
      that the guilty sometimes escaped, and that the innocent were
      often oppressed. The disappointment of the philosophers provoked
      them to overlook the real virtues of the Persians; and they were
      scandalized, more deeply perhaps than became their profession,
      with the plurality of wives and concubines, the incestuous
      marriages, and the custom of exposing dead bodies to the dogs and
      vultures, instead of hiding them in the earth, or consuming them
      with fire. Their repentance was expressed by a precipitate
      return, and they loudly declared that they had rather die on the
      borders of the empire, than enjoy the wealth and favor of the
      Barbarian. From this journey, however, they derived a benefit
      which reflects the purest lustre on the character of Chosroes. He
      required, that the seven sages who had visited the court of
      Persia should be exempted from the penal laws which Justinian
      enacted against his Pagan subjects; and this privilege, expressly
      stipulated in a treaty of peace, was guarded by the vigilance of
      a powerful mediator. 155 Simplicius and his companions ended
      their lives in peace and obscurity; and as they left no
      disciples, they terminate the long list of Grecian philosophers,
      who may be justly praised, notwithstanding their defects, as the
      wisest and most virtuous of their contemporaries. The writings of
      Simplicius are now extant. His physical and metaphysical
      commentaries on Aristotle have passed away with the fashion of
      the times; but his moral interpretation of Epictetus is preserved
      in the library of nations, as a classic book, most excellently
      adapted to direct the will, to purify the heart, and to confirm
      the understanding, by a just confidence in the nature both of God
      and man.

      151 (return) [ This is no fanciful aera: the Pagans reckoned
      their calamities from the reign of their hero. Proclus, whose
      nativity is marked by his horoscope, (A.D. 412, February 8, at C.
      P.,) died 124 years, A.D. 485, (Marin. in Vita Procli, c. 36.)]

      152 (return) [ The life of Proclus, by Marinus, was published by
      Fabricius (Hamburg, 1700, et ad calcem Bibliot. Latin. Lond.
      1703.) See Saidas, (tom. iii. p. 185, 186,) Fabricius, (Bibliot.
      Graec. l. v. c. 26 p. 449—552,) and Brucker, (Hist. Crit.
      Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 319—326)]

      153 (return) [ The life of Isidore was composed by Damascius,
      (apud Photium, sod. ccxlii. p. 1028—1076.) See the last age of
      the Pagan philosophers, in Brucker, (tom. ii. p. 341—351.)]

      154 (return) [ The suppression of the schools of Athens is
      recorded by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 187, sub Decio Cos. Sol.,)
      and an anonymous Chronicle in the Vatican library, (apud Aleman.
      p. 106.)]

      155 (return) [ Agathias (l. ii. p. 69, 70, 71) relates this
      curious story Chosroes ascended the throne in the year 531, and
      made his first peace with the Romans in the beginning of 533—a
      date most compatible with his young fame and the old age of
      Isidore, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. iii. p. 404. Pagi, tom.
      ii. p. 543, 550.)]

      About the same time that Pythagoras first invented the
      appellation of philosopher, liberty and the consulship were
      founded at Rome by the elder Brutus. The revolutions of the
      consular office, which may be viewed in the successive lights of
      a substance, a shadow, and a name, have been occasionally
      mentioned in the present History. The first magistrates of the
      republic had been chosen by the people, to exercise, in the
      senate and in the camp, the powers of peace and war, which were
      afterwards translated to the emperors. But the tradition of
      ancient dignity was long revered by the Romans and Barbarians. A
      Gothic historian applauds the consulship of Theodoric as the
      height of all temporal glory and greatness; 156 the king of Italy
      himself congratulated those annual favorites of fortune who,
      without the cares, enjoyed the splendor of the throne; and at the
      end of a thousand years, two consuls were created by the
      sovereigns of Rome and Constantinople, for the sole purpose of
      giving a date to the year, and a festival to the people. But the
      expenses of this festival, in which the wealthy and the vain
      aspired to surpass their predecessors, insensibly arose to the
      enormous sum of fourscore thousand pounds; the wisest senators
      declined a useless honor, which involved the certain ruin of
      their families, and to this reluctance I should impute the
      frequent chasms in the last age of the consular Fasti. The
      predecessors of Justinian had assisted from the public treasures
      the dignity of the less opulent candidates; the avarice of that
      prince preferred the cheaper and more convenient method of advice
      and regulation. 157 Seven processions or spectacles were the
      number to which his edict confined the horse and chariot races,
      the athletic sports, the music, and pantomimes of the theatre,
      and the hunting of wild beasts; and small pieces of silver were
      discreetly substituted to the gold medals, which had always
      excited tumult and drunkenness, when they were scattered with a
      profuse hand among the populace. Notwithstanding these
      precautions, and his own example, the succession of consuls
      finally ceased in the thirteenth year of Justinian, whose
      despotic temper might be gratified by the silent extinction of a
      title which admonished the Romans of their ancient freedom. 158
      Yet the annual consulship still lived in the minds of the people;
      they fondly expected its speedy restoration; they applauded the
      gracious condescension of successive princes, by whom it was
      assumed in the first year of their reign; and three centuries
      elapsed, after the death of Justinian, before that obsolete
      dignity, which had been suppressed by custom, could be abolished
      by law. 159 The imperfect mode of distinguishing each year by the
      name of a magistrate, was usefully supplied by the date of a
      permanent aera: the creation of the world, according to the
      Septuagint version, was adopted by the Greeks; 160 and the
      Latins, since the age of Charlemagne, have computed their time
      from the birth of Christ. 161

      156 (return) [ Cassiodor. Variarum Epist. vi. 1. Jornandes, c.
      57, p. 696, dit. Grot. Quod summum bonum primumque in mundo decus
      dicitur.]

      157 (return) [ See the regulations of Justinian, (Novell. cv.,)
      dated at Constantinople, July 5, and addressed to Strategius,
      treasurer of the empire.]

      158 (return) [ Procopius, in Anecdot. c. 26. Aleman. p. 106. In
      the xviiith year after the consulship of Basilius, according to
      the reckoning of Marcellinus, Victor, Marius, &c., the secret
      history was composed, and, in the eyes of Procopius, the
      consulship was finally abolished.]

      159 (return) [ By Leo, the philosopher, (Novell. xciv. A.D.
      886-911.) See Pagi (Dissertat. Hypatica, p. 325—362) and Ducange,
      (Gloss, Graec p. 1635, 1636.) Even the title was vilified:
      consulatus codicilli.. vilescunt, says the emperor himself.]

      160 (return) [ According to Julius Africanus, &c., the world was
      created the first of September, 5508 years, three months, and
      twenty-five days before the birth of Christ. (See Pezron,
      Antiquite des Tems defendue, p. 20—28.) And this aera has been
      used by the Greeks, the Oriental Christians, and even by the
      Russians, till the reign of Peter I The period, however
      arbitrary, is clear and convenient. Of the 7296 years which are
      supposed to elapse since the creation, we shall find 3000 of
      ignorance and darkness; 2000 either fabulous or doubtful; 1000 of
      ancient history, commencing with the Persian empire, and the
      Republics of Rome and Athens; 1000 from the fall of the Roman
      empire in the West to the discovery of America; and the remaining
      296 will almost complete three centuries of the modern state of
      Europe and mankind. I regret this chronology, so far preferable
      to our double and perplexed method of counting backwards and
      forwards the years before and after the Christian era.]

      161 (return) [ The aera of the world has prevailed in the East
      since the vith general council, (A.D. 681.) In the West, the
      Christian aera was first invented in the vith century: it was
      propagated in the viiith by the authority and writings of
      venerable Bede; but it was not till the xth that the use became
      legal and popular. See l’Art de Veriner les Dates, Dissert.
      Preliminaire, p. iii. xii. Dictionnaire Diplomatique, tom. i. p.
      329—337; the works of a laborious society of Benedictine monks.]




      Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Charact Of Balisarius.—Part
      I.

     Conquests Of Justinian In The West.—Character And First Campaigns
     Of Belisarius—He Invades And Subdues The Vandal Kingdom Of
     Africa—His Triumph.—The Gothic War.—He Recovers Sicily, Naples,
     And Rome.—Siege Of Rome By The Goths.—Their Retreat And
     Losses.—Surrender Of Ravenna.— Glory Of Belisarius.—His Domestic
     Shame And Misfortunes.

      When Justinian ascended the throne, about fifty years after the
      fall of the Western empire, the kingdoms of the Goths and Vandals
      had obtained a solid, and, as it might seem, a legal
      establishment both in Europe and Africa. The titles, which Roman
      victory had inscribed, were erased with equal justice by the
      sword of the Barbarians; and their successful rapine derived a
      more venerable sanction from time, from treaties, and from the
      oaths of fidelity, already repeated by a second or third
      generation of obedient subjects. Experience and Christianity had
      refuted the superstitious hope, that Rome was founded by the gods
      to reign forever over the nations of the earth. But the proud
      claim of perpetual and indefeasible dominion, which her soldiers
      could no longer maintain, was firmly asserted by her statesmen
      and lawyers, whose opinions have been sometimes revived and
      propagated in the modern schools of jurisprudence. After Rome
      herself had been stripped of the Imperial purple, the princes of
      Constantinople assumed the sole and sacred sceptre of the
      monarchy; demanded, as their rightful inheritance, the provinces
      which had been subdued by the consuls, or possessed by the
      Caesars; and feebly aspired to deliver their faithful subjects of
      the West from the usurpation of heretics and Barbarians. The
      execution of this splendid design was in some degree reserved for
      Justinian. During the five first years of his reign, he
      reluctantly waged a costly and unprofitable war against the
      Persians; till his pride submitted to his ambition, and he
      purchased at the price of four hundred and forty thousand pounds
      sterling, the benefit of a precarious truce, which, in the
      language of both nations, was dignified with the appellation of
      the endless peace. The safety of the East enabled the emperor to
      employ his forces against the Vandals; and the internal state of
      Africa afforded an honorable motive, and promised a powerful
      support, to the Roman arms. 1

      1 (return) [ The complete series of the Vandal war is related by
      Procopius in a regular and elegant narrative, (l. i. c. 9—25, l.
      ii. c. 1—13,) and happy would be my lot, could I always tread in
      the footsteps of such a guide. From the entire and diligent
      perusal of the Greek text, I have a right to pronounce that the
      Latin and French versions of Grotius and Cousin may not be
      implicitly trusted; yet the president Cousin has been often
      praised, and Hugo Grotius was the first scholar of a learned
      age.]

      According to the testament of the founder, the African kingdom
      had lineally descended to Hilderic, the eldest of the Vandal
      princes. A mild disposition inclined the son of a tyrant, the
      grandson of a conqueror, to prefer the counsels of clemency and
      peace; and his accession was marked by the salutary edict, which
      restored two hundred bishops to their churches, and allowed the
      free profession of the Athanasian creed. 2 But the Catholics
      accepted, with cold and transient gratitude, a favor so
      inadequate to their pretensions, and the virtues of Hilderic
      offended the prejudices of his countrymen. The Arian clergy
      presumed to insinuate that he had renounced the faith, and the
      soldiers more loudly complained that he had degenerated from the
      courage, of his ancestors. His ambassadors were suspected of a
      secret and disgraceful negotiation in the Byzantine court; and
      his general, the Achilles, 3 as he was named, of the Vandals,
      lost a battle against the naked and disorderly Moors. The public
      discontent was exasperated by Gelimer, whose age, descent, and
      military fame, gave him an apparent title to the succession: he
      assumed, with the consent of the nation, the reins of government;
      and his unfortunate sovereign sunk without a struggle from the
      throne to a dungeon, where he was strictly guarded with a
      faithful counsellor, and his unpopular nephew the Achilles of the
      Vandals. But the indulgence which Hilderic had shown to his
      Catholic subjects had powerfully recommended him to the favor of
      Justinian, who, for the benefit of his own sect, could
      acknowledge the use and justice of religious toleration: their
      alliance, while the nephew of Justin remained in a private
      station, was cemented by the mutual exchange of gifts and
      letters; and the emperor Justinian asserted the cause of royalty
      and friendship. In two successive embassies, he admonished the
      usurper to repent of his treason, or to abstain, at least, from
      any further violence which might provoke the displeasure of God
      and of the Romans; to reverence the laws of kindred and
      succession, and to suffer an infirm old man peaceably to end his
      days, either on the throne of Carthage or in the palace of
      Constantinople. The passions, or even the prudence, of Gelimer
      compelled him to reject these requests, which were urged in the
      haughty tone of menace and command; and he justified his ambition
      in a language rarely spoken in the Byzantine court, by alleging
      the right of a free people to remove or punish their chief
      magistrate, who had failed in the execution of the kingly office.

      After this fruitless expostulation, the captive monarch was more
      rigorously treated, his nephew was deprived of his eyes, and the
      cruel Vandal, confident in his strength and distance, derided the
      vain threats and slow preparations of the emperor of the East.
      Justinian resolved to deliver or revenge his friend, Gelimer to
      maintain his usurpation; and the war was preceded, according to
      the practice of civilized nations, by the most solemn
      protestations, that each party was sincerely desirous of peace.

      2 (return) [ See Ruinart, Hist. Persecut. Vandal. c. xii. p. 589.
      His best evidence is drawn from the life of St. Fulgentius,
      composed by one of his disciples, transcribed in a great measure
      in the annals of Baronius, and printed in several great
      collections, (Catalog. Bibliot. Bunavianae, tom. i. vol. ii. p.
      1258.)]

      3 (return) [ For what quality of the mind or body? For speed, or
      beauty, or valor?—In what language did the Vandals read
      Homer?—Did he speak German?—The Latins had four versions,
      (Fabric. tom. i. l. ii. c. 8, p. 297:) yet, in spite of the
      praises of Seneca, (Consol. c. 26,) they appear to have been more
      successful in imitating than in translating the Greek poets. But
      the name of Achilles might be famous and popular even among the
      illiterate Barbarians.]

      The report of an African war was grateful only to the vain and
      idle populace of Constantinople, whose poverty exempted them from
      tribute, and whose cowardice was seldom exposed to military
      service. But the wiser citizens, who judged of the future by the
      past, revolved in their memory the immense loss, both of men and
      money, which the empire had sustained in the expedition of
      Basiliscus. The troops, which, after five laborious campaigns,
      had been recalled from the Persian frontier, dreaded the sea, the
      climate, and the arms of an unknown enemy. The ministers of the
      finances computed, as far as they might compute, the demands of
      an African war; the taxes which must be found and levied to
      supply those insatiate demands; and the danger, lest their own
      lives, or at least their lucrative employments, should be made
      responsible for the deficiency of the supply. Inspired by such
      selfish motives, (for we may not suspect him of any zeal for the
      public good,) John of Cappadocia ventured to oppose in full
      council the inclinations of his master. He confessed, that a
      victory of such importance could not be too dearly purchased; but
      he represented in a grave discourse the certain difficulties and
      the uncertain event. “You undertake,” said the praefect, “to
      besiege Carthage: by land, the distance is not less than one
      hundred and forty days’ journey; on the sea, a whole year 4 must
      elapse before you can receive any intelligence from your fleet.
      If Africa should be reduced, it cannot be preserved without the
      additional conquest of Sicily and Italy. Success will impose the
      obligations of new labors; a single misfortune will attract the
      Barbarians into the heart of your exhausted empire.” Justinian
      felt the weight of this salutary advice; he was confounded by the
      unwonted freedom of an obsequious servant; and the design of the
      war would perhaps have been relinquished, if his courage had not
      been revived by a voice which silenced the doubts of profane
      reason. “I have seen a vision,” cried an artful or fanatic bishop
      of the East. “It is the will of Heaven, O emperor! that you
      should not abandon your holy enterprise for the deliverance of
      the African church. The God of battles will march before your
      standard, and disperse your enemies, who are the enemies of his
      Son.” The emperor, might be tempted, and his counsellors were
      constrained, to give credit to this seasonable revelation: but
      they derived more rational hope from the revolt, which the
      adherents of Hilderic or Athanasius had already excited on the
      borders of the Vandal monarchy. Pudentius, an African subject,
      had privately signified his loyal intentions, and a small
      military aid restored the province of Tripoli to the obedience of
      the Romans. The government of Sardinia had been intrusted to
      Godas, a valiant Barbarian he suspended the payment of tribute,
      disclaimed his allegiance to the usurper, and gave audience to
      the emissaries of Justinian, who found him master of that
      fruitful island, at the head of his guards, and proudly invested
      with the ensigns of royalty. The forces of the Vandals were
      diminished by discord and suspicion; the Roman armies were
      animated by the spirit of Belisarius; one of those heroic names
      which are familiar to every age and to every nation.

      4 (return) [ A year—absurd exaggeration! The conquest of Africa
      may be dated A. D 533, September 14. It is celebrated by
      Justinian in the preface to his Institutes, which were published
      November 21 of the same year. Including the voyage and return,
      such a computation might be truly applied to our Indian empire.]

      The Africanus of new Rome was born, and perhaps educated, among
      the Thracian peasants, 5 without any of those advantages which
      had formed the virtues of the elder and younger Scipio; a noble
      origin, liberal studies, and the emulation of a free state.

      The silence of a loquacious secretary may be admitted, to prove
      that the youth of Belisarius could not afford any subject of
      praise: he served, most assuredly with valor and reputation,
      among the private guards of Justinian; and when his patron became
      emperor, the domestic was promoted to military command. After a
      bold inroad into Persarmenia, in which his glory was shared by a
      colleague, and his progress was checked by an enemy, Belisarius
      repaired to the important station of Dara, where he first
      accepted the service of Procopius, the faithful companion, and
      diligent historian, of his exploits. 6 The Mirranes of Persia
      advanced, with forty thousand of her best troops, to raze the
      fortifications of Dara; and signified the day and the hour on
      which the citizens should prepare a bath for his refreshment,
      after the toils of victory. He encountered an adversary equal to
      himself, by the new title of General of the East; his superior in
      the science of war, but much inferior in the number and quality
      of his troops, which amounted only to twenty-five thousand Romans
      and strangers, relaxed in their discipline, and humbled by recent
      disasters. As the level plain of Dara refused all shelter to
      stratagem and ambush, Belisarius protected his front with a deep
      trench, which was prolonged at first in perpendicular, and
      afterwards in parallel, lines, to cover the wings of cavalry
      advantageously posted to command the flanks and rear of the
      enemy. When the Roman centre was shaken, their well-timed and
      rapid charge decided the conflict: the standard of Persia fell;
      the immortals fled; the infantry threw away their bucklers, and
      eight thousand of the vanquished were left on the field of
      battle. In the next campaign, Syria was invaded on the side of
      the desert; and Belisarius, with twenty thousand men, hastened
      from Dara to the relief of the province. During the whole summer,
      the designs of the enemy were baffled by his skilful
      dispositions: he pressed their retreat, occupied each night their
      camp of the preceding day, and would have secured a bloodless
      victory, if he could have resisted the impatience of his own
      troops. Their valiant promise was faintly supported in the hour
      of battle; the right wing was exposed by the treacherous or
      cowardly desertion of the Christian Arabs; the Huns, a veteran
      band of eight hundred warriors, were oppressed by superior
      numbers; the flight of the Isaurians was intercepted; but the
      Roman infantry stood firm on the left; for Belisarius himself,
      dismounting from his horse, showed them that intrepid despair was
      their only safety. 611 They turned their backs to the Euphrates,
      and their faces to the enemy: innumerable arrows glanced without
      effect from the compact and shelving order of their bucklers; an
      impenetrable line of pikes was opposed to the repeated assaults
      of the Persian cavalry; and after a resistance of many hours, the
      remaining troops were skilfully embarked under the shadow of the
      night. The Persian commander retired with disorder and disgrace,
      to answer a strict account of the lives of so many soldiers,
      which he had consumed in a barren victory. But the fame of
      Belisarius was not sullied by a defeat, in which he alone had
      saved his army from the consequences of their own rashness: the
      approach of peace relieved him from the guard of the eastern
      frontier, and his conduct in the sedition of Constantinople amply
      discharged his obligations to the emperor. When the African war
      became the topic of popular discourse and secret deliberation,
      each of the Roman generals was apprehensive, rather than
      ambitious, of the dangerous honor; but as soon as Justinian had
      declared his preference of superior merit, their envy was
      rekindled by the unanimous applause which was given to the choice
      of Belisarius. The temper of the Byzantine court may encourage a
      suspicion, that the hero was darkly assisted by the intrigues of
      his wife, the fair and subtle Antonina, who alternately enjoyed
      the confidence, and incurred the hatred, of the empress Theodora.

      The birth of Antonina was ignoble; she descended from a family of
      charioteers; and her chastity has been stained with the foulest
      reproach. Yet she reigned with long and absolute power over the
      mind of her illustrious husband; and if Antonina disdained the
      merit of conjugal fidelity, she expressed a manly friendship to
      Belisarius, whom she accompanied with undaunted resolution in all
      the hardships and dangers of a military life. 7

      5 (return) [ (Procop. Vandal. l. i. c. 11.) Aleman, (Not. ad
      Anecdot. p. 5,) an Italian, could easily reject the German vanity
      of Giphanius and Velserus, who wished to claim the hero; but his
      Germania, a metropolis of Thrace, I cannot find in any civil or
      ecclesiastical lists of the provinces and cities. Note *: M. von
      Hammer (in a review of Lord Mahon’s Life of Belisarius in the
      Vienna Jahrbucher) shows that the name of Belisarius is a
      Sclavonic word, Beli-tzar, the White Prince, and that the place
      of his birth was a village of Illvria, which still bears the name
      of Germany.—M.]

      6 (return) [ The two first Persian campaigns of Belisarius are
      fairly and copiously related by his secretary, (Persic. l. i. c.
      12—18.)]

      611 (return) [ The battle was fought on Easter Sunday, April 19,
      not at the end of the summer. The date is supplied from John
      Malala by Lord Mabon p. 47.—M.]

      7 (return) [ See the birth and character of Antonina, in the
      Anecdotes, c. l. and the notes of Alemannus, p. 3.]

      The preparations for the African war were not unworthy of the
      last contest between Rome and Carthage. The pride and flower of
      the army consisted of the guards of Belisarius, who, according to
      the pernicious indulgence of the times, devoted themselves, by a
      particular oath of fidelity, to the service of their patrons.
      Their strength and stature, for which they had been curiously
      selected, the goodness of their horses and armor, and the
      assiduous practice of all the exercises of war, enabled them to
      act whatever their courage might prompt; and their courage was
      exalted by the social honor of their rank, and the personal
      ambition of favor and fortune. Four hundred of the bravest of the
      Heruli marched under the banner of the faithful and active
      Pharas; their untractable valor was more highly prized than the
      tame submission of the Greeks and Syrians; and of such importance
      was it deemed to procure a reenforcement of six hundred
      Massagetae, or Huns, that they were allured by fraud and deceit
      to engage in a naval expedition. Five thousand horse and ten
      thousand foot were embarked at Constantinople, for the conquest
      of Africa; but the infantry, for the most part levied in Thrace
      and Isauria, yielded to the more prevailing use and reputation of
      the cavalry; and the Scythian bow was the weapon on which the
      armies of Rome were now reduced to place their principal
      dependence. From a laudable desire to assert the dignity of his
      theme, Procopius defends the soldiers of his own time against the
      morose critics, who confined that respectable name to the
      heavy-armed warriors of antiquity, and maliciously observed, that
      the word archer is introduced by Homer as a term of contempt.
      “Such contempt might perhaps be due to the naked youths who
      appeared on foot in the fields of Troy, and lurking behind a
      tombstone, or the shield of a friend, drew the bow-string to
      their breast, 9 and dismissed a feeble and lifeless arrow. But
      our archers (pursues the historian) are mounted on horses, which
      they manage with admirable skill; their head and shoulders are
      protected by a casque or buckler; they wear greaves of iron on
      their legs, and their bodies are guarded by a coat of mail. On
      their right side hangs a quiver, a sword on their left, and their
      hand is accustomed to wield a lance or javelin in closer combat.
      Their bows are strong and weighty; they shoot in every possible
      direction, advancing, retreating, to the front, to the rear, or
      to either flank; and as they are taught to draw the bow-string
      not to the breast, but to the right ear, firm indeed must be the
      armor that can resist the rapid violence of their shaft.” Five
      hundred transports, navigated by twenty thousand mariners of
      Egypt, Cilicia, and Ionia, were collected in the harbor of
      Constantinople. The smallest of these vessels may be computed at
      thirty, the largest at five hundred, tons; and the fair average
      will supply an allowance, liberal, but not profuse, of about one
      hundred thousand tons, 10 for the reception of thirty-five
      thousand soldiers and sailors, of five thousand horses, of arms,
      engines, and military stores, and of a sufficient stock of water
      and provisions for a voyage, perhaps, of three months. The proud
      galleys, which in former ages swept the Mediterranean with so
      many hundred oars, had long since disappeared; and the fleet of
      Justinian was escorted only by ninety-two light brigantines,
      covered from the missile weapons of the enemy, and rowed by two
      thousand of the brave and robust youth of Constantinople.
      Twenty-two generals are named, most of whom were afterwards
      distinguished in the wars of Africa and Italy: but the supreme
      command, both by land and sea, was delegated to Belisarius alone,
      with a boundless power of acting according to his discretion, as
      if the emperor himself were present. The separation of the naval
      and military professions is at once the effect and the cause of
      the modern improvements in the science of navigation and maritime
      war. [Footnote 8: See the preface of Procopius. The enemies of
      archery might quote the reproaches of Diomede (Iliad. Delta. 385,
      &c.) and the permittere vulnera ventis of Lucan, (viii. 384:) yet
      the Romans could not despise the arrows of the Parthians; and in
      the siege of Troy, Pandarus, Paris, and Teucer, pierced those
      haughty warriors who insulted them as women or children.]

      9 (return) [ (Iliad. Delta. 123.) How concise—how just—how
      beautiful is the whole picture! I see the attitudes of the
      archer—I hear the twanging of the bow.]

      10 (return) [ The text appears to allow for the largest vessels
      50,000 medimni, or 3000 tons, (since the medimnus weighed 160
      Roman, or 120 avoirdupois, pounds.) I have given a more rational
      interpretation, by supposing that the Attic style of Procopius
      conceals the legal and popular modius, a sixth part of the
      medimnus, (Hooper’s Ancient Measures, p. 152, &c.) A contrary and
      indeed a stranger mistake has crept into an oration of Dinarchus,
      (contra Demosthenem, in Reiske Orator. Graec tom iv. P. ii. p.
      34.) By reducing the number of ships from 500 to 50, and
      translating by mines, or pounds, Cousin has generously allowed
      500 tons for the whole of the Imperial fleet! Did he never
      think?]

      In the seventh year of the reign of Justinian, and about the time
      of the summer solstice, the whole fleet of six hundred ships was
      ranged in martial pomp before the gardens of the palace. The
      patriarch pronounced his benediction, the emperor signified his
      last commands, the general’s trumpet gave the signal of
      departure, and every heart, according to its fears or wishes,
      explored, with anxious curiosity, the omens of misfortune and
      success. The first halt was made at Perinthus or Heraclea, where
      Belisarius waited five days to receive some Thracian horses, a
      military gift of his sovereign. From thence the fleet pursued
      their course through the midst of the Propontis; but as they
      struggled to pass the Straits of the Hellespont, an unfavorable
      wind detained them four days at Abydus, where the general
      exhibited a memorable lesson of firmness and severity. Two of the
      Huns, who in a drunken quarrel had slain one of their
      fellow-soldiers, were instantly shown to the army suspended on a
      lofty gibbet. The national indignity was resented by their
      countrymen, who disclaimed the servile laws of the empire, and
      asserted the free privilege of Scythia, where a small fine was
      allowed to expiate the hasty sallies of intemperance and anger.
      Their complaints were specious, their clamors were loud, and the
      Romans were not averse to the example of disorder and impunity.
      But the rising sedition was appeased by the authority and
      eloquence of the general: and he represented to the assembled
      troops the obligation of justice, the importance of discipline,
      the rewards of piety and virtue, and the unpardonable guilt of
      murder, which, in his apprehension, was aggravated rather than
      excused by the vice of intoxication. 11 In the navigation from
      the Hellespont to Peloponnesus, which the Greeks, after the siege
      of Troy, had performed in four days, 12 the fleet of Belisarius
      was guided in their course by his master-galley, conspicuous in
      the day by the redness of the sails, and in the night by the
      torches blazing from the mast head. It was the duty of the
      pilots, as they steered between the islands, and turned the Capes
      of Malea and Taenarium, to preserve the just order and regular
      intervals of such a multitude of ships: as the wind was fair and
      moderate, their labors were not unsuccessful, and the troops were
      safely disembarked at Methone on the Messenian coast, to repose
      themselves for a while after the fatigues of the sea. In this
      place they experienced how avarice, invested with authority, may
      sport with the lives of thousands which are bravely exposed for
      the public service. According to military practice, the bread or
      biscuit of the Romans was twice prepared in the oven, and the
      diminution of one fourth was cheerfully allowed for the loss of
      weight. To gain this miserable profit, and to save the expense of
      wood, the praefect John of Cappadocia had given orders that the
      flour should be slightly baked by the same fire which warmed the
      baths of Constantinople; and when the sacks were opened, a soft
      and mouldy paste was distributed to the army. Such unwholesome
      food, assisted by the heat of the climate and season, soon
      produced an epidemical disease, which swept away five hundred
      soldiers. Their health was restored by the diligence of
      Belisarius, who provided fresh bread at Methone, and boldly
      expressed his just and humane indignation; the emperor heard his
      complaint; the general was praised but the minister was not
      punished. From the port of Methone, the pilots steered along the
      western coast of Peloponnesus, as far as the Isle of Zacynthus,
      or Zante, before they undertook the voyage (in their eyes a most
      arduous voyage) of one hundred leagues over the Ionian Sea. As
      the fleet was surprised by a calm, sixteen days were consumed in
      the slow navigation; and even the general would have suffered the
      intolerable hardship of thirst, if the ingenuity of Antonina had
      not preserved the water in glass bottles, which she buried deep
      in the sand in a part of the ship impervious to the rays of the
      sun. At length the harbor of Caucana, 13 on the southern side of
      Sicily, afforded a secure and hospitable shelter. The Gothic
      officers who governed the island in the name of the daughter and
      grandson of Theodoric, obeyed their imprudent orders, to receive
      the troops of Justinian like friends and allies: provisions were
      liberally supplied, the cavalry was remounted, 14 and Procopius
      soon returned from Syracuse with correct information of the state
      and designs of the Vandals. His intelligence determined
      Belisarius to hasten his operations, and his wise impatience was
      seconded by the winds. The fleet lost sight of Sicily, passed
      before the Isle of Malta, discovered the capes of Africa, ran
      along the coast with a strong gale from the north-east, and
      finally cast anchor at the promontory of Caput Vada, about five
      days’ journey to the south of Carthage. 15

      11 (return) [ I have read of a Greek legislator, who inflicted a
      double penalty on the crimes committed in a state of
      intoxication; but it seems agreed that this was rather a
      political than a moral law.]

      12 (return) [ Or even in three days, since they anchored the
      first evening in the neighboring isle of Tenedos: the second day
      they sailed to Lesbon the third to the promontory of Euboea, and
      on the fourth they reached Argos, (Homer, Odyss. P. 130—183.
      Wood’s Essay on Homer, p. 40—46.) A pirate sailed from the
      Hellespont to the seaport of Sparta in three days, (Xenophon.
      Hellen. l. ii. c. l.)]

      13 (return) [ Caucana, near Camarina, is at least 50 miles (350
      or 400 stadia) from Syracuse, (Cluver. Sicilia Antiqua, p. 191.)
      * Note *: Lord Mahon. (Life of Belisarius, p.88) suggests some
      valid reasons for reading Catana, the ancient name of
      Catania.—M.]

      14 (return) [ Procopius, Gothic. l. i. c. 3. Tibi tollit hinnitum
      apta quadrigis equa, in the Sicilian pastures of Grosphus,
      (Horat. Carm. ii. 16.) Acragas.... magnanimum quondam generator
      equorum, (Virg. Aeneid. iii. 704.) Thero’s horses, whose
      victories are immortalized by Pindar, were bred in this country.]

      15 (return) [ The Caput Vada of Procopius (where Justinian
      afterwards founded a city—De Edific.l. vi. c. 6) is the
      promontory of Ammon in Strabo, the Brachodes of Ptolemy, the
      Capaudia of the moderns, a long narrow slip that runs into the
      sea, (Shaw’s Travels, p. 111.)]

      If Gelimer had been informed of the approach of the enemy, he
      must have delayed the conquest of Sardinia for the immediate
      defence of his person and kingdom. A detachment of five thousand
      soldiers, and one hundred and twenty galleys, would have joined
      the remaining forces of the Vandals; and the descendant of
      Genseric might have surprised and oppressed a fleet of deep laden
      transports, incapable of action, and of light brigantines that
      seemed only qualified for flight. Belisarius had secretly
      trembled when he overheard his soldiers, in the passage,
      emboldening each other to confess their apprehensions: if they
      were once on shore, they hoped to maintain the honor of their
      arms; but if they should be attacked at sea, they did not blush
      to acknowledge that they wanted courage to contend at the same
      time with the winds, the waves, and the Barbarians. 16 The
      knowledge of their sentiments decided Belisarius to seize the
      first opportunity of landing them on the coast of Africa; and he
      prudently rejected, in a council of war, the proposal of sailing
      with the fleet and army into the port of Carthage. 1611 Three
      months after their departure from Constantinople, the men and
      horses, the arms and military stores, were safely disembarked,
      and five soldiers were left as a guard on board each of the
      ships, which were disposed in the form of a semicircle. The
      remainder of the troops occupied a camp on the sea-shore, which
      they fortified, according to ancient discipline, with a ditch and
      rampart; and the discovery of a source of fresh water, while it
      allayed the thirst, excited the superstitious confidence, of the
      Romans. The next morning, some of the neighboring gardens were
      pillaged; and Belisarius, after chastising the offenders,
      embraced the slight occasion, but the decisive moment, of
      inculcating the maxims of justice, moderation, and genuine
      policy. “When I first accepted the commission of subduing Africa,
      I depended much less,” said the general, “on the numbers, or even
      the bravery of my troops, than on the friendly disposition of the
      natives, and their immortal hatred to the Vandals. You alone can
      deprive me of this hope; if you continue to extort by rapine what
      might be purchased for a little money, such acts of violence will
      reconcile these implacable enemies, and unite them in a just and
      holy league against the invaders of their country.” These
      exhortations were enforced by a rigid discipline, of which the
      soldiers themselves soon felt and praised the salutary effects.
      The inhabitants, instead of deserting their houses, or hiding
      their corn, supplied the Romans with a fair and liberal market:
      the civil officers of the province continued to exercise their
      functions in the name of Justinian: and the clergy, from motives
      of conscience and interest, assiduously labored to promote the
      cause of a Catholic emperor. The small town of Sullecte, 17 one
      day’s journey from the camp, had the honor of being foremost to
      open her gates, and to resume her ancient allegiance: the larger
      cities of Leptis and Adrumetum imitated the example of loyalty as
      soon as Belisarius appeared; and he advanced without opposition
      as far as Grasse, a palace of the Vandal kings, at the distance
      of fifty miles from Carthage. The weary Romans indulged
      themselves in the refreshment of shady groves, cool fountains,
      and delicious fruits; and the preference which Procopius allows
      to these gardens over any that he had seen, either in the East or
      West, may be ascribed either to the taste, or the fatigue, of the
      historian. In three generations, prosperity and a warm climate
      had dissolved the hardy virtue of the Vandals, who insensibly
      became the most luxurious of mankind. In their villas and
      gardens, which might deserve the Persian name of Paradise, 18
      they enjoyed a cool and elegant repose; and, after the daily use
      of the bath, the Barbarians were seated at a table profusely
      spread with the delicacies of the land and sea. Their silken
      robes loosely flowing, after the fashion of the Medes, were
      embroidered with gold; love and hunting were the labors of their
      life, and their vacant hours were amused by pantomimes,
      chariot-races, and the music and dances of the theatre.

      16 (return) [ A centurion of Mark Antony expressed, though in a
      more manly train, the same dislike to the sea and to naval
      combats, (Plutarch in Antonio, p. 1730, edit. Hen. Steph.)]

      1611 (return) [ Rather into the present Lake of Tunis. Lord
      Mahon, p. 92.—M.]

      17 (return) [ Sullecte is perhaps the Turris Hannibalis, an old
      building, now as large as the Tower of London. The march of
      Belisarius to Leptis. Adrumetum, &c., is illustrated by the
      campaign of Caesar, (Hirtius, de Bello Africano, with the Analyse
      of Guichardt,) and Shaw’s Travels (p. 105—113) in the same
      country.]

      18 (return) [ The paradises, a name and fashion adopted from
      Persia, may be represented by the royal garden of Ispahan,
      (Voyage d’Olearius, p. 774.) See, in the Greek romances, their
      most perfect model, (Longus. Pastoral. l. iv. p. 99—101 Achilles
      Tatius. l. i. p. 22, 23.)]

      In a march of ten or twelve days, the vigilance of Belisarius was
      constantly awake and active against his unseen enemies, by whom,
      in every place, and at every hour, he might be suddenly attacked.
      An officer of confidence and merit, John the Armenian, led the
      vanguard of three hundred horse; six hundred Massagetae covered
      at a certain distance the left flank; and the whole fleet,
      steering along the coast, seldom lost sight of the army, which
      moved each day about twelve miles, and lodged in the evening in
      strong camps, or in friendly towns. The near approach of the
      Romans to Carthage filled the mind of Gelimer with anxiety and
      terror. He prudently wished to protract the war till his brother,
      with his veteran troops, should return from the conquest of
      Sardinia; and he now lamented the rash policy of his ancestors,
      who, by destroying the fortifications of Africa, had left him
      only the dangerous resource of risking a battle in the
      neighborhood of his capital. The Vandal conquerors, from their
      original number of fifty thousand, were multiplied, without
      including their women and children, to one hundred and sixty
      thousand fighting men: 1811 and such forces, animated with valor
      and union, might have crushed, at their first landing, the feeble
      and exhausted bands of the Roman general. But the friends of the
      captive king were more inclined to accept the invitations, than
      to resist the progress, of Belisarius; and many a proud Barbarian
      disguised his aversion to war under the more specious name of his
      hatred to the usurper. Yet the authority and promises of Gelimer
      collected a formidable army, and his plans were concerted with
      some degree of military skill. An order was despatched to his
      brother Ammatas, to collect all the forces of Carthage, and to
      encounter the van of the Roman army at the distance of ten miles
      from the city: his nephew Gibamund, with two thousand horse, was
      destined to attack their left, when the monarch himself, who
      silently followed, should charge their rear, in a situation which
      excluded them from the aid or even the view of their fleet. But
      the rashness of Ammatas was fatal to himself and his country. He
      anticipated the hour of the attack, outstripped his tardy
      followers, and was pierced with a mortal wound, after he had
      slain with his own hand twelve of his boldest antagonists. His
      Vandals fled to Carthage; the highway, almost ten miles, was
      strewed with dead bodies; and it seemed incredible that such
      multitudes could be slaughtered by the swords of three hundred
      Romans. The nephew of Gelimer was defeated, after a slight
      combat, by the six hundred Massagetae: they did not equal the
      third part of his numbers; but each Scythian was fired by the
      example of his chief, who gloriously exercised the privilege of
      his family, by riding, foremost and alone, to shoot the first
      arrow against the enemy. In the mean while, Gelimer himself,
      ignorant of the event, and misguided by the windings of the
      hills, inadvertently passed the Roman army, and reached the scene
      of action where Ammatas had fallen. He wept the fate of his
      brother and of Carthage, charged with irresistible fury the
      advancing squadrons, and might have pursued, and perhaps decided,
      the victory, if he had not wasted those inestimable moments in
      the discharge of a vain, though pious, duty to the dead. While
      his spirit was broken by this mournful office, he heard the
      trumpet of Belisarius, who, leaving Antonina and his infantry in
      the camp, pressed forwards with his guards and the remainder of
      the cavalry to rally his flying troops, and to restore the
      fortune of the day. Much room could not be found, in this
      disorderly battle, for the talents of a general; but the king
      fled before the hero; and the Vandals, accustomed only to a
      Moorish enemy, were incapable of withstanding the arms and
      discipline of the Romans. Gelimer retired with hasty steps
      towards the desert of Numidia: but he had soon the consolation of
      learning that his private orders for the execution of Hilderic
      and his captive friends had been faithfully obeyed. The tyrant’s
      revenge was useful only to his enemies. The death of a lawful
      prince excited the compassion of his people; his life might have
      perplexed the victorious Romans; and the lieutenant of Justinian,
      by a crime of which he was innocent, was relieved from the
      painful alternative of forfeiting his honor or relinquishing his
      conquests.

      1811 (return) [ 80,000. Hist. Arc. c. 18. Gibbon has been misled
      by the translation. See Lord ov. p. 99.—M.]




      Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Charact Of Balisarius.—Part
      II.

      As soon as the tumult had subsided, the several parts of the army
      informed each other of the accidents of the day; and Belisarius
      pitched his camp on the field of victory, to which the tenth
      mile-stone from Carthage had applied the Latin appellation of
      Decimus. From a wise suspicion of the stratagems and resources of
      the Vandals, he marched the next day in order of battle, halted
      in the evening before the gates of Carthage, and allowed a night
      of repose, that he might not, in darkness and disorder, expose
      the city to the license of the soldiers, or the soldiers
      themselves to the secret ambush of the city. But as the fears of
      Belisarius were the result of calm and intrepid reason, he was
      soon satisfied that he might confide, without danger, in the
      peaceful and friendly aspect of the capital. Carthage blazed with
      innumerable torches, the signals of the public joy; the chain was
      removed that guarded the entrance of the port; the gates were
      thrown open, and the people, with acclamations of gratitude,
      hailed and invited their Roman deliverers. The defeat of the
      Vandals, and the freedom of Africa, were announced to the city on
      the eve of St. Cyprian, when the churches were already adorned
      and illuminated for the festival of the martyr whom three
      centuries of superstition had almost raised to a local deity. The
      Arians, conscious that their reign had expired, resigned the
      temple to the Catholics, who rescued their saint from profane
      hands, performed the holy rites, and loudly proclaimed the creed
      of Athanasius and Justinian. One awful hour reversed the fortunes
      of the contending parties. The suppliant Vandals, who had so
      lately indulged the vices of conquerors, sought an humble refuge
      in the sanctuary of the church; while the merchants of the East
      were delivered from the deepest dungeon of the palace by their
      affrighted keeper, who implored the protection of his captives,
      and showed them, through an aperture in the wall, the sails of
      the Roman fleet. After their separation from the army, the naval
      commanders had proceeded with slow caution along the coast till
      they reached the Hermaean promontory, and obtained the first
      intelligence of the victory of Belisarius. Faithful to his
      instructions, they would have cast anchor about twenty miles from
      Carthage, if the more skilful seamen had not represented the
      perils of the shore, and the signs of an impending tempest. Still
      ignorant of the revolution, they declined, however, the rash
      attempt of forcing the chain of the port; and the adjacent harbor
      and suburb of Mandracium were insulted only by the rapine of a
      private officer, who disobeyed and deserted his leaders. But the
      Imperial fleet, advancing with a fair wind, steered through the
      narrow entrance of the Goletta, and occupied, in the deep and
      capacious lake of Tunis, a secure station about five miles from
      the capital. 19 No sooner was Belisarius informed of their
      arrival, than he despatched orders that the greatest part of the
      mariners should be immediately landed to join the triumph, and to
      swell the apparent numbers, of the Romans. Before he allowed them
      to enter the gates of Carthage, he exhorted them, in a discourse
      worthy of himself and the occasion, not to disgrace the glory of
      their arms; and to remember that the Vandals had been the
      tyrants, but that they were the deliverers, of the Africans, who
      must now be respected as the voluntary and affectionate subjects
      of their common sovereign. The Romans marched through the streets
      in close ranks prepared for battle if an enemy had appeared: the
      strict order maintained by the general imprinted on their minds
      the duty of obedience; and in an age in which custom and impunity
      almost sanctified the abuse of conquest, the genius of one man
      repressed the passions of a victorious army. The voice of menace
      and complaint was silent; the trade of Carthage was not
      interrupted; while Africa changed her master and her government,
      the shops continued open and busy; and the soldiers, after
      sufficient guards had been posted, modestly departed to the
      houses which were allotted for their reception. Belisarius fixed
      his residence in the palace; seated himself on the throne of
      Genseric; accepted and distributed the Barbaric spoil; granted
      their lives to the suppliant Vandals; and labored to repair the
      damage which the suburb of Mandracium had sustained in the
      preceding night. At supper he entertained his principal officers
      with the form and magnificence of a royal banquet. 20 The victor
      was respectfully served by the captive officers of the household;
      and in the moments of festivity, when the impartial spectators
      applauded the fortune and merit of Belisarius, his envious
      flatterers secretly shed their venom on every word and gesture
      which might alarm the suspicions of a jealous monarch. One day
      was given to these pompous scenes, which may not be despised as
      useless, if they attracted the popular veneration; but the active
      mind of Belisarius, which in the pride of victory could suppose a
      defeat, had already resolved that the Roman empire in Africa
      should not depend on the chance of arms, or the favor of the
      people. The fortifications of Carthage 2011 had alone been
      exempted from the general proscription; but in the reign of
      ninety-five years they were suffered to decay by the thoughtless
      and indolent Vandals. A wiser conqueror restored, with incredible
      despatch, the walls and ditches of the city. His liberality
      encouraged the workmen; the soldiers, the mariners, and the
      citizens, vied with each other in the salutary labor; and
      Gelimer, who had feared to trust his person in an open town,
      beheld with astonishment and despair, the rising strength of an
      impregnable fortress.

      19 (return) [ The neighborhood of Carthage, the sea, the land,
      and the rivers, are changed almost as much as the works of man.
      The isthmus, or neck of the city, is now confounded with the
      continent; the harbor is a dry plain; and the lake, or stagnum,
      no more than a morass, with six or seven feet water in the
      mid-channel. See D’Anville, (Geographie Ancienne, tom. iii. p.
      82,) Shaw, (Travels, p. 77—84,) Marmol, (Description de
      l’Afrique, tom. ii. p. 465,) and Thuanus, (lviii. 12, tom. iii.
      p. 334.)]

      20 (return) [ From Delphi, the name of Delphicum was given, both
      in Greek and Latin, to a tripod; and by an easy analogy, the same
      appellation was extended at Rome, Constantinople, and Carthage,
      to the royal banquetting room, (Procopius, Vandal. l. i. c. 21.
      Ducange, Gloss, Graec. p. 277., ad Alexiad. p. 412.)]

      2011 (return) [ And a few others. Procopius states in his work De
      Edi Sciis. l. vi. vol i. p. 5.—M]

      That unfortunate monarch, after the loss of his capital, applied
      himself to collect the remains of an army scattered, rather than
      destroyed, by the preceding battle; and the hopes of pillage
      attracted some Moorish bands to the standard of Gelimer. He
      encamped in the fields of Bulla, four days’ journey from
      Carthage; insulted the capital, which he deprived of the use of
      an aqueduct; proposed a high reward for the head of every Roman;
      affected to spare the persons and property of his African
      subjects, and secretly negotiated with the Arian sectaries and
      the confederate Huns. Under these circumstances, the conquest of
      Sardinia served only to aggravate his distress: he reflected,
      with the deepest anguish, that he had wasted, in that useless
      enterprise, five thousand of his bravest troops; and he read,
      with grief and shame, the victorious letters of his brother Zano,
      2012 who expressed a sanguine confidence that the king, after the
      example of their ancestors, had already chastised the rashness of
      the Roman invader. “Alas! my brother,” replied Gelimer, “Heaven
      has declared against our unhappy nation. While you have subdued
      Sardinia, we have lost Africa. No sooner did Belisarius appear
      with a handful of soldiers, than courage and prosperity deserted
      the cause of the Vandals. Your nephew Gibamund, your brother
      Ammatas, have been betrayed to death by the cowardice of their
      followers. Our horses, our ships, Carthage itself, and all
      Africa, are in the power of the enemy. Yet the Vandals still
      prefer an ignominious repose, at the expense of their wives and
      children, their wealth and liberty. Nothing now remains, except
      the fields of Bulla, and the hope of your valor. Abandon
      Sardinia; fly to our relief; restore our empire, or perish by our
      side.” On the receipt of this epistle, Zano imparted his grief to
      the principal Vandals; but the intelligence was prudently
      concealed from the natives of the island. The troops embarked in
      one hundred and twenty galleys at the port of Caghari, cast
      anchor the third day on the confines of Mauritania, and hastily
      pursued their march to join the royal standard in the camp of
      Bulla. Mournful was the interview: the two brothers embraced;
      they wept in silence; no questions were asked of the Sardinian
      victory; no inquiries were made of the African misfortunes: they
      saw before their eyes the whole extent of their calamities; and
      the absence of their wives and children afforded a melancholy
      proof that either death or captivity had been their lot. The
      languid spirit of the Vandals was at length awakened and united
      by the entreaties of their king, the example of Zano, and the
      instant danger which threatened their monarchy and religion. The
      military strength of the nation advanced to battle; and such was
      the rapid increase, that before their army reached Tricameron,
      about twenty miles from Carthage, they might boast, perhaps with
      some exaggeration, that they surpassed, in a tenfold proportion,
      the diminutive powers of the Romans. But these powers were under
      the command of Belisarius; and, as he was conscious of their
      superior merit, he permitted the Barbarians to surprise him at an
      unseasonable hour. The Romans were instantly under arms; a
      rivulet covered their front; the cavalry formed the first line,
      which Belisarius supported in the centre, at the head of five
      hundred guards; the infantry, at some distance, was posted in the
      second line; and the vigilance of the general watched the
      separate station and ambiguous faith of the Massagetae, who
      secretly reserved their aid for the conquerors. The historian has
      inserted, and the reader may easily supply, the speeches 21 of
      the commanders, who, by arguments the most apposite to their
      situation, inculcated the importance of victory, and the contempt
      of life. Zano, with the troops which had followed him to the
      conquest of Sardinia, was placed in the centre; and the throne of
      Genseric might have stood, if the multitude of Vandals had
      imitated their intrepid resolution. Casting away their lances and
      missile weapons, they drew their swords, and expected the charge:
      the Roman cavalry thrice passed the rivulet; they were thrice
      repulsed; and the conflict was firmly maintained, till Zano fell,
      and the standard of Belisarius was displayed. Gelimer retreated
      to his camp; the Huns joined the pursuit; and the victors
      despoiled the bodies of the slain. Yet no more than fifty Romans,
      and eight hundred Vandals were found on the field of battle; so
      inconsiderable was the carnage of a day, which extinguished a
      nation, and transferred the empire of Africa. In the evening
      Belisarius led his infantry to the attack of the camp; and the
      pusillanimous flight of Gelimer exposed the vanity of his recent
      declarations, that to the vanquished, death was a relief, life a
      burden, and infamy the only object of terror. His departure was
      secret; but as soon as the Vandals discovered that their king had
      deserted them, they hastily dispersed, anxious only for their
      personal safety, and careless of every object that is dear or
      valuable to mankind. The Romans entered the camp without
      resistance; and the wildest scenes of disorder were veiled in the
      darkness and confusion of the night. Every Barbarian who met
      their swords was inhumanly massacred; their widows and daughters,
      as rich heirs, or beautiful concubines, were embraced by the
      licentious soldiers; and avarice itself was almost satiated with
      the treasures of gold and silver, the accumulated fruits of
      conquest or economy in a long period of prosperity and peace. In
      this frantic search, the troops, even of Belisarius, forgot their
      caution and respect. Intoxicated with lust and rapine, they
      explored, in small parties, or alone, the adjacent fields, the
      woods, the rocks, and the caverns, that might possibly conceal
      any desirable prize: laden with booty, they deserted their ranks,
      and wandered without a guide, on the high road to Carthage; and
      if the flying enemies had dared to return, very few of the
      conquerors would have escaped. Deeply sensible of the disgrace
      and danger, Belisarius passed an apprehensive night on the field
      of victory: at the dawn of day, he planted his standard on a
      hill, recalled his guardians and veterans, and gradually restored
      the modesty and obedience of the camp. It was equally the concern
      of the Roman general to subdue the hostile, and to save the
      prostrate, Barbarian; and the suppliant Vandals, who could be
      found only in churches, were protected by his authority,
      disarmed, and separately confined, that they might neither
      disturb the public peace, nor become the victims of popular
      revenge. After despatching a light detachment to tread the
      footsteps of Gelimer, he advanced, with his whole army, about ten
      days’ march, as far as Hippo Regius, which no longer possessed
      the relics of St. Augustin. 22 The season, and the certain
      intelligence that the Vandal had fled to an inaccessible country
      of the Moors, determined Belisarius to relinquish the vain
      pursuit, and to fix his winter quarters at Carthage. From thence
      he despatched his principal lieutenant, to inform the emperor,
      that in the space of three months he had achieved the conquest of
      Africa.

      2012 (return) [ Gibbon had forgotten that the bearer of the
      “victorious letters of his brother” had sailed into the port of
      Carthage; and that the letters had fallen into the hands of the
      Romans. Proc. Vandal. l. i. c. 23.—M.]

      21 (return) [ These orations always express the sense of the
      times, and sometimes of the actors. I have condensed that sense,
      and thrown away declamation.]

      22 (return) [ The relics of St. Augustin were carried by the
      African bishops to their Sardinian exile, (A.D. 500;) and it was
      believed, in the viiith century, that Liutprand, king of the
      Lombards, transported them (A.D. 721) from Sardinia to Pavia. In
      the year 1695, the Augustan friars of that city found a brick
      arch, marble coffin, silver case, silk wrapper, bones, blood,
      &c., and perhaps an inscription of Agostino in Gothic letters.
      But this useful discovery has been disputed by reason and
      jealousy, (Baronius, Annal. A.D. 725, No. 2-9. Tillemont, Mem.
      Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 944. Montfaucon, Diarium Ital. p. 26-30.
      Muratori, Antiq. Ital. Medii Aevi, tom. v. dissert. lviii. p. 9,
      who had composed a separate treatise before the decree of the
      bishop of Pavia, and Pope Benedict XIII.)]

      Belisarius spoke the language of truth. The surviving Vandals
      yielded, without resistance, their arms and their freedom; the
      neighborhood of Carthage submitted to his presence; and the more
      distant provinces were successively subdued by the report of his
      victory. Tripoli was confirmed in her voluntary allegiance;
      Sardinia and Corsica surrendered to an officer, who carried,
      instead of a sword, the head of the valiant Zano; and the Isles
      of Majorca, Minorca, and Yvica consented to remain an humble
      appendage of the African kingdom. Caesarea, a royal city, which
      in looser geography may be confounded with the modern Algiers,
      was situate thirty days’ march to the westward of Carthage: by
      land, the road was infested by the Moors; but the sea was open,
      and the Romans were now masters of the sea. An active and
      discreet tribune sailed as far as the Straits, where he occupied
      Septem or Ceuta, 23 which rises opposite to Gibraltar on the
      African coast; that remote place was afterwards adorned and
      fortified by Justinian; and he seems to have indulged the vain
      ambition of extending his empire to the columns of Hercules. He
      received the messengers of victory at the time when he was
      preparing to publish the Pandects of the Roman laws; and the
      devout or jealous emperor celebrated the divine goodness, and
      confessed, in silence, the merit of his successful general. 24
      Impatient to abolish the temporal and spiritual tyranny of the
      Vandals, he proceeded, without delay, to the full establishment
      of the Catholic church. Her jurisdiction, wealth, and immunites,
      perhaps the most essential part of episcopal religion, were
      restored and amplified with a liberal hand; the Arian worship was
      suppressed; the Donatist meetings were proscribed; 25 and the
      synod of Carthage, by the voice of two hundred and seventeen
      bishops, 26 applauded the just measure of pious retaliation. On
      such an occasion, it may not be presumed, that many orthodox
      prelates were absent; but the comparative smallness of their
      number, which in ancient councils had been twice or even thrice
      multiplied, most clearly indicates the decay both of the church
      and state. While Justinian approved himself the defender of the
      faith, he entertained an ambitious hope, that his victorious
      lieutenant would speedily enlarge the narrow limits of his
      dominion to the space which they occupied before the invasion of
      the Moors and Vandals; and Belisarius was instructed to establish
      five dukes or commanders in the convenient stations of Tripoli,
      Leptis, Cirta, Caesarea, and Sardinia, and to compute the
      military force of palatines or borderers that might be sufficient
      for the defence of Africa. The kingdom of the Vandals was not
      unworthy of the presence of a Praetorian praefect; and four
      consulars, three presidents, were appointed to administer the
      seven provinces under his civil jurisdiction. The number of their
      subordinate officers, clerks, messengers, or assistants, was
      minutely expressed; three hundred and ninety-six for the praefect
      himself, fifty for each of his vicegerents; and the rigid
      definition of their fees and salaries was more effectual to
      confirm the right than to prevent the abuse. These magistrates
      might be oppressive, but they were not idle; and the subtile
      questions of justice and revenue were infinitely propagated under
      the new government, which professed to revive the freedom and
      equity of the Roman republic. The conqueror was solicitous to
      extract a prompt and plentiful supply from his African subjects;
      and he allowed them to claim, even in the third degree, and from
      the collateral line, the houses and lands of which their families
      had been unjustly despoiled by the Vandals. After the departure
      of Belisarius, who acted by a high and special commission, no
      ordinary provision was made for a master-general of the forces;
      but the office of Praetorian praefect was intrusted to a soldier;
      the civil and military powers were united, according to the
      practice of Justinian, in the chief governor; and the
      representative of the emperor in Africa, as well as in Italy, was
      soon distinguished by the appellation of Exarch. 27

      23 (return) [ The expression of Procopius (de Edific. l. vi. c.
      7.) Ceuta, which has been defaced by the Portuguese, flourished
      in nobles and palaces, in agriculture and manufactures, under the
      more prosperous reign of the Arabs, (l’Afrique de Marmai, tom.
      ii. p. 236.)]

      24 (return) [ See the second and third preambles to the Digest,
      or Pandects, promulgated A.D. 533, December 16. To the titles of
      Vandalicus and Africanus, Justinian, or rather Belisarius, had
      acquired a just claim; Gothicus was premature, and Francicus
      false, and offensive to a great nation.]

      25 (return) [ See the original acts in Baronius, (A.D. 535, No.
      21—54.) The emperor applauds his own clemency to the heretics,
      cum sufficiat eis vivere.]

      26 (return) [ Dupin (Geograph. Sacra Africana, p. lix. ad Optat.
      Milav.) observes and bewails this episcopal decay. In the more
      prosperous age of the church, he had noticed 690 bishoprics; but
      however minute were the dioceses, it is not probable that they
      all existed at the same time.]

      27 (return) [ The African laws of Justinian are illustrated by
      his German biographer, (Cod. l. i. tit. 27. Novell. 36, 37, 131.
      Vit. Justinian, p. 349—377.)]

      Yet the conquest of Africa was imperfect till her former
      sovereign was delivered, either alive or dead, into the hands of
      the Romans. Doubtful of the event, Gelimer had given secret
      orders that a part of his treasure should be transported to
      Spain, where he hoped to find a secure refuge at the court of the
      king of the Visigoths. But these intentions were disappointed by
      accident, treachery, and the indefatigable pursuit of his
      enemies, who intercepted his flight from the sea-shore, and
      chased the unfortunate monarch, with some faithful followers, to
      the inaccessible mountain of Papua, 28 in the inland country of
      Numidia. He was immediately besieged by Pharas, an officer whose
      truth and sobriety were the more applauded, as such qualities
      could seldom be found among the Heruli, the most corrupt of the
      Barbarian tribes. To his vigilance Belisarius had intrusted this
      important charge and, after a bold attempt to scale the mountain,
      in which he lost a hundred and ten soldiers, Pharas expected,
      during a winter siege, the operation of distress and famine on
      the mind of the Vandal king. From the softest habits of pleasure,
      from the unbounded command of industry and wealth, he was reduced
      to share the poverty of the Moors, 29 supportable only to
      themselves by their ignorance of a happier condition. In their
      rude hovels, of mud and hurdles, which confined the smoke and
      excluded the light, they promiscuously slept on the ground,
      perhaps on a sheep-skin, with their wives, their children, and
      their cattle. Sordid and scanty were their garments; the use of
      bread and wine was unknown; and their oaten or barley cakes,
      imperfectly baked in the ashes, were devoured almost in a crude
      state, by the hungry savages. The health of Gelimer must have
      sunk under these strange and unwonted hardships, from whatsoever
      cause they had been endured; but his actual misery was imbittered
      by the recollection of past greatness, the daily insolence of his
      protectors, and the just apprehension, that the light and venal
      Moors might be tempted to betray the rights of hospitality. The
      knowledge of his situation dictated the humane and friendly
      epistle of Pharas. “Like yourself,” said the chief of the Heruli,
      “I am an illiterate Barbarian, but I speak the language of plain
      sense and an honest heart. Why will you persist in hopeless
      obstinacy? Why will you ruin yourself, your family, and nation?
      The love of freedom and abhorrence of slavery? Alas! my dearest
      Gelimer, are you not already the worst of slaves, the slave of
      the vile nation of the Moors? Would it not be preferable to
      sustain at Constantinople a life of poverty and servitude, rather
      than to reign the undoubted monarch of the mountain of Papua? Do
      you think it a disgrace to be the subject of Justinian?
      Belisarius is his subject; and we ourselves, whose birth is not
      inferior to your own, are not ashamed of our obedience to the
      Roman emperor. That generous prince will grant you a rich
      inheritance of lands, a place in the senate, and the dignity of
      patrician: such are his gracious intentions, and you may depend
      with full assurance on the word of Belisarius. So long as Heaven
      has condemned us to suffer, patience is a virtue; but if we
      reject the proffered deliverance, it degenerates into blind and
      stupid despair.” “I am not insensible” replied the king of the
      Vandals, “how kind and rational is your advice. But I cannot
      persuade myself to become the slave of an unjust enemy, who has
      deserved my implacable hatred. Him I had never injured either by
      word or deed: yet he has sent against me, I know not from whence,
      a certain Belisarius, who has cast me headlong from the throne
      into his abyss of misery. Justinian is a man; he is a prince;
      does he not dread for himself a similar reverse of fortune? I can
      write no more: my grief oppresses me. Send me, I beseech you, my
      dear Pharas, send me, a lyre, 30 a sponge, and a loaf of bread.”
      From the Vandal messenger, Pharas was informed of the motives of
      this singular request. It was long since the king of Africa had
      tasted bread; a defluxion had fallen on his eyes, the effect of
      fatigue or incessant weeping; and he wished to solace the
      melancholy hours, by singing to the lyre the sad story of his own
      misfortunes. The humanity of Pharas was moved; he sent the three
      extraordinary gifts; but even his humanity prompted him to
      redouble the vigilance of his guard, that he might sooner compel
      his prisoner to embrace a resolution advantageous to the Romans,
      but salutary to himself. The obstinacy of Gelimer at length
      yielded to reason and necessity; the solemn assurances of safety
      and honorable treatment were ratified in the emperor’s name, by
      the ambassador of Belisarius; and the king of the Vandals
      descended from the mountain. The first public interview was in
      one of the suburbs of Carthage; and when the royal captive
      accosted his conqueror, he burst into a fit of laughter. The
      crowd might naturally believe, that extreme grief had deprived
      Gelimer of his senses: but in this mournful state, unseasonable
      mirth insinuated to more intelligent observers, that the vain and
      transitory scenes of human greatness are unworthy of a serious
      thought. 31

      28 (return) [ Mount Papua is placed by D’Anville (tom. iii. p.
      92, and Tabul. Imp. Rom. Occident.) near Hippo Regius and the
      sea; yet this situation ill agrees with the long pursuit beyond
      Hippo, and the words of Procopius, (l. ii.c.4,). * Note: Compare
      Lord Mahon, 120. conceive Gibbon to be right—M.]

      29 (return) [ Shaw (Travels, p. 220) most accurately represents
      the manners of the Bedoweens and Kabyles, the last of whom, by
      their language, are the remnant of the Moors; yet how changed—how
      civilized are these modern savages!—provisions are plenty among
      them and bread is common.]

      30 (return) [ By Procopius it is styled a lyre; perhaps harp
      would have been more national. The instruments of music are thus
      distinguished by Venantius Fortunatus:— Romanusque lyra tibi
      plaudat, Barbarus harpa.]

      31 (return) [ Herodotus elegantly describes the strange effects
      of grief in another royal captive, Psammetichus of Egypt, who
      wept at the lesser and was silent at the greatest of his
      calamities, (l. iii. c. 14.) In the interview of Paulus Aemilius
      and Perses, Belisarius might study his part; but it is probable
      that he never read either Livy or Plutarch; and it is certain
      that his generosity did not need a tutor.]

      Their contempt was soon justified by a new example of a vulgar
      truth; that flattery adheres to power, and envy to superior
      merit. The chiefs of the Roman army presumed to think themselves
      the rivals of a hero. Their private despatches maliciously
      affirmed, that the conqueror of Africa, strong in his reputation
      and the public love, conspired to seat himself on the throne of
      the Vandals. Justinian listened with too patient an ear; and his
      silence was the result of jealousy rather than of confidence. An
      honorable alternative, of remaining in the province, or of
      returning to the capital, was indeed submitted to the discretion
      of Belisarius; but he wisely concluded, from intercepted letters
      and the knowledge of his sovereign’s temper, that he must either
      resign his head, erect his standard, or confound his enemies by
      his presence and submission. Innocence and courage decided his
      choice; his guards, captives, and treasures, were diligently
      embarked; and so prosperous was the navigation, that his arrival
      at Constantinople preceded any certain account of his departure
      from the port of Carthage. Such unsuspecting loyalty removed the
      apprehensions of Justinian; envy was silenced and inflamed by the
      public gratitude; and the third Africanus obtained the honors of
      a triumph, a ceremony which the city of Constantine had never
      seen, and which ancient Rome, since the reign of Tiberius, had
      reserved for the auspicious arms of the Caesars. From the palace
      of Belisarius, the procession was conducted through the principal
      streets to the hippodrome; and this memorable day seemed to
      avenge the injuries of Genseric, and to expiate the shame of the
      Romans. The wealth of nations was displayed, the trophies of
      martial or effeminate luxury; rich armor, golden thrones, and the
      chariots of state which had been used by the Vandal queen; the
      massy furniture of the royal banquet, the splendor of precious
      stones, the elegant forms of statues and vases, the more
      substantial treasure of gold, and the holy vessels of the Jewish
      temple, which after their long peregrination were respectfully
      deposited in the Christian church of Jerusalem. A long train of
      the noblest Vandals reluctantly exposed their lofty stature and
      manly countenance. Gelimer slowly advanced: he was clad in a
      purple robe, and still maintained the majesty of a king. Not a
      tear escaped from his eyes, not a sigh was heard; but his pride
      or piety derived some secret consolation from the words of
      Solomon, 33 which he repeatedly pronounced, Vanity! vanity! all
      is vanity! Instead of ascending a triumphal car drawn by four
      horses or elephants, the modest conqueror marched on foot at the
      head of his brave companions; his prudence might decline an honor
      too conspicuous for a subject; and his magnanimity might justly
      disdain what had been so often sullied by the vilest of tyrants.
      The glorious procession entered the gate of the hippodrome; was
      saluted by the acclamations of the senate and people; and halted
      before the throne where Justinian and Theodora were seated to
      receive homage of the captive monarch and the victorious hero.
      They both performed the customary adoration; and falling
      prostrate on the ground, respectfully touched the footstool of a
      prince who had not unsheathed his sword, and of a prostitute who
      had danced on the theatre; some gentle violence was used to bend
      the stubborn spirit of the grandson of Genseric; and however
      trained to servitude, the genius of Belisarius must have secretly
      rebelled. He was immediately declared consul for the ensuing
      year, and the day of his inauguration resembled the pomp of a
      second triumph: his curule chair was borne aloft on the shoulders
      of captive Vandals; and the spoils of war, gold cups, and rich
      girdles, were profusely scattered among the populace. [Footnote
      32: After the title of imperator had lost the old military sense,
      and the Roman auspices were abolished by Christianity, (see La
      Bleterie, Mem. de l’Academie, tom. xxi. p. 302—332,) a triumph
      might be given with less inconsistency to a private general.]

      33 (return) [ If the Ecclesiastes be truly a work of Solomon, and
      not, like Prior’s poem, a pious and moral composition of more
      recent times, in his name, and on the subject of his repentance.
      The latter is the opinion of the learned and free-spirited
      Grotius, (Opp. Theolog. tom. i. p. 258;) and indeed the
      Ecclesiastes and Proverbs display a larger compass of thought and
      experience than seem to belong either to a Jew or a king. * Note:
      Rosenmuller, arguing from the difference of style from that of
      the greater part of the book of Proverbs, and from its nearer
      approximation to the Aramaic dialect than any book of the Old
      Testament, assigns the Ecclesiastes to some period between
      Nehemiah and Alexander the Great Schol. in Vet. Test. ix.
      Proemium ad Eccles. p. 19.—M.]




      Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Charact Of Balisarius.—Part
      III.

      Although Theodatus descended from a race of heroes, he was
      ignorant of the art, and averse to the dangers, of war. Although
      he had studied the writings of Plato and Tully, philosophy was
      incapable of purifying his mind from the basest passions, avarice
      and fear. He had purchased a sceptre by ingratitude and murder:
      at the first menace of an enemy, he degraded his own majesty and
      that of a nation, which already disdained their unworthy
      sovereign. Astonished by the recent example of Gelimer, he saw
      himself dragged in chains through the streets of Constantinople:
      the terrors which Belisarius inspired were heightened by the
      eloquence of Peter, the Byzantine ambassador; and that bold and
      subtle advocate persuaded him to sign a treaty, too ignominious
      to become the foundation of a lasting peace. It was stipulated,
      that in the acclamations of the Roman people, the name of the
      emperor should be always proclaimed before that of the Gothic
      king; and that as often as the statue of Theodatus was erected in
      brass on marble, the divine image of Justinian should be placed
      on its right hand. Instead of conferring, the king of Italy was
      reduced to solicit, the honors of the senate; and the consent of
      the emperor was made indispensable before he could execute,
      against a priest or senator, the sentence either of death or
      confiscation. The feeble monarch resigned the possession of
      Sicily; offered, as the annual mark of his dependence, a crown of
      gold of the weight of three hundred pounds; and promised to
      supply, at the requisition of his sovereign, three thousand
      Gothic auxiliaries, for the service of the empire. Satisfied with
      these extraordinary concessions, the successful agent of
      Justinian hastened his journey to Constantinople; but no sooner
      had he reached the Alban villa, 60 than he was recalled by the
      anxiety of Theodatus; and the dialogue which passed between the
      king and the ambassador deserves to be represented in its
      original simplicity. “Are you of opinion that the emperor will
      ratify this treaty? Perhaps. If he refuses, what consequence will
      ensue? War. Will such a war, be just or reasonable? Most
      assuredly: every to his character. What is your meaning? You are
      a philosopher—Justinian is emperor of the Romans: it would all
      become the disciple of Plato to shed the blood of thousands in
      his private quarrel: the successor of Augustus should vindicate
      his rights, and recover by arms the ancient provinces of his
      empire.” This reasoning might not convince, but it was sufficient
      to alarm and subdue the weakness of Theodatus; and he soon
      descended to his last offer, that for the poor equivalent of a
      pension of forty-eight thousand pounds sterling, he would resign
      the kingdom of the Goths and Italians, and spend the remainder of
      his days in the innocent pleasures of philosophy and agriculture.

      Both treaties were intrusted to the hands of the ambassador, on
      the frail security of an oath not to produce the second till the
      first had been positively rejected. The event may be easily
      foreseen: Justinian required and accepted the abdication of the
      Gothic king. His indefatigable agent returned from Constantinople
      to Ravenna, with ample instructions; and a fair epistle, which
      praised the wisdom and generosity of the royal philosopher,
      granted his pension, with the assurance of such honors as a
      subject and a Catholic might enjoy; and wisely referred the final
      execution of the treaty to the presence and authority of
      Belisarius. But in the interval of suspense, two Roman generals,
      who had entered the province of Dalmatia, were defeated and slain
      by the Gothic troops. From blind and abject despair, Theodatus
      capriciously rose to groundless and fatal presumption, 61 and
      dared to receive, with menace and contempt, the ambassador of
      Justinian; who claimed his promise, solicited the allegiance of
      his subjects, and boldly asserted the inviolable privilege of his
      own character. The march of Belisarius dispelled this visionary
      pride; and as the first campaign 62 was employed in the reduction
      of Sicily, the invasion of Italy is applied by Procopius to the
      second year of the Gothic war. 63

      60 (return) [ The ancient Alba was ruined in the first age of
      Rome. On the same spot, or at least in the neighborhood,
      successively arose. 1. The villa of Pompey, &c.; 2. A camp of the
      Praetorian cohorts; 3. The modern episcopal city of Albanum or
      Albano. (Procop. Goth. l. ii. c. 4 Oluver. Ital. Antiq tom. ii.
      p. 914.)]

      61 (return) [ A Sibylline oracle was ready to pronounce—Africa
      capta munitus cum nato peribit; a sentence of portentous
      ambiguity, (Gothic. l. i. c. 7,) which has been published in
      unknown characters by Opsopaeus, an editor of the oracles. The
      Pere Maltret has promised a commentary; but all his promises have
      been vain and fruitless.]

      62 (return) [ In his chronology, imitated, in some degree, from
      Thucydides, Procopius begins each spring the years of Justinian
      and of the Gothic war; and his first aera coincides with the
      first of April, 535, and not 536, according to the Annals of
      Baronius, (Pagi, Crit. tom. ii. p. 555, who is followed by
      Muratori and the editors of Sigonius.) Yet, in some passages, we
      are at a loss to reconcile the dates of Procopius with himself,
      and with the Chronicle of Marcellinus.]

      63 (return) [ The series of the first Gothic war is represented
      by Procopius (l. i. c. 5—29, l. ii. c. l—30, l. iii. c. l) till
      the captivity of Vitigas. With the aid of Sigonius (Opp. tom. i.
      de Imp. Occident. l. xvii. xviii.) and Muratori, (Annali d’Itaia,
      tom. v.,) I have gleaned some few additional facts.]

      After Belisarius had left sufficient garrisons in Palermo and
      Syracuse, he embarked his troops at Messina, and landed them,
      without resistance, on the opposite shores of Rhegium. A Gothic
      prince, who had married the daughter of Theodatus, was stationed
      with an army to guard the entrance of Italy; but he imitated,
      without scruple, the example of a sovereign faithless to his
      public and private duties. The perfidious Ebermor deserted with
      his followers to the Roman camp, and was dismissed to enjoy the
      servile honors of the Byzantine court. 64 From Rhegium to Naples,
      the fleet and army of Belisarius, almost always in view of each
      other, advanced near three hundred miles along the sea-coast. The
      people of Bruttium, Lucania, and Campania, who abhorred the name
      and religion of the Goths, embraced the specious excuse, that
      their ruined walls were incapable of defence: the soldiers paid a
      just equivalent for a plentiful market; and curiosity alone
      interrupted the peaceful occupations of the husbandman or
      artificer. Naples, which has swelled to a great and populous
      capital, long cherished the language and manners of a Grecian
      colony; 65 and the choice of Virgil had ennobled this elegant
      retreat, which attracted the lovers of repose and study, elegant
      retreat, which attracted the lovers of repose and study, from the
      noise, the smoke, and the laborious opulence of Rome. 66 As soon
      as the place was invested by sea and land, Belisarius gave
      audience to the deputies of the people, who exhorted him to
      disregard a conquest unworthy of his arms, to seek the Gothic
      king in a field of battle, and, after his victory, to claim, as
      the sovereign of Rome, the allegiance of the dependent cities.
      “When I treat with my enemies,” replied the Roman chief, with a
      haughty smile, “I am more accustomed to give than to receive
      counsel; but I hold in one hand inevitable ruin, and in the other
      peace and freedom, such as Sicily now enjoys.” The impatience of
      delay urged him to grant the most liberal terms; his honor
      secured their performance: but Naples was divided into two
      factions; and the Greek democracy was inflamed by their orators,
      who, with much spirit and some truth, represented to the
      multitude that the Goths would punish their defection, and that
      Belisarius himself must esteem their loyalty and valor. Their
      deliberations, however, were not perfectly free: the city was
      commanded by eight hundred Barbarians, whose wives and children
      were detained at Ravenna as the pledge of their fidelity; and
      even the Jews, who were rich and numerous, resisted, with
      desperate enthusiasm, the intolerant laws of Justinian. In a much
      later period, the circumference of Naples 67 measured only two
      thousand three hundred and sixty three paces: 68 the
      fortifications were defended by precipices or the sea; when the
      aqueducts were intercepted, a supply of water might be drawn from
      wells and fountains; and the stock of provisions was sufficient
      to consume the patience of the besiegers. At the end of twenty
      days, that of Belisarius was almost exhausted, and he had
      reconciled himself to the disgrace of abandoning the siege, that
      he might march, before the winter season, against Rome and the
      Gothic king. But his anxiety was relieved by the bold curiosity
      of an Isaurian, who explored the dry channel of an aqueduct, and
      secretly reported, that a passage might be perforated to
      introduce a file of armed soldiers into the heart of the city.
      When the work had been silently executed, the humane general
      risked the discovery of his secret by a last and fruitless
      admonition of the impending danger. In the darkness of the night,
      four hundred Romans entered the aqueduct, raised themselves by a
      rope, which they fastened to an olive-tree, into the house or
      garden of a solitary matron, sounded their trumpets, surprised
      the sentinels, and gave admittance to their companions, who on
      all sides scaled the walls, and burst open the gates of the city.
      Every crime which is punished by social justice was practised as
      the rights of war; the Huns were distinguished by cruelty and
      sacrilege, and Belisarius alone appeared in the streets and
      churches of Naples to moderate the calamities which he predicted.
      “The gold and silver,” he repeatedly exclaimed, “are the just
      rewards of your valor. But spare the inhabitants; they are
      Christians, they are suppliants, they are now your
      fellow-subjects. Restore the children to their parents, the wives
      to their husbands; and show them by your generosity of what
      friends they have obstinately deprived themselves.” The city was
      saved by the virtue and authority of its conqueror; 69 and when
      the Neapolitans returned to their houses, they found some
      consolation in the secret enjoyment of their hidden treasures.
      The Barbarian garrison enlisted in the service of the emperor;
      Apulia and Calabria, delivered from the odious presence of the
      Goths, acknowledged his dominion; and the tusks of the Calydonian
      boar, which were still shown at Beneventum, are curiously
      described by the historian of Belisarius. 70

      64 (return) [ Jornandes, de Rebus Geticis, c. 60, p. 702, edit.
      Grot., and tom. i. p. 221. Muratori, de Success, Regn. p. 241.]

      65 (return) [ Nero (says Tacitus, Annal. xv. 35) Neapolim quasi
      Graecam urbem delegit. One hundred and fifty years afterwards, in
      the time of Septimius Severus, the Hellenism of the Neapolitans
      is praised by Philostratus. (Icon. l. i. p. 763, edit. Olear.)]

      66 (return) [ The otium of Naples is praised by the Roman poets,
      by Virgil, Horace, Silius Italicus, and Statius, (Cluver. Ital.
      Ant. l. iv. p. 1149, 1150.) In an elegant epistles, (Sylv. l.
      iii. 5, p. 94—98, edit. Markland,) Statius undertakes the
      difficult task of drawing his wife from the pleasures of Rome to
      that calm retreat.]

      67 (return) [ This measure was taken by Roger l., after the
      conquest of Naples, (A.D. 1139,) which he made the capital of his
      new kingdom, (Giannone, Istoria Civile, tom. ii. p. 169.) That
      city, the third in Christian Europe, is now at least twelve miles
      in circumference, (Jul. Caesar. Capaccii Hist. Neapol. l. i. p.
      47,) and contains more inhabitants (350,000) in a given space,
      than any other spot in the known world.]

      68 (return) [ Not geometrical, but common, paces or steps, of 22
      French inches, (D’ Anville, Mesures Itineraires, p. 7, 8.) The
      2363 do not take an English mile.]

      69 (return) [ Belisarius was reproved by Pope Silverius for the
      massacre. He repeopled Naples, and imported colonies of African
      captives into Sicily, Calabria, and Apulia, (Hist. Miscell. l.
      xvi. in Muratori, tom. i. p. 106, 107.)]

      70 (return) [ Beneventum was built by Diomede, the nephew of
      Meleager (Cluver. tom. ii. p. 1195, 1196.) The Calydonian hunt is
      a picture of savage life, (Ovid, Metamorph. l. viii.) Thirty or
      forty heroes were leagued against a hog: the brutes (not the hog)
      quarrelled with lady for the head.]

      The faithful soldiers and citizens of Naples had expected their
      deliverance from a prince, who remained the inactive and almost
      indifferent spectator of their ruin. Theodatus secured his person
      within the walls of Rome, whilst his cavalry advanced forty miles
      on the Appian way, and encamped in the Pomptine marshes; which,
      by a canal of nineteen miles in length, had been recently drained
      and converted into excellent pastures. 71 But the principal
      forces of the Goths were dispersed in Dalmatia, Venetia, and
      Gaul; and the feeble mind of their king was confounded by the
      unsuccessful event of a divination, which seemed to presage the
      downfall of his empire. 72 The most abject slaves have arraigned
      the guilt or weakness of an unfortunate master. The character of
      Theodatus was rigorously scrutinized by a free and idle camp of
      Barbarians, conscious of their privilege and power: he was
      declared unworthy of his race, his nation, and his throne; and
      their general Vitiges, whose valor had been signalized in the
      Illyrian war, was raised with unanimous applause on the bucklers
      of his companions. On the first rumor, the abdicated monarch fled
      from the justice of his country; but he was pursued by private
      revenge. A Goth, whom he had injured in his love, overtook
      Theodatus on the Flaminian way, and, regardless of his unmanly
      cries, slaughtered him, as he lay, prostrate on the ground, like
      a victim (says the historian) at the foot of the altar. The
      choice of the people is the best and purest title to reign over
      them; yet such is the prejudice of every age, that Vitiges
      impatiently wished to return to Ravenna, where he might seize,
      with the reluctant hand of the daughter of Amalasontha, some
      faint shadow of hereditary right. A national council was
      immediately held, and the new monarch reconciled the impatient
      spirit of the Barbarians to a measure of disgrace, which the
      misconduct of his predecessor rendered wise and indispensable.
      The Goths consented to retreat in the presence of a victorious
      enemy; to delay till the next spring the operations of offensive
      war; to summon their scattered forces; to relinquish their
      distant possessions, and to trust even Rome itself to the faith
      of its inhabitants. Leuderis, an ancient warrior, was left in the
      capital with four thousand soldiers; a feeble garrison, which
      might have seconded the zeal, though it was incapable of opposing
      the wishes, of the Romans. But a momentary enthusiasm of religion
      and patriotism was kindled in their minds. They furiously
      exclaimed, that the apostolic throne should no longer be profaned
      by the triumph or toleration of Arianism; that the tombs of the
      Caesars should no longer be trampled by the savages of the North;
      and, without reflecting, that Italy must sink into a province of
      Constantinople, they fondly hailed the restoration of a Roman
      emperor as a new aera of freedom and prosperity. The deputies of
      the pope and clergy, of the senate and people, invited the
      lieutenant of Justinian to accept their voluntary allegiance, and
      to enter the city, whose gates would be thrown open for his
      reception. As soon as Belisarius had fortified his new conquests,
      Naples and Cumae, he advanced about twenty miles to the banks of
      the Vulturnus, contemplated the decayed grandeur of Capua, and
      halted at the separation of the Latin and Appian ways. The work
      of the censor, after the incessant use of nine centuries, still
      preserved its primaeval beauty, and not a flaw could be
      discovered in the large polished stones, of which that solid,
      though narrow road, was so firmly compacted. 73 Belisarius,
      however, preferred the Latin way, which, at a distance from the
      sea and the marshes, skirted in a space of one hundred and twenty
      miles along the foot of the mountains. His enemies had
      disappeared: when he made his entrance through the Asinarian
      gate, the garrison departed without molestation along the
      Flaminian way; and the city, after sixty years’ servitude, was
      delivered from the yoke of the Barbarians. Leuderis alone, from a
      motive of pride or discontent, refused to accompany the
      fugitives; and the Gothic chief, himself a trophy of the victory,
      was sent with the keys of Rome to the throne of the emperor
      Justinian. 74

      71 (return) [ The Decennovium is strangely confounded by
      Cluverius (tom. ii. p. 1007) with the River Ufens. It was in
      truth a canal of nineteen miles, from Forum Appii to Terracina,
      on which Horace embarked in the night. The Decennovium, which is
      mentioned by Lucan, Dion Cassius, and Cassiodorus, has been
      sufficiently ruined, restored, and obliterated, (D’Anville,
      Anayse de l’Italie, p. 185, &c.)]

      72 (return) [ A Jew, gratified his contempt and hatred for all
      the Christians, by enclosing three bands, each of ten hogs, and
      discriminated by the names of Goths, Greeks, and Romans. Of the
      first, almost all were found dead; almost all the second were
      alive: of the third, half died, and the rest lost their bristles.
      No unsuitable emblem of the event]

      73 (return) [ Bergier (Hist. des Grands Chemins des Romains, tom.
      i. p. 221-228, 440-444) examines the structure and materials,
      while D’Anville (Analyse d’Italie, p. 200—123) defines the
      geographical line.]

      74 (return) [ Of the first recovery of Rome, the year (536) is
      certain, from the series of events, rather than from the corrupt,
      or interpolated, text of Procopius. The month (December) is
      ascertained by Evagrius, (l. iv. v. 19;) and the day (the tenth)
      may be admitted on the slight evidence of Nicephorus Callistus,
      (l. xvii. c. 13.) For this accurate chronology, we are indebted
      to the diligence and judgment of Pagi, (tom, ii. p. 659, 560.)
      Note: Compare Maltret’s note, in the edition of Dindorf the ninth
      is the day, according to his reading,—M.]

      The first days, which coincided with the old Saturnalia, were
      devoted to mutual congratulation and the public joy; and the
      Catholics prepared to celebrate, without a rival, the approaching
      festival of the nativity of Christ. In the familiar conversation
      of a hero, the Romans acquired some notion of the virtues which
      history ascribed to their ancestors; they were edified by the
      apparent respect of Belisarius for the successor of St. Peter,
      and his rigid discipline secured in the midst of war the
      blessings of tranquillity and justice. They applauded the rapid
      success of his arms, which overran the adjacent country, as far
      as Narni, Perusia, and Spoleto; but they trembled, the senate,
      the clergy, and the unwarlike people, as soon as they understood
      that he had resolved, and would speedily be reduced, to sustain a
      siege against the powers of the Gothic monarchy. The designs of
      Vitiges were executed, during the winter season, with diligence
      and effect. From their rustic habitations, from their distant
      garrisons, the Goths assembled at Ravenna for the defence of
      their country; and such were their numbers, that, after an army
      had been detached for the relief of Dalmatia, one hundred and
      fifty thousand fighting men marched under the royal standard.
      According to the degrees of rank or merit, the Gothic king
      distributed arms and horses, rich gifts, and liberal promises; he
      moved along the Flaminian way, declined the useless sieges of
      Perusia and Spoleto, respected he impregnable rock of Narni, and
      arrived within two miles of Rome at the foot of the Milvian
      bridge. The narrow passage was fortified with a tower, and
      Belisarius had computed the value of the twenty days which must
      be lost in the construction of another bridge. But the
      consternation of the soldiers of the tower, who either fled or
      deserted, disappointed his hopes, and betrayed his person into
      the most imminent danger. At the head of one thousand horse, the
      Roman general sallied from the Flaminian gate to mark the ground
      of an advantageous position, and to survey the camp of the
      Barbarians; but while he still believed them on the other side of
      the Tyber, he was suddenly encompassed and assaulted by their
      numerous squadrons. The fate of Italy depended on his life; and
      the deserters pointed to the conspicuous horse a bay, 75 with a
      white face, which he rode on that memorable day. “Aim at the bay
      horse,” was the universal cry. Every bow was bent, every javelin
      was directed, against that fatal object, and the command was
      repeated and obeyed by thousands who were ignorant of its real
      motive. The bolder Barbarians advanced to the more honorable
      combat of swords and spears; and the praise of an enemy has
      graced the fall of Visandus, the standard-bearer, 76 who
      maintained his foremost station, till he was pierced with
      thirteen wounds, perhaps by the hand of Belisarius himself. The
      Roman general was strong, active, and dexterous; on every side he
      discharged his weighty and mortal strokes: his faithful guards
      imitated his valor, and defended his person; and the Goths, after
      the loss of a thousand men, fled before the arms of a hero. They
      were rashly pursued to their camp; and the Romans, oppressed by
      multitudes, made a gradual, and at length a precipitate retreat
      to the gates of the city: the gates were shut against the
      fugitives; and the public terror was increased, by the report
      that Belisarius was slain. His countenance was indeed disfigured
      by sweat, dust, and blood; his voice was hoarse, his strength was
      almost exhausted; but his unconquerable spirit still remained; he
      imparted that spirit to his desponding companions; and their last
      desperate charge was felt by the flying Barbarians, as if a new
      army, vigorous and entire, had been poured from the city. The
      Flaminian gate was thrown open to a real triumph; but it was not
      before Belisarius had visited every post, and provided for the
      public safety, that he could be persuaded, by his wife and
      friends, to taste the needful refreshments of food and sleep. In
      the more improved state of the art of war, a general is seldom
      required, or even permitted to display the personal prowess of a
      soldier; and the example of Belisarius may be added to the rare
      examples of Henry IV., of Pyrrhus, and of Alexander.

      75 (return) [ A horse of a bay or red color was styled by the
      Greeks, balan by the Barbarians, and spadix by the Romans.
      Honesti spadices, says Virgil, (Georgic. l. iii. 72, with the
      Observations of Martin and Heyne.) It signifies a branch of the
      palm-tree, whose name is synonymous to red, (Aulus Gellius, ii.
      26.)]

      76 (return) [ I interpret it, not as a proper, name, but an
      office, standard-bearer, from bandum, (vexillum,) a Barbaric word
      adopted by the Greeks and Romans, (Paul Diacon. l. i. c. 20, p.
      760. Grot. Nomina Hethica, p. 575. Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. i.
      p. 539, 540.)]

      After this first and unsuccessful trial of their enemies, the
      whole army of the Goths passed the Tyber, and formed the siege of
      the city, which continued above a year, till their final
      departure. Whatever fancy may conceive, the severe compass of the
      geographer defines the circumference of Rome within a line of
      twelve miles and three hundred and forty-five paces; and that
      circumference, except in the Vatican, has invariably been the
      same from the triumph of Aurelian to the peaceful but obscure
      reign of the modern popes. 77 But in the day of her greatness,
      the space within her walls was crowded with habitations and
      inhabitants; and the populous suburbs, that stretched along the
      public roads, were darted like so many rays from one common
      centre. Adversity swept away these extraneous ornaments, and left
      naked and desolate a considerable part even of the seven hills.
      Yet Rome in its present state could send into the field about
      thirty thousand males of a military age; 78 and, notwithstanding
      the want of discipline and exercise, the far greater part, inured
      to the hardships of poverty, might be capable of bearing arms for
      the defence of their country and religion. The prudence of
      Belisarius did not neglect this important resource. His soldiers
      were relieved by the zeal and diligence of the people, who
      watched while they slept, and labored while they reposed: he
      accepted the voluntary service of the bravest and most indigent
      of the Roman youth; and the companies of townsmen sometimes
      represented, in a vacant post, the presence of the troops which
      had been drawn away to more essential duties. But his just
      confidence was placed in the veterans who had fought under his
      banner in the Persian and African wars; and although that gallant
      band was reduced to five thousand men, he undertook, with such
      contemptible numbers, to defend a circle of twelve miles, against
      an army of one hundred and fifty thousand Barbarians. In the
      walls of Rome, which Belisarius constructed or restored, the
      materials of ancient architecture may be discerned; 79 and the
      whole fortification was completed, except in a chasm still extant
      between the Pincian and Flaminian gates, which the prejudices of
      the Goths and Romans left under the effectual guard of St. Peter
      the apostle. 80

      77 (return) [ M. D’Anville has given, in the Memoirs of the
      Academy for the year 1756, (tom. xxx. p. 198—236,) a plan of Rome
      on a smaller scale, but far more accurate than that which he had
      delineated in 1738 for Rollin’s history. Experience had improved
      his knowledge and instead of Rossi’s topography, he used the new
      and excellent map of Nolli. Pliny’s old measure of thirteen must
      be reduced to eight miles. It is easier to alter a text, than to
      remove hills or buildings. * Note: Compare Gibbon, ch. xi. note
      43, and xxxi. 67, and ch. lxxi. “It is quite clear,” observes Sir
      J. Hobhouse, “that all these measurements differ, (in the first
      and second it is 21, in the text 12 and 345 paces, in the last
      10,) yet it is equally clear that the historian avers that they
      are all the same.” The present extent, 12 3/4 nearly agrees with
      the second statement of Gibbon. Sir. J. Hobhouse also observes
      that the walls were enlarged by Constantine; but there can be no
      doubt that the circuit has been much changed. Illust. of Ch.
      Harold, p. 180.—M.]

      78 (return) [ In the year 1709, Labat (Voyages en Italie, tom.
      iii. p. 218) reckoned 138,568 Christian souls, besides 8000 or
      10,000 Jews—without souls? In the year 1763, the numbers exceeded
      160,000.]

      79 (return) [ The accurate eye of Nardini (Roma Antica, l. i. c.
      viii. p. 31) could distinguish the tumultuarie opere di
      Belisario.]

      80 (return) [ The fissure and leaning in the upper part of the
      wall, which Procopius observed, (Goth. l. i. c. 13,) is visible
      to the present hour, (Douat. Roma Vetus, l. i. c. 17, p. 53,
      54.)]

      The battlements or bastions were shaped in sharp angles; a ditch,
      broad and deep, protected the foot of the rampart; and the
      archers on the rampart were assisted by military engines; the
      balistri, a powerful cross-bow, which darted short but massy
      arrows; the onagri, or wild asses, which, on the principle of a
      sling, threw stones and bullets of an enormous size. 81 A chain
      was drawn across the Tyber; the arches of the aqueducts were made
      impervious, and the mole or sepulchre of Hadrian 82 was
      converted, for the first time, to the uses of a citadel. That
      venerable structure, which contained the ashes of the Antonines,
      was a circular turret rising from a quadrangular basis; it was
      covered with the white marble of Paros, and decorated by the
      statues of gods and heroes; and the lover of the arts must read
      with a sigh, that the works of Praxiteles or Lysippus were torn
      from their lofty pedestals, and hurled into the ditch on the
      heads of the besiegers. 83 To each of his lieutenants Belisarius
      assigned the defence of a gate, with the wise and peremptory
      instruction, that, whatever might be the alarm, they should
      steadily adhere to their respective posts, and trust their
      general for the safety of Rome. The formidable host of the Goths
      was insufficient to embrace the ample measure of the city, of the
      fourteen gates, seven only were invested from the Proenestine to
      the Flaminian way; and Vitiges divided his troops into six camps,
      each of which was fortified with a ditch and rampart. On the
      Tuscan side of the river, a seventh encampment was formed in the
      field or circus of the Vatican, for the important purpose of
      commanding the Milvian bridge and the course of the Tyber; but
      they approached with devotion the adjacent church of St. Peter;
      and the threshold of the holy apostles was respected during the
      siege by a Christian enemy. In the ages of victory, as often as
      the senate decreed some distant conquest, the consul denounced
      hostilities, by unbarring, in solemn pomp, the gates of the
      temple of Janus. 84 Domestic war now rendered the admonition
      superfluous, and the ceremony was superseded by the establishment
      of a new religion. But the brazen temple of Janus was left
      standing in the forum; of a size sufficient only to contain the
      statue of the god, five cubits in height, of a human form, but
      with two faces directed to the east and west. The double gates
      were likewise of brass; and a fruitless effort to turn them on
      their rusty hinges revealed the scandalous secret that some
      Romans were still attached to the superstition of their
      ancestors.

      81 (return) [ Lipsius (Opp. tom. iii. Poliorcet, l. iii.) was
      ignorant of this clear and conspicuous passage of Procopius,
      (Goth. l. i. c. 21.) The engine was named the wild ass, a
      calcitrando, (Hen. Steph. Thesaur. Linguae Graec. tom. ii. p.
      1340, 1341, tom. iii. p. 877.) I have seen an ingenious model,
      contrived and executed by General Melville, which imitates or
      surpasses the art of antiquity.]

      82 (return) [ The description of this mausoleum, or mole, in
      Procopius, (l. i. c. 25.) is the first and best. The height above
      the walls. On Nolli’s great plan, the sides measure 260 English
      feet. * Note: Donatus and Nardini suppose that Hadrian’s tomb was
      fortified by Honorius; it was united to the wall by men of old,
      (Procop in loc.) Gibbon has mistaken the breadth for the height
      above the walls Hobhouse, Illust. of Childe Harold, p. 302.—M.]

      83 (return) [ Praxiteles excelled in Fauns, and that of Athens
      was his own masterpiece. Rome now contains about thirty of the
      same character. When the ditch of St. Angelo was cleansed under
      Urban VIII., the workmen found the sleeping Faun of the Barberini
      palace; but a leg, a thigh, and the right arm, had been broken
      from that beautiful statue, (Winkelman, Hist. de l’Art, tom. ii.
      p. 52, 53, tom iii. p. 265.)]

      84 (return) [ Procopius has given the best description of the
      temple of Janus a national deity of Latium, (Heyne, Excurs. v. ad
      l. vii. Aeneid.) It was once a gate in the primitive city of
      Romulus and Numa, (Nardini, p. 13, 256, 329.) Virgil has
      described the ancient rite like a poet and an antiquarian.]
      Eighteen days were employed by the besiegers, to provide all the
      instruments of attack which antiquity had invented. Fascines were
      prepared to fill the ditches, scaling-ladders to ascend the
      walls. The largest trees of the forest supplied the timbers of
      four battering-rams: their heads were armed with iron; they were
      suspended by ropes, and each of them was worked by the labor of
      fifty men. The lofty wooden turrets moved on wheels or rollers,
      and formed a spacious platform of the level of the rampart. On
      the morning of the nineteenth day, a general attack was made from
      the Praenestine gate to the Vatican: seven Gothic columns, with
      their military engines, advanced to the assault; and the Romans,
      who lined the ramparts, listened with doubt and anxiety to the
      cheerful assurances of their commander. As soon as the enemy
      approached the ditch, Belisarius himself drew the first arrow;
      and such was his strength and dexterity, that he transfixed the
      foremost of the Barbarian leaders.

      A shout of applause and victory was reechoed along the wall. He
      drew a second arrow, and the stroke was followed with the same
      success and the same acclamation. The Roman general then gave the
      word, that the archers should aim at the teams of oxen; they were
      instantly covered with mortal wounds; the towers which they drew
      remained useless and immovable, and a single moment disconcerted
      the laborious projects of the king of the Goths. After this
      disappointment, Vitiges still continued, or feigned to continue,
      the assault of the Salarian gate, that he might divert the
      attention of his adversary, while his principal forces more
      strenuously attacked the Praenestine gate and the sepulchre of
      Hadrian, at the distance of three miles from each other. Near the
      former, the double walls of the Vivarium 85 were low or broken;
      the fortifications of the latter were feebly guarded: the vigor
      of the Goths was excited by the hope of victory and spoil; and if
      a single post had given way, the Romans, and Rome itself, were
      irrecoverably lost. This perilous day was the most glorious in
      the life of Belisarius. Amidst tumult and dismay, the whole plan
      of the attack and defence was distinctly present to his mind; he
      observed the changes of each instant, weighed every possible
      advantage, transported his person to the scenes of danger, and
      communicated his spirit in calm and decisive orders. The contest
      was fiercely maintained from the morning to the evening; the
      Goths were repulsed on all sides; and each Roman might boast that
      he had vanquished thirty Barbarians, if the strange disproportion
      of numbers were not counterbalanced by the merit of one man.
      Thirty thousand Goths, according to the confession of their own
      chiefs, perished in this bloody action; and the multitude of the
      wounded was equal to that of the slain. When they advanced to the
      assault, their close disorder suffered not a javelin to fall
      without effect; and as they retired, the populace of the city
      joined the pursuit, and slaughtered, with impunity, the backs of
      their flying enemies. Belisarius instantly sallied from the
      gates; and while the soldiers chanted his name and victory, the
      hostile engines of war were reduced to ashes. Such was the loss
      and consternation of the Goths, that, from this day, the siege of
      Rome degenerated into a tedious and indolent blockade; and they
      were incessantly harassed by the Roman general, who, in frequent
      skirmishes, destroyed above five thousand of their bravest
      troops. Their cavalry was unpractised in the use of the bow;
      their archers served on foot; and this divided force was
      incapable of contending with their adversaries, whose lances and
      arrows, at a distance, or at hand, were alike formidable. The
      consummate skill of Belisarius embraced the favorable
      opportunities; and as he chose the ground and the moment, as he
      pressed the charge or sounded the retreat, 86 the squadrons which
      he detached were seldom unsuccessful. These partial advantages
      diffused an impatient ardor among the soldiers and people, who
      began to feel the hardships of a siege, and to disregard the
      dangers of a general engagement. Each plebeian conceived himself
      to be a hero, and the infantry, who, since the decay of
      discipline, were rejected from the line of battle, aspired to the
      ancient honors of the Roman legion. Belisarius praised the spirit
      of his troops, condemned their presumption, yielded to their
      clamors, and prepared the remedies of a defeat, the possibility
      of which he alone had courage to suspect. In the quarter of the
      Vatican, the Romans prevailed; and if the irreparable moments had
      not been wasted in the pillage of the camp, they might have
      occupied the Milvian bridge, and charged in the rear of the
      Gothic host. On the other side of the Tyber, Belisarius advanced
      from the Pincian and Salarian gates. But his army, four thousand
      soldiers perhaps, was lost in a spacious plain; they were
      encompassed and oppressed by fresh multitudes, who continually
      relieved the broken ranks of the Barbarians. The valiant leaders
      of the infantry were unskilled to conquer; they died: the retreat
      (a hasty retreat) was covered by the prudence of the general, and
      the victors started back with affright from the formidable aspect
      of an armed rampart. The reputation of Belisarius was unsullied
      by a defeat; and the vain confidence of the Goths was not less
      serviceable to his designs than the repentance and modesty of the
      Roman troops.

      85 (return) [ Vivarium was an angle in the new wall enclosed for
      wild beasts, (Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 23.) The spot is still
      visible in Nardini (l iv. c. 2, p. 159, 160,) and Nolli’s great
      plan of Rome.]

      86 (return) [ For the Roman trumpet, and its various notes,
      consult Lipsius de Militia Romana, (Opp. tom. iii. l. iv. Dialog.
      x. p. 125-129.) A mode of distinguishing the charge by the
      horse-trumpet of solid brass, and the retreat by the foot-trumpet
      of leather and light wood, was recommended by Procopius, and
      adopted by Belisarius.]




      Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Charact Of Balisarius.—Part
      IV.

      From the moment that Belisarius had determined to sustain a
      siege, his assiduous care provided Rome against the danger of
      famine, more dreadful than the Gothic arms. An extraordinary
      supply of corn was imported from Sicily: the harvests of Campania
      and Tuscany were forcibly swept for the use of the city; and the
      rights of private property were infringed by the strong plea of
      the public safety. It might easily be foreseen that the enemy
      would intercept the aqueducts; and the cessation of the
      water-mills was the first inconvenience, which was speedily
      removed by mooring large vessels, and fixing mill-stones in the
      current of the river. The stream was soon embarrassed by the
      trunks of trees, and polluted with dead bodies; yet so effectual
      were the precautions of the Roman general, that the waters of the
      Tyber still continued to give motion to the mills and drink to
      the inhabitants: the more distant quarters were supplied from
      domestic wells; and a besieged city might support, without
      impatience, the privation of her public baths. A large portion of
      Rome, from the Praenestine gate to the church of St. Paul, was
      never invested by the Goths; their excursions were restrained by
      the activity of the Moorish troops: the navigation of the Tyber,
      and the Latin, Appian, and Ostian ways, were left free and
      unmolested for the introduction of corn and cattle, or the
      retreat of the inhabitants, who sought refuge in Campania or
      Sicily. Anxious to relieve himself from a useless and devouring
      multitude, Belisarius issued his peremptory orders for the
      instant departure of the women, the children, and slaves;
      required his soldiers to dismiss their male and female
      attendants, and regulated their allowance that one moiety should
      be given in provisions, and the other in money. His foresight was
      justified by the increase of the public distress, as soon as the
      Goths had occupied two important posts in the neighborhood of
      Rome. By the loss of the port, or, as it is now called, the city
      of Porto, he was deprived of the country on the right of the
      Tyber, and the best communication with the sea; and he reflected,
      with grief and anger, that three hundred men, could he have
      spared such a feeble band, might have defended its impregnable
      works. Seven miles from the capital, between the Appian and the
      Latin ways, two principal aqueducts crossing, and again crossing
      each other: enclosed within their solid and lofty arches a
      fortified space, 87 where Vitiges established a camp of seven
      thousand Goths to intercept the convoy of Sicily and Campania.
      The granaries of Rome were insensibly exhausted, the adjacent
      country had been wasted with fire and sword; such scanty supplies
      as might yet be obtained by hasty excursions were the reward of
      valor, and the purchase of wealth: the forage of the horses, and
      the bread of the soldiers, never failed: but in the last months
      of the siege, the people were exposed to the miseries of
      scarcity, unwholesome food, 88 and contagious disorders.
      Belisarius saw and pitied their sufferings; but he had foreseen,
      and he watched the decay of their loyalty, and the progress of
      their discontent. Adversity had awakened the Romans from the
      dreams of grandeur and freedom, and taught them the humiliating
      lesson, that it was of small moment to their real happiness,
      whether the name of their master was derived from the Gothic or
      the Latin language. The lieutenant of Justinian listened to their
      just complaints, but he rejected with disdain the idea of flight
      or capitulation; repressed their clamorous impatience for battle;
      amused them with the prospect of a sure and speedy relief; and
      secured himself and the city from the effects of their despair or
      treachery. Twice in each month he changed the station of the
      officers to whom the custody of the gates was committed: the
      various precautions of patroles, watch words, lights, and music,
      were repeatedly employed to discover whatever passed on the
      ramparts; out-guards were posted beyond the ditch, and the trusty
      vigilance of dogs supplied the more doubtful fidelity of mankind.
      A letter was intercepted, which assured the king of the Goths
      that the Asinarian gate, adjoining to the Lateran church, should
      be secretly opened to his troops. On the proof or suspicion of
      treason, several senators were banished, and the pope Sylverius
      was summoned to attend the representative of his sovereign, at
      his head-quarters in the Pincian palace. 89 The ecclesiastics,
      who followed their bishop, were detained in the first or second
      apartment, 90 and he alone was admitted to the presence of
      Belisarius. The conqueror of Rome and Carthage was modestly
      seated at the feet of Antonina, who reclined on a stately couch:
      the general was silent, but the voice of reproach and menace
      issued from the mouth of his imperious wife. Accused by credible
      witnesses, and the evidence of his own subscription, the
      successor of St. Peter was despoiled of his pontifical ornaments,
      clad in the mean habit of a monk, and embarked, without delay,
      for a distant exile in the East. 9011 At the emperor’s command,
      the clergy of Rome proceeded to the choice of a new bishop; and
      after a solemn invocation of the Holy Ghost, elected the deacon
      Vigilius, who had purchased the papal throne by a bribe of two
      hundred pounds of gold. The profit, and consequently the guilt,
      of this simony, was imputed to Belisarius: but the hero obeyed
      the orders of his wife; Antonina served the passions of the
      empress; and Theodora lavished her treasures, in the vain hope of
      obtaining a pontiff hostile or indifferent to the council of
      Chalcedon. 91

      87 (return) [ Procopius (Goth. l. ii. c. 3) has forgot to name
      these aqueducts nor can such a double intersection, at such a
      distance from Rome, be clearly ascertained from the writings of
      Frontinus, Fabretti, and Eschinard, de Aquis and de Agro Romano,
      or from the local maps of Lameti and Cingolani. Seven or eight
      miles from the city, (50 stadia,) on the road to Albano, between
      the Latin and Appian ways, I discern the remains of an aqueduct,
      (probably the Septimian,) a series (630 paces) of arches
      twenty-five feet high.]

      88 (return) [ They made sausages of mule’s flesh; unwholesome, if
      the animals had died of the plague. Otherwise, the famous Bologna
      sausages are said to be made of ass flesh, (Voyages de Labat,
      tom. ii. p. 218.)]

      89 (return) [ The name of the palace, the hill, and the adjoining
      gate, were all derived from the senator Pincius. Some recent
      vestiges of temples and churches are now smoothed in the garden
      of the Minims of the Trinita del Monte, (Nardini, l. iv. c. 7, p.
      196. Eschinard, p. 209, 210, the old plan of Buffalino, and the
      great plan of Nolli.) Belisarius had fixed his station between
      the Pincian and Salarian gates, (Procop. Goth. l. i. c. 15.)]

      90 (return) [ From the mention of the primum et secundum velum,
      it should seem that Belisarius, even in a siege, represented the
      emperor, and maintained the proud ceremonial of the Byzantine
      palace.]

      9011 (return) [ De Beau, as a good Catholic, makes the Pope the
      victim of a dark intrigue. Lord Mahon, (p. 225.) with whom I
      concur, summed up against him.—M.]

      91 (return) [ Of this act of sacrilege, Procopius (Goth. l. i. c.
      25) is a dry and reluctant witness. The narratives of Liberatus
      (Breviarium, c. 22) and Anastasius (de Vit. Pont. p. 39) are
      characteristic, but passionate. Hear the execrations of Cardinal
      Baronius, (A.D. 536, No. 123 A.D. 538, No. 4—20:) portentum,
      facinus omni execratione dignum.]

      The epistle of Belisarius to the emperor announced his victory,
      his danger, and his resolution. “According to your commands, we
      have entered the dominions of the Goths, and reduced to your
      obedience Sicily, Campania, and the city of Rome; but the loss of
      these conquests will be more disgraceful than their acquisition
      was glorious. Hitherto we have successfully fought against the
      multitudes of the Barbarians, but their multitudes may finally
      prevail. Victory is the gift of Providence, but the reputation of
      kings and generals depends on the success or the failure of their
      designs. Permit me to speak with freedom: if you wish that we
      should live, send us subsistence; if you desire that we should
      conquer, send us arms, horses, and men. The Romans have received
      us as friends and deliverers: but in our present distress, they
      will be either betrayed by their confidence, or we shall be
      oppressed by their treachery and hatred. For myself, my life is
      consecrated to your service: it is yours to reflect, whether my
      death in this situation will contribute to the glory and
      prosperity of your reign.” Perhaps that reign would have been
      equally prosperous if the peaceful master of the East had
      abstained from the conquest of Africa and Italy: but as Justinian
      was ambitious of fame, he made some efforts (they were feeble and
      languid) to support and rescue his victorious general. A
      reenforcement of sixteen hundred Sclavonians and Huns was led by
      Martin and Valerian; and as they reposed during the winter season
      in the harbors of Greece, the strength of the men and horses was
      not impaired by the fatigues of a sea-voyage; and they
      distinguished their valor in the first sally against the
      besiegers. About the time of the summer solstice, Euthalius
      landed at Terracina with large sums of money for the payment of
      the troops: he cautiously proceeded along the Appian way, and
      this convoy entered Rome through the gate Capena, 92 while
      Belisarius, on the other side, diverted the attention of the
      Goths by a vigorous and successful skirmish. These seasonable
      aids, the use and reputation of which were dexterously managed by
      the Roman general, revived the courage, or at least the hopes, of
      the soldiers and people. The historian Procopius was despatched
      with an important commission to collect the troops and provisions
      which Campania could furnish, or Constantinople had sent; and the
      secretary of Belisarius was soon followed by Antonina herself, 93
      who boldly traversed the posts of the enemy, and returned with
      the Oriental succors to the relief of her husband and the
      besieged city. A fleet of three thousand Isaurians cast anchor in
      the Bay of Naples and afterwards at Ostia. Above two thousand
      horse, of whom a part were Thracians, landed at Tarentum; and,
      after the junction of five hundred soldiers of Campania, and a
      train of wagons laden with wine and flour, they directed their
      march on the Appian way, from Capua to the neighborhood of Rome.
      The forces that arrived by land and sea were united at the mouth
      of the Tyber. Antonina convened a council of war: it was resolved
      to surmount, with sails and oars, the adverse stream of the
      river; and the Goths were apprehensive of disturbing, by any rash
      hostilities, the negotiation to which Belisarius had craftily
      listened. They credulously believed that they saw no more than
      the vanguard of a fleet and army, which already covered the
      Ionian Sea and the plains of Campania; and the illusion was
      supported by the haughty language of the Roman general, when he
      gave audience to the ambassadors of Vitiges. After a specious
      discourse to vindicate the justice of his cause, they declared,
      that, for the sake of peace, they were disposed to renounce the
      possession of Sicily. “The emperor is not less generous,” replied
      his lieutenant, with a disdainful smile, “in return for a gift
      which you no longer possess: he presents you with an ancient
      province of the empire; he resigns to the Goths the sovereignty
      of the British island.” Belisarius rejected with equal firmness
      and contempt the offer of a tribute; but he allowed the Gothic
      ambassadors to seek their fate from the mouth of Justinian
      himself; and consented, with seeming reluctance, to a truce of
      three months, from the winter solstice to the equinox of spring.
      Prudence might not safely trust either the oaths or hostages of
      the Barbarians, and the conscious superiority of the Roman chief
      was expressed in the distribution of his troops. As soon as fear
      or hunger compelled the Goths to evacuate Alba, Porto, and
      Centumcellae, their place was instantly supplied; the garrisons
      of Narni, Spoleto, and Perusia, were reenforced, and the seven
      camps of the besiegers were gradually encompassed with the
      calamities of a siege. The prayers and pilgrimage of Datius,
      bishop of Milan, were not without effect; and he obtained one
      thousand Thracians and Isaurians, to assist the revolt of Liguria
      against her Arian tyrant. At the same time, John the Sanguinary,
      94 the nephew of Vitalian, was detached with two thousand chosen
      horse, first to Alba, on the Fucine Lake, and afterwards to the
      frontiers of Picenum, on the Hadriatic Sea. “In the province,”
      said Belisarius, “the Goths have deposited their families and
      treasures, without a guard or the suspicion of danger. Doubtless
      they will violate the truce: let them feel your presence, before
      they hear of your motions. Spare the Italians; suffer not any
      fortified places to remain hostile in your rear; and faithfully
      reserve the spoil for an equal and common partition. It would not
      be reasonable,” he added with a laugh, “that whilst we are
      toiling to the destruction of the drones, our more fortunate
      brethren should rifle and enjoy the honey.”

      92 (return) [ The old Capena was removed by Aurelian to, or near,
      the modern gate of St. Sebastian, (see Nolli’s plan.) That
      memorable spot has been consecrated by the Egerian grove, the
      memory of Numa two umphal arches, the sepulchres of the Scipios,
      Metelli, &c.]

      93 (return) [ The expression of Procopius has an invidious cast,
      (Goth. l. ii. c. 4.) Yet he is speaking of a woman.]

      94 (return) [ Anastasius (p. 40) has preserved this epithet of
      Sanguinarius which might do honor to a tiger.]

      The whole nation of the Ostrogoths had been assembled for the
      attack, and was almost entirely consumed in the siege of Rome. If
      any credit be due to an intelligent spectator, one third at least
      of their enormous host was destroyed, in frequent and bloody
      combats under the walls of the city. The bad fame and pernicious
      qualities of the summer air might already be imputed to the decay
      of agriculture and population; and the evils of famine and
      pestilence were aggravated by their own licentiousness, and the
      unfriendly disposition of the country. While Vitiges struggled
      with his fortune, while he hesitated between shame and ruin, his
      retreat was hastened by domestic alarms. The king of the Goths
      was informed by trembling messengers, that John the Sanguinary
      spread the devastations of war from the Apennine to the
      Hadriatic; that the rich spoils and innumerable captives of
      Picenum were lodged in the fortifications of Rimini; and that
      this formidable chief had defeated his uncle, insulted his
      capital, and seduced, by secret correspondence, the fidelity of
      his wife, the imperious daughter of Amalasontha. Yet, before he
      retired, Vitiges made a last effort, either to storm or to
      surprise the city. A secret passage was discovered in one of the
      aqueducts; two citizens of the Vatican were tempted by bribes to
      intoxicate the guards of the Aurelian gate; an attack was
      meditated on the walls beyond the Tyber, in a place which was not
      fortified with towers; and the Barbarians advanced, with torches
      and scaling-ladders, to the assault of the Pincian gate. But
      every attempt was defeated by the intrepid vigilance of
      Belisarius and his band of veterans, who, in the most perilous
      moments, did not regret the absence of their companions; and the
      Goths, alike destitute of hope and subsistence, clamorously urged
      their departure before the truce should expire, and the Roman
      cavalry should again be united. One year and nine days after the
      commencement of the siege, an army, so lately strong and
      triumphant, burnt their tents, and tumultuously repassed the
      Milvian bridge. They repassed not with impunity: their thronging
      multitudes, oppressed in a narrow passage, were driven headlong
      into the Tyber, by their own fears and the pursuit of the enemy;
      and the Roman general, sallying from the Pincian gate, inflicted
      a severe and disgraceful wound on their retreat. The slow length
      of a sickly and desponding host was heavily dragged along the
      Flaminian way; from whence the Barbarians were sometimes
      compelled to deviate, lest they should encounter the hostile
      garrisons that guarded the high road to Rimini and Ravenna. Yet
      so powerful was this flying army, that Vitiges spared ten
      thousand men for the defence of the cities which he was most
      solicitous to preserve, and detached his nephew Uraias, with an
      adequate force, for the chastisement of rebellious Milan. At the
      head of his principal army, he besieged Rimini, only thirty-three
      miles distant from the Gothic capital. A feeble rampart, and a
      shallow ditch, were maintained by the skill and valor of John the
      Sanguinary, who shared the danger and fatigue of the meanest
      soldier, and emulated, on a theatre less illustrious, the
      military virtues of his great commander. The towers and
      battering-engines of the Barbarians were rendered useless; their
      attacks were repulsed; and the tedious blockade, which reduced
      the garrison to the last extremity of hunger, afforded time for
      the union and march of the Roman forces. A fleet, which had
      surprised Ancona, sailed along the coast of the Hadriatic, to the
      relief of the besieged city. The eunuch Narses landed in Picenum
      with two thousand Heruli and five thousand of the bravest troops
      of the East. The rock of the Apennine was forced; ten thousand
      veterans moved round the foot of the mountains, under the command
      of Belisarius himself; and a new army, whose encampment blazed
      with innumerable lights, appeared to advance along the Flaminian
      way. Overwhelmed with astonishment and despair, the Goths
      abandoned the siege of Rimini, their tents, their standards, and
      their leaders; and Vitiges, who gave or followed the example of
      flight, never halted till he found a shelter within the walls and
      morasses of Ravenna. To these walls, and to some fortresses
      destitute of any mutual support, the Gothic monarchy was now
      reduced. The provinces of Italy had embraced the party of the
      emperor and his army, gradually recruited to the number of twenty
      thousand men, must have achieved an easy and rapid conquest, if
      their invincible powers had not been weakened by the discord of
      the Roman chiefs. Before the end of the siege, an act of blood,
      ambiguous and indiscreet, sullied the fair fame of Belisarius.
      Presidius, a loyal Italian, as he fled from Ravenna to Rome, was
      rudely stopped by Constantine, the military governor of Spoleto,
      and despoiled, even in a church, of two daggers richly inlaid
      with gold and precious stones. As soon as the public danger had
      subsided, Presidius complained of the loss and injury: his
      complaint was heard, but the order of restitution was disobeyed
      by the pride and avarice of the offender. Exasperated by the
      delay, Presidius boldly arrested the general’s horse as he passed
      through the forum; and, with the spirit of a citizen, demanded
      the common benefit of the Roman laws. The honor of Belisarius was
      engaged; he summoned a council; claimed the obedience of his
      subordinate officer; and was provoked, by an insolent reply, to
      call hastily for the presence of his guards. Constantine, viewing
      their entrance as the signal of death, drew his sword, and rushed
      on the general, who nimbly eluded the stroke, and was protected
      by his friends; while the desperate assassin was disarmed,
      dragged into a neighboring chamber, and executed, or rather
      murdered, by the guards, at the arbitrary command of Belisarius.
      95 In this hasty act of violence, the guilt of Constantine was no
      longer remembered; the despair and death of that valiant officer
      were secretly imputed to the revenge of Antonina; and each of his
      colleagues, conscious of the same rapine, was apprehensive of the
      same fate. The fear of a common enemy suspended the effects of
      their envy and discontent; but in the confidence of approaching
      victory, they instigated a powerful rival to oppose the conqueror
      of Rome and Africa. From the domestic service of the palace, and
      the administration of the private revenue, Narses the eunuch was
      suddenly exalted to the head of an army; and the spirit of a
      hero, who afterwards equalled the merit and glory of Belisarius,
      served only to perplex the operations of the Gothic war. To his
      prudent counsels, the relief of Rimini was ascribed by the
      leaders of the discontented faction, who exhorted Narses to
      assume an independent and separate command. The epistle of
      Justinian had indeed enjoined his obedience to the general; but
      the dangerous exception, “as far as may be advantageous to the
      public service,” reserved some freedom of judgment to the
      discreet favorite, who had so lately departed from the sacred and
      familiar conversation of his sovereign. In the exercise of this
      doubtful right, the eunuch perpetually dissented from the
      opinions of Belisarius; and, after yielding with reluctance to
      the siege of Urbino, he deserted his colleague in the night, and
      marched away to the conquest of the Aemilian province. The fierce
      and formidable bands of the Heruli were attached to the person of
      Narses; 96 ten thousand Romans and confederates were persuaded to
      march under his banners; every malcontent  embraced the fair
      opportunity of revenging his private or imaginary wrongs; and the
      remaining troops of Belisarius were divided and dispersed from
      the garrisons of Sicily to the shores of the Hadriatic. His skill
      and perseverance overcame every obstacle: Urbino was taken, the
      sieges of Faesulae Orvieto, and Auximum, were undertaken and
      vigorously prosecuted; and the eunuch Narses was at length
      recalled to the domestic cares of the palace. All dissensions
      were healed, and all opposition was subdued, by the temperate
      authority of the Roman general, to whom his enemies could not
      refuse their esteem; and Belisarius inculcated the salutary
      lesson that the forces of the state should compose one body, and
      be animated by one soul. But in the interval of discord, the
      Goths were permitted to breathe; an important season was lost,
      Milan was destroyed, and the northern provinces of Italy were
      afflicted by an inundation of the Franks.

      95 (return) [ This transaction is related in the public history
      (Goth. l. ii. c. 8) with candor or caution; in the Anecdotes (c.
      7) with malevolence or freedom; but Marcellinus, or rather his
      continuator, (in Chron.,) casts a shade of premeditated
      assassination over the death of Constantine. He had performed
      good service at Rome and Spoleto, (Procop. Goth l. i. c. 7, 14;)
      but Alemannus confounds him with a Constantianus comes stabuli.]

      96 (return) [ They refused to serve after his departure; sold
      their captives and cattle to the Goths; and swore never to fight
      against them. Procopius introduces a curious digression on the
      manners and adventures of this wandering nation, a part of whom
      finally emigrated to Thule or Scandinavia. (Goth. l. ii. c. 14,
      15.)]

      When Justinian first meditated the conquest of Italy, he sent
      ambassadors to the kings of the Franks, and adjured them, by the
      common ties of alliance and religion, to join in the holy
      enterprise against the Arians. The Goths, as their wants were
      more urgent, employed a more effectual mode of persuasion, and
      vainly strove, by the gift of lands and money, to purchase the
      friendship, or at least the neutrality, of a light and perfidious
      nation. But the arms of Belisarius, and the revolt of the
      Italians, had no sooner shaken the Gothic monarchy, than
      Theodebert of Austrasia, the most powerful and warlike of the
      Merovingian kings, was persuaded to succor their distress by an
      indirect and seasonable aid. Without expecting the consent of
      their sovereign, ten thousand Burgundians, his recent subjects,
      descended from the Alps, and joined the troops which Vitiges had
      sent to chastise the revolt of Milan. After an obstinate siege,
      the capital of Liguria was reduced by famine; but no capitulation
      could be obtained, except for the safe retreat of the Roman
      garrison. Datius, the orthodox bishop, who had seduced his
      countrymen to rebellion 98 and ruin, escaped to the luxury and
      honors of the Byzantine court; 99 but the clergy, perhaps the
      Arian clergy, were slaughtered at the foot of their own altars by
      the defenders of the Catholic faith. Three hundred thousand males
      were reported to be slain; 100 the female sex, and the more
      precious spoil, was resigned to the Burgundians; and the houses,
      or at least the walls, of Milan, were levelled with the ground.
      The Goths, in their last moments, were revenged by the
      destruction of a city, second only to Rome in size and opulence,
      in the splendor of its buildings, or the number of its
      inhabitants; and Belisarius sympathized alone in the fate of his
      deserted and devoted friends. Encouraged by this successful
      inroad, Theodebert himself, in the ensuing spring, invaded the
      plains of Italy with an army of one hundred thousand Barbarians.
      101 The king, and some chosen followers, were mounted on
      horseback, and armed with lances; the infantry, without bows or
      spears, were satisfied with a shield, a sword, and a double-edged
      battle-axe, which, in their hands, became a deadly and unerring
      weapon. Italy trembled at the march of the Franks; and both the
      Gothic prince and the Roman general, alike ignorant of their
      designs, solicited, with hope and terror, the friendship of these
      dangerous allies. Till he had secured the passage of the Po on
      the bridge of Pavia, the grandson of Clovis dissembled his
      intentions, which he at length declared, by assaulting, almost at
      the same instant, the hostile camps of the Romans and Goths.
      Instead of uniting their arms, they fled with equal
      precipitation; and the fertile, though desolate provinces of
      Liguria and Aemilia, were abandoned to a licentious host of
      Barbarians, whose rage was not mitigated by any thoughts of
      settlement or conquest. Among the cities which they ruined,
      Genoa, not yet constructed of marble, is particularly enumerated;
      and the deaths of thousands, according to the regular practice of
      war, appear to have excited less horror than some idolatrous
      sacrifices of women and children, which were performed with
      impunity in the camp of the most Christian king. If it were not a
      melancholy truth, that the first and most cruel sufferings must
      be the lot of the innocent and helpless, history might exult in
      the misery of the conquerors, who, in the midst of riches, were
      left destitute of bread or wine, reduced to drink the waters of
      the Po, and to feed on the flesh of distempered cattle. The
      dysentery swept away one third of their army; and the clamors of
      his subjects, who were impatient to pass the Alps, disposed
      Theodebert to listen with respect to the mild exhortations of
      Belisarius. The memory of this inglorious and destructive warfare
      was perpetuated on the medals of Gaul; and Justinian, without
      unsheathing his sword, assumed the title of conqueror of the
      Franks. The Merovingian prince was offended by the vanity of the
      emperor; he affected to pity the fallen fortunes of the Goths;
      and his insidious offer of a federal union was fortified by the
      promise or menace of descending from the Alps at the head of five
      hundred thousand men. His plans of conquest were boundless, and
      perhaps chimerical. The king of Austrasia threatened to chastise
      Justinian, and to march to the gates of Constantinople: 102 he
      was overthrown and slain 103 by a wild bull, 104 as he hunted in
      the Belgic or German forests. [Footnote 97: This national
      reproach of perfidy (Procop. Goth. l. ii. c. 25) offends the ear
      of La Mothe le Vayer, (tom. viii. p. 163—165,) who criticizes, as
      if he had not read, the Greek historian.]

      98 (return) [ Baronius applauds his treason, and justifies the
      Catholic bishops—qui ne sub heretico principe degant omnem
      lapidem movent—a useful caution. The more rational Muratori
      (Annali d’Italia, tom. v. p. 54) hints at the guilt of perjury,
      and blames at least the imprudence of Datius.]

      99 (return) [ St. Datius was more successful against devils than
      against Barbarians. He travelled with a numerons retinue, and
      occupied at Corinth a large house. (Baronius, A.D. 538, No. 89,
      A.D. 539, No. 20.)]

      100 (return) [ (Compare Procopius, Goth. l. ii. c. 7, 21.) Yet
      such population is incredible; and the second or third city of
      Italy need not repine if we only decimate the numbers of the
      present text Both Milan and Genoa revived in less than thirty
      years, (Paul Diacon de Gestis Langobard. l. ii. c. 38.) Note:
      Procopius says distinctly that Milan was the second city of the
      West. Which did Gibbon suppose could compete with it, Ravenna or
      Naples; the next page he calls it the second.—M.]

      101 (return) [ Besides Procopius, perhaps too Roman, see the
      Chronicles of Marius and Marcellinus, Jornandes, (in Success.
      Regn. in Muratori, tom. i. p. 241,) and Gregory of Tours, (l.
      iii. c. 32, in tom. ii. of the Historians of France.) Gregory
      supposes a defeat of Belisarius, who, in Aimoin, (de Gestis
      Franc. l. ii. c. 23, in tom. iii. p. 59,) is slain by the
      Franks.]

      102 (return) [ Agathias, l. i. p. 14, 15. Could he have seduced
      or subdued the Gepidae or Lombards of Pannonia, the Greek
      historian is confident that he must have been destroyed in
      Thrace.]

      103 (return) [ The king pointed his spear—the bull overturned a
      tree on his head—he expired the same day. Such is the story of
      Agathias; but the original historians of France (tom. ii. p. 202,
      403, 558, 667) impute his death to a fever.]

      104 (return) [ Without losing myself in a labyrinth of species
      and names—the aurochs, urus, bisons, bubalus, bonasus, buffalo,
      &c., (Buffon. Hist. Nat. tom. xi., and Supplement, tom. iii.
      vi.,) it is certain, that in the sixth century a large wild
      species of horned cattle was hunted in the great forests of the
      Vosges in Lorraine, and the Ardennes, (Greg. Turon. tom. ii. l.
      x. c. 10, p. 369.)]




      Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Charact Of Balisarius.—Part
      V.

      As soon as Belisarius was delivered from his foreign and domestic
      enemies, he seriously applied his forces to the final reduction
      of Italy. In the siege of Osimo, the general was nearly
      transpierced with an arrow, if the mortal stroke had not been
      intercepted by one of his guards, who lost, in that pious office,
      the use of his hand. The Goths of Osimo, 1041 four thousand
      warriors, with those of Faesulae and the Cottian Alps, were among
      the last who maintained their independence; and their gallant
      resistance, which almost tired the patience, deserved the esteem,
      of the conqueror. His prudence refused to subscribe the safe
      conduct which they asked, to join their brethren of Ravenna; but
      they saved, by an honorable capitulation, one moiety at least of
      their wealth, with the free alternative of retiring peaceably to
      their estates, or enlisting to serve the emperor in his Persian
      wars. The multitudes which yet adhered to the standard of Vitiges
      far surpassed the number of the Roman troops; but neither prayers
      nor defiance, nor the extreme danger of his most faithful
      subjects, could tempt the Gothic king beyond the fortifications
      of Ravenna. These fortifications were, indeed, impregnable to the
      assaults of art or violence; and when Belisarius invested the
      capital, he was soon convinced that famine only could tame the
      stubborn spirit of the Barbarians. The sea, the land, and the
      channels of the Po, were guarded by the vigilance of the Roman
      general; and his morality extended the rights of war to the
      practice of poisoning the waters, 105 and secretly firing the
      granaries 106 of a besieged city. 107 While he pressed the
      blockade of Ravenna, he was surprised by the arrival of two
      ambassadors from Constantinople, with a treaty of peace, which
      Justinian had imprudently signed, without deigning to consult the
      author of his victory. By this disgraceful and precarious
      agreement, Italy and the Gothic treasure were divided, and the
      provinces beyond the Po were left with the regal title to the
      successor of Theodoric. The ambassadors were eager to accomplish
      their salutary commission; the captive Vitiges accepted, with
      transport, the unexpected offer of a crown; honor was less
      prevalent among the Goths, than the want and appetite of food;
      and the Roman chiefs, who murmured at the continuance of the war,
      professed implicit submission to the commands of the emperor. If
      Belisarius had possessed only the courage of a soldier, the
      laurel would have been snatched from his hand by timid and
      envious counsels; but in this decisive moment, he resolved, with
      the magnanimity of a statesman, to sustain alone the danger and
      merit of generous disobedience. Each of his officers gave a
      written opinion that the siege of Ravenna was impracticable and
      hopeless: the general then rejected the treaty of partition, and
      declared his own resolution of leading Vitiges in chains to the
      feet of Justinian. The Goths retired with doubt and dismay: this
      peremptory refusal deprived them of the only signature which they
      could trust, and filled their minds with a just apprehension,
      that a sagacious enemy had discovered the full extent of their
      deplorable state. They compared the fame and fortune of
      Belisarius with the weakness of their ill-fated king; and the
      comparison suggested an extraordinary project, to which Vitiges,
      with apparent resignation, was compelled to acquiesce. Partition
      would ruin the strength, exile would disgrace the honor, of the
      nation; but they offered their arms, their treasures, and the
      fortifications of Ravenna, if Belisarius would disclaim the
      authority of a master, accept the choice of the Goths, and
      assume, as he had deserved, the kingdom of Italy. If the false
      lustre of a diadem could have tempted the loyalty of a faithful
      subject, his prudence must have foreseen the inconstancy of the
      Barbarians, and his rational ambition would prefer the safe and
      honorable station of a Roman general. Even the patience and
      seeming satisfaction with which he entertained a proposal of
      treason, might be susceptible of a malignant interpretation. But
      the lieutenant of Justinian was conscious of his own rectitude;
      he entered into a dark and crooked path, as it might lead to the
      voluntary submission of the Goths; and his dexterous policy
      persuaded them that he was disposed to comply with their wishes,
      without engaging an oath or a promise for the performance of a
      treaty which he secretly abhorred. The day of the surrender of
      Ravenna was stipulated by the Gothic ambassadors: a fleet, laden
      with provisions, sailed as a welcome guest into the deepest
      recess of the harbor: the gates were opened to the fancied king
      of Italy; and Belisarius, without meeting an enemy, triumphantly
      marched through the streets of an impregnable city. 108 The
      Romans were astonished by their success; the multitudes of tall
      and robust Barbarians were confounded by the image of their own
      patience and the masculine females, spitting in the faces of
      their sons and husbands, most bitterly reproached them for
      betraying their dominion and freedom to these pygmies of the
      south, contemptible in their numbers, diminutive in their
      stature. Before the Goths could recover from the first surprise,
      and claim the accomplishment of their doubtful hopes, the victor
      established his power in Ravenna, beyond the danger of repentance
      and revolt.

      1041 (return) [ Auximum, p. 175.—M.]

      105 (return) [ In the siege of Auximum, he first labored to
      demolish an old aqueduct, and then cast into the stream, 1. dead
      bodies; 2. mischievous herbs; and 3. quicklime. (says Procopius,
      l. ii. c. 27) Yet both words are used as synonymous in Galen,
      Dioscorides, and Lucian, (Hen. Steph. Thesaur. Ling. Graec. tom.
      iii. p. 748.)]

      106 (return) [ The Goths suspected Mathasuintha as an accomplice
      in the mischief, which perhaps was occasioned by accidental
      lightning.]

      107 (return) [ In strict philosophy, a limitation of the rights
      of war seems to imply nonsense and contradiction. Grotius himself
      is lost in an idle distinction between the jus naturae and the
      jus gentium, between poison and infection. He balances in one
      scale the passages of Homer (Odyss. A 259, &c.) and Florus, (l.
      ii. c. 20, No. 7, ult.;) and in the other, the examples of Solon
      (Pausanias, l. x. c. 37) and Belisarius. See his great work De
      Jure Belli et Pacis, (l. iii. c. 4, s. 15, 16, 17, and in
      Barbeyrac’s version, tom. ii. p. 257, &c.) Yet I can understand
      the benefit and validity of an agreement, tacit or express,
      mutually to abstain from certain modes of hostility. See the
      Amphictyonic oath in Aeschines, de falsa Legatione.]

      108 (return) [ Ravenna was taken, not in the year 540, but in the
      latter end of 539; and Pagi (tom. ii. p. 569) is rectified by
      Muratori. (Annali d’Italia, tom. v. p. 62,) who proves from an
      original act on papyrus, (Antiquit. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. ii.
      dissert. xxxii. p. 999—1007,) Maffei, (Istoria Diplomat. p.
      155-160,) that before the third of January, 540, peace and free
      correspondence were restored between Ravenna and Faenza.]
      Vitiges, who perhaps had attempted to escape, was honorably
      guarded in his palace; 109 the flower of the Gothic youth was
      selected for the service of the emperor; the remainder of the
      people was dismissed to their peaceful habitations in the
      southern provinces; and a colony of Italians was invited to
      replenish the depopulated city. The submission of the capital was
      imitated in the towns and villages of Italy, which had not been
      subdued, or even visited, by the Romans; and the independent
      Goths, who remained in arms at Pavia and Verona, were ambitious
      only to become the subjects of Belisarius. But his inflexible
      loyalty rejected, except as the substitute of Justinian, their
      oaths of allegiance; and he was not offended by the reproach of
      their deputies, that he rather chose to be a slave than a king.

      109 (return) [ He was seized by John the Sanguinary, but an oath
      or sacrament was pledged for his safety in the Basilica Julii,
      (Hist. Miscell. l. xvii. in Muratori, tom. i. p. 107.) Anastasius
      (in Vit. Pont. p. 40) gives a dark but probable account.
      Montfaucon is quoted by Mascou (Hist. of the Germans, xii. 21)
      for a votive shield representing the captivity of Vitiges and now
      in the collection of Signor Landi at Rome.]

      After the second victory of Belisarius, envy again whispered,
      Justinian listened, and the hero was recalled. “The remnant of
      the Gothic war was no longer worthy of his presence: a gracious
      sovereign was impatient to reward his services, and to consult
      his wisdom; and he alone was capable of defending the East
      against the innumerable armies of Persia.” Belisarius understood
      the suspicion, accepted the excuse, embarked at Ravenna his
      spoils and trophies; and proved, by his ready obedience, that
      such an abrupt removal from the government of Italy was not less
      unjust than it might have been indiscreet. The emperor received
      with honorable courtesy both Vitiges and his more noble consort;
      and as the king of the Goths conformed to the Athanasian faith,
      he obtained, with a rich inheritance of land in Asia, the rank of
      senator and patrician. Every spectator admired, without peril,
      the strength and stature of the young Barbarians: they adored the
      majesty of the throne, and promised to shed their blood in the
      service of their benefactor. Justinian deposited in the Byzantine
      palace the treasures of the Gothic monarchy. A flattering senate
      was sometime admitted to gaze on the magnificent spectacle; but
      it was enviously secluded from the public view: and the conqueror
      of Italy renounced, without a murmur, perhaps without a sigh, the
      well-earned honors of a second triumph. His glory was indeed
      exalted above all external pomp; and the faint and hollow praises
      of the court were supplied, even in a servile age, by the respect
      and admiration of his country. Whenever he appeared in the
      streets and public places of Constantinople, Belisarius attracted
      and satisfied the eyes of the people. His lofty stature and
      majestic countenance fulfilled their expectations of a hero; the
      meanest of his fellow-citizens were emboldened by his gentle and
      gracious demeanor; and the martial train which attended his
      footsteps left his person more accessible than in a day of
      battle. Seven thousand horsemen, matchless for beauty and valor,
      were maintained in the service, and at the private expense, of
      the general. 111 Their prowess was always conspicuous in single
      combats, or in the foremost ranks; and both parties confessed
      that in the siege of Rome, the guards of Belisarius had alone
      vanquished the Barbarian host. Their numbers were continually
      augmented by the bravest and most faithful of the enemy; and his
      fortunate captives, the Vandals, the Moors, and the Goths,
      emulated the attachment of his domestic followers. By the union
      of liberality and justice, he acquired the love of the soldiers,
      without alienating the affections of the people. The sick and
      wounded were relieved with medicines and money; and still more
      efficaciously, by the healing visits and smiles of their
      commander. The loss of a weapon or a horse was instantly
      repaired, and each deed of valor was rewarded by the rich and
      honorable gifts of a bracelet or a collar, which were rendered
      more precious by the judgment of Belisarius. He was endeared to
      the husbandmen by the peace and plenty which they enjoyed under
      the shadow of his standard. Instead of being injured, the country
      was enriched by the march of the Roman armies; and such was the
      rigid discipline of their camp, that not an apple was gathered
      from the tree, not a path could be traced in the fields of corn.
      Belisarius was chaste and sober. In the license of a military
      life, none could boast that they had seen him intoxicated with
      wine: the most beautiful captives of Gothic or Vandal race were
      offered to his embraces; but he turned aside from their charms,
      and the husband of Antonina was never suspected of violating the
      laws of conjugal fidelity. The spectator and historian of his
      exploits has observed, that amidst the perils of war, he was
      daring without rashness, prudent without fear, slow or rapid
      according to the exigencies of the moment; that in the deepest
      distress he was animated by real or apparent hope, but that he
      was modest and humble in the most prosperous fortune. By these
      virtues, he equalled or excelled the ancient masters of the
      military art. Victory, by sea and land, attended his arms. He
      subdued Africa, Italy, and the adjacent islands; led away
      captives the successors of Genseric and Theodoric; filled
      Constantinople with the spoils of their palaces; and in the space
      of six years recovered half the provinces of the Western empire.
      In his fame and merit, in wealth and power, he remained without a
      rival, the first of the Roman subjects; the voice of envy could
      only magnify his dangerous importance; and the emperor might
      applaud his own discerning spirit, which had discovered and
      raised the genius of Belisarius. [Footnote 110: Vitiges lived two
      years at Constantinople, and imperatoris in affectu convictus (or
      conjunctus) rebus excessit humanis. His widow Mathasuenta, the
      wife and mother of the patricians, the elder and younger
      Germanus, united the streams of Anician and Amali blood,
      (Jornandes, c. 60, p. 221, in Muratori, tom. i.)]

      111 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. iii. c. 1. Aimoin, a French
      monk of the xith century, who had obtained, and has disfigured,
      some authentic information of Belisarius, mentions, in his name,
      12,000, pueri or slaves—quos propriis alimus stipendiis—besides
      18,000 soldiers, (Historians of France, tom. iii. De Gestis
      Franc. l. ii. c. 6, p. 48.)]

      It was the custom of the Roman triumphs, that a slave should be
      placed behind the chariot to remind the conqueror of the
      instability of fortune, and the infirmities of human nature.
      Procopius, in his Anecdotes, has assumed that servile and
      ungrateful office. The generous reader may cast away the libel,
      but the evidence of facts will adhere to his memory; and he will
      reluctantly confess, that the fame, and even the virtue, of
      Belisarius, were polluted by the lust and cruelty of his wife;
      and that hero deserved an appellation which may not drop from the
      pen of the decent historian. The mother of Antonina 112 was a
      theatrical prostitute, and both her father and grandfather
      exercised, at Thessalonica and Constantinople, the vile, though
      lucrative, profession of charioteers. In the various situations
      of their fortune she became the companion, the enemy, the
      servant, and the favorite of the empress Theodora: these loose
      and ambitious females had been connected by similar pleasures;
      they were separated by the jealousy of vice, and at length
      reconciled by the partnership of guilt. Before her marriage with
      Belisarius, Antonina had one husband and many lovers: Photius,
      the son of her former nuptials, was of an age to distinguish
      himself at the siege of Naples; and it was not till the autumn of
      her age and beauty 113 that she indulged a scandalous attachment
      to a Thracian youth. Theodosius had been educated in the Eunomian
      heresy; the African voyage was consecrated by the baptism and
      auspicious name of the first soldier who embarked; and the
      proselyte was adopted into the family of his spiritual parents,
      114 Belisarius and Antonina. Before they touched the shores of
      Africa, this holy kindred degenerated into sensual love: and as
      Antonina soon overleaped the bounds of modesty and caution, the
      Roman general was alone ignorant of his own dishonor. During
      their residence at Carthage, he surprised the two lovers in a
      subterraneous chamber, solitary, warm, and almost naked. Anger
      flashed from his eyes. “With the help of this young man,” said
      the unblushing Antonina, “I was secreting our most precious
      effects from the knowledge of Justinian.” The youth resumed his
      garments, and the pious husband consented to disbelieve the
      evidence of his own senses. From this pleasing and perhaps
      voluntary delusion, Belisarius was awakened at Syracuse, by the
      officious information of Macedonia; and that female attendant,
      after requiring an oath for her security, produced two
      chamberlains, who, like herself, had often beheld the adulteries
      of Antonina. A hasty flight into Asia saved Theodosius from the
      justice of an injured husband, who had signified to one of his
      guards the order of his death; but the tears of Antonina, and her
      artful seductions, assured the credulous hero of her innocence:
      and he stooped, against his faith and judgment, to abandon those
      imprudent friends, who had presumed to accuse or doubt the
      chastity of his wife. The revenge of a guilty woman is implacable
      and bloody: the unfortunate Macedonia, with the two witnesses,
      were secretly arrested by the minister of her cruelty; their
      tongues were cut out, their bodies were hacked into small pieces,
      and their remains were cast into the Sea of Syracuse. A rash
      though judicious saying of Constantine, “I would sooner have
      punished the adulteress than the boy,” was deeply remembered by
      Antonina; and two years afterwards, when despair had armed that
      officer against his general, her sanguinary advice decided and
      hastened his execution. Even the indignation of Photius was not
      forgiven by his mother; the exile of her son prepared the recall
      of her lover; and Theodosius condescended to accept the pressing
      and humble invitation of the conqueror of Italy. In the absolute
      direction of his household, and in the important commissions of
      peace and war, 115 the favorite youth most rapidly acquired a
      fortune of four hundred thousand pounds sterling; and after their
      return to Constantinople, the passion of Antonina, at least,
      continued ardent and unabated. But fear, devotion, and lassitude
      perhaps, inspired Theodosius with more serious thoughts. He
      dreaded the busy scandal of the capital, and the indiscreet
      fondness of the wife of Belisarius; escaped from her embraces,
      and retiring to Ephesus, shaved his head, and took refuge in the
      sanctuary of a monastic life. The despair of the new Ariadne
      could scarcely have been excused by the death of her husband. She
      wept, she tore her hair, she filled the palace with her cries;
      “she had lost the dearest of friends, a tender, a faithful, a
      laborious friend!” But her warm entreaties, fortified by the
      prayers of Belisarius, were insufficient to draw the holy monk
      from the solitude of Ephesus. It was not till the general moved
      forward for the Persian war, that Theodosius could be tempted to
      return to Constantinople; and the short interval before the
      departure of Antonina herself was boldly devoted to love and
      pleasure.

      112 (return) [The diligence of Alemannus could add but little to
      the four first and most curious chapters of the Anecdotes. Of
      these strange Anecdotes, a part may be true, because probable—and
      a part true, because improbable. Procopius must have known the
      former, and the latter he could scarcely invent. Note: The malice
      of court scandal is proverbially inventive; and of such scandal
      the “Anecdota” may be an embellished record.—M.]

      113 (return) [ Procopius intimates (Anecdot. c. 4) that when
      Belisarius returned to Italy, (A.D. 543,) Antonina was sixty
      years of age. A forced, but more polite construction, which
      refers that date to the moment when he was writing, (A.D. 559,)
      would be compatible with the manhood of Photius, (Gothic. l. i.
      c. 10) in 536.]

      114 (return) [ Gompare the Vandalic War (l. i. c. 12) with the
      Anecdotes (c. i.) and Alemannus, (p. 2, 3.) This mode of
      baptismal adoption was revived by Leo the philosopher.]

      115 (return) [ In November, 537, Photius arrested the pope,
      (Liberat. Brev. c. 22. Pagi, tom. ii. p. 562) About the end of
      539, Belisarius sent Theodosius on an important and lucrative
      commission to Ravenna, (Goth. l. ii. c. 18.)]

      A philosopher may pity and forgive the infirmities of female
      nature, from which he receives no real injury: but contemptible
      is the husband who feels, and yet endures, his own infamy in that
      of his wife. Antonina pursued her son with implacable hatred; and
      the gallant Photius 116 was exposed to her secret persecutions in
      the camp beyond the Tigris. Enraged by his own wrongs, and by the
      dishonor of his blood, he cast away in his turn the sentiments of
      nature, and revealed to Belisarius the turpitude of a woman who
      had violated all the duties of a mother and a wife. From the
      surprise and indignation of the Roman general, his former
      credulity appears to have been sincere: he embraced the knees of
      the son of Antonina, adjured him to remember his obligations
      rather than his birth, and confirmed at the altar their holy vows
      of revenge and mutual defence. The dominion of Antonina was
      impaired by absence; and when she met her husband, on his return
      from the Persian confines, Belisarius, in his first and transient
      emotions, confined her person, and threatened her life. Photius
      was more resolved to punish, and less prompt to pardon: he flew
      to Ephesus; extorted from a trusty eunuch of his mother the full
      confession of her guilt; arrested Theodosius and his treasures in
      the church of St. John the Apostle, and concealed his captives,
      whose execution was only delayed, in a secure and sequestered
      fortress of Cilicia. Such a daring outrage against public justice
      could not pass with impunity; and the cause of Antonina was
      espoused by the empress, whose favor she had deserved by the
      recent services of the disgrace of a praefect, and the exile and
      murder of a pope. At the end of the campaign, Belisarius was
      recalled; he complied, as usual, with the Imperial mandate. His
      mind was not prepared for rebellion: his obedience, however
      adverse to the dictates of honor, was consonant to the wishes of
      his heart; and when he embraced his wife, at the command, and
      perhaps in the presence, of the empress, the tender husband was
      disposed to forgive or to be forgiven. The bounty of Theodora
      reserved for her companion a more precious favor. “I have found,”
      she said, “my dearest patrician, a pearl of inestimable value; it
      has not yet been viewed by any mortal eye; but the sight and the
      possession of this jewel are destined for my friend.” 1161 As
      soon as the curiosity and impatience of Antonina were kindled,
      the door of a bed-chamber was thrown open, and she beheld her
      lover, whom the diligence of the eunuchs had discovered in his
      secret prison. Her silent wonder burst into passionate
      exclamations of gratitude and joy, and she named Theodora her
      queen, her benefactress, and her savior. The monk of Ephesus was
      nourished in the palace with luxury and ambition; but instead of
      assuming, as he was promised, the command of the Roman armies,
      Theodosius expired in the first fatigues of an amorous interview.
      1162 The grief of Antonina could only be assuaged by the
      sufferings of her son. A youth of consular rank, and a sickly
      constitution, was punished, without a trial, like a malefactor
      and a slave: yet such was the constancy of his mind, that Photius
      sustained the tortures of the scourge and the rack, 1163 without
      violating the faith which he had sworn to Belisarius. After this
      fruitless cruelty, the son of Antonina, while his mother feasted
      with the empress, was buried in her subterraneous prisons, which
      admitted not the distinction of night and day. He twice escaped
      to the most venerable sanctuaries of Constantinople, the churches
      of St. Sophia, and of the Virgin: but his tyrants were insensible
      of religion as of pity; and the helpless youth, amidst the
      clamors of the clergy and people, was twice dragged from the
      altar to the dungeon. His third attempt was more successful. At
      the end of three years, the prophet Zachariah, or some mortal
      friend, indicated the means of an escape: he eluded the spies and
      guards of the empress, reached the holy sepulchre of Jerusalem,
      embraced the profession of a monk; and the abbot Photius was
      employed, after the death of Justinian, to reconcile and regulate
      the churches of Egypt. The son of Antonina suffered all that an
      enemy can inflict: her patient husband imposed on himself the
      more exquisite misery of violating his promise and deserting his
      friend.

      116 (return) [ Theophanes (Chronograph. p. 204) styles him
      Photinus, the son-in-law of Belisarius; and he is copied by the
      Historia Miscella and Anastasius.]

      1161 (return) [ This and much of the private scandal in the
      “Anecdota” is liable to serious doubt. Who reported all these
      private conversations, and how did they reach the ears of
      Procopius?—M.]

      1162 (return) [ This is a strange misrepresentation—he died of a
      dysentery; nor does it appear that it was immediately after this
      scene. Antonina proposed to raise him to the generalship of the
      army. Procop. Anecd. p. 14. The sudden change from the abstemious
      diet of a monk to the luxury of the court is a much more probable
      cause of his death.—M.]

      1163 (return) [ The expression of Procopius does not appear to me
      to mean this kind of torture. Ibid.—M.]

      In the succeeding campaign, Belisarius was again sent against the
      Persians: he saved the East, but he offended Theodora, and
      perhaps the emperor himself. The malady of Justinian had
      countenanced the rumor of his death; and the Roman general, on
      the supposition of that probable event spoke the free language of
      a citizen and a soldier. His colleague Buzes, who concurred in
      the same sentiments, lost his rank, his liberty, and his health,
      by the persecution of the empress: but the disgrace of Belisarius
      was alleviated by the dignity of his own character, and the
      influence of his wife, who might wish to humble, but could not
      desire to ruin, the partner of her fortunes. Even his removal was
      colored by the assurance, that the sinking state of Italy would
      be retrieved by the single presence of its conqueror.

      But no sooner had he returned, alone and defenceless, than a
      hostile commission was sent to the East, to seize his treasures
      and criminate his actions; the guards and veterans, who followed
      his private banner, were distributed among the chiefs of the
      army, and even the eunuchs presumed to cast lots for the
      partition of his martial domestics. When he passed with a small
      and sordid retinue through the streets of Constantinople, his
      forlorn appearance excited the amazement and compassion of the
      people. Justinian and Theodora received him with cold
      ingratitude; the servile crowd, with insolence and contempt; and
      in the evening he retired with trembling steps to his deserted
      palace. An indisposition, feigned or real, had confined Antonina
      to her apartment; and she walked disdainfully silent in the
      adjacent portico, while Belisarius threw himself on his bed, and
      expected, in an agony of grief and terror, the death which he had
      so often braved under the walls of Rome. Long after sunset a
      messenger was announced from the empress: he opened, with anxious
      curiosity, the letter which contained the sentence of his fate.
      “You cannot be ignorant how much you have deserved my
      displeasure. I am not insensible of the services of Antonina. To
      her merits and intercession I have granted your life, and permit
      you to retain a part of your treasures, which might be justly
      forfeited to the state. Let your gratitude, where it is due, be
      displayed, not in words, but in your future behavior.” I know not
      how to believe or to relate the transports with which the hero is
      said to have received this ignominious pardon. He fell prostrate
      before his wife, he kissed the feet of his savior, and he
      devoutly promised to live the grateful and submissive slave of
      Antonina. A fine of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds
      sterling was levied on the fortunes of Belisarius; and with the
      office of count, or master of the royal stables, he accepted the
      conduct of the Italian war. At his departure from Constantinople,
      his friends, and even the public, were persuaded that as soon as
      he regained his freedom, he would renounce his dissimulation, and
      that his wife, Theodora, and perhaps the emperor himself, would
      be sacrificed to the just revenge of a virtuous rebel. Their
      hopes were deceived; and the unconquerable patience and loyalty
      of Belisarius appear either below or above the character of a
      man. 117

      117 (return) [ The continuator of the Chronicle of Marcellinus
      gives, in a few decent words, the substance of the Anecdotes:
      Belisarius de Oriente evocatus, in offensam periculumque
      incurrens grave, et invidiae subeacens rursus remittitur in
      Italiam, (p. 54.)]




      Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part I.

     State Of The Barbaric World.—Establishment Of The Lombards On the
     Danube.—Tribes And Inroads Of The Sclavonians.— Origin, Empire,
     And Embassies Of The Turks.—The Flight Of The Avars.—Chosroes I,
     Or Nushirvan, King Of Persia.—His Prosperous Reign And Wars With
     The Romans.—The Colchian Or Lazic War.—The Aethiopians.

      Our estimate of personal merit, is relative to the common
      faculties of mankind. The aspiring efforts of genius, or virtue,
      either in active or speculative life, are measured, not so much
      by their real elevation, as by the height to which they ascend
      above the level of their age and country; and the same stature,
      which in a people of giants would pass unnoticed, must appear
      conspicuous in a race of pygmies. Leonidas, and his three hundred
      companions, devoted their lives at Thermopylae; but the education
      of the infant, the boy, and the man, had prepared, and almost
      insured, this memorable sacrifice; and each Spartan would
      approve, rather than admire, an act of duty, of which himself and
      eight thousand of his fellow-citizens were equally capable. 1 The
      great Pompey might inscribe on his trophies, that he had defeated
      in battle two millions of enemies, and reduced fifteen hundred
      cities from the Lake Maeotis to the Red Sea: 2 but the fortune of
      Rome flew before his eagles; the nations were oppressed by their
      own fears, and the invincible legions which he commanded, had
      been formed by the habits of conquest and the discipline of ages.
      In this view, the character of Belisarius may be deservedly
      placed above the heroes of the ancient republics. His
      imperfections flowed from the contagion of the times; his virtues
      were his own, the free gift of nature or reflection; he raised
      himself without a master or a rival; and so inadequate were the
      arms committed to his hand, that his sole advantage was derived
      from the pride and presumption of his adversaries. Under his
      command, the subjects of Justinian often deserved to be called
      Romans: but the unwarlike appellation of Greeks was imposed as a
      term of reproach by the haughty Goths; who affected to blush,
      that they must dispute the kingdom of Italy with a nation of
      tragedians pantomimes, and pirates. 3 The climate of Asia has
      indeed been found less congenial than that of Europe to military
      spirit: those populous countries were enervated by luxury,
      despotism, and superstition; and the monks were more expensive
      and more numerous than the soldiers of the East. The regular
      force of the empire had once amounted to six hundred and
      forty-five thousand men: it was reduced, in the time of
      Justinian, to one hundred and fifty thousand; and this number,
      large as it may seem, was thinly scattered over the sea and land;
      in Spain and Italy, in Africa and Egypt, on the banks of the
      Danube, the coast of the Euxine, and the frontiers of Persia. The
      citizen was exhausted, yet the soldier was unpaid; his poverty
      was mischievously soothed by the privilege of rapine and
      indolence; and the tardy payments were detained and intercepted
      by the fraud of those agents who usurp, without courage or
      danger, the emoluments of war. Public and private distress
      recruited the armies of the state; but in the field, and still
      more in the presence of the enemy, their numbers were always
      defective. The want of national spirit was supplied by the
      precarious faith and disorderly service of Barbarian mercenaries.

      Even military honor, which has often survived the loss of virtue
      and freedom, was almost totally extinct. The generals, who were
      multiplied beyond the example of former times, labored only to
      prevent the success, or to sully the reputation of their
      colleagues; and they had been taught by experience, that if merit
      sometimes provoked the jealousy, error, or even guilt, would
      obtain the indulgence, of a gracious emperor. 4 In such an age,
      the triumphs of Belisarius, and afterwards of Narses, shine with
      incomparable lustre; but they are encompassed with the darkest
      shades of disgrace and calamity. While the lieutenant of
      Justinian subdued the kingdoms of the Goths and Vandals, the
      emperor, 5 timid, though ambitious, balanced the forces of the
      Barbarians, fomented their divisions by flattery and falsehood,
      and invited by his patience and liberality the repetition of
      injuries. 6 The keys of Carthage, Rome, and Ravenna, were
      presented to their conqueror, while Antioch was destroyed by the
      Persians, and Justinian trembled for the safety of
      Constantinople.

      1 (return) [ It will be a pleasure, not a task, to read
      Herodotus, (l. vii. c. 104, 134, p. 550, 615.) The conversation
      of Xerxes and Demaratus at Thermopylae is one of the most
      interesting and moral scenes in history. It was the torture of
      the royal Spartan to behold, with anguish and remorse, the virtue
      of his country.]

      2 (return) [ See this proud inscription in Pliny, (Hist. Natur.
      vii. 27.) Few men have more exquisitely tasted of glory and
      disgrace; nor could Juvenal (Satir. x.) produce a more striking
      example of the vicissitudes of fortune, and the vanity of human
      wishes.]

      3 (return) [ This last epithet of Procopius is too nobly
      translated by pirates; naval thieves is the proper word;
      strippers of garments, either for injury or insult, (Demosthenes
      contra Conon Reiske, Orator, Graec. tom. ii. p. 1264.)]

      4 (return) [ See the third and fourth books of the Gothic War:
      the writer of the Anecdotes cannot aggravate these abuses.]

      5 (return) [ Agathias, l. v. p. 157, 158. He confines this
      weakness of the emperor and the empire to the old age of
      Justinian; but alas! he was never young.]

      6 (return) [ This mischievous policy, which Procopius (Anecdot.
      c. 19) imputes to the emperor, is revealed in his epistle to a
      Scythian prince, who was capable of understanding it.]

      Even the Gothic victories of Belisarius were prejudicial to the
      state, since they abolished the important barrier of the Upper
      Danube, which had been so faithfully guarded by Theodoric and his
      daughter. For the defence of Italy, the Goths evacuated Pannonia
      and Noricum, which they left in a peaceful and flourishing
      condition: the sovereignty was claimed by the emperor of the
      Romans; the actual possession was abandoned to the boldness of
      the first invader. On the opposite banks of the Danube, the
      plains of Upper Hungary and the Transylvanian hills were
      possessed, since the death of Attila, by the tribes of the
      Gepidae, who respected the Gothic arms, and despised, not indeed
      the gold of the Romans, but the secret motive of their annual
      subsidies. The vacant fortifications of the river were instantly
      occupied by these Barbarians; their standards were planted on the
      walls of Sirmium and Belgrade; and the ironical tone of their
      apology aggravated this insult on the majesty of the empire. “So
      extensive, O Caesar, are your dominions, so numerous are your
      cities, that you are continually seeking for nations to whom,
      either in peace or in war, you may relinquish these useless
      possessions. The Gepidae are your brave and faithful allies; and
      if they have anticipated your gifts, they have shown a just
      confidence in your bounty.” Their presumption was excused by the
      mode of revenge which Justinian embraced. Instead of asserting
      the rights of a sovereign for the protection of his subjects, the
      emperor invited a strange people to invade and possess the Roman
      provinces between the Danube and the Alps and the ambition of the
      Gepidae was checked by the rising power and fame of the Lombards.
      7 This corrupt appellation has been diffused in the thirteenth
      century by the merchants and bankers, the Italian posterity of
      these savage warriors: but the original name of Langobards is
      expressive only of the peculiar length and fashion of their
      beards. I am not disposed either to question or to justify their
      Scandinavian origin; 8 nor to pursue the migrations of the
      Lombards through unknown regions and marvellous adventures. About
      the time of Augustus and Trajan, a ray of historic light breaks
      on the darkness of their antiquities, and they are discovered,
      for the first time, between the Elbe and the Oder. Fierce, beyond
      the example of the Germans, they delighted to propagate the
      tremendous belief, that their heads were formed like the heads of
      dogs, and that they drank the blood of their enemies, whom they
      vanquished in battle. The smallness of their numbers was
      recruited by the adoption of their bravest slaves; and alone,
      amidst their powerful neighbors, they defended by arms their
      high-spirited independence. In the tempests of the north, which
      overwhelmed so many names and nations, this little bark of the
      Lombards still floated on the surface: they gradually descended
      towards the south and the Danube, and, at the end of four hundred
      years, they again appear with their ancient valor and renown.
      Their manners were not less ferocious. The assassination of a
      royal guest was executed in the presence, and by the command, of
      the king’s daughter, who had been provoked by some words of
      insult, and disappointed by his diminutive stature; and a
      tribute, the price of blood, was imposed on the Lombards, by his
      brother the king of the Heruli. Adversity revived a sense of
      moderation and justice, and the insolence of conquest was
      chastised by the signal defeat and irreparable dispersion of the
      Heruli, who were seated in the southern provinces of Poland. 9
      The victories of the Lombards recommended them to the friendship
      of the emperors; and at the solicitations of Justinian, they
      passed the Danube, to reduce, according to their treaty, the
      cities of Noricum and the fortresses of Pannonia. But the spirit
      of rapine soon tempted them beyond these ample limits; they
      wandered along the coast of the Hadriatic as far as Dyrrachium,
      and presumed, with familiar rudeness to enter the towns and
      houses of their Roman allies, and to seize the captives who had
      escaped from their audacious hands. These acts of hostility, the
      sallies, as it might be pretended, of some loose adventurers,
      were disowned by the nation, and excused by the emperor; but the
      arms of the Lombards were more seriously engaged by a contest of
      thirty years, which was terminated only by the extirpation of the
      Gepidae. The hostile nations often pleaded their cause before the
      throne of Constantinople; and the crafty Justinian, to whom the
      Barbarians were almost equally odious, pronounced a partial and
      ambiguous sentence, and dexterously protracted the war by slow
      and ineffectual succors. Their strength was formidable, since the
      Lombards, who sent into the field several myriads of soldiers,
      still claimed, as the weaker side, the protection of the Romans.
      Their spirit was intrepid; yet such is the uncertainty of
      courage, that the two armies were suddenly struck with a panic;
      they fled from each other, and the rival kings remained with
      their guards in the midst of an empty plain. A short truce was
      obtained; but their mutual resentment again kindled; and the
      remembrance of their shame rendered the next encounter more
      desperate and bloody. Forty thousand of the Barbarians perished
      in the decisive battle, which broke the power of the Gepidae,
      transferred the fears and wishes of Justinian, and first
      displayed the character of Alboin, the youthful prince of the
      Lombards, and the future conqueror of Italy. 10

      7 (return) [ Gens Germana feritate ferocior, says Velleius
      Paterculus of the Lombards, (ii. 106.) Langobardos paucitas
      nobilitat. Plurimis ac valentissimis nationibus cincti non per
      obsequium, sed praeliis et perilitando, tuti sunt, (Tacit. de
      Moribus German. c. 40.) See likewise Strabo, (l. viii. p. 446.)
      The best geographers place them beyond the Elbe, in the bishopric
      of Magdeburgh and the middle march of Brandenburgh; and their
      situation will agree with the patriotic remark of the count de
      Hertzberg, that most of the Barbarian conquerors issued from the
      same countries which still produce the armies of Prussia. * Note:
      See Malte Brun, vol. i. p 402.—M]

      8 (return) [ The Scandinavian origin of the Goths and Lombards,
      as stated by Paul Warnefrid, surnamed the deacon, is attacked by
      Cluverius, (Germania, Antiq. l. iii. c. 26, p. 102, &c.,) a
      native of Prussia, and defended by Grotius, (Prolegom. ad Hist.
      Goth. p. 28, &c.,) the Swedish Ambassador.]

      9 (return) [ Two facts in the narrative of Paul Diaconus (l. i.
      c. 20) are expressive of national manners: 1. Dum ad tabulam
      luderet—while he played at draughts. 2. Camporum viridantia lina.
      The cultivation of flax supposes property, commerce, agriculture,
      and manufactures]

      10 (return) [ I have used, without undertaking to reconcile, the
      facts in Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 14, l. iii. c. 33, 34, l.
      iv. c. 18, 25,) Paul Diaconus, (de Gestis Langobard, l. i. c.
      1-23, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. i. p. 405-419,)
      and Jornandes, (de Success. Regnorum, p. 242.) The patient reader
      may draw some light from Mascou (Hist. of the Germans, and
      Annotat. xxiii.) and De Buat, (Hist. des Peuples, &c., tom. ix.
      x. xi.)]

      The wild people who dwelt or wandered in the plains of Russia,
      Lithuania, and Poland, might be reduced, in the age of Justinian,
      under the two great families of the Bulgarians 11 and the
      Sclavonians. According to the Greek writers, the former, who
      touched the Euxine and the Lake Maeotis, derived from the Huns
      their name or descent; and it is needless to renew the simple and
      well-known picture of Tartar manners. They were bold and
      dexterous archers, who drank the milk, and feasted on the flesh,
      of their fleet and indefatigable horses; whose flocks and herds
      followed, or rather guided, the motions of their roving camps; to
      whose inroads no country was remote or impervious, and who were
      practised in flight, though incapable of fear. The nation was
      divided into two powerful and hostile tribes, who pursued each
      other with fraternal hatred. They eagerly disputed the
      friendship, or rather the gifts, of the emperor; and the
      distinctions which nature had fixed between the faithful dog and
      the rapacious wolf was applied by an ambassador who received only
      verbal instructions from the mouth of his illiterate prince. 12
      The Bulgarians, of whatsoever species, were equally attracted by
      Roman wealth: they assumed a vague dominion over the Sclavonian
      name, and their rapid marches could only be stopped by the Baltic
      Sea, or the extreme cold and poverty of the north. But the same
      race of Sclavonians appears to have maintained, in every age, the
      possession of the same countries. Their numerous tribes, however
      distant or adverse, used one common language, (it was harsh and
      irregular,) and where known by the resemblance of their form,
      which deviated from the swarthy Tartar, and approached without
      attaining the lofty stature and fair complexion of the German.
      Four thousand six hundred villages 13 were scattered over the
      provinces of Russia and Poland, and their huts were hastily built
      of rough timber, in a country deficient both in stone and iron.
      Erected, or rather concealed, in the depth of forests, on the
      banks of rivers, or the edges of morasses, we may not perhaps,
      without flattery, compare them to the architecture of the beaver;
      which they resembled in a double issue, to the land and water,
      for the escape of the savage inhabitant, an animal less cleanly,
      less diligent, and less social, than that marvellous quadruped.
      The fertility of the soil, rather than the labor of the natives,
      supplied the rustic plenty of the Sclavonians. Their sheep and
      horned cattle were large and numerous, and the fields which they
      sowed with millet or panic 14 afforded, in place of bread, a
      coarse and less nutritive food. The incessant rapine of their
      neighbors compelled them to bury this treasure in the earth; but
      on the appearance of a stranger, it was freely imparted by a
      people, whose unfavorable character is qualified by the epithets
      of chaste, patient, and hospitable. As their supreme god, they
      adored an invisible master of the thunder. The rivers and the
      nymphs obtained their subordinate honors, and the popular worship
      was expressed in vows and sacrifice. The Sclavonians disdained to
      obey a despot, a prince, or even a magistrate; but their
      experience was too narrow, their passions too headstrong, to
      compose a system of equal law or general defence. Some voluntary
      respect was yielded to age and valor; but each tribe or village
      existed as a separate republic, and all must be persuaded where
      none could be compelled. They fought on foot, almost naked, and
      except an unwieldy shield, without any defensive armor; their
      weapons of offence were a bow, a quiver of small poisoned arrows,
      and a long rope, which they dexterously threw from a distance,
      and entangled their enemy in a running noose. In the field, the
      Sclavonian infantry was dangerous by their speed, agility, and
      hardiness: they swam, they dived, they remained under water,
      drawing their breath through a hollow cane; and a river or lake
      was often the scene of their unsuspected ambuscade. But these
      were the achievements of spies or stragglers; the military art
      was unknown to the Sclavonians; their name was obscure, and their
      conquests were inglorious. 15

      11 (return) [ I adopt the appellation of Bulgarians from
      Ennodius, (in Panegyr. Theodorici, Opp. Sirmond, tom. i. p. 1598,
      1599,) Jornandes, (de Rebus Geticis, c. 5, p. 194, et de Regn.
      Successione, p. 242,) Theophanes, (p. 185,) and the Chronicles of
      Cassiodorus and Marcellinus. The name of Huns is too vague; the
      tribes of the Cutturgurians and Utturgurians are too minute and
      too harsh. * Note: The Bulgarians are first mentioned among the
      writers of the West in the Panegyric on Theodoric by Ennodius,
      Bishop of Pavia. Though they perhaps took part in the conquests
      of the Huns, they did not advance to the Danube till after the
      dismemberment of that monarchy on the death of Attila. But the
      Bulgarians are mentioned much earlier by the Armenian writers.
      Above 600 years before Christ, a tribe of Bulgarians, driven from
      their native possessions beyond the Caspian, occupied a part of
      Armenia, north of the Araxes. They were of the Finnish race; part
      of the nation, in the fifth century, moved westward, and reached
      the modern Bulgaria; part remained along the Volga, which is
      called Etel, Etil, or Athil, in all the Tartar languages, but
      from the Bulgarians, the Volga. The power of the eastern
      Bulgarians was broken by Batou, son of Tchingiz Khan; that of the
      western will appear in the course of the history. From St.
      Martin, vol. vii p. 141. Malte-Brun, on the contrary, conceives
      that the Bulgarians took their name from the river. According to
      the Byzantine historians they were a branch of the Ougres,
      (Thunmann, Hist. of the People to the East of Europe,) but they
      have more resemblance to the Turks. Their first country, Great
      Bulgaria, was washed by the Volga. Some remains of their capital
      are still shown near Kasan. They afterwards dwelt in Kuban, and
      finally on the Danube, where they subdued (about the year 500)
      the Slavo-Servians established on the Lower Danube. Conquered in
      their turn by the Avars, they freed themselves from that yoke in
      635; their empire then comprised the Cutturgurians, the remains
      of the Huns established on the Palus Maeotis. The Danubian
      Bulgaria, a dismemberment of this vast state, was long formidable
      to the Byzantine empire. Malte-Brun, Prec. de Geog Univ. vol. i.
      p. 419.—M. ——According to Shafarik, the Danubian Bulgaria was
      peopled by a Slavo Bulgarian race. The Slavish population was
      conquered by the Bulgarian (of Uralian and Finnish descent,) and
      incorporated with them. This mingled race are the Bulgarians
      bordering on the Byzantine empire. Shafarik, ii 152, et seq.—M.
      1845]

      12 (return) [ Procopius, (Goth. l. iv. c. 19.) His verbal message
      (he owns him self an illiterate Barbarian) is delivered as an
      epistle. The style is savage, figurative, and original.]

      13 (return) [ This sum is the result of a particular list, in a
      curious Ms. fragment of the year 550, found in the library of
      Milan. The obscure geography of the times provokes and exercises
      the patience of the count de Buat, (tom. xi. p. 69—189.) The
      French minister often loses himself in a wilderness which
      requires a Saxon and Polish guide.]

      14 (return) [ Panicum, milium. See Columella, l. ii. c. 9, p.
      430, edit. Gesner. Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 24, 25. The
      Samaritans made a pap of millet, mingled with mare’s milk or
      blood. In the wealth of modern husbandry, our millet feeds
      poultry, and not heroes. See the dictionaries of Bomare and
      Miller.]

      15 (return) [ For the name and nation, the situation and manners,
      of the Sclavonians, see the original evidence of the vith
      century, in Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 26, l. iii. c. 14,) and
      the emperor Mauritius or Maurice (Stratagemat. l. ii. c. 5, apud
      Mascon Annotat. xxxi.) The stratagems of Maurice have been
      printed only, as I understand, at the end of Scheffer’s edition
      of Arrian’s Tactics, at Upsal, 1664, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. l.
      iv. c. 8, tom. iii. p. 278,) a scarce, and hitherto, to me, an
      inaccessible book.]

      I have marked the faint and general outline of the Sclavonians
      and Bulgarians, without attempting to define their intermediate
      boundaries, which were not accurately known or respected by the
      Barbarians themselves. Their importance was measured by their
      vicinity to the empire; and the level country of Moldavia and
      Wallachia was occupied by the Antes, 16 a Sclavonian tribe, which
      swelled the titles of Justinian with an epithet of conquest. 17
      Against the Antes he erected the fortifications of the Lower
      Danube; and labored to secure the alliance of a people seated in
      the direct channel of northern inundation, an interval of two
      hundred miles between the mountains of Transylvania and the
      Euxine Sea. But the Antes wanted power and inclination to stem
      the fury of the torrent; and the light-armed Sclavonians, from a
      hundred tribes, pursued with almost equal speed the footsteps of
      the Bulgarian horse. The payment of one piece of gold for each
      soldier procured a safe and easy retreat through the country of
      the Gepidae, who commanded the passage of the Upper Danube. 18
      The hopes or fears of the Barbarians; their intense union or
      discord; the accident of a frozen or shallow stream; the prospect
      of harvest or vintage; the prosperity or distress of the Romans;
      were the causes which produced the uniform repetition of annual
      visits, 19 tedious in the narrative, and destructive in the
      event. The same year, and possibly the same month, in which
      Ravenna surrendered, was marked by an invasion of the Huns or
      Bulgarians, so dreadful, that it almost effaced the memory of
      their past inroads. They spread from the suburbs of
      Constantinople to the Ionian Gulf, destroyed thirty-two cities or
      castles, erased Potidaea, which Athens had built, and Philip had
      besieged, and repassed the Danube, dragging at their horses’
      heels one hundred and twenty thousand of the subjects of
      Justinian. In a subsequent inroad they pierced the wall of the
      Thracian Chersonesus, extirpated the habitations and the
      inhabitants, boldly traversed the Hellespont, and returned to
      their companions, laden with the spoils of Asia. Another party,
      which seemed a multitude in the eyes of the Romans, penetrated,
      without opposition, from the Straits of Thermopylae to the
      Isthmus of Corinth; and the last ruin of Greece has appeared an
      object too minute for the attention of history. The works which
      the emperor raised for the protection, but at the expense of his
      subjects, served only to disclose the weakness of some neglected
      part; and the walls, which by flattery had been deemed
      impregnable, were either deserted by the garrison, or scaled by
      the Barbarians. Three thousand Sclavonians, who insolently
      divided themselves into two bands, discovered the weakness and
      misery of a triumphant reign. They passed the Danube and the
      Hebrus, vanquished the Roman generals who dared to oppose their
      progress, and plundered, with impunity, the cities of Illyricum
      and Thrace, each of which had arms and numbers to overwhelm their
      contemptible assailants. Whatever praise the boldness of the
      Sclavonians may deserve, it is sullied by the wanton and
      deliberate cruelty which they are accused of exercising on their
      prisoners. Without distinction of rank, or age, or sex, the
      captives were impaled or flayed alive, or suspended between four
      posts, and beaten with clubs till they expired, or enclosed in
      some spacious building, and left to perish in the flames with the
      spoil and cattle which might impede the march of these savage
      victors. 20 Perhaps a more impartial narrative would reduce the
      number, and qualify the nature, of these horrid acts; and they
      might sometimes be excused by the cruel laws of retaliation. In
      the siege of Topirus, 21 whose obstinate defence had enraged the
      Sclavonians, they massacred fifteen thousand males; but they
      spared the women and children; the most valuable captives were
      always reserved for labor or ransom; the servitude was not
      rigorous, and the terms of their deliverance were speedy and
      moderate. But the subject, or the historian of Justinian, exhaled
      his just indignation in the language of complaint and reproach;
      and Procopius has confidently affirmed, that in a reign of
      thirty-two years, each annual inroad of the Barbarians consumed
      two hundred thousand of the inhabitants of the Roman empire. The
      entire population of Turkish Europe, which nearly corresponds
      with the provinces of Justinian, would perhaps be incapable of
      supplying six millions of persons, the result of this incredible
      estimate. 22

      16 (return) [ Antes corum fortissimi.... Taysis qui rapidus et
      vorticosus in Histri fluenta furens devolvitur, (Jornandes, c. 5,
      p. 194, edit. Murator. Procopius, Goth. l. iii. c. 14, et de
      Edific. l iv. c. 7.) Yet the same Procopius mentions the Goths
      and Huns as neighbors to the Danube, (de Edific. l. v. c. 1.)]

      17 (return) [ The national title of Anticus, in the laws and
      inscriptions of Justinian, was adopted by his successors, and is
      justified by the pious Ludewig (in Vit. Justinian. p. 515.) It
      had strangely puzzled the civilians of the middle age.]

      18 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. iv. c. 25.]

      19 (return) [ An inroad of the Huns is connected, by Procopius,
      with a comet perhaps that of 531, (Persic. l. ii. c. 4.) Agathias
      (l. v. p. 154, 155) borrows from his predecessors some early
      facts.]

      20 (return) [ The cruelties of the Sclavonians are related or
      magnified by Procopius, (Goth. l. iii. c. 29, 38.) For their mild
      and liberal behavior to their prisoners, we may appeal to the
      authority, somewhat more recent of the emperor Maurice,
      (Stratagem. l. ii. c. 5.)]

      21 (return) [ Topirus was situate near Philippi in Thrace, or
      Macedonia, opposite to the Isle of Thasos, twelve days’ journey
      from Constantinople (Cellarius, tom. i. p. 676, 846.)]

      22 (return) [ According to the malevolent testimony of the
      Anecdotes, (c. 18,) these inroads had reduced the provinces south
      of the Danube to the state of a Scythian wilderness.]

      In the midst of these obscure calamities, Europe felt the shock
      of revolution, which first revealed to the world the name and
      nation of the Turks. 2211 Like Romulus, the founder 2212 of that
      martial people was suckled by a she-wolf, who afterwards made him
      the father of a numerous progeny; and the representation of that
      animal in the banners of the Turks preserved the memory, or
      rather suggested the idea, of a fable, which was invented,
      without any mutual intercourse, by the shepherds of Latium and
      those of Scythia. At the equal distance of two thousand miles
      from the Caspian, the Icy, the Chinese, and the Bengal Seas, a
      ridge of mountains is conspicuous, the centre, and perhaps the
      summit, of Asia; which, in the language of different nations, has
      been styled Imaus, and Caf, 23 and Altai, and the Golden
      Mountains, 2311 and the Girdle of the Earth. The sides of the
      hills were productive of minerals; and the iron forges, 24 for
      the purpose of war, were exercised by the Turks, the most
      despised portion of the slaves of the great khan of the Geougen.
      But their servitude could only last till a leader, bold and
      eloquent, should arise to persuade his countrymen that the same
      arms which they forged for their masters, might become, in their
      own hands, the instruments of freedom and victory. They sallied
      from the mountains; 25 a sceptre was the reward of his advice;
      and the annual ceremony, in which a piece of iron was heated in
      the fire, and a smith’s hammer 2511 was successively handled by
      the prince and his nobles, recorded for ages the humble
      profession and rational pride of the Turkish nation. Bertezena,
      2512 their first leader, signalized their valor and his own in
      successful combats against the neighboring tribes; but when he
      presumed to ask in marriage the daughter of the great khan, the
      insolent demand of a slave and a mechanic was contemptuously
      rejected. The disgrace was expiated by a more noble alliance with
      a princess of China; and the decisive battle which almost
      extirpated the nation of the Geougen, established in Tartary the
      new and more powerful empire of the Turks. 2513 They reigned over
      the north; but they confessed the vanity of conquest, by their
      faithful attachment to the mountain of their fathers. The royal
      encampment seldom lost sight of Mount Altai, from whence the
      River Irtish descends to water the rich pastures of the Calmucks,
      26 which nourish the largest sheep and oxen in the world. The
      soil is fruitful, and the climate mild and temperate: the happy
      region was ignorant of earthquake and pestilence; the emperor’s
      throne was turned towards the East, and a golden wolf on the top
      of a spear seemed to guard the entrance of his tent. One of the
      successors of Bertezena was tempted by the luxury and
      superstition of China; but his design of building cities and
      temples was defeated by the simple wisdom of a Barbarian
      counsellor. “The Turks,” he said, “are not equal in number to one
      hundredth part of the inhabitants of China. If we balance their
      power, and elude their armies, it is because we wander without
      any fixed habitations in the exercise of war and hunting. Are we
      strong? we advance and conquer: are we feeble? we retire and are
      concealed. Should the Turks confine themselves within the walls
      of cities, the loss of a battle would be the destruction of their
      empire. The bonzes preach only patience, humility, and the
      renunciation of the world. Such, O king! is not the religion of
      heroes.” They entertained, with less reluctance, the doctrines of
      Zoroaster; but the greatest part of the nation acquiesced,
      without inquiry, in the opinions, or rather in the practice, of
      their ancestors. The honors of sacrifice were reserved for the
      supreme deity; they acknowledged, in rude hymns, their
      obligations to the air, the fire, the water, and the earth; and
      their priests derived some profit from the art of divination.
      Their unwritten laws were rigorous and impartial: theft was
      punished with a tenfold restitution; adultery, treason, and
      murder, with death; and no chastisement could be inflicted too
      severe for the rare and inexpiable guilt of cowardice. As the
      subject nations marched under the standard of the Turks, their
      cavalry, both men and horses, were proudly computed by millions;
      one of their effective armies consisted of four hundred thousand
      soldiers, and in less than fifty years they were connected in
      peace and war with the Romans, the Persians, and the Chinese. In
      their northern limits, some vestige may be discovered of the form
      and situation of Kamptchatka, of a people of hunters and
      fishermen, whose sledges were drawn by dogs, and whose
      habitations were buried in the earth. The Turks were ignorant of
      astronomy; but the observation taken by some learned Chinese,
      with a gnomon of eight feet, fixes the royal camp in the latitude
      of forty-nine degrees, and marks their extreme progress within
      three, or at least ten degrees, of the polar circle. 27 Among
      their southern conquests the most splendid was that of the
      Nephthalites, or white Huns, a polite and warlike people, who
      possessed the commercial cities of Bochara and Samarcand, who had
      vanquished the Persian monarch, and carried their victorious arms
      along the banks, and perhaps to the mouth, of the Indus. On the
      side of the West, the Turkish cavalry advanced to the Lake
      Maeotis. They passed that lake on the ice. The khan who dwelt at
      the foot of Mount Altai issued his commands for the siege of
      Bosphorus, 28 a city the voluntary subject of Rome, and whose
      princes had formerly been the friends of Athens. 29 To the east,
      the Turks invaded China, as often as the vigor of the government
      was relaxed: and I am taught to read in the history of the times,
      that they mowed down their patient enemies like hemp or grass;
      and that the mandarins applauded the wisdom of an emperor who
      repulsed these Barbarians with golden lances. This extent of
      savage empire compelled the Turkish monarch to establish three
      subordinate princes of his own blood, who soon forgot their
      gratitude and allegiance. The conquerors were enervated by
      luxury, which is always fatal except to an industrious people;
      the policy of China solicited the vanquished nations to resume
      their independence and the power of the Turks was limited to a
      period of two hundred years. The revival of their name and
      dominion in the southern countries of Asia are the events of a
      later age; and the dynasties, which succeeded to their native
      realms, may sleep in oblivion; since their history bears no
      relation to the decline and fall of the Roman empire. 30

      2211 (return) [ It must be remembered that the name of Turks is
      extended to a whole family of the Asiatic races, and not confined
      to the Assena, or Turks of the Altai.—M.]

      2212 (return) [ Assena (the wolf) was the name of this chief.
      Klaproth, Tabl. Hist. de l’Asie p. 114.—M.]

      23 (return) [ From Caf to Caf; which a more rational geography
      would interpret, from Imaus, perhaps, to Mount Atlas. According
      to the religious philosophy of the Mahometans, the basis of Mount
      Caf is an emerald, whose reflection produces the azure of the
      sky. The mountain is endowed with a sensitive action in its roots
      or nerves; and their vibration, at the command of God, is the
      cause of earthquakes. (D’Herbelot, p. 230, 231.)]

      2311 (return) [ Altai, i. e. Altun Tagh, the Golden Mountain. Von
      Hammer Osman Geschichte, vol. i. p. 2.—M.]

      24 (return) [ The Siberian iron is the best and most plentiful in
      the world; and in the southern parts, above sixty mines are now
      worked by the industry of the Russians, (Strahlenberg, Hist. of
      Siberia, p. 342, 387. Voyage en Siberie, par l’Abbe Chappe
      d’Auteroche, p. 603—608, edit in 12mo. Amsterdam. 1770.) The
      Turks offered iron for sale; yet the Roman ambassadors, with
      strange obstinacy, persisted in believing that it was all a
      trick, and that their country produced none, (Menander in
      Excerpt. Leg. p. 152.)]

      25 (return) [ Of Irgana-kon, (Abulghazi Khan, Hist. Genealogique
      des Tatars, P ii. c. 5, p. 71—77, c. 15, p. 155.) The tradition
      of the Moguls, of the 450 years which they passed in the
      mountains, agrees with the Chinese periods of the history of the
      Huns and Turks, (De Guignes, tom. i. part ii. p. 376,) and the
      twenty generations, from their restoration to Zingis.]

      2511 (return) [ The Mongol Temugin is also, though erroneously,
      explained by Rubruquis, a smith. Schmidt, p 876.—M.]

      2512 (return) [ There appears the same confusion here. Bertezena
      (Berte-Scheno) is claimed as the founder of the Mongol race. The
      name means the gray (blauliche) wolf. In fact, the same tradition
      of the origin from a wolf seems common to the Mongols and the
      Turks. The Mongol Berte-Scheno, of the very curious Mongol
      History, published and translated by M. Schmidt of Petersburg, is
      brought from Thibet. M. Schmidt considers this tradition of the
      Thibetane descent of the royal race of the Mongols to be much
      earlier than their conversion to Lamaism, yet it seems very
      suspicious. See Klaproth, Tabl. de l’Asie, p. 159. The Turkish
      Bertezena is called Thou-men by Klaproth, p. 115. In 552,
      Thou-men took the title of Kha-Khan, and was called Il Khan.—M.]

      2513 (return) [ Great Bucharia is called Turkistan: see Hammer,
      2. It includes all the last steppes at the foot of the Altai. The
      name is the same with that of the Turan of Persian poetic
      legend.—M.]

      26 (return) [ The country of the Turks, now of the Calmucks, is
      well described in the Genealogical History, p. 521—562. The
      curious notes of the French translator are enlarged and digested
      in the second volume of the English version.]

      27 (return) [ Visdelou, p. 141, 151. The fact, though it strictly
      belongs to a subordinate and successive tribe, may be introduced
      here.]

      28 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 12, l. ii. c. 3.
      Peyssonel, Observations sur les Peuples Barbares, p. 99, 100,
      defines the distance between Caffa and the old Bosphorus at xvi.
      long Tartar leagues.]

      29 (return) [ See, in a Memoire of M. de Boze, (Mem. de
      l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. vi. p. 549—565,) the ancient
      kings and medals of the Cimmerian Bosphorus; and the gratitude of
      Athens, in the Oration of Demosthenes against Leptines, (in
      Reiske, Orator. Graec. tom. i. p. 466, 187.)]

      30 (return) [ For the origin and revolutions of the first Turkish
      empire, the Chinese details are borrowed from De Guignes (Hist.
      des Huns, tom. P. ii. p. 367—462) and Visdelou, (Supplement a la
      Bibliotheque Orient. d’Herbelot, p. 82—114.) The Greek or Roman
      hints are gathered in Menander (p. 108—164) and Theophylact
      Simocatta, (l. vii. c. 7, 8.)]




      Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part II.

      In the rapid career of conquest, the Turks attacked and subdued
      the nation of the Ogors or Varchonites 3011 on the banks of the
      River Til, which derived the epithet of Black from its dark water
      or gloomy forests. 31 The khan of the Ogors was slain with three
      hundred thousand of his subjects, and their bodies were scattered
      over the space of four days’ journey: their surviving countrymen
      acknowledged the strength and mercy of the Turks; and a small
      portion, about twenty thousand warriors, preferred exile to
      servitude. They followed the well-known road of the Volga,
      cherished the error of the nations who confounded them with the
      Avars, and spread the terror of that false though famous
      appellation, which had not, however, saved its lawful proprietors
      from the yoke of the Turks. 32 After a long and victorious march,
      the new Avars arrived at the foot of Mount Caucasus, in the
      country of the Alani 33 and Circassians, where they first heard
      of the splendor and weakness of the Roman empire. They humbly
      requested their confederate, the prince of the Alani, to lead
      them to this source of riches; and their ambassador, with the
      permission of the governor of Lazica, was transported by the
      Euxine Sea to Constantinople. The whole city was poured forth to
      behold with curiosity and terror the aspect of a strange people:
      their long hair, which hung in tresses down their backs, was
      gracefully bound with ribbons, but the rest of their habit
      appeared to imitate the fashion of the Huns. When they were
      admitted to the audience of Justinian, Candish, the first of the
      ambassadors, addressed the Roman emperor in these terms: “You see
      before you, O mighty prince, the representatives of the strongest
      and most populous of nations, the invincible, the irresistible
      Avars. We are willing to devote ourselves to your service: we are
      able to vanquish and destroy all the enemies who now disturb your
      repose. But we expect, as the price of our alliance, as the
      reward of our valor, precious gifts, annual subsidies, and
      fruitful possessions.” At the time of this embassy, Justinian had
      reigned above thirty, he had lived above seventy-five years: his
      mind, as well as his body, was feeble and languid; and the
      conqueror of Africa and Italy, careless of the permanent interest
      of his people, aspired only to end his days in the bosom even of
      inglorious peace. In a studied oration, he imparted to the senate
      his resolution to dissemble the insult, and to purchase the
      friendship of the Avars; and the whole senate, like the mandarins
      of China, applauded the incomparable wisdom and foresight of
      their sovereign. The instruments of luxury were immediately
      prepared to captivate the Barbarians; silken garments, soft and
      splendid beds, and chains and collars incrusted with gold. The
      ambassadors, content with such liberal reception, departed from
      Constantinople, and Valentin, one of the emperor’s guards, was
      sent with a similar character to their camp at the foot of Mount
      Caucasus. As their destruction or their success must be alike
      advantageous to the empire, he persuaded them to invade the
      enemies of Rome; and they were easily tempted, by gifts and
      promises, to gratify their ruling inclinations. These fugitives,
      who fled before the Turkish arms, passed the Tanais and
      Borysthenes, and boldly advanced into the heart of Poland and
      Germany, violating the law of nations, and abusing the rights of
      victory. Before ten years had elapsed, their camps were seated on
      the Danube and the Elbe, many Bulgarian and Sclavonian names were
      obliterated from the earth, and the remainder of their tribes are
      found, as tributaries and vassals, under the standard of the
      Avars. The chagan, the peculiar title of their king, still
      affected to cultivate the friendship of the emperor; and
      Justinian entertained some thoughts of fixing them in Pannonia,
      to balance the prevailing power of the Lombards. But the virtue
      or treachery of an Avar betrayed the secret enmity and ambitious
      designs of their countrymen; and they loudly complained of the
      timid, though jealous policy, of detaining their ambassadors, and
      denying the arms which they had been allowed to purchase in the
      capital of the empire. 34

      3011 (return) [ The Ogors or Varchonites, from Var. a river,
      (obviously connected with the name Avar,) must not be confounded
      with the Uigours, the eastern Turks, (v. Hammer, Osmanische
      Geschichte, vol. i. p. 3,) who speak a language the parent of the
      more modern Turkish dialects. Compare Klaproth, page 121. They
      are the ancestors of the Usbeck Turks. These Ogors were of the
      same Finnish race with the Huns; and the 20,000 families which
      fled towards the west, after the Turkish invasion, were of the
      same race with those which remained to the east of the Volga, the
      true Avars of Theophy fact.—M.]

      31 (return) [ The River Til, or Tula, according to the geography
      of De Guignes, (tom. i. part ii. p. lviii. and 352,) is a small,
      though grateful, stream of the desert, that falls into the Orhon,
      Selinga, &c. See Bell, Journey from Petersburg to Pekin, (vol.
      ii. p. 124;) yet his own description of the Keat, down which he
      sailed into the Oby, represents the name and attributes of the
      black river, (p. 139.) * Note: M. Klaproth, (Tableaux Historiques
      de l’Asie, p. 274) supposes this river to be an eastern affluent
      of the Volga, the Kama, which, from the color of its waters,
      might be called black. M. Abel Remusat (Recherchea sur les
      Langues Tartares, vol. i. p. 320) and M. St. Martin (vol. ix. p.
      373) consider it the Volga, which is called Atel or Etel by all
      the Turkish tribes. It is called Attilas by Menander, and Ettilia
      by the monk Ruysbreek (1253.) See Klaproth, Tabl. Hist. p. 247.
      This geography is much more clear and simple than that adopted by
      Gibbon from De Guignes, or suggested from Bell.—M.]

      32 (return) [ Theophylact, l. vii. c. 7, 8. And yet his true
      Avars are invisible even to the eyes of M. de Guignes; and what
      can be more illustrious than the false? The right of the fugitive
      Ogors to that national appellation is confessed by the Turks
      themselves, (Menander, p. 108.)]

      33 (return) [ The Alani are still found in the Genealogical
      History of the Tartars, (p. 617,) and in D’Anville’s maps. They
      opposed the march of the generals of Zingis round the Caspian
      Sea, and were overthrown in a great battle, (Hist. de Gengiscan,
      l. iv. c. 9, p. 447.)]

      34 (return) [ The embassies and first conquests of the Avars may
      be read in Menander, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 99, 100, 101, 154, 155,)
      Theophanes, (p. 196,) the Historia Miscella, (l. xvi. p. 109,)
      and Gregory of Tours, (L iv. c. 23, 29, in the Historians of
      France, tom. ii. p. 214, 217.)]

      Perhaps the apparent change in the dispositions of the emperors
      may be ascribed to the embassy which was received from the
      conquerors of the Avars. 35 The immense distance which eluded
      their arms could not extinguish their resentment: the Turkish
      ambassadors pursued the footsteps of the vanquished to the Jaik,
      the Volga, Mount Caucasus, the Euxine and Constantinople, and at
      length appeared before the successor of Constantine, to request
      that he would not espouse the cause of rebels and fugitives. Even
      commerce had some share in this remarkable negotiation: and the
      Sogdoites, who were now the tributaries of the Turks, embraced
      the fair occasion of opening, by the north of the Caspian, a new
      road for the importation of Chinese silk into the Roman empire.
      The Persian, who preferred the navigation of Ceylon, had stopped
      the caravans of Bochara and Samarcand: their silk was
      contemptuously burnt: some Turkish ambassadors died in Persia,
      with a suspicion of poison; and the great khan permitted his
      faithful vassal Maniach, the prince of the Sogdoites, to propose,
      at the Byzantine court, a treaty of alliance against their common
      enemies. Their splendid apparel and rich presents, the fruit of
      Oriental luxury, distinguished Maniach and his colleagues from
      the rude savages of the North: their letters, in the Scythian
      character and language, announced a people who had attained the
      rudiments of science: 36 they enumerated the conquests, they
      offered the friendship and military aid of the Turks; and their
      sincerity was attested by direful imprecations (if they were
      guilty of falsehood) against their own head, and the head of
      Disabul their master. The Greek prince entertained with
      hospitable regard the ambassadors of a remote and powerful
      monarch: the sight of silk-worms and looms disappointed the hopes
      of the Sogdoites; the emperor renounced, or seemed to renounce,
      the fugitive Avars, but he accepted the alliance of the Turks;
      and the ratification of the treaty was carried by a Roman
      minister to the foot of Mount Altai. Under the successors of
      Justinian, the friendship of the two nations was cultivated by
      frequent and cordial intercourse; the most favored vassals were
      permitted to imitate the example of the great khan, and one
      hundred and six Turks, who, on various occasions, had visited
      Constantinople, departed at the same time for their native
      country. The duration and length of the journey from the
      Byzantine court to Mount Altai are not specified: it might have
      been difficult to mark a road through the nameless deserts, the
      mountains, rivers, and morasses of Tartary; but a curious account
      has been preserved of the reception of the Roman ambassadors at
      the royal camp. After they had been purified with fire and
      incense, according to a rite still practised under the sons of
      Zingis, 3611 they were introduced to the presence of Disabul. In
      a valley of the Golden Mountain, they found the great khan in his
      tent, seated in a chair with wheels, to which a horse might be
      occasionally harnessed. As soon as they had delivered their
      presents, which were received by the proper officers, they
      exposed, in a florid oration, the wishes of the Roman emperor,
      that victory might attend the arms of the Turks, that their reign
      might be long and prosperous, and that a strict alliance, without
      envy or deceit, might forever be maintained between the two most
      powerful nations of the earth. The answer of Disabul corresponded
      with these friendly professions, and the ambassadors were seated
      by his side, at a banquet which lasted the greatest part of the
      day: the tent was surrounded with silk hangings, and a Tartar
      liquor was served on the table, which possessed at least the
      intoxicating qualities of wine. The entertainment of the
      succeeding day was more sumptuous; the silk hangings of the
      second tent were embroidered in various figures; and the royal
      seat, the cups, and the vases, were of gold. A third pavilion was
      supported by columns of gilt wood; a bed of pure and massy gold
      was raised on four peacocks of the same metal: and before the
      entrance of the tent, dishes, basins, and statues of solid
      silver, and admirable art, were ostentatiously piled in wagons,
      the monuments of valor rather than of industry. When Disabul led
      his armies against the frontiers of Persia, his Roman allies
      followed many days the march of the Turkish camp, nor were they
      dismissed till they had enjoyed their precedency over the envoy
      of the great king, whose loud and intemperate clamors interrupted
      the silence of the royal banquet. The power and ambition of
      Chosroes cemented the union of the Turks and Romans, who touched
      his dominions on either side: but those distant nations,
      regardless of each other, consulted the dictates of interest,
      without recollecting the obligations of oaths and treaties. While
      the successor of Disabul celebrated his father’s obsequies, he
      was saluted by the ambassadors of the emperor Tiberius, who
      proposed an invasion of Persia, and sustained, with firmness, the
      angry and perhaps the just reproaches of that haughty Barbarian.
      “You see my ten fingers,” said the great khan, and he applied
      them to his mouth. “You Romans speak with as many tongues, but
      they are tongues of deceit and perjury. To me you hold one
      language, to my subjects another; and the nations are
      successively deluded by your perfidious eloquence. You
      precipitate your allies into war and danger, you enjoy their
      labors, and you neglect your benefactors. Hasten your return,
      inform your master that a Turk is incapable of uttering or
      forgiving falsehood, and that he shall speedily meet the
      punishment which he deserves. While he solicits my friendship
      with flattering and hollow words, he is sunk to a confederate of
      my fugitive Varchonites. If I condescend to march against those
      contemptible slaves, they will tremble at the sound of our whips;
      they will be trampled, like a nest of ants, under the feet of my
      innumerable cavalry. I am not ignorant of the road which they
      have followed to invade your empire; nor can I be deceived by the
      vain pretence, that Mount Caucasus is the impregnable barrier of
      the Romans. I know the course of the Niester, the Danube, and the
      Hebrus; the most warlike nations have yielded to the arms of the
      Turks; and from the rising to the setting sun, the earth is my
      inheritance.” Notwithstanding this menace, a sense of mutual
      advantage soon renewed the alliance of the Turks and Romans: but
      the pride of the great khan survived his resentment; and when he
      announced an important conquest to his friend the emperor
      Maurice, he styled himself the master of the seven races, and the
      lord of the seven climates of the world. 37

      35 (return) [ Theophanes, (Chron. p. 204,) and the Hist.
      Miscella, (l. xvi. p. 110,) as understood by De Guignes, (tom. i.
      part ii. p. 354,) appear to speak of a Turkish embassy to
      Justinian himself; but that of Maniach, in the fourth year of his
      successor Justin, is positively the first that reached
      Constantinople, (Menander p. 108.)]

      36 (return) [ The Russians have found characters, rude
      hieroglyphics, on the Irtish and Yenisei, on medals, tombs,
      idols, rocks, obelisks, &c., (Strahlenberg, Hist. of Siberia, p.
      324, 346, 406, 429.) Dr. Hyde (de Religione Veterum Persarum, p.
      521, &c.) has given two alphabets of Thibet and of the Eygours. I
      have long harbored a suspicion, that all the Scythian, and some,
      perhaps much, of the Indian science, was derived from the Greeks
      of Bactriana. * Note: Modern discoveries give no confirmation to
      this suspicion. The character of Indian science, as well as of
      their literature and mythology, indicates an original source.
      Grecian art may have occasionally found its way into India. One
      or two of the sculptures in Col. Tod’s account of the Jain
      temples, if correct, show a finer outline, and purer sense of
      beauty, than appears native to India, where the monstrous always
      predominated over simple nature.—M.]

      3611 (return) [ This rite is so curious, that I have subjoined
      the description of it:— When these (the exorcisers, the Shamans)
      approached Zemarchus, they took all our baggage and placed it in
      the centre. Then, kindling a fire with branches of frankincense,
      lowly murmuring certain barbarous words in the Scythian language,
      beating on a kind of bell (a gong) and a drum, they passed over
      the baggage the leaves of the frankincense, crackling with the
      fire, and at the same time themselves becoming frantic, and
      violently leaping about, seemed to exorcise the evil spirits.
      Having thus as they thought, averted all evil, they led Zemarchus
      himself through the fire. Menander, in Niebuhr’s Bryant. Hist. p.
      381. Compare Carpini’s Travels. The princes of the race of Zingis
      Khan condescended to receive the ambassadors of the king of
      France, at the end of the 13th century without their submitting
      to this humiliating rite. See Correspondence published by Abel
      Remusat, Nouv. Mem. de l’Acad des Inscrip. vol. vii. On the
      embassy of Zemarchus, compare Klaproth, Tableaux de l’Asie p.
      116.—M.]

      37 (return) [ All the details of these Turkish and Roman
      embassies, so curious in the history of human manners, are drawn
      from the extracts of Menander, (p. 106—110, 151—154, 161-164,) in
      which we often regret the want of order and connection.]

      Disputes have often arisen between the sovereigns of Asia for the
      title of king of the world; while the contest has proved that it
      could not belong to either of the competitors. The kingdom of the
      Turks was bounded by the Oxus or Gihon; and Touran was separated
      by that great river from the rival monarchy of Iran, or Persia,
      which in a smaller compass contained perhaps a larger measure of
      power and population. The Persians, who alternately invaded and
      repulsed the Turks and the Romans, were still ruled by the house
      of Sassan, which ascended the throne three hundred years before
      the accession of Justinian. His contemporary, Cabades, or Kobad,
      had been successful in war against the emperor Anastasius; but
      the reign of that prince was distracted by civil and religious
      troubles. A prisoner in the hands of his subjects, an exile among
      the enemies of Persia, he recovered his liberty by prostituting
      the honor of his wife, and regained his kingdom with the
      dangerous and mercenary aid of the Barbarians, who had slain his
      father. His nobles were suspicious that Kobad never forgave the
      authors of his expulsion, or even those of his restoration. The
      people was deluded and inflamed by the fanaticism of Mazdak, 38
      who asserted the community of women, 39 and the equality of
      mankind, whilst he appropriated the richest lands and most
      beautiful females to the use of his sectaries. The view of these
      disorders, which had been fomented by his laws and example, 40
      imbittered the declining age of the Persian monarch; and his
      fears were increased by the consciousness of his design to
      reverse the natural and customary order of succession, in favor
      of his third and most favored son, so famous under the names of
      Chosroes and Nushirvan. To render the youth more illustrious in
      the eyes of the nations, Kobad was desirous that he should be
      adopted by the emperor Justin: 4011 the hope of peace inclined
      the Byzantine court to accept this singular proposal; and
      Chosroes might have acquired a specious claim to the inheritance
      of his Roman parent. But the future mischief was diverted by the
      advice of the quaestor Proclus: a difficulty was started, whether
      the adoption should be performed as a civil or military rite; 41
      the treaty was abruptly dissolved; and the sense of this
      indignity sunk deep into the mind of Chosroes, who had already
      advanced to the Tigris on his road to Constantinople. His father
      did not long survive the disappointment of his wishes: the
      testament of their deceased sovereign was read in the assembly of
      the nobles; and a powerful faction, prepared for the event, and
      regardless of the priority of age, exalted Chosroes to the throne
      of Persia. He filled that throne during a prosperous period of
      forty-eight years; 42 and the Justice of Nushirvan is celebrated
      as the theme of immortal praise by the nations of the East.

      38 (return) [ See D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 568, 929;)
      Hyde, (de Religione Vet. Persarum, c. 21, p. 290, 291;) Pocock,
      (Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 70, 71;) Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p.
      176;) Texeira, (in Stevens, Hist. of Persia, l. i. c. 34.) *
      Note: Mazdak was an Archimagus, born, according to Mirkhond,
      (translated by De Sacy, p. 353, and Malcolm, vol. i. p. 104,) at
      Istakhar or Persepolis, according to an inedited and anonymous
      history, (the Modjmal-alte-warikh in the Royal Library at Paris,
      quoted by St. Martin, vol. vii. p. 322) at Wischapour in
      Chorasan: his father’s name was Bamdadam. He announces himself as
      a reformer of Zoroastrianism, and carried the doctrine of the two
      principles to a much grater height. He preached the absolute
      indifference of human action, perfect equality of rank, community
      of property and of women, marriages between the nearest kindred;
      he interdicted the use of animal food, proscribed the killing of
      animals for food, enforced a vegetable diet. See St. Martin, vol.
      vii. p. 322. Malcolm, vol. i. p. 104. Mirkhond translated by De
      Sacy. It is remarkable that the doctrine of Mazdak spread into
      the West. Two inscriptions found in Cyrene, in 1823, and
      explained by M. Gesenius, and by M. Hamaker of Leyden, prove
      clearly that his doctrines had been eagerly embraced by the
      remains of the ancient Gnostics; and Mazdak was enrolled with
      Thoth, Saturn, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Epicurus, John, and Christ,
      as the teachers of true Gnostic wisdom. See St. Martin, vol. vii.
      p. 338. Gesenius de Inscriptione Phoenicio-Graeca in Cyrenaica
      nuper reperta, Halle, 1825. Hamaker, Lettre a M. Raoul Rochette,
      Leyden, 1825.—M.]

      39 (return) [ The fame of the new law for the community of women
      was soon propagated in Syria (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. iii.
      p. 402) and Greece, (Procop. Persic. l. i. c. 5.)]

      40 (return) [ He offered his own wife and sister to the prophet;
      but the prayers of Nushirvan saved his mother, and the indignant
      monarch never forgave the humiliation to which his filial piety
      had stooped: pedes tuos deosculatus (said he to Mazdak,) cujus
      foetor adhuc nares occupat, (Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arab. p.
      71.)]

      4011 (return) [ St. Martin questions this adoption: he urges its
      improbability; and supposes that Procopius, perverting some
      popular traditions, or the remembrance of some fruitless
      negotiations which took place at that time, has mistaken, for a
      treaty of adoption some treaty of guaranty or protection for the
      purpose of insuring the crown, after the death of Kobad, to his
      favorite son Chosroes, vol. viii. p. 32. Yet the Greek historians
      seem unanimous as to the proposal: the Persians might be expected
      to maintain silence on such a subject.—M.]

      41 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 11. Was not Proclus
      over-wise? Was not the danger imaginary?—The excuse, at least,
      was injurious to a nation not ignorant of letters. Whether any
      mode of adoption was practised in Persia, I much doubt.]

      42 (return) [ From Procopius and Agathias, Pagi (tom. ii. p. 543,
      626) has proved that Chosroes Nushirvan ascended the throne in
      the fifth year of Justinian, (A.D. 531, April 1.—A.D. 532, April
      1.) But the true chronology, which harmonizes with the Greeks and
      Orientals, is ascertained by John Malala, (tom. ii. 211.)
      Cabades, or Kobad, after a reign of forty-three years and two
      months, sickened the 8th, and died the 13th of September, A.D.
      531, aged eighty-two years. According to the annals of Eutychius,
      Nushirvan reigned forty seven years and six months; and his death
      must consequently be placed in March, A.D. 579.]

      But the justice of kings is understood by themselves, and even by
      their subjects, with an ample indulgence for the gratification of
      passion and interest. The virtue of Chosroes was that of a
      conqueror, who, in the measures of peace and war, is excited by
      ambition, and restrained by prudence; who confounds the greatness
      with the happiness of a nation, and calmly devotes the lives of
      thousands to the fame, or even the amusement, of a single man. In
      his domestic administration, the just Nushirvan would merit in
      our feelings the appellation of a tyrant. His two elder brothers
      had been deprived of their fair expectations of the diadem: their
      future life, between the supreme rank and the condition of
      subjects, was anxious to themselves and formidable to their
      master: fear as well as revenge might tempt them to rebel: the
      slightest evidence of a conspiracy satisfied the author of their
      wrongs; and the repose of Chosroes was secured by the death of
      these unhappy princes, with their families and adherents. One
      guiltless youth was saved and dismissed by the compassion of a
      veteran general; and this act of humanity, which was revealed by
      his son, overbalanced the merit of reducing twelve nations to the
      obedience of Persia. The zeal and prudence of Mebodes had fixed
      the diadem on the head of Chosroes himself; but he delayed to
      attend the royal summons, till he had performed the duties of a
      military review: he was instantly commanded to repair to the iron
      tripod, which stood before the gate of the palace, 43 where it
      was death to relieve or approach the victim; and Mebodes
      languished several days before his sentence was pronounced, by
      the inflexible pride and calm ingratitude of the son of Kobad.
      But the people, more especially in the East, is disposed to
      forgive, and even to applaud, the cruelty which strikes at the
      loftiest heads; at the slaves of ambition, whose voluntary choice
      has exposed them to live in the smiles, and to perish by the
      frown, of a capricious monarch. In the execution of the laws
      which he had no temptation to violate; in the punishment of
      crimes which attacked his own dignity, as well as the happiness
      of individuals; Nushirvan, or Chosroes, deserved the appellation
      of just. His government was firm, rigorous, and impartial. It was
      the first labor of his reign to abolish the dangerous theory of
      common or equal possessions: the lands and women which the
      sectaries of Mazdak has usurped were restored to their lawful
      owners; and the temperate 4311 chastisement of the fanatics or
      impostors confirmed the domestic rights of society. Instead of
      listening with blind confidence to a favorite minister, he
      established four viziers over the four great provinces of his
      empire, Assyria, Media, Persia, and Bactriana. In the choice of
      judges, praefects, and counsellors, he strove to remove the mask
      which is always worn in the presence of kings: he wished to
      substitute the natural order of talents for the accidental
      distinctions of birth and fortune; he professed, in specious
      language, his intention to prefer those men who carried the poor
      in their bosoms, and to banish corruption from the seat of
      justice, as dogs were excluded from the temples of the Magi. The
      code of laws of the first Artaxerxes was revived and published as
      the rule of the magistrates; but the assurance of speedy
      punishment was the best security of their virtue. Their behavior
      was inspected by a thousand eyes, their words were overheard by a
      thousand ears, the secret or public agents of the throne; and the
      provinces, from the Indian to the Arabian confines, were
      enlightened by the frequent visits of a sovereign, who affected
      to emulate his celestial brother in his rapid and salutary
      career. Education and agriculture he viewed as the two objects
      most deserving of his care. In every city of Persia orphans, and
      the children of the poor, were maintained and instructed at the
      public expense; the daughters were given in marriage to the
      richest citizens of their own rank, and the sons, according to
      their different talents, were employed in mechanic trades, or
      promoted to more honorable service. The deserted villages were
      relieved by his bounty; to the peasants and farmers who were
      found incapable of cultivating their lands, he distributed
      cattle, seed, and the instruments of husbandry; and the rare and
      inestimable treasure of fresh water was parsimoniously managed,
      and skilfully dispersed over the arid territory of Persia. 44 The
      prosperity of that kingdom was the effect and evidence of his
      virtues; his vices are those of Oriental despotism; but in the
      long competition between Chosroes and Justinian, the advantage
      both of merit and fortune is almost always on the side of the
      Barbarian. 45

      43 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 23. Brisson, de Regn.
      Pers. p. 494. The gate of the palace of Ispahan is, or was, the
      fatal scene of disgrace or death, (Chardin, Voyage en Perse, tom.
      iv. p. 312, 313.)]

      4311 (return) [ This is a strange term. Nushirvan employed a
      stratagem similar to that of Jehu, 2 Kings, x. 18—28, to separate
      the followers of Mazdak from the rest of his subjects, and with a
      body of his troops cut them all in pieces. The Greek writers
      concur with the Persian in this representation of Nushirvan’s
      temperate conduct. Theophanes, p. 146. Mirkhond. p. 362.
      Eutychius, Ann. vol. ii. p. 179. Abulfeda, in an unedited part,
      consulted by St. Martin as well as in a passage formerly cited.
      Le Beau vol. viii. p. 38. Malcolm vol l p. 109.—M.]

      44 (return) [ In Persia, the prince of the waters is an officer
      of state. The number of wells and subterraneous channels is much
      diminished, and with it the fertility of the soil: 400 wells have
      been recently lost near Tauris, and 42,000 were once reckoned in
      the province of Khorasan (Chardin, tom. iii. p. 99, 100.
      Tavernier, tom. i. p. 416.)]

      45 (return) [ The character and government of Nushirvan is
      represented some times in the words of D’Herbelot, (Bibliot.
      Orient. p. 680, &c., from Khondemir,) Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii.
      p. 179, 180,—very rich,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. vii. p. 94,
      95,—very poor,) Tarikh Schikard, (p. 144—150,) Texeira, (in
      Stevens, l. i. c. 35,) Asseman, (Bibliot Orient. tom. iii. p.
      404-410,) and the Abbe Fourmont, (Hist. de l’Acad. des
      Inscriptions, tom. vii. p. 325—334,) who has translated a
      spurious or genuine testament of Nushirvan.]

      To the praise of justice Nushirvan united the reputation of
      knowledge; and the seven Greek philosophers, who visited his
      court, were invited and deceived by the strange assurance, that a
      disciple of Plato was seated on the Persian throne. Did they
      expect, that a prince, strenuously exercised in the toils of war
      and government, should agitate, with dexterity like their own,
      the abstruse and profound questions which amused the leisure of
      the schools of Athens? Could they hope that the precepts of
      philosophy should direct the life, and control the passions, of a
      despot, whose infancy had been taught to consider his absolute
      and fluctuating will as the only rule of moral obligation? 46 The
      studies of Chosroes were ostentatious and superficial: but his
      example awakened the curiosity of an ingenious people, and the
      light of science was diffused over the dominions of Persia. 47 At
      Gondi Sapor, in the neighborhood of the royal city of Susa, an
      academy of physic was founded, which insensibly became a liberal
      school of poetry, philosophy, and rhetoric. 48 The annals of the
      monarchy 49 were composed; and while recent and authentic history
      might afford some useful lessons both to the prince and people,
      the darkness of the first ages was embellished by the giants, the
      dragons, and the fabulous heroes of Oriental romance. 50 Every
      learned or confident stranger was enriched by the bounty, and
      flattered by the conversation, of the monarch: he nobly rewarded
      a Greek physician, 51 by the deliverance of three thousand,
      captives; and the sophists, who contended for his favor, were
      exasperated by the wealth and insolence of Uranius, their more
      successful rival. Nushirvan believed, or at least respected, the
      religion of the Magi; and some traces of persecution may be
      discovered in his reign. 52 Yet he allowed himself freely to
      compare the tenets of the various sects; and the theological
      disputes, in which he frequently presided, diminished the
      authority of the priest, and enlightened the minds of the people.
      At his command, the most celebrated writers of Greece and India
      were translated into the Persian language; a smooth and elegant
      idiom, recommended by Mahomet to the use of paradise; though it
      is branded with the epithets of savage and unmusical, by the
      ignorance and presumption of Agathias. 53 Yet the Greek historian
      might reasonably wonder that it should be found possible to
      execute an entire version of Plato and Aristotle in a foreign
      dialect, which had not been framed to express the spirit of
      freedom and the subtilties of philosophic disquisition. And, if
      the reason of the Stagyrite might be equally dark, or equally
      intelligible in every tongue, the dramatic art and verbal
      argumentation of the disciple of Socrates, 54 appear to be
      indissolubly mingled with the grace and perfection of his Attic
      style. In the search of universal knowledge, Nushirvan was
      informed, that the moral and political fables of Pilpay, an
      ancient Brachman, were preserved with jealous reverence among the
      treasures of the kings of India. The physician Perozes was
      secretly despatched to the banks of the Ganges, with instructions
      to procure, at any price, the communication of this valuable
      work. His dexterity obtained a transcript, his learned diligence
      accomplished the translation; and the fables of Pilpay 55 were
      read and admired in the assembly of Nushirvan and his nobles. The
      Indian original, and the Persian copy, have long since
      disappeared; but this venerable monument has been saved by the
      curiosity of the Arabian caliphs, revived in the modern Persic,
      the Turkish, the Syriac, the Hebrew, and the Greek idioms, and
      transfused through successive versions into the modern languages
      of Europe. In their present form, the peculiar character, the
      manners and religion of the Hindoos, are completely obliterated;
      and the intrinsic merit of the fables of Pilpay is far inferior
      to the concise elegance of Phaedrus, and the native graces of La
      Fontaine. Fifteen moral and political sentences are illustrated
      in a series of apologues: but the composition is intricate, the
      narrative prolix, and the precept obvious and barren. Yet the
      Brachman may assume the merit of inventing a pleasing fiction,
      which adorns the nakedness of truth, and alleviates, perhaps, to
      a royal ear, the harshness of instruction. With a similar design,
      to admonish kings that they are strong only in the strength of
      their subjects, the same Indians invented the game of chess,
      which was likewise introduced into Persia under the reign of
      Nushirvan. 56

      46 (return) [ A thousand years before his birth, the judges of
      Persia had given a solemn opinion, (Herodot. l. iii. c. 31, p.
      210, edit. Wesseling.) Nor had this constitutional maxim been
      neglected as a useless and barren theory.]

      47 (return) [ On the literary state of Persia, the Greek
      versions, philosophers, sophists, the learning or ignorance of
      Chosroes, Agathias (l. ii. c. 66—71) displays much information
      and strong prejudices.]

      48 (return) [ Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. DCCXLV. vi.
      vii.]

      49 (return) [ The Shah Nameh, or Book of Kings, is perhaps the
      original record of history which was translated into Greek by the
      interpreter Sergius, (Agathias, l. v. p. 141,) preserved after
      the Mahometan conquest, and versified in the year 994, by the
      national poet Ferdoussi. See D’Anquetil (Mem. de l’Academie, tom.
      xxxi. p. 379) and Sir William Jones, (Hist. of Nadir Shah, p.
      161.)]

      50 (return) [ In the fifth century, the name of Restom, or
      Rostam, a hero who equalled the strength of twelve elephants, was
      familiar to the Armenians, (Moses Chorenensis, Hist. Armen. l.
      ii. c. 7, p. 96, edit. Whiston.) In the beginning of the seventh,
      the Persian Romance of Rostam and Isfendiar was applauded at
      Mecca, (Sale’s Koran, c. xxxi. p. 335.) Yet this exposition of
      ludicrum novae historiae is not given by Maracci, (Refutat.
      Alcoran. p. 544—548.)]

      51 (return) [ Procop. (Goth. l. iv. c. 10.) Kobad had a favorite
      Greek physician, Stephen of Edessa, (Persic. l. ii. c. 26.) The
      practice was ancient; and Herodotus relates the adventures of
      Democedes of Crotona, (l. iii p. 125—137.)]

      52 (return) [ See Pagi, tom. ii. p. 626. In one of the treaties
      an honorable article was inserted for the toleration and burial
      of the Catholics, (Menander, in Excerpt. Legat. p. 142.)
      Nushizad, a son of Nushirvan, was a Christian, a rebel, and—a
      martyr? (D’Herbelot, p. 681.)]

      53 (return) [ On the Persian language, and its three dialects,
      consult D’Anquetil (p. 339—343) and Jones, (p. 153—185:) is the
      character which Agathias (l. ii. p. 66) ascribes to an idiom
      renowned in the East for poetical softness.]

      54 (return) [ Agathias specifies the Gorgias, Phaedon,
      Parmenides, and Timaeus. Renaudot (Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec.
      tom. xii. p. 246—261) does not mention this Barbaric version of
      Aristotle.]

      55 (return) [ Of these fables, I have seen three copies in three
      different languages: 1. In Greek, translated by Simeon Seth (A.D.
      1100) from the Arabic, and published by Starck at Berlin in 1697,
      in 12mo. 2. In Latin, a version from the Greek Sapientia Indorum,
      inserted by Pere Poussin at the end of his edition of Pachymer,
      (p. 547—620, edit. Roman.) 3. In French, from the Turkish,
      dedicated, in 1540, to Sultan Soliman Contes et Fables Indiennes
      de Bidpai et de Lokman, par Mm. Galland et Cardonne, Paris, 1778,
      3 vols. in 12mo. Mr. Warton (History of English Poetry, vol. i.
      p. 129—131) takes a larger scope. * Note: The oldest Indian
      collection extant is the Pancha-tantra, (the five collections,)
      analyzed by Mr. Wilson in the Transactions of the Royal Asiat.
      Soc. It was translated into Persian by Barsuyah, the physician of
      Nushirvan, under the name of the Fables of Bidpai, (Vidyapriya,
      the Friend of Knowledge, or, as the Oriental writers understand
      it, the Friend of Medicine.) It was translated into Arabic by
      Abdolla Ibn Mokaffa, under the name of Kalila and Dimnah. From
      the Arabic it passed into the European languages. Compare Wilson,
      in Trans. As. Soc. i. 52. dohlen, das alte Indien, ii. p. 386.
      Silvestre de Sacy, Memoire sur Kalila vs Dimnah.—M.]

      56 (return) [ See the Historia Shahiludii of Dr. Hyde, (Syntagm.
      Dissertat. tom. ii. p. 61—69.)]




      Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part III.

      The son of Kobad found his kingdom involved in a war with the
      successor of Constantine; and the anxiety of his domestic
      situation inclined him to grant the suspension of arms, which
      Justinian was impatient to purchase. Chosroes saw the Roman
      ambassadors at his feet. He accepted eleven thousand pounds of
      gold, as the price of an endless or indefinite peace: 57 some
      mutual exchanges were regulated; the Persian assumed the guard of
      the gates of Caucasus, and the demolition of Dara was suspended,
      on condition that it should never be made the residence of the
      general of the East. This interval of repose had been solicited,
      and was diligently improved, by the ambition of the emperor: his
      African conquests were the first fruits of the Persian treaty;
      and the avarice of Chosroes was soothed by a large portion of the
      spoils of Carthage, which his ambassadors required in a tone of
      pleasantry and under the color of friendship. 58 But the trophies
      of Belisarius disturbed the slumbers of the great king; and he
      heard with astonishment, envy, and fear, that Sicily, Italy, and
      Rome itself, had been reduced, in three rapid campaigns, to the
      obedience of Justinian. Unpractised in the art of violating
      treaties, he secretly excited his bold and subtle vassal
      Almondar. That prince of the Saracens, who resided at Hira, 59
      had not been included in the general peace, and still waged an
      obscure war against his rival Arethas, the chief of the tribe of
      Gassan, and confederate of the empire. The subject of their
      dispute was an extensive sheep-walk in the desert to the south of
      Palmyra. An immemorial tribute for the license of pasture
      appeared to attest the rights of Almondar, while the Gassanite
      appealed to the Latin name of strata, a paved road, as an
      unquestionable evidence of the sovereignty and labors of the
      Romans. 60 The two monarchs supported the cause of their
      respective vassals; and the Persian Arab, without expecting the
      event of a slow and doubtful arbitration, enriched his flying
      camp with the spoil and captives of Syria. Instead of repelling
      the arms, Justinian attempted to seduce the fidelity of Almondar,
      while he called from the extremities of the earth the nations of
      Aethiopia and Scythia to invade the dominions of his rival. But
      the aid of such allies was distant and precarious, and the
      discovery of this hostile correspondence justified the complaints
      of the Goths and Armenians, who implored, almost at the same
      time, the protection of Chosroes. The descendants of Arsaces, who
      were still numerous in Armenia, had been provoked to assert the
      last relics of national freedom and hereditary rank; and the
      ambassadors of Vitiges had secretly traversed the empire to
      expose the instant, and almost inevitable, danger of the kingdom
      of Italy. Their representations were uniform, weighty, and
      effectual. “We stand before your throne, the advocates of your
      interest as well as of our own. The ambitious and faithless
      Justinian aspires to be the sole master of the world. Since the
      endless peace, which betrayed the common freedom of mankind, that
      prince, your ally in words, your enemy in actions, has alike
      insulted his friends and foes, and has filled the earth with
      blood and confusion. Has he not violated the privileges of
      Armenia, the independence of Colchos, and the wild liberty of the
      Tzanian mountains? Has he not usurped, with equal avidity, the
      city of Bosphorus on the frozen Maeotis, and the vale of
      palm-trees on the shores of the Red Sea? The Moors, the Vandals,
      the Goths, have been successively oppressed, and each nation has
      calmly remained the spectator of their neighbor’s ruin. Embrace,
      O king! the favorable moment; the East is left without defence,
      while the armies of Justinian and his renowned general are
      detained in the distant regions of the West. If you hesitate or
      delay, Belisarius and his victorious troops will soon return from
      the Tyber to the Tigris, and Persia may enjoy the wretched
      consolation of being the last devoured.” 61 By such arguments,
      Chosroes was easily persuaded to imitate the example which he
      condemned: but the Persian, ambitious of military fame, disdained
      the inactive warfare of a rival, who issued his sanguinary
      commands from the secure station of the Byzantine palace.

      57 (return) [ The endless peace (Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 21)
      was concluded or ratified in the vith year, and iiid consulship,
      of Justinian, (A.D. 533, between January 1 and April 1. Pagi,
      tom. ii. p. 550.) Marcellinus, in his Chronicle, uses the style
      of Medes and Persians.]

      58 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 26.]

      59 (return) [ Almondar, king of Hira, was deposed by Kobad, and
      restored by Nushirvan. His mother, from her beauty, was surnamed
      Celestial Water, an appellation which became hereditary, and was
      extended for a more noble cause (liberality in famine) to the
      Arab princes of Syria, (Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 69, 70.)]

      60 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. ii. c. 1. We are ignorant of
      the origin and object of this strata, a paved road of ten days’
      journey from Auranitis to Babylonia. (See a Latin note in
      Delisle’s Map Imp. Orient.) Wesseling and D’Anville are silent.]

      61 (return) [ I have blended, in a short speech, the two orations
      of the Arsacides of Armenia and the Gothic ambassadors.
      Procopius, in his public history, feels, and makes us feel, that
      Justinian was the true author of the war, (Persic. l. ii. c. 2,
      3.)]

      Whatever might be the provocations of Chosroes, he abused the
      confidence of treaties; and the just reproaches of dissimulation
      and falsehood could only be concealed by the lustre of his
      victories. 62 The Persian army, which had been assembled in the
      plains of Babylon, prudently declined the strong cities of
      Mesopotamia, and followed the western bank of the Euphrates, till
      the small, though populous, town of Dura 6211 presumed to arrest
      the progress of the great king. The gates of Dura, by treachery
      and surprise, were burst open; and as soon as Chosroes had
      stained his cimeter with the blood of the inhabitants, he
      dismissed the ambassador of Justinian to inform his master in
      what place he had left the enemy of the Romans. The conqueror
      still affected the praise of humanity and justice; and as he
      beheld a noble matron with her infant rudely dragged along the
      ground, he sighed, he wept, and implored the divine justice to
      punish the author of these calamities. Yet the herd of twelve
      thousand captives was ransomed for two hundred pounds of gold;
      the neighboring bishop of Sergiopolis pledged his faith for the
      payment: and in the subsequent year the unfeeling avarice of
      Chosroes exacted the penalty of an obligation which it was
      generous to contract and impossible to discharge. He advanced
      into the heart of Syria: but a feeble enemy, who vanished at his
      approach, disappointed him of the honor of victory; and as he
      could not hope to establish his dominion, the Persian king
      displayed in this inroad the mean and rapacious vices of a
      robber. Hierapolis, Berrhaea or Aleppo, Apamea and Chalcis, were
      successively besieged: they redeemed their safety by a ransom of
      gold or silver, proportioned to their respective strength and
      opulence; and their new master enforced, without observing, the
      terms of capitulation. Educated in the religion of the Magi, he
      exercised, without remorse, the lucrative trade of sacrilege;
      and, after stripping of its gold and gems a piece of the true
      cross, he generously restored the naked relic to the devotion of
      the Christians of Apamea. No more than fourteen years had elapsed
      since Antioch was ruined by an earthquake; 6212 but the queen of
      the East, the new Theopolis, had been raised from the ground by
      the liberality of Justinian; and the increasing greatness of the
      buildings and the people already erased the memory of this recent
      disaster. On one side, the city was defended by the mountain, on
      the other by the River Orontes; but the most accessible part was
      commanded by a superior eminence: the proper remedies were
      rejected, from the despicable fear of discovering its weakness to
      the enemy; and Germanus, the emperor’s nephew, refused to trust
      his person and dignity within the walls of a besieged city. The
      people of Antioch had inherited the vain and satirical genius of
      their ancestors: they were elated by a sudden reenforcement of
      six thousand soldiers; they disdained the offers of an easy
      capitulation and their intemperate clamors insulted from the
      ramparts the majesty of the great king. Under his eye the Persian
      myriads mounted with scaling-ladders to the assault; the Roman
      mercenaries fled through the opposite gate of Daphne; and the
      generous assistance of the youth of Antioch served only to
      aggravate the miseries of their country. As Chosroes, attended by
      the ambassadors of Justinian, was descending from the mountain,
      he affected, in a plaintive voice, to deplore the obstinacy and
      ruin of that unhappy people; but the slaughter still raged with
      unrelenting fury; and the city, at the command of a Barbarian,
      was delivered to the flames. The cathedral of Antioch was indeed
      preserved by the avarice, not the piety, of the conqueror: a more
      honorable exemption was granted to the church of St. Julian, and
      the quarter of the town where the ambassadors resided; some
      distant streets were saved by the shifting of the wind, and the
      walls still subsisted to protect, and soon to betray, their new
      inhabitants. Fanaticism had defaced the ornaments of Daphne, but
      Chosroes breathed a purer air amidst her groves and fountains;
      and some idolaters in his train might sacrifice with impunity to
      the nymphs of that elegant retreat. Eighteen miles below Antioch,
      the River Orontes falls into the Mediterranean. The haughty
      Persian visited the term of his conquests; and, after bathing
      alone in the sea, he offered a solemn sacrifice of thanksgiving
      to the sun, or rather to the Creator of the sun, whom the Magi
      adored. If this act of superstition offended the prejudices of
      the Syrians, they were pleased by the courteous and even eager
      attention with which he assisted at the games of the circus; and
      as Chosroes had heard that the blue faction was espoused by the
      emperor, his peremptory command secured the victory of the green
      charioteer. From the discipline of his camp the people derived
      more solid consolation; and they interceded in vain for the life
      of a soldier who had too faithfully copied the rapine of the just
      Nushirvan. At length, fatigued, though unsatiated, with the spoil
      of Syria, 6213 he slowly moved to the Euphrates, formed a
      temporary bridge in the neighborhood of Barbalissus, and defined
      the space of three days for the entire passage of his numerous
      host. After his return, he founded, at the distance of one day’s
      journey from the palace of Ctesiphon, a new city, which
      perpetuated the joint names of Chosroes and of Antioch. The
      Syrian captives recognized the form and situation of their native
      abodes: baths and a stately circus were constructed for their
      use; and a colony of musicians and charioteers revived in Assyria
      the pleasures of a Greek capital. By the munificence of the royal
      founder, a liberal allowance was assigned to these fortunate
      exiles; and they enjoyed the singular privilege of bestowing
      freedom on the slaves whom they acknowledged as their kinsmen.
      Palestine, and the holy wealth of Jerusalem, were the next
      objects that attracted the ambition, or rather the avarice, of
      Chosroes. Constantinople, and the palace of the Caesars, no
      longer appeared impregnable or remote; and his aspiring fancy
      already covered Asia Minor with the troops, and the Black Sea
      with the navies, of Persia.

      62 (return) [ The invasion of Syria, the ruin of Antioch, &c.,
      are related in a full and regular series by Procopius, (Persic.
      l. ii. c. 5—14.) Small collateral aid can be drawn from the
      Orientals: yet not they, but D’Herbelot himself, (p. 680,) should
      blush when he blames them for making Justinian and Nushirvan
      contemporaries. On the geography of the seat of war, D’Anville
      (l’Euphrate et le Tigre) is sufficient and satisfactory.]

      6211 (return) [ It is Sura in Procopius. Is it a misprint in
      Gibbon?—M.]

      6212 (return) [ Joannes Lydus attributes the easy capture of
      Antioch to the want of fortifications which had not been restored
      since the earthquake, l. iii. c. 54. p. 246.—M.]

      6213 (return) [ Lydus asserts that he carried away all the
      statues, pictures, and marbles which adorned the city, l. iii. c.
      54, p. 246.—M.]

      These hopes might have been realized, if the conqueror of Italy
      had not been seasonably recalled to the defence of the East. 63
      While Chosroes pursued his ambitious designs on the coast of the
      Euxine, Belisarius, at the head of an army without pay or
      discipline, encamped beyond the Euphrates, within six miles of
      Nisibis. He meditated, by a skilful operation, to draw the
      Persians from their impregnable citadel, and improving his
      advantage in the field, either to intercept their retreat, or
      perhaps to enter the gates with the flying Barbarians. He
      advanced one day’s journey on the territories of Persia, reduced
      the fortress of Sisaurane, and sent the governor, with eight
      hundred chosen horsemen, to serve the emperor in his Italian
      wars. He detached Arethas and his Arabs, supported by twelve
      hundred Romans, to pass the Tigris, and to ravage the harvests of
      Assyria, a fruitful province, long exempt from the calamities of
      war. But the plans of Belisarius were disconcerted by the
      untractable spirit of Arethas, who neither returned to the camp,
      nor sent any intelligence of his motions. The Roman general was
      fixed in anxious expectation to the same spot; the time of action
      elapsed, the ardent sun of Mesopotamia inflamed with fevors the
      blood of his European soldiers; and the stationary troops and
      officers of Syria affected to tremble for the safety of their
      defenceless cities. Yet this diversion had already succeeded in
      forcing Chosroes to return with loss and precipitation; and if
      the skill of Belisarius had been seconded by discipline and
      valor, his success might have satisfied the sanguine wishes of
      the public, who required at his hands the conquest of Ctesiphon,
      and the deliverance of the captives of Antioch. At the end of the
      campaign, he was recalled to Constantinople by an ungrateful
      court, but the dangers of the ensuing spring restored his
      confidence and command; and the hero, almost alone, was
      despatched, with the speed of post-horses, to repel, by his name
      and presence, the invasion of Syria. He found the Roman generals,
      among whom was a nephew of Justinian, imprisoned by their fears
      in the fortifications of Hierapolis. But instead of listening to
      their timid counsels, Belisarius commanded them to follow him to
      Europus, where he had resolved to collect his forces, and to
      execute whatever God should inspire him to achieve against the
      enemy. His firm attitude on the banks of the Euphrates restrained
      Chosroes from advancing towards Palestine; and he received with
      art and dignity the ambassadors, or rather spies, of the Persian
      monarch. The plain between Hierapolis and the river was covered
      with the squadrons of cavalry, six thousand hunters, tall and
      robust, who pursued their game without the apprehension of an
      enemy. On the opposite bank the ambassadors descried a thousand
      Armenian horse, who appeared to guard the passage of the
      Euphrates. The tent of Belisarius was of the coarsest linen, the
      simple equipage of a warrior who disdained the luxury of the
      East. Around his tent, the nations who marched under his standard
      were arranged with skilful confusion. The Thracians and Illyrians
      were posted in the front, the Heruli and Goths in the centre; the
      prospect was closed by the Moors and Vandals, and their loose
      array seemed to multiply their numbers. Their dress was light and
      active; one soldier carried a whip, another a sword, a third a
      bow, a fourth, perhaps, a battle axe, and the whole picture
      exhibited the intrepidity of the troops and the vigilance of the
      general. Chosroes was deluded by the address, and awed by the
      genius, of the lieutenant of Justinian. Conscious of the merit,
      and ignorant of the force, of his antagonist, he dreaded a
      decisive battle in a distant country, from whence not a Persian
      might return to relate the melancholy tale. The great king
      hastened to repass the Euphrates; and Belisarius pressed his
      retreat, by affecting to oppose a measure so salutary to the
      empire, and which could scarcely have been prevented by an army
      of a hundred thousand men. Envy might suggest to ignorance and
      pride, that the public enemy had been suffered to escape: but the
      African and Gothic triumphs are less glorious than this safe and
      bloodless victory, in which neither fortune, nor the valor of the
      soldiers, can subtract any part of the general’s renown. The
      second removal of Belisarius from the Persian to the Italian war
      revealed the extent of his personal merit, which had corrected or
      supplied the want of discipline and courage. Fifteen generals,
      without concert or skill, led through the mountains of Armenia an
      army of thirty thousand Romans, inattentive to their signals,
      their ranks, and their ensigns. Four thousand Persians,
      intrenched in the camp of Dubis, vanquished, almost without a
      combat, this disorderly multitude; their useless arms were
      scattered along the road, and their horses sunk under the fatigue
      of their rapid flight. But the Arabs of the Roman party prevailed
      over their brethren; the Armenians returned to their allegiance;
      the cities of Dara and Edessa resisted a sudden assault and a
      regular siege, and the calamities of war were suspended by those
      of pestilence. A tacit or formal agreement between the two
      sovereigns protected the tranquillity of the Eastern frontier;
      and the arms of Chosroes were confined to the Colchian or Lazic
      war, which has been too minutely described by the historians of
      the times. 64

      63 (return) [ In the public history of Procopius, (Persic. l. ii.
      c. 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28;) and, with some slight
      exceptions, we may reasonably shut our ears against the
      malevolent whisper of the Anecdotes, (c. 2, 3, with the Notes, as
      usual, of Alemannus.)]

      64 (return) [ The Lazic war, the contest of Rome and Persia on
      the Phasis, is tediously spun through many a page of Procopius
      (Persic. l. ii. c. 15, 17, 28, 29, 30.) Gothic. (l. iv. c. 7—16)
      and Agathias, (l. ii. iii. and iv. p. 55—132, 141.)]

      The extreme length of the Euxine Sea 65 from Constantinople to
      the mouth of the Phasis, may be computed as a voyage of nine
      days, and a measure of seven hundred miles. From the Iberian
      Caucasus, the most lofty and craggy mountains of Asia, that river
      descends with such oblique vehemence, that in a short space it is
      traversed by one hundred and twenty bridges. Nor does the stream
      become placid and navigable, till it reaches the town of
      Sarapana, five days’ journey from the Cyrus, which flows from the
      same hills, but in a contrary direction to the Caspian Lake. The
      proximity of these rivers has suggested the practice, or at least
      the idea, of wafting the precious merchandise of India down the
      Oxus, over the Caspian, up the Cyrus, and with the current of the
      Phasis into the Euxine and Mediterranean Seas. As it successively
      collects the streams of the plain of Colchos, the Phasis moves
      with diminished speed, though accumulated weight. At the mouth it
      is sixty fathom deep, and half a league broad, but a small woody
      island is interposed in the midst of the channel; the water, so
      soon as it has deposited an earthy or metallic sediment, floats
      on the surface of the waves, and is no longer susceptible of
      corruption. In a course of one hundred miles, forty of which are
      navigable for large vessels, the Phasis divides the celebrated
      region of Colchos, 66 or Mingrelia, 67 which, on three sides, is
      fortified by the Iberian and Armenian mountains, and whose
      maritime coast extends about two hundred miles from the
      neighborhood of Trebizond to Dioscurias and the confines of
      Circassia. Both the soil and climate are relaxed by excessive
      moisture: twenty-eight rivers, besides the Phasis and his
      dependent streams, convey their waters to the sea; and the
      hollowness of the ground appears to indicate the subterraneous
      channels between the Euxine and the Caspian. In the fields where
      wheat or barley is sown, the earth is too soft to sustain the
      action of the plough; but the gom, a small grain, not unlike the
      millet or coriander seed, supplies the ordinary food of the
      people; and the use of bread is confined to the prince and his
      nobles. Yet the vintage is more plentiful than the harvest; and
      the bulk of the stems, as well as the quality of the wine,
      display the unassisted powers of nature. The same powers
      continually tend to overshadow the face of the country with thick
      forests; the timber of the hills, and the flax of the plains,
      contribute to the abundance of naval stores; the wild and tame
      animals, the horse, the ox, and the hog, are remarkably prolific,
      and the name of the pheasant is expressive of his native
      habitation on the banks of the Phasis. The gold mines to the
      south of Trebizond, which are still worked with sufficient
      profit, were a subject of national dispute between Justinian and
      Chosroes; and it is not unreasonable to believe, that a vein of
      precious metal may be equally diffused through the circle of the
      hills, although these secret treasures are neglected by the
      laziness, or concealed by the prudence, of the Mingrelians. The
      waters, impregnated with particles of gold, are carefully
      strained through sheep-skins or fleeces; but this expedient, the
      groundwork perhaps of a marvellous fable, affords a faint image
      of the wealth extracted from a virgin earth by the power and
      industry of ancient kings. Their silver palaces and golden
      chambers surpass our belief; but the fame of their riches is said
      to have excited the enterprising avarice of the Argonauts. 68
      Tradition has affirmed, with some color of reason, that Egypt
      planted on the Phasis a learned and polite colony, 69 which
      manufactured linen, built navies, and invented geographical maps.
      The ingenuity of the moderns has peopled, with flourishing cities
      and nations, the isthmus between the Euxine and the Caspian; 70
      and a lively writer, observing the resemblance of climate, and,
      in his apprehension, of trade, has not hesitated to pronounce
      Colchos the Holland of antiquity. 71

      65 (return) [ The Periplus, or circumnavigation of the Euxine
      Sea, was described in Latin by Sallust, and in Greek by Arrian:
      I. The former work, which no longer exists, has been restored by
      the singular diligence of M. de Brosses, first president of the
      parliament of Dijon, (Hist. de la Republique Romaine, tom. ii. l.
      iii. p. 199—298,) who ventures to assume the character of the
      Roman historian. His description of the Euxine is ingeniously
      formed of all the fragments of the original, and of all the
      Greeks and Latins whom Sallust might copy, or by whom he might be
      copied; and the merit of the execution atones for the whimsical
      design. 2. The Periplus of Arrian is addressed to the emperor
      Hadrian, (in Geograph. Minor. Hudson, tom. i.,) and contains
      whatever the governor of Pontus had seen from Trebizond to
      Dioscurias; whatever he had heard from Dioscurias to the Danube;
      and whatever he knew from the Danube to Trebizond.]

      66 (return) [ Besides the many occasional hints from the poets,
      historians &c., of antiquity, we may consult the geographical
      descriptions of Colchos, by Strabo (l. xi. p. 760—765) and Pliny,
      (Hist. Natur. vi. 5, 19, &c.)]

      67 (return) [ I shall quote, and have used, three modern
      descriptions of Mingrelia and the adjacent countries. 1. Of the
      Pere Archangeli Lamberti, (Relations de Thevenot, part i. p.
      31-52, with a map,) who has all the knowledge and prejudices of a
      missionary. 2. Of Chardia, (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 54,
      68-168.) His observations are judicious and his own adventures in
      the country are still more instructive than his observations. 3.
      Of Peyssonel, (Observations sur les Peuples Barbares, p. 49, 50,
      51, 58 62, 64, 65, 71, &c., and a more recent treatise, Sur le
      Commerce de la Mer Noire, tom. ii. p. 1—53.) He had long resided
      at Caffa, as consul of France; and his erudition is less valuable
      than his experience.]

      68 (return) [ Pliny, Hist. Natur. l. xxxiii. 15. The gold and
      silver mines of Colchos attracted the Argonauts, (Strab. l. i. p.
      77.) The sagacious Chardin could find no gold in mines, rivers,
      or elsewhere. Yet a Mingrelian lost his hand and foot for showing
      some specimens at Constantinople of native gold]

      69 (return) [ Herodot. l. ii. c. 104, 105, p. 150, 151. Diodor.
      Sicul. l. i. p. 33, edit. Wesseling. Dionys. Perieget. 689, and
      Eustath. ad loc. Schohast ad Apollonium Argonaut. l. iv.
      282-291.]

      70 (return) [ Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xxi. c. 6.
      L’Isthme... couvero de villes et nations qui ne sont plus.]

      71 (return) [ Bougainville, Memoires de l’Academie des
      Inscriptions, tom. xxvi. p. 33, on the African voyage of Hanno
      and the commerce of antiquity.]

      But the riches of Colchos shine only through the darkness of
      conjecture or tradition; and its genuine history presents a
      uniform scene of rudeness and poverty. If one hundred and thirty
      languages were spoken in the market of Dioscurias, 72 they were
      the imperfect idioms of so many savage tribes or families,
      sequestered from each other in the valleys of Mount Caucasus; and
      their separation, which diminished the importance, must have
      multiplied the number, of their rustic capitals. In the present
      state of Mingrelia, a village is an assemblage of huts within a
      wooden fence; the fortresses are seated in the depths of forests;
      the princely town of Cyta, or Cotatis, consists of two hundred
      houses, and a stone edifice appertains only to the magnificence
      of kings. Twelve ships from Constantinople, and about sixty
      barks, laden with the fruits of industry, annually cast anchor on
      the coast; and the list of Colchian exports is much increased,
      since the natives had only slaves and hides to offer in exchange
      for the corn and salt which they purchased from the subjects of
      Justinian. Not a vestige can be found of the art, the knowledge,
      or the navigation, of the ancient Colchians: few Greeks desired
      or dared to pursue the footsteps of the Argonauts; and even the
      marks of an Egyptian colony are lost on a nearer approach. The
      rite of circumcision is practised only by the Mahometans of the
      Euxine; and the curled hair and swarthy complexion of Africa no
      longer disfigure the most perfect of the human race. It is in the
      adjacent climates of Georgia, Mingrelia, and Circassia, that
      nature has placed, at least to our eyes, the model of beauty in
      the shape of the limbs, the color of the skin, the symmetry of
      the features, and the expression of the countenance. 73 According
      to the destination of the two sexes, the men seemed formed for
      action, the women for love; and the perpetual supply of females
      from Mount Caucasus has purified the blood, and improved the
      breed, of the southern nations of Asia. The proper district of
      Mingrelia, a portion only of the ancient Colchos, has long
      sustained an exportation of twelve thousand slaves. The number of
      prisoners or criminals would be inadequate to the annual demand;
      but the common people are in a state of servitude to their lords;
      the exercise of fraud or rapine is unpunished in a lawless
      community; and the market is continually replenished by the abuse
      of civil and paternal authority. Such a trade, 74 which reduces
      the human species to the level of cattle, may tend to encourage
      marriage and population, since the multitude of children enriches
      their sordid and inhuman parent. But this source of impure wealth
      must inevitably poison the national manners, obliterate the sense
      of honor and virtue, and almost extinguish the instincts of
      nature: the Christians of Georgia and Mingrelia are the most
      dissolute of mankind; and their children, who, in a tender age,
      are sold into foreign slavery, have already learned to imitate
      the rapine of the father and the prostitution of the mother. Yet,
      amidst the rudest ignorance, the untaught natives discover a
      singular dexterity both of mind and hand; and although the want
      of union and discipline exposes them to their more powerful
      neighbors, a bold and intrepid spirit has animated the Colchians
      of every age. In the host of Xerxes, they served on foot; and
      their arms were a dagger or a javelin, a wooden casque, and a
      buckler of raw hides. But in their own country the use of cavalry
      has more generally prevailed: the meanest of the peasants
      disdained to walk; the martial nobles are possessed, perhaps, of
      two hundred horses; and above five thousand are numbered in the
      train of the prince of Mingrelia. The Colchian government has
      been always a pure and hereditary kingdom; and the authority of
      the sovereign is only restrained by the turbulence of his
      subjects. Whenever they were obedient, he could lead a numerous
      army into the field; but some faith is requisite to believe, that
      the single tribe of the Suanians as composed of two hundred
      thousand soldiers, or that the population of Mingrelia now
      amounts to four millions of inhabitants. 75

      72 (return) [ A Greek historian, Timosthenes, had affirmed, in
      eam ccc. nationes dissimilibus linguis descendere; and the modest
      Pliny is content to add, et postea a nostris cxxx. interpretibus
      negotia ibi gesta, (vi. 5) But the words nunc deserta cover a
      multitude of past fictions.]

      73 (return) [ Buffon (Hist. Nat. tom. iii. p. 433—437) collects
      the unanimous suffrage of naturalists and travellers. If, in the
      time of Herodotus, they were, (and he had observed them with
      care,) this precious fact is an example of the influence of
      climate on a foreign colony.]

      74 (return) [ The Mingrelian ambassador arrived at Constantinople
      with two hundred persons; but he ate (sold) them day by day, till
      his retinue was diminished to a secretary and two valets,
      (Tavernier, tom. i. p. 365.) To purchase his mistress, a
      Mingrelian gentleman sold twelve priests and his wife to the
      Turks, (Chardin, tom. i. p. 66.)]

      75 (return) [ Strabo, l. xi. p. 765. Lamberti, Relation de la
      Mingrelie. Yet we must avoid the contrary extreme of Chardin, who
      allows no more than 20,000 inhabitants to supply an annual
      exportation of 12,000 slaves; an absurdity unworthy of that
      judicious traveller.]




      Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part IV.

      It was the boast of the Colchians, that their ancestors had
      checked the victories of Sesostris; and the defeat of the
      Egyptian is less incredible than his successful progress as far
      as the foot of Mount Caucasus. They sunk without any memorable
      effort, under the arms of Cyrus; followed in distant wars the
      standard of the great king, and presented him every fifth year
      with one hundred boys, and as many virgins, the fairest produce
      of the land. 76 Yet he accepted this gift like the gold and ebony
      of India, the frankincense of the Arabs, or the negroes and ivory
      of Aethiopia: the Colchians were not subject to the dominion of a
      satrap, and they continued to enjoy the name as well as substance
      of national independence. 77 After the fall of the Persian
      empire, Mithridates, king of Pontus, added Colchos to the wide
      circle of his dominions on the Euxine; and when the natives
      presumed to request that his son might reign over them, he bound
      the ambitious youth in chains of gold, and delegated a servant in
      his place. In pursuit of Mithridates, the Romans advanced to the
      banks of the Phasis, and their galleys ascended the river till
      they reached the camp of Pompey and his legions. 78 But the
      senate, and afterwards the emperors, disdained to reduce that
      distant and useless conquest into the form of a province. The
      family of a Greek rhetorician was permitted to reign in Colchos
      and the adjacent kingdoms from the time of Mark Antony to that of
      Nero; and after the race of Polemo 79 was extinct, the eastern
      Pontus, which preserved his name, extended no farther than the
      neighborhood of Trebizond. Beyond these limits the fortifications
      of Hyssus, of Apsarus, of the Phasis, of Dioscurias or
      Sebastopolis, and of Pityus, were guarded by sufficient
      detachments of horse and foot; and six princes of Colchos
      received their diadems from the lieutenants of Caesar. One of
      these lieutenants, the eloquent and philosophic Arrian, surveyed,
      and has described, the Euxine coast, under the reign of Hadrian.
      The garrison which he reviewed at the mouth of the Phasis
      consisted of four hundred chosen legionaries; the brick walls and
      towers, the double ditch, and the military engines on the
      rampart, rendered this place inaccessible to the Barbarians: but
      the new suburbs which had been built by the merchants and
      veterans, required, in the opinion of Arrian, some external
      defence. 80 As the strength of the empire was gradually impaired,
      the Romans stationed on the Phasis were neither withdrawn nor
      expelled; and the tribe of the Lazi, 81 whose posterity speak a
      foreign dialect, and inhabit the sea coast of Trebizond, imposed
      their name and dominion on the ancient kingdom of Colchos. Their
      independence was soon invaded by a formidable neighbor, who had
      acquired, by arms and treaties, the sovereignty of Iberia. The
      dependent king of Lazica received his sceptre at the hands of the
      Persian monarch, and the successors of Constantine acquiesced in
      this injurious claim, which was proudly urged as a right of
      immemorial prescription. In the beginning of the sixth century,
      their influence was restored by the introduction of Christianity,
      which the Mingrelians still profess with becoming zeal, without
      understanding the doctrines, or observing the precepts, of their
      religion. After the decease of his father, Zathus was exalted to
      the regal dignity by the favor of the great king; but the pious
      youth abhorred the ceremonies of the Magi, and sought, in the
      palace of Constantinople, an orthodox baptism, a noble wife, and
      the alliance of the emperor Justin. The king of Lazica was
      solemnly invested with the diadem, and his cloak and tunic of
      white silk, with a gold border, displayed, in rich embroidery,
      the figure of his new patron; who soothed the jealousy of the
      Persian court, and excused the revolt of Colchos, by the
      venerable names of hospitality and religion. The common interest
      of both empires imposed on the Colchians the duty of guarding the
      passes of Mount Caucasus, where a wall of sixty miles is now
      defended by the monthly service of the musketeers of Mingrelia.
      82

      76 (return) [ Herodot. l. iii. c. 97. See, in l. vii. c. 79,
      their arms and service in the expedition of Xerxes against
      Greece.]

      77 (return) [ Xenophon, who had encountered the Colchians in his
      retreat, (Anabasis, l. iv. p. 320, 343, 348, edit. Hutchinson;
      and Foster’s Dissertation, p. liii.—lviii., in Spelman’s English
      version, vol. ii.,) styled them. Before the conquest of
      Mithridates, they are named by Appian, (de Bell. Mithridatico, c.
      15, tom. i. p. 661, of the last and best edition, by John
      Schweighaeuser. Lipsae, 1785 8 vols. largo octavo.)]

      78 (return) [ The conquest of Colchos by Mithridates and Pompey
      is marked by Appian (de Bell. Mithridat.) and Plutarch, (in Vit.
      Pomp.)]

      79 (return) [ We may trace the rise and fall of the family of
      Polemo, in Strabo, (l. xi. p. 755, l. xii. p. 867,) Dion Cassius,
      or Xiphilin, (p. 588, 593, 601, 719, 754, 915, 946, edit.
      Reimar,) Suetonius, (in Neron. c. 18, in Vespasian, c. 8,)
      Eutropius, (vii. 14,) Josephus, (Antiq. Judaic. l. xx. c. 7, p.
      970, edit. Havercamp,) and Eusebius, (Chron. with Scaliger,
      Animadvers. p. 196.)]

      80 (return) [ In the time of Procopius, there were no Roman forts
      on the Phasis. Pityus and Sebastopolis were evacuated on the
      rumor of the Persians, (Goth. l. iv. c. 4;) but the latter was
      afterwards restored by Justinian, (de Edif. l. iv. c. 7.)]

      81 (return) [ In the time of Pliny, Arrian, and Ptolemy, the Lazi
      were a particular tribe on the northern skirts of Colchos,
      (Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 222.) In the age of
      Justinian, they spread, or at least reigned, over the whole
      country. At present, they have migrated along the coast towards
      Trebizond, and compose a rude sea-faring people, with a peculiar
      language, (Chardin, p. 149. Peyssonel p. 64.)]

      82 (return) [ John Malala, Chron. tom. ii. p. 134—137 Theophanes,
      p. 144. Hist. Miscell. l. xv. p. 103. The fact is authentic, but
      the date seems too recent. In speaking of their Persian alliance,
      the Lazi contemporaries of Justinian employ the most obsolete
      words, &c. Could they belong to a connection which had not been
      dissolved above twenty years?]

      But this honorable connection was soon corrupted by the avarice
      and ambition of the Romans. Degraded from the rank of allies, the
      Lazi were incessantly reminded, by words and actions, of their
      dependent state. At the distance of a day’s journey beyond the
      Apsarus, they beheld the rising fortress of Petra, 83 which
      commanded the maritime country to the south of the Phasis.
      Instead of being protected by the valor, Colchos was insulted by
      the licentiousness, of foreign mercenaries; the benefits of
      commerce were converted into base and vexatious monopoly; and
      Gubazes, the native prince, was reduced to a pageant of royalty,
      by the superior influence of the officers of Justinian.
      Disappointed in their expectations of Christian virtue, the
      indignant Lazi reposed some confidence in the justice of an
      unbeliever. After a private assurance that their ambassadors
      should not be delivered to the Romans, they publicly solicited
      the friendship and aid of Chosroes. The sagacious monarch
      instantly discerned the use and importance of Colchos; and
      meditated a plan of conquest, which was renewed at the end of a
      thousand years by Shah Abbas, the wisest and most powerful of his
      successors. 84 His ambition was fired by the hope of launching a
      Persian navy from the Phasis, of commanding the trade and
      navigation of the Euxine Sea, of desolating the coast of Pontus
      and Bithynia, of distressing, perhaps of attacking,
      Constantinople, and of persuading the Barbarians of Europe to
      second his arms and counsels against the common enemy of mankind.

      Under the pretence of a Scythian war, he silently led his troops
      to the frontiers of Iberia; the Colchian guides were prepared to
      conduct them through the woods and along the precipices of Mount
      Caucasus; and a narrow path was laboriously formed into a safe
      and spacious highway, for the march of cavalry, and even of
      elephants. Gubazes laid his person and diadem at the feet of the
      king of Persia; his Colchians imitated the submission of their
      prince; and after the walls of Petra had been shaken, the Roman
      garrison prevented, by a capitulation, the impending fury of the
      last assault. But the Lazi soon discovered, that their impatience
      had urged them to choose an evil more intolerable than the
      calamities which they strove to escape. The monopoly of salt and
      corn was effectually removed by the loss of those valuable
      commodities. The authority of a Roman legislator, was succeeded
      by the pride of an Oriental despot, who beheld, with equal
      disdain, the slaves whom he had exalted, and the kings whom he
      had humbled before the footstool of his throne. The adoration of
      fire was introduced into Colchos by the zeal of the Magi: their
      intolerant spirit provoked the fervor of a Christian people; and
      the prejudice of nature or education was wounded by the impious
      practice of exposing the dead bodies of their parents, on the
      summit of a lofty tower, to the crows and vultures of the air. 85
      Conscious of the increasing hatred, which retarded the execution
      of his great designs, the just Nashirvan had secretly given
      orders to assassinate the king of the Lazi, to transplant the
      people into some distant land, and to fix a faithful and warlike
      colony on the banks of the Phasis. The watchful jealousy of the
      Colchians foresaw and averted the approaching ruin. Their
      repentance was accepted at Constantinople by the prudence, rather
      than clemency, of Justinian; and he commanded Dagisteus, with
      seven thousand Romans, and one thousand of the Zani, 8511 to
      expel the Persians from the coast of the Euxine.

      83 (return) [ The sole vestige of Petra subsists in the writings
      of Procopius and Agathias. Most of the towns and castles of
      Lazica may be found by comparing their names and position with
      the map of Mingrelia, in Lamberti.]

      84 (return) [ See the amusing letters of Pietro della Valle, the
      Roman traveler, (Viaggi, tom. ii. 207, 209, 213, 215, 266, 286,
      300, tom. iii. p. 54, 127.) In the years 1618, 1619, and 1620, he
      conversed with Shah Abbas, and strongly encouraged a design which
      might have united Persia and Europe against their common enemy
      the Turk.]

      85 (return) [ See Herodotus, (l. i. c. 140, p. 69,) who speaks
      with diffidence, Larcher, (tom. i. p. 399—401, Notes sur
      Herodote,) Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 11,) and Agathias, (l.
      ii. p. 61, 62.) This practice, agreeable to the Zendavesta,
      (Hyde, de Relig. Pers. c. 34, p. 414—421,) demonstrates that the
      burial of the Persian kings, (Xenophon, Cyropaed. l. viii. p.
      658,) is a Greek fiction, and that their tombs could be no more
      than cenotaphs.]

      8511 (return) [ These seem the same people called Suanians, p.
      328.—M.]

      The siege of Petra, which the Roman general, with the aid of the
      Lazi, immediately undertook, is one of the most remarkable
      actions of the age. The city was seated on a craggy rock, which
      hung over the sea, and communicated by a steep and narrow path
      with the land. Since the approach was difficult, the attack might
      be deemed impossible: the Persian conqueror had strengthened the
      fortifications of Justinian; and the places least inaccessible
      were covered by additional bulwarks. In this important fortress,
      the vigilance of Chosroes had deposited a magazine of offensive
      and defensive arms, sufficient for five times the number, not
      only of the garrison, but of the besiegers themselves. The stock
      of flour and salt provisions was adequate to the consumption of
      five years; the want of wine was supplied by vinegar; and of
      grain from whence a strong liquor was extracted, and a triple
      aqueduct eluded the diligence, and even the suspicions, of the
      enemy. But the firmest defence of Petra was placed in the valor
      of fifteen hundred Persians, who resisted the assaults of the
      Romans, whilst, in a softer vein of earth, a mine was secretly
      perforated. The wall, supported by slender and temporary props,
      hung tottering in the air; but Dagisteus delayed the attack till
      he had secured a specific recompense; and the town was relieved
      before the return of his messenger from Constantinople. The
      Persian garrison was reduced to four hundred men, of whom no more
      than fifty were exempt from sickness or wounds; yet such had been
      their inflexible perseverance, that they concealed their losses
      from the enemy, by enduring, without a murmur, the sight and
      putrefying stench of the dead bodies of their eleven hundred
      companions. After their deliverance, the breaches were hastily
      stopped with sand-bags; the mine was replenished with earth; a
      new wall was erected on a frame of substantial timber; and a
      fresh garrison of three thousand men was stationed at Petra to
      sustain the labors of a second siege. The operations, both of the
      attack and defence, were conducted with skilful obstinacy; and
      each party derived useful lessons from the experience of their
      past faults. A battering-ram was invented, of light construction
      and powerful effect: it was transported and worked by the hands
      of forty soldiers; and as the stones were loosened by its
      repeated strokes, they were torn with long iron hooks from the
      wall. From those walls, a shower of darts was incessantly poured
      on the heads of the assailants; but they were most dangerously
      annoyed by a fiery composition of sulphur and bitumen, which in
      Colchos might with some propriety be named the oil of Medea. Of
      six thousand Romans who mounted the scaling-ladders, their
      general Bessas was the first, a gallant veteran of seventy years
      of age: the courage of their leader, his fall, and extreme
      danger, animated the irresistible effort of his troops; and their
      prevailing numbers oppressed the strength, without subduing the
      spirit, of the Persian garrison. The fate of these valiant men
      deserves to be more distinctly noticed. Seven hundred had
      perished in the siege, two thousand three hundred survived to
      defend the breach. One thousand and seventy were destroyed with
      fire and sword in the last assault; and if seven hundred and
      thirty were made prisoners, only eighteen among them were found
      without the marks of honorable wounds. The remaining five hundred
      escaped into the citadel, which they maintained without any hopes
      of relief, rejecting the fairest terms of capitulation and
      service, till they were lost in the flames. They died in
      obedience to the commands of their prince; and such examples of
      loyalty and valor might excite their countrymen to deeds of equal
      despair and more prosperous event. The instant demolition of the
      works of Petra confessed the astonishment and apprehension of the
      conqueror. A Spartan would have praised and pitied the virtue of
      these heroic slaves; but the tedious warfare and alternate
      success of the Roman and Persian arms cannot detain the attention
      of posterity at the foot of Mount Caucasus. The advantages
      obtained by the troops of Justinian were more frequent and
      splendid; but the forces of the great king were continually
      supplied, till they amounted to eight elephants and seventy
      thousand men, including twelve thousand Scythian allies, and
      above three thousand Dilemites, who descended by their free
      choice from the hills of Hyrcania, and were equally formidable in
      close or in distant combat. The siege of Archaeopolis, a name
      imposed or corrupted by the Greeks, was raised with some loss and
      precipitation; but the Persians occupied the passes of Iberia:
      Colchos was enslaved by their forts and garrisons; they devoured
      the scanty sustenance of the people; and the prince of the Lazi
      fled into the mountains. In the Roman camp, faith and discipline
      were unknown; and the independent leaders, who were invested with
      equal power, disputed with each other the preeminence of vice and
      corruption. The Persians followed, without a murmur, the commands
      of a single chief, who implicitly obeyed the instructions of
      their supreme lord. Their general was distinguished among the
      heroes of the East by his wisdom in council, and his valor in the
      field. The advanced age of Mermeroes, and the lameness of both
      his feet, could not diminish the activity of his mind, or even of
      his body; and, whilst he was carried in a litter in the front of
      battle, he inspired terror to the enemy, and a just confidence to
      the troops, who, under his banners, were always successful. After
      his death, the command devolved to Nacoragan, a proud satrap,
      who, in a conference with the Imperial chiefs, had presumed to
      declare that he disposed of victory as absolutely as of the ring
      on his finger. Such presumption was the natural cause and
      forerunner of a shameful defeat. The Romans had been gradually
      repulsed to the edge of the sea-shore; and their last camp, on
      the ruins of the Grecian colony of Phasis, was defended on all
      sides by strong intrenchments, the river, the Euxine, and a fleet
      of galleys. Despair united their counsels and invigorated their
      arms: they withstood the assault of the Persians and the flight
      of Nacoragan preceded or followed the slaughter of ten thousand
      of his bravest soldiers. He escaped from the Romans to fall into
      the hands of an unforgiving master who severely chastised the
      error of his own choice: the unfortunate general was flayed
      alive, and his skin, stuffed into the human form, was exposed on
      a mountain; a dreadful warning to those who might hereafter be
      intrusted with the fame and fortune of Persia. 86 Yet the
      prudence of Chosroes insensibly relinquished the prosecution of
      the Colchian war, in the just persuasion, that it is impossible
      to reduce, or, at least, to hold a distant country against the
      wishes and efforts of its inhabitants. The fidelity of Gubazes
      sustained the most rigorous trials. He patiently endured the
      hardships of a savage life, and rejected with disdain, the
      specious temptations of the Persian court. 8611 The king of the
      Lazi had been educated in the Christian religion; his mother was
      the daughter of a senator; during his youth he had served ten
      years a silentiary of the Byzantine palace, 87 and the arrears of
      an unpaid salary were a motive of attachment as well as of
      complaint. But the long continuance of his sufferings extorted
      from him a naked representation of the truth; and truth was an
      unpardonable libel on the lieutenants of Justinian, who, amidst
      the delays of a ruinous war, had spared his enemies and trampled
      on his allies. Their malicious information persuaded the emperor
      that his faithless vassal already meditated a second defection:
      an order was surprised to send him prisoner to Constantinople; a
      treacherous clause was inserted, that he might be lawfully killed
      in case of resistance; and Gubazes, without arms, or suspicion of
      danger, was stabbed in the security of a friendly interview. In
      the first moments of rage and despair, the Colchians would have
      sacrificed their country and religion to the gratification of
      revenge. But the authority and eloquence of the wiser few
      obtained a salutary pause: the victory of the Phasis restored the
      terror of the Roman arms, and the emperor was solicitous to
      absolve his own name from the imputation of so foul a murder. A
      judge of senatorial rank was commissioned to inquire into the
      conduct and death of the king of the Lazi. He ascended a stately
      tribunal, encompassed by the ministers of justice and punishment:
      in the presence of both nations, this extraordinary cause was
      pleaded, according to the forms of civil jurisprudence, and some
      satisfaction was granted to an injured people, by the sentence
      and execution of the meaner criminals. 88

      86 (return) [ The punishment of flaying alive could not be
      introduced into Persia by Sapor, (Brisson, de Regn. Pers. l. ii.
      p. 578,) nor could it be copied from the foolish tale of Marsyas,
      the Phrygian piper, most foolishly quoted as a precedent by
      Agathias, (l. iv. p. 132, 133.)]

      8611 (return) [ According to Agathias, the death of Gubazos
      preceded the defeat of Nacoragan. The trial took place after the
      battle.—M.]

      87 (return) [ In the palace of Constantinople there were thirty
      silentiaries, who were styled hastati, ante fores cubiculi, an
      honorable title which conferred the rank, without imposing the
      duties, of a senator, (Cod. Theodos. l. vi. tit. 23. Gothofred.
      Comment. tom. ii. p. 129.)]

      88 (return) [ On these judicial orations, Agathias (l. iii. p.
      81-89, l. iv. p. 108—119) lavishes eighteen or twenty pages of
      false and florid rhetoric. His ignorance or carelessness
      overlooks the strongest argument against the king of Lazica—his
      former revolt. * Note: The Orations in the third book of Agathias
      are not judicial, nor delivered before the Roman tribunal: it is
      a deliberative debate among the Colchians on the expediency of
      adhering to the Roman, or embracing the Persian alliance.—M.]

      In peace, the king of Persia continually sought the pretences of
      a rupture: but no sooner had he taken up arms, than he expressed
      his desire of a safe and honorable treaty. During the fiercest
      hostilities, the two monarchs entertained a deceitful
      negotiation; and such was the superiority of Chosroes, that
      whilst he treated the Roman ministers with insolence and
      contempt, he obtained the most unprecedented honors for his own
      ambassadors at the Imperial court. The successor of Cyrus assumed
      the majesty of the Eastern sun, and graciously permitted his
      younger brother Justinian to reign over the West, with the pale
      and reflected splendor of the moon. This gigantic style was
      supported by the pomp and eloquence of Isdigune, one of the royal
      chamberlains. His wife and daughters, with a train of eunuchs and
      camels, attended the march of the ambassador: two satraps with
      golden diadems were numbered among his followers: he was guarded
      by five hundred horse, the most valiant of the Persians; and the
      Roman governor of Dara wisely refused to admit more than twenty
      of this martial and hostile caravan. When Isdigune had saluted
      the emperor, and delivered his presents, he passed ten months at
      Constantinople without discussing any serious affairs. Instead of
      being confined to his palace, and receiving food and water from
      the hands of his keepers, the Persian ambassador, without spies
      or guards, was allowed to visit the capital; and the freedom of
      conversation and trade enjoyed by his domestics, offended the
      prejudices of an age which rigorously practised the law of
      nations, without confidence or courtesy. 89 By an unexampled
      indulgence, his interpreter, a servant below the notice of a
      Roman magistrate, was seated, at the table of Justinian, by the
      side of his master: and one thousand pounds of gold might be
      assigned for the expense of his journey and entertainment. Yet
      the repeated labors of Isdigune could procure only a partial and
      imperfect truce, which was always purchased with the treasures,
      and renewed at the solicitation, of the Byzantine court Many
      years of fruitless desolation elapsed before Justinian and
      Chosroes were compelled, by mutual lassitude, to consult the
      repose of their declining age. At a conference held on the
      frontier, each party, without expecting to gain credit, displayed
      the power, the justice, and the pacific intentions, of their
      respective sovereigns; but necessity and interest dictated the
      treaty of peace, which was concluded for a term of fifty years,
      diligently composed in the Greek and Persian languages, and
      attested by the seals of twelve interpreters. The liberty of
      commerce and religion was fixed and defined; the allies of the
      emperor and the great king were included in the same benefits and
      obligations; and the most scrupulous precautions were provided to
      prevent or determine the accidental disputes that might arise on
      the confines of two hostile nations. After twenty years of
      destructive though feeble war, the limits still remained without
      alteration; and Chosroes was persuaded to renounce his dangerous
      claim to the possession or sovereignty of Colchos and its
      dependent states. Rich in the accumulated treasures of the East,
      he extorted from the Romans an annual payment of thirty thousand
      pieces of gold; and the smallness of the sum revealed the
      disgrace of a tribute in its naked deformity. In a previous
      debate, the chariot of Sesostris, and the wheel of fortune, were
      applied by one of the ministers of Justinian, who observed that
      the reduction of Antioch, and some Syrian cities, had elevated
      beyond measure the vain and ambitious spirit of the Barbarian.
      “You are mistaken,” replied the modest Persian: “the king of
      kings, the lord of mankind, looks down with contempt on such
      petty acquisitions; and of the ten nations, vanquished by his
      invincible arms, he esteems the Romans as the least formidable.”
      90 According to the Orientals, the empire of Nushirvan extended
      from Ferganah, in Transoxiana, to Yemen or Arabia Faelix. He
      subdued the rebels of Hyrcania, reduced the provinces of Cabul
      and Zablestan on the banks of the Indus, broke the power of the
      Euthalites, terminated by an honorable treaty the Turkish war,
      and admitted the daughter of the great khan into the number of
      his lawful wives. Victorious and respected among the princes of
      Asia, he gave audience, in his palace of Madain, or Ctesiphon, to
      the ambassadors of the world. Their gifts or tributes, arms, rich
      garments, gems, slaves or aromatics, were humbly presented at the
      foot of his throne; and he condescended to accept from the king
      of India ten quintals of the wood of aloes, a maid seven cubits
      in height, and a carpet softer than silk, the skin, as it was
      reported, of an extraordinary serpent. 91

      89 (return) [ Procopius represents the practice of the Gothic
      court of Ravenna (Goth. l. i. c. 7;) and foreign ambassadors have
      been treated with the same jealousy and rigor in Turkey,
      (Busbequius, epist. iii. p. 149, 242, &c.,) Russia, (Voyage
      D’Olearius,) and China, (Narrative of A. de Lange, in Bell’s
      Travels, vol. ii. p. 189—311.)]

      90 (return) [ The negotiations and treaties between Justinian and
      Chosroes are copiously explained by Procopius, (Persie, l. ii. c.
      10, 13, 26, 27, 28. Gothic. l. ii. c. 11, 15,) Agathias, (l. iv.
      p. 141, 142,) and Menander, (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 132—147.)
      Consult Barbeyrac, Hist. des Anciens Traites, tom. ii. p. 154,
      181—184, 193—200.]

      91 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 680, 681, 294,
      295.]

      Justinian had been reproached for his alliance with the
      Aethiopians, as if he attempted to introduce a people of savage
      negroes into the system of civilized society. But the friends of
      the Roman empire, the Axumites, or Abyssinians, may be always
      distinguished from the original natives of Africa. 92 The hand of
      nature has flattened the noses of the negroes, covered their
      heads with shaggy wool, and tinged their skin with inherent and
      indelible blackness. But the olive complexion of the Abyssinians,
      their hair, shape, and features, distinctly mark them as a colony
      of Arabs; and this descent is confirmed by the resemblance of
      language and manners the report of an ancient emigration, and the
      narrow interval between the shores of the Red Sea. Christianity
      had raised that nation above the level of African barbarism: 93
      their intercourse with Egypt, and the successors of Constantine,
      94 had communicated the rudiments of the arts and sciences; their
      vessels traded to the Isle of Ceylon, 95 and seven kingdoms
      obeyed the Negus or supreme prince of Abyssinia. The independence
      of the Homerites, 9511 who reigned in the rich and happy Arabia,
      was first violated by an Aethiopian conqueror: he drew his
      hereditary claim from the queen of Sheba, 96 and his ambition was
      sanctified by religious zeal. The Jews, powerful and active in
      exile, had seduced the mind of Dunaan, prince of the Homerites.
      They urged him to retaliate the persecution inflicted by the
      Imperial laws on their unfortunate brethren: some Roman merchants
      were injuriously treated; and several Christians of Negra 97 were
      honored with the crown of martyrdom. 98 The churches of Arabia
      implored the protection of the Abyssinian monarch. The Negus
      passed the Red Sea with a fleet and army, deprived the Jewish
      proselyte of his kingdom and life, and extinguished a race of
      princes, who had ruled above two thousand years the sequestered
      region of myrrh and frankincense. The conqueror immediately
      announced the victory of the gospel, requested an orthodox
      patriarch, and so warmly professed his friendship to the Roman
      empire, that Justinian was flattered by the hope of diverting the
      silk trade through the channel of Abyssinia, and of exciting the
      forces of Arabia against the Persian king. Nonnosus, descended
      from a family of ambassadors, was named by the emperor to execute
      this important commission. He wisely declined the shorter, but
      more dangerous, road, through the sandy deserts of Nubia;
      ascended the Nile, embarked on the Red Sea, and safely landed at
      the African port of Adulis. From Adulis to the royal city of
      Axume is no more than fifty leagues, in a direct line; but the
      winding passes of the mountains detained the ambassador fifteen
      days; and as he traversed the forests, he saw, and vaguely
      computed, about five thousand wild elephants. The capital,
      according to his report, was large and populous; and the village
      of Axume is still conspicuous by the regal coronations, by the
      ruins of a Christian temple, and by sixteen or seventeen obelisks
      inscribed with Grecian characters. 99 But the Negus 9911 gave
      audience in the open field, seated on a lofty chariot, which was
      drawn by four elephants, superbly caparisoned, and surrounded by
      his nobles and musicians. He was clad in a linen garment and cap,
      holding in his hand two javelins and a light shield; and,
      although his nakedness was imperfectly covered, he displayed the
      Barbaric pomp of gold chains, collars, and bracelets, richly
      adorned with pearls and precious stones. The ambassador of
      Justinian knelt; the Negus raised him from the ground, embraced
      Nonnosus, kissed the seal, perused the letter, accepted the Roman
      alliance, and, brandishing his weapons, denounced implacable war
      against the worshipers of fire. But the proposal of the silk
      trade was eluded; and notwithstanding the assurances, and perhaps
      the wishes, of the Abyssinians, these hostile menaces evaporated
      without effect. The Homerites were unwilling to abandon their
      aromatic groves, to explore a sandy desert, and to encounter,
      after all their fatigues, a formidable nation from whom they had
      never received any personal injuries. Instead of enlarging his
      conquests, the king of Aethiopia was incapable of defending his
      possessions. Abrahah, 9912 the slave of a Roman merchant of
      Adulis, assumed the sceptre of the Homerites,; the troops of
      Africa were seduced by the luxury of the climate; and Justinian
      solicited the friendship of the usurper, who honored with a
      slight tribute the supremacy of his prince. After a long series
      of prosperity, the power of Abrahah was overthrown before the
      gates of Mecca; and his children were despoiled by the Persian
      conqueror; and the Aethiopians were finally expelled from the
      continent of Asia. This narrative of obscure and remote events is
      not foreign to the decline and fall of the Roman empire. If a
      Christian power had been maintained in Arabia, Mahomet must have
      been crushed in his cradle, and Abyssinia would have prevented a
      revolution which has changed the civil and religious state of the
      world. 100 1001

      92 (return) [ See Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 449. This
      Arab cast of features and complexion, which has continued 3400
      years (Ludolph. Hist. et Comment. Aethiopic. l. i. c. 4) in the
      colony of Abyssinia, will justify the suspicion, that race, as
      well as climate, must have contributed to form the negroes of the
      adjacent and similar regions. * Note: Mr. Salt (Travels, vol. ii.
      p. 458) considers them to be distinct from the Arabs—“in feature,
      color, habit, and manners.”—M.]

      93 (return) [ The Portuguese missionaries, Alvarez, (Ramusio,
      tom. i. fol. 204, rect. 274, vers.) Bermudez, (Purchas’s
      Pilgrims, vol. ii. l. v. c. 7, p. 1149—1188,) Lobo, (Relation,
      &c., par M. le Grand, with xv. Dissertations, Paris, 1728,) and
      Tellez (Relations de Thevenot, part iv.) could only relate of
      modern Abyssinia what they had seen or invented. The erudition of
      Ludolphus, (Hist. Aethiopica, Francofurt, 1681. Commentarius,
      1691. Appendix, 1694,) in twenty-five languages, could add little
      concerning its ancient history. Yet the fame of Caled, or
      Ellisthaeus, the conqueror of Yemen, is celebrated in national
      songs and legends.]

      94 (return) [ The negotiations of Justinian with the Axumites, or
      Aethiopians, are recorded by Procopius (Persic. l. i. c. 19, 20)
      and John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 163—165, 193—196.) The historian of
      Antioch quotes the original narrative of the ambassador Nonnosus,
      of which Photius (Bibliot. Cod. iii.) has preserved a curious
      extract.]

      95 (return) [ The trade of the Axumites to the coast of India and
      Africa, and the Isle of Ceylon, is curiously represented by
      Cosmas Indicopleustes, (Topograph. Christian. l. ii. p. 132, 138,
      139, 140, l. xi. p. 338, 339.)]

      9511 (return) [ It appears by the important inscription
      discovered by Mr. Salt at Axoum, and from a law of Constantius,
      (16th Jan. 356, inserted in the Theodosian Code, l. 12, c. 12,)
      that in the middle of the fourth century of our era the princes
      of the Axumites joined to their titles that of king of the
      Homerites. The conquests which they made over the Arabs in the
      sixth century were only a restoration of the ancient order of
      things. St. Martin vol. viii. p. 46—M.]

      96 (return) [ Ludolph. Hist. et Comment. Aethiop. l. ii. c. 3.]

      97 (return) [ The city of Negra, or Nag’ran, in Yemen, is
      surrounded with palm-trees, and stands in the high road between
      Saana, the capital, and Mecca; from the former ten, from the
      latter twenty days’ journey of a caravan of camels, (Abulfeda,
      Descript. Arabiae, p. 52.)]

      98 (return) [ The martyrdom of St. Arethas, prince of Negra, and
      his three hundred and forty companions, is embellished in the
      legends of Metaphrastes and Nicephorus Callistus, copied by
      Baronius, (A. D 522, No. 22—66, A.D. 523, No. 16—29,) and refuted
      with obscure diligence, by Basnage, (Hist. des Juifs, tom. viii.
      l. xii. c. ii. p. 333—348,) who investigates the state of the
      Jews in Arabia and Aethiopia. * Note: According to Johannsen,
      (Hist. Yemanae, Praef. p. 89,) Dunaan (Ds Nowas) massacred 20,000
      Christians, and threw them into a pit, where they were burned.
      They are called in the Koran the companions of the pit (socii
      foveae.)—M.]

      99 (return) [ Alvarez (in Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 219, vers. 221,
      vers.) saw the flourishing state of Axume in the year
      1520—luogomolto buono e grande. It was ruined in the same century
      by the Turkish invasion. No more than 100 houses remain; but the
      memory of its past greatness is preserved by the regal
      coronation, (Ludolph. Hist. et Comment. l. ii. c. 11.) * Note:
      Lord Valentia’s and Mr. Salt’s Travels give a high notion of the
      ruins of Axum.—M.]

      9911 (return) [ The Negus is differently called Elesbaan,
      Elesboas, Elisthaeus, probably the same name, or rather
      appellation. See St. Martin, vol. viii. p. 49.—M.]

      9912 (return) [ According to the Arabian authorities, (Johannsen,
      Hist. Yemanae, p. 94, Bonn, 1828,) Abrahah was an Abyssinian, the
      rival of Ariathus, the brother of the Abyssinian king: he
      surprised and slew Ariathus, and by his craft appeased the
      resentment of Nadjash, the Abyssinian king. Abrahah was a
      Christian; he built a magnificent church at Sana, and dissuaded
      his subjects from their accustomed pilgrimages to Mecca. The
      church was defiled, it was supposed, by the Koreishites, and
      Abrahah took up arms to revenge himself on the temple at Mecca.
      He was repelled by miracle: his elephant would not advance, but
      knelt down before the sacred place; Abrahah fled, discomfited and
      mortally wounded, to Sana—M.]

      100 (return) [ The revolutions of Yemen in the sixth century must
      be collected from Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 19, 20,)
      Theophanes Byzant., (apud Phot. cod. lxiii. p. 80,) St.
      Theophanes, (in Chronograph. p. 144, 145, 188, 189, 206, 207, who
      is full of strange blunders,) Pocock, (Specimen Hist. Arab. p.
      62, 65,) D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 12, 477,) and Sale’s
      Preliminary Discourse and Koran, (c. 105.) The revolt of Abrahah
      is mentioned by Procopius; and his fall, though clouded with
      miracles, is an historical fact. Note: To the authors who have
      illustrated the obscure history of the Jewish and Abyssinian
      kingdoms in Homeritis may be added Schultens, Hist. Joctanidarum;
      Walch, Historia rerum in Homerite gestarum, in the 4th vol. of
      the Gottingen Transactions; Salt’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 446, &c.:
      Sylvestre de Sacy, vol. i. Acad. des Inscrip. Jost, Geschichte
      der Israeliter; Johannsen, Hist. Yemanae; St. Martin’s notes to
      Le Beau, t. vii p. 42.—M.]

      1001 (return) [ A period of sixty-seven years is assigned by most
      of the Arabian authorities to the Abyssinian kingdoms in
      Homeritis.—M.]




      Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of
      Justinian.—Part I.

     Rebellions Of Africa.—Restoration Of The Gothic Kingdom By
     Totila.—Loss And Recovery Of Rome.—Final Conquest Of Italy By
     Narses.—Extinction Of The Ostrogoths.—Defeat Of The Franks And
     Alemanni.—Last Victory, Disgrace, And Death Of Belisarius.—Death
     And Character Of Justinian.—Comet, Earthquakes, And Plague.

      The review of the nations from the Danube to the Nile has
      exposed, on every side, the weakness of the Romans; and our
      wonder is reasonably excited that they should presume to enlarge
      an empire whose ancient limits they were incapable of defending.
      But the wars, the conquests, and the triumphs of Justinian, are
      the feeble and pernicious efforts of old age, which exhaust the
      remains of strength, and accelerate the decay of the powers of
      life. He exulted in the glorious act of restoring Africa and
      Italy to the republic; but the calamities which followed the
      departure of Belisarius betrayed the impotence of the conqueror,
      and accomplished the ruin of those unfortunate countries.

      From his new acquisitions, Justinian expected that his avarice,
      as well as pride, should be richly gratified. A rapacious
      minister of the finances closely pursued the footsteps of
      Belisarius; and as the old registers of tribute had been burnt by
      the Vandals, he indulged his fancy in a liberal calculation and
      arbitrary assessment of the wealth of Africa. 1 The increase of
      taxes, which were drawn away by a distant sovereign, and a
      general resumption of the patrimony or crown lands, soon
      dispelled the intoxication of the public joy: but the emperor was
      insensible to the modest complaints of the people, till he was
      awakened and alarmed by the clamors of military discontent. Many
      of the Roman soldiers had married the widows and daughters of the
      Vandals. As their own, by the double right of conquest and
      inheritance, they claimed the estates which Genseric had assigned
      to his victorious troops. They heard with disdain the cold and
      selfish representations of their officers, that the liberality of
      Justinian had raised them from a savage or servile condition;
      that they were already enriched by the spoils of Africa, the
      treasure, the slaves, and the movables of the vanquished
      Barbarians; and that the ancient and lawful patrimony of the
      emperors would be applied only to the support of that government
      on which their own safety and reward must ultimately depend. The
      mutiny was secretly inflamed by a thousand soldiers, for the most
      part Heruli, who had imbibed the doctrines, and were instigated
      by the clergy, of the Arian sect; and the cause of perjury and
      rebellion was sanctified by the dispensing powers of fanaticism.
      The Arians deplored the ruin of their church, triumphant above a
      century in Africa; and they were justly provoked by the laws of
      the conqueror, which interdicted the baptism of their children,
      and the exercise of all religious worship. Of the Vandals chosen
      by Belisarius, the far greater part, in the honors of the Eastern
      service, forgot their country and religion. But a generous band
      of four hundred obliged the mariners, when they were in sight of
      the Isle of Lesbos, to alter their course: they touched on
      Peloponnesus, ran ashore on a desert coast of Africa, and boldly
      erected, on Mount Aurasius, the standard of independence and
      revolt. While the troops of the provinces disclaimed the commands
      of their superiors, a conspiracy was formed at Carthage against
      the life of Solomon, who filled with honor the place of
      Belisarius; and the Arians had piously resolved to sacrifice the
      tyrant at the foot of the altar, during the awful mysteries of
      the festival of Easter. Fear or remorse restrained the daggers of
      the assassins, but the patience of Solomon emboldened their
      discontent; and, at the end of ten days, a furious sedition was
      kindled in the Circus, which desolated Africa above ten years.
      The pillage of the city, and the indiscriminate slaughter of its
      inhabitants, were suspended only by darkness, sleep, and
      intoxication: the governor, with seven companions, among whom was
      the historian Procopius, escaped to Sicily: two thirds of the
      army were involved in the guilt of treason; and eight thousand
      insurgents, assembling in the field of Bulla, elected Stoza for
      their chief, a private soldier, who possessed in a superior
      degree the virtues of a rebel. Under the mask of freedom, his
      eloquence could lead, or at least impel, the passions of his
      equals. He raised himself to a level with Belisarius, and the
      nephew of the emperor, by daring to encounter them in the field;
      and the victorious generals were compelled to acknowledge that
      Stoza deserved a purer cause, and a more legitimate command.
      Vanquished in battle, he dexterously employed the arts of
      negotiation; a Roman army was seduced from their allegiance, and
      the chiefs who had trusted to his faithless promise were murdered
      by his order in a church of Numidia. When every resource, either
      of force or perfidy, was exhausted, Stoza, with some desperate
      Vandals, retired to the wilds of Mauritania, obtained the
      daughter of a Barbarian prince, and eluded the pursuit of his
      enemies, by the report of his death. The personal weight of
      Belisarius, the rank, the spirit, and the temper, of Germanus,
      the emperor’s nephew, and the vigor and success of the second
      administration of the eunuch Solomon, restored the modesty of the
      camp, and maintained for a while the tranquillity of Africa. But
      the vices of the Byzantine court were felt in that distant
      province; the troops complained that they were neither paid nor
      relieved, and as soon as the public disorders were sufficiently
      mature, Stoza was again alive, in arms, and at the gates of
      Carthage. He fell in a single combat, but he smiled in the
      agonies of death, when he was informed that his own javelin had
      reached the heart of his antagonist. 1001 The example of Stoza,
      and the assurance that a fortunate soldier had been the first
      king, encouraged the ambition of Gontharis, and he promised, by a
      private treaty, to divide Africa with the Moors, if, with their
      dangerous aid, he should ascend the throne of Carthage. The
      feeble Areobindus, unskilled in the affairs of peace and war, was
      raised, by his marriage with the niece of Justinian, to the
      office of exarch. He was suddenly oppressed by a sedition of the
      guards, and his abject supplications, which provoked the
      contempt, could not move the pity, of the inexorable tyrant.
      After a reign of thirty days, Gontharis himself was stabbed at a
      banquet by the hand of Artaban; 1002 and it is singular enough,
      that an Armenian prince, of the royal family of Arsaces, should
      reestablish at Carthage the authority of the Roman empire. In the
      conspiracy which unsheathed the dagger of Brutus against the life
      of Caesar, every circumstance is curious and important to the
      eyes of posterity; but the guilt or merit of these loyal or
      rebellious assassins could interest only the contemporaries of
      Procopius, who, by their hopes and fears, their friendship or
      resentment, were personally engaged in the revolutions of Africa.
      2

      1 (return) [ For the troubles of Africa, I neither have nor
      desire another guide than Procopius, whose eye contemplated the
      image, and whose ear collected the reports, of the memorable
      events of his own times. In the second book of the Vandalic war
      he relates the revolt of Stoza, (c. 14—24,) the return of
      Belisarius, (c. 15,) the victory of Germanus, (c. 16, 17, 18,)
      the second administration of Solomon, (c. 19, 20, 21,) the
      government of Sergius, (c. 22, 23,) of Areobindus, (c. 24,) the
      tyranny and death of Gontharis, (c. 25, 26, 27, 28;) nor can I
      discern any symptoms of flattery or malevolence in his various
      portraits.]

      1001 (return) [ Corippus gives a different account of the death
      of Stoza; he was transfixed by an arrow from the hand of John,
      (not the hero of his poem) who broke desperately through the
      victorious troops of the enemy. Stoza repented, says the poet, of
      his treasonous rebellion, and anticipated—another
      Cataline—eternal torments as his punishment.

 Reddam, improba, poenas Quas merui. Furiis socius Catilina cruentis
 Exagitatus adest. Video jam Tartara, fundo Flammarumque globos, et
 clara incendia volvi. —Johannidos, book iv. line 211.

      All the other authorities confirm Gibbon’s account of the death
      of John by the hand of Stoza. This poem of Corippus, unknown to
      Gibbon, was first published by Mazzuchelli during the present
      century, and is reprinted in the new edition of the Byzantine
      writers.—M]

      1002 (return) [ This murder was prompted to the Armenian
      (according to Corippus) by Athanasius, (then praefect of Africa.)

     Hunc placidus cana gravitate coegit Inumitera mactare virum.
     —Corripus, vol. iv. p. 237—M.]

      2 (return) [ Yet I must not refuse him the merit of painting, in
      lively colors, the murder of Gontharis. One of the assassins
      uttered a sentiment not unworthy of a Roman patriot: “If I fail,”
      said Artasires, “in the first stroke, kill me on the spot, lest
      the rack should extort a discovery of my accomplices.”]

      That country was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism from
      whence it had been raised by the Phoenician colonies and Roman
      laws; and every step of intestine discord was marked by some
      deplorable victory of savage man over civilized society. The
      Moors, 3 though ignorant of justice, were impatient of
      oppression: their vagrant life and boundless wilderness
      disappointed the arms, and eluded the chains, of a conqueror; and
      experience had shown, that neither oaths nor obligations could
      secure the fidelity of their attachment. The victory of Mount
      Auras had awed them into momentary submission; but if they
      respected the character of Solomon, they hated and despised the
      pride and luxury of his two nephews, Cyrus and Sergius, on whom
      their uncle had imprudently bestowed the provincial governments
      of Tripoli and Pentapolis. A Moorish tribe encamped under the
      walls of Leptis, to renew their alliance, and receive from the
      governor the customary gifts. Fourscore of their deputies were
      introduced as friends into the city; but on the dark suspicion of
      a conspiracy, they were massacred at the table of Sergius, and
      the clamor of arms and revenge was reechoed through the valleys
      of Mount Atlas from both the Syrtes to the Atlantic Ocean. A
      personal injury, the unjust execution or murder of his brother,
      rendered Antalas the enemy of the Romans. The defeat of the
      Vandals had formerly signalized his valor; the rudiments of
      justice and prudence were still more conspicuous in a Moor; and
      while he laid Adrumetum in ashes, he calmly admonished the
      emperor that the peace of Africa might be secured by the recall
      of Solomon and his unworthy nephews. The exarch led forth his
      troops from Carthage: but, at the distance of six days’ journey,
      in the neighborhood of Tebeste, 4 he was astonished by the
      superior numbers and fierce aspect of the Barbarians. He proposed
      a treaty; solicited a reconciliation; and offered to bind himself
      by the most solemn oaths. “By what oaths can he bind himself?”
      interrupted the indignant Moors. “Will he swear by the Gospels,
      the divine books of the Christians? It was on those books that
      the faith of his nephew Sergius was pledged to eighty of our
      innocent and unfortunate brethren. Before we trust them a second
      time, let us try their efficacy in the chastisement of perjury
      and the vindication of their own honor.” Their honor was
      vindicated in the field of Tebeste, by the death of Solomon, and
      the total loss of his army. 411 The arrival of fresh troops and
      more skilful commanders soon checked the insolence of the Moors:
      seventeen of their princes were slain in the same battle; and the
      doubtful and transient submission of their tribes was celebrated
      with lavish applause by the people of Constantinople. Successive
      inroads had reduced the province of Africa to one third of the
      measure of Italy; yet the Roman emperors continued to reign above
      a century over Carthage and the fruitful coast of the
      Mediterranean. But the victories and the losses of Justinian were
      alike pernicious to mankind; and such was the desolation of
      Africa, that in many parts a stranger might wander whole days
      without meeting the face either of a friend or an enemy. The
      nation of the Vandals had disappeared: they once amounted to a
      hundred and sixty thousand warriors, without including the
      children, the women, or the slaves. Their numbers were infinitely
      surpassed by the number of the Moorish families extirpated in a
      relentless war; and the same destruction was retaliated on the
      Romans and their allies, who perished by the climate, their
      mutual quarrels, and the rage of the Barbarians. When Procopius
      first landed, he admired the populousness of the cities and
      country, strenuously exercised in the labors of commerce and
      agriculture. In less than twenty years, that busy scene was
      converted into a silent solitude; the wealthy citizens escaped to
      Sicily and Constantinople; and the secret historian has
      confidently affirmed, that five millions of Africans were
      consumed by the wars and government of the emperor Justinian. 5

      3 (return) [ The Moorish wars are occasionally introduced into
      the narrative of Procopius, (Vandal. l. ii. c. 19—23, 25, 27, 28.
      Gothic. l. iv. c. 17;) and Theophanes adds some prosperous and
      adverse events in the last years of Justinian.]

      4 (return) [ Now Tibesh, in the kingdom of Algiers. It is watered
      by a river, the Sujerass, which falls into the Mejerda,
      (Bagradas.) Tibesh is still remarkable for its walls of large
      stones, (like the Coliseum of Rome,) a fountain, and a grove of
      walnut-trees: the country is fruitful, and the neighboring
      Bereberes are warlike. It appears from an inscription, that,
      under the reign of Adrian, the road from Carthage to Tebeste was
      constructed by the third legion, (Marmol, Description de
      l’Afrique, tom. ii. p. 442, 443. Shaw’s Travels, p. 64, 65, 66.)]

      411 (return) [ Corripus (Johannidos lib. iii. 417—441) describes
      the defeat and death of Solomon.—M.]

      5 (return) [ Procopius, Anecdot. c. 18. The series of the African
      history at tests this melancholy truth.]

      The jealousy of the Byzantine court had not permitted Belisarius
      to achieve the conquest of Italy; and his abrupt departure
      revived the courage of the Goths, 6 who respected his genius, his
      virtue, and even the laudable motive which had urged the servant
      of Justinian to deceive and reject them. They had lost their
      king, (an inconsiderable loss,) their capital, their treasures,
      the provinces from Sicily to the Alps, and the military force of
      two hundred thousand Barbarians, magnificently equipped with
      horses and arms. Yet all was not lost, as long as Pavia was
      defended by one thousand Goths, inspired by a sense of honor, the
      love of freedom, and the memory of their past greatness. The
      supreme command was unanimously offered to the brave Uraias; and
      it was in his eyes alone that the disgrace of his uncle Vitiges
      could appear as a reason of exclusion. His voice inclined the
      election in favor of Hildibald, whose personal merit was
      recommended by the vain hope that his kinsman Theudes, the
      Spanish monarch, would support the common interest of the Gothic
      nation. The success of his arms in Liguria and Venetia seemed to
      justify their choice; but he soon declared to the world that he
      was incapable of forgiving or commanding his benefactor. The
      consort of Hildibald was deeply wounded by the beauty, the
      riches, and the pride, of the wife of Uraias; and the death of
      that virtuous patriot excited the indignation of a free people. A
      bold assassin executed their sentence by striking off the head of
      Hildibald in the midst of a banquet; the Rugians, a foreign
      tribe, assumed the privilege of election: and Totila, 611 the
      nephew of the late king, was tempted, by revenge, to deliver
      himself and the garrison of Trevigo into the hands of the Romans.

      But the gallant and accomplished youth was easily persuaded to
      prefer the Gothic throne before the service of Justinian; and as
      soon as the palace of Pavia had been purified from the Rugian
      usurper, he reviewed the national force of five thousand
      soldiers, and generously undertook the restoration of the kingdom
      of Italy.

      6 (return) [ In the second (c. 30) and third books, (c. 1—40,)
      Procopius continues the history of the Gothic war from the fifth
      to the fifteenth year of Justinian. As the events are less
      interesting than in the former period, he allots only half the
      space to double the time. Jornandes, and the Chronicle of
      Marcellinus, afford some collateral hints Sigonius, Pagi,
      Muratori, Mascou, and De Buat, are useful, and have been used.]

      611 (return) [ His real name, as appears by medals, was Baduilla,
      or Badiula. Totila signifies immortal: tod (in German) is death.
      Todilas, deathless. Compare St Martin, vol. ix. p. 37.—M.]

      The successors of Belisarius, eleven generals of equal rank,
      neglected to crush the feeble and disunited Goths, till they were
      roused to action by the progress of Totila and the reproaches of
      Justinian. The gates of Verona were secretly opened to Artabazus,
      at the head of one hundred Persians in the service of the empire.
      The Goths fled from the city. At the distance of sixty furlongs
      the Roman generals halted to regulate the division of the spoil.
      While they disputed, the enemy discovered the real number of the
      victors: the Persians were instantly overpowered, and it was by
      leaping from the wall that Artabazus preserved a life which he
      lost in a few days by the lance of a Barbarian, who had defied
      him to single combat. Twenty thousand Romans encountered the
      forces of Totila, near Faenza, and on the hills of Mugello, of
      the Florentine territory. The ardor of freedmen, who fought to
      regain their country, was opposed to the languid temper of
      mercenary troops, who were even destitute of the merits of strong
      and well-disciplined servitude. On the first attack, they
      abandoned their ensigns, threw down their arms, and dispersed on
      all sides with an active speed, which abated the loss, whilst it
      aggravated the shame, of their defeat. The king of the Goths, who
      blushed for the baseness of his enemies, pursued with rapid steps
      the path of honor and victory. Totila passed the Po, 6112
      traversed the Apennine, suspended the important conquest of
      Ravenna, Florence, and Rome, and marched through the heart of
      Italy, to form the siege or rather the blockade, of Naples. The
      Roman chiefs, imprisoned in their respective cities, and accusing
      each other of the common disgrace, did not presume to disturb his
      enterprise. But the emperor, alarmed by the distress and danger
      of his Italian conquests, despatched to the relief of Naples a
      fleet of galleys and a body of Thracian and Armenian soldiers.
      They landed in Sicily, which yielded its copious stores of
      provisions; but the delays of the new commander, an unwarlike
      magistrate, protracted the sufferings of the besieged; and the
      succors, which he dropped with a timid and tardy hand, were
      successively intercepted by the armed vessels stationed by Totila
      in the Bay of Naples. The principal officer of the Romans was
      dragged, with a rope round his neck, to the foot of the wall,
      from whence, with a trembling voice, he exhorted the citizens to
      implore, like himself, the mercy of the conqueror. They requested
      a truce, with a promise of surrendering the city, if no effectual
      relief should appear at the end of thirty days. Instead of one
      month, the audacious Barbarian granted them three, in the just
      confidence that famine would anticipate the term of their
      capitulation. After the reduction of Naples and Cumae, the
      provinces of Lucania, Apulia, and Calabria, submitted to the king
      of the Goths. Totila led his army to the gates of Rome, pitched
      his camp at Tibur, or Tivoli, within twenty miles of the capital,
      and calmly exhorted the senate and people to compare the tyranny
      of the Greeks with the blessings of the Gothic reign.

      6112 (return) [ This is not quite correct: he had crossed the Po
      before the battle of Faenza.—M.]

      The rapid success of Totila may be partly ascribed to the
      revolution which three years’ experience had produced in the
      sentiments of the Italians. At the command, or at least in the
      name, of a Catholic emperor, the pope, 7 their spiritual father,
      had been torn from the Roman church, and either starved or
      murdered on a desolate island. 8 The virtues of Belisarius were
      replaced by the various or uniform vices of eleven chiefs, at
      Rome, Ravenna, Florence, Perugia, Spoleto, &c., who abused their
      authority for the indulgence of lust or avarice. The improvement
      of the revenue was committed to Alexander, a subtle scribe, long
      practised in the fraud and oppression of the Byzantine schools,
      and whose name of Psalliction, the scissors, 9 was drawn from the
      dexterous artifice with which he reduced the size without
      defacing the figure, of the gold coin. Instead of expecting the
      restoration of peace and industry, he imposed a heavy assessment
      on the fortunes of the Italians. Yet his present or future
      demands were less odious than a prosecution of arbitrary rigor
      against the persons and property of all those who, under the
      Gothic kings, had been concerned in the receipt and expenditure
      of the public money. The subjects of Justinian, who escaped these
      partial vexations, were oppressed by the irregular maintenance of
      the soldiers, whom Alexander defrauded and despised; and their
      hasty sallies in quest of wealth, or subsistence, provoked the
      inhabitants of the country to await or implore their deliverance
      from the virtues of a Barbarian. Totila 10 was chaste and
      temperate; and none were deceived, either friends or enemies, who
      depended on his faith or his clemency. To the husbandmen of Italy
      the Gothic king issued a welcome proclamation, enjoining them to
      pursue their important labors, and to rest assured, that, on the
      payment of the ordinary taxes, they should be defended by his
      valor and discipline from the injuries of war. The strong towns
      he successively attacked; and as soon as they had yielded to his
      arms, he demolished the fortifications, to save the people from
      the calamities of a future siege, to deprive the Romans of the
      arts of defence, and to decide the tedious quarrel of the two
      nations, by an equal and honorable conflict in the field of
      battle. The Roman captives and deserters were tempted to enlist
      in the service of a liberal and courteous adversary; the slaves
      were attracted by the firm and faithful promise, that they should
      never be delivered to their masters; and from the thousand
      warriors of Pavia, a new people, under the same appellation of
      Goths, was insensibly formed in the camp of Totila. He sincerely
      accomplished the articles of capitulation, without seeking or
      accepting any sinister advantage from ambiguous expressions or
      unforeseen events: the garrison of Naples had stipulated that
      they should be transported by sea; the obstinacy of the winds
      prevented their voyage, but they were generously supplied with
      horses, provisions, and a safe-conduct to the gates of Rome. The
      wives of the senators, who had been surprised in the villas of
      Campania, were restored, without a ransom, to their husbands; the
      violation of female chastity was inexorably chastised with death;
      and in the salutary regulation of the edict of the famished
      Neapolitans, the conqueror assumed the office of a humane and
      attentive physician. The virtues of Totila are equally laudable,
      whether they proceeded from true policy, religious principle, or
      the instinct of humanity: he often harangued his troops; and it
      was his constant theme, that national vice and ruin are
      inseparably connected; that victory is the fruit of moral as well
      as military virtue; and that the prince, and even the people, are
      responsible for the crimes which they neglect to punish.

      7 (return) [Sylverius, bishop of Rome, was first transported to
      Patara, in Lycia, and at length starved (sub eorum custodia
      inedia confectus) in the Isle of Palmaria, A.D. 538, June 20,
      (Liberat. in Breviar. c. 22. Anastasius, in Sylverio. Baronius,
      A.D. 540, No. 2, 3. Pagi, in Vit. Pont. tom. i. p. 285, 286.)
      Procopius (Anecdot. c. 1) accuses only the empress and Antonina.]

      8 (return) [ Palmaria, a small island, opposite to Terracina and
      the coast of the Volsci, (Cluver. Ital. Antiq. l. iii. c. 7, p.
      1014.)]

      9 (return) [ As the Logothete Alexander, and most of his civil
      and military colleagues, were either disgraced or despised, the
      ink of the Anecdotes (c. 4, 5, 18) is scarcely blacker than that
      of the Gothic History (l. iii. c. 1, 3, 4, 9, 20, 21, &c.)]

      10 (return) [ Procopius (l. iii. c. 2, 8, &c.,) does ample and
      willing justice to the merit of Totila. The Roman historians,
      from Sallust and Tacitus were happy to forget the vices of their
      countrymen in the contemplation of Barbaric virtue.]

      The return of Belisarius to save the country which he had
      subdued, was pressed with equal vehemence by his friends and
      enemies; and the Gothic war was imposed as a trust or an exile on
      the veteran commander. A hero on the banks of the Euphrates, a
      slave in the palace of Constantinople, he accepted with
      reluctance the painful task of supporting his own reputation, and
      retrieving the faults of his successors. The sea was open to the
      Romans: the ships and soldiers were assembled at Salona, near the
      palace of Diocletian: he refreshed and reviewed his troops at
      Pola in Istria, coasted round the head of the Adriatic, entered
      the port of Ravenna, and despatched orders rather than supplies
      to the subordinate cities. His first public oration was addressed
      to the Goths and Romans, in the name of the emperor, who had
      suspended for a while the conquest of Persia, and listened to the
      prayers of his Italian subjects. He gently touched on the causes
      and the authors of the recent disasters; striving to remove the
      fear of punishment for the past, and the hope of impunity for the
      future, and laboring, with more zeal than success, to unite all
      the members of his government in a firm league of affection and
      obedience. Justinian, his gracious master, was inclined to pardon
      and reward; and it was their interest, as well as duty, to
      reclaim their deluded brethren, who had been seduced by the arts
      of the usurper. Not a man was tempted to desert the standard of
      the Gothic king. Belisarius soon discovered, that he was sent to
      remain the idle and impotent spectator of the glory of a young
      Barbarian; and his own epistle exhibits a genuine and lively
      picture of the distress of a noble mind. “Most excellent prince,
      we are arrived in Italy, destitute of all the necessary
      implements of war, men, horses, arms, and money. In our late
      circuit through the villages of Thrace and Illyricum, we have
      collected, with extreme difficulty, about four thousand recruits,
      naked, and unskilled in the use of weapons and the exercises of
      the camp. The soldiers already stationed in the province are
      discontented, fearful, and dismayed; at the sound of an enemy,
      they dismiss their horses, and cast their arms on the ground. No
      taxes can be raised, since Italy is in the hands of the
      Barbarians; the failure of payment has deprived us of the right
      of command, or even of admonition. Be assured, dread Sir, that
      the greater part of your troops have already deserted to the
      Goths. If the war could be achieved by the presence of Belisarius
      alone, your wishes are satisfied; Belisarius is in the midst of
      Italy. But if you desire to conquer, far other preparations are
      requisite: without a military force, the title of general is an
      empty name. It would be expedient to restore to my service my own
      veteran and domestic guards. Before I can take the field, I must
      receive an adequate supply of light and heavy armed troops; and
      it is only with ready money that you can procure the
      indispensable aid of a powerful body of the cavalry of the Huns.”
      11 An officer in whom Belisarius confided was sent from Ravenna
      to hasten and conduct the succors; but the message was neglected,
      and the messenger was detained at Constantinople by an
      advantageous marriage. After his patience had been exhausted by
      delay and disappointment, the Roman general repassed the
      Adriatic, and expected at Dyrrachium the arrival of the troops,
      which were slowly assembled among the subjects and allies of the
      empire. His powers were still inadequate to the deliverance of
      Rome, which was closely besieged by the Gothic king. The Appian
      way, a march of forty days, was covered by the Barbarians; and as
      the prudence of Belisarius declined a battle, he preferred the
      safe and speedy navigation of five days from the coast of Epirus
      to the mouth of the Tyber.

      11 (return) [ Procopius, l. iii. c. 12. The soul of a hero is
      deeply impressed on the letter; nor can we confound such genuine
      and original acts with the elaborate and often empty speeches of
      the Byzantine historians]

      After reducing, by force, or treaty, the towns of inferior note
      in the midland provinces of Italy, Totila proceeded, not to
      assault, but to encompass and starve, the ancient capital. Rome
      was afflicted by the avarice, and guarded by the valor, of
      Bessas, a veteran chief of Gothic extraction, who filled, with a
      garrison of three thousand soldiers, the spacious circle of her
      venerable walls. From the distress of the people he extracted a
      profitable trade, and secretly rejoiced in the continuance of the
      siege. It was for his use that the granaries had been
      replenished: the charity of Pope Vigilius had purchased and
      embarked an ample supply of Sicilian corn; but the vessels which
      escaped the Barbarians were seized by a rapacious governor, who
      imparted a scanty sustenance to the soldiers, and sold the
      remainder to the wealthy Romans. The medimnus, or fifth part of
      the quarter of wheat, was exchanged for seven pieces of gold;
      fifty pieces were given for an ox, a rare and accidental prize;
      the progress of famine enhanced this exorbitant value, and the
      mercenaries were tempted to deprive themselves of the allowance
      which was scarcely sufficient for the support of life. A
      tasteless and unwholesome mixture, in which the bran thrice
      exceeded the quantity of flour, appeased the hunger of the poor;
      they were gradually reduced to feed on dead horses, dogs, cats,
      and mice, and eagerly to snatch the grass, and even the nettles,
      which grew among the ruins of the city. A crowd of spectres, pale
      and emaciated, their bodies oppressed with disease, and their
      minds with despair, surrounded the palace of the governor, urged,
      with unavailing truth, that it was the duty of a master to
      maintain his slaves, and humbly requested that he would provide
      for their subsistence, to permit their flight, or command their
      immediate execution. Bessas replied, with unfeeling tranquillity,
      that it was impossible to feed, unsafe to dismiss, and unlawful
      to kill, the subjects of the emperor. Yet the example of a
      private citizen might have shown his countrymen that a tyrant
      cannot withhold the privilege of death. Pierced by the cries of
      five children, who vainly called on their father for bread, he
      ordered them to follow his steps, advanced with calm and silent
      despair to one of the bridges of the Tyber, and, covering his
      face, threw himself headlong into the stream, in the presence of
      his family and the Roman people. To the rich and pusillammous,
      Bessas 12 sold the permission of departure; but the greatest part
      of the fugitives expired on the public highways, or were
      intercepted by the flying parties of Barbarians. In the mean
      while, the artful governor soothed the discontent, and revived
      the hopes of the Romans, by the vague reports of the fleets and
      armies which were hastening to their relief from the extremities
      of the East. They derived more rational comfort from the
      assurance that Belisarius had landed at the port; and, without
      numbering his forces, they firmly relied on the humanity, the
      courage, and the skill of their great deliverer.

      12 (return) [ The avarice of Bessas is not dissembled by
      Procopius, (l. iii. c. 17, 20.) He expiated the loss of Rome by
      the glorious conquest of Petraea, (Goth. l. iv. c. 12;) but the
      same vices followed him from the Tyber to the Phasis, (c. 13;)
      and the historian is equally true to the merits and defects of
      his character. The chastisement which the author of the romance
      of Belisaire has inflicted on the oppressor of Rome is more
      agreeable to justice than to history.]




      Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death OF
      Justinian.—Part II.

      The foresight of Totila had raised obstacles worthy of such an
      antagonist. Ninety furlongs below the city, in the narrowest part
      of the river, he joined the two banks by strong and solid timbers
      in the form of a bridge, on which he erected two lofty towers,
      manned by the bravest of his Goths, and profusely stored with
      missile weapons and engines of offence. The approach of the
      bridge and towers was covered by a strong and massy chain of
      iron; and the chain, at either end, on the opposite sides of the
      Tyber, was defended by a numerous and chosen detachment of
      archers. But the enterprise of forcing these barriers, and
      relieving the capital, displays a shining example of the boldness
      and conduct of Belisarius. His cavalry advanced from the port
      along the public road, to awe the motions, and distract the
      attention of the enemy. His infantry and provisions were
      distributed in two hundred large boats; and each boat was
      shielded by a high rampart of thick planks, pierced with many
      small holes for the discharge of missile weapons. In the front,
      two large vessels were linked together to sustain a floating
      castle, which commanded the towers of the bridge, and contained a
      magazine of fire, sulphur, and bitumen. The whole fleet, which
      the general led in person, was laboriously moved against the
      current of the river. The chain yielded to their weight, and the
      enemies who guarded the banks were either slain or scattered. As
      soon as they touched the principal barrier, the fire-ship was
      instantly grappled to the bridge; one of the towers, with two
      hundred Goths, was consumed by the flames; the assailants shouted
      victory; and Rome was saved, if the wisdom of Belisarius had not
      been defeated by the misconduct of his officers. He had
      previously sent orders to Bessas to second his operations by a
      timely sally from the town; and he had fixed his lieutenant,
      Isaac, by a peremptory command, to the station of the port. But
      avarice rendered Bessas immovable; while the youthful ardor of
      Isaac delivered him into the hands of a superior enemy. The
      exaggerated rumor of his defeat was hastily carried to the ears
      of Belisarius: he paused; betrayed in that single moment of his
      life some emotions of surprise and perplexity; and reluctantly
      sounded a retreat to save his wife Antonina, his treasures, and
      the only harbor which he possessed on the Tuscan coast. The
      vexation of his mind produced an ardent and almost mortal fever;
      and Rome was left without protection to the mercy or indignation
      of Totila. The continuance of hostilities had imbittered the
      national hatred: the Arian clergy was ignominiously driven from
      Rome; Pelagius, the archdeacon, returned without success from an
      embassy to the Gothic camp; and a Sicilian bishop, the envoy or
      nuncio of the pope, was deprived of both his hands, for daring to
      utter falsehoods in the service of the church and state.

      Famine had relaxed the strength and discipline of the garrison of
      Rome. They could derive no effectual service from a dying people;
      and the inhuman avarice of the merchant at length absorbed the
      vigilance of the governor. Four Isaurian sentinels, while their
      companions slept, and their officers were absent, descended by a
      rope from the wall, and secretly proposed to the Gothic king to
      introduce his troops into the city. The offer was entertained
      with coldness and suspicion; they returned in safety; they twice
      repeated their visit; the place was twice examined; the
      conspiracy was known and disregarded; and no sooner had Totila
      consented to the attempt, than they unbarred the Asinarian gate,
      and gave admittance to the Goths. Till the dawn of day, they
      halted in order of battle, apprehensive of treachery or ambush;
      but the troops of Bessas, with their leader, had already escaped;
      and when the king was pressed to disturb their retreat, he
      prudently replied, that no sight could be more grateful than that
      of a flying enemy. The patricians, who were still possessed of
      horses, Decius, Basilius, &c. accompanied the governor; their
      brethren, among whom Olybrius, Orestes, and Maximus, are named by
      the historian, took refuge in the church of St. Peter: but the
      assertion, that only five hundred persons remained in the
      capital, inspires some doubt of the fidelity either of his
      narrative or of his text. As soon as daylight had displayed the
      entire victory of the Goths, their monarch devoutly visited the
      tomb of the prince of the apostles; but while he prayed at the
      altar, twenty-five soldiers, and sixty citizens, were put to the
      sword in the vestibule of the temple. The archdeacon Pelagius 13
      stood before him, with the Gospels in his hand. “O Lord, be
      merciful to your servant.” “Pelagius,” said Totila, with an
      insulting smile, “your pride now condescends to become a
      suppliant.” “I am a suppliant,” replied the prudent archdeacon;
      “God has now made us your subjects, and as your subjects, we are
      entitled to your clemency.” At his humble prayer, the lives of
      the Romans were spared; and the chastity of the maids and matrons
      was preserved inviolate from the passions of the hungry soldiers.

      But they were rewarded by the freedom of pillage, after the most
      precious spoils had been reserved for the royal treasury. The
      houses of the senators were plentifully stored with gold and
      silver; and the avarice of Bessas had labored with so much guilt
      and shame for the benefit of the conqueror. In this revolution,
      the sons and daughters of Roman consuls lasted the misery which
      they had spurned or relieved, wandered in tattered garments
      through the streets of the city and begged their bread, perhaps
      without success, before the gates of their hereditary mansions.
      The riches of Rusticiana, the daughter of Symmachus and widow of
      Boethius, had been generously devoted to alleviate the calamities
      of famine. But the Barbarians were exasperated by the report,
      that she had prompted the people to overthrow the statues of the
      great Theodoric; and the life of that venerable matron would have
      been sacrificed to his memory, if Totila had not respected her
      birth, her virtues, and even the pious motive of her revenge. The
      next day he pronounced two orations, to congratulate and admonish
      his victorious Goths, and to reproach the senate, as the vilest
      of slaves, with their perjury, folly, and ingratitude; sternly
      declaring, that their estates and honors were justly forfeited to
      the companions of his arms. Yet he consented to forgive their
      revolt; and the senators repaid his clemency by despatching
      circular letters to their tenants and vassals in the provinces of
      Italy, strictly to enjoin them to desert the standard of the
      Greeks, to cultivate their lands in peace, and to learn from
      their masters the duty of obedience to a Gothic sovereign.
      Against the city which had so long delayed the course of his
      victories, he appeared inexorable: one third of the walls, in
      different parts, were demolished by his command; fire and engines
      prepared to consume or subvert the most stately works of
      antiquity; and the world was astonished by the fatal decree, that
      Rome should be changed into a pasture for cattle. The firm and
      temperate remonstrance of Belisarius suspended the execution; he
      warned the Barbarian not to sully his fame by the destruction of
      those monuments which were the glory of the dead, and the delight
      of the living; and Totila was persuaded, by the advice of an
      enemy, to preserve Rome as the ornament of his kingdom, or the
      fairest pledge of peace and reconciliation. When he had signified
      to the ambassadors of Belisarius his intention of sparing the
      city, he stationed an army at the distance of one hundred and
      twenty furlongs, to observe the motions of the Roman general.
      With the remainder of his forces he marched into Lucania and
      Apulia, and occupied on the summit of Mount Garganus 14 one of
      the camps of Hannibal. 15 The senators were dragged in his train,
      and afterwards confined in the fortresses of Campania: the
      citizens, with their wives and children, were dispersed in exile;
      and during forty days Rome was abandoned to desolate and dreary
      solitude. 16

      13 (return) [ During the long exile, and after the death of
      Vigilius, the Roman church was governed, at first by the
      archdeacon, and at length (A. D 655) by the pope Pelagius, who
      was not thought guiltless of the sufferings of his predecessor.
      See the original lives of the popes under the name of Anastasius,
      (Muratori, Script. Rer. Italicarum, tom. iii. P. i. p. 130, 131,)
      who relates several curious incidents of the sieges of Rome and
      the wars of Italy.]

      14 (return) [ Mount Garganus, now Monte St. Angelo, in the
      kingdom of Naples, runs three hundred stadia into the Adriatic
      Sea, (Strab.—vi. p. 436,) and in the darker ages was illustrated
      by the apparition, miracles, and church, of St. Michael the
      archangel. Horace, a native of Apulia or Lucania, had seen the
      elms and oaks of Garganus laboring and bellowing with the north
      wind that blew on that lofty coast, (Carm. ii. 9, Epist. ii. i.
      201.)]

      15 (return) [ I cannot ascertain this particular camp of
      Hannibal; but the Punic quarters were long and often in the
      neighborhood of Arpi, (T. Liv. xxii. 9, 12, xxiv. 3, &c.)]

      16 (return) [ Totila.... Romam ingreditur.... ac evertit muros,
      domos aliquantas igni comburens, ac omnes Romanorum res in
      praedam ac cepit, hos ipsos Romanos in Campaniam captivos
      abduxit. Post quam devastationem, xl. autamp lius dies, Roma fuit
      ita desolata, ut nemo ibi hominum, nisi (nulloe?) bestiae
      morarentur, (Marcellin. in Chron. p. 54.)]

      The loss of Rome was speedily retrieved by an action, to which,
      according to the event, the public opinion would apply the names
      of rashness or heroism. After the departure of Totila, the Roman
      general sallied from the port at the head of a thousand horse,
      cut in pieces the enemy who opposed his progress, and visited
      with pity and reverence the vacant space of the eternal city.
      Resolved to maintain a station so conspicuous in the eyes of
      mankind, he summoned the greatest part of his troops to the
      standard which he erected on the Capitol: the old inhabitants
      were recalled by the love of their country and the hopes of food;
      and the keys of Rome were sent a second time to the emperor
      Justinian. The walls, as far as they had been demolished by the
      Goths, were repaired with rude and dissimilar materials; the
      ditch was restored; iron spikes 17 were profusely scattered in
      the highways to annoy the feet of the horses; and as new gates
      could not suddenly be procured, the entrance was guarded by a
      Spartan rampart of his bravest soldiers. At the expiration of
      twenty-five days, Totila returned by hasty marches from Apulia to
      avenge the injury and disgrace. Belisarius expected his approach.
      The Goths were thrice repulsed in three general assaults; they
      lost the flower of their troops; the royal standard had almost
      fallen into the hands of the enemy, and the fame of Totila sunk,
      as it had risen, with the fortune of his arms. Whatever skill and
      courage could achieve, had been performed by the Roman general:
      it remained only that Justinian should terminate, by a strong and
      seasonable effort, the war which he had ambitiously undertaken.
      The indolence, perhaps the impotence, of a prince who despised
      his enemies, and envied his servants, protracted the calamities
      of Italy. After a long silence, Belisarius was commanded to leave
      a sufficient garrison at Rome, and to transport himself into the
      province of Lucania, whose inhabitants, inflamed by Catholic
      zeal, had cast away the yoke of their Arian conquerors. In this
      ignoble warfare, the hero, invincible against the power of the
      Barbarians, was basely vanquished by the delay, the disobedience,
      and the cowardice of his own officers. He reposed in his winter
      quarters of Crotona, in the full assurance, that the two passes
      of the Lucanian hills were guarded by his cavalry. They were
      betrayed by treachery or weakness; and the rapid march of the
      Goths scarcely allowed time for the escape of Belisarius to the
      coast of Sicily. At length a fleet and army were assembled for
      the relief of Ruscianum, or Rossano, 18 a fortress sixty furlongs
      from the ruins of Sybaris, where the nobles of Lucania had taken
      refuge. In the first attempt, the Roman forces were dissipated by
      a storm. In the second, they approached the shore; but they saw
      the hills covered with archers, the landing-place defended by a
      line of spears, and the king of the Goths impatient for battle.
      The conqueror of Italy retired with a sigh, and continued to
      languish, inglorious and inactive, till Antonina, who had been
      sent to Constantinople to solicit succors, obtained, after the
      death of the empress, the permission of his return.

      17 (return) [ The tribuli are small engines with four spikes, one
      fixed in the ground, the three others erect or adverse,
      (Procopius, Gothic. l. iii. c. 24. Just. Lipsius, Poliorcetwv, l.
      v. c. 3.) The metaphor was borrowed from the tribuli,
      (land-caltrops,) an herb with a prickly fruit, commex in Italy.
      (Martin, ad Virgil. Georgic. i. 153 vol. ii. p. 33.)]

      18 (return) [ Ruscia, the navale Thuriorum, was transferred to
      the distance of sixty stadia to Ruscianum, Rossano, an
      archbishopric without suffragans. The republic of Sybaris is now
      the estate of the duke of Corigliano. (Riedesel, Travels into
      Magna Graecia and Sicily, p. 166—171.)]

      The five last campaigns of Belisarius might abate the envy of his
      competitors, whose eyes had been dazzled and wounded by the blaze
      of his former glory. Instead of delivering Italy from the Goths,
      he had wandered like a fugitive along the coast, without daring
      to march into the country, or to accept the bold and repeated
      challenge of Totila. Yet, in the judgment of the few who could
      discriminate counsels from events, and compare the instruments
      with the execution, he appeared a more consummate master of the
      art of war, than in the season of his prosperity, when he
      presented two captive kings before the throne of Justinian. The
      valor of Belisarius was not chilled by age: his prudence was
      matured by experience; but the moral virtues of humanity and
      justice seem to have yielded to the hard necessity of the times.
      The parsimony or poverty of the emperor compelled him to deviate
      from the rule of conduct which had deserved the love and
      confidence of the Italians. The war was maintained by the
      oppression of Ravenna, Sicily, and all the faithful subjects of
      the empire; and the rigorous prosecution of Herodian provoked
      that injured or guilty officer to deliver Spoleto into the hands
      of the enemy. The avarice of Antonina, which had been some times
      diverted by love, now reigned without a rival in her breast.
      Belisarius himself had always understood, that riches, in a
      corrupt age, are the support and ornament of personal merit. And
      it cannot be presumed that he should stain his honor for the
      public service, without applying a part of the spoil to his
      private emolument. The hero had escaped the sword of the
      Barbarians. But the dagger of conspiracy 19 awaited his return.
      In the midst of wealth and honors, Artaban, who had chastised the
      African tyrant, complained of the ingratitude of courts. He
      aspired to Praejecta, the emperor’s niece, who wished to reward
      her deliverer; but the impediment of his previous marriage was
      asserted by the piety of Theodora. The pride of royal descent was
      irritated by flattery; and the service in which he gloried had
      proved him capable of bold and sanguinary deeds. The death of
      Justinian was resolved, but the conspirators delayed the
      execution till they could surprise Belisarius disarmed, and
      naked, in the palace of Constantinople. Not a hope could be
      entertained of shaking his long-tried fidelity; and they justly
      dreaded the revenge, or rather the justice, of the veteran
      general, who might speedily assemble an army in Thrace to punish
      the assassins, and perhaps to enjoy the fruits of their crime.
      Delay afforded time for rash communications and honest
      confessions: Artaban and his accomplices were condemned by the
      senate, but the extreme clemency of Justinian detained them in
      the gentle confinement of the palace, till he pardoned their
      flagitious attempt against his throne and life. If the emperor
      forgave his enemies, he must cordially embrace a friend whose
      victories were alone remembered, and who was endeared to his
      prince by the recent circumstances of their common danger.
      Belisarius reposed from his toils, in the high station of general
      of the East and count of the domestics; and the older consuls and
      patricians respectfully yielded the precedency of rank to the
      peerless merit of the first of the Romans. 20 The first of the
      Romans still submitted to be the slave of his wife; but the
      servitude of habit and affection became less disgraceful when the
      death of Theodora had removed the baser influence of fear.
      Joannina, their daughter, and the sole heiress of their fortunes,
      was betrothed to Anastasius, the grandson, or rather the nephew,
      of the empress, 21 whose kind interposition forwarded the
      consummation of their youthful loves. But the power of Theodora
      expired, the parents of Joannina returned, and her honor, perhaps
      her happiness, were sacrificed to the revenge of an unfeeling
      mother, who dissolved the imperfect nuptials before they had been
      ratified by the ceremonies of the church. 22

      19 (return) [ This conspiracy is related by Procopius (Gothic. l.
      iii. c. 31, 32) with such freedom and candor, that the liberty of
      the Anecdotes gives him nothing to add.]

      20 (return) [ The honors of Belisarius are gladly commemorated by
      his secretary, (Procop. Goth. l. iii. c. 35, l. iv. c. 21.) This
      title is ill translated, at least in this instance, by praefectus
      praetorio; and to a military character, magister militum is more
      proper and applicable, (Ducange, Gloss. Graec. p. 1458, 1459.)]

      21 (return) [ Alemannus, (ad Hist. Arcanum, p. 68,) Ducange,
      (Familiae Byzant. p. 98,) and Heineccius, (Hist. Juris Civilis,
      p. 434,) all three represent Anastasius as the son of the
      daughter of Theodora; and their opinion firmly reposes on the
      unambiguous testimony of Procopius, (Anecdot. c. 4, 5,—twice
      repeated.) And yet I will remark, 1. That in the year 547,
      Theodora could sarcely have a grandson of the age of puberty; 2.
      That we are totally ignorant of this daughter and her husband;
      and, 3. That Theodora concealed her bastards, and that her
      grandson by Justinian would have been heir apparent of the
      empire.]

      22 (return) [ The sins of the hero in Italy and after his return,
      are manifested, and most probably swelled, by the author of the
      Anecdotes, (c. 4, 5.) The designs of Antonina were favored by the
      fluctuating jurisprudence of Justinian. On the law of marriage
      and divorce, that emperor was trocho versatilior, (Heineccius,
      Element Juris Civil. ad Ordinem Pandect. P. iv. No. 233.)]

      Before the departure of Belisarius, Perusia was besieged, and few
      cities were impregnable to the Gothic arms. Ravenna, Ancona, and
      Crotona, still resisted the Barbarians; and when Totila asked in
      marriage one of the daughters of France, he was stung by the just
      reproach that the king of Italy was unworthy of his title till it
      was acknowledged by the Roman people. Three thousand of the
      bravest soldiers had been left to defend the capital. On the
      suspicion of a monopoly, they massacred the governor, and
      announced to Justinian, by a deputation of the clergy, that
      unless their offence was pardoned, and their arrears were
      satisfied, they should instantly accept the tempting offers of
      Totila. But the officer who succeeded to the command (his name
      was Diogenes) deserved their esteem and confidence; and the
      Goths, instead of finding an easy conquest, encountered a
      vigorous resistance from the soldiers and people, who patiently
      endured the loss of the port and of all maritime supplies. The
      siege of Rome would perhaps have been raised, if the liberality
      of Totila to the Isaurians had not encouraged some of their venal
      countrymen to copy the example of treason. In a dark night, while
      the Gothic trumpets sounded on another side, they silently opened
      the gate of St. Paul: the Barbarians rushed into the city; and
      the flying garrison was intercepted before they could reach the
      harbor of Centumcellae. A soldier trained in the school of
      Belisarius, Paul of Cilicia, retired with four hundred men to the
      mole of Hadrian. They repelled the Goths; but they felt the
      approach of famine; and their aversion to the taste of
      horse-flesh confirmed their resolution to risk the event of a
      desperate and decisive sally. But their spirit insensibly stooped
      to the offers of capitulation; they retrieved their arrears of
      pay, and preserved their arms and horses, by enlisting in the
      service of Totila; their chiefs, who pleaded a laudable
      attachment to their wives and children in the East, were
      dismissed with honor; and above four hundred enemies, who had
      taken refuge in the sanctuaries, were saved by the clemency of
      the victor. He no longer entertained a wish of destroying the
      edifices of Rome, 23 which he now respected as the seat of the
      Gothic kingdom: the senate and people were restored to their
      country; the means of subsistence were liberally provided; and
      Totila, in the robe of peace, exhibited the equestrian games of
      the circus. Whilst he amused the eyes of the multitude, four
      hundred vessels were prepared for the embarkation of his troops.
      The cities of Rhegium and Tarentum were reduced: he passed into
      Sicily, the object of his implacable resentment; and the island
      was stripped of its gold and silver, of the fruits of the earth,
      and of an infinite number of horses, sheep, and oxen. Sardinia
      and Corsica obeyed the fortune of Italy; and the sea-coast of
      Greece was visited by a fleet of three hundred galleys. 24 The
      Goths were landed in Corcyra and the ancient continent of Epirus;
      they advanced as far as Nicopolis, the trophy of Augustus, and
      Dodona, 25 once famous by the oracle of Jove. In every step of
      his victories, the wise Barbarian repeated to Justinian the
      desire of peace, applauded the concord of their predecessors, and
      offered to employ the Gothic arms in the service of the empire.

      23 (return) [ The Romans were still attached to the monuments of
      their ancestors; and according to Procopius, (Goth. l. iv. c.
      22,) the gallery of Aeneas, of a single rank of oars, 25 feet in
      breadth, 120 in length, was preserved entire in the navalia, near
      Monte Testaceo, at the foot of the Aventine, (Nardini, Roma
      Antica, l. vii. c. 9, p. 466. Donatus, Rom Antiqua, l. iv. c. 13,
      p. 334) But all antiquity is ignorant of relic.]

      24 (return) [ In these seas Procopius searched without success
      for the Isle of Calypso. He was shown, at Phaeacia, or Cocyra,
      the petrified ship of Ulysses, (Odyss. xiii. 163;) but he found
      it a recent fabric of many stones, dedicated by a merchant to
      Jupiter Cassius, (l. iv. c. 22.) Eustathius had supposed it to be
      the fanciful likeness of a rock.]

      25 (return) [ M. D’Anville (Memoires de l’Acad. tom. xxxii. p.
      513—528) illustrates the Gulf of Ambracia; but he cannot
      ascertain the situation of Dodona. A country in sight of Italy is
      less known than the wilds of America. Note: On the site of Dodona
      compare Walpole’s Travels in the East, vol. ii. p. 473; Col.
      Leake’s Northern Greece, vol. iv. p. 163; and a dissertation by
      the present bishop of Lichfield (Dr. Butler) in the appendix to
      Hughes’s Travels, vol. i. p. 511.—M.]

      Justinian was deaf to the voice of peace: but he neglected the
      prosecution of war; and the indolence of his temper disappointed,
      in some degree, the obstinacy of his passions. From this salutary
      slumber the emperor was awakened by the pope Vigilius and the
      patrician Cethegus, who appeared before his throne, and adjured
      him, in the name of God and the people, to resume the conquest
      and deliverance of Italy. In the choice of the generals, caprice,
      as well as judgment, was shown. A fleet and army sailed for the
      relief of Sicily, under the conduct of Liberius; but his youth
      2511 and want of experience were afterwards discovered, and
      before he touched the shores of the island he was overtaken by
      his successor. In the place of Liberius, the conspirator Artaban
      was raised from a prison to military honors; in the pious
      presumption, that gratitude would animate his valor and fortify
      his allegiance. Belisarius reposed in the shade of his laurels,
      but the command of the principal army was reserved for Germanus,
      26 the emperor’s nephew, whose rank and merit had been long
      depressed by the jealousy of the court. Theodora had injured him
      in the rights of a private citizen, the marriage of his children,
      and the testament of his brother; and although his conduct was
      pure and blameless, Justinian was displeased that he should be
      thought worthy of the confidence of the malcontent s. The life of
      Germanus was a lesson of implicit obedience: he nobly refused to
      prostitute his name and character in the factions of the circus:
      the gravity of his manners was tempered by innocent cheerfulness;
      and his riches were lent without interest to indigent or
      deserving friends. His valor had formerly triumphed over the
      Sclavonians of the Danube and the rebels of Africa: the first
      report of his promotion revived the hopes of the Italians; and he
      was privately assured, that a crowd of Roman deserters would
      abandon, on his approach, the standard of Totila. His second
      marriage with Malasontha, the granddaughter of Theodoric endeared
      Germanus to the Goths themselves; and they marched with
      reluctance against the father of a royal infant the last
      offspring of the line of Amali. 27 A splendid allowance was
      assigned by the emperor: the general contributed his private
      fortune: his two sons were popular and active and he surpassed,
      in the promptitude and success of his levies the expectation of
      mankind. He was permitted to select some squadrons of Thracian
      cavalry: the veterans, as well as the youth of Constantinople and
      Europe, engaged their voluntary service; and as far as the heart
      of Germany, his fame and liberality attracted the aid of the
      Barbarians. 2711 The Romans advanced to Sardica; an army of
      Sclavonians fled before their march; but within two days of their
      final departure, the designs of Germanus were terminated by his
      malady and death. Yet the impulse which he had given to the
      Italian war still continued to act with energy and effect. The
      maritime towns Ancona, Crotona, Centumcellae, resisted the
      assaults of Totila Sicily was reduced by the zeal of Artaban, and
      the Gothic navy was defeated near the coast of the Adriatic. The
      two fleets were almost equal, forty-seven to fifty galleys: the
      victory was decided by the knowledge and dexterity of the Greeks;
      but the ships were so closely grappled, that only twelve of the
      Goths escaped from this unfortunate conflict. They affected to
      depreciate an element in which they were unskilled; but their own
      experience confirmed the truth of a maxim, that the master of the
      sea will always acquire the dominion of the land. 28

      2511 (return) [ This is a singular mistake. Gibbon must have
      hastily caught at his inexperience, and concluded that it must
      have been from youth. Lord Mahon has pointed out this error, p.
      401. I should add that in the last 4to. edition, corrected by
      Gibbon, it stands “want of youth and experience;”—but Gibbon can
      scarcely have intended such a phrase.—M.]

      26 (return) [ See the acts of Germanus in the public (Vandal. l.
      ii, c. 16, 17, 18 Goth. l. iii. c. 31, 32) and private history,
      (Anecdot. c. 5,) and those of his son Justin, in Agathias, (l.
      iv. p. 130, 131.) Notwithstanding an ambiguous expression of
      Jornandes, fratri suo, Alemannus has proved that he was the son
      of the emperor’s brother.]

      27 (return) [ Conjuncta Aniciorum gens cum Amala stirpe spem
      adhuc utii usque generis promittit, (Jornandes, c. 60, p. 703.)
      He wrote at Ravenna before the death of Totila]

      2711 (return) [ See note 31, p. 268.—M.]

      28 (return) [ The third book of Procopius is terminated by the
      death of Germanus, (Add. l. iv. c. 23, 24, 25, 26.)]

      After the loss of Germanus, the nations were provoked to smile,
      by the strange intelligence, that the command of the Roman armies
      was given to a eunuch. But the eunuch Narses 29 is ranked among
      the few who have rescued that unhappy name from the contempt and
      hatred of mankind. A feeble, diminutive body concealed the soul
      of a statesman and a warrior. His youth had been employed in the
      management of the loom and distaff, in the cares of the
      household, and the service of female luxury; but while his hands
      were busy, he secretly exercised the faculties of a vigorous and
      discerning mind. A stranger to the schools and the camp, he
      studied in the palace to dissemble, to flatter, and to persuade;
      and as soon as he approached the person of the emperor, Justinian
      listened with surprise and pleasure to the manly counsels of his
      chamberlain and private treasurer. 30 The talents of Narses were
      tried and improved in frequent embassies: he led an army into
      Italy, acquired a practical knowledge of the war and the country,
      and presumed to strive with the genius of Belisarius. Twelve
      years after his return, the eunuch was chosen to achieve the
      conquest which had been left imperfect by the first of the Roman
      generals. Instead of being dazzled by vanity or emulation, he
      seriously declared that, unless he were armed with an adequate
      force, he would never consent to risk his own glory and that of
      his sovereign. Justinian granted to the favorite what he might
      have denied to the hero: the Gothic war was rekindled from its
      ashes, and the preparations were not unworthy of the ancient
      majesty of the empire. The key of the public treasure was put
      into his hand, to collect magazines, to levy soldiers, to
      purchase arms and horses, to discharge the arrears of pay, and to
      tempt the fidelity of the fugitives and deserters. The troops of
      Germanus were still in arms; they halted at Salona in the
      expectation of a new leader; and legions of subjects and allies
      were created by the well-known liberality of the eunuch Narses.
      The king of the Lombards 31 satisfied or surpassed the
      obligations of a treaty, by lending two thousand two hundred of
      his bravest warriors, 3111 who were followed by three thousand of
      their martial attendants. Three thousand Heruli fought on
      horseback under Philemuth, their native chief; and the noble
      Aratus, who adopted the manners and discipline of Rome, conducted
      a band of veterans of the same nation. Dagistheus was released
      from prison to command the Huns; and Kobad, the grandson and
      nephew of the great king, was conspicuous by the regal tiara at
      the head of his faithful Persians, who had devoted themselves to
      the fortunes of their prince. 32 Absolute in the exercise of his
      authority, more absolute in the affection of his troops, Narses
      led a numerous and gallant army from Philippopolis to Salona,
      from whence he coasted the eastern side of the Adriatic as far as
      the confines of Italy. His progress was checked. The East could
      not supply vessels capable of transporting such multitudes of men
      and horses. The Franks, who, in the general confusion, had
      usurped the greater part of the Venetian province, refused a free
      passage to the friends of the Lombards. The station of Verona was
      occupied by Teias, with the flower of the Gothic forces; and that
      skilful commander had overspread the adjacent country with the
      fall of woods and the inundation of waters. 33 In this
      perplexity, an officer of experience proposed a measure, secure
      by the appearance of rashness; that the Roman army should
      cautiously advance along the seashore, while the fleet preceded
      their march, and successively cast a bridge of boats over the
      mouths of the rivers, the Timavus, the Brenta, the Adige, and the
      Po, that fall into the Adriatic to the north of Ravenna. Nine
      days he reposed in the city, collected the fragments of the
      Italian army, and marching towards Rimini to meet the defiance of
      an insulting enemy.

      29 (return) [ Procopius relates the whole series of this second
      Gothic war and the victory of Narses, (l. iv. c. 21, 26—35.) A
      splendid scene. Among the six subjects of epic poetry which Tasso
      revolved in his mind, he hesitated between the conquests of Italy
      by Belisarius and by Narses, (Hayley’s Works, vol. iv. p. 70.)]

      30 (return) [ The country of Narses is unknown, since he must not
      be confounded with the Persarmenian. Procopius styles him (see
      Goth. l. ii. c. 13); Paul Warnefrid, (l. ii. c. 3, p. 776,)
      Chartularius: Marcellinus adds the name of Cubicularius. In an
      inscription on the Salarian bridge he is entitled Ex-consul,
      Ex-praepositus, Cubiculi Patricius, (Mascou, Hist. of the
      Germans, (l. xiii. c. 25.) The law of Theodosius against ennuchs
      was obsolete or abolished, Annotation xx.,) but the foolish
      prophecy of the Romans subsisted in full vigor, (Procop. l. iv.
      c. 21.) * Note: Lord Mahon supposes them both to have been
      Persarmenians. Note, p. 256.—M.]

      31 (return) [ Paul Warnefrid, the Lombard, records with
      complacency the succor, service, and honorable dismission of his
      countrymen—reipublicae Romanae adversus aemulos adjutores
      fuerant, (l. ii. c. i. p. 774, edit. Grot.) I am surprised that
      Alboin, their martial king, did not lead his subjects in person.
      * Note: The Lombards were still at war with the Gepidae. See
      Procop. Goth. lib. iv. p. 25.—M.]

      3111 (return) [ Gibbon has blindly followed the translation of
      Maltretus: Bis mille ducentos—while the original Greek says
      expressly something else, (Goth. lib. iv. c. 26.) In like manner,
      (p. 266,) he draws volunteers from Germany, on the authority of
      Cousin, who, in one place, has mistaken Germanus for Germania.
      Yet only a few pages further we find Gibbon loudly condemning the
      French and Latin readers of Procopius. Lord Mahon, p. 403. The
      first of these errors remains uncorrected in the new edition of
      the Byzantines.—M.]

      32 (return) [ He was, if not an impostor, the son of the blind
      Zames, saved by compassion, and educated in the Byzantine court
      by the various motives of policy, pride, and generosity, (Procop.
      Persic. l. i. c. 23.)]

      33 (return) [ In the time of Augustus, and in the middle ages,
      the whole waste from Aquileia to Ravenna was covered with woods,
      lakes, and morasses. Man has subdued nature, and the land has
      been cultivated since the waters are confined and embanked. See
      the learned researches of Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii
      Aevi. tom. i. dissert xxi. p. 253, 254,) from Vitruvius, Strabo,
      Herodian, old charters, and local knowledge.]




      Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of
      Justinian.—Part III.

      The prudence of Narses impelled him to speedy and decisive
      action. His powers were the last effort of the state; the cost of
      each day accumulated the enormous account; and the nations,
      untrained to discipline or fatigue, might be rashly provoked to
      turn their arms against each other, or against their benefactor.
      The same considerations might have tempered the ardor of Totila.
      But he was conscious that the clergy and people of Italy aspired
      to a second revolution: he felt or suspected the rapid progress
      of treason; and he resolved to risk the Gothic kingdom on the
      chance of a day, in which the valiant would be animated by
      instant danger and the disaffected might be awed by mutual
      ignorance. In his march from Ravenna, the Roman general chastised
      the garrison of Rimini, traversed in a direct line the hills of
      Urbino, and reentered the Flaminian way, nine miles beyond the
      perforated rock, an obstacle of art and nature which might have
      stopped or retarded his progress. 34 The Goths were assembled in
      the neighborhood of Rome, they advanced without delay to seek a
      superior enemy, and the two armies approached each other at the
      distance of one hundred furlongs, between Tagina 35 and the
      sepulchres of the Gauls. 36 The haughty message of Narses was an
      offer, not of peace, but of pardon. The answer of the Gothic king
      declared his resolution to die or conquer. “What day,” said the
      messenger, “will you fix for the combat?” “The eighth day,”
      replied Totila; but early the next morning he attempted to
      surprise a foe, suspicious of deceit, and prepared for battle.
      Ten thousand Heruli and Lombards, of approved valor and doubtful
      faith, were placed in the centre. Each of the wings was composed
      of eight thousand Romans; the right was guarded by the cavalry of
      the Huns, the left was covered by fifteen hundred chosen horse,
      destined, according to the emergencies of action, to sustain the
      retreat of their friends, or to encompass the flank of the enemy.
      From his proper station at the head of the right wing, the eunuch
      rode along the line, expressing by his voice and countenance the
      assurance of victory; exciting the soldiers of the emperor to
      punish the guilt and madness of a band of robbers; and exposing
      to their view gold chains, collars, and bracelets, the rewards of
      military virtue. From the event of a single combat they drew an
      omen of success; and they beheld with pleasure the courage of
      fifty archers, who maintained a small eminence against three
      successive attacks of the Gothic cavalry. At the distance only of
      two bow-shots, the armies spent the morning in dreadful suspense,
      and the Romans tasted some necessary food, without unloosing the
      cuirass from their breast, or the bridle from their horses.
      Narses awaited the charge; and it was delayed by Totila till he
      had received his last succors of two thousand Goths. While he
      consumed the hours in fruitless treaty, the king exhibited in a
      narrow space the strength and agility of a warrior. His armor was
      enchased with gold; his purple banner floated with the wind: he
      cast his lance into the air; caught it with the right hand;
      shifted it to the left; threw himself backwards; recovered his
      seat; and managed a fiery steed in all the paces and evolutions
      of the equestrian school. As soon as the succors had arrived, he
      retired to his tent, assumed the dress and arms of a private
      soldier, and gave the signal of a battle. The first line of
      cavalry advanced with more courage than discretion, and left
      behind them the infantry of the second line. They were soon
      engaged between the horns of a crescent, into which the adverse
      wings had been insensibly curved, and were saluted from either
      side by the volleys of four thousand archers. Their ardor, and
      even their distress, drove them forwards to a close and unequal
      conflict, in which they could only use their lances against an
      enemy equally skilled in all the instruments of war. A generous
      emulation inspired the Romans and their Barbarian allies; and
      Narses, who calmly viewed and directed their efforts, doubted to
      whom he should adjudge the prize of superior bravery. The Gothic
      cavalry was astonished and disordered, pressed and broken; and
      the line of infantry, instead of presenting their spears, or
      opening their intervals, were trampled under the feet of the
      flying horse. Six thousand of the Goths were slaughtered without
      mercy in the field of Tagina. Their prince, with five attendants,
      was overtaken by Asbad, of the race of the Gepidae. “Spare the
      king of Italy,” 3611 cried a loyal voice, and Asbad struck his
      lance through the body of Totila. The blow was instantly revenged
      by the faithful Goths: they transported their dying monarch seven
      miles beyond the scene of his disgrace; and his last moments were
      not imbittered by the presence of an enemy. Compassion afforded
      him the shelter of an obscure tomb; but the Romans were not
      satisfied of their victory, till they beheld the corpse of the
      Gothic king. His hat, enriched with gems, and his bloody robe,
      were presented to Justinian by the messengers of triumph. 37

      34 (return) [ The Flaminian way, as it is corrected from the
      Itineraries, and the best modern maps, by D’Anville, (Analyse de
      l’Italie, p. 147—162,) may be thus stated: Rome to Narni, 51
      Roman miles; Terni, 57; Spoleto, 75; Foligno, 88; Nocera, 103;
      Cagli, 142; Intercisa, 157; Fossombrone, 160; Fano, 176; Pesaro,
      184; Rimini, 208—about 189 English miles. He takes no notice of
      the death of Totila; but West selling (Itinerar. p. 614)
      exchanges, for the field of Taginas, the unknown appellation of
      Ptanias, eight miles from Nocera.]

      35 (return) [ Taginae, or rather Tadinae, is mentioned by Pliny;
      but the bishopric of that obscure town, a mile from Gualdo, in
      the plain, was united, in the year 1007, with that of Nocera. The
      signs of antiquity are preserved in the local appellations,
      Fossato, the camp; Capraia, Caprea; Bastia, Busta Gallorum. See
      Cluverius, (Italia Antiqua, l. ii. c. 6, p. 615, 616, 617,) Lucas
      Holstenius, (Annotat. ad Cluver. p. 85, 86,) Guazzesi,
      (Dissertat. p. 177—217, a professed inquiry,) and the maps of the
      ecclesiastical state and the march of Ancona, by Le Maire and
      Magini.]

      36 (return) [ The battle was fought in the year of Rome 458; and
      the consul Decius, by devoting his own life, assured the triumph
      of his country and his colleague Fabius, (T. Liv. x. 28, 29.)
      Procopius ascribes to Camillus the victory of the Busta Gallorum;
      and his error is branded by Cluverius with the national reproach
      of Graecorum nugamenta.]

      3611 (return) [ “Dog, wilt thou strike thy Lord?” was the more
      characteristic exclamation of the Gothic youth. Procop. lib. iv.
      p. 32.—M.]

      37 (return) [ Theophanes, Chron. p. 193. Hist. Miscell. l. xvi.
      p. 108.]

      As soon as Narses had paid his devotions to the Author of
      victory, and the blessed Virgin, his peculiar patroness, 38 he
      praised, rewarded, and dismissed the Lombards. The villages had
      been reduced to ashes by these valiant savages; they ravished
      matrons and virgins on the altar; their retreat was diligently
      watched by a strong detachment of regular forces, who prevented a
      repetition of the like disorders. The victorious eunuch pursued
      his march through Tuscany, accepted the submission of the Goths,
      heard the acclamations, and often the complaints, of the
      Italians, and encompassed the walls of Rome with the remainder of
      his formidable host. Round the wide circumference, Narses
      assigned to himself, and to each of his lieutenants, a real or a
      feigned attack, while he silently marked the place of easy and
      unguarded entrance. Neither the fortifications of Hadrian’s mole,
      nor of the port, could long delay the progress of the conqueror;
      and Justinian once more received the keys of Rome, which, under
      his reign, had been five times taken and recovered. 39 But the
      deliverance of Rome was the last calamity of the Roman people.
      The Barbarian allies of Narses too frequently confounded the
      privileges of peace and war. The despair of the flying Goths
      found some consolation in sanguinary revenge; and three hundred
      youths of the noblest families, who had been sent as hostages
      beyond the Po, were inhumanly slain by the successor of Totila.
      The fate of the senate suggests an awful lesson of the
      vicissitude of human affairs. Of the senators whom Totila had
      banished from their country, some were rescued by an officer of
      Belisarius, and transported from Campania to Sicily; while others
      were too guilty to confide in the clemency of Justinian, or too
      poor to provide horses for their escape to the sea-shore. Their
      brethren languished five years in a state of indigence and exile:
      the victory of Narses revived their hopes; but their premature
      return to the metropolis was prevented by the furious Goths; and
      all the fortresses of Campania were stained with patrician 40
      blood. After a period of thirteen centuries, the institution of
      Romulus expired; and if the nobles of Rome still assumed the
      title of senators, few subsequent traces can be discovered of a
      public council, or constitutional order. Ascend six hundred
      years, and contemplate the kings of the earth soliciting an
      audience, as the slaves or freedmen of the Roman senate! 41

      38 (return) [ Evagrius, l. iv. c. 24. The inspiration of the
      Virgin revealed to Narses the day, and the word, of battle, (Paul
      Diacon. l. ii. c. 3, p. 776)]

      39 (return) [ (Procop. Goth. lib. iv. p. 33.) In the year 536 by
      Belisarius, in 546 by Totila, in 547 by Belisarius, in 549 by
      Totila, and in 552 by Narses. Maltretus had inadvertently
      translated sextum; a mistake which he afterwards retracts; out
      the mischief was done; and Cousin, with a train of French and
      Latin readers, have fallen into the snare.]

      40 (return) [ Compare two passages of Procopius, (l. iii. c. 26,
      l. iv. c. 24,) which, with some collateral hints from Marcellinus
      and Jornandes, illustrate the state of the expiring senate.]

      41 (return) [ See, in the example of Prusias, as it is delivered
      in the fragments of Polybius, (Excerpt. Legat. xcvii. p. 927,
      928,) a curious picture of a royal slave.]

      The Gothic war was yet alive. The bravest of the nation retired
      beyond the Po; and Teias was unanimously chosen to succeed and
      revenge their departed hero. The new king immediately sent
      ambassadors to implore, or rather to purchase, the aid of the
      Franks, and nobly lavished, for the public safety, the riches
      which had been deposited in the palace of Pavia. The residue of
      the royal treasure was guarded by his brother Aligern, at Cumaea,
      in Campania; but the strong castle which Totila had fortified was
      closely besieged by the arms of Narses. From the Alps to the foot
      of Mount Vesuvius, the Gothic king, by rapid and secret marches,
      advanced to the relief of his brother, eluded the vigilance of
      the Roman chiefs, and pitched his camp on the banks of the Sarnus
      or Draco, 42 which flows from Nuceria into the Bay of Naples. The
      river separated the two armies: sixty days were consumed in
      distant and fruitless combats, and Teias maintained this
      important post till he was deserted by his fleet and the hope of
      subsistence. With reluctant steps he ascended the Lactarian
      mount, where the physicians of Rome, since the time of Galen, had
      sent their patients for the benefit of the air and the milk. 43
      But the Goths soon embraced a more generous resolution: to
      descend the hill, to dismiss their horses, and to die in arms,
      and in the possession of freedom. The king marched at their head,
      bearing in his right hand a lance, and an ample buckler in his
      left: with the one he struck dead the foremost of the assailants;
      with the other he received the weapons which every hand was
      ambitious to aim against his life. After a combat of many hours,
      his left arm was fatigued by the weight of twelve javelins which
      hung from his shield. Without moving from his ground, or
      suspending his blows, the hero called aloud on his attendants for
      a fresh buckler; but in the moment while his side was uncovered,
      it was pierced by a mortal dart. He fell; and his head, exalted
      on a spear, proclaimed to the nations that the Gothic kingdom was
      no more. But the example of his death served only to animate the
      companions who had sworn to perish with their leader. They fought
      till darkness descended on the earth. They reposed on their arms.
      The combat was renewed with the return of light, and maintained
      with unabated vigor till the evening of the second day. The
      repose of a second night, the want of water, and the loss of
      their bravest champions, determined the surviving Goths to accept
      the fair capitulation which the prudence of Narses was inclined
      to propose. They embraced the alternative of residing in Italy,
      as the subjects and soldiers of Justinian, or departing with a
      portion of their private wealth, in search of some independent
      country. 44 Yet the oath of fidelity or exile was alike rejected
      by one thousand Goths, who broke away before the treaty was
      signed, and boldly effected their retreat to the walls of Pavia.
      The spirit, as well as the situation, of Aligern prompted him to
      imitate rather than to bewail his brother: a strong and dexterous
      archer, he transpierced with a single arrow the armor and breast
      of his antagonist; and his military conduct defended Cumae 45
      above a year against the forces of the Romans.

      Their industry had scooped the Sibyl’s cave 46 into a prodigious
      mine; combustible materials were introduced to consume the
      temporary props: the wall and the gate of Cumae sunk into the
      cavern, but the ruins formed a deep and inaccessible precipice.
      On the fragment of a rock Aligern stood alone and unshaken, till
      he calmly surveyed the hopeless condition of his country, and
      judged it more honorable to be the friend of Narses, than the
      slave of the Franks. After the death of Teias, the Roman general
      separated his troops to reduce the cities of Italy; Lucca
      sustained a long and vigorous siege: and such was the humanity or
      the prudence of Narses, that the repeated perfidy of the
      inhabitants could not provoke him to exact the forfeit lives of
      their hostages. These hostages were dismissed in safety; and
      their grateful zeal at length subdued the obstinacy of their
      countrymen. 47

      42 (return) [ The item of Procopius (Goth. l. iv. c. 35) is
      evidently the Sarnus. The text is accused or altered by the rash
      violence of Cluverius (l. iv. c. 3. p. 1156:) but Camillo
      Pellegrini of Naples (Discorsi sopra la Campania Felice, p. 330,
      331) has proved from old records, that as early as the year 822
      that river was called the Dracontio, or Draconcello.]

      43 (return) [ Galen (de Method. Medendi, l. v. apud Cluver. l.
      iv. c. 3, p. 1159, 1160) describes the lofty site, pure air, and
      rich milk, of Mount Lactarius, whose medicinal benefits were
      equally known and sought in the time of Symmachus (l. vi. epist.
      18) and Cassiodorus, (Var. xi. 10.) Nothing is now left except
      the name of the town of Lettere.]

      44 (return) [ Buat (tom. xi. p. 2, &c.) conveys to his favorite
      Bavaria this remnant of Goths, who by others are buried in the
      mountains of Uri, or restored to their native isle of Gothland,
      (Mascou, Annot. xxi.)]

      45 (return) [ I leave Scaliger (Animadvers. in Euseb. p. 59) and
      Salmasius (Exercitat. Plinian. p. 51, 52) to quarrel about the
      origin of Cumae, the oldest of the Greek colonies in Italy,
      (Strab. l. v. p. 372, Velleius Paterculus, l. i. c. 4,) already
      vacant in Juvenal’s time, (Satir. iii.,) and now in ruins.]

      46 (return) [ Agathias (l. i. c. 21) settles the Sibyl’s cave
      under the wall of Cumae: he agrees with Servius, (ad. l. vi.
      Aeneid.;) nor can I perceive why their opinion should be rejected
      by Heyne, the excellent editor of Virgil, (tom. ii. p. 650, 651.)
      In urbe media secreta religio! But Cumae was not yet built; and
      the lines (l. vi. 96, 97) would become ridiculous, if Aeneas were
      actually in a Greek city.]

      47 (return) [ There is some difficulty in connecting the 35th
      chapter of the fourth book of the Gothic war of Procopius with
      the first book of the history of Agathias. We must now relinquish
      the statesman and soldier, to attend the footsteps of a poet and
      rhetorician, (l. i. p. 11, l. ii. p. 51, edit. Lonvre.)]

      Before Lucca had surrendered, Italy was overwhelmed by a new
      deluge of Barbarians. A feeble youth, the grandson of Clovis,
      reigned over the Austrasians or oriental Franks. The guardians of
      Theodebald entertained with coldness and reluctance the
      magnificent promises of the Gothic ambassadors. But the spirit of
      a martial people outstripped the timid counsels of the court: two
      brothers, Lothaire and Buccelin, 48 the dukes of the Alemanni,
      stood forth as the leaders of the Italian war; and seventy-five
      thousand Germans descended in the autumn from the Rhaetian Alps
      into the plain of Milan. The vanguard of the Roman army was
      stationed near the Po, under the conduct of Fulcaris, a bold
      Herulian, who rashly conceived that personal bravery was the sole
      duty and merit of a commander. As he marched without order or
      precaution along the Aemilian way, an ambuscade of Franks
      suddenly rose from the amphitheatre of Parma; his troops were
      surprised and routed; but their leader refused to fly; declaring
      to the last moment, that death was less terrible than the angry
      countenance of Narses. 4811 The death of Fulcaris, and the
      retreat of the surviving chiefs, decided the fluctuating and
      rebellious temper of the Goths; they flew to the standard of
      their deliverers, and admitted them into the cities which still
      resisted the arms of the Roman general. The conqueror of Italy
      opened a free passage to the irresistible torrent of Barbarians.
      They passed under the walls of Cesena, and answered by threats
      and reproaches the advice of Aligern, 4812 that the Gothic
      treasures could no longer repay the labor of an invasion. Two
      thousand Franks were destroyed by the skill and valor of Narses
      himself, who sailed from Rimini at the head of three hundred
      horse, to chastise the licentious rapine of their march. On the
      confines of Samnium the two brothers divided their forces. With
      the right wing, Buccelin assumed the spoil of Campania, Lucania,
      and Bruttium; with the left, Lothaire accepted the plunder of
      Apulia and Calabria. They followed the coast of the Mediterranean
      and the Adriatic, as far as Rhegium and Otranto, and the extreme
      lands of Italy were the term of their destructive progress. The
      Franks, who were Christians and Catholics, contented themselves
      with simple pillage and occasional murder. But the churches which
      their piety had spared, were stripped by the sacrilegious hands
      of the Alamanni, who sacrificed horses’ heads to their native
      deities of the woods and rivers; 49 they melted or profaned the
      consecrated vessels, and the ruins of shrines and altars were
      stained with the blood of the faithful. Buccelin was actuated by
      ambition, and Lothaire by avarice. The former aspired to restore
      the Gothic kingdom; the latter, after a promise to his brother of
      speedy succors, returned by the same road to deposit his treasure
      beyond the Alps. The strength of their armies was already wasted
      by the change of climate and contagion of disease: the Germans
      revelled in the vintage of Italy; and their own intemperance
      avenged, in some degree, the miseries of a defenceless people.
      4911

      48 (return) [ Among the fabulous exploits of Buccelin, he
      discomfited and slew Belisarius, subdued Italy and Sicily, &c.
      See in the Historians of France, Gregory of Tours, (tom. ii. l.
      iii. c. 32, p. 203,) and Aimoin, (tom. iii. l. ii. de Gestis
      Francorum, c. 23, p. 59.)]

      4811 (return) [.... Agathius.]

      4812 (return) [ Aligern, after the surrender of Cumae, had been
      sent to Cesent by Narses. Agathias.—M.]

      49 (return) [ Agathias notices their superstition in a
      philosophic tone, (l. i. p. 18.) At Zug, in Switzerland, idolatry
      still prevailed in the year 613: St. Columban and St. Gaul were
      the apostles of that rude country; and the latter founded a
      hermitage, which has swelled into an ecclesiastical principality
      and a populous city, the seat of freedom and commerce.]

      4911 (return) [ A body of Lothaire’s troops was defeated near
      Fano, some were driven down precipices into the sea, others fled
      to the camp; many prisoners seized the opportunity of making
      their escape; and the Barbarians lost most of their booty in
      their precipitate retreat. Agathias.—M.]

      At the entrance of the spring, the Imperial troops, who had
      guarded the cities, assembled, to the number of eighteen thousand
      men, in the neighborhood of Rome. Their winter hours had not been
      consumed in idleness. By the command, and after the example, of
      Narses, they repeated each day their military exercise on foot
      and on horseback, accustomed their ear to obey the sound of the
      trumpet, and practised the steps and evolutions of the Pyrrhic
      dance. From the Straits of Sicily, Buccelin, with thirty thousand
      Franks and Alamanni, slowly moved towards Capua, occupied with a
      wooden tower the bridge of Casilinum, covered his right by the
      stream of the Vulturnus, and secured the rest of his encampment
      by a rampart of sharp stakes, and a circle of wagons, whose
      wheels were buried in the earth. He impatiently expected the
      return of Lothaire; ignorant, alas! that his brother could never
      return, and that the chief and his army had been swept away by a
      strange disease 50 on the banks of the Lake Benacus, between
      Trent and Verona. The banners of Narses soon approached the
      Vulturnus, and the eyes of Italy were anxiously fixed on the
      event of this final contest. Perhaps the talents of the Roman
      general were most conspicuous in the calm operations which
      precede the tumult of a battle. His skilful movements intercepted
      the subsistence of the Barbarian, deprived him of the advantage
      of the bridge and river, and in the choice of the ground and
      moment of action reduced him to comply with the inclination of
      his enemy. On the morning of the important day, when the ranks
      were already formed, a servant, for some trivial fault, was
      killed by his master, one of the leaders of the Heruli. The
      justice or passion of Narses was awakened: he summoned the
      offender to his presence, and without listening to his excuses,
      gave the signal to the minister of death. If the cruel master had
      not infringed the laws of his nation, this arbitrary execution
      was not less unjust than it appears to have been imprudent. The
      Heruli felt the indignity; they halted: but the Roman general,
      without soothing their rage, or expecting their resolution,
      called aloud, as the trumpets sounded, that unless they hastened
      to occupy their place, they would lose the honor of the victory.
      His troops were disposed 51 in a long front, the cavalry on the
      wings; in the centre, the heavy-armed foot; the archers and
      slingers in the rear. The Germans advanced in a sharp-pointed
      column, of the form of a triangle or solid wedge. They pierced
      the feeble centre of Narses, who received them with a smile into
      the fatal snare, and directed his wings of cavalry insensibly to
      wheel on their flanks and encompass their rear. The host of the
      Franks and Alamanni consisted of infantry: a sword and buckler
      hung by their side; and they used, as their weapons of offence, a
      weighty hatchet and a hooked javelin, which were only formidable
      in close combat, or at a short distance. The flower of the Roman
      archers, on horseback, and in complete armor, skirmished without
      peril round this immovable phalanx; supplied by active speed the
      deficiency of number; and aimed their arrows against a crowd of
      Barbarians, who, instead of a cuirass and helmet, were covered by
      a loose garment of fur or linen. They paused, they trembled,
      their ranks were confounded, and in the decisive moment the
      Heruli, preferring glory to revenge, charged with rapid violence
      the head of the column. Their leader, Sinbal, and Aligern, the
      Gothic prince, deserved the prize of superior valor; and their
      example excited the victorious troops to achieve with swords and
      spears the destruction of the enemy. Buccelin, and the greatest
      part of his army, perished on the field of battle, in the waters
      of the Vulturnus, or by the hands of the enraged peasants: but it
      may seem incredible, that a victory, 52 which no more than five
      of the Alamanni survived, could be purchased with the loss of
      fourscore Romans. Seven thousand Goths, the relics of the war,
      defended the fortress of Campsa till the ensuing spring; and
      every messenger of Narses announced the reduction of the Italian
      cities, whose names were corrupted by the ignorance or vanity of
      the Greeks. 53 After the battle of Casilinum, Narses entered the
      capital; the arms and treasures of the Goths, the Franks, and the
      Alamanni, were displayed; his soldiers, with garlands in their
      hands, chanted the praises of the conqueror; and Rome, for the
      last time, beheld the semblance of a triumph.

      50 (return) [ See the death of Lothaire in Agathias (l. ii. p.
      38) and Paul Warnefrid, surnamed Diaconus, (l. ii. c. 3, 775.)
      The Greek makes him rave and tear his flesh. He had plundered
      churches.]

      51 (return) [ Pere Daniel (Hist. de la Milice Francoise, tom. i.
      p. 17—21) has exhibited a fanciful representation of this battle,
      somewhat in the manner of the Chevalier Folard, the once famous
      editor of Polybius, who fashioned to his own habits and opinions
      all the military operations of antiquity.]

      52 (return) [ Agathias (l. ii. p. 47) has produced a Greek
      epigram of six lines on this victory of Narses, which a favorably
      compared to the battles of Marathon and Plataea. The chief
      difference is indeed in their consequences—so trivial in the
      former instance—so permanent and glorious in the latter. Note:
      Not in the epigram, but in the previous observations—M.]

      53 (return) [ The Beroia and Brincas of Theophanes or his
      transcriber (p. 201) must be read or understood Verona and
      Brixia.]

      After a reign of sixty years, the throne of the Gothic kings was
      filled by the exarchs of Ravenna, the representatives in peace
      and war of the emperor of the Romans. Their jurisdiction was soon
      reduced to the limits of a narrow province: but Narses himself,
      the first and most powerful of the exarchs, administered above
      fifteen years the entire kingdom of Italy. Like Belisarius, he
      had deserved the honors of envy, calumny, and disgrace: but the
      favorite eunuch still enjoyed the confidence of Justinian; or the
      leader of a victorious army awed and repressed the ingratitude of
      a timid court. Yet it was not by weak and mischievous indulgence
      that Narses secured the attachment of his troops. Forgetful of
      the past, and regardless of the future, they abused the present
      hour of prosperity and peace. The cities of Italy resounded with
      the noise of drinking and dancing; the spoils of victory were
      wasted in sensual pleasures; and nothing (says Agathias) remained
      unless to exchange their shields and helmets for the soft lute
      and the capacious hogshead. 54 In a manly oration, not unworthy
      of a Roman censor, the eunuch reproved these disorderly vices,
      which sullied their fame, and endangered their safety. The
      soldiers blushed and obeyed; discipline was confirmed; the
      fortifications were restored; a duke was stationed for the
      defence and military command of each of the principal cities; 55
      and the eye of Narses pervaded the ample prospect from Calabria
      to the Alps. The remains of the Gothic nation evacuated the
      country, or mingled with the people; the Franks, instead of
      revenging the death of Buccelin, abandoned, without a struggle,
      their Italian conquests; and the rebellious Sinbal, chief of the
      Heruli, was subdued, taken and hung on a lofty gallows by the
      inflexible justice of the exarch. 56 The civil state of Italy,
      after the agitation of a long tempest, was fixed by a pragmatic
      sanction, which the emperor promulgated at the request of the
      pope. Justinian introduced his own jurisprudence into the schools
      and tribunals of the West; he ratified the acts of Theodoric and
      his immediate successors, but every deed was rescinded and
      abolished which force had extorted, or fear had subscribed, under
      the usurpation of Totila. A moderate theory was framed to
      reconcile the rights of property with the safety of prescription,
      the claims of the state with the poverty of the people, and the
      pardon of offences with the interest of virtue and order of
      society. Under the exarchs of Ravenna, Rome was degraded to the
      second rank. Yet the senators were gratified by the permission of
      visiting their estates in Italy, and of approaching, without
      obstacle, the throne of Constantinople: the regulation of weights
      and measures was delegated to the pope and senate; and the
      salaries of lawyers and physicians, of orators and grammarians,
      were destined to preserve, or rekindle, the light of science in
      the ancient capital. Justinian might dictate benevolent edicts,
      57 and Narses might second his wishes by the restoration of
      cities, and more especially of churches. But the power of kings
      is most effectual to destroy; and the twenty years of the Gothic
      war had consummated the distress and depopulation of Italy. As
      early as the fourth campaign, under the discipline of Belisarius
      himself, fifty thousand laborers died of hunger 58 in the narrow
      region of Picenum; 59 and a strict interpretation of the evidence
      of Procopius would swell the loss of Italy above the total sum of
      her present inhabitants. 60

      54 (return) [ (Agathias, l. ii. p. 48.) In the first scene of
      Richard III. our English poet has beautifully enlarged on this
      idea, for which, however, he was not indebted to the Byzantine
      historian.]

      55 (return) [ Maffei has proved, (Verona Illustrata. P. i. l. x.
      p. 257, 289,) against the common opinion, that the dukes of Italy
      were instituted before the conquest of the Lombards, by Narses
      himself. In the Pragmatic Sanction, (No. 23,) Justinian restrains
      the judices militares.]

      56 (return) [ See Paulus Diaconus, liii. c. 2, p. 776. Menander
      in (Excerp Legat. p. 133) mentions some risings in Italy by the
      Franks, and Theophanes (p. 201) hints at some Gothic rebellions.]

      57 (return) [ The Pragmatic Sanction of Justinian, which restores
      and regulates the civil state of Italy, consists of xxvii.
      articles: it is dated August 15, A.D. 554; is addressed to
      Narses, V. J. Praepositus Sacri Cubiculi, and to Antiochus,
      Praefectus Praetorio Italiae; and has been preserved by Julian
      Antecessor, and in the Corpus Juris Civilis, after the novels and
      edicts of Justinian, Justin, and Tiberius.]

      58 (return) [ A still greater number was consumed by famine in
      the southern provinces, without the Ionian Gulf. Acorns were used
      in the place of bread. Procopius had seen a deserted orphan
      suckled by a she-goat. Seventeen passengers were lodged,
      murdered, and eaten, by two women, who were detected and slain by
      the eighteenth, &c. * Note: Denina considers that greater evil
      was inflicted upon Italy by the Urocian conquest than by any
      other invasion. Reveluz. d’ Italia, t. i. l. v. p. 247.—M.]

      59 (return) [ Quinta regio Piceni est; quondam uberrimae
      multitudinis, ccclx. millia Picentium in fidem P. R. venere,
      (Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 18.) In the time of Vespasian, this
      ancient population was already diminished.]

      60 (return) [ Perhaps fifteen or sixteen millions. Procopius
      (Anecdot. c. 18) computes that Africa lost five millions, that
      Italy was thrice as extensive, and that the depopulation was in a
      larger proportion. But his reckoning is inflamed by passion, and
      clouded with uncertainty.]

      I desire to believe, but I dare not affirm, that Belisarius
      sincerely rejoiced in the triumph of Narses. Yet the
      consciousness of his own exploits might teach him to esteem
      without jealousy the merit of a rival; and the repose of the aged
      warrior was crowned by a last victory, which saved the emperor
      and the capital. The Barbarians, who annually visited the
      provinces of Europe, were less discouraged by some accidental
      defeats, than they were excited by the double hope of spoil and
      of subsidy. In the thirty-second winter of Justinian’s reign, the
      Danube was deeply frozen: Zabergan led the cavalry of the
      Bulgarians, and his standard was followed by a promiscuous
      multitude of Sclavonians. 6011 The savage chief passed, without
      opposition, the river and the mountains, spread his troops over
      Macedonia and Thrace, and advanced with no more than seven
      thousand horse to the long wall, which should have defended the
      territory of Constantinople. But the works of man are impotent
      against the assaults of nature: a recent earthquake had shaken
      the foundations of the wall; and the forces of the empire were
      employed on the distant frontiers of Italy, Africa, and Persia.
      The seven schools, 61 or companies of the guards or domestic
      troops, had been augmented to the number of five thousand five
      hundred men, whose ordinary station was in the peaceful cities of
      Asia. But the places of the brave Armenians were insensibly
      supplied by lazy citizens, who purchased an exemption from the
      duties of civil life, without being exposed to the dangers of
      military service. Of such soldiers, few could be tempted to sally
      from the gates; and none could be persuaded to remain in the
      field, unless they wanted strength and speed to escape from the
      Bulgarians. The report of the fugitives exaggerated the numbers
      and fierceness of an enemy, who had polluted holy virgins, and
      abandoned new-born infants to the dogs and vultures; a crowd of
      rustics, imploring food and protection, increased the
      consternation of the city, and the tents of Zabergan were pitched
      at the distance of twenty miles, 62 on the banks of a small
      river, which encircles Melanthias, and afterwards falls into the
      Propontis. 63 Justinian trembled: and those who had only seen the
      emperor in his old age, were pleased to suppose, that he had lost
      the alacrity and vigor of his youth. By his command the vessels
      of gold and silver were removed from the churches in the
      neighborhood, and even the suburbs, of Constantinople; the
      ramparts were lined with trembling spectators; the golden gate
      was crowded with useless generals and tribunes, and the senate
      shared the fatigues and the apprehensions of the populace.

      6011 (return) [ Zabergan was king of the Cutrigours, a tribe of
      Huns, who were neither Bulgarians nor Sclavonians. St. Martin,
      vol. ix. p. 408—420.—M]

      61 (return) [ In the decay of these military schools, the satire
      of Procopius (Anecdot. c. 24, Aleman. p. 102, 103) is confirmed
      and illustrated by Agathias, (l. v. p. 159,) who cannot be
      rejected as a hostile witness.]

      62 (return) [ The distance from Constantinople to Melanthias,
      Villa Caesariana, (Ammian. Marcellin. xxx. 11,) is variously
      fixed at 102 or 140 stadia, (Suidas, tom. ii. p. 522, 523.
      Agathias, l. v. p. 158,) or xviii. or xix. miles, (Itineraria, p.
      138, 230, 323, 332, and Wesseling’s Observations.) The first xii.
      miles, as far as Rhegium, were paved by Justinian, who built a
      bridge over a morass or gullet between a lake and the sea,
      (Procop. de Edif. l. iv. c. 8.)]

      63 (return) [ The Atyras, (Pompon. Mela, l. ii. c. 2, p. 169,
      edit. Voss.) At the river’s mouth, a town or castle of the same
      name was fortified by Justinian, (Procop. de Edif. l. iv. c. 2.
      Itinerar. p. 570, and Wesseling.)]

      But the eyes of the prince and people were directed to a feeble
      veteran, who was compelled by the public danger to resume the
      armor in which he had entered Carthage and defended Rome. The
      horses of the royal stables, of private citizens, and even of the
      circus, were hastily collected; the emulation of the old and
      young was roused by the name of Belisarius, and his first
      encampment was in the presence of a victorious enemy. His
      prudence, and the labor of the friendly peasants, secured, with a
      ditch and rampart, the repose of the night; innumerable fires,
      and clouds of dust, were artfully contrived to magnify the
      opinion of his strength; his soldiers suddenly passed from
      despondency to presumption; and, while ten thousand voices
      demanded the battle, Belisarius dissembled his knowledge, that in
      the hour of trial he must depend on the firmness of three hundred
      veterans. The next morning the Bulgarian cavalry advanced to the
      charge. But they heard the shouts of multitudes, they beheld the
      arms and discipline of the front; they were assaulted on the
      flanks by two ambuscades which rose from the woods; their
      foremost warriors fell by the hand of the aged hero and his
      guards; and the swiftness of their evolutions was rendered
      useless by the close attack and rapid pursuit of the Romans. In
      this action (so speedy was their flight) the Bulgarians lost only
      four hundred horse; but Constantinople was saved; and Zabergan,
      who felt the hand of a master, withdrew to a respectful distance.
      But his friends were numerous in the councils of the emperor, and
      Belisarius obeyed with reluctance the commands of envy and
      Justinian, which forbade him to achieve the deliverance of his
      country. On his return to the city, the people, still conscious
      of their danger, accompanied his triumph with acclamations of joy
      and gratitude, which were imputed as a crime to the victorious
      general. But when he entered the palace, the courtiers were
      silent, and the emperor, after a cold and thankless embrace,
      dismissed him to mingle with the train of slaves. Yet so deep was
      the impression of his glory on the minds of men, that Justinian,
      in the seventy-seventh year of his age, was encouraged to advance
      near forty miles from the capital, and to inspect in person the
      restoration of the long wall. The Bulgarians wasted the summer in
      the plains of Thrace; but they were inclined to peace by the
      failure of their rash attempts on Greece and the Chersonesus. A
      menace of killing their prisoners quickened the payment of heavy
      ransoms; and the departure of Zabergan was hastened by the
      report, that double-prowed vessels were built on the Danube to
      intercept his passage. The danger was soon forgotten; and a vain
      question, whether their sovereign had shown more wisdom or
      weakness, amused the idleness of the city. 64

      64 (return) [ The Bulgarian war, and the last victory of
      Belisarius, are imperfectly represented in the prolix declamation
      of Agathias. (l. 5, p. 154-174,) and the dry Chronicle of
      Theophanes, (p. 197 198.)]




      Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of
      Justinian.—Part IV.

      About two years after the last victory of Belisarius, the emperor
      returned from a Thracian journey of health, or business, or
      devotion. Justinian was afflicted by a pain in his head; and his
      private entry countenanced the rumor of his death. Before the
      third hour of the day, the bakers’ shops were plundered of their
      bread, the houses were shut, and every citizen, with hope or
      terror, prepared for the impending tumult. The senators
      themselves, fearful and suspicious, were convened at the ninth
      hour; and the praefect received their commands to visit every
      quarter of the city, and proclaim a general illumination for the
      recovery of the emperor’s health. The ferment subsided; but every
      accident betrayed the impotence of the government, and the
      factious temper of the people: the guards were disposed to mutiny
      as often as their quarters were changed, or their pay was
      withheld: the frequent calamities of fires and earthquakes
      afforded the opportunities of disorder; the disputes of the blues
      and greens, of the orthodox and heretics, degenerated into bloody
      battles; and, in the presence of the Persian ambassador,
      Justinian blushed for himself and for his subjects. Capricious
      pardon and arbitrary punishment imbittered the irksomeness and
      discontent of a long reign: a conspiracy was formed in the
      palace; and, unless we are deceived by the names of Marcellus and
      Sergius, the most virtuous and the most profligate of the
      courtiers were associated in the same designs. They had fixed the
      time of the execution; their rank gave them access to the royal
      banquet; and their black slaves 65 were stationed in the
      vestibule and porticos, to announce the death of the tyrant, and
      to excite a sedition in the capital. But the indiscretion of an
      accomplice saved the poor remnant of the days of Justinian. The
      conspirators were detected and seized, with daggers hidden under
      their garments: Marcellus died by his own hand, and Sergius was
      dragged from the sanctuary. 66 Pressed by remorse, or tempted by
      the hopes of safety, he accused two officers of the household of
      Belisarius; and torture forced them to declare that they had
      acted according to the secret instructions of their patron. 67
      Posterity will not hastily believe that a hero who, in the vigor
      of life, had disdained the fairest offers of ambition and
      revenge, should stoop to the murder of his prince, whom he could
      not long expect to survive. His followers were impatient to fly;
      but flight must have been supported by rebellion, and he had
      lived enough for nature and for glory. Belisarius appeared before
      the council with less fear than indignation: after forty years’
      service, the emperor had prejudged his guilt; and injustice was
      sanctified by the presence and authority of the patriarch. The
      life of Belisarius was graciously spared; but his fortunes were
      sequestered, and, from December to July, he was guarded as a
      prisoner in his own palace. At length his innocence was
      acknowledged; his freedom and honor were restored; and death,
      which might be hastened by resentment and grief, removed him from
      the world in about eight months after his deliverance. The name
      of Belisarius can never die but instead of the funeral, the
      monuments, the statues, so justly due to his memory, I only read,
      that his treasures, the spoil of the Goths and Vandals, were
      immediately confiscated by the emperor. Some decent portion was
      reserved, however for the use of his widow: and as Antonina had
      much to repent, she devoted the last remains of her life and
      fortune to the foundation of a convent. Such is the simple and
      genuine narrative of the fall of Belisarius and the ingratitude
      of Justinian. 68 That he was deprived of his eyes, and reduced by
      envy to beg his bread, 6811 “Give a penny to Belisarius the
      general!” is a fiction of later times, 69 which has obtained
      credit, or rather favor, as a strange example of the vicissitudes
      of fortune. 70

      65 (return) [ They could scarcely be real Indians; and the
      Aethiopians, sometimes known by that name, were never used by the
      ancients as guards or followers: they were the trifling, though
      costly objects of female and royal luxury, (Terent. Eunuch. act.
      i. scene ii Sueton. in August. c. 83, with a good note of
      Casaubon, in Caligula, c. 57.)]

      66 (return) [ The Sergius (Vandal. l. ii. c. 21, 22, Anecdot. c.
      5) and Marcellus (Goth. l. iii. c. 32) are mentioned by
      Procopius. See Theophanes, p. 197, 201. * Note: Some words, “the
      acts of,” or “the crimes cf,” appear to have false from the text.
      The omission is in all the editions I have consulted.—M.]

      67 (return) [ Alemannus, (p. quotes an old Byzantian Ms., which
      has been printed in the Imperium Orientale of Banduri.)]

      68 (return) [ Of the disgrace and restoration of Belisarius, the
      genuine original record is preserved in the Fragment of John
      Malala (tom. ii. p. 234—243) and the exact Chronicle of
      Theophanes, (p. 194—204.) Cedrenus (Compend. p. 387, 388) and
      Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 69) seem to hesitate between the
      obsolete truth and the growing falsehood.]

      6811 (return) [ Le Beau, following Allemannus, conceives that
      Belisarius was confounded with John of Cappadocia, who was thus
      reduced to beggary, (vol. ix. p. 58, 449.) Lord Mahon has, with
      considerable learning, and on the authority of a yet unquoted
      writer of the eleventh century, endeavored to reestablish the old
      tradition. I cannot acknowledge that I have been convinced, and
      am inclined to subscribe to the theory of Le Beau.—M.]

      69 (return) [ The source of this idle fable may be derived from a
      miscellaneous work of the xiith century, the Chiliads of John
      Tzetzes, a monk, (Basil. 1546, ad calcem Lycophront. Colon.
      Allobrog. 1614, in Corp. Poet. Graec.) He relates the blindness
      and beggary of Belisarius in ten vulgar or political verses,
      (Chiliad iii. No. 88, 339—348, in Corp. Poet. Graec. tom. ii. p.
      311.) This moral or romantic tale was imported into Italy with
      the language and manuscripts of Greece; repeated before the end
      of the xvth century by Crinitus, Pontanus, and Volaterranus,
      attacked by Alciat, for the honor of the law; and defended by
      Baronius, (A.D. 561, No. 2, &c.,) for the honor of the church.
      Yet Tzetzes himself had read in other chronicles, that Belisarius
      did not lose his sight, and that he recovered his fame and
      fortunes. * Note: I know not where Gibbon found Tzetzes to be a
      monk; I suppose he considered his bad verses a proof of his
      monachism. Compare to Gerbelius in Kiesling’s edition of
      Tzetzes.—M.]

      70 (return) [ The statue in the villa Borghese at Rome, in a
      sitting posture, with an open hand, which is vulgarly given to
      Belisarius, may be ascribed with more dignity to Augustus in the
      act of propitiating Nemesis, (Winckelman, Hist. de l’Art, tom.
      iii. p. 266.) Ex nocturno visu etiam stipem, quotannis, die
      certo, emendicabat a populo, cavana manum asses porrigentibus
      praebens, (Sueton. in August. c. 91, with an excellent note of
      Casaubon.) * Note: Lord Mahon abandons the statue, as altogether
      irreconcilable with the state of the arts at this period, (p.
      472.)—M.]

      If the emperor could rejoice in the death of Belisarius, he
      enjoyed the base satisfaction only eight months, the last period
      of a reign of thirty-eight years, and a life of eighty-three
      years. It would be difficult to trace the character of a prince
      who is not the most conspicuous object of his own times: but the
      confessions of an enemy may be received as the safest evidence of
      his virtues. The resemblance of Justinian to the bust of
      Domitian, is maliciously urged; 71 with the acknowledgment,
      however, of a well-proportioned figure, a ruddy complexion, and a
      pleasing countenance. The emperor was easy of access, patient of
      hearing, courteous and affable in discourse, and a master of the
      angry passions which rage with such destructive violence in the
      breast of a despot. Procopius praises his temper, to reproach him
      with calm and deliberate cruelty: but in the conspiracies which
      attacked his authority and person, a more candid judge will
      approve the justice, or admire the clemency, of Justinian. He
      excelled in the private virtues of chastity and temperance: but
      the impartial love of beauty would have been less mischievous
      than his conjugal tenderness for Theodora; and his abstemious
      diet was regulated, not by the prudence of a philosopher, but the
      superstition of a monk. His repasts were short and frugal: on
      solemn fasts, he contented himself with water and vegetables; and
      such was his strength, as well as fervor, that he frequently
      passed two days, and as many nights, without tasting any food.
      The measure of his sleep was not less rigorous: after the repose
      of a single hour, the body was awakened by the soul, and, to the
      astonishment of his chamberlain, Justinian walked or studied till
      the morning light. Such restless application prolonged his time
      for the acquisition of knowledge 72 and the despatch of business;
      and he might seriously deserve the reproach of confounding, by
      minute and preposterous diligence, the general order of his
      administration. The emperor professed himself a musician and
      architect, a poet and philosopher, a lawyer and theologian; and
      if he failed in the enterprise of reconciling the Christian
      sects, the review of the Roman jurisprudence is a noble monument
      of his spirit and industry. In the government of the empire, he
      was less wise, or less successful: the age was unfortunate; the
      people was oppressed and discontented; Theodora abused her power;
      a succession of bad ministers disgraced his judgment; and
      Justinian was neither beloved in his life, nor regretted at his
      death. The love of fame was deeply implanted in his breast, but
      he condescended to the poor ambition of titles, honors, and
      contemporary praise; and while he labored to fix the admiration,
      he forfeited the esteem and affection, of the Romans.

      The design of the African and Italian wars was boldly conceived
      and executed; and his penetration discovered the talents of
      Belisarius in the camp, of Narses in the palace. But the name of
      the emperor is eclipsed by the names of his victorious generals;
      and Belisarius still lives, to upbraid the envy and ingratitude
      of his sovereign. The partial favor of mankind applauds the
      genius of a conqueror, who leads and directs his subjects in the
      exercise of arms. The characters of Philip the Second and of
      Justinian are distinguished by the cold ambition which delights
      in war, and declines the dangers of the field. Yet a colossal
      statue of bronze represented the emperor on horseback, preparing
      to march against the Persians in the habit and armor of Achilles.
      In the great square before the church of St. Sophia, this
      monument was raised on a brass column and a stone pedestal of
      seven steps; and the pillar of Theodosius, which weighed seven
      thousand four hundred pounds of silver, was removed from the same
      place by the avarice and vanity of Justinian. Future princes were
      more just or indulgent to his memory; the elder Andronicus, in
      the beginning of the fourteenth century, repaired and beautified
      his equestrian statue: since the fall of the empire it has been
      melted into cannon by the victorious Turks. 73

      71 (return) [ The rubor of Domitian is stigmatized, quaintly
      enough, by the pen of Tacitus, (in Vit. Agricol. c. 45;) and has
      been likewise noticed by the younger Pliny, (Panegyr. c. 48,) and
      Suetonius, (in Domitian, c. 18, and Casaubon ad locum.) Procopius
      (Anecdot. c. 8) foolishly believes that only one bust of Domitian
      had reached the vith century.]

      72 (return) [ The studies and science of Justinian are attested
      by the confession (Anecdot. c. 8, 13) still more than by the
      praises (Gothic. l. iii. c. 31, de Edific. l. i. Proem. c. 7) of
      Procopius. Consult the copious index of Alemannus, and read the
      life of Justinian by Ludewig, (p. 135—142.)]

      73 (return) [ See in the C. P. Christiana of Ducange (l. i. c.
      24, No. 1) a chain of original testimonies, from Procopius in the
      vith, to Gyllius in the xvith century.]

      I shall conclude this chapter with the comets, the earthquakes,
      and the plague, which astonished or afflicted the age of
      Justinian. I. In the fifth year of his reign, and in the month of
      September, a comet 74 was seen during twenty days in the western
      quarter of the heavens, and which shot its rays into the north.
      Eight years afterwards, while the sun was in Capricorn, another
      comet appeared to follow in the Sagittary; the size was gradually
      increasing; the head was in the east, the tail in the west, and
      it remained visible above forty days. The nations, who gazed with
      astonishment, expected wars and calamities from their baleful
      influence; and these expectations were abundantly fulfilled. The
      astronomers dissembled their ignorance of the nature of these
      blazing stars, which they affected to represent as the floating
      meteors of the air; and few among them embraced the simple notion
      of Seneca and the Chaldeans, that they are only planets of a
      longer period and more eccentric motion. 75 Time and science have
      justified the conjectures and predictions of the Roman sage: the
      telescope has opened new worlds to the eyes of astronomers; 76
      and, in the narrow space of history and fable, one and the same
      comet is already found to have revisited the earth in seven equal
      revolutions of five hundred and seventy-five years. The first, 77
      which ascends beyond the Christian aera one thousand seven
      hundred and sixty-seven years, is coeval with Ogyges, the father
      of Grecian antiquity. And this appearance explains the tradition
      which Varro has preserved, that under his reign the planet Venus
      changed her color, size, figure, and course; a prodigy without
      example either in past or succeeding ages. 78 The second visit,
      in the year eleven hundred and ninety-three, is darkly implied in
      the fable of Electra, the seventh of the Pleiads, who have been
      reduced to six since the time of the Trojan war. That nymph, the
      wife of Dardanus, was unable to support the ruin of her country:
      she abandoned the dances of her sister orbs, fled from the zodiac
      to the north pole, and obtained, from her dishevelled locks, the
      name of the comet. The third period expires in the year six
      hundred and eighteen, a date that exactly agrees with the
      tremendous comet of the Sibyl, and perhaps of Pliny, which arose
      in the West two generations before the reign of Cyrus. The fourth
      apparition, forty-four years before the birth of Christ, is of
      all others the most splendid and important. After the death of
      Caesar, a long-haired star was conspicuous to Rome and to the
      nations, during the games which were exhibited by young Octavian
      in honor of Venus and his uncle. The vulgar opinion, that it
      conveyed to heaven the divine soul of the dictator, was cherished
      and consecrated by the piety of a statesman; while his secret
      superstition referred the comet to the glory of his own times. 79
      The fifth visit has been already ascribed to the fifth year of
      Justinian, which coincides with the five hundred and thirty-first
      of the Christian aera. And it may deserve notice, that in this,
      as in the preceding instance, the comet was followed, though at a
      longer interval, by a remarkable paleness of the sun. The sixth
      return, in the year eleven hundred and six, is recorded by the
      chronicles of Europe and China: and in the first fervor of the
      crusades, the Christians and the Mahometans might surmise, with
      equal reason, that it portended the destruction of the Infidels.
      The seventh phenomenon, of one thousand six hundred and eighty,
      was presented to the eyes of an enlightened age. 80 The
      philosophy of Bayle dispelled a prejudice which Milton’s muse had
      so recently adorned, that the comet, “from its horrid hair shakes
      pestilence and war.” 81 Its road in the heavens was observed with
      exquisite skill by Flamstead and Cassini: and the mathematical
      science of Bernoulli, Newton 8111, and Halley, investigated the
      laws of its revolutions. At the eighth period, in the year two
      thousand three hundred and fifty-five, their calculations may
      perhaps be verified by the astronomers of some future capital in
      the Siberian or American wilderness.

      74 (return) [ The first comet is mentioned by John Malala (tom.
      ii. p. 190, 219) and Theophanes, (p. 154;) the second by
      Procopius, (Persic. l. ii. 4.) Yet I strongly suspect their
      identity. The paleness of the sun sum Vandal. (l. ii. c. 14) is
      applied by Theophanes (p. 158) to a different year. Note: See
      Lydus de Ostentis, particularly c 15, in which the author begins
      to show the signification of comets according to the part of the
      heavens in which they appear, and what fortunes they
      prognosticate to the Roman empire and their Persian enemies. The
      chapter, however, is imperfect. (Edit. Neibuhr, p. 290.)—M.]

      75 (return) [ Seneca’s viith book of Natural Questions displays,
      in the theory of comets, a philosophic mind. Yet should we not
      too candidly confound a vague prediction, a venient tempus, &c.,
      with the merit of real discoveries.]

      76 (return) [ Astronomers may study Newton and Halley. I draw my
      humble science from the article Comete, in the French
      Encyclopedie, by M. d’Alembert.]

      77 (return) [ Whiston, the honest, pious, visionary Whiston, had
      fancied for the aera of Noah’s flood (2242 years before Christ) a
      prior apparition of the same comet which drowned the earth with
      its tail.]

      78 (return) [ A Dissertation of Freret (Memoires de l’Academie
      des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 357-377) affords a happy union of
      philosophy and erudition. The phenomenon in the time of Ogyges
      was preserved by Varro, (Apud Augustin. de Civitate Dei, xxi. 8,)
      who quotes Castor, Dion of Naples, and Adastrus of
      Cyzicus—nobiles mathematici. The two subsequent periods are
      preserved by the Greek mythologists and the spurious books of
      Sibylline verses.]

      79 (return) [ Pliny (Hist. Nat. ii. 23) has transcribed the
      original memorial of Augustus. Mairan, in his most ingenious
      letters to the P. Parennin, missionary in China, removes the
      games and the comet of September, from the year 44 to the year
      43, before the Christian aera; but I am not totally subdued by
      the criticism of the astronomer, (Opuscules, p. 275 )]

      80 (return) [ This last comet was visible in the month of
      December, 1680. Bayle, who began his Pensees sur la Comete in
      January, 1681, (Oeuvres, tom. iii.,) was forced to argue that a
      supernatural comet would have confirmed the ancients in their
      idolatry. Bernoulli (see his Eloge, in Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 99)
      was forced to allow that the tail though not the head, was a sign
      of the wrath of God.]

      81 (return) [ Paradise Lost was published in the year 1667; and
      the famous lines (l. ii. 708, &c.) which startled the licenser,
      may allude to the recent comet of 1664, observed by Cassini at
      Rome in the presence of Queen Christina, (Fontenelle, in his
      Eloge, tom. v. p. 338.) Had Charles II. betrayed any symptoms of
      curiosity or fear?]

      8111 (return) [ Compare Pingre, Histoire des Cometes.—M.]

      II. The near approach of a comet may injure or destroy the globe
      which we inhabit; but the changes on its surface have been
      hitherto produced by the action of volcanoes and earthquakes. 82
      The nature of the soil may indicate the countries most exposed to
      these formidable concussions, since they are caused by
      subterraneous fires, and such fires are kindled by the union and
      fermentation of iron and sulphur. But their times and effects
      appear to lie beyond the reach of human curiosity; and the
      philosopher will discreetly abstain from the prediction of
      earthquakes, till he has counted the drops of water that silently
      filtrate on the inflammable mineral, and measured the caverns
      which increase by resistance the explosion of the imprisoned air.
      Without assigning the cause, history will distinguish the periods
      in which these calamitous events have been rare or frequent, and
      will observe, that this fever of the earth raged with uncommon
      violence during the reign of Justinian. 83 Each year is marked by
      the repetition of earthquakes, of such duration, that
      Constantinople has been shaken above forty days; of such extent,
      that the shock has been communicated to the whole surface of the
      globe, or at least of the Roman empire. An impulsive or vibratory
      motion was felt: enormous chasms were opened, huge and heavy
      bodies were discharged into the air, the sea alternately advanced
      and retreated beyond its ordinary bounds, and a mountain was torn
      from Libanus, 84 and cast into the waves, where it protected, as
      a mole, the new harbor of Botrys 85 in Phoenicia. The stroke that
      agitates an ant-hill may crush the insect-myriads in the dust;
      yet truth must extort confession that man has industriously
      labored for his own destruction. The institution of great cities,
      which include a nation within the limits of a wall, almost
      realizes the wish of Caligula, that the Roman people had but one
      neck. Two hundred and fifty thousand persons are said to have
      perished in the earthquake of Antioch, whose domestic multitudes
      were swelled by the conflux of strangers to the festival of the
      Ascension. The loss of Berytus 86 was of smaller account, but of
      much greater value. That city, on the coast of Phoenicia, was
      illustrated by the study of the civil law, which opened the
      surest road to wealth and dignity: the schools of Berytus were
      filled with the rising spirits of the age, and many a youth was
      lost in the earthquake, who might have lived to be the scourge or
      the guardian of his country. In these disasters, the architect
      becomes the enemy of mankind. The hut of a savage, or the tent of
      an Arab, may be thrown down without injury to the inhabitant; and
      the Peruvians had reason to deride the folly of their Spanish
      conquerors, who with so much cost and labor erected their own
      sepulchres. The rich marbles of a patrician are dashed on his own
      head: a whole people is buried under the ruins of public and
      private edifices, and the conflagration is kindled and propagated
      by the innumerable fires which are necessary for the subsistence
      and manufactures of a great city. Instead of the mutual sympathy
      which might comfort and assist the distressed, they dreadfully
      experience the vices and passions which are released from the
      fear of punishment: the tottering houses are pillaged by intrepid
      avarice; revenge embraces the moment, and selects the victim; and
      the earth often swallows the assassin, or the ravisher, in the
      consummation of their crimes. Superstition involves the present
      danger with invisible terrors; and if the image of death may
      sometimes be subservient to the virtue or repentance of
      individuals, an affrighted people is more forcibly moved to
      expect the end of the world, or to deprecate with servile homage
      the wrath of an avenging Deity.

      82 (return) [ For the cause of earthquakes, see Buffon, (tom. i.
      p. 502—536 Supplement a l’Hist. Naturelle, tom. v. p. 382-390,
      edition in 4to., Valmont de Bomare, Dictionnaire d’Histoire
      Naturelle, Tremblemen de Terre, Pyrites,) Watson, (Chemical
      Essays, tom. i. p. 181—209.)]

      83 (return) [ The earthquakes that shook the Roman world in the
      reign of Justinian are described or mentioned by Procopius,
      (Goth. l. iv. c. 25 Anecdot. c. 18,) Agathias, (l. ii. p. 52, 53,
      54, l. v. p. 145-152,) John Malala, (Chron. tom. ii. p. 140-146,
      176, 177, 183, 193, 220, 229, 231, 233, 234,) and Theophanes, (p.
      151, 183, 189, 191-196.) * Note *: Compare Daubeny on
      Earthquakes, and Lyell’s Geology, vol. ii. p. 161 et seq.—M]

      84 (return) [ An abrupt height, a perpendicular cape, between
      Aradus and Botrys (Polyb. l. v. p. 411. Pompon. Mela, l. i. c.
      12, p. 87, cum Isaac. Voss. Observat. Maundrell, Journey, p. 32,
      33. Pocock’s Description, vol. ii. p. 99.)]

      85 (return) [ Botrys was founded (ann. ante Christ. 935—903) by
      Ithobal, king of Tyre, (Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 387, 388.) Its
      poor representative, the village of Patrone, is now destitute of
      a harbor.]

      86 (return) [ The university, splendor, and ruin of Berytus are
      celebrated by Heineccius (p. 351—356) as an essential part of the
      history of the Roman law. It was overthrown in the xxvth year of
      Justinian, A. D 551, July 9, (Theophanes, p. 192;) but Agathias
      (l. ii. p. 51, 52) suspends the earthquake till he has achieved
      the Italian war.]

      III. Aethiopia and Egypt have been stigmatized, in every age, as
      the original source and seminary of the plague. 87 In a damp,
      hot, stagnating air, this African fever is generated from the
      putrefaction of animal substances, and especially from the swarms
      of locusts, not less destructive to mankind in their death than
      in their lives. The fatal disease which depopulated the earth in
      the time of Justinian and his successors, 88 first appeared in
      the neighborhood of Pelusium, between the Serbonian bog and the
      eastern channel of the Nile. From thence, tracing as it were a
      double path, it spread to the East, over Syria, Persia, and the
      Indies, and penetrated to the West, along the coast of Africa,
      and over the continent of Europe. In the spring of the second
      year, Constantinople, during three or four months, was visited by
      the pestilence; and Procopius, who observed its progress and
      symptoms with the eyes of a physician, 89 has emulated the skill
      and diligence of Thucydides in the description of the plague of
      Athens. 90 The infection was sometimes announced by the visions
      of a distempered fancy, and the victim despaired as soon as he
      had heard the menace and felt the stroke of an invisible spectre.
      But the greater number, in their beds, in the streets, in their
      usual occupation, were surprised by a slight fever; so slight,
      indeed, that neither the pulse nor the color of the patient gave
      any signs of the approaching danger. The same, the next, or the
      succeeding day, it was declared by the swelling of the glands,
      particularly those of the groin, of the armpits, and under the
      ear; and when these buboes or tumors were opened, they were found
      to contain a coal, or black substance, of the size of a lentil.
      If they came to a just swelling and suppuration, the patient was
      saved by this kind and natural discharge of the morbid humor. But
      if they continued hard and dry, a mortification quickly ensued,
      and the fifth day was commonly the term of his life. The fever
      was often accompanied with lethargy or delirium; the bodies of
      the sick were covered with black pustules or carbuncles, the
      symptoms of immediate death; and in the constitutions too feeble
      to produce an irruption, the vomiting of blood was followed by a
      mortification of the bowels. To pregnant women the plague was
      generally mortal: yet one infant was drawn alive from his dead
      mother, and three mothers survived the loss of their infected
      foetus. Youth was the most perilous season; and the female sex
      was less susceptible than the male: but every rank and profession
      was attacked with indiscriminate rage, and many of those who
      escaped were deprived of the use of their speech, without being
      secure from a return of the disorder. 91 The physicians of
      Constantinople were zealous and skilful; but their art was
      baffled by the various symptoms and pertinacious vehemence of the
      disease: the same remedies were productive of contrary effects,
      and the event capriciously disappointed their prognostics of
      death or recovery. The order of funerals, and the right of
      sepulchres, were confounded: those who were left without friends
      or servants, lay unburied in the streets, or in their desolate
      houses; and a magistrate was authorized to collect the
      promiscuous heaps of dead bodies, to transport them by land or
      water, and to inter them in deep pits beyond the precincts of the
      city. Their own danger, and the prospect of public distress,
      awakened some remorse in the minds of the most vicious of
      mankind: the confidence of health again revived their passions
      and habits; but philosophy must disdain the observation of
      Procopius, that the lives of such men were guarded by the
      peculiar favor of fortune or Providence. He forgot, or perhaps he
      secretly recollected, that the plague had touched the person of
      Justinian himself; but the abstemious diet of the emperor may
      suggest, as in the case of Socrates, a more rational and
      honorable cause for his recovery. 92 During his sickness, the
      public consternation was expressed in the habits of the citizens;
      and their idleness and despondence occasioned a general scarcity
      in the capital of the East.

      87 (return) [ I have read with pleasure Mead’s short, but
      elegant, treatise concerning Pestilential Disorders, the viiith
      edition, London, 1722.]

      88 (return) [ The great plague which raged in 542 and the
      following years (Pagi, Critica, tom. ii. p. 518) must be traced
      in Procopius, (Persic. l. ii. c. 22, 23,) Agathias, (l. v. p.
      153, 154,) Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 29,) Paul Diaconus, (l. ii. c.
      iv. p. 776, 777,) Gregory of Tours, (tom. ii. l. iv. c. 5, p
      205,) who styles it Lues Inguinaria, and the Chronicles of Victor
      Tunnunensis, (p. 9, in Thesaur. Temporum,) of Marcellinus, (p.
      54,) and of Theophanes, (p. 153.)]

      89 (return) [ Dr. Friend (Hist. Medicin. in Opp. p. 416—420,
      Lond. 1733) is satisfied that Procopius must have studied physic,
      from his knowledge and use of the technical words. Yet many words
      that are now scientific were common and popular in the Greek
      idiom.]

      90 (return) [ See Thucydides, l. ii. c. 47—54, p. 127—133, edit.
      Duker, and the poetical description of the same plague by
      Lucretius. (l. vi. 1136—1284.) I was indebted to Dr. Hunter for
      an elaborate commentary on this part of Thucydides, a quarto of
      600 pages, (Venet. 1603, apud Juntas,) which was pronounced in
      St. Mark’s Library by Fabius Paullinus Utinensis, a physician and
      philosopher.]

      91 (return) [ Thucydides (c. 51) affirms, that the infection
      could only be once taken; but Evagrius, who had family experience
      of the plague, observes, that some persons, who had escaped the
      first, sunk under the second attack; and this repetition is
      confirmed by Fabius Paullinus, (p. 588.) I observe, that on this
      head physicians are divided; and the nature and operation of the
      disease may not always be similar.]

      92 (return) [ It was thus that Socrates had been saved by his
      temperance, in the plague of Athens, (Aul. Gellius, Noct. Attic.
      ii. l.) Dr. Mead accounts for the peculiar salubrity of religious
      houses, by the two advantages of seclusion and abstinence, (p.
      18, 19.)]

      Contagion is the inseparable symptom of the plague; which, by
      mutual respiration, is transfused from the infected persons to
      the lungs and stomach of those who approach them. While
      philosophers believe and tremble, it is singular, that the
      existence of a real danger should have been denied by a people
      most prone to vain and imaginary terrors. 93 Yet the
      fellow-citizens of Procopius were satisfied, by some short and
      partial experience, that the infection could not be gained by the
      closest conversation: 94 and this persuasion might support the
      assiduity of friends or physicians in the care of the sick, whom
      inhuman prudence would have condemned to solitude and despair.
      But the fatal security, like the predestination of the Turks,
      must have aided the progress of the contagion; and those salutary
      precautions to which Europe is indebted for her safety, were
      unknown to the government of Justinian. No restraints were
      imposed on the free and frequent intercourse of the Roman
      provinces: from Persia to France, the nations were mingled and
      infected by wars and emigrations; and the pestilential odor which
      lurks for years in a bale of cotton was imported, by the abuse of
      trade, into the most distant regions. The mode of its propagation
      is explained by the remark of Procopius himself, that it always
      spread from the sea-coast to the inland country: the most
      sequestered islands and mountains were successively visited; the
      places which had escaped the fury of its first passage were alone
      exposed to the contagion of the ensuing year. The winds might
      diffuse that subtile venom; but unless the atmosphere be
      previously disposed for its reception, the plague would soon
      expire in the cold or temperate climates of the earth. Such was
      the universal corruption of the air, that the pestilence which
      burst forth in the fifteenth year of Justinian was not checked or
      alleviated by any difference of the seasons. In time, its first
      malignity was abated and dispersed; the disease alternately
      languished and revived; but it was not till the end of a
      calamitous period of fifty-two years, that mankind recovered
      their health, or the air resumed its pure and salubrious quality.

      No facts have been preserved to sustain an account, or even a
      conjecture, of the numbers that perished in this extraordinary
      mortality. I only find, that during three months, five, and at
      length ten, thousand persons died each day at Constantinople;
      that many cities of the East were left vacant, and that in
      several districts of Italy the harvest and the vintage withered
      on the ground. The triple scourge of war, pestilence, and famine,
      afflicted the subjects of Justinian; and his reign is disgraced
      by the visible decrease of the human species, which has never
      been repaired in some of the fairest countries of the globe. 95

      93 (return) [ Mead proves that the plague is contagious from
      Thucydides, Lacretius, Aristotle, Galen, and common experience,
      (p. 10—20;) and he refutes (Preface, p. 2—13) the contrary
      opinion of the French physicians who visited Marseilles in the
      year 1720. Yet these were the recent and enlightened spectators
      of a plague which, in a few months, swept away 50,000 inhabitants
      (sur le Peste de Marseille, Paris, 1786) of a city that, in the
      present hour of prosperity and trade contains no more then 90,000
      souls, (Necker, sur les Finances, tom. i. p. 231.)]

      94 (return) [ The strong assertions of Procopius are overthrown
      by the subsequent experience of Evagrius.]

      95 (return) [ After some figures of rhetoric, the sands of the
      sea, &c., Procopius (Anecdot. c. 18) attempts a more definite
      account; that it had been exterminated under the reign of the
      Imperial demon. The expression is obscure in grammar and
      arithmetic and a literal interpretation would produce several
      millions of millions Alemannus (p. 80) and Cousin (tom. iii. p.
      178) translate this passage, “two hundred millions:” but I am
      ignorant of their motives. The remaining myriad of myriads, would
      furnish one hundred millions, a number not wholly inadmissible.]




      Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part I.

     Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—The Laws Of The Kings—The Twelve
     Tables Of The Decemvirs.—The Laws Of The People.—The Decrees Of
     The Senate.—The Edicts Of The Magistrates And Emperors—Authority
     Of The Civilians.—Code, Pandects, Novels, And Institutes Of
     Justinian:—I.  Rights Of Persons.—II. Rights Of Things.—III. 
     Private Injuries And Actions.—IV. Crimes And Punishments.

      Note: In the notes to this important chapter, which is received
      as the text-book on Civil Law in some of the foreign
      universities, I have consulted,

      I. the newly-discovered Institutes of Gaius, (Gaii Institutiones,
      ed. Goeschen, Berlin, 1824,) with some other fragments of the
      Roman law, (Codicis Theodosiani Fragmenta inedita, ab Amadeo
      Peyron. Turin, 1824.)

      II. The History of the Roman Law, by Professor Hugo, in the
      French translation of M. Jourdan. Paris, 1825.

      III. Savigny, Geschichte des Romischen Rechts im Mittelalter, 6
      bande, Heidelberg, 1815.

      IV. Walther, Romische Rechts-Geschichte, Bonn. 1834. But I am
      particularly indebted to an edition of the French translation of
      this chapter, with additional notes, by one of the most learned
      civilians of Europe, Professor Warnkonig, published at Liege,
      1821. I have inserted almost the whole of these notes, which are
      distinguished by the letter W.—M. The vain titles of the
      victories of Justinian are crumbled into dust; but the name of
      the legislator is inscribed on a fair and everlasting monument.
      Under his reign, and by his care, the civil jurisprudence was
      digested in the immortal works of the Code, the Pandects, and the
      Institutes: 1 the public reason of the Romans has been silently
      or studiously transfused into the domestic institutions of
      Europe, 2, and the laws of Justinian still command the respect or
      obedience of independent nations. Wise or fortunate is the prince
      who connects his own reputation with the honor or interest of a
      perpetual order of men. The defence of their founder is the first
      cause, which in every age has exercised the zeal and industry of
      the civilians. They piously commemorate his virtues; dissemble or
      deny his failings; and fiercely chastise the guilt or folly of
      the rebels, who presume to sully the majesty of the purple. The
      idolatry of love has provoked, as it usually happens, the rancor
      of opposition; the character of Justinian has been exposed to the
      blind vehemence of flattery and invective; and the injustice of a
      sect (the Anti-Tribonians,) has refused all praise and merit to
      the prince, his ministers, and his laws. 3 Attached to no party,
      interested only for the truth and candor of history, and directed
      by the most temperate and skilful guides, 4 I enter with just
      diffidence on the subject of civil law, which has exhausted so
      many learned lives, and clothed the walls of such spacious
      libraries. In a single, if possible in a short, chapter, I shall
      trace the Roman jurisprudence from Romulus to Justinian, 5
      appreciate the labors of that emperor, and pause to contemplate
      the principles of a science so important to the peace and
      happiness of society. The laws of a nation form the most
      instructive portion of its history; and although I have devoted
      myself to write the annals of a declining monarchy, I shall
      embrace the occasion to breathe the pure and invigorating air of
      the republic.

      1 (return) [ The civilians of the darker ages have established an
      absurd and incomprehensible mode of quotation, which is supported
      by authority and custom. In their references to the Code, the
      Pandects, and the Institutes, they mention the number, not of the
      book, but only of the law; and content themselves with reciting
      the first words of the title to which it belongs; and of these
      titles there are more than a thousand. Ludewig (Vit. Justiniani,
      p. 268) wishes to shake off this pendantic yoke; and I have dared
      to adopt the simple and rational method of numbering the book,
      the title, and the law. Note: The example of Gibbon has been
      followed by M Hugo and other civilians.—M]

      2 (return) [ Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, and Scotland,
      have received them as common law or reason; in France, Italy,
      &c., they possess a direct or indirect influence; and they were
      respected in England, from Stephen to Edward I. our national
      Justinian, (Duck. de Usu et Auctoritate Juris Civilis, l. ii. c.
      1, 8—15. Heineccius, Hist. Juris Germanici, c. 3, 4, No. 55-124,
      and the legal historians of each country.) * Note: Although the
      restoration of the Roman law, introduced by the revival of this
      study in Italy, is one of the most important branches of history,
      it had been treated but imperfectly when Gibbon wrote his work.
      That of Arthur Duck is but an insignificant performance. But the
      researches of the learned have thrown much light upon the matter.
      The Sarti, the Tiraboschi, the Fantuzzi, the Savioli, had made
      some very interesting inquiries; but it was reserved for M. de
      Savigny, in a work entitled “The History of the Roman Law during
      the Middle Ages,” to cast the strongest right on this part of
      history. He demonstrates incontestably the preservation of the
      Roman law from Justinian to the time of the Glossators, who by
      their indefatigable zeal, propagated the study of the Roman
      jurisprudence in all the countries of Europe. It is much to be
      desired that the author should continue this interesting work,
      and that the learned should engage in the inquiry in what manner
      the Roman law introduced itself into their respective countries,
      and the authority which it progressively acquired. For Belgium,
      there exists, on this subject, (proposed by the Academy of
      Brussels in 1781,) a Collection of Memoirs, printed at Brussels
      in 4to., 1783, among which should be distinguished those of M. de
      Berg. M. Berriat Saint Prix has given us hopes of the speedy
      appearance of a work in which he will discuss this question,
      especially in relation to France. M. Spangenberg, in his
      Introduction to the Study of the Corpus Juris Civilis Hanover,
      1817, 1 vol. 8vo. p. 86, 116, gives us a general sketch of the
      history of the Roman law in different parts of Europe. We cannot
      avoid mentioning an elementary work by M. Hugo, in which he
      treats of the History of the Roman Law from Justinian to the
      present Time, 2d edit. Berlin 1818 W.]

      3 (return) [ Francis Hottoman, a learned and acute lawyer of the
      xvith century, wished to mortify Cujacius, and to please the
      Chancellor de l’Hopital. His Anti-Tribonianus (which I have never
      been able to procure) was published in French in 1609; and his
      sect was propagated in Germany, (Heineccius, Op. tom. iii.
      sylloge iii. p. 171—183.) * Note: Though there have always been
      many detractors of the Roman law, no sect of Anti-Tribonians has
      ever existed under that name, as Gibbon seems to suppose.—W.]

      4 (return) [ At the head of these guides I shall respectfully
      place the learned and perspicuous Heineccius, a German professor,
      who died at Halle in the year 1741, (see his Eloge in the
      Nouvelle Bibliotheque Germanique, tom. ii. p. 51—64.) His ample
      works have been collected in eight volumes in 4to. Geneva,
      1743-1748. The treatises which I have separately used are, 1.
      Historia Juris Romani et Germanici, Lugd. Batav. 1740, in 8 vo.
      2. Syntagma Antiquitatum Romanam Jurisprudentiam illustrantium, 2
      vols. in 8 vo. Traject. ad Rhenum. 3. Elementa Juris Civilis
      secundum Ordinem Institutionum, Lugd. Bat. 1751, in 8 vo. 4.
      Elementa J. C. secundum Ordinem Pandectarum Traject. 1772, in
      8vo. 2 vols. * Note: Our author, who was not a lawyer, was
      necessarily obliged to content himself with following the
      opinions of those writers who were then of the greatest
      authority; but as Heineccius, notwithstanding his high reputation
      for the study of the Roman law, knew nothing of the subject on
      which he treated, but what he had learned from the compilations
      of various authors, it happened that, in following the sometimes
      rash opinions of these guides, Gibbon has fallen into many
      errors, which we shall endeavor in succession to correct. The
      work of Bach on the History of the Roman Jurisprudence, with
      which Gibbon was not acquainted, is far superior to that of
      Heineccius and since that time we have new obligations to the
      modern historic civilians, whose indefatigable researches have
      greatly enlarged the sphere of our knowledge in this important
      branch of history. We want a pen like that of Gibbon to give to
      the more accurate notions which we have acquired since his time,
      the brilliancy, the vigor, and the animation which Gibbon has
      bestowed on the opinions of Heineccius and his contemporaries.—W]

      5 (return) [ Our original text is a fragment de Origine Juris
      (Pandect. l. i. tit. ii.) of Pomponius, a Roman lawyer, who lived
      under the Antonines, (Heinecc. tom. iii. syl. iii. p. 66—126.) It
      has been abridged, and probably corrupted, by Tribonian, and
      since restored by Bynkershoek (Opp. tom. i. p. 279—304.)]

      The primitive government of Rome 6 was composed, with some
      political skill, of an elective king, a council of nobles, and a
      general assembly of the people. War and religion were
      administered by the supreme magistrate; and he alone proposed the
      laws, which were debated in the senate, and finally ratified or
      rejected by a majority of votes in the thirty curiae or parishes
      of the city. Romulus, Numa, and Servius Tullius, are celebrated
      as the most ancient legislators; and each of them claims his
      peculiar part in the threefold division of jurisprudence. 7 The
      laws of marriage, the education of children, and the authority of
      parents, which may seem to draw their origin from nature itself,
      are ascribed to the untutored wisdom of Romulus. The law of
      nations and of religious worship, which Numa introduced, was
      derived from his nocturnal converse with the nymph Egeria. The
      civil law is attributed to the experience of Servius: he balanced
      the rights and fortunes of the seven classes of citizens; and
      guarded, by fifty new regulations, the observance of contracts
      and the punishment of crimes. The state, which he had inclined
      towards a democracy, was changed by the last Tarquin into a
      lawless despotism; and when the kingly office was abolished, the
      patricians engrossed the benefits of freedom. The royal laws
      became odious or obsolete; the mysterious deposit was silently
      preserved by the priests and nobles; and at the end of sixty
      years, the citizens of Rome still complained that they were ruled
      by the arbitrary sentence of the magistrates. Yet the positive
      institutions of the kings had blended themselves with the public
      and private manners of the city, some fragments of that venerable
      jurisprudence 8 were compiled by the diligence of antiquarians, 9
      and above twenty texts still speak the rudeness of the Pelasgic
      idiom of the Latins. 10

      6 (return) [ The constitutional history of the kings of Rome may
      be studied in the first book of Livy, and more copiously in
      Dionysius Halicarnassensis, (l. li. p. 80—96, 119—130, l. iv. p.
      198—220,) who sometimes betrays the character of a rhetorician
      and a Greek. * Note: M. Warnkonig refers to the work of Beaufort,
      on the Uncertainty of the Five First Ages of the Roman History,
      with which Gibbon was probably acquainted, to Niebuhr, and to the
      less known volume of Wachsmuth, “Aeltere Geschichte des Rom.
      Staats.” To these I would add A. W. Schlegel’s Review of Niebuhr,
      and my friend Dr. Arnold’s recently published volume, of which
      the chapter on the Law of the XII. Tables appears to me one of
      the most valuable, if not the most valuable, chapter.—M.]

      7 (return) [ This threefold division of the law was applied to
      the three Roman kings by Justus Lipsius, (Opp. tom. iv. p. 279;)
      is adopted by Gravina, (Origines Juris Civilis, p. 28, edit.
      Lips. 1737:) and is reluctantly admitted by Mascou, his German
      editor. * Note: Whoever is acquainted with the real notions of
      the Romans on the jus naturale, gentium et civile, cannot but
      disapprove of this explanation which has no relation to them, and
      might be taken for a pleasantry. It is certainly unnecessary to
      increase the confusion which already prevails among modern
      writers on the true sense of these ideas. Hugo.—W]

      8 (return) [ The most ancient Code or Digest was styled Jus
      Papirianum, from the first compiler, Papirius, who flourished
      somewhat before or after the Regifugium, (Pandect. l. i. tit.
      ii.) The best judicial critics, even Bynkershoek (tom. i. p. 284,
      285) and Heineccius, (Hist. J. C. R. l. i. c. 16, 17, and Opp.
      tom. iii. sylloge iv. p. 1—8,) give credit to this tale of
      Pomponius, without sufficiently adverting to the value and rarity
      of such a monument of the third century, of the illiterate city.
      I much suspect that the Caius Papirius, the Pontifex Maximus, who
      revived the laws of Numa (Dionys. Hal. l. iii. p. 171) left only
      an oral tradition; and that the Jus Papirianum of Granius Flaccus
      (Pandect. l. L. tit. xvi. leg. 144) was not a commentary, but an
      original work, compiled in the time of Caesar, (Censorin. de Die
      Natali, l. iii. p. 13, Duker de Latinitate J. C. p. 154.) Note:
      Niebuhr considers the Jus Papirianum, adduced by Verrius Fiaccus,
      to be of undoubted authenticity. Rom. Geschichte, l. 257.—M.
      Compare this with the work of M. Hugo.—W.]

      9 (return) [ A pompous, though feeble attempt to restore the
      original, is made in the Histoire de la Jurisprudence Romaine of
      Terasson, p. 22—72, Paris, 1750, in folio; a work of more promise
      than performance.]

      10 (return) [ In the year 1444, seven or eight tables of brass
      were dug up between Cortona and Gubio. A part of these (for the
      rest is Etruscan) represents the primitive state of the Pelasgic
      letters and language, which are ascribed by Herodotus to that
      district of Italy, (l. i. c. 56, 57, 58;) though this difficult
      passage may be explained of a Crestona in Thrace, (Notes de
      Larcher, tom. i. p. 256—261.) The savage dialect of the Eugubine
      tables has exercised, and may still elude, the divination of
      criticism; but the root is undoubtedly Latin, of the same age and
      character as the Saliare Carmen, which, in the time of Horace,
      none could understand. The Roman idiom, by an infusion of Doric
      and Aeolic Greek, was gradually ripened into the style of the
      xii. tables, of the Duillian column, of Ennius, of Terence, and
      of Cicero, (Gruter. Inscript. tom. i. p. cxlii. Scipion Maffei,
      Istoria Diplomatica, p. 241—258. Bibliotheque Italique, tom. iii.
      p. 30—41, 174—205. tom. xiv. p. 1—52.) * Note: The Eugubine
      Tables have exercised the ingenuity of the Italian and German
      critics; it seems admitted (O. Muller, die Etrusker, ii. 313)
      that they are Tuscan. See the works of Lanzi, Passeri, Dempster,
      and O. Muller.—M]

      I shall not repeat the well-known story of the Decemvirs, 11 who
      sullied by their actions the honor of inscribing on brass, or
      wood, or ivory, the Twelve Tables of the Roman laws. 12 They were
      dictated by the rigid and jealous spirit of an aristocracy, which
      had yielded with reluctance to the just demands of the people.
      But the substance of the Twelve Tables was adapted to the state
      of the city; and the Romans had emerged from Barbarism, since
      they were capable of studying and embracing the institutions of
      their more enlightened neighbors. 1211 A wise Ephesian was driven
      by envy from his native country: before he could reach the shores
      of Latium, he had observed the various forms of human nature and
      civil society: he imparted his knowledge to the legislators of
      Rome, and a statue was erected in the forum to the perpetual
      memory of Hermodorus. 13 The names and divisions of the copper
      money, the sole coin of the infant state, were of Dorian origin:
      14 the harvests of Campania and Sicily relieved the wants of a
      people whose agriculture was often interrupted by war and
      faction; and since the trade was established, 15 the deputies who
      sailed from the Tyber might return from the same harbors with a
      more precious cargo of political wisdom. The colonies of Great
      Greece had transported and improved the arts of their mother
      country. Cumae and Rhegium, Crotona and Tarentum, Agrigentum and
      Syracuse, were in the rank of the most flourishing cities. The
      disciples of Pythagoras applied philosophy to the use of
      government; the unwritten laws of Charondas accepted the aid of
      poetry and music, 16 and Zaleucus framed the republic of the
      Locrians, which stood without alteration above two hundred years.
      17 From a similar motive of national pride, both Livy and
      Dionysius are willing to believe, that the deputies of Rome
      visited Athens under the wise and splendid administration of
      Pericles; and the laws of Solon were transfused into the twelve
      tables. If such an embassy had indeed been received from the
      Barbarians of Hesperia, the Roman name would have been familiar
      to the Greeks before the reign of Alexander; 18 and the faintest
      evidence would have been explored and celebrated by the curiosity
      of succeeding times. But the Athenian monuments are silent; nor
      will it seem credible that the patricians should undertake a long
      and perilous navigation to copy the purest model of democracy. In
      the comparison of the tables of Solon with those of the
      Decemvirs, some casual resemblance may be found; some rules which
      nature and reason have revealed to every society; some proofs of
      a common descent from Egypt or Phoenicia. 19 But in all the great
      lines of public and private jurisprudence, the legislators of
      Rome and Athens appear to be strangers or adverse at each other.

      11 (return) [ Compare Livy (l. iii. c. 31—59) with Dionysius
      Halicarnassensis, (l. x. p. 644—xi. p. 691.) How concise and
      animated is the Roman—how prolix and lifeless the Greek! Yet he
      has admirably judged the masters, and defined the rules, of
      historical composition.]

      12 (return) [ From the historians, Heineccius (Hist. J. R. l. i.
      No. 26) maintains that the twelve tables were of brass—aereas; in
      the text of Pomponius we read eboreas; for which Scaliger has
      substituted roboreas, (Bynkershoek, p. 286.) Wood, brass, and
      ivory, might be successively employed. Note: Compare Niebuhr,
      vol. ii. p. 349, &c.—M.]

      1211 (return) [ Compare Niebuhr, 355, note 720.—M. It is a most
      important question whether the twelve tables in fact include laws
      imported from Greece. The negative opinion maintained by our
      author, is now almost universally adopted, particularly by Mm.
      Niebuhr, Hugo, and others. See my Institutiones Juris Romani
      privati Leodii, 1819, p. 311, 312.—W. Dr. Arnold, p. 255, seems
      to incline to the opposite opinion. Compare some just and
      sensible observations in the Appendix to Mr. Travers Twiss’s
      Epitome of Niebuhr, p. 347, Oxford, 1836.—M.]

      13 (return) [ His exile is mentioned by Cicero, (Tusculan.
      Quaestion. v. 36; his statue by Pliny, (Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 11.)
      The letter, dream, and prophecy of Heraclitus, are alike
      spurious, (Epistolae Graec. Divers. p. 337.) * Note: Compare
      Niebuhr, ii. 209.—M. See the Mem de l’Academ. des Inscript. xxii.
      p. 48. It would be difficult to disprove, that a certain
      Hermodorus had some share in framing the Laws of the Twelve
      Tables. Pomponius even says that this Hermodorus was the author
      of the last two tables. Pliny calls him the Interpreter of the
      Decemvirs, which may lead us to suppose that he labored with them
      in drawing up that law. But it is astonishing that in his
      Dissertation, (De Hermodoro vero XII. Tabularum Auctore, Annales
      Academiae Groninganae anni 1817, 1818,) M. Gratama has ventured
      to advance two propositions entirely devoid of proof: “Decem
      priores tabulas ab ipsis Romanis non esse profectas, tota
      confirma Decemviratus Historia,” et “Hermodorum legum
      decemviralium ceri nominis auctorem esse, qui eas composuerit
      suis ordinibus, disposuerit, suaque fecerit auctoritate, ut a
      decemviris reciperentur.” This truly was an age in which the
      Roman Patricians would allow their laws to be dictated by a
      foreign Exile! Mr. Gratama does not attempt to prove the
      authenticity of the supposititious letter of Heraclitus. He
      contents himself with expressing his astonishment that M. Bonamy
      (as well as Gibbon) will be receive it as genuine.—W.]

      14 (return) [ This intricate subject of the Sicilian and Roman
      money, is ably discussed by Dr. Bentley, (Dissertation on the
      Epistles of Phalaris, p. 427—479,) whose powers in this
      controversy were called forth by honor and resentment.]

      15 (return) [ The Romans, or their allies, sailed as far as the
      fair promontory of Africa, (Polyb. l. iii. p. 177, edit.
      Casaubon, in folio.) Their voyages to Cumae, &c., are noticed by
      Livy and Dionysius.]

      16 (return) [ This circumstance would alone prove the antiquity
      of Charondas, the legislator of Rhegium and Catana, who, by a
      strange error of Diodorus Siculus (tom. i. l. xii. p. 485—492) is
      celebrated long afterwards as the author of the policy of
      Thurium.]

      17 (return) [ Zaleucus, whose existence has been rashly attacked,
      had the merit and glory of converting a band of outlaws (the
      Locrians) into the most virtuous and orderly of the Greek
      republics. (See two Memoirs of the Baron de St. Croix, sur la
      Legislation de la Grande Grece Mem. de l’Academie, tom. xlii. p.
      276—333.) But the laws of Zaleucus and Charondas, which imposed
      on Diodorus and Stobaeus, are the spurious composition of a
      Pythagorean sophist, whose fraud has been detected by the
      critical sagacity of Bentley, p. 335—377.]

      18 (return) [ I seize the opportunity of tracing the progress of
      this national intercourse 1. Herodotus and Thucydides (A. U. C.
      300—350) appear ignorant of the name and existence of Rome,
      (Joseph. contra Appion tom. ii. l. i. c. 12, p. 444, edit.
      Havercamp.) 2. Theopompus (A. U. C. 400, Plin. iii. 9) mentions
      the invasion of the Gauls, which is noticed in looser terms by
      Heraclides Ponticus, (Plutarch in Camillo, p. 292, edit. H.
      Stephan.) 3. The real or fabulous embassy of the Romans to
      Alexander (A. U. C. 430) is attested by Clitarchus, (Plin. iii.
      9,) by Aristus and Asclepiades, (Arrian. l. vii. p. 294, 295,)
      and by Memnon of Heraclea, (apud Photium, cod. ccxxiv. p. 725,)
      though tacitly denied by Livy. 4. Theophrastus (A. U. C. 440)
      primus externorum aliqua de Romanis diligentius scripsit, (Plin.
      iii. 9.) 5. Lycophron (A. U. C. 480—500) scattered the first seed
      of a Trojan colony and the fable of the Aeneid, (Cassandra,
      1226—1280.) A bold prediction before the end of the first Punic
      war! * Note: Compare Niebuhr throughout. Niebuhr has written a
      dissertation (Kleine Schriften, i. p. 438,) arguing from this
      prediction, and on the other conclusive grounds, that the
      Lycophron, the author of the Cassandra, is not the Alexandrian
      poet. He had been anticipated in this sagacious criticism, as he
      afterwards discovered, by a writer of no less distinction than
      Charles James Fox.—Letters to Wakefield. And likewise by the
      author of the extraordinary translation of this poem, that most
      promising scholar, Lord Royston. See the Remains of Lord Royston,
      by the Rev. Henry Pepys, London, 1838.]

      19 (return) [ The tenth table, de modo sepulturae, was borrowed
      from Solon, (Cicero de Legibus, ii. 23—26:) the furtem per lancem
      et licium conceptum, is derived by Heineccius from the manners of
      Athens, (Antiquitat. Rom. tom. ii. p. 167—175.) The right of
      killing a nocturnal thief was declared by Moses, Solon, and the
      Decemvirs, (Exodus xxii. 3. Demosthenes contra Timocratem, tom.
      i. p. 736, edit. Reiske. Macrob. Saturnalia, l. i. c. 4. Collatio
      Legum Mosaicarum et Romanatum, tit, vii. No. i. p. 218, edit.
      Cannegieter.) *Note: Are not the same points of similarity
      discovered in the legislation of all actions in the infancy of
      their civilization?—W.]




      Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part II.

      Whatever might be the origin or the merit of the twelve tables,
      20 they obtained among the Romans that blind and partial
      reverence which the lawyers of every country delight to bestow on
      their municipal institutions. The study is recommended by Cicero
      21 as equally pleasant and instructive. “They amuse the mind by
      the remembrance of old words and the portrait of ancient manners;
      they inculcate the soundest principles of government and morals;
      and I am not afraid to affirm, that the brief composition of the
      Decemvirs surpasses in genuine value the libraries of Grecian
      philosophy. How admirable,” says Tully, with honest or affected
      prejudice, “is the wisdom of our ancestors! We alone are the
      masters of civil prudence, and our superiority is the more
      conspicuous, if we deign to cast our eyes on the rude and almost
      ridiculous jurisprudence of Draco, of Solon, and of Lycurgus.”
      The twelve tables were committed to the memory of the young and
      the meditation of the old; they were transcribed and illustrated
      with learned diligence; they had escaped the flames of the Gauls,
      they subsisted in the age of Justinian, and their subsequent loss
      has been imperfectly restored by the labors of modern critics. 22
      But although these venerable monuments were considered as the
      rule of right and the fountain of justice, 23 they were
      overwhelmed by the weight and variety of new laws, which, at the
      end of five centuries, became a grievance more intolerable than
      the vices of the city. 24 Three thousand brass plates, the acts
      of the senate of the people, were deposited in the Capitol: 25
      and some of the acts, as the Julian law against extortion,
      surpassed the number of a hundred chapters. 26 The Decemvirs had
      neglected to import the sanction of Zaleucus, which so long
      maintained the integrity of his republic. A Locrian, who proposed
      any new law, stood forth in the assembly of the people with a
      cord round his neck, and if the law was rejected, the innovator
      was instantly strangled.

      20 (return) [ It is the praise of Diodorus, (tom. i. l. xii. p.
      494,) which may be fairly translated by the eleganti atque
      absoluta brevitate verborum of Aulus Gellius, (Noct. Attic. xxi.
      1.)]

      21 (return) [ Listen to Cicero (de Legibus, ii. 23) and his
      representative Crassus, (de Oratore, i. 43, 44.)]

      22 (return) [ See Heineccius, (Hist. J. R. No. 29—33.) I have
      followed the restoration of the xii. tables by Gravina (Origines
      J. C. p. 280—307) and Terrasson, (Hist. de la Jurisprudence
      Romaine, p. 94—205.) Note: The wish expressed by Warnkonig, that
      the text and the conjectural emendations on the fragments of the
      xii. tables should be submitted to rigid criticism, has been
      fulfilled by Dirksen, Uebersicht der bisherigen Versuche Leipzig
      Kritik und Herstellung des Textes der Zwolf-Tafel-Fragmente,
      Leipzug, 1824.—M.]

      23 (return) [ Finis aequi juris, (Tacit. Annal. iii. 27.) Fons
      omnis publici et privati juris, (T. Liv. iii. 34.) * Note: From
      the context of the phrase in Tacitus, “Nam secutae leges etsi
      alquando in maleficos ex delicto; saepius tamen dissensione
      ordinum * * * latae sunt,” it is clear that Gibbon has rendered
      this sentence incorrectly. Hugo, Hist. p. 62.—M.]

      24 (return) [ De principiis juris, et quibus modis ad hanc
      multitudinem infinitam ac varietatem legum perventum sit altius
      disseram, (Tacit. Annal. iii. 25.) This deep disquisition fills
      only two pages, but they are the pages of Tacitus. With equal
      sense, but with less energy, Livy (iii. 34) had complained, in
      hoc immenso aliarum super alias acervatarum legum cumulo, &c.]

      25 (return) [ Suetonius in Vespasiano, c. 8.]

      26 (return) [ Cicero ad Familiares, viii. 8.]

      The Decemvirs had been named, and their tables were approved, by
      an assembly of the centuries, in which riches preponderated
      against numbers. To the first class of Romans, the proprietors of
      one hundred thousand pounds of copper, 27 ninety-eight votes were
      assigned, and only ninety-five were left for the six inferior
      classes, distributed according to their substance by the artful
      policy of Servius. But the tribunes soon established a more
      specious and popular maxim, that every citizen has an equal right
      to enact the laws which he is bound to obey. Instead of the
      centuries, they convened the tribes; and the patricians, after an
      impotent struggle, submitted to the decrees of an assembly, in
      which their votes were confounded with those of the meanest
      plebeians. Yet as long as the tribes successively passed over
      narrow bridges 28 and gave their voices aloud, the conduct of
      each citizen was exposed to the eyes and ears of his friends and
      countrymen. The insolvent debtor consulted the wishes of his
      creditor; the client would have blushed to oppose the views of
      his patron; the general was followed by his veterans, and the
      aspect of a grave magistrate was a living lesson to the
      multitude. A new method of secret ballot abolished the influence
      of fear and shame, of honor and interest, and the abuse of
      freedom accelerated the progress of anarchy and despotism. 29 The
      Romans had aspired to be equal; they were levelled by the
      equality of servitude; and the dictates of Augustus were
      patiently ratified by the formal consent of the tribes or
      centuries. Once, and once only, he experienced a sincere and
      strenuous opposition. His subjects had resigned all political
      liberty; they defended the freedom of domestic life. A law which
      enforced the obligation, and strengthened the bonds of marriage,
      was clamorously rejected; Propertius, in the arms of Delia,
      applauded the victory of licentious love; and the project of
      reform was suspended till a new and more tractable generation had
      arisen in the world. 30 Such an example was not necessary to
      instruct a prudent usurper of the mischief of popular assemblies;
      and their abolition, which Augustus had silently prepared, was
      accomplished without resistance, and almost without notice, on
      the accession of his successor. 31 Sixty thousand plebeian
      legislators, whom numbers made formidable, and poverty secure,
      were supplanted by six hundred senators, who held their honors,
      their fortunes, and their lives, by the clemency of the emperor.
      The loss of executive power was alleviated by the gift of
      legislative authority; and Ulpian might assert, after the
      practice of two hundred years, that the decrees of the senate
      obtained the force and validity of laws. In the times of freedom,
      the resolves of the people had often been dictated by the passion
      or error of the moment: the Cornelian, Pompeian, and Julian laws
      were adapted by a single hand to the prevailing disorders; but
      the senate, under the reign of the Caesars, was composed of
      magistrates and lawyers, and in questions of private
      jurisprudence, the integrity of their judgment was seldom
      perverted by fear or interest. 32

      27 (return) [ Dionysius, with Arbuthnot, and most of the moderns,
      (except Eisenschmidt de Ponderibus, &c., p. 137—140,) represent
      the 100,000 asses by 10,000 Attic drachmae, or somewhat more than
      300 pounds sterling. But their calculation can apply only to the
      latter times, when the as was diminished to 1-24th of its ancient
      weight: nor can I believe that in the first ages, however
      destitute of the precious metals, a single ounce of silver could
      have been exchanged for seventy pounds of copper or brass. A more
      simple and rational method is to value the copper itself
      according to the present rate, and, after comparing the mint and
      the market price, the Roman and avoirdupois weight, the primitive
      as or Roman pound of copper may be appreciated at one English
      shilling, and the 100,000 asses of the first class amounted to
      5000 pounds sterling. It will appear from the same reckoning,
      that an ox was sold at Rome for five pounds, a sheep for ten
      shillings, and a quarter of wheat for one pound ten shillings,
      (Festus, p. 330, edit. Dacier. Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 4:) nor
      do I see any reason to reject these consequences, which moderate
      our ideas of the poverty of the first Romans. * Note: Compare
      Niebuhr, English translation, vol. i. p. 448, &c.—M.]

      28 (return) [ Consult the common writers on the Roman Comitia,
      especially Sigonius and Beaufort. Spanheim (de Praestantia et Usu
      Numismatum, tom. ii. dissert. x. p. 192, 193) shows, on a curious
      medal, the Cista, Pontes, Septa, Diribitor, &c.]

      29 (return) [ Cicero (de Legibus, iii. 16, 17, 18) debates this
      constitutional question, and assigns to his brother Quintus the
      most unpopular side.]

      30 (return) [ Prae tumultu recusantium perferre non potuit,
      (Sueton. in August. c. 34.) See Propertius, l. ii. eleg. 6.
      Heineccius, in a separate history, has exhausted the whole
      subject of the Julian and Papian Poppaean laws, (Opp. tom. vii.
      P. i. p. 1—479.)]

      31 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. i. 15. Lipsius, Excursus E. in
      Tacitum. Note: This error of Gibbon has been long detected. The
      senate, under Tiberius did indeed elect the magistrates, who
      before that emperor were elected in the comitia. But we find laws
      enacted by the people during his reign, and that of Claudius. For
      example; the Julia-Norbana, Vellea, and Claudia de tutela
      foeminarum. Compare the Hist. du Droit Romain, by M. Hugo, vol.
      ii. p. 55, 57. The comitia ceased imperceptibly as the republic
      gradually expired.—W.]

      32 (return) [ Non ambigitur senatum jus facere posse, is the
      decision of Ulpian, (l. xvi. ad Edict. in Pandect. l. i. tit.
      iii. leg. 9.) Pomponius taxes the comitia of the people as a
      turba hominum, (Pandect. l. i. tit. ii. leg 9.) * Note: The
      author adopts the opinion, that under the emperors alone the
      senate had a share in the legislative power. They had
      nevertheless participated in it under the Republic, since
      senatus-consulta relating to civil rights have been preserved,
      which are much earlier than the reigns of Augustus or Tiberius.
      It is true that, under the emperors, the senate exercised this
      right more frequently, and that the assemblies of the people had
      become much more rare, though in law they were still permitted,
      in the time of Ulpian. (See the fragments of Ulpian.) Bach has
      clearly demonstrated that the senate had the same power in the
      time of the Republic. It is natural that the senatus-consulta
      should have been more frequent under the emperors, because they
      employed those means of flattering the pride of the senators, by
      granting them the right of deliberating on all affairs which did
      not intrench on the Imperial power. Compare the discussions of M.
      Hugo, vol. i. p. 284, et seq.—W.]

      The silence or ambiguity of the laws was supplied by the
      occasional edicts 3211 of those magistrates who were invested
      with the honors of the state. 33 This ancient prerogative of the
      Roman kings was transferred, in their respective offices, to the
      consuls and dictators, the censors and praetors; and a similar
      right was assumed by the tribunes of the people, the ediles, and
      the proconsuls. At Rome, and in the provinces, the duties of the
      subject, and the intentions of the governor, were proclaimed; and
      the civil jurisprudence was reformed by the annual edicts of the
      supreme judge, the praetor of the city. 3311 As soon as he
      ascended his tribunal, he announced by the voice of the crier,
      and afterwards inscribed on a white wall, the rules which he
      proposed to follow in the decision of doubtful cases, and the
      relief which his equity would afford from the precise rigor of
      ancient statutes. A principle of discretion more congenial to
      monarchy was introduced into the republic: the art of respecting
      the name, and eluding the efficacy, of the laws, was improved by
      successive praetors; subtleties and fictions were invented to
      defeat the plainest meaning of the Decemvirs, and where the end
      was salutary, the means were frequently absurd. The secret or
      probable wish of the dead was suffered to prevail over the order
      of succession and the forms of testaments; and the claimant, who
      was excluded from the character of heir, accepted with equal
      pleasure from an indulgent praetor the possession of the goods of
      his late kinsman or benefactor. In the redress of private wrongs,
      compensations and fines were substituted to the obsolete rigor of
      the Twelve Tables; time and space were annihilated by fanciful
      suppositions; and the plea of youth, or fraud, or violence,
      annulled the obligation, or excused the performance, of an
      inconvenient contract. A jurisdiction thus vague and arbitrary
      was exposed to the most dangerous abuse: the substance, as well
      as the form, of justice were often sacrificed to the prejudices
      of virtue, the bias of laudable affection, and the grosser
      seductions of interest or resentment. But the errors or vices of
      each praetor expired with his annual office; such maxims alone as
      had been approved by reason and practice were copied by
      succeeding judges; the rule of proceeding was defined by the
      solution of new cases; and the temptations of injustice were
      removed by the Cornelian law, which compelled the praetor of the
      year to adhere to the spirit and letter of his first
      proclamation. 34 It was reserved for the curiosity and learning
      of Adrian, to accomplish the design which had been conceived by
      the genius of Caesar; and the praetorship of Salvius Julian, an
      eminent lawyer, was immortalized by the composition of the
      Perpetual Edict. This well-digested code was ratified by the
      emperor and the senate; the long divorce of law and equity was at
      length reconciled; and, instead of the Twelve Tables, the
      perpetual edict was fixed as the invariable standard of civil
      jurisprudence. 35

      3211 (return) [ There is a curious passage from Aurelius, a
      writer on Law, on the Praetorian Praefect, quoted in Lydus de
      Magistratibus, p. 32, edit. Hase. The Praetorian praefect was to
      the emperor what the master of the horse was to the dictator
      under the Republic. He was the delegate, therefore, of the full
      Imperial authority; and no appeal could be made or exception
      taken against his edicts. I had not observed this passage, when
      the third volume, where it would have been more appropriately
      placed, passed through the press.—M]

      33 (return) [ The jus honorarium of the praetors and other
      magistrates is strictly defined in the Latin text to the
      Institutes, (l. i. tit. ii. No. 7,) and more loosely explained in
      the Greek paraphrase of Theophilus, (p. 33—38, edit. Reitz,) who
      drops the important word honorarium. * Note: The author here
      follows the opinion of Heineccius, who, according to the idea of
      his master Thomasius, was unwilling to suppose that magistrates
      exercising a judicial could share in the legislative power. For
      this reason he represents the edicts of the praetors as absurd.
      (See his work, Historia Juris Romani, 69, 74.) But Heineccius had
      altogether a false notion of this important institution of the
      Romans, to which we owe in a great degree the perfection of their
      jurisprudence. Heineccius, therefore, in his own days had many
      opponents of his system, among others the celebrated Ritter,
      professor at Wittemberg, who contested it in notes appended to
      the work of Heineccius, and retained in all subsequent editions
      of that book. After Ritter, the learned Bach undertook to
      vindicate the edicts of the praetors in his Historia Jurisprud.
      Rom. edit. 6, p. 218, 224. But it remained for a civilian of our
      own days to throw light on the spirit and true character of this
      institution. M. Hugo has completely demonstrated that the
      praetorian edicts furnished the salutary means of perpetually
      harmonizing the legislation with the spirit of the times. The
      praetors were the true organs of public opinion. It was not
      according to their caprice that they framed their regulations,
      but according to the manners and to the opinions of the great
      civil lawyers of their day. We know from Cicero himself, that it
      was esteemed a great honor among the Romans to publish an edict,
      well conceived and well drawn. The most distinguished lawyers of
      Rome were invited by the praetor to assist in framing this annual
      law, which, according to its principle, was only a declaration
      which the praetor made to the public, to announce the manner in
      which he would judge, and to guard against every charge of
      partiality. Those who had reason to fear his opinions might delay
      their cause till the following year. The praetor was responsible
      for all the faults which he committed. The tribunes could lodge
      an accusation against the praetor who issued a partial edict. He
      was bound strictly to follow and to observe the regulations
      published by him at the commencement of his year of office,
      according to the Cornelian law, by which these edicts were called
      perpetual, and he could make no change in a regulation once
      published. The praetor was obliged to submit to his own edict,
      and to judge his own affairs according to its provisions. These
      magistrates had no power of departing from the fundamental laws,
      or the laws of the Twelve Tables. The people held them in such
      consideration, that they rarely enacted laws contrary to their
      provisions; but as some provisions were found inefficient, others
      opposed to the manners of the people, and to the spirit of
      subsequent ages, the praetors, still maintaining respect for the
      laws, endeavored to bring them into accordance with the
      necessities of the existing time, by such fictions as best suited
      the nature of the case. In what legislation do we not find these
      fictions, which even yet exist, absurd and ridiculous as they
      are, among the ancient laws of modern nations? These always
      variable edicts at length comprehended the whole of the Roman
      legislature, and became the subject of the commentaries of the
      most celebrated lawyers. They must therefore be considered as the
      basis of all the Roman jurisprudence comprehended in the Digest
      of Justinian. ——It is in this sense that M. Schrader has written
      on this important institution, proposing it for imitation as far
      as may be consistent with our manners, and agreeable to our
      political institutions, in order to avoid immature legislation
      becoming a permanent evil. See the History of the Roman Law by M.
      Hugo, vol. i. p. 296, &c., vol. ii. p. 30, et seq., 78. et seq.,
      and the note in my elementary book on the Industries, p. 313.
      With regard to the works best suited to give information on the
      framing and the form of these edicts, see Haubold, Institutiones
      Literariae, tom. i. p. 321, 368. All that Heineccius says about
      the usurpation of the right of making these edicts by the
      praetors is false, and contrary to all historical testimony. A
      multitude of authorities proves that the magistrates were under
      an obligation to publish these edicts.—W. ——With the utmost
      deference for these excellent civilians, I cannot but consider
      this confusion of the judicial and legislative authority as a
      very perilous constitutional precedent. It might answer among a
      people so singularly trained as the Romans were by habit and
      national character in reverence for legal institutions, so as to
      be an aristocracy, if not a people, of legislators; but in most
      nations the investiture of a magistrate in such authority,
      leaving to his sole judgment the lawyers he might consult, and
      the view of public opinion which he might take, would be a very
      insufficient guaranty for right legislation.—M.]

      3311 (return) [ Compare throughout the brief but admirable sketch
      of the progress and growth of the Roman jurisprudence, the
      necessary operation of the jusgentium, when Rome became the
      sovereign of nations, upon the jus civile of the citizens of
      Rome, in the first chapter of Savigny. Geschichte des Romischen
      Rechts im Mittelalter.—M.]

      34 (return) [ Dion Cassius (tom. i. l. xxxvi. p. 100) fixes the
      perpetual edicts in the year of Rome, 686. Their institution,
      however, is ascribed to the year 585 in the Acta Diurna, which
      have been published from the papers of Ludovicus Vives. Their
      authenticity is supported or allowed by Pighius, (Annal. Rom.
      tom. ii. p. 377, 378,) Graevius, (ad Sueton. p. 778,) Dodwell,
      (Praelection. Cambden, p. 665,) and Heineccius: but a single
      word, Scutum Cimbricum, detects the forgery, (Moyle’s Works, vol.
      i. p. 303.)]

      35 (return) [ The history of edicts is composed, and the text of
      the perpetual edict is restored, by the master-hand of
      Heineccius, (Opp. tom. vii. P. ii. p. 1—564;) in whose researches
      I might safely acquiesce. In the Academy of Inscriptions, M.
      Bouchaud has given a series of memoirs to this interesting
      subject of law and literature. * Note: This restoration was only
      the commencement of a work found among the papers of Heineccius,
      and published after his death.—G. ——Note: Gibbon has here fallen
      into an error, with Heineccius, and almost the whole literary
      world, concerning the real meaning of what is called the
      perpetual edict of Hadrian. Since the Cornelian law, the edicts
      were perpetual, but only in this sense, that the praetor could
      not change them during the year of his magistracy. And although
      it appears that under Hadrian, the civilian Julianus made, or
      assisted in making, a complete collection of the edicts, (which
      certainly had been done likewise before Hadrian, for example, by
      Ofilius, qui diligenter edictum composuit,) we have no sufficient
      proof to admit the common opinion, that the Praetorian edict was
      declared perpetually unalterable by Hadrian. The writers on law
      subsequent to Hadrian (and among the rest Pomponius, in his
      Summary of the Roman Jurisprudence) speak of the edict as it
      existed in the time of Cicero. They would not certainly have
      passed over in silence so remarkable a change in the most
      important source of the civil law. M. Hugo has conclusively shown
      that the various passages in authors, like Eutropius, are not
      sufficient to establish the opinion introduced by Heineccius.
      Compare Hugo, vol. ii. p. 78. A new proof of this is found in the
      Institutes of Gaius, who, in the first books of his work,
      expresses himself in the same manner, without mentioning any
      change made by Hadrian. Nevertheless, if it had taken place, he
      must have noticed it, as he does l. i. 8, the responsa prudentum,
      on the occasion of a rescript of Hadrian. There is no lacuna in
      the text. Why then should Gaius maintain silence concerning an
      innovation so much more important than that of which he speaks?
      After all, this question becomes of slight interest, since, in
      fact, we find no change in the perpetual edict inserted in the
      Digest, from the time of Hadrian to the end of that epoch, except
      that made by Julian, (compare Hugo, l. c.) The latter lawyers
      appear to follow, in their commentaries, the same texts as their
      predecessors. It is natural to suppose, that, after the labors of
      so many men distinguished in jurisprudence, the framing of the
      edict must have attained such perfection that it would have been
      difficult to have made any innovation. We nowhere find that the
      jurists of the Pandects disputed concerning the words, or the
      drawing up of the edict. What difference would, in fact, result
      from this with regard to our codes, and our modern legislation?
      Compare the learned Dissertation of M. Biener, De Salvii Juliani
      meritis in Edictum Praetorium recte aestimandis. Lipsae, 1809,
      4to.—W.]

      From Augustus to Trajan, the modest Caesars were content to
      promulgate their edicts in the various characters of a Roman
      magistrate; 3511 and, in the decrees of the senate, the epistles
      and orations of the prince were respectfully inserted. Adrian 36
      appears to have been the first who assumed, without disguise, the
      plenitude of legislative power. And this innovation, so agreeable
      to his active mind, was countenanced by the patience of the
      times, and his long absence from the seat of government. The same
      policy was embraced by succeeding monarchs, and, according to the
      harsh metaphor of Tertullian, “the gloomy and intricate forest of
      ancient laws was cleared away by the axe of royal mandates and
      constitutions.” 37 During four centuries, from Adrian to
      Justinian the public and private jurisprudence was moulded by the
      will of the sovereign; and few institutions, either human or
      divine, were permitted to stand on their former basis. The origin
      of Imperial legislation was concealed by the darkness of ages and
      the terrors of armed despotism; and a double tiction was
      propagated by the servility, or perhaps the ignorance, of the
      civilians, who basked in the sunshine of the Roman and Byzantine
      courts. 1. To the prayer of the ancient Caesars, the people or
      the senate had sometimes granted a personal exemption from the
      obligation and penalty of particular statutes; and each
      indulgence was an act of jurisdiction exercised by the republic
      over the first of her citizens. His humble privilege was at
      length transformed into the prerogative of a tyrant; and the
      Latin expression of “released from the laws” 38 was supposed to
      exalt the emperor above all human restraints, and to leave his
      conscience and reason as the sacred measure of his conduct. 2. A
      similar dependence was implied in the decrees of the senate,
      which, in every reign, defined the titles and powers of an
      elective magistrate. But it was not before the ideas, and even
      the language, of the Romans had been corrupted, that a royal law,
      39 and an irrevocable gift of the people, were created by the
      fancy of Ulpian, or more probably of Tribonian himself; 40 and
      the origin of Imperial power, though false in fact, and slavish
      in its consequence, was supported on a principle of freedom and
      justice. “The pleasure of the emperor has the vigor and effect of
      law, since the Roman people, by the royal law, have transferred
      to their prince the full extent of their own power and
      sovereignty.” 41 The will of a single man, of a child perhaps,
      was allowed to prevail over the wisdom of ages and the
      inclinations of millions; and the degenerate Greeks were proud to
      declare, that in his hands alone the arbitrary exercise of
      legislation could be safely deposited. “What interest or
      passion,” exclaims Theophilus in the court of Justinian, “can
      reach the calm and sublime elevation of the monarch? He is
      already master of the lives and fortunes of his subjects; and
      those who have incurred his displeasure are already numbered with
      the dead.” 42 Disdaining the language of flattery, the historian
      may confess, that in questions of private jurisprudence, the
      absolute sovereign of a great empire can seldom be influenced by
      any personal considerations. Virtue, or even reason, will suggest
      to his impartial mind, that he is the guardian of peace and
      equity, and that the interest of society is inseparably connected
      with his own. Under the weakest and most vicious reign, the seat
      of justice was filled by the wisdom and integrity of Papinian and
      Ulpian; 43 and the purest materials of the Code and Pandects are
      inscribed with the names of Caracalla and his ministers. 44 The
      tyrant of Rome was sometimes the benefactor of the provinces. A
      dagger terminated the crimes of Domitian; but the prudence of
      Nerva confirmed his acts, which, in the joy of their deliverance,
      had been rescinded by an indignant senate. 45 Yet in the
      rescripts, 46 replies to the consultations of the magistrates,
      the wisest of princes might be deceived by a partial exposition
      of the case. And this abuse, which placed their hasty decisions
      on the same level with mature and deliberate acts of legislation,
      was ineffectually condemned by the sense and example of Trajan.
      The rescripts of the emperor, his grants and decrees, his edicts
      and pragmatic sanctions, were subscribed in purple ink, 47 and
      transmitted to the provinces as general or special laws, which
      the magistrates were bound to execute, and the people to obey.
      But as their number continually multiplied, the rule of obedience
      became each day more doubtful and obscure, till the will of the
      sovereign was fixed and ascertained in the Gregorian, the
      Hermogenian, and the Theodosian codes. 4711 The two first, of
      which some fragments have escaped, were framed by two private
      lawyers, to preserve the constitutions of the Pagan emperors from
      Adrian to Constantine. The third, which is still extant, was
      digested in sixteen books by the order of the younger Theodosius
      to consecrate the laws of the Christian princes from Constantine
      to his own reign. But the three codes obtained an equal authority
      in the tribunals; and any act which was not included in the
      sacred deposit might be disregarded by the judge as epurious or
      obsolete. 48

      3511 (return) [ It is an important question in what manner the
      emperors were invested with this legislative power. The newly
      discovered Gaius distinctly states that it was in virtue of a
      law—Nec unquam dubitatum est, quin id legis vicem obtineat, cum
      ipse imperator per legem imperium accipiat. But it is still
      uncertain whether this was a general law, passed on the
      transition of the government from a republican to a monarchical
      form, or a law passed on the accession of each emperor. Compare
      Hugo, Hist. du Droit Romain, (French translation,) vol. ii. p.
      8.—M.]

      36 (return) [ His laws are the first in the code. See Dodwell,
      (Praelect. Cambden, p. 319—340,) who wanders from the subject in
      confused reading and feeble paradox. * Note: This is again an
      error which Gibbon shares with Heineccius, and the generality of
      authors. It arises from having mistaken the insignificant edict
      of Hadrian, inserted in the Code of Justinian, (lib. vi, tit.
      xxiii. c. 11,) for the first constitutio principis, without
      attending to the fact, that the Pandects contain so many
      constitutions of the emperors, from Julius Caesar, (see l. i.
      Digest 29, l) M. Hugo justly observes, that the acta of Sylla,
      approved by the senate, were the same thing with the
      constitutions of those who after him usurped the sovereign power.
      Moreover, we find that Pliny, and other ancient authors, report a
      multitude of rescripts of the emperors from the time of Augustus.
      See Hugo, Hist. du Droit Romain, vol. ii. p. 24-27.—W.]

      37 (return) [ Totam illam veterem et squalentem sylvam legum
      novis principalium rescriptorum et edictorum securibus truncatis
      et caeditis; (Apologet. c. 4, p. 50, edit. Havercamp.) He
      proceeds to praise the recent firmness of Severus, who repealed
      the useless or pernicious laws, without any regard to their age
      or authority.]

      38 (return) [ The constitutional style of Legibus Solutus is
      misinterpreted by the art or ignorance of Dion Cassius, (tom. i.
      l. liii. p. 713.) On this occasion, his editor, Reimer, joins the
      universal censure which freedom and criticism have pronounced
      against that slavish historian.]

      39 (return) [ The word (Lex Regia) was still more recent than the
      thing. The slaves of Commodus or Caracalla would have started at
      the name of royalty. Note: Yet a century before, Domitian was
      called not only by Martial but even in public documents, Dominus
      et Deus Noster. Sueton. Domit. cap. 13. Hugo.—W.]

      40 (return) [ See Gravina (Opp. p. 501—512) and Beaufort,
      (Republique Romaine, tom. i. p. 255—274.) He has made a proper
      use of two dissertations by John Frederic Gronovius and Noodt,
      both translated, with valuable notes, by Barbeyrac, 2 vols. in
      12mo. 1731.]

      41 (return) [ Institut. l. i. tit. ii. No. 6. Pandect. l. i. tit.
      iv. leg. 1. Cod. Justinian, l. i. tit. xvii. leg. 1, No. 7. In
      his Antiquities and Elements, Heineccius has amply treated de
      constitutionibus principum, which are illustrated by Godefroy
      (Comment. ad Cod. Theodos. l. i. tit. i. ii. iii.) and Gravina,
      (p. 87—90.) ——Note: Gaius asserts that the Imperial edict or
      rescript has and always had, the force of law, because the
      Imperial authority rests upon law. Constitutio principis est,
      quod imperator decreto vel edicto, vel epistola constituit, nee
      unquam dubitatum, quin id legis, vicem obtineat, cum ipse
      imperator per legem imperium accipiat. Gaius, 6 Instit. i. 2.—M.]

      42 (return) [ Theophilus, in Paraphras. Graec. Institut. p. 33,
      34, edit. Reitz For his person, time, writings, see the
      Theophilus of J. H. Mylius, Excurs. iii. p. 1034—1073.]

      43 (return) [ There is more envy than reason in the complaint of
      Macrinus (Jul. Capitolin. c. 13:) Nefas esse leges videri Commodi
      et Caracalla at hominum imperitorum voluntates. Commodus was made
      a Divus by Severus, (Dodwell, Praelect. viii. p. 324, 325.) Yet
      he occurs only twice in the Pandects.]

      44 (return) [ Of Antoninus Caracalla alone 200 constitutions are
      extant in the Code, and with his father 160. These two princes
      are quoted fifty times in the Pandects, and eight in the
      Institutes, (Terasson, p. 265.)]

      45 (return) [ Plin. Secund. Epistol. x. 66. Sueton. in Domitian.
      c. 23.]

      46 (return) [ It was a maxim of Constantine, contra jus rescripta
      non valeant, (Cod. Theodos. l. i. tit. ii. leg. 1.) The emperors
      reluctantly allow some scrutiny into the law and the fact, some
      delay, petition, &c.; but these insufficient remedies are too
      much in the discretion and at the peril of the judge.]

      47 (return) [ A compound of vermilion and cinnabar, which marks
      the Imperial diplomas from Leo I. (A.D. 470) to the fall of the
      Greek empire, (Bibliotheque Raisonnee de la Diplomatique, tom. i.
      p. 504—515 Lami, de Eruditione Apostolorum, tom. ii. p.
      720-726.)]

      4711 (return) [ Savigny states the following as the authorities
      for the Roman law at the commencement of the fifth century:— 1.
      The writings of the jurists, according to the regulations of the
      Constitution of Valentinian III., first promulgated in the West,
      but by its admission into the Theodosian Code established
      likewise in the East. (This Constitution established the
      authority of the five great jurists, Papinian, Paulus, Caius,
      Ulpian, and Modestinus as interpreters of the ancient law. * * *
      In case of difference of opinion among these five, a majority
      decided the case; where they were equal, the opinion of Papinian,
      where he was silent, the judge; but see p. 40, and Hugo, vol. ii.
      p. 89.) 2. The Gregorian and Hermogenian Collection of the
      Imperial Rescripts. 3. The Code of Theodosius II. 4. The
      particular Novellae, as additions and Supplements to this Code
      Savigny. vol. i. p 10.—M.]

      48 (return) [ Schulting, Jurisprudentia Ante-Justinianea, p.
      681-718. Cujacius assigned to Gregory the reigns from Hadrian to
      Gallienus. and the continuation to his fellow-laborer Hermogenes.
      This general division may be just, but they often trespassed on
      each other’s ground]

      ===




      Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part III.

      Among savage nations, the want of letters is imperfectly supplied
      by the use of visible signs, which awaken attention, and
      perpetuate the remembrance of any public or private transaction.
      The jurisprudence of the first Romans exhibited the scenes of a
      pantomime; the words were adapted to the gestures, and the
      slightest error or neglect in the forms of proceeding was
      sufficient to annul the substance of the fairest claim. The
      communion of the marriage-life was denoted by the necessary
      elements of fire and water; 49 and the divorced wife resigned the
      bunch of keys, by the delivery of which she had been invested
      with the government of the family. The manumission of a son, or a
      slave, was performed by turning him round with a gentle blow on
      the cheek; a work was prohibited by the casting of a stone;
      prescription was interrupted by the breaking of a branch; the
      clinched fist was the symbol of a pledge or deposit; the right
      hand was the gift of faith and confidence. The indenture of
      covenants was a broken straw; weights and scales were introduced
      into every payment, and the heir who accepted a testament was
      sometimes obliged to snap his fingers, to cast away his garments,
      and to leap or dance with real or affected transport. 50 If a
      citizen pursued any stolen goods into a neighbor’s house, he
      concealed his nakedness with a linen towel, and hid his face with
      a mask or basin, lest he should encounter the eyes of a virgin or
      a matron. 51 In a civil action the plaintiff touched the ear of
      his witness, seized his reluctant adversary by the neck, and
      implored, in solemn lamentation, the aid of his fellow-citizens.
      The two competitors grasped each other’s hand as if they stood
      prepared for combat before the tribunal of the praetor; he
      commanded them to produce the object of the dispute; they went,
      they returned with measured steps, and a clod of earth was cast
      at his feet to represent the field for which they contended. This
      occult science of the words and actions of law was the
      inheritance of the pontiffs and patricians. Like the Chaldean
      astrologers, they announced to their clients the days of business
      and repose; these important trifles were interwoven with the
      religion of Numa; and after the publication of the Twelve Tables,
      the Roman people was still enslaved by the ignorance of judicial
      proceedings. The treachery of some plebeian officers at length
      revealed the profitable mystery: in a more enlightened age, the
      legal actions were derided and observed; and the same antiquity
      which sanctified the practice, obliterated the use and meaning of
      this primitive language. 52

      49 (return) [ Scaevola, most probably Q. Cervidius Scaevola; the
      master of Papinian considers this acceptance of fire and water as
      the essence of marriage, (Pandect. l. xxiv. tit. 1, leg. 66. See
      Heineccius, Hist. J. R. No. 317.)]

      50 (return) [ Cicero (de Officiis, iii. 19) may state an ideal
      case, but St. Am brose (de Officiis, iii. 2,) appeals to the
      practice of his own times, which he understood as a lawyer and a
      magistrate, (Schulting ad Ulpian, Fragment. tit. xxii. No. 28, p.
      643, 644.) * Note: In this passage the author has endeavored to
      collect all the examples of judicial formularies which he could
      find. That which he adduces as the form of cretio haereditatis is
      absolutely false. It is sufficient to glance at the passage in
      Cicero which he cites, to see that it has no relation to it. The
      author appeals to the opinion of Schulting, who, in the passage
      quoted, himself protests against the ridiculous and absurd
      interpretation of the passage in Cicero, and observes that
      Graevius had already well explained the real sense. See in Gaius
      the form of cretio haereditatis Inst. l. ii. p. 166.—W.]

      51 (return) [ The furtum lance licioque conceptum was no longer
      understood in the time of the Antonines, (Aulus Gellius, xvi.
      10.) The Attic derivation of Heineccius, (Antiquitat. Rom. l. iv.
      tit. i. No. 13—21) is supported by the evidence of Aristophanes,
      his scholiast, and Pollux. * Note: Nothing more is known of this
      ceremony; nevertheless we find that already in his own days Gaius
      turned it into ridicule. He says, (lib. iii. et p. 192, Sections
      293,) prohibiti actio quadrupli ex edicto praetoris introducta
      est; lex autem eo nomine nullam poenam constituit. Hoc solum
      praecepit, ut qui quaerere velit, nudus quaerat, linteo cinctus,
      lancem habens; qui si quid invenerit. jubet id lex furtum
      manifestum esse. Quid sit autem linteum? quaesitum est. Sed
      verius est consuti genus esse, quo necessariae partes tegerentur.
      Quare lex tota ridicula est. Nam qui vestitum quaerere prohibet,
      is et nudum quaerere prohibiturus est; eo magis, quod invenerit
      ibi imponat, neutrum eorum procedit, si id quod quaeratur, ejus
      magnitudinis aut naturae sit ut neque subjici, neque ibi imponi
      possit. Certe non dubitatur, cujuscunque materiae sit ea lanx,
      satis legi fieri. We see moreover, from this passage, that the
      basin, as most authors, resting on the authority of Festus, have
      supposed, was not used to cover the figure.—W. Gibbon says the
      face, though equally inaccurately. This passage of Gaius, I must
      observe, as well as others in M. Warnkonig’s work, is very
      inaccurately printed.—M.]

      52 (return) [ In his Oration for Murena, (c. 9—13,) Cicero turns
      into ridicule the forms and mysteries of the civilians, which are
      represented with more candor by Aulus Gellius, (Noct. Attic. xx.
      10,) Gravina, (Opp p. 265, 266, 267,) and Heineccius,
      (Antiquitat. l. iv. tit. vi.) * Note: Gibbon had conceived
      opinions too decided against the forms of procedure in use among
      the Romans. Yet it is on these solemn forms that the certainty of
      laws has been founded among all nations. Those of the Romans were
      very intimately allied with the ancient religion, and must of
      necessity have disappeared as Rome attained a higher degree of
      civilization. Have not modern nations, even the most civilized,
      overloaded their laws with a thousand forms, often absurd, almost
      always trivial? How many examples are afforded by the English
      law! See, on the nature of these forms, the work of M. de Savigny
      on the Vocation of our Age for Legislation and Jurisprudence,
      Heidelberg, 1814, p. 9, 10.—W. This work of M. Savigny has been
      translated into English by Mr. Hayward.—M.]

      A more liberal art was cultivated, however, by the sage of Rome,
      who, in a stricter sense, may be considered as the authors of the
      civil law. The alteration of the idiom and manners of the Romans
      rendered the style of the Twelve Tables less familiar to each
      rising generation, and the doubtful passages were imperfectly
      explained by the study of legal antiquarians. To define the
      ambiguities, to circumscribe the latitude, to apply the
      principles, to extend the consequences, to reconcile the real or
      apparent contradictions, was a much nobler and more important
      task; and the province of legislation was silently invaded by the
      expounders of ancient statutes. Their subtle interpretations
      concurred with the equity of the praetor, to reform the tyranny
      of the darker ages: however strange or intricate the means, it
      was the aim of artificial jurisprudence to restore the simple
      dictates of nature and reason, and the skill of private citizens
      was usefully employed to undermine the public institutions of
      their country. 521 The revolution of almost one thousand years,
      from the Twelve Tables to the reign of Justinian, may be divided
      into three periods, almost equal in duration, and distinguished
      from each other by the mode of instruction and the character of
      the civilians. 53 Pride and ignorance contributed, during the
      first period, to confine within narrow limits the science of the
      Roman law. On the public days of market or assembly, the masters
      of the art were seen walking in the forum ready to impart the
      needful advice to the meanest of their fellow-citizens, from
      whose votes, on a future occasion, they might solicit a grateful
      return. As their years and honors increased, they seated
      themselves at home on a chair or throne, to expect with patient
      gravity the visits of their clients, who at the dawn of day, from
      the town and country, began to thunder at their door. The duties
      of social life, and the incidents of judicial proceeding, were
      the ordinary subject of these consultations, and the verbal or
      written opinion of the juris-consults was framed according to the
      rules of prudence and law. The youths of their own order and
      family were permitted to listen; their children enjoyed the
      benefit of more private lessons, and the Mucian race was long
      renowned for the hereditary knowledge of the civil law. The
      second period, the learned and splendid age of jurisprudence, may
      be extended from the birth of Cicero to the reign of Severus
      Alexander. A system was formed, schools were instituted, books
      were composed, and both the living and the dead became
      subservient to the instruction of the student. The tripartite of
      Aelius Paetus, surnamed Catus, or the Cunning, was preserved as
      the oldest work of Jurisprudence. Cato the censor derived some
      additional fame from his legal studies, and those of his son: the
      kindred appellation of Mucius Scaevola was illustrated by three
      sages of the law; but the perfection of the science was ascribed
      to Servius Sulpicius, their disciple, and the friend of Tully;
      and the long succession, which shone with equal lustre under the
      republic and under the Caesars, is finally closed by the
      respectable characters of Papinian, of Paul, and of Ulpian. Their
      names, and the various titles of their productions, have been
      minutely preserved, and the example of Labeo may suggest some
      idea of their diligence and fecundity. That eminent lawyer of the
      Augustan age divided the year between the city and country,
      between business and composition; and four hundred books are
      enumerated as the fruit of his retirement. Of the collection of
      his rival Capito, the two hundred and fifty-ninth book is
      expressly quoted; and few teachers could deliver their opinions
      in less than a century of volumes. In the third period, between
      the reigns of Alexander and Justinian, the oracles of
      jurisprudence were almost mute. The measure of curiosity had been
      filled: the throne was occupied by tyrants and Barbarians, the
      active spirits were diverted by religious disputes, and the
      professors of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus, were humbly
      content to repeat the lessons of their more enlightened
      predecessors. From the slow advances and rapid decay of these
      legal studies, it may be inferred, that they require a state of
      peace and refinement. From the multitude of voluminous civilians
      who fill the intermediate space, it is evident that such studies
      may be pursued, and such works may be performed, with a common
      share of judgment, experience, and industry. The genius of Cicero
      and Virgil was more sensibly felt, as each revolving age had been
      found incapable of producing a similar or a second: but the most
      eminent teachers of the law were assured of leaving disciples
      equal or superior to themselves in merit and reputation.

      521 (return) [ Compare, on the Responsa Prudentum, Warnkonig,
      Histoire Externe du Droit Romain Bruxelles, 1836, p. 122.—M.]

      53 (return) [ The series of the civil lawyers is deduced by
      Pomponius, (de Origine Juris Pandect. l. i. tit. ii.) The moderns
      have discussed, with learning and criticism, this branch of
      literary history; and among these I have chiefly been guided by
      Gravina (p. 41—79) and Hei neccius, (Hist. J. R. No. 113-351.)
      Cicero, more especially in his books de Oratore, de Claris
      Oratoribus, de Legibus, and the Clavie Ciceroniana of Ernesti
      (under the names of Mucius, &c.) afford much genuine and pleasing
      information. Horace often alludes to the morning labors of the
      civilians, (Serm. I. i. 10, Epist. II. i. 103, &c)

     Agricolam laudat juris legumque peritus Sub galli cantum,
     consultor ubi ostia pulsat. —————— Romae dulce diu fuit et
     solemne, reclusa Mane domo vigilare, clienti promere jura.

      * Note: It is particularly in this division of the history of the
      Roman jurisprudence into epochs, that Gibbon displays his
      profound knowledge of the laws of this people. M. Hugo, adopting
      this division, prefaced these three periods with the history of
      the times anterior to the Law of the Twelve Tables, which are, as
      it were, the infancy of the Roman law.—W]

      The jurisprudence which had been grossly adapted to the wants of
      the first Romans, was polished and improved in the seventh
      century of the city, by the alliance of Grecian philosophy. The
      Scaevolas had been taught by use and experience; but Servius
      Sulpicius 5311 was the first civilian who established his art on
      a certain and general theory. 54 For the discernment of truth and
      falsehood he applied, as an infallible rule, the logic of
      Aristotle and the stoics, reduced particular cases to general
      principles, and diffused over the shapeless mass the light of
      order and eloquence. Cicero, his contemporary and friend,
      declined the reputation of a professed lawyer; but the
      jurisprudence of his country was adorned by his incomparable
      genius, which converts into gold every object that it touches.
      After the example of Plato, he composed a republic; and, for the
      use of his republic, a treatise of laws; in which he labors to
      deduce from a celestial origin the wisdom and justice of the
      Roman constitution. The whole universe, according to his sublime
      hypothesis, forms one immense commonwealth: gods and men, who
      participate of the same essence, are members of the same
      community; reason prescribes the law of nature and nations; and
      all positive institutions, however modified by accident or
      custom, are drawn from the rule of right, which the Deity has
      inscribed on every virtuous mind. From these philosophical
      mysteries, he mildly excludes the sceptics who refuse to believe,
      and the epicureans who are unwilling to act. The latter disdain
      the care of the republic: he advises them to slumber in their
      shady gardens. But he humbly entreats that the new academy would
      be silent, since her bold objections would too soon destroy the
      fair and well ordered structure of his lofty system. 55 Plato,
      Aristotle, and Zeno, he represents as the only teachers who arm
      and instruct a citizen for the duties of social life. Of these,
      the armor of the stoics 56 was found to be of the firmest temper;
      and it was chiefly worn, both for use and ornament, in the
      schools of jurisprudence. From the portico, the Roman civilians
      learned to live, to reason, and to die: but they imbibed in some
      degree the prejudices of the sect; the love of paradox, the
      pertinacious habits of dispute, and a minute attachment to words
      and verbal distinctions. The superiority of form to matter was
      introduced to ascertain the right of property: and the equality
      of crimes is countenanced by an opinion of Trebatius, 57 that he
      who touches the ear, touches the whole body; and that he who
      steals from a heap of corn, or a hogshead of wine, is guilty of
      the entire theft. 58

      5311 (return) [ M. Hugo thinks that the ingenious system of the
      Institutes adopted by a great number of the ancient lawyers, and
      by Justinian himself, dates from Severus Sulpicius. Hist du Droit
      Romain, vol.iii.p. 119.—W.]

      54 (return) [ Crassus, or rather Cicero himself, proposes (de
      Oratore, i. 41, 42) an idea of the art or science of
      jurisprudence, which the eloquent, but illiterate, Antonius (i.
      58) affects to deride. It was partly executed by Servius
      Sulpicius, (in Bruto, c. 41,) whose praises are elegantly varied
      in the classic Latinity of the Roman Gravina, (p. 60.)]

      55 (return) [ Perturbatricem autem omnium harum rerum academiam,
      hanc ab Arcesila et Carneade recentem, exoremus ut sileat, nam si
      invaserit in haec, quae satis scite instructa et composita
      videantur, nimis edet ruinas, quam quidem ego placare cupio,
      submovere non audeo. (de Legibus, i. 13.) From this passage
      alone, Bentley (Remarks on Free-thinking, p. 250) might have
      learned how firmly Cicero believed in the specious doctrines
      which he has adorned.]

      56 (return) [ The stoic philosophy was first taught at Rome by
      Panaetius, the friend of the younger Scipio, (see his life in the
      Mem. de l’Academis des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 75—89.)]

      57 (return) [ As he is quoted by Ulpian, (leg.40, 40, ad Sabinum
      in Pandect. l. xlvii. tit. ii. leg. 21.) Yet Trebatius, after he
      was a leading civilian, que qui familiam duxit, became an
      epicurean, (Cicero ad Fam. vii. 5.) Perhaps he was not constant
      or sincere in his new sect. * Note: Gibbon had entirely
      misunderstood this phrase of Cicero. It was only since his time
      that the real meaning of the author was apprehended. Cicero, in
      enumerating the qualifications of Trebatius, says, Accedit etiam,
      quod familiam ducit in jure civili, singularis memoria, summa
      scientia, which means that Trebatius possessed a still further
      most important qualification for a student of civil law, a
      remarkable memory, &c. This explanation, already conjectured by
      G. Menage, Amaenit. Juris Civilis, c. 14, is found in the
      dictionary of Scheller, v. Familia, and in the History of the
      Roman Law by M. Hugo. Many authors have asserted, without any
      proof sufficient to warrant the conjecture, that Trebatius was of
      the school of Epicurus—W.]

      58 (return) [ See Gravina (p. 45—51) and the ineffectual cavils
      of Mascou. Heineccius (Hist. J. R. No. 125) quotes and approves a
      dissertation of Everard Otto, de Stoica Jurisconsultorum
      Philosophia.]

      Arms, eloquence, and the study of the civil law, promoted a
      citizen to the honors of the Roman state; and the three
      professions were sometimes more conspicuous by their union in the
      same character. In the composition of the edict, a learned
      praetor gave a sanction and preference to his private sentiments;
      the opinion of a censor, or a counsel, was entertained with
      respect; and a doubtful interpretation of the laws might be
      supported by the virtues or triumphs of the civilian. The
      patrician arts were long protected by the veil of mystery; and in
      more enlightened times, the freedom of inquiry established the
      general principles of jurisprudence. Subtile and intricate cases
      were elucidated by the disputes of the forum: rules, axioms, and
      definitions, 59 were admitted as the genuine dictates of reason;
      and the consent of the legal professors was interwoven into the
      practice of the tribunals. But these interpreters could neither
      enact nor execute the laws of the republic; and the judges might
      disregard the authority of the Scaevolas themselves, which was
      often overthrown by the eloquence or sophistry of an ingenious
      pleader. 60 Augustus and Tiberius were the first to adopt, as a
      useful engine, the science of the civilians; and their servile
      labors accommodated the old system to the spirit and views of
      despotism. Under the fair pretence of securing the dignity of the
      art, the privilege of subscribing legal and valid opinions was
      confined to the sages of senatorian or equestrian rank, who had
      been previously approved by the judgment of the prince; and this
      monopoly prevailed, till Adrian restored the freedom of the
      profession to every citizen conscious of his abilities and
      knowledge. The discretion of the praetor was now governed by the
      lessons of his teachers; the judges were enjoined to obey the
      comment as well as the text of the law; and the use of codicils
      was a memorable innovation, which Augustus ratified by the advice
      of the civilians. 61 6111

      59 (return) [ We have heard of the Catonian rule, the Aquilian
      stipulation, and the Manilian forms, of 211 maxims, and of 247
      definitions, (Pandect. l. i. tit. xvi. xvii.)]

      60 (return) [ Read Cicero, l. i. de Oratore, Topica, pro Murena.]

      61 (return) [ See Pomponius, (de Origine Juris Pandect. l. i.
      tit. ii. leg. 2, No 47,) Heineccius, (ad Institut. l. i. tit. ii.
      No. 8, l. ii. tit. xxv. in Element et Antiquitat.,) and Gravina,
      (p. 41—45.) Yet the monopoly of Augustus, a harsh measure, would
      appear with some softening in contemporary evidence; and it was
      probably veiled by a decree of the senate]

      6111 (return) [ The author here follows the then generally
      received opinion of Heineccius. The proofs which appear to
      confirm it are l. 2 47, D. I. 2, and 8. Instit. I. 2. The first
      of these passages speaks expressly of a privilege granted to
      certain lawyers, until the time of Adrian, publice respondendi
      jus ante Augusti tempora non dabatur. Primus Divus ut major juris
      auctoritas haberetur, constituit, ut ex auctoritate ejus
      responderent. The passage of the Institutes speaks of the
      different opinions of those, quibus est permissum jura condere.
      It is true that the first of these passages does not say that the
      opinion of these privileged lawyers had the force of a law for
      the judges. For this reason M. Hugo altogether rejects the
      opinion adopted by Heineccius, by Bach, and in general by all the
      writers who preceded him. He conceives that the 8 of the
      Institutes referred to the constitution of Valentinian III.,
      which regulated the respective authority to be ascribed to the
      different writings of the great civilians. But we have now the
      following passage in the Institutes of Gaius: Responsa prudentum
      sunt sententiae et opiniones eorum, quibus permissum est jura
      condere; quorum omnium si in unum sententiae concorrupt, id quod
      ita sentiunt, legis vicem obtinet, si vero dissentiunt, judici
      licet, quam velit sententiam sequi, idque rescripto Divi Hadrian
      signiticatur. I do not know, how in opposition to this passage,
      the opinion of M. Hugo can be maintained. We must add to this the
      passage quoted from Pomponius and from such strong proofs, it
      seems incontestable that the emperors had granted some kind of
      privilege to certain civilians, quibus permissum erat jura
      condere. Their opinion had sometimes the force of law, legis
      vicem. M. Hugo, endeavoring to reconcile this phrase with his
      system, gives it a forced interpretation, which quite alters the
      sense; he supposes that the passage contains no more than what is
      evident of itself, that the authority of the civilians was to be
      respected, thus making a privilege of that which was free to all
      the world. It appears to me almost indisputable, that the
      emperors had sanctioned certain provisions relative to the
      authority of these civilians, consulted by the judges. But how
      far was their advice to be respected? This is a question which it
      is impossible to answer precisely, from the want of historic
      evidence. Is it not possible that the emperors established an
      authority to be consulted by the judges? and in this case this
      authority must have emanated from certain civilians named for
      this purpose by the emperors. See Hugo, l. c. Moreover, may not
      the passage of Suetonius, in the Life of Caligula, where he says
      that the emperor would no longer permit the civilians to give
      their advice, mean that Caligula entertained the design of
      suppressing this institution? See on this passage the Themis,
      vol. xi. p. 17, 36. Our author not being acquainted with the
      opinions opposed to Heineccius has not gone to the bottom of the
      subject.—W.]

      The most absolute mandate could only require that the judges
      should agree with the civilians, if the civilians agreed among
      themselves. But positive institutions are often the result of
      custom and prejudice; laws and language are ambiguous and
      arbitrary; where reason is incapable of pronouncing, the love of
      argument is inflamed by the envy of rivals, the vanity of
      masters, the blind attachment of their disciples; and the Roman
      jurisprudence was divided by the once famous sects of the
      Proculians and Sabinians. 62 Two sages of the law, Ateius Capito
      and Antistius Labeo, 63 adorned the peace of the Augustan age;
      the former distinguished by the favor of his sovereign; the
      latter more illustrious by his contempt of that favor, and his
      stern though harmless opposition to the tyrant of Rome. Their
      legal studies were influenced by the various colors of their
      temper and principles. Labeo was attached to the form of the old
      republic; his rival embraced the more profitable substance of the
      rising monarchy. But the disposition of a courtier is tame and
      submissive; and Capito seldom presumed to deviate from the
      sentiments, or at least from the words, of his predecessors;
      while the bold republican pursued his independent ideas without
      fear of paradox or innovations. The freedom of Labeo was
      enslaved, however, by the rigor of his own conclusions, and he
      decided, according to the letter of the law, the same questions
      which his indulgent competitor resolved with a latitude of equity
      more suitable to the common sense and feelings of mankind. If a
      fair exchange had been substituted to the payment of money,
      Capito still considered the transaction as a legal sale; 64 and
      he consulted nature for the age of puberty, without confining his
      definition to the precise period of twelve or fourteen years. 65
      This opposition of sentiments was propagated in the writings and
      lessons of the two founders; the schools of Capito and Labeo
      maintained their inveterate conflict from the age of Augustus to
      that of Adrian; 66 and the two sects derived their appellations
      from Sabinus and Proculus, their most celebrated teachers. The
      names of Cassians and Pegasians were likewise applied to the same
      parties; but, by a strange reverse, the popular cause was in the
      hands of Pegasus, 67 a timid slave of Domitian, while the
      favorite of the Caesars was represented by Cassius, 68 who
      gloried in his descent from the patriot assassin. By the
      perpetual edict, the controversies of the sects were in a great
      measure determined. For that important work, the emperor Adrian
      preferred the chief of the Sabinians: the friends of monarchy
      prevailed; but the moderation of Salvius Julian insensibly
      reconciled the victors and the vanquished. Like the contemporary
      philosophers, the lawyers of the age of the Antonines disclaimed
      the authority of a master, and adopted from every system the most
      probable doctrines. 69 But their writings would have been less
      voluminous, had their choice been more unanimous. The conscience
      of the judge was perplexed by the number and weight of discordant
      testimonies, and every sentence that his passion or interest
      might pronounce was justified by the sanction of some venerable
      name. An indulgent edict of the younger Theodosius excused him
      from the labor of comparing and weighing their arguments. Five
      civilians, Caius, Papinian, Paul, Ulpian, and Modestinus, were
      established as the oracles of jurisprudence: a majority was
      decisive: but if their opinions were equally divided, a casting
      vote was ascribed to the superior wisdom of Papinian. 70

      62 (return) [ I have perused the Diatribe of Gotfridus Mascovius,
      the learned Mascou, de Sectis Jurisconsultorum, (Lipsiae, 1728,
      in 12mo., p. 276,) a learned treatise on a narrow and barren
      ground.]

      63 (return) [ See the character of Antistius Labeo in Tacitus,
      (Annal. iii. 75,) and in an epistle of Ateius Capito, (Aul.
      Gellius, xiii. 12,) who accuses his rival of libertas nimia et
      vecors. Yet Horace would not have lashed a virtuous and
      respectable senator; and I must adopt the emendation of Bentley,
      who reads Labieno insanior, (Serm. I. iii. 82.) See Mascou, de
      Sectis, (c. i. p. 1—24.)]

      64 (return) [ Justinian (Institut. l. iii. tit. 23, and Theophil.
      Vers. Graec. p. 677, 680) has commemorated this weighty dispute,
      and the verses of Homer that were alleged on either side as legal
      authorities. It was decided by Paul, (leg. 33, ad Edict. in
      Pandect. l. xviii. tit. i. leg. 1,) since, in a simple exchange,
      the buyer could not be discriminated from the seller.]

      65 (return) [ This controversy was likewise given for the
      Proculians, to supersede the indecency of a search, and to comply
      with the aphorism of Hippocrates, who was attached to the
      septenary number of two weeks of years, or 700 of days,
      (Institut. l. i. tit. xxii.) Plutarch and the Stoics (de Placit.
      Philosoph. l. v. c. 24) assign a more natural reason. Fourteen
      years is the age. See the vestigia of the sects in Mascou, c. ix.
      p. 145—276.]

      66 (return) [ The series and conclusion of the sects are
      described by Mascou, (c. ii.—vii. p. 24—120;) and it would be
      almost ridiculous to praise his equal justice to these obsolete
      sects. * Note: The work of Gaius, subsequent to the time of
      Adrian, furnishes us with some information on this subject. The
      disputes which rose between these two sects appear to have been
      very numerous. Gaius avows himself a disciple of Sabinus and of
      Caius. Compare Hugo, vol. ii. p. 106.—W.]

      67 (return) [ At the first summons he flies to the
      turbot-council; yet Juvenal (Satir. iv. 75—81) styles the
      praefect or bailiff of Rome sanctissimus legum interpres. From
      his science, says the old scholiast, he was called, not a man,
      but a book. He derived the singular name of Pegasus from the
      galley which his father commanded.]

      68 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xvii. 7. Sueton. in Nerone, c.
      xxxvii.]

      69 (return) [ Mascou, de Sectis, c. viii. p. 120—144 de
      Herciscundis, a legal term which was applied to these eclectic
      lawyers: herciscere is synonymous to dividere. * Note: This word
      has never existed. Cujacius is the author of it, who read me
      words terris condi in Servius ad Virg. herciscundi, to which he
      gave an erroneous interpretation.—W.]

      70 (return) [ See the Theodosian Code, l. i. tit. iv. with
      Godefroy’s Commentary, tom. i. p. 30—35. [! This decree might
      give occasion to Jesuitical disputes like those in the Lettres
      Provinciales, whether a Judge was obliged to follow the opinion
      of Papinian, or of a majority, against his judgment, against his
      conscience, &c. Yet a legislator might give that opinion, however
      false, the validity, not of truth, but of law. Note: We possess
      (since 1824) some interesting information as to the framing of
      the Theodosian Code, and its ratification at Rome, in the year
      438. M. Closius, now professor at Dorpat in Russia, and M.
      Peyron, member of the Academy of Turin, have discovered, the one
      at Milan, the other at Turin, a great part of the five first
      books of the Code which were wanting, and besides this, the
      reports (gesta) of the sitting of the senate at Rome, in which
      the Code was published, in the year after the marriage of
      Valentinian III. Among these pieces are the constitutions which
      nominate commissioners for the formation of the Code; and though
      there are many points of considerable obscurity in these
      documents, they communicate many facts relative to this
      legislation. 1. That Theodosius designed a great reform in the
      legislation; to add to the Gregorian and Hermogenian codes all
      the new constitutions from Constantine to his own day; and to
      frame a second code for common use with extracts from the three
      codes, and from the works of the civil lawyers. All laws either
      abrogated or fallen into disuse were to be noted under their
      proper heads. 2. An Ordinance was issued in 429 to form a
      commission for this purpose of nine persons, of which Antiochus,
      as quaestor and praefectus, was president. A second commission of
      sixteen members was issued in 435 under the same president. 3. A
      code, which we possess under the name of Codex Theodosianus, was
      finished in 438, published in the East, in an ordinance addressed
      to the Praetorian praefect, Florentinus, and intended to be
      published in the West. 4. Before it was published in the West,
      Valentinian submitted it to the senate. There is a report of the
      proceedings of the senate, which closed with loud acclamations
      and gratulations.—From Warnkonig, Histoire du Droit Romain, p.
      169-Wenck has published this work, Codicis Theodosiani libri
      priores. Leipzig, 1825.—M.] * Note *: Closius of Tubingen
      communicated to M.Warnkonig the two following constitutions of
      the emperor Constantine, which he discovered in the Ambrosian
      library at Milan:— 1. Imper. Constantinus Aug. ad Maximium Praef.
      Praetorio. Perpetuas prudentum contentiones eruere cupientes,
      Ulpiani ac Pauli, in Papinianum notas, qui dum ingenii laudem
      sectantur, non tam corrigere eum quam depravere maluerunt,
      aboleri praecepimus. Dat. III. Kalend. Octob. Const. Cons. et
      Crispi, (321.) Idem. Aug. ad Maximium Praef Praet. Universa, quae
      scriptura Pauli continentur, recepta auctoritate firmanda runt,
      et omni veneratione celebranda. Ideoque sententiarum libros
      plepissima luce et perfectissima elocutione et justissima juris
      ratione succinctos in judiciis prolatos valere minimie dubitatur.
      Dat. V. Kalend. Oct. Trovia Coust. et Max. Coss. (327.)—W]




      Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part IV.

      When Justinian ascended the throne, the reformation of the Roman
      jurisprudence was an arduous but indispensable task. In the space
      of ten centuries, the infinite variety of laws and legal opinions
      had filled many thousand volumes, which no fortune could purchase
      and no capacity could digest. Books could not easily be found;
      and the judges, poor in the midst of riches, were reduced to the
      exercise of their illiterate discretion. The subjects of the
      Greek provinces were ignorant of the language that disposed of
      their lives and properties; and the barbarous dialect of the
      Latins was imperfectly studied in the academies of Berytus and
      Constantinople. As an Illyrian soldier, that idiom was familiar
      to the infancy of Justinian; his youth had been instructed by the
      lessons of jurisprudence, and his Imperial choice selected the
      most learned civilians of the East, to labor with their sovereign
      in the work of reformation. 71 The theory of professors was
      assisted by the practice of advocates, and the experience of
      magistrates; and the whole undertaking was animated by the spirit
      of Tribonian. 72 This extraordinary man, the object of so much
      praise and censure, was a native of Side in Pamphylia; and his
      genius, like that of Bacon, embraced, as his own, all the
      business and knowledge of the age. Tribonian composed, both in
      prose and verse, on a strange diversity of curious and abstruse
      subjects: 73 a double panegyric of Justinian and the life of the
      philosopher Theodotus; the nature of happiness and the duties of
      government; Homer’s catalogue and the four-and-twenty sorts of
      metre; the astronomical canon of Ptolemy; the changes of the
      months; the houses of the planets; and the harmonic system of the
      world. To the literature of Greece he added the use of the Latin
      tonque; the Roman civilians were deposited in his library and in
      his mind; and he most assiduously cultivated those arts which
      opened the road of wealth and preferment. From the bar of the
      Praetorian praefects, he raised himself to the honors of
      quaestor, of consul, and of master of the offices: the council of
      Justinian listened to his eloquence and wisdom; and envy was
      mitigated by the gentleness and affability of his manners. The
      reproaches of impiety and avarice have stained the virtue or the
      reputation of Tribonian. In a bigoted and persecuting court, the
      principal minister was accused of a secret aversion to the
      Christian faith, and was supposed to entertain the sentiments of
      an Atheist and a Pagan, which have been imputed, inconsistently
      enough, to the last philosophers of Greece. His avarice was more
      clearly proved and more sensibly felt. If he were swayed by gifts
      in the administration of justice, the example of Bacon will again
      occur; nor can the merit of Tribonian atone for his baseness, if
      he degraded the sanctity of his profession; and if laws were
      every day enacted, modified, or repealed, for the base
      consideration of his private emolument. In the sedition of
      Constantinople, his removal was granted to the clamors, perhaps
      to the just indignation, of the people: but the quaestor was
      speedily restored, and, till the hour of his death, he possessed,
      above twenty years, the favor and confidence of the emperor. His
      passive and dutiful submission had been honored with the praise
      of Justinian himself, whose vanity was incapable of discerning
      how often that submission degenerated into the grossest
      adulation. Tribonian adored the virtues of his gracious of his
      gracious master; the earth was unworthy of such a prince; and he
      affected a pious fear, that Justinian, like Elijah or Romulus,
      would be snatched into the air, and translated alive to the
      mansions of celestial glory. 74

      71 (return) [ For the legal labors of Justinian, I have studied
      the Preface to the Institutes; the 1st, 2d, and 3d Prefaces to
      the Pandects; the 1st and 2d Preface to the Code; and the Code
      itself, (l. i. tit. xvii. de Veteri Jure enucleando.) After these
      original testimonies, I have consulted, among the moderns,
      Heineccius, (Hist. J. R. No. 383—404,) Terasson. (Hist. de la
      Jurisprudence Romaine, p. 295—356,) Gravina, (Opp. p. 93-100,)
      and Ludewig, in his Life of Justinian, (p.19—123, 318-321; for
      the Code and Novels, p. 209—261; for the Digest or Pandects, p.
      262—317.)]

      72 (return) [ For the character of Tribonian, see the testimonies
      of Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 23, 24. Anecdot. c. 13, 20,) and
      Suidas, (tom. iii. p. 501, edit. Kuster.) Ludewig (in Vit.
      Justinian, p. 175—209) works hard, very hard, to whitewash—the
      blackamoor.]

      73 (return) [ I apply the two passages of Suidas to the same man;
      every circumstance so exactly tallies. Yet the lawyers appear
      ignorant; and Fabricius is inclined to separate the two
      characters, (Bibliot. Grae. tom. i. p. 341, ii. p. 518, iii. p.
      418, xii. p. 346, 353, 474.)]

      74 (return) [ This story is related by Hesychius, (de Viris
      Illustribus,) Procopius, (Anecdot. c. 13,) and Suidas, (tom. iii.
      p. 501.) Such flattery is incredible! —Nihil est quod credere de
      se Non possit, cum laudatur Diis aequa potestas. Fontenelle (tom.
      i. p. 32—39) has ridiculed the impudence of the modest Virgil.
      But the same Fontenelle places his king above the divine
      Augustus; and the sage Boileau has not blushed to say, “Le destin
      a ses yeux n’oseroit balancer” Yet neither Augustus nor Louis
      XIV. were fools.]

      If Caesar had achieved the reformation of the Roman law, his
      creative genius, enlightened by reflection and study, would have
      given to the world a pure and original system of jurisprudence.
      Whatever flattery might suggest, the emperor of the East was
      afraid to establish his private judgment as the standard of
      equity: in the possession of legislative power, he borrowed the
      aid of time and opinion; and his laborious compilations are
      guarded by the sages and legislature of past times. Instead of a
      statue cast in a simple mould by the hand of an artist, the works
      of Justinian represent a tessellated pavement of antique and
      costly, but too often of incoherent, fragments. In the first year
      of his reign, he directed the faithful Tribonian, and nine
      learned associates, to revise the ordinances of his predecessors,
      as they were contained, since the time of Adrian, in the
      Gregorian Hermogenian, and Theodosian codes; to purge the errors
      and contradictions, to retrench whatever was obsolete or
      superfluous, and to select the wise and salutary laws best
      adapted to the practice of the tribunals and the use of his
      subjects. The work was accomplished in fourteen months; and the
      twelve books or tables, which the new decemvirs produced, might
      be designed to imitate the labors of their Roman predecessors.
      The new Code of Justinian was honored with his name, and
      confirmed by his royal signature: authentic transcripts were
      multiplied by the pens of notaries and scribes; they were
      transmitted to the magistrates of the European, the Asiatic, and
      afterwards the African provinces; and the law of the empire was
      proclaimed on solemn festivals at the doors of churches. A more
      arduous operation was still behind—to extract the spirit of
      jurisprudence from the decisions and conjectures, the questions
      and disputes, of the Roman civilians. Seventeen lawyers, with
      Tribonian at their head, were appointed by the emperor to
      exercise an absolute jurisdiction over the works of their
      predecessors. If they had obeyed his commands in ten years,
      Justinian would have been satisfied with their diligence; and the
      rapid composition of the Digest of Pandects, 75 in three years,
      will deserve praise or censure, according to the merit of the
      execution. From the library of Tribonian, they chose forty, the
      most eminent civilians of former times: 76 two thousand treatises
      were comprised in an abridgment of fifty books; and it has been
      carefully recorded, that three millions of lines or sentences, 77
      were reduced, in this abstract, to the moderate number of one
      hundred and fifty thousand. The edition of this great work was
      delayed a month after that of the Institutes; and it seemed
      reasonable that the elements should precede the digest of the
      Roman law. As soon as the emperor had approved their labors, he
      ratified, by his legislative power, the speculations of these
      private citizens: their commentaries, on the twelve tables, the
      perpetual edict, the laws of the people, and the decrees of the
      senate, succeeded to the authority of the text; and the text was
      abandoned, as a useless, though venerable, relic of antiquity.
      The Code, the Pandects, and the Institutes, were declared to be
      the legitimate system of civil jurisprudence; they alone were
      admitted into the tribunals, and they alone were taught in the
      academies of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus. Justinian
      addressed to the senate and provinces his eternal oracles; and
      his pride, under the mask of piety, ascribed the consummation of
      this great design to the support and inspiration of the Deity.

      75 (return) [ General receivers was a common title of the Greek
      miscellanies, (Plin. Praefat. ad Hist. Natur.) The Digesta of
      Scaevola, Marcellinus, Celsus, were already familiar to the
      civilians: but Justinian was in the wrong when he used the two
      appellations as synonymous. Is the word Pandects Greek or
      Latin—masculine or feminine? The diligent Brenckman will not
      presume to decide these momentous controversies, (Hist. Pandect.
      Florentine. p. 200—304.) Note: The word was formerly in common
      use. See the preface is Aulus Gellius—W]

      76 (return) [ Angelus Politianus (l. v. Epist. ult.) reckons
      thirty-seven (p. 192—200) civilians quoted in the Pandects—a
      learned, and for his times, an extraordinary list. The Greek
      index to the Pandects enumerates thirty-nine, and forty are
      produced by the indefatigable Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. tom.
      iii. p. 488—502.) Antoninus Augustus (de Nominibus Propriis
      Pandect. apud Ludewig, p. 283) is said to have added fifty-four
      names; but they must be vague or second-hand references.]

      77 (return) [ The item of the ancient Mss. may be strictly
      defined as sentences or periods of a complete sense, which, on
      the breadth of the parchment rolls or volumes, composed as many
      lines of unequal length. The number in each book served as a
      check on the errors of the scribes, (Ludewig, p. 211—215; and his
      original author Suicer. Thesaur. Ecclesiast. tom. i. p
      1021-1036).]

      Since the emperor declined the fame and envy of original
      composition, we can only require, at his hands, method choice,
      and fidelity, the humble, though indispensable, virtues of a
      compiler. Among the various combinations of ideas, it is
      difficult to assign any reasonable preference; but as the order
      of Justinian is different in his three works, it is possible that
      all may be wrong; and it is certain that two cannot be right. In
      the selection of ancient laws, he seems to have viewed his
      predecessors without jealousy, and with equal regard: the series
      could not ascend above the reign of Adrian, and the narrow
      distinction of Paganism and Christianity, introduced by the
      superstition of Theodosius, had been abolished by the consent of
      mankind. But the jurisprudence of the Pandects is circumscribed
      within a period of a hundred years, from the perpetual edict to
      the death of Severus Alexander: the civilians who lived under the
      first Caesars are seldom permitted to speak, and only three names
      can be attributed to the age of the republic. The favorite of
      Justinian (it has been fiercely urged) was fearful of
      encountering the light of freedom and the gravity of Roman sages.

      Tribonian condemned to oblivion the genuine and native wisdom of
      Cato, the Scaevolas, and Sulpicius; while he invoked spirits more
      congenial to his own, the Syrians, Greeks, and Africans, who
      flocked to the Imperial court to study Latin as a foreign tongue,
      and jurisprudence as a lucrative profession. But the ministers of
      Justinian, 78 were instructed to labor, not for the curiosity of
      antiquarians, but for the immediate benefit of his subjects. It
      was their duty to select the useful and practical parts of the
      Roman law; and the writings of the old republicans, however
      curious or excellent, were no longer suited to the new system of
      manners, religion, and government. Perhaps, if the preceptors and
      friends of Cicero were still alive, our candor would acknowledge,
      that, except in purity of language, 79 their intrinsic merit was
      excelled by the school of Papinian and Ulpian. The science of the
      laws is the slow growth of time and experience, and the advantage
      both of method and materials, is naturally assumed by the most
      recent authors. The civilians of the reign of the Antonines had
      studied the works of their predecessors: their philosophic spirit
      had mitigated the rigor of antiquity, simplified the forms of
      proceeding, and emerged from the jealousy and prejudice of the
      rival sects. The choice of the authorities that compose the
      Pandects depended on the judgment of Tribonian: but the power of
      his sovereign could not absolve him from the sacred obligations
      of truth and fidelity. As the legislator of the empire, Justinian
      might repeal the acts of the Antonines, or condemn, as seditious,
      the free principles, which were maintained by the last of the
      Roman lawyers. 80 But the existence of past facts is placed
      beyond the reach of despotism; and the emperor was guilty of
      fraud and forgery, when he corrupted the integrity of their text,
      inscribed with their venerable names the words and ideas of his
      servile reign, 81 and suppressed, by the hand of power, the pure
      and authentic copies of their sentiments. The changes and
      interpolations of Tribonian and his colleagues are excused by the
      pretence of uniformity: but their cares have been insufficient,
      and the antinomies, or contradictions of the Code and Pandects,
      still exercise the patience and subtilty of modern civilians. 82

      78 (return) [ An ingenious and learned oration of Schultingius
      (Jurisprudentia Ante-Justinianea, p. 883—907) justifies the
      choice of Tribonian, against the passionate charges of Francis
      Hottoman and his sectaries.]

      79 (return) [ Strip away the crust of Tribonian, and allow for
      the use of technical words, and the Latin of the Pandects will be
      found not unworthy of the silver age. It has been vehemently
      attacked by Laurentius Valla, a fastidious grammarian of the xvth
      century, and by his apologist Floridus Sabinus. It has been
      defended by Alciat, and a name less advocate, (most probably
      James Capellus.) Their various treatises are collected by Duker,
      (Opuscula de Latinitate veterum Jurisconsultorum, Lugd. Bat.
      1721, in 12mo.) Note: Gibbon is mistaken with regard to Valla,
      who, though he inveighs against the barbarous style of the
      civilians of his own day, lavishes the highest praise on the
      admirable purity of the language of the ancient writers on civil
      law. (M. Warnkonig quotes a long passage of Valla in
      justification of this observation.) Since his time, this truth
      has been recognized by men of the highest eminence, such as
      Erasmus, David Hume and Runkhenius.—W.]

      80 (return) [ Nomina quidem veteribus servavimus, legum autem
      veritatem nostram fecimus. Itaque siquid erat in illis
      seditiosum, multa autem talia erant ibi reposita, hoc decisum est
      et definitum, et in perspicuum finem deducta est quaeque lex,
      (Cod. Justinian. l. i. tit. xvii. leg. 3, No 10.) A frank
      confession! * Note: Seditiosum, in the language of Justinian,
      means not seditious, but discounted.—W.]

      81 (return) [ The number of these emblemata (a polite name for
      forgeries) is much reduced by Bynkershoek, (in the four last
      books of his Observations,) who poorly maintains the right of
      Justinian and the duty of Tribonian.]

      82 (return) [ The antinomies, or opposite laws of the Code and
      Pandects, are sometimes the cause, and often the excuse, of the
      glorious uncertainty of the civil law, which so often affords
      what Montaigne calls “Questions pour l’Ami.” See a fine passage
      of Franciscus Balduinus in Justinian, (l. ii. p. 259, &c., apud
      Ludewig, p. 305, 306.)]

      A rumor devoid of evidence has been propagated by the enemies of
      Justinian; that the jurisprudence of ancient Rome was reduced to
      ashes by the author of the Pandects, from the vain persuasion,
      that it was now either false or superfluous. Without usurping an
      office so invidious, the emperor might safely commit to ignorance
      and time the accomplishments of this destructive wish. Before the
      invention of printing and paper, the labor and the materials of
      writing could be purchased only by the rich; and it may
      reasonably be computed, that the price of books was a hundred
      fold their present value. 83 Copies were slowly multiplied and
      cautiously renewed: the hopes of profit tempted the sacrilegious
      scribes to erase the characters of antiquity, 8311 and Sophocles
      or Tacitus were obliged to resign the parchment to missals,
      homilies, and the golden legend. 84 If such was the fate of the
      most beautiful compositions of genius, what stability could be
      expected for the dull and barren works of an obsolete science?
      The books of jurisprudence were interesting to few, and
      entertaining to none: their value was connected with present use,
      and they sunk forever as soon as that use was superseded by the
      innovations of fashion, superior merit, or public authority. In
      the age of peace and learning, between Cicero and the last of the
      Antonines, many losses had been already sustained, and some
      luminaries of the school, or forum, were known only to the
      curious by tradition and report. Three hundred and sixty years of
      disorder and decay accelerated the progress of oblivion; and it
      may fairly be presumed, that of the writings, which Justinian is
      accused of neglecting, many were no longer to be found in the
      libraries of the East. 85 The copies of Papinian, or Ulpian,
      which the reformer had proscribed, were deemed unworthy of future
      notice: the Twelve Tables and praetorian edicts insensibly
      vanished, and the monuments of ancient Rome were neglected or
      destroyed by the envy and ignorance of the Greeks. Even the
      Pandects themselves have escaped with difficulty and danger from
      the common shipwreck, and criticism has pronounced that all the
      editions and manuscripts of the West are derived from one
      original. 86 It was transcribed at Constantinople in the
      beginning of the seventh century, 87 was successively transported
      by the accidents of war and commerce to Amalphi, 88 Pisa, 89 and
      Florence, 90 and is now deposited as a sacred relic 91 in the
      ancient palace of the republic. 92

      83 (return) [ When Faust, or Faustus, sold at Paris his first
      printed Bibles as manuscripts, the price of a parchment copy was
      reduced from four or five hundred to sixty, fifty, and forty
      crowns. The public was at first pleased with the cheapness, and
      at length provoked by the discovery of the fraud, (Mattaire,
      Annal. Typograph. tom. i. p. 12; first edit.)]

      8311 (return) [ Among the works which have been recovered, by the
      persevering and successful endeavors of M. Mai and his followers
      to trace the imperfectly erased characters of the ancient writers
      on these Palimpsests, Gibbon at this period of his labors would
      have hailed with delight the recovery of the Institutes of Gaius,
      and the fragments of the Theodosian Code, published by M Keyron
      of Turin.—M.]

      84 (return) [ This execrable practice prevailed from the viiith,
      and more especially from the xiith, century, when it became
      almost universal (Montfaucon, in the Memoires de l’Academie, tom.
      vi. p. 606, &c. Bibliotheque Raisonnee de la Diplomatique, tom.
      i. p. 176.)]

      85 (return) [ Pomponius (Pandect. l. i. tit. ii. leg. 2)
      observes, that of the three founders of the civil law, Mucius,
      Brutus, and Manilius, extant volumina, scripta Manilii monumenta;
      that of some old republican lawyers, haec versantur eorum scripta
      inter manus hominum. Eight of the Augustan sages were reduced to
      a compendium: of Cascellius, scripta non extant sed unus liber,
      &c.; of Trebatius, minus frequentatur; of Tubero, libri parum
      grati sunt. Many quotations in the Pandects are derived from
      books which Tribonian never saw; and in the long period from the
      viith to the xiiith century of Rome, the apparent reading of the
      moderns successively depends on the knowledge and veracity of
      their predecessors.]

      86 (return) [ All, in several instances, repeat the errors of the
      scribe and the transpositions of some leaves in the Florentine
      Pandects. This fact, if it be true, is decisive. Yet the Pandects
      are quoted by Ivo of Chartres, (who died in 1117,) by Theobald,
      archbishop of Canterbury, and by Vacarius, our first professor,
      in the year 1140, (Selden ad Fletam, c. 7, tom. ii. p.
      1080—1085.) Have our British Mss. of the Pandects been collated?]

      87 (return) [ See the description of this original in Brenckman,
      (Hist. Pandect. Florent. l. i. c. 2, 3, p. 4—17, and l. ii.)
      Politian, an enthusiast, revered it as the authentic standard of
      Justinian himself, (p. 407, 408;) but this paradox is refuted by
      the abbreviations of the Florentine Ms. (l. ii. c. 3, p.
      117-130.) It is composed of two quarto volumes, with large
      margins, on a thin parchment, and the Latin characters betray the
      band of a Greek scribe.]

      88 (return) [ Brenckman, at the end of his history, has inserted
      two dissertations on the republic of Amalphi, and the Pisan war
      in the year 1135, &c.]

      89 (return) [ The discovery of the Pandects at Amalphi (A. D
      1137) is first noticed (in 1501) by Ludovicus Bologninus,
      (Brenckman, l. i. c. 11, p. 73, 74, l. iv. c. 2, p. 417—425,) on
      the faith of a Pisan chronicle, (p. 409, 410,) without a name or
      a date. The whole story, though unknown to the xiith century,
      embellished by ignorant ages, and suspected by rigid criticism,
      is not, however, destitute of much internal probability, (l. i.
      c. 4—8, p. 17—50.) The Liber Pandectarum of Pisa was undoubtedly
      consulted in the xivth century by the great Bartolus, (p. 406,
      407. See l. i. c. 9, p. 50—62.) Note: Savigny (vol. iii. p. 83,
      89) examines and rejects the whole story. See likewise Hallam
      vol. iii. p. 514.—M.]

      90 (return) [ Pisa was taken by the Florentines in the year 1406;
      and in 1411 the Pandects were transported to the capital. These
      events are authentic and famous.]

      91 (return) [ They were new bound in purple, deposited in a rich
      casket, and shown to curious travellers by the monks and
      magistrates bareheaded, and with lighted tapers, (Brenckman, l.
      i. c. 10, 11, 12, p. 62—93.)]

      92 (return) [ After the collations of Politian, Bologninus, and
      Antoninus Augustinus, and the splendid edition of the Pandects by
      Taurellus, (in 1551,) Henry Brenckman, a Dutchman, undertook a
      pilgrimage to Florence, where he employed several years in the
      study of a single manuscript. His Historia Pandectarum
      Florentinorum, (Utrecht, 1722, in 4to.,) though a monument of
      industry, is a small portion of his original design.]

      It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any future
      reformation. To maintain the text of the Pandects, the
      Institutes, and the Code, the use of ciphers and abbreviations
      was rigorously proscribed; and as Justinian recollected, that the
      perpetual edict had been buried under the weight of commentators,
      he denounced the punishment of forgery against the rash civilians
      who should presume to interpret or pervert the will of their
      sovereign. The scholars of Accursius, of Bartolus, of Cujacius,
      should blush for their accumulated guilt, unless they dare to
      dispute his right of binding the authority of his successors, and
      the native freedom of the mind. But the emperor was unable to fix
      his own inconstancy; and, while he boasted of renewing the
      exchange of Diomede, of transmuting brass into gold, 93
      discovered the necessity of purifying his gold from the mixture
      of baser alloy. Six years had not elapsed from the publication of
      the Code, before he condemned the imperfect attempt, by a new and
      more accurate edition of the same work; which he enriched with
      two hundred of his own laws, and fifty decisions of the darkest
      and most intricate points of jurisprudence. Every year, or,
      according to Procopius, each day, of his long reign, was marked
      by some legal innovation. Many of his acts were rescinded by
      himself; many were rejected by his successors; many have been
      obliterated by time; but the number of sixteen Edicts, and one
      hundred and sixty-eight Novels, 94 has been admitted into the
      authentic body of the civil jurisprudence. In the opinion of a
      philosopher superior to the prejudices of his profession, these
      incessant, and, for the most part, trifling alterations, can be
      only explained by the venal spirit of a prince, who sold without
      shame his judgments and his laws. 95 The charge of the secret
      historian is indeed explicit and vehement; but the sole instance,
      which he produces, may be ascribed to the devotion as well as to
      the avarice of Justinian. A wealthy bigot had bequeathed his
      inheritance to the church of Emesa; and its value was enhanced by
      the dexterity of an artist, who subscribed confessions of debt
      and promises of payment with the names of the richest Syrians.
      They pleaded the established prescription of thirty or forty
      years; but their defence was overruled by a retrospective edict,
      which extended the claims of the church to the term of a century;
      an edict so pregnant with injustice and disorder, that, after
      serving this occasional purpose, it was prudently abolished in
      the same reign. 96 If candor will acquit the emperor himself, and
      transfer the corruption to his wife and favorites, the suspicion
      of so foul a vice must still degrade the majesty of his laws; and
      the advocates of Justinian may acknowledge, that such levity,
      whatsoever be the motive, is unworthy of a legislator and a man.

      93 (return) [ Apud Homerum patrem omnis virtutis, (1st Praefat.
      ad Pandect.) A line of Milton or Tasso would surprise us in an
      act of parliament. Quae omnia obtinere sancimus in omne aevum. Of
      the first Code, he says, (2d Praefat.,) in aeternum valiturum.
      Man and forever!]

      94 (return) [ Novellae is a classic adjective, but a barbarous
      substantive, (Ludewig, p. 245.) Justinian never collected them
      himself; the nine collations, the legal standard of modern
      tribunals, consist of ninety-eight Novels; but the number was
      increased by the diligence of Julian, Haloander, and Contius,
      (Ludewig, p. 249, 258 Aleman. Not in Anecdot. p. 98.)]

      95 (return) [ Montesquieu, Considerations sur la Grandeur et la
      Decadence des Romains, c. 20, tom. iii. p. 501, in 4to. On this
      occasion he throws aside the gown and cap of a President a
      Mortier.]

      96 (return) [ Procopius, Anecdot. c. 28. A similar privilege was
      granted to the church of Rome, (Novel. ix.) For the general
      repeal of these mischievous indulgences, see Novel. cxi. and
      Edict. v.]

      Monarchs seldom condescend to become the preceptors of their
      subjects; and some praise is due to Justinian, by whose command
      an ample system was reduced to a short and elementary treatise.
      Among the various institutes of the Roman law, 97 those of Caius
      98 were the most popular in the East and West; and their use may
      be considered as an evidence of their merit. They were selected
      by the Imperial delegates, Tribonian, Theophilus, and Dorotheus;
      and the freedom and purity of the Antonines was incrusted with
      the coarser materials of a degenerate age. The same volume which
      introduced the youth of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus, to the
      gradual study of the Code and Pandects, is still precious to the
      historian, the philosopher, and the magistrate. The Institutes of
      Justinian are divided into four books: they proceed, with no
      contemptible method, from, I. Persons, to, II. Things, and from
      things, to, III. Actions; and the article IV., of Private Wrongs,
      is terminated by the principles of Criminal Law. 9811

      97 (return) [ Lactantius, in his Institutes of Christianity, an
      elegant and specious work, proposes to imitate the title and
      method of the civilians. Quidam prudentes et arbitri aequitatis
      Institutiones Civilis Juris compositas ediderunt, (Institut.
      Divin. l. i. c. 1.) Such as Ulpian, Paul, Florentinus, Marcian.]

      98 (return) [ The emperor Justinian calls him suum, though he
      died before the end of the second century. His Institutes are
      quoted by Servius, Boethius, Priscian, &c.; and the Epitome by
      Arrian is still extant. (See the Prolegomena and notes to the
      edition of Schulting, in the Jurisprudentia Ante-Justinianea,
      Lugd. Bat. 1717. Heineccius, Hist. J R No. 313. Ludewig, in Vit.
      Just. p. 199.)]

      9811 (return) [ Gibbon, dividing the Institutes into four parts,
      considers the appendix of the criminal law in the last title as a
      fourth part.—W.]




      Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part V.

      The distinction of ranks and persons is the firmest basis of a
      mixed and limited government. In France, the remains of liberty
      are kept alive by the spirit, the honors, and even the
      prejudices, of fifty thousand nobles. 99 Two hundred families
      9911 supply, in lineal descent, the second branch of English
      legislature, which maintains, between the king and commons, the
      balance of the constitution. A gradation of patricians and
      plebeians, of strangers and subjects, has supported the
      aristocracy of Genoa, Venice, and ancient Rome. The perfect
      equality of men is the point in which the extremes of democracy
      and despotism are confounded; since the majesty of the prince or
      people would be offended, if any heads were exalted above the
      level of their fellow-slaves or fellow-citizens. In the decline
      of the Roman empire, the proud distinctions of the republic were
      gradually abolished, and the reason or instinct of Justinian
      completed the simple form of an absolute monarchy. The emperor
      could not eradicate the popular reverence which always waits on
      the possession of hereditary wealth, or the memory of famous
      ancestors. He delighted to honor, with titles and emoluments, his
      generals, magistrates, and senators; and his precarious
      indulgence communicated some rays of their glory to the persons
      of their wives and children. But in the eye of the law, all Roman
      citizens were equal, and all subjects of the empire were citizens
      of Rome. That inestimable character was degraded to an obsolete
      and empty name. The voice of a Roman could no longer enact his
      laws, or create the annual ministers of his power: his
      constitutional rights might have checked the arbitrary will of a
      master: and the bold adventurer from Germany or Arabia was
      admitted, with equal favor, to the civil and military command,
      which the citizen alone had been once entitled to assume over the
      conquests of his fathers. The first Caesars had scrupulously
      guarded the distinction of ingenuous and servile birth, which was
      decided by the condition of the mother; and the candor of the
      laws was satisfied, if her freedom could be ascertained, during a
      single moment, between the conception and the delivery. The
      slaves, who were liberated by a generous master, immediately
      entered into the middle class of libertines or freedmen; but they
      could never be enfranchised from the duties of obedience and
      gratitude; whatever were the fruits of their industry, their
      patron and his family inherited the third part; or even the whole
      of their fortune, if they died without children and without a
      testament. Justinian respected the rights of patrons; but his
      indulgence removed the badge of disgrace from the two inferior
      orders of freedmen; whoever ceased to be a slave, obtained,
      without reserve or delay, the station of a citizen; and at length
      the dignity of an ingenuous birth, which nature had refused, was
      created, or supposed, by the omnipotence of the emperor. Whatever
      restraints of age, or forms, or numbers, had been formerly
      introduced to check the abuse of manumissions, and the too rapid
      increase of vile and indigent Romans, he finally abolished; and
      the spirit of his laws promoted the extinction of domestic
      servitude. Yet the eastern provinces were filled, in the time of
      Justinian, with multitudes of slaves, either born or purchased
      for the use of their masters; and the price, from ten to seventy
      pieces of gold, was determined by their age, their strength, and
      their education. 100 But the hardships of this dependent state
      were continually diminished by the influence of government and
      religion: and the pride of a subject was no longer elated by his
      absolute dominion over the life and happiness of his bondsman.
      101

      99 (return) [ See the Annales Politiques de l’Abbe de St. Pierre,
      tom. i. p. 25 who dates in the year 1735. The most ancient
      families claim the immemorial possession of arms and fiefs. Since
      the Crusades, some, the most truly respectable, have been created
      by the king, for merit and services. The recent and vulgar crowd
      is derived from the multitude of venal offices without trust or
      dignity, which continually ennoble the wealthy plebeians.]

      9911 (return) [ Since the time of Gibbon, the House of Peers has
      been more than doubled: it is above 400, exclusive of the
      spiritual peers—a wise policy to increase the patrician order in
      proportion to the general increase of the nation.—M.]

      100 (return) [ If the option of a slave was bequeathed to several
      legatees, they drew lots, and the losers were entitled to their
      share of his value; ten pieces of gold for a common servant or
      maid under ten years: if above that age, twenty; if they knew a
      trade, thirty; notaries or writers, fifty; midwives or
      physicians, sixty; eunuchs under ten years, thirty pieces; above,
      fifty; if tradesmen, seventy, (Cod. l. vi. tit. xliii. leg. 3.)
      These legal prices are generally below those of the market.]

      101 (return) [ For the state of slaves and freedmen, see
      Institutes, l. i. tit. iii.—viii. l. ii. tit. ix. l. iii. tit.
      viii. ix. Pandects or Digest, l. i. tit. v. vi. l. xxxviii. tit.
      i.—iv., and the whole of the xlth book. Code, l. vi. tit. iv. v.
      l. vii. tit. i.—xxiii. Be it henceforward understood that, with
      the original text of the Institutes and Pandects, the
      correspondent articles in the Antiquities and Elements of
      Heineccius are implicitly quoted; and with the xxvii. first books
      of the Pandects, the learned and rational Commentaries of Gerard
      Noodt, (Opera, tom. ii. p. 1—590, the end. Lugd. Bat. 1724.)]

      The law of nature instructs most animals to cherish and educate
      their infant progeny. The law of reason inculcates to the human
      species the returns of filial piety. But the exclusive, absolute,
      and perpetual dominion of the father over his children, is
      peculiar to the Roman jurisprudence, 102 and seems to be coeval
      with the foundation of the city. 103 The paternal power was
      instituted or confirmed by Romulus himself; and, after the
      practice of three centuries, it was inscribed on the fourth table
      of the Decemvirs. In the forum, the senate, or the camp, the
      adult son of a Roman citizen enjoyed the public and private
      rights of a person: in his father’s house he was a mere thing;
      1031 confounded by the laws with the movables, the cattle, and
      the slaves, whom the capricious master might alienate or destroy,
      without being responsible to any earthly tribunal. The hand which
      bestowed the daily sustenance might resume the voluntary gift,
      and whatever was acquired by the labor or fortune of the son was
      immediately lost in the property of the father. His stolen goods
      (his oxen or his children) might be recovered by the same action
      of theft; 104 and if either had been guilty of a trespass, it was
      in his own option to compensate the damage, or resign to the
      injured party the obnoxious animal. At the call of indigence or
      avarice, the master of a family could dispose of his children or
      his slaves. But the condition of the slave was far more
      advantageous, since he regained, by the first manumission, his
      alienated freedom: the son was again restored to his unnatural
      father; he might be condemned to servitude a second and a third
      time, and it was not till after the third sale and deliverance,
      105 that he was enfranchised from the domestic power which had
      been so repeatedly abused. According to his discretion, a father
      might chastise the real or imaginary faults of his children, by
      stripes, by imprisonment, by exile, by sending them to the
      country to work in chains among the meanest of his servants. The
      majesty of a parent was armed with the power of life and death;
      106 and the examples of such bloody executions, which were
      sometimes praised and never punished, may be traced in the annals
      of Rome beyond the times of Pompey and Augustus. Neither age, nor
      rank, nor the consular office, nor the honors of a triumph, could
      exempt the most illustrious citizen from the bonds of filial
      subjection: 107 his own descendants were included in the family
      of their common ancestor; and the claims of adoption were not
      less sacred or less rigorous than those of nature. Without fear,
      though not without danger of abuse, the Roman legislators had
      reposed an unbounded confidence in the sentiments of paternal
      love; and the oppression was tempered by the assurance that each
      generation must succeed in its turn to the awful dignity of
      parent and master.

      102 (return) [ See the patria potestas in the Institutes, (l. i.
      tit. ix.,) the Pandects, (l. i. tit. vi. vii.,) and the Code, (l.
      viii. tit. xlvii. xlviii. xlix.) Jus potestatis quod in liberos
      habemus proprium est civium Romanorum. Nulli enim alii sunt
      homines, qui talem in liberos habeant potestatem qualem nos
      habemus. * Note: The newly-discovered Institutes of Gaius name
      one nation in which the same power was vested in the parent. Nec
      me praeterit Galatarum gentem credere, in potestate parentum
      liberos esse. Gaii Instit. edit. 1824, p. 257.—M.]

      103 (return) [ Dionysius Hal. l. ii. p. 94, 95. Gravina (Opp. p.
      286) produces the words of the xii. tables. Papinian (in
      Collatione Legum Roman et Mosaicarum, tit. iv. p. 204) styles
      this patria potestas, lex regia: Ulpian (ad Sabin. l. xxvi. in
      Pandect. l. i. tit. vi. leg. 8) says, jus potestatis moribus
      receptum; and furiosus filium in potestate habebit How sacred—or
      rather, how absurd! * Note: All this is in strict accordance with
      the Roman character.—W.]

      1031 (return) [ This parental power was strictly confined to the
      Roman citizen. The foreigner, or he who had only jus Latii, did
      not possess it. If a Roman citizen unknowingly married a Latin or
      a foreign wife, he did not possess this power over his son,
      because the son, following the legal condition of the mother, was
      not a Roman citizen. A man, however, alleging sufficient cause
      for his ignorance, might raise both mother and child to the
      rights of citizenship. Gaius. p. 30.—M.]

      104 (return) [ Pandect. l. xlvii. tit. ii. leg. 14, No. 13, leg.
      38, No. 1. Such was the decision of Ulpian and Paul.]

      105 (return) [ The trina mancipatio is most clearly defined by
      Ulpian, (Fragment. x. p. 591, 592, edit. Schulting;) and best
      illustrated in the Antiquities of Heineccius. * Note: The son of
      a family sold by his father did not become in every respect a
      slave, he was statu liber; that is to say, on paying the price
      for which he was sold, he became entirely free. See Hugo, Hist.
      Section 61—W.]

      106 (return) [ By Justinian, the old law, the jus necis of the
      Roman father (Institut. l. iv. tit. ix. No. 7) is reported and
      reprobated. Some legal vestiges are left in the Pandects (l.
      xliii. tit. xxix. leg. 3, No. 4) and the Collatio Legum Romanarum
      et Mosaicarum, (tit. ii. No. 3, p. 189.)]

      107 (return) [ Except on public occasions, and in the actual
      exercise of his office. In publicis locis atque muneribus, atque
      actionibus patrum, jura cum filiorum qui in magistratu sunt
      potestatibus collata interquiescere paullulum et connivere, &c.,
      (Aul. Gellius, Noctes Atticae, ii. 2.) The Lessons of the
      philosopher Taurus were justified by the old and memorable
      example of Fabius; and we may contemplate the same story in the
      style of Livy (xxiv. 44) and the homely idiom of Claudius Quadri
      garius the annalist.]

      The first limitation of paternal power is ascribed to the justice
      and humanity of Numa; and the maid who, with his father’s
      consent, had espoused a freeman, was protected from the disgrace
      of becoming the wife of a slave. In the first ages, when the city
      was pressed, and often famished, by her Latin and Tuscan
      neighbors, the sale of children might be a frequent practice; but
      as a Roman could not legally purchase the liberty of his
      fellow-citizen, the market must gradually fail, and the trade
      would be destroyed by the conquests of the republic. An imperfect
      right of property was at length communicated to sons; and the
      threefold distinction of profectitious, adventitious, and
      professional was ascertained by the jurisprudence of the Code and
      Pandects. 108 Of all that proceeded from the father, he imparted
      only the use, and reserved the absolute dominion; yet if his
      goods were sold, the filial portion was excepted, by a favorable
      interpretation, from the demands of the creditors. In whatever
      accrued by marriage, gift, or collateral succession, the property
      was secured to the son; but the father, unless he had been
      specially excluded, enjoyed the usufruct during his life. As a
      just and prudent reward of military virtue, the spoils of the
      enemy were acquired, possessed, and bequeathed by the soldier
      alone; and the fair analogy was extended to the emoluments of any
      liberal profession, the salary of public service, and the sacred
      liberality of the emperor or empress. The life of a citizen was
      less exposed than his fortune to the abuse of paternal power. Yet
      his life might be adverse to the interest or passions of an
      unworthy father: the same crimes that flowed from the corruption,
      were more sensibly felt by the humanity, of the Augustan age; and
      the cruel Erixo, who whipped his son till he expired, was saved
      by the emperor from the just fury of the multitude. 109 The Roman
      father, from the license of servile dominion, was reduced to the
      gravity and moderation of a judge. The presence and opinion of
      Augustus confirmed the sentence of exile pronounced against an
      intentional parricide by the domestic tribunal of Arius. Adrian
      transported to an island the jealous parent, who, like a robber,
      had seized the opportunity of hunting, to assassinate a youth,
      the incestuous lover of his step-mother. 110 A private
      jurisdiction is repugnant to the spirit of monarchy; the parent
      was again reduced from a judge to an accuser; and the magistrates
      were enjoined by Severus Alexander to hear his complaints and
      execute his sentence. He could no longer take the life of a son
      without incurring the guilt and punishment of murder; and the
      pains of parricide, from which he had been excepted by the
      Pompeian law, were finally inflicted by the justice of
      Constantine. 111 The same protection was due to every period of
      existence; and reason must applaud the humanity of Paulus, for
      imputing the crime of murder to the father who strangles, or
      starves, or abandons his new-born infant; or exposes him in a
      public place to find the mercy which he himself had denied. But
      the exposition of children was the prevailing and stubborn vice
      of antiquity: it was sometimes prescribed, often permitted,
      almost always practised with impunity, by the nations who never
      entertained the Roman ideas of paternal power; and the dramatic
      poets, who appeal to the human heart, represent with indifference
      a popular custom which was palliated by the motives of economy
      and compassion. 112 If the father could subdue his own feelings,
      he might escape, though not the censure, at least the
      chastisement, of the laws; and the Roman empire was stained with
      the blood of infants, till such murders were included, by
      Valentinian and his colleagues, in the letter and spirit of the
      Cornelian law. The lessons of jurisprudence 113 and Christianity
      had been insufficient to eradicate this inhuman practice, till
      their gentle influence was fortified by the terrors of capital
      punishment. 114

      108 (return) [ See the gradual enlargement and security of the
      filial peculium in the Institutes, (l. ii. tit. ix.,) the
      Pandects, (l. xv. tit. i. l. xli. tit. i.,) and the Code, (l. iv.
      tit. xxvi. xxvii.)]

      109 (return) [ The examples of Erixo and Arius are related by
      Seneca, (de Clementia, i. 14, 15,) the former with horror, the
      latter with applause.]

      110 (return) [ Quod latronis magis quam patris jure eum
      interfecit, nam patria potestas in pietate debet non in
      atrocitate consistere, (Marcian. Institut. l. xix. in Pandect. l.
      xlviii. tit. ix. leg.5.)]

      111 (return) [ The Pompeian and Cornelian laws de sicariis and
      parricidis are repeated, or rather abridged, with the last
      supplements of Alexander Severus, Constantine, and Valentinian,
      in the Pandects (l. xlviii. tit. viii ix,) and Code, (l. ix. tit.
      xvi. xvii.) See likewise the Theodosian Code, (l. ix. tit. xiv.
      xv.,) with Godefroy’s Commentary, (tom. iii. p. 84—113) who pours
      a flood of ancient and modern learning over these penal laws.]

      112 (return) [ When the Chremes of Terence reproaches his wife
      for not obeying his orders and exposing their infant, he speaks
      like a father and a master, and silences the scruples of a
      foolish woman. See Apuleius, (Metamorph. l. x. p. 337, edit.
      Delphin.)]

      113 (return) [ The opinion of the lawyers, and the discretion of
      the magistrates, had introduced, in the time of Tacitus, some
      legal restraints, which might support his contrast of the boni
      mores of the Germans to the bonae leges alibi—that is to say, at
      Rome, (de Moribus Germanorum, c. 19.) Tertullian (ad Nationes, l.
      i. c. 15) refutes his own charges, and those of his brethren,
      against the heathen jurisprudence.]

      114 (return) [ The wise and humane sentence of the civilian Paul
      (l. ii. Sententiarum in Pandect, 1. xxv. tit. iii. leg. 4) is
      represented as a mere moral precept by Gerard Noodt, (Opp. tom.
      i. in Julius Paulus, p. 567—558, and Amica Responsio, p.
      591-606,) who maintains the opinion of Justus Lipsius, (Opp. tom.
      ii. p. 409, ad Belgas. cent. i. epist. 85,) and as a positive
      binding law by Bynkershoek, (de Jure occidendi Liberos, Opp. tom.
      i. p. 318—340. Curae Secundae, p. 391—427.) In a learned out
      angry controversy, the two friends deviated into the opposite
      extremes.]

      Experience has proved, that savages are the tyrants of the female
      sex, and that the condition of women is usually softened by the
      refinements of social life. In the hope of a robust progeny,
      Lycurgus had delayed the season of marriage: it was fixed by Numa
      at the tender age of twelve years, that the Roman husband might
      educate to his will a pure and obedient virgin. 115 According to
      the custom of antiquity, he bought his bride of her parents, and
      she fulfilled the coemption by purchasing, with three pieces of
      copper, a just introduction to his house and household deities. A
      sacrifice of fruits was offered by the pontiffs in the presence
      of ten witnesses; the contracting parties were seated on the same
      sheep-skin; they tasted a salt cake of far or rice; and this
      confarreation, 116 which denoted the ancient food of Italy,
      served as an emblem of their mystic union of mind and body. But
      this union on the side of the woman was rigorous and unequal; and
      she renounced the name and worship of her father’s house, to
      embrace a new servitude, decorated only by the title of adoption,
      a fiction of the law, neither rational nor elegant, bestowed on
      the mother of a family 117 (her proper appellation) the strange
      characters of sister to her own children, and of daughter to her
      husband or master, who was invested with the plenitude of
      paternal power. By his judgment or caprice her behavior was
      approved, or censured, or chastised; he exercised the
      jurisdiction of life and death; and it was allowed, that in the
      cases of adultery or drunkenness, 118 the sentence might be
      properly inflicted. She acquired and inherited for the sole
      profit of her lord; and so clearly was woman defined, not as a
      person, but as a thing, that, if the original title were
      deficient, she might be claimed, like other movables, by the use
      and possession of an entire year. The inclination of the Roman
      husband discharged or withheld the conjugal debt, so scrupulously
      exacted by the Athenian and Jewish laws: 119 but as polygamy was
      unknown, he could never admit to his bed a fairer or a more
      favored partner.

      115 (return) [ Dionys. Hal. l. ii. p. 92, 93. Plutarch, in Numa,
      p. 140-141.]

      116 (return) [ Among the winter frunenta, the triticum, or
      bearded wheat; the siligo, or the unbearded; the far, adorea,
      oryza, whose description perfectly tallies with the rice of Spain
      and Italy. I adopt this identity on the credit of M. Paucton in
      his useful and laborious Metrologie, (p. 517—529.)]

      117 (return) [ Aulus Gellius (Noctes Atticae, xviii. 6) gives a
      ridiculous definition of Aelius Melissus, Matrona, quae semel
      materfamilias quae saepius peperit, as porcetra and scropha in
      the sow kind. He then adds the genuine meaning, quae in
      matrimonium vel in manum convenerat.]

      118 (return) [ It was enough to have tasted wine, or to have
      stolen the key of the cellar, (Plin. Hist. Nat. xiv. 14.)]

      119 (return) [ Solon requires three payments per month. By the
      Misna, a daily debt was imposed on an idle, vigorous, young
      husband; twice a week on a citizen; once on a peasant; once in
      thirty days on a camel-driver; once in six months on a seaman.
      But the student or doctor was free from tribute; and no wife, if
      she received a weekly sustenance, could sue for a divorce; for
      one week a vow of abstinence was allowed. Polygamy divided,
      without multiplying, the duties of the husband, (Selden, Uxor
      Ebraica, l. iii. c 6, in his works, vol ii. p. 717—720.)]

      After the Punic triumphs, the matrons of Rome aspired to the
      common benefits of a free and opulent republic: their wishes were
      gratified by the indulgence of fathers and lovers, and their
      ambition was unsuccessfully resisted by the gravity of Cato the
      Censor. 120 They declined the solemnities of the old nuptiais;
      defeated the annual prescription by an absence of three days;
      and, without losing their name or independence, subscribed the
      liberal and definite terms of a marriage contract. Of their
      private fortunes, they communicated the use, and secured the
      property: the estates of a wife could neither be alienated nor
      mortgaged by a prodigal husband; their mutual gifts were
      prohibited by the jealousy of the laws; and the misconduct of
      either party might afford, under another name, a future subject
      for an action of theft. To this loose and voluntary compact,
      religious and civil rights were no longer essential; and, between
      persons of a similar rank, the apparent community of life was
      allowed as sufficient evidence of their nuptials. The dignity of
      marriage was restored by the Christians, who derived all
      spiritual grace from the prayers of the faithful and the
      benediction of the priest or bishop. The origin, validity, and
      duties of the holy institution were regulated by the tradition of
      the synagogue, the precepts of the gospel, and the canons of
      general or provincial synods; 121 and the conscience of the
      Christians was awed by the decrees and censures of their
      ecclesiastical rulers. Yet the magistrates of Justinian were not
      subject to the authority of the church: the emperor consulted the
      unbelieving civilians of antiquity, and the choice of matrimonial
      laws in the Code and Pandects, is directed by the earthly motives
      of justice, policy, and the natural freedom of both sexes. 122

      120 (return) [ On the Oppian law we may hear the mitigating
      speech of Vaerius Flaccus, and the severe censorial oration of
      the elder Cato, (Liv. xxxiv. l—8.) But we shall rather hear the
      polished historian of the eighth, than the rough orators of the
      sixth, century of Rome. The principles, and even the style, of
      Cato are more accurately preserved by Aulus Gellius, (x. 23.)]

      121 (return) [ For the system of Jewish and Catholic matrimony,
      see Selden, (Uxor Ebraica, Opp. vol. ii. p. 529—860,) Bingham,
      (Christian Antiquities, l. xxii.,) and Chardon, (Hist. des
      Sacremens, tom. vi.)]

      122 (return) [ The civil laws of marriage are exposed in the
      Institutes, (l. i. tit. x.,) the Pandects, (l. xxiii. xxiv.
      xxv.,) and the Code, (l. v.;) but as the title de ritu nuptiarum
      is yet imperfect, we are obliged to explore the fragments of
      Ulpian (tit. ix. p. 590, 591,) and the Collatio Legum Mosaicarum,
      (tit. xvi. p. 790, 791,) with the notes of Pithaeus and
      Schulting. They find in the Commentary of Servius (on the 1st
      Georgia and the 4th Aeneid) two curious passages.]

      Besides the agreement of the parties, the essence of every
      rational contract, the Roman marriage required the previous
      approbation of the parents. A father might be forced by some
      recent laws to supply the wants of a mature daughter; but even
      his insanity was not gradually allowed to supersede the necessity
      of his consent. The causes of the dissolution of matrimony have
      varied among the Romans; 123 but the most solemn sacrament, the
      confarreation itself, might always be done away by rites of a
      contrary tendency. In the first ages, the father of a family
      might sell his children, and his wife was reckoned in the number
      of his children: the domestic judge might pronounce the death of
      the offender, or his mercy might expel her from his bed and
      house; but the slavery of the wretched female was hopeless and
      perpetual, unless he asserted for his own convenience the manly
      prerogative of divorce. 1231 The warmest applause has been
      lavished on the virtue of the Romans, who abstained from the
      exercise of this tempting privilege above five hundred years: 124
      but the same fact evinces the unequal terms of a connection in
      which the slave was unable to renounce her tyrant, and the tyrant
      was unwilling to relinquish his slave. When the Roman matrons
      became the equal and voluntary companions of their lords, a new
      jurisprudence was introduced, that marriage, like other
      partnerships, might be dissolved by the abdication of one of the
      associates. In three centuries of prosperity and corruption, this
      principle was enlarged to frequent practice and pernicious abuse.

      Passion, interest, or caprice, suggested daily motives for the
      dissolution of marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter, the
      mandate of a freedman, declared the separation; the most tender
      of human connections was degraded to a transient society of
      profit or pleasure. According to the various conditions of life,
      both sexes alternately felt the disgrace and injury: an
      inconstant spouse transferred her wealth to a new family,
      abandoning a numerous, perhaps a spurious, progeny to the
      paternal authority and care of her late husband; a beautiful
      virgin might be dismissed to the world, old, indigent, and
      friendless; but the reluctance of the Romans, when they were
      pressed to marriage by Augustus, sufficiently marks, that the
      prevailing institutions were least favorable to the males. A
      specious theory is confuted by this free and perfect experiment,
      which demonstrates, that the liberty of divorce does not
      contribute to happiness and virtue. The facility of separation
      would destroy all mutual confidence, and inflame every trifling
      dispute: the minute difference between a husband and a stranger,
      which might so easily be removed, might still more easily be
      forgotten; and the matron, who in five years can submit to the
      embraces of eight husbands, must cease to reverence the chastity
      of her own person. 125

      123 (return) [ According to Plutarch, (p. 57,) Romulus allowed
      only three grounds of a divorce—drunkenness, adultery, and false
      keys. Otherwise, the husband who abused his supremacy forfeited
      half his goods to the wife, and half to the goddess Ceres, and
      offered a sacrifice (with the remainder?) to the terrestrial
      deities. This strange law was either imaginary or transient.]

      1231 (return) [ Montesquieu relates and explains this fact in a
      different marnes Esprit des Loix, l. xvi. c. 16.—G.]

      124 (return) [ In the year of Rome 523, Spurius Carvilius Ruga
      repudiated a fair, a good, but a barren, wife, (Dionysius Hal. l.
      ii. p. 93. Plutarch, in Numa, p. 141; Valerius Maximus, l. ii. c.
      1; Aulus Gellius, iv. 3.) He was questioned by the censors, and
      hated by the people; but his divorce stood unimpeached in law.]

      125 (return) [—Sic fiunt octo mariti Quinque per autumnos.
      Juvenal, Satir. vi. 20.—A rapid succession, which may yet be
      credible, as well as the non consulum numero, sed maritorum annos
      suos computant, of Seneca, (de Beneficiis, iii. 16.) Jerom saw at
      Rome a triumphant husband bury his twenty-first wife, who had
      interred twenty-two of his less sturdy predecessors, (Opp. tom.
      i. p. 90, ad Gerontiam.) But the ten husbands in a month of the
      poet Martial, is an extravagant hyperbole, (l. 71. epigram 7.)]

      Insufficient remedies followed with distant and tardy steps the
      rapid progress of the evil. The ancient worship of the Romans
      afforded a peculiar goddess to hear and reconcile the complaints
      of a married life; but her epithet of Viriplaca, 126 the appeaser
      of husbands, too clearly indicates on which side submission and
      repentance were always expected. Every act of a citizen was
      subject to the judgment of the censors; the first who used the
      privilege of divorce assigned, at their command, the motives of
      his conduct; 127 and a senator was expelled for dismissing his
      virgin spouse without the knowledge or advice of his friends.
      Whenever an action was instituted for the recovery of a marriage
      portion, the proetor, as the guardian of equity, examined the
      cause and the characters, and gently inclined the scale in favor
      of the guiltless and injured party. Augustus, who united the
      powers of both magistrates, adopted their different modes of
      repressing or chastising the license of divorce. 128 The presence
      of seven Roman witnesses was required for the validity of this
      solemn and deliberate act: if any adequate provocation had been
      given by the husband, instead of the delay of two years, he was
      compelled to refund immediately, or in the space of six months;
      but if he could arraign the manners of his wife, her guilt or
      levity was expiated by the loss of the sixth or eighth part of
      her marriage portion. The Christian princes were the first who
      specified the just causes of a private divorce; their
      institutions, from Constantine to Justinian, appear to fluctuate
      between the custom of the empire and the wishes of the church,
      129 and the author of the Novels too frequently reforms the
      jurisprudence of the Code and Pandects. In the most rigorous
      laws, a wife was condemned to support a gamester, a drunkard, or
      a libertine, unless he were guilty of homicide, poison, or
      sacrilege, in which cases the marriage, as it should seem, might
      have been dissolved by the hand of the executioner. But the
      sacred right of the husband was invariably maintained, to deliver
      his name and family from the disgrace of adultery: the list of
      mortal sins, either male or female, was curtailed and enlarged by
      successive regulations, and the obstacles of incurable impotence,
      long absence, and monastic profession, were allowed to rescind
      the matrimonial obligation. Whoever transgressed the permission
      of the law, was subject to various and heavy penalties. The woman
      was stripped of her wealth and ornaments, without excepting the
      bodkin of her hair: if the man introduced a new bride into his
      bed, her fortune might be lawfully seized by the vengeance of his
      exiled wife. Forfeiture was sometimes commuted to a fine; the
      fine was sometimes aggravated by transportation to an island, or
      imprisonment in a monastery; the injured party was released from
      the bonds of marriage; but the offender, during life, or a term
      of years, was disabled from the repetition of nuptials. The
      successor of Justinian yielded to the prayers of his unhappy
      subjects, and restored the liberty of divorce by mutual consent:
      the civilians were unanimous, 130 the theologians were divided,
      131 and the ambiguous word, which contains the precept of Christ,
      is flexible to any interpretation that the wisdom of a legislator
      can demand.

      126 (return) [ Sacellum Viriplacae, (Valerius Maximus, l. ii. c.
      1,) in the Palatine region, appears in the time of Theodosius, in
      the description of Rome by Publius Victor.]

      127 (return) [ Valerius Maximus, l. ii. c. 9. With some propriety
      he judges divorce more criminal than celibacy: illo namque
      conjugalia sacre spreta tantum, hoc etiam injuriose tractata.]

      128 (return) [ See the laws of Augustus and his successors, in
      Heineccius, ad Legem Papiam-Poppaeam, c. 19, in Opp. tom. vi. P.
      i. p. 323—333.]

      129 (return) [ Aliae sunt leges Caesarum, aliae Christi; aliud
      Papinianus, aliud Paulus nocter praecipit, (Jerom. tom. i. p.
      198. Selden, Uxor Ebraica l. iii. c. 31 p. 847—853.)]

      130 (return) [ The Institutes are silent; but we may consult the
      Codes of Theodosius (l. iii. tit. xvi., with Godefroy’s
      Commentary, tom. i. p. 310—315) and Justinian, (l. v. tit.
      xvii.,) the Pandects (l. xxiv. tit. ii.) and the Novels, (xxii.
      cxvii. cxxvii. cxxxiv. cxl.) Justinian fluctuated to the last
      between civil and ecclesiastical law.]

      131 (return) [ In pure Greek, it is not a common word; nor can
      the proper meaning, fornication, be strictly applied to
      matrimonial sin. In a figurative sense, how far, and to what
      offences, may it be extended? Did Christ speak the Rabbinical or
      Syriac tongue? Of what original word is the translation? How
      variously is that Greek word translated in the versions ancient
      and modern! There are two (Mark, x. 11, Luke, xvi. 18) to one
      (Matthew, xix. 9) that such ground of divorce was not excepted by
      Jesus. Some critics have presumed to think, by an evasive answer,
      he avoided the giving offence either to the school of Sammai or
      to that of Hillel, (Selden, Uxor Ebraica, l. iii. c. 18—22, 28,
      31.) * Note: But these had nothing to do with the question of a
      divorce made by judicial authority.—Hugo.]

      The freedom of love and marriage was restrained among the Romans
      by natural and civil impediments. An instinct, almost innate and
      universal, appears to prohibit the incestuous commerce 132 of
      parents and children in the infinite series of ascending and
      descending generations. Concerning the oblique and collateral
      branches, nature is indifferent, reason mute, and custom various
      and arbitrary. In Egypt, the marriage of brothers and sisters was
      admitted without scruple or exception: a Spartan might espouse
      the daughter of his father, an Athenian, that of his mother; and
      the nuptials of an uncle with his niece were applauded at Athens
      as a happy union of the dearest relations. The profane lawgivers
      of Rome were never tempted by interest or superstition to
      multiply the forbidden degrees: but they inflexibly condemned the
      marriage of sisters and brothers, hesitated whether first cousins
      should be touched by the same interdict; revered the parental
      character of aunts and uncles, 1321 and treated affinity and
      adoption as a just imitation of the ties of blood. According to
      the proud maxims of the republic, a legal marriage could only be
      contracted by free citizens; an honorable, at least an ingenuous
      birth, was required for the spouse of a senator: but the blood of
      kings could never mingle in legitimate nuptials with the blood of
      a Roman; and the name of Stranger degraded Cleopatra and
      Berenice, 133 to live the concubines of Mark Antony and Titus.
      134 This appellation, indeed, so injurious to the majesty, cannot
      without indulgence be applied to the manners, of these Oriental
      queens. A concubine, in the strict sense of the civilians, was a
      woman of servile or plebeian extraction, the sole and faithful
      companion of a Roman citizen, who continued in a state of
      celibacy. Her modest station, below the honors of a wife, above
      the infamy of a prostitute, was acknowledged and approved by the
      laws: from the age of Augustus to the tenth century, the use of
      this secondary marriage prevailed both in the West and East; and
      the humble virtues of a concubine were often preferred to the
      pomp and insolence of a noble matron. In this connection, the two
      Antonines, the best of princes and of men, enjoyed the comforts
      of domestic love: the example was imitated by many citizens
      impatient of celibacy, but regardful of their families. If at any
      time they desired to legitimate their natural children, the
      conversion was instantly performed by the celebration of their
      nuptials with a partner whose faithfulness and fidelity they had
      already tried. 1341 By this epithet of natural, the offspring of
      the concubine were distinguished from the spurious brood of
      adultery, prostitution, and incest, to whom Justinian reluctantly
      grants the necessary aliments of life; and these natural children
      alone were capable of succeeding to a sixth part of the
      inheritance of their reputed father. According to the rigor of
      law, bastards were entitled only to the name and condition of
      their mother, from whom they might derive the character of a
      slave, a stranger, or a citizen. The outcasts of every family
      were adopted without reproach as the children of the state. 135
      1351

      132 (return) [ The principles of the Roman jurisprudence are
      exposed by Justinian, (Institut. t. i. tit. x.;) and the laws and
      manners of the different nations of antiquity concerning
      forbidden degrees, &c., are copiously explained by Dr. Taylor in
      his Elements of Civil Law, (p. 108, 314—339,) a work of amusing,
      though various reading; but which cannot be praised for
      philosophical precision.]

      1321 (return) [ According to the earlier law, (Gaii Instit. p.
      27,) a man might marry his niece on the brother’s, not on the
      sister’s, side. The emperor Claudius set the example of the
      former. In the Institutes, this distinction was abolished and
      both declared illegal.—M.]

      133 (return) [ When her father Agrippa died, (A.D. 44,) Berenice
      was sixteen years of age, (Joseph. tom. i. Antiquit. Judaic. l.
      xix. c. 9, p. 952, edit. Havercamp.) She was therefore above
      fifty years old when Titus (A.D. 79) invitus invitam invisit.
      This date would not have adorned the tragedy or pastoral of the
      tender Racine.]

      134 (return) [ The Aegyptia conjux of Virgil (Aeneid, viii. 688)
      seems to be numbered among the monsters who warred with Mark
      Antony against Augustus, the senate, and the gods of Italy.]

      1341 (return) [ The Edict of Constantine first conferred this
      right; for Augustus had prohibited the taking as a concubine a
      woman who might be taken as a wife; and if marriage took place
      afterwards, this marriage made no change in the rights of the
      children born before it; recourse was then had to adoption,
      properly called arrogation.—G.]

      135 (return) [ The humble but legal rights of concubines and
      natural children are stated in the Institutes, (l. i. tit. x.,)
      the Pandects, (l. i. tit. vii.,) the Code, (l. v. tit. xxv.,) and
      the Novels, (lxxiv. lxxxix.) The researches of Heineccius and
      Giannone, (ad Legem Juliam et Papiam-Poppaeam, c. iv. p. 164-175.
      Opere Posthume, p. 108—158) illustrate this interesting and
      domestic subject.]

      1351 (return) [ See, however, the two fragments of laws in the
      newly discovered extracts from the Theodosian Code, published by
      M. A. Peyron, at Turin. By the first law of Constantine, the
      legitimate offspring could alone inherit; where there were no
      near legitimate relatives, the inheritance went to the fiscus.
      The son of a certain Licinianus, who had inherited his father’s
      property under the supposition that he was legitimate, and had
      been promoted to a place of dignity, was to be degraded, his
      property confiscated, himself punished with stripes and
      imprisonment. By the second, all persons, even of the highest
      rank, senators, perfectissimi, decemvirs, were to be declared
      infamous, and out of the protection of the Roman law, if born ex
      ancilla, vel ancillae filia, vel liberta, vel libertae filia,
      sive Romana facta, seu Latina, vel scaenicae filia, vel ex
      tabernaria, vel ex tabernariae filia, vel humili vel abjecta, vel
      lenonis, aut arenarii filia, vel quae mercimoniis publicis
      praefuit. Whatever a fond father had conferred on such children
      was revoked, and either restored to the legitimate children, or
      confiscated to the state; the mothers, who were guilty of thus
      poisoning the minds of the fathers, were to be put to the torture
      (tormentis subici jubemus.) The unfortunate son of Licinianus, it
      appears from this second law, having fled, had been taken, and
      was ordered to be kept in chains to work in the Gynaeceum at
      Carthage. Cod. Theodor ab. A. Person, 87—90.—M.]




      Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part VI.

      The relation of guardian and ward, or in Roman words of tutor and
      pupil, which covers so many titles of the Institutes and
      Pandects, 136 is of a very simple and uniform nature. The person
      and property of an orphan must always be trusted to the custody
      of some discreet friend. If the deceased father had not signified
      his choice, the agnats, or paternal kindred of the nearest
      degree, were compelled to act as the natural guardians: the
      Athenians were apprehensive of exposing the infant to the power
      of those most interested in his death; but an axiom of Roman
      jurisprudence has pronounced, that the charge of tutelage should
      constantly attend the emolument of succession. If the choice of
      the father, and the line of consanguinity, afforded no efficient
      guardian, the failure was supplied by the nomination of the
      praetor of the city, or the president of the province. But the
      person whom they named to this public office might be legally
      excused by insanity or blindness, by ignorance or inability, by
      previous enmity or adverse interest, by the number of children or
      guardianships with which he was already burdened, and by the
      immunities which were granted to the useful labors of
      magistrates, lawyers, physicians, and professors. Till the infant
      could speak, and think, he was represented by the tutor, whose
      authority was finally determined by the age of puberty. Without
      his consent, no act of the pupil could bind himself to his own
      prejudice, though it might oblige others for his personal
      benefit. It is needless to observe, that the tutor often gave
      security, and always rendered an account, and that the want of
      diligence or integrity exposed him to a civil and almost criminal
      action for the violation of his sacred trust. The age of puberty
      had been rashly fixed by the civilians at fourteen; 1361 but as
      the faculties of the mind ripen more slowly than those of the
      body, a curator was interposed to guard the fortunes of a Roman
      youth from his own inexperience and headstrong passions. Such a
      trustee had been first instituted by the praetor, to save a
      family from the blind havoc of a prodigal or madman; and the
      minor was compelled, by the laws, to solicit the same protection,
      to give validity to his acts till he accomplished the full period
      of twenty-five years. Women were condemned to the perpetual
      tutelage of parents, husbands, or guardians; a sex created to
      please and obey was never supposed to have attained the age of
      reason and experience. Such, at least, was the stern and haughty
      spirit of the ancient law, which had been insensibly mollified
      before the time of Justinian.

      136 (return) [ See the article of guardians and wards in the
      Institutes, (l. i. tit. xiii.—xxvi.,) the Pandects, (l. xxvi.
      xxvii.,) and the Code, (l. v. tit. xxviii.—lxx.)]

      1361 (return) [ Gibbon accuses the civilians of having “rashly
      fixed the age of puberty at twelve or fourteen years.” It was not
      so; before Justinian, no law existed on this subject. Ulpian
      relates the discussions which took place on this point among the
      different sects of civilians. See the Institutes, l. i. tit. 22,
      and the fragments of Ulpian. Nor was the curatorship obligatory
      for all minors.—W.]

      II. The original right of property can only be justified by the
      accident or merit of prior occupancy; and on this foundation it
      is wisely established by the philosophy of the civilians. 137 The
      savage who hollows a tree, inserts a sharp stone into a wooden
      handle, or applies a string to an elastic branch, becomes in a
      state of nature the just proprietor of the canoe, the bow, or the
      hatchet. The materials were common to all, the new form, the
      produce of his time and simple industry, belongs solely to
      himself. His hungry brethren cannot, without a sense of their own
      injustice, extort from the hunter the game of the forest
      overtaken or slain by his personal strength and dexterity. If his
      provident care preserves and multiplies the tame animals, whose
      nature is tractable to the arts of education, he acquires a
      perpetual title to the use and service of their numerous progeny,
      which derives its existence from him alone. If he encloses and
      cultivates a field for their sustenance and his own, a barren
      waste is converted into a fertile soil; the seed, the manure, the
      labor, create a new value, and the rewards of harvest are
      painfully earned by the fatigues of the revolving year. In the
      successive states of society, the hunter, the shepherd, the
      husbandman, may defend their possessions by two reasons which
      forcibly appeal to the feelings of the human mind: that whatever
      they enjoy is the fruit of their own industry; and that every man
      who envies their felicity, may purchase similar acquisitions by
      the exercise of similar diligence. Such, in truth, may be the
      freedom and plenty of a small colony cast on a fruitful island.
      But the colony multiplies, while the space still continues the
      same; the common rights, the equal inheritance of mankind. are
      engrossed by the bold and crafty; each field and forest is
      circumscribed by the landmarks of a jealous master; and it is the
      peculiar praise of the Roman jurisprudence, that i asserts the
      claim of the first occupant to the wild animals of the earth, the
      air, and the waters. In the progress from primitive equity to
      final injustice, the steps are silent, the shades are almost
      imperceptible, and the absolute monopoly is guarded by positive
      laws and artificial reason. The active, insatiate principle of
      self-love can alone supply the arts of life and the wages of
      industry; and as soon as civil government and exclusive property
      have been introduced, they become necessary to the existence of
      the human race. Except in the singular institutions of Sparta,
      the wisest legislators have disapproved an agrarian law as a
      false and dangerous innovation. Among the Romans, the enormous
      disproportion of wealth surmounted the ideal restraints of a
      doubtful tradition, and an obsolete statute; a tradition that the
      poorest follower of Romulus had been endowed with the perpetual
      inheritance of two jugera; 138 a statute which confined the
      richest citizen to the measure of five hundred jugera, or three
      hundred and twelve acres of land. The original territory of Rome
      consisted only of some miles of wood and meadow along the banks
      of the Tyber; and domestic exchange could add nothing to the
      national stock. But the goods of an alien or enemy were lawfully
      exposed to the first hostile occupier; the city was enriched by
      the profitable trade of war; and the blood of her sons was the
      only price that was paid for the Volscian sheep, the slaves of
      Briton, or the gems and gold of Asiatic kingdoms. In the language
      of ancient jurisprudence, which was corrupted and forgotten
      before the age of Justinian, these spoils were distinguished by
      the name of manceps or manicipium, taken with the hand; and
      whenever they were sold or emancipated, the purchaser required
      some assurance that they had been the property of an enemy, and
      not of a fellow-citizen. 139 A citizen could only forfeit his
      rights by apparent dereliction, and such dereliction of a
      valuable interest could not easily be presumed. Yet, according to
      the Twelve Tables, a prescription of one year for movables, and
      of two years for immovables, abolished the claim of the ancient
      master, if the actual possessor had acquired them by a fair
      transaction from the person whom he believed to be the lawful
      proprietor. 140 Such conscientious injustice, without any mixture
      of fraud or force could seldom injure the members of a small
      republic; but the various periods of three, of ten, or of twenty
      years, determined by Justinian, are more suitable to the latitude
      of a great empire. It is only in the term of prescription that
      the distinction of real and personal fortune has been remarked by
      the civilians; and their general idea of property is that of
      simple, uniform, and absolute dominion. The subordinate
      exceptions of use, of usufruct, 141 of servitude, 142 imposed for
      the benefit of a neighbor on lands and houses, are abundantly
      explained by the professors of jurisprudence. The claims of
      property, as far as they are altered by the mixture, the
      division, or the transformation of substances, are investigated
      with metaphysical subtilty by the same civilians.

      137 (return) [ Institut. l. ii. tit i. ii. Compare the pure and
      precise reasoning of Caius and Heineccius (l. ii. tit. i. p.
      69-91) with the loose prolixity of Theophilus, (p. 207—265.) The
      opinions of Ulpian are preserved in the Pandects, (l. i. tit.
      viii. leg. 41, No. 1.)]

      138 (return) [ The heredium of the first Romans is defined by
      Varro, (de Re Rustica, l. i. c. ii. p. 141, c. x. p. 160, 161,
      edit. Gesner,) and clouded by Pliny’s declamation, (Hist. Natur.
      xviii. 2.) A just and learned comment is given in the
      Administration des Terres chez les Romains, (p. 12—66.) Note: On
      the duo jugera, compare Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 337.—M.]

      139 (return) [ The res mancipi is explained from faint and remote
      lights by Ulpian (Fragment. tit. xviii. p. 618, 619) and
      Bynkershoek, (Opp tom. i. p. 306—315.) The definition is somewhat
      arbitrary; and as none except myself have assigned a reason, I am
      diffident of my own.]

      140 (return) [ From this short prescription, Hume (Essays, vol.
      i. p. 423) infers that there could not then be more order and
      settlement in Italy than now amongst the Tartars. By the civilian
      of his adversary Wallace, he is reproached, and not without
      reason, for overlooking the conditions, (Institut. l. ii. tit.
      vi.) * Note: Gibbon acknowledges, in the former note, the
      obscurity of his views with regard to the res mancipi. The
      interpreters, who preceded him, are not agreed on this point, one
      of the most difficult in the ancient Roman law. The conclusions
      of Hume, of which the author here speaks, are grounded on false
      assumptions. Gibbon had conceived very inaccurate notions of
      Property among the Romans, and those of many authors in the
      present day are not less erroneous. We think it right, in this
      place, to develop the system of property among the Romans, as the
      result of the study of the extant original authorities on the
      ancient law, and as it has been demonstrated, recognized, and
      adopted by the most learned expositors of the Roman law. Besides
      the authorities formerly known, such as the Fragments of Ulpian,
      t. xix. and t. i. 16. Theoph. Paraph. i. 5, 4, may be consulted
      the Institutes of Gaius, i. 54, and ii. 40, et seq. The Roman
      laws protected all property acquired in a lawful manner. They
      imposed on those who had invaded it, the obligation of making
      restitution and reparation of all damage caused by that invasion;
      they punished it moreover, in many cases, by a pecuniary fine.
      But they did not always grant a recovery against the third
      person, who had become bona fide possessed of the property. He
      who had obtained possession of a thing belonging to another,
      knowing nothing of the prior rights of that person, maintained
      the possession. The law had expressly determined those cases, in
      which it permitted property to be reclaimed from an innocent
      possessor. In these cases possession had the characters of
      absolute proprietorship, called mancipium, jus Quiritium. To
      possess this right, it was not sufficient to have entered into
      possession of the thing in any manner; the acquisition was bound
      to have that character of publicity, which was given by the
      observation of solemn forms, prescribed by the laws, or the
      uninterrupted exercise of proprietorship during a certain time:
      the Roman citizen alone could acquire this proprietorship. Every
      other kind of possession, which might be named imperfect
      proprietorship, was called “in bonis habere.” It was not till
      after the time of Cicero that the general name of Dominium was
      given to all proprietorship. It was then the publicity which
      constituted the distinctive character of absolute dominion. This
      publicity was grounded on the mode of acquisition, which the
      moderns have called Civil, (Modi adquirendi Civiles.) These modes
      of acquisition were, 1. Mancipium or mancipatio, which was
      nothing but the solemn delivering over of the thing in the
      presence of a determinate number of witnesses and a public
      officer; it was from this probably that proprietorship was named,
      2. In jure cessio, which was a solemn delivering over before the
      praetor. 3. Adjudicatio, made by a judge, in a case of partition.
      4. Lex, which comprehended modes of acquiring in particular cases
      determined by law; probably the law of the xii. tables; for
      instance, the sub corona emptio and the legatum. 5. Usna, called
      afterwards usacapio, and by the moderns prescription. This was
      only a year for movables; two years for things not movable. Its
      primary object was altogether different from that of prescription
      in the present day. It was originally introduced in order to
      transform the simple possession of a thing (in bonis habere) into
      Roman proprietorship. The public and uninterrupted possession of
      a thing, enjoyed for the space of one or two years, was
      sufficient to make known to the inhabitants of the city of Rome
      to whom the thing belonged. This last mode of acquisition
      completed the system of civil acquisitions. by legalizing. as it
      were, every other kind of acquisition which was not conferred,
      from the commencement, by the Jus Quiritium. V. Ulpian. Fragm. i.
      16. Gaius, ii. 14. We believe, according to Gaius, 43, that this
      usucaption was extended to the case where a thing had been
      acquired from a person not the real proprietor; and that
      according to the time prescribed, it gave to the possessor the
      Roman proprietorship. But this does not appear to have been the
      original design of this Institution. Caeterum etiam earum rerum
      usucapio nobis competit, quae non a domino nobis tradita fuerint,
      si modo eas bona fide acceperimus Gaius, l ii. 43. As to things
      of smaller value, or those which it was difficult to distinguish
      from each other, the solemnities of which we speak were not
      requisite to obtain legal proprietorship. In this case simple
      delivery was sufficient. In proportion to the aggrandizement of
      the Republic, this latter principle became more important from
      the increase of the commerce and wealth of the state. It was
      necessary to know what were those things of which absolute
      property might be acquired by simple delivery, and what, on the
      contrary, those, the acquisition of which must be sanctioned by
      these solemnities. This question was necessarily to be decided by
      a general rule; and it is this rule which establishes the
      distinction between res mancipi and nec mancipi, a distinction
      about which the opinions of modern civilians differ so much that
      there are above ten conflicting systems on the subject. The
      system which accords best with a sound interpretation of the
      Roman laws, is that proposed by M. Trekel of Hamburg, and still
      further developed by M. Hugo, who has extracted it in the
      Magazine of Civil Law, vol. ii. p. 7. This is the system now
      almost universally adopted. Res mancipi (by contraction for
      mancipii) were things of which the absolute property (Jus
      Quiritium) might be acquired only by the solemnities mentioned
      above, at least by that of mancipation, which was, without doubt,
      the most easy and the most usual. Gaius, ii. 25. As for other
      things, the acquisition of which was not subject to these forms,
      in order to confer absolute right, they were called res nec
      mancipi. See Ulpian, Fragm. xix. 1. 3, 7. Ulpian and Varro
      enumerate the different kinds of res mancipi. Their enumerations
      do not quite agree; and various methods of reconciling them have
      been attempted. The authority of Ulpian, however, who wrote as a
      civilian, ought to have the greater weight on this subject. But
      why are these things alone res mancipi? This is one of the
      questions which have been most frequently agitated, and on which
      the opinions of civilians are most divided. M. Hugo has resolved
      it in the most natural and satisfactory manner. “All things which
      were easily known individually, which were of great value, with
      which the Romans were acquainted, and which they highly
      appreciated, were res mancipi. Of old mancipation or some other
      solemn form was required for the acquisition of these things, an
      account of their importance. Mancipation served to prove their
      acquisition, because they were easily distinguished one from the
      other.” On this great historical discussion consult the Magazine
      of Civil Law by M. Hugo, vol. ii. p. 37, 38; the dissertation of
      M. J. M. Zachariae, de Rebus Mancipi et nec Mancipi Conjecturae,
      p. 11. Lipsiae, 1807; the History of Civil Law by M. Hugo; and my
      Institutiones Juris Romani Privati p. 108, 110. As a general
      rule, it may be said that all things are res nec mancipi; the res
      mancipi are the exception to this principle. The praetors changed
      the system of property by allowing a person, who had a thing in
      bonis, the right to recover before the prescribed term of
      usucaption had conferred absolute proprietorship. (Pauliana in
      rem actio.) Justinian went still further, in times when there was
      no longer any distinction between a Roman citizen and a stranger.
      He granted the right of recovering all things which had been
      acquired, whether by what were called civil or natural modes of
      acquisition, Cod. l. vii. t. 25, 31. And he so altered the theory
      of Gaius in his Institutes, ii. 1, that no trace remains of the
      doctrine taught by that civilian.—W.]

      141 (return) [ See the Institutes (l. i. tit. iv. v.) and the
      Pandects, (l. vii.) Noodt has composed a learned and distinct
      treatise de Usufructu, (Opp. tom. i. p. 387—478.)]

      142 (return) [ The questions de Servitutibus are discussed in the
      Institutes (l. ii. tit. iii.) and Pandects, (l. viii.) Cicero
      (pro Murena, c. 9) and Lactantius (Institut. Divin. l. i. c. i.)
      affect to laugh at the insignificant doctrine, de aqua de pluvia
      arcenda, &c. Yet it might be of frequent use among litigious
      neighbors, both in town and country.]

      The personal title of the first proprietor must be determined by
      his death: but the possession, without any appearance of change,
      is peaceably continued in his children, the associates of his
      toil, and the partners of his wealth. This natural inheritance
      has been protected by the legislators of every climate and age,
      and the father is encouraged to persevere in slow and distant
      improvements, by the tender hope, that a long posterity will
      enjoy the fruits of his labor. The principle of hereditary
      succession is universal; but the order has been variously
      established by convenience or caprice, by the spirit of national
      institutions, or by some partial example which was originally
      decided by fraud or violence. The jurisprudence of the Romans
      appear to have deviated from the inequality of nature much less
      than the Jewish, 143 the Athenian, 144 or the English
      institutions. 145 On the death of a citizen, all his descendants,
      unless they were already freed from his paternal power, were
      called to the inheritance of his possessions. The insolent
      prerogative of primogeniture was unknown; the two sexes were
      placed on a just level; all the sons and daughters were entitled
      to an equal portion of the patrimonial estate; and if any of the
      sons had been intercepted by a premature death, his person was
      represented, and his share was divided, by his surviving
      children. On the failure of the direct line, the right of
      succession must diverge to the collateral branches. The degrees
      of kindred 146 are numbered by the civilians, ascending from the
      last possessor to a common parent, and descending from the common
      parent to the next heir: my father stands in the first degree, my
      brother in the second, his children in the third, and the
      remainder of the series may be conceived by a fancy, or pictured
      in a genealogical table. In this computation, a distinction was
      made, essential to the laws and even the constitution of Rome;
      the agnats, or persons connected by a line of males, were called,
      as they stood in the nearest degree, to an equal partition; but a
      female was incapable of transmitting any legal claims; and the
      cognats of every rank, without excepting the dear relation of a
      mother and a son, were disinherited by the Twelve Tables, as
      strangers and aliens. Among the Romans agens or lineage was
      united by a common name and domestic rites; the various cognomens
      or surnames of Scipio, or Marcellus, distinguished from each
      other the subordinate branches or families of the Cornelian or
      Claudian race: the default of the agnats, of the same surname,
      was supplied by the larger denomination of gentiles; and the
      vigilance of the laws maintained, in the same name, the perpetual
      descent of religion and property. A similar principle dictated
      the Voconian law, 147 which abolished the right of female
      inheritance. As long as virgins were given or sold in marriage,
      the adoption of the wife extinguished the hopes of the daughter.
      But the equal succession of independent matrons supported their
      pride and luxury, and might transport into a foreign house the
      riches of their fathers.

      While the maxims of Cato 148 were revered, they tended to
      perpetuate in each family a just and virtuous mediocrity: till
      female blandishments insensibly triumphed; and every salutary
      restraint was lost in the dissolute greatness of the republic.
      The rigor of the decemvirs was tempered by the equity of the
      praetors. Their edicts restored and emancipated posthumous
      children to the rights of nature; and upon the failure of the
      agnats, they preferred the blood of the cognats to the name of
      the gentiles whose title and character were insensibly covered
      with oblivion. The reciprocal inheritance of mothers and sons was
      established in the Tertullian and Orphitian decrees by the
      humanity of the senate. A new and more impartial order was
      introduced by the Novels of Justinian, who affected to revive the
      jurisprudence of the Twelve Tables. The lines of masculine and
      female kindred were confounded: the descending, ascending, and
      collateral series was accurately defined; and each degree,
      according to the proximity of blood and affection, succeeded to
      the vacant possessions of a Roman citizen. 149

      143 (return) [ Among the patriarchs, the first-born enjoyed a
      mystic and spiritual primogeniture, (Genesis, xxv. 31.) In the
      land of Canaan, he was entitled to a double portion of
      inheritance, (Deuteronomy, xxi. 17, with Le Clerc’s judicious
      Commentary.)]

      144 (return) [ At Athens, the sons were equal; but the poor
      daughters were endowed at the discretion of their brothers. See
      the pleadings of Isaeus, (in the viith volume of the Greek
      Orators,) illustrated by the version and comment of Sir William
      Jones, a scholar, a lawyer, and a man of genius.]

      145 (return) [ In England, the eldest son also inherits all the
      land; a law, says the orthodox Judge Blackstone, (Commentaries on
      the Laws of England, vol. ii. p. 215,) unjust only in the opinion
      of younger brothers. It may be of some political use in
      sharpening their industry.]

      146 (return) [ Blackstone’s Tables (vol. ii. p. 202) represent
      and compare the decrees of the civil with those of the canon and
      common law. A separate tract of Julius Paulus, de gradibus et
      affinibus, is inserted or abridged in the Pandects, (l. xxxviii.
      tit. x.) In the viith degrees he computes (No. 18) 1024 persons.]

      147 (return) [ The Voconian law was enacted in the year of Rome
      584. The younger Scipio, who was then 17 years of age,
      (Frenshemius, Supplement. Livian. xlvi. 40,) found an occasion of
      exercising his generosity to his mother, sisters, &c. (Polybius,
      tom. ii. l. xxxi. p. 1453—1464, edit Gronov., a domestic
      witness.)]

      148 (return) [ Legem Voconiam (Ernesti, Clavis Ciceroniana) magna
      voce bonis lateribus (at lxv. years of age) suasissem, says old
      Cato, (de Senectute, c. 5,) Aulus Gellius (vii. 13, xvii. 6) has
      saved some passages.]

      149 (return) [ See the law of succession in the Institutes of
      Caius, (l. ii. tit. viii. p. 130—144,) and Justinian, (l. iii.
      tit. i.—vi., with the Greek version of Theophilus, p. 515-575,
      588—600,) the Pandects, (l. xxxviii. tit. vi.—xvii.,) the Code,
      (l. vi. tit. lv.—lx.,) and the Novels, (cxviii.)]

      The order of succession is regulated by nature, or at least by
      the general and permanent reason of the lawgiver: but this order
      is frequently violated by the arbitrary and partial wills, which
      prolong the dominion of the testator beyond the grave. 150 In the
      simple state of society, this last use or abuse of the right of
      property is seldom indulged: it was introduced at Athens by the
      laws of Solon; and the private testaments of the father of a
      family are authorized by the Twelve Tables. Before the time of
      the decemvirs, 151 a Roman citizen exposed his wishes and motives
      to the assembly of the thirty curiae or parishes, and the general
      law of inheritance was suspended by an occasional act of the
      legislature. After the permission of the decemvirs, each private
      lawgiver promulgated his verbal or written testament in the
      presence of five citizens, who represented the five classes of
      the Roman people; a sixth witness attested their concurrence; a
      seventh weighed the copper money, which was paid by an imaginary
      purchaser; and the estate was emancipated by a fictitious sale
      and immediate release. This singular ceremony, 152 which excited
      the wonder of the Greeks, was still practised in the age of
      Severus; but the praetors had already approved a more simple
      testament, for which they required the seals and signatures of
      seven witnesses, free from all legal exception, and purposely
      summoned for the execution of that important act. A domestic
      monarch, who reigned over the lives and fortunes of his children,
      might distribute their respective shares according to the degrees
      of their merit or his affection; his arbitrary displeasure
      chastised an unworthy son by the loss of his inheritance, and the
      mortifying preference of a stranger. But the experience of
      unnatural parents recommended some limitations of their
      testamentary powers. A son, or, by the laws of Justinian, even a
      daughter, could no longer be disinherited by their silence: they
      were compelled to name the criminal, and to specify the offence;
      and the justice of the emperor enumerated the sole causes that
      could justify such a violation of the first principles of nature
      and society. 153 Unless a legitimate portion, a fourth part, had
      been reserved for the children, they were entitled to institute
      an action or complaint of inofficious testament; to suppose that
      their father’s understanding was impaired by sickness or age; and
      respectfully to appeal from his rigorous sentence to the
      deliberate wisdom of the magistrate. In the Roman jurisprudence,
      an essential distinction was admitted between the inheritance and
      the legacies. The heirs who succeeded to the entire unity, or to
      any of the twelve fractions of the substance of the testator,
      represented his civil and religious character, asserted his
      rights, fulfilled his obligations, and discharged the gifts of
      friendship or liberality, which his last will had bequeathed
      under the name of legacies. But as the imprudence or prodigality
      of a dying man might exhaust the inheritance, and leave only risk
      and labor to his successor, he was empowered to retain the
      Falcidian portion; to deduct, before the payment of the legacies,
      a clear fourth for his own emolument. A reasonable time was
      allowed to examine the proportion between the debts and the
      estate, to decide whether he should accept or refuse the
      testament; and if he used the benefit of an inventory, the
      demands of the creditors could not exceed the valuation of the
      effects. The last will of a citizen might be altered during his
      life, or rescinded after his death: the persons whom he named
      might die before him, or reject the inheritance, or be exposed to
      some legal disqualification. In the contemplation of these
      events, he was permitted to substitute second and third heirs, to
      replace each other according to the order of the testament; and
      the incapacity of a madman or an infant to bequeath his property
      might be supplied by a similar substitution. 154 But the power of
      the testator expired with the acceptance of the testament: each
      Roman of mature age and discretion acquired the absolute dominion
      of his inheritance, and the simplicity of the civil law was never
      clouded by the long and intricate entails which confine the
      happiness and freedom of unborn generations.

      150 (return) [ That succession was the rule, testament the
      exception, is proved by Taylor, (Elements of Civil Law, p.
      519-527,) a learned, rambling, spirited writer. In the iid and
      iiid books, the method of the Institutes is doubtless
      preposterous; and the Chancellor Daguesseau (Oeuvres, tom. i. p.
      275) wishes his countryman Domat in the place of Tribonian. Yet
      covenants before successions is not surely the natural order of
      civil laws.]

      151 (return) [ Prior examples of testaments are perhaps fabulous.
      At Athens a childless father only could make a will, (Plutarch,
      in Solone, tom. i. p. 164. See Isaeus and Jones.)]

      152 (return) [ The testament of Augustus is specified by
      Suetonius, (in August, c. 101, in Neron. c. 4,) who may be
      studied as a code of Roman antiquities. Plutarch (Opuscul. tom.
      ii. p. 976) is surprised. The language of Ulpian (Fragment. tit.
      xx. p. 627, edit. Schulting) is almost too exclusive—solum in usu
      est.]

      153 (return) [ Justinian (Novell. cxv. No. 3, 4) enumerates only
      the public and private crimes, for which a son might likewise
      disinherit his father. Note: Gibbon has singular notions on the
      provisions of Novell. cxv. 3, 4, which probably he did not
      clearly understand.—W]

      154 (return) [ The substitutions of fidei-commissaires of the
      modern civil law is a feudal idea grafted on the Roman
      jurisprudence, and bears scarcely any resemblance to the ancient
      fidei-commissa, (Institutions du Droit Francois, tom. i. p.
      347-383. Denissart, Decisions de Jurisprudence, tom. iv. p.
      577-604.) They were stretched to the fourth degree by an abuse of
      the clixth Novel; a partial, perplexed, declamatory law.]

      Conquest and the formalities of law established the use of
      codicils. If a Roman was surprised by death in a remote province
      of the empire, he addressed a short epistle to his legitimate or
      testamentary heir; who fulfilled with honor, or neglected with
      impunity, this last request, which the judges before the age of
      Augustus were not authorized to enforce. A codicil might be
      expressed in any mode, or in any language; but the subscription
      of five witnesses must declare that it was the genuine
      composition of the author. His intention, however laudable, was
      sometimes illegal; and the invention of fidei-commissa, or
      trusts, arose form the struggle between natural justice and
      positive jurisprudence. A stranger of Greece or Africa might be
      the friend or benefactor of a childless Roman, but none, except a
      fellow-citizen, could act as his heir. The Voconian law, which
      abolished female succession, restrained the legacy or inheritance
      of a woman to the sum of one hundred thousand sesterces; 155 and
      an only daughter was condemned almost as an alien in her father’s
      house. The zeal of friendship, and parental affection, suggested
      a liberal artifice: a qualified citizen was named in the
      testament, with a prayer or injunction that he would restore the
      inheritance to the person for whom it was truly intended. Various
      was the conduct of the trustees in this painful situation: they
      had sworn to observe the laws of their country, but honor
      prompted them to violate their oath; and if they preferred their
      interest under the mask of patriotism, they forfeited the esteem
      of every virtuous mind. The declaration of Augustus relieved
      their doubts, gave a legal sanction to confidential testaments
      and codicils, and gently unravelled the forms and restraints of
      the republican jurisprudence. 156 But as the new practice of
      trusts degenerated into some abuse, the trustee was enabled, by
      the Trebellian and Pegasian decrees, to reserve one fourth of the
      estate, or to transfer on the head of the real heir all the debts
      and actions of the succession. The interpretation of testaments
      was strict and literal; but the language of trusts and codicils
      was delivered from the minute and technical accuracy of the
      civilians. 157

      155 (return) [ Dion Cassius (tom. ii. l. lvi. p. 814, with
      Reimar’s Notes) specifies in Greek money the sum of 25,000
      drachms.]

      156 (return) [ The revolutions of the Roman laws of inheritance
      are finely, though sometimes fancifully, deduced by Montesquieu,
      (Esprit des Loix, l. xxvii.)]

      157 (return) [ Of the civil jurisprudence of successions,
      testaments, codicils, legacies, and trusts, the principles are
      ascertained in the Institutes of Caius, (l. ii. tit. ii.—ix. p.
      91—144,) Justinian, (l. ii. tit. x.—xxv.,) and Theophilus, (p.
      328—514;) and the immense detail occupies twelve books
      (xxviii.—xxxix.) of the Pandects.] III. The general duties of
      mankind are imposed by their public and private relations: but
      their specific obligations to each other can only be the effect
      of, 1. a promise, 2. a benefit, or 3. an injury: and when these
      obligations are ratified by law, the interested party may compel
      the performance by a judicial action. On this principle, the
      civilians of every country have erected a similar jurisprudence,
      the fair conclusion of universal reason and justice. 158

      158 (return) [ The Institutes of Caius, (l. ii. tit. ix. x. p.
      144—214,) of Justinian, (l. iii. tit. xiv.—xxx. l. iv. tit.
      i.—vi.,) and of Theophilus, (p. 616—837,) distinguish four sorts
      of obligations—aut re, aut verbis, aut literis aut consensu: but
      I confess myself partial to my own division. Note: It is not at
      all applicable to the Roman system of contracts, even if I were
      allowed to be good.—M.]




      Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part VII.

      1. The goddess of faith (of human and social faith) was
      worshipped, not only in her temples, but in the lives of the
      Romans; and if that nation was deficient in the more amiable
      qualities of benevolence and generosity, they astonished the
      Greeks by their sincere and simple performance of the most
      burdensome engagements. 159 Yet among the same people, according
      to the rigid maxims of the patricians and decemvirs, a naked
      pact, a promise, or even an oath, did not create any civil
      obligation, unless it was confirmed by the legal form of a
      stipulation. Whatever might be the etymology of the Latin word,
      it conveyed the idea of a firm and irrevocable contract, which
      was always expressed in the mode of a question and answer. Do you
      promise to pay me one hundred pieces of gold? was the solemn
      interrogation of Seius. I do promise, was the reply of
      Sempronius. The friends of Sempronius, who answered for his
      ability and inclination, might be separately sued at the option
      of Seius; and the benefit of partition, or order of reciprocal
      actions, insensibly deviated from the strict theory of
      stipulation. The most cautious and deliberate consent was justly
      required to sustain the validity of a gratuitous promise; and the
      citizen who might have obtained a legal security, incurred the
      suspicion of fraud, and paid the forfeit of his neglect. But the
      ingenuity of the civilians successfully labored to convert simple
      engagements into the form of solemn stipulations. The praetors,
      as the guardians of social faith, admitted every rational
      evidence of a voluntary and deliberate act, which in their
      tribunal produced an equitable obligation, and for which they
      gave an action and a remedy. 160

      159 (return) [ How much is the cool, rational evidence of
      Polybius (l. vi. p. 693, l. xxxi. p. 1459, 1460) superior to
      vague, indiscriminate applause—omnium maxime et praecipue fidem
      coluit, (A. Gellius, xx. l.)]

      160 (return) [ The Jus Praetorium de Pactis et Transactionibus is
      a separate and satisfactory treatise of Gerard Noodt, (Opp. tom.
      i. p. 483—564.) And I will here observe, that the universities of
      Holland and Brandenburg, in the beginning of the present century,
      appear to have studied the civil law on the most just and liberal
      principles. * Note: Simple agreements (pacta) formed as valid an
      obligation as a solemn contract. Only an action, or the right to
      a direct judicial prosecution, was not permitted in every case of
      compact. In all other respects, the judge was bound to maintain
      an agreement made by pactum. The stipulation was a form common to
      every kind of agreement, by which the right of action was given
      to this.—W.]

      2. The obligations of the second class, as they were contracted
      by the delivery of a thing, are marked by the civilians with the
      epithet of real. 161 A grateful return is due to the author of a
      benefit; and whoever is intrusted with the property of another,
      has bound himself to the sacred duty of restitution. In the case
      of a friendly loan, the merit of generosity is on the side of the
      lender only; in a deposit, on the side of the receiver; but in a
      pledge, and the rest of the selfish commerce of ordinary life,
      the benefit is compensated by an equivalent, and the obligation
      to restore is variously modified by the nature of the
      transaction. The Latin language very happily expresses the
      fundamental difference between the commodatum and the mutuum,
      which our poverty is reduced to confound under the vague and
      common appellation of a loan. In the former, the borrower was
      obliged to restore the same individual thing with which he had
      been accommodated for the temporary supply of his wants; in the
      latter, it was destined for his use and consumption, and he
      discharged this mutual engagement, by substituting the same
      specific value according to a just estimation of number, of
      weight, and of measure. In the contract of sale, the absolute
      dominion is transferred to the purchaser, and he repays the
      benefit with an adequate sum of gold or silver, the price and
      universal standard of all earthly possessions. The obligation of
      another contract, that of location, is of a more complicated
      kind. Lands or houses, labor or talents, may be hired for a
      definite term; at the expiration of the time, the thing itself
      must be restored to the owner, with an additional reward for the
      beneficial occupation and employment. In these lucrative
      contracts, to which may be added those of partnership and
      commissions, the civilians sometimes imagine the delivery of the
      object, and sometimes presume the consent of the parties. The
      substantial pledge has been refined into the invisible rights of
      a mortgage or hypotheca; and the agreement of sale, for a certain
      price, imputes, from that moment, the chances of gain or loss to
      the account of the purchaser. It may be fairly supposed, that
      every man will obey the dictates of his interest; and if he
      accepts the benefit, he is obliged to sustain the expense, of the
      transaction. In this boundless subject, the historian will
      observe the location of land and money, the rent of the one and
      the interest of the other, as they materially affect the
      prosperity of agriculture and commerce. The landlord was often
      obliged to advance the stock and instruments of husbandry, and to
      content himself with a partition of the fruits. If the feeble
      tenant was oppressed by accident, contagion, or hostile violence,
      he claimed a proportionable relief from the equity of the laws:
      five years were the customary term, and no solid or costly
      improvements could be expected from a farmer, who, at each moment
      might be ejected by the sale of the estate. 162 Usury, 163 the
      inveterate grievance of the city, had been discouraged by the
      Twelve Tables, 164 and abolished by the clamors of the people. It
      was revived by their wants and idleness, tolerated by the
      discretion of the praetors, and finally determined by the Code of
      Justinian. Persons of illustrious rank were confined to the
      moderate profit of four per cent.; six was pronounced to be the
      ordinary and legal standard of interest; eight was allowed for
      the convenience of manufactures and merchants; twelve was granted
      to nautical insurance, which the wiser ancients had not attempted
      to define; but, except in this perilous adventure, the practice
      of exorbitant usury was severely restrained. 165 The most simple
      interest was condemned by the clergy of the East and West; 166
      but the sense of mutual benefit, which had triumphed over the law
      of the republic, has resisted with equal firmness the decrees of
      the church, and even the prejudices of mankind. 167

      161 (return) [ The nice and various subject of contracts by
      consent is spread over four books (xvii.—xx.) of the Pandects,
      and is one of the parts best deserving of the attention of an
      English student. * Note: This is erroneously called “benefits.”
      Gibbon enumerates various kinds of contracts, of which some alone
      are properly called benefits.—W.]

      162 (return) [ The covenants of rent are defined in the Pandects
      (l. xix.) and the Code, (l. iv. tit. lxv.) The quinquennium, or
      term of five years, appears to have been a custom rather than a
      law; but in France all leases of land were determined in nine
      years. This limitation was removed only in the year 1775,
      (Encyclopedie Methodique, tom. i. de la Jurisprudence, p. 668,
      669;) and I am sorry to observe that it yet prevails in the
      beauteous and happy country where I am permitted to reside.]

      163 (return) [ I might implicitly acquiesce in the sense and
      learning of the three books of G. Noodt, de foenore et usuris.
      (Opp. tom. i. p. 175—268.) The interpretation of the asses or
      centesimoe usuroe at twelve, the unciarioe at one per cent., is
      maintained by the best critics and civilians: Noodt, (l. ii. c.
      2, p. 207,) Gravina, (Opp. p. 205, &c., 210,) Heineccius,
      (Antiquitat. ad Institut. l. iii. tit. xv.,) Montesquieu, (Esprit
      des Loix, l. xxii. c. 22, tom. ii. p. 36). Defense de l’Esprit
      des Loix, (tom. iii. p. 478, &c.,) and above all, John Frederic
      Gronovius (de Pecunia Veteri, l. iii. c. 13, p. 213—227,) and his
      three Antexegeses, (p. 455—655), the founder, or at least the
      champion, of this probable opinion; which is, however, perplexed
      with some difficulties.]

      164 (return) [ Primo xii. Tabulis sancitum est ne quis unciario
      foenore amplius exerceret, (Tacit. Annal. vi. 16.) Pour peu (says
      Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xxii. 22) qu’on soit verse dans
      l’histoire de Rome, on verra qu’une pareille loi ne devoit pas
      etre l’ouvrage des decemvirs. Was Tacitus ignorant—or stupid? But
      the wiser and more virtuous patricians might sacrifice their
      avarice to their ambition, and might attempt to check the odious
      practice by such interest as no lender would accept, and such
      penalties as no debtor would incur. * Note: The real nature of
      the foenus unciarium has been proved; it amounted in a year of
      twelve months to ten per cent. See, in the Magazine for Civil
      Law, by M. Hugo, vol. v. p. 180, 184, an article of M. Schrader,
      following up the conjectures of Niebuhr, Hist. Rom. tom. ii. p.
      431.—W. Compare a very clear account of this question in the
      appendix to Mr. Travers Twiss’s Epitome of Niebuhr, vol. ii. p.
      257.—M.]

      165 (return) [ Justinian has not condescended to give usury a
      place in his Institutes; but the necessary rules and restrictions
      are inserted in the Pandects (l. xxii. tit. i. ii.) and the Code,
      (l. iv. tit. xxxii. xxxiii.)]

      166 (return) [ The Fathers are unanimous, (Barbeyrac, Morale des
      Peres, p. 144. &c.:) Cyprian, Lactantius, Basil, Chrysostom, (see
      his frivolous arguments in Noodt, l. i. c. 7, p. 188,) Gregory of
      Nyssa, Ambrose, Jerom, Augustin, and a host of councils and
      casuists.]

      167 (return) [ Cato, Seneca, Plutarch, have loudly condemned the
      practice or abuse of usury. According to the etymology of foenus,
      the principal is supposed to generate the interest: a breed of
      barren metal, exclaims Shakespeare—and the stage is the echo of
      the public voice.]

      3. Nature and society impose the strict obligation of repairing
      an injury; and the sufferer by private injustice acquires a
      personal right and a legitimate action. If the property of
      another be intrusted to our care, the requisite degree of care
      may rise and fall according to the benefit which we derive from
      such temporary possession; we are seldom made responsible for
      inevitable accident, but the consequences of a voluntary fault
      must always be imputed to the author. 168 A Roman pursued and
      recovered his stolen goods by a civil action of theft; they might
      pass through a succession of pure and innocent hands, but nothing
      less than a prescription of thirty years could extinguish his
      original claim. They were restored by the sentence of the
      praetor, and the injury was compensated by double, or threefold,
      or even quadruple damages, as the deed had been perpetrated by
      secret fraud or open rapine, as the robber had been surprised in
      the fact, or detected by a subsequent research. The Aquilian law
      169 defended the living property of a citizen, his slaves and
      cattle, from the stroke of malice or negligence: the highest
      price was allowed that could be ascribed to the domestic animal
      at any moment of the year preceding his death; a similar latitude
      of thirty days was granted on the destruction of any other
      valuable effects. A personal injury is blunted or sharpened by
      the manners of the times and the sensibility of the individual:
      the pain or the disgrace of a word or blow cannot easily be
      appreciated by a pecuniary equivalent. The rude jurisprudence of
      the decemvirs had confounded all hasty insults, which did not
      amount to the fracture of a limb, by condemning the aggressor to
      the common penalty of twenty-five asses. But the same
      denomination of money was reduced, in three centuries, from a
      pound to the weight of half an ounce: and the insolence of a
      wealthy Roman indulged himself in the cheap amusement of breaking
      and satisfying the law of the twelve tables. Veratius ran through
      the streets striking on the face the inoffensive passengers, and
      his attendant purse-bearer immediately silenced their clamors by
      the legal tender of twenty-five pieces of copper, about the value
      of one shilling. 170 The equity of the praetors examined and
      estimated the distinct merits of each particular complaint. In
      the adjudication of civil damages, the magistrate assumed a right
      to consider the various circumstances of time and place, of age
      and dignity, which may aggravate the shame and sufferings of the
      injured person; but if he admitted the idea of a fine, a
      punishment, an example, he invaded the province, though, perhaps,
      he supplied the defects, of the criminal law.

      168 (return) Sir William Jones has given an ingenious and
      rational Essay on the law of Bailment, (London, 1781, p. 127, in
      8vo.) He is perhaps the only lawyer equally conversant with the
      year-books of Westminster, the Commentaries of Ulpian, the Attic
      pleadings of Isaeus, and the sentences of Arabian and Persian
      cadhis.]

      169 (return) [ Noodt (Opp. tom. i. p. 137—172) has composed a
      separate treatise, ad Legem Aquilian, (Pandect. l. ix. tit. ii.)]

      170 (return) [ Aulus Gellius (Noct. Attic. xx. i.) borrowed this
      story from the Commentaries of Q. Labeo on the xii. tables.]

      The execution of the Alban dictator, who was dismembered by eight
      horses, is represented by Livy as the first and the fast instance
      of Roman cruelty in the punishment of the most atrocious crimes.
      171 But this act of justice, or revenge, was inflicted on a
      foreign enemy in the heat of victory, and at the command of a
      single man. The twelve tables afford a more decisive proof of the
      national spirit, since they were framed by the wisest of the
      senate, and accepted by the free voices of the people; yet these
      laws, like the statutes of Draco, 172 are written in characters
      of blood. 173 They approve the inhuman and unequal principle of
      retaliation; and the forfeit of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a
      tooth, a limb for a limb, is rigorously exacted, unless the
      offender can redeem his pardon by a fine of three hundred pounds
      of copper. The decemvirs distributed with much liberality the
      slighter chastisements of flagellation and servitude; and nine
      crimes of a very different complexion are adjudged worthy of
      death.

      1. Any act of treason against the state, or of correspondence
      with the public enemy. The mode of execution was painful and
      ignominious: the head of the degenerate Roman was shrouded in a
      veil, his hands were tied behind his back, and after he had been
      scourged by the lictor, he was suspended in the midst of the
      forum on a cross, or inauspicious tree.

      2. Nocturnal meetings in the city; whatever might be the
      pretence, of pleasure, or religion, or the public good.

      3. The murder of a citizen; for which the common feelings of
      mankind demand the blood of the murderer. Poison is still more
      odious than the sword or dagger; and we are surprised to
      discover, in two flagitious events, how early such subtle
      wickedness had infected the simplicity of the republic, and the
      chaste virtues of the Roman matrons. 174 The parricide, who
      violated the duties of nature and gratitude, was cast into the
      river or the sea, enclosed in a sack; and a cock, a viper, a dog,
      and a monkey, were successively added, as the most suitable
      companions. 175 Italy produces no monkeys; but the want could
      never be felt, till the middle of the sixth century first
      revealed the guilt of a parricide. 176

      4. The malice of an incendiary. After the previous ceremony of
      whipping, he himself was delivered to the flames; and in this
      example alone our reason is tempted to applaud the justice of
      retaliation.

      5. Judicial perjury. The corrupt or malicious witness was thrown
      headlong from the Tarpeian rock, to expiate his falsehood, which
      was rendered still more fatal by the severity of the penal laws,
      and the deficiency of written evidence.

      6. The corruption of a judge, who accepted bribes to pronounce an
      iniquitous sentence.

      7. Libels and satires, whose rude strains sometimes disturbed the
      peace of an illiterate city. The author was beaten with clubs, a
      worthy chastisement, but it is not certain that he was left to
      expire under the blows of the executioner. 177

      8. The nocturnal mischief of damaging or destroying a neighbor’s
      corn. The criminal was suspended as a grateful victim to Ceres.
      But the sylvan deities were less implacable, and the extirpation
      of a more valuable tree was compensated by the moderate fine of
      twenty-five pounds of copper.

      9. Magical incantations; which had power, in the opinion of the
      Latin shepherds, to exhaust the strength of an enemy, to
      extinguish his life, and to remove from their seats his
      deep-rooted plantations.

      The cruelty of the twelve tables against insolvent debtors still
      remains to be told; and I shall dare to prefer the literal sense
      of antiquity to the specious refinements of modern criticism. 178
      1781 After the judicial proof or confession of the debt, thirty
      days of grace were allowed before a Roman was delivered into the
      power of his fellow-citizen. In this private prison, twelve
      ounces of rice were his daily food; he might be bound with a
      chain of fifteen pounds weight; and his misery was thrice exposed
      in the market place, to solicit the compassion of his friends and
      countrymen. At the expiration of sixty days, the debt was
      discharged by the loss of liberty or life; the insolvent debtor
      was either put to death, or sold in foreign slavery beyond the
      Tyber: but, if several creditors were alike obstinate and
      unrelenting, they might legally dismember his body, and satiate
      their revenge by this horrid partition. The advocates for this
      savage law have insisted, that it must strongly operate in
      deterring idleness and fraud from contracting debts which they
      were unable to discharge; but experience would dissipate this
      salutary terror, by proving that no creditor could be found to
      exact this unprofitable penalty of life or limb. As the manners
      of Rome were insensibly polished, the criminal code of the
      decemvirs was abolished by the humanity of accusers, witnesses,
      and judges; and impunity became the consequence of immoderate
      rigor. The Porcian and Valerian laws prohibited the magistrates
      from inflicting on a free citizen any capital, or even corporal,
      punishment; and the obsolete statutes of blood were artfully, and
      perhaps truly, ascribed to the spirit, not of patrician, but of
      regal, tyranny.

      171 (return) [ The narrative of Livy (i. 28) is weighty and
      solemn. At tu, Albane, maneres, is a harsh reflection, unworthy
      of Virgil’s humanity, (Aeneid, viii. 643.) Heyne, with his usual
      good taste, observes that the subject was too horrid for the
      shield of Aencas, (tom. iii. p. 229.)]

      172 (return) [ The age of Draco (Olympiad xxxix. l) is fixed by
      Sir John Marsham (Canon Chronicus, p. 593—596) and Corsini,
      (Fasti Attici, tom. iii. p. 62.) For his laws, see the writers on
      the government of Athens, Sigonius, Meursius, Potter, &c.]

      173 (return) [ The viith, de delictis, of the xii. tables is
      delineated by Gravina, (Opp. p. 292, 293, with a commentary, p.
      214—230.) Aulus Gellius (xx. 1) and the Collatio Legum Mosaicarum
      et Romanarum afford much original information.]

      174 (return) [ Livy mentions two remarkable and flagitious aeras,
      of 3000 persons accused, and of 190 noble matrons convicted, of
      the crime of poisoning, (xl. 43, viii. 18.) Mr. Hume
      discriminates the ages of private and public virtue, (Essays,
      vol. i. p. 22, 23.) I would rather say that such ebullitions of
      mischief (as in France in the year 1680) are accidents and
      prodigies which leave no marks on the manners of a nation.]

      175 (return) [ The xii. tables and Cicero (pro Roscio Amerino, c.
      25, 26) are content with the sack; Seneca (Excerpt. Controvers. v
      4) adorns it with serpents; Juvenal pities the guiltless monkey
      (innoxia simia—156.) Adrian (apud Dositheum Magistrum, l. iii. c.
      p. 874—876, with Schulting’s Note,) Modestinus, (Pandect. xlviii.
      tit. ix. leg. 9,) Constantine, (Cod. l. ix. tit. xvii.,) and
      Justinian, (Institut. l. iv. tit. xviii.,) enumerate all the
      companions of the parricide. But this fanciful execution was
      simplified in practice. Hodie tamen viv exuruntur vel ad bestias
      dantur, (Paul. Sentent. Recept. l. v. tit. xxiv p. 512, edit.
      Schulting.)]

      176 (return) [ The first parricide at Rome was L. Ostius, after
      the second Punic war, (Plutarch, in Romulo, tom. i. p. 54.)
      During the Cimbric, P. Malleolus was guilty of the first
      matricide, (Liv. Epitom. l. lxviii.)]

      177 (return) [ Horace talks of the formidine fustis, (l. ii.
      epist. ii. 154,) but Cicero (de Republica, l. iv. apud Augustin.
      de Civitat. Dei, ix. 6, in Fragment. Philosoph. tom. iii. p. 393,
      edit. Olivet) affirms that the decemvirs made libels a capital
      offence: cum perpaucas res capite sanxisent—perpaucus!]

      178 (return) [ Bynkershoek (Observat. Juris Rom. l. i. c. 1, in
      Opp. tom. i. p. 9, 10, 11) labors to prove that the creditors
      divided not the body, but the price, of the insolvent debtor. Yet
      his interpretation is one perpetual harsh metaphor; nor can he
      surmount the Roman authorities of Quintilian, Caecilius,
      Favonius, and Tertullian. See Aulus Gellius, Noct. Attic. xxi.]

      1781 (return) [ Hugo (Histoire du Droit Romain, tom. i. p. 234)
      concurs with Gibbon See Niebuhr, vol. ii. p. 313.—M.]

      In the absence of penal laws, and the insufficiency of civil
      actions, the peace and justice of the city were imperfectly
      maintained by the private jurisdiction of the citizens. The
      malefactors who replenish our jails are the outcasts of society,
      and the crimes for which they suffer may be commonly ascribed to
      ignorance, poverty, and brutal appetite. For the perpetration of
      similar enormities, a vile plebeian might claim and abuse the
      sacred character of a member of the republic: but, on the proof
      or suspicion of guilt, the slave, or the stranger, was nailed to
      a cross; and this strict and summary justice might be exercised
      without restraint over the greatest part of the populace of Rome.

      Each family contained a domestic tribunal, which was not
      confined, like that of the praetor, to the cognizance of external
      actions: virtuous principles and habits were inculcated by the
      discipline of education; and the Roman father was accountable to
      the state for the manners of his children, since he disposed,
      without appeal, of their life, their liberty, and their
      inheritance. In some pressing emergencies, the citizen was
      authorized to avenge his private or public wrongs. The consent of
      the Jewish, the Athenian, and the Roman laws approved the
      slaughter of the nocturnal thief; though in open daylight a
      robber could not be slain without some previous evidence of
      danger and complaint. Whoever surprised an adulterer in his
      nuptial bed might freely exercise his revenge; 179 the most
      bloody and wanton outrage was excused by the provocation; 180 nor
      was it before the reign of Augustus that the husband was reduced
      to weigh the rank of the offender, or that the parent was
      condemned to sacrifice his daughter with her guilty seducer.
      After the expulsion of the kings, the ambitious Roman, who should
      dare to assume their title or imitate their tyranny, was devoted
      to the infernal gods: each of his fellow-citizens was armed with
      the sword of justice; and the act of Brutus, however repugnant to
      gratitude or prudence, had been already sanctified by the
      judgment of his country. 181 The barbarous practice of wearing
      arms in the midst of peace, 182 and the bloody maxims of honor,
      were unknown to the Romans; and, during the two purest ages, from
      the establishment of equal freedom to the end of the Punic wars,
      the city was never disturbed by sedition, and rarely polluted
      with atrocious crimes. The failure of penal laws was more
      sensibly felt, when every vice was inflamed by faction at home
      and dominion abroad. In the time of Cicero, each private citizen
      enjoyed the privilege of anarchy; each minister of the republic
      was exalted to the temptations of regal power, and their virtues
      are entitled to the warmest praise, as the spontaneous fruits of
      nature or philosophy. After a triennial indulgence of lust,
      rapine, and cruelty, Verres, the tyrant of Sicily, could only be
      sued for the pecuniary restitution of three hundred thousand
      pounds sterling; and such was the temper of the laws, the judges,
      and perhaps the accuser himself, 183 that, on refunding a
      thirteenth part of his plunder, Verres could retire to an easy
      and luxurious exile. 184

      179 (return) [ The first speech of Lysias (Reiske, Orator. Graec.
      tom. v. p. 2—48) is in defence of a husband who had killed the
      adulterer. The rights of husbands and fathers at Rome and Athens
      are discussed with much learning by Dr. Taylor, (Lectiones
      Lysiacae, c. xi. in Reiske, tom. vi. p. 301—308.)]

      180 (return) [ See Casaubon ad Athenaeum, l. i. c. 5, p. 19.
      Percurrent raphanique mugilesque, (Catull. p. 41, 42, edit.
      Vossian.) Hunc mugilis intrat, (Juvenal. Satir. x. 317.) Hunc
      perminxere calones, (Horat l. i. Satir. ii. 44.) Familiae
      stuprandum dedit.. fraudi non fuit, (Val. Maxim. l. vi. c. l, No.
      13.)]

      181 (return) [ This law is noticed by Livy (ii. 8) and Plutarch,
      (in Publiccla, tom. i. p. 187,) and it fully justifies the public
      opinion on the death of Caesar which Suetonius could publish
      under the Imperial government. Jure caesus existimatur, (in
      Julio, c. 76.) Read the letters that passed between Cicero and
      Matius a few months after the ides of March (ad Fam. xi. 27,
      28.)]

      182 (return) [ Thucydid. l. i. c. 6 The historian who considers
      this circumstance as the test of civilization, would disdain the
      barbarism of a European court]

      183 (return) [ He first rated at millies (800,000 L.) the damages
      of Sicily, (Divinatio in Caecilium, c. 5,) which he afterwards
      reduced to quadringenties, (320,000 L.—1 Actio in Verrem, c. 18,)
      and was finally content with tricies, (24,000l L.) Plutarch (in
      Ciceron. tom. iii. p. 1584) has not dissembled the popular
      suspicion and report.]

      184 (return) [ Verres lived near thirty years after his trial,
      till the second triumvirate, when he was proscribed by the taste
      of Mark Antony for the sake of his Corinthian plate, (Plin. Hist.
      Natur. xxxiv. 3.)]

      The first imperfect attempt to restore the proportion of crimes
      and punishments was made by the dictator Sylla, who, in the midst
      of his sanguinary triumph, aspired to restrain the license,
      rather than to oppress the liberty, of the Romans. He gloried in
      the arbitrary proscription of four thousand seven hundred
      citizens. 185 But, in the character of a legislator, he respected
      the prejudices of the times; and, instead of pronouncing a
      sentence of death against the robber or assassin, the general who
      betrayed an army, or the magistrate who ruined a province, Sylla
      was content to aggravate the pecuniary damages by the penalty of
      exile, or, in more constitutional language, by the interdiction
      of fire and water. The Cornelian, and afterwards the Pompeian and
      Julian, laws introduced a new system of criminal jurisprudence;
      186 and the emperors, from Augustus to Justinian, disguised their
      increasing rigor under the names of the original authors. But the
      invention and frequent use of extraordinary pains proceeded from
      the desire to extend and conceal the progress of despotism. In
      the condemnation of illustrious Romans, the senate was always
      prepared to confound, at the will of their masters, the judicial
      and legislative powers. It was the duty of the governors to
      maintain the peace of their province, by the arbitrary and rigid
      administration of justice; the freedom of the city evaporated in
      the extent of empire, and the Spanish malefactor, who claimed the
      privilege of a Roman, was elevated by the command of Galba on a
      fairer and more lofty cross. 187 Occasional rescripts issued from
      the throne to decide the questions which, by their novelty or
      importance, appeared to surpass the authority and discernment of
      a proconsul. Transportation and beheading were reserved for
      honorable persons; meaner criminals were either hanged, or burnt,
      or buried in the mines, or exposed to the wild beasts of the
      amphitheatre. Armed robbers were pursued and extirpated as the
      enemies of society; the driving away horses or cattle was made a
      capital offence; 188 but simple theft was uniformly considered as
      a mere civil and private injury. The degrees of guilt, and the
      modes of punishment, were too often determined by the discretion
      of the rulers, and the subject was left in ignorance of the legal
      danger which he might incur by every action of his life.

      185 (return) [ Such is the number assigned by Valer’us Maximus,
      (l. ix. c. 2, No. 1,) Florus (iv. 21) distinguishes 2000 senators
      and knights. Appian (de Bell. Civil. l. i. c. 95, tom. ii. p.
      133, edit. Schweighauser) more accurately computes forty victims
      of the senatorian rank, and 1600 of the equestrian census or
      order.]

      186 (return) [ For the penal laws (Leges Corneliae, Pompeiae,
      Julae, of Sylla, Pompey, and the Caesars) see the sentences of
      Paulus, (l. iv. tit. xviii.—xxx. p. 497—528, edit. Schulting,)
      the Gregorian Code, (Fragment. l. xix. p. 705, 706, in
      Schulting,) the Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum, (tit.
      i.—xv.,) the Theodosian Code, (l. ix.,) the Code of Justinian,
      (l. ix.,) the Pandects, (xlviii.,) the Institutes, (l. iv. tit.
      xviii.,) and the Greek version of Theophilus, (p. 917—926.)]

      187 (return) [ It was a guardian who had poisoned his ward. The
      crime was atrocious: yet the punishment is reckoned by Suetonius
      (c. 9) among the acts in which Galba showed himself acer,
      vehemens, et in delictis coercendis immodicus.]

      188 (return) [ The abactores or abigeatores, who drove one horse,
      or two mares or oxen, or five hogs, or ten goats, were subject to
      capital punishment, (Paul, Sentent. Recept. l. iv. tit. xviii. p.
      497, 498.) Hadrian, (ad Concil. Baeticae,) most severe where the
      offence was most frequent, condemns the criminals, ad gladium,
      ludi damnationem, (Ulpian, de Officio Proconsulis, l. viii. in
      Collatione Legum Mosaic. et Rom. tit. xi p. 235.)]

      A sin, a vice, a crime, are the objects of theology, ethics, and
      jurisprudence. Whenever their judgments agree, they corroborate
      each other; but, as often as they differ, a prudent legislator
      appreciates the guilt and punishment according to the measure of
      social injury. On this principle, the most daring attack on the
      life and property of a private citizen is judged less atrocious
      than the crime of treason or rebellion, which invades the majesty
      of the republic: the obsequious civilians unanimously pronounced,
      that the republic is contained in the person of its chief; and
      the edge of the Julian law was sharpened by the incessant
      diligence of the emperors. The licentious commerce of the sexes
      may be tolerated as an impulse of nature, or forbidden as a
      source of disorder and corruption; but the fame, the fortunes,
      the family of the husband, are seriously injured by the adultery
      of the wife. The wisdom of Augustus, after curbing the freedom of
      revenge, applied to this domestic offence the animadversion of
      the laws: and the guilty parties, after the payment of heavy
      forfeitures and fines, were condemned to long or perpetual exile
      in two separate islands. 189 Religion pronounces an equal censure
      against the infidelity of the husband; but, as it is not
      accompanied by the same civil effects, the wife was never
      permitted to vindicate her wrongs; 190 and the distinction of
      simple or double adultery, so familiar and so important in the
      canon law, is unknown to the jurisprudence of the Code and the
      Pandects. I touch with reluctance, and despatch with impatience,
      a more odious vice, of which modesty rejects the name, and nature
      abominates the idea. The primitive Romans were infected by the
      example of the Etruscans 191 and Greeks: 192 and in the mad abuse
      of prosperity and power, every pleasure that is innocent was
      deemed insipid; and the Scatinian law, 193 which had been
      extorted by an act of violence, was insensibly abolished by the
      lapse of time and the multitude of criminals. By this law, the
      rape, perhaps the seduction, of an ingenuous youth, was
      compensated, as a personal injury, by the poor damages of ten
      thousand sesterces, or fourscore pounds; the ravisher might be
      slain by the resistance or revenge of chastity; and I wish to
      believe, that at Rome, as in Athens, the voluntary and effeminate
      deserter of his sex was degraded from the honors and the rights
      of a citizen. 194 But the practice of vice was not discouraged by
      the severity of opinion: the indelible stain of manhood was
      confounded with the more venial transgressions of fornication and
      adultery, nor was the licentious lover exposed to the same
      dishonor which he impressed on the male or female partner of his
      guilt. From Catullus to Juvenal, 195 the poets accuse and
      celebrate the degeneracy of the times; and the reformation of
      manners was feebly attempted by the reason and authority of the
      civilians till the most virtuous of the Caesars proscribed the
      sin against nature as a crime against society. 196

      189 (return) [ Till the publication of the Julius Paulus of
      Schulting, (l. ii. tit. xxvi. p. 317—323,) it was affirmed and
      believed that the Julian laws punished adultery with death; and
      the mistake arose from the fraud or error of Tribonian. Yet
      Lipsius had suspected the truth from the narratives of Tacitus,
      (Annal. ii. 50, iii. 24, iv. 42,) and even from the practice of
      Augustus, who distinguished the treasonable frailties of his
      female kindred.]

      190 (return) [ In cases of adultery, Severus confined to the
      husband the right of public accusation, (Cod. Justinian, l. ix.
      tit. ix. leg. 1.) Nor is this privilege unjust—so different are
      the effects of male or female infidelity.]

      191 (return) [ Timon (l. i.) and Theopompus (l. xliii. apud
      Athenaeum, l. xii. p. 517) describe the luxury and lust of the
      Etruscans. About the same period (A. U. C. 445) the Roman youth
      studied in Etruria, (liv. ix. 36.)]

      192 (return) [ The Persians had been corrupted in the same
      school, (Herodot. l. i. c. 135.) A curious dissertation might be
      formed on the introduction of paederasty after the time of Homer,
      its progress among the Greeks of Asia and Europe, the vehemence
      of their passions, and the thin device of virtue and friendship
      which amused the philosophers of Athens. But scelera ostendi
      oportet dum puniuntur, abscondi flagitia.]

      193 (return) [ The name, the date, and the provisions of this law
      are equally doubtful, (Gravina, Opp. p. 432, 433. Heineccius,
      Hist. Jur. Rom. No. 108. Ernesti, Clav. Ciceron. in Indice
      Legum.) But I will observe that the nefanda Venus of the honest
      German is styled aversa by the more polite Italian.]

      194 (return) [ See the oration of Aeschines against the catamite
      Timarchus, (in Reiske, Orator. Graec. tom. iii. p. 21—184.)]

      195 (return) [ A crowd of disgraceful passages will force
      themselves on the memory of the classic reader: I will only
      remind him of the cool declaration of Ovid:— Odi concubitus qui
      non utrumque resolvant. Hoc est quod puerum tangar amore minus.]

      196 (return) [ Aelius Lampridius, in Vit. Heliogabal. in Hist.
      August p. 112 Aurelius Victor, in Philippo, Codex Theodos. l. ix.
      tit. vii. leg. 7, and Godefroy’s Commentary, tom. iii. p. 63.
      Theodosius abolished the subterraneous brothels of Rome, in which
      the prostitution of both sexes was acted with impunity.]




      Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part VIII.

      A new spirit of legislation, respectable even in its error, arose
      in the empire with the religion of Constantine. 197 The laws of
      Moses were received as the divine original of justice, and the
      Christian princes adapted their penal statutes to the degrees of
      moral and religious turpitude. Adultery was first declared to be
      a capital offence: the frailty of the sexes was assimilated to
      poison or assassination, to sorcery or parricide; the same
      penalties were inflicted on the passive and active guilt of
      paederasty; and all criminals of free or servile condition were
      either drowned or beheaded, or cast alive into the avenging
      flames. The adulterers were spared by the common sympathy of
      mankind; but the lovers of their own sex were pursued by general
      and pious indignation: the impure manners of Greece still
      prevailed in the cities of Asia, and every vice was fomented by
      the celibacy of the monks and clergy. Justinian relaxed the
      punishment at least of female infidelity: the guilty spouse was
      only condemned to solitude and penance, and at the end of two
      years she might be recalled to the arms of a forgiving husband.
      But the same emperor declared himself the implacable enemy of
      unmanly lust, and the cruelty of his persecution can scarcely be
      excused by the purity of his motives. 198 In defiance of every
      principle of justice, he stretched to past as well as future
      offences the operations of his edicts, with the previous
      allowance of a short respite for confession and pardon. A painful
      death was inflicted by the amputation of the sinful instrument,
      or the insertion of sharp reeds into the pores and tubes of most
      exquisite sensibility; and Justinian defended the propriety of
      the execution, since the criminals would have lost their hands,
      had they been convicted of sacrilege. In this state of disgrace
      and agony, two bishops, Isaiah of Rhodes and Alexander of
      Diospolis, were dragged through the streets of Constantinople,
      while their brethren were admonished, by the voice of a crier, to
      observe this awful lesson, and not to pollute the sanctity of
      their character. Perhaps these prelates were innocent. A sentence
      of death and infamy was often founded on the slight and
      suspicious evidence of a child or a servant: the guilt of the
      green faction, of the rich, and of the enemies of Theodora, was
      presumed by the judges, and paederasty became the crime of those
      to whom no crime could be imputed. A French philosopher 199 has
      dared to remark that whatever is secret must be doubtful, and
      that our natural horror of vice may be abused as an engine of
      tyranny. But the favorable persuasion of the same writer, that a
      legislator may confide in the taste and reason of mankind, is
      impeached by the unwelcome discovery of the antiquity and extent
      of the disease. 200

      197 (return) [ See the laws of Constantine and his successors
      against adultery, sodomy &c., in the Theodosian, (l. ix. tit.
      vii. leg. 7, l. xi. tit. xxxvi leg. 1, 4) and Justinian Codes,
      (l. ix. tit. ix. leg. 30, 31.) These princes speak the language
      of passion as well as of justice, and fraudulently ascribe their
      own severity to the first Caesars.]

      198 (return) [ Justinian, Novel. lxxvii. cxxxiv. cxli. Procopius
      in Anecdot. c. 11, 16, with the notes of Alemannus. Theophanes,
      p. 151. Cedrenus. p. 688. Zonaras, l. xiv. p. 64.]

      199 (return) [ Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 6. That
      eloquent philosopher conciliates the rights of liberty and of
      nature, which should never be placed in opposition to each
      other.]

      200 (return) [ For the corruption of Palestine, 2000 years before
      the Christian aera, see the history and laws of Moses. Ancient
      Gaul is stigmatized by Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l. v. p. 356,)
      China by the Mahometar and Christian travellers, (Ancient
      Relations of India and China, p. 34 translated by Renaudot, and
      his bitter critic the Pere Premare, Lettres Edifiantes, tom. xix.
      p. 435,) and native America by the Spanish historians,
      (Garcilasso de la Vega, l. iii. c. 13, Rycaut’s translation; and
      Dictionnaire de Bayle, tom. iii. p. 88.) I believe, and hope,
      that the negroes, in their own country, were exempt from this
      moral pestilence.]

      The free citizens of Athens and Rome enjoyed, in all criminal
      cases, the invaluable privilege of being tried by their country.
      201 1. The administration of justice is the most ancient office
      of a prince: it was exercised by the Roman kings, and abused by
      Tarquin; who alone, without law or council, pronounced his
      arbitrary judgments. The first consuls succeeded to this regal
      prerogative; but the sacred right of appeal soon abolished the
      jurisdiction of the magistrates, and all public causes were
      decided by the supreme tribunal of the people. But a wild
      democracy, superior to the forms, too often disdains the
      essential principles, of justice: the pride of despotism was
      envenomed by plebeian envy, and the heroes of Athens might
      sometimes applaud the happiness of the Persian, whose fate
      depended on the caprice of a single tyrant. Some salutary
      restraints, imposed by the people or their own passions, were at
      once the cause and effect of the gravity and temperance of the
      Romans. The right of accusation was confined to the magistrates.

      A vote of the thirty five tribes could inflict a fine; but the
      cognizance of all capital crimes was reserved by a fundamental
      law to the assembly of the centuries, in which the weight of
      influence and property was sure to preponderate. Repeated
      proclamations and adjournments were interposed, to allow time for
      prejudice and resentment to subside: the whole proceeding might
      be annulled by a seasonable omen, or the opposition of a tribune;
      and such popular trials were commonly less formidable to
      innocence than they were favorable to guilt. But this union of
      the judicial and legislative powers left it doubtful whether the
      accused party was pardoned or acquitted; and, in the defence of
      an illustrious client, the orators of Rome and Athens address
      their arguments to the policy and benevolence, as well as to the
      justice, of their sovereign. 2. The task of convening the
      citizens for the trial of each offender became more difficult, as
      the citizens and the offenders continually multiplied; and the
      ready expedient was adopted of delegating the jurisdiction of the
      people to the ordinary magistrates, or to extraordinary
      inquisitors. In the first ages these questions were rare and
      occasional. In the beginning of the seventh century of Rome they
      were made perpetual: four praetors were annually empowered to sit
      in judgment on the state offences of treason, extortion,
      peculation, and bribery; and Sylla added new praetors and new
      questions for those crimes which more directly injure the safety
      of individuals. By these inquisitors the trial was prepared and
      directed; but they could only pronounce the sentence of the
      majority of judges, who with some truth, and more prejudice, have
      been compared to the English juries. 202 To discharge this
      important, though burdensome office, an annual list of ancient
      and respectable citizens was formed by the praetor. After many
      constitutional struggles, they were chosen in equal numbers from
      the senate, the equestrian order, and the people; four hundred
      and fifty were appointed for single questions; and the various
      rolls or decuries of judges must have contained the names of some
      thousand Romans, who represented the judicial authority of the
      state. In each particular cause, a sufficient number was drawn
      from the urn; their integrity was guarded by an oath; the mode of
      ballot secured their independence; the suspicion of partiality
      was removed by the mutual challenges of the accuser and
      defendant; and the judges of Milo, by the retrenchment of fifteen
      on each side, were reduced to fifty-one voices or tablets, of
      acquittal, of condemnation, or of favorable doubt. 203 3. In his
      civil jurisdiction, the praetor of the city was truly a judge,
      and almost a legislator; but, as soon as he had prescribed the
      action of law, he often referred to a delegate the determination
      of the fact. With the increase of legal proceedings, the tribunal
      of the centumvirs, in which he presided, acquired more weight and
      reputation. But whether he acted alone, or with the advice of his
      council, the most absolute powers might be trusted to a
      magistrate who was annually chosen by the votes of the people.
      The rules and precautions of freedom have required some
      explanation; the order of despotism is simple and inanimate.
      Before the age of Justinian, or perhaps of Diocletian, the
      decuries of Roman judges had sunk to an empty title: the humble
      advice of the assessors might be accepted or despised; and in
      each tribunal the civil and criminal jurisdiction was
      administered by a single magistrate, who was raised and disgraced
      by the will of the emperor.

      201 (return) [The important subject of the public questions and
      judgments at Rome, is explained with much learning, and in a
      classic style, by Charles Sigonius, (l. iii. de Judiciis, in Opp.
      tom. iii. p. 679—864;) and a good abridgment may be found in the
      Republique Romaine of Beaufort, (tom. ii. l. v. p. 1—121.) Those
      who wish for more abstruse law may study Noodt, (de Jurisdictione
      et Imperio Libri duo, tom. i. p. 93—134,) Heineccius, (ad
      Pandect. l. i. et ii. ad Institut. l. iv. tit. xvii Element. ad
      Antiquitat.) and Gravina (Opp. 230—251.)]

      202 (return) [ The office, both at Rome and in England, must be
      considered as an occasional duty, and not a magistracy, or
      profession. But the obligation of a unanimous verdict is peculiar
      to our laws, which condemn the jurymen to undergo the torture
      from whence they have exempted the criminal.]

      203 (return) [ We are indebted for this interesting fact to a
      fragment of Asconius Pedianus, who flourished under the reign of
      Tiberius. The loss of his Commentaries on the Orations of Cicero
      has deprived us of a valuable fund of historical and legal
      knowledge.]

      A Roman accused of any capital crime might prevent the sentence
      of the law by voluntary exile, or death. Till his guilt had been
      legally proved, his innocence was presumed, and his person was
      free: till the votes of the last century had been counted and
      declared, he might peaceably secede to any of the allied cities
      of Italy, or Greece, or Asia. 204 His fame and fortunes were
      preserved, at least to his children, by this civil death; and he
      might still be happy in every rational and sensual enjoyment, if
      a mind accustomed to the ambitious tumult of Rome could support
      the uniformity and silence of Rhodes or Athens. A bolder effort
      was required to escape from the tyranny of the Caesars; but this
      effort was rendered familiar by the maxims of the stoics, the
      example of the bravest Romans, and the legal encouragements of
      suicide. The bodies of condemned criminals were exposed to public
      ignominy, and their children, a more serious evil, were reduced
      to poverty by the confiscation of their fortunes. But, if the
      victims of Tiberius and Nero anticipated the decree of the prince
      or senate, their courage and despatch were recompensed by the
      applause of the public, the decent honors of burial, and the
      validity of their testaments. 205 The exquisite avarice and
      cruelty of Domitian appear to have deprived the unfortunate of
      this last consolation, and it was still denied even by the
      clemency of the Antonines. A voluntary death, which, in the case
      of a capital offence, intervened between the accusation and the
      sentence, was admitted as a confession of guilt, and the spoils
      of the deceased were seized by the inhuman claims of the
      treasury. 206 Yet the civilians have always respected the natural
      right of a citizen to dispose of his life; and the posthumous
      disgrace invented by Tarquin, 207 to check the despair of his
      subjects, was never revived or imitated by succeeding tyrants.
      The powers of this world have indeed lost their dominion over him
      who is resolved on death; and his arm can only be restrained by
      the religious apprehension of a future state. Suicides are
      enumerated by Virgil among the unfortunate, rather than the
      guilty; 208 and the poetical fables of the infernal shades could
      not seriously influence the faith or practice of mankind. But the
      precepts of the gospel, or the church, have at length imposed a
      pious servitude on the minds of Christians, and condemn them to
      expect, without a murmur, the last stroke of disease or the
      executioner.

      204 (return) [Footnote 204: Polyb. l. vi. p. 643. The extension
      of the empire and city of Rome obliged the exile to seek a more
      distant place of retirement.]

      205 (return) [ Qui de se statuebant, humabanta corpora, manebant
      testamenta; pretium festinandi. Tacit. Annal. vi. 25, with the
      Notes of Lipsius.]

      206 (return) [ Julius Paulus, (Sentent. Recept. l. v. tit. xii.
      p. 476,) the Pandects, (xlviii. tit. xxi.,) the Code, (l. ix.
      tit. l.,) Bynkershoek, (tom. i. p. 59, Observat. J. C. R. iv. 4,)
      and Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxix. c. ix.,) define the
      civil limitations of the liberty and privileges of suicide. The
      criminal penalties are the production of a later and darker age.]

      207 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxvi. 24. When he fatigued his
      subjects in building the Capitol, many of the laborers were
      provoked to despatch themselves: he nailed their dead bodies to
      crosses.]

      208 (return) [ The sole resemblance of a violent and premature
      death has engaged Virgil (Aeneid, vi. 434—439) to confound
      suicides with infants, lovers, and persons unjustly condemned.
      Heyne, the best of his editors, is at a loss to deduce the idea,
      or ascertain the jurisprudence, of the Roman poet.]

      The penal statutes form a very small proportion of the sixty-two
      books of the Code and Pandects; and in all judicial proceedings,
      the life or death of a citizen is determined with less caution or
      delay than the most ordinary question of covenant or inheritance.
      This singular distinction, though something may be allowed for
      the urgent necessity of defending the peace of society, is
      derived from the nature of criminal and civil jurisprudence. Our
      duties to the state are simple and uniform: the law by which he
      is condemned is inscribed not only on brass or marble, but on the
      conscience of the offender, and his guilt is commonly proved by
      the testimony of a single fact. But our relations to each other
      are various and infinite; our obligations are created, annulled,
      and modified, by injuries, benefits, and promises; and the
      interpretation of voluntary contracts and testaments, which are
      often dictated by fraud or ignorance, affords a long and
      laborious exercise to the sagacity of the judge. The business of
      life is multiplied by the extent of commerce and dominion, and
      the residence of the parties in the distant provinces of an
      empire is productive of doubt, delay, and inevitable appeals from
      the local to the supreme magistrate. Justinian, the Greek emperor
      of Constantinople and the East, was the legal successor of the
      Latin shepherd who had planted a colony on the banks of the
      Tyber. In a period of thirteen hundred years, the laws had
      reluctantly followed the changes of government and manners; and
      the laudable desire of conciliating ancient names with recent
      institutions destroyed the harmony, and swelled the magnitude, of
      the obscure and irregular system. The laws which excuse, on any
      occasions, the ignorance of their subjects, confess their own
      imperfections: the civil jurisprudence, as it was abridged by
      Justinian, still continued a mysterious science, and a profitable
      trade, and the innate perplexity of the study was involved in
      tenfold darkness by the private industry of the practitioners.
      The expense of the pursuit sometimes exceeded the value of the
      prize, and the fairest rights were abandoned by the poverty or
      prudence of the claimants. Such costly justice might tend to
      abate the spirit of litigation, but the unequal pressure serves
      only to increase the influence of the rich, and to aggravate the
      misery of the poor. By these dilatory and expensive proceedings,
      the wealthy pleader obtains a more certain advantage than he
      could hope from the accidental corruption of his judge. The
      experience of an abuse, from which our own age and country are
      not perfectly exempt, may sometimes provoke a generous
      indignation, and extort the hasty wish of exchanging our
      elaborate jurisprudence for the simple and summary decrees of a
      Turkish cadhi. Our calmer reflection will suggest, that such
      forms and delays are necessary to guard the person and property
      of the citizen; that the discretion of the judge is the first
      engine of tyranny; and that the laws of a free people should
      foresee and determine every question that may probably arise in
      the exercise of power and the transactions of industry. But the
      government of Justinian united the evils of liberty and
      servitude; and the Romans were oppressed at the same time by the
      multiplicity of their laws and the arbitrary will of their
      master.




      Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.—Part I.

     Reign Of The Younger Justin.—Embassy Of The Avars.—Their
     Settlement On The Danube.—Conquest Of Italy By The
     Lombards.—Adoption And Reign Of Tiberius.—Of Maurice.— State Of
     Italy Under The Lombards And The Exarchs.—Of Ravenna.—Distress Of
     Rome.—Character And Pontificate Of Gregory The First.

      During the last years of Justinian, his infirm mind was devoted
      to heavenly contemplation, and he neglected the business of the
      lower world. His subjects were impatient of the long continuance
      of his life and reign: yet all who were capable of reflection
      apprehended the moment of his death, which might involve the
      capital in tumult, and the empire in civil war. Seven nephews 1
      of the childless monarch, the sons or grandsons of his brother
      and sister, had been educated in the splendor of a princely
      fortune; they had been shown in high commands to the provinces
      and armies; their characters were known, their followers were
      zealous, and, as the jealousy of age postponed the declaration of
      a successor, they might expect with equal hopes the inheritance
      of their uncle. He expired in his palace, after a reign of
      thirty-eight years; and the decisive opportunity was embraced by
      the friends of Justin, the son of Vigilantia. 2 At the hour of
      midnight, his domestics were awakened by an importunate crowd,
      who thundered at his door, and obtained admittance by revealing
      themselves to be the principal members of the senate. These
      welcome deputies announced the recent and momentous secret of the
      emperor’s decease; reported, or perhaps invented, his dying
      choice of the best beloved and most deserving of his nephews, and
      conjured Justin to prevent the disorders of the multitude, if
      they should perceive, with the return of light, that they were
      left without a master. After composing his countenance to
      surprise, sorrow, and decent modesty, Justin, by the advice of
      his wife Sophia, submitted to the authority of the senate. He was
      conducted with speed and silence to the palace; the guards
      saluted their new sovereign; and the martial and religious rites
      of his coronation were diligently accomplished. By the hands of
      the proper officers he was invested with the Imperial garments,
      the red buskins, white tunic, and purple robe.

      A fortunate soldier, whom he instantly promoted to the rank of
      tribune, encircled his neck with a military collar; four robust
      youths exalted him on a shield; he stood firm and erect to
      receive the adoration of his subjects; and their choice was
      sanctified by the benediction of the patriarch, who imposed the
      diadem on the head of an orthodox prince. The hippodrome was
      already filled with innumerable multitudes; and no sooner did the
      emperor appear on his throne, than the voices of the blue and the
      green factions were confounded in the same loyal acclamations. In
      the speeches which Justin addressed to the senate and people, he
      promised to correct the abuses which had disgraced the age of his
      predecessor, displayed the maxims of a just and beneficent
      government, and declared that, on the approaching calends of
      January, 3 he would revive in his own person the name and liberty
      of a Roman consul. The immediate discharge of his uncle’s debts
      exhibited a solid pledge of his faith and generosity: a train of
      porters, laden with bags of gold, advanced into the midst of the
      hippodrome, and the hopeless creditors of Justinian accepted this
      equitable payment as a voluntary gift. Before the end of three
      years, his example was imitated and surpassed by the empress
      Sophia, who delivered many indigent citizens from the weight of
      debt and usury: an act of benevolence the best entitled to
      gratitude, since it relieves the most intolerable distress; but
      in which the bounty of a prince is the most liable to be abused
      by the claims of prodigality and fraud. 4

      1 (return) [ See the family of Justin and Justinian in the
      Familiae Byzantine of Ducange, p. 89—101. The devout civilians,
      Ludewig (in Vit. Justinian. p. 131) and Heineccius (Hist. Juris.
      Roman. p. 374) have since illustrated the genealogy of their
      favorite prince.]

      2 (return) [ In the story of Justin’s elevation I have translated
      into simple and concise prose the eight hundred verses of the two
      first books of Corippus, de Laudibus Justini Appendix Hist.
      Byzant. p. 401—416 Rome 1777.]

      3 (return) [ It is surprising how Pagi (Critica. in Annal. Baron.
      tom. ii. p 639) could be tempted by any chronicles to contradict
      the plain and decisive text of Corippus, (vicina dona, l. ii.
      354, vicina dies, l. iv. 1,) and to postpone, till A.D. 567, the
      consulship of Justin.]

      4 (return) [ Theophan. Chronograph. p. 205. Whenever Cedrenus or
      Zonaras are mere transcribers, it is superfluous to allege their
      testimony.]

      On the seventh day of his reign, Justin gave audience to the
      ambassadors of the Avars, and the scene was decorated to impress
      the Barbarians with astonishment, veneration, and terror. From
      the palace gate, the spacious courts and long porticos were lined
      with the lofty crests and gilt bucklers of the guards, who
      presented their spears and axes with more confidence than they
      would have shown in a field of battle. The officers who exercised
      the power, or attended the person, of the prince, were attired in
      their richest habits, and arranged according to the military and
      civil order of the hierarchy. When the veil of the sanctuary was
      withdrawn, the ambassadors beheld the emperor of the East on his
      throne, beneath a canopy, or dome, which was supported by four
      columns, and crowned with a winged figure of Victory. In the
      first emotions of surprise, they submitted to the servile
      adoration of the Byzantine court; but as soon as they rose from
      the ground, Targetius, the chief of the embassy, expressed the
      freedom and pride of a Barbarian. He extolled, by the tongue of
      his interpreter, the greatness of the chagan, by whose clemency
      the kingdoms of the South were permitted to exist, whose
      victorious subjects had traversed the frozen rivers of Scythia,
      and who now covered the banks of the Danube with innumerable
      tents. The late emperor had cultivated, with annual and costly
      gifts, the friendship of a grateful monarch, and the enemies of
      Rome had respected the allies of the Avars. The same prudence
      would instruct the nephew of Justinian to imitate the liberality
      of his uncle, and to purchase the blessings of peace from an
      invincible people, who delighted and excelled in the exercise of
      war. The reply of the emperor was delivered in the same strain of
      haughty defiance, and he derived his confidence from the God of
      the Christians, the ancient glory of Rome, and the recent
      triumphs of Justinian. “The empire,” said he, “abounds with men
      and horses, and arms sufficient to defend our frontiers, and to
      chastise the Barbarians. You offer aid, you threaten hostilities:
      we despise your enmity and your aid. The conquerors of the Avars
      solicit our alliance; shall we dread their fugitives and exiles?
      5 The bounty of our uncle was granted to your misery, to your
      humble prayers. From us you shall receive a more important
      obligation, the knowledge of your own weakness. Retire from our
      presence; the lives of ambassadors are safe; and, if you return
      to implore our pardon, perhaps you will taste of our
      benevolence.” 6 On the report of his ambassadors, the chagan was
      awed by the apparent firmness of a Roman emperor of whose
      character and resources he was ignorant. Instead of executing his
      threats against the Eastern empire, he marched into the poor and
      savage countries of Germany, which were subject to the dominion
      of the Franks. After two doubtful battles, he consented to
      retire, and the Austrasian king relieved the distress of his camp
      with an immediate supply of corn and cattle. 7 Such repeated
      disappointments had chilled the spirit of the Avars, and their
      power would have dissolved away in the Sarmatian desert, if the
      alliance of Alboin, king of the Lombards, had not given a new
      object to their arms, and a lasting settlement to their wearied
      fortunes.

      5 (return) [ Corippus, l. iii. 390. The unquestionable sense
      relates to the Turks, the conquerors of the Avars; but the word
      scultor has no apparent meaning, and the sole Ms. of Corippus,
      from whence the first edition (1581, apud Plantin) was printed,
      is no longer visible. The last editor, Foggini of Rome, has
      inserted the conjectural emendation of soldan: but the proofs of
      Ducange, (Joinville, Dissert. xvi. p. 238—240,) for the early use
      of this title among the Turks and Persians, are weak or
      ambiguous. And I must incline to the authority of D’Herbelot,
      (Bibliotheque Orient. p. 825,) who ascribes the word to the
      Arabic and Chaldaean tongues, and the date to the beginning of
      the xith century, when it was bestowed by the khalif of Bagdad on
      Mahmud, prince of Gazna, and conqueror of India.]

      6 (return) [ For these characteristic speeches, compare the verse
      of Corippus (l. iii. 251—401) with the prose of Menander,
      (Excerpt. Legation. p 102, 103.) Their diversity proves that they
      did not copy each other their resemblance, that they drew from a
      common original.]

      7 (return) [ For the Austrasian war, see Menander (Excerpt.
      Legat. p. 110,) Gregory of Tours, (Hist. Franc. l. iv. c 29,) and
      Paul the deacon, (de Gest. Langobard. l. ii. c. 10.)]

      While Alboin served under his father’s standard, he encountered
      in battle, and transpierced with his lance, the rival prince of
      the Gepidae. The Lombards, who applauded such early prowess,
      requested his father, with unanimous acclamations, that the
      heroic youth, who had shared the dangers of the field, might be
      admitted to the feast of victory. “You are not unmindful,”
      replied the inflexible Audoin, “of the wise customs of our
      ancestors. Whatever may be his merit, a prince is incapable of
      sitting at table with his father till he has received his arms
      from a foreign and royal hand.” Alboin bowed with reverence to
      the institutions of his country, selected forty companions, and
      boldly visited the court of Turisund, king of the Gepidae, who
      embraced and entertained, according to the laws of hospitality,
      the murderer of his son. At the banquet, whilst Alboin occupied
      the seat of the youth whom he had slain, a tender remembrance
      arose in the mind of Turisund. “How dear is that place! how
      hateful is that person!” were the words that escaped, with a
      sigh, from the indignant father. His grief exasperated the
      national resentment of the Gepidae; and Cunimund, his surviving
      son, was provoked by wine, or fraternal affection, to the desire
      of vengeance. “The Lombards,” said the rude Barbarian, “resemble,
      in figure and in smell, the mares of our Sarmatian plains.” And
      this insult was a coarse allusion to the white bands which
      enveloped their legs. “Add another resemblance,” replied an
      audacious Lombard; “you have felt how strongly they kick. Visit
      the plain of Asfield, and seek for the bones of thy brother: they
      are mingled with those of the vilest animals.” The Gepidae, a
      nation of warriors, started from their seats, and the fearless
      Alboin, with his forty companions, laid their hands on their
      swords. The tumult was appeased by the venerable interposition of
      Turisund. He saved his own honor, and the life of his guest; and,
      after the solemn rites of investiture, dismissed the stranger in
      the bloody arms of his son; the gift of a weeping parent. Alboin
      returned in triumph; and the Lombards, who celebrated his
      matchless intrepidity, were compelled to praise the virtues of an
      enemy. 8 In this extraordinary visit he had probably seen the
      daughter of Cunimund, who soon after ascended the throne of the
      Gepidae. Her name was Rosamond, an appellation expressive of
      female beauty, and which our own history or romance has
      consecrated to amorous tales. The king of the Lombards (the
      father of Alboin no longer lived) was contracted to the
      granddaughter of Clovis; but the restraints of faith and policy
      soon yielded to the hope of possessing the fair Rosamond, and of
      insulting her family and nation. The arts of persuasion were
      tried without success; and the impatient lover, by force and
      stratagem, obtained the object of his desires. War was the
      consequence which he foresaw and solicited; but the Lombards
      could not long withstand the furious assault of the Gepidae, who
      were sustained by a Roman army. And, as the offer of marriage was
      rejected with contempt, Alboin was compelled to relinquish his
      prey, and to partake of the disgrace which he had inflicted on
      the house of Cunimund. 9

      8 (return) [ Paul Warnefrid, the deacon of Friuli, de Gest.
      Langobard. l. i. c. 23, 24. His pictures of national manners,
      though rudely sketched are more lively and faithful than those of
      Bede, or Gregory of Tours]

      9 (return) [ The story is told by an impostor, (Theophylact.
      Simocat. l. vi. c. 10;) but he had art enough to build his
      fictions on public and notorious facts.]

      When a public quarrel is envenomed by private injuries, a blow
      that is not mortal or decisive can be productive only of a short
      truce, which allows the unsuccessful combatant to sharpen his
      arms for a new encounter. The strength of Alboin had been found
      unequal to the gratification of his love, ambition, and revenge:
      he condescended to implore the formidable aid of the chagan; and
      the arguments that he employed are expressive of the art and
      policy of the Barbarians. In the attack of the Gepidae, he had
      been prompted by the just desire of extirpating a people whom
      their alliance with the Roman empire had rendered the common
      enemies of the nations, and the personal adversaries of the
      chagan. If the forces of the Avars and the Lombards should unite
      in this glorious quarrel, the victory was secure, and the reward
      inestimable: the Danube, the Hebrus, Italy, and Constantinople,
      would be exposed, without a barrier, to their invincible arms.
      But, if they hesitated or delayed to prevent the malice of the
      Romans, the same spirit which had insulted would pursue the Avars
      to the extremity of the earth. These specious reasons were heard
      by the chagan with coldness and disdain: he detained the Lombard
      ambassadors in his camp, protracted the negotiation, and by turns
      alleged his want of inclination, or his want of ability, to
      undertake this important enterprise. At length he signified the
      ultimate price of his alliance, that the Lombards should
      immediately present him with a tithe of their cattle; that the
      spoils and captives should be equally divided; but that the lands
      of the Gepidae should become the sole patrimony of the Avars.
      Such hard conditions were eagerly accepted by the passions of
      Alboin; and, as the Romans were dissatisfied with the ingratitude
      and perfidy of the Gepidae, Justin abandoned that incorrigible
      people to their fate, and remained the tranquil spectator of this
      unequal conflict. The despair of Cunimund was active and
      dangerous. He was informed that the Avars had entered his
      confines; but, on the strong assurance that, after the defeat of
      the Lombards, these foreign invaders would easily be repelled, he
      rushed forwards to encounter the implacable enemy of his name and
      family. But the courage of the Gepidae could secure them no more
      than an honorable death. The bravest of the nation fell in the
      field of battle; the king of the Lombards contemplated with
      delight the head of Cunimund; and his skull was fashioned into a
      cup to satiate the hatred of the conqueror, or, perhaps, to
      comply with the savage custom of his country. 10 After this
      victory, no further obstacle could impede the progress of the
      confederates, and they faithfully executed the terms of their
      agreement. 11 The fair countries of Walachia, Moldavia,
      Transylvania, and the other parts of Hungary beyond the Danube,
      were occupied, without resistance, by a new colony of Scythians;
      and the Dacian empire of the chagans subsisted with splendor
      above two hundred and thirty years. The nation of the Gepidae was
      dissolved; but, in the distribution of the captives, the slaves
      of the Avars were less fortunate than the companions of the
      Lombards, whose generosity adopted a valiant foe, and whose
      freedom was incompatible with cool and deliberate tyranny. One
      moiety of the spoil introduced into the camp of Alboin more
      wealth than a Barbarian could readily compute. The fair Rosamond
      was persuaded, or compelled, to acknowledge the rights of her
      victorious lover; and the daughter of Cunimund appeared to
      forgive those crimes which might be imputed to her own
      irresistible charms.

      10 (return) [ It appears from Strabo, Pliny, and Ammianus
      Marcellinus, that the same practice was common among the Scythian
      tribes, (Muratori, Scriptores Rer. Italic. tom. i. p. 424.) The
      scalps of North America are likewise trophies of valor. The skull
      of Cunimund was preserved above two hundred years among the
      Lombards; and Paul himself was one of the guests to whom Duke
      Ratchis exhibited this cup on a high festival, (l. ii. c. 28.)]

      11 (return) [ Paul, l. i. c. 27. Menander, in Excerpt Legat. p.
      110, 111.]

      The destruction of a mighty kingdom established the fame of
      Alboin. In the days of Charlemagne, the Bavarians, the Saxons,
      and the other tribes of the Teutonic language, still repeated the
      songs which described the heroic virtues, the valor, liberality,
      and fortune of the king of the Lombards. 12 But his ambition was
      yet unsatisfied; and the conqueror of the Gepidae turned his eyes
      from the Danube to the richer banks of the Po, and the Tyber.
      Fifteen years had not elapsed, since his subjects, the
      confederates of Narses, had visited the pleasant climate of
      Italy: the mountains, the rivers, the highways, were familiar to
      their memory: the report of their success, perhaps the view of
      their spoils, had kindled in the rising generation the flame of
      emulation and enterprise. Their hopes were encouraged by the
      spirit and eloquence of Alboin: and it is affirmed, that he spoke
      to their senses, by producing at the royal feast, the fairest and
      most exquisite fruits that grew spontaneously in the garden of
      the world. No sooner had he erected his standard, than the native
      strength of the Lombard was multiplied by the adventurous youth
      of Germany and Scythia. The robust peasantry of Noricum and
      Pannonia had resumed the manners of Barbarians; and the names of
      the Gepidae, Bulgarians, Sarmatians, and Bavarians, may be
      distinctly traced in the provinces of Italy. 13 Of the Saxons,
      the old allies of the Lombards, twenty thousand warriors, with
      their wives and children, accepted the invitation of Alboin.
      Their bravery contributed to his success; but the accession or
      the absence of their numbers was not sensibly felt in the
      magnitude of his host. Every mode of religion was freely
      practised by its respective votaries. The king of the Lombards
      had been educated in the Arian heresy; but the Catholics, in
      their public worship, were allowed to pray for his conversion;
      while the more stubborn Barbarians sacrificed a she-goat, or
      perhaps a captive, to the gods of their fathers. 14 The Lombards,
      and their confederates, were united by their common attachment to
      a chief, who excelled in all the virtues and vices of a savage
      hero; and the vigilance of Alboin provided an ample magazine of
      offensive and defensive arms for the use of the expedition. The
      portable wealth of the Lombards attended the march: their lands
      they cheerfully relinquished to the Avars, on the solemn promise,
      which was made and accepted without a smile, that if they failed
      in the conquest of Italy, these voluntary exiles should be
      reinstated in their former possessions.

      12 (return) [ Ut hactenus etiam tam apud Bajoarior um gentem,
      quam et Saxmum, sed et alios ejusdem linguae homines..... in
      eorum carmini bus celebretur. Paul, l. i. c. 27. He died A.D.
      799, (Muratori, in Praefat. tom. i. p. 397.) These German songs,
      some of which might be as old as Tacitus, (de Moribus Germ. c.
      2,) were compiled and transcribed by Charlemagne. Barbara et
      antiquissima carmina, quibus veterum regum actus et bella
      canebantur scripsit memoriaeque mandavit, (Eginard, in Vit.
      Carol. Magn. c. 29, p. 130, 131.) The poems, which Goldast
      commends, (Animadvers. ad Eginard. p. 207,) appear to be recent
      and contemptible romances.]

      13 (return) [ The other nations are rehearsed by Paul, (l. ii. c.
      6, 26,) Muratori (Antichita Italiane, tom. i. dissert. i. p. 4)
      has discovered the village of the Bavarians, three miles from
      Modena.]

      14 (return) [ Gregory the Roman (Dialog. l. i. iii. c. 27, 28,
      apud Baron. Annal Eccles. A.D. 579, No. 10) supposes that they
      likewise adored this she-goat. I know but of one religion in
      which the god and the victim are the same.]

      They might have failed, if Narses had been the antagonist of the
      Lombards; and the veteran warriors, the associates of his Gothic
      victory, would have encountered with reluctance an enemy whom
      they dreaded and esteemed. But the weakness of the Byzantine
      court was subservient to the Barbarian cause; and it was for the
      ruin of Italy, that the emperor once listened to the complaints
      of his subjects. The virtues of Narses were stained with avarice;
      and, in his provincial reign of fifteen years, he accumulated a
      treasure of gold and silver which surpassed the modesty of a
      private fortune. His government was oppressive or unpopular, and
      the general discontent was expressed with freedom by the deputies
      of Rome. Before the throne of Justinian they boldly declared,
      that their Gothic servitude had been more tolerable than the
      despotism of a Greek eunuch; and that, unless their tyrant were
      instantly removed, they would consult their own happiness in the
      choice of a master. The apprehension of a revolt was urged by the
      voice of envy and detraction, which had so recently triumphed
      over the merit of Belisarius. A new exarch, Longinus, was
      appointed to supersede the conqueror of Italy, and the base
      motives of his recall were revealed in the insulting mandate of
      the empress Sophia, “that he should leave to men the exercise of
      arms, and return to his proper station among the maidens of the
      palace, where a distaff should be again placed in the hand of the
      eunuch.” “I will spin her such a thread as she shall not easily
      unravel!” is said to have been the reply which indignation and
      conscious virtue extorted from the hero. Instead of attending, a
      slave and a victim, at the gate of the Byzantine palace, he
      retired to Naples, from whence (if any credit is due to the
      belief of the times) Narses invited the Lombards to chastise the
      ingratitude of the prince and people. 15 But the passions of the
      people are furious and changeable, and the Romans soon
      recollected the merits, or dreaded the resentment, of their
      victorious general. By the mediation of the pope, who undertook a
      special pilgrimage to Naples, their repentance was accepted; and
      Narses, assuming a milder aspect and a more dutiful language,
      consented to fix his residence in the Capitol. His death, 16
      though in the extreme period of old age, was unseasonable and
      premature, since his genius alone could have repaired the last
      and fatal error of his life. The reality, or the suspicion, of a
      conspiracy disarmed and disunited the Italians. The soldiers
      resented the disgrace, and bewailed the loss, of their general.
      They were ignorant of their new exarch; and Longinus was himself
      ignorant of the state of the army and the province. In the
      preceding years Italy had been desolated by pestilence and
      famine, and a disaffected people ascribed the calamities of
      nature to the guilt or folly of their rulers. 17

      15 (return) [ The charge of the deacon against Narses (l. ii. c.
      5) may be groundless; but the weak apology of the Cardinal
      (Baron. Annal Eccles. A.D. 567, No. 8—12) is rejected by the best
      critics—Pagi (tom. ii. p. 639, 640,) Muratori, (Annali d’ Italia,
      tom. v. p. 160—163,) and the last editors, Horatius Blancus,
      (Script. Rerum Italic. tom. i. p. 427, 428,) and Philip
      Argelatus, (Sigon. Opera, tom. ii. p. 11, 12.) The Narses who
      assisted at the coronation of Justin (Corippus, l. iii. 221) is
      clearly understood to be a different person.]

      16 (return) [ The death of Narses is mentioned by Paul, l. ii. c.
      11. Anastas. in Vit. Johan. iii. p. 43. Agnellus, Liber
      Pontifical. Raven. in Script. Rer. Italicarum, tom. ii. part i.
      p. 114, 124. Yet I cannot believe with Agnellus that Narses was
      ninety-five years of age. Is it probable that all his exploits
      were performed at fourscore?]

      17 (return) [ The designs of Narses and of the Lombards for the
      invasion of Italy are exposed in the last chapter of the first
      book, and the seven last chapters of the second book, of Paul the
      deacon.]

      Whatever might be the grounds of his security, Alboin neither
      expected nor encountered a Roman army in the field. He ascended
      the Julian Alps, and looked down with contempt and desire on the
      fruitful plains to which his victory communicated the perpetual
      appellation of Lombardy. A faithful chieftain, and a select band,
      were stationed at Forum Julii, the modern Friuli, to guard the
      passes of the mountains. The Lombards respected the strength of
      Pavia, and listened to the prayers of the Trevisans: their slow
      and heavy multitudes proceeded to occupy the palace and city of
      Verona; and Milan, now rising from her ashes, was invested by the
      powers of Alboin five months after his departure from Pannonia.
      Terror preceded his march: he found every where, or he left, a
      dreary solitude; and the pusillanimous Italians presumed, without
      a trial, that the stranger was invincible. Escaping to lakes, or
      rocks, or morasses, the affrighted crowds concealed some
      fragments of their wealth, and delayed the moment of their
      servitude. Paulinus, the patriarch of Aquileia, removed his
      treasures, sacred and profane, to the Isle of Grado, 18 and his
      successors were adopted by the infant republic of Venice, which
      was continually enriched by the public calamities. Honoratus, who
      filled the chair of St. Ambrose, had credulously accepted the
      faithless offers of a capitulation; and the archbishop, with the
      clergy and nobles of Milan, were driven by the perfidy of Alboin
      to seek a refuge in the less accessible ramparts of Genoa. Along
      the maritime coast, the courage of the inhabitants was supported
      by the facility of supply, the hopes of relief, and the power of
      escape; but from the Trentine hills to the gates of Ravenna and
      Rome the inland regions of Italy became, without a battle or a
      siege, the lasting patrimony of the Lombards. The submission of
      the people invited the Barbarian to assume the character of a
      lawful sovereign, and the helpless exarch was confined to the
      office of announcing to the emperor Justin the rapid and
      irretrievable loss of his provinces and cities. 19 One city,
      which had been diligently fortified by the Goths, resisted the
      arms of a new invader; and while Italy was subdued by the flying
      detachments of the Lombards, the royal camp was fixed above three
      years before the western gate of Ticinum, or Pavia. The same
      courage which obtains the esteem of a civilized enemy provokes
      the fury of a savage, and the impatient besieger had bound
      himself by a tremendous oath, that age, and sex, and dignity,
      should be confounded in a general massacre. The aid of famine at
      length enabled him to execute his bloody vow; but, as Alboin
      entered the gate, his horse stumbled, fell, and could not be
      raised from the ground. One of his attendants was prompted by
      compassion, or piety, to interpret this miraculous sign of the
      wrath of Heaven: the conqueror paused and relented; he sheathed
      his sword, and peacefully reposing himself in the palace of
      Theodoric, proclaimed to the trembling multitude that they should
      live and obey. Delighted with the situation of a city which was
      endeared to his pride by the difficulty of the purchase, the
      prince of the Lombards disdained the ancient glories of Milan;
      and Pavia, during some ages, was respected as the capital of the
      kingdom of Italy. 20

      18 (return) [ Which from this translation was called New
      Aquileia, (Chron. Venet. p. 3.) The patriarch of Grado soon
      became the first citizen of the republic, (p. 9, &c.,) but his
      seat was not removed to Venice till the year 1450. He is now
      decorated with titles and honors; but the genius of the church
      has bowed to that of the state, and the government of a Catholic
      city is strictly Presbyterian. Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise,
      tom. i. p. 156, 157, 161—165. Amelot de la Houssaye, Gouvernement
      de Venise, tom. i. p. 256—261.]

      19 (return) [ Paul has given a description of Italy, as it was
      then divided into eighteen regions, (l. ii. c. 14—24.) The
      Dissertatio Chorographica de Italia Medii Aevi, by Father
      Beretti, a Benedictine monk, and regius professor at Pavia, has
      been usefully consulted.]

      20 (return) [ For the conquest of Italy, see the original
      materials of Paul, (l. p. 7—10, 12, 14, 25, 26, 27,) the eloquent
      narrative of Sigonius, (tom. il. de Regno Italiae, l. i. p.
      13—19,) and the correct and critical review el Muratori, (Annali
      d’ Italia, tom. v. p. 164—180.)]

      The reign of the founder was splendid and transient; and, before
      he could regulate his new conquests, Alboin fell a sacrifice to
      domestic treason and female revenge. In a palace near Verona,
      which had not been erected for the Barbarians, he feasted the
      companions of his arms; intoxication was the reward of valor, and
      the king himself was tempted by appetite, or vanity, to exceed
      the ordinary measure of his intemperance. After draining many
      capacious bowls of Rhaetian or Falernian wine, he called for the
      skull of Cunimund, the noblest and most precious ornament of his
      sideboard. The cup of victory was accepted with horrid applause
      by the circle of the Lombard chiefs. “Fill it again with wine,”
      exclaimed the inhuman conqueror, “fill it to the brim: carry this
      goblet to the queen, and request in my name that she would
      rejoice with her father.” In an agony of grief and rage, Rosamond
      had strength to utter, “Let the will of my lord be obeyed!” and,
      touching it with her lips, pronounced a silent imprecation, that
      the insult should be washed away in the blood of Alboin. Some
      indulgence might be due to the resentment of a daughter, if she
      had not already violated the duties of a wife. Implacable in her
      enmity, or inconstant in her love, the queen of Italy had stooped
      from the throne to the arms of a subject, and Helmichis, the
      king’s armor-bearer, was the secret minister of her pleasure and
      revenge. Against the proposal of the murder, he could no longer
      urge the scruples of fidelity or gratitude; but Helmichis
      trembled when he revolved the danger as well as the guilt, when
      he recollected the matchless strength and intrepidity of a
      warrior whom he had so often attended in the field of battle. He
      pressed and obtained, that one of the bravest champions of the
      Lombards should be associated to the enterprise; but no more than
      a promise of secrecy could be drawn from the gallant Peredeus,
      and the mode of seduction employed by Rosamond betrays her
      shameless insensibility both to honor and love. She supplied the
      place of one of her female attendants who was beloved by
      Peredeus, and contrived some excuse for darkness and silence,
      till she could inform her companion that he had enjoyed the queen
      of the Lombards, and that his own death, or the death of Alboin,
      must be the consequence of such treasonable adultery. In this
      alternative he chose rather to be the accomplice than the victim
      of Rosamond, 21 whose undaunted spirit was incapable of fear or
      remorse. She expected and soon found a favorable moment, when the
      king, oppressed with wine, had retired from the table to his
      afternoon slumbers. His faithless spouse was anxious for his
      health and repose: the gates of the palace were shut, the arms
      removed, the attendants dismissed, and Rosamond, after lulling
      him to rest by her tender caresses, unbolted the chamber door,
      and urged the reluctant conspirators to the instant execution of
      the deed. On the first alarm, the warrior started from his couch:
      his sword, which he attempted to draw, had been fastened to the
      scabbard by the hand of Rosamond; and a small stool, his only
      weapon, could not long protect him from the spears of the
      assassins. The daughter of Cunimund smiled in his fall: his body
      was buried under the staircase of the palace; and the grateful
      posterity of the Lombards revered the tomb and the memory of
      their victorious leader.

      21 (return) [ The classical reader will recollect the wife and
      murder of Candaules, so agreeably told in the first book of
      Herodotus. The choice of Gyges, may serve as the excuse of
      Peredeus; and this soft insinuation of an odious idea has been
      imitated by the best writers of antiquity, (Graevius, ad Ciceron.
      Orat. pro Miloue c. 10)]




      Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.—Part II.

      The ambitious Rosamond aspired to reign in the name of her lover;
      the city and palace of Verona were awed by her power; and a
      faithful band of her native Gepidae was prepared to applaud the
      revenge, and to second the wishes, of their sovereign. But the
      Lombard chiefs, who fled in the first moments of consternation
      and disorder, had resumed their courage and collected their
      powers; and the nation, instead of submitting to her reign,
      demanded, with unanimous cries, that justice should be executed
      on the guilty spouse and the murderers of their king. She sought
      a refuge among the enemies of her country; and a criminal who
      deserved the abhorrence of mankind was protected by the selfish
      policy of the exarch. With her daughter, the heiress of the
      Lombard throne, her two lovers, her trusty Gepidae, and the
      spoils of the palace of Verona, Rosamond descended the Adige and
      the Po, and was transported by a Greek vessel to the safe harbor
      of Ravenna. Longinus beheld with delight the charms and the
      treasures of the widow of Alboin: her situation and her past
      conduct might justify the most licentious proposals; and she
      readily listened to the passion of a minister, who, even in the
      decline of the empire, was respected as the equal of kings. The
      death of a jealous lover was an easy and grateful sacrifice; and,
      as Helmichis issued from the bath, he received the deadly potion
      from the hand of his mistress. The taste of the liquor, its
      speedy operation, and his experience of the character of
      Rosamond, convinced him that he was poisoned: he pointed his
      dagger to her breast, compelled her to drain the remainder of the
      cup, and expired in a few minutes, with the consolation that she
      could not survive to enjoy the fruits of her wickedness. The
      daughter of Alboin and Rosamond, with the richest spoils of the
      Lombards, was embarked for Constantinople: the surprising
      strength of Peredeus amused and terrified the Imperial court:
      2111 his blindness and revenge exhibited an imperfect copy of the
      adventures of Samson. By the free suffrage of the nation, in the
      assembly of Pavia, Clepho, one of their noblest chiefs, was
      elected as the successor of Alboin. Before the end of eighteen
      months, the throne was polluted by a second murder: Clepho was
      stabbed by the hand of a domestic; the regal office was suspended
      above ten years during the minority of his son Autharis; and
      Italy was divided and oppressed by a ducal aristocracy of thirty
      tyrants. 22

      2111 (return) [ He killed a lion. His eyes were put out by the
      timid Justin. Peredeus requesting an interview, Justin
      substituted two patricians, whom the blinded Barbarian stabbed to
      the heart with two concealed daggers. See Le Beau, vol. x. p.
      99.—M.]

      22 (return) [ See the history of Paul, l. ii. c. 28—32. I have
      borrowed some interesting circumstances from the Liber
      Pontificalis of Agnellus, in Script. Rer. Ital. tom. ii. p. 124.
      Of all chronological guides, Muratori is the safest.]

      When the nephew of Justinian ascended the throne, he proclaimed a
      new aera of happiness and glory. The annals of the second Justin
      23 are marked with disgrace abroad and misery at home. In the
      West, the Roman empire was afflicted by the loss of Italy, the
      desolation of Africa, and the conquests of the Persians.
      Injustice prevailed both in the capital and the provinces: the
      rich trembled for their property, the poor for their safety, the
      ordinary magistrates were ignorant or venal, the occasional
      remedies appear to have been arbitrary and violent, and the
      complaints of the people could no longer be silenced by the
      splendid names of a legislator and a conqueror. The opinion which
      imputes to the prince all the calamities of his times may be
      countenanced by the historian as a serious truth or a salutary
      prejudice. Yet a candid suspicion will arise, that the sentiments
      of Justin were pure and benevolent, and that he might have filled
      his station without reproach, if the faculties of his mind had
      not been impaired by disease, which deprived the emperor of the
      use of his feet, and confined him to the palace, a stranger to
      the complaints of the people and the vices of the government. The
      tardy knowledge of his own impotence determined him to lay down
      the weight of the diadem; and, in the choice of a worthy
      substitute, he showed some symptoms of a discerning and even
      magnanimous spirit. The only son of Justin and Sophia died in his
      infancy; their daughter Arabia was the wife of Baduarius, 24
      superintendent of the palace, and afterwards commander of the
      Italian armies, who vainly aspired to confirm the rights of
      marriage by those of adoption. While the empire appeared an
      object of desire, Justin was accustomed to behold with jealousy
      and hatred his brothers and cousins, the rivals of his hopes; nor
      could he depend on the gratitude of those who would accept the
      purple as a restitution, rather than a gift. Of these
      competitors, one had been removed by exile, and afterwards by
      death; and the emperor himself had inflicted such cruel insults
      on another, that he must either dread his resentment or despise
      his patience. This domestic animosity was refined into a generous
      resolution of seeking a successor, not in his family, but in the
      republic; and the artful Sophia recommended Tiberius, 25 his
      faithful captain of the guards, whose virtues and fortune the
      emperor might cherish as the fruit of his judicious choice. The
      ceremony of his elevation to the rank of Caesar, or Augustus, was
      performed in the portico of the palace, in the presence of the
      patriarch and the senate. Justin collected the remaining strength
      of his mind and body; but the popular belief that his speech was
      inspired by the Deity betrays a very humble opinion both of the
      man and of the times. 26 “You behold,” said the emperor, “the
      ensigns of supreme power. You are about to receive them, not from
      my hand, but from the hand of God. Honor them, and from them you
      will derive honor. Respect the empress your mother: you are now
      her son; before, you were her servant. Delight not in blood;
      abstain from revenge; avoid those actions by which I have
      incurred the public hatred; and consult the experience, rather
      than the example, of your predecessor. As a man, I have sinned;
      as a sinner, even in this life, I have been severely punished:
      but these servants, (and he pointed to his ministers,) who have
      abused my confidence, and inflamed my passions, will appear with
      me before the tribunal of Christ. I have been dazzled by the
      splendor of the diadem: be thou wise and modest; remember what
      you have been, remember what you are. You see around us your
      slaves, and your children: with the authority, assume the
      tenderness, of a parent. Love your people like yourself;
      cultivate the affections, maintain the discipline, of the army;
      protect the fortunes of the rich, relieve the necessities of the
      poor.” 27 The assembly, in silence and in tears, applauded the
      counsels, and sympathized with the repentance, of their prince
      the patriarch rehearsed the prayers of the church; Tiberius
      received the diadem on his knees; and Justin, who in his
      abdication appeared most worthy to reign, addressed the new
      monarch in the following words: “If you consent, I live; if you
      command, I die: may the God of heaven and earth infuse into your
      heart whatever I have neglected or forgotten.” The four last
      years of the emperor Justin were passed in tranquil obscurity:
      his conscience was no longer tormented by the remembrance of
      those duties which he was incapable of discharging; and his
      choice was justified by the filial reverence and gratitude of
      Tiberius.

      23 (return) [ The original authors for the reign of Justin the
      younger are Evagrius, Hist. Eccles. l. v. c. 1—12; Theophanes, in
      Chonograph. p. 204—210; Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 70-72;
      Cedrenus, in Compend. p. 388—392.]

      24 (return) [ Dispositorque novus sacrae Baduarius aulae.
      Successor soceri mox factus Cura-palati.—Cerippus. Baduarius is
      enumerated among the descendants and allies of the house of
      Justinian. A family of noble Venetians (Casa Badoero) built
      churches and gave dukes to the republic as early as the ninth
      century; and, if their descent be admitted, no kings in Europe
      can produce a pedigree so ancient and illustrious. Ducange, Fam.
      Byzantin, p. 99 Amelot de la Houssaye, Gouvernement de Venise,
      tom. ii. p. 555.]

      25 (return) [ The praise bestowed on princes before their
      elevation is the purest and most weighty. Corippus has celebrated
      Tiberius at the time of the accession of Justin, (l. i. 212—222.)
      Yet even a captain of the guards might attract the flattery of an
      African exile.]

      26 (return) [ Evagrius (l. v. c. 13) has added the reproach to
      his ministers He applies this speech to the ceremony when
      Tiberius was invested with the rank of Caesar. The loose
      expression, rather than the positive error, of Theophanes, &c.,
      has delayed it to his Augustan investitura immediately before the
      death of Justin.]

      27 (return) [ Theophylact Simocatta (l. iii. c. 11) declares that
      he shall give to posterity the speech of Justin as it was
      pronounced, without attempting to correct the imperfections of
      language or rhetoric. Perhaps the vain sophist would have been
      incapable of producing such sentiments.]

      Among the virtues of Tiberius, 28 his beauty (he was one of the
      tallest and most comely of the Romans) might introduce him to the
      favor of Sophia; and the widow of Justin was persuaded, that she
      should preserve her station and influence under the reign of a
      second and more youthful husband. But, if the ambitious candidate
      had been tempted to flatter and dissemble, it was no longer in
      his power to fulfil her expectations, or his own promise. The
      factions of the hippodrome demanded, with some impatience, the
      name of their new empress: both the people and Sophia were
      astonished by the proclamation of Anastasia, the secret, though
      lawful, wife of the emperor Tiberius. Whatever could alleviate
      the disappointment of Sophia, Imperial honors, a stately palace,
      a numerous household, was liberally bestowed by the piety of her
      adopted son; on solemn occasions he attended and consulted the
      widow of his benefactor; but her ambition disdained the vain
      semblance of royalty, and the respectful appellation of mother
      served to exasperate, rather than appease, the rage of an injured
      woman. While she accepted, and repaid with a courtly smile, the
      fair expressions of regard and confidence, a secret alliance was
      concluded between the dowager empress and her ancient enemies;
      and Justinian, the son of Germanus, was employed as the
      instrument of her revenge. The pride of the reigning house
      supported, with reluctance, the dominion of a stranger: the youth
      was deservedly popular; his name, after the death of Justin, had
      been mentioned by a tumultuous faction; and his own submissive
      offer of his head with a treasure of sixty thousand pounds, might
      be interpreted as an evidence of guilt, or at least of fear.
      Justinian received a free pardon, and the command of the eastern
      army. The Persian monarch fled before his arms; and the
      acclamations which accompanied his triumph declared him worthy of
      the purple. His artful patroness had chosen the month of the
      vintage, while the emperor, in a rural solitude, was permitted to
      enjoy the pleasures of a subject. On the first intelligence of
      her designs, he returned to Constantinople, and the conspiracy
      was suppressed by his presence and firmness. From the pomp and
      honors which she had abused, Sophia was reduced to a modest
      allowance: Tiberius dismissed her train, intercepted her
      correspondence, and committed to a faithful guard the custody of
      her person. But the services of Justinian were not considered by
      that excellent prince as an aggravation of his offences: after a
      mild reproof, his treason and ingratitude were forgiven; and it
      was commonly believed, that the emperor entertained some thoughts
      of contracting a double alliance with the rival of his throne.
      The voice of an angel (such a fable was propagated) might reveal
      to the emperor, that he should always triumph over his domestic
      foes; but Tiberius derived a firmer assurance from the innocence
      and generosity of his own mind.

      28 (return) [ For the character and reign of Tiberius, see
      Evagrius, l v. c. 13. Theophylact, l. iii. c. 12, &c. Theophanes,
      in Chron. p. 2 0—213. Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 72. Cedrenus,
      p. 392. Paul Warnefrid, de Gestis Langobard. l. iii. c. 11, 12.
      The deacon of Forum Juli appears to have possessed some curious
      and authentic facts.]

      With the odious name of Tiberius, he assumed the more popular
      appellation of Constantine, and imitated the purer virtues of the
      Antonines. After recording the vice or folly of so many Roman
      princes, it is pleasing to repose, for a moment, on a character
      conspicuous by the qualities of humanity, justice, temperance,
      and fortitude; to contemplate a sovereign affable in his palace,
      pious in the church, impartial on the seat of judgment, and
      victorious, at least by his generals, in the Persian war. The
      most glorious trophy of his victory consisted in a multitude of
      captives, whom Tiberius entertained, redeemed, and dismissed to
      their native homes with the charitable spirit of a Christian
      hero. The merit or misfortunes of his own subjects had a dearer
      claim to his beneficence, and he measured his bounty not so much
      by their expectations as by his own dignity. This maxim, however
      dangerous in a trustee of the public wealth, was balanced by a
      principle of humanity and justice, which taught him to abhor, as
      of the basest alloy, the gold that was extracted from the tears
      of the people. For their relief, as often as they had suffered by
      natural or hostile calamities, he was impatient to remit the
      arrears of the past, or the demands of future taxes: he sternly
      rejected the servile offerings of his ministers, which were
      compensated by tenfold oppression; and the wise and equitable
      laws of Tiberius excited the praise and regret of succeeding
      times. Constantinople believed that the emperor had discovered a
      treasure: but his genuine treasure consisted in the practice of
      liberal economy, and the contempt of all vain and superfluous
      expense. The Romans of the East would have been happy, if the
      best gift of Heaven, a patriot king, had been confirmed as a
      proper and permanent blessing. But in less than four years after
      the death of Justin, his worthy successor sunk into a mortal
      disease, which left him only sufficient time to restore the
      diadem, according to the tenure by which he held it, to the most
      deserving of his fellow-citizens. He selected Maurice from the
      crowd, a judgment more precious than the purple itself: the
      patriarch and senate were summoned to the bed of the dying
      prince: he bestowed his daughter and the empire; and his last
      advice was solemnly delivered by the voice of the quaestor.
      Tiberius expressed his hope that the virtues of his son and
      successor would erect the noblest mausoleum to his memory. His
      memory was embalmed by the public affliction; but the most
      sincere grief evaporates in the tumult of a new reign, and the
      eyes and acclamations of mankind were speedily directed to the
      rising sun. The emperor Maurice derived his origin from ancient
      Rome; 29 but his immediate parents were settled at Arabissus in
      Cappadocia, and their singular felicity preserved them alive to
      behold and partake the fortune of their august son. The youth of
      Maurice was spent in the profession of arms: Tiberius promoted
      him to the command of a new and favorite legion of twelve
      thousand confederates; his valor and conduct were signalized in
      the Persian war; and he returned to Constantinople to accept, as
      his just reward, the inheritance of the empire. Maurice ascended
      the throne at the mature age of forty-three years; and he reigned
      above twenty years over the East and over himself; 30 expelling
      from his mind the wild democracy of passions, and establishing
      (according to the quaint expression of Evagrius) a perfect
      aristocracy of reason and virtue. Some suspicion will degrade the
      testimony of a subject, though he protests that his secret praise
      should never reach the ear of his sovereign, 31 and some failings
      seem to place the character of Maurice below the purer merit of
      his predecessor. His cold and reserved demeanor might be imputed
      to arrogance; his justice was not always exempt from cruelty, nor
      his clemency from weakness; and his rigid economy too often
      exposed him to the reproach of avarice. But the rational wishes
      of an absolute monarch must tend to the happiness of his people.
      Maurice was endowed with sense and courage to promote that
      happiness, and his administration was directed by the principles
      and example of Tiberius. The pusillanimity of the Greeks had
      introduced so complete a separation between the offices of king
      and of general, that a private soldier, who had deserved and
      obtained the purple, seldom or never appeared at the head of his
      armies. Yet the emperor Maurice enjoyed the glory of restoring
      the Persian monarch to his throne; his lieutenants waged a
      doubtful war against the Avars of the Danube; and he cast an eye
      of pity, of ineffectual pity, on the abject and distressful state
      of his Italian provinces.

      29 (return) [ It is therefore singular enough that Paul (l. iii.
      c. 15) should distinguish him as the first Greek emperor—primus
      ex Graecorum genere in Imperio constitutus. His immediate
      predecessors had in deed been born in the Latin provinces of
      Europe: and a various reading, in Graecorum Imperio, would apply
      the expression to the empire rather than the prince.]

      30 (return) [ Consult, for the character and reign of Maurice,
      the fifth and sixth books of Evagrius, particularly l. vi. c. l;
      the eight books of his prolix and florid history by Theophylact
      Simocatta; Theophanes, p. 213, &c.; Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv. p.
      73; Cedrenus, p. 394.]

      31 (return) [ Evagrius composed his history in the twelfth year
      of Maurice; and he had been so wisely indiscreet that the emperor
      know and rewarded his favorable opinion, (l. vi. c. 24.)]

      From Italy the emperors were incessantly tormented by tales of
      misery and demands of succor, which extorted the humiliating
      confession of their own weakness. The expiring dignity of Rome
      was only marked by the freedom and energy of her complaints: “If
      you are incapable,” she said, “of delivering us from the sword of
      the Lombards, save us at least from the calamity of famine.”
      Tiberius forgave the reproach, and relieved the distress: a
      supply of corn was transported from Egypt to the Tyber; and the
      Roman people, invoking the name, not of Camillus, but of St.
      Peter repulsed the Barbarians from their walls. But the relief
      was accidental, the danger was perpetual and pressing; and the
      clergy and senate, collecting the remains of their ancient
      opulence, a sum of three thousand pounds of gold, despatched the
      patrician Pamphronius to lay their gifts and their complaints at
      the foot of the Byzantine throne. The attention of the court, and
      the forces of the East, were diverted by the Persian war: but the
      justice of Tiberius applied the subsidy to the defence of the
      city; and he dismissed the patrician with his best advice, either
      to bribe the Lombard chiefs, or to purchase the aid of the kings
      of France. Notwithstanding this weak invention, Italy was still
      afflicted, Rome was again besieged, and the suburb of Classe,
      only three miles from Ravenna, was pillaged and occupied by the
      troops of a simple duke of Spoleto. Maurice gave audience to a
      second deputation of priests and senators: the duties and the
      menaces of religion were forcibly urged in the letters of the
      Roman pontiff; and his nuncio, the deacon Gregory, was alike
      qualified to solicit the powers either of heaven or of the earth.

      The emperor adopted, with stronger effect, the measures of his
      predecessor: some formidable chiefs were persuaded to embrace the
      friendship of the Romans; and one of them, a mild and faithful
      Barbarian, lived and died in the service of the exarchs: the
      passes of the Alps were delivered to the Franks; and the pope
      encouraged them to violate, without scruple, their oaths and
      engagements to the misbelievers. Childebert, the great-grandson
      of Clovis, was persuaded to invade Italy by the payment of fifty
      thousand pieces; but, as he had viewed with delight some
      Byzantine coin of the weight of one pound of gold, the king of
      Austrasia might stipulate, that the gift should be rendered more
      worthy of his acceptance, by a proper mixture of these
      respectable medals. The dukes of the Lombards had provoked by
      frequent inroads their powerful neighbors of Gaul. As soon as
      they were apprehensive of a just retaliation, they renounced
      their feeble and disorderly independence: the advantages of real
      government, union, secrecy, and vigor, were unanimously
      confessed; and Autharis, the son of Clepho, had already attained
      the strength and reputation of a warrior. Under the standard of
      their new king, the conquerors of Italy withstood three
      successive invasions, one of which was led by Childebert himself,
      the last of the Merovingian race who descended from the Alps. The
      first expedition was defeated by the jealous animosity of the
      Franks and Alemanni. In the second they were vanquished in a
      bloody battle, with more loss and dishonor than they had
      sustained since the foundation of their monarchy. Impatient for
      revenge, they returned a third time with accumulated force, and
      Autharis yielded to the fury of the torrent. The troops and
      treasures of the Lombards were distributed in the walled towns
      between the Alps and the Apennine. A nation, less sensible of
      danger than of fatigue and delay, soon murmured against the folly
      of their twenty commanders; and the hot vapors of an Italian sun
      infected with disease those tramontane bodies which had already
      suffered the vicissitudes of intemperance and famine. The powers
      that were inadequate to the conquest, were more than sufficient
      for the desolation, of the country; nor could the trembling
      natives distinguish between their enemies and their deliverers.
      If the junction of the Merovingian and Imperial forces had been
      effected in the neighborhood of Milan, perhaps they might have
      subverted the throne of the Lombards; but the Franks expected six
      days the signal of a flaming village, and the arms of the Greeks
      were idly employed in the reduction of Modena and Parma, which
      were torn from them after the retreat of their transalpine
      allies. The victorious Autharis asserted his claim to the
      dominion of Italy. At the foot of the Rhaetian Alps, he subdued
      the resistance, and rifled the hidden treasures, of a sequestered
      island in the Lake of Comum. At the extreme point of the
      Calabria, he touched with his spear a column on the sea-shore of
      Rhegium, 32 proclaiming that ancient landmark to stand the
      immovable boundary of his kingdom. 33

      32 (return) [ The Columna Rhegina, in the narrowest part of the
      Faro of Messina, one hundred stadia from Rhegium itself, is
      frequently mentioned in ancient geography. Cluver. Ital. Antiq.
      tom. ii. p. 1295. Lucas Holsten. Annotat. ad Cluver. p. 301.
      Wesseling, Itinerar. p. 106.]

      33 (return) [ The Greek historians afford some faint hints of the
      wars of Italy (Menander, in Excerpt. Legat. p. 124, 126.
      Theophylact, l. iii. c. 4.) The Latins are more satisfactory; and
      especially Paul Warnefrid, (l iii. c. 13—34,) who had read the
      more ancient histories of Secundus and Gregory of Tours. Baronius
      produces some letters of the popes, &c.; and the times are
      measured by the accurate scale of Pagi and Muratori.]

      During a period of two hundred years, Italy was unequally divided
      between the kingdom of the Lombards and the exarchate of Ravenna.
      The offices and professions, which the jealousy of Constantine
      had separated, were united by the indulgence of Justinian; and
      eighteen successive exarchs were invested, in the decline of the
      empire, with the full remains of civil, of military, and even of
      ecclesiastical, power. Their immediate jurisdiction, which was
      afterwards consecrated as the patrimony of St. Peter, extended
      over the modern Romagna, the marshes or valleys of Ferrara and
      Commachio, 34 five maritime cities from Rimini to Ancona, and a
      second inland Pentapolis, between the Adriatic coast and the
      hills of the Apennine. Three subordinate provinces, of Rome, of
      Venice, and of Naples, which were divided by hostile lands from
      the palace of Ravenna, acknowledged, both in peace and war, the
      supremacy of the exarch. The duchy of Rome appears to have
      included the Tuscan, Sabine, and Latin conquests, of the first
      four hundred years of the city, and the limits may be distinctly
      traced along the coast, from Civita Vecchia to Terracina, and
      with the course of the Tyber from Ameria and Narni to the port of
      Ostia. The numerous islands from Grado to Chiozza composed the
      infant dominion of Venice: but the more accessible towns on the
      Continent were overthrown by the Lombards, who beheld with
      impotent fury a new capital rising from the waves. The power of
      the dukes of Naples was circumscribed by the bay and the adjacent
      isles, by the hostile territory of Capua, and by the Roman colony
      of Amalphi, 35 whose industrious citizens, by the invention of
      the mariner’s compass, have unveiled the face of the globe. The
      three islands of Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily, still adhered to
      the empire; and the acquisition of the farther Calabria removed
      the landmark of Autharis from the shore of Rhegium to the Isthmus
      of Consentia. In Sardinia, the savage mountaineers preserved the
      liberty and religion of their ancestors; and the husbandmen of
      Sicily were chained to their rich and cultivated soil. Rome was
      oppressed by the iron sceptre of the exarchs, and a Greek,
      perhaps a eunuch, insulted with impunity the ruins of the
      Capitol. But Naples soon acquired the privilege of electing her
      own dukes: 36 the independence of Amalphi was the fruit of
      commerce; and the voluntary attachment of Venice was finally
      ennobled by an equal alliance with the Eastern empire. On the map
      of Italy, the measure of the exarchate occupies a very inadequate
      space, but it included an ample proportion of wealth, industry,
      and population. The most faithful and valuable subjects escaped
      from the Barbarian yoke; and the banners of Pavia and Verona, of
      Milan and Padua, were displayed in their respective quarters by
      the new inhabitants of Ravenna. The remainder of Italy was
      possessed by the Lombards; and from Pavia, the royal seat, their
      kingdom was extended to the east, the north, and the west, as far
      as the confines of the Avars, the Bavarians, and the Franks of
      Austrasia and Burgundy. In the language of modern geography, it
      is now represented by the Terra Firma of the Venetian republic,
      Tyrol, the Milanese, Piedmont, the coast of Genoa, Mantua, Parma,
      and Modena, the grand duchy of Tuscany, and a large portion of
      the ecclesiastical state from Perugia to the Adriatic. The dukes,
      and at length the princes, of Beneventum, survived the monarchy,
      and propagated the name of the Lombards. From Capua to Tarentum,
      they reigned near five hundred years over the greatest part of
      the present kingdom of Naples. 37

      34 (return) [ The papal advocates, Zacagni and Fontanini, might
      justly claim the valley or morass of Commachio as a part of the
      exarchate. But the ambition of including Modena, Reggio, Parma,
      and Placentia, has darkened a geographical question somewhat
      doubtful and obscure Even Muratori, as the servant of the house
      of Este, is not free from partiality and prejudice.]

      35 (return) [ See Brenckman, Dissert. Ima de Republica
      Amalphitana, p. 1—42, ad calcem Hist. Pandect. Florent.]

      36 (return) [ Gregor. Magn. l. iii. epist. 23, 25.]

      37 (return) [ I have described the state of Italy from the
      excellent Dissertation of Beretti. Giannone (Istoria Civile, tom.
      i. p. 374—387) has followed the learned Camillo Pellegrini in the
      geography of the kingdom of Naples. After the loss of the true
      Calabria, the vanity of the Greeks substituted that name instead
      of the more ignoble appellation of Bruttium; and the change
      appears to have taken place before the time of Charlemagne,
      (Eginard, p. 75.)]

      In comparing the proportion of the victorious and the vanquished
      people, the change of language will afford the most probably
      inference. According to this standard, it will appear, that the
      Lombards of Italy, and the Visigoths of Spain, were less numerous
      than the Franks or Burgundians; and the conquerors of Gaul must
      yield, in their turn, to the multitude of Saxons and Angles who
      almost eradicated the idioms of Britain. The modern Italian has
      been insensibly formed by the mixture of nations: the awkwardness
      of the Barbarians in the nice management of declensions and
      conjugations reduced them to the use of articles and auxiliary
      verbs; and many new ideas have been expressed by Teutonic
      appellations. Yet the principal stock of technical and familiar
      words is found to be of Latin derivation; 38 and, if we were
      sufficiently conversant with the obsolete, the rustic, and the
      municipal dialects of ancient Italy, we should trace the origin
      of many terms which might, perhaps, be rejected by the classic
      purity of Rome. A numerous army constitutes but a small nation,
      and the powers of the Lombards were soon diminished by the
      retreat of twenty thousand Saxons, who scorned a dependent
      situation, and returned, after many bold and perilous adventures,
      to their native country. 39 The camp of Alboin was of formidable
      extent, but the extent of a camp would be easily circumscribed
      within the limits of a city; and its martial inhabitants must be
      thinly scattered over the face of a large country. When Alboin
      descended from the Alps, he invested his nephew, the first duke
      of Friuli, with the command of the province and the people: but
      the prudent Gisulf would have declined the dangerous office,
      unless he had been permitted to choose, among the nobles of the
      Lombards, a sufficient number of families 40 to form a perpetual
      colony of soldiers and subjects. In the progress of conquest, the
      same option could not be granted to the dukes of Brescia or
      Bergamo, or Pavia or Turin, of Spoleto or Beneventum; but each of
      these, and each of their colleagues, settled in his appointed
      district with a band of followers who resorted to his standard in
      war and his tribunal in peace. Their attachment was free and
      honorable: resigning the gifts and benefits which they had
      accepted, they might emigrate with their families into the
      jurisdiction of another duke; but their absence from the kingdom
      was punished with death, as a crime of military desertion. 41 The
      posterity of the first conquerors struck a deeper root into the
      soil, which, by every motive of interest and honor, they were
      bound to defend. A Lombard was born the soldier of his king and
      his duke; and the civil assemblies of the nation displayed the
      banners, and assumed the appellation, of a regular army. Of this
      army, the pay and the rewards were drawn from the conquered
      provinces; and the distribution, which was not effected till
      after the death of Alboin, is disgraced by the foul marks of
      injustice and rapine. Many of the most wealthy Italians were
      slain or banished; the remainder were divided among the
      strangers, and a tributary obligation was imposed (under the name
      of hospitality) of paying to the Lombards a third part of the
      fruits of the earth. Within less than seventy years, this
      artificial system was abolished by a more simple and solid
      tenure. 42 Either the Roman landlord was expelled by his strong
      and insolent guest, or the annual payment, a third of the
      produce, was exchanged by a more equitable transaction for an
      adequate proportion of landed property. Under these foreign
      masters, the business of agriculture, in the cultivation of corn,
      wines, and olives, was exercised with degenerate skill and
      industry by the labor of the slaves and natives. But the
      occupations of a pastoral life were more pleasing to the idleness
      of the Barbarian. In the rich meadows of Venetia, they restored
      and improved the breed of horses, for which that province had
      once been illustrious; 43 and the Italians beheld with
      astonishment a foreign race of oxen or buffaloes. 44 The
      depopulation of Lombardy, and the increase of forests, afforded
      an ample range for the pleasures of the chase. 45 That marvellous
      art which teaches the birds of the air to acknowledge the voice,
      and execute the commands, of their master, had been unknown to
      the ingenuity of the Greeks and Romans. 46 Scandinavia and
      Scythia produce the boldest and most tractable falcons: 47 they
      were tamed and educated by the roving inhabitants, always on
      horseback and in the field. This favorite amusement of our
      ancestors was introduced by the Barbarians into the Roman
      provinces; and the laws of Italy esteemed the sword and the hawk
      as of equal dignity and importance in the hands of a noble
      Lombard. 48

      38 (return) [ Maffei (Verona Illustrata, part i. p. 310—321) and
      Muratori (Antichita Italiane, tom. ii. Dissertazione xxxii.
      xxxiii. p. 71—365) have asserted the native claims of the Italian
      idiom; the former with enthusiasm, the latter with discretion;
      both with learning, ingenuity, and truth. Note: Compare the
      admirable sketch of the degeneracy of the Latin language and the
      formation of the Italian in Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 317
      329.—M.]

      39 (return) [ Paul, de Gest. Langobard. l. iii. c. 5, 6, 7.]

      40 (return) [ Paul, l. ii. c. 9. He calls these families or
      generations by the Teutonic name of Faras, which is likewise used
      in the Lombard laws. The humble deacon was not insensible of the
      nobility of his own race. See l. iv. c. 39.]

      41 (return) [ Compare No. 3 and 177 of the Laws of Rotharis.]

      42 (return) [ Paul, l. ii. c. 31, 32, l. iii. c. 16. The Laws of
      Rotharis, promulgated A.D. 643, do not contain the smallest
      vestige of this payment of thirds; but they preserve many curious
      circumstances of the state of Italy and the manners of the
      Lombards.]

      43 (return) [ The studs of Dionysius of Syracuse, and his
      frequent victories in the Olympic games, had diffused among the
      Greeks the fame of the Venetian horses; but the breed was extinct
      in the time of Strabo, (l. v. p. 325.) Gisulf obtained from his
      uncle generosarum equarum greges. Paul, l. ii. c. 9. The Lombards
      afterwards introduced caballi sylvatici—wild horses. Paul, l. iv.
      c. 11.]

      44 (return) [ Tunc (A.D. 596) primum, bubali in Italiam delati
      Italiae populis miracula fuere, (Paul Warnefrid, l. iv. c. 11.)
      The buffaloes, whose native climate appears to be Africa and
      India, are unknown to Europe, except in Italy, where they are
      numerous and useful. The ancients were ignorant of these animals,
      unless Aristotle (Hist. Anim. l. ii. c. 1, p. 58, Paris, 1783)
      has described them as the wild oxen of Arachosia. See Buffon,
      Hist. Naturelle, tom. xi. and Supplement, tom. vi. Hist. Generale
      des Voyages, tom. i. p. 7, 481, ii. 105, iii. 291, iv. 234, 461,
      v. 193, vi. 491, viii. 400, x. 666. Pennant’s Quadrupedes, p. 24.
      Dictionnaire d’Hist. Naturelle, par Valmont de Bomare, tom. ii.
      p. 74. Yet I must not conceal the suspicion that Paul, by a
      vulgar error, may have applied the name of bubalus to the
      aurochs, or wild bull, of ancient Germany.]

      45 (return) [ Consult the xxist Dissertation of Muratori.]

      46 (return) [ Their ignorance is proved by the silence even of
      those who professedly treat of the arts of hunting and the
      history of animals. Aristotle, (Hist. Animal. l. ix. c. 36, tom.
      i. p. 586, and the Notes of his last editor, M. Camus, tom. ii.
      p. 314,) Pliny, (Hist. Natur. l. x. c. 10,) Aelian (de Natur.
      Animal. l. ii. c. 42,) and perhaps Homer, (Odyss. xxii. 302-306,)
      describe with astonishment a tacit league and common chase
      between the hawks and the Thracian fowlers.]

      47 (return) [ Particularly the gerfaut, or gyrfalcon, of the size
      of a small eagle. See the animated description of M. de Buffon,
      Hist. Naturelle, tom. xvi. p. 239, &c.]

      48 (return) [ Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. i. part ii. p. 129.
      This is the xvith law of the emperor Lewis the Pious. His father
      Charlemagne had falconers in his household as well as huntsmen,
      (Memoires sur l’ancienne Chevalerie, par M. de St. Palaye, tom.
      iii. p. 175.) I observe in the laws of Rotharis a more early
      mention of the art of hawking, (No. 322;) and in Gaul, in the
      fifth century, it is celebrated by Sidonius Apollinaris among the
      talents of Avitus, (202—207.) * Note: See Beckman, Hist. of
      Inventions, vol. i. p. 319—M.]




      Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.—Part III.

      So rapid was the influence of climate and example, that the
      Lombards of the fourth generation surveyed with curiosity and
      affright the portraits of their savage forefathers. 49 Their
      heads were shaven behind, but the shaggy locks hung over their
      eyes and mouth, and a long beard represented the name and
      character of the nation. Their dress consisted of loose linen
      garments, after the fashion of the Anglo-Saxons, which were
      decorated, in their opinion, with broad stripes or variegated
      colors. The legs and feet were clothed in long hose, and open
      sandals; and even in the security of peace a trusty sword was
      constantly girt to their side. Yet this strange apparel, and
      horrid aspect, often concealed a gentle and generous disposition;
      and as soon as the rage of battle had subsided, the captives and
      subjects were sometimes surprised by the humanity of the victor.
      The vices of the Lombards were the effect of passion, of
      ignorance, of intoxication; their virtues are the more laudable,
      as they were not affected by the hypocrisy of social manners, nor
      imposed by the rigid constraint of laws and education. I should
      not be apprehensive of deviating from my subject, if it were in
      my power to delineate the private life of the conquerors of
      Italy; and I shall relate with pleasure the adventurous gallantry
      of Autharis, which breathes the true spirit of chivalry and
      romance. 50 After the loss of his promised bride, a Merovingian
      princess, he sought in marriage the daughter of the king of
      Bavaria; and Garribald accepted the alliance of the Italian
      monarch. Impatient of the slow progress of negotiation, the
      ardent lover escaped from his palace, and visited the court of
      Bavaria in the train of his own embassy. At the public audience,
      the unknown stranger advanced to the throne, and informed
      Garribald that the ambassador was indeed the minister of state,
      but that he alone was the friend of Autharis, who had trusted him
      with the delicate commission of making a faithful report of the
      charms of his spouse. Theudelinda was summoned to undergo this
      important examination; and, after a pause of silent rapture, he
      hailed her as the queen of Italy, and humbly requested that,
      according to the custom of the nation, she would present a cup of
      wine to the first of her new subjects. By the command of her
      father she obeyed: Autharis received the cup in his turn, and, in
      restoring it to the princess, he secretly touched her hand, and
      drew his own finger over his face and lips. In the evening,
      Theudelinda imparted to her nurse the indiscreet familiarity of
      the stranger, and was comforted by the assurance, that such
      boldness could proceed only from the king her husband, who, by
      his beauty and courage, appeared worthy of her love. The
      ambassadors were dismissed: no sooner did they reach the confines
      of Italy than Autharis, raising himself on his horse, darted his
      battle-axe against a tree with incomparable strength and
      dexterity. “Such,” said he to the astonished Bavarians, “such are
      the strokes of the king of the Lombards.” On the approach of a
      French army, Garribald and his daughter took refuge in the
      dominions of their ally; and the marriage was consummated in the
      palace of Verona. At the end of one year, it was dissolved by the
      death of Autharis: but the virtues of Theudelinda 51 had endeared
      her to the nation, and she was permitted to bestow, with her
      hand, the sceptre of the Italian kingdom.

      49 (return) [ The epitaph of Droctulf (Paul, l. iii. c. 19) may
      be applied to many of his countrymen:— Terribilis visu facies,
      sed corda benignus Longaque robusto pectore barba fuit. The
      portraits of the old Lombards might still be seen in the palace
      of Monza, twelve miles from Milan, which had been founded or
      restored by Queen Theudelinda, (l. iv. 22, 23.) See Muratori,
      tom. i. disserta, xxiii. p. 300.]

      50 (return) [ The story of Autharis and Theudelinda is related by
      Paul, l. iii. 29, 34; and any fragment of Bavarian antiquity
      excites the indefatigable diligence of the count de Buat, Hist.
      des Peuples de l’Europe, ton. xi. p. 595—635, tom. xii. p. 1-53.]

      51 (return) [ Giannone (Istoria Civile de Napoli, tom. i. p. 263)
      has justly censured the impertinence of Boccaccio, (Gio. iii.
      Novel. 2,) who, without right, or truth, or pretence, has given
      the pious queen Theudelinda to the arms of a muleteer.]

      From this fact, as well as from similar events, 52 it is certain
      that the Lombards possessed freedom to elect their sovereign, and
      sense to decline the frequent use of that dangerous privilege.
      The public revenue arose from the produce of land and the profits
      of justice. When the independent dukes agreed that Autharis
      should ascend the throne of his father, they endowed the regal
      office with a fair moiety of their respective domains. The
      proudest nobles aspired to the honors of servitude near the
      person of their prince: he rewarded the fidelity of his vassals
      by the precarious gift of pensions and benefices; and atoned for
      the injuries of war by the rich foundation of monasteries and
      churches. In peace a judge, a leader in war, he never usurped the
      powers of a sole and absolute legislator. The king of Italy
      convened the national assemblies in the palace, or more probably
      in the fields, of Pavia: his great council was composed of the
      persons most eminent by their birth and dignities; but the
      validity, as well as the execution, of their decrees depended on
      the approbation of the faithful people, the fortunate army of the
      Lombards. About fourscore years after the conquest of Italy,
      their traditional customs were transcribed in Teutonic Latin, 53
      and ratified by the consent of the prince and people: some new
      regulations were introduced, more suitable to their present
      condition; the example of Rotharis was imitated by the wisest of
      his successors; and the laws of the Lombards have been esteemed
      the least imperfect of the Barbaric codes. 54 Secure by their
      courage in the possession of liberty, these rude and hasty
      legislators were incapable of balancing the powers of the
      constitution, or of discussing the nice theory of political
      government. Such crimes as threatened the life of the sovereign,
      or the safety of the state, were adjudged worthy of death; but
      their attention was principally confined to the defence of the
      person and property of the subject. According to the strange
      jurisprudence of the times, the guilt of blood might be redeemed
      by a fine; yet the high price of nine hundred pieces of gold
      declares a just sense of the value of a simple citizen. Less
      atrocious injuries, a wound, a fracture, a blow, an opprobrious
      word, were measured with scrupulous and almost ridiculous
      diligence; and the prudence of the legislator encouraged the
      ignoble practice of bartering honor and revenge for a pecuniary
      compensation. The ignorance of the Lombards in the state of
      Paganism or Christianity gave implicit credit to the malice and
      mischief of witchcraft, but the judges of the seventeenth century
      might have been instructed and confounded by the wisdom of
      Rotharis, who derides the absurd superstition, and protects the
      wretched victims of popular or judicial cruelty. 55 The same
      spirit of a legislator, superior to his age and country, may be
      ascribed to Luitprand, who condemns, while he tolerates, the
      impious and inveterate abuse of duels, 56 observing, from his own
      experience, that the juster cause had often been oppressed by
      successful violence. Whatever merit may be discovered in the laws
      of the Lombards, they are the genuine fruit of the reason of the
      Barbarians, who never admitted the bishops of Italy to a seat in
      their legislative councils. But the succession of their kings is
      marked with virtue and ability; the troubled series of their
      annals is adorned with fair intervals of peace, order, and
      domestic happiness; and the Italians enjoyed a milder and more
      equitable government, than any of the other kingdoms which had
      been founded on the ruins of the Western empire. 57

      52 (return) [ Paul, l. iii. c. 16. The first dissertations of
      Muratori, and the first volume of Giannone’s history, may be
      consulted for the state of the kingdom of Italy.]

      53 (return) [ The most accurate edition of the Laws of the
      Lombards is to be found in the Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom.
      i. part ii. p. 1—181, collated from the most ancient Mss. and
      illustrated by the critical notes of Muratori.]

      54 (return) [ Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. c. 1. Les
      loix des Bourguignons sont assez judicieuses; celles de Rotharis
      et des autres princes Lombards le sont encore plus.]

      55 (return) [ See Leges Rotharis, No. 379, p. 47. Striga is used
      as the name of a witch. It is of the purest classic origin,
      (Horat. epod. v. 20. Petron. c. 134;) and from the words of
      Petronius, (quae striges comederunt nervos tuos?) it may be
      inferred that the prejudice was of Italian rather than Barbaric
      extraction.]

      56 (return) [ Quia incerti sumus de judicio Dei, et multos
      audivimus per pugnam sine justa causa suam causam perdere. Sed
      propter consuetudinom gentem nostram Langobardorum legem impiam
      vetare non possumus. See p. 74, No. 65, of the Laws of Luitprand,
      promulgated A.D. 724.]

      57 (return) [ Read the history of Paul Warnefrid; particularly l.
      iii. c. 16. Baronius rejects the praise, which appears to
      contradict the invectives of Pope Gregory the Great; but Muratori
      (Annali d’ Italia, tom. v. p. 217) presumes to insinuate that the
      saint may have magnified the faults of Arians and enemies.]

      Amidst the arms of the Lombards, and under the despotism of the
      Greeks, we again inquire into the fate of Rome, 58 which had
      reached, about the close of the sixth century, the lowest period
      of her depression. By the removal of the seat of empire, and the
      successive loss of the provinces, the sources of public and
      private opulence were exhausted: the lofty tree, under whose
      shade the nations of the earth had reposed, was deprived of its
      leaves and branches, and the sapless trunk was left to wither on
      the ground. The ministers of command, and the messengers of
      victory, no longer met on the Appian or Flaminian way; and the
      hostile approach of the Lombards was often felt, and continually
      feared. The inhabitants of a potent and peaceful capital, who
      visit without an anxious thought the garden of the adjacent
      country, will faintly picture in their fancy the distress of the
      Romans: they shut or opened their gates with a trembling hand,
      beheld from the walls the flames of their houses, and heard the
      lamentations of their brethren, who were coupled together like
      dogs, and dragged away into distant slavery beyond the sea and
      the mountains. Such incessant alarms must annihilate the
      pleasures and interrupt the labors of a rural life; and the
      Campagna of Rome was speedily reduced to the state of a dreary
      wilderness, in which the land is barren, the waters are impure,
      and the air is infectious. Curiosity and ambition no longer
      attracted the nations to the capital of the world: but, if chance
      or necessity directed the steps of a wandering stranger, he
      contemplated with horror the vacancy and solitude of the city,
      and might be tempted to ask, Where is the senate, and where are
      the people? In a season of excessive rains, the Tyber swelled
      above its banks, and rushed with irresistible violence into the
      valleys of the seven hills. A pestilential disease arose from the
      stagnation of the deluge, and so rapid was the contagion, that
      fourscore persons expired in an hour in the midst of a solemn
      procession, which implored the mercy of Heaven. 59 A society in
      which marriage is encouraged and industry prevails soon repairs
      the accidental losses of pestilence and war: but, as the far
      greater part of the Romans was condemned to hopeless indigence
      and celibacy, the depopulation was constant and visible, and the
      gloomy enthusiasts might expect the approaching failure of the
      human race. 60 Yet the number of citizens still exceeded the
      measure of subsistence: their precarious food was supplied from
      the harvests of Sicily or Egypt; and the frequent repetition of
      famine betrays the inattention of the emperor to a distant
      province. The edifices of Rome were exposed to the same ruin and
      decay: the mouldering fabrics were easily overthrown by
      inundations, tempests, and earthquakes: and the monks, who had
      occupied the most advantageous stations, exulted in their base
      triumph over the ruins of antiquity. 61 It is commonly believed,
      that Pope Gregory the First attacked the temples and mutilated
      the statues of the city; that, by the command of the Barbarian,
      the Palatine library was reduced to ashes, and that the history
      of Livy was the peculiar mark of his absurd and mischievous
      fanaticism. The writings of Gregory himself reveal his implacable
      aversion to the monuments of classic genius; and he points his
      severest censure against the profane learning of a bishop, who
      taught the art of grammar, studied the Latin poets, and
      pronounced with the same voice the praises of Jupiter and those
      of Christ. But the evidence of his destructive rage is doubtful
      and recent: the Temple of Peace, or the theatre of Marcellus,
      have been demolished by the slow operation of ages, and a formal
      proscription would have multiplied the copies of Virgil and Livy
      in the countries which were not subject to the ecclesiastical
      dictator. 62

      58 (return) [ The passages of the homilies of Gregory, which
      represent the miserable state of the city and country, are
      transcribed in the Annals of Baronius, A.D. 590, No. 16, A.D.
      595, No. 2, &c., &c.]

      59 (return) [ The inundation and plague were reported by a
      deacon, whom his bishop, Gregory of Tours, had despatched to Rome
      for some relics The ingenious messenger embellished his tale and
      the river with a great dragon and a train of little serpents,
      (Greg. Turon. l. x. c. 1.)]

      60 (return) [ Gregory of Rome (Dialog. l. ii. c. 15) relates a
      memorable prediction of St. Benedict. Roma a Gentilibus non
      exterminabitur sed tempestatibus, coruscis turbinibus ac terrae
      motu in semetipsa marces cet. Such a prophecy melts into true
      history, and becomes the evidence of the fact after which it was
      invented.]

      61 (return) [ Quia in uno se ore cum Jovis laudibus, Christi
      laudes non capiunt, et quam grave nefandumque sit episcopis
      canere quod nec laico religioso conveniat, ipse considera, (l.
      ix. ep. 4.) The writings of Gregory himself attest his innocence
      of any classic taste or literature]

      62 (return) [ Bayle, (Dictionnaire Critique, tom. ii. 598, 569,)
      in a very good article of Gregoire I., has quoted, for the
      buildings and statues, Platina in Gregorio I.; for the Palatine
      library, John of Salisbury, (de Nugis Curialium, l. ii. c. 26;)
      and for Livy, Antoninus of Florence: the oldest of the three
      lived in the xiith century.]

      Like Thebes, or Babylon, or Carthage, the names of Rome might
      have been erased from the earth, if the city had not been
      animated by a vital principle, which again restored her to honor
      and dominion. A vague tradition was embraced, that two Jewish
      teachers, a tent-maker and a fisherman, had formerly been
      executed in the circus of Nero, and at the end of five hundred
      years, their genuine or fictitious relics were adored as the
      Palladium of Christian Rome. The pilgrims of the East and West
      resorted to the holy threshold; but the shrines of the apostles
      were guarded by miracles and invisible terrors; and it was not
      without fear that the pious Catholic approached the object of his
      worship. It was fatal to touch, it was dangerous to behold, the
      bodies of the saints; and those who, from the purest motives,
      presumed to disturb the repose of the sanctuary, were affrighted
      by visions, or punished with sudden death. The unreasonable
      request of an empress, who wished to deprive the Romans of their
      sacred treasure, the head of St. Paul, was rejected with the
      deepest abhorrence; and the pope asserted, most probably with
      truth, that a linen which had been sanctified in the neighborhood
      of his body, or the filings of his chain, which it was sometimes
      easy and sometimes impossible to obtain, possessed an equal
      degree of miraculous virtue. 63 But the power as well as virtue
      of the apostles resided with living energy in the breast of their
      successors; and the chair of St. Peter was filled under the reign
      of Maurice by the first and greatest of the name of Gregory. 64
      His grandfather Felix had himself been pope, and as the bishops
      were already bound by the laws of celibacy, his consecration must
      have been preceded by the death of his wife. The parents of
      Gregory, Sylvia, and Gordian, were the noblest of the senate, and
      the most pious of the church of Rome; his female relations were
      numbered among the saints and virgins; and his own figure, with
      those of his father and mother, were represented near three
      hundred years in a family portrait, 65 which he offered to the
      monastery of St. Andrew. The design and coloring of this picture
      afford an honorable testimony that the art of painting was
      cultivated by the Italians of the sixth century; but the most
      abject ideas must be entertained of their taste and learning,
      since the epistles of Gregory, his sermons, and his dialogues,
      are the work of a man who was second in erudition to none of his
      contemporaries: 66 his birth and abilities had raised him to the
      office of praefect of the city, and he enjoyed the merit of
      renouncing the pomps and vanities of this world. His ample
      patrimony was dedicated to the foundation of seven monasteries,
      67 one in Rome, 68 and six in Sicily; and it was the wish of
      Gregory that he might be unknown in this life, and glorious only
      in the next. Yet his devotion (and it might be sincere) pursued
      the path which would have been chosen by a crafty and ambitious
      statesman. The talents of Gregory, and the splendor which
      accompanied his retreat, rendered him dear and useful to the
      church; and implicit obedience has always been inculcated as the
      first duty of a monk. As soon as he had received the character of
      deacon, Gregory was sent to reside at the Byzantine court, the
      nuncio or minister of the apostolic see; and he boldly assumed,
      in the name of St. Peter, a tone of independent dignity, which
      would have been criminal and dangerous in the most illustrious
      layman of the empire. He returned to Rome with a just increase of
      reputation, and, after a short exercise of the monastic virtues,
      he was dragged from the cloister to the papal throne, by the
      unanimous voice of the clergy, the senate, and the people. He
      alone resisted, or seemed to resist, his own elevation; and his
      humble petition, that Maurice would be pleased to reject the
      choice of the Romans, could only serve to exalt his character in
      the eyes of the emperor and the public. When the fatal mandate
      was proclaimed, Gregory solicited the aid of some friendly
      merchants to convey him in a basket beyond the gates of Rome, and
      modestly concealed himself some days among the woods and
      mountains, till his retreat was discovered, as it is said, by a
      celestial light.

      63 (return) [Gregor. l. iii. epist. 24, edict. 12, &c. From the
      epistles of Gregory, and the viiith volume of the Annals of
      Baronius, the pious reader may collect the particles of holy iron
      which were inserted in keys or crosses of gold, and distributed
      in Britain, Gaul, Spain, Africa, Constantinople, and Egypt. The
      pontifical smith who handled the file must have understood the
      miracles which it was in his own power to operate or withhold; a
      circumstance which abates the superstition of Gregory at the
      expense of his veracity.]

      64 (return) [ Besides the epistles of Gregory himself, which are
      methodized by Dupin, (Bibliotheque Eccles. tom. v. p. 103—126,)
      we have three lives of the pope; the two first written in the
      viiith and ixth centuries, (de Triplici Vita St. Greg. Preface to
      the ivth volume of the Benedictine edition,) by the deacons Paul
      (p. 1—18) and John, (p. 19—188,) and containing much original,
      though doubtful, evidence; the third, a long and labored
      compilation by the Benedictine editors, (p. 199—305.) The annals
      of Baronius are a copious but partial history. His papal
      prejudices are tempered by the good sense of Fleury, (Hist.
      Eccles. tom. viii.,) and his chronology has been rectified by the
      criticism of Pagi and Muratori.]

      65 (return) [ John the deacon has described them like an
      eye-witness, (l. iv. c. 83, 84;) and his description is
      illustrated by Angelo Rocca, a Roman antiquary, (St. Greg. Opera,
      tom. iv. p. 312—326;) who observes that some mosaics of the popes
      of the viith century are still preserved in the old churches of
      Rome, (p. 321—323) The same walls which represented Gregory’s
      family are now decorated with the martyrdom of St. Andrew, the
      noble contest of Dominichino and Guido.]

      66 (return) [ Disciplinis vero liberalibus, hoc est grammatica,
      rhetorica, dialectica ita apuero est institutus, ut quamvis eo
      tempore florerent adhuc Romae studia literarum, tamen nulli in
      urbe ipsa secundus putaretur. Paul. Diacon. in Vit. St. Gregor.
      c. 2.]

      67 (return) [ The Benedictines (Vit. Greg. l. i. p. 205—208)
      labor to reduce the monasteries of Gregory within the rule of
      their own order; but, as the question is confessed to be
      doubtful, it is clear that these powerful monks are in the wrong.
      See Butler’s Lives of the Saints, vol. iii. p. 145; a work of
      merit: the sense and learning belong to the author—his prejudices
      are those of his profession.]

      68 (return) [ Monasterium Gregorianum in ejusdem Beati Gregorii
      aedibus ad clivum Scauri prope ecclesiam SS. Johannis et Pauli in
      honorem St. Andreae, (John, in Vit. Greg. l. i. c. 6. Greg. l.
      vii. epist. 13.) This house and monastery were situate on the
      side of the Caelian hill which fronts the Palatine; they are now
      occupied by the Camaldoli: San Gregorio triumphs, and St. Andrew
      has retired to a small chapel Nardini, Roma Antica, l. iii. c. 6,
      p. 100. Descrizzione di Roma, tom. i. p. 442—446.]

      The pontificate of Gregory the Great, which lasted thirteen
      years, six months, and ten days, is one of the most edifying
      periods of the history of the church. His virtues, and even his
      faults, a singular mixture of simplicity and cunning, of pride
      and humility, of sense and superstition, were happily suited to
      his station and to the temper of the times. In his rival, the
      patriarch of Constantinople, he condemned the anti-Christian
      title of universal bishop, which the successor of St. Peter was
      too haughty to concede, and too feeble to assume; and the
      ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Gregory was confined to the triple
      character of Bishop of Rome, Primate of Italy, and Apostle of the
      West. He frequently ascended the pulpit, and kindled, by his
      rude, though pathetic, eloquence, the congenial passions of his
      audience: the language of the Jewish prophets was interpreted and
      applied; and the minds of a people, depressed by their present
      calamities, were directed to the hopes and fears of the invisible
      world. His precepts and example defined the model of the Roman
      liturgy; 69 the distribution of the parishes, the calendar of the
      festivals, the order of processions, the service of the priests
      and deacons, the variety and change of sacerdotal garments. Till
      the last days of his life, he officiated in the canon of the
      mass, which continued above three hours: the Gregorian chant 70
      has preserved the vocal and instrumental music of the theatre,
      and the rough voices of the Barbarians attempted to imitate the
      melody of the Roman school. 71 Experience had shown him the
      efficacy of these solemn and pompous rites, to soothe the
      distress, to confirm the faith, to mitigate the fierceness, and
      to dispel the dark enthusiasm of the vulgar, and he readily
      forgave their tendency to promote the reign of priesthood and
      superstition. The bishops of Italy and the adjacent islands
      acknowledged the Roman pontiff as their special metropolitan.
      Even the existence, the union, or the translation of episcopal
      seats was decided by his absolute discretion: and his successful
      inroads into the provinces of Greece, of Spain, and of Gaul,
      might countenance the more lofty pretensions of succeeding popes.
      He interposed to prevent the abuses of popular elections; his
      jealous care maintained the purity of faith and discipline; and
      the apostolic shepherd assiduously watched over the faith and
      discipline of the subordinate pastors. Under his reign, the
      Arians of Italy and Spain were reconciled to the Catholic church,
      and the conquest of Britain reflects less glory on the name of
      Caesar, than on that of Gregory the First. Instead of six
      legions, forty monks were embarked for that distant island, and
      the pontiff lamented the austere duties which forbade him to
      partake the perils of their spiritual warfare. In less than two
      years, he could announce to the archbishop of Alexandria, that
      they had baptized the king of Kent with ten thousand of his
      Anglo-Saxons, and that the Roman missionaries, like those of the
      primitive church, were armed only with spiritual and supernatural
      powers. The credulity or the prudence of Gregory was always
      disposed to confirm the truths of religion by the evidence of
      ghosts, miracles, and resurrections; 72 and posterity has paid to
      his memory the same tribute which he freely granted to the virtue
      of his own or the preceding generation. The celestial honors have
      been liberally bestowed by the authority of the popes, but
      Gregory is the last of their own order whom they have presumed to
      inscribe in the calendar of saints.

      69 (return) [ The Lord’s Prayer consists of half a dozen lines;
      the Sacramentarius and Antiphonarius of Gregory fill 880 folio
      pages, (tom. iii. p. i. p. 1—880;) yet these only constitute a
      part of the Ordo Romanus, which Mabillon has illustrated and
      Fleury has abridged, (Hist. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 139—152.)]

      70 (return) [ I learn from the Abbe Dobos, (Reflexions sur la
      Poesie et la Peinture, tom. iii. p. 174, 175,) that the
      simplicity of the Ambrosian chant was confined to four modes,
      while the more perfect harmony of the Gregorian comprised the
      eight modes or fifteen chords of the ancient music. He observes
      (p. 332) that the connoisseurs admire the preface and many
      passages of the Gregorian office.]

      71 (return) [ John the deacon (in Vit. Greg. l. ii. c. 7)
      expresses the early contempt of the Italians for tramontane
      singing. Alpina scilicet corpora vocum suarum tonitruis altisone
      perstrepentia, susceptae modulationis dulcedinem proprie non
      resultant: quia bibuli gutturis barbara feritas dum inflexionibus
      et repercussionibus mitem nititur edere cantilenam, naturali
      quodam fragore, quasi plaustra per gradus confuse sonantia,
      rigidas voces jactat, &c. In the time of Charlemagne, the Franks,
      though with some reluctance, admitted the justice of the
      reproach. Muratori, Dissert. xxv.]

      72 (return) [ A French critic (Petrus Gussanvillus, Opera, tom.
      ii. p. 105—112) has vindicated the right of Gregory to the entire
      nonsense of the Dialogues. Dupin (tom. v. p. 138) does not think
      that any one will vouch for the truth of all these miracles: I
      should like to know how many of them he believed himself.]

      Their temporal power insensibly arose from the calamities of the
      times: and the Roman bishops, who have deluged Europe and Asia
      with blood, were compelled to reign as the ministers of charity
      and peace. I. The church of Rome, as it has been formerly
      observed, was endowed with ample possessions in Italy, Sicily,
      and the more distant provinces; and her agents, who were commonly
      sub-deacons, had acquired a civil, and even criminal,
      jurisdiction over their tenants and husbandmen. The successor of
      St. Peter administered his patrimony with the temper of a
      vigilant and moderate landlord; 73 and the epistles of Gregory
      are filled with salutary instructions to abstain from doubtful or
      vexatious lawsuits; to preserve the integrity of weights and
      measures; to grant every reasonable delay; and to reduce the
      capitation of the slaves of the glebe, who purchased the right of
      marriage by the payment of an arbitrary fine. 74 The rent or the
      produce of these estates was transported to the mouth of the
      Tyber, at the risk and expense of the pope: in the use of wealth
      he acted like a faithful steward of the church and the poor, and
      liberally applied to their wants the inexhaustible resources of
      abstinence and order. The voluminous account of his receipts and
      disbursements was kept above three hundred years in the Lateran,
      as the model of Christian economy. On the four great festivals,
      he divided their quarterly allowance to the clergy, to his
      domestics, to the monasteries, the churches, the places of
      burial, the almshouses, and the hospitals of Rome, and the rest
      of the diocese. On the first day of every month, he distributed
      to the poor, according to the season, their stated portion of
      corn, wine, cheese, vegetables, oil, fish, fresh provisions,
      clothes, and money; and his treasurers were continually summoned
      to satisfy, in his name, the extraordinary demands of indigence
      and merit. The instant distress of the sick and helpless, of
      strangers and pilgrims, was relieved by the bounty of each day,
      and of every hour; nor would the pontiff indulge himself in a
      frugal repast, till he had sent the dishes from his own table to
      some objects deserving of his compassion. The misery of the times
      had reduced the nobles and matrons of Rome to accept, without a
      blush, the benevolence of the church: three thousand virgins
      received their food and raiment from the hand of their
      benefactor; and many bishops of Italy escaped from the Barbarians
      to the hospitable threshold of the Vatican. Gregory might justly
      be styled the Father of his Country; and such was the extreme
      sensibility of his conscience, that, for the death of a beggar
      who had perished in the streets, he interdicted himself during
      several days from the exercise of sacerdotal functions. II. The
      misfortunes of Rome involved the apostolical pastor in the
      business of peace and war; and it might be doubtful to himself,
      whether piety or ambition prompted him to supply the place of his
      absent sovereign. Gregory awakened the emperor from a long
      slumber; exposed the guilt or incapacity of the exarch and his
      inferior ministers; complained that the veterans were withdrawn
      from Rome for the defence of Spoleto; encouraged the Italians to
      guard their cities and altars; and condescended, in the crisis of
      danger, to name the tribunes, and to direct the operations, of
      the provincial troops. But the martial spirit of the pope was
      checked by the scruples of humanity and religion: the imposition
      of tribute, though it was employed in the Italian war, he freely
      condemned as odious and oppressive; whilst he protected, against
      the Imperial edicts, the pious cowardice of the soldiers who
      deserted a military for a monastic life. If we may credit his own
      declarations, it would have been easy for Gregory to exterminate
      the Lombards by their domestic factions, without leaving a king,
      a duke, or a count, to save that unfortunate nation from the
      vengeance of their foes. As a Christian bishop, he preferred the
      salutary offices of peace; his mediation appeased the tumult of
      arms: but he was too conscious of the arts of the Greeks, and the
      passions of the Lombards, to engage his sacred promise for the
      observance of the truce. Disappointed in the hope of a general
      and lasting treaty, he presumed to save his country without the
      consent of the emperor or the exarch. The sword of the enemy was
      suspended over Rome; it was averted by the mild eloquence and
      seasonable gifts of the pontiff, who commanded the respect of
      heretics and Barbarians. The merits of Gregory were treated by
      the Byzantine court with reproach and insult; but in the
      attachment of a grateful people, he found the purest reward of a
      citizen, and the best right of a sovereign. 75

      73 (return) [ Baronius is unwilling to expatiate on the care of
      the patrimonies, lest he should betray that they consisted not of
      kingdoms, but farms. The French writers, the Benedictine editors,
      (tom. iv. l. iii. p. 272, &c.,) and Fleury, (tom. viii. p. 29,
      &c.,) are not afraid of entering into these humble, though
      useful, details; and the humanity of Fleury dwells on the social
      virtues of Gregory.]

      74 (return) [ I much suspect that this pecuniary fine on the
      marriages of villains produced the famous, and often fabulous
      right, de cuissage, de marquette, &c. With the consent of her
      husband, a handsome bride might commute the payment in the arms
      of a young landlord, and the mutual favor might afford a
      precedent of local rather than legal tyranny]

      75 (return) [ The temporal reign of Gregory I. is ably exposed by
      Sigonius in the first book, de Regno Italiae. See his works, tom.
      ii. p. 44—75]




      Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part I.

     Revolutions of Persia After The Death Of Chosroes On
     Nushirvan.—His Son Hormouz, A Tyrant, Is Deposed.— Usurpation Of
     Baharam.—Flight And Restoration Of Chosroes II.—His Gratitude To
     The Romans.—The Chagan Of The Avars.- -Revolt Of The Army Against
     Maurice.—His Death.—Tyranny Of Phocas.—Elevation Of Heraclius.—The
     Persian War.—Chosroes Subdues Syria, Egypt, And Asia Minor.—Siege
     Of Constantinople By The Persians And Avars.—Persian
     Expeditions.—Victories And Triumph Of Heraclius.

      The conflict of Rome and Persia was prolonged from the death of
      Craesus to the reign of Heraclius. An experience of seven hundred
      years might convince the rival nations of the impossibility of
      maintaining their conquests beyond the fatal limits of the Tigris
      and Euphrates. Yet the emulation of Trajan and Julian was
      awakened by the trophies of Alexander, and the sovereigns of
      Persia indulged the ambitious hope of restoring the empire of
      Cyrus. 1 Such extraordinary efforts of power and courage will
      always command the attention of posterity; but the events by
      which the fate of nations is not materially changed, leave a
      faint impression on the page of history, and the patience of the
      reader would be exhausted by the repetition of the same
      hostilities, undertaken without cause, prosecuted without glory,
      and terminated without effect. The arts of negotiation, unknown
      to the simple greatness of the senate and the Caesars, were
      assiduously cultivated by the Byzantine princes; and the
      memorials of their perpetual embassies 2 repeat, with the same
      uniform prolixity, the language of falsehood and declamation, the
      insolence of the Barbarians, and the servile temper of the
      tributary Greeks. Lamenting the barren superfluity of materials,
      I have studied to compress the narrative of these uninteresting
      transactions: but the just Nushirvan is still applauded as the
      model of Oriental kings, and the ambition of his grandson
      Chosroes prepared the revolution of the East, which was speedily
      accomplished by the arms and the religion of the successors of
      Mahomet.

      1 (return) [ Missis qui... reposcerent... veteres Persarum ac
      Macedonum terminos, seque invasurum possessa Cyro et post
      Alexandro, per vaniloquentiam ac minas jaciebat. Tacit. Annal.
      vi. 31. Such was the language of the Arsacides. I have repeatedly
      marked the lofty claims of the Sassanians.]

      2 (return) [ See the embassies of Menander, extracted and
      preserved in the tenth century by the order of Constantine
      Porphyrogenitus.]

      In the useless altercations, that precede and justify the
      quarrels of princes, the Greeks and the Barbarians accused each
      other of violating the peace which had been concluded between the
      two empires about four years before the death of Justinian. The
      sovereign of Persia and India aspired to reduce under his
      obedience the province of Yemen or Arabia 3 Felix; the distant
      land of myrrh and frankincense, which had escaped, rather than
      opposed, the conquerors of the East. After the defeat of Abrahah
      under the walls of Mecca, the discord of his sons and brothers
      gave an easy entrance to the Persians: they chased the strangers
      of Abyssinia beyond the Red Sea; and a native prince of the
      ancient Homerites was restored to the throne as the vassal or
      viceroy of the great Nushirvan. 4 But the nephew of Justinian
      declared his resolution to avenge the injuries of his Christian
      ally the prince of Abyssinia, as they suggested a decent pretence
      to discontinue the annual tribute, which was poorly disguised by
      the name of pension. The churches of Persarmenia were oppressed
      by the intolerant spirit of the Magi; 411 they secretly invoked
      the protector of the Christians, and, after the pious murder of
      their satraps, the rebels were avowed and supported as the
      brethren and subjects of the Roman emperor. The complaints of
      Nushirvan were disregarded by the Byzantine court; Justin yielded
      to the importunities of the Turks, who offered an alliance
      against the common enemy; and the Persian monarchy was threatened
      at the same instant by the united forces of Europe, of Aethiopia,
      and of Scythia. At the age of fourscore the sovereign of the East
      would perhaps have chosen the peaceful enjoyment of his glory and
      greatness; but as soon as war became inevitable, he took the
      field with the alacrity of youth, whilst the aggressor trembled
      in the palace of Constantinople. Nushirvan, or Chosroes,
      conducted in person the siege of Dara; and although that
      important fortress had been left destitute of troops and
      magazines, the valor of the inhabitants resisted above five
      months the archers, the elephants, and the military engines of
      the Great King. In the mean while his general Adarman advanced
      from Babylon, traversed the desert, passed the Euphrates,
      insulted the suburbs of Antioch, reduced to ashes the city of
      Apamea, and laid the spoils of Syria at the feet of his master,
      whose perseverance in the midst of winter at length subverted the
      bulwark of the East. But these losses, which astonished the
      provinces and the court, produced a salutary effect in the
      repentance and abdication of the emperor Justin: a new spirit
      arose in the Byzantine councils; and a truce of three years was
      obtained by the prudence of Tiberius. That seasonable interval
      was employed in the preparations of war; and the voice of rumor
      proclaimed to the world, that from the distant countries of the
      Alps and the Rhine, from Scythia, Maesia, Pannonia, Illyricum,
      and Isauria, the strength of the Imperial cavalry was reenforced
      with one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers. Yet the king of
      Persia, without fear, or without faith, resolved to prevent the
      attack of the enemy; again passed the Euphrates, and dismissing
      the ambassadors of Tiberius, arrogantly commanded them to await
      his arrival at Caesarea, the metropolis of the Cappadocian
      provinces. The two armies encountered each other in the battle of
      Melitene: 412 the Barbarians, who darkened the air with a cloud
      of arrows, prolonged their line, and extended their wings across
      the plain; while the Romans, in deep and solid bodies, expected
      to prevail in closer action, by the weight of their swords and
      lances. A Scythian chief, who commanded their right wing,
      suddenly turned the flank of the enemy, attacked their rear-guard
      in the presence of Chosroes, penetrated to the midst of the camp,
      pillaged the royal tent, profaned the eternal fire, loaded a
      train of camels with the spoils of Asia, cut his way through the
      Persian host, and returned with songs of victory to his friends,
      who had consumed the day in single combats, or ineffectual
      skirmishes. The darkness of the night, and the separation of the
      Romans, afforded the Persian monarch an opportunity of revenge;
      and one of their camps was swept away by a rapid and impetuous
      assault. But the review of his loss, and the consciousness of his
      danger, determined Chosroes to a speedy retreat: he burnt, in his
      passage, the vacant town of Melitene; and, without consulting the
      safety of his troops, boldly swam the Euphrates on the back of an
      elephant. After this unsuccessful campaign, the want of
      magazines, and perhaps some inroad of the Turks, obliged him to
      disband or divide his forces; the Romans were left masters of the
      field, and their general Justinian, advancing to the relief of
      the Persarmenian rebels, erected his standard on the banks of the
      Araxes. The great Pompey had formerly halted within three days’
      march of the Caspian: 5 that inland sea was explored, for the
      first time, by a hostile fleet, 6 and seventy thousand captives
      were transplanted from Hyrcania to the Isle of Cyprus. On the
      return of spring, Justinian descended into the fertile plains of
      Assyria; the flames of war approached the residence of Nushirvan;
      the indignant monarch sunk into the grave; and his last edict
      restrained his successors from exposing their person in battle
      against the Romans. 611 Yet the memory of this transient affront
      was lost in the glories of a long reign; and his formidable
      enemies, after indulging their dream of conquest, again solicited
      a short respite from the calamities of war. 7

      3 (return) [ The general independence of the Arabs, which cannot
      be admitted without many limitations, is blindly asserted in a
      separate dissertation of the authors of the Universal History,
      vol. xx. p. 196—250. A perpetual miracle is supposed to have
      guarded the prophecy in favor of the posterity of Ishmael; and
      these learned bigots are not afraid to risk the truth of
      Christianity on this frail and slippery foundation. * Note: It
      certainly appears difficult to extract a prediction of the
      perpetual independence of the Arabs from the text in Genesis,
      which would have received an ample fulfilment during centuries of
      uninvaded freedom. But the disputants appear to forget the
      inseparable connection in the prediction between the wild, the
      Bedoween habits of the Ismaelites, with their national
      independence. The stationary and civilized descendant of Ismael
      forfeited, as it were, his birthright, and ceased to be a genuine
      son of the “wild man” The phrase, “dwelling in the presence of
      his brethren,” is interpreted by Rosenmuller (in loc.) and
      others, according to the Hebrew geography, “to the East” of his
      brethren, the legitimate race of Abraham—M.]

      4 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient. p. 477. Pocock,
      Specimen Hist. Arabum, p. 64, 65. Father Pagi (Critica, tom. ii.
      p. 646) has proved that, after ten years’ peace, the Persian war,
      which continued twenty years, was renewed A.D. 571. Mahomet was
      born A.D. 569, in the year of the elephant, or the defeat of
      Abrahah, (Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 89, 90, 98;) and
      this account allows two years for the conquest of Yemen. * Note:
      Abrahah, according to some accounts, was succeeded by his son
      Taksoum, who reigned seventeen years; his brother Mascouh, who
      was slain in battle against the Persians, twelve. But this
      chronology is irreconcilable with the Arabian conquests of
      Nushirvan the Great. Either Seif, or his son Maadi Karb, was the
      native prince placed on the throne by the Persians. St. Martin,
      vol. x. p. 78. See likewise Johannsen, Hist. Yemanae.—M.]

      411 (return) [ Persarmenia was long maintained in peace by the
      tolerant administration of Mejej, prince of the Gnounians. On his
      death he was succeeded by a persecutor, a Persian, named
      Ten-Schahpour, who attempted to propagate Zoroastrianism by
      violence. Nushirvan, on an appeal to the throne by the Armenian
      clergy, replaced Ten-Schahpour, in 552, by Veschnas-Vahram. The
      new marzban, or governor, was instructed to repress the bigoted
      Magi in their persecutions of the Armenians, but the Persian
      converts to Christianity were still exposed to cruel sufferings.
      The most distinguished of them, Izdbouzid, was crucified at Dovin
      in the presence of a vast multitude. The fame of this martyr
      spread to the West. Menander, the historian, not only, as appears
      by a fragment published by Mai, related this event in his
      history, but, according to M. St. Martin, wrote a tragedy on the
      subject. This, however, is an unwarrantable inference from the
      phrase which merely means that he related the tragic event in his
      history. An epigram on the same subject, preserved in the
      Anthology, Jacob’s Anth. Palat. i. 27, belongs to the historian.
      Yet Armenia remained in peace under the government of
      Veschnas-Vahram and his successor Varazdat. The tyranny of his
      successor Surena led to the insurrection under Vartan, the
      Mamigonian, who revenged the death of his brother on the marzban
      Surena, surprised Dovin, and put to the sword the governor, the
      soldiers, and the Magians. From St. Martin, vol x. p. 79—89.—M.]

      412 (return) [ Malathiah. It was in the lesser Armenia.—M.]

      5 (return) [ He had vanquished the Albanians, who brought into
      the field 12,000 horse and 60,000 foot; but he dreaded the
      multitude of venomous reptiles, whose existence may admit of some
      doubt, as well as that of the neighboring Amazons. Plutarch, in
      Pompeio, tom. ii. p. 1165, 1166.]

      6 (return) [ In the history of the world I can only perceive two
      navies on the Caspian: 1. Of the Macedonians, when Patrocles, the
      admiral of the kings of Syria, Seleucus and Antiochus, descended
      most probably the River Oxus, from the confines of India, (Plin.
      Hist. Natur. vi. 21.) 2. Of the Russians, when Peter the First
      conducted a fleet and army from the neighborhood of Moscow to the
      coast of Persia, (Bell’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 325—352.) He justly
      observes, that such martial pomp had never been displayed on the
      Volga.]

      611 (return) [ This circumstance rests on the statements of
      Evagrius and Theophylaci Simocatta. They are not of sufficient
      authority to establish a fact so improbable. St. Martin, vol. x.
      p. 140.—M.]

      7 (return) [ For these Persian wars and treaties, see Menander,
      in Excerpt. Legat. p. 113—125. Theophanes Byzant. apud Photium,
      cod. lxiv p. 77, 80, 81. Evagrius, l. v. c. 7—15. Theophylact, l.
      iii. c. 9—16 Agathias, l. iv. p. 140.]

      The throne of Chosroes Nushirvan was filled by Hormouz, or
      Hormisdas, the eldest or the most favored of his sons. With the
      kingdoms of Persia and India, he inherited the reputation and
      example of his father, the service, in every rank, of his wise
      and valiant officers, and a general system of administration,
      harmonized by time and political wisdom to promote the happiness
      of the prince and people. But the royal youth enjoyed a still
      more valuable blessing, the friendship of a sage who had presided
      over his education, and who always preferred the honor to the
      interest of his pupil, his interest to his inclination. In a
      dispute with the Greek and Indian philosophers, Buzurg 8 had once
      maintained, that the most grievous misfortune of life is old age
      without the remembrance of virtue; and our candor will presume
      that the same principle compelled him, during three years, to
      direct the councils of the Persian empire. His zeal was rewarded
      by the gratitude and docility of Hormouz, who acknowledged
      himself more indebted to his preceptor than to his parent: but
      when age and labor had impaired the strength, and perhaps the
      faculties, of this prudent counsellor, he retired from court, and
      abandoned the youthful monarch to his own passions and those of
      his favorites. By the fatal vicissitude of human affairs, the
      same scenes were renewed at Ctesiphon, which had been exhibited
      at Rome after the death of Marcus Antoninus. The ministers of
      flattery and corruption, who had been banished by his father,
      were recalled and cherished by the son; the disgrace and exile of
      the friends of Nushirvan established their tyranny; and virtue
      was driven by degrees from the mind of Hormouz, from his palace,
      and from the government of the state. The faithful agents, the
      eyes and ears of the king, informed him of the progress of
      disorder, that the provincial governors flew to their prey with
      the fierceness of lions and eagles, and that their rapine and
      injustice would teach the most loyal of his subjects to abhor the
      name and authority of their sovereign. The sincerity of this
      advice was punished with death; the murmurs of the cities were
      despised, their tumults were quelled by military execution: the
      intermediate powers between the throne and the people were
      abolished; and the childish vanity of Hormouz, who affected the
      daily use of the tiara, was fond of declaring, that he alone
      would be the judge as well as the master of his kingdom.

      In every word, and in every action, the son of Nushirvan
      degenerated from the virtues of his father. His avarice defrauded
      the troops; his jealous caprice degraded the satraps; the palace,
      the tribunals, the waters of the Tigris, were stained with the
      blood of the innocent, and the tyrant exulted in the sufferings
      and execution of thirteen thousand victims. As the excuse of his
      cruelty, he sometimes condescended to observe, that the fears of
      the Persians would be productive of hatred, and that their hatred
      must terminate in rebellion but he forgot that his own guilt and
      folly had inspired the sentiments which he deplored, and prepared
      the event which he so justly apprehended. Exasperated by long and
      hopeless oppression, the provinces of Babylon, Susa, and
      Carmania, erected the standard of revolt; and the princes of
      Arabia, India, and Scythia, refused the customary tribute to the
      unworthy successor of Nushirvan. The arms of the Romans, in slow
      sieges and frequent inroads, afflicted the frontiers of
      Mesopotamia and Assyria: one of their generals professed himself
      the disciple of Scipio; and the soldiers were animated by a
      miraculous image of Christ, whose mild aspect should never have
      been displayed in the front of battle. 9 At the same time, the
      eastern provinces of Persia were invaded by the great khan, who
      passed the Oxus at the head of three or four hundred thousand
      Turks. The imprudent Hormouz accepted their perfidious and
      formidable aid; the cities of Khorassan or Bactriana were
      commanded to open their gates the march of the Barbarians towards
      the mountains of Hyrcania revealed the correspondence of the
      Turkish and Roman arms; and their union must have subverted the
      throne of the house of Sassan.

      8 (return) [ Buzurg Mihir may be considered, in his character and
      station, as the Seneca of the East; but his virtues, and perhaps
      his faults, are less known than those of the Roman, who appears
      to have been much more loquacious. The Persian sage was the
      person who imported from India the game of chess and the fables
      of Pilpay. Such has been the fame of his wisdom and virtues, that
      the Christians claim him as a believer in the gospel; and the
      Mahometans revere Buzurg as a premature Mussulman. D’Herbelot,
      Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 218.]

      9 (return) [ See the imitation of Scipio in Theophylact, l. i. c.
      14; the image of Christ, l. ii. c. 3. Hereafter I shall speak
      more amply of the Christian images—I had almost said idols. This,
      if I am not mistaken, is the oldest of divine manufacture; but in
      the next thousand years, many others issued from the same
      workshop.]

      Persia had been lost by a king; it was saved by a hero. After his
      revolt, Varanes or Bahram is stigmatized by the son of Hormouz as
      an ungrateful slave; the proud and ambiguous reproach of
      despotism, since he was truly descended from the ancient princes
      of Rei, 10 one of the seven families whose splendid, as well as
      substantial, prerogatives exalted them above the heads of the
      Persian nobility. 11 At the siege of Dara, the valor of Bahram
      was signalized under the eyes of Nushirvan, and both the father
      and son successively promoted him to the command of armies, the
      government of Media, and the superintendence of the palace. The
      popular prediction which marked him as the deliverer of Persia,
      might be inspired by his past victories and extraordinary figure:
      the epithet Giubin 1111 is expressive of the quality of dry wood:
      he had the strength and stature of a giant; and his savage
      countenance was fancifully compared to that of a wild cat. While
      the nation trembled, while Hormouz disguised his terror by the
      name of suspicion, and his servants concealed their disloyalty
      under the mask of fear, Bahram alone displayed his undaunted
      courage and apparent fidelity: and as soon as he found that no
      more than twelve thousand soldiers would follow him against the
      enemy; he prudently declared, that to this fatal number Heaven
      had reserved the honors of the triumph. 1112 The steep and narrow
      descent of the Pule Rudbar, 12 or Hyrcanian rock, is the only
      pass through which an army can penetrate into the territory of
      Rei and the plains of Media. From the commanding heights, a band
      of resolute men might overwhelm with stones and darts the myriads
      of the Turkish host: their emperor and his son were transpierced
      with arrows; and the fugitives were left, without counsel or
      provisions, to the revenge of an injured people. The patriotism
      of the Persian general was stimulated by his affection for the
      city of his forefathers: in the hour of victory, every peasant
      became a soldier, and every soldier a hero; and their ardor was
      kindled by the gorgeous spectacle of beds, and thrones, and
      tables of massy gold, the spoils of Asia, and the luxury of the
      hostile camp. A prince of a less malignant temper could not
      easily have forgiven his benefactor; and the secret hatred of
      Hormouz was envenomed by a malicious report, that Bahram had
      privately retained the most precious fruits of his Turkish
      victory. But the approach of a Roman army on the side of the
      Araxes compelled the implacable tyrant to smile and to applaud;
      and the toils of Bahram were rewarded with the permission of
      encountering a new enemy, by their skill and discipline more
      formidable than a Scythian multitude. Elated by his recent
      success, he despatched a herald with a bold defiance to the camp
      of the Romans, requesting them to fix a day of battle, and to
      choose whether they would pass the river themselves, or allow a
      free passage to the arms of the great king. The lieutenant of the
      emperor Maurice preferred the safer alternative; and this local
      circumstance, which would have enhanced the victory of the
      Persians, rendered their defeat more bloody and their escape more
      difficult. But the loss of his subjects, and the danger of his
      kingdom, were overbalanced in the mind of Hormouz by the disgrace
      of his personal enemy; and no sooner had Bahram collected and
      reviewed his forces, than he received from a royal messenger the
      insulting gift of a distaff, a spinning-wheel, and a complete
      suit of female apparel. Obedient to the will of his sovereign he
      showed himself to the soldiers in this unworthy disguise they
      resented his ignominy and their own; a shout of rebellion ran
      through the ranks; and the general accepted their oath of
      fidelity and vows of revenge. A second messenger, who had been
      commanded to bring the rebel in chains, was trampled under the
      feet of an elephant, and manifestos were diligently circulated,
      exhorting the Persians to assert their freedom against an odious
      and contemptible tyrant. The defection was rapid and universal;
      his loyal slaves were sacrificed to the public fury; the troops
      deserted to the standard of Bahram; and the provinces again
      saluted the deliverer of his country.

      10 (return) [ Ragae, or Rei, is mentioned in the Apocryphal book
      of Tobit as already flourishing, 700 years before Christ, under
      the Assyrian empire. Under the foreign names of Europus and
      Arsacia, this city, 500 stadia to the south of the Caspian gates,
      was successively embellished by the Macedonians and Parthians,
      (Strabo, l. xi. p. 796.) Its grandeur and populousness in the
      ixth century are exaggerated beyond the bounds of credibility;
      but Rei has been since ruined by wars and the unwholesomeness of
      the air. Chardin, Voyage en Perse, tom. i. p. 279, 280.
      D’Herbelot, Biblioth. Oriental. p. 714.]

      11 (return) [ Theophylact. l. iii. c. 18. The story of the seven
      Persians is told in the third book of Herodotus; and their noble
      descendants are often mentioned, especially in the fragments of
      Ctesias. Yet the independence of Otanes (Herodot. l. iii. c. 83,
      84) is hostile to the spirit of despotism, and it may not seem
      probable that the seven families could survive the revolutions of
      eleven hundred years. They might, however, be represented by the
      seven ministers, (Brisson, de Regno Persico, l. i. p. 190;) and
      some Persian nobles, like the kings of Pontus (Polyb l. v. p.
      540) and Cappadocia, (Diodor. Sicul. l. xxxi. tom. ii. p. 517,)
      might claim their descent from the bold companions of Darius.]

      1111 (return) [ He is generally called Baharam Choubeen, Baharam,
      the stick-like, probably from his appearance. Malcolm, vol. i. p.
      120.—M.]

      1112 (return) [ The Persian historians say, that Hormouz
      entreated his general to increase his numbers; but Baharam
      replied, that experience had taught him that it was the quality,
      not the number of soldiers, which gave success. * * * No man in
      his army was under forty years, and none above fifty. Malcolm,
      vol. i. p. 121—M.]

      12 (return) [ See an accurate description of this mountain by
      Olearius, (Voyage en Perse, p. 997, 998,) who ascended it with
      much difficulty and danger in his return from Ispahan to the
      Caspian Sea.]

      As the passes were faithfully guarded, Hormouz could only compute
      the number of his enemies by the testimony of a guilty
      conscience, and the daily defection of those who, in the hour of
      his distress, avenged their wrongs, or forgot their obligations.
      He proudly displayed the ensigns of royalty; but the city and
      palace of Modain had already escaped from the hand of the tyrant.
      Among the victims of his cruelty, Bindoes, a Sassanian prince,
      had been cast into a dungeon; his fetters were broken by the zeal
      and courage of a brother; and he stood before the king at the
      head of those trusty guards, who had been chosen as the ministers
      of his confinement, and perhaps of his death. Alarmed by the
      hasty intrusion and bold reproaches of the captive, Hormouz
      looked round, but in vain, for advice or assistance; discovered
      that his strength consisted in the obedience of others; and
      patiently yielded to the single arm of Bindoes, who dragged him
      from the throne to the same dungeon in which he himself had been
      so lately confined. At the first tumult, Chosroes, the eldest of
      the sons of Hormouz, escaped from the city; he was persuaded to
      return by the pressing and friendly invitation of Bindoes, who
      promised to seat him on his father’s throne, and who expected to
      reign under the name of an inexperienced youth. In the just
      assurance, that his accomplices could neither forgive nor hope to
      be forgiven, and that every Persian might be trusted as the judge
      and enemy of the tyrant, he instituted a public trial without a
      precedent and without a copy in the annals of the East. The son
      of Nushirvan, who had requested to plead in his own defence, was
      introduced as a criminal into the full assembly of the nobles and
      satraps. 13 He was heard with decent attention as long as he
      expatiated on the advantages of order and obedience, the danger
      of innovation, and the inevitable discord of those who had
      encouraged each other to trample on their lawful and hereditary
      sovereign. By a pathetic appeal to their humanity, he extorted
      that pity which is seldom refused to the fallen fortunes of a
      king; and while they beheld the abject posture and squalid
      appearance of the prisoner, his tears, his chains, and the marks
      of ignominious stripes, it was impossible to forget how recently
      they had adored the divine splendor of his diadem and purple. But
      an angry murmur arose in the assembly as soon as he presumed to
      vindicate his conduct, and to applaud the victories of his reign.
      He defined the duties of a king, and the Persian nobles listened
      with a smile of contempt; they were fired with indignation when
      he dared to vilify the character of Chosroes; and by the
      indiscreet offer of resigning the sceptre to the second of his
      sons, he subscribed his own condemnation, and sacrificed the life
      of his own innocent favorite. The mangled bodies of the boy and
      his mother were exposed to the people; the eyes of Hormouz were
      pierced with a hot needle; and the punishment of the father was
      succeeded by the coronation of his eldest son. Chosroes had
      ascended the throne without guilt, and his piety strove to
      alleviate the misery of the abdicated monarch; from the dungeon
      he removed Hormouz to an apartment of the palace, supplied with
      liberality the consolations of sensual enjoyment, and patiently
      endured the furious sallies of his resentment and despair. He
      might despise the resentment of a blind and unpopular tyrant, but
      the tiara was trembling on his head, till he could subvert the
      power, or acquire the friendship, of the great Bahram, who
      sternly denied the justice of a revolution, in which himself and
      his soldiers, the true representatives of Persia, had never been
      consulted. The offer of a general amnesty, and of the second rank
      in his kingdom, was answered by an epistle from Bahram, friend of
      the gods, conqueror of men, and enemy of tyrants, the satrap of
      satraps, general of the Persian armies, and a prince adorned with
      the title of eleven virtues. 14 He commands Chosroes, the son of
      Hormouz, to shun the example and fate of his father, to confine
      the traitors who had been released from their chains, to deposit
      in some holy place the diadem which he had usurped, and to accept
      from his gracious benefactor the pardon of his faults and the
      government of a province. The rebel might not be proud, and the
      king most assuredly was not humble; but the one was conscious of
      his strength, the other was sensible of his weakness; and even
      the modest language of his reply still left room for treaty and
      reconciliation. Chosroes led into the field the slaves of the
      palace and the populace of the capital: they beheld with terror
      the banners of a veteran army; they were encompassed and
      surprised by the evolutions of the general; and the satraps who
      had deposed Hormouz, received the punishment of their revolt, or
      expiated their first treason by a second and more criminal act of
      disloyalty. The life and liberty of Chosroes were saved, but he
      was reduced to the necessity of imploring aid or refuge in some
      foreign land; and the implacable Bindoes, anxious to secure an
      unquestionable title, hastily returned to the palace, and ended,
      with a bowstring, the wretched existence of the son of Nushirvan.
      15

      13 (return) [ The Orientals suppose that Bahram convened this
      assembly and proclaimed Chosroes; but Theophylact is, in this
      instance, more distinct and credible. * Note: Yet Theophylact
      seems to have seized the opportunity to indulge his propensity
      for writing orations; and the orations read rather like those of
      a Grecian sophist than of an Eastern assembly.—M.]

      14 (return) [ See the words of Theophylact, l. iv. c. 7., &c. In
      answer, Chosroes styles himself in genuine Oriental bombast.]

      15 (return) [ Theophylact (l. iv. c. 7) imputes the death of
      Hormouz to his son, by whose command he was beaten to death with
      clubs. I have followed the milder account of Khondemir and
      Eutychius, and shall always be content with the slightest
      evidence to extenuate the crime of parricide. Note: Malcolm
      concurs in ascribing his death to Bundawee, (Bindoes,) vol. i. p.
      123. The Eastern writers generally impute the crime to the uncle
      St. Martin, vol. x. p. 300.—M.]

      While Chosroes despatched the preparations of his retreat, he
      deliberated with his remaining friends, 16 whether he should lurk
      in the valleys of Mount Caucasus, or fly to the tents of the
      Turks, or solicit the protection of the emperor. The long
      emulation of the successors of Artaxerxes and Constantine
      increased his reluctance to appear as a suppliant in a rival
      court; but he weighed the forces of the Romans, and prudently
      considered that the neighborhood of Syria would render his escape
      more easy and their succors more effectual. Attended only by his
      concubines, and a troop of thirty guards, he secretly departed
      from the capital, followed the banks of the Euphrates, traversed
      the desert, and halted at the distance of ten miles from
      Circesium. About the third watch of the night, the Roman praefect
      was informed of his approach, and he introduced the royal
      stranger to the fortress at the dawn of day. From thence the king
      of Persia was conducted to the more honorable residence of
      Hierapolis; and Maurice dissembled his pride, and displayed his
      benevolence, at the reception of the letters and ambassadors of
      the grandson of Nushirvan. They humbly represented the
      vicissitudes of fortune and the common interest of princes,
      exaggerated the ingratitude of Bahram, the agent of the evil
      principle, and urged, with specious argument, that it was for the
      advantage of the Romans themselves to support the two monarchies
      which balance the world, the two great luminaries by whose
      salutary influence it is vivified and adorned. The anxiety of
      Chosroes was soon relieved by the assurance, that the emperor had
      espoused the cause of justice and royalty; but Maurice prudently
      declined the expense and delay of his useless visit to
      Constantinople. In the name of his generous benefactor, a rich
      diadem was presented to the fugitive prince, with an inestimable
      gift of jewels and gold; a powerful army was assembled on the
      frontiers of Syria and Armenia, under the command of the valiant
      and faithful Narses, 17 and this general, of his own nation, and
      his own choice, was directed to pass the Tigris, and never to
      sheathe his sword till he had restored Chosroes to the throne of
      his ancestors. 1711 The enterprise, however splendid, was less
      arduous than it might appear. Persia had already repented of her
      fatal rashness, which betrayed the heir of the house of Sassan to
      the ambition of a rebellious subject: and the bold refusal of the
      Magi to consecrate his usurpation, compelled Bahram to assume the
      sceptre, regardless of the laws and prejudices of the nation. The
      palace was soon distracted with conspiracy, the city with tumult,
      the provinces with insurrection; and the cruel execution of the
      guilty and the suspected served to irritate rather than subdue
      the public discontent. No sooner did the grandson of Nushirvan
      display his own and the Roman banners beyond the Tigris, than he
      was joined, each day, by the increasing multitudes of the
      nobility and people; and as he advanced, he received from every
      side the grateful offerings of the keys of his cities and the
      heads of his enemies. As soon as Modain was freed from the
      presence of the usurper, the loyal inhabitants obeyed the first
      summons of Mebodes at the head of only two thousand horse, and
      Chosroes accepted the sacred and precious ornaments of the palace
      as the pledge of their truth and the presage of his approaching
      success. After the junction of the Imperial troops, which Bahram
      vainly struggled to prevent, the contest was decided by two
      battles on the banks of the Zab, and the confines of Media. The
      Romans, with the faithful subjects of Persia, amounted to sixty
      thousand, while the whole force of the usurper did not exceed
      forty thousand men: the two generals signalized their valor and
      ability; but the victory was finally determined by the prevalence
      of numbers and discipline. With the remnant of a broken army,
      Bahram fled towards the eastern provinces of the Oxus: the enmity
      of Persia reconciled him to the Turks; but his days were
      shortened by poison, perhaps the most incurable of poisons; the
      stings of remorse and despair, and the bitter remembrance of lost
      glory. Yet the modern Persians still commemorate the exploits of
      Bahram; and some excellent laws have prolonged the duration of
      his troubled and transitory reign.

      16 (return) [ After the battle of Pharsalia, the Pompey of Lucan
      (l. viii. 256—455) holds a similar debate. He was himself
      desirous of seeking the Parthians: but his companions abhorred
      the unnatural alliance and the adverse prejudices might operate
      as forcibly on Chosroes and his companions, who could describe,
      with the same vehemence, the contrast of laws, religion, and
      manners, between the East and West.]

      17 (return) [ In this age there were three warriors of the name
      of Narses, who have been often confounded, (Pagi, Critica, tom.
      ii. p. 640:) 1. A Persarmenian, the brother of Isaac and
      Armatius, who, after a successful action against Belisarius,
      deserted from his Persian sovereign, and afterwards served in the
      Italian war.—2. The eunuch who conquered Italy.—3. The restorer
      of Chosroes, who is celebrated in the poem of Corippus (l. iii.
      220—327) as excelsus super omnia vertico agmina.... habitu
      modestus.... morum probitate placens, virtute verendus;
      fulmineus, cautus, vigilans, &c.]

      1711 (return) [ The Armenians adhered to Chosroes. St. Martin,
      vol. x. p. 312.—M. ——According to Mivkhond and the Oriental
      writers, Bahram received the daughter of the Khakan in marriage,
      and commanded a body of Turks in an invasion of Persia. Some say
      that he was assassinated; Malcolm adopts the opinion that he was
      poisoned. His sister Gourdieh, the companion of his flight, is
      celebrated in the Shah Nameh. She was afterwards one of the wives
      of Chosroes. St. Martin. vol. x. p. 331.—M.]

      The restoration of Chosroes was celebrated with feasts and
      executions; and the music of the royal banquet was often
      disturbed by the groans of dying or mutilated criminals. A
      general pardon might have diffused comfort and tranquillity
      through a country which had been shaken by the late revolutions;
      yet, before the sanguinary temper of Chosroes is blamed, we
      should learn whether the Persians had not been accustomed either
      to dread the rigor, or to despise the weakness, of their
      sovereign. The revolt of Bahram, and the conspiracy of the
      satraps, were impartially punished by the revenge or justice of
      the conqueror; the merits of Bindoes himself could not purify his
      hand from the guilt of royal blood: and the son of Hormouz was
      desirous to assert his own innocence, and to vindicate the
      sanctity of kings. During the vigor of the Roman power, several
      princes were seated on the throne of Persia by the arms and the
      authority of the first Caesars. But their new subjects were soon
      disgusted with the vices or virtues which they had imbibed in a
      foreign land; the instability of their dominion gave birth to a
      vulgar observation, that the choice of Rome was solicited and
      rejected with equal ardor by the capricious levity of Oriental
      slaves. But the glory of Maurice was conspicuous in the long and
      fortunate reign of his son and his ally. A band of a thousand
      Romans, who continued to guard the person of Chosroes, proclaimed
      his confidence in the fidelity of the strangers; his growing
      strength enabled him to dismiss this unpopular aid, but he
      steadily professed the same gratitude and reverence to his
      adopted father; and till the death of Maurice, the peace and
      alliance of the two empires were faithfully maintained. 18 Yet
      the mercenary friendship of the Roman prince had been purchased
      with costly and important gifts; the strong cities of
      Martyropolis and Dara 1811 were restored, and the Persarmenians
      became the willing subjects of an empire, whose eastern limit was
      extended, beyond the example of former times, as far as the banks
      of the Araxes, and the neighborhood of the Caspian. A pious hope
      was indulged, that the church as well as the state might triumph
      in this revolution: but if Chosroes had sincerely listened to the
      Christian bishops, the impression was erased by the zeal and
      eloquence of the Magi: if he was armed with philosophic
      indifference, he accommodated his belief, or rather his
      professions, to the various circumstances of an exile and a
      sovereign. The imaginary conversion of the king of Persia was
      reduced to a local and superstitious veneration for Sergius, 19
      one of the saints of Antioch, who heard his prayers and appeared
      to him in dreams; he enriched the shrine with offerings of gold
      and silver, and ascribed to this invisible patron the success of
      his arms, and the pregnancy of Sira, a devout Christian and the
      best beloved of his wives. 20 The beauty of Sira, or Schirin, 21
      her wit, her musical talents, are still famous in the history, or
      rather in the romances, of the East: her own name is expressive,
      in the Persian tongue, of sweetness and grace; and the epithet of
      Parviz alludes to the charms of her royal lover. Yet Sira never
      shared the passions which she inspired, and the bliss of Chosroes
      was tortured by a jealous doubt, that while he possessed her
      person, she had bestowed her affections on a meaner favorite. 22

      18 (return) [ Experimentis cognitum est Barbaros malle Roma
      petere reges quam habere. These experiments are admirably
      represented in the invitation and expulsion of Vonones, (Annal.
      ii. 1—3,) Tiridates, (Annal. vi. 32-44,) and Meherdates, (Annal.
      xi. 10, xii. 10-14.) The eye of Tacitus seems to have
      transpierced the camp of the Parthians and the walls of the
      harem.]

      1811 (return) [ Concerning Nisibis, see St. Martin and his
      Armenian authorities, vol. x p. 332, and Memoires sur l’Armenie,
      tom. i. p. 25.—M.]

      19 (return) [ Sergius and his companion Bacchus, who are said to
      have suffered in the persecution of Maximian, obtained divine
      honor in France, Italy, Constantinople, and the East. Their tomb
      at Rasaphe was famous for miracles, and that Syrian town acquired
      the more honorable name of Sergiopolis. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles.
      tom. v. p. 481—496. Butler’s Saints, vol. x. p. 155.]

      20 (return) [ Evagrius (l. vi. c. 21) and Theophylact (l. v. c.
      13, 14) have preserved the original letters of Chosroes, written
      in Greek, signed with his own hand, and afterwards inscribed on
      crosses and tables of gold, which were deposited in the church of
      Sergiopolis. They had been sent to the bishop of Antioch, as
      primate of Syria. * Note: St. Martin thinks that they were first
      written in Syriac, and then translated into the bad Greek in
      which they appear, vol. x. p. 334.—M.]

      21 (return) [ The Greeks only describe her as a Roman by birth, a
      Christian by religion: but she is represented as the daughter of
      the emperor Maurice in the Persian and Turkish romances which
      celebrate the love of Khosrou for Schirin, of Schirin for Ferhad,
      the most beautiful youth of the East, D’Herbelot, Biblioth.
      Orient. p. 789, 997, 998. * Note: Compare M. von Hammer’s preface
      to, and poem of, Schirin in which he gives an account of the
      various Persian poems, of which he has endeavored to extract the
      essence in his own work.—M.]

      22 (return) [ The whole series of the tyranny of Hormouz, the
      revolt of Bahram, and the flight and restoration of Chosroes, is
      related by two contemporary Greeks—more concisely by Evagrius,
      (l. vi. c. 16, 17, 18, 19,) and most diffusely by Theophylact
      Simocatta, (l. iii. c. 6—18, l. iv. c. 1—16, l. v. c. 1-15:)
      succeeding compilers, Zonaras and Cedrenus, can only transcribe
      and abridge. The Christian Arabs, Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p.
      200—208) and Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 96—98) appear to have
      consulted some particular memoirs. The great Persian historians
      of the xvth century, Mirkhond and Khondemir, are only known to me
      by the imperfect extracts of Schikard, (Tarikh, p. 150—155,)
      Texeira, or rather Stevens, (Hist. of Persia, p. 182—186,) a
      Turkish Ms. translated by the Abbe Fourmount, (Hist. de
      l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. vii. p. 325—334,) and
      D’Herbelot, (aux mots Hormouz, p. 457—459. Bahram, p. 174.
      Khosrou Parviz, p. 996.) Were I perfectly satisfied of their
      authority, I could wish these Oriental materials had been more
      copious.]




      Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part II.

      While the majesty of the Roman name was revived in the East, the
      prospect of Europe is less pleasing and less glorious. By the
      departure of the Lombards, and the ruin of the Gepidae, the
      balance of power was destroyed on the Danube; and the Avars
      spread their permanent dominion from the foot of the Alps to the
      sea-coast of the Euxine. The reign of Baian is the brightest aera
      of their monarchy; their chagan, who occupied the rustic palace
      of Attila, appears to have imitated his character and policy; 23
      but as the same scenes were repeated in a smaller circle, a
      minute representation of the copy would be devoid of the
      greatness and novelty of the original. The pride of the second
      Justin, of Tiberius, and Maurice, was humbled by a proud
      Barbarian, more prompt to inflict, than exposed to suffer, the
      injuries of war; and as often as Asia was threatened by the
      Persian arms, Europe was oppressed by the dangerous inroads, or
      costly friendship, of the Avars. When the Roman envoys approached
      the presence of the chagan, they were commanded to wait at the
      door of his tent, till, at the end perhaps of ten or twelve days,
      he condescended to admit them. If the substance or the style of
      their message was offensive to his ear, he insulted, with real or
      affected fury, their own dignity, and that of their prince; their
      baggage was plundered, and their lives were only saved by the
      promise of a richer present and a more respectful address. But
      his sacred ambassadors enjoyed and abused an unbounded license in
      the midst of Constantinople: they urged, with importunate
      clamors, the increase of tribute, or the restitution of captives
      and deserters: and the majesty of the empire was almost equally
      degraded by a base compliance, or by the false and fearful
      excuses with which they eluded such insolent demands. The chagan
      had never seen an elephant; and his curiosity was excited by the
      strange, and perhaps fabulous, portrait of that wonderful animal.
      At his command, one of the largest elephants of the Imperial
      stables was equipped with stately caparisons, and conducted by a
      numerous train to the royal village in the plains of Hungary. He
      surveyed the enormous beast with surprise, with disgust, and
      possibly with terror; and smiled at the vain industry of the
      Romans, who, in search of such useless rarities, could explore
      the limits of the land and sea. He wished, at the expense of the
      emperor, to repose in a golden bed. The wealth of Constantinople,
      and the skilful diligence of her artists, were instantly devoted
      to the gratification of his caprice; but when the work was
      finished, he rejected with scorn a present so unworthy the
      majesty of a great king. 24 These were the casual sallies of his
      pride; but the avarice of the chagan was a more steady and
      tractable passion: a rich and regular supply of silk apparel,
      furniture, and plate, introduced the rudiments of art and luxury
      among the tents of the Scythians; their appetite was stimulated
      by the pepper and cinnamon of India; 25 the annual subsidy or
      tribute was raised from fourscore to one hundred and twenty
      thousand pieces of gold; and after each hostile interruption, the
      payment of the arrears, with exorbitant interest, was always made
      the first condition of the new treaty. In the language of a
      Barbarian, without guile, the prince of the Avars affected to
      complain of the insincerity of the Greeks; 26 yet he was not
      inferior to the most civilized nations in the refinement of
      dissimulation and perfidy. As the successor of the Lombards, the
      chagan asserted his claim to the important city of Sirmium, the
      ancient bulwark of the Illyrian provinces. 27 The plains of the
      Lower Hungary were covered with the Avar horse and a fleet of
      large boats was built in the Hercynian wood, to descend the
      Danube, and to transport into the Save the materials of a bridge.
      But as the strong garrison of Singidunum, which commanded the
      conflux of the two rivers, might have stopped their passage and
      baffled his designs, he dispelled their apprehensions by a solemn
      oath that his views were not hostile to the empire. He swore by
      his sword, the symbol of the god of war, that he did not, as the
      enemy of Rome, construct a bridge upon the Save. “If I violate my
      oath,” pursued the intrepid Baian, “may I myself, and the last of
      my nation, perish by the sword! May the heavens, and fire, the
      deity of the heavens, fall upon our heads! May the forests and
      mountains bury us in their ruins! and the Save returning, against
      the laws of nature, to his source, overwhelm us in his angry
      waters!” After this barbarous imprecation, he calmly inquired,
      what oath was most sacred and venerable among the Christians,
      what guilt or perjury it was most dangerous to incur. The bishop
      of Singidunum presented the gospel, which the chagan received
      with devout reverence. “I swear,” said he, “by the God who has
      spoken in this holy book, that I have neither falsehood on my
      tongue, nor treachery in my heart.” As soon as he rose from his
      knees, he accelerated the labor of the bridge, and despatched an
      envoy to proclaim what he no longer wished to conceal. “Inform
      the emperor,” said the perfidious Baian, “that Sirmium is
      invested on every side. Advise his prudence to withdraw the
      citizens and their effects, and to resign a city which it is now
      impossible to relieve or defend.” Without the hope of relief, the
      defence of Sirmium was prolonged above three years: the walls
      were still untouched; but famine was enclosed within the walls,
      till a merciful capitulation allowed the escape of the naked and
      hungry inhabitants. Singidunum, at the distance of fifty miles,
      experienced a more cruel fate: the buildings were razed, and the
      vanquished people was condemned to servitude and exile. Yet the
      ruins of Sirmium are no longer visible; the advantageous
      situation of Singidunum soon attracted a new colony of
      Sclavonians, and the conflux of the Save and Danube is still
      guarded by the fortifications of Belgrade, or the White City, so
      often and so obstinately disputed by the Christian and Turkish
      arms. 28 From Belgrade to the walls of Constantinople a line may
      be measured of six hundred miles: that line was marked with
      flames and with blood; the horses of the Avars were alternately
      bathed in the Euxine and the Adriatic; and the Roman pontiff,
      alarmed by the approach of a more savage enemy, 29 was reduced to
      cherish the Lombards, as the protectors of Italy. The despair of
      a captive, whom his country refused to ransom, disclosed to the
      Avars the invention and practice of military engines. 30 But in
      the first attempts they were rudely framed, and awkwardly
      managed; and the resistance of Diocletianopolis and Beraea, of
      Philippopolis and Adrianople, soon exhausted the skill and
      patience of the besiegers. The warfare of Baian was that of a
      Tartar; yet his mind was susceptible of a humane and generous
      sentiment: he spared Anchialus, whose salutary waters had
      restored the health of the best beloved of his wives; and the
      Romans confessed, that their starving army was fed and dismissed
      by the liberality of a foe. His empire extended over Hungary,
      Poland, and Prussia, from the mouth of the Danube to that of the
      Oder; 31 and his new subjects were divided and transplanted by
      the jealous policy of the conqueror. 32 The eastern regions of
      Germany, which had been left vacant by the emigration of the
      Vandals, were replenished with Sclavonian colonists; the same
      tribes are discovered in the neighborhood of the Adriatic and of
      the Baltic, and with the name of Baian himself, the Illyrian
      cities of Neyss and Lissa are again found in the heart of
      Silesia. In the disposition both of his troops and provinces the
      chagan exposed the vassals, whose lives he disregarded, 33 to the
      first assault; and the swords of the enemy were blunted before
      they encountered the native valor of the Avars.

      23 (return) [ A general idea of the pride and power of the chagan
      may be taken from Menander (Excerpt. Legat. p. 118, &c.) and
      Theophylact, (l. i. c. 3, l. vii. c. 15,) whose eight books are
      much more honorable to the Avar than to the Roman prince. The
      predecessors of Baian had tasted the liberality of Rome, and he
      survived the reign of Maurice, (Buat, Hist. des Peuples Barbares,
      tom. xi. p. 545.) The chagan who invaded Italy, A.D. 611,
      (Muratori, Annali, tom. v. p. 305,) was then invenili aetate
      florentem, (Paul Warnefrid, de Gest. Langobard. l v c 38,) the
      son, perhaps, or the grandson, of Baian.]

      24 (return) [ Theophylact, l. i. c. 5, 6.]

      25 (return) [ Even in the field, the chagan delighted in the use
      of these aromatics. He solicited, as a gift, and received.
      Theophylact, l. vii. c. 13. The Europeans of the ruder ages
      consumed more spices in their meat and drink than is compatible
      with the delicacy of a modern palate. Vie Privee des Francois,
      tom. ii. p. 162, 163.]

      26 (return) [ Theophylact, l. vi. c. 6, l. vii. c. 15. The Greek
      historian confesses the truth and justice of his reproach]

      27 (return) [ Menander (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 126—132, 174, 175)
      describes the perjury of Baian and the surrender of Sirmium. We
      have lost his account of the siege, which is commended by
      Theophylact, l. i. c. 3. * Note: Compare throughout Schlozer
      Nordische Geschichte, p. 362—373—M.]

      28 (return) [ See D’Anville, in the Memoires de l’Acad. des
      Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 412—443. The Sclavonic name of
      Belgrade is mentioned in the xth century by Constantine
      Porphyrogenitus: the Latin appellation of Alba Croeca is used by
      the Franks in the beginning of the ixth, (p. 414.)]

      29 (return) [ Baron. Annal. Eccles. A. B. 600, No. 1. Paul
      Warnefrid (l. iv. c. 38) relates their irruption into Friuli, and
      (c. 39) the captivity of his ancestors, about A.D. 632. The
      Sclavi traversed the Adriatic cum multitudine navium, and made a
      descent in the territory of Sipontum, (c. 47.)]

      30 (return) [ Even the helepolis, or movable turret. Theophylact,
      l. ii. 16, 17.]

      31 (return) [ The arms and alliances of the chagan reached to the
      neighborhood of a western sea, fifteen months’ journey from
      Constantinople. The emperor Maurice conversed with some itinerant
      harpers from that remote country, and only seems to have mistaken
      a trade for a nation Theophylact, l. vi. c. 2.]

      32 (return) [ This is one of the most probable and luminous
      conjectures of the learned count de Buat, (Hist. des Peuples
      Barbares, tom. xi. p. 546—568.) The Tzechi and Serbi are found
      together near Mount Caucasus, in Illyricum, and on the lower
      Elbe. Even the wildest traditions of the Bohemians, &c., afford
      some color to his hypothesis.]

      33 (return) [ See Fredegarius, in the Historians of France, tom.
      ii. p. 432. Baian did not conceal his proud insensibility.]

      The Persian alliance restored the troops of the East to the
      defence of Europe: and Maurice, who had supported ten years the
      insolence of the chagan, declared his resolution to march in
      person against the Barbarians. In the space of two centuries,
      none of the successors of Theodosius had appeared in the field:
      their lives were supinely spent in the palace of Constantinople;
      and the Greeks could no longer understand, that the name of
      emperor, in its primitive sense, denoted the chief of the armies
      of the republic. The martial ardor of Maurice was opposed by the
      grave flattery of the senate, the timid superstition of the
      patriarch, and the tears of the empress Constantina; and they all
      conjured him to devolve on some meaner general the fatigues and
      perils of a Scythian campaign. Deaf to their advice and entreaty,
      the emperor boldly advanced 34 seven miles from the capital; the
      sacred ensign of the cross was displayed in the front; and
      Maurice reviewed, with conscious pride, the arms and numbers of
      the veterans who had fought and conquered beyond the Tigris.
      Anchialus was the last term of his progress by sea and land; he
      solicited, without success, a miraculous answer to his nocturnal
      prayers; his mind was confounded by the death of a favorite
      horse, the encounter of a wild boar, a storm of wind and rain,
      and the birth of a monstrous child; and he forgot that the best
      of omens is to unsheathe our sword in the defence of our country.
      35 Under the pretence of receiving the ambassadors of Persia, the
      emperor returned to Constantinople, exchanged the thoughts of war
      for those of devotion, and disappointed the public hope by his
      absence and the choice of his lieutenants. The blind partiality
      of fraternal love might excuse the promotion of his brother
      Peter, who fled with equal disgrace from the Barbarians, from his
      own soldiers and from the inhabitants of a Roman city. That city,
      if we may credit the resemblance of name and character, was the
      famous Azimuntium, 36 which had alone repelled the tempest of
      Attila. The example of her warlike youth was propagated to
      succeeding generations; and they obtained, from the first or the
      second Justin, an honorable privilege, that their valor should be
      always reserved for the defence of their native country. The
      brother of Maurice attempted to violate this privilege, and to
      mingle a patriot band with the mercenaries of his camp; they
      retired to the church, he was not awed by the sanctity of the
      place; the people rose in their cause, the gates were shut, the
      ramparts were manned; and the cowardice of Peter was found equal
      to his arrogance and injustice. The military fame of Commentiolus
      37 is the object of satire or comedy rather than of serious
      history, since he was even deficient in the vile and vulgar
      qualification of personal courage. His solemn councils, strange
      evolutions, and secret orders, always supplied an apology for
      flight or delay. If he marched against the enemy, the pleasant
      valleys of Mount Haemus opposed an insuperable barrier; but in
      his retreat, he explored, with fearless curiosity, the most
      difficult and obsolete paths, which had almost escaped the memory
      of the oldest native. The only blood which he lost was drawn, in
      a real or affected malady, by the lancet of a surgeon; and his
      health, which felt with exquisite sensibility the approach of the
      Barbarians, was uniformly restored by the repose and safety of
      the winter season. A prince who could promote and support this
      unworthy favorite must derive no glory from the accidental merit
      of his colleague Priscus. 38 In five successive battles, which
      seem to have been conducted with skill and resolution, seventeen
      thousand two hundred Barbarians were made prisoners: near sixty
      thousand, with four sons of the chagan, were slain: the Roman
      general surprised a peaceful district of the Gepidae, who slept
      under the protection of the Avars; and his last trophies were
      erected on the banks of the Danube and the Teyss. Since the death
      of Trajan the arms of the empire had not penetrated so deeply
      into the old Dacia: yet the success of Priscus was transient and
      barren; and he was soon recalled by the apprehension that Baian,
      with dauntless spirit and recruited forces, was preparing to
      avenge his defeat under the walls of Constantinople. 39

      34 (return) [ See the march and return of Maurice, in
      Theophylact, l. v. c. 16 l. vi. c. 1, 2, 3. If he were a writer
      of taste or genius, we might suspect him of an elegant irony: but
      Theophylact is surely harmless.]

      35 (return) [ Iliad, xii. 243. This noble verse, which unites the
      spirit of a hero with the reason of a sage, may prove that Homer
      was in every light superior to his age and country.]

      36 (return) [ Theophylact, l. vii. c. 3. On the evidence of this
      fact, which had not occurred to my memory, the candid reader will
      correct and excuse a note in Chapter XXXIV., note 86 of this
      History, which hastens the decay of Asimus, or Azimuntium;
      another century of patriotism and valor is cheaply purchased by
      such a confession.]

      37 (return) [ See the shameful conduct of Commentiolus, in
      Theophylact, l. ii. c. 10—15, l. vii. c. 13, 14, l. viii. c. 2,
      4.]

      38 (return) [ See the exploits of Priscus, l. viii. c. 23.]

      39 (return) [ The general detail of the war against the Avars may
      be traced in the first, second, sixth, seventh, and eighth books
      of the history of the emperor Maurice, by Theophylact Simocatta.
      As he wrote in the reign of Heraclius, he had no temptation to
      flatter; but his want of judgment renders him diffuse in trifles,
      and concise in the most interesting facts.]

      The theory of war was not more familiar to the camps of Caesar
      and Trajan, than to those of Justinian and Maurice. 40 The iron
      of Tuscany or Pontus still received the keenest temper from the
      skill of the Byzantine workmen. The magazines were plentifully
      stored with every species of offensive and defensive arms. In the
      construction and use of ships, engines, and fortifications, the
      Barbarians admired the superior ingenuity of a people whom they
      had so often vanquished in the field. The science of tactics, the
      order, evolutions, and stratagems of antiquity, was transcribed
      and studied in the books of the Greeks and Romans. But the
      solitude or degeneracy of the provinces could no longer supply a
      race of men to handle those weapons, to guard those walls, to
      navigate those ships, and to reduce the theory of war into bold
      and successful practice. The genius of Belisarius and Narses had
      been formed without a master, and expired without a disciple.
      Neither honor, nor patriotism, nor generous superstition, could
      animate the lifeless bodies of slaves and strangers, who had
      succeeded to the honors of the legions: it was in the camp alone
      that the emperor should have exercised a despotic command; it was
      only in the camps that his authority was disobeyed and insulted:
      he appeased and inflamed with gold the licentiousness of the
      troops; but their vices were inherent, their victories were
      accidental, and their costly maintenance exhausted the substance
      of a state which they were unable to defend. After a long and
      pernicious indulgence, the cure of this inveterate evil was
      undertaken by Maurice; but the rash attempt, which drew
      destruction on his own head, tended only to aggravate the
      disease. A reformer should be exempt from the suspicion of
      interest, and he must possess the confidence and esteem of those
      whom he proposes to reclaim. The troops of Maurice might listen
      to the voice of a victorious leader; they disdained the
      admonitions of statesmen and sophists; and, when they received an
      edict which deducted from their pay the price of their arms and
      clothing, they execrated the avarice of a prince insensible of
      the dangers and fatigues from which he had escaped.

      The camps both of Asia and Europe were agitated with frequent and
      furious seditions; 41 the enraged soldiers of Edessa pursued with
      reproaches, with threats, with wounds, their trembling generals;
      they overturned the statues of the emperor, cast stones against
      the miraculous image of Christ, and either rejected the yoke of
      all civil and military laws, or instituted a dangerous model of
      voluntary subordination. The monarch, always distant and often
      deceived, was incapable of yielding or persisting, according to
      the exigence of the moment. But the fear of a general revolt
      induced him too readily to accept any act of valor, or any
      expression of loyalty, as an atonement for the popular offence;
      the new reform was abolished as hastily as it had been announced,
      and the troops, instead of punishment and restraint, were
      agreeably surprised by a gracious proclamation of immunities and
      rewards. But the soldiers accepted without gratitude the tardy
      and reluctant gifts of the emperor: their insolence was elated by
      the discovery of his weakness and their own strength; and their
      mutual hatred was inflamed beyond the desire of forgiveness or
      the hope of reconciliation. The historians of the times adopt the
      vulgar suspicion, that Maurice conspired to destroy the troops
      whom he had labored to reform; the misconduct and favor of
      Commentiolus are imputed to this malevolent design; and every age
      must condemn the inhumanity of avarice 42 of a prince, who, by
      the trifling ransom of six thousand pieces of gold, might have
      prevented the massacre of twelve thousand prisoners in the hands
      of the chagan. In the just fervor of indignation, an order was
      signified to the army of the Danube, that they should spare the
      magazines of the province, and establish their winter quarters in
      the hostile country of the Avars. The measure of their grievances
      was full: they pronounced Maurice unworthy to reign, expelled or
      slaughtered his faithful adherents, and, under the command of
      Phocas, a simple centurion, returned by hasty marches to the
      neighborhood of Constantinople. After a long series of legal
      succession, the military disorders of the third century were
      again revived; yet such was the novelty of the enterprise, that
      the insurgents were awed by their own rashness. They hesitated to
      invest their favorite with the vacant purple; and, while they
      rejected all treaty with Maurice himself, they held a friendly
      correspondence with his son Theodosius, and with Germanus, the
      father-in-law of the royal youth. So obscure had been the former
      condition of Phocas, that the emperor was ignorant of the name
      and character of his rival; but as soon as he learned, that the
      centurion, though bold in sedition, was timid in the face of
      danger, “Alas!” cried the desponding prince, “if he is a coward,
      he will surely be a murderer.”

      40 (return) [ Maurice himself composed xii books on the military
      art, which are still extant, and have been published (Upsal,
      1664) by John Schaeffer, at the end of the Tactics of Arrian,
      (Fabricius, Bibliot Graeca, l. iv. c. 8, tom. iii. p. 278,) who
      promises to speak more fully of his work in its proper place.]

      41 (return) [ See the mutinies under the reign of Maurice, in
      Theophylact l iii c. 1—4,.vi. c. 7, 8, 10, l. vii. c. 1 l. viii.
      c. 6, &c.]

      42 (return) [ Theophylact and Theophanes seem ignorant of the
      conspiracy and avarice of Maurice. These charges, so unfavorable
      to the memory of that emperor, are first mentioned by the author
      of the Paschal Chronicle, (p. 379, 280;) from whence Zonaras
      (tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 77, 78) has transcribed them. Cedrenus (p.
      399) has followed another computation of the ransom.]

      Yet if Constantinople had been firm and faithful, the murderer
      might have spent his fury against the walls; and the rebel army
      would have been gradually consumed or reconciled by the prudence
      of the emperor. In the games of the Circus, which he repeated
      with unusual pomp, Maurice disguised, with smiles of confidence,
      the anxiety of his heart, condescended to solicit the applause of
      the factions, and flattered their pride by accepting from their
      respective tribunes a list of nine hundred blues and fifteen
      hundred greens, whom he affected to esteem as the solid pillars
      of his throne Their treacherous or languid support betrayed his
      weakness and hastened his fall: the green faction were the secret
      accomplices of the rebels, and the blues recommended lenity and
      moderation in a contest with their Roman brethren The rigid and
      parsimonious virtues of Maurice had long since alienated the
      hearts of his subjects: as he walked barefoot in a religious
      procession, he was rudely assaulted with stones, and his guards
      were compelled to present their iron maces in the defence of his
      person. A fanatic monk ran through the streets with a drawn
      sword, denouncing against him the wrath and the sentence of God;
      and a vile plebeian, who represented his countenance and apparel,
      was seated on an ass, and pursued by the imprecations of the
      multitude. 43 The emperor suspected the popularity of Germanus
      with the soldiers and citizens: he feared, he threatened, but he
      delayed to strike; the patrician fled to the sanctuary of the
      church; the people rose in his defence, the walls were deserted
      by the guards, and the lawless city was abandoned to the flames
      and rapine of a nocturnal tumult. In a small bark, the
      unfortunate Maurice, with his wife and nine children, escaped to
      the Asiatic shore; but the violence of the wind compelled him to
      land at the church of St. Autonomus, 44 near Chalcedon, from
      whence he despatched Theodosius, he eldest son, to implore the
      gratitude and friendship of the Persian monarch. For himself, he
      refused to fly: his body was tortured with sciatic pains, 45 his
      mind was enfeebled by superstition; he patiently awaited the
      event of the revolution, and addressed a fervent and public
      prayer to the Almighty, that the punishment of his sins might be
      inflicted in this world rather than in a future life. After the
      abdication of Maurice, the two factions disputed the choice of an
      emperor; but the favorite of the blues was rejected by the
      jealousy of their antagonists, and Germanus himself was hurried
      along by the crowds who rushed to the palace of Hebdomon, seven
      miles from the city, to adore the majesty of Phocas the
      centurion. A modest wish of resigning the purple to the rank and
      merit of Germanus was opposed by his resolution, more obstinate
      and equally sincere; the senate and clergy obeyed his summons;
      and, as soon as the patriarch was assured of his orthodox belief,
      he consecrated the successful usurper in the church of St. John
      the Baptist. On the third day, amidst the acclamations of a
      thoughtless people, Phocas made his public entry in a chariot
      drawn by four white horses: the revolt of the troops was rewarded
      by a lavish donative; and the new sovereign, after visiting the
      palace, beheld from his throne the games of the hippodrome. In a
      dispute of precedency between the two factions, his partial
      judgment inclined in favor of the greens. “Remember that Maurice
      is still alive,” resounded from the opposite side; and the
      indiscreet clamor of the blues admonished and stimulated the
      cruelty of the tyrant. The ministers of death were despatched to
      Chalcedon: they dragged the emperor from his sanctuary; and the
      five sons of Maurice were successively murdered before the eyes
      of their agonizing parent. At each stroke, which he felt in his
      heart, he found strength to rehearse a pious ejaculation: “Thou
      art just, O Lord! and thy judgments are righteous.” And such, in
      the last moments, was his rigid attachment to truth and justice,
      that he revealed to the soldiers the pious falsehood of a nurse
      who presented her own child in the place of a royal infant. 46
      The tragic scene was finally closed by the execution of the
      emperor himself, in the twentieth year of his reign, and the
      sixty-third of his age. The bodies of the father and his five
      sons were cast into the sea; their heads were exposed at
      Constantinople to the insults or pity of the multitude; and it
      was not till some signs of putrefaction had appeared, that Phocas
      connived at the private burial of these venerable remains. In
      that grave, the faults and errors of Maurice were kindly
      interred. His fate alone was remembered; and at the end of twenty
      years, in the recital of the history of Theophylact, the mournful
      tale was interrupted by the tears of the audience. 47

      43 (return) [ In their clamors against Maurice, the people of
      Constantinople branded him with the name of Marcionite or
      Marcionist; a heresy (says Theophylact, l. viii. c. 9). Did they
      only cast out a vague reproach—or had the emperor really listened
      to some obscure teacher of those ancient Gnostics?]

      44 (return) [ The church of St. Autonomous (whom I have not the
      honor to know) was 150 stadia from Constantinople, (Theophylact,
      l. viii. c. 9.) The port of Eutropius, where Maurice and his
      children were murdered, is described by Gyllius (de Bosphoro
      Thracio, l. iii. c. xi.) as one of the two harbors of Chalcedon.]

      45 (return) [ The inhabitants of Constantinople were generally
      subject; and Theophylact insinuates, (l. viii. c. 9,) that if it
      were consistent with the rules of history, he could assign the
      medical cause. Yet such a digression would not have been more
      impertinent than his inquiry (l. vii. c. 16, 17) into the annual
      inundations of the Nile, and all the opinions of the Greek
      philosophers on that subject.]

      46 (return) [ From this generous attempt, Corneille has deduced
      the intricate web of his tragedy of Heraclius, which requires
      more than one representation to be clearly understood, (Corneille
      de Voltaire, tom. v. p. 300;) and which, after an interval of
      some years, is said to have puzzled the author himself,
      (Anecdotes Dramatiques, tom. i. p. 422.)]

      47 (return) [ The revolt of Phocas and death of Maurice are told
      by Theophylact Simocatta, (l. viii. c. 7—12,) the Paschal
      Chronicle, (p. 379, 380,) Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 238-244,)
      Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 77—80,) and Cedrenus, (p.
      399—404.)]

      Such tears must have flowed in secret, and such compassion would
      have been criminal, under the reign of Phocas, who was peaceably
      acknowledged in the provinces of the East and West. The images of
      the emperor and his wife Leontia were exposed in the Lateran to
      the veneration of the clergy and senate of Rome, and afterwards
      deposited in the palace of the Caesars, between those of
      Constantine and Theodosius. As a subject and a Christian, it was
      the duty of Gregory to acquiesce in the established government;
      but the joyful applause with which he salutes the fortune of the
      assassin, has sullied, with indelible disgrace, the character of
      the saint. The successor of the apostles might have inculcated
      with decent firmness the guilt of blood, and the necessity of
      repentance; he is content to celebrate the deliverance of the
      people and the fall of the oppressor; to rejoice that the piety
      and benignity of Phocas have been raised by Providence to the
      Imperial throne; to pray that his hands may be strengthened
      against all his enemies; and to express a wish, perhaps a
      prophecy, that, after a long and triumphant reign, he may be
      transferred from a temporal to an everlasting kingdom. 48 I have
      already traced the steps of a revolution so pleasing, in
      Gregory’s opinion, both to heaven and earth; and Phocas does not
      appear less hateful in the exercise than in the acquisition of
      power. The pencil of an impartial historian has delineated the
      portrait of a monster: 49 his diminutive and deformed person, the
      closeness of his shaggy eyebrows, his red hair, his beardless
      chin, and his cheek disfigured and discolored by a formidable
      scar. Ignorant of letters, of laws, and even of arms, he indulged
      in the supreme rank a more ample privilege of lust and
      drunkenness; and his brutal pleasures were either injurious to
      his subjects or disgraceful to himself. Without assuming the
      office of a prince, he renounced the profession of a soldier; and
      the reign of Phocas afflicted Europe with ignominious peace, and
      Asia with desolating war. His savage temper was inflamed by
      passion, hardened by fear, and exasperated by resistance or
      reproach. The flight of Theodosius to the Persian court had been
      intercepted by a rapid pursuit, or a deceitful message: he was
      beheaded at Nice, and the last hours of the young prince were
      soothed by the comforts of religion and the consciousness of
      innocence. Yet his phantom disturbed the repose of the usurper: a
      whisper was circulated through the East, that the son of Maurice
      was still alive: the people expected their avenger, and the widow
      and daughters of the late emperor would have adopted as their son
      and brother the vilest of mankind. In the massacre of the
      Imperial family, 50 the mercy, or rather the discretion, of
      Phocas had spared these unhappy females, and they were decently
      confined to a private house. But the spirit of the empress
      Constantina, still mindful of her father, her husband, and her
      sons, aspired to freedom and revenge. At the dead of night, she
      escaped to the sanctuary of St. Sophia; but her tears, and the
      gold of her associate Germanus, were insufficient to provoke an
      insurrection. Her life was forfeited to revenge, and even to
      justice: but the patriarch obtained and pledged an oath for her
      safety: a monastery was allotted for her prison, and the widow of
      Maurice accepted and abused the lenity of his assassin. The
      discovery or the suspicion of a second conspiracy, dissolved the
      engagements, and rekindled the fury, of Phocas. A matron who
      commanded the respect and pity of mankind, the daughter, wife,
      and mother of emperors, was tortured like the vilest malefactor,
      to force a confession of her designs and associates; and the
      empress Constantina, with her three innocent daughters, was
      beheaded at Chalcedon, on the same ground which had been stained
      with the blood of her husband and five sons. After such an
      example, it would be superfluous to enumerate the names and
      sufferings of meaner victims. Their condemnation was seldom
      preceded by the forms of trial, and their punishment was
      embittered by the refinements of cruelty: their eyes were
      pierced, their tongues were torn from the root, the hands and
      feet were amputated; some expired under the lash, others in the
      flames; others again were transfixed with arrows; and a simple
      speedy death was mercy which they could rarely obtain. The
      hippodrome, the sacred asylum of the pleasures and the liberty of
      the Romans, was polluted with heads and limbs, and mangled
      bodies; and the companions of Phocas were the most sensible, that
      neither his favor, nor their services, could protect them from a
      tyrant, the worthy rival of the Caligulas and Domitians of the
      first age of the empire. 51

      48 (return) [ Gregor. l. xi. epist. 38, indict. vi. Benignitatem
      vestrae pietatis ad Imperiale fastigium pervenisse gaudemus.
      Laetentur coeli et exultet terra, et de vestris benignis actibus
      universae republicae populus nunc usque vehementer afflictus
      hilarescat, &c. This base flattery, the topic of Protestant
      invective, is justly censured by the philosopher Bayle,
      (Dictionnaire Critique, Gregoire I. Not. H. tom. ii. p. 597 598.)
      Cardinal Baronius justifies the pope at the expense of the fallen
      emperor.]

      49 (return) [ The images of Phocas were destroyed; but even the
      malice of his enemies would suffer one copy of such a portrait or
      caricature (Cedrenus, p. 404) to escape the flames.]

      50 (return) [ The family of Maurice is represented by Ducange,
      (Familiae By zantinae, p. 106, 107, 108;) his eldest son
      Theodosius had been crowned emperor, when he was no more than
      four years and a half old, and he is always joined with his
      father in the salutations of Gregory. With the Christian
      daughters, Anastasia and Theocteste, I am surprised to find the
      Pagan name of Cleopatra.]

      51 (return) [ Some of the cruelties of Phocas are marked by
      Theophylact, l. viii. c. 13, 14, 15. George of Pisidia, the poet
      of Heraclius, styles him (Bell. Avaricum, p. 46, Rome, 1777). The
      latter epithet is just—but the corrupter of life was easily
      vanquished.]




      Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part III.

      A daughter of Phocas, his only child, was given in marriage to
      the patrician Crispus, 52 and the royal images of the bride and
      bridegroom were indiscreetly placed in the circus, by the side of
      the emperor. The father must desire that his posterity should
      inherit the fruit of his crimes, but the monarch was offended by
      this premature and popular association: the tribunes of the green
      faction, who accused the officious error of their sculptors, were
      condemned to instant death: their lives were granted to the
      prayers of the people; but Crispus might reasonably doubt,
      whether a jealous usurper could forget and pardon his involuntary
      competition. The green faction was alienated by the ingratitude
      of Phocas and the loss of their privileges; every province of the
      empire was ripe for rebellion; and Heraclius, exarch of Africa,
      persisted above two years in refusing all tribute and obedience
      to the centurion who disgraced the throne of Constantinople. By
      the secret emissaries of Crispus and the senate, the independent
      exarch was solicited to save and to govern his country; but his
      ambition was chilled by age, and he resigned the dangerous
      enterprise to his son Heraclius, and to Nicetas, the son of
      Gregory, his friend and lieutenant. The powers of Africa were
      armed by the two adventurous youths; they agreed that the one
      should navigate the fleet from Carthage to Constantinople, that
      the other should lead an army through Egypt and Asia, and that
      the Imperial purple should be the reward of diligence and
      success. A faint rumor of their undertaking was conveyed to the
      ears of Phocas, and the wife and mother of the younger Heraclius
      were secured as the hostages of his faith: but the treacherous
      heart of Crispus extenuated the distant peril, the means of
      defence were neglected or delayed, and the tyrant supinely slept
      till the African navy cast anchor in the Hellespont. Their
      standard was joined at Abidus by the fugitives and exiles who
      thirsted for revenge; the ships of Heraclius, whose lofty masts
      were adorned with the holy symbols of religion, 53 steered their
      triumphant course through the Propontis; and Phocas beheld from
      the windows of the palace his approaching and inevitable fate.
      The green faction was tempted, by gifts and promises, to oppose a
      feeble and fruitless resistance to the landing of the Africans:
      but the people, and even the guards, were determined by the
      well-timed defection of Crispus; and the tyrant was seized by a
      private enemy, who boldly invaded the solitude of the palace.
      Stripped of the diadem and purple, clothed in a vile habit, and
      loaded with chains, he was transported in a small boat to the
      Imperial galley of Heraclius, who reproached him with the crimes
      of his abominable reign. “Wilt thou govern better?” were the last
      words of the despair of Phocas. After suffering each variety of
      insult and torture, his head was severed from his body, the
      mangled trunk was cast into the flames, and the same treatment
      was inflicted on the statues of the vain usurper, and the
      seditious banner of the green faction. The voice of the clergy,
      the senate, and the people, invited Heraclius to ascend the
      throne which he had purified from guilt and ignominy; after some
      graceful hesitation, he yielded to their entreaties. His
      coronation was accompanied by that of his wife Eudoxia; and their
      posterity, till the fourth generation, continued to reign over
      the empire of the East. The voyage of Heraclius had been easy and
      prosperous; the tedious march of Nicetas was not accomplished
      before the decision of the contest: but he submitted without a
      murmur to the fortune of his friend, and his laudable intentions
      were rewarded with an equestrian statue, and a daughter of the
      emperor. It was more difficult to trust the fidelity of Crispus,
      whose recent services were recompensed by the command of the
      Cappadocian army. His arrogance soon provoked, and seemed to
      excuse, the ingratitude of his new sovereign. In the presence of
      the senate, the son-in-law of Phocas was condemned to embrace the
      monastic life; and the sentence was justified by the weighty
      observation of Heraclius, that the man who had betrayed his
      father could never be faithful to his friend. 54

      52 (return) [ In the writers, and in the copies of those writers,
      there is such hesitation between the names of Priscus and
      Crispus, (Ducange, Fam Byzant. p. 111,) that I have been tempted
      to identify the son-in-law of Phocas with the hero five times
      victorious over the Avars.]

      53 (return) [ According to Theophanes. Cedrenus adds, which
      Heraclius bore as a banner in the first Persian expedition. See
      George Pisid. Acroas L 140. The manufacture seems to have
      flourished; but Foggini, the Roman editor, (p. 26,) is at a loss
      to determine whether this picture was an original or a copy.]

      54 (return) [ See the tyranny of Phocas and the elevation of
      Heraclius, in Chron. Paschal. p. 380—383. Theophanes, p. 242-250.
      Nicephorus, p. 3—7. Cedrenus, p. 404—407. Zonaras, tom. ii. l.
      xiv. p. 80—82.]

      Even after his death the republic was afflicted by the crimes of
      Phocas, which armed with a pious cause the most formidable of her
      enemies. According to the friendly and equal forms of the
      Byzantine and Persian courts, he announced his exaltation to the
      throne; and his ambassador Lilius, who had presented him with the
      heads of Maurice and his sons, was the best qualified to describe
      the circumstances of the tragic scene. 55 However it might be
      varnished by fiction or sophistry, Chosroes turned with horror
      from the assassin, imprisoned the pretended envoy, disclaimed the
      usurper, and declared himself the avenger of his father and
      benefactor. The sentiments of grief and resentment, which
      humanity would feel, and honor would dictate, promoted on this
      occasion the interest of the Persian king; and his interest was
      powerfully magnified by the national and religious prejudices of
      the Magi and satraps. In a strain of artful adulation, which
      assumed the language of freedom, they presumed to censure the
      excess of his gratitude and friendship for the Greeks; a nation
      with whom it was dangerous to conclude either peace or alliance;
      whose superstition was devoid of truth and justice, and who must
      be incapable of any virtue, since they could perpetrate the most
      atrocious of crimes, the impious murder of their sovereign. 56
      For the crime of an ambitious centurion, the nation which he
      oppressed was chastised with the calamities of war; and the same
      calamities, at the end of twenty years, were retaliated and
      redoubled on the heads of the Persians. 57 The general who had
      restored Chosroes to the throne still commanded in the East; and
      the name of Narses was the formidable sound with which the
      Assyrian mothers were accustomed to terrify their infants. It is
      not improbable, that a native subject of Persia should encourage
      his master and his friend to deliver and possess the provinces of
      Asia. It is still more probable, that Chosroes should animate his
      troops by the assurance that the sword which they dreaded the
      most would remain in its scabbard, or be drawn in their favor.
      The hero could not depend on the faith of a tyrant; and the
      tyrant was conscious how little he deserved the obedience of a
      hero. Narses was removed from his military command; he reared an
      independent standard at Hierapolis, in Syria: he was betrayed by
      fallacious promises, and burnt alive in the market-place of
      Constantinople. Deprived of the only chief whom they could fear
      or esteem, the bands which he had led to victory were twice
      broken by the cavalry, trampled by the elephants, and pierced by
      the arrows of the Barbarians; and a great number of the captives
      were beheaded on the field of battle by the sentence of the
      victor, who might justly condemn these seditious mercenaries as
      the authors or accomplices of the death of Maurice. Under the
      reign of Phocas, the fortifications of Merdin, Dara, Amida, and
      Edessa, were successively besieged, reduced, and destroyed, by
      the Persian monarch: he passed the Euphrates, occupied the Syrian
      cities, Hierapolis, Chalcis, and Berrhaea or Aleppo, and soon
      encompassed the walls of Antioch with his irresistible arms. The
      rapid tide of success discloses the decay of the empire, the
      incapacity of Phocas, and the disaffection of his subjects; and
      Chosroes provided a decent apology for their submission or
      revolt, by an impostor, who attended his camp as the son of
      Maurice 58 and the lawful heir of the monarchy.

      55 (return) [ Theophylact, l. viii. c. 15. The life of Maurice
      was composed about the year 628 (l. viii. c. 13) by Theophylact
      Simocatta, ex-praefect, a native of Egypt. Photius, who gives an
      ample extract of the work, (cod. lxv. p. 81—100,) gently reproves
      the affectation and allegory of the style. His preface is a
      dialogue between Philosophy and History; they seat themselves
      under a plane-tree, and the latter touches her lyre.]

      56 (return) [ Christianis nec pactum esse, nec fidem nec foedus
      ..... quod si ulla illis fides fuisset, regem suum non
      occidissent. Eutych. Annales tom. ii. p. 211, vers. Pocock.]

      57 (return) [ We must now, for some ages, take our leave of
      contemporary historians, and descend, if it be a descent, from
      the affectation of rhetoric to the rude simplicity of chronicles
      and abridgments. Those of Theophanes (Chronograph. p. 244—279)
      and Nicephorus (p. 3—16) supply a regular, but imperfect, series
      of the Persian war; and for any additional facts I quote my
      special authorities. Theophanes, a courtier who became a monk,
      was born A.D. 748; Nicephorus patriarch of Constantinople, who
      died A.D. 829, was somewhat younger: they both suffered in the
      cause of images Hankius, de Scriptoribus Byzantinis, p. 200-246.]

      58 (return) [ The Persian historians have been themselves
      deceived: but Theophanes (p. 244) accuses Chosroes of the fraud
      and falsehood; and Eutychius believes (Annal. tom. ii. p. 212)
      that the son of Maurice, who was saved from the assassins, lived
      and died a monk on Mount Sinai.]

      The first intelligence from the East which Heraclius received, 59
      was that of the loss of Antioch; but the aged metropolis, so
      often overturned by earthquakes, and pillaged by the enemy, could
      supply but a small and languid stream of treasure and blood. The
      Persians were equally successful, and more fortunate, in the sack
      of Caesarea, the capital of Cappadocia; and as they advanced
      beyond the ramparts of the frontier, the boundary of ancient war,
      they found a less obstinate resistance and a more plentiful
      harvest. The pleasant vale of Damascus has been adorned in every
      age with a royal city: her obscure felicity has hitherto escaped
      the historian of the Roman empire: but Chosroes reposed his
      troops in the paradise of Damascus before he ascended the hills
      of Libanus, or invaded the cities of the Phoenician coast. The
      conquest of Jerusalem, 60 which had been meditated by Nushirvan,
      was achieved by the zeal and avarice of his grandson; the ruin of
      the proudest monument of Christianity was vehemently urged by the
      intolerant spirit of the Magi; and he could enlist for this holy
      warfare with an army of six-and-twenty thousand Jews, whose
      furious bigotry might compensate, in some degree, for the want of
      valor and discipline. 6011 After the reduction of Galilee, and
      the region beyond the Jordan, whose resistance appears to have
      delayed the fate of the capital, Jerusalem itself was taken by
      assault. The sepulchre of Christ, and the stately churches of
      Helena and Constantine, were consumed, or at least damaged, by
      the flames; the devout offerings of three hundred years were
      rifled in one sacrilegious day; the Patriarch Zachariah, and the
      true cross, were transported into Persia; and the massacre of
      ninety thousand Christians is imputed to the Jews and Arabs, who
      swelled the disorder of the Persian march. The fugitives of
      Palestine were entertained at Alexandria by the charity of John
      the Archbishop, who is distinguished among a crowd of saints by
      the epithet of almsgiver: 61 and the revenues of the church, with
      a treasure of three hundred thousand pounds, were restored to the
      true proprietors, the poor of every country and every
      denomination. But Egypt itself, the only province which had been
      exempt, since the time of Diocletian, from foreign and domestic
      war, was again subdued by the successors of Cyrus. Pelusium, the
      key of that impervious country, was surprised by the cavalry of
      the Persians: they passed, with impunity, the innumerable
      channels of the Delta, and explored the long valley of the Nile,
      from the pyramids of Memphis to the confines of Aethiopia.
      Alexandria might have been relieved by a naval force, but the
      archbishop and the praefect embarked for Cyprus; and Chosroes
      entered the second city of the empire, which still preserved a
      wealthy remnant of industry and commerce. His western trophy was
      erected, not on the walls of Carthage, 62 but in the neighborhood
      of Tripoli; the Greek colonies of Cyrene were finally extirpated;
      and the conqueror, treading in the footsteps of Alexander,
      returned in triumph through the sands of the Libyan desert. In
      the same campaign, another army advanced from the Euphrates to
      the Thracian Bosphorus; Chalcedon surrendered after a long siege,
      and a Persian camp was maintained above ten years in the presence
      of Constantinople. The sea-coast of Pontus, the city of Ancyra,
      and the Isle of Rhodes, are enumerated among the last conquests
      of the great king; and if Chosroes had possessed any maritime
      power, his boundless ambition would have spread slavery and
      desolation over the provinces of Europe.

      59 (return) [ Eutychius dates all the losses of the empire under
      the reign of Phocas; an error which saves the honor of Heraclius,
      whom he brings not from Carthage, but Salonica, with a fleet
      laden with vegetables for the relief of Constantinople, (Annal.
      tom. ii. p. 223, 224.) The other Christians of the East,
      Barhebraeus, (apud Asseman, Bibliothec. Oriental. tom. iii. p.
      412, 413,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 13—16,) Abulpharagius,
      (Dynast. p. 98, 99,) are more sincere and accurate. The years of
      the Persian war are disposed in the chronology of Pagi.]

      60 (return) [ On the conquest of Jerusalem, an event so
      interesting to the church, see the Annals of Eutychius, (tom. ii.
      p. 212—223,) and the lamentations of the monk Antiochus, (apud
      Baronium, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 614, No. 16—26,) whose one hundred
      and twenty-nine homilies are still extant, if what no one reads
      may be said to be extant.]

      6011 (return) [ See Hist. of Jews, vol. iii. p. 240.—M.]

      61 (return) [ The life of this worthy saint is composed by
      Leontius, a contemporary bishop; and I find in Baronius (Annal.
      Eccles. A.D. 610, No. 10, &c.) and Fleury (tom. viii. p. 235-242)
      sufficient extracts of this edifying work.]

      62 (return) [ The error of Baronius, and many others who have
      carried the arms of Chosroes to Carthage instead of Chalcedon, is
      founded on the near resemblance of the Greek words, in the text
      of Theophanes, &c., which have been sometimes confounded by
      transcribers, and sometimes by critics.]

      From the long-disputed banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, the
      reign of the grandson of Nushirvan was suddenly extended to the
      Hellespont and the Nile, the ancient limits of the Persian
      monarchy. But the provinces, which had been fashioned by the
      habits of six hundred years to the virtues and vices of the Roman
      government, supported with reluctance the yoke of the Barbarians.
      The idea of a republic was kept alive by the institutions, or at
      least by the writings, of the Greeks and Romans, and the subjects
      of Heraclius had been educated to pronounce the words of liberty
      and law. But it has always been the pride and policy of Oriental
      princes to display the titles and attributes of their
      omnipotence; to upbraid a nation of slaves with their true name
      and abject condition, and to enforce, by cruel and insolent
      threats, the rigor of their absolute commands. The Christians of
      the East were scandalized by the worship of fire, and the impious
      doctrine of the two principles: the Magi were not less intolerant
      than the bishops; and the martyrdom of some native Persians, who
      had deserted the religion of Zoroaster, 63 was conceived to be
      the prelude of a fierce and general persecution. By the
      oppressive laws of Justinian, the adversaries of the church were
      made the enemies of the state; the alliance of the Jews,
      Nestorians, and Jacobites, had contributed to the success of
      Chosroes, and his partial favor to the sectaries provoked the
      hatred and fears of the Catholic clergy. Conscious of their fear
      and hatred, the Persian conqueror governed his new subjects with
      an iron sceptre; and, as if he suspected the stability of his
      dominion, he exhausted their wealth by exorbitant tributes and
      licentious rapine despoiled or demolished the temples of the
      East; and transported to his hereditary realms the gold, the
      silver, the precious marbles, the arts, and the artists of the
      Asiatic cities. In the obscure picture of the calamities of the
      empire, 64 it is not easy to discern the figure of Chosroes
      himself, to separate his actions from those of his lieutenants,
      or to ascertain his personal merit in the general blaze of glory
      and magnificence. He enjoyed with ostentation the fruits of
      victory, and frequently retired from the hardships of war to the
      luxury of the palace. But in the space of twenty-four years, he
      was deterred by superstition or resentment from approaching the
      gates of Ctesiphon: and his favorite residence of Artemita, or
      Dastagerd, was situate beyond the Tigris, about sixty miles to
      the north of the capital. 65 The adjacent pastures were covered
      with flocks and herds: the paradise or park was replenished with
      pheasants, peacocks, ostriches, roebucks, and wild boars, and the
      noble game of lions and tigers was sometimes turned loose for the
      bolder pleasures of the chase. Nine hundred and sixty elephants
      were maintained for the use or splendor of the great king: his
      tents and baggage were carried into the field by twelve thousand
      great camels and eight thousand of a smaller size; 66 and the
      royal stables were filled with six thousand mules and horses,
      among whom the names of Shebdiz and Barid are renowned for their
      speed or beauty. 6611 Six thousand guards successively mounted
      before the palace gate; the service of the interior apartments
      was performed by twelve thousand slaves, and in the number of
      three thousand virgins, the fairest of Asia, some happy concubine
      might console her master for the age or the indifference of Sira.

      The various treasures of gold, silver, gems, silks, and
      aromatics, were deposited in a hundred subterraneous vaults and
      the chamber Badaverd denoted the accidental gift of the winds
      which had wafted the spoils of Heraclius into one of the Syrian
      harbors of his rival. The vice of flattery, and perhaps of
      fiction, is not ashamed to compute the thirty thousand rich
      hangings that adorned the walls; the forty thousand columns of
      silver, or more probably of marble, and plated wood, that
      supported the roof; and the thousand globes of gold suspended in
      the dome, to imitate the motions of the planets and the
      constellations of the zodiac. 67 While the Persian monarch
      contemplated the wonders of his art and power, he received an
      epistle from an obscure citizen of Mecca, inviting him to
      acknowledge Mahomet as the apostle of God. He rejected the
      invitation, and tore the epistle. “It is thus,” exclaimed the
      Arabian prophet, “that God will tear the kingdom, and reject the
      supplications of Chosroes.” 68 6811 Placed on the verge of the
      two great empires of the East, Mahomet observed with secret joy
      the progress of their mutual destruction; and in the midst of the
      Persian triumphs, he ventured to foretell, that before many years
      should elapse, victory should again return to the banners of the
      Romans. 69

      63 (return) [ The genuine acts of St. Anastasius are published in
      those of the with general council, from whence Baronius (Annal.
      Eccles. A.D. 614, 626, 627) and Butler (Lives of the Saints, vol.
      i. p. 242—248) have taken their accounts. The holy martyr
      deserted from the Persian to the Roman army, became a monk at
      Jerusalem, and insulted the worship of the Magi, which was then
      established at Caesarea in Palestine.]

      64 (return) [ Abulpharagius, Dynast. p. 99. Elmacin, Hist.
      Saracen. p. 14.]

      65 (return) [ D’Anville, Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions,
      tom. xxxii. p. 568—571.]

      66 (return) [ The difference between the two races consists in
      one or two humps; the dromedary has only one; the size of the
      proper camel is larger; the country he comes from, Turkistan or
      Bactriana; the dromedary is confined to Arabia and Africa.
      Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. xi. p. 211, &c. Aristot. Hist.
      Animal. tom. i. l. ii. c. 1, tom. ii. p. 185.]

      6611 (return) [ The ruins of these scenes of Khoosroo’s
      magnificence have been visited by Sir R. K. Porter. At the ruins
      of Tokht i Bostan, he saw a gorgeous picture of a hunt,
      singularly illustrative of this passage. Travels, vol. ii. p.
      204. Kisra Shirene, which he afterwards examined, appears to have
      been the palace of Dastagerd. Vol. ii. p. 173—175.—M.]

      67 (return) [ Theophanes, Chronograph. p. 268. D’Herbelot,
      Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 997. The Greeks describe the decay,
      the Persians the splendor, of Dastagerd; but the former speak
      from the modest witness of the eye, the latter from the vague
      report of the ear.]

      68 (return) [ The historians of Mahomet, Abulfeda (in Vit.
      Mohammed, p. 92, 93) and Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. ii. p.
      247,) date this embassy in the viith year of the Hegira, which
      commences A.D. 628, May 11. Their chronology is erroneous, since
      Chosroes died in the month of February of the same year, (Pagi,
      Critica, tom. ii. p. 779.) The count de Boulainvilliers (Vie de
      Mahomed, p. 327, 328) places this embassy about A.D. 615, soon
      after the conquest of Palestine. Yet Mahomet would scarcely have
      ventured so soon on so bold a step.]

      6811 (return) [ Khoosroo Purveez was encamped on the banks of the
      Karasoo River when he received the letter of Mahomed. He tore the
      letter and threw it into the Karasoo. For this action, the
      moderate author of the Zeenut-ul-Tuarikh calls him a wretch, and
      rejoices in all his subsequent misfortunes. These impressions
      still exist. I remarked to a Persian, when encamped near the
      Karasoo, in 1800, that the banks were very high, which must make
      it difficult to apply its waters to irrigation. “It once
      fertilized the whole country,” said the zealous Mahomedan, “but
      its channel sunk with honor from its banks, when that madman,
      Khoosroo, threw our holy Prophet’s letter into its stream; which
      has ever since been accursed and useless.” Malcolm’s Persia, vol.
      i. p. 126—M.]

      69 (return) [ See the xxxth chapter of the Koran, entitled the
      Greeks. Our honest and learned translator, Sale, (p. 330, 331,)
      fairly states this conjecture, guess, wager, of Mahomet; but
      Boulainvilliers, (p. 329—344,) with wicked intentions, labors to
      establish this evident prophecy of a future event, which must, in
      his opinion, embarrass the Christian polemics.]

      At the time when this prediction is said to have been delivered,
      no prophecy could be more distant from its accomplishment, since
      the first twelve years of Heraclius announced the approaching
      dissolution of the empire. If the motives of Chosroes had been
      pure and honorable, he must have ended the quarrel with the death
      of Phocas, and he would have embraced, as his best ally, the
      fortunate African who had so generously avenged the injuries of
      his benefactor Maurice. The prosecution of the war revealed the
      true character of the Barbarian; and the suppliant embassies of
      Heraclius to beseech his clemency, that he would spare the
      innocent, accept a tribute, and give peace to the world, were
      rejected with contemptuous silence or insolent menace. Syria,
      Egypt, and the provinces of Asia, were subdued by the Persian
      arms, while Europe, from the confines of Istria to the long wall
      of Thrace, was oppressed by the Avars, unsatiated with the blood
      and rapine of the Italian war. They had coolly massacred their
      male captives in the sacred field of Pannonia; the women and
      children were reduced to servitude, and the noblest virgins were
      abandoned to the promiscuous lust of the Barbarians. The amorous
      matron who opened the gates of Friuli passed a short night in the
      arms of her royal lover; the next evening, Romilda was condemned
      to the embraces of twelve Avars, and the third day the Lombard
      princess was impaled in the sight of the camp, while the chagan
      observed with a cruel smile, that such a husband was the fit
      recompense of her lewdness and perfidy. 70 By these implacable
      enemies, Heraclius, on either side, was insulted and besieged:
      and the Roman empire was reduced to the walls of Constantinople,
      with the remnant of Greece, Italy, and Africa, and some maritime
      cities, from Tyre to Trebizond, of the Asiatic coast. After the
      loss of Egypt, the capital was afflicted by famine and
      pestilence; and the emperor, incapable of resistance, and
      hopeless of relief, had resolved to transfer his person and
      government to the more secure residence of Carthage. His ships
      were already laden with the treasures of the palace; but his
      flight was arrested by the patriarch, who armed the powers of
      religion in the defence of his country; led Heraclius to the
      altar of St. Sophia, and extorted a solemn oath, that he would
      live and die with the people whom God had intrusted to his care.
      The chagan was encamped in the plains of Thrace; but he
      dissembled his perfidious designs, and solicited an interview
      with the emperor near the town of Heraclea. Their reconciliation
      was celebrated with equestrian games; the senate and people, in
      their gayest apparel, resorted to the festival of peace; and the
      Avars beheld, with envy and desire, the spectacle of Roman
      luxury. On a sudden the hippodrome was encompassed by the
      Scythian cavalry, who had pressed their secret and nocturnal
      march: the tremendous sound of the chagan’s whip gave the signal
      of the assault, and Heraclius, wrapping his diadem round his arm,
      was saved with extreme hazard, by the fleetness of his horse. So
      rapid was the pursuit, that the Avars almost entered the golden
      gate of Constantinople with the flying crowds: 71 but the plunder
      of the suburbs rewarded their treason, and they transported
      beyond the Danube two hundred and seventy thousand captives. On
      the shore of Chalcedon, the emperor held a safer conference with
      a more honorable foe, who, before Heraclius descended from his
      galley, saluted with reverence and pity the majesty of the
      purple. The friendly offer of Sain, the Persian general, to
      conduct an embassy to the presence of the great king, was
      accepted with the warmest gratitude, and the prayer for pardon
      and peace was humbly presented by the Praetorian praefect, the
      praefect of the city, and one of the first ecclesiastics of the
      patriarchal church. 72 But the lieutenant of Chosroes had fatally
      mistaken the intentions of his master. “It was not an embassy,”
      said the tyrant of Asia, “it was the person of Heraclius, bound
      in chains, that he should have brought to the foot of my throne.
      I will never give peace to the emperor of Rome, till he had
      abjured his crucified God, and embraced the worship of the sun.”
      Sain was flayed alive, according to the inhuman practice of his
      country; and the separate and rigorous confinement of the
      ambassadors violated the law of nations, and the faith of an
      express stipulation. Yet the experience of six years at length
      persuaded the Persian monarch to renounce the conquest of
      Constantinople, and to specify the annual tribute or ransom of
      the Roman empire; a thousand talents of gold, a thousand talents
      of silver, a thousand silk robes, a thousand horses, and a
      thousand virgins. Heraclius subscribed these ignominious terms;
      but the time and space which he obtained to collect such
      treasures from the poverty of the East, was industriously
      employed in the preparations of a bold and desperate attack.

      70 (return) [Footnote 70: Paul Warnefrid, de Gestis
      Langobardorum, l. iv. c. 38, 42. Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom.
      v. p. 305, &c.]

      71 (return) [ The Paschal Chronicle, which sometimes introduces
      fragments of history into a barren list of names and dates, gives
      the best account of the treason of the Avars, p. 389, 390. The
      number of captives is added by Nicephorus.]

      72 (return) [ Some original pieces, such as the speech or letter
      of the Roman ambassadors, (p. 386—388,) likewise constitute the
      merit of the Paschal Chronicle, which was composed, perhaps at
      Alexandria, under the reign of Heraclius.]

      Of the characters conspicuous in history, that of Heraclius is
      one of the most extraordinary and inconsistent. In the first and
      last years of a long reign, the emperor appears to be the slave
      of sloth, of pleasure, or of superstition, the careless and
      impotent spectator of the public calamities. But the languid
      mists of the morning and evening are separated by the brightness
      of the meridian sun; the Arcadius of the palace arose the Caesar
      of the camp; and the honor of Rome and Heraclius was gloriously
      retrieved by the exploits and trophies of six adventurous
      campaigns. It was the duty of the Byzantine historians to have
      revealed the causes of his slumber and vigilance. At this
      distance we can only conjecture, that he was endowed with more
      personal courage than political resolution; that he was detained
      by the charms, and perhaps the arts, of his niece Martina, with
      whom, after the death of Eudocia, he contracted an incestuous
      marriage; 73 and that he yielded to the base advice of the
      counsellors, who urged, as a fundamental law, that the life of
      the emperor should never be exposed in the field. 74 Perhaps he
      was awakened by the last insolent demand of the Persian
      conqueror; but at the moment when Heraclius assumed the spirit of
      a hero, the only hopes of the Romans were drawn from the
      vicissitudes of fortune, which might threaten the proud
      prosperity of Chosroes, and must be favorable to those who had
      attained the lowest period of depression. 75 To provide for the
      expenses of war, was the first care of the emperor; and for the
      purpose of collecting the tribute, he was allowed to solicit the
      benevolence of the eastern provinces. But the revenue no longer
      flowed in the usual channels; the credit of an arbitrary prince
      is annihilated by his power; and the courage of Heraclius was
      first displayed in daring to borrow the consecrated wealth of
      churches, under the solemn vow of restoring, with usury, whatever
      he had been compelled to employ in the service of religion and
      the empire. The clergy themselves appear to have sympathized with
      the public distress; and the discreet patriarch of Alexandria,
      without admitting the precedent of sacrilege, assisted his
      sovereign by the miraculous or seasonable revelation of a secret
      treasure. 76 Of the soldiers who had conspired with Phocas, only
      two were found to have survived the stroke of time and of the
      Barbarians; 77 the loss, even of these seditious veterans, was
      imperfectly supplied by the new levies of Heraclius, and the gold
      of the sanctuary united, in the same camp, the names, and arms,
      and languages of the East and West. He would have been content
      with the neutrality of the Avars; and his friendly entreaty, that
      the chagan would act, not as the enemy, but as the guardian, of
      the empire, was accompanied with a more persuasive donative of
      two hundred thousand pieces of gold. Two days after the festival
      of Easter, the emperor, exchanging his purple for the simple garb
      of a penitent and warrior, 78 gave the signal of his departure.
      To the faith of the people Heraclius recommended his children;
      the civil and military powers were vested in the most deserving
      hands, and the discretion of the patriarch and senate was
      authorized to save or surrender the city, if they should be
      oppressed in his absence by the superior forces of the enemy.

      73 (return) [Nicephorus, (p. 10, 11,) is happy to observe, that
      of two sons, its incestuous fruit, the elder was marked by
      Providence with a stiff neck, the younger with the loss of
      hearing.]

      74 (return) [ George of Pisidia, (Acroas. i. 112—125, p. 5,) who
      states the opinions, acquits the pusillanimous counsellors of any
      sinister views. Would he have excused the proud and contemptuous
      admonition of Crispus?]

      75 (return) [ George Pisid. Acroas. i. 51, &c. p: 4. The
      Orientals are not less fond of remarking this strange
      vicissitude; and I remember some story of Khosrou Parviz, not
      very unlike the ring of Polycrates of Samos.]

      76 (return) [ Baronius gravely relates this discovery, or rather
      transmutation, of barrels, not of honey, but of gold, (Annal.
      Eccles. A.D. 620, No. 3, &c.) Yet the loan was arbitrary, since
      it was collected by soldiers, who were ordered to leave the
      patriarch of Alexandria no more than one hundred pounds of gold.
      Nicephorus, (p. 11,) two hundred years afterwards, speaks with
      ill humor of this contribution, which the church of
      Constantinople might still feel.]

      77 (return) [ Theophylact Symocatta, l. viii. c. 12. This
      circumstance need not excite our surprise. The muster-roll of a
      regiment, even in time of peace, is renewed in less than twenty
      or twenty-five years.]

      78 (return) [ He changed his purple for black, buckskins, and
      dyed them red in the blood of the Persians, (Georg. Pisid.
      Acroas. iii. 118, 121, 122 See the notes of Foggini, p. 35.)]

      The neighboring heights of Chalcedon were covered with tents and
      arms: but if the new levies of Heraclius had been rashly led to
      the attack, the victory of the Persians in the sight of
      Constantinople might have been the last day of the Roman empire.
      As imprudent would it have been to advance into the provinces of
      Asia, leaving their innumerable cavalry to intercept his convoys,
      and continually to hang on the lassitude and disorder of his
      rear. But the Greeks were still masters of the sea; a fleet of
      galleys, transports, and store-ships, was assembled in the
      harbor; the Barbarians consented to embark; a steady wind carried
      them through the Hellespont the western and southern coast of
      Asia Minor lay on their left hand; the spirit of their chief was
      first displayed in a storm, and even the eunuchs of his train
      were excited to suffer and to work by the example of their
      master. He landed his troops on the confines of Syria and
      Cilicia, in the Gulf of Scanderoon, where the coast suddenly
      turns to the south; 79 and his discernment was expressed in the
      choice of this important post. 80 From all sides, the scattered
      garrisons of the maritime cities and the mountains might repair
      with speed and safety to his Imperial standard. The natural
      fortifications of Cilicia protected, and even concealed, the camp
      of Heraclius, which was pitched near Issus, on the same ground
      where Alexander had vanquished the host of Darius. The angle
      which the emperor occupied was deeply indented into a vast
      semicircle of the Asiatic, Armenian, and Syrian provinces; and to
      whatsoever point of the circumference he should direct his
      attack, it was easy for him to dissemble his own motions, and to
      prevent those of the enemy. In the camp of Issus, the Roman
      general reformed the sloth and disorder of the veterans, and
      educated the new recruits in the knowledge and practice of
      military virtue. Unfolding the miraculous image of Christ, he
      urged them to revenge the holy altars which had been profaned by
      the worshippers of fire; addressing them by the endearing
      appellations of sons and brethren, he deplored the public and
      private wrongs of the republic. The subjects of a monarch were
      persuaded that they fought in the cause of freedom; and a similar
      enthusiasm was communicated to the foreign mercenaries, who must
      have viewed with equal indifference the interest of Rome and of
      Persia. Heraclius himself, with the skill and patience of a
      centurion, inculcated the lessons of the school of tactics, and
      the soldiers were assiduously trained in the use of their
      weapons, and the exercises and evolutions of the field. The
      cavalry and infantry in light or heavy armor were divided into
      two parties; the trumpets were fixed in the centre, and their
      signals directed the march, the charge, the retreat or pursuit;
      the direct or oblique order, the deep or extended phalanx; to
      represent in fictitious combat the operations of genuine war.
      Whatever hardships the emperor imposed on the troops, he
      inflicted with equal severity on himself; their labor, their
      diet, their sleep, were measured by the inflexible rules of
      discipline; and, without despising the enemy, they were taught to
      repose an implicit confidence in their own valor and the wisdom
      of their leader. Cilicia was soon encompassed with the Persian
      arms; but their cavalry hesitated to enter the defiles of Mount
      Taurus, till they were circumvented by the evolutions of
      Heraclius, who insensibly gained their rear, whilst he appeared
      to present his front in order of battle. By a false motion, which
      seemed to threaten Armenia, he drew them, against their wishes,
      to a general action. They were tempted by the artful disorder of
      his camp; but when they advanced to combat, the ground, the sun,
      and the expectation of both armies, were unpropitious to the
      Barbarians; the Romans successfully repeated their tactics in a
      field of battle, 81 and the event of the day declared to the
      world, that the Persians were not invincible, and that a hero was
      invested with the purple. Strong in victory and fame, Heraclius
      boldly ascended the heights of Mount Taurus, directed his march
      through the plains of Cappadocia, and established his troops, for
      the winter season, in safe and plentiful quarters on the banks of
      the River Halys. 82 His soul was superior to the vanity of
      entertaining Constantinople with an imperfect triumph; but the
      presence of the emperor was indispensably required to soothe the
      restless and rapacious spirit of the Avars.

      79 (return) [ George of Pisidia, (Acroas. ii. 10, p. 8) has fixed
      this important point of the Syrian and Cilician gates. They are
      elegantly described by Xenophon, who marched through them a
      thousand years before. A narrow pass of three stadia between
      steep, high rocks, and the Mediterranean, was closed at each end
      by strong gates, impregnable to the land, accessible by sea,
      (Anabasis, l. i. p. 35, 36, with Hutchinson’s Geographical
      Dissertation, p. vi.) The gates were thirty-five parasangs, or
      leagues, from Tarsus, (Anabasis, l. i. p. 33, 34,) and eight or
      ten from Antioch. Compare Itinerar. Wesseling, p. 580, 581.
      Schultens, Index Geograph. ad calcem Vit. Saladin. p. 9. Voyage
      en Turquie et en Perse, par M. Otter, tom. i. p. 78, 79.]

      80 (return) [ Heraclius might write to a friend in the modest
      words of Cicero: “Castra habuimus ea ipsa quae contra Darium
      habuerat apud Issum Alexander, imperator haud paulo melior quam
      aut tu aut ego.” Ad Atticum, v. 20. Issus, a rich and flourishing
      city in the time of Xenophon, was ruined by the prosperity of
      Alexandria or Scanderoon, on the other side of the bay.]

      81 (return) [ Foggini (Annotat. p. 31) suspects that the Persians
      were deceived by the of Aelian, (Tactic. c. 48,) an intricate
      spiral motion of the army. He observes (p. 28) that the military
      descriptions of George of Pisidia are transcribed in the Tactics
      of the emperor Leo.]

      82 (return) [ George of Pisidia, an eye-witness, (Acroas. ii.
      122, &c.,) described in three acroaseis, or cantos, the first
      expedition of Heraclius. The poem has been lately (1777)
      published at Rome; but such vague and declamatory praise is far
      from corresponding with the sanguine hopes of Pagi, D’Anville,
      &c.]

      Since the days of Scipio and Hannibal, no bolder enterprise has
      been attempted than that which Heraclius achieved for the
      deliverance of the empire. 83 He permitted the Persians to
      oppress for a while the provinces, and to insult with impunity
      the capital of the East; while the Roman emperor explored his
      perilous way through the Black Sea, 84 and the mountains of
      Armenia, penetrated into the heart of Persia, 85 and recalled the
      armies of the great king to the defence of their bleeding
      country. With a select band of five thousand soldiers, Heraclius
      sailed from Constantinople to Trebizond; assembled his forces
      which had wintered in the Pontic regions; and, from the mouth of
      the Phasis to the Caspian Sea, encouraged his subjects and allies
      to march with the successor of Constantine under the faithful and
      victorious banner of the cross. When the legions of Lucullus and
      Pompey first passed the Euphrates, they blushed at their easy
      victory over the natives of Armenia. But the long experience of
      war had hardened the minds and bodies of that effeminate peeple;
      their zeal and bravery were approved in the service of a
      declining empire; they abhorred and feared the usurpation of the
      house of Sassan, and the memory of persecution envenomed their
      pious hatred of the enemies of Christ. The limits of Armenia, as
      it had been ceded to the emperor Maurice, extended as far as the
      Araxes: the river submitted to the indignity of a bridge, 86 and
      Heraclius, in the footsteps of Mark Antony, advanced towards the
      city of Tauris or Gandzaca, 87 the ancient and modern capital of
      one of the provinces of Media. At the head of forty thousand men,
      Chosroes himself had returned from some distant expedition to
      oppose the progress of the Roman arms; but he retreated on the
      approach of Heraclius, declining the generous alternative of
      peace or of battle. Instead of half a million of inhabitants,
      which have been ascribed to Tauris under the reign of the Sophys,
      the city contained no more than three thousand houses; but the
      value of the royal treasures was enhanced by a tradition, that
      they were the spoils of Croesus, which had been transported by
      Cyrus from the citadel of Sardes. The rapid conquests of
      Heraclius were suspended only by the winter season; a motive of
      prudence, or superstition, 88 determined his retreat into the
      province of Albania, along the shores of the Caspian; and his
      tents were most probably pitched in the plains of Mogan, 89 the
      favorite encampment of Oriental princes. In the course of this
      successful inroad, he signalized the zeal and revenge of a
      Christian emperor: at his command, the soldiers extinguished the
      fire, and destroyed the temples, of the Magi; the statues of
      Chosroes, who aspired to divine honors, were abandoned to the
      flames; and the ruins of Thebarma or Ormia, 90 which had given
      birth to Zoroaster himself, made some atonement for the injuries
      of the holy sepulchre. A purer spirit of religion was shown in
      the relief and deliverance of fifty thousand captives. Heraclius
      was rewarded by their tears and grateful acclamations; but this
      wise measure, which spread the fame of his benevolence, diffused
      the murmurs of the Persians against the pride and obstinacy of
      their own sovereign.

      83 (return) [Footnote 83: Theophanes (p. 256) carries Heraclius
      swiftly into Armenia. Nicephorus, (p. 11,) though he confounds
      the two expeditions, defines the province of Lazica. Eutychius
      (Annal. tom. ii. p. 231) has given the 5000 men, with the more
      probable station of Trebizond.]

      84 (return) [ From Constantinople to Trebizond, with a fair wind,
      four or five days; from thence to Erzerom, five; to Erivan,
      twelve; to Taurus, ten; in all, thirty-two. Such is the Itinerary
      of Tavernier, (Voyages, tom. i. p. 12—56,) who was perfectly
      conversant with the roads of Asia. Tournefort, who travelled with
      a pacha, spent ten or twelve days between Trebizond and Erzerom,
      (Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. lettre xviii.;) and Chardin
      (Voyages, tom. i. p. 249—254) gives the more correct distance of
      fifty-three parasangs, each of 5000 paces, (what paces?) between
      Erivan and Tauris.]

      85 (return) [ The expedition of Heraclius into Persia is finely
      illustrated by M. D’Anville, (Memoires de l’Academie des
      Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 559—573.) He discovers the
      situation of Gandzaca, Thebarma, Dastagerd, &c., with admirable
      skill and learning; but the obscure campaign of 624 he passes
      over in silence.]

      86 (return) [ Et pontem indignatus Araxes.—Virgil, Aeneid, viii.
      728. The River Araxes is noisy, rapid, vehement, and, with the
      melting of the snows, irresistible: the strongest and most massy
      bridges are swept away by the current; and its indignation is
      attested by the ruins of many arches near the old town of Zulfa.
      Voyages de Chardin, tom. i. p. 252.]

      87 (return) [ Chardin, tom. i. p. 255—259. With the Orientals,
      (D’Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient. p. 834,) he ascribes the
      foundation of Tauris, or Tebris, to Zobeide, the wife of the
      famous Khalif Haroun Alrashid; but it appears to have been more
      ancient; and the names of Gandzaca, Gazaca, Gaza, are expressive
      of the royal treasure. The number of 550,000 inhabitants is
      reduced by Chardin from 1,100,000, the popular estimate.]

      88 (return) [ He opened the gospel, and applied or interpreted
      the first casual passage to the name and situation of Albania.
      Theophanes, p. 258.]

      89 (return) [ The heath of Mogan, between the Cyrus and the
      Araxes, is sixty parasangs in length and twenty in breadth,
      (Olearius, p. 1023, 1024,) abounding in waters and fruitful
      pastures, (Hist. de Nadir Shah, translated by Mr. Jones from a
      Persian Ms., part ii. p. 2, 3.) See the encampments of Timur,
      (Hist. par Sherefeddin Ali, l. v. c. 37, l. vi. c. 13,) and the
      coronation of Nadir Shah, (Hist. Persanne, p. 3—13 and the
      English Life by Mr. Jones, p. 64, 65.)]

      90 (return) [ Thebarma and Ormia, near the Lake Spauta, are
      proved to be the same city by D’Anville, (Memoires de l’Academie,
      tom. xxviii. p. 564, 565.) It is honored as the birthplace of
      Zoroaster, according to the Persians, (Schultens, Index Geograph.
      p. 48;) and their tradition is fortified by M. Perron d’Anquetil,
      (Mem. de l’Acad. des Inscript. tom. xxxi. p. 375,) with some
      texts from his, or their, Zendavesta. * Note: D’Anville (Mem. de
      l’Acad. des Inscript. tom. xxxii. p. 560) labored to prove the
      identity of these two cities; but according to M. St. Martin,
      vol. xi. p. 97, not with perfect success. Ourmiah. called Ariema
      in the ancient Pehlvi books, is considered, both by the followers
      of Zoroaster and by the Mahometans, as his birthplace. It is
      situated in the southern part of Aderbidjan.—M.]




      Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part IV.

      Amidst the glories of the succeeding campaign, Heraclius is
      almost lost to our eyes, and to those of the Byzantine
      historians. 91 From the spacious and fruitful plains of Albania,
      the emperor appears to follow the chain of Hyrcanian Mountains,
      to descend into the province of Media or Irak, and to carry his
      victorious arms as far as the royal cities of Casbin and Ispahan,
      which had never been approached by a Roman conqueror. Alarmed by
      the danger of his kingdom, the powers of Chosroes were already
      recalled from the Nile and the Bosphorus, and three formidable
      armies surrounded, in a distant and hostile land, the camp of the
      emperor. The Colchian allies prepared to desert his standard; and
      the fears of the bravest veterans were expressed, rather than
      concealed, by their desponding silence. “Be not terrified,” said
      the intrepid Heraclius, “by the multitude of your foes. With the
      aid of Heaven, one Roman may triumph over a thousand Barbarians.
      But if we devote our lives for the salvation of our brethren, we
      shall obtain the crown of martyrdom, and our immortal reward will
      be liberally paid by God and posterity.” These magnanimous
      sentiments were supported by the vigor of his actions. He
      repelled the threefold attack of the Persians, improved the
      divisions of their chiefs, and, by a well-concerted train of
      marches, retreats, and successful actions, finally chased them
      from the field into the fortified cities of Media and Assyria. In
      the severity of the winter season, Sarbaraza deemed himself
      secure in the walls of Salban: he was surprised by the activity
      of Heraclius, who divided his troops, and performed a laborious
      march in the silence of the night. The flat roofs of the houses
      were defended with useless valor against the darts and torches of
      the Romans: the satraps and nobles of Persia, with their wives
      and children, and the flower of their martial youth, were either
      slain or made prisoners. The general escaped by a precipitate
      flight, but his golden armor was the prize of the conqueror; and
      the soldiers of Heraclius enjoyed the wealth and repose which
      they had so nobly deserved. On the return of spring, the emperor
      traversed in seven days the mountains of Curdistan, and passed
      without resistance the rapid stream of the Tigris. Oppressed by
      the weight of their spoils and captives, the Roman army halted
      under the walls of Amida; and Heraclius informed the senate of
      Constantinople of his safety and success, which they had already
      felt by the retreat of the besiegers. The bridges of the
      Euphrates were destroyed by the Persians; but as soon as the
      emperor had discovered a ford, they hastily retired to defend the
      banks of the Sarus, 92 in Cilicia. That river, an impetuous
      torrent, was about three hundred feet broad; the bridge was
      fortified with strong turrets; and the banks were lined with
      Barbarian archers. After a bloody conflict, which continued till
      the evening, the Romans prevailed in the assault; and a Persian
      of gigantic size was slain and thrown into the Sarus by the hand
      of the emperor himself. The enemies were dispersed and dismayed;
      Heraclius pursued his march to Sebaste in Cappadocia; and at the
      expiration of three years, the same coast of the Euxine applauded
      his return from a long and victorious expedition. 93

      91 (return) [ I cannot find, and (what is much more,) M.
      D’Anville does not attempt to seek, the Salban, Tarantum,
      territory of the Huns, &c., mentioned by Theophanes, (p.
      260-262.) Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 231, 232,) an
      insufficient author, names Asphahan; and Casbin is most probably
      the city of Sapor. Ispahan is twenty-four days’ journey from
      Tauris, and Casbin half way between, them (Voyages de Tavernier,
      tom. i. p. 63—82.)]

      92 (return) [ At ten parasangs from Tarsus, the army of the
      younger Cyrus passed the Sarus, three plethra in breadth: the
      Pyramus, a stadium in breadth, ran five parasangs farther to the
      east, (Xenophon, Anabas. l. i. p 33, 34.) Note: Now the
      Sihan.—M.]

      93 (return) [ George of Pisidia (Bell. Abaricum, 246—265, p. 49)
      celebrates with truth the persevering courage of the three
      campaigns against the Persians.]

      Instead of skirmishing on the frontier, the two monarchs who
      disputed the empire of the East aimed their desperate strokes at
      the heart of their rival. The military force of Persia was wasted
      by the marches and combats of twenty years, and many of the
      veterans, who had survived the perils of the sword and the
      climate, were still detained in the fortresses of Egypt and
      Syria. But the revenge and ambition of Chosroes exhausted his
      kingdom; and the new levies of subjects, strangers, and slaves,
      were divided into three formidable bodies. 94 The first army of
      fifty thousand men, illustrious by the ornament and title of the
      golden spears, was destined to march against Heraclius; the
      second was stationed to prevent his junction with the troops of
      his brother Theodorus; and the third was commanded to besiege
      Constantinople, and to second the operations of the chagan, with
      whom the Persian king had ratified a treaty of alliance and
      partition. Sarbar, the general of the third army, penetrated
      through the provinces of Asia to the well-known camp of
      Chalcedon, and amused himself with the destruction of the sacred
      and profane buildings of the Asiatic suburbs, while he
      impatiently waited the arrival of his Scythian friends on the
      opposite side of the Bosphorus. On the twenty-ninth of June,
      thirty thousand Barbarians, the vanguard of the Avars, forced the
      long wall, and drove into the capital a promiscuous crowd of
      peasants, citizens, and soldiers. Fourscore thousand 95 of his
      native subjects, and of the vassal tribes of Gepidae, Russians,
      Bulgarians, and Sclavonians, advanced under the standard of the
      chagan; a month was spent in marches and negotiations, but the
      whole city was invested on the thirty-first of July, from the
      suburbs of Pera and Galata to the Blachernae and seven towers;
      and the inhabitants descried with terror the flaming signals of
      the European and Asiatic shores. In the mean while, the
      magistrates of Constantinople repeatedly strove to purchase the
      retreat of the chagan; but their deputies were rejected and
      insulted; and he suffered the patricians to stand before his
      throne, while the Persian envoys, in silk robes, were seated by
      his side. “You see,” said the haughty Barbarian, “the proofs of
      my perfect union with the great king; and his lieutenant is ready
      to send into my camp a select band of three thousand warriors.
      Presume no longer to tempt your master with a partial and
      inadequate ransom your wealth and your city are the only presents
      worthy of my acceptance. For yourselves, I shall permit you to
      depart, each with an under-garment and a shirt; and, at my
      entreaty, my friend Sarbar will not refuse a passage through his
      lines. Your absent prince, even now a captive or a fugitive, has
      left Constantinople to its fate; nor can you escape the arms of
      the Avars and Persians, unless you could soar into the air like
      birds, unless like fishes you could dive into the waves.” 96
      During ten successive days, the capital was assaulted by the
      Avars, who had made some progress in the science of attack; they
      advanced to sap or batter the wall, under the cover of the
      impenetrable tortoise; their engines discharged a perpetual
      volley of stones and darts; and twelve lofty towers of wood
      exalted the combatants to the height of the neighboring ramparts.

      But the senate and people were animated by the spirit of
      Heraclius, who had detached to their relief a body of twelve
      thousand cuirassiers; the powers of fire and mechanics were used
      with superior art and success in the defence of Constantinople;
      and the galleys, with two and three ranks of oars, commanded the
      Bosphorus, and rendered the Persians the idle spectators of the
      defeat of their allies. The Avars were repulsed; a fleet of
      Sclavonian canoes was destroyed in the harbor; the vassals of the
      chagan threatened to desert, his provisions were exhausted, and
      after burning his engines, he gave the signal of a slow and
      formidable retreat. The devotion of the Romans ascribed this
      signal deliverance to the Virgin Mary; but the mother of Christ
      would surely have condemned their inhuman murder of the Persian
      envoys, who were entitled to the rights of humanity, if they were
      not protected by the laws of nations. 97

      94 (return) [ Petavius (Annotationes ad Nicephorum, p. 62, 63,
      64) discriminates the names and actions of five Persian generals
      who were successively sent against Heraclius.]

      95 (return) [ This number of eight myriads is specified by George
      of Pisidia, (Bell. Abar. 219.) The poet (50—88) clearly indicates
      that the old chagan lived till the reign of Heraclius, and that
      his son and successor was born of a foreign mother. Yet Foggini
      (Annotat. p. 57) has given another interpretation to this
      passage.]

      96 (return) [ A bird, a frog, a mouse, and five arrows, had been
      the present of the Scythian king to Darius, (Herodot. l. iv. c.
      131, 132.) Substituez une lettre a ces signes (says Rousseau,
      with much good taste) plus elle sera menacante moins elle
      effrayera; ce ne sera qu’une fanfarronade dont Darius n’eut fait
      que rire, (Emile, tom. iii. p. 146.) Yet I much question whether
      the senate and people of Constantinople laughed at this message
      of the chagan.]

      97 (return) [ The Paschal Chronicle (p. 392—397) gives a minute
      and authentic narrative of the siege and deliverance of
      Constantinople Theophanes (p. 264) adds some circumstances; and a
      faint light may be obtained from the smoke of George of Pisidia,
      who has composed a poem (de Bello Abarico, p. 45—54) to
      commemorate this auspicious event.]

      After the division of his army, Heraclius prudently retired to
      the banks of the Phasis, from whence he maintained a defensive
      war against the fifty thousand gold spears of Persia. His anxiety
      was relieved by the deliverance of Constantinople; his hopes were
      confirmed by a victory of his brother Theodorus; and to the
      hostile league of Chosroes with the Avars, the Roman emperor
      opposed the useful and honorable alliance of the Turks. At his
      liberal invitation, the horde of Chozars 98 transported their
      tents from the plains of the Volga to the mountains of Georgia;
      Heraclius received them in the neighborhood of Teflis, and the
      khan with his nobles dismounted from their horses, if we may
      credit the Greeks, and fell prostrate on the ground, to adore the
      purple of the Caesars. Such voluntary homage and important aid
      were entitled to the warmest acknowledgments; and the emperor,
      taking off his own diadem, placed it on the head of the Turkish
      prince, whom he saluted with a tender embrace and the appellation
      of son. After a sumptuous banquet, he presented Ziebel with the
      plate and ornaments, the gold, the gems, and the silk, which had
      been used at the Imperial table, and, with his own hand,
      distributed rich jewels and ear-rings to his new allies. In a
      secret interview, he produced the portrait of his daughter
      Eudocia, 99 condescended to flatter the Barbarian with the
      promise of a fair and august bride; obtained an immediate succor
      of forty thousand horse, and negotiated a strong diversion of the
      Turkish arms on the side of the Oxus. 100 The Persians, in their
      turn, retreated with precipitation; in the camp of Edessa,
      Heraclius reviewed an army of seventy thousand Romans and
      strangers; and some months were successfully employed in the
      recovery of the cities of Syria, Mesopotamia and Armenia, whose
      fortifications had been imperfectly restored. Sarbar still
      maintained the important station of Chalcedon; but the jealousy
      of Chosroes, or the artifice of Heraclius, soon alienated the
      mind of that powerful satrap from the service of his king and
      country. A messenger was intercepted with a real or fictitious
      mandate to the cadarigan, or second in command, directing him to
      send, without delay, to the throne, the head of a guilty or
      unfortunate general. The despatches were transmitted to Sarbar
      himself; and as soon as he read the sentence of his own death, he
      dexterously inserted the names of four hundred officers,
      assembled a military council, and asked the cadarigan whether he
      was prepared to execute the commands of their tyrant. The
      Persians unanimously declared, that Chosroes had forfeited the
      sceptre; a separate treaty was concluded with the government of
      Constantinople; and if some considerations of honor or policy
      restrained Sarbar from joining the standard of Heraclius, the
      emperor was assured that he might prosecute, without
      interruption, his designs of victory and peace.

      98 (return) [ The power of the Chozars prevailed in the viith,
      viiith, and ixth centuries. They were known to the Greeks, the
      Arabs, and under the name of Kosa, to the Chinese themselves. De
      Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. part ii. p. 507—509. * Note:
      Moses of Chorene speaks of an invasion of Armenia by the Khazars
      in the second century, l. ii. c. 62. M. St. Martin suspects them
      to be the same with the Hunnish nation of the Acatires or
      Agazzires. They are called by the Greek historians Eastern Turks;
      like the Madjars and other Hunnish or Finnish tribes, they had
      probably received some admixture from the genuine Turkish races.
      Ibn. Hankal (Oriental Geography) says that their language was
      like the Bulgarian, and considers them a people of Finnish or
      Hunnish race. Klaproth, Tabl. Hist. p. 268-273. Abel Remusat,
      Rech. sur les Langues Tartares, tom. i. p. 315, 316. St. Martin,
      vol. xi. p. 115.—M]

      99 (return) [ Epiphania, or Eudocia, the only daughter of
      Heraclius and his first wife Eudocia, was born at Constantinople
      on the 7th of July, A.D. 611, baptized the 15th of August, and
      crowned (in the oratory of St. Stephen in the palace) the 4th of
      October of the same year. At this time she was about fifteen.
      Eudocia was afterwards sent to her Turkish husband, but the news
      of his death stopped her journey, and prevented the consummation,
      (Ducange, Familiae Byzantin. p. 118.)]

      100 (return) [ Elmcain (Hist. Saracen. p. 13—16) gives some
      curious and probable facts; but his numbers are rather too
      high—300,000 Romans assembled at Edessa—500,000 Persians killed
      at Nineveh. The abatement of a cipher is scarcely enough to
      restore his sanity]

      Deprived of his firmest support, and doubtful of the fidelity of
      his subjects, the greatness of Chosroes was still conspicuous in
      its ruins. The number of five hundred thousand may be interpreted
      as an Oriental metaphor, to describe the men and arms, the horses
      and elephants, that covered Media and Assyria against the
      invasion of Heraclius. Yet the Romans boldly advanced from the
      Araxes to the Tigris, and the timid prudence of Rhazates was
      content to follow them by forced marches through a desolate
      country, till he received a peremptory mandate to risk the fate
      of Persia in a decisive battle. Eastward of the Tigris, at the
      end of the bridge of Mosul, the great Nineveh had formerly been
      erected: 101 the city, and even the ruins of the city, had long
      since disappeared; 102 the vacant space afforded a spacious field
      for the operations of the two armies. But these operations are
      neglected by the Byzantine historians, and, like the authors of
      epic poetry and romance, they ascribe the victory, not to the
      military conduct, but to the personal valor, of their favorite
      hero. On this memorable day, Heraclius, on his horse Phallas,
      surpassed the bravest of his warriors: his lip was pierced with a
      spear; the steed was wounded in the thigh; but he carried his
      master safe and victorious through the triple phalanx of the
      Barbarians. In the heat of the action, three valiant chiefs were
      successively slain by the sword and lance of the emperor: among
      these was Rhazates himself; he fell like a soldier, but the sight
      of his head scattered grief and despair through the fainting
      ranks of the Persians. His armor of pure and massy gold, the
      shield of one hundred and twenty plates, the sword and belt, the
      saddle and cuirass, adorned the triumph of Heraclius; and if he
      had not been faithful to Christ and his mother, the champion of
      Rome might have offered the fourth opime spoils to the Jupiter of
      the Capitol. 103 In the battle of Nineveh, which was fiercely
      fought from daybreak to the eleventh hour, twenty-eight
      standards, besides those which might be broken or torn, were
      taken from the Persians; the greatest part of their army was cut
      in pieces, and the victors, concealing their own loss, passed the
      night on the field. They acknowledged, that on this occasion it
      was less difficult to kill than to discomfit the soldiers of
      Chosroes; amidst the bodies of their friends, no more than two
      bow-shot from the enemy the remnant of the Persian cavalry stood
      firm till the seventh hour of the night; about the eighth hour
      they retired to their unrifled camp, collected their baggage, and
      dispersed on all sides, from the want of orders rather than of
      resolution. The diligence of Heraclius was not less admirable in
      the use of victory; by a march of forty-eight miles in
      four-and-twenty hours, his vanguard occupied the bridges of the
      great and the lesser Zab; and the cities and palaces of Assyria
      were open for the first time to the Romans. By a just gradation
      of magnificent scenes, they penetrated to the royal seat of
      Dastagerd, 1031 and, though much of the treasure had been
      removed, and much had been expended, the remaining wealth appears
      to have exceeded their hopes, and even to have satiated their
      avarice. Whatever could not be easily transported, they consumed
      with fire, that Chosroes might feel the anguish of those wounds
      which he had so often inflicted on the provinces of the empire:
      and justice might allow the excuse, if the desolation had been
      confined to the works of regal luxury, if national hatred,
      military license, and religious zeal, had not wasted with equal
      rage the habitations and the temples of the guiltless subject.
      The recovery of three hundred Roman standards, and the
      deliverance of the numerous captives of Edessa and Alexandria,
      reflect a purer glory on the arms of Heraclius. From the palace
      of Dastagerd, he pursued his march within a few miles of Modain
      or Ctesiphon, till he was stopped, on the banks of the Arba, by
      the difficulty of the passage, the rigor of the season, and
      perhaps the fame of an impregnable capital. The return of the
      emperor is marked by the modern name of the city of Sherhzour: he
      fortunately passed Mount Zara, before the snow, which fell
      incessantly thirty-four days; and the citizens of Gandzca, or
      Tauris, were compelled to entertain the soldiers and their horses
      with a hospitable reception. 104

      101 (return) [ Ctesias (apud Didor. Sicul. tom. i. l. ii. p. 115,
      edit. Wesseling) assigns 480 stadia (perhaps only 32 miles) for
      the circumference of Nineveh. Jonas talks of three days’ journey:
      the 120,000 persons described by the prophet as incapable of
      discerning their right hand from their left, may afford about
      700,000 persons of all ages for the inhabitants of that ancient
      capital, (Goguet, Origines des Loix, &c., tom. iii. part i. p.
      92, 93,) which ceased to exist 600 years before Christ. The
      western suburb still subsisted, and is mentioned under the name
      of Mosul in the first age of the Arabian khalifs.]

      102 (return) [ Niebuhr (Voyage en Arabie, &c., tom. ii. p. 286)
      passed over Nineveh without perceiving it. He mistook for a ridge
      of hills the old rampart of brick or earth. It is said to have
      been 100 feet high, flanked with 1500 towers, each of the height
      of 200 feet.]

      103 (return) [ Rex regia arma fero (says Romulus, in the first
      consecration).... bina postea (continues Livy, i. 10) inter tot
      bella, opima parta sunt spolia, adeo rara ejus fortuna decoris.
      If Varro (apud Pomp Festum, p. 306, edit. Dacier) could justify
      his liberality in granting the opime spoils even to a common
      soldier who had slain the king or general of the enemy, the honor
      would have been much more cheap and common]

      1031 (return) [ Macdonald Kinneir places Dastagerd at Kasr e
      Shirin, the palace of Sira on the banks of the Diala between
      Holwan and Kanabee. Kinnets Geograph. Mem. p. 306.—M.]

      104 (return) [ In describing this last expedition of Heraclius,
      the facts, the places, and the dates of Theophanes (p. 265—271)
      are so accurate and authentic, that he must have followed the
      original letters of the emperor, of which the Paschal Chronicle
      has preserved (p. 398—402) a very curious specimen.]

      When the ambition of Chosroes was reduced to the defence of his
      hereditary kingdom, the love of glory, or even the sense of
      shame, should have urged him to meet his rival in the field. In
      the battle of Nineveh, his courage might have taught the Persians
      to vanquish, or he might have fallen with honor by the lance of a
      Roman emperor. The successor of Cyrus chose rather, at a secure
      distance, to expect the event, to assemble the relics of the
      defeat, and to retire, by measured steps, before the march of
      Heraclius, till he beheld with a sigh the once loved mansions of
      Dastagerd. Both his friends and enemies were persuaded, that it
      was the intention of Chosroes to bury himself under the ruins of
      the city and palace: and as both might have been equally adverse
      to his flight, the monarch of Asia, with Sira, 1041 and three
      concubines, escaped through a hole in the wall nine days before
      the arrival of the Romans. The slow and stately procession in
      which he showed himself to the prostrate crowd, was changed to a
      rapid and secret journey; and the first evening he lodged in the
      cottage of a peasant, whose humble door would scarcely give
      admittance to the great king. 105 His superstition was subdued by
      fear: on the third day, he entered with joy the fortifications of
      Ctesiphon; yet he still doubted of his safety till he had opposed
      the River Tigris to the pursuit of the Romans. The discovery of
      his flight agitated with terror and tumult the palace, the city,
      and the camp of Dastagerd: the satraps hesitated whether they had
      most to fear from their sovereign or the enemy; and the females
      of the harem were astonished and pleased by the sight of mankind,
      till the jealous husband of three thousand wives again confined
      them to a more distant castle. At his command, the army of
      Dastagerd retreated to a new camp: the front was covered by the
      Arba, and a line of two hundred elephants; the troops of the more
      distant provinces successively arrived, and the vilest domestics
      of the king and satraps were enrolled for the last defence of the
      throne. It was still in the power of Chosroes to obtain a
      reasonable peace; and he was repeatedly pressed by the messengers
      of Heraclius to spare the blood of his subjects, and to relieve a
      humane conqueror from the painful duty of carrying fire and sword
      through the fairest countries of Asia. But the pride of the
      Persian had not yet sunk to the level of his fortune; he derived
      a momentary confidence from the retreat of the emperor; he wept
      with impotent rage over the ruins of his Assyrian palaces, and
      disregarded too long the rising murmurs of the nation, who
      complained that their lives and fortunes were sacrificed to the
      obstinacy of an old man. That unhappy old man was himself
      tortured with the sharpest pains both of mind and body; and, in
      the consciousness of his approaching end, he resolved to fix the
      tiara on the head of Merdaza, the most favored of his sons. But
      the will of Chosroes was no longer revered, and Siroes, 1051 who
      gloried in the rank and merit of his mother Sira, had conspired
      with the malcontent s to assert and anticipate the rights of
      primogeniture. 106 Twenty-two satraps (they styled themselves
      patriots) were tempted by the wealth and honors of a new reign:
      to the soldiers, the heir of Chosroes promised an increase of
      pay; to the Christians, the free exercise of their religion; to
      the captives, liberty and rewards; and to the nation, instant
      peace and the reduction of taxes. It was determined by the
      conspirators, that Siroes, with the ensigns of royalty, should
      appear in the camp; and if the enterprise should fail, his escape
      was contrived to the Imperial court. But the new monarch was
      saluted with unanimous acclamations; the flight of Chosroes (yet
      where could he have fled?) was rudely arrested, eighteen sons
      were massacred 1061 before his face, and he was thrown into a
      dungeon, where he expired on the fifth day. The Greeks and modern
      Persians minutely describe how Chosroes was insulted, and
      famished, and tortured, by the command of an inhuman son, who so
      far surpassed the example of his father: but at the time of his
      death, what tongue would relate the story of the parricide? what
      eye could penetrate into the tower of darkness? According to the
      faith and mercy of his Christian enemies, he sunk without hope
      into a still deeper abyss; 107 and it will not be denied, that
      tyrants of every age and sect are the best entitled to such
      infernal abodes. The glory of the house of Sassan ended with the
      life of Chosroes: his unnatural son enjoyed only eight months the
      fruit of his crimes: and in the space of four years, the regal
      title was assumed by nine candidates, who disputed, with the
      sword or dagger, the fragments of an exhausted monarchy. Every
      province, and each city of Persia, was the scene of independence,
      of discord, and of blood; and the state of anarchy prevailed
      about eight years longer, 1071 till the factions were silenced
      and united under the common yoke of the Arabian caliphs. 108

      1041 (return) [ The Schirin of Persian poetry. The love of Chosru
      and Schirin rivals in Persian romance that of Joseph with Zuleika
      the wife of Potiphar, of Solomon with the queen of Sheba, and
      that of Mejnoun and Leila. The number of Persian poems on the
      subject may be seen in M. von Hammer’s preface to his poem of
      Schirin.—M]

      105 (return) [ The words of Theophanes are remarkable. Young
      princes who discover a propensity to war should repeatedly
      transcribe and translate such salutary texts.]

      1051 (return) [ His name was Kabad (as appears from an official
      letter in the Paschal Chronicle, p. 402.) St. Martin considers
      the name Siroes, Schirquieh of Schirwey, derived from the word
      schir, royal. St. Martin, xi. 153.—M.]

      106 (return) [ The authentic narrative of the fall of Chosroes is
      contained in the letter of Heraclius (Chron. Paschal. p. 398) and
      the history of Theophanes, (p. 271.)]

      1061 (return) [ According to Le Beau, this massacre was
      perpetrated at Mahuza in Babylonia, not in the presence of
      Chosroes. The Syrian historian, Thomas of Maraga, gives Chosroes
      twenty-four sons; Mirkhond, (translated by De Sacy,) fifteen; the
      inedited Modjmel-alte-warikh, agreeing with Gibbon, eighteen,
      with their names. Le Beau and St. Martin, xi. 146.—M.]

      107 (return) [ On the first rumor of the death of Chosroes, an
      Heracliad in two cantos was instantly published at Constantinople
      by George of Pisidia, (p. 97—105.) A priest and a poet might very
      properly exult in the damnation of the public enemy but such mean
      revenge is unworthy of a king and a conqueror; and I am sorry to
      find so much black superstition in the letter of Heraclius: he
      almost applauds the parricide of Siroes as an act of piety and
      justice. * Note: The Mahometans show no more charity towards the
      memory of Chosroes or Khoosroo Purveez. All his reverses are
      ascribed to the just indignation of God, upon a monarch who had
      dared, with impious and accursed hands, to tear the letter of the
      Holy Prophet Mahomed. Compare note, p. 231.—M.]

      1071 (return) [ Yet Gibbon himself places the flight and death of
      Yesdegird Ill., the last king of Persia, in 651. The famous era
      of Yesdegird dates from his accession, June 16 632.—M.]

      108 (return) [ The best Oriental accounts of this last period of
      the Sassanian kings are found in Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p.
      251—256,) who dissembles the parricide of Siroes, D’Herbelot
      (Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 789,) and Assemanni, (Bibliothec.
      Oriental. tom. iii. p. 415—420.)]

      As soon as the mountains became passable, the emperor received
      the welcome news of the success of the conspiracy, the death of
      Chosroes, and the elevation of his eldest son to the throne of
      Persia. The authors of the revolution, eager to display their
      merits in the court or camp of Tauris, preceded the ambassadors
      of Siroes, who delivered the letters of their master to his
      brother the emperor of the Romans. 109 In the language of the
      usurpers of every age, he imputes his own crimes to the Deity,
      and, without degrading his equal majesty, he offers to reconcile
      the long discord of the two nations, by a treaty of peace and
      alliance more durable than brass or iron. The conditions of the
      treaty were easily defined and faithfully executed. In the
      recovery of the standards and prisoners which had fallen into the
      hands of the Persians, the emperor imitated the example of
      Augustus: their care of the national dignity was celebrated by
      the poets of the times, but the decay of genius may be measured
      by the distance between Horace and George of Pisidia: the
      subjects and brethren of Heraclius were redeemed from
      persecution, slavery, and exile; but, instead of the Roman
      eagles, the true wood of the holy cross was restored to the
      importunate demands of the successor of Constantine. The victor
      was not ambitious of enlarging the weakness of the empire; the
      son of Chosroes abandoned without regret the conquests of his
      father; the Persians who evacuated the cities of Syria and Egypt
      were honorably conducted to the frontier, and a war which had
      wounded the vitals of the two monarchies, produced no change in
      their external and relative situation. The return of Heraclius
      from Tauris to Constantinople was a perpetual triumph; and after
      the exploits of six glorious campaigns, he peaceably enjoyed the
      Sabbath of his toils. After a long impatience, the senate, the
      clergy, and the people, went forth to meet their hero, with tears
      and acclamations, with olive branches and innumerable lamps; he
      entered the capital in a chariot drawn by four elephants; and as
      soon as the emperor could disengage himself from the tumult of
      public joy, he tasted more genuine satisfaction in the embraces
      of his mother and his son. 110

      109 (return) [ The letter of Siroes in the Paschal Chronicle (p.
      402) unfortunately ends before he proceeds to business. The
      treaty appears in its execution in the histories of Theophanes
      and Nicephorus. * Note: M. Mai. Script. Vet. Nova Collectio, vol.
      i. P. 2, p. 223, has added some lines, but no clear sense can be
      made out of the fragment.—M.]

      110 (return) [ The burden of Corneille’s song, “Montrez Heraclius
      au peuple qui l’attend,” is much better suited to the present
      occasion. See his triumph in Theophanes (p. 272, 273) and
      Nicephorus, (p. 15, 16.) The life of the mother and tenderness of
      the son are attested by George of Pisidia, (Bell. Abar. 255, &c.,
      p. 49.) The metaphor of the Sabbath is used somewhat profanely by
      these Byzantine Christians.]

      The succeeding year was illustrated by a triumph of a very
      different kind, the restitution of the true cross to the holy
      sepulchre. Heraclius performed in person the pilgrimage of
      Jerusalem, the identity of the relic was verified by the discreet
      patriarch, 111 and this august ceremony has been commemorated by
      the annual festival of the exaltation of the cross. Before the
      emperor presumed to tread the consecrated ground, he was
      instructed to strip himself of the diadem and purple, the pomp
      and vanity of the world: but in the judgment of his clergy, the
      persecution of the Jews was more easily reconciled with the
      precepts of the gospel. 1113 He again ascended his throne to
      receive the congratulations of the ambassadors of France and
      India: and the fame of Moses, Alexander, and Hercules, 112 was
      eclipsed in the popular estimation, by the superior merit and
      glory of the great Heraclius. Yet the deliverer of the East was
      indigent and feeble. Of the Persian spoils, the most valuable
      portion had been expended in the war, distributed to the
      soldiers, or buried, by an unlucky tempest, in the waves of the
      Euxine. The conscience of the emperor was oppressed by the
      obligation of restoring the wealth of the clergy, which he had
      borrowed for their own defence: a perpetual fund was required to
      satisfy these inexorable creditors; the provinces, already wasted
      by the arms and avarice of the Persians, were compelled to a
      second payment of the same taxes; and the arrears of a simple
      citizen, the treasurer of Damascus, were commuted to a fine of
      one hundred thousand pieces of gold. The loss of two hundred
      thousand soldiers 113 who had fallen by the sword, was of less
      fatal importance than the decay of arts, agriculture, and
      population, in this long and destructive war: and although a
      victorious army had been formed under the standard of Heraclius,
      the unnatural effort appears to have exhausted rather than
      exercised their strength. While the emperor triumphed at
      Constantinople or Jerusalem, an obscure town on the confines of
      Syria was pillaged by the Saracens, and they cut in pieces some
      troops who advanced to its relief; an ordinary and trifling
      occurrence, had it not been the prelude of a mighty revolution.
      These robbers were the apostles of Mahomet; their fanatic valor
      had emerged from the desert; and in the last eight years of his
      reign, Heraclius lost to the Arabs the same provinces which he
      had rescued from the Persians.

      111 (return) [ See Baronius, (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 628, No. 1-4,)
      Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 240—248,) Nicephorus, (Brev. p.
      15.) The seals of the case had never been broken; and this
      preservation of the cross is ascribed (under God) to the devotion
      of Queen Sira.]

      1113 (return) [ If the clergy imposed upon the kneeling and
      penitent emperor the persecution of the Jews, it must be
      acknowledge that provocation was not wanting; for how many of
      them had been eye-witnesses of, perhaps sufferers in, the
      horrible atrocities committed on the capture of the city! Yet we
      have no authentic account of great severities exercised by
      Heraclius. The law of Hadrian was reenacted, which prohibited the
      Jews from approaching within three miles of the city—a law,
      which, in the present exasperated state of the Christians, might
      be a measure of security of mercy, rather than of oppression.
      Milman, Hist. of the Jews, iii. 242.—M.]

      112 (return) [ George of Pisidia, Acroas. iii. de Expedit. contra
      Persas, 415, &c., and Heracleid. Acroas. i. 65—138. I neglect the
      meaner parallels of Daniel, Timotheus, &c.; Chosroes and the
      chagan were of course compared to Belshazzar, Pharaoh, the old
      serpent, &c.]

      113 (return) [ Suidas (in Excerpt. Hist. Byzant. p. 46) gives
      this number; but either the Persian must be read for the Isaurian
      war, or this passage does not belong to the emperor Heraclius.]




      Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part I.

     Theological History Of The Doctrine Of The Incarnation.—The Human
     And Divine Nature Of Christ.—Enmity Of The Patriarchs Of
     Alexandria And Constantinople.—St. Cyril And Nestorius. —Third
     General Council Of Ephesus.—Heresy Of Eutyches.— Fourth General
     Council Of Chalcedon.—Civil And Ecclesiastical
     Discord.—Intolerance Of Justinian.—The Three Chapters.—The
     Monothelite Controversy.—State Of The Oriental Sects:—I.  The
     Nestorians.—II.  The Jacobites.— III.  The Maronites.—IV. The
     Armenians.—V.  The Copts And Abyssinians.

      After the extinction of paganism, the Christians in peace and
      piety might have enjoyed their solitary triumph. But the
      principle of discord was alive in their bosom, and they were more
      solicitous to explore the nature, than to practice the laws, of
      their founder. I have already observed, that the disputes of the
      Trinity were succeeded by those of the Incarnation; alike
      scandalous to the church, alike pernicious to the state, still
      more minute in their origin, still more durable in their effects.

      It is my design to comprise in the present chapter a religious
      war of two hundred and fifty years, to represent the
      ecclesiastical and political schism of the Oriental sects, and to
      introduce their clamorous or sanguinary contests, by a modest
      inquiry into the doctrines of the primitive church. 1

      1 (return) [ By what means shall I authenticate this previous
      inquiry, which I have studied to circumscribe and compress?—If I
      persist in supporting each fact or reflection by its proper and
      special evidence, every line would demand a string of
      testimonies, and every note would swell to a critical
      dissertation. But the numberless passages of antiquity which I
      have seen with my own eyes, are compiled, digested and
      illustrated by Petavius and Le Clerc, by Beausobre and Mosheim. I
      shall be content to fortify my narrative by the names and
      characters of these respectable guides; and in the contemplation
      of a minute or remote object, I am not ashamed to borrow the aid
      of the strongest glasses: 1. The Dogmata Theologica of Petavius
      are a work of incredible labor and compass; the volumes which
      relate solely to the Incarnation (two folios, vth and vith, of
      837 pages) are divided into xvi. books—the first of history, the
      remainder of controversy and doctrine. The Jesuit’s learning is
      copious and correct; his Latinity is pure, his method clear, his
      argument profound and well connected; but he is the slave of the
      fathers, the scourge of heretics, and the enemy of truth and
      candor, as often as they are inimical to the Catholic cause. 2.
      The Arminian Le Clerc, who has composed in a quarto volume
      (Amsterdam, 1716) the ecclesiastical history of the two first
      centuries, was free both in his temper and situation; his sense
      is clear, but his thoughts are narrow; he reduces the reason or
      folly of ages to the standard of his private judgment, and his
      impartiality is sometimes quickened, and sometimes tainted by his
      opposition to the fathers. See the heretics (Cerinthians, lxxx.
      Ebionites, ciii. Carpocratians, cxx. Valentiniins, cxxi.
      Basilidians, cxxiii. Marcionites, cxli., &c.) under their proper
      dates. 3. The Histoire Critique du Manicheisme (Amsterdam, 1734,
      1739, in two vols. in 4to., with a posthumous dissertation sur
      les Nazarenes, Lausanne, 1745) of M. de Beausobre is a treasure
      of ancient philosophy and theology. The learned historian spins
      with incomparable art the systematic thread of opinion, and
      transforms himself by turns into the person of a saint, a sage,
      or a heretic. Yet his refinement is sometimes excessive; he
      betrays an amiable partiality in favor of the weaker side, and,
      while he guards against calumny, he does not allow sufficient
      scope for superstition and fanaticism. A copious table of
      contents will direct the reader to any point that he wishes to
      examine. 4. Less profound than Petavius, less independent than Le
      Clerc, less ingenious than Beausobre, the historian Mosheim is
      full, rational, correct, and moderate. In his learned work, De
      Rebus Christianis ante Constantinum (Helmstadt 1753, in 4to.,)
      see the Nazarenes and Ebionites, p. 172—179, 328—332. The
      Gnostics in general, p. 179, &c. Cerinthus, p. 196—202.
      Basilides, p. 352—361. Carpocrates, p. 363—367. Valentinus, p.
      371—389 Marcion, p. 404—410. The Manichaeans, p. 829-837, &c.]

      I. A laudable regard for the honor of the first proselyte has
      countenanced the belief, the hope, the wish, that the Ebionites,
      or at least the Nazarenes, were distinguished only by their
      obstinate perseverance in the practice of the Mosaic rites.

      Their churches have disappeared, their books are obliterated:
      their obscure freedom might allow a latitude of faith, and the
      softness of their infant creed would be variously moulded by the
      zeal or prudence of three hundred years. Yet the most charitable
      criticism must refuse these sectaries any knowledge of the pure
      and proper divinity of Christ. Educated in the school of Jewish
      prophecy and prejudice, they had never been taught to elevate
      their hopes above a human and temporal Messiah. 2 If they had
      courage to hail their king when he appeared in a plebeian garb,
      their grosser apprehensions were incapable of discerning their
      God, who had studiously disguised his celestial character under
      the name and person of a mortal. 3 The familiar companions of
      Jesus of Nazareth conversed with their friend and countryman,
      who, in all the actions of rational and animal life, appeared of
      the same species with themselves. His progress from infancy to
      youth and manhood was marked by a regular increase in stature and
      wisdom; and after a painful agony of mind and body, he expired on
      the cross. He lived and died for the service of mankind: but the
      life and death of Socrates had likewise been devoted to the cause
      of religion and justice; and although the stoic or the hero may
      disdain the humble virtues of Jesus, the tears which he shed over
      his friend and country may be esteemed the purest evidence of his
      humanity. The miracles of the gospel could not astonish a people
      who held with intrepid faith the more splendid prodigies of the
      Mosaic law. The prophets of ancient days had cured diseases,
      raised the dead, divided the sea, stopped the sun, and ascended
      to heaven in a fiery chariot. And the metaphorical style of the
      Hebrews might ascribe to a saint and martyr the adoptive title of
      Son of God.

      2 (return) [ Jew Tryphon, (Justin. Dialog. p. 207) in the name of
      his countrymen, and the modern Jews, the few who divert their
      thoughts from money to religion, still hold the same language,
      and allege the literal sense of the prophets. * Note: See on this
      passage Bp. Kaye, Justin Martyr, p. 25.—M. Note: Most of the
      modern writers, who have closely examined this subject, and who
      will not be suspected of any theological bias, Rosenmuller on
      Isaiah ix. 5, and on Psalm xlv. 7, and Bertholdt, Christologia
      Judaeorum, c. xx., rightly ascribe much higher notions of the
      Messiah to the Jews. In fact, the dispute seems to rest on the
      notion that there was a definite and authorized notion of the
      Messiah, among the Jews, whereas it was probably so vague, as to
      admit every shade of difference, from the vulgar expectation of a
      mere temporal king, to the philosophic notion of an emanation
      from the Deity.—M.]

      3 (return) [ Chrysostom (Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tom. v. c. 9,
      p. 183) and Athanasius (Petav. Dogmat. Theolog. tom. v. l. i. c.
      2, p. 3) are obliged to confess that the Divinity of Christ is
      rarely mentioned by himself or his apostles.]

      Yet in the insufficient creed of the Nazarenes and the Ebionites,
      a distinction is faintly noticed between the heretics, who
      confounded the generation of Christ in the common order of
      nature, and the less guilty schismatics, who revered the
      virginity of his mother, and excluded the aid of an earthly
      father. The incredulity of the former was countenanced by the
      visible circumstances of his birth, the legal marriage of the
      reputed parents, Joseph and Mary, and his lineal claim to the
      kingdom of David and the inheritance of Judah. But the secret and
      authentic history has been recorded in several copies of the
      Gospel according to St. Matthew, 4 which these sectaries long
      preserved in the original Hebrew, 5 as the sole evidence of their
      faith. The natural suspicions of the husband, conscious of his
      own chastity, were dispelled by the assurance (in a dream) that
      his wife was pregnant of the Holy Ghost: and as this distant and
      domestic prodigy could not fall under the personal observation of
      the historian, he must have listened to the same voice which
      dictated to Isaiah the future conception of a virgin. The son of
      a virgin, generated by the ineffable operation of the Holy
      Spirit, was a creature without example or resemblance, superior
      in every attribute of mind and body to the children of Adam.
      Since the introduction of the Greek or Chaldean philosophy, 6 the
      Jews 7 were persuaded of the preexistence, transmigration, and
      immortality of souls; and providence was justified by a
      supposition, that they were confined in their earthly prisons to
      expiate the stains which they had contracted in a former state. 8
      But the degrees of purity and corruption are almost immeasurable.
      It might be fairly presumed, that the most sublime and virtuous
      of human spirits was infused into the offspring of Mary and the
      Holy Ghost; 9 that his abasement was the result of his voluntary
      choice; and that the object of his mission was, to purify, not
      his own, but the sins of the world. On his return to his native
      skies, he received the immense reward of his obedience; the
      everlasting kingdom of the Messiah, which had been darkly
      foretold by the prophets, under the carnal images of peace, of
      conquest, and of dominion. Omnipotence could enlarge the human
      faculties of Christ to the extend of is celestial office. In the
      language of antiquity, the title of God has not been severely
      confined to the first parent, and his incomparable minister, his
      only-begotten son, might claim, without presumption, the
      religious, though secondary, worship of a subject of a subject
      world.

      4 (return) [ The two first chapters of St. Matthew did not exist
      in the Ebionite copies, (Epiphan. Haeres. xxx. 13;) and the
      miraculous conception is one of the last articles which Dr.
      Priestley has curtailed from his scanty creed. * Note: The
      distinct allusion to the facts related in the two first chapters
      of the Gospel, in a work evidently written about the end of the
      reign of Nero, the Ascensio Isaiae, edited by Archbishop
      Lawrence, seems convincing evidence that they are integral parts
      of the authentic Christian history.—M.]

      5 (return) [ It is probable enough that the first of the Gospels
      for the use of the Jewish converts was composed in the Hebrew or
      Syriac idiom: the fact is attested by a chain of fathers—Papias,
      Irenaeus, Origen, Jerom, &c. It is devoutly believed by the
      Catholics, and admitted by Casaubon, Grotius, and Isaac Vossius,
      among the Protestant critics. But this Hebrew Gospel of St.
      Matthew is most unaccountably lost; and we may accuse the
      diligence or fidelity of the primitive churches, who have
      preferred the unauthorized version of some nameless Greek.
      Erasmus and his followers, who respect our Greek text as the
      original Gospel, deprive themselves of the evidence which
      declares it to be the work of an apostle. See Simon, Hist.
      Critique, &c., tom. iii. c. 5—9, p. 47—101, and the Prolegomena
      of Mill and Wetstein to the New Testament. * Note: Surely the
      extinction of the Judaeo-Christian community related from Mosheim
      by Gibbon himself (c. xv.) accounts both simply and naturally for
      the loss of a composition, which had become of no use—nor does it
      follow that the Greek Gospel of St. Matthew is unauthorized.—M.]

      6 (return) [ The metaphysics of the soul are disengaged by Cicero
      (Tusculan. l. i.) and Maximus of Tyre (Dissertat. xvi.) from the
      intricacies of dialogue, which sometimes amuse, and often
      perplex, the readers of the Phoedrus, the Phoedon, and the Laws
      of Plato.]

      7 (return) [ The disciples of Jesus were persuaded that a man
      might have sinned before he was born, (John, ix. 2,) and the
      Pharisees held the transmigration of virtuous souls, (Joseph. de
      Bell. Judaico, l. ii. c. 7;) and a modern Rabbi is modestly
      assured, that Hermes, Pythagoras, Plato, &c., derived their
      metaphysics from his illustrious countrymen.]

      8 (return) [ Four different opinions have been entertained
      concerning the origin of human souls: 1. That they are eternal
      and divine. 2. That they were created in a separate state of
      existence, before their union with the body. 3. That they have
      been propagated from the original stock of Adam, who contained in
      himself the mental as well as the corporeal seed of his
      posterity. 4. That each soul is occasionally created and embodied
      in the moment of conception.—The last of these sentiments appears
      to have prevailed among the moderns; and our spiritual history is
      grown less sublime, without becoming more intelligible.]

      9 (return) [ It was one of the fifteen heresies imputed to
      Origen, and denied by his apologist, (Photius, Bibliothec. cod.
      cxvii. p. 296.) Some of the Rabbis attribute one and the same
      soul to the persons of Adam, David, and the Messiah.]

      II. The seeds of the faith, which had slowly arisen in the rocky
      and ungrateful soil of Judea, were transplanted, in full
      maturity, to the happier climes of the Gentiles; and the
      strangers of Rome or Asia, who never beheld the manhood, were the
      more readily disposed to embrace the divinity, of Christ. The
      polytheist and the philosopher, the Greek and the Barbarian, were
      alike accustomed to conceive a long succession, an infinite chain
      of angels or daemons, or deities, or aeons, or emanations,
      issuing from the throne of light. Nor could it seem strange or
      incredible, that the first of these aeons, the Logos, or Word of
      God, of the same substance with the Father, should descend upon
      earth, to deliver the human race from vice and error, and to
      conduct them in the paths of life and immortality. But the
      prevailing doctrine of the eternity and inherent pravity of
      matter infected the primitive churches of the East. Many among
      the Gentile proselytes refused to believe that a celestial
      spirit, an undivided portion of the first essence, had been
      personally united with a mass of impure and contaminated flesh;
      and, in their zeal for the divinity, they piously abjured the
      humanity, of Christ. While his blood was still recent on Mount
      Calvary, 10 the Docetes, a numerous and learned sect of Asiatics,
      invented the phantastic system, which was afterwards propagated
      by the Marcionites, the Manichaeans, and the various names of the
      Gnostic heresy. 11 They denied the truth and authenticity of the
      Gospels, as far as they relate the conception of Mary, the birth
      of Christ, and the thirty years that preceded the exercise of his
      ministry. He first appeared on the banks of the Jordan in the
      form of perfect manhood; but it was a form only, and not a
      substance; a human figure created by the hand of Omnipotence to
      imitate the faculties and actions of a man, and to impose a
      perpetual illusion on the senses of his friends and enemies.
      Articulate sounds vibrated on the ears of the disciples; but the
      image which was impressed on their optic nerve eluded the more
      stubborn evidence of the touch; and they enjoyed the spiritual,
      not the corporeal, presence of the Son of God. The rage of the
      Jews was idly wasted against an impassive phantom; and the mystic
      scenes of the passion and death, the resurrection and ascension,
      of Christ were represented on the theatre of Jerusalem for the
      benefit of mankind. If it were urged, that such ideal mimicry,
      such incessant deception, was unworthy of the God of truth, the
      Docetes agreed with too many of their orthodox brethren in the
      justification of pious falsehood. In the system of the Gnostics,
      the Jehovah of Israel, the Creator of this lower world, was a
      rebellious, or at least an ignorant, spirit. The Son of God
      descended upon earth to abolish his temple and his law; and, for
      the accomplishment of this salutary end, he dexterously
      transferred to his own person the hope and prediction of a
      temporal Messiah.

      10 (return) [ Apostolis adhuc in seculo superstitibus, apud
      Judaeam Christi sanguine recente, Phantasma domini corpus
      asserebatur. Hieronym, advers. Lucifer. c. 8. The epistle of
      Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, and even the Gospel according to St.
      John, are levelled against the growing error of the Docetes, who
      had obtained too much credit in the world, (1 John, iv. 1—5.)]

      11 (return) [ About the year 200 of the Christian aera, Irenaeus
      and Hippolytus efuted the thirty-two sects, which had multiplied
      to fourscore in the time of Epiphanius, (Phot. Biblioth. cod.
      cxx. cxxi. cxxii.) The five books of Irenaeus exist only in
      barbarous Latin; but the original might perhaps be found in some
      monastery of Greece.]

      One of the most subtile disputants of the Manichaean school has
      pressed the danger and indecency of supposing, that the God of
      the Christians, in the state of a human foetus, emerged at the
      end of nine months from a female womb. The pious horror of his
      antagonists provoked them to disclaim all sensual circumstances
      of conception and delivery; to maintain that the divinity passed
      through Mary like a sunbeam through a plate of glass; and to
      assert, that the seal of her virginity remained unbroken even at
      the moment when she became the mother of Christ. But the rashness
      of these concessions has encouraged a milder sentiment of those
      of the Docetes, who taught, not that Christ was a phantom, but
      that he was clothed with an impassible and incorruptible body.
      Such, indeed, in the more orthodox system, he has acquired since
      his resurrection, and such he must have always possessed, if it
      were capable of pervading, without resistance or injury, the
      density of intermediate matter. Devoid of its most essential
      properties, it might be exempt from the attributes and
      infirmities of the flesh. A foetus that could increase from an
      invisible point to its full maturity; a child that could attain
      the stature of perfect manhood without deriving any nourishment
      from the ordinary sources, might continue to exist without
      repairing a daily waste by a daily supply of external matter.
      Jesus might share the repasts of his disciples without being
      subject to the calls of thirst or hunger; and his virgin purity
      was never sullied by the involuntary stains of sensual
      concupiscence. Of a body thus singularly constituted, a question
      would arise, by what means, and of what materials, it was
      originally framed; and our sounder theology is startled by an
      answer which was not peculiar to the Gnostics, that both the form
      and the substance proceeded from the divine essence. The idea of
      pure and absolute spirit is a refinement of modern philosophy:
      the incorporeal essence, ascribed by the ancients to human souls,
      celestial beings, and even the Deity himself, does not exclude
      the notion of extended space; and their imagination was satisfied
      with a subtile nature of air, or fire, or aether, incomparably
      more perfect than the grossness of the material world. If we
      define the place, we must describe the figure, of the Deity. Our
      experience, perhaps our vanity, represents the powers of reason
      and virtue under a human form. The Anthropomorphites, who swarmed
      among the monks of Egypt and the Catholics of Africa, could
      produce the express declaration of Scripture, that man was made
      after the image of his Creator. 12 The venerable Serapion, one of
      the saints of the Nitrian deserts, relinquished, with many a
      tear, his darling prejudice; and bewailed, like an infant, his
      unlucky conversion, which had stolen away his God, and left his
      mind without any visible object of faith or devotion. 13

      12 (return) [ The pilgrim Cassian, who visited Egypt in the
      beginning of the vth century, observes and laments the reign of
      anthropomorphism among the monks, who were not conscious that
      they embraced the system of Epicurus, (Cicero, de Nat. Deorum, i.
      18, 34.) Ab universo propemodum genere monachorum, qui per totam
      provinciam Egyptum morabantur, pro simplicitatis errore susceptum
      est, ut e contraric memoratum pontificem (Theophilus) velut
      haeresi gravissima depravatum, pars maxima seniorum ab universo
      fraternitatis corpore decerneret detestandum, (Cassian,
      Collation. x. 2.) As long as St. Augustin remained a Manichaean,
      he was scandalized by the anthropomorphism of the vulgar
      Catholics.]

      13 (return) [ Ita est in oratione senex mente confusus, eo quod
      illam imaginem Deitatis, quam proponere sibi in oratione
      consueverat, aboleri de suo corde sentiret, ut in amarissimos
      fletus, crebrosque singultus repente prorumpens, in terram
      prostratus, cum ejulatu validissimo proclamaret; “Heu me miserum!
      tulerunt a me Deum meum, et quem nunc teneam non habeo, vel quem
      adorem, aut interpallam am nescio.” Cassian, Collat. x. 2.]

      III. Such were the fleeting shadows of the Docetes. A more
      substantial, though less simple, hypothesis, was contrived by
      Cerinthus of Asia, 14 who dared to oppose the last of the
      apostles. Placed on the confines of the Jewish and Gentile world,
      he labored to reconcile the Gnostic with the Ebionite, by
      confessing in the same Messiah the supernatural union of a man
      and a God; and this mystic doctrine was adopted with many
      fanciful improvements by Carpocrates, Basilides, and Valentine,
      15 the heretics of the Egyptian school. In their eyes, Jesus of
      Nazareth was a mere mortal, the legitimate son of Joseph and
      Mary: but he was the best and wisest of the human race, selected
      as the worthy instrument to restore upon earth the worship of the
      true and supreme Deity. When he was baptized in the Jordan, the
      Christ, the first of the aeons, the Son of God himself, descended
      on Jesus in the form of a dove, to inhabit his mind, and direct
      his actions during the allotted period of his ministry. When the
      Messiah was delivered into the hands of the Jews, the Christ, an
      immortal and impassible being, forsook his earthly tabernacle,
      flew back to the pleroma or world of spirits, and left the
      solitary Jesus to suffer, to complain, and to expire. But the
      justice and generosity of such a desertion are strongly
      questionable; and the fate of an innocent martyr, at first
      impelled, and at length abandoned, by his divine companion, might
      provoke the pity and indignation of the profane. Their murmurs
      were variously silenced by the sectaries who espoused and
      modified the double system of Cerinthus. It was alleged, that
      when Jesus was nailed to the cross, he was endowed with a
      miraculous apathy of mind and body, which rendered him insensible
      of his apparent sufferings. It was affirmed, that these
      momentary, though real, pangs would be abundantly repaid by the
      temporal reign of a thousand years reserved for the Messiah in
      his kingdom of the new Jerusalem. It was insinuated, that if he
      suffered, he deserved to suffer; that human nature is never
      absolutely perfect; and that the cross and passion might serve to
      expiate the venial transgressions of the son of Joseph, before
      his mysterious union with the Son of God. 16

      14 (return) [ St. John and Cerinthus (A.D. 80. Cleric. Hist.
      Eccles. p. 493) accidentally met in the public bath of Ephesus;
      but the apostle fled from the heretic, lest the building should
      tumble on their heads. This foolish story, reprobated by Dr.
      Middleton, (Miscellaneous Works, vol. ii.,) is related, however,
      by Irenaeus, (iii. 3,) on the evidence of Polycarp, and was
      probably suited to the time and residence of Cerinthus. The
      obsolete, yet probably the true, reading of 1 John, iv. 3 alludes
      to the double nature of that primitive heretic. * Note: Griesbach
      asserts that all the Greek Mss., all the translators, and all the
      Greek fathers, support the common reading.—Nov. Test. in loc.—M]

      15 (return) [ The Valentinians embraced a complex, and almost
      incoherent, system. 1. Both Christ and Jesus were aeons, though
      of different degrees; the one acting as the rational soul, the
      other as the divine spirit of the Savior. 2. At the time of the
      passion, they both retired, and left only a sensitive soul and a
      human body. 3. Even that body was aethereal, and perhaps
      apparent.—Such are the laborious conclusions of Mosheim. But I
      much doubt whether the Latin translator understood Irenaeus, and
      whether Irenaeus and the Valetinians understood themselves.]

      16 (return) [ The heretics abused the passionate exclamation of
      “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Rousseau, who has
      drawn an eloquent, but indecent, parallel between Christ and
      Socrates, forgets that not a word of impatience or despair
      escaped from the mouth of the dying philosopher. In the Messiah,
      such sentiments could be only apparent; and such ill-sounding
      words were properly explained as the application of a psalm and
      prophecy.]

      IV. All those who believe the immateriality of the soul, a
      specious and noble tenet, must confess, from their present
      experience, the incomprehensible union of mind and matter. A
      similar union is not inconsistent with a much higher, or even
      with the highest, degree of mental faculties; and the incarnation
      of an aeon or archangel, the most perfect of created spirits,
      does not involve any positive contradiction or absurdity. In the
      age of religious freedom, which was determined by the council of
      Nice, the dignity of Christ was measured by private judgment
      according to the indefinite rule of Scripture, or reason, or
      tradition. But when his pure and proper divinity had been
      established on the ruins of Arianism, the faith of the Catholics
      trembled on the edge of a precipice where it was impossible to
      recede, dangerous to stand, dreadful to fall and the manifold
      inconveniences of their creed were aggravated by the sublime
      character of their theology. They hesitated to pronounce; that
      God himself, the second person of an equal and consubstantial
      trinity, was manifested in the flesh; 17 that a being who
      pervades the universe, had been confined in the womb of Mary;
      that his eternal duration had been marked by the days, and
      months, and years of human existence; that the Almighty had been
      scourged and crucified; that his impassible essence had felt pain
      and anguish; that his omniscience was not exempt from ignorance;
      and that the source of life and immortality expired on Mount
      Calvary. These alarming consequences were affirmed with
      unblushing simplicity by Apollinaris, 18 bishop of Laodicea, and
      one of the luminaries of the church. The son of a learned
      grammarian, he was skilled in all the sciences of Greece;
      eloquence, erudition, and philosophy, conspicuous in the volumes
      of Apollinaris, were humbly devoted to the service of religion.
      The worthy friend of Athanasius, the worthy antagonist of Julian,
      he bravely wrestled with the Arians and Polytheists, and though
      he affected the rigor of geometrical demonstration, his
      commentaries revealed the literal and allegorical sense of the
      Scriptures. A mystery, which had long floated in the looseness of
      popular belief, was defined by his perverse diligence in a
      technical form; and he first proclaimed the memorable words, “One
      incarnate nature of Christ,” which are still reechoed with
      hostile clamors in the churches of Asia, Egypt, and Aethiopia. He
      taught that the Godhead was united or mingled with the body of a
      man; and that the Logos, the eternal wisdom, supplied in the
      flesh the place and office of a human soul. Yet as the profound
      doctor had been terrified at his own rashness, Apollinaris was
      heard to mutter some faint accents of excuse and explanation. He
      acquiesced in the old distinction of the Greek philosophers
      between the rational and sensitive soul of man; that he might
      reserve the Logos for intellectual functions, and employ the
      subordinate human principle in the meaner actions of animal life.

      With the moderate Docetes, he revered Mary as the spiritual,
      rather than as the carnal, mother of Christ, whose body either
      came from heaven, impassible and incorruptible, or was absorbed,
      and as it were transformed, into the essence of the Deity. The
      system of Apollinaris was strenuously encountered by the Asiatic
      and Syrian divines whose schools are honored by the names of
      Basil, Gregory and Chrysostom, and tainted by those of Diodorus,
      Theodore, and Nestorius. But the person of the aged bishop of
      Laedicea, his character and dignity, remained inviolate; and his
      rivals, since we may not suspect them of the weakness of
      toleration, were astonished, perhaps, by the novelty of the
      argument, and diffident of the final sentence of the Catholic
      church. Her judgment at length inclined in their favor; the
      heresy of Apollinaris was condemned, and the separate
      congregations of his disciples were proscribed by the Imperial
      laws. But his principles were secretly entertained in the
      monasteries of Egypt, and his enemies felt the hatred of
      Theophilus and Cyril, the successive patriarchs of Alexandria.

      17 (return) [ This strong expression might be justified by the
      language of St. Paul, (1 Tim. iii. 16;) but we are deceived by
      our modern Bibles. The word which was altered to God at
      Constantinople in the beginning of the vith century: the true
      reading, which is visible in the Latin and Syriac versions, still
      exists in the reasoning of the Greek, as well as of the Latin
      fathers; and this fraud, with that of the three witnesses of St.
      John, is admirably detected by Sir Isaac Newton. (See his two
      letters translated by M. de Missy, in the Journal Britannique,
      tom. xv. p. 148—190, 351—390.) I have weighed the arguments, and
      may yield to the authority of the first of philosophers, who was
      deeply skilled in critical and theological studies. Note: It
      should be Griesbach in loc. The weight of authority is so much
      against the common reading in both these points, that they are no
      longer urged by prudent controversialists. Would Gibbon’s
      deference for the first of philosophers have extended to all his
      theological conclusions?—M.]

      18 (return) [ For Apollinaris and his sect, see Socrates, l. ii.
      c. 46, l. iii. c. 16 Sazomen, l. v. c. 18, 1. vi. c. 25, 27.
      Theodoret, l. v. 3, 10, 11. Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiastiques,
      tom. vii. p. 602—638. Not. p. 789—794, in 4to. Venise, 1732. The
      contemporary saint always mentions the bishop of Laodicea as a
      friend and brother. The style of the more recent historians is
      harsh and hostile: yet Philostorgius compares him (l. viii. c.
      11-15) to Basil and Gregory.]

      V. The grovelling Ebionite, and the fantastic Docetes, were
      rejected and forgotten: the recent zeal against the errors of
      Apollinaris reduced the Catholics to a seeming agreement with the
      double nature of Cerinthus. But instead of a temporary and
      occasional alliance, they established, and we still embrace, the
      substantial, indissoluble, and everlasting union of a perfect God
      with a perfect man, of the second person of the trinity with a
      reasonable soul and human flesh. In the beginning of the fifth
      century, the unity of the two natures was the prevailing doctrine
      of the church. On all sides, it was confessed, that the mode of
      their coexistence could neither be represented by our ideas, nor
      expressed by our language. Yet a secret and incurable discord was
      cherished, between those who were most apprehensive of
      confounding, and those who were most fearful of separating, the
      divinity, and the humanity, of Christ. Impelled by religious
      frenzy, they fled with adverse haste from the error which they
      mutually deemed most destructive of truth and salvation. On
      either hand they were anxious to guard, they were jealous to
      defend, the union and the distinction of the two natures, and to
      invent such forms of speech, such symbols of doctrine, as were
      least susceptible of doubt or ambiguity. The poverty of ideas and
      language tempted them to ransack art and nature for every
      possible comparison, and each comparison misled their fancy in
      the explanation of an incomparable mystery. In the polemic
      microscope, an atom is enlarged to a monster, and each party was
      skilful to exaggerate the absurd or impious conclusions that
      might be extorted from the principles of their adversaries. To
      escape from each other, they wandered through many a dark and
      devious thicket, till they were astonished by the horrid phantoms
      of Cerinthus and Apollinaris, who guarded the opposite issues of
      the theological labyrinth. As soon as they beheld the twilight of
      sense and heresy, they started, measured back their steps, and
      were again involved in the gloom of impenetrable orthodoxy. To
      purge themselves from the guilt or reproach of damnable error,
      they disavowed their consequences, explained their principles,
      excused their indiscretions, and unanimously pronounced the
      sounds of concord and faith. Yet a latent and almost invisible
      spark still lurked among the embers of controversy: by the breath
      of prejudice and passion, it was quickly kindled to a mighty
      flame, and the verbal disputes 19 of the Oriental sects have
      shaken the pillars of the church and state.

      19 (return) [ I appeal to the confession of two Oriental
      prelates, Gregory Abulpharagius the Jacobite primate of the East,
      and Elias the Nestorian metropolitan of Damascus, (see Asseman,
      Bibliothec. Oriental. tom. ii. p. 291, tom. iii. p. 514, &c.,)
      that the Melchites, Jacobites, Nestorians, &c., agree in the
      doctrine, and differ only in the expression. Our most learned and
      rational divines—Basnage, Le Clerc, Beausobre, La Croze, Mosheim,
      Jablonski—are inclined to favor this charitable judgment; but the
      zeal of Petavius is loud and angry, and the moderation of Dupin
      is conveyed in a whisper.]

      The name of Cyril of Alexandria is famous in controversial story,
      and the title of saint is a mark that his opinions and his party
      have finally prevailed. In the house of his uncle, the archbishop
      Theophilus, he imbibed the orthodox lessons of zeal and dominion,
      and five years of his youth were profitably spent in the adjacent
      monasteries of Nitria. Under the tuition of the abbot Serapion,
      he applied himself to ecclesiastical studies, with such
      indefatigable ardor, that in the course of one sleepless night,
      he has perused the four Gospels, the Catholic Epistles, and the
      Epistle to the Romans. Origen he detested; but the writings of
      Clemens and Dionysius, of Athanasius and Basil, were continually
      in his hands: by the theory and practice of dispute, his faith
      was confirmed and his wit was sharpened; he extended round his
      cell the cobwebs of scholastic theology, and meditated the works
      of allegory and metaphysics, whose remains, in seven verbose
      folios, now peaceably slumber by the side of their rivals. 20
      Cyril prayed and fasted in the desert, but his thoughts (it is
      the reproach of a friend) 21 were still fixed on the world; and
      the call of Theophilus, who summoned him to the tumult of cities
      and synods, was too readily obeyed by the aspiring hermit. With
      the approbation of his uncle, he assumed the office, and acquired
      the fame, of a popular preacher. His comely person adorned the
      pulpit; the harmony of his voice resounded in the cathedral; his
      friends were stationed to lead or second the applause of the
      congregation; 22 and the hasty notes of the scribes preserved his
      discourses, which in their effect, though not in their
      composition, might be compared with those of the Athenian
      orators. The death of Theophilus expanded and realized the hopes
      of his nephew. The clergy of Alexandria was divided; the soldiers
      and their general supported the claims of the archdeacon; but a
      resistless multitude, with voices and with hands, asserted the
      cause of their favorite; and after a period of thirty-nine years,
      Cyril was seated on the throne of Athanasius. 23

      20 (return) [ La Croze (Hist. du Christianisme des Indes, tom. i.
      p. 24) avows his contempt for the genius and writings of Cyril.
      De tous les on vrages des anciens, il y en a peu qu’on lise avec
      moins d’utilite: and Dupin, (Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom.
      iv. p. 42—52,) in words of respect, teaches us to despise them.]

      21 (return) [ Of Isidore of Pelusium, (l. i. epist. 25, p. 8.) As
      the letter is not of the most creditable sort, Tillemont, less
      sincere than the Bollandists, affects a doubt whether this Cyril
      is the nephew of Theophilus, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 268.)]

      22 (return) [ A grammarian is named by Socrates (l. vii. c. 13).]

      23 (return) [ See the youth and promotion of Cyril, in Socrates,
      (l. vii. c. 7) and Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarchs. Alexandrin. p.
      106, 108.) The Abbe Renaudot drew his materials from the Arabic
      history of Severus, bishop of Hermopolis Magma, or Ashmunein, in
      the xth century, who can never be trusted, unless our assent is
      extorted by the internal evidence of facts.]




      Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part II.

      The prize was not unworthy of his ambition. At a distance from
      the court, and at the head of an immense capital, the patriarch,
      as he was now styled, of Alexandria had gradually usurped the
      state and authority of a civil magistrate. The public and private
      charities of the city were blindly obeyed by his numerous and
      fanatic parabolani, 24 familiarized in their daily office with
      scenes of death; and the praefects of Egypt were awed or provoked
      by the temporal power of these Christian pontiffs. Ardent in the
      prosecution of heresy, Cyril auspiciously opened his reign by
      oppressing the Novatians, the most innocent and harmless of the
      sectaries. The interdiction of their religious worship appeared
      in his eyes a just and meritorious act; and he confiscated their
      holy vessels, without apprehending the guilt of sacrilege. The
      toleration, and even the privileges of the Jews, who had
      multiplied to the number of forty thousand, were secured by the
      laws of the Caesars and Ptolemies, and a long prescription of
      seven hundred years since the foundation of Alexandria. Without
      any legal sentence, without any royal mandate, the patriarch, at
      the dawn of day, led a seditious multitude to the attack of the
      synagogues. Unarmed and unprepared, the Jews were incapable of
      resistance; their houses of prayer were levelled with the ground,
      and the episcopal warrior, after rewarding his troops with the
      plunder of their goods, expelled from the city the remnant of the
      unbelieving nation. Perhaps he might plead the insolence of their
      prosperity, and their deadly hatred of the Christians, whose
      blood they had recently shed in a malicious or accidental tumult.

      Such crimes would have deserved the animadversion of the
      magistrate; but in this promiscuous outrage, the innocent were
      confounded with the guilty, and Alexandria was impoverished by
      the loss of a wealthy and industrious colony. The zeal of Cyril
      exposed him to the penalties of the Julian law; but in a feeble
      government and a superstitious age, he was secure of impunity,
      and even of praise. Orestes complained; but his just complaints
      were too quickly forgotten by the ministers of Theodosius, and
      too deeply remembered by a priest who affected to pardon, and
      continued to hate, the praefect of Egypt. As he passed through
      the streets, his chariot was assaulted by a band of five hundred
      of the Nitrian monks; his guards fled from the wild beasts of the
      desert; his protestations that he was a Christian and a Catholic
      were answered by a volley of stones, and the face of Orestes was
      covered with blood. The loyal citizens of Alexandria hastened to
      his rescue; he instantly satisfied his justice and revenge
      against the monk by whose hand he had been wounded, and Ammonius
      expired under the rod of the lictor. At the command of Cyril his
      body was raised from the ground, and transported, in solemn
      procession, to the cathedral; the name of Ammonius was changed to
      that of Thaumasius the wonderful; his tomb was decorated with the
      trophies of martyrdom, and the patriarch ascended the pulpit to
      celebrate the magnanimity of an assassin and a rebel. Such honors
      might incite the faithful to combat and die under the banners of
      the saint; and he soon prompted, or accepted, the sacrifice of a
      virgin, who professed the religion of the Greeks, and cultivated
      the friendship of Orestes. Hypatia, the daughter of Theon the
      mathematician, 25 was initiated in her father’s studies; her
      learned comments have elucidated the geometry of Apollonius and
      Diophantus, and she publicly taught, both at Athens and
      Alexandria, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. In the bloom
      of beauty, and in the maturity of wisdom, the modest maid refused
      her lovers and instructed her disciples; the persons most
      illustrious for their rank or merit were impatient to visit the
      female philosopher; and Cyril beheld, with a jealous eye, the
      gorgeous train of horses and slaves who crowded the door of her
      academy. A rumor was spread among the Christians, that the
      daughter of Theon was the only obstacle to the reconciliation of
      the praefect and the archbishop; and that obstacle was speedily
      removed. On a fatal day, in the holy season of Lent, Hypatia was
      torn from her chariot, stripped naked, dragged to the church, and
      inhumanly butchered by the hands of Peter the reader, and a troop
      of savage and merciless fanatics: her flesh was scraped from her
      bones with sharp cyster shells, 26 and her quivering limbs were
      delivered to the flames. The just progress of inquiry and
      punishment was stopped by seasonable gifts; but the murder of
      Hypatia has imprinted an indelible stain on the character and
      religion of Cyril of Alexandria. 27

      24 (return) [ The Parabolani of Alexandria were a charitable
      corporation, instituted during the plague of Gallienus, to visit
      the sick and to bury the dead. They gradually enlarged, abused,
      and sold the privileges of their order. Their outrageous conduct
      during the reign of Cyril provoked the emperor to deprive the
      patriarch of their nomination, and to restrain their number to
      five or six hundred. But these restraints were transient and
      ineffectual. See the Theodosian Code, l. xvi. tit. ii. and
      Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 276—278.]

      25 (return) [ For Theon and his daughter Hypatia. see Fabricius,
      Bibliothec. tom. viii. p. 210, 211. Her article in the Lexicon of
      Suidas is curious and original. Hesychius (Meursii Opera, tom.
      vii. p. 295, 296) observes, that he was persecuted; and an
      epigram in the Greek Anthology (l. i. c. 76, p. 159, edit.
      Brodaei) celebrates her knowledge and eloquence. She is honorably
      mentioned (Epist. 10, 15 16, 33—80, 124, 135, 153) by her friend
      and disciple the philosophic bishop Synesius.]

      26 (return) [ Oyster shells were plentifully strewed on the
      sea-beach before the Caesareum. I may therefore prefer the
      literal sense, without rejecting the metaphorical version of
      tegulae, tiles, which is used by M. de Valois ignorant, and the
      assassins were probably regardless, whether their victim was yet
      alive.]

      27 (return) [ These exploits of St. Cyril are recorded by
      Socrates, (l. vii. c. 13, 14, 15;) and the most reluctant bigotry
      is compelled to copy an historian who coolly styles the murderers
      of Hypatia. At the mention of that injured name, I am pleased to
      observe a blush even on the cheek of Baronius, (A.D. 415, No.
      48.)]

      Superstition, perhaps, would more gently expiate the blood of a
      virgin, than the banishment of a saint; and Cyril had accompanied
      his uncle to the iniquitous synod of the Oak. When the memory of
      Chrysostom was restored and consecrated, the nephew of
      Theophilus, at the head of a dying faction, still maintained the
      justice of his sentence; nor was it till after a tedious delay
      and an obstinate resistance, that he yielded to the consent of
      the Catholic world. 28 His enmity to the Byzantine pontiffs 29
      was a sense of interest, not a sally of passion: he envied their
      fortunate station in the sunshine of the Imperial court; and he
      dreaded their upstart ambition. which oppressed the metropolitans
      of Europe and Asia, invaded the provinces of Antioch and
      Alexandria, and measured their diocese by the limits of the
      empire. The long moderation of Atticus, the mild usurper of the
      throne of Chrysostom, suspended the animosities of the Eastern
      patriarchs; but Cyril was at length awakened by the exaltation of
      a rival more worthy of his esteem and hatred. After the short and
      troubled reign of Sisinnius, bishop of Constantinople, the
      factions of the clergy and people were appeased by the choice of
      the emperor, who, on this occasion, consulted the voice of fame,
      and invited the merit of a stranger.

      Nestorius, 30 native of Germanicia, and a monk of Antioch, was
      recommended by the austerity of his life, and the eloquence of
      his sermons; but the first homily which he preached before the
      devout Theodosius betrayed the acrimony and impatience of his
      zeal. “Give me, O Caesar!” he exclaimed, “give me the earth
      purged of heretics, and I will give you in exchange the kingdom
      of heaven. Exterminate with me the heretics; and with you I will
      exterminate the Persians.” On the fifth day as if the treaty had
      been already signed, the patriarch of Constantinople discovered,
      surprised, and attacked a secret conventicle of the Arians: they
      preferred death to submission; the flames that were kindled by
      their despair, soon spread to the neighboring houses, and the
      triumph of Nestorius was clouded by the name of incendiary. On
      either side of the Hellespont his episcopal vigor imposed a rigid
      formulary of faith and discipline; a chronological error
      concerning the festival of Easter was punished as an offence
      against the church and state. Lydia and Caria, Sardes and
      Miletus, were purified with the blood of the obstinate
      Quartodecimans; and the edict of the emperor, or rather of the
      patriarch, enumerates three-and-twenty degrees and denominations
      in the guilt and punishment of heresy. 31 But the sword of
      persecution which Nestorius so furiously wielded was soon turned
      against his own breast. Religion was the pretence; but, in the
      judgment of a contemporary saint, ambition was the genuine motive
      of episcopal warfare. 32

      28 (return) [ He was deaf to the entreaties of Atticus of
      Constantinople, and of Isidore of Pelusium, and yielded only (if
      we may believe Nicephorus, l. xiv. c. 18) to the personal
      intercession of the Virgin. Yet in his last years he still
      muttered that John Chrysostom had been justly condemned,
      (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 278—282. Baronius Annal.
      Eccles. A.D. 412, No. 46—64.)]

      29 (return) [ See their characters in the history of Socrates,
      (l. vii. c. 25—28;) their power and pretensions, in the huge
      compilation of Thomassin, (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p.
      80-91.)]

      30 (return) [ His elevation and conduct are described by
      Socrates, (l. vii. c. 29 31;) and Marcellinus seems to have
      applied the eloquentiae satis, sapi entiae parum, of Sallust.]

      31 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. v. leg. 65, with the
      illustrations of Baronius, (A.D. 428, No. 25, &c.,) Godefroy, (ad
      locum,) and Pagi, Critica, (tom. ii. p. 208.)]

      32 (return) [ Isidore of Pelusium, (l. iv. Epist. 57.) His words
      are strong and scandalous. Isidore is a saint, but he never
      became a bishop; and I half suspect that the pride of Diogenes
      trampled on the pride of Plato.]

      In the Syrian school, Nestorius had been taught to abhor the
      confusion of the two natures, and nicely to discriminate the
      humanity of his master Christ from the divinity of the Lord
      Jesus. 33 The Blessed Virgin he revered as the mother of Christ,
      but his ears were offended with the rash and recent title of
      mother of God, 34 which had been insensibly adopted since the
      origin of the Arian controversy. From the pulpit of
      Constantinople, a friend of the patriarch, and afterwards the
      patriarch himself, repeatedly preached against the use, or the
      abuse, of a word 35 unknown to the apostles, unauthorized by the
      church, and which could only tend to alarm the timorous, to
      misled the simple, to amuse the profane, and to justify, by a
      seeming resemblance, the old genealogy of Olympus. 36 In his
      calmer moments Nestorius confessed, that it might be tolerated or
      excused by the union of the two natures, and the communication of
      their idioms: 37 but he was exasperated, by contradiction, to
      disclaim the worship of a new-born, an infant Deity, to draw his
      inadequate similes from the conjugal or civil partnerships of
      life, and to describe the manhood of Christ as the robe, the
      instrument, the tabernacle of his Godhead. At these blasphemous
      sounds, the pillars of the sanctuary were shaken. The
      unsuccessful competitors of Nestorius indulged their pious or
      personal resentment, the Byzantine clergy was secretly displeased
      with the intrusion of a stranger: whatever is superstitious or
      absurd, might claim the protection of the monks; and the people
      were interested in the glory of their virgin patroness. 38 The
      sermons of the archbishop, and the service of the altar, were
      disturbed by seditious clamor; his authority and doctrine were
      renounced by separate congregations; every wind scattered round
      the empire the leaves of controversy; and the voice of the
      combatants on a sonorous theatre reechoed in the cells of
      Palestine and Egypt. It was the duty of Cyril to enlighten the
      zeal and ignorance of his innumerable monks: in the school of
      Alexandria, he had imbibed and professed the incarnation of one
      nature; and the successor of Athanasius consulted his pride and
      ambition, when he rose in arms against another Arius, more
      formidable and more guilty, on the second throne of the
      hierarchy. After a short correspondence, in which the rival
      prelates disguised their hatred in the hollow language of respect
      and charity, the patriarch of Alexandria denounced to the prince
      and people, to the East and to the West, the damnable errors of
      the Byzantine pontiff. From the East, more especially from
      Antioch, he obtained the ambiguous counsels of toleration and
      silence, which were addressed to both parties while they favored
      the cause of Nestorius. But the Vatican received with open arms
      the messengers of Egypt. The vanity of Celestine was flattered by
      the appeal; and the partial version of a monk decided the faith
      of the pope, who with his Latin clergy was ignorant of the
      language, the arts, and the theology of the Greeks. At the head
      of an Italian synod, Celestine weighed the merits of the cause,
      approved the creed of Cyril, condemned the sentiments and person
      of Nestorius, degraded the heretic from his episcopal dignity,
      allowed a respite of ten days for recantation and penance, and
      delegated to his enemy the execution of this rash and illegal
      sentence. But the patriarch of Alexandria, while he darted the
      thunders of a god, exposed the errors and passions of a mortal;
      and his twelve anathemas 39 still torture the orthodox slaves,
      who adore the memory of a saint, without forfeiting their
      allegiance to the synod of Chalcedon. These bold assertions are
      indelibly tinged with the colors of the Apollinarian heresy; but
      the serious, and perhaps the sincere professions of Nestorius
      have satisfied the wiser and less partial theologians of the
      present times. 40

      33 (return) [ La Croze (Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p.
      44-53. Thesaurus Epistolicus, La Crozianus, tom. iii. p. 276—280)
      has detected the use, which, in the ivth, vth, and vith
      centuries, discriminates the school of Diodorus of Tarsus and his
      Nestorian disciples.]

      34 (return) [ Deipara; as in zoology we familiarly speak of
      oviparous and viviparous animals. It is not easy to fix the
      invention of this word, which La Croze (Christianisme des Indes,
      tom. i. p. 16) ascribes to Eusebius of Caesarea and the Arians.
      The orthodox testimonies are produced by Cyril and Petavius,
      (Dogmat. Theolog. tom. v. l. v. c. 15, p. 254, &c.;) but the
      veracity of the saint is questionable, and the epithet so easily
      slides from the margin to the text of a Catholic Ms]

      35 (return) [ Basnage, in his Histoire de l’Eglise, a work of
      controversy, (tom l. p. 505,) justifies the mother, by the blood,
      of God, (Acts, xx. 28, with Mill’s various readings.) But the
      Greek Mss. are far from unanimous; and the primitive style of the
      blood of Christ is preserved in the Syriac version, even in those
      copies which were used by the Christians of St. Thomas on the
      coast of Malabar, (La Croze, Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p.
      347.) The jealousy of the Nestorians and Monophysites has guarded
      the purity of their text.]

      36 (return) [ The Pagans of Egypt already laughed at the new
      Cybele of the Christians, (Isidor. l. i. epist. 54;) a letter was
      forged in the name of Hypatia, to ridicule the theology of her
      assassin, (Synodicon, c. 216, in iv. tom. Concil. p. 484.) In the
      article of Nestorius, Bayle has scattered some loose philosophy
      on the worship of the Virgin Mary.]

      37 (return) [ The item of the Greeks, a mutual loan or transfer
      of the idioms or properties of each nature to the other—of
      infinity to man, passibility to God, &c. Twelve rules on this
      nicest of subjects compose the Theological Grammar of Petavius,
      (Dogmata Theolog. tom. v. l. iv. c. 14, 15, p 209, &c.)]

      38 (return) [ See Ducange, C. P. Christiana, l. i. p. 30, &c.]

      39 (return) [ Concil. tom. iii. p. 943. They have never been
      directly approved by the church, (Tillemont. Mem. Eccles. tom.
      xiv. p. 368—372.) I almost pity the agony of rage and sophistry
      with which Petavius seems to be agitated in the vith book of his
      Dogmata Theologica]

      40 (return) [ Such as the rational Basnage (ad tom. i. Variar.
      Lection. Canisine in Praefat. c. 2, p. 11—23) and La Croze, the
      universal scholar, (Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 16—20. De
      l’Ethiopie, p. 26, 27. The saur. Epist. p. 176, &c., 283, 285.)
      His free sentence is confirmed by that of his friends Jablonski
      (Thesaur. Epist. tom. i. p. 193—201) and Mosheim, (idem. p. 304,
      Nestorium crimine caruisse est et mea sententia;) and three more
      respectable judges will not easily be found. Asseman, a learned
      and modest slave, can hardly discern (Bibliothec. Orient. tom.
      iv. p. 190—224) the guilt and error of the Nestorians.]

      Yet neither the emperor nor the primate of the East were disposed
      to obey the mandate of an Italian priest; and a synod of the
      Catholic, or rather of the Greek church, was unanimously demanded
      as the sole remedy that could appease or decide this
      ecclesiastical quarrel. 41 Ephesus, on all sides accessible by
      sea and land, was chosen for the place, the festival of Pentecost
      for the day, of the meeting; a writ of summons was despatched to
      each metropolitan, and a guard was stationed to protect and
      confine the fathers till they should settle the mysteries of
      heaven, and the faith of the earth. Nestorius appeared not as a
      criminal, but as a judge; he depended on the weight rather than
      the number of his prelates, and his sturdy slaves from the baths
      of Zeuxippus were armed for every service of injury or defence.
      But his adversary Cyril was more powerful in the weapons both of
      the flesh and of the spirit. Disobedient to the letter, or at
      least to the meaning, of the royal summons, he was attended by
      fifty Egyptian bishops, who expected from their patriarch’s nod
      the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. He had contracted an intimate
      alliance with Memnon, bishop of Ephesus. The despotic primate of
      Asia disposed of the ready succors of thirty or forty episcopal
      votes: a crowd of peasants, the slaves of the church, was poured
      into the city to support with blows and clamors a metaphysical
      argument; and the people zealously asserted the honor of the
      Virgin, whose body reposed within the walls of Ephesus. 42 The
      fleet which had transported Cyril from Alexandria was laden with
      the riches of Egypt; and he disembarked a numerous body of
      mariners, slaves, and fanatics, enlisted with blind obedience
      under the banner of St. Mark and the mother of God. The fathers,
      and even the guards, of the council were awed by this martial
      array; the adversaries of Cyril and Mary were insulted in the
      streets, or threatened in their houses; his eloquence and
      liberality made a daily increase in the number of his adherents;
      and the Egyptian soon computed that he might command the
      attendance and the voices of two hundred bishops. 43 But the
      author of the twelve anathemas foresaw and dreaded the opposition
      of John of Antioch, who, with a small, but respectable, train of
      metropolitans and divines, was advancing by slow journeys from
      the distant capital of the East. Impatient of a delay, which he
      stigmatized as voluntary and culpable, 44 Cyril announced the
      opening of the synod sixteen days after the festival of
      Pentecost. Nestorius, who depended on the near approach of his
      Eastern friends, persisted, like his predecessor Chrysostom, to
      disclaim the jurisdiction, and to disobey the summons, of his
      enemies: they hastened his trial, and his accuser presided in the
      seat of judgment. Sixty-eight bishops, twenty-two of metropolitan
      rank, defended his cause by a modest and temperate protest: they
      were excluded from the councils of their brethren. Candidian, in
      the emperor’s name, requested a delay of four days; the profane
      magistrate was driven with outrage and insult from the assembly
      of the saints. The whole of this momentous transaction was
      crowded into the compass of a summer’s day: the bishops delivered
      their separate opinions; but the uniformity of style reveals the
      influence or the hand of a master, who has been accused of
      corrupting the public evidence of their acts and subscriptions.
      45 Without a dissenting voice, they recognized in the epistles of
      Cyril the Nicene creed and the doctrine of the fathers: but the
      partial extracts from the letters and homilies of Nestorius were
      interrupted by curses and anathemas: and the heretic was degraded
      from his episcopal and ecclesiastical dignity. The sentence,
      maliciously inscribed to the new Judas, was affixed and
      proclaimed in the streets of Ephesus: the weary prelates, as they
      issued from the church of the mother of God, were saluted as her
      champions; and her victory was celebrated by the illuminations,
      the songs, and the tumult of the night.

      41 (return) [ The origin and progress of the Nestorian
      controversy, till the synod of Ephesus, may be found in Socrates,
      (l. vii. c. 32,) Evagrius, (l. i. c. 1, 2,) Liberatus, (Brev. c.
      1—4,) the original Acts, (Concil. tom. iii. p. 551—991, edit.
      Venice, 1728,) the Annals of Baronius and Pagi, and the faithful
      collections of Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv p. 283—377.)]

      42 (return) [ The Christians of the four first centuries were
      ignorant of the death and burial of Mary. The tradition of
      Ephesus is affirmed by the synod, (Concil. tom. iii. p. 1102;)
      yet it has been superseded by the claim of Jerusalem; and her
      empty sepulchre, as it was shown to the pilgrims, produced the
      fable of her resurrection and assumption, in which the Greek and
      Latin churches have piously acquiesced. See Baronius (Annal.
      Eccles. A.D. 48, No. 6, &c.) and Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. i.
      p. 467—477.)]

      43 (return) [ The Acts of Chalcedon (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1405,
      1408) exhibit a lively picture of the blind, obstinate servitude
      of the bishops of Egypt to their patriarch.]

      44 (return) [ Civil or ecclesiastical business detained the
      bishops at Antioch till the 18th of May. Ephesus was at the
      distance of thirty days’ journey; and ten days more may be fairly
      allowed for accidents and repose. The march of Xenophon over the
      same ground enumerates above 260 parasangs or leagues; and this
      measure might be illustrated from ancient and modern itineraries,
      if I knew how to compare the speed of an army, a synod, and a
      caravan. John of Antioch is reluctantly acquitted by Tillemont
      himself, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 386—389.)]

      45 (return) [ Evagrius, l. i. c. 7. The same imputation was urged
      by Count Irenaeus, (tom. iii. p. 1249;) and the orthodox critics
      do not find it an easy task to defend the purity of the Greek or
      Latin copies of the Acts.]

      On the fifth day, the triumph was clouded by the arrival and
      indignation of the Eastern bishops. In a chamber of the inn,
      before he had wiped the dust from his shoes, John of Antioch gave
      audience to Candidian, the Imperial minister; who related his
      ineffectual efforts to prevent or to annul the hasty violence of
      the Egyptian. With equal haste and violence, the Oriental synod
      of fifty bishops degraded Cyril and Memnon from their episcopal
      honors, condemned, in the twelve anathemas, the purest venom of
      the Apollinarian heresy, and described the Alexandrian primate as
      a monster, born and educated for the destruction of the church.
      46 His throne was distant and inaccessible; but they instantly
      resolved to bestow on the flock of Ephesus the blessing of a
      faithful shepherd. By the vigilance of Memnon, the churches were
      shut against them, and a strong garrison was thrown into the
      cathedral. The troops, under the command of Candidian, advanced
      to the assault; the outguards were routed and put to the sword,
      but the place was impregnable: the besiegers retired; their
      retreat was pursued by a vigorous sally; they lost their horses,
      and many of their soldiers were dangerously wounded with clubs
      and stones. Ephesus, the city of the Virgin, was defiled with
      rage and clamor, with sedition and blood; the rival synods darted
      anathemas and excommunications from their spiritual engines; and
      the court of Theodosius was perplexed by the adverse and
      contradictory narratives of the Syrian and Egyptian factions.
      During a busy period of three months, the emperor tried every
      method, except the most effectual means of indifference and
      contempt, to reconcile this theological quarrel. He attempted to
      remove or intimidate the leaders by a common sentence, of
      acquittal or condemnation; he invested his representatives at
      Ephesus with ample power and military force; he summoned from
      either party eight chosen deputies to a free and candid
      conference in the neighborhood of the capital, far from the
      contagion of popular frenzy. But the Orientals refused to yield,
      and the Catholics, proud of their numbers and of their Latin
      allies, rejected all terms of union or toleration. The patience
      of the meek Theodosius was provoked; and he dissolved in anger
      this episcopal tumult, which at the distance of thirteen
      centuries assumes the venerable aspect of the third oecumenical
      council. 47 “God is my witness,” said the pious prince, “that I
      am not the author of this confusion. His providence will discern
      and punish the guilty. Return to your provinces, and may your
      private virtues repair the mischief and scandal of your meeting.”
      They returned to their provinces; but the same passions which had
      distracted the synod of Ephesus were diffused over the Eastern
      world. After three obstinate and equal campaigns, John of Antioch
      and Cyril of Alexandria condescended to explain and embrace: but
      their seeming reunion must be imputed rather to prudence than to
      reason, to the mutual lassitude rather than to the Christian
      charity of the patriarchs.

      46 (return) [ After the coalition of John and Cyril these
      invectives were mutually forgotten. The style of declamation must
      never be confounded with the genuine sense which respectable
      enemies entertain of each other’s merit, (Concil tom. iii. p.
      1244.)]

      47 (return) [ See the acts of the synod of Ephesus in the
      original Greek, and a Latin version almost contemporary, (Concil.
      tom. iii. p. 991—1339, with the Synodicon adversus Tragoediam
      Irenaei, tom. iv. p. 235—497,) the Ecclesiastical Histories of
      Socrates (l. vii. c. 34) and Evagrius, (l i. c. 3, 4, 5,) and the
      Breviary of Liberatus, (in Concil. tom. vi. p. 419—459, c. 5, 6,)
      and the Memoires Eccles. of Tillemont, (tom. xiv p. 377-487.)]

      The Byzantine pontiff had instilled into the royal ear a baleful
      prejudice against the character and conduct of his Egyptian
      rival. An epistle of menace and invective, 48 which accompanied
      the summons, accused him as a busy, insolent, and envious priest,
      who perplexed the simplicity of the faith, violated the peace of
      the church and state, and, by his artful and separate addresses
      to the wife and sister of Theodosius, presumed to suppose, or to
      scatter, the seeds of discord in the Imperial family. At the
      stern command of his sovereign, Cyril had repaired to Ephesus,
      where he was resisted, threatened, and confined, by the
      magistrates in the interest of Nestorius and the Orientals; who
      assembled the troops of Lydia and Ionia to suppress the fanatic
      and disorderly train of the patriarch. Without expecting the
      royal license, he escaped from his guards, precipitately
      embarked, deserted the imperfect synod, and retired to his
      episcopal fortress of safety and independence. But his artful
      emissaries, both in the court and city, successfully labored to
      appease the resentment, and to conciliate the favor, of the
      emperor. The feeble son of Arcadius was alternately swayed by his
      wife and sister, by the eunuchs and women of the palace:
      superstition and avarice were their ruling passions; and the
      orthodox chiefs were assiduous in their endeavors to alarm the
      former, and to gratify the latter. Constantinople and the suburbs
      were sanctified with frequent monasteries, and the holy abbots,
      Dalmatius and Eutyches, 49 had devoted their zeal and fidelity to
      the cause of Cyril, the worship of Mary, and the unity of Christ.
      From the first moment of their monastic life, they had never
      mingled with the world, or trod the profane ground of the city.
      But in this awful moment of the danger of the church, their vow
      was superseded by a more sublime and indispensable duty. At the
      head of a long order of monks and hermits, who carried burning
      tapers in their hands, and chanted litanies to the mother of God,
      they proceeded from their monasteries to the palace. The people
      was edified and inflamed by this extraordinary spectacle, and the
      trembling monarch listened to the prayers and adjurations of the
      saints, who boldly pronounced, that none could hope for
      salvation, unless they embraced the person and the creed of the
      orthodox successor of Athanasius. At the same time, every avenue
      of the throne was assaulted with gold. Under the decent names of
      eulogies and benedictions, the courtiers of both sexes were
      bribed according to the measure of their power and rapaciousness.
      But their incessant demands despoiled the sanctuaries of
      Constantinople and Alexandria; and the authority of the patriarch
      was unable to silence the just murmur of his clergy, that a debt
      of sixty thousand pounds had already been contracted to support
      the expense of this scandalous corruption. 50 Pulcheria, who
      relieved her brother from the weight of an empire, was the
      firmest pillar of orthodoxy; and so intimate was the alliance
      between the thunders of the synod and the whispers of the court,
      that Cyril was assured of success if he could displace one
      eunuch, and substitute another in the favor of Theodosius. Yet
      the Egyptian could not boast of a glorious or decisive victory.
      The emperor, with unaccustomed firmness, adhered to his promise
      of protecting the innocence of the Oriental bishops; and Cyril
      softened his anathemas, and confessed, with ambiguity and
      reluctance, a twofold nature of Christ, before he was permitted
      to satiate his revenge against the unfortunate Nestorius. 51

      48 (return) [ I should be curious to know how much Nestorius paid
      for these expressions, so mortifying to his rival.]

      49 (return) [ Eutyches, the heresiarch Eutyches, is honorably
      named by Cyril as a friend, a saint, and the strenuous defender
      of the faith. His brother, the abbot Dalmatus, is likewise
      employed to bind the emperor and all his chamberlains terribili
      conjuratione. Synodicon. c. 203, in Concil. tom. iv p. 467.]

      50 (return) [ Clerici qui hic sunt contristantur, quod ecclesia
      Alexandrina nudata sit hujus causa turbelae: et debet praeter
      illa quae hinc transmissa sint auri libras mille quingentas. Et
      nunc ei scriptum est ut praestet; sed de tua ecclesia praesta
      avaritiae quorum nosti, &c. This curious and original letter,
      from Cyril’s archdeacon to his creature the new bishop of
      Constantinople, has been unaccountably preserved in an old Latin
      version, (Synodicon, c. 203, Concil. tom. iv. p. 465—468.) The
      mask is almost dropped, and the saints speak the honest language
      of interest and confederacy.]

      51 (return) [ The tedious negotiations that succeeded the synod
      of Ephesus are diffusely related in the original acts, (Concil.
      tom. iii. p. 1339—1771, ad fin. vol. and the Synodicon, in tom.
      iv.,) Socrates, (l. vii. c. 28, 35, 40, 41,) Evagrius, (l. i. c.
      6, 7, 8, 12,) Liberatus, (c. 7—10, 7-10,) Tillemont, (Mem.
      Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 487—676.) The most patient reader will thank
      me for compressing so much nonsense and falsehood in a few
      lines.]

      The rash and obstinate Nestorius, before the end of the synod,
      was oppressed by Cyril, betrayed by the court, and faintly
      supported by his Eastern friends. A sentiment of fear or
      indignation prompted him, while it was yet time, to affect the
      glory of a voluntary abdication: 52 his wish, or at least his
      request, was readily granted; he was conducted with honor from
      Ephesus to his old monastery of Antioch; and, after a short
      pause, his successors, Maximian and Proclus, were acknowledged as
      the lawful bishops of Constantinople. But in the silence of his
      cell, the degraded patriarch could no longer resume the innocence
      and security of a private monk. The past he regretted, he was
      discontented with the present, and the future he had reason to
      dread: the Oriental bishops successively disengaged their cause
      from his unpopular name, and each day decreased the number of the
      schismatics who revered Nestorius as the confessor of the faith.
      After a residence at Antioch of four years, the hand of
      Theodosius subscribed an edict, 53 which ranked him with Simon
      the magician, proscribed his opinions and followers, condemned
      his writings to the flames, and banished his person first to
      Petra, in Arabia, and at length to Oasis, one of the islands of
      the Libyan desert. 54 Secluded from the church and from the
      world, the exile was still pursued by the rage of bigotry and
      war. A wandering tribe of the Blemmyes or Nubians invaded his
      solitary prison: in their retreat they dismissed a crowd of
      useless captives: but no sooner had Nestorius reached the banks
      of the Nile, than he would gladly have escaped from a Roman and
      orthodox city, to the milder servitude of the savages. His flight
      was punished as a new crime: the soul of the patriarch inspired
      the civil and ecclesiastical powers of Egypt; the magistrates,
      the soldiers, the monks, devoutly tortured the enemy of Christ
      and St. Cyril; and, as far as the confines of Aethiopia, the
      heretic was alternately dragged and recalled, till his aged body
      was broken by the hardships and accidents of these reiterated
      journeys. Yet his mind was still independent and erect; the
      president of Thebais was awed by his pastoral letters; he
      survived the Catholic tyrant of Alexandria, and, after sixteen
      years’ banishment, the synod of Chalcedon would perhaps have
      restored him to the honors, or at least to the communion, of the
      church. The death of Nestorius prevented his obedience to their
      welcome summons; 55 and his disease might afford some color to
      the scandalous report, that his tongue, the organ of blasphemy,
      had been eaten by the worms. He was buried in a city of Upper
      Egypt, known by the names of Chemnis, or Panopolis, or Akmim; 56
      but the immortal malice of the Jacobites has persevered for ages
      to cast stones against his sepulchre, and to propagate the
      foolish tradition, that it was never watered by the rain of
      heaven, which equally descends on the righteous and the ungodly.
      57 Humanity may drop a tear on the fate of Nestorius; yet justice
      must observe, that he suffered the persecution which he had
      approved and inflicted. 58

      52 (return) [ Evagrius, l. i. c. 7. The original letters in the
      Synodicon (c. 15, 24, 25, 26) justify the appearance of a
      voluntary resignation, which is asserted by Ebed-Jesu, a
      Nestorian writer, apud Asseman. Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iii. p.
      299, 302.]

      53 (return) [ See the Imperial letters in the Acts of the Synod
      of Ephesus, (Concil. tom. iii. p. 1730—1735.) The odious name of
      Simonians, which was affixed to the disciples of this. Yet these
      were Christians! who differed only in names and in shadows.]

      54 (return) [ The metaphor of islands is applied by the grave
      civilians (Pandect. l. xlviii. tit. 22, leg. 7) to those happy
      spots which are discriminated by water and verdure from the
      Libyan sands. Three of these under the common name of Oasis, or
      Alvahat: 1. The temple of Jupiter Ammon. 2. The middle Oasis,
      three days’ journey to the west of Lycopolis. 3. The southern,
      where Nestorius was banished in the first climate, and only three
      days’ journey from the confines of Nubia. See a learned note of
      Michaelis, (ad Descript. Aegypt. Abulfedae, p. 21-34.) * Note: 1.
      The Oasis of Sivah has been visited by Mons. Drovetti and Mr.
      Browne. 2. The little Oasis, that of El Kassar, was visited and
      described by Belzoni. 3. The great Oasis, and its splendid ruins,
      have been well described in the travels of Sir A. Edmonstone. To
      these must be added another Western Oasis also visited by Sir A.
      Edmonstone.—M.]

      55 (return) [ The invitation of Nestorius to the synod of
      Chalcedon, is related by Zacharias, bishop of Melitene (Evagrius,
      l. ii. c. 2. Asseman. Biblioth. Orient. tom. ii. p. 55,) and the
      famous Xenaias or Philoxenus, bishop of Hierapolis, (Asseman.
      Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 40, &c.,) denied by Evagrius and
      Asseman, and stoutly maintained by La Croze, (Thesaur. Epistol.
      tom. iii. p. 181, &c.) The fact is not improbable; yet it was the
      interest of the Monophysites to spread the invidious report, and
      Eutychius (tom. ii. p. 12) affirms, that Nestorius died after an
      exile of seven years, and consequently ten years before the synod
      of Chalcedon.]

      56 (return) [ Consult D’Anville, (Memoire sur l’Egypte, p. 191,)
      Pocock. (Description of the East, vol. i. p. 76,) Abulfeda,
      (Descript. Aegypt, p. 14,) and his commentator Michaelis, (Not.
      p. 78—83,) and the Nubian Geographer, (p. 42,) who mentions, in
      the xiith century, the ruins and the sugar-canes of Akmim.]

      57 (return) [ Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 12) and Gregory
      Bar-Hebraeus, of Abulpharagius, (Asseman, tom. ii. p. 316,)
      represent the credulity of the xth and xiith centuries.]

      58 (return) [ We are obliged to Evagrius (l. i. c. 7) for some
      extracts from the letters of Nestorius; but the lively picture of
      his sufferings is treated with insult by the hard and stupid
      fanatic.]




      Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part III.

      The death of the Alexandrian primate, after a reign of thirty-two
      years, abandoned the Catholics to the intemperance of zeal and
      the abuse of victory. 59 The monophysite doctrine (one incarnate
      nature) was rigorously preached in the churches of Egypt and the
      monasteries of the East; the primitive creed of Apollinarius was
      protected by the sanctity of Cyril; and the name of Eutyches, his
      venerable friend, has been applied to the sect most adverse to
      the Syrian heresy of Nestorius. His rival Eutyches was the abbot,
      or archimandrite, or superior of three hundred monks, but the
      opinions of a simple and illiterate recluse might have expired in
      the cell, where he had slept above seventy years, if the
      resentment or indiscretion of Flavian, the Byzantine pontiff, had
      not exposed the scandal to the eyes of the Christian world. His
      domestic synod was instantly convened, their proceedings were
      sullied with clamor and artifice, and the aged heretic was
      surprised into a seeming confession, that Christ had not derived
      his body from the substance of the Virgin Mary. From their
      partial decree, Eutyches appealed to a general council; and his
      cause was vigorously asserted by his godson Chrysaphius, the
      reigning eunuch of the palace, and his accomplice Dioscorus, who
      had succeeded to the throne, the creed, the talents, and the
      vices, of the nephew of Theophilus. By the special summons of
      Theodosius, the second synod of Ephesus was judiciously composed
      of ten metropolitans and ten bishops from each of the six
      dioceses of the Eastern empire: some exceptions of favor or merit
      enlarged the number to one hundred and thirty-five; and the
      Syrian Barsumas, as the chief and representative of the monks,
      was invited to sit and vote with the successors of the apostles.
      But the despotism of the Alexandrian patriarch again oppressed
      the freedom of debate: the same spiritual and carnal weapons were
      again drawn from the arsenals of Egypt: the Asiatic veterans, a
      band of archers, served under the orders of Dioscorus; and the
      more formidable monks, whose minds were inaccessible to reason or
      mercy, besieged the doors of the cathedral. The general, and, as
      it should seem, the unconstrained voice of the fathers, accepted
      the faith and even the anathemas of Cyril; and the heresy of the
      two natures was formally condemned in the persons and writings of
      the most learned Orientals. “May those who divide Christ be
      divided with the sword, may they be hewn in pieces, may they be
      burned alive!” were the charitable wishes of a Christian synod.
      60 The innocence and sanctity of Eutyches were acknowledged
      without hesitation; but the prelates, more especially those of
      Thrace and Asia, were unwilling to depose their patriarch for the
      use or even the abuse of his lawful jurisdiction. They embraced
      the knees of Dioscorus, as he stood with a threatening aspect on
      the footstool of his throne, and conjured him to forgive the
      offences, and to respect the dignity, of his brother. “Do you
      mean to raise a sedition?” exclaimed the relentless tyrant.
      “Where are the officers?” At these words a furious multitude of
      monks and soldiers, with staves, and swords, and chains, burst
      into the church; the trembling bishops hid themselves behind the
      altar, or under the benches, and as they were not inspired with
      the zeal of martyrdom, they successively subscribed a blank
      paper, which was afterwards filled with the condemnation of the
      Byzantine pontiff. Flavian was instantly delivered to the wild
      beasts of this spiritual amphitheatre: the monks were stimulated
      by the voice and example of Barsumas to avenge the injuries of
      Christ: it is said that the patriarch of Alexandria reviled, and
      buffeted, and kicked, and trampled his brother of Constantinople:
      61 it is certain, that the victim, before he could reach the
      place of his exile, expired on the third day of the wounds and
      bruises which he had received at Ephesus. This second synod has
      been justly branded as a gang of robbers and assassins; yet the
      accusers of Dioscorus would magnify his violence, to alleviate
      the cowardice and inconstancy of their own behavior.

      59 (return) [ Dixi Cyrillum dum viveret, auctoritate sua
      effecisse, ne Eutychianismus et Monophysitarum error in nervum
      erumperet: idque verum puto...aliquo... honesto modo cecinerat.
      The learned but cautious Jablonski did not always speak the whole
      truth. Cum Cyrillo lenius omnino egi, quam si tecum aut cum aliis
      rei hujus probe gnaris et aequis rerum aestimatoribus sermones
      privatos conferrem, (Thesaur. Epistol. La Crozian. tom. i. p.
      197, 198) an excellent key to his dissertations on the Nestorian
      controversy!]

      60 (return) [ At the request of Dioscorus, those who were not
      able to roar, stretched out their hands. At Chalcedon, the
      Orientals disclaimed these exclamations: but the Egyptians more
      consistently declared. (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1012.)]

      61 (return) [ (Eusebius, bishop of Dorylaeum): and this testimony
      of Evagrius (l. ii. c. 2) is amplified by the historian Zonaras,
      (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 44,) who affirms that Dioscorus kicked like
      a wild ass. But the language of Liberatus (Brev. c. 12, in
      Concil. tom. vi. p. 438) is more cautious; and the Acts of
      Chalcedon, which lavish the names of homicide, Cain, &c., do not
      justify so pointed a charge. The monk Barsumas is more
      particularly accused, (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1418.)]

      The faith of Egypt had prevailed: but the vanquished party was
      supported by the same pope who encountered without fear the
      hostile rage of Attila and Genseric. The theology of Leo, his
      famous tome or epistle on the mystery of the incarnation, had
      been disregarded by the synod of Ephesus: his authority, and that
      of the Latin church, was insulted in his legates, who escaped
      from slavery and death to relate the melancholy tale of the
      tyranny of Dioscorus and the martyrdom of Flavian. His provincial
      synod annulled the irregular proceedings of Ephesus; but as this
      step was itself irregular, he solicited the convocation of a
      general council in the free and orthodox provinces of Italy. From
      his independent throne, the Roman bishop spoke and acted without
      danger as the head of the Christians, and his dictates were
      obsequiously transcribed by Placidia and her son Valentinian; who
      addressed their Eastern colleague to restore the peace and unity
      of the church. But the pageant of Oriental royalty was moved with
      equal dexterity by the hand of the eunuch; and Theodosius could
      pronounce, without hesitation, that the church was already
      peaceful and triumphant, and that the recent flame had been
      extinguished by the just punishment of the Nestorians. Perhaps
      the Greeks would be still involved in the heresy of the
      Monophysites, if the emperor’s horse had not fortunately
      stumbled; Theodosius expired; his orthodox sister Pulcheria, with
      a nominal husband, succeeded to the throne; Chrysaphius was
      burnt, Dioscorus was disgraced, the exiles were recalled, and the
      tome of Leo was subscribed by the Oriental bishops. Yet the pope
      was disappointed in his favorite project of a Latin council: he
      disdained to preside in the Greek synod, which was speedily
      assembled at Nice in Bithynia; his legates required in a
      peremptory tone the presence of the emperor; and the weary
      fathers were transported to Chalcedon under the immediate eye of
      Marcian and the senate of Constantinople. A quarter of a mile
      from the Thracian Bosphorus, the church of St. Euphemia was built
      on the summit of a gentle though lofty ascent: the triple
      structure was celebrated as a prodigy of art, and the boundless
      prospect of the land and sea might have raised the mind of a
      sectary to the contemplation of the God of the universe. Six
      hundred and thirty bishops were ranged in order in the nave of
      the church; but the patriarchs of the East were preceded by the
      legates, of whom the third was a simple priest; and the place of
      honor was reserved for twenty laymen of consular or senatorian
      rank. The gospel was ostentatiously displayed in the centre, but
      the rule of faith was defined by the Papal and Imperial
      ministers, who moderated the thirteen sessions of the council of
      Chalcedon. 62 Their partial interposition silenced the
      intemperate shouts and execrations, which degraded the episcopal
      gravity; but, on the formal accusation of the legates, Dioscorus
      was compelled to descend from his throne to the rank of a
      criminal, already condemned in the opinion of his judges. The
      Orientals, less adverse to Nestorius than to Cyril, accepted the
      Romans as their deliverers: Thrace, and Pontus, and Asia, were
      exasperated against the murderer of Flavian, and the new
      patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch secured their places by
      the sacrifice of their benefactor. The bishops of Palestine,
      Macedonia, and Greece, were attached to the faith of Cyril; but
      in the face of the synod, in the heat of the battle, the leaders,
      with their obsequious train, passed from the right to the left
      wing, and decided the victory by this seasonable desertion. Of
      the seventeen suffragans who sailed from Alexandria, four were
      tempted from their allegiance, and the thirteen, falling
      prostrate on the ground, implored the mercy of the council, with
      sighs and tears, and a pathetic declaration, that, if they
      yielded, they should be massacred, on their return to Egypt, by
      the indignant people. A tardy repentance was allowed to expiate
      the guilt or error of the accomplices of Dioscorus: but their
      sins were accumulated on his head; he neither asked nor hoped for
      pardon, and the moderation of those who pleaded for a general
      amnesty was drowned in the prevailing cry of victory and revenge.

      To save the reputation of his late adherents, some personal
      offences were skilfully detected; his rash and illegal
      excommunication of the pope, and his contumacious refusal (while
      he was detained a prisoner) to attend to the summons of the
      synod. Witnesses were introduced to prove the special facts of
      his pride, avarice, and cruelty; and the fathers heard with
      abhorrence, that the alms of the church were lavished on the
      female dancers, that his palace, and even his bath, was open to
      the prostitutes of Alexandria, and that the infamous Pansophia,
      or Irene, was publicly entertained as the concubine of the
      patriarch. 63

      62 (return) [ The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon (Concil. tom.
      iv. p. 761—2071) comprehend those of Ephesus, (p. 890—1189,)
      which again comprise the synod of Constantinople under Flavian,
      (p. 930—1072;) and at requires some attention to disengage this
      double involution. The whole business of Eutyches, Flavian, and
      Dioscorus, is related by Evagrius (l. i. c. 9—12, and l. ii. c.
      1, 2, 3, 4,) and Liberatus, (Brev. c. 11, 12, 13, 14.) Once more,
      and almost for the last time, I appeal to the diligence of
      Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xv. p. 479-719.) The annals of
      Baronius and Pagi will accompany me much further on my long and
      laborious journey.]

      63 (return) [ (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1276.) A specimen of the wit
      and malice of the people is preserved in the Greek Anthology, (l.
      ii. c. 5, p. 188, edit. Wechel,) although the application was
      unknown to the editor Brodaeus. The nameless epigrammatist raises
      a tolerable pun, by confounding the episcopal salutation of
      “Peace be to all!” with the genuine or corrupted name of the
      bishop’s concubine: I am ignorant whether the patriarch, who
      seems to have been a jealous lover, is the Cimon of a preceding
      epigram, was viewed with envy and wonder by Priapus himself.]

      For these scandalous offences, Dioscorus was deposed by the
      synod, and banished by the emperor; but the purity of his faith
      was declared in the presence, and with the tacit approbation, of
      the fathers. Their prudence supposed rather than pronounced the
      heresy of Eutyches, who was never summoned before their tribunal;
      and they sat silent and abashed, when a bold Monophysite casting
      at their feet a volume of Cyril, challenged them to anathematize
      in his person the doctrine of the saint. If we fairly peruse the
      acts of Chalcedon as they are recorded by the orthodox party, 64
      we shall find that a great majority of the bishops embraced the
      simple unity of Christ; and the ambiguous concession that he was
      formed Of or From two natures, might imply either their previous
      existence, or their subsequent confusion, or some dangerous
      interval between the conception of the man and the assumption of
      the God. The Roman theology, more positive and precise, adopted
      the term most offensive to the ears of the Egyptians, that Christ
      existed In two natures; and this momentous particle 65 (which the
      memory, rather than the understanding, must retain) had almost
      produced a schism among the Catholic bishops. The tome of Leo had
      been respectfully, perhaps sincerely, subscribed; but they
      protested, in two successive debates, that it was neither
      expedient nor lawful to transgress the sacred landmarks which had
      been fixed at Nice, Constantinople, and Ephesus, according to the
      rule of Scripture and tradition. At length they yielded to the
      importunities of their masters; but their infallible decree,
      after it had been ratified with deliberate votes and vehement
      acclamations, was overturned in the next session by the
      opposition of the legates and their Oriental friends. It was in
      vain that a multitude of episcopal voices repeated in chorus,
      “The definition of the fathers is orthodox and immutable! The
      heretics are now discovered! Anathema to the Nestorians! Let them
      depart from the synod! Let them repair to Rome.” 66 The legates
      threatened, the emperor was absolute, and a committee of eighteen
      bishops prepared a new decree, which was imposed on the reluctant
      assembly. In the name of the fourth general council, the Christ
      in one person, but in two natures, was announced to the Catholic
      world: an invisible line was drawn between the heresy of
      Apollinaris and the faith of St. Cyril; and the road to paradise,
      a bridge as sharp as a razor, was suspended over the abyss by the
      master-hand of the theological artist. During ten centuries of
      blindness and servitude, Europe received her religious opinions
      from the oracle of the Vatican; and the same doctrine, already
      varnished with the rust of antiquity, was admitted without
      dispute into the creed of the reformers, who disclaimed the
      supremacy of the Roman pontiff. The synod of Chalcedon still
      triumphs in the Protestant churches; but the ferment of
      controversy has subsided, and the most pious Christians of the
      present day are ignorant, or careless, of their own belief
      concerning the mystery of the incarnation.

      64 (return) [ Those who reverence the infallibility of synods,
      may try to ascertain their sense. The leading bishops were
      attended by partial or careless scribes, who dispersed their
      copies round the world. Our Greek Mss. are sullied with the false
      and prescribed reading of (Concil. tom. iii. p. 1460:) the
      authentic translation of Pope Leo I. does not seem to have been
      executed, and the old Latin versions materially differ from the
      present Vulgate, which was revised (A.D. 550) by Rusticus, a
      Roman priest, from the best Mss. at Constantinople, (Ducange, C.
      P. Christiana, l. iv. p. 151,) a famous monastery of Latins,
      Greeks, and Syrians. See Concil. tom. iv. p. 1959—2049, and Pagi,
      Critica, tom. ii. p. 326, &c.]

      65 (return) [ It is darkly represented in the microscope of
      Petavius, (tom. v. l. iii. c. 5;) yet the subtle theologian is
      himself afraid—ne quis fortasse supervacaneam, et nimis anxiam
      putet hujusmodi vocularum inquisitionem, et ab instituti
      theologici gravitate alienam, (p. 124.)]

      66 (return) [ (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1449.) Evagrius and Liberatus
      present only the placid face of the synod, and discreetly slide
      over these embers, suppositos cineri doloso.]

      Far different was the temper of the Greeks and Egyptians under
      the orthodox reigns of Leo and Marcian. Those pious emperors
      enforced with arms and edicts the symbol of their faith; 67 and
      it was declared by the conscience or honor of five hundred
      bishops, that the decrees of the synod of Chalcedon might be
      lawfully supported, even with blood. The Catholics observed with
      satisfaction, that the same synod was odious both to the
      Nestorians and the Monophysites; 68 but the Nestorians were less
      angry, or less powerful, and the East was distracted by the
      obstinate and sanguinary zeal of the Monophysites. Jerusalem was
      occupied by an army of monks; in the name of the one incarnate
      nature, they pillaged, they burnt, they murdered; the sepulchre
      of Christ was defiled with blood; and the gates of the city were
      guarded in tumultuous rebellion against the troops of the
      emperor. After the disgrace and exile of Dioscorus, the Egyptians
      still regretted their spiritual father; and detested the
      usurpation of his successor, who was introduced by the fathers of
      Chalcedon. The throne of Proterius was supported by a guard of
      two thousand soldiers: he waged a five years’ war against the
      people of Alexandria; and on the first intelligence of the death
      of Marcian, he became the victim of their zeal. On the third day
      before the festival of Easter, the patriarch was besieged in the
      cathedral, and murdered in the baptistery. The remains of his
      mangled corpse were delivered to the flames, and his ashes to the
      wind; and the deed was inspired by the vision of a pretended
      angel: an ambitious monk, who, under the name of Timothy the Cat,
      69 succeeded to the place and opinions of Dioscorus. This deadly
      superstition was inflamed, on either side, by the principle and
      the practice of retaliation: in the pursuit of a metaphysical
      quarrel, many thousands 70 were slain, and the Christians of
      every degree were deprived of the substantial enjoyments of
      social life, and of the invisible gifts of baptism and the holy
      communion. Perhaps an extravagant fable of the times may conceal
      an allegorical picture of these fanatics, who tortured each other
      and themselves. “Under the consulship of Venantius and Celer,”
      says a grave bishop, “the people of Alexandria, and all Egypt,
      were seized with a strange and diabolical frenzy: great and
      small, slaves and freedmen, monks and clergy, the natives of the
      land, who opposed the synod of Chalcedon, lost their speech and
      reason, barked like dogs, and tore, with their own teeth the
      flesh from their hands and arms.” 71

      67 (return) [ See, in the Appendix to the Acts of Chalcedon, the
      confirmation of the Synod by Marcian, (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1781,
      1783;) his letters to the monks of Alexandria, (p. 1791,) of
      Mount Sinai, (p. 1793,) of Jerusalem and Palestine, (p. 1798;)
      his laws against the Eutychians, (p. 1809, 1811, 1831;) the
      correspondence of Leo with the provincial synods on the
      revolution of Alexandria, (p. 1835—1930.)]

      68 (return) [ Photius (or rather Eulogius of Alexandria)
      confesses, in a fine passage, the specious color of this double
      charge against Pope Leo and his synod of Chalcedon, (Bibliot.
      cod. ccxxv. p. 768.) He waged a double war against the enemies of
      the church, and wounded either foe with the darts of his
      adversary. Against Nestorius he seemed to introduce Monophysites;
      against Eutyches he appeared to countenance the Nestorians. The
      apologist claims a charitable interpretation for the saints: if
      the same had been extended to the heretics, the sound of the
      controversy would have been lost in the air]

      69 (return) [ From his nocturnal expeditions. In darkness and
      disguise he crept round the cells of the monastery, and whispered
      the revelation to his slumbering brethren, (Theodor. Lector. l.
      i.)]

      70 (return) [ Such is the hyperbolic language of the Henoticon.]

      71 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Victor Tunnunensis, in the
      Lectiones Antiquae of Canisius, republished by Basnage, tom.
      326.]

      The disorders of thirty years at length produced the famous
      Henoticon 72 of the emperor Zeno, which in his reign, and in that
      of Anastasius, was signed by all the bishops of the East, under
      the penalty of degradation and exile, if they rejected or
      infringed this salutary and fundamental law. The clergy may smile
      or groan at the presumption of a layman who defines the articles
      of faith; yet if he stoops to the humiliating task, his mind is
      less infected by prejudice or interest, and the authority of the
      magistrate can only be maintained by the concord of the people.
      It is in ecclesiastical story, that Zeno appears least
      contemptible; and I am not able to discern any Manichaean or
      Eutychian guilt in the generous saying of Anastasius. That it was
      unworthy of an emperor to persecute the worshippers of Christ and
      the citizens of Rome. The Henoticon was most pleasing to the
      Egyptians; yet the smallest blemish has not been described by the
      jealous, and even jaundiced eyes of our orthodox schoolmen, and
      it accurately represents the Catholic faith of the incarnation,
      without adopting or disclaiming the peculiar terms of tenets of
      the hostile sects. A solemn anathema is pronounced against
      Nestorius and Eutyches; against all heretics by whom Christ is
      divided, or confounded, or reduced to a phantom. Without defining
      the number or the article of the word nature, the pure system of
      St. Cyril, the faith of Nice, Constantinople, and Ephesus, is
      respectfully confirmed; but, instead of bowing at the name of the
      fourth council, the subject is dismissed by the censure of all
      contrary doctrines, if any such have been taught either elsewhere
      or at Chalcedon. Under this ambiguous expression, the friends and
      the enemies of the last synod might unite in a silent embrace.
      The most reasonable Christians acquiesced in this mode of
      toleration; but their reason was feeble and inconstant, and their
      obedience was despised as timid and servile by the vehement
      spirit of their brethren. On a subject which engrossed the
      thoughts and discourses of men, it was difficult to preserve an
      exact neutrality; a book, a sermon, a prayer, rekindled the flame
      of controversy; and the bonds of communion were alternately
      broken and renewed by the private animosity of the bishops. The
      space between Nestorius and Eutyches was filled by a thousand
      shades of language and opinion; the acephali 73 of Egypt, and the
      Roman pontiffs, of equal valor, though of unequal strength, may
      be found at the two extremities of the theological scale. The
      acephali, without a king or a bishop, were separated above three
      hundred years from the patriarchs of Alexandria, who had accepted
      the communion of Constantinople, without exacting a formal
      condemnation of the synod of Chalcedon. For accepting the
      communion of Alexandria, without a formal approbation of the same
      synod, the patriarchs of Constantinople were anathematized by the
      popes. Their inflexible despotism involved the most orthodox of
      the Greek churches in this spiritual contagion, denied or doubted
      the validity of their sacraments, 74 and fomented, thirty-five
      years, the schism of the East and West, till they finally
      abolished the memory of four Byzantine pontiffs, who had dared to
      oppose the supremacy of St. Peter. 75 Before that period, the
      precarious truce of Constantinople and Egypt had been violated by
      the zeal of the rival prelates. Macedonius, who was suspected of
      the Nestorian heresy, asserted, in disgrace and exile, the synod
      of Chalcedon, while the successor of Cyril would have purchased
      its overthrow with a bribe of two thousand pounds of gold.

      72 (return) [The Henoticon is transcribed by Evagrius, (l. iii.
      c. 13,) and translated by Liberatus, (Brev. c. 18.) Pagi
      (Critica, tom. ii. p. 411) and (Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 343)
      are satisfied that it is free from heresy; but Petavius (Dogmat.
      Theolog. tom. v. l. i. c. 13, p. 40) most unaccountably affirms
      Chalcedonensem ascivit. An adversary would prove that he had
      never read the Henoticon.]

      73 (return) [ See Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 123, 131,
      145, 195, 247.) They were reconciled by the care of Mark I. (A.D.
      799—819;) he promoted their chiefs to the bishoprics of Athribis
      and Talba, (perhaps Tava. See D’Anville, p. 82,) and supplied the
      sacraments, which had failed for want of an episcopal
      ordination.]

      74 (return) [ De his quos baptizavit, quos ordinavit Acacius,
      majorum traditione confectam et veram, praecipue religiosae
      solicitudini congruam praebemus sine difficultate medicinam,
      (Galacius, in epist. i. ad Euphemium, Concil. tom. v. 286.) The
      offer of a medicine proves the disease, and numbers must have
      perished before the arrival of the Roman physician. Tillemont
      himself (Mem. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 372, 642, &c.) is shocked at
      the proud, uncharitable temper of the popes; they are now glad,
      says he, to invoke St. Flavian of Antioch, St. Elias of
      Jerusalem, &c., to whom they refused communion whilst upon earth.
      But Cardinal Baronius is firm and hard as the rock of St. Peter.]

      75 (return) [ Their names were erased from the diptych of the
      church: ex venerabili diptycho, in quo piae memoriae transitum ad
      coelum habentium episcoporum vocabula continentur, (Concil. tom.
      iv. p. 1846.) This ecclesiastical record was therefore equivalent
      to the book of life.]

      In the fever of the times, the sense, or rather the sound of a
      syllable, was sufficient to disturb the peace of an empire. The
      Trisagion 76 (thrice holy,) “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of
      Hosts!” is supposed, by the Greeks, to be the identical hymn
      which the angels and cherubim eternally repeat before the throne
      of God, and which, about the middle of the fifth century, was
      miraculously revealed to the church of Constantinople. The
      devotion of Antioch soon added, “who was crucified for us!” and
      this grateful address, either to Christ alone, or to the whole
      Trinity, may be justified by the rules of theology, and has been
      gradually adopted by the Catholics of the East and West. But it
      had been imagined by a Monophysite bishop; 77 the gift of an
      enemy was at first rejected as a dire and dangerous blasphemy,
      and the rash innovation had nearly cost the emperor Anastasius
      his throne and his life. 78 The people of Constantinople was
      devoid of any rational principles of freedom; but they held, as a
      lawful cause of rebellion, the color of a livery in the races, or
      the color of a mystery in the schools. The Trisagion, with and
      without this obnoxious addition, was chanted in the cathedral by
      two adverse choirs, and when their lungs were exhausted, they had
      recourse to the more solid arguments of sticks and stones; the
      aggressors were punished by the emperor, and defended by the
      patriarch; and the crown and mitre were staked on the event of
      this momentous quarrel. The streets were instantly crowded with
      innumerable swarms of men, women, and children; the legions of
      monks, in regular array, marched, and shouted, and fought at
      their head, “Christians! this is the day of martyrdom: let us not
      desert our spiritual father; anathema to the Manichaean tyrant!
      he is unworthy to reign.” Such was the Catholic cry; and the
      galleys of Anastasius lay upon their oars before the palace, till
      the patriarch had pardoned his penitent, and hushed the waves of
      the troubled multitude. The triumph of Macedonius was checked by
      a speedy exile; but the zeal of his flock was again exasperated
      by the same question, “Whether one of the Trinity had been
      crucified?” On this momentous occasion, the blue and green
      factions of Constantinople suspended their discord, and the civil
      and military powers were annihilated in their presence. The keys
      of the city, and the standards of the guards, were deposited in
      the forum of Constantine, the principal station and camp of the
      faithful. Day and night they were incessantly busied either in
      singing hymns to the honor of their God, or in pillaging and
      murdering the servants of their prince. The head of his favorite
      monk, the friend, as they styled him, of the enemy of the Holy
      Trinity, was borne aloft on a spear; and the firebrands, which
      had been darted against heretical structures, diffused the
      undistinguishing flames over the most orthodox buildings. The
      statues of the emperor were broken, and his person was concealed
      in a suburb, till, at the end of three days, he dared to implore
      the mercy of his subjects. Without his diadem, and in the posture
      of a suppliant, Anastasius appeared on the throne of the circus.
      The Catholics, before his face, rehearsed their genuine
      Trisagion; they exulted in the offer, which he proclaimed by the
      voice of a herald, of abdicating the purple; they listened to the
      admonition, that, since all could not reign, they should
      previously agree in the choice of a sovereign; and they accepted
      the blood of two unpopular ministers, whom their master, without
      hesitation, condemned to the lions. These furious but transient
      seditions were encouraged by the success of Vitalian, who, with
      an army of Huns and Bulgarians, for the most part idolaters,
      declared himself the champion of the Catholic faith. In this
      pious rebellion he depopulated Thrace, besieged Constantinople,
      exterminated sixty-five thousand of his fellow-Christians, till
      he obtained the recall of the bishops, the satisfaction of the
      pope, and the establishment of the council of Chalcedon, an
      orthodox treaty, reluctantly signed by the dying Anastasius, and
      more faithfully performed by the uncle of Justinian. And such was
      the event of the first of the religious wars which have been
      waged in the name and by the disciples, of the God of peace. 79

      76 (return) [ Petavius (Dogmat. Theolog. tom. v. l. v. c. 2, 3,
      4, p. 217-225) and Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 713, &c.,
      799) represent the history and doctrine of the Trisagion. In the
      twelve centuries between Isaiah and St. Proculs’s boy, who was
      taken up into heaven before the bishop and people of
      Constantinople, the song was considerably improved. The boy heard
      the angels sing, “Holy God! Holy strong! Holy immortal!”]

      77 (return) [ Peter Gnapheus, the fuller, (a trade which he had
      exercised in his monastery,) patriarch of Antioch. His tedious
      story is discussed in the Annals of Pagi (A.D. 477—490) and a
      dissertation of M. de Valois at the end of his Evagrius.]

      78 (return) [ The troubles under the reign of Anastasius must be
      gathered from the Chronicles of Victor, Marcellinus, and
      Theophanes. As the last was not published in the time of
      Baronius, his critic Pagi is more copious, as well as more
      correct.]

      79 (return) [ The general history, from the council of Chalcedon
      to the death of Anastasius, may be found in the Breviary of
      Liberatus, (c. 14—19,) the iid and iiid books of Evagrius, the
      abstract of the two books of Theodore the Reader, the Acts of the
      Synods, and the Epistles of the Pope, (Concil. tom. v.) The
      series is continued with some disorder in the xvth and xvith
      tomes of the Memoires Ecclesiastiques of Tillemont. And here I
      must take leave forever of that incomparable guide—whose bigotry
      is overbalanced by the merits of erudition, diligence, veracity,
      and scrupulous minuteness. He was prevented by death from
      completing, as he designed, the vith century of the church and
      empire.]




      Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part IV.

      Justinian has been already seen in the various lights of a
      prince, a conqueror, and a lawgiver: the theologian 80 still
      remains, and it affords an unfavorable prejudice, that his
      theology should form a very prominent feature of his portrait.
      The sovereign sympathized with his subjects in their
      superstitious reverence for living and departed saints: his Code,
      and more especially his Novels, confirm and enlarge the
      privileges of the clergy; and in every dispute between a monk and
      a layman, the partial judge was inclined to pronounce, that
      truth, and innocence, and justice, were always on the side of the
      church. In his public and private devotions, the emperor was
      assiduous and exemplary; his prayers, vigils, and fasts,
      displayed the austere penance of a monk; his fancy was amused by
      the hope, or belief, of personal inspiration; he had secured the
      patronage of the Virgin and St. Michael the archangel; and his
      recovery from a dangerous disease was ascribed to the miraculous
      succor of the holy martyrs Cosmas and Damian. The capital and the
      provinces of the East were decorated with the monuments of his
      religion; 81 and though the far greater part of these costly
      structures may be attributed to his taste or ostentation, the
      zeal of the royal architect was probably quickened by a genuine
      sense of love and gratitude towards his invisible benefactors.
      Among the titles of Imperial greatness, the name of Pious was
      most pleasing to his ear; to promote the temporal and spiritual
      interest of the church was the serious business of his life; and
      the duty of father of his country was often sacrificed to that of
      defender of the faith. The controversies of the times were
      congenial to his temper and understanding and the theological
      professors must inwardly deride the diligence of a stranger, who
      cultivated their art and neglected his own. “What can ye fear,”
      said a bold conspirator to his associates, “from your bigoted
      tyrant? Sleepless and unarmed, he sits whole nights in his
      closet, debating with reverend graybeards, and turning over the
      pages of ecclesiastical volumes.” 82 The fruits of these
      lucubrations were displayed in many a conference, where Justinian
      might shine as the loudest and most subtile of the disputants; in
      many a sermon, which, under the name of edicts and epistles,
      proclaimed to the empire the theology of their master. While the
      Barbarians invaded the provinces, while the victorious legion
      marched under the banners of Belisarius and Narses, the successor
      of Trajan, unknown to the camp, was content to vanquish at the
      head of a synod. Had he invited to these synods a disinterested
      and rational spectator, Justinian might have learned, “that
      religious controversy is the offspring of arrogance and folly;
      that true piety is most laudably expressed by silence and
      submission; that man, ignorant of his own nature, should not
      presume to scrutinize the nature of his God; and that it is
      sufficient for us to know, that power and benevolence are the
      perfect attributes of the Deity.” 83

      80 (return) [ The strain of the Anecdotes of Procopius, (c. 11,
      13, 18, 27, 28,) with the learned remarks of Alemannus, is
      confirmed, rather than contradicted, by the Acts of the Councils,
      the fourth book of Evagrius, and the complaints of the African
      Facundus, in his xiith book—de tribus capitulis, “cum videri
      doctus appetit importune...spontaneis quaestionibus ecclesiam
      turbat.” See Procop. de Bell. Goth. l. iii. c. 35.]

      81 (return) [ Procop. de Edificiis, l. i. c. 6, 7, &c., passim.]

      82 (return) [ Procop. de Bell. Goth. l. iii. c. 32. In the life
      of St. Eutychius (apud Aleman. ad Procop. Arcan. c. 18) the same
      character is given with a design to praise Justinian.]

      83 (return) [ For these wise and moderate sentiments, Procopius
      (de Bell. Goth. l. i. c. 3) is scourged in the preface of
      Alemannus, who ranks him among the political Christians—sed longe
      verius haeresium omnium sentinas, prorsusque Atheos—abominable
      Atheists, who preached the imitation of God’s mercy to man, (ad
      Hist. Arcan. c. 13.)]

      Toleration was not the virtue of the times, and indulgence to
      rebels has seldom been the virtue of princes. But when the prince
      descends to the narrow and peevish character of a disputant, he
      is easily provoked to supply the defect of argument by the
      plenitude of power, and to chastise without mercy the perverse
      blindness of those who wilfully shut their eyes against the light
      of demonstration. The reign of Justinian was a uniform yet
      various scene of persecution; and he appears to have surpassed
      his indolent predecessors, both in the contrivance of his laws
      and the rigor of their execution. The insufficient term of three
      months was assigned for the conversion or exile of all heretics;
      84 and if he still connived at their precarious stay, they were
      deprived, under his iron yoke, not only of the benefits of
      society, but of the common birth-right of men and Christians. At
      the end of four hundred years, the Montanists of Phrygia 85 still
      breathed the wild enthusiasm of perfection and prophecy which
      they had imbibed from their male and female apostles, the special
      organs of the Paraclete. On the approach of the Catholic priests
      and soldiers, they grasped with alacrity the crown of martyrdom
      the conventicle and the congregation perished in the flames, but
      these primitive fanatics were not extinguished three hundred
      years after the death of their tyrant. Under the protection of
      their Gothic confederates, the church of the Arians at
      Constantinople had braved the severity of the laws: their clergy
      equalled the wealth and magnificence of the senate; and the gold
      and silver which were seized by the rapacious hand of Justinian
      might perhaps be claimed as the spoils of the provinces, and the
      trophies of the Barbarians. A secret remnant of Pagans, who still
      lurked in the most refined and most rustic conditions of mankind,
      excited the indignation of the Christians, who were perhaps
      unwilling that any strangers should be the witnesses of their
      intestine quarrels. A bishop was named as the inquisitor of the
      faith, and his diligence soon discovered, in the court and city,
      the magistrates, lawyers, physicians, and sophists, who still
      cherished the superstition of the Greeks. They were sternly
      informed that they must choose without delay between the
      displeasure of Jupiter or Justinian, and that their aversion to
      the gospel could no longer be distinguished under the scandalous
      mask of indifference or impiety. The patrician Photius, perhaps,
      alone was resolved to live and to die like his ancestors: he
      enfranchised himself with the stroke of a dagger, and left his
      tyrant the poor consolation of exposing with ignominy the
      lifeless corpse of the fugitive. His weaker brethren submitted to
      their earthly monarch, underwent the ceremony of baptism, and
      labored, by their extraordinary zeal, to erase the suspicion, or
      to expiate the guilt, of idolatry. The native country of Homer,
      and the theatre of the Trojan war, still retained the last sparks
      of his mythology: by the care of the same bishop, seventy
      thousand Pagans were detected and converted in Asia, Phrygia,
      Lydia, and Caria; ninety-six churches were built for the new
      proselytes; and linen vestments, Bibles, and liturgies, and vases
      of gold and silver, were supplied by the pious munificence of
      Justinian. 86 The Jews, who had been gradually stripped of their
      immunities, were oppressed by a vexatious law, which compelled
      them to observe the festival of Easter the same day on which it
      was celebrated by the Christians. 87 And they might complain with
      the more reason, since the Catholics themselves did not agree
      with the astronomical calculations of their sovereign: the people
      of Constantinople delayed the beginning of their Lent a whole
      week after it had been ordained by authority; and they had the
      pleasure of fasting seven days, while meat was exposed for sale
      by the command of the emperor. The Samaritans of Palestine 88
      were a motley race, an ambiguous sect, rejected as Jews by the
      Pagans, by the Jews as schismatics, and by the Christians as
      idolaters. The abomination of the cross had already been planted
      on their holy mount of Garizim, 89 but the persecution of
      Justinian offered only the alternative of baptism or rebellion.
      They chose the latter: under the standard of a desperate leader,
      they rose in arms, and retaliated their wrongs on the lives, the
      property, and the temples, of a defenceless people. The
      Samaritans were finally subdued by the regular forces of the
      East: twenty thousand were slain, twenty thousand were sold by
      the Arabs to the infidels of Persia and India, and the remains of
      that unhappy nation atoned for the crime of treason by the sin of
      hypocrisy. It has been computed that one hundred thousand Roman
      subjects were extirpated in the Samaritan war, 90 which converted
      the once fruitful province into a desolate and smoking
      wilderness. But in the creed of Justinian, the guilt of murder
      could not be applied to the slaughter of unbelievers; and he
      piously labored to establish with fire and sword the unity of the
      Christian faith. 91

      84 (return) [ This alternative, a precious circumstance, is
      preserved by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 63, edit. Venet. 1733,)
      who deserves more credit as he draws towards his end. After
      numbering the heretics, Nestorians, Eutychians, &c., ne
      expectent, says Justinian, ut digni venia judicen tur: jubemus,
      enim ut...convicti et aperti haeretici justae et idoneae
      animadversioni subjiciantur. Baronius copies and applauds this
      edict of the Code, (A.D. 527, No. 39, 40.)]

      85 (return) [ See the character and principles of the Montanists,
      in Mosheim, Rebus Christ. ante Constantinum, p. 410—424.]

      86 (return) [ Theophan. Chron. p. 153. John, the Monophysite
      bishop of Asia, is a more authentic witness of this transaction,
      in which he was himself employed by the emperor, (Asseman. Bib.
      Orient. tom. ii. p. 85.)]

      87 (return) [ Compare Procopius (Hist. Arcan. c. 28, and Aleman’s
      Notes) with Theophanes, (Chron. p. 190.) The council of Nice has
      intrusted the patriarch, or rather the astronomers, of
      Alexandria, with the annual proclamation of Easter; and we still
      read, or rather we do not read, many of the Paschal epistles of
      St. Cyril. Since the reign of Monophytism in Egypt, the Catholics
      were perplexed by such a foolish prejudice as that which so long
      opposed, among the Protestants, the reception of the Gregorian
      style.]

      88 (return) [ For the religion and history of the Samaritans,
      consult Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, a learned and impartial
      work.]

      89 (return) [ Sichem, Neapolis, Naplous, the ancient and modern
      seat of the Samaritans, is situate in a valley between the barren
      Ebal, the mountain of cursing to the north, and the fruitful
      Garizim, or mountain of cursing to the south, ten or eleven
      hours’ travel from Jerusalem. See Maundrel, Journey from Aleppo
      &c.]

      90 (return) [ Procop. Anecdot. c. 11. Theophan. Chron. p. 122.
      John Malala Chron. tom. ii. p. 62. I remember an observation,
      half philosophical. half superstitious, that the province which
      had been ruined by the bigotry of Justinian, was the same through
      which the Mahometans penetrated into the empire.]

      91 (return) [ The expression of Procopius is remarkable. Anecdot.
      c. 13.]

      With these sentiments, it was incumbent on him, at least, to be
      always in the right. In the first years of his administration, he
      signalized his zeal as the disciple and patron of orthodoxy: the
      reconciliation of the Greeks and Latins established the tome of
      St. Leo as the creed of the emperor and the empire; the
      Nestorians and Eutychians were exposed. on either side, to the
      double edge of persecution; and the four synods of Nice,
      Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, were ratified by the code
      of a Catholic lawgiver. 92 But while Justinian strove to maintain
      the uniformity of faith and worship, his wife Theodora, whose
      vices were not incompatible with devotion, had listened to the
      Monophysite teachers; and the open or clandestine enemies of the
      church revived and multiplied at the smile of their gracious
      patroness. The capital, the palace, the nuptial bed, were torn by
      spiritual discord; yet so doubtful was the sincerity of the royal
      consorts, that their seeming disagreement was imputed by many to
      a secret and mischievous confederacy against the religion and
      happiness of their people. 93 The famous dispute of the Three



      Chapters, 94 which has filled more volumes than it deserves
      lines, is deeply marked with this subtile and disingenuous
      spirit. It was now three hundred years since the body of Origen
      95 had been eaten by the worms: his soul, of which he held the
      preexistence, was in the hands of its Creator; but his writings
      were eagerly perused by the monks of Palestine. In these
      writings, the piercing eye of Justinian descried more than ten
      metaphysical errors; and the primitive doctor, in the company of
      Pythagoras and Plato, was devoted by the clergy to the eternity
      of hell-fire, which he had presumed to deny. Under the cover of
      this precedent, a treacherous blow was aimed at the council of
      Chalcedon. The fathers had listened without impatience to the
      praise of Theodore of Mopsuestia; 96 and their justice or
      indulgence had restored both Theodore of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of
      Edessa, to the communion of the church. But the characters of
      these Oriental bishops were tainted with the reproach of heresy;
      the first had been the master, the two others were the friends,
      of Nestorius; their most suspicious passages were accused under
      the title of the three chapters; and the condemnation of their
      memory must involve the honor of a synod, whose name was
      pronounced with sincere or affected reverence by the Catholic
      world. If these bishops, whether innocent or guilty, were
      annihilated in the sleep of death, they would not probably be
      awakened by the clamor which, after a hundred years, was raised
      over their grave. If they were already in the fangs of the
      daemon, their torments could neither be aggravated nor assuaged
      by human industry. If in the company of saints and angels they
      enjoyed the rewards of piety, they must have smiled at the idle
      fury of the theological insects who still crawled on the surface
      of the earth. The foremost of these insects, the emperor of the
      Romans, darted his sting, and distilled his venom, perhaps
      without discerning the true motives of Theodora and her
      ecclesiastical faction. The victims were no longer subject to his
      power, and the vehement style of his edicts could only proclaim
      their damnation, and invite the clergy of the East to join in a
      full chorus of curses and anathemas. The East, with some
      hesitation, consented to the voice of her sovereign: the fifth
      general council, of three patriarchs and one hundred and
      sixty-five bishops, was held at Constantinople; and the authors,
      as well as the defenders, of the three chapters were separated
      from the communion of the saints, and solemnly delivered to the
      prince of darkness. But the Latin churches were more jealous of
      the honor of Leo and the synod of Chalcedon: and if they had
      fought as they usually did under the standard of Rome, they might
      have prevailed in the cause of reason and humanity. But their
      chief was a prisoner in the hands of the enemy; the throne of St.
      Peter, which had been disgraced by the simony, was betrayed by
      the cowardice, of Vigilius, who yielded, after a long and
      inconsistent struggle, to the despotism of Justinian and the
      sophistry of the Greeks. His apostasy provoked the indignation of
      the Latins, and no more than two bishops could be found who would
      impose their hands on his deacon and successor Pelagius. Yet the
      perseverance of the popes insensibly transferred to their
      adversaries the appellation of schismatics; the Illyrian,
      African, and Italian churches were oppressed by the civil and
      ecclesiastical powers, not without some effort of military force;
      97 the distant Barbarians transcribed the creed of the Vatican,
      and, in the period of a century, the schism of the three chapters
      expired in an obscure angle of the Venetian province. 98 But the
      religious discontent of the Italians had already promoted the
      conquests of the Lombards, and the Romans themselves were
      accustomed to suspect the faith and to detest the government of
      their Byzantine tyrant.

      92 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Victor, p. 328, and the
      original evidence of the laws of Justinian. During the first
      years of his reign, Baronius himself is in extreme good humor
      with the emperor, who courted the popes, till he got them into
      his power.]

      93 (return) [ Procopius, Anecdot. c. 13. Evagrius, l. iv. c. 10.
      If the ecclesiastical never read the secret historian, their
      common suspicion proves at least the general hatred.]

      94 (return) [ On the subject of the three chapters, the original
      acts of the vth general council of Constantinople supply much
      useless, though authentic, knowledge, (Concil. tom. vi. p.
      1-419.) The Greek Evagrius is less copious and correct (l. iv. c.
      38) than the three zealous Africans, Facundus, (in his twelve
      books, de tribus capitulis, which are most correctly published by
      Sirmond,) Liberatus, (in his Breviarium, c. 22, 23, 24,) and
      Victor Tunnunensis in his Chronicle, (in tom. i. Antiq. Lect.
      Canisii, 330—334.) The Liber Pontificalis, or Anastasius, (in
      Vigilio, Pelagio, &c.,) is original Italian evidence. The modern
      reader will derive some information from Dupin (Bibliot. Eccles.
      tom. v. p. 189—207) and Basnage, (Hist. de l’Eglise, tom. i. p.
      519—541;) yet the latter is too firmly resolved to depreciate the
      authority and character of the popes.]

      95 (return) [ Origen had indeed too great a propensity to imitate
      the old philosophers, (Justinian, ad Mennam, in Concil. tom. vi.
      p. 356.) His moderate opinions were too repugnant to the zeal of
      the church, and he was found guilty of the heresy of reason.]

      96 (return) [ Basnage (Praefat. p. 11—14, ad tom. i. Antiq. Lect.
      Canis.) has fairly weighed the guilt and innocence of Theodore of
      Mopsuestia. If he composed 10,000 volumes, as many errors would
      be a charitable allowance. In all the subsequent catalogues of
      heresiarchs, he alone, without his two brethren, is included; and
      it is the duty of Asseman (Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. 203—207)
      to justify the sentence.]

      97 (return) [ See the complaints of Liberatus and Victor, and the
      exhortations of Pope Pelagius to the conqueror and exarch of
      Italy. Schisma.. per potestates publicas opprimatur, &c.,
      (Concil. tom. vi. p. 467, &c.) An army was detained to suppress
      the sedition of an Illyrian city. See Procopius, (de Bell. Goth.
      l. iv. c. 25:). He seems to promise an ecclesiastical history. It
      would have been curious and impartial.]

      98 (return) [ The bishops of the patriarchate of Aquileia were
      reconciled by Pope Honorius, A.D. 638, (Muratori, Annali d’
      Italia, tom. v. p. 376;) but they again relapsed, and the schism
      was not finally extinguished till 698. Fourteen years before, the
      church of Spain had overlooked the vth general council with
      contemptuous silence, (xiii. Concil. Toretan. in Concil. tom.
      vii. p. 487—494.)]

      Justinian was neither steady nor consistent in the nice process
      of fixing his volatile opinions and those of his subjects. In his
      youth he was, offended by the slightest deviation from the
      orthodox line; in his old age he transgressed the measure of
      temperate heresy, and the Jacobites, not less than the Catholics,
      were scandalized by his declaration, that the body of Christ was
      incorruptible, and that his manhood was never subject to any
      wants and infirmities, the inheritance of our mortal flesh. This
      fantastic opinion was announced in the last edicts of Justinian;
      and at the moment of his seasonable departure, the clergy had
      refused to subscribe, the prince was prepared to persecute, and
      the people were resolved to suffer or resist. A bishop of Treves,
      secure beyond the limits of his power, addressed the monarch of
      the East in the language of authority and affection. “Most
      gracious Justinian, remember your baptism and your creed. Let not
      your gray hairs be defiled with heresy. Recall your fathers from
      exile, and your followers from perdition. You cannot be ignorant,
      that Italy and Gaul, Spain and Africa, already deplore your fall,
      and anathematize your name. Unless, without delay, you destroy
      what you have taught; unless you exclaim with a loud voice, I
      have erred, I have sinned, anathema to Nestorius, anathema to
      Eutyches, you deliver your soul to the same flames in which they
      will eternally burn.” He died and made no sign. 99 His death
      restored in some degree the peace of the church, and the reigns
      of his four successors, Justin Tiberius, Maurice, and Phocas, are
      distinguished by a rare, though fortunate, vacancy in the
      ecclesiastical history of the East. 100

      99 (return) [ Nicetus, bishop of Treves, (Concil. tom. vi. p.
      511-513:) he himself, like most of the Gallican prelates,
      (Gregor. Epist. l. vii. 5 in Concil. tom. vi. p. 1007,) was
      separated from the communion of the four patriarchs by his
      refusal to condemn the three chapters. Baronius almost pronounces
      the damnation of Justinian, (A.D. 565, No. 6.)]

      100 (return) [ After relating the last heresy of Justinian, (l.
      iv. c. 39, 40, 41,) and the edict of his successor, (l. v. c. 3,)
      the remainder of the history of Evagrius is filled with civil,
      instead of ecclesiastical events.]

      The faculties of sense and reason are least capable of acting on
      themselves; the eye is most inaccessible to the sight, the soul
      to the thought; yet we think, and even feel, that one will, a
      sole principle of action, is essential to a rational and
      conscious being. When Heraclius returned from the Persian war,
      the orthodox hero consulted his bishops, whether the Christ whom
      he adored, of one person, but of two natures, was actuated by a
      single or a double will. They replied in the singular, and the
      emperor was encouraged to hope that the Jacobites of Egypt and
      Syria might be reconciled by the profession of a doctrine, most
      certainly harmless, and most probably true, since it was taught
      even by the Nestorians themselves. 101 The experiment was tried
      without effect, and the timid or vehement Catholics condemned
      even the semblance of a retreat in the presence of a subtle and
      audacious enemy. The orthodox (the prevailing) party devised new
      modes of speech, and argument, and interpretation: to either
      nature of Christ they speciously applied a proper and distinct
      energy; but the difference was no longer visible when they
      allowed that the human and the divine will were invariably the
      same. 102 The disease was attended with the customary symptoms:
      but the Greek clergy, as if satiated with the endless controversy
      of the incarnation, instilled a healing counsel into the ear of
      the prince and people. They declared themselves Monothelites,
      (asserters of the unity of will,) but they treated the words as
      new, the questions as superfluous; and recommended a religious
      silence as the most agreeable to the prudence and charity of the
      gospel. This law of silence was successively imposed by the
      ecthesis or exposition of Heraclius, the type or model of his
      grandson Constans; 103 and the Imperial edicts were subscribed
      with alacrity or reluctance by the four patriarchs of Rome,
      Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. But the bishop and monks
      of Jerusalem sounded the alarm: in the language, or even in the
      silence, of the Greeks, the Latin churches detected a latent
      heresy: and the obedience of Pope Honorius to the commands of his
      sovereign was retracted and censured by the bolder ignorance of
      his successors. They condemned the execrable and abominable
      heresy of the Monothelites, who revived the errors of Manes,
      Apollinaris, Eutyches, &c.; they signed the sentence of
      excommunication on the tomb of St. Peter; the ink was mingled
      with the sacramental wine, the blood of Christ; and no ceremony
      was omitted that could fill the superstitious mind with horror
      and affright. As the representative of the Western church, Pope
      Martin and his Lateran synod anathematized the perfidious and
      guilty silence of the Greeks: one hundred and five bishops of
      Italy, for the most part the subjects of Constans, presumed to
      reprobate his wicked type, and the impious ecthesis of his
      grandfather; and to confound the authors and their adherents with
      the twenty-one notorious heretics, the apostates from the church,
      and the organs of the devil. Such an insult under the tamest
      reign could not pass with impunity. Pope Martin ended his days on
      the inhospitable shore of the Tauric Chersonesus, and his oracle,
      the abbot Maximus, was inhumanly chastised by the amputation of
      his tongue and his right hand. 104 But the same invincible spirit
      survived in their successors; and the triumph of the Latins
      avenged their recent defeat, and obliterated the disgrace of the
      three chapters. The synods of Rome were confirmed by the sixth
      general council of Constantinople, in the palace and the presence
      of a new Constantine, a descendant of Heraclius. The royal
      convert converted the Byzantine pontiff and a majority of the
      bishops; 105 the dissenters, with their chief, Macarius of
      Antioch, were condemned to the spiritual and temporal pains of
      heresy; the East condescended to accept the lessons of the West;
      and the creed was finally settled, which teaches the Catholics of
      every age, that two wills or energies are harmonized in the
      person of Christ. The majesty of the pope and the Roman synod was
      represented by two priests, one deacon, and three bishops; but
      these obscure Latins had neither arms to compel, nor treasures to
      bribe, nor language to persuade; and I am ignorant by what arts
      they could determine the lofty emperor of the Greeks to abjure
      the catechism of his infancy, and to persecute the religion of
      his fathers. Perhaps the monks and people of Constantinople 106
      were favorable to the Lateran creed, which is indeed the least
      reasonable of the two: and the suspicion is countenanced by the
      unnatural moderation of the Greek clergy, who appear in this
      quarrel to be conscious of their weakness. While the synod
      debated, a fanatic proposed a more summary decision, by raising a
      dead man to life: the prelates assisted at the trial; but the
      acknowledged failure may serve to indicate, that the passions and
      prejudices of the multitude were not enlisted on the side of the
      Monothelites. In the next generation, when the son of Constantine
      was deposed and slain by the disciple of Macarius, they tasted
      the feast of revenge and dominion: the image or monument of the
      sixth council was defaced, and the original acts were committed
      to the flames. But in the second year, their patron was cast
      headlong from the throne, the bishops of the East were released
      from their occasional conformity, the Roman faith was more firmly
      replanted by the orthodox successors of Bardanes, and the fine
      problems of the incarnation were forgotten in the more popular
      and visible quarrel of the worship of images. 107

      101 (return) [ This extraordinary, and perhaps inconsistent,
      doctrine of the Nestorians, had been observed by La Croze,
      (Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 19, 20,) and is more fully
      exposed by Abulpharagius, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 292.
      Hist. Dynast. p. 91, vers. Latin. Pocock.) and Asseman himself,
      (tom. iv. p. 218.) They seem ignorant that they might allege the
      positive authority of the ecthesis. (the common reproach of the
      Monophysites) (Concil. tom. vii. p. 205.)]

      102 (return) [ See the Orthodox faith in Petavius, (Dogmata
      Theolog. tom. v. l. ix. c. 6—10, p. 433—447:) all the depths of
      this controversy in the Greek dialogue between Maximus and
      Pyrrhus, (acalcem tom. viii. Annal. Baron. p. 755—794,) which
      relates a real conference, and produced as short-lived a
      conversion.]

      103 (return) [ Impiissimam ecthesim.... scelerosum typum (Concil.
      tom. vii p. 366) diabolicae operationis genimina, (fors. germina,
      or else the Greek in the original. Concil. p. 363, 364,) are the
      expressions of the xviiith anathema. The epistle of Pope Martin
      to Amandus, Gallican bishop, stigmatizes the Monothelites and
      their heresy with equal virulence, (p. 392.)]

      104 (return) [ The sufferings of Martin and Maximus are described
      with simplicity in their original letters and acts, (Concil. tom.
      vii. p. 63—78. Baron. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 656, No. 2, et annos
      subsequent.) Yet the chastisement of their disobedience had been
      previously announced in the Type of Constans, (Concil. tom. vii.
      p. 240.)]

      105 (return) [ Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 368) most
      erroneously supposes that the 124 bishops of the Roman synod
      transported themselves to Constantinople; and by adding them to
      the 168 Greeks, thus composes the sixth council of 292 fathers.]

      106 (return) [ The Monothelite Constans was hated by all, (says
      Theophanes, Chron. p. 292). When the Monothelite monk failed in
      his miracle, the people shouted, (Concil. tom. vii. p. 1032.) But
      this was a natural and transient emotion; and I much fear that
      the latter is an anticipation of the good people of
      Constantinople.]

      107 (return) [ The history of Monothelitism may be found in the
      Acts of the Synods of Rome (tom. vii. p. 77—395, 601—608) and
      Constantinople, (p. 609—1429.) Baronius extracted some original
      documents from the Vatican library; and his chronology is
      rectified by the diligence of Pagi. Even Dupin (Bibliotheque
      Eccles. tom. vi. p. 57—71) and Basnage (Hist. de l’Eglise, tom.
      i. p. 451—555) afford a tolerable abridgment.]

      Before the end of the seventh century, the creed of the
      incarnation, which had been defined at Rome and Constantinople,
      was uniformly preached in the remote islands of Britain and
      Ireland; 108 the same ideas were entertained, or rather the same
      words were repeated, by all the Christians whose liturgy was
      performed in the Greek or the Latin tongue. Their numbers, and
      visible splendor, bestowed an imperfect claim to the appellation
      of Catholics: but in the East, they were marked with the less
      honorable name of Melchites, or Royalists; 109 of men, whose
      faith, instead of resting on the basis of Scripture, reason, or
      tradition, had been established, and was still maintained, by the
      arbitrary power of a temporal monarch. Their adversaries might
      allege the words of the fathers of Constantinople, who profess
      themselves the slaves of the king; and they might relate, with
      malicious joy, how the decrees of Chalcedon had been inspired and
      reformed by the emperor Marcian and his virgin bride. The
      prevailing faction will naturally inculcate the duty of
      submission, nor is it less natural that dissenters should feel
      and assert the principles of freedom. Under the rod of
      persecution, the Nestorians and Monophysites degenerated into
      rebels and fugitives; and the most ancient and useful allies of
      Rome were taught to consider the emperor not as the chief, but as
      the enemy of the Christians. Language, the leading principle
      which unites or separates the tribes of mankind, soon
      discriminated the sectaries of the East, by a peculiar and
      perpetual badge, which abolished the means of intercourse and the
      hope of reconciliation. The long dominion of the Greeks, their
      colonies, and, above all, their eloquence, had propagated a
      language doubtless the most perfect that has been contrived by
      the art of man. Yet the body of the people, both in Syria and
      Egypt, still persevered in the use of their national idioms; with
      this difference, however, that the Coptic was confined to the
      rude and illiterate peasants of the Nile, while the Syriac, 110
      from the mountains of Assyria to the Red Sea, was adapted to the
      higher topics of poetry and argument. Armenia and Abyssinia were
      infected by the speech or learning of the Greeks; and their
      Barbaric tongues, which have been revived in the studies of
      modern Europe, were unintelligible to the inhabitants of the
      Roman empire. The Syriac and the Coptic, the Armenian and the
      Aethiopic, are consecrated in the service of their respective
      churches: and their theology is enriched by domestic versions 111
      both of the Scriptures and of the most popular fathers. After a
      period of thirteen hundred and sixty years, the spark of
      controversy, first kindled by a sermon of Nestorius, still burns
      in the bosom of the East, and the hostile communions still
      maintain the faith and discipline of their founders. In the most
      abject state of ignorance, poverty, and servitude, the Nestorians
      and Monophysites reject the spiritual supremacy of Rome, and
      cherish the toleration of their Turkish masters, which allows
      them to anathematize, on the one hand, St. Cyril and the synod of
      Ephesus: on the other, Pope Leo and the council of Chalcedon. The
      weight which they cast into the downfall of the Eastern empire
      demands our notice, and the reader may be amused with the various
      prospect of, I. The Nestorians; II. The Jacobites; 112 III. The
      Maronites; IV. The Armenians; V. The Copts; and, VI. The
      Abyssinians. To the three former, the Syriac is common; but of
      the latter, each is discriminated by the use of a national idiom.

      Yet the modern natives of Armenia and Abyssinia would be
      incapable of conversing with their ancestors; and the Christians
      of Egypt and Syria, who reject the religion, have adopted the
      language of the Arabians. The lapse of time has seconded the
      sacerdotal arts; and in the East, as well as in the West, the
      Deity is addressed in an obsolete tongue, unknown to the majority
      of the congregation.

      108 (return) [ In the Lateran synod of 679, Wilfred, an
      Anglo-Saxon bishop, subscribed pro omni Aquilonari parte
      Britanniae et Hiberniae, quae ab Anglorum et Britonum, necnon
      Scotorum et Pictorum gentibus colebantur, (Eddius, in Vit. St.
      Wilfrid. c. 31, apud Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p. 88.) Theodore
      (magnae insulae Britanniae archiepiscopus et philosophus) was
      long expected at Rome, (Concil. tom. vii. p. 714,) but he
      contented himself with holding (A.D. 680) his provincial synod of
      Hatfield, in which he received the decrees of Pope Martin and the
      first Lateran council against the Monothelites, (Concil. tom.
      vii. p. 597, &c.) Theodore, a monk of Tarsus in Cilicia, had been
      named to the primacy of Britain by Pope Vitalian, (A.D. 688; see
      Baronius and Pagi,) whose esteem for his learning and piety was
      tainted by some distrust of his national character—ne quid
      contrarium veritati fidei, Graecorum more, in ecclesiam cui
      praeesset introduceret. The Cilician was sent from Rome to
      Canterbury under the tuition of an African guide, (Bedae Hist.
      Eccles. Anglorum. l. iv. c. 1.) He adhered to the Roman doctrine;
      and the same creed of the incarnation has been uniformly
      transmitted from Theodore to the modern primates, whose sound
      understanding is perhaps seldom engaged with that abstruse
      mystery.]

      109 (return) [ This name, unknown till the xth century, appears
      to be of Syriac origin. It was invented by the Jacobites, and
      eagerly adopted by the Nestorians and Mahometans; but it was
      accepted without shame by the Catholics, and is frequently used
      in the Annals of Eutychius, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.
      p. 507, &c., tom. iii. p. 355. Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch.
      Alexandrin. p. 119.), was the acclamation of the fathers of
      Constantinople, (Concil. tom. vii. p. 765.)]

      110 (return) [ The Syriac, which the natives revere as the
      primitive language, was divided into three dialects. 1. The
      Aramoean, as it was refined at Edessa and the cities of
      Mesopotamia. 2. The Palestine, which was used in Jerusalem,
      Damascus, and the rest of Syria. 3. The Nabathoean, the rustic
      idiom of the mountains of Assyria and the villages of Irak,
      (Gregor, Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. p. 11.) On the Syriac, sea
      Ebed-Jesu, (Asseman. tom. iii. p. 326, &c.,) whose prejudice
      alone could prefer it to the Arabic.]

      111 (return) [ I shall not enrich my ignorance with the spoils of
      Simon, Walton, Mill, Wetstein, Assemannus, Ludolphus, La Croze,
      whom I have consulted with some care. It appears, 1. That, of all
      the versions which are celebrated by the fathers, it is doubtful
      whether any are now extant in their pristine integrity. 2. That
      the Syriac has the best claim, and that the consent of the
      Oriental sects is a proof that it is more ancient than their
      schism.]

      112 (return) [ In the account of the Monophysites and Nestorians,
      I am deeply indebted to the Bibliotheca Orientalis
      Clementino-Vaticana of Joseph Simon Assemannus. That learned
      Maronite was despatched, in the year 1715, by Pope Clement XI. to
      visit the monasteries of Egypt and Syria, in search of Mss. His
      four folio volumes, published at Rome 1719—1728, contain a part
      only, though perhaps the most valuable, of his extensive project.
      As a native and as a scholar, he possessed the Syriac literature;
      and though a dependent of Rome, he wishes to be moderate and
      candid.]




      Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part V.

      I. Both in his native and his episcopal province, the heresy of
      the unfortunate Nestorius was speedily obliterated. The Oriental
      bishops, who at Ephesus had resisted to his face the arrogance of
      Cyril, were mollified by his tardy concessions. The same
      prelates, or their successors, subscribed, not without a murmur,
      the decrees of Chalcedon; the power of the Monophysites
      reconciled them with the Catholics in the conformity of passion,
      of interest, and, insensibly, of belief; and their last reluctant
      sigh was breathed in the defence of the three chapters. Their
      dissenting brethren, less moderate, or more sincere, were crushed
      by the penal laws; and, as early as the reign of Justinian, it
      became difficult to find a church of Nestorians within the limits
      of the Roman empire. Beyond those limits they had discovered a
      new world, in which they might hope for liberty, and aspire to
      conquest. In Persia, notwithstanding the resistance of the Magi,
      Christianity had struck a deep root, and the nations of the East
      reposed under its salutary shade. The catholic, or primate,
      resided in the capital: in his synods, and in their dioceses, his
      metropolitans, bishops, and clergy, represented the pomp and
      order of a regular hierarchy: they rejoiced in the increase of
      proselytes, who were converted from the Zendavesta to the gospel,
      from the secular to the monastic life; and their zeal was
      stimulated by the presence of an artful and formidable enemy. The
      Persian church had been founded by the missionaries of Syria; and
      their language, discipline, and doctrine, were closely interwoven
      with its original frame. The catholics were elected and ordained
      by their own suffragans; but their filial dependence on the
      patriarchs of Antioch is attested by the canons of the Oriental
      church. 113 In the Persian school of Edessa, 114 the rising
      generations of the faithful imbibed their theological idiom: they
      studied in the Syriac version the ten thousand volumes of
      Theodore of Mopsuestia; and they revered the apostolic faith and
      holy martyrdom of his disciple Nestorius, whose person and
      language were equally unknown to the nations beyond the Tigris.
      The first indelible lesson of Ibas, bishop of Edessa, taught them
      to execrate the Egyptians, who, in the synod of Ephesus, had
      impiously confounded the two natures of Christ. The flight of the
      masters and scholars, who were twice expelled from the Athens of
      Syria, dispersed a crowd of missionaries inflamed by the double
      zeal of religion and revenge. And the rigid unity of the
      Monophysites, who, under the reigns of Zeno and Anastasius, had
      invaded the thrones of the East, provoked their antagonists, in a
      land of freedom, to avow a moral, rather than a physical, union
      of the two persons of Christ. Since the first preaching of the
      gospel, the Sassanian kings beheld with an eye of suspicion a
      race of aliens and apostates, who had embraced the religion, and
      who might favor the cause, of the hereditary foes of their
      country. The royal edicts had often prohibited their dangerous
      correspondence with the Syrian clergy: the progress of the schism
      was grateful to the jealous pride of Perozes, and he listened to
      the eloquence of an artful prelate, who painted Nestorius as the
      friend of Persia, and urged him to secure the fidelity of his
      Christian subjects, by granting a just preference to the victims
      and enemies of the Roman tyrant. The Nestorians composed a large
      majority of the clergy and people: they were encouraged by the
      smile, and armed with the sword, of despotism; yet many of their
      weaker brethren were startled at the thought of breaking loose
      from the communion of the Christian world, and the blood of seven
      thousand seven hundred Monophysites, or Catholics, confirmed the
      uniformity of faith and discipline in the churches of Persia. 115
      Their ecclesiastical institutions are distinguished by a liberal
      principle of reason, or at least of policy: the austerity of the
      cloister was relaxed and gradually forgotten; houses of charity
      were endowed for the education of orphans and foundlings; the law
      of celibacy, so forcibly recommended to the Greeks and Latins,
      was disregarded by the Persian clergy; and the number of the
      elect was multiplied by the public and reiterated nuptials of the
      priests, the bishops, and even the patriarch himself. To this
      standard of natural and religious freedom, myriads of fugitives
      resorted from all the provinces of the Eastern empire; the narrow
      bigotry of Justinian was punished by the emigration of his most
      industrious subjects; they transported into Persia the arts both
      of peace and war: and those who deserved the favor, were promoted
      in the service, of a discerning monarch. The arms of Nushirvan,
      and his fiercer grandson, were assisted with advice, and money,
      and troops, by the desperate sectaries who still lurked in their
      native cities of the East: their zeal was rewarded with the gift
      of the Catholic churches; but when those cities and churches were
      recovered by Heraclius, their open profession of treason and
      heresy compelled them to seek a refuge in the realm of their
      foreign ally. But the seeming tranquillity of the Nestorians was
      often endangered, and sometimes overthrown. They were involved in
      the common evils of Oriental despotism: their enmity to Rome
      could not always atone for their attachment to the gospel: and a
      colony of three hundred thousand Jacobites, the captives of
      Apamea and Antioch, was permitted to erect a hostile altar in the
      face of the catholic, and in the sunshine of the court. In his
      last treaty, Justinian introduced some conditions which tended to
      enlarge and fortify the toleration of Christianity in Persia. The
      emperor, ignorant of the rights of conscience, was incapable of
      pity or esteem for the heretics who denied the authority of the
      holy synods: but he flattered himself that they would gradually
      perceive the temporal benefits of union with the empire and the
      church of Rome; and if he failed in exciting their gratitude, he
      might hope to provoke the jealousy of their sovereign. In a later
      age the Lutherans have been burnt at Paris, and protected in
      Germany, by the superstition and policy of the most Christian
      king.

      113 (return) [ See the Arabic canons of Nice in the translation
      of Abraham Ecchelensis, No. 37, 38, 39, 40. Concil. tom. ii. p.
      335, 336, edit. Venet. These vulgar titles, Nicene and Arabic,
      are both apocryphal. The council of Nice enacted no more than
      twenty canons, (Theodoret. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c. 8;) and the
      remainder, seventy or eighty, were collected from the synods of
      the Greek church. The Syriac edition of Maruthas is no longer
      extant, (Asseman. Bibliot. Oriental. tom. i. p. 195, tom. iii. p.
      74,) and the Arabic version is marked with many recent
      interpolations. Yet this Code contains many curious relics of
      ecclesiastical discipline; and since it is equally revered by all
      the Eastern communions, it was probably finished before the
      schism of the Nestorians and Jacobites, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec.
      tom. xi. p. 363—367.)]

      114 (return) [ Theodore the Reader (l. ii. c. 5, 49, ad calcem
      Hist. Eccles.) has noticed this Persian school of Edessa. Its
      ancient splendor, and the two aeras of its downfall, (A.D. 431
      and 489) are clearly discussed by Assemanni, (Biblioth. Orient.
      tom. ii. p. 402, iii. p. 376, 378, iv. p. 70, 924.)]

      115 (return) [ A dissertation on the state of the Nestorians has
      swelled in the bands of Assemanni to a folio volume of 950 pages,
      and his learned researches are digested in the most lucid order.
      Besides this ivth volume of the Bibliotheca Orientalis, the
      extracts in the three preceding tomes (tom. i. p. 203, ii. p.
      321-463, iii. 64—70, 378—395, &c., 405—408, 580—589) may be
      usefully consulted.]

      The desire of gaining souls for God and subjects for the church,
      has excited in every age the diligence of the Christian priests.
      From the conquest of Persia they carried their spiritual arms to
      the north, the east, and the south; and the simplicity of the
      gospel was fashioned and painted with the colors of the Syriac
      theology. In the sixth century, according to the report of a
      Nestorian traveller, 116 Christianity was successfully preached
      to the Bactrians, the Huns, the Persians, the Indians, the
      Persarmenians, the Medes, and the Elamites: the Barbaric
      churches, from the Gulf of Persia to the Caspian Sea, were almost
      infinite; and their recent faith was conspicuous in the number
      and sanctity of their monks and martyrs. The pepper coast of
      Malabar, and the isles of the ocean, Socotora and Ceylon, were
      peopled with an increasing multitude of Christians; and the
      bishops and clergy of those sequestered regions derived their
      ordination from the Catholic of Babylon. In a subsequent age the
      zeal of the Nestorians overleaped the limits which had confined
      the ambition and curiosity both of the Greeks and Persians. The
      missionaries of Balch and Samarcand pursued without fear the
      footsteps of the roving Tartar, and insinuated themselves into
      the camps of the valleys of Imaus and the banks of the Selinga.
      They exposed a metaphysical creed to those illiterate shepherds:
      to those sanguinary warriors, they recommended humanity and
      repose. Yet a khan, whose power they vainly magnified, is said to
      have received at their hands the rites of baptism, and even of
      ordination; and the fame of Prester or Presbyter John 117 has
      long amused the credulity of Europe. The royal convert was
      indulged in the use of a portable altar; but he despatched an
      embassy to the patriarch, to inquire how, in the season of Lent,
      he should abstain from animal food, and how he might celebrate
      the Eucharist in a desert that produced neither corn nor wine. In
      their progress by sea and land, the Nestorians entered China by
      the port of Canton and the northern residence of Sigan. Unlike
      the senators of Rome, who assumed with a smile the characters of
      priests and augurs, the mandarins, who affect in public the
      reason of philosophers, are devoted in private to every mode of
      popular superstition. They cherished and they confounded the gods
      of Palestine and of India; but the propagation of Christianity
      awakened the jealousy of the state, and, after a short
      vicissitude of favor and persecution, the foreign sect expired in
      ignorance and oblivion. 118 Under the reign of the caliphs, the
      Nestorian church was diffused from China to Jerusalem and Cyrus;
      and their numbers, with those of the Jacobites, were computed to
      surpass the Greek and Latin communions. 119 Twenty-five
      metropolitans or archbishops composed their hierarchy; but
      several of these were dispensed, by the distance and danger of
      the way, from the duty of personal attendance, on the easy
      condition that every six years they should testify their faith
      and obedience to the catholic or patriarch of Babylon, a vague
      appellation which has been successively applied to the royal
      seats of Seleucia, Ctesiphon, and Bagdad. These remote branches
      are long since withered; and the old patriarchal trunk 120 is now
      divided by the Elijahs of Mosul, the representatives almost on
      lineal descent of the genuine and primitive succession; the
      Josephs of Amida, who are reconciled to the church of Rome: 121
      and the Simeons of Van or Ormia, whose revolt, at the head of
      forty thousand families, was promoted in the sixteenth century by
      the Sophis of Persia. The number of three hundred thousand is
      allowed for the whole body of the Nestorians, who, under the name
      of Chaldeans or Assyrians, are confounded with the most learned
      or the most powerful nation of Eastern antiquity.

      116 (return) [ See the Topographia Christiana of Cosmas, surnamed
      Indicopleustes, or the Indian navigator, l. iii. p. 178, 179, l.
      xi. p. 337. The entire work, of which some curious extracts may
      be found in Photius, (cod. xxxvi. p. 9, 10, edit. Hoeschel,)
      Thevenot, (in the 1st part of his Relation des Voyages, &c.,) and
      Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. l. iii. c. 25, tom. ii. p. 603-617,)
      has been published by Father Montfaucon at Paris, 1707, in the
      Nova Collectio Patrum, (tom. ii. p. 113—346.) It was the design
      of the author to confute the impious heresy of those who
      maintained that the earth is a globe, and not a flat, oblong
      table, as it is represented in the Scriptures, (l. ii. p. 138.)
      But the nonsense of the monk is mingled with the practical
      knowledge of the traveller, who performed his voyage A.D. 522,
      and published his book at Alexandria, A.D. 547, (l. ii. p. 140,
      141. Montfaucon, Praefat. c. 2.) The Nestorianism of Cosmas,
      unknown to his learned editor, was detected by La Croze,
      (Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 40—55,) and is confirmed by
      Assemanni, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. 605, 606.)]

      117 (return) [ In its long progress to Mosul, Jerusalem, Rome,
      &c., the story of Prester John evaporated in a monstrous fable,
      of which some features have been borrowed from the Lama of
      Thibet, (Hist. Genealogique des Tartares, P. ii. p. 42. Hist. de
      Gengiscan, p. 31, &c.,) and were ignorantly transferred by the
      Portuguese to the emperor of Abyssinia, (Ludolph. Hist. Aethiop.
      Comment. l. ii. c. 1.) Yet it is probable that in the xith and
      xiith centuries, Nestorian Christianity was professed in the
      horde of the Keraites, (D’Herbelot, p. 256, 915, 959. Assemanni,
      tom. iv. p. 468—504.) Note: The extent to which Nestorian
      Christianity prevailed among the Tartar tribes is one of the most
      curious questions in Oriental history. M. Schmidt (Geschichte der
      Ost Mongolen, notes, p. 383) appears to question the Christianity
      of Ong Chaghan, and his Keraite subjects.—M.]

      118 (return) [ The Christianity of China, between the seventh and
      the thirteenth century, is invincibly proved by the consent of
      Chinese, Arabian, Syriac, and Latin evidence, (Assemanni,
      Biblioth. Orient. tom. iv. p. 502—552. Mem. de l’Academie des
      Inscript. tom. xxx. p. 802—819.) The inscription of Siganfu which
      describes the fortunes of the Nestorian church, from the first
      mission, A.D. 636, to the current year 781, is accused of forgery
      by La Croze, Voltaire, &c., who become the dupes of their own
      cunning, while they are afraid of a Jesuitical fraud. * Note:
      This famous monument, the authenticity of which many have
      attempted to impeach, rather from hatred to the Jesuits, by whom
      it was made known, than by a candid examination of its contents,
      is now generally considered above all suspicion. The Chinese text
      and the facts which it relates are equally strong proofs of its
      authenticity. This monument was raised as a memorial of the
      establishment of Christianity in China. It is dated the year 1092
      of the era of the Greeks, or the Seleucidae, A.D. 781, in the
      time of the Nestorian patriarch Anan-jesu. It was raised by
      Iezdbouzid, priest and chorepiscopus of Chumdan, that is, of the
      capital of the Chinese empire, and the son of a priest who came
      from Balkh in Tokharistan. Among the various arguments which may
      be urged in favor of the authenticity of this monument, and which
      has not yet been advanced, may be reckoned the name of the priest
      by whom it was raised. The name is Persian, and at the time the
      monument was discovered, it would have been impossible to have
      imagined it; for there was no work extant from whence the
      knowledge of it could be derived. I do not believe that ever
      since this period, any book has been published in which it can be
      found a second time. It is very celebrated amongst the Armenians,
      and is derived from a martyr, a Persian by birth, of the royal
      race, who perished towards the middle of the seventh century, and
      rendered his name celebrated among the Christian nations of the
      East. St. Martin, vol. i. p. 69. M. Remusat has also strongly
      expressed his conviction of the authenticity of this monument.
      Melanges Asiatiques, P. i. p. 33. Yet M. Schmidt (Geschichte der
      Ost Mongolen, p. 384) denies that there is any satisfactory proof
      that much a monument was ever found in China, or that it was not
      manufactured in Europe. But if the Jesuits had attempted such a
      forgery, would it not have been more adapted to further their
      peculiar views?—M.]

      119 (return) [ Jacobitae et Nestorianae plures quam Graeci et
      Latini Jacob a Vitriaco, Hist. Hierosol. l. ii. c. 76, p. 1093,
      in the Gesta Dei per Francos. The numbers are given by Thomassin,
      Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p. 172.]

      120 (return) [ The division of the patriarchate may be traced in
      the Bibliotheca Orient. of Assemanni, tom. i. p. 523—549, tom.
      ii. p. 457, &c., tom. iii. p. 603, p. 621—623, tom. iv. p.
      164-169, p. 423, p. 622—629, &c.]

      121 (return) [ The pompous language of Rome on the submission of
      a Nestorian patriarch, is elegantly represented in the viith book
      of Fra Paola, Babylon, Nineveh, Arbela, and the trophies of
      Alexander, Tauris, and Ecbatana, the Tigris and Indus.]

      According to the legend of antiquity, the gospel was preached in
      India by St. Thomas. 122 At the end of the ninth century, his
      shrine, perhaps in the neighborhood of Madras, was devoutly
      visited by the ambassadors of Alfred; and their return with a
      cargo of pearls and spices rewarded the zeal of the English
      monarch, who entertained the largest projects of trade and
      discovery. 123 When the Portuguese first opened the navigation of
      India, the Christians of St. Thomas had been seated for ages on
      the coast of Malabar, and the difference of their character and
      color attested the mixture of a foreign race. In arms, in arts,
      and possibly in virtue, they excelled the natives of Hindostan;
      the husbandmen cultivated the palm-tree, the merchants were
      enriched by the pepper trade, the soldiers preceded the nairs or
      nobles of Malabar, and their hereditary privileges were respected
      by the gratitude or the fear of the king of Cochin and the
      Zamorin himself. They acknowledged a Gentoo of sovereign, but
      they were governed, even in temporal concerns, by the bishop of
      Angamala. He still asserted his ancient title of metropolitan of
      India, but his real jurisdiction was exercised in fourteen
      hundred churches, and he was intrusted with the care of two
      hundred thousand souls. Their religion would have rendered them
      the firmest and most cordial allies of the Portuguese; but the
      inquisitors soon discerned in the Christians of St. Thomas the
      unpardonable guilt of heresy and schism. Instead of owning
      themselves the subjects of the Roman pontiff, the spiritual and
      temporal monarch of the globe, they adhered, like their
      ancestors, to the communion of the Nestorian patriarch; and the
      bishops whom he ordained at Mosul, traversed the dangers of the
      sea and land to reach their diocese on the coast of Malabar. In
      their Syriac liturgy the names of Theodore and Nestorius were
      piously commemorated: they united their adoration of the two
      persons of Christ; the title of Mother of God was offensive to
      their ear, and they measured with scrupulous avarice the honors
      of the Virgin Mary, whom the superstition of the Latins had
      almost exalted to the rank of a goddess. When her image was first
      presented to the disciples of St. Thomas, they indignantly
      exclaimed, “We are Christians, not idolaters!” and their simple
      devotion was content with the veneration of the cross. Their
      separation from the Western world had left them in ignorance of
      the improvements, or corruptions, of a thousand years; and their
      conformity with the faith and practice of the fifth century would
      equally disappoint the prejudices of a Papist or a Protestant. It
      was the first care of the ministers of Rome to intercept all
      correspondence with the Nestorian patriarch, and several of his
      bishops expired in the prisons of the holy office.

      The flock, without a shepherd, was assaulted by the power of the
      Portuguese, the arts of the Jesuits, and the zeal of Alexis de
      Menezes, archbishop of Goa, in his personal visitation of the
      coast of Malabar. The synod of Diamper, at which he presided,
      consummated the pious work of the reunion; and rigorously imposed
      the doctrine and discipline of the Roman church, without
      forgetting auricular confession, the strongest engine of
      ecclesiastical torture. The memory of Theodore and Nestorius was
      condemned, and Malabar was reduced under the dominion of the
      pope, of the primate, and of the Jesuits who invaded the see of
      Angamala or Cranganor. Sixty years of servitude and hypocrisy
      were patiently endured; but as soon as the Portuguese empire was
      shaken by the courage and industry of the Dutch, the Nestorians
      asserted, with vigor and effect, the religion of their fathers.
      The Jesuits were incapable of defending the power which they had
      abused; the arms of forty thousand Christians were pointed
      against their falling tyrants; and the Indian archdeacon assumed
      the character of bishop till a fresh supply of episcopal gifts
      and Syriac missionaries could be obtained from the patriarch of
      Babylon. Since the expulsion of the Portuguese, the Nestorian
      creed is freely professed on the coast of Malabar. The trading
      companies of Holland and England are the friends of toleration;
      but if oppression be less mortifying than contempt, the
      Christians of St. Thomas have reason to complain of the cold and
      silent indifference of their brethren of Europe. 124

      122 (return) [ The Indian missionary, St. Thomas, an apostle, a
      Manichaean, or an Armenian merchant, (La Croze, Christianisme des
      Indes, tom. i. p. 57—70,) was famous, however, as early as the
      time of Jerom, (ad Marcellam, epist. 148.) Marco-Polo was
      informed on the spot that he suffered martyrdom in the city of
      Malabar, or Meliapour, a league only from Madras, (D’Anville,
      Eclaircissemens sur l’Inde, p. 125,) where the Portuguese founded
      an episcopal church under the name of St. Thome, and where the
      saint performed an annual miracle, till he was silenced by the
      profane neighborhood of the English, (La Croze, tom. ii. p.
      7-16.)]

      123 (return) [ Neither the author of the Saxon Chronicle (A.D.
      833) not William of Malmesbury (de Gestis Regum Angliae, l. ii.
      c. 4, p. 44) were capable, in the twelfth century, of inventing
      this extraordinary fact; they are incapable of explaining the
      motives and measures of Alfred; and their hasty notice serves
      only to provoke our curiosity. William of Malmesbury feels the
      difficulty of the enterprise, quod quivis in hoc saeculo miretur;
      and I almost suspect that the English ambassadors collected their
      cargo and legend in Egypt. The royal author has not enriched his
      Orosius (see Barrington’s Miscellanies) with an Indian, as well
      as a Scandinavian, voyage.]

      124 (return) [ Concerning the Christians of St. Thomas, see
      Assemann. Bibliot Orient. tom. iv. p. 391—407, 435—451; Geddes’s
      Church History of Malabar; and, above all, La Croze, Histoire du
      Christianisme des Indes, in 2 vols. 12mo., La Haye, 1758, a
      learned and agreeable work. They have drawn from the same source,
      the Portuguese and Italian narratives; and the prejudices of the
      Jesuits are sufficiently corrected by those of the Protestants.
      Note: The St. Thome Christians had excited great interest in the
      ancient mind of the admirable Bishop Heber. See his curious and,
      to his friends, highly characteristic letter to Mar Athanasius,
      Appendix to Journal. The arguments of his friend and coadjutor,
      Mr. Robinson, (Last Days of Bishop Heber,) have not convinced me
      that the Christianity of India is older than the Nestorian
      dispersion.—M]

      II. The history of the Monophysites is less copious and
      interesting than that of the Nestorians. Under the reigns of Zeno
      and Anastasius, their artful leaders surprised the ear of the
      prince, usurped the thrones of the East, and crushed on its
      native soil the school of the Syrians. The rule of the
      Monophysite faith was defined with exquisite discretion by
      Severus, patriarch of Antioch: he condemned, in the style of the
      Henoticon, the adverse heresies of Nestorius; and Eutyches
      maintained against the latter the reality of the body of Christ,
      and constrained the Greeks to allow that he was a liar who spoke
      truth. 125 But the approximation of ideas could not abate the
      vehemence of passion; each party was the more astonished that
      their blind antagonist could dispute on so trifling a difference;
      the tyrant of Syria enforced the belief of his creed, and his
      reign was polluted with the blood of three hundred and fifty
      monks, who were slain, not perhaps without provocation or
      resistance, under the walls of Apamea. 126 The successor of
      Anastasius replanted the orthodox standard in the East; Severus
      fled into Egypt; and his friend, the eloquent Xenaias, 127 who
      had escaped from the Nestorians of Persia, was suffocated in his
      exile by the Melchites of Paphlagonia. Fifty-four bishops were
      swept from their thrones, eight hundred ecclesiastics were cast
      into prison, 128 and notwithstanding the ambiguous favor of
      Theodora, the Oriental flocks, deprived of their shepherds, must
      insensibly have been either famished or poisoned. In this
      spiritual distress, the expiring faction was revived, and united,
      and perpetuated, by the labors of a monk; and the name of James
      Baradaeus 129 has been preserved in the appellation of Jacobites,
      a familiar sound, which may startle the ear of an English reader.
      From the holy confessors in their prison of Constantinople, he
      received the powers of bishop of Edessa and apostle of the East,
      and the ordination of fourscore thousand bishops, priests, and
      deacons, is derived from the same inexhaustible source. The speed
      of the zealous missionary was promoted by the fleetest
      dromedaries of a devout chief of the Arabs; the doctrine and
      discipline of the Jacobites were secretly established in the
      dominions of Justinian; and each Jacobite was compelled to
      violate the laws and to hate the Roman legislator. The successors
      of Severus, while they lurked in convents or villages, while they
      sheltered their proscribed heads in the caverns of hermits, or
      the tents of the Saracens, still asserted, as they now assert,
      their indefeasible right to the title, the rank, and the
      prerogatives of patriarch of Antioch: under the milder yoke of
      the infidels, they reside about a league from Merdin, in the
      pleasant monastery of Zapharan, which they have embellished with
      cells, aqueducts, and plantations. The secondary, though
      honorable, place is filled by the maphrian, who, in his station
      at Mosul itself, defies the Nestorian catholic with whom he
      contests the primacy of the East. Under the patriarch and the
      maphrian, one hundred and fifty archbishops and bishops have been
      counted in the different ages of the Jacobite church; but the
      order of the hierarchy is relaxed or dissolved, and the greater
      part of their dioceses is confined to the neighborhood of the
      Euphrates and the Tigris. The cities of Aleppo and Amida, which
      are often visited by the patriarch, contain some wealthy
      merchants and industrious mechanics, but the multitude derive
      their scanty sustenance from their daily labor: and poverty, as
      well as superstition, may impose their excessive fasts: five
      annual lents, during which both the clergy and laity abstain not
      only from flesh or eggs, but even from the taste of wine, of oil,
      and of fish. Their present numbers are esteemed from fifty to
      fourscore thousand souls, the remnant of a populous church, which
      was gradually decreased under the impression of twelve centuries.
      Yet in that long period, some strangers of merit have been
      converted to the Monophysite faith, and a Jew was the father of
      Abulpharagius, 130 primate of the East, so truly eminent both in
      his life and death. In his life he was an elegant writer of the
      Syriac and Arabic tongues, a poet, physician, and historian, a
      subtile philosopher, and a moderate divine. In his death, his
      funeral was attended by his rival the Nestorian patriarch, with a
      train of Greeks and Armenians, who forgot their disputes, and
      mingled their tears over the grave of an enemy. The sect which
      was honored by the virtues of Abulpharagius appears, however, to
      sink below the level of their Nestorian brethren. The
      superstition of the Jacobites is more abject, their fasts more
      rigid, 131 their intestine divisions are more numerous, and their
      doctors (as far as I can measure the degrees of nonsense) are
      more remote from the precincts of reason. Something may possibly
      be allowed for the rigor of the Monophysite theology; much more
      for the superior influence of the monastic order. In Syria, in
      Egypt, in Ethiopia, the Jacobite monks have ever been
      distinguished by the austerity of their penance and the absurdity
      of their legends. Alive or dead, they are worshipped as the
      favorites of the Deity; the crosier of bishop and patriarch is
      reserved for their venerable hands; and they assume the
      government of men, while they are yet reeking with the habits and
      prejudices of the cloister. 132

      125 (return) [ Is the expression of Theodore, in his Treatise of
      the Incarnation, p. 245, 247, as he is quoted by La Croze, (Hist.
      du Christianisme d’Ethiopie et d’Armenie, p. 35,) who exclaims,
      perhaps too hastily, “Quel pitoyable raisonnement!” Renaudot has
      touched (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 127—138) the Oriental accounts
      of Severus; and his authentic creed may be found in the epistle
      of John the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch, in the xth century, to
      his brother Mannas of Alexandria, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom.
      ii. p. 132—141.)]

      126 (return) [ Epist. Archimandritarum et Monachorum Syriae
      Secundae ad Papam Hormisdam, Concil. tom. v. p. 598—602. The
      courage of St. Sabas, ut leo animosus, will justify the suspicion
      that the arms of these monks were not always spiritual or
      defensive, (Baronius, A.D. 513, No. 7, &c.)]

      127 (return) [ Assemanni (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 10—46) and
      La Croze (Christianisme d’Ethiopie, p. 36—40) will supply the
      history of Xenaias, or Philoxenus, bishop of Mabug, or
      Hierapolis, in Syria. He was a perfect master of the Syriac
      language, and the author or editor of a version of the New
      Testament.]

      128 (return) [ The names and titles of fifty-four bishops who
      were exiled by Justin, are preserved in the Chronicle of
      Dionysius, (apud Asseman. tom. ii. p. 54.) Severus was personally
      summoned to Constantinople—for his trial, says Liberatus (Brev.
      c. 19)—that his tongue might be cut out, says Evagrius, (l. iv.
      c. iv.) The prudent patriarch did not stay to examine the
      difference. This ecclesiastical revolution is fixed by Pagi to
      the month of September of the year 518, (Critica, tom. ii. p.
      506.)]

      129 (return) [ The obscure history of James or Jacobus Baradaeus,
      or Zanzalust may be gathered from Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p.
      144, 147,) Renau dot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 133,) and
      Assemannus, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 424, tom. ii. p. 62-69,
      324—332, 414, tom. iii. p. 385—388.) He seems to be unknown to
      the Greeks. The Jacobites themselves had rather deduce their name
      and pedigree from St. James the apostle.]

      130 (return) [ The account of his person and writings is perhaps
      the most curious article in the Bibliotheca of Assemannus, (tom.
      ii. p. 244—321, under the name of Gregorius Bar-Hebroeus.) La
      Croze (Christianisme d’Ethiopie, p. 53—63) ridicules the
      prejudice of the Spaniards against the Jewish blood which
      secretly defiles their church and state.]

      131 (return) [ This excessive abstinence is censured by La Croze,
      (p. 352,) and even by the Syrian Assemannus, (tom. i. p. 226,
      tom. ii. p. 304, 305.)]

      132 (return) [ The state of the Monophysites is excellently
      illustrated in a dissertation at the beginning of the iid volume
      of Assemannus, which contains 142 pages. The Syriac Chronicle of
      Gregory Bar-Hebraeus, or Abulpharagius, (Bibliot. Orient. tom.
      ii. p. 321—463,) pursues the double series of the Nestorian
      Catholics and the Maphrians of the Jacobites.]

      III. In the style of the Oriental Christians, the Monothelites of
      every age are described under the appellation of Maronites, 133 a
      name which has been insensibly transferred from a hermit to a
      monastery, from a monastery to a nation. Maron, a saint or savage
      of the fifth century, displayed his religious madness in Syria;
      the rival cities of Apamea and Emesa disputed his relics, a
      stately church was erected on his tomb, and six hundred of his
      disciples united their solitary cells on the banks of the
      Orontes. In the controversies of the incarnation they nicely
      threaded the orthodox line between the sects of Nestorians and
      Eutyches; but the unfortunate question of one will or operation
      in the two natures of Christ, was generated by their curious
      leisure. Their proselyte, the emperor Heraclius, was rejected as
      a Maronite from the walls of Emesa, he found a refuge in the
      monastery of his brethren; and their theological lessons were
      repaid with the gift a spacious and wealthy domain. The name and
      doctrine of this venerable school were propagated among the
      Greeks and Syrians, and their zeal is expressed by Macarius,
      patriarch of Antioch, who declared before the synod of
      Constantinople, that sooner than subscribe the two wills of
      Christ, he would submit to be hewn piecemeal and cast into the
      sea. 134 A similar or a less cruel mode of persecution soon
      converted the unresisting subjects of the plain, while the
      glorious title of Mardaites, 135 or rebels, was bravely
      maintained by the hardy natives of Mount Libanus. John Maron, one
      of the most learned and popular of the monks, assumed the
      character of patriarch of Antioch; his nephew, Abraham, at the
      head of the Maronites, defended their civil and religious freedom
      against the tyrants of the East. The son of the orthodox
      Constantine pursued with pious hatred a people of soldiers, who
      might have stood the bulwark of his empire against the common
      foes of Christ and of Rome. An army of Greeks invaded Syria; the
      monastery of St. Maron was destroyed with fire; the bravest
      chieftains were betrayed and murdered, and twelve thousand of
      their followers were transplanted to the distant frontiers of
      Armenia and Thrace. Yet the humble nation of the Maronites had
      survived the empire of Constantinople, and they still enjoy,
      under their Turkish masters, a free religion and a mitigated
      servitude. Their domestic governors are chosen among the ancient
      nobility: the patriarch, in his monastery of Canobin, still
      fancies himself on the throne of Antioch: nine bishops compose
      his synod, and one hundred and fifty priests, who retain the
      liberty of marriage, are intrusted with the care of one hundred
      thousand souls. Their country extends from the ridge of Mount
      Libanus to the shores of Tripoli; and the gradual descent
      affords, in a narrow space, each variety of soil and climate,
      from the Holy Cedars, erect under the weight of snow, 136 to the
      vine, the mulberry, and the olive-trees of the fruitful valley.
      In the twelfth century, the Maronites, abjuring the Monothelite
      error were reconciled to the Latin churches of Antioch and Rome,
      137 and the same alliance has been frequently renewed by the
      ambition of the popes and the distress of the Syrians. But it may
      reasonably be questioned, whether their union has ever been
      perfect or sincere; and the learned Maronites of the college of
      Rome have vainly labored to absolve their ancestors from the
      guilt of heresy and schism. 138

      133 (return) [ The synonymous use of the two words may be proved
      from Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 191, 267, 332,) and many
      similar passages which may be found in the methodical table of
      Pocock. He was not actuated by any prejudice against the
      Maronites of the xth century; and we may believe a Melchite,
      whose testimony is confirmed by the Jacobites and Latins.]

      134 (return) [ Concil. tom. vii. p. 780. The Monothelite cause
      was supported with firmness and subtilty by Constantine, a Syrian
      priest of Apamea, (p. 1040, &c.)]

      135 (return) [ Theophanes (Chron. p. 295, 296, 300, 302, 306) and
      Cedrenus (p. 437, 440) relates the exploits of the Mardaites: the
      name (Mard, in Syriac, rebellavit) is explained by La Roque,
      (Voyage de la Syrie, tom. ii. p. 53;) and dates are fixed by
      Pagi, (A.D. 676, No. 4—14, A.D. 685, No. 3, 4;) and even the
      obscure story of the patriarch John Maron (Asseman. Bibliot.
      Orient. tom. i. p. 496—520) illustrates from the year 686 to 707,
      the troubles of Mount Libanus. * Note: Compare on the Mardaites
      Anquetil du Perron, in the fiftieth volume of the Mem. de l’Acad.
      des Inscriptions; and Schlosser, Bildersturmendes Kaiser, p.
      100.—M]

      136 (return) [ In the last century twenty large cedars still
      remained, (Voyage de la Roque, tom. i. p. 68—76;) at present they
      are reduced to four or five, (Volney, tom. i. p. 264.) These
      trees, so famous in Scripture, were guarded by excommunication:
      the wood was sparingly borrowed for small crosses, &c.; an annual
      mass was chanted under their shade; and they were endowed by the
      Syrians with a sensitive power of erecting their branches to
      repel the snow, to which Mount Libanus is less faithful than it
      is painted by Tacitus: inter ardores opacum fidumque nivibus—a
      daring metaphor, (Hist. v. 6.) Note: Of the oldest and best
      looking trees, I counted eleven or twelve twenty-five very large
      ones; and about fifty of middling size; and more than three
      hundred smaller and young ones. Burckhardt’s Travels in Syria p.
      19.—M]

      137 (return) [ The evidence of William of Tyre (Hist. in Gestis
      Dei per Francos, l. xxii. c. 8, p. 1022) is copied or confirmed
      by Jacques de Vitra, (Hist. Hierosolym. l. ii. c. 77, p. 1093,
      1094.) But this unnatural league expired with the power of the
      Franks; and Abulpharagius (who died in 1286) considers the
      Maronites as a sect of Monothelites, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.
      p. 292.)]

      138 (return) [ I find a description and history of the Maronites
      in the Voyage de la Syrie et du Mont Liban par la Roque, (2 vols.
      in 12mo., Amsterdam, 1723; particularly tom. i. p. 42—47, p.
      174—184, tom. ii. p. 10—120.) In the ancient part, he copies the
      prejudices of Nairon and the other Maronites of Rome, which
      Assemannus is afraid to renounce and ashamed to support.
      Jablonski, (Institut. Hist. Christ. tom. iii. p. 186.) Niebuhr,
      (Voyage de l’Arabie, &c., tom. ii. p. 346, 370—381,) and, above
      all, the judicious Volney, (Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie, tom.
      ii. p. 8—31, Paris, 1787,) may be consulted.]

      IV. Since the age of Constantine, the Armenians 139 had
      signalized their attachment to the religion and empire of the
      Christians. 1391 The disorders of their country, and their
      ignorance of the Greek tongue, prevented their clergy from
      assisting at the synod of Chalcedon, and they floated eighty-four
      years 140 in a state of indifference or suspense, till their
      vacant faith was finally occupied by the missionaries of Julian
      of Halicarnassus, 141 who in Egypt, their common exile, had been
      vanquished by the arguments or the influence of his rival
      Severus, the Monophysite patriarch of Antioch. The Armenians
      alone are the pure disciples of Eutyches, an unfortunate parent,
      who has been renounced by the greater part of his spiritual
      progeny. They alone persevere in the opinion, that the manhood of
      Christ was created, or existed without creation, of a divine and
      incorruptible substance. Their adversaries reproach them with the
      adoration of a phantom; and they retort the accusation, by
      deriding or execrating the blasphemy of the Jacobites, who impute
      to the Godhead the vile infirmities of the flesh, even the
      natural effects of nutrition and digestion. The religion of
      Armenia could not derive much glory from the learning or the
      power of its inhabitants. The royalty expired with the origin of
      their schism; and their Christian kings, who arose and fell in
      the thirteenth century on the confines of Cilicia, were the
      clients of the Latins and the vassals of the Turkish sultan of
      Iconium. The helpless nation has seldom been permitted to enjoy
      the tranquillity of servitude. From the earliest period to the
      present hour, Armenia has been the theatre of perpetual war: the
      lands between Tauris and Erivan were dispeopled by the cruel
      policy of the Sophis; and myriads of Christian families were
      transplanted, to perish or to propagate in the distant provinces
      of Persia. Under the rod of oppression, the zeal of the Armenians
      is fervent and intrepid; they have often preferred the crown of
      martyrdom to the white turban of Mahomet; they devoutly hate the
      error and idolatry of the Greeks; and their transient union with
      the Latins is not less devoid of truth, than the thousand
      bishops, whom their patriarch offered at the feet of the Roman
      pontiff. 142 The catholic, or patriarch, of the Armenians resides
      in the monastery of Ekmiasin, three leagues from Erivan.
      Forty-seven archbishops, each of whom may claim the obedience of
      four or five suffragans, are consecrated by his hand; but the far
      greater part are only titular prelates, who dignify with their
      presence and service the simplicity of his court. As soon as they
      have performed the liturgy, they cultivate the garden; and our
      bishops will hear with surprise, that the austerity of their life
      increases in just proportion to the elevation of their rank.

      In the fourscore thousand towns or villages of his spiritual
      empire, the patriarch receives a small and voluntary tax from
      each person above the age of fifteen; but the annual amount of
      six hundred thousand crowns is insufficient to supply the
      incessant demands of charity and tribute. Since the beginning of
      the last century, the Armenians have obtained a large and
      lucrative share of the commerce of the East: in their return from
      Europe, the caravan usually halts in the neighborhood of Erivan,
      the altars are enriched with the fruits of their patient
      industry; and the faith of Eutyches is preached in their recent
      congregations of Barbary and Poland. 143

      139 (return) [ The religion of the Armenians is briefly described
      by La Croze, (Hist. du Christ. de l’Ethiopie et de l’Armenie, p.
      269—402.) He refers to the great Armenian History of Galanus, (3
      vols. in fol. Rome, 1650—1661,) and commends the state of Armenia
      in the iiid volume of the Nouveaux Memoires des Missions du
      Levant. The work of a Jesuit must have sterling merit when it is
      praised by La Croze.]

      1391 (return) [ See vol. iii. ch. xx. p. 271.—M.]

      140 (return) [ The schism of the Armenians is placed 84 years
      after the council of Chalcedon, (Pagi, Critica, ad A.D. 535.) It
      was consummated at the end of seventeen years; and it is from the
      year of Christ 552 that we date the aera of the Armenians, (L’Art
      de verifier les Dates, p. xxxv.)]

      141 (return) [ The sentiments and success of Julian of
      Halicarnassus may be seen in Liberatus, (Brev. c. 19,) Renaudot,
      (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 132, 303,) and Assemannus, (Bibliot.
      Orient. tom. ii. Dissertat. Monophysitis, l. viii. p. 286.)]

      142 (return) [ See a remarkable fact of the xiith century in the
      History of Nicetas Choniates, (p. 258.) Yet three hundred years
      before, Photius (Epistol. ii. p. 49, edit. Montacut.) had gloried
      in the conversion of the Armenians.]

      143 (return) [ The travelling Armenians are in the way of every
      traveller, and their mother church is on the high road between
      Constantinople and Ispahan; for their present state, see
      Fabricius, (Lux Evangelii, &c., c. xxxviii. p. 40—51,) Olearius,
      (l. iv. c. 40,) Chardin, (vol. ii. p. 232,) Teurnefort, (lettre
      xx.,) and, above all, Tavernier, (tom. i. p. 28—37, 510-518,)
      that rambling jeweller, who had read nothing, but had seen so
      much and so well]

      V. In the rest of the Roman empire, the despotism of the prince
      might eradicate or silence the sectaries of an obnoxious creed.
      But the stubborn temper of the Egyptians maintained their
      opposition to the synod of Chalcedon, and the policy of Justinian
      condescended to expect and to seize the opportunity of discord.
      The Monophysite church of Alexandria 144 was torn by the disputes
      of the corruptibles and incorruptibles, and on the death of the
      patriarch, the two factions upheld their respective candidates.
      145 Gaian was the disciple of Julian, Theodosius had been the
      pupil of Severus: the claims of the former were supported by the
      consent of the monks and senators, the city and the province; the
      latter depended on the priority of his ordination, the favor of
      the empress Theodora, and the arms of the eunuch Narses, which
      might have been used in more honorable warfare. The exile of the
      popular candidate to Carthage and Sardinia inflamed the ferment
      of Alexandria; and after a schism of one hundred and seventy
      years, the Gaianites still revered the memory and doctrine of
      their founder. The strength of numbers and of discipline was
      tried in a desperate and bloody conflict; the streets were filled
      with the dead bodies of citizens and soldiers; the pious women,
      ascending the roofs of their houses, showered down every sharp or
      ponderous utensil on the heads of the enemy; and the final
      victory of Narses was owing to the flames, with which he wasted
      the third capital of the Roman world. But the lieutenant of
      Justinian had not conquered in the cause of a heretic; Theodosius
      himself was speedily, though gently, removed; and Paul of Tanis,
      an orthodox monk, was raised to the throne of Athanasius. The
      powers of government were strained in his support; he might
      appoint or displace the dukes and tribunes of Egypt; the
      allowance of bread, which Diocletian had granted, was suppressed,
      the churches were shut, and a nation of schismatics was deprived
      at once of their spiritual and carnal food. In his turn, the
      tyrant was excommunicated by the zeal and revenge of the people:
      and none except his servile Melchites would salute him as a man,
      a Christian, or a bishop. Yet such is the blindness of ambition,
      that, when Paul was expelled on a charge of murder, he solicited,
      with a bribe of seven hundred pounds of gold, his restoration to
      the same station of hatred and ignominy. His successor
      Apollinaris entered the hostile city in military array, alike
      qualified for prayer or for battle. His troops, under arms, were
      distributed through the streets; the gates of the cathedral were
      guarded, and a chosen band was stationed in the choir, to defend
      the person of their chief. He stood erect on his throne, and,
      throwing aside the upper garment of a warrior, suddenly appeared
      before the eyes of the multitude in the robes of patriarch of
      Alexandria. Astonishment held them mute; but no sooner had
      Apollinaris begun to read the tome of St. Leo, than a volley of
      curses, and invectives, and stones, assaulted the odious minister
      of the emperor and the synod. A charge was instantly sounded by
      the successor of the apostles; the soldiers waded to their knees
      in blood; and two hundred thousand Christians are said to have
      fallen by the sword: an incredible account, even if it be
      extended from the slaughter of a day to the eighteen years of the
      reign of Apollinaris. Two succeeding patriarchs, Eulogius 146 and
      John, 147 labored in the conversion of heretics, with arms and
      arguments more worthy of their evangelical profession. The
      theological knowledge of Eulogius was displayed in many a volume,
      which magnified the errors of Eutyches and Severus, and attempted
      to reconcile the ambiguous language of St. Cyril with the
      orthodox creed of Pope Leo and the fathers of Chalcedon. The
      bounteous alms of John the eleemosynary were dictated by
      superstition, or benevolence, or policy. Seven thousand five
      hundred poor were maintained at his expense; on his accession he
      found eight thousand pounds of gold in the treasury of the
      church; he collected ten thousand from the liberality of the
      faithful; yet the primate could boast in his testament, that he
      left behind him no more than the third part of the smallest of
      the silver coins. The churches of Alexandria were delivered to
      the Catholics, the religion of the Monophysites was proscribed in
      Egypt, and a law was revived which excluded the natives from the
      honors and emoluments of the state.

      144 (return) [ The history of the Alexandrian patriarchs, from
      Dioscorus to Benjamin, is taken from Renaudot, (p. 114—164,) and
      the second tome of the Annals of Eutychius.]

      145 (return) [ Liberat. Brev. c. 20, 23. Victor. Chron. p. 329
      330. Procop. Anecdot. c. 26, 27.]

      146 (return) [ Eulogius, who had been a monk of Antioch, was more
      conspicuous for subtilty than eloquence. He proves that the
      enemies of the faith, the Gaianites and Theodosians, ought not to
      be reconciled; that the same proposition may be orthodox in the
      mouth of St. Cyril, heretical in that of Severus; that the
      opposite assertions of St. Leo are equally true, &c. His writings
      are no longer extant except in the Extracts of Photius, who had
      perused them with care and satisfaction, ccviii. ccxxv. ccxxvi.
      ccxxvii. ccxxx. cclxxx.]

      147 (return) [ See the Life of John the eleemosynary by his
      contemporary Leontius, bishop of Neapolis in Cyrus, whose Greek
      text, either lost or hidden, is reflected in the Latin version of
      Baronius, (A.D. 610, No.9, A.D. 620, No. 8.) Pagi (Critica, tom.
      ii. p. 763) and Fabricius (l. v c. 11, tom. vii. p. 454) have
      made some critical observations]




      Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part VI.

      A more important conquest still remained, of the patriarch, the
      oracle and leader of the Egyptian church. Theodosius had resisted
      the threats and promises of Justinian with the spirit of an
      apostle or an enthusiast. “Such,” replied the patriarch, “were
      the offers of the tempter when he showed the kingdoms of the
      earth. But my soul is far dearer to me than life or dominion. The
      churches are in the hands of a prince who can kill the body; but
      my conscience is my own; and in exile, poverty, or chains, I will
      steadfastly adhere to the faith of my holy predecessors,
      Athanasius, Cyril, and Dioscorus. Anathema to the tome of Leo and
      the synod of Chalcedon! Anathema to all who embrace their creed!
      Anathema to them now and forevermore! Naked came I out of my
      mother’s womb, naked shall I descend into the grave. Let those
      who love God follow me and seek their salvation.” After
      comforting his brethren, he embarked for Constantinople, and
      sustained, in six successive interviews, the almost irresistible
      weight of the royal presence. His opinions were favorably
      entertained in the palace and the city; the influence of Theodora
      assured him a safe conduct and honorable dismission; and he ended
      his days, though not on the throne, yet in the bosom, of his
      native country. On the news of his death, Apollinaris indecently
      feasted the nobles and the clergy; but his joy was checked by the
      intelligence of a new election; and while he enjoyed the wealth
      of Alexandria, his rivals reigned in the monasteries of Thebais,
      and were maintained by the voluntary oblations of the people. A
      perpetual succession of patriarchs arose from the ashes of
      Theodosius; and the Monophysite churches of Syria and Egypt were
      united by the name of Jacobites and the communion of the faith.
      But the same faith, which has been confined to a narrow sect of
      the Syrians, was diffused over the mass of the Egyptian or Coptic
      nation; who, almost unanimously, rejected the decrees of the
      synod of Chalcedon. A thousand years were now elapsed since Egypt
      had ceased to be a kingdom, since the conquerors of Asia and
      Europe had trampled on the ready necks of a people, whose ancient
      wisdom and power ascend beyond the records of history. The
      conflict of zeal and persecution rekindled some sparks of their
      national spirit. They abjured, with a foreign heresy, the manners
      and language of the Greeks: every Melchite, in their eyes, was a
      stranger, every Jacobite a citizen; the alliance of marriage, the
      offices of humanity, were condemned as a deadly sin; the natives
      renounced all allegiance to the emperor; and his orders, at a
      distance from Alexandria, were obeyed only under the pressure of
      military force. A generous effort might have edeemed the religion
      and liberty of Egypt, and her six hundred monasteries might have
      poured forth their myriads of holy warriors, for whom death
      should have no terrors, since life had no comfort or delight. But
      experience has proved the distinction of active and passive
      courage; the fanatic who endures without a groan the torture of
      the rack or the stake, would tremble and fly before the face of
      an armed enemy. The pusillanimous temper of the Egyptians could
      only hope for a change of masters; the arms of Chosroes
      depopulated the land, yet under his reign the Jacobites enjoyed a
      short and precarious respite. The victory of Heraclius renewed
      and aggravated the persecution, and the patriarch again escaped
      from Alexandria to the desert. In his flight, Benjamin was
      encouraged by a voice, which bade him expect, at the end of ten
      years, the aid of a foreign nation, marked, like the Egyptians
      themselves, with the ancient rite of circumcision. The character
      of these deliverers, and the nature of the deliverance, will be
      hereafter explained; and I shall step over the interval of eleven
      centuries to observe the present misery of the Jacobites of
      Egypt. The populous city of Cairo affords a residence, or rather
      a shelter, for their indigent patriarch, and a remnant of ten
      bishops; forty monasteries have survived the inroads of the
      Arabs; and the progress of servitude and apostasy has reduced the
      Coptic nation to the despicable number of twenty-five or thirty
      thousand families; 148 a race of illiterate beggars, whose only
      consolation is derived from the superior wretchedness of the
      Greek patriarch and his diminutive congregation. 149

      148 (return) [ This number is taken from the curious Recherches
      sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois, (tom. ii. p. 192, 193,) and
      appears more probable than the 600,000 ancient, or 15,000 modern,
      Copts of Gemelli Carreri Cyril Lucar, the Protestant patriarch of
      Constantinople, laments that those heretics were ten times more
      numerous than his orthodox Greeks, ingeniously applying Homer,
      (Iliad, ii. 128,) the most perfect expression of contempt,
      (Fabric. Lux Evangelii, 740.)]

      149 (return) [ The history of the Copts, their religion, manners,
      &c., may be found in the Abbe Renaudot’s motley work, neither a
      translation nor an original; the Chronicon Orientale of Peter, a
      Jacobite; in the two versions of Abraham Ecchellensis, Paris,
      1651; and John Simon Asseman, Venet. 1729. These annals descend
      no lower than the xiiith century. The more recent accounts must
      be searched for in the travellers into Egypt and the Nouveaux
      Memoires des Missions du Levant. In the last century, Joseph
      Abudacnus, a native of Cairo, published at Oxford, in thirty
      pages, a slight Historia Jacobitarum, 147, post p.150]

      VI. The Coptic patriarch, a rebel to the Caesars, or a slave to
      the khalifs, still gloried in the filial obedience of the kings
      of Nubia and Aethiopia. He repaid their homage by magnifying
      their greatness; and it was boldly asserted that they could bring
      into the field a hundred thousand horse, with an equal number of
      camels; 150 that their hand could pour out or restrain the waters
      of the Nile; 151 and the peace and plenty of Egypt was obtained,
      even in this world, by the intercession of the patriarch. In
      exile at Constantinople, Theodosius recommended to his patroness
      the conversion of the black nations of Nubia, from the tropic of
      Cancer to the confines of Abyssinia. 152 Her design was suspected
      and emulated by the more orthodox emperor. The rival
      missionaries, a Melchite and a Jacobite, embarked at the same
      time; but the empress, from a motive of love or fear, was more
      effectually obeyed; and the Catholic priest was detained by the
      president of Thebais, while the king of Nubia and his court were
      hastily baptized in the faith of Dioscorus. The tardy envoy of
      Justinian was received and dismissed with honor: but when he
      accused the heresy and treason of the Egyptians, the negro
      convert was instructed to reply that he would never abandon his
      brethren, the true believers, to the persecuting ministers of the
      synod of Chalcedon. 153 During several ages, the bishops of Nubia
      were named and consecrated by the Jacobite patriarch of
      Alexandria: as late as the twelfth century, Christianity
      prevailed; and some rites, some ruins, are still visible in the
      savage towns of Sennaar and Dongola. 154 But the Nubians at
      length executed their threats of returning to the worship of
      idols; the climate required the indulgence of polygamy, and they
      have finally preferred the triumph of the Koran to the abasement
      of the Cross. A metaphysical religion may appear too refined for
      the capacity of the negro race: yet a black or a parrot might be
      taught to repeat the words of the Chalcedonian or Monophysite
      creed.

      150 (return) [ About the year 737. See Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch.
      Alex p. 221, 222. Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 99.]

      151 (return) [ Ludolph. Hist. Aethiopic. et Comment. l. i. c. 8.
      Renaudot Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 480, &c. This opinion,
      introduced into Egypt and Europe by the artifice of the Copts,
      the pride of the Abyssinians, the fear and ignorance of the Turks
      and Arabs, has not even the semblance of truth. The rains of
      Aethiopia do not, in the increase of the Nile, consult the will
      of the monarch. If the river approaches at Napata within three
      days’ journey of the Red Sea (see D’Anville’s Maps,) a canal that
      should divert its course would demand, and most probably surpass,
      the power of the Caesars.]

      152 (return) [ The Abyssinians, who still preserve the features
      and olive complexion of the Arabs, afford a proof that two
      thousand years are not sufficient to change the color of the
      human race. The Nubians, an African race, are pure negroes, as
      black as those of Senegal or Congo, with flat noses, thick lips,
      and woolly hair, (Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. v. p. 117, 143,
      144, 166, 219, edit. in 12mo., Paris, 1769.) The ancients beheld,
      without much attention, the extraordinary phenomenon which has
      exercised the philosophers and theologians of modern times]

      153 (return) [ Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 329.]

      154 (return) [ The Christianity of the Nubians (A.D. 1153) is
      attested by the sheriff al Edrisi, falsely described under the
      name of the Nubian geographer, (p. 18,) who represents them as a
      nation of Jacobites. The rays of historical light that twinkle in
      the history of Ranaudot (p. 178, 220—224, 281—286, 405, 434, 451,
      464) are all previous to this aera. See the modern state in the
      Lettres Edifiantes (Recueil, iv.) and Busching, (tom. ix. p.
      152—139, par Berenger.)]

      Christianity was more deeply rooted in the Abyssinian empire;
      and, although the correspondence has been sometimes interrupted
      above seventy or a hundred years, the mother-church of Alexandria
      retains her colony in a state of perpetual pupilage. Seven
      bishops once composed the Aethiopic synod: had their number
      amounted to ten, they might have elected an independent primate;
      and one of their kings was ambitious of promoting his brother to
      the ecclesiastical throne. But the event was foreseen, the
      increase was denied: the episcopal office has been gradually
      confined to the abuna, 155 the head and author of the Abyssinian
      priesthood; the patriarch supplies each vacancy with an Egyptian
      monk; and the character of a stranger appears more venerable in
      the eyes of the people, less dangerous in those of the monarch.
      In the sixth century, when the schism of Egypt was confirmed, the
      rival chiefs, with their patrons, Justinian and Theodora, strove
      to outstrip each other in the conquest of a remote and
      independent province. The industry of the empress was again
      victorious, and the pious Theodora has established in that
      sequestered church the faith and discipline of the Jacobites. 156
      Encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion, the
      Aethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world,
      by whom they were forgotten. They were awakened by the
      Portuguese, who, turning the southern promontory of Africa,
      appeared in India and the Red Sea, as if they had descended
      through the air from a distant planet. In the first moments of
      their interview, the subjects of Rome and Alexandria observed the
      resemblance, rather than the difference, of their faith; and each
      nation expected the most important benefits from an alliance with
      their Christian brethren. In their lonely situation, the
      Aethiopians had almost relapsed into the savage life. Their
      vessels, which had traded to Ceylon, scarcely presumed to
      navigate the rivers of Africa; the ruins of Axume were deserted,
      the nation was scattered in villages, and the emperor, a pompous
      name, was content, both in peace and war, with the immovable
      residence of a camp. Conscious of their own indigence, the
      Abyssinians had formed the rational project of importing the arts
      and ingenuity of Europe; 157 and their ambassadors at Rome and
      Lisbon were instructed to solicit a colony of smiths, carpenters,
      tilers, masons, printers, surgeons, and physicians, for the use
      of their country. But the public danger soon called for the
      instant and effectual aid of arms and soldiers, to defend an
      unwarlike people from the Barbarians who ravaged the inland
      country and the Turks and Arabs who advanced from the sea-coast
      in more formidable array. Aethiopia was saved by four hundred and
      fifty Portuguese, who displayed in the field the native valor of
      Europeans, and the artificial power of the musket and cannon. In
      a moment of terror, the emperor had promised to reconcile himself
      and his subjects to the Catholic faith; a Latin patriarch
      represented the supremacy of the pope: 158 the empire, enlarged
      in a tenfold proportion, was supposed to contain more gold than
      the mines of America; and the wildest hopes of avarice and zeal
      were built on the willing submission of the Christians of Africa.

      155 (return) [ The abuna is improperly dignified by the Latins
      with the title of patriarch. The Abyssinians acknowledge only the
      four patriarchs, and their chief is no more than a metropolitan
      or national primate, (Ludolph. Hist. Aethiopic. et Comment. l.
      iii. c. 7.) The seven bishops of Renaudot, (p. 511,) who existed
      A.D. 1131, are unknown to the historian.]

      156 (return) [ I know not why Assemannus (Bibliot. Orient. tom.
      ii. p. 384) should call in question these probable missions of
      Theodora into Nubia and Aethiopia. The slight notices of
      Abyssinia till the year 1500 are supplied by Renaudot (p.
      336-341, 381, 382, 405, 443, &c., 452, 456, 463, 475, 480, 511,
      525, 559—564) from the Coptic writers. The mind of Ludolphus was
      a perfect blank.]

      157 (return) [ Ludolph. Hist. Aethiop. l. iv. c. 5. The most
      necessary arts are now exercised by the Jews, and the foreign
      trade is in the hands of the Armenians. What Gregory principally
      admired and envied was the industry of Europe—artes et opificia.]

      158 (return) [ John Bermudez, whose relation, printed at Lisbon,
      1569, was translated into English by Purchas, (Pilgrims, l. vii.
      c. 7, p. 1149, &c.,) and from thence into French by La Croze,
      (Christianisme d’Ethiopie, p. 92—265.) The piece is curious; but
      the author may be suspected of deceiving Abyssinia, Rome, and
      Portugal. His title to the rank of patriarch is dark and
      doubtful, (Ludolph. Comment. No. 101, p. 473.)]

      But the vows which pain had extorted were forsworn on the return
      of health. The Abyssinians still adhered with unshaken constancy
      to the Monophysite faith; their languid belief was inflamed by
      the exercise of dispute; they branded the Latins with the names
      of Arians and Nestorians, and imputed the adoration of four gods
      to those who separated the two natures of Christ. Fremona, a
      place of worship, or rather of exile, was assigned to the Jesuit
      missionaries. Their skill in the liberal and mechanic arts, their
      theological learning, and the decency of their manners, inspired
      a barren esteem; but they were not endowed with the gift of
      miracles, 159 and they vainly solicited a reenforcement of
      European troops. The patience and dexterity of forty years at
      length obtained a more favorable audience, and two emperors of
      Abyssinia were persuaded that Rome could insure the temporal and
      everlasting happiness of her votaries. The first of these royal
      converts lost his crown and his life; and the rebel army was
      sanctified by the abuna, who hurled an anathema at the apostate,
      and absolved his subjects from their oath of fidelity. The fate
      of Zadenghel was revenged by the courage and fortune of Susneus,
      who ascended the throne under the name of Segued, and more
      vigorously prosecuted the pious enterprise of his kinsman. After
      the amusement of some unequal combats between the Jesuits and his
      illiterate priests, the emperor declared himself a proselyte to
      the synod of Chalcedon, presuming that his clergy and people
      would embrace without delay the religion of their prince. The
      liberty of choice was succeeded by a law, which imposed, under
      pain of death, the belief of the two natures of Christ: the
      Abyssinians were enjoined to work and to play on the Sabbath; and
      Segued, in the face of Europe and Africa, renounced his
      connection with the Alexandrian church. A Jesuit, Alphonso
      Mendez, the Catholic patriarch of Aethiopia, accepted, in the
      name of Urban VIII., the homage and abjuration of the penitent.
      “I confess,” said the emperor on his knees, “I confess that the
      pope is the vicar of Christ, the successor of St. Peter, and the
      sovereign of the world. To him I swear true obedience, and at his
      feet I offer my person and kingdom.” A similar oath was repeated
      by his son, his brother, the clergy, the nobles, and even the
      ladies of the court: the Latin patriarch was invested with honors
      and wealth; and his missionaries erected their churches or
      citadels in the most convenient stations of the empire. The
      Jesuits themselves deplore the fatal indiscretion of their chief,
      who forgot the mildness of the gospel and the policy of his
      order, to introduce with hasty violence the liturgy of Rome and
      the inquisition of Portugal. He condemned the ancient practice of
      circumcision, which health, rather than superstition, had first
      invented in the climate of Aethiopia. 160 A new baptism, a new
      ordination, was inflicted on the natives; and they trembled with
      horror when the most holy of the dead were torn from their
      graves, when the most illustrious of the living were
      excommunicated by a foreign priest. In the defense of their
      religion and liberty, the Abyssinians rose in arms, with
      desperate but unsuccessful zeal. Five rebellions were
      extinguished in the blood of the insurgents: two abunas were
      slain in battle, whole legions were slaughtered in the field, or
      suffocated in their caverns; and neither merit, nor rank, nor
      sex, could save from an ignominious death the enemies of Rome.
      But the victorious monarch was finally subdued by the constancy
      of the nation, of his mother, of his son, and of his most
      faithful friends. Segued listened to the voice of pity, of
      reason, perhaps of fear: and his edict of liberty of conscience
      instantly revealed the tyranny and weakness of the Jesuits. On
      the death of his father, Basilides expelled the Latin patriarch,
      and restored to the wishes of the nation the faith and the
      discipline of Egypt. The Monophysite churches resounded with a
      song of triumph, “that the sheep of Aethiopia were now delivered
      from the hyaenas of the West;” and the gates of that solitary
      realm were forever shut against the arts, the science, and the
      fanaticism of Europe. 161

      159 (return) [ Religio Romana...nec precibus patrum nec miraculis
      ab ipsis editis suffulciebatur, is the uncontradicted assurance
      of the devout emperor Susneus to his patriarch Mendez, (Ludolph.
      Comment. No. 126, p. 529;) and such assurances should be
      preciously kept, as an antidote against any marvellous legends.]

      160 (return) [ I am aware how tender is the question of
      circumcision. Yet I will affirm, 1. That the Aethiopians have a
      physical reason for the circumcision of males, and even of
      females, (Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains, tom. ii.)
      2. That it was practised in Aethiopia long before the
      introduction of Judaism or Christianity, (Herodot. l. ii. c. 104.
      Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 72, 73.) “Infantes circumcidunt ob
      consuetudinemn, non ob Judaismum,” says Gregory the Abyssinian
      priest, (apud Fabric. Lux Christiana, p. 720.) Yet in the heat of
      dispute, the Portuguese were sometimes branded with the name of
      uncircumcised, (La Croze, p. 90. Ludolph. Hist. and Comment. l.
      iii. c. l.)]

      161 (return) [ The three Protestant historians, Ludolphus, (Hist.
      Aethiopica, Francofurt. 1681; Commentarius, 1691; Relatio Nova,
      &c., 1693, in folio,) Geddes, (Church History of Aethiopia,
      London, 1696, in 8vo..) and La Croze, (Hist. du Christianisme
      d’Ethiopie et d’Armenie, La Haye, 1739, in 12mo.,) have drawn
      their principal materials from the Jesuits, especially from the
      General History of Tellez, published in Portuguese at Coimbra,
      1660. We might be surprised at their frankness; but their most
      flagitious vice, the spirit of persecution, was in their eyes the
      most meritorious virtue. Ludolphus possessed some, though a
      slight, advantage from the Aethiopic language, and the personal
      conversation of Gregory, a free-spirited Abyssinian priest, whom
      he invited from Rome to the court of Saxe-Gotha. See the
      Theologia Aethiopica of Gregory, in (Fabric. Lux Evangelii, p.
      716—734.) * Note: The travels of Bruce, illustrated by those of
      Mr. Salt, and the narrative of Nathaniel Pearce, have brought us
      again acquainted with this remote region. Whatever may be their
      speculative opinions the barbarous manners of the Ethiopians seem
      to be gaining more and more the ascendency over the practice of
      Christianity.—M.]




      Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek
      Emperors.—Part I.

     Plan Of The Two Last Volumes.—Succession And Characters Of The
     Greek Emperors Of Constantinople, From The Time Of Heraclius To
     The Latin Conquest.

      I have now deduced from Trajan to Constantine, from Constantine
      to Heraclius, the regular series of the Roman emperors; and
      faithfully exposed the prosperous and adverse fortunes of their
      reigns. Five centuries of the decline and fall of the empire have
      already elapsed; but a period of more than eight hundred years
      still separates me from the term of my labors, the taking of
      Constantinople by the Turks. Should I persevere in the same
      course, should I observe the same measure, a prolix and slender
      thread would be spun through many a volume, nor would the patient
      reader find an adequate reward of instruction or amusement. At
      every step, as we sink deeper in the decline and fall of the
      Eastern empire, the annals of each succeeding reign would impose
      a more ungrateful and melancholy task. These annals must continue
      to repeat a tedious and uniform tale of weakness and misery; the
      natural connection of causes and events would be broken by
      frequent and hasty transitions, and a minute accumulation of
      circumstances must destroy the light and effect of those general
      pictures which compose the use and ornament of a remote history.
      From the time of Heraclius, the Byzantine theatre is contracted
      and darkened: the line of empire, which had been defined by the
      laws of Justinian and the arms of Belisarius, recedes on all
      sides from our view; the Roman name, the proper subject of our
      inquiries, is reduced to a narrow corner of Europe, to the lonely
      suburbs of Constantinople; and the fate of the Greek empire has
      been compared to that of the Rhine, which loses itself in the
      sands, before its waters can mingle with the ocean. The scale of
      dominion is diminished to our view by the distance of time and
      place; nor is the loss of external splendor compensated by the
      nobler gifts of virtue and genius. In the last moments of her
      decay, Constantinople was doubtless more opulent and populous
      than Athens at her most flourishing aera, when a scanty sum of
      six thousand talents, or twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling
      was possessed by twenty-one thousand male citizens of an adult
      age. But each of these citizens was a freeman, who dared to
      assert the liberty of his thoughts, words, and actions, whose
      person and property were guarded by equal law; and who exercised
      his independent vote in the government of the republic. Their
      numbers seem to be multiplied by the strong and various
      discriminations of character; under the shield of freedom, on the
      wings of emulation and vanity, each Athenian aspired to the level
      of the national dignity; from this commanding eminence, some
      chosen spirits soared beyond the reach of a vulgar eye; and the
      chances of superior merit in a great and populous kingdom, as
      they are proved by experience, would excuse the computation of
      imaginary millions. The territories of Athens, Sparta, and their
      allies, do not exceed a moderate province of France or England;
      but after the trophies of Salamis and Platea, they expand in our
      fancy to the gigantic size of Asia, which had been trampled under
      the feet of the victorious Greeks. But the subjects of the
      Byzantine empire, who assume and dishonor the names both of
      Greeks and Romans, present a dead uniformity of abject vices,
      which are neither softened by the weakness of humanity, nor
      animated by the vigor of memorable crimes. The freemen of
      antiquity might repeat with generous enthusiasm the sentence of
      Homer, “that on the first day of his servitude, the captive is
      deprived of one half of his manly virtue.” But the poet had only
      seen the effects of civil or domestic slavery, nor could he
      foretell that the second moiety of manhood must be annihilated by
      the spiritual despotism which shackles not only the actions, but
      even the thoughts, of the prostrate votary. By this double yoke,
      the Greeks were oppressed under the successors of Heraclius; the
      tyrant, a law of eternal justice, was degraded by the vices of
      his subjects; and on the throne, in the camp, in the schools, we
      search, perhaps with fruitless diligence, the names and
      characters that may deserve to be rescued from oblivion. Nor are
      the defects of the subject compensated by the skill and variety
      of the painters. Of a space of eight hundred years, the four
      first centuries are overspread with a cloud interrupted by some
      faint and broken rays of historic light: in the lives of the
      emperors, from Maurice to Alexius, Basil the Macedonian has alone
      been the theme of a separate work; and the absence, or loss, or
      imperfection of contemporary evidence, must be poorly supplied by
      the doubtful authority of more recent compilers. The four last
      centuries are exempt from the reproach of penury; and with the
      Comnenian family, the historic muse of Constantinople again
      revives, but her apparel is gaudy, her motions are without
      elegance or grace. A succession of priests, or courtiers, treads
      in each other’s footsteps in the same path of servitude and
      superstition: their views are narrow, their judgment is feeble or
      corrupt; and we close the volume of copious barrenness, still
      ignorant of the causes of events, the characters of the actors,
      and the manners of the times which they celebrate or deplore. The
      observation which has been applied to a man, may be extended to a
      whole people, that the energy of the sword is communicated to the
      pen; and it will be found by experience, that the tone of history
      will rise or fall with the spirit of the age.

      From these considerations, I should have abandoned without regret
      the Greek slaves and their servile historians, had I not
      reflected that the fate of the Byzantine monarchy is passively
      connected with the most splendid and important revolutions which
      have changed the state of the world. The space of the lost
      provinces was immediately replenished with new colonies and
      rising kingdoms: the active virtues of peace and war deserted
      from the vanquished to the victorious nations; and it is in their
      origin and conquests, in their religion and government, that we
      must explore the causes and effects of the decline and fall of
      the Eastern empire. Nor will this scope of narrative, the riches
      and variety of these materials, be incompatible with the unity of
      design and composition. As, in his daily prayers, the Mussulman
      of Fez or Delhi still turns his face towards the temple of Mecca,
      the historian’s eye shall be always fixed on the city of
      Constantinople. The excursive line may embrace the wilds of
      Arabia and Tartary, but the circle will be ultimately reduced to
      the decreasing limit of the Roman monarchy.

      On this principle I shall now establish the plan of the last two
      volumes of the present work. The first chapter will contain, in a
      regular series, the emperors who reigned at Constantinople during
      a period of six hundred years, from the days of Heraclius to the
      Latin conquest; a rapid abstract, which may be supported by a
      general appeal to the order and text of the original historians.
      In this introduction, I shall confine myself to the revolutions
      of the throne, the succession of families, the personal
      characters of the Greek princes, the mode of their life and
      death, the maxims and influence of their domestic government, and
      the tendency of their reign to accelerate or suspend the downfall
      of the Eastern empire. Such a chronological review will serve to
      illustrate the various argument of the subsequent chapters; and
      each circumstance of the eventful story of the Barbarians will
      adapt itself in a proper place to the Byzantine annals. The
      internal state of the empire, and the dangerous heresy of the
      Paulicians, which shook the East and enlightened the West, will
      be the subject of two separate chapters; but these inquiries must
      be postponed till our further progress shall have opened the view
      of the world in the ninth and tenth centuries of the Christian
      area. After this foundation of Byzantine history, the following
      nations will pass before our eyes, and each will occupy the space
      to which it may be entitled by greatness or merit, or the degree
      of connection with the Roman world and the present age. I. The
      Franks; a general appellation which includes all the Barbarians
      of France, Italy, and Germany, who were united by the sword and
      sceptre of Charlemagne. The persecution of images and their
      votaries separated Rome and Italy from the Byzantine throne, and
      prepared the restoration of the Roman empire in the West. II. The
      Arabs or Saracens. Three ample chapters will be devoted to this
      curious and interesting object. In the first, after a picture of
      the country and its inhabitants, I shall investigate the
      character of Mahomet; the character, religion, and success of the
      prophet. In the second, I shall lead the Arabs to the conquest of
      Syria, Egypt, and Africa, the provinces of the Roman empire; nor
      can I check their victorious career till they have overthrown the
      monarchies of Persia and Spain. In the third, I shall inquire how
      Constantinople and Europe were saved by the luxury and arts, the
      division and decay, of the empire of the caliphs. A single
      chapter will include, III. The Bulgarians, IV. Hungarians, and,
      V. Russians, who assaulted by sea or by land the provinces and
      the capital; but the last of these, so important in their present
      greatness, will excite some curiosity in their origin and
      infancy. VI. The Normans; or rather the private adventurers of
      that warlike people, who founded a powerful kingdom in Apulia and
      Sicily, shook the throne of Constantinople, displayed the
      trophies of chivalry, and almost realized the wonders of romance.

      VII. The Latins; the subjects of the pope, the nations of the
      West, who enlisted under the banner of the cross for the recovery
      or relief of the holy sepulchre. The Greek emperors were
      terrified and preserved by the myriads of pilgrims who marched to
      Jerusalem with Godfrey of Bouillon and the peers of Christendom.
      The second and third crusades trod in the footsteps of the first:
      Asia and Europe were mingled in a sacred war of two hundred
      years; and the Christian powers were bravely resisted, and
      finally expelled by Saladin and the Mamelukes of Egypt. In these
      memorable crusades, a fleet and army of French and Venetians were
      diverted from Syria to the Thracian Bosphorus: they assaulted the
      capital, they subverted the Greek monarchy: and a dynasty of
      Latin princes was seated near threescore years on the throne of
      Constantine. VII. The Greeks themselves, during this period of
      captivity and exile, must be considered as a foreign nation; the
      enemies, and again the sovereigns of Constantinople. Misfortune
      had rekindled a spark of national virtue; and the Imperial series
      may be continued with some dignity from their restoration to the
      Turkish conquest. IX. The Moguls and Tartars. By the arms of
      Zingis and his descendants, the globe was shaken from China to
      Poland and Greece: the sultans were overthrown: the caliphs fell,
      and the Caesars trembled on their throne. The victories of Timour
      suspended above fifty years the final ruin of the Byzantine
      empire. X. I have already noticed the first appearance of the
      Turks; and the names of the fathers, of Seljuk and Othman,
      discriminate the two successive dynasties of the nation, which
      emerged in the eleventh century from the Scythian wilderness. The
      former established a splendid and potent kingdom from the banks
      of the Oxus to Antioch and Nice; and the first crusade was
      provoked by the violation of Jerusalem and the danger of
      Constantinople. From an humble origin, the Ottomans arose, the
      scourge and terror of Christendom. Constantinople was besieged
      and taken by Mahomet II., and his triumph annihilates the
      remnant, the image, the title, of the Roman empire in the East.
      The schism of the Greeks will be connected with their last
      calamities, and the restoration of learning in the Western world.

      I shall return from the captivity of the new, to the ruins of
      ancient Rome; and the venerable name, the interesting theme, will
      shed a ray of glory on the conclusion of my labors.

      The emperor Heraclius had punished a tyrant and ascended his
      throne; and the memory of his reign is perpetuated by the
      transient conquest, and irreparable loss, of the Eastern
      provinces. After the death of Eudocia, his first wife, he
      disobeyed the patriarch, and violated the laws, by his second
      marriage with his niece Martina; and the superstition of the
      Greeks beheld the judgment of Heaven in the diseases of the
      father and the deformity of his offspring. But the opinion of an
      illegitimate birth is sufficient to distract the choice, and
      loosen the obedience, of the people: the ambition of Martina was
      quickened by maternal love, and perhaps by the envy of a
      step-mother; and the aged husband was too feeble to withstand the
      arts of conjugal allurements. Constantine, his eldest son,
      enjoyed in a mature age the title of Augustus; but the weakness
      of his constitution required a colleague and a guardian, and he
      yielded with secret reluctance to the partition of the empire.
      The senate was summoned to the palace to ratify or attest the
      association of Heracleonas, the son of Martina: the imposition of
      the diadem was consecrated by the prayer and blessing of the
      patriarch; the senators and patricians adored the majesty of the
      great emperor and the partners of his reign; and as soon as the
      doors were thrown open, they were hailed by the tumultuary but
      important voice of the soldiers. After an interval of five
      months, the pompous ceremonies which formed the essence of the
      Byzantine state were celebrated in the cathedral and the
      hippodrome; the concord of the royal brothers was affectedly
      displayed by the younger leaning on the arm of the elder; and the
      name of Martina was mingled in the reluctant or venal
      acclamations of the people. Heraclius survived this association
      about two years: his last testimony declared his two sons the
      equal heirs of the Eastern empire, and commanded them to honor
      his widow Martina as their mother and their sovereign.

      When Martina first appeared on the throne with the name and
      attributes of royalty, she was checked by a firm, though
      respectful, opposition; and the dying embers of freedom were
      kindled by the breath of superstitious prejudice. “We reverence,”
      exclaimed the voice of a citizen, “we reverence the mother of our
      princes; but to those princes alone our obedience is due; and
      Constantine, the elder emperor, is of an age to sustain, in his
      own hands, the weight of the sceptre. Your sex is excluded by
      nature from the toils of government. How could you combat, how
      could you answer, the Barbarians, who, with hostile or friendly
      intentions, may approach the royal city? May Heaven avert from
      the Roman republic this national disgrace, which would provoke
      the patience of the slaves of Persia!” Martina descended from the
      throne with indignation, and sought a refuge in the female
      apartment of the palace. The reign of Constantine the Third
      lasted only one hundred and three days: he expired in the
      thirtieth year of his age, and, although his life had been a long
      malady, a belief was entertained that poison had been the means,
      and his cruel step-mother the author, of his untimely fate.
      Martina reaped indeed the harvest of his death, and assumed the
      government in the name of the surviving emperor; but the
      incestuous widow of Heraclius was universally abhorred; the
      jealousy of the people was awakened, and the two orphans whom
      Constantine had left became the objects of the public care. It
      was in vain that the son of Martina, who was no more than fifteen
      years of age, was taught to declare himself the guardian of his
      nephews, one of whom he had presented at the baptismal font: it
      was in vain that he swore on the wood of the true cross, to
      defend them against all their enemies. On his death-bed, the late
      emperor had despatched a trusty servant to arm the troops and
      provinces of the East in the defence of his helpless children:
      the eloquence and liberality of Valentin had been successful, and
      from his camp of Chalcedon, he boldly demanded the punishment of
      the assassins, and the restoration of the lawful heir. The
      license of the soldiers, who devoured the grapes and drank the
      wine of their Asiatic vineyards, provoked the citizens of
      Constantinople against the domestic authors of their calamities,
      and the dome of St. Sophia reechoed, not with prayers and hymns,
      but with the clamors and imprecations of an enraged multitude. At
      their imperious command, Heracleonas appeared in the pulpit with
      the eldest of the royal orphans; Constans alone was saluted as
      emperor of the Romans, and a crown of gold, which had been taken
      from the tomb of Heraclius, was placed on his head, with the
      solemn benediction of the patriarch.

      But in the tumult of joy and indignation, the church was
      pillaged, the sanctuary was polluted by a promiscuous crowd of
      Jews and Barbarians; and the Monothelite Pyrrhus, a creature of
      the empress, after dropping a protestation on the altar, escaped
      by a prudent flight from the zeal of the Catholics. A more
      serious and bloody task was reserved for the senate, who derived
      a temporary strength from the consent of the soldiers and people.

      The spirit of Roman freedom revived the ancient and awful
      examples of the judgment of tyrants, and the Imperial culprits
      were deposed and condemned as the authors of the death of
      Constantine. But the severity of the conscript fathers was
      stained by the indiscriminate punishment of the innocent and the
      guilty: Martina and Heracleonas were sentenced to the amputation,
      the former of her tongue, the latter of his nose; and after this
      cruel execution, they consumed the remainder of their days in
      exile and oblivion. The Greeks who were capable of reflection
      might find some consolation for their servitude, by observing the
      abuse of power when it was lodged for a moment in the hands of an
      aristocracy.

      We shall imagine ourselves transported five hundred years
      backwards to the age of the Antonines, if we listen to the
      oration which Constans II. pronounced in the twelfth year of his
      age before the Byzantine senate. After returning his thanks for
      the just punishment of the assassins, who had intercepted the
      fairest hopes of his father’s reign, “By the divine Providence,”
      said the young emperor, “and by your righteous decree, Martina
      and her incestuous progeny have been cast headlong from the
      throne. Your majesty and wisdom have prevented the Roman state
      from degenerating into lawless tyranny. I therefore exhort and
      beseech you to stand forth as the counsellors and judges of the
      common safety.” The senators were gratified by the respectful
      address and liberal donative of their sovereign; but these
      servile Greeks were unworthy and regardless of freedom; and in
      his mind, the lesson of an hour was quickly erased by the
      prejudices of the age and the habits of despotism. He retained
      only a jealous fear lest the senate or people should one day
      invade the right of primogeniture, and seat his brother
      Theodosius on an equal throne. By the imposition of holy orders,
      the grandson of Heraclius was disqualified for the purple; but
      this ceremony, which seemed to profane the sacraments of the
      church, was insufficient to appease the suspicions of the tyrant,
      and the death of the deacon Theodosius could alone expiate the
      crime of his royal birth. 1111 His murder was avenged by the
      imprecations of the people, and the assassin, in the fullness of
      power, was driven from his capital into voluntary and perpetual
      exile. Constans embarked for Greece and, as if he meant to retort
      the abhorrence which he deserved he is said, from the Imperial
      galley, to have spit against the walls of his native city. After
      passing the winter at Athens, he sailed to Tarentum in Italy,
      visited Rome, 1112 and concluded a long pilgrimage of disgrace
      and sacrilegious rapine, by fixing his residence at Syracuse. But
      if Constans could fly from his people, he could not fly from
      himself. The remorse of his conscience created a phantom who
      pursued him by land and sea, by day and by night; and the
      visionary Theodosius, presenting to his lips a cup of blood,
      said, or seemed to say, “Drink, brother, drink;” a sure emblem of
      the aggravation of his guilt, since he had received from the
      hands of the deacon the mystic cup of the blood of Christ. Odious
      to himself and to mankind, Constans perished by domestic, perhaps
      by episcopal, treason, in the capital of Sicily. A servant who
      waited in the bath, after pouring warm water on his head, struck
      him violently with the vase. He fell, stunned by the blow, and
      suffocated by the water; and his attendants, who wondered at the
      tedious delay, beheld with indifference the corpse of their
      lifeless emperor. The troops of Sicily invested with the purple
      an obscure youth, whose inimitable beauty eluded, and it might
      easily elude, the declining art of the painters and sculptors of
      the age.

      1111 (return) [ His soldiers (according to Abulfaradji. Chron.
      Syr. p. 112) called him another Cain. St. Martin, t. xi. p.
      379.—M.]

      1112 (return) [ He was received in Rome, and pillaged the
      churches. He carried off the brass roof of the Pantheon to
      Syracuse, or, as Schlosser conceives, to Constantinople Schlosser
      Geschichte der bilder-sturmenden Kaiser p. 80—M.]

      Constans had left in the Byzantine palace three sons, the eldest
      of whom had been clothed in his infancy with the purple. When the
      father summoned them to attend his person in Sicily, these
      precious hostages were detained by the Greeks, and a firm refusal
      informed him that they were the children of the state. The news
      of his murder was conveyed with almost supernatural speed from
      Syracuse to Constantinople; and Constantine, the eldest of his
      sons, inherited his throne without being the heir of the public
      hatred. His subjects contributed, with zeal and alacrity, to
      chastise the guilt and presumption of a province which had
      usurped the rights of the senate and people; the young emperor
      sailed from the Hellespont with a powerful fleet; and the legions
      of Rome and Carthage were assembled under his standard in the
      harbor of Syracuse. The defeat of the Sicilian tyrant was easy,
      his punishment just, and his beauteous head was exposed in the
      hippodrome: but I cannot applaud the clemency of a prince, who,
      among a crowd of victims, condemned the son of a patrician, for
      deploring with some bitterness the execution of a virtuous
      father. The youth was castrated: he survived the operation, and
      the memory of this indecent cruelty is preserved by the elevation
      of Germanus to the rank of a patriarch and saint. After pouring
      this bloody libation on his father’s tomb, Constantine returned
      to his capital; and the growth of his young beard during the
      Sicilian voyage was announced, by the familiar surname of
      Pogonatus, to the Grecian world. But his reign, like that of his
      predecessor, was stained with fraternal discord. On his two
      brothers, Heraclius and Tiberius, he had bestowed the title of
      Augustus; an empty title, for they continued to languish, without
      trust or power, in the solitude of the palace. At their secret
      instigation, the troops of the Anatolian theme or province
      approached the city on the Asiatic side, demanded for the royal
      brothers the partition or exercise of sovereignty, and supported
      their seditious claim by a theological argument. They were
      Christians, (they cried,) and orthodox Catholics; the sincere
      votaries of the holy and undivided Trinity. Since there are three
      equal persons in heaven, it is reasonable there should be three
      equal persons upon earth. The emperor invited these learned
      divines to a friendly conference, in which they might propose
      their arguments to the senate: they obeyed the summons, but the
      prospect of their bodies hanging on the gibbet in the suburb of
      Galata reconciled their companions to the unity of the reign of
      Constantine. He pardoned his brothers, and their names were still
      pronounced in the public acclamations: but on the repetition or
      suspicion of a similar offence, the obnoxious princes were
      deprived of their titles and noses, 1113 in the presence of the
      Catholic bishops who were assembled at Constantinople in the
      sixth general synod. In the close of his life, Pogonatus was
      anxious only to establish the right of primogeniture: the heir of
      his two sons, Justinian and Heraclius, was offered on the shrine
      of St. Peter, as a symbol of their spiritual adoption by the
      pope; but the elder was alone exalted to the rank of Augustus,
      and the assurance of the empire.

      1113 (return) [ Schlosser (Geschichte der bilder sturmenden
      Kaiser, p. 90) supposed that the young princes were mutilated
      after the first insurrection; that after this the acts were still
      inscribed with their names, the princes being closely secluded in
      the palace. The improbability of this circumstance may be weighed
      against Gibbon’s want of authority for his statement.—M.]

      After the decease of his father, the inheritance of the Roman
      world devolved to Justinian II.; and the name of a triumphant
      lawgiver was dishonored by the vices of a boy, who imitated his
      namesake only in the expensive luxury of building. His passions
      were strong; his understanding was feeble; and he was intoxicated
      with a foolish pride, that his birth had given him the command of
      millions, of whom the smallest community would not have chosen
      him for their local magistrate. His favorite ministers were two
      beings the least susceptible of human sympathy, a eunuch and a
      monk: to the one he abandoned the palace, to the other the
      finances; the former corrected the emperor’s mother with a
      scourge, the latter suspended the insolvent tributaries, with
      their heads downwards, over a slow and smoky fire. Since the days
      of Commodus and Caracalla, the cruelty of the Roman princes had
      most commonly been the effect of their fear; but Justinian, who
      possessed some vigor of character, enjoyed the sufferings, and
      braved the revenge, of his subjects, about ten years, till the
      measure was full, of his crimes and of their patience. In a dark
      dungeon, Leontius, a general of reputation, had groaned above
      three years, with some of the noblest and most deserving of the
      patricians: he was suddenly drawn forth to assume the government
      of Greece; and this promotion of an injured man was a mark of the
      contempt rather than of the confidence of his prince. As he was
      followed to the port by the kind offices of his friends, Leontius
      observed, with a sigh, that he was a victim adorned for
      sacrifice, and that inevitable death would pursue his footsteps.
      They ventured to reply, that glory and empire might be the
      recompense of a generous resolution; that every order of men
      abhorred the reign of a monster; and that the hands of two
      hundred thousand patriots expected only the voice of a leader.
      The night was chosen for their deliverance; and in the first
      effort of the conspirators, the praefect was slain, and the
      prisons were forced open: the emissaries of Leontius proclaimed
      in every street, “Christians, to St. Sophia!” and the seasonable
      text of the patriarch, “This is the day of the Lord!” was the
      prelude of an inflammatory sermon. From the church the people
      adjourned to the hippodrome: Justinian, in whose cause not a
      sword had been drawn, was dragged before these tumultuary judges,
      and their clamors demanded the instant death of the tyrant. But
      Leontius, who was already clothed with the purple, cast an eye of
      pity on the prostrate son of his own benefactor and of so many
      emperors. The life of Justinian was spared; the amputation of his
      nose, perhaps of his tongue, was imperfectly performed: the happy
      flexibility of the Greek language could impose the name of
      Rhinotmetus; and the mutilated tyrant was banished to Chersonae
      in Crim-Tartary, a lonely settlement, where corn, wine, and oil,
      were imported as foreign luxuries.

      On the edge of the Scythian wilderness, Justinian still cherished
      the pride of his birth, and the hope of his restoration. After
      three years’ exile, he received the pleasing intelligence that
      his injury was avenged by a second revolution, and that Leontius
      in his turn had been dethroned and mutilated by the rebel
      Apsimar, who assumed the more respectable name of Tiberius. But
      the claim of lineal succession was still formidable to a plebeian
      usurper; and his jealousy was stimulated by the complaints and
      charges of the Chersonites, who beheld the vices of the tyrant in
      the spirit of the exile. With a band of followers, attached to
      his person by common hope or common despair, Justinian fled from
      the inhospitable shore to the horde of the Chozars, who pitched
      their tents between the Tanais and Borysthenes. The khan
      entertained with pity and respect the royal suppliant:
      Phanagoria, once an opulent city, on the Asiatic side of the lake
      Moeotis, was assigned for his residence; and every Roman
      prejudice was stifled in his marriage with the sister of the
      Barbarian, who seems, however, from the name of Theodora, to have
      received the sacrament of baptism. But the faithless Chozar was
      soon tempted by the gold of Constantinople: and had not the
      design been revealed by the conjugal love of Theodora, her
      husband must have been assassinated or betrayed into the power of
      his enemies. After strangling, with his own hands, the two
      emissaries of the khan, Justinian sent back his wife to her
      brother, and embarked on the Euxine in search of new and more
      faithful allies. His vessel was assaulted by a violent tempest;
      and one of his pious companions advised him to deserve the mercy
      of God by a vow of general forgiveness, if he should be restored
      to the throne. “Of forgiveness?” replied the intrepid tyrant:
      “may I perish this instant—may the Almighty whelm me in the
      waves—if I consent to spare a single head of my enemies!” He
      survived this impious menace, sailed into the mouth of the
      Danube, trusted his person in the royal village of the
      Bulgarians, and purchased the aid of Terbelis, a pagan conqueror,
      by the promise of his daughter and a fair partition of the
      treasures of the empire. The Bulgarian kingdom extended to the
      confines of Thrace; and the two princes besieged Constantinople
      at the head of fifteen thousand horse. Apsimar was dismayed by
      the sudden and hostile apparition of his rival whose head had
      been promised by the Chozar, and of whose evasion he was yet
      ignorant. After an absence of ten years, the crimes of Justinian
      were faintly remembered, and the birth and misfortunes of their
      hereditary sovereign excited the pity of the multitude, ever
      discontented with the ruling powers; and by the active diligence
      of his adherents, he was introduced into the city and palace of
      Constantine.




      Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek
      Emperors.—Part II.

      In rewarding his allies, and recalling his wife, Justinian
      displayed some sense of honor and gratitude; 1114 and Terbelis
      retired, after sweeping away a heap of gold coin, which he
      measured with his Scythian whip. But never was vow more
      religiously performed than the sacred oath of revenge which he
      had sworn amidst the storms of the Euxine. The two usurpers (for
      I must reserve the name of tyrant for the conqueror) were dragged
      into the hippodrome, the one from his prison, the other from his
      palace. Before their execution, Leontius and Apsimar were cast
      prostrate in chains beneath the throne of the emperor; and
      Justinian, planting a foot on each of their necks, contemplated
      above an hour the chariot-race, while the inconstant people
      shouted, in the words of the Psalmist, “Thou shalt trample on the
      asp and basilisk, and on the lion and dragon shalt thou set thy
      foot!” The universal defection which he had once experienced
      might provoke him to repeat the wish of Caligula, that the Roman
      people had but one head. Yet I shall presume to observe, that
      such a wish is unworthy of an ingenious tyrant, since his revenge
      and cruelty would have been extinguished by a single blow,
      instead of the slow variety of tortures which Justinian inflicted
      on the victims of his anger. His pleasures were inexhaustible:
      neither private virtue nor public service could expiate the guilt
      of active, or even passive, obedience to an established
      government; and, during the six years of his new reign, he
      considered the axe, the cord, and the rack, as the only
      instruments of royalty. But his most implacable hatred was
      pointed against the Chersonites, who had insulted his exile and
      violated the laws of hospitality. Their remote situation afforded
      some means of defence, or at least of escape; and a grievous tax
      was imposed on Constantinople, to supply the preparations of a
      fleet and army. “All are guilty, and all must perish,” was the
      mandate of Justinian; and the bloody execution was intrusted to
      his favorite Stephen, who was recommended by the epithet of the
      savage. Yet even the savage Stephen imperfectly accomplished the
      intentions of his sovereign. The slowness of his attack allowed
      the greater part of the inhabitants to withdraw into the country;
      and the minister of vengeance contented himself with reducing the
      youth of both sexes to a state of servitude, with roasting alive
      seven of the principal citizens, with drowning twenty in the sea,
      and with reserving forty-two in chains to receive their doom from
      the mouth of the emperor. In their return, the fleet was driven
      on the rocky shores of Anatolia; and Justinian applauded the
      obedience of the Euxine, which had involved so many thousands of
      his subjects and enemies in a common shipwreck: but the tyrant
      was still insatiate of blood; and a second expedition was
      commanded to extirpate the remains of the proscribed colony. In
      the short interval, the Chersonites had returned to their city,
      and were prepared to die in arms; the khan of the Chozars had
      renounced the cause of his odious brother; the exiles of every
      province were assembled in Tauris; and Bardanes, under the name
      of Philippicus, was invested with the purple. The Imperial
      troops, unwilling and unable to perpetrate the revenge of
      Justinian, escaped his displeasure by abjuring his allegiance:
      the fleet, under their new sovereign, steered back a more
      auspicious course to the harbors of Sinope and Constantinople;
      and every tongue was prompt to pronounce, every hand to execute,
      the death of the tyrant. Destitute of friends, he was deserted by
      his Barbarian guards; and the stroke of the assassin was praised
      as an act of patriotism and Roman virtue. His son Tiberius had
      taken refuge in a church; his aged grandmother guarded the door;
      and the innocent youth, suspending round his neck the most
      formidable relics, embraced with one hand the altar, with the
      other the wood of the true cross. But the popular fury that dares
      to trample on superstition, is deaf to the cries of humanity; and
      the race of Heraclius was extinguished after a reign of one
      hundred years

      1114 (return) [ Of fear rather than of more generous motives.
      Compare Le Beau vol. xii. p. 64.—M.]

      Between the fall of the Heraclian and the rise of the Isaurian
      dynasty, a short interval of six years is divided into three
      reigns. Bardanes, or Philippicus, was hailed at Constantinople as
      a hero who had delivered his country from a tyrant; and he might
      taste some moments of happiness in the first transports of
      sincere and universal joy. Justinian had left behind him an ample
      treasure, the fruit of cruelty and rapine: but this useful fund
      was soon and idly dissipated by his successor. On the festival of
      his birthday, Philippicus entertained the multitude with the
      games of the hippodrome; from thence he paraded through the
      streets with a thousand banners and a thousand trumpets;
      refreshed himself in the baths of Zeuxippus, and returning to the
      palace, entertained his nobles with a sumptuous banquet. At the
      meridian hour he withdrew to his chamber, intoxicated with
      flattery and wine, and forgetful that his example had made every
      subject ambitious, and that every ambitious subject was his
      secret enemy. Some bold conspirators introduced themselves in the
      disorder of the feast; and the slumbering monarch was surprised,
      bound, blinded, and deposed, before he was sensible of his
      danger. Yet the traitors were deprived of their reward; and the
      free voice of the senate and people promoted Artemius from the
      office of secretary to that of emperor: he assumed the title of
      Anastasius the Second, and displayed in a short and troubled
      reign the virtues both of peace and war. But after the extinction
      of the Imperial line, the rule of obedience was violated, and
      every change diffused the seeds of new revolutions. In a mutiny
      of the fleet, an obscure and reluctant officer of the revenue was
      forcibly invested with the purple: after some months of a naval
      war, Anastasius resigned the sceptre; and the conqueror,
      Theodosius the Third, submitted in his turn to the superior
      ascendant of Leo, the general and emperor of the Oriental troops.
      His two predecessors were permitted to embrace the ecclesiastical
      profession: the restless impatience of Anastasius tempted him to
      risk and to lose his life in a treasonable enterprise; but the
      last days of Theodosius were honorable and secure. The single
      sublime word, “Health,” which he inscribed on his tomb, expresses
      the confidence of philosophy or religion; and the fame of his
      miracles was long preserved among the people of Ephesus. This
      convenient shelter of the church might sometimes impose a lesson
      of clemency; but it may be questioned whether it is for the
      public interest to diminish the perils of unsuccessful ambition.

      I have dwelt on the fall of a tyrant; I shall briefly represent
      the founder of a new dynasty, who is known to posterity by the
      invectives of his enemies, and whose public and private life is
      involved in the ecclesiastical story of the Iconoclasts. Yet in
      spite of the clamors of superstition, a favorable prejudice for
      the character of Leo the Isaurian may be reasonably drawn from
      the obscurity of his birth, and the duration of his reign.—I. In
      an age of manly spirit, the prospect of an Imperial reward would
      have kindled every energy of the mind, and produced a crowd of
      competitors as deserving as they were desirous to reign. Even in
      the corruption and debility of the modern Greeks, the elevation
      of a plebeian from the last to the first rank of society,
      supposes some qualifications above the level of the multitude. He
      would probably be ignorant and disdainful of speculative science;
      and, in the pursuit of fortune, he might absolve himself from the
      obligations of benevolence and justice; but to his character we
      may ascribe the useful virtues of prudence and fortitude, the
      knowledge of mankind, and the important art of gaining their
      confidence and directing their passions. It is agreed that Leo
      was a native of Isauria, and that Conon was his primitive name.
      The writers, whose awkward satire is praise, describe him as an
      itinerant pedler, who drove an ass with some paltry merchandise
      to the country fairs; and foolishly relate that he met on the
      road some Jewish fortune-tellers, who promised him the Roman
      empire, on condition that he should abolish the worship of idols.
      A more probable account relates the migration of his father from
      Asia Minor to Thrace, where he exercised the lucrative trade of a
      grazier; and he must have acquired considerable wealth, since the
      first introduction of his son was procured by a supply of five
      hundred sheep to the Imperial camp. His first service was in the
      guards of Justinian, where he soon attracted the notice, and by
      degrees the jealousy, of the tyrant. His valor and dexterity were
      conspicuous in the Colchian war: from Anastasius he received the
      command of the Anatolian legions, and by the suffrage of the
      soldiers he was raised to the empire with the general applause of
      the Roman world.—II. In this dangerous elevation, Leo the Third
      supported himself against the envy of his equals, the discontent
      of a powerful faction, and the assaults of his foreign and
      domestic enemies. The Catholics, who accuse his religious
      innovations, are obliged to confess that they were undertaken
      with temper and conducted with firmness. Their silence respects
      the wisdom of his administration and the purity of his manners.
      After a reign of twenty-four years, he peaceably expired in the
      palace of Constantinople; and the purple which he had acquired
      was transmitted by the right of inheritance to the third
      generation. 1115

      1115 (return) [ During the latter part of his reign, the
      hostilities of the Saracens, who invested a Pergamenian, named
      Tiberius, with the purple, and proclaimed him as the son of
      Justinian, and an earthquake, which destroyed the walls of
      Constantinople, compelled Leo greatly to increase the burdens of
      taxation upon his subjects. A twelfth was exacted in addition to
      every aurena as a wall tax. Theophanes p. 275 Schlosser, Bilder
      eturmeud Kaiser, p. 197.—M.]

      In a long reign of thirty-four years, the son and successor of
      Leo, Constantine the Fifth, surnamed Copronymus, attacked with
      less temperate zeal the images or idols of the church. Their
      votaries have exhausted the bitterness of religious gall, in
      their portrait of this spotted panther, this antichrist, this
      flying dragon of the serpent’s seed, who surpassed the vices of
      Elagabalus and Nero. His reign was a long butchery of whatever
      was most noble, or holy, or innocent, in his empire. In person,
      the emperor assisted at the execution of his victims, surveyed
      their agonies, listened to their groans, and indulged, without
      satiating, his appetite for blood: a plate of noses was accepted
      as a grateful offering, and his domestics were often scourged or
      mutilated by the royal hand. His surname was derived from his
      pollution of his baptismal font. The infant might be excused; but
      the manly pleasures of Copronymus degraded him below the level of
      a brute; his lust confounded the eternal distinctions of sex and
      species, and he seemed to extract some unnatural delight from the
      objects most offensive to human sense. In his religion the
      Iconoclast was a Heretic, a Jew, a Mahometan, a Pagan, and an
      Atheist; and his belief of an invisible power could be discovered
      only in his magic rites, human victims, and nocturnal sacrifices
      to Venus and the daemons of antiquity. His life was stained with
      the most opposite vices, and the ulcers which covered his body,
      anticipated before his death the sentiment of hell-tortures. Of
      these accusations, which I have so patiently copied, a part is
      refuted by its own absurdity; and in the private anecdotes of the
      life of the princes, the lie is more easy as the detection is
      more difficult. Without adopting the pernicious maxim, that where
      much is alleged, something must be true, I can however discern,
      that Constantine the Fifth was dissolute and cruel. Calumny is
      more prone to exaggerate than to invent; and her licentious
      tongue is checked in some measure by the experience of the age
      and country to which she appeals. Of the bishops and monks, the
      generals and magistrates, who are said to have suffered under his
      reign, the numbers are recorded, the names were conspicuous, the
      execution was public, the mutilation visible and permanent. 1116
      The Catholics hated the person and government of Copronymus; but
      even their hatred is a proof of their oppression. They dissembled
      the provocations which might excuse or justify his rigor, but
      even these provocations must gradually inflame his resentment and
      harden his temper in the use or the abuse of despotism. Yet the
      character of the fifth Constantine was not devoid of merit, nor
      did his government always deserve the curses or the contempt of
      the Greeks. From the confession of his enemies, I am informed of
      the restoration of an ancient aqueduct, of the redemption of two
      thousand five hundred captives, of the uncommon plenty of the
      times, and of the new colonies with which he repeopled
      Constantinople and the Thracian cities. They reluctantly praise
      his activity and courage; he was on horseback in the field at the
      head of his legions; and, although the fortune of his arms was
      various, he triumphed by sea and land, on the Euphrates and the
      Danube, in civil and Barbarian war. Heretical praise must be cast
      into the scale to counterbalance the weight of orthodox
      invective. The Iconoclasts revered the virtues of the prince:
      forty years after his death they still prayed before the tomb of
      the saint. A miraculous vision was propagated by fanaticism or
      fraud: and the Christian hero appeared on a milk-white steed,
      brandishing his lance against the Pagans of Bulgaria: “An absurd
      fable,” says the Catholic historian, “since Copronymus is chained
      with the daemons in the abyss of hell.”

      1116 (return) [ He is accused of burning the library of
      Constantinople, founded by Julian, with its president and twelve
      professors. This eastern Sorbonne had discomfited the Imperial
      theologians on the great question of image worship. Schlosser
      observes that this accidental fire took place six years after the
      emperor had laid the question of image-worship before the
      professors. Bilder sturmand Kaiser, p. 294. Compare Le Heau. vol.
      xl. p. 156.—M.]

      Leo the Fourth, the son of the fifth and the father of the sixth
      Constantine, was of a feeble constitution both of mind 1117 and
      body, and the principal care of his reign was the settlement of
      the succession. The association of the young Constantine was
      urged by the officious zeal of his subjects; and the emperor,
      conscious of his decay, complied, after a prudent hesitation,
      with their unanimous wishes. The royal infant, at the age of five
      years, was crowned with his mother Irene; and the national
      consent was ratified by every circumstance of pomp and solemnity,
      that could dazzle the eyes or bind the conscience of the Greeks.
      An oath of fidelity was administered in the palace, the church,
      and the hippodrome, to the several orders of the state, who
      adjured the holy names of the Son, and mother of God. “Be
      witness, O Christ! that we will watch over the safety of
      Constantine the son of Leo, expose our lives in his service, and
      bear true allegiance to his person and posterity.” They pledged
      their faith on the wood of the true cross, and the act of their
      engagement was deposited on the altar of St. Sophia. The first to
      swear, and the first to violate their oath, were the five sons of
      Copronymus by a second marriage; and the story of these princes
      is singular and tragic. The right of primogeniture excluded them
      from the throne; the injustice of their elder brother defrauded
      them of a legacy of about two millions sterling; some vain titles
      were not deemed a sufficient compensation for wealth and power;
      and they repeatedly conspired against their nephew, before and
      after the death of his father. Their first attempt was pardoned;
      for the second offence 1118 they were condemned to the
      ecclesiastical state; and for the third treason, Nicephorus, the
      eldest and most guilty, was deprived of his eyes, and his four
      brothers, Christopher, Nicetas, Anthemeus, and Eudoxas, were
      punished, as a milder sentence, by the amputation of their
      tongues. After five years’ confinement, they escaped to the
      church of St. Sophia, and displayed a pathetic spectacle to the
      people. “Countrymen and Christians,” cried Nicephorus for himself
      and his mute brethren, “behold the sons of your emperor, if you
      can still recognize our features in this miserable state. A life,
      an imperfect life, is all that the malice of our enemies has
      spared. It is now threatened, and we now throw ourselves on your
      compassion.” The rising murmur might have produced a revolution,
      had it not been checked by the presence of a minister, who
      soothed the unhappy princes with flattery and hope, and gently
      drew them from the sanctuary to the palace. They were speedily
      embarked for Greece, and Athens was allotted for the place of
      their exile. In this calm retreat, and in their helpless
      condition, Nicephorus and his brothers were tormented by the
      thirst of power, and tempted by a Sclavonian chief, who offered
      to break their prison, and to lead them in arms, and in the
      purple, to the gates of Constantinople. But the Athenian people,
      ever zealous in the cause of Irene, prevented her justice or
      cruelty; and the five sons of Copronymus were plunged in eternal
      darkness and oblivion.

      1117 (return) [ Schlosser thinks more highly of Leo’s mind; but
      his only proof of his superiority is the successes of his
      generals against the Saracens, Schlosser, p. 256.—M.]

      1118 (return) [ The second offence was on the accession of the
      young Constantine—M.]

      For himself, that emperor had chosen a Barbarian wife, the
      daughter of the khan of the Chozars; but in the marriage of his
      heir, he preferred an Athenian virgin, an orphan, seventeen years
      old, whose sole fortune must have consisted in her personal
      accomplishments. The nuptials of Leo and Irene were celebrated
      with royal pomp; she soon acquired the love and confidence of a
      feeble husband, and in his testament he declared the empress
      guardian of the Roman world, and of their son Constantine the
      Sixth, who was no more than ten years of age. During his
      childhood, Irene most ably and assiduously discharged, in her
      public administration, the duties of a faithful mother; and her
      zeal in the restoration of images has deserved the name and
      honors of a saint, which she still occupies in the Greek
      calendar. But the emperor attained the maturity of youth; the
      maternal yoke became more grievous; and he listened to the
      favorites of his own age, who shared his pleasures, and were
      ambitious of sharing his power. Their reasons convinced him of
      his right, their praises of his ability, to reign; and he
      consented to reward the services of Irene by a perpetual
      banishment to the Isle of Sicily. But her vigilance and
      penetration easily disconcerted their rash projects: a similar,
      or more severe, punishment was retaliated on themselves and their
      advisers; and Irene inflicted on the ungrateful prince the
      chastisement of a boy. After this contest, the mother and the son
      were at the head of two domestic factions; and instead of mild
      influence and voluntary obedience, she held in chains a captive
      and an enemy. The empress was overthrown by the abuse of victory;
      the oath of fidelity, which she exacted to herself alone, was
      pronounced with reluctant murmurs; and the bold refusal of the
      Armenian guards encouraged a free and general declaration, that
      Constantine the Sixth was the lawful emperor of the Romans. In
      this character he ascended his hereditary throne, and dismissed
      Irene to a life of solitude and repose. But her haughty spirit
      condescended to the arts of dissimulation: she flattered the
      bishops and eunuchs, revived the filial tenderness of the prince,
      regained his confidence, and betrayed his credulity. The
      character of Constantine was not destitute of sense or spirit;
      but his education had been studiously neglected; and the
      ambitious mother exposed to the public censure the vices which
      she had nourished, and the actions which she had secretly
      advised: his divorce and second marriage offended the prejudices
      of the clergy, and by his imprudent rigor he forfeited the
      attachment of the Armenian guards. A powerful conspiracy was
      formed for the restoration of Irene; and the secret, though
      widely diffused, was faithfully kept above eight months, till the
      emperor, suspicious of his danger, escaped from Constantinople,
      with the design of appealing to the provinces and armies. By this
      hasty flight, the empress was left on the brink of the precipice;
      yet before she implored the mercy of her son, Irene addressed a
      private epistle to the friends whom she had placed about his
      person, with a menace, that unless they accomplished, she would
      reveal, their treason. Their fear rendered them intrepid; they
      seized the emperor on the Asiatic shore, and he was transported
      to the porphyry apartment of the palace, where he had first seen
      the light. In the mind of Irene, ambition had stifled every
      sentiment of humanity and nature; and it was decreed in her
      bloody council, that Constantine should be rendered incapable of
      the throne: her emissaries assaulted the sleeping prince, and
      stabbed their daggers with such violence and precipitation into
      his eyes as if they meant to execute a mortal sentence. An
      ambiguous passage of Theophanes persuaded the annalist of the
      church that death was the immediate consequence of this barbarous
      execution. The Catholics have been deceived or subdued by the
      authority of Baronius; and Protestant zeal has reechoed the words
      of a cardinal, desirous, as it should seem, to favor the
      patroness of images. 1119 Yet the blind son of Irene survived
      many years, oppressed by the court and forgotten by the world;
      the Isaurian dynasty was silently extinguished; and the memory of
      Constantine was recalled only by the nuptials of his daughter
      Euphrosyne with the emperor Michael the Second.

      1119 (return) [ Gibbon has been attacked on account of this
      statement, but is successfully defended by Schlosser. B S. Kaiser
      p. 327. Compare Le Beau, c. xii p. 372.—M.]

      The most bigoted orthodoxy has justly execrated the unnatural
      mother, who may not easily be paralleled in the history of
      crimes. To her bloody deed superstition has attributed a
      subsequent darkness of seventeen days; during which many vessels
      in midday were driven from their course, as if the sun, a globe
      of fire so vast and so remote, could sympathize with the atoms of
      a revolving planet. On earth, the crime of Irene was left five
      years unpunished; her reign was crowned with external splendor;
      and if she could silence the voice of conscience, she neither
      heard nor regarded the reproaches of mankind. The Roman world
      bowed to the government of a female; and as she moved through the
      streets of Constantinople, the reins of four milk-white steeds
      were held by as many patricians, who marched on foot before the
      golden chariot of their queen. But these patricians were for the
      most part eunuchs; and their black ingratitude justified, on this
      occasion, the popular hatred and contempt. Raised, enriched,
      intrusted with the first dignities of the empire, they basely
      conspired against their benefactress; the great treasurer
      Nicephorus was secretly invested with the purple; her successor
      was introduced into the palace, and crowned at St. Sophia by the
      venal patriarch. In their first interview, she recapitulated with
      dignity the revolutions of her life, gently accused the perfidy
      of Nicephorus, insinuated that he owed his life to her
      unsuspicious clemency, and for the throne and treasures which she
      resigned, solicited a decent and honorable retreat. His avarice
      refused this modest compensation; and, in her exile of the Isle
      of Lesbos, the empress earned a scanty subsistence by the labors
      of her distaff.

      Many tyrants have reigned undoubtedly more criminal than
      Nicephorus, but none perhaps have more deeply incurred the
      universal abhorrence of their people. His character was stained
      with the three odious vices of hypocrisy, ingratitude, and
      avarice: his want of virtue was not redeemed by any superior
      talents, nor his want of talents by any pleasing qualifications.
      Unskilful and unfortunate in war, Nicephorus was vanquished by
      the Saracens, and slain by the Bulgarians; and the advantage of
      his death overbalanced, in the public opinion, the destruction of
      a Roman army. 1011 His son and heir Stauracius escaped from the
      field with a mortal wound; yet six months of an expiring life
      were sufficient to refute his indecent, though popular
      declaration, that he would in all things avoid the example of his
      father. On the near prospect of his decease, Michael, the great
      master of the palace, and the husband of his sister Procopia, was
      named by every person of the palace and city, except by his
      envious brother. Tenacious of a sceptre now falling from his
      hand, he conspired against the life of his successor, and
      cherished the idea of changing to a democracy the Roman empire.
      But these rash projects served only to inflame the zeal of the
      people and to remove the scruples of the candidate: Michael the
      First accepted the purple, and before he sunk into the grave the
      son of Nicephorus implored the clemency of his new sovereign. Had
      Michael in an age of peace ascended an hereditary throne, he
      might have reigned and died the father of his people: but his
      mild virtues were adapted to the shade of private life, nor was
      he capable of controlling the ambition of his equals, or of
      resisting the arms of the victorious Bulgarians. While his want
      of ability and success exposed him to the contempt of the
      soldiers, the masculine spirit of his wife Procopia awakened
      their indignation. Even the Greeks of the ninth century were
      provoked by the insolence of a female, who, in the front of the
      standards, presumed to direct their discipline and animate their
      valor; and their licentious clamors advised the new Semiramis to
      reverence the majesty of a Roman camp. After an unsuccessful
      campaign, the emperor left, in their winter-quarters of Thrace, a
      disaffected army under the command of his enemies; and their
      artful eloquence persuaded the soldiers to break the dominion of
      the eunuchs, to degrade the husband of Procopia, and to assert
      the right of a military election. They marched towards the
      capital: yet the clergy, the senate, and the people of
      Constantinople, adhered to the cause of Michael; and the troops
      and treasures of Asia might have protracted the mischiefs of
      civil war. But his humanity (by the ambitious it will be termed
      his weakness) protested that not a drop of Christian blood should
      be shed in his quarrel, and his messengers presented the
      conquerors with the keys of the city and the palace. They were
      disarmed by his innocence and submission; his life and his eyes
      were spared; and the Imperial monk enjoyed the comforts of
      solitude and religion above thirty-two years after he had been
      stripped of the purple and separated from his wife.

      1011 (return) [ The Syrian historian Aboulfaradj. Chron. Syr. p.
      133, 139, speaks of him as a brave, prudent, and pious prince,
      formidable to the Arabs. St. Martin, c. xii. p. 402. Compare
      Schlosser, p. 350.—M.]

      A rebel, in the time of Nicephorus, the famous and unfortunate
      Bardanes, had once the curiosity to consult an Asiatic prophet,
      who, after prognosticating his fall, announced the fortunes of
      his three principal officers, Leo the Armenian, Michael the
      Phrygian, and Thomas the Cappadocian, the successive reigns of
      the two former, the fruitless and fatal enterprise of the third.
      This prediction was verified, or rather was produced, by the
      event. Ten years afterwards, when the Thracian camp rejected the
      husband of Procopia, the crown was presented to the same Leo, the
      first in military rank and the secret author of the mutiny. As he
      affected to hesitate, “With this sword,” said his companion
      Michael, “I will open the gates of Constantinople to your
      Imperial sway; or instantly plunge it into your bosom, if you
      obstinately resist the just desires of your fellow-soldiers.” The
      compliance of the Armenian was rewarded with the empire, and he
      reigned seven years and a half under the name of Leo the Fifth.
      Educated in a camp, and ignorant both of laws and letters, he
      introduced into his civil government the rigor and even cruelty
      of military discipline; but if his severity was sometimes
      dangerous to the innocent, it was always formidable to the
      guilty. His religious inconstancy was taxed by the epithet of
      Chameleon, but the Catholics have acknowledged by the voice of a
      saint and confessors, that the life of the Iconoclast was useful
      to the republic. The zeal of his companion Michael was repaid
      with riches, honors, and military command; and his subordinate
      talents were beneficially employed in the public service. Yet the
      Phrygian was dissatisfied at receiving as a favor a scanty
      portion of the Imperial prize which he had bestowed on his equal;
      and his discontent, which sometimes evaporated in hasty
      discourse, at length assumed a more threatening and hostile
      aspect against a prince whom he represented as a cruel tyrant.
      That tyrant, however, repeatedly detected, warned, and dismissed
      the old companion of his arms, till fear and resentment prevailed
      over gratitude; and Michael, after a scrutiny into his actions
      and designs, was convicted of treason, and sentenced to be burnt
      alive in the furnace of the private baths. The devout humanity of
      the empress Theophano was fatal to her husband and family. A
      solemn day, the twenty-fifth of December, had been fixed for the
      execution: she urged, that the anniversary of the Savior’s birth
      would be profaned by this inhuman spectacle, and Leo consented
      with reluctance to a decent respite. But on the vigil of the
      feast his sleepless anxiety prompted him to visit at the dead of
      night the chamber in which his enemy was confined: he beheld him
      released from his chain, and stretched on his jailer’s bed in a
      profound slumber. Leo was alarmed at these signs of security and
      intelligence; but though he retired with silent steps, his
      entrance and departure were noticed by a slave who lay concealed
      in a corner of the prison. Under the pretence of requesting the
      spiritual aid of a confessor, Michael informed the conspirators,
      that their lives depended on his discretion, and that a few hours
      were left to assure their own safety, by the deliverance of their
      friend and country. On the great festivals, a chosen band of
      priests and chanters was admitted into the palace by a private
      gate to sing matins in the chapel; and Leo, who regulated with
      the same strictness the discipline of the choir and of the camp,
      was seldom absent from these early devotions. In the
      ecclesiastical habit, but with their swords under their robes,
      the conspirators mingled with the procession, lurked in the
      angles of the chapel, and expected, as the signal of murder, the
      intonation of the first psalm by the emperor himself. The
      imperfect light, and the uniformity of dress, might have favored
      his escape, whilst their assault was pointed against a harmless
      priest; but they soon discovered their mistake, and encompassed
      on all sides the royal victim. Without a weapon and without a
      friend, he grasped a weighty cross, and stood at bay against the
      hunters of his life; but as he asked for mercy, “This is the
      hour, not of mercy, but of vengeance,” was the inexorable reply.
      The stroke of a well-aimed sword separated from his body the
      right arm and the cross, and Leo the Armenian was slain at the
      foot of the altar. A memorable reverse of fortune was displayed
      in Michael the Second, who from a defect in his speech was
      surnamed the Stammerer. He was snatched from the fiery furnace to
      the sovereignty of an empire; and as in the tumult a smith could
      not readily be found, the fetters remained on his legs several
      hours after he was seated on the throne of the Caesars. The royal
      blood which had been the price of his elevation, was unprofitably
      spent: in the purple he retained the ignoble vices of his origin;
      and Michael lost his provinces with as supine indifference as if
      they had been the inheritance of his fathers. His title was
      disputed by Thomas, the last of the military triumvirate, who
      transported into Europe fourscore thousand Barbarians from the
      banks of the Tigris and the shores of the Caspian. He formed the
      siege of Constantinople; but the capital was defended with
      spiritual and carnal weapons; a Bulgarian king assaulted the camp
      of the Orientals, and Thomas had the misfortune, or the weakness,
      to fall alive into the power of the conqueror. The hands and feet
      of the rebel were amputated; he was placed on an ass, and, amidst
      the insults of the people, was led through the streets, which he
      sprinkled with his blood. The depravation of manners, as savage
      as they were corrupt, is marked by the presence of the emperor
      himself. Deaf to the lamentation of a fellow-soldier, he
      incessantly pressed the discovery of more accomplices, till his
      curiosity was checked by the question of an honest or guilty
      minister: “Would you give credit to an enemy against the most
      faithful of your friends?” After the death of his first wife, the
      emperor, at the request of the senate, drew from her monastery
      Euphrosyne, the daughter of Constantine the Sixth. Her august
      birth might justify a stipulation in the marriage-contract, that
      her children should equally share the empire with their elder
      brother. But the nuptials of Michael and Euphrosyne were barren;
      and she was content with the title of mother of Theophilus, his
      son and successor.

      The character of Theophilus is a rare example in which religious
      zeal has allowed, and perhaps magnified, the virtues of a heretic
      and a persecutor. His valor was often felt by the enemies, and
      his justice by the subjects, of the monarchy; but the valor of
      Theophilus was rash and fruitless, and his justice arbitrary and
      cruel. He displayed the banner of the cross against the Saracens;
      but his five expeditions were concluded by a signal overthrow:
      Amorium, the native city of his ancestors, was levelled with the
      ground and from his military toils he derived only the surname of
      the Unfortunate. The wisdom of a sovereign is comprised in the
      institution of laws and the choice of magistrates, and while he
      seems without action, his civil government revolves round his
      centre with the silence and order of the planetary system. But
      the justice of Theophilus was fashioned on the model of the
      Oriental despots, who, in personal and irregular acts of
      authority, consult the reason or passion of the moment, without
      measuring the sentence by the law, or the penalty by the offense.
      A poor woman threw herself at the emperor’s feet to complain of a
      powerful neighbor, the brother of the empress, who had raised his
      palace-wall to such an inconvenient height, that her humble
      dwelling was excluded from light and air! On the proof of the
      fact, instead of granting, like an ordinary judge, sufficient or
      ample damages to the plaintiff, the sovereign adjudged to her use
      and benefit the palace and the ground. Nor was Theophilus content
      with this extravagant satisfaction: his zeal converted a civil
      trespass into a criminal act; and the unfortunate patrician was
      stripped and scourged in the public place of Constantinople. For
      some venial offenses, some defect of equity or vigilance, the
      principal ministers, a praefect, a quaestor, a captain of the
      guards, were banished or mutilated, or scalded with boiling
      pitch, or burnt alive in the hippodrome; and as these dreadful
      examples might be the effects of error or caprice, they must have
      alienated from his service the best and wisest of the citizens.
      But the pride of the monarch was flattered in the exercise of
      power, or, as he thought, of virtue; and the people, safe in
      their obscurity, applauded the danger and debasement of their
      superiors. This extraordinary rigor was justified, in some
      measure, by its salutary consequences; since, after a scrutiny of
      seventeen days, not a complaint or abuse could be found in the
      court or city; and it might be alleged that the Greeks could be
      ruled only with a rod of iron, and that the public interest is
      the motive and law of the supreme judge. Yet in the crime, or the
      suspicion, of treason, that judge is of all others the most
      credulous and partial. Theophilus might inflict a tardy vengeance
      on the assassins of Leo and the saviors of his father; but he
      enjoyed the fruits of their crime; and his jealous tyranny
      sacrificed a brother and a prince to the future safety of his
      life. A Persian of the race of the Sassanides died in poverty and
      exile at Constantinople, leaving an only son, the issue of a
      plebeian marriage. At the age of twelve years, the royal birth of
      Theophobus was revealed, and his merit was not unworthy of his
      birth. He was educated in the Byzantine palace, a Christian and a
      soldier; advanced with rapid steps in the career of fortune and
      glory; received the hand of the emperor’s sister; and was
      promoted to the command of thirty thousand Persians, who, like
      his father, had fled from the Mahometan conquerors. These troops,
      doubly infected with mercenary and fanatic vices, were desirous
      of revolting against their benefactor, and erecting the standard
      of their native king but the loyal Theophobus rejected their
      offers, disconcerted their schemes, and escaped from their hands
      to the camp or palace of his royal brother. A generous confidence
      might have secured a faithful and able guardian for his wife and
      his infant son, to whom Theophilus, in the flower of his age, was
      compelled to leave the inheritance of the empire. But his
      jealousy was exasperated by envy and disease; he feared the
      dangerous virtues which might either support or oppress their
      infancy and weakness; and the dying emperor demanded the head of
      the Persian prince. With savage delight he recognized the
      familiar features of his brother: “Thou art no longer
      Theophobus,” he said; and, sinking on his couch, he added, with a
      faltering voice, “Soon, too soon, I shall be no more Theophilus!”




      Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek
      Emperors.—Part III.

      The Russians, who have borrowed from the Greeks the greatest part
      of their civil and ecclesiastical policy, preserved, till the
      last century, a singular institution in the marriage of the Czar.
      They collected, not the virgins of every rank and of every
      province, a vain and romantic idea, but the daughters of the
      principal nobles, who awaited in the palace the choice of their
      sovereign. It is affirmed, that a similar method was adopted in
      the nuptials of Theophilus. With a golden apple in his hand, he
      slowly walked between two lines of contending beauties: his eye
      was detained by the charms of Icasia, and in the awkwardness of a
      first declaration, the prince could only observe, that, in this
      world, women had been the cause of much evil; “And surely, sir,”
      she pertly replied, “they have likewise been the occasion of much
      good.” This affectation of unseasonable wit displeased the
      Imperial lover: he turned aside in disgust; Icasia concealed her
      mortification in a convent; and the modest silence of Theodora
      was rewarded with the golden apple. She deserved the love, but
      did not escape the severity, of her lord. From the palace garden
      he beheld a vessel deeply laden, and steering into the port: on
      the discovery that the precious cargo of Syrian luxury was the
      property of his wife, he condemned the ship to the flames, with a
      sharp reproach, that her avarice had degraded the character of an
      empress into that of a merchant. Yet his last choice intrusted
      her with the guardianship of the empire and her son Michael, who
      was left an orphan in the fifth year of his age. The restoration
      of images, and the final extirpation of the Iconoclasts, has
      endeared her name to the devotion of the Greeks; but in the
      fervor of religious zeal, Theodora entertained a grateful regard
      for the memory and salvation of her husband. After thirteen years
      of a prudent and frugal administration, she perceived the decline
      of her influence; but the second Irene imitated only the virtues
      of her predecessor. Instead of conspiring against the life or
      government of her son, she retired, without a struggle, though
      not without a murmur, to the solitude of private life, deploring
      the ingratitude, the vices, and the inevitable ruin, of the
      worthless youth. Among the successors of Nero and Elagabalus, we
      have not hitherto found the imitation of their vices, the
      character of a Roman prince who considered pleasure as the object
      of life, and virtue as the enemy of pleasure. Whatever might have
      been the maternal care of Theodora in the education of Michael
      the Third, her unfortunate son was a king before he was a man. If
      the ambitious mother labored to check the progress of reason, she
      could not cool the ebullition of passion; and her selfish policy
      was justly repaid by the contempt and ingratitude of the
      headstrong youth. At the age of eighteen, he rejected her
      authority, without feeling his own incapacity to govern the
      empire and himself. With Theodora, all gravity and wisdom retired
      from the court; their place was supplied by the alternate
      dominion of vice and folly; and it was impossible, without
      forfeiting the public esteem, to acquire or preserve the favor of
      the emperor. The millions of gold and silver which had been
      accumulated for the service of the state, were lavished on the
      vilest of men, who flattered his passions and shared his
      pleasures; and in a reign of thirteen years, the richest of
      sovereigns was compelled to strip the palace and the churches of
      their precious furniture. Like Nero, he delighted in the
      amusements of the theatre, and sighed to be surpassed in the
      accomplishments in which he should have blushed to excel. Yet the
      studies of Nero in music and poetry betrayed some symptoms of a
      liberal taste; the more ignoble arts of the son of Theophilus
      were confined to the chariot-race of the hippodrome. The four
      factions which had agitated the peace, still amused the idleness,
      of the capital: for himself, the emperor assumed the blue livery;
      the three rival colors were distributed to his favorites, and in
      the vile though eager contention he forgot the dignity of his
      person and the safety of his dominions. He silenced the messenger
      of an invasion, who presumed to divert his attention in the most
      critical moment of the race; and by his command, the importunate
      beacons were extinguished, that too frequently spread the alarm
      from Tarsus to Constantinople. The most skilful charioteers
      obtained the first place in his confidence and esteem; their
      merit was profusely rewarded; the emperor feasted in their
      houses, and presented their children at the baptismal font; and
      while he applauded his own popularity, he affected to blame the
      cold and stately reserve of his predecessors. The unnatural lusts
      which had degraded even the manhood of Nero, were banished from
      the world; yet the strength of Michael was consumed by the
      indulgence of love and intemperance. 1012 In his midnight revels,
      when his passions were inflamed by wine, he was provoked to issue
      the most sanguinary commands; and if any feelings of humanity
      were left, he was reduced, with the return of sense, to approve
      the salutary disobedience of his servants. But the most
      extraordinary feature in the character of Michael, is the profane
      mockery of the religion of his country. The superstition of the
      Greeks might indeed excite the smile of a philosopher; but his
      smile would have been rational and temperate, and he must have
      condemned the ignorant folly of a youth who insulted the objects
      of public veneration. A buffoon of the court was invested in the
      robes of the patriarch: his twelve metropolitans, among whom the
      emperor was ranked, assumed their ecclesiastical garments: they
      used or abused the sacred vessels of the altar; and in their
      bacchanalian feasts, the holy communion was administered in a
      nauseous compound of vinegar and mustard. Nor were these impious
      spectacles concealed from the eyes of the city. On the day of a
      solemn festival, the emperor, with his bishops or buffoons, rode
      on asses through the streets, encountered the true patriarch at
      the head of his clergy; and by their licentious shouts and
      obscene gestures, disordered the gravity of the Christian
      procession. The devotion of Michael appeared only in some offence
      to reason or piety: he received his theatrical crowns from the
      statue of the Virgin; and an Imperial tomb was violated for the
      sake of burning the bones of Constantine the Iconoclast. By this
      extravagant conduct, the son of Theophilus became as contemptible
      as he was odious: every citizen was impatient for the deliverance
      of his country; and even the favorites of the moment were
      apprehensive that a caprice might snatch away what a caprice had
      bestowed. In the thirtieth year of his age, and in the hour of
      intoxication and sleep, Michael the Third was murdered in his
      chamber by the founder of a new dynasty, whom the emperor had
      raised to an equality of rank and power.

      1012 (return) [ In a campaign against the Saracens, he betrayed
      both imbecility and cowardice. Genesius, c. iv. p. 94.—M.]

      The genealogy of Basil the Macedonian (if it be not the spurious
      offspring of pride and flattery) exhibits a genuine picture of
      the revolution of the most illustrious families. The Arsacides,
      the rivals of Rome, possessed the sceptre of the East near four
      hundred years: a younger branch of these Parthian kings continued
      to reign in Armenia; and their royal descendants survived the
      partition and servitude of that ancient monarchy. Two of these,
      Artabanus and Chlienes, escaped or retired to the court of Leo
      the First: his bounty seated them in a safe and hospitable exile,
      in the province of Macedonia: Adrianople was their final
      settlement. During several generations they maintained the
      dignity of their birth; and their Roman patriotism rejected the
      tempting offers of the Persian and Arabian powers, who recalled
      them to their native country. But their splendor was insensibly
      clouded by time and poverty; and the father of Basil was reduced
      to a small farm, which he cultivated with his own hands: yet he
      scorned to disgrace the blood of the Arsacides by a plebeian
      alliance: his wife, a widow of Adrianople, was pleased to count
      among her ancestors the great Constantine; and their royal infant
      was connected by some dark affinity of lineage or country with
      the Macedonian Alexander. No sooner was he born, than the cradle
      of Basil, his family, and his city, were swept away by an
      inundation of the Bulgarians: he was educated a slave in a
      foreign land; and in this severe discipline, he acquired the
      hardiness of body and flexibility of mind which promoted his
      future elevation. In the age of youth or manhood he shared the
      deliverance of the Roman captives, who generously broke their
      fetters, marched through Bulgaria to the shores of the Euxine,
      defeated two armies of Barbarians, embarked in the ships which
      had been stationed for their reception, and returned to
      Constantinople, from whence they were distributed to their
      respective homes. But the freedom of Basil was naked and
      destitute: his farm was ruined by the calamities of war: after
      his father’s death, his manual labor, or service, could no longer
      support a family of orphans and he resolved to seek a more
      conspicuous theatre, in which every virtue and every vice may
      lead to the paths of greatness. The first night of his arrival at
      Constantinople, without friends or money, the weary pilgrim slept
      on the steps of the church of St. Diomede: he was fed by the
      casual hospitality of a monk; and was introduced to the service
      of a cousin and namesake of the emperor Theophilus; who, though
      himself of a diminutive person, was always followed by a train of
      tall and handsome domestics. Basil attended his patron to the
      government of Peloponnesus; eclipsed, by his personal merit the
      birth and dignity of Theophilus, and formed a useful connection
      with a wealthy and charitable matron of Patras. Her spiritual or
      carnal love embraced the young adventurer, whom she adopted as
      her son. Danielis presented him with thirty slaves; and the
      produce of her bounty was expended in the support of his
      brothers, and the purchase of some large estates in Macedonia.
      His gratitude or ambition still attached him to the service of
      Theophilus; and a lucky accident recommended him to the notice of
      the court. A famous wrestler, in the train of the Bulgarian
      ambassadors, had defied, at the royal banquet, the boldest and
      most robust of the Greeks. The strength of Basil was praised; he
      accepted the challenge; and the Barbarian champion was overthrown
      at the first onset. A beautiful but vicious horse was condemned
      to be hamstrung: it was subdued by the dexterity and courage of
      the servant of Theophilus; and his conqueror was promoted to an
      honorable rank in the Imperial stables. But it was impossible to
      obtain the confidence of Michael, without complying with his
      vices; and his new favorite, the great chamberlain of the palace,
      was raised and supported by a disgraceful marriage with a royal
      concubine, and the dishonor of his sister, who succeeded to her
      place. The public administration had been abandoned to the Caesar
      Bardas, the brother and enemy of Theodora; but the arts of female
      influence persuaded Michael to hate and to fear his uncle: he was
      drawn from Constantinople, under the pretence of a Cretan
      expedition, and stabbed in the tent of audience, by the sword of
      the chamberlain, and in the presence of the emperor. About a
      month after this execution, Basil was invested with the title of
      Augustus and the government of the empire. He supported this
      unequal association till his influence was fortified by popular
      esteem. His life was endangered by the caprice of the emperor;
      and his dignity was profaned by a second colleague, who had rowed
      in the galleys. Yet the murder of his benefactor must be
      condemned as an act of ingratitude and treason; and the churches
      which he dedicated to the name of St. Michael were a poor and
      puerile expiation of his guilt. The different ages of Basil the
      First may be compared with those of Augustus. The situation of
      the Greek did not allow him in his earliest youth to lead an army
      against his country; or to proscribe the nobles of her sons; but
      his aspiring genius stooped to the arts of a slave; he dissembled
      his ambition and even his virtues, and grasped, with the bloody
      hand of an assassin, the empire which he ruled with the wisdom
      and tenderness of a parent.

      A private citizen may feel his interest repugnant to his duty;
      but it must be from a deficiency of sense or courage, that an
      absolute monarch can separate his happiness from his glory, or
      his glory from the public welfare. The life or panegyric of Basil
      has indeed been composed and published under the long reign of
      his descendants; but even their stability on the throne may be
      justly ascribed to the superior merit of their ancestor. In his
      character, his grandson Constantine has attempted to delineate a
      perfect image of royalty: but that feeble prince, unless he had
      copied a real model, could not easily have soared so high above
      the level of his own conduct or conceptions. But the most solid
      praise of Basil is drawn from the comparison of a ruined and a
      flourishing monarchy, that which he wrested from the dissolute
      Michael, and that which he bequeathed to the Mecedonian dynasty.
      The evils which had been sanctified by time and example, were
      corrected by his master-hand; and he revived, if not the national
      spirit, at least the order and majesty of the Roman empire. His
      application was indefatigable, his temper cool, his understanding
      vigorous and decisive; and in his practice he observed that rare
      and salutary moderation, which pursues each virtue, at an equal
      distance between the opposite vices. His military service had
      been confined to the palace: nor was the emperor endowed with the
      spirit or the talents of a warrior. Yet under his reign the Roman
      arms were again formidable to the Barbarians. As soon as he had
      formed a new army by discipline and exercise, he appeared in
      person on the banks of the Euphrates, curbed the pride of the
      Saracens, and suppressed the dangerous though just revolt of the
      Manichaeans. His indignation against a rebel who had long eluded
      his pursuit, provoked him to wish and to pray, that, by the grace
      of God, he might drive three arrows into the head of Chrysochir.
      That odious head, which had been obtained by treason rather than
      by valor, was suspended from a tree, and thrice exposed to the
      dexterity of the Imperial archer; a base revenge against the
      dead, more worthy of the times than of the character of Basil.
      But his principal merit was in the civil administration of the
      finances and of the laws. To replenish an exhausted treasury, it
      was proposed to resume the lavish and ill-placed gifts of his
      predecessor: his prudence abated one moiety of the restitution;
      and a sum of twelve hundred thousand pounds was instantly
      procured to answer the most pressing demands, and to allow some
      space for the mature operations of economy. Among the various
      schemes for the improvement of the revenue, a new mode was
      suggested of capitation, or tribute, which would have too much
      depended on the arbitrary discretion of the assessors. A
      sufficient list of honest and able agents was instantly produced
      by the minister; but on the more careful scrutiny of Basil
      himself, only two could be found, who might be safely intrusted
      with such dangerous powers; but they justified his esteem by
      declining his confidence. But the serious and successful
      diligence of the emperor established by degrees the equitable
      balance of property and payment, of receipt and expenditure; a
      peculiar fund was appropriated to each service; and a public
      method secured the interest of the prince and the property of the
      people. After reforming the luxury, he assigned two patrimonial
      estates to supply the decent plenty, of the Imperial table: the
      contributions of the subject were reserved for his defence; and
      the residue was employed in the embellishment of the capital and
      provinces. A taste for building, however costly, may deserve some
      praise and much excuse: from thence industry is fed, art is
      encouraged, and some object is attained of public emolument or
      pleasure: the use of a road, an aqueduct, or a hospital, is
      obvious and solid; and the hundred churches that arose by the
      command of Basil were consecrated to the devotion of the age. In
      the character of a judge he was assiduous and impartial; desirous
      to save, but not afraid to strike: the oppressors of the people
      were severely chastised; but his personal foes, whom it might be
      unsafe to pardon, were condemned, after the loss of their eyes,
      to a life of solitude and repentance. The change of language and
      manners demanded a revision of the obsolete jurisprudence of
      Justinian: the voluminous body of his Institutes, Pandects, Code,
      and Novels, was digested under forty titles, in the Greek idiom;
      and the Basilics, which were improved and completed by his son
      and grandson, must be referred to the original genius of the
      founder of their race. This glorious reign was terminated by an
      accident in the chase. A furious stag entangled his horns in the
      belt of Basil, and raised him from his horse: he was rescued by
      an attendant, who cut the belt and slew the animal; but the fall,
      or the fever, exhausted the strength of the aged monarch, and he
      expired in the palace amidst the tears of his family and people.
      If he struck off the head of the faithful servant for presuming
      to draw his sword against his sovereign, the pride of despotism,
      which had lain dormant in his life, revived in the last moments
      of despair, when he no longer wanted or valued the opinion of
      mankind.

      Of the four sons of the emperor, Constantine died before his
      father, whose grief and credulity were amused by a flattering
      impostor and a vain apparition. Stephen, the youngest, was
      content with the honors of a patriarch and a saint; both Leo and
      Alexander were alike invested with the purple, but the powers of
      government were solely exercised by the elder brother. The name
      of Leo the Sixth has been dignified with the title of
      philosopher; and the union of the prince and the sage, of the
      active and speculative virtues, would indeed constitute the
      perfection of human nature. But the claims of Leo are far short
      of this ideal excellence. Did he reduce his passions and
      appetites under the dominion of reason? His life was spent in the
      pomp of the palace, in the society of his wives and concubines;
      and even the clemency which he showed, and the peace which he
      strove to preserve, must be imputed to the softness and indolence
      of his character. Did he subdue his prejudices, and those of his
      subjects? His mind was tinged with the most puerile superstition;
      the influence of the clergy, and the errors of the people, were
      consecrated by his laws; and the oracles of Leo, which reveal, in
      prophetic style, the fates of the empire, are founded on the arts
      of astrology and divination. If we still inquire the reason of
      his sage appellation, it can only be replied, that the son of
      Basil was less ignorant than the greater part of his
      contemporaries in church and state; that his education had been
      directed by the learned Photius; and that several books of
      profane and ecclesiastical science were composed by the pen, or
      in the name, of the Imperial philosopher. But the reputation of
      his philosophy and religion was overthrown by a domestic vice,
      the repetition of his nuptials. The primitive ideas of the merit
      and holiness of celibacy were preached by the monks and
      entertained by the Greeks. Marriage was allowed as a necessary
      means for the propagation of mankind; after the death of either
      party, the survivor might satisfy, by a second union, the
      weakness or the strength of the flesh: but a third marriage was
      censured as a state of legal fornication; and a fourth was a sin
      or scandal as yet unknown to the Christians of the East. In the
      beginning of his reign, Leo himself had abolished the state of
      concubines, and condemned, without annulling, third marriages:
      but his patriotism and love soon compelled him to violate his own
      laws, and to incur the penance, which in a similar case he had
      imposed on his subjects. In his three first alliances, his
      nuptial bed was unfruitful; the emperor required a female
      companion, and the empire a legitimate heir. The beautiful Zoe
      was introduced into the palace as a concubine; and after a trial
      of her fecundity, and the birth of Constantine, her lover
      declared his intention of legitimating the mother and the child,
      by the celebration of his fourth nuptials. But the patriarch
      Nicholas refused his blessing: the Imperial baptism of the young
      prince was obtained by a promise of separation; and the
      contumacious husband of Zoe was excluded from the communion of
      the faithful. Neither the fear of exile, nor the desertion of his
      brethren, nor the authority of the Latin church, nor the danger
      of failure or doubt in the succession to the empire, could bend
      the spirit of the inflexible monk. After the death of Leo, he was
      recalled from exile to the civil and ecclesiastical
      administration; and the edict of union which was promulgated in
      the name of Constantine, condemned the future scandal of fourth
      marriages, and left a tacit imputation on his own birth. In the
      Greek language, purple and porphyry are the same word: and as the
      colors of nature are invariable, we may learn, that a dark deep
      red was the Tyrian dye which stained the purple of the ancients.
      An apartment of the Byzantine palace was lined with porphyry: it
      was reserved for the use of the pregnant empresses; and the royal
      birth of their children was expressed by the appellation of
      porphyrogenite, or born in the purple. Several of the Roman
      princes had been blessed with an heir; but this peculiar surname
      was first applied to Constantine the Seventh. His life and
      titular reign were of equal duration; but of fifty-four years,
      six had elapsed before his father’s death; and the son of Leo was
      ever the voluntary or reluctant subject of those who oppressed
      his weakness or abused his confidence. His uncle Alexander, who
      had long been invested with the title of Augustus, was the first
      colleague and governor of the young prince: but in a rapid career
      of vice and folly, the brother of Leo already emulated the
      reputation of Michael; and when he was extinguished by a timely
      death, he entertained a project of castrating his nephew, and
      leaving the empire to a worthless favorite. The succeeding years
      of the minority of Constantine were occupied by his mother Zoe,
      and a succession or council of seven regents, who pursued their
      interest, gratified their passions, abandoned the republic,
      supplanted each other, and finally vanished in the presence of a
      soldier. From an obscure origin, Romanus Lecapenus had raised
      himself to the command of the naval armies; and in the anarchy of
      the times, had deserved, or at least had obtained, the national
      esteem. With a victorious and affectionate fleet, he sailed from
      the mouth of the Danube into the harbor of Constantinople, and
      was hailed as the deliverer of the people, and the guardian of
      the prince. His supreme office was at first defined by the new
      appellation of father of the emperor; but Romanus soon disdained
      the subordinate powers of a minister, and assumed with the titles
      of Caesar and Augustus, the full independence of royalty, which
      he held near five-and-twenty years. His three sons, Christopher,
      Stephen, and Constantine were successively adorned with the same
      honors, and the lawful emperor was degraded from the first to the
      fifth rank in this college of princes. Yet, in the preservation
      of his life and crown, he might still applaud his own fortune and
      the clemency of the usurper. The examples of ancient and modern
      history would have excused the ambition of Romanus: the powers
      and the laws of the empire were in his hand; the spurious birth
      of Constantine would have justified his exclusion; and the grave
      or the monastery was open to receive the son of the concubine.
      But Lecapenus does not appear to have possessed either the
      virtues or the vices of a tyrant. The spirit and activity of his
      private life dissolved away in the sunshine of the throne; and in
      his licentious pleasures, he forgot the safety both of the
      republic and of his family. Of a mild and religious character, he
      respected the sanctity of oaths, the innocence of the youth, the
      memory of his parents, and the attachment of the people. The
      studious temper and retirement of Constantine disarmed the
      jealousy of power: his books and music, his pen and his pencil,
      were a constant source of amusement; and if he could improve a
      scanty allowance by the sale of his pictures, if their price was
      not enhanced by the name of the artist, he was endowed with a
      personal talent, which few princes could employ in the hour of
      adversity.

      The fall of Romanus was occasioned by his own vices and those of
      his children. After the decease of Christopher, his eldest son,
      the two surviving brothers quarrelled with each other, and
      conspired against their father. At the hour of noon, when all
      strangers were regularly excluded from the palace, they entered
      his apartment with an armed force, and conveyed him, in the habit
      of a monk, to a small island in the Propontis, which was peopled
      by a religious community. The rumor of this domestic revolution
      excited a tumult in the city; but Porphyrogenitus alone, the true
      and lawful emperor, was the object of the public care; and the
      sons of Lecapenus were taught, by tardy experience, that they had
      achieved a guilty and perilous enterprise for the benefit of
      their rival. Their sister Helena, the wife of Constantine,
      revealed, or supposed, their treacherous design of assassinating
      her husband at the royal banquet. His loyal adherents were
      alarmed, and the two usurpers were prevented, seized, degraded
      from the purple, and embarked for the same island and monastery
      where their father had been so lately confined. Old Romanus met
      them on the beach with a sarcastic smile, and, after a just
      reproach of their folly and ingratitude, presented his Imperial
      colleagues with an equal share of his water and vegetable diet.
      In the fortieth year of his reign, Constantine the Seventh
      obtained the possession of the Eastern world, which he ruled or
      seemed to rule, near fifteen years. But he was devoid of that
      energy of character which could emerge into a life of action and
      glory; and the studies, which had amused and dignified his
      leisure, were incompatible with the serious duties of a
      sovereign. The emperor neglected the practice to instruct his son
      Romanus in the theory of government; while he indulged the habits
      of intemperance and sloth, he dropped the reins of the
      administration into the hands of Helena his wife; and, in the
      shifting scene of her favor and caprice, each minister was
      regretted in the promotion of a more worthless successor. Yet the
      birth and misfortunes of Constantine had endeared him to the
      Greeks; they excused his failings; they respected his learning,
      his innocence, and charity, his love of justice; and the ceremony
      of his funeral was mourned with the unfeigned tears of his
      subjects. The body, according to ancient custom, lay in state in
      the vestibule of the palace; and the civil and military officers,
      the patricians, the senate, and the clergy approached in due
      order to adore and kiss the inanimate corpse of their sovereign.
      Before the procession moved towards the Imperial sepulchre, a
      herald proclaimed this awful admonition: “Arise, O king of the
      world, and obey the summons of the King of kings!”

      The death of Constantine was imputed to poison; and his son
      Romanus, who derived that name from his maternal grandfather,
      ascended the throne of Constantinople. A prince who, at the age
      of twenty, could be suspected of anticipating his inheritance,
      must have been already lost in the public esteem; yet Romanus was
      rather weak than wicked; and the largest share of the guilt was
      transferred to his wife, Theophano, a woman of base origin
      masculine spirit, and flagitious manners. The sense of personal
      glory and public happiness, the true pleasures of royalty, were
      unknown to the son of Constantine; and, while the two brothers,
      Nicephorus and Leo, triumphed over the Saracens, the hours which
      the emperor owed to his people were consumed in strenuous
      idleness. In the morning he visited the circus; at noon he
      feasted the senators; the greater part of the afternoon he spent
      in the sphoeristerium, or tennis-court, the only theatre of his
      victories; from thence he passed over to the Asiatic side of the
      Bosphorus, hunted and killed four wild boars of the largest size,
      and returned to the palace, proudly content with the labors of
      the day. In strength and beauty he was conspicuous above his
      equals: tall and straight as a young cypress, his complexion was
      fair and florid, his eyes sparkling, his shoulders broad, his
      nose long and aquiline. Yet even these perfections were
      insufficient to fix the love of Theophano; and, after a reign of
      four 1013 years, she mingled for her husband the same deadly
      draught which she had composed for his father.

      1013 (return) [ Three years and five months. Leo Diaconus in
      Niebuhr. Byz p. 50—M.]

      By his marriage with this impious woman, Romanus the younger left
      two sons, Basil the Second and Constantine the Ninth, and two
      daughters, Theophano and Anne. The eldest sister was given to
      Otho the Second, emperor of the West; the younger became the wife
      of Wolodomir, great duke and apostle of russia, and by the
      marriage of her granddaughter with Henry the First, king of
      France, the blood of the Macedonians, and perhaps of the
      Arsacides, still flows in the veins of the Bourbon line. After
      the death of her husband, the empress aspired to reign in the
      name of her sons, the elder of whom was five, and the younger
      only two, years of age; but she soon felt the instability of a
      throne which was supported by a female who could not be esteemed,
      and two infants who could not be feared. Theophano looked around
      for a protector, and threw herself into the arms of the bravest
      soldier; her heart was capacious; but the deformity of the new
      favorite rendered it more than probable that interest was the
      motive and excuse of her love. Nicephorus Phocus united, in the
      popular opinion, the double merit of a hero and a saint. In the
      former character, his qualifications were genuine and splendid:
      the descendant of a race illustrious by their military exploits,
      he had displayed in every station and in every province the
      courage of a soldier and the conduct of a chief; and Nicephorus
      was crowned with recent laurels, from the important conquest of
      the Isle of Crete. His religion was of a more ambiguous cast; and
      his hair-cloth, his fasts, his pious idiom, and his wish to
      retire from the business of the world, were a convenient mask for
      his dark and dangerous ambition. Yet he imposed on a holy
      patriarch, by whose influence, and by a decree of the senate, he
      was intrusted, during the minority of the young princes, with the
      absolute and independent command of the Oriental armies. As soon
      as he had secured the leaders and the troops, he boldly marched
      to Constantinople, trampled on his enemies, avowed his
      correspondence with the empress, and without degrading her sons,
      assumed, with the title of Augustus, the preeminence of rank and
      the plenitude of power. But his marriage with Theophano was
      refused by the same patriarch who had placed the crown on his
      head: by his second nuptials he incurred a year of canonical
      penance; 1014 a bar of spiritual affinity was opposed to their
      celebration; and some evasion and perjury were required to
      silence the scruples of the clergy and people. The popularity of
      the emperor was lost in the purple: in a reign of six years he
      provoked the hatred of strangers and subjects: and the hypocrisy
      and avarice of the first Nicephorus were revived in his
      successor. Hypocrisy I shall never justify or palliate; but I
      will dare to observe, that the odious vice of avarice is of all
      others most hastily arraigned, and most unmercifully condemned.
      In a private citizen, our judgment seldom expects an accurate
      scrutiny into his fortune and expense; and in a steward of the
      public treasure, frugality is always a virtue, and the increase
      of taxes too often an indispensable duty. In the use of his
      patrimony, the generous temper of Nicephorus had been proved; and
      the revenue was strictly applied to the service of the state:
      each spring the emperor marched in person against the Saracens;
      and every Roman might compute the employment of his taxes in
      triumphs, conquests, and the security of the Eastern barrier.
      1015

      1014 (return) [ The canonical objection to the marriage was his
      relation of Godfather sons. Leo Diac. p. 50.—M.]

      1015 (return) [ He retook Antioch, and brought home as a trophy
      the sword of “the most unholy and impious Mahomet.” Leo Diac. p.
      76.—M.]




      Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek
      Emperors.—Part IV.

      Among the warriors who promoted his elevation, and served under
      his standard, a noble and valiant Armenian had deserved and
      obtained the most eminent rewards. The stature of John Zimisces
      was below the ordinary standard: but this diminutive body was
      endowed with strength, beauty, and the soul of a hero. By the
      jealousy of the emperor’s brother, he was degraded from the
      office of general of the East, to that of director of the posts,
      and his murmurs were chastised with disgrace and exile. But
      Zimisces was ranked among the numerous lovers of the empress: on
      her intercession, he was permitted to reside at Chalcedon, in the
      neighborhood of the capital: her bounty was repaid in his
      clandestine and amorous visits to the palace; and Theophano
      consented, with alacrity, to the death of an ugly and penurious
      husband. Some bold and trusty conspirators were concealed in her
      most private chambers: in the darkness of a winter night,
      Zimisces, with his principal companions, embarked in a small
      boat, traversed the Bosphorus, landed at the palace stairs, and
      silently ascended a ladder of ropes, which was cast down by the
      female attendants. Neither his own suspicions, nor the warnings
      of his friends, nor the tardy aid of his brother Leo, nor the
      fortress which he had erected in the palace, could protect
      Nicephorus from a domestic foe, at whose voice every door was
      open to the assassins. As he slept on a bear-skin on the ground,
      he was roused by their noisy intrusion, and thirty daggers
      glittered before his eyes. It is doubtful whether Zimisces
      imbrued his hands in the blood of his sovereign; but he enjoyed
      the inhuman spectacle of revenge. 1016 The murder was protracted
      by insult and cruelty: and as soon as the head of Nicephorus was
      shown from the window, the tumult was hushed, and the Armenian
      was emperor of the East. On the day of his coronation, he was
      stopped on the threshold of St. Sophia, by the intrepid
      patriarch; who charged his conscience with the deed of treason
      and blood; and required, as a sign of repentance, that he should
      separate himself from his more criminal associate. This sally of
      apostolic zeal was not offensive to the prince, since he could
      neither love nor trust a woman who had repeatedly violated the
      most sacred obligations; and Theophano, instead of sharing his
      imperial fortune, was dismissed with ignominy from his bed and
      palace. In their last interview, she displayed a frantic and
      impotent rage; accused the ingratitude of her lover; assaulted,
      with words and blows, her son Basil, as he stood silent and
      submissive in the presence of a superior colleague; and avowed
      her own prostitution in proclaiming the illegitimacy of his
      birth. The public indignation was appeased by her exile, and the
      punishment of the meaner accomplices: the death of an unpopular
      prince was forgiven; and the guilt of Zimisces was forgotten in
      the splendor of his virtues. Perhaps his profusion was less
      useful to the state than the avarice of Nicephorus; but his
      gentle and generous behavior delighted all who approached his
      person; and it was only in the paths of victory that he trod in
      the footsteps of his predecessor. The greatest part of his reign
      was employed in the camp and the field: his personal valor and
      activity were signalized on the Danube and the Tigris, the
      ancient boundaries of the Roman world; and by his double triumph
      over the Russians and the Saracens, he deserved the titles of
      savior of the empire, and conqueror of the East. In his last
      return from Syria, he observed that the most fruitful lands of
      his new provinces were possessed by the eunuchs. “And is it for
      them,” he exclaimed, with honest indignation, “that we have
      fought and conquered? Is it for them that we shed our blood, and
      exhaust the treasures of our people?” The complaint was reechoed
      to the palace, and the death of Zimisces is strongly marked with
      the suspicion of poison.

      1016 (return) [ According to Leo Diaconus, Zimisces, after
      ordering the wounded emperor to be dragged to his feet, and
      heaping him with insult, to which the miserable man only replied
      by invoking the name of the “mother of God,” with his own hand
      plucked his beard, while his accomplices beat out his teeth with
      the hilts of their swords, and then trampling him to the ground,
      drove his sword into his skull. Leo Diac, in Niebuhr Byz. Hist. l
      vii. c. 8. p. 88.—M.]

      Under this usurpation, or regency, of twelve years, the two
      lawful emperors, Basil and Constantine, had silently grown to the
      age of manhood. Their tender years had been incapable of
      dominion: the respectful modesty of their attendance and
      salutation was due to the age and merit of their guardians; the
      childless ambition of those guardians had no temptation to
      violate their right of succession: their patrimony was ably and
      faithfully administered; and the premature death of Zimisces was
      a loss, rather than a benefit, to the sons of Romanus. Their want
      of experience detained them twelve years longer the obscure and
      voluntary pupils of a minister, who extended his reign by
      persuading them to indulge the pleasures of youth, and to disdain
      the labors of government. In this silken web, the weakness of
      Constantine was forever entangled; but his elder brother felt the
      impulse of genius and the desire of action; he frowned, and the
      minister was no more. Basil was the acknowledged sovereign of
      Constantinople and the provinces of Europe; but Asia was
      oppressed by two veteran generals, Phocas and Sclerus, who,
      alternately friends and enemies, subjects and rebels, maintained
      their independence, and labored to emulate the example of
      successful usurpation. Against these domestic enemies the son of
      Romanus first drew his sword, and they trembled in the presence
      of a lawful and high-spirited prince. The first, in the front of
      battle, was thrown from his horse, by the stroke of poison, or an
      arrow; the second, who had been twice loaded with chains, 1017
      and twice invested with the purple, was desirous of ending in
      peace the small remainder of his days. As the aged suppliant
      approached the throne, with dim eyes and faltering steps, leaning
      on his two attendants, the emperor exclaimed, in the insolence of
      youth and power, “And is this the man who has so long been the
      object of our terror?” After he had confirmed his own authority,
      and the peace of the empire, the trophies of Nicephorus and
      Zimisces would not suffer their royal pupil to sleep in the
      palace. His long and frequent expeditions against the Saracens
      were rather glorious than useful to the empire; but the final
      destruction of the kingdom of Bulgaria appears, since the time of
      Belisarius, the most important triumph of the Roman arms. Yet,
      instead of applauding their victorious prince, his subjects
      detested the rapacious and rigid avarice of Basil; and in the
      imperfect narrative of his exploits, we can only discern the
      courage, patience, and ferociousness of a soldier. A vicious
      education, which could not subdue his spirit, had clouded his
      mind; he was ignorant of every science; and the remembrance of
      his learned and feeble grandsire might encourage his real or
      affected contempt of laws and lawyers, of artists and arts. Of
      such a character, in such an age, superstition took a firm and
      lasting possession; after the first license of his youth, Basil
      the Second devoted his life, in the palace and the camp, to the
      penance of a hermit, wore the monastic habit under his robes and
      armor, observed a vow of continence, and imposed on his appetites
      a perpetual abstinence from wine and flesh. In the sixty-eighth
      year of his age, his martial spirit urged him to embark in person
      for a holy war against the Saracens of Sicily; he was prevented
      by death, and Basil, surnamed the Slayer of the Bulgarians, was
      dismissed from the world with the blessings of the clergy and the
      curse of the people. After his decease, his brother Constantine
      enjoyed, about three years, the power, or rather the pleasures,
      of royalty; and his only care was the settlement of the
      succession. He had enjoyed sixty-six years the title of Augustus;
      and the reign of the two brothers is the longest, and most
      obscure, of the Byzantine history.

      1017 (return) [ Once by the caliph, once by his rival Phocas.
      Compare De Beau l. p. 176.—M.]

      A lineal succession of five emperors, in a period of one hundred
      and sixty years, had attached the loyalty of the Greeks to the
      Macedonian dynasty, which had been thrice respected by the
      usurpers of their power. After the death of Constantine the
      Ninth, the last male of the royal race, a new and broken scene
      presents itself, and the accumulated years of twelve emperors do
      not equal the space of his single reign. His elder brother had
      preferred his private chastity to the public interest, and
      Constantine himself had only three daughters; Eudocia, who took
      the veil, and Zoe and Theodora, who were preserved till a mature
      age in a state of ignorance and virginity. When their marriage
      was discussed in the council of their dying father, the cold or
      pious Theodora refused to give an heir to the empire, but her
      sister Zoe presented herself a willing victim at the altar.
      Romanus Argyrus, a patrician of a graceful person and fair
      reputation, was chosen for her husband, and, on his declining
      that honor, was informed, that blindness or death was the second
      alternative. The motive of his reluctance was conjugal affection
      but his faithful wife sacrificed her own happiness to his safety
      and greatness; and her entrance into a monastery removed the only
      bar to the Imperial nuptials. After the decease of Constantine,
      the sceptre devolved to Romanus the Third; but his labors at home
      and abroad were equally feeble and fruitless; and the mature age,
      the forty-eight years of Zoe, were less favorable to the hopes of
      pregnancy than to the indulgence of pleasure. Her favorite
      chamberlain was a handsome Paphlagonian of the name of Michael,
      whose first trade had been that of a money-changer; and Romanus,
      either from gratitude or equity, connived at their criminal
      intercourse, or accepted a slight assurance of their innocence.
      But Zoe soon justified the Roman maxim, that every adulteress is
      capable of poisoning her husband; and the death of Romanus was
      instantly followed by the scandalous marriage and elevation of
      Michael the Fourth. The expectations of Zoe were, however,
      disappointed: instead of a vigorous and grateful lover, she had
      placed in her bed a miserable wretch, whose health and reason
      were impaired by epileptic fits, and whose conscience was
      tormented by despair and remorse. The most skilful physicians of
      the mind and body were summoned to his aid; and his hopes were
      amused by frequent pilgrimages to the baths, and to the tombs of
      the most popular saints; the monks applauded his penance, and,
      except restitution, (but to whom should he have restored?)
      Michael sought every method of expiating his guilt. While he
      groaned and prayed in sackcloth and ashes, his brother, the
      eunuch John, smiled at his remorse, and enjoyed the harvest of a
      crime of which himself was the secret and most guilty author. His
      administration was only the art of satiating his avarice, and Zoe
      became a captive in the palace of her fathers, and in the hands
      of her slaves. When he perceived the irretrievable decline of his
      brother’s health, he introduced his nephew, another Michael, who
      derived his surname of Calaphates from his father’s occupation in
      the careening of vessels: at the command of the eunuch, Zoe
      adopted for her son the son of a mechanic; and this fictitious
      heir was invested with the title and purple of the Caesars, in
      the presence of the senate and clergy. So feeble was the
      character of Zoe, that she was oppressed by the liberty and power
      which she recovered by the death of the Paphlagonian; and at the
      end of four days, she placed the crown on the head of Michael the
      Fifth, who had protested, with tears and oaths, that he should
      ever reign the first and most obedient of her subjects.

      The only act of his short reign was his base ingratitude to his
      benefactors, the eunuch and the empress. The disgrace of the
      former was pleasing to the public: but the murmurs, and at length
      the clamors, of Constantinople deplored the exile of Zoe, the
      daughter of so many emperors; her vices were forgotten, and
      Michael was taught, that there is a period in which the patience
      of the tamest slaves rises into fury and revenge. The citizens of
      every degree assembled in a formidable tumult which lasted three
      days; they besieged the palace, forced the gates, recalled their
      mothers, Zoe from her prison, Theodora from her monastery, and
      condemned the son of Calaphates to the loss of his eyes or of his
      life. For the first time the Greeks beheld with surprise the two
      royal sisters seated on the same throne, presiding in the senate,
      and giving audience to the ambassadors of the nations. But the
      singular union subsisted no more than two months; the two
      sovereigns, their tempers, interests, and adherents, were
      secretly hostile to each other; and as Theodora was still averse
      to marriage, the indefatigable Zoe, at the age of sixty,
      consented, for the public good, to sustain the embraces of a
      third husband, and the censures of the Greek church. His name and
      number were Constantine the Tenth, and the epithet of Monomachus,
      the single combatant, must have been expressive of his valor and
      victory in some public or private quarrel. But his health was
      broken by the tortures of the gout, and his dissolute reign was
      spent in the alternative of sickness and pleasure. A fair and
      noble widow had accompanied Constantine in his exile to the Isle
      of Lesbos, and Sclerena gloried in the appellation of his
      mistress. After his marriage and elevation, she was invested with
      the title and pomp of Augusta, and occupied a contiguous
      apartment in the palace. The lawful consort (such was the
      delicacy or corruption of Zoe) consented to this strange and
      scandalous partition; and the emperor appeared in public between
      his wife and his concubine. He survived them both; but the last
      measures of Constantine to change the order of succession were
      prevented by the more vigilant friends of Theodora; and after his
      decease, she resumed, with the general consent, the possession of
      her inheritance. In her name, and by the influence of four
      eunuchs, the Eastern world was peaceably governed about nineteen
      months; and as they wished to prolong their dominion, they
      persuaded the aged princess to nominate for her successor Michael
      the Sixth. The surname of Stratioticus declares his military
      profession; but the crazy and decrepit veteran could only see
      with the eyes, and execute with the hands, of his ministers.
      Whilst he ascended the throne, Theodora sunk into the grave; the
      last of the Macedonian or Basilian dynasty. I have hastily
      reviewed, and gladly dismiss, this shameful and destructive
      period of twenty-eight years, in which the Greeks, degraded below
      the common level of servitude, were transferred like a herd of
      cattle by the choice or caprice of two impotent females.

      From this night of slavery, a ray of freedom, or at least of
      spirit, begins to emerge: the Greeks either preserved or revived
      the use of surnames, which perpetuate the fame of hereditary
      virtue: and we now discern the rise, succession, and alliances of
      the last dynasties of Constantinople and Trebizond. The Comneni,
      who upheld for a while the fate of the sinking empire, assumed
      the honor of a Roman origin: but the family had been long since
      transported from Italy to Asia. Their patrimonial estate was
      situate in the district of Castamona, in the neighborhood of the
      Euxine; and one of their chiefs, who had already entered the
      paths of ambition, revisited with affection, perhaps with regret,
      the modest though honorable dwelling of his fathers. The first of
      their line was the illustrious Manuel, who in the reign of the
      second Basil, contributed by war and treaty to appease the
      troubles of the East: he left, in a tender age, two sons, Isaac
      and John, whom, with the consciousness of desert, he bequeathed
      to the gratitude and favor of his sovereign. The noble youths
      were carefully trained in the learning of the monastery, the arts
      of the palace, and the exercises of the camp: and from the
      domestic service of the guards, they were rapidly promoted to the
      command of provinces and armies. Their fraternal union doubled
      the force and reputation of the Comneni, and their ancient
      nobility was illustrated by the marriage of the two brothers,
      with a captive princess of Bulgaria, and the daughter of a
      patrician, who had obtained the name of Charon from the number of
      enemies whom he had sent to the infernal shades. The soldiers had
      served with reluctant loyalty a series of effeminate masters; the
      elevation of Michael the Sixth was a personal insult to the more
      deserving generals; and their discontent was inflamed by the
      parsimony of the emperor and the insolence of the eunuchs. They
      secretly assembled in the sanctuary of St. Sophia, and the votes
      of the military synod would have been unanimous in favor of the
      old and valiant Catacalon, if the patriotism or modesty of the
      veteran had not suggested the importance of birth as well as
      merit in the choice of a sovereign. Isaac Comnenus was approved
      by general consent, and the associates separated without delay to
      meet in the plains of Phrygia at the head of their respective
      squadrons and detachments. The cause of Michael was defended in a
      single battle by the mercenaries of the Imperial guard, who were
      aliens to the public interest, and animated only by a principle
      of honor and gratitude. After their defeat, the fears of the
      emperor solicited a treaty, which was almost accepted by the
      moderation of the Comnenian. But the former was betrayed by his
      ambassadors, and the latter was prevented by his friends. The
      solitary Michael submitted to the voice of the people; the
      patriarch annulled their oath of allegiance; and as he shaved the
      head of the royal monk, congratulated his beneficial exchange of
      temporal royalty for the kingdom of heaven; an exchange, however,
      which the priest, on his own account, would probably have
      declined. By the hands of the same patriarch, Isaac Comnenus was
      solemnly crowned; the sword which he inscribed on his coins might
      be an offensive symbol, if it implied his title by conquest; but
      this sword would have been drawn against the foreign and domestic
      enemies of the state. The decline of his health and vigor
      suspended the operation of active virtue; and the prospect of
      approaching death determined him to interpose some moments
      between life and eternity. But instead of leaving the empire as
      the marriage portion of his daughter, his reason and inclination
      concurred in the preference of his brother John, a soldier, a
      patriot, and the father of five sons, the future pillars of an
      hereditary succession. His first modest reluctance might be the
      natural dictates of discretion and tenderness, but his obstinate
      and successful perseverance, however it may dazzle with the show
      of virtue, must be censured as a criminal desertion of his duty,
      and a rare offence against his family and country. The purple
      which he had refused was accepted by Constantine Ducas, a friend
      of the Comnenian house, and whose noble birth was adorned with
      the experience and reputation of civil policy. In the monastic
      habit, Isaac recovered his health, and survived two years his
      voluntary abdication. At the command of his abbot, he observed
      the rule of St. Basil, and executed the most servile offices of
      the convent: but his latent vanity was gratified by the frequent
      and respectful visits of the reigning monarch, who revered in his
      person the character of a benefactor and a saint. If Constantine
      the Eleventh were indeed the subject most worthy of empire, we
      must pity the debasement of the age and nation in which he was
      chosen. In the labor of puerile declamations he sought, without
      obtaining, the crown of eloquence, more precious, in his opinion,
      than that of Rome; and in the subordinate functions of a judge,
      he forgot the duties of a sovereign and a warrior. Far from
      imitating the patriotic indifference of the authors of his
      greatness, Ducas was anxious only to secure, at the expense of
      the republic, the power and prosperity of his children. His three
      sons, Michael the Seventh, Andronicus the First, and Constantine
      the Twelfth, were invested, in a tender age, with the equal title
      of Augustus; and the succession was speedily opened by their
      father’s death. His widow, Eudocia, was intrusted with the
      administration; but experience had taught the jealousy of the
      dying monarch to protect his sons from the danger of her second
      nuptials; and her solemn engagement, attested by the principal
      senators, was deposited in the hands of the patriarch. Before the
      end of seven months, the wants of Eudocia, or those of the state,
      called aloud for the male virtues of a soldier; and her heart had
      already chosen Romanus Diogenes, whom she raised from the
      scaffold to the throne. The discovery of a treasonable attempt
      had exposed him to the severity of the laws: his beauty and valor
      absolved him in the eyes of the empress; and Romanus, from a mild
      exile, was recalled on the second day to the command of the
      Oriental armies.

      Her royal choice was yet unknown to the public; and the promise
      which would have betrayed her falsehood and levity, was stolen by
      a dexterous emissary from the ambition of the patriarch. Xiphilin
      at first alleged the sanctity of oaths, and the sacred nature of
      a trust; but a whisper, that his brother was the future emperor,
      relaxed his scruples, and forced him to confess that the public
      safety was the supreme law. He resigned the important paper; and
      when his hopes were confounded by the nomination of Romanus, he
      could no longer regain his security, retract his declarations,
      nor oppose the second nuptials of the empress. Yet a murmur was
      heard in the palace; and the Barbarian guards had raised their
      battle-axes in the cause of the house of Lucas, till the young
      princes were soothed by the tears of their mother and the solemn
      assurances of the fidelity of their guardian, who filled the
      Imperial station with dignity and honor. Hereafter I shall relate
      his valiant, but unsuccessful, efforts to resist the progress of
      the Turks. His defeat and captivity inflicted a deadly wound on
      the Byzantine monarchy of the East; and after he was released
      from the chains of the sultan, he vainly sought his wife and his
      subjects. His wife had been thrust into a monastery, and the
      subjects of Romanus had embraced the rigid maxim of the civil
      law, that a prisoner in the hands of the enemy is deprived, as by
      the stroke of death, of all the public and private rights of a
      citizen. In the general consternation, the Caesar John asserted
      the indefeasible right of his three nephews: Constantinople
      listened to his voice: and the Turkish captive was proclaimed in
      the capital, and received on the frontier, as an enemy of the
      republic. Romanus was not more fortunate in domestic than in
      foreign war: the loss of two battles compelled him to yield, on
      the assurance of fair and honorable treatment; but his enemies
      were devoid of faith or humanity; and, after the cruel extinction
      of his sight, his wounds were left to bleed and corrupt, till in
      a few days he was relieved from a state of misery. Under the
      triple reign of the house of Ducas, the two younger brothers were
      reduced to the vain honors of the purple; but the eldest, the
      pusillanimous Michael, was incapable of sustaining the Roman
      sceptre; and his surname of Parapinaces denotes the reproach
      which he shared with an avaricious favorite, who enhanced the
      price, and diminished the measure, of wheat. In the school of
      Psellus, and after the example of his mother, the son of Eudocia
      made some proficiency in philosophy and rhetoric; but his
      character was degraded, rather than ennobled, by the virtues of a
      monk and the learning of a sophist. Strong in the contempt of
      their sovereign and their own esteem, two generals, at the head
      of the European and Asiatic legions, assumed the purple at
      Adrianople and Nice. Their revolt was in the same months; they
      bore the same name of Nicephorus; but the two candidates were
      distinguished by the surnames of Bryennius and Botaniates; the
      former in the maturity of wisdom and courage, the latter
      conspicuous only by the memory of his past exploits. While
      Botaniates advanced with cautious and dilatory steps, his active
      competitor stood in arms before the gates of Constantinople. The
      name of Bryennius was illustrious; his cause was popular; but his
      licentious troops could not be restrained from burning and
      pillaging a suburb; and the people, who would have hailed the
      rebel, rejected and repulsed the incendiary of his country. This
      change of the public opinion was favorable to Botaniates, who at
      length, with an army of Turks, approached the shores of
      Chalcedon. A formal invitation, in the name of the patriarch, the
      synod, and the senate, was circulated through the streets of
      Constantinople; and the general assembly, in the dome of St.
      Sophia, debated, with order and calmness, on the choice of their
      sovereign. The guards of Michael would have dispersed this
      unarmed multitude; but the feeble emperor, applauding his own
      moderation and clemency, resigned the ensigns of royalty, and was
      rewarded with the monastic habit, and the title of Archbishop of
      Ephesus. He left a son, a Constantine, born and educated in the
      purple; and a daughter of the house of Ducas illustrated the
      blood, and confirmed the succession, of the Comnenian dynasty.

      John Comnenus, the brother of the emperor Isaac, survived in
      peace and dignity his generous refusal of the sceptre. By his
      wife Anne, a woman of masculine spirit and a policy, he left
      eight children: the three daughters multiplied the Comnenian
      alliance with the noblest of the Greeks: of the five sons, Manuel
      was stopped by a premature death; Isaac and Alexius restored the
      Imperial greatness of their house, which was enjoyed without toil
      or danger by the two younger brethren, Adrian and Nicephorus.
      Alexius, the third and most illustrious of the brothers was
      endowed by nature with the choicest gifts both of mind and body:
      they were cultivated by a liberal education, and exercised in the
      school of obedience and adversity. The youth was dismissed from
      the perils of the Turkish war, by the paternal care of the
      emperor Romanus: but the mother of the Comneni, with her aspiring
      face, was accused of treason, and banished, by the sons of Ducas,
      to an island in the Propontis. The two brothers soon emerged into
      favor and action, fought by each other’s side against the rebels
      and Barbarians, and adhered to the emperor Michael, till he was
      deserted by the world and by himself. In his first interview with
      Botaniates, “Prince,” said Alexius with a noble frankness, “my
      duty rendered me your enemy; the decrees of God and of the people
      have made me your subject. Judge of my future loyalty by my past
      opposition.” The successor of Michael entertained him with esteem
      and confidence: his valor was employed against three rebels, who
      disturbed the peace of the empire, or at least of the emperors.
      Ursel, Bryennius, and Basilacius, were formidable by their
      numerous forces and military fame: they were successively
      vanquished in the field, and led in chains to the foot of the
      throne; and whatever treatment they might receive from a timid
      and cruel court, they applauded the clemency, as well as the
      courage, of their conqueror. But the loyalty of the Comneni was
      soon tainted by fear and suspicion; nor is it easy to settle
      between a subject and a despot, the debt of gratitude, which the
      former is tempted to claim by a revolt, and the latter to
      discharge by an executioner. The refusal of Alexius to march
      against a fourth rebel, the husband of his sister, destroyed the
      merit or memory of his past services: the favorites of Botaniates
      provoked the ambition which they apprehended and accused; and the
      retreat of the two brothers might be justified by the defence of
      their life and liberty. The women of the family were deposited in
      a sanctuary, respected by tyrants: the men, mounted on horseback,
      sallied from the city, and erected the standard of civil war. The
      soldiers who had been gradually assembled in the capital and the
      neighborhood, were devoted to the cause of a victorious and
      injured leader: the ties of common interest and domestic alliance
      secured the attachment of the house of Ducas; and the generous
      dispute of the Comneni was terminated by the decisive resolution
      of Isaac, who was the first to invest his younger brother with
      the name and ensigns of royalty. They returned to Constantinople,
      to threaten rather than besiege that impregnable fortress; but
      the fidelity of the guards was corrupted; a gate was surprised,
      and the fleet was occupied by the active courage of George
      Palaeologus, who fought against his father, without foreseeing
      that he labored for his posterity. Alexius ascended the throne;
      and his aged competitor disappeared in a monastery. An army of
      various nations was gratified with the pillage of the city; but
      the public disorders were expiated by the tears and fasts of the
      Comneni, who submitted to every penance compatible with the
      possession of the empire. The life of the emperor Alexius has
      been delineated by a favorite daughter, who was inspired by a
      tender regard for his person and a laudable zeal to perpetuate
      his virtues. Conscious of the just suspicions of her readers, the
      princess Anna Comnena repeatedly protests, that, besides her
      personal knowledge, she had searched the discourses and writings
      of the most respectable veterans: and after an interval of thirty
      years, forgotten by, and forgetful of, the world, her mournful
      solitude was inaccessible to hope and fear; and that truth, the
      naked perfect truth, was more dear and sacred than the memory of
      her parent. Yet, instead of the simplicity of style and narrative
      which wins our belief, an elaborate affectation of rhetoric and
      science betrays in every page the vanity of a female author. The
      genuine character of Alexius is lost in a vague constellation of
      virtues; and the perpetual strain of panegyric and apology
      awakens our jealousy, to question the veracity of the historian
      and the merit of the hero. We cannot, however, refuse her
      judicious and important remark, that the disorders of the times
      were the misfortune and the glory of Alexius; and that every
      calamity which can afflict a declining empire was accumulated on
      his reign by the justice of Heaven and the vices of his
      predecessors. In the East, the victorious Turks had spread, from
      Persia to the Hellespont, the reign of the Koran and the
      Crescent: the West was invaded by the adventurous valor of the
      Normans; and, in the moments of peace, the Danube poured forth
      new swarms, who had gained, in the science of war, what they had
      lost in the ferociousness of manners. The sea was not less
      hostile than the land; and while the frontiers were assaulted by
      an open enemy, the palace was distracted with secret treason and
      conspiracy. On a sudden, the banner of the Cross was displayed by
      the Latins; Europe was precipitated on Asia; and Constantinople
      had almost been swept away by this impetuous deluge. In the
      tempest, Alexius steered the Imperial vessel with dexterity and
      courage. At the head of his armies, he was bold in action,
      skilful in stratagem, patient of fatigue, ready to improve his
      advantages, and rising from his defeats with inexhaustible vigor.
      The discipline of the camp was revived, and a new generation of
      men and soldiers was created by the example and precepts of their
      leader. In his intercourse with the Latins, Alexius was patient
      and artful: his discerning eye pervaded the new system of an
      unknown world and I shall hereafter describe the superior policy
      with which he balanced the interests and passions of the
      champions of the first crusade. In a long reign of thirty-seven
      years, he subdued and pardoned the envy of his equals: the laws
      of public and private order were restored: the arts of wealth and
      science were cultivated: the limits of the empire were enlarged
      in Europe and Asia; and the Comnenian sceptre was transmitted to
      his children of the third and fourth generation. Yet the
      difficulties of the times betrayed some defects in his character;
      and have exposed his memory to some just or ungenerous reproach.
      The reader may possibly smile at the lavish praise which his
      daughter so often bestows on a flying hero: the weakness or
      prudence of his situation might be mistaken for a want of
      personal courage; and his political arts are branded by the
      Latins with the names of deceit and dissimulation. The increase
      of the male and female branches of his family adorned the throne,
      and secured the succession; but their princely luxury and pride
      offended the patricians, exhausted the revenue, and insulted the
      misery of the people. Anna is a faithful witness that his
      happiness was destroyed, and his health was broken, by the cares
      of a public life; the patience of Constantinople was fatigued by
      the length and severity of his reign; and before Alexius expired,
      he had lost the love and reverence of his subjects. The clergy
      could not forgive his application of the sacred riches to the
      defence of the state; but they applauded his theological learning
      and ardent zeal for the orthodox faith, which he defended with
      his tongue, his pen, and his sword. His character was degraded by
      the superstition of the Greeks; and the same inconsistent
      principle of human nature enjoined the emperor to found a
      hospital for the poor and infirm, and to direct the execution of
      a heretic, who was burned alive in the square of St. Sophia. Even
      the sincerity of his moral and religious virtues was suspected by
      the persons who had passed their lives in his familiar
      confidence. In his last hours, when he was pressed by his wife
      Irene to alter the succession, he raised his head, and breathed a
      pious ejaculation on the vanity of this world. The indignant
      reply of the empress may be inscribed as an epitaph on his tomb,
      “You die, as you have lived—A Hypocrite!”

      It was the wish of Irene to supplant the eldest of her surviving
      sons, in favor of her daughter the princess Anne whose philosophy
      would not have refused the weight of a diadem. But the order of
      male succession was asserted by the friends of their country; the
      lawful heir drew the royal signet from the finger of his
      insensible or conscious father and the empire obeyed the master
      of the palace. Anna Comnena was stimulated by ambition and
      revenge to conspire against the life of her brother, and when the
      design was prevented by the fears or scruples of her husband, she
      passionately exclaimed that nature had mistaken the two sexes,
      and had endowed Bryennius with the soul of a woman. The two sons
      of Alexius, John and Isaac, maintained the fraternal concord, the
      hereditary virtue of their race, and the younger brother was
      content with the title of Sebastocrator, which approached the
      dignity, without sharing the power, of the emperor. In the same
      person the claims of primogeniture and merit were fortunately
      united; his swarthy complexion, harsh features, and diminutive
      stature, had suggested the ironical surname of Calo-Johannes, or
      John the Handsome, which his grateful subjects more seriously
      applied to the beauties of his mind. After the discovery of her
      treason, the life and fortune of Anne were justly forfeited to
      the laws. Her life was spared by the clemency of the emperor; but
      he visited the pomp and treasures of her palace, and bestowed the
      rich confiscation on the most deserving of his friends. That
      respectable friend Axuch, a slave of Turkish extraction, presumed
      to decline the gift, and to intercede for the criminal: his
      generous master applauded and imitated the virtue of his
      favorite, and the reproach or complaint of an injured brother was
      the only chastisement of the guilty princess. After this example
      of clemency, the remainder of his reign was never disturbed by
      conspiracy or rebellion: feared by his nobles, beloved by his
      people, John was never reduced to the painful necessity of
      punishing, or even of pardoning, his personal enemies. During his
      government of twenty-five years, the penalty of death was
      abolished in the Roman empire, a law of mercy most delightful to
      the humane theorist, but of which the practice, in a large and
      vicious community, is seldom consistent with the public safety.
      Severe to himself, indulgent to others, chaste, frugal,
      abstemious, the philosophic Marcus would not have disdained the
      artless virtues of his successor, derived from his heart, and not
      borrowed from the schools. He despised and moderated the stately
      magnificence of the Byzantine court, so oppressive to the people,
      so contemptible to the eye of reason. Under such a prince,
      innocence had nothing to fear, and merit had every thing to hope;
      and, without assuming the tyrannic office of a censor, he
      introduced a gradual though visible reformation in the public and
      private manners of Constantinople. The only defect of this
      accomplished character was the frailty of noble minds, the love
      of arms and military glory. Yet the frequent expeditions of John
      the Handsome may be justified, at least in their principle, by
      the necessity of repelling the Turks from the Hellespont and the
      Bosphorus. The sultan of Iconium was confined to his capital, the
      Barbarians were driven to the mountains, and the maritime
      provinces of Asia enjoyed the transient blessings of their
      deliverance. From Constantinople to Antioch and Aleppo, he
      repeatedly marched at the head of a victorious army, and in the
      sieges and battles of this holy war, his Latin allies were
      astonished by the superior spirit and prowess of a Greek. As he
      began to indulge the ambitious hope of restoring the ancient
      limits of the empire, as he revolved in his mind, the Euphrates
      and Tigris, the dominion of Syria, and the conquest of Jerusalem,
      the thread of his life and of the public felicity was broken by a
      singular accident. He hunted the wild boar in the valley of
      Anazarbus, and had fixed his javelin in the body of the furious
      animal; but in the struggle a poisoned arrow dropped from his
      quiver, and a slight wound in his hand, which produced a
      mortification, was fatal to the best and greatest of the
      Comnenian princes.




      Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek
      Emperors.—Part V.

      A premature death had swept away the two eldest sons of John the
      Handsome; of the two survivors, Isaac and Manuel, his judgment or
      affection preferred the younger; and the choice of their dying
      prince was ratified by the soldiers, who had applauded the valor
      of his favorite in the Turkish war. The faithful Axuch hastened
      to the capital, secured the person of Isaac in honorable
      confinement, and purchased, with a gift of two hundred pounds of
      silver, the leading ecclesiastics of St. Sophia, who possessed a
      decisive voice in the consecration of an emperor. With his
      veteran and affectionate troops, Manuel soon visited
      Constantinople; his brother acquiesced in the title of
      Sebastocrator; his subjects admired the lofty stature and martial
      graces of their new sovereign, and listened with credulity to the
      flattering promise, that he blended the wisdom of age with the
      activity and vigor of youth. By the experience of his government,
      they were taught, that he emulated the spirit, and shared the
      talents, of his father whose social virtues were buried in the
      grave. A reign of thirty seven years is filled by a perpetual
      though various warfare against the Turks, the Christians, and the
      hordes of the wilderness beyond the Danube. The arms of Manuel
      were exercised on Mount Taurus, in the plains of Hungary, on the
      coast of Italy and Egypt, and on the seas of Sicily and Greece:
      the influence of his negotiations extended from Jerusalem to Rome
      and Russia; and the Byzantine monarchy, for a while, became an
      object of respect or terror to the powers of Asia and Europe.
      Educated in the silk and purple of the East, Manuel possessed the
      iron temper of a soldier, which cannot easily be paralleled,
      except in the lives of Richard the First of England, and of
      Charles the Twelfth of Sweden. Such was his strength and exercise
      in arms, that Raymond, surnamed the Hercules of Antioch, was
      incapable of wielding the lance and buckler of the Greek emperor.
      In a famous tournament, he entered the lists on a fiery courser,
      and overturned in his first career two of the stoutest of the
      Italian knights. The first in the charge, the last in the
      retreat, his friends and his enemies alike trembled, the former
      for his safety, and the latter for their own. After posting an
      ambuscade in a wood, he rode forwards in search of some perilous
      adventure, accompanied only by his brother and the faithful
      Axuch, who refused to desert their sovereign. Eighteen horsemen,
      after a short combat, fled before them: but the numbers of the
      enemy increased; the march of the reenforcement was tardy and
      fearful, and Manuel, without receiving a wound, cut his way
      through a squadron of five hundred Turks. In a battle against the
      Hungarians, impatient of the slowness of his troops, he snatched
      a standard from the head of the column, and was the first, almost
      alone, who passed a bridge that separated him from the enemy. In
      the same country, after transporting his army beyond the Save, he
      sent back the boats, with an order under pain of death, to their
      commander, that he should leave him to conquer or die on that
      hostile land. In the siege of Corfu, towing after him a captive
      galley, the emperor stood aloft on the poop, opposing against the
      volleys of darts and stones, a large buckler and a flowing sail;
      nor could he have escaped inevitable death, had not the Sicilian
      admiral enjoined his archers to respect the person of a hero. In
      one day, he is said to have slain above forty of the Barbarians
      with his own hand; he returned to the camp, dragging along four
      Turkish prisoners, whom he had tied to the rings of his saddle:
      he was ever the foremost to provoke or to accept a single combat;
      and the gigantic champions, who encountered his arm, were
      transpierced by the lance, or cut asunder by the sword, of the
      invincible Manuel. The story of his exploits, which appear as a
      model or a copy of the romances of chivalry, may induce a
      reasonable suspicion of the veracity of the Greeks: I will not,
      to vindicate their credit, endanger my own: yet I may observe,
      that, in the long series of their annals, Manuel is the only
      prince who has been the subject of similar exaggeration. With the
      valor of a soldier, he did not unite the skill or prudence of a
      general; his victories were not productive of any permanent or
      useful conquest; and his Turkish laurels were blasted in his last
      unfortunate campaign, in which he lost his army in the mountains
      of Pisidia, and owed his deliverance to the generosity of the
      sultan. But the most singular feature in the character of Manuel,
      is the contrast and vicissitude of labor and sloth, of hardiness
      and effeminacy. In war he seemed ignorant of peace, in peace he
      appeared incapable of war. In the field he slept in the sun or in
      the snow, tired in the longest marches the strength of his men
      and horses, and shared with a smile the abstinence or diet of the
      camp. No sooner did he return to Constantinople, than he resigned
      himself to the arts and pleasures of a life of luxury: the
      expense of his dress, his table, and his palace, surpassed the
      measure of his predecessors, and whole summer days were idly
      wasted in the delicious isles of the Propontis, in the incestuous
      love of his niece Theodora. The double cost of a warlike and
      dissolute prince exhausted the revenue, and multiplied the taxes;
      and Manuel, in the distress of his last Turkish campaign, endured
      a bitter reproach from the mouth of a desperate soldier. As he
      quenched his thirst, he complained that the water of a fountain
      was mingled with Christian blood. “It is not the first time,”
      exclaimed a voice from the crowd, “that you have drank, O
      emperor, the blood of your Christian subjects.” Manuel Comnenus
      was twice married, to the virtuous Bertha or Irene of Germany,
      and to the beauteous Maria, a French or Latin princess of
      Antioch. The only daughter of his first wife was destined for
      Bela, a Hungarian prince, who was educated at Constantinople
      under the name of Alexius; and the consummation of their nuptials
      might have transferred the Roman sceptre to a race of free and
      warlike Barbarians. But as soon as Maria of Antioch had given a
      son and heir to the empire, the presumptive rights of Bela were
      abolished, and he was deprived of his promised bride; but the
      Hungarian prince resumed his name and the kingdom of his fathers,
      and displayed such virtues as might excite the regret and envy of
      the Greeks. The son of Maria was named Alexius; and at the age of
      ten years he ascended the Byzantine throne, after his father’s
      decease had closed the glories of the Comnenian line.

      The fraternal concord of the two sons of the great Alexius had
      been sometimes clouded by an opposition of interest and passion.
      By ambition, Isaac the Sebastocrator was excited to flight and
      rebellion, from whence he was reclaimed by the firmness and
      clemency of John the Handsome. The errors of Isaac, the father of
      the emperors of Trebizond, were short and venial; but John, the
      elder of his sons, renounced forever his religion. Provoked by a
      real or imaginary insult of his uncle, he escaped from the Roman
      to the Turkish camp: his apostasy was rewarded with the sultan’s
      daughter, the title of Chelebi, or noble, and the inheritance of
      a princely estate; and in the fifteenth century, Mahomet the
      Second boasted of his Imperial descent from the Comnenian family.
      Andronicus, the younger brother of John, son of Isaac, and
      grandson of Alexius Comnenus, is one of the most conspicuous
      characters of the age; and his genuine adventures might form the
      subject of a very singular romance. To justify the choice of
      three ladies of royal birth, it is incumbent on me to observe,
      that their fortunate lover was cast in the best proportions of
      strength and beauty; and that the want of the softer graces was
      supplied by a manly countenance, a lofty stature, athletic
      muscles, and the air and deportment of a soldier. The
      preservation, in his old age, of health and vigor, was the reward
      of temperance and exercise. A piece of bread and a draught of
      water was often his sole and evening repast; and if he tasted of
      a wild boar or a stag, which he had roasted with his own hands,
      it was the well-earned fruit of a laborious chase. Dexterous in
      arms, he was ignorant of fear; his persuasive eloquence could
      bend to every situation and character of life, his style, though
      not his practice, was fashioned by the example of St. Paul; and,
      in every deed of mischief, he had a heart to resolve, a head to
      contrive, and a hand to execute. In his youth, after the death of
      the emperor John, he followed the retreat of the Roman army; but,
      in the march through Asia Minor, design or accident tempted him
      to wander in the mountains: the hunter was encompassed by the
      Turkish huntsmen, and he remained some time a reluctant or
      willing captive in the power of the sultan. His virtues and vices
      recommended him to the favor of his cousin: he shared the perils
      and the pleasures of Manuel; and while the emperor lived in
      public incest with his niece Theodora, the affections of her
      sister Eudocia were seduced and enjoyed by Andronicus. Above the
      decencies of her sex and rank, she gloried in the name of his
      concubine; and both the palace and the camp could witness that
      she slept, or watched, in the arms of her lover. She accompanied
      him to his military command of Cilicia, the first scene of his
      valor and imprudence. He pressed, with active ardor, the siege of
      Mopsuestia: the day was employed in the boldest attacks; but the
      night was wasted in song and dance; and a band of Greek comedians
      formed the choicest part of his retinue. Andronicus was surprised
      by the sally of a vigilant foe; but, while his troops fled in
      disorder, his invincible lance transpierced the thickest ranks of
      the Armenians. On his return to the Imperial camp in Macedonia,
      he was received by Manuel with public smiles and a private
      reproof; but the duchies of Naissus, Braniseba, and Castoria,
      were the reward or consolation of the unsuccessful general.
      Eudocia still attended his motions: at midnight, their tent was
      suddenly attacked by her angry brothers, impatient to expiate her
      infamy in his blood: his daring spirit refused her advice, and
      the disguise of a female habit; and, boldly starting from his
      couch, he drew his sword, and cut his way through the numerous
      assassins. It was here that he first betrayed his ingratitude and
      treachery: he engaged in a treasonable correspondence with the
      king of Hungary and the German emperor; approached the royal tent
      at a suspicious hour with a drawn sword, and under the mask of a
      Latin soldier, avowed an intention of revenge against a mortal
      foe; and imprudently praised the fleetness of his horse as an
      instrument of flight and safety. The monarch dissembled his
      suspicions; but, after the close of the campaign, Andronicus was
      arrested and strictly confined in a tower of the palace of
      Constantinople.

      In this prison he was left about twelve years; a most painful
      restraint, from which the thirst of action and pleasure
      perpetually urged him to escape. Alone and pensive, he perceived
      some broken bricks in a corner of the chamber, and gradually
      widened the passage, till he had explored a dark and forgotten
      recess. Into this hole he conveyed himself, and the remains of
      his provisions, replacing the bricks in their former position,
      and erasing with care the footsteps of his retreat. At the hour
      of the customary visit, his guards were amazed by the silence and
      solitude of the prison, and reported, with shame and fear, his
      incomprehensible flight. The gates of the palace and city were
      instantly shut: the strictest orders were despatched into the
      provinces, for the recovery of the fugitive; and his wife, on the
      suspicion of a pious act, was basely imprisoned in the same
      tower. At the dead of night she beheld a spectre; she recognized
      her husband: they shared their provisions; and a son was the
      fruit of these stolen interviews, which alleviated the
      tediousness of their confinement. In the custody of a woman, the
      vigilance of the keepers was insensibly relaxed; and the captive
      had accomplished his real escape, when he was discovered, brought
      back to Constantinople, and loaded with a double chain. At length
      he found the moment, and the means, of his deliverance. A boy,
      his domestic servant, intoxicated the guards, and obtained in wax
      the impression of the keys. By the diligence of his friends, a
      similar key, with a bundle of ropes, was introduced into the
      prison, in the bottom of a hogshead. Andronicus employed, with
      industry and courage, the instruments of his safety, unlocked the
      doors, descended from the tower, concealed himself all day among
      the bushes, and scaled in the night the garden-wall of the
      palace. A boat was stationed for his reception: he visited his
      own house, embraced his children, cast away his chain, mounted a
      fleet horse, and directed his rapid course towards the banks of
      the Danube. At Anchialus in Thrace, an intrepid friend supplied
      him with horses and money: he passed the river, traversed with
      speed the desert of Moldavia and the Carpathian hills, and had
      almost reached the town of Halicz, in the Polish Russia, when he
      was intercepted by a party of Walachians, who resolved to convey
      their important captive to Constantinople. His presence of mind
      again extricated him from danger. Under the pretence of sickness,
      he dismounted in the night, and was allowed to step aside from
      the troop: he planted in the ground his long staff, clothed it
      with his cap and upper garment; and, stealing into the wood, left
      a phantom to amuse, for some time, the eyes of the Walachians.
      From Halicz he was honorably conducted to Kiow, the residence of
      the great duke: the subtle Greek soon obtained the esteem and
      confidence of Ieroslaus; his character could assume the manners
      of every climate; and the Barbarians applauded his strength and
      courage in the chase of the elks and bears of the forest. In this
      northern region he deserved the forgiveness of Manuel, who
      solicited the Russian prince to join his arms in the invasion of
      Hungary. The influence of Andronicus achieved this important
      service: his private treaty was signed with a promise of fidelity
      on one side, and of oblivion on the other; and he marched, at the
      head of the Russian cavalry, from the Borysthenes to the Danube.
      In his resentment Manuel had ever sympathized with the martial
      and dissolute character of his cousin; and his free pardon was
      sealed in the assault of Zemlin, in which he was second, and
      second only, to the valor of the emperor.

      No sooner was the exile restored to freedom and his country, than
      his ambition revived, at first to his own, and at length to the
      public, misfortune. A daughter of Manuel was a feeble bar to the
      succession of the more deserving males of the Comnenian blood;
      her future marriage with the prince of Hungary was repugnant to
      the hopes or prejudices of the princes and nobles. But when an
      oath of allegiance was required to the presumptive heir,
      Andronicus alone asserted the honor of the Roman name, declined
      the unlawful engagement, and boldly protested against the
      adoption of a stranger. His patriotism was offensive to the
      emperor, but he spoke the sentiments of the people, and was
      removed from the royal presence by an honorable banishment, a
      second command of the Cilician frontier, with the absolute
      disposal of the revenues of Cyprus. In this station the Armenians
      again exercised his courage and exposed his negligence; and the
      same rebel, who baffled all his operations, was unhorsed, and
      almost slain by the vigor of his lance. But Andronicus soon
      discovered a more easy and pleasing conquest, the beautiful
      Philippa, sister of the empress Maria, and daughter of Raymond of
      Poitou, the Latin prince of Antioch. For her sake he deserted his
      station, and wasted the summer in balls and tournaments: to his
      love she sacrificed her innocence, her reputation, and the offer
      of an advantageous marriage. But the resentment of Manuel for
      this domestic affront interrupted his pleasures: Andronicus left
      the indiscreet princess to weep and to repent; and, with a band
      of desperate adventurers, undertook the pilgrimage of Jerusalem.
      His birth, his martial renown, and professions of zeal, announced
      him as the champion of the Cross: he soon captivated both the
      clergy and the king; and the Greek prince was invested with the
      lordship of Berytus, on the coast of Phoenicia.

      In his neighborhood resided a young and handsome queen, of his
      own nation and family, great-granddaughter of the emperor Alexis,
      and widow of Baldwin the Third, king of Jerusalem. She visited
      and loved her kinsman. Theodora was the third victim of his
      amorous seduction; and her shame was more public and scandalous
      than that of her predecessors. The emperor still thirsted for
      revenge; and his subjects and allies of the Syrian frontier were
      repeatedly pressed to seize the person, and put out the eyes, of
      the fugitive. In Palestine he was no longer safe; but the tender
      Theodora revealed his danger, and accompanied his flight. The
      queen of Jerusalem was exposed to the East, his obsequious
      concubine; and two illegitimate children were the living
      monuments of her weakness. Damascus was his first refuge; and, in
      the characters of the great Noureddin and his servant Saladin,
      the superstitious Greek might learn to revere the virtues of the
      Mussulmans. As the friend of Noureddin he visited, most probably,
      Bagdad, and the courts of Persia; and, after a long circuit round
      the Caspian Sea and the mountains of Georgia, he finally settled
      among the Turks of Asia Minor, the hereditary enemies of his
      country. The sultan of Colonia afforded a hospitable retreat to
      Andronicus, his mistress, and his band of outlaws: the debt of
      gratitude was paid by frequent inroads in the Roman province of
      Trebizond; and he seldom returned without an ample harvest of
      spoil and of Christian captives. In the story of his adventures,
      he was fond of comparing himself to David, who escaped, by a long
      exile, the snares of the wicked. But the royal prophet (he
      presumed to add) was content to lurk on the borders of Judaea, to
      slay an Amalekite, and to threaten, in his miserable state, the
      life of the avaricious Nabal. The excursions of the Comnenian
      prince had a wider range; and he had spread over the Eastern
      world the glory of his name and religion.

      By a sentence of the Greek church, the licentious rover had been
      separated from the faithful; but even this excommunication may
      prove, that he never abjured the profession of Chistianity.

      His vigilance had eluded or repelled the open and secret
      persecution of the emperor; but he was at length insnared by the
      captivity of his female companion. The governor of Trebizond
      succeeded in his attempt to surprise the person of Theodora: the
      queen of Jerusalem and her two children were sent to
      Constantinople, and their loss imbittered the tedious solitude of
      banishment. The fugitive implored and obtained a final pardon,
      with leave to throw himself at the feet of his sovereign, who was
      satisfied with the submission of this haughty spirit. Prostrate
      on the ground, he deplored with tears and groans the guilt of his
      past rebellion; nor would he presume to arise, unless some
      faithful subject would drag him to the foot of the throne, by an
      iron chain with which he had secretly encircled his neck. This
      extraordinary penance excited the wonder and pity of the
      assembly; his sins were forgiven by the church and state; but the
      just suspicion of Manuel fixed his residence at a distance from
      the court, at Oenoe, a town of Pontus, surrounded with rich
      vineyards, and situate on the coast of the Euxine. The death of
      Manuel, and the disorders of the minority, soon opened the
      fairest field to his ambition. The emperor was a boy of twelve or
      fourteen years of age, without vigor, or wisdom, or experience:
      his mother, the empress Mary, abandoned her person and government
      to a favorite of the Comnenian name; and his sister, another
      Mary, whose husband, an Italian, was decorated with the title of
      Caesar, excited a conspiracy, and at length an insurrection,
      against her odious step-mother. The provinces were forgotten, the
      capital was in flames, and a century of peace and order was
      overthrown in the vice and weakness of a few months. A civil war
      was kindled in Constantinople; the two factions fought a bloody
      battle in the square of the palace, and the rebels sustained a
      regular siege in the cathedral of St. Sophia. The patriarch
      labored with honest zeal to heal the wounds of the republic, the
      most respectable patriots called aloud for a guardian and
      avenger, and every tongue repeated the praise of the talents and
      even the virtues of Andronicus. In his retirement, he affected to
      revolve the solemn duties of his oath: “If the safety or honor of
      the Imperial family be threatened, I will reveal and oppose the
      mischief to the utmost of my power.” His correspondence with the
      patriarch and patricians was seasoned with apt quotations from
      the Psalms of David and the epistles of St. Paul; and he
      patiently waited till he was called to her deliverance by the
      voice of his country. In his march from Oenoe to Constantinople,
      his slender train insensibly swelled to a crowd and an army: his
      professions of religion and loyalty were mistaken for the
      language of his heart; and the simplicity of a foreign dress,
      which showed to advantage his majestic stature, displayed a
      lively image of his poverty and exile. All opposition sunk before
      him; he reached the straits of the Thracian Bosphorus; the
      Byzantine navy sailed from the harbor to receive and transport
      the savior of the empire: the torrent was loud and irresistible,
      and the insects who had basked in the sunshine of royal favor
      disappeared at the blast of the storm. It was the first care of
      Andronicus to occupy the palace, to salute the emperor, to
      confine his mother, to punish her minister, and to restore the
      public order and tranquillity. He then visited the sepulchre of
      Manuel: the spectators were ordered to stand aloof, but as he
      bowed in the attitude of prayer, they heard, or thought they
      heard, a murmur of triumph or revenge: “I no longer fear thee, my
      old enemy, who hast driven me a vagabond to every climate of the
      earth. Thou art safely deposited under a seven-fold dome, from
      whence thou canst never arise till the signal of the last
      trumpet. It is now my turn, and speedily will I trample on thy
      ashes and thy posterity.” From his subsequent tyranny we may
      impute such feelings to the man and the moment; but it is not
      extremely probable that he gave an articulate sound to his secret
      thoughts. In the first months of his administration, his designs
      were veiled by a fair semblance of hypocrisy, which could delude
      only the eyes of the multitude; the coronation of Alexius was
      performed with due solemnity, and his perfidious guardian,
      holding in his hands the body and blood of Christ, most fervently
      declared that he lived, and was ready to die, for the service of
      his beloved pupil. But his numerous adherents were instructed to
      maintain, that the sinking empire must perish in the hands of a
      child, that the Romans could only be saved by a veteran prince,
      bold in arms, skilful in policy, and taught to reign by the long
      experience of fortune and mankind; and that it was the duty of
      every citizen to force the reluctant modesty of Andronicus to
      undertake the burden of the public care. The young emperor was
      himself constrained to join his voice to the general acclamation,
      and to solicit the association of a colleague, who instantly
      degraded him from the supreme rank, secluded his person, and
      verified the rash declaration of the patriarch, that Alexius
      might be considered as dead, so soon as he was committed to the
      custody of his guardian. But his death was preceded by the
      imprisonment and execution of his mother. After blackening her
      reputation, and inflaming against her the passions of the
      multitude, the tyrant accused and tried the empress for a
      treasonable correspondence with the king of Hungary. His own son,
      a youth of honor and humanity, avowed his abhorrence of this
      flagitious act, and three of the judges had the merit of
      preferring their conscience to their safety: but the obsequious
      tribunal, without requiring any reproof, or hearing any defence,
      condemned the widow of Manuel; and her unfortunate son subscribed
      the sentence of her death. Maria was strangled, her corpse was
      buried in the sea, and her memory was wounded by the insult most
      offensive to female vanity, a false and ugly representation of
      her beauteous form. The fate of her son was not long deferred: he
      was strangled with a bowstring; and the tyrant, insensible to
      pity or remorse, after surveying the body of the innocent youth,
      struck it rudely with his foot: “Thy father,” he cried, “was a
      knave, thy mother a whore, and thyself a fool!”

      The Roman sceptre, the reward of his crimes, was held by
      Andronicus about three years and a half as the guardian or
      sovereign of the empire. His government exhibited a singular
      contrast of vice and virtue. When he listened to his passions, he
      was the scourge; when he consulted his reason, the father, of his
      people. In the exercise of private justice, he was equitable and
      rigorous: a shameful and pernicious venality was abolished, and
      the offices were filled with the most deserving candidates, by a
      prince who had sense to choose, and severity to punish. He
      prohibited the inhuman practice of pillaging the goods and
      persons of shipwrecked mariners; the provinces, so long the
      objects of oppression or neglect, revived in prosperity and
      plenty; and millions applauded the distant blessings of his
      reign, while he was cursed by the witnesses of his daily
      cruelties. The ancient proverb, That bloodthirsty is the man who
      returns from banishment to power, had been applied, with too much
      truth, to Marius and Tiberius; and was now verified for the third
      time in the life of Andronicus. His memory was stored with a
      black list of the enemies and rivals, who had traduced his merit,
      opposed his greatness, or insulted his misfortunes; and the only
      comfort of his exile was the sacred hope and promise of revenge.
      The necessary extinction of the young emperor and his mother
      imposed the fatal obligation of extirpating the friends, who
      hated, and might punish, the assassin; and the repetition of
      murder rendered him less willing, and less able, to forgive. 1018
      A horrid narrative of the victims whom he sacrificed by poison or
      the sword, by the sea or the flames, would be less expressive of
      his cruelty than the appellation of the halcyon days, which was
      applied to a rare and bloodless week of repose: the tyrant strove
      to transfer, on the laws and the judges, some portion of his
      guilt; but the mask was fallen, and his subjects could no longer
      mistake the true author of their calamities. The noblest of the
      Greeks, more especially those who, by descent or alliance, might
      dispute the Comnenian inheritance, escaped from the monster’s
      den: Nice and Prusa, Sicily or Cyprus, were their places of
      refuge; and as their flight was already criminal, they aggravated
      their offence by an open revolt, and the Imperial title. Yet
      Andronicus resisted the daggers and swords of his most formidable
      enemies: Nice and Prusa were reduced and chastised: the Sicilians
      were content with the sack of Thessalonica; and the distance of
      Cyprus was not more propitious to the rebel than to the tyrant.
      His throne was subverted by a rival without merit, and a people
      without arms. Isaac Angelus, a descendant in the female line from
      the great Alexius, was marked as a victim by the prudence or
      superstition of the emperor. 1019 In a moment of despair, Angelus
      defended his life and liberty, slew the executioner, and fled to
      the church of St. Sophia. The sanctuary was insensibly filled
      with a curious and mournful crowd, who, in his fate,
      prognosticated their own. But their lamentations were soon turned
      to curses, and their curses to threats: they dared to ask, “Why
      do we fear? why do we obey? We are many, and he is one: our
      patience is the only bond of our slavery.” With the dawn of day
      the city burst into a general sedition, the prisons were thrown
      open, the coldest and most servile were roused to the defence of
      their country, and Isaac, the second of the name, was raised from
      the sanctuary to the throne. Unconscious of his danger, the
      tyrant was absent; withdrawn from the toils of state, in the
      delicious islands of the Propontis. He had contracted an indecent
      marriage with Alice, or Agnes, daughter of Lewis the Seventh, of
      France, and relict of the unfortunate Alexius; and his society,
      more suitable to his temper than to his age, was composed of a
      young wife and a favorite concubine. On the first alarm, he
      rushed to Constantinople, impatient for the blood of the guilty;
      but he was astonished by the silence of the palace, the tumult of
      the city, and the general desertion of mankind. Andronicus
      proclaimed a free pardon to his subjects; they neither desired,
      nor would grant, forgiveness; he offered to resign the crown to
      his son Manuel; but the virtues of the son could not expiate his
      father’s crimes. The sea was still open for his retreat; but the
      news of the revolution had flown along the coast; when fear had
      ceased, obedience was no more: the Imperial galley was pursued
      and taken by an armed brigantine; and the tyrant was dragged to
      the presence of Isaac Angelus, loaded with fetters, and a long
      chain round his neck. His eloquence, and the tears of his female
      companions, pleaded in vain for his life; but, instead of the
      decencies of a legal execution, the new monarch abandoned the
      criminal to the numerous sufferers, whom he had deprived of a
      father, a husband, or a friend. His teeth and hair, an eye and a
      hand, were torn from him, as a poor compensation for their loss:
      and a short respite was allowed, that he might feel the
      bitterness of death. Astride on a camel, without any danger of a
      rescue, he was carried through the city, and the basest of the
      populace rejoiced to trample on the fallen majesty of their
      prince. After a thousand blows and outrages, Andronicus was hung
      by the feet, between two pillars, that supported the statues of a
      wolf and an a sow; and every hand that could reach the public
      enemy, inflicted on his body some mark of ingenious or brutal
      cruelty, till two friendly or furious Italians, plunging their
      swords into his body, released him from all human punishment. In
      this long and painful agony, “Lord, have mercy upon me!” and “Why
      will you bruise a broken reed?” were the only words that escaped
      from his mouth. Our hatred for the tyrant is lost in pity for the
      man; nor can we blame his pusillanimous resignation, since a
      Greek Christian was no longer master of his life.

      1018 (return) [ Fallmerayer (Geschichte des Kaiserthums von
      Trapezunt, p. 29, 33) has highly drawn the character of
      Andronicus. In his view the extermination of the Byzantine
      factions and dissolute nobility was part of a deep-laid and
      splendid plan for the regeneration of the empire. It was
      necessary for the wise and benevolent schemes of the father of
      his people to lop off those limbs which were infected with
      irremediable pestilence— “and with necessity, The tyrant’s plea,
      excused his devilish deeds!!”—Still the fall of Andronicus was a
      fatal blow to the Byzantine empire.—M.]

      1019 (return) [ According to Nicetas, (p. 444,) Andronicus
      despised the imbecile Isaac too much to fear him; he was arrested
      by the officious zeal of Stephen, the instrument of the Emperor’s
      cruelties.—M.]

      I have been tempted to expatiate on the extraordinary character
      and adventures of Andronicus; but I shall here terminate the
      series of the Greek emperors since the time of Heraclius. The
      branches that sprang from the Comnenian trunk had insensibly
      withered; and the male line was continued only in the posterity
      of Andronicus himself, who, in the public confusion, usurped the
      sovereignty of Trebizond, so obscure in history, and so famous in
      romance. A private citizen of Philadelphia, Constantine Angelus,
      had emerged to wealth and honors, by his marriage with a daughter
      of the emperor Alexius. His son Andronicus is conspicuous only by
      his cowardice. His grandson Isaac punished and succeeded the
      tyrant; but he was dethroned by his own vices, and the ambition
      of his brother; and their discord introduced the Latins to the
      conquest of Constantinople, the first great period in the fall of
      the Eastern empire.

      If we compute the number and duration of the reigns, it will be
      found, that a period of six hundred years is filled by sixty
      emperors, including in the Augustan list some female sovereigns;
      and deducting some usurpers who were never acknowledged in the
      capital, and some princes who did not live to possess their
      inheritance. The average proportion will allow ten years for each
      emperor, far below the chronological rule of Sir Isaac Newton,
      who, from the experience of more recent and regular monarchies,
      has defined about eighteen or twenty years as the term of an
      ordinary reign. The Byzantine empire was most tranquil and
      prosperous when it could acquiesce in hereditary succession; five
      dynasties, the Heraclian, Isaurian, Amorian, Basilian, and
      Comnenian families, enjoyed and transmitted the royal patrimony
      during their respective series of five, four, three, six, and
      four generations; several princes number the years of their reign
      with those of their infancy; and Constantine the Seventh and his
      two grandsons occupy the space of an entire century. But in the
      intervals of the Byzantine dynasties, the succession is rapid and
      broken, and the name of a successful candidate is speedily erased
      by a more fortunate competitor. Many were the paths that led to
      the summit of royalty: the fabric of rebellion was overthrown by
      the stroke of conspiracy, or undermined by the silent arts of
      intrigue: the favorites of the soldiers or people, of the senate
      or clergy, of the women and eunuchs, were alternately clothed
      with the purple: the means of their elevation were base, and
      their end was often contemptible or tragic. A being of the nature
      of man, endowed with the same faculties, but with a longer
      measure of existence, would cast down a smile of pity and
      contempt on the crimes and follies of human ambition, so eager,
      in a narrow span, to grasp at a precarious and shortlived
      enjoyment. It is thus that the experience of history exalts and
      enlarges the horizon of our intellectual view. In a composition
      of some days, in a perusal of some hours, six hundred years have
      rolled away, and the duration of a life or reign is contracted to
      a fleeting moment: the grave is ever beside the throne: the
      success of a criminal is almost instantly followed by the loss of
      his prize and our immortal reason survives and disdains the sixty
      phantoms of kings who have passed before our eyes, and faintly
      dwell on our remembrance. The observation that, in every age and
      climate, ambition has prevailed with the same commanding energy,
      may abate the surprise of a philosopher: but while he condemns
      the vanity, he may search the motive, of this universal desire to
      obtain and hold the sceptre of dominion. To the greater part of
      the Byzantine series, we cannot reasonably ascribe the love of
      fame and of mankind. The virtue alone of John Comnenus was
      beneficent and pure: the most illustrious of the princes, who
      procede or follow that respectable name, have trod with some
      dexterity and vigor the crooked and bloody paths of a selfish
      policy: in scrutinizing the imperfect characters of Leo the
      Isaurian, Basil the First, and Alexius Comnenus, of Theophilus,
      the second Basil, and Manuel Comnenus, our esteem and censure are
      almost equally balanced; and the remainder of the Imperial crowd
      could only desire and expect to be forgotten by posterity. Was
      personal happiness the aim and object of their ambition? I shall
      not descant on the vulgar topics of the misery of kings; but I
      may surely observe, that their condition, of all others, is the
      most pregnant with fear, and the least susceptible of hope. For
      these opposite passions, a larger scope was allowed in the
      revolutions of antiquity, than in the smooth and solid temper of
      the modern world, which cannot easily repeat either the triumph
      of Alexander or the fall of Darius. But the peculiar infelicity
      of the Byzantine princes exposed them to domestic perils, without
      affording any lively promise of foreign conquest. From the
      pinnacle of greatness, Andronicus was precipitated by a death
      more cruel and shameful than that of the malefactor; but the most
      glorious of his predecessors had much more to dread from their
      subjects than to hope from their enemies. The army was licentious
      without spirit, the nation turbulent without freedom: the
      Barbarians of the East and West pressed on the monarchy, and the
      loss of the provinces was terminated by the final servitude of
      the capital.

      The entire series of Roman emperors, from the first of the
      Caesars to the last of the Constantines, extends above fifteen
      hundred years: and the term of dominion, unbroken by foreign
      conquest, surpasses the measure of the ancient monarchies; the
      Assyrians or Medes, the successors of Cyrus, or those of
      Alexander.





VOLUME FIVE




      Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part I.

     Introduction, Worship, And Persecution Of Images.—Revolt Of Italy
     And Rome.—Temporal Dominion Of The Popes.—Conquest Of Italy By The
     Franks.—Establishment Of Images.—Character And Coronation Of
     Charlemagne.—Restoration And Decay Of The Roman Empire In The
     West.—Independence Of Italy.— Constitution Of The Germanic Body.

      In the connection of the church and state, I have considered the
      former as subservient only, and relative, to the latter; a
      salutary maxim, if in fact, as well as in narrative, it had ever
      been held sacred. The Oriental philosophy of the Gnostics, the
      dark abyss of predestination and grace, and the strange
      transformation of the Eucharist from the sign to the substance of
      Christ’s body, 1 I have purposely abandoned to the curiosity of
      speculative divines. But I have reviewed, with diligence and
      pleasure, the objects of ecclesiastical history, by which the
      decline and fall of the Roman empire were materially affected,
      the propagation of Christianity, the constitution of the Catholic
      church, the ruin of Paganism, and the sects that arose from the
      mysterious controversies concerning the Trinity and incarnation.
      At the head of this class, we may justly rank the worship of
      images, so fiercely disputed in the eighth and ninth centuries;
      since a question of popular superstition produced the revolt of
      Italy, the temporal power of the popes, and the restoration of
      the Roman empire in the West.

      1 (return) [ The learned Selden has given the history of
      transubstantiation in a comprehensive and pithy sentence: “This
      opinion is only rhetoric turned into logic,” (his Works, vol.
      iii. p. 2037, in his Table-Talk.)]

      The primitive Christians were possessed with an unconquerable
      repugnance to the use and abuse of images; and this aversion may
      be ascribed to their descent from the Jews, and their enmity to
      the Greeks. The Mosaic law had severely proscribed all
      representations of the Deity; and that precept was firmly
      established in the principles and practice of the chosen people.
      The wit of the Christian apologists was pointed against the
      foolish idolaters, who bowed before the workmanship of their own
      hands; the images of brass and marble, which, had they been
      endowed with sense and motion, should have started rather from
      the pedestal to adore the creative powers of the artist. 2
      Perhaps some recent and imperfect converts of the Gnostic tribe
      might crown the statues of Christ and St. Paul with the profane
      honors which they paid to those of Aristotle and Pythagoras; 3
      but the public religion of the Catholics was uniformly simple and
      spiritual; and the first notice of the use of pictures is in the
      censure of the council of Illiberis, three hundred years after
      the Christian aera. Under the successors of Constantine, in the
      peace and luxury of the triumphant church, the more prudent
      bishops condescended to indulge a visible superstition, for the
      benefit of the multitude; and, after the ruin of Paganism, they
      were no longer restrained by the apprehension of an odious
      parallel. The first introduction of a symbolic worship was in the
      veneration of the cross, and of relics. The saints and martyrs,
      whose intercession was implored, were seated on the right hand of
      God; but the gracious and often supernatural favors, which, in
      the popular belief, were showered round their tomb, conveyed an
      unquestionable sanction of the devout pilgrims, who visited, and
      touched, and kissed these lifeless remains, the memorials of
      their merits and sufferings. 4 But a memorial, more interesting
      than the skull or the sandals of a departed worthy, is the
      faithful copy of his person and features, delineated by the arts
      of painting or sculpture. In every age, such copies, so congenial
      to human feelings, have been cherished by the zeal of private
      friendship, or public esteem: the images of the Roman emperors
      were adored with civil, and almost religious, honors; a reverence
      less ostentatious, but more sincere, was applied to the statues
      of sages and patriots; and these profane virtues, these splendid
      sins, disappeared in the presence of the holy men, who had died
      for their celestial and everlasting country. At first, the
      experiment was made with caution and scruple; and the venerable
      pictures were discreetly allowed to instruct the ignorant, to
      awaken the cold, and to gratify the prejudices of the heathen
      proselytes. By a slow though inevitable progression, the honors
      of the original were transferred to the copy: the devout
      Christian prayed before the image of a saint; and the Pagan rites
      of genuflection, luminaries, and incense, again stole into the
      Catholic church. The scruples of reason, or piety, were silenced
      by the strong evidence of visions and miracles; and the pictures
      which speak, and move, and bleed, must be endowed with a divine
      energy, and may be considered as the proper objects of religious
      adoration. The most audacious pencil might tremble in the rash
      attempt of defining, by forms and colors, the infinite Spirit,
      the eternal Father, who pervades and sustains the universe. 5 But
      the superstitious mind was more easily reconciled to paint and to
      worship the angels, and, above all, the Son of God, under the
      human shape, which, on earth, they have condescended to assume.
      The second person of the Trinity had been clothed with a real and
      mortal body; but that body had ascended into heaven: and, had not
      some similitude been presented to the eyes of his disciples, the
      spiritual worship of Christ might have been obliterated by the
      visible relics and representations of the saints. A similar
      indulgence was requisite and propitious for the Virgin Mary: the
      place of her burial was unknown; and the assumption of her soul
      and body into heaven was adopted by the credulity of the Greeks
      and Latins. The use, and even the worship, of images was firmly
      established before the end of the sixth century: they were fondly
      cherished by the warm imagination of the Greeks and Asiatics: the
      Pantheon and Vatican were adorned with the emblems of a new
      superstition; but this semblance of idolatry was more coldly
      entertained by the rude Barbarians and the Arian clergy of the
      West. The bolder forms of sculpture, in brass or marble, which
      peopled the temples of antiquity, were offensive to the fancy or
      conscience of the Christian Greeks: and a smooth surface of
      colors has ever been esteemed a more decent and harmless mode of
      imitation. 6

      2 (return) [ Nec intelligunt homines ineptissimi, quod si sentire
      simulacra et moveri possent, adoratura hominem fuissent a quo
      sunt expolita. (Divin. Institut. l. ii. c. 2.) Lactantius is the
      last, as well as the most eloquent, of the Latin apologists.
      Their raillery of idols attacks not only the object, but the form
      and matter.]

      3 (return) [ See Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and Augustin, (Basnage,
      Hist. des Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. p. 1313.) This Gnostic
      practice has a singular affinity with the private worship of
      Alexander Severus, (Lampridius, c. 29. Lardner, Heathen
      Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 34.)]

      4 (return) [ See this History, vol. ii. p. 261; vol. ii. p. 434;
      vol. iii. p. 158-163.]

      5 (return) [ (Concilium Nicenum, ii. in Collect. Labb. tom. viii.
      p. 1025, edit. Venet.) Il seroit peut-etre a-propos de ne point
      souffrir d’images de la Trinite ou de la Divinite; les defenseurs
      les plus zeles des images ayant condamne celles-ci, et le concile
      de Trente ne parlant que des images de Jesus Christ et des
      Saints, (Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 154.)]

      6 (return) [ This general history of images is drawn from the
      xxiid book of the Hist. des Eglises Reformees of Basnage, tom.
      ii. p. 1310-1337. He was a Protestant, but of a manly spirit; and
      on this head the Protestants are so notoriously in the right,
      that they can venture to be impartial. See the perplexity of poor
      Friar Pagi, Critica, tom. i. p. 42.]

      The merit and effect of a copy depends on its resemblance with
      the original; but the primitive Christians were ignorant of the
      genuine features of the Son of God, his mother, and his apostles:
      the statue of Christ at Paneas in Palestine 7 was more probably
      that of some temporal savior; the Gnostics and their profane
      monuments were reprobated; and the fancy of the Christian artists
      could only be guided by the clandestine imitation of some heathen
      model. In this distress, a bold and dexterous invention assured
      at once the likeness of the image and the innocence of the
      worship. A new super structure of fable was raised on the popular
      basis of a Syrian legend, on the correspondence of Christ and
      Abgarus, so famous in the days of Eusebius, so reluctantly
      deserted by our modern advocates. The bishop of Caesarea 8
      records the epistle, 9 but he most strangely forgets the picture
      of Christ; 10 the perfect impression of his face on a linen, with
      which he gratified the faith of the royal stranger who had
      invoked his healing power, and offered the strong city of Edessa
      to protect him against the malice of the Jews. The ignorance of
      the primitive church is explained by the long imprisonment of the
      image in a niche of the wall, from whence, after an oblivion of
      five hundred years, it was released by some prudent bishop, and
      seasonably presented to the devotion of the times. Its first and
      most glorious exploit was the deliverance of the city from the
      arms of Chosroes Nushirvan; and it was soon revered as a pledge
      of the divine promise, that Edessa should never be taken by a
      foreign enemy. It is true, indeed, that the text of Procopius
      ascribes the double deliverance of Edessa to the wealth and valor
      of her citizens, who purchased the absence and repelled the
      assaults of the Persian monarch. He was ignorant, the profane
      historian, of the testimony which he is compelled to deliver in
      the ecclesiastical page of Evagrius, that the Palladium was
      exposed on the rampart, and that the water which had been
      sprinkled on the holy face, instead of quenching, added new fuel
      to the flames of the besieged. After this important service, the
      image of Edessa was preserved with respect and gratitude; and if
      the Armenians rejected the legend, the more credulous Greeks
      adored the similitude, which was not the work of any mortal
      pencil, but the immediate creation of the divine original. The
      style and sentiments of a Byzantine hymn will declare how far
      their worship was removed from the grossest idolatry. “How can we
      with mortal eyes contemplate this image, whose celestial splendor
      the host of heaven presumes not to behold? He who dwells in
      heaven, condescends this day to visit us by his venerable image;
      He who is seated on the cherubim, visits us this day by a
      picture, which the Father has delineated with his immaculate
      hand, which he has formed in an ineffable manner, and which we
      sanctify by adoring it with fear and love.” Before the end of the
      sixth century, these images, made without hands, (in Greek it is
      a single word, 11 were propagated in the camps and cities of the
      Eastern empire: 12 they were the objects of worship, and the
      instruments of miracles; and in the hour of danger or tumult,
      their venerable presence could revive the hope, rekindle the
      courage, or repress the fury, of the Roman legions. Of these
      pictures, the far greater part, the transcripts of a human
      pencil, could only pretend to a secondary likeness and improper
      title: but there were some of higher descent, who derived their
      resemblance from an immediate contact with the original, endowed,
      for that purpose, with a miraculous and prolific virtue. The most
      ambitious aspired from a filial to a fraternal relation with the
      image of Edessa; and such is the veronica of Rome, or Spain, or
      Jerusalem, which Christ in his agony and bloody sweat applied to
      his face, and delivered to a holy matron. The fruitful precedent
      was speedily transferred to the Virgin Mary, and the saints and
      martyrs. In the church of Diospolis, in Palestine, the features
      of the Mother of God 13 were deeply inscribed in a marble column;
      the East and West have been decorated by the pencil of St. Luke;
      and the Evangelist, who was perhaps a physician, has been forced
      to exercise the occupation of a painter, so profane and odious in
      the eyes of the primitive Christians. The Olympian Jove, created
      by the muse of Homer and the chisel of Phidias, might inspire a
      philosophic mind with momentary devotion; but these Catholic
      images were faintly and flatly delineated by monkish artists in
      the last degeneracy of taste and genius. 14

      7 (return) [ After removing some rubbish of miracle and
      inconsistency, it may be allowed, that as late as the year 300,
      Paneas in Palestine was decorated with a bronze statue,
      representing a grave personage wrapped in a cloak, with a
      grateful or suppliant female kneeling before him, and that an
      inscription was perhaps inscribed on the pedestal. By the
      Christians, this group was foolishly explained of their founder
      and the poor woman whom he had cured of the bloody flux, (Euseb.
      vii. 18, Philostorg. vii. 3, &c.) M. de Beausobre more reasonably
      conjectures the philosopher Apollonius, or the emperor Vespasian:
      in the latter supposition, the female is a city, a province, or
      perhaps the queen Berenice, (Bibliotheque Germanique, tom. xiii.
      p. 1-92.)]

      8 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c. 13. The learned
      Assemannus has brought up the collateral aid of three Syrians,
      St. Ephrem, Josua Stylites, and James bishop of Sarug; but I do
      not find any notice of the Syriac original or the archives of
      Edessa, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 318, 420, 554;) their vague
      belief is probably derived from the Greeks.]

      9 (return) [ The evidence for these epistles is stated and
      rejected by the candid Lardner, (Heathen Testimonies, vol. i. p.
      297-309.) Among the herd of bigots who are forcibly driven from
      this convenient, but untenable, post, I am ashamed, with the
      Grabes, Caves, Tillemonts, &c., to discover Mr. Addison, an
      English gentleman, (his Works, vol. i. p. 528, Baskerville’s
      edition;) but his superficial tract on the Christian religion
      owes its credit to his name, his style, and the interested
      applause of our clergy.]

      10 (return) [ From the silence of James of Sarug, (Asseman.
      Bibliot. Orient. p. 289, 318,) and the testimony of Evagrius,
      (Hist. Eccles. l. iv. c. 27,) I conclude that this fable was
      invented between the years 521 and 594, most probably after the
      siege of Edessa in 540, (Asseman. tom. i. p. 416. Procopius, de
      Bell. Persic. l. ii.) It is the sword and buckler of, Gregory
      II., (in Epist. i. ad. Leon. Isaur. Concil. tom. viii. p. 656,
      657,) of John Damascenus, (Opera, tom. i. p. 281, edit. Lequien,)
      and of the second Nicene Council, (Actio v. p. 1030.) The most
      perfect edition may be found in Cedrenus, (Compend. p. 175-178.)]

      11 (return) [ See Ducange, in Gloss. Graec. et Lat. The subject
      is treated with equal learning and bigotry by the Jesuit Gretser,
      (Syntagma de Imaginibus non Manu factis, ad calcem Codini de
      Officiis, p. 289-330,) the ass, or rather the fox, of
      Ingoldstadt, (see the Scaligerana;) with equal reason and wit by
      the Protestant Beausobre, in the ironical controversy which he
      has spread through many volumes of the Bibliotheque Germanique,
      (tom. xviii. p. 1-50, xx. p. 27-68, xxv. p. 1-36, xxvii. p.
      85-118, xxviii. p. 1-33, xxxi. p. 111-148, xxxii. p. 75-107,
      xxxiv. p. 67-96.)]

      12 (return) [ Theophylact Simocatta (l. ii. c. 3, p. 34, l. iii.
      c. 1, p. 63) celebrates it; yet it was no more than a copy, since
      he adds (of Edessa). See Pagi, tom. ii. A.D. 588 No. 11.]

      13 (return) [ See, in the genuine or supposed works of John
      Damascenus, two passages on the Virgin and St. Luke, which have
      not been noticed by Gretser, nor consequently by Beausobre,
      (Opera Joh. Damascen. tom. i. p. 618, 631.)]

      14 (return) [ “Your scandalous figures stand quite out from the
      canvass: they are as bad as a group of statues!” It was thus that
      the ignorance and bigotry of a Greek priest applauded the
      pictures of Titian, which he had ordered, and refused to accept.]

      The worship of images had stolen into the church by insensible
      degrees, and each petty step was pleasing to the superstitious
      mind, as productive of comfort, and innocent of sin. But in the
      beginning of the eighth century, in the full magnitude of the
      abuse, the more timorous Greeks were awakened by an apprehension,
      that under the mask of Christianity, they had restored the
      religion of their fathers: they heard, with grief and impatience,
      the name of idolaters; the incessant charge of the Jews and
      Mahometans, 15 who derived from the Law and the Koran an immortal
      hatred to graven images and all relative worship. The servitude
      of the Jews might curb their zeal, and depreciate their
      authority; but the triumphant Mussulmans, who reigned at
      Damascus, and threatened Constantinople, cast into the scale of
      reproach the accumulated weight of truth and victory. The cities
      of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt had been fortified with the images
      of Christ, his mother, and his saints; and each city presumed on
      the hope or promise of miraculous defence. In a rapid conquest of
      ten years, the Arabs subdued those cities and these images; and,
      in their opinion, the Lord of Hosts pronounced a decisive
      judgment between the adoration and contempt of these mute and
      inanimate idols. 1511 For a while Edessa had braved the Persian
      assaults; but the chosen city, the spouse of Christ, was involved
      in the common ruin; and his divine resemblance became the slave
      and trophy of the infidels. After a servitude of three hundred
      years, the Palladium was yielded to the devotion of
      Constantinople, for a ransom of twelve thousand pounds of silver,
      the redemption of two hundred Mussulmans, and a perpetual truce
      for the territory of Edessa. 16 In this season of distress and
      dismay, the eloquence of the monks was exercised in the defence
      of images; and they attempted to prove, that the sin and schism
      of the greatest part of the Orientals had forfeited the favor,
      and annihilated the virtue, of these precious symbols. But they
      were now opposed by the murmurs of many simple or rational
      Christians, who appealed to the evidence of texts, of facts, and
      of the primitive times, and secretly desired the reformation of
      the church. As the worship of images had never been established
      by any general or positive law, its progress in the Eastern
      empire had been retarded, or accelerated, by the differences of
      men and manners, the local degrees of refinement, and the
      personal characters of the bishops. The splendid devotion was
      fondly cherished by the levity of the capital, and the inventive
      genius of the Byzantine clergy; while the rude and remote
      districts of Asia were strangers to this innovation of sacred
      luxury. Many large congregations of Gnostics and Arians
      maintained, after their conversion, the simple worship which had
      preceded their separation; and the Armenians, the most warlike
      subjects of Rome, were not reconciled, in the twelfth century, to
      the sight of images. 17 These various denominations of men
      afforded a fund of prejudice and aversion, of small account in
      the villages of Anatolia or Thrace, but which, in the fortune of
      a soldier, a prelate, or a eunuch, might be often connected with
      the powers of the church and state.

      15 (return) [ By Cedrenus, Zonaras, Glycas, and Manasses, the
      origin of the Aconoclcasts is imprinted to the caliph Yezid and
      two Jews, who promised the empire to Leo; and the reproaches of
      these hostile sectaries are turned into an absurd conspiracy for
      restoring the purity of the Christian worship, (see Spanheim,
      Hist. Imag. c. 2.)]

      1511 (return) [ Yezid, ninth caliph of the race of the Ommiadae,
      caused all the images in Syria to be destroyed about the year
      719; hence the orthodox reproaches the sectaries with following
      the example of the Saracens and the Jews Fragm. Mon. Johan.
      Jerosylym. Script. Byzant. vol. xvi. p. 235. Hist. des Repub.
      Ital. par M. Sismondi, vol. i. p. 126.—G.]

      16 (return) [ See Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 267,)
      Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 201,) and Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p.
      264,), and the criticisms of Pagi, (tom. iii. A.D. 944.) The
      prudent Franciscan refuses to determine whether the image of
      Edessa now reposes at Rome or Genoa; but its repose is
      inglorious, and this ancient object of worship is no longer
      famous or fashionable.]

      17 (return) [ (Nicetas, l. ii. p. 258.) The Armenian churches are
      still content with the Cross, (Missions du Levant, tom. iii. p.
      148;) but surely the superstitious Greek is unjust to the
      superstition of the Germans of the xiith century.]

      Of such adventurers, the most fortunate was the emperor Leo the
      Third, 18 who, from the mountains of Isauria, ascended the throne
      of the East. He was ignorant of sacred and profane letters; but
      his education, his reason, perhaps his intercourse with the Jews
      and Arabs, had inspired the martial peasant with a hatred of
      images; and it was held to be the duty of a prince to impose on
      his subjects the dictates of his own conscience. But in the
      outset of an unsettled reign, during ten years of toil and
      danger, Leo submitted to the meanness of hypocrisy, bowed before
      the idols which he despised, and satisfied the Roman pontiff with
      the annual professions of his orthodoxy and zeal. In the
      reformation of religion, his first steps were moderate and
      cautious: he assembled a great council of senators and bishops,
      and enacted, with their consent, that all the images should be
      removed from the sanctuary and altar to a proper height in the
      churches where they might be visible to the eyes, and
      inaccessible to the superstition, of the people. But it was
      impossible on either side to check the rapid through adverse
      impulse of veneration and abhorrence: in their lofty position,
      the sacred images still edified their votaries, and reproached
      the tyrant. He was himself provoked by resistance and invective;
      and his own party accused him of an imperfect discharge of his
      duty, and urged for his imitation the example of the Jewish king,
      who had broken without scruple the brazen serpent of the temple.
      By a second edict, he proscribed the existence as well as the use
      of religious pictures; the churches of Constantinople and the
      provinces were cleansed from idolatry; the images of Christ, the
      Virgin, and the saints, were demolished, or a smooth surface of
      plaster was spread over the walls of the edifice. The sect of the
      Iconoclasts was supported by the zeal and despotism of six
      emperors, and the East and West were involved in a noisy conflict
      of one hundred and twenty years. It was the design of Leo the
      Isaurian to pronounce the condemnation of images as an article of
      faith, and by the authority of a general council: but the
      convocation of such an assembly was reserved for his son
      Constantine; 19 and though it is stigmatized by triumphant
      bigotry as a meeting of fools and atheists, their own partial and
      mutilated acts betray many symptoms of reason and piety. The
      debates and decrees of many provincial synods introduced the
      summons of the general council which met in the suburbs of
      Constantinople, and was composed of the respectable number of
      three hundred and thirty-eight bishops of Europe and Anatolia;
      for the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria were the slaves of
      the caliph, and the Roman pontiff had withdrawn the churches of
      Italy and the West from the communion of the Greeks. This
      Byzantine synod assumed the rank and powers of the seventh
      general council; yet even this title was a recognition of the six
      preceding assemblies, which had laboriously built the structure
      of the Catholic faith. After a serious deliberation of six
      months, the three hundred and thirty-eight bishops pronounced and
      subscribed a unanimous decree, that all visible symbols of
      Christ, except in the Eucharist, were either blasphemous or
      heretical; that image-worship was a corruption of Christianity
      and a renewal of Paganism; that all such monuments of idolatry
      should be broken or erased; and that those who should refuse to
      deliver the objects of their private superstition, were guilty of
      disobedience to the authority of the church and of the emperor.
      In their loud and loyal acclamations, they celebrated the merits
      of their temporal redeemer; and to his zeal and justice they
      intrusted the execution of their spiritual censures. At
      Constantinople, as in the former councils, the will of the prince
      was the rule of episcopal faith; but on this occasion, I am
      inclined to suspect that a large majority of the prelates
      sacrificed their secret conscience to the temptations of hope and
      fear. In the long night of superstition, the Christians had
      wandered far away from the simplicity of the gospel: nor was it
      easy for them to discern the clew, and tread back the mazes, of
      the labyrinth. The worship of images was inseparably blended, at
      least to a pious fancy, with the Cross, the Virgin, the Saints
      and their relics; the holy ground was involved in a cloud of
      miracles and visions; and the nerves of the mind, curiosity and
      scepticism, were benumbed by the habits of obedience and belief.
      Constantine himself is accused of indulging a royal license to
      doubt, or deny, or deride the mysteries of the Catholics, 20 but
      they were deeply inscribed in the public and private creed of his
      bishops; and the boldest Iconoclast might assault with a secret
      horror the monuments of popular devotion, which were consecrated
      to the honor of his celestial patrons. In the reformation of the
      sixteenth century, freedom and knowledge had expanded all the
      faculties of man: the thirst of innovation superseded the
      reverence of antiquity; and the vigor of Europe could disdain
      those phantoms which terrified the sickly and servile weakness of
      the Greeks.

      18 (return) [ Our original, but not impartial, monuments of the
      Iconoclasts must be drawn from the Acts of the Councils, tom.
      viii. and ix. Collect. Labbe, edit. Venet. and the historical
      writings of Theophanes, Nicephorus, Manasses, Cedrenus, Zonoras,
      &c. Of the modern Catholics, Baronius, Pagi, Natalis Alexander,
      (Hist. Eccles. Seculum viii. and ix.,) and Maimbourg, (Hist. des
      Iconoclasts,) have treated the subject with learning, passion,
      and credulity. The Protestant labors of Frederick Spanheim
      (Historia Imaginum restituta) and James Basnage (Hist. des
      Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. l. xxiiii. p. 1339-1385) are cast
      into the Iconoclast scale. With this mutual aid, and opposite
      tendency, it is easy for us to poise the balance with philosophic
      indifference. * Note: Compare Schlosser, Geschichte der
      Bilder-sturmender Kaiser, Frankfurt am-Main 1812 a book of
      research and impartiality—M.]

      19 (return) [ Some flowers of rhetoric. By Damascenus is styled
      (Opera, tom. i. p. 623.) Spanheim’s Apology for the Synod of
      Constantinople (p. 171, &c.) is worked up with truth and
      ingenuity, from such materials as he could find in the Nicene
      Acts, (p. 1046, &c.) The witty John of Damascus converts it into
      slaves of their belly, &c. Opera, tom. i. p. 806]

      20 (return) [ He is accused of proscribing the title of saint;
      styling the Virgin, Mother of Christ; comparing her after her
      delivery to an empty purse of Arianism, Nestorianism, &c. In his
      defence, Spanheim (c. iv. p. 207) is somewhat embarrassed between
      the interest of a Protestant and the duty of an orthodox divine.]

      The scandal of an abstract heresy can be only proclaimed to the
      people by the blast of the ecclesiastical trumpet; but the most
      ignorant can perceive, the most torpid must feel, the profanation
      and downfall of their visible deities. The first hostilities of
      Leo were directed against a lofty Christ on the vestibule, and
      above the gate, of the palace. A ladder had been planted for the
      assault, but it was furiously shaken by a crowd of zealots and
      women: they beheld, with pious transport, the ministers of
      sacrilege tumbling from on high and dashed against the pavement:
      and the honors of the ancient martyrs were prostituted to these
      criminals, who justly suffered for murder and rebellion. 21 The
      execution of the Imperial edicts was resisted by frequent tumults
      in Constantinople and the provinces: the person of Leo was
      endangered, his officers were massacred, and the popular
      enthusiasm was quelled by the strongest efforts of the civil and
      military power. Of the Archipelago, or Holy Sea, the numerous
      islands were filled with images and monks: their votaries
      abjured, without scruple, the enemy of Christ, his mother, and
      the saints; they armed a fleet of boats and galleys, displayed
      their consecrated banners, and boldly steered for the harbor of
      Constantinople, to place on the throne a new favorite of God and
      the people. They depended on the succor of a miracle: but their
      miracles were inefficient against the Greek fire; and, after the
      defeat and conflagration of the fleet, the naked islands were
      abandoned to the clemency or justice of the conqueror. The son of
      Leo, in the first year of his reign, had undertaken an expedition
      against the Saracens: during his absence, the capital, the
      palace, and the purple, were occupied by his kinsman Artavasdes,
      the ambitious champion of the orthodox faith. The worship of
      images was triumphantly restored: the patriarch renounced his
      dissimulation, or dissembled his sentiments and the righteous
      claims of the usurper was acknowledged, both in the new, and in
      ancient, Rome. Constantine flew for refuge to his paternal
      mountains; but he descended at the head of the bold and
      affectionate Isaurians; and his final victory confounded the arms
      and predictions of the fanatics. His long reign was distracted
      with clamor, sedition, conspiracy, and mutual hatred, and
      sanguinary revenge; the persecution of images was the motive or
      pretence, of his adversaries; and, if they missed a temporal
      diadem, they were rewarded by the Greeks with the crown of
      martyrdom. In every act of open and clandestine treason, the
      emperor felt the unforgiving enmity of the monks, the faithful
      slaves of the superstition to which they owed their riches and
      influence. They prayed, they preached, they absolved, they
      inflamed, they conspired; the solitude of Palestine poured forth
      a torrent of invective; and the pen of St. John Damascenus, 22
      the last of the Greek fathers, devoted the tyrant’s head, both in
      this world and the next. 23 2311 I am not at leisure to examine
      how far the monks provoked, nor how much they have exaggerated,
      their real and pretended sufferings, nor how many lost their
      lives or limbs, their eyes or their beards, by the cruelty of the
      emperor. 2312 From the chastisement of individuals, he proceeded
      to the abolition of the order; and, as it was wealthy and
      useless, his resentment might be stimulated by avarice, and
      justified by patriotism. The formidable name and mission of the
      Dragon, 24 his visitor-general, excited the terror and abhorrence
      of the black nation: the religious communities were dissolved,
      the buildings were converted into magazines, or barracks; the
      lands, movables, and cattle were confiscated; and our modern
      precedents will support the charge, that much wanton or malicious
      havoc was exercised against the relics, and even the books of the
      monasteries. With the habit and profession of monks, the public
      and private worship of images was rigorously proscribed; and it
      should seem, that a solemn abjuration of idolatry was exacted
      from the subjects, or at least from the clergy, of the Eastern
      empire. 25

      21 (return) [ The holy confessor Theophanes approves the
      principle of their rebellion, (p. 339.) Gregory II. (in Epist. i.
      ad Imp. Leon. Concil. tom. viii. p. 661, 664) applauds the zeal
      of the Byzantine women who killed the Imperial officers.]

      22 (return) [ John, or Mansur, was a noble Christian of Damascus,
      who held a considerable office in the service of the caliph. His
      zeal in the cause of images exposed him to the resentment and
      treachery of the Greek emperor; and on the suspicion of a
      treasonable correspondence, he was deprived of his right hand,
      which was miraculously restored by the Virgin. After this
      deliverance, he resigned his office, distributed his wealth, and
      buried himself in the monastery of St. Sabas, between Jerusalem
      and the Dead Sea. The legend is famous; but his learned editor,
      Father Lequien, has a unluckily proved that St. John Damascenus
      was already a monk before the Iconoclast dispute, (Opera, tom. i.
      Vit. St. Joan. Damascen. p. 10-13, et Notas ad loc.)]

      23 (return) [ After sending Leo to the devil, he introduces his
      heir, (Opera, Damascen. tom. i. p. 625.) If the authenticity of
      this piece be suspicious, we are sure that in other works, no
      longer extant, Damascenus bestowed on Constantine the titles.
      (tom. i. p. 306.)]

      2311 (return) [ The patriarch Anastasius, an Iconoclast under
      Leo, an image worshipper under Artavasdes, was scourged, led
      through the streets on an ass, with his face to the tail; and,
      reinvested in his dignity, became again the obsequious minister
      of Constantine in his Iconoclastic persecutions. See Schlosser p.
      211.—M.]

      2312 (return) [ Compare Schlosser, p. 228-234.—M.]

      24 (return) [ In the narrative of this persecution from
      Theophanes and Cedreves, Spanheim (p. 235-238) is happy to
      compare the Draco of Leo with the dragoons (Dracones) of Louis
      XIV.; and highly solaces himself with the controversial pun.]

      25 (return) [ (Damascen. Op. tom. i. p. 625.) This oath and
      subscription I do not remember to have seen in any modern
      compilation]

      The patient East abjured, with reluctance, her sacred images;
      they were fondly cherished, and vigorously defended, by the
      independent zeal of the Italians. In ecclesiastical rank and
      jurisdiction, the patriarch of Constantinople and the pope of
      Rome were nearly equal. But the Greek prelate was a domestic
      slave under the eye of his master, at whose nod he alternately
      passed from the convent to the throne, and from the throne to the
      convent. A distant and dangerous station, amidst the Barbarians
      of the West, excited the spirit and freedom of the Latin bishops.

      Their popular election endeared them to the Romans: the public
      and private indigence was relieved by their ample revenue; and
      the weakness or neglect of the emperors compelled them to
      consult, both in peace and war, the temporal safety of the city.
      In the school of adversity the priest insensibly imbibed the
      virtues and the ambition of a prince; the same character was
      assumed, the same policy was adopted, by the Italian, the Greek,
      or the Syrian, who ascended the chair of St. Peter; and, after
      the loss of her legions and provinces, the genius and fortune of
      the popes again restored the supremacy of Rome. It is agreed,
      that in the eighth century, their dominion was founded on
      rebellion, and that the rebellion was produced, and justified, by
      the heresy of the Iconoclasts; but the conduct of the second and
      third Gregory, in this memorable contest, is variously
      interpreted by the wishes of their friends and enemies. The
      Byzantine writers unanimously declare, that, after a fruitless
      admonition, they pronounced the separation of the East and West,
      and deprived the sacrilegious tyrant of the revenue and
      sovereignty of Italy. Their excommunication is still more clearly
      expressed by the Greeks, who beheld the accomplishment of the
      papal triumphs; and as they are more strongly attached to their
      religion than to their country, they praise, instead of blaming,
      the zeal and orthodoxy of these apostolical men. 26 The modern
      champions of Rome are eager to accept the praise and the
      precedent: this great and glorious example of the deposition of
      royal heretics is celebrated by the cardinals Baronius and
      Bellarmine; 27 and if they are asked, why the same thunders were
      not hurled against the Neros and Julians of antiquity, they
      reply, that the weakness of the primitive church was the sole
      cause of her patient loyalty. 28 On this occasion the effects of
      love and hatred are the same; and the zealous Protestants, who
      seek to kindle the indignation, and to alarm the fears, of
      princes and magistrates, expatiate on the insolence and treason
      of the two Gregories against their lawful sovereign. 29 They are
      defended only by the moderate Catholics, for the most part, of
      the Gallican church, 30 who respect the saint, without approving
      the sin. These common advocates of the crown and the mitre
      circumscribe the truth of facts by the rule of equity, Scripture,
      and tradition, and appeal to the evidence of the Latins, 31 and
      the lives 32 and epistles of the popes; themselves.

      26 (return) [ Theophanes. (Chronograph. p. 343.) For this Gregory
      is styled by Cedrenus. (p. 450.) Zonaras specifies the thunder,
      (tom. ii. l. xv. p. 104, 105.) It may be observed, that the
      Greeks are apt to confound the times and actions of two
      Gregories.]

      27 (return) [ See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 730, No. 4, 5;
      dignum exemplum! Bellarmin. de Romano Pontifice, l. v. c. 8:
      mulctavit eum parte imperii. Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, l. iii.
      Opera, tom. ii. p. 169. Yet such is the change of Italy, that
      Sigonius is corrected by the editor of Milan, Philipus Argelatus,
      a Bolognese, and subject of the pope.]

      28 (return) [ Quod si Christiani olim non deposuerunt Neronem aut
      Julianum, id fuit quia deerant vires temporales Christianis,
      (honest Bellarmine, de Rom. Pont. l. v. c. 7.) Cardinal Perron
      adds a distinction more honorable to the first Christians, but
      not more satisfactory to modern princes—the treason of heretics
      and apostates, who break their oath, belie their coin, and
      renounce their allegiance to Christ and his vicar, (Perroniana,
      p. 89.)]

      29 (return) [ Take, as a specimen, the cautious Basnage (Hist.
      d’Eglise, p. 1350, 1351) and the vehement Spanheim, (Hist.
      Imaginum,) who, with a hundred more, tread in the footsteps of
      the centuriators of Magdeburgh.]

      30 (return) [ See Launoy, (Opera, tom. v. pars ii. epist. vii. 7,
      p. 456-474,) Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Nov. Testamenti, secul.
      viii. dissert. i. p. 92-98,) Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. p. 215,
      216,) and Giannone, (Istoria Civile Napoli, tom. i. p. 317-320,)
      a disciple of the Gallican school In the field of controversy I
      always pity the moderate party, who stand on the open middle
      ground exposed to the fire of both sides.]

      31 (return) [ They appeal to Paul Warnefrid, or Diaconus, (de
      Gestis Langobard. l. vi. c. 49, p. 506, 507, in Script. Ital.
      Muratori, tom. i. pars i.,) and the nominal Anastasius, (de Vit.
      Pont. in Muratori, tom. iii. pars i. Gregorius II. p. 154.
      Gregorius III. p. 158. Zacharias, p. 161. Stephanus III. p. 165.;
      Paulus, p. 172. Stephanus IV. p. 174. Hadrianus, p. 179. Leo III.
      p. 195.) Yet I may remark, that the true Anastasius (Hist.
      Eccles. p. 134, edit. Reg.) and the Historia Miscella, (l. xxi.
      p. 151, in tom. i. Script. Ital.,) both of the ixth century,
      translate and approve the Greek text of Theophanes.]

      32 (return) [ With some minute difference, the most learned
      critics, Lucas Holstenius, Schelestrate, Ciampini, Bianchini,
      Muratori, (Prolegomena ad tom. iii. pars i.,) are agreed that the
      Liber Pontificalis was composed and continued by the apostolic
      librarians and notaries of the viiith and ixth centuries; and
      that the last and smallest part is the work of Anastasius, whose
      name it bears. The style is barbarous, the narrative partial, the
      details are trifling—yet it must be read as a curious and
      authentic record of the times. The epistles of the popes are
      dispersed in the volumes of Councils.]




      Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part II.

      Two original epistles, from Gregory the Second to the emperor
      Leo, are still extant; 33 and if they cannot be praised as the
      most perfect models of eloquence and logic, they exhibit the
      portrait, or at least the mask, of the founder of the papal
      monarchy. “During ten pure and fortunate years,” says Gregory to
      the emperor, “we have tasted the annual comfort of your royal
      letters, subscribed in purple ink, with your own hand, the sacred
      pledges of your attachment to the orthodox creed of our fathers.
      How deplorable is the change! how tremendous the scandal! You now
      accuse the Catholics of idolatry; and, by the accusation, you
      betray your own impiety and ignorance. To this ignorance we are
      compelled to adapt the grossness of our style and arguments: the
      first elements of holy letters are sufficient for your confusion;
      and were you to enter a grammar-school, and avow yourself the
      enemy of our worship, the simple and pious children would be
      provoked to cast their horn-books at your head.” After this
      decent salutation, the pope attempts the usual distinction
      between the idols of antiquity and the Christian images. The
      former were the fanciful representations of phantoms or daemons,
      at a time when the true God had not manifested his person in any
      visible likeness. The latter are the genuine forms of Christ, his
      mother, and his saints, who had approved, by a crowd of miracles,
      the innocence and merit of this relative worship. He must indeed
      have trusted to the ignorance of Leo, since he could assert the
      perpetual use of images, from the apostolic age, and their
      venerable presence in the six synods of the Catholic church. A
      more specious argument is drawn from present possession and
      recent practice the harmony of the Christian world supersedes the
      demand of a general council; and Gregory frankly confesses, than
      such assemblies can only be useful under the reign of an orthodox
      prince. To the impudent and inhuman Leo, more guilty than a
      heretic, he recommends peace, silence, and implicit obedience to
      his spiritual guides of Constantinople and Rome. The limits of
      civil and ecclesiastical powers are defined by the pontiff. To
      the former he appropriates the body; to the latter, the soul: the
      sword of justice is in the hands of the magistrate: the more
      formidable weapon of excommunication is intrusted to the clergy;
      and in the exercise of their divine commission a zealous son will
      not spare his offending father: the successor of St. Peter may
      lawfully chastise the kings of the earth. “You assault us, O
      tyrant! with a carnal and military hand: unarmed and naked we can
      only implore the Christ, the prince of the heavenly host, that he
      will send unto you a devil, for the destruction of your body and
      the salvation of your soul. You declare, with foolish arrogance,
      I will despatch my orders to Rome: I will break in pieces the
      image of St. Peter; and Gregory, like his predecessor Martin,
      shall be transported in chains, and in exile, to the foot of the
      Imperial throne. Would to God that I might be permitted to tread
      in the footsteps of the holy Martin! but may the fate of Constans
      serve as a warning to the persecutors of the church! After his
      just condemnation by the bishops of Sicily, the tyrant was cut
      off, in the fullness of his sins, by a domestic servant: the
      saint is still adored by the nations of Scythia, among whom he
      ended his banishment and his life. But it is our duty to live for
      the edification and support of the faithful people; nor are we
      reduced to risk our safety on the event of a combat. Incapable as
      you are of defending your Roman subjects, the maritime situation
      of the city may perhaps expose it to your depredation but we can
      remove to the distance of four-and-twenty stadia, to the first
      fortress of the Lombards, and then—you may pursue the winds. 34
      Are you ignorant that the popes are the bond of union, the
      mediators of peace, between the East and West? The eyes of the
      nations are fixed on our humility; and they revere, as a God upon
      earth, the apostle St. Peter, whose image you threaten to
      destroy. 35 The remote and interior kingdoms of the West present
      their homage to Christ and his vicegerent; and we now prepare to
      visit one of their most powerful monarchs, who desires to receive
      from our hands the sacrament of baptism. 36 The Barbarians have
      submitted to the yoke of the gospel, while you alone are deaf to
      the voice of the shepherd. These pious Barbarians are kindled
      into rage: they thirst to avenge the persecution of the East.
      Abandon your rash and fatal enterprise; reflect, tremble, and
      repent. If you persist, we are innocent of the blood that will be
      spilt in the contest; may it fall on your own head!”

      33 (return) [ The two epistles of Gregory II. have been preserved
      in the Acta of the Nicene Council, (tom. viii. p. 651-674.) They
      are without a date, which is variously fixed, by Baronius in the
      year 726, by Muratori (Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 120) in 729,
      and by Pagi in 730. Such is the force of prejudice, that some
      papists have praised the good sense and moderation of these
      letters.]

      34 (return) [ (Epist. i. p. 664.) This proximity of the Lombards
      is hard of digestion. Camillo Pellegrini (Dissert. iv. de Ducatu
      Beneventi, in the Script. Ital. tom. v. p. 172, 173) forcibly
      reckons the xxivth stadia, not from Rome, but from the limits of
      the Roman duchy, to the first fortress, perhaps Sora, of the
      Lombards. I rather believe that Gregory, with the pedantry of the
      age, employs stadia for miles, without much inquiry into the
      genuine measure.]

      35 (return) [ {Greek}]

      36 (return) [ (p. 665.) The pope appears to have imposed on the
      ignorance of the Greeks: he lived and died in the Lateran; and in
      his time all the kingdoms of the West had embraced Christianity.
      May not this unknown Septetus have some reference to the chief of
      the Saxon Heptarchy, to Ina king of Wessex, who, in the
      pontificate of Gregory the Second, visited Rome for the purpose,
      not of baptism, but of pilgrimage! (Pagi. A., 89, No. 2. A.D.
      726, No. 15.)]

      The first assault of Leo against the images of Constantinople had
      been witnessed by a crowd of strangers from Italy and the West,
      who related with grief and indignation the sacrilege of the
      emperor. But on the reception of his proscriptive edict, they
      trembled for their domestic deities: the images of Christ and the
      Virgin, of the angels, martyrs, and saints, were abolished in all
      the churches of Italy; and a strong alternative was proposed to
      the Roman pontiff, the royal favor as the price of his
      compliance, degradation and exile as the penalty of his
      disobedience. Neither zeal nor policy allowed him to hesitate;
      and the haughty strain in which Gregory addressed the emperor
      displays his confidence in the truth of his doctrine or the
      powers of resistance. Without depending on prayers or miracles,
      he boldly armed against the public enemy, and his pastoral
      letters admonished the Italians of their danger and their duty.
      37 At this signal, Ravenna, Venice, and the cities of the
      Exarchate and Pentapolis, adhered to the cause of religion; their
      military force by sea and land consisted, for the most part, of
      the natives; and the spirit of patriotism and zeal was transfused
      into the mercenary strangers. The Italians swore to live and die
      in the defence of the pope and the holy images; the Roman people
      was devoted to their father, and even the Lombards were ambitious
      to share the merit and advantage of this holy war. The most
      treasonable act, but the most obvious revenge, was the
      destruction of the statues of Leo himself: the most effectual and
      pleasing measure of rebellion, was the withholding the tribute of
      Italy, and depriving him of a power which he had recently abused
      by the imposition of a new capitation. 38 A form of
      administration was preserved by the election of magistrates and
      governors; and so high was the public indignation, that the
      Italians were prepared to create an orthodox emperor, and to
      conduct him with a fleet and army to the palace of
      Constantinople. In that palace, the Roman bishops, the second and
      third Gregory, were condemned as the authors of the revolt, and
      every attempt was made, either by fraud or force, to seize their
      persons, and to strike at their lives. The city was repeatedly
      visited or assaulted by captains of the guards, and dukes and
      exarchs of high dignity or secret trust; they landed with foreign
      troops, they obtained some domestic aid, and the superstition of
      Naples may blush that her fathers were attached to the cause of
      heresy. But these clandestine or open attacks were repelled by
      the courage and vigilance of the Romans; the Greeks were
      overthrown and massacred, their leaders suffered an ignominious
      death, and the popes, however inclined to mercy, refused to
      intercede for these guilty victims. At Ravenna, 39 the several
      quarters of the city had long exercised a bloody and hereditary
      feud; in religious controversy they found a new aliment of
      faction: but the votaries of images were superior in numbers or
      spirit, and the exarch, who attempted to stem the torrent, lost
      his life in a popular sedition. To punish this flagitious deed,
      and restore his dominion in Italy, the emperor sent a fleet and
      army into the Adriatic Gulf. After suffering from the winds and
      waves much loss and delay, the Greeks made their descent in the
      neighborhood of Ravenna: they threatened to depopulate the guilty
      capital, and to imitate, perhaps to surpass, the example of
      Justinian the Second, who had chastised a former rebellion by the
      choice and execution of fifty of the principal inhabitants. The
      women and clergy, in sackcloth and ashes, lay prostrate in
      prayer: the men were in arms for the defence of their country;
      the common danger had united the factions, and the event of a
      battle was preferred to the slow miseries of a siege. In a
      hard-fought day, as the two armies alternately yielded and
      advanced, a phantom was seen, a voice was heard, and Ravenna was
      victorious by the assurance of victory. The strangers retreated
      to their ships, but the populous sea-coast poured forth a
      multitude of boats; the waters of the Po were so deeply infected
      with blood, that during six years the public prejudice abstained
      from the fish of the river; and the institution of an annual
      feast perpetuated the worship of images, and the abhorrence of
      the Greek tyrant. Amidst the triumph of the Catholic arms, the
      Roman pontiff convened a synod of ninety-three bishops against
      the heresy of the Iconoclasts. With their consent, he pronounced
      a general excommunication against all who by word or deed should
      attack the tradition of the fathers and the images of the saints:
      in this sentence the emperor was tacitly involved, 40 but the
      vote of a last and hopeless remonstrance may seem to imply that
      the anathema was yet suspended over his guilty head. No sooner
      had they confirmed their own safety, the worship of images, and
      the freedom of Rome and Italy, than the popes appear to have
      relaxed of their severity, and to have spared the relics of the
      Byzantine dominion. Their moderate councils delayed and prevented
      the election of a new emperor, and they exhorted the Italians not
      to separate from the body of the Roman monarchy. The exarch was
      permitted to reside within the walls of Ravenna, a captive rather
      than a master; and till the Imperial coronation of Charlemagne,
      the government of Rome and Italy was exercised in the name of the
      successors of Constantine. 41

      37 (return) [ I shall transcribe the important and decisive
      passage of the Liber Pontificalis. Respiciens ergo pius vir
      profanam principis jussionem, jam contra Imperatorem quasi contra
      hostem se armavit, renuens haeresim ejus, scribens ubique se
      cavere Christianos, eo quod orta fuisset impietas talis. Igitur
      permoti omnes Pentapolenses, atque Venetiarum exercitus contra
      Imperatoris jussionem restiterunt; dicentes se nunquam in ejusdem
      pontificis condescendere necem, sed pro ejus magis defensione
      viriliter decertare, (p. 156.)]

      38 (return) [ A census, or capitation, says Anastasius, (p. 156;)
      a most cruel tax, unknown to the Saracens themselves, exclaims
      the zealous Maimbourg, (Hist. des Iconoclastes, l. i.,) and
      Theophanes, (p. 344,) who talks of Pharaoh’s numbering the male
      children of Israel. This mode of taxation was familiar to the
      Saracens; and, most unluckily for the historians, it was imposed
      a few years afterwards in France by his patron Louis XIV.]

      39 (return) [ See the Liber Pontificalis of Agnellus, (in the
      Scriptores Rerum Italicarum of Muratori, tom. ii. pars i.,) whose
      deeper shade of barbarism marks the difference between Rome and
      Ravenna. Yet we are indebted to him for some curious and domestic
      facts—the quarters and factions of Ravenna, (p. 154,) the revenge
      of Justinian II, (p. 160, 161,) the defeat of the Greeks, (p.
      170, 171,) &c.]

      40 (return) [ Yet Leo was undoubtedly comprised in the si quis
      .... imaginum sacrarum.... destructor.... extiterit, sit extorris
      a cor pore D. N. Jesu Christi vel totius ecclesiae unitate. The
      canonists may decide whether the guilt or the name constitutes
      the excommunication; and the decision is of the last importance
      to their safety, since, according to the oracle (Gratian, Caus.
      xxiii. q. 5, 47, apud Spanheim, Hist. Imag. p. 112) homicidas non
      esse qui excommunicatos trucidant.]

      41 (return) [ Compescuit tale consilium Pontifex, sperans
      conversionem principis, (Anastas. p. 156.) Sed ne desisterent ab
      amore et fide R. J. admonebat, (p. 157.) The popes style Leo and
      Constantine Copronymus, Imperatores et Domini, with the strange
      epithet of Piissimi. A famous Mosaic of the Lateran (A.D. 798)
      represents Christ, who delivers the keys to St. Peter and the
      banner to Constantine V. (Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p.
      337.)]

      The liberty of Rome, which had been oppressed by the arms and
      arts of Augustus, was rescued, after seven hundred and fifty
      years of servitude, from the persecution of Leo the Isaurian. By
      the Caesars, the triumphs of the consuls had been annihilated: in
      the decline and fall of the empire, the god Terminus, the sacred
      boundary, had insensibly receded from the ocean, the Rhine, the
      Danube, and the Euphrates; and Rome was reduced to her ancient
      territory from Viterbo to Terracina, and from Narni to the mouth
      of the Tyber. 42 When the kings were banished, the republic
      reposed on the firm basis which had been founded by their wisdom
      and virtue. Their perpetual jurisdiction was divided between two
      annual magistrates: the senate continued to exercise the powers
      of administration and counsel; and the legislative authority was
      distributed in the assemblies of the people, by a
      well-proportioned scale of property and service. Ignorant of the
      arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of
      government and war: the will of the community was absolute: the
      rights of individuals were sacred: one hundred and thirty
      thousand citizens were armed for defence or conquest; and a band
      of robbers and outlaws was moulded into a nation deserving of
      freedom and ambitious of glory. 43 When the sovereignty of the
      Greek emperors was extinguished, the ruins of Rome presented the
      sad image of depopulation and decay: her slavery was a habit, her
      liberty an accident; the effect of superstition, and the object
      of her own amazement and terror. The last vestige of the
      substance, or even the forms, of the constitution, was
      obliterated from the practice and memory of the Romans; and they
      were devoid of knowledge, or virtue, again to build the fabric of
      a commonwealth. Their scanty remnant, the offspring of slaves and
      strangers, was despicable in the eyes of the victorious
      Barbarians. As often as the Franks or Lombards expressed their
      most bitter contempt of a foe, they called him a Roman; “and in
      this name,” says the bishop Liutprand, “we include whatever is
      base, whatever is cowardly, whatever is perfidious, the extremes
      of avarice and luxury, and every vice that can prostitute the
      dignity of human nature.” 44 441 By the necessity of their
      situation, the inhabitants of Rome were cast into the rough model
      of a republican government: they were compelled to elect some
      judges in peace, and some leaders in war: the nobles assembled to
      deliberate, and their resolves could not be executed without the
      union and consent of the multitude. The style of the Roman senate
      and people was revived, 45 but the spirit was fled; and their new
      independence was disgraced by the tumultuous conflict of
      vicentiousness and oppression. The want of laws could only be
      supplied by the influence of religion, and their foreign and
      domestic counsels were moderated by the authority of the bishop.
      His alms, his sermons, his correspondence with the kings and
      prelates of the West, his recent services, their gratitude, and
      oath, accustomed the Romans to consider him as the first
      magistrate or prince of the city. The Christian humility of the
      popes was not offended by the name of Dominus, or Lord; and their
      face and inscription are still apparent on the most ancient
      coins. 46 Their temporal dominion is now confirmed by the
      reverence of a thousand years; and their noblest title is the
      free choice of a people, whom they had redeemed from slavery.

      42 (return) [ I have traced the Roman duchy according to the
      maps, and the maps according to the excellent dissertation of
      father Beretti, (de Chorographia Italiae Medii Aevi, sect. xx. p.
      216-232.) Yet I must nicely observe, that Viterbo is of Lombard
      foundation, (p. 211,) and that Terracina was usurped by the
      Greeks.]

      43 (return) [ On the extent, population, &c., of the Roman
      kingdom, the reader may peruse, with pleasure, the Discours
      Preliminaire to the Republique Romaine of M. de Beaufort, (tom.
      i.,) who will not be accused of too much credulity for the early
      ages of Rome.]

      44 (return) [ Quos (Romanos) nos, Longobardi scilicet, Saxones,
      Franci, Locharingi, Bajoarii, Suevi, Burgundiones, tanto
      dedignamur ut inimicos nostros commoti, nil aliud contumeliarum
      nisi Romane, dicamus: hoc solo, id est Romanorum nomine, quicquid
      ignobilitatis, quicquid timiditatis, quicquid avaritiae, quicquid
      luxuriae, quicquid mendacii, immo quicquid vitiorum est
      comprehendentes, (Liutprand, in Legat Script. Ital. tom. ii. para
      i. p. 481.) For the sins of Cato or Tully Minos might have
      imposed as a fit penance the daily perusal of this barbarous
      passage.]

      441 (return) [ Yet this contumelious sentence, quoted by
      Robertson (Charles V note 2) as well as Gibbon, was applied by
      the angry bishop to the Byzantine Romans, whom, indeed, he admits
      to be the genuine descendants of Romulus.—M.]

      45 (return) [ Pipino regi Francorum, omnis senatus, atque
      universa populi generalitas a Deo servatae Romanae urbis. Codex
      Carolin. epist. 36, in Script. Ital. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 160.
      The names of senatus and senator were never totally extinct,
      (Dissert. Chorograph. p. 216, 217;) but in the middle ages they
      signified little more than nobiles, optimates, &c., (Ducange,
      Gloss. Latin.)]

      46 (return) [ See Muratori, Antiquit. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom.
      ii. Dissertat xxvii. p. 548. On one of these coins we read
      Hadrianus Papa (A.D. 772;) on the reverse, Vict. Ddnn. with the
      word Conob, which the Pere Joubert (Science des Medailles, tom.
      ii. p. 42) explains by Constantinopoli Officina B (secunda.)]

      In the quarrels of ancient Greece, the holy people of Elis
      enjoyed a perpetual peace, under the protection of Jupiter, and
      in the exercise of the Olympic games. 47 Happy would it have been
      for the Romans, if a similar privilege had guarded the patrimony
      of St. Peter from the calamities of war; if the Christians, who
      visited the holy threshold, would have sheathed their swords in
      the presence of the apostle and his successor. But this mystic
      circle could have been traced only by the wand of a legislator
      and a sage: this pacific system was incompatible with the zeal
      and ambition of the popes; the Romans were not addicted, like the
      inhabitants of Elis, to the innocent and placid labors of
      agriculture; and the Barbarians of Italy, though softened by the
      climate, were far below the Grecian states in the institutions of
      public and private life. A memorable example of repentance and
      piety was exhibited by Liutprand, king of the Lombards. In arms,
      at the gate of the Vatican, the conqueror listened to the voice
      of Gregory the Second, 48 withdrew his troops, resigned his
      conquests, respectfully visited the church of St. Peter, and
      after performing his devotions, offered his sword and dagger, his
      cuirass and mantle, his silver cross, and his crown of gold, on
      the tomb of the apostle. But this religious fervor was the
      illusion, perhaps the artifice, of the moment; the sense of
      interest is strong and lasting; the love of arms and rapine was
      congenial to the Lombards; and both the prince and people were
      irresistibly tempted by the disorders of Italy, the nakedness of
      Rome, and the unwarlike profession of her new chief. On the first
      edicts of the emperor, they declared themselves the champions of
      the holy images: Liutprand invaded the province of Romagna, which
      had already assumed that distinctive appellation; the Catholics
      of the Exarchate yielded without reluctance to his civil and
      military power; and a foreign enemy was introduced for the first
      time into the impregnable fortress of Ravenna. That city and
      fortress were speedily recovered by the active diligence and
      maritime forces of the Venetians; and those faithful subjects
      obeyed the exhortation of Gregory himself, in separating the
      personal guilt of Leo from the general cause of the Roman empire.
      49 The Greeks were less mindful of the service, than the Lombards
      of the injury: the two nations, hostile in their faith, were
      reconciled in a dangerous and unnatural alliance: the king and
      the exarch marched to the conquest of Spoleto and Rome: the storm
      evaporated without effect, but the policy of Liutprand alarmed
      Italy with a vexatious alternative of hostility and truce. His
      successor Astolphus declared himself the equal enemy of the
      emperor and the pope: Ravenna was subdued by force or treachery,
      50 and this final conquest extinguished the series of the
      exarchs, who had reigned with a subordinate power since the time
      of Justinian and the ruin of the Gothic kingdom. Rome was
      summoned to acknowledge the victorious Lombard as her lawful
      sovereign; the annual tribute of a piece of gold was fixed as the
      ransom of each citizen, and the sword of destruction was
      unsheathed to exact the penalty of her disobedience. The Romans
      hesitated; they entreated; they complained; and the threatening
      Barbarians were checked by arms and negotiations, till the popes
      had engaged the friendship of an ally and avenger beyond the
      Alps. 51

      47 (return) [ See West’s Dissertation on the Olympic Games,
      (Pindar. vol. ii. p. 32-36, edition in 12mo.,) and the judicious
      reflections of Polybius (tom. i. l. iv. p. 466, edit Gronov.)]

      48 (return) [ The speech of Gregory to the Lombard is finely
      composed by Sigonius, (de Regno Italiae, l. iii. Opera, tom. ii.
      p. 173,) who imitates the license and the spirit of Sallust or
      Livy.]

      49 (return) [ The Venetian historians, John Sagorninus, (Chron.
      Venet. p. 13,) and the doge Andrew Dandolo, (Scriptores Rer.
      Ital. tom. xii. p. 135,) have preserved this epistle of Gregory.
      The loss and recovery of Ravenna are mentioned by Paulus
      Diaconus, (de Gest. Langobard, l. vi. c. 42, 54, in Script. Ital.
      tom. i. pars i. p. 506, 508;) but our chronologists, Pagi,
      Muratori, &c., cannot ascertain the date or circumstances]

      50 (return) [ The option will depend on the various readings of
      the Mss. of Anastasius—deceperat, or decerpserat, (Script. Ital.
      tom. iii. pars i. p. 167.)]

      51 (return) [ The Codex Carolinus is a collection of the epistles
      of the popes to Charles Martel, (whom they style Subregulus,)
      Pepin, and Charlemagne, as far as the year 791, when it was
      formed by the last of these princes. His original and authentic
      Ms. (Bibliothecae Cubicularis) is now in the Imperial library of
      Vienna, and has been published by Lambecius and Muratori,
      (Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 75, &c.)]

      In his distress, the first 511 Gregory had implored the aid of
      the hero of the age, of Charles Martel, who governed the French
      monarchy with the humble title of mayor or duke; and who, by his
      signal victory over the Saracens, had saved his country, and
      perhaps Europe, from the Mahometan yoke. The ambassadors of the
      pope were received by Charles with decent reverence; but the
      greatness of his occupations, and the shortness of his life,
      prevented his interference in the affairs of Italy, except by a
      friendly and ineffectual mediation. His son Pepin, the heir of
      his power and virtues, assumed the office of champion of the
      Roman church; and the zeal of the French prince appears to have
      been prompted by the love of glory and religion. But the danger
      was on the banks of the Tyber, the succor on those of the Seine,
      and our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
      Amidst the tears of the city, Stephen the Third embraced the
      generous resolution of visiting in person the courts of Lombardy
      and France, to deprecate the injustice of his enemy, or to excite
      the pity and indignation of his friend. After soothing the public
      despair by litanies and orations, he undertook this laborious
      journey with the ambassadors of the French monarch and the Greek
      emperor. The king of the Lombards was inexorable; but his threats
      could not silence the complaints, nor retard the speed of the
      Roman pontiff, who traversed the Pennine Alps, reposed in the
      abbey of St. Maurice, and hastened to grasp the right hand of his
      protector; a hand which was never lifted in vain, either in war
      or friendship. Stephen was entertained as the visible successor
      of the apostle; at the next assembly, the field of March or of
      May, his injuries were exposed to a devout and warlike nation,
      and he repassed the Alps, not as a suppliant, but as a conqueror,
      at the head of a French army, which was led by the king in
      person. The Lombards, after a weak resistance, obtained an
      ignominious peace, and swore to restore the possessions, and to
      respect the sanctity, of the Roman church. But no sooner was
      Astolphus delivered from the presence of the French arms, than he
      forgot his promise and resented his disgrace. Rome was again
      encompassed by his arms; and Stephen, apprehensive of fatiguing
      the zeal of his Transalpine allies enforced his complaint and
      request by an eloquent letter in the name and person of St. Peter
      himself. 52 The apostle assures his adopted sons, the king, the
      clergy, and the nobles of France, that, dead in the flesh, he is
      still alive in the spirit; that they now hear, and must obey, the
      voice of the founder and guardian of the Roman church; that the
      Virgin, the angels, the saints, and the martyrs, and all the host
      of heaven, unanimously urge the request, and will confess the
      obligation; that riches, victory, and paradise, will crown their
      pious enterprise, and that eternal damnation will be the penalty
      of their neglect, if they suffer his tomb, his temple, and his
      people, to fall into the hands of the perfidious Lombards. The
      second expedition of Pepin was not less rapid and fortunate than
      the first: St. Peter was satisfied, Rome was again saved, and
      Astolphus was taught the lessons of justice and sincerity by the
      scourge of a foreign master. After this double chastisement, the
      Lombards languished about twenty years in a state of languor and
      decay. But their minds were not yet humbled to their condition;
      and instead of affecting the pacific virtues of the feeble, they
      peevishly harassed the Romans with a repetition of claims,
      evasions, and inroads, which they undertook without reflection,
      and terminated without glory. On either side, their expiring
      monarchy was pressed by the zeal and prudence of Pope Adrian the
      First, the genius, the fortune, and greatness of Charlemagne, the
      son of Pepin; these heroes of the church and state were united in
      public and domestic friendship, and while they trampled on the
      prostrate, they varnished their proceedings with the fairest
      colors of equity and moderation. 53 The passes of the Alps, and
      the walls of Pavia, were the only defence of the Lombards; the
      former were surprised, the latter were invested, by the son of
      Pepin; and after a blockade of two years, 531 Desiderius, the
      last of their native princes, surrendered his sceptre and his
      capital.

      Under the dominion of a foreign king, but in the possession of
      their national laws, the Lombards became the brethren, rather
      than the subjects, of the Franks; who derived their blood, and
      manners, and language, from the same Germanic origin. 54

      511 (return) [ Gregory I. had been dead above a century; read
      Gregory III.—M]

      52 (return) [ See this most extraordinary letter in the Codex
      Carolinus, epist iii. p. 92. The enemies of the popes have
      charged them with fraud and blasphemy; yet they surely meant to
      persuade rather than deceive. This introduction of the dead, or
      of immortals, was familiar to the ancient orators, though it is
      executed on this occasion in the rude fashion of the age.]

      53 (return) [ Except in the divorce of the daughter of
      Desiderius, whom Charlemagne repudiated sine aliquo crimine. Pope
      Stephen IV. had most furiously opposed the alliance of a noble
      Frank—cum perfida, horrida nec dicenda, foetentissima natione
      Longobardorum—to whom he imputes the first stain of leprosy,
      (Cod. Carolin. epist. 45, p. 178, 179.) Another reason against
      the marriage was the existence of a first wife, (Muratori, Annali
      d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 232, 233, 236, 237.) But Charlemagne
      indulged himself in the freedom of polygamy or concubinage.]

      531 (return) [ Of fifteen months. James, Life of Charlemagne, p.
      187.—M.]

      54 (return) [ See the Annali d’Italia of Muratori, tom. vi., and
      the three first Dissertations of his Antiquitates Italiae Medii
      Aevi, tom. i.]




      Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part III.

      The mutual obligations of the popes and the Carlovingian family
      form the important link of ancient and modern, of civil and
      ecclesiastical, history. In the conquest of Italy, the champions
      of the Roman church obtained a favorable occasion, a specious
      title, the wishes of the people, the prayers and intrigues of the
      clergy. But the most essential gifts of the popes to the
      Carlovingian race were the dignities of king of France, 55 and of
      patrician of Rome. I. Under the sacerdotal monarchy of St. Peter,
      the nations began to resume the practice of seeking, on the banks
      of the Tyber, their kings, their laws, and the oracles of their
      fate. The Franks were perplexed between the name and substance of
      their government. All the powers of royalty were exercised by
      Pepin, mayor of the palace; and nothing, except the regal title,
      was wanting to his ambition. His enemies were crushed by his
      valor; his friends were multiplied by his liberality; his father
      had been the savior of Christendom; and the claims of personal
      merit were repeated and ennobled in a descent of four
      generations. The name and image of royalty was still preserved in
      the last descendant of Clovis, the feeble Childeric; but his
      obsolete right could only be used as an instrument of sedition:
      the nation was desirous of restoring the simplicity of the
      constitution; and Pepin, a subject and a prince, was ambitious to
      ascertain his own rank and the fortune of his family. The mayor
      and the nobles were bound, by an oath of fidelity, to the royal
      phantom: the blood of Clovis was pure and sacred in their eyes;
      and their common ambassadors addressed the Roman pontiff, to
      dispel their scruples, or to absolve their promise. The interest
      of Pope Zachary, the successor of the two Gregories, prompted him
      to decide, and to decide in their favor: he pronounced that the
      nation might lawfully unite in the same person the title and
      authority of king; and that the unfortunate Childeric, a victim
      of the public safety, should be degraded, shaved, and confined in
      a monastery for the remainder of his days. An answer so agreeable
      to their wishes was accepted by the Franks as the opinion of a
      casuist, the sentence of a judge, or the oracle of a prophet: the
      Merovingian race disappeared from the earth; and Pepin was
      exalted on a buckler by the suffrage of a free people, accustomed
      to obey his laws and to march under his standard. His coronation
      was twice performed, with the sanction of the popes, by their
      most faithful servant St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, and
      by the grateful hands of Stephen the Third, who, in the monastery
      of St. Denys placed the diadem on the head of his benefactor. The
      royal unction of the kings of Israel was dexterously applied: 56
      the successor of St. Peter assumed the character of a divine
      ambassador: a German chieftain was transformed into the Lord’s
      anointed; and this Jewish rite has been diffused and maintained
      by the superstition and vanity of modern Europe. The Franks were
      absolved from their ancient oath; but a dire anathema was
      thundered against them and their posterity, if they should dare
      to renew the same freedom of choice, or to elect a king, except
      in the holy and meritorious race of the Carlovingian princes.
      Without apprehending the future danger, these princes gloried in
      their present security: the secretary of Charlemagne affirms,
      that the French sceptre was transferred by the authority of the
      popes; 57 and in their boldest enterprises, they insist, with
      confidence, on this signal and successful act of temporal
      jurisdiction.

      55 (return) [ Besides the common historians, three French
      critics, Launoy, (Opera, tom. v. pars ii. l. vii. epist. 9, p.
      477-487,) Pagi, (Critica, A.D. 751, No. 1-6, A.D. 752, No. 1-10,)
      and Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Novi Testamenti, dissertat, ii. p.
      96-107,) have treated this subject of the deposition of Childeric
      with learning and attention, but with a strong bias to save the
      independence of the crown. Yet they are hard pressed by the texts
      which they produce of Eginhard, Theophanes, and the old annals,
      Laureshamenses, Fuldenses, Loisielani]

      56 (return) [ Not absolutely for the first time. On a less
      conspicuous theatre it had been used, in the vith and viith
      centuries, by the provincial bishops of Britain and Spain. The
      royal unction of Constantinople was borrowed from the Latins in
      the last age of the empire. Constantine Manasses mentions that of
      Charlemagne as a foreign, Jewish, incomprehensible ceremony. See
      Selden’s Titles of Honor, in his Works, vol. iii. part i. p.
      234-249.]

      57 (return) [ See Eginhard, in Vita Caroli Magni, c. i. p. 9,
      &c., c. iii. p. 24. Childeric was deposed—jussu, the
      Carlovingians were established—auctoritate, Pontificis Romani.
      Launoy, &c., pretend that these strong words are susceptible of a
      very soft interpretation. Be it so; yet Eginhard understood the
      world, the court, and the Latin language.]

      II. In the change of manners and language the patricians of Rome
      58 were far removed from the senate of Romulus, or the palace of
      Constantine, from the free nobles of the republic, or the
      fictitious parents of the emperor. After the recovery of Italy
      and Africa by the arms of Justinian, the importance and danger of
      those remote provinces required the presence of a supreme
      magistrate; he was indifferently styled the exarch or the
      patrician; and these governors of Ravenna, who fill their place
      in the chronology of princes, extended their jurisdiction over
      the Roman city. Since the revolt of Italy and the loss of the
      Exarchate, the distress of the Romans had exacted some sacrifice
      of their independence. Yet, even in this act, they exercised the
      right of disposing of themselves; and the decrees of the senate
      and people successively invested Charles Martel and his posterity
      with the honors of patrician of Rome. The leaders of a powerful
      nation would have disdained a servile title and subordinate
      office; but the reign of the Greek emperors was suspended; and,
      in the vacancy of the empire, they derived a more glorious
      commission from the pope and the republic. The Roman ambassadors
      presented these patricians with the keys of the shrine of St.
      Peter, as a pledge and symbol of sovereignty; with a holy banner
      which it was their right and duty to unfurl in the defence of the
      church and city. 59 In the time of Charles Martel and of Pepin,
      the interposition of the Lombard kingdom covered the freedom,
      while it threatened the safety, of Rome; and the patriciate
      represented only the title, the service, the alliance, of these
      distant protectors. The power and policy of Charlemagne
      annihilated an enemy, and imposed a master. In his first visit to
      the capital, he was received with all the honors which had
      formerly been paid to the exarch, the representative of the
      emperor; and these honors obtained some new decorations from the
      joy and gratitude of Pope Adrian the First. 60 No sooner was he
      informed of the sudden approach of the monarch, than he
      despatched the magistrates and nobles of Rome to meet him, with
      the banner, about thirty miles from the city. At the distance of
      one mile, the Flaminian way was lined with the schools, or
      national communities, of Greeks, Lombards, Saxons, &c.: the Roman
      youth were under arms; and the children of a more tender age,
      with palms and olive branches in their hands, chanted the praises
      of their great deliverer. At the aspect of the holy crosses, and
      ensigns of the saints, he dismounted from his horse, led the
      procession of his nobles to the Vatican, and, as he ascended the
      stairs, devoutly kissed each step of the threshold of the
      apostles. In the portico, Adrian expected him at the head of his
      clergy: they embraced, as friends and equals; but in their march
      to the altar, the king or patrician assumed the right hand of the
      pope. Nor was the Frank content with these vain and empty
      demonstrations of respect. In the twenty-six years that elapsed
      between the conquest of Lombardy and his Imperial coronation,
      Rome, which had been delivered by the sword, was subject, as his
      own, to the sceptre of Charlemagne. The people swore allegiance
      to his person and family: in his name money was coined, and
      justice was administered; and the election of the popes was
      examined and confirmed by his authority. Except an original and
      self-inherent claim of sovereignty, there was not any prerogative
      remaining, which the title of emperor could add to the patrician
      of Rome. 61

      58 (return) [ For the title and powers of patrician of Rome, see
      Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. v. p. 149-151,) Pagi, (Critica, A.D.
      740, No. 6-11,) Muratori, (Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 308-329,)
      and St. Marc, (Abrege Chronologique d’Italie, tom. i. p.
      379-382.) Of these the Franciscan Pagi is the most disposed to
      make the patrician a lieutenant of the church, rather than of the
      empire.]

      59 (return) [ The papal advocates can soften the symbolic meaning
      of the banner and the keys; but the style of ad regnum dimisimus,
      or direximus, (Codex Carolin. epist. i. tom. iii. pars ii. p.
      76,) seems to allow of no palliation or escape. In the Ms. of the
      Vienna library, they read, instead of regnum, rogum, prayer or
      request (see Ducange;) and the royalty of Charles Martel is
      subverted by this important correction, (Catalani, in his
      Critical Prefaces, Annali d’Italia, tom. xvii. p. 95-99.)]

      60 (return) [ In the authentic narrative of this reception, the
      Liber Pontificalis observes—obviam illi ejus sanctitas dirigens
      venerabiles cruces, id est signa; sicut mos est ad exarchum, aut
      patricium suscipiendum, sum cum ingenti honore suscipi fecit,
      (tom. iii. pars i. p. 185.)]

      61 (return) [ Paulus Diaconus, who wrote before the empire of
      Charlemagne describes Rome as his subject city—vestrae civitates
      (ad Pompeium Festum) suis addidit sceptris, (de Metensis
      Ecclesiae Episcopis.) Some Carlovingian medals, struck at Rome,
      have engaged Le Blanc to write an elaborate, though partial,
      dissertation on their authority at Rome, both as patricians and
      emperors, (Amsterdam, 1692, in 4to.)]

      The gratitude of the Carlovingians was adequate to these
      obligations, and their names are consecrated, as the saviors and
      benefactors of the Roman church. Her ancient patrimony of farms
      and houses was transformed by their bounty into the temporal
      dominion of cities and provinces; and the donation of the
      Exarchate was the first-fruits of the conquests of Pepin. 62
      Astolphus with a sigh relinquished his prey; the keys and the
      hostages of the principal cities were delivered to the French
      ambassador; and, in his master’s name, he presented them before
      the tomb of St. Peter. The ample measure of the Exarchate 63
      might comprise all the provinces of Italy which had obeyed the
      emperor and his vicegerent; but its strict and proper limits were
      included in the territories of Ravenna, Bologna, and Ferrara: its
      inseparable dependency was the Pentapolis, which stretched along
      the Adriatic from Rimini to Ancona, and advanced into the
      midland-country as far as the ridges of the Apennine. In this
      transaction, the ambition and avarice of the popes have been
      severely condemned. Perhaps the humility of a Christian priest
      should have rejected an earthly kingdom, which it was not easy
      for him to govern without renouncing the virtues of his
      profession. Perhaps a faithful subject, or even a generous enemy,
      would have been less impatient to divide the spoils of the
      Barbarian; and if the emperor had intrusted Stephen to solicit in
      his name the restitution of the Exarchate, I will not absolve the
      pope from the reproach of treachery and falsehood. But in the
      rigid interpretation of the laws, every one may accept, without
      injury, whatever his benefactor can bestow without injustice. The
      Greek emperor had abdicated, or forfeited, his right to the
      Exarchate; and the sword of Astolphus was broken by the stronger
      sword of the Carlovingian. It was not in the cause of the
      Iconoclast that Pepin has exposed his person and army in a double
      expedition beyond the Alps: he possessed, and might lawfully
      alienate, his conquests: and to the importunities of the Greeks
      he piously replied that no human consideration should tempt him
      to resume the gift which he had conferred on the Roman Pontiff
      for the remission of his sins, and the salvation of his soul. The
      splendid donation was granted in supreme and absolute dominion,
      and the world beheld for the first time a Christian bishop
      invested with the prerogatives of a temporal prince; the choice
      of magistrates, the exercise of justice, the imposition of taxes,
      and the wealth of the palace of Ravenna. In the dissolution of
      the Lombard kingdom, the inhabitants of the duchy of Spoleto 64
      sought a refuge from the storm, shaved their heads after the
      Roman fashion, declared themselves the servants and subjects of
      St. Peter, and completed, by this voluntary surrender, the
      present circle of the ecclesiastical state. That mysterious
      circle was enlarged to an indefinite extent, by the verbal or
      written donation of Charlemagne, 65 who, in the first transports
      of his victory, despoiled himself and the Greek emperor of the
      cities and islands which had formerly been annexed to the
      Exarchate. But, in the cooler moments of absence and reflection,
      he viewed, with an eye of jealousy and envy, the recent greatness
      of his ecclesiastical ally. The execution of his own and his
      father’s promises was respectfully eluded: the king of the Franks
      and Lombards asserted the inalienable rights of the empire; and,
      in his life and death, Ravenna, 66 as well as Rome, was numbered
      in the list of his metropolitan cities. The sovereignty of the
      Exarchate melted away in the hands of the popes; they found in
      the archbishops of Ravenna a dangerous and domestic rival: 67 the
      nobles and people disdained the yoke of a priest; and in the
      disorders of the times, they could only retain the memory of an
      ancient claim, which, in a more prosperous age, they have revived
      and realized.

      62 (return) [ Mosheim (Institution, Hist. Eccles. p. 263) weighs
      this donation with fair and deliberate prudence. The original act
      has never been produced; but the Liber Pontificalis represents,
      (p. 171,) and the Codex Carolinus supposes, this ample gift. Both
      are contemporary records and the latter is the more authentic,
      since it has been preserved, not in the Papal, but the Imperial,
      library.]

      63 (return) [ Between the exorbitant claims, and narrow
      concessions, of interest and prejudice, from which even Muratori
      (Antiquitat. tom. i. p. 63-68) is not exempt, I have been guided,
      in the limits of the Exarchate and Pentapolis, by the Dissertatio
      Chorographica Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. x. p. 160-180.]

      64 (return) [ Spoletini deprecati sunt, ut eos in servitio B.
      Petri receperet et more Romanorum tonsurari faceret, (Anastasius,
      p. 185.) Yet it may be a question whether they gave their own
      persons or their country.]

      65 (return) [ The policy and donations of Charlemagne are
      carefully examined by St. Marc, (Abrege, tom. i. p. 390-408,) who
      has well studied the Codex Carolinus. I believe, with him, that
      they were only verbal. The most ancient act of donation that
      pretends to be extant, is that of the emperor Lewis the Pious,
      (Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, l. iv. Opera, tom. ii. p. 267-270.)
      Its authenticity, or at least its integrity, are much questioned,
      (Pagi, A.D. 817, No. 7, &c. Muratori, Annali, tom. vi. p. 432,
      &c. Dissertat. Chorographica, p. 33, 34;) but I see no reasonable
      objection to these princes so freely disposing of what was not
      their own.]

      66 (return) [ Charlemagne solicited and obtained from the
      proprietor, Hadrian I., the mosaics of the palace of Ravenna, for
      the decoration of Aix-la-Chapelle, (Cod. Carolin. epist. 67, p.
      223.)]

      67 (return) [ The popes often complain of the usurpations of Leo
      of Ravenna, (Codex Carolin, epist. 51, 52, 53, p. 200-205.) Sir
      corpus St. Andreae fratris germani St. Petri hic humasset,
      nequaquam nos Romani pontifices sic subjugassent, (Agnellus,
      Liber Pontificalis, in Scriptores Rerum Ital. tom. ii. pars. i.
      p. 107.)]

      Fraud is the resource of weakness and cunning; and the strong,
      though ignorant, Barbarian was often entangled in the net of
      sacerdotal policy. The Vatican and Lateran were an arsenal and
      manufacture, which, according to the occasion, have produced or
      concealed a various collection of false or genuine, of corrupt or
      suspicious, acts, as they tended to promote the interest of the
      Roman church. Before the end of the eighth century, some
      apostolic scribe, perhaps the notorious Isidore, composed the
      decretals, and the donation of Constantine, the two magic pillars
      of the spiritual and temporal monarchy of the popes. This
      memorable donation was introduced to the world by an epistle of
      Adrian the First, who exhorts Charlemagne to imitate the
      liberality, and revive the name, of the great Constantine. 68
      According to the legend, the first of the Christian emperors was
      healed of the leprosy, and purified in the waters of baptism, by
      St. Silvester, the Roman bishop; and never was physician more
      gloriously recompensed. His royal proselyte withdrew from the
      seat and patrimony of St. Peter; declared his resolution of
      founding a new capital in the East; and resigned to the popes;
      the free and perpetual sovereignty of Rome, Italy, and the
      provinces of the West. 69 This fiction was productive of the most
      beneficial effects. The Greek princes were convicted of the guilt
      of usurpation; and the revolt of Gregory was the claim of his
      lawful inheritance. The popes were delivered from their debt of
      gratitude; and the nominal gifts of the Carlovingians were no
      more than the just and irrevocable restitution of a scanty
      portion of the ecclesiastical state. The sovereignty of Rome no
      longer depended on the choice of a fickle people; and the
      successors of St. Peter and Constantine were invested with the
      purple and prerogatives of the Caesars. So deep was the ignorance
      and credulity of the times, that the most absurd of fables was
      received, with equal reverence, in Greece and in France, and is
      still enrolled among the decrees of the canon law. 70 The
      emperors, and the Romans, were incapable of discerning a forgery,
      that subverted their rights and freedom; and the only opposition
      proceeded from a Sabine monastery, which, in the beginning of the
      twelfth century, disputed the truth and validity of the donation
      of Constantine. 71 In the revival of letters and liberty, this
      fictitious deed was transpierced by the pen of Laurentius Valla,
      the pen of an eloquent critic and a Roman patriot. 72 His
      contemporaries of the fifteenth century were astonished at his
      sacrilegious boldness; yet such is the silent and irresistible
      progress of reason, that, before the end of the next age, the
      fable was rejected by the contempt of historians 73 and poets, 74
      and the tacit or modest censure of the advocates of the Roman
      church. 75 The popes themselves have indulged a smile at the
      credulity of the vulgar; 76 but a false and obsolete title still
      sanctifies their reign; and, by the same fortune which has
      attended the decretals and the Sibylline oracles, the edifice has
      subsisted after the foundations have been undermined.

      68 (return) [ Piissimo Constantino magno, per ejus largitatem S.
      R. Ecclesia elevata et exaltata est, et potestatem in his
      Hesperiae partibus largiri olignatus est.... Quia ecce novus
      Constantinus his temporibus, &c., (Codex Carolin. epist. 49, in
      tom. iii. part ii. p. 195.) Pagi (Critica, A.D. 324, No. 16)
      ascribes them to an impostor of the viiith century, who borrowed
      the name of St. Isidore: his humble title of Peccator was
      ignorantly, but aptly, turned into Mercator: his merchandise was
      indeed profitable, and a few sheets of paper were sold for much
      wealth and power.]

      69 (return) [ Fabricius (Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 4-7) has
      enumerated the several editions of this Act, in Greek and Latin.
      The copy which Laurentius Valla recites and refutes, appears to
      be taken either from the spurious Acts of St. Silvester or from
      Gratian’s Decree, to which, according to him and others, it has
      been surreptitiously tacked.]

      70 (return) [ In the year 1059, it was believed (was it
      believed?) by Pope Leo IX. Cardinal Peter Damianus, &c. Muratori
      places (Annali d’Italia, tom. ix. p. 23, 24) the fictitious
      donations of Lewis the Pious, the Othos, &c., de Donatione
      Constantini. See a Dissertation of Natalis Alexander, seculum iv.
      diss. 25, p. 335-350.]

      71 (return) [ See a large account of the controversy (A.D. 1105)
      which arose from a private lawsuit, in the Chronicon Farsense,
      (Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. ii. pars ii. p. 637, &c.,) a
      copious extract from the archives of that Benedictine abbey. They
      were formerly accessible to curious foreigners, (Le Blanc and
      Mabillon,) and would have enriched the first volume of the
      Historia Monastica Italiae of Quirini. But they are now
      imprisoned (Muratori, Scriptores R. I. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 269)
      by the timid policy of the court of Rome; and the future cardinal
      yielded to the voice of authority and the whispers of ambition,
      (Quirini, Comment. pars ii. p. 123-136.)]

      72 (return) [ I have read in the collection of Schardius (de
      Potestate Imperiali Ecclesiastica, p. 734-780) this animated
      discourse, which was composed by the author, A.D. 1440, six years
      after the flight of Pope Eugenius IV. It is a most vehement party
      pamphlet: Valla justifies and animates the revolt of the Romans,
      and would even approve the use of a dagger against their
      sacerdotal tyrant. Such a critic might expect the persecution of
      the clergy; yet he made his peace, and is buried in the Lateran,
      (Bayle, Dictionnaire Critique, Valla; Vossius, de Historicis
      Latinis, p. 580.)]

      73 (return) [ See Guicciardini, a servant of the popes, in that
      long and valuable digression, which has resumed its place in the
      last edition, correctly published from the author’s Ms. and
      printed in four volumes in quarto, under the name of Friburgo,
      1775, (Istoria d’Italia, tom. i. p. 385-395.)]

      74 (return) [ The Paladin Astolpho found it in the moon, among
      the things that were lost upon earth, (Orlando Furioso, xxxiv.
      80.) Di vari fiore ad un grand monte passa, Ch’ebbe gia buono
      odore, or puzza forte: Questo era il dono (se pero dir lece) Che
      Constantino al buon Silvestro fece. Yet this incomparable poem
      has been approved by a bull of Leo X.]

      75 (return) [ See Baronius, A.D. 324, No. 117-123, A.D. 1191, No.
      51, &c. The cardinal wishes to suppose that Rome was offered by
      Constantine, and refused by Silvester. The act of donation he
      considers strangely enough, as a forgery of the Greeks.]

      76 (return) [ Baronius n’en dit guerres contre; encore en a-t’il
      trop dit, et l’on vouloit sans moi, (Cardinal du Perron,) qui
      l’empechai, censurer cette partie de son histoire. J’en devisai
      un jour avec le Pape, et il ne me repondit autre chose “che
      volete? i Canonici la tengono,” il le disoit en riant,
      (Perroniana, p. 77.)]

      While the popes established in Italy their freedom and dominion,
      the images, the first cause of their revolt, were restored in the
      Eastern empire. 77 Under the reign of Constantine the Fifth, the
      union of civil and ecclesiastical power had overthrown the tree,
      without extirpating the root, of superstition. The idols (for
      such they were now held) were secretly cherished by the order and
      the sex most prone to devotion; and the fond alliance of the
      monks and females obtained a final victory over the reason and
      authority of man. Leo the Fourth maintained with less rigor the
      religion of his father and grandfather; but his wife, the fair
      and ambitious Irene, had imbibed the zeal of the Athenians, the
      heirs of the Idolatry, rather than the philosophy, of their
      ancestors. During the life of her husband, these sentiments were
      inflamed by danger and dissimulation, and she could only labor to
      protect and promote some favorite monks whom she drew from their
      caverns, and seated on the metropolitan thrones of the East. But
      as soon as she reigned in her own name and that of her son, Irene
      more seriously undertook the ruin of the Iconoclasts; and the
      first step of her future persecution was a general edict for
      liberty of conscience.

      In the restoration of the monks, a thousand images were exposed
      to the public veneration; a thousand legends were inverted of
      their sufferings and miracles. By the opportunities of death or
      removal, the episcopal seats were judiciously filled; the most
      eager competitors for earthly or celestial favor anticipated and
      flattered the judgment of their sovereign; and the promotion of
      her secretary Tarasius gave Irene the patriarch of
      Constantinople, and the command of the Oriental church. But the
      decrees of a general council could only be repealed by a similar
      assembly: 78 the Iconoclasts whom she convened were bold in
      possession, and averse to debate; and the feeble voice of the
      bishops was reechoed by the more formidable clamor of the
      soldiers and people of Constantinople. The delay and intrigues of
      a year, the separation of the disaffected troops, and the choice
      of Nice for a second orthodox synod, removed these obstacles; and
      the episcopal conscience was again, after the Greek fashion, in
      the hands of the prince. No more than eighteen days were allowed
      for the consummation of this important work: the Iconoclasts
      appeared, not as judges, but as criminals or penitents: the scene
      was decorated by the legates of Pope Adrian and the Eastern
      patriarchs, 79 the decrees were framed by the president Taracius,
      and ratified by the acclamations and subscriptions of three
      hundred and fifty bishops. They unanimously pronounced, that the
      worship of images is agreeable to Scripture and reason, to the
      fathers and councils of the church: but they hesitate whether
      that worship be relative or direct; whether the Godhead, and the
      figure of Christ, be entitled to the same mode of adoration. Of
      this second Nicene council the acts are still extant; a curious
      monument of superstition and ignorance, of falsehood and folly. I
      shall only notice the judgment of the bishops on the comparative
      merit of image-worship and morality. A monk had concluded a truce
      with the daemon of fornication, on condition of interrupting his
      daily prayers to a picture that hung in his cell. His scruples
      prompted him to consult the abbot. “Rather than abstain from
      adoring Christ and his Mother in their holy images, it would be
      better for you,” replied the casuist, “to enter every brothel,
      and visit every prostitute, in the city.” 80 For the honor of
      orthodoxy, at least the orthodoxy of the Roman church, it is
      somewhat unfortunate, that the two princes who convened the two
      councils of Nice are both stained with the blood of their sons.
      The second of these assemblies was approved and rigorously
      executed by the despotism of Irene, and she refused her
      adversaries the toleration which at first she had granted to her
      friends. During the five succeeding reigns, a period of
      thirty-eight years, the contest was maintained, with unabated
      rage and various success, between the worshippers and the
      breakers of the images; but I am not inclined to pursue with
      minute diligence the repetition of the same events. Nicephorus
      allowed a general liberty of speech and practice; and the only
      virtue of his reign is accused by the monks as the cause of his
      temporal and eternal perdition. Superstition and weakness formed
      the character of Michael the First, but the saints and images
      were incapable of supporting their votary on the throne. In the
      purple, Leo the Fifth asserted the name and religion of an
      Armenian; and the idols, with their seditious adherents, were
      condemned to a second exile. Their applause would have sanctified
      the murder of an impious tyrant, but his assassin and successor,
      the second Michael, was tainted from his birth with the Phrygian
      heresies: he attempted to mediate between the contending parties;
      and the intractable spirit of the Catholics insensibly cast him
      into the opposite scale. His moderation was guarded by timidity;
      but his son Theophilus, alike ignorant of fear and pity, was the
      last and most cruel of the Iconoclasts. The enthusiasm of the
      times ran strongly against them; and the emperors who stemmed the
      torrent were exasperated and punished by the public hatred. After
      the death of Theophilus, the final victory of the images was
      achieved by a second female, his widow Theodora, whom he left the
      guardian of the empire. Her measures were bold and decisive. The
      fiction of a tardy repentance absolved the fame and the soul of
      her deceased husband; the sentence of the Iconoclast patriarch
      was commuted from the loss of his eyes to a whipping of two
      hundred lashes: the bishops trembled, the monks shouted, and the
      festival of orthodoxy preserves the annual memory of the triumph
      of the images. A single question yet remained, whether they are
      endowed with any proper and inherent sanctity; it was agitated by
      the Greeks of the eleventh century; 81 and as this opinion has
      the strongest recommendation of absurdity, I am surprised that it
      was not more explicitly decided in the affirmative. In the West,
      Pope Adrian the First accepted and announced the decrees of the
      Nicene assembly, which is now revered by the Catholics as the
      seventh in rank of the general councils. Rome and Italy were
      docile to the voice of their father; but the greatest part of the
      Latin Christians were far behind in the race of superstition. The
      churches of France, Germany, England, and Spain, steered a middle
      course between the adoration and the destruction of images, which
      they admitted into their temples, not as objects of worship, but
      as lively and useful memorials of faith and history. An angry
      book of controversy was composed and published in the name of
      Charlemagne: 82 under his authority a synod of three hundred
      bishops was assembled at Frankfort: 83 they blamed the fury of
      the Iconoclasts, but they pronounced a more severe censure
      against the superstition of the Greeks, and the decrees of their
      pretended council, which was long despised by the Barbarians of
      the West. 84 Among them the worship of images advanced with a
      silent and insensible progress; but a large atonement is made for
      their hesitation and delay, by the gross idolatry of the ages
      which precede the reformation, and of the countries, both in
      Europe and America, which are still immersed in the gloom of
      superstition.

      77 (return) [ The remaining history of images, from Irene to
      Theodora, is collected, for the Catholics, by Baronius and Pagi,
      (A.D. 780-840.) Natalis Alexander, (Hist. N. T. seculum viii.
      Panoplia adversus Haereticos p. 118-178,) and Dupin, (Bibliot.
      Eccles. tom. vi. p. 136-154;) for the Protestants, by Spanheim,
      (Hist. Imag. p. 305-639.) Basnage, (Hist. de l’Eglise, tom. i. p.
      556-572, tom. ii. p. 1362-1385,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist.
      Eccles. secul. viii. et ix.) The Protestants, except Mosheim, are
      soured with controversy; but the Catholics, except Dupin, are
      inflamed by the fury and superstition of the monks; and even Le
      Beau, (Hist. du Bas Empire,) a gentleman and a scholar, is
      infected by the odious contagion.]

      78 (return) [ See the Acts, in Greek and Latin, of the second
      Council of Nice, with a number of relative pieces, in the viiith
      volume of the Councils, p. 645-1600. A faithful version, with
      some critical notes, would provoke, in different readers, a sigh
      or a smile.]

      79 (return) [ The pope’s legates were casual messengers, two
      priests without any special commission, and who were disavowed on
      their return. Some vagabond monks were persuaded by the Catholics
      to represent the Oriental patriarchs. This curious anecdote is
      revealed by Theodore Studites, (epist. i. 38, in Sirmond. Opp.
      tom. v. p. 1319,) one of the warmest Iconoclasts of the age.]

      80 (return) [ These visits could not be innocent since the daemon
      of fornication, &c. Actio iv. p. 901, Actio v. p. 1081]

      81 (return) [ See an account of this controversy in the Alexius
      of Anna Compena, (l. v. p. 129,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist.
      Eccles. p. 371, 372.)]

      82 (return) [ The Libri Carolini, (Spanheim, p. 443-529,)
      composed in the palace or winter quarters of Charlemagne, at
      Worms, A.D. 790, and sent by Engebert to Pope Hadrian I., who
      answered them by a grandis et verbosa epistola, (Concil. tom.
      vii. p. 1553.) The Carolines propose 120 objections against the
      Nicene synod and such words as these are the flowers of their
      rhetoric—Dementiam.... priscae Gentilitatis obsoletum errorem
      .... argumenta insanissima et absurdissima.... derisione dignas
      naenias, &c., &c.]

      83 (return) [ The assemblies of Charlemagne were political, as
      well as ecclesiastical; and the three hundred members, (Nat.
      Alexander, sec. viii. p. 53,) who sat and voted at Frankfort,
      must include not only the bishops, but the abbots, and even the
      principal laymen.]

      84 (return) [ Qui supra sanctissima patres nostri (episcopi et
      sacerdotes) omnimodis servitium et adorationem imaginum renuentes
      contempserunt, atque consentientes condemnaverunt, (Concil. tom.
      ix. p. 101, Canon. ii. Franckfurd.) A polemic must be
      hard-hearted indeed, who does not pity the efforts of Baronius,
      Pagi, Alexander, Maimbourg, &c., to elude this unlucky sentence.]




      Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part IV.

      It was after the Nycene synod, and under the reign of the pious
      Irene, that the popes consummated the separation of Rome and
      Italy, by the translation of the empire to the less orthodox
      Charlemagne. They were compelled to choose between the rival
      nations: religion was not the sole motive of their choice; and
      while they dissembled the failings of their friends, they beheld,
      with reluctance and suspicion, the Catholic virtues of their
      foes. The difference of language and manners had perpetuated the
      enmity of the two capitals; and they were alienated from each
      other by the hostile opposition of seventy years. In that schism
      the Romans had tasted of freedom, and the popes of sovereignty:
      their submission would have exposed them to the revenge of a
      jealous tyrant; and the revolution of Italy had betrayed the
      impotence, as well as the tyranny, of the Byzantine court. The
      Greek emperors had restored the images, but they had not restored
      the Calabrian estates 85 and the Illyrian diocese, 86 which the
      Iconociasts had torn away from the successors of St. Peter; and
      Pope Adrian threatens them with a sentence of excommunication
      unless they speedily abjure this practical heresy. 87 The Greeks
      were now orthodox; but their religion might be tainted by the
      breath of the reigning monarch: the Franks were now contumacious;
      but a discerning eye might discern their approaching conversion,
      from the use, to the adoration, of images. The name of
      Charlemagne was stained by the polemic acrimony of his scribes;
      but the conqueror himself conformed, with the temper of a
      statesman, to the various practice of France and Italy. In his
      four pilgrimages or visits to the Vatican, he embraced the popes
      in the communion of friendship and piety; knelt before the tomb,
      and consequently before the image, of the apostle; and joined,
      without scruple, in all the prayers and processions of the Roman
      liturgy. Would prudence or gratitude allow the pontiffs to
      renounce their benefactor? Had they a right to alienate his gift
      of the Exarchate? Had they power to abolish his government of
      Rome? The title of patrician was below the merit and greatness of
      Charlemagne; and it was only by reviving the Western empire that
      they could pay their obligations or secure their establishment.
      By this decisive measure they would finally eradicate the claims
      of the Greeks; from the debasement of a provincial town, the
      majesty of Rome would be restored: the Latin Christians would be
      united, under a supreme head, in their ancient metropolis; and
      the conquerors of the West would receive their crown from the
      successors of St. Peter. The Roman church would acquire a zealous
      and respectable advocate; and, under the shadow of the
      Carlovingian power, the bishop might exercise, with honor and
      safety, the government of the city. 88

      85 (return) [ Theophanes (p. 343) specifies those of Sicily and
      Calabria, which yielded an annual rent of three talents and a
      half of gold, (perhaps 7000 L. sterling.) Liutprand more
      pompously enumerates the patrimonies of the Roman church in
      Greece, Judaea, Persia, Mesopotamia Babylonia, Egypt, and Libya,
      which were detained by the injustice of the Greek emperor,
      (Legat. ad Nicephorum, in Script. Rerum Italica rum, tom. ii.
      pars i. p. 481.)]

      86 (return) [ The great diocese of the Eastern Illyricum, with
      Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, (Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise,
      tom. i. p. 145: ) by the confession of the Greeks, the patriarch
      of Constantinople had detached from Rome the metropolitans of
      Thessalonica, Athens Corinth, Nicopolis, and Patrae, (Luc.
      Holsten. Geograph. Sacra, p. 22) and his spiritual conquests
      extended to Naples and Amalphi (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. i.
      p. 517-524, Pagi, A. D 780, No. 11.)]

      87 (return) [ In hoc ostenditur, quia ex uno capitulo ab errore
      reversis, in aliis duobus, in eodem (was it the same?) permaneant
      errore.... de diocessi S. R. E. seu de patrimoniis iterum
      increpantes commonemus, ut si ea restituere noluerit hereticum
      eum pro hujusmodi errore perseverantia decernemus, (Epist.
      Hadrian. Papae ad Carolum Magnum, in Concil. tom. viii. p. 1598;)
      to which he adds a reason, most directly opposite to his conduct,
      that he preferred the salvation of souls and rule of faith to the
      goods of this transitory world.]

      88 (return) [ Fontanini considers the emperors as no more than
      the advocates of the church, (advocatus et defensor S. R. E. See
      Ducange, Gloss Lat. tom. i. p. 297.) His antagonist Muratori
      reduces the popes to be no more than the exarchs of the emperor.
      In the more equitable view of Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles.
      p. 264, 265,) they held Rome under the empire as the most
      honorable species of fief or benefice—premuntur nocte
      caliginosa!]

      Before the ruin of Paganism in Rome, the competition for a
      wealthy bishopric had often been productive of tumult and
      bloodshed. The people was less numerous, but the times were more
      savage, the prize more important, and the chair of St. Peter was
      fiercely disputed by the leading ecclesiastics who aspired to the
      rank of sovereign. The reign of Adrian the First 89 surpasses the
      measure of past or succeeding ages; 90 the walls of Rome, the
      sacred patrimony, the ruin of the Lombards, and the friendship of
      Charlemagne, were the trophies of his fame: he secretly edified
      the throne of his successors, and displayed in a narrow space the
      virtues of a great prince. His memory was revered; but in the
      next election, a priest of the Lateran, Leo the Third, was
      preferred to the nephew and the favorite of Adrian, whom he had
      promoted to the first dignities of the church. Their acquiescence
      or repentance disguised, above four years, the blackest intention
      of revenge, till the day of a procession, when a furious band of
      conspirators dispersed the unarmed multitude, and assaulted with
      blows and wounds the sacred person of the pope. But their
      enterprise on his life or liberty was disappointed, perhaps by
      their own confusion and remorse. Leo was left for dead on the
      ground: on his revival from the swoon, the effect of his loss of
      blood, he recovered his speech and sight; and this natural event
      was improved to the miraculous restoration of his eyes and
      tongue, of which he had been deprived, twice deprived, by the
      knife of the assassins. 91 From his prison he escaped to the
      Vatican: the duke of Spoleto hastened to his rescue, Charlemagne
      sympathized in his injury, and in his camp of Paderborn in
      Westphalia accepted, or solicited, a visit from the Roman
      pontiff. Leo repassed the Alps with a commission of counts and
      bishops, the guards of his safety and the judges of his
      innocence; and it was not without reluctance, that the conqueror
      of the Saxons delayed till the ensuing year the personal
      discharge of this pious office. In his fourth and last
      pilgrimage, he was received at Rome with the due honors of king
      and patrician: Leo was permitted to purge himself by oath of the
      crimes imputed to his charge: his enemies were silenced, and the
      sacrilegious attempt against his life was punished by the mild
      and insufficient penalty of exile. On the festival of Christmas,
      the last year of the eighth century, Charlemagne appeared in the
      church of St. Peter; and, to gratify the vanity of Rome, he had
      exchanged the simple dress of his country for the habit of a
      patrician. 92 After the celebration of the holy mysteries, Leo
      suddenly placed a precious crown on his head, 93 and the dome
      resounded with the acclamations of the people, “Long life and
      victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by God the
      great and pacific emperor of the Romans!” The head and body of
      Charlemagne were consecrated by the royal unction: after the
      example of the Caesars, he was saluted or adored by the pontiff:
      his coronation oath represents a promise to maintain the faith
      and privileges of the church; and the first-fruits were paid in
      his rich offerings to the shrine of his apostle. In his familiar
      conversation, the emperor protested the ignorance of the
      intentions of Leo, which he would have disappointed by his
      absence on that memorable day. But the preparations of the
      ceremony must have disclosed the secret; and the journey of
      Charlemagne reveals his knowledge and expectation: he had
      acknowledged that the Imperial title was the object of his
      ambition, and a Roman synod had pronounced, that it was the only
      adequate reward of his merit and services. 94

      89 (return) [ His merits and hopes are summed up in an epitaph of
      thirty-eight-verses, of which Charlemagne declares himself the
      author, (Concil. tom. viii. p. 520.) Post patrem lacrymans
      Carolus haec carmina scripsi. Tu mihi dulcis amor, te modo plango
      pater... Nomina jungo simul titulis, clarissime, nostra Adrianus,
      Carolus, rex ego, tuque pater. The poetry might be supplied by
      Alcuin; but the tears, the most glorious tribute, can only belong
      to Charlemagne.]

      90 (return) [ Every new pope is admonished—“Sancte Pater, non
      videbis annos Petri,” twenty-five years. On the whole series the
      average is about eight years—a short hope for an ambitious
      cardinal.]

      91 (return) [ The assurance of Anastasius (tom. iii. pars i. p.
      197, 198) is supported by the credulity of some French annalists;
      but Eginhard, and other writers of the same age, are more natural
      and sincere. “Unus ei oculus paullulum est laesus,” says John the
      deacon of Naples, (Vit. Episcop. Napol. in Scriptores Muratori,
      tom. i. pars ii. p. 312.) Theodolphus, a contemporary bishop of
      Orleans, observes with prudence (l. iii. carm. 3.) Reddita sunt?
      mirum est: mirum est auferre nequtsse. Est tamen in dubio, hinc
      mirer an inde magis.]

      92 (return) [ Twice, at the request of Hadrian and Leo, he
      appeared at Rome,—longa tunica et chlamyde amictus, et
      calceamentis quoque Romano more formatis. Eginhard (c. xxiii. p.
      109-113) describes, like Suetonius the simplicity of his dress,
      so popular in the nation, that when Charles the Bald returned to
      France in a foreign habit, the patriotic dogs barked at the
      apostate, (Gaillard, Vie de Charlemagne, tom. iv. p. 109.)]

      93 (return) [ See Anastasius (p. 199) and Eginhard, (c.xxviii. p.
      124-128.) The unction is mentioned by Theophanes, (p. 399,) the
      oath by Sigonius, (from the Ordo Romanus,) and the Pope’s
      adoration more antiquorum principum, by the Annales Bertiniani,
      (Script. Murator. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 505.)]

      94 (return) [ This great event of the translation or restoration
      of the empire is related and discussed by Natalis Alexander,
      (secul. ix. dissert. i. p. 390-397,) Pagi, (tom. iii. p. 418,)
      Muratori, (Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 339-352,) Sigonius, (de
      Regno Italiae, l. iv. Opp. tom. ii. p. 247-251,) Spanheim, (de
      ficta Translatione Imperii,) Giannone, (tom. i. p. 395-405,) St.
      Marc, (Abrege Chronologique, tom. i. p. 438-450,) Gaillard,
      (Hist. de Charlemagne, tom. ii. p. 386-446.) Almost all these
      moderns have some religious or national bias.]

      The appellation of great has been often bestowed, and sometimes
      deserved; but Charlemagne is the only prince in whose favor the
      title has been indissolubly blended with the name. That name,
      with the addition of saint, is inserted in the Roman calendar;
      and the saint, by a rare felicity, is crowned with the praises of
      the historians and philosophers of an enlightened age. 95 His
      real merit is doubtless enhanced by the barbarism of the nation
      and the times from which he emerged: but the apparent magnitude
      of an object is likewise enlarged by an unequal comparison; and
      the ruins of Palmyra derive a casual splendor from the nakedness
      of the surrounding desert. Without injustice to his fame, I may
      discern some blemishes in the sanctity and greatness of the
      restorer of the Western empire. Of his moral virtues, chastity is
      not the most conspicuous: 96 but the public happiness could not
      be materially injured by his nine wives or concubines, the
      various indulgence of meaner or more transient amours, the
      multitude of his bastards whom he bestowed on the church, and the
      long celibacy and licentious manners of his daughters, 97 whom
      the father was suspected of loving with too fond a passion. 971 I
      shall be scarcely permitted to accuse the ambition of a
      conqueror; but in a day of equal retribution, the sons of his
      brother Carloman, the Merovingian princes of Aquitain, and the
      four thousand five hundred Saxons who were beheaded on the same
      spot, would have something to allege against the justice and
      humanity of Charlemagne. His treatment of the vanquished Saxons
      98 was an abuse of the right of conquest; his laws were not less
      sanguinary than his arms, and in the discussion of his motives,
      whatever is subtracted from bigotry must be imputed to temper.
      The sedentary reader is amazed by his incessant activity of mind
      and body; and his subjects and enemies were not less astonished
      at his sudden presence, at the moment when they believed him at
      the most distant extremity of the empire; neither peace nor war,
      nor summer nor winter, were a season of repose; and our fancy
      cannot easily reconcile the annals of his reign with the
      geography of his expeditions. 981 But this activity was a
      national, rather than a personal, virtue; the vagrant life of a
      Frank was spent in the chase, in pilgrimage, in military
      adventures; and the journeys of Charlemagne were distinguished
      only by a more numerous train and a more important purpose. His
      military renown must be tried by the scrutiny of his troops, his
      enemies, and his actions. Alexander conquered with the arms of
      Philip, but the two heroes who preceded Charlemagne bequeathed
      him their name, their examples, and the companions of their
      victories. At the head of his veteran and superior armies, he
      oppressed the savage or degenerate nations, who were incapable of
      confederating for their common safety: nor did he ever encounter
      an equal antagonist in numbers, in discipline, or in arms The
      science of war has been lost and revived with the arts of peace;
      but his campaigns are not illustrated by any siege or battle of
      singular difficulty and success; and he might behold, with envy,
      the Saracen trophies of his grandfather. After the Spanish
      expedition, his rear-guard was defeated in the Pyrenaean
      mountains; and the soldiers, whose situation was irretrievable,
      and whose valor was useless, might accuse, with their last
      breath, the want of skill or caution of their general. 99 I touch
      with reverence the laws of Charlemagne, so highly applauded by a
      respectable judge. They compose not a system, but a series, of
      occasional and minute edicts, for the correction of abuses, the
      reformation of manners, the economy of his farms, the care of his
      poultry, and even the sale of his eggs. He wished to improve the
      laws and the character of the Franks; and his attempts, however
      feeble and imperfect, are deserving of praise: the inveterate
      evils of the times were suspended or mollified by his government;
      100 but in his institutions I can seldom discover the general
      views and the immortal spirit of a legislator, who survives
      himself for the benefit of posterity. The union and stability of
      his empire depended on the life of a single man: he imitated the
      dangerous practice of dividing his kingdoms among his sons; and
      after his numerous diets, the whole constitution was left to
      fluctuate between the disorders of anarchy and despotism. His
      esteem for the piety and knowledge of the clergy tempted him to
      intrust that aspiring order with temporal dominion and civil
      jurisdiction; and his son Lewis, when he was stripped and
      degraded by the bishops, might accuse, in some measure, the
      imprudence of his father. His laws enforced the imposition of
      tithes, because the daemons had proclaimed in the air that the
      default of payment had been the cause of the last scarcity. 101
      The literary merits of Charlemagne are attested by the foundation
      of schools, the introduction of arts, the works which were
      published in his name, and his familiar connection with the
      subjects and strangers whom he invited to his court to educate
      both the prince and people. His own studies were tardy,
      laborious, and imperfect; if he spoke Latin, and understood
      Greek, he derived the rudiments of knowledge from conversation,
      rather than from books; and, in his mature age, the emperor
      strove to acquire the practice of writing, which every peasant
      now learns in his infancy. 102 The grammar and logic, the music
      and astronomy, of the times, were only cultivated as the
      handmaids of superstition; but the curiosity of the human mind
      must ultimately tend to its improvement, and the encouragement of
      learning reflects the purest and most pleasing lustre on the
      character of Charlemagne. 103 The dignity of his person, 104 the
      length of his reign, the prosperity of his arms, the vigor of his
      government, and the reverence of distant nations, distinguish him
      from the royal crowd; and Europe dates a new aera from his
      restoration of the Western empire.

      95 (return) [ By Mably, (Observations sur l’Histoire de France,)
      Voltaire, (Histoire Generale,) Robertson, (History of Charles
      V.,) and Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxxi. c. 18.) In the
      year 1782, M. Gaillard published his Histoire de Charlemagne, (in
      4 vols. in 12mo.,) which I have freely and profitably used. The
      author is a man of sense and humanity; and his work is labored
      with industry and elegance. But I have likewise examined the
      original monuments of the reigns of Pepin and Charlemagne, in the
      5th volume of the Historians of France.]

      96 (return) [ The vision of Weltin, composed by a monk, eleven
      years after the death of Charlemagne, shows him in purgatory,
      with a vulture, who is perpetually gnawing the guilty member,
      while the rest of his body, the emblem of his virtues, is sound
      and perfect, (see Gaillard tom. ii. p. 317-360.)]

      97 (return) [ The marriage of Eginhard with Imma, daughter of
      Charlemagne, is, in my opinion, sufficiently refuted by the
      probum and suspicio that sullied these fair damsels, without
      excepting his own wife, (c. xix. p. 98-100, cum Notis Schmincke.)
      The husband must have been too strong for the historian.]

      971 (return) [ This charge of incest, as Mr. Hallam justly
      observes, “seems to have originated in a misinterpreted passage
      of Eginhard.” Hallam’s Middle Ages, vol.i. p. 16.—M.]

      98 (return) [ Besides the massacres and transmigrations, the pain
      of death was pronounced against the following crimes: 1. The
      refusal of baptism. 2. The false pretence of baptism. 3. A
      relapse to idolatry. 4. The murder of a priest or bishop. 5.
      Human sacrifices. 6. Eating meat in Lent. But every crime might
      be expiated by baptism or penance, (Gaillard, tom. ii. p.
      241-247;) and the Christian Saxons became the friends and equals
      of the Franks, (Struv. Corpus Hist. Germanicae, p.133.)]

      981 (return) [ M. Guizot (Cours d’Histoire Moderne, p. 270, 273)
      has compiled the following statement of Charlemagne’s military
      campaigns:—

     1. Against the Aquitanians.
     18.   ”    the Saxons.
     5.    ”    the Lombards.
     7.    ”    the Arabs in Spain.
     1.    ”    the Thuringians.
     4.    ”    the Avars.
     2.    ”    the Bretons.
     1.    ”    the Bavarians.
     4.    ”    the Slaves beyond the Elbe
     5.    ”    the Saracens in Italy.
     3.    ”    the Danes.
     2.    ”    the Greeks. ___
     53 total.—M.]

      99 (return) [ In this action the famous Rutland, Rolando,
      Orlando, was slain—cum compluribus aliis. See the truth in
      Eginhard, (c. 9, p. 51-56,) and the fable in an ingenious
      Supplement of M. Gaillard, (tom. iii. p. 474.) The Spaniards are
      too proud of a victory, which history ascribes to the Gascons,
      and romance to the Saracens. * Note: In fact, it was a sudden
      onset of the Gascons, assisted by the Beaure mountaineers, and
      possibly a few Navarrese.—M.]

      100 (return) [ Yet Schmidt, from the best authorities, represents
      the interior disorders and oppression of his reign, (Hist. des
      Allemands, tom. ii. p. 45-49.)]

      101 (return) [ Omnis homo ex sua proprietate legitimam decimam ad
      ecclesiam conferat. Experimento enim didicimus, in anno, quo illa
      valida fames irrepsit, ebullire vacuas annonas a daemonibus
      devoratas, et voces exprobationis auditas. Such is the decree and
      assertion of the great Council of Frankfort, (canon xxv. tom. ix.
      p. 105.) Both Selden (Hist. of Tithes; Works, vol. iii. part ii.
      p. 1146) and Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xxxi. c. 12)
      represent Charlemagne as the first legal author of tithes. Such
      obligations have country gentlemen to his memory!]

      102 (return) [ Eginhard (c. 25, p. 119) clearly affirms, tentabat
      et scribere... sed parum prospere successit labor praeposterus et
      sero inchoatus. The moderns have perverted and corrected this
      obvious meaning, and the title of M. Gaillard’s dissertation
      (tom. iii. p. 247-260) betrays his partiality. * Note: This point
      has been contested; but Mr. Hallam and Monsieur Sismondl concur
      with Gibbon. See Middle Ages, iii. 330, Histoire de Francais,
      tom. ii. p. 318. The sensible observations of the latter are
      quoted in the Quarterly Review, vol. xlviii. p. 451. Fleury, I
      may add, quotes from Mabillon a remarkable evidence that
      Charlemagne “had a mark to himself like an honest, plain-dealing
      man.” Ibid.—M.]

      103 (return) [ See Gaillard, tom. iii. p. 138-176, and Schmidt,
      tom. ii. p. 121-129.]

      104 (return) [ M. Gaillard (tom. iii. p. 372) fixes the true
      stature of Charlemagne (see a Dissertation of Marquard Freher ad
      calcem Eginhart, p. 220, &c.) at five feet nine inches of French,
      about six feet one inch and a fourth English, measure. The
      romance writers have increased it to eight feet, and the giant
      was endowed with matchless strength and appetite: at a single
      stroke of his good sword Joyeuse, he cut asunder a horseman and
      his horse; at a single repast, he devoured a goose, two fowls, a
      quarter of mutton, &c.]

      That empire was not unworthy of its title; 105 and some of the
      fairest kingdoms of Europe were the patrimony or conquest of a
      prince, who reigned at the same time in France, Spain, Italy,
      Germany, and Hungary. 106 I. The Roman province of Gaul had been
      transformed into the name and monarchy of France; but, in the
      decay of the Merovingian line, its limits were contracted by the
      independence of the Britons and the revolt of Aquitain.
      Charlemagne pursued, and confined, the Britons on the shores of
      the ocean; and that ferocious tribe, whose origin and language
      are so different from the French, was chastised by the imposition
      of tribute, hostages, and peace. After a long and evasive
      contest, the rebellion of the dukes of Aquitain was punished by
      the forfeiture of their province, their liberty, and their lives.

      Harsh and rigorous would have been such treatment of ambitious
      governors, who had too faithfully copied the mayors of the
      palace. But a recent discovery 107 has proved that these unhappy
      princes were the last and lawful heirs of the blood and sceptre
      of Clovis, and younger branch, from the brother of Dagobert, of
      the Merovingian house. Their ancient kingdom was reduced to the
      duchy of Gascogne, to the counties of Fesenzac and Armagnac, at
      the foot of the Pyrenees: their race was propagated till the
      beginning of the sixteenth century; and after surviving their
      Carlovingian tyrants, they were reserved to feel the injustice,
      or the favors, of a third dynasty. By the reunion of Aquitain,
      France was enlarged to its present boundaries, with the additions
      of the Netherlands and Spain, as far as the Rhine. II.

      The Saracens had been expelled from France by the grandfather and
      father of Charlemagne; but they still possessed the greatest part
      of Spain, from the rock of Gibraltar to the Pyrenees. Amidst
      their civil divisions, an Arabian emir of Saragossa implored his
      protection in the diet of Paderborn. Charlemagne undertook the
      expedition, restored the emir, and, without distinction of faith,
      impartially crushed the resistance of the Christians, and
      rewarded the obedience and services of the Mahometans. In his
      absence he instituted the Spanish march, 108 which extended from
      the Pyrenees to the River Ebro: Barcelona was the residence of
      the French governor: he possessed the counties of Rousillon and
      Catalonia; and the infant kingdoms of Navarre and Arragon were
      subject to his jurisdiction. III. As king of the Lombards, and
      patrician of Rome, he reigned over the greatest part of Italy,
      109 a tract of a thousand miles from the Alps to the borders of
      Calabria. The duchy of Beneventum, a Lombard fief, had spread, at
      the expense of the Greeks, over the modern kingdom of Naples. But
      Arrechis, the reigning duke, refused to be included in the
      slavery of his country; assumed the independent title of prince;
      and opposed his sword to the Carlovingian monarchy. His defence
      was firm, his submission was not inglorious, and the emperor was
      content with an easy tribute, the demolition of his fortresses,
      and the acknowledgement, on his coins, of a supreme lord. The
      artful flattery of his son Grimoald added the appellation of
      father, but he asserted his dignity with prudence, and Benventum
      insensibly escaped from the French yoke. 110 IV. Charlemagne was
      the first who united Germany under the same sceptre. The name of
      Oriental France is preserved in the circle of Franconia; and the
      people of Hesse and Thuringia were recently incorporated with the
      victors, by the conformity of religion and government. The
      Alemanni, so formidable to the Romans, were the faithful vassals
      and confederates of the Franks; and their country was inscribed
      within the modern limits of Alsace, Swabia, and Switzerland. The
      Bavarians, with a similar indulgence of their laws and manners,
      were less patient of a master: the repeated treasons of Tasillo
      justified the abolition of their hereditary dukes; and their
      power was shared among the counts, who judged and guarded that
      important frontier. But the north of Germany, from the Rhine and
      beyond the Elbe, was still hostile and Pagan; nor was it till
      after a war of thirty-three years that the Saxons bowed under the
      yoke of Christ and of Charlemagne. The idols and their votaries
      were extirpated: the foundation of eight bishoprics, of Munster,
      Osnaburgh, Paderborn, and Minden, of Bremen, Verden, Hildesheim,
      and Halberstadt, define, on either side of the Weser, the bounds
      of ancient Saxony these episcopal seats were the first schools
      and cities of that savage land; and the religion and humanity of
      the children atoned, in some degree, for the massacre of the
      parents. Beyond the Elbe, the Slavi, or Sclavonians, of similar
      manners and various denominations, overspread the modern
      dominions of Prussia, Poland, and Bohemia, and some transient
      marks of obedience have tempted the French historian to extend
      the empire to the Baltic and the Vistula. The conquest or
      conversion of those countries is of a more recent age; but the
      first union of Bohemia with the Germanic body may be justly
      ascribed to the arms of Charlemagne. V. He retaliated on the
      Avars, or Huns of Pannonia, the same calamities which they had
      inflicted on the nations. Their rings, the wooden fortifications
      which encircled their districts and villages, were broken down by
      the triple effort of a French army, that was poured into their
      country by land and water, through the Carpathian mountains and
      along the plain of the Danube. After a bloody conflict of eight
      years, the loss of some French generals was avenged by the
      slaughter of the most noble Huns: the relics of the nation
      submitted the royal residence of the chagan was left desolate and
      unknown; and the treasures, the rapine of two hundred and fifty
      years, enriched the victorious troops, or decorated the churches
      of Italy and Gaul. 111 After the reduction of Pannonia, the
      empire of Charlemagne was bounded only by the conflux of the
      Danube with the Teyss and the Save: the provinces of Istria,
      Liburnia, and Dalmatia, were an easy, though unprofitable,
      accession; and it was an effect of his moderation, that he left
      the maritime cities under the real or nominal sovereignty of the
      Greeks. But these distant possessions added more to the
      reputation than to the power of the Latin emperor; nor did he
      risk any ecclesiastical foundations to reclaim the Barbarians
      from their vagrant life and idolatrous worship. Some canals of
      communication between the rivers, the Saone and the Meuse, the
      Rhine and the Danube, were faintly attempted. 112 Their execution
      would have vivified the empire; and more cost and labor were
      often wasted in the structure of a cathedral. 1121

      105 (return) [ See the concise, but correct and original, work of
      D’Anville, (Etats Formes en Europe apres la Chute de l’Empire
      Romain en Occident, Paris, 1771, in 4to.,) whose map includes the
      empire of Charlemagne; the different parts are illustrated, by
      Valesius (Notitia Galliacum) for France, Beretti (Dissertatio
      Chorographica) for Italy, De Marca (Marca Hispanica) for Spain.
      For the middle geography of Germany, I confess myself poor and
      destitute.]

      106 (return) [ After a brief relation of his wars and conquests,
      (Vit. Carol. c. 5-14,) Eginhard recapitulates, in a few words,
      (c. 15,) the countries subject to his empire. Struvius, (Corpus
      Hist. German. p. 118-149) was inserted in his Notes the texts of
      the old Chronicles.]

      107 (return) [ On a charter granted to the monastery of Alaon
      (A.D. 845) by Charles the Bald, which deduces this royal
      pedigree. I doubt whether some subsequent links of the ixth and
      xth centuries are equally firm; yet the whole is approved and
      defended by M. Gaillard, (tom. ii. p.60-81, 203-206,) who affirms
      that the family of Montesquiou (not of the President de
      Montesquieu) is descended, in the female line, from Clotaire and
      Clovis—an innocent pretension!]

      108 (return) [ The governors or counts of the Spanish march
      revolted from Charles the Simple about the year 900; and a poor
      pittance, the Rousillon, has been recovered in 1642 by the kings
      of France, (Longuerue, Description de la France, tom i. p.
      220-222.) Yet the Rousillon contains 188,900 subjects, and
      annually pays 2,600,000 livres, (Necker, Administration des
      Finances, tom. i. p. 278, 279;) more people, perhaps, and
      doubtless more money than the march of Charlemagne.]

      109 (return) [ Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, tom. ii. p. 200,
      &c.]

      110 (return) [ See Giannone, tom. i. p 374, 375, and the Annals
      of Muratori.]

      111 (return) [ Quot praelia in eo gesta! quantum sanguinis
      effusum sit! Testatur vacua omni habitatione Pannonia, et locus
      in quo regia Cagani fuit ita desertus, ut ne vestigium quidem
      humanae habitationis appareat. Tota in hoc bello Hunnorum
      nobilitas periit, tota gloria decidit, omnis pecunia et congesti
      ex longo tempore thesauri direpti sunt. Eginhard, cxiii.]

      112 (return) [ The junction of the Rhine and Danube was
      undertaken only for the service of the Pannonian war, (Gaillard,
      Vie de Charlemagne, tom. ii. p. 312-315.) The canal, which would
      have been only two leagues in length, and of which some traces
      are still extant in Swabia, was interrupted by excessive rains,
      military avocations, and superstitious fears, (Schaepflin, Hist.
      de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xviii. p. 256. Molimina
      fluviorum, &c., jungendorum, p. 59-62.)]

      1121 (return) [ I should doubt this in the time of Charlemagne,
      even if the term “expended” were substituted for “wasted.”—M.]




      Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part V.

      If we retrace the outlines of this geographical picture, it will
      be seen that the empire of the Franks extended, between east and
      west, from the Ebro to the Elbe or Vistula; between the north and
      south, from the duchy of Beneventum to the River Eyder, the
      perpetual boundary of Germany and Denmark. The personal and
      political importance of Charlemagne was magnified by the distress
      and division of the rest of Europe. The islands of Great Britain
      and Ireland were disputed by a crowd of princes of Saxon or
      Scottish origin: and, after the loss of Spain, the Christian and
      Gothic kingdom of Alphonso the Chaste was confined to the narrow
      range of the Asturian mountains. These petty sovereigns revered
      the power or virtue of the Carlovingian monarch, implored the
      honor and support of his alliance, and styled him their common
      parent, the sole and supreme emperor of the West. 113 He
      maintained a more equal intercourse with the caliph Harun al
      Rashid, 114 whose dominion stretched from Africa to India, and
      accepted from his ambassadors a tent, a water-clock, an elephant,
      and the keys of the Holy Sepulchre. It is not easy to conceive
      the private friendship of a Frank and an Arab, who were strangers
      to each other’s person, and language, and religion: but their
      public correspondence was founded on vanity, and their remote
      situation left no room for a competition of interest. Two thirds
      of the Western empire of Rome were subject to Charlemagne, and
      the deficiency was amply supplied by his command of the
      inaccessible or invincible nations of Germany. But in the choice
      of his enemies, 1141 we may be reasonably surprised that he so
      often preferred the poverty of the north to the riches of the
      south. The three-and-thirty campaigns laboriously consumed in the
      woods and morasses of Germany would have sufficed to assert the
      amplitude of his title by the expulsion of the Greeks from Italy
      and the Saracens from Spain. The weakness of the Greeks would
      have insured an easy victory; and the holy crusade against the
      Saracens would have been prompted by glory and revenge, and
      loudly justified by religion and policy. Perhaps, in his
      expeditions beyond the Rhine and the Elbe, he aspired to save his
      monarchy from the fate of the Roman empire, to disarm the enemies
      of civilized society, and to eradicate the seed of future
      emigrations. But it has been wisely observed, that, in a light of
      precaution, all conquest must be ineffectual, unless it could be
      universal, since the increasing circle must be involved in a
      larger sphere of hostility. 115 The subjugation of Germany
      withdrew the veil which had so long concealed the continent or
      islands of Scandinavia from the knowledge of Europe, and awakened
      the torpid courage of their barbarous natives. The fiercest of
      the Saxon idolaters escaped from the Christian tyrant to their
      brethren of the North; the Ocean and Mediterranean were covered
      with their piratical fleets; and Charlemagne beheld with a sigh
      the destructive progress of the Normans, who, in less than
      seventy years, precipitated the fall of his race and monarchy.

      113 (return) [ See Eginhard, c. 16, and Gaillard, tom. ii. p.
      361-385, who mentions, with a loose reference, the intercourse of
      Charlemagne and Egbert, the emperor’s gift of his own sword, and
      the modest answer of his Saxon disciple. The anecdote, if
      genuine, would have adorned our English histories.]

      114 (return) [ The correspondence is mentioned only in the French
      annals, and the Orientals are ignorant of the caliph’s friendship
      for the Christian dog—a polite appellation, which Harun bestows
      on the emperor of the Greeks.]

      1141 (return) [ Had he the choice? M. Guizot has eloquently
      described the position of Charlemagne towards the Saxons. Il y
      fit face par le conquete; la guerre defensive prit la forme
      offensive: il transporta la lutte sur le territoire des peuples
      qui voulaient envahir le sien: il travailla a asservir les races
      etrangeres, et extirper les croyances ennemies. De la son mode de
      gouvernement et la fondation de son empire: la guerre offensive
      et la conquete voulaient cette vaste et redoutable unite. Compare
      observations in the Quarterly Review, vol. xlviii., and James’s
      Life of Charlemagne.—M.]

      115 (return) [ Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 361-365, 471-476, 492. I
      have borrowed his judicious remarks on Charlemagne’s plan of
      conquest, and the judicious distinction of his enemies of the
      first and the second enceinte, (tom. ii. p. 184, 509, &c.)]

      Had the pope and the Romans revived the primitive constitution,
      the titles of emperor and Augustus were conferred on Charlemagne
      for the term of his life; and his successors, on each vacancy,
      must have ascended the throne by a formal or tacit election. But
      the association of his son Lewis the Pious asserts the
      independent right of monarchy and conquest, and the emperor seems
      on this occasion to have foreseen and prevented the latent claims
      of the clergy. The royal youth was commanded to take the crown
      from the altar, and with his own hands to place it on his head,
      as a gift which he held from God, his father, and the nation. 116
      The same ceremony was repeated, though with less energy, in the
      subsequent associations of Lothaire and Lewis the Second: the
      Carlovingian sceptre was transmitted from father to son in a
      lineal descent of four generations; and the ambition of the popes
      was reduced to the empty honor of crowning and anointing these
      hereditary princes, who were already invested with their power
      and dominions. The pious Lewis survived his brothers, and
      embraced the whole empire of Charlemagne; but the nations and the
      nobles, his bishops and his children, quickly discerned that this
      mighty mass was no longer inspired by the same soul; and the
      foundations were undermined to the centre, while the external
      surface was yet fair and entire. After a war, or battle, which
      consumed one hundred thousand Franks, the empire was divided by
      treaty between his three sons, who had violated every filial and
      fraternal duty. The kingdoms of Germany and France were forever
      separated; the provinces of Gaul, between the Rhone and the Alps,
      the Meuse and the Rhine, were assigned, with Italy, to the
      Imperial dignity of Lothaire. In the partition of his share,
      Lorraine and Arles, two recent and transitory kingdoms, were
      bestowed on the younger children; and Lewis the Second, his
      eldest son, was content with the realm of Italy, the proper and
      sufficient patrimony of a Roman emperor. On his death without any
      male issue, the vacant throne was disputed by his uncles and
      cousins, and the popes most dexterously seized the occasion of
      judging the claims and merits of the candidates, and of bestowing
      on the most obsequious, or most liberal, the Imperial office of
      advocate of the Roman church. The dregs of the Carlovingian race
      no longer exhibited any symptoms of virtue or power, and the
      ridiculous epithets of the bard, the stammerer, the fat, and the
      simple, distinguished the tame and uniform features of a crowd of
      kings alike deserving of oblivion. By the failure of the
      collateral branches, the whole inheritance devolved to Charles
      the Fat, the last emperor of his family: his insanity authorized
      the desertion of Germany, Italy, and France: he was deposed in a
      diet, and solicited his daily bread from the rebels by whose
      contempt his life and liberty had been spared. According to the
      measure of their force, the governors, the bishops, and the
      lords, usurped the fragments of the falling empire; and some
      preference was shown to the female or illegitimate blood of
      Charlemagne. Of the greater part, the title and possession were
      alike doubtful, and the merit was adequate to the contracted
      scale of their dominions. Those who could appear with an army at
      the gates of Rome were crowned emperors in the Vatican; but their
      modesty was more frequently satisfied with the appellation of
      kings of Italy: and the whole term of seventy-four years may be
      deemed a vacancy, from the abdication of Charles the Fat to the
      establishment of Otho the First.

      116 (return) [ Thegan, the biographer of Lewis, relates this
      coronation: and Baronius has honestly transcribed it, (A.D. 813,
      No. 13, &c. See Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 506, 507, 508,) howsoever
      adverse to the claims of the popes. For the series of the
      Carlovingians, see the historians of France, Italy, and Germany;
      Pfeffel, Schmidt, Velly, Muratori, and even Voltaire, whose
      pictures are sometimes just, and always pleasing.]

      Otho 117 was of the noble race of the dukes of Saxony; and if he
      truly descended from Witikind, the adversary and proselyte of
      Charlemagne, the posterity of a vanquished people was exalted to
      reign over their conquerors. His father, Henry the Fowler, was
      elected, by the suffrage of the nation, to save and institute the
      kingdom of Germany. Its limits 118 were enlarged on every side by
      his son, the first and greatest of the Othos. A portion of Gaul,
      to the west of the Rhine, along the banks of the Meuse and the
      Moselle, was assigned to the Germans, by whose blood and language
      it has been tinged since the time of Caesar and Tacitus.

      Between the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Alps, the successors of
      Otho acquired a vain supremacy over the broken kingdoms of
      Burgundy and Arles. In the North, Christianity was propagated by
      the sword of Otho, the conqueror and apostle of the Slavic
      nations of the Elbe and Oder: the marches of Brandenburgh and
      Sleswick were fortified with German colonies; and the king of
      Denmark, the dukes of Poland and Bohemia, confessed themselves
      his tributary vassals. At the head of a victorious army, he
      passed the Alps, subdued the kingdom of Italy, delivered the
      pope, and forever fixed the Imperial crown in the name and nation
      of Germany. From that memorable aera, two maxims of public
      jurisprudence were introduced by force and ratified by time. I.
      That the prince, who was elected in the German diet, acquired,
      from that instant, the subject kingdoms of Italy and Rome. II.
      But that he might not legally assume the titles of emperor and
      Augustus, till he had received the crown from the hands of the
      Roman pontiff. 119

      117 (return) [ He was the son of Otho, the son of Ludolph, in
      whose favor the Duchy of Saxony had been instituted, A.D. 858.
      Ruotgerus, the biographer of a St. Bruno, (Bibliot. Bunavianae
      Catalog. tom. iii. vol. ii. p. 679,) gives a splendid character
      of his family. Atavorum atavi usque ad hominum memoriam omnes
      nobilissimi; nullus in eorum stirpe ignotus, nullus degener
      facile reperitur, (apud Struvium, Corp. Hist. German. p. 216.)
      Yet Gundling (in Henrico Aucupe) is not satisfied of his descent
      from Witikind.]

      118 (return) [ See the treatise of Conringius, (de Finibus
      Imperii Germanici, Francofurt. 1680, in 4to.: ) he rejects the
      extravagant and improper scale of the Roman and Carlovingian
      empires, and discusses with moderation the rights of Germany, her
      vassals, and her neighbors.]

      119 (return) [ The power of custom forces me to number Conrad I.
      and Henry I., the Fowler, in the list of emperors, a title which
      was never assumed by those kings of Germany. The Italians,
      Muratori for instance, are more scrupulous and correct, and only
      reckon the princes who have been crowned at Rome.]

      The Imperial dignity of Charlemagne was announced to the East by
      the alteration of his style; and instead of saluting his fathers,
      the Greek emperors, he presumed to adopt the more equal and
      familiar appellation of brother. 120 Perhaps in his connection
      with Irene he aspired to the name of husband: his embassy to
      Constantinople spoke the language of peace and friendship, and
      might conceal a treaty of marriage with that ambitious princess,
      who had renounced the most sacred duties of a mother. The nature,
      the duration, the probable consequences of such a union between
      two distant and dissonant empires, it is impossible to
      conjecture; but the unanimous silence of the Latins may teach us
      to suspect, that the report was invented by the enemies of Irene,
      to charge her with the guilt of betraying the church and state to
      the strangers of the West. 121 The French ambassadors were the
      spectators, and had nearly been the victims, of the conspiracy of
      Nicephorus, and the national hatred. Constantinople was
      exasperated by the treason and sacrilege of ancient Rome: a
      proverb, “That the Franks were good friends and bad neighbors,”
      was in every one’s mouth; but it was dangerous to provoke a
      neighbor who might be tempted to reiterate, in the church of St.
      Sophia, the ceremony of his Imperial coronation. After a tedious
      journey of circuit and delay, the ambassadors of Nicephorus found
      him in his camp, on the banks of the River Sala; and Charlemagne
      affected to confound their vanity by displaying, in a Franconian
      village, the pomp, or at least the pride, of the Byzantine
      palace. 122 The Greeks were successively led through four halls
      of audience: in the first they were ready to fall prostrate
      before a splendid personage in a chair of state, till he informed
      them that he was only a servant, the constable, or master of the
      horse, of the emperor. The same mistake, and the same answer,
      were repeated in the apartments of the count palatine, the
      steward, and the chamberlain; and their impatience was gradually
      heightened, till the doors of the presence-chamber were thrown
      open, and they beheld the genuine monarch, on his throne,
      enriched with the foreign luxury which he despised, and encircled
      with the love and reverence of his victorious chiefs. A treaty of
      peace and alliance was concluded between the two empires, and the
      limits of the East and West were defined by the right of present
      possession. But the Greeks 123 soon forgot this humiliating
      equality, or remembered it only to hate the Barbarians by whom it
      was extorted. During the short union of virtue and power, they
      respectfully saluted the august Charlemagne, with the
      acclamations of basileus, and emperor of the Romans. As soon as
      these qualities were separated in the person of his pious son,
      the Byzantine letters were inscribed, “To the king, or, as he
      styles himself, the emperor of the Franks and Lombards.” When
      both power and virtue were extinct, they despoiled Lewis the
      Second of his hereditary title, and with the barbarous
      appellation of rex or rega, degraded him among the crowd of Latin
      princes. His reply 124 is expressive of his weakness: he proves,
      with some learning, that, both in sacred and profane history, the
      name of king is synonymous with the Greek word basileus: if, at
      Constantinople, it were assumed in a more exclusive and imperial
      sense, he claims from his ancestors, and from the popes, a just
      participation of the honors of the Roman purple. The same
      controversy was revived in the reign of the Othos; and their
      ambassador describes, in lively colors, the insolence of the
      Byzantine court. 125 The Greeks affected to despise the poverty
      and ignorance of the Franks and Saxons; and in their last decline
      refused to prostitute to the kings of Germany the title of Roman
      emperors.

      120 (return) [ Invidiam tamen suscepti nominis (C. P.
      imperatoribus super hoc indignantibus) magna tulit patientia,
      vicitque eorum contumaciam... mittendo ad eos crebras legationes,
      et in epistolis fratres eos appellando. Eginhard, c. 28, p. 128.
      Perhaps it was on their account that, like Augustus, he affected
      some reluctance to receive the empire.]

      121 (return) [ Theophanes speaks of the coronation and unction of
      Charles (Chronograph. p. 399,) and of his treaty of marriage with
      Irene, (p. 402,) which is unknown to the Latins. Gaillard relates
      his transactions with the Greek empire, (tom. ii. p. 446-468.)]

      122 (return) [ Gaillard very properly observes, that this pageant
      was a farce suitable to children only; but that it was indeed
      represented in the presence, and for the benefit, of children of
      a larger growth.]

      123 (return) [ Compare, in the original texts collected by Pagi,
      (tom. iii. A.D. 812, No. 7, A.D. 824, No. 10, &c.,) the contrast
      of Charlemagne and his son; to the former the ambassadors of
      Michael (who were indeed disavowed) more suo, id est lingua
      Graeca laudes dixerunt, imperatorem eum et appellantes; to the
      latter, Vocato imperatori Francorum, &c.]

      124 (return) [ See the epistle, in Paralipomena, of the anonymous
      writer of Salerno, (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 243-254,
      c. 93-107,) whom Baronius (A.D. 871, No. 51-71) mistook for
      Erchempert, when he transcribed it in his Annals.]

      125 (return) [ Ipse enim vos, non imperatorem, id est sua lingua,
      sed ob indignationem, id est regem nostra vocabat, Liutprand, in
      Legat. in Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 479. The pope had
      exhorted Nicephorus, emperor of the Greeks, to make peace with
      Otho, the august emperor of the Romans—quae inscriptio secundum
      Graecos peccatoria et temeraria... imperatorem inquiunt,
      universalem, Romanorum, Augustum, magnum, solum, Nicephorum, (p.
      486.)]

      These emperors, in the election of the popes, continued to
      exercise the powers which had been assumed by the Gothic and
      Grecian princes; and the importance of this prerogative increased
      with the temporal estate and spiritual jurisdiction of the Roman
      church. In the Christian aristocracy, the principal members of
      the clergy still formed a senate to assist the administration,
      and to supply the vacancy, of the bishop. Rome was divided into
      twenty-eight parishes, and each parish was governed by a cardinal
      priest, or presbyter, a title which, however common or modest in
      its origin, has aspired to emulate the purple of kings. Their
      number was enlarged by the association of the seven deacons of
      the most considerable hospitals, the seven palatine judges of the
      Lateran, and some dignitaries of the church. This ecclesiastical
      senate was directed by the seven cardinal-bishops of the Roman
      province, who were less occupied in the suburb dioceses of Ostia,
      Porto, Velitrae, Tusculum, Praeneste, Tibur, and the Sabines,
      than by their weekly service in the Lateran, and their superior
      share in the honors and authority of the apostolic see. On the
      death of the pope, these bishops recommended a successor to the
      suffrage of the college of cardinals, 126 and their choice was
      ratified or rejected by the applause or clamor of the Roman
      people. But the election was imperfect; nor could the pontiff be
      legally consecrated till the emperor, the advocate of the church,
      had graciously signified his approbation and consent. The royal
      commissioner examined, on the spot, the form and freedom of the
      proceedings; nor was it till after a previous scrutiny into the
      qualifications of the candidates, that he accepted an oath of
      fidelity, and confirmed the donations which had successively
      enriched the patrimony of St. Peter. In the frequent schisms, the
      rival claims were submitted to the sentence of the emperor; and
      in a synod of bishops he presumed to judge, to condemn, and to
      punish, the crimes of a guilty pontiff. Otho the First imposed a
      treaty on the senate and people, who engaged to prefer the
      candidate most acceptable to his majesty: 127 his successors
      anticipated or prevented their choice: they bestowed the Roman
      benefice, like the bishoprics of Cologne or Bamberg, on their
      chancellors or preceptors; and whatever might be the merit of a
      Frank or Saxon, his name sufficiently attests the interposition
      of foreign power. These acts of prerogative were most speciously
      excused by the vices of a popular election. The competitor who
      had been excluded by the cardinals appealed to the passions or
      avarice of the multitude; the Vatican and the Lateran were
      stained with blood; and the most powerful senators, the marquises
      of Tuscany and the counts of Tusculum, held the apostolic see in
      a long and disgraceful servitude. The Roman pontiffs, of the
      ninth and tenth centuries, were insulted, imprisoned, and
      murdered, by their tyrants; and such was their indigence, after
      the loss and usurpation of the ecclesiastical patrimonies, that
      they could neither support the state of a prince, nor exercise
      the charity of a priest. 128 The influence of two sister
      prostitutes, Marozia and Theodora, was founded on their wealth
      and beauty, their political and amorous intrigues: the most
      strenuous of their lovers were rewarded with the Roman mitre, and
      their reign 129 may have suggested to the darker ages 130 the
      fable 131 of a female pope. 132 The bastard son, the grandson,
      and the great-grandson of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were seated
      in the chair of St. Peter, and it was at the age of nineteen
      years that the second of these became the head of the Latin
      church. 1321 His youth and manhood were of a suitable complexion;
      and the nations of pilgrims could bear testimony to the charges
      that were urged against him in a Roman synod, and in the presence
      of Otho the Great. As John XII. had renounced the dress and
      decencies of his profession, the soldier may not perhaps be
      dishonored by the wine which he drank, the blood that he spilt,
      the flames that he kindled, or the licentious pursuits of gaming
      and hunting. His open simony might be the consequence of
      distress; and his blasphemous invocation of Jupiter and Venus, if
      it be true, could not possibly be serious. But we read, with some
      surprise, that the worthy grandson of Marozia lived in public
      adultery with the matrons of Rome; that the Lateran palace was
      turned into a school for prostitution, and that his rapes of
      virgins and widows had deterred the female pilgrims from visiting
      the tomb of St. Peter, lest, in the devout act, they should be
      violated by his successor. 133 The Protestants have dwelt with
      malicious pleasure on these characters of Antichrist; but to a
      philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous
      than their virtues. After a long series of scandal, the apostolic
      see was reformed and exalted by the austerity and zeal of Gregory
      VII. That ambitious monk devoted his life to the execution of two
      projects. I. To fix in the college of cardinals the freedom and
      independence of election, and forever to abolish the right or
      usurpation of the emperors and the Roman people. II. To bestow
      and resume the Western empire as a fief or benefice 134 of the
      church, and to extend his temporal dominion over the kings and
      kingdoms of the earth. After a contest of fifty years, the first
      of these designs was accomplished by the firm support of the
      ecclesiastical order, whose liberty was connected with that of
      their chief. But the second attempt, though it was crowned with
      some partial and apparent success, has been vigorously resisted
      by the secular power, and finally extinguished by the improvement
      of human reason.

      126 (return) [ The origin and progress of the title of cardinal
      may be found in Themassin, (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p.
      1261-1298,) Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. vi.
      Dissert. lxi. p. 159-182,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles.
      p. 345-347,) who accurately remarks the form and changes of the
      election. The cardinal-bishops so highly exalted by Peter
      Damianus, are sunk to a level with the rest of the sacred
      college.]

      127 (return) [ Firmiter jurantes, nunquam se papam electuros aut
      audinaturos, praeter consensum et electionem Othonis et filii
      sui. (Liutprand, l. vi. c. 6, p. 472.) This important concession
      may either supply or confirm the decree of the clergy and people
      of Rome, so fiercely rejected by Baronius, Pagi, and Muratori,
      (A.D. 964,) and so well defended and explained by St. Marc,
      (Abrege, tom. ii. p. 808-816, tom. iv. p. 1167-1185.) Consult the
      historical critic, and the Annals of Muratori, for for the
      election and confirmation of each pope.]

      128 (return) [ The oppression and vices of the Roman church, in
      the xth century, are strongly painted in the history and legation
      of Liutprand, (see p. 440, 450, 471-476, 479, &c.;) and it is
      whimsical enough to observe Muratori tempering the invectives of
      Baronius against the popes. But these popes had been chosen, not
      by the cardinals, but by lay-patrons.]

      129 (return) [ The time of Pope Joan (papissa Joanna) is placed
      somewhat earlier than Theodora or Marozia; and the two years of
      her imaginary reign are forcibly inserted between Leo IV. and
      Benedict III. But the contemporary Anastasius indissolubly links
      the death of Leo and the elevation of Benedict, (illico, mox, p.
      247;) and the accurate chronology of Pagi, Muratori, and
      Leibnitz, fixes both events to the year 857.]

      130 (return) [ The advocates for Pope Joan produce one hundred
      and fifty witnesses, or rather echoes, of the xivth, xvth, and
      xvith centuries. They bear testimony against themselves and the
      legend, by multiplying the proof that so curious a story must
      have been repeated by writers of every description to whom it was
      known. On those of the ixth and xth centuries, the recent event
      would have flashed with a double force. Would Photius have spared
      such a reproach? Could Liutprand have missed such scandal? It is
      scarcely worth while to discuss the various readings of Martinus
      Polonus, Sigeber of Gamblours, or even Marianus Scotus; but a
      most palpable forgery is the passage of Pope Joan, which has been
      foisted into some Mss. and editions of the Roman Anastasius.]

      131 (return) [ As false, it deserves that name; but I would not
      pronounce it incredible. Suppose a famous French chevalier of our
      own times to have been born in Italy, and educated in the church,
      instead of the army: her merit or fortune might have raised her
      to St. Peter’s chair; her amours would have been natural: her
      delivery in the streets unlucky, but not improbable.]

      132 (return) [ Till the reformation the tale was repeated and
      believed without offence: and Joan’s female statue long occupied
      her place among the popes in the cathedral of Sienna, (Pagi,
      Critica, tom. iii. p. 624-626.) She has been annihilated by two
      learned Protestants, Blondel and Bayle, (Dictionnaire Critique,
      Papesse, Polonus, Blondel;) but their brethren were scandalized
      by this equitable and generous criticism. Spanheim and Lenfant
      attempt to save this poor engine of controversy, and even Mosheim
      condescends to cherish some doubt and suspicion, (p. 289.)]

      1321 (return) [ John XI. was the son of her husband Alberic, not
      of her lover, Pope Sergius III., as Muratori has distinctly
      proved, Ann. ad ann. 911, tom. p. 268. Her grandson Octavian,
      otherwise called John XII., was pope; but a great-grandson cannot
      be discovered in any of the succeeding popes; nor does our
      historian himself, in his subsequent narration, (p. 202,) seem to
      know of one. Hobhouse, Illustrations of Childe Harold, p.
      309.—M.]

      133 (return) [ Lateranense palatium... prostibulum meretricum ...
      Testis omnium gentium, praeterquam Romanorum, absentia mulierum,
      quae sanctorum apostolorum limina orandi gratia timent visere,
      cum nonnullas ante dies paucos, hunc audierint conjugatas,
      viduas, virgines vi oppressisse, (Liutprand, Hist. l. vi. c. 6,
      p. 471. See the whole affair of John XII., p. 471-476.)]

      134 (return) [ A new example of the mischief of equivocation is
      the beneficium (Ducange, tom. i. p. 617, &c.,) which the pope
      conferred on the emperor Frederic I., since the Latin word may
      signify either a legal fief, or a simple favor, an obligation,
      (we want the word bienfait.) (See Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands,
      tom. iii. p. 393-408. Pfeffel, Abrege Chronologique, tom. i. p.
      229, 296, 317, 324, 420, 430, 500, 505, 509, &c.)]

      In the revival of the empire of empire of Rome, neither the
      bishop nor the people could bestow on Charlemagne or Otho the
      provinces which were lost, as they had been won, by the chance of
      arms. But the Romans were free to choose a master for themselves;
      and the powers which had been delegated to the patrician, were
      irrevocably granted to the French and Saxon emperors of the West.
      The broken records of the times 135 preserve some remembrance of
      their palace, their mint, their tribunal, their edicts, and the
      sword of justice, which, as late as the thirteenth century, was
      derived from Caesar to the praefect of the city. 136 Between the
      arts of the popes and the violence of the people, this supremacy
      was crushed and annihilated. Content with the titles of emperor
      and Augustus, the successors of Charlemagne neglected to assert
      this local jurisdiction. In the hour of prosperity, their
      ambition was diverted by more alluring objects; and in the decay
      and division of the empire, they were oppressed by the defence of
      their hereditary provinces. Amidst the ruins of Italy, the famous
      Marozia invited one of the usurpers to assume the character of
      her third husband; and Hugh, king of Burgundy was introduced by
      her faction into the mole of Hadrian or Castle of St. Angelo,
      which commands the principal bridge and entrance of Rome. Her son
      by the first marriage, Alberic, was compelled to attend at the
      nuptial banquet; but his reluctant and ungraceful service was
      chastised with a blow by his new father. The blow was productive
      of a revolution. “Romans,” exclaimed the youth, “once you were
      the masters of the world, and these Burgundians the most abject
      of your slaves. They now reign, these voracious and brutal
      savages, and my injury is the commencement of your servitude.”
      137 The alarum bell rang to arms in every quarter of the city:
      the Burgundians retreated with haste and shame; Marozia was
      imprisoned by her victorious son, and his brother, Pope John XI.,
      was reduced to the exercise of his spiritual functions. With the
      title of prince, Alberic possessed above twenty years the
      government of Rome; and he is said to have gratified the popular
      prejudice, by restoring the office, or at least the title, of
      consuls and tribunes. His son and heir Octavian assumed, with the
      pontificate, the name of John XII.: like his predecessor, he was
      provoked by the Lombard princes to seek a deliverer for the
      church and republic; and the services of Otho were rewarded with
      the Imperial dignity. But the Saxon was imperious, the Romans
      were impatient, the festival of the coronation was disturbed by
      the secret conflict of prerogative and freedom, and Otho
      commanded his sword-bearer not to stir from his person, lest he
      should be assaulted and murdered at the foot of the altar. 138
      Before he repassed the Alps, the emperor chastised the revolt of
      the people and the ingratitude of John XII. The pope was degraded
      in a synod; the praefect was mounted on an ass, whipped through
      the city, and cast into a dungeon; thirteen of the most guilty
      were hanged, others were mutilated or banished; and this severe
      process was justified by the ancient laws of Theodosius and
      Justinian. The voice of fame has accused the second Otho of a
      perfidious and bloody act, the massacre of the senators, whom he
      had invited to his table under the fair semblance of hospitality
      and friendship. 139 In the minority of his son Otho the Third,
      Rome made a bold attempt to shake off the Saxon yoke, and the
      consul Crescentius was the Brutus of the republic. From the
      condition of a subject and an exile, he twice rose to the command
      of the city, oppressed, expelled, and created the popes, and
      formed a conspiracy for restoring the authority of the Greek
      emperors. 1391 In the fortress of St. Angelo, he maintained an
      obstinate siege, till the unfortunate consul was betrayed by a
      promise of safety: his body was suspended on a gibbet, and his
      head was exposed on the battlements of the castle. By a reverse
      of fortune, Otho, after separating his troops, was besieged three
      days, without food, in his palace; and a disgraceful escape saved
      him from the justice or fury of the Romans. The senator Ptolemy
      was the leader of the people, and the widow of Crescentius
      enjoyed the pleasure or the fame of revenging her husband, by a
      poison which she administered to her Imperial lover. It was the
      design of Otho the Third to abandon the ruder countries of the
      North, to erect his throne in Italy, and to revive the
      institutions of the Roman monarchy. But his successors only once
      in their lives appeared on the banks of the Tyber, to receive
      their crown in the Vatican. 140 Their absence was contemptible,
      their presence odious and formidable. They descended from the
      Alps, at the head of their barbarians, who were strangers and
      enemies to the country; and their transient visit was a scene of
      tumult and bloodshed. 141 A faint remembrance of their ancestors
      still tormented the Romans; and they beheld with pious
      indignation the succession of Saxons, Franks, Swabians, and
      Bohemians, who usurped the purple and prerogatives of the
      Caesars.

      135 (return) [ For the history of the emperors in Rome and Italy,
      see Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, Opp. tom. ii., with the Notes of
      Saxius, and the Annals of Muratori, who might refer more
      distinctly to the authors of his great collection.]

      136 (return) [ See the Dissertations of Le Blanc at the end of
      his treatise des Monnoyes de France, in which he produces some
      Roman coins of the French emperors.]

      137 (return) [ Romanorum aliquando servi, scilicet Burgundiones,
      Romanis imperent?.... Romanae urbis dignitas ad tantam est
      stultitiam ducta, ut meretricum etiam imperio pareat? (Liutprand,
      l. iii. c. 12, p. 450.) Sigonius (l. vi. p. 400) positively
      affirms the renovation of the consulship; but in the old writers
      Albericus is more frequently styled princeps Romanorum.]

      138 (return) [ Ditmar, p. 354, apud Schmidt, tom. iii. p. 439.]

      139 (return) [ This bloody feast is described in Leonine verse in
      the Pantheon of Godfrey of Viterbo, (Script. Ital. tom. vii. p.
      436, 437,) who flourished towards the end of the xiith century,
      (Fabricius Bibliot. Latin. Med. et Infimi Aevi, tom. iii. p. 69,
      edit. Mansi;) but his evidence, which imposed on Sigonius, is
      reasonably suspected by Muratori (Annali, tom. viii. p. 177.)]

      1391 (return) [ The Marquis Maffei’s gallery contained a medal
      with Imp. Caes August. P. P. Crescentius. Hence Hobhouse infers
      that he affected the empire. Hobhouse, Illustrations of Childe
      Harold, p. 252.—M.]

      140 (return) [ The coronation of the emperor, and some original
      ceremonies of the xth century are preserved in the Panegyric on
      Berengarius, (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 405-414,)
      illustrated by the Notes of Hadrian Valesius and Leibnitz.
      Sigonius has related the whole process of the Roman expedition,
      in good Latin, but with some errors of time and fact, (l. vii. p.
      441-446.)]

      141 (return) [ In a quarrel at the coronation of Conrad II.
      Muratori takes leave to observe—doveano ben essere allora,
      indisciplinati, Barbari, e bestials Tedeschi. Annal. tom. viii.
      p. 368.]




      Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part VI.

      There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason than
      to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in
      opposition to their inclination and interest. A torrent of
      Barbarians may pass over the earth, but an extensive empire must
      be supported by a refined system of policy and oppression; in the
      centre, an absolute power, prompt in action and rich in
      resources; a swift and easy communication with the extreme parts;
      fortifications to check the first effort of rebellion; a regular
      administration to protect and punish; and a well-disciplined army
      to inspire fear, without provoking discontent and despair. Far
      different was the situation of the German Caesars, who were
      ambitious to enslave the kingdom of Italy. Their patrimonial
      estates were stretched along the Rhine, or scattered in the
      provinces; but this ample domain was alienated by the imprudence
      or distress of successive princes; and their revenue, from minute
      and vexatious prerogative, was scarcely sufficient for the
      maintenance of their household. Their troops were formed by the
      legal or voluntary service of their feudal vassals, who passed
      the Alps with reluctance, assumed the license of rapine and
      disorder, and capriciously deserted before the end of the
      campaign. Whole armies were swept away by the pestilential
      influence of the climate: the survivors brought back the bones of
      their princes and nobles, 142 and the effects of their own
      intemperance were often imputed to the treachery and malice of
      the Italians, who rejoiced at least in the calamities of the
      Barbarians. This irregular tyranny might contend on equal terms
      with the petty tyrants of Italy; nor can the people, or the
      reader, be much interested in the event of the quarrel. But in
      the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Lombards rekindled the
      flame of industry and freedom; and the generous example was at
      length imitated by the republics of Tuscany. 1421 In the Italian
      cities a municipal government had never been totally abolished;
      and their first privileges were granted by the favor and policy
      of the emperors, who were desirous of erecting a plebeian barrier
      against the independence of the nobles. But their rapid progress,
      the daily extension of their power and pretensions, were founded
      on the numbers and spirit of these rising communities. 143 Each
      city filled the measure of her diocese or district: the
      jurisdiction of the counts and bishops, of the marquises and
      counts, was banished from the land; and the proudest nobles were
      persuaded or compelled to desert their solitary castles, and to
      embrace the more honorable character of freemen and magistrates.
      The legislative authority was inherent in the general assembly;
      but the executive powers were intrusted to three consuls,
      annually chosen from the three orders of captains, valvassors,
      144 and commons, into which the republic was divided. Under the
      protection of equal law, the labors of agriculture and commerce
      were gradually revived; but the martial spirit of the Lombards
      was nourished by the presence of danger; and as often as the bell
      was rung, or the standard 145 erected, the gates of the city
      poured forth a numerous and intrepid band, whose zeal in their
      own cause was soon guided by the use and discipline of arms. At
      the foot of these popular ramparts, the pride of the Caesars was
      overthrown; and the invincible genius of liberty prevailed over
      the two Frederics, the greatest princes of the middle age; the
      first, superior perhaps in military prowess; the second, who
      undoubtedly excelled in the softer accomplishments of peace and
      learning.

      142 (return) [ After boiling away the flesh. The caldrons for
      that purpose were a necessary piece of travelling furniture; and
      a German who was using it for his brother, promised it to a
      friend, after it should have been employed for himself, (Schmidt,
      tom. iii. p. 423, 424.) The same author observes that the whole
      Saxon line was extinguished in Italy, (tom. ii. p. 440.)]

      1421 (return) [ Compare Sismondi, Histoire des Republiques
      Italiannes. Hallam Middle Ages. Raumer, Geschichte der
      Hohenstauffen. Savigny, Geschichte des Romischen Rechts, vol.
      iii. p. 19 with the authors quoted.—M.]

      143 (return) [ Otho, bishop of Frisingen, has left an important
      passage on the Italian cities, (l. ii. c. 13, in Script. Ital.
      tom. vi. p. 707-710: ) and the rise, progress, and government of
      these republics are perfectly illustrated by Muratori,
      (Antiquitat. Ital. Medii Aevi, tom. iv. dissert xlv.—lii. p.
      1-675. Annal. tom. viii. ix. x.)]

      144 (return) [ For these titles, see Selden, (Titles of Honor,
      vol. iii. part 1 p. 488.) Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. ii. p.
      140, tom. vi. p. 776,) and St. Marc, (Abrege Chronologique, tom.
      ii. p. 719.)]

      145 (return) [ The Lombards invented and used the carocium, a
      standard planted on a car or wagon, drawn by a team of oxen,
      (Ducange, tom. ii. p. 194, 195. Muratori Antiquitat tom. ii. dis.
      xxvi. p. 489-493.)]

      Ambitious of restoring the splendor of the purple, Frederic the
      First invaded the republics of Lombardy, with the arts of a
      statesman, the valor of a soldier, and the cruelty of a tyrant.
      The recent discovery of the Pandects had renewed a science most
      favorable to despotism; and his venal advocates proclaimed the
      emperor the absolute master of the lives and properties of his
      subjects. His royal prerogatives, in a less odious sense, were
      acknowledged in the diet of Roncaglia; and the revenue of Italy
      was fixed at thirty thousand pounds of silver, 146 which were
      multiplied to an indefinite demand by the rapine of the fiscal
      officers. The obstinate cities were reduced by the terror or the
      force of his arms: his captives were delivered to the
      executioner, or shot from his military engines; and. after the
      siege and surrender of Milan, the buildings of that stately
      capital were razed to the ground, three hundred hostages were
      sent into Germany, and the inhabitants were dispersed in four
      villages, under the yoke of the inflexible conqueror. 147 But
      Milan soon rose from her ashes; and the league of Lombardy was
      cemented by distress: their cause was espoused by Venice, Pope
      Alexander the Third, and the Greek emperor: the fabric of
      oppression was overturned in a day; and in the treaty of
      Constance, Frederic subscribed, with some reservations, the
      freedom of four-and-twenty cities. His grandson contended with
      their vigor and maturity; but Frederic the Second 148 was endowed
      with some personal and peculiar advantages. His birth and
      education recommended him to the Italians; and in the implacable
      discord of the two factions, the Ghibelins were attached to the
      emperor, while the Guelfs displayed the banner of liberty and the
      church. The court of Rome had slumbered, when his father Henry
      the Sixth was permitted to unite with the empire the kingdoms of
      Naples and Sicily; and from these hereditary realms the son
      derived an ample and ready supply of troops and treasure. Yet
      Frederic the Second was finally oppressed by the arms of the
      Lombards and the thunders of the Vatican: his kingdom was given
      to a stranger, and the last of his family was beheaded at Naples
      on a public scaffold. During sixty years, no emperor appeared in
      Italy, and the name was remembered only by the ignominious sale
      of the last relics of sovereignty.

      146 (return) [ Gunther Ligurinus, l. viii. 584, et seq., apud
      Schmidt, tom. iii. p. 399.]

      147 (return) [ Solus imperator faciem suam firmavit ut petram,
      (Burcard. de Excidio Mediolani, Script. Ital. tom. vi. p. 917.)
      This volume of Muratori contains the originals of the history of
      Frederic the First, which must be compared with due regard to the
      circumstances and prejudices of each German or Lombard writer. *
      Note: Von Raumer has traced the fortunes of the Swabian house in
      one of the ablest historical works of modern times. He may be
      compared with the spirited and independent Sismondi.—M.]

      148 (return) [ For the history of Frederic II. and the house of
      Swabia at Naples, see Giannone, Istoria Civile, tom. ii. l. xiv.
      -xix.]

      The Barbarian conquerors of the West were pleased to decorate
      their chief with the title of emperor; but it was not their
      design to invest him with the despotism of Constantine and
      Justinian. The persons of the Germans were free, their conquests
      were their own, and their national character was animated by a
      spirit which scorned the servile jurisprudence of the new or the
      ancient Rome. It would have been a vain and dangerous attempt to
      impose a monarch on the armed freemen, who were impatient of a
      magistrate; on the bold, who refused to obey; on the powerful,
      who aspired to command. The empire of Charlemagne and Otho was
      distributed among the dukes of the nations or provinces, the
      counts of the smaller districts, and the margraves of the marches
      or frontiers, who all united the civil and military authority as
      it had been delegated to the lieutenants of the first Caesars.
      The Roman governors, who, for the most part, were soldiers of
      fortune, seduced their mercenary legions, assumed the Imperial
      purple, and either failed or succeeded in their revolt, without
      wounding the power and unity of government. If the dukes,
      margraves, and counts of Germany, were less audacious in their
      claims, the consequences of their success were more lasting and
      pernicious to the state. Instead of aiming at the supreme rank,
      they silently labored to establish and appropriate their
      provincial independence. Their ambition was seconded by the
      weight of their estates and vassals, their mutual example and
      support, the common interest of the subordinate nobility, the
      change of princes and families, the minorities of Otho the Third
      and Henry the Fourth, the ambition of the popes, and the vain
      pursuit of the fugitive crowns of Italy and Rome. All the
      attributes of regal and territorial jurisdiction were gradually
      usurped by the commanders of the provinces; the right of peace
      and war, of life and death, of coinage and taxation, of foreign
      alliance and domestic economy. Whatever had been seized by
      violence, was ratified by favor or distress, was granted as the
      price of a doubtful vote or a voluntary service; whatever had
      been granted to one could not, without injury, be denied to his
      successor or equal; and every act of local or temporary
      possession was insensibly moulded into the constitution of the
      Germanic kingdom. In every province, the visible presence of the
      duke or count was interposed between the throne and the nobles;
      the subjects of the law became the vassals of a private chief;
      and the standard which he received from his sovereign, was often
      raised against him in the field. The temporal power of the clergy
      was cherished and exalted by the superstition or policy of the
      Carlovingian and Saxon dynasties, who blindly depended on their
      moderation and fidelity; and the bishoprics of Germany were made
      equal in extent and privilege, superior in wealth and population,
      to the most ample states of the military order. As long as the
      emperors retained the prerogative of bestowing on every vacancy
      these ecclesiastic and secular benefices, their cause was
      maintained by the gratitude or ambition of their friends and
      favorites. But in the quarrel of the investitures, they were
      deprived of their influence over the episcopal chapters; the
      freedom of election was restored, and the sovereign was reduced,
      by a solemn mockery, to his first prayers, the recommendation,
      once in his reign, to a single prebend in each church. The
      secular governors, instead of being recalled at the will of a
      superior, could be degraded only by the sentence of their peers.
      In the first age of the monarchy, the appointment of the son to
      the duchy or county of his father, was solicited as a favor; it
      was gradually obtained as a custom, and extorted as a right: the
      lineal succession was often extended to the collateral or female
      branches; the states of the empire (their popular, and at length
      their legal, appellation) were divided and alienated by testament
      and sale; and all idea of a public trust was lost in that of a
      private and perpetual inheritance. The emperor could not even be
      enriched by the casualties of forfeiture and extinction: within
      the term of a year, he was obliged to dispose of the vacant fief;
      and, in the choice of the candidate, it was his duty to consult
      either the general or the provincial diet.

      After the death of Frederic the Second, Germany was left a
      monster with a hundred heads. A crowd of princes and prelates
      disputed the ruins of the empire: the lords of innumerable
      castles were less prone to obey, than to imitate, their
      superiors; and, according to the measure of their strength, their
      incessant hostilities received the names of conquest or robbery.
      Such anarchy was the inevitable consequence of the laws and
      manners of Europe; and the kingdoms of France and Italy were
      shivered into fragments by the violence of the same tempest. But
      the Italian cities and the French vassals were divided and
      destroyed, while the union of the Germans has produced, under the
      name of an empire, a great system of a federative republic. In
      the frequent and at last the perpetual institution of diets, a
      national spirit was kept alive, and the powers of a common
      legislature are still exercised by the three branches or colleges
      of the electors, the princes, and the free and Imperial cities of
      Germany. I. Seven of the most powerful feudatories were permitted
      to assume, with a distinguished name and rank, the exclusive
      privilege of choosing the Roman emperor; and these electors were
      the king of Bohemia, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of
      Brandenburgh, the count palatine of the Rhine, and the three
      archbishops of Mentz, of Treves, and of Cologne. II. The college
      of princes and prelates purged themselves of a promiscuous
      multitude: they reduced to four representative votes the long
      series of independent counts, and excluded the nobles or
      equestrian order, sixty thousand of whom, as in the Polish diets,
      had appeared on horseback in the field of election. III. The
      pride of birth and dominion, of the sword and the mitre, wisely
      adopted the commons as the third branch of the legislature, and,
      in the progress of society, they were introduced about the same
      aera into the national assemblies of France England, and Germany.

      The Hanseatic League commanded the trade and navigation of the
      north: the confederates of the Rhine secured the peace and
      intercourse of the inland country; the influence of the cities
      has been adequate to their wealth and policy, and their negative
      still invalidates the acts of the two superior colleges of
      electors and princes. 149

      149 (return) [ In the immense labyrinth of the jus publicum of
      Germany, I must either quote one writer or a thousand; and I had
      rather trust to one faithful guide, than transcribe, on credit, a
      multitude of names and passages. That guide is M. Pfeffel, the
      author of the best legal and constitutional history that I know
      of any country, (Nouvel Abrege Chronologique de l’Histoire et du
      Droit public Allemagne; Paris, 1776, 2 vols. in 4to.) His
      learning and judgment have discerned the most interesting facts;
      his simple brevity comprises them in a narrow space. His
      chronological order distributes them under the proper dates; and
      an elaborate index collects them under their respective heads. To
      this work, in a less perfect state, Dr. Robertson was gratefully
      indebted for that masterly sketch which traces even the modern
      changes of the Germanic body. The Corpus Historiae Germanicae of
      Struvius has been likewise consulted, the more usefully, as that
      huge compilation is fortified in every page with the original
      texts. * Note: For the rise and progress of the Hanseatic League,
      consult the authoritative history by Sartorius; Geschichte des
      Hanseatischen Bandes & Theile, Gottingen, 1802. New and improved
      edition by Lappenberg Elamburg, 1830. The original Hanseatic
      League comprehended Cologne and many of the great cities in the
      Netherlands and on the Rhine.—M.]

      It is in the fourteenth century that we may view in the strongest
      light the state and contrast of the Roman empire of Germany,
      which no longer held, except on the borders of the Rhine and
      Danube, a single province of Trajan or Constantine. Their
      unworthy successors were the counts of Hapsburgh, of Nassau, of
      Luxemburgh, and Schwartzenburgh: the emperor Henry the Seventh
      procured for his son the crown of Bohemia, and his grandson
      Charles the Fourth was born among a people strange and barbarous
      in the estimation of the Germans themselves. 150 After the
      excommunication of Lewis of Bavaria, he received the gift or
      promise of the vacant empire from the Roman pontiffs, who, in the
      exile and captivity of Avignon, affected the dominion of the
      earth. The death of his competitors united the electoral college,
      and Charles was unanimously saluted king of the Romans, and
      future emperor; a title which, in the same age, was prostituted
      to the Caesars of Germany and Greece. The German emperor was no
      more than the elective and impotent magistrate of an aristocracy
      of princes, who had not left him a village that he might call his
      own. His best prerogative was the right of presiding and
      proposing in the national senate, which was convened at his
      summons; and his native kingdom of Bohemia, less opulent than the
      adjacent city of Nuremberg, was the firmest seat of his power and
      the richest source of his revenue. The army with which he passed
      the Alps consisted of three hundred horse. In the cathedral of
      St. Ambrose, Charles was crowned with the iron crown, which
      tradition ascribed to the Lombard monarchy; but he was admitted
      only with a peaceful train; the gates of the city were shut upon
      him; and the king of Italy was held a captive by the arms of the
      Visconti, whom he confirmed in the sovereignty of Milan. In the
      Vatican he was again crowned with the golden crown of the empire;
      but, in obedience to a secret treaty, the Roman emperor
      immediately withdrew, without reposing a single night within the
      walls of Rome. The eloquent Petrarch, 151 whose fancy revived the
      visionary glories of the Capitol, deplores and upbraids the
      ignominious flight of the Bohemian; and even his contemporaries
      could observe, that the sole exercise of his authority was in the
      lucrative sale of privileges and titles. The gold of Italy
      secured the election of his son; but such was the shameful
      poverty of the Roman emperor, that his person was arrested by a
      butcher in the streets of Worms, and was detained in the public
      inn, as a pledge or hostage for the payment of his expenses.

      150 (return) [ Yet, personally, Charles IV. must not be
      considered as a Barbarian. After his education at Paris, he
      recovered the use of the Bohemian, his native, idiom; and the
      emperor conversed and wrote with equal facility in French, Latin,
      Italian, and German, (Struvius, p. 615, 616.) Petrarch always
      represents him as a polite and learned prince.]

      151 (return) [ Besides the German and Italian historians, the
      expedition of Charles IV. is painted in lively and original
      colors in the curious Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii.
      p. 376-430, by the Abbe de Sade, whose prolixity has never been
      blamed by any reader of taste and curiosity.]

      From this humiliating scene, let us turn to the apparent majesty
      of the same Charles in the diets of the empire. The golden bull,
      which fixes the Germanic constitution, is promulgated in the
      style of a sovereign and legislator. A hundred princes bowed
      before his throne, and exalted their own dignity by the voluntary
      honors which they yielded to their chief or minister. At the
      royal banquet, the hereditary great officers, the seven electors,
      who in rank and title were equal to kings, performed their solemn
      and domestic service of the palace. The seals of the triple
      kingdom were borne in state by the archbishops of Mentz, Cologne,
      and Treves, the perpetual arch-chancellors of Germany, Italy, and
      Arles. The great marshal, on horseback, exercised his function
      with a silver measure of oats, which he emptied on the ground,
      and immediately dismounted to regulate the order of the guests.
      The great steward, the count palatine of the Rhine, place the
      dishes on the table. The great chamberlain, the margrave of
      Brandenburgh, presented, after the repast, the golden ewer and
      basin, to wash. The king of Bohemia, as great cup-bearer, was
      represented by the emperor’s brother, the duke of Luxemburgh and
      Brabant; and the procession was closed by the great huntsmen, who
      introduced a boar and a stag, with a loud chorus of horns and
      hounds. 152 Nor was the supremacy of the emperor confined to
      Germany alone: the hereditary monarchs of Europe confessed the
      preeminence of his rank and dignity: he was the first of the
      Christian princes, the temporal head of the great republic of the
      West: 153 to his person the title of majesty was long
      appropriated; and he disputed with the pope the sublime
      prerogative of creating kings and assembling councils. The oracle
      of the civil law, the learned Bartolus, was a pensioner of
      Charles the Fourth; and his school resounded with the doctrine,
      that the Roman emperor was the rightful sovereign of the earth,
      from the rising to the setting sun. The contrary opinion was
      condemned, not as an error, but as a heresy, since even the
      gospel had pronounced, “And there went forth a decree from Caesar
      Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.” 154

      152 (return) [ See the whole ceremony in Struvius, p. 629]

      153 (return) [ The republic of Europe, with the pope and emperor
      at its head, was never represented with more dignity than in the
      council of Constance. See Lenfant’s History of that assembly.]

      154 (return) [ Gravina, Origines Juris Civilis, p. 108.]

      If we annihilate the interval of time and space between Augustus
      and Charles, strong and striking will be the contrast between the
      two Caesars; the Bohemian who concealed his weakness under the
      mask of ostentation, and the Roman, who disguised his strength
      under the semblance of modesty. At the head of his victorious
      legions, in his reign over the sea and land, from the Nile and
      Euphrates to the Atlantic Ocean, Augustus professed himself the
      servant of the state and the equal of his fellow-citizens. The
      conqueror of Rome and her provinces assumed a popular and legal
      form of a censor, a consul, and a tribune. His will was the law
      of mankind, but in the declaration of his laws he borrowed the
      voice of the senate and people; and from their decrees their
      master accepted and renewed his temporary commission to
      administer the republic. In his dress, his domestics, 155 his
      titles, in all the offices of social life, Augustus maintained
      the character of a private Roman; and his most artful flatterers
      respected the secret of his absolute and perpetual monarchy.

      155 (return) [ Six thousand urns have been discovered of the
      slaves and freedmen of Augustus and Livia. So minute was the
      division of office, that one slave was appointed to weigh the
      wool which was spun by the empress’s maids, another for the care
      of her lap-dog, &c., (Camera Sepolchrale, by Bianchini. Extract
      of his work in the Bibliotheque Italique, tom. iv. p. 175. His
      Eloge, by Fontenelle, tom. vi. p. 356.) But these servants were
      of the same rank, and possibly not more numerous than those of
      Pollio or Lentulus. They only prove the general riches of the
      city.]




      Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part I.

     Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Birth, Character, And
     Doctrine Of Mahomet.—He Preaches At Mecca.— Flies To
     Medina.—Propagates His Religion By The Sword.— Voluntary Or
     Reluctant Submission Of The Arabs.—His Death And Successors.—The
     Claims And Fortunes Of Ali And His Descendants.

      After pursuing above six hundred years the fleeting Caesars of
      Constantinople and Germany, I now descend, in the reign of
      Heraclius, on the eastern borders of the Greek monarchy. While
      the state was exhausted by the Persian war, and the church was
      distracted by the Nestorian and Monophysite sects, Mahomet, with
      the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other, erected his
      throne on the ruins of Christianity and of Rome. The genius of
      the Arabian prophet, the manners of his nation, and the spirit of
      his religion, involve the causes of the decline and fall of the
      Eastern empire; and our eyes are curiously intent on one of the
      most memorable revolutions, which have impressed a new and
      lasting character on the nations of the globe. 1

      1 (return) [ As in this and the following chapter I shall display
      much Arabic learning, I must profess my total ignorance of the
      Oriental tongues, and my gratitude to the learned interpreters,
      who have transfused their science into the Latin, French, and
      English languages. Their collections, versions, and histories, I
      shall occasionally notice.]

      In the vacant space between Persia, Syria, Egypt, and Aethiopia,
      the Arabian peninsula 2 may be conceived as a triangle of
      spacious but irregular dimensions. From the northern point of
      Beles 3 on the Euphrates, a line of fifteen hundred miles is
      terminated by the Straits of Bebelmandel and the land of
      frankincense. About half this length may be allowed for the
      middle breadth, from east to west, from Bassora to Suez, from the
      Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. 4 The sides of the triangle are
      gradually enlarged, and the southern basis presents a front of a
      thousand miles to the Indian Ocean. The entire surface of the
      peninsula exceeds in a fourfold proportion that of Germany or
      France; but the far greater part has been justly stigmatized with
      the epithets of the stony and the sandy. Even the wilds of
      Tartary are decked, by the hand of nature, with lofty trees and
      luxuriant herbage; and the lonesome traveller derives a sort of
      comfort and society from the presence of vegetable life. But in
      the dreary waste of Arabia, a boundless level of sand is
      intersected by sharp and naked mountains; and the face of the
      desert, without shade or shelter, is scorched by the direct and
      intense rays of a tropical sun. Instead of refreshing breezes,
      the winds, particularly from the south-west, diffuse a noxious
      and even deadly vapor; the hillocks of sand which they
      alternately raise and scatter, are compared to the billows of the
      ocean, and whole caravans, whole armies, have been lost and
      buried in the whirlwind. The common benefits of water are an
      object of desire and contest; and such is the scarcity of wood,
      that some art is requisite to preserve and propagate the element
      of fire. Arabia is destitute of navigable rivers, which fertilize
      the soil, and convey its produce to the adjacent regions: the
      torrents that fall from the hills are imbibed by the thirsty
      earth: the rare and hardy plants, the tamarind or the acacia,
      that strike their roots into the clefts of the rocks, are
      nourished by the dews of the night: a scanty supply of rain is
      collected in cisterns and aqueducts: the wells and springs are
      the secret treasure of the desert; and the pilgrim of Mecca, 5
      after many a dry and sultry march, is disgusted by the taste of
      the waters which have rolled over a bed of sulphur or salt. Such
      is the general and genuine picture of the climate of Arabia. The
      experience of evil enhances the value of any local or partial
      enjoyments. A shady grove, a green pasture, a stream of fresh
      water, are sufficient to attract a colony of sedentary Arabs to
      the fortunate spots which can afford food and refreshment to
      themselves and their cattle, and which encourage their industry
      in the cultivation of the palmtree and the vine. The high lands
      that border on the Indian Ocean are distinguished by their
      superior plenty of wood and water; the air is more temperate, the
      fruits are more delicious, the animals and the human race more
      numerous: the fertility of the soil invites and rewards the toil
      of the husbandman; and the peculiar gifts of frankincense 6 and
      coffee have attracted in different ages the merchants of the
      world. If it be compared with the rest of the peninsula, this
      sequestered region may truly deserve the appellation of the
      happy; and the splendid coloring of fancy and fiction has been
      suggested by contrast, and countenanced by distance. It was for
      this earthly paradise that Nature had reserved her choicest
      favors and her most curious workmanship: the incompatible
      blessings of luxury and innocence were ascribed to the natives:
      the soil was impregnated with gold 7 and gems, and both the land
      and sea were taught to exhale the odors of aromatic sweets. This
      division of the sandy, the stony, and the happy, so familiar to
      the Greeks and Latins, is unknown to the Arabians themselves; and
      it is singular enough, that a country, whose language and
      inhabitants have ever been the same, should scarcely retain a
      vestige of its ancient geography. The maritime districts of
      Bahrein and Oman are opposite to the realm of Persia. The kingdom
      of Yemen displays the limits, or at least the situation, of
      Arabia Felix: the name of Neged is extended over the inland
      space; and the birth of Mahomet has illustrated the province of
      Hejaz along the coast of the Red Sea. 8

      2 (return) [ The geographers of Arabia may be divided into three
      classes: 1. The Greeks and Latins, whose progressive knowledge
      may be traced in Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro, in Hudson,
      Geograph. Minor. tom. i.,) Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l. ii. p.
      159-167, l. iii. p. 211-216, edit. Wesseling,) Strabo, (l. xvi.
      p. 1112-1114, from Eratosthenes, p. 1122-1132, from Artemidorus,)
      Dionysius, (Periegesis, 927-969,) Pliny, (Hist. Natur. v. 12, vi.
      32,) and Ptolemy, (Descript. et Tabulae Urbium, in Hudson, tom.
      iii.) 2. The Arabic writers, who have treated the subject with
      the zeal of patriotism or devotion: the extracts of Pocock
      (Specimen Hist. Arabum, p. 125-128) from the Geography of the
      Sherif al Edrissi, render us still more dissatisfied with the
      version or abridgment (p. 24-27, 44-56, 108, &c., 119, &c.) which
      the Maronites have published under the absurd title of Geographia
      Nubiensis, (Paris, 1619;) but the Latin and French translators,
      Greaves (in Hudson, tom. iii.) and Galland, (Voyage de la
      Palestine par La Roque, p. 265-346,) have opened to us the Arabia
      of Abulfeda, the most copious and correct account of the
      peninsula, which may be enriched, however, from the Bibliotheque
      Orientale of D’Herbelot, p. 120, et alibi passim. 3. The European
      travellers; among whom Shaw (p. 438-455) and Niebuhr
      (Description, 1773; Voyages, tom. i. 1776) deserve an honorable
      distinction: Busching (Geographie par Berenger, tom. viii. p.
      416-510) has compiled with judgment, and D’Anville’s Maps (Orbis
      Veteribus Notus, and 1re Partie de l’Asie) should lie before the
      reader, with his Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 208-231. *
      Note: Of modern travellers may be mentioned the adventurer who
      called himself Ali Bey; but above all, the intelligent, the
      enterprising the accurate Burckhardt.—M.]

      3 (return) [ Abulfed. Descript. Arabiae, p. 1. D’Anville,
      l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 19, 20. It was in this place, the
      paradise or garden of a satrap, that Xenophon and the Greeks
      first passed the Euphrates, (Anabasis, l. i. c. 10, p. 29, edit.
      Wells.)]

      4 (return) [ Reland has proved, with much superfluous learning,

      1. That our Red Sea (the Arabian Gulf) is no more than a part of
      the Mare Rubrum, which was extended to the indefinite space of
      the Indian Ocean.

      2. That the synonymous words, allude to the color of the blacks
      or negroes, (Dissert Miscell. tom. i. p. 59-117.)]

      5 (return) [ In the thirty days, or stations, between Cairo and
      Mecca, there are fifteen destitute of good water. See the route
      of the Hadjees, in Shaw’s Travels, p. 477.]

      6 (return) [ The aromatics, especially the thus, or frankincense,
      of Arabia, occupy the xiith book of Pliny. Our great poet
      (Paradise Lost, l. iv.) introduces, in a simile, the spicy odors
      that are blown by the north-east wind from the Sabaean
      coast:——Many a league, Pleased with the grateful scent, old Ocean
      smiles. (Plin. Hist. Natur. xii. 42.)]

      7 (return) [ Agatharcides affirms, that lumps of pure gold were
      found, from the size of an olive to that of a nut; that iron was
      twice, and silver ten times, the value of gold, (de Mari Rubro,
      p. 60.) These real or imaginary treasures are vanished; and no
      gold mines are at present known in Arabia, (Niebuhr, Description,
      p. 124.) * Note: A brilliant passage in the geographical poem of
      Dionysius Periegetes embodies the notions of the ancients on the
      wealth and fertility of Yemen. Greek mythology, and the
      traditions of the “gorgeous east,” of India as well as Arabia,
      are mingled together in indiscriminate splendor. Compare on the
      southern coast of Arabia, the recent travels of Lieut.
      Wellsted—M.]

      8 (return) [ Consult, peruse, and study the Specimen Hostoriae
      Arabum of Pocock, (Oxon. 1650, in 4to.) The thirty pages of text
      and version are extracted from the Dynasties of Gregory
      Abulpharagius, which Pocock afterwards translated, (Oxon. 1663,
      in 4to.;) the three hundred and fifty-eight notes form a classic
      and original work on the Arabian antiquities.]

      The measure of population is regulated by the means of
      subsistence; and the inhabitants of this vast peninsula might be
      outnumbered by the subjects of a fertile and industrious
      province. Along the shores of the Persian Gulf, of the ocean, and
      even of the Red Sea, the Icthyophagi, 9 or fish eaters, continued
      to wander in quest of their precarious food. In this primitive
      and abject state, which ill deserves the name of society, the
      human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or
      language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal
      creation. Generations and ages might roll away in silent
      oblivion, and the helpless savage was restrained from multiplying
      his race by the wants and pursuits which confined his existence
      to the narrow margin of the seacoast. But in an early period of
      antiquity the great body of the Arabs had emerged from this scene
      of misery; and as the naked wilderness could not maintain a
      people of hunters, they rose at once to the more secure and
      plentiful condition of the pastoral life. The same life is
      uniformly pursued by the roving tribes of the desert; and in the
      portrait of the modern Bedoweens, we may trace the features of
      their ancestors, 10 who, in the age of Moses or Mahomet, dwelt
      under similar tents, and conducted their horses, and camels, and
      sheep, to the same springs and the same pastures. Our toil is
      lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the
      useful animals; and the Arabian shepherd had acquired the
      absolute possession of a faithful friend and a laborious slave.
      11 Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is the genuine and
      original country of the horse; the climate most propitious, not
      indeed to the size, but to the spirit and swiftness, of that
      generous animal. The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and the
      English breed, is derived from a mixture of Arabian blood: 12 the
      Bedoweens preserve, with superstitious care, the honors and the
      memory of the purest race: the males are sold at a high price,
      but the females are seldom alienated; and the birth of a noble
      foal was esteemed among the tribes, as a subject of joy and
      mutual congratulation. These horses are educated in the tents,
      among the children of the Arabs, with a tender familiarity, which
      trains them in the habits of gentleness and attachment. They are
      accustomed only to walk and to gallop: their sensations are not
      blunted by the incessant abuse of the spur and the whip: their
      powers are reserved for the moments of flight and pursuit: but no
      sooner do they feel the touch of the hand or the stirrup, than
      they dart away with the swiftness of the wind; and if their
      friend be dismounted in the rapid career, they instantly stop
      till he has recovered his seat. In the sands of Africa and
      Arabia, the camel is a sacred and precious gift. That strong and
      patient beast of burden can perform, without eating or drinking,
      a journey of several days; and a reservoir of fresh water is
      preserved in a large bag, a fifth stomach of the animal, whose
      body is imprinted with the marks of servitude: the larger breed
      is capable of transporting a weight of a thousand pounds; and the
      dromedary, of a lighter and more active frame, outstrips the
      fleetest courser in the race. Alive or dead, almost every part of
      the camel is serviceable to man: her milk is plentiful and
      nutritious: the young and tender flesh has the taste of veal: 13
      a valuable salt is extracted from the urine: the dung supplies
      the deficiency of fuel; and the long hair, which falls each year
      and is renewed, is coarsely manufactured into the garments, the
      furniture, and the tents of the Bedoweens. In the rainy seasons,
      they consume the rare and insufficient herbage of the desert:
      during the heats of summer and the scarcity of winter, they
      remove their encampments to the sea-coast, the hills of Yemen, or
      the neighborhood of the Euphrates, and have often extorted the
      dangerous license of visiting the banks of the Nile, and the
      villages of Syria and Palestine. The life of a wandering Arab is
      a life of danger and distress; and though sometimes, by rapine or
      exchange, he may appropriate the fruits of industry, a private
      citizen in Europe is in the possession of more solid and pleasing
      luxury than the proudest emir, who marches in the field at the
      head of ten thousand horse.

      9 (return) [ Arrian remarks the Icthyophagi of the coast of
      Hejez, (Periplus Maris Erythraei, p. 12,) and beyond Aden, (p.
      15.) It seems probable that the shores of the Red Sea (in the
      largest sense) were occupied by these savages in the time,
      perhaps, of Cyrus; but I can hardly believe that any cannibals
      were left among the savages in the reign of Justinian. (Procop.
      de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19.)]

      10 (return) [ See the Specimen Historiae Arabum of Pocock, p. 2,
      5, 86, &c. The journey of M. d’Arvieux, in 1664, to the camp of
      the emir of Mount Carmel, (Voyage de la Palestine, Amsterdam,
      1718,) exhibits a pleasing and original picture of the life of
      the Bedoweens, which may be illustrated from Niebuhr (Description
      de l’Arabie, p. 327-344) and Volney, (tom. i. p. 343-385,) the
      last and most judicious of our Syrian travellers.]

      11 (return) [ Read (it is no unpleasing task) the incomparable
      articles of the Horse and the Camel, in the Natural History of M.
      de Buffon.]

      12 (return) [ For the Arabian horses, see D’Arvieux (p. 159-173)
      and Niebuhr, (p. 142-144.) At the end of the xiiith century, the
      horses of Neged were esteemed sure-footed, those of Yemen strong
      and serviceable, those of Hejaz most noble. The horses of Europe,
      the tenth and last class, were generally despised as having too
      much body and too little spirit, (D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p.
      339: ) their strength was requisite to bear the weight of the
      knight and his armor]

      13 (return) [ Qui carnibus camelorum vesci solent odii tenaces
      sunt, was the opinion of an Arabian physician, (Pocock, Specimen,
      p. 88.) Mahomet himself, who was fond of milk, prefers the cow,
      and does not even mention the camel; but the diet of Mecca and
      Medina was already more luxurious, (Gagnier Vie de Mahomet, tom.
      iii. p. 404.)]

      Yet an essential difference may be found between the hordes of
      Scythia and the Arabian tribes; since many of the latter were
      collected into towns, and employed in the labors of trade and
      agriculture. A part of their time and industry was still devoted
      to the management of their cattle: they mingled, in peace and
      war, with their brethren of the desert; and the Bedoweens derived
      from their useful intercourse some supply of their wants, and
      some rudiments of art and knowledge. Among the forty-two cities
      of Arabia, 14 enumerated by Abulfeda, the most ancient and
      populous were situate in the happy Yemen: the towers of Saana, 15
      and the marvellous reservoir of Merab, 16 were constructed by the
      kings of the Homerites; but their profane lustre was eclipsed by
      the prophetic glories of Medina 17 and Mecca, 18 near the Red
      Sea, and at the distance from each other of two hundred and
      seventy miles. The last of these holy places was known to the
      Greeks under the name of Macoraba; and the termination of the
      word is expressive of its greatness, which has not, indeed, in
      the most flourishing period, exceeded the size and populousness
      of Marseilles. Some latent motive, perhaps of superstition, must
      have impelled the founders, in the choice of a most unpromising
      situation. They erected their habitations of mud or stone, in a
      plain about two miles long and one mile broad, at the foot of
      three barren mountains: the soil is a rock; the water even of the
      holy well of Zemzem is bitter or brackish; the pastures are
      remote from the city; and grapes are transported above seventy
      miles from the gardens of Tayef. The fame and spirit of the
      Koreishites, who reigned in Mecca, were conspicuous among the
      Arabian tribes; but their ungrateful soil refused the labors of
      agriculture, and their position was favorable to the enterprises
      of trade. By the seaport of Gedda, at the distance only of forty
      miles, they maintained an easy correspondence with Abyssinia; and
      that Christian kingdom afforded the first refuge to the disciples
      of Mahomet. The treasures of Africa were conveyed over the
      Peninsula to Gerrha or Katif, in the province of Bahrein, a city
      built, as it is said, of rock-salt, by the Chaldaean exiles; 19
      and from thence with the native pearls of the Persian Gulf, they
      were floated on rafts to the mouth of the Euphrates. Mecca is
      placed almost at an equal distance, a month’s journey, between
      Yemen on the right, and Syria on the left hand. The former was
      the winter, the latter the summer, station of her caravans; and
      their seasonable arrival relieved the ships of India from the
      tedious and troublesome navigation of the Red Sea. In the markets
      of Saana and Merab, in the harbors of Oman and Aden, the camels
      of the Koreishites were laden with a precious cargo of aromatics;
      a supply of corn and manufactures was purchased in the fairs of
      Bostra and Damascus; the lucrative exchange diffused plenty and
      riches in the streets of Mecca; and the noblest of her sons
      united the love of arms with the profession of merchandise. 20

      14 (return) [ Yet Marcian of Heraclea (in Periplo, p. 16, in tom.
      i. Hudson, Minor. Geograph.) reckons one hundred and sixty-four
      towns in Arabia Felix. The size of the towns might be small—the
      faith of the writer might be large.]

      15 (return) [ It is compared by Abulfeda (in Hudson, tom. ii. p.
      54) to Damascus, and is still the residence of the Imam of Yemen,
      (Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. i. p. 331-342.) Saana is twenty-four
      parasangs from Dafar, (Abulfeda, p. 51,) and sixty-eight from
      Aden, (p. 53.)]

      16 (return) [ Pocock, Specimen, p. 57. Geograph. Nubiensis, p.
      52. Meriaba, or Merab, six miles in circumference, was destroyed
      by the legions of Augustus, (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 32,) and had
      not revived in the xivth century, (Abulfed. Descript. Arab. p.
      58.) * Note: See note 2 to chap. i. The destruction of Meriaba by
      the Romans is doubtful. The town never recovered the inundation
      which took place from the bursting of a large reservoir of
      water—an event of great importance in the Arabian annals, and
      discussed at considerable length by modern Orientalists.—M.]

      17 (return) [ The name of city, Medina, was appropriated, to
      Yatreb. (the Iatrippa of the Greeks,) the seat of the prophet.
      The distances from Medina are reckoned by Abulfeda in stations,
      or days’ journey of a caravan, (p. 15: ) to Bahrein, xv.; to
      Bassora, xviii.; to Cufah, xx.; to Damascus or Palestine, xx.; to
      Cairo, xxv.; to Mecca. x.; from Mecca to Saana, (p. 52,) or Aden,
      xxx.; to Cairo, xxxi. days, or 412 hours, (Shaw’s Travels, p.
      477;) which, according to the estimate of D’Anville, (Mesures
      Itineraires, p. 99,) allows about twenty-five English miles for a
      day’s journey. From the land of frankincense (Hadramaut, in
      Yemen, between Aden and Cape Fartasch) to Gaza in Syria, Pliny
      (Hist. Nat. xii. 32) computes lxv. mansions of camels. These
      measures may assist fancy and elucidate facts.]

      18 (return) [ Our notions of Mecca must be drawn from the
      Arabians, (D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 368-371.
      Pocock, Specimen, p. 125-128. Abulfeda, p. 11-40.) As no
      unbeliever is permitted to enter the city, our travellers are
      silent; and the short hints of Thevenot (Voyages du Levant, part
      i. p. 490) are taken from the suspicious mouth of an African
      renegado. Some Persians counted 6000 houses, (Chardin. tom. iv.
      p. 167.) * Note: Even in the time of Gibbon, Mecca had not been
      so inaccessible to Europeans. It had been visited by Ludovico
      Barthema, and by one Joseph Pitts, of Exeter, who was taken
      prisoner by the Moors, and forcibly converted to Mahometanism.
      His volume is a curious, though plain, account of his sufferings
      and travels. Since that time Mecca has been entered, and the
      ceremonies witnessed, by Dr. Seetzen, whose papers were
      unfortunately lost; by the Spaniard, who called himself Ali Bey;
      and, lastly, by Burckhardt, whose description leaves nothing
      wanting to satisfy the curiosity.—M.]

      19 (return) [ Strabo, l. xvi. p. 1110. See one of these salt
      houses near Bassora, in D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 6.]

      20 (return) [ Mirum dictu ex innumeris populis pars aequa in
      commerciis aut in latrociniis degit, (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 32.)
      See Sale’s Koran, Sura. cvi. p. 503. Pocock, Specimen, p. 2.
      D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 361. Prideaux’s Life of Mahomet,
      p. 5. Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 72, 120, 126, &c.]

      The perpetual independence of the Arabs has been the theme of
      praise among strangers and natives; and the arts of controversy
      transform this singular event into a prophecy and a miracle, in
      favor of the posterity of Ismael. 21 Some exceptions, that can
      neither be dismissed nor eluded, render this mode of reasoning as
      indiscreet as it is superfluous; the kingdom of Yemen has been
      successively subdued by the Abyssinians, the Persians, the
      sultans of Egypt, 22 and the Turks; 23 the holy cities of Mecca
      and Medina have repeatedly bowed under a Scythian tyrant; and the
      Roman province of Arabia 24 embraced the peculiar wilderness in
      which Ismael and his sons must have pitched their tents in the
      face of their brethren. Yet these exceptions are temporary or
      local; the body of the nation has escaped the yoke of the most
      powerful monarchies: the arms of Sesostris and Cyrus, of Pompey
      and Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of Arabia; the
      present sovereign of the Turks 25 may exercise a shadow of
      jurisdiction, but his pride is reduced to solicit the friendship
      of a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to
      attack. The obvious causes of their freedom are inscribed on the
      character and country of the Arabs. Many ages before Mahomet, 26
      their intrepid valor had been severely felt by their neighbors in
      offensive and defensive war. The patient and active virtues of a
      soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a
      pastoral life. The care of the sheep and camels is abandoned to
      the women of the tribe; but the martial youth, under the banner
      of the emir, is ever on horseback, and in the field, to practise
      the exercise of the bow, the javelin, and the cimeter. The long
      memory of their independence is the firmest pledge of its
      perpetuity and succeeding generations are animated to prove their
      descent, and to maintain their inheritance. Their domestic feuds
      are suspended on the approach of a common enemy; and in their
      last hostilities against the Turks, the caravan of Mecca was
      attacked and pillaged by fourscore thousand of the confederates.
      When they advance to battle, the hope of victory is in the front;
      in the rear, the assurance of a retreat. Their horses and camels,
      who, in eight or ten days, can perform a march of four or five
      hundred miles, disappear before the conqueror; the secret waters
      of the desert elude his search, and his victorious troops are
      consumed with thirst, hunger, and fatigue, in the pursuit of an
      invisible foe, who scorns his efforts, and safely reposes in the
      heart of the burning solitude. The arms and deserts of the
      Bedoweens are not only the safeguards of their own freedom, but
      the barriers also of the happy Arabia, whose inhabitants, remote
      from war, are enervated by the luxury of the soil and climate.
      The legions of Augustus melted away in disease and lassitude; 27
      and it is only by a naval power that the reduction of Yemen has
      been successfully attempted. When Mahomet erected his holy
      standard, 28 that kingdom was a province of the Persian empire;
      yet seven princes of the Homerites still reigned in the
      mountains; and the vicegerent of Chosroes was tempted to forget
      his distant country and his unfortunate master. The historians of
      the age of Justinian represent the state of the independent
      Arabs, who were divided by interest or affection in the long
      quarrel of the East: the tribe of Gassan was allowed to encamp on
      the Syrian territory: the princes of Hira were permitted to form
      a city about forty miles to the southward of the ruins of
      Babylon. Their service in the field was speedy and vigorous; but
      their friendship was venal, their faith inconstant, their enmity
      capricious: it was an easier task to excite than to disarm these
      roving barbarians; and, in the familiar intercourse of war, they
      learned to see, and to despise, the splendid weakness both of
      Rome and of Persia. From Mecca to the Euphrates, the Arabian
      tribes 29 were confounded by the Greeks and Latins, under the
      general appellation of Saracens, 30 a name which every Christian
      mouth has been taught to pronounce with terror and abhorrence.

      21 (return) [ A nameless doctor (Universal Hist. vol. xx. octavo
      edition) has formally demonstrated the truth of Christianity by
      the independence of the Arabs. A critic, besides the exceptions
      of fact, might dispute the meaning of the text (Gen. xvi. 12,)
      the extent of the application, and the foundation of the
      pedigree. * Note: See note 3 to chap. xlvi. The atter point is
      probably the least contestable of the three.—M.]

      22 (return) [ It was subdued, A.D. 1173, by a brother of the
      great Saladin, who founded a dynasty of Curds or Ayoubites,
      (Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 425. D’Herbelot, p. 477.)]

      23 (return) [ By the lieutenant of Soliman I. (A.D. 1538) and
      Selim II., (1568.) See Cantemir’s Hist. of the Othman Empire, p.
      201, 221. The pacha, who resided at Saana, commanded twenty-one
      beys; but no revenue was ever remitted to the Porte, (Marsigli,
      Stato Militare dell’ Imperio Ottomanno, p. 124,) and the Turks
      were expelled about the year 1630, (Niebuhr, p. 167, 168.)]

      24 (return) [ Of the Roman province, under the name of Arabia and
      the third Palestine, the principal cities were Bostra and Petra,
      which dated their aera from the year 105, when they were subdued
      by Palma, a lieutenant of Trajan, (Dion. Cassius, l. lxviii.)
      Petra was the capital of the Nabathaeans; whose name is derived
      from the eldest of the sons of Ismael, (Gen. xxv. 12, &c., with
      the Commentaries of Jerom, Le Clerc, and Calmet.) Justinian
      relinquished a palm country of ten days’ journey to the south of
      Aelah, (Procop. de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19,) and the Romans
      maintained a centurion and a custom-house, (Arrian in Periplo
      Maris Erythraei, p. 11, in Hudson, tom. i.,) at a place (Pagus
      Albus, Hawara) in the territory of Medina, (D’Anville, Memoire
      sur l’Egypte, p. 243.) These real possessions, and some naval
      inroads of Trajan, (Peripl. p. 14, 15,) are magnified by history
      and medals into the Roman conquest of Arabia. * Note: On the
      ruins of Petra, see the travels of Messrs. Irby and Mangles, and
      of Leon de Laborde.—M.]

      25 (return) [ Niebuhr (Description de l’Arabie, p. 302, 303,
      329-331) affords the most recent and authentic intelligence of
      the Turkish empire in Arabia. * Note: Niebuhr’s, notwithstanding
      the multitude of later travellers, maintains its ground, as the
      classical work on Arabia.—M.]

      26 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus (tom. ii. l. xix. p. 390-393,
      edit. Wesseling) has clearly exposed the freedom of the
      Nabathaean Arabs, who resisted the arms of Antigonus and his
      son.]

      27 (return) [ Strabo, l. xvi. p. 1127-1129. Plin. Hist. Natur.
      vi. 32. Aelius Gallus landed near Medina, and marched near a
      thousand miles into the part of Yemen between Mareb and the
      Ocean. The non ante devictis Sabeae regibus, (Od. i. 29,) and the
      intacti Arabum thesanri (Od. iii. 24) of Horace, attest the
      virgin purity of Arabia.]

      28 (return) [ See the imperfect history of Yemen in Pocock,
      Specimen, p. 55-66, of Hira, p. 66-74, of Gassan, p. 75-78, as
      far as it could be known or preserved in the time of ignorance. *
      Note: Compare the Hist. Yemanae, published by Johannsen at Bonn
      1880 particularly the translator’s preface.—M.]

      29 (return) [ They are described by Menander, (Excerpt. Legation
      p. 149,) Procopius, (de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 17, 19, l. ii. c.
      10,) and, in the most lively colors, by Ammianus Marcellinus, (l.
      xiv. c. 4,) who had spoken of them as early as the reign of
      Marcus.]

      30 (return) [ The name which, used by Ptolemy and Pliny in a more
      confined, by Ammianus and Procopius in a larger, sense, has been
      derived, ridiculously, from Sarah, the wife of Abraham, obscurely
      from the village of Saraka, (Stephan. de Urbibus,) more plausibly
      from the Arabic words, which signify a thievish character, or
      Oriental situation, (Hottinger, Hist. Oriental. l. i. c. i. p. 7,
      8. Pocock, Specimen, p. 33, 35. Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom.
      iv. p. 567.) Yet the last and most popular of these etymologies
      is refuted by Ptolemy, (Arabia, p. 2, 18, in Hudson, tom. iv.,)
      who expressly remarks the western and southern position of the
      Saracens, then an obscure tribe on the borders of Egypt. The
      appellation cannot therefore allude to any national character;
      and, since it was imposed by strangers, it must be found, not in
      the Arabic, but in a foreign language. * Note: Dr. Clarke,
      (Travels, vol. ii. p. 491,) after expressing contemptuous pity
      for Gibbon’s ignorance, derives the word from Zara, Zaara, Sara,
      the Desert, whence Saraceni, the children of the Desert. De
      Marles adopts the derivation from Sarrik, a robber, (Hist. des
      Arabes, vol. i. p. 36, S.L. Martin from Scharkioun, or Sharkun,
      Eastern, vol. xi. p. 55.)—M.]




      Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part II.

      The slaves of domestic tyranny may vainly exult in their national
      independence: but the Arab is personally free; and he enjoys, in
      some degree, the benefits of society, without forfeiting the
      prerogatives of nature. In every tribe, superstition, or
      gratitude, or fortune, has exalted a particular family above the
      heads of their equals. The dignities of sheick and emir
      invariably descend in this chosen race; but the order of
      succession is loose and precarious; and the most worthy or aged
      of the noble kinsmen are preferred to the simple, though
      important, office of composing disputes by their advice, and
      guiding valor by their example. Even a female of sense and spirit
      has been permitted to command the countrymen of Zenobia. 31 The
      momentary junction of several tribes produces an army: their more
      lasting union constitutes a nation; and the supreme chief, the
      emir of emirs, whose banner is displayed at their head, may
      deserve, in the eyes of strangers, the honors of the kingly name.

      If the Arabian princes abuse their power, they are quickly
      punished by the desertion of their subjects, who had been
      accustomed to a mild and parental jurisdiction. Their spirit is
      free, their steps are unconfined, the desert is open, and the
      tribes and families are held together by a mutual and voluntary
      compact. The softer natives of Yemen supported the pomp and
      majesty of a monarch; but if he could not leave his palace
      without endangering his life, 32 the active powers of government
      must have been devolved on his nobles and magistrates. The cities
      of Mecca and Medina present, in the heart of Asia, the form, or
      rather the substance, of a commonwealth. The grandfather of
      Mahomet, and his lineal ancestors, appear in foreign and domestic
      transactions as the princes of their country; but they reigned,
      like Pericles at Athens, or the Medici at Florence, by the
      opinion of their wisdom and integrity; their influence was
      divided with their patrimony; and the sceptre was transferred
      from the uncles of the prophet to a younger branch of the tribe
      of Koreish. On solemn occasions they convened the assembly of the
      people; and, since mankind must be either compelled or persuaded
      to obey, the use and reputation of oratory among the ancient
      Arabs is the clearest evidence of public freedom. 33 But their
      simple freedom was of a very different cast from the nice and
      artificial machinery of the Greek and Roman republics, in which
      each member possessed an undivided share of the civil and
      political rights of the community. In the more simple state of
      the Arabs, the nation is free, because each of her sons disdains
      a base submission to the will of a master. His breast is
      fortified by the austere virtues of courage, patience, and
      sobriety; the love of independence prompts him to exercise the
      habits of self-command; and the fear of dishonor guards him from
      the meaner apprehension of pain, of danger, and of death. The
      gravity and firmness of the mind is conspicuous in his outward
      demeanor; his speech is low, weighty, and concise; he is seldom
      provoked to laughter; his only gesture is that of stroking his
      beard, the venerable symbol of manhood; and the sense of his own
      importance teaches him to accost his equals without levity, and
      his superiors without awe. 34 The liberty of the Saracens
      survived their conquests: the first caliphs indulged the bold and
      familiar language of their subjects; they ascended the pulpit to
      persuade and edify the congregation; nor was it before the seat
      of empire was removed to the Tigris, that the Abbasides adopted
      the proud and pompous ceremonial of the Persian and Byzantine
      courts.

      31 (return) [ Saraceni... mulieres aiunt in eos regnare,
      (Expositio totius Mundi, p. 3, in Hudson, tom. iii.) The reign of
      Mavia is famous in ecclesiastical story Pocock, Specimen, p. 69,
      83.]

      32 (return) [ The report of Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro, p. 63,
      64, in Hudson, tom. i.) Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l. iii. c. 47,
      p. 215,) and Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1124.) But I much suspect that
      this is one of the popular tales, or extraordinary accidents,
      which the credulity of travellers so often transforms into a
      fact, a custom, and a law.]

      33 (return) [ Non gloriabantur antiquitus Arabes, nisi gladio,
      hospite, et eloquentia (Sephadius apud Pocock, Specimen, p. 161,
      162.) This gift of speech they shared only with the Persians; and
      the sententious Arabs would probably have disdained the simple
      and sublime logic of Demosthenes.]

      34 (return) [ I must remind the reader that D’Arvieux,
      D’Herbelot, and Niebuhr, represent, in the most lively colors,
      the manners and government of the Arabs, which are illustrated by
      many incidental passages in the Life of Mahomet. * Note: See,
      likewise the curious romance of Antar, the most vivid and
      authentic picture of Arabian manners.—M.]

      In the study of nations and men, we may observe the causes that
      render them hostile or friendly to each other, that tend to
      narrow or enlarge, to mollify or exasperate, the social
      character. The separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind
      has accustomed them to confound the ideas of stranger and enemy;
      and the poverty of the land has introduced a maxim of
      jurisprudence, which they believe and practise to the present
      hour. They pretend, that, in the division of the earth, the rich
      and fertile climates were assigned to the other branches of the
      human family; and that the posterity of the outlaw Ismael might
      recover, by fraud or force, the portion of inheritance of which
      he had been unjustly deprived. According to the remark of Pliny,
      the Arabian tribes are equally addicted to theft and merchandise;
      the caravans that traverse the desert are ransomed or pillaged;
      and their neighbors, since the remote times of Job and Sesostris,
      35 have been the victims of their rapacious spirit. If a Bedoween
      discovers from afar a solitary traveller, he rides furiously
      against him, crying, with a loud voice, “Undress thyself, thy
      aunt (my wife) is without a garment.” A ready submission entitles
      him to mercy; resistance will provoke the aggressor, and his own
      blood must expiate the blood which he presumes to shed in
      legitimate defence. A single robber, or a few associates, are
      branded with their genuine name; but the exploits of a numerous
      band assume the character of lawful and honorable war. The temper
      of a people thus armed against mankind was doubly inflamed by the
      domestic license of rapine, murder, and revenge. In the
      constitution of Europe, the right of peace and war is now
      confined to a small, and the actual exercise to a much smaller,
      list of respectable potentates; but each Arab, with impunity and
      renown, might point his javelin against the life of his
      countrymen. The union of the nation consisted only in a vague
      resemblance of language and manners; and in each community, the
      jurisdiction of the magistrate was mute and impotent. Of the time
      of ignorance which preceded Mahomet, seventeen hundred battles 36
      are recorded by tradition: hostility was imbittered with the
      rancor of civil faction; and the recital, in prose or verse, of
      an obsolete feud, was sufficient to rekindle the same passions
      among the descendants of the hostile tribes. In private life
      every man, at least every family, was the judge and avenger of
      his own cause. The nice sensibility of honor, which weighs the
      insult rather than the injury, sheds its deadly venom on the
      quarrels of the Arabs: the honor of their women, and of their
      beards, is most easily wounded; an indecent action, a
      contemptuous word, can be expiated only by the blood of the
      offender; and such is their patient inveteracy, that they expect
      whole months and years the opportunity of revenge. A fine or
      compensation for murder is familiar to the Barbarians of every
      age: but in Arabia the kinsmen of the dead are at liberty to
      accept the atonement, or to exercise with their own hands the law
      of retaliation. The refined malice of the Arabs refuses even the
      head of the murderer, substitutes an innocent for the guilty
      person, and transfers the penalty to the best and most
      considerable of the race by whom they have been injured. If he
      falls by their hands, they are exposed, in their turn, to the
      danger of reprisals, the interest and principal of the bloody
      debt are accumulated: the individuals of either family lead a
      life of malice and suspicion, and fifty years may sometimes
      elapse before the account of vengeance be finally settled. 37
      This sanguinary spirit, ignorant of pity or forgiveness, has been
      moderated, however, by the maxims of honor, which require in
      every private encounter some decent equality of age and strength,
      of numbers and weapons. An annual festival of two, perhaps of
      four, months, was observed by the Arabs before the time of
      Mahomet, during which their swords were religiously sheathed both
      in foreign and domestic hostility; and this partial truce is more
      strongly expressive of the habits of anarchy and warfare. 38

      35 (return) [ Observe the first chapter of Job, and the long wall
      of 1500 stadia which Sesostris built from Pelusium to Heliopolis,
      (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. i. p. 67.) Under the name of Hycsos,
      the shepherd kings, they had formerly subdued Egypt, (Marsham,
      Canon. Chron. p. 98-163) &c.) * Note: This origin of the Hycsos,
      though probable, is by no means so certain here is some reason
      for supposing them Scythians.—M]

      36 (return) [ Or, according to another account, 1200,
      (D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 75: ) the two historians
      who wrote of the Ayam al Arab, the battles of the Arabs, lived in
      the 9th and 10th century. The famous war of Dahes and Gabrah was
      occasioned by two horses, lasted forty years, and ended in a
      proverb, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 48.)]

      37 (return) [ The modern theory and practice of the Arabs in the
      revenge of murder are described by Niebuhr, (Description, p.
      26-31.) The harsher features of antiquity may be traced in the
      Koran, c. 2, p. 20, c. 17, p. 230, with Sale’s Observations.]

      38 (return) [ Procopius (de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 16) places the
      two holy months about the summer solstice. The Arabians
      consecrate four months of the year—the first, seventh, eleventh,
      and twelfth; and pretend, that in a long series of ages the truce
      was infringed only four or six times, (Sale’s Preliminary
      Discourse, p. 147-150, and Notes on the ixth chapter of the
      Koran, p. 154, &c. Casiri, Bibliot. Hispano-Arabica, tom. ii. p.
      20, 21.)]

      But the spirit of rapine and revenge was attempered by the milder
      influence of trade and literature. The solitary peninsula is
      encompassed by the most civilized nations of the ancient world;
      the merchant is the friend of mankind; and the annual caravans
      imported the first seeds of knowledge and politeness into the
      cities, and even the camps of the desert. Whatever may be the
      pedigree of the Arabs, their language is derived from the same
      original stock with the Hebrew, the Syriac, and the Chaldaean
      tongues; the independence of the tribes was marked by their
      peculiar dialects; 39 but each, after their own, allowed a just
      preference to the pure and perspicuous idiom of Mecca. In Arabia,
      as well as in Greece, the perfection of language outstripped the
      refinement of manners; and her speech could diversify the
      fourscore names of honey, the two hundred of a serpent, the five
      hundred of a lion, the thousand of a sword, at a time when this
      copious dictionary was intrusted to the memory of an illiterate
      people. The monuments of the Homerites were inscribed with an
      obsolete and mysterious character; but the Cufic letters, the
      groundwork of the present alphabet, were invented on the banks of
      the Euphrates; and the recent invention was taught at Mecca by a
      stranger who settled in that city after the birth of Mahomet. The
      arts of grammar, of metre, and of rhetoric, were unknown to the
      freeborn eloquence of the Arabians; but their penetration was
      sharp, their fancy luxuriant, their wit strong and sententious,
      40 and their more elaborate compositions were addressed with
      energy and effect to the minds of their hearers. The genius and
      merit of a rising poet was celebrated by the applause of his own
      and the kindred tribes. A solemn banquet was prepared, and a
      chorus of women, striking their tymbals, and displaying the pomp
      of their nuptials, sung in the presence of their sons and
      husbands the felicity of their native tribe; that a champion had
      now appeared to vindicate their rights; that a herald had raised
      his voice to immortalize their renown. The distant or hostile
      tribes resorted to an annual fair, which was abolished by the
      fanaticism of the first Moslems; a national assembly that must
      have contributed to refine and harmonize the Barbarians. Thirty
      days were employed in the exchange, not only of corn and wine,
      but of eloquence and poetry. The prize was disputed by the
      generous emulation of the bards; the victorious performance was
      deposited in the archives of princes and emirs; and we may read
      in our own language, the seven original poems which were
      inscribed in letters of gold, and suspended in the temple of
      Mecca. 41 The Arabian poets were the historians and moralists of
      the age; and if they sympathized with the prejudices, they
      inspired and crowned the virtues, of their countrymen. The
      indissoluble union of generosity and valor was the darling theme
      of their song; and when they pointed their keenest satire against
      a despicable race, they affirmed, in the bitterness of reproach,
      that the men knew not how to give, nor the women to deny. 42 The
      same hospitality, which was practised by Abraham, and celebrated
      by Homer, is still renewed in the camps of the Arabs. The
      ferocious Bedoweens, the terror of the desert, embrace, without
      inquiry or hesitation, the stranger who dares to confide in their
      honor and to enter their tent. His treatment is kind and
      respectful: he shares the wealth, or the poverty, of his host;
      and, after a needful repose, he is dismissed on his way, with
      thanks, with blessings, and perhaps with gifts. The heart and
      hand are more largely expanded by the wants of a brother or a
      friend; but the heroic acts that could deserve the public
      applause, must have surpassed the narrow measure of discretion
      and experience. A dispute had arisen, who, among the citizens of
      Mecca, was entitled to the prize of generosity; and a successive
      application was made to the three who were deemed most worthy of
      the trial. Abdallah, the son of Abbas, had undertaken a distant
      journey, and his foot was in the stirrup when he heard the voice
      of a suppliant, “O son of the uncle of the apostle of God, I am a
      traveller, and in distress!” He instantly dismounted to present
      the pilgrim with his camel, her rich caparison, and a purse of
      four thousand pieces of gold, excepting only the sword, either
      for its intrinsic value, or as the gift of an honored kinsman.
      The servant of Kais informed the second suppliant that his master
      was asleep: but he immediately added, “Here is a purse of seven
      thousand pieces of gold, (it is all we have in the house,) and
      here is an order, that will entitle you to a camel and a slave;”
      the master, as soon as he awoke, praised and enfranchised his
      faithful steward, with a gentle reproof, that by respecting his
      slumbers he had stinted his bounty. The third of these heroes,
      the blind Arabah, at the hour of prayer, was supporting his steps
      on the shoulders of two slaves. “Alas!” he replied, “my coffers
      are empty! but these you may sell; if you refuse, I renounce
      them.” At these words, pushing away the youths, he groped along
      the wall with his staff.

      The character of Hatem is the perfect model of Arabian virtue: 43
      he was brave and liberal, an eloquent poet, and a successful
      robber; forty camels were roasted at his hospitable feast; and at
      the prayer of a suppliant enemy he restored both the captives and
      the spoil. The freedom of his countrymen disdained the laws of
      justice; they proudly indulged the spontaneous impulse of pity
      and benevolence.

      39 (return) [ Arrian, in the second century, remarks (in Periplo
      Maris Erythraei, p. 12) the partial or total difference of the
      dialects of the Arabs. Their language and letters are copiously
      treated by Pocock, (Specimen, p. 150-154,) Casiri, (Bibliot.
      Hispano-Arabica, tom. i. p. 1, 83, 292, tom. ii. p. 25, &c.,) and
      Niebuhr, (Description de l’Arabie, p. 72-36) I pass slightly; I
      am not fond of repeating words like a parrot.]

      40 (return) [ A familiar tale in Voltaire’s Zadig (le Chien et le
      Cheval) is related, to prove the natural sagacity of the Arabs,
      (D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 120, 121. Gagnier, Vie de
      Mahomet, tom. i. p. 37-46: ) but D’Arvieux, or rather La Roque,
      (Voyage de Palestine, p. 92,) denies the boasted superiority of
      the Bedoweens. The one hundred and sixty-nine sentences of Ali
      (translated by Ockley, London, 1718) afford a just and favorable
      specimen of Arabian wit. * Note: Compare the Arabic proverbs
      translated by Burckhardt. London. 1830—M.]

      41 (return) [ Pocock (Specimen, p. 158-161) and Casiri (Bibliot.
      Hispano-Arabica, tom. i. p. 48, 84, &c., 119, tom. ii. p. 17,
      &c.) speak of the Arabian poets before Mahomet; the seven poems
      of the Caaba have been published in English by Sir William Jones;
      but his honorable mission to India has deprived us of his own
      notes, far more interesting than the obscure and obsolete text.]

      42 (return) [ Sale’s Preliminary Discourse, p. 29, 30]

      43 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 458. Gagnier, Vie
      de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 118. Caab and Hesnus (Pocock, Specimen,
      p. 43, 46, 48) were likewise conspicuous for their liberality;
      and the latter is elegantly praised by an Arabian poet: “Videbis
      eum cum accesseris exultantem, ac si dares illi quod ab illo
      petis.” * Note: See the translation of the amusing Persian
      romance of Hatim Tai, by Duncan Forbes, Esq., among the works
      published by the Oriental Translation Fund.—M.]

      The religion of the Arabs, 44 as well as of the Indians,
      consisted in the worship of the sun, the moon, and the fixed
      stars; a primitive and specious mode of superstition. The bright
      luminaries of the sky display the visible image of a Deity: their
      number and distance convey to a philosophic, or even a vulgar,
      eye, the idea of boundless space: the character of eternity is
      marked on these solid globes, that seem incapable of corruption
      or decay: the regularity of their motions may be ascribed to a
      principle of reason or instinct; and their real, or imaginary,
      influence encourages the vain belief that the earth and its
      inhabitants are the object of their peculiar care. The science of
      astronomy was cultivated at Babylon; but the school of the Arabs
      was a clear firmament and a naked plain. In their nocturnal
      marches, they steered by the guidance of the stars: their names,
      and order, and daily station, were familiar to the curiosity and
      devotion of the Bedoween; and he was taught by experience to
      divide, in twenty-eight parts, the zodiac of the moon, and to
      bless the constellations who refreshed, with salutary rains, the
      thirst of the desert. The reign of the heavenly orbs could not be
      extended beyond the visible sphere; and some metaphysical powers
      were necessary to sustain the transmigration of souls and the
      resurrection of bodies: a camel was left to perish on the grave,
      that he might serve his master in another life; and the
      invocation of departed spirits implies that they were still
      endowed with consciousness and power. I am ignorant, and I am
      careless, of the blind mythology of the Barbarians; of the local
      deities, of the stars, the air, and the earth, of their sex or
      titles, their attributes or subordination. Each tribe, each
      family, each independent warrior, created and changed the rites
      and the object of his fantastic worship; but the nation, in every
      age, has bowed to the religion, as well as to the language, of
      Mecca. The genuine antiquity of the Caaba ascends beyond the
      Christian aera; in describing the coast of the Red Sea, the Greek
      historian Diodorus 45 has remarked, between the Thamudites and
      the Sabaeans, a famous temple, whose superior sanctity was
      revered by all the Arabians; the linen or silken veil, which is
      annually renewed by the Turkish emperor, was first offered by a
      pious king of the Homerites, who reigned seven hundred years
      before the time of Mahomet. 46 A tent, or a cavern, might suffice
      for the worship of the savages, but an edifice of stone and clay
      has been erected in its place; and the art and power of the
      monarchs of the East have been confined to the simplicity of the
      original model. 47 A spacious portico encloses the quadrangle of
      the Caaba; a square chapel, twenty-four cubits long, twenty-three
      broad, and twenty-seven high: a door and a window admit the
      light; the double roof is supported by three pillars of wood; a
      spout (now of gold) discharges the rain-water, and the well
      Zemzen is protected by a dome from accidental pollution. The
      tribe of Koreish, by fraud and force, had acquired the custody of
      the Caaba: the sacerdotal office devolved through four lineal
      descents to the grandfather of Mahomet; and the family of the
      Hashemites, from whence he sprung, was the most respectable and
      sacred in the eyes of their country. 48 The precincts of Mecca
      enjoyed the rights of sanctuary; and, in the last month of each
      year, the city and the temple were crowded with a long train of
      pilgrims, who presented their vows and offerings in the house of
      God. The same rites which are now accomplished by the faithful
      Mussulman, were invented and practised by the superstition of the
      idolaters. At an awful distance they cast away their garments:
      seven times, with hasty steps, they encircled the Caaba, and
      kissed the black stone: seven times they visited and adored the
      adjacent mountains; seven times they threw stones into the valley
      of Mina; and the pilgrimage was achieved, as at the present hour,
      by a sacrifice of sheep and camels, and the burial of their hair
      and nails in the consecrated ground. Each tribe either found or
      introduced in the Caaba their domestic worship: the temple was
      adorned, or defiled, with three hundred and sixty idols of men,
      eagles, lions, and antelopes; and most conspicuous was the statue
      of Hebal, of red agate, holding in his hand seven arrows, without
      heads or feathers, the instruments and symbols of profane
      divination. But this statue was a monument of Syrian arts: the
      devotion of the ruder ages was content with a pillar or a tablet;
      and the rocks of the desert were hewn into gods or altars, in
      imitation of the black stone 49 of Mecca, which is deeply tainted
      with the reproach of an idolatrous origin. From Japan to Peru,
      the use of sacrifice has universally prevailed; and the votary
      has expressed his gratitude, or fear, by destroying or consuming,
      in honor of the gods, the dearest and most precious of their
      gifts. The life of a man 50 is the most precious oblation to
      deprecate a public calamity: the altars of Phoenicia and Egypt,
      of Rome and Carthage, have been polluted with human gore: the
      cruel practice was long preserved among the Arabs; in the third
      century, a boy was annually sacrificed by the tribe of the
      Dumatians; 51 and a royal captive was piously slaughtered by the
      prince of the Saracens, the ally and soldier of the emperor
      Justinian. 52 A parent who drags his son to the altar, exhibits
      the most painful and sublime effort of fanaticism: the deed, or
      the intention, was sanctified by the example of saints and
      heroes; and the father of Mahomet himself was devoted by a rash
      vow, and hardly ransomed for the equivalent of a hundred camels.
      In the time of ignorance, the Arabs, like the Jews and Egyptians,
      abstained from the taste of swine’s flesh; 53 they circumcised 54
      their children at the age of puberty: the same customs, without
      the censure or the precept of the Koran, have been silently
      transmitted to their posterity and proselytes. It has been
      sagaciously conjectured, that the artful legislator indulged the
      stubborn prejudices of his countrymen. It is more simple to
      believe that he adhered to the habits and opinions of his youth,
      without foreseeing that a practice congenial to the climate of
      Mecca might become useless or inconvenient on the banks of the
      Danube or the Volga.

      44 (return) [ Whatever can now be known of the idolatry of the
      ancient Arabians may be found in Pocock, (Specimen, p. 89-136,
      163, 164.) His profound erudition is more clearly and concisely
      interpreted by Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p. 14-24;) and
      Assemanni (Bibliot. Orient tom. iv. p. 580-590) has added some
      valuable remarks.]

      45 (return) [ (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. iii. p. 211.) The
      character and position are so correctly apposite, that I am
      surprised how this curious passage should have been read without
      notice or application. Yet this famous temple had been overlooked
      by Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro, p. 58, in Hudson, tom. i.,) whom
      Diodorus copies in the rest of the description. Was the Sicilian
      more knowing than the Egyptian? Or was the Caaba built between
      the years of Rome 650 and 746, the dates of their respective
      histories? (Dodwell, in Dissert. ad tom. i. Hudson, p. 72.
      Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. ii. p. 770.) * Note: Mr. Forster
      (Geography of Arabia, vol. ii. p. 118, et seq.) has raised an
      objection, as I think, fatal to this hypothesis of Gibbon. The
      temple, situated in the country of the Banizomeneis, was not
      between the Thamudites and the Sabaeans, but higher up than the
      coast inhabited by the former. Mr. Forster would place it as far
      north as Moiiah. I am not quite satisfied that this will agree
      with the whole description of Diodorus—M. 1845.]

      46 (return) [ Pocock, Specimen, p. 60, 61. From the death of
      Mahomet we ascend to 68, from his birth to 129, years before the
      Christian aera. The veil or curtain, which is now of silk and
      gold, was no more than a piece of Egyptian linen, (Abulfeda, in
      Vit. Mohammed. c. 6, p. 14.)]

      47 (return) [ The original plan of the Caaba (which is servilely
      copied in Sale, the Universal History, &c.) was a Turkish
      draught, which Reland (de Religione Mohammedica, p. 113-123) has
      corrected and explained from the best authorities. For the
      description and legend of the Caaba, consult Pocock, (Specimen,
      p. 115-122,) the Bibliotheque Orientale of D’Herbelot, (Caaba,
      Hagir, Zemzem, &c.,) and Sale (Preliminary Discourse, p.
      114-122.)]

      48 (return) [ Cosa, the fifth ancestor of Mahomet, must have
      usurped the Caaba A.D. 440; but the story is differently told by
      Jannabi, (Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 65-69,) and by
      Abulfeda, (in Vit. Moham. c. 6, p. 13.)]

      49 (return) [ In the second century, Maximus of Tyre attributes
      to the Arabs the worship of a stone, (Dissert. viii. tom. i. p.
      142, edit. Reiske;) and the reproach is furiously reechoed by the
      Christians, (Clemens Alex. in Protreptico, p. 40. Arnobius contra
      Gentes, l. vi. p. 246.) Yet these stones were no other than of
      Syria and Greece, so renowned in sacred and profane antiquity,
      (Euseb. Praep. Evangel. l. i. p. 37. Marsham, Canon. Chron. p.
      54-56.)]

      50 (return) [ The two horrid subjects are accurately discussed by
      the learned Sir John Marsham, (Canon. Chron. p. 76-78, 301-304.)
      Sanchoniatho derives the Phoenician sacrifices from the example
      of Chronus; but we are ignorant whether Chronus lived before, or
      after, Abraham, or indeed whether he lived at all.]

      51 (return) [ The reproach of Porphyry; but he likewise imputes
      to the Roman the same barbarous custom, which, A. U. C. 657, had
      been finally abolished. Dumaetha, Daumat al Gendai, is noticed by
      Ptolemy (Tabul. p. 37, Arabia, p. 9-29) and Abulfeda, (p. 57,)
      and may be found in D’Anville’s maps, in the mid-desert between
      Chaibar and Tadmor.]

      52 (return) [ Prcoopius, (de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 28,)
      Evagrius, (l. vi. c. 21,) and Pocock, (Specimen, p. 72, 86,)
      attest the human sacrifices of the Arabs in the vith century. The
      danger and escape of Abdallah is a tradition rather than a fact,
      (Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 82-84.)]

      53 (return) [ Suillis carnibus abstinent, says Solinus,
      (Polyhistor. c. 33,) who copies Pliny (l. viii. c. 68) in the
      strange supposition, that hogs can not live in Arabia. The
      Egyptians were actuated by a natural and superstitious horror for
      that unclean beast, (Marsham, Canon. p. 205.) The old Arabians
      likewise practised, post coitum, the rite of ablution, (Herodot.
      l. i. c. 80,) which is sanctified by the Mahometan law, (Reland,
      p. 75, &c., Chardin, or rather the Mollah of Shah Abbas, tom. iv.
      p. 71, &c.)]

      54 (return) [ The Mahometan doctors are not fond of the subject;
      yet they hold circumcision necessary to salvation, and even
      pretend that Mahomet was miraculously born without a foreskin,
      (Pocock, Specimen, p. 319, 320. Sale’s Preliminary Discourse, p.
      106, 107.)]




      Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part III.

      Arabia was free: the adjacent kingdoms were shaken by the storms
      of conquest and tyranny, and the persecuted sects fled to the
      happy land where they might profess what they thought, and
      practise what they professed. The religions of the Sabians and
      Magians, of the Jews and Christians, were disseminated from the
      Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. In a remote period of antiquity,
      Sabianism was diffused over Asia by the science of the Chaldaeans
      55 and the arms of the Assyrians. From the observations of two
      thousand years, the priests and astronomers of Babylon 56 deduced
      the eternal laws of nature and providence. They adored the seven
      gods or angels, who directed the course of the seven planets, and
      shed their irresistible influence on the earth. The attributes of
      the seven planets, with the twelve signs of the zodiac, and the
      twenty-four constellations of the northern and southern
      hemisphere, were represented by images and talismans; the seven
      days of the week were dedicated to their respective deities; the
      Sabians prayed thrice each day; and the temple of the moon at
      Haran was the term of their pilgrimage. 57 But the flexible
      genius of their faith was always ready either to teach or to
      learn: in the tradition of the creation, the deluge, and the
      patriarchs, they held a singular agreement with their Jewish
      captives; they appealed to the secret books of Adam, Seth, and
      Enoch; and a slight infusion of the gospel has transformed the
      last remnant of the Polytheists into the Christians of St. John,
      in the territory of Bassora. 58 The altars of Babylon were
      overturned by the Magians; but the injuries of the Sabians were
      revenged by the sword of Alexander; Persia groaned above five
      hundred years under a foreign yoke; and the purest disciples of
      Zoroaster escaped from the contagion of idolatry, and breathed
      with their adversaries the freedom of the desert. 59 Seven
      hundred years before the death of Mahomet, the Jews were settled
      in Arabia; and a far greater multitude was expelled from the Holy
      Land in the wars of Titus and Hadrian. The industrious exiles
      aspired to liberty and power: they erected synagogues in the
      cities, and castles in the wilderness, and their Gentile converts
      were confounded with the children of Israel, whom they resembled
      in the outward mark of circumcision. The Christian missionaries
      were still more active and successful: the Catholics asserted
      their universal reign; the sects whom they oppressed,
      successively retired beyond the limits of the Roman empire; the
      Marcionites and Manichaeans dispersed their fantastic opinions
      and apocryphal gospels; the churches of Yemen, and the princes of
      Hira and Gassan, were instructed in a purer creed by the Jacobite
      and Nestorian bishops. 60 The liberty of choice was presented to
      the tribes: each Arab was free to elect or to compose his private
      religion: and the rude superstition of his house was mingled with
      the sublime theology of saints and philosophers. A fundamental
      article of faith was inculcated by the consent of the learned
      strangers; the existence of one supreme God who is exalted above
      the powers of heaven and earth, but who has often revealed
      himself to mankind by the ministry of his angels and prophets,
      and whose grace or justice has interrupted, by seasonable
      miracles, the order of nature. The most rational of the Arabs
      acknowledged his power, though they neglected his worship; 61 and
      it was habit rather than conviction that still attached them to
      the relics of idolatry. The Jews and Christians were the people
      of the Book; the Bible was already translated into the Arabic
      language, 62 and the volume of the Old Testament was accepted by
      the concord of these implacable enemies. In the story of the
      Hebrew patriarchs, the Arabs were pleased to discover the fathers
      of their nation. They applauded the birth and promises of Ismael;
      revered the faith and virtue of Abraham; traced his pedigree and
      their own to the creation of the first man, and imbibed, with
      equal credulity, the prodigies of the holy text, and the dreams
      and traditions of the Jewish rabbis.

      55 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus (tom. i. l. ii. p. 142-145) has
      cast on their religion the curious but superficial glance of a
      Greek. Their astronomy would be far more valuable: they had
      looked through the telescope of reason, since they could doubt
      whether the sun were in the number of the planets or of the fixed
      stars.]

      56 (return) [ Simplicius, (who quotes Porphyry,) de Coelo, l. ii.
      com. xlvi p. 123, lin. 18, apud Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 474,
      who doubts the fact, because it is adverse to his systems. The
      earliest date of the Chaldaean observations is the year 2234
      before Christ. After the conquest of Babylon by Alexander, they
      were communicated at the request of Aristotle, to the astronomer
      Hipparchus. What a moment in the annals of science!]

      57 (return) [ Pocock, (Specimen, p. 138-146,) Hottinger, (Hist.
      Orient. p. 162-203,) Hyde, (de Religione Vet. Persarum, p. 124,
      128, &c.,) D’Herbelot, (Sabi, p. 725, 726,) and Sale,
      (Preliminary Discourse, p. 14, 15,) rather excite than gratify
      our curiosity; and the last of these writers confounds Sabianism
      with the primitive religion of the Arabs.]

      58 (return) [ D’Anville (l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 130-137) will
      fix the position of these ambiguous Christians; Assemannus
      (Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iv. p. 607-614) may explain their
      tenets. But it is a slippery task to ascertain the creed of an
      ignorant people afraid and ashamed to disclose their secret
      traditions. * Note: The Codex Nasiraeus, their sacred book, has
      been published by Norberg whose researches contain almost all
      that is known of this singular people. But their origin is almost
      as obscure as ever: if ancient, their creed has been so corrupted
      with mysticism and Mahometanism, that its native lineaments are
      very indistinct.—M.]

      59 (return) [ The Magi were fixed in the province of Bhrein,
      (Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 114,) and mingled with the
      old Arabians, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 146-150.)]

      60 (return) [ The state of the Jews and Christians in Arabia is
      described by Pocock from Sharestani, &c., (Specimen, p. 60, 134,
      &c.,) Hottinger, (Hist. Orient. p. 212-238,) D’Herbelot,
      (Bibliot. Orient. p. 474-476,) Basnage, (Hist. des Juifs, tom.
      vii. p. 185, tom. viii. p. 280,) and Sale, (Preliminary
      Discourse, p. 22, &c., 33, &c.)]

      61 (return) [ In their offerings, it was a maxim to defraud God
      for the profit of the idol, not a more potent, but a more
      irritable, patron, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 108, 109.)]

      62 (return) [ Our versions now extant, whether Jewish or
      Christian, appear more recent than the Koran; but the existence
      of a prior translation may be fairly inferred,—1. From the
      perpetual practice of the synagogue of expounding the Hebrew
      lesson by a paraphrase in the vulgar tongue of the country; 2.
      From the analogy of the Armenian, Persian, Aethiopic versions,
      expressly quoted by the fathers of the fifth century, who assert
      that the Scriptures were translated into all the Barbaric
      languages, (Walton, Prolegomena ad Biblia Polyglot, p. 34, 93-97.
      Simon, Hist. Critique du V. et du N. Testament, tom. i. p. 180,
      181, 282-286, 293, 305, 306, tom. iv. p. 206.)]

      The base and plebeian origin of Mahomet is an unskilful calumny
      of the Christians, 63 who exalt instead of degrading the merit of
      their adversary. His descent from Ismael was a national privilege
      or fable; but if the first steps of the pedigree 64 are dark and
      doubtful, he could produce many generations of pure and genuine
      nobility: he sprung from the tribe of Koreish and the family of
      Hashem, the most illustrious of the Arabs, the princes of Mecca,
      and the hereditary guardians of the Caaba. The grandfather of
      Mahomet was Abdol Motalleb, the son of Hashem, a wealthy and
      generous citizen, who relieved the distress of famine with the
      supplies of commerce. Mecca, which had been fed by the liberality
      of the father, was saved by the courage of the son. The kingdom
      of Yemen was subject to the Christian princes of Abyssinia; their
      vassal Abrahah was provoked by an insult to avenge the honor of
      the cross; and the holy city was invested by a train of elephants
      and an army of Africans. A treaty was proposed; and, in the first
      audience, the grandfather of Mahomet demanded the restitution of
      his cattle. “And why,” said Abrahah, “do you not rather implore
      my clemency in favor of your temple, which I have threatened to
      destroy?” “Because,” replied the intrepid chief, “the cattle is
      my own; the Caaba belongs to the gods, and they will defend their
      house from injury and sacrilege.” The want of provisions, or the
      valor of the Koreish, compelled the Abyssinians to a disgraceful
      retreat: their discomfiture has been adorned with a miraculous
      flight of birds, who showered down stones on the heads of the
      infidels; and the deliverance was long commemorated by the aera
      of the elephant. 65 The glory of Abdol Motalleb was crowned with
      domestic happiness; his life was prolonged to the age of one
      hundred and ten years; and he became the father of six daughters
      and thirteen sons. His best beloved Abdallah was the most
      beautiful and modest of the Arabian youth; and in the first
      night, when he consummated his marriage with Amina, 651 of the
      noble race of the Zahrites, two hundred virgins are said to have
      expired of jealousy and despair. Mahomet, or more properly
      Mohammed, the only son of Abdallah and Amina, was born at Mecca,
      four years after the death of Justinian, and two months after the
      defeat of the Abyssinians, 66 whose victory would have introduced
      into the Caaba the religion of the Christians. In his early
      infancy, he was deprived of his father, his mother, and his
      grandfather; his uncles were strong and numerous; and, in the
      division of the inheritance, the orphan’s share was reduced to
      five camels and an Aethiopian maid-servant. At home and abroad,
      in peace and war, Abu Taleb, the most respectable of his uncles,
      was the guide and guardian of his youth; in his twenty-fifth
      year, he entered into the service of Cadijah, a rich and noble
      widow of Mecca, who soon rewarded his fidelity with the gift of
      her hand and fortune. The marriage contract, in the simple style
      of antiquity, recites the mutual love of Mahomet and Cadijah;
      describes him as the most accomplished of the tribe of Koreish;
      and stipulates a dowry of twelve ounces of gold and twenty
      camels, which was supplied by the liberality of his uncle. 67 By
      this alliance, the son of Abdallah was restored to the station of
      his ancestors; and the judicious matron was content with his
      domestic virtues, till, in the fortieth year of his age, 68 he
      assumed the title of a prophet, and proclaimed the religion of
      the Koran.

      63 (return) [ In eo conveniunt omnes, ut plebeio vilique genere
      ortum, &c, (Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 136.) Yet Theophanes, the
      most ancient of the Greeks, and the father of many a lie,
      confesses that Mahomet was of the race of Ismael, (Chronograph.
      p. 277.)]

      64 (return) [ Abulfeda (in Vit. Mohammed. c. 1, 2) and Gagnier
      (Vie de Mahomet, p. 25-97) describe the popular and approved
      genealogy of the prophet. At Mecca, I would not dispute its
      authenticity: at Lausanne, I will venture to observe, 1. That
      from Ismael to Mahomet, a period of 2500 years, they reckon
      thirty, instead of seventy five, generations: 2. That the modern
      Bedoweens are ignorant of their history, and careless of their
      pedigree, (Voyage de D’Arvieux p. 100, 103.) * Note: The most
      orthodox Mahometans only reckon back the ancestry of the prophet
      for twenty generations, to Adnan. Weil, Mohammed der Prophet, p.
      1.—M. 1845.]

      65 (return) [ The seed of this history, or fable, is contained in
      the cvth chapter of the Koran; and Gagnier (in Praefat. ad Vit.
      Moham. p. 18, &c.) has translated the historical narrative of
      Abulfeda, which may be illustrated from D’Herbelot (Bibliot.
      Orientale, p. 12) and Pocock, (Specimen, p. 64.) Prideaux (Life
      of Mahomet, p. 48) calls it a lie of the coinage of Mahomet; but
      Sale, (Koran, p. 501-503,) who is half a Mussulman, attacks the
      inconsistent faith of the Doctor for believing the miracles of
      the Delphic Apollo. Maracci (Alcoran, tom. i. part ii. p. 14,
      tom. ii. p. 823) ascribes the miracle to the devil, and extorts
      from the Mahometans the confession, that God would not have
      defended against the Christians the idols of the Caaba. * Note:
      Dr. Weil says that the small-pox broke out in the army of
      Abrahah, but he does not give his authority, p. 10.—M. 1845.]

      651 (return) [ Amina, or Emina, was of Jewish birth. V. Hammer,
      Geschichte der Assass. p. 10.—M.]

      66 (return) [ The safest aeras of Abulfeda, (in Vit. c. i. p. 2,)
      of Alexander, or the Greeks, 882, of Bocht Naser, or Nabonassar,
      1316, equally lead us to the year 569. The old Arabian calendar
      is too dark and uncertain to support the Benedictines, (Art. de
      Verifer les Dates, p. 15,) who, from the day of the month and
      week, deduce a new mode of calculation, and remove the birth of
      Mahomet to the year of Christ 570, the 10th of November. Yet this
      date would agree with the year 882 of the Greeks, which is
      assigned by Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 5) and Abulpharagius,
      (Dynast. p. 101, and Errata, Pocock’s version.) While we refine
      our chronology, it is possible that the illiterate prophet was
      ignorant of his own age. * Note: The date of the birth of Mahomet
      is not yet fixed with precision. It is only known from Oriental
      authors that he was born on a Monday, the 10th Reby 1st, the
      third month of the Mahometan year; the year 40 or 42 of Chosroes
      Nushirvan, king of Persia; the year 881 of the Seleucidan aera;
      the year 1316 of the aera of Nabonassar. This leaves the point
      undecided between the years 569, 570, 571, of J. C. See the
      Memoir of M. Silv. de Sacy, on divers events in the history of
      the Arabs before Mahomet, Mem. Acad. des Loscript. vol. xlvii. p.
      527, 531. St. Martin, vol. xi. p. 59.—M. ——Dr. Weil decides on
      A.D. 571. Mahomet died in 632, aged 63; but the Arabs reckoned
      his life by lunar years, which reduces his life nearly to 61 (p.
      21.)—M. 1845]

      67 (return) [ I copy the honorable testimony of Abu Taleb to his
      family and nephew. Laus Dei, qui nos a stirpe Abrahami et semine
      Ismaelis constituit, et nobis regionem sacram dedit, et nos
      judices hominibus statuit. Porro Mohammed filius Abdollahi
      nepotis mei (nepos meus) quo cum ex aequo librabitur e
      Koraishidis quispiam cui non praeponderaturus est, bonitate et
      excellentia, et intellectu et gloria, et acumine etsi opum inops
      fuerit, (et certe opes umbra transiens sunt et depositum quod
      reddi debet,) desiderio Chadijae filiae Chowailedi tenetur, et
      illa vicissim ipsius, quicquid autem dotis vice petieritis, ego
      in me suscipiam, (Pocock, Specimen, e septima parte libri Ebn
      Hamduni.)]

      68 (return) [ The private life of Mahomet, from his birth to his
      mission, is preserved by Abulfeda, (in Vit. c. 3-7,) and the
      Arabian writers of genuine or apocryphal note, who are alleged by
      Hottinger, (Hist. Orient. p. 204-211) Maracci, (tom. i. p.
      10-14,) and Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 97-134.)]

      According to the tradition of his companions, Mahomet 69 was
      distinguished by the beauty of his person, an outward gift which
      is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.
      Before he spoke, the orator engaged on his side the affections of
      a public or private audience. They applauded his commanding
      presence, his majestic aspect, his piercing eye, his gracious
      smile, his flowing beard, his countenance that painted every
      sensation of the soul, and his gestures that enforced each
      expression of the tongue. In the familiar offices of life he
      scrupulously adhered to the grave and ceremonious politeness of
      his country: his respectful attention to the rich and powerful
      was dignified by his condescension and affability to the poorest
      citizens of Mecca: the frankness of his manner concealed the
      artifice of his views; and the habits of courtesy were imputed to
      personal friendship or universal benevolence. His memory was
      capacious and retentive; his wit easy and social; his imagination
      sublime; his judgment clear, rapid, and decisive. He possessed
      the courage both of thought and action; and, although his designs
      might gradually expand with his success, the first idea which he
      entertained of his divine mission bears the stamp of an original
      and superior genius. The son of Abdallah was educated in the
      bosom of the noblest race, in the use of the purest dialect of
      Arabia; and the fluency of his speech was corrected and enhanced
      by the practice of discreet and seasonable silence. With these
      powers of eloquence, Mahomet was an illiterate Barbarian: his
      youth had never been instructed in the arts of reading and
      writing; 70 the common ignorance exempted him from shame or
      reproach, but he was reduced to a narrow circle of existence, and
      deprived of those faithful mirrors, which reflect to our mind the
      minds of sages and heroes. Yet the book of nature and of man was
      open to his view; and some fancy has been indulged in the
      political and philosophical observations which are ascribed to
      the Arabian traveller. 71 He compares the nations and the regions
      of the earth; discovers the weakness of the Persian and Roman
      monarchies; beholds, with pity and indignation, the degeneracy of
      the times; and resolves to unite under one God and one king the
      invincible spirit and primitive virtues of the Arabs. Our more
      accurate inquiry will suggest, that, instead of visiting the
      courts, the camps, the temples, of the East, the two journeys of
      Mahomet into Syria were confined to the fairs of Bostra and
      Damascus; that he was only thirteen years of age when he
      accompanied the caravan of his uncle; and that his duty compelled
      him to return as soon as he had disposed of the merchandise of
      Cadijah. In these hasty and superficial excursions, the eye of
      genius might discern some objects invisible to his grosser
      companions; some seeds of knowledge might be cast upon a fruitful
      soil; but his ignorance of the Syriac language must have checked
      his curiosity; and I cannot perceive, in the life or writings of
      Mahomet, that his prospect was far extended beyond the limits of
      the Arabian world. From every region of that solitary world, the
      pilgrims of Mecca were annually assembled, by the calls of
      devotion and commerce: in the free concourse of multitudes, a
      simple citizen, in his native tongue, might study the political
      state and character of the tribes, the theory and practice of the
      Jews and Christians. Some useful strangers might be tempted, or
      forced, to implore the rights of hospitality; and the enemies of
      Mahomet have named the Jew, the Persian, and the Syrian monk,
      whom they accuse of lending their secret aid to the composition
      of the Koran. 72 Conversation enriches the understanding, but
      solitude is the school of genius; and the uniformity of a work
      denotes the hand of a single artist. From his earliest youth
      Mahomet was addicted to religious contemplation; each year,
      during the month of Ramadan, he withdrew from the world, and from
      the arms of Cadijah: in the cave of Hera, three miles from Mecca,
      73 he consulted the spirit of fraud or enthusiasm, whose abode is
      not in the heavens, but in the mind of the prophet. The faith
      which, under the name of Islam, he preached to his family and
      nation, is compounded of an eternal truth, and a necessary
      fiction, That there is only one God, and that Mahomet is the
      apostle of God.

      69 (return) [ Abulfeda, in Vit. c. lxv. lxvi. Gagnier, Vie de
      Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 272-289. The best traditions of the person
      and conversation of the prophet are derived from Ayesha, Ali, and
      Abu Horaira, (Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 267. Ockley’s Hist. of the
      Saracens, vol. ii. p. 149,) surnamed the Father of a Cat, who
      died in the year 59 of the Hegira. * Note: Compare, likewise, the
      new Life of Mahomet (Mohammed der prophet) by Dr. Weil,
      (Stuttgart, 1843.) Dr. Weil has a new tradition, that Mahomet was
      at one time a shepherd. This assimilation to the life of Moses,
      instead of giving probability to the story, as Dr. Weil suggests,
      makes it more suspicious. Note, p. 34.—M. 1845.]

      70 (return) [ Those who believe that Mahomet could read or write
      are incapable of reading what is written with another pen, in the
      Suras, or chapters of the Koran, vii. xxix. xcvi. These texts,
      and the tradition of the Sonna, are admitted, without doubt, by
      Abulfeda, (in Vit. vii.,) Gagnier, (Not. ad Abulfed. p. 15,)
      Pocock, (Specimen, p. 151,) Reland, (de Religione Mohammedica, p.
      236,) and Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p. 42.) Mr. White, almost
      alone, denies the ignorance, to accuse the imposture, of the
      prophet. His arguments are far from satisfactory. Two short
      trading journeys to the fairs of Syria were surely not sufficient
      to infuse a science so rare among the citizens of Mecca: it was
      not in the cool, deliberate act of treaty, that Mahomet would
      have dropped the mask; nor can any conclusion be drawn from the
      words of disease and delirium. The lettered youth, before he
      aspired to the prophetic character, must have often exercised, in
      private life, the arts of reading and writing; and his first
      converts, of his own family, would have been the first to detect
      and upbraid his scandalous hypocrisy, (White’s Sermons, p. 203,
      204, Notes, p. xxxvi.—xxxviii.) * Note: (Academ. des Inscript. I.
      p. 295) has observed that the text of the seveth Sura implies
      that Mahomet could read, the tradition alone denies it, and,
      according to Dr. Weil, (p. 46,) there is another reading of the
      tradition, that “he could not read well.” Dr. Weil is not quite
      so successful in explaining away Sura xxix. It means, he thinks
      that he had not read any books, from which he could have
      borrowed.—M. 1845.]

      71 (return) [ The count de Boulainvilliers (Vie de Mahomet, p.
      202-228) leads his Arabian pupil, like the Telemachus of Fenelon,
      or the Cyrus of Ramsay. His journey to the court of Persia is
      probably a fiction nor can I trace the origin of his exclamation,
      “Les Grecs sont pour tant des hommes.” The two Syrian journeys
      are expressed by almost all the Arabian writers, both Mahometans
      and Christians, (Gagnier Abulfed. p. 10.)]

      72 (return) [ I am not at leisure to pursue the fables or
      conjectures which name the strangers accused or suspected by the
      infidels of Mecca, (Koran, c. 16, p. 223, c. 35, p. 297, with
      Sale’s Remarks. Prideaux’s Life of Mahomet, p. 22-27. Gagnier,
      Not. ad Abulfed. p. 11, 74. Maracci, tom. ii. p. 400.) Even
      Prideaux has observed, that the transaction must have been
      secret, and that the scene lay in the heart of Arabia.]

      73 (return) [ Abulfeda in Vit. c. 7, p. 15. Gagnier, tom. i. p.
      133, 135. The situation of Mount Hera is remarked by Abulfeda
      (Geograph. Arab p. 4.) Yet Mahomet had never read of the cave of
      Egeria, ubi nocturnae Numa constituebat amicae, of the Idaean
      Mount, where Minos conversed with Jove, &c.]

      It is the boast of the Jewish apologists, that while the learned
      nations of antiquity were deluded by the fables of polytheism,
      their simple ancestors of Palestine preserved the knowledge and
      worship of the true God. The moral attributes of Jehovah may not
      easily be reconciled with the standard of human virtue: his
      metaphysical qualities are darkly expressed; but each page of the
      Pentateuch and the Prophets is an evidence of his power: the
      unity of his name is inscribed on the first table of the law; and
      his sanctuary was never defiled by any visible image of the
      invisible essence. After the ruin of the temple, the faith of the
      Hebrew exiles was purified, fixed, and enlightened, by the
      spiritual devotion of the synagogue; and the authority of Mahomet
      will not justify his perpetual reproach, that the Jews of Mecca
      or Medina adored Ezra as the son of God. 74 But the children of
      Israel had ceased to be a people; and the religions of the world
      were guilty, at least in the eyes of the prophet, of giving sons,
      or daughters, or companions, to the supreme God. In the rude
      idolatry of the Arabs, the crime is manifest and audacious: the
      Sabians are poorly excused by the preeminence of the first
      planet, or intelligence, in their celestial hierarchy; and in the
      Magian system the conflict of the two principles betrays the
      imperfection of the conqueror. The Christians of the seventh
      century had insensibly relapsed into a semblance of Paganism:
      their public and private vows were addressed to the relics and
      images that disgraced the temples of the East: the throne of the
      Almighty was darkened by a cloud of martyrs, and saints, and
      angels, the objects of popular veneration; and the Collyridian
      heretics, who flourished in the fruitful soil of Arabia, invested
      the Virgin Mary with the name and honors of a goddess. 75 The
      mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation appear to contradict the
      principle of the divine unity. In their obvious sense, they
      introduce three equal deities, and transform the man Jesus into
      the substance of the Son of God: 76 an orthodox commentary will
      satisfy only a believing mind: intemperate curiosity and zeal had
      torn the veil of the sanctuary; and each of the Oriental sects
      was eager to confess that all, except themselves, deserved the
      reproach of idolatry and polytheism. The creed of Mahomet is free
      from suspicion or ambiguity; and the Koran is a glorious
      testimony to the unity of God. The prophet of Mecca rejected the
      worship of idols and men, of stars and planets, on the rational
      principle that whatever rises must set, that whatever is born
      must die, that whatever is corruptible must decay and perish. 77
      In the Author of the universe, his rational enthusiasm confessed
      and adored an infinite and eternal being, without form or place,
      without issue or similitude, present to our most secret thoughts,
      existing by the necessity of his own nature, and deriving from
      himself all moral and intellectual perfection. These sublime
      truths, thus announced in the language of the prophet, 78 are
      firmly held by his disciples, and defined with metaphysical
      precision by the interpreters of the Koran. A philosophic theist
      might subscribe the popular creed of the Mahometans; 79 a creed
      too sublime, perhaps, for our present faculties. What object
      remains for the fancy, or even the understanding, when we have
      abstracted from the unknown substance all ideas of time and
      space, of motion and matter, of sensation and reflection? The
      first principle of reason and revolution was confirmed by the
      voice of Mahomet: his proselytes, from India to Morocco, are
      distinguished by the name of Unitarians; and the danger of
      idolatry has been prevented by the interdiction of images. The
      doctrine of eternal decrees and absolute predestination is
      strictly embraced by the Mahometans; and they struggle, with the
      common difficulties, how to reconcile the prescience of God with
      the freedom and responsibility of man; how to explain the
      permission of evil under the reign of infinite power and infinite
      goodness.

      74 (return) [ Koran, c. 9, p. 153. Al Beidawi, and the other
      commentators quoted by Sale, adhere to the charge; but I do not
      understand that it is colored by the most obscure or absurd
      tradition of the Talmud.]

      75 (return) [ Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 225-228. The
      Collyridian heresy was carried from Thrace to Arabia by some
      women, and the name was borrowed from the cake, which they
      offered to the goddess. This example, that of Beryllus bishop of
      Bostra, (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. vi. c. 33,) and several others,
      may excuse the reproach, Arabia haerese haersewn ferax.]

      76 (return) [ The three gods in the Koran (c. 4, p. 81, c. 5, p.
      92) are obviously directed against our Catholic mystery: but the
      Arabic commentators understand them of the Father, the Son, and
      the Virgin Mary, an heretical Trinity, maintained, as it is said,
      by some Barbarians at the Council of Nice, (Eutych. Annal. tom.
      i. p. 440.) But the existence of the Marianites is denied by the
      candid Beausobre, (Hist. de Manicheisme, tom. i. p. 532;) and he
      derives the mistake from the word Roxah, the Holy Ghost, which in
      some Oriental tongues is of the feminine gender, and is
      figuratively styled the mother of Christ in the Gospel of the
      Nazarenes.]

      77 (return) [ This train of thought is philosophically
      exemplified in the character of Abraham, who opposed in Chaldaea
      the first introduction of idolatry, (Koran, c. 6, p. 106.
      D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 13.)]

      78 (return) [ See the Koran, particularly the second, (p. 30,)
      the fifty-seventh, (p. 437,) the fifty-eighth (p. 441) chapters,
      which proclaim the omnipotence of the Creator.]

      79 (return) [ The most orthodox creeds are translated by Pocock,
      (Specimen, p. 274, 284-292,) Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens, vol.
      ii. p. lxxxii.—xcv.,) Reland, (de Religion. Moham. l. i. p.
      7-13,) and Chardin, (Voyages en Perse, tom. iv. p. 4-28.) The
      great truth, that God is without similitude, is foolishly
      criticized by Maracci, (Alcoran, tom. i. part iii. p. 87-94,)
      because he made man after his own image.]

      The God of nature has written his existence on all his works, and
      his law in the heart of man. To restore the knowledge of the one,
      and the practice of the other, has been the real or pretended aim
      of the prophets of every age: the liberality of Mahomet allowed
      to his predecessors the same credit which he claimed for himself;
      and the chain of inspiration was prolonged from the fall of Adam
      to the promulgation of the Koran. 80 During that period, some
      rays of prophetic light had been imparted to one hundred and
      twenty-four thousand of the elect, discriminated by their
      respective measure of virtue and grace; three hundred and
      thirteen apostles were sent with a special commission to recall
      their country from idolatry and vice; one hundred and four
      volumes have been dictated by the Holy Spirit; and six
      legislators of transcendent brightness have announced to mankind
      the six successive revelations of various rites, but of one
      immutable religion. The authority and station of Adam, Noah,
      Abraham, Moses, Christ, and Mahomet, rise in just gradation above
      each other; but whosoever hates or rejects any one of the
      prophets is numbered with the infidels. The writings of the
      patriarchs were extant only in the apocryphal copies of the
      Greeks and Syrians: 81 the conduct of Adam had not entitled him
      to the gratitude or respect of his children; the seven precepts
      of Noah were observed by an inferior and imperfect class of the
      proselytes of the synagogue; 82 and the memory of Abraham was
      obscurely revered by the Sabians in his native land of Chaldaea:
      of the myriads of prophets, Moses and Christ alone lived and
      reigned; and the remnant of the inspired writings was comprised
      in the books of the Old and the New Testament. The miraculous
      story of Moses is consecrated and embellished in the Koran; 83
      and the captive Jews enjoy the secret revenge of imposing their
      own belief on the nations whose recent creeds they deride. For
      the author of Christianity, the Mahometans are taught by the
      prophet to entertain a high and mysterious reverence. 84 “Verily,
      Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, is the apostle of God, and his
      word, which he conveyed unto Mary, and a Spirit proceeding from
      him; honorable in this world, and in the world to come, and one
      of those who approach near to the presence of God.” 85 The
      wonders of the genuine and apocryphal gospels 86 are profusely
      heaped on his head; and the Latin church has not disdained to
      borrow from the Koran the immaculate conception 87 of his virgin
      mother. Yet Jesus was a mere mortal; and, at the day of judgment,
      his testimony will serve to condemn both the Jews, who reject him
      as a prophet, and the Christians, who adore him as the Son of
      God. The malice of his enemies aspersed his reputation, and
      conspired against his life; but their intention only was guilty;
      a phantom or a criminal was substituted on the cross; and the
      innocent saint was translated to the seventh heaven. 88 During
      six hundred years the gospel was the way of truth and salvation;
      but the Christians insensibly forgot both the laws and example of
      their founder; and Mahomet was instructed by the Gnostics to
      accuse the church, as well as the synagogue, of corrupting the
      integrity of the sacred text. 89 The piety of Moses and of Christ
      rejoiced in the assurance of a future prophet, more illustrious
      than themselves: the evangelical promise of the Paraclete, or
      Holy Ghost, was prefigured in the name, and accomplished in the
      person, of Mahomet, 90 the greatest and the last of the apostles
      of God.

      80 (return) [ Reland, de Relig. Moham. l. i. p. 17-47. Sale’s
      Preliminary Discourse, p. 73-76. Voyage de Chardin, tom. iv. p.
      28-37, and 37-47, for the Persian addition, “Ali is the vicar of
      God!” Yet the precise number of the prophets is not an article of
      faith.]

      81 (return) [ For the apocryphal books of Adam, see Fabricius,
      Codex Pseudepigraphus V. T. p. 27-29; of Seth, p. 154-157; of
      Enoch, p. 160-219. But the book of Enoch is consecrated, in some
      measure, by the quotation of the apostle St. Jude; and a long
      legendary fragment is alleged by Syncellus and Scaliger. * Note:
      The whole book has since been recovered in the Ethiopic
      language,—and has been edited and translated by Archbishop
      Lawrence, Oxford, 1881—M.]

      82 (return) [ The seven precepts of Noah are explained by
      Marsham, (Canon Chronicus, p. 154-180,) who adopts, on this
      occasion, the learning and credulity of Selden.]

      83 (return) [ The articles of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, &c., in
      the Bibliotheque of D’Herbelot, are gayly bedecked with the
      fanciful legends of the Mahometans, who have built on the
      groundwork of Scripture and the Talmud.]

      84 (return) [ Koran, c. 7, p. 128, &c., c. 10, p. 173, &c.
      D’Herbelot, p. 647, &c.]

      85 (return) [ Koran, c. 3, p. 40, c. 4. p. 80. D’Herbelot, p.
      399, &c.]

      86 (return) [ See the Gospel of St. Thomas, or of the Infancy, in
      the Codex Apocryphus N. T. of Fabricius, who collects the various
      testimonies concerning it, (p. 128-158.) It was published in
      Greek by Cotelier, and in Arabic by Sike, who thinks our present
      copy more recent than Mahomet. Yet his quotations agree with the
      original about the speech of Christ in his cradle, his living
      birds of clay, &c. (Sike, c. i. p. 168, 169, c. 36, p. 198, 199,
      c. 46, p. 206. Cotelier, c. 2, p. 160, 161.)]

      87 (return) [ It is darkly hinted in the Koran, (c. 3, p. 39,)
      and more clearly explained by the tradition of the Sonnites,
      (Sale’s Note, and Maracci, tom. ii. p. 112.) In the xiith
      century, the immaculate conception was condemned by St. Bernard
      as a presumptuous novelty, (Fra Paolo, Istoria del Concilio di
      Trento, l. ii.)]

      88 (return) [ See the Koran, c. 3, v. 53, and c. 4, v. 156, of
      Maracci’s edition. Deus est praestantissimus dolose agentium (an
      odd praise)... nec crucifixerunt eum, sed objecta est eis
      similitudo; an expression that may suit with the system of the
      Docetes; but the commentators believe (Maracci, tom. ii. p.
      113-115, 173. Sale, p. 42, 43, 79) that another man, a friend or
      an enemy, was crucified in the likeness of Jesus; a fable which
      they had read in the Gospel of St. Barnabus, and which had been
      started as early as the time of Irenaeus, by some Ebionite
      heretics, (Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme, tom. ii. p. 25,
      Mosheim. de Reb. Christ. p. 353.)]

      89 (return) [ This charge is obscurely urged in the Koran, (c. 3,
      p. 45;) but neither Mahomet, nor his followers, are sufficiently
      versed in languages and criticism to give any weight or color to
      their suspicions. Yet the Arians and Nestorians could relate some
      stories, and the illiterate prophet might listen to the bold
      assertions of the Manichaeans. See Beausobre, tom. i. p.
      291-305.]

      90 (return) [ Among the prophecies of the Old and New Testament,
      which are perverted by the fraud or ignorance of the Mussulmans,
      they apply to the prophet the promise of the Paraclete, or
      Comforter, which had been already usurped by the Montanists and
      Manichaeans, (Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, tom. i.
      p. 263, &c.;) and the easy change of letters affords the
      etymology of the name of Mohammed, (Maracci, tom. i. part i. p.
      15-28.)]




      Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part IV.

      The communication of ideas requires a similitude of thought and
      language: the discourse of a philosopher would vibrate without
      effect on the ear of a peasant; yet how minute is the distance of
      their understandings, if it be compared with the contact of an
      infinite and a finite mind, with the word of God expressed by the
      tongue or the pen of a mortal! The inspiration of the Hebrew
      prophets, of the apostles and evangelists of Christ, might not be
      incompatible with the exercise of their reason and memory; and
      the diversity of their genius is strongly marked in the style and
      composition of the books of the Old and New Testament. But
      Mahomet was content with a character, more humble, yet more
      sublime, of a simple editor; the substance of the Koran, 91
      according to himself or his disciples, is uncreated and eternal;
      subsisting in the essence of the Deity, and inscribed with a pen
      of light on the table of his everlasting decrees. A paper copy,
      in a volume of silk and gems, was brought down to the lowest
      heaven by the angel Gabriel, who, under the Jewish economy, had
      indeed been despatched on the most important errands; and this
      trusty messenger successively revealed the chapters and verses to
      the Arabian prophet. Instead of a perpetual and perfect measure
      of the divine will, the fragments of the Koran were produced at
      the discretion of Mahomet; each revelation is suited to the
      emergencies of his policy or passion; and all contradiction is
      removed by the saving maxim, that any text of Scripture is
      abrogated or modified by any subsequent passage. The word of God,
      and of the apostle, was diligently recorded by his disciples on
      palm-leaves and the shoulder-bones of mutton; and the pages,
      without order or connection, were cast into a domestic chest, in
      the custody of one of his wives. Two years after the death of
      Mahomet, the sacred volume was collected and published by his
      friend and successor Abubeker: the work was revised by the caliph
      Othman, in the thirtieth year of the Hegira; and the various
      editions of the Koran assert the same miraculous privilege of a
      uniform and incorruptible text. In the spirit of enthusiasm or
      vanity, the prophet rests the truth of his mission on the merit
      of his book; audaciously challenges both men and angels to
      imitate the beauties of a single page; and presumes to assert
      that God alone could dictate this incomparable performance. 92
      This argument is most powerfully addressed to a devout Arabian,
      whose mind is attuned to faith and rapture; whose ear is
      delighted by the music of sounds; and whose ignorance is
      incapable of comparing the productions of human genius. 93 The
      harmony and copiousness of style will not reach, in a version,
      the European infidel: he will peruse with impatience the endless
      incoherent rhapsody of fable, and precept, and declamation, which
      seldom excites a sentiment or an idea, which sometimes crawls in
      the dust, and is sometimes lost in the clouds. The divine
      attributes exalt the fancy of the Arabian missionary; but his
      loftiest strains must yield to the sublime simplicity of the book
      of Job, composed in a remote age, in the same country, and in the
      same language. 94 If the composition of the Koran exceed the
      faculties of a man to what superior intelligence should we
      ascribe the Iliad of Homer, or the Philippics of Demosthenes? In
      all religions, the life of the founder supplies the silence of
      his written revelation: the sayings of Mahomet were so many
      lessons of truth; his actions so many examples of virtue; and the
      public and private memorials were preserved by his wives and
      companions. At the end of two hundred years, the Sonna, or oral
      law, was fixed and consecrated by the labors of Al Bochari, who
      discriminated seven thousand two hundred and seventy-five genuine
      traditions, from a mass of three hundred thousand reports, of a
      more doubtful or spurious character. Each day the pious author
      prayed in the temple of Mecca, and performed his ablutions with
      the water of Zemzem: the pages were successively deposited on the
      pulpit and the sepulchre of the apostle; and the work has been
      approved by the four orthodox sects of the Sonnites. 95

      91 (return) [ For the Koran, see D’Herbelot, p. 85-88. Maracci,
      tom. i. in Vit. Mohammed. p. 32-45. Sale, Preliminary Discourse,
      p. 58-70.]

      92 (return) [ Koran, c. 17, v. 89. In Sale, p. 235, 236. In
      Maracci, p. 410. * Note: Compare Von Hammer Geschichte der
      Assassinen p. 11.-M.]

      93 (return) [ Yet a sect of Arabians was persuaded, that it might
      be equalled or surpassed by a human pen, (Pocock, Specimen, p.
      221, &c.;) and Maracci (the polemic is too hard for the
      translator) derides the rhyming affectation of the most applauded
      passage, (tom. i. part ii. p. 69-75.)]

      94 (return) [ Colloquia (whether real or fabulous) in media
      Arabia atque ab Arabibus habita, (Lowth, de Poesi Hebraeorum.
      Praelect. xxxii. xxxiii. xxxiv, with his German editor,
      Michaelis, Epimetron iv.) Yet Michaelis (p. 671-673) has detected
      many Egyptian images, the elephantiasis, papyrus, Nile,
      crocodile, &c. The language is ambiguously styled
      Arabico-Hebraea. The resemblance of the sister dialects was much
      more visible in their childhood, than in their mature age,
      (Michaelis, p. 682. Schultens, in Praefat. Job.) * Note: The age
      of the book of Job is still and probably will still be disputed.
      Rosenmuller thus states his own opinion: “Certe serioribus
      reipublicae temporibus assignandum esse librum, suadere videtur
      ad Chaldaismum vergens sermo.” Yet the observations of
      Kosegarten, which Rosenmuller has given in a note, and common
      reason, suggest that this Chaldaism may be the native form of a
      much earlier dialect; or the Chaldaic may have adopted the
      poetical archaisms of a dialect, differing from, but not less
      ancient than, the Hebrew. See Rosenmuller, Proleg. on Job, p. 41.
      The poetry appears to me to belong to a much earlier period.—M.]

      95 (return) [ Ali Bochari died A. H. 224. See D’Herbelot, p. 208,
      416, 827. Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. c. 19, p. 33.]

      The mission of the ancient prophets, of Moses and of Jesus had
      been confirmed by many splendid prodigies; and Mahomet was
      repeatedly urged, by the inhabitants of Mecca and Medina, to
      produce a similar evidence of his divine legation; to call down
      from heaven the angel or the volume of his revelation, to create
      a garden in the desert, or to kindle a conflagration in the
      unbelieving city. As often as he is pressed by the demands of the
      Koreish, he involves himself in the obscure boast of vision and
      prophecy, appeals to the internal proofs of his doctrine, and
      shields himself behind the providence of God, who refuses those
      signs and wonders that would depreciate the merit of faith, and
      aggravate the guilt of infidelity But the modest or angry tone of
      his apologies betrays his weakness and vexation; and these
      passages of scandal established, beyond suspicion, the integrity
      of the Koran. 96 The votaries of Mahomet are more assured than
      himself of his miraculous gifts; and their confidence and
      credulity increase as they are farther removed from the time and
      place of his spiritual exploits. They believe or affirm that
      trees went forth to meet him; that he was saluted by stones; that
      water gushed from his fingers; that he fed the hungry, cured the
      sick, and raised the dead; that a beam groaned to him; that a
      camel complained to him; that a shoulder of mutton informed him
      of its being poisoned; and that both animate and inanimate nature
      were equally subject to the apostle of God. 97 His dream of a
      nocturnal journey is seriously described as a real and corporeal
      transaction. A mysterious animal, the Borak, conveyed him from
      the temple of Mecca to that of Jerusalem: with his companion
      Gabriel he successively ascended the seven heavens, and received
      and repaid the salutations of the patriarchs, the prophets, and
      the angels, in their respective mansions. Beyond the seventh
      heaven, Mahomet alone was permitted to proceed; he passed the
      veil of unity, approached within two bow-shots of the throne, and
      felt a cold that pierced him to the heart, when his shoulder was
      touched by the hand of God. After this familiar, though important
      conversation, he again descended to Jerusalem, remounted the
      Borak, returned to Mecca, and performed in the tenth part of a
      night the journey of many thousand years. 98 According to another
      legend, the apostle confounded in a national assembly the
      malicious challenge of the Koreish. His resistless word split
      asunder the orb of the moon: the obedient planet stooped from her
      station in the sky, accomplished the seven revolutions round the
      Caaba, saluted Mahomet in the Arabian tongue, and, suddenly
      contracting her dimensions, entered at the collar, and issued
      forth through the sleeve, of his shirt. 99 The vulgar are amused
      with these marvellous tales; but the gravest of the Mussulman
      doctors imitate the modesty of their master, and indulge a
      latitude of faith or interpretation. 100 They might speciously
      allege, that in preaching the religion it was needless to violate
      the harmony of nature; that a creed unclouded with mystery may be
      excused from miracles; and that the sword of Mahomet was not less
      potent than the rod of Moses.

      96 (return) [ See, more remarkably, Koran, c. 2, 6, 12, 13, 17.
      Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 18, 19) has confounded the
      impostor. Maracci, with a more learned apparatus, has shown that
      the passages which deny his miracles are clear and positive,
      (Alcoran, tom. i. part ii. p. 7-12,) and those which seem to
      assert them are ambiguous and insufficient, (p. 12-22.)]

      97 (return) [ See the Specimen Hist. Arabum, the text of
      Abulpharagius, p. 17, the notes of Pocock, p. 187-190.
      D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 76, 77. Voyages de
      Chardin, tom. iv. p. 200-203. Maracci (Alcoran, tom. i. p. 22-64)
      has most laboriously collected and confuted the miracles and
      prophecies of Mahomet, which, according to some writers, amount
      to three thousand.]

      98 (return) [ The nocturnal journey is circumstantially related
      by Abulfeda (in Vit. Mohammed, c. 19, p. 33,) who wishes to think
      it a vision; by Prideaux, (p. 31-40,) who aggravates the
      absurdities; and by Gagnier (tom. i. p. 252-343,) who declares,
      from the zealous Al Jannabi, that to deny this journey, is to
      disbelieve the Koran. Yet the Koran without naming either heaven,
      or Jerusalem, or Mecca, has only dropped a mysterious hint: Laus
      illi qui transtulit servum suum ab oratorio Haram ad oratorium
      remotissimum, (Koran, c. 17, v. 1; in Maracci, tom. ii. p. 407;
      for Sale’s version is more licentious.) A slender basis for the
      aerial structure of tradition.]

      99 (return) [ In the prophetic style, which uses the present or
      past for the future, Mahomet had said, Appropinquavit hora, et
      scissa est luna, (Koran, c. 54, v. 1; in Maracci, tom. ii. p.
      688.) This figure of rhetoric has been converted into a fact,
      which is said to be attested by the most respectable
      eye-witnesses, (Maracci, tom. ii. p. 690.) The festival is still
      celebrated by the Persians, (Chardin, tom. iv. p. 201;) and the
      legend is tediously spun out by Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. i.
      p. 183-234,) on the faith, as it should seem, of the credulous Al
      Jannabi. Yet a Mahometan doctor has arraigned the credit of the
      principal witness, (apud Pocock, Specimen, p. 187;) the best
      interpreters are content with the simple sense of the Koran. (Al
      Beidawi, apud Hottinger, Hist. Orient. l. ii. p. 302;) and the
      silence of Abulfeda is worthy of a prince and a philosopher. *
      Note: Compare Hamaker Notes to Inc. Auct. Lib. de Exped.
      Memphides, p. 62—M.]

      100 (return) [ Abulpharagius, in Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 17; and
      his scepticism is justified in the notes of Pocock, p. 190-194,
      from the purest authorities.]

      The polytheist is oppressed and distracted by the variety of
      superstition: a thousand rites of Egyptian origin were interwoven
      with the essence of the Mosaic law; and the spirit of the gospel
      had evaporated in the pageantry of the church. The prophet of
      Mecca was tempted by prejudice, or policy, or patriotism, to
      sanctify the rites of the Arabians, and the custom of visiting
      the holy stone of the Caaba. But the precepts of Mahomet himself
      inculcates a more simple and rational piety: prayer, fasting, and
      alms, are the religious duties of a Mussulman; and he is
      encouraged to hope, that prayer will carry him half way to God,
      fasting will bring him to the door of his palace, and alms will
      gain him admittance. 101 I. According to the tradition of the
      nocturnal journey, the apostle, in his personal conference with
      the Deity, was commanded to impose on his disciples the daily
      obligation of fifty prayers. By the advice of Moses, he applied
      for an alleviation of this intolerable burden; the number was
      gradually reduced to five; without any dispensation of business
      or pleasure, or time or place: the devotion of the faithful is
      repeated at daybreak, at noon, in the afternoon, in the evening,
      and at the first watch of the night; and in the present decay of
      religious fervor, our travellers are edified by the profound
      humility and attention of the Turks and Persians. Cleanliness is
      the key of prayer: the frequent lustration of the hands, the
      face, and the body, which was practised of old by the Arabs, is
      solemnly enjoined by the Koran; and a permission is formally
      granted to supply with sand the scarcity of water. The words and
      attitudes of supplication, as it is performed either sitting, or
      standing, or prostrate on the ground, are prescribed by custom or
      authority; but the prayer is poured forth in short and fervent
      ejaculations; the measure of zeal is not exhausted by a tedious
      liturgy; and each Mussulman for his own person is invested with
      the character of a priest. Among the theists, who reject the use
      of images, it has been found necessary to restrain the wanderings
      of the fancy, by directing the eye and the thought towards a
      kebla, or visible point of the horizon. The prophet was at first
      inclined to gratify the Jews by the choice of Jerusalem; but he
      soon returned to a more natural partiality; and five times every
      day the eyes of the nations at Astracan, at Fez, at Delhi, are
      devoutly turned to the holy temple of Mecca. Yet every spot for
      the service of God is equally pure: the Mahometans indifferently
      pray in their chamber or in the street. As a distinction from the
      Jews and Christians, the Friday in each week is set apart for the
      useful institution of public worship: the people is assembled in
      the mosch; and the imam, some respectable elder, ascends the
      pulpit, to begin the prayer and pronounce the sermon. But the
      Mahometan religion is destitute of priesthood or sacrifice; and
      the independent spirit of fanaticism looks down with contempt on
      the ministers and the slaves of superstition. 1011

      II. The voluntary 102 penance of the ascetics, the torment and
      glory of their lives, was odious to a prophet who censured in his
      companions a rash vow of abstaining from flesh, and women, and
      sleep; and firmly declared, that he would suffer no monks in his
      religion. 103 Yet he instituted, in each year, a fast of thirty
      days; and strenuously recommended the observance as a discipline
      which purifies the soul and subdues the body, as a salutary
      exercise of obedience to the will of God and his apostle. During
      the month of Ramadan, from the rising to the setting of the sun,
      the Mussulman abstains from eating, and drinking, and women, and
      baths, and perfumes; from all nourishment that can restore his
      strength, from all pleasure that can gratify his senses. In the
      revolution of the lunar year, the Ramadan coincides, by turns,
      with the winter cold and the summer heat; and the patient martyr,
      without assuaging his thirst with a drop of water, must expect
      the close of a tedious and sultry day. The interdiction of wine,
      peculiar to some orders of priests or hermits, is converted by
      Mahomet alone into a positive and general law; 104 and a
      considerable portion of the globe has abjured, at his command,
      the use of that salutary, though dangerous, liquor. These painful
      restraints are, doubtless, infringed by the libertine, and eluded
      by the hypocrite; but the legislator, by whom they are enacted,
      cannot surely be accused of alluring his proselytes by the
      indulgence of their sensual appetites. III. The charity of the
      Mahometans descends to the animal creation; and the Koran
      repeatedly inculcates, not as a merit, but as a strict and
      indispensable duty, the relief of the indigent and unfortunate.
      Mahomet, perhaps, is the only lawgiver who has defined the
      precise measure of charity: the standard may vary with the degree
      and nature of property, as it consists either in money, in corn
      or cattle, in fruits or merchandise; but the Mussulman does not
      accomplish the law, unless he bestows a tenth of his revenue; and
      if his conscience accuses him of fraud or extortion, the tenth,
      under the idea of restitution, is enlarged to a fifth. 105
      Benevolence is the foundation of justice, since we are forbid to
      injure those whom we are bound to assist. A prophet may reveal
      the secrets of heaven and of futurity; but in his moral precepts
      he can only repeat the lessons of our own hearts.

      101 (return) [ The most authentic account of these precepts,
      pilgrimage, prayer, fasting, alms, and ablutions, is extracted
      from the Persian and Arabian theologians by Maracci, (Prodrom.
      part iv. p. 9-24,) Reland, (in his excellent treatise de
      Religione Mohammedica, Utrecht, 1717, p. 67-123,) and Chardin,
      (Voyages in Perse, tom. iv. p. 47-195.) Marace is a partial
      accuser; but the jeweller, Chardin, had the eyes of a
      philosopher; and Reland, a judicious student, had travelled over
      the East in his closet at Utrecht. The xivth letter of Tournefort
      (Voyage du Levont, tom. ii. p. 325-360, in octavo) describes what
      he had seen of the religion of the Turks.]

      1011 (return) [ Such is Mahometanism beyond the precincts of the
      Holy City. But Mahomet retained, and the Koran sanctions, (Sale’s
      Koran, c. 5, in inlt. c. 22, vol. ii. p. 171, 172,) the sacrifice
      of sheep and camels (probably according to the old Arabian rites)
      at Mecca; and the pilgrims complete their ceremonial with
      sacrifices, sometimes as numerous and costly as those of King
      Solomon. Compare note, vol. iv. c. xxiii. p. 96, and Forster’s
      Mahometanism Unveiled, vol. i. p. 420. This author quotes the
      questionable authority of Benjamin of Tudela, for the sacrifice
      of a camel by the caliph at Bosra; but sacrifice undoubtedly
      forms no part of the ordinary Mahometan ritual; nor will the
      sanctity of the caliph, as the earthly representative of the
      prophet, bear any close analogy to the priesthood of the Mosaic
      or Gentila religions.—M.]

      102 (return) [ Mahomet (Sale’s Koran, c. 9, p. 153) reproaches
      the Christians with taking their priests and monks for their
      lords, besides God. Yet Maracci (Prodromus, part iii. p. 69, 70)
      excuses the worship, especially of the pope, and quotes, from the
      Koran itself, the case of Eblis, or Satan, who was cast from
      heaven for refusing to adore Adam.]

      103 (return) [ Koran, c. 5, p. 94, and Sale’s note, which refers
      to the authority of Jallaloddin and Al Beidawi. D’Herbelot
      declares, that Mahomet condemned la vie religieuse; and that the
      first swarms of fakirs, dervises, &c., did not appear till after
      the year 300 of the Hegira, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 292, 718.)]

      104 (return) [ See the double prohibition, (Koran, c. 2, p. 25,
      c. 5, p. 94;) the one in the style of a legislator, the other in
      that of a fanatic. The public and private motives of Mahomet are
      investigated by Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 62-64) and Sale,
      (Preliminary Discourse, p. 124.)]

      105 (return) [ The jealousy of Maracci (Prodromus, part iv. p.
      33) prompts him to enumerate the more liberal alms of the
      Catholics of Rome. Fifteen great hospitals are open to many
      thousand patients and pilgrims; fifteen hundred maidens are
      annually portioned; fifty-six charity schools are founded for
      both sexes; one hundred and twenty confraternities relieve the
      wants of their brethren, &c. The benevolence of London is still
      more extensive; but I am afraid that much more is to be ascribed
      to the humanity, than to the religion, of the people.]

      The two articles of belief, and the four practical duties, of
      Islam, are guarded by rewards and punishments; and the faith of
      the Mussulman is devoutly fixed on the event of the judgment and
      the last day. The prophet has not presumed to determine the
      moment of that awful catastrophe, though he darkly announces the
      signs, both in heaven and earth, which will precede the universal
      dissolution, when life shall be destroyed, and the order of
      creation shall be confounded in the primitive chaos. At the blast
      of the trumpet, new worlds will start into being: angels, genii,
      and men will arise from the dead, and the human soul will again
      be united to the body. The doctrine of the resurrection was first
      entertained by the Egyptians; 106 and their mummies were
      embalmed, their pyramids were constructed, to preserve the
      ancient mansion of the soul, during a period of three thousand
      years. But the attempt is partial and unavailing; and it is with
      a more philosophic spirit that Mahomet relies on the omnipotence
      of the Creator, whose word can reanimate the breathless clay, and
      collect the innumerable atoms, that no longer retain their form
      or substance. 107 The intermediate state of the soul it is hard
      to decide; and those who most firmly believe her immaterial
      nature, are at a loss to understand how she can think or act
      without the agency of the organs of sense.

      106 (return) [ See Herodotus (l. ii. c. 123) and our learned
      countryman Sir John Marsham, (Canon. Chronicus, p. 46.) The same
      writer (p. 254-274) is an elaborate sketch of the infernal
      regions, as they were painted by the fancy of the Egyptians and
      Greeks, of the poets and philosophers of antiquity.]

      107 (return) [ The Koran (c. 2, p. 259, &c.; of Sale, p. 32; of
      Maracci, p. 97) relates an ingenious miracle, which satisfied the
      curiosity, and confirmed the faith, of Abraham.]

      The reunion of the soul and body will be followed by the final
      judgment of mankind; and in his copy of the Magian picture, the
      prophet has too faithfully represented the forms of proceeding,
      and even the slow and successive operations, of an earthly
      tribunal. By his intolerant adversaries he is upbraided for
      extending, even to themselves, the hope of salvation, for
      asserting the blackest heresy, that every man who believes in
      God, and accomplishes good works, may expect in the last day a
      favorable sentence. Such rational indifference is ill adapted to
      the character of a fanatic; nor is it probable that a messenger
      from heaven should depreciate the value and necessity of his own
      revelation. In the idiom of the Koran, 108 the belief of God is
      inseparable from that of Mahomet: the good works are those which
      he has enjoined, and the two qualifications imply the profession
      of Islam, to which all nations and all sects are equally invited.

      Their spiritual blindness, though excused by ignorance and
      crowned with virtue, will be scourged with everlasting torments;
      and the tears which Mahomet shed over the tomb of his mother for
      whom he was forbidden to pray, display a striking contrast of
      humanity and enthusiasm. 109 The doom of the infidels is common:
      the measure of their guilt and punishment is determined by the
      degree of evidence which they have rejected, by the magnitude of
      the errors which they have entertained: the eternal mansions of
      the Christians, the Jews, the Sabians, the Magians, and
      idolaters, are sunk below each other in the abyss; and the lowest
      hell is reserved for the faithless hypocrites who have assumed
      the mask of religion. After the greater part of mankind has been
      condemned for their opinions, the true believers only will be
      judged by their actions. The good and evil of each Mussulman will
      be accurately weighed in a real or allegorical balance; and a
      singular mode of compensation will be allowed for the payment of
      injuries: the aggressor will refund an equivalent of his own good
      actions, for the benefit of the person whom he has wronged; and
      if he should be destitute of any moral property, the weight of
      his sins will be loaded with an adequate share of the demerits of
      the sufferer. According as the shares of guilt or virtue shall
      preponderate, the sentence will be pronounced, and all, without
      distinction, will pass over the sharp and perilous bridge of the
      abyss; but the innocent, treading in the footsteps of Mahomet,
      will gloriously enter the gates of paradise, while the guilty
      will fall into the first and mildest of the seven hells. The term
      of expiation will vary from nine hundred to seven thousand years;
      but the prophet has judiciously promised, that all his disciples,
      whatever may be their sins, shall be saved, by their own faith
      and his intercession from eternal damnation. It is not surprising
      that superstition should act most powerfully on the fears of her
      votaries, since the human fancy can paint with more energy the
      misery than the bliss of a future life. With the two simple
      elements of darkness and fire, we create a sensation of pain,
      which may be aggravated to an infinite degree by the idea of
      endless duration. But the same idea operates with an opposite
      effect on the continuity of pleasure; and too much of our present
      enjoyments is obtained from the relief, or the comparison, of
      evil. It is natural enough that an Arabian prophet should dwell
      with rapture on the groves, the fountains, and the rivers of
      paradise; but instead of inspiring the blessed inhabitants with a
      liberal taste for harmony and science, conversation and
      friendship, he idly celebrates the pearls and diamonds, the robes
      of silk, palaces of marble, dishes of gold, rich wines,
      artificial dainties, numerous attendants, and the whole train of
      sensual and costly luxury, which becomes insipid to the owner,
      even in the short period of this mortal life. Seventy-two Houris,
      or black-eyed girls, of resplendent beauty, blooming youth,
      virgin purity, and exquisite sensibility, will be created for the
      use of the meanest believer; a moment of pleasure will be
      prolonged to a thousand years; and his faculties will be
      increased a hundred fold, to render him worthy of his felicity.
      Notwithstanding a vulgar prejudice, the gates of heaven will be
      open to both sexes; but Mahomet has not specified the male
      companions of the female elect, lest he should either alarm the
      jealousy of their former husbands, or disturb their felicity, by
      the suspicion of an everlasting marriage. This image of a carnal
      paradise has provoked the indignation, perhaps the envy, of the
      monks: they declaim against the impure religion of Mahomet; and
      his modest apologists are driven to the poor excuse of figures
      and allegories. But the sounder and more consistent party adhere
      without shame, to the literal interpretation of the Koran:
      useless would be the resurrection of the body, unless it were
      restored to the possession and exercise of its worthiest
      faculties; and the union of sensual and intellectual enjoyment is
      requisite to complete the happiness of the double animal, the
      perfect man. Yet the joys of the Mahometan paradise will not be
      confined to the indulgence of luxury and appetite; and the
      prophet has expressly declared that all meaner happiness will be
      forgotten and despised by the saints and martyrs, who shall be
      admitted to the beatitude of the divine vision. 110

      108 (return) [ The candid Reland has demonstrated, that Mahomet
      damns all unbelievers, (de Religion. Moham. p. 128-142;) that
      devils will not be finally saved, (p. 196-199;) that paradise
      will not solely consist of corporeal delights, (p. 199-205;) and
      that women’s souls are immortal. (p. 205-209.)]

      109 (return) [ A Beidawi, apud Sale. Koran, c. 9, p. 164. The
      refusal to pray for an unbelieving kindred is justified,
      according to Mahomet, by the duty of a prophet, and the example
      of Abraham, who reprobated his own father as an enemy of God. Yet
      Abraham (he adds, c. 9, v. 116. Maracci, tom. ii. p. 317) fuit
      sane pius, mitis.]

      110 (return) [ For the day of judgment, hell, paradise, &c.,
      consult the Koran, (c. 2, v. 25, c. 56, 78, &c.;) with Maracci’s
      virulent, but learned, refutation, (in his notes, and in the
      Prodromus, part iv. p. 78, 120, 122, &c.;) D’Herbelot,
      (Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 368, 375;) Reland, (p. 47-61;) and
      Sale, (p. 76-103.) The original ideas of the Magi are darkly and
      doubtfully explored by their apologist, Dr. Hyde, (Hist.
      Religionis Persarum, c. 33, p. 402-412, Oxon. 1760.) In the
      article of Mahomet, Bayle has shown how indifferently wit and
      philosophy supply the absence of genuine information.]

      The first and most arduous conquests of Mahomet 111 were those of
      his wife, his servant, his pupil, and his friend; 112 since he
      presented himself as a prophet to those who were most conversant
      with his infirmities as a man. Yet Cadijah believed the words,
      and cherished the glory, of her husband; the obsequious and
      affectionate Zeid was tempted by the prospect of freedom; the
      illustrious Ali, the son of Abu Taleb, embraced the sentiments of
      his cousin with the spirit of a youthful hero; and the wealth,
      the moderation, the veracity of Abubeker confirmed the religion
      of the prophet whom he was destined to succeed. By his
      persuasion, ten of the most respectable citizens of Mecca were
      introduced to the private lessons of Islam; they yielded to the
      voice of reason and enthusiasm; they repeated the fundamental
      creed, “There is but one God, and Mahomet is the apostle of God;”
      and their faith, even in this life, was rewarded with riches and
      honors, with the command of armies and the government of
      kingdoms. Three years were silently employed in the conversion of
      fourteen proselytes, the first-fruits of his mission; but in the
      fourth year he assumed the prophetic office, and resolving to
      impart to his family the light of divine truth, he prepared a
      banquet, a lamb, as it is said, and a bowl of milk, for the
      entertainment of forty guests of the race of Hashem. “Friends and
      kinsmen,” said Mahomet to the assembly, “I offer you, and I alone
      can offer, the most precious of gifts, the treasures of this
      world and of the world to come. God has commanded me to call you
      to his service. Who among you will support my burden? Who among
      you will be my companion and my vizier?” 113 No answer was
      returned, till the silence of astonishment, and doubt, and
      contempt, was at length broken by the impatient courage of Ali, a
      youth in the fourteenth year of his age. “O prophet, I am the
      man: whosoever rises against thee, I will dash out his teeth,
      tear out his eyes, break his legs, rip up his belly. O prophet, I
      will be thy vizier over them.” Mahomet accepted his offer with
      transport, and Abu Taled was ironically exhorted to respect the
      superior dignity of his son. In a more serious tone, the father
      of Ali advised his nephew to relinquish his impracticable design.

      “Spare your remonstrances,” replied the intrepid fanatic to his
      uncle and benefactor; “if they should place the sun on my right
      hand, and the moon on my left, they should not divert me from my
      course.” He persevered ten years in the exercise of his mission;
      and the religion which has overspread the East and the West
      advanced with a slow and painful progress within the walls of
      Mecca. Yet Mahomet enjoyed the satisfaction of beholding the
      increase of his infant congregation of Unitarians, who revered
      him as a prophet, and to whom he seasonably dispensed the
      spiritual nourishment of the Koran. The number of proselytes may
      be esteemed by the absence of eighty-three men and eighteen
      women, who retired to Aethiopia in the seventh year of his
      mission; and his party was fortified by the timely conversion of
      his uncle Hamza, and of the fierce and inflexible Omar, who
      signalized in the cause of Islam the same zeal, which he had
      exerted for its destruction. Nor was the charity of Mahomet
      confined to the tribe of Koreish, or the precincts of Mecca: on
      solemn festivals, in the days of pilgrimage, he frequented the
      Caaba, accosted the strangers of every tribe, and urged, both in
      private converse and public discourse, the belief and worship of
      a sole Deity. Conscious of his reason and of his weakness, he
      asserted the liberty of conscience, and disclaimed the use of
      religious violence: 114 but he called the Arabs to repentance,
      and conjured them to remember the ancient idolaters of Ad and
      Thamud, whom the divine justice had swept away from the face of
      the earth. 115

      111 (return) [ Before I enter on the history of the prophet, it
      is incumbent on me to produce my evidence. The Latin, French, and
      English versions of the Koran are preceded by historical
      discourses, and the three translators, Maracci, (tom. i. p.
      10-32,) Savary, (tom. i. p. 1-248,) and Sale, (Preliminary
      Discourse, p. 33-56,) had accurately studied the language and
      character of their author. Two professed Lives of Mahomet have
      been composed by Dr. Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, seventh edition,
      London, 1718, in octavo) and the count de Boulainvilliers, (Vie
      de Mahomed, Londres, 1730, in octavo: ) but the adverse wish of
      finding an impostor or a hero, has too often corrupted the
      learning of the doctor and the ingenuity of the count. The
      article in D’Herbelot (Bibliot. Orient. p. 598-603) is chiefly
      drawn from Novairi and Mirkond; but the best and most authentic
      of our guides is M. Gagnier, a Frenchman by birth, and professor
      at Oxford of the Oriental tongues. In two elaborate works,
      (Ismael Abulfeda de Vita et Rebus gestis Mohammedis, &c. Latine
      vertit, Praefatione et Notis illustravit Johannes Gagnier, Oxon.
      1723, in folio. La Vie de Mahomet traduite et compilee de
      l’Alcoran, des Traditions Authentiques de la Sonna et des
      meilleurs Auteurs Arabes; Amsterdam, 1748, 3 vols. in 12mo.,) he
      has interpreted, illustrated, and supplied the Arabic text of
      Abulfeda and Al Jannabi; the first, an enlightened prince who
      reigned at Hamah, in Syria, A.D. 1310-1332, (see Gagnier Praefat.
      ad Abulfed.;) the second, a credulous doctor, who visited Mecca
      A.D. 1556. (D’Herbelot, p. 397. Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 209, 210.)
      These are my general vouchers, and the inquisitive reader may
      follow the order of time, and the division of chapters. Yet I
      must observe that both Abulfeda and Al Jannabi are modern
      historians, and that they cannot appeal to any writers of the
      first century of the Hegira. * Note: A new Life, by Dr. Weil,
      (Stuttgart. 1843,) has added some few traditions unknown in
      Europe. Of Dr. Weil’s Arabic scholarship, which professes to
      correct many errors in Gagnier, in Maracci, and in M. von Hammer,
      I am no judge. But it is remarkable that he does not seem
      acquainted with the passage of Tabari, translated by Colonel Vans
      Kennedy, in the Bombay Transactions, (vol. iii.,) the earliest
      and most important addition made to the traditionary Life of
      Mahomet. I am inclined to think Colonel Vans Kennedy’s
      appreciation of the prophet’s character, which may be overlooked
      in a criticism on Voltaire’s Mahomet, the most just which I have
      ever read. The work of Dr. Weil appears to me most valuable in
      its dissection and chronological view of the Koran.—M. 1845]

      112 (return) [ After the Greeks, Prideaux (p. 8) discloses the
      secret doubts of the wife of Mahomet. As if he had been a privy
      counsellor of the prophet, Boulainvilliers (p. 272, &c.) unfolds
      the sublime and patriotic views of Cadijah and the first
      disciples.]

      113 (return) [ Vezirus, portitor, bajulus, onus ferens; and this
      plebeian name was transferred by an apt metaphor to the pillars
      of the state, (Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. p. 19.) I endeavor to
      preserve the Arabian idiom, as far as I can feel it myself in a
      Latin or French translation.]

      114 (return) [ The passages of the Koran in behalf of toleration
      are strong and numerous: c. 2, v. 257, c. 16, 129, c. 17, 54, c.
      45, 15, c. 50, 39, c. 88, 21, &c., with the notes of Maracci and
      Sale. This character alone may generally decide the doubts of the
      learned, whether a chapter was revealed at Mecca or Medina.]

      115 (return) [ See the Koran, (passim, and especially c. 7, p.
      123, 124, &c.,) and the tradition of the Arabs, (Pocock,
      Specimen, p. 35-37.) The caverns of the tribe of Thamud, fit for
      men of the ordinary stature, were shown in the midway between
      Medina and Damascus. (Abulfed Arabiae Descript. p. 43, 44,) and
      may be probably ascribed to the Throglodytes of the primitive
      world, (Michaelis, ad Lowth de Poesi Hebraeor. p. 131-134.
      Recherches sur les Egyptiens, tom. ii. p. 48, &c.)]




      Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part V.

      The people of Mecca were hardened in their unbelief by
      superstition and envy. The elders of the city, the uncles of the
      prophet, affected to despise the presumption of an orphan, the
      reformer of his country: the pious orations of Mahomet in the
      Caaba were answered by the clamors of Abu Taleb. “Citizens and
      pilgrims, listen not to the tempter, hearken not to his impious
      novelties. Stand fast in the worship of Al Lata and Al Uzzah.”
      Yet the son of Abdallah was ever dear to the aged chief: and he
      protected the fame and person of his nephew against the assaults
      of the Koreishites, who had long been jealous of the preeminence
      of the family of Hashem. Their malice was colored with the
      pretence of religion: in the age of Job, the crime of impiety was
      punished by the Arabian magistrate; 116 and Mahomet was guilty of
      deserting and denying the national deities. But so loose was the
      policy of Mecca, that the leaders of the Koreish, instead of
      accusing a criminal, were compelled to employ the measures of
      persuasion or violence. They repeatedly addressed Abu Taleb in
      the style of reproach and menace. “Thy nephew reviles our
      religion; he accuses our wise forefathers of ignorance and folly;
      silence him quickly, lest he kindle tumult and discord in the
      city. If he persevere, we shall draw our swords against him and
      his adherents, and thou wilt be responsible for the blood of thy
      fellow-citizens.” The weight and moderation of Abu Taleb eluded
      the violence of religious faction; the most helpless or timid of
      the disciples retired to Aethiopia, and the prophet withdrew
      himself to various places of strength in the town and country. As
      he was still supported by his family, the rest of the tribe of
      Koreish engaged themselves to renounce all intercourse with the
      children of Hashem, neither to buy nor sell, neither to marry not
      to give in marriage, but to pursue them with implacable enmity,
      till they should deliver the person of Mahomet to the justice of
      the gods. The decree was suspended in the Caaba before the eyes
      of the nation; the messengers of the Koreish pursued the
      Mussulman exiles in the heart of Africa: they besieged the
      prophet and his most faithful followers, intercepted their water,
      and inflamed their mutual animosity by the retaliation of
      injuries and insults. A doubtful truce restored the appearances
      of concord till the death of Abu Taleb abandoned Mahomet to the
      power of his enemies, at the moment when he was deprived of his
      domestic comforts by the loss of his faithful and generous
      Cadijah. Abu Sophian, the chief of the branch of Ommiyah,
      succeeded to the principality of the republic of Mecca. A zealous
      votary of the idols, a mortal foe of the line of Hashem, he
      convened an assembly of the Koreishites and their allies, to
      decide the fate of the apostle. His imprisonment might provoke
      the despair of his enthusiasm; and the exile of an eloquent and
      popular fanatic would diffuse the mischief through the provinces
      of Arabia. His death was resolved; and they agreed that a sword
      from each tribe should be buried in his heart, to divide the
      guilt of his blood, and baffle the vengeance of the Hashemites.
      An angel or a spy revealed their conspiracy; and flight was the
      only resource of Mahomet. 117 At the dead of night, accompanied
      by his friend Abubeker, he silently escaped from his house: the
      assassins watched at the door; but they were deceived by the
      figure of Ali, who reposed on the bed, and was covered with the
      green vestment of the apostle. The Koreish respected the piety of
      the heroic youth; but some verses of Ali, which are still extant,
      exhibit an interesting picture of his anxiety, his tenderness,
      and his religious confidence. Three days Mahomet and his
      companion were concealed in the cave of Thor, at the distance of
      a league from Mecca; and in the close of each evening, they
      received from the son and daughter of Abubeker a secret supply of
      intelligence and food. The diligence of the Koreish explored
      every haunt in the neighborhood of the city: they arrived at the
      entrance of the cavern; but the providential deceit of a spider’s
      web and a pigeon’s nest is supposed to convince them that the
      place was solitary and inviolate. “We are only two,” said the
      trembling Abubeker. “There is a third,” replied the prophet; “it
      is God himself.” No sooner was the pursuit abated than the two
      fugitives issued from the rock, and mounted their camels: on the
      road to Medina, they were overtaken by the emissaries of the
      Koreish; they redeemed themselves with prayers and promises from
      their hands. In this eventful moment, the lance of an Arab might
      have changed the history of the world. The flight of the prophet
      from Mecca to Medina has fixed the memorable aera of the Hegira,
      118 which, at the end of twelve centuries, still discriminates
      the lunar years of the Mahometan nations. 119

      116 (return) [ In the time of Job, the crime of impiety was
      punished by the Arabian magistrate, (c. 21, v. 26, 27, 28.) I
      blush for a respectable prelate (de Poesi Hebraeorum, p. 650,
      651, edit. Michaelis; and letter of a late professor in the
      university of Oxford, p. 15-53,) who justifies and applauds this
      patriarchal inquisition.]

      117 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 445. He quotes a
      particular history of the flight of Mahomet.]

      118 (return) [ The Hegira was instituted by Omar, the second
      caliph, in imitation of the aera of the martyrs of the
      Christians, (D’Herbelot, p. 444;) and properly commenced
      sixty-eight days before the flight of Mahomet, with the first of
      Moharren, or first day of that Arabian year which coincides with
      Friday, July 16th, A.D. 622, (Abulfeda, Vit Moham, c. 22, 23, p.
      45-50; and Greaves’s edition of Ullug Beg’s Epochae Arabum, &c.,
      c. 1, p. 8, 10, &c.) * Note: Chronologists dispute between the
      15th and 16th of July. St. Martin inclines to the 8th, ch. xi. p.
      70.—M.]

      119 (return) [ Mahomet’s life, from his mission to the Hegira,
      may be found in Abulfeda (p. 14-45) and Gagnier, (tom. i. p.
      134-251, 342-383.) The legend from p. 187-234 is vouched by Al
      Jannabi, and disdained by Abulfeda.]

      The religion of the Koran might have perished in its cradle, had
      not Medina embraced with faith and reverence the holy outcasts of
      Mecca. Medina, or the city, known under the name of Yathreb,
      before it was sanctified by the throne of the prophet, was
      divided between the tribes of the Charegites and the Awsites,
      whose hereditary feud was rekindled by the slightest
      provocations: two colonies of Jews, who boasted a sacerdotal
      race, were their humble allies, and without converting the Arabs,
      they introduced the taste of science and religion, which
      distinguished Medina as the city of the Book. Some of her noblest
      citizens, in a pilgrimage to the Canaba, were converted by the
      preaching of Mahomet; on their return, they diffused the belief
      of God and his prophet, and the new alliance was ratified by
      their deputies in two secret and nocturnal interviews on a hill
      in the suburbs of Mecca. In the first, ten Charegites and two
      Awsites united in faith and love, protested, in the name of their
      wives, their children, and their absent brethren, that they would
      forever profess the creed, and observe the precepts, of the
      Koran. The second was a political association, the first vital
      spark of the empire of the Saracens. 120 Seventy-three men and
      two women of Medina held a solemn conference with Mahomet, his
      kinsman, and his disciples; and pledged themselves to each other
      by a mutual oath of fidelity. They promised, in the name of the
      city, that if he should be banished, they would receive him as a
      confederate, obey him as a leader, and defend him to the last
      extremity, like their wives and children. “But if you are
      recalled by your country,” they asked with a flattering anxiety,
      “will you not abandon your new allies?” “All things,” replied
      Mahomet with a smile, “are now common between us; your blood is
      as my blood, your ruin as my ruin. We are bound to each other by
      the ties of honor and interest. I am your friend, and the enemy
      of your foes.” “But if we are killed in your service, what,”
      exclaimed the deputies of Medina, “will be our reward?”
      “Paradise,” replied the prophet. “Stretch forth thy hand.” He
      stretched it forth, and they reiterated the oath of allegiance
      and fidelity. Their treaty was ratified by the people, who
      unanimously embraced the profession of Islam; they rejoiced in
      the exile of the apostle, but they trembled for his safety, and
      impatiently expected his arrival. After a perilous and rapid
      journey along the sea-coast, he halted at Koba, two miles from
      the city, and made his public entry into Medina, sixteen days
      after his flight from Mecca. Five hundred of the citizens
      advanced to meet him; he was hailed with acclamations of loyalty
      and devotion; Mahomet was mounted on a she-camel, an umbrella
      shaded his head, and a turban was unfurled before him to supply
      the deficiency of a standard. His bravest disciples, who had been
      scattered by the storm, assembled round his person; and the
      equal, though various, merit of the Moslems was distinguished by
      the names of Mohagerians and Ansars, the fugitives of Mecca, and
      the auxiliaries of Medina. To eradicate the seeds of jealousy,
      Mahomet judiciously coupled his principal followers with the
      rights and obligations of brethren; and when Ali found himself
      without a peer, the prophet tenderly declared, that he would be
      the companion and brother of the noble youth. The expedient was
      crowned with success; the holy fraternity was respected in peace
      and war, and the two parties vied with each other in a generous
      emulation of courage and fidelity. Once only the concord was
      slightly ruffled by an accidental quarrel: a patriot of Medina
      arraigned the insolence of the strangers, but the hint of their
      expulsion was heard with abhorrence; and his own son most eagerly
      offered to lay at the apostle’s feet the head of his father.

      120 (return) [ The triple inauguration of Mahomet is described by
      Abulfeda (p. 30, 33, 40, 86) and Gagnier, (tom. i. p. 342, &c.,
      349, &c., tom. ii. p. 223 &c.)]

      From his establishment at Medina, Mahomet assumed the exercise of
      the regal and sacerdotal office; and it was impious to appeal
      from a judge whose decrees were inspired by the divine wisdom. A
      small portion of ground, the patrimony of two orphans, was
      acquired by gift or purchase; 121 on that chosen spot he built a
      house and a mosch, more venerable in their rude simplicity than
      the palaces and temples of the Assyrian caliphs. His seal of
      gold, or silver, was inscribed with the apostolic title; when he
      prayed and preached in the weekly assembly, he leaned against the
      trunk of a palm-tree; and it was long before he indulged himself
      in the use of a chair or pulpit of rough timber. 122 After a
      reign of six years, fifteen hundred Moslems, in arms and in the
      field, renewed their oath of allegiance; and their chief repeated
      the assurance of protection till the death of the last member, or
      the final dissolution of the party. It was in the same camp that
      the deputy of Mecca was astonished by the attention of the
      faithful to the words and looks of the prophet, by the eagerness
      with which they collected his spittle, a hair that dropped on the
      ground, the refuse water of his lustrations, as if they
      participated in some degree of the prophetic virtue. “I have
      seen,” said he, “the Chosroes of Persia and the Caesar of Rome,
      but never did I behold a king among his subjects like Mahomet
      among his companions.” The devout fervor of enthusiasm acts with
      more energy and truth than the cold and formal servility of
      courts.

      121 (return) [ Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 44) reviles the
      wickedness of the impostor, who despoiled two poor orphans, the
      sons of a carpenter; a reproach which he drew from the Disputatio
      contra Saracenos, composed in Arabic before the year 1130; but
      the honest Gagnier (ad Abulfed. p. 53) has shown that they were
      deceived by the word Al Nagjar, which signifies, in this place,
      not an obscure trade, but a noble tribe of Arabs. The desolate
      state of the ground is described by Abulfeda; and his worthy
      interpreter has proved, from Al Bochari, the offer of a price;
      from Al Jannabi, the fair purchase; and from Ahmeq Ben Joseph,
      the payment of the money by the generous Abubeker On these
      grounds the prophet must be honorably acquitted.]

      122 (return) [ Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 246, 324)
      describes the seal and pulpit, as two venerable relics of the
      apostle of God; and the portrait of his court is taken from
      Abulfeda, (c. 44, p. 85.)]

      In the state of nature, every man has a right to defend, by force
      of arms, his person and his possessions; to repel, or even to
      prevent, the violence of his enemies, and to extend his
      hostilities to a reasonable measure of satisfaction and
      retaliation. In the free society of the Arabs, the duties of
      subject and citizen imposed a feeble restraint; and Mahomet, in
      the exercise of a peaceful and benevolent mission, had been
      despoiled and banished by the injustice of his countrymen. The
      choice of an independent people had exalted the fugitive of Mecca
      to the rank of a sovereign; and he was invested with the just
      prerogative of forming alliances, and of waging offensive or
      defensive war. The imperfection of human rights was supplied and
      armed by the plenitude of divine power: the prophet of Medina
      assumed, in his new revelations, a fiercer and more sanguinary
      tone, which proves that his former moderation was the effect of
      weakness: 123 the means of persuasion had been tried, the season
      of forbearance was elapsed, and he was now commanded to propagate
      his religion by the sword, to destroy the monuments of idolatry,
      and, without regarding the sanctity of days or months, to pursue
      the unbelieving nations of the earth. The same bloody precepts,
      so repeatedly inculcated in the Koran, are ascribed by the author
      to the Pentateuch and the Gospel. But the mild tenor of the
      evangelic style may explain an ambiguous text, that Jesus did not
      bring peace on the earth, but a sword: his patient and humble
      virtues should not be confounded with the intolerant zeal of
      princes and bishops, who have disgraced the name of his
      disciples. In the prosecution of religious war, Mahomet might
      appeal with more propriety to the example of Moses, of the
      Judges, and the kings of Israel. The military laws of the Hebrews
      are still more rigid than those of the Arabian legislator. 124
      The Lord of hosts marched in person before the Jews: if a city
      resisted their summons, the males, without distinction, were put
      to the sword: the seven nations of Canaan were devoted to
      destruction; and neither repentance nor conversion, could shield
      them from the inevitable doom, that no creature within their
      precincts should be left alive. 1241 The fair option of
      friendship, or submission, or battle, was proposed to the enemies
      of Mahomet. If they professed the creed of Islam, they were
      admitted to all the temporal and spiritual benefits of his
      primitive disciples, and marched under the same banner to extend
      the religion which they had embraced. The clemency of the prophet
      was decided by his interest: yet he seldom trampled on a
      prostrate enemy; and he seems to promise, that on the payment of
      a tribute, the least guilty of his unbelieving subjects might be
      indulged in their worship, or at least in their imperfect faith.
      In the first months of his reign he practised the lessons of holy
      warfare, and displayed his white banner before the gates of
      Medina: the martial apostle fought in person at nine battles or
      sieges; 125 and fifty enterprises of war were achieved in ten
      years by himself or his lieutenants. The Arab continued to unite
      the professions of a merchant and a robber; and his petty
      excursions for the defence or the attack of a caravan insensibly
      prepared his troops for the conquest of Arabia. The distribution
      of the spoil was regulated by a divine law: 126 the whole was
      faithfully collected in one common mass: a fifth of the gold and
      silver, the prisoners and cattle, the movables and immovables,
      was reserved by the prophet for pious and charitable uses; the
      remainder was shared in adequate portions by the soldiers who had
      obtained the victory or guarded the camp: the rewards of the
      slain devolved to their widows and orphans; and the increase of
      cavalry was encouraged by the allotment of a double share to the
      horse and to the man. From all sides the roving Arabs were
      allured to the standard of religion and plunder: the apostle
      sanctified the license of embracing the female captives as their
      wives or concubines, and the enjoyment of wealth and beauty was a
      feeble type of the joys of paradise prepared for the valiant
      martyrs of the faith. “The sword,” says Mahomet, “is the key of
      heaven and of hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a
      night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting
      or prayer: whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven: at
      the day of judgment his wounds shall be resplendent as vermilion,
      and odoriferous as musk; and the loss of his limbs shall be
      supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim.” The intrepid souls
      of the Arabs were fired with enthusiasm: the picture of the
      invisible world was strongly painted on their imagination; and
      the death which they had always despised became an object of hope
      and desire. The Koran inculcates, in the most absolute sense, the
      tenets of fate and predestination, which would extinguish both
      industry and virtue, if the actions of man were governed by his
      speculative belief. Yet their influence in every age has exalted
      the courage of the Saracens and Turks. The first companions of
      Mahomet advanced to battle with a fearless confidence: there is
      no danger where there is no chance: they were ordained to perish
      in their beds; or they were safe and invulnerable amidst the
      darts of the enemy. 127

      123 (return) [ The viiith and ixth chapters of the Koran are the
      loudest and most vehement; and Maracci (Prodromus, part iv. p.
      59-64) has inveighed with more justice than discretion against
      the double dealing of the impostor.]

      124 (return) [ The xth and xxth chapters of Deuteronomy, with the
      practical comments of Joshua, David, &c., are read with more awe
      than satisfaction by the pious Christians of the present age. But
      the bishops, as well as the rabbis of former times, have beat the
      drum-ecclesiastic with pleasure and success. (Sale’s Preliminary
      Discourse, p. 142, 143.)]

      1241 (return) [ The editor’s opinions on this subject may be read
      in the History of the Jews vol. i. p. 137.—M]

      125 (return) [ Abulfeda, in Vit. Moham. p. 156. The private
      arsenal of the apostle consisted of nine swords, three lances,
      seven pikes or half-pikes, a quiver and three bows, seven
      cuirasses, three shields, and two helmets, (Gagnier, tom. iii. p.
      328-334,) with a large white standard, a black banner, (p. 335,)
      twenty horses, (p. 322, &c.) Two of his martial sayings are
      recorded by tradition, (Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 88, 334.)]

      126 (return) [ The whole subject de jure belli Mohammedanorum is
      exhausted in a separate dissertation by the learned Reland,
      (Dissertationes Miscellaneae, tom. iii. Dissertat. x. p. 3-53.)]

      127 (return) [ The doctrine of absolute predestination, on which
      few religions can reproach each other, is sternly exposed in the
      Koran, (c. 3, p. 52, 53, c. 4, p. 70, &c., with the notes of
      Sale, and c. 17, p. 413, with those of Maracci.) Reland (de
      Relig. Moham. p. 61-64) and Sale (Prelim. Discourse, p. 103)
      represent the opinions of the doctors, and our modern travellers
      the confidence, the fading confidence, of the Turks]

      Perhaps the Koreish would have been content with the dight of
      Mahomet, had they not been provoked and alarmed by the vengeance
      of an enemy, who could intercept their Syrian trade as it passed
      and repassed through the territory of Medina. Abu Sophian
      himself, with only thirty or forty followers, conducted a wealthy
      caravan of a thousand camels; the fortune or dexterity of his
      march escaped the vigilance of Mahomet; but the chief of the
      Koreish was informed that the holy robbers were placed in ambush
      to await his return. He despatched a messenger to his brethren of
      Mecca, and they were roused, by the fear of losing their
      merchandise and their provisions, unless they hastened to his
      relief with the military force of the city. The sacred band of
      Mahomet was formed of three hundred and thirteen Moslems, of whom
      seventy-seven were fugitives, and the rest auxiliaries; they
      mounted by turns a train of seventy camels, (the camels of
      Yathreb were formidable in war;) but such was the poverty of his
      first disciples, that only two could appear on horseback in the
      field. 128 In the fertile and famous vale of Beder, 129 three
      stations from Medina, he was informed by his scouts of the
      caravan that approached on one side; of the Koreish, one hundred
      horse, eight hundred and fifty foot, who advanced on the other.
      After a short debate, he sacrificed the prospect of wealth to the
      pursuit of glory and revenge, and a slight intrenchment was
      formed, to cover his troops, and a stream of fresh water, that
      glided through the valley. “O God,” he exclaimed, as the numbers
      of the Koreish descended from the hills, “O God, if these are
      destroyed, by whom wilt thou be worshipped on the earth?—Courage,
      my children; close your ranks; discharge your arrows, and the day
      is your own.” At these words he placed himself, with Abubeker, on
      a throne or pulpit, 130 and instantly demanded the succor of
      Gabriel and three thousand angels. His eye was fixed on the field
      of battle: the Mussulmans fainted and were pressed: in that
      decisive moment the prophet started from his throne, mounted his
      horse, and cast a handful of sand into the air: “Let their faces
      be covered with confusion.” Both armies heard the thunder of his
      voice: their fancy beheld the angelic warriors: 131 the Koreish
      trembled and fled: seventy of the bravest were slain; and seventy
      captives adorned the first victory of the faithful. The dead
      bodies of the Koreish were despoiled and insulted: two of the
      most obnoxious prisoners were punished with death; and the ransom
      of the others, four thousand drams of silver, compensated in some
      degree the escape of the caravan. But it was in vain that the
      camels of Abu Sophian explored a new road through the desert and
      along the Euphrates: they were overtaken by the diligence of the
      Mussulmans; and wealthy must have been the prize, if twenty
      thousand drams could be set apart for the fifth of the apostle.
      The resentment of the public and private loss stimulated Abu
      Sophian to collect a body of three thousand men, seven hundred of
      whom were armed with cuirasses, and two hundred were mounted on
      horseback; three thousand camels attended his march; and his wife
      Henda, with fifteen matrons of Mecca, incessantly sounded their
      timbrels to animate the troops, and to magnify the greatness of
      Hobal, the most popular deity of the Caaba. The standard of God
      and Mahomet was upheld by nine hundred and fifty believers: the
      disproportion of numbers was not more alarming than in the field
      of Beder; and their presumption of victory prevailed against the
      divine and human sense of the apostle. The second battle was
      fought on Mount Ohud, six miles to the north of Medina; 132 the
      Koreish advanced in the form of a crescent; and the right wing of
      cavalry was led by Caled, the fiercest and most successful of the
      Arabian warriors. The troops of Mahomet were skilfully posted on
      the declivity of the hill; and their rear was guarded by a
      detachment of fifty archers. The weight of their charge impelled
      and broke the centre of the idolaters: but in the pursuit they
      lost the advantage of their ground: the archers deserted their
      station: the Mussulmans were tempted by the spoil, disobeyed
      their general, and disordered their ranks. The intrepid Caled,
      wheeling his cavalry on their flank and rear, exclaimed, with a
      loud voice, that Mahomet was slain. He was indeed wounded in the
      face with a javelin: two of his teeth were shattered with a
      stone; yet, in the midst of tumult and dismay, he reproached the
      infidels with the murder of a prophet; and blessed the friendly
      hand that stanched his blood, and conveyed him to a place of
      safety. Seventy martyrs died for the sins of the people; they
      fell, said the apostle, in pairs, each brother embracing his
      lifeless companion; 133 their bodies were mangled by the inhuman
      females of Mecca; and the wife of Abu Sophian tasted the entrails
      of Hamza, the uncle of Mahomet. They might applaud their
      superstition, and satiate their fury; but the Mussulmans soon
      rallied in the field, and the Koreish wanted strength or courage
      to undertake the siege of Medina. It was attacked the ensuing
      year by an army of ten thousand enemies; and this third
      expedition is variously named from the nations, which marched
      under the banner of Abu Sophian, from the ditch which was drawn
      before the city, and a camp of three thousand Mussulmans. The
      prudence of Mahomet declined a general engagement: the valor of
      Ali was signalized in single combat; and the war was protracted
      twenty days, till the final separation of the confederates. A
      tempest of wind, rain, and hail, overturned their tents: their
      private quarrels were fomented by an insidious adversary; and the
      Koreish, deserted by their allies, no longer hoped to subvert the
      throne, or to check the conquests, of their invincible exile. 134

      128 (return) [ Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 9) allows
      him seventy or eighty horse; and on two other occasions, prior to
      the battle of Ohud, he enlists a body of thirty (p. 10) and of
      500 (p. 66) troopers. Yet the Mussulmans, in the field of Ohud,
      had no more than two horses, according to the better sense of
      Abulfeda, (in Vit. Moham. c. xxxi. p. 65.) In the Stony province,
      the camels were numerous; but the horse appears to have been less
      numerous than in the Happy or the Desert Arabia.]

      129 (return) [ Bedder Houneene, twenty miles from Medina, and
      forty from Mecca, is on the high road of the caravan of Egypt;
      and the pilgrims annually commemorate the prophet’s victory by
      illuminations, rockets, &c. Shaw’s Travels, p. 477.]

      130 (return) [ The place to which Mahomet retired during the
      action is styled by Gagnier (in Abulfeda, c. 27, p. 58. Vie de
      Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 30, 33) Umbraculum, une loge de bois avec
      une porte. The same Arabic word is rendered by Reiske (Annales
      Moslemici Abulfedae, p. 23) by Solium, Suggestus editior; and the
      difference is of the utmost moment for the honor both of the
      interpreter and of the hero. I am sorry to observe the pride and
      acrimony with which Reiske chastises his fellow-laborer. Saepi
      sic vertit, ut integrae paginae nequeant nisi una litura corrigi
      Arabice non satis callebat, et carebat judicio critico. J. J.
      Reiske, Prodidagmata ad Hagji Chalisae Tabulas, p. 228, ad
      calcero Abulfedae Syriae Tabulae; Lipsiae, 1766, in 4to.]

      131 (return) [ The loose expressions of the Koran (c. 3, p. 124,
      125, c. 8, p. 9) allow the commentators to fluctuate between the
      numbers of 1000, 3000, or 9000 angels; and the smallest of these
      might suffice for the slaughter of seventy of the Koreish,
      (Maracci, Alcoran, tom. ii. p. 131.) Yet the same scholiasts
      confess that this angelic band was not visible to any mortal eye,
      (Maracci, p. 297.) They refine on the words (c. 8, 16) “not thou,
      but God,” &c. (D’Herbelot. Bibliot. Orientale p. 600, 601.)]

      132 (return) [ Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 47.]

      133 (return) [ In the iiid chapter of the Koran, (p. 50-53) with
      Sale’s notes, the prophet alleges some poor excuses for the
      defeat of Ohud. * Note: Dr. Weil has added some curious
      circumstances, which he gives as on good traditional authority,
      on the rescue of Mahomet. The prophet was attacked by Ubeijj Ibn
      Challaf, whom he struck on the neck with a mortal wound. This was
      the only time, it is added, that Mahomet personally engaged in
      battle. (p. 128.)—M. 1845.]

      134 (return) [ For the detail of the three Koreish wars, of
      Beder, of Ohud, and of the ditch, peruse Abulfeda, (p. 56-61,
      64-69, 73-77,) Gagnier (tom. i. p. 23-45, 70-96, 120-139,) with
      the proper articles of D’Herbelot, and the abridgments of Elmacin
      (Hist. Saracen. p. 6, 7) and Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 102.)]




      Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VI.

      The choice of Jerusalem for the first kebla of prayer discovers
      the early propensity of Mahomet in favor of the Jews; and happy
      would it have been for their temporal interest, had they
      recognized, in the Arabian prophet, the hope of Israel and the
      promised Messiah. Their obstinacy converted his friendship into
      implacable hatred, with which he pursued that unfortunate people
      to the last moment of his life; and in the double character of an
      apostle and a conqueror, his persecution was extended to both
      worlds. 135 The Kainoka dwelt at Medina under the protection of
      the city; he seized the occasion of an accidental tumult, and
      summoned them to embrace his religion, or contend with him in
      battle. “Alas!” replied the trembling Jews, “we are ignorant of
      the use of arms, but we persevere in the faith and worship of our
      fathers; why wilt thou reduce us to the necessity of a just
      defence?” The unequal conflict was terminated in fifteen days;
      and it was with extreme reluctance that Mahomet yielded to the
      importunity of his allies, and consented to spare the lives of
      the captives. But their riches were confiscated, their arms
      became more effectual in the hands of the Mussulmans; and a
      wretched colony of seven hundred exiles was driven, with their
      wives and children, to implore a refuge on the confines of Syria.
      The Nadhirites were more guilty, since they conspired, in a
      friendly interview, to assassinate the prophet. He besieged their
      castle, three miles from Medina; but their resolute defence
      obtained an honorable capitulation; and the garrison, sounding
      their trumpets and beating their drums, was permitted to depart
      with the honors of war. The Jews had excited and joined the war
      of the Koreish: no sooner had the nations retired from the ditch,
      than Mahomet, without laying aside his armor, marched on the same
      day to extirpate the hostile race of the children of Koraidha.
      After a resistance of twenty-five days, they surrendered at
      discretion. They trusted to the intercession of their old allies
      of Medina; they could not be ignorant that fanaticism obliterates
      the feelings of humanity. A venerable elder, to whose judgment
      they appealed, pronounced the sentence of their death; seven
      hundred Jews were dragged in chains to the market-place of the
      city; they descended alive into the grave prepared for their
      execution and burial; and the apostle beheld with an inflexible
      eye the slaughter of his helpless enemies. Their sheep and camels
      were inherited by the Mussulmans: three hundred cuirasses, five
      hundred pikes, a thousand lances, composed the most useful
      portion of the spoil. Six days’ journey to the north-east of
      Medina, the ancient and wealthy town of Chaibar was the seat of
      the Jewish power in Arabia: the territory, a fertile spot in the
      desert, was covered with plantations and cattle, and protected by
      eight castles, some of which were esteemed of impregnable
      strength. The forces of Mahomet consisted of two hundred horse
      and fourteen hundred foot: in the succession of eight regular and
      painful sieges they were exposed to danger, and fatigue, and
      hunger; and the most undaunted chiefs despaired of the event. The
      apostle revived their faith and courage by the example of Ali, on
      whom he bestowed the surname of the Lion of God: perhaps we may
      believe that a Hebrew champion of gigantic stature was cloven to
      the chest by his irresistible cimeter; but we cannot praise the
      modesty of romance, which represents him as tearing from its
      hinges the gate of a fortress and wielding the ponderous buckler
      in his left hand. 136 After the reduction of the castles, the
      town of Chaibar submitted to the yoke. The chief of the tribe was
      tortured, in the presence of Mahomet, to force a confession of
      his hidden treasure: the industry of the shepherds and husbandmen
      was rewarded with a precarious toleration: they were permitted,
      so long as it should please the conqueror, to improve their
      patrimony, in equal shares, for his emolument and their own.
      Under the reign of Omar, the Jews of Chaibar were transported to
      Syria; and the caliph alleged the injunction of his dying master;
      that one and the true religion should be professed in his native
      land of Arabia. 137

      135 (return) [ The wars of Mahomet against the Jewish tribes of
      Kainoka, the Nadhirites, Koraidha, and Chaibar, are related by
      Abulfeda (p. 61, 71, 77, 87, &c.) and Gagnier, (tom. ii. p.
      61-65, 107-112, 139-148, 268-294.)]

      136 (return) [ Abu Rafe, the servant of Mahomet, is said to
      affirm that he himself, and seven other men, afterwards tried,
      without success, to move the same gate from the ground,
      (Abulfeda, p. 90.) Abu Rafe was an eye-witness, but who will be
      witness for Abu Rafe?]

      137 (return) [ The banishment of the Jews is attested by Elmacin
      (Hist. Saracen, p. 9) and the great Al Zabari, (Gagnier, tom. ii.
      p. 285.) Yet Niebuhr (Description de l’Arabie, p. 324) believes
      that the Jewish religion, and Karaite sect, are still professed
      by the tribe of Chaibar; and that, in the plunder of the
      caravans, the disciples of Moses are the confederates of those of
      Mahomet.]

      Five times each day the eyes of Mahomet were turned towards
      Mecca, 138 and he was urged by the most sacred and powerful
      motives to revisit, as a conqueror, the city and the temple from
      whence he had been driven as an exile. The Caaba was present to
      his waking and sleeping fancy: an idle dream was translated into
      vision and prophecy; he unfurled the holy banner; and a rash
      promise of success too hastily dropped from the lips of the
      apostle. His march from Medina to Mecca displayed the peaceful
      and solemn pomp of a pilgrimage: seventy camels, chosen and
      bedecked for sacrifice, preceded the van; the sacred territory
      was respected; and the captives were dismissed without ransom to
      proclaim his clemency and devotion. But no sooner did Mahomet
      descend into the plain, within a day’s journey of the city, than
      he exclaimed, “They have clothed themselves with the skins of
      tigers:” the numbers and resolution of the Koreish opposed his
      progress; and the roving Arabs of the desert might desert or
      betray a leader whom they had followed for the hopes of spoil.
      The intrepid fanatic sunk into a cool and cautious politician: he
      waived in the treaty his title of apostle of God; concluded with
      the Koreish and their allies a truce of ten years; engaged to
      restore the fugitives of Mecca who should embrace his religion;
      and stipulated only, for the ensuing year, the humble privilege
      of entering the city as a friend, and of remaining three days to
      accomplish the rites of the pilgrimage. A cloud of shame and
      sorrow hung on the retreat of the Mussulmans, and their
      disappointment might justly accuse the failure of a prophet who
      had so often appealed to the evidence of success. The faith and
      hope of the pilgrims were rekindled by the prospect of Mecca:
      their swords were sheathed; 1381 seven times in the footsteps of
      the apostle they encompassed the Caaba: the Koreish had retired
      to the hills, and Mahomet, after the customary sacrifice,
      evacuated the city on the fourth day. The people was edified by
      his devotion; the hostile chiefs were awed, or divided, or
      seduced; and both Kaled and Amrou, the future conquerors of Syria
      and Egypt, most seasonably deserted the sinking cause of
      idolatry. The power of Mahomet was increased by the submission of
      the Arabian tribes; ten thousand soldiers were assembled for the
      conquest of Mecca; and the idolaters, the weaker party, were
      easily convicted of violating the truce. Enthusiasm and
      discipline impelled the march, and preserved the secret till the
      blaze of ten thousand fires proclaimed to the astonished Koreish
      the design, the approach, and the irresistible force of the
      enemy. The haughty Abu Sophian presented the keys of the city,
      admired the variety of arms and ensigns that passed before him in
      review; observed that the son of Abdallah had acquired a mighty
      kingdom, and confessed, under the cimeter of Omar, that he was
      the apostle of the true God. The return of Marius and Scylla was
      stained with the blood of the Romans: the revenge of Mahomet was
      stimulated by religious zeal, and his injured followers were
      eager to execute or to prevent the order of a massacre. Instead
      of indulging their passions and his own, 139 the victorious exile
      forgave the guilt, and united the factions, of Mecca. His troops,
      in three divisions, marched into the city: eight-and-twenty of
      the inhabitants were slain by the sword of Caled; eleven men and
      six women were proscribed by the sentence of Mahomet; but he
      blamed the cruelty of his lieutenant; and several of the most
      obnoxious victims were indebted for their lives to his clemency
      or contempt. The chiefs of the Koreish were prostrate at his
      feet. “What mercy can you expect from the man whom you have
      wronged?” “We confide in the generosity of our kinsman.” “And you
      shall not confide in vain: begone! you are safe, you are free”
      The people of Mecca deserved their pardon by the profession of
      Islam; and after an exile of seven years, the fugitive missionary
      was enthroned as the prince and prophet of his native country.
      140 But the three hundred and sixty idols of the Caaba were
      ignominiously broken: the house of God was purified and adorned:
      as an example to future times, the apostle again fulfilled the
      duties of a pilgrim; and a perpetual law was enacted that no
      unbeliever should dare to set his foot on the territory of the
      holy city. 141

      138 (return) [ The successive steps of the reduction of Mecca are
      related by Abulfeda (p. 84-87, 97-100, 102-111) and Gagnier,
      (tom. ii. p. 202-245, 309-322, tom. iii. p. 1-58,) Elmacin,
      (Hist. Saracen. p. 8, 9, 10,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 103.)]

      1381 (return) [ This peaceful entrance into Mecca took place,
      according to the treaty the following year. Weil, p. 202—M.
      1845.]

      139 (return) [ After the conquest of Mecca, the Mahomet of
      Voltaire imagines and perpetuates the most horrid crimes. The
      poet confesses, that he is not supported by the truth of history,
      and can only allege, que celui qui fait la guerre a sa patrie au
      nom de Dieu, est capable de tout, (Oeuvres de Voltaire, tom. xv.
      p. 282.) The maxim is neither charitable nor philosophic; and
      some reverence is surely due to the fame of heroes and the
      religion of nations. I am informed that a Turkish ambassador at
      Paris was much scandalized at the representation of this
      tragedy.]

      140 (return) [ The Mahometan doctors still dispute, whether Mecca
      was reduced by force or consent, (Abulfeda, p. 107, et Gagnier ad
      locum;) and this verbal controversy is of as much moment as our
      own about William the Conqueror.]

      141 (return) [ In excluding the Christians from the peninsula of
      Arabia, the province of Hejaz, or the navigation of the Red Sea,
      Chardin (Voyages en Perse, tom. iv. p. 166) and Reland
      (Dissertat. Miscell. tom. iii. p. 61) are more rigid than the
      Mussulmans themselves. The Christians are received without
      scruple into the ports of Mocha, and even of Gedda; and it is
      only the city and precincts of Mecca that are inaccessible to the
      profane, (Niebuhr, Description de l’Arabie, p. 308, 309, Voyage
      en Arabie, tom. i. p. 205, 248, &c.)]

      The conquest of Mecca determined the faith and obedience of the
      Arabian tribes; 142 who, according to the vicissitudes of
      fortune, had obeyed, or disregarded, the eloquence or the arms of
      the prophet. Indifference for rites and opinions still marks the
      character of the Bedoweens; and they might accept, as loosely as
      they hold, the doctrine of the Koran. Yet an obstinate remnant
      still adhered to the religion and liberty of their ancestors, and
      the war of Honain derived a proper appellation from the idols,
      whom Mahomet had vowed to destroy, and whom the confederates of
      Tayef had sworn to defend. 143 Four thousand Pagans advanced with
      secrecy and speed to surprise the conqueror: they pitied and
      despised the supine negligence of the Koreish, but they depended
      on the wishes, and perhaps the aid, of a people who had so lately
      renounced their gods, and bowed beneath the yoke of their enemy.
      The banners of Medina and Mecca were displayed by the prophet; a
      crowd of Bedoweens increased the strength or numbers of the army,
      and twelve thousand Mussulmans entertained a rash and sinful
      presumption of their invincible strength. They descended without
      precaution into the valley of Honain: the heights had been
      occupied by the archers and slingers of the confederates; their
      numbers were oppressed, their discipline was confounded, their
      courage was appalled, and the Koreish smiled at their impending
      destruction. The prophet, on his white mule, was encompassed by
      the enemies: he attempted to rush against their spears in search
      of a glorious death: ten of his faithful companions interposed
      their weapons and their breasts; three of these fell dead at his
      feet: “O my brethren,” he repeatedly cried, with sorrow and
      indignation, “I am the son of Abdallah, I am the apostle of
      truth! O man, stand fast in the faith! O God, send down thy
      succor!” His uncle Abbas, who, like the heroes of Homer, excelled
      in the loudness of his voice, made the valley resound with the
      recital of the gifts and promises of God: the flying Moslems
      returned from all sides to the holy standard; and Mahomet
      observed with pleasure that the furnace was again rekindled: his
      conduct and example restored the battle, and he animated his
      victorious troops to inflict a merciless revenge on the authors
      of their shame. From the field of Honain, he marched without
      delay to the siege of Tayef, sixty miles to the south-east of
      Mecca, a fortress of strength, whose fertile lands produce the
      fruits of Syria in the midst of the Arabian desert. A friendly
      tribe, instructed (I know not how) in the art of sieges, supplied
      him with a train of battering-rams and military engines, with a
      body of five hundred artificers. But it was in vain that he
      offered freedom to the slaves of Tayef; that he violated his own
      laws by the extirpation of the fruit-trees; that the ground was
      opened by the miners; that the breach was assaulted by the
      troops. After a siege of twenty-days, the prophet sounded a
      retreat; but he retreated with a song of devout triumph, and
      affected to pray for the repentance and safety of the unbelieving
      city. The spoils of this fortunate expedition amounted to six
      thousand captives, twenty-four thousand camels, forty thousand
      sheep, and four thousand ounces of silver: a tribe who had fought
      at Hoinan redeemed their prisoners by the sacrifice of their
      idols; but Mahomet compensated the loss, by resigning to the
      soldiers his fifth of the plunder, and wished, for their sake,
      that he possessed as many head of cattle as there were trees in
      the province of Tehama. Instead of chastising the disaffection of
      the Koreish, he endeavored to cut out their tongues, (his own
      expression,) and to secure their attachment by a superior measure
      of liberality: Abu Sophian alone was presented with three hundred
      camels and twenty ounces of silver; and Mecca was sincerely
      converted to the profitable religion of the Koran.

      142 (return) [ Abulfeda, p. 112-115. Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 67-88.
      D’Herbelot, Mohammed.]

      143 (return) [ The siege of Tayef, division of the spoil, &c.,
      are related by Abulfeda (p. 117-123) and Gagnier, (tom. iii. p.
      88-111.) It is Al Jannabi who mentions the engines and engineers
      of the tribe of Daws. The fertile spot of Tayef was supposed to
      be a piece of the land of Syria detached and dropped in the
      general deluge]

      The fugitives and auxiliaries complained, that they who had borne
      the burden were neglected in the season of victory “Alas!”
      replied their artful leader, “suffer me to conciliate these
      recent enemies, these doubtful proselytes, by the gift of some
      perishable goods. To your guard I intrust my life and fortunes.
      You are the companions of my exile, of my kingdom, of my
      paradise.” He was followed by the deputies of Tayef, who dreaded
      the repetition of a siege. “Grant us, O apostle of God! a truce
      of three years, with the toleration of our ancient worship.” “Not
      a month, not an hour.” “Excuse us at least from the obligation of
      prayer.” “Without prayer religion is of no avail.” They submitted
      in silence: their temples were demolished, and the same sentence
      of destruction was executed on all the idols of Arabia. His
      lieutenants, on the shores of the Red Sea, the Ocean, and the
      Gulf of Persia, were saluted by the acclamations of a faithful
      people; and the ambassadors, who knelt before the throne of
      Medina, were as numerous (says the Arabian proverb) as the dates
      that fall from the maturity of a palm-tree. The nation submitted
      to the God and the sceptre of Mahomet: the opprobrious name of
      tribute was abolished: the spontaneous or reluctant oblations of
      arms and tithes were applied to the service of religion; and one
      hundred and fourteen thousand Moslems accompanied the last
      pilgrimage of the apostle. 144

      144 (return) [ The last conquests and pilgrimage of Mahomet are
      contained in Abulfeda, (p. 121, 133,) Gagnier, (tom. iii. p.
      119-219,) Elmacin, (p. 10, 11,) Abulpharagius, (p. 103.) The ixth
      of the Hegira was styled the Year of Embassies, (Gagnier, Not. ad
      Abulfed. p. 121.)]

      When Heraclius returned in triumph from the Persian war, he
      entertained, at Emesa, one of the ambassadors of Mahomet, who
      invited the princes and nations of the earth to the profession of
      Islam. On this foundation the zeal of the Arabians has supposed
      the secret conversion of the Christian emperor: the vanity of the
      Greeks has feigned a personal visit of the prince of Medina, who
      accepted from the royal bounty a rich domain, and a secure
      retreat, in the province of Syria. 145 But the friendship of
      Heraclius and Mahomet was of short continuance: the new religion
      had inflamed rather than assuaged the rapacious spirit of the
      Saracens, and the murder of an envoy afforded a decent pretence
      for invading, with three thousand soldiers, the territory of
      Palestine, that extends to the eastward of the Jordan. The holy
      banner was intrusted to Zeid; and such was the discipline or
      enthusiasm of the rising sect, that the noblest chiefs served
      without reluctance under the slave of the prophet. On the event
      of his decease, Jaafar and Abdallah were successively substituted
      to the command; and if the three should perish in the war, the
      troops were authorized to elect their general. The three leaders
      were slain in the battle of Muta, 146 the first military action,
      which tried the valor of the Moslems against a foreign enemy.
      Zeid fell, like a soldier, in the foremost ranks: the death of
      Jaafar was heroic and memorable: he lost his right hand: he
      shifted the standard to his left: the left was severed from his
      body: he embraced the standard with his bleeding stumps, till he
      was transfixed to the ground with fifty honorable wounds. 1461
      “Advance,” cried Abdallah, who stepped into the vacant place,
      “advance with confidence: either victory or paradise is our own.”
      The lance of a Roman decided the alternative; but the falling
      standard was rescued by Caled, the proselyte of Mecca: nine
      swords were broken in his hand; and his valor withstood and
      repulsed the superior numbers of the Christians. In the nocturnal
      council of the camp he was chosen to command: his skilful
      evolutions of the ensuing day secured either the victory or the
      retreat of the Saracens; and Caled is renowned among his brethren
      and his enemies by the glorious appellation of the Sword of God.
      In the pulpit, Mahomet described, with prophetic rapture, the
      crowns of the blessed martyrs; but in private he betrayed the
      feelings of human nature: he was surprised as he wept over the
      daughter of Zeid: “What do I see?” said the astonished votary.
      “You see,” replied the apostle, “a friend who is deploring the
      loss of his most faithful friend.” After the conquest of Mecca,
      the sovereign of Arabia affected to prevent the hostile
      preparations of Heraclius; and solemnly proclaimed war against
      the Romans, without attempting to disguise the hardships and
      dangers of the enterprise. 147 The Moslems were discouraged: they
      alleged the want of money, or horses, or provisions; the season
      of harvest, and the intolerable heat of the summer: “Hell is much
      hotter,” said the indignant prophet. He disdained to compel their
      service: but on his return he admonished the most guilty, by an
      excommunication of fifty days. Their desertion enhanced the merit
      of Abubeker, Othman, and the faithful companions who devoted
      their lives and fortunes; and Mahomet displayed his banner at the
      head of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot. Painful
      indeed was the distress of the march: lassitude and thirst were
      aggravated by the scorching and pestilential winds of the desert:
      ten men rode by turns on one camel; and they were reduced to the
      shameful necessity of drinking the water from the belly of that
      useful animal. In the mid-way, ten days’ journey from Medina and
      Damascus, they reposed near the grove and fountain of Tabuc.
      Beyond that place Mahomet declined the prosecution of the war: he
      declared himself satisfied with the peaceful intentions, he was
      more probably daunted by the martial array, of the emperor of the
      East. But the active and intrepid Caled spread around the terror
      of his name; and the prophet received the submission of the
      tribes and cities, from the Euphrates to Ailah, at the head of
      the Red Sea. To his Christian subjects, Mahomet readily granted
      the security of their persons, the freedom of their trade, the
      property of their goods, and the toleration of their worship. 148
      The weakness of their Arabian brethren had restrained them from
      opposing his ambition; the disciples of Jesus were endeared to
      the enemy of the Jews; and it was the interest of a conqueror to
      propose a fair capitulation to the most powerful religion of the
      earth.

      145 (return) [ Compare the bigoted Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom.
      ii. p. 232-255) with the no less bigoted Greeks, Theophanes, (p.
      276-227,) Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 86,) and Cedrenus, (p.
      421.)]

      146 (return) [ For the battle of Muta, and its consequences, see
      Abulfeda (p 100-102) and Gagnier, (tom. ii. p. 327-343.).]

      1461 (return) [ To console the afflicted relatives of his kinsman
      Jauffer, he (Mahomet) represented that, in Paradise, in exchange
      for the arms which he had lost, he had been furnished with a pair
      of wings, resplendent with the blushing glories of the ruby, and
      with which he was become the inseparable companion of the
      archangal Gabriel, in his volitations through the regions of
      eternal bliss. Hence, in the catalogue of the martyrs, he has
      been denominated Jauffer teyaur, the winged Jauffer. Price,
      Chronological Retrospect of Mohammedan History, vol. i. p. 5.-M.]

      147 (return) [ The expedition of Tabuc is recorded by our
      ordinary historians Abulfeda (Vit. Moham. p. 123-127) and
      Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 147-163: ) but we have the
      advantage of appealing to the original evidence of the Koran, (c.
      9, p. 154, 165,) with Sale’s learned and rational notes.]

      148 (return) [ The Diploma securitatis Ailensibus is attested by
      Ahmed Ben Joseph, and the author Libri Splendorum, (Gagnier, Not.
      ad Abulfe dam, p. 125;) but Abulfeda himself, as well as Elmacin,
      (Hist. Saracen. p. 11,) though he owns Mahomet’s regard for the
      Christians, (p 13,) only mentions peace and tribute. In the year
      1630, Sionita published at Paris the text and version of
      Mahomet’s patent in favor of the Christians; which was admitted
      and reprobated by the opposite taste of Salmasius and Grotius,
      (Bayle, Mahomet, Rem. Aa.) Hottinger doubts of its authenticity,
      (Hist. Orient. p. 237;) Renaudot urges the consent of the
      Mohametans, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 169;) but Mosheim (Hist.
      Eccles. p. 244) shows the futility of their opinion and inclines
      to believe it spurious. Yet Abulpharagius quotes the impostor’s
      treaty with the Nestorian patriarch, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient.
      tom. ii. p. 418;) but Abulpharagius was primate of the
      Jacobites.]

      Till the age of sixty-three years, the strength of Mahomet was
      equal to the temporal and spiritual fatigues of his mission. His
      epileptic fits, an absurd calumny of the Greeks, would be an
      object of pity rather than abhorrence; 149 but he seriously
      believed that he was poisoned at Chaibar by the revenge of a
      Jewish female. 150 During four years, the health of the prophet
      declined; his infirmities increased; but his mortal disease was a
      fever of fourteen days, which deprived him by intervals of the
      use of reason. As soon as he was conscious of his danger, he
      edified his brethren by the humility of his virtue or penitence.
      “If there be any man,” said the apostle from the pulpit, “whom I
      have unjustly scourged, I submit my own back to the lash of
      retaliation. Have I aspersed the reputation of a Mussulman? let
      him proclaim my thoughts in the face of the congregation. Has any
      one been despoiled of his goods? the little that I possess shall
      compensate the principal and the interest of the debt.” “Yes,”
      replied a voice from the crowd, “I am entitled to three drams of
      silver.” Mahomet heard the complaint, satisfied the demand, and
      thanked his creditor for accusing him in this world rather than
      at the day of judgment. He beheld with temperate firmness the
      approach of death; enfranchised his slaves (seventeen men, as
      they are named, and eleven women;) minutely directed the order of
      his funeral, and moderated the lamentations of his weeping
      friends, on whom he bestowed the benediction of peace. Till the
      third day before his death, he regularly performed the function
      of public prayer: the choice of Abubeker to supply his place,
      appeared to mark that ancient and faithful friend as his
      successor in the sacerdotal and regal office; but he prudently
      declined the risk and envy of a more explicit nomination. At a
      moment when his faculties were visibly impaired, he called for
      pen and ink to write, or, more properly, to dictate, a divine
      book, the sum and accomplishment of all his revelations: a
      dispute arose in the chamber, whether he should be allowed to
      supersede the authority of the Koran; and the prophet was forced
      to reprove the indecent vehemence of his disciples. If the
      slightest credit may be afforded to the traditions of his wives
      and companions, he maintained, in the bosom of his family, and to
      the last moments of his life, the dignity 1501 of an apostle, and
      the faith of an enthusiast; described the visits of Gabriel, who
      bade an everlasting farewell to the earth, and expressed his
      lively confidence, not only of the mercy, but of the favor, of
      the Supreme Being. In a familiar discourse he had mentioned his
      special prerogative, that the angel of death was not allowed to
      take his soul till he had respectfully asked the permission of
      the prophet. The request was granted; and Mahomet immediately
      fell into the agony of his dissolution: his head was reclined on
      the lap of Ayesha, the best beloved of all his wives; he fainted
      with the violence of pain; recovering his spirits, he raised his
      eyes towards the roof of the house, and, with a steady look,
      though a faltering voice, uttered the last broken, though
      articulate, words: “O God!..... pardon my sins....... Yes, ......
      I come,...... among my fellow-citizens on high;” and thus
      peaceably expired on a carpet spread upon the floor. An
      expedition for the conquest of Syria was stopped by this mournful
      event; the army halted at the gates of Medina; the chiefs were
      assembled round their dying master. The city, more especially the
      house, of the prophet, was a scene of clamorous sorrow of silent
      despair: fanaticism alone could suggest a ray of hope and
      consolation. “How can he be dead, our witness, our intercessor,
      our mediator, with God? By God he is not dead: like Moses and
      Jesus, he is wrapped in a holy trance, and speedily will he
      return to his faithful people.” The evidence of sense was
      disregarded; and Omar, unsheathing his cimeter, threatened to
      strike off the heads of the infidels, who should dare to affirm
      that the prophet was no more. The tumult was appeased by the
      weight and moderation of Abubeker. “Is it Mahomet,” said he to
      Omar and the multitude, “or the God of Mahomet, whom you worship?
      The God of Mahomet liveth forever; but the apostle was a mortal
      like ourselves, and according to his own prediction, he has
      experienced the common fate of mortality.” He was piously
      interred by the hands of his nearest kinsman, on the same spot on
      which he expired: 151 Medina has been sanctified by the death and
      burial of Mahomet; and the innumerable pilgrims of Mecca often
      turn aside from the way, to bow, in voluntary devotion, 152
      before the simple tomb of the prophet. 153

      149 (return) [ The epilepsy, or falling-sickness, of Mahomet is
      asserted by Theophanes, Zonaras, and the rest of the Greeks; and
      is greedily swallowed by the gross bigotry of Hottinger, (Hist.
      Orient. p. 10, 11,) Prideaux, (Life of Mahomet, p. 12,) and
      Maracci, (tom. ii. Alcoran, p. 762, 763.) The titles (the
      wrapped-up, the covered) of two chapters of the Koran, (73, 74)
      can hardly be strained to such an interpretation: the silence,
      the ignorance of the Mahometan commentators, is more conclusive
      than the most peremptory denial; and the charitable side is
      espoused by Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens, tom. i. p. 301,)
      Gagnier, (ad Abulfedam, p. 9. Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 118,)
      and Sale, (Koran, p. 469-474.) * Note: Dr Weil believes in the
      epilepsy, and adduces strong evidence for it; and surely it may
      be believed, in perfect charity; and that the prophet’s visions
      were connected, as they appear to have been, with these fits. I
      have little doubt that he saw and believed these visions, and
      visions they were. Weil, p. 43.—M. 1845.]

      150 (return) [ This poison (more ignominious since it was offered
      as a test of his prophetic knowledge) is frankly confessed by his
      zealous votaries, Abulfeda (p. 92) and Al Jannabi, (apud Gagnier,
      tom. ii. p. 286-288.)]

      1501 (return) [ Major Price, who writes with the authority of one
      widely conversant with the original sources of Eastern knowledge,
      and in a very candid tone, takes a very different view of the
      prophet’s death. “In tracing the circumstances of Mahommed’s
      illness, we look in vain for any proofs of that meek and heroic
      firmness which might be expected to dignify and embellish the
      last moments of the apostle of God. On some occasions he betrayed
      such want of fortitude, such marks of childish impatience, as are
      in general to be found in men only of the most ordinary stamp;
      and such as extorted from his wife Ayesha, in particular, the
      sarcastic remark, that in herself, or any of her family, a
      similar demeanor would long since have incurred his severe
      displeasure. * * * He said that the acuteness and violence of his
      sufferings were necessarily in the proportion of those honors
      with which it had ever pleased the hand of Omnipotence to
      distinguish its peculiar favorites.” Price, vol. i. p. 13.—M]

      151 (return) [ The Greeks and Latins have invented and propagated
      the vulgar and ridiculous story, that Mahomet’s iron tomb is
      suspended in the air at Mecca, (Laonicus Chalcondyles, de Rebus
      Turcicis, l. iii. p. 66,) by the action of equal and potent
      loadstones, (Dictionnaire de Bayle, Mahomet, Rem. Ee. Ff.)
      Without any philosophical inquiries, it may suffice, that, 1. The
      prophet was not buried at Mecca; and, 2. That his tomb at Medina,
      which has been visited by millions, is placed on the ground,
      (Reland, de Relig. Moham. l. ii. c. 19, p. 209-211. Gagnier, Vie
      de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 263-268.) * Note: According to the
      testimony of all the Eastern authors, Mahomet died on Monday the
      12th Reby 1st, in the year 11 of the Hegira, which answers in
      reality to the 8th June, 632, of J. C. We find in Ockley (Hist.
      of Saracens) that it was on Monday the 6th June, 632. This is a
      mistake; for the 6th June of that year was a Saturday, not a
      Monday; the 8th June, therefore, was a Monday. It is easy to
      discover that the lunar year, in this calculation has been
      confounded with the solar. St. Martin vol. xi. p. 186.—M.]

      152 (return) [ Al Jannabi enumerates (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii.
      p. 372-391) the multifarious duties of a pilgrim who visits the
      tombs of the prophet and his companions; and the learned casuist
      decides, that this act of devotion is nearest in obligation and
      merit to a divine precept. The doctors are divided which, of
      Mecca or Medina, be the most excellent, (p. 391-394.)]

      153 (return) [ The last sickness, death, and burial of Mahomet,
      are described by Abulfeda and Gagnier, (Vit. Moham. p. 133-142.
      —Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 220-271.) The most private and
      interesting circumstances were originally received from Ayesha,
      Ali, the sons of Abbas, &c.; and as they dwelt at Medina, and
      survived the prophet many years, they might repeat the pious tale
      to a second or third generation of pilgrims.]

      At the conclusion of the life of Mahomet, it may perhaps be
      expected, that I should balance his faults and virtues, that I
      should decide whether the title of enthusiast or impostor more
      properly belongs to that extraordinary man. Had I been intimately
      conversant with the son of Abdallah, the task would still be
      difficult, and the success uncertain: at the distance of twelve
      centuries, I darkly contemplate his shade through a cloud of
      religious incense; and could I truly delineate the portrait of an
      hour, the fleeting resemblance would not equally apply to the
      solitary of Mount Hera, to the preacher of Mecca, and to the
      conqueror of Arabia. The author of a mighty revolution appears to
      have been endowed with a pious and contemplative disposition: so
      soon as marriage had raised him above the pressure of want, he
      avoided the paths of ambition and avarice; and till the age of
      forty he lived with innocence, and would have died without a
      name. The unity of God is an idea most congenial to nature and
      reason; and a slight conversation with the Jews and Christians
      would teach him to despise and detest the idolatry of Mecca. It
      was the duty of a man and a citizen to impart the doctrine of
      salvation, to rescue his country from the dominion of sin and
      error. The energy of a mind incessantly bent on the same object,
      would convert a general obligation into a particular call; the
      warm suggestions of the understanding or the fancy would be felt
      as the inspirations of Heaven; the labor of thought would expire
      in rapture and vision; and the inward sensation, the invisible
      monitor, would be described with the form and attributes of an
      angel of God. 154 From enthusiasm to imposture, the step is
      perilous and slippery: the daemon of Socrates 155 affords a
      memorable instance, how a wise man may deceive himself, how a
      good man may deceive others, how the conscience may slumber in a
      mixed and middle state between self-illusion and voluntary fraud.
      Charity may believe that the original motives of Mahomet were
      those of pure and genuine benevolence; but a human missionary is
      incapable of cherishing the obstinate unbelievers who reject his
      claims despise his arguments, and persecute his life; he might
      forgive his personal adversaries, he may lawfully hate the
      enemies of God; the stern passions of pride and revenge were
      kindled in the bosom of Mahomet, and he sighed, like the prophet
      of Nineveh, for the destruction of the rebels whom he had
      condemned. The injustice of Mecca and the choice of Medina,
      transformed the citizen into a prince, the humble preacher into
      the leader of armies; but his sword was consecrated by the
      example of the saints; and the same God who afflicts a sinful
      world with pestilence and earthquakes, might inspire for their
      conversion or chastisement the valor of his servants. In the
      exercise of political government, he was compelled to abate of
      the stern rigor of fanaticism, to comply in some measure with the
      prejudices and passions of his followers, and to employ even the
      vices of mankind as the instruments of their salvation. The use
      of fraud and perfidy, of cruelty and injustice, were often
      subservient to the propagation of the faith; and Mahomet
      commanded or approved the assassination of the Jews and idolaters
      who had escaped from the field of battle. By the repetition of
      such acts, the character of Mahomet must have been gradually
      stained; and the influence of such pernicious habits would be
      poorly compensated by the practice of the personal and social
      virtues which are necessary to maintain the reputation of a
      prophet among his sectaries and friends. Of his last years,
      ambition was the ruling passion; and a politician will suspect,
      that he secretly smiled (the victorious impostor!) at the
      enthusiasm of his youth, and the credulity of his proselytes. 156
      A philosopher will observe, that their credulity and his success
      would tend more strongly to fortify the assurance of his divine
      mission, that his interest and religion were inseparably
      connected, and that his conscience would be soothed by the
      persuasion, that he alone was absolved by the Deity from the
      obligation of positive and moral laws. If he retained any vestige
      of his native innocence, the sins of Mahomet may be allowed as an
      evidence of his sincerity. In the support of truth, the arts of
      fraud and fiction may be deemed less criminal; and he would have
      started at the foulness of the means, had he not been satisfied
      of the importance and justice of the end. Even in a conqueror or
      a priest, I can surprise a word or action of unaffected humanity;
      and the decree of Mahomet, that, in the sale of captives, the
      mothers should never be separated from their children, may
      suspend, or moderate, the censure of the historian. 157

      154 (return) [ The Christians, rashly enough, have assigned to
      Mahomet a tame pigeon, that seemed to descend from heaven and
      whisper in his ear. As this pretended miracle is urged by
      Grotius, (de Veritate Religionis Christianae,) his Arabic
      translator, the learned Pocock, inquired of him the names of his
      authors; and Grotius confessed, that it is unknown to the
      Mahometans themselves. Lest it should provoke their indignation
      and laughter, the pious lie is suppressed in the Arabic version;
      but it has maintained an edifying place in the numerous editions
      of the Latin text, (Pocock, Specimen, Hist. Arabum, p. 186, 187.
      Reland, de Religion. Moham. l. ii. c. 39, p. 259-262.)]

      155 (return) [ (Plato, in Apolog. Socrat. c. 19, p. 121, 122,
      edit. Fischer.) The familiar examples, which Socrates urges in
      his Dialogue with Theages, (Platon. Opera, tom. i. p. 128, 129,
      edit. Hen. Stephan.) are beyond the reach of human foresight; and
      the divine inspiration of the philosopher is clearly taught in
      the Memorabilia of Xenophon. The ideas of the most rational
      Platonists are expressed by Cicero, (de Divinat. i. 54,) and in
      the xivth and xvth Dissertations of Maximus of Tyre, (p. 153-172,
      edit. Davis.)]

      156 (return) [ In some passage of his voluminous writings,
      Voltaire compares the prophet, in his old age, to a fakir, “qui
      detache la chaine de son cou pour en donner sur les oreilles a
      ses confreres.”]

      157 (return) [ Gagnier relates, with the same impartial pen, this
      humane law of the prophet, and the murders of Caab, and Sophian,
      which he prompted and approved, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 69,
      97, 208.)]




      Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VII.

      The good sense of Mahomet 158 despised the pomp of royalty: the
      apostle of God submitted to the menial offices of the family: he
      kindled the fire, swept the floor, milked the ewes, and mended
      with his own hands his shoes and his woollen garment. Disdaining
      the penance and merit of a hermit, he observed, without effort or
      vanity, the abstemious diet of an Arab and a soldier. On solemn
      occasions he feasted his companions with rustic and hospitable
      plenty; but in his domestic life, many weeks would elapse without
      a fire being kindled on the hearth of the prophet. The
      interdiction of wine was confirmed by his example; his hunger was
      appeased with a sparing allowance of barley-bread: he delighted
      in the taste of milk and honey; but his ordinary food consisted
      of dates and water. Perfumes and women were the two sensual
      enjoyments which his nature required, and his religion did not
      forbid; and Mahomet affirmed, that the fervor of his devotion was
      increased by these innocent pleasures. The heat of the climate
      inflames the blood of the Arabs; and their libidinous complexion
      has been noticed by the writers of antiquity. 159 Their
      incontinence was regulated by the civil and religious laws of the
      Koran: their incestuous alliances were blamed; the boundless
      license of polygamy was reduced to four legitimate wives or
      concubines; their rights both of bed and of dowry were equitably
      determined; the freedom of divorce was discouraged, adultery was
      condemned as a capital offence; and fornication, in either sex,
      was punished with a hundred stripes. 160 Such were the calm and
      rational precepts of the legislator: but in his private conduct,
      Mahomet indulged the appetites of a man, and abused the claims of
      a prophet. A special revelation dispensed him from the laws which
      he had imposed on his nation: the female sex, without reserve,
      was abandoned to his desires; and this singular prerogative
      excited the envy, rather than the scandal, the veneration, rather
      than the envy, of the devout Mussulmans. If we remember the seven
      hundred wives and three hundred concubines of the wise Solomon,
      we shall applaud the modesty of the Arabian, who espoused no more
      than seventeen or fifteen wives; eleven are enumerated who
      occupied at Medina their separate apartments round the house of
      the apostle, and enjoyed in their turns the favor of his conjugal
      society. What is singular enough, they were all widows, excepting
      only Ayesha, the daughter of Abubeker. She was doubtless a
      virgin, since Mahomet consummated his nuptials (such is the
      premature ripeness of the climate) when she was only nine years
      of age. The youth, the beauty, the spirit of Ayesha, gave her a
      superior ascendant: she was beloved and trusted by the prophet;
      and, after his death, the daughter of Abubeker was long revered
      as the mother of the faithful. Her behavior had been ambiguous
      and indiscreet: in a nocturnal march she was accidentally left
      behind; and in the morning Ayesha returned to the camp with a
      man. The temper of Mahomet was inclined to jealousy; but a divine
      revelation assured him of her innocence: he chastised her
      accusers, and published a law of domestic peace, that no woman
      should be condemned unless four male witnesses had seen her in
      the act of adultery. 161 In his adventures with Zeineb, the wife
      of Zeid, and with Mary, an Egyptian captive, the amorous prophet
      forgot the interest of his reputation. At the house of Zeid, his
      freedman and adopted son, he beheld, in a loose undress, the
      beauty of Zeineb, and burst forth into an ejaculation of devotion
      and desire. The servile, or grateful, freedman understood the
      hint, and yielded without hesitation to the love of his
      benefactor. But as the filial relation had excited some doubt and
      scandal, the angel Gabriel descended from heaven to ratify the
      deed, to annul the adoption, and gently to reprove the apostle
      for distrusting the indulgence of his God. One of his wives,
      Hafna, the daughter of Omar, surprised him on her own bed, in the
      embraces of his Egyptian captive: she promised secrecy and
      forgiveness, he swore that he would renounce the possession of
      Mary. Both parties forgot their engagements; and Gabriel again
      descended with a chapter of the Koran, to absolve him from his
      oath, and to exhort him freely to enjoy his captives and
      concubines, without listening to the clamors of his wives. In a
      solitary retreat of thirty days, he labored, alone with Mary, to
      fulfil the commands of the angel. When his love and revenge were
      satiated, he summoned to his presence his eleven wives,
      reproached their disobedience and indiscretion, and threatened
      them with a sentence of divorce, both in this world and in the
      next; a dreadful sentence, since those who had ascended the bed
      of the prophet were forever excluded from the hope of a second
      marriage. Perhaps the incontinence of Mahomet may be palliated by
      the tradition of his natural or preternatural gifts; 162 he
      united the manly virtue of thirty of the children of Adam: and
      the apostle might rival the thirteenth labor 163 of the Grecian
      Hercules. 164 A more serious and decent excuse may be drawn from
      his fidelity to Cadijah. During the twenty-four years of their
      marriage, her youthful husband abstained from the right of
      polygamy, and the pride or tenderness of the venerable matron was
      never insulted by the society of a rival. After her death, he
      placed her in the rank of the four perfect women, with the sister
      of Moses, the mother of Jesus, and Fatima, the best beloved of
      his daughters. “Was she not old?” said Ayesha, with the insolence
      of a blooming beauty; “has not God given you a better in her
      place?” “No, by God,” said Mahomet, with an effusion of honest
      gratitude, “there never can be a better! She believed in me when
      men despised me; she relieved my wants, when I was poor and
      persecuted by the world.” 165

      158 (return) [ For the domestic life of Mahomet, consult Gagnier,
      and the corresponding chapters of Abulfeda; for his diet, (tom.
      iii. p. 285-288;) his children, (p. 189, 289;) his wives, (p.
      290-303;) his marriage with Zeineb, (tom. ii. p. 152-160;) his
      amour with Mary, (p. 303-309;) the false accusation of Ayesha,
      (p. 186-199.) The most original evidence of the three last
      transactions is contained in the xxivth, xxxiiid, and lxvith
      chapters of the Koran, with Sale’s Commentary. Prideaux (Life of
      Mahomet, p. 80-90) and Maracci (Prodrom. Alcoran, part iv. p.
      49-59) have maliciously exaggerated the frailties of Mahomet.]

      159 (return) [ Incredibile est quo ardore apud eos in Venerem
      uterque solvitur sexus, (Ammian. Marcellin. l. xiv. c. 4.)]

      160 (return) [ Sale (Preliminary Discourse, p. 133-137) has
      recapitulated the laws of marriage, divorce, &c.; and the curious
      reader of Selden’s Uror Hebraica will recognize many Jewish
      ordinances.]

      161 (return) [ In a memorable case, the Caliph Omar decided that
      all presumptive evidence was of no avail; and that all the four
      witnesses must have actually seen stylum in pyxide, (Abulfedae
      Annales Moslemici, p. 71, vers. Reiske.)]

      162 (return) [ Sibi robur ad generationem, quantum triginta viri
      habent, inesse jacteret: ita ut unica hora posset undecim
      foeminis satisfacere, ut ex Arabum libris refert Stus. Petrus
      Paschasius, c. 2., (Maracci, Prodromus Alcoran, p. iv. p. 55. See
      likewise Observations de Belon, l. iii. c. 10, fol. 179, recto.)
      Al Jannabi (Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 287) records his own testimony,
      that he surpassed all men in conjugal vigor; and Abulfeda
      mentions the exclamation of Ali, who washed the body after his
      death, “O propheta, certe penis tuus coelum versus erectus est,”
      in Vit. Mohammed, p. 140.]

      163 (return) [ I borrow the style of a father of the church,
      (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 108.)]

      164 (return) [ The common and most glorious legend includes, in a
      single night the fifty victories of Hercules over the virgin
      daughters of Thestius, (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. iv. p. 274.
      Pausanias, l. ix. p. 763. Statius Sylv. l. i. eleg. iii. v. 42.)
      But Athenaeus allows seven nights, (Deipnosophist, l. xiii. p.
      556,) and Apollodorus fifty, for this arduous achievement of
      Hercules, who was then no more than eighteen years of age,
      (Bibliot. l. ii. c. 4, p. 111, cum notis Heyne, part i. p. 332.)]

      165 (return) [ Abulfeda in Vit. Moham. p. 12, 13, 16, 17, cum
      Notis Gagnier]

      In the largest indulgence of polygamy, the founder of a religion
      and empire might aspire to multiply the chances of a numerous
      posterity and a lineal succession. The hopes of Mahomet were
      fatally disappointed. The virgin Ayesha, and his ten widows of
      mature age and approved fertility, were barren in his potent
      embraces. The four sons of Cadijah died in their infancy. Mary,
      his Egyptian concubine, was endeared to him by the birth of
      Ibrahim. At the end of fifteen months the prophet wept over his
      grave; but he sustained with firmness the raillery of his
      enemies, and checked the adulation or credulity of the Moslems,
      by the assurance that an eclipse of the sun was not occasioned by
      the death of the infant. Cadijah had likewise given him four
      daughters, who were married to the most faithful of his
      disciples: the three eldest died before their father; but Fatima,
      who possessed his confidence and love, became the wife of her
      cousin Ali, and the mother of an illustrious progeny. The merit
      and misfortunes of Ali and his descendants will lead me to
      anticipate, in this place, the series of the Saracen caliphs, a
      title which describes the commanders of the faithful as the
      vicars and successors of the apostle of God. 166

      166 (return) [ This outline of the Arabian history is drawn from
      the Bibliotheque Orientale of D’Herbelot, (under the names of
      Aboubecre, Omar Othman, Ali, &c.;) from the Annals of Abulfeda,
      Abulpharagius, and Elmacin, (under the proper years of the
      Hegira,) and especially from Ockley’s History of the Saracens,
      (vol. i. p. 1-10, 115-122, 229, 249, 363-372, 378-391, and almost
      the whole of the second volume.) Yet we should weigh with caution
      the traditions of the hostile sects; a stream which becomes still
      more muddy as it flows farther from the source. Sir John Chardin
      has too faithfully copied the fables and errors of the modern
      Persians, (Voyages, tom. ii. p. 235-250, &c.)]

      The birth, the alliance, the character of Ali, which exalted him
      above the rest of his countrymen, might justify his claim to the
      vacant throne of Arabia. The son of Abu Taleb was, in his own
      right, the chief of the family of Hashem, and the hereditary
      prince or guardian of the city and temple of Mecca. The light of
      prophecy was extinct; but the husband of Fatima might expect the
      inheritance and blessing of her father: the Arabs had sometimes
      been patient of a female reign; and the two grandsons of the
      prophet had often been fondled in his lap, and shown in his
      pulpit as the hope of his age, and the chief of the youth of
      paradise. The first of the true believers might aspire to march
      before them in this world and in the next; and if some were of a
      graver and more rigid cast, the zeal and virtue of Ali were never
      outstripped by any recent proselyte. He united the qualifications
      of a poet, a soldier, and a saint: his wisdom still breathes in a
      collection of moral and religious sayings; 167 and every
      antagonist, in the combats of the tongue or of the sword, was
      subdued by his eloquence and valor. From the first hour of his
      mission to the last rites of his funeral, the apostle was never
      forsaken by a generous friend, whom he delighted to name his
      brother, his vicegerent, and the faithful Aaron of a second
      Moses. The son of Abu Taleb was afterwards reproached for
      neglecting to secure his interest by a solemn declaration of his
      right, which would have silenced all competition, and sealed his
      succession by the decrees of Heaven. But the unsuspecting hero
      confided in himself: the jealousy of empire, and perhaps the fear
      of opposition, might suspend the resolutions of Mahomet; and the
      bed of sickness was besieged by the artful Ayesha, the daughter
      of Abubeker, and the enemy of Ali. 1671

      167 (return) [ Ockley (at the end of his second volume) has given
      an English version of 169 sentences, which he ascribes, with some
      hesitation, to Ali, the son of Abu Taleb. His preface is colored
      by the enthusiasm of a translator; yet these sentences delineate
      a characteristic, though dark, picture of human life.]

      1671 (return) [ Gibbon wrote chiefly from the Arabic or Sunnite
      account of these transactions, the only sources accessible at the
      time when he composed his History. Major Price, writing from
      Persian authorities, affords us the advantage of comparing
      throughout what may be fairly considered the Shiite Version. The
      glory of Ali is the constant burden of their strain. He was
      destined, and, according to some accounts, designated, for the
      caliphate by the prophet; but while the others were fiercely
      pushing their own interests, Ali was watching the remains of
      Mahomet with pious fidelity. His disinterested magnanimity, on
      each separate occasion, declined the sceptre, and gave the noble
      example of obedience to the appointed caliph. He is described, in
      retirement, on the throne, and in the field of battle, as
      transcendently pious, magnanimous, valiant, and humane. He lost
      his empire through his excess of virtue and love for the faithful
      his life through his confidence in God, and submission to the
      decrees of fate. Compare the curious account of this apathy in
      Price, chapter ii. It is to be regretted, I must add, that Major
      Price has contented himself with quoting the names of the Persian
      works which he follows, without any account of their character,
      age, and authority.—M.]

      The silence and death of the prophet restored the liberty of the
      people; and his companions convened an assembly to deliberate on
      the choice of his successor. The hereditary claim and lofty
      spirit of Ali were offensive to an aristocracy of elders,
      desirous of bestowing and resuming the sceptre by a free and
      frequent election: the Koreish could never be reconciled to the
      proud preeminence of the line of Hashem; the ancient discord of
      the tribes was rekindled, the fugitives of Mecca and the
      auxiliaries of Medina asserted their respective merits; and the
      rash proposal of choosing two independent caliphs would have
      crushed in their infancy the religion and empire of the Saracens.
      The tumult was appeased by the disinterested resolution of Omar,
      who, suddenly renouncing his own pretensions, stretched forth his
      hand, and declared himself the first subject of the mild and
      venerable Abubeker. 1672 The urgency of the moment, and the
      acquiescence of the people, might excuse this illegal and
      precipitate measure; but Omar himself confessed from the pulpit,
      that if any Mulsulman should hereafter presume to anticipate the
      suffrage of his brethren, both the elector and the elected would
      be worthy of death. 168 After the simple inauguration of
      Abubeker, he was obeyed in Medina, Mecca, and the provinces of
      Arabia: the Hashemites alone declined the oath of fidelity; and
      their chief, in his own house, maintained, above six months, a
      sullen and independent reserve; without listening to the threats
      of Omar, who attempted to consume with fire the habitation of the
      daughter of the apostle. The death of Fatima, and the decline of
      his party, subdued the indignant spirit of Ali: he condescended
      to salute the commander of the faithful, accepted his excuse of
      the necessity of preventing their common enemies, and wisely
      rejected his courteous offer of abdicating the government of the
      Arabians. After a reign of two years, the aged caliph was
      summoned by the angel of death. In his testament, with the tacit
      approbation of his companions, he bequeathed the sceptre to the
      firm and intrepid virtue of Omar. “I have no occasion,” said the
      modest candidate, “for the place.” “But the place has occasion
      for you,” replied Abubeker; who expired with a fervent prayer,
      that the God of Mahomet would ratify his choice, and direct the
      Mussulmans in the way of concord and obedience. The prayer was
      not ineffectual, since Ali himself, in a life of privacy and
      prayer, professed to revere the superior worth and dignity of his
      rival; who comforted him for the loss of empire, by the most
      flattering marks of confidence and esteem. In the twelfth year of
      his reign, Omar received a mortal wound from the hand of an
      assassin: he rejected with equal impartiality the names of his
      son and of Ali, refused to load his conscience with the sins of
      his successor, and devolved on six of the most respectable
      companions the arduous task of electing a commander of the
      faithful. On this occasion, Ali was again blamed by his friends
      169 for submitting his right to the judgment of men, for
      recognizing their jurisdiction by accepting a place among the six
      electors. He might have obtained their suffrage, had he deigned
      to promise a strict and servile conformity, not only to the Koran
      and tradition, but likewise to the determinations of two seniors.
      170 With these limitations, Othman, the secretary of Mahomet,
      accepted the government; nor was it till after the third caliph,
      twenty-four years after the death of the prophet, that Ali was
      invested, by the popular choice, with the regal and sacerdotal
      office. The manners of the Arabians retained their primitive
      simplicity, and the son of Abu Taleb despised the pomp and vanity
      of this world. At the hour of prayer, he repaired to the mosch of
      Medina, clothed in a thin cotton gown, a coarse turban on his
      head, his slippers in one hand, and his bow in the other, instead
      of a walking-staff. The companions of the prophet, and the chiefs
      of the tribes, saluted their new sovereign, and gave him their
      right hands as a sign of fealty and allegiance.

      1672 (return) [ Abubeker, the father of the virgin Ayesha. St.
      Martin, vol. XL, p. 88—M.]

      168 (return) [ Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 5, 6,)
      from an Arabian Ms., represents Ayesha as adverse to the
      substitution of her father in the place of the apostle. This
      fact, so improbable in itself, is unnoticed by Abulfeda, Al
      Jannabi, and Al Bochari, the last of whom quotes the tradition of
      Ayesha herself, (Vit. Mohammed, p. 136 Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii.
      p. 236.)]

      169 (return) [ Particularly by his friend and cousin Abdallah,
      the son of Abbas, who died A.D. 687, with the title of grand
      doctor of the Moslems. In Abulfeda he recapitulates the important
      occasions in which Ali had neglected his salutary advice, (p. 76,
      vers. Reiske;) and concludes, (p. 85,) O princeps fidelium,
      absque controversia tu quidem vere fortis es, at inops boni
      consilii, et rerum gerendarum parum callens.]

      170 (return) [ I suspect that the two seniors (Abulpharagius, p.
      115. Ockley, tom. i. p. 371,) may signify not two actual
      counsellors, but his two predecessors, Abubeker and Omar.]

      The mischiefs that flow from the contests of ambition are usually
      confined to the times and countries in which they have been
      agitated. But the religious discord of the friends and enemies of
      Ali has been renewed in every age of the Hegira, and is still
      maintained in the immortal hatred of the Persians and Turks. 171
      The former, who are branded with the appellation of Shiites or
      sectaries, have enriched the Mahometan creed with a new article
      of faith; and if Mahomet be the apostle, his companion Ali is the
      vicar, of God. In their private converse, in their public
      worship, they bitterly execrate the three usurpers who
      intercepted his indefeasible right to the dignity of Imam and
      Caliph; and the name of Omar expresses in their tongue the
      perfect accomplishment of wickedness and impiety. 172 The
      Sonnites, who are supported by the general consent and orthodox
      tradition of the Mussulmans, entertain a more impartial, or at
      least a more decent, opinion. They respect the memory of
      Abubeker, Omar, Othman, and Ali, the holy and legitimate
      successors of the prophet. But they assign the last and most
      humble place to the husband of Fatima, in the persuasion that the
      order of succession was determined by the decrees of sanctity.
      173 An historian who balances the four caliphs with a hand
      unshaken by superstition, will calmly pronounce that their
      manners were alike pure and exemplary; that their zeal was
      fervent, and probably sincere; and that, in the midst of riches
      and power, their lives were devoted to the practice of moral and
      religious duties. But the public virtues of Abubeker and Omar,
      the prudence of the first, the severity of the second, maintained
      the peace and prosperity of their reigns. The feeble temper and
      declining age of Othman were incapable of sustaining the weight
      of conquest and empire. He chose, and he was deceived; he
      trusted, and he was betrayed: the most deserving of the faithful
      became useless or hostile to his government, and his lavish
      bounty was productive only of ingratitude and discontent. The
      spirit of discord went forth in the provinces: their deputies
      assembled at Medina; and the Charegites, the desperate fanatics
      who disclaimed the yoke of subordination and reason, were
      confounded among the free-born Arabs, who demanded the redress of
      their wrongs and the punishment of their oppressors. From Cufa,
      from Bassora, from Egypt, from the tribes of the desert, they
      rose in arms, encamped about a league from Medina, and despatched
      a haughty mandate to their sovereign, requiring him to execute
      justice, or to descend from the throne. His repentance began to
      disarm and disperse the insurgents; but their fury was rekindled
      by the arts of his enemies; and the forgery of a perfidious
      secretary was contrived to blast his reputation and precipitate
      his fall. The caliph had lost the only guard of his predecessors,
      the esteem and confidence of the Moslems: during a siege of six
      weeks his water and provisions were intercepted, and the feeble
      gates of the palace were protected only by the scruples of the
      more timorous rebels. Forsaken by those who had abused his
      simplicity, the hopeless and venerable caliph expected the
      approach of death: the brother of Ayesha marched at the head of
      the assassins; and Othman, with the Koran in his lap, was pierced
      with a multitude of wounds. 1731 A tumultuous anarchy of five
      days was appeased by the inauguration of Ali: his refusal would
      have provoked a general massacre. In this painful situation he
      supported the becoming pride of the chief of the Hashemites;
      declared that he had rather serve than reign; rebuked the
      presumption of the strangers; and required the formal, if not the
      voluntary, assent of the chiefs of the nation. He has never been
      accused of prompting the assassin of Omar; though Persia
      indiscreetly celebrates the festival of that holy martyr. The
      quarrel between Othman and his subjects was assuaged by the early
      mediation of Ali; and Hassan, the eldest of his sons, was
      insulted and wounded in the defence of the caliph. Yet it is
      doubtful whether the father of Hassan was strenuous and sincere
      in his opposition to the rebels; and it is certain that he
      enjoyed the benefit of their crime. The temptation was indeed of
      such magnitude as might stagger and corrupt the most obdurate
      virtue. The ambitious candidate no longer aspired to the barren
      sceptre of Arabia; the Saracens had been victorious in the East
      and West; and the wealthy kingdoms of Persia, Syria, and Egypt
      were the patrimony of the commander of the faithful.

      171 (return) [ The schism of the Persians is explained by all our
      travellers of the last century, especially in the iid and ivth
      volumes of their master, Chardin. Niebuhr, though of inferior
      merit, has the advantage of writing so late as the year 1764,
      (Voyages en Arabie, &c., tom. ii. p. 208-233,) since the
      ineffectual attempt of Nadir Shah to change the religion of the
      nation, (see his Persian History translated into French by Sir
      William Jones, tom. ii. p. 5, 6, 47, 48, 144-155.)]

      172 (return) [ Omar is the name of the devil; his murderer is a
      saint. When the Persians shoot with the bow, they frequently cry,
      “May this arrow go to the heart of Omar!” (Voyages de Chardin,
      tom. ii. p 239, 240, 259, &c.)]

      173 (return) [ This gradation of merit is distinctly marked in a
      creed illustrated by Reland, (de Relig. Mohamm. l. i. p. 37;) and
      a Sonnite argument inserted by Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens,
      tom. ii. p. 230.) The practice of cursing the memory of Ali was
      abolished, after forty years, by the Ommiades themselves,
      (D’Herbelot, p. 690;) and there are few among the Turks who
      presume to revile him as an infidel, (Voyages de Chardin, tom.
      iv. p. 46.)]

      1731 (return) [ Compare Price, p. 180.—M.]




      Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VIII.

      A life of prayer and contemplation had not chilled the martial
      activity of Ali; but in a mature age, after a long experience of
      mankind, he still betrayed in his conduct the rashness and
      indiscretion of youth. 1732 In the first days of his reign, he
      neglected to secure, either by gifts or fetters, the doubtful
      allegiance of Telha and Zobeir, two of the most powerful of the
      Arabian chiefs. They escaped from Medina to Mecca, and from
      thence to Bassora; erected the standard of revolt; and usurped
      the government of Irak, or Assyria, which they had vainly
      solicited as the reward of their services. The mask of patriotism
      is allowed to cover the most glaring inconsistencies; and the
      enemies, perhaps the assassins, of Othman now demanded vengeance
      for his blood. They were accompanied in their flight by Ayesha,
      the widow of the prophet, who cherished, to the last hour of her
      life, an implacable hatred against the husband and the posterity
      of Fatima. The most reasonable Moslems were scandalized, that the
      mother of the faithful should expose in a camp her person and
      character; 1733 but the superstitious crowd was confident that
      her presence would sanctify the justice, and assure the success,
      of their cause. At the head of twenty thousand of his loyal
      Arabs, and nine thousand valiant auxiliaries of Cufa, the caliph
      encountered and defeated the superior numbers of the rebels under
      the walls of Bassora. 1734 Their leaders, Telha and Zobeir, 1735
      were slain in the first battle that stained with civil blood the
      arms of the Moslems. 1736 After passing through the ranks to
      animate the troops, Ayesha had chosen her post amidst the dangers
      of the field. In the heat of the action, seventy men, who held
      the bridle of her camel, were successively killed or wounded; and
      the cage or litter, in which she sat, was stuck with javelins and
      darts like the quills of a porcupine. The venerable captive
      sustained with firmness the reproaches of the conqueror, and was
      speedily dismissed to her proper station at the tomb of Mahomet,
      with the respect and tenderness that was still due to the widow
      of the apostle. 1737 After this victory, which was styled the Day
      of the Camel, Ali marched against a more formidable adversary;
      against Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, who had assumed the
      title of caliph, and whose claim was supported by the forces of
      Syria and the interest of the house of Ommiyah. From the passage
      of Thapsacus, the plain of Siffin 174 extends along the western
      bank of the Euphrates. On this spacious and level theatre, the
      two competitors waged a desultory war of one hundred and ten
      days. In the course of ninety actions or skirmishes, the loss of
      Ali was estimated at twenty-five, that of Moawiyah at forty-five,
      thousand soldiers; and the list of the slain was dignified with
      the names of five-and-twenty veterans who had fought at Beder
      under the standard of Mahomet. In this sanguinary contest the
      lawful caliph displayed a superior character of valor and
      humanity. 1741 His troops were strictly enjoined to await the
      first onset of the enemy, to spare their flying brethren, and to
      respect the bodies of the dead, and the chastity of the female
      captives. He generously proposed to save the blood of the Moslems
      by a single combat; but his trembling rival declined the
      challenge as a sentence of inevitable death. The ranks of the
      Syrians were broken by the charge of a hero who was mounted on a
      piebald horse, and wielded with irresistible force his ponderous
      and two-edged sword. As often as he smote a rebel, he shouted the
      Allah Acbar, “God is victorious!” and in the tumult of a
      nocturnal battle, he was heard to repeat four hundred times that
      tremendous exclamation. The prince of Damascus already meditated
      his flight; but the certain victory was snatched from the grasp
      of Ali by the disobedience and enthusiasm of his troops. Their
      conscience was awed by the solemn appeal to the books of the
      Koran which Moawiyah exposed on the foremost lances; and Ali was
      compelled to yield to a disgraceful truce and an insidious
      compromise. He retreated with sorrow and indignation to Cufa; his
      party was discouraged; the distant provinces of Persia, of Yemen,
      and of Egypt, were subdued or seduced by his crafty rival; and
      the stroke of fanaticism, which was aimed against the three
      chiefs of the nation, was fatal only to the cousin of Mahomet. In
      the temple of Mecca, three Charegites or enthusiasts discoursed
      of the disorders of the church and state: they soon agreed, that
      the deaths of Ali, of Moawiyah, and of his friend Amrou, the
      viceroy of Egypt, would restore the peace and unity of religion.
      Each of the assassins chose his victim, poisoned his dagger,
      devoted his life, and secretly repaired to the scene of action.
      Their resolution was equally desperate: but the first mistook the
      person of Amrou, and stabbed the deputy who occupied his seat;
      the prince of Damascus was dangerously hurt by the second; the
      lawful caliph, in the mosch of Cufa, received a mortal wound from
      the hand of the third. He expired in the sixty-third year of his
      age, and mercifully recommended to his children, that they would
      despatch the murderer by a single stroke. 1742 The sepulchre of
      Ali 175 was concealed from the tyrants of the house of Ommiyah;
      176 but in the fourth age of the Hegira, a tomb, a temple, a
      city, arose near the ruins of Cufa. 177 Many thousands of the
      Shiites repose in holy ground at the feet of the vicar of God;
      and the desert is vivified by the numerous and annual visits of
      the Persians, who esteem their devotion not less meritorious than
      the pilgrimage of Mecca.

      1732 (return) [ Ali had determined to supersede all the
      lieutenants in the different provinces. Price, p. 191. Compare,
      on the conduct of Telha and Zobeir, p. 193—M.]

      1733 (return) [ See the very curious circumstances which took
      place before and during her flight. Price, p. 196.—M.]

      1734 (return) [ The reluctance of Ali to shed the blood of true
      believers is strikingly described by Major Price’s Persian
      historians. Price, p. 222.—M.]

      1735 (return) [ See (in Price) the singular adventures of Zobeir.
      He was murdered after having abandoned the army of the
      insurgents. Telha was about to do the same, when his leg was
      pierced with an arrow by one of his own party The wound was
      mortal. Price, p. 222.—M.]

      1736 (return) [ According to Price, two hundred and eighty of the
      Benni Beianziel alone lost a right hand in this service, (p.
      225.)—M]

      1737 (return) [ She was escorted by a guard of females disguised
      as soldiers. When she discovered this, Ayesha was as much
      gratified by the delicacy of the arrangement, as she had been
      offended by the familiar approach of so many men. Price, p.
      229.—M.]

      174 (return) [ The plain of Siffin is determined by D’Anville
      (l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 29) to be the Campus Barbaricus of
      Procopius.]

      1741 (return) [ The Shiite authors have preserved a noble
      instance of Ali’s magnanimity. The superior generalship of
      Moawiyah had cut off the army of Ali from the Euphrates; his
      soldiers were perishing from want of water. Ali sent a message to
      his rival to request free access to the river, declaring that
      under the same circumstances he would not allow any of the
      faithful, though his adversaries, to perish from thirst. After
      some debate, Moawiyah determined to avail himself of the
      advantage of his situation, and to reject the demand of Ali. The
      soldiers of Ali became desperate; forced their way through that
      part of the hostile army which commanded the river, and in their
      turn entirely cut off the troops of Moawiyah from the water.
      Moawiyah was reduced to make the same supplication to Ali. The
      generous caliph instantly complied; and both armies, with their
      cattle enjoyed free and unmolested access to the river. Price,
      vol. i. p. 268, 272—M.]

      1742 (return) [ His son Hassan was recognized as caliph in Arabia
      and Irak; but voluntarily abdicated the throne, after six or
      seven months, in favor of Moawiyah St. Martin, vol. xi. p
      375.—M.]

      175 (return) [ Abulfeda, a moderate Sonnite, relates the
      different opinions concerning the burial of Ali, but adopts the
      sepulchre of Cufa, hodie fama numeroque religiose frequentantium
      celebratum. This number is reckoned by Niebuhr to amount annually
      to 2000 of the dead, and 5000 of the living, (tom. ii. p. 208,
      209.)]

      176 (return) [ All the tyrants of Persia, from Adhad el Dowlat
      (A.D. 977, D’Herbelot, p. 58, 59, 95) to Nadir Shah, (A.D. 1743,
      Hist. de Nadir Shah, tom. ii. p. 155,) have enriched the tomb of
      Ali with the spoils of the people. The dome is copper, with a
      bright and massy gilding, which glitters to the sun at the
      distance of many a mile.]

      177 (return) [ The city of Meshed Ali, five or six miles from the
      ruins of Cufa, and one hundred and twenty to the south of Bagdad,
      is of the size and form of the modern Jerusalem. Meshed Hosein,
      larger and more populous, is at the distance of thirty miles.]

      The persecutors of Mahomet usurped the inheritance of his
      children; and the champions of idolatry became the supreme heads
      of his religion and empire. The opposition of Abu Sophian had
      been fierce and obstinate; his conversion was tardy and
      reluctant; his new faith was fortified by necessity and interest;
      he served, he fought, perhaps he believed; and the sins of the
      time of ignorance were expiated by the recent merits of the
      family of Ommiyah. Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, and of the
      cruel Henda, was dignified, in his early youth, with the office
      or title of secretary of the prophet: the judgment of Omar
      intrusted him with the government of Syria; and he administered
      that important province above forty years, either in a
      subordinate or supreme rank. Without renouncing the fame of valor
      and liberality, he affected the reputation of humanity and
      moderation: a grateful people was attached to their benefactor;
      and the victorious Moslems were enriched with the spoils of
      Cyprus and Rhodes. The sacred duty of pursuing the assassins of
      Othman was the engine and pretence of his ambition. The bloody
      shirt of the martyr was exposed in the mosch of Damascus: the
      emir deplored the fate of his injured kinsman; and sixty thousand
      Syrians were engaged in his service by an oath of fidelity and
      revenge. Amrou, the conqueror of Egypt, himself an army, was the
      first who saluted the new monarch, and divulged the dangerous
      secret, that the Arabian caliphs might be created elsewhere than
      in the city of the prophet. 178 The policy of Moawiyah eluded the
      valor of his rival; and, after the death of Ali, he negotiated
      the abdication of his son Hassan, whose mind was either above or
      below the government of the world, and who retired without a sigh
      from the palace of Cufa to an humble cell near the tomb of his
      grandfather. The aspiring wishes of the caliph were finally
      crowned by the important change of an elective to an hereditary
      kingdom. Some murmurs of freedom or fanaticism attested the
      reluctance of the Arabs, and four citizens of Medina refused the
      oath of fidelity; but the designs of Moawiyah were conducted with
      vigor and address; and his son Yezid, a feeble and dissolute
      youth, was proclaimed as the commander of the faithful and the
      successor of the apostle of God.

      178 (return) [ I borrow, on this occasion, the strong sense and
      expression of Tacitus, (Hist. i. 4: ) Evulgato imperii arcano
      posse imperatorem alni quam Romae fieri.]

      A familiar story is related of the benevolence of one of the sons
      of Ali. In serving at table, a slave had inadvertently dropped a
      dish of scalding broth on his master: the heedless wretch fell
      prostrate, to deprecate his punishment, and repeated a verse of
      the Koran: “Paradise is for those who command their anger: “—“I
      am not angry: “—“and for those who pardon offences: “—“I pardon
      your offence: “—“and for those who return good for evil: “—”I
      give you your liberty and four hundred pieces of silver.” With an
      equal measure of piety, Hosein, the younger brother of Hassan,
      inherited a remnant of his father’s spirit, and served with honor
      against the Christians in the siege of Constantinople. The
      primogeniture of the line of Hashem, and the holy character of
      grandson of the apostle, had centred in his person, and he was at
      liberty to prosecute his claim against Yezid, the tyrant of
      Damascus, whose vices he despised, and whose title he had never
      deigned to acknowledge. A list was secretly transmitted from Cufa
      to Medina, of one hundred and forty thousand Moslems, who
      professed their attachment to his cause, and who were eager to
      draw their swords so soon as he should appear on the banks of the
      Euphrates. Against the advice of his wisest friends, he resolved
      to trust his person and family in the hands of a perfidious
      people. He traversed the desert of Arabia with a timorous retinue
      of women and children; but as he approached the confines of Irak
      he was alarmed by the solitary or hostile face of the country,
      and suspected either the defection or ruin of his party. His
      fears were just: Obeidollah, the governor of Cufa, had
      extinguished the first sparks of an insurrection; and Hosein, in
      the plain of Kerbela, was encompassed by a body of five thousand
      horse, who intercepted his communication with the city and the
      river. He might still have escaped to a fortress in the desert,
      that had defied the power of Caesar and Chosroes, and confided in
      the fidelity of the tribe of Tai, which would have armed ten
      thousand warriors in his defence.

      In a conference with the chief of the enemy, he proposed the
      option of three honorable conditions: that he should be allowed
      to return to Medina, or be stationed in a frontier garrison
      against the Turks, or safely conducted to the presence of Yezid.
      But the commands of the caliph, or his lieutenant, were stern and
      absolute; and Hosein was informed that he must either submit as a
      captive and a criminal to the commander of the faithful, or
      expect the consequences of his rebellion. “Do you think,” replied
      he, “to terrify me with death?” And, during the short respite of
      a night, 1781 he prepared with calm and solemn resignation to
      encounter his fate. He checked the lamentations of his sister
      Fatima, who deplored the impending ruin of his house. “Our
      trust,” said Hosein, “is in God alone. All things, both in heaven
      and earth, must perish and return to their Creator. My brother,
      my father, my mother, were better than me, and every Mussulman
      has an example in the prophet.” He pressed his friends to consult
      their safety by a timely flight: they unanimously refused to
      desert or survive their beloved master: and their courage was
      fortified by a fervent prayer and the assurance of paradise. On
      the morning of the fatal day, he mounted on horseback, with his
      sword in one hand and the Koran in the other: his generous band
      of martyrs consisted only of thirty-two horse and forty foot; but
      their flanks and rear were secured by the tent-ropes, and by a
      deep trench which they had filled with lighted fagots, according
      to the practice of the Arabs. The enemy advanced with reluctance,
      and one of their chiefs deserted, with thirty followers, to claim
      the partnership of inevitable death. In every close onset, or
      single combat, the despair of the Fatimites was invincible; but
      the surrounding multitudes galled them from a distance with a
      cloud of arrows, and the horses and men were successively slain;
      a truce was allowed on both sides for the hour of prayer; and the
      battle at length expired by the death of the last companions of
      Hosein. Alone, weary, and wounded, he seated himself at the door
      of his tent. As he tasted a drop of water, he was pierced in the
      mouth with a dart; and his son and nephew, two beautiful youths,
      were killed in his arms. He lifted his hands to heaven; they were
      full of blood; and he uttered a funeral prayer for the living and
      the dead. In a transport of despair his sister issued from the
      tent, and adjured the general of the Cufians, that he would not
      suffer Hosein to be murdered before his eyes: a tear trickled
      down his venerable beard; and the boldest of his soldiers fell
      back on every side as the dying hero threw himself among them.
      The remorseless Shamer, a name detested by the faithful,
      reproached their cowardice; and the grandson of Mahomet was slain
      with three-and-thirty strokes of lances and swords. After they
      had trampled on his body, they carried his head to the castle of
      Cufa, and the inhuman Obeidollah struck him on the mouth with a
      cane: “Alas,” exclaimed an aged Mussulman, “on these lips have I
      seen the lips of the apostle of God!” In a distant age and
      climate, the tragic scene of the death of Hosein will awaken the
      sympathy of the coldest reader. 179 1791 On the annual festival
      of his martyrdom, in the devout pilgrimage to his sepulchre, his
      Persian votaries abandon their souls to the religious frenzy of
      sorrow and indignation. 180

      1781 (return) [ According to Major Price’s authorities a much
      longer time elapsed (p. 198 &c.)—M.]

      179 (return) [ I have abridged the interesting narrative of
      Ockley, (tom. ii. p. 170-231.) It is long and minute: but the
      pathetic, almost always, consists in the detail of little
      circumstances.]

      1791 (return) [ The account of Hosein’s death, in the Persian
      Tarikh Tebry, is much longer; in some circumstances, more
      pathetic, than that of Ockley, followed by Gibbon. His family,
      after his defenders were all slain, perished in succession before
      his eyes. They had been cut off from the water, and suffered all
      the agonies of thirst. His eldest son, Ally Akbar, after ten
      different assaults on the enemy, in each of which he slew two or
      three, complained bitterly of his sufferings from heat and
      thirst. “His father arose, and introducing his own tongue within
      the parched lips of his favorite child, thus endeavored to
      alleviate his sufferings by the only means of which his enemies
      had not yet been able to deprive him.” Ally was slain and cut to
      pieces in his sight: this wrung from him his first and only cry;
      then it was that his sister Zeyneb rushed from the tent. The
      rest, including his nephew, fell in succession. Hosein’s horse
      was wounded—he fell to the ground. The hour of prayer, between
      noon and sunset, had arrived; the Imaun began the religious
      duties:—as Hosein prayed, he heard the cries of his infant child
      Abdallah, only twelve months old. The child was, at his desire,
      placed on his bosom: as he wept over it, it was transfixed by an
      arrow. Hosein dragged himself to the Euphrates: as he slaked his
      burning thirst, his mouth was pierced by an arrow: he drank his
      own blood. Wounded in four-and-thirty places, he still gallantly
      resisted. A soldier named Zeraiah gave the fatal wound: his head
      was cut off by Ziliousheng. Price, p. 402, 410.—M.]

      180 (return) [ Niebuhr the Dane (Voyages en Arabie, &c., tom. ii.
      p. 208, &c.) is, perhaps, the only European traveller who has
      dared to visit Meshed Ali and Meshed Hosein. The two sepulchres
      are in the hands of the Turks, who tolerate and tax the devotion
      of the Persian heretics. The festival of the death of Hosein is
      amply described by Sir John Chardin, a traveller whom I have
      often praised.]

      When the sisters and children of Ali were brought in chains to
      the throne of Damascus, the caliph was advised to extirpate the
      enmity of a popular and hostile race, whom he had injured beyond
      the hope of reconciliation. But Yezid preferred the councils of
      mercy; and the mourning family was honorably dismissed to mingle
      their tears with their kindred at Medina. The glory of martyrdom
      superseded the right of primogeniture; and the twelve imams, 181
      or pontiffs, of the Persian creed, are Ali, Hassan, Hosein, and
      the lineal descendants of Hosein to the ninth generation. Without
      arms, or treasures, or subjects, they successively enjoyed the
      veneration of the people, and provoked the jealousy of the
      reigning caliphs: their tombs, at Mecca or Medina, on the banks
      of the Euphrates, or in the province of Chorasan, are still
      visited by the devotion of their sect. Their names were often the
      pretence of sedition and civil war; but these royal saints
      despised the pomp of the world: submitted to the will of God and
      the injustice of man; and devoted their innocent lives to the
      study and practice of religion. The twelfth and last of the
      Imams, conspicuous by the title of Mahadi, or the Guide,
      surpassed the solitude and sanctity of his predecessors. He
      concealed himself in a cavern near Bagdad: the time and place of
      his death are unknown; and his votaries pretend that he still
      lives, and will appear before the day of judgment to overthrow
      the tyranny of Dejal, or the Antichrist. 182 In the lapse of two
      or three centuries, the posterity of Abbas, the uncle of Mahomet,
      had multiplied to the number of thirty-three thousand: 183 the
      race of Ali might be equally prolific: the meanest individual was
      above the first and greatest of princes; and the most eminent
      were supposed to excel the perfection of angels. But their
      adverse fortune, and the wide extent of the Mussulman empire,
      allowed an ample scope for every bold and artful imposture, who
      claimed affinity with the holy seed: the sceptre of the
      Almohades, in Spain and Africa; of the Fatimites, in Egypt and
      Syria; 184 of the Sultans of Yemen; and of the Sophis of Persia;
      185 has been consecrated by this vague and ambiguous title. Under
      their reigns it might be dangerous to dispute the legitimacy of
      their birth; and one of the Fatimite caliphs silenced an
      indiscreet question by drawing his cimeter: “This,” said Moez,
      “is my pedigree; and these,” casting a handful of gold to his
      soldiers,—“and these are my kindred and my children.” In the
      various conditions of princes, or doctors, or nobles, or
      merchants, or beggars, a swarm of the genuine or fictitious
      descendants of Mahomet and Ali is honored with the appellation of
      sheiks, or sherifs, or emirs. In the Ottoman empire they are
      distinguished by a green turban; receive a stipend from the
      treasury; are judged only by their chief; and, however debased by
      fortune or character, still assert the proud preeminence of their
      birth. A family of three hundred persons, the pure and orthodox
      branch of the caliph Hassan, is preserved without taint or
      suspicion in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and still
      retains, after the revolutions of twelve centuries, the custody
      of the temple, and the sovereignty of their native land. The fame
      and merit of Mahomet would ennoble a plebeian race, and the
      ancient blood of the Koreish transcends the recent majesty of the
      kings of the earth. 186

      181 (return) [ The general article of Imam, in D’Herbelot’s
      Bibliotheque, will indicate the succession; and the lives of the
      twelve are given under their respective names.]

      182 (return) [ The name of Antichrist may seem ridiculous, but
      the Mahometans have liberally borrowed the fables of every
      religion, (Sale’s Preliminary Discourse, p. 80, 82.) In the royal
      stable of Ispahan, two horses were always kept saddled, one for
      the Mahadi himself, the other for his lieutenant, Jesus the son
      of Mary.]

      183 (return) [ In the year of the Hegira 200, (A.D. 815.) See
      D’Herbelot, p. 146]

      184 (return) [ D’Herbelot, p. 342. The enemies of the Fatimites
      disgraced them by a Jewish origin. Yet they accurately deduced
      their genealogy from Jaafar, the sixth Imam; and the impartial
      Abulfeda allows (Annal. Moslem. p. 230) that they were owned by
      many, qui absque controversia genuini sunt Alidarum, homines
      propaginum suae gentis exacte callentes. He quotes some lines
      from the celebrated Scherif or Rahdi, Egone humilitatem induam in
      terris hostium? (I suspect him to be an Edrissite of Sicily,) cum
      in Aegypto sit Chalifa de gente Alii, quocum ego communem habeo
      patrem et vindicem.]

      185 (return) [ The kings of Persia in the last century are
      descended from Sheik Sefi, a saint of the xivth century, and
      through him, from Moussa Cassem, the son of Hosein, the son of
      Ali, (Olearius, p. 957. Chardin, tom. iii. p. 288.) But I cannot
      trace the intermediate degrees in any genuine or fabulous
      pedigree. If they were truly Fatimites, they might draw their
      origin from the princes of Mazanderan, who reigned in the ixth
      century, (D’Herbelot, p. 96.)]

      186 (return) [ The present state of the family of Mahomet and Ali
      is most accurately described by Demetrius Cantemir (Hist. of the
      Othmae Empire, p. 94) and Niebuhr, (Description de l’Arabie, p.
      9-16, 317 &c.) It is much to be lamented, that the Danish
      traveller was unable to purchase the chronicles of Arabia.]

      The talents of Mahomet are entitled to our applause; but his
      success has, perhaps, too strongly attracted our admiration. Are
      we surprised that a multitude of proselytes should embrace the
      doctrine and the passions of an eloquent fanatic? In the heresies
      of the church, the same seduction has been tried and repeated
      from the time of the apostles to that of the reformers. Does it
      seem incredible that a private citizen should grasp the sword and
      the sceptre, subdue his native country, and erect a monarchy by
      his victorious arms? In the moving picture of the dynasties of
      the East, a hundred fortunate usurpers have arisen from a baser
      origin, surmounted more formidable obstacles, and filled a larger
      scope of empire and conquest. Mahomet was alike instructed to
      preach and to fight; and the union of these opposite qualities,
      while it enhanced his merit, contributed to his success: the
      operation of force and persuasion, of enthusiasm and fear,
      continually acted on each other, till every barrier yielded to
      their irresistible power. His voice invited the Arabs to freedom
      and victory, to arms and rapine, to the indulgence of their
      darling passions in this world and the other: the restraints
      which he imposed were requisite to establish the credit of the
      prophet, and to exercise the obedience of the people; and the
      only objection to his success was his rational creed of the unity
      and perfections of God. It is not the propagation, but the
      permanency, of his religion, that deserves our wonder: the same
      pure and perfect impression which he engraved at Mecca and
      Medina, is preserved, after the revolutions of twelve centuries,
      by the Indian, the African, and the Turkish proselytes of the
      Koran. If the Christian apostles, St. Peter or St. Paul, could
      return to the Vatican, they might possibly inquire the name of
      the Deity who is worshipped with such mysterious rites in that
      magnificent temple: at Oxford or Geneva, they would experience
      less surprise; but it might still be incumbent on them to peruse
      the catechism of the church, and to study the orthodox
      commentators on their own writings and the words of their Master.
      But the Turkish dome of St. Sophia, with an increase of splendor
      and size, represents the humble tabernacle erected at Medina by
      the hands of Mahomet. The Mahometans have uniformly withstood the
      temptation of reducing the object of their faith and devotion to
      a level with the senses and imagination of man. “I believe in one
      God, and Mahomet the apostle of God,” is the simple and
      invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image of the
      Deity has never been degraded by any visible idol; the honors of
      the prophet have never transgressed the measure of human virtue;
      and his living precepts have restrained the gratitude of his
      disciples within the bounds of reason and religion. The votaries
      of Ali have, indeed, consecrated the memory of their hero, his
      wife, and his children; and some of the Persian doctors pretend
      that the divine essence was incarnate in the person of the Imams;
      but their superstition is universally condemned by the Sonnites;
      and their impiety has afforded a seasonable warning against the
      worship of saints and martyrs. The metaphysical questions on the
      attributes of God, and the liberty of man, have been agitated in
      the schools of the Mahometans, as well as in those of the
      Christians; but among the former they have never engaged the
      passions of the people, or disturbed the tranquillity of the
      state. The cause of this important difference may be found in the
      separation or union of the regal and sacerdotal characters. It
      was the interest of the caliphs, the successors of the prophet
      and commanders of the faithful, to repress and discourage all
      religious innovations: the order, the discipline, the temporal
      and spiritual ambition of the clergy, are unknown to the Moslems;
      and the sages of the law are the guides of their conscience and
      the oracles of their faith. From the Atlantic to the Ganges, the
      Koran is acknowledged as the fundamental code, not only of
      theology, but of civil and criminal jurisprudence; and the laws
      which regulate the actions and the property of mankind are
      guarded by the infallible and immutable sanction of the will of
      God. This religious servitude is attended with some practical
      disadvantage; the illiterate legislator had been often misled by
      his own prejudices and those of his country; and the institutions
      of the Arabian desert may be ill adapted to the wealth and
      numbers of Ispahan and Constantinople. On these occasions, the
      Cadhi respectfully places on his head the holy volume, and
      substitutes a dexterous interpretation more apposite to the
      principles of equity, and the manners and policy of the times.

      His beneficial or pernicious influence on the public happiness is
      the last consideration in the character of Mahomet. The most
      bitter or most bigoted of his Christian or Jewish foes will
      surely allow that he assumed a false commission to inculcate a
      salutary doctrine, less perfect only than their own. He piously
      supposed, as the basis of his religion, the truth and sanctity of
      their prior revolutions, the virtues and miracles of their
      founders. The idols of Arabia were broken before the throne of
      God; the blood of human victims was expiated by prayer, and
      fasting, and alms, the laudable or innocent arts of devotion; and
      his rewards and punishments of a future life were painted by the
      images most congenial to an ignorant and carnal generation.
      Mahomet was, perhaps, incapable of dictating a moral and
      political system for the use of his countrymen: but he breathed
      among the faithful a spirit of charity and friendship;
      recommended the practice of the social virtues; and checked, by
      his laws and precepts, the thirst of revenge, and the oppression
      of widows and orphans. The hostile tribes were united in faith
      and obedience, and the valor which had been idly spent in
      domestic quarrels was vigorously directed against a foreign
      enemy. Had the impulse been less powerful, Arabia, free at home
      and formidable abroad, might have flourished under a succession
      of her native monarchs. Her sovereignty was lost by the extent
      and rapidity of conquest. The colonies of the nation were
      scattered over the East and West, and their blood was mingled
      with the blood of their converts and captives. After the reign of
      three caliphs, the throne was transported from Medina to the
      valley of Damascus and the banks of the Tigris; the holy cities
      were violated by impious war; Arabia was ruled by the rod of a
      subject, perhaps of a stranger; and the Bedoweens of the desert,
      awakening from their dream of dominion, resumed their old and
      solitary independence. 187

      187 (return) [ The writers of the Modern Universal History (vols.
      i. and ii.) have compiled, in 850 folio pages, the life of
      Mahomet and the annals of the caliphs. They enjoyed the advantage
      of reading, and sometimes correcting, the Arabic text; yet,
      notwithstanding their high-sounding boasts, I cannot find, after
      the conclusion of my work, that they have afforded me much (if
      any) additional information. The dull mass is not quickened by a
      spark of philosophy or taste; and the compilers indulge the
      criticism of acrimonious bigotry against Boulainvilliers, Sale,
      Gagnier, and all who have treated Mahomet with favor, or even
      justice.]




      Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part I.

     The Conquest Of Persia, Syria, Egypt, Africa, And Spain, By The
     Arabs Or Saracens.—Empire Of The Caliphs, Or Successors Of
     Mahomet.—State Of The Christians, &c., Under Their Government.

      The revolution of Arabia had not changed the character of the
      Arabs: the death of Mahomet was the signal of independence; and
      the hasty structure of his power and religion tottered to its
      foundations. A small and faithful band of his primitive disciples
      had listened to his eloquence, and shared his distress; had fled
      with the apostle from the persecution of Mecca, or had received
      the fugitive in the walls of Medina. The increasing myriads, who
      acknowledged Mahomet as their king and prophet, had been
      compelled by his arms, or allured by his prosperity. The
      polytheists were confounded by the simple idea of a solitary and
      invisible God; the pride of the Christians and Jews disdained the
      yoke of a mortal and contemporary legislator. The habits of faith
      and obedience were not sufficiently confirmed; and many of the
      new converts regretted the venerable antiquity of the law of
      Moses, or the rites and mysteries of the Catholic church; or the
      idols, the sacrifices, the joyous festivals, of their Pagan
      ancestors. The jarring interests and hereditary feuds of the
      Arabian tribes had not yet coalesced in a system of union and
      subordination; and the Barbarians were impatient of the mildest
      and most salutary laws that curbed their passions, or violated
      their customs. They submitted with reluctance to the religious
      precepts of the Koran, the abstinence from wine, the fast of the
      Ramadan, and the daily repetition of five prayers; and the alms
      and tithes, which were collected for the treasury of Medina,
      could be distinguished only by a name from the payment of a
      perpetual and ignominious tribute. The example of Mahomet had
      excited a spirit of fanaticism or imposture, and several of his
      rivals presumed to imitate the conduct, and defy the authority,
      of the living prophet. At the head of the fugitives and
      auxiliaries, the first caliph was reduced to the cities of Mecca,
      Medina, and Tayef; and perhaps the Koreish would have restored
      the idols of the Caaba, if their levity had not been checked by a
      seasonable reproof. “Ye men of Mecca, will ye be the last to
      embrace, and the first to abandon, the religion of Islam?” After
      exhorting the Moslems to confide in the aid of God and his
      apostle, Abubeker resolved, by a vigorous attack, to prevent the
      junction of the rebels. The women and children were safely lodged
      in the cavities of the mountains: the warriors, marching under
      eleven banners, diffused the terror of their arms; and the
      appearance of a military force revived and confirmed the loyalty
      of the faithful. The inconstant tribes accepted, with humble
      repentance, the duties of prayer, and fasting, and alms; and,
      after some examples of success and severity, the most daring
      apostates fell prostrate before the sword of the Lord and of
      Caled. In the fertile province of Yemanah, 1 between the Red Sea
      and the Gulf of Persia, in a city not inferior to Medina itself,
      a powerful chief (his name was Moseilama) had assumed the
      character of a prophet, and the tribe of Hanifa listened to his
      voice. A female prophetess 1111 was attracted by his reputation;
      the decencies of words and actions were spurned by these
      favorites of Heaven; 2 and they employed several days in mystic
      and amorous converse. An obscure sentence of his Koran, or book,
      is yet extant; 3 and in the pride of his mission, Moseilama
      condescended to offer a partition of the earth. The proposal was
      answered by Mahomet with contempt; but the rapid progress of the
      impostor awakened the fears of his successor: forty thousand
      Moslems were assembled under the standard of Caled; and the
      existence of their faith was resigned to the event of a decisive
      battle. 3111 In the first action they were repulsed by the loss
      of twelve hundred men; but the skill and perseverance of their
      general prevailed; their defeat was avenged by the slaughter of
      ten thousand infidels; and Moseilama himself was pierced by an
      Aethiopian slave with the same javelin which had mortally wounded
      the uncle of Mahomet. The various rebels of Arabia without a
      chief or a cause, were speedily suppressed by the power and
      discipline of the rising monarchy; and the whole nation again
      professed, and more steadfastly held, the religion of the Koran.
      The ambition of the caliphs provided an immediate exercise for
      the restless spirit of the Saracens: their valor was united in
      the prosecution of a holy war; and their enthusiasm was equally
      confirmed by opposition and victory.

      1 (return) [ See the description of the city and country of Al
      Yamanah, in Abulfeda, Descript. Arabiae, p. 60, 61. In the xiiith
      century, there were some ruins, and a few palms; but in the
      present century, the same ground is occupied by the visions and
      arms of a modern prophet, whose tenets are imperfectly known,
      (Niebuhr, Description de l’Arabie, p. 296-302.)]

      1111 (return) [ This extraordinary woman was a Christian; she was
      at the head of a numerous and flourishing sect; Moseilama
      professed to recognize her inspiration. In a personal interview
      he proposed their marriage and the union of their sects. The
      handsome person, the impassioned eloquence, and the arts of
      Moseilama, triumphed over the virtue of the prophetesa who was
      rejected with scorn by her lover, and by her notorious unchastity
      ost her influence with her own followers. Gibbon, with that
      propensity too common, especially in his later volumes, has
      selected only the grosser part of this singular adventure.—M.]

      2 (return) [ The first salutation may be transcribed, but cannot
      be translated. It was thus that Moseilama said or sung:—

 Surge tandem itaque strenue permolenda; nam stratus tibi thorus est.
 Aut in propatulo tentorio si velis, aut in abditiore cubiculo si
 malis; Aut supinam te humi exporrectam fustigabo, si velis, Aut si
 malis manibus pedibusque nixam. Aut si velis ejus (Priapi) gemino
 triente aut si malis totus veniam. Imo, totus venito, O Apostole Dei,
 clamabat foemina. Id ipsum, dicebat Moseilama, mihi quoque suggessit
 Deus.

      The prophetess Segjah, after the fall of her lover, returned to
      idolatry; but under the reign of Moawiyah, she became a
      Mussulman, and died at Bassora, (Abulfeda, Annal. vers. Reiske,
      p. 63.)]

      3 (return) [ See this text, which demonstrates a God from the
      work of generation, in Abulpharagius (Specimen Hist. Arabum, p.
      13, and Dynast. p. 103) and Abulfeda, (Annal. p. 63.)]

      3111 (return) [ Compare a long account of this battle in Price,
      p. 42.—M.]

      From the rapid conquests of the Saracens a presumption will
      naturally arise, that the caliphs 311 commanded in person the
      armies of the faithful, and sought the crown of martyrdom in the
      foremost ranks of the battle. The courage of Abubeker, 4 Omar, 5
      and Othman, 6 had indeed been tried in the persecution and wars
      of the prophet; and the personal assurance of paradise must have
      taught them to despise the pleasures and dangers of the present
      world. But they ascended the throne in a venerable or mature age;
      and esteemed the domestic cares of religion and justice the most
      important duties of a sovereign. Except the presence of Omar at
      the siege of Jerusalem, their longest expeditions were the
      frequent pilgrimage from Medina to Mecca; and they calmly
      received the tidings of victory as they prayed or preached before
      the sepulchre of the prophet. The austere and frugal measure of
      their lives was the effect of virtue or habit, and the pride of
      their simplicity insulted the vain magnificence of the kings of
      the earth. When Abubeker assumed the office of caliph, he
      enjoined his daughter Ayesha to take a strict account of his
      private patrimony, that it might be evident whether he were
      enriched or impoverished by the service of the state. He thought
      himself entitled to a stipend of three pieces of gold, with the
      sufficient maintenance of a single camel and a black slave; but
      on the Friday of each week he distributed the residue of his own
      and the public money, first to the most worthy, and then to the
      most indigent, of the Moslems. The remains of his wealth, a
      coarse garment, and five pieces of gold, were delivered to his
      successor, who lamented with a modest sigh his own inability to
      equal such an admirable model. Yet the abstinence and humility of
      Omar were not inferior to the virtues of Abubeker: his food
      consisted of barley bread or dates; his drink was water; he
      preached in a gown that was torn or tattered in twelve places;
      and the Persian satrap, who paid his homage to the conqueror,
      found him asleep among the beggars on the steps of the mosch of
      Medina. Oeeconomy is the source of liberality, and the increase
      of the revenue enabled Omar to establish a just and perpetual
      reward for the past and present services of the faithful.
      Careless of his own emolument, he assigned to Abbas, the uncle of
      the prophet, the first and most ample allowance of twenty-five
      thousand drachms or pieces of silver. Five thousand were allotted
      to each of the aged warriors, the relics of the field of Beder;
      and the last and meanest of the companions of Mahomet was
      distinguished by the annual reward of three thousand pieces. One
      thousand was the stipend of the veterans who had fought in the
      first battles against the Greeks and Persians; and the decreasing
      pay, as low as fifty pieces of silver, was adapted to the
      respective merit and seniority of the soldiers of Omar. Under his
      reign, and that of his predecessor, the conquerors of the East
      were the trusty servants of God and the people; the mass of the
      public treasure was consecrated to the expenses of peace and war;
      a prudent mixture of justice and bounty maintained the discipline
      of the Saracens, and they united, by a rare felicity, the
      despatch and execution of despotism with the equal and frugal
      maxims of a republican government. The heroic courage of Ali, 7
      the consummate prudence of Moawiyah, 8 excited the emulation of
      their subjects; and the talents which had been exercised in the
      school of civil discord were more usefully applied to propagate
      the faith and dominion of the prophet. In the sloth and vanity of
      the palace of Damascus, the succeeding princes of the house of
      Ommiyah were alike destitute of the qualifications of statesmen
      and of saints. 9 Yet the spoils of unknown nations were
      continually laid at the foot of their throne, and the uniform
      ascent of the Arabian greatness must be ascribed to the spirit of
      the nation rather than the abilities of their chiefs. A large
      deduction must be allowed for the weakness of their enemies. The
      birth of Mahomet was fortunately placed in the most degenerate
      and disorderly period of the Persians, the Romans, and the
      Barbarians of Europe: the empires of Trajan, or even of
      Constantine or Charlemagne, would have repelled the assault of
      the naked Saracens, and the torrent of fanaticism might have been
      obscurely lost in the sands of Arabia.

      311 (return) [ In Arabic, “successors.” V. Hammer Geschichte der
      Assas. p. 14—M.]

      4 (return) [ His reign in Eutychius, tom. ii. p. 251. Elmacin, p.
      18. Abulpharagius, p. 108. Abulfeda, p. 60. D’Herbelot, p. 58.]

      5 (return) [ His reign in Eutychius, p. 264. Elmacin, p. 24.
      Abulpharagius, p. 110. Abulfeda, p. 66. D’Herbelot, p. 686.]

      6 (return) [ His reign in Eutychius, p. 323. Elmacin, p. 36.
      Abulpharagius, p. 115. Abulfeda, p. 75. D’Herbelot, p. 695.]

      7 (return) [ His reign in Eutychius, p. 343. Elmacin, p. 51.
      Abulpharagius, p. 117. Abulfeda, p. 83. D’Herbelot, p. 89.]

      8 (return) [ His reign in Eutychius, p. 344. Elmacin, p. 54.
      Abulpharagius, p. 123. Abulfeda, p. 101. D’Herbelot, p. 586.]

      9 (return) [ Their reigns in Eutychius, tom. ii. p. 360-395.
      Elmacin, p. 59-108. Abulpharagius, Dynast. ix. p. 124-139.
      Abulfeda, p. 111-141. D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 691,
      and the particular articles of the Ommiades.]

      In the victorious days of the Roman republic, it had been the aim
      of the senate to confine their councils and legions to a single
      war, and completely to suppress a first enemy before they
      provoked the hostilities of a second. These timid maxims of
      policy were disdained by the magnanimity or enthusiasm of the
      Arabian caliphs. With the same vigor and success they invaded the
      successors of Augustus and those of Artaxerxes; and the rival
      monarchies at the same instant became the prey of an enemy whom
      they had been so long accustomed to despise. In the ten years of
      the administration of Omar, the Saracens reduced to his obedience
      thirty-six thousand cities or castles, destroyed four thousand
      churches or temples of the unbelievers, and edified fourteen
      hundred moschs for the exercise of the religion of Mahomet. One
      hundred years after his flight from Mecca, the arms and the reign
      of his successors extended from India to the Atlantic Ocean, over
      the various and distant provinces, which may be comprised under
      the names of, I. Persia; II. Syria; III. Egypt; IV. Africa; and,
      V. Spain. Under this general division, I shall proceed to unfold
      these memorable transactions; despatching with brevity the remote
      and less interesting conquests of the East, and reserving a
      fuller narrative for those domestic countries which had been
      included within the pale of the Roman empire. Yet I must excuse
      my own defects by a just complaint of the blindness and
      insufficiency of my guides. The Greeks, so loquacious in
      controversy, have not been anxious to celebrate the triumphs of
      their enemies. 10 After a century of ignorance, the first annals
      of the Mussulmans were collected in a great measure from the
      voice of tradition. 11 Among the numerous productions of Arabic
      and Persian literature, 12 our interpreters have selected the
      imperfect sketches of a more recent age. 13 The art and genius of
      history have ever been unknown to the Asiatics; 14 they are
      ignorant of the laws of criticism; and our monkish chronicle of
      the same period may be compared to their most popular works,
      which are never vivified by the spirit of philosophy and freedom.

      The Oriental library of a Frenchman 15 would instruct the most
      learned mufti of the East; and perhaps the Arabs might not find
      in a single historian so clear and comprehensive a narrative of
      their own exploits as that which will be deduced in the ensuing
      sheets.

      10 (return) [ For the viith and viiith century, we have scarcely
      any original evidence of the Byzantine historians, except the
      chronicles of Theophanes (Theophanis Confessoris Chronographia,
      Gr. et Lat. cum notis Jacobi Goar. Paris, 1665, in folio) and the
      Abridgment of Nicephorus, (Nicephori Patriarchae C. P. Breviarium
      Historicum, Gr. et Lat. Paris, 1648, in folio,) who both lived in
      the beginning of the ixth century, (see Hanckius de Scriptor.
      Byzant. p. 200-246.) Their contemporary, Photius, does not seem
      to be more opulent. After praising the style of Nicephorus, he
      adds, and only complains of his extreme brevity, (Phot. Bibliot.
      Cod. lxvi. p. 100.) Some additions may be gleaned from the more
      recent histories of Cedrenus and Zonaras of the xiith century.]

      11 (return) [ Tabari, or Al Tabari, a native of Taborestan, a
      famous Imam of Bagdad, and the Livy of the Arabians, finished his
      general history in the year of the Hegira 302, (A.D. 914.) At the
      request of his friends, he reduced a work of 30,000 sheets to a
      more reasonable size. But his Arabic original is known only by
      the Persian and Turkish versions. The Saracenic history of Ebn
      Amid, or Elmacin, is said to be an abridgment of the great
      Tabari, (Ockley’s Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. preface, p.
      xxxix. and list of authors, D’Herbelot, p. 866, 870, 1014.)]

      12 (return) [ Besides the list of authors framed by Prideaux,
      (Life of Mahomet, p. 179-189,) Ockley, (at the end of his second
      volume,) and Petit de la Croix, (Hist. de Gengiscan, p. 525-550,)
      we find in the Bibliotheque Orientale Tarikh, a catalogue of two
      or three hundred histories or chronicles of the East, of which
      not more than three or four are older than Tabari. A lively
      sketch of Oriental literature is given by Reiske, (in his
      Prodidagmata ad Hagji Chalifae librum memorialem ad calcem
      Abulfedae Tabulae Syriae, Lipsiae, 1776;) but his project and the
      French version of Petit de la Croix (Hist. de Timur Bec, tom. i.
      preface, p. xlv.) have fallen to the ground.]

      13 (return) [ The particular historians and geographers will be
      occasionally introduced. The four following titles represent the
      Annals which have guided me in this general narrative. 1. Annales
      Eutychii, Patriarchoe Alexandrini, ab Edwardo Pocockio, Oxon.
      1656, 2 vols. in 4to. A pompous edition of an indifferent author,
      translated by Pocock to gratify the Presbyterian prejudices of
      his friend Selden. 2. Historia Saracenica Georgii Elmacini, opera
      et studio Thomae Erpenii, in 4to., Lugd. Batavorum, 1625. He is
      said to have hastily translated a corrupt Ms., and his version is
      often deficient in style and sense. 3. Historia compendiosa
      Dynastiarum a Gregorio Abulpharagio, interprete Edwardo Pocockio,
      in 4to., Oxon. 1663. More useful for the literary than the civil
      history of the East. 4. Abulfedoe Annales Moslemici ad Ann.
      Hegiroe ccccvi. a Jo. Jac. Reiske, in 4to., Lipsioe, 1754. The
      best of our chronicles, both for the original and version, yet
      how far below the name of Abulfeda! We know that he wrote at
      Hamah in the xivth century. The three former were Christians of
      the xth, xiith, and xiiith centuries; the two first, natives of
      Egypt; a Melchite patriarch, and a Jacobite scribe.]

      14 (return) [ M. D. Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. pref. p.
      xix. xx.) has characterized, with truth and knowledge, the two
      sorts of Arabian historians—the dry annalist, and the tumid and
      flowery orator.]

      15 (return) [ Bibliotheque Orientale, par M. D’Herbelot, in
      folio, Paris, 1697. For the character of the respectable author,
      consult his friend Thevenot, (Voyages du Levant, part i. chap.
      1.) His work is an agreeable miscellany, which must gratify every
      taste; but I never can digest the alphabetical order; and I find
      him more satisfactory in the Persian than the Arabic history. The
      recent supplement from the papers of Mm. Visdelou, and Galland,
      (in folio, La Haye, 1779,) is of a different cast, a medley of
      tales, proverbs, and Chinese antiquities.]

      I. In the first year of the first caliph, his lieutenant Caled,
      the Sword of God, and the scourge of the infidels, advanced to
      the banks of the Euphrates, and reduced the cities of Anbar and
      Hira. Westward of the ruins of Babylon, a tribe of sedentary
      Arabs had fixed themselves on the verge of the desert; and Hira
      was the seat of a race of kings who had embraced the Christian
      religion, and reigned above six hundred years under the shadow of
      the throne of Persia. 16 The last of the Mondars 1611 was
      defeated and slain by Caled; his son was sent a captive to
      Medina; his nobles bowed before the successor of the prophet; the
      people was tempted by the example and success of their
      countrymen; and the caliph accepted as the first-fruits of
      foreign conquest an annual tribute of seventy thousand pieces of
      gold. The conquerors, and even their historians, were astonished
      by the dawn of their future greatness: “In the same year,” says
      Elmacin, “Caled fought many signal battles: an immense multitude
      of the infidels was slaughtered; and spoils infinite and
      innumerable were acquired by the victorious Moslems.” 17 But the
      invincible Caled was soon transferred to the Syrian war: the
      invasion of the Persian frontier was conducted by less active or
      less prudent commanders: the Saracens were repulsed with loss in
      the passage of the Euphrates; and, though they chastised the
      insolent pursuit of the Magians, their remaining forces still
      hovered in the desert of Babylon. 1711

      16 (return) [ Pocock will explain the chronology, (Specimen Hist.
      Arabum, p. 66-74,) and D’Anville the geography, (l’Euphrate, et
      le Tigre, p. 125,) of the dynasty of the Almondars. The English
      scholar understood more Arabic than the mufti of Aleppo, (Ockley,
      vol. ii. p. 34: ) the French geographer is equally at home in
      every age and every climate of the world.]

      1611 (return) [ Eichhorn and Silvestre de Sacy have written on
      the obscure history of the Mondars.—M.]

      17 (return) [ Fecit et Chaled plurima in hoc anno praelia, in
      quibus vicerunt Muslimi, et infidelium immensa multitudine occisa
      spolia infinita et innumera sunt nacti, (Hist. Saracenica, p.
      20.) The Christian annalist slides into the national and
      compendious term of infidels, and I often adopt (I hope without
      scandal) this characteristic mode of expression.]

      1711 (return) [ Compare throughout Malcolm, vol. ii. p. 136.—M.]

      The indignation and fears of the Persians suspended for a moment
      their intestine divisions. By the unanimous sentence of the
      priests and nobles, their queen Arzema was deposed; the sixth of
      the transient usurpers, who had arisen and vanished in three or
      four years since the death of Chosroes, and the retreat of
      Heraclius. Her tiara was placed on the head of Yezdegerd, the
      grandson of Chosroes; and the same aera, which coincides with an
      astronomical period, 18 has recorded the fall of the Sassanian
      dynasty and the religion of Zoroaster. 19 The youth and
      inexperience of the prince (he was only fifteen years of age)
      declined a perilous encounter: the royal standard was delivered
      into the hands of his general Rustam; and a remnant of thirty
      thousand regular troops was swelled in truth, or in opinion, to
      one hundred and twenty thousand subjects, or allies, of the great
      king. The Moslems, whose numbers were reenforced from twelve to
      thirty thousand, had pitched their camp in the plains of Cadesia:
      20 and their line, though it consisted of fewer men, could
      produce more soldiers, than the unwieldy host of the infidels. I
      shall here observe, what I must often repeat, that the charge of
      the Arabs was not, like that of the Greeks and Romans, the effort
      of a firm and compact infantry: their military force was chiefly
      formed of cavalry and archers; and the engagement, which was
      often interrupted and often renewed by single combats and flying
      skirmishes, might be protracted without any decisive event to the
      continuance of several days. The periods of the battle of Cadesia
      were distinguished by their peculiar appellations. The first,
      from the well-timed appearance of six thousand of the Syrian
      brethren, was denominated the day of succor. The day of
      concussion might express the disorder of one, or perhaps of both,
      of the contending armies. The third, a nocturnal tumult, received
      the whimsical name of the night of barking, from the discordant
      clamors, which were compared to the inarticulate sounds of the
      fiercest animals. The morning of the succeeding day 2011
      determined the fate of Persia; and a seasonable whirlwind drove a
      cloud of dust against the faces of the unbelievers. The clangor
      of arms was reechoed to the tent of Rustam, who, far unlike the
      ancient hero of his name, was gently reclining in a cool and
      tranquil shade, amidst the baggage of his camp, and the train of
      mules that were laden with gold and silver. On the sound of
      danger he started from his couch; but his flight was overtaken by
      a valiant Arab, who caught him by the foot, struck off his head,
      hoisted it on a lance, and instantly returning to the field of
      battle, carried slaughter and dismay among the thickest ranks of
      the Persians. The Saracens confess a loss of seven thousand five
      hundred men; 2012 and the battle of Cadesia is justly described
      by the epithets of obstinate and atrocious. 21 The standard of
      the monarchy was overthrown and captured in the field—a leathern
      apron of a blacksmith, who in ancient times had arisen the
      deliverer of Persia; but this badge of heroic poverty was
      disguised, and almost concealed, by a profusion of precious gems.
      22 After this victory, the wealthy province of Irak, or Assyria,
      submitted to the caliph, and his conquests were firmly
      established by the speedy foundation of Bassora, 23 a place which
      ever commands the trade and navigation of the Persians. As the
      distance of fourscore miles from the Gulf, the Euphrates and
      Tigris unite in a broad and direct current, which is aptly styled
      the river of the Arabs. In the midway, between the junction and
      the mouth of these famous streams, the new settlement was planted
      on the western bank: the first colony was composed of eight
      hundred Moslems; but the influence of the situation soon reared a
      flourishing and populous capital. The air, though excessively
      hot, is pure and healthy: the meadows are filled with palm-trees
      and cattle; and one of the adjacent valleys has been celebrated
      among the four paradises or gardens of Asia. Under the first
      caliphs the jurisdiction of this Arabian colony extended over the
      southern provinces of Persia: the city has been sanctified by the
      tombs of the companions and martyrs; and the vessels of Europe
      still frequent the port of Bassora, as a convenient station and
      passage of the Indian trade.

      18 (return) [ A cycle of 120 years, the end of which an
      intercalary month of 30 days supplied the use of our Bissextile,
      and restored the integrity of the solar year. In a great
      revolution of 1440 years this intercalation was successively
      removed from the first to the twelfth month; but Hyde and Freret
      are involved in a profound controversy, whether the twelve, or
      only eight of these changes were accomplished before the aera of
      Yezdegerd, which is unanimously fixed to the 16th of June, A.D.
      632. How laboriously does the curious spirit of Europe explore
      the darkest and most distant antiquities! (Hyde de Religione
      Persarum, c. 14-18, p. 181-211. Freret in the Mem. de l’Academie
      des Inscriptions, tom. xvi. p. 233-267.)]

      19 (return) [ Nine days after the death of Mahomet (7th June,
      A.D. 632) we find the aera of Yezdegerd, (16th June, A.D. 632,)
      and his accession cannot be postponed beyond the end of the first
      year. His predecessors could not therefore resist the arms of the
      caliph Omar; and these unquestionable dates overthrow the
      thoughtless chronology of Abulpharagius. See Ockley’s Hist. of
      the Saracens, vol. i. p. 130. * Note: The Rezont Uzzuffa (Price,
      p. 105) has a strange account of an embassy to Yezdegerd. The
      Oriental historians take great delight in these embassies, which
      give them an opportunity of displaying their Asiatic
      eloquence—M.]

      20 (return) [ Cadesia, says the Nubian geographer, (p. 121,) is
      in margine solitudinis, 61 leagues from Bagdad, and two stations
      from Cufa. Otter (Voyage, tom. i. p. 163) reckons 15 leagues, and
      observes, that the place is supplied with dates and water.]

      2011 (return) [ The day of cormorants, or according to another
      reading the day of reinforcements. It was the night which was
      called the night of snarling. Price, p. 114.—M.]

      2012 (return) [ According to Malcolm’s authorities, only three
      thousand; but he adds “This is the report of Mahomedan
      historians, who have a great disposition of the wonderful, in
      relating the first actions of the faithful” Vol. i. p. 39.—M.]

      21 (return) [ Atrox, contumax, plus semel renovatum, are the
      well-chosen expressions of the translator of Abulfeda, (Reiske,
      p. 69.)]

      22 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 297, 348.]

      23 (return) [ The reader may satisfy himself on the subject of
      Bassora by consulting the following writers: Geograph, Nubiens.
      p. 121. D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 192. D’Anville,
      l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 130, 133, 145. Raynal, Hist.
      Philosophique des deux Indes, tom. ii. p. 92-100. Voyages di
      Pietro della Valle, tom. iv. p. 370-391. De Tavernier, tom. i. p.
      240-247. De Thevenot, tom. ii. p. 545-584. D Otter, tom. ii. p.
      45-78. De Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 172-199.]




      Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part II.

      After the defeat of Cadesia, a country intersected by rivers and
      canals might have opposed an insuperable barrier to the
      victorious cavalry; and the walls of Ctesiphon or Madayn, which
      had resisted the battering-rams of the Romans, would not have
      yielded to the darts of the Saracens. But the flying Persians
      were overcome by the belief, that the last day of their religion
      and empire was at hand; the strongest posts were abandoned by
      treachery or cowardice; and the king, with a part of his family
      and treasures, escaped to Holwan at the foot of the Median hills.

      In the third month after the battle, Said, the lieutenant of
      Omar, passed the Tigris without opposition; the capital was taken
      by assault; and the disorderly resistance of the people gave a
      keener edge to the sabres of the Moslems, who shouted with
      religious transport, “This is the white palace of Chosroes; this
      is the promise of the apostle of God!” The naked robbers of the
      desert were suddenly enriched beyond the measure of their hope or
      knowledge. Each chamber revealed a new treasure secreted with
      art, or ostentatiously displayed; the gold and silver, the
      various wardrobes and precious furniture, surpassed (says
      Abulfeda) the estimate of fancy or numbers; and another historian
      defines the untold and almost infinite mass, by the fabulous
      computation of three thousands of thousands of thousands of
      pieces of gold. 24 Some minute though curious facts represent the
      contrast of riches and ignorance. From the remote islands of the
      Indian Ocean a large provision of camphire 25 had been imported,
      which is employed with a mixture of wax to illuminate the palaces
      of the East. Strangers to the name and properties of that
      odoriferous gum, the Saracens, mistaking it for salt, mingled the
      camphire in their bread, and were astonished at the bitterness of
      the taste. One of the apartments of the palace was decorated with
      a carpet of silk, sixty cubits in length, and as many in breadth:
      a paradise or garden was depictured on the ground: the flowers,
      fruits, and shrubs, were imitated by the figures of the gold
      embroidery, and the colors of the precious stones; and the ample
      square was encircled by a variegated and verdant border. 251 The
      Arabian general persuaded his soldiers to relinquish their claim,
      in the reasonable hope that the eyes of the caliph would be
      delighted with the splendid workmanship of nature and industry.
      Regardless of the merit of art, and the pomp of royalty, the
      rigid Omar divided the prize among his brethren of Medina: the
      picture was destroyed; but such was the intrinsic value of the
      materials, that the share of Ali alone was sold for twenty
      thousand drams. A mule that carried away the tiara and cuirass,
      the belt and bracelets of Chosroes, was overtaken by the
      pursuers; the gorgeous trophy was presented to the commander of
      the faithful; and the gravest of the companions condescended to
      smile when they beheld the white beard, the hairy arms, and
      uncouth figure of the veteran, who was invested with the spoils
      of the Great King. 26 The sack of Ctesiphon was followed by its
      desertion and gradual decay. The Saracens disliked the air and
      situation of the place, and Omar was advised by his general to
      remove the seat of government to the western side of the
      Euphrates. In every age, the foundation and ruin of the Assyrian
      cities has been easy and rapid: the country is destitute of stone
      and timber; and the most solid structures 27 are composed of
      bricks baked in the sun, and joined by a cement of the native
      bitumen. The name of Cufa 28 describes a habitation of reeds and
      earth; but the importance of the new capital was supported by the
      numbers, wealth, and spirit, of a colony of veterans; and their
      licentiousness was indulged by the wisest caliphs, who were
      apprehensive of provoking the revolt of a hundred thousand
      swords: “Ye men of Cufa,” said Ali, who solicited their aid, “you
      have been always conspicuous by your valor. You conquered the
      Persian king, and scattered his forces, till you had taken
      possession of his inheritance.” This mighty conquest was achieved
      by the battles of Jalula and Nehavend. After the loss of the
      former, Yezdegerd fled from Holwan, and concealed his shame and
      despair in the mountains of Farsistan, from whence Cyrus had
      descended with his equal and valiant companions. The courage of
      the nation survived that of the monarch: among the hills to the
      south of Ecbatana or Hamadan, one hundred and fifty thousand
      Persians made a third and final stand for their religion and
      country; and the decisive battle of Nehavend was styled by the
      Arabs the victory of victories. If it be true that the flying
      general of the Persians was stopped and overtaken in a crowd of
      mules and camels laden with honey, the incident, however slight
      and singular, will denote the luxurious impediments of an
      Oriental army. 29

      24 (return) [ Mente vix potest numerove comprehendi quanta spolia
      nostris cesserint. Abulfeda, p. 69. Yet I still suspect, that the
      extravagant numbers of Elmacin may be the error, not of the text,
      but of the version. The best translators from the Greek, for
      instance, I find to be very poor arithmeticians. * Note: Ockley
      (Hist. of Saracens, vol. i. p. 230) translates in the same manner
      three thousand million of ducats. See Forster’s Mahometanism
      Unveiled, vol. ii. p. 462; who makes this innocent doubt of
      Gibbon, in which, is to the amount of the plunder, I venture to
      concur, a grave charge of inaccuracy and disrespect to the memory
      of Erpenius. The Persian authorities of Price (p. 122) make the
      booty worth three hundred and thirty millions sterling!—M]

      25 (return) [ The camphire-tree grows in China and Japan; but
      many hundred weight of those meaner sorts are exchanged for a
      single pound of the more precious gum of Borneo and Sumatra,
      (Raynal, Hist. Philosoph. tom. i. p. 362-365. Dictionnaire
      d’Hist. Naturelle par Bomare Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary.)
      These may be the islands of the first climate from whence the
      Arabians imported their camphire (Geograph. Nub. p. 34, 35.
      D’Herbelot, p. 232.)]

      251 (return) [ Compare Price, p. 122.—M.]

      26 (return) [ See Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 376, 377. I
      may credit the fact, without believing the prophecy.]

      27 (return) [ The most considerable ruins of Assyria are the
      tower of Belus, at Babylon, and the hall of Chosroes, at
      Ctesiphon: they have been visited by that vain and curious
      traveller Pietro della Valle, (tom. i. p. 713-718, 731-735.) *
      Note: The best modern account is that of Claudius Rich Esq. Two
      Memoirs of Babylon. London, 1818.—M.]

      28 (return) [ Consult the article of Coufah in the Bibliotheque
      of D’Herbelot ( p. 277, 278,) and the second volume of Ockley’s
      History, particularly p. 40 and 153.]

      29 (return) [ See the article of Nehavend, in D’Herbelot, p. 667,
      668; and Voyages en Turquie et en Perse, par Otter, tom. i. 191.
      * Note: Malcolm vol. i. p. 141.—M.]

      The geography of Persia is darkly delineated by the Greeks and
      Latins; but the most illustrious of her cities appear to be more
      ancient than the invasion of the Arabs. By the reduction of
      Hamadan and Ispahan, of Caswin, Tauris, and Rei, they gradually
      approached the shores of the Caspian Sea: and the orators of
      Mecca might applaud the success and spirit of the faithful, who
      had already lost sight of the northern bear, and had almost
      transcended the bounds of the habitable world. 30 Again, turning
      towards the West and the Roman empire, they repassed the Tigris
      over the bridge of Mosul, and, in the captive provinces of
      Armenia and Mesopotamia, embraced their victorious brethren of
      the Syrian army. From the palace of Madayn their Eastern progress
      was not less rapid or extensive. They advanced along the Tigris
      and the Gulf; penetrated through the passes of the mountains into
      the valley of Estachar or Persepolis, and profaned the last
      sanctuary of the Magian empire. The grandson of Chosroes was
      nearly surprised among the falling columns and mutilated figures;
      a sad emblem of the past and present fortune of Persia: 31 he
      fled with accelerated haste over the desert of Kirman, implored
      the aid of the warlike Segestans, and sought an humble refuge on
      the verge of the Turkish and Chinese power. But a victorious army
      is insensible of fatigue: the Arabs divided their forces in the
      pursuit of a timorous enemy; and the caliph Othman promised the
      government of Chorasan to the first general who should enter that
      large and populous country, the kingdom of the ancient Bactrians.
      The condition was accepted; the prize was deserved; the standard
      of Mahomet was planted on the walls of Herat, Merou, and Balch;
      and the successful leader neither halted nor reposed till his
      foaming cavalry had tasted the waters of the Oxus. In the public
      anarchy, the independent governors of the cities and castles
      obtained their separate capitulations: the terms were granted or
      imposed by the esteem, the prudence, or the compassion, of the
      victors; and a simple profession of faith established the
      distinction between a brother and a slave. After a noble defence,
      Harmozan, the prince or satrap of Ahwaz and Susa, was compelled
      to surrender his person and his state to the discretion of the
      caliph; and their interview exhibits a portrait of the Arabian
      manners. In the presence, and by the command, of Omar, the gay
      Barbarian was despoiled of his silken robes embroidered with
      gold, and of his tiara bedecked with rubies and emeralds: “Are
      you now sensible,” said the conqueror to his naked captive—“are
      you now sensible of the judgment of God, and of the different
      rewards of infidelity and obedience?” “Alas!” replied Harmozan,
      “I feel them too deeply. In the days of our common ignorance, we
      fought with the weapons of the flesh, and my nation was superior.
      God was then neuter: since he has espoused your quarrel, you have
      subverted our kingdom and religion.” Oppressed by this painful
      dialogue, the Persian complained of intolerable thirst, but
      discovered some apprehension lest he should be killed whilst he
      was drinking a cup of water. “Be of good courage,” said the
      caliph; “your life is safe till you have drunk this water:” the
      crafty satrap accepted the assurance, and instantly dashed the
      vase against the ground. Omar would have avenged the deceit, but
      his companions represented the sanctity of an oath; and the
      speedy conversion of Harmozan entitled him not only to a free
      pardon, but even to a stipend of two thousand pieces of gold. The
      administration of Persia was regulated by an actual survey of the
      people, the cattle, and the fruits of the earth; 32 and this
      monument, which attests the vigilance of the caliphs, might have
      instructed the philosophers of every age. 33

      30 (return) [ It is in such a style of ignorance and wonder that
      the Athenian orator describes the Arctic conquests of Alexander,
      who never advanced beyond the shores of the Caspian. Aeschines
      contra Ctesiphontem, tom. iii. p. 554, edit. Graec. Orator.
      Reiske. This memorable cause was pleaded at Athens, Olymp. cxii.
      3, (before Christ 330,) in the autumn, (Taylor, praefat. p. 370,
      &c.,) about a year after the battle of Arbela; and Alexander, in
      the pursuit of Darius, was marching towards Hyrcania and
      Bactriana.]

      31 (return) [ We are indebted for this curious particular to the
      Dynasties of Abulpharagius, p. 116; but it is needless to prove
      the identity of Estachar and Persepolis, (D’Herbelot, p. 327;)
      and still more needless to copy the drawings and descriptions of
      Sir John Chardin, or Corneillo le Bruyn.]

      32 (return) [ After the conquest of Persia, Theophanes adds,
      (Chronograph p. 283.)]

      33 (return) [ Amidst our meagre relations, I must regret that
      D’Herbelot has not found and used a Persian translation of
      Tabari, enriched, as he says, with many extracts from the native
      historians of the Ghebers or Magi, (Bibliotheque Orientale, p.
      1014.)]

      The flight of Yezdegerd had carried him beyond the Oxus, and as
      far as the Jaxartes, two rivers 34 of ancient and modern renown,
      which descend from the mountains of India towards the Caspian
      Sea. He was hospitably entertained by Takhan, prince of Fargana,
      35 a fertile province on the Jaxartes: the king of Samarcand,
      with the Turkish tribes of Sogdiana and Scythia, were moved by
      the lamentations and promises of the fallen monarch; and he
      solicited, by a suppliant embassy, the more solid and powerful
      friendship of the emperor of China. 36 The virtuous Taitsong, 37
      the first of the dynasty of the Tang may be justly compared with
      the Antonines of Rome: his people enjoyed the blessings of
      prosperity and peace; and his dominion was acknowledged by
      forty-four hordes of the Barbarians of Tartary. His last
      garrisons of Cashgar and Khoten maintained a frequent intercourse
      with their neighbors of the Jaxartes and Oxus; a recent colony of
      Persians had introduced into China the astronomy of the Magi; and
      Taitsong might be alarmed by the rapid progress and dangerous
      vicinity of the Arabs. The influence, and perhaps the supplies,
      of China revived the hopes of Yezdegerd and the zeal of the
      worshippers of fire; and he returned with an army of Turks to
      conquer the inheritance of his fathers. The fortunate Moslems,
      without unsheathing their swords, were the spectators of his ruin
      and death. The grandson of Chosroes was betrayed by his servant,
      insulted by the seditious inhabitants of Merou, and oppressed,
      defeated, and pursued by his Barbarian allies. He reached the
      banks of a river, and offered his rings and bracelets for an
      instant passage in a miller’s boat. Ignorant or insensible of
      royal distress, the rustic replied, that four drams of silver
      were the daily profit of his mill, and that he would not suspend
      his work unless the loss were repaid. In this moment of
      hesitation and delay, the last of the Sassanian kings was
      overtaken and slaughtered by the Turkish cavalry, in the
      nineteenth year of his unhappy reign. 38 3811 His son Firuz, an
      humble client of the Chinese emperor, accepted the station of
      captain of his guards; and the Magian worship was long preserved
      by a colony of loyal exiles in the province of Bucharia. 3812 His
      grandson inherited the regal name; but after a faint and
      fruitless enterprise, he returned to China, and ended his days in
      the palace of Sigan. The male line of the Sassanides was extinct;
      but the female captives, the daughters of Persia, were given to
      the conquerors in servitude, or marriage; and the race of the
      caliphs and imams was ennobled by the blood of their royal
      mothers. 39

      34 (return) [ The most authentic accounts of the two rivers, the
      Sihon (Jaxartes) and the Gihon, (Oxus,) may be found in Sherif al
      Edrisi (Geograph. Nubiens. p. 138,) Abulfeda, (Descript.
      Chorasan. in Hudson, tom. iii. p. 23,) Abulghazi Khan, who
      reigned on their banks, (Hist. Genealogique des Tatars, p. 32,
      57, 766,) and the Turkish Geographer, a MS. in the king of
      France’s library, (Examen Critique des Historiens d’Alexandre, p.
      194-360.)]

      35 (return) [ The territory of Fergana is described by Abulfeda,
      p. 76, 77.]

      36 (return) [ Eo redegit angustiarum eundem regem exsulem, ut
      Turcici regis, et Sogdiani, et Sinensis, auxilia missis literis
      imploraret, (Abulfed. Annal. p. 74) The connection of the Persian
      and Chinese history is illustrated by Freret (Mem. de l’Academie,
      tom. xvi. p. 245-255) and De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p.
      54-59,) and for the geography of the borders, tom. ii. p. 1-43.]

      37 (return) [ Hist. Sinica, p. 41-46, in the iiid part of the
      Relations Curieuses of Thevenot.]

      38 (return) [ I have endeavored to harmonize the various
      narratives of Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 37,) Abulpharagius,
      (Dynast. p. 116,) Abulfeda, (Annal. p. 74, 79,) and D’Herbelot,
      (p. 485.) The end of Yezdegerd, was not only unfortunate but
      obscure.]

      3811 (return) [ The account of Yezdegerd’s death in the Habeib
      ‘usseyr and Rouzut uzzuffa (Price, p. 162) is much more probable.
      On the demand of the few dhirems, he offered to the miller his
      sword, and royal girdle, of inesturable value. This awoke the
      cupidity of the miller, who murdered him, and threw the body into
      the stream.—M.]

      3812 (return) [ Firouz died leaving a son called Ni-ni-cha by the
      Chinese, probably Narses. Yezdegerd had two sons, Firouz and
      Bahram St. Martin, vol. xi. p. 318.—M.]

      39 (return) [ The two daughters of Yezdegerd married Hassan, the
      son of Ali, and Mohammed, the son of Abubeker; and the first of
      these was the father of a numerous progeny. The daughter of
      Phirouz became the wife of the caliph Walid, and their son Yezid
      derived his genuine or fabulous descent from the Chosroes of
      Persia, the Caesars of Rome, and the Chagans of the Turks or
      Avars, (D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orientale, p. 96, 487.)]

      After the fall of the Persian kingdom, the River Oxus divided the
      territories of the Saracens and of the Turks. This narrow
      boundary was soon overleaped by the spirit of the Arabs; the
      governors of Chorasan extended their successive inroads; and one
      of their triumphs was adorned with the buskin of a Turkish queen,
      which she dropped in her precipitate flight beyond the hills of
      Bochara. 40 But the final conquest of Transoxiana, 41 as well as
      of Spain, was reserved for the glorious reign of the inactive
      Walid; and the name of Catibah, the camel driver, declares the
      origin and merit of his successful lieutenant. While one of his
      colleagues displayed the first Mahometan banner on the banks of
      the Indus, the spacious regions between the Oxus, the Jaxartes,
      and the Caspian Sea, were reduced by the arms of Catibah to the
      obedience of the prophet and of the caliph. 42 A tribute of two
      millions of pieces of gold was imposed on the infidels; their
      idols were burnt or broken; the Mussulman chief pronounced a
      sermon in the new mosch of Carizme; after several battles, the
      Turkish hordes were driven back to the desert; and the emperors
      of China solicited the friendship of the victorious Arabs. To
      their industry, the prosperity of the province, the Sogdiana of
      the ancients, may in a great measure be ascribed; but the
      advantages of the soil and climate had been understood and
      cultivated since the reign of the Macedonian kings. Before the
      invasion of the Saracens, Carizme, Bochara, and Samarcand were
      rich and populous under the yoke of the shepherds of the north.
      4211 These cities were surrounded with a double wall; and the
      exterior fortification, of a larger circumference, enclosed the
      fields and gardens of the adjacent district. The mutual wants of
      India and Europe were supplied by the diligence of the Sogdian
      merchants; and the inestimable art of transforming linen into
      paper has been diffused from the manufacture of Samarcand over
      the western world. 43

      40 (return) [ It was valued at 2000 pieces of gold, and was the
      prize of Obeidollah, the son of Ziyad, a name afterwards infamous
      by the murder of Hosein, (Ockley’s History of the Saracens, vol.
      ii. p. 142, 143,) His brother Salem was accompanied by his wife,
      the first Arabian woman (A.D. 680) who passed the Oxus: she
      borrowed, or rather stole, the crown and jewels of the princess
      of the Sogdians, (p. 231, 232.)]

      41 (return) [ A part of Abulfeda’s geography is translated by
      Greaves, inserted in Hudson’s collection of the minor
      geographers, (tom. iii.,) and entitled Descriptio Chorasmiae et
      Mawaralnahroe, id est, regionum extra fluvium, Oxum, p. 80. The
      name of Transoxiana, softer in sound, equivalent in sense, is
      aptly used by Petit de la Croix, (Hist. de Gengiscan, &c.,) and
      some modern Orientalists, but they are mistaken in ascribing it
      to the writers of antiquity.]

      42 (return) [ The conquests of Catibah are faintly marked by
      Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 84,) D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient.
      Catbah, Samarcand Valid.,) and De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom.
      i. p. 58, 59.)]

      4211 (return) [ The manuscripts Arabian and Persian writers in
      the royal library contain very circumstantial details on the
      contest between the Persians and Arabians. M. St. Martin declined
      this addition to the work of Le Beau, as extending to too great a
      length. St. Martin vol. xi. p. 320.—M.]

      43 (return) [ A curious description of Samarcand is inserted in
      the Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana, tom. i. p. 208, &c. The
      librarian Casiri (tom. ii. 9) relates, from credible testimony,
      that paper was first imported from China to Samarcand, A. H. 30,
      and invented, or rather introduced, at Mecca, A. H. 88. The
      Escurial library contains paper Mss. as old as the ivth or vth
      century of the Hegira.]

      II. No sooner had Abubeker restored the unity of faith and
      government, than he despatched a circular letter to the Arabian
      tribes. “In the name of the most merciful God, to the rest of the
      true believers. Health and happiness, and the mercy and blessing
      of God, be upon you. I praise the most high God, and I pray for
      his prophet Mahomet. This is to acquaint you, that I intend to
      send the true believers into Syria 44 to take it out of the hands
      of the infidels. And I would have you know, that the fighting for
      religion is an act of obedience to God.” His messengers returned
      with the tidings of pious and martial ardor which they had
      kindled in every province; and the camp of Medina was
      successively filled with the intrepid bands of the Saracens, who
      panted for action, complained of the heat of the season and the
      scarcity of provisions, and accused with impatient murmurs the
      delays of the caliph. As soon as their numbers were complete,
      Abubeker ascended the hill, reviewed the men, the horses, and the
      arms, and poured forth a fervent prayer for the success of their
      undertaking. In person, and on foot, he accompanied the first
      day’s march; and when the blushing leaders attempted to dismount,
      the caliph removed their scruples by a declaration, that those
      who rode, and those who walked, in the service of religion, were
      equally meritorious. His instructions 45 to the chiefs of the
      Syrian army were inspired by the warlike fanaticism which
      advances to seize, and affects to despise, the objects of earthly
      ambition. “Remember,” said the successor of the prophet, “that
      you are always in the presence of God, on the verge of death, in
      the assurance of judgment, and the hope of paradise. Avoid
      injustice and oppression; consult with your brethren, and study
      to preserve the love and confidence of your troops. When you
      fight the battles of the Lord, acquit yourselves like men,
      without turning your backs; but let not your victory be stained
      with the blood of women or children. Destroy no palm-trees, nor
      burn any fields of corn. Cut down no fruit-trees, nor do any
      mischief to cattle, only such as you kill to eat. When you make
      any covenant or article, stand to it, and be as good as your
      word. As you go on, you will find some religious persons who live
      retired in monasteries, and propose to themselves to serve God
      that way: let them alone, and neither kill them nor destroy their
      monasteries: 46 And you will find another sort of people, that
      belong to the synagogue of Satan, who have shaven crowns; 47 be
      sure you cleave their skulls, and give them no quarter till they
      either turn Mahometans or pay tribute.” All profane or frivolous
      conversation, all dangerous recollection of ancient quarrels, was
      severely prohibited among the Arabs: in the tumult of a camp, the
      exercises of religion were assiduously practised; and the
      intervals of action were employed in prayer, meditation, and the
      study of the Koran. The abuse, or even the use, of wine was
      chastised by fourscore strokes on the soles of the feet, and in
      the fervor of their primitive zeal, many secret sinners revealed
      their fault, and solicited their punishment. After some
      hesitation, the command of the Syrian army was delegated to Abu
      Obeidah, one of the fugitives of Mecca, and companions of
      Mahomet; whose zeal and devotion was assuaged, without being
      abated, by the singular mildness and benevolence of his temper.
      But in all the emergencies of war, the soldiers demanded the
      superior genius of Caled; and whoever might be the choice of the
      prince, the Sword of God was both in fact and fame the foremost
      leader of the Saracens. He obeyed without reluctance; 4711 he was
      consulted without jealousy; and such was the spirit of the man,
      or rather of the times, that Caled professed his readiness to
      serve under the banner of the faith, though it were in the hands
      of a child or an enemy. Glory, and riches, and dominion, were
      indeed promised to the victorious Mussulman; but he was carefully
      instructed, that if the goods of this life were his only
      incitement, they likewise would be his only reward.

      44 (return) [ A separate history of the conquest of Syria has
      been composed by Al Wakidi, cadi of Bagdad, who was born A.D.
      748, and died A.D. 822; he likewise wrote the conquest of Egypt,
      of Diarbekir, &c. Above the meagre and recent chronicles of the
      Arabians, Al Wakidi has the double merit of antiquity and
      copiousness. His tales and traditions afford an artless picture
      of the men and the times. Yet his narrative is too often
      defective, trifling, and improbable. Till something better shall
      be found, his learned and spiritual interpreter (Ockley, in his
      History of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 21-342) will not deserve the
      petulant animadversion of Reiske, (Prodidagmata ad Magji Chalifae
      Tabulas, p. 236.) I am sorry to think that the labors of Ockley
      were consummated in a jail, (see his two prefaces to the 1st A.D.
      1708, to the 2d, 1718, with the list of authors at the end.) *
      Note: M. Hamaker has clearly shown that neither of these works
      can be inscribed to Al Wakidi: they are not older than the end of
      the xith century or later than the middle of the xivth. Praefat.
      in Inc. Auct. LIb. de Expugnatione Memphidis, c. ix. x.—M.]

      45 (return) [ The instructions, &c., of the Syrian war are
      described by Al Wakidi and Ockley, tom. i. p. 22-27, &c. In the
      sequel it is necessary to contract, and needless to quote, their
      circumstantial narrative. My obligations to others shall be
      noticed.]

      46 (return) [ Notwithstanding this precept, M. Pauw (Recherches
      sur les Egyptiens, tom. ii. p. 192, edit. Lausanne) represents
      the Bedoweens as the implacable enemies of the Christian monks.
      For my own part, I am more inclined to suspect the avarice of the
      Arabian robbers, and the prejudices of the German philosopher. *
      Note: Several modern travellers (Mr. Fazakerley, in Walpole’s
      Travels in the East, vol. xi. 371) give very amusing accounts of
      the terms on which the monks of Mount Sinai live with the
      neighboring Bedoweens. Such, probably, was their relative state
      in older times, wherever the Arab retained his Bedoween
      habits.—M.]

      47 (return) [ Even in the seventh century, the monks were
      generally laymen: They wore their hair long and dishevelled, and
      shaved their heads when they were ordained priests. The circular
      tonsure was sacred and mysterious; it was the crown of thorns;
      but it was likewise a royal diadem, and every priest was a king,
      &c., (Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p. 721-758,
      especially p. 737, 738.)]

      4711 (return) [ Compare Price, p. 90.—M.]




      Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part III.

      One of the fifteen provinces of Syria, the cultivated lands to
      the eastward of the Jordan, had been decorated by Roman vanity
      with the name of _Arabia_; and the first arms of the Saracens
      were justified by the semblance of a national right. The country
      was enriched by the various benefits of trade; by the vigilance
      of the emperors it was covered with a line of forts; and the
      populous cities of Gerasa, Philadelphia, and Bosra, were secure,
      at least from a surprise, by the solid structure of their walls.
      The last of these cities was the eighteenth station from Medina:
      the road was familiar to the caravans of Hejaz and Irak, who
      annually visited this plenteous market of the province and the
      desert: the perpetual jealousy of the Arabs had trained the
      inhabitants to arms; and twelve thousand horse could sally from
      the gates of Bosra, an appellation which signifies, in the Syriac
      language, a strong tower of defence. Encouraged by their first
      success against the open towns and flying parties of the borders,
      a detachment of four thousand Moslems presumed to summon and
      attack the fortress of Bosra. They were oppressed by the numbers
      of the Syrians; they were saved by the presence of Caled, with
      fifteen hundred horse: he blamed the enterprise, restored the
      battle, and rescued his friend, the venerable Serjabil, who had
      vainly invoked the unity of God and the promises of the apostle.
      After a short repose, the Moslems performed their ablutions with
      sand instead of water; and the morning prayer was recited by
      Caled before they mounted on horseback. Confident in their
      strength, the people of Bosra threw open their gates, drew their
      forces into the plain, and swore to die in the defence of their
      religion. But a religion of peace was incapable of withstanding
      the fanatic cry of “Fight, fight! Paradise, paradise!” that
      reechoed in the ranks of the Saracens; and the uproar of the
      town, the ringing of bells, and the exclamations of the priests
      and monks increased the dismay and disorder of the Christians.
      With the loss of two hundred and thirty men, the Arabs remained
      masters of the field; and the ramparts of Bosra, in expectation
      of human or divine aid, were crowded with holy crosses and
      consecrated banners. The governor Romanus had recommended an
      early submission: despised by the people, and degraded from his
      office, he still retained the desire and opportunity of revenge.
      In a nocturnal interview, he informed the enemy of a
      subterraneous passage from his house under the wall of the city;
      the son of the caliph, with a hundred volunteers, were committed
      to the faith of this new ally, and their successful intrepidity
      gave an easy entrance to their companions. After Caled had
      imposed the terms of servitude and tribute, the apostate or
      convert avowed in the assembly of the people his meritorious
      treason: “I renounce your society,” said Romanus, “both in this
      world and the world to come. And I deny him that was crucified,
      and whosoever worships him. And I choose God for my Lord, Islam
      for my faith, Mecca for my temple, the Moslems for my brethren,
      and Mahomet for my prophet; who was sent to lead us into the
      right way, and to exalt the true religion in spite of those who
      join partners with God.”

      The conquest of Bosra, four days’ journey from Damascus,
      encouraged the Arabs to besiege the ancient capital of Syria. At
      some distance from the walls, they encamped among the groves and
      fountains of that delicious territory, and the usual option of
      the Mahometan faith, of tribute or of war, was proposed to the
      resolute citizens, who had been lately strengthened by a
      reenforcement of five thousand Greeks. In the decline, as in the
      infancy, of the military art, a hostile defiance was frequently
      offered and accepted by the generals themselves: many a lance was
      shivered in the plain of Damascus, and the personal prowess of
      Caled was signalized in the first sally of the besieged. After an
      obstinate combat, he had overthrown and made prisoner one of the
      Christian leaders, a stout and worthy antagonist. He instantly
      mounted a fresh horse, the gift of the governor of Palmyra, and
      pushed forwards to the front of the battle. “Repose yourself for
      a moment,” said his friend Derar, “and permit me to supply your
      place: you are fatigued with fighting with this dog.” “O Dear!”
      replied the indefatigable Saracen, “we shall rest in the world to
      come. He that labors to-day shall rest to-morrow.” With the same
      unabated ardor, Caled answered, encountered, and vanquished a
      second champion; and the heads of his two captives who refused to
      abandon their religion were indignantly hurled into the midst of
      the city. The event of some general and partial actions reduced
      the Damascenes to a closer defence: but a messenger, whom they
      dropped from the walls, returned with the promise of speedy and
      powerful succor, and their tumultuous joy conveyed the
      intelligence to the camp of the Arabs. After some debate, it was
      resolved by the generals to raise, or rather to suspend, the
      siege of Damascus, till they had given battle to the forces of
      the emperor. In the retreat, Caled would have chosen the more
      perilous station of the rear-guard; he modestly yielded to the
      wishes of Abu Obeidah. But in the hour of danger he flew to the
      rescue of his companion, who was rudely pressed by a sally of six
      thousand horse and ten thousand foot, and few among the
      Christians could relate at Damascus the circumstances of their
      defeat. The importance of the contest required the junction of
      the Saracens, who were dispersed on the frontiers of Syria and
      Palestine; and I shall transcribe one of the circular mandates
      which was addressed to Amrou, the future conqueror of Egypt. “In
      the name of the most merciful God: from Caled to Amrou, health
      and happiness. Know that thy brethren the Moslems design to march
      to Aiznadin, where there is an army of seventy thousand Greeks,
      who purpose to come against us, _that they may extinguish the
      light of God with their mouths; but God preserveth his light in
      spite of the infidels_. As soon therefore as this letter of mine
      shall be delivered to thy hands, come with those that are with
      thee to Aiznadin, where thou shalt find us if it please the most
      high God.” The summons was cheerfully obeyed, and the forty-five
      thousand Moslems, who met on the same day, on the same spot
      ascribed to the blessing of Providence the effects of their
      activity and zeal.

      About four years after the triumph of the Persian war, the repose
      of Heraclius and the empire was again disturbed by a new enemy,
      the power of whose religion was more strongly felt, than it was
      clearly understood, by the Christians of the East. In his palace
      of Constantinople or Antioch, he was awakened by the invasion of
      Syria, the loss of Bosra, and the danger of Damascus. An army of
      seventy thousand veterans, or new levies, was assembled at Hems
      or Emesa, under the command of his general Werdan: and these
      troops consisting chiefly of cavalry, might be indifferently
      styled either Syrians, or Greeks, or Romans: _Syrians_, from the
      place of their birth or warfare; _Greeks_ from the religion and
      language of their sovereign; and _Romans_, from the proud
      appellation which was still profaned by the successors of
      Constantine. On the plain of Aiznadin, as Werdan rode on a white
      mule decorated with gold chains, and surrounded with ensigns and
      standards, he was surprised by the near approach of a fierce and
      naked warrior, who had undertaken to view the state of the enemy.
      The adventurous valor of Derar was inspired, and has perhaps been
      adorned, by the enthusiasm of his age and country. The hatred of
      the Christians, the love of spoil, and the contempt of danger,
      were the ruling passions of the audacious Saracen; and the
      prospect of instant death could never shake his religious
      confidence, or ruffle the calmness of his resolution, or even
      suspend the frank and martial pleasantry of his humor. In the
      most hopeless enterprises, he was bold, and prudent, and
      fortunate: after innumerable hazards, after being thrice a
      prisoner in the hands of the infidels, he still survived to
      relate the achievements, and to enjoy the rewards, of the Syrian
      conquest. On this occasion, his single lance maintained a flying
      fight against thirty Romans, who were detached by Werdan; and,
      after killing or unhorsing seventeen of their number, Derar
      returned in safety to his applauding brethren. When his rashness
      was mildly censured by the general, he excused himself with the
      simplicity of a soldier. “Nay,” said Derar, “I did not begin
      first: but they came out to take me, and I was afraid that God
      should see me turn my back: and indeed I fought in good earnest,
      and without doubt God assisted me against them; and had I not
      been apprehensive of disobeying your orders, I should not have
      come away as I did; and I perceive already that they will fall
      into our hands.” In the presence of both armies, a venerable
      Greek advanced from the ranks with a liberal offer of peace; and
      the departure of the Saracens would have been purchased by a gift
      to each soldier, of a turban, a robe, and a piece of gold; ten
      robes and a hundred pieces to their leader; one hundred robes and
      a thousand pieces to the caliph. A smile of indignation expressed
      the refusal of Caled. “Ye Christian dogs, you know your option;
      the Koran, the tribute, or the sword. We are a people whose
      delight is in war, rather than in peace: and we despise your
      pitiful alms, since we shall be speedily masters of your wealth,
      your families, and your persons.” Notwithstanding this apparent
      disdain, he was deeply conscious of the public danger: those who
      had been in Persia, and had seen the armies of Chosroes confessed
      that they never beheld a more formidable array. From the
      superiority of the enemy, the artful Saracen derived a fresh
      incentive of courage: “You see before you,” said he, “the united
      force of the Romans; you cannot hope to escape, but you may
      conquer Syria in a single day. The event depends on your
      discipline and patience. Reserve yourselves till the evening. It
      was in the evening that the Prophet was accustomed to vanquish.”
      During two successive engagements, his temperate firmness
      sustained the darts of the enemy, and the murmurs of his troops.
      At length, when the spirits and quivers of the adverse line were
      almost exhausted, Caled gave the signal of onset and victory. The
      remains of the Imperial army fled to Antioch, or Cæsarea, or
      Damascus; and the death of four hundred and seventy Moslems was
      compensated by the opinion that they had sent to hell above fifty
      thousand of the infidels. The spoil was inestimable; many banners
      and crosses of gold and silver, precious stones, silver and gold
      chains, and innumerable suits of the richest armor and apparel.
      The general distribution was postponed till Damascus should be
      taken; but the seasonable supply of arms became the instrument of
      new victories. The glorious intelligence was transmitted to the
      throne of the caliph; and the Arabian tribes, the coldest or most
      hostile to the prophet’s mission, were eager and importunate to
      share the harvest of Syria.

      The sad tidings were carried to Damascus by the speed of grief
      and terror; and the inhabitants beheld from their walls the
      return of the heroes of Aiznadin. Amrou led the van at the head
      of nine thousand horse: the bands of the Saracens succeeded each
      other in formidable review; and the rear was closed by Caled in
      person, with the standard of the black eagle. To the activity of
      Derar he intrusted the commission of patrolling round the city
      with two thousand horse, of scouring the plain, and of
      intercepting all succor or intelligence. The rest of the Arabian
      chiefs were fixed in their respective stations before the seven
      gates of Damascus; and the siege was renewed with fresh vigor and
      confidence. The art, the labor, the military engines, of the
      Greeks and Romans are seldom to be found in the simple, though
      successful, operations of the Saracens: it was sufficient for
      them to invest a city with arms, rather than with trenches; to
      repel the allies of the besieged; to attempt a stratagem or an
      assault; or to expect the progress of famine and discontent.
      Damascus would have acquiesced in the trial of Aiznadin, as a
      final and peremptory sentence between the emperor and the caliph;
      her courage was rekindled by the example and authority of Thomas,
      a noble Greek, illustrious in a private condition by the alliance
      of Heraclius. The tumult and illumination of the night proclaimed
      the design of the morning sally; and the Christian hero, who
      affected to despise the enthusiasm of the Arabs, employed the
      resource of a similar superstition. At the principal gate, in the
      sight of both armies, a lofty crucifix was erected; the bishop,
      with his clergy, accompanied the march, and laid the volume of
      the New Testament before the image of Jesus; and the contending
      parties were scandalized or edified by a prayer that the Son of
      God would defend his servants and vindicate his truth. The battle
      raged with incessant fury; and the dexterity of Thomas, an
      incomparable archer, was fatal to the boldest Saracens, till
      their death was revenged by a female heroine. The wife of Aban,
      who had followed him to the holy war, embraced her expiring
      husband. “Happy,” said she, “happy art thou, my dear: thou art
      gone to thy Lord, who first joined us together, and then parted
      us asunder. I will revenge thy death, and endeavor to the utmost
      of my power to come to the place where thou art, because I love
      thee. Henceforth shall no man ever touch me more, for I have
      dedicated myself to the service of God.” Without a groan, without
      a tear, she washed the corpse of her husband, and buried him with
      the usual rites. Then grasping the manly weapons, which in her
      native land she was accustomed to wield, the intrepid widow of
      Aban sought the place where his murderer fought in the thickest
      of the battle. Her first arrow pierced the hand of his
      standard-bearer; her second wounded Thomas in the eye; and the
      fainting Christians no longer beheld their ensign or their
      leader. Yet the generous champion of Damascus refused to withdraw
      to his palace: his wound was dressed on the rampart; the fight
      was continued till the evening; and the Syrians rested on their
      arms. In the silence of the night, the signal was given by a
      stroke on the great bell; the gates were thrown open, and each
      gate discharged an impetuous column on the sleeping camp of the
      Saracens. Caled was the first in arms: at the head of four
      hundred horse he flew to the post of danger, and the tears
      trickled down his iron cheeks, as he uttered a fervent
      ejaculation; “O God, who never sleepest, look upon they servants,
      and do not deliver them into the hands of their enemies.” The
      valor and victory of Thomas were arrested by the presence of the
      _Sword of God_; with the knowledge of the peril, the Moslems
      recovered their ranks, and charged the assailants in the flank
      and rear. After the loss of thousands, the Christian general
      retreated with a sigh of despair, and the pursuit of the Saracens
      was checked by the military engines of the rampart.

      After a siege of seventy days, the patience, and perhaps the
      provisions, of the Damascenes were exhausted; and the bravest of
      their chiefs submitted to the hard dictates of necessity. In the
      occurrences of peace and war, they had been taught to dread the
      fierceness of Caled, and to revere the mild virtues of Abu
      Obeidah. At the hour of midnight, one hundred chosen deputies of
      the clergy and people were introduced to the tent of that
      venerable commander. He received and dismissed them with
      courtesy. They returned with a written agreement, on the faith of
      a companion of Mahomet, that all hostilities should cease; that
      the voluntary emigrants might depart in safety, with as much as
      they could carry away of their effects; and that the tributary
      subjects of the caliph should enjoy their lands and houses, with
      the use and possession of seven churches. On these terms, the
      most respectable hostages, and the gate nearest to his camp, were
      delivered into his hands: his soldiers imitated the moderation of
      their chief; and he enjoyed the submissive gratitude of a people
      whom he had rescued from destruction. But the success of the
      treaty had relaxed their vigilance, and in the same moment the
      opposite quarter of the city was betrayed and taken by assault. A
      party of a hundred Arabs had opened the eastern gate to a more
      inexorable foe. “No quarter,” cried the rapacious and sanguinary
      Caled, “no quarter to the enemies of the Lord:” his trumpets
      sounded, and a torrent of Christian blood was poured down the
      streets of Damascus. When he reached the church of St. Mary, he
      was astonished and provoked by the peaceful aspect of his
      companions; their swords were in the scabbard, and they were
      surrounded by a multitude of priests and monks. Abu Obeidah
      saluted the general: “God,” said he, “has delivered the city into
      my hands by way of surrender, and has saved the believers the
      trouble of fighting.” “And am I not,” replied the indignant
      Caled, “am I not the lieutenant of the commander of the faithful?
      Have I not taken the city by storm? The unbelievers shall perish
      by the sword. Fall on.” The hungry and cruel Arabs would have
      obeyed the welcome command; and Damascus was lost, if the
      benevolence of Abu Obeidah had not been supported by a decent and
      dignified firmness. Throwing himself between the trembling
      citizens and the most eager of the Barbarians, he adjured them,
      by the holy name of God, to respect his promise, to suspend their
      fury, and to wait the determination of their chiefs. The chiefs
      retired into the church of St. Mary; and after a vehement debate,
      Caled submitted in some measure to the reason and authority of
      his colleague; who urged the sanctity of a covenant, the
      advantage as well as the honor which the Moslems would derive
      from the punctual performance of their word, and the obstinate
      resistance which they must encounter from the distrust and
      despair of the rest of the Syrian cities. It was agreed that the
      sword should be sheathed, that the part of Damascus which had
      surrendered to Abu Obeidah, should be immediately entitled to the
      benefit of his capitulation, and that the final decision should
      be referred to the justice and wisdom of the caliph. A large
      majority of the people accepted the terms of toleration and
      tribute; and Damascus is still peopled by twenty thousand
      Christians. But the valiant Thomas, and the free-born patriots
      who had fought under his banner, embraced the alternative of
      poverty and exile. In the adjacent meadow, a numerous encampment
      was formed of priests and laymen, of soldiers and citizens, of
      women and children: they collected, with haste and terror, their
      most precious movables; and abandoned, with loud lamentations, or
      silent anguish, their native homes, and the pleasant banks of the
      Pharpar. The inflexible soul of Caled was not touched by the
      spectacle of their distress: he disputed with the Damascenes the
      property of a magazine of corn; endeavored to exclude the
      garrison from the benefit of the treaty; consented, with
      reluctance, that each of the fugitives should arm himself with a
      sword, or a lance, or a bow; and sternly declared, that, after a
      respite of three days, they might be pursued and treated as the
      enemies of the Moslems.

      The passion of a Syrian youth completed the ruin of the exiles of
      Damascus. A nobleman of the city, of the name of Jonas, was
      betrothed to a wealthy maiden; but her parents delayed the
      consummation of his nuptials, and their daughter was persuaded to
      escape with the man whom she had chosen. They corrupted the
      nightly watchmen of the gate Keisan; the lover, who led the way,
      was encompassed by a squadron of Arabs; but his exclamation in
      the Greek tongue, “The bird is taken,” admonished his mistress to
      hasten her return. In the presence of Caled, and of death, the
      unfortunate Jonas professed his belief in one God and his apostle
      Mahomet; and continued, till the season of his martyrdom, to
      discharge the duties of a brave and sincere Mussulman. When the
      city was taken, he flew to the monastery, where Eudocia had taken
      refuge; but the lover was forgotten; the apostate was scorned;
      she preferred her religion to her country; and the justice of
      Caled, though deaf to mercy, refused to detain by force a male or
      female inhabitant of Damascus. Four days was the general confined
      to the city by the obligation of the treaty, and the urgent cares
      of his new conquest. His appetite for blood and rapine would have
      been extinguished by the hopeless computation of time and
      distance; but he listened to the importunities of Jonas, who
      assured him that the weary fugitives might yet be overtaken. At
      the head of four thousand horse, in the disguise of Christian
      Arabs, Caled undertook the pursuit. They halted only for the
      moments of prayer; and their guide had a perfect knowledge of the
      country. For a long way the footsteps of the Damascenes were
      plain and conspicuous: they vanished on a sudden; but the
      Saracens were comforted by the assurance that the caravan had
      turned aside into the mountains, and must speedily fall into
      their hands. In traversing the ridges of the Libanus, they
      endured intolerable hardships, and the sinking spirits of the
      veteran fanatics were supported and cheered by the unconquerable
      ardor of a lover. From a peasant of the country, they were
      informed that the emperor had sent orders to the colony of exiles
      to pursue without delay the road of the sea-coast, and of
      Constantinople, apprehensive, perhaps, that the soldiers and
      people of Antioch might be discouraged by the sight and the story
      of their sufferings. The Saracens were conducted through the
      territories of Gabala and Laodicea, at a cautious distance from
      the walls of the cities; the rain was incessant, the night was
      dark, a single mountain separated them from the Roman army; and
      Caled, ever anxious for the safety of his brethren, whispered an
      ominous dream in the ear of his companion. With the dawn of day,
      the prospect again cleared, and they saw before them, in a
      pleasant valley, the tents of Damascus. After a short interval of
      repose and prayer, Caled divided his cavalry into four squadrons,
      committing the first to his faithful Derar, and reserving the
      last for himself. They successively rushed on the promiscuous
      multitude, insufficiently provided with arms, and already
      vanquished by sorrow and fatigue. Except a captive, who was
      pardoned and dismissed, the Arabs enjoyed the satisfaction of
      believing that not a Christian of either sex escaped the edge of
      their cimeters. The gold and silver of Damascus was scattered
      over the camp, and a royal wardrobe of three hundred load of silk
      might clothe an army of naked Barbarians. In the tumult of the
      battle, Jonas sought and found the object of his pursuit: but her
      resentment was inflamed by the last act of his perfidy; and as
      Eudocia struggled in his hateful embraces, she struck a dagger to
      her heart. Another female, the widow of Thomas, and the real or
      supposed daughter of Heraclius, was spared and released without a
      ransom; but the generosity of Caled was the effect of his
      contempt; and the haughty Saracen insulted, by a message of
      defiance, the throne of the Cæsars. Caled had penetrated above a
      hundred and fifty miles into the heart of the Roman province: he
      returned to Damascus with the same secrecy and speed On the
      accession of Omar, the _Sword of God_ was removed from the
      command; but the caliph, who blamed the rashness, was compelled
      to applaud the vigor and conduct, of the enterprise.

      Another expedition of the conquerors of Damascus will equally
      display their avidity and their contempt for the riches of the
      present world. They were informed that the produce and
      manufactures of the country were annually collected in the fair
      of Abyla, 64 about thirty miles from the city; that the cell of a
      devout hermit was visited at the same time by a multitude of
      pilgrims; and that the festival of trade and superstition would
      be ennobled by the nuptials of the daughter of the governor of
      Tripoli. Abdallah, the son of Jaafar, a glorious and holy martyr,
      undertook, with a banner of five hundred horse, the pious and
      profitable commission of despoiling the infidels. As he
      approached the fair of Abyla, he was astonished by the report of
      this mighty concourse of Jews and Christians, Greeks, and
      Armenians, of natives of Syria and of strangers of Egypt, to the
      number of ten thousand, besides a guard of five thousand horse
      that attended the person of the bride. The Saracens paused: “For
      my own part,” said Abdallah, “I dare not go back: our foes are
      many, our danger is great, but our reward is splendid and secure,
      either in this life or in the life to come. Let every man,
      according to his inclination, advance or retire.” Not a Mussulman
      deserted his standard. “Lead the way,” said Abdallah to his
      Christian guide, “and you shall see what the companions of the
      prophet can perform.” They charged in five squadrons; but after
      the first advantage of the surprise, they were encompassed and
      almost overwhelmed by the multitude of their enemies; and their
      valiant band is fancifully compared to a white spot in the skin
      of a black camel. 65 About the hour of sunset, when their weapons
      dropped from their hands, when they panted on the verge of
      eternity, they discovered an approaching cloud of dust; they
      heard the welcome sound of the tecbir, 66 and they soon perceived
      the standard of Caled, who flew to their relief with the utmost
      speed of his cavalry. The Christians were broken by his attack,
      and slaughtered in their flight, as far as the river of Tripoli.
      They left behind them the various riches of the fair; the
      merchandises that were exposed for sale, the money that was
      brought for purchase, the gay decorations of the nuptials, and
      the governor’s daughter, with forty of her female attendants.

      The fruits, provisions, and furniture, the money, plate, and
      jewels, were diligently laden on the backs of horses, asses, and
      mules; and the holy robbers returned in triumph to Damascus. The
      hermit, after a short and angry controversy with Caled, declined
      the crown of martyrdom, and was left alive in the solitary scene
      of blood and devastation.

      64 (return) [ Dair Abil Kodos. After retrenching the last word,
      the epithet, holy, I discover the Abila of Lysanias between
      Damascus and Heliopolis: the name (Abil signifies a vineyard)
      concurs with the situation to justify my conjecture, (Reland,
      Palestin. tom. i. p 317, tom. ii. p. 526, 527.)]

      65 (return) [ I am bolder than Mr. Ockley, (vol. i. p. 164,) who
      dares not insert this figurative expression in the text, though
      he observes in a marginal note, that the Arabians often borrow
      their similes from that useful and familiar animal. The reindeer
      may be equally famous in the songs of the Laplanders.]

      66 (return) [ We hear the tecbir; so the Arabs call Their shout
      of onset, when with loud appeal They challenge heaven, as if
      demanding conquest. This word, so formidable in their holy wars,
      is a verb active, (says Ockley in his index,) of the second
      conjugation, from Kabbara, which signifies saying Alla Acbar, God
      is most mighty!]




      Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part IV.

      Syria, 67 one of the countries that have been improved by the
      most early cultivation, is not unworthy of the preference. 68 The
      heat of the climate is tempered by the vicinity of the sea and
      mountains, by the plenty of wood and water; and the produce of a
      fertile soil affords the subsistence, and encourages the
      propagation, of men and animals. From the age of David to that of
      Heraclius, the country was overspread with ancient and
      flourishing cities: the inhabitants were numerous and wealthy;
      and, after the slow ravage of despotism and superstition, after
      the recent calamities of the Persian war, Syria could still
      attract and reward the rapacious tribes of the desert. A plain,
      of ten days’ journey, from Damascus to Aleppo and Antioch, is
      watered, on the western side, by the winding course of the
      Orontes. The hills of Libanus and Anti-Libanus are planted from
      north to south, between the Orontes and the Mediterranean; and
      the epithet of hollow (Coelesyria) was applied to a long and
      fruitful valley, which is confined in the same direction, by the
      two ridges of snowy mountains. 69 Among the cities, which are
      enumerated by Greek and Oriental names in the geography and
      conquest of Syria, we may distinguish Emesa or Hems, Heliopolis
      or Baalbec, the former as the metropolis of the plain, the latter
      as the capital of the valley. Under the last of the Caesars, they
      were strong and populous; the turrets glittered from afar: an
      ample space was covered with public and private buildings; and
      the citizens were illustrious by their spirit, or at least by
      their pride; by their riches, or at least by their luxury. In the
      days of Paganism, both Emesa and Heliopolis were addicted to the
      worship of Baal, or the sun; but the decline of their
      superstition and splendor has been marked by a singular variety
      of fortune. Not a vestige remains of the temple of Emesa, which
      was equalled in poetic style to the summits of Mount Libanus, 70
      while the ruins of Baalbec, invisible to the writers of
      antiquity, excite the curiosity and wonder of the European
      traveller. 71 The measure of the temple is two hundred feet in
      length, and one hundred in breadth: the front is adorned with a
      double portico of eight columns; fourteen may be counted on
      either side; and each column, forty-five feet in height, is
      composed of three massy blocks of stone or marble. The
      proportions and ornaments of the Corinthian order express the
      architecture of the Greeks: but as Baalbec has never been the
      seat of a monarch, we are at a loss to conceive how the expense
      of these magnificent structures could be supplied by private or
      municipal liberality. 72 From the conquest of Damascus the
      Saracens proceeded to Heliopolis and Emesa: but I shall decline
      the repetition of the sallies and combats which have been already
      shown on a larger scale. In the prosecution of the war, their
      policy was not less effectual than their sword. By short and
      separate truces they dissolved the union of the enemy; accustomed
      the Syrians to compare their friendship with their enmity;
      familiarized the idea of their language, religion, and manners;
      and exhausted, by clandestine purchase, the magazines and
      arsenals of the cities which they returned to besiege. They
      aggravated the ransom of the more wealthy, or the more obstinate;
      and Chalcis alone was taxed at five thousand ounces of gold, five
      thousand ounces of silver, two thousand robes of silk, and as
      many figs and olives as would load five thousand asses. But the
      terms of truce or capitulation were faithfully observed; and the
      lieutenant of the caliph, who had promised not to enter the walls
      of the captive Baalbec, remained tranquil and immovable in his
      tent till the jarring factions solicited the interposition of a
      foreign master. The conquest of the plain and valley of Syria was
      achieved in less than two years. Yet the commander of the
      faithful reproved the slowness of their progress; and the
      Saracens, bewailing their fault with tears of rage and
      repentance, called aloud on their chiefs to lead them forth to
      fight the battles of the Lord. In a recent action, under the
      walls of Emesa, an Arabian youth, the cousin of Caled, was heard
      aloud to exclaim, “Methinks I see the black-eyed girls looking
      upon me; one of whom, should she appear in this world, all
      mankind would die for love of her. And I see in the hand of one
      of them a handkerchief of green silk, and a cap of precious
      stones, and she beckons me, and calls out, Come hither quickly,
      for I love thee.” With these words, charging the Christians, he
      made havoc wherever he went, till, observed at length by the
      governor of Hems, he was struck through with a javelin.

      67 (return) [ In the Geography of Abulfeda, the description of
      Syria, his native country, is the most interesting and authentic
      portion. It was published in Arabic and Latin, Lipsiae, 1766, in
      quarto, with the learned notes of Kochler and Reiske, and some
      extracts of geography and natural history from Ibn Ol Wardii.
      Among the modern travels, Pocock’s Description of the East (of
      Syria and Mesopotamia, vol. ii. p. 88-209) is a work of superior
      learning and dignity; but the author too often confounds what he
      had seen and what he had read.]

      68 (return) [ The praises of Dionysius are just and lively.
      Syria, (in Periegesi, v. 902, in tom. iv. Geograph. Minor.
      Hudson.) In another place he styles the country differently, (v.
      898.) This poetical geographer lived in the age of Augustus, and
      his description of the world is illustrated by the Greek
      commentary of Eustathius, who paid the same compliment to Homer
      and Dionysius, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. l. iv. c. 2, tom. iii. p.
      21, &c.)]

      69 (return) [ The topography of the Libanus and Anti-Libanus is
      excellently described by the learning and sense of Reland,
      (Palestin. tom. i. p. 311-326)]

      70 (return) [

 —Emesae fastigia celsa renident. Nam diffusa solo latus explicat; ac
 subit auras Turribus in coelum nitentibus: incola claris Cor studiis
 acuit... Denique flammicomo devoti pectora soli Vitam agitant. 
 Libanus frondosa cacumina turget. Et tamen his certant celsi fastigia
 templi.

      These verses of the Latin version of Rufus Avienus are wanting in
      the Greek original of Dionysius; and since they are likewise
      unnoticed by Eustathius, I must, with Fabricius, (Bibliot. Latin.
      tom. iii. p. 153, edit. Ernesti,) and against Salmasius, (ad
      Vopiscum, p. 366, 367, in Hist. August.,) ascribed them to the
      fancy, rather than the Mss., of Avienus.]

      71 (return) [ I am much better satisfied with Maundrell’s slight
      octavo, (Journey, p. 134-139), than with the pompous folio of Dr.
      Pocock, (Description of the East, vol. ii. p. 106-113;) but every
      preceding account is eclipsed by the magnificent description and
      drawings of Mm. Dawkins and Wood, who have transported into
      England the ruins of Pamyra and Baalbec.]

      72 (return) [ The Orientals explain the prodigy by a
      never-failing expedient. The edifices of Baalbec were constructed
      by the fairies or the genii, (Hist. de Timour Bec, tom. iii. l.
      v. c. 23, p. 311, 312. Voyage d’Otter, tom. i. p. 83.) With less
      absurdity, but with equal ignorance, Abulfeda and Ibn Chaukel
      ascribe them to the Sabaeans or Aadites Non sunt in omni Syria
      aedificia magnificentiora his, (Tabula Syria p. 108.)]

      It was incumbent on the Saracens to exert the full powers of
      their valor and enthusiasm against the forces of the emperor, who
      was taught, by repeated losses, that the rovers of the desert had
      undertaken, and would speedily achieve, a regular and permanent
      conquest. From the provinces of Europe and Asia, fourscore
      thousand soldiers were transported by sea and land to Antioch and
      Caesarea: the light troops of the army consisted of sixty
      thousand Christian Arabs of the tribe of Gassan. Under the banner
      of Jabalah, the last of their princes, they marched in the van;
      and it was a maxim of the Greeks, that for the purpose of cutting
      diamond, a diamond was the most effectual. Heraclius withheld his
      person from the dangers of the field; but his presumption, or
      perhaps his despondency, suggested a peremptory order, that the
      fate of the province and the war should be decided by a single
      battle. The Syrians were attached to the standard of Rome and of
      the cross: but the noble, the citizen, the peasant, were
      exasperated by the injustice and cruelty of a licentious host,
      who oppressed them as subjects, and despised them as strangers
      and aliens. 73 A report of these mighty preparations was conveyed
      to the Saracens in their camp of Emesa, and the chiefs, though
      resolved to fight, assembled a council: the faith of Abu Obeidah
      would have expected on the same spot the glory of martyrdom; the
      wisdom of Caled advised an honorable retreat to the skirts of
      Palestine and Arabia, where they might await the succors of their
      friends, and the attack of the unbelievers. A speedy messenger
      soon returned from the throne of Medina, with the blessings of
      Omar and Ali, the prayers of the widows of the prophet, and a
      reenforcement of eight thousand Moslems. In their way they
      overturned a detachment of Greeks, and when they joined at Yermuk
      the camp of their brethren, they found the pleasing intelligence,
      that Caled had already defeated and scattered the Christian Arabs
      of the tribe of Gassan. In the neighborhood of Bosra, the springs
      of Mount Hermon descend in a torrent to the plain of Decapolis,
      or ten cities; and the Hieromax, a name which has been corrupted
      to Yermuk, is lost, after a short course, in the Lake of
      Tiberias. 74 The banks of this obscure stream were illustrated by
      a long and bloody encounter. 7411 On this momentous occasion, the
      public voice, and the modesty of Abu Obeidah, restored the
      command to the most deserving of the Moslems. Caled assumed his
      station in the front, his colleague was posted in the rear, that
      the disorder of the fugitive might be checked by his venerable
      aspect, and the sight of the yellow banner which Mahomet had
      displayed before the walls of Chaibar. The last line was occupied
      by the sister of Derar, with the Arabian women who had enlisted
      in this holy war, who were accustomed to wield the bow and the
      lance, and who in a moment of captivity had defended, against the
      uncircumcised ravishers, their chastity and religion. 75 The
      exhortation of the generals was brief and forcible: “Paradise is
      before you, the devil and hell-fire in your rear.” Yet such was
      the weight of the Roman cavalry, that the right wing of the Arabs
      was broken and separated from the main body. Thrice did they
      retreat in disorder, and thrice were they driven back to the
      charge by the reproaches and blows of the women. In the intervals
      of action, Abu Obeidah visited the tents of his brethren,
      prolonged their repose by repeating at once the prayers of two
      different hours, bound up their wounds with his own hands, and
      administered the comfortable reflection, that the infidels
      partook of their sufferings without partaking of their reward.
      Four thousand and thirty of the Moslems were buried in the field
      of battle; and the skill of the Armenian archers enabled seven
      hundred to boast that they had lost an eye in that meritorious
      service. The veterans of the Syrian war acknowledged that it was
      the hardest and most doubtful of the days which they had seen.
      But it was likewise the most decisive: many thousands of the
      Greeks and Syrians fell by the swords of the Arabs; many were
      slaughtered, after the defeat, in the woods and mountains; many,
      by mistaking the ford, were drowned in the waters of the Yermuk;
      and however the loss may be magnified, 76 the Christian writers
      confess and bewail the bloody punishment of their sins. 77
      Manuel, the Roman general, was either killed at Damascus, or took
      refuge in the monastery of Mount Sinai. An exile in the Byzantine
      court, Jabalah lamented the manners of Arabia, and his unlucky
      preference of the Christian cause. 78 He had once inclined to the
      profession of Islam; but in the pilgrimage of Mecca, Jabalah was
      provoked to strike one of his brethren, and fled with amazement
      from the stern and equal justice of the caliph. These victorious
      Saracens enjoyed at Damascus a month of pleasure and repose: the
      spoil was divided by the discretion of Abu Obeidah: an equal
      share was allotted to a soldier and to his horse, and a double
      portion was reserved for the noble coursers of the Arabian breed.

      73 (return) [ I have read somewhere in Tacitus, or Grotius,
      Subjectos habent tanquam suos, viles tanquam alienos. Some Greek
      officers ravished the wife, and murdered the child, of their
      Syrian landlord; and Manuel smiled at his undutiful complaint.]

      74 (return) [ See Reland, Palestin. tom. i. p. 272, 283, tom. ii.
      p. 773, 775. This learned professor was equal to the task of
      describing the Holy Land, since he was alike conversant with
      Greek and Latin, with Hebrew and Arabian literature. The Yermuk,
      or Hieromax, is noticed by Cellarius (Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii.
      p. 392) and D’Anville, (Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 185.)
      The Arabs, and even Abulfeda himself, do not seem to recognize
      the scene of their victory.]

      7411 (return) [ Compare Price, p. 79. The army of the Romans is
      swoller to 400,000 men of which 70,000 perished.—M.]

      75 (return) [ These women were of the tribe of the Hamyarites,
      who derived their origin from the ancient Amalekites. Their
      females were accustomed to ride on horseback, and to fight like
      the Amazons of old, (Ockley, vol. i. p. 67.)]

      76 (return) [ We killed of them, says Abu Obeidah to the caliph,
      one hundred and fifty thousand, and made prisoners forty
      thousand, (Ockley vol. i. p. 241.) As I cannot doubt his
      veracity, nor believe his computation, I must suspect that the
      Arabic historians indulge themselves in the practice of comparing
      speeches and letters for their heroes.]

      77 (return) [ After deploring the sins of the Christians,
      Theophanes, adds, (Chronograph. p. 276,) does he mean Aiznadin?
      His account is brief and obscure, but he accuses the numbers of
      the enemy, the adverse wind, and the cloud of dust. (Chronograph.
      p. 280.)]

      78 (return) [ See Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 70, 71,) who
      transcribes the poetical complaint of Jabalah himself, and some
      panegyrical strains of an Arabian poet, to whom the chief of
      Gassan sent from Constantinople a gift of five hundred pieces of
      gold by the hands of the ambassador of Omar.]

      After the battle of Yermuk, the Roman army no longer appeared in
      the field; and the Saracens might securely choose, among the
      fortified towns of Syria, the first object of their attack. They
      consulted the caliph whether they should march to Caesarea or
      Jerusalem; and the advice of Ali determined the immediate siege
      of the latter. To a profane eye, Jerusalem was the first or
      second capital of Palestine; but after Mecca and Medina, it was
      revered and visited by the devout Moslems, as the temple of the
      Holy Land which had been sanctified by the revelation of Moses,
      of Jesus, and of Mahomet himself. The son of Abu Sophian was sent
      with five thousand Arabs to try the first experiment of surprise
      or treaty; but on the eleventh day, the town was invested by the
      whole force of Abu Obeidah. He addressed the customary summons to
      the chief commanders and people of Aelia. 79

      79 (return) [ In the name of the city, the profane prevailed over
      the sacred Jerusalem was known to the devout Christians, (Euseb.
      de Martyr Palest. c xi.;) but the legal and popular appellation
      of Aelia (the colony of Aelius Hadrianus) has passed from the
      Romans to the Arabs. (Reland, Palestin. tom. i. p. 207, tom. ii.
      p. 835. D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, Cods, p. 269, Ilia,
      p. 420.) The epithet of Al Cods, the Holy, is used as the proper
      name of Jerusalem.]

      “Health and happiness to every one that follows the right way! We
      require of you to testify that there is but one God, and that
      Mahomet is his apostle. If you refuse this, consent to pay
      tribute, and be under us forthwith. Otherwise I shall bring men
      against you who love death better than you do the drinking of
      wine or eating hog’s flesh. Nor will I ever stir from you, if it
      please God, till I have destroyed those that fight for you, and
      made slaves of your children.” But the city was defended on every
      side by deep valleys and steep ascents; since the invasion of
      Syria, the walls and towers had been anxiously restored; the
      bravest of the fugitives of Yermuk had stopped in the nearest
      place of refuge; and in the defence of the sepulchre of Christ,
      the natives and strangers might feel some sparks of the
      enthusiasm, which so fiercely glowed in the bosoms of the
      Saracens. The siege of Jerusalem lasted four months; not a day
      was lost without some action of sally or assault; the military
      engines incessantly played from the ramparts; and the inclemency
      of the winter was still more painful and destructive to the
      Arabs. The Christians yielded at length to the perseverance of
      the besiegers. The patriarch Sophronius appeared on the walls,
      and by the voice of an interpreter demanded a conference. 7911
      After a vain attempt to dissuade the lieutenant of the caliph
      from his impious enterprise, he proposed, in the name of the
      people, a fair capitulation, with this extraordinary clause, that
      the articles of security should be ratified by the authority and
      presence of Omar himself. The question was debated in the council
      of Medina; the sanctity of the place, and the advice of Ali,
      persuaded the caliph to gratify the wishes of his soldiers and
      enemies; and the simplicity of his journey is more illustrious
      than the royal pageants of vanity and oppression. The conqueror
      of Persia and Syria was mounted on a red camel, which carried,
      besides his person, a bag of corn, a bag of dates, a wooden dish,
      and a leathern bottle of water. Wherever he halted, the company,
      without distinction, was invited to partake of his homely fare,
      and the repast was consecrated by the prayer and exhortation of
      the commander of the faithful. 80 But in this expedition or
      pilgrimage, his power was exercised in the administration of
      justice: he reformed the licentious polygamy of the Arabs,
      relieved the tributaries from extortion and cruelty, and
      chastised the luxury of the Saracens, by despoiling them of their
      rich silks, and dragging them on their faces in the dirt. When he
      came within sight of Jerusalem, the caliph cried with a loud
      voice, “God is victorious. O Lord, give us an easy conquest!”
      and, pitching his tent of coarse hair, calmly seated himself on
      the ground. After signing the capitulation, he entered the city
      without fear or precaution; and courteously discoursed with the
      patriarch concerning its religious antiquities. 81 Sophronius
      bowed before his new master, and secretly muttered, in the words
      of Daniel, “The abomination of desolation is in the holy place.”
      82 At the hour of prayer they stood together in the church of the
      resurrection; but the caliph refused to perform his devotions,
      and contented himself with praying on the steps of the church of
      Constantine. To the patriarch he disclosed his prudent and
      honorable motive. “Had I yielded,” said Omar, “to your request,
      the Moslems of a future age would have infringed the treaty under
      color of imitating my example.” By his command the ground of the
      temple of Solomon was prepared for the foundation of a mosch; 83
      and, during a residence of ten days, he regulated the present and
      future state of his Syrian conquests. Medina might be jealous,
      lest the caliph should be detained by the sanctity of Jerusalem
      or the beauty of Damascus; her apprehensions were dispelled by
      his prompt and voluntary return to the tomb of the apostle. 84

      7911 (return) [ See the explanation of this in Price, with the
      prophecy which was hereby fulfilled, p 85.—M]

      80 (return) [ The singular journey and equipage of Omar are
      described (besides Ockley, vol. i. p. 250) by Murtadi,
      (Merveilles de l’Egypte, p. 200-202.)]

      81 (return) [ The Arabs boast of an old prophecy preserved at
      Jerusalem, and describing the name, the religion, and the person
      of Omar, the future conqueror. By such arts the Jews are said to
      have soothed the pride of their foreign masters, Cyrus and
      Alexander, (Joseph. Ant. Jud. l. xi c. 1, 8, p. 447, 579-582.)]

      82 (return) [ Theophan. Chronograph. p. 281. This prediction,
      which had already served for Antiochus and the Romans, was again
      refitted for the present occasion, by the economy of Sophronius,
      one of the deepest theologians of the Monothelite controversy.]

      83 (return) [ According to the accurate survey of D’Anville,
      (Dissertation sun l’ancienne Jerusalem, p. 42-54,) the mosch of
      Omar, enlarged and embellished by succeeding caliphs, covered the
      ground of the ancient temple, (says Phocas,) a length of 215, a
      breadth of 172, toises. The Nubian geographer declares, that this
      magnificent structure was second only in size and beauty to the
      great mosch of Cordova, (p. 113,) whose present state Mr.
      Swinburne has so elegantly represented, (Travels into Spain, p.
      296-302.)]

      84 (return) [ Of the many Arabic tarikhs or chronicles of
      Jerusalem, (D’Herbelot, p. 867,) Ockley found one among the
      Pocock Mss. of Oxford, (vol. i. p. 257,) which he has used to
      supply the defective narrative of Al Wakidi.]

      To achieve what yet remained of the Syrian war the caliph had
      formed two separate armies; a chosen detachment, under Amrou and
      Yezid, was left in the camp of Palestine; while the larger
      division, under the standard of Abu Obeidah and Caled, marched
      away to the north against Antioch and Aleppo. The latter of
      these, the Beraea of the Greeks, was not yet illustrious as the
      capital of a province or a kingdom; and the inhabitants, by
      anticipating their submission and pleading their poverty,
      obtained a moderate composition for their lives and religion. But
      the castle of Aleppo, 85 distinct from the city, stood erect on a
      lofty artificial mound; the sides were sharpened to a precipice,
      and faced with free-stone; and the breadth of the ditch might be
      filled with water from the neighboring springs. After the loss of
      three thousand men, the garrison was still equal to the defence;
      and Youkinna, their valiant and hereditary chief, had murdered
      his brother, a holy monk, for daring to pronounce the name of
      peace. In a siege of four or five months, the hardest of the
      Syrian war, great numbers of the Saracens were killed and
      wounded: their removal to the distance of a mile could not seduce
      the vigilance of Youkinna; nor could the Christians be terrified
      by the execution of three hundred captives, whom they beheaded
      before the castle wall. The silence, and at length the
      complaints, of Abu Obeidah informed the caliph that their hope
      and patience were consumed at the foot of this impregnable
      fortress. “I am variously affected,” replied Omar, “by the
      difference of your success; but I charge you by no means to raise
      the siege of the castle. Your retreat would diminish the
      reputation of our arms, and encourage the infidels to fall upon
      you on all sides. Remain before Aleppo till God shall determine
      the event, and forage with your horse round the adjacent
      country.” The exhortation of the commander of the faithful was
      fortified by a supply of volunteers from all the tribes of
      Arabia, who arrived in the camp on horses or camels. Among these
      was Dames, of a servile birth, but of gigantic size and intrepid
      resolution. The forty-seventh day of his service he proposed,
      with only thirty men, to make an attempt on the castle. The
      experience and testimony of Caled recommended his offer; and Abu
      Obeidah admonished his brethren not to despise the baser origin
      of Dames, since he himself, could he relinquish the public care,
      would cheerfully serve under the banner of the slave. His design
      was covered by the appearance of a retreat; and the camp of the
      Saracens was pitched about a league from Aleppo. The thirty
      adventurers lay in ambush at the foot of the hill; and Dames at
      length succeeded in his inquiries, though he was provoked by the
      ignorance of his Greek captives. “God curse these dogs,” said the
      illiterate Arab; “what a strange barbarous language they speak!”
      At the darkest hour of the night, he scaled the most accessible
      height, which he had diligently surveyed, a place where the
      stones were less entire, or the slope less perpendicular, or the
      guard less vigilant. Seven of the stoutest Saracens mounted on
      each other’s shoulders, and the weight of the column was
      sustained on the broad and sinewy back of the gigantic slave. The
      foremost in this painful ascent could grasp and climb the lowest
      part of the battlements; they silently stabbed and cast down the
      sentinels; and the thirty brethren, repeating a pious
      ejaculation, “O apostle of God, help and deliver us!” were
      successively drawn up by the long folds of their turbans. With
      bold and cautious footsteps, Dames explored the palace of the
      governor, who celebrated, in riotous merriment, the festival of
      his deliverance. From thence, returning to his companions, he
      assaulted on the inside the entrance of the castle. They
      overpowered the guard, unbolted the gate, let down the
      drawbridge, and defended the narrow pass, till the arrival of
      Caled, with the dawn of day, relieved their danger and assured
      their conquest. Youkinna, a formidable foe, became an active and
      useful proselyte; and the general of the Saracens expressed his
      regard for the most humble merit, by detaining the army at Aleppo
      till Dames was cured of his honorable wounds. The capital of
      Syria was still covered by the castle of Aazaz and the iron
      bridge of the Orontes. After the loss of those important posts,
      and the defeat of the last of the Roman armies, the luxury of
      Antioch 86 trembled and obeyed. Her safety was ransomed with
      three hundred thousand pieces of gold; but the throne of the
      successors of Alexander, the seat of the Roman government of the
      East, which had been decorated by Caesar with the titles of free,
      and holy, and inviolate was degraded under the yoke of the
      caliphs to the secondary rank of a provincial town. 87

      85 (return) [ The Persian historian of Timur (tom. iii. l. v. c.
      21, p. 300) describes the castle of Aleppo as founded on a rock
      one hundred cubits in height; a proof, says the French
      translator, that he had never visited the place. It is now in the
      midst of the city, of no strength with a single gate; the circuit
      is about 500 or 600 paces, and the ditch half full of stagnant
      water, (Voyages de Tavernier, tom. i. p. 149 Pocock, vol. ii.
      part i. p. 150.) The fortresses of the East are contemptible to a
      European eye.]

      86 (return) [ The date of the conquest of Antioch by the Arabs is
      of some importance. By comparing the years of the world in the
      chronography of Theophanes with the years of the Hegira in the
      history of Elmacin, we shall determine, that it was taken between
      January 23d and September 1st of the year of Christ 638, (Pagi,
      Critica, in Baron. Annal. tom. ii. p. 812, 813.) Al Wakidi
      (Ockley, vol. i. p. 314) assigns that event to Tuesday, August
      21st, an inconsistent date; since Easter fell that year on April
      5th, the 21st of August must have been a Friday, (see the Tables
      of the Art de Verifier les Dates.)]

      87 (return) [ His bounteous edict, which tempted the grateful
      city to assume the victory of Pharsalia for a perpetual aera, is
      given. John Malala, in Chron. p. 91, edit. Venet. We may
      distinguish his authentic information of domestic facts from his
      gross ignorance of general history.]

      In the life of Heraclius, the glories of the Persian war are
      clouded on either hand by the disgrace and weakness of his more
      early and his later days. When the successors of Mahomet
      unsheathed the sword of war and religion, he was astonished at
      the boundless prospect of toil and danger; his nature was
      indolent, nor could the infirm and frigid age of the emperor be
      kindled to a second effort. The sense of shame, and the
      importunities of the Syrians, prevented the hasty departure from
      the scene of action; but the hero was no more; and the loss of
      Damascus and Jerusalem, the bloody fields of Aiznadin and Yermuk,
      may be imputed in some degree to the absence or misconduct of the
      sovereign. Instead of defending the sepulchre of Christ, he
      involved the church and state in a metaphysical controversy for
      the unity of his will; and while Heraclius crowned the offspring
      of his second nuptials, he was tamely stripped of the most
      valuable part of their inheritance. In the cathedral of Antioch,
      in the presence of the bishops, at the foot of the crucifix, he
      bewailed the sins of the prince and people; but his confession
      instructed the world, that it was vain, and perhaps impious, to
      resist the judgment of God. The Saracens were invincible in fact,
      since they were invincible in opinion; and the desertion of
      Youkinna, his false repentance and repeated perfidy, might
      justify the suspicion of the emperor, that he was encompassed by
      traitors and apostates, who conspired to betray his person and
      their country to the enemies of Christ. In the hour of adversity,
      his superstition was agitated by the omens and dreams of a
      falling crown; and after bidding an eternal farewell to Syria, he
      secretly embarked with a few attendants, and absolved the faith
      of his subjects. 88 Constantine, his eldest son, had been
      stationed with forty thousand men at Caesarea, the civil
      metropolis of the three provinces of Palestine. But his private
      interest recalled him to the Byzantine court; and, after the
      flight of his father, he felt himself an unequal champion to the
      united force of the caliph. His vanguard was boldly attacked by
      three hundred Arabs and a thousand black slaves, who, in the
      depth of winter, had climbed the snowy mountains of Libanus, and
      who were speedily followed by the victorious squadrons of Caled
      himself. From the north and south the troops of Antioch and
      Jerusalem advanced along the sea-shore till their banners were
      joined under the walls of the Phoenician cities: Tripoli and Tyre
      were betrayed; and a fleet of fifty transports, which entered
      without distrust the captive harbors, brought a seasonable supply
      of arms and provisions to the camp of the Saracens. Their labors
      were terminated by the unexpected surrender of Caesarea: the
      Roman prince had embarked in the night; 89 and the defenceless
      citizens solicited their pardon with an offering of two hundred
      thousand pieces of gold. The remainder of the province, Ramlah,
      Ptolemais or Acre, Sichem or Neapolis, Gaza, Ascalon, Berytus,
      Sidon, Gabala, Laodicea, Apamea, Hierapolis, no longer presumed
      to dispute the will of the conqueror; and Syria bowed under the
      sceptre of the caliphs seven hundred years after Pompey had
      despoiled the last of the Macedonian kings. 90

      88 (return) [ See Ockley, (vol. i. p. 308, 312,) who laughs at
      the credulity of his author. When Heraclius bade farewell to
      Syria, Vale Syria et ultimum vale, he prophesied that the Romans
      should never reenter the province till the birth of an
      inauspicious child, the future scourge of the empire. Abulfeda,
      p. 68. I am perfectly ignorant of the mystic sense, or nonsense,
      of this prediction.]

      89 (return) [ In the loose and obscure chronology of the times, I
      am guided by an authentic record, (in the book of ceremonies of
      Constantine Porphyrogenitus,) which certifies that, June 4, A.D.
      638, the emperor crowned his younger son Heraclius, in the
      presence of his eldest, Constantine, and in the palace of
      Constantinople; that January 1, A.D. 639, the royal procession
      visited the great church, and on the 4th of the same month, the
      hippodrome.]

      90 (return) [ Sixty-five years before Christ, Syria Pontusque
      monumenta sunt Cn. Pompeii virtutis, (Vell. Patercul. ii. 38,)
      rather of his fortune and power: he adjudged Syria to be a Roman
      province, and the last of the Seleucides were incapable of
      drawing a sword in the defence of their patrimony (see the
      original texts collected by Usher, Annal. p. 420)]




      Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part V.

      The sieges and battles of six campaigns had consumed many
      thousands of the Moslems. They died with the reputation and the
      cheerfulness of martyrs; and the simplicity of their faith may be
      expressed in the words of an Arabian youth, when he embraced, for
      the last time, his sister and mother: “It is not,” said he, “the
      delicacies of Syria, or the fading delights of this world, that
      have prompted me to devote my life in the cause of religion. But
      I seek the favor of God and his apostle; and I have heard, from
      one of the companions of the prophet, that the spirits of the
      martyrs will be lodged in the crops of green birds, who shall
      taste the fruits, and drink of the rivers, of paradise. Farewell,
      we shall meet again among the groves and fountains which God has
      provided for his elect.” The faithful captives might exercise a
      passive and more arduous resolution; and a cousin of Mahomet is
      celebrated for refusing, after an abstinence of three days, the
      wine and pork, the only nourishment that was allowed by the
      malice of the infidels. The frailty of some weaker brethren
      exasperated the implacable spirit of fanaticism; and the father
      of Amer deplored, in pathetic strains, the apostasy and damnation
      of a son, who had renounced the promises of God, and the
      intercession of the prophet, to occupy, with the priests and
      deacons, the lowest mansions of hell. The more fortunate Arabs,
      who survived the war and persevered in the faith, were restrained
      by their abstemious leader from the abuse of prosperity. After a
      refreshment of three days, Abu Obeidah withdrew his troops from
      the pernicious contagion of the luxury of Antioch, and assured
      the caliph that their religion and virtue could only be preserved
      by the hard discipline of poverty and labor. But the virtue of
      Omar, however rigorous to himself, was kind and liberal to his
      brethren. After a just tribute of praise and thanksgiving, he
      dropped a tear of compassion; and sitting down on the ground,
      wrote an answer, in which he mildly censured the severity of his
      lieutenant: “God,” said the successor of the prophet, “has not
      forbidden the use of the good things of this worl to faithful
      men, and such as have performed good works. Therefore you ought
      to have given them leave to rest themselves, and partake freely
      of those good things which the country affordeth. If any of the
      Saracens have no family in Arabia, they may marry in Syria; and
      whosoever of them wants any female slaves, he may purchase as
      many as he hath occasion for.” The conquerors prepared to use, or
      to abuse, this gracious permission; but the year of their triumph
      was marked by a mortality of men and cattle; and twenty-five
      thousand Saracens were snatched away from the possession of
      Syria. The death of Abu Obeidah might be lamented by the
      Christians; but his brethren recollected that he was one of the
      ten elect whom the prophet had named as the heirs of paradise. 91
      Caled survived his brethren about three years: and the tomb of
      the Sword of God is shown in the neighborhood of Emesa. His
      valor, which founded in Arabia and Syria the empire of the
      caliphs, was fortified by the opinion of a special providence;
      and as long as he wore a cap, which had been blessed by Mahomet,
      he deemed himself invulnerable amidst the darts of the infidels.
      9111

      91 (return) [ Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p. 73. Mahomet could
      artfully vary the praises of his disciples. Of Omar he was
      accustomed to say, that if a prophet could arise after himself,
      it would be Omar; and that in a general calamity, Omar would be
      accepted by the divine justice, (Ockley, vol. i. p. 221.)]

      9111 (return) [ Khaled, according to the Rouzont Uzzuffa, (Price,
      p. 90,) after having been deprived of his ample share of the
      plunder of Syria by the jealousy of Omar, died, possessed only of
      his horse, his arms, and a single slave. Yet Omar was obliged to
      acknowledge to his lamenting parent. that never mother had
      produced a son like Khaled.—M.]

      The place of the first conquerors was supplied by a new
      generation of their children and countrymen: Syria became the
      seat and support of the house of Ommiyah; and the revenue, the
      soldiers, the ships of that powerful kingdom were consecrated to
      enlarge on every side the empire of the caliphs. But the Saracens
      despise a superfluity of fame; and their historians scarcely
      condescend to mention the subordinate conquests which are lost in
      the splendor and rapidity of their victorious career.

      To the north of Syria, they passed Mount Taurus, and reduced to
      their obedience the province of Cilicia, with its capital Tarsus,
      the ancient monument of the Assyrian kings. Beyond a second ridge
      of the same mountains, they spread the flame of war, rather than
      the light of religion, as far as the shores of the Euxine, and
      the neighborhood of Constantinople. To the east they advanced to
      the banks and sources of the Euphrates and Tigris: 92 the long
      disputed barrier of Rome and Persia was forever confounded; the
      walls of Edessa and Amida, of Dara and Nisibis, which had
      resisted the arms and engines of Sapor or Nushirvan, were
      levelled in the dust; and the holy city of Abgarus might vainly
      produce the epistle or the image of Christ to an unbelieving
      conqueror. To the west the Syrian kingdom is bounded by the sea:
      and the ruin of Aradus, a small island or peninsula on the coast,
      was postponed during ten years. But the hills of Libanus abounded
      in timber; the trade of Phoenicia was populous in mariners; and a
      fleet of seventeen hundred barks was equipped and manned by the
      natives of the desert. The Imperial navy of the Romans fled
      before them from the Pamphylian rocks to the Hellespont; but the
      spirit of the emperor, a grandson of Heraclius, had been subdued
      before the combat by a dream and a pun. 93 The Saracens rode
      masters of the sea; and the islands of Cyprus, Rhodes, and the
      Cyclades, were successively exposed to their rapacious visits.
      Three hundred years before the Christian aera, the memorable
      though fruitless siege of Rhodes 94 by Demetrius had furnished
      that maritime republic with the materials and the subject of a
      trophy. A gigantic statue of Apollo, or the sun, seventy cubits
      in height, was erected at the entrance of the harbor, a monument
      of the freedom and the arts of Greece. After standing fifty-six
      years, the colossus of Rhodes was overthrown by an earthquake;
      but the massy trunk, and huge fragments, lay scattered eight
      centuries on the ground, and are often described as one of the
      wonders of the ancient world. They were collected by the
      diligence of the Saracens, and sold to a Jewish merchant of
      Edessa, who is said to have laden nine hundred camels with the
      weight of the brass metal; an enormous weight, though we should
      include the hundred colossal figures, 95 and the three thousand
      statues, which adorned the prosperity of the city of the sun.

      92 (return) [ Al Wakidi had likewise written a history of the
      conquest of Diarbekir, or Mesopotamia, (Ockley, at the end of the
      iid vol.,) which our interpreters do not appear to have seen. The
      Chronicle of Dionysius of Telmar, the Jacobite patriarch, records
      the taking of Edessa A.D. 637, and of Dara A.D. 641, (Asseman.
      Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 103;) and the attentive may glean
      some doubtful information from the Chronography of Theophanes,
      (p. 285-287.) Most of the towns of Mesopotamia yielded by
      surrender, (Abulpharag. p. 112.) * Note: It has been published in
      Arabic by M. Ewald St. Martin, vol. xi p 248; but its
      authenticity is doubted.—M.]

      93 (return) [ He dreamt that he was at Thessalonica, a harmless
      and unmeaning vision; but his soothsayer, or his cowardice,
      understood the sure omen of a defeat concealed in that
      inauspicious word, Give to another the victory, (Theoph. p. 286.
      Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 88.)]

      94 (return) [ Every passage and every fact that relates to the
      isle, the city, and the colossus of Rhodes, are compiled in the
      laborious treatise of Meursius, who has bestowed the same
      diligence on the two larger islands of the Crete and Cyprus. See,
      in the iiid vol. of his works, the Rhodus of Meursius, (l. i. c.
      15, p. 715-719.) The Byzantine writers, Theophanes and
      Constantine, have ignorantly prolonged the term to 1360 years,
      and ridiculously divide the weight among 30,000 camels.]

      95 (return) [ Centum colossi alium nobilitaturi locum, says
      Pliny, with his usual spirit. Hist. Natur. xxxiv. 18.]

      III. The conquest of Egypt may be explained by the character of
      the victorious Saracen, one of the first of his nation, in an age
      when the meanest of the brethren was exalted above his nature by
      the spirit of enthusiasm. The birth of Amrou was at once base and
      illustrious; his mother, a notorious prostitute, was unable to
      decide among five of the Koreish; but the proof of resemblance
      adjudged the child to Aasi, the oldest of her lovers. 96 The
      youth of Amrou was impelled by the passions and prejudices of his
      kindred: his poetic genius was exercised in satirical verses
      against the person and doctrine of Mahomet; his dexterity was
      employed by the reigning faction to pursue the religious exiles
      who had taken refuge in the court of the Aethiopian king. 97 Yet
      he returned from this embassy a secret proselyte; his reason or
      his interest determined him to renounce the worship of idols; he
      escaped from Mecca with his friend Caled; and the prophet of
      Medina enjoyed at the same moment the satisfaction of embracing
      the two firmest champions of his cause. The impatience of Amrou
      to lead the armies of the faithful was checked by the reproof of
      Omar, who advised him not to seek power and dominion, since he
      who is a subject to-day, may be a prince to-morrow. Yet his merit
      was not overlooked by the two first successors of Mahomet; they
      were indebted to his arms for the conquest of Palestine; and in
      all the battles and sieges of Syria, he united with the temper of
      a chief the valor of an adventurous soldier. In a visit to
      Medina, the caliph expressed a wish to survey the sword which had
      cut down so many Christian warriors; the son of Aasi unsheathed a
      short and ordinary cimeter; and as he perceived the surprise of
      Omar, “Alas,” said the modest Saracen, “the sword itself, without
      the arm of its master, is neither sharper nor more weighty than
      the sword of Pharezdak the poet.” 98 After the conquest of Egypt,
      he was recalled by the jealousy of the caliph Othman; but in the
      subsequent troubles, the ambition of a soldier, a statesman, and
      an orator, emerged from a private station. His powerful support,
      both in council and in the field, established the throne of the
      Ommiades; the administration and revenue of Egypt were restored
      by the gratitude of Moawiyah to a faithful friend who had raised
      himself above the rank of a subject; and Amrou ended his days in
      the palace and city which he had founded on the banks of the
      Nile. His dying speech to his children is celebrated by the
      Arabians as a model of eloquence and wisdom: he deplored the
      errors of his youth but if the penitent was still infected by the
      vanity of a poet, he might exaggerate the venom and mischief of
      his impious compositions. 99

      96 (return) [ We learn this anecdote from a spirited old woman,
      who reviled to their faces, the caliph and his friend. She was
      encouraged by the silence of Amrou and the liberality of
      Moawiyah, (Abulfeda, Annal Moslem. p. 111.)]

      97 (return) [ Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 46, &c., who
      quotes the Abyssinian history, or romance of Abdel Balcides. Yet
      the fact of the embassy and ambassador may be allowed.]

      98 (return) [ This saying is preserved by Pocock, (Not. ad Carmen
      Tograi, p 184,) and justly applauded by Mr. Harris,
      (Philosophical Arrangements, p. 850.)]

      99 (return) [ For the life and character of Amrou, see Ockley
      (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 28, 63, 94, 328, 342, 344, and
      to the end of the volume; vol. ii. p. 51, 55, 57, 74, 110-112,
      162) and Otter, (Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxi.
      p. 131, 132.) The readers of Tacitus may aptly compare Vespasian
      and Mucianus with Moawiyah and Amrou. Yet the resemblance is
      still more in the situation, than in the characters, of the men.]

      From his camp in Palestine, Amrou had surprised or anticipated
      the caliph’s leave for the invasion of Egypt. 100 The magnanimous
      Omar trusted in his God and his sword, which had shaken the
      thrones of Chosroes and Caesar: but when he compared the slender
      force of the Moslems with the greatness of the enterprise, he
      condemned his own rashness, and listened to his timid companions.
      The pride and the greatness of Pharaoh were familiar to the
      readers of the Koran; and a tenfold repetition of prodigies had
      been scarcely sufficient to effect, not the victory, but the
      flight, of six hundred thousand of the children of Israel: the
      cities of Egypt were many and populous; their architecture was
      strong and solid; the Nile, with its numerous branches, was alone
      an insuperable barrier; and the granary of the Imperial city
      would be obstinately defended by the Roman powers. In this
      perplexity, the commander of the faithful resigned himself to the
      decision of chance, or, in his opinion, of Providence. At the
      head of only four thousand Arabs, the intrepid Amrou had marched
      away from his station of Gaza when he was overtaken by the
      messenger of Omar. “If you are still in Syria,” said the
      ambiguous mandate, “retreat without delay; but if, at the receipt
      of this epistle, you have already reached the frontiers of Egypt,
      advance with confidence, and depend on the succor of God and of
      your brethren.” The experience, perhaps the secret intelligence,
      of Amrou had taught him to suspect the mutability of courts; and
      he continued his march till his tents were unquestionably pitched
      on Egyptian ground. He there assembled his officers, broke the
      seal, perused the epistle, gravely inquired the name and
      situation of the place, and declared his ready obedience to the
      commands of the caliph. After a siege of thirty days, he took
      possession of Farmah or Pelusium; and that key of Egypt, as it
      has been justly named, unlocked the entrance of the country as
      far as the ruins of Heliopolis and the neighborhood of the modern
      Cairo.

      100 (return) [ Al Wakidi had likewise composed a separate history
      of the conquest of Egypt, which Mr. Ockley could never procure;
      and his own inquiries (vol. i. 344-362) have added very little to
      the original text of Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 296-323,
      vers. Pocock,) the Melchite patriarch of Alexandria, who lived
      three hundred years after the revolution.]

      On the Western side of the Nile, at a small distance to the east
      of the Pyramids, at a small distance to the south of the Delta,
      Memphis, one hundred and fifty furlongs in circumference,
      displayed the magnificence of ancient kings. Under the reign of
      the Ptolemies and Caesars, the seat of government was removed to
      the sea-coast; the ancient capital was eclipsed by the arts and
      opulence of Alexandria; the palaces, and at length the temples,
      were reduced to a desolate and ruinous condition: yet, in the age
      of Augustus, and even in that of Constantine, Memphis was still
      numbered among the greatest and most populous of the provincial
      cities. 101 The banks of the Nile, in this place of the breadth
      of three thousand feet, were united by two bridges of sixty and
      of thirty boats, connected in the middle stream by the small
      island of Rouda, which was covered with gardens and habitations.
      102 The eastern extremity of the bridge was terminated by the
      town of Babylon and the camp of a Roman legion, which protected
      the passage of the river and the second capital of Egypt. This
      important fortress, which might fairly be described as a part of
      Memphis or Misrah, was invested by the arms of the lieutenant of
      Omar: a reenforcement of four thousand Saracens soon arrived in
      his camp; and the military engines, which battered the walls, may
      be imputed to the art and labor of his Syrian allies. Yet the
      siege was protracted to seven months; and the rash invaders were
      encompassed and threatened by the inundation of the Nile. 103
      Their last assault was bold and successful: they passed the
      ditch, which had been fortified with iron spikes, applied their
      scaling ladders, entered the fortress with the shout of “God is
      victorious!” and drove the remnant of the Greeks to their boats
      and the Isle of Rouda. The spot was afterwards recommended to the
      conqueror by the easy communication with the gulf and the
      peninsula of Arabia; the remains of Memphis were deserted; the
      tents of the Arabs were converted into permanent habitations; and
      the first mosch was blessed by the presence of fourscore
      companions of Mahomet. 104 A new city arose in their camp, on the
      eastward bank of the Nile; and the contiguous quarters of Babylon
      and Fostat are confounded in their present decay by the
      appellation of old Misrah, or Cairo, of which they form an
      extensive suburb. But the name of Cairo, the town of victory,
      more strictly belongs to the modern capital, which was founded in
      the tenth century by the Fatimite caliphs. 105 It has gradually
      receded from the river; but the continuity of buildings may be
      traced by an attentive eye from the monuments of Sesostris to
      those of Saladin. 106

      101 (return) [ Strabo, an accurate and attentive spectator,
      observes of Heliopolis, (Geograph. l. xvii. p. 1158;) but of
      Memphis he notices, however, the mixture of inhabitants, and the
      ruin of the palaces. In the proper Egypt, Ammianus enumerates
      Memphis among the four cities, maximis urbibus quibus provincia
      nitet, (xxii. 16;) and the name of Memphis appears with
      distinction in the Roman Itinerary and episcopal lists.]

      102 (return) [ These rare and curious facts, the breadth (2946
      feet) and the bridge of the Nile, are only to be found in the
      Danish traveller and the Nubian geographer, (p. 98.)]

      103 (return) [ From the month of April, the Nile begins
      imperceptibly to rise; the swell becomes strong and visible in
      the moon after the summer solstice, (Plin. Hist. Nat. v. 10,) and
      is usually proclaimed at Cairo on St. Peter’s day, (June 29.) A
      register of thirty successive years marks the greatest height of
      the waters between July 25 and August 18, (Maillet, Description
      de l’Egypte, lettre xi. p. 67, &c. Pocock’s Description of the
      East, vol. i. p. 200. Shaw’s Travels, p. 383.)]

      104 (return) [ Murtadi, Merveilles de l’Egypte, 243, 259. He
      expatiates on the subject with the zeal and minuteness of a
      citizen and a bigot, and his local traditions have a strong air
      of truth and accuracy.]

      105 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 233.]

      106 (return) [ The position of New and of Old Cairo is well
      known, and has been often described. Two writers, who were
      intimately acquainted with ancient and modern Egypt, have fixed,
      after a learned inquiry, the city of Memphis at Gizeh, directly
      opposite the Old Cairo, (Sicard, Nouveaux Memoires des Missions
      du Levant, tom. vi. p. 5, 6. Shaw’s Observations and Travels, p.
      296-304.) Yet we may not disregard the authority or the arguments
      of Pocock, (vol. i. p. 25-41,) Niebuhr, (Voyage, tom. i. p.
      77-106,) and above all, of D’Anville, (Description de l’Egypte,
      p. 111, 112, 130-149,) who have removed Memphis towards the
      village of Mohannah, some miles farther to the south. In their
      heat, the disputants have forgot that the ample space of a
      metropolis covers and annihilates the far greater part of the
      controversy.]

      Yet the Arabs, after a glorious and profitable enterprise, must
      have retreated to the desert, had they not found a powerful
      alliance in the heart of the country. The rapid conquest of
      Alexander was assisted by the superstition and revolt of the
      natives: they abhorred their Persian oppressors, the disciples of
      the Magi, who had burnt the temples of Egypt, and feasted with
      sacrilegious appetite on the flesh of the god Apis. 107 After a
      period of ten centuries, the same revolution was renewed by a
      similar cause; and in the support of an incomprehensible creed,
      the zeal of the Coptic Christians was equally ardent. I have
      already explained the origin and progress of the Monophysite
      controversy, and the persecution of the emperors, which converted
      a sect into a nation, and alienated Egypt from their religion and
      government. The Saracens were received as the deliverers of the
      Jacobite church; and a secret and effectual treaty was opened
      during the siege of Memphis between a victorious army and a
      people of slaves. A rich and noble Egyptian, of the name of
      Mokawkas, had dissembled his faith to obtain the administration
      of his province: in the disorders of the Persian war he aspired
      to independence: the embassy of Mahomet ranked him among princes;
      but he declined, with rich gifts and ambiguous compliments, the
      proposal of a new religion. 108 The abuse of his trust exposed
      him to the resentment of Heraclius: his submission was delayed by
      arrogance and fear; and his conscience was prompted by interest
      to throw himself on the favor of the nation and the support of
      the Saracens. In his first conference with Amrou, he heard
      without indignation the usual option of the Koran, the tribute,
      or the sword. “The Greeks,” replied Mokawkas, “are determined to
      abide the determination of the sword; but with the Greeks I
      desire no communion, either in this world or in the next, and I
      abjure forever the Byzantine tyrant, his synod of Chalcedon, and
      his Melchite slaves. For myself and my brethren, we are resolved
      to live and die in the profession of the gospel and unity of
      Christ. It is impossible for us to embrace the revelations of
      your prophet; but we are desirous of peace, and cheerfully submit
      to pay tribute and obedience to his temporal successors.” The
      tribute was ascertained at two pieces of gold for the head of
      every Christian; but old men, monks, women, and children, of both
      sexes, under sixteen years of age, were exempted from this
      personal assessment: the Copts above and below Memphis swore
      allegiance to the caliph, and promised a hospitable entertainment
      of three days to every Mussulman who should travel through their
      country. By this charter of security, the ecclesiastical and
      civil tyranny of the Melchites was destroyed: 109 the anathemas
      of St. Cyril were thundered from every pulpit; and the sacred
      edifices, with the patrimony of the church, were restored to the
      national communion of the Jacobites, who enjoyed without
      moderation the moment of triumph and revenge. At the pressing
      summons of Amrou, their patriarch Benjamin emerged from his
      desert; and after the first interview, the courteous Arab
      affected to declare that he had never conversed with a Christian
      priest of more innocent manners and a more venerable aspect. 110
      In the march from Memphis to Alexandria, the lieutenant of Omar
      intrusted his safety to the zeal and gratitude of the Egyptians:
      the roads and bridges were diligently repaired; and in every step
      of his progress, he could depend on a constant supply of
      provisions and intelligence. The Greeks of Egypt, whose numbers
      could scarcely equal a tenth of the natives, were overwhelmed by
      the universal defection: they had ever been hated, they were no
      longer feared: the magistrate fled from his tribunal, the bishop
      from his altar; and the distant garrisons were surprised or
      starved by the surrounding multitudes. Had not the Nile afforded
      a safe and ready conveyance to the sea, not an individual could
      have escaped, who by birth, or language, or office, or religion,
      was connected with their odious name.

      107 (return) [ See Herodotus, l. iii. c. 27, 28, 29. Aelian,
      Hist. Var. l. iv. c. 8. Suidas in, tom. ii. p. 774. Diodor.
      Sicul. tom. ii. l. xvii. p. 197, edit. Wesseling. Says the last
      of these historians.]

      108 (return) [ Mokawkas sent the prophet two Coptic damsels, with
      two maids and one eunuch, an alabaster vase, an ingot of pure
      gold, oil, honey, and the finest white linen of Egypt, with a
      horse, a mule, and an ass, distinguished by their respective
      qualifications. The embassy of Mahomet was despatched from Medina
      in the seventh year of the Hegira, (A.D. 628.) See Gagnier, (Vie
      de Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 255, 256, 303,) from Al Jannabi.]

      109 (return) [ The praefecture of Egypt, and the conduct of the
      war, had been trusted by Heraclius to the patriarch Cyrus,
      (Theophan. p. 280, 281.) “In Spain,” said James II., “do you not
      consult your priests?” “We do,” replied the Catholic ambassador,
      “and our affairs succeed accordingly.” I know not how to relate
      the plans of Cyrus, of paying tribute without impairing the
      revenue, and of converting Omar by his marriage with the
      Emperor’s daughter, (Nicephor. Breviar. p. 17, 18.)]

      110 (return) [ See the life of Benjamin, in Renaudot, (Hist.
      Patriarch. Alexandrin. p. 156-172,) who has enriched the conquest
      of Egypt with some facts from the Arabic text of Severus the
      Jacobite historian]

      By the retreat of the Greeks from the provinces of Upper Egypt, a
      considerable force was collected in the Island of Delta; the
      natural and artificial channels of the Nile afforded a succession
      of strong and defensible posts; and the road to Alexandria was
      laboriously cleared by the victory of the Saracens in
      two-and-twenty days of general or partial combat. In their annals
      of conquest, the siege of Alexandria 111 is perhaps the most
      arduous and important enterprise. The first trading city in the
      world was abundantly replenished with the means of subsistence
      and defence. Her numerous inhabitants fought for the dearest of
      human rights, religion and property; and the enmity of the
      natives seemed to exclude them from the common benefit of peace
      and toleration. The sea was continually open; and if Heraclius
      had been awake to the public distress, fresh armies of Romans and
      Barbarians might have been poured into the harbor to save the
      second capital of the empire. A circumference of ten miles would
      have scattered the forces of the Greeks, and favored the
      stratagems of an active enemy; but the two sides of an oblong
      square were covered by the sea and the Lake Maraeotis, and each
      of the narrow ends exposed a front of no more than ten furlongs.
      The efforts of the Arabs were not inadequate to the difficulty of
      the attempt and the value of the prize. From the throne of
      Medina, the eyes of Omar were fixed on the camp and city: his
      voice excited to arms the Arabian tribes and the veterans of
      Syria; and the merit of a holy war was recommended by the
      peculiar fame and fertility of Egypt. Anxious for the ruin or
      expulsion of their tyrants, the faithful natives devoted their
      labors to the service of Amrou: some sparks of martial spirit
      were perhaps rekindled by the example of their allies; and the
      sanguine hopes of Mokawkas had fixed his sepulchre in the church
      of St. John of Alexandria. Eutychius the patriarch observes, that
      the Saracens fought with the courage of lions: they repulsed the
      frequent and almost daily sallies of the besieged, and soon
      assaulted in their turn the walls and towers of the city. In
      every attack, the sword, the banner of Amrou, glittered in the
      van of the Moslems. On a memorable day, he was betrayed by his
      imprudent valor: his followers who had entered the citadel were
      driven back; and the general, with a friend and slave, remained a
      prisoner in the hands of the Christians. When Amrou was conducted
      before the praefect, he remembered his dignity, and forgot his
      situation: a lofty demeanor, and resolute language, revealed the
      lieutenant of the caliph, and the battle-axe of a soldier was
      already raised to strike off the head of the audacious captive.
      His life was saved by the readiness of his slave, who instantly
      gave his master a blow on the face, and commanded him, with an
      angry tone, to be silent in the presence of his superiors. The
      credulous Greek was deceived: he listened to the offer of a
      treaty, and his prisoners were dismissed in the hope of a more
      respectable embassy, till the joyful acclamations of the camp
      announced the return of their general, and insulted the folly of
      the infidels. At length, after a siege of fourteen months, 112
      and the loss of three-and-twenty thousand men, the Saracens
      prevailed: the Greeks embarked their dispirited and diminished
      numbers, and the standard of Mahomet was planted on the walls of
      the capital of Egypt. “I have taken,” said Amrou to the caliph,
      “the great city of the West. It is impossible for me to enumerate
      the variety of its riches and beauty; and I shall content myself
      with observing, that it contains four thousand palaces, four
      thousand baths, four hundred theatres or places of amusement,
      twelve thousand shops for the sale of vegetable food, and forty
      thousand tributary Jews. The town has been subdued by force of
      arms, without treaty or capitulation, and the Moslems are
      impatient to seize the fruits of their victory.” 113 The
      commander of the faithful rejected with firmness the idea of
      pillage, and directed his lieutenant to reserve the wealth and
      revenue of Alexandria for the public service and the propagation
      of the faith: the inhabitants were numbered; a tribute was
      imposed, the zeal and resentment of the Jacobites were curbed,
      and the Melchites who submitted to the Arabian yoke were indulged
      in the obscure but tranquil exercise of their worship. The
      intelligence of this disgraceful and calamitous event afflicted
      the declining health of the emperor; and Heraclius died of a
      dropsy about seven weeks after the loss of Alexandria. 114 Under
      the minority of his grandson, the clamors of a people, deprived
      of their daily sustenance, compelled the Byzantine court to
      undertake the recovery of the capital of Egypt. In the space of
      four years, the harbor and fortifications of Alexandria were
      twice occupied by a fleet and army of Romans. They were twice
      expelled by the valor of Amrou, who was recalled by the domestic
      peril from the distant wars of Tripoli and Nubia. But the
      facility of the attempt, the repetition of the insult, and the
      obstinacy of the resistance, provoked him to swear, that if a
      third time he drove the infidels into the sea, he would render
      Alexandria as accessible on all sides as the house of a
      prostitute. Faithful to his promise, he dismantled several parts
      of the walls and towers; but the people was spared in the
      chastisement of the city, and the mosch of Mercy was erected on
      the spot where the victorious general had stopped the fury of his
      troops.

      111 (return) [ The local description of Alexandria is perfectly
      ascertained by the master hand of the first of geographers,
      (D’Anville, Memoire sur l’Egypte, p. 52-63;) but we may borrow
      the eyes of the modern travellers, more especially of Thevenot,
      (Voyage au Levant, part i. p. 381-395,) Pocock, (vol. i. p.
      2-13,) and Niebuhr, (Voyage en Arabie, tom. i. p. 34-43.) Of the
      two modern rivals, Savary and Volmey, the one may amuse, the
      other will instruct.]

      112 (return) [ Both Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 319) and
      Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 28) concur in fixing the taking of
      Alexandria to Friday of the new moon of Moharram of the twentieth
      year of the Hegira, (December 22, A.D. 640.) In reckoning
      backwards fourteen months spent before Alexandria, seven months
      before Babylon, &c., Amrou might have invaded Egypt about the end
      of the year 638; but we are assured that he entered the country
      the 12th of Bayni, 6th of June, (Murtadi, Merveilles de l’Egypte,
      p. 164. Severus, apud Renaudot, p. 162.) The Saracen, and
      afterwards Lewis IX. of France, halted at Pelusium, or Damietta,
      during the season of the inundation of the Nile.]

      113 (return) [ Eutych. Annal. tom. ii. p. 316, 319.]

      114 (return) [ Notwithstanding some inconsistencies of Theophanes
      and Cedrenus, the accuracy of Pagi (Critica, tom. ii. p. 824) has
      extracted from Nicephorus and the Chronicon Orientale the true
      date of the death of Heraclius, February 11th, A.D. 641, fifty
      days after the loss of Alexandria. A fourth of that time was
      sufficient to convey the intelligence.]




      Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part VI.

      I should deceive the expectation of the reader, if I passed in
      silence the fate of the Alexandrian library, as it is described
      by the learned Abulpharagius. The spirit of Amrou was more
      curious and liberal than that of his brethren, and in his leisure
      hours, the Arabian chief was pleased with the conversation of
      John, the last disciple of Ammonius, and who derived the surname
      of Philoponus from his laborious studies of grammar and
      philosophy. 115 Emboldened by this familiar intercourse,
      Philoponus presumed to solicit a gift, inestimable in his
      opinion, contemptible in that of the Barbarians—the royal
      library, which alone, among the spoils of Alexandria, had not
      been appropriated by the visit and the seal of the conqueror.

      Amrou was inclined to gratify the wish of the grammarian, but his
      rigid integrity refused to alienate the minutest object without
      the consent of the caliph; and the well-known answer of Omar was
      inspired by the ignorance of a fanatic. “If these writings of the
      Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless, and need not
      be preserved: if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to
      be destroyed.” The sentence was executed with blind obedience:
      the volumes of paper or parchment were distributed to the four
      thousand baths of the city; and such was their incredible
      multitude, that six months were barely sufficient for the
      consumption of this precious fuel. Since the Dynasties of
      Abulpharagius 116 have been given to the world in a Latin
      version, the tale has been repeatedly transcribed; and every
      scholar, with pious indignation, has deplored the irreparable
      shipwreck of the learning, the arts, and the genius, of
      antiquity. For my own part, I am strongly tempted to deny both
      the fact and the consequences. 1161 The fact is indeed
      marvellous. “Read and wonder!” says the historian himself: and
      the solitary report of a stranger who wrote at the end of six
      hundred years on the confines of Media, is overbalanced by the
      silence of two annalist of a more early date, both Christians,
      both natives of Egypt, and the most ancient of whom, the
      patriarch Eutychius, has amply described the conquest of
      Alexandria. 117 The rigid sentence of Omar is repugnant to the
      sound and orthodox precept of the Mahometan casuists they
      expressly declare, that the religious books of the Jews and
      Christians, which are acquired by the right of war, should never
      be committed to the flames; and that the works of profane
      science, historians or poets, physicians or philosophers, may be
      lawfully applied to the use of the faithful. 118 A more
      destructive zeal may perhaps be attributed to the first
      successors of Mahomet; yet in this instance, the conflagration
      would have speedily expired in the deficiency of materials. I
      should not recapitulate the disasters of the Alexandrian library,
      the involuntary flame that was kindled by Caesar in his own
      defence, 119 or the mischievous bigotry of the Christians, who
      studied to destroy the monuments of idolatry. 120 But if we
      gradually descend from the age of the Antonines to that of
      Theodosius, we shall learn from a chain of contemporary
      witnesses, that the royal palace and the temple of Serapis no
      longer contained the four, or the seven, hundred thousand
      volumes, which had been assembled by the curiosity and
      magnificence of the Ptolemies. 121 Perhaps the church and seat of
      the patriarchs might be enriched with a repository of books; but
      if the ponderous mass of Arian and Monophysite controversy were
      indeed consumed in the public baths, 122 a philosopher may allow,
      with a smile, that it was ultimately devoted to the benefit of
      mankind. I sincerely regret the more valuable libraries which
      have been involved in the ruin of the Roman empire; but when I
      seriously compute the lapse of ages, the waste of ignorance, and
      the calamities of war, our treasures, rather than our losses, are
      the objects of my surprise. Many curious and interesting facts
      are buried in oblivion: the three great historians of Rome have
      been transmitted to our hands in a mutilated state, and we are
      deprived of many pleasing compositions of the lyric, iambic, and
      dramatic poetry of the Greeks. Yet we should gratefully remember,
      that the mischances of time and accident have spared the classic
      works to which the suffrage of antiquity 123 had adjudged the
      first place of genius and glory: the teachers of ancient
      knowledge, who are still extant, had perused and compared the
      writings of their predecessors; 124 nor can it fairly be presumed
      that any important truth, any useful discovery in art or nature,
      has been snatched away from the curiosity of modern ages.

      115 (return) [ Many treatises of this lover of labor are still
      extant, but for readers of the present age, the printed and
      unpublished are nearly in the same predicament. Moses and
      Aristotle are the chief objects of his verbose commentaries, one
      of which is dated as early as May 10th, A.D. 617, (Fabric.
      Bibliot. Graec. tom. ix. p. 458-468.) A modern, (John Le Clerc,)
      who sometimes assumed the same name was equal to old Philoponus
      in diligence, and far superior in good sense and real knowledge.]

      116 (return) [ Abulpharag. Dynast. p. 114, vers. Pocock. Audi
      quid factum sit et mirare. It would be endless to enumerate the
      moderns who have wondered and believed, but I may distinguish
      with honor the rational scepticism of Renaudot, (Hist. Alex.
      Patriarch, p. 170: ) historia... habet aliquid ut Arabibus
      familiare est.]

      1161 (return) [ Since this period several new Mahometan
      authorities have been adduced to support the authority of
      Abulpharagius. That of, I. Abdollatiph by Professor White: II. Of
      Makrizi; I have seen a Ms. extract from this writer: III. Of Ibn
      Chaledun: and after them Hadschi Chalfa. See Von Hammer,
      Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 17. Reinhard, in a German
      Dissertation, printed at Gottingen, 1792, and St. Croix, (Magasin
      Encyclop. tom. iv. p. 433,) have examined the question. Among
      Oriental scholars, Professor White, M. St. Martin, Von Hammer.
      and Silv. de Sacy, consider the fact of the burning the library,
      by the command of Omar, beyond question. Compare St. Martin’s
      note. vol. xi. p. 296. A Mahometan writer brings a similar charge
      against the Crusaders. The library of Tripoli is said to have
      contained the incredible number of three millions of volumes. On
      the capture of the city, Count Bertram of St. Giles, entering the
      first room, which contained nothing but the Koran, ordered the
      whole to be burnt, as the works of the false prophet of Arabia.
      See Wilken. Gesch der Kreux zuge, vol. ii. p. 211.—M.]

      117 (return) [ This curious anecdote will be vainly sought in the
      annals of Eutychius, and the Saracenic history of Elmacin. The
      silence of Abulfeda, Murtadi, and a crowd of Moslems, is less
      conclusive from their ignorance of Christian literature.]

      118 (return) [ See Reland, de Jure Militari Mohammedanorum, in
      his iiid volume of Dissertations, p. 37. The reason for not
      burning the religious books of the Jews or Christians, is derived
      from the respect that is due to the name of God.]

      119 (return) [ Consult the collections of Frensheim (Supplement.
      Livian, c. 12, 43) and Usher, (Anal. p. 469.) Livy himself had
      styled the Alexandrian library, elegantiae regum curaeque
      egregium opus; a liberal encomium, for which he is pertly
      criticized by the narrow stoicism of Seneca, (De Tranquillitate
      Animi, c. 9,) whose wisdom, on this occasion, deviates into
      nonsense.]

      120 (return) [ See this History, vol. iii. p. 146.]

      121 (return) [ Aulus Gellius, (Noctes Atticae, vi. 17,) Ammianus
      Marcellinua, (xxii. 16,) and Orosius, (l. vi. c. 15.) They all
      speak in the past tense, and the words of Ammianus are remarkably
      strong: fuerunt Bibliothecae innumerabiles; et loquitum
      monumentorum veterum concinens fides, &c.]

      122 (return) [ Renaudot answers for versions of the Bible,
      Hexapla, Catenoe Patrum, Commentaries, &c., (p. 170.) Our
      Alexandrian Ms., if it came from Egypt, and not from
      Constantinople or Mount Athos, (Wetstein, Prolegom. ad N. T. p.
      8, &c.,) might possibly be among them.]

      123 (return) [ I have often perused with pleasure a chapter of
      Quintilian, (Institut. Orator. x. i.,) in which that judicious
      critic enumerates and appreciates the series of Greek and Latin
      classics.]

      124 (return) [ Such as Galen, Pliny, Aristotle, &c. On this
      subject Wotton (Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning, p.
      85-95) argues, with solid sense, against the lively exotic
      fancies of Sir William Temple. The contempt of the Greeks for
      Barbaric science would scarcely admit the Indian or Aethiopic
      books into the library of Alexandria; nor is it proved that
      philosophy has sustained any real loss from their exclusion.]

      In the administration of Egypt, 125 Amrou balanced the demands of
      justice and policy; the interest of the people of the law, who
      were defended by God; and of the people of the alliance, who were
      protected by man. In the recent tumult of conquest and
      deliverance, the tongue of the Copts and the sword of the Arabs
      were most adverse to the tranquillity of the province. To the
      former, Amrou declared, that faction and falsehood would be
      doubly chastised; by the punishment of the accusers, whom he
      should detest as his personal enemies, and by the promotion of
      their innocent brethren, whom their envy had labored to injure
      and supplant. He excited the latter by the motives of religion
      and honor to sustain the dignity of their character, to endear
      themselves by a modest and temperate conduct to God and the
      caliph, to spare and protect a people who had trusted to their
      faith, and to content themselves with the legitimate and splendid
      rewards of their victory. In the management of the revenue, he
      disapproved the simple but oppressive mode of a capitation, and
      preferred with reason a proportion of taxes deducted on every
      branch from the clear profits of agriculture and commerce. A
      third part of the tribute was appropriated to the annual repairs
      of the dikes and canals, so essential to the public welfare.
      Under his administration, the fertility of Egypt supplied the
      dearth of Arabia; and a string of camels, laden with corn and
      provisions, covered almost without an interval the long road from
      Memphis to Medina. 126 But the genius of Amrou soon renewed the
      maritime communication which had been attempted or achieved by
      the Pharaohs the Ptolemies, or the Caesars; and a canal, at least
      eighty miles in length, was opened from the Nile to the Red Sea.
      1261 This inland navigation, which would have joined the
      Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, was soon discontinued as
      useless and dangerous: the throne was removed from Medina to
      Damascus, and the Grecian fleets might have explored a passage to
      the holy cities of Arabia. 127

      125 (return) [ This curious and authentic intelligence of Murtadi
      (p. 284-289) has not been discovered either by Mr. Ockley, or by
      the self-sufficient compilers of the Modern Universal History.]

      126 (return) [ Eutychius, Annal. tom. ii. p. 320. Elmacin, Hist.
      Saracen. p. 35.]

      1261 (return) [ Many learned men have doubted the existence of a
      communication by water between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean
      by the Nile. Yet the fact is positively asserted by the ancients.
      Diodorus Siculus (l. i. p. 33) speaks of it in the most distinct
      manner as existing in his time. So, also, Strabo, (l. xvii. p.
      805.) Pliny (vol. vi. p. 29) says that the canal which united the
      two seas was navigable, (alveus navigabilis.) The indications
      furnished by Ptolemy and by the Arabic historian, Makrisi, show
      that works were executed under the reign of Hadrian to repair the
      canal and extend the navigation; it then received the name of the
      River of Trajan Lucian, (in his Pseudomantis, p. 44,) says that
      he went by water from Alexandria to Clysma, on the Red Sea.
      Testimonies of the 6th and of the 8th century show that the
      communication was not interrupted at that time. See the French
      translation of Strabo, vol. v. p. 382. St. Martin vol. xi. p.
      299.—M.]

      127 (return) [ On these obscure canals, the reader may try to
      satisfy himself from D’Anville, (Mem. sur l’Egypte, p. 108-110,
      124, 132,) and a learned thesis, maintained and printed at
      Strasburg in the year 1770, (Jungendorum marium fluviorumque
      molimina, p. 39-47, 68-70.) Even the supine Turks have agitated
      the old project of joining the two seas. (Memoires du Baron de
      Tott, tom. iv.)]

      Of his new conquest, the caliph Omar had an imperfect knowledge
      from the voice of fame and the legends of the Koran. He requested
      that his lieutenant would place before his eyes the realm of
      Pharaoh and the Amalekites; and the answer of Amrou exhibits a
      lively and not unfaithful picture of that singular country. 128
      “O commander of the faithful, Egypt is a compound of black earth
      and green plants, between a pulverized mountain and a red sand.
      The distance from Syene to the sea is a month’s journey for a
      horseman. Along the valley descends a river, on which the
      blessing of the Most High reposes both in the evening and
      morning, and which rises and falls with the revolutions of the
      sun and moon. When the annual dispensation of Providence unlocks
      the springs and fountains that nourish the earth, the Nile rolls
      his swelling and sounding waters through the realm of Egypt: the
      fields are overspread by the salutary flood; and the villages
      communicate with each other in their painted barks. The retreat
      of the inundation deposits a fertilizing mud for the reception of
      the various seeds: the crowds of husbandmen who blacken the land
      may be compared to a swarm of industrious ants; and their native
      indolence is quickened by the lash of the task-master, and the
      promise of the flowers and fruits of a plentiful increase. Their
      hope is seldom deceived; but the riches which they extract from
      the wheat, the barley, and the rice, the legumes, the
      fruit-trees, and the cattle, are unequally shared between those
      who labor and those who possess. According to the vicissitudes of
      the seasons, the face of the country is adorned with a silver
      wave, a verdant emerald, and the deep yellow of a golden
      harvest.” 129 Yet this beneficial order is sometimes interrupted;
      and the long delay and sudden swell of the river in the first
      year of the conquest might afford some color to an edifying
      fable. It is said, that the annual sacrifice of a virgin 130 had
      been interdicted by the piety of Omar; and that the Nile lay
      sullen and inactive in his shallow bed, till the mandate of the
      caliph was cast into the obedient stream, which rose in a single
      night to the height of sixteen cubits. The admiration of the
      Arabs for their new conquest encouraged the license of their
      romantic spirit. We may read, in the gravest authors, that Egypt
      was crowded with twenty thousand cities or villages: 131 that,
      exclusive of the Greeks and Arabs, the Copts alone were found, on
      the assessment, six millions of tributary subjects, 132 or twenty
      millions of either sex, and of every age: that three hundred
      millions of gold or silver were annually paid to the treasury of
      the caliphs. 133 Our reason must be startled by these extravagant
      assertions; and they will become more palpable, if we assume the
      compass and measure the extent of habitable ground: a valley from
      the tropic to Memphis seldom broader than twelve miles, and the
      triangle of the Delta, a flat surface of two thousand one hundred
      square leagues, compose a twelfth part of the magnitude of
      France. 134 A more accurate research will justify a more
      reasonable estimate. The three hundred millions, created by the
      error of a scribe, are reduced to the decent revenue of four
      millions three hundred thousand pieces of gold, of which nine
      hundred thousand were consumed by the pay of the soldiers. 135
      Two authentic lists, of the present and of the twelfth century,
      are circumscribed within the respectable number of two thousand
      seven hundred villages and towns. 136 After a long residence at
      Cairo, a French consul has ventured to assign about four millions
      of Mahometans, Christians, and Jews, for the ample, though not
      incredible, scope of the population of Egypt. 137

      128 (return) [ A small volume, des Merveilles, &c., de l’Egypte,
      composed in the xiiith century by Murtadi of Cairo, and
      translated from an Arabic Ms. of Cardinal Mazarin, was published
      by Pierre Vatier, Paris, 1666. The antiquities of Egypt are wild
      and legendary; but the writer deserves credit and esteem for his
      account of the conquest and geography of his native country, (see
      the correspondence of Amrou and Omar, p. 279-289.)]

      129 (return) [ In a twenty years’ residence at Cairo, the consul
      Maillet had contemplated that varying scene, the Nile, (lettre
      ii. particularly p. 70, 75;) the fertility of the land, (lettre
      ix.) From a college at Cambridge, the poetic eye of Gray had seen
      the same objects with a keener glance:—

     What wonder in the sultry climes that spread,
     Where Nile, redundant o’er his summer bed,
     From his broad bosom life and verdure flings,
     And broods o’er Egypt with his watery wings:
     If with adventurous oar, and ready sail,
     The dusky people drive before the gale:
     Or on frail floats to neighboring cities ride.
     That rise and glitter o’er the ambient tide.
     (Mason’s Works and Memoirs of Gray, p. 199, 200.)]

      130 (return) [ Murtadi, p. 164-167. The reader will not easily
      credit a human sacrifice under the Christian emperors, or a
      miracle of the successors of Mahomet.]

      131 (return) [ Maillet, Description de l’Egypte, p. 22. He
      mentions this number as the common opinion; and adds, that the
      generality of these villages contain two or three thousand
      persons, and that many of them are more populous than our large
      cities.]

      132 (return) [ Eutych. Annal. tom. ii. p. 308, 311. The twenty
      millions are computed from the following data: one twelfth of
      mankind above sixty, one third below sixteen, the proportion of
      men to women as seventeen or sixteen, (Recherches sur la
      Population de la France, p. 71, 72.) The president Goguet
      (Origine des Arts, &c., tom. iii. p. 26, &c.) Bestows
      twenty-seven millions on ancient Egypt, because the seventeen
      hundred companions of Sesostris were born on the same day.]

      133 (return) [ Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 218; and this gross
      lump is swallowed without scruple by D’Herbelot, (Bibliot.
      Orient. p. 1031,) Ar. buthnot, (Tables of Ancient Coins, p. 262,)
      and De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 135.) They might
      allege the not less extravagant liberality of Appian in favor of
      the Ptolemies (in praefat.) of seventy four myriads, 740,000
      talents, an annual income of 185, or near 300 millions of pounds
      sterling, according as we reckon by the Egyptian or the
      Alexandrian talent, (Bernard, de Ponderibus Antiq. p. 186.)]

      134 (return) [ See the measurement of D’Anville, (Mem. sur
      l’Egypte, p. 23, &c.) After some peevish cavils, M. Pauw
      (Recherches sur les Egyptiens, tom. i. p. 118-121) can only
      enlarge his reckoning to 2250 square leagues.]

      135 (return) [ Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alexand. p. 334, who
      calls the common reading or version of Elmacin, error librarii.
      His own emendation, of 4,300,000 pieces, in the ixth century,
      maintains a probable medium between the 3,000,000 which the Arabs
      acquired by the conquest of Egypt, (idem, p. 168.) and the
      2,400,000 which the sultan of Constantinople levied in the last
      century, (Pietro della Valle, tom. i. p. 352 Thevenot, part i. p.
      824.) Pauw (Recherches, tom. ii. p. 365-373) gradually raises the
      revenue of the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, and the Caesars, from six
      to fifteen millions of German crowns.]

      136 (return) [ The list of Schultens (Index Geograph. ad calcem
      Vit. Saladin. p. 5) contains 2396 places; that of D’Anville,
      (Mem. sur l’Egypte, p. 29,) from the divan of Cairo, enumerates
      2696.]

      137 (return) [ See Maillet, (Description de l’Egypte, p. 28,) who
      seems to argue with candor and judgment. I am much better
      satisfied with the observations than with the reading of the
      French consul. He was ignorant of Greek and Latin literature, and
      his fancy is too much delighted with the fictions of the Arabs.
      Their best knowledge is collected by Abulfeda, (Descript. Aegypt.
      Arab. et Lat. a Joh. David Michaelis, Gottingae, in 4to., 1776;)
      and in two recent voyages into Egypt, we are amused by Savary,
      and instructed by Volney. I wish the latter could travel over the
      globe.]

      IV. The conquest of Africa, from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean,
      138 was first attempted by the arms of the caliph Othman.

      The pious design was approved by the companions of Mahomet and
      the chiefs of the tribes; and twenty thousand Arabs marched from
      Medina, with the gifts and the blessing of the commander of the
      faithful. They were joined in the camp of Memphis by twenty
      thousand of their countrymen; and the conduct of the war was
      intrusted to Abdallah, 139 the son of Said and the foster-brother
      of the caliph, who had lately supplanted the conqueror and
      lieutenant of Egypt. Yet the favor of the prince, and the merit
      of his favorite, could not obliterate the guilt of his apostasy.
      The early conversion of Abdallah, and his skilful pen, had
      recommended him to the important office of transcribing the
      sheets of the Koran: he betrayed his trust, corrupted the text,
      derided the errors which he had made, and fled to Mecca to escape
      the justice, and expose the ignorance, of the apostle. After the
      conquest of Mecca, he fell prostrate at the feet of Mahomet; his
      tears, and the entreaties of Othman, extorted a reluctant pardon;
      but the prophet declared that he had so long hesitated, to allow
      time for some zealous disciple to avenge his injury in the blood
      of the apostate. With apparent fidelity and effective merit, he
      served the religion which it was no longer his interest to
      desert: his birth and talents gave him an honorable rank among
      the Koreish; and, in a nation of cavalry, Abdallah was renowned
      as the boldest and most dexterous horseman of Arabia. At the head
      of forty thousand Moslems, he advanced from Egypt into the
      unknown countries of the West. The sands of Barca might be
      impervious to a Roman legion but the Arabs were attended by their
      faithful camels; and the natives of the desert beheld without
      terror the familiar aspect of the soil and climate. After a
      painful march, they pitched their tents before the walls of
      Tripoli, 140 a maritime city in which the name, the wealth, and
      the inhabitants of the province had gradually centred, and which
      now maintains the third rank among the states of Barbary. A
      reenforcement of Greeks was surprised and cut in pieces on the
      sea-shore; but the fortifications of Tripoli resisted the first
      assaults; and the Saracens were tempted by the approach of the
      praefect Gregory 141 to relinquish the labors of the siege for
      the perils and the hopes of a decisive action. If his standard
      was followed by one hundred and twenty thousand men, the regular
      bands of the empire must have been lost in the naked and
      disorderly crowd of Africans and Moors, who formed the strength,
      or rather the numbers, of his host. He rejected with indignation
      the option of the Koran or the tribute; and during several days
      the two armies were fiercely engaged from the dawn of light to
      the hour of noon, when their fatigue and the excessive heat
      compelled them to seek shelter and refreshment in their
      respective camps. The daughter of Gregory, a maid of incomparable
      beauty and spirit, is said to have fought by his side: from her
      earliest youth she was trained to mount on horseback, to draw the
      bow, and to wield the cimeter; and the richness of her arms and
      apparel were conspicuous in the foremost ranks of the battle. Her
      hand, with a hundred thousand pieces of gold, was offered for the
      head of the Arabian general, and the youths of Africa were
      excited by the prospect of the glorious prize. At the pressing
      solicitation of his brethren, Abdallah withdrew his person from
      the field; but the Saracens were discouraged by the retreat of
      their leader, and the repetition of these equal or unsuccessful
      conflicts.

      138 (return) [ My conquest of Africa is drawn from two French
      interpreters of Arabic literature, Cardonne (Hist. de l’Afrique
      et de l’Espagne sous la Domination des Arabes, tom. i. p. 8-55)
      and Otter, (Hist. de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxi. p.
      111-125, and 136.) They derive their principal information from
      Novairi, who composed, A.D. 1331 an Encyclopaedia in more than
      twenty volumes. The five general parts successively treat of, 1.
      Physics; 2. Man; 3. Animals; 4. Plants; and, 5. History; and the
      African affairs are discussed in the vith chapter of the vth
      section of this last part, (Reiske, Prodidagmata ad Hagji
      Chalifae Tabulas, p. 232-234.) Among the older historians who are
      quoted by Navairi we may distinguish the original narrative of a
      soldier who led the van of the Moslems.]

      139 (return) [ See the history of Abdallah, in Abulfeda (Vit.
      Mohammed. p. 108) and Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii.
      45-48.)]

      140 (return) [ The province and city of Tripoli are described by
      Leo Africanus (in Navigatione et Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i.
      Venetia, 1550, fol. 76, verso) and Marmol, (Description de
      l’Afrique, tom. ii. p. 562.) The first of these writers was a
      Moor, a scholar, and a traveller, who composed or translated his
      African geography in a state of captivity at Rome, where he had
      assumed the name and religion of Pope Leo X. In a similar
      captivity among the Moors, the Spaniard Marmol, a soldier of
      Charles V., compiled his Description of Africa, translated by
      D’Ablancourt into French, (Paris, 1667, 3 vols. in 4to.) Marmol
      had read and seen, but he is destitute of the curious and
      extensive observation which abounds in the original work of Leo
      the African.]

      141 (return) [ Theophanes, who mentions the defeat, rather than
      the death, of Gregory. He brands the praefect with the name: he
      had probably assumed the purple, (Chronograph. p. 285.)]

      A noble Arabian, who afterwards became the adversary of Ali, and
      the father of a caliph, had signalized his valor in Egypt, and
      Zobeir 142 was the first who planted the scaling-ladder against
      the walls of Babylon. In the African war he was detached from the
      standard of Abdallah. On the news of the battle, Zobeir, with
      twelve companions, cut his way through the camp of the Greeks,
      and pressed forwards, without tasting either food or repose, to
      partake of the dangers of his brethren. He cast his eyes round
      the field: “Where,” said he, “is our general?” “In his tent.” “Is
      the tent a station for the general of the Moslems?” Abdallah
      represented with a blush the importance of his own life, and the
      temptation that was held forth by the Roman praefect. “Retort,”
      said Zobeir, “on the infidels their ungenerous attempt. Proclaim
      through the ranks that the head of Gregory shall be repaid with
      his captive daughter, and the equal sum of one hundred thousand
      pieces of gold.” To the courage and discretion of Zobeir the
      lieutenant of the caliph intrusted the execution of his own
      stratagem, which inclined the long-disputed balance in favor of
      the Saracens. Supplying by activity and artifice the deficiency
      of numbers, a part of their forces lay concealed in their tents,
      while the remainder prolonged an irregular skirmish with the
      enemy till the sun was high in the heavens. On both sides they
      retired with fainting steps: their horses were unbridled, their
      armor was laid aside, and the hostile nations prepared, or seemed
      to prepare, for the refreshment of the evening, and the encounter
      of the ensuing day. On a sudden the charge was sounded; the
      Arabian camp poured forth a swarm of fresh and intrepid warriors;
      and the long line of the Greeks and Africans was surprised,
      assaulted, overturned, by new squadrons of the faithful, who, to
      the eye of fanaticism, might appear as a band of angels
      descending from the sky. The praefect himself was slain by the
      hand of Zobeir: his daughter, who sought revenge and death, was
      surrounded and made prisoner; and the fugitives involved in their
      disaster the town of Sufetula, to which they escaped from the
      sabres and lances of the Arabs. Sufetula was built one hundred
      and fifty miles to the south of Carthage: a gentle declivity is
      watered by a running stream, and shaded by a grove of
      juniper-trees; and, in the ruins of a triumpha arch, a portico,
      and three temples of the Corinthian order, curiosity may yet
      admire the magnificence of the Romans. 143 After the fall of this
      opulent city, the provincials and Barbarians implored on all
      sides the mercy of the conqueror. His vanity or his zeal might be
      flattered by offers of tribute or professions of faith: but his
      losses, his fatigues, and the progress of an epidemical disease,
      prevented a solid establishment; and the Saracens, after a
      campaign of fifteen months, retreated to the confines of Egypt,
      with the captives and the wealth of their African expedition. The
      caliph’s fifth was granted to a favorite, on the nominal payment
      of five hundred thousand pieces of gold; 144 but the state was
      doubly injured by this fallacious transaction, if each
      foot-soldier had shared one thousand, and each horseman three
      thousand, pieces, in the real division of the plunder. The author
      of the death of Gregory was expected to have claimed the most
      precious reward of the victory: from his silence it might be
      presumed that he had fallen in the battle, till the tears and
      exclamations of the praefect’s daughter at the sight of Zobeir
      revealed the valor and modesty of that gallant soldier. The
      unfortunate virgin was offered, and almost rejected as a slave,
      by her father’s murderer, who coolly declared that his sword was
      consecrated to the service of religion; and that he labored for a
      recompense far above the charms of mortal beauty, or the riches
      of this transitory life. A reward congenial to his temper was the
      honorable commission of announcing to the caliph Othman the
      success of his arms. The companions the chiefs, and the people,
      were assembled in the mosch of Medina, to hear the interesting
      narrative of Zobeir; and as the orator forgot nothing except the
      merit of his own counsels and actions, the name of Abdallah was
      joined by the Arabians with the heroic names of Caled and Amrou.
      145

      142 (return) [ See in Ockley (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p.
      45) the death of Zobeir, which was honored with the tears of Ali,
      against whom he had rebelled. His valor at the siege of Babylon,
      if indeed it be the same person, is mentioned by Eutychius,
      (Annal. tom. ii. p. 308)]

      143 (return) [ Shaw’s Travels, p. 118, 119.]

      144 (return) [ Mimica emptio, says Abulfeda, erat haec, et mira
      donatio; quandoquidem Othman, ejus nomine nummos ex aerario prius
      ablatos aerario praestabat, (Annal. Moslem. p. 78.) Elmacin (in
      his cloudy version, p. 39) seems to report the same job. When the
      Arabs be sieged the palace of Othman, it stood high in their
      catalogue of grievances.`]

      145 (return) [ Theophan. Chronograph. p. 235 edit. Paris. His
      chronology is loose and inaccurate.]

      [A. D. 665-689.] The western conquests of the Saracens were
      suspended near twenty years, till their dissensions were composed
      by the establishment of the house of Ommiyah; and the caliph
      Moawiyah was invited by the cries of the Africans themselves. The
      successors of Heraclius had been informed of the tribute which
      they had been compelled to stipulate with the Arabs; but instead
      of being moved to pity and relieve their distress, they imposed,
      as an equivalent or a fine, a second tribute of a similar amount.
      The ears of the zantine ministers were shut against the
      complaints of their poverty and ruin their despair was reduced to
      prefer the dominion of a single master; and the extortions of the
      patriarch of Carthage, who was invested with civil and military
      power, provoked the sectaries, and even the Catholics, of the
      Roman province to abjure the religion as well as the authority of
      their tyrants. The first lieutenant of Moawiyah acquired a just
      renown, subdued an important city, defeated an army of thirty
      thousand Greeks, swept away fourscore thousand captives, and
      enriched with their spoils the bold adventurers of Syria and
      Egypt.146 But the title of conqueror of Africa is more justly due
      to his successor Akbah. He marched from Damascus at the head of
      ten thousand of the bravest Arabs; and the genuine force of the
      Moslems was enlarged by the doubtful aid and conversion of many
      thousand Barbarians. It would be difficult, nor is it necessary,
      to trace the accurate line of the progress of Akbah. The interior
      regions have been peopled by the Orientals with fictitious armies
      and imaginary citadels. In the warlike province of Zab or
      Numidia, fourscore thousand of the natives might assemble in
      arms; but the number of three hundred and sixty towns is
      incompatible with the ignorance or decay of husbandry;147 and a
      circumference of three leagues will not be justified by the ruins
      of Erbe or Lambesa, the ancient metropolis of that inland
      country. As we approach the seacoast, the well-known titles of
      Bugia,148 and Tangier149 define the more certain limits of the
      Saracen victories. A remnant of trade still adheres to the
      commodious harbour of Bugia, which, in a more prosperous age, is
      said to have contained about twenty thousand houses; and the
      plenty of iron which is dug from the adjacent mountains might
      have supplied a braver people with the instruments of defence.
      The remote position and venerable antiquity of Tingi, or Tangier,
      have been decorated by the Greek and Arabian fables; but the
      figurative expressions of the latter, that the walls were
      constructed of brass, and that the roofs were covered with gold
      and silver, may be interpreted as the emblems of strength and
      opulence.

      146 (return) [ Theophanes (in Chronograph. p. 293.) inserts the
      vague rumours that might reach Constantinople, of the western
      conquests of the Arabs; and I learn from Paul Warnefrid, deacon
      of Aquileia (de Gestis Langobard. 1. v. c. 13), that at this time
      they sent a fleet from Alexandria into the Sicilian and African
      seas.]

      147 (return) [ See Novairi (apud Otter, p. 118), Leo Africanus
      (fol. 81, verso), who reckoned only cinque citta e infinite
      casal, Marmol (Description de l’Afrique, tom. iii. p. 33,) and
      Shaw (Travels, p. 57, 65-68)]

      148 (return) [ Leo African. fol. 58, verso, 59, recto. Marmol,
      tom. ii. p. 415. Shaw, p. 43]

      149 (return) [ Leo African. fol. 52. Marmol, tom. ii. p. 228.]

      The province of Mauritania Tingitana,150 which assumed the name
      of the capital had been imperfectly discovered and settled by the
      Romans; the five colonies were confined to a narrow pale, and the
      more southern parts were seldom explored except by the agents of
      luxury, who searched the forests for ivory and the citron
      wood,151 and the shores of the ocean for the purple shellfish.
      The fearless Akbah plunged into the heart of the country,
      traversed the wilderness in which his successors erected the
      splendid capitals of Fez and Morocco,152 and at length penetrated
      to the verge of the Atlantic and the great desert. The river Suz
      descends from the western sides of mount Atlas, fertilizes, like
      the Nile, the adjacent soil, and falls into the sea at a moderate
      distance from the Canary, or adjacent islands. Its banks were
      inhabited by the last of the Moors, a race of savages, without
      laws, or discipline, or religion: they were astonished by the
      strange and irresistible terrors of the Oriental arms; and as
      they possessed neither gold nor silver, the richest spoil was the
      beauty of the female captives, some of whom were afterward sold
      for a thousand pieces of gold. The career, though not the zeal,
      of Akbah was checked by the prospect of a boundless ocean. He
      spurred his horse into the waves, and raising his eyes to heaven,
      exclaimed with the tone of a fanatic: “Great God! if my course
      were not stopped by this sea, I would still go on, to the unknown
      kingdoms of the West, preaching the unity of thy holy name, and
      putting to the sword the rebellious nations who worship another
      gods than thee.” 153 Yet this Mahometan Alexander, who sighed for
      new worlds, was unable to preserve his recent conquests. By the
      universal defection of the Greeks and Africans he was recalled
      from the shores of the Atlantic, and the surrounding multitudes
      left him only the resource of an honourable death. The last scene
      was dignified by an example of national virtue. An ambitious
      chief, who had disputed the command and failed in the attempt,
      was led about as a prisoner in the camp of the Arabian general.
      The insurgents had trusted to his discontent and revenge; he
      disdained their offers and revealed their designs. In the hour of
      danger, the grateful Akbah unlocked his fetters, and advised him
      to retire; he chose to die under the banner of his rival.
      Embracing as friends and martyrs, they unsheathed their
      scimeters, broke their scabbards, and maintained an obstinate
      combat, till they fell by each other’s side on the last of their
      slaughtered countrymen. The third general or governor of Africa,
      Zuheir, avenged and encountered the fate of his predecessor. He
      vanquished the natives in many battles; he was overthrown by a
      powerful army, which Constantinople had sent to the relief of
      Carthage.

      150 (return) [ Regio ignobilis, et vix quicquam illustre sortita,
      parvis oppidis habitatur, parva flumina emittit, solo quam viris
      meleor et segnitie gentis obscura. Pomponius Mela, i. 5, iii. 10.
      Mela deserves the more credit, since his own Phoenician ancestors
      had migrated from Tingitana to Spain (see, in ii. 6, a passage of
      that geographer so cruelly tortured by Salmasius, Isaac Vossius,
      and the most virulent of critics, James Gronovius). He lived at
      the time of the final reduction of that country by the emperor
      Claudius: yet almost thirty years afterward, Pliny (Hist. Nat. v.
      i.) complains of his authors, to lazy to inquire, too proud to
      confess their ignorance of that wild and remote province.]

      151 (return) [ The foolish fashion of this citron wood prevailed
      at Rome among the men, as much as the taste for pearls among the
      women. A round board or table, four or five feet in diameter,
      sold for the price of an estate (latefundii taxatione), eight,
      ten, or twelve thousand pounds sterling (Plin. Hist. Natur. xiii.
      29). I conceive that I must not confound the tree citrus, with
      that of the fruit citrum. But I am not botanist enough to define
      the former (it is like the wild cypress) by the vulgar or
      Linnaean name; nor will I decide whether the citrum be the orange
      or the lemon. Salmasius appears to exhaust the subject, but he
      too often involves himself in the web of his disorderly
      erudition. (Flinian. Exercitat. tom. ii. p 666, &c.)]

      152 (return) [ Leo African. fol. 16, verso. Marmol, tom. ii. p.
      28. This province, the first scene of the exploits and greatness
      of the cherifs is often mentioned in the curious history of that
      dynasty at the end of the third volume of Marmol, Description de
      l’Afrique. The third vol. of The Recherches Historiques sur les
      Maures (lately published at Paris) illustrates the history and
      geography of the kingdoms of Fez and Morocco.]

      153 (return) [ Otter (p. 119,) has given the strong tone of
      fanaticism to this exclamation, which Cardonne (p. 37,) has
      softened to a pious wish of preaching the Koran. Yet they had
      both the same text of Novairi before their eyes.]

      [A. D. 670-675.] It had been the frequent practice of the Moorish
      tribes to join the invaders, to share the plunder, to profess the
      faith, and to revolt in their savage state of independence and
      idolatry, on the first retreat or misfortune of the Moslems. The
      prudence of Akbah had proposed to found an Arabian colony in the
      heart of Africa; a citadel that might curb the levity of the
      Barbarians, a place of refuge to secure, against the accidents of
      war, the wealth and the families of the Saracens. With this view,
      and under the modest title of the station of a caravan, he
      planted this colony in the fiftieth year of the Hegira. In its
      present decay, Cairoan154 still holds the second rank in the
      kingdom of Tunis, from which it is distant about fifty miles to
      the south;155 its inland situation, twelve miles westward of the
      sea, has protected the city from the Greek and Sicilian fleets.
      When the wild beasts and serpents were extirpated, when the
      forest, or rather wilderness, was cleared, the vestiges of a
      Roman town were discovered in a sandy plain: the vegetable food
      of Cairoan is brought from afar; and the scarcity of springs
      constrains the inhabitants to collect in cisterns and reservoirs
      a precarious supply of rain water. These obstacles were subdued
      by the industry of Akbah; he traced a circumference of three
      thousand and six hundred paces, which he encompassed with a brick
      wall; in the space of five years, the governor’s palace was
      surrounded with a sufficient number of private habitations; a
      spacious mosque was supported by five hundred columns of granite,
      porphyry, and Numidian marble; and Cairoan became the seat of
      learning as well as of empire. But these were the glories of a
      later age; the new colony was shaken by the successive defeats of
      Akbah and Zuheir, and the western expeditions were again
      interrupted by the civil discord of the Arabian monarchy. The son
      of the valiant Zobeir maintained a war of twelve years, a siege
      of seven months against the house of Ommiyah. Abdallah was said
      to unite the fierceness of the lion with the subtlety of the fox;
      but if he inherited the courage, he was devoid of the generosity,
      of his father.156

      [A. D. 692-698.] The return of domestic peace allowed the caliph
      Abdalmalek to resume the conquest of Africa; the standard was
      delivered to Hassan governor of Egypt, and the revenue of that
      kingdom, with an army of forty thousand men, was consecrated to
      the important service. In the vicissitudes of war, the interior
      provinces had been alternately won and lost by the Saracens. But
      the seacoast still remained in the hands of the Greeks; the
      predecessors of Hassan had respected the name and fortifications
      of Carthage; and the number of its defenders was recruited by the
      fugitives of Cabes and Tripoli. The arms of Hassan were bolder
      and more fortunate: he reduced and pillaged the metropolis of
      Africa; and the mention of scaling-ladders may justify the
      suspicion, that he anticipated, by a sudden assault, the more
      tedious operations of a regular siege. But the joy of the
      conquerors was soon disturbed by the appearance of the Christian
      succours. The praefect and patrician John, a general of
      experience and renown, embarked at Constantinople the forces of
      the Eastern empire;157 they were joined by the ships and soldiers
      of Sicily, and a powerful reinforcement of Goths158 was obtained
      from the fears and religion of the Spanish monarch.

      154 (return) [ The foundation of Cairoan is mentioned by Ockley
      (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 129, 130); and the situation,
      mosque, &c. of the city are described by Leo Africanus (fol. 75),
      Marmol (tom. ii. p. 532), and Shaw (p. 115).]

      155 (return) [ A portentous, though frequent mistake, has been
      the confounding, from a slight similitude of name, the Cyrene of
      the Greeks, and the Cairoan of the Arabs, two cities which are
      separated by an interval of a thousand miles along the seacoast.
      The great Thuanus has not escaped this fault, the less excusable
      as it is connected with a formal and elaborate description of
      Africa (Historiar. l. vii. c. 2, in tom. i. p. 240, edit.
      Buckley).]

      156 (return) [ Besides the Arabic Chronicles of Abulfeda,
      Elmacin, and Abulpharagius, under the lxxiiid year of the Hegira,
      we may consult nd’Herbelot (Bibliot. Orient. p. 7,) and Ockley
      (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 339-349). The latter has
      given the last and pathetic dialogue between Abdallah and his
      mother; but he has forgot a physical effect of her grief for his
      death, the return, at the age of ninety, and fatal consequences
      of her menses.]

      157 (return) [ The patriarch of Constantinople, with Theophanes
      (Chronograph. p. 309,) have slightly mentioned this last attempt
      for the relief or Africa. Pagi (Critica, tom. iii. p. 129. 141,)
      has nicely ascertained the chronology by a strict comparison of
      the Arabic and Byzantine historians, who often disagree both in
      time and fact. See likewise a note of Otter (p. 121).]

      158 (return) [ Dove s’erano ridotti i nobili Romani e i Gotti;
      and afterward, i Romani suggirono e i Gotti lasciarono
      Carthagine. (Leo African. for. 72, recto) I know not from what
      Arabic writer the African derived his Goths; but the fact, though
      new, is so interesting and so probable, that I will accept it on
      the slightest authority.]

      The weight of the confederate navy broke the chain that guarded
      the entrance of the harbour; the Arabs retired to Cairoan, or
      Tripoli; the Christians landed; the citizens hailed the ensign of
      the cross, and the winter was idly wasted in the dream of victory
      or deliverance. But Africa was irrecoverably lost: the zeal and
      resentment of the commander of the faithful159 prepared in the
      ensuing spring a more numerous armament by sea and land; and the
      patrician in his turn was compelled to evacuate the post and
      fortifications of Carthage. A second battle was fought in the
      neighbourhood of Utica; and the Greeks and Goths were again
      defeated; and their timely embarkation saved them from the sword
      of Hassan, who had invested the slight and insufficient rampart
      of their camp. Whatever yet remained of Carthage was delivered to
      the flames, and the colony of Dido160 and Cesar lay desolate
      above two hundred years, till a part, perhaps a twentieth, of the
      old circumference was repeopled by the first of the Fatimite
      caliphs. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the second
      capital of the West was represented by a mosque, a college
      without students, twenty-five or thirty shops, and the huts of
      five hundred peasants, who, in their abject poverty, displayed
      the arrogance of the Punic senators. Even that paltry village was
      swept away by the Spaniards whom Charles the Fifth had stationed
      in the fortress of the Goletta. The ruins of Carthage have
      perished; and the place might be unknown if some broken arches of
      an aqueduct did not guide the footsteps of the inquisitive
      traveller.161

      [A. D. 698-709.] The Greeks were expelled, but the Arabians were
      not yet masters of the country. In the interior provinces the
      Moors or Berbers,162 so feeble under the first Cesars, so
      formidable to the Byzantine princes, maintained a disorderly
      resistance to the religion and power of the successors of
      Mahomet. Under the standard of their queen Cahina, the
      independent tribes acquired some degree of union and discipline;
      and as the Moors respected in their females the character of a
      prophetess, they attacked the invaders with an enthusiasm similar
      to their own. The veteran bands of Hassan were inadequate to the
      defence of Africa: the conquests of an age were lost in a single
      day; and the Arabian chief, overwhelmed by the torrent, retired
      to the confines of Egypt, and expected, five years, the promised
      succours of the caliph. After the retreat of the Saracens, the
      victorious prophetess assembled the Moorish chiefs, and
      recommended a measure of strange and savage policy. “Our cities,”
      said she, “and the gold and silver which they contain,
      perpetually attract the arms of the Arabs. These vile metals are
      not the objects of OUR ambition; we content ourselves with the
      simple productions of the earth. Let us destroy these cities; let
      us bury in their ruins those pernicious treasures; and when the
      avarice of our foes shall be destitute of temptation, perhaps
      they will cease to disturb the tranquillity of a warlike people.”
      The proposal was accepted with unanimous applause. From Tangier
      to Tripoli the buildings, or at least the fortifications, were
      demolished, the fruit-trees were cut down, the means of
      subsistence were extirpated, a fertile and populous garden was
      changed into a desert, and the historians of a more recent period
      could discern the frequent traces of the prosperity and
      devastation of their ancestors.

      159 (return) [ This commander is styled by Nicephorus, ———— a
      vague though not improper definition of the caliph. Theophanes
      introduces the strange appellation of —————, which his
      interpreter Goar explains by Vizir Azem. They may approach the
      truth, in assigning the active part to the minister, rather than
      the prince; but they forget that the Ommiades had only a kaleb,
      or secretary, and that the office of Vizir was not revived or
      instituted till the 132d year of the Hegira (d’Herbelot, 912).]

      160 (return) [ According to Solinus (1.27, p. 36, edit. Salmas),
      the Carthage of Dido stood either 677 or 737 years; a various
      reading, which proceeds from the difference of MSS. or editions
      (Salmas, Plinian. Exercit tom i. p. 228) The former of these
      accounts, which gives 823 years before Christ, is more consistent
      with the well-weighed testimony of Velleius Paterculus: but the
      latter is preferred by our chronologists (Marsham, Canon. Chron.
      p. 398,) as more agreeable to the Hebrew and Syrian annals.]

      161 (return) [ Leo African. fo1. 71, verso; 72, recto. Marmol,
      tom. ii. p.445-447. Shaw, p.80.]

      162 (return) [ The history of the word Barbar may be classed
      under four periods, 1. In the time of Homer, when the Greeks and
      Asiatics might probably use a common idiom, the imitative sound
      of Barbar was applied to the ruder tribes, whose pronunciation
      was most harsh, whose grammar was most defective. 2. From the
      time, at least, of Herodotus, it was extended to all the nations
      who were strangers to the language and manners of the Greeks. 3.
      In the age, of Plautus, the Romans submitted to the insult
      (Pompeius Festus, l. ii. p. 48, edit. Dacier), and freely gave
      themselves the name of Barbarians. They insensibly claimed an
      exemption for Italy, and her subject provinces; and at length
      removed the disgraceful appellation to the savage or hostile
      nations beyond the pale of the empire. 4. In every sense, it was
      due to the Moors; the familiar word was borrowed from the Latin
      Provincials by the Arabian conquerors, and has justly settled as
      a local denomination (Barbary) along the northern coast of
      Africa.]

      Such is the tale of the modern Arabians. Yet I strongly suspect
      that their ignorance of antiquity, the love of the marvellous,
      and the fashion of extolling the philosophy of Barbarians, has
      induced them to describe, as one voluntary act, the calamities of
      three hundred years since the first fury of the Donatists and
      Vandals. In the progress of the revolt, Cahina had most probably
      contributed her share of destruction; and the alarm of universal
      ruin might terrify and alienate the cities that had reluctantly
      yielded to her unworthy yoke. They no longer hoped, perhaps they
      no longer wished, the return of their Byzantine sovereigns: their
      present servitude was not alleviated by the benefits of order and
      justice; and the most zealous Catholic must prefer the imperfect
      truths of the Koran to the blind and rude idolatry of the Moors.
      The general of the Saracens was again received as the saviour of
      the province; the friends of civil society conspired against the
      savages of the land; and the royal prophetess was slain in the
      first battle which overturned the baseless fabric of her
      superstition and empire. The same spirit revived under the
      successor of Hassan; it was finally quelled by the activity of
      Musa and his two sons; but the number of the rebels may be
      presumed from that of three hundred thousand captives; sixty
      thousand of whom, the caliph’s fifth, were sold for the profit of
      thee public treasury. Thirty thousand of the Barbarian youth were
      enlisted in the troops; and the pious labours of Musa to
      inculcate the knowledge and practice of the Koran, accustomed the
      Africans to obey the apostle of God and the commander of the
      faithful. In their climate and government, their diet and
      habitation, the wandering Moors resembled the Bedoweens of the
      desert. With the religion, they were proud to adopt the language,
      name, and origin of Arabs: the blood of the strangers and natives
      was insensibly mingled; and from the Euphrates to the Atlantic
      the same nation might seem to be diffused over the sandy plains
      of Asia and Africa. Yet I will not deny that fifty thousand tents
      of pure Arabians might be transported over the Nile, and
      scattered through the Lybian desert: and I am not ignorant that
      five of the Moorish tribes still retain their barbarous idiom,
      with the appellation and character of white Africans.163

      [A. D. 709.] V. In the progress of conquest from the north and
      south, the Goths and the Saracens encountered each other on the
      confines of Europe and Africa. In the opinion of the latter, the
      difference of religion is a reasonable ground of enmity and
      warfare.164 As early as the time of Othman165 their piratical
      squadrons had ravaged the coast of Andalusia;166 nor had they
      forgotten the relief of Carthage by the Gothic succours. In that
      age, as well as in the present, the kings of Spain were possessed
      of the fortress of Ceuta; one of the columns of Hercules, which
      is divided by a narrow strait from the opposite pillar or point
      of Europe. A small portion of Mauritania was still wanting to the
      African conquest; but Musa, in the pride of victory, was repulsed
      from the walls of Ceuta, by the vigilance and courage of count
      Julian, the general of the Goths. From his disappointment and
      perplexity, Musa was relieved by an unexpected message of the
      Christian chief, who offered his place, his person, and his
      sword, to the successors of Mahomet, and solicited the
      disgraceful honour of introducing their arms into the heart of
      Spain.167

      163 (return) [ The first book of Leo Africanus, and the
      observations of Dr. Shaw (p. 220. 223. 227. 247, &c.) will throw
      some light on the roving tribes of Barbary, of Arabian or Moorish
      descent. But Shaw had seen these savages with distant terror; and
      Leo, a captive in the Vatican, appears to have lost more of his
      Arabic, than he could acquire of Greek or Roman, learning. Many
      of his gross mistakes might be detected in the first period of
      the Mahometan history.]

      164 (return) [ In a conference with a prince of the Greeks, Amrou
      observed that their religion was different; upon which score it
      was lawful for brothers to quarrel. Ockley’s History of the
      Saracens, vol. i. p. 328.]

      165 (return) [ Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p 78, vers. Reiske.]

      166 (return) [ The name of Andalusia is applied by the Arabs not
      only to the modern province, but to the whole peninsula of Spain
      (Geograph. Nub. p. 151, d’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 114,
      115). The etymology has been most improbably deduced from
      Vandalusia, country of the Vandals. (d’Anville Etats de l’Europe,
      p. 146, 147, &c.) But the Handalusia of Casiri, which signifies,
      in Arabic, the region of the evening, of the West, in a word, the
      Hesperia of the Greeks, is perfectly apposite. (Bibliot.
      Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 327, &c.)]

      167 (return) [ The fall and resurrection of the Gothic monarchy
      are related by Mariana (tom. l. p. 238-260, l. vi. c. 19-26, l.
      vii. c. 1, 2). That historian has infused into his noble work
      (Historic de Rebus Hispaniae, libri xxx. Hagae Comitum 1733, in
      four volumes, folio, with the continuation of Miniana), the style
      and spirit of a Roman classic; and after the twelfth century, his
      knowledge and judgment may be safely trusted. But the Jesuit is
      not exempt from the prejudices of his order; he adopts and
      adorns, like his rival Buchanan, the most absurd of the national
      legends; he is too careless of criticism and chronology, and
      supplies, from a lively fancy, the chasms of historical evidence.
      These chasms are large and frequent; Roderic archbishop of
      Toledo, the father of the Spanish history, lived five hundred
      years after the conquest of the Arabs; and the more early
      accounts are comprised in some meagre lines of the blind
      chronicles of Isidore of Badajoz (Pacensis,) and of Alphonso III.
      king of Leon, which I have seen only in the Annals of Pagi.]

      If we inquire into the cause of this treachery, the Spaniards
      will repeat the popular story of his daughter Cava;168 of a
      virgin who was seduced, or ravished, by her sovereign; of a
      father who sacrificed his religion and country to the thirst of
      revenge. The passions of princes have often been licentious and
      destructive; but this well-known tale, romantic in itself, is
      indifferently supported by external evidence; and the history of
      Spain will suggest some motives of interest and policy more
      congenial to the breast of a veteran statesman.169 After the
      decease or deposition of Witiza, his two sons were supplanted by
      the ambition of Roderic, a noble Goth, whose father, the duke or
      governor of a province, had fallen a victim to the preceding
      tyranny. The monarchy was still elective; but the sons of Witiza,
      educated on the steps of the throne, were impatient of a private
      station. Their resentment was the more dangerous, as it was
      varnished with the dissimulation of courts: their followers were
      excited by the remembrance of favours and the promise of a
      revolution: and their uncle Oppas, archbishop of Toledo and
      Seville, was the first person in the church, and the second in
      the state. It is probable that Julian was involved in the
      disgrace of the unsuccessful faction, that he had little to hope
      and much to fear from the new reign; and that the imprudent king
      could not forget or forgive the injuries which Roderic and his
      family had sustained. The merit and influence of the count
      rendered him a useful or formidable subject: his estates were
      ample, his followers bold and numerous, and it was too fatally
      shown that, by his Andalusian and Mauritanian commands, he held
      in his hands the keys of the Spanish monarchy. Too feeble,
      however, to meet his sovereign in arms, he sought the aid of a
      foreign power; and his rash invitation of the Moors and Arabs
      produced the calamities of eight hundred years. In his epistles,
      or in a personal interview, he revealed the wealth and nakedness
      of his country; the weakness of an unpopular prince; the
      degeneracy of an effeminate people. The Goths were no longer the
      victorious Barbarians, who had humbled the pride of Rome,
      despoiled the queen of nations, and penetrated from the Danube to
      the Atlantic ocean. Secluded from the world by the Pyrenean
      mountains, the successors of Alaric had slumbered in a long
      peace: the walls of the city were mouldered into dust: the youth
      had abandoned the exercise of arms; and the presumption of their
      ancient renown would expose them in a field of battle to the
      first assault of the invaders. The ambitious Saracen was fired by
      the ease and importance of the attempt; but the execution was
      delayed till he had consulted the commander of the faithful; and
      his messenger returned with the permission of Walid to annex the
      unknown kingdoms of the West to the religion and throne of the
      caliphs. In his residence of Tangier, Musa, with secrecy and
      caution, continued his correspondence and hastened his
      preparations. But the remorse of the conspirators was soothed by
      the fallacious assurance that he should content himself with the
      glory and spoil, without aspiring to establish the Moslems beyond
      the sea that separates Africa from Europe.170

      168 (return) [ Le viol (says Voltaire) est aussi difficile a
      faire qu’a prouver. Des Eveques se seroient ils lignes pour une
      fille? (Hist. Generale, c. xxvi.) His argument is not logically
      conclusive.]

      169 (return) [ In the story of Cava, Mariana (I. vi. c. 21, p.
      241, 242,) seems to vie with the Lucretia of Livy. Like the
      ancients, he seldom quotes; and the oldest testimony of Baronius
      (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 713, No. 19), that of Lucus Tudensis, a
      Gallician deacon of the thirteenth century, only says, Cava quam
      pro concubina utebatur.]

      170 (return) [ The Orientals, Elmacin, Abulpharagins, Abolfeda,
      pass over the conquest of Spain in silence, or with a single
      word. The text of Novairi, and the other Arabian writers, is
      represented, though with some foreign alloy, by M. de Cardonne
      (Hist. de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne sous la Domination des
      Arabes, Paris, 1765, 3 vols. 12mo. tom. i. p. 55-114), and more
      concisely by M. de Guignes (Hist. des Hune. tom. i. p. 347-350).
      The librarian of the Escurial has not satisfied my hopes: yet he
      appears to have searched with diligence his broken materials; and
      the history of the conquest is illustrated by some valuable
      fragments of the genuine Razis (who wrote at. Corduba, A. H.
      300), of Ben Hazil, &c. See Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p.
      32. 105, 106. 182. 252. 315-332. On this occasion, the industry
      of Pagi has been aided by the Arabic learning of his friend the
      Abbe de Longuerue, and to their joint labours I am deeply
      indebted.]

      [A. D. 710.] Before Musa would trust an army of the faithful to
      the traitors and infidels of a foreign land, he made a less
      dangerous trial of their strength and veracity. One hundred Arabs
      and four hundred Africans, passed over, in four vessels, from
      Tangier or Ceuta; the place of their descent on the opposite
      shore of the strait, is marked by the name of Tarif their chief;
      and the date of this memorable event171 is fixed to the month of
      Ramandan, of the ninety-first year of the Hegira, to the month of
      July, seven hundred and forty-eight years from the Spanish era of
      Cesar,172 seven hundred and ten after the birth of Christ. From
      their first station, they marched eighteen miles through a hilly
      country to the castle and town of Julian;173 on which (it is
      still called Algezire) they bestowed the name of the Green
      Island, from a verdant cape that advances into the sea. Their
      hospitable entertainment, the Christians who joined their
      standard, their inroad into a fertile and unguarded province, the
      richness of their spoil and the safety of their return, announced
      to their brethren the most favourable omens of victory. In the
      ensuing spring, five thousand veterans and volunteers were
      embarked under the command of Tarik, a dauntless and skilful
      soldier, who surpassed the expectation of his chief; and the
      necessary transports were provided by the industry of their too
      faithful ally. The Saracens landed174 at the pillar or point of
      Europe; the corrupt and familiar appellation of Gibraltar (Gebel
      el Tarik) describes the mountain of Tarik; and the intrenchments
      of his camp were the first outline of those fortifications,
      which, in the hands of our countrymen, have resisted the art and
      power of the house of Bourbon. The adjacent governors informed
      the court of Toledo of the descent and progress of the Arabs; and
      the defeat of his lieutenant Edeco, who had been commanded to
      seize and bind the presumptuous strangers, admonished Roderic of
      the magnitude of the danger. At the royal summons, the dukes and
      counts, the bishops and nobles of the Gothic monarchy assembled
      at the head of their followers; and the title of king of the
      Romans, which is employed by an Arabic historian, may be excused
      by the close affinity of language, religion, and manners, between
      the nations of Spain. His army consisted of ninety or a hundred
      thousand men: a formidable power, if their fidelity and
      discipline had been adequate to their numbers. The troops of
      Tarik had been augmented to twelve thousand Saracens; but the
      Christian malcontents were attracted by the influence of Julian,
      and a crowd of Africans most greedily tasted the temporal
      blessings of the Koran. In the neighbourhood of Cadiz, the town
      of Xeres175 has been illustrated by the encounter which
      determined the fate of the kingdom; the stream of the Guadalete,
      which falls into the bay, divided the two camps, and marked the
      advancing and retreating skirmishes of three successive and
      bloody days.

      171 (return) [ A mistake of Roderic of Toledo, in comparing the
      lunar years of the Hegira with the Julian years of the Era, has
      determined Baronius, Mariana, and the crowd of Spanish
      historians, to place the first invasion in the year 713, and the
      battle of Xeres in November, 714. This anachronism of three years
      has been detected by the more correct industry of modern
      chronologists, above all, of Pagi (Critics, tom. iii. p. 164.
      171-174), who have restored the genuine state of the revolution.
      At the present time, an Arabian scholar, like Cardonne, who
      adopts the ancient error (tom. i. p. 75), is inexcusably ignorant
      or careless.]

      172 (return) [ The Era of Cesar, which in Spain was in legal and
      popular use till the xivth century, begins thirty-eight years
      before the birth of Christ. I would refer the origin to the
      general peace by sea and land, which confirmed the power and
      partition of the triumvirs. (Dion. Cassius, l. xlviii. p. 547.
      553. Appian de Bell. Civil. l. v. p. 1034, edit. fol.) Spain was
      a province of Cesar Octavian; and Tarragona, which raised the
      first temple to Augustus (Tacit Annal. i. 78), might borrow from
      the orientals this mode of flattery.]

      173 (return) [ The road, the country, the old castle of count
      Julian, and the superstitious belief of the Spaniards of hidden
      treasures, &c. are described by Pere Labat (Voyages en Espagne et
      en Italie, tom i. p. 207-217), with his usual pleasantry.]

      174 (return) [ The Nubian geographer (p. 154,) explains the
      topography of the war; but it is highly incredible that the
      lieutenant of Musa should execute the desperate and useless
      measure of burning his ships.]

      175 (return) [ Xeres (the Roman colony of Asta Regia) is only two
      leagues from Cadiz. In the xvith century It was a granary of
      corn; and the wine of Xeres is familiar to the nations of Europe
      (Lud. Nonii Hispania, c. 13, p. 54-56, a work of correct and
      concise knowledge; d’Anville, Etats de l’Europe &c p 154).]

      On the fourth day, the two armies joined a more serious and
      decisive issue; but Alaric would have blushed at the sight of his
      unworthy successor, sustaining on his head a diadem of pearls,
      encumbered with a flowing robe of gold and silken embroidery, and
      reclining on a litter, or car of ivory, drawn by two white mules.
      Notwithstanding the valour of the Saracens, they fainted under
      the weight of multitudes, and the plain of Xeres was overspread
      with sixteen thousand of their dead bodies. “My brethren,” said
      Tarik to his surviving companions, “the enemy is before you, the
      sea is behind; whither would ye fly? Follow your general I am
      resolved either to lose my life, or to trample on the prostrate
      king of the Romans.” Besides the resource of despair, he confided
      in the secret correspondence and nocturnal interviews of count
      Julian, with the sons and the brother of Witiza. The two princes
      and the archbishop of Toledo occupied the most important post;
      their well-timed defection broke the ranks of the Christians;
      each warrior was prompted by fear or suspicion to consult his
      personal safety; and the remains of the Gothic army were
      scattered or destroyed to the flight and pursuit of the three
      following days. Amidst the general disorder, Roderic started from
      his car, and mounted Orelia, the fleetest of his Horses; but he
      escaped from a soldier’s death to perish more ignobly in the
      waters of the Boetis or Guadalquiver. His diadem, his robes, and
      his courser, were found on the bank; but as the body of the
      Gothic prince was lost in the waves, the pride and ignorance of
      the caliph must have been gratified with some meaner head, which
      was exposed in triumph before the palace of Damascus. “And such,”
      continues a valiant historian of the Arabs, “is the fate of those
      kings who withdraw themselves from a field of battle.” 176

      [A. D. 711.] Count Julian had plunged so deep into guilt and
      infamy, that his only hope was in the ruin of his country. After
      the battle of Xeres he recommended the most effectual measures to
      the victorious Saracens. “The king of the Goths is slain; their
      princes are fled before you, the army is routed, the nation is
      astonished. Secure with sufficient detachments the cities of
      Boetica; but in person and without delay, march to the royal city
      of Toledo, and allow not the distracted Christians either time or
      tranquillity for the election of a new monarch.” Tarik listened
      to his advice. A Roman captive and proselyte, who had been
      enfranchised by the caliph himself, assaulted Cordova with seven
      hundred horse: he swam the river, surprised the town, and drove
      the Christians into the great church, where they defended
      themselves above three months. Another detachment reduced the
      seacoast of Boetica, which in the last period of the Moorish
      power has comprised in a narrow space the populous kingdom of
      Grenada. The march of Tarik from the Boetis to the Tagus,177 was
      directed through the Sierra Morena, that separates Andalusia and
      Castille, till he appeared in arms under the walls of Toledo.178
      The most zealous of the Catholics had escaped with the relics of
      their saints; and if the gates were shut, it was only till the
      victor had subscribed a fair and reasonable capitulation. The
      voluntary exiles were allowed to depart with their effects; seven
      churches were appropriated to the Christian worship; the
      archbishop and his clergy were at liberty to exercise their
      functions, the monks to practise or neglect their penance; and
      the Goths and Romans were left in all civil or criminal cases to
      the subordinate jurisdiction of their own laws and magistrates.
      But if the justice of Tarik protected the Christians, his
      gratitude and policy rewarded the Jews, to whose secret or open
      aid he was indebted for his most important acquisitions.
      Persecuted by the kings and synods of Spain, who had often
      pressed the alternative of banishment or baptism, that outcast
      nation embraced the moment of revenge: the comparison of their
      past and present state was the pledge of their fidelity; and the
      alliance between the disciples of Moses and those of Mahomet, was
      maintained till the final era of their common expulsion.

      176 (return) [ Id sane infortunii regibus pedem ex acie
      referentibus saepe contingit. Den Hazil of Grenada, in Bibliot.
      Arabico-Hispana. tom. ii. p. 337. Some credulous Spaniards
      believe that king Roderic, or Rodrigo, escaped to a hermit’s
      cell; and others, that he was cast alive into a tub full of
      serpents, from whence he exclaimed with a lamentable voice, “they
      devour the part with which I have so grievously sinned.” (Don
      Quixote, part ii. l. iii. c. 1.)]

      177 (return) [ The direct road from Corduba to Toledo was
      measured by Mr. Swinburne’s mules in 72 1/2 hours: but a larger
      computation must be adopted for the slow and devious marches of
      an army. The Arabs traversed the province of La Mancha, which the
      pen of Cervantes has transformed into classic ground to the
      reader of every nation.]

      178 (return) [ The antiquities of Toledo, Urbs Parva in the Punic
      wars, Urbs Regia in the sixth century, are briefly described by
      Nonius (Hispania, c. 59, p. 181-136). He borrows from Roderic the
      fatale palatium of Moorish portraits; but modestly insinuates,
      that it was no more than a Roman amphitheatre.]

      From the royal seat of Toledo, the Arabian leader spread his
      conquests to the north, over the modern realms of Castille and
      Leon; but it is heedless to enumerate the cities that yielded on
      his approach, or again to describe the table of emerald,179
      transported from the East by the Romans, acquired by the Goths
      among the spoils of Rome, and presented by the Arabs to the
      throne of Damascus. Beyond the Asturian mountains, the maritime
      town of Gijon was the term180 of the lieutenant of Musa, who had
      performed with the speed of a traveller, his victorious march of
      seven hundred miles, from the rock of Gibraltar to the bay of
      Biscay. The failure of land compelled him to retreat: and he was
      recalled to Toledo, to excuse his presumption of subduing a
      kingdom in the absence of his general. Spain, which in a more
      savage and disorderly state, had resisted, two hundred years, the
      arms of the Romans, was overrun in a few months by those of the
      Saracens; and such was the eagerness of submission and treaty,
      that the governor of Cordova is recorded as the only chief who
      fell, without conditions, a prisoner into their hands. The cause
      of the Goths had been irrevocably judged in the field of Xeres;
      and in the national dismay, each part of the monarchy declined a
      contest with the antagonist who had vanquished the united
      strength of the whole.181 That strength had been wasted by two
      successive seasons of famine and pestilence; and the governors,
      who were impatient to surrender, might exaggerate the difficulty
      of collecting the provisions of a siege. To disarm the
      Christians, superstition likewise contributed her terrors: and
      the subtle Arab encouraged the report of dreams, omens, and
      prophecies, and of the portraits of the destined conquerors of
      Spain, that were discovered on the breaking open an apartment of
      the royal palace. Yet a spark of the vital flame was still alive;
      some invincible fugitives preferred a life of poverty and freedom
      in the Asturian valleys; the hardy mountaineers repulsed the
      slaves of the caliph; and the sword of Pelagius has been
      transformed into the sceptre of the Catholic kings.182

      179 (return) [ In the Historia Arabum (c. 9, p. 17, ad calcem
      Elmacin), Roderic of Toledo describes the emerald tables, and
      inserts the name of Medinat Ahneyda in Arabic words and letters.
      He appears to be conversant with the Mahometan writers; but I
      cannot agree with M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 350)
      that he had read and transcribed Novairi; because he was dead a
      hundred years before Novairi composed his history. This mistake
      is founded on a still grosser error. M. de Guignes confounds the
      governed historian Roderic Ximines, archbishop of Toledo, in the
      xiiith century, with cardinal Ximines, who governed Spain in the
      beginning of the xvith, and was the subject, not the author, of
      historical compositions.]

      180 (return) [ Tarik might have inscribed on the last rock, the
      boast of Regnard and his companions in their Lapland journey,
      “Hic tandem stetimus, nobis ubi defuit orbis.”]

      181 (return) [ Such was the argument of the traitor Oppas, and
      every chief to whom it was addressed did not answer with the
      spirit of Pelagius; Omnis Hispania dudum sub uno regimine
      Gothorum, omnis exercitus Hispaniae in uno congregatus
      Ismaelitarum non valuit sustinere impetum. Chron. Alphonsi Regis,
      apud Pagi, tom. iii. p. 177.]

      182 (return) [ The revival of tire Gothic kingdom in the Asturias
      is distinctly though concisely noticed by d’Anville (Etats de
      l’Europe, p. 159)]




      Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part VII.

      On the intelligence of this rapid success, the applause of Musa
      degenerated into envy; and he began, not to complain, but to
      fear, that Tarik would leave him nothing to subdue. At the head
      of ten thousand Arabs and eight thousand Africans, he passed over
      in person from Mauritania to Spain: the first of his companions
      were the noblest of the Koreish; his eldest son was left in the
      command of Africa; the three younger brethren were of an age and
      spirit to second the boldest enterprises of their father. At his
      landing in Algezire, he was respectfully entertained by Count
      Julian, who stifled his inward remorse, and testified, both in
      words and actions, that the victory of the Arabs had not impaired
      his attachment to their cause. Some enemies yet remained for the
      sword of Musa. The tardy repentance of the Goths had compared
      their own numbers and those of the invaders; the cities from
      which the march of Tarik had declined considered themselves as
      impregnable; and the bravest patriots defended the fortifications
      of Seville and Merida. They were successively besieged and
      reduced by the labor of Musa, who transported his camp from the
      Boetis to the Anas, from the Guadalquivir to the Guadiana. When
      he beheld the works of Roman magnificence, the bridge, the
      aqueducts, the triumphal arches, and the theatre, of the ancient
      metropolis of Lusitania, “I should imagine,” said he to his four
      companions, “that the human race must have united their art and
      power in the foundation of this city: happy is the man who shall
      become its master!” He aspired to that happiness, but the
      Emeritans sustained on this occasion the honor of their descent
      from the veteran legionaries of Augustus 183 Disdaining the
      confinement of their walls, they gave battle to the Arabs on the
      plain; but an ambuscade rising from the shelter of a quarry, or a
      ruin, chastised their indiscretion, and intercepted their return.

      The wooden turrets of assault were rolled forwards to the foot of
      the rampart; but the defence of Merida was obstinate and long;
      and the castle of the martyrs was a perpetual testimony of the
      losses of the Moslems. The constancy of the besieged was at
      length subdued by famine and despair; and the prudent victor
      disguised his impatience under the names of clemency and esteem.
      The alternative of exile or tribute was allowed; the churches
      were divided between the two religions; and the wealth of those
      who had fallen in the siege, or retired to Gallicia, was
      confiscated as the reward of the faithful. In the midway between
      Merida and Toledo, the lieutenant of Musa saluted the vicegerent
      of the caliph, and conducted him to the palace of the Gothic
      kings. Their first interview was cold and formal: a rigid account
      was exacted of the treasures of Spain: the character of Tarik was
      exposed to suspicion and obloquy; and the hero was imprisoned,
      reviled, and ignominiously scourged by the hand, or the command,
      of Musa. Yet so strict was the discipline, so pure the zeal, or
      so tame the spirit, of the primitive Moslems, that, after this
      public indignity, Tarik could serve and be trusted in the
      reduction of the Tarragonest province. A mosch was erected at
      Saragossa, by the liberality of the Koreish: the port of
      Barcelona was opened to the vessels of Syria; and the Goths were
      pursued beyond the Pyrenaean mountains into their Gallic province
      of Septimania or Languedoc. 184 In the church of St. Mary at
      Carcassone, Musa found, but it is improbable that he left, seven
      equestrian statues of massy silver; and from his term or column
      of Narbonne, he returned on his footsteps to the Gallician and
      Lusitanian shores of the ocean. During the absence of the father,
      his son Abdelaziz chastised the insurgents of Seville, and
      reduced, from Malaga to Valentia, the sea-coast of the
      Mediterranean: his original treaty with the discreet and valiant
      Theodemir 185 will represent the manners and policy of the times.
      “The conditions of peace agreed and sworn between Abdelaziz, the
      son of Musa, the son of Nassir, and Theodemir prince of the
      Goths. In the name of the most merciful God, Abdelaziz makes
      peace on these conditions: that Theodemir shall not be disturbed
      in his principality; nor any injury be offered to the life or
      property, the wives and children, the religion and temples, of
      the Christians: that Theodemir shall freely deliver his seven
      1851 cities, Orihuela, Valentola, Alicanti Mola, Vacasora,
      Bigerra, (now Bejar,) Ora, (or Opta,) and Lorca: that he shall
      not assist or entertain the enemies of the caliph, but shall
      faithfully communicate his knowledge of their hostile designs:
      that himself, and each of the Gothic nobles, shall annually pay
      one piece of gold, four measures of wheat, as many of barley,
      with a certain proportion of honey, oil, and vinegar; and that
      each of their vassals shall be taxed at one moiety of the said
      imposition. Given the fourth of Regeb, in the year of the Hegira
      ninety-four, and subscribed with the names of four Mussulman
      witnesses.” 186 Theodemir and his subjects were treated with
      uncommon lenity; but the rate of tribute appears to have
      fluctuated from a tenth to a fifth, according to the submission
      or obstinacy of the Christians. 187 In this revolution, many
      partial calamities were inflicted by the carnal or religious
      passions of the enthusiasts: some churches were profaned by the
      new worship: some relics or images were confounded with idols:
      the rebels were put to the sword; and one town (an obscure place
      between Cordova and Seville) was razed to its foundations. Yet if
      we compare the invasion of Spain by the Goths, or its recovery by
      the kings of Castile and Arragon, we must applaud the moderation
      and discipline of the Arabian conquerors.

      183 (return) [ The honorable relics of the Cantabrian war (Dion
      Cassius, l. liii p. 720) were planted in this metropolis of
      Lusitania, perhaps of Spain, (submittit cui tota suos Hispania
      fasces.) Nonius (Hispania, c. 31, p. 106-110) enumerates the
      ancient structures, but concludes with a sigh: Urbs haec olim
      nobilissima ad magnam incolarum infrequentiam delapsa est, et
      praeter priscae claritatis ruinas nihil ostendit.]

      184 (return) [ Both the interpreters of Novairi, De Guignes
      (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 349) and Cardonne, (Hist. de
      l’Afrique et de l’Espagne, tom. i. p. 93, 94, 104, 135,) lead
      Musa into the Narbonnese Gaul. But I find no mention of this
      enterprise, either in Roderic of Toledo, or the Mss. of the
      Escurial, and the invasion of the Saracens is postponed by a
      French chronicle till the ixth year after the conquest of Spain,
      A.D. 721, (Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p. 177, 195. Historians of
      France, tom. iii.) I much question whether Musa ever passed the
      Pyrenees.]

      185 (return) [ Four hundred years after Theodemir, his
      territories of Murcia and Carthagena retain in the Nubian
      geographer Edrisi (p, 154, 161) the name of Tadmir, (D’Anville,
      Etats de l’Europe, p. 156. Pagi, tom. iii. p. 174.) In the
      present decay of Spanish agriculture, Mr. Swinburne (Travels into
      Spain, p. 119) surveyed with pleasure the delicious valley from
      Murcia to Orihuela, four leagues and a half of the finest corn
      pulse, lucerne, oranges, &c.]

      1851 (return) [ Gibbon has made eight cities: in Conde’s
      translation Bigera does not appear.—M.]

      186 (return) [ See the treaty in Arabic and Latin, in the
      Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 105, 106. It is signed
      the 4th of the month of Regeb, A. H. 94, the 5th of April, A.D.
      713; a date which seems to prolong the resistance of Theodemir,
      and the government of Musa.]

      187 (return) [ From the history of Sandoval, p. 87. Fleury (Hist.
      Eccles. tom. ix. p. 261) has given the substance of another
      treaty concluded A Ae. C. 782, A.D. 734, between an Arabian chief
      and the Goths and Romans, of the territory of Conimbra in
      Portugal. The tax of the churches is fixed at twenty-five pounds
      of gold; of the monasteries, fifty; of the cathedrals, one
      hundred; the Christians are judged by their count, but in capital
      cases he must consult the alcaide. The church doors must be shut,
      and they must respect the name of Mahomet. I have not the
      original before me; it would confirm or destroy a dark suspicion,
      that the piece has been forged to introduce the immunity of a
      neighboring convent.]

      The exploits of Musa were performed in the evening of life,
      though he affected to disguise his age by coloring with a red
      powder the whiteness of his beard. But in the love of action and
      glory, his breast was still fired with the ardor of youth; and
      the possession of Spain was considered only as the first step to
      the monarchy of Europe. With a powerful armament by sea and land,
      he was preparing to repass the Pyrenees, to extinguish in Gaul
      and Italy the declining kingdoms of the Franks and Lombards, and
      to preach the unity of God on the altar of the Vatican. From
      thence, subduing the Barbarians of Germany, he proposed to follow
      the course of the Danube from its source to the Euxine Sea, to
      overthrow the Greek or Roman empire of Constantinople, and
      returning from Europe to Asia, to unite his new acquisitions with
      Antioch and the provinces of Syria. 188 But his vast enterprise,
      perhaps of easy execution, must have seemed extravagant to vulgar
      minds; and the visionary conqueror was soon reminded of his
      dependence and servitude. The friends of Tarik had effectually
      stated his services and wrongs: at the court of Damascus, the
      proceedings of Musa were blamed, his intentions were suspected,
      and his delay in complying with the first invitation was
      chastised by a harsher and more peremptory summons. An intrepid
      messenger of the caliph entered his camp at Lugo in Gallicia, and
      in the presence of the Saracens and Christians arrested the
      bridle of his horse. His own loyalty, or that of his troops,
      inculcated the duty of obedience: and his disgrace was alleviated
      by the recall of his rival, and the permission of investing with
      his two governments his two sons, Abdallah and Abdelaziz. His
      long triumph from Ceuta to Damascus displayed the spoils of
      Africa and the treasures of Spain: four hundred Gothic nobles,
      with gold coronets and girdles, were distinguished in his train;
      and the number of male and female captives, selected for their
      birth or beauty, was computed at eighteen, or even at thirty,
      thousand persons. As soon as he reached Tiberias in Palestine, he
      was apprised of the sickness and danger of the caliph, by a
      private message from Soliman, his brother and presumptive heir;
      who wished to reserve for his own reign the spectacle of victory.

      Had Walid recovered, the delay of Musa would have been criminal:
      he pursued his march, and found an enemy on the throne. In his
      trial before a partial judge against a popular antagonist, he was
      convicted of vanity and falsehood; and a fine of two hundred
      thousand pieces of gold either exhausted his poverty or proved
      his rapaciousness. The unworthy treatment of Tarik was revenged
      by a similar indignity; and the veteran commander, after a public
      whipping, stood a whole day in the sun before the palace gate,
      till he obtained a decent exile, under the pious name of a
      pilgrimage to Mecca. The resentment of the caliph might have been
      satiated with the ruin of Musa; but his fears demanded the
      extirpation of a potent and injured family. A sentence of death
      was intimated with secrecy and speed to the trusty servants of
      the throne both in Africa and Spain; and the forms, if not the
      substance, of justice were superseded in this bloody execution.
      In the mosch or palace of Cordova, Abdelaziz was slain by the
      swords of the conspirators; they accused their governor of
      claiming the honors of royalty; and his scandalous marriage with
      Egilona, the widow of Roderic, offended the prejudices both of
      the Christians and Moslems. By a refinement of cruelty, the head
      of the son was presented to the father, with an insulting
      question, whether he acknowledged the features of the rebel? “I
      know his features,” he exclaimed with indignation: “I assert his
      innocence; and I imprecate the same, a juster fate, against the
      authors of his death.” The age and despair of Musa raised him
      above the power of kings; and he expired at Mecca of the anguish
      of a broken heart. His rival was more favorably treated: his
      services were forgiven; and Tarik was permitted to mingle with
      the crowd of slaves. 189 I am ignorant whether Count Julian was
      rewarded with the death which he deserved indeed, though not from
      the hands of the Saracens; but the tale of their ingratitude to
      the sons of Witiza is disproved by the most unquestionable
      evidence. The two royal youths were reinstated in the private
      patrimony of their father; but on the decease of Eba, the elder,
      his daughter was unjustly despoiled of her portion by the
      violence of her uncle Sigebut. The Gothic maid pleaded her cause
      before the caliph Hashem, and obtained the restitution of her
      inheritance; but she was given in marriage to a noble Arabian,
      and their two sons, Isaac and Ibrahim, were received in Spain
      with the consideration that was due to their origin and riches.

      188 (return) [ This design, which is attested by several Arabian
      historians, (Cardonne, tom. i. p. 95, 96,) may be compared with
      that of Mithridates, to march from the Crimaea to Rome; or with
      that of Caesar, to conquer the East, and return home by the
      North; and all three are perhaps surpassed by the real and
      successful enterprise of Hannibal.]

      189 (return) [ I much regret our loss, or my ignorance, of two
      Arabic works of the viiith century, a Life of Musa, and a poem on
      the exploits of Tarik. Of these authentic pieces, the former was
      composed by a grandson of Musa, who had escaped from the massacre
      of his kindred; the latter, by the vizier of the first
      Abdalrahman, caliph of Spain, who might have conversed with some
      of the veterans of the conqueror, (Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom.
      ii. p. 36, 139.)]

      A province is assimilated to the victorious state by the
      introduction of strangers and the imitative spirit of the
      natives; and Spain, which had been successively tinctured with
      Punic, and Roman, and Gothic blood, imbibed, in a few
      generations, the name and manners of the Arabs. The first
      conquerors, and the twenty successive lieutenants of the caliphs,
      were attended by a numerous train of civil and military
      followers, who preferred a distant fortune to a narrow home: the
      private and public interest was promoted by the establishment of
      faithful colonies; and the cities of Spain were proud to
      commemorate the tribe or country of their Eastern progenitors.
      The victorious though motley bands of Tarik and Musa asserted, by
      the name of Spaniards, their original claim of conquest; yet they
      allowed their brethren of Egypt to share their establishments of
      Murcia and Lisbon. The royal legion of Damascus was planted at
      Cordova; that of Emesa at Seville; that of Kinnisrin or Chalcis
      at Jaen; that of Palestine at Algezire and Medina Sidonia. The
      natives of Yemen and Persia were scattered round Toledo and the
      inland country, and the fertile seats of Grenada were bestowed on
      ten thousand horsemen of Syria and Irak, the children of the
      purest and most noble of the Arabian tribes. 190 A spirit of
      emulation, sometimes beneficial, more frequently dangerous, was
      nourished by these hereditary factions. Ten years after the
      conquest, a map of the province was presented to the caliph: the
      seas, the rivers, and the harbors, the inhabitants and cities,
      the climate, the soil, and the mineral productions of the earth.
      191 In the space of two centuries, the gifts of nature were
      improved by the agriculture, 192 the manufactures, and the
      commerce, of an industrious people; and the effects of their
      diligence have been magnified by the idleness of their fancy. The
      first of the Ommiades who reigned in Spain solicited the support
      of the Christians; and in his edict of peace and protection, he
      contents himself with a modest imposition of ten thousand ounces
      of gold, ten thousand pounds of silver, ten thousand horses, as
      many mules, one thousand cuirasses, with an equal number of
      helmets and lances. 193 The most powerful of his successors
      derived from the same kingdom the annual tribute of twelve
      millions and forty-five thousand dinars or pieces of gold, about
      six millions of sterling money; 194 a sum which, in the tenth
      century, most probably surpassed the united revenues of the
      Christians monarchs. His royal seat of Cordova contained six
      hundred moschs, nine hundred baths, and two hundred thousand
      houses; he gave laws to eighty cities of the first, to three
      hundred of the second and third order; and the fertile banks of
      the Guadalquivir were adorned with twelve thousand villages and
      hamlets. The Arabs might exaggerate the truth, but they created
      and they describe the most prosperous aera of the riches, the
      cultivation, and the populousness of Spain. 195

      190 (return) [ Bibliot. Arab. Hispana, tom. ii. p. 32, 252. The
      former of these quotations is taken from a Biographia Hispanica,
      by an Arabian of Valentia, (see the copious Extracts of Casiri,
      tom. ii. p. 30-121;) and the latter from a general Chronology of
      the Caliphs, and of the African and Spanish Dynasties, with a
      particular History of the kingdom of Grenada, of which Casiri has
      given almost an entire version, (Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom.
      ii. p. 177-319.) The author, Ebn Khateb, a native of Grenada, and
      a contemporary of Novairi and Abulfeda, (born A.D. 1313, died
      A.D. 1374,) was an historian, geographer, physician, poet, &c.,
      (tom. ii. p. 71, 72.)]

      191 (return) [ Cardonne, Hist. de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne, tom.
      i. p. 116, 117.]

      192 (return) [ A copious treatise of husbandry, by an Arabian of
      Seville, in the xiith century, is in the Escurial library, and
      Casiri had some thoughts of translating it. He gives a list of
      the authors quoted, Arabs as well as Greeks, Latins, &c.; but it
      is much if the Andalusian saw these strangers through the medium
      of his countryman Columella, (Casiri, Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana,
      tom. i. p. 323-338.)]

      193 (return) [ Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 104. Casiri
      translates the original testimony of the historian Rasis, as it
      is alleged in the Arabic Biographia Hispanica, pars ix. But I am
      most exceedingly surprised at the address, Principibus
      caeterisque Christianis, Hispanis suis Castellae. The name of
      Castellae was unknown in the viiith century; the kingdom was not
      erected till the year 1022, a hundred years after the time of
      Rasis, (Bibliot. tom. ii. p. 330,) and the appellation was always
      expressive, not of a tributary province, but of a line of castles
      independent of the Moorish yoke, (D’Anville, Etats de l’Europe,
      p. 166-170.) Had Casiri been a critic, he would have cleared a
      difficulty, perhaps of his own making.]

      194 (return) [ Cardonne, tom. i. p. 337, 338. He computes the
      revenue at 130,000,000 of French livres. The entire picture of
      peace and prosperity relieves the bloody uniformity of the
      Moorish annals.]

      195 (return) [ I am happy enough to possess a splendid and
      interesting work which has only been distributed in presents by
      the court of Madrid Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana Escurialensis,
      opera et studio Michaelis Casiri, Syro Maronitoe. Matriti, in
      folio, tomus prior, 1760, tomus posterior, 1770. The execution of
      this work does honor to the Spanish press; the Mss., to the
      number of MDCCCLI., are judiciously classed by the editor, and
      his copious extracts throw some light on the Mahometan literature
      and history of Spain. These relics are now secure, but the task
      has been supinely delayed, till, in the year 1671, a fire
      consumed the greatest part of the Escurial library, rich in the
      spoils of Grenada and Morocco. * Note: Compare the valuable work
      of Conde, Historia de la Dominacion de las Arabes en Espana.
      Madrid, 1820.—M.]

      The wars of the Moslems were sanctified by the prophet; but among
      the various precepts and examples of his life, the caliphs
      selected the lessons of toleration that might tend to disarm the
      resistance of the unbelievers. Arabia was the temple and
      patrimony of the God of Mahomet; but he beheld with less jealousy
      and affection the nations of the earth. The polytheists and
      idolaters, who were ignorant of his name, might be lawfully
      extirpated by his votaries; 196 but a wise policy supplied the
      obligation of justice; and after some acts of intolerant zeal,
      the Mahometan conquerors of Hindostan have spared the pagodas of
      that devout and populous country. The disciples of Abraham, of
      Moses, and of Jesus, were solemnly invited to accept the more
      perfect revelation of Mahomet; but if they preferred the payment
      of a moderate tribute, they were entitled to the freedom of
      conscience and religious worship. 197 In a field of battle the
      forfeit lives of the prisoners were redeemed by the profession of
      Islam; the females were bound to embrace the religion of their
      masters, and a race of sincere proselytes was gradually
      multiplied by the education of the infant captives. But the
      millions of African and Asiatic converts, who swelled the native
      band of the faithful Arabs, must have been allured, rather than
      constrained, to declare their belief in one God and the apostle
      of God. By the repetition of a sentence and the loss of a
      foreskin, the subject or the slave, the captive or the criminal,
      arose in a moment the free and equal companion of the victorious
      Moslems. Every sin was expiated, every engagement was dissolved:
      the vow of celibacy was superseded by the indulgence of nature;
      the active spirits who slept in the cloister were awakened by the
      trumpet of the Saracens; and in the convulsion of the world,
      every member of a new society ascended to the natural level of
      his capacity and courage. The minds of the multitude were tempted
      by the invisible as well as temporal blessings of the Arabian
      prophet; and charity will hope that many of his proselytes
      entertained a serious conviction of the truth and sanctity of his
      revelation. In the eyes of an inquisitive polytheist, it must
      appear worthy of the human and the divine nature. More pure than
      the system of Zoroaster, more liberal than the law of Moses, the
      religion of Mahomet might seem less inconsistent with reason than
      the creed of mystery and superstition, which, in the seventh
      century, disgraced the simplicity of the gospel.

      196 (return) [ The Harbii, as they are styled, qui tolerari
      nequeunt, are, 1. Those who, besides God, worship the sun, moon,
      or idols. 2. Atheists, Utrique, quamdiu princeps aliquis inter
      Mohammedanos superest, oppugnari debent donec religionem
      amplectantur, nec requies iis concedenda est, nec pretium
      acceptandum pro obtinenda conscientiae libertate, (Reland,
      Dissertat. x. de Jure Militari Mohammedan. tom. iii. p. 14;) a
      rigid theory!]

      197 (return) [ The distinction between a proscribed and a
      tolerated sect, between the Harbii and the people of the Book,
      the believers in some divine revelation, is correctly defined in
      the conversation of the caliph Al Mamum with the idolaters or
      Sabaeans of Charrae, (Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 107, 108.)]

      In the extensive provinces of Persia and Africa, the national
      religion has been eradicated by the Mahometan faith. The
      ambiguous theology of the Magi stood alone among the sects of the
      East; but the profane writings of Zoroaster 198 might, under the
      reverend name of Abraham, be dexterously connected with the chain
      of divine revelation. Their evil principle, the daemon Ahriman,
      might be represented as the rival, or as the creature, of the God
      of light. The temples of Persia were devoid of images; but the
      worship of the sun and of fire might be stigmatized as a gross
      and criminal idolatry. 199 The milder sentiment was consecrated
      by the practice of Mahomet 200 and the prudence of the caliphs;
      the Magians or Ghebers were ranked with the Jews and Christians
      among the people of the written law; 201 and as late as the third
      century of the Hegira, the city of Herat will afford a lively
      contrast of private zeal and public toleration. 202 Under the
      payment of an annual tribute, the Mahometan law secured to the
      Ghebers of Herat their civil and religious liberties: but the
      recent and humble mosch was overshadowed by the antique splendor
      of the adjoining temple of fire. A fanatic Imam deplored, in his
      sermons, the scandalous neighborhood, and accused the weakness or
      indifference of the faithful. Excited by his voice, the people
      assembled in tumult; the two houses of prayer were consumed by
      the flames, but the vacant ground was immediately occupied by the
      foundations of a new mosch. The injured Magi appealed to the
      sovereign of Chorasan; he promised justice and relief; when,
      behold! four thousand citizens of Herat, of a grave character and
      mature age, unanimously swore that the idolatrous fane had never
      existed; the inquisition was silenced and their conscience was
      satisfied (says the historian Mirchond 203 with this holy and
      meritorious perjury. 204 But the greatest part of the temples of
      Persia were ruined by the insensible and general desertion of
      their votaries.

      It was insensible, since it is not accompanied with any memorial
      of time or place, of persecution or resistance. It was general,
      since the whole realm, from Shiraz to Samarcand, imbibed the
      faith of the Koran; and the preservation of the native tongue
      reveals the descent of the Mahometans of Persia. 205 In the
      mountains and deserts, an obstinate race of unbelievers adhered
      to the superstition of their fathers; and a faint tradition of
      the Magian theology is kept alive in the province of Kirman,
      along the banks of the Indus, among the exiles of Surat, and in
      the colony which, in the last century, was planted by Shaw Abbas
      at the gates of Ispahan. The chief pontiff has retired to Mount
      Elbourz, eighteen leagues from the city of Yezd: the perpetual
      fire (if it continues to burn) is inaccessible to the profane;
      but his residence is the school, the oracle, and the pilgrimage
      of the Ghebers, whose hard and uniform features attest the
      unmingled purity of their blood. Under the jurisdiction of their
      elders, eighty thousand families maintain an innocent and
      industrious life: their subsistence is derived from some curious
      manufactures and mechanic trades; and they cultivate the earth
      with the fervor of a religious duty. Their ignorance withstood
      the despotism of Shaw Abbas, who demanded with threats and
      tortures the prophetic books of Zoroaster; and this obscure
      remnant of the Magians is spared by the moderation or contempt of
      their present sovereigns. 206

      198 (return) [ The Zend or Pazend, the bible of the Ghebers, is
      reckoned by themselves, or at least by the Mahometans, among the
      ten books which Abraham received from heaven; and their religion
      is honorably styled the religion of Abraham, (D’Herblot, Bibliot.
      Orient. p. 701; Hyde, de Religione veterum Persarum, c, iii. p.
      27, 28, &c.) I much fear that we do not possess any pure and free
      description of the system of Zoroaster. 1981 Dr. Prideaux
      (Connection, vol. i. p. 300, octavo) adopts the opinion, that he
      had been the slave and scholar of some Jewish prophet in the
      captivity of Babylon. Perhaps the Persians, who have been the
      masters of the Jews, would assert the honor, a poor honor, of
      being their masters.]

      1981 (return) [ Whatever the real age of the Zendavesta,
      published by Anquetil du Perron, whether of the time of Ardeschir
      Babeghan, according to Mr. Erskine, or of much higher antiquity,
      it may be considered, I conceive, both a “pure and a free,”
      though imperfect, description of Zoroastrianism; particularly
      with the illustrations of the original translator, and of the
      German Kleuker—M.]

      199 (return) [ The Arabian Nights, a faithful and amusing picture
      of the Oriental world, represent in the most odious colors of the
      Magians, or worshippers of fire, to whom they attribute the
      annual sacrifice of a Mussulman. The religion of Zoroaster has
      not the least affinity with that of the Hindoos, yet they are
      often confounded by the Mahometans; and the sword of Timour was
      sharpened by this mistake, (Hist. de Timour Bec, par Cherefeddin
      Ali Yezdi, l. v.)]

      200 (return) [ Vie de Mahomet, par Gagnier, (tom. iii. p. 114,
      115.)]

      201 (return) [ Hae tres sectae, Judaei, Christiani, et qui inter
      Persas Magorum institutis addicti sunt, populi libri dicuntur,
      (Reland, Dissertat. tom. iii. p. 15.) The caliph Al Mamun
      confirms this honorable distinction in favor of the three sects,
      with the vague and equivocal religion of the Sabaeans, under
      which the ancient polytheists of Charrae were allowed to shelter
      their idolatrous worship, (Hottinger, Hist. Orient p. 167, 168.)]

      202 (return) [ This singular story is related by D’Herbelot,
      (Bibliot. Orient. p 448, 449,) on the faith of Khondemir, and by
      Mirchond himself, (Hist priorum Regum Persarum, &c., p. 9, 10,
      not. p. 88, 89.)]

      203 (return) [ Mirchond, (Mohammed Emir Khoondah Shah,) a native
      of Herat, composed in the Persian language a general history of
      the East, from the creation to the year of the Hegira 875, (A.D.
      1471.) In the year 904 (A.D. 1498) the historian obtained the
      command of a princely library, and his applauded work, in seven
      or twelve parts, was abbreviated in three volumes by his son
      Khondemir, A. H. 927, A.D. 1520. The two writers, most accurately
      distinguished by Petit de la Croix, (Hist. de Genghizcan, p.537,
      538, 544, 545,) are loosely confounded by D’Herbelot, (p. 358,
      410, 994, 995: ) but his numerous extracts, under the improper
      name of Khondemir, belong to the father rather than the son. The
      historian of Genghizcan refers to a Ms. of Mirchond, which he
      received from the hands of his friend D’Herbelot himself. A
      curious fragment (the Taherian and Soffarian Dynasties) has been
      lately published in Persic and Latin, (Viennae, 1782, in 4to.,
      cum notis Bernard de Jenisch;) and the editor allows us to hope
      for a continuation of Mirchond.]

      204 (return) [ Quo testimonio boni se quidpiam praestitisse
      opinabantur. Yet Mirchond must have condemned their zeal, since
      he approved the legal toleration of the Magi, cui (the fire
      temple) peracto singulis annis censu uti sacra Mohammedis lege
      cautum, ab omnibus molestiis ac oneribus libero esse licuit.]

      205 (return) [ The last Magian of name and power appears to be
      Mardavige the Dilemite, who, in the beginning of the 10th
      century, reigned in the northern provinces of Persia, near the
      Caspian Sea, (D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 355.) But his
      soldiers and successors, the Bowides either professed or embraced
      the Mahometan faith; and under their dynasty (A.D. 933-1020) I
      should say the fall of the religion of Zoroaster.]

      206 (return) [ The present state of the Ghebers in Persia is
      taken from Sir John Chardin, not indeed the most learned, but the
      most judicious and inquisitive of our modern travellers, (Voyages
      en Perse, tom. ii. p. 109, 179-187, in 4to.) His brethren, Pietro
      della Valle, Olearius, Thevenot, Tavernier, &c., whom I have
      fruitlessly searched, had neither eyes nor attention for this
      interesting people.]

      The Northern coast of Africa is the only land in which the light
      of the gospel, after a long and perfect establishment, has been
      totally extinguished. The arts, which had been taught by Carthage
      and Rome, were involved in a cloud of ignorance; the doctrine of
      Cyprian and Augustin was no longer studied. Five hundred
      episcopal churches were overturned by the hostile fury of the
      Donatists, the Vandals, and the Moors. The zeal and numbers of
      the clergy declined; and the people, without discipline, or
      knowledge, or hope, submissively sunk under the yoke of the
      Arabian prophet. Within fifty years after the expulsion of the
      Greeks, a lieutenant of Africa informed the caliph that the
      tribute of the infidels was abolished by their conversion; 207
      and, though he sought to disguise his fraud and rebellion, his
      specious pretence was drawn from the rapid and extensive progress
      of the Mahometan faith. In the next age, an extraordinary mission
      of five bishops was detached from Alexandria to Cairoan. They
      were ordained by the Jacobite patriarch to cherish and revive the
      dying embers of Christianity: 208 but the interposition of a
      foreign prelate, a stranger to the Latins, an enemy to the
      Catholics, supposes the decay and dissolution of the African
      hierarchy. It was no longer the time when the successor of St.
      Cyprian, at the head of a numerous synod, could maintain an equal
      contest with the ambition of the Roman pontiff. In the eleventh
      century, the unfortunate priest who was seated on the ruins of
      Carthage implored the arms and the protection of the Vatican; and
      he bitterly complains that his naked body had been scourged by
      the Saracens, and that his authority was disputed by the four
      suffragans, the tottering pillars of his throne. Two epistles of
      Gregory the Seventh 209 are destined to soothe the distress of
      the Catholics and the pride of a Moorish prince. The pope assures
      the sultan that they both worship the same God, and may hope to
      meet in the bosom of Abraham; but the complaint that three
      bishops could no longer be found to consecrate a brother,
      announces the speedy and inevitable ruin of the episcopal order.
      The Christians of Africa and Spain had long since submitted to
      the practice of circumcision and the legal abstinence from wine
      and pork; and the name of Mozarabes 210 (adoptive Arabs) was
      applied to their civil or religious conformity. 211 About the
      middle of the twelfth century, the worship of Christ and the
      succession of pastors were abolished along the coast of Barbary,
      and in the kingdoms of Cordova and Seville, of Valencia and
      Grenada. 212 The throne of the Almohades, or Unitarians, was
      founded on the blindest fanaticism, and their extraordinary rigor
      might be provoked or justified by the recent victories and
      intolerant zeal of the princes of Sicily and Castille, of Arragon
      and Portugal. The faith of the Mozarabes was occasionally revived
      by the papal missionaries; and, on the landing of Charles the
      Fifth, some families of Latin Christians were encouraged to rear
      their heads at Tunis and Algiers. But the seed of the gospel was
      quickly eradicated, and the long province from Tripoli to the
      Atlantic has lost all memory of the language and religion of
      Rome. 213

      207 (return) [ The letter of Abdoulrahman, governor or tyrant of
      Africa, to the caliph Aboul Abbas, the first of the Abbassides,
      is dated A. H. 132 Cardonne, (Hist. de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne,
      tom. i. p. 168.)]

      208 (return) [ Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 66. Renaudot, Hist.
      Patriarch. Alex. p. 287, 288.]

      209 (return) [ Among the Epistles of the Popes, see Leo IX.
      epist. 3; Gregor. VII. l. i. epist. 22, 23, l. iii. epist. 19,
      20, 21; and the criticisms of Pagi, (tom. iv. A.D. 1053, No. 14,
      A.D. 1073, No. 13,) who investigates the name and family of the
      Moorish prince, with whom the proudest of the Roman pontiffs so
      politely corresponds.]

      210 (return) [ Mozarabes, or Mostarabes, adscititii, as it is
      interpreted in Latin, (Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arabum, p. 39, 40.
      Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 18.) The Mozarabic liturgy,
      the ancient ritual of the church of Toledo, has been attacked by
      the popes, and exposed to the doubtful trials of the sword and of
      fire, (Marian. Hist. Hispan. tom. i. l. ix. c. 18, p. 378.) It
      was, or rather it is, in the Latin tongue; yet in the xith
      century it was found necessary (A. Ae. C. 1687, A.D. 1039) to
      transcribe an Arabic version of the canons of the councils of
      Spain, (Bibliot. Arab. Hisp. tom. i. p. 547,) for the use of the
      bishops and clergy in the Moorish kingdoms.]

      211 (return) [ About the middle of the xth century, the clergy of
      Cordova was reproached with this criminal compliance, by the
      intrepid envoy of the Emperor Otho I., (Vit. Johan. Gorz, in
      Secul. Benedict. V. No. 115, apud Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xii.
      p. 91.)]

      212 (return) [ Pagi, Critica, tom. iv. A.D. 1149, No. 8, 9. He
      justly observes, that when Seville, &c., were retaken by
      Ferdinand of Castille, no Christians, except captives, were found
      in the place; and that the Mozarabic churches of Africa and
      Spain, described by James a Vitriaco, A.D. 1218, (Hist. Hierosol.
      c. 80, p. 1095, in Gest. Dei per Francos,) are copied from some
      older book. I shall add, that the date of the Hegira 677 (A.D.
      1278) must apply to the copy, not the composition, of a treatise
      of a jurisprudence, which states the civil rights of the
      Christians of Cordova, (Bibliot. Arab. Hisp. tom. i. p. 471;) and
      that the Jews were the only dissenters whom Abul Waled, king of
      Grenada, (A.D. 1313,) could either discountenance or tolerate,
      (tom. ii. p. 288.)]

      213 (return) [ Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 288. Leo
      Africanus would have flattered his Roman masters, could he have
      discovered any latent relics of the Christianity of Africa.]

      After the revolution of eleven centuries, the Jews and Christians
      of the Turkish empire enjoy the liberty of conscience which was
      granted by the Arabian caliphs. During the first age of the
      conquest, they suspected the loyalty of the Catholics, whose name
      of Melchites betrayed their secret attachment to the Greek
      emperor, while the Nestorians and Jacobites, his inveterate
      enemies, approved themselves the sincere and voluntary friends of
      the Mahometan government. 214 Yet this partial jealousy was
      healed by time and submission; the churches of Egypt were shared
      with the Catholics; 215 and all the Oriental sects were included
      in the common benefits of toleration. The rank, the immunities,
      the domestic jurisdiction of the patriarchs, the bishops, and the
      clergy, were protected by the civil magistrate: the learning of
      individuals recommended them to the employments of secretaries
      and physicians: they were enriched by the lucrative collection of
      the revenue; and their merit was sometimes raised to the command
      of cities and provinces. A caliph of the house of Abbas was heard
      to declare that the Christians were most worthy of trust in the
      administration of Persia. “The Moslems,” said he, “will abuse
      their present fortune; the Magians regret their fallen greatness;
      and the Jews are impatient for their approaching deliverance.”
      216 But the slaves of despotism are exposed to the alternatives
      of favor and disgrace. The captive churches of the East have been
      afflicted in every age by the avarice or bigotry of their rulers;
      and the ordinary and legal restraints must be offensive to the
      pride, or the zeal, of the Christians. 217 About two hundred
      years after Mahomet, they were separated from their
      fellow-subjects by a turban or girdle of a less honorable color;
      instead of horses or mules. they were condemned to ride on asses,
      in the attitude of women. Their public and private building were
      measured by a diminutive standard; in the streets or the baths it
      is their duty to give way or bow down before the meanest of the
      people; and their testimony is rejected, if it may tend to the
      prejudice of a true believer. The pomp of processions, the sound
      of bells or of psalmody, is interdicted in their worship; a
      decent reverence for the national faith is imposed on their
      sermons and conversations; and the sacrilegious attempt to enter
      a mosch, or to seduce a Mussulman, will not be suffered to escape
      with impunity. In a time, however, of tranquillity and justice,
      the Christians have never been compelled to renounce the Gospel,
      or to embrace the Koran; but the punishment of death is inflicted
      upon the apostates who have professed and deserted the law of
      Mahomet. The martyrs of Cordova provoked the sentence of the
      cadhi, by the public confession of their inconstancy, or their
      passionate invectives against the person and religion of the
      prophet. 218

      214 (return) [ Absit (said the Catholic to the vizier of Bagdad)
      ut pari loco habeas Nestorianos, quorum praeter Arabas nullus
      alius rex est, et Graecos quorum reges amovendo Arabibus bello
      non desistunt, &c. See in the Collections of Assemannus (Bibliot.
      Orient. tom. iv. p. 94-101) the state of the Nestorians under the
      caliphs. That of the Jacobites is more concisely exposed in the
      Preliminary Dissertation of the second volume of Assemannus.]

      215 (return) [ Eutych. Annal. tom. ii. p. 384, 387, 388.
      Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 205, 206, 257, 332. A taint
      of the Monothelite heresy might render the first of these Greek
      patriarchs less loyal to the emperors and less obnoxious to the
      Arabs.]

      216 (return) [ Motadhed, who reigned from A.D. 892 to 902. The
      Magians still held their name and rank among the religions of the
      empire, (Assemanni, Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. 97.)]

      217 (return) [ Reland explains the general restraints of the
      Mahometan policy and jurisprudence, (Dissertat. tom. iii. p.
      16-20.) The oppressive edicts of the caliph Motawakkel, (A.D.
      847-861,) which are still in force, are noticed by Eutychius,
      (Annal. tom. ii. p. 448,) and D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient. p.
      640.) A persecution of the caliph Omar II. is related, and most
      probably magnified, by the Greek Theophanes (Chron p. 334.)]

      218 (return) [ The martyrs of Cordova (A.D. 850, &c.) are
      commemorated and justified by St. Eulogius, who at length fell a
      victim himself. A synod, convened by the caliph, ambiguously
      censured their rashness. The moderate Fleury cannot reconcile
      their conduct with the discipline of antiquity, toutefois
      l’autorite de l’eglise, &c. (Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. x. p.
      415-522, particularly p. 451, 508, 509.) Their authentic acts
      throw a strong, though transient, light on the Spanish church in
      the ixth century.]

      At the end of the first century of the Hegira, the caliphs were
      the most potent and absolute monarchs of the globe. Their
      prerogative was not circumscribed, either in right or in fact, by
      the power of the nobles, the freedom of the commons, the
      privileges of the church, the votes of a senate, or the memory of
      a free constitution. The authority of the companions of Mahomet
      expired with their lives; and the chiefs or emirs of the Arabian
      tribes left behind, in the desert, the spirit of equality and
      independence. The regal and sacerdotal characters were united in
      the successors of Mahomet; and if the Koran was the rule of their
      actions, they were the supreme judges and interpreters of that
      divine book. They reigned by the right of conquest over the
      nations of the East, to whom the name of liberty was unknown, and
      who were accustomed to applaud in their tyrants the acts of
      violence and severity that were exercised at their own expense.
      Under the last of the Ommiades, the Arabian empire extended two
      hundred days’ journey from east to west, from the confines of
      Tartary and India to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. And if we
      retrench the sleeve of the robe, as it is styled by their
      writers, the long and narrow province of Africa, the solid and
      compact dominion from Fargana to Aden, from Tarsus to Surat, will
      spread on every side to the measure of four or five months of the
      march of a caravan. 219 We should vainly seek the indissoluble
      union and easy obedience that pervaded the government of Augustus
      and the Antonines; but the progress of the Mahometan religion
      diffused over this ample space a general resemblance of manners
      and opinions. The language and laws of the Koran were studied
      with equal devotion at Samarcand and Seville: the Moor and the
      Indian embraced as countrymen and brothers in the pilgrimage of
      Mecca; and the Arabian language was adopted as the popular idiom
      in all the provinces to the westward of the Tigris. 220

      219 (return) [ See the article Eslamiah, (as we say Christendom,)
      in the Bibliotheque Orientale, (p. 325.) This chart of the
      Mahometan world is suited by the author, Ebn Alwardi, to the year
      of the Hegira 385 (A.D. 995.) Since that time, the losses in
      Spain have been overbalanced by the conquests in India, Tartary,
      and the European Turkey.]

      220 (return) [ The Arabic of the Koran is taught as a dead
      language in the college of Mecca. By the Danish traveller, this
      ancient idiom is compared to the Latin; the vulgar tongue of
      Hejaz and Yemen to the Italian; and the Arabian dialects of
      Syria, Egypt, Africa, &c., to the Provencal, Spanish, and
      Portuguese, (Niebuhr, Description de l’Arabie, p. 74, &c.)]




      Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part I.

     The Two Sieges Of Constantinople By The Arabs.—Their Invasion Of
     France, And Defeat By Charles Martel.—Civil War Of The Ommiades
     And Abbassides.—Learning Of The Arabs.— Luxury Of The
     Caliphs.—Naval Enterprises On Crete, Sicily, And Rome.—Decay And
     Division Of The Empire Of The Caliphs. —Defeats And Victories Of
     The Greek Emperors.

      When the Arabs first issued from the desert, they must have been
      surprised at the ease and rapidity of their own success. But when
      they advanced in the career of victory to the banks of the Indus
      and the summit of the Pyrenees; when they had repeatedly tried
      the edge of their cimeters and the energy of their faith, they
      might be equally astonished that any nation could resist their
      invincible arms; that any boundary should confine the dominion of
      the successor of the prophet. The confidence of soldiers and
      fanatics may indeed be excused, since the calm historian of the
      present hour, who strives to follow the rapid course of the
      Saracens, must study to explain by what means the church and
      state were saved from this impending, and, as it should seem,
      from this inevitable, danger. The deserts of Scythia and Sarmatia
      might be guarded by their extent, their climate, their poverty,
      and the courage of the northern shepherds; China was remote and
      inaccessible; but the greatest part of the temperate zone was
      subject to the Mahometan conquerors, the Greeks were exhausted by
      the calamities of war and the loss of their fairest provinces,
      and the Barbarians of Europe might justly tremble at the
      precipitate fall of the Gothic monarchy. In this inquiry I shall
      unfold the events that rescued our ancestors of Britain, and our
      neighbors of Gaul, from the civil and religious yoke of the
      Koran; that protected the majesty of Rome, and delayed the
      servitude of Constantinople; that invigorated the defence of the
      Christians, and scattered among their enemies the seeds of
      division and decay.

      Forty-six years after the flight of Mahomet from Mecca, his
      disciples appeared in arms under the walls of Constantinople. 1
      They were animated by a genuine or fictitious saying of the
      prophet, that, to the first army which besieged the city of the
      Caesars, their sins were forgiven: the long series of Roman
      triumphs would be meritoriously transferred to the conquerors of
      New Rome; and the wealth of nations was deposited in this
      well-chosen seat of royalty and commerce. No sooner had the
      caliph Moawiyah suppressed his rivals and established his throne,
      than he aspired to expiate the guilt of civil blood, by the
      success and glory of this holy expedition; 2 his preparations by
      sea and land were adequate to the importance of the object; his
      standard was intrusted to Sophian, a veteran warrior, but the
      troops were encouraged by the example and presence of Yezid, the
      son and presumptive heir of the commander of the faithful. The
      Greeks had little to hope, nor had their enemies any reason of
      fear, from the courage and vigilance of the reigning emperor, who
      disgraced the name of Constantine, and imitated only the
      inglorious years of his grandfather Heraclius. Without delay or
      opposition, the naval forces of the Saracens passed through the
      unguarded channel of the Hellespont, which even now, under the
      feeble and disorderly government of the Turks, is maintained as
      the natural bulwark of the capital. 3 The Arabian fleet cast
      anchor, and the troops were disembarked near the palace of
      Hebdomon, seven miles from the city. During many days, from the
      dawn of light to the evening, the line of assault was extended
      from the golden gate to the eastern promontory and the foremost
      warriors were impelled by the weight and effort of the succeeding
      columns. But the besiegers had formed an insufficient estimate of
      the strength and resources of Constantinople. The solid and lofty
      walls were guarded by numbers and discipline: the spirit of the
      Romans was rekindled by the last danger of their religion and
      empire: the fugitives from the conquered provinces more
      successfully renewed the defence of Damascus and Alexandria; and
      the Saracens were dismayed by the strange and prodigious effects
      of artificial fire. This firm and effectual resistance diverted
      their arms to the more easy attempt of plundering the European
      and Asiatic coasts of the Propontis; and, after keeping the sea
      from the month of April to that of September, on the approach of
      winter they retreated fourscore miles from the capital, to the
      Isle of Cyzicus, in which they had established their magazine of
      spoil and provisions. So patient was their perseverance, or so
      languid were their operations, that they repeated in the six
      following summers the same attack and retreat, with a gradual
      abatement of hope and vigor, till the mischances of shipwreck and
      disease, of the sword and of fire, compelled them to relinquish
      the fruitless enterprise. They might bewail the loss, or
      commemorate the martyrdom, of thirty thousand Moslems, who fell
      in the siege of Constantinople; and the solemn funeral of Abu
      Ayub, or Job, excited the curiosity of the Christians themselves.

      That venerable Arab, one of the last of the companions of
      Mahomet, was numbered among the ansars, or auxiliaries, of
      Medina, who sheltered the head of the flying prophet. In his
      youth he fought, at Beder and Ohud, under the holy standard: in
      his mature age he was the friend and follower of Ali; and the
      last remnant of his strength and life was consumed in a distant
      and dangerous war against the enemies of the Koran. His memory
      was revered; but the place of his burial was neglected and
      unknown, during a period of seven hundred and eighty years, till
      the conquest of Constantinople by Mahomet the Second. A
      seasonable vision (for such are the manufacture of every
      religion) revealed the holy spot at the foot of the walls and the
      bottom of the harbor; and the mosch of Ayub has been deservedly
      chosen for the simple and martial inauguration of the Turkish
      sultans. 4

      1 (return) [ Theophanes places the seven years of the siege of
      Constantinople in the year of our Christian aera, 673 (of the
      Alexandrian 665, Sept. 1,) and the peace of the Saracens, four
      years afterwards; a glaring inconsistency! which Petavius, Goar,
      and Pagi, (Critica, tom. iv. p. 63, 64,) have struggled to
      remove. Of the Arabians, the Hegira 52 (A.D. 672, January 8) is
      assigned by Elmacin, the year 48 (A.D. 688, Feb. 20) by Abulfeda,
      whose testimony I esteem the most convenient and credible.]

      2 (return) [ For this first siege of Constantinople, see
      Nicephorus, (Breviar. p. 21, 22;) Theophanes, (Chronograph. p.
      294;) Cedrenus, (Compend. p. 437;) Zonaras, (Hist. tom. ii. l.
      xiv. p. 89;) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 56, 57;) Abulfeda,
      (Annal. Moslem. p. 107, 108, vers. Reiske;) D’Herbelot, (Bibliot.
      Orient. Constantinah;) Ockley’s History of the Saracens, vol. ii.
      p. 127, 128.]

      3 (return) [ The state and defence of the Dardanelles is exposed
      in the Memoirs of the Baron de Tott, (tom. iii. p. 39-97,) who
      was sent to fortify them against the Russians. From a principal
      actor, I should have expected more accurate details; but he seems
      to write for the amusement, rather than the instruction, of his
      reader. Perhaps, on the approach of the enemy, the minister of
      Constantine was occupied, like that of Mustapha, in finding two
      Canary birds who should sing precisely the same note.]

      4 (return) [ Demetrius Cantemir’s Hist. of the Othman Empire, p.
      105, 106. Rycaut’s State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 10, 11.
      Voyages of Thevenot, part i. p. 189. The Christians, who suppose
      that the martyr Abu Ayub is vulgarly confounded with the
      patriarch Job, betray their own ignorance rather than that of the
      Turks.]

      The event of the siege revived, both in the East and West, the
      reputation of the Roman arms, and cast a momentary shade over the
      glories of the Saracens. The Greek ambassador was favorably
      received at Damascus, a general council of the emirs or Koreish:
      a peace, or truce, of thirty years was ratified between the two
      empires; and the stipulation of an annual tribute, fifty horses
      of a noble breed, fifty slaves, and three thousand pieces of
      gold, degraded the majesty of the commander of the faithful. 5
      The aged caliph was desirous of possessing his dominions, and
      ending his days in tranquillity and repose: while the Moors and
      Indians trembled at his name, his palace and city of Damascus was
      insulted by the Mardaites, or Maronites, of Mount Libanus, the
      firmest barrier of the empire, till they were disarmed and
      transplanted by the suspicious policy of the Greeks. 6 After the
      revolt of Arabia and Persia, the house of Ommiyah was reduced to
      the kingdoms of Syria and Egypt: their distress and fear enforced
      their compliance with the pressing demands of the Christians; and
      the tribute was increased to a slave, a horse, and a thousand
      pieces of gold, for each of the three hundred and sixty-five days
      of the solar year. But as soon as the empire was again united by
      the arms and policy of Abdalmalek, he disclaimed a badge of
      servitude not less injurious to his conscience than to his pride;
      he discontinued the payment of the tribute; and the resentment of
      the Greeks was disabled from action by the mad tyranny of the
      second Justinian, the just rebellion of his subjects, and the
      frequent change of his antagonists and successors. 7 Till the
      reign of Abdalmalek, the Saracens had been content with the free
      possession of the Persian and Roman treasures, in the coins of
      Chosroes and Caesar. By the command of that caliph, a national
      mint was established, both for silver and gold, and the
      inscription of the Dinar, though it might be censured by some
      timorous casuists, proclaimed the unity of the God of Mahomet. 8
      Under the reign of the caliph Walid, the Greek language and
      characters were excluded from the accounts of the public revenue.
      9 If this change was productive of the invention or familiar use
      of our present numerals, the Arabic or Indian ciphers, as they
      are commonly styled, a regulation of office has promoted the most
      important discoveries of arithmetic, algebra, and the
      mathematical sciences. 10

      5 (return) [ Theophanes, though a Greek, deserves credit for
      these tributes, (Chronograph. p. 295, 296, 300, 301,) which are
      confirmed, with some variation, by the Arabic History of
      Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 128, vers. Pocock.)]

      6 (return) [ The censure of Theophanes is just and pointed,
      (Chronograph. p. 302, 303.) The series of these events may be
      traced in the Annals of Theophanes, and in the Abridgment of the
      patriarch Nicephorus, p. 22, 24.]

      7 (return) [ These domestic revolutions are related in a clear
      and natural style, in the second volume of Ockley’s History of
      the Saracens, p. 253-370. Besides our printed authors, he draws
      his materials from the Arabic Mss. of Oxford, which he would have
      more deeply searched had he been confined to the Bodleian library
      instead of the city jail a fate how unworthy of the man and of
      his country!]

      8 (return) [ Elmacin, who dates the first coinage A. H. 76, A.D.
      695, five or six years later than the Greek historians, has
      compared the weight of the best or common gold dinar to the
      drachm or dirhem of Egypt, (p. 77,) which may be equal to two
      pennies (48 grains) of our Troy weight, (Hooper’s Inquiry into
      Ancient Measures, p. 24-36,) and equivalent to eight shillings of
      our sterling money. From the same Elmacin and the Arabian
      physicians, some dinars as high as two dirhems, as low as half a
      dirhem, may be deduced. The piece of silver was the dirhem, both
      in value and weight; but an old, though fair coin, struck at
      Waset, A. H. 88, and preserved in the Bodleian library, wants
      four grains of the Cairo standard, (see the Modern Universal
      History, tom. i. p. 548 of the French translation.) * Note: Up to
      this time the Arabs had used the Roman or the Persian coins or
      had minted others which resembled them. Nevertheless, it has been
      admitted of late years, that the Arabians, before this epoch, had
      caused coin to be minted, on which, preserving the Roman or the
      Persian dies, they added Arabian names or inscriptions. Some of
      these exist in different collections. We learn from Makrizi, an
      Arabian author of great learning and judgment, that in the year
      18 of the Hegira, under the caliphate of Omar, the Arabs had
      coined money of this description. The same author informs us that
      the caliph Abdalmalek caused coins to be struck representing
      himself with a sword by his side. These types, so contrary to the
      notions of the Arabs, were disapproved by the most influential
      persons of the time, and the caliph substituted for them, after
      the year 76 of the Hegira, the Mahometan coins with which we are
      acquainted. Consult, on the question of Arabic numismatics, the
      works of Adler, of Fraehn, of Castiglione, and of Marsden, who
      have treated at length this interesting point of historic
      antiquities. See, also, in the Journal Asiatique, tom. ii. p.
      257, et seq., a paper of M. Silvestre de Sacy, entitled Des
      Monnaies des Khalifes avant l’An 75 de l’Hegire. See, also the
      translation of a German paper on the Arabic medals of the
      Chosroes, by M. Fraehn. in the same Journal Asiatique tom. iv. p.
      331-347. St. Martin, vol. xii. p. 19, —M.]

      9 (return) [ Theophan. Chronograph. p. 314. This defect, if it
      really existed, must have stimulated the ingenuity of the Arabs
      to invent or borrow.]

      10 (return) [ According to a new, though probable, notion,
      maintained by M de Villoison, (Anecdota Graeca, tom. ii. p.
      152-157,) our ciphers are not of Indian or Arabic invention. They
      were used by the Greek and Latin arithmeticians long before the
      age of Boethius. After the extinction of science in the West,
      they were adopted by the Arabic versions from the original Mss.,
      and restored to the Latins about the xith century. * Note:
      Compare, on the Introduction of the Arabic numerals, Hallam’s
      Introduction to the Literature of Europe, p. 150, note, and the
      authors quoted therein.—M.]

      Whilst the caliph Walid sat idle on the throne of Damascus,
      whilst his lieutenants achieved the conquest of Transoxiana and
      Spain, a third army of Saracens overspread the provinces of Asia
      Minor, and approached the borders of the Byzantine capital. But
      the attempt and disgrace of the second siege was reserved for his
      brother Soliman, whose ambition appears to have been quickened by
      a more active and martial spirit. In the revolutions of the Greek
      empire, after the tyrant Justinian had been punished and avenged,
      an humble secretary, Anastasius or Artemius, was promoted by
      chance or merit to the vacant purple. He was alarmed by the sound
      of war; and his ambassador returned from Damascus with the
      tremendous news, that the Saracens were preparing an armament by
      sea and land, such as would transcend the experience of the past,
      or the belief of the present age. The precautions of Anastasius
      were not unworthy of his station, or of the impending danger. He
      issued a peremptory mandate, that all persons who were not
      provided with the means of subsistence for a three years’ siege
      should evacuate the city: the public granaries and arsenals were
      abundantly replenished; the walls were restored and strengthened;
      and the engines for casting stones, or darts, or fire, were
      stationed along the ramparts, or in the brigantines of war, of
      which an additional number was hastily constructed. To prevent is
      safer, as well as more honorable, than to repel, an attack; and a
      design was meditated, above the usual spirit of the Greeks, of
      burning the naval stores of the enemy, the cypress timber that
      had been hewn in Mount Libanus, and was piled along the sea-shore
      of Phoenicia, for the service of the Egyptian fleet. This
      generous enterprise was defeated by the cowardice or treachery of
      the troops, who, in the new language of the empire, were styled
      of the Obsequian Theme. 11 They murdered their chief, deserted
      their standard in the Isle of Rhodes, dispersed themselves over
      the adjacent continent, and deserved pardon or reward by
      investing with the purple a simple officer of the revenue. The
      name of Theodosius might recommend him to the senate and people;
      but, after some months, he sunk into a cloister, and resigned, to
      the firmer hand of Leo the Isaurian, the urgent defence of the
      capital and empire. The most formidable of the Saracens,
      Moslemah, the brother of the caliph, was advancing at the head of
      one hundred and twenty thousand Arabs and Persians, the greater
      part mounted on horses or camels; and the successful sieges of
      Tyana, Amorium, and Pergamus, were of sufficient duration to
      exercise their skill and to elevate their hopes. At the
      well-known passage of Abydus, on the Hellespont, the Mahometan
      arms were transported, for the first time, 1111 from Asia to
      Europe. From thence, wheeling round the Thracian cities of the
      Propontis, Moslemah invested Constantinople on the land side,
      surrounded his camp with a ditch and rampart, prepared and
      planted his engines of assault, and declared, by words and
      actions, a patient resolution of expecting the return of
      seed-time and harvest, should the obstinacy of the besieged prove
      equal to his own. 1112 The Greeks would gladly have ransomed
      their religion and empire, by a fine or assessment of a piece of
      gold on the head of each inhabitant of the city; but the liberal
      offer was rejected with disdain, and the presumption of Moslemah
      was exalted by the speedy approach and invincible force of the
      natives of Egypt and Syria. They are said to have amounted to
      eighteen hundred ships: the number betrays their inconsiderable
      size; and of the twenty stout and capacious vessels, whose
      magnitude impeded their progress, each was manned with no more
      than one hundred heavy-armed soldiers. This huge armada proceeded
      on a smooth sea, and with a gentle gale, towards the mouth of the
      Bosphorus; the surface of the strait was overshadowed, in the
      language of the Greeks, with a moving forest, and the same fatal
      night had been fixed by the Saracen chief for a general assault
      by sea and land. To allure the confidence of the enemy, the
      emperor had thrown aside the chain that usually guarded the
      entrance of the harbor; but while they hesitated whether they
      should seize the opportunity, or apprehend the snare, the
      ministers of destruction were at hand. The fire-ships of the
      Greeks were launched against them; the Arabs, their arms, and
      vessels, were involved in the same flames; the disorderly
      fugitives were dashed against each other or overwhelmed in the
      waves; and I no longer find a vestige of the fleet, that had
      threatened to extirpate the Roman name. A still more fatal and
      irreparable loss was that of the caliph Soliman, who died of an
      indigestion, 12 in his camp near Kinnisrin or Chalcis in Syria,
      as he was preparing to lead against Constantinople the remaining
      forces of the East. The brother of Moslemah was succeeded by a
      kinsman and an enemy; and the throne of an active and able prince
      was degraded by the useless and pernicious virtues of a bigot.
      1211 While he started and satisfied the scruples of a blind
      conscience, the siege was continued through the winter by the
      neglect, rather than by the resolution of the caliph Omar. 13 The
      winter proved uncommonly rigorous: above a hundred days the
      ground was covered with deep snow, and the natives of the sultry
      climes of Egypt and Arabia lay torpid and almost lifeless in
      their frozen camp. They revived on the return of spring; a second
      effort had been made in their favor; and their distress was
      relieved by the arrival of two numerous fleets, laden with corn,
      and arms, and soldiers; the first from Alexandria, of four
      hundred transports and galleys; the second of three hundred and
      sixty vessels from the ports of Africa. But the Greek fires were
      again kindled; and if the destruction was less complete, it was
      owing to the experience which had taught the Moslems to remain at
      a safe distance, or to the perfidy of the Egyptian mariners, who
      deserted with their ships to the emperor of the Christians. The
      trade and navigation of the capital were restored; and the
      produce of the fisheries supplied the wants, and even the luxury,
      of the inhabitants. But the calamities of famine and disease were
      soon felt by the troops of Moslemah, and as the former was
      miserably assuaged, so the latter was dreadfully propagated, by
      the pernicious nutriment which hunger compelled them to extract
      from the most unclean or unnatural food. The spirit of conquest,
      and even of enthusiasm, was extinct: the Saracens could no longer
      struggle, beyond their lines, either single or in small parties,
      without exposing themselves to the merciless retaliation of the
      Thracian peasants.

      An army of Bulgarians was attracted from the Danube by the gifts
      and promises of Leo; and these savage auxiliaries made some
      atonement for the evils which they had inflicted on the empire,
      by the defeat and slaughter of twenty-two thousand Asiatics. A
      report was dexterously scattered, that the Franks, the unknown
      nations of the Latin world, were arming by sea and land in the
      defence of the Christian cause, and their formidable aid was
      expected with far different sensations in the camp and city. At
      length, after a siege of thirteen months, 14 the hopeless
      Moslemah received from the caliph the welcome permission of
      retreat. 1411 The march of the Arabian cavalry over the
      Hellespont and through the provinces of Asia, was executed
      without delay or molestation; but an army of their brethren had
      been cut in pieces on the side of Bithynia, and the remains of
      the fleet were so repeatedly damaged by tempest and fire, that
      only five galleys entered the port of Alexandria to relate the
      tale of their various and almost incredible disasters. 15

      11 (return) [ In the division of the Themes, or provinces
      described by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, (de Thematibus, l. i.
      p. 9, 10,) the Obsequium, a Latin appellation of the army and
      palace, was the fourth in the public order. Nice was the
      metropolis, and its jurisdiction extended from the Hellespont
      over the adjacent parts of Bithynia and Phrygia, (see the two
      maps prefixed by Delisle to the Imperium Orientale of Banduri.)]

      1111 (return) [ Compare page 274. It is singular that Gibbon
      should thus contradict himself in a few pages. By his own account
      this was the second time.—M.]

      1112 (return) [ The account of this siege in the Tarikh Tebry is
      a very unfavorable specimen of Asiatic history, full of absurd
      fables, and written with total ignorance of the circumstances of
      time and place. Price, vol. i. p. 498—M.]

      12 (return) [ The caliph had emptied two baskets of eggs and of
      figs, which he swallowed alternately, and the repast was
      concluded with marrow and sugar. In one of his pilgrimages to
      Mecca, Soliman ate, at a single meal, seventy pomegranates, a
      kid, six fowls, and a huge quantity of the grapes of Tayef. If
      the bill of fare be correct, we must admire the appetite, rather
      than the luxury, of the sovereign of Asia, (Abulfeda, Annal.
      Moslem. p. 126.) * Note: The Tarikh Tebry ascribes the death of
      Soliman to a pleurisy. The same gross gluttony in which Soliman
      indulged, though not fatal to the life, interfered with the
      military duties, of his brother Moslemah. Price, vol. i. p.
      511.—M.]

      1211 (return) [ Major Price’s estimate of Omar’s character is
      much more favorable. Among a race of sanguinary tyrants, Omar was
      just and humane. His virtues as well as his bigotry were
      active.—M.]

      13 (return) [ See the article of Omar Ben Abdalaziz, in the
      Bibliotheque Orientale, (p. 689, 690,) praeferens, says Elmacin,
      (p. 91,) religionem suam rebus suis mundanis. He was so desirous
      of being with God, that he would not have anointed his ear (his
      own saying) to obtain a perfect cure of his last malady. The
      caliph had only one shirt, and in an age of luxury, his annual
      expense was no more than two drachms, (Abulpharagius, p. 131.)
      Haud diu gavisus eo principe fuit urbis Muslemus, (Abulfeda, p.
      127.)]

      14 (return) [ Both Nicephorus and Theophanes agree that the siege
      of Constantinople was raised the 15th of August, (A.D. 718;) but
      as the former, our best witness, affirms that it continued
      thirteen months, the latter must be mistaken in supposing that it
      began on the same day of the preceding year. I do not find that
      Pagi has remarked this inconsistency.]

      1411 (return) [ The Tarikh Tebry embellishes the retreat of
      Moslemah with some extraordinary and incredible circumstances.
      Price, p. 514.—M.]

      15 (return) [ In the second siege of Constantinople, I have
      followed Nicephorus, (Brev. p. 33-36,) Theophanes, (Chronograph,
      p. 324-334,) Cedrenus, (Compend. p. 449-452,) Zonaras, (tom. ii.
      p. 98-102,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen, p. 88,) Abulfeda, (Annal.
      Moslem. p. 126,) and Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 130,) the most
      satisfactory of the Arabs.]

      In the two sieges, the deliverance of Constantinople may be
      chiefly ascribed to the novelty, the terrors, and the real
      efficacy of the Greek fire. 16 The important secret of
      compounding and directing this artificial flame was imparted by
      Callinicus, a native of Heliopolis in Syria, who deserted from
      the service of the caliph to that of the emperor. 17 The skill of
      a chemist and engineer was equivalent to the succor of fleets and
      armies; and this discovery or improvement of the military art was
      fortunately reserved for the distressful period, when the
      degenerate Romans of the East were incapable of contending with
      the warlike enthusiasm and youthful vigor of the Saracens. The
      historian who presumes to analyze this extraordinary composition
      should suspect his own ignorance and that of his Byzantine
      guides, so prone to the marvellous, so careless, and, in this
      instance, so jealous of the truth. From their obscure, and
      perhaps fallacious, hints it should seem that the principal
      ingredient of the Greek fire was the naphtha, 18 or liquid
      bitumen, a light, tenacious, and inflammable oil, 19 which
      springs from the earth, and catches fire as soon as it comes in
      contact with the air. The naphtha was mingled, I know not by what
      methods or in what proportions, with sulphur and with the pitch
      that is extracted from evergreen firs. 20 From this mixture,
      which produced a thick smoke and a loud explosion, proceeded a
      fierce and obstinate flame, which not only rose in perpendicular
      ascent, but likewise burnt with equal vehemence in descent or
      lateral progress; instead of being extinguished, it was nourished
      and quickened by the element of water; and sand, urine, or
      vinegar, were the only remedies that could damp the fury of this
      powerful agent, which was justly denominated by the Greeks the
      liquid, or the maritime, fire. For the annoyance of the enemy, it
      was employed with equal effect, by sea and land, in battles or in
      sieges. It was either poured from the rampart in large boilers,
      or launched in red-hot balls of stone and iron, or darted in
      arrows and javelins, twisted round with flax and tow, which had
      deeply imbibed the inflammable oil; sometimes it was deposited in
      fire-ships, the victims and instruments of a more ample revenge,
      and was most commonly blown through long tubes of copper which
      were planted on the prow of a galley, and fancifully shaped into
      the mouths of savage monsters, that seemed to vomit a stream of
      liquid and consuming fire. This important art was preserved at
      Constantinople, as the palladium of the state: the galleys and
      artillery might occasionally be lent to the allies of Rome; but
      the composition of the Greek fire was concealed with the most
      jealous scruple, and the terror of the enemies was increased and
      prolonged by their ignorance and surprise. In the treaties of the
      administration of the empire, the royal author 21 suggests the
      answers and excuses that might best elude the indiscreet
      curiosity and importunate demands of the Barbarians. They should
      be told that the mystery of the Greek fire had been revealed by
      an angel to the first and greatest of the Constantines, with a
      sacred injunction, that this gift of Heaven, this peculiar
      blessing of the Romans, should never be communicated to any
      foreign nation; that the prince and the subject were alike bound
      to religious silence under the temporal and spiritual penalties
      of treason and sacrilege; and that the impious attempt would
      provoke the sudden and supernatural vengeance of the God of the
      Christians. By these precautions, the secret was confined, above
      four hundred years, to the Romans of the East; and at the end of
      the eleventh century, the Pisans, to whom every sea and every art
      were familiar, suffered the effects, without understanding the
      composition, of the Greek fire. It was at length either
      discovered or stolen by the Mahometans; and, in the holy wars of
      Syria and Egypt, they retorted an invention, contrived against
      themselves, on the heads of the Christians. A knight, who
      despised the swords and lances of the Saracens, relates, with
      heartfelt sincerity, his own fears, and those of his companions,
      at the sight and sound of the mischievous engine that discharged
      a torrent of the Greek fire, the feu Gregeois, as it is styled by
      the more early of the French writers. It came flying through the
      air, says Joinville, 22 like a winged long-tailed dragon, about
      the thickness of a hogshead, with the report of thunder and the
      velocity of lightning; and the darkness of the night was
      dispelled by this deadly illumination. The use of the Greek, or,
      as it might now be called, of the Saracen fire, was continued to
      the middle of the fourteenth century, 23 when the scientific or
      casual compound of nitre, sulphur, and charcoal, effected a new
      revolution in the art of war and the history of mankind. 24

      16 (return) [ Our sure and indefatigable guide in the middle ages
      and Byzantine history, Charles du Fresne du Cange, has treated in
      several places of the Greek fire, and his collections leave few
      gleanings behind. See particularly Glossar. Med. et Infim.
      Graecitat. p. 1275, sub voce. Glossar. Med. et Infim. Latinitat.
      Ignis Groecus. Observations sur Villehardouin, p. 305, 306.
      Observations sur Joinville, p. 71, 72.]

      17 (return) [ Theophanes styles him, (p. 295.) Cedrenus (p. 437)
      brings this artist from (the ruins of) Heliopolis in Egypt; and
      chemistry was indeed the peculiar science of the Egyptians.]

      18 (return) [ The naphtha, the oleum incendiarium of the history
      of Jerusalem, (Gest. Dei per Francos, p. 1167,) the Oriental
      fountain of James de Vitry, (l. iii. c. 84,) is introduced on
      slight evidence and strong probability. Cinanmus (l. vi. p. 165)
      calls the Greek fire: and the naphtha is known to abound between
      the Tigris and the Caspian Sea. According to Pliny, (Hist. Natur.
      ii. 109,) it was subservient to the revenge of Medea, and in
      either etymology, (Procop. de Bell. Gothic. l. iv. c. 11,) may
      fairly signify this liquid bitumen. * Note: It is remarkable that
      the Syrian historian Michel gives the name of naphtha to the
      newly-invented Greek fire, which seems to indicate that this
      substance formed the base of the destructive compound. St.
      Martin, tom. xi. p. 420.—M.]

      19 (return) [ On the different sorts of oils and bitumens, see
      Dr. Watson’s (the present bishop of Llandaff’s) Chemical Essays,
      vol. iii. essay i., a classic book, the best adapted to infuse
      the taste and knowledge of chemistry. The less perfect ideas of
      the ancients may be found in Strabo (Geograph. l. xvi. p. 1078)
      and Pliny, (Hist. Natur. ii. 108, 109.) Huic (Naphthae) magna
      cognatio est ignium, transiliuntque protinus in eam undecunque
      visam. Of our travellers I am best pleased with Otter, (tom. i.
      p. 153, 158.)]

      20 (return) [ Anna Comnena has partly drawn aside the curtain.
      (Alexiad. l. xiii. p. 383.) Elsewhere (l. xi. p. 336) she
      mentions the property of burning. Leo, in the xixth chapter of
      his Tactics, (Opera Meursii, tom. vi. p. 843, edit. Lami,
      Florent. 1745,) speaks of the new invention. These are genuine
      and Imperial testimonies.]

      21 (return) [ Constantin. Porphyrogenit. de Administrat. Imperii,
      c. xiii. p. 64, 65.]

      22 (return) [ Histoire de St. Louis, p. 39. Paris, 1668, p. 44.
      Paris, de l’Imprimerie Royale, 1761. The former of these editions
      is precious for the observations of Ducange; the latter for the
      pure and original text of Joinville. We must have recourse to
      that text to discover, that the feu Gregeois was shot with a pile
      or javelin, from an engine that acted like a sling.]

      23 (return) [ The vanity, or envy, of shaking the established
      property of Fame, has tempted some moderns to carry gunpowder
      above the xivth, (see Sir William Temple, Dutens, &c.,) and the
      Greek fire above the viith century, (see the Saluste du President
      des Brosses, tom. ii. p. 381.) But their evidence, which precedes
      the vulgar aera of the invention, is seldom clear or
      satisfactory, and subsequent writers may be suspected of fraud or
      credulity. In the earliest sieges, some combustibles of oil and
      sulphur have been used, and the Greek fire has some affinities
      with gunpowder both in its nature and effects: for the antiquity
      of the first, a passage of Procopius, (de Bell. Goth. l. iv. c.
      11,) for that of the second, some facts in the Arabic history of
      Spain, (A.D. 1249, 1312, 1332. Bibliot. Arab. Hisp. tom. ii. p.
      6, 7, 8,) are the most difficult to elude.]

      24 (return) [ That extraordinary man, Friar Bacon, reveals two of
      the ingredients, saltpetre and sulphur, and conceals the third in
      a sentence of mysterious gibberish, as if he dreaded the
      consequences of his own discovery, (Biog. Brit. vol. i. p. 430,
      new edition.)]




      Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part II.

      Constantinople and the Greek fire might exclude the Arabs from
      the eastern entrance of Europe; but in the West, on the side of
      the Pyrenees, the provinces of Gaul were threatened and invaded
      by the conquerors of Spain. 25 The decline of the French monarchy
      invited the attack of these insatiate fanatics. The descendants
      of Clovis had lost the inheritance of his martial and ferocious
      spirit; and their misfortune or demerit has affixed the epithet
      of lazy to the last kings of the Merovingian race. 26 They
      ascended the throne without power, and sunk into the grave
      without a name. A country palace, in the neighborhood of
      Compiegne 27 was allotted for their residence or prison: but each
      year, in the month of March or May, they were conducted in a
      wagon drawn by oxen to the assembly of the Franks, to give
      audience to foreign ambassadors, and to ratify the acts of the
      mayor of the palace. That domestic officer was become the
      minister of the nation and the master of the prince. A public
      employment was converted into the patrimony of a private family:
      the elder Pepin left a king of mature years under the
      guardianship of his own widow and her child; and these feeble
      regents were forcibly dispossessed by the most active of his
      bastards. A government, half savage and half corrupt, was almost
      dissolved; and the tributary dukes, and provincial counts, and
      the territorial lords, were tempted to despise the weakness of
      the monarch, and to imitate the ambition of the mayor. Among
      these independent chiefs, one of the boldest and most successful
      was Eudes, duke of Aquitain, who in the southern provinces of
      Gaul usurped the authority, and even the title of king. The
      Goths, the Gascons, and the Franks, assembled under the standard
      of this Christian hero: he repelled the first invasion of the
      Saracens; and Zama, lieutenant of the caliph, lost his army and
      his life under the walls of Thoulouse. The ambition of his
      successors was stimulated by revenge; they repassed the Pyrenees
      with the means and the resolution of conquest. The advantageous
      situation which had recommended Narbonne 28 as the first Roman
      colony, was again chosen by the Moslems: they claimed the
      province of Septimania or Languedoc as a just dependence of the
      Spanish monarchy: the vineyards of Gascony and the city of
      Bourdeaux were possessed by the sovereign of Damascus and
      Samarcand; and the south of France, from the mouth of the Garonne
      to that of the Rhone, assumed the manners and religion of Arabia.

      25 (return) [ For the invasion of France and the defeat of the
      Arabs by Charles Martel, see the Historia Arabum (c. 11, 12, 13,
      14) of Roderic Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo, who had before him
      the Christian chronicle of Isidore Pacensis, and the Mahometan
      history of Novairi. The Moslems are silent or concise in the
      account of their losses; but M Cardonne (tom. i. p. 129, 130,
      131) has given a pure and simple account of all that he could
      collect from Ibn Halikan, Hidjazi, and an anonymous writer. The
      texts of the chronicles of France, and lives of saints, are
      inserted in the Collection of Bouquet, (tom. iii.,) and the
      Annals of Pagi, who (tom. iii. under the proper years) has
      restored the chronology, which is anticipated six years in the
      Annals of Baronius. The Dictionary of Bayle (Abderame and Munuza)
      has more merit for lively reflection than original research.]

      26 (return) [ Eginhart, de Vita Caroli Magni, c. ii. p. 13-78,
      edit. Schmink, Utrecht, 1711. Some modern critics accuse the
      minister of Charlemagne of exaggerating the weakness of the
      Merovingians; but the general outline is just, and the French
      reader will forever repeat the beautiful lines of Boileau’s
      Lutrin.]

      27 (return) [ Mamaccae, on the Oyse, between Compiegne and Noyon,
      which Eginhart calls perparvi reditus villam, (see the notes, and
      the map of ancient France for Dom. Bouquet’s Collection.)
      Compendium, or Compiegne, was a palace of more dignity, (Hadrian.
      Valesii Notitia Galliarum, p. 152,) and that laughing
      philosopher, the Abbe Galliani, (Dialogues sur le Commerce des
      Bleds,) may truly affirm, that it was the residence of the rois
      tres Chretiens en tres chevelus.]

      28 (return) [ Even before that colony, A. U. C. 630, (Velleius
      Patercul. i. 15,) In the time of Polybius, (Hist. l. iii. p. 265,
      edit. Gronov.) Narbonne was a Celtic town of the first eminence,
      and one of the most northern places of the known world,
      (D’Anville, Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 473.)]

      But these narrow limits were scorned by the spirit of Abdalraman,
      or Abderame, who had been restored by the caliph Hashem to the
      wishes of the soldiers and people of Spain. That veteran and
      daring commander adjudged to the obedience of the prophet
      whatever yet remained of France or of Europe; and prepared to
      execute the sentence, at the head of a formidable host, in the
      full confidence of surmounting all opposition either of nature or
      of man. His first care was to suppress a domestic rebel, who
      commanded the most important passes of the Pyrenees: Manuza, a
      Moorish chief, had accepted the alliance of the duke of Aquitain;
      and Eudes, from a motive of private or public interest, devoted
      his beauteous daughter to the embraces of the African
      misbeliever. But the strongest fortresses of Cerdagne were
      invested by a superior force; the rebel was overtaken and slain
      in the mountains; and his widow was sent a captive to Damascus,
      to gratify the desires, or more probably the vanity, of the
      commander of the faithful. From the Pyrenees, Abderame proceeded
      without delay to the passage of the Rhone and the siege of Arles.

      An army of Christians attempted the relief of the city: the tombs
      of their leaders were yet visible in the thirteenth century; and
      many thousands of their dead bodies were carried down the rapid
      stream into the Mediterranean Sea. The arms of Abderame were not
      less successful on the side of the ocean. He passed without
      opposition the Garonne and Dordogne, which unite their waters in
      the Gulf of Bourdeaux; but he found, beyond those rivers, the
      camp of the intrepid Eudes, who had formed a second army and
      sustained a second defeat, so fatal to the Christians, that,
      according to their sad confession, God alone could reckon the
      number of the slain. The victorious Saracen overran the provinces
      of Aquitain, whose Gallic names are disguised, rather than lost,
      in the modern appellations of Perigord, Saintonge, and Poitou:
      his standards were planted on the walls, or at least before the
      gates, of Tours and of Sens; and his detachments overspread the
      kingdom of Burgundy as far as the well-known cities of Lyons and
      Besançon. The memory of these devastations (for Abderame did not
      spare the country or the people) was long preserved by tradition;
      and the invasion of France by the Moors or Mahometans affords the
      groundwork of those fables, which have been so wildly disfigured
      in the romances of chivalry, and so elegantly adorned by the
      Italian muse. In the decline of society and art, the deserted
      cities could supply a slender booty to the Saracens; their
      richest spoil was found in the churches and monasteries, which
      they stripped of their ornaments and delivered to the flames: and
      the tutelar saints, both Hilary of Poitiers and Martin of Tours,
      forgot their miraculous powers in the defence of their own
      sepulchres. 29 A victorious line of march had been prolonged
      above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of
      the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried
      the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of
      Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or
      Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a
      naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the
      interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of
      Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people
      the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet. 30

      29 (return) [ With regard to the sanctuary of St. Martin of
      Tours, Roderic Ximenes accuses the Saracens of the deed. Turonis
      civitatem, ecclesiam et palatia vastatione et incendio simili
      diruit et consumpsit. The continuator of Fredegarius imputes to
      them no more than the intention. Ad domum beatissimi Martini
      evertendam destinant. At Carolus, &c. The French annalist was
      more jealous of the honor of the saint.]

      30 (return) [ Yet I sincerely doubt whether the Oxford mosch
      would have produced a volume of controversy so elegant and
      ingenious as the sermons lately preached by Mr. White, the Arabic
      professor, at Mr. Bampton’s lecture. His observations on the
      character and religion of Mahomet are always adapted to his
      argument, and generally founded in truth and reason. He sustains
      the part of a lively and eloquent advocate; and sometimes rises
      to the merit of an historian and philosopher.]

      From such calamities was Christendom delivered by the genius and
      fortune of one man. Charles, the illegitimate son of the elder
      Pepin, was content with the titles of mayor or duke of the
      Franks; but he deserved to become the father of a line of kings.
      In a laborious administration of twenty-four years, he restored
      and supported the dignity of the throne, and the rebels of
      Germany and Gaul were successively crushed by the activity of a
      warrior, who, in the same campaign, could display his banner on
      the Elbe, the Rhone, and the shores of the ocean. In the public
      danger he was summoned by the voice of his country; and his
      rival, the duke of Aquitain, was reduced to appear among the
      fugitives and suppliants. “Alas!” exclaimed the Franks, “what a
      misfortune! what an indignity! We have long heard of the name and
      conquests of the Arabs: we were apprehensive of their attack from
      the East; they have now conquered Spain, and invade our country
      on the side of the West. Yet their numbers, and (since they have
      no buckler) their arms, are inferior to our own.” “If you follow
      my advice,” replied the prudent mayor of the palace, “you will
      not interrupt their march, nor precipitate your attack. They are
      like a torrent, which it is dangerous to stem in its career. The
      thirst of riches, and the consciousness of success, redouble
      their valor, and valor is of more avail than arms or numbers. Be
      patient till they have loaded themselves with the encumbrance of
      wealth. The possession of wealth will divide their councils and
      assure your victory.” This subtile policy is perhaps a refinement
      of the Arabian writers; and the situation of Charles will suggest
      a more narrow and selfish motive of procrastination—the secret
      desire of humbling the pride and wasting the provinces of the
      rebel duke of Aquitain. It is yet more probable, that the delays
      of Charles were inevitable and reluctant. A standing army was
      unknown under the first and second race; more than half the
      kingdom was now in the hands of the Saracens: according to their
      respective situation, the Franks of Neustria and Austrasia were
      to conscious or too careless of the impending danger; and the
      voluntary aids of the Gepidae and Germans were separated by a
      long interval from the standard of the Christian general. No
      sooner had he collected his forces, than he sought and found the
      enemy in the centre of France, between Tours and Poitiers. His
      well-conducted march was covered with a range of hills, and
      Abderame appears to have been surprised by his unexpected
      presence. The nations of Asia, Africa, and Europe, advanced with
      equal ardor to an encounter which would change the history of the
      world. In the six first days of desultory combat, the horsemen
      and archers of the East maintained their advantage: but in the
      closer onset of the seventh day, the Orientals were oppressed by
      the strength and stature of the Germans, who, with stout hearts
      and iron hands, 31 asserted the civil and religious freedom of
      their posterity. The epithet of Martel, the Hammer, which has
      been added to the name of Charles, is expressive of his weighty
      and irresistible strokes: the valor of Eudes was excited by
      resentment and emulation; and their companions, in the eye of
      history, are the true Peers and Paladins of French chivalry.
      After a bloody field, in which Abderame was slain, the Saracens,
      in the close of the evening, retired to their camp. In the
      disorder and despair of the night, the various tribes of Yemen
      and Damascus, of Africa and Spain, were provoked to turn their
      arms against each other: the remains of their host were suddenly
      dissolved, and each emir consulted his safety by a hasty and
      separate retreat. At the dawn of the day, the stillness of a
      hostile camp was suspected by the victorious Christians: on the
      report of their spies, they ventured to explore the riches of the
      vacant tents; but if we except some celebrated relics, a small
      portion of the spoil was restored to the innocent and lawful
      owners. The joyful tidings were soon diffused over the Catholic
      world, and the monks of Italy could affirm and believe that three
      hundred and fifty, or three hundred and seventy-five, thousand of
      the Mahometans had been crushed by the hammer of Charles, 32
      while no more than fifteen hundred Christians were slain in the
      field of Tours. But this incredible tale is sufficiently
      disproved by the caution of the French general, who apprehended
      the snares and accidents of a pursuit, and dismissed his German
      allies to their native forests.

      The inactivity of a conqueror betrays the loss of strength and
      blood, and the most cruel execution is inflicted, not in the
      ranks of battle, but on the backs of a flying enemy. Yet the
      victory of the Franks was complete and final; Aquitain was
      recovered by the arms of Eudes; the Arabs never resumed the
      conquest of Gaul, and they were soon driven beyond the Pyrenees
      by Charles Martel and his valiant race. 33 It might have been
      expected that the savior of Christendom would have been
      canonized, or at least applauded, by the gratitude of the clergy,
      who are indebted to his sword for their present existence. But in
      the public distress, the mayor of the palace had been compelled
      to apply the riches, or at least the revenues, of the bishops and
      abbots, to the relief of the state and the reward of the
      soldiers. His merits were forgotten, his sacrilege alone was
      remembered, and, in an epistle to a Carlovingian prince, a Gallic
      synod presumes to declare that his ancestor was damned; that on
      the opening of his tomb, the spectators were affrighted by a
      smell of fire and the aspect of a horrid dragon; and that a saint
      of the times was indulged with a pleasant vision of the soul and
      body of Charles Martel, burning, to all eternity, in the abyss of
      hell. 34

      31 (return) [ Gens Austriae membrorum pre-eminentia valida, et
      gens Germana corde et corpore praestantissima, quasi in ictu
      oculi, manu ferrea, et pectore arduo, Arabes extinxerunt,
      (Roderic. Toletan. c. xiv.)]

      32 (return) [ These numbers are stated by Paul Warnefrid, the
      deacon of Aquileia, (de Gestis Langobard. l. vi. p. 921, edit.
      Grot.,) and Anastasius, the librarian of the Roman church, (in
      Vit. Gregorii II.,) who tells a miraculous story of three
      consecrated sponges, which rendered invulnerable the French
      soldiers, among whom they had been shared It should seem, that in
      his letters to the pope, Eudes usurped the honor of the victory,
      from which he is chastised by the French annalists, who, with
      equal falsehood, accuse him of inviting the Saracens.]

      33 (return) [ Narbonne, and the rest of Septimania, was recovered
      by Pepin the son of Charles Martel, A.D. 755, (Pagi, Critica,
      tom. iii. p. 300.) Thirty-seven years afterwards, it was pillaged
      by a sudden inroad of the Arabs, who employed the captives in the
      construction of the mosch of Cordova, (De Guignes, Hist. des
      Huns, tom. i. p. 354.)]

      34 (return) [ This pastoral letter, addressed to Lewis the
      Germanic, the grandson of Charlemagne, and most probably composed
      by the pen of the artful Hincmar, is dated in the year 858, and
      signed by the bishops of the provinces of Rheims and Rouen,
      (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 741. Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. x.
      p. 514-516.) Yet Baronius himself, and the French critics, reject
      with contempt this episcopal fiction.]

      The loss of an army, or a province, in the Western world, was
      less painful to the court of Damascus, than the rise and progress
      of a domestic competitor. Except among the Syrians, the caliphs
      of the house of Ommiyah had never been the objects of the public
      favor. The life of Mahomet recorded their perseverance in
      idolatry and rebellion: their conversion had been reluctant,
      their elevation irregular and factious, and their throne was
      cemented with the most holy and noble blood of Arabia. The best
      of their race, the pious Omar, was dissatisfied with his own
      title: their personal virtues were insufficient to justify a
      departure from the order of succession; and the eyes and wishes
      of the faithful were turned towards the line of Hashem, and the
      kindred of the apostle of God. Of these the Fatimites were either
      rash or pusillanimous; but the descendants of Abbas cherished,
      with courage and discretion, the hopes of their rising fortunes.
      From an obscure residence in Syria, they secretly despatched
      their agents and missionaries, who preached in the Eastern
      provinces their hereditary indefeasible right; and Mohammed, the
      son of Ali, the son of Abdallah, the son of Abbas, the uncle of
      the prophet, gave audience to the deputies of Chorasan, and
      accepted their free gift of four hundred thousand pieces of gold.
      After the death of Mohammed, the oath of allegiance was
      administered in the name of his son Ibrahim to a numerous band of
      votaries, who expected only a signal and a leader; and the
      governor of Chorasan continued to deplore his fruitless
      admonitions and the deadly slumber of the caliphs of Damascus,
      till he himself, with all his adherents, was driven from the city
      and palace of Meru, by the rebellious arms of Abu Moslem. 35 That
      maker of kings, the author, as he is named, of the call of the
      Abbassides, was at length rewarded for his presumption of merit
      with the usual gratitude of courts. A mean, perhaps a foreign,
      extraction could not repress the aspiring energy of Abu Moslem.
      Jealous of his wives, liberal of his wealth, prodigal of his own
      blood and of that of others, he could boast with pleasure, and
      possibly with truth, that he had destroyed six hundred thousand
      of his enemies; and such was the intrepid gravity of his mind and
      countenance, that he was never seen to smile except on a day of
      battle. In the visible separation of parties, the green was
      consecrated to the Fatimites; the Ommiades were distinguished by
      the white; and the black, as the most adverse, was naturally
      adopted by the Abbassides. Their turbans and garments were
      stained with that gloomy color: two black standards, on pike
      staves nine cubits long, were borne aloft in the van of Abu
      Moslem; and their allegorical names of the night and the shadow
      obscurely represented the indissoluble union and perpetual
      succession of the line of Hashem. From the Indus to the
      Euphrates, the East was convulsed by the quarrel of the white and
      the black factions: the Abbassides were most frequently
      victorious; but their public success was clouded by the personal
      misfortune of their chief. The court of Damascus, awakening from
      a long slumber, resolved to prevent the pilgrimage of Mecca,
      which Ibrahim had undertaken with a splendid retinue, to
      recommend himself at once to the favor of the prophet and of the
      people. A detachment of cavalry intercepted his march and
      arrested his person; and the unhappy Ibrahim, snatched away from
      the promise of untasted royalty, expired in iron fetters in the
      dungeons of Haran. His two younger brothers, Saffah 3511 and
      Almansor, eluded the search of the tyrant, and lay concealed at
      Cufa, till the zeal of the people and the approach of his Eastern
      friends allowed them to expose their persons to the impatient
      public. On Friday, in the dress of a caliph, in the colors of the
      sect, Saffah proceeded with religious and military pomp to the
      mosch: ascending the pulpit, he prayed and preached as the lawful
      successor of Mahomet; and after his departure, his kinsmen bound
      a willing people by an oath of fidelity. But it was on the banks
      of the Zab, and not in the mosch of Cufa, that this important
      controversy was determined. Every advantage appeared to be on the
      side of the white faction: the authority of established
      government; an army of a hundred and twenty thousand soldiers,
      against a sixth part of that number; and the presence and merit
      of the caliph Mervan, the fourteenth and last of the house of
      Ommiyah. Before his accession to the throne, he had deserved, by
      his Georgian warfare, the honorable epithet of the ass of
      Mesopotamia; 36 and he might have been ranked amongst the
      greatest princes, had not, says Abulfeda, the eternal order
      decreed that moment for the ruin of his family; a decree against
      which all human fortitude and prudence must struggle in vain. The
      orders of Mervan were mistaken, or disobeyed: the return of his
      horse, from which he had dismounted on a necessary occasion,
      impressed the belief of his death; and the enthusiasm of the
      black squadrons was ably conducted by Abdallah, the uncle of his
      competitor. After an irretrievab defeat, the caliph escaped to
      Mosul; but the colors of the Abbassides were displayed from the
      rampart; he suddenly repassed the Tigris, cast a melancholy look
      on his palace of Haran, crossed the Euphrates, abandoned the
      fortifications of Damascus, and, without halting in Palestine,
      pitched his last and fatal camp at Busir, on the banks of the
      Nile. 37 His speed was urged by the incessant diligence of
      Abdallah, who in every step of the pursuit acquired strength and
      reputation: the remains of the white faction were finally
      vanquished in Egypt; and the lance, which terminated the life and
      anxiety of Mervan, was not less welcome perhaps to the
      unfortunate than to the victorious chief. The merciless
      inquisition of the conqueror eradicated the most distant branches
      of the hostile race: their bones were scattered, their memory was
      accursed, and the martyrdom of Hossein was abundantly revenged on
      the posterity of his tyrants. Fourscore of the Ommiades, who had
      yielded to the faith or clemency of their foes, were invited to a
      banquet at Damascus. The laws of hospitality were violated by a
      promiscuous massacre: the board was spread over their fallen
      bodies; and the festivity of the guests was enlivened by the
      music of their dying groans. By the event of the civil war, the
      dynasty of the Abbassides was firmly established; but the
      Christians only could triumph in the mutual hatred and common
      loss of the disciples of Mahomet. 38

      35 (return) [ The steed and the saddle which had carried any of
      his wives were instantly killed or burnt, lest they should
      afterwards be mounted by a male. Twelve hundred mules or camels
      were required for his kitchen furniture; and the daily
      consumption amounted to three thousand cakes, a hundred sheep,
      besides oxen, poultry, &c., (Abul pharagius, Hist. Dynast. p.
      140.)]

      3511 (return) [ He is called Abdullah or Abul Abbas in the Tarikh
      Tebry. Price vol. i. p. 600. Saffah or Saffauh (the Sanguinary)
      was a name which be required after his bloody reign, (vol. ii. p.
      1.)—M.]

      36 (return) [ Al Hemar. He had been governor of Mesopotamia, and
      the Arabic proverb praises the courage of that warlike breed of
      asses who never fly from an enemy. The surname of Mervan may
      justify the comparison of Homer, (Iliad, A. 557, &c.,) and both
      will silence the moderns, who consider the ass as a stupid and
      ignoble emblem, (D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 558.)]

      37 (return) [ Four several places, all in Egypt, bore the name of
      Busir, or Busiris, so famous in Greek fable. The first, where
      Mervan was slain was to the west of the Nile, in the province of
      Fium, or Arsinoe; the second in the Delta, in the Sebennytic
      nome; the third near the pyramids; the fourth, which was
      destroyed by Dioclesian, (see above, vol. ii. p. 130,) in the
      Thebais. I shall here transcribe a note of the learned and
      orthodox Michaelis: Videntur in pluribus Aegypti superioris
      urbibus Busiri Coptoque arma sumpsisse Christiani, libertatemque
      de religione sentiendi defendisse, sed succubuisse quo in bello
      Coptus et Busiris diruta, et circa Esnam magna strages edita.
      Bellum narrant sed causam belli ignorant scriptores Byzantini,
      alioqui Coptum et Busirim non rebellasse dicturi, sed causam
      Christianorum suscepturi, (Not. 211, p. 100.) For the geography
      of the four Busirs, see Abulfeda, (Descript. Aegypt. p. 9, vers.
      Michaelis, Gottingae, 1776, in 4to.,) Michaelis, (Not. 122-127,
      p. 58-63,) and D’Anville, (Memoire sua l’Egypte, p. 85, 147,
      205.)]

      38 (return) [ See Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 136-145,)
      Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 392, vers. Pocock,) Elmacin,
      (Hist. Saracen. p. 109-121,) Abulpharagius, (Hist. Dynast. p.
      134-140,) Roderic of Toledo, (Hist. Arabum, c. xviii. p. 33,)
      Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 356, 357, who speaks of the
      Abbassides) and the Bibliotheque of D’Herbelot, in the articles
      Ommiades, Abbassides, Moervan, Ibrahim, Saffah, Abou Moslem.]

      Yet the thousands who were swept away by the sword of war might
      have been speedily retrieved in the succeeding generation, if the
      consequences of the revolution had not tended to dissolve the
      power and unity of the empire of the Saracens. In the
      proscription of the Ommiades, a royal youth of the name of
      Abdalrahman alone escaped the rage of his enemies, who hunted the
      wandering exile from the banks of the Euphrates to the valleys of
      Mount Atlas. His presence in the neighborhood of Spain revived
      the zeal of the white faction. The name and cause of the
      Abbassides had been first vindicated by the Persians: the West
      had been pure from civil arms; and the servants of the abdicated
      family still held, by a precarious tenure, the inheritance of
      their lands and the offices of government. Strongly prompted by
      gratitude, indignation, and fear, they invited the grandson of
      the caliph Hashem to ascend the throne of his ancestors; and, in
      his desperate condition, the extremes of rashness and prudence
      were almost the same. The acclamations of the people saluted his
      landing on the coast of Andalusia: and, after a successful
      struggle, Abdalrahman established the throne of Cordova, and was
      the father of the Ommiades of Spain, who reigned above two
      hundred and fifty years from the Atlantic to the Pyrenees. 39 He
      slew in battle a lieutenant of the Abbassides, who had invaded
      his dominions with a fleet and army: the head of Ala, in salt and
      camphire, was suspended by a daring messenger before the palace
      of Mecca; and the caliph Almansor rejoiced in his safety, that he
      was removed by seas and lands from such a formidable adversary.
      Their mutual designs or declarations of offensive war evaporated
      without effect; but instead of opening a door to the conquest of
      Europe, Spain was dissevered from the trunk of the monarchy,
      engaged in perpetual hostility with the East, and inclined to
      peace and friendship with the Christian sovereigns of
      Constantinople and France. The example of the Ommiades was
      imitated by the real or fictitious progeny of Ali, the Edrissites
      of Mauritania, and the more powerful fatimites of Africa and
      Egypt. In the tenth century, the chair of Mahomet was disputed by
      three caliphs or commanders of the faithful, who reigned at
      Bagdad, Cairoan, and Cordova, excommunicating each other, and
      agreed only in a principle of discord, that a sectary is more
      odious and criminal than an unbeliever. 40

      39 (return) [ For the revolution of Spain, consult Roderic of
      Toledo, (c. xviii. p. 34, &c.,) the Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana,
      (tom. ii. p. 30, 198,) and Cardonne, (Hist. de l’Afrique et de
      l’Espagne, tom. i. p. 180-197, 205, 272, 323, &c.)]

      40 (return) [ I shall not stop to refute the strange errors and
      fancies of Sir William Temple (his Works, vol. iii. p. 371-374,
      octavo edition) and Voltaire (Histoire Generale, c. xxviii. tom.
      ii. p. 124, 125, edition de Lausanne) concerning the division of
      the Saracen empire. The mistakes of Voltaire proceeded from the
      want of knowledge or reflection; but Sir William was deceived by
      a Spanish impostor, who has framed an apocryphal history of the
      conquest of Spain by the Arabs.]

      Mecca was the patrimony of the line of Hashem, yet the Abbassides
      were never tempted to reside either in the birthplace or the city
      of the prophet. Damascus was disgraced by the choice, and
      polluted with the blood, of the Ommiades; and, after some
      hesitation, Almansor, the brother and successor of Saffah, laid
      the foundations of Bagdad, 41 the Imperial seat of his posterity
      during a reign of five hundred years. 42 The chosen spot is on
      the eastern bank of the Tigris, about fifteen miles above the
      ruins of Modain: the double wall was of a circular form; and such
      was the rapid increase of a capital, now dwindled to a provincial
      town, that the funeral of a popular saint might be attended by
      eight hundred thousand men and sixty thousand women of Bagdad and
      the adjacent villages. In this city of peace, 43 amidst the
      riches of the East, the Abbassides soon disdained the abstinence
      and frugality of the first caliphs, and aspired to emulate the
      magnificence of the Persian kings. After his wars and buildings,
      Almansor left behind him in gold and silver about thirty millions
      sterling: 44 and this treasure was exhausted in a few years by
      the vices or virtues of his children. His son Mahadi, in a single
      pilgrimage to Mecca, expended six millions of dinars of gold. A
      pious and charitable motive may sanctify the foundation of
      cisterns and caravanseras, which he distributed along a measured
      road of seven hundred miles; but his train of camels, laden with
      snow, could serve only to astonish the natives of Arabia, and to
      refresh the fruits and liquors of the royal banquet. 45 The
      courtiers would surely praise the liberality of his grandson
      Almamon, who gave away four fifths of the income of a province, a
      sum of two millions four hundred thousand gold dinars, before he
      drew his foot from the stirrup. At the nuptials of the same
      prince, a thousand pearls of the largest size were showered on
      the head of the bride, 46 and a lottery of lands and houses
      displayed the capricious bounty of fortune. The glories of the
      court were brightened, rather than impaired, in the decline of
      the empire, and a Greek ambassador might admire, or pity, the
      magnificence of the feeble Moctader. “The caliph’s whole army,”
      says the historian Abulfeda, “both horse and foot, was under
      arms, which together made a body of one hundred and sixty
      thousand men. His state officers, the favorite slaves, stood near
      him in splendid apparel, their belts glittering with gold and
      gems. Near them were seven thousand eunuchs, four thousand of
      them white, the remainder black. The porters or door-keepers were
      in number seven hundred. Barges and boats, with the most superb
      decorations, were seen swimming upon the Tigris. Nor was the
      palace itself less splendid, in which were hung up thirty-eight
      thousand pieces of tapestry, twelve thousand five hundred of
      which were of silk embroidered with gold. The carpets on the
      floor were twenty-two thousand. A hundred lions were brought out,
      with a keeper to each lion. 47 Among the other spectacles of rare
      and stupendous luxury was a tree of gold and silver spreading
      into eighteen large branches, on which, and on the lesser boughs,
      sat a variety of birds made of the same precious metals, as well
      as the leaves of the tree. While the machinery affected
      spontaneous motions, the several birds warbled their natural
      harmony. Through this scene of magnificence, the Greek ambassador
      was led by the vizier to the foot of the caliph’s throne.” 48 In
      the West, the Ommiades of Spain supported, with equal pomp, the
      title of commander of the faithful. Three miles from Cordova, in
      honor of his favorite sultana, the third and greatest of the
      Abdalrahmans constructed the city, palace, and gardens of Zehra.
      Twenty-five years, and above three millions sterling, were
      employed by the founder: his liberal taste invited the artists of
      Constantinople, the most skilful sculptors and architects of the
      age; and the buildings were sustained or adorned by twelve
      hundred columns of Spanish and African, of Greek and Italian
      marble. The hall of audience was incrusted with gold and pearls,
      and a great basin in the centre was surrounded with the curious
      and costly figures of birds and quadrupeds. In a lofty pavilion
      of the gardens, one of these basins and fountains, so delightful
      in a sultry climate, was replenished not with water, but with the
      purest quicksilver. The seraglio of Abdalrahman, his wives,
      concubines, and black eunuchs, amounted to six thousand three
      hundred persons: and he was attended to the field by a guard of
      twelve thousand horse, whose belts and cimeters were studded with
      gold. 49

      41 (return) [ The geographer D’Anville, (l’Euphrate et le Tigre,
      p. 121-123,) and the Orientalist D’Herbelot, (Bibliotheque, p.
      167, 168,) may suffice for the knowledge of Bagdad. Our
      travellers, Pietro della Valle, (tom. i. p. 688-698,) Tavernier,
      (tom. i. p. 230-238,) Thevenot, (part ii. p. 209-212,) Otter,
      (tom. i. p. 162-168,) and Niebuhr, (Voyage en Arabie, tom. ii. p.
      239-271,) have seen only its decay; and the Nubian geographer,
      (p. 204,) and the travelling Jew, Benjamin of Tuleda
      (Itinerarium, p. 112-123, a Const. l’Empereur, apud Elzevir,
      1633,) are the only writers of my acquaintance, who have known
      Bagdad under the reign of the Abbassides.]

      42 (return) [ The foundations of Bagdad were laid A. H. 145, A.D.
      762. Mostasem, the last of the Abbassides, was taken and put to
      death by the Tartars, A. H. 656, A.D. 1258, the 20th of
      February.]

      43 (return) [ Medinat al Salem, Dar al Salem. Urbs pacis, or, as
      it is more neatly compounded by the Byzantine writers,
      (Irenopolis.) There is some dispute concerning the etymology of
      Bagdad, but the first syllable is allowed to signify a garden in
      the Persian tongue; the garden of Dad, a Christian hermit, whose
      cell had been the only habitation on the spot.]

      44 (return) [ Reliquit in aerario sexcenties millies mille
      stateres. et quater et vicies millies mille aureos aureos.
      Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 126. I have reckoned the gold pieces
      at eight shillings, and the proportion to the silver as twelve to
      one. But I will never answer for the numbers of Erpenius; and the
      Latins are scarcely above the savages in the language of
      arithmetic.]

      45 (return) [ D’Herbelot, p. 530. Abulfeda, p. 154. Nivem Meccam
      apportavit, rem ibi aut nunquam aut rarissime visam.]

      46 (return) [ Abulfeda (p. 184, 189) describes the splendor and
      liberality of Almamon. Milton has alluded to this Oriental
      custom:—

     Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
     Showers on her kings Barbaric pearls and gold.

      I have used the modern word lottery to express the word of the
      Roman emperors, which entitled to some prize the person who
      caught them, as they were thrown among the crowd.]

      47 (return) [ When Bell of Antermony (Travels, vol. i. p. 99)
      accompanied the Russian ambassador to the audience of the
      unfortunate Shah Hussein of Persia, two lions were introduced, to
      denote the power of the king over the fiercest animals.]

      48 (return) [ Abulfeda, p. 237. D’Herbelot, p. 590. This embassy
      was received at Bagdad, A. H. 305, A.D. 917. In the passage of
      Abulfeda, I have used, with some variations, the English
      translation of the learned and amiable Mr. Harris of Salisbury,
      (Philological Enquiries p. 363, 364.)]

      49 (return) [ Cardonne, Histoire de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne,
      tom. i. p. 330-336. A just idea of the taste and architecture of
      the Arabians of Spain may be conceived from the description and
      plates of the Alhambra of Grenada, (Swinburne’s Travels, p.
      171-188.)]




      Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part III.

      In a private condition, our desires are perpetually repressed by
      poverty and subordination; but the lives and labors of millions
      are devoted to the service of a despotic prince, whose laws are
      blindly obeyed, and whose wishes are instantly gratified. Our
      imagination is dazzled by the splendid picture; and whatever may
      be the cool dictates of reason, there are few among us who would
      obstinately refuse a trial of the comforts and the cares of
      royalty. It may therefore be of some use to borrow the experience
      of the same Abdalrahman, whose magnificence has perhaps excited
      our admiration and envy, and to transcribe an authentic memorial
      which was found in the closet of the deceased caliph. “I have now
      reigned above fifty years in victory or peace; beloved by my
      subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies.
      Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call,
      nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my
      felicity. In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days
      of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot: they
      amount to Fourteen:—O man! place not thy confidence in this
      present world!” 50 The luxury of the caliphs, so useless to their
      private happiness, relaxed the nerves, and terminated the
      progress, of the Arabian empire. Temporal and spiritual conquest
      had been the sole occupation of the first successors of Mahomet;
      and after supplying themselves with the necessaries of life, the
      whole revenue was scrupulously devoted to that salutary work. The
      Abbassides were impoverished by the multitude of their wants, and
      their contempt of oeconomy. Instead of pursuing the great object
      of ambition, their leisure, their affections, the powers of their
      mind, were diverted by pomp and pleasure: the rewards of valor
      were embezzled by women and eunuchs, and the royal camp was
      encumbered by the luxury of the palace. A similar temper was
      diffused among the subjects of the caliph. Their stern enthusiasm
      was softened by time and prosperity. they sought riches in the
      occupations of industry, fame in the pursuits of literature, and
      happiness in the tranquillity of domestic life. War was no longer
      the passion of the Saracens; and the increase of pay, the
      repetition of donatives, were insufficient to allure the
      posterity of those voluntary champions who had crowded to the
      standard of Abubeker and Omar for the hopes of spoil and of
      paradise.

      50 (return) [ Cardonne, tom. i. p. 329, 330. This confession, the
      complaints of Solomon of the vanity of this world, (read Prior’s
      verbose but eloquent poem,) and the happy ten days of the emperor
      Seghed, (Rambler, No. 204, 205,) will be triumphantly quoted by
      the detractors of human life. Their expectations are commonly
      immoderate, their estimates are seldom impartial. If I may speak
      of myself, (the only person of whom I can speak with certainty,)
      my happy hours have far exceeded, and far exceed, the scanty
      numbers of the caliph of Spain; and I shall not scruple to add,
      that many of them are due to the pleasing labor of the present
      composition.]

      Under the reign of the Ommiades, the studies of the Moslems were
      confined to the interpretation of the Koran, and the eloquence
      and poetry of their native tongue. A people continually exposed
      to the dangers of the field must esteem the healing powers of
      medicine, or rather of surgery; but the starving physicians of
      Arabia murmured a complaint that exercise and temperance deprived
      them of the greatest part of their practice. 51 After their civil
      and domestic wars, the subjects of the Abbassides, awakening from
      this mental lethargy, found leisure and felt curiosity for the
      acquisition of profane science. This spirit was first encouraged
      by the caliph Almansor, who, besides his knowledge of the
      Mahometan law, had applied himself with success to the study of
      astronomy. But when the sceptre devolved to Almamon, the seventh
      of the Abbassides, he completed the designs of his grandfather,
      and invited the muses from their ancient seats. His ambassadors
      at Constantinople, his agents in Armenia, Syria, and Egypt,
      collected the volumes of Grecian science; at his command they
      were translated by the most skilful interpreters into the Arabic
      language: his subjects were exhorted assiduously to peruse these
      instructive writings; and the successor of Mahomet assisted with
      pleasure and modesty at the assemblies and disputations of the
      learned. “He was not ignorant,” says Abulpharagius, “that they
      are the elect of God, his best and most useful servants, whose
      lives are devoted to the improvement of their rational faculties.
      The mean ambition of the Chinese or the Turks may glory in the
      industry of their hands or the indulgence of their brutal
      appetites. Yet these dexterous artists must view, with hopeless
      emulation, the hexagons and pyramids of the cells of a beehive:
      52 these fortitudinous heroes are awed by the superior fierceness
      of the lions and tigers; and in their amorous enjoyments they are
      much inferior to the vigor of the grossest and most sordid
      quadrupeds. The teachers of wisdom are the true luminaries and
      legislators of a world, which, without their aid, would again
      sink in ignorance and barbarism.” 53 The zeal and curiosity of
      Almamon were imitated by succeeding princes of the line of Abbas:
      their rivals, the Fatimites of Africa and the Ommiades of Spain,
      were the patrons of the learned, as well as the commanders of the
      faithful; the same royal prerogative was claimed by their
      independent emirs of the provinces; and their emulation diffused
      the taste and the rewards of science from Samarcand and Bochara
      to Fez and Cordova. The vizier of a sultan consecrated a sum of
      two hundred thousand pieces of gold to the foundation of a
      college at Bagdad, which he endowed with an annual revenue of
      fifteen thousand dinars. The fruits of instruction were
      communicated, perhaps at different times, to six thousand
      disciples of every degree, from the son of the noble to that of
      the mechanic: a sufficient allowance was provided for the
      indigent scholars; and the merit or industry of the professors
      was repaid with adequate stipends. In every city the productions
      of Arabic literature were copied and collected by the curiosity
      of the studious and the vanity of the rich. A private doctor
      refused the invitation of the sultan of Bochara, because the
      carriage of his books would have required four hundred camels.
      The royal library of the Fatimites consisted of one hundred
      thousand manuscripts, elegantly transcribed and splendidly bound,
      which were lent, without jealousy or avarice, to the students of
      Cairo. Yet this collection must appear moderate, if we can
      believe that the Ommiades of Spain had formed a library of six
      hundred thousand volumes, forty-four of which were employed in
      the mere catalogue. Their capital, Cordova, with the adjacent
      towns of Malaga, Almeria, and Murcia, had given birth to more
      than three hundred writers, and above seventy public libraries
      were opened in the cities of the Andalusian kingdom. The age of
      Arabian learning continued about five hundred years, till the
      great eruption of the Moguls, and was coeval with the darkest and
      most slothful period of European annals; but since the sun of
      science has arisen in the West, it should seem that the Oriental
      studies have languished and declined. 54

      51 (return) [ The Guliston (p. 29) relates the conversation of
      Mahomet and a physician, (Epistol. Renaudot. in Fabricius,
      Bibliot. Graec. tom. i. p. 814.) The prophet himself was skilled
      in the art of medicine; and Gagnier (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p.
      394-405) has given an extract of the aphorisms which are extant
      under his name.]

      52 (return) [ See their curious architecture in Reaumur (Hist.
      des Insectes, tom. v. Memoire viii.) These hexagons are closed by
      a pyramid; the angles of the three sides of a similar pyramid,
      such as would accomplish the given end with the smallest quantity
      possible of materials, were determined by a mathematician, at
      109] degrees 26 minutes for the larger, 70 degrees 34 minutes for
      the smaller. The actual measure is 109 degrees 28 minutes, 70
      degrees 32 minutes. Yet this perfect harmony raises the work at
      the expense of the artist he bees are not masters of transcendent
      geometry.]

      53 (return) [ Saed Ebn Ahmed, cadhi of Toledo, who died A. H.
      462, A.D. 069, has furnished Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 160) with
      this curious passage, as well as with the text of Pocock’s
      Specimen Historiae Arabum. A number of literary anecdotes of
      philosophers, physicians, &c., who have flourished under each
      caliph, form the principal merit of the Dynasties of
      Abulpharagius.]

      54 (return) [ These literary anecdotes are borrowed from the
      Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana, (tom. ii. p. 38, 71, 201, 202,) Leo
      Africanus, (de Arab. Medicis et Philosophis, in Fabric. Bibliot.
      Graec. tom. xiii. p. 259-293, particularly p. 274,) and Renaudot,
      (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 274, 275, 536, 537,) besides the
      chronological remarks of Abulpharagius.]

      In the libraries of the Arabians, as in those of Europe, the far
      greater part of the innumerable volumes were possessed only of
      local value or imaginary merit. 55 The shelves were crowded with
      orators and poets, whose style was adapted to the taste and
      manners of their countrymen; with general and partial histories,
      which each revolving generation supplied with a new harvest of
      persons and events; with codes and commentaries of jurisprudence,
      which derived their authority from the law of the prophet; with
      the interpreters of the Koran, and orthodox tradition; and with
      the whole theological tribe, polemics, mystics, scholastics, and
      moralists, the first or the last of writers, according to the
      different estimates of sceptics or believers. The works of
      speculation or science may be reduced to the four classes of
      philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and physic. The sages of
      Greece were translated and illustrated in the Arabic language,
      and some treatises, now lost in the original, have been recovered
      in the versions of the East, 56 which possessed and studied the
      writings of Aristotle and Plato, of Euclid and Apollonius, of
      Ptolemy, Hippocrates, and Galen. 57 Among the ideal systems which
      have varied with the fashion of the times, the Arabians adopted
      the philosophy of the Stagirite, alike intelligible or alike
      obscure for the readers of every age. Plato wrote for the
      Athenians, and his allegorical genius is too closely blended with
      the language and religion of Greece. After the fall of that
      religion, the Peripatetics, emerging from their obscurity,
      prevailed in the controversies of the Oriental sects, and their
      founder was long afterwards restored by the Mahometans of Spain
      to the Latin schools. 58 The physics, both of the Academy and the
      Lycaeum, as they are built, not on observation, but on argument,
      have retarded the progress of real knowledge. The metaphysics of
      infinite, or finite, spirit, have too often been enlisted in the
      service of superstition. But the human faculties are fortified by
      the art and practice of dialectics; the ten predicaments of
      Aristotle collect and methodize our ideas, 59 and his syllogism
      is the keenest weapon of dispute. It was dexterously wielded in
      the schools of the Saracens, but as it is more effectual for the
      detection of error than for the investigation of truth, it is not
      surprising that new generations of masters and disciples should
      still revolve in the same circle of logical argument. The
      mathematics are distinguished by a peculiar privilege, that, in
      the course of ages, they may always advance, and can never
      recede. But the ancient geometry, if I am not misinformed, was
      resumed in the same state by the Italians of the fifteenth
      century; and whatever may be the origin of the name, the science
      of algebra is ascribed to the Grecian Diophantus by the modest
      testimony of the Arabs themselves. 60 They cultivated with more
      success the sublime science of astronomy, which elevates the mind
      of man to disdain his diminutive planet and momentary existence.
      The costly instruments of observation were supplied by the caliph
      Almamon, and the land of the Chaldaeans still afforded the same
      spacious level, the same unclouded horizon. In the plains of
      Sinaar, and a second time in those of Cufa, his mathematicians
      accurately measured a degree of the great circle of the earth,
      and determined at twenty-four thousand miles the entire
      circumference of our globe. 61 From the reign of the Abbassides
      to that of the grandchildren of Tamerlane, the stars, without the
      aid of glasses, were diligently observed; and the astronomical
      tables of Bagdad, Spain, and Samarcand, 62 correct some minute
      errors, without daring to renounce the hypothesis of Ptolemy,
      without advancing a step towards the discovery of the solar
      system. In the Eastern courts, the truths of science could be
      recommended only by ignorance and folly, and the astronomer would
      have been disregarded, had he not debased his wisdom or honesty
      by the vain predictions of astrology. 63 But in the science of
      medicine, the Arabians have been deservedly applauded. The names
      of Mesua and Geber, of Razis and Avicenna, are ranked with the
      Grecian masters; in the city of Bagdad, eight hundred and sixty
      physicians were licensed to exercise their lucrative profession:
      64 in Spain, the life of the Catholic princes was intrusted to
      the skill of the Saracens, 65 and the school of Salerno, their
      legitimate offspring, revived in Italy and Europe the precepts of
      the healing art. 66 The success of each professor must have been
      influenced by personal and accidental causes; but we may form a
      less fanciful estimate of their general knowledge of anatomy, 67
      botany, 68 and chemistry, 69 the threefold basis of their theory
      and practice. A superstitious reverence for the dead confined
      both the Greeks and the Arabians to the dissection of apes and
      quadrupeds; the more solid and visible parts were known in the
      time of Galen, and the finer scrutiny of the human frame was
      reserved for the microscope and the injections of modern artists.
      Botany is an active science, and the discoveries of the torrid
      zone might enrich the herbal of Dioscorides with two thousand
      plants. Some traditionary knowledge might be secreted in the
      temples and monasteries of Egypt; much useful experience had been
      acquired in the practice of arts and manufactures; but the
      science of chemistry owes its origin and improvement to the
      industry of the Saracens. They first invented and named the
      alembic for the purposes of distillation, analyzed the substances
      of the three kingdoms of nature, tried the distinction and
      affinities of alcalis and acids, and converted the poisonous
      minerals into soft and salutary medicines. But the most eager
      search of Arabian chemistry was the transmutation of metals, and
      the elixir of immortal health: the reason and the fortunes of
      thousands were evaporated in the crucibles of alchemy, and the
      consummation of the great work was promoted by the worthy aid of
      mystery, fable, and superstition.

      55 (return) [ The Arabic catalogue of the Escurial will give a
      just idea of the proportion of the classes. In the library of
      Cairo, the Mss of astronomy and medicine amounted to 6500, with
      two fair globes, the one of brass, the other of silver, (Bibliot.
      Arab. Hisp. tom. i. p. 417.)]

      56 (return) [ As, for instance, the fifth, sixth, and seventh
      books (the eighth is still wanting) of the Conic Sections of
      Apollonius Pergaeus, which were printed from the Florence Ms.
      1661, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. ii. p. 559.) Yet the fifth
      book had been previously restored by the mathematical divination
      of Viviani, (see his Eloge in Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 59, &c.)]

      57 (return) [ The merit of these Arabic versions is freely
      discussed by Renaudot, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. i. p.
      812-816,) and piously defended by Casiri, (Bibliot. Arab.
      Hispana, tom. i. p. 238-240.) Most of the versions of Plato,
      Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen, &c., are ascribed to Honain, a
      physician of the Nestorian sect, who flourished at Bagdad in the
      court of the caliphs, and died A.D. 876. He was at the head of a
      school or manufacture of translations, and the works of his sons
      and disciples were published under his name. See Abulpharagius,
      (Dynast. p. 88, 115, 171-174, and apud Asseman. Bibliot. Orient.
      tom. ii. p. 438,) D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 456,)
      Asseman. (Bibliot. Orient. tom. iii. p. 164,) and Casiri,
      (Bibliot. Arab. Hispana, tom. i. p. 238, &c. 251, 286-290, 302,
      304, &c.)]

      58 (return) [ See Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 181, 214,
      236, 257, 315, 388, 396, 438, &c.]

      59 (return) [ The most elegant commentary on the Categories or
      Predicaments of Aristotle may be found in the Philosophical
      Arrangements of Mr. James Harris, (London, 1775, in octavo,) who
      labored to revive the studies of Grecian literature and
      philosophy.]

      60 (return) [ Abulpharagius, Dynast. p. 81, 222. Bibliot. Arab.
      Hisp. tom. i. p. 370, 371. In quem (says the primate of the
      Jacobites) si immiserit selector, oceanum hoc in genere
      (algebrae) inveniet. The time of Diophantus of Alexandria is
      unknown; but his six books are still extant, and have been
      illustrated by the Greek Planudes and the Frenchman Meziriac,
      (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. iv. p. 12-15.)]

      61 (return) [ Abulfeda (Annal. Moslem. p. 210, 211, vers. Reiske)
      describes this operation according to Ibn Challecan, and the best
      historians. This degree most accurately contains 200,000 royal or
      Hashemite cubits which Arabia had derived from the sacred and
      legal practice both of Palestine and Egypt. This ancient cubit is
      repeated 400 times in each basis of the great pyramid, and seems
      to indicate the primitive and universal measures of the East. See
      the Metrologie of the laborions. M. Paucton, p. 101-195.]

      62 (return) [ See the Astronomical Tables of Ulugh Begh, with the
      preface of Dr. Hyde in the first volume of his Syntagma
      Dissertationum, Oxon. 1767.]

      63 (return) [ The truth of astrology was allowed by Albumazar,
      and the best of the Arabian astronomers, who drew their most
      certain predictions, not from Venus and Mercury, but from Jupiter
      and the sun, (Abulpharag. Dynast. p. 161-163.) For the state and
      science of the Persian astronomers, see Chardin, (Voyages en
      Perse, tom. iii. p. 162-203.)]

      64 (return) [ Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. i. p. 438. The
      original relates a pleasant tale of an ignorant, but harmless,
      practitioner.]

      65 (return) [ In the year 956, Sancho the Fat, king of Leon, was
      cured by the physicians of Cordova, (Mariana, l. viii. c. 7, tom.
      i. p. 318.)]

      66 (return) [ The school of Salerno, and the introduction of the
      Arabian sciences into Italy, are discussed with learning and
      judgment by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. iii.
      p. 932-940) and Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii. p.
      119-127.)]

      67 (return) [ See a good view of the progress of anatomy in
      Wotton, (Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning, p. 208-256.)
      His reputation has been unworthily depreciated by the wits in the
      controversy of Boyle and Bentley.]

      68 (return) [ Bibliot. Arab. Hispana, tom. i. p. 275. Al Beithar,
      of Malaga, their greatest botanist, had travelled into Africa,
      Persia, and India.]

      69 (return) [ Dr. Watson, (Elements of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 17,
      &c.) allows the original merit of the Arabians. Yet he quotes the
      modest confession of the famous Geber of the ixth century,
      (D’Herbelot, p. 387,) that he had drawn most of his science,
      perhaps the transmutation of metals, from the ancient sages.
      Whatever might be the origin or extent of their knowledge, the
      arts of chemistry and alchemy appear to have been known in Egypt
      at least three hundred years before Mahomet, (Wotton’s
      Reflections, p. 121-133. Pauw, Recherches sur les Egyptiens et
      les Chinois, tom. i. p. 376-429.) * Note: Mr. Whewell (Hist. of
      Inductive Sciences, vol. i. p. 336) rejects the claim of the
      Arabians as inventors of the science of chemistry. “The formation
      and realization of the notions of analysis and affinity were
      important steps in chemical science; which, as I shall hereafter
      endeavor to show it remained for the chemists of Europe to make
      at a much later period.”—M.]

      But the Moslems deprived themselves of the principal benefits of
      a familiar intercourse with Greece and Rome, the knowledge of
      antiquity, the purity of taste, and the freedom of thought.
      Confident in the riches of their native tongue, the Arabians
      disdained the study of any foreign idiom. The Greek interpreters
      were chosen among their Christian subjects; they formed their
      translations, sometimes on the original text, more frequently
      perhaps on a Syriac version; and in the crowd of astronomers and
      physicians, there is no example of a poet, an orator, or even an
      historian, being taught to speak the language of the Saracens. 70
      The mythology of Homer would have provoked the abhorrence of
      those stern fanatics: they possessed in lazy ignorance the
      colonies of the Macedonians, and the provinces of Carthage and
      Rome: the heroes of Plutarch and Livy were buried in oblivion;
      and the history of the world before Mahomet was reduced to a
      short legend of the patriarchs, the prophets, and the Persian
      kings. Our education in the Greek and Latin schools may have
      fixed in our minds a standard of exclusive taste; and I am not
      forward to condemn the literature and judgment of nations, of
      whose language I am ignorant. Yet I know that the classics have
      much to teach, and I believe that the Orientals have much to
      learn; the temperate dignity of style, the graceful proportions
      of art, the forms of visible and intellectual beauty, the just
      delineation of character and passion, the rhetoric of narrative
      and argument, the regular fabric of epic and dramatic poetry. 71
      The influence of truth and reason is of a less ambiguous
      complexion. The philosophers of Athens and Rome enjoyed the
      blessings, and asserted the rights, of civil and religious
      freedom. Their moral and political writings might have gradually
      unlocked the fetters of Eastern despotism, diffused a liberal
      spirit of inquiry and toleration, and encouraged the Arabian
      sages to suspect that their caliph was a tyrant, and their
      prophet an impostor. 72 The instinct of superstition was alarmed
      by the introduction even of the abstract sciences; and the more
      rigid doctors of the law condemned the rash and pernicious
      curiosity of Almamon. 73 To the thirst of martyrdom, the vision
      of paradise, and the belief of predestination, we must ascribe
      the invincible enthusiasm of the prince and people. And the sword
      of the Saracens became less formidable when their youth was drawn
      away from the camp to the college, when the armies of the
      faithful presumed to read and to reflect. Yet the foolish vanity
      of the Greeks was jealous of their studies, and reluctantly
      imparted the sacred fire to the Barbarians of the East. 74

      70 (return) [ Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 26, 148) mentions a
      Syriac version of Homer’s two poems, by Theophilus, a Christian
      Maronite of Mount Libanus, who professed astronomy at Roha or
      Edessa towards the end of the viiith century. His work would be a
      literary curiosity. I have read somewhere, but I do not believe,
      that Plutarch’s Lives were translated into Turkish for the use of
      Mahomet the Second.]

      71 (return) [ I have perused, with much pleasure, Sir William
      Jones’s Latin Commentary on Asiatic Poetry, (London, 1774, in
      octavo,) which was composed in the youth of that wonderful
      linguist. At present, in the maturity of his taste and judgment,
      he would perhaps abate of the fervent, and even partial, praise
      which he has bestowed on the Orientals.]

      72 (return) [ Among the Arabian philosophers, Averroes has been
      accused of despising the religions of the Jews, the Christians,
      and the Mahometans, (see his article in Bayle’s Dictionary.) Each
      of these sects would agree, that in two instances out of three,
      his contempt was reasonable.]

      73 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque, Orientale, p. 546.]

      74 (return) [ Cedrenus, p. 548, who relates how manfully the
      emperor refused a mathematician to the instances and offers of
      the caliph Almamon. This absurd scruple is expressed almost in
      the same words by the continuator of Theophanes, (Scriptores post
      Theophanem, p. 118.)]

      In the bloody conflict of the Ommiades and Abbassides, the Greeks
      had stolen the opportunity of avenging their wrongs and enlarging
      their limits. But a severe retribution was exacted by Mohadi, the
      third caliph of the new dynasty, who seized, in his turn, the
      favorable opportunity, while a woman and a child, Irene and
      Constantine, were seated on the Byzantine throne. An army of
      ninety-five thousand Persians and Arabs was sent from the Tigris
      to the Thracian Bosphorus, under the command of Harun, 75 or
      Aaron, the second son of the commander of the faithful. His
      encampment on the opposite heights of Chrysopolis, or Scutari,
      informed Irene, in her palace of Constantinople, of the loss of
      her troops and provinces. With the consent or connivance of their
      sovereign, her ministers subscribed an ignominious peace; and the
      exchange of some royal gifts could not disguise the annual
      tribute of seventy thousand dinars of gold, which was imposed on
      the Roman empire. The Saracens had too rashly advanced into the
      midst of a distant and hostile land: their retreat was solicited
      by the promise of faithful guides and plentiful markets; and not
      a Greek had courage to whisper, that their weary forces might be
      surrounded and destroyed in their necessary passage between a
      slippery mountain and the River Sangarius. Five years after this
      expedition, Harun ascended the throne of his father and his elder
      brother; the most powerful and vigorous monarch of his race,
      illustrious in the West, as the ally of Charlemagne, and familiar
      to the most childish readers, as the perpetual hero of the
      Arabian tales. His title to the name of Al Rashid (the Just) is
      sullied by the extirpation of the generous, perhaps the innocent,
      Barmecides; yet he could listen to the complaint of a poor widow
      who had been pillaged by his troops, and who dared, in a passage
      of the Koran, to threaten the inattentive despot with the
      judgment of God and posterity. His court was adorned with luxury
      and science; but, in a reign of three-and-twenty years, Harun
      repeatedly visited his provinces from Chorasan to Egypt; nine
      times he performed the pilgrimage of Mecca; eight times he
      invaded the territories of the Romans; and as often as they
      declined the payment of the tribute, they were taught to feel
      that a month of depredation was more costly than a year of
      submission. But when the unnatural mother of Constantine was
      deposed and banished, her successor, Nicephorus, resolved to
      obliterate this badge of servitude and disgrace. The epistle of
      the emperor to the caliph was pointed with an allusion to the
      game of chess, which had already spread from Persia to Greece.
      “The queen (he spoke of Irene) considered you as a rook, and
      herself as a pawn. That pusillanimous female submitted to pay a
      tribute, the double of which she ought to have exacted from the
      Barbarians. Restore therefore the fruits of your injustice, or
      abide the determination of the sword.” At these words the
      ambassadors cast a bundle of swords before the foot of the
      throne. The caliph smiled at the menace, and drawing his cimeter,
      samsamah, a weapon of historic or fabulous renown, he cut asunder
      the feeble arms of the Greeks, without turning the edge, or
      endangering the temper, of his blade. He then dictated an epistle
      of tremendous brevity: “In the name of the most merciful God,
      Harun al Rashid, commander of the faithful, to Nicephorus, the
      Roman dog. I have read thy letter, O thou son of an unbelieving
      mother. Thou shalt not hear, thou shalt behold, my reply.” It was
      written in characters of blood and fire on the plains of Phrygia;
      and the warlike celerity of the Arabs could only be checked by
      the arts of deceit and the show of repentance.

      The triumphant caliph retired, after the fatigues of the
      campaign, to his favorite palace of Racca on the Euphrates: 76
      but the distance of five hundred miles, and the inclemency of the
      season, encouraged his adversary to violate the peace. Nicephorus
      was astonished by the bold and rapid march of the commander of
      the faithful, who repassed, in the depth of winter, the snows of
      Mount Taurus: his stratagems of policy and war were exhausted;
      and the perfidious Greek escaped with three wounds from a field
      of battle overspread with forty thousand of his subjects. Yet the
      emperor was ashamed of submission, and the caliph was resolved on
      victory. One hundred and thirty-five thousand regular soldiers
      received pay, and were inscribed in the military roll; and above
      three hundred thousand persons of every denomination marched
      under the black standard of the Abbassides. They swept the
      surface of Asia Minor far beyond Tyana and Ancyra, and invested
      the Pontic Heraclea, 77 once a flourishing state, now a paltry
      town; at that time capable of sustaining, in her antique walls, a
      month’s siege against the forces of the East. The ruin was
      complete, the spoil was ample; but if Harun had been conversant
      with Grecian story, he would have regretted the statue of
      Hercules, whose attributes, the club, the bow, the quiver, and
      the lion’s hide, were sculptured in massy gold. The progress of
      desolation by sea and land, from the Euxine to the Isle of
      Cyprus, compelled the emperor Nicephorus to retract his haughty
      defiance. In the new treaty, the ruins of Heraclea were left
      forever as a lesson and a trophy; and the coin of the tribute was
      marked with the image and superscription of Harun and his three
      sons. 78 Yet this plurality of lords might contribute to remove
      the dishonor of the Roman name. After the death of their father,
      the heirs of the caliph were involved in civil discord, and the
      conqueror, the liberal Almamon, was sufficiently engaged in the
      restoration of domestic peace and the introduction of foreign
      science.

      75 (return) [ See the reign and character of Harun Al Rashid, in
      the Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 431-433, under his proper title;
      and in the relative articles to which M. D’Herbelot refers. That
      learned collector has shown much taste in stripping the Oriental
      chronicles of their instructive and amusing anecdotes.]

      76 (return) [ For the situation of Racca, the old Nicephorium,
      consult D’Anville, (l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 24-27.) The
      Arabian Nights represent Harun al Rashid as almost stationary in
      Bagdad. He respected the royal seat of the Abbassides: but the
      vices of the inhabitants had driven him from the city, (Abulfed.
      Annal. p. 167.)]

      77 (return) [ M. de Tournefort, in his coasting voyage from
      Constantinople to Trebizond, passed a night at Heraclea or
      Eregri. His eye surveyed the present state, his reading collected
      the antiquities, of the city (Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. lettre
      xvi. p. 23-35.) We have a separate history of Heraclea in the
      fragments of Memnon, which are preserved by Photius.]

      78 (return) [ The wars of Harun al Rashid against the Roman
      empire are related by Theophanes, (p. 384, 385, 391, 396, 407,
      408.) Zonaras, (tom. iii. l. xv. p. 115, 124,) Cedrenus, (p. 477,
      478,) Eutycaius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 407,) Elmacin, (Hist.
      Saracen. p. 136, 151, 152,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 147, 151,)
      and Abulfeda, (p. 156, 166-168.)]




      Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part IV.

      Under the reign of Almamon at Bagdad, of Michael the Stammerer at
      Constantinople, the islands of Crete 79 and Sicily were subdued
      by the Arabs. The former of these conquests is disdained by their
      own writers, who were ignorant of the fame of Jupiter and Minos,
      but it has not been overlooked by the Byzantine historians, who
      now begin to cast a clearer light on the affairs of their own
      times. 80 A band of Andalusian volunteers, discontented with the
      climate or government of Spain, explored the adventures of the
      sea; but as they sailed in no more than ten or twenty galleys,
      their warfare must be branded with the name of piracy. As the
      subjects and sectaries of the white party, they might lawfully
      invade the dominions of the black caliphs. A rebellious faction
      introduced them into Alexandria; 81 they cut in pieces both
      friends and foes, pillaged the churches and the moschs, sold
      above six thousand Christian captives, and maintained their
      station in the capital of Egypt, till they were oppressed by the
      forces and the presence of Almamon himself. From the mouth of the
      Nile to the Hellespont, the islands and sea-coasts both of the
      Greeks and Moslems were exposed to their depredations; they saw,
      they envied, they tasted the fertility of Crete, and soon
      returned with forty galleys to a more serious attack. The
      Andalusians wandered over the land fearless and unmolested; but
      when they descended with their plunder to the sea-shore, their
      vessels were in flames, and their chief, Abu Caab, confessed
      himself the author of the mischief. Their clamors accused his
      madness or treachery. “Of what do you complain?” replied the
      crafty emir. “I have brought you to a land flowing with milk and
      honey. Here is your true country; repose from your toils, and
      forget the barren place of your nativity.” “And our wives and
      children?” “Your beauteous captives will supply the place of your
      wives, and in their embraces you will soon become the fathers of
      a new progeny.” The first habitation was their camp, with a ditch
      and rampart, in the Bay of Suda; but an apostate monk led them to
      a more desirable position in the eastern parts; and the name of
      Candax, their fortress and colony, has been extended to the whole
      island, under the corrupt and modern appellation of Candia. The
      hundred cities of the age of Minos were diminished to thirty; and
      of these, only one, most probably Cydonia, had courage to retain
      the substance of freedom and the profession of Christianity. The
      Saracens of Crete soon repaired the loss of their navy; and the
      timbers of Mount Ida were launched into the main. During a
      hostile period of one hundred and thirty-eight years, the princes
      of Constantinople attacked these licentious corsairs with
      fruitless curses and ineffectual arms.

      79 (return) [ The authors from whom I have learned the most of
      the ancient and modern state of Crete, are Belon, (Observations,
      &c., c. 3-20, Paris, 1555,) Tournefort, (Voyage du Levant, tom.
      i. lettre ii. et iii.,) and Meursius, (Creta, in his works, tom.
      iii. p. 343-544.) Although Crete is styled by Homer, by
      Dionysius, I cannot conceive that mountainous island to surpass,
      or even to equal, in fertility the greater part of Spain.]

      80 (return) [ The most authentic and circumstantial intelligence
      is obtained from the four books of the Continuation of
      Theophanes, compiled by the pen or the command of Constantine
      Porphyrogenitus, with the Life of his father Basil, the
      Macedonian, (Scriptores post Theophanem, p. 1-162, a Francisc.
      Combefis, Paris, 1685.) The loss of Crete and Sicily is related,
      l. ii. p. 46-52. To these we may add the secondary evidence of
      Joseph Genesius, (l. ii. p. 21, Venet. 1733,) George Cedrenus,
      (Compend. p. 506-508,) and John Scylitzes Curopalata, (apud
      Baron. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 827, No. 24, &c.) But the modern
      Greeks are such notorious plagiaries, that I should only quote a
      plurality of names.]

      81 (return) [ Renaudot (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 251-256,
      268-270) had described the ravages of the Andalusian Arabs in
      Egypt, but has forgot to connect them with the conquest of
      Crete.]

      The loss of Sicily 82 was occasioned by an act of superstitious
      rigor. An amorous youth, who had stolen a nun from her cloister,
      was sentenced by the emperor to the amputation of his tongue.
      Euphemius appealed to the reason and policy of the Saracens of
      Africa; and soon returned with the Imperial purple, a fleet of
      one hundred ships, and an army of seven hundred horse and ten
      thousand foot. They landed at Mazara near the ruins of the
      ancient Selinus; but after some partial victories, Syracuse 83
      was delivered by the Greeks, the apostate was slain before her
      walls, and his African friends were reduced to the necessity of
      feeding on the flesh of their own horses. In their turn they were
      relieved by a powerful reenforcement of their brethren of
      Andalusia; the largest and western part of the island was
      gradually reduced, and the commodious harbor of Palermo was
      chosen for the seat of the naval and military power of the
      Saracens. Syracuse preserved about fifty years the faith which
      she had sworn to Christ and to Caesar. In the last and fatal
      siege, her citizens displayed some remnant of the spirit which
      had formerly resisted the powers of Athens and Carthage. They
      stood above twenty days against the battering-rams and
      catapultoe, the mines and tortoises of the besiegers; and the
      place might have been relieved, if the mariners of the Imperial
      fleet had not been detained at Constantinople in building a
      church to the Virgin Mary. The deacon Theodosius, with the bishop
      and clergy, was dragged in chains from the altar to Palermo, cast
      into a subterraneous dungeon, and exposed to the hourly peril of
      death or apostasy. His pathetic, and not inelegant, complaint may
      be read as the epitaph of his country. 84 From the Roman conquest
      to this final calamity, Syracuse, now dwindled to the primitive
      Isle of Ortygea, had insensibly declined. Yet the relics were
      still precious; the plate of the cathedral weighed five thousand
      pounds of silver; the entire spoil was computed at one million of
      pieces of gold, (about four hundred thousand pounds sterling,)
      and the captives must outnumber the seventeen thousand
      Christians, who were transported from the sack of Tauromenium
      into African servitude. In Sicily, the religion and language of
      the Greeks were eradicated; and such was the docility of the
      rising generation, that fifteen thousand boys were circumcised
      and clothed on the same day with the son of the Fatimite caliph.
      The Arabian squadrons issued from the harbors of Palermo,
      Biserta, and Tunis; a hundred and fifty towns of Calabria and
      Campania were attacked and pillaged; nor could the suburbs of
      Rome be defended by the name of the Caesars and apostles. Had the
      Mahometans been united, Italy must have fallen an easy and
      glorious accession to the empire of the prophet. But the caliphs
      of Bagdad had lost their authority in the West; the Aglabites and
      Fatimites usurped the provinces of Africa, their emirs of Sicily
      aspired to independence; and the design of conquest and dominion
      was degraded to a repetition of predatory inroads. 85

      82 (return) [ Theophanes, l. ii. p. 51. This history of the loss
      of Sicily is no longer extant. Muratori (Annali d’ Italia, tom.
      vii. p. 719, 721, &c.) has added some circumstances from the
      Italian chronicles.]

      83 (return) [ The splendid and interesting tragedy of Tancrede
      would adapt itself much better to this epoch, than to the date
      (A.D. 1005) which Voltaire himself has chosen. But I must gently
      reproach the poet for infusing into the Greek subjects the spirit
      of modern knights and ancient republicans.]

      84 (return) [ The narrative or lamentation of Theodosius is
      transcribed and illustrated by Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. p. 719,
      &c.) Constantine Porphyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil, c. 69, 70, p.
      190-192) mentions the loss of Syracuse and the triumph of the
      demons.]

      85 (return) [ The extracts from the Arabic histories of Sicily
      are given in Abulfeda, (Annal’ Moslem. p. 271-273,) and in the
      first volume of Muratori’s Scriptores Rerum Italicarum. M. de
      Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 363, 364) has added some
      important facts.]

      In the sufferings of prostrate Italy, the name of Rome awakens a
      solemn and mournful recollection. A fleet of Saracens from the
      African coast presumed to enter the mouth of the Tyber, and to
      approach a city which even yet, in her fallen state, was revered
      as the metropolis of the Christian world. The gates and ramparts
      were guarded by a trembling people; but the tombs and temples of
      St. Peter and St. Paul were left exposed in the suburbs of the
      Vatican and of the Ostian way. Their invisible sanctity had
      protected them against the Goths, the Vandals, and the Lombards;
      but the Arabs disdained both the gospel and the legend; and their
      rapacious spirit was approved and animated by the precepts of the
      Koran. The Christian idols were stripped of their costly
      offerings; a silver altar was torn away from the shrine of St.
      Peter; and if the bodies or the buildings were left entire, their
      deliverance must be imputed to the haste, rather than the
      scruples, of the Saracens. In their course along the Appian way,
      they pillaged Fundi and besieged Gayeta; but they had turned
      aside from the walls of Rome, and by their divisions, the Capitol
      was saved from the yoke of the prophet of Mecca. The same danger
      still impended on the heads of the Roman people; and their
      domestic force was unequal to the assault of an African emir.
      They claimed the protection of their Latin sovereign; but the
      Carlovingian standard was overthrown by a detachment of the
      Barbarians: they meditated the restoration of the Greek emperors;
      but the attempt was treasonable, and the succor remote and
      precarious. 86 Their distress appeared to receive some
      aggravation from the death of their spiritual and temporal chief;
      but the pressing emergency superseded the forms and intrigues of
      an election; and the unanimous choice of Pope Leo the Fourth 87
      was the safety of the church and city. This pontiff was born a
      Roman; the courage of the first ages of the republic glowed in
      his breast; and, amidst the ruins of his country, he stood erect,
      like one of the firm and lofty columns that rear their heads
      above the fragments of the Roman forum. The first days of his
      reign were consecrated to the purification and removal of relics,
      to prayers and processions, and to all the solemn offices of
      religion, which served at least to heal the imagination, and
      restore the hopes, of the multitude. The public defence had been
      long neglected, not from the presumption of peace, but from the
      distress and poverty of the times. As far as the scantiness of
      his means and the shortness of his leisure would allow, the
      ancient walls were repaired by the command of Leo; fifteen
      towers, in the most accessible stations, were built or renewed;
      two of these commanded on either side of the Tyber; and an iron
      chain was drawn across the stream to impede the ascent of a
      hostile navy. The Romans were assured of a short respite by the
      welcome news, that the siege of Gayeta had been raised, and that
      a part of the enemy, with their sacrilegious plunder, had
      perished in the waves.

      86 (return) [ One of the most eminent Romans (Gratianus, magister
      militum et Romani palatii superista) was accused of declaring,
      Quia Franci nihil nobis boni faciunt, neque adjutorium praebent,
      sed magis quae nostra sunt violenter tollunt. Quare non advocamus
      Graecos, et cum eis foedus pacis componentes, Francorum regem et
      gentem de nostro regno et dominatione expellimus? Anastasius in
      Leone IV. p. 199.]

      87 (return) [ Voltaire (Hist. Generale, tom. ii. c. 38, p. 124)
      appears to be remarkably struck with the character of Pope Leo
      IV. I have borrowed his general expression, but the sight of the
      forum has furnished me with a more distinct and lively image.]

      But the storm, which had been delayed, soon burst upon them with
      redoubled violence. The Aglabite, 88 who reigned in Africa, had
      inherited from his father a treasure and an army: a fleet of
      Arabs and Moors, after a short refreshment in the harbors of
      Sardinia, cast anchor before the mouth of the Tyber, sixteen
      miles from the city: and their discipline and numbers appeared to
      threaten, not a transient inroad, but a serious design of
      conquest and dominion. But the vigilance of Leo had formed an
      alliance with the vassals of the Greek empire, the free and
      maritime states of Gayeta, Naples, and Amalfi; and in the hour of
      danger, their galleys appeared in the port of Ostia under the
      command of Caesarius, the son of the Neapolitan duke, a noble and
      valiant youth, who had already vanquished the fleets of the
      Saracens. With his principal companions, Caesarius was invited to
      the Lateran palace, and the dexterous pontiff affected to inquire
      their errand, and to accept with joy and surprise their
      providential succor. The city bands, in arms, attended their
      father to Ostia, where he reviewed and blessed his generous
      deliverers. They kissed his feet, received the communion with
      martial devotion, and listened to the prayer of Leo, that the
      same God who had supported St. Peter and St. Paul on the waves of
      the sea, would strengthen the hands of his champions against the
      adversaries of his holy name. After a similar prayer, and with
      equal resolution, the Moslems advanced to the attack of the
      Christian galleys, which preserved their advantageous station
      along the coast. The victory inclined to the side of the allies,
      when it was less gloriously decided in their favor by a sudden
      tempest, which confounded the skill and courage of the stoutest
      mariners. The Christians were sheltered in a friendly harbor,
      while the Africans were scattered and dashed in pieces among the
      rocks and islands of a hostile shore. Those who escaped from
      shipwreck and hunger neither found, nor deserved, mercy at the
      hands of their implacable pursuers. The sword and the gibbet
      reduced the dangerous multitude of captives; and the remainder
      was more usefully employed, to restore the sacred edifices which
      they had attempted to subvert. The pontiff, at the head of the
      citizens and allies, paid his grateful devotion at the shrines of
      the apostles; and, among the spoils of this naval victory,
      thirteen Arabian bows of pure and massy silver were suspended
      round the altar of the fishermen of Galilee. The reign of Leo the
      Fourth was employed in the defence and ornament of the Roman
      state. The churches were renewed and embellished: near four
      thousand pounds of silver were consecrated to repair the losses
      of St. Peter; and his sanctuary was decorated with a plate of
      gold of the weight of two hundred and sixteen pounds, embossed
      with the portraits of the pope and emperor, and encircled with a
      string of pearls. Yet this vain magnificence reflects less glory
      on the character of Leo than the paternal care with which he
      rebuilt the walls of Horta and Ameria; and transported the
      wandering inhabitants of Centumcellae to his new foundation of
      Leopolis, twelve miles from the sea-shore. 89 By his liberality,
      a colony of Corsicans, with their wives and children, was planted
      in the station of Porto, at the mouth of the Tyber: the falling
      city was restored for their use, the fields and vineyards were
      divided among the new settlers: their first efforts were assisted
      by a gift of horses and cattle; and the hardy exiles, who
      breathed revenge against the Saracens, swore to live and die
      under the standard of St. Peter. The nations of the West and
      North who visited the threshold of the apostles had gradually
      formed the large and populous suburb of the Vatican, and their
      various habitations were distinguished, in the language of the
      times, as the schools of the Greeks and Goths, of the Lombards
      and Saxons. But this venerable spot was still open to
      sacrilegious insult: the design of enclosing it with walls and
      towers exhausted all that authority could command, or charity
      would supply: and the pious labor of four years was animated in
      every season, and at every hour, by the presence of the
      indefatigable pontiff. The love of fame, a generous but worldly
      passion, may be detected in the name of the Leonine city, which
      he bestowed on the Vatican; yet the pride of the dedication was
      tempered with Christian penance and humility. The boundary was
      trod by the bishop and his clergy, barefoot, in sackcloth and
      ashes; the songs of triumph were modulated to psalms and
      litanies; the walls were besprinkled with holy water; and the
      ceremony was concluded with a prayer, that, under the guardian
      care of the apostles and the angelic host, both the old and the
      new Rome might ever be preserved pure, prosperous, and
      impregnable. 90

      88 (return) [ De Guignes, Hist. Generale des Huns, tom. i. p.
      363, 364. Cardonne, Hist. de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne, sous la
      Domination des Arabs, tom. ii. p. 24, 25. I observe, and cannot
      reconcile, the difference of these writers in the succession of
      the Aglabites.]

      89 (return) [ Beretti (Chorographia Italiae Medii Evi, p. 106,
      108) has illustrated Centumcellae, Leopolis, Civitas Leonina, and
      the other places of the Roman duchy.]

      90 (return) [ The Arabs and the Greeks are alike silent
      concerning the invasion of Rome by the Africans. The Latin
      chronicles do not afford much instruction, (see the Annals of
      Baronius and Pagi.) Our authentic and contemporary guide for the
      popes of the ixth century is Anastasius, librarian of the Roman
      church. His Life of Leo IV, contains twenty-four pages, (p.
      175-199, edit. Paris;) and if a great part consist of
      superstitious trifles, we must blame or command his hero, who was
      much oftener in a church than in a camp.]

      The emperor Theophilus, son of Michael the Stammerer, was one of
      the most active and high-spirited princes who reigned at
      Constantinople during the middle age. In offensive or defensive
      war, he marched in person five times against the Saracens,
      formidable in his attack, esteemed by the enemy in his losses and
      defeats. In the last of these expeditions he penetrated into
      Syria, and besieged the obscure town of Sozopetra; the casual
      birthplace of the caliph Motassem, whose father Harun was
      attended in peace or war by the most favored of his wives and
      concubines. The revolt of a Persian impostor employed at that
      moment the arms of the Saracen, and he could only intercede in
      favor of a place for which he felt and acknowledged some degree
      of filial affection. These solicitations determined the emperor
      to wound his pride in so sensible a part. Sozopetra was levelled
      with the ground, the Syrian prisoners were marked or mutilated
      with ignominious cruelty, and a thousand female captives were
      forced away from the adjacent territory. Among these a matron of
      the house of Abbas invoked, in an agony of despair, the name of
      Motassem; and the insults of the Greeks engaged the honor of her
      kinsman to avenge his indignity, and to answer her appeal. Under
      the reign of the two elder brothers, the inheritance of the
      youngest had been confined to Anatolia, Armenia, Georgia, and
      Circassia; this frontier station had exercised his military
      talents; and among his accidental claims to the name of Octonary,
      91 the most meritorious are the eight battles which he gained or
      fought against the enemies of the Koran. In this personal
      quarrel, the troops of Irak, Syria, and Egypt, were recruited
      from the tribes of Arabia and the Turkish hordes; his cavalry
      might be numerous, though we should deduct some myriads from the
      hundred and thirty thousand horses of the royal stables; and the
      expense of the armament was computed at four millions sterling,
      or one hundred thousand pounds of gold. From Tarsus, the place of
      assembly, the Saracens advanced in three divisions along the high
      road of Constantinople: Motassem himself commanded the centre,
      and the vanguard was given to his son Abbas, who, in the trial of
      the first adventures, might succeed with the more glory, or fail
      with the least reproach. In the revenge of his injury, the caliph
      prepared to retaliate a similar affront. The father of Theophilus
      was a native of Amorium 92 in Phrygia: the original seat of the
      Imperial house had been adorned with privileges and monuments;
      and, whatever might be the indifference of the people,
      Constantinople itself was scarcely of more value in the eyes of
      the sovereign and his court. The name of Amorium was inscribed on
      the shields of the Saracens; and their three armies were again
      united under the walls of the devoted city. It had been proposed
      by the wisest counsellors, to evacuate Amorium, to remove the
      inhabitants, and to abandon the empty structures to the vain
      resentment of the Barbarians. The emperor embraced the more
      generous resolution of defending, in a siege and battle, the
      country of his ancestors. When the armies drew near, the front of
      the Mahometan line appeared to a Roman eye more closely planted
      with spears and javelins; but the event of the action was not
      glorious on either side to the national troops. The Arabs were
      broken, but it was by the swords of thirty thousand Persians, who
      had obtained service and settlement in the Byzantine empire. The
      Greeks were repulsed and vanquished, but it was by the arrows of
      the Turkish cavalry; and had not their bowstrings been damped and
      relaxed by the evening rain, very few of the Christians could
      have escaped with the emperor from the field of battle. They
      breathed at Dorylaeum, at the distance of three days; and
      Theophilus, reviewing his trembling squadrons, forgave the common
      flight both of the prince and people. After this discovery of his
      weakness, he vainly hoped to deprecate the fate of Amorium: the
      inexorable caliph rejected with contempt his prayers and
      promises; and detained the Roman ambassadors to be the witnesses
      of his great revenge. They had nearly been the witnesses of his
      shame. The vigorous assaults of fifty-five days were encountered
      by a faithful governor, a veteran garrison, and a desperate
      people; and the Saracens must have raised the siege, if a
      domestic traitor had not pointed to the weakest part of the wall,
      a place which was decorated with the statues of a lion and a
      bull. The vow of Motassem was accomplished with unrelenting
      rigor: tired, rather than satiated, with destruction, he returned
      to his new palace of Samara, in the neighborhood of Bagdad, while
      the unfortunate 93 Theophilus implored the tardy and doubtful aid
      of his Western rival the emperor of the Franks. Yet in the siege
      of Amorium about seventy thousand Moslems had perished: their
      loss had been revenged by the slaughter of thirty thousand
      Christians, and the sufferings of an equal number of captives,
      who were treated as the most atrocious criminals. Mutual
      necessity could sometimes extort the exchange or ransom of
      prisoners: 94 but in the national and religious conflict of the
      two empires, peace was without confidence, and war without mercy.
      Quarter was seldom given in the field; those who escaped the edge
      of the sword were condemned to hopeless servitude, or exquisite
      torture; and a Catholic emperor relates, with visible
      satisfaction, the execution of the Saracens of Crete, who were
      flayed alive, or plunged into caldrons of boiling oil. 95 To a
      point of honor Motassem had sacrificed a flourishing city, two
      hundred thousand lives, and the property of millions. The same
      caliph descended from his horse, and dirtied his robe, to relieve
      the distress of a decrepit old man, who, with his laden ass, had
      tumbled into a ditch. On which of these actions did he reflect
      with the most pleasure, when he was summoned by the angel of
      death? 96

      91 (return) [ The same number was applied to the following
      circumstance in the life of Motassem: he was the eight of the
      Abbassides; he reigned eight years, eight months, and eight days;
      left eight sons, eight daughters, eight thousand slaves, eight
      millions of gold.]

      92 (return) [ Amorium is seldom mentioned by the old geographers,
      and to tally forgotten in the Roman Itineraries. After the vith
      century, it became an episcopal see, and at length the metropolis
      of the new Galatia, (Carol. Scto. Paulo, Geograph. Sacra, p.
      234.) The city rose again from its ruins, if we should read
      Ammeria, not Anguria, in the text of the Nubian geographer. (p.
      236.)]

      93 (return) [ In the East he was styled, (Continuator Theophan.
      l. iii. p. 84;) but such was the ignorance of the West, that his
      ambassadors, in public discourse, might boldly narrate, de
      victoriis, quas adversus exteras bellando gentes coelitus fuerat
      assecutus, (Annalist. Bertinian. apud Pagi, tom. iii. p. 720.)]

      94 (return) [ Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 167, 168) relates one of
      these singular transactions on the bridge of the River Lamus in
      Cilicia, the limit of the two empires, and one day’s journey
      westward of Tarsus, (D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p.
      91.) Four thousand four hundred and sixty Moslems, eight hundred
      women and children, one hundred confederates, were exchanged for
      an equal number of Greeks. They passed each other in the middle
      of the bridge, and when they reached their respective friends,
      they shouted Allah Acbar, and Kyrie Eleison. Many of the
      prisoners of Amorium were probably among them, but in the same
      year, (A. H. 231,) the most illustrious of them, the forty two
      martyrs, were beheaded by the caliph’s order.]

      95 (return) [ Constantin. Porphyrogenitus, in Vit. Basil. c. 61,
      p. 186. These Saracens were indeed treated with peculiar severity
      as pirates and renegadoes.]

      96 (return) [ For Theophilus, Motassem, and the Amorian war, see
      the Continuator of Theophanes, (l. iii. p. 77-84,) Genesius (l.
      iii. p. 24-34.) Cedrenus, (p. 528-532,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen,
      p. 180,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 165, 166,) Abulfeda, (Annal.
      Moslem. p. 191,) D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 639, 640.)]

      With Motassem, the eighth of the Abbassides, the glory of his
      family and nation expired. When the Arabian conquerors had spread
      themselves over the East, and were mingled with the servile
      crowds of Persia, Syria, and Egypt, they insensibly lost the
      freeborn and martial virtues of the desert. The courage of the
      South is the artificial fruit of discipline and prejudice; the
      active power of enthusiasm had decayed, and the mercenary forces
      of the caliphs were recruited in those climates of the North, of
      which valor is the hardy and spontaneous production. Of the Turks
      97 who dwelt beyond the Oxus and Jaxartes, the robust youths,
      either taken in war or purchased in trade, were educated in the
      exercises of the field, and the profession of the Mahometan
      faith. The Turkish guards stood in arms round the throne of their
      benefactor, and their chiefs usurped the dominion of the palace
      and the provinces. Motassem, the first author of this dangerous
      example, introduced into the capital above fifty thousand Turks:
      their licentious conduct provoked the public indignation, and the
      quarrels of the soldiers and people induced the caliph to retire
      from Bagdad, and establish his own residence and the camp of his
      Barbarian favorites at Samara on the Tigris, about twelve leagues
      above the city of Peace. 98 His son Motawakkel was a jealous and
      cruel tyrant: odious to his subjects, he cast himself on the
      fidelity of the strangers, and these strangers, ambitious and
      apprehensive, were tempted by the rich promise of a revolution.
      At the instigation, or at least in the cause of his son, they
      burst into his apartment at the hour of supper, and the caliph
      was cut into seven pieces by the same swords which he had
      recently distributed among the guards of his life and throne. To
      this throne, yet streaming with a father’s blood, Montasser was
      triumphantly led; but in a reign of six months, he found only the
      pangs of a guilty conscience. If he wept at the sight of an old
      tapestry which represented the crime and punishment of the son of
      Chosroes, if his days were abridged by grief and remorse, we may
      allow some pity to a parricide, who exclaimed, in the bitterness
      of death, that he had lost both this world and the world to come.
      After this act of treason, the ensigns of royalty, the garment
      and walking-staff of Mahomet, were given and torn away by the
      foreign mercenaries, who in four years created, deposed, and
      murdered, three commanders of the faithful. As often as the Turks
      were inflamed by fear, or rage, or avarice, these caliphs were
      dragged by the feet, exposed naked to the scorching sun, beaten
      with iron clubs, and compelled to purchase, by the abdication of
      their dignity, a short reprieve of inevitable fate. 99 At length,
      however, the fury of the tempest was spent or diverted: the
      Abbassides returned to the less turbulent residence of Bagdad;
      the insolence of the Turks was curbed with a firmer and more
      skilful hand, and their numbers were divided and destroyed in
      foreign warfare. But the nations of the East had been taught to
      trample on the successors of the prophet; and the blessings of
      domestic peace were obtained by the relaxation of strength and
      discipline. So uniform are the mischiefs of military despotism,
      that I seem to repeat the story of the praetorians of Rome. 100

      97 (return) [ M. de Guignes, who sometimes leaps, and sometimes
      stumbles, in the gulf between Chinese and Mahometan story, thinks
      he can see, that these Turks are the Hoei-ke, alias the Kao-tche,
      or high-wagons; that they were divided into fifteen hordes, from
      China and Siberia to the dominions of the caliphs and Samanides,
      &c., (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 1-33, 124-131.)]

      98 (return) [ He changed the old name of Sumera, or Samara, into
      the fanciful title of Sermen-rai, that which gives pleasure at
      first sight, (D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 808.
      D’Anville, l’Euphrate et le Tigre p. 97, 98.)]

      99 (return) [ Take a specimen, the death of the caliph Motaz:
      Correptum pedibus pertrahunt, et sudibus probe permulcant, et
      spoliatum laceris vestibus in sole collocant, prae cujus acerrimo
      aestu pedes alternos attollebat et demittebat. Adstantium aliquis
      misero colaphos continuo ingerebat, quos ille objectis manibus
      avertere studebat..... Quo facto traditus tortori fuit, totoque
      triduo cibo potuque prohibitus..... Suffocatus, &c. (Abulfeda, p.
      206.) Of the caliph Mohtadi, he says, services ipsi perpetuis
      ictibus contundebant, testiculosque pedibus conculcabant, (p.
      208.)]

      100 (return) [ See under the reigns of Motassem, Motawakkel,
      Montasser, Mostain, Motaz, Mohtadi, and Motamed, in the
      Bibliotheque of D’Herbelot, and the now familiar Annals of
      Elmacin, Abulpharagius, and Abulfeda.]

      While the flame of enthusiasm was damped by the business, the
      pleasure, and the knowledge, of the age, it burnt with
      concentrated heat in the breasts of the chosen few, the congenial
      spirits, who were ambitious of reigning either in this world or
      in the next. How carefully soever the book of prophecy had been
      sealed by the apostle of Mecca, the wishes, and (if we may
      profane the word) even the reason, of fanaticism might believe
      that, after the successive missions of Adam, Noah, Abraham,
      Moses, Jesus, and Mahomet, the same God, in the fulness of time,
      would reveal a still more perfect and permanent law. In the two
      hundred and seventy-seventh year of the Hegira, and in the
      neighborhood of Cufa, an Arabian preacher, of the name of
      Carmath, assumed the lofty and incomprehensible style of the
      Guide, the Director, the Demonstration, the Word, the Holy Ghost,
      the Camel, the Herald of the Messiah, who had conversed with him
      in a human shape, and the representative of Mohammed the son of
      Ali, of St. John the Baptist, and of the angel Gabriel. In his
      mystic volume, the precepts of the Koran were refined to a more
      spiritual sense: he relaxed the duties of ablution, fasting, and
      pilgrimage; allowed the indiscriminate use of wine and forbidden
      food; and nourished the fervor of his disciples by the daily
      repetition of fifty prayers. The idleness and ferment of the
      rustic crowd awakened the attention of the magistrates of Cufa; a
      timid persecution assisted the progress of the new sect; and the
      name of the prophet became more revered after his person had been
      withdrawn from the world. His twelve apostles dispersed
      themselves among the Bedoweens, “a race of men,” says Abulfeda,
      “equally devoid of reason and of religion;” and the success of
      their preaching seemed to threaten Arabia with a new revolution.
      The Carmathians were ripe for rebellion, since they disclaimed
      the title of the house of Abbas, and abhorred the worldly pomp of
      the caliphs of Bagdad. They were susceptible of discipline, since
      they vowed a blind and absolute submission to their Imam, who was
      called to the prophetic office by the voice of God and the
      people. Instead of the legal tithes, he claimed the fifth of
      their substance and spoil; the most flagitious sins were no more
      than the type of disobedience; and the brethren were united and
      concealed by an oath of secrecy. After a bloody conflict, they
      prevailed in the province of Bahrein, along the Persian Gulf: far
      and wide, the tribes of the desert were subject to the sceptre,
      or rather to the sword of Abu Said and his son Abu Taher; and
      these rebellious imams could muster in the field a hundred and
      seven thousand fanatics. The mercenaries of the caliph were
      dismayed at the approach of an enemy who neither asked nor
      accepted quarter; and the difference between, them in fortitude
      and patience, is expressive of the change which three centuries
      of prosperity had effected in the character of the Arabians. Such
      troops were discomfited in every action; the cities of Racca and
      Baalbec, of Cufa and Bassora, were taken and pillaged; Bagdad was
      filled with consternation; and the caliph trembled behind the
      veils of his palace. In a daring inroad beyond the Tigris, Abu
      Taher advanced to the gates of the capital with no more than five
      hundred horse. By the special order of Moctader, the bridges had
      been broken down, and the person or head of the rebel was
      expected every hour by the commander of the faithful. His
      lieutenant, from a motive of fear or pity, apprised Abu Taher of
      his danger, and recommended a speedy escape. “Your master,” said
      the intrepid Carmathian to the messenger, “is at the head of
      thirty thousand soldiers: three such men as these are wanting in
      his host:” at the same instant, turning to three of his
      companions, he commanded the first to plunge a dagger into his
      breast, the second to leap into the Tigris, and the third to cast
      himself headlong down a precipice. They obeyed without a murmur.

      “Relate,” continued the imam, “what you have seen: before the
      evening your general shall be chained among my dogs.” Before the
      evening, the camp was surprised, and the menace was executed. The
      rapine of the Carmathians was sanctified by their aversion to the
      worship of Mecca: they robbed a caravan of pilgrims, and twenty
      thousand devout Moslems were abandoned on the burning sands to a
      death of hunger and thirst. Another year they suffered the
      pilgrims to proceed without interruption; but, in the festival of
      devotion, Abu Taher stormed the holy city, and trampled on the
      most venerable relics of the Mahometan faith. Thirty thousand
      citizens and strangers were put to the sword; the sacred
      precincts were polluted by the burial of three thousand dead
      bodies; the well of Zemzem overflowed with blood; the golden
      spout was forced from its place; the veil of the Caaba was
      divided among these impious sectaries; and the black stone, the
      first monument of the nation, was borne away in triumph to their
      capital. After this deed of sacrilege and cruelty, they continued
      to infest the confines of Irak, Syria, and Egypt: but the vital
      principle of enthusiasm had withered at the root. Their scruples,
      or their avarice, again opened the pilgrimage of Mecca, and
      restored the black stone of the Caaba; and it is needless to
      inquire into what factions they were broken, or by whose swords
      they were finally extirpated. The sect of the Carmathians may be
      considered as the second visible cause of the decline and fall of
      the empire of the caliphs. 101

      101 (return) [ For the sect of the Carmathians, consult Elmacin,
      (Hist. Sara cen, p. 219, 224, 229, 231, 238, 241, 243,)
      Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 179-182,) Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p.
      218, 219, &c., 245, 265, 274.) and D’Herbelot, (Bibliotheque
      Orientale, p. 256-258, 635.) I find some inconsistencies of
      theology and chronology, which it would not be easy nor of much
      importance to reconcile. * Note: Compare Von Hammer, Geschichte
      der Assassinen, p. 44, &c.—M.]




      Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part V.

      The third and most obvious cause was the weight and magnitude of
      the empire itself. The caliph Almamon might proudly assert, that
      it was easier for him to rule the East and the West, than to
      manage a chess-board of two feet square: 102 yet I suspect that
      in both those games he was guilty of many fatal mistakes; and I
      perceive, that in the distant provinces the authority of the
      first and most powerful of the Abbassides was already impaired.
      The analogy of despotism invests the representative with the full
      majesty of the prince; the division and balance of powers might
      relax the habits of obedience, might encourage the passive
      subject to inquire into the origin and administration of civil
      government. He who is born in the purple is seldom worthy to
      reign; but the elevation of a private man, of a peasant, perhaps,
      or a slave, affords a strong presumption of his courage and
      capacity. The viceroy of a remote kingdom aspires to secure the
      property and inheritance of his precarious trust; the nations
      must rejoice in the presence of their sovereign; and the command
      of armies and treasures are at once the object and the instrument
      of his ambition. A change was scarcely visible as long as the
      lieutenants of the caliph were content with their vicarious
      title; while they solicited for themselves or their sons a
      renewal of the Imperial grant, and still maintained on the coin
      and in the public prayers the name and prerogative of the
      commander of the faithful. But in the long and hereditary
      exercise of power, they assumed the pride and attributes of
      royalty; the alternative of peace or war, of reward or
      punishment, depended solely on their will; and the revenues of
      their government were reserved for local services or private
      magnificence. Instead of a regular supply of men and money, the
      successors of the prophet were flattered with the ostentatious
      gift of an elephant, or a cast of hawks, a suit of silk hangings,
      or some pounds of musk and amber. 103

      102 (return) [ Hyde, Syntagma Dissertat. tom. ii. p. 57, in Hist.
      Shahiludii.]

      103 (return) [ The dynasties of the Arabian empire may be studied
      in the Annals of Elmacin, Abulpharagius, and Abulfeda, under the
      proper years, in the dictionary of D’Herbelot, under the proper
      names. The tables of M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i.)
      exhibit a general chronology of the East, interspersed with some
      historical anecdotes; but his attachment to national blood has
      sometimes confounded the order of time and place.]

      After the revolt of Spain from the temporal and spiritual
      supremacy of the Abbassides, the first symptoms of disobedience
      broke forth in the province of Africa. Ibrahim, the son of Aglab,
      the lieutenant of the vigilant and rigid Harun, bequeathed to the
      dynasty of the Aglabites the inheritance of his name and power.
      The indolence or policy of the caliphs dissembled the injury and
      loss, and pursued only with poison the founder of the Edrisites,
      104 who erected the kingdom and city of Fez on the shores of the
      Western ocean. 105 In the East, the first dynasty was that of the
      Taherites; 106 the posterity of the valiant Taher, who, in the
      civil wars of the sons of Harun, had served with too much zeal
      and success the cause of Almamon, the younger brother. He was
      sent into honorable exile, to command on the banks of the Oxus;
      and the independence of his successors, who reigned in Chorasan
      till the fourth generation, was palliated by their modest and
      respectful demeanor, the happiness of their subjects and the
      security of their frontier. They were supplanted by one of those
      adventures so frequent in the annals of the East, who left his
      trade of a brazier (from whence the name of Soffarides) for the
      profession of a robber. In a nocturnal visit to the treasure of
      the prince of Sistan, Jacob, the son of Leith, stumbled over a
      lump of salt, which he unwarily tasted with his tongue. Salt,
      among the Orientals, is the symbol of hospitality, and the pious
      robber immediately retired without spoil or damage. The discovery
      of this honorable behavior recommended Jacob to pardon and trust;
      he led an army at first for his benefactor, at last for himself,
      subdued Persia, and threatened the residence of the Abbassides.
      On his march towards Bagdad, the conqueror was arrested by a
      fever. He gave audience in bed to the ambassador of the caliph;
      and beside him on a table were exposed a naked cimeter, a crust
      of brown bread, and a bunch of onions. “If I die,” said he, “your
      master is delivered from his fears. If I live, this must
      determine between us. If I am vanquished, I can return without
      reluctance to the homely fare of my youth.” From the height where
      he stood, the descent would not have been so soft or harmless: a
      timely death secured his own repose and that of the caliph, who
      paid with the most lavish concessions the retreat of his brother
      Amrou to the palaces of Shiraz and Ispahan. The Abbassides were
      too feeble to contend, too proud to forgive: they invited the
      powerful dynasty of the Samanides, who passed the Oxus with ten
      thousand horse so poor, that their stirrups were of wood: so
      brave, that they vanquished the Soffarian army, eight times more
      numerous than their own. The captive Amrou was sent in chains, a
      grateful offering to the court of Bagdad; and as the victor was
      content with the inheritance of Transoxiana and Chorasan, the
      realms of Persia returned for a while to the allegiance of the
      caliphs. The provinces of Syria and Egypt were twice dismembered
      by their Turkish slaves of the race of Toulon and Ilkshid. 107
      These Barbarians, in religion and manners the countrymen of
      Mahomet, emerged from the bloody factions of the palace to a
      provincial command and an independent throne: their names became
      famous and formidable in their time; but the founders of these
      two potent dynasties confessed, either in words or actions, the
      vanity of ambition. The first on his death-bed implored the mercy
      of God to a sinner, ignorant of the limits of his own power: the
      second, in the midst of four hundred thousand soldiers and eight
      thousand slaves, concealed from every human eye the chamber where
      he attempted to sleep. Their sons were educated in the vices of
      kings; and both Egypt and Syria were recovered and possessed by
      the Abbassides during an interval of thirty years. In the decline
      of their empire, Mesopotamia, with the important cities of Mosul
      and Aleppo, was occupied by the Arabian princes of the tribe of
      Hamadan. The poets of their court could repeat without a blush,
      that nature had formed their countenances for beauty, their
      tongues for eloquence, and their hands for liberality and valor:
      but the genuine tale of the elevation and reign of the
      Hamadanites exhibits a scene of treachery, murder, and parricide.

      At the same fatal period, the Persian kingdom was again usurped
      by the dynasty of the Bowides, by the sword of three brothers,
      who, under various names, were styled the support and columns of
      the state, and who, from the Caspian Sea to the ocean, would
      suffer no tyrants but themselves. Under their reign, the language
      and genius of Persia revived, and the Arabs, three hundred and
      four years after the death of Mahomet, were deprived of the
      sceptre of the East.

      104 (return) [ The Aglabites and Edrisites are the professed
      subject of M. de Cardonne, (Hist. de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne
      sous la Domination des Arabes, tom. ii. p. 1-63.)]

      105 (return) [ To escape the reproach of error, I must criticize
      the inaccuracies of M. de Guignes (tom. i. p. 359) concerning the
      Edrisites. 1. The dynasty and city of Fez could not be founded in
      the year of the Hegira 173, since the founder was a posthumous
      child of a descendant of Ali, who fled from Mecca in the year
      168. 2. This founder, Edris, the son of Edris, instead of living
      to the improbable age of 120 years, A. H. 313, died A. H. 214, in
      the prime of manhood. 3. The dynasty ended A. H. 307,
      twenty-three years sooner than it is fixed by the historian of
      the Huns. See the accurate Annals of Abulfeda p. 158, 159, 185,
      238.]

      106 (return) [ The dynasties of the Taherites and Soffarides,
      with the rise of that of the Samanines, are described in the
      original history and Latin version of Mirchond: yet the most
      interesting facts had already been drained by the diligence of M.
      D’Herbelot.]

      107 (return) [ M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p.
      124-154) has exhausted the Toulunides and Ikshidites of Egypt,
      and thrown some light on the Carmathians and Hamadanites.]

      Rahadi, the twentieth of the Abbassides, and the thirty-ninth of
      the successors of Mahomet, was the last who deserved the title of
      commander of the faithful; 108 the last (says Abulfeda) who spoke
      to the people, or conversed with the learned; the last who, in
      the expense of his household, represented the wealth and
      magnificence of the ancient caliphs. After him, the lords of the
      Eastern world were reduced to the most abject misery, and exposed
      to the blows and insults of a servile condition. The revolt of
      the provinces circumscribed their dominions within the walls of
      Bagdad: but that capital still contained an innumerable
      multitude, vain of their past fortune, discontented with their
      present state, and oppressed by the demands of a treasury which
      had formerly been replenished by the spoil and tribute of
      nations. Their idleness was exercised by faction and controversy.
      Under the mask of piety, the rigid followers of Hanbal 109
      invaded the pleasures of domestic life, burst into the houses of
      plebeians and princes, the wine, broke the instruments, beat the
      musicians, and dishonored, with infamous suspicions, the
      associates of every handsome youth. In each profession, which
      allowed room for two persons, the one was a votary, the other an
      antagonist, of Ali; and the Abbassides were awakened by the
      clamorous grief of the sectaries, who denied their title, and
      cursed their progenitors. A turbulent people could only be
      repressed by a military force; but who could satisfy the avarice
      or assert the discipline of the mercenaries themselves? The
      African and the Turkish guards drew their swords against each
      other, and the chief commanders, the emirs al Omra, 110
      imprisoned or deposed their sovereigns, and violated the
      sanctuary of the mosch and harem. If the caliphs escaped to the
      camp or court of any neighboring prince, their deliverance was a
      change of servitude, till they were prompted by despair to invite
      the Bowides, the sultans of Persia, who silenced the factions of
      Bagdad by their irresistible arms. The civil and military powers
      were assumed by Moezaldowlat, the second of the three brothers,
      and a stipend of sixty thousand pounds sterling was assigned by
      his generosity for the private expense of the commander of the
      faithful. But on the fortieth day, at the audience of the
      ambassadors of Chorasan, and in the presence of a trembling
      multitude, the caliph was dragged from his throne to a dungeon,
      by the command of the stranger, and the rude hands of his
      Dilamites. His palace was pillaged, his eyes were put out, and
      the mean ambition of the Abbassides aspired to the vacant station
      of danger and disgrace. In the school of adversity, the luxurious
      caliphs resumed the grave and abstemious virtues of the primitive
      times. Despoiled of their armor and silken robes, they fasted,
      they prayed, they studied the Koran and the tradition of the
      Sonnites: they performed, with zeal and knowledge, the functions
      of their ecclesiastical character. The respect of nations still
      waited on the successors of the apostle, the oracles of the law
      and conscience of the faithful; and the weakness or division of
      their tyrants sometimes restored the Abbassides to the
      sovereignty of Bagdad. But their misfortunes had been imbittered
      by the triumph of the Fatimites, the real or spurious progeny of
      Ali. Arising from the extremity of Africa, these successful
      rivals extinguished, in Egypt and Syria, both the spiritual and
      temporal authority of the Abbassides; and the monarch of the Nile
      insulted the humble pontiff on the banks of the Tigris.

      108 (return) [ Hic est ultimus chalifah qui multum atque saepius
      pro concione peroraret.... Fuit etiam ultimus qui otium cum
      eruditis et facetis hominibus fallere hilariterque agere soleret.
      Ultimus tandem chalifarum cui sumtus, stipendia, reditus, et
      thesauri, culinae, caeteraque omnis aulica pompa priorum
      chalifarum ad instar comparata fuerint. Videbimus enim paullo
      post quam indignis et servilibius ludibriis exagitati, quam ad
      humilem fortunam altimumque contemptum abjecti fuerint hi quondam
      potentissimi totius terrarum Orientalium orbis domini. Abulfed.
      Annal. Moslem. p. 261. I have given this passage as the manner
      and tone of Abulfeda, but the cast of Latin eloquence belongs
      more properly to Reiske. The Arabian historian (p. 255, 257,
      261-269, 283, &c.) has supplied me with the most interesting
      facts of this paragraph.]

      109 (return) [ Their master, on a similar occasion, showed
      himself of a more indulgent and tolerating spirit. Ahmed Ebn
      Hanbal, the head of one of the four orthodox sects, was born at
      Bagdad A. H. 164, and died there A. H. 241. He fought and
      suffered in the dispute concerning the creation of the Koran.]

      110 (return) [ The office of vizier was superseded by the emir al
      Omra, Imperator Imperatorum, a title first instituted by Radhi,
      and which merged at length in the Bowides and Seljukides:
      vectigalibus, et tributis, et curiis per omnes regiones
      praefecit, jussitque in omnibus suggestis nominis ejus in
      concionibus mentionem fieri, (Abulpharagius, Dynart. p 199.) It
      is likewise mentioned by Elmacin, (p. 254, 255.)]

      In the declining age of the caliphs, in the century which elapsed
      after the war of Theophilus and Motassem, the hostile
      transactions of the two nations were confined to some inroads by
      sea and land, the fruits of their close vicinity and indelible
      hatred. But when the Eastern world was convulsed and broken, the
      Greeks were roused from their lethargy by the hopes of conquest
      and revenge. The Byzantine empire, since the accession of the
      Basilian race, had reposed in peace and dignity; and they might
      encounter with their entire strength the front of some petty
      emir, whose rear was assaulted and threatened by his national
      foes of the Mahometan faith. The lofty titles of the morning
      star, and the death of the Saracens, 111 were applied in the
      public acclamations to Nicephorus Phocas, a prince as renowned in
      the camp, as he was unpopular in the city. In the subordinate
      station of great domestic, or general of the East, he reduced the
      Island of Crete, and extirpated the nest of pirates who had so
      long defied, with impunity, the majesty of the empire. 112 His
      military genius was displayed in the conduct and success of the
      enterprise, which had so often failed with loss and dishonor. The
      Saracens were confounded by the landing of his troops on safe and
      level bridges, which he cast from the vessels to the shore. Seven
      months were consumed in the siege of Candia; the despair of the
      native Cretans was stimulated by the frequent aid of their
      brethren of Africa and Spain; and after the massy wall and double
      ditch had been stormed by the Greeks a hopeless conflict was
      still maintained in the streets and houses of the city. 1121 The
      whole island was subdued in the capital, and a submissive people
      accepted, without resistance, the baptism of the conqueror. 113
      Constantinople applauded the long-forgotten pomp of a triumph;
      but the Imperial diadem was the sole reward that could repay the
      services, or satisfy the ambition, of Nicephorus.

      111 (return) [ Liutprand, whose choleric temper was imbittered by
      his uneasy situation, suggests the names of reproach and contempt
      more applicable to Nicephorus than the vain titles of the Greeks,
      Ecce venit stella matutina, surgit Eous, reverberat obtutu solis
      radios, pallida Saracenorum mors, Nicephorus.]

      112 (return) [ Notwithstanding the insinuation of Zonaras, &c.,
      (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 197,) it is an undoubted fact, that Crete
      was completely and finally subdued by Nicephorus Phocas, (Pagi,
      Critica, tom. iii. p. 873-875. Meursius, Creta, l. iii. c. 7,
      tom. iii. p. 464, 465.)]

      1121 (return) [ The Acroases of Theodorus, de expugnatione
      Cretae, miserable iambics, relate the whole campaign. Whoever
      would fairly estimate the merit of the poetic deacon, may read
      the description of the slinging a jackass into the famishing
      city. The poet is in a transport at the wit of the general, and
      revels in the luxury of antithesis. Theodori Acroases, lib. iii.
      172, in Niebuhr’s Byzant. Hist.—M.]

      113 (return) [ A Greek Life of St. Nicon the Armenian was found
      in the Sforza library, and translated into Latin by the Jesuit
      Sirmond, for the use of Cardinal Baronius. This contemporary
      legend casts a ray of light on Crete and Peloponnesus in the 10th
      century. He found the newly-recovered island, foedis detestandae
      Agarenorum superstitionis vestigiis adhuc plenam ac refertam....
      but the victorious missionary, perhaps with some carnal aid, ad
      baptismum omnes veraeque fidei disciplinam pepulit. Ecclesiis per
      totam insulam aedificatis, &c., (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 961.)]

      After the death of the younger Romanus, the fourth in lineal
      descent of the Basilian race, his widow Theophania successively
      married Nicephorus Phocas and his assassin John Zimisces, the two
      heroes of the age. They reigned as the guardians and colleagues
      of her infant sons; and the twelve years of their military
      command form the most splendid period of the Byzantine annals.
      The subjects and confederates, whom they led to war, appeared, at
      least in the eyes of an enemy, two hundred thousand strong; and
      of these about thirty thousand were armed with cuirasses: 114 a
      train of four thousand mules attended their march; and their
      evening camp was regularly fortified with an enclosure of iron
      spikes. A series of bloody and undecisive combats is nothing more
      than an anticipation of what would have been effected in a few
      years by the course of nature; but I shall briefly prosecute the
      conquests of the two emperors from the hills of Cappadocia to the
      desert of Bagdad. The sieges of Mopsuestia and Tarsus, in
      Cilicia, first exercised the skill and perseverance of their
      troops, on whom, at this moment, I shall not hesitate to bestow
      the name of Romans. In the double city of Mopsuestia, which is
      divided by the River Sarus, two hundred thousand Moslems were
      predestined to death or slavery, 115 a surprising degree of
      population, which must at least include the inhabitants of the
      dependent districts. They were surrounded and taken by assault;
      but Tarsus was reduced by the slow progress of famine; and no
      sooner had the Saracens yielded on honorable terms than they were
      mortified by the distant and unprofitable view of the naval
      succors of Egypt. They were dismissed with a safe-conduct to the
      confines of Syria: a part of the old Christians had quietly lived
      under their dominion; and the vacant habitations were replenished
      by a new colony. But the mosch was converted into a stable; the
      pulpit was delivered to the flames; many rich crosses of gold and
      gems, the spoils of Asiatic churches, were made a grateful
      offering to the piety or avarice of the emperor; and he
      transported the gates of Mopsuestia and Tarsus, which were fixed
      in the walls of Constantinople, an eternal monument of his
      victory. After they had forced and secured the narrow passes of
      Mount Amanus, the two Roman princes repeatedly carried their arms
      into the heart of Syria. Yet, instead of assaulting the walls of
      Antioch, the humanity or superstition of Nicephorus appeared to
      respect the ancient metropolis of the East: he contented himself
      with drawing round the city a line of circumvallation; left a
      stationary army; and instructed his lieutenant to expect, without
      impatience, the return of spring. But in the depth of winter, in
      a dark and rainy night, an adventurous subaltern, with three
      hundred soldiers, approached the rampart, applied his
      scaling-ladders, occupied two adjacent towers, stood firm against
      the pressure of multitudes, and bravely maintained his post till
      he was relieved by the tardy, though effectual, support of his
      reluctant chief. The first tumult of slaughter and rapine
      subsided; the reign of Caesar and of Christ was restored; and the
      efforts of a hundred thousand Saracens, of the armies of Syria
      and the fleets of Africa, were consumed without effect before the
      walls of Antioch. The royal city of Aleppo was subject to
      Seifeddowlat, of the dynasty of Hamadan, who clouded his past
      glory by the precipitate retreat which abandoned his kingdom and
      capital to the Roman invaders. In his stately palace, that stood
      without the walls of Aleppo, they joyfully seized a
      well-furnished magazine of arms, a stable of fourteen hundred
      mules, and three hundred bags of silver and gold. But the walls
      of the city withstood the strokes of their battering-rams: and
      the besiegers pitched their tents on the neighboring mountain of
      Jaushan. Their retreat exasperated the quarrel of the townsmen
      and mercenaries; the guard of the gates and ramparts was
      deserted; and while they furiously charged each other in the
      market-place, they were surprised and destroyed by the sword of a
      common enemy. The male sex was exterminated by the sword; ten
      thousand youths were led into captivity; the weight of the
      precious spoil exceeded the strength and number of the beasts of
      burden; the superfluous remainder was burnt; and, after a
      licentious possession of ten days, the Romans marched away from
      the naked and bleeding city. In their Syrian inroads they
      commanded the husbandmen to cultivate their lands, that they
      themselves, in the ensuing season, might reap the benefit; more
      than a hundred cities were reduced to obedience; and eighteen
      pulpits of the principal moschs were committed to the flames to
      expiate the sacrilege of the disciples of Mahomet. The classic
      names of Hierapolis, Apamea, and Emesa, revive for a moment in
      the list of conquest: the emperor Zimisces encamped in the
      paradise of Damascus, and accepted the ransom of a submissive
      people; and the torrent was only stopped by the impregnable
      fortress of Tripoli, on the sea-coast of Phoenicia. Since the
      days of Heraclius, the Euphrates, below the passage of Mount
      Taurus, had been impervious, and almost invisible, to the Greeks.

      The river yielded a free passage to the victorious Zimisces; and
      the historian may imitate the speed with which he overran the
      once famous cities of Samosata, Edessa, Martyropolis, Amida, 116
      and Nisibis, the ancient limit of the empire in the neighborhood
      of the Tigris. His ardor was quickened by the desire of grasping
      the virgin treasures of Ecbatana, 117 a well-known name, under
      which the Byzantine writer has concealed the capital of the
      Abbassides. The consternation of the fugitives had already
      diffused the terror of his name; but the fancied riches of Bagdad
      had already been dissipated by the avarice and prodigality of
      domestic tyrants. The prayers of the people, and the stern
      demands of the lieutenant of the Bowides, required the caliph to
      provide for the defence of the city. The helpless Mothi replied,
      that his arms, his revenues, and his provinces, had been torn
      from his hands, and that he was ready to abdicate a dignity which
      he was unable to support. The emir was inexorable; the furniture
      of the palace was sold; and the paltry price of forty thousand
      pieces of gold was instantly consumed in private luxury. But the
      apprehensions of Bagdad were relieved by the retreat of the
      Greeks: thirst and hunger guarded the desert of Mesopotamia; and
      the emperor, satiated with glory, and laden with Oriental spoils,
      returned to Constantinople, and displayed, in his triumph, the
      silk, the aromatics, and three hundred myriads of gold and
      silver. Yet the powers of the East had been bent, not broken, by
      this transient hurricane. After the departure of the Greeks, the
      fugitive princes returned to their capitals; the subjects
      disclaimed their involuntary oaths of allegiance; the Moslems
      again purified their temples, and overturned the idols of the
      saints and martyrs; the Nestorians and Jacobites preferred a
      Saracen to an orthodox master; and the numbers and spirit of the
      Melchites were inadequate to the support of the church and state.

      Of these extensive conquests, Antioch, with the cities of Cilicia
      and the Isle of Cyprus, was alone restored, a permanent and
      useful accession to the Roman empire. 118

      114 (return) [ Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 278, 279. Liutprand was
      disposed to depreciate the Greek power, yet he owns that
      Nicephorus led against Assyria an army of eighty thousand men.]

      115 (return) [ Ducenta fere millia hominum numerabat urbs
      (Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p. 231) of Mopsuestia, or Masifa,
      Mampsysta, Mansista, Mamista, as it is corruptly, or perhaps more
      correctly, styled in the middle ages, (Wesseling, Itinerar. p.
      580.) Yet I cannot credit this extreme populousness a few years
      after the testimony of the emperor Leo, (Tactica, c. xviii. in
      Meursii Oper. tom. vi. p. 817.)]

      116 (return) [ The text of Leo the deacon, in the corrupt names
      of Emeta and Myctarsim, reveals the cities of Amida and
      Martyropolis, (Mia farekin. See Abulfeda, Geograph. p. 245, vers.
      Reiske.) Of the former, Leo observes, urbus munita et illustris;
      of the latter, clara atque conspicua opibusque et pecore,
      reliquis ejus provinciis urbibus atque oppidis longe praestans.]

      117 (return) [ Ut et Ecbatana pergeret Agarenorumque regiam
      everteret.... aiunt enim urbium quae usquam sunt ac toto orbe
      existunt felicissimam esse auroque ditissimam, (Leo Diacon. apud
      Pagium, tom. iv. p. 34.) This splendid description suits only
      with Bagdad, and cannot possibly apply either to Hamadan, the
      true Ecbatana, (D’Anville, Geog. Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 237,) or
      Tauris, which has been commonly mistaken for that city. The name
      of Ecbatana, in the same indefinite sense, is transferred by a
      more classic authority (Cicero pro Lego Manilia, c. 4) to the
      royal seat of Mithridates, king of Pontus.]

      118 (return) [ See the Annals of Elmacin, Abulpharagius, and
      Abulfeda, from A. H. 351 to A. H. 361; and the reigns of
      Nicephorus Phocas and John Zimisces, in the Chronicles of Zonaras
      (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 199—l. xvii. 215) and Cedrenus, (Compend. p.
      649-684.) Their manifold defects are partly supplied by the Ms.
      history of Leo the deacon, which Pagi obtained from the
      Benedictines, and has inserted almost entire, in a Latin version,
      (Critica, tom. iii. p. 873, tom. iv. 37.) * Note: The whole
      original work of Leo the Deacon has been published by Hase, and
      is inserted in the new edition of the Byzantine historians. M
      Lassen has added to the Arabian authorities of this period some
      extracts from Kemaleddin’s account of the treaty for the
      surrender of Aleppo.—M.]




      Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part I.

     Fate Of The Eastern Empire In The Tenth Century.—Extent And
     Division.—Wealth And Revenue.—Palace Of Constantinople.— Titles
     And Offices.—Pride And Power Of The Emperors.— Tactics Of The
     Greeks, Arabs, And Franks.—Loss Of The Latin Tongue.—Studies And
     Solitude Of The Greeks.

      A ray of historic light seems to beam from the darkness of the
      tenth century. We open with curiosity and respect the royal
      volumes of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, 1 which he composed at a
      mature age for the instruction of his son, and which promise to
      unfold the state of the eastern empire, both in peace and war,
      both at home and abroad. In the first of these works he minutely
      describes the pompous ceremonies of the church and palace of
      Constantinople, according to his own practice, and that of his
      predecessors. 2 In the second, he attempts an accurate survey of
      the provinces, the themes, as they were then denominated, both of
      Europe and Asia. 3 The system of Roman tactics, the discipline
      and order of the troops, and the military operations by land and
      sea, are explained in the third of these didactic collections,
      which may be ascribed to Constantine or his father Leo. 4 In the
      fourth, of the administration of the empire, he reveals the
      secrets of the Byzantine policy, in friendly or hostile
      intercourse with the nations of the earth. The literary labors of
      the age, the practical systems of law, agriculture, and history,
      might redound to the benefit of the subject and the honor of the
      Macedonian princes. The sixty books of the Basilics, 5 the code
      and pandects of civil jurisprudence, were gradually framed in the
      three first reigns of that prosperous dynasty. The art of
      agriculture had amused the leisure, and exercised the pens, of
      the best and wisest of the ancients; and their chosen precepts
      are comprised in the twenty books of the Geoponics 6 of
      Constantine. At his command, the historical examples of vice and
      virtue were methodized in fifty-three books, 7 and every citizen
      might apply, to his contemporaries or himself, the lesson or the
      warning of past times. From the august character of a legislator,
      the sovereign of the East descends to the more humble office of a
      teacher and a scribe; and if his successors and subjects were
      regardless of his paternal cares, we may inherit and enjoy the
      everlasting legacy.

      1 (return) [ The epithet of Porphyrogenitus, born in the purple,
      is elegantly defined by Claudian:— Ardua privatos nescit fortuna
      Penates; Et regnum cum luce dedit. Cognata potestas Excepit Tyrio
      venerabile pignus in ostro.

      And Ducange, in his Greek and Latin Glossaries, produces many
      passages expressive of the same idea.]

      2 (return) [ A splendid Ms. of Constantine, de Caeremoniis Aulae
      et Ecclesiae Byzantinae, wandered from Constantinople to Buda,
      Frankfort, and Leipsic, where it was published in a splendid
      edition by Leich and Reiske, (A.D. 1751, in folio,) with such
      lavish praise as editors never fail to bestow on the worthy or
      worthless object of their toil.]

      3 (return) [ See, in the first volume of Banduri’s Imperium
      Orientale, Constantinus de Thematibus, p. 1-24, de Administrando
      Imperio, p. 45-127, edit. Venet. The text of the old edition of
      Meursius is corrected from a Ms. of the royal library of Paris,
      which Isaac Casaubon had formerly seen, (Epist. ad Polybium, p.
      10,) and the sense is illustrated by two maps of William
      Deslisle, the prince of geographers till the appearance of the
      greater D’Anville.]

      4 (return) [ The Tactics of Leo and Constantine are published
      with the aid of some new Mss. in the great edition of the works
      of Meursius, by the learned John Lami, (tom. vi. p. 531-920,
      1211-1417, Florent. 1745,) yet the text is still corrupt and
      mutilated, the version is still obscure and faulty. The Imperial
      library of Vienna would afford some valuable materials to a new
      editor, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 369, 370.)]

      5 (return) [ On the subject of the Basilics, Fabricius, (Bibliot.
      Graec. tom. xii. p. 425-514,) and Heineccius, (Hist. Juris
      Romani, p. 396-399,) and Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli,
      tom. i. p. 450-458,) as historical civilians, may be usefully
      consulted: xli. books of this Greek code have been published,
      with a Latin version, by Charles Annibal Frabrottus, (Paris,
      1647,) in seven tomes in folio; iv. other books have been since
      discovered, and are inserted in Gerard Meerman’s Novus Thesaurus
      Juris Civ. et Canon. tom. v. Of the whole work, the sixty books,
      John Leunclavius has printed, (Basil, 1575,) an eclogue or
      synopsis. The cxiii. novels, or new laws, of Leo, may be found in
      the Corpus Juris Civilis.]

      6 (return) [ I have used the last and best edition of the
      Geoponics, (by Nicolas Niclas, Leipsic, 1781, 2 vols. in octavo.)
      I read in the preface, that the same emperor restored the
      long-forgotten systems of rhetoric and philosophy; and his two
      books of Hippiatrica, or Horse-physic, were published at Paris,
      1530, in folio, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 493-500.)]

      7 (return) [ Of these LIII. books, or titles, only two have been
      preserved and printed, de Legationibus (by Fulvius Ursinus,
      Antwerp, 1582, and Daniel Hoeschelius, August. Vindel. 1603) and
      de Virtutibus et Vitiis, (by Henry Valesius, or de Valois, Paris,
      1634.)]

      A closer survey will indeed reduce the value of the gift, and the
      gratitude of posterity: in the possession of these Imperial
      treasures we may still deplore our poverty and ignorance; and the
      fading glories of their authors will be obliterated by
      indifference or contempt. The Basilics will sink to a broken
      copy, a partial and mutilated version, in the Greek language, of
      the laws of Justinian; but the sense of the old civilians is
      often superseded by the influence of bigotry: and the absolute
      prohibition of divorce, concubinage, and interest for money,
      enslaves the freedom of trade and the happiness of private life.
      In the historical book, a subject of Constantine might admire the
      inimitable virtues of Greece and Rome: he might learn to what a
      pitch of energy and elevation the human character had formerly
      aspired. But a contrary effect must have been produced by a new
      edition of the lives of the saints, which the great logothete, or
      chancellor of the empire, was directed to prepare; and the dark
      fund of superstition was enriched by the fabulous and florid
      legends of Simon the Metaphrast. 8 The merits and miracles of the
      whole calendar are of less account in the eyes of a sage, than
      the toil of a single husbandman, who multiplies the gifts of the
      Creator, and supplies the food of his brethren. Yet the royal
      authors of the Geoponics were more seriously employed in
      expounding the precepts of the destroying art, which had been
      taught since the days of Xenophon, 9 as the art of heroes and
      kings. But the Tactics of Leo and Constantine are mingled with
      the baser alloy of the age in which they lived. It was destitute
      of original genius; they implicitly transcribe the rules and
      maxims which had been confirmed by victories. It was unskilled in
      the propriety of style and method; they blindly confound the most
      distant and discordant institutions, the phalanx of Sparta and
      that of Macedon, the legions of Cato and Trajan, of Augustus and
      Theodosius. Even the use, or at least the importance, of these
      military rudiments may be fairly questioned: their general theory
      is dictated by reason; but the merit, as well as difficulty,
      consists in the application. The discipline of a soldier is
      formed by exercise rather than by study: the talents of a
      commander are appropriated to those calm, though rapid, minds,
      which nature produces to decide the fate of armies and nations:
      the former is the habit of a life, the latter the glance of a
      moment; and the battles won by lessons of tactics may be numbered
      with the epic poems created from the rules of criticism. The book
      of ceremonies is a recital, tedious yet imperfect, of the
      despicable pageantry which had infected the church and state
      since the gradual decay of the purity of the one and the power of
      the other. A review of the themes or provinces might promise such
      authentic and useful information, as the curiosity of government
      only can obtain, instead of traditionary fables on the origin of
      the cities, and malicious epigrams on the vices of their
      inhabitants. 10 Such information the historian would have been
      pleased to record; nor should his silence be condemned if the
      most interesting objects, the population of the capital and
      provinces, the amount of the taxes and revenues, the numbers of
      subjects and strangers who served under the Imperial standard,
      have been unnoticed by Leo the philosopher, and his son
      Constantine. His treatise of the public administration is stained
      with the same blemishes; yet it is discriminated by peculiar
      merit; the antiquities of the nations may be doubtful or
      fabulous; but the geography and manners of the Barbaric world are
      delineated with curious accuracy. Of these nations, the Franks
      alone were qualified to observe in their turn, and to describe,
      the metropolis of the East. The ambassador of the great Otho, a
      bishop of Cremona, has painted the state of Constantinople about
      the middle of the tenth century: his style is glowing, his
      narrative lively, his observation keen; and even the prejudices
      and passions of Liutprand are stamped with an original character
      of freedom and genius. 11 From this scanty fund of foreign and
      domestic materials, I shall investigate the form and substance of
      the Byzantine empire; the provinces and wealth, the civil
      government and military force, the character and literature, of
      the Greeks in a period of six hundred years, from the reign of
      Heraclius to his successful invasion of the Franks or Latins.

      8 (return) [ The life and writings of Simon Metaphrastes are
      described by Hankius, (de Scriptoribus Byzant. p. 418-460.) This
      biographer of the saints indulged himself in a loose paraphrase
      of the sense or nonsense of more ancient acts. His Greek rhetoric
      is again paraphrased in the Latin version of Surius, and scarcely
      a thread can be now visible of the original texture.]

      9 (return) [ According to the first book of the Cyropaedia,
      professors of tactics, a small part of the science of war, were
      already instituted in Persia, by which Greece must be understood.
      A good edition of all the Scriptores Tactici would be a task not
      unworthy of a scholar. His industry might discover some new Mss.,
      and his learning might illustrate the military history of the
      ancients. But this scholar should be likewise a soldier; and
      alas! Quintus Icilius is no more. * Note: M. Guichardt, author of
      Memoires Militaires sur les Grecs et sur les Romains. See
      Gibbon’s Extraits Raisonnees de mes Lectures, Misc. Works vol. v.
      p. 219.—M]

      10 (return) [ After observing that the demerit of the
      Cappadocians rose in proportion to their rank and riches, he
      inserts a more pointed epigram, which is ascribed to Demodocus.
      The sting is precisely the same with the French epigram against
      Freron: Un serpent mordit Jean Freron—Eh bien? Le serpent en
      mourut. But as the Paris wits are seldom read in the Anthology, I
      should be curious to learn, through what channel it was conveyed
      for their imitation, (Constantin. Porphyrogen. de Themat. c. ii.
      Brunck Analect. Graec. tom. ii. p. 56. Brodaei Anthologia, l. ii.
      p. 244.)]

      11 (return) [ The Legatio Liutprandi Episcopi Cremonensis ad
      Nicephorum Phocam is inserted in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum
      Italicarum, tom. ii. pars i.]

      After the final division between the sons of Theodosius, the
      swarms of Barbarians from Scythia and Germany over-spread the
      provinces and extinguished the empire of ancient Rome. The
      weakness of Constantinople was concealed by extent of dominion:
      her limits were inviolate, or at least entire; and the kingdom of
      Justinian was enlarged by the splendid acquisition of Africa and
      Italy. But the possession of these new conquests was transient
      and precarious; and almost a moiety of the Eastern empire was
      torn away by the arms of the Saracens. Syria and Egypt were
      oppressed by the Arabian caliphs; and, after the reduction of
      Africa, their lieutenants invaded and subdued the Roman province
      which had been changed into the Gothic monarchy of Spain. The
      islands of the Mediterranean were not inaccessible to their naval
      powers; and it was from their extreme stations, the harbors of
      Crete and the fortresses of Cilicia, that the faithful or rebel
      emirs insulted the majesty of the throne and capital. The
      remaining provinces, under the obedience of the emperors, were
      cast into a new mould; and the jurisdiction of the presidents,
      the consulars, and the counts were superseded by the institution
      of the themes, 12 or military governments, which prevailed under
      the successors of Heraclius, and are described by the pen of the
      royal author. Of the twenty-nine themes, twelve in Europe and
      seventeen in Asia, the origin is obscure, the etymology doubtful
      or capricious: the limits were arbitrary and fluctuating; but
      some particular names, that sound the most strangely to our ear,
      were derived from the character and attributes of the troops that
      were maintained at the expense, and for the guard, of the
      respective divisions. The vanity of the Greek princes most
      eagerly grasped the shadow of conquest and the memory of lost
      dominion. A new Mesopotamia was created on the western side of
      the Euphrates: the appellation and praetor of Sicily were
      transferred to a narrow slip of Calabria; and a fragment of the
      duchy of Beneventum was promoted to the style and title of the
      theme of Lombardy. In the decline of the Arabian empire, the
      successors of Constantine might indulge their pride in more solid
      advantages. The victories of Nicephorus, John Zimisces, and Basil
      the Second, revived the fame, and enlarged the boundaries, of the
      Roman name: the province of Cilicia, the metropolis of Antioch,
      the islands of Crete and Cyprus, were restored to the allegiance
      of Christ and Caesar: one third of Italy was annexed to the
      throne of Constantinople: the kingdom of Bulgaria was destroyed;
      and the last sovereigns of the Macedonian dynasty extended their
      sway from the sources of the Tigris to the neighborhood of Rome.
      In the eleventh century, the prospect was again clouded by new
      enemies and new misfortunes: the relics of Italy were swept away
      by the Norman adventures; and almost all the Asiatic branches
      were dissevered from the Roman trunk by the Turkish conquerors.
      After these losses, the emperors of the Comnenian family
      continued to reign from the Danube to Peloponnesus, and from
      Belgrade to Nice, Trebizond, and the winding stream of the
      Meander. The spacious provinces of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece,
      were obedient to their sceptre; the possession of Cyprus, Rhodes,
      and Crete, was accompanied by the fifty islands of the Aegean or
      Holy Sea; 13 and the remnant of their empire transcends the
      measure of the largest of the European kingdoms.

      12 (return) [ See Constantine de Thematibus, in Banduri, tom. i.
      p. 1-30. It is used by Maurice (Strata gem. l. ii. c. 2) for a
      legion, from whence the name was easily transferred to its post
      or province, (Ducange, Gloss. Graec. tom. i. p. 487-488.) Some
      etymologies are attempted for the Opiscian, Optimatian,
      Thracesian, themes.]

      13 (return) [ It is styled by the modern Greeks, from which the
      corrupt names of Archipelago, l’Archipel, and the Arches, have
      been transformed by geographers and seamen, (D’Anville,
      Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 281. Analyse de la Carte de la
      Greece, p. 60.) The numbers of monks or caloyers in all the
      islands and the adjacent mountain of Athos, (Observations de
      Belon, fol. 32, verso,) monte santo, might justify the epithet of
      holy, a slight alteration from the original, imposed by the
      Dorians, who, in their dialect, gave the figurative name of
      goats, to the bounding waves, (Vossius, apud Cellarium, Geograph.
      Antiq. tom. i. p. 829.)]

      The same princes might assert, with dignity and truth, that of
      all the monarchs of Christendom they possessed the greatest city,
      14 the most ample revenue, the most flourishing and populous
      state. With the decline and fall of the empire, the cities of the
      West had decayed and fallen; nor could the ruins of Rome, or the
      mud walls, wooden hovels, and narrow precincts of Paris and
      London, prepare the Latin stranger to contemplate the situation
      and extent of Constantinople, her stately palaces and churches,
      and the arts and luxury of an innumerable people. Her treasures
      might attract, but her virgin strength had repelled, and still
      promised to repel, the audacious invasion of the Persian and
      Bulgarian, the Arab and the Russian. The provinces were less
      fortunate and impregnable; and few districts, few cities, could
      be discovered which had not been violated by some fierce
      Barbarian, impatient to despoil, because he was hopeless to
      possess. From the age of Justinian the Eastern empire was sinking
      below its former level; the powers of destruction were more
      active than those of improvement; and the calamities of war were
      imbittered by the more permanent evils of civil and
      ecclesiastical tyranny. The captive who had escaped from the
      Barbarians was often stripped and imprisoned by the ministers of
      his sovereign: the Greek superstition relaxed the mind by prayer,
      and emaciated the body by fasting; and the multitude of convents
      and festivals diverted many hands and many days from the temporal
      service of mankind. Yet the subjects of the Byzantine empire were
      still the most dexterous and diligent of nations; their country
      was blessed by nature with every advantage of soil, climate, and
      situation; and, in the support and restoration of the arts, their
      patient and peaceful temper was more useful than the warlike
      spirit and feudal anarchy of Europe. The provinces that still
      adhered to the empire were repeopled and enriched by the
      misfortunes of those which were irrecoverably lost. From the yoke
      of the caliphs, the Catholics of Syria, Egypt, and Africa retired
      to the allegiance of their prince, to the society of their
      brethren: the movable wealth, which eludes the search of
      oppression, accompanied and alleviated their exile, and
      Constantinople received into her bosom the fugitive trade of
      Alexandria and Tyre. The chiefs of Armenia and Scythia, who fled
      from hostile or religious persecution, were hospitably
      entertained: their followers were encouraged to build new cities
      and to cultivate waste lands; and many spots, both in Europe and
      Asia, preserved the name, the manners, or at least the memory, of
      these national colonies. Even the tribes of Barbarians, who had
      seated themselves in arms on the territory of the empire, were
      gradually reclaimed to the laws of the church and state; and as
      long as they were separated from the Greeks, their posterity
      supplied a race of faithful and obedient soldiers. Did we possess
      sufficient materials to survey the twenty-nine themes of the
      Byzantine monarchy, our curiosity might be satisfied with a
      chosen example: it is fortunate enough that the clearest light
      should be thrown on the most interesting province, and the name
      of Peloponnesus will awaken the attention of the classic reader.

      14 (return) [ According to the Jewish traveller who had visited
      Europe and Asia, Constantinople was equalled only by Bagdad, the
      great city of the Ismaelites, (Voyage de Benjamin de Tudele, par
      Baratier, tom. l. c. v. p. 46.)]

      As early as the eighth century, in the troubled reign of the
      Iconoclasts, Greece, and even Peloponnesus, 15 were overrun by
      some Sclavonian bands who outstripped the royal standard of
      Bulgaria. The strangers of old, Cadmus, and Danaus, and Pelops,
      had planted in that fruitful soil the seeds of policy and
      learning; but the savages of the north eradicated what yet
      remained of their sickly and withered roots. In this irruption,
      the country and the inhabitants were transformed; the Grecian
      blood was contaminated; and the proudest nobles of Peloponnesus
      were branded with the names of foreigners and slaves. By the
      diligence of succeeding princes, the land was in some measure
      purified from the Barbarians; and the humble remnant was bound by
      an oath of obedience, tribute, and military service, which they
      often renewed and often violated. The siege of Patras was formed
      by a singular concurrence of the Sclavonians of Peloponnesus and
      the Saracens of Africa. In their last distress, a pious fiction
      of the approach of the praetor of Corinth revived the courage of
      the citizens. Their sally was bold and successful; the strangers
      embarked, the rebels submitted, and the glory of the day was
      ascribed to a phantom or a stranger, who fought in the foremost
      ranks under the character of St. Andrew the Apostle. The shrine
      which contained his relics was decorated with the trophies of
      victory, and the captive race was forever devoted to the service
      and vassalage of the metropolitan church of Patras. By the revolt
      of two Sclavonian tribes, in the neighborhood of Helos and
      Lacedaemon, the peace of the peninsula was often disturbed. They
      sometimes insulted the weakness, and sometimes resisted the
      oppression, of the Byzantine government, till at length the
      approach of their hostile brethren extorted a golden bull to
      define the rites and obligations of the Ezzerites and Milengi,
      whose annual tribute was defined at twelve hundred pieces of
      gold. From these strangers the Imperial geographer has accurately
      distinguished a domestic, and perhaps original, race, who, in
      some degree, might derive their blood from the much-injured
      Helots. The liberality of the Romans, and especially of Augustus,
      had enfranchised the maritime cities from the dominion of Sparta;
      and the continuance of the same benefit ennobled them with the
      title of Eleuthero, or Free-Laconians. 16 In the time of
      Constantine Porphyrogenitus, they had acquired the name of
      Mainotes, under which they dishonor the claim of liberty by the
      inhuman pillage of all that is shipwrecked on their rocky shores.
      Their territory, barren of corn, but fruitful of olives, extended
      to the Cape of Malea: they accepted a chief or prince from the
      Byzantine praetor, and a light tribute of four hundred pieces of
      gold was the badge of their immunity, rather than of their
      dependence. The freemen of Laconia assumed the character of
      Romans, and long adhered to the religion of the Greeks. By the
      zeal of the emperor Basil, they were baptized in the faith of
      Christ: but the altars of Venus and Neptune had been crowned by
      these rustic votaries five hundred years after they were
      proscribed in the Roman world. In the theme of Peloponnesus, 17
      forty cities were still numbered, and the declining state of
      Sparta, Argos, and Corinth, may be suspended in the tenth
      century, at an equal distance, perhaps, between their antique
      splendor and their present desolation. The duty of military
      service, either in person or by substitute, was imposed on the
      lands or benefices of the province; a sum of five pieces of gold
      was assessed on each of the substantial tenants; and the same
      capitation was shared among several heads of inferior value. On
      the proclamation of an Italian war, the Peloponnesians excused
      themselves by a voluntary oblation of one hundred pounds of gold,
      (four thousand pounds sterling,) and a thousand horses with their
      arms and trappings. The churches and monasteries furnished their
      contingent; a sacrilegious profit was extorted from the sale of
      ecclesiastical honors; and the indigent bishop of Leucadia 18 was
      made responsible for a pension of one hundred pieces of gold. 19

      15 (return) [ Says Constantine, (Thematibus, l. ii. c. vi. p.
      25,) in a style as barbarous as the idea, which he confirms, as
      usual, by a foolish epigram. The epitomizer of Strabo likewise
      observes, (l. vii. p. 98, edit. Hudson. edit. Casaub. 1251;) a
      passage which leads Dodwell a weary dance (Geograph, Minor. tom.
      ii. dissert. vi. p. 170-191) to enumerate the inroads of the
      Sclavi, and to fix the date (A.D. 980) of this petty geographer.]

      16 (return) [ Strabon. Geograph. l. viii. p. 562. Pausanius,
      Graec. Descriptio, l. c 21, p. 264, 265. Pliny, Hist. Natur. l.
      iv. c. 8.]

      17 (return) [ Constantin. de Administrando Imperio, l. ii. c. 50,
      51, 52.]

      18 (return) [ The rock of Leucate was the southern promontory of
      his island and diocese. Had he been the exclusive guardian of the
      Lover’s Leap so well known to the readers of Ovid (Epist. Sappho)
      and the Spectator, he might have been the richest prelate of the
      Greek church.]

      19 (return) [ Leucatensis mihi juravit episcopus, quotannis
      ecclesiam suam debere Nicephoro aureos centum persolvere,
      similiter et ceteras plus minusve secundum vires suos, (Liutprand
      in Legat. p. 489.)]

      But the wealth of the province, and the trust of the revenue,
      were founded on the fair and plentiful produce of trade and
      manufacturers; and some symptoms of liberal policy may be traced
      in a law which exempts from all personal taxes the mariners of
      Peloponnesus, and the workmen in parchment and purple. This
      denomination may be fairly applied or extended to the
      manufacturers of linen, woollen, and more especially of silk: the
      two former of which had flourished in Greece since the days of
      Homer; and the last was introduced perhaps as early as the reign
      of Justinian. These arts, which were exercised at Corinth,
      Thebes, and Argos, afforded food and occupation to a numerous
      people: the men, women, and children were distributed according
      to their age and strength; and, if many of these were domestic
      slaves, their masters, who directed the work and enjoyed the
      profit, were of a free and honorable condition. The gifts which a
      rich and generous matron of Peloponnesus presented to the emperor
      Basil, her adopted son, were doubtless fabricated in the Grecian
      looms. Danielis bestowed a carpet of fine wool, of a pattern
      which imitated the spots of a peacock’s tail, of a magnitude to
      overspread the floor of a new church, erected in the triple name
      of Christ, of Michael the archangel, and of the prophet Elijah.
      She gave six hundred pieces of silk and linen, of various use and
      denomination: the silk was painted with the Tyrian dye, and
      adorned by the labors of the needle; and the linen was so
      exquisitely fine, that an entire piece might be rolled in the
      hollow of a cane. 20 In his description of the Greek
      manufactures, an historian of Sicily discriminates their price,
      according to the weight and quality of the silk, the closeness of
      the texture, the beauty of the colors, and the taste and
      materials of the embroidery. A single, or even a double or treble
      thread was thought sufficient for ordinary sale; but the union of
      six threads composed a piece of stronger and more costly
      workmanship. Among the colors, he celebrates, with affectation of
      eloquence, the fiery blaze of the scarlet, and the softer lustre
      of the green. The embroidery was raised either in silk or gold:
      the more simple ornament of stripes or circles was surpassed by
      the nicer imitation of flowers: the vestments that were
      fabricated for the palace or the altar often glittered with
      precious stones; and the figures were delineated in strings of
      Oriental pearls. 21 Till the twelfth century, Greece alone, of
      all the countries of Christendom, was possessed of the insect who
      is taught by nature, and of the workmen who are instructed by
      art, to prepare this elegant luxury. But the secret had been
      stolen by the dexterity and diligence of the Arabs: the caliphs
      of the East and West scorned to borrow from the unbelievers their
      furniture and apparel; and two cities of Spain, Almeria and
      Lisbon, were famous for the manufacture, the use, and, perhaps,
      the exportation, of silk. It was first introduced into Sicily by
      the Normans; and this emigration of trade distinguishes the
      victory of Roger from the uniform and fruitless hostilities of
      every age. After the sack of Corinth, Athens, and Thebes, his
      lieutenant embarked with a captive train of weavers and
      artificers of both sexes, a trophy glorious to their master, and
      disgraceful to the Greek emperor. 22 The king of Sicily was not
      insensible of the value of the present; and, in the restitution
      of the prisoners, he excepted only the male and female
      manufacturers of Thebes and Corinth, who labor, says the
      Byzantine historian, under a barbarous lord, like the old
      Eretrians in the service of Darius. 23 A stately edifice, in the
      palace of Palermo, was erected for the use of this industrious
      colony; 24 and the art was propagated by their children and
      disciples to satisfy the increasing demand of the western world.
      The decay of the looms of Sicily may be ascribed to the troubles
      of the island, and the competition of the Italian cities. In the
      year thirteen hundred and fourteen, Lucca alone, among her sister
      republics, enjoyed the lucrative monopoly. 25 A domestic
      revolution dispersed the manufacturers to Florence, Bologna,
      Venice, Milan, and even the countries beyond the Alps; and
      thirteen years after this event the statutes of Modena enjoin the
      planting of mulberry-trees, and regulate the duties on raw silk.
      26 The northern climates are less propitious to the education of
      the silkworm; but the industry of France and England 27 is
      supplied and enriched by the productions of Italy and China.

      20 (return) [ See Constantine, (in Vit. Basil. c. 74, 75, 76, p.
      195, 197, in Script. post Theophanem,) who allows himself to use
      many technical or barbarous words: barbarous, says he. Ducange
      labors on some: but he was not a weaver.]

      21 (return) [ The manufactures of Palermo, as they are described
      by Hugo Falcandus, (Hist. Sicula in proem. in Muratori Script.
      Rerum Italicarum, tom. v. p. 256,) is a copy of those of Greece.
      Without transcribing his declamatory sentences, which I have
      softened in the text, I shall observe, that in this passage the
      strange word exarentasmata is very properly changed for
      exanthemata by Carisius, the first editor Falcandus lived about
      the year 1190.]

      22 (return) [ Inde ad interiora Graeciae progressi, Corinthum,
      Thebas, Athenas, antiqua nobilitate celebres, expugnant; et,
      maxima ibidem praeda direpta, opifices etiam, qui sericos pannos
      texere solent, ob ignominiam Imperatoris illius, suique principis
      gloriam, captivos deducunt. Quos Rogerius, in Palermo Siciliae,
      metropoli collocans, artem texendi suos edocere praecepit; et
      exhinc praedicta ars illa, prius a Graecis tantum inter
      Christianos habita, Romanis patere coepit ingeniis, (Otho
      Frisingen. de Gestis Frederici I. l. i. c. 33, in Muratori
      Script. Ital. tom. vi. p. 668.) This exception allows the bishop
      to celebrate Lisbon and Almeria in sericorum pannorum opificio
      praenobilissimae, (in Chron. apud Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom.
      ix. p. 415.)]

      23 (return) [ Nicetas in Manuel, l. ii. c. 8. p. 65. He describes
      these Greeks as skilled.]

      24 (return) [ Hugo Falcandus styles them nobiles officinas. The
      Arabs had not introduced silk, though they had planted canes and
      made sugar in the plain of Palermo.]

      25 (return) [ See the Life of Castruccio Casticani, not by
      Machiavel, but by his more authentic biographer Nicholas Tegrimi.
      Muratori, who has inserted it in the xith volume of his
      Scriptores, quotes this curious passage in his Italian
      Antiquities, (tom. i. dissert. xxv. p. 378.)]

      26 (return) [ From the Ms. statutes, as they are quoted by
      Muratori in his Italian Antiquities, (tom. ii. dissert. xxv. p.
      46-48.)]

      27 (return) [ The broad silk manufacture was established in
      England in the year 1620, (Anderson’s Chronological Deduction,
      vol. ii. p. 4: ) but it is to the revocation of the edict of
      Nantes that we owe the Spitalfields colony.]




      Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part II.

      I must repeat the complaint that the vague and scanty memorials
      of the times will not afford any just estimate of the taxes, the
      revenue, and the resources of the Greek empire. From every
      province of Europe and Asia the rivulets of gold and silver
      discharged into the Imperial reservoir a copious and perennial
      stream. The separation of the branches from the trunk increased
      the relative magnitude of Constantinople; and the maxims of
      despotism contracted the state to the capital, the capital to the
      palace, and the palace to the royal person. A Jewish traveller,
      who visited the East in the twelfth century, is lost in his
      admiration of the Byzantine riches. “It is here,” says Benjamin
      of Tudela, “in the queen of cities, that the tributes of the
      Greek empire are annually deposited and the lofty towers are
      filled with precious magazines of silk, purple, and gold. It is
      said, that Constantinople pays each day to her sovereign twenty
      thousand pieces of gold; which are levied on the shops, taverns,
      and markets, on the merchants of Persia and Egypt, of Russia and
      Hungary, of Italy and Spain, who frequent the capital by sea and
      land.” 28 In all pecuniary matters, the authority of a Jew is
      doubtless respectable; but as the three hundred and sixty-five
      days would produce a yearly income exceeding seven millions
      sterling, I am tempted to retrench at least the numerous
      festivals of the Greek calendar. The mass of treasure that was
      saved by Theodora and Basil the Second will suggest a splendid,
      though indefinite, idea of their supplies and resources. The
      mother of Michael, before she retired to a cloister, attempted to
      check or expose the prodigality of her ungrateful son, by a free
      and faithful account of the wealth which he inherited; one
      hundred and nine thousand pounds of gold, and three hundred
      thousand of silver, the fruits of her own economy and that of her
      deceased husband. 29 The avarice of Basil is not less renowned
      than his valor and fortune: his victorious armies were paid and
      rewarded without breaking into the mass of two hundred thousand
      pounds of gold, (about eight millions sterling,) which he had
      buried in the subterraneous vaults of the palace. 30 Such
      accumulation of treasure is rejected by the theory and practice
      of modern policy; and we are more apt to compute the national
      riches by the use and abuse of the public credit. Yet the maxims
      of antiquity are still embraced by a monarch formidable to his
      enemies; by a republic respectable to her allies; and both have
      attained their respective ends of military power and domestic
      tranquillity.

      28 (return) [ Voyage de Benjamin de Tudele, tom. i. c. 5, p.
      44-52. The Hebrew text has been translated into French by that
      marvellous child Baratier, who has added a volume of crude
      learning. The errors and fictions of the Jewish rabbi are not a
      sufficient ground to deny the reality of his travels. * Note: I
      am inclined, with Buegnot (Les Juifs d’Occident, part iii. p. 101
      et seqq.) and Jost (Geschichte der Israeliter, vol. vi. anhang.
      p. 376) to consider this work a mere compilation, and to doubt
      the reality of the travels.—M.]

      29 (return) [ See the continuator of Theophanes, (l. iv. p. 107,)
      Cedremis, (p. 544,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 157.)]

      30 (return) [ Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xvii. p. 225,) instead of
      pounds, uses the more classic appellation of talents, which, in a
      literal sense and strict computation, would multiply sixty fold
      the treasure of Basil.]

      Whatever might be consumed for the present wants, or reserved for
      the future use, of the state, the first and most sacred demand
      was for the pomp and pleasure of the emperor, and his discretion
      only could define the measure of his private expense. The princes
      of Constantinople were far removed from the simplicity of nature;
      yet, with the revolving seasons, they were led by taste or
      fashion to withdraw to a purer air, from the smoke and tumult of
      the capital. They enjoyed, or affected to enjoy, the rustic
      festival of the vintage: their leisure was amused by the exercise
      of the chase and the calmer occupation of fishing, and in the
      summer heats, they were shaded from the sun, and refreshed by the
      cooling breezes from the sea. The coasts and islands of Asia and
      Europe were covered with their magnificent villas; but, instead
      of the modest art which secretly strives to hide itself and to
      decorate the scenery of nature, the marble structure of their
      gardens served only to expose the riches of the lord, and the
      labors of the architect. The successive casualties of inheritance
      and forfeiture had rendered the sovereign proprietor of many
      stately houses in the city and suburbs, of which twelve were
      appropriated to the ministers of state; but the great palace, 31
      the centre of the Imperial residence, was fixed during eleven
      centuries to the same position, between the hippodrome, the
      cathedral of St. Sophia, and the gardens, which descended by many
      a terrace to the shores of the Propontis. The primitive edifice
      of the first Constantine was a copy, or rival, of ancient Rome;
      the gradual improvements of his successors aspired to emulate the
      wonders of the old world, 32 and in the tenth century, the
      Byzantine palace excited the admiration, at least of the Latins,
      by an unquestionable preeminence of strength, size, and
      magnificence. 33 But the toil and treasure of so many ages had
      produced a vast and irregular pile: each separate building was
      marked with the character of the times and of the founder; and
      the want of space might excuse the reigning monarch, who
      demolished, perhaps with secret satisfaction, the works of his
      predecessors. The economy of the emperor Theophilus allowed a
      more free and ample scope for his domestic luxury and splendor. A
      favorite ambassador, who had astonished the Abbassides themselves
      by his pride and liberality, presented on his return the model of
      a palace, which the caliph of Bagdad had recently constructed on
      the banks of the Tigris. The model was instantly copied and
      surpassed: the new buildings of Theophilus 34 were accompanied
      with gardens, and with five churches, one of which was
      conspicuous for size and beauty: it was crowned with three domes,
      the roof of gilt brass reposed on columns of Italian marble, and
      the walls were incrusted with marbles of various colors. In the
      face of the church, a semicircular portico, of the figure and
      name of the Greek sigma, was supported by fifteen columns of
      Phrygian marble, and the subterraneous vaults were of a similar
      construction. The square before the sigma was decorated with a
      fountain, and the margin of the basin was lined and encompassed
      with plates of silver. In the beginning of each season, the
      basin, instead of water, was replenished with the most exquisite
      fruits, which were abandoned to the populace for the
      entertainment of the prince. He enjoyed this tumultuous spectacle
      from a throne resplendent with gold and gems, which was raised by
      a marble staircase to the height of a lofty terrace. Below the
      throne were seated the officers of his guards, the magistrates,
      the chiefs of the factions of the circus; the inferior steps were
      occupied by the people, and the place below was covered with
      troops of dancers, singers, and pantomimes. The square was
      surrounded by the hall of justice, the arsenal, and the various
      offices of business and pleasure; and the purple chamber was
      named from the annual distribution of robes of scarlet and purple
      by the hand of the empress herself. The long series of the
      apartments was adapted to the seasons, and decorated with marble
      and porphyry, with painting, sculpture, and mosaics, with a
      profusion of gold, silver, and precious stones. His fanciful
      magnificence employed the skill and patience of such artists as
      the times could afford: but the taste of Athens would have
      despised their frivolous and costly labors; a golden tree, with
      its leaves and branches, which sheltered a multitude of birds
      warbling their artificial notes, and two lions of massy gold, and
      of natural size, who looked and roared like their brethren of the
      forest. The successors of Theophilus, of the Basilian and
      Comnenian dynasties, were not less ambitious of leaving some
      memorial of their residence; and the portion of the palace most
      splendid and august was dignified with the title of the golden
      triclinium. 35 With becoming modesty, the rich and noble Greeks
      aspired to imitate their sovereign, and when they passed through
      the streets on horseback, in their robes of silk and embroidery,
      they were mistaken by the children for kings. 36 A matron of
      Peloponnesus, 37 who had cherished the infant fortunes of Basil
      the Macedonian, was excited by tenderness or vanity to visit the
      greatness of her adopted son. In a journey of five hundred miles
      from Patras to Constantinople, her age or indolence declined the
      fatigue of a horse or carriage: the soft litter or bed of
      Danielis was transported on the shoulders of ten robust slaves;
      and as they were relieved at easy distances, a band of three
      hundred were selected for the performance of this service. She
      was entertained in the Byzantine palace with filial reverence,
      and the honors of a queen; and whatever might be the origin of
      her wealth, her gifts were not unworthy of the regal dignity. I
      have already described the fine and curious manufactures of
      Peloponnesus, of linen, silk, and woollen; but the most
      acceptable of her presents consisted in three hundred beautiful
      youths, of whom one hundred were eunuchs; 38 “for she was not
      ignorant,” says the historian, “that the air of the palace is
      more congenial to such insects, than a shepherd’s dairy to the
      flies of the summer.” During her lifetime, she bestowed the
      greater part of her estates in Peloponnesus, and her testament
      instituted Leo, the son of Basil, her universal heir. After the
      payment of the legacies, fourscore villas or farms were added to
      the Imperial domain; and three thousand slaves of Danielis were
      enfranchised by their new lord, and transplanted as a colony to
      the Italian coast. From this example of a private matron, we may
      estimate the wealth and magnificence of the emperors. Yet our
      enjoyments are confined by a narrow circle; and, whatsoever may
      be its value, the luxury of life is possessed with more innocence
      and safety by the master of his own, than by the steward of the
      public, fortune.

      31 (return) [ For a copious and minute description of the
      Imperial palace, see the Constantinop. Christiana (l. ii. c. 4,
      p. 113-123) of Ducange, the Tillemont of the middle ages. Never
      has laborious Germany produced two antiquarians more laborious
      and accurate than these two natives of lively France.]

      32 (return) [ The Byzantine palace surpasses the Capitol, the
      palace of Pergamus, the Rufinian wood, the temple of Adrian at
      Cyzicus, the pyramids, the Pharus, &c., according to an epigram
      (Antholog. Graec. l. iv. p. 488, 489. Brodaei, apud Wechel)
      ascribed to Julian, ex-praefect of Egypt. Seventy-one of his
      epigrams, some lively, are collected in Brunck, (Analect. Graec.
      tom. ii. p. 493-510; but this is wanting.]

      33 (return) [ Constantinopolitanum Palatium non pulchritudine
      solum, verum stiam fortitudine, omnibus quas unquam videram
      munitionibus praestat, (Liutprand, Hist. l. v. c. 9, p. 465.)]

      34 (return) [ See the anonymous continuator of Theophanes, (p.
      59, 61, 86,) whom I have followed in the neat and concise
      abstract of Le Beau, (Hint. du Bas Empire, tom. xiv. p. 436,
      438.)]

      35 (return) [ In aureo triclinio quae praestantior est pars
      potentissimus (the usurper Romanus) degens caeteras partes
      (filiis) distribuerat, (Liutprand. Hist. l. v. c. 9, p. 469.) For
      this last signification of Triclinium see Ducange (Gloss. Graec.
      et Observations sur Joinville, p. 240) and Reiske, (ad
      Constantinum de Ceremoniis, p. 7.)]

      36 (return) [ In equis vecti (says Benjamin of Tudela) regum
      filiis videntur persimiles. I prefer the Latin version of
      Constantine l’Empereur (p. 46) to the French of Baratier, (tom.
      i. p. 49.)]

      37 (return) [ See the account of her journey, munificence, and
      testament, in the life of Basil, by his grandson Constantine, (p.
      74, 75, 76, p. 195-197.)]

      38 (return) [ Carsamatium. Graeci vocant, amputatis virilibus et
      virga, puerum eunuchum quos Verdunenses mercatores obinmensum
      lucrum facere solent et in Hispaniam ducere, (Liutprand, l. vi.
      c. 3, p. 470.)—The last abomination of the abominable
      slave-trade! Yet I am surprised to find, in the xth century, such
      active speculations of commerce in Lorraine.]

      In an absolute government, which levels the distinctions of noble
      and plebeian birth, the sovereign is the sole fountain of honor;
      and the rank, both in the palace and the empire, depends on the
      titles and offices which are bestowed and resumed by his
      arbitrary will. Above a thousand years, from Vespasian to Alexius
      Comnenus, 39 the Caesar was the second person, or at least the
      second degree, after the supreme title of Augustus was more
      freely communicated to the sons and brothers of the reigning
      monarch. To elude without violating his promise to a powerful
      associate, the husband of his sister, and, without giving himself
      an equal, to reward the piety of his brother Isaac, the crafty
      Alexius interposed a new and supereminent dignity. The happy
      flexibility of the Greek tongue allowed him to compound the names
      of Augustus and Emperor (Sebastos and Autocrator,) and the union
      produces the sonorous title of Sebastocrator. He was exalted
      above the Caesar on the first step of the throne: the public
      acclamations repeated his name; and he was only distinguished
      from the sovereign by some peculiar ornaments of the head and
      feet. The emperor alone could assume the purple or red buskins,
      and the close diadem or tiara, which imitated the fashion of the
      Persian kings. 40 It was a high pyramidal cap of cloth or silk,
      almost concealed by a profusion of pearls and jewels: the crown
      was formed by a horizontal circle and two arches of gold: at the
      summit, the point of their intersection, was placed a globe or
      cross, and two strings or lappets of pearl depended on either
      cheek. Instead of red, the buskins of the Sebastocrator and
      Caesar were green; and on their open coronets or crowns, the
      precious gems were more sparingly distributed. Beside and below
      the Caesar the fancy of Alexius created the Panhypersebastos and
      the Protosebastos, whose sound and signification will satisfy a
      Grecian ear. They imply a superiority and a priority above the
      simple name of Augustus; and this sacred and primitive title of
      the Roman prince was degraded to the kinsmen and servants of the
      Byzantine court. The daughter of Alexius applauds, with fond
      complacency, this artful gradation of hopes and honors; but the
      science of words is accessible to the meanest capacity; and this
      vain dictionary was easily enriched by the pride of his
      successors. To their favorite sons or brothers, they imparted the
      more lofty appellation of Lord or Despot, which was illustrated
      with new ornaments, and prerogatives, and placed immediately
      after the person of the emperor himself. The five titles of, 1.
      Despot; 2. Sebastocrator; 3. Caesar; 4. Panhypersebastos; and, 5.
      Protosebastos; were usually confined to the princes of his blood:
      they were the emanations of his majesty; but as they exercised no
      regular functions, their existence was useless, and their
      authority precarious.

      39 (return) [ See the Alexiad (l. iii. p. 78, 79) of Anna
      Comnena, who, except in filial piety, may be compared to
      Mademoiselle de Montpensier. In her awful reverence for titles
      and forms, she styles her father, the inventor of this royal
      art.]

      40 (return) [ See Reiske, and Ceremoniale, p. 14, 15. Ducange has
      given a learned dissertation on the crowns of Constantinople,
      Rome, France, &c., (sur Joinville, xxv. p. 289-303;) but of his
      thirty-four models, none exactly tally with Anne’s description.]

      But in every monarchy the substantial powers of government must
      be divided and exercised by the ministers of the palace and
      treasury, the fleet and army. The titles alone can differ; and in
      the revolution of ages, the counts and praefects, the praetor and
      quaestor, insensibly descended, while their servants rose above
      their heads to the first honors of the state. 1. In a monarchy,
      which refers every object to the person of the prince, the care
      and ceremonies of the palace form the most respectable
      department. The Curopalata, 41 so illustrious in the age of
      Justinian, was supplanted by the Protovestiare, whose primitive
      functions were limited to the custody of the wardrobe. From
      thence his jurisdiction was extended over the numerous menials of
      pomp and luxury; and he presided with his silver wand at the
      public and private audience. 2. In the ancient system of
      Constantine, the name of Logothete, or accountant, was applied to
      the receivers of the finances: the principal officers were
      distinguished as the Logothetes of the domain, of the posts, the
      army, the private and public treasure; and the great Logothete,
      the supreme guardian of the laws and revenues, is compared with
      the chancellor of the Latin monarchies. 42 His discerning eye
      pervaded the civil administration; and he was assisted, in due
      subordination, by the eparch or praefect of the city, the first
      secretary, and the keepers of the privy seal, the archives, and
      the red or purple ink which was reserved for the sacred signature
      of the emperor alone. 43 The introductor and interpreter of
      foreign ambassadors were the great Chiauss 44 and the Dragoman,
      45 two names of Turkish origin, and which are still familiar to
      the Sublime Porte. 3. From the humble style and service of
      guards, the Domestics insensibly rose to the station of generals;
      the military themes of the East and West, the legions of Europe
      and Asia, were often divided, till the great Domestic was finally
      invested with the universal and absolute command of the land
      forces. The Protostrator, in his original functions, was the
      assistant of the emperor when he mounted on horseback: he
      gradually became the lieutenant of the great Domestic in the
      field; and his jurisdiction extended over the stables, the
      cavalry, and the royal train of hunting and hawking. The
      Stratopedarch was the great judge of the camp: the Protospathaire
      commanded the guards; the Constable, 46 the great Aeteriarch, and
      the Acolyth, were the separate chiefs of the Franks, the
      Barbarians, and the Varangi, or English, the mercenary strangers,
      who, at the decay of the national spirit, formed the nerve of the
      Byzantine armies. 4. The naval powers were under the command of
      the great Duke; in his absence they obeyed the great Drungaire of
      the fleet; and, in his place, the Emir, or Admiral, a name of
      Saracen extraction, 47 but which has been naturalized in all the
      modern languages of Europe. Of these officers, and of many more
      whom it would be useless to enumerate, the civil and military
      hierarchy was framed. Their honors and emoluments, their dress
      and titles, their mutual salutations and respective preeminence,
      were balanced with more exquisite labor than would have fixed the
      constitution of a free people; and the code was almost perfect
      when this baseless fabric, the monument of pride and servitude,
      was forever buried in the ruins of the empire. 48

      41 (return) [ Par exstans curis, solo diademate dispar, Ordine
      pro rerum vocitatus Cura-Palati, says the African Corippus, (de
      Laudibus Justini, l. i. 136,) and in the same century (the vith)
      Cassiodorus represents him, who, virga aurea decoratus, inter
      numerosa obsequia primus ante pedes regis incederet (Variar. vii.
      5.) But this great officer, (unknown,) exercising no function,
      was cast down by the modern Greeks to the xvth rank, (Codin. c.
      5, p. 65.)]

      42 (return) [ Nicetas (in Manuel, l. vii. c. 1) defines him. Yet
      the epithet was added by the elder Andronicus, (Ducange, tom. i.
      p. 822, 823.)]

      43 (return) [ From Leo I. (A.D. 470) the Imperial ink, which is
      still visible on some original acts, was a mixture of vermilion
      and cinnabar, or purple. The emperor’s guardians, who shared in
      this prerogative, always marked in green ink the indiction and
      the month. See the Dictionnaire Diplomatique, (tom. i. p.
      511-513) a valuable abridgment.]

      44 (return) [ The sultan sent to Alexius, (Anna Comnena, l. vi.
      p. 170. Ducange ad loc.;) and Pachymer often speaks, (l. vii. c.
      1, l. xii. c. 30, l. xiii. c. 22.) The Chiaoush basha is now at
      the head of 700 officers, (Rycaut’s Ottoman Empire, p. 349,
      octavo edition.)]

      45 (return) [ Tagerman is the Arabic name of an interpreter,
      (D’Herbelot, p. 854, 855;), says Codinus, (c. v. No. 70, p. 67.)
      See Villehardouin, (No. 96,) Bus, (Epist. iv. p. 338,) and
      Ducange, (Observations sur Villehardouin, and Gloss. Graec. et
      Latin)]

      46 (return) [ A corruption from the Latin Comes stabuli, or the
      French Connetable. In a military sense, it was used by the Greeks
      in the eleventh century, at least as early as in France.]

      47 (return) [ It was directly borrowed from the Normans. In the
      xiith century, Giannone reckons the admiral of Sicily among the
      great officers.]

      48 (return) [ This sketch of honors and offices is drawn from
      George Cordinus Curopalata, who survived the taking of
      Constantinople by the Turks: his elaborate, though trifling, work
      (de Officiis Ecclesiae et Aulae C. P.) has been illustrated by
      the notes of Goar, and the three books of Gretser, a learned
      Jesuit.]




      Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part III.

      The most lofty titles, and the most humble postures, which
      devotion has applied to the Supreme Being, have been prostituted
      by flattery and fear to creatures of the same nature with
      ourselves. The mode of adoration, 49 of falling prostrate on the
      ground, and kissing the feet of the emperor, was borrowed by
      Diocletian from Persian servitude; but it was continued and
      aggravated till the last age of the Greek monarchy. Excepting
      only on Sundays, when it was waived, from a motive of religious
      pride, this humiliating reverence was exacted from all who
      entered the royal presence, from the princes invested with the
      diadem and purple, and from the ambassadors who represented their
      independent sovereigns, the caliphs of Asia, Egypt, or Spain, the
      kings of France and Italy, and the Latin emperors of ancient
      Rome. In his transactions of business, Liutprand, bishop of
      Cremona, 50 asserted the free spirit of a Frank and the dignity
      of his master Otho. Yet his sincerity cannot disguise the
      abasement of his first audience. When he approached the throne,
      the birds of the golden tree began to warble their notes, which
      were accompanied by the roarings of the two lions of gold. With
      his two companions Liutprand was compelled to bow and to fall
      prostrate; and thrice to touch the ground with his forehead. He
      arose, but in the short interval, the throne had been hoisted
      from the floor to the ceiling, the Imperial figure appeared in
      new and more gorgeous apparel, and the interview was concluded in
      haughty and majestic silence. In this honest and curious
      narrative, the Bishop of Cremona represents the ceremonies of the
      Byzantine court, which are still practised in the Sublime Porte,
      and which were preserved in the last age by the dukes of Muscovy
      or Russia. After a long journey by sea and land, from Venice to
      Constantinople, the ambassador halted at the golden gate, till he
      was conducted by the formal officers to the hospitable palace
      prepared for his reception; but this palace was a prison, and his
      jealous keepers prohibited all social intercourse either with
      strangers or natives. At his first audience, he offered the gifts
      of his master, slaves, and golden vases, and costly armor. The
      ostentatious payment of the officers and troops displayed before
      his eyes the riches of the empire: he was entertained at a royal
      banquet, 51 in which the ambassadors of the nations were
      marshalled by the esteem or contempt of the Greeks: from his own
      table, the emperor, as the most signal favor, sent the plates
      which he had tasted; and his favorites were dismissed with a robe
      of honor. 52 In the morning and evening of each day, his civil
      and military servants attended their duty in the palace; their
      labors were repaid by the sight, perhaps by the smile, of their
      lord; his commands were signified by a nod or a sign: but all
      earthly greatness stood silent and submissive in his presence. In
      his regular or extraordinary processions through the capital, he
      unveiled his person to the public view: the rites of policy were
      connected with those of religion, and his visits to the principal
      churches were regulated by the festivals of the Greek calendar.
      On the eve of these processions, the gracious or devout intention
      of the monarch was proclaimed by the heralds. The streets were
      cleared and purified; the pavement was strewed with flowers; the
      most precious furniture, the gold and silver plate, and silken
      hangings, were displayed from the windows and balconies, and a
      severe discipline restrained and silenced the tumult of the
      populace. The march was opened by the military officers at the
      head of their troops: they were followed in long order by the
      magistrates and ministers of the civil government: the person of
      the emperor was guarded by his eunuchs and domestics, and at the
      church door he was solemnly received by the patriarch and his
      clergy. The task of applause was not abandoned to the rude and
      spontaneous voices of the crowd. The most convenient stations
      were occupied by the bands of the blue and green factions of the
      circus; and their furious conflicts, which had shaken the
      capital, were insensibly sunk to an emulation of servitude. From
      either side they echoed in responsive melody the praises of the
      emperor; their poets and musicians directed the choir, and long
      life 53 and victory were the burden of every song. The same
      acclamations were performed at the audience, the banquet, and the
      church; and as an evidence of boundless sway, they were repeated
      in the Latin, 54 Gothic, Persian, French, and even English
      language, 55 by the mercenaries who sustained the real or
      fictitious character of those nations. By the pen of Constantine
      Porphyrogenitus, this science of form and flattery has been
      reduced into a pompous and trifling volume, 56 which the vanity
      of succeeding times might enrich with an ample supplement. Yet
      the calmer reflection of a prince would surely suggest that the
      same acclamations were applied to every character and every
      reign: and if he had risen from a private rank, he might
      remember, that his own voice had been the loudest and most eager
      in applause, at the very moment when he envied the fortune, or
      conspired against the life, of his predecessor. 57

      49 (return) [ The respectful salutation of carrying the hand to
      the mouth, ad os, is the root of the Latin word adoro, adorare.
      See our learned Selden, (vol. iii. p. 143-145, 942,) in his
      Titles of Honor. It seems, from the 1st book of Herodotus, to be
      of Persian origin.]

      50 (return) [ The two embassies of Liutprand to Constantinople,
      all that he saw or suffered in the Greek capital, are pleasantly
      described by himself (Hist. l. vi. c. 1-4, p. 469-471. Legatio ad
      Nicephorum Phocam, p. 479-489.)]

      51 (return) [ Among the amusements of the feast, a boy balanced,
      on his forehead, a pike, or pole, twenty-four feet long, with a
      cross bar of two cubits a little below the top. Two boys, naked,
      though cinctured, (campestrati,) together, and singly, climbed,
      stood, played, descended, &c., ita me stupidum reddidit: utrum
      mirabilius nescio, (p. 470.) At another repast a homily of
      Chrysostom on the Acts of the Apostles was read elata voce non
      Latine, (p. 483.)]

      52 (return) [ Gala is not improbably derived from Cala, or
      Caloat, in Arabic a robe of honor, (Reiske, Not. in Ceremon. p.
      84.)]

      53 (return) [ It is explained, (Codin, c. 7. Ducange, Gloss.
      Graec. tom. i. p. 1199.)]

      54 (return) [ (Ceremon. c. 75, p. 215.) The want of the Latin ‘V’
      obliged the Greeks to employ their ‘beta’; nor do they regard
      quantity. Till he recollected the true language, these strange
      sentences might puzzle a professor.]

      55 (return) [ (Codin.p. 90.) I wish he had preserved the words,
      however corrupt, of their English acclamation.]

      56 (return) [ For all these ceremonies, see the professed work of
      Constantine Porphyrogenitus with the notes, or rather
      dissertations, of his German editors, Leich and Reiske. For the
      rank of standing courtiers, p. 80, not. 23, 62; for the
      adoration, except on Sundays, p. 95, 240, not. 131; the
      processions, p. 2, &c., not. p. 3, &c.; the acclamations passim
      not. 25 &c.; the factions and Hippodrome, p. 177-214, not. 9, 93,
      &c.; the Gothic games, p. 221, not. 111; vintage, p. 217, not
      109: much more information is scattered over the work.]

      57 (return) [ Et privato Othoni et nuper eadem dicenti nota
      adulatio, (Tacit. Hist. 1,85.)]

      The princes of the North, of the nations, says Constantine,
      without faith or fame, were ambitious of mingling their blood
      with the blood of the Caesars, by their marriage with a royal
      virgin, or by the nuptials of their daughters with a Roman
      prince. 58 The aged monarch, in his instructions to his son,
      reveals the secret maxims of policy and pride; and suggests the
      most decent reasons for refusing these insolent and unreasonable
      demands. Every animal, says the discreet emperor, is prompted by
      the distinction of language, religion, and manners. A just regard
      to the purity of descent preserves the harmony of public and
      private life; but the mixture of foreign blood is the fruitful
      source of disorder and discord. Such had ever been the opinion
      and practice of the sage Romans: their jurisprudence proscribed
      the marriage of a citizen and a stranger: in the days of freedom
      and virtue, a senator would have scorned to match his daughter
      with a king: the glory of Mark Antony was sullied by an Egyptian
      wife: 59 and the emperor Titus was compelled, by popular censure,
      to dismiss with reluctance the reluctant Berenice. 60 This
      perpetual interdict was ratified by the fabulous sanction of the
      great Constantine. The ambassadors of the nations, more
      especially of the unbelieving nations, were solemnly admonished,
      that such strange alliances had been condemned by the founder of
      the church and city. The irrevocable law was inscribed on the
      altar of St. Sophia; and the impious prince who should stain the
      majesty of the purple was excluded from the civil and
      ecclesiastical communion of the Romans. If the ambassadors were
      instructed by any false brethren in the Byzantine history, they
      might produce three memorable examples of the violation of this
      imaginary law: the marriage of Leo, or rather of his father
      Constantine the Fourth, with the daughter of the king of the
      Chozars, the nuptials of the granddaughter of Romanus with a
      Bulgarian prince, and the union of Bertha of France or Italy with
      young Romanus, the son of Constantine Porphyrogenitus himself. To
      these objections three answers were prepared, which solved the
      difficulty and established the law. I.

      The deed and the guilt of Constantine Copronymus were
      acknowledged. The Isaurian heretic, who sullied the baptismal
      font, and declared war against the holy images, had indeed
      embraced a Barbarian wife. By this impious alliance he
      accomplished the measure of his crimes, and was devoted to the
      just censure of the church and of posterity. II. Romanus could
      not be alleged as a legitimate emperor; he was a plebeian
      usurper, ignorant of the laws, and regardless of the honor, of
      the monarchy. His son Christopher, the father of the bride, was
      the third in rank in the college of princes, at once the subject
      and the accomplice of a rebellious parent. The Bulgarians were
      sincere and devout Christians; and the safety of the empire, with
      the redemption of many thousand captives, depended on this
      preposterous alliance. Yet no consideration could dispense from
      the law of Constantine: the clergy, the senate, and the people,
      disapproved the conduct of Romanus; and he was reproached, both
      in his life and death, as the author of the public disgrace. III.
      For the marriage of his own son with the daughter of Hugo, king
      of Italy, a more honorable defence is contrived by the wise
      Porphyrogenitus. Constantine, the great and holy, esteemed the
      fidelity and valor of the Franks; 61 and his prophetic spirit
      beheld the vision of their future greatness. They alone were
      excepted from the general prohibition: Hugo, king of France, was
      the lineal descendant of Charlemagne; 62 and his daughter Bertha
      inherited the prerogatives of her family and nation. The voice of
      truth and malice insensibly betrayed the fraud or error of the
      Imperial court. The patrimonial estate of Hugo was reduced from
      the monarchy of France to the simple county of Arles; though it
      was not denied, that, in the confusion of the times, he had
      usurped the sovereignty of Provence, and invaded the kingdom of
      Italy. His father was a private noble; and if Bertha derived her
      female descent from the Carlovingian line, every step was
      polluted with illegitimacy or vice. The grandmother of Hugo was
      the famous Valdrada, the concubine, rather than the wife, of the
      second Lothair; whose adultery, divorce, and second nuptials, had
      provoked against him the thunders of the Vatican. His mother, as
      she was styled, the great Bertha, was successively the wife of
      the count of Arles and of the marquis of Tuscany: France and
      Italy were scandalized by her gallantries; and, till the age of
      threescore, her lovers, of every degree, were the zealous
      servants of her ambition. The example of maternal incontinence
      was copied by the king of Italy; and the three favorite
      concubines of Hugo were decorated with the classic names of
      Venus, Juno, and Semele. 63 The daughter of Venus was granted to
      the solicitations of the Byzantine court: her name of Bertha was
      changed to that of Eudoxia; and she was wedded, or rather
      betrothed, to young Romanus, the future heir of the empire of the
      East. The consummation of this foreign alliance was suspended by
      the tender age of the two parties; and, at the end of five years,
      the union was dissolved by the death of the virgin spouse. The
      second wife of the emperor Romanus was a maiden of plebeian, but
      of Roman, birth; and their two daughters, Theophano and Anne,
      were given in marriage to the princes of the earth. The eldest
      was bestowed, as the pledge of peace, on the eldest son of the
      great Otho, who had solicited this alliance with arms and
      embassies. It might legally be questioned how far a Saxon was
      entitled to the privilege of the French nation; but every scruple
      was silenced by the fame and piety of a hero who had restored the
      empire of the West. After the death of her father-in-law and
      husband, Theophano governed Rome, Italy, and Germany, during the
      minority of her son, the third Otho; and the Latins have praised
      the virtues of an empress, who sacrificed to a superior duty the
      remembrance of her country. 64 In the nuptials of her sister
      Anne, every prejudice was lost, and every consideration of
      dignity was superseded, by the stronger argument of necessity and
      fear. A Pagan of the North, Wolodomir, great prince of Russia,
      aspired to a daughter of the Roman purple; and his claim was
      enforced by the threats of war, the promise of conversion, and
      the offer of a powerful succor against a domestic rebel. A victim
      of her religion and country, the Grecian princess was torn from
      the palace of her fathers, and condemned to a savage reign, and a
      hopeless exile on the banks of the Borysthenes, or in the
      neighborhood of the Polar circle. 65 Yet the marriage of Anne was
      fortunate and fruitful: the daughter of her grandson Joroslaus
      was recommended by her Imperial descent; and the king of France,
      Henry I., sought a wife on the last borders of Europe and
      Christendom. 66

      58 (return) [ The xiiith chapter, de Administratione Imperii, may
      be explained and rectified by the Familiae Byzantinae of
      Ducange.]

      59 (return) [ Sequiturque nefas Aegyptia conjux, (Virgil, Aeneid,
      viii. 688.) Yet this Egyptian wife was the daughter of a long
      line of kings. Quid te mutavit (says Antony in a private letter
      to Augustus) an quod reginam ineo? Uxor mea est, (Sueton. in
      August. c. 69.) Yet I much question (for I cannot stay to
      inquire) whether the triumvir ever dared to celebrate his
      marriage either with Roman or Egyptian rites.]

      60 (return) [ Berenicem invitus invitam dimisit, (Suetonius in
      Tito, c. 7.) Have I observed elsewhere, that this Jewish beauty
      was at this time above fifty years of age? The judicious Racine
      has most discreetly suppressed both her age and her country.]

      61 (return) [ Constantine was made to praise the the Franks, with
      whom he claimed a private and public alliance. The French writers
      (Isaac Casaubon in Dedicat. Polybii) are highly delighted with
      these compliments.]

      62 (return) [ Constantine Porphyrogenitus (de Administrat. Imp.
      c. 36) exhibits a pedigree and life of the illustrious King Hugo.
      A more correct idea may be formed from the Criticism of Pagi, the
      Annals of Muratori, and the Abridgment of St. Marc, A.D.
      925-946.]

      63 (return) [ After the mention of the three goddesses, Luitprand
      very naturally adds, et quoniam non rex solus iis abutebatur,
      earum nati ex incertis patribus originera ducunt, (Hist. l. iv.
      c. 6: ) for the marriage of the younger Bertha, see Hist. l. v.
      c. 5; for the incontinence of the elder, dulcis exercipio
      Hymenaei, l. ii. c. 15; for the virtues and vices of Hugo, l.
      iii. c. 5. Yet it must not be forgot, that the bishop of Cremona
      was a lover of scandal.]

      64 (return) [ Licet illa Imperatrix Graeca sibi et aliis fuisset
      satis utilis, et optima, &c., is the preamble of an inimical
      writer, apud Pagi, tom. iv. A.D. 989, No. 3. Her marriage and
      principal actions may be found in Muratori, Pagi, and St. Marc,
      under the proper years.]

      65 (return) [ Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 699. Zonaras, tom. i. p. 221.
      Elmacin, Hist. Saracenica, l. iii. c. 6. Nestor apud Levesque,
      tom. ii. p. 112 Pagi, Critica, A.D. 987, No. 6: a singular
      concourse! Wolodomir and Anne are ranked among the saints of the
      Russian church. Yet we know his vices, and are ignorant of her
      virtues.]

      66 (return) [ Henricus primus duxit uxorem Scythicam, Russam,
      filiam regis Jeroslai. An embassy of bishops was sent into
      Russia, and the father gratanter filiam cum multis donis misit.
      This event happened in the year 1051. See the passages of the
      original chronicles in Bouquet’s Historians of France, (tom. xi.
      p. 29, 159, 161, 319, 384, 481.) Voltaire might wonder at this
      alliance; but he should not have owned his ignorance of the
      country, religion, &c., of Jeroslaus—a name so conspicuous in the
      Russian annals.]

      In the Byzantine palace, the emperor was the first slave of the
      ceremonies which he imposed, of the rigid forms which regulated
      each word and gesture, besieged him in the palace, and violated
      the leisure of his rural solitude. But the lives and fortunes of
      millions hung on his arbitrary will; and the firmest minds,
      superior to the allurements of pomp and luxury, may be seduced by
      the more active pleasure of commanding their equals. The
      legislative and executive powers were centred in the person of
      the monarch, and the last remains of the authority of the senate
      were finally eradicated by Leo the philosopher. 67 A lethargy of
      servitude had benumbed the minds of the Greeks: in the wildest
      tumults of rebellion they never aspired to the idea of a free
      constitution; and the private character of the prince was the
      only source and measure of their public happiness. Superstition
      rivetted their chains; in the church of St. Sophia he was
      solemnly crowned by the patriarch; at the foot of the altar, they
      pledged their passive and unconditional obedience to his
      government and family. On his side he engaged to abstain as much
      as possible from the capital punishments of death and mutilation;
      his orthodox creed was subscribed with his own hand, and he
      promised to obey the decrees of the seven synods, and the canons
      of the holy church. 68 But the assurance of mercy was loose and
      indefinite: he swore, not to his people, but to an invisible
      judge; and except in the inexpiable guilt of heresy, the
      ministers of heaven were always prepared to preach the
      indefeasible right, and to absolve the venial transgressions, of
      their sovereign. The Greek ecclesiastics were themselves the
      subjects of the civil magistrate: at the nod of a tyrant, the
      bishops were created, or transferred, or deposed, or punished
      with an ignominious death: whatever might be their wealth or
      influence, they could never succeed like the Latin clergy in the
      establishment of an independent republic; and the patriarch of
      Constantinople condemned, what he secretly envied, the temporal
      greatness of his Roman brother. Yet the exercise of boundless
      despotism is happily checked by the laws of nature and necessity.
      In proportion to his wisdom and virtue, the master of an empire
      is confined to the path of his sacred and laborious duty. In
      proportion to his vice and folly, he drops the sceptre too
      weighty for his hands; and the motions of the royal image are
      ruled by the imperceptible thread of some minister or favorite,
      who undertakes for his private interest to exercise the task of
      the public oppression. In some fatal moment, the most absolute
      monarch may dread the reason or the caprice of a nation of
      slaves; and experience has proved, that whatever is gained in the
      extent, is lost in the safety and solidity, of regal power.

      67 (return) [ A constitution of Leo the Philosopher (lxxviii.) ne
      senatus consulta amplius fiant, speaks the language of naked
      despotism.]

      68 (return) [ Codinus (de Officiis, c. xvii. p. 120, 121) gives
      an idea of this oath so strong to the church, so weak to the
      people.]

      Whatever titles a despot may assume, whatever claims he may
      assert, it is on the sword that he must ultimately depend to
      guard him against his foreign and domestic enemies. From the age
      of Charlemagne to that of the Crusades, the world (for I overlook
      the remote monarchy of China) was occupied and disputed by the
      three great empires or nations of the Greeks, the Saracens, and
      the Franks. Their military strength may be ascertained by a
      comparison of their courage, their arts and riches, and their
      obedience to a supreme head, who might call into action all the
      energies of the state. The Greeks, far inferior to their rivals
      in the first, were superior to the Franks, and at least equal to
      the Saracens, in the second and third of these warlike
      qualifications.

      The wealth of the Greeks enabled them to purchase the service of
      the poorer nations, and to maintain a naval power for the
      protection of their coasts and the annoyance of their enemies. 69
      A commerce of mutual benefit exchanged the gold of Constantinople
      for the blood of Sclavonians and Turks, the Bulgarians and
      Russians: their valor contributed to the victories of Nicephorus
      and Zimisces; and if a hostile people pressed too closely on the
      frontier, they were recalled to the defence of their country, and
      the desire of peace, by the well-managed attack of a more distant
      tribe. 70 The command of the Mediterranean, from the mouth of the
      Tanais to the columns of Hercules, was always claimed, and often
      possessed, by the successors of Constantine. Their capital was
      filled with naval stores and dexterous artificers: the situation
      of Greece and Asia, the long coasts, deep gulfs, and numerous
      islands, accustomed their subjects to the exercise of navigation;
      and the trade of Venice and Amalfi supplied a nursery of seamen
      to the Imperial fleet. 71 Since the time of the Peloponnesian and
      Punic wars, the sphere of action had not been enlarged; and the
      science of naval architecture appears to have declined. The art
      of constructing those stupendous machines which displayed three,
      or six, or ten, ranges of oars, rising above, or falling behind,
      each other, was unknown to the ship-builders of Constantinople,
      as well as to the mechanicians of modern days. 72 The Dromones,
      73 or light galleys of the Byzantine empire, were content with
      two tier of oars; each tier was composed of five-and-twenty
      benches; and two rowers were seated on each bench, who plied
      their oars on either side of the vessel. To these we must add the
      captain or centurion, who, in time of action, stood erect with
      his armor-bearer on the poop, two steersmen at the helm, and two
      officers at the prow, the one to manage the anchor, the other to
      point and play against the enemy the tube of liquid fire. The
      whole crew, as in the infancy of the art, performed the double
      service of mariners and soldiers; they were provided with
      defensive and offensive arms, with bows and arrows, which they
      used from the upper deck, with long pikes, which they pushed
      through the portholes of the lower tier. Sometimes, indeed, the
      ships of war were of a larger and more solid construction; and
      the labors of combat and navigation were more regularly divided
      between seventy soldiers and two hundred and thirty mariners. But
      for the most part they were of the light and manageable size; and
      as the Cape of Malea in Peloponnesus was still clothed with its
      ancient terrors, an Imperial fleet was transported five miles
      over land across the Isthmus of Corinth. 74 The principles of
      maritime tactics had not undergone any change since the time of
      Thucydides: a squadron of galleys still advanced in a crescent,
      charged to the front, and strove to impel their sharp beaks
      against the feeble sides of their antagonists. A machine for
      casting stones and darts was built of strong timbers, in the
      midst of the deck; and the operation of boarding was effected by
      a crane that hoisted baskets of armed men. The language of
      signals, so clear and copious in the naval grammar of the
      moderns, was imperfectly expressed by the various positions and
      colors of a commanding flag. In the darkness of the night, the
      same orders to chase, to attack, to halt, to retreat, to break,
      to form, were conveyed by the lights of the leading galley. By
      land, the fire-signals were repeated from one mountain to
      another; a chain of eight stations commanded a space of five
      hundred miles; and Constantinople in a few hours was apprised of
      the hostile motions of the Saracens of Tarsus. 75 Some estimate
      may be formed of the power of the Greek emperors, by the curious
      and minute detail of the armament which was prepared for the
      reduction of Crete. A fleet of one hundred and twelve galleys,
      and seventy-five vessels of the Pamphylian style, was equipped in
      the capital, the islands of the Aegean Sea, and the seaports of
      Asia, Macedonia, and Greece. It carried thirty-four thousand
      mariners, seven thousand three hundred and forty soldiers, seven
      hundred Russians, and five thousand and eighty-seven Mardaites,
      whose fathers had been transplanted from the mountains of
      Libanus. Their pay, most probably of a month, was computed at
      thirty-four centenaries of gold, about one hundred and thirty-six
      thousand pounds sterling. Our fancy is bewildered by the endless
      recapitulation of arms and engines, of clothes and linen, of
      bread for the men and forage for the horses, and of stores and
      utensils of every description, inadequate to the conquest of a
      petty island, but amply sufficient for the establishment of a
      flourishing colony. 76

      69 (return) [ If we listen to the threats of Nicephorus to the
      ambassador of Otho, Nec est in mari domino tuo classium numerus.
      Navigantium fortitudo mihi soli inest, qui eum classibus
      aggrediar, bello maritimas ejus civitates demoliar; et quae
      fluminibus sunt vicina redigam in favillam. (Liutprand in Legat.
      ad Nicephorum Phocam, in Muratori Scriptores Rerum Italicarum,
      tom. ii. pars i. p. 481.) He observes in another place, qui
      caeteris praestant Venetici sunt et Amalphitani.]

      70 (return) [ Nec ipsa capiet eum (the emperor Otho) in qua ortus
      est pauper et pellicea Saxonia: pecunia qua pollemus omnes
      nationes super eum invitabimus: et quasi Keramicum confringemus,
      (Liutprand in Legat. p. 487.) The two books, de Administrando
      Imperio, perpetually inculcate the same policy.]

      71 (return) [ The xixth chapter of the Tactics of Leo, (Meurs.
      Opera, tom. vi. p. 825-848,) which is given more correct from a
      manuscript of Gudius, by the laborious Fabricius, (Bibliot.
      Graec. tom. vi. p. 372-379,) relates to the Naumachia, or naval
      war.]

      72 (return) [ Even of fifteen and sixteen rows of oars, in the
      navy of Demetrius Poliorcetes. These were for real use: the forty
      rows of Ptolemy Philadelphus were applied to a floating palace,
      whose tonnage, according to Dr. Arbuthnot, (Tables of Ancient
      Coins, &c., p. 231-236,) is compared as 4 1/2 to 1 with an
      English 100 gun ship.]

      73 (return) [ The Dromones of Leo, &c., are so clearly described
      with two tier of oars, that I must censure the version of
      Meursius and Fabricius, who pervert the sense by a blind
      attachment to the classic appellation of Triremes. The Byzantine
      historians are sometimes guilty of the same inaccuracy.]

      74 (return) [ Constantin. Porphyrogen. in Vit. Basil. c. lxi. p.
      185. He calmly praises the stratagem; but the sailing round
      Peloponnesus is described by his terrified fancy as a
      circumnavigation of a thousand miles.]

      75 (return) [ The continuator of Theophanes (l. iv. p. 122, 123)
      names the successive stations, the castle of Lulum near Tarsus,
      Mount Argaeus Isamus, Aegilus, the hill of Mamas, Cyrisus,
      Mocilus, the hill of Auxentius, the sun-dial of the Pharus of the
      great palace. He affirms that the news were transmitted in an
      indivisible moment of time. Miserable amplification, which, by
      saying too much, says nothing. How much more forcible and
      instructive would have been the definition of three, or six, or
      twelve hours!]

      76 (return) [ See the Ceremoniale of Constantine Porphyrogenitus,
      l. ii. c. 44, p. 176-192. A critical reader will discern some
      inconsistencies in different parts of this account; but they are
      not more obscure or more stubborn than the establishment and
      effectives, the present and fit for duty, the rank and file and
      the private, of a modern return, which retain in proper hands the
      knowledge of these profitable mysteries.]

      The invention of the Greek fire did not, like that of gun powder,
      produce a total revolution in the art of war. To these liquid
      combustibles the city and empire of Constantine owed their
      deliverance; and they were employed in sieges and sea-fights with
      terrible effect. But they were either less improved, or less
      susceptible of improvement: the engines of antiquity, the
      catapultae, balistae, and battering-rams, were still of most
      frequent and powerful use in the attack and defence of
      fortifications; nor was the decision of battles reduced to the
      quick and heavy fire of a line of infantry, whom it were
      fruitless to protect with armor against a similar fire of their
      enemies. Steel and iron were still the common instruments of
      destruction and safety; and the helmets, cuirasses, and shields,
      of the tenth century did not, either in form or substance,
      essentially differ from those which had covered the companions of
      Alexander or Achilles. 77 But instead of accustoming the modern
      Greeks, like the legionaries of old, to the constant and easy use
      of this salutary weight, their armor was laid aside in light
      chariots, which followed the march, till, on the approach of an
      enemy, they resumed with haste and reluctance the unusual
      encumbrance. Their offensive weapons consisted of swords,
      battle-axes, and spears; but the Macedonian pike was shortened a
      fourth of its length, and reduced to the more convenient measure
      of twelve cubits or feet. The sharpness of the Scythian and
      Arabian arrows had been severely felt; and the emperors lament
      the decay of archery as a cause of the public misfortunes, and
      recommend, as an advice and a command, that the military youth,
      till the age of forty, should assiduously practise the exercise
      of the bow. 78 The bands, or regiments, were usually three
      hundred strong; and, as a medium between the extremes of four and
      sixteen, the foot soldiers of Leo and Constantine were formed
      eight deep; but the cavalry charged in four ranks, from the
      reasonable consideration, that the weight of the front could not
      be increased by any pressure of the hindmost horses. If the ranks
      of the infantry or cavalry were sometimes doubled, this cautious
      array betrayed a secret distrust of the courage of the troops,
      whose numbers might swell the appearance of the line, but of whom
      only a chosen band would dare to encounter the spears and swords
      of the Barbarians. The order of battle must have varied according
      to the ground, the object, and the adversary; but their ordinary
      disposition, in two lines and a reserve, presented a succession
      of hopes and resources most agreeable to the temper as well as
      the judgment of the Greeks. 79 In case of a repulse, the first
      line fell back into the intervals of the second; and the reserve,
      breaking into two divisions, wheeled round the flanks to improve
      the victory or cover the retreat. Whatever authority could enact
      was accomplished, at least in theory, by the camps and marches,
      the exercises and evolutions, the edicts and books, of the
      Byzantine monarch. 80 Whatever art could produce from the forge,
      the loom, or the laboratory, was abundantly supplied by the
      riches of the prince, and the industry of his numerous workmen.
      But neither authority nor art could frame the most important
      machine, the soldier himself; and if the ceremonies of
      Constantine always suppose the safe and triumphal return of the
      emperor, 81 his tactics seldom soar above the means of escaping a
      defeat, and procrastinating the war. 82 Notwithstanding some
      transient success, the Greeks were sunk in their own esteem and
      that of their neighbors. A cold hand and a loquacious tongue was
      the vulgar description of the nation: the author of the tactics
      was besieged in his capital; and the last of the Barbarians, who
      trembled at the name of the Saracens, or Franks, could proudly
      exhibit the medals of gold and silver which they had extorted
      from the feeble sovereign of Constantinople. What spirit their
      government and character denied, might have been inspired in some
      degree by the influence of religion; but the religion of the
      Greeks could only teach them to suffer and to yield. The emperor
      Nicephorus, who restored for a moment the discipline and glory of
      the Roman name, was desirous of bestowing the honors of martyrdom
      on the Christians who lost their lives in a holy war against the
      infidels. But this political law was defeated by the opposition
      of the patriarch, the bishops, and the principal senators; and
      they strenuously urged the canons of St. Basil, that all who were
      polluted by the bloody trade of a soldier should be separated,
      during three years, from the communion of the faithful. 83

      77 (return) [ See the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters, and, in
      the Tactics of Leo, with the corresponding passages in those of
      Constantine.]

      78 (return) [ (Leo, Tactic. p. 581 Constantin. p 1216.) Yet such
      were not the maxims of the Greeks and Romans, who despised the
      loose and distant practice of archery.]

      79 (return) [ Compare the passages of the Tactics, p. 669 and
      721, and the xiith with the xviiith chapter.]

      80 (return) [ In the preface to his Tactics, Leo very freely
      deplores the loss of discipline and the calamities of the times,
      and repeats, without scruple, (Proem. p. 537,) the reproaches,
      nor does it appear that the same censures were less deserved in
      the next generation by the disciples of Constantine.]

      81 (return) [ See in the Ceremonial (l. ii. c. 19, p. 353) the
      form of the emperor’s trampling on the necks of the captive
      Saracens, while the singers chanted, “Thou hast made my enemies
      my footstool!” and the people shouted forty times the kyrie
      eleison.]

      82 (return) [ Leo observes (Tactic. p. 668) that a fair open
      battle against any nation whatsoever: the words are strong, and
      the remark is true: yet if such had been the opinion of the old
      Romans, Leo had never reigned on the shores of the Thracian
      Bosphorus.]

      83 (return) [ Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 202, 203) and
      Cedrenus, (Compend p. 668,) who relate the design of Nicephorus,
      most unfortunately apply the epithet to the opposition of the
      patriarch.]

      These scruples of the Greeks have been compared with the tears of
      the primitive Moslems when they were held back from battle; and
      this contrast of base superstition and high-spirited enthusiasm,
      unfolds to a philosophic eye the history of the rival nations.
      The subjects of the last caliphs 84 had undoubtedly degenerated
      from the zeal and faith of the companions of the prophet. Yet
      their martial creed still represented the Deity as the author of
      war: 85 the vital though latent spark of fanaticism still glowed
      in the heart of their religion, and among the Saracens, who dwelt
      on the Christian borders, it was frequently rekindled to a lively
      and active flame. Their regular force was formed of the valiant
      slaves who had been educated to guard the person and accompany
      the standard of their lord: but the Mussulman people of Syria and
      Cilicia, of Africa and Spain, was awakened by the trumpet which
      proclaimed a holy war against the infidels. The rich were
      ambitious of death or victory in the cause of God; the poor were
      allured by the hopes of plunder; and the old, the infirm, and the
      women, assumed their share of meritorious service by sending
      their substitutes, with arms and horses, into the field. These
      offensive and defensive arms were similar in strength and temper
      to those of the Romans, whom they far excelled in the management
      of the horse and the bow: the massy silver of their belts, their
      bridles, and their swords, displayed the magnificence of a
      prosperous nation; and except some black archers of the South,
      the Arabs disdained the naked bravery of their ancestors. Instead
      of wagons, they were attended by a long train of camels, mules,
      and asses: the multitude of these animals, whom they bedecked
      with flags and streamers, appeared to swell the pomp and
      magnitude of their host; and the horses of the enemy were often
      disordered by the uncouth figure and odious smell of the camels
      of the East. Invincible by their patience of thirst and heat,
      their spirits were frozen by a winter’s cold, and the
      consciousness of their propensity to sleep exacted the most
      rigorous precautions against the surprises of the night. Their
      order of battle was a long square of two deep and solid lines;
      the first of archers, the second of cavalry. In their engagements
      by sea and land, they sustained with patient firmness the fury of
      the attack, and seldom advanced to the charge till they could
      discern and oppress the lassitude of their foes. But if they were
      repulsed and broken, they knew not how to rally or renew the
      combat; and their dismay was heightened by the superstitious
      prejudice, that God had declared himself on the side of their
      enemies. The decline and fall of the caliphs countenanced this
      fearful opinion; nor were there wanting, among the Mahometans and
      Christians, some obscure prophecies 86 which prognosticated their
      alternate defeats. The unity of the Arabian empire was dissolved,
      but the independent fragments were equal to populous and powerful
      kingdoms; and in their naval and military armaments, an emir of
      Aleppo or Tunis might command no despicable fund of skill, and
      industry, and treasure. In their transactions of peace and war
      with the Saracens, the princes of Constantinople too often felt
      that these Barbarians had nothing barbarous in their discipline;
      and that if they were destitute of original genius, they had been
      endowed with a quick spirit of curiosity and imitation. The model
      was indeed more perfect than the copy; their ships, and engines,
      and fortifications, were of a less skilful construction; and they
      confess, without shame, that the same God who has given a tongue
      to the Arabians, had more nicely fashioned the hands of the
      Chinese, and the heads of the Greeks. 87

      84 (return) [ The xviith chapter of the tactics of the different
      nations is the most historical and useful of the whole collection
      of Leo. The manners and arms of the Saracens (Tactic. p. 809-817,
      and a fragment from the Medicean Ms. in the preface of the vith
      volume of Meursius) the Roman emperor was too frequently called
      upon to study.]

      85 (return) [ Leon. Tactic. p. 809.]

      86 (return) [ Liutprand (p. 484, 485) relates and interprets the
      oracles of the Greeks and Saracens, in which, after the fashion
      of prophecy, the past is clear and historical, the future is
      dark, enigmatical, and erroneous. From this boundary of light and
      shade an impartial critic may commonly determine the date of the
      composition.]

      87 (return) [ The sense of this distinction is expressed by
      Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 2, 62, 101;) but I cannot recollect the
      passage in which it is conveyed by this lively apothegm.]




      Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part IV.

      A name of some German tribes between the Rhine and the Weser had
      spread its victorious influence over the greatest part of Gaul,
      Germany, and Italy; and the common appellation of Franks 88 was
      applied by the Greeks and Arabians to the Christians of the Latin
      church, the nations of the West, who stretched beyond their
      knowledge to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. The vast body had
      been inspired and united by the soul of Charlemagne; but the
      division and degeneracy of his race soon annihilated the Imperial
      power, which would have rivalled the Caesars of Byzantium, and
      revenged the indignities of the Christian name. The enemies no
      longer feared, nor could the subjects any longer trust, the
      application of a public revenue, the labors of trade and
      manufactures in the military service, the mutual aid of provinces
      and armies, and the naval squadrons which were regularly
      stationed from the mouth of the Elbe to that of the Tyber. In the
      beginning of the tenth century, the family of Charlemagne had
      almost disappeared; his monarchy was broken into many hostile and
      independent states; the regal title was assumed by the most
      ambitious chiefs; their revolt was imitated in a long
      subordination of anarchy and discord, and the nobles of every
      province disobeyed their sovereign, oppressed their vassals, and
      exercised perpetual hostilities against their equals and
      neighbors. Their private wars, which overturned the fabric of
      government, fomented the martial spirit of the nation. In the
      system of modern Europe, the power of the sword is possessed, at
      least in fact, by five or six mighty potentates; their operations
      are conducted on a distant frontier, by an order of men who
      devote their lives to the study and practice of the military art:
      the rest of the country and community enjoys in the midst of war
      the tranquillity of peace, and is only made sensible of the
      change by the aggravation or decrease of the public taxes. In the
      disorders of the tenth and eleventh centuries, every peasant was
      a soldier, and every village a fortification; each wood or valley
      was a scene of murder and rapine; and the lords of each castle
      were compelled to assume the character of princes and warriors.
      To their own courage and policy they boldly trusted for the
      safety of their family, the protection of their lands, and the
      revenge of their injuries; and, like the conquerors of a larger
      size, they were too apt to transgress the privilege of defensive
      war. The powers of the mind and body were hardened by the
      presence of danger and necessity of resolution: the same spirit
      refused to desert a friend and to forgive an enemy; and, instead
      of sleeping under the guardian care of a magistrate, they proudly
      disdained the authority of the laws. In the days of feudal
      anarchy, the instruments of agriculture and art were converted
      into the weapons of bloodshed: the peaceful occupations of civil
      and ecclesiastical society were abolished or corrupted; and the
      bishop who exchanged his mitre for a helmet, was more forcibly
      urged by the manners of the times than by the obligation of his
      tenure. 89

      88 (return) [ Ex Francis, quo nomine tam Latinos quam Teutones
      comprehendit, ludum habuit, (Liutprand in Legat ad Imp.
      Nicephorum, p. 483, 484.) This extension of the name may be
      confirmed from Constantine (de Administrando Imperio, l. 2, c.
      27, 28) and Eutychius, (Annal. tom. i. p. 55, 56,) who both lived
      before the Crusades. The testimonies of Abulpharagius (Dynast. p.
      69) and Abulfeda (Praefat. ad Geograph.) are more recent]

      89 (return) [ On this subject of ecclesiastical and beneficiary
      discipline, Father Thomassin, (tom. iii. l. i. c. 40, 45, 46, 47)
      may be usefully consulted. A general law of Charlemagne exempted
      the bishops from personal service; but the opposite practice,
      which prevailed from the ixth to the xvth century, is
      countenanced by the example or silence of saints and doctors....
      You justify your cowardice by the holy canons, says Ratherius of
      Verona; the canons likewise forbid you to whore, and yet—]

      The love of freedom and of arms was felt, with conscious pride,
      by the Franks themselves, and is observed by the Greeks with some
      degree of amazement and terror. “The Franks,” says the emperor
      Constantine, “are bold and valiant to the verge of temerity; and
      their dauntless spirit is supported by the contempt of danger and
      death. In the field and in close onset, they press to the front,
      and rush headlong against the enemy, without deigning to compute
      either his numbers or their own. Their ranks are formed by the
      firm connections of consanguinity and friendship; and their
      martial deeds are prompted by the desire of saving or revenging
      their dearest companions. In their eyes, a retreat is a shameful
      flight; and flight is indelible infamy.” 90 A nation endowed with
      such high and intrepid spirit, must have been secure of victory
      if these advantages had not been counter-balanced by many weighty
      defects. The decay of their naval power left the Greeks and
      Saracens in possession of the sea, for every purpose of annoyance
      and supply. In the age which preceded the institution of
      knighthood, the Franks were rude and unskilful in the service of
      cavalry; 91 and in all perilous emergencies, their warriors were
      so conscious of their ignorance, that they chose to dismount from
      their horses and fight on foot. Unpractised in the use of pikes,
      or of missile weapons, they were encumbered by the length of
      their swords, the weight of their armor, the magnitude of their
      shields, and, if I may repeat the satire of the meagre Greeks, by
      their unwieldy intemperance. Their independent spirit disdained
      the yoke of subordination, and abandoned the standard of their
      chief, if he attempted to keep the field beyond the term of their
      stipulation or service. On all sides they were open to the snares
      of an enemy less brave but more artful than themselves. They
      might be bribed, for the Barbarians were venal; or surprised in
      the night, for they neglected the precautions of a close
      encampment or vigilant sentinels. The fatigues of a summer’s
      campaign exhausted their strength and patience, and they sunk in
      despair if their voracious appetite was disappointed of a
      plentiful supply of wine and of food. This general character of
      the Franks was marked with some national and local shades, which
      I should ascribe to accident rather than to climate, but which
      were visible both to natives and to foreigners. An ambassador of
      the great Otho declared, in the palace of Constantinople, that
      the Saxons could dispute with swords better than with pens, and
      that they preferred inevitable death to the dishonor of turning
      their backs to an enemy. 92 It was the glory of the nobles of
      France, that, in their humble dwellings, war and rapine were the
      only pleasure, the sole occupation, of their lives. They affected
      to deride the palaces, the banquets, the polished manner of the
      Italians, who in the estimate of the Greeks themselves had
      degenerated from the liberty and valor of the ancient Lombards.
      93

      90 (return) [ In the xviiith chapter of his Tactics, the emperor
      Leo has fairly stated the military vices and virtues of the
      Franks (whom Meursius ridiculously translates by Galli) and the
      Lombards or Langobards. See likewise the xxvith Dissertation of
      Muratori de Antiquitatibus Italiae Medii Aevi.]

      91 (return) [ Domini tui milites (says the proud Nicephorus)
      equitandi ignari pedestris pugnae sunt inscii: scutorum
      magnitudo, loricarum gravitudo, ensium longitudo galearumque
      pondus neutra parte pugnare cossinit; ac subridens, impedit,
      inquit, et eos gastrimargia, hoc est ventris ingluvies, &c.
      Liutprand in Legat. p. 480 481]

      92 (return) [ In Saxonia certe scio.... decentius ensibus pugnare
      quam calanis, et prius mortem obire quam hostibus terga dare,
      (Liutprand, p 482.)]

      93 (return) [ Leonis Tactica, c. 18, p. 805. The emperor Leo died
      A.D. 911: an historical poem, which ends in 916, and appears to
      have been composed in 910, by a native of Venetia, discriminates
      in these verses the manners of Italy and France:

     —Quid inertia bello
     Pectora (Ubertus ait) duris praetenditis armis,
     O Itali?  Potius vobis sacra pocula cordi;
     Saepius et stomachum nitidis laxare saginis
     Elatasque domos rutilo fulcire metallo.
     Non eadem Gallos similis vel cura remordet:
     Vicinas quibus est studium devincere terras,
     Depressumque larem spoliis hinc inde coactis
     Sustentare—

      (Anonym. Carmen Panegyricum de Laudibus Berengarii Augusti, l. n.
      in Muratori Script. Rerum Italic. tom. ii. pars i. p. 393.)]

      By the well-known edict of Caracalla, his subjects, from Britain
      to Egypt, were entitled to the name and privileges of Romans, and
      their national sovereign might fix his occasional or permanent
      residence in any province of their common country. In the
      division of the East and West, an ideal unity was scrupulously
      observed, and in their titles, laws, and statutes, the successors
      of Arcadius and Honorius announced themselves as the inseparable
      colleagues of the same office, as the joint sovereigns of the
      Roman world and city, which were bounded by the same limits.
      After the fall of the Western monarchy, the majesty of the purple
      resided solely in the princes of Constantinople; and of these,
      Justinian was the first who, after a divorce of sixty years,
      regained the dominion of ancient Rome, and asserted, by the right
      of conquest, the august title of Emperor of the Romans. 94 A
      motive of vanity or discontent solicited one of his successors,
      Constans the Second, to abandon the Thracian Bosphorus, and to
      restore the pristine honors of the Tyber: an extravagant project,
      (exclaims the malicious Byzantine,) as if he had despoiled a
      beautiful and blooming virgin, to enrich, or rather to expose,
      the deformity of a wrinkled and decrepit matron. 95 But the sword
      of the Lombards opposed his settlement in Italy: he entered Rome
      not as a conqueror, but as a fugitive, and, after a visit of
      twelve days, he pillaged, and forever deserted, the ancient
      capital of the world. 96 The final revolt and separation of Italy
      was accomplished about two centuries after the conquests of
      Justinian, and from his reign we may date the gradual oblivion of
      the Latin tongue. That legislator had composed his Institutes,
      his Code, and his Pandects, in a language which he celebrates as
      the proper and public style of the Roman government, the
      consecrated idiom of the palace and senate of Constantinople, of
      the campus and tribunals of the East. 97 But this foreign dialect
      was unknown to the people and soldiers of the Asiatic provinces,
      it was imperfectly understood by the greater part of the
      interpreters of the laws and the ministers of the state. After a
      short conflict, nature and habit prevailed over the obsolete
      institutions of human power: for the general benefit of his
      subjects, Justinian promulgated his novels in the two languages:
      the several parts of his voluminous jurisprudence were
      successively translated; 98 the original was forgotten, the
      version was studied, and the Greek, whose intrinsic merit
      deserved indeed the preference, obtained a legal, as well as
      popular establishment in the Byzantine monarchy. The birth and
      residence of succeeding princes estranged them from the Roman
      idiom: Tiberius by the Arabs, 99 and Maurice by the Italians, 100
      are distinguished as the first of the Greek Caesars, as the
      founders of a new dynasty and empire: the silent revolution was
      accomplished before the death of Heraclius; and the ruins of the
      Latin speech were darkly preserved in the terms of jurisprudence
      and the acclamations of the palace. After the restoration of the
      Western empire by Charlemagne and the Othos, the names of Franks
      and Latins acquired an equal signification and extent; and these
      haughty Barbarians asserted, with some justice, their superior
      claim to the language and dominion of Rome. They insulted the
      alien of the East who had renounced the dress and idiom of
      Romans; and their reasonable practice will justify the frequent
      appellation of Greeks. 101 But this contemptuous appellation was
      indignantly rejected by the prince and people to whom it was
      applied. Whatsoever changes had been introduced by the lapse of
      ages, they alleged a lineal and unbroken succession from Augustus
      and Constantine; and, in the lowest period of degeneracy and
      decay, the name of Romans adhered to the last fragments of the
      empire of Constantinople. 102

      94 (return) [ Justinian, says the historian Agathias, (l. v. p.
      157,). Yet the specific title of Emperor of the Romans was not
      used at Constantinople, till it had been claimed by the French
      and German emperors of old Rome.]

      95 (return) [ Constantine Manasses reprobates this design in his
      barbarous verse, and it is confirmed by Theophanes, Zonaras,
      Cedrenus, and the Historia Miscella: voluit in urbem Romam
      Imperium transferre, (l. xix. p. 157 in tom. i. pars i. of the
      Scriptores Rer. Ital. of Muratori.)]

      96 (return) [ Paul. Diacon. l. v. c. 11, p. 480. Anastasius in
      Vitis Pontificum, in Muratori’s Collection, tom. iii. pars i. p.
      141.]

      97 (return) [ Consult the preface of Ducange, (ad Gloss, Graec.
      Medii Aevi) and the Novels of Justinian, (vii. lxvi.)]

      98 (return) [ (Matth. Blastares, Hist. Juris, apud Fabric.
      Bibliot. Graec. tom. xii. p. 369.) The Code and Pandects (the
      latter by Thalelaeus) were translated in the time of Justinian,
      (p. 358, 366.) Theophilus one of the original triumvirs, has left
      an elegant, though diffuse, paraphrase of the Institutes. On the
      other hand, Julian, antecessor of Constantinople, (A.D. 570,)
      cxx. Novellas Graecas eleganti Latinitate donavit (Heineccius,
      Hist. J. R. p. 396) for the use of Italy and Africa.]

      99 (return) [ Abulpharagius assigns the viith Dynasty to the
      Franks or Romans, the viiith to the Greeks, the ixth to the
      Arabs. A tempore Augusti Caesaris donec imperaret Tiberius Caesar
      spatio circiter annorum 600 fuerunt Imperatores C. P. Patricii,
      et praecipua pars exercitus Romani: extra quod, conciliarii,
      scribae et populus, omnes Graeci fuerunt: deinde regnum etiam
      Graecanicum factum est, (p. 96, vers. Pocock.) The Christian and
      ecclesiastical studies of Abulpharagius gave him some advantage
      over the more ignorant Moslems.]

      100 (return) [ Primus ex Graecorum genere in Imperio confirmatus
      est; or according to another Ms. of Paulus Diaconus, (l. iii. c.
      15, p. 443,) in Orasorum Imperio.]

      101 (return) [ Quia linguam, mores, vestesque mutastis, putavit
      Sanctissimus Papa. (an audacious irony,) ita vos (vobis)
      displicere Romanorum nomen. His nuncios, rogabant Nicephorum
      Imperatorem Graecorum, ut cum Othone Imperatore Romanorum
      amicitiam faceret, (Liutprand in Legatione, p. 486.) * Note:
      Sicut et vestem. These words follow in the text of Liutprand,
      (apud Murat. Script. Ital. tom. ii. p. 486, to which Gibbon
      refers.) But with some inaccuracy or confusion, which rarely
      occurs in Gibbon’s references, the rest of the quotation, which
      as it stands is unintelligible, does not appear—M.]

      102 (return) [ By Laonicus Chalcocondyles, who survived the last
      siege of Constantinople, the account is thus stated, (l. i. p.
      3.) Constantine transplanted his Latins of Italy to a Greek city
      of Thrace: they adopted the language and manners of the natives,
      who were confounded with them under the name of Romans. The kings
      of Constantinople, says the historian.]

      While the government of the East was transacted in Latin, the
      Greek was the language of literature and philosophy; nor could
      the masters of this rich and perfect idiom be tempted to envy the
      borrowed learning and imitative taste of their Roman disciples.
      After the fall of Paganism, the loss of Syria and Egypt, and the
      extinction of the schools of Alexandria and Athens, the studies
      of the Greeks insensibly retired to some regular monasteries, and
      above all, to the royal college of Constantinople, which was
      burnt in the reign of Leo the Isaurian. 103 In the pompous style
      of the age, the president of that foundation was named the Sun of
      Science: his twelve associates, the professors in the different
      arts and faculties, were the twelve signs of the zodiac; a
      library of thirty-six thousand five hundred volumes was open to
      their inquiries; and they could show an ancient manuscript of
      Homer, on a roll of parchment one hundred and twenty feet in
      length, the intestines, as it was fabled, of a prodigious
      serpent. 104 But the seventh and eight centuries were a period of
      discord and darkness: the library was burnt, the college was
      abolished, the Iconoclasts are represented as the foes of
      antiquity; and a savage ignorance and contempt of letters has
      disgraced the princes of the Heraclean and Isaurian dynasties.
      105

      103 (return) [ See Ducange, (C. P. Christiana, l. ii. p. 150,
      151,) who collects the testimonies, not of Theophanes, but at
      least of Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xv. p. 104,) Cedrenus, (p. 454,)
      Michael Glycas, (p. 281,) Constantine Manasses, (p. 87.) After
      refuting the absurd charge against the emperor, Spanheim, (Hist.
      Imaginum, p. 99-111,) like a true advocate, proceeds to doubt or
      deny the reality of the fire, and almost of the library.]

      104 (return) [ According to Malchus, (apud Zonar. l. xiv. p. 53,)
      this Homer was burnt in the time of Basiliscus. The Ms. might be
      renewed—But on a serpent’s skin? Most strange and incredible!]

      105 (return) [ The words of Zonaras, and of Cedrenus, are strong
      words, perhaps not ill suited to those reigns.]

      In the ninth century we trace the first dawnings of the
      restoration of science. 106 After the fanaticism of the Arabs had
      subsided, the caliphs aspired to conquer the arts, rather than
      the provinces, of the empire: their liberal curiosity rekindled
      the emulation of the Greeks, brushed away the dust from their
      ancient libraries, and taught them to know and reward the
      philosophers, whose labors had been hitherto repaid by the
      pleasure of study and the pursuit of truth. The Caesar Bardas,
      the uncle of Michael the Third, was the generous protector of
      letters, a title which alone has preserved his memory and excused
      his ambition. A particle of the treasures of his nephew was
      sometimes diverted from the indulgence of vice and folly; a
      school was opened in the palace of Magnaura; and the presence of
      Bardas excited the emulation of the masters and students. At
      their head was the philosopher Leo, archbishop of Thessalonica:
      his profound skill in astronomy and the mathematics was admired
      by the strangers of the East; and this occult science was
      magnified by vulgar credulity, which modestly supposes that all
      knowledge superior to its own must be the effect of inspiration
      or magic. At the pressing entreaty of the Caesar, his friend, the
      celebrated Photius, 107 renounced the freedom of a secular and
      studious life, ascended the patriarchal throne, and was
      alternately excommunicated and absolved by the synods of the East
      and West. By the confession even of priestly hatred, no art or
      science, except poetry, was foreign to this universal scholar,
      who was deep in thought, indefatigable in reading, and eloquent
      in diction. Whilst he exercised the office of protospathaire or
      captain of the guards, Photius was sent ambassador to the caliph
      of Bagdad. 108 The tedious hours of exile, perhaps of
      confinement, were beguiled by the hasty composition of his
      Library, a living monument of erudition and criticism. Two
      hundred and fourscore writers, historians, orators, philosophers,
      theologians, are reviewed without any regular method: he abridges
      their narrative or doctrine, appreciates their style and
      character, and judges even the fathers of the church with a
      discreet freedom, which often breaks through the superstition of
      the times. The emperor Basil, who lamented the defects of his own
      education, intrusted to the care of Photius his son and
      successor, Leo the philosopher; and the reign of that prince and
      of his son Constantine Porphyrogenitus forms one of the most
      prosperous aeras of the Byzantine literature. By their
      munificence the treasures of antiquity were deposited in the
      Imperial library; by their pens, or those of their associates,
      they were imparted in such extracts and abridgments as might
      amuse the curiosity, without oppressing the indolence, of the
      public. Besides the Basilics, or code of laws, the arts of
      husbandry and war, of feeding or destroying the human species,
      were propagated with equal diligence; and the history of Greece
      and Rome was digested into fifty-three heads or titles, of which
      two only (of embassies, and of virtues and vices) have escaped
      the injuries of time. In every station, the reader might
      contemplate the image of the past world, apply the lesson or
      warning of each page, and learn to admire, perhaps to imitate,
      the examples of a brighter period. I shall not expatiate on the
      works of the Byzantine Greeks, who, by the assiduous study of the
      ancients, have deserved, in some measure, the remembrance and
      gratitude of the moderns. The scholars of the present age may
      still enjoy the benefit of the philosophical commonplace book of
      Stobaeus, the grammatical and historical lexicon of Suidas, the
      Chiliads of Tzetzes, which comprise six hundred narratives in
      twelve thousand verses, and the commentaries on Homer of
      Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica, who, from his horn of
      plenty, has poured the names and authorities of four hundred
      writers. From these originals, and from the numerous tribe of
      scholiasts and critics, 109 some estimate may be formed of the
      literary wealth of the twelfth century: Constantinople was
      enlightened by the genius of Homer and Demosthenes, of Aristotle
      and Plato: and in the enjoyment or neglect of our present riches,
      we must envy the generation that could still peruse the history
      of Theopompus, the orations of Hyperides, the comedies of
      Menander, 110 and the odes of Alcaeus and Sappho. The frequent
      labor of illustration attests not only the existence, but the
      popularity, of the Grecian classics: the general knowledge of the
      age may be deduced from the example of two learned females, the
      empress Eudocia, and the princess Anna Comnena, who cultivated,
      in the purple, the arts of rhetoric and philosophy. 111 The
      vulgar dialect of the city was gross and barbarous: a more
      correct and elaborate style distinguished the discourse, or at
      least the compositions, of the church and palace, which sometimes
      affected to copy the purity of the Attic models.

      106 (return) [ See Zonaras (l. xvi. p. 160, 161) and Cedrenus,
      (p. 549, 550.) Like Friar Bacon, the philosopher Leo has been
      transformed by ignorance into a conjurer; yet not so
      undeservedly, if he be the author of the oracles more commonly
      ascribed to the emperor of the same name. The physics of Leo in
      Ms. are in the library of Vienna, (Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec.
      tom. vi. p 366, tom. xii. p. 781.) Qui serant!]

      107 (return) [ The ecclesiastical and literary character of
      Photius is copiously discussed by Hanckius (de Scriptoribus
      Byzant. p. 269, 396) and Fabricius.]

      108 (return) [ It can only mean Bagdad, the seat of the caliphs
      and the relation of his embassy might have been curious and
      instructive. But how did he procure his books? A library so
      numerous could neither be found at Bagdad, nor transported with
      his baggage, nor preserved in his memory. Yet the last, however
      incredible, seems to be affirmed by Photius himself. Camusat
      (Hist. Critique des Journaux, p. 87-94) gives a good account of
      the Myriobiblon.]

      109 (return) [ Of these modern Greeks, see the respective
      articles in the Bibliotheca Graeca of Fabricius—a laborious work,
      yet susceptible of a better method and many improvements; of
      Eustathius, (tom. i. p. 289-292, 306-329,) of the Pselli, (a
      diatribe of Leo Allatius, ad calcem tom. v., of Constantine
      Porphyrogenitus, tom. vi. p. 486-509) of John Stobaeus, (tom.
      viii., 665-728,) of Suidas, (tom. ix. p. 620-827,) John Tzetzes,
      (tom. xii. p. 245-273.) Mr. Harris, in his Philological
      Arrangements, opus senile, has given a sketch of this Byzantine
      learning, (p. 287-300.)]

      110 (return) [ From the obscure and hearsay evidence, Gerard
      Vossius (de Poetis Graecis, c. 6) and Le Clerc (Bibliotheque
      Choisie, tom. xix. p. 285) mention a commentary of Michael
      Psellus on twenty-four plays of Menander, still extant in Ms. at
      Constantinople. Yet such classic studies seem incompatible with
      the gravity or dulness of a schoolman, who pored over the
      categories, (de Psellis, p. 42;) and Michael has probably been
      confounded with Homerus Sellius, who wrote arguments to the
      comedies of Menander. In the xth century, Suidas quotes fifty
      plays, but he often transcribes the old scholiast of
      Aristophanes.]

      111 (return) [ Anna Comnena may boast of her Greek style, and
      Zonaras her contemporary, but not her flatterer, may add with
      truth. The princess was conversant with the artful dialogues of
      Plato; and had studied quadrivium of astrology, geometry,
      arithmetic, and music, (see he preface to the Alexiad, with
      Ducange’s notes)]

      In our modern education, the painful though necessary attainment
      of two languages, which are no longer living, may consume the
      time and damp the ardor of the youthful student. The poets and
      orators were long imprisoned in the barbarous dialects of our
      Western ancestors, devoid of harmony or grace; and their genius,
      without precept or example, was abandoned to the rule and native
      powers of their judgment and fancy. But the Greeks of
      Constantinople, after purging away the impurities of their vulgar
      speech, acquired the free use of their ancient language, the most
      happy composition of human art, and a familiar knowledge of the
      sublime masters who had pleased or instructed the first of
      nations. But these advantages only tend to aggravate the reproach
      and shame of a degenerate people. They held in their lifeless
      hands the riches of their fathers, without inheriting the spirit
      which had created and improved that sacred patrimony: they read,
      they praised, they compiled, but their languid souls seemed alike
      incapable of thought and action. In the revolution of ten
      centuries, not a single discovery was made to exalt the dignity
      or promote the happiness of mankind. Not a single idea has been
      added to the speculative systems of antiquity, and a succession
      of patient disciples became in their turn the dogmatic teachers
      of the next servile generation. Not a single composition of
      history, philosophy, or literature, has been saved from oblivion
      by the intrinsic beauties of style or sentiment, of original
      fancy, or even of successful imitation. In prose, the least
      offensive of the Byzantine writers are absolved from censure by
      their naked and unpresuming simplicity: but the orators, most
      eloquent 112 in their own conceit, are the farthest removed from
      the models whom they affect to emulate. In every page our taste
      and reason are wounded by the choice of gigantic and obsolete
      words, a stiff and intricate phraseology, the discord of images,
      the childish play of false or unseasonable ornament, and the
      painful attempt to elevate themselves, to astonish the reader,
      and to involve a trivial meaning in the smoke of obscurity and
      exaggeration. Their prose is soaring to the vicious affectation
      of poetry: their poetry is sinking below the flatness and
      insipidity of prose. The tragic, epic, and lyric muses, were
      silent and inglorious: the bards of Constantinople seldom rose
      above a riddle or epigram, a panegyric or tale; they forgot even
      the rules of prosody; and with the melody of Homer yet sounding
      in their ears, they confound all measure of feet and syllables in
      the impotent strains which have received the name of political or
      city verses. 113 The minds of the Greek were bound in the fetters
      of a base and imperious superstition which extends her dominion
      round the circle of profane science. Their understandings were
      bewildered in metaphysical controversy: in the belief of visions
      and miracles, they had lost all principles of moral evidence, and
      their taste was vitiated by the homilies of the monks, an absurd
      medley of declamation and Scripture. Even these contemptible
      studies were no longer dignified by the abuse of superior
      talents: the leaders of the Greek church were humbly content to
      admire and copy the oracles of antiquity, nor did the schools of
      pulpit produce any rivals of the fame of Athanasius and
      Chrysostom. 114

      112 (return) [ To censure the Byzantine taste. Ducange (Praefat.
      Gloss. Graec. p. 17) strings the authorities of Aulus Gellius,
      Jerom, Petronius George Hamartolus, Longinus; who give at once
      the precept and the example.]

      113 (return) [ The versus politici, those common prostitutes, as,
      from their easiness, they are styled by Leo Allatius, usually
      consist of fifteen syllables. They are used by Constantine
      Manasses, John Tzetzes, &c. (Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. iii. p.
      i. p. 345, 346, edit. Basil, 1762.)]

      114 (return) [ As St. Bernard of the Latin, so St. John
      Damascenus in the viiith century is revered as the last father of
      the Greek, church.]

      In all the pursuits of active and speculative life, the emulation
      of states and individuals is the most powerful spring of the
      efforts and improvements of mankind. The cities of ancient Greece
      were cast in the happy mixture of union and independence, which
      is repeated on a larger scale, but in a looser form, by the
      nations of modern Europe; the union of language, religion, and
      manners, which renders them the spectators and judges of each
      other’s merit; 115 the independence of government and interest,
      which asserts their separate freedom, and excites them to strive
      for preeminence in the career of glory. The situation of the
      Romans was less favorable; yet in the early ages of the republic,
      which fixed the national character, a similar emulation was
      kindled among the states of Latium and Italy; and in the arts and
      sciences, they aspired to equal or surpass their Grecian masters.
      The empire of the Caesars undoubtedly checked the activity and
      progress of the human mind; its magnitude might indeed allow some
      scope for domestic competition; but when it was gradually
      reduced, at first to the East and at last to Greece and
      Constantinople, the Byzantine subjects were degraded to an abject
      and languid temper, the natural effect of their solitary and
      insulated state. From the North they were oppressed by nameless
      tribes of Barbarians, to whom they scarcely imparted the
      appellation of men. The language and religion of the more
      polished Arabs were an insurmountable bar to all social
      intercourse. The conquerors of Europe were their brethren in the
      Christian faith; but the speech of the Franks or Latins was
      unknown, their manners were rude, and they were rarely connected,
      in peace or war, with the successors of Heraclius. Alone in the
      universe, the self-satisfied pride of the Greeks was not
      disturbed by the comparison of foreign merit; and it is no wonder
      if they fainted in the race, since they had neither competitors
      to urge their speed, nor judges to crown their victory. The
      nations of Europe and Asia were mingled by the expeditions to the
      Holy Land; and it is under the Comnenian dynasty that a faint
      emulation of knowledge and military virtue was rekindled in the
      Byzantine empire.

      115 (return) [Hume’s Essays, vol. i. p. 125]




      Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Part I.

     Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Their Persecution By The
     Greek Emperors.—Revolt In Armenia &c.—Transplantation Into
     Thrace.—Propagation In The West.—The Seeds, Character, And
     Consequences Of The Reformation.

      In the profession of Christianity, the variety of national
      characters may be clearly distinguished. The natives of Syria and
      Egypt abandoned their lives to lazy and contemplative devotion:
      Rome again aspired to the dominion of the world; and the wit of
      the lively and loquacious Greeks was consumed in the disputes of
      metaphysical theology. The incomprehensible mysteries of the
      Trinity and Incarnation, instead of commanding their silent
      submission, were agitated in vehement and subtile controversies,
      which enlarged their faith at the expense, perhaps, of their
      charity and reason. From the council of Nice to the end of the
      seventh century, the peace and unity of the church was invaded by
      these spiritual wars; and so deeply did they affect the decline
      and fall of the empire, that the historian has too often been
      compelled to attend the synods, to explore the creeds, and to
      enumerate the sects, of this busy period of ecclesiastical
      annals. From the beginning of the eighth century to the last ages
      of the Byzantine empire, the sound of controversy was seldom
      heard: curiosity was exhausted, zeal was fatigued, and, in the
      decrees of six councils, the articles of the Catholic faith had
      been irrevocably defined. The spirit of dispute, however vain and
      pernicious, requires some energy and exercise of the mental
      faculties; and the prostrate Greeks were content to fast, to
      pray, and to believe in blind obedience to the patriarch and his
      clergy. During a long dream of superstition, the Virgin and the
      Saints, their visions and miracles, their relics and images, were
      preached by the monks, and worshipped by the people; and the
      appellation of people might be extended, without injustice, to
      the first ranks of civil society. At an unseasonable moment, the
      Isaurian emperors attempted somewhat rudely to awaken their
      subjects: under their influence reason might obtain some
      proselytes, a far greater number was swayed by interest or fear;
      but the Eastern world embraced or deplored their visible deities,
      and the restoration of images was celebrated as the feast of
      orthodoxy. In this passive and unanimous state the ecclesiastical
      rulers were relieved from the toil, or deprived of the pleasure,
      of persecution. The Pagans had disappeared; the Jews were silent
      and obscure; the disputes with the Latins were rare and remote
      hostilities against a national enemy; and the sects of Egypt and
      Syria enjoyed a free toleration under the shadow of the Arabian
      caliphs. About the middle of the seventh century, a branch of
      Manichaeans was selected as the victims of spiritual tyranny;
      their patience was at length exasperated to despair and
      rebellion; and their exile has scattered over the West the seeds
      of reformation. These important events will justify some inquiry
      into the doctrine and story of the Paulicians; 1 and, as they
      cannot plead for themselves, our candid criticism will magnify
      the good, and abate or suspect the evil, that is reported by
      their adversaries.

      1 (return) [ The errors and virtues of the Paulicians are
      weighed, with his usual judgment and candor, by the learned
      Mosheim, (Hist. Ecclesiast. seculum ix. p. 311, &c.) He draws his
      original intelligence from Photius (contra Manichaeos, l. i.) and
      Peter Siculus, (Hist. Manichaeorum.) The first of these accounts
      has not fallen into my hands; the second, which Mosheim prefers,
      I have read in a Latin version inserted in the Maxima Bibliotheca
      Patrum, (tom. xvi. p. 754-764,) from the edition of the Jesuit
      Raderus, (Ingolstadii, 1604, in 4to.) * Note: Compare Hallam’s
      Middle Ages, p. 461-471. Mr. Hallam justly observes that this
      chapter “appears to be accurate as well as luminous, and is at
      least far superior to any modern work on the subject.”—M.]

      The Gnostics, who had distracted the infancy, were oppressed by
      the greatness and authority, of the church. Instead of emulating
      or surpassing the wealth, learning, and numbers of the Catholics,
      their obscure remnant was driven from the capitals of the East
      and West, and confined to the villages and mountains along the
      borders of the Euphrates. Some vestige of the Marcionites may be
      detected in the fifth century; 2 but the numerous sects were
      finally lost in the odious name of the Manichaeans; and these
      heretics, who presumed to reconcile the doctrines of Zoroaster
      and Christ, were pursued by the two religions with equal and
      unrelenting hatred. Under the grandson of Heraclius, in the
      neighborhood of Samosata, more famous for the birth of Lucian
      than for the title of a Syrian kingdom, a reformer arose,
      esteemed by the Paulicians as the chosen messenger of truth. In
      his humble dwelling of Mananalis, Constantine entertained a
      deacon, who returned from Syrian captivity, and received the
      inestimable gift of the New Testament, which was already
      concealed from the vulgar by the prudence of the Greek, and
      perhaps of the Gnostic, clergy. 3 These books became the measure
      of his studies and the rule of his faith; and the Catholics, who
      dispute his interpretation, acknowledge that his text was genuine
      and sincere. But he attached himself with peculiar devotion to
      the writings and character of St. Paul: the name of the
      Paulicians is derived by their enemies from some unknown and
      domestic teacher; but I am confident that they gloried in their
      affinity to the apostle of the Gentiles. His disciples, Titus,
      Timothy, Sylvanus, Tychicus, were represented by Constantine and
      his fellow-laborers: the names of the apostolic churches were
      applied to the congregations which they assembled in Armenia and
      Cappadocia; and this innocent allegory revived the example and
      memory of the first ages. In the Gospel, and the Epistles of St.
      Paul, his faithful follower investigated the Creed of primitive
      Christianity; and, whatever might be the success, a Protestant
      reader will applaud the spirit, of the inquiry. But if the
      Scriptures of the Paulicians were pure, they were not perfect.
      Their founders rejected the two Epistles of St. Peter, 4 the
      apostle of the circumcision, whose dispute with their favorite
      for the observance of the law could not easily be forgiven. 5
      They agreed with their Gnostic brethren in the universal contempt
      for the Old Testament, the books of Moses and the prophets, which
      have been consecrated by the decrees of the Catholic church. With
      equal boldness, and doubtless with more reason, Constantine, the
      new Sylvanus, disclaimed the visions, which, in so many bulky and
      splendid volumes, had been published by the Oriental sects; 6 the
      fabulous productions of the Hebrew patriarchs and the sages of
      the East; the spurious gospels, epistles, and acts, which in the
      first age had overwhelmed the orthodox code; the theology of
      Manes, and the authors of the kindred heresies; and the thirty
      generations, or aeons, which had been created by the fruitful
      fancy of Valentine. The Paulicians sincerely condemned the memory
      and opinions of the Manichaean sect, and complained of the
      injustice which impressed that invidious name on the simple
      votaries of St. Paul and of Christ.

      2 (return) [ In the time of Theodoret, the diocese of Cyrrhus, in
      Syria, contained eight hundred villages. Of these, two were
      inhabited by Arians and Eunomians, and eight by Marcionites, whom
      the laborious bishop reconciled to the Catholic church, (Dupin,
      Bibliot. Ecclesiastique, tom. iv. p. 81, 82.)]

      3 (return) [ Nobis profanis ista (sacra Evangelia) legere non
      licet sed sacerdotibus duntaxat, was the first scruple of a
      Catholic when he was advised to read the Bible, (Petr. Sicul. p.
      761.)]

      4 (return) [ In rejecting the second Epistle of St. Peter, the
      Paulicians are justified by some of the most respectable of the
      ancients and moderns, (see Wetstein ad loc., Simon, Hist.
      Critique du Nouveau Testament, c. 17.) They likewise overlooked
      the Apocalypse, (Petr. Sicul. p. 756;) but as such neglect is not
      imputed as a crime, the Greeks of the ixth century must have been
      careless of the credit and honor of the Revelations.]

      5 (return) [ This contention, which has not escaped the malice of
      Porphyry, supposes some error and passion in one or both of the
      apostles. By Chrysostom, Jerome, and Erasmus, it is represented
      as a sham quarrel a pious fraud, for the benefit of the Gentiles
      and the correction of the Jews, (Middleton’s Works, vol. ii. p.
      1-20.)]

      6 (return) [ Those who are curious of this heterodox library, may
      consult the researches of Beausobre, (Hist. Critique du
      Manicheisme, tom. i. p. 305-437.) Even in Africa, St. Austin
      could describe the Manichaean books, tam multi, tam grandes, tam
      pretiosi codices, (contra Faust. xiii. 14;) but he adds, without
      pity, Incendite omnes illas membranas: and his advice had been
      rigorously followed.]

      Of the ecclesiastical chain, many links had been broken by the
      Paulician reformers; and their liberty was enlarged, as they
      reduced the number of masters, at whose voice profane reason must
      bow to mystery and miracle. The early separation of the Gnostics
      had preceded the establishment of the Catholic worship; and
      against the gradual innovations of discipline and doctrine they
      were as strongly guarded by habit and aversion, as by the silence
      of St. Paul and the evangelists. The objects which had been
      transformed by the magic of superstition, appeared to the eyes of
      the Paulicians in their genuine and naked colors. An image made
      without hands was the common workmanship of a mortal artist, to
      whose skill alone the wood and canvas must be indebted for their
      merit or value. The miraculous relics were a heap of bones and
      ashes, destitute of life or virtue, or of any relation, perhaps,
      with the person to whom they were ascribed. The true and
      vivifying cross was a piece of sound or rotten timber, the body
      and blood of Christ, a loaf of bread and a cup of wine, the gifts
      of nature and the symbols of grace. The mother of God was
      degraded from her celestial honors and immaculate virginity; and
      the saints and angels were no longer solicited to exercise the
      laborious office of mediation in heaven, and ministry upon earth.
      In the practice, or at least in the theory, of the sacraments,
      the Paulicians were inclined to abolish all visible objects of
      worship, and the words of the gospel were, in their judgment, the
      baptism and communion of the faithful. They indulged a convenient
      latitude for the interpretation of Scripture: and as often as
      they were pressed by the literal sense, they could escape to the
      intricate mazes of figure and allegory. Their utmost diligence
      must have been employed to dissolve the connection between the
      Old and the New Testament; since they adored the latter as the
      oracles of God, and abhorred the former as the fabulous and
      absurd invention of men or daemons. We cannot be surprised, that
      they should have found in the Gospel the orthodox mystery of the
      Trinity: but, instead of confessing the human nature and
      substantial sufferings of Christ, they amused their fancy with a
      celestial body that passed through the virgin like water through
      a pipe; with a fantastic crucifixion, that eluded the vain and
      important malice of the Jews. A creed thus simple and spiritual
      was not adapted to the genius of the times; 7 and the rational
      Christian, who might have been contented with the light yoke and
      easy burden of Jesus and his apostles, was justly offended, that
      the Paulicians should dare to violate the unity of God, the first
      article of natural and revealed religion. Their belief and their
      trust was in the Father, of Christ, of the human soul, and of the
      invisible world.

      But they likewise held the eternity of matter; a stubborn and
      rebellious substance, the origin of a second principle of an
      active being, who has created this visible world, and exercises
      his temporal reign till the final consummation of death and sin.
      8 The appearances of moral and physical evil had established the
      two principles in the ancient philosophy and religion of the
      East; from whence this doctrine was transfused to the various
      swarms of the Gnostics. A thousand shades may be devised in the
      nature and character of Ahriman, from a rival god to a
      subordinate daemon, from passion and frailty to pure and perfect
      malevolence: but, in spite of our efforts, the goodness, and the
      power, of Ormusd are placed at the opposite extremities of the
      line; and every step that approaches the one must recede in equal
      proportion from the other. 9

      7 (return) [ The six capital errors of the Paulicians are defined
      by Peter (p. 756,) with much prejudice and passion.]

      8 (return) [ Primum illorum axioma est, duo rerum esse principia;
      Deum malum et Deum bonum, aliumque hujus mundi conditorem et
      princi pem, et alium futuri aevi, (Petr. Sicul. 765.)]

      9 (return) [ Two learned critics, Beausobre (Hist. Critique du
      Manicheisme, l. i. iv. v. vi.) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist.
      Eccles. and de Rebus Christianis ante Constantinum, sec. i. ii.
      iii.,) have labored to explore and discriminate the various
      systems of the Gnostics on the subject of the two principles.]

      The apostolic labors of Constantine Sylvanus soon multiplied the
      number of his disciples, the secret recompense of spiritual
      ambition. The remnant of the Gnostic sects, and especially the
      Manichaeans of Armenia, were united under his standard; many
      Catholics were converted or seduced by his arguments; and he
      preached with success in the regions of Pontus 10 and Cappadocia,
      which had long since imbibed the religion of Zoroaster. The
      Paulician teachers were distinguished only by their Scriptural
      names, by the modest title of Fellow-pilgrims, by the austerity
      of their lives, their zeal or knowledge, and the credit of some
      extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. But they were incapable
      of desiring, or at least of obtaining, the wealth and honors of
      the Catholic prelacy; such anti-Christian pride they bitterly
      censured; and even the rank of elders or presbyters was condemned
      as an institution of the Jewish synagogue. The new sect was
      loosely spread over the provinces of Asia Minor to the westward
      of the Euphrates; six of their principal congregations
      represented the churches to which St. Paul had addressed his
      epistles; and their founder chose his residence in the
      neighborhood of Colonia, 11 in the same district of Pontus which
      had been celebrated by the altars of Bellona 12 and the miracles
      of Gregory. 13 After a mission of twenty-seven years, Sylvanus,
      who had retired from the tolerating government of the Arabs, fell
      a sacrifice to Roman persecution. The laws of the pious emperors,
      which seldom touched the lives of less odious heretics,
      proscribed without mercy or disguise the tenets, the books, and
      the persons of the Montanists and Manichaeans: the books were
      delivered to the flames; and all who should presume to secrete
      such writings, or to profess such opinions, were devoted to an
      ignominious death. 14 A Greek minister, armed with legal and
      military powers, appeared at Colonia to strike the shepherd, and
      to reclaim, if possible, the lost sheep. By a refinement of
      cruelty, Simeon placed the unfortunate Sylvanus before a line of
      his disciples, who were commanded, as the price of their pardon
      and the proof of their repentance, to massacre their spiritual
      father. They turned aside from the impious office; the stones
      dropped from their filial hands, and of the whole number, only
      one executioner could be found, a new David, as he is styled by
      the Catholics, who boldly overthrew the giant of heresy. This
      apostate (Justin was his name) again deceived and betrayed his
      unsuspecting brethren, and a new conformity to the acts of St.
      Paul may be found in the conversion of Simeon: like the apostle,
      he embraced the doctrine which he had been sent to persecute,
      renounced his honors and fortunes, and required among the
      Paulicians the fame of a missionary and a martyr. They were not
      ambitious of martyrdom, 15 but in a calamitous period of one
      hundred and fifty years, their patience sustained whatever zeal
      could inflict; and power was insufficient to eradicate the
      obstinate vegetation of fanaticism and reason. From the blood and
      ashes of the first victims, a succession of teachers and
      congregations repeatedly arose: amidst their foreign hostilities,
      they found leisure for domestic quarrels: they preached, they
      disputed, they suffered; and the virtues, the apparent virtues,
      of Sergius, in a pilgrimage of thirty-three years, are
      reluctantly confessed by the orthodox historians. 16 The native
      cruelty of Justinian the Second was stimulated by a pious cause;
      and he vainly hoped to extinguish, in a single conflagration, the
      name and memory of the Paulicians. By their primitive simplicity,
      their abhorrence of popular superstition, the Iconoclast princes
      might have been reconciled to some erroneous doctrines; but they
      themselves were exposed to the calumnies of the monks, and they
      chose to be the tyrants, lest they should be accused as the
      accomplices, of the Manichaeans. Such a reproach has sullied the
      clemency of Nicephorus, who relaxed in their favor the severity
      of the penal statutes, nor will his character sustain the honor
      of a more liberal motive. The feeble Michael the First, the rigid
      Leo the Armenian, were foremost in the race of persecution; but
      the prize must doubtless be adjudged to the sanguinary devotion
      of Theodora, who restored the images to the Oriental church. Her
      inquisitors explored the cities and mountains of the Lesser Asia,
      and the flatterers of the empress have affirmed that, in a short
      reign, one hundred thousand Paulicians were extirpated by the
      sword, the gibbet, or the flames. Her guilt or merit has perhaps
      been stretched beyond the measure of truth: but if the account be
      allowed, it must be presumed that many simple Iconoclasts were
      punished under a more odious name; and that some who were driven
      from the church, unwillingly took refuge in the bosom of heresy.

      10 (return) [ The countries between the Euphrates and the Halys
      were possessed above 350 years by the Medes (Herodot. l. i. c.
      103) and Persians; and the kings of Pontus were of the royal race
      of the Achaemenides, (Sallust. Fragment. l. iii. with the French
      supplement and notes of the president de Brosses.)]

      11 (return) [ Most probably founded by Pompey after the conquest
      of Pontus. This Colonia, on the Lycus, above Neo-Caesarea, is
      named by the Turks Coulei-hisar, or Chonac, a populous town in a
      strong country, (D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 34.
      Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. lettre xxi. p. 293.)]

      12 (return) [ The temple of Bellona, at Comana in Pontus was a
      powerful and wealthy foundation, and the high priest was
      respected as the second person in the kingdom. As the sacerdotal
      office had been occupied by his mother’s family, Strabo (l. xii.
      p. 809, 835, 836, 837) dwells with peculiar complacency on the
      temple, the worship, and festival, which was twice celebrated
      every year. But the Bellona of Pontus had the features and
      character of the goddess, not of war, but of love.]

      13 (return) [ Gregory, bishop of Neo-Caesarea, (A.D. 240-265,)
      surnamed Thaumaturgus, or the Wonder-worker. An hundred years
      afterwards, the history or romance of his life was composed by
      Gregory of Nyssa, his namesake and countryman, the brother of the
      great St. Basil.]

      14 (return) [ Hoc caeterum ad sua egregia facinora, divini atque
      orthodoxi Imperatores addiderunt, ut Manichaeos Montanosque
      capitali puniri sententia juberent, eorumque libros, quocunque in
      loco inventi essent, flammis tradi; quod siquis uspiam eosdem
      occultasse deprehenderetur, hunc eundem mortis poenae addici,
      ejusque bona in fiscum inferri, (Petr. Sicul. p. 759.) What more
      could bigotry and persecution desire?]

      15 (return) [ It should seem, that the Paulicians allowed
      themselves some latitude of equivocation and mental reservation;
      till the Catholics discovered the pressing questions, which
      reduced them to the alternative of apostasy or martyrdom, (Petr.
      Sicul. p. 760.)]

      16 (return) [ The persecution is told by Petrus Siculus (p.
      579-763) with satisfaction and pleasantry. Justus justa
      persolvit. See likewise Cedrenus, (p. 432-435.)]

      The most furious and desperate of rebels are the sectaries of a
      religion long persecuted, and at length provoked. In a holy cause
      they are no longer susceptible of fear or remorse: the justice of
      their arms hardens them against the feelings of humanity; and
      they revenge their fathers’ wrongs on the children of their
      tyrants. Such have been the Hussites of Bohemia and the
      Calvinists of France, and such, in the ninth century, were the
      Paulicians of Armenia and the adjacent provinces. 17 They were
      first awakened to the massacre of a governor and bishop, who
      exercised the Imperial mandate of converting or destroying the
      heretics; and the deepest recesses of Mount Argaeus protected
      their independence and revenge. A more dangerous and consuming
      flame was kindled by the persecution of Theodora, and the revolt
      of Carbeas, a valiant Paulician, who commanded the guards of the
      general of the East. His father had been impaled by the Catholic
      inquisitors; and religion, or at least nature, might justify his
      desertion and revenge. Five thousand of his brethren were united
      by the same motives; they renounced the allegiance of
      anti-Christian Rome; a Saracen emir introduced Carbeas to the
      caliph; and the commander of the faithful extended his sceptre to
      the implacable enemy of the Greeks. In the mountains between
      Siwas and Trebizond he founded or fortified the city of Tephrice,
      18 which is still occupied by a fierce or licentious people, and
      the neighboring hills were covered with the Paulician fugitives,
      who now reconciled the use of the Bible and the sword. During
      more than thirty years, Asia was afflicted by the calamities of
      foreign and domestic war; in their hostile inroads, the disciples
      of St. Paul were joined with those of Mahomet; and the peaceful
      Christians, the aged parent and tender virgin, who were delivered
      into barbarous servitude, might justly accuse the intolerant
      spirit of their sovereign. So urgent was the mischief, so
      intolerable the shame, that even the dissolute Michael, the son
      of Theodora, was compelled to march in person against the
      Paulicians: he was defeated under the walls of Samosata; and the
      Roman emperor fled before the heretics whom his mother had
      condemned to the flames. The Saracens fought under the same
      banners, but the victory was ascribed to Carbeas; and the captive
      generals, with more than a hundred tribunes, were either released
      by his avarice, or tortured by his fanaticism. The valor and
      ambition of Chrysocheir, 19 his successor, embraced a wider
      circle of rapine and revenge. In alliance with his faithful
      Moslems, he boldly penetrated into the heart of Asia; the troops
      of the frontier and the palace were repeatedly overthrown; the
      edicts of persecution were answered by the pillage of Nice and
      Nicomedia, of Ancyra and Ephesus; nor could the apostle St. John
      protect from violation his city and sepulchre. The cathedral of
      Ephesus was turned into a stable for mules and horses; and the
      Paulicians vied with the Saracens in their contempt and
      abhorrence of images and relics. It is not unpleasing to observe
      the triumph of rebellion over the same despotism which had
      disdained the prayers of an injured people. The emperor Basil,
      the Macedonian, was reduced to sue for peace, to offer a ransom
      for the captives, and to request, in the language of moderation
      and charity, that Chrysocheir would spare his fellow-Christians,
      and content himself with a royal donative of gold and silver and
      silk garments. “If the emperor,” replied the insolent fanatic,
      “be desirous of peace, let him abdicate the East, and reign
      without molestation in the West. If he refuse, the servants of
      the Lord will precipitate him from the throne.” The reluctant
      Basil suspended the treaty, accepted the defiance, and led his
      army into the land of heresy, which he wasted with fire and
      sword. The open country of the Paulicians was exposed to the same
      calamities which they had inflicted; but when he had explored the
      strength of Tephrice, the multitude of the Barbarians, and the
      ample magazines of arms and provisions, he desisted with a sigh
      from the hopeless siege. On his return to Constantinople, he
      labored, by the foundation of convents and churches, to secure
      the aid of his celestial patrons, of Michael the archangel and
      the prophet Elijah; and it was his daily prayer that he might
      live to transpierce, with three arrows, the head of his impious
      adversary. Beyond his expectations, the wish was accomplished:
      after a successful inroad, Chrysocheir was surprised and slain in
      his retreat; and the rebel’s head was triumphantly presented at
      the foot of the throne. On the reception of this welcome trophy,
      Basil instantly called for his bow, discharged three arrows with
      unerring aim, and accepted the applause of the court, who hailed
      the victory of the royal archer. With Chrysocheir, the glory of
      the Paulicians faded and withered: 20 on the second expedition of
      the emperor, the impregnable Tephrice, was deserted by the
      heretics, who sued for mercy or escaped to the borders. The city
      was ruined, but the spirit of independence survived in the
      mountains: the Paulicians defended, above a century, their
      religion and liberty, infested the Roman limits, and maintained
      their perpetual alliance with the enemies of the empire and the
      gospel.

      17 (return) [ Petrus Siculus, (p. 763, 764,) the continuator of
      Theophanes, (l. iv. c. 4, p. 103, 104,) Cedrenus, (p. 541, 542,
      545,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 156,) describe the revolt
      and exploits of Carbeas and his Paulicians.]

      18 (return) [ Otter (Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, tom. ii.) is
      probably the only Frank who has visited the independent
      Barbarians of Tephrice now Divrigni, from whom he fortunately
      escaped in the train of a Turkish officer.]

      19 (return) [ In the history of Chrysocheir, Genesius (Chron. p.
      67-70, edit. Venet.) has exposed the nakedness of the empire.
      Constantine Porphyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil. c. 37-43, p. 166-171)
      has displayed the glory of his grandfather. Cedrenus (p. 570-573)
      is without their passions or their knowledge.]

      20 (return) [ How elegant is the Greek tongue, even in the mouth
      of Cedrenus!]




      Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Part II.

      About the middle of the eight century, Constantine, surnamed
      Copronymus by the worshippers of images, had made an expedition
      into Armenia, and found, in the cities of Melitene and
      Theodosiopolis, a great number of Paulicians, his kindred
      heretics. As a favor, or punishment, he transplanted them from
      the banks of the Euphrates to Constantinople and Thrace; and by
      this emigration their doctrine was introduced and diffused in
      Europe. 21 If the sectaries of the metropolis were soon mingled
      with the promiscuous mass, those of the country struck a deep
      root in a foreign soil. The Paulicians of Thrace resisted the
      storms of persecution, maintained a secret correspondence with
      their Armenian brethren, and gave aid and comfort to their
      preachers, who solicited, not without success, the infant faith
      of the Bulgarians. 22 In the tenth century, they were restored
      and multiplied by a more powerful colony, which John Zimisces 23
      transported from the Chalybian hills to the valleys of Mount
      Haemus. The Oriental clergy who would have preferred the
      destruction, impatiently sighed for the absence, of the
      Manichaeans: the warlike emperor had felt and esteemed their
      valor: their attachment to the Saracens was pregnant with
      mischief; but, on the side of the Danube, against the Barbarians
      of Scythia, their service might be useful, and their loss would
      be desirable. Their exile in a distant land was softened by a
      free toleration: the Paulicians held the city of Philippopolis
      and the keys of Thrace; the Catholics were their subjects; the
      Jacobite emigrants their associates: they occupied a line of
      villages and castles in Macedonia and Epirus; and many native
      Bulgarians were associated to the communion of arms and heresy.
      As long as they were awed by power and treated with moderation,
      their voluntary bands were distinguished in the armies of the
      empire; and the courage of these dogs, ever greedy of war, ever
      thirsty of human blood, is noticed with astonishment, and almost
      with reproach, by the pusillanimous Greeks. The same spirit
      rendered them arrogant and contumacious: they were easily
      provoked by caprice or injury; and their privileges were often
      violated by the faithless bigotry of the government and clergy.
      In the midst of the Norman war, two thousand five hundred
      Manichaeans deserted the standard of Alexius Comnenus, 24 and
      retired to their native homes. He dissembled till the moment of
      revenge; invited the chiefs to a friendly conference; and
      punished the innocent and guilty by imprisonment, confiscation,
      and baptism. In an interval of peace, the emperor undertook the
      pious office of reconciling them to the church and state: his
      winter quarters were fixed at Philippopolis; and the thirteenth
      apostle, as he is styled by his pious daughter, consumed whole
      days and nights in theological controversy. His arguments were
      fortified, their obstinacy was melted, by the honors and rewards
      which he bestowed on the most eminent proselytes; and a new city,
      surrounded with gardens, enriched with immunities, and dignified
      with his own name, was founded by Alexius for the residence of
      his vulgar converts. The important station of Philippopolis was
      wrested from their hands; the contumacious leaders were secured
      in a dungeon, or banished from their country; and their lives
      were spared by the prudence, rather than the mercy, of an
      emperor, at whose command a poor and solitary heretic was burnt
      alive before the church of St. Sophia. 25 But the proud hope of
      eradicating the prejudices of a nation was speedily overturned by
      the invincible zeal of the Paulicians, who ceased to dissemble or
      refused to obey. After the departure and death of Alexius, they
      soon resumed their civil and religious laws. In the beginning of
      the thirteenth century, their pope or primate (a manifest
      corruption) resided on the confines of Bulgaria, Croatia, and
      Dalmatia, and governed, by his vicars, the filial congregations
      of Italy and France. 26 From that aera, a minute scrutiny might
      prolong and perpetuate the chain of tradition. At the end of the
      last age, the sect or colony still inhabited the valleys of Mount
      Haemus, where their ignorance and poverty were more frequently
      tormented by the Greek clergy than by the Turkish government. The
      modern Paulicians have lost all memory of their origin; and their
      religion is disgraced by the worship of the cross, and the
      practice of bloody sacrifice, which some captives have imported
      from the wilds of Tartary. 27

      21 (return) [ Copronymus transported his heretics; and thus says
      Cedrenus, (p. 463,) who has copied the annals of Theophanes.]

      22 (return) [ Petrus Siculus, who resided nine months at Tephrice
      (A.D. 870) for the ransom of captives, (p. 764,) was informed of
      their intended mission, and addressed his preservative, the
      Historia Manichaeorum to the new archbishop of the Bulgarians,
      (p. 754.)]

      23 (return) [ The colony of Paulicians and Jacobites transplanted
      by John Zimisces (A.D. 970) from Armenia to Thrace, is mentioned
      by Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xvii. p. 209) and Anna Comnena, (Alexiad,
      l. xiv. p. 450, &c.)]

      24 (return) [ The Alexiad of Anna Comnena (l. v. p. 131, l. vi.
      p. 154, 155, l. xiv. p. 450-457, with the Annotations of Ducange)
      records the transactions of her apostolic father with the
      Manichaeans, whose abominable heresy she was desirous of
      refuting.]

      25 (return) [ Basil, a monk, and the author of the Bogomiles, a
      sect of Gnostics, who soon vanished, (Anna Comnena, Alexiad, l.
      xv. p. 486-494 Mosheim, Hist. Ecclesiastica, p. 420.)]

      26 (return) [ Matt. Paris, Hist. Major, p. 267. This passage of
      our English historian is alleged by Ducange in an excellent note
      on Villehardouin (No. 208,) who found the Paulicians at
      Philippopolis the friends of the Bulgarians.]

      27 (return) [ See Marsigli, Stato Militare dell’ Imperio
      Ottomano, p. 24.]

      In the West, the first teachers of the Manichaean theology had
      been repulsed by the people, or suppressed by the prince. The
      favor and success of the Paulicians in the eleventh and twelfth
      centuries must be imputed to the strong, though secret,
      discontent which armed the most pious Christians against the
      church of Rome. Her avarice was oppressive, her despotism odious;
      less degenerate perhaps than the Greeks in the worship of saints
      and images, her innovations were more rapid and scandalous: she
      had rigorously defined and imposed the doctrine of
      transubstantiation: the lives of the Latin clergy were more
      corrupt, and the Eastern bishops might pass for the successors of
      the apostles, if they were compared with the lordly prelates, who
      wielded by turns the crosier, the sceptre, and the sword. Three
      different roads might introduce the Paulicians into the heart of
      Europe. After the conversion of Hungary, the pilgrims who visited
      Jerusalem might safely follow the course of the Danube: in their
      journey and return they passed through Philippopolis; and the
      sectaries, disguising their name and heresy, might accompany the
      French or German caravans to their respective countries. The
      trade and dominion of Venice pervaded the coast of the Adriatic,
      and the hospitable republic opened her bosom to foreigners of
      every climate and religion. Under the Byzantine standard, the
      Paulicians were often transported to the Greek provinces of Italy
      and Sicily: in peace and war, they freely conversed with
      strangers and natives, and their opinions were silently
      propagated in Rome, Milan, and the kingdoms beyond the Alps. 28
      It was soon discovered, that many thousand Catholics of every
      rank, and of either sex, had embraced the Manichaean heresy; and
      the flames which consumed twelve canons of Orleans was the first
      act and signal of persecution. The Bulgarians, 29 a name so
      innocent in its origin, so odious in its application, spread
      their branches over the face of Europe. United in common hatred
      of idolatry and Rome, they were connected by a form of episcopal
      and presbyterian government; their various sects were
      discriminated by some fainter or darker shades of theology; but
      they generally agreed in the two principles, the contempt of the
      Old Testament and the denial of the body of Christ, either on the
      cross or in the eucharist. A confession of simple worship and
      blameless manners is extorted from their enemies; and so high was
      their standard of perfection, that the increasing congregations
      were divided into two classes of disciples, of those who
      practised, and of those who aspired. It was in the country of the
      Albigeois, 30 in the southern provinces of France, that the
      Paulicians were most deeply implanted; and the same vicissitudes
      of martyrdom and revenge which had been displayed in the
      neighborhood of the Euphrates, were repeated in the thirteenth
      century on the banks of the Rhone. The laws of the Eastern
      emperors were revived by Frederic the Second. The insurgents of
      Tephrice were represented by the barons and cities of Languedoc:
      Pope Innocent III. surpassed the sanguinary fame of Theodora. It
      was in cruelty alone that her soldiers could equal the heroes of
      the Crusades, and the cruelty of her priests was far excelled by
      the founders of the Inquisition; 31 an office more adapted to
      confirm, than to refute, the belief of an evil principle. The
      visible assemblies of the Paulicians, or Albigeois, were
      extirpated by fire and sword; and the bleeding remnant escaped by
      flight, concealment, or Catholic conformity. But the invincible
      spirit which they had kindled still lived and breathed in the
      Western world. In the state, in the church, and even in the
      cloister, a latent succession was preserved of the disciples of
      St. Paul; who protested against the tyranny of Rome, embraced the
      Bible as the rule of faith, and purified their creed from all the
      visions of the Gnostic theology. 3111 The struggles of Wickliff
      in England, of Huss in Bohemia, were premature and ineffectual;
      but the names of Zuinglius, Luther, and Calvin, are pronounced
      with gratitude as the deliverers of nations.

      28 (return) [ The introduction of the Paulicians into Italy and
      France is amply discussed by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii
      Aevi, tom. v. dissert. lx. p. 81-152) and Mosheim, (p. 379-382,
      419-422.) Yet both have overlooked a curious passage of William
      the Apulian, who clearly describes them in a battle between the
      Greeks and Normans, A.D. 1040, (in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital.
      tom. v. p. 256:)

     Cum Graecis aderant quidam, quos pessimus error
     Fecerat amentes, et ab ipso nomen habebant.

      But he is so ignorant of their doctrine as to make them a kind of
      Sabellians or Patripassians.]

      29 (return) [ Bulgari, Boulgres, Bougres, a national appellation,
      has been applied by the French as a term of reproach to usurers
      and unnatural sinners. The Paterini, or Patelini, has been made
      to signify a smooth and flattering hypocrite, such as l’Avocat
      Patelin of that original and pleasant farce, (Ducange, Gloss.
      Latinitat. Medii et Infimi Aevi.) The Manichaeans were likewise
      named Cathari or the pure, by corruption. Gazari, &c.]

      30 (return) [ Of the laws, crusade, and persecution against the
      Albigeois, a just, though general, idea is expressed by Mosheim,
      (p. 477-481.) The detail may be found in the ecclesiastical
      historians, ancient and modern, Catholics and Protestants; and
      amongst these Fleury is the most impartial and moderate.]

      31 (return) [ The Acts (Liber Sententiarum) of the Inquisition of
      Tholouse (A.D. 1307-1323) have been published by Limborch,
      (Amstelodami, 1692,) with a previous History of the Inquisition
      in general. They deserved a more learned and critical editor. As
      we must not calumniate even Satan, or the Holy Office, I will
      observe, that of a list of criminals which fills nineteen folio
      pages, only fifteen men and four women were delivered to the
      secular arm.]

      3111 (return) [ The popularity of “Milner’s History of the
      Church” with some readers, may make it proper to observe, that
      his attempt to exculpate the Paulicians from the charge of
      Gnosticism or Manicheism is in direct defiance, if not in
      ignorance, of all the original authorities. Gibbon himself, it
      appears, was not acquainted with the work of Photius, “Contra
      Manicheos Repullulantes,” the first book of which was edited by
      Montfaucon, Bibliotheca Coisliniana, pars ii. p. 349, 375, the
      whole by Wolf, in his Anecdota Graeca. Hamburg 1722. Compare a
      very sensible tract. Letter to Rev. S. R. Maitland, by J G.
      Dowling, M. A. London, 1835.—M.]

      A philosopher, who calculates the degree of their merit and the
      value of their reformation, will prudently ask from what articles
      of faith, above or against our reason, they have enfranchised the
      Christians; for such enfranchisement is doubtless a benefit so
      far as it may be compatible with truth and piety. After a fair
      discussion, we shall rather be surprised by the timidity, than
      scandalized by the freedom, of our first reformers. 32 With the
      Jews, they adopted the belief and defence of all the Hebrew
      Scriptures, with all their prodigies, from the garden of Eden to
      the visions of the prophet Daniel; and they were bound, like the
      Catholics, to justify against the Jews the abolition of a divine
      law. In the great mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation the
      reformers were severely orthodox: they freely adopted the
      theology of the four, or the six first councils; and with the
      Athanasian creed, they pronounced the eternal damnation of all
      who did not believe the Catholic faith. Transubstantiation, the
      invisible change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of
      Christ, is a tenet that may defy the power of argument and
      pleasantry; but instead of consulting the evidence of their
      senses, of their sight, their feeling, and their taste, the first
      Protestants were entangled in their own scruples, and awed by the
      words of Jesus in the institution of the sacrament. Luther
      maintained a corporeal, and Calvin a real, presence of Christ in
      the eucharist; and the opinion of Zuinglius, that it is no more
      than a spiritual communion, a simple memorial, has slowly
      prevailed in the reformed churches. 33 But the loss of one
      mystery was amply compensated by the stupendous doctrines of
      original sin, redemption, faith, grace, and predestination, which
      have been strained from the epistles of St. Paul. These subtile
      questions had most assuredly been prepared by the fathers and
      schoolmen; but the final improvement and popular use may be
      attributed to the first reformers, who enforced them as the
      absolute and essential terms of salvation. Hitherto the weight of
      supernatural belief inclines against the Protestants; and many a
      sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God, than that
      God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.

      32 (return) [ The opinions and proceedings of the reformers are
      exposed in the second part of the general history of Mosheim; but
      the balance, which he has held with so clear an eye, and so
      steady a hand, begins to incline in favor of his Lutheran
      brethren.]

      33 (return) [ Under Edward VI. our reformation was more bold and
      perfect, but in the fundamental articles of the church of
      England, a strong and explicit declaration against the real
      presence was obliterated in the original copy, to please the
      people or the Lutherans, or Queen Elizabeth, (Burnet’s History of
      the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 82, 128, 302.)]

      Yet the services of Luther and his rivals are solid and
      important; and the philosopher must own his obligations to these
      fearless enthusiasts. 34 I. By their hands the lofty fabric of
      superstition, from the abuse of indulgences to the intercesson of
      the Virgin, has been levelled with the ground. Myriads of both
      sexes of the monastic profession were restored to the liberty and
      labors of social life. A hierarchy of saints and angels, of
      imperfect and subordinate deities, were stripped of their
      temporal power, and reduced to the enjoyment of celestial
      happiness; their images and relics were banished from the church;
      and the credulity of the people was no longer nourished with the
      daily repetition of miracles and visions. The imitation of
      Paganism was supplied by a pure and spiritual worship of prayer
      and thanksgiving, the most worthy of man, the least unworthy of
      the Deity. It only remains to observe, whether such sublime
      simplicity be consistent with popular devotion; whether the
      vulgar, in the absence of all visible objects, will not be
      inflamed by enthusiasm, or insensibly subside in languor and
      indifference. II. The chain of authority was broken, which
      restrains the bigot from thinking as he pleases, and the slave
      from speaking as he thinks: the popes, fathers, and councils,
      were no longer the supreme and infallible judges of the world;
      and each Christian was taught to acknowledge no law but the
      Scriptures, no interpreter but his own conscience. This freedom,
      however, was the consequence, rather than the design, of the
      Reformation. The patriot reformers were ambitious of succeeding
      the tyrants whom they had dethroned. They imposed with equal
      rigor their creeds and confessions; they asserted the right of
      the magistrate to punish heretics with death. The pious or
      personal animosity of Calvin proscribed in Servetus 35 the guilt
      of his own rebellion; 36 and the flames of Smithfield, in which
      he was afterwards consumed, had been kindled for the Anabaptists
      by the zeal of Cranmer. 37 The nature of the tiger wa s the same,
      but he was gradually deprived of his teeth and fangs. A spiritual
      and temporal kingdom was possessed by the Roman pontiff; the
      Protestant doctors were subjects of an humble rank, without
      revenue or jurisdiction. His decrees were consecrated by the
      antiquity of the Catholic church: their arguments and disputes
      were submitted to the people; and their appeal to private
      judgment was accepted beyond their wishes, by curiosity and
      enthusiasm. Since the days of Luther and Calvin, a secret
      reformation has been silently working in the bosom of the
      reformed churches; many weeds of prejudice were eradicated; and
      the disciples of Erasmus 38 diffused a spirit of freedom and
      moderation. The liberty of conscience has been claimed as a
      common benefit, an inalienable right: 39 the free governments of
      Holland 40 and England 41 introduced the practice of toleration;
      and the narrow allowance of the laws has been enlarged by the
      prudence and humanity of the times. In the exercise, the mind has
      understood the limits of its powers, and the words and shadows
      that might amuse the child can no longer satisfy his manly
      reason. The volumes of controversy are overspread with cobwebs:
      the doctrine of a Protestant church is far removed from the
      knowledge or belief of its private members; and the forms of
      orthodoxy, the articles of faith, are subscribed with a sigh, or
      a smile, by the modern clergy. Yet the friends of Christianity
      are alarmed at the boundless impulse of inquiry and scepticism.
      The predictions of the Catholics are accomplished: the web of
      mystery is unravelled by the Arminians, Arians, and Socinians,
      whose number must not be computed from their separate
      congregations; and the pillars of Revelation are shaken by those
      men who preserve the name without the substance of religion, who
      indulge the license without the temper of philosophy. 42 4211

      34 (return) [ “Had it not been for such men as Luther and
      myself,” said the fanatic Whiston to Halley the philosopher, “you
      would now be kneeling before an image of St. Winifred.”]

      35 (return) [ The article of Servet in the Dictionnaire Critique
      of Chauffepie is the best account which I have seen of this
      shameful transaction. See likewise the Abbe d’Artigny, Nouveaux
      Memoires d’Histoire, &c., tom. ii. p. 55-154.]

      36 (return) [ I am more deeply scandalized at the single
      execution of Servetus, than at the hecatombs which have blazed in
      the Auto de Fes of Spain and Portugal. 1. The zeal of Calvin
      seems to have been envenomed by personal malice, and perhaps
      envy. He accused his adversary before their common enemies, the
      judges of Vienna, and betrayed, for his destruction, the sacred
      trust of a private correspondence. 2. The deed of cruelty was not
      varnished by the pretence of danger to the church or state. In
      his passage through Geneva, Servetus was a harmless stranger, who
      neither preached, nor printed, nor made proselytes. 3. A Catholic
      inquisition yields the same obedience which he requires, but
      Calvin violated the golden rule of doing as he would be done by;
      a rule which I read in a moral treatise of Isocrates (in Nicocle,
      tom. i. p. 93, edit. Battie) four hundred years before the
      publication of the Gospel. * Note: Gibbon has not accurately
      rendered the sense of this passage, which does not contain the
      maxim of charity Do unto others as you would they should do unto
      you, but simply the maxim of justice, Do not to others the which
      would offend you if they should do it to you.—G.]

      37 (return) [ See Burnet, vol. ii. p. 84-86. The sense and
      humanity of the young king were oppressed by the authority of the
      primate.]

      38 (return) [ Erasmus may be considered as the father of rational
      theology. After a slumber of a hundred years, it was revived by
      the Arminians of Holland, Grotius, Limborch, and Le Clerc; in
      England by Chillingworth, the latitudinarians of Cambridge,
      (Burnet, Hist. of Own Times, vol. i. p. 261-268, octavo edition.)
      Tillotson, Clarke, Hoadley, &c.]

      39 (return) [ I am sorry to observe, that the three writers of
      the last age, by whom the rights of toleration have been so nobly
      defended, Bayle, Leibnitz, and Locke, are all laymen and
      philosophers.]

      40 (return) [ See the excellent chapter of Sir William Temple on
      the Religion of the United Provinces. I am not satisfied with
      Grotius, (de Rebus Belgicis, Annal. l. i. p. 13, 14, edit. in
      12mo.,) who approves the Imperial laws of persecution, and only
      condemns the bloody tribunal of the inquisition.]

      41 (return) [ Sir William Blackstone (Commentaries, vol. iv. p.
      53, 54) explains the law of England as it was fixed at the
      Revolution. The exceptions of Papists, and of those who deny the
      Trinity, would still have a tolerable scope for persecution if
      the national spirit were not more effectual than a hundred
      statutes.]

      42 (return) [ I shall recommend to public animadversion two
      passages in Dr. Priestley, which betray the ultimate tendency of
      his opinions. At the first of these (Hist. of the Corruptions of
      Christianity, vol. i. p. 275, 276) the priest, at the second
      (vol. ii. p. 484) the magistrate, may tremble!]

      4211 (return) [ There is something ludicrous, if it were not
      offensive, in Gibbon holding up to “public animadversion” the
      opinions of any believer in Christianity, however imperfect his
      creed. The observations which the whole of this passage on the
      effects of the reformation, in which much truth and justice is
      mingled with much prejudice, would suggest, could not possibly be
      compressed into a note; and would indeed embrace the whole
      religious and irreligious history of the time which has elapsed
      since Gibbon wrote.—M.]




      Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part
      I.

     The Bulgarians.—Origin, Migrations, And Settlement Of The
     Hungarians.—Their Inroads In The East And West.—The Monarchy Of
     Russia.—Geography And Trade.—Wars Of The Russians Against The
     Greek Empire.—Conversion Of The Barbarians.

      Under the reign of Constantine the grandson of Heraclius, the
      ancient barrier of the Danube, so often violated and so often
      restored, was irretrievably swept away by a new deluge of
      Barbarians. Their progress was favored by the caliphs, their
      unknown and accidental auxiliaries: the Roman legions were
      occupied in Asia; and after the loss of Syria, Egypt, and Africa,
      the Caesars were twice reduced to the danger and disgrace of
      defending their capital against the Saracens. If, in the account
      of this interesting people, I have deviated from the strict and
      original line of my undertaking, the merit of the subject will
      hide my transgression, or solicit my excuse. In the East, in the
      West, in war, in religion, in science, in their prosperity, and
      in their decay, the Arabians press themselves on our curiosity:
      the first overthrow of the church and empire of the Greeks may be
      imputed to their arms; and the disciples of Mahomet still hold
      the civil and religious sceptre of the Oriental world. But the
      same labor would be unworthily bestowed on the swarms of savages,
      who, between the seventh and the twelfth century, descended from
      the plains of Scythia, in transient inroad or perpetual
      emigration. 1 Their names are uncouth, their origins doubtful,
      their actions obscure, their superstition was blind, their valor
      brutal, and the uniformity of their public and private lives was
      neither softened by innocence nor refined by policy. The majesty
      of the Byzantine throne repelled and survived their disorderly
      attacks; the greater part of these Barbarians has disappeared
      without leaving any memorial of their existence, and the
      despicable remnant continues, and may long continue, to groan
      under the dominion of a foreign tyrant. From the antiquities of,
      I. Bulgarians, II. Hungarians, and, III. Russians, I shall
      content myself with selecting such facts as yet deserve to be
      remembered. The conquests of the, IV. Normans, and the monarchy
      of the, V. Turks, will naturally terminate in the memorable
      Crusades to the Holy Land, and the double fall of the city and
      empire of Constantine.

      1 (return) [ All the passages of the Byzantine history which
      relate to the Barbarians are compiled, methodized, and
      transcribed, in a Latin version, by the laborious John Gotthelf
      Stritter, in his “Memoriae Populorum, ad Danubium, Pontum
      Euxinum, Paludem Maeotidem, Caucasum, Mare Caspium, et inde Magis
      ad Septemtriones incolentium.” Petropoli, 1771-1779; in four
      tomes, or six volumes, in 4to. But the fashion has not enhanced
      the price of these raw materials.]

      I. In his march to Italy, Theodoric 2 the Ostrogoth had trampled
      on the arms of the Bulgarians. After this defeat, the name and
      the nation are lost during a century and a half; and it may be
      suspected that the same or a similar appellation was revived by
      strange colonies from the Borysthenes, the Tanais, or the Volga.
      A king of the ancient Bulgaria, 3 bequeathed to his five sons a
      last lesson of moderation and concord. It was received as youth
      has ever received the counsels of age and experience: the five
      princes buried their father; divided his subjects and cattle;
      forgot his advice; separated from each other; and wandered in
      quest of fortune till we find the most adventurous in the heart
      of Italy, under the protection of the exarch of Ravenna. 4 But
      the stream of emigration was directed or impelled towards the
      capital. The modern Bulgaria, along the southern banks of the
      Danube, was stamped with the name and image which it has retained
      to the present hour: the new conquerors successively acquired, by
      war or treaty, the Roman provinces of Dardania, Thessaly, and the
      two Epirus; 5 the ecclesiastical supremacy was translated from
      the native city of Justinian; and, in their prosperous age, the
      obscure town of Lychnidus, or Achrida, was honored with the
      throne of a king and a patriarch. 6 The unquestionable evidence
      of language attests the descent of the Bulgarians from the
      original stock of the Sclavonian, or more properly Slavonian,
      race; 7 and the kindred bands of Servians, Bosnians, Rascians,
      Croatians, Walachians, 8 &c., followed either the standard or the
      example of the leading tribe. From the Euxine to the Adriatic, in
      the state of captives, or subjects, or allies, or enemies, of the
      Greek empire, they overspread the land; and the national
      appellation of the slaves 9 has been degraded by chance or malice
      from the signification of glory to that of servitude. 10 Among
      these colonies, the Chrobatians, 11 or Croats, who now attend the
      motions of an Austrian army, are the descendants of a mighty
      people, the conquerors and sovereigns of Dalmatia. The maritime
      cities, and of these the infant republic of Ragusa, implored the
      aid and instructions of the Byzantine court: they were advised by
      the magnanimous Basil to reserve a small acknowledgment of their
      fidelity to the Roman empire, and to appease, by an annual
      tribute, the wrath of these irresistible Barbarians. The kingdom
      of Crotia was shared by eleven Zoupans, or feudatory lords; and
      their united forces were numbered at sixty thousand horse and one
      hundred thousand foot. A long sea-coast, indented with capacious
      harbors, covered with a string of islands, and almost in sight of
      the Italian shores, disposed both the natives and strangers to
      the practice of navigation. The boats or brigantines of the
      Croats were constructed after the fashion of the old Liburnians:
      one hundred and eighty vessels may excite the idea of a
      respectable navy; but our seamen will smile at the allowance of
      ten, or twenty, or forty, men for each of these ships of war.
      They were gradually converted to the more honorable service of
      commerce; yet the Sclavonian pirates were still frequent and
      dangerous; and it was not before the close of the tenth century
      that the freedom and sovereignty of the Gulf were effectually
      vindicated by the Venetian republic. 12 The ancestors of these
      Dalmatian kings were equally removed from the use and abuse of
      navigation: they dwelt in the White Croatia, in the inland
      regions of Silesia and Little Poland, thirty days’ journey,
      according to the Greek computation, from the sea of darkness.

      2 (return) [ Hist. vol. iv. p. 11.]

      3 (return) [ Theophanes, p. 296-299. Anastasius, p. 113.
      Nicephorus, C. P. p. 22, 23. Theophanes places the old Bulgaria
      on the banks of the Atell or Volga; but he deprives himself of
      all geographical credit by discharging that river into the Euxine
      Sea.]

      4 (return) [ Paul. Diacon. de Gestis Langobard. l. v. c. 29, p.
      881, 882. The apparent difference between the Lombard historian
      and the above-mentioned Greeks, is easily reconciled by Camillo
      Pellegrino (de Ducatu Beneventano, dissert. vii. in the
      Scriptores Rerum Ital. (tom. v. p. 186, 187) and Beretti,
      (Chorograph. Italiae Medii Aevi, p. 273, &c. This Bulgarian
      colony was planted in a vacant district of Samnium, and learned
      the Latin, without forgetting their native language.]

      5 (return) [ These provinces of the Greek idiom and empire are
      assigned to the Bulgarian kingdom in the dispute of
      ecclesiastical jurisdiction between the patriarchs of Rome and
      Constantinople, (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 869, No. 75.)]

      6 (return) [ The situation and royalty of Lychnidus, or Achrida,
      are clearly expressed in Cedrenus, (p. 713.) The removal of an
      archbishop or patriarch from Justinianea prima to Lychnidus, and
      at length to Ternovo, has produced some perplexity in the ideas
      or language of the Greeks, (Nicephorus Gregoras, l. ii. c. 2, p.
      14, 15. Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. l. i. c. 19,
      23;) and a Frenchman (D’Anville) is more accurately skilled in
      the geography of their own country, (Hist. de l’Academie des
      Inscriptions, tom. xxxi.)]

      7 (return) [ Chalcocondyles, a competent judge, affirms the
      identity of the language of the Dalmatians, Bosnians, Servians,
      Bulgarians, Poles, (de Rebus Turcicis, l. x. p. 283,) and
      elsewhere of the Bohemians, (l. ii. p. 38.) The same author has
      marked the separate idiom of the Hungarians. * Note: The
      Slavonian languages are no doubt Indo-European, though an
      original branch of that great family, comprehending the various
      dialects named by Gibbon and others. Shafarik, t. 33.—M. 1845.]

      8 (return) [ See the work of John Christopher de Jordan, de
      Originibus Sclavicis, Vindobonae, 1745, in four parts, or two
      volumes in folio. His collections and researches are useful to
      elucidate the antiquities of Bohemia and the adjacent countries;
      but his plan is narrow, his style barbarous, his criticism
      shallow, and the Aulic counsellor is not free from the prejudices
      of a Bohemian. * Note: We have at length a profound and
      satisfactory work on the Slavonian races. Shafarik, Slawische
      Alterthumer. B. 2, Leipzig, 1843.—M. 1845.]

      9 (return) [ Jordan subscribes to the well-known and probable
      derivation from Slava, laus, gloria, a word of familiar use in
      the different dialects and parts of speech, and which forms the
      termination of the most illustrious names, (de Originibus
      Sclavicis, pars. i. p. 40, pars. iv. p. 101, 102)]

      10 (return) [ This conversion of a national into an appellative
      name appears to have arisen in the viiith century, in the
      Oriental France, where the princes and bishops were rich in
      Sclavonian captives, not of the Bohemian, (exclaims Jordan,) but
      of Sorabian race. From thence the word was extended to the
      general use, to the modern languages, and even to the style of
      the last Byzantines, (see the Greek and Latin Glossaries and
      Ducange.) The confusion of the Servians with the Latin Servi, was
      still more fortunate and familiar, (Constant. Porphyr. de
      Administrando, Imperio, c. 32, p. 99.)]

      11 (return) [ The emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, most
      accurate for his own times, most fabulous for preceding ages,
      describes the Sclavonians of Dalmatia, (c. 29-36.)]

      12 (return) [ See the anonymous Chronicle of the xith century,
      ascribed to John Sagorninus, (p. 94-102,) and that composed in
      the xivth by the Doge Andrew Dandolo, (Script. Rerum. Ital. tom.
      xii. p. 227-230,) the two oldest monuments of the history of
      Venice.]

      The glory of the Bulgarians 13 was confined to a narrow scope
      both of time and place. In the ninth and tenth centuries, they
      reigned to the south of the Danube; but the more powerful nations
      that had followed their emigration repelled all return to the
      north and all progress to the west. Yet in the obscure catalogue
      of their exploits, they might boast an honor which had hitherto
      been appropriated to the Goths: that of slaying in battle one of
      the successors of Augustus and Constantine. The emperor
      Nicephorus had lost his fame in the Arabian, he lost his life in
      the Sclavonian, war. In his first operations he advanced with
      boldness and success into the centre of Bulgaria, and burnt the
      royal court, which was probably no more than an edifice and
      village of timber. But while he searched the spoil and refused
      all offers of treaty, his enemies collected their spirits and
      their forces: the passes of retreat were insuperably barred; and
      the trembling Nicephorus was heard to exclaim, “Alas, alas!
      unless we could assume the wings of birds, we cannot hope to
      escape.” Two days he waited his fate in the inactivity of
      despair; but, on the morning of the third, the Bulgarians
      surprised the camp, and the Roman prince, with the great officers
      of the empire, were slaughtered in their tents. The body of
      Valens had been saved from insult; but the head of Nicephorus was
      exposed on a spear, and his skull, enchased with gold, was often
      replenished in the feasts of victory. The Greeks bewailed the
      dishonor of the throne; but they acknowledged the just punishment
      of avarice and cruelty. This savage cup was deeply tinctured with
      the manners of the Scythian wilderness; but they were softened
      before the end of the same century by a peaceful intercourse with
      the Greeks, the possession of a cultivated region, and the
      introduction of the Christian worship. The nobles of Bulgaria
      were educated in the schools and palace of Constantinople; and
      Simeon, 14 a youth of the royal line, was instructed in the
      rhetoric of Demosthenes and the logic of Aristotle. He
      relinquished the profession of a monk for that of a king and
      warrior; and in his reign of more than forty years, Bulgaria
      assumed a rank among the civilized powers of the earth. The
      Greeks, whom he repeatedly attacked, derived a faint consolation
      from indulging themselves in the reproaches of perfidy and
      sacrilege. They purchased the aid of the Pagan Turks; but Simeon,
      in a second battle, redeemed the loss of the first, at a time
      when it was esteemed a victory to elude the arms of that
      formidable nation. The Servians were overthrown, made captive and
      dispersed; and those who visited the country before their
      restoration could discover no more than fifty vagrants, without
      women or children, who extorted a precarious subsistence from the
      chase. On classic ground, on the banks of Achelous, the greeks
      were defeated; their horn was broken by the strength of the
      Barbaric Hercules. 15 He formed the siege of Constantinople; and,
      in a personal conference with the emperor, Simeon imposed the
      conditions of peace. They met with the most jealous precautions:
      the royal gallery was drawn close to an artificial and
      well-fortified platform; and the majesty of the purple was
      emulated by the pomp of the Bulgarian. “Are you a Christian?”
      said the humble Romanus: “it is your duty to abstain from the
      blood of your fellow-Christians. Has the thirst of riches seduced
      you from the blessings of peace? Sheathe your sword, open your
      hand, and I will satiate the utmost measure of your desires.” The
      reconciliation was sealed by a domestic alliance; the freedom of
      trade was granted or restored; the first honors of the court were
      secured to the friends of Bulgaria, above the ambassadors of
      enemies or strangers; 16 and her princes were dignified with the
      high and invidious title of Basileus, or emperor. But this
      friendship was soon disturbed: after the death of Simeon, the
      nations were again in arms; his feeble successors were divided
      and extinguished; and, in the beginning of the eleventh century,
      the second Basil, who was born in the purple, deserved the
      appellation of conqueror of the Bulgarians. His avarice was in
      some measure gratified by a treasure of four hundred thousand
      pounds sterling, (ten thousand pounds’ weight of gold,) which he
      found in the palace of Lychnidus. His cruelty inflicted a cool
      and exquisite vengeance on fifteen thousand captives who had been
      guilty of the defence of their country. They were deprived of
      sight; but to one of each hundred a single eye was left, that he
      might conduct his blind century to the presence of their king.
      Their king is said to have expired of grief and horror; the
      nation was awed by this terrible example; the Bulgarians were
      swept away from their settlements, and circumscribed within a
      narrow province; the surviving chiefs bequeathed to their
      children the advice of patience and the duty of revenge.

      13 (return) [ The first kingdom of the Bulgarians may be found,
      under the proper dates, in the Annals of Cedrenus and Zonaras.
      The Byzantine materials are collected by Stritter, (Memoriae
      Populorum, tom. ii. pars ii. p. 441-647;) and the series of their
      kings is disposed and settled by Ducange, (Fam. Byzant. p.
      305-318.]

      14 (return) [ Simeonem semi-Graecum esse aiebant, eo quod a
      pueritia Byzantii Demosthenis rhetoricam et Aristotelis
      syllogismos didicerat, (Liutprand, l. iii. c. 8.) He says in
      another place, Simeon, fortis bella tor, Bulgariae praeerat;
      Christianus, sed vicinis Graecis valde inimicus, (l. i. c. 2.)]

      15 (return) [—Rigidum fera dextera cornu Dum tenet, infregit,
      truncaque a fronte revellit. Ovid (Metamorph. ix. 1-100) has
      boldly painted the combat of the river god and the hero; the
      native and the stranger.]

      16 (return) [ The ambassador of Otho was provoked by the Greek
      excuses, cum Christophori filiam Petrus Bulgarorum Vasileus
      conjugem duceret, Symphona, id est consonantia scripto juramento
      firmata sunt, ut omnium gentium Apostolis, id est nunciis, penes
      nos Bulgarorum Apostoli praeponantur, honorentur, diligantur,
      (Liutprand in Legatione, p. 482.) See the Ceremoniale of
      Constantine Porphyrogenitus, tom. i. p. 82, tom. ii. p. 429, 430,
      434, 435, 443, 444, 446, 447, with the annotations of Reiske.]

      II. When the black swarm of Hungarians first hung over Europe,
      above nine hundred years after the Christian aera, they were
      mistaken by fear and superstition for the Gog and Magog of the
      Scriptures, the signs and forerunners of the end of the world. 17
      Since the introduction of letters, they have explored their own
      antiquities with a strong and laudable impulse of patriotic
      curiosity. 18 Their rational criticism can no longer be amused
      with a vain pedigree of Attila and the Huns; but they complain
      that their primitive records have perished in the Tartar war;
      that the truth or fiction of their rustic songs is long since
      forgotten; and that the fragments of a rude chronicle 19 must be
      painfully reconciled with the contemporary though foreign
      intelligence of the imperial geographer. 20 Magiar is the
      national and oriental denomination of the Hungarians; but, among
      the tribes of Scythia, they are distinguished by the Greeks under
      the proper and peculiar name of Turks, as the descendants of that
      mighty people who had conquered and reigned from China to the
      Volga. The Pannonian colony preserved a correspondence of trade
      and amity with the eastern Turks on the confines of Persia and
      after a separation of three hundred and fifty years, the
      missionaries of the king of Hungary discovered and visited their
      ancient country near the banks of the Volga. They were hospitably
      entertained by a people of Pagans and Savages who still bore the
      name of Hungarians; conversed in their native tongue, recollected
      a tradition of their long-lost brethren, and listened with
      amazement to the marvellous tale of their new kingdom and
      religion. The zeal of conversion was animated by the interest of
      consanguinity; and one of the greatest of their princes had
      formed the generous, though fruitless, design of replenishing the
      solitude of Pannonia by this domestic colony from the heart of
      Tartary. 21 From this primitive country they were driven to the
      West by the tide of war and emigration, by the weight of the more
      distant tribes, who at the same time were fugitives and
      conquerors. 2111 Reason or fortune directed their course towards
      the frontiers of the Roman empire: they halted in the usual
      stations along the banks of the great rivers; and in the
      territories of Moscow, Kiow, and Moldavia, some vestiges have
      been discovered of their temporary residence. In this long and
      various peregrination, they could not always escape the dominion
      of the stronger; and the purity of their blood was improved or
      sullied by the mixture of a foreign race: from a motive of
      compulsion, or choice, several tribes of the Chazars were
      associated to the standard of their ancient vassals; introduced
      the use of a second language; and obtained by their superior
      renown the most honorable place in the front of battle. The
      military force of the Turks and their allies marched in seven
      equal and artificial divisions; each division was formed of
      thirty thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven warriors, and the
      proportion of women, children, and servants, supposes and
      requires at least a million of emigrants. Their public counsels
      were directed by seven vayvods, or hereditary chiefs; but the
      experience of discord and weakness recommended the more simple
      and vigorous administration of a single person. The sceptre,
      which had been declined by the modest Lebedias, was granted to
      the birth or merit of Almus and his son Arpad, and the authority
      of the supreme khan of the Chazars confirmed the engagement of
      the prince and people; of the people to obey his commands, of the
      prince to consult their happiness and glory.

      17 (return) [ A bishop of Wurtzburgh submitted his opinion to a
      reverend abbot; but he more gravely decided, that Gog and Magog
      were the spiritual persecutors of the church; since Gog signifies
      the root, the pride of the Heresiarchs, and Magog what comes from
      the root, the propagation of their sects. Yet these men once
      commanded the respect of mankind, (Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xi.
      p. 594, &c.)]

      18 (return) [ The two national authors, from whom I have derived
      the mos assistance, are George Pray (Dissertationes and Annales
      veterum Hun garorum, &c., Vindobonae, 1775, in folio) and Stephen
      Katona, (Hist. Critica Ducum et Regum Hungariae Stirpis
      Arpadianae, Paestini, 1778-1781, 5 vols. in octavo.) The first
      embraces a large and often conjectural space; the latter, by his
      learning, judgment, and perspicuity, deserves the name of a
      critical historian. * Note: Compare Engel Geschichte des
      Ungrischen Reichs und seiner Neben lander, Halle, 1797, and
      Mailath, Geschichte der Magyaren, Wien, 1828. In an appendix to
      the latter work will be found a brief abstract of the
      speculations (for it is difficult to consider them more) which
      have been advanced by the learned, on the origin of the Magyar
      and Hungarian names. Compare vol. vi. p. 35, note.—M.]

      19 (return) [ The author of this Chronicle is styled the notary
      of King Bela. Katona has assigned him to the xiith century, and
      defends his character against the hypercriticism of Pray. This
      rude annalist must have transcribed some historical records,
      since he could affirm with dignity, rejectis falsis fabulis
      rusticorum, et garrulo cantu joculatorum. In the xvth century,
      these fables were collected by Thurotzius, and embellished by the
      Italian Bonfinius. See the Preliminary Discourse in the Hist.
      Critica Ducum, p. 7-33.]

      20 (return) [ See Constantine de Administrando Imperio, c. 3, 4,
      13, 38-42, Katona has nicely fixed the composition of this work
      to the years 949, 950, 951, (p. 4-7.) The critical historian (p.
      34-107) endeavors to prove the existence, and to relate the
      actions, of a first duke Almus the father of Arpad, who is
      tacitly rejected by Constantine.]

      21 (return) [ Pray (Dissert. p. 37-39, &c.) produces and
      illustrates the original passages of the Hungarian missionaries,
      Bonfinius and Aeneas Sylvius.]

      2111 (return) [ In the deserts to the south-east of Astrakhan
      have been found the ruins of a city named Madchar, which proves
      the residence of the Hungarians or Magiar in those regions.
      Precis de la Geog. Univ. par Malte Brun, vol. i. p. 353.—G.——This
      is contested by Klaproth in his Travels, c. xxi. Madschar, (he
      states) in old Tartar, means “stone building.” This was a Tartar
      city mentioned by the Mahometan writers.—M.]

      With this narrative we might be reasonably content, if the
      penetration of modern learning had not opened a new and larger
      prospect of the antiquities of nations. The Hungarian language
      stands alone, and as it were insulated, among the Sclavonian
      dialects; but it bears a close and clear affinity to the idioms
      of the Fennic race, 22 of an obsolete and savage race, which
      formerly occupied the northern regions of Asia and Europe. 2211
      The genuine appellation of Ugri or Igours is found on the western
      confines of China; 23 their migration to the banks of the Irtish
      is attested by Tartar evidence; 24 a similar name and language
      are detected in the southern parts of Siberia; 25 and the remains
      of the Fennic tribes are widely, though thinly scattered from the
      sources of the Oby to the shores of Lapland. 26 The consanguinity
      of the Hungarians and Laplanders would display the powerful
      energy of climate on the children of a common parent; the lively
      contrast between the bold adventurers who are intoxicated with
      the wines of the Danube, and the wretched fugitives who are
      immersed beneath the snows of the polar circle.

      Arms and freedom have ever been the ruling, though too often the
      unsuccessful, passion of the Hungarians, who are endowed by
      nature with a vigorous constitution of soul and body. 27 Extreme
      cold has diminished the stature and congealed the faculties of
      the Laplanders; and the arctic tribes, alone among the sons of
      men, are ignorant of war, and unconscious of human blood; a happy
      ignorance, if reason and virtue were the guardians of their
      peace! 28

      22 (return) [ Fischer in the Quaestiones Petropolitanae, de
      Origine Ungrorum, and Pray, Dissertat. i. ii. iii. &c., have
      drawn up several comparative tables of the Hungarian with the
      Fennic dialects. The affinity is indeed striking, but the lists
      are short; the words are purposely chosen; and I read in the
      learned Bayer, (Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. x. p. 374,) that
      although the Hungarian has adopted many Fennic words, (innumeras
      voces,) it essentially differs toto genio et natura.]

      2211 (return) [ The connection between the Magyar language and
      that of the Finns is now almost generally admitted. Klaproth,
      Asia Polyglotta, p. 188, &c. Malte Bran, tom. vi. p. 723, &c.—M.]

      23 (return) [ In the religion of Turfan, which is clearly and
      minutely described by the Chinese Geographers, (Gaubil, Hist. du
      Grand Gengiscan, 13; De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 31,
      &c.)]

      24 (return) [ Hist. Genealogique des Tartars, par Abulghazi
      Bahadur Khan partie ii. p. 90-98.]

      25 (return) [ In their journey to Pekin, both Isbrand Ives
      (Harris’s Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. ii. p. 920,
      921) and Bell (Travels, vol. i p. 174) found the Vogulitz in the
      neighborhood of Tobolsky. By the tortures of the etymological
      art, Ugur and Vogul are reduced to the same name; the
      circumjacent mountains really bear the appellation of Ugrian; and
      of all the Fennic dialects, the Vogulian is the nearest to the
      Hungarian, (Fischer, Dissert. i. p. 20-30. Pray. Dissert. ii. p.
      31-34.)]

      26 (return) [ The eight tribes of the Fennic race are described
      in the curious work of M. Leveque, (Hist. des Peuples soumis a la
      Domination de la Russie, tom. ii. p. 361-561.)]

      27 (return) [ This picture of the Hungarians and Bulgarians is
      chiefly drawn from the Tactics of Leo, p. 796-801, and the Latin
      Annals, which are alleged by Baronius, Pagi, and Muratori, A.D.
      889, &c.]

      28 (return) [ Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. v. p. 6, in 12mo.
      Gustavus Adolphus attempted, without success, to form a regiment
      of Laplanders. Grotius says of these arctic tribes, arma arcus et
      pharetra, sed adversus feras, (Annal. l. iv. p. 236;) and
      attempts, after the manner of Tacitus, to varnish with philosophy
      their brutal ignorance.]




      Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part
      II.

      It is the observation of the Imperial author of the Tactics, 29
      that all the Scythian hordes resembled each other in their
      pastoral and military life, that they all practised the same
      means of subsistence, and employed the same instruments of
      destruction. But he adds, that the two nations of Bulgarians and
      Hungarians were superior to their brethren, and similar to each
      other in the improvements, however rude, of their discipline and
      government: their visible likeness determines Leo to confound his
      friends and enemies in one common description; and the picture
      may be heightened by some strokes from their contemporaries of
      the tenth century. Except the merit and fame of military prowess,
      all that is valued by mankind appeared vile and contemptible to
      these Barbarians, whose native fierceness was stimulated by the
      consciousness of numbers and freedom. The tents of the Hungarians
      were of leather, their garments of fur; they shaved their hair,
      and scarified their faces: in speech they were slow, in action
      prompt, in treaty perfidious; and they shared the common reproach
      of Barbarians, too ignorant to conceive the importance of truth,
      too proud to deny or palliate the breach of their most solemn
      engagements. Their simplicity has been praised; yet they
      abstained only from the luxury they had never known; whatever
      they saw they coveted; their desires were insatiate, and their
      sole industry was the hand of violence and rapine. By the
      definition of a pastoral nation, I have recalled a long
      description of the economy, the warfare, and the government that
      prevail in that state of society; I may add, that to fishing, as
      well as to the chase, the Hungarians were indebted for a part of
      their subsistence; and since they seldom cultivated the ground,
      they must, at least in their new settlements, have sometimes
      practised a slight and unskilful husbandry. In their emigrations,
      perhaps in their expeditions, the host was accompanied by
      thousands of sheep and oxen which increased the cloud of
      formidable dust, and afforded a constant and wholesale supply of
      milk and animal food. A plentiful command of forage was the first
      care of the general, and if the flocks and herds were secure of
      their pastures, the hardy warrior was alike insensible of danger
      and fatigue. The confusion of men and cattle that overspread the
      country exposed their camp to a nocturnal surprise, had not a
      still wider circuit been occupied by their light cavalry,
      perpetually in motion to discover and delay the approach of the
      enemy. After some experience of the Roman tactics, they adopted
      the use of the sword and spear, the helmet of the soldier, and
      the iron breastplate of his steed: but their native and deadly
      weapon was the Tartar bow: from the earliest infancy their
      children and servants were exercised in the double science of
      archery and horsemanship; their arm was strong; their aim was
      sure; and in the most rapid career, they were taught to throw
      themselves backwards, and to shoot a volley of arrows into the
      air. In open combat, in secret ambush, in flight, or pursuit,
      they were equally formidable; an appearance of order was
      maintained in the foremost ranks, but their charge was driven
      forwards by the impatient pressure of succeeding crowds. They
      pursued, headlong and rash, with loosened reins and horrific
      outcries; but, if they fled, with real or dissembled fear, the
      ardor of a pursuing foe was checked and chastised by the same
      habits of irregular speed and sudden evolution. In the abuse of
      victory, they astonished Europe, yet smarting from the wounds of
      the Saracen and the Dane: mercy they rarely asked, and more
      rarely bestowed: both sexes if accused is equally inaccessible to
      pity, and their appetite for raw flesh might countenance the
      popular tale, that they drank the blood, and feasted on the
      hearts of the slain. Yet the Hungarians were not devoid of those
      principles of justice and humanity, which nature has implanted in
      every bosom. The license of public and private injuries was
      restrained by laws and punishments; and in the security of an
      open camp, theft is the most tempting and most dangerous offence.
      Among the Barbarians there were many, whose spontaneous virtue
      supplied their laws and corrected their manners, who performed
      the duties, and sympathized with the affections, of social life.

      29 (return) [ Leo has observed, that the government of the Turks
      was monarchical, and that their punishments were rigorous,
      (Tactic. p. 896) Rhegino (in Chron. A.D. 889) mentions theft as a
      capital crime, and his jurisprudence is confirmed by the original
      code of St. Stephen, (A.D. 1016.) If a slave were guilty, he was
      chastised, for the first time, with the loss of his nose, or a
      fine of five heifers; for the second, with the loss of his ears,
      or a similar fine; for the third, with death; which the freeman
      did not incur till the fourth offence, as his first penalty was
      the loss of liberty, (Katona, Hist. Regum Hungar tom. i. p. 231,
      232.)]

      After a long pilgrimage of flight or victory, the Turkish hordes
      approached the common limits of the French and Byzantine empires.
      Their first conquests and final settlements extended on either
      side of the Danube above Vienna, below Belgrade, and beyond the
      measure of the Roman province of Pannonia, or the modern kingdom
      of Hungary. 30 That ample and fertile land was loosely occupied
      by the Moravians, a Sclavonian name and tribe, which were driven
      by the invaders into the compass of a narrow province.
      Charlemagne had stretched a vague and nominal empire as far as
      the edge of Transylvania; but, after the failure of his
      legitimate line, the dukes of Moravia forgot their obedience and
      tribute to the monarchs of Oriental France. The bastard Arnulph
      was provoked to invite the arms of the Turks: they rushed through
      the real or figurative wall, which his indiscretion had thrown
      open; and the king of Germany has been justly reproached as a
      traitor to the civil and ecclesiastical society of the
      Christians. During the life of Arnulph, the Hungarians were
      checked by gratitude or fear; but in the infancy of his son Lewis
      they discovered and invaded Bavaria; and such was their Scythian
      speed, that in a single day a circuit of fifty miles was stripped
      and consumed. In the battle of Augsburgh the Christians
      maintained their advantage till the seventh hour of the day, they
      were deceived and vanquished by the flying stratagems of the
      Turkish cavalry. The conflagration spread over the provinces of
      Bavaria, Swabia, and Franconia; and the Hungarians 31 promoted
      the reign of anarchy, by forcing the stoutest barons to
      discipline their vassals and fortify their castles. The origin of
      walled towns is ascribed to this calamitous period; nor could any
      distance be secure against an enemy, who, almost at the same
      instant, laid in ashes the Helvetian monastery of St. Gall, and
      the city of Bremen, on the shores of the northern ocean. Above
      thirty years the Germanic empire, or kingdom, was subject to the
      ignominy of tribute; and resistance was disarmed by the menace,
      the serious and effectual menace of dragging the women and
      children into captivity, and of slaughtering the males above the
      age of ten years. I have neither power nor inclination to follow
      the Hungarians beyond the Rhine; but I must observe with
      surprise, that the southern provinces of France were blasted by
      the tempest, and that Spain, behind her Pyrenees, was astonished
      at the approach of these formidable strangers. 32 The vicinity of
      Italy had tempted their early inroads; but from their camp on the
      Brenta, they beheld with some terror the apparent strength and
      populousness of the new discovered country. They requested leave
      to retire; their request was proudly rejected by the Italian
      king; and the lives of twenty thousand Christians paid the
      forfeit of his obstinacy and rashness. Among the cities of the
      West, the royal Pavia was conspicuous in fame and splendor; and
      the preeminence of Rome itself was only derived from the relics
      of the apostles. The Hungarians appeared; Pavia was in flames;
      forty-three churches were consumed; and, after the massacre of
      the people, they spared about two hundred wretches who had
      gathered some bushels of gold and silver (a vague exaggeration)
      from the smoking ruins of their country. In these annual
      excursions from the Alps to the neighborhood of Rome and Capua,
      the churches, that yet escaped, resounded with a fearful litany:
      “O, save and deliver us from the arrows of the Hungarians!” But
      the saints were deaf or inexorable; and the torrent rolled
      forwards, till it was stopped by the extreme land of Calabria. 33
      A composition was offered and accepted for the head of each
      Italian subject; and ten bushels of silver were poured forth in
      the Turkish camp. But falsehood is the natural antagonist of
      violence; and the robbers were defrauded both in the numbers of
      the assessment and the standard of the metal. On the side of the
      East, the Hungarians were opposed in doubtful conflict by the
      equal arms of the Bulgarians, whose faith forbade an alliance
      with the Pagans, and whose situation formed the barrier of the
      Byzantine empire. The barrier was overturned; the emperor of
      Constantinople beheld the waving banners of the Turks; and one of
      their boldest warriors presumed to strike a battle-axe into the
      golden gate. The arts and treasures of the Greeks diverted the
      assault; but the Hungarians might boast, in their retreat, that
      they had imposed a tribute on the spirit of Bulgaria and the
      majesty of the Caesars. 34 The remote and rapid operations of the
      same campaign appear to magnify the power and numbers of the
      Turks; but their courage is most deserving of praise, since a
      light troop of three or four hundred horse would often attempt
      and execute the most daring inroads to the gates of Thessalonica
      and Constantinople. At this disastrous aera of the ninth and
      tenth centuries, Europe was afflicted by a triple scourge from
      the North, the East, and the South: the Norman, the Hungarian,
      and the Saracen, sometimes trod the same ground of desolation;
      and these savage foes might have been compared by Homer to the
      two lions growling over the carcass of a mangled stag. 35

      30 (return) [ See Katona, Hist. Ducum Hungar. p. 321-352.]

      31 (return) [ Hungarorum gens, cujus omnes fere nationes expertae
      saevitium &c., is the preface of Liutprand, (l. i. c. 2,) who
      frequently expatiated on the calamities of his own times. See l.
      i. c. 5, l. ii. c. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7; l. iii. c. 1, &c., l. v. c.
      8, 15, in Legat. p. 485. His colors are glaring but his
      chronology must be rectified by Pagi and Muratori.]

      32 (return) [ The three bloody reigns of Arpad, Zoltan, and
      Toxus, are critically illustrated by Katona, (Hist. Ducum, &c. p.
      107-499.) His diligence has searched both natives and foreigners;
      yet to the deeds of mischief, or glory, I have been able to add
      the destruction of Bremen, (Adam Bremensis, i. 43.)]

      33 (return) [ Muratori has considered with patriotic care the
      danger and resources of Modena. The citizens besought St.
      Geminianus, their patron, to avert, by his intercession, the
      rabies, flagellum, &c. Nunc te rogamus, licet servi pessimi, Ab
      Ungerorum nos defendas jaculis.The bishop erected walls for the
      public defence, not contra dominos serenos, (Antiquitat. Ital.
      Med. Aevi, tom. i. dissertat. i. p. 21, 22,) and the song of the
      nightly watch is not without elegance or use, (tom. iii. dis. xl.
      p. 709.) The Italian annalist has accurately traced the series of
      their inroads, (Annali d’ Italia, tom. vii. p. 365, 367, 398,
      401, 437, 440, tom. viii. p. 19, 41, 52, &c.)]

      34 (return) [ Both the Hungarian and Russian annals suppose, that
      they besieged, or attacked, or insulted Constantinople, (Pray,
      dissertat. x. p. 239. Katona, Hist. Ducum, p. 354-360;) and the
      fact is almost confessed by the Byzantine historians, (Leo
      Grammaticus, p. 506. Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 629: ) yet, however
      glorious to the nation, it is denied or doubted by the critical
      historian, and even by the notary of Bela. Their scepticism is
      meritorious; they could not safely transcribe or believe the
      rusticorum fabulas: but Katona might have given due attention to
      the evidence of Liutprand, Bulgarorum gentem atque daecorum
      tributariam fecerant, (Hist. l. ii. c. 4, p. 435.)]

      35 (return) [—Iliad, xvi. 756.]

      The deliverance of Germany and Christendom was achieved by the
      Saxon princes, Henry the Fowler and Otho the Great, who, in two
      memorable battles, forever broke the power of the Hungarians. 36
      The valiant Henry was roused from a bed of sickness by the
      invasion of his country; but his mind was vigorous and his
      prudence successful. “My companions,” said he, on the morning of
      the combat, “maintain your ranks, receive on your bucklers the
      first arrows of the Pagans, and prevent their second discharge by
      the equal and rapid career of your lances.” They obeyed and
      conquered: and the historical picture of the castle of Merseburgh
      expressed the features, or at least the character, of Henry, who,
      in an age of ignorance, intrusted to the finer arts the
      perpetuity of his name. 37 At the end of twenty years, the
      children of the Turks who had fallen by his sword invaded the
      empire of his son; and their force is defined, in the lowest
      estimate, at one hundred thousand horse. They were invited by
      domestic faction; the gates of Germany were treacherously
      unlocked; and they spread, far beyond the Rhine and the Meuse,
      into the heart of Flanders. But the vigor and prudence of Otho
      dispelled the conspiracy; the princes were made sensible that
      unless they were true to each other, their religion and country
      were irrecoverably lost; and the national powers were reviewed in
      the plains of Augsburgh. They marched and fought in eight
      legions, according to the division of provinces and tribes; the
      first, second, and third, were composed of Bavarians; the fourth,
      of Franconians; the fifth, of Saxons, under the immediate command
      of the monarch; the sixth and seventh consisted of Swabians; and
      the eighth legion, of a thousand Bohemians, closed the rear of
      the host. The resources of discipline and valor were fortified by
      the arts of superstition, which, on this occasion, may deserve
      the epithets of generous and salutary. The soldiers were purified
      with a fast; the camp was blessed with the relics of saints and
      martyrs; and the Christian hero girded on his side the sword of
      Constantine, grasped the invincible spear of Charlemagne, and
      waved the banner of St. Maurice, the praefect of the Thebaean
      legion. But his firmest confidence was placed in the holy lance,
      38 whose point was fashioned of the nails of the cross, and which
      his father had extorted from the king of Burgundy, by the threats
      of war, and the gift of a province. The Hungarians were expected
      in the front; they secretly passed the Lech, a river of Bavaria
      that falls into the Danube; turned the rear of the Christian
      army; plundered the baggage, and disordered the legion of Bohemia
      and Swabia. The battle was restored by the Franconians, whose
      duke, the valiant Conrad, was pierced with an arrow as he rested
      from his fatigues: the Saxons fought under the eyes of their
      king; and his victory surpassed, in merit and importance, the
      triumphs of the last two hundred years. The loss of the
      Hungarians was still greater in the flight than in the action;
      they were encompassed by the rivers of Bavaria; and their past
      cruelties excluded them from the hope of mercy. Three captive
      princes were hanged at Ratisbon, the multitude of prisoners was
      slain or mutilated, and the fugitives, who presumed to appear in
      the face of their country, were condemned to everlasting poverty
      and disgrace. 39 Yet the spirit of the nation was humbled, and
      the most accessible passes of Hungary were fortified with a ditch
      and rampart. Adversity suggested the counsels of moderation and
      peace: the robbers of the West acquiesced in a sedentary life;
      and the next generation was taught, by a discerning prince, that
      far more might be gained by multiplying and exchanging the
      produce of a fruitful soil. The native race, the Turkish or
      Fennic blood, was mingled with new colonies of Scythian or
      Sclavonian origin; 40 many thousands of robust and industrious
      captives had been imported from all the countries of Europe; 41
      and after the marriage of Geisa with a Bavarian princess, he
      bestowed honors and estates on the nobles of Germany. 42 The son
      of Geisa was invested with the regal title, and the house of
      Arpad reigned three hundred years in the kingdom of Hungary. But
      the freeborn Barbarians were not dazzled by the lustre of the
      diadem, and the people asserted their indefeasible right of
      choosing, deposing, and punishing the hereditary servant of the
      state.

      36 (return) [ They are amply and critically discussed by Katona,
      (Hist. Dacum, p. 360-368, 427-470.) Liutprand (l. ii. c. 8, 9) is
      the best evidence for the former, and Witichind (Annal. Saxon. l.
      iii.) of the latter; but the critical historian will not even
      overlook the horn of a warrior, which is said to be preserved at
      Jaz-berid.]

      37 (return) [ Hunc vero triumphum, tam laude quam memoria dignum,
      ad Meresburgum rex in superiori coenaculo domus per Zeus, id est,
      picturam, notari praecepit, adeo ut rem veram potius quam
      verisimilem videas: a high encomium, (Liutprand, l. ii. c. 9.)
      Another palace in Germany had been painted with holy subjects by
      the order of Charlemagne; and Muratori may justly affirm, nulla
      saecula fuere in quibus pictores desiderati fuerint, (Antiquitat.
      Ital. Medii Aevi, tom. ii. dissert. xxiv. p. 360, 361.) Our
      domestic claims to antiquity of ignorance and original
      imperfection (Mr. Walpole’s lively words) are of a much more
      recent date, (Anecdotes of Painting, vol. i. p. 2, &c.)]

      38 (return) [ See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 929, No. 2-5. The
      lance of Christ is taken from the best evidence, Liutprand, (l.
      iv. c. 12,) Sigebert, and the Acts of St. Gerard: but the other
      military relics depend on the faith of the Gesta Anglorum post
      Bedam, l. ii. c. 8.]

      39 (return) [ Katona, Hist. Ducum Hungariae, p. 500, &c.]

      40 (return) [ Among these colonies we may distinguish, 1. The
      Chazars, or Cabari, who joined the Hungarians on their march,
      (Constant. de Admin. Imp. c. 39, 40, p. 108, 109.) 2. The
      Jazyges, Moravians, and Siculi, whom they found in the land; the
      last were perhaps a remnant of the Huns of Attila, and were
      intrusted with the guard of the borders. 3. The Russians, who,
      like the Swiss in France, imparted a general name to the royal
      porters. 4. The Bulgarians, whose chiefs (A.D. 956) were invited,
      cum magna multitudine Hismahelitarum. Had any of those
      Sclavonians embraced the Mahometan religion? 5. The Bisseni and
      Cumans, a mixed multitude of Patzinacites, Uzi, Chazars, &c., who
      had spread to the Lower Danube. The last colony of 40,000 Cumans,
      A.D. 1239, was received and converted by the kings of Hungary,
      who derived from that tribe a new regal appellation, (Pray,
      Dissert. vi. vii. p. 109-173. Katona, Hist. Ducum, p. 95-99,
      259-264, 476, 479-483, &c.)]

      41 (return) [ Christiani autem, quorum pars major populi est, qui
      ex omni parte mundi illuc tracti sunt captivi, &c. Such was the
      language of Piligrinus, the first missionary who entered Hungary,
      A.D. 973. Pars major is strong. Hist. Ducum, p. 517.]

      42 (return) [ The fideles Teutonici of Geisa are authenticated in
      old charters: and Katona, with his usual industry, has made a
      fair estimate of these colonies, which had been so loosely
      magnified by the Italian Ranzanus, (Hist. Critic. Ducum. p,
      667-681.)]

      III. The name of Russians 43 was first divulged, in the ninth
      century, by an embassy of Theophilus, emperor of the East, to the
      emperor of the West, Lewis, the son of Charlemagne. The Greeks
      were accompanied by the envoys of the great duke, or chagan, or
      czar, of the Russians. In their journey to Constantinople, they
      had traversed many hostile nations; and they hoped to escape the
      dangers of their return, by requesting the French monarch to
      transport them by sea to their native country. A closer
      examination detected their origin: they were the brethren of the
      Swedes and Normans, whose name was already odious and formidable
      in France; and it might justly be apprehended, that these Russian
      strangers were not the messengers of peace, but the emissaries of
      war. They were detained, while the Greeks were dismissed; and
      Lewis expected a more satisfactory account, that he might obey
      the laws of hospitality or prudence, according to the interest of
      both empires. 44 This Scandinavian origin of the people, or at
      least the princes, of Russia, may be confirmed and illustrated by
      the national annals 45 and the general history of the North. The
      Normans, who had so long been concealed by a veil of impenetrable
      darkness, suddenly burst forth in the spirit of naval and
      military enterprise. The vast, and, as it is said, the populous
      regions of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, were crowded with
      independent chieftains and desperate adventurers, who sighed in
      the laziness of peace, and smiled in the agonies of death. Piracy
      was the exercise, the trade, the glory, and the virtue, of the
      Scandinavian youth. Impatient of a bleak climate and narrow
      limits, they started from the banquet, grasped their arms,
      sounded their horn, ascended their vessels, and explored every
      coast that promised either spoil or settlement. The Baltic was
      the first scene of their naval achievements they visited the
      eastern shores, the silent residence of Fennic and Sclavonic
      tribes, and the primitive Russians of the Lake Ladoga paid a
      tribute, the skins of white squirrels, to these strangers, whom
      they saluted with the title of Varangians 46 or Corsairs. Their
      superiority in arms, discipline, and renown, commanded the fear
      and reverence of the natives. In their wars against the more
      inland savages, the Varangians condescended to serve as friends
      and auxiliaries, and gradually, by choice or conquest, obtained
      the dominion of a people whom they were qualified to protect.
      Their tyranny was expelled, their valor was again recalled, till
      at length Ruric, a Scandinavian chief, became the father of a
      dynasty which reigned above seven hundred years. His brothers
      extended his influence: the example of service and usurpation was
      imitated by his companions in the southern provinces of Russia;
      and their establishments, by the usual methods of war and
      assassination, were cemented into the fabric of a powerful
      monarchy.

      43 (return) [ Among the Greeks, this national appellation has a
      singular form, as an undeclinable word, of which many fanciful
      etymologies have been suggested. I have perused, with pleasure
      and profit, a dissertation de Origine Russorum (Comment. Academ.
      Petropolitanae, tom. viii. p. 388-436) by Theophilus Sigefrid
      Bayer, a learned German, who spent his life and labors in the
      service of Russia. A geographical tract of D’Anville, de l’Empire
      de Russie, son Origine, et ses Accroissemens, (Paris, 1772, in
      12mo.,) has likewise been of use. * Note: The later antiquarians
      of Russia and Germany appear to aquiesce in the authority of the
      monk Nestor, the earliest annalist of Russia, who derives the
      Russians, or Vareques, from Scandinavia. The names of the first
      founders of the Russian monarchy are Scandinavian or Norman.
      Their language (according to Const. Porphyrog. de Administrat.
      Imper. c. 9) differed essentially from the Sclavonian. The author
      of the Annals of St. Bertin, who first names the Russians (Rhos)
      in the year 839 of his Annals, assigns them Sweden for their
      country. So Liutprand calls the Russians the same people as the
      Normans. The Fins, Laplanders, and Esthonians, call the Swedes,
      to the present day, Roots, Rootsi, Ruotzi, Rootslaue. See
      Thunman, Untersuchungen uber der Geschichte des Estlichen
      Europaischen Volker, p. 374. Gatterer, Comm. Societ. Regbcient.
      Gotting. xiii. p. 126. Schlozer, in his Nestor. Koch. Revolut. de
      ‘Europe, vol. i. p. 60. Malte-Brun, Geograph. vol. vi. p.
      378.—M.]

      44 (return) [ See the entire passage (dignum, says Bayer, ut
      aureis in tabulis rigatur) in the Annales Bertiniani Francorum,
      (in Script. Ital. Muratori, tom. ii. pars i. p. 525,) A.D. 839,
      twenty-two years before the aera of Ruric. In the xth century,
      Liutprand (Hist. l. v. c. 6) speaks of the Russians and Normans
      as the same Aquilonares homines of a red complexion.]

      45 (return) [ My knowledge of these annals is drawn from M.
      Leveque, Histoire de Russie. Nestor, the first and best of these
      ancient annalists, was a monk of Kiow, who died in the beginning
      of the xiith century; but his Chronicle was obscure, till it was
      published at Petersburgh, 1767, in 4to. Leveque, Hist. de Russie,
      tom. i. p. xvi. Coxe’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 184. * Note: The late
      M. Schlozer has translated and added a commentary to the Annals
      of Nestor; and his work is the mine from which henceforth the
      history of the North must be drawn.—G.]

      46 (return) [ Theophil. Sig. Bayer de Varagis, (for the name is
      differently spelt,) in Comment. Academ. Petropolitanae, tom. iv.
      p. 275-311.]

      As long as the descendants of Ruric were considered as aliens and
      conquerors, they ruled by the sword of the Varangians,
      distributed estates and subjects to their faithful captains, and
      supplied their numbers with fresh streams of adventurers from the
      Baltic coast. 47 But when the Scandinavian chiefs had struck a
      deep and permanent root into the soil, they mingled with the
      Russians in blood, religion, and language, and the first
      Waladimir had the merit of delivering his country from these
      foreign mercenaries. They had seated him on the throne; his
      riches were insufficient to satisfy their demands; but they
      listened to his pleasing advice, that they should seek, not a
      more grateful, but a more wealthy, master; that they should
      embark for Greece, where, instead of the skins of squirrels, silk
      and gold would be the recompense of their service. At the same
      time, the Russian prince admonished his Byzantine ally to
      disperse and employ, to recompense and restrain, these impetuous
      children of the North. Contemporary writers have recorded the
      introduction, name, and character, of the Varangians: each day
      they rose in confidence and esteem; the whole body was assembled
      at Constantinople to perform the duty of guards; and their
      strength was recruited by a numerous band of their countrymen
      from the Island of Thule. On this occasion, the vague appellation
      of Thule is applied to England; and the new Varangians were a
      colony of English and Danes who fled from the yoke of the Norman
      conqueror. The habits of pilgrimage and piracy had approximated
      the countries of the earth; these exiles were entertained in the
      Byzantine court; and they preserved, till the last age of the
      empire, the inheritance of spotless loyalty, and the use of the
      Danish or English tongue. With their broad and double-edged
      battle-axes on their shoulders, they attended the Greek emperor
      to the temple, the senate, and the hippodrome; he slept and
      feasted under their trusty guard; and the keys of the palace, the
      treasury, and the capital, were held by the firm and faithful
      hands of the Varangians. 48

      47 (return) [ Yet, as late as the year 1018, Kiow and Russia were
      still guarded ex fugitivorum servorum robore, confluentium et
      maxime Danorum. Bayer, who quotes (p. 292) the Chronicle of
      Dithmar of Merseburgh, observes, that it was unusual for the
      Germans to enlist in a foreign service.]

      48 (return) [ Ducange has collected from the original authors the
      state and history of the Varangi at Constantinople, (Glossar.
      Med. et Infimae Graecitatis, sub voce. Med. et Infimae
      Latinitatis, sub voce Vagri. Not. ad Alexiad. Annae Comnenae, p.
      256, 257, 258. Notes sur Villehardouin, p. 296-299.) See likewise
      the annotations of Reiske to the Ceremoniale Aulae Byzant. of
      Constantine, tom. ii. p. 149, 150. Saxo Grammaticus affirms that
      they spoke Danish; but Codinus maintains them till the fifteenth
      century in the use of their native English.]

      In the tenth century, the geography of Scythia was extended far
      beyond the limits of ancient knowledge; and the monarchy of the
      Russians obtains a vast and conspicuous place in the map of
      Constantine. 49 The sons of Ruric were masters of the spacious
      province of Wolodomir, or Moscow; and, if they were confined on
      that side by the hordes of the East, their western frontier in
      those early days was enlarged to the Baltic Sea and the country
      of the Prussians. Their northern reign ascended above the
      sixtieth degree of latitude over the Hyperborean regions, which
      fancy had peopled with monsters, or clouded with eternal
      darkness. To the south they followed the course of the
      Borysthenes, and approached with that river the neighborhood of
      the Euxine Sea. The tribes that dwelt, or wandered, in this ample
      circuit were obedient to the same conqueror, and insensibly
      blended into the same nation. The language of Russia is a dialect
      of the Sclavonian; but in the tenth century, these two modes of
      speech were different from each other; and, as the Sclavonian
      prevailed in the South, it may be presumed that the original
      Russians of the North, the primitive subjects of the Varangian
      chief, were a portion of the Fennic race. With the emigration,
      union, or dissolution, of the wandering tribes, the loose and
      indefinite picture of the Scythian desert has continually
      shifted. But the most ancient map of Russia affords some places
      which still retain their name and position; and the two capitals,
      Novogorod 50 and Kiow, 51 are coeval with the first age of the
      monarchy. Novogorod had not yet deserved the epithet of great,
      nor the alliance of the Hanseatic League, which diffused the
      streams of opulence and the principles of freedom. Kiow could not
      yet boast of three hundred churches, an innumerable people, and a
      degree of greatness and splendor which was compared with
      Constantinople by those who had never seen the residence of the
      Caesars. In their origin, the two cities were no more than camps
      or fairs, the most convenient stations in which the Barbarians
      might assemble for the occasional business of war or trade. Yet
      even these assemblies announce some progress in the arts of
      society; a new breed of cattle was imported from the southern
      provinces; and the spirit of commercial enterprise pervaded the
      sea and land, from the Baltic to the Euxine, from the mouth of
      the Oder to the port of Constantinople. In the days of idolatry
      and barbarism, the Sclavonic city of Julin was frequented and
      enriched by the Normans, who had prudently secured a free mart of
      purchase and exchange. 52 From this harbor, at the entrance of
      the Oder, the corsair, or merchant, sailed in forty-three days to
      the eastern shores of the Baltic, the most distant nations were
      intermingled, and the holy groves of Curland are said to have
      been decorated with Grecian and Spanish gold. 53 Between the sea
      and Novogorod an easy intercourse was discovered; in the summer,
      through a gulf, a lake, and a navigable river; in the winter
      season, over the hard and level surface of boundless snows. From
      the neighborhood of that city, the Russians descended the streams
      that fall into the Borysthenes; their canoes, of a single tree,
      were laden with slaves of every age, furs of every species, the
      spoil of their beehives, and the hides of their cattle; and the
      whole produce of the North was collected and discharged in the
      magazines of Kiow. The month of June was the ordinary season of
      the departure of the fleet: the timber of the canoes was framed
      into the oars and benches of more solid and capacious boats; and
      they proceeded without obstacle down the Borysthenes, as far as
      the seven or thirteen ridges of rocks, which traverse the bed,
      and precipitate the waters, of the river. At the more shallow
      falls it was sufficient to lighten the vessels; but the deeper
      cataracts were impassable; and the mariners, who dragged their
      vessels and their slaves six miles over land, were exposed in
      this toilsome journey to the robbers of the desert. 54 At the
      first island below the falls, the Russians celebrated the
      festival of their escape: at a second, near the mouth of the
      river, they repaired their shattered vessels for the longer and
      more perilous voyage of the Black Sea. If they steered along the
      coast, the Danube was accessible; with a fair wind they could
      reach in thirty-six or forty hours the opposite shores of
      Anatolia; and Constantinople admitted the annual visit of the
      strangers of the North. They returned at the stated season with a
      rich cargo of corn, wine, and oil, the manufactures of Greece,
      and the spices of India. Some of their countrymen resided in the
      capital and provinces; and the national treaties protected the
      persons, effects, and privileges, of the Russian merchant. 55

      49 (return) [ The original record of the geography and trade of
      Russia is produced by the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus,
      (de Administrat. Imperii, c. 2, p. 55, 56, c. 9, p. 59-61, c. 13,
      p. 63-67, c. 37, p. 106, c. 42, p. 112, 113,) and illustrated by
      the diligence of Bayer, (de Geographia Russiae vicinarumque
      Regionum circiter A. C. 948, in Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom.
      ix. p. 367-422, tom. x. p. 371-421,) with the aid of the
      chronicles and traditions of Russia, Scandinavia, &c.]

      50 (return) [ The haughty proverb, “Who can resist God and the
      great Novogorod?” is applied by M. Leveque (Hist. de Russie, tom.
      i. p. 60) even to the times that preceded the reign of Ruric. In
      the course of his history he frequently celebrates this republic,
      which was suppressed A.D. 1475, (tom. ii. p. 252-266.) That
      accurate traveller Adam Olearius describes (in 1635) the remains
      of Novogorod, and the route by sea and land of the Holstein
      ambassadors, tom. i. p. 123-129.]

      51 (return) [ In hac magna civitate, quae est caput regni, plus
      trecentae ecclesiae habentur et nundinae octo, populi etiam
      ignota manus (Eggehardus ad A.D. 1018, apud Bayer, tom. ix. p.
      412.) He likewise quotes (tom. x. p. 397) the words of the Saxon
      annalist, Cujus (Russioe) metropolis est Chive, aemula sceptri
      Constantinopolitani, quae est clarissimum decus Graeciae. The
      fame of Kiow, especially in the xith century, had reached the
      German and Arabian geographers.]

      52 (return) [ In Odorae ostio qua Scythicas alluit paludes,
      nobilissima civitas Julinum, celeberrimam, Barbaris et Graecis
      qui sunt in circuitu, praestans stationem, est sane maxima omnium
      quas Europa claudit civitatum, (Adam Bremensis, Hist. Eccles. p.
      19;) a strange exaggeration even in the xith century. The trade
      of the Baltic, and the Hanseatic League, are carefully treated in
      Anderson’s Historical Deduction of Commerce; at least, in our
      language, I am not acquainted with any book so satisfactory. *
      Note: The book of authority is the “Geschichte des Hanseatischen
      Bundes,” by George Sartorius, Gottingen, 1803, or rather the
      later edition of that work by M. Lappenberg, 2 vols. 4to.,
      Hamburgh, 1830.—M. 1845.]

      53 (return) [ According to Adam of Bremen, (de Situ Daniae, p.
      58,) the old Curland extended eight days’ journey along the
      coast; and by Peter Teutoburgicus, (p. 68, A.D. 1326,) Memel is
      defined as the common frontier of Russia, Curland, and Prussia.
      Aurum ibi plurimum, (says Adam,) divinis auguribus atque
      necromanticis omnes domus sunt plenae.... a toto orbe ibi
      responsa petuntur, maxime ab Hispanis (forsan Zupanis, id est
      regulis Lettoviae) et Graecis. The name of Greeks was applied to
      the Russians even before their conversion; an imperfect
      conversion, if they still consulted the wizards of Curland,
      (Bayer, tom. x. p. 378, 402, &c. Grotius, Prolegomen. ad Hist.
      Goth. p. 99.)]

      54 (return) [ Constantine only reckons seven cataracts, of which
      he gives the Russian and Sclavonic names; but thirteen are
      enumerated by the Sieur de Beauplan, a French engineer, who had
      surveyed the course and navigation of the Dnieper, or
      Borysthenes, (Description de l’Ukraine, Rouen, 1660, a thin
      quarto;) but the map is unluckily wanting in my copy.]

      55 (return) [ Nestor, apud Leveque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p.
      78-80. From the Dnieper, or Borysthenes, the Russians went to
      Black Bulgaria, Chazaria, and Syria. To Syria, how? where? when?
      The alteration is slight; the position of Suania, between
      Chazaria and Lazica, is perfectly suitable; and the name was
      still used in the xith century, (Cedren. tom. ii. p. 770.)]




      Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part
      III.

      But the same communication which had been opened for the benefit,
      was soon abused for the injury, of mankind. In a period of one
      hundred and ninety years, the Russians made four attempts to
      plunder the treasures of Constantinople: the event was various,
      but the motive, the means, and the object, were the same in these
      naval expeditions. 56 The Russian traders had seen the
      magnificence, and tasted the luxury of the city of the Caesars. A
      marvellous tale, and a scanty supply, excited the desires of
      their savage countrymen: they envied the gifts of nature which
      their climate denied; they coveted the works of art, which they
      were too lazy to imitate and too indigent to purchase; the
      Varangian princes unfurled the banners of piratical adventure,
      and their bravest soldiers were drawn from the nations that dwelt
      in the northern isles of the ocean. 57 The image of their naval
      armaments was revived in the last century, in the fleets of the
      Cossacks, which issued from the Borysthenes, to navigate the same
      seas for a similar purpose. 58 The Greek appellation of monoxyla,
      or single canoes, might justly be applied to the bottom of their
      vessels. It was scooped out of the long stem of a beech or
      willow, but the slight and narrow foundation was raised and
      continued on either side with planks, till it attained the length
      of sixty, and the height of about twelve, feet. These boats were
      built without a deck, but with two rudders and a mast; to move
      with sails and oars; and to contain from forty to seventy men,
      with their arms, and provisions of fresh water and salt fish. The
      first trial of the Russians was made with two hundred boats; but
      when the national force was exerted, they might arm against
      Constantinople a thousand or twelve hundred vessels. Their fleet
      was not much inferior to the royal navy of Agamemnon, but it was
      magnified in the eyes of fear to ten or fifteen times the real
      proportion of its strength and numbers. Had the Greek emperors
      been endowed with foresight to discern, and vigor to prevent,
      perhaps they might have sealed with a maritime force the mouth of
      the Borysthenes. Their indolence abandoned the coast of Anatolia
      to the calamities of a piratical war, which, after an interval of
      six hundred years, again infested the Euxine; but as long as the
      capital was respected, the sufferings of a distant province
      escaped the notice both of the prince and the historian. The
      storm which had swept along from the Phasis and Trebizond, at
      length burst on the Bosphorus of Thrace; a strait of fifteen
      miles, in which the rude vessels of the Russians might have been
      stopped and destroyed by a more skilful adversary. In their first
      enterprise 59 under the princes of Kiow, they passed without
      opposition, and occupied the port of Constantinople in the
      absence of the emperor Michael, the son of Theophilus. Through a
      crowd of perils, he landed at the palace-stairs, and immediately
      repaired to a church of the Virgin Mary. 60 By the advice of the
      patriarch, her garment, a precious relic, was drawn from the
      sanctuary and dipped in the sea; and a seasonable tempest, which
      determined the retreat of the Russians, was devoutly ascribed to
      the mother of God. 61 The silence of the Greeks may inspire some
      doubt of the truth, or at least of the importance, of the second
      attempt by Oleg, the guardian of the sons of Ruric. 62 A strong
      barrier of arms and fortifications defended the Bosphorus: they
      were eluded by the usual expedient of drawing the boats over the
      isthmus; and this simple operation is described in the national
      chronicles, as if the Russian fleet had sailed over dry land with
      a brisk and favorable gale. The leader of the third armament,
      Igor, the son of Ruric, had chosen a moment of weakness and
      decay, when the naval powers of the empire were employed against
      the Saracens. But if courage be not wanting, the instruments of
      defence are seldom deficient. Fifteen broken and decayed galleys
      were boldly launched against the enemy; but instead of the single
      tube of Greek fire usually planted on the prow, the sides and
      stern of each vessel were abundantly supplied with that liquid
      combustible. The engineers were dexterous; the weather was
      propitious; many thousand Russians, who chose rather to be
      drowned than burnt, leaped into the sea; and those who escaped to
      the Thracian shore were inhumanly slaughtered by the peasants and
      soldiers. Yet one third of the canoes escaped into shallow water;
      and the next spring Igor was again prepared to retrieve his
      disgrace and claim his revenge. 63 After a long peace, Jaroslaus,
      the great grandson of Igor, resumed the same project of a naval
      invasion. A fleet, under the command of his son, was repulsed at
      the entrance of the Bosphorus by the same artificial flames. But
      in the rashness of pursuit, the vanguard of the Greeks was
      encompassed by an irresistible multitude of boats and men; their
      provision of fire was probably exhausted; and twenty-four galleys
      were either taken, sunk, or destroyed. 64

      56 (return) [ The wars of the Russians and Greeks in the ixth,
      xth, and xith centuries, are related in the Byzantine annals,
      especially those of Zonaras and Cedrenus; and all their
      testimonies are collected in the Russica of Stritter, tom. ii.
      pars ii. p. 939-1044.]

      57 (return) [ Cedrenus in Compend. p. 758]

      58 (return) [ See Beauplan, (Description de l’Ukraine, p. 54-61:
      ) his descriptions are lively, his plans accurate, and except the
      circumstances of fire-arms, we may read old Russians for modern
      Cosacks.]

      59 (return) [ It is to be lamented, that Bayer has only given a
      Dissertation de Russorum prima Expeditione Constantinopolitana,
      (Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. vi. p. 265-391.) After
      disentangling some chronological intricacies, he fixes it in the
      years 864 or 865, a date which might have smoothed some doubts
      and difficulties in the beginning of M. Leveque’s history.]

      60 (return) [ When Photius wrote his encyclic epistle on the
      conversion of the Russians, the miracle was not yet sufficiently
      ripe.]

      61 (return) [ Leo Grammaticus, p. 463, 464. Constantini
      Continuator in Script. post Theophanem, p. 121, 122. Symeon
      Logothet. p. 445, 446. Georg. Monach. p. 535, 536. Cedrenus, tom.
      ii. p. 551. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 162.]

      62 (return) [ See Nestor and Nicon, in Leveque’s Hist. de Russie,
      tom. i. p. 74-80. Katona (Hist. Ducum, p. 75-79) uses his
      advantage to disprove this Russian victory, which would cloud the
      siege of Kiow by the Hungarians.]

      63 (return) [ Leo Grammaticus, p. 506, 507. Incert. Contin. p.
      263, 264 Symeon Logothet. p. 490, 491. Georg. Monach. p. 588,
      589. Cedren tom. ii. p. 629. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 190, 191, and
      Liutprand, l. v. c. 6, who writes from the narratives of his
      father-in-law, then ambassador at Constantinople, and corrects
      the vain exaggeration of the Greeks.]

      64 (return) [ I can only appeal to Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 758,
      759) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. p. 253, 254;) but they grow more
      weighty and credible as they draw near to their own times.]

      Yet the threats or calamities of a Russian war were more
      frequently diverted by treaty than by arms. In these naval
      hostilities, every disadvantage was on the side of the Greeks;
      their savage enemy afforded no mercy: his poverty promised no
      spoil; his impenetrable retreat deprived the conqueror of the
      hopes of revenge; and the pride or weakness of empire indulged an
      opinion, that no honor could be gained or lost in the intercourse
      with Barbarians. At first their demands were high and
      inadmissible, three pounds of gold for each soldier or mariner of
      the fleet: the Russian youth adhered to the design of conquest
      and glory; but the counsels of moderation were recommended by the
      hoary sages. “Be content,” they said, “with the liberal offers of
      Caesar; is it not far better to obtain without a combat the
      possession of gold, silver, silks, and all the objects of our
      desires? Are we sure of victory? Can we conclude a treaty with
      the sea? We do not tread on the land; we float on the abyss of
      water, and a common death hangs over our heads.” 65 The memory of
      these Arctic fleets that seemed to descend from the polar circle
      left deep impression of terror on the Imperial city. By the
      vulgar of every rank, it was asserted and believed, that an
      equestrian statue in the square of Taurus was secretly inscribed
      with a prophecy, how the Russians, in the last days, should
      become masters of Constantinople. 66 In our own time, a Russian
      armament, instead of sailing from the Borysthenes, has
      circumnavigated the continent of Europe; and the Turkish capital
      has been threatened by a squadron of strong and lofty ships of
      war, each of which, with its naval science and thundering
      artillery, could have sunk or scattered a hundred canoes, such as
      those of their ancestors. Perhaps the present generation may yet
      behold the accomplishment of the prediction, of a rare
      prediction, of which the style is unambiguous and the date
      unquestionable.

      65 (return) [ Nestor, apud Leveque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p.
      87.]

      66 (return) [ This brazen statue, which had been brought from
      Antioch, and was melted down by the Latins, was supposed to
      represent either Joshua or Bellerophon, an odd dilemma. See
      Nicetas Choniates, (p. 413, 414,) Codinus, (de Originibus C. P.
      p. 24,) and the anonymous writer de Antiquitat. C. P. (Banduri,
      Imp. Orient. tom. i. p. 17, 18,) who lived about the year 1100.
      They witness the belief of the prophecy the rest is immaterial.]

      By land the Russians were less formidable than by sea; and as
      they fought for the most part on foot, their irregular legions
      must often have been broken and overthrown by the cavalry of the
      Scythian hordes. Yet their growing towns, however slight and
      imperfect, presented a shelter to the subject, and a barrier to
      the enemy: the monarchy of Kiow, till a fatal partition, assumed
      the dominion of the North; and the nations from the Volga to the
      Danube were subdued or repelled by the arms of Swatoslaus, 67 the
      son of Igor, the son of Oleg, the son of Ruric. The vigor of his
      mind and body was fortified by the hardships of a military and
      savage life. Wrapped in a bear-skin, Swatoslaus usually slept on
      the ground, his head reclining on a saddle; his diet was coarse
      and frugal, and, like the heroes of Homer, 68 his meat (it was
      often horse-flesh) was broiled or roasted on the coals. The
      exercise of war gave stability and discipline to his army; and it
      may be presumed, that no soldier was permitted to transcend the
      luxury of his chief. By an embassy from Nicephorus, the Greek
      emperor, he was moved to undertake the conquest of Bulgaria; and
      a gift of fifteen hundred pounds of gold was laid at his feet to
      defray the expense, or reward the toils, of the expedition. An
      army of sixty thousand men was assembled and embarked; they
      sailed from the Borysthenes to the Danube; their landing was
      effected on the Maesian shore; and, after a sharp encounter, the
      swords of the Russians prevailed against the arrows of the
      Bulgarian horse. The vanquished king sunk into the grave; his
      children were made captive; and his dominions, as far as Mount
      Haemus, were subdued or ravaged by the northern invaders. But
      instead of relinquishing his prey, and performing his
      engagements, the Varangian prince was more disposed to advance
      than to retire; and, had his ambition been crowned with success,
      the seat of empire in that early period might have been
      transferred to a more temperate and fruitful climate. Swatoslaus
      enjoyed and acknowledged the advantages of his new position, in
      which he could unite, by exchange or rapine, the various
      productions of the earth. By an easy navigation he might draw
      from Russia the native commodities of furs, wax, and hydromed:
      Hungary supplied him with a breed of horses and the spoils of the
      West; and Greece abounded with gold, silver, and the foreign
      luxuries, which his poverty had affected to disdain. The bands of
      Patzinacites, Chozars, and Turks, repaired to the standard of
      victory; and the ambassador of Nicephorus betrayed his trust,
      assumed the purple, and promised to share with his new allies the
      treasures of the Eastern world. From the banks of the Danube the
      Russian prince pursued his march as far as Adrianople; a formal
      summons to evacuate the Roman province was dismissed with
      contempt; and Swatoslaus fiercely replied, that Constantinople
      might soon expect the presence of an enemy and a master.

      67 (return) [ The life of Swatoslaus, or Sviatoslaf, or
      Sphendosthlabus, is extracted from the Russian Chronicles by M.
      Levesque, (Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 94-107.)]

      68 (return) [ This resemblance may be clearly seen in the ninth
      book of the Iliad, (205-221,) in the minute detail of the cookery
      of Achilles. By such a picture, a modern epic poet would disgrace
      his work, and disgust his reader; but the Greek verses are
      harmonious—a dead language can seldom appear low or familiar; and
      at the distance of two thousand seven hundred years, we are
      amused with the primitive manners of antiquity.]

      Nicephorus could no longer expel the mischief which he had
      introduced; but his throne and wife were inherited by John
      Zimisces, 69 who, in a diminutive body, possessed the spirit and
      abilities of a hero. The first victory of his lieutenants
      deprived the Russians of their foreign allies, twenty thousand of
      whom were either destroyed by the sword, or provoked to revolt,
      or tempted to desert. Thrace was delivered, but seventy thousand
      Barbarians were still in arms; and the legions that had been
      recalled from the new conquests of Syria, prepared, with the
      return of the spring, to march under the banners of a warlike
      prince, who declared himself the friend and avenger of the
      injured Bulgaria. The passes of Mount Haemus had been left
      unguarded; they were instantly occupied; the Roman vanguard was
      formed of the immortals, (a proud imitation of the Persian
      style;) the emperor led the main body of ten thousand five
      hundred foot; and the rest of his forces followed in slow and
      cautious array, with the baggage and military engines. The first
      exploit of Zimisces was the reduction of Marcianopolis, or
      Peristhlaba, 70 in two days; the trumpets sounded; the walls were
      scaled; eight thousand five hundred Russians were put to the
      sword; and the sons of the Bulgarian king were rescued from an
      ignominious prison, and invested with a nominal diadem. After
      these repeated losses, Swatoslaus retired to the strong post of
      Drista, on the banks of the Danube, and was pursued by an enemy
      who alternately employed the arms of celerity and delay. The
      Byzantine galleys ascended the river, the legions completed a
      line of circumvallation; and the Russian prince was encompassed,
      assaulted, and famished, in the fortifications of the camp and
      city. Many deeds of valor were performed; several desperate
      sallies were attempted; nor was it till after a siege of
      sixty-five days that Swatoslaus yielded to his adverse fortune.
      The liberal terms which he obtained announce the prudence of the
      victor, who respected the valor, and apprehended the despair, of
      an unconquered mind. The great duke of Russia bound himself, by
      solemn imprecations, to relinquish all hostile designs; a safe
      passage was opened for his return; the liberty of trade and
      navigation was restored; a measure of corn was distributed to
      each of his soldiers; and the allowance of twenty-two thousand
      measures attests the loss and the remnant of the Barbarians.
      After a painful voyage, they again reached the mouth of the
      Borysthenes; but their provisions were exhausted; the season was
      unfavorable; they passed the winter on the ice; and, before they
      could prosecute their march, Swatoslaus was surprised and
      oppressed by the neighboring tribes with whom the Greeks
      entertained a perpetual and useful correspondence. 71 Far
      different was the return of Zimisces, who was received in his
      capital like Camillus or Marius, the saviors of ancient Rome. But
      the merit of the victory was attributed by the pious emperor to
      the mother of God; and the image of the Virgin Mary, with the
      divine infant in her arms, was placed on a triumphal car, adorned
      with the spoils of war, and the ensigns of Bulgarian royalty.
      Zimisces made his public entry on horseback; the diadem on his
      head, a crown of laurel in his hand; and Constantinople was
      astonished to applaud the martial virtues of her sovereign. 72

      69 (return) [ This singular epithet is derived from the Armenian
      language. As I profess myself equally ignorant of these words, I
      may be indulged in the question in the play, “Pray, which of you
      is the interpreter?” From the context, they seem to signify
      Adolescentulus, (Leo Diacon l. iv. Ms. apud Ducange, Glossar.
      Graec. p. 1570.) * Note: Cerbied. the learned Armenian, gives
      another derivation. There is a city called Tschemisch-gaizag,
      which means a bright or purple sandal, such as women wear in the
      East. He was called Tschemisch-ghigh, (for so his name is written
      in Armenian, from this city, his native place.) Hase. Note to Leo
      Diac. p. 454, in Niebuhr’s Byzant. Hist.—M.]

      70 (return) [ In the Sclavonic tongue, the name of Peristhlaba
      implied the great or illustrious city, says Anna Comnena,
      (Alexiad, l. vii. p. 194.) From its position between Mount Haemus
      and the Lower Danube, it appears to fill the ground, or at least
      the station, of Marcianopolis. The situation of Durostolus, or
      Dristra, is well known and conspicuous, (Comment. Academ.
      Petropol. tom. ix. p. 415, 416. D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne,
      tom. i. p. 307, 311.)]

      71 (return) [ The political management of the Greeks, more
      especially with the Patzinacites, is explained in the seven first
      chapters, de Administratione Imperii.]

      72 (return) [ In the narrative of this war, Leo the Deacon (apud
      Pagi, Critica, tom. iv. A.D. 968-973) is more authentic and
      circumstantial than Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 660-683) and Zonaras,
      (tom. ii. p. 205-214.) These declaimers have multiplied to
      308,000 and 330,000 men, those Russian forces, of which the
      contemporary had given a moderate and consistent account.]

      Photius of Constantinople, a patriarch, whose ambition was equal
      to his curiosity, congratulates himself and the Greek church on
      the conversion of the Russians. 73 Those fierce and bloody
      Barbarians had been persuaded, by the voice of reason and
      religion, to acknowledge Jesus for their God, the Christian
      missionaries for their teachers, and the Romans for their friends
      and brethren. His triumph was transient and premature. In the
      various fortune of their piratical adventures, some Russian
      chiefs might allow themselves to be sprinkled with the waters of
      baptism; and a Greek bishop, with the name of metropolitan, might
      administer the sacraments in the church of Kiow, to a
      congregation of slaves and natives. But the seed of the gospel
      was sown on a barren soil: many were the apostates, the converts
      were few; and the baptism of Olga may be fixed as the aera of
      Russian Christianity. 74 A female, perhaps of the basest origin,
      who could revenge the death, and assume the sceptre, of her
      husband Igor, must have been endowed with those active virtues
      which command the fear and obedience of Barbarians. In a moment
      of foreign and domestic peace, she sailed from Kiow to
      Constantinople; and the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus has
      described, with minute diligence, the ceremonial of her reception
      in his capital and palace. The steps, the titles, the
      salutations, the banquet, the presents, were exquisitely adjusted
      to gratify the vanity of the stranger, with due reverence to the
      superior majesty of the purple. 75 In the sacrament of baptism,
      she received the venerable name of the empress Helena; and her
      conversion might be preceded or followed by her uncle, two
      interpreters, sixteen damsels of a higher, and eighteen of a
      lower rank, twenty-two domestics or ministers, and forty-four
      Russian merchants, who composed the retinue of the great princess
      Olga. After her return to Kiow and Novogorod, she firmly
      persisted in her new religion; but her labors in the propagation
      of the gospel were not crowned with success; and both her family
      and nation adhered with obstinacy or indifference to the gods of
      their fathers. Her son Swatoslaus was apprehensive of the scorn
      and ridicule of his companions; and her grandson Wolodomir
      devoted his youthful zeal to multiply and decorate the monuments
      of ancient worship. The savage deities of the North were still
      propitiated with human sacrifices: in the choice of the victim, a
      citizen was preferred to a stranger, a Christian to an idolater;
      and the father, who defended his son from the sacerdotal knife,
      was involved in the same doom by the rage of a fanatic tumult.
      Yet the lessons and example of the pious Olga had made a deep,
      though secret, impression in the minds of the prince and people:
      the Greek missionaries continued to preach, to dispute, and to
      baptize: and the ambassadors or merchants of Russia compared the
      idolatry of the woods with the elegant superstition of
      Constantinople. They had gazed with admiration on the dome of St.
      Sophia: the lively pictures of saints and martyrs, the riches of
      the altar, the number and vestments of the priests, the pomp and
      order of the ceremonies; they were edified by the alternate
      succession of devout silence and harmonious song; nor was it
      difficult to persuade them, that a choir of angels descended each
      day from heaven to join in the devotion of the Christians. 76 But
      the conversion of Wolodomir was determined, or hastened, by his
      desire of a Roman bride. At the same time, and in the city of
      Cherson, the rites of baptism and marriage were celebrated by the
      Christian pontiff: the city he restored to the emperor Basil, the
      brother of his spouse; but the brazen gates were transported, as
      it is said, to Novogorod, and erected before the first church as
      a trophy of his victory and faith. 77 At his despotic command,
      Peround, the god of thunder, whom he had so long adored, was
      dragged through the streets of Kiow; and twelve sturdy Barbarians
      battered with clubs the misshapen image, which was indignantly
      cast into the waters of the Borysthenes. The edict of Wolodomir
      had proclaimed, that all who should refuse the rites of baptism
      would be treated as the enemies of God and their prince; and the
      rivers were instantly filled with many thousands of obedient
      Russians, who acquiesced in the truth and excellence of a
      doctrine which had been embraced by the great duke and his
      boyars. In the next generation, the relics of Paganism were
      finally extirpated; but as the two brothers of Wolodomir had died
      without baptism, their bones were taken from the grave, and
      sanctified by an irregular and posthumous sacrament.

      73 (return) [ Phot. Epistol. ii. No. 35, p. 58, edit. Montacut.
      It was unworthy of the learning of the editor to mistake the
      Russian nation, for a war-cry of the Bulgarians, nor did it
      become the enlightened patriarch to accuse the Sclavonian
      idolaters. They were neither Greeks nor Atheists.]

      74 (return) [ M. Levesque has extracted, from old chronicles and
      modern researches, the most satisfactory account of the religion
      of the Slavi, and the conversion of Russia, (Hist. de Russie,
      tom. i. p. 35-54, 59, 92, 92, 113-121, 124-129, 148, 149, &c.)]

      75 (return) [ See the Ceremoniale Aulae Byzant. tom. ii. c. 15,
      p. 343-345: the style of Olga, or Elga. For the chief of
      Barbarians the Greeks whimsically borrowed the title of an
      Athenian magistrate, with a female termination, which would have
      astonished the ear of Demosthenes.]

      76 (return) [ See an anonymous fragment published by Banduri,
      (Imperium Orientale, tom. ii. p. 112, 113, de Conversione
      Russorum.)]

      77 (return) [ Cherson, or Corsun, is mentioned by Herberstein
      (apud Pagi tom. iv. p. 56) as the place of Wolodomir’s baptism
      and marriage; and both the tradition and the gates are still
      preserved at Novogorod. Yet an observing traveller transports the
      brazen gates from Magdeburgh in Germany, (Coxe’s Travels into
      Russia, &c., vol. i. p. 452;) and quotes an inscription, which
      seems to justify his opinion. The modern reader must not confound
      this old Cherson of the Tauric or Crimaean peninsula, with a new
      city of the same name, which has arisen near the mouth of the
      Borysthenes, and was lately honored by the memorable interview of
      the empress of Russia with the emperor of the West.]

      In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries of the Christian
      aera, the reign of the gospel and of the church was extended over
      Bulgaria, Hungary, Bohemia, Saxony, Denmark, Norway, Sweden,
      Poland, and Russia. 78 The triumphs of apostolic zeal were
      repeated in the iron age of Christianity; and the northern and
      eastern regions of Europe submitted to a religion, more different
      in theory than in practice, from the worship of their native
      idols. A laudable ambition excited the monks both of Germany and
      Greece, to visit the tents and huts of the Barbarians: poverty,
      hardships, and dangers, were the lot of the first missionaries;
      their courage was active and patient; their motive pure and
      meritorious; their present reward consisted in the testimony of
      their conscience and the respect of a grateful people; but the
      fruitful harvest of their toils was inherited and enjoyed by the
      proud and wealthy prelates of succeeding times. The first
      conversions were free and spontaneous: a holy life and an
      eloquent tongue were the only arms of the missionaries; but the
      domestic fables of the Pagans were silenced by the miracles and
      visions of the strangers; and the favorable temper of the chiefs
      was accelerated by the dictates of vanity and interest. The
      leaders of nations, who were saluted with the titles of kings and
      saints, 79 held it lawful and pious to impose the Catholic faith
      on their subjects and neighbors; the coast of the Baltic, from
      Holstein to the Gulf of Finland, was invaded under the standard
      of the cross; and the reign of idolatry was closed by the
      conversion of Lithuania in the fourteenth century. Yet truth and
      candor must acknowledge, that the conversion of the North
      imparted many temporal benefits both to the old and the new
      Christians. The rage of war, inherent to the human species, could
      not be healed by the evangelic precepts of charity and peace; and
      the ambition of Catholic princes has renewed in every age the
      calamities of hostile contention. But the admission of the
      Barbarians into the pale of civil and ecclesiastical society
      delivered Europe from the depredations, by sea and land, of the
      Normans, the Hungarians, and the Russians, who learned to spare
      their brethren and cultivate their possessions. 80 The
      establishment of law and order was promoted by the influence of
      the clergy; and the rudiments of art and science were introduced
      into the savage countries of the globe. The liberal piety of the
      Russian princes engaged in their service the most skilful of the
      Greeks, to decorate the cities and instruct the inhabitants: the
      dome and the paintings of St. Sophia were rudely copied in the
      churches of Kiow and Novogorod: the writings of the fathers were
      translated into the Sclavonic idiom; and three hundred noble
      youths were invited or compelled to attend the lessons of the
      college of Jaroslaus. It should appear that Russia might have
      derived an early and rapid improvement from her peculiar
      connection with the church and state of Constantinople, which at
      that age so justly despised the ignorance of the Latins. But the
      Byzantine nation was servile, solitary, and verging to a hasty
      decline: after the fall of Kiow, the navigation of the
      Borysthenes was forgotten; the great princes of Wolodomir and
      Moscow were separated from the sea and Christendom; and the
      divided monarchy was oppressed by the ignominy and blindness of
      Tartar servitude. 81 The Sclavonic and Scandinavian kingdoms,
      which had been converted by the Latin missionaries, were exposed,
      it is true, to the spiritual jurisdiction and temporal claims of
      the popes; 82 but they were united in language and religious
      worship, with each other, and with Rome; they imbibed the free
      and generous spirit of the European republic, and gradually
      shared the light of knowledge which arose on the western world.

      78 (return) [ Consult the Latin text, or English version, of
      Mosheim’s excellent History of the Church, under the first head
      or section of each of these centuries.]

      79 (return) [ In the year 1000, the ambassadors of St. Stephen
      received from Pope Silvester the title of King of Hungary, with a
      diadem of Greek workmanship. It had been designed for the duke of
      Poland: but the Poles, by their own confession, were yet too
      barbarous to deserve an angelical and apostolical crown. (Katona,
      Hist. Critic Regum Stirpis Arpadianae, tom. i. p. 1-20.)]

      80 (return) [ Listen to the exultations of Adam of Bremen, (A.D.
      1080,) of which the substance is agreeable to truth: Ecce illa
      ferocissima Danorum, &c., natio..... jamdudum novit in Dei
      laudibus Alleluia resonare..... Ecce populus ille piraticus .....
      suis nunc finibus contentus est. Ecce patria horribilis semper
      inaccessa propter cultum idolorum... praedicatores veritatis
      ubique certatim admittit, &c., &c., (de Situ Daniae, &c., p. 40,
      41, edit. Elzevir; a curious and original prospect of the north
      of Europe, and the introduction of Christianity.)]

      81 (return) [ The great princes removed in 1156 from Kiow, which
      was ruined by the Tartars in 1240. Moscow became the seat of
      empire in the xivth century. See the 1st and 2d volumes of
      Levesque’s History, and Mr. Coxe’s Travels into the North, tom.
      i. p. 241, &c.]

      82 (return) [ The ambassadors of St. Stephen had used the
      reverential expressions of regnum oblatum, debitam obedientiam,
      &c., which were most rigorously interpreted by Gregory VII.; and
      the Hungarian Catholics are distressed between the sanctity of
      the pope and the independence of the crown, (Katona, Hist.
      Critica, tom. i. p. 20-25, tom. ii. p. 304, 346, 360, &c.)]




      Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part I.

     The Saracens, Franks, And Greeks, In Italy.—First Adventures And
     Settlement Of The Normans.—Character And Conquest Of Robert
     Guiscard, Duke Of Apulia—Deliverance Of Sicily By His Brother
     Roger.—Victories Of Robert Over The Emperors Of The East And
     West.—Roger, King Of Sicily, Invades Africa And Greece.—The
     Emperor Manuel Comnenus.— Wars Of The Greeks And
     Normans.—Extinction Of The Normans.

      The three great nations of the world, the Greeks, the Saracens,
      and the Franks, encountered each other on the theatre of Italy. 1
      The southern provinces, which now compose the kingdom of Naples,
      were subject, for the most part, to the Lombard dukes and princes
      of Beneventum; 2 so powerful in war, that they checked for a
      moment the genius of Charlemagne; so liberal in peace, that they
      maintained in their capital an academy of thirty-two philosophers
      and grammarians. The division of this flourishing state produced
      the rival principalities of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua; and
      the thoughtless ambition or revenge of the competitors invited
      the Saracens to the ruin of their common inheritance. During a
      calamitous period of two hundred years, Italy was exposed to a
      repetition of wounds, which the invaders were not capable of
      healing by the union and tranquility of a perfect conquest. Their
      frequent and almost annual squadrons issued from the port of
      Palermo, and were entertained with too much indulgence by the
      Christians of Naples: the more formidable fleets were prepared on
      the African coast; and even the Arabs of Andalusia were sometimes
      tempted to assist or oppose the Moslems of an adverse sect. In
      the revolution of human events, a new ambuscade was concealed in
      the Caudine Forks, the fields of Cannae were bedewed a second
      time with the blood of the Africans, and the sovereign of Rome
      again attacked or defended the walls of Capua and Tarentum. A
      colony of Saracens had been planted at Bari, which commands the
      entrance of the Adriatic Gulf; and their impartial depredations
      provoked the resentment, and conciliated the union of the two
      emperors. An offensive alliance was concluded between Basil the
      Macedonian, the first of his race, and Lewis the great-grandson
      of Charlemagne; 3 and each party supplied the deficiencies of his
      associate. It would have been imprudent in the Byzantine monarch
      to transport his stationary troops of Asia to an Italian
      campaign; and the Latin arms would have been insufficient if his
      superior navy had not occupied the mouth of the Gulf. The
      fortress of Bari was invested by the infantry of the Franks, and
      by the cavalry and galleys of the Greeks; and, after a defence of
      four years, the Arabian emir submitted to the clemency of Lewis,
      who commanded in person the operations of the siege. This
      important conquest had been achieved by the concord of the East
      and West; but their recent amity was soon imbittered by the
      mutual complaints of jealousy and pride. The Greeks assumed as
      their own the merit of the conquest and the pomp of the triumph;
      extolled the greatness of their powers, and affected to deride
      the intemperance and sloth of the handful of Barbarians who
      appeared under the banners of the Carlovingian prince. His reply
      is expressed with the eloquence of indignation and truth: “We
      confess the magnitude of your preparation,” says the
      great-grandson of Charlemagne. “Your armies were indeed as
      numerous as a cloud of summer locusts, who darken the day, flap
      their wings, and, after a short flight, tumble weary and
      breathless to the ground. Like them, ye sunk after a feeble
      effort; ye were vanquished by your own cowardice; and withdrew
      from the scene of action to injure and despoil our Christian
      subjects of the Sclavonian coast. We were few in number, and why
      were we few? Because, after a tedious expectation of your
      arrival, I had dismissed my host, and retained only a chosen band
      of warriors to continue the blockade of the city. If they
      indulged their hospitable feasts in the face of danger and death,
      did these feasts abate the vigor of their enterprise? Is it by
      your fasting that the walls of Bari have been overturned? Did not
      these valiant Franks, diminished as they were by languor and
      fatigue, intercept and vanish the three most powerful emirs of
      the Saracens? and did not their defeat precipitate the fall of
      the city? Bari is now fallen; Tarentum trembles; Calabria will be
      delivered; and, if we command the sea, the Island of Sicily may
      be rescued from the hands of the infidels. My brother,”
      accelerate (a name most offensive to the vanity of the Greek,)
      “accelerate your naval succors, respect your allies, and distrust
      your flatterers.” 4

      1 (return) [ For the general history of Italy in the ixth and xth
      centuries, I may properly refer to the vth, vith, and viith books
      of Sigonius de Regno Italiae, (in the second volume of his works,
      Milan, 1732;) the Annals of Baronius, with the criticism of Pagi;
      the viith and viiith books of the Istoria Civile del Regno di
      Napoli of Giannone; the viith and viiith volumes (the octavo
      edition) of the Annali d’ Italia of Muratori, and the 2d volume
      of the Abrege Chronologique of M. de St. Marc, a work which,
      under a superficial title, contains much genuine learning and
      industry. But my long-accustomed reader will give me credit for
      saying, that I myself have ascended to the fountain head, as
      often as such ascent could be either profitable or possible; and
      that I have diligently turned over the originals in the first
      volumes of Muratori’s great collection of the Scriptores Rerum
      Italicarum.]

      2 (return) [ Camillo Pellegrino, a learned Capuan of the last
      century, has illustrated the history of the duchy of Beneventum,
      in his two books Historia Principum Longobardorum, in the
      Scriptores of Muratori tom. ii. pars i. p. 221-345, and tom. v. p
      159-245.]

      3 (return) [ See Constantin. Porphyrogen. de Thematibus, l. ii. c
      xi. in Vit Basil. c. 55, p. 181.]

      4 (return) [ The oriental epistle of the emperor Lewis II. to the
      emperor Basil, a curious record of the age, was first published
      by Baronius, (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 871, No. 51-71,) from the
      Vatican Ms. of Erchempert, or rather of the anonymous historian
      of Salerno.] These lofty hopes were soon extinguished by the
      death of Lewis, and the decay of the Carlovingian house; and
      whoever might deserve the honor, the Greek emperors, Basil, and
      his son Leo, secured the advantage, of the reduction of Bari. The
      Italians of Apulia and Calabria were persuaded or compelled to
      acknowledge their supremacy, and an ideal line from Mount
      Garganus to the Bay of Salerno, leaves the far greater part of
      the kingdom of Naples under the dominion of the Eastern empire.
      Beyond that line, the dukes or republics of Amalfi 5 and Naples,
      who had never forfeited their voluntary allegiance, rejoiced in
      the neighborhood of their lawful sovereign; and Amalfi was
      enriched by supplying Europe with the produce and manufactures of
      Asia. But the Lombard princes of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua, 6
      were reluctantly torn from the communion of the Latin world, and
      too often violated their oaths of servitude and tribute. The city
      of Bari rose to dignity and wealth, as the metropolis of the new
      theme or province of Lombardy: the title of patrician, and
      afterwards the singular name of Catapan, 7 was assigned to the
      supreme governor; and the policy both of the church and state was
      modelled in exact subordination to the throne of Constantinople.
      As long as the sceptre was disputed by the princes of Italy,
      their efforts were feeble and adverse; and the Greeks resisted or
      eluded the forces of Germany, which descended from the Alps under
      the Imperial standard of the Othos. The first and greatest of
      those Saxon princes was compelled to relinquish the siege of
      Bari: the second, after the loss of his stoutest bishops and
      barons, escaped with honor from the bloody field of Crotona. On
      that day the scale of war was turned against the Franks by the
      valor of the Saracens. 8 These corsairs had indeed been driven by
      the Byzantine fleets from the fortresses and coasts of Italy; but
      a sense of interest was more prevalent than superstition or
      resentment, and the caliph of Egypt had transported forty
      thousand Moslems to the aid of his Christian ally. The successors
      of Basil amused themselves with the belief, that the conquest of
      Lombardy had been achieved, and was still preserved by the
      justice of their laws, the virtues of their ministers, and the
      gratitude of a people whom they had rescued from anarchy and
      oppression. A series of rebellions might dart a ray of truth into
      the palace of Constantinople; and the illusions of flattery were
      dispelled by the easy and rapid success of the Norman
      adventurers.

      5 (return) [ See an excellent Dissertation de Republica
      Amalphitana, in the Appendix (p. 1-42) of Henry Brencman’s
      Historia Pandectarum, (Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1722, in 4to.)]

      6 (return) [ Your master, says Nicephorus, has given aid and
      protection prinminibus Capuano et Beneventano, servis meis, quos
      oppugnare dispono.... Nova (potius nota) res est quod eorum
      patres et avi nostro Imperio tributa dederunt, (Liutprand, in
      Legat. p. 484.) Salerno is not mentioned, yet the prince changed
      his party about the same time, and Camillo Pellegrino (Script.
      Rer. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 285) has nicely discerned this
      change in the style of the anonymous Chronicle. On the rational
      ground of history and language, Liutprand (p. 480) had asserted
      the Latin claim to Apulia and Calabria.]

      7 (return) [ See the Greek and Latin Glossaries of Ducange
      (catapanus,) and his notes on the Alexias, (p. 275.) Against the
      contemporary notion, which derives it from juxta omne, he treats
      it as a corruption of the Latin capitaneus. Yet M. de St. Marc
      has accurately observed (Abrege Chronologique, tom. ii. p. 924)
      that in this age the capitanei were not captains, but only nobles
      of the first rank, the great valvassors of Italy.]

      8 (return) [ (the Lombards), (Leon. Tactic. c. xv. p. 741.) The
      little Chronicle of Beneventum (tom. ii. pars i. p. 280) gives a
      far different character of the Greeks during the five years (A.D.
      891-896) that Leo was master of the city.]

      The revolution of human affairs had produced in Apulia and
      Calabria a melancholy contrast between the age of Pythagoras and
      the tenth century of the Christian aera. At the former period,
      the coast of Great Greece (as it was then styled) was planted
      with free and opulent cities: these cities were peopled with
      soldiers, artists, and philosophers; and the military strength of
      Tarentum; Sybaris, or Crotona, was not inferior to that of a
      powerful kingdom. At the second aera, these once flourishing
      provinces were clouded with ignorance impoverished by tyranny,
      and depopulated by Barbarian war; nor can we severely accuse the
      exaggeration of a contemporary, that a fair and ample district
      was reduced to the same desolation which had covered the earth
      after the general deluge. 9 Among the hostilities of the Arabs,
      the Franks, and the Greeks, in the southern Italy, I shall select
      two or three anecdotes expressive of their national manners. 1.
      It was the amusement of the Saracens to profane, as well as to
      pillage, the monasteries and churches. At the siege of Salerno, a
      Mussulman chief spread his couch on the communion-table, and on
      that altar sacrificed each night the virginity of a Christian
      nun. As he wrestled with a reluctant maid, a beam in the roof was
      accidentally or dexterously thrown down on his head; and the
      death of the lustful emir was imputed to the wrath of Christ,
      which was at length awakened to the defence of his faithful
      spouse. 10 2. The Saracens besieged the cities of Beneventum and
      Capua: after a vain appeal to the successors of Charlemagne, the
      Lombards implored the clemency and aid of the Greek emperor. 11 A
      fearless citizen dropped from the walls, passed the
      intrenchments, accomplished his commission, and fell into the
      hands of the Barbarians as he was returning with the welcome
      news. They commanded him to assist their enterprise, and deceive
      his countrymen, with the assurance that wealth and honors should
      be the reward of his falsehood, and that his sincerity would be
      punished with immediate death. He affected to yield, but as soon
      as he was conducted within hearing of the Christians on the
      rampart, “Friends and brethren,” he cried with a loud voice, “be
      bold and patient, maintain the city; your sovereign is informed
      of your distress, and your deliverers are at hand. I know my
      doom, and commit my wife and children to your gratitude.” The
      rage of the Arabs confirmed his evidence; and the self-devoted
      patriot was transpierced with a hundred spears. He deserves to
      live in the memory of the virtuous, but the repetition of the
      same story in ancient and modern times, may sprinkle some doubts
      on the reality of this generous deed. 12 3. The recital of a
      third incident may provoke a smile amidst the horrors of war.
      Theobald, marquis of Camerino and Spoleto, 13 supported the
      rebels of Beneventum; and his wanton cruelty was not incompatible
      in that age with the character of a hero. His captives of the
      Greek nation or party were castrated without mercy, and the
      outrage was aggravated by a cruel jest, that he wished to present
      the emperor with a supply of eunuchs, the most precious ornaments
      of the Byzantine court. The garrison of a castle had been
      defeated in a sally, and the prisoners were sentenced to the
      customary operation. But the sacrifice was disturbed by the
      intrusion of a frantic female, who, with bleeding cheeks
      dishevelled hair, and importunate clamors, compelled the marquis
      to listen to her complaint. “Is it thus,” she cried, “ye
      magnanimous heroes, that ye wage war against women, against women
      who have never injured ye, and whose only arms are the distaff
      and the loom?” Theobald denied the charge, and protested that,
      since the Amazons, he had never heard of a female war. “And how,”
      she furiously exclaimed, “can you attack us more directly, how
      can you wound us in a more vital part, than by robbing our
      husbands of what we most dearly cherish, the source of our joys,
      and the hope of our posterity? The plunder of our flocks and
      herds I have endured without a murmur, but this fatal injury,
      this irreparable loss, subdues my patience, and calls aloud on
      the justice of heaven and earth.” A general laugh applauded her
      eloquence; the savage Franks, inaccessible to pity, were moved by
      her ridiculous, yet rational despair; and with the deliverance of
      the captives, she obtained the restitution of her effects. As she
      returned in triumph to the castle, she was overtaken by a
      messenger, to inquire, in the name of Theobald, what punishment
      should be inflicted on her husband, were he again taken in arms.
      “Should such,” she answered without hesitation, “be his guilt and
      misfortune, he has eyes, and a nose, and hands, and feet. These
      are his own, and these he may deserve to forfeit by his personal
      offences. But let my lord be pleased to spare what his little
      handmaid presumes to claim as her peculiar and lawful property.”
      14

      9 (return) [ Calabriam adeunt, eamque inter se divisam
      reperientes funditus depopulati sunt, (or depopularunt,) ita ut
      deserta sit velut in diluvio. Such is the text of Herempert, or
      Erchempert, according to the two editions of Carraccioli (Rer.
      Italic. Script. tom. v. p. 23) and of Camillo Pellegrino, (tom.
      ii. pars i. p. 246.) Both were extremely scarce, when they were
      reprinted by Muratori.]

      10 (return) [ Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 874, No. 2) has drawn
      this story from a Ms. of Erchempert, who died at Capua only
      fifteen years after the event. But the cardinal was deceived by a
      false title, and we can only quote the anonymous Chronicle of
      Salerno, (Paralipomena, c. 110,) composed towards the end of the
      xth century, and published in the second volume of Muratori’s
      Collection. See the Dissertations of Camillo Pellegrino, tom. ii.
      pars i. p. 231-281, &c.]

      11 (return) [ Constantine Porphyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil. c. 58,
      p. 183) is the original author of this story. He places it under
      the reigns of Basil and Lewis II.; yet the reduction of
      Beneventum by the Greeks is dated A.D. 891, after the decease of
      both of those princes.]

      12 (return) [ In the year 663, the same tragedy is described by
      Paul the Deacon, (de Gestis Langobard. l. v. c. 7, 8, p. 870,
      871, edit. Grot.,) under the walls of the same city of
      Beneventum. But the actors are different, and the guilt is
      imputed to the Greeks themselves, which in the Byzantine edition
      is applied to the Saracens. In the late war in Germany, M.
      D’Assas, a French officer of the regiment of Auvergne, is said to
      have devoted himself in a similar manner. His behavior is the
      more heroic, as mere silence was required by the enemy who had
      made him prisoner, (Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XV. c. 33, tom. ix.
      p. 172.)]

      13 (return) [ Theobald, who is styled Heros by Liutprand, was
      properly duke of Spoleto and marquis of Camerino, from the year
      926 to 935. The title and office of marquis (commander of the
      march or frontier) was introduced into Italy by the French
      emperors, (Abrege Chronologique, tom. ii. p. 545-732 &c.)]

      14 (return) [ Liutprand, Hist. l. iv. c. iv. in the Rerum Italic.
      Script. tom. i. pars i. p. 453, 454. Should the licentiousness of
      the tale be questioned, I may exclaim, with poor Sterne, that it
      is hard if I may not transcribe with caution what a bishop could
      write without scruple What if I had translated, ut viris certetis
      testiculos amputare, in quibus nostri corporis refocillatio,
      &c.?]

      The establishment of the Normans in the kingdoms of Naples and
      Sicily 15 is an event most romantic in its origin, and in its
      consequences most important both to Italy and the Eastern empire.
      The broken provinces of the Greeks, Lombards, and Saracens, were
      exposed to every invader, and every sea and land were invaded by
      the adventurous spirit of the Scandinavian pirates. After a long
      indulgence of rapine and slaughter, a fair and ample territory
      was accepted, occupied, and named, by the Normans of France: they
      renounced their gods for the God of the Christians; 16 and the
      dukes of Normandy acknowledged themselves the vassals of the
      successors of Charlemagne and Capet. The savage fierceness which
      they had brought from the snowy mountains of Norway was refined,
      without being corrupted, in a warmer climate; the companions of
      Rollo insensibly mingled with the natives; they imbibed the
      manners, language, 17 and gallantry, of the French nation; and in
      a martial age, the Normans might claim the palm of valor and
      glorious achievements. Of the fashionable superstitions, they
      embraced with ardor the pilgrimages of Rome, Italy, and the Holy
      Land. 171 In this active devotion, the minds and bodies were
      invigorated by exercise: danger was the incentive, novelty the
      recompense; and the prospect of the world was decorated by
      wonder, credulity, and ambitious hope. They confederated for
      their mutual defence; and the robbers of the Alps, who had been
      allured by the garb of a pilgrim, were often chastised by the arm
      of a warrior. In one of these pious visits to the cavern of Mount
      Garganus in Apulia, which had been sanctified by the apparition
      of the archangel Michael, 18 they were accosted by a stranger in
      the Greek habit, but who soon revealed himself as a rebel, a
      fugitive, and a mortal foe of the Greek empire. His name was
      Melo; a noble citizen of Bari, who, after an unsuccessful revolt,
      was compelled to seek new allies and avengers of his country. The
      bold appearance of the Normans revived his hopes and solicited
      his confidence: they listened to the complaints, and still more
      to the promises, of the patriot. The assurance of wealth
      demonstrated the justice of his cause; and they viewed, as the
      inheritance of the brave, the fruitful land which was oppressed
      by effeminate tyrants. On their return to Normandy, they kindled
      a spark of enterprise, and a small but intrepid band was freely
      associated for the deliverance of Apulia. They passed the Alps by
      separate roads, and in the disguise of pilgrims; but in the
      neighborhood of Rome they were saluted by the chief of Bari, who
      supplied the more indigent with arms and horses, and instantly
      led them to the field of action. In the first conflict, their
      valor prevailed; but in the second engagement they were
      overwhelmed by the numbers and military engines of the Greeks,
      and indignantly retreated with their faces to the enemy. 1811 The
      unfortunate Melo ended his life a suppliant at the court of
      Germany: his Norman followers, excluded from their native and
      their promised land, wandered among the hills and valleys of
      Italy, and earned their daily subsistence by the sword. To that
      formidable sword the princes of Capua, Beneventum, Salerno, and
      Naples, alternately appealed in their domestic quarrels; the
      superior spirit and discipline of the Normans gave victory to the
      side which they espoused; and their cautious policy observed the
      balance of power, lest the preponderance of any rival state
      should render their aid less important, and their service less
      profitable. Their first asylum was a strong camp in the depth of
      the marshes of Campania: but they were soon endowed by the
      liberality of the duke of Naples with a more plentiful and
      permanent seat. Eight miles from his residence, as a bulwark
      against Capua, the town of Aversa was built and fortified for
      their use; and they enjoyed as their own the corn and fruits, the
      meadows and groves, of that fertile district. The report of their
      success attracted every year new swarms of pilgrims and soldiers:
      the poor were urged by necessity; the rich were excited by hope;
      and the brave and active spirits of Normandy were impatient of
      ease and ambitious of renown. The independent standard of Aversa
      afforded shelter and encouragement to the outlaws of the
      province, to every fugitive who had escaped from the injustice or
      justice of his superiors; and these foreign associates were
      quickly assimilated in manners and language to the Gallic colony.
      The first leader of the Normans was Count Rainulf; and, in the
      origin of society, preeminence of rank is the reward and the
      proof of superior merit. 19 1911

      15 (return) [ The original monuments of the Normans in Italy are
      collected in the vth volume of Muratori; and among these we may
      distinguish the poems of William Appulus (p. 245-278) and the
      history of Galfridus (Jeffrey) Malaterra, (p. 537-607.) Both were
      natives of France, but they wrote on the spot, in the age of the
      first conquerors (before A.D. 1100,) and with the spirit of
      freemen. It is needless to recapitulate the compilers and critics
      of Italian history, Sigonius, Baronius, Pagi, Giannone, Muratori,
      St. Marc, &c., whom I have always consulted, and never copied. *
      Note: M. Goutier d’Arc has discovered a translation of the
      Chronicle of Aime, monk of Mont Cassino, a contemporary of the
      first Norman invaders of Italy. He has made use of it in his
      Histoire des Conquetes des Normands, and added a summary of its
      contents. This work was quoted by later writers, but was supposed
      to have been entirely lost.—M.]

      16 (return) [ Some of the first converts were baptized ten or
      twelve times, for the sake of the white garment usually given at
      this ceremony. At the funeral of Rollo, the gifts to monasteries
      for the repose of his soul were accompanied by a sacrifice of one
      hundred captives. But in a generation or two, the national change
      was pure and general.]

      17 (return) [ The Danish language was still spoken by the Normans
      of Bayeux on the sea-coast, at a time (A.D. 940) when it was
      already forgotten at Rouen, in the court and capital. Quem
      (Richard I.) confestim pater Baiocas mittens Botoni militiae suae
      principi nutriendum tradidit, ut, ibi lingua eruditus Danica,
      suis exterisque hominibus sciret aperte dare responsa, (Wilhelm.
      Gemeticensis de Ducibus Normannis, l. iii. c. 8, p. 623, edit.
      Camden.) Of the vernacular and favorite idiom of William the
      Conqueror, (A.D. 1035,) Selden (Opera, tom. ii. p. 1640-1656) has
      given a specimen, obsolete and obscure even to antiquarians and
      lawyers.]

      171 (return) [ A band of Normans returning from the Holy Land had
      rescued the city of Salerno from the attack of a numerous fleet
      of Saracens. Gainar, the Lombard prince of Salerno wished to
      retain them in his service and take them into his pay. They
      answered, “We fight for our religion, and not for money.” Gaimar
      entreated them to send some Norman knights to his court. This
      seems to have been the origin of the connection of the Normans
      with Italy. See Histoire des Conquetes des Normands par Goutier
      d’Arc, l. i. c. i., Paris, 1830.—M.]

      18 (return) [ See Leandro Alberti (Descrizione d’Italia, p. 250)
      and Baronius, (A.D. 493, No. 43.) If the archangel inherited the
      temple and oracle, perhaps the cavern, of old Calchas the
      soothsayer, (Strab. Geograph l. vi. p. 435, 436,) the Catholics
      (on this occasion) have surpassed the Greeks in the elegance of
      their superstition.]

      1811 (return) [ Nine out of ten perished in the field. Chronique
      d’Aime, tom. i. p. 21 quoted by M Goutier d’Arc, p. 42.—M.]

      19 (return) [ See the first book of William Appulus. His words
      are applicable to every swarm of Barbarians and freebooters:—

     Si vicinorum quis pernitiosus ad illos
     Confugiebat eum gratanter suscipiebant:
     Moribus et lingua quoscumque venire videbant
     Informant propria; gens efficiatur ut una.
     And elsewhere, of the native adventurers of Normandy:—
     Pars parat, exiguae vel opes aderant quia nullae:
     Pars, quia de magnis majora subire volebant.]

      1911 (return) [ This account is not accurate. After the retreat
      of the emperor Henry II. the Normans, united under the command of
      Rainulf, had taken possession of Aversa, then a small castle in
      the duchy of Naples. They had been masters of it a few years when
      Pandulf IV., prince of Capua, found means to take Naples by
      surprise. Sergius, master of the soldiers, and head of the
      republic, with the principal citizens, abandoned a city in which
      he could not behold, without horror, the establishment of a
      foreign dominion he retired to Aversa; and when, with the
      assistance of the Greeks and that of the citizens faithful to
      their country, he had collected money enough to satisfy the
      rapacity of the Norman adventurers, he advanced at their head to
      attack the garrison of the prince of Capua, defeated it, and
      reentered Naples. It was then that he confirmed the Normans in
      the possession of Aversa and its territory, which he raised into
      a count’s fief, and granted the investiture to Rainulf. Hist. des
      Rep. Ital. tom. i. p. 267]

      Since the conquest of Sicily by the Arabs, the Grecian emperors
      had been anxious to regain that valuable possession; but their
      efforts, however strenuous, had been opposed by the distance and
      the sea. Their costly armaments, after a gleam of success, added
      new pages of calamity and disgrace to the Byzantine annals:
      twenty thousand of their best troops were lost in a single
      expedition; and the victorious Moslems derided the policy of a
      nation which intrusted eunuchs not only with the custody of their
      women, but with the command of their men 20 After a reign of two
      hundred years, the Saracens were ruined by their divisions. 21
      The emir disclaimed the authority of the king of Tunis; the
      people rose against the emir; the cities were usurped by the
      chiefs; each meaner rebel was independent in his village or
      castle; and the weaker of two rival brothers implored the
      friendship of the Christians. In every service of danger the
      Normans were prompt and useful; and five hundred knights, or
      warriors on horseback, were enrolled by Arduin, the agent and
      interpreter of the Greeks, under the standard of Maniaces,
      governor of Lombardy. Before their landing, the brothers were
      reconciled; the union of Sicily and Africa was restored; and the
      island was guarded to the water’s edge. The Normans led the van
      and the Arabs of Messina felt the valor of an untried foe. In a
      second action the emir of Syracuse was unhorsed and transpierced
      by the iron arm of William of Hauteville. In a third engagement,
      his intrepid companions discomfited the host of sixty thousand
      Saracens, and left the Greeks no more than the labor of the
      pursuit: a splendid victory; but of which the pen of the
      historian may divide the merit with the lance of the Normans. It
      is, however, true, that they essentially promoted the success of
      Maniaces, who reduced thirteen cities, and the greater part of
      Sicily, under the obedience of the emperor. But his military fame
      was sullied by ingratitude and tyranny. In the division of the
      spoils, the deserts of his brave auxiliaries were forgotten; and
      neither their avarice nor their pride could brook this injurious
      treatment. They complained by the mouth of their interpreter:
      their complaint was disregarded; their interpreter was scourged;
      the sufferings were his; the insult and resentment belonged to
      those whose sentiments he had delivered. Yet they dissembled till
      they had obtained, or stolen, a safe passage to the Italian
      continent: their brethren of Aversa sympathized in their
      indignation, and the province of Apulia was invaded as the
      forfeit of the debt. 22 Above twenty years after the first
      emigration, the Normans took the field with no more than seven
      hundred horse and five hundred foot; and after the recall of the
      Byzantine legions 23 from the Sicilian war, their numbers are
      magnified to the amount of threescore thousand men. Their herald
      proposed the option of battle or retreat; “of battle,” was the
      unanimous cry of the Normans; and one of their stoutest warriors,
      with a stroke of his fist, felled to the ground the horse of the
      Greek messenger. He was dismissed with a fresh horse; the insult
      was concealed from the Imperial troops; but in two successive
      battles they were more fatally instructed of the prowess of their
      adversaries. In the plains of Cannae, the Asiatics fled before
      the adventurers of France; the duke of Lombardy was made
      prisoner; the Apulians acquiesced in a new dominion; and the four
      places of Bari, Otranto, Brundusium, and Tarentum, were alone
      saved in the shipwreck of the Grecian fortunes. From this aera we
      may date the establishment of the Norman power, which soon
      eclipsed the infant colony of Aversa. Twelve counts 24 were
      chosen by the popular suffrage; and age, birth, and merit, were
      the motives of their choice. The tributes of their peculiar
      districts were appropriated to their use; and each count erected
      a fortress in the midst of his lands, and at the head of his
      vassals. In the centre of the province, the common habitation of
      Melphi was reserved as the metropolis and citadel of the
      republic; a house and separate quarter was allotted to each of
      the twelve counts: and the national concerns were regulated by
      this military senate. The first of his peers, their president and
      general, was entitled count of Apulia; and this dignity was
      conferred on William of the iron arm, who, in the language of the
      age, is styled a lion in battle, a lamb in society, and an angel
      in council. 25 The manners of his countrymen are fairly
      delineated by a contemporary and national historian. 26 “The
      Normans,” says Malaterra, “are a cunning and revengeful people;
      eloquence and dissimulation appear to be their hereditary
      qualities: they can stoop to flatter; but unless they are curbed
      by the restraint of law, they indulge the licentiousness of
      nature and passion. Their princes affect the praises of popular
      munificence; the people observe the medium, or rather blond the
      extremes, of avarice and prodigality; and in their eager thirst
      of wealth and dominion, they despise whatever they possess, and
      hope whatever they desire. Arms and horses, the luxury of dress,
      the exercises of hunting and hawking 27 are the delight of the
      Normans; but, on pressing occasions, they can endure with
      incredible patience the inclemency of every climate, and the toil
      and absence of a military life.” 28

      20 (return) [ Liutprand, in Legatione, p. 485. Pagi has
      illustrated this event from the Ms. history of the deacon Leo,
      (tom. iv. A.D. 965, No. 17-19.)]

      21 (return) [ See the Arabian Chronicle of Sicily, apud Muratori,
      Script. Rerum Ital. tom. i. p. 253.]

      22 (return) [ Jeffrey Malaterra, who relates the Sicilian war,
      and the conquest of Apulia, (l. i. c. 7, 8, 9, 19.) The same
      events are described by Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 741-743, 755, 756)
      and Zonaras, (tom. ii. p. 237, 238;) and the Greeks are so
      hardened to disgrace, that their narratives are impartial
      enough.]

      23 (return) [ Lydia: consult Constantine de Thematibus, i. 3, 4,
      with Delisle’s map.]

      24 (return) [ Omnes conveniunt; et bis sex nobiliores,

     Quos genus et gravitas morum decorabat et aetas,
       Elegere duces.  Provectis ad comitatum
     His alii parent.  Comitatus nomen honoris
     Quo donantur erat.  Hi totas undique terras
       Divisere sibi, ni sors inimica repugnet;
     Singula proponunt loca quae contingere sorte
        Cuique duci debent, et quaeque tributa locorum.
     And after speaking of Melphi, William Appulus adds,
     Pro numero comitum bis sex statuere plateas,
     Atque domus comitum totidem fabricantur in urbe.

      Leo Ostiensis (l. ii. c. 67) enumerates the divisions of the
      Apulian cities, which it is needless to repeat.]

      25 (return) [ Gulielm. Appulus, l. ii. c 12, according to the
      reference of Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii. p.
      31,) which I cannot verify in the original. The Apulian praises
      indeed his validas vires, probitas animi, and vivida virtus; and
      declares that, had he lived, no poet could have equalled his
      merits, (l. i. p. 258, l. ii. p. 259.) He was bewailed by the
      Normans, quippe qui tanti consilii virum, (says Malaterra, l. i.
      c. 12, p. 552,) tam armis strenuum, tam sibi munificum,
      affabilem, morigeratum, ulterius se habere diffidebant.]

      26 (return) [ The gens astutissima, injuriarum ultrix.... adulari
      sciens.... eloquentiis inserviens, of Malaterra, (l. i. c. 3, p.
      550,) are expressive of the popular and proverbial character of
      the Normans.]

      27 (return) [ The hunting and hawking more properly belong to the
      descendants of the Norwegian sailors; though they might import
      from Norway and Iceland the finest casts of falcons.]

      28 (return) [ We may compare this portrait with that of William
      of Malmsbury, (de Gestis Anglorum, l. iii. p. 101, 102,) who
      appreciates, like a philosophic historian, the vices and virtues
      of the Saxons and Normans. England was assuredly a gainer by the
      conquest.]




      Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part II.

      The Normans of Apulia were seated on the verge of the two
      empires; and, according to the policy of the hour, they accepted
      the investiture of their lands, from the sovereigns of Germany or
      Constantinople. But the firmest title of these adventurers was
      the right of conquest: they neither loved nor trusted; they were
      neither trusted nor beloved: the contempt of the princes was
      mixed with fear, and the fear of the natives was mingled with
      hatred and resentment. Every object of desire, a horse, a woman,
      a garden, tempted and gratified the rapaciousness of the
      strangers; 29 and the avarice of their chiefs was only colored by
      the more specious names of ambition and glory. The twelve counts
      were sometimes joined in the league of injustice: in their
      domestic quarrels they disputed the spoils of the people: the
      virtues of William were buried in his grave; and Drogo, his
      brother and successor, was better qualified to lead the valor,
      than to restrain the violence, of his peers. Under the reign of
      Constantine Monomachus, the policy, rather than benevolence, of
      the Byzantine court, attempted to relieve Italy from this
      adherent mischief, more grievous than a flight of Barbarians; 30
      and Argyrus, the son of Melo, was invested for this purpose with
      the most lofty titles 31 and the most ample commission. The
      memory of his father might recommend him to the Normans; and he
      had already engaged their voluntary service to quell the revolt
      of Maniaces, and to avenge their own and the public injury. It
      was the design of Constantine to transplant the warlike colony
      from the Italian provinces to the Persian war; and the son of
      Melo distributed among the chiefs the gold and manufactures of
      Greece, as the first-fruits of the Imperial bounty. But his arts
      were baffled by the sense and spirit of the conquerors of Apulia:
      his gifts, or at least his proposals, were rejected; and they
      unanimously refused to relinquish their possessions and their
      hopes for the distant prospect of Asiatic fortune. After the
      means of persuasion had failed, Argyrus resolved to compel or to
      destroy: the Latin powers were solicited against the common
      enemy; and an offensive alliance was formed of the pope and the
      two emperors of the East and West. The throne of St. Peter was
      occupied by Leo the Ninth, a simple saint, 32 of a temper most
      apt to deceive himself and the world, and whose venerable
      character would consecrate with the name of piety the measures
      least compatible with the practice of religion. His humanity was
      affected by the complaints, perhaps the calumnies, of an injured
      people: the impious Normans had interrupted the payment of
      tithes; and the temporal sword might be lawfully unsheathed
      against the sacrilegious robbers, who were deaf to the censures
      of the church. As a German of noble birth and royal kindred, Leo
      had free access to the court and confidence of the emperor Henry
      the Third; and in search of arms and allies, his ardent zeal
      transported him from Apulia to Saxony, from the Elbe to the
      Tyber. During these hostile preparations, Argyrus indulged
      himself in the use of secret and guilty weapons: a crowd of
      Normans became the victims of public or private revenge; and the
      valiant Drogo was murdered in a church. But his spirit survived
      in his brother Humphrey, the third count of Apulia. The assassins
      were chastised; and the son of Melo, overthrown and wounded, was
      driven from the field, to hide his shame behind the walls of
      Bari, and to await the tardy succor of his allies.

      29 (return) [ The biographer of St. Leo IX. pours his holy venom
      on the Normans. Videns indisciplinatam et alienam gentem
      Normannorum, crudeli et inaudita rabie, et plusquam Pagana
      impietate, adversus ecclesias Dei insurgere, passim Christianos
      trucidare, &c., (Wibert, c. 6.) The honest Apulian (l. ii. p.
      259) says calmly of their accuser, Veris commiscens fallacia.]

      30 (return) [ The policy of the Greeks, revolt of Maniaces, &c.,
      must be collected from Cedrenus, (tom. ii. p. 757, 758,) William
      Appulus, (l. i. p 257, 258, l. ii. p. 259,) and the two
      Chronicles of Bari, by Lupus Protospata, (Muratori, Script. Ital.
      tom. v. p. 42, 43, 44,) and an anonymous writer, (Antiquitat,
      Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. i. p 31-35.) This last is a fragment of
      some value.]

      31 (return) [ Argyrus received, says the anonymous Chronicle of
      Bari, Imperial letters, Foederatus et Patriciatus, et Catapani et
      Vestatus. In his Annals, Muratori (tom. viii. p. 426) very
      properly reads, or interprets, Sevestatus, the title of Sebastos
      or Augustus. But in his Antiquities, he was taught by Ducange to
      make it a palatine office, master of the wardrobe.]

      32 (return) [ A Life of St. Leo IX., deeply tinged with the
      passions and prejudices of the age, has been composed by Wibert,
      printed at Paris, 1615, in octavo, and since inserted in the
      Collections of the Bollandists, of Mabillon, and of Muratori. The
      public and private history of that pope is diligently treated by
      M. de St. Marc. (Abrege, tom. ii. p. 140-210, and p. 25-95,
      second column.)]

      But the power of Constantine was distracted by a Turkish war; the
      mind of Henry was feeble and irresolute; and the pope, instead of
      repassing the Alps with a German army, was accompanied only by a
      guard of seven hundred Swabians and some volunteers of Lorraine.
      In his long progress from Mantua to Beneventum, a vile and
      promiscuous multitude of Italians was enlisted under the holy
      standard: 33 the priest and the robber slept in the same tent;
      the pikes and crosses were intermingled in the front; and the
      martial saint repeated the lessons of his youth in the order of
      march, of encampment, and of combat. The Normans of Apulia could
      muster in the field no more than three thousand horse, with a
      handful of infantry: the defection of the natives intercepted
      their provisions and retreat; and their spirit, incapable of
      fear, was chilled for a moment by superstitious awe. On the
      hostile approach of Leo, they knelt without disgrace or
      reluctance before their spiritual father. But the pope was
      inexorable; his lofty Germans affected to deride the diminutive
      stature of their adversaries; and the Normans were informed that
      death or exile was their only alternative. Flight they disdained,
      and, as many of them had been three days without tasting food,
      they embraced the assurance of a more easy and honorable death.
      They climbed the hill of Civitella, descended into the plain, and
      charged in three divisions the army of the pope. On the left, and
      in the centre, Richard count of Aversa, and Robert the famous
      Guiscard, attacked, broke, routed, and pursued the Italian
      multitudes, who fought without discipline, and fled without
      shame. A harder trial was reserved for the valor of Count
      Humphrey, who led the cavalry of the right wing. The Germans 34
      have been described as unskillful in the management of the horse
      and the lance, but on foot they formed a strong and impenetrable
      phalanx; and neither man, nor steed, nor armor, could resist the
      weight of their long and two-handed swords. After a severe
      conflict, they were encompassed by the squadrons returning from
      the pursuit; and died in the ranks with the esteem of their foes,
      and the satisfaction of revenge. The gates of Civitella were shut
      against the flying pope, and he was overtaken by the pious
      conquerors, who kissed his feet, to implore his blessing and the
      absolution of their sinful victory. The soldiers beheld in their
      enemy and captive the vicar of Christ; and, though we may suppose
      the policy of the chiefs, it is probable that they were infected
      by the popular superstition. In the calm of retirement, the
      well-meaning pope deplored the effusion of Christian blood, which
      must be imputed to his account: he felt, that he had been the
      author of sin and scandal; and as his undertaking had failed, the
      indecency of his military character was universally condemned. 35
      With these dispositions, he listened to the offers of a
      beneficial treaty; deserted an alliance which he had preached as
      the cause of God; and ratified the past and future conquests of
      the Normans. By whatever hands they had been usurped, the
      provinces of Apulia and Calabria were a part of the donation of
      Constantine and the patrimony of St. Peter: the grant and the
      acceptance confirmed the mutual claims of the pontiff and the
      adventurers. They promised to support each other with spiritual
      and temporal arms; a tribute or quitrent of twelve pence was
      afterwards stipulated for every ploughland; and since this
      memorable transaction, the kingdom of Naples has remained above
      seven hundred years a fief of the Holy See. 36

      33 (return) [ See the expedition of Leo XI. against the Normans.
      See William Appulus (l. ii. p. 259-261) and Jeffrey Malaterra (l.
      i. c. 13, 14, 15, p. 253.) They are impartial, as the national is
      counterbalanced by the clerical prejudice]

      34 (return) [ Teutonici, quia caesaries et forma decoros

     Fecerat egregie proceri corporis illos
     Corpora derident Normannica quae breviora
     Esse videbantur.

      The verses of the Apulian are commonly in this strain, though he
      heats himself a little in the battle. Two of his similes from
      hawking and sorcery are descriptive of manners.]

      35 (return) [ Several respectable censures or complaints are
      produced by M. de St. Marc, (tom. ii. p. 200-204.) As Peter
      Damianus, the oracle of the times, has denied the popes the right
      of making war, the hermit (lugens eremi incola) is arraigned by
      the cardinal, and Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 1053, No. 10-17)
      most strenuously asserts the two swords of St. Peter.]

      36 (return) [ The origin and nature of the papal investitures are
      ably discussed by Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii.
      p. 37-49, 57-66,) as a lawyer and antiquarian. Yet he vainly
      strives to reconcile the duties of patriot and Catholic, adopts
      an empty distinction of “Ecclesia Romana non dedit, sed accepit,”
      and shrinks from an honest but dangerous confession of the
      truth.]

      The pedigree of Robert of Guiscard 37 is variously deduced from
      the peasants and the dukes of Normandy: from the peasants, by the
      pride and ignorance of a Grecian princess; 38 from the dukes, by
      the ignorance and flattery of the Italian subjects. 39 His
      genuine descent may be ascribed to the second or middle order of
      private nobility. 40 He sprang from a race of valvassors or
      bannerets, of the diocese of Coutances, in the Lower Normandy:
      the castle of Hauteville was their honorable seat: his father
      Tancred was conspicuous in the court and army of the duke; and
      his military service was furnished by ten soldiers or knights.
      Two marriages, of a rank not unworthy of his own, made him the
      father of twelve sons, who were educated at home by the impartial
      tenderness of his second wife. But a narrow patrimony was
      insufficient for this numerous and daring progeny; they saw
      around the neighborhood the mischiefs of poverty and discord, and
      resolved to seek in foreign wars a more glorious inheritance. Two
      only remained to perpetuate the race, and cherish their father’s
      age: their ten brothers, as they successfully attained the vigor
      of manhood, departed from the castle, passed the Alps, and joined
      the Apulian camp of the Normans. The elder were prompted by
      native spirit; their success encouraged their younger brethren,
      and the three first in seniority, William, Drogo, and Humphrey,
      deserved to be the chiefs of their nation and the founders of the
      new republic. Robert was the eldest of the seven sons of the
      second marriage; and even the reluctant praise of his foes has
      endowed him with the heroic qualities of a soldier and a
      statesman. His lofty stature surpassed the tallest of his army:
      his limbs were cast in the true proportion of strength and
      gracefulness; and to the decline of life, he maintained the
      patient vigor of health and the commanding dignity of his form.
      His complexion was ruddy, his shoulders were broad, his hair and
      beard were long and of a flaxen color, his eyes sparkled with
      fire, and his voice, like that of Achilles, could impress
      obedience and terror amidst the tumult of battle. In the ruder
      ages of chivalry, such qualifications are not below the notice of
      the poet or historians: they may observe that Robert, at once,
      and with equal dexterity, could wield in the right hand his
      sword, his lance in the left; that in the battle of Civitella he
      was thrice unhorsed; and that in the close of that memorable day
      he was adjudged to have borne away the prize of valor from the
      warriors of the two armies. 41 His boundless ambition was founded
      on the consciousness of superior worth: in the pursuit of
      greatness, he was never arrested by the scruples of justice, and
      seldom moved by the feelings of humanity: though not insensible
      of fame, the choice of open or clandestine means was determined
      only by his present advantage. The surname of Guiscard 42 was
      applied to this master of political wisdom, which is too often
      confounded with the practice of dissimulation and deceit; and
      Robert is praised by the Apulian poet for excelling the cunning
      of Ulysses and the eloquence of Cicero. Yet these arts were
      disguised by an appearance of military frankness: in his highest
      fortune, he was accessible and courteous to his fellow-soldiers;
      and while he indulged the prejudices of his new subjects, he
      affected in his dress and manners to maintain the ancient fashion
      of his country. He grasped with a rapacious, that he might
      distribute with a liberal, hand: his primitive indigence had
      taught the habits of frugality; the gain of a merchant was not
      below his attention; and his prisoners were tortured with slow
      and unfeeling cruelty, to force a discovery of their secret
      treasure. According to the Greeks, he departed from Normandy with
      only five followers on horseback and thirty on foot; yet even
      this allowance appears too bountiful: the sixth son of Tancred of
      Hauteville passed the Alps as a pilgrim; and his first military
      band was levied among the adventurers of Italy. His brothers and
      countrymen had divided the fertile lands of Apulia; but they
      guarded their shares with the jealousy of avarice; the aspiring
      youth was driven forwards to the mountains of Calabria, and in
      his first exploits against the Greeks and the natives, it is not
      easy to discriminate the hero from the robber. To surprise a
      castle or a convent, to ensnare a wealthy citizen, to plunder the
      adjacent villages for necessary food, were the obscure labors
      which formed and exercised the powers of his mind and body. The
      volunteers of Normandy adhered to his standard; and, under his
      command, the peasants of Calabria assumed the name and character
      of Normans.

      37 (return) [ The birth, character, and first actions of Robert
      Guiscard, may be found in Jeffrey Malaterra, (l. i. c. 3, 4, 11,
      16, 17, 18, 38, 39, 40,) William Appulus, (l. ii. p. 260-262,)
      William Gemeticensis, or of Jumieges, (l. xi. c. 30, p. 663, 664,
      edit. Camden,) and Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, l. i. p. 23-27, l. vi.
      p. 165, 166,) with the annotations of Ducange, (Not. in Alexiad,
      p. 230-232, 320,) who has swept all the French and Latin
      Chronicles for supplemental intelligence.]

      38 (return) [ (a Greek corruption), and elsewhere, (l. iv. p.
      84,). Anna Comnena was born in the purple; yet her father was no
      more than a private though illustrious subject, who raised
      himself to the empire.]

      39 (return) [ Giannone, (tom. ii. p. 2) forgets all his original
      authors, and rests this princely descent on the credit of
      Inveges, an Augustine monk of Palermo in the last century. They
      continue the succession of dukes from Rollo to William II. the
      Bastard or Conqueror, whom they hold (communemente si tiene) to
      be the father of Tancred of Hauteville; a most strange and
      stupendous blunder! The sons of Tancred fought in Apulia, before
      William II. was three years old, (A.D. 1037.)]

      40 (return) [ The judgment of Ducange is just and moderate: Certe
      humilis fuit ac tenuis Roberti familia, si ducalem et regium
      spectemus apicem, ad quem postea pervenit; quae honesta tamen et
      praeter nobilium vulgarium statum et conditionem illustris habita
      est, “quae nec humi reperet nec altum quid tumeret.” (Wilhem.
      Malmsbur. de Gestis Anglorum, l. iii. p. 107. Not. ad Alexiad. p.
      230.)]

      41 (return) [ I shall quote with pleasure some of the best lines
      of the Apulian, (l. ii. p. 270.)

     Pugnat utraque manu, nec lancea cassa, nec ensis
     Cassus erat, quocunque manu deducere vellet.
     Ter dejectus equo, ter viribus ipse resumptis
     Major in arma redit: stimulos furor ipse ministrat.
     Ut Leo cum frendens, &c.
     -   —  —  —  —  —   -
     Nullus in hoc bello sicuti post bella probatum est
     Victor vel victus, tam magnos edidit ictus.]

      42 (return) [ The Norman writers and editors most conversant with
      their own idiom interpret Guiscard or Wiscard, by Callidus, a
      cunning man. The root (wise) is familiar to our ear; and in the
      old word Wiseacre, I can discern something of a similar sense and
      termination. It is no bad translation of the surname and
      character of Robert.]

      As the genius of Robert expanded with his fortune, he awakened
      the jealousy of his elder brother, by whom, in a transient
      quarrel, his life was threatened and his liberty restrained.
      After the death of Humphrey, the tender age of his sons excluded
      them from the command; they were reduced to a private estate, by
      the ambition of their guardian and uncle; and Guiscard was
      exalted on a buckler, and saluted count of Apulia and general of
      the republic. With an increase of authority and of force, he
      resumed the conquest of Calabria, and soon aspired to a rank that
      should raise him forever above the heads of his equals.

      By some acts of rapine or sacrilege, he had incurred a papal
      excommunication; but Nicholas the Second was easily persuaded
      that the divisions of friends could terminate only in their
      mutual prejudice; that the Normans were the faithful champions of
      the Holy See; and it was safer to trust the alliance of a prince
      than the caprice of an aristocracy. A synod of one hundred
      bishops was convened at Melphi; and the count interrupted an
      important enterprise to guard the person and execute the decrees
      of the Roman pontiff. His gratitude and policy conferred on
      Robert and his posterity the ducal title, 43 with the investiture
      of Apulia, Calabria, and all the lands, both in Italy and Sicily,
      which his sword could rescue from the schismatic Greeks and the
      unbelieving Saracens. 44 This apostolic sanction might justify
      his arms; but the obedience of a free and victorious people could
      not be transferred without their consent; and Guiscard dissembled
      his elevation till the ensuing campaign had been illustrated by
      the conquest of Consenza and Reggio. In the hour of triumph, he
      assembled his troops, and solicited the Normans to confirm by
      their suffrage the judgment of the vicar of Christ: the soldiers
      hailed with joyful acclamations their valiant duke; and the
      counts, his former equals, pronounced the oath of fidelity with
      hollow smiles and secret indignation. After this inauguration,
      Robert styled himself, “By the grace of God and St. Peter, duke
      of Apulia, Calabria, and hereafter of Sicily;” and it was the
      labor of twenty years to deserve and realize these lofty
      appellations. Such sardy progress, in a narrow space, may seem
      unworthy of the abilities of the chief and the spirit of the
      nation; but the Normans were few in number; their resources were
      scanty; their service was voluntary and precarious. The bravest
      designs of the duke were sometimes opposed by the free voice of
      his parliament of barons: the twelve counts of popular election
      conspired against his authority; and against their perfidious
      uncle, the sons of Humphrey demanded justice and revenge. By his
      policy and vigor, Guiscard discovered their plots, suppressed
      their rebellions, and punished the guilty with death or exile:
      but in these domestic feuds, his years, and the national
      strength, were unprofitably consumed. After the defeat of his
      foreign enemies, the Greeks, Lombards, and Saracens, their broken
      forces retreated to the strong and populous cities of the
      sea-coast. They excelled in the arts of fortification and
      defence; the Normans were accustomed to serve on horseback in the
      field, and their rude attempts could only succeed by the efforts
      of persevering courage. The resistance of Salerno was maintained
      above eight months; the siege or blockade of Bari lasted near
      four years. In these actions the Norman duke was the foremost in
      every danger; in every fatigue the last and most patient. As he
      pressed the citadel of Salerno, a huge stone from the rampart
      shattered one of his military engines; and by a splinter he was
      wounded in the breast. Before the gates of Bari, he lodged in a
      miserable hut or barrack, composed of dry branches, and thatched
      with straw; a perilous station, on all sides open to the
      inclemency of the winter and the spears of the enemy. 45

      43 (return) [ The acquisition of the ducal title by Robert
      Guiscard is a nice and obscure business. With the good advice of
      Giannone, Muratori, and St. Marc, I have endeavored to form a
      consistent and probable narrative.]

      44 (return) [ Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 1059, No. 69) has
      published the original act. He professes to have copied it from
      the Liber Censuum, a Vatican Ms. Yet a Liber Censuum of the xiith
      century has been printed by Muratori, (Antiquit. Medii Aevi, tom.
      v. p. 851-908;) and the names of Vatican and Cardinal awaken the
      suspicions of a Protestant, and even of a philosopher.]

      45 (return) [ Read the life of Guiscard in the second and third
      books of the Apulian, the first and second books of Malaterra.]

      The Italian conquests of Robert correspond with the limits of the
      present kingdom of Naples; and the countries united by his arms
      have not been dissevered by the revolutions of seven hundred
      years. 46 The monarchy has been composed of the Greek provinces
      of Calabria and Apulia, of the Lombard principality of Salerno,
      the republic of Amalphi, and the inland dependencies of the large
      and ancient duchy of Beneventum. Three districts only were
      exempted from the common law of subjection; the first forever,
      the two last till the middle of the succeeding century. The city
      and immediate territory of Benevento had been transferred, by
      gift or exchange, from the German emperor to the Roman pontiff;
      and although this holy land was sometimes invaded, the name of
      St. Peter was finally more potent than the sword of the Normans.
      Their first colony of Aversa subdued and held the state of Capua;
      and her princes were reduced to beg their bread before the palace
      of their fathers. The dukes of Naples, the present metropolis,
      maintained the popular freedom, under the shadow of the Byzantine
      empire. Among the new acquisitions of Guiscard, the science of
      Salerno, 47 and the trade of Amalphi, 48 may detain for a moment
      the curiosity of the reader. I. Of the learned faculties,
      jurisprudence implies the previous establishment of laws and
      property; and theology may perhaps be superseded by the full
      light of religion and reason. But the savage and the sage must
      alike implore the assistance of physic; and, if our diseases are
      inflamed by luxury, the mischiefs of blows and wounds would be
      more frequent in the ruder ages of society. The treasures of
      Grecian medicine had been communicated to the Arabian colonies of
      Africa, Spain, and Sicily; and in the intercourse of peace and
      war, a spark of knowledge had been kindled and cherished at
      Salerno, an illustrious city, in which the men were honest and
      the women beautiful. 49 A school, the first that arose in the
      darkness of Europe, was consecrated to the healing art: the
      conscience of monks and bishops was reconciled to that salutary
      and lucrative profession; and a crowd of patients, of the most
      eminent rank, and most distant climates, invited or visited the
      physicians of Salerno. They were protected by the Norman
      conquerors; and Guiscard, though bred in arms, could discern the
      merit and value of a philosopher. After a pilgrimage of
      thirty-nine years, Constantine, an African Christian, returned
      from Bagdad, a master of the language and learning of the
      Arabians; and Salerno was enriched by the practice, the lessons,
      and the writings of the pupil of Avicenna. The school of medicine
      has long slept in the name of a university; but her precepts are
      abridged in a string of aphorisms, bound together in the Leonine
      verses, or Latin rhymes, of the twelfth century. 50 II. Seven
      miles to the west of Salerno, and thirty to the south of Naples,
      the obscure town of Amalphi displayed the power and rewards of
      industry. The land, however fertile, was of narrow extent; but
      the sea was accessible and open: the inhabitants first assumed
      the office of supplying the western world with the manufactures
      and productions of the East; and this useful traffic was the
      source of their opulence and freedom. The government was popular,
      under the administration of a duke and the supremacy of the Greek
      emperor. Fifty thousand citizens were numbered in the walls of
      Amalphi; nor was any city more abundantly provided with gold,
      silver, and the objects of precious luxury. The mariners who
      swarmed in her port, excelled in the theory and practice of
      navigation and astronomy: and the discovery of the compass, which
      has opened the globe, is owing to their ingenuity or good
      fortune. Their trade was extended to the coasts, or at least to
      the commodities, of Africa, Arabia, and India: and their
      settlements in Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and
      Alexandria, acquired the privileges of independent colonies. 51
      After three hundred years of prosperity, Amalphi was oppressed by
      the arms of the Normans, and sacked by the jealousy of Pisa; but
      the poverty of one thousand 5111 fisherman is yet dignified by
      the remains of an arsenal, a cathedral, and the palaces of royal
      merchants.

      46 (return) [ The conquests of Robert Guiscard and Roger I., the
      exemption of Benevento and the xii provinces of the kingdom, are
      fairly exposed by Giannone in the second volume of his Istoria
      Civile, l. ix. x. xi and l. xvii. p. 460-470. This modern
      division was not established before the time of Frederic II.]

      47 (return) [ Giannone, (tom. ii. p. 119-127,) Muratori,
      (Antiquitat. Medii Aevi, tom. iii. dissert. xliv. p. 935, 936,)
      and Tiraboschi, (Istoria della Letteratura Italiana,) have given
      an historical account of these physicians; their medical
      knowledge and practice must be left to our physicians.]

      48 (return) [ At the end of the Historia Pandectarum of Henry
      Brenckmann, (Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1722, in 4to.,) the
      indefatigable author has inserted two dissertations, de Republica
      Amalphitana, and de Amalphi a Pisanis direpta, which are built on
      the testimonies of one hundred and forty writers. Yet he has
      forgotten two most important passages of the embassy of
      Liutprand, (A.D. 939,) which compare the trade and navigation of
      Amalphi with that of Venice.]

      49 (return) [ Urbs Latii non est hac delitiosior urbe,

     Frugibus, arboribus, vinoque redundat; et unde
     Non tibi poma, nuces, non pulchra palatia desunt,
        Non species muliebris abest probitasque virorum.
     —Gulielmus Appulus, l. iii. p. 367]

      50 (return) [ Muratori carries their antiquity above the year
      (1066) of the death of Edward the Confessor, the rex Anglorum to
      whom they are addressed. Nor is this date affected by the
      opinion, or rather mistake, of Pasquier (Recherches de la France,
      l. vii. c. 2) and Ducange, (Glossar. Latin.) The practice of
      rhyming, as early as the viith century, was borrowed from the
      languages of the North and East, (Muratori, Antiquitat. tom. iii.
      dissert. xl. p. 686-708.)]

      51 (return) [ The description of Amalphi, by William the Apulian,
      (l. iii. p. 267,) contains much truth and some poetry, and the
      third line may be applied to the sailor’s compass:—

     Nulla magis locuples argento, vestibus, auro
     Partibus innumeris: hac plurimus urbe moratur
     Nauta maris Caelique vias aperire peritus.
     Huc et Alexandri diversa feruntur ab urbe
     Regis, et Antiochi.  Gens haec freta plurima transit.
     His Arabes, Indi, Siculi nascuntur et Afri.
     Haec gens est totum proore nobilitata per orbem,
     Et mercando forens, et amans mercata referre.]

      5111 (return) [ Amalfi had only one thousand inhabitants at the
      commencement of the 18th century, when it was visited by
      Brenckmann, (Brenckmann de Rep. Amalph. Diss. i. c. 23.) At
      present it has six or eight thousand Hist. des Rep. tom. i. p.
      304.—G.]




      Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part III.

      Roger, the twelfth and last of the sons of Tancred, had been long
      detained in Normandy by his own and his father’s age. He accepted
      the welcome summons; hastened to the Apulian camp; and deserved
      at first the esteem, and afterwards the envy, of his elder
      brother. Their valor and ambition were equal; but the youth, the
      beauty, the elegant manners, of Roger engaged the disinterested
      love of the soldiers and people. So scanty was his allowance for
      himself and forty followers, that he descended from conquest to
      robbery, and from robbery to domestic theft; and so loose were
      the notions of property, that, by his own historian, at his
      special command, he is accused of stealing horses from a stable
      at Melphi. 52 His spirit emerged from poverty and disgrace: from
      these base practices he rose to the merit and glory of a holy
      war; and the invasion of Sicily was seconded by the zeal and
      policy of his brother Guiscard. After the retreat of the Greeks,
      the idolaters, a most audacious reproach of the Catholics, had
      retrieved their losses and possessions; but the deliverance of
      the island, so vainly undertaken by the forces of the Eastern
      empire, was achieved by a small and private band of adventurers.
      53 In the first attempt, Roger braved, in an open boat, the real
      and fabulous dangers of Scylla and Charybdis; landed with only
      sixty soldiers on a hostile shore; drove the Saracens to the
      gates of Messina and safely returned with the spoils of the
      adjacent country. In the fortress of Trani, his active and
      patient courage were equally conspicuous. In his old age he
      related with pleasure, that, by the distress of the siege,
      himself, and the countess his wife, had been reduced to a single
      cloak or mantle, which they wore alternately; that in a sally his
      horse had been slain, and he was dragged away by the Saracens;
      but that he owed his rescue to his good sword, and had retreated
      with his saddle on his back, lest the meanest trophy might be
      left in the hands of the miscreants. In the siege of Trani, three
      hundred Normans withstood and repulsed the forces of the island.
      In the field of Ceramio, fifty thousand horse and foot were
      overthrown by one hundred and thirty-six Christian soldiers,
      without reckoning St. George, who fought on horseback in the
      foremost ranks. The captive banners, with four camels, were
      reserved for the successor of St. Peter; and had these barbaric
      spoils been exposed, not in the Vatican, but in the Capitol, they
      might have revived the memory of the Punic triumphs. These
      insufficient numbers of the Normans most probably denote their
      knights, the soldiers of honorable and equestrian rank, each of
      whom was attended by five or six followers in the field; 54 yet,
      with the aid of this interpretation, and after every fair
      allowance on the side of valor, arms, and reputation, the
      discomfiture of so many myriads will reduce the prudent reader to
      the alternative of a miracle or a fable. The Arabs of Sicily
      derived a frequent and powerful succor from their countrymen of
      Africa: in the siege of Palermo, the Norman cavalry was assisted
      by the galleys of Pisa; and, in the hour of action, the envy of
      the two brothers was sublimed to a generous and invincible
      emulation. After a war of thirty years, 55 Roger, with the title
      of great count, obtained the sovereignty of the largest and most
      fruitful island of the Mediterranean; and his administration
      displays a liberal and enlightened mind, above the limits of his
      age and education. The Moslems were maintained in the free
      enjoyment of their religion and property: 56 a philosopher and
      physician of Mazara, of the race of Mahomet, harangued the
      conqueror, and was invited to court; his geography of the seven
      climates was translated into Latin; and Roger, after a diligent
      perusal, preferred the work of the Arabian to the writings of the
      Grecian Ptolemy. 57 A remnant of Christian natives had promoted
      the success of the Normans: they were rewarded by the triumph of
      the cross. The island was restored to the jurisdiction of the
      Roman pontiff; new bishops were planted in the principal cities;
      and the clergy was satisfied by a liberal endowment of churches
      and monasteries. Yet the Catholic hero asserted the rights of the
      civil magistrate. Instead of resigning the investiture of
      benefices, he dexterously applied to his own profit the papal
      claims: the supremacy of the crown was secured and enlarged, by
      the singular bull, which declares the princes of Sicily
      hereditary and perpetual legates of the Holy See. 58

      52 (return) [ Latrocinio armigerorum suorum in multis
      sustentabatur, quod quidem ad ejus ignominiam non dicimus; sed
      ipso ita praecipiente adhuc viliora et reprehensibiliora dicturi
      sumus ut pluribus patescat, quam laboriose et cum quanta angustia
      a profunda paupertate ad summum culmen divitiarum vel honoris
      attigerit. Such is the preface of Malaterra (l. i. c. 25) to the
      horse-stealing. From the moment (l. i. c. 19) that he has
      mentioned his patron Roger, the elder brother sinks into the
      second character. Something similar in Velleius Paterculus may be
      observed of Augustus and Tiberius.]

      53 (return) [ Duo sibi proficua deputans animae scilicet et
      corporis si terran: Idolis deditam ad cultum divinum revocaret,
      (Galfrid Malaterra, l. ii. c. 1.) The conquest of Sicily is
      related in the three last books, and he himself has given an
      accurate summary of the chapters, (p. 544-546.)]

      54 (return) [ See the word Milites in the Latin Glossary of
      Ducange.]

      55 (return) [ Of odd particulars, I learn from Malaterra, that
      the Arabs had introduced into Sicily the use of camels (l. i. c.
      33) and of carrier-pigeons, (c. 42;) and that the bite of the
      tarantula provokes a windy disposition, quae per anum inhoneste
      crepitando emergit; a symptom most ridiculously felt by the whole
      Norman army in their camp near Palermo, (c. 36.) I shall add an
      etymology not unworthy of the xith century: Messana is divided
      from Messis, the place from whence the harvests of the isle were
      sent in tribute to Rome, (l. ii. c. 1.)]

      56 (return) [ See the capitulation of Palermo in Malaterra, l.
      ii. c. 45, and Giannone, who remarks the general toleration of
      the Saracens, (tom ii. p. 72.)]

      57 (return) [ John Leo Afer, de Medicis et Philosophus Arabibus,
      c. 14, apud Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. xiii. p. 278, 279. This
      philosopher is named Esseriph Essachalli, and he died in Africa,
      A. H. 516, A.D. 1122. Yet this story bears a strange resemblance
      to the Sherif al Edrissi, who presented his book (Geographia
      Nubiensis, see preface p. 88, 90, 170) to Roger, king of Sicily,
      A. H. 541, A.D. 1153, (D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p.
      786. Prideaux’s Life of Mahomet, p. 188. Petit de la Croix, Hist.
      de Gengiscan, p. 535, 536. Casiri, Bibliot. Arab. Hispan. tom.
      ii. p. 9-13;) and I am afraid of some mistake.]

      58 (return) [ Malaterra remarks the foundation of the bishoprics,
      (l. iv. c. 7,) and produces the original of the bull, (l. iv. c.
      29.) Giannone gives a rational idea of this privilege, and the
      tribunal of the monarchy of Sicily, (tom. ii. p. 95-102;) and St.
      Marc (Abrege, tom. iii. p. 217-301, 1st column) labors the case
      with the diligence of a Sicilian lawyer.]

      To Robert Guiscard, the conquest of Sicily was more glorious than
      beneficial: the possession of Apulia and Calabria was inadequate
      to his ambition; and he resolved to embrace or create the first
      occasion of invading, perhaps of subduing, the Roman empire of
      the East. 59 From his first wife, the partner of his humble
      fortune, he had been divorced under the pretence of
      consanguinity; and her son Bohemond was destined to imitate,
      rather than to succeed, his illustrious father. The second wife
      of Guiscard was the daughter of the princes of Salerno; the
      Lombards acquiesced in the lineal succession of their son Roger;
      their five daughters were given in honorable nuptials, 60 and one
      of them was betrothed, in a tender age, to Constantine, a
      beautiful youth, the son and heir of the emperor Michael. 61 But
      the throne of Constantinople was shaken by a revolution: the
      Imperial family of Ducas was confined to the palace or the
      cloister; and Robert deplored, and resented, the disgrace of his
      daughter and the expulsion of his ally. A Greek, who styled
      himself the father of Constantine, soon appeared at Salerno, and
      related the adventures of his fall and flight. That unfortunate
      friend was acknowledged by the duke, and adorned with the pomp
      and titles of Imperial dignity: in his triumphal progress through
      Apulia and Calabria, Michael 62 was saluted with the tears and
      acclamations of the people; and Pope Gregory the Seventh exhorted
      the bishops to preach, and the Catholics to fight, in the pious
      work of his restoration. His conversations with Robert were
      frequent and familiar; and their mutual promises were justified
      by the valor of the Normans and the treasures of the East. Yet
      this Michael, by the confession of the Greeks and Latins, was a
      pageant and an impostor; a monk who had fled from his convent, or
      a domestic who had served in the palace. The fraud had been
      contrived by the subtle Guiscard; and he trusted, that after this
      pretender had given a decent color to his arms, he would sink, at
      the nod of the conqueror, into his primitive obscurity. But
      victory was the only argument that could determine the belief of
      the Greeks; and the ardor of the Latins was much inferior to
      their credulity: the Norman veterans wished to enjoy the harvest
      of their toils, and the unwarlike Italians trembled at the known
      and unknown dangers of a transmarine expedition. In his new
      levies, Robert exerted the influence of gifts and promises, the
      terrors of civil and ecclesiastical authority; and some acts of
      violence might justify the reproach, that age and infancy were
      pressed without distinction into the service of their unrelenting
      prince. After two years’ incessant preparations the land and
      naval forces were assembled at Otranto, at the heel, or extreme
      promontory, of Italy; and Robert was accompanied by his wife, who
      fought by his side, his son Bohemond, and the representative of
      the emperor Michael. Thirteen hundred knights 63 of Norman race
      or discipline, formed the sinews of the army, which might be
      swelled to thirty thousand 64 followers of every denomination.
      The men, the horses, the arms, the engines, the wooden towers,
      covered with raw hides, were embarked on board one hundred and
      fifty vessels: the transports had been built in the ports of
      Italy, and the galleys were supplied by the alliance of the
      republic of Ragusa.

      59 (return) [ In the first expedition of Robert against the
      Greeks, I follow Anna Comnena, (the ist, iiid, ivth, and vth
      books of the Alexiad,) William Appulus, (l. ivth and vth, p.
      270-275,) and Jeffrey Malaterra, (l. iii. c. 13, 14, 24-29, 39.)
      Their information is contemporary and authentic, but none of them
      were eye-witnesses of the war.]

      60 (return) [ One of them was married to Hugh, the son of Azzo,
      or Axo, a marquis of Lombardy, rich, powerful, and noble,
      (Gulielm. Appul. l. iii. p. 267,) in the xith century, and whose
      ancestors in the xth and ixth are explored by the critical
      industry of Leibnitz and Muratori. From the two elder sons of the
      marquis Azzo are derived the illustrious lines of Brunswick and
      Este. See Muratori, Antichita Estense.]

      61 (return) [ Anna Comnena, somewhat too wantonly, praises and
      bewails that handsome boy, who, after the rupture of his barbaric
      nuptials, (l. i. p. 23,) was betrothed as her husband. (p. 27.)
      Elsewhere she describes the red and white of his skin, his hawk’s
      eyes, &c., l. iii. p. 71.]

      62 (return) [ Anna Comnena, l. i. p. 28, 29. Gulielm. Appul. l.
      iv p. 271. Galfrid Malaterra, l. iii. c. 13, p. 579, 580.
      Malaterra is more cautious in his style; but the Apulian is bold
      and positive.—Mentitus se Michaelem Venerata Danais quidam
      seductor ad illum. As Gregory VII had believed, Baronius almost
      alone, recognizes the emperor Michael. (A.D. No. 44.)]

      63 (return) [ Ipse armatae militiae non plusquam MCCC milites
      secum habuisse, ab eis qui eidem negotio interfuerunt attestatur,
      (Malaterra, l. iii. c. 24, p. 583.) These are the same whom the
      Apulian (l. iv. p. 273) styles the equestris gens ducis, equites
      de gente ducis.]

      64 (return) [ Anna Comnena (Alexias, l. i. p. 37;) and her
      account tallies with the number and lading of the ships. Ivit in
      Dyrrachium cum xv. millibus hominum, says the Chronicon Breve
      Normannicum, (Muratori, Scriptores, tom. v. p. 278.) I have
      endeavored to reconcile these reckonings.]

      At the mouth of the Adriatic Gulf, the shores of Italy and Epirus
      incline towards each other. The space between Brundusium and
      Durazzo, the Roman passage, is no more than one hundred miles; 65
      at the last station of Otranto, it is contracted to fifty; 66 and
      this narrow distance had suggested to Pyrrhus and Pompey the
      sublime or extravagant idea of a bridge. Before the general
      embarkation, the Norman duke despatched Bohemond with fifteen
      galleys to seize or threaten the Isle of Corfu, to survey the
      opposite coast, and to secure a harbor in the neighborhood of
      Vallona for the landing of the troops. They passed and landed
      without perceiving an enemy; and this successful experiment
      displayed the neglect and decay of the naval power of the Greeks.
      The islands of Epirus and the maritime towns were subdued by the
      arms or the name of Robert, who led his fleet and army from Corfu
      (I use the modern appellation) to the siege of Durazzo. That
      city, the western key of the empire, was guarded by ancient
      renown, and recent fortifications, by George Palaeologus, a
      patrician, victorious in the Oriental wars, and a numerous
      garrison of Albanians and Macedonians, who, in every age, have
      maintained the character of soldiers. In the prosecution of his
      enterprise, the courage of Guiscard was assailed by every form of
      danger and mischance. In the most propitious season of the year,
      as his fleet passed along the coast, a storm of wind and snow
      unexpectedly arose: the Adriatic was swelled by the raging blast
      of the south, and a new shipwreck confirmed the old infamy of the
      Acroceraunian rocks. 67 The sails, the masts, and the oars, were
      shattered or torn away; the sea and shore were covered with the
      fragments of vessels, with arms and dead bodies; and the greatest
      part of the provisions were either drowned or damaged. The ducal
      galley was laboriously rescued from the waves, and Robert halted
      seven days on the adjacent cape, to collect the relics of his
      loss, and revive the drooping spirits of his soldiers. The
      Normans were no longer the bold and experienced mariners who had
      explored the ocean from Greenland to Mount Atlas, and who smiled
      at the petty dangers of the Mediterranean. They had wept during
      the tempest; they were alarmed by the hostile approach of the
      Venetians, who had been solicited by the prayers and promises of
      the Byzantine court. The first day’s action was not
      disadvantageous to Bohemond, a beardless youth, 68 who led the
      naval powers of his father. All night the galleys of the republic
      lay on their anchors in the form of a crescent; and the victory
      of the second day was decided by the dexterity of their
      evolutions, the station of their archers, the weight of their
      javelins, and the borrowed aid of the Greek fire. The Apulian and
      Ragusian vessels fled to the shore, several were cut from their
      cables, and dragged away by the conqueror; and a sally from the
      town carried slaughter and dismay to the tents of the Norman
      duke. A seasonable relief was poured into Durazzo, and as soon as
      the besiegers had lost the command of the sea, the islands and
      maritime towns withdrew from the camp the supply of tribute and
      provision. That camp was soon afflicted with a pestilential
      disease; five hundred knights perished by an inglorious death;
      and the list of burials (if all could obtain a decent burial)
      amounted to ten thousand persons. Under these calamities, the
      mind of Guiscard alone was firm and invincible; and while he
      collected new forces from Apulia and Sicily, he battered, or
      scaled, or sapped, the walls of Durazzo. But his industry and
      valor were encountered by equal valor and more perfect industry.
      A movable turret, of a size and capacity to contain five hundred
      soldiers, had been rolled forwards to the foot of the rampart:
      but the descent of the door or drawbridge was checked by an
      enormous beam, and the wooden structure was constantly consumed
      by artificial flames.

      65 (return) [ The Itinerary of Jerusalem (p. 609, edit.
      Wesseling) gives a true and reasonable space of a thousand stadia
      or one hundred miles which is strangely doubled by Strabo (l. vi.
      p. 433) and Pliny, (Hist. Natur. iii. 16.)]

      66 (return) [ Pliny (Hist. Nat. iii. 6, 16) allows quinquaginta
      millia for this brevissimus cursus, and agrees with the real
      distance from Otranto to La Vallona, or Aulon, (D’Anville,
      Analyse de sa Carte des Cotes de la Grece, &c., p. 3-6.)
      Hermolaus Barbarus, who substitutes centum. (Harduin, Not. lxvi.
      in Plin. l. iii.,) might have been corrected by every Venetian
      pilot who had sailed out of the gulf.]

      67 (return) [ Infames scopulos Acroceraunia, Horat. carm. i. 3.
      The praecipitem Africum decertantem Aquilonibus, et rabiem Noti
      and the monstra natantia of the Adriatic, are somewhat enlarged;
      but Horace trembling for the life of Virgil, is an interesting
      moment in the history of poetry and friendship.]

      68 (return) [ (Alexias, l. iv. p. 106.) Yet the Normans shaved,
      and the Venetians wore, their beards: they must have derided the
      no beard of Bohemond; a harsh interpretation. (Duncanga ad
      Alexiad. p. 283.)]

      While the Roman empire was attacked by the Turks in the East,
      east, and the Normans in the West, the aged successor of Michael
      surrendered the sceptre to the hands of Alexius, an illustrious
      captain, and the founder of the Comnenian dynasty. The princess
      Anne, his daughter and historian, observes, in her affected
      style, that even Hercules was unequal to a double combat; and, on
      this principle, she approves a hasty peace with the Turks, which
      allowed her father to undertake in person the relief of Durazzo.
      On his accession, Alexius found the camp without soldiers, and
      the treasury without money; yet such were the vigor and activity
      of his measures, that in six months he assembled an army of
      seventy thousand men, 69 and performed a march of five hundred
      miles. His troops were levied in Europe and Asia, from
      Peloponnesus to the Black Sea; his majesty was displayed in the
      silver arms and rich trappings of the companies of Horse-guards;
      and the emperor was attended by a train of nobles and princes,
      some of whom, in rapid succession, had been clothed with the
      purple, and were indulged by the lenity of the times in a life of
      affluence and dignity. Their youthful ardor might animate the
      multitude; but their love of pleasure and contempt of
      subordination were pregnant with disorder and mischief; and their
      importunate clamors for speedy and decisive action disconcerted
      the prudence of Alexius, who might have surrounded and starved
      the besieging army. The enumeration of provinces recalls a sad
      comparison of the past and present limits of the Roman world: the
      raw levies were drawn together in haste and terror; and the
      garrisons of Anatolia, or Asia Minor, had been purchased by the
      evacuation of the cities which were immediately occupied by the
      Turks. The strength of the Greek army consisted in the
      Varangians, the Scandinavian guards, whose numbers were recently
      augmented by a colony of exiles and volunteers from the British
      Island of Thule. Under the yoke of the Norman conqueror, the
      Danes and English were oppressed and united; a band of
      adventurous youths resolved to desert a land of slavery; the sea
      was open to their escape; and, in their long pilgrimage, they
      visited every coast that afforded any hope of liberty and
      revenge. They were entertained in the service of the Greek
      emperor; and their first station was in a new city on the Asiatic
      shore: but Alexius soon recalled them to the defence of his
      person and palace; and bequeathed to his successors the
      inheritance of their faith and valor. 70 The name of a Norman
      invader revived the memory of their wrongs: they marched with
      alacrity against the national foe, and panted to regain in Epirus
      the glory which they had lost in the battle of Hastings. The
      Varangians were supported by some companies of Franks or Latins;
      and the rebels, who had fled to Constantinople from the tyranny
      of Guiscard, were eager to signalize their zeal and gratify their
      revenge. In this emergency, the emperor had not disdained the
      impure aid of the Paulicians or Manichaeans of Thrace and
      Bulgaria; and these heretics united with the patience of
      martyrdom the spirit and discipline of active valor. 71 The
      treaty with the sultan had procured a supply of some thousand
      Turks; and the arrows of the Scythian horse were opposed to the
      lances of the Norman cavalry. On the report and distant prospect
      of these formidable numbers, Robert assembled a council of his
      principal officers. “You behold,” said he, “your danger: it is
      urgent and inevitable. The hills are covered with arms and
      standards; and the emperor of the Greeks is accustomed to wars
      and triumphs. Obedience and union are our only safety; and I am
      ready to yield the command to a more worthy leader.” The vote and
      acclamation even of his secret enemies, assured him, in that
      perilous moment, of their esteem and confidence; and the duke
      thus continued: “Let us trust in the rewards of victory, and
      deprive cowardice of the means of escape. Let us burn our vessels
      and our baggage, and give battle on this spot, as if it were the
      place of our nativity and our burial.” The resolution was
      unanimously approved; and, without confining himself to his
      lines, Guiscard awaited in battle-array the nearer approach of
      the enemy. His rear was covered by a small river; his right wing
      extended to the sea; his left to the hills: nor was he conscious,
      perhaps, that on the same ground Caesar and Pompey had formerly
      disputed the empire of the world. 72

      69 (return) [ Muratori (Annali d’ Italia, tom. ix. p. 136, 137)
      observes, that some authors (Petrus Diacon. Chron. Casinen. l.
      iii. c. 49) compose the Greek army of 170,000 men, but that the
      hundred may be struck off, and that Malaterra reckons only
      70,000; a slight inattention. The passage to which he alludes is
      in the Chronicle of Lupus Protospata, (Script. Ital. tom. v. p.
      45.) Malaterra (l. iv. c. 27) speaks in high, but indefinite
      terms of the emperor, cum copiisinnumerabilbus: like the Apulian
      poet, (l. iv. p. 272:) —More locustarum montes et pianna
      teguntur.]

      70 (return) [ See William of Malmsbury, de Gestis Anglorum, l.
      ii. p. 92. Alexius fidem Anglorum suspiciens praecipuis
      familiaritatibus suis eos applicabat, amorem eorum filio
      transcribens. Odericus Vitalis (Hist. Eccles. l. iv. p. 508, l.
      vii. p. 641) relates their emigration from England, and their
      service in Greece.]

      71 (return) [ See the Apulian, (l. i. p. 256.) The character and
      the story of these Manichaeans has been the subject of the livth
      chapter.]

      72 (return) [ See the simple and masterly narrative of Caesar
      himself, (Comment. de Bell. Civil. iii. 41-75.) It is a pity that
      Quintus Icilius (M. Guichard) did not live to analyze these
      operations, as he has done the campaigns of Africa and Spain.]

      Against the advice of his wisest captains, Alexius resolved to
      risk the event of a general action, and exhorted the garrison of
      Durazzo to assist their own deliverance by a well-timed sally
      from the town. He marched in two columns to surprise the Normans
      before daybreak on two different sides: his light cavalry was
      scattered over the plain; the archers formed the second line; and
      the Varangians claimed the honors of the vanguard. In the first
      onset, the battle-axes of the strangers made a deep and bloody
      impression on the army of Guiscard, which was now reduced to
      fifteen thousand men. The Lombards and Calabrians ignominiously
      turned their backs; they fled towards the river and the sea; but
      the bridge had been broken down to check the sally of the
      garrison, and the coast was lined with the Venetian galleys, who
      played their engines among the disorderly throng. On the verge of
      ruin, they were saved by the spirit and conduct of their chiefs.
      Gaita, the wife of Robert, is painted by the Greeks as a warlike
      Amazon, a second Pallas; less skilful in arts, but not less
      terrible in arms, than the Athenian goddess: 73 though wounded by
      an arrow, she stood her ground, and strove, by her exhortation
      and example, to rally the flying troops. 74 Her female voice was
      seconded by the more powerful voice and arm of the Norman duke,
      as calm in action as he was magnanimous in council: “Whither,” he
      cried aloud, “whither do ye fly? Your enemy is implacable; and
      death is less grievous than servitude.” The moment was decisive:
      as the Varangians advanced before the line, they discovered the
      nakedness of their flanks: the main battle of the duke, of eight
      hundred knights, stood firm and entire; they couched their
      lances, and the Greeks bore the furious and irresistible shock of
      the French cavalry. 75 Alexius was not deficient in the duties of
      a soldier or a general; but he no sooner beheld the slaughter of
      the Varangians, and the flight of the Turks, than he despised his
      subjects, and despaired of his fortune. The princess Anne, who
      drops a tear on this melancholy event, is reduced to praise the
      strength and swiftness of her father’s horse, and his vigorous
      struggle when he was almost overthrown by the stroke of a lance,
      which had shivered the Imperial helmet. His desperate valor broke
      through a squadron of Franks who opposed his flight; and after
      wandering two days and as many nights in the mountains, he found
      some repose, of body, though not of mind, in the walls of
      Lychnidus. The victorious Robert reproached the tardy and feeble
      pursuit which had suffered the escape of so illustrious a prize:
      but he consoled his disappointment by the trophies and standards
      of the field, the wealth and luxury of the Byzantine camp, and
      the glory of defeating an army five times more numerous than his
      own. A multitude of Italians had been the victims of their own
      fears; but only thirty of his knights were slain in this
      memorable day. In the Roman host, the loss of Greeks, Turks, and
      English, amounted to five or six thousand: 76 the plain of
      Durazzo was stained with noble and royal blood; and the end of
      the impostor Michael was more honorable than his life.

      73 (return) [ It is very properly translated by the President
      Cousin, (Hist. de Constantinople, tom. iv. p. 131, in 12mo.,) qui
      combattoit comme une Pallas, quoiqu’elle ne fut pas aussi savante
      que celle d’Athenes. The Grecian goddess was composed of two
      discordant characters, of Neith, the workwoman of Sais in Egypt,
      and of a virgin Amazon of the Tritonian lake in Libya, (Banier,
      Mythologie, tom. iv. p. 1-31, in 12mo.)]

      74 (return) [ Anna Comnena (l. iv. p. 116) admires, with some
      degree of terror, her masculine virtues. They were more familiar
      to the Latins and though the Apulian (l. iv. p. 273) mentions her
      presence and her wound, he represents her as far less intrepid.
      Uxor in hoc bello Roberti forte sagitta

     Quadam laesa fuit: quo vulnere territa nullam.
     Dum sperabat opem, se poene subegerat hosti.

      The last is an unlucky word for a female prisoner.]

      75 (return) [ (Anna, l. v. p. 133;) and elsewhere, (p. 140.) The
      pedantry of the princess in the choice of classic appellations
      encouraged Ducange to apply to his countrymen the characters of
      the ancient Gauls.]

      76 (return) [ Lupus Protospata (tom. iii. p. 45) says 6000:
      William the Apulian more than 5000, (l. iv. p. 273.) Their
      modesty is singular and laudable: they might with so little
      trouble have slain two or three myriads of schismatics and
      infidels!]

      It is more than probable that Guiscard was not afflicted by the
      loss of a costly pageant, which had merited only the contempt and
      derision of the Greeks. After their defeat, they still persevered
      in the defence of Durazzo; and a Venetian commander supplied the
      place of George Palaeologus, who had been imprudently called away
      from his station. The tents of the besiegers were converted into
      barracks, to sustain the inclemency of the winter; and in answer
      to the defiance of the garrison, Robert insinuated, that his
      patience was at least equal to their obstinacy. 77 Perhaps he
      already trusted to his secret correspondence with a Venetian
      noble, who sold the city for a rich and honorable marriage. At
      the dead of night, several rope-ladders were dropped from the
      walls; the light Calabrians ascended in silence; and the Greeks
      were awakened by the name and trumpets of the conqueror. Yet they
      defended the streets three days against an enemy already master
      of the rampart; and near seven months elapsed between the first
      investment and the final surrender of the place. From Durazzo,
      the Norman duke advanced into the heart of Epirus or Albania;
      traversed the first mountains of Thessaly; surprised three
      hundred English in the city of Castoria; approached Thessalonica;
      and made Constantinople tremble. A more pressing duty suspended
      the prosecution of his ambitious designs. By shipwreck,
      pestilence, and the sword, his army was reduced to a third of the
      original numbers; and instead of being recruited from Italy, he
      was informed, by plaintive epistles, of the mischiefs and dangers
      which had been produced by his absence: the revolt of the cities
      and barons of Apulia; the distress of the pope; and the approach
      or invasion of Henry king of Germany. Highly presuming that his
      person was sufficient for the public safety, he repassed the sea
      in a single brigantine, and left the remains of the army under
      the command of his son and the Norman counts, exhorting Bohemond
      to respect the freedom of his peers, and the counts to obey the
      authority of their leader. The son of Guiscard trod in the
      footsteps of his father; and the two destroyers are compared, by
      the Greeks, to the caterpillar and the locust, the last of whom
      devours whatever has escaped the teeth of the former. 78 After
      winning two battles against the emperor, he descended into the
      plain of Thessaly, and besieged Larissa, the fabulous realm of
      Achilles, 79 which contained the treasure and magazines of the
      Byzantine camp. Yet a just praise must not be refused to the
      fortitude and prudence of Alexius, who bravely struggled with the
      calamities of the times. In the poverty of the state, he presumed
      to borrow the superfluous ornaments of the churches: the
      desertion of the Manichaeans was supplied by some tribes of
      Moldavia: a reenforcement of seven thousand Turks replaced and
      revenged the loss of their brethren; and the Greek soldiers were
      exercised to ride, to draw the bow, and to the daily practice of
      ambuscades and evolutions. Alexius had been taught by experience,
      that the formidable cavalry of the Franks on foot was unfit for
      action, and almost incapable of motion; 80 his archers were
      directed to aim their arrows at the horse rather than the man;
      and a variety of spikes and snares were scattered over the ground
      on which he might expect an attack. In the neighborhood of
      Larissa the events of war were protracted and balanced. The
      courage of Bohemond was always conspicuous, and often successful;
      but his camp was pillaged by a stratagem of the Greeks; the city
      was impregnable; and the venal or discontented counts deserted
      his standard, betrayed their trusts, and enlisted in the service
      of the emperor. Alexius returned to Constantinople with the
      advantage, rather than the honor, of victory. After evacuating
      the conquests which he could no longer defend, the son of
      Guiscard embarked for Italy, and was embraced by a father who
      esteemed his merit, and sympathized in his misfortune.

      77 (return) [ The Romans had changed the inauspicious name of
      Epidamnus to Dyrrachium, (Plin. iii. 26;) and the vulgar
      corruption of Duracium (see Malaterra) bore some affinity to
      hardness. One of Robert’s names was Durand, a durando: poor wit!
      (Alberic. Monach. in Chron. apud Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom.
      ix. p. 137.)]

      78 (return) [ (Anna, l. i. p. 35.) By these similes, so different
      from those of Homer she wishes to inspire contempt as well as
      horror for the little noxious animal, a conqueror. Most
      unfortunately, the common sense, or common nonsense, of mankind,
      resists her laudable design.]

      79 (return) [ Prodiit hac auctor Trojanae cladis Achilles. The
      supposition of the Apulian (l. v. p. 275) may be excused by the
      more classic poetry of Virgil, (Aeneid. ii. 197,) Larissaeus
      Achilles, but it is not justified by the geography of Homer.]

      80 (return) [ The items which encumbered the knights on foot,
      have been ignorantly translated spurs, (Anna Comnena, Alexias, l.
      v. p. 140.) Ducange has explained the true sense by a ridiculous
      and inconvenient fashion, which lasted from the xith to the xvth
      century. These peaks, in the form of a scorpion, were sometimes
      two feet and fastened to the knee with a silver chain.]




      Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part IV.

      Of the Latin princes, the allies of Alexius and enemies of
      Robert, the most prompt and powerful was Henry the Third or
      Fourth, king of Germany and Italy, and future emperor of the
      West. The epistle of the Greek monarch 81 to his brother is
      filled with the warmest professions of friendship, and the most
      lively desire of strengthening their alliance by every public and
      private tie. He congratulates Henry on his success in a just and
      pious war; and complains that the prosperity of his own empire is
      disturbed by the audacious enterprises of the Norman Robert. The
      lists of his presents expresses the manners of the age—a radiated
      crown of gold, a cross set with pearls to hang on the breast, a
      case of relics, with the names and titles of the saints, a vase
      of crystal, a vase of sardonyx, some balm, most probably of
      Mecca, and one hundred pieces of purple. To these he added a more
      solid present, of one hundred and forty-four thousand Byzantines
      of gold, with a further assurance of two hundred and sixteen
      thousand, so soon as Henry should have entered in arms the
      Apulian territories, and confirmed by an oath the league against
      the common enemy. The German, 82 who was already in Lombardy at
      the head of an army and a faction, accepted these liberal offers,
      and marched towards the south: his speed was checked by the sound
      of the battle of Durazzo; but the influence of his arms, or name,
      in the hasty return of Robert, was a full equivalent for the
      Grecian bribe. Henry was the severe adversary of the Normans, the
      allies and vassals of Gregory the Seventh, his implacable foe.
      The long quarrel of the throne and mitre had been recently
      kindled by the zeal and ambition of that haughty priest: 83 the
      king and the pope had degraded each other; and each had seated a
      rival on the temporal or spiritual throne of his antagonist.
      After the defeat and death of his Swabian rebel, Henry descended
      into Italy, to assume the Imperial crown, and to drive from the
      Vatican the tyrant of the church. 84 But the Roman people adhered
      to the cause of Gregory: their resolution was fortified by
      supplies of men and money from Apulia; and the city was thrice
      ineffectually besieged by the king of Germany. In the fourth year
      he corrupted, as it is said, with Byzantine gold, the nobles of
      Rome, whose estates and castles had been ruined by the war. The
      gates, the bridges, and fifty hostages, were delivered into his
      hands: the anti-pope, Clement the Third, was consecrated in the
      Lateran: the grateful pontiff crowned his protector in the
      Vatican; and the emperor Henry fixed his residence in the
      Capitol, as the lawful successor of Augustus and Charlemagne. The
      ruins of the Septizonium were still defended by the nephew of
      Gregory: the pope himself was invested in the castle of St.
      Angelo; and his last hope was in the courage and fidelity of his
      Norman vassal. Their friendship had been interrupted by some
      reciprocal injuries and complaints; but, on this pressing
      occasion, Guiscard was urged by the obligation of his oath, by
      his interest, more potent than oaths, by the love of fame, and
      his enmity to the two emperors. Unfurling the holy banner, he
      resolved to fly to the relief of the prince of the apostles: the
      most numerous of his armies, six thousand horse, and thirty
      thousand foot, was instantly assembled; and his march from
      Salerno to Rome was animated by the public applause and the
      promise of the divine favor. Henry, invincible in sixty-six
      battles, trembled at his approach; recollected some indispensable
      affairs that required his presence in Lombardy; exhorted the
      Romans to persevere in their allegiance; and hastily retreated
      three days before the entrance of the Normans. In less than three
      years, the son of Tancred of Hauteville enjoyed the glory of
      delivering the pope, and of compelling the two emperors, of the
      East and West, to fly before his victorious arms. 85 But the
      triumph of Robert was clouded by the calamities of Rome. By the
      aid of the friends of Gregory, the walls had been perforated or
      scaled; but the Imperial faction was still powerful and active;
      on the third day, the people rose in a furious tumult; and a
      hasty word of the conqueror, in his defence or revenge, was the
      signal of fire and pillage. 86 The Saracens of Sicily, the
      subjects of Roger, and auxiliaries of his brother, embraced this
      fair occasion of rifling and profaning the holy city of the
      Christians: many thousands of the citizens, in the sight, and by
      the allies, of their spiritual father were exposed to violation,
      captivity, or death; and a spacious quarter of the city, from the
      Lateran to the Coliseum, was consumed by the flames, and devoted
      to perpetual solitude. 87 From a city, where he was now hated,
      and might be no longer feared, Gregory retired to end his days in
      the palace of Salerno. The artful pontiff might flatter the
      vanity of Guiscard with the hope of a Roman or Imperial crown;
      but this dangerous measure, which would have inflamed the
      ambition of the Norman, must forever have alienated the most
      faithful princes of Germany.

      81 (return) [ The epistle itself (Alexias, l. iii. p. 93, 94, 95)
      well deserves to be read. There is one expression which Ducange
      does not understand. I have endeavored to grope out a tolerable
      meaning: The first word is a golden crown; the second is
      explained by Simon Portius, (in Lexico Graeco-Barbar.,) by a
      flash of lightning.]

      82 (return) [ For these general events I must refer to the
      general historians Sigonius, Baronius, Muratori, Mosheim, St.
      Marc, &c.]

      83 (return) [ The lives of Gregory VII. are either legends or
      invectives, (St. Marc, Abrege, tom. iii. p. 235, &c.;) and his
      miraculous or magical performances are alike incredible to a
      modern reader. He will, as usual, find some instruction in Le
      Clerc, (Vie de Hildebrand, Bibliot, ancienne et moderne, tom.
      viii.,) and much amusement in Bayle, (Dictionnaire Critique,
      Gregoire VII.) That pope was undoubtedly a great man, a second
      Athanasius, in a more fortunate age of the church. May I presume
      to add, that the portrait of Athanasius is one of the passages of
      my history (vol. ii. p. 332, &c.) with which I am the least
      dissatisfied? * Note: There is a fair life of Gregory VII. by
      Voigt, (Weimar. 1815,) which has been translated into French. M.
      Villemain, it is understood, has devoted much time to the study
      of this remarkable character, to whom his eloquence may do
      justice. There is much valuable information on the subject in the
      accurate work of Stenzel, Geschichte Deutschlands unter den
      Frankischen Kaisern—the History of Germany under the Emperors of
      the Franconian Race.—M.]

      84 (return) [ Anna, with the rancor of a Greek schismatic, calls
      him (l. i. p. 32,) a pope, or priest, worthy to be spit upon and
      accuses him of scourging, shaving, and perhaps of castrating the
      ambassadors of Henry, (p. 31, 33.) But this outrage is improbable
      and doubtful, (see the sensible preface of Cousin.)]

      85 (return) [

     Sic uno tempore victi
     Sunt terrae Domini duo: rex Alemannicus iste,
         Imperii rector Romani maximus ille.
     Alter ad arma ruens armis superatur; et alter
         Nominis auditi sola formidine cessit.

      It is singular enough, that the Apulian, a Latin, should
      distinguish the Greek as the ruler of the Roman empire, (l. iv.
      p. 274.)]

      86 (return) [ The narrative of Malaterra (l. iii. c. 37, p. 587,
      588) is authentic, circumstantial, and fair. Dux ignem exclamans
      urbe incensa, &c. The Apulian softens the mischief, (inde
      quibusdam aedibus exustis,) which is again exaggerated in some
      partial chronicles, (Muratori, Annali, tom. ix. p. 147.)]

      87 (return) [ After mentioning this devastation, the Jesuit
      Donatus (de Roma veteri et nova, l. iv. c. 8, p. 489) prettily
      adds, Duraret hodieque in Coelio monte, interque ipsum et
      capitolium, miserabilis facies prostrates urbis, nisi in hortorum
      vinetorumque amoenitatem Roma resurrexisset, ut perpetua
      viriditate contegeret vulnera et ruinas suas.]

      The deliverer and scourge of Rome might have indulged himself in
      a season of repose; but in the same year of the flight of the
      German emperor, the indefatigable Robert resumed the design of
      his eastern conquests. The zeal or gratitude of Gregory had
      promised to his valor the kingdoms of Greece and Asia; 88 his
      troops were assembled in arms, flushed with success, and eager
      for action. Their numbers, in the language of Homer, are compared
      by Anna to a swarm of bees; 89 yet the utmost and moderate limits
      of the powers of Guiscard have been already defined; they were
      contained on this second occasion in one hundred and twenty
      vessels; and as the season was far advanced, the harbor of
      Brundusium 90 was preferred to the open road of Otranto. Alexius,
      apprehensive of a second attack, had assiduously labored to
      restore the naval forces of the empire; and obtained from the
      republic of Venice an important succor of thirty-six transports,
      fourteen galleys, and nine galiots or ships of extra-ordinary
      strength and magnitude. Their services were liberally paid by the
      license or monopoly of trade, a profitable gift of many shops and
      houses in the port of Constantinople, and a tribute to St. Mark,
      the more acceptable, as it was the produce of a tax on their
      rivals at Amalphi. By the union of the Greeks and Venetians, the
      Adriatic was covered with a hostile fleet; but their own neglect,
      or the vigilance of Robert, the change of a wind, or the shelter
      of a mist, opened a free passage; and the Norman troops were
      safely disembarked on the coast of Epirus. With twenty strong and
      well-appointed galleys, their intrepid duke immediately sought
      the enemy, and though more accustomed to fight on horseback, he
      trusted his own life, and the lives of his brother and two sons,
      to the event of a naval combat. The dominion of the sea was
      disputed in three engagements, in sight of the Isle of Corfu: in
      the two former, the skill and numbers of the allies were
      superior; but in the third, the Normans obtained a final and
      complete victory. 91 The light brigantines of the Greeks were
      scattered in ignominious flight: the nine castles of the
      Venetians maintained a more obstinate conflict; seven were sunk,
      two were taken; two thousand five hundred captives implored in
      vain the mercy of the victor; and the daughter of Alexius
      deplores the loss of thirteen thousand of his subjects or allies.
      The want of experience had been supplied by the genius of
      Guiscard; and each evening, when he had sounded a retreat, he
      calmly explored the causes of his repulse, and invented new
      methods how to remedy his own defects, and to baffle the
      advantages of the enemy. The winter season suspended his
      progress: with the return of spring he again aspired to the
      conquest of Constantinople; but, instead of traversing the hills
      of Epirus, he turned his arms against Greece and the islands,
      where the spoils would repay the labor, and where the land and
      sea forces might pursue their joint operations with vigor and
      effect. But, in the Isle of Cephalonia, his projects were fatally
      blasted by an epidemical disease: Robert himself, in the
      seventieth year of his age, expired in his tent; and a suspicion
      of poison was imputed, by public rumor, to his wife, or to the
      Greek emperor. 92 This premature death might allow a boundless
      scope for the imagination of his future exploits; and the event
      sufficiently declares, that the Norman greatness was founded on
      his life. 93 Without the appearance of an enemy, a victorious
      army dispersed or retreated in disorder and consternation; and
      Alexius, who had trembled for his empire, rejoiced in his
      deliverance. The galley which transported the remains of Guiscard
      was ship-wrecked on the Italian shore; but the duke’s body was
      recovered from the sea, and deposited in the sepulchre of
      Venusia, 94 a place more illustrious for the birth of Horace 95
      than for the burial of the Norman heroes. Roger, his second son
      and successor, immediately sunk to the humble station of a duke
      of Apulia: the esteem or partiality of his father left the
      valiant Bohemond to the inheritance of his sword.

      The national tranquillity was disturbed by his claims, till the
      first crusade against the infidels of the East opened a more
      splendid field of glory and conquest. 96

      88 (return) [ The royalty of Robert, either promised or bestowed
      by the pope, (Anna, l. i. p. 32,) is sufficiently confirmed by
      the Apulian, (l. iv. p. 270.) —Romani regni sibi promisisse
      coronam Papa ferebatur. Nor can I understand why Gretser, and the
      other papal advocates, should be displeased with this new
      instance of apostolic jurisdiction.]

      89 (return) [ See Homer, Iliad, B. (I hate this pedantic mode of
      quotation by letters of the Greek alphabet) 87, &c. His bees are
      the image of a disorderly crowd: their discipline and public
      works seem to be the ideas of a later age, (Virgil. Aeneid. l.
      i.)]

      90 (return) [ Gulielm. Appulus, l. v. p. 276.) The admirable port
      of Brundusium was double; the outward harbor was a gulf covered
      by an island, and narrowing by degrees, till it communicated by a
      small gullet with the inner harbor, which embraced the city on
      both sides. Caesar and nature have labored for its ruin; and
      against such agents what are the feeble efforts of the Neapolitan
      government? (Swinburne’s Travels in the Two Sicilies, vol. i. p.
      384-390.]

      91 (return) [ William of Apulia (l. v. p. 276) describes the
      victory of the Normans, and forgets the two previous defeats,
      which are diligently recorded by Anna Comnena, (l. vi. p. 159,
      160, 161.) In her turn, she invents or magnifies a fourth action,
      to give the Venetians revenge and rewards. Their own feelings
      were far different, since they deposed their doge, propter
      excidium stoli, (Dandulus in Chron in Muratori, Script. Rerum
      Italicarum, tom. xii. p. 249.)]

      92 (return) [ The most authentic writers, William of Apulia. (l.
      v. 277,) Jeffrey Malaterra, (l. iii. c. 41, p. 589,) and Romuald
      of Salerno, (Chron. in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. vii.,)
      are ignorant of this crime, so apparent to our countrymen William
      of Malmsbury (l. iii. p. 107) and Roger de Hoveden, (p. 710, in
      Script. post Bedam) and the latter can tell, how the just Alexius
      married, crowned, and burnt alive, his female accomplice. The
      English historian is indeed so blind, that he ranks Robert
      Guiscard, or Wiscard, among the knights of Henry I, who ascended
      the throne fifteen years after the duke of Apulia’s death.]

      93 (return) [ The joyful Anna Comnena scatters some flowers over
      the grave of an enemy, (Alexiad, l. v. p. 162-166;) and his best
      praise is the esteem and envy of William the Conqueror, the
      sovereign of his family Graecia (says Malaterra) hostibus
      recedentibus libera laeta quievit: Apulia tota sive Calabria
      turbatur.]

      94 (return) [ Urbs Venusina nitet tantis decorata sepulchris, is
      one of the last lines of the Apulian’s poems, (l. v. p. 278.)
      William of Malmsbury (l. iii. p. 107) inserts an epitaph on
      Guiscard, which is not worth transcribing.]

      95 (return) [ Yet Horace had few obligations to Venusia; he was
      carried to Rome in his childhood, (Serm. i. 6;) and his repeated
      allusions to the doubtful limit of Apulia and Lucania (Carm. iii.
      4, Serm. ii. I) are unworthy of his age and genius.]

      96 (return) [ See Giannone (tom. ii. p. 88-93) and the historians
      of the fire crusade.]

      Of human life, the most glorious or humble prospects are alike
      and soon bounded by the sepulchre. The male line of Robert
      Guiscard was extinguished, both in Apulia and at Antioch, in the
      second generation; but his younger brother became the father of a
      line of kings; and the son of the great count was endowed with
      the name, the conquests, and the spirit, of the first Roger. 97
      The heir of that Norman adventurer was born in Sicily; and, at
      the age of only four years, he succeeded to the sovereignty of
      the island, a lot which reason might envy, could she indulge for
      a moment the visionary, though virtuous wish of dominion. Had
      Roger been content with his fruitful patrimony, a happy and
      grateful people might have blessed their benefactor; and if a
      wise administration could have restored the prosperous times of
      the Greek colonies, 98 the opulence and power of Sicily alone
      might have equalled the widest scope that could be acquired and
      desolated by the sword of war. But the ambition of the great
      count was ignorant of these noble pursuits; it was gratified by
      the vulgar means of violence and artifice. He sought to obtain
      the undivided possession of Palermo, of which one moiety had been
      ceded to the elder branch; struggled to enlarge his Calabrian
      limits beyond the measure of former treaties; and impatiently
      watched the declining health of his cousin William of Apulia, the
      grandson of Robert. On the first intelligence of his premature
      death, Roger sailed from Palermo with seven galleys, cast anchor
      in the Bay of Salerno, received, after ten days’ negotiation, an
      oath of fidelity from the Norman capital, commanded the
      submission of the barons, and extorted a legal investiture from
      the reluctant popes, who could not long endure either the
      friendship or enmity of a powerful vassal. The sacred spot of
      Benevento was respectfully spared, as the patrimony of St. Peter;
      but the reduction of Capua and Naples completed the design of his
      uncle Guiscard; and the sole inheritance of the Norman conquests
      was possessed by the victorious Roger. A conscious superiority of
      power and merit prompted him to disdain the titles of duke and of
      count; and the Isle of Sicily, with a third perhaps of the
      continent of Italy, might form the basis of a kingdom 99 which
      would only yield to the monarchies of France and England. The
      chiefs of the nation who attended his coronation at Palermo might
      doubtless pronounce under what name he should reign over them;
      but the example of a Greek tyrant or a Saracen emir was
      insufficient to justify his regal character; and the nine kings
      of the Latin world 100 might disclaim their new associate, unless
      he were consecrated by the authority of the supreme pontiff. The
      pride of Anacletus was pleased to confer a title, which the pride
      of the Norman had stooped to solicit; 101 but his own legitimacy
      was attacked by the adverse election of Innocent the Second; and
      while Anacletus sat in the Vatican, the successful fugitive was
      acknowledged by the nations of Europe. The infant monarchy of
      Roger was shaken, and almost overthrown, by the unlucky choice of
      an ecclesiastical patron; and the sword of Lothaire the Second of
      Germany, the excommunications of Innocent, the fleets of Pisa,
      and the zeal of St. Bernard, were united for the ruin of the
      Sicilian robber. After a gallant resistance, the Norman prince
      was driven from the continent of Italy: a new duke of Apulia was
      invested by the pope and the emperor, each of whom held one end
      of the gonfanon, or flagstaff, as a token that they asserted
      their right, and suspended their quarrel. But such jealous
      friendship was of short and precarious duration: the German
      armies soon vanished in disease and desertion: 102 the Apulian
      duke, with all his adherents, was exterminated by a conqueror who
      seldom forgave either the dead or the living; like his
      predecessor Leo the Ninth, the feeble though haughty pontiff
      became the captive and friend of the Normans; and their
      reconciliation was celebrated by the eloquence of Bernard, who
      now revered the title and virtues of the king of Sicily.

      97 (return) [ The reign of Roger, and the Norman kings of Sicily,
      fills books of the Istoria Civile of Giannone, (tom. ii. l.
      xi.-xiv. p. 136-340,) and is spread over the ixth and xth volumes
      of the Italian Annals of Muratori. In the Bibliotheque Italique
      (tom. i. p. 175-122,) I find a useful abstract of Capacelatro, a
      modern Neapolitan, who has composed, in two volumes, the history
      of his country from Roger Frederic II. inclusive.]

      98 (return) [ According to the testimony of Philistus and
      Diodorus, the tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse could maintain a
      standing force of 10,000 horse, 100,000 foot, and 400 galleys.
      Compare Hume, (Essays, vol. i. p. 268, 435,) and his adversary
      Wallace, (Numbers of Mankind, p. 306, 307.) The ruins of
      Agrigentum are the theme of every traveller, D’Orville, Reidesel,
      Swinburne, &c.]

      99 (return) [ A contemporary historian of the acts of Roger from
      the year 1127 to 1135, founds his title on merit and power, the
      consent of the barons, and the ancient royalty of Sicily and
      Palermo, without introducing Pope Anacletus, (Alexand. Coenobii
      Telesini Abbatis de Rebus gestis Regis Rogerii, lib. iv. in
      Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. v. p. 607-645)]

      100 (return) [ The kings of France, England, Scotland, Castille,
      Arragon, Navarre, Sweden, Denmark, and Hungary. The three first
      were more ancient than Charlemagne; the three next were created
      by their sword; the three last by their baptism; and of these the
      king of Hungary alone was honored or debased by a papal crown.]

      101 (return) [ Fazellus, and a crowd of Sicilians, had imagined a
      more early and independent coronation, (A.D. 1130, May 1,) which
      Giannone unwillingly rejects, (tom. ii. p. 137-144.) This fiction
      is disproved by the silence of contemporaries; nor can it be
      restored by a spurious character of Messina, (Muratori, Annali d’
      Italia, tom. ix. p. 340. Pagi, Critica, tom. iv. p. 467, 468.)]

      102 (return) [ Roger corrupted the second person of Lothaire’s
      army, who sounded, or rather cried, a retreat; for the Germans
      (says Cinnamus, l. iii. c. i. p. 51) are ignorant of the use of
      trumpets. Most ignorant himself! * Note: Cinnamus says nothing of
      their ignorance.—M]

      As a penance for his impious war against the successor of St.
      Peter, that monarch might have promised to display the banner of
      the cross, and he accomplished with ardor a vow so propitious to
      his interest and revenge. The recent injuries of Sicily might
      provoke a just retaliation on the heads of the Saracens: the
      Normans, whose blood had been mingled with so many subject
      streams, were encouraged to remember and emulate the naval
      trophies of their fathers, and in the maturity of their strength
      they contended with the decline of an African power. When the
      Fatimite caliph departed for the conquest of Egypt, he rewarded
      the real merit and apparent fidelity of his servant Joseph with a
      gift of his royal mantle, and forty Arabian horses, his palace
      with its sumptuous furniture, and the government of the kingdoms
      of Tunis and Algiers. The Zeirides, 103 the descendants of
      Joseph, forgot their allegiance and gratitude to a distant
      benefactor, grasped and abused the fruits of prosperity; and
      after running the little course of an Oriental dynasty, were now
      fainting in their own weakness. On the side of the land, they
      were pressed by the Almohades, the fanatic princes of Morocco,
      while the sea-coast was open to the enterprises of the Greeks and
      Franks, who, before the close of the eleventh century, had
      extorted a ransom of two hundred thousand pieces of gold. By the
      first arms of Roger, the island or rock of Malta, which has been
      since ennobled by a military and religious colony, was
      inseparably annexed to the crown of Sicily. Tripoli, 104 a strong
      and maritime city, was the next object of his attack; and the
      slaughter of the males, the captivity of the females, might be
      justified by the frequent practice of the Moslems themselves. The
      capital of the Zeirides was named Africa from the country, and
      Mahadia 105 from the Arabian founder: it is strongly built on a
      neck of land, but the imperfection of the harbor is not
      compensated by the fertility of the adjacent plain. Mahadia was
      besieged by George the Sicilian admiral, with a fleet of one
      hundred and fifty galleys, amply provided with men and the
      instruments of mischief: the sovereign had fled, the Moorish
      governor refused to capitulate, declined the last and
      irresistible assault, and secretly escaping with the Moslem
      inhabitants abandoned the place and its treasures to the
      rapacious Franks. In successive expeditions, the king of Sicily
      or his lieutenants reduced the cities of Tunis, Safax, Capsia,
      Bona, and a long tract of the sea-coast; 106 the fortresses were
      garrisoned, the country was tributary, and a boast that it held
      Africa in subjection might be inscribed with some flattery on the
      sword of Roger. 107 After his death, that sword was broken; and
      these transmarine possessions were neglected, evacuated, or lost,
      under the troubled reign of his successor. 108 The triumphs of
      Scipio and Belisarius have proved, that the African continent is
      neither inaccessible nor invincible; yet the great princes and
      powers of Christendom have repeatedly failed in their armaments
      against the Moors, who may still glory in the easy conquest and
      long servitude of Spain.

      103 (return) [ See De Guignes, Hist. Generate des Huns, tom. i.
      p. 369-373 and Cardonne, Hist. de l’Afrique, &c., sous la
      Domination des Arabes tom. ii. p. 70-144. Their common original
      appears to be Novairi.]

      104 (return) [ Tripoli (says the Nubian geographer, or more
      properly the Sherif al Edrisi) urbs fortis, saxeo muro vallata,
      sita prope littus maris Hanc expugnavit Rogerius, qui mulieribus
      captivis ductis, viros pere mit.]

      105 (return) [ See the geography of Leo Africanus, (in Ramusio
      tom. i. fol. 74 verso. fol. 75, recto,) and Shaw’s Travels, (p.
      110,) the viith book of Thuanus, and the xith of the Abbe de
      Vertot. The possession and defence of the place was offered by
      Charles V. and wisely declined by the knights of Malta.]

      106 (return) [ Pagi has accurately marked the African conquests
      of Roger and his criticism was supplied by his friend the Abbe de
      Longuerue with some Arabic memorials, (A.D. 1147, No. 26, 27,
      A.D. 1148, No. 16, A.D. 1153, No. 16.)]

      107 (return) [ Appulus et Calaber, Siculus mihi servit et Afer. A
      proud inscription, which denotes, that the Norman conquerors were
      still discriminated from their Christian and Moslem subjects.]

      108 (return) [ Hugo Falcandus (Hist. Sicula, in Muratori, Script.
      tom. vii. p. 270, 271) ascribes these losses to the neglect or
      treachery of the admiral Majo.]

      Since the decease of Robert Guiscard, the Normans had
      relinquished, above sixty years, their hostile designs against
      the empire of the East. The policy of Roger solicited a public
      and private union with the Greek princes, whose alliance would
      dignify his regal character: he demanded in marriage a daughter
      of the Comnenian family, and the first steps of the treaty seemed
      to promise a favorable event. But the contemptuous treatment of
      his ambassadors exasperated the vanity of the new monarch; and
      the insolence of the Byzantine court was expiated, according to
      the laws of nations, by the sufferings of a guiltless people. 109
      With the fleet of seventy galleys, George, the admiral of Sicily,
      appeared before Corfu; and both the island and city were
      delivered into his hands by the disaffected inhabitants, who had
      yet to learn that a siege is still more calamitous than a
      tribute. In this invasion, of some moment in the annals of
      commerce, the Normans spread themselves by sea, and over the
      provinces of Greece; and the venerable age of Athens, Thebes, and
      Corinth, was violated by rapine and cruelty. Of the wrongs of
      Athens, no memorial remains. The ancient walls, which
      encompassed, without guarding, the opulence of Thebes, were
      scaled by the Latin Christians; but their sole use of the gospel
      was to sanctify an oath, that the lawful owners had not secreted
      any relic of their inheritance or industry. On the approach of
      the Normans, the lower town of Corinth was evacuated; the Greeks
      retired to the citadel, which was seated on a lofty eminence,
      abundantly watered by the classic fountain of Pirene; an
      impregnable fortress, if the want of courage could be balanced by
      any advantages of art or nature. As soon as the besiegers had
      surmounted the labor (their sole labor) of climbing the hill,
      their general, from the commanding eminence, admired his own
      victory, and testified his gratitude to Heaven, by tearing from
      the altar the precious image of Theodore, the tutelary saint. The
      silk weavers of both sexes, whom George transported to Sicily,
      composed the most valuable part of the spoil; and in comparing
      the skilful industry of the mechanic with the sloth and cowardice
      of the soldier, he was heard to exclaim that the distaff and loom
      were the only weapons which the Greeks were capable of using. The
      progress of this naval armament was marked by two conspicuous
      events, the rescue of the king of France, and the insult of the
      Byzantine capital. In his return by sea from an unfortunate
      crusade, Louis the Seventh was intercepted by the Greeks, who
      basely violated the laws of honor and religion. The fortunate
      encounter of the Norman fleet delivered the royal captive; and
      after a free and honorable entertainment in the court of Sicily,
      Louis continued his journey to Rome and Paris. 110 In the absence
      of the emperor, Constantinople and the Hellespont were left
      without defence and without the suspicion of danger. The clergy
      and people (for the soldiers had followed the standard of Manuel)
      were astonished and dismayed at the hostile appearance of a line
      of galleys, which boldly cast anchor in the front of the Imperial
      city. The forces of the Sicilian admiral were inadequate to the
      siege or assault of an immense and populous metropolis; but
      George enjoyed the glory of humbling the Greek arrogance, and of
      marking the path of conquest to the navies of the West. He landed
      some soldiers to rifle the fruits of the royal gardens, and
      pointed with silver, or most probably with fire, the arrows which
      he discharged against the palace of the Caesars. 111 This playful
      outrage of the pirates of Sicily, who had surprised an unguarded
      moment, Manuel affected to despise, while his martial spirit, and
      the forces of the empire, were awakened to revenge. The
      Archipelago and Ionian Sea were covered with his squadrons and
      those of Venice; but I know not by what favorable allowance of
      transports, victuallers, and pinnaces, our reason, or even our
      fancy, can be reconciled to the stupendous account of fifteen
      hundred vessels, which is proposed by a Byzantine historian.
      These operations were directed with prudence and energy: in his
      homeward voyage George lost nineteen of his galleys, which were
      separated and taken: after an obstinate defence, Corfu implored
      the clemency of her lawful sovereign; nor could a ship, a
      soldier, of the Norman prince, be found, unless as a captive,
      within the limits of the Eastern empire. The prosperity and the
      health of Roger were already in a declining state: while he
      listened in his palace of Palermo to the messengers of victory or
      defeat, the invincible Manuel, the foremost in every assault, was
      celebrated by the Greeks and Latins as the Alexander or the
      Hercules of the age.

      109 (return) [ The silence of the Sicilian historians, who end
      too soon, or begin too late, must be supplied by Otho of
      Frisingen, a German, (de Gestis Frederici I. l. i. c. 33, in
      Muratori, Script. tom. vi. p. 668,) the Venetian Andrew Dandulus,
      (Id. tom. xii. p. 282, 283) and the Greek writers Cinnamus (l.
      iii. c. 2-5) and Nicetas, (in Manuel. l. iii. c. 1-6.)]

      110 (return) [ To this imperfect capture and speedy rescue I
      apply Cinnamus, l. ii. c. 19, p. 49. Muratori, on tolerable
      evidence, (Annali d’Italia, tom. ix. p. 420, 421,) laughs at the
      delicacy of the French, who maintain, marisque nullo impediente
      periculo ad regnum proprium reversum esse; yet I observe that
      their advocate, Ducange, is less positive as the commentator on
      Cinnamus, than as the editor of Joinville.]

      111 (return) [ In palatium regium sagittas igneas injecit, says
      Dandulus; but Nicetas (l. ii. c. 8, p. 66) transforms them, and
      adds, that Manuel styled this insult. These arrows, by the
      compiler, Vincent de Beauvais, are again transmuted into gold.]




      Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part V.

      A prince of such a temper could not be satisfied with having
      repelled the insolence of a Barbarian. It was the right and duty,
      it might be the interest and glory, of Manuel to restore the
      ancient majesty of the empire, to recover the provinces of Italy
      and Sicily, and to chastise this pretended king, the grandson of
      a Norman vassal. 112 The natives of Calabria were still attached
      to the Greek language and worship, which had been inexorably
      proscribed by the Latin clergy: after the loss of her dukes,
      Apulia was chained as a servile appendage to the crown of Sicily;
      the founder of the monarchy had ruled by the sword; and his death
      had abated the fear, without healing the discontent, of his
      subjects: the feudal government was always pregnant with the
      seeds of rebellion; and a nephew of Roger himself invited the
      enemies of his family and nation. The majesty of the purple, and
      a series of Hungarian and Turkish wars, prevented Manuel from
      embarking his person in the Italian expedition. To the brave and
      noble Palaeologus, his lieutenant, the Greek monarch intrusted a
      fleet and army: the siege of Bari was his first exploit; and, in
      every operation, gold as well as steel was the instrument of
      victory. Salerno, and some places along the western coast,
      maintained their fidelity to the Norman king; but he lost in two
      campaigns the greater part of his continental possessions; and
      the modest emperor, disdaining all flattery and falsehood, was
      content with the reduction of three hundred cities or villages of
      Apulia and Calabria, whose names and titles were inscribed on all
      the walls of the palace. The prejudices of the Latins were
      gratified by a genuine or fictitious donation under the seal of
      the German Caesars; 113 but the successor of Constantine soon
      renounced this ignominious pretence, claimed the indefeasible
      dominion of Italy, and professed his design of chasing the
      Barbarians beyond the Alps. By the artful speeches, liberal
      gifts, and unbounded promises, of their Eastern ally, the free
      cities were encouraged to persevere in their generous struggle
      against the despotism of Frederic Barbarossa: the walls of Milan
      were rebuilt by the contributions of Manuel; and he poured, says
      the historian, a river of gold into the bosom of Ancona, whose
      attachment to the Greeks was fortified by the jealous enmity of
      the Venetians. 114 The situation and trade of Ancona rendered it
      an important garrison in the heart of Italy: it was twice
      besieged by the arms of Frederic; the imperial forces were twice
      repulsed by the spirit of freedom; that spirit was animated by
      the ambassador of Constantinople; and the most intrepid patriots,
      the most faithful servants, were rewarded by the wealth and
      honors of the Byzantine court. 115 The pride of Manuel disdained
      and rejected a Barbarian colleague; his ambition was excited by
      the hope of stripping the purple from the German usurpers, and of
      establishing, in the West, as in the East, his lawful title of
      sole emperor of the Romans. With this view, he solicited the
      alliance of the people and the bishop of Rome. Several of the
      nobles embraced the cause of the Greek monarch; the splendid
      nuptials of his niece with Odo Frangipani secured the support of
      that powerful family, 116 and his royal standard or image was
      entertained with due reverence in the ancient metropolis. 117
      During the quarrel between Frederic and Alexander the Third, the
      pope twice received in the Vatican the ambassadors of
      Constantinople. They flattered his piety by the long-promised
      union of the two churches, tempted the avarice of his venal
      court, and exhorted the Roman pontiff to seize the just
      provocation, the favorable moment, to humble the savage insolence
      of the Alemanni and to acknowledge the true representative of
      Constantine and Augustus. 118

      112 (return) [ For the invasion of Italy, which is almost
      overlooked by Nicetas see the more polite history of Cinnamus,
      (l. iv. c. 1-15, p. 78-101,) who introduces a diffuse narrative
      by a lofty profession, iii. 5.]

      113 (return) [ The Latin, Otho, (de Gestis Frederici I. l. ii. c.
      30, p. 734,) attests the forgery; the Greek, Cinnamus, (l. iv. c.
      1, p. 78,) claims a promise of restitution from Conrad and
      Frederic. An act of fraud is always credible when it is told of
      the Greeks.]

      114 (return) [ Quod Ancontiani Graecum imperium nimis diligerent
      ... Veneti speciali odio Anconam oderunt. The cause of love,
      perhaps of envy, were the beneficia, flumen aureum of the
      emperor; and the Latin narrative is confirmed by Cinnamus, (l.
      iv. c. 14, p. 98.)]

      115 (return) [ Muratori mentions the two sieges of Ancona; the
      first, in 1167, against Frederic I. in person (Annali, tom. x. p.
      39, &c.;) the second, in 1173, against his lieutenant Christian,
      archbishop of Mentz, a man unworthy of his name and office, (p.
      76, &c.) It is of the second siege that we possess an original
      narrative, which he has published in his great collection, (tom.
      vi. p. 921-946.)]

      116 (return) [ We derive this anecdote from an anonymous
      chronicle of Fossa Nova, published by Muratori, (Script. Ital.
      tom. vii. p. 874.)]

      117 (return) [ Cinnamus (l. iv. c. 14, p. 99) is susceptible of
      this double sense. A standard is more Latin, an image more
      Greek.]

      118 (return) [ Nihilominus quoque petebat, ut quia occasio justa
      et tempos opportunum et acceptabile se obtulerant, Romani corona
      imperii a sancto apostolo sibi redderetur; quoniam non ad
      Frederici Alemanni, sed ad suum jus asseruit pertinere, (Vit.
      Alexandri III. a Cardinal. Arragoniae, in Script. Rerum Ital.
      tom. iii. par. i. p. 458.) His second embassy was accompanied cum
      immensa multitudine pecuniarum.]

      But these Italian conquests, this universal reign, soon escaped
      from the hand of the Greek emperor. His first demands were eluded
      by the prudence of Alexander the Third, who paused on this deep
      and momentous revolution; 119 nor could the pope be seduced by a
      personal dispute to renounce the perpetual inheritance of the
      Latin name. After the reunion with Frederic, he spoke a more
      peremptory language, confirmed the acts of his predecessors,
      excommunicated the adherents of Manuel, and pronounced the final
      separation of the churches, or at least the empires, of
      Constantinople and Rome. 120 The free cities of Lombardy no
      longer remembered their foreign benefactor, and without
      preserving the friendship of Ancona, he soon incurred the enmity
      of Venice. 121 By his own avarice, or the complaints of his
      subjects, the Greek emperor was provoked to arrest the persons,
      and confiscate the effects, of the Venetian merchants. This
      violation of the public faith exasperated a free and commercial
      people: one hundred galleys were launched and armed in as many
      days; they swept the coasts of Dalmatia and Greece: but after
      some mutual wounds, the war was terminated by an agreement,
      inglorious to the empire, insufficient for the republic; and a
      complete vengeance of these and of fresh injuries was reserved
      for the succeeding generation. The lieutenant of Manuel had
      informed his sovereign that he was strong enough to quell any
      domestic revolt of Apulia and Calabria; but that his forces were
      inadequate to resist the impending attack of the king of Sicily.
      His prophecy was soon verified: the death of Palaeologus devolved
      the command on several chiefs, alike eminent in rank, alike
      defective in military talents; the Greeks were oppressed by land
      and sea; and a captive remnant that escaped the swords of the
      Normans and Saracens, abjured all future hostility against the
      person or dominions of their conqueror. 122 Yet the king of
      Sicily esteemed the courage and constancy of Manuel, who had
      landed a second army on the Italian shore; he respectfully
      addressed the new Justinian; solicited a peace or truce of thirty
      years, accepted as a gift the regal title; and acknowledged
      himself the military vassal of the Roman empire. 123 The
      Byzantine Caesars acquiesced in this shadow of dominion, without
      expecting, perhaps without desiring, the service of a Norman
      army; and the truce of thirty years was not disturbed by any
      hostilities between Sicily and Constantinople. About the end of
      that period, the throne of Manuel was usurped by an inhuman
      tyrant, who had deserved the abhorrence of his country and
      mankind: the sword of William the Second, the grandson of Roger,
      was drawn by a fugitive of the Comnenian race; and the subjects
      of Andronicus might salute the strangers as friends, since they
      detested their sovereign as the worst of enemies. The Latin
      historians 124 expatiate on the rapid progress of the four counts
      who invaded Romania with a fleet and army, and reduced many
      castles and cities to the obedience of the king of Sicily. The
      Greeks 125 accuse and magnify the wanton and sacrilegious
      cruelties that were perpetrated in the sack of Thessalonica, the
      second city of the empire. The former deplore the fate of those
      invincible but unsuspecting warriors who were destroyed by the
      arts of a vanquished foe. The latter applaud, in songs of
      triumph, the repeated victories of their countrymen on the Sea of
      Marmora or Propontis, on the banks of the Strymon, and under the
      walls of Durazzo. A revolution which punished the crimes of
      Andronicus, had united against the Franks the zeal and courage of
      the successful insurgents: ten thousand were slain in battle, and
      Isaac Angelus, the new emperor, might indulge his vanity or
      vengeance in the treatment of four thousand captives. Such was
      the event of the last contest between the Greeks and Normans:
      before the expiration of twenty years, the rival nations were
      lost or degraded in foreign servitude; and the successors of
      Constantine did not long survive to insult the fall of the
      Sicilian monarchy.

      119 (return) [ Nimis alta et perplexa sunt, (Vit. Alexandri III.
      p. 460, 461,) says the cautious pope.]

      120 (return) [ (Cinnamus, l. iv. c. 14, p. 99.)]

      121 (return) [ In his vith book, Cinnamus describes the Venetian
      war, which Nicetas has not thought worthy of his attention. The
      Italian accounts, which do not satisfy our curiosity, are
      reported by the annalist Muratori, under the years 1171, &c.]

      122 (return) [ This victory is mentioned by Romuald of Salerno,
      (in Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. vii. p. 198.) It is whimsical
      enough, that in the praise of the king of Sicily, Cinnamus (l.
      iv. c. 13, p. 97, 98) is much warmer and copious than Falcandus,
      (p. 268, 270.) But the Greek is fond of description, and the
      Latin historian is not fond of William the Bad.]

      123 (return) [ For the epistle of William I. see Cinnamus (l. iv.
      c. 15, p. 101, 102) and Nicetas, (l. ii. c. 8.) It is difficult
      to affirm, whether these Greeks deceived themselves, or the
      public, in these flattering portraits of the grandeur of the
      empire.]

      124 (return) [ I can only quote, of original evidence, the poor
      chronicles of Sicard of Cremona, (p. 603,) and of Fossa Nova, (p.
      875,) as they are published in the viith tome of Muratori’s
      historians. The king of Sicily sent his troops contra nequitiam
      Andronici.... ad acquirendum imperium C. P. They were.... decepti
      captique, by Isaac.]

      125 (return) [ By the failure of Cinnamus to Nicetas (in
      Andronico, l.. c. 7, 8, 9, l. ii. c. 1, in Isaac Angelo, l. i. c.
      1-4,) who now becomes a respectable contemporary. As he survived
      the emperor and the empire, he is above flattery; but the fall of
      Constantinople exasperated his prejudices against the Latins. For
      the honor of learning I shall observe that Homer’s great
      commentator, Eustathias archbishop of Thessalonica, refused to
      desert his flock.]

      The sceptre of Roger successively devolved to his son and
      grandson: they might be confounded under the name of William:
      they are strongly discriminated by the epithets of the bad and
      the good; but these epithets, which appear to describe the
      perfection of vice and virtue, cannot strictly be applied to
      either of the Norman princes. When he was roused to arms by
      danger and shame, the first William did not degenerate from the
      valor of his race; but his temper was slothful; his manners were
      dissolute; his passions headstrong and mischievous; and the
      monarch is responsible, not only for his personal vices, but for
      those of Majo, the great admiral, who abused the confidence, and
      conspired against the life, of his benefactor. From the Arabian
      conquest, Sicily had imbibed a deep tincture of Oriental manners;
      the despotism, the pomp, and even the harem, of a sultan; and a
      Christian people was oppressed and insulted by the ascendant of
      the eunuchs, who openly professed, or secretly cherished, the
      religion of Mahomet. An eloquent historian of the times 126 has
      delineated the misfortunes of his country: 127 the ambition and
      fall of the ungrateful Majo; the revolt and punishment of his
      assassins; the imprisonment and deliverance of the king himself;
      the private feuds that arose from the public confusion; and the
      various forms of calamity and discord which afflicted Palermo,
      the island, and the continent, during the reign of William the
      First, and the minority of his son. The youth, innocence, and
      beauty of William the Second, 128 endeared him to the nation: the
      factions were reconciled; the laws were revived; and from the
      manhood to the premature death of that amiable prince, Sicily
      enjoyed a short season of peace, justice, and happiness, whose
      value was enhanced by the remembrance of the past and the dread
      of futurity. The legitimate male posterity of Tancred of
      Hauteville was extinct in the person of the second William; but
      his aunt, the daughter of Roger, had married the most powerful
      prince of the age; and Henry the Sixth, the son of Frederic
      Barbarossa, descended from the Alps to claim the Imperial crown
      and the inheritance of his wife. Against the unanimous wish of a
      free people, this inheritance could only be acquired by arms; and
      I am pleased to transcribe the style and sense of the historian
      Falcandus, who writes at the moment, and on the spot, with the
      feelings of a patriot, and the prophetic eye of a statesman.
      “Constantia, the daughter of Sicily, nursed from her cradle in
      the pleasures and plenty, and educated in the arts and manners,
      of this fortunate isle, departed long since to enrich the
      Barbarians with our treasures, and now returns, with her savage
      allies, to contaminate the beauties of her venerable parent.
      Already I behold the swarms of angry Barbarians: our opulent
      cities, the places flourishing in a long peace, are shaken with
      fear, desolated by slaughter, consumed by rapine, and polluted by
      intemperance and lust. I see the massacre or captivity of our
      citizens, the rapes of our virgins and matrons. 129 In this
      extremity (he interrogates a friend) how must the Sicilians act?
      By the unanimous election of a king of valor and experience,
      Sicily and Calabria might yet be preserved; 130 for in the levity
      of the Apulians, ever eager for new revolutions, I can repose
      neither confidence nor hope. 131 Should Calabria be lost, the
      lofty towers, the numerous youth, and the naval strength, of
      Messina, 132 might guard the passage against a foreign invader.
      If the savage Germans coalesce with the pirates of Messina; if
      they destroy with fire the fruitful region, so often wasted by
      the fires of Mount Aetna, 133 what resource will be left for the
      interior parts of the island, these noble cities which should
      never be violated by the hostile footsteps of a Barbarian? 134
      Catana has again been overwhelmed by an earthquake: the ancient
      virtue of Syracuse expires in poverty and solitude; 135 but
      Palermo is still crowned with a diadem, and her triple walls
      enclose the active multitudes of Christians and Saracens. If the
      two nations, under one king, can unite for their common safety,
      they may rush on the Barbarians with invincible arms. But if the
      Saracens, fatigued by a repetition of injuries, should now retire
      and rebel; if they should occupy the castles of the mountains and
      sea-coast, the unfortunate Christians, exposed to a double
      attack, and placed as it were between the hammer and the anvil,
      must resign themselves to hopeless and inevitable servitude.” 136
      We must not forget, that a priest here prefers his country to his
      religion; and that the Moslems, whose alliance he seeks, were
      still numerous and powerful in the state of Sicily.

      126 (return) [ The Historia Sicula of Hugo Falcandus, which
      properly extends from 1154 to 1169, is inserted in the viiith
      volume of Muratori’s Collection, (tom. vii. p. 259-344,) and
      preceded by a eloquent preface or epistle, (p. 251-258, de
      Calamitatibus Siciliae.) Falcandus has been styled the Tacitus of
      Sicily; and, after a just, but immense, abatement, from the ist
      to the xiith century, from a senator to a monk, I would not strip
      him of his title: his narrative is rapid and perspicuous, his
      style bold and elegant, his observation keen; he had studied
      mankind, and feels like a man. I can only regret the narrow and
      barren field on which his labors have been cast.]

      127 (return) [ The laborious Benedictines (l’Art de verifier les
      Dates, p. 896) are of opinion, that the true name of Falcandus is
      Fulcandus, or Foucault. According to them, Hugues Foucalt, a
      Frenchman by birth, and at length abbot of St. Denys, had
      followed into Sicily his patron Stephen de la Perche, uncle to
      the mother of William II., archbishop of Palermo, and great
      chancellor of the kingdom. Yet Falcandus has all the feelings of
      a Sicilian; and the title of Alumnus (which he bestows on
      himself) appears to indicate that he was born, or at least
      educated, in the island.]

      128 (return) [ Falcand. p. 303. Richard de St. Germano begins his
      history from the death and praises of William II. After some
      unmeaning epithets, he thus continues: Legis et justitiae cultus
      tempore suo vigebat in regno; sua erat quilibet sorte contentus;
      (were they mortals?) abique pax, ubique securitas, nec latronum
      metuebat viator insidias, nec maris nauta offendicula piratarum,
      (Script. Rerum Ital. tom. vii p 939.)]

      129 (return) [ Constantia, primis a cunabulis in deliciarun
      tuarum affluentia diutius educata, tuisque institutis, doctrinus
      et moribus informata, tandem opibus tuis Barbaros delatura
      discessit: et nunc cum imgentibus copiis revertitur, ut
      pulcherrima nutricis ornamenta barbarica foeditate contaminet
      .... Intuari mihi jam videor turbulentas bar barorum acies....
      civitates opulentas et loca diuturna pace florentia, metu
      concutere, caede vastare, rapinis atterere, et foedare luxuria
      hinc cives aut gladiis intercepti, aut servitute depressi,
      virgines constupratae, matronae, &c.]

      130 (return) [ Certe si regem non dubiae virtutis elegerint, nec
      a Saracenis Christiani dissentiant, poterit rex creatus rebus
      licet quasi desperatis et perditis subvenire, et incursus
      hostium, si prudenter egerit, propulsare.]

      131 (return) [ In Apulis, qui, semper novitate gaudentes, novarum
      rerum studiis aguntur, nihil arbitror spei aut fiduciae
      reponendum.]

      132 (return) [ Si civium tuorum virtutem et audaciam attendas,
      .... muriorum etiam ambitum densis turribus circumseptum.]

      133 (return) [ Cum erudelitate piratica Theutonum confligat
      atrocitas, et inter aucbustos lapides, et Aethnae flagrant’s
      incendia, &c.]

      134 (return) [ Eam partem, quam nobilissimarum civitatum fulgor
      illustrat, quae et toti regno singulari meruit privilegio
      praeminere, nefarium esset.... vel barbarorum ingressu pollui. I
      wish to transcribe his florid, but curious, description, of the
      palace, city, and luxuriant plain of Palermo.]

      135 (return) [ Vires non suppetunt, et conatus tuos tam inopia
      civium, quam paucitas bellatorum elidunt.]

      136 (return) [ The Normans and Sicilians appear to be
      confounded.]

      The hopes, or at least the wishes, of Falcandus were at first
      gratified by the free and unanimous election of Tancred, the
      grandson of the first king, whose birth was illegitimate, but
      whose civil and military virtues shone without a blemish. During
      four years, the term of his life and reign, he stood in arms on
      the farthest verge of the Apulian frontier, against the powers of
      Germany; and the restitution of a royal captive, of Constantia
      herself, without injury or ransom, may appear to surpass the most
      liberal measure of policy or reason. After his decease, the
      kingdom of his widow and infant son fell without a struggle; and
      Henry pursued his victorious march from Capua to Palermo. The
      political balance of Italy was destroyed by his success; and if
      the pope and the free cities had consulted their obvious and real
      interest, they would have combined the powers of earth and heaven
      to prevent the dangerous union of the German empire with the
      kingdom of Sicily. But the subtle policy, for which the Vatican
      has so often been praised or arraigned, was on this occasion
      blind and inactive; and if it were true that Celestine the Third
      had kicked away the Imperial crown from the head of the prostrate
      Henry, 137 such an act of impotent pride could serve only to
      cancel an obligation and provoke an enemy. The Genoese, who
      enjoyed a beneficial trade and establishment in Sicily, listened
      to the promise of his boundless gratitude and speedy departure:
      138 their fleet commanded the straits of Messina, and opened the
      harbor of Palermo; and the first act of his government was to
      abolish the privileges, and to seize the property, of these
      imprudent allies. The last hope of Falcandus was defeated by the
      discord of the Christians and Mahometans: they fought in the
      capital; several thousands of the latter were slain; but their
      surviving brethren fortified the mountains, and disturbed above
      thirty years the peace of the island. By the policy of Frederic
      the Second, sixty thousand Saracens were transplanted to Nocera
      in Apulia. In their wars against the Roman church, the emperor
      and his son Mainfroy were strengthened and disgraced by the
      service of the enemies of Christ; and this national colony
      maintained their religion and manners in the heart of Italy, till
      they were extirpated, at the end of the thirteenth century, by
      the zeal and revenge of the house of Anjou. 139 All the
      calamities which the prophetic orator had deplored were surpassed
      by the cruelty and avarice of the German conqueror. He violated
      the royal sepulchres, 1391 and explored the secret treasures of
      the palace, Palermo, and the whole kingdom: the pearls and
      jewels, however precious, might be easily removed; but one
      hundred and sixty horses were laden with the gold and silver of
      Sicily. 140 The young king, his mother and sisters, and the
      nobles of both sexes, were separately confined in the fortresses
      of the Alps; and, on the slightest rumor of rebellion, the
      captives were deprived of life, of their eyes, or of the hope of
      posterity. Constantia herself was touched with sympathy for the
      miseries of her country; and the heiress of the Norman line might
      struggle to check her despotic husband, and to save the patrimony
      of her new-born son, of an emperor so famous in the next age
      under the name of Frederic the Second. Ten years after this
      revolution, the French monarchs annexed to their crown the duchy
      of Normandy: the sceptre of her ancient dukes had been
      transmitted, by a granddaughter of William the Conqueror, to the
      house of Plantagenet; and the adventurous Normans, who had raised
      so many trophies in France, England, and Ireland, in Apulia,
      Sicily, and the East, were lost, either in victory or servitude,
      among the vanquished nations.

      137 (return) [ The testimony of an Englishman, of Roger de
      Hoveden, (p. 689,) will lightly weigh against the silence of
      German and Italian history, (Muratori, Annali d’ Italia, tom. x.
      p. 156.) The priests and pilgrims, who returned from Rome,
      exalted, by every tale, the omnipotence of the holy father.]

      138 (return) [ Ego enim in eo cum Teutonicis manere non debeo,
      (Caffari, Annal. Genuenses, in Muratori, Script. Rerum
      Italicarum, tom vi. p. 367, 368.)]

      139 (return) [ For the Saracens of Sicily and Nocera, see the
      Annals of Muratori, (tom. x. p. 149, and A.D. 1223, 1247,)
      Giannone, (tom ii. p. 385,) and of the originals, in Muratori’s
      Collection, Richard de St. Germano, (tom. vii. p. 996,) Matteo
      Spinelli de Giovenazzo, (tom. vii. p. 1064,) Nicholas de
      Jamsilla, (tom. x. p. 494,) and Matreo Villani, (tom. xiv l. vii.
      p. 103.) The last of these insinuates that, in reducing the
      Saracens of Nocera, Charles II. of Anjou employed rather artifice
      than violence.]

      1391 (return) [ It is remarkable that at the same time the tombs
      of the Roman emperors, even of Constantine himself, were violated
      and ransacked by their degenerate successor Alexius Comnenus, in
      order to enable him to pay the “German” tribute exacted by the
      menaces of the emperor Henry. See the end of the first book of
      the Life of Alexius, in Nicetas, p. 632, edit.—M.]

      140 (return) [ Muratori quotes a passage from Arnold of Lubec,
      (l. iv. c. 20:) Reperit thesauros absconditos, et omnem lapidum
      pretiosorum et gemmarum gloriam, ita ut oneratis 160 somariis,
      gloriose ad terram suam redierit. Roger de Hoveden, who mentions
      the violation of the royal tombs and corpses, computes the spoil
      of Salerno at 200,000 ounces of gold, (p. 746.) On these
      occasions, I am almost tempted to exclaim with the listening maid
      in La Fontaine, “Je voudrois bien avoir ce qui manque.”]




      Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part I.

     The Turks Of The House Of Seljuk.—Their Revolt Against Mahmud
     Conqueror Of Hindostan.—Togrul Subdues Persia, And Protects The
     Caliphs.—Defeat And Captivity Of The Emperor Romanus Diogenes By
     Alp Arslan.—Power And Magnificence Of Malek Shah.—Conquest Of Asia
     Minor And Syria.—State And Oppression Of Jerusalem.—Pilgrimages To
     The Holy Sepulchre.

      From the Isle of Sicily, the reader must transport himself beyond
      the Caspian Sea, to the original seat of the Turks or Turkmans,
      against whom the first crusade was principally directed. Their
      Scythian empire of the sixth century was long since dissolved;
      but the name was still famous among the Greeks and Orientals; and
      the fragments of the nation, each a powerful and independent
      people, were scattered over the desert from China to the Oxus and
      the Danube: the colony of Hungarians was admitted into the
      republic of Europe, and the thrones of Asia were occupied by
      slaves and soldiers of Turkish extraction. While Apulia and
      Sicily were subdued by the Norman lance, a swarm of these
      northern shepherds overspread the kingdoms of Persia; their
      princes of the race of Seljuk erected a splendid and solid empire
      from Samarcand to the confines of Greece and Egypt; and the Turks
      have maintained their dominion in Asia Minor, till the victorious
      crescent has been planted on the dome of St. Sophia.

      One of the greatest of the Turkish princes was Mahmood or Mahmud,
      1 the Gaznevide, who reigned in the eastern provinces of Persia,
      one thousand years after the birth of Christ. His father
      Sebectagi was the slave of the slave of the slave of the
      commander of the faithful. But in this descent of servitude, the
      first degree was merely titular, since it was filled by the
      sovereign of Transoxiana and Chorasan, who still paid a nominal
      allegiance to the caliph of Bagdad. The second rank was that of a
      minister of state, a lieutenant of the Samanides, 2 who broke, by
      his revolt, the bonds of political slavery. But the third step
      was a state of real and domestic servitude in the family of that
      rebel; from which Sebectagi, by his courage and dexterity,
      ascended to the supreme command of the city and provinces of
      Gazna, 3 as the son-in-law and successor of his grateful master.

      The falling dynasty of the Samanides was at first protected, and
      at last overthrown, by their servants; and, in the public
      disorders, the fortune of Mahmud continually increased. From him
      the title of Sultan 4 was first invented; and his kingdom was
      enlarged from Transoxiana to the neighborhood of Ispahan, from
      the shores of the Caspian to the mouth of the Indus. But the
      principal source of his fame and riches was the holy war which he
      waged against the Gentoos of Hindostan. In this foreign narrative
      I may not consume a page; and a volume would scarcely suffice to
      recapitulate the battles and sieges of his twelve expeditions.
      Never was the Mussulman hero dismayed by the inclemency of the
      seasons, the height of the mountains, the breadth of the rivers,
      the barrenness of the desert, the multitudes of the enemy, or the
      formidable array of their elephants of war. 5 The sultan of Gazna
      surpassed the limits of the conquests of Alexander: after a march
      of three months, over the hills of Cashmir and Thibet, he reached
      the famous city of Kinnoge, 6 on the Upper Ganges; and, in a
      naval combat on one of the branches of the Indus, he fought and
      vanquished four thousand boats of the natives. Delhi, Lahor, and
      Multan, were compelled to open their gates: the fertile kingdom
      of Guzarat attracted his ambition and tempted his stay; and his
      avarice indulged the fruitless project of discovering the golden
      and aromatic isles of the Southern Ocean. On the payment of a
      tribute, the rajahs preserved their dominions; the people, their
      lives and fortunes; but to the religion of Hindostan the zealous
      Mussulman was cruel and inexorable: many hundred temples, or
      pagodas, were levelled with the ground; many thousand idols were
      demolished; and the servants of the prophet were stimulated and
      rewarded by the precious materials of which they were composed.
      The pagoda of Sumnat was situate on the promontory of Guzarat, in
      the neighborhood of Diu, one of the last remaining possessions of
      the Portuguese. 7 It was endowed with the revenue of two thousand
      villages; two thousand Brahmins were consecrated to the service
      of the Deity, whom they washed each morning and evening in water
      from the distant Ganges: the subordinate ministers consisted of
      three hundred musicians, three hundred barbers, and five hundred
      dancing girls, conspicuous for their birth or beauty. Three sides
      of the temple were protected by the ocean, the narrow isthmus was
      fortified by a natural or artificial precipice; and the city and
      adjacent country were peopled by a nation of fanatics. They
      confessed the sins and the punishment of Kinnoge and Delhi; but
      if the impious stranger should presume to approach their holy
      precincts, he would surely be overwhelmed by a blast of the
      divine vengeance. By this challenge, the faith of Mahmud was
      animated to a personal trial of the strength of this Indian
      deity. Fifty thousand of his worshippers were pierced by the
      spear of the Moslems; the walls were scaled; the sanctuary was
      profaned; and the conqueror aimed a blow of his iron mace at the
      head of the idol. The trembling Brahmins are said to have offered
      ten millions 711 sterling for his ransom; and it was urged by the
      wisest counsellors, that the destruction of a stone image would
      not change the hearts of the Gentoos; and that such a sum might
      be dedicated to the relief of the true believers. “Your reasons,”
      replied the sultan, “are specious and strong; but never in the
      eyes of posterity shall Mahmud appear as a merchant of idols.”
      712 He repeated his blows, and a treasure of pearls and rubies,
      concealed in the belly of the statue, explained in some degree
      the devout prodigality of the Brahmins. The fragments of the idol
      were distributed to Gazna, Mecca, and Medina. Bagdad listened to
      the edifying tale; and Mahmud was saluted by the caliph with the
      title of guardian of the fortune and faith of Mahomet.

      1 (return) [ I am indebted for his character and history to
      D’Herbelot, (Bibliotheque Orientale, Mahmud, p. 533-537,) M. De
      Guignes, (Histoire des Huns, tom. iii. p. 155-173,) and our
      countryman Colonel Alexander Dow, (vol. i. p. 23-83.) In the two
      first volumes of his History of Hindostan, he styles himself the
      translator of the Persian Ferishta; but in his florid text, it is
      not easy to distinguish the version and the original. * Note: The
      European reader now possesses a more accurate version of
      Ferishta, that of Col. Briggs. Of Col. Dow’s work, Col. Briggs
      observes, “that the author’s name will be handed down to
      posterity as one of the earliest and most indefatigable of our
      Oriental scholars. Instead of confining himself, however, to mere
      translation, he has filled his work with his own observations,
      which have been so embodied in the text that Gibbon declares it
      impossible to distinguish the translator from the original
      author.” Preface p. vii.—M.]

      2 (return) [ The dynasty of the Samanides continued 125 years,
      A.D. 847-999, under ten princes. See their succession and ruin,
      in the Tables of M. De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p.
      404-406.) They were followed by the Gaznevides, A.D. 999-1183,
      (see tom. i. p. 239, 240.) His divisions of nations often
      disturbs the series of time and place.]

      3 (return) [ Gaznah hortos non habet: est emporium et domicilium
      mercaturae Indicae. Abulfedae Geograph. Reiske, tab. xxiii. p.
      349. D’Herbelot, p. 364. It has not been visited by any modern
      traveller.]

      4 (return) [ By the ambassador of the caliph of Bagdad, who
      employed an Arabian or Chaldaic word that signifies lord and
      master, (D’Herbelot, p. 825.) It is interpreted by the Byzantine
      writers of the eleventh century; and the name (Soldanus) is
      familiarly employed in the Greek and Latin languages, after it
      had passed from the Gaznevides to the Seljukides, and other emirs
      of Asia and Egypt. Ducange (Dissertation xvi. sur Joinville, p.
      238-240. Gloss. Graec. et Latin.) labors to find the title of
      Sultan in the ancient kingdom of Persia: but his proofs are mere
      shadows; a proper name in the Themes of Constantine, (ii. 11,) an
      anticipation of Zonaras, &c., and a medal of Kai Khosrou, not (as
      he believes) the Sassanide of the vith, but the Seljukide of
      Iconium of the xiiith century, (De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom.
      i. p. 246.)]

      5 (return) [ Ferishta (apud Dow, Hist. of Hindostan, vol. i. p.
      49) mentions the report of a gun in the Indian army. But as I am
      slow in believing this premature (A.D. 1008) use of artillery, I
      must desire to scrutinize first the text, and then the authority
      of Ferishta, who lived in the Mogul court in the last century. *
      Note: This passage is differently written in the various
      manuscripts I have seen; and in some the word tope (gun) has been
      written for nupth, (naphtha, and toofung) (musket) for khudung,
      (arrow.) But no Persian or Arabic history speaks of gunpowder
      before the time usually assigned for its invention, (A.D. 1317;)
      long after which, it was first applied to the purposes of war.
      Briggs’s Ferishta, vol. i. p. 47, note.—M.]

      6 (return) [ Kinnouge, or Canouge, (the old Palimbothra) is
      marked in latitude 27 Degrees 3 Minutes, longitude 80 Degrees 13
      Minutes. See D’Anville, (Antiquite de l’Inde, p. 60-62,)
      corrected by the local knowledge of Major Rennel (in his
      excellent Memoir on his Map of Hindostan, p. 37-43: ) 300]
      jewellers, 30,000 shops for the arreca nut, 60,000 bands of
      musicians, &c. (Abulfed. Geograph. tab. xv. p. 274. Dow, vol. i.
      p. 16,) will allow an ample deduction. * Note: Mr. Wilson (Hindu
      Drama, vol. iii. p. 12) and Schlegel (Indische Bibliothek, vol.
      ii. p. 394) concur in identifying Palimbothra with the Patalipara
      of the Indians; the Patna of the moderns.—M.]

      7 (return) [ The idolaters of Europe, says Ferishta, (Dow, vol.
      i. p. 66.) Consult Abulfeda, (p. 272,) and Rennel’s Map of
      Hindostan.]

      711 (return) [ Ferishta says, some “crores of gold.” Dow says, in
      a note at the bottom of the page, “ten millions,” which is the
      explanation of the word “crore.” Mr. Gibbon says rashly that the
      sum offered by the Brahmins was ten millions sterling. Note to
      Mill’s India, vol. ii. p. 222. Col. Briggs’s translation is “a
      quantity of gold.” The treasure found in the temple, “perhaps in
      the image,” according to Major Price’s authorities, was twenty
      millions of dinars of gold, above nine millions sterling; but
      this was a hundred-fold the ransom offered by the Brahmins.
      Price, vol. ii. p. 290.—M.]

      712 (return) [ Rather than the idol broker, he chose to be called
      Mahmud the idol breaker. Price, vol. ii. p. 289—M]

      From the paths of blood (and such is the history of nations) I
      cannot refuse to turn aside to gather some flowers of science or
      virtue. The name of Mahmud the Gaznevide is still venerable in
      the East: his subjects enjoyed the blessings of prosperity and
      peace; his vices were concealed by the veil of religion; and two
      familiar examples will testify his justice and magnanimity.

      I. As he sat in the Divan, an unhappy subject bowed before the
      throne to accuse the insolence of a Turkish soldier who had
      driven him from his house and bed. “Suspend your clamors,” said
      Mahmud; “inform me of his next visit, and ourself in person will
      judge and punish the offender.” The sultan followed his guide,
      invested the house with his guards, and extinguishing the
      torches, pronounced the death of the criminal, who had been
      seized in the act of rapine and adultery. After the execution of
      his sentence, the lights were rekindled, Mahmud fell prostrate in
      prayer, and rising from the ground, demanded some homely fare,
      which he devoured with the voraciousness of hunger. The poor man,
      whose injury he had avenged, was unable to suppress his
      astonishment and curiosity; and the courteous monarch
      condescended to explain the motives of this singular behavior. “I
      had reason to suspect that none, except one of my sons, could
      dare to perpetrate such an outrage; and I extinguished the
      lights, that my justice might be blind and inexorable. My prayer
      was a thanksgiving on the discovery of the offender; and so
      painful was my anxiety, that I had passed three days without food
      since the first moment of your complaint.”

      II. The sultan of Gazna had declared war against the dynasty of
      the Bowides, the sovereigns of the western Persia: he was
      disarmed by an epistle of the sultana mother, and delayed his
      invasion till the manhood of her son. 8 “During the life of my
      husband,” said the artful regent, “I was ever apprehensive of
      your ambition: he was a prince and a soldier worthy of your arms.
      He is now no more; his sceptre has passed to a woman and a child,
      and you dare not attack their infancy and weakness. How
      inglorious would be your conquest, how shameful your defeat! and
      yet the event of war is in the hand of the Almighty.” Avarice was
      the only defect that tarnished the illustrious character of
      Mahmud; and never has that passion been more richly satiated. 811
      The Orientals exceed the measure of credibility in the account of
      millions of gold and silver, such as the avidity of man has never
      accumulated; in the magnitude of pearls, diamonds, and rubies,
      such as have never been produced by the workmanship of nature. 9
      Yet the soil of Hindostan is impregnated with precious minerals:
      her trade, in every age, has attracted the gold and silver of the
      world; and her virgin spoils were rifled by the first of the
      Mahometan conquerors. His behavior, in the last days of his life,
      evinces the vanity of these possessions, so laboriously won, so
      dangerously held, and so inevitably lost. He surveyed the vast
      and various chambers of the treasury of Gazna, burst into tears,
      and again closed the doors, without bestowing any portion of the
      wealth which he could no longer hope to preserve. The following
      day he reviewed the state of his military force; one hundred
      thousand foot, fifty-five thousand horse, and thirteen hundred
      elephants of battle. 10 He again wept the instability of human
      greatness; and his grief was imbittered by the hostile progress
      of the Turkmans, whom he had introduced into the heart of his
      Persian kingdom.

      8 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 527. Yet
      these letters apothegms, &c., are rarely the language of the
      heart, or the motives of public action.]

      811 (return) [ Compare Price, vol. ii. p. 295.—M]

      9 (return) [ For instance, a ruby of four hundred and fifty
      miskals, (Dow, vol. i. p. 53,) or six pounds three ounces: the
      largest in the treasury of Delhi weighed seventeen miskals,
      (Voyages de Tavernier, partie ii. p. 280.) It is true, that in
      the East all colored stones are calied rubies, (p. 355,) and that
      Tavernier saw three larger and more precious among the jewels de
      notre grand roi, le plus puissant et plus magnifique de tous les
      rois de la terre, (p. 376.)]

      10 (return) [ Dow, vol. i. p. 65. The sovereign of Kinoge is said
      to have possessed 2500 elephants, (Abulfed. Geograph. tab. xv. p.
      274.) From these Indian stories, the reader may correct a note in
      my first volume, (p. 245;) or from that note he may correct these
      stories.]

      In the modern depopulation of Asia, the regular operation of
      government and agriculture is confined to the neighborhood of
      cities; and the distant country is abandoned to the pastoral
      tribes of Arabs, Curds, and Turkmans. 11 Of the last-mentioned
      people, two considerable branches extend on either side of the
      Caspian Sea: the western colony can muster forty thousand
      soldiers; the eastern, less obvious to the traveller, but more
      strong and populous, has increased to the number of one hundred
      thousand families. In the midst of civilized nations, they
      preserve the manners of the Scythian desert, remove their
      encampments with a change of seasons, and feed their cattle among
      the ruins of palaces and temples. Their flocks and herds are
      their only riches; their tents, either black or white, according
      to the color of the banner, are covered with felt, and of a
      circular form; their winter apparel is a sheep-skin; a robe of
      cloth or cotton their summer garment: the features of the men are
      harsh and ferocious; the countenance of their women is soft and
      pleasing. Their wandering life maintains the spirit and exercise
      of arms; they fight on horseback; and their courage is displayed
      in frequent contests with each other and with their neighbors.
      For the license of pasture they pay a slight tribute to the
      sovereign of the land; but the domestic jurisdiction is in the
      hands of the chiefs and elders. The first emigration of the
      Eastern Turkmans, the most ancient of the race, may be ascribed
      to the tenth century of the Christian aera. 12 In the decline of
      the caliphs, and the weakness of their lieutenants, the barrier
      of the Jaxartes was often violated; in each invasion, after the
      victory or retreat of their countrymen, some wandering tribe,
      embracing the Mahometan faith, obtained a free encampment in the
      spacious plains and pleasant climate of Transoxiana and Carizme.
      The Turkish slaves who aspired to the throne encouraged these
      emigrations which recruited their armies, awed their subjects and
      rivals, and protected the frontier against the wilder natives of
      Turkestan; and this policy was abused by Mahmud the Gaznevide
      beyond the example of former times. He was admonished of his
      error by the chief of the race of Seljuk, who dwelt in the
      territory of Bochara. The sultan had inquired what supply of men
      he could furnish for military service. “If you send,” replied
      Ismael, “one of these arrows into our camp, fifty thousand of
      your servants will mount on horseback.”—“And if that number,”
      continued Mahmud, “should not be sufficient?”—“Send this second
      arrow to the horde of Balik, and you will find fifty thousand
      more.”—“But,” said the Gaznevide, dissembling his anxiety, “if I
      should stand in need of the whole force of your kindred
      tribes?”—“Despatch my bow,” was the last reply of Ismael, “and as
      it is circulated around, the summons will be obeyed by two
      hundred thousand horse.” The apprehension of such formidable
      friendship induced Mahmud to transport the most obnoxious tribes
      into the heart of Chorasan, where they would be separated from
      their brethren of the River Oxus, and enclosed on all sides by
      the walls of obedient cities. But the face of the country was an
      object of temptation rather than terror; and the vigor of
      government was relaxed by the absence and death of the sultan of
      Gazna. The shepherds were converted into robbers; the bands of
      robbers were collected into an army of conquerors: as far as
      Ispahan and the Tigris, Persia was afflicted by their predatory
      inroads; and the Turkmans were not ashamed or afraid to measure
      their courage and numbers with the proudest sovereigns of Asia.
      Massoud, the son and successor of Mahmud, had too long neglected
      the advice of his wisest Omrahs. “Your enemies,” they repeatedly
      urged, “were in their origin a swarm of ants; they are now little
      snakes; and, unless they be instantly crushed, they will acquire
      the venom and magnitude of serpents.” After some alternatives of
      truce and hostility, after the repulse or partial success of his
      lieutenants, the sultan marched in person against the Turkmans,
      who attacked him on all sides with barbarous shouts and irregular
      onset. “Massoud,” says the Persian historian, 13 “plunged singly
      to oppose the torrent of gleaming arms, exhibiting such acts of
      gigantic force and valor as never king had before displayed. A
      few of his friends, roused by his words and actions, and that
      innate honor which inspires the brave, seconded their lord so
      well, that wheresoever he turned his fatal sword, the enemies
      were mowed down, or retreated before him. But now, when victory
      seemed to blow on his standard, misfortune was active behind it;
      for when he looked round, be beheld almost his whole army,
      excepting that body he commanded in person, devouring the paths
      of flight.” The Gaznevide was abandoned by the cowardice or
      treachery of some generals of Turkish race; and this memorable
      day of Zendecan 14 founded in Persia the dynasty of the shepherd
      kings. 15

      11 (return) [ See a just and natural picture of these pastoral
      manners, in the history of William archbishop of Tyre, (l. i. c.
      vii. in the Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 633, 634,) and a valuable
      note by the editor of the Histoire Genealogique des Tatars, p.
      535-538.]

      12 (return) [ The first emigration of the Turkmans, and doubtful
      origin of the Seljukians, may be traced in the laborious History
      of the Huns, by M. De Guignes, (tom. i. Tables Chronologiques, l.
      v. tom. iii. l. vii. ix. x.) and the Bibliotheque Orientale, of
      D’Herbelot, (p. 799-802, 897-901,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p.
      321-333,) and Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 221, 222.)]

      13 (return) [ Dow, Hist. of Hindostan, vol. i. p. 89, 95-98. I
      have copied this passage as a specimen of the Persian manner; but
      I suspect that, by some odd fatality, the style of Ferishta has
      been improved by that of Ossian. * Note: Gibbon’s conjecture was
      well founded. Compare the more sober and genuine version of Col.
      Briggs, vol. i. p. 110.-M.]

      14 (return) [ The Zendekan of D’Herbelot, (p. 1028,) the Dindaka
      of Dow (vol. i. p. 97,) is probably the Dandanekan of Abulfeda,
      (Geograph. p. 345, Reiske,) a small town of Chorasan, two days’
      journey from Maru, and renowned through the East for the
      production and manufacture of cotton.]

      15 (return) [ The Byzantine historians (Cedrenus, tom. ii. p.
      766, 766, Zonaras tom. ii. p. 255, Nicephorus Bryennius, p. 21)
      have confounded, in this revolution, the truth of time and place,
      of names and persons, of causes and events. The ignorance and
      errors of these Greeks (which I shall not stop to unravel) may
      inspire some distrust of the story of Cyaxares and Cyrus, as it
      is told by their most eloquent predecessor.]

      The victorious Turkmans immediately proceeded to the election of
      a king; and, if the probable tale of a Latin historian 16
      deserves any credit, they determined by lot the choice of their
      new master. A number of arrows were successively inscribed with
      the name of a tribe, a family, and a candidate; they were drawn
      from the bundle by the hand of a child; and the important prize
      was obtained by Togrul Beg, the son of Michael the son of Seljuk,
      whose surname was immortalized in the greatness of his posterity.
      The sultan Mahmud, who valued himself on his skill in national
      genealogy, professed his ignorance of the family of Seljuk; yet
      the father of that race appears to have been a chief of power and
      renown. 17 For a daring intrusion into the harem of his prince,
      Seljuk was banished from Turkestan: with a numerous tribe of his
      friends and vassals, he passed the Jaxartes, encamped in the
      neighborhood of Samarcand, embraced the religion of Mahomet, and
      acquired the crown of martyrdom in a war against the infidels.
      His age, of a hundred and seven years, surpassed the life of his
      son, and Seljuk adopted the care of his two grandsons, Togrul and
      Jaafar; the eldest of whom, at the age of forty-five, was
      invested with the title of Sultan, in the royal city of Nishabur.
      The blind determination of chance was justified by the virtues of
      the successful candidate. It would be superfluous to praise the
      valor of a Turk; and the ambition of Togrul 18 was equal to his
      valor. By his arms, the Gasnevides were expelled from the eastern
      kingdoms of Persia, and gradually driven to the banks of the
      Indus, in search of a softer and more wealthy conquest. In the
      West he annihilated the dynasty of the Bowides; and the sceptre
      of Irak passed from the Persian to the Turkish nation. The
      princes who had felt, or who feared, the Seljukian arrows, bowed
      their heads in the dust; by the conquest of Aderbijan, or Media,
      he approached the Roman confines; and the shepherd presumed to
      despatch an ambassador, or herald, to demand the tribute and
      obedience of the emperor of Constantinople. 19 In his own
      dominions, Togrul was the father of his soldiers and people; by a
      firm and equal administration, Persia was relieved from the evils
      of anarchy; and the same hands which had been imbrued in blood
      became the guardians of justice and the public peace. The more
      rustic, perhaps the wisest, portion of the Turkmans 20 continued
      to dwell in the tents of their ancestors; and, from the Oxus to
      the Euphrates, these military colonies were protected and
      propagated by their native princes. But the Turks of the court
      and city were refined by business and softened by pleasure: they
      imitated the dress, language, and manners of Persia; and the
      royal palaces of Nishabur and Rei displayed the order and
      magnificence of a great monarchy. The most deserving of the
      Arabians and Persians were promoted to the honors of the state;
      and the whole body of the Turkish nation embraced, with fervor
      and sincerity, the religion of Mahomet. The northern swarms of
      Barbarians, who overspread both Europe and Asia, have been
      irreconcilably separated by the consequences of a similar
      conduct. Among the Moslems, as among the Christians, their vague
      and local traditions have yielded to the reason and authority of
      the prevailing system, to the fame of antiquity, and the consent
      of nations. But the triumph of the Koran is more pure and
      meritorious, as it was not assisted by any visible splendor of
      worship which might allure the Pagans by some resemblance of
      idolatry. The first of the Seljukian sultans was conspicuous by
      his zeal and faith: each day he repeated the five prayers which
      are enjoined to the true believers; of each week, the two first
      days were consecrated by an extraordinary fast; and in every city
      a mosch was completed, before Togrul presumed to lay the
      foundations of a palace. 21

      16 (return) [ Willerm. Tyr. l. i. c. 7, p. 633. The divination by
      arrows is ancient and famous in the East.]

      17 (return) [ D’Herbelot, p. 801. Yet after the fortune of his
      posterity, Seljuk became the thirty-fourth in lineal descent from
      the great Afrasiab, emperor of Touran, (p. 800.) The Tartar
      pedigree of the house of Zingis gave a different cast to flattery
      and fable; and the historian Mirkhond derives the Seljukides from
      Alankavah, the virgin mother, (p. 801, col. 2.) If they be the
      same as the Zalzuts of Abulghazi Bahadur Kahn, (Hist.
      Genealogique, p. 148,) we quote in their favor the most weighty
      evidence of a Tartar prince himself, the descendant of Zingis,
      Alankavah, or Alancu, and Oguz Khan.]

      18 (return) [ By a slight corruption, Togrul Beg is the
      Tangroli-pix of the Greeks. His reign and character are
      faithfully exhibited by D’Herbelot (Bibliotheque Orientale, p.
      1027, 1028) and De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p.
      189-201.)]

      19 (return) [ Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 774, 775. Zonaras, tom. ii.
      p. 257. With their usual knowledge of Oriental affairs, they
      describe the ambassador as a sherif, who, like the syncellus of
      the patriarch, was the vicar and successor of the caliph.]

      20 (return) [ From William of Tyre I have borrowed this
      distinction of Turks and Turkmans, which at least is popular and
      convenient. The names are the same, and the addition of man is of
      the same import in the Persic and Teutonic idioms. Few critics
      will adopt the etymology of James de Vitry, (Hist. Hierosol. l.
      i. c. 11 p. 1061,) of Turcomani, quesi Turci et Comani, a mixed
      people.]

      21 (return) [ Hist. Generale des Huns, tom. iii. p. 165, 166,
      167. M. DeGognes Abulmahasen, an historian of Egypt.]

      With the belief of the Koran, the son of Seljuk imbibed a lively
      reverence for the successor of the prophet. But that sublime
      character was still disputed by the caliphs of Bagdad and Egypt,
      and each of the rivals was solicitous to prove his title in the
      judgment of the strong, though illiterate Barbarians. Mahmud the
      Gaznevide had declared himself in favor of the line of Abbas; and
      had treated with indignity the robe of honor which was presented
      by the Fatimite ambassador. Yet the ungrateful Hashemite had
      changed with the change of fortune; he applauded the victory of
      Zendecan, and named the Seljukian sultan his temporal vicegerent
      over the Moslem world. As Togrul executed and enlarged this
      important trust, he was called to the deliverance of the caliph
      Cayem, and obeyed the holy summons, which gave a new kingdom to
      his arms. 22 In the palace of Bagdad, the commander of the
      faithful still slumbered, a venerable phantom. His servant or
      master, the prince of the Bowides, could no longer protect him
      from the insolence of meaner tyrants; and the Euphrates and
      Tigris were oppressed by the revolt of the Turkish and Arabian
      emirs. The presence of a conqueror was implored as a blessing;
      and the transient mischiefs of fire and sword were excused as the
      sharp but salutary remedies which alone could restore the health
      of the republic. At the head of an irresistible force, the sultan
      of Persia marched from Hamadan: the proud were crushed, the
      prostrate were spared; the prince of the Bowides disappeared; the
      heads of the most obstinate rebels were laid at the feet of
      Togrul; and he inflicted a lesson of obedience on the people of
      Mosul and Bagdad. After the chastisement of the guilty, and the
      restoration of peace, the royal shepherd accepted the reward of
      his labors; and a solemn comedy represented the triumph of
      religious prejudice over Barbarian power. 23 The Turkish sultan
      embarked on the Tigris, landed at the gate of Racca, and made his
      public entry on horseback. At the palace-gate he respectfully
      dismounted, and walked on foot, preceded by his emirs without
      arms. The caliph was seated behind his black veil: the black
      garment of the Abbassides was cast over his shoulders, and he
      held in his hand the staff of the apostle of God. The conqueror
      of the East kissed the ground, stood some time in a modest
      posture, and was led towards the throne by the vizier and
      interpreter. After Togrul had seated himself on another throne,
      his commission was publicly read, which declared him the temporal
      lieutenant of the vicar of the prophet. He was successively
      invested with seven robes of honor, and presented with seven
      slaves, the natives of the seven climates of the Arabian empire.
      His mystic veil was perfumed with musk; two crowns 231 were
      placed on his head; two cimeters were girded to his side, as the
      symbols of a double reign over the East and West. After this
      inauguration, the sultan was prevented from prostrating himself a
      second time; but he twice kissed the hand of the commander of the
      faithful, and his titles were proclaimed by the voice of heralds
      and the applause of the Moslems. In a second visit to Bagdad, the
      Seljukian prince again rescued the caliph from his enemies and
      devoutly, on foot, led the bridle of his mule from the prison to
      the palace. Their alliance was cemented by the marriage of
      Togrul’s sister with the successor of the prophet. Without
      reluctance he had introduced a Turkish virgin into his harem; but
      Cayem proudly refused his daughter to the sultan, disdained to
      mingle the blood of the Hashemites with the blood of a Scythian
      shepherd; and protracted the negotiation many months, till the
      gradual diminution of his revenue admonished him that he was
      still in the hands of a master. The royal nuptials were followed
      by the death of Togrul himself; 24 as he left no children, his
      nephew Alp Arslan succeeded to the title and prerogatives of
      sultan; and his name, after that of the caliph, was pronounced in
      the public prayers of the Moslems. Yet in this revolution, the
      Abbassides acquired a larger measure of liberty and power. On the
      throne of Asia, the Turkish monarchs were less jealous of the
      domestic administration of Bagdad; and the commanders of the
      faithful were relieved from the ignominious vexations to which
      they had been exposed by the presence and poverty of the Persian
      dynasty.

      22 (return) [ Consult the Bibliotheque Orientale, in the articles
      of the Abbassides, Caher, and Caiem, and the Annals of Elmacin
      and Abulpharagius.]

      23 (return) [ For this curious ceremony, I am indebted to M. De
      Guignes (tom. iii. p. 197, 198,) and that learned author is
      obliged to Bondari, who composed in Arabic the history of the
      Seljukides, tom. v. p. 365) I am ignorant of his age, country,
      and character.]

      231 (return) [ According to Von Hammer, “crowns” are incorrect.
      They are unknown as a symbol of royalty in the East. V. Hammer,
      Osmanische Geschischte, vol. i. p. 567.—M.]

      24 (return) [ Eodem anno (A. H. 455) obiit princeps Togrulbecus
      .... rex fuit clemens, prudens, et peritus regnandi, cujus terror
      corda mortalium invaserat, ita ut obedirent ei reges atque ad
      ipsum scriberent. Elma cin, Hist. Saracen. p. 342, vers. Erpenii.
      * Note: He died, being 75 years old. V. Hammer.—M.]




      Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part II.

      Since the fall of the caliphs, the discord and degeneracy of the
      Saracens respected the Asiatic provinces of Rome; which, by the
      victories of Nicephorus, Zimisces, and Basil, had been extended
      as far as Antioch and the eastern boundaries of Armenia.

      Twenty-five years after the death of Basil, his successors were
      suddenly assaulted by an unknown race of Barbarians, who united
      the Scythian valor with the fanaticism of new proselytes, and the
      art and riches of a powerful monarchy. 25 The myriads of Turkish
      horse overspread a frontier of six hundred miles from Tauris to
      Arzeroum, and the blood of one hundred and thirty thousand
      Christians was a grateful sacrifice to the Arabian prophet. Yet
      the arms of Togrul did not make any deep or lasting impression on
      the Greek empire. The torrent rolled away from the open country;
      the sultan retired without glory or success from the siege of an
      Armenian city; the obscure hostilities were continued or
      suspended with a vicissitude of events; and the bravery of the
      Macedonian legions renewed the fame of the conqueror of Asia. 26
      The name of Alp Arslan, the valiant lion, is expressive of the
      popular idea of the perfection of man; and the successor of
      Togrul displayed the fierceness and generosity of the royal
      animal. He passed the Euphrates at the head of the Turkish
      cavalry, and entered Caesarea, the metropolis of Cappadocia, to
      which he had been attracted by the fame and wealth of the temple
      of St. Basil. The solid structure resisted the destroyer: but he
      carried away the doors of the shrine incrusted with gold and
      pearls, and profaned the relics of the tutelar saint, whose
      mortal frailties were now covered by the venerable rust of
      antiquity. The final conquest of Armenia and Georgia was achieved
      by Alp Arslan. In Armenia, the title of a kingdom, and the spirit
      of a nation, were annihilated: the artificial fortifications were
      yielded by the mercenaries of Constantinople; by strangers
      without faith, veterans without pay or arms, and recruits without
      experience or discipline. The loss of this important frontier was
      the news of a day; and the Catholics were neither surprised nor
      displeased, that a people so deeply infected with the Nestorian
      and Eutychian errors had been delivered by Christ and his mother
      into the hands of the infidels. 27 The woods and valleys of Mount
      Caucasus were more strenuously defended by the native Georgians
      28 or Iberians; but the Turkish sultan and his son Malek were
      indefatigable in this holy war: their captives were compelled to
      promise a spiritual, as well as temporal, obedience; and, instead
      of their collars and bracelets, an iron horseshoe, a badge of
      ignominy, was imposed on the infidels who still adhered to the
      worship of their fathers. The change, however, was not sincere or
      universal; and, through ages of servitude, the Georgians have
      maintained the succession of their princes and bishops. But a
      race of men, whom nature has cast in her most perfect mould, is
      degraded by poverty, ignorance, and vice; their profession, and
      still more their practice, of Christianity is an empty name; and
      if they have emerged from heresy, it is only because they are too
      illiterate to remember a metaphysical creed. 29

      25 (return) [ For these wars of the Turks and Romans, see in
      general the Byzantine histories of Zonaras and Cedrenus,
      Scylitzes the continuator of Cedrenus, and Nicephorus Bryennius
      Caesar. The two first of these were monks, the two latter
      statesmen; yet such were the Greeks, that the difference of style
      and character is scarcely discernible. For the Orientals, I draw
      as usuul on the wealth of D’Herbelot (see titles of the first
      Seljukides) and the accuracy of De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom.
      iii. l. x.)]

      26 (return) [ Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 791. The credulity of the
      vulgar is always probable; and the Turks had learned from the
      Arabs the history or legend of Escander Dulcarnein, (D’Herbelot,
      p. 213 &c.)]

      27 (return) [ (Scylitzes, ad calcem Cedreni, tom. ii. p. 834,
      whose ambiguous construction shall not tempt me to suspect that
      he confounded the Nestorian and Monophysite heresies,) He
      familiarly talks of the qualities, as I should apprehend, very
      foreign to the perfect Being; but his bigotry is forced to
      confess that they were soon afterwards discharged on the orthodox
      Romans.]

      28 (return) [ Had the name of Georgians been known to the Greeks,
      (Stritter, Memoriae Byzant. tom. iv. Iberica,) I should derive it
      from their agriculture, (l. iv. c. 18, p. 289, edit. Wesseling.)
      But it appears only since the crusades, among the Latins (Jac. a
      Vitriaco, Hist. Hierosol. c. 79, p. 1095) and Orientals,
      (D’Herbelot, p. 407,) and was devoutly borrowed from St. George
      of Cappadocia.]

      29 (return) [ Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 632. See, in
      Chardin’s Travels, (tom. i. p. 171-174,) the manners and religion
      of this handsome but worthless nation. See the pedigree of their
      princes from Adam to the present century, in the tables of M. De
      Guignes, (tom. i. p. 433-438.)]

      The false or genuine magnanimity of Mahmud the Gaznevide was not
      imitated by Alp Arslan; and he attacked without scruple the Greek
      empress Eudocia and her children. His alarming progress compelled
      her to give herself and her sceptre to the hand of a soldier; and
      Romanus Diogenes was invested with the Imperial purple. His
      patriotism, and perhaps his pride, urged him from Constantinople
      within two months after his accession; and the next campaign he
      most scandalously took the field during the holy festival of
      Easter. In the palace, Diogenes was no more than the husband of
      Eudocia: in the camp, he was the emperor of the Romans, and he
      sustained that character with feeble resources and invincible
      courage. By his spirit and success the soldiers were taught to
      act, the subjects to hope, and the enemies to fear. The Turks had
      penetrated into the heart of Phrygia; but the sultan himself had
      resigned to his emirs the prosecution of the war; and their
      numerous detachments were scattered over Asia in the security of
      conquest. Laden with spoil, and careless of discipline, they were
      separately surprised and defeated by the Greeks: the activity of
      the emperor seemed to multiply his presence: and while they heard
      of his expedition to Antioch, the enemy felt his sword on the
      hills of Trebizond. In three laborious campaigns, the Turks were
      driven beyond the Euphrates; in the fourth and last, Romanus
      undertook the deliverance of Armenia. The desolation of the land
      obliged him to transport a supply of two months’ provisions; and
      he marched forwards to the siege of Malazkerd, 30 an important
      fortress in the midway between the modern cities of Arzeroum and
      Van. His army amounted, at the least, to one hundred thousand
      men. The troops of Constantinople were reenforced by the
      disorderly multitudes of Phrygia and Cappadocia; but the real
      strength was composed of the subjects and allies of Europe, the
      legions of Macedonia, and the squadrons of Bulgaria; the Uzi, a
      Moldavian horde, who were themselves of the Turkish race; 31 and,
      above all, the mercenary and adventurous bands of French and
      Normans. Their lances were commanded by the valiant Ursel of
      Baliol, the kinsman or father of the Scottish kings, 32 and were
      allowed to excel in the exercise of arms, or, according to the
      Greek style, in the practice of the Pyrrhic dance.

      30 (return) [ This city is mentioned by Constantine
      Porphyrogenitus, (de Administrat. Imperii, l. ii. c. 44, p. 119,)
      and the Byzantines of the xith century, under the name of
      Mantzikierte, and by some is confounded with Theodosiopolis; but
      Delisle, in his notes and maps, has very properly fixed the
      situation. Abulfeda (Geograph. tab. xviii. p. 310) describes
      Malasgerd as a small town, built with black stone, supplied with
      water, without trees, &c.]

      31 (return) [ The Uzi of the Greeks (Stritter, Memor. Byzant.
      tom. iii. p. 923-948) are the Gozz of the Orientals, (Hist. des
      Huns, tom. ii. p. 522, tom. iii. p. 133, &c.) They appear on the
      Danube and the Volga, and Armenia, Syria, and Chorasan, and the
      name seems to have been extended to the whole Turkman race.]

      32 (return) [ Urselius (the Russelius of Zonaras) is
      distinguished by Jeffrey Malaterra (l. i. c. 33) among the Norman
      conquerors of Sicily, and with the surname of Baliol: and our own
      historians will tell how the Baliols came from Normandy to
      Durham, built Bernard’s castle on the Tees, married an heiress of
      Scotland, &c. Ducange (Not. ad Nicephor. Bryennium, l. ii. No. 4)
      has labored the subject in honor of the president de Bailleul,
      whose father had exchanged the sword for the gown.]

      On the report of this bold invasion, which threatened his
      hereditary dominions, Alp Arslan flew to the scene of action at
      the head of forty thousand horse. 33 His rapid and skilful
      evolutions distressed and dismayed the superior numbers of the
      Greeks; and in the defeat of Basilacius, one of their principal
      generals, he displayed the first example of his valor and
      clemency. The imprudence of the emperor had separated his forces
      after the reduction of Malazkerd. It was in vain that he
      attempted to recall the mercenary Franks: they refused to obey
      his summons; he disdained to await their return: the desertion of
      the Uzi filled his mind with anxiety and suspicion; and against
      the most salutary advice he rushed forwards to speedy and
      decisive action. Had he listened to the fair proposals of the
      sultan, Romanus might have secured a retreat, perhaps a peace;
      but in these overtures he supposed the fear or weakness of the
      enemy, and his answer was conceived in the tone of insult and
      defiance. “If the Barbarian wishes for peace, let him evacuate
      the ground which he occupies for the encampment of the Romans,
      and surrender his city and palace of Rei as a pledge of his
      sincerity.” Alp Arslan smiled at the vanity of the demand, but he
      wept the death of so many faithful Moslems; and, after a devout
      prayer, proclaimed a free permission to all who were desirous of
      retiring from the field. With his own hands he tied up his
      horse’s tail, exchanged his bow and arrows for a mace and
      cimeter, clothed himself in a white garment, perfumed his body
      with musk, and declared that if he were vanquished, that spot
      should be the place of his burial. 34 The sultan himself had
      affected to cast away his missile weapons: but his hopes of
      victory were placed in the arrows of the Turkish cavalry, whose
      squadrons were loosely distributed in the form of a crescent.
      Instead of the successive lines and reserves of the Grecian
      tactics, Romulus led his army in a single and solid phalanx, and
      pressed with vigor and impatience the artful and yielding
      resistance of the Barbarians. In this desultory and fruitless
      combat he spent the greater part of a summer’s day, till prudence
      and fatigue compelled him to return to his camp. But a retreat is
      always perilous in the face of an active foe; and no sooner had
      the standard been turned to the rear than the phalanx was broken
      by the base cowardice, or the baser jealousy, of Andronicus, a
      rival prince, who disgraced his birth and the purple of the
      Caesars. 35 The Turkish squadrons poured a cloud of arrows on
      this moment of confusion and lassitude; and the horns of their
      formidable crescent were closed in the rear of the Greeks. In the
      destruction of the army and pillage of the camp, it would be
      needless to mention the number of the slain or captives. The
      Byzantine writers deplore the loss of an inestimable pearl: they
      forgot to mention, that in this fatal day the Asiatic provinces
      of Rome were irretrievably sacrificed.

      33 (return) [ Elmacin (p. 343, 344) assigns this probable number,
      which is reduced by Abulpharagius to 15,000, (p. 227,) and by
      D’Herbelot (p. 102) to 12,000 horse. But the same Elmacin gives
      300,000 met to the emperor, of whom Abulpharagius says, Cum
      centum hominum millibus, multisque equis et magna pompa
      instructus. The Greeks abstain from any definition of numbers.]

      34 (return) [ The Byzantine writers do not speak so distinctly of
      the presence of the sultan: he committed his forces to a eunuch,
      had retired to a distance, &c. Is it ignorance, or jealousy, or
      truth?]

      35 (return) [ He was the son of Caesar John Ducas, brother of the
      emperor Constantine, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 165.) Nicephorus
      Bryennius applauds his virtues and extenuates his faults, (l. i.
      p. 30, 38. l. ii. p. 53.) Yet he owns his enmity to Romanus.
      Scylitzes speaks more explicitly of his treason.]

      As long as a hope survived, Romanus attempted to rally and save
      the relics of his army. When the centre, the Imperial station,
      was left naked on all sides, and encompassed by the victorious
      Turks, he still, with desperate courage, maintained the fight
      till the close of day, at the head of the brave and faithful
      subjects who adhered to his standard. They fell around him; his
      horse was slain; the emperor was wounded; yet he stood alone and
      intrepid, till he was oppressed and bound by the strength of
      multitudes. The glory of this illustrious prize was disputed by a
      slave and a soldier; a slave who had seen him on the throne of
      Constantinople, and a soldier whose extreme deformity had been
      excused on the promise of some signal service.

      Despoiled of his arms, his jewels, and his purple, Romanus spent
      a dreary and perilous night on the field of battle, amidst a
      disorderly crowd of the meaner Barbarians. In the morning the
      royal captive was presented to Alp Arslan, who doubted of his
      fortune, till the identity of the person was ascertained by the
      report of his ambassadors, and by the more pathetic evidence of
      Basilacius, who embraced with tears the feet of his unhappy
      sovereign. The successor of Constantine, in a plebeian habit, was
      led into the Turkish divan, and commanded to kiss the ground
      before the lord of Asia. He reluctantly obeyed; and Alp Arslan,
      starting from his throne, is said to have planted his foot on the
      neck of the Roman emperor. 36 But the fact is doubtful; and if,
      in this moment of insolence, the sultan complied with the
      national custom, the rest of his conduct has extorted the praise
      of his bigoted foes, and may afford a lesson to the most
      civilized ages. He instantly raised the royal captive from the
      ground; and thrice clasping his hand with tender sympathy,
      assured him, that his life and dignity should be inviolate in the
      hands of a prince who had learned to respect the majesty of his
      equals and the vicissitudes of fortune. From the divan, Romanus
      was conducted to an adjacent tent, where he was served with pomp
      and reverence by the officers of the sultan, who, twice each day,
      seated him in the place of honor at his own table. In a free and
      familiar conversation of eight days, not a word, not a look, of
      insult escaped from the conqueror; but he severely censured the
      unworthy subjects who had deserted their valiant prince in the
      hour of danger, and gently admonished his antagonist of some
      errors which he had committed in the management of the war. In
      the preliminaries of negotiation, Alp Arslan asked him what
      treatment he expected to receive, and the calm indifference of
      the emperor displays the freedom of his mind. “If you are cruel,”
      said he, “you will take my life; if you listen to pride, you will
      drag me at your chariot-wheels; if you consult your interest, you
      will accept a ransom, and restore me to my country.” “And what,”
      continued the sultan, “would have been your own behavior, had
      fortune smiled on your arms?” The reply of the Greek betrays a
      sentiment, which prudence, and even gratitude, should have taught
      him to suppress. “Had I vanquished,” he fiercely said, “I would
      have inflicted on thy body many a stripe.” The Turkish conqueror
      smiled at the insolence of his captive; observed that the
      Christian law inculcated the love of enemies and forgiveness of
      injuries; and nobly declared, that he would not imitate an
      example which he condemned. After mature deliberation, Alp Arslan
      dictated the terms of liberty and peace, a ransom of a million,
      361 an annual tribute of three hundred and sixty thousand pieces
      of gold, 37 the marriage of the royal children, and the
      deliverance of all the Moslems, who were in the power of the
      Greeks. Romanus, with a sigh, subscribed this treaty, so
      disgraceful to the majesty of the empire; he was immediately
      invested with a Turkish robe of honor; his nobles and patricians
      were restored to their sovereign; and the sultan, after a
      courteous embrace, dismissed him with rich presents and a
      military guard. No sooner did he reach the confines of the
      empire, than he was informed that the palace and provinces had
      disclaimed their allegiance to a captive: a sum of two hundred
      thousand pieces was painfully collected; and the fallen monarch
      transmitted this part of his ransom, with a sad confession of his
      impotence and disgrace. The generosity, or perhaps the ambition,
      of the sultan, prepared to espouse the cause of his ally; but his
      designs were prevented by the defeat, imprisonment, and death, of
      Romanus Diogenes. 38

      36 (return) [ This circumstance, which we read and doubt in
      Scylitzes and Constantine Manasses, is more prudently omitted by
      Nicephorus and Zonaras.]

      361 (return) [ Elmacin gives 1,500,000. Wilken, Geschichte der
      Kreuz-zuge, vol. l. p. 10.—M.]

      37 (return) [ The ransom and tribute are attested by reason and
      the Orientals. The other Greeks are modestly silent; but
      Nicephorus Bryennius dares to affirm, that the terms were bad and
      that the emperor would have preferred death to a shameful
      treaty.]

      38 (return) [ The defeat and captivity of Romanus Diogenes may be
      found in John Scylitzes ad calcem Cedreni, tom. ii. p. 835-843.
      Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 281-284. Nicephorus Bryennius, l. i. p.
      25-32. Glycas, p. 325-327. Constantine Manasses, p. 134. Elmacin,
      Hist. Saracen. p. 343 344. Abulpharag. Dynast. p. 227.
      D’Herbelot, p. 102, 103. D Guignes, tom. iii. p. 207-211. Besides
      my old acquaintance Elmacin and Abulpharagius, the historian of
      the Huns has consulted Abulfeda, and his epitomizer Benschounah,
      a Chronicle of the Caliphs, by Abulmahasen of Egypt, and Novairi
      of Africa.]

      In the treaty of peace, it does not appear that Alp Arslan
      extorted any province or city from the captive emperor; and his
      revenge was satisfied with the trophies of his victory, and the
      spoils of Anatolia, from Antioch to the Black Sea. The fairest
      part of Asia was subject to his laws: twelve hundred princes, or
      the sons of princes, stood before his throne; and two hundred
      thousand soldiers marched under his banners. The sultan disdained
      to pursue the fugitive Greeks; but he meditated the more glorious
      conquest of Turkestan, the original seat of the house of Seljuk.
      He moved from Bagdad to the banks of the Oxus; a bridge was
      thrown over the river; and twenty days were consumed in the
      passage of his troops. But the progress of the great king was
      retarded by the governor of Berzem; and Joseph the Carizmian
      presumed to defend his fortress against the powers of the East.
      When he was produced a captive in the royal tent, the sultan,
      instead of praising his valor, severely reproached his obstinate
      folly: and the insolent replies of the rebel provoked a sentence,
      that he should be fastened to four stakes, and left to expire in
      that painful situation. At this command, the desperate Carizmian,
      drawing a dagger, rushed headlong towards the throne: the guards
      raised their battle-axes; their zeal was checked by Alp Arslan,
      the most skilful archer of the age: he drew his bow, but his foot
      slipped, the arrow glanced aside, and he received in his breast
      the dagger of Joseph, who was instantly cut in pieces.

      The wound was mortal; and the Turkish prince bequeathed a dying
      admonition to the pride of kings. “In my youth,” said Alp Arslan,
      “I was advised by a sage to humble myself before God; to distrust
      my own strength; and never to despise the most contemptible foe.
      I have neglected these lessons; and my neglect has been
      deservedly punished. Yesterday, as from an eminence I beheld the
      numbers, the discipline, and the spirit, of my armies, the earth
      seemed to tremble under my feet; and I said in my heart, Surely
      thou art the king of the world, the greatest and most invincible
      of warriors. These armies are no longer mine; and, in the
      confidence of my personal strength, I now fall by the hand of an
      assassin.” 39 Alp Arslan possessed the virtues of a Turk and a
      Mussulman; his voice and stature commanded the reverence of
      mankind; his face was shaded with long whiskers; and his ample
      turban was fashioned in the shape of a crown. The remains of the
      sultan were deposited in the tomb of the Seljukian dynasty; and
      the passenger might read and meditate this useful inscription: 40
      “O ye who have seen the glory of Alp Arslan exalted to the
      heavens, repair to Maru, and you will behold it buried in the
      dust.” The annihilation of the inscription, and the tomb itself,
      more forcibly proclaims the instability of human greatness.

      39 (return) [ This interesting death is told by D’Herbelot, (p.
      103, 104,) and M. De Guignes, (tom. iii. p. 212, 213.) from their
      Oriental writers; but neither of them have transfused the spirit
      of Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen p. 344, 345.)]

      40 (return) [ A critic of high renown, (the late Dr. Johnson,)
      who has severely scrutinized the epitaphs of Pope, might cavil in
      this sublime inscription at the words “repair to Maru,” since the
      reader must already be at Maru before he could peruse the
      inscription.]

      During the life of Alp Arslan, his eldest son had been
      acknowledged as the future sultan of the Turks. On his father’s
      death the inheritance was disputed by an uncle, a cousin, and a
      brother: they drew their cimeters, and assembled their followers;
      and the triple victory of Malek Shah 41 established his own
      reputation and the right of primogeniture. In every age, and more
      especially in Asia, the thirst of power has inspired the same
      passions, and occasioned the same disorders; but, from the long
      series of civil war, it would not be easy to extract a sentiment
      more pure and magnanimous than is contained in the saying of the
      Turkish prince. On the eve of the battle, he performed his
      devotions at Thous, before the tomb of the Imam Riza. As the
      sultan rose from the ground, he asked his vizier Nizam, who had
      knelt beside him, what had been the object of his secret
      petition: “That your arms may be crowned with victory,” was the
      prudent, and most probably the sincere, answer of the minister.
      “For my part,” replied the generous Malek, “I implored the Lord
      of Hosts that he would take from me my life and crown, if my
      brother be more worthy than myself to reign over the Moslems.”
      The favorable judgment of heaven was ratified by the caliph; and
      for the first time, the sacred title of Commander of the Faithful
      was communicated to a Barbarian. But this Barbarian, by his
      personal merit, and the extent of his empire, was the greatest
      prince of his age. After the settlement of Persia and Syria, he
      marched at the head of innumerable armies to achieve the conquest
      of Turkestan, which had been undertaken by his father. In his
      passage of the Oxus, the boatmen, who had been employed in
      transporting some troops, complained, that their payment was
      assigned on the revenues of Antioch. The sultan frowned at this
      preposterous choice; but he miled at the artful flattery of his
      vizier. “It was not to postpone their reward, that I selected
      those remote places, but to leave a memorial to posterity, that,
      under your reign, Antioch and the Oxus were subject to the same
      sovereign.” But this description of his limits was unjust and
      parsimonious: beyond the Oxus, he reduced to his obedience the
      cities of Bochara, Carizme, and Samarcand, and crushed each
      rebellious slave, or independent savage, who dared to resist.
      Malek passed the Sihon or Jaxartes, the last boundary of Persian
      civilization: the hordes of Turkestan yielded to his supremacy:
      his name was inserted on the coins, and in the prayers of
      Cashgar, a Tartar kingdom on the extreme borders of China. From
      the Chinese frontier, he stretched his immediate jurisdiction or
      feudatory sway to the west and south, as far as the mountains of
      Georgia, the neighborhood of Constantinople, the holy city of
      Jerusalem, and the spicy groves of Arabia Felix. Instead of
      resigning himself to the luxury of his harem, the shepherd king,
      both in peace and war, was in action and in the field. By the
      perpetual motion of the royal camp, each province was
      successively blessed with his presence; and he is said to have
      perambulated twelve times the wide extent of his dominions, which
      surpassed the Asiatic reign of Cyrus and the caliphs. Of these
      expeditions, the most pious and splendid was the pilgrimage of
      Mecca: the freedom and safety of the caravans were protected by
      his arms; the citizens and pilgrims were enriched by the
      profusion of his alms; and the desert was cheered by the places
      of relief and refreshment, which he instituted for the use of his
      brethren. Hunting was the pleasure, and even the passion, of the
      sultan, and his train consisted of forty-seven thousand horses;
      but after the massacre of a Turkish chase, for each piece of
      game, he bestowed a piece of gold on the poor, a slight
      atonement, at the expense of the people, for the cost and
      mischief of the amusement of kings. In the peaceful prosperity of
      his reign, the cities of Asia were adorned with palaces and
      hospitals with moschs and colleges; few departed from his Divan
      without reward, and none without justice. The language and
      literature of Persia revived under the house of Seljuk; 42 and if
      Malek emulated the liberality of a Turk less potent than himself,
      43 his palace might resound with the songs of a hundred poets.
      The sultan bestowed a more serious and learned care on the
      reformation of the calendar, which was effected by a general
      assembly of the astronomers of the East. By a law of the prophet,
      the Moslems are confined to the irregular course of the lunar
      months; in Persia, since the age of Zoroaster, the revolution of
      the sun has been known and celebrated as an annual festival; 44
      but after the fall of the Magian empire, the intercalation had
      been neglected; the fractions of minutes and hours were
      multiplied into days; and the date of the springs was removed
      from the sign of Aries to that of Pisces. The reign of Malek was
      illustrated by the Gelalaean aera; and all errors, either past or
      future, were corrected by a computation of time, which surpasses
      the Julian, and approaches the accuracy of the Gregorian, style.
      45

      41 (return) [ The Bibliotheque Orientale has given the text of
      the reign of Malek, (p. 542, 543, 544, 654, 655;) and the
      Histoire Generale des Huns (tom. iii. p. 214-224) has added the
      usual measure of repetition emendation, and supplement. Without
      those two learned Frenchmen I should be blind indeed in the
      Eastern world.]

      42 (return) [ See an excellent discourse at the end of Sir
      William Jones’s History of Nadir Shah, and the articles of the
      poets, Amak, Anvari, Raschidi, &c., in the Bibliotheque
      Orientale. ]

      43 (return) [ His name was Kheder Khan. Four bags were placed
      round his sopha, and as he listened to the song, he cast handfuls
      of gold and silver to the poets, (D’Herbelot, p. 107.) All this
      may be true; but I do not understand how he could reign in
      Transoxiana in the time of Malek Shah, and much less how Kheder
      could surpass him in power and pomp. I suspect that the
      beginning, not the end, of the xith century is the true aera of
      his reign.]

      44 (return) [ See Chardin, Voyages en Perse, tom. ii. p. 235.]

      45 (return) [ The Gelalaean aera (Gelaleddin, Glory of the Faith,
      was one of the names or titles of Malek Shah) is fixed to the
      xvth of March, A. H. 471, A.D. 1079. Dr. Hyde has produced the
      original testimonies of the Persians and Arabians, (de Religione
      veterum Persarum, c. 16 p. 200-211.)]

      In a period when Europe was plunged in the deepest barbarism, the
      light and splendor of Asia may be ascribed to the docility rather
      than the knowledge of the Turkish conquerors. An ample share of
      their wisdom and virtue is due to a Persian vizier, who ruled the
      empire under the reigns of Alp Arslan and his son. Nizam, one of
      the most illustrious ministers of the East, was honored by the
      caliph as an oracle of religion and science; he was trusted by
      the sultan as the faithful vicegerent of his power and justice.
      After an administration of thirty years, the fame of the vizier,
      his wealth, and even his services, were transformed into crimes.
      He was overthrown by the insidious arts of a woman and a rival;
      and his fall was hastened by a rash declaration, that his cap and
      ink-horn, the badges of his office, were connected by the divine
      decree with the throne and diadem of the sultan. At the age of
      ninety-three years, the venerable statesman was dismissed by his
      master, accused by his enemies, and murdered by a fanatic: 451
      the last words of Nizam attested his innocence, and the remainder
      of Malek’s life was short and inglorious. From Ispahan, the scene
      of this disgraceful transaction, the sultan moved to Bagdad, with
      the design of transplanting the caliph, and of fixing his own
      residence in the capital of the Moslem world. The feeble
      successor of Mahomet obtained a respite of ten days; and before
      the expiration of the term, the Barbarian was summoned by the
      angel of death. His ambassadors at Constantinople had asked in
      marriage a Roman princess; but the proposal was decently eluded;
      and the daughter of Alexius, who might herself have been the
      victim, expresses her abhorrence of his unnatural conjunction. 46
      The daughter of the sultan was bestowed on the caliph Moctadi,
      with the imperious condition, that, renouncing the society of his
      wives and concubines, he should forever confine himself to this
      honorable alliance.

      451 (return) [ He was the first great victim of his enemy, Hassan
      Sabek, founder of the Assassins. Von Hammer, Geschichte der
      Assassinen, p. 95.—M.]

      46 (return) [ She speaks of this Persian royalty. Anna Comnena
      was only nine years old at the end of the reign of Malek Shah,
      (A.D. 1092,) and when she speaks of his assassination, she
      confounds the sultan with the vizier, (Alexias, l. vi. p. 177,
      178.)]




      Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part III.

      The greatness and unity of the Turkish empire expired in the
      person of Malek Shah. His vacant throne was disputed by his
      brother and his four sons; 461 and, after a series of civil wars,
      the treaty which reconciled the surviving candidates confirmed a
      lasting separation in the Persian dynasty, the eldest and
      principal branch of the house of Seljuk. The three younger
      dynasties were those of Kerman, of Syria, and of Roum: the first
      of these commanded an extensive, though obscure, 47 dominion on
      the shores of the Indian Ocean: 48 the second expelled the
      Arabian princes of Aleppo and Damascus; and the third, our
      peculiar care, invaded the Roman provinces of Asia Minor. The
      generous policy of Malek contributed to their elevation: he
      allowed the princes of his blood, even those whom he had
      vanquished in the field, to seek new kingdoms worthy of their
      ambition; nor was he displeased that they should draw away the
      more ardent spirits, who might have disturbed the tranquillity of
      his reign. As the supreme head of his family and nation, the
      great sultan of Persia commanded the obedience and tribute of his
      royal brethren: the thrones of Kerman and Nice, of Aleppo and
      Damascus; the Atabeks, and emirs of Syria and Mesopotamia,
      erected their standards under the shadow of his sceptre: 49 and
      the hordes of Turkmans overspread the plains of the Western Asia.

      After the death of Malek, the bands of union and subordination
      were relaxed and finally dissolved: the indulgence of the house
      of Seljuk invested their slaves with the inheritance of kingdoms;
      and, in the Oriental style, a crowd of princes arose from the
      dust of their feet. 50

      461 (return) [ See Von Hammer, Osmanische Geschichte, vol. i. p.
      16. The Seljukian dominions were for a time reunited in the
      person of Sandjar, one of the sons of Malek Shah, who ruled “from
      Kashgar to Antioch, from the Caspian to the Straits of
      Babelmandel.”—M.]

      47 (return) [ So obscure, that the industry of M. De Guignes
      could only copy (tom. i. p. 244, tom. iii. part i. p. 269, &c.)
      the history, or rather list, of the Seljukides of Kerman, in
      Bibliotheque Orientale. They were extinguished before the end of
      the xiith century.]

      48 (return) [ Tavernier, perhaps the only traveller who has
      visited Kerman, describes the capital as a great ruinous village,
      twenty-five days’ journey from Ispahan, and twenty-seven from
      Ormus, in the midst of a fertile country, (Voyages en Turquie et
      en Perse, p. 107, 110.)]

      49 (return) [ It appears from Anna Comnena, that the Turks of
      Asia Minor obeyed the signet and chiauss of the great sultan,
      (Alexias, l. vi. p. 170;) and that the two sons of Soliman were
      detained in his court, (p. 180.)]

      50 (return) [ This expression is quoted by Petit de la Croix (Vie
      de Gestis p. 160) from some poet, most probably a Persian.]

      A prince of the royal line, Cutulmish, 501 the son of Izrail, the
      son of Seljuk, had fallen in a battle against Alp Arslan and the
      humane victor had dropped a tear over his grave. His five sons,
      strong in arms, ambitious of power, and eager for revenge,
      unsheathed their cimeters against the son of Alp Arslan. The two
      armies expected the signal when the caliph, forgetful of the
      majesty which secluded him from vulgar eyes, interposed his
      venerable mediation. “Instead of shedding the blood of your
      brethren, your brethren both in descent and faith, unite your
      forces in a holy war against the Greeks, the enemies of God and
      his apostle.” They listened to his voice; the sultan embraced his
      rebellious kinsmen; and the eldest, the valiant Soliman, accepted
      the royal standard, which gave him the free conquest and
      hereditary command of the provinces of the Roman empire, from
      Arzeroum to Constantinople, and the unknown regions of the West.
      51 Accompanied by his four brothers, he passed the Euphrates; the
      Turkish camp was soon seated in the neighborhood of Kutaieh in
      Phrygia; and his flying cavalry laid waste the country as far as
      the Hellespont and the Black Sea. Since the decline of the
      empire, the peninsula of Asia Minor had been exposed to the
      transient, though destructive, inroads of the Persians and
      Saracens; but the fruits of a lasting conquest were reserved for
      the Turkish sultan; and his arms were introduced by the Greeks,
      who aspired to reign on the ruins of their country. Since the
      captivity of Romanus, six years the feeble son of Eudocia had
      trembled under the weight of the Imperial crown, till the
      provinces of the East and West were lost in the same month by a
      double rebellion: of either chief Nicephorus was the common name;
      but the surnames of Bryennius and Botoniates distinguish the
      European and Asiatic candidates. Their reasons, or rather their
      promises, were weighed in the Divan; and, after some hesitation,
      Soliman declared himself in favor of Botoniates, opened a free
      passage to his troops in their march from Antioch to Nice, and
      joined the banner of the Crescent to that of the Cross. After his
      ally had ascended the throne of Constantinople, the sultan was
      hospitably entertained in the suburb of Chrysopolis or Scutari;
      and a body of two thousand Turks was transported into Europe, to
      whose dexterity and courage the new emperor was indebted for the
      defeat and captivity of his rival, Bryennius. But the conquest of
      Europe was dearly purchased by the sacrifice of Asia:
      Constantinople was deprived of the obedience and revenue of the
      provinces beyond the Bosphorus and Hellespont; and the regular
      progress of the Turks, who fortified the passes of the rivers and
      mountains, left not a hope of their retreat or expulsion. Another
      candidate implored the aid of the sultan: Melissenus, in his
      purple robes and red buskins, attended the motions of the Turkish
      camp; and the desponding cities were tempted by the summons of a
      Roman prince, who immediately surrendered them into the hands of
      the Barbarians. These acquisitions were confirmed by a treaty of
      peace with the emperor Alexius: his fear of Robert compelled him
      to seek the friendship of Soliman; and it was not till after the
      sultan’s death that he extended as far as Nicomedia, about sixty
      miles from Constantinople, the eastern boundary of the Roman
      world. Trebizond alone, defended on either side by the sea and
      mountains, preserved at the extremity of the Euxine the ancient
      character of a Greek colony, and the future destiny of a
      Christian empire.

      501 (return) [ Wilken considers Cutulmish not a Turkish name.
      Geschicht Kreuz-zuge, vol. i. p. 9.—M.]

      51 (return) [ On the conquest of Asia Minor, M. De Guignes has
      derived no assistance from the Turkish or Arabian writers, who
      produce a naked list of the Seljukides of Roum. The Greeks are
      unwilling to expose their shame, and we must extort some hints
      from Scylitzes, (p. 860, 863,) Nicephorus Bryennius, (p. 88, 91,
      92, &c., 103, 104,) and Anna Comnena (Alexias, p. 91, 92, &c.,
      163, &c.)]

      Since the first conquests of the caliphs, the establishment of
      the Turks in Anatolia or Asia Minor was the most deplorable loss
      which the church and empire had sustained. By the propagation of
      the Moslem faith, Soliman deserved the name of Gazi, a holy
      champion; and his new kingdoms, of the Romans, or of Roum, was
      added to the tables of Oriental geography. It is described as
      extending from the Euphrates to Constantinople, from the Black
      Sea to the confines of Syria; pregnant with mines of silver and
      iron, of alum and copper, fruitful in corn and wine, and
      productive of cattle and excellent horses. 52 The wealth of
      Lydia, the arts of the Greeks, the splendor of the Augustan age,
      existed only in books and ruins, which were equally obscure in
      the eyes of the Scythian conquerors. Yet, in the present decay,
      Anatolia still contains some wealthy and populous cities; and,
      under the Byzantine empire, they were far more flourishing in
      numbers, size, and opulence. By the choice of the sultan, Nice,
      the metropolis of Bithynia, was preferred for his palace and
      fortress: the seat of the Seljukian dynasty of Roum was planted
      one hundred miles from Constantinople; and the divinity of Christ
      was denied and derided in the same temple in which it had been
      pronounced by the first general synod of the Catholics. The unity
      of God, and the mission of Mahomet, were preached in the moschs;
      the Arabian learning was taught in the schools; the Cadhis judged
      according to the law of the Koran; the Turkish manners and
      language prevailed in the cities; and Turkman camps were
      scattered over the plains and mountains of Anatolia. On the hard
      conditions of tribute and servitude, the Greek Christians might
      enjoy the exercise of their religion; but their most holy
      churches were profaned; their priests and bishops were insulted;
      53 they were compelled to suffer the triumph of the Pagans, and
      the apostasy of their brethren; many thousand children were
      marked by the knife of circumcision; and many thousand captives
      were devoted to the service or the pleasures of their masters. 54
      After the loss of Asia, Antioch still maintained her primitive
      allegiance to Christ and Caesar; but the solitary province was
      separated from all Roman aid, and surrounded on all sides by the
      Mahometan powers. The despair of Philaretus the governor prepared
      the sacrifice of his religion and loyalty, had not his guilt been
      prevented by his son, who hastened to the Nicene palace, and
      offered to deliver this valuable prize into the hands of Soliman.
      The ambitious sultan mounted on horseback, and in twelve nights
      (for he reposed in the day) performed a march of six hundred
      miles. Antioch was oppressed by the speed and secrecy of his
      enterprise; and the dependent cities, as far as Laodicea and the
      confines of Aleppo, 55 obeyed the example of the metropolis. From
      Laodicea to the Thracian Bosphorus, or arm of St. George, the
      conquests and reign of Soliman extended thirty days’ journey in
      length, and in breadth about ten or fifteen, between the rocks of
      Lycia and the Black Sea. 56 The Turkish ignorance of navigation
      protected, for a while, the inglorious safety of the emperor; but
      no sooner had a fleet of two hundred ships been constructed by
      the hands of the captive Greeks, than Alexius trembled behind the
      walls of his capital. His plaintive epistles were dispersed over
      Europe, to excite the compassion of the Latins, and to paint the
      danger, the weakness, and the riches of the city of Constantine.
      57

      52 (return) [ Such is the description of Roum by Haiton the
      Armenian, whose Tartar history may be found in the collections of
      Ramusio and Bergeron, (see Abulfeda, Geograph. climat. xvii. p.
      301-305.)]

      53 (return) [ Dicit eos quendam abusione Sodomitica intervertisse
      episcopum, (Guibert. Abbat. Hist. Hierosol. l. i. p. 468.) It is
      odd enough, that we should find a parallel passage of the same
      people in the present age. “Il n’est point d’horreur que ces
      Turcs n’ayent commis, et semblables aux soldats effrenes, qui
      dans le sac d’une ville, non contens de disposer de tout a leur
      gre pretendent encore aux succes les moins desirables. Quelque
      Sipahis ont porte leurs attentats sur la personne du vieux rabbi
      de la synagogue, et celle de l’Archeveque Grec.” (Memoires du
      Baron de Tott, tom. ii. p. 193.)]

      54 (return) [ The emperor, or abbot describe the scenes of a
      Turkish camp as if they had been present. Matres correptae in
      conspectu filiarum multipliciter repetitis diversorum coitibus
      vexabantur; (is that the true reading?) cum filiae assistentes
      carmina praecinere saltando cogerentur. Mox eadem passio ad
      filias, &c.]

      55 (return) [ See Antioch, and the death of Soliman, in Anna
      Comnena, (Alexius, l. vi. p. 168, 169,) with the notes of
      Ducange.]

      56 (return) [ William of Tyre (l. i. c. 9, 10, p. 635) gives the
      most authentic and deplorable account of these Turkish
      conquests.]

      57 (return) [ In his epistle to the count of Flanders, Alexius
      seems to fall too low beneath his character and dignity; yet it
      is approved by Ducange, (Not. ad Alexiad. p. 335, &c.,) and
      paraphrased by the Abbot Guibert, a contemporary historian. The
      Greek text no longer exists; and each translator and scribe might
      say with Guibert, (p. 475,) verbis vestita meis, a privilege of
      most indefinite latitude.]

      But the most interesting conquest of the Seljukian Turks was that
      of Jerusalem, 58 which soon became the theatre of nations. In
      their capitulation with Omar, the inhabitants had stipulated the
      assurance of their religion and property; but the articles were
      interpreted by a master against whom it was dangerous to dispute;
      and in the four hundred years of the reign of the caliphs, the
      political climate of Jerusalem was exposed to the vicissitudes of
      storm and sunshine. 59 By the increase of proselytes and
      population, the Mahometans might excuse the usurpation of three
      fourths of the city: but a peculiar quarter was resolved for the
      patriarch with his clergy and people; a tribute of two pieces of
      gold was the price of protection; and the sepulchre of Christ,
      with the church of the Resurrection, was still left in the hands
      of his votaries. Of these votaries, the most numerous and
      respectable portion were strangers to Jerusalem: the pilgrimages
      to the Holy Land had been stimulated, rather than suppressed, by
      the conquest of the Arabs; and the enthusiasm which had always
      prompted these perilous journeys, was nourished by the congenial
      passions of grief and indignation. A crowd of pilgrims from the
      East and West continued to visit the holy sepulchre, and the
      adjacent sanctuaries, more especially at the festival of Easter;
      and the Greeks and Latins, the Nestorians and Jacobites, the
      Copts and Abyssinians, the Armenians and Georgians, maintained
      the chapels, the clergy, and the poor of their respective
      communions. The harmony of prayer in so many various tongues, the
      worship of so many nations in the common temple of their
      religion, might have afforded a spectacle of edification and
      peace; but the zeal of the Christian sects was imbittered by
      hatred and revenge; and in the kingdom of a suffering Messiah,
      who had pardoned his enemies, they aspired to command and
      persecute their spiritual brethren. The preeminence was asserted
      by the spirit and numbers of the Franks; and the greatness of
      Charlemagne 60 protected both the Latin pilgrims and the
      Catholics of the East. The poverty of Carthage, Alexandria, and
      Jerusalem, was relieved by the alms of that pious emperor; and
      many monasteries of Palestine were founded or restored by his
      liberal devotion. Harun Alrashid, the greatest of the Abbassides,
      esteemed in his Christian brother a similar supremacy of genius
      and power: their friendship was cemented by a frequent
      intercourse of gifts and embassies; and the caliph, without
      resigning the substantial dominion, presented the emperor with
      the keys of the holy sepulchre, and perhaps of the city of
      Jerusalem. In the decline of the Carlovingian monarchy, the
      republic of Amalphi promoted the interest of trade and religion
      in the East. Her vessels transported the Latin pilgrims to the
      coasts of Egypt and Palestine, and deserved, by their useful
      imports, the favor and alliance of the Fatimite caliphs: 61 an
      annual fair was instituted on Mount Calvary: and the Italian
      merchants founded the convent and hospital of St. John of
      Jerusalem, the cradle of the monastic and military order, which
      has since reigned in the isles of Rhodes and of Malta. Had the
      Christian pilgrims been content to revere the tomb of a prophet,
      the disciples of Mahomet, instead of blaming, would have
      imitated, their piety: but these rigid Unitarians were
      scandalized by a worship which represents the birth, death, and
      resurrection, of a God; the Catholic images were branded with the
      name of idols; and the Moslems smiled with indignation 62 at the
      miraculous flame which was kindled on the eve of Easter in the
      holy sepulchre. 63 This pious fraud, first devised in the ninth
      century, 64 was devoutly cherished by the Latin crusaders, and is
      annually repeated by the clergy of the Greek, Armenian, and
      Coptic sects, 65 who impose on the credulous spectators 66 for
      their own benefit, and that of their tyrants. In every age, a
      principle of toleration has been fortified by a sense of
      interest: and the revenue of the prince and his emir was
      increased each year, by the expense and tribute of so many
      thousand strangers.

      58 (return) [ Our best fund for the history of Jerusalem from
      Heraclius to the crusades is contained in two large and original
      passages of William archbishop of Tyre, (l. i. c. 1-10, l. xviii.
      c. 5, 6,) the principal author of the Gesta Dei per Francos. M.
      De Guignes has composed a very learned Memoire sur le Commerce
      des Francois dans le de Levant avant les Croisades, &c. (Mem. de
      l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxvii. p. 467-500.)]

      59 (return) [ Secundum Dominorum dispositionem plerumque lucida
      plerum que nubila recepit intervalla, et aegrotantium more
      temporum praesentium gravabatur aut respirabat qualitate, (l. i.
      c. 3, p. 630.) The latinity of William of Tyre is by no means
      contemptible: but in his account of 490 years, from the loss to
      the recovery of Jerusalem, precedes the true account by 30
      years.]

      60 (return) [ For the transactions of Charlemagne with the Holy
      Land, see Eginhard, (de Vita Caroli Magni, c. 16, p. 79-82,)
      Constantine Porphyrogenitus, (de Administratione Imperii, l. ii.
      c. 26, p. 80,) and Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. A.D. 800, No. 13,
      14, 15.)]

      61 (return) [ The caliph granted his privileges, Amalphitanis
      viris amicis et utilium introductoribus, (Gesta Dei, p. 934.) The
      trade of Venice to Egypt and Palestine cannot produce so old a
      title, unless we adopt the laughable translation of a Frenchman,
      who mistook the two factions of the circus (Veneti et Prasini)
      for the Venetians and Parisians.]

      62 (return) [ An Arabic chronicle of Jerusalem (apud Asseman.
      Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 268, tom. iv. p. 368) attests the
      unbelief of the caliph and the historian; yet Cantacuzene
      presumes to appeal to the Mahometans themselves for the truth of
      this perpetual miracle.]

      63 (return) [ In his Dissertations on Ecclesiastical History, the
      learned Mosheim has separately discussed this pretended miracle,
      (tom. ii. p. 214-306,) de lumine sancti sepulchri.]

      64 (return) [ William of Malmsbury (l. iv. c. 2, p. 209) quotes
      the Itinerary of the monk Bernard, an eye-witness, who visited
      Jerusalem A.D. 870. The miracle is confirmed by another pilgrim
      some years older; and Mosheim ascribes the invention to the
      Franks, soon after the decease of Charlemagne.]

      65 (return) [ Our travellers, Sandys, (p. 134,) Thevenot, (p.
      621-627,) Maundrell, (p. 94, 95,) &c., describes this extravagant
      farce. The Catholics are puzzled to decide when the miracle ended
      and the trick began.]

      66 (return) [ The Orientals themselves confess the fraud, and
      plead necessity and edification, (Memoires du Chevalier
      D’Arvieux, tom. ii. p. 140. Joseph Abudacni, Hist. Copt. c. 20;)
      but I will not attempt, with Mosheim, to explain the mode. Our
      travellers have failed with the blood of St. Januarius at
      Naples.]

      The revolution which transferred the sceptre from the Abbassides
      to the Fatimites was a benefit, rather than an injury, to the
      Holy Land. A sovereign resident in Egypt was more sensible of the
      importance of Christian trade; and the emirs of Palestine were
      less remote from the justice and power of the throne. But the
      third of these Fatimite caliphs was the famous Hakem, 67 a
      frantic youth, who was delivered by his impiety and despotism
      from the fear either of God or man; and whose reign was a wild
      mixture of vice and folly. Regardless of the most ancient customs
      of Egypt, he imposed on the women an absolute confinement; the
      restraint excited the clamors of both sexes; their clamors
      provoked his fury; a part of Old Cairo was delivered to the
      flames and the guards and citizens were engaged many days in a
      bloody conflict. At first the caliph declared himself a zealous
      Mussulman, the founder or benefactor of moschs and colleges:
      twelve hundred and ninety copies of the Koran were transcribed at
      his expense in letters of gold; and his edict extirpated the
      vineyards of the Upper Egypt. But his vanity was soon flattered
      by the hope of introducing a new religion; he aspired above the
      fame of a prophet, and styled himself the visible image of the
      Most High God, who, after nine apparitions on earth, was at
      length manifest in his royal person. At the name of Hakem, the
      lord of the living and the dead, every knee was bent in religious
      adoration: his mysteries were performed on a mountain near Cairo:
      sixteen thousand converts had signed his profession of faith; and
      at the present hour, a free and warlike people, the Druses of
      Mount Libanus, are persuaded of the life and divinity of a madman
      and tyrant. 68 In his divine character, Hakem hated the Jews and
      Christians, as the servants of his rivals; while some remains of
      prejudice or prudence still pleaded in favor of the law of
      Mahomet. Both in Egypt and Palestine, his cruel and wanton
      persecution made some martyrs and many apostles: the common
      rights and special privileges of the sectaries were equally
      disregarded; and a general interdict was laid on the devotion of
      strangers and natives. The temple of the Christian world, the
      church of the Resurrection, was demolished to its foundations;
      the luminous prodigy of Easter was interrupted, and much profane
      labor was exhausted to destroy the cave in the rock which
      properly constitutes the holy sepulchre. At the report of this
      sacrilege, the nations of Europe were astonished and afflicted:
      but instead of arming in the defence of the Holy Land, they
      contented themselves with burning, or banishing, the Jews, as the
      secret advisers of the impious Barbarian. 69 Yet the calamities
      of Jerusalem were in some measure alleviated by the inconstancy
      or repentance of Hakem himself; and the royal mandate was sealed
      for the restitution of the churches, when the tyrant was
      assassinated by the emissaries of his sister. The succeeding
      caliphs resumed the maxims of religion and policy: a free
      toleration was again granted; with the pious aid of the emperor
      of Constantinople, the holy sepulchre arose from its ruins; and,
      after a short abstinence, the pilgrims returned with an increase
      of appetite to the spiritual feast. 70 In the sea-voyage of
      Palestine, the dangers were frequent, and the opportunities rare:
      but the conversion of Hungary opened a safe communication between
      Germany and Greece. The charity of St. Stephen, the apostle of
      his kingdom, relieved and conducted his itinerant brethren; 71
      and from Belgrade to Antioch, they traversed fifteen hundred
      miles of a Christian empire. Among the Franks, the zeal of
      pilgrimage prevailed beyond the example of former times: and the
      roads were covered with multitudes of either sex, and of every
      rank, who professed their contempt of life, so soon as they
      should have kissed the tomb of their Redeemer. Princes and
      prelates abandoned the care of their dominions; and the numbers
      of these pious caravans were a prelude to the armies which
      marched in the ensuing age under the banner of the cross. About
      thirty years before the first crusade, the arch bishop of Mentz,
      with the bishops of Utrecht, Bamberg, and Ratisbon, undertook
      this laborious journey from the Rhine to the Jordan; and the
      multitude of their followers amounted to seven thousand persons.
      At Constantinople, they were hospitably entertained by the
      emperor; but the ostentation of their wealth provoked the assault
      of the wild Arabs: they drew their swords with scrupulous
      reluctance, and sustained siege in the village of Capernaum, till
      they were rescued by the venal protection of the Fatimite emir.
      After visiting the holy places, they embarked for Italy, but only
      a remnant of two thousand arrived in safety in their native land.

      Ingulphus, a secretary of William the Conqueror, was a companion
      of this pilgrimage: he observes that they sailed from Normandy,
      thirty stout and well-appointed horsemen; but that they repassed
      the Alps, twenty miserable palmers, with the staff in their hand,
      and the wallet at their back. 72

      67 (return) [ See D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 411,)
      Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 390, 397, 400, 401,)
      Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 321-323,) and Marei, (p. 384-386,) an
      historian of Egypt, translated by Reiske from Arabic into German,
      and verbally interpreted to me by a friend.]

      68 (return) [ The religion of the Druses is concealed by their
      ignorance and hypocrisy. Their secret doctrines are confined to
      the elect who profess a contemplative life; and the vulgar
      Druses, the most indifferent of men, occasionally conform to the
      worship of the Mahometans and Christians of their neighborhood.
      The little that is, or deserves to be, known, may be seen in the
      industrious Niebuhr, (Voyages, tom. ii. p. 354-357,) and the
      second volume of the recent and instructive Travels of M. de
      Volney. * Note: The religion of the Druses has, within the
      present year, been fully developed from their own writings, which
      have long lain neglected in the libraries of Paris and Oxford, in
      the “Expose de la Religion des Druses, by M. Silvestre de Sacy.”
      Deux tomes, Paris, 1838. The learned author has prefixed a life
      of Hakem Biamr-Allah, which enables us to correct several errors
      in the account of Gibbon. These errors chiefly arose from his
      want of knowledge or of attention to the chronology of Hakem’s
      life. Hakem succeeded to the throne of Egypt in the year of the
      Hegira 386. He did not assume his divinity till 408. His life was
      indeed “a wild mixture of vice and folly,” to which may be added,
      of the most sanguinary cruelty. During his reign, 18,000 persons
      were victims of his ferocity. Yet such is the god, observes M. de
      Sacy, whom the Druses have worshipped for 800 years! (See p.
      ccccxxix.) All his wildest and most extravagant actions were
      interpreted by his followers as having a mystic and allegoric
      meaning, alluding to the destruction of other religions and the
      propagation of his own. It does not seem to have been the
      “vanity” of Hakem which induced him to introduce a new religion.
      The curious point in the new faith is that Hamza, the son of Ali,
      the real founder of the Unitarian religion, (such is its boastful
      title,) was content to take a secondary part. While Hakem was
      God, the one Supreme, the Imam Hamza was his Intelligence. It was
      not in his “divine character” that Hakem “hated the Jews and
      Christians,” but in that of a Mahometan bigot, which he displayed
      in the earlier years of his reign. His barbarous persecution, and
      the burning of the church of the Resurrection at Jerusalem,
      belong entirely to that period; and his assumption of divinity
      was followed by an edict of toleration to Jews and Christians.
      The Mahometans, whose religion he then treated with hostility and
      contempt, being far the most numerous, were his most dangerous
      enemies, and therefore the objects of his most inveterate hatred.
      It is another singular fact, that the religion of Hakem was by no
      means confined to Egypt and Syria. M. de Sacy quotes a letter
      addressed to the chief of the sect in India; and there is
      likewise a letter to the Byzantine emperor Constantine, son of
      Armanous, (Romanus,) and the clergy of the empire. (Constantine
      VIII., M. de Sacy supposes, but this is irreconcilable with
      chronology; it must mean Constantine XI., Monomachus.) The
      assassination of Hakem is, of course, disbelieved by his
      sectaries. M. de Sacy seems to consider the fact obscure and
      doubtful. According to his followers he disappeared, but is
      hereafter to return. At his return the resurrection is to take
      place; the triumph of Unitarianism, and the final discomfiture of
      all other religions. The temple of Mecca is especially devoted to
      destruction. It is remarkable that one of the signs of this final
      consummation, and of the reappearance of Hakem, is that
      Christianity shall be gaining a manifest predominance over
      Mahometanism. As for the religion of the Druses, I cannot agree
      with Gibbon that it does not “deserve” to be better known; and am
      grateful to M. de Sacy, notwithstanding the prolixity and
      occasional repetition in his two large volumes, for the full
      examination of the most extraordinary religious aberration which
      ever extensively affected the mind of man. The worship of a mad
      tyrant is the basis of a subtle metaphysical creed, and of a
      severe, and even ascetic, morality.—M.]

      69 (return) [ See Glaber, l. iii. c. 7, and the Annals of
      Baronius and Pagi, A.D. 1009.]

      70 (return) [ Per idem tempus ex universo orbe tam innumerabilis
      multitudo coepit confluere ad sepulchrum Salvatoris Hierosolymis,
      quantum nullus hominum prius sperare poterat. Ordo inferioris
      plebis.... mediocres.... reges et comites..... praesules .....
      mulieres multae nobilis cum pauperioribus.... Pluribus enim erat
      mentis desiderium mori priusquam ad propria reverterentur,
      (Glaber, l. iv. c. 6, Bouquet. Historians of France, tom. x. p.
      50.) * Note: Compare the first chap. of Wilken, Geschichte der
      Kreuz-zuge.—M.]

      71 (return) [ Glaber, l. iii. c. 1. Katona (Hist. Critic. Regum
      Hungariae, tom. i. p. 304-311) examines whether St. Stephen
      founded a monastery at Jerusalem.]

      72 (return) [ Baronius (A.D. 1064, No. 43-56) has transcribed the
      greater part of the original narratives of Ingulphus, Marianus,
      and Lambertus.]

      After the defeat of the Romans, the tranquillity of the Fatimite
      caliphs was invaded by the Turks. 73 One of the lieutenants of
      Malek Shah, Atsiz the Carizmian, marched into Syria at the head
      of a powerful army, and reduced Damascus by famine and the sword.
      Hems, and the other cities of the province, acknowledged the
      caliph of Bagdad and the sultan of Persia; and the victorious
      emir advanced without resistance to the banks of the Nile: the
      Fatimite was preparing to fly into the heart of Africa; but the
      negroes of his guard and the inhabitants of Cairo made a
      desperate sally, and repulsed the Turk from the confines of
      Egypt. In his retreat he indulged the license of slaughter and
      rapine: the judge and notaries of Jerusalem were invited to his
      camp; and their execution was followed by the massacre of three
      thousand citizens. The cruelty or the defeat of Atsiz was soon
      punished by the sultan Toucush, the brother of Malek Shah, who,
      with a higher title and more formidable powers, asserted the
      dominion of Syria and Palestine. The house of Seljuk reigned
      about twenty years in Jerusalem; 74 but the hereditary command of
      the holy city and territory was intrusted or abandoned to the
      emir Ortok, the chief of a tribe of Turkmans, whose children,
      after their expulsion from Palestine, formed two dynasties on the
      borders of Armenia and Assyria. 75 The Oriental Christians and
      the Latin pilgrims deplored a revolution, which, instead of the
      regular government and old alliance of the caliphs, imposed on
      their necks the iron yoke of the strangers of the North. 76 In
      his court and camp the great sultan had adopted in some degree
      the arts and manners of Persia; but the body of the Turkish
      nation, and more especially the pastoral tribes, still breathed
      the fierceness of the desert. From Nice to Jerusalem, the western
      countries of Asia were a scene of foreign and domestic hostility;
      and the shepherds of Palestine, who held a precarious sway on a
      doubtful frontier, had neither leisure nor capacity to await the
      slow profits of commercial and religious freedom. The pilgrims,
      who, through innumerable perils, had reached the gates of
      Jerusalem, were the victims of private rapine or public
      oppression, and often sunk under the pressure of famine and
      disease, before they were permitted to salute the holy sepulchre.
      A spirit of native barbarism, or recent zeal, prompted the
      Turkmans to insult the clergy of every sect: the patriarch was
      dragged by the hair along the pavement, and cast into a dungeon,
      to extort a ransom from the sympathy of his flock; and the divine
      worship in the church of the Resurrection was often disturbed by
      the savage rudeness of its masters. The pathetic tale excited the
      millions of the West to march under the standard of the cross to
      the relief of the Holy Land; and yet how trifling is the sum of
      these accumulated evils, if compared with the single act of the
      sacrilege of Hakem, which had been so patiently endured by the
      Latin Christians! A slighter provocation inflamed the more
      irascible temper of their descendants: a new spirit had arisen of
      religious chivalry and papal dominion; a nerve was touched of
      exquisite feeling; and the sensation vibrated to the heart of
      Europe.

      73 (return) [ See Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 349, 350) and
      Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 237, vers. Pocock.) M. De Guignes
      (Hist. des Huns, tom iii. part i. p. 215, 216) adds the
      testimonies, or rather the names, of Abulfeda and Novairi.]

      74 (return) [ From the expedition of Isar Atsiz, (A. H. 469, A.D.
      1076,) to the expulsion of the Ortokides, (A.D. 1096.) Yet
      William of Tyre (l. i. c. 6, p. 633) asserts, that Jerusalem was
      thirty-eight years in the hands of the Turks; and an Arabic
      chronicle, quoted by Pagi, (tom. iv. p. 202) supposes that the
      city was reduced by a Carizmian general to the obedience of the
      caliph of Bagdad, A. H. 463, A.D. 1070. These early dates are not
      very compatible with the general history of Asia; and I am sure,
      that as late as A.D. 1064, the regnum Babylonicum (of Cairo)
      still prevailed in Palestine, (Baronius, A.D. 1064, No. 56.)]

      75 (return) [ De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 249-252. ]

      76 (return) [ Willierm. Tyr. l. i. c. 8, p. 634, who strives hard
      to magnify the Christian grievances. The Turks exacted an aureus
      from each pilgrim! The caphar of the Franks now is fourteen
      dollars: and Europe does not complain of this voluntary tax.]




      Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part I.

     Origin And Numbers Of The First Crusade.—Characters Of The Latin
     Princes.—Their March To Constantinople.—Policy Of The Greek
     Emperor Alexius.—Conquest Of Nice, Antioch, And Jerusalem, By The
     Franks.—Deliverance Of The Holy Sepulchre.— Godfrey Of Bouillon,
     First King Of Jerusalem.—Institutions Of The French Or Latin
     Kingdom.

      About twenty years after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Turks,
      the holy sepulchre was visited by a hermit of the name of Peter,
      a native of Amiens, in the province of Picardy 1 in France. His
      resentment and sympathy were excited by his own injuries and the
      oppression of the Christian name; he mingled his tears with those
      of the patriarch, and earnestly inquired, if no hopes of relief
      could be entertained from the Greek emperors of the East. The
      patriarch exposed the vices and weakness of the successors of
      Constantine. “I will rouse,” exclaimed the hermit, “the martial
      nations of Europe in your cause;” and Europe was obedient to the
      call of the hermit. The astonished patriarch dismissed him with
      epistles of credit and complaint; and no sooner did he land at
      Bari, than Peter hastened to kiss the feet of the Roman pontiff.
      His stature was small, his appearance contemptible; but his eye
      was keen and lively; and he possessed that vehemence of speech,
      which seldom fails to impart the persuasion of the soul. 2 He was
      born of a gentleman’s family, (for we must now adopt a modern
      idiom,) and his military service was under the neighboring counts
      of Boulogne, the heroes of the first crusade. But he soon
      relinquished the sword and the world; and if it be true, that his
      wife, however noble, was aged and ugly, he might withdraw, with
      the less reluctance, from her bed to a convent, and at length to
      a hermitage. 211 In this austere solitude, his body was
      emaciated, his fancy was inflamed; whatever he wished, he
      believed; whatever he believed, he saw in dreams and revelations.
      From Jerusalem the pilgrim returned an accomplished fanatic; but
      as he excelled in the popular madness of the times, Pope Urban
      the Second received him as a prophet, applauded his glorious
      design, promised to support it in a general council, and
      encouraged him to proclaim the deliverance of the Holy Land.
      Invigorated by the approbation of the pontiff, his zealous
      missionary traversed. with speed and success, the provinces of
      Italy and France. His diet was abstemious, his prayers long and
      fervent, and the alms which he received with one hand, he
      distributed with the other: his head was bare, his feet naked,
      his meagre body was wrapped in a coarse garment; he bore and
      displayed a weighty crucifix; and the ass on which he rode was
      sanctified, in the public eye, by the service of the man of God.
      He preached to innumerable crowds in the churches, the streets,
      and the highways: the hermit entered with equal confidence the
      palace and the cottage; and the people (for all was people) was
      impetuously moved by his call to repentance and arms. When he
      painted the sufferings of the natives and pilgrims of Palestine,
      every heart was melted to compassion; every breast glowed with
      indignation, when he challenged the warriors of the age to defend
      their brethren, and rescue their Savior: his ignorance of art and
      language was compensated by sighs, and tears, and ejaculations;
      and Peter supplied the deficiency of reason by loud and frequent
      appeals to Christ and his mother, to the saints and angels of
      paradise, with whom he had personally conversed. 212 The most
      perfect orator of Athens might have envied the success of his
      eloquence; the rustic enthusiast inspired the passions which he
      felt, and Christendom expected with impatience the counsels and
      decrees of the supreme pontiff.

      1 (return) [ Whimsical enough is the origin of the name of
      Picards, and from thence of Picardie, which does not date later
      than A.D. 1200. It was an academical joke, an epithet first
      applied to the quarrelsome humor of those students, in the
      University of Paris, who came from the frontier of France and
      Flanders, (Valesii Notitia Galliarum, p. 447, Longuerue.
      Description de la France, p. 54.)]

      2 (return) [ William of Tyre (l. i. c. 11, p. 637, 638) thus
      describes the hermit: Pusillus, persona contemptibilis, vivacis
      ingenii, et oculum habeas perspicacem gratumque, et sponte fluens
      ei non deerat eloquium. See Albert Aquensis, p. 185. Guibert, p.
      482. Anna Comnena in Alex isd, l. x. p. 284, &c., with Ducarge’s
      Notes, p. 349.]

      211 (return) [ Wilken considers this as doubtful, (vol. i. p.
      47.)—M.]

      212 (return) [ He had seen the Savior in a vision: a letter had
      fallen from heaven Wilken, (vol. i. p. 49.)—M.]

      The magnanimous spirit of Gregory the Seventh had already
      embraced the design of arming Europe against Asia; the ardor of
      his zeal and ambition still breathes in his epistles: from either
      side of the Alps, fifty thousand Catholics had enlisted under the
      banner of St. Peter; 3 and his successor reveals his intention of
      marching at their head against the impious sectaries of Mahomet.
      But the glory or reproach of executing, though not in person,
      this holy enterprise, was reserved for Urban the Second, 4 the
      most faithful of his disciples. He undertook the conquest of the
      East, whilst the larger portion of Rome was possessed and
      fortified by his rival Guibert of Ravenna, who contended with
      Urban for the name and honors of the pontificate. He attempted to
      unite the powers of the West, at a time when the princes were
      separated from the church, and the people from their princes, by
      the excommunication which himself and his predecessors had
      thundered against the emperor and the king of France. Philip the
      First, of France, supported with patience the censures which he
      had provoked by his scandalous life and adulterous marriage.
      Henry the Fourth, of Germany, asserted the right of investitures,
      the prerogative of confirming his bishops by the delivery of the
      ring and crosier. But the emperor’s party was crushed in Italy by
      the arms of the Normans and the Countess Mathilda; and the long
      quarrel had been recently envenomed by the revolt of his son
      Conrad and the shame of his wife, 5 who, in the synods of
      Constance and Placentia, confessed the manifold prostitutions to
      which she had been exposed by a husband regardless of her honor
      and his own. 6 So popular was the cause of Urban, so weighty was
      his influence, that the council which he summoned at Placentia 7
      was composed of two hundred bishops of Italy, France, Burgandy,
      Swabia, and Bavaria. Four thousand of the clergy, and thirty
      thousand of the laity, attended this important meeting; and, as
      the most spacious cathedral would have been inadequate to the
      multitude, the session of seven days was held in a plain adjacent
      to the city. The ambassadors of the Greek emperor, Alexius
      Comnenus, were introduced to plead the distress of their
      sovereign, and the danger of Constantinople, which was divided
      only by a narrow sea from the victorious Turks, the common
      enemies of the Christian name. In their suppliant address they
      flattered the pride of the Latin princes; and, appealing at once
      to their policy and religion, exhorted them to repel the
      Barbarians on the confines of Asia, rather than to expect them in
      the heart of Europe. At the sad tale of the misery and perils of
      their Eastern brethren, the assembly burst into tears; the most
      eager champions declared their readiness to march; and the Greek
      ambassadors were dismissed with the assurance of a speedy and
      powerful succor. The relief of Constantinople was included in the
      larger and most distant project of the deliverance of Jerusalem;
      but the prudent Urban adjourned the final decision to a second
      synod, which he proposed to celebrate in some city of France in
      the autumn of the same year. The short delay would propagate the
      flame of enthusiasm; and his firmest hope was in a nation of
      soldiers 8 still proud of the preeminence of their name, and
      ambitious to emulate their hero Charlemagne, 9 who, in the
      popular romance of Turpin, 10 had achieved the conquest of the
      Holy Land. A latent motive of affection or vanity might influence
      the choice of Urban: he was himself a native of France, a monk of
      Clugny, and the first of his countrymen who ascended the throne
      of St. Peter. The pope had illustrated his family and province;
      nor is there perhaps a more exquisite gratification than to
      revisit, in a conspicuous dignity, the humble and laborious
      scenes of our youth.

      3 (return) [ Ultra quinquaginta millia, si me possunt in
      expeditione pro duce et pontifice habere, armata manu volunt in
      inimicos Dei insurgere et ad sepulchrum Domini ipso ducente
      pervenire, (Gregor. vii. epist. ii. 31, in tom. xii. 322,
      concil.)]

      4 (return) [ See the original lives of Urban II. by Pandulphus
      Pisanus and Bernardus Guido, in Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script. tom.
      iii. pars i. p. 352, 353.]

      5 (return) [ She is known by the different names of Praxes,
      Eupraecia, Eufrasia, and Adelais; and was the daughter of a
      Russian prince, and the widow of a margrave of Brandenburgh.
      (Struv. Corpus Hist. Germanicae, p. 340.)]

      6 (return) [ Henricus odio eam coepit habere: ideo incarceravit
      eam, et concessit ut plerique vim ei inferrent; immo filium
      hortans ut eam subagitaret, (Dodechin, Continuat. Marian. Scot.
      apud Baron. A.D. 1093, No. 4.) In the synod of Constance, she is
      described by Bertholdus, rerum inspector: quae se tantas et tam
      inauditas fornicationum spur citias, et a tantis passam fuisse
      conquesta est, &c.; and again at Placentia: satis misericorditer
      suscepit, eo quod ipsam tantas spurcitias pertulisse pro certo
      cognoverit papa cum sancta synodo. Apud Baron. A.D. 1093, No. 4,
      1094, No. 3. A rare subject for the infallible decision of a pope
      and council. These abominations are repugnant to every principle
      of human nature, which is not altered by a dispute about rings
      and crosiers. Yet it should seem, that the wretched woman was
      tempted by the priests to relate or subscribe some infamous
      stories of herself and her husband.]

      7 (return) [ See the narrative and acts of the synod of
      Placentia, Concil. tom. xii. p. 821, &c.]

      8 (return) [ Guibert, himself a Frenchman, praises the piety and
      valor of the French nation, the author and example of the
      crusades: Gens nobilis, prudens, bellicosa, dapsilis et nitida
      .... Quos enim Britones, Anglos, Ligures, si bonis eos moribus
      videamus, non illico Francos homines appellemus? (p. 478.) He
      owns, however, that the vivacity of the French degenerates into
      petulance among foreigners, (p. 488.) and vain loquaciousness,
      (p. 502.)]

      9 (return) [ Per viam quam jamdudum Carolus Magnus mirificus rex
      Francorum aptari fecit usque C. P., (Gesta Francorum, p. 1.
      Robert. Monach. Hist. Hieros. l. i. p. 33, &c.)]

      10 (return) [ John Tilpinus, or Turpinus, was archbishop of
      Rheims, A.D. 773. After the year 1000, this romance was composed
      in his name, by a monk of the borders of France and Spain; and
      such was the idea of ecclesiastical merit, that he describes
      himself as a fighting and drinking priest! Yet the book of lies
      was pronounced authentic by Pope Calixtus II., (A.D. 1122,) and
      is respectfully quoted by the abbot Suger, in the great
      Chronicles of St. Denys, (Fabric Bibliot. Latin Medii Aevi, edit.
      Mansi, tom. iv. p. 161.)]

      It may occasion some surprise that the Roman pontiff should
      erect, in the heart of France, the tribunal from whence he hurled
      his anathemas against the king; but our surprise will vanish so
      soon as we form a just estimate of a king of France of the
      eleventh century. 11 Philip the First was the great-grandson of
      Hugh Capet, the founder of the present race, who, in the decline
      of Charlemagne’s posterity, added the regal title to his
      patrimonial estates of Paris and Orleans. In this narrow compass,
      he was possessed of wealth and jurisdiction; but in the rest of
      France, Hugh and his first descendants were no more than the
      feudal lords of about sixty dukes and counts, of independent and
      hereditary power, 12 who disdained the control of laws and legal
      assemblies, and whose disregard of their sovereign was revenged
      by the disobedience of their inferior vassals. At Clermont, in
      the territories of the count of Auvergne, 13 the pope might brave
      with impunity the resentment of Philip; and the council which he
      convened in that city was not less numerous or respectable than
      the synod of Placentia. 14 Besides his court and council of Roman
      cardinals, he was supported by thirteen archbishops and two
      hundred and twenty-five bishops: the number of mitred prelates
      was computed at four hundred; and the fathers of the church were
      blessed by the saints and enlightened by the doctors of the age.
      From the adjacent kingdoms, a martial train of lords and knights
      of power and renown attended the council, 15 in high expectation
      of its resolves; and such was the ardor of zeal and curiosity,
      that the city was filled, and many thousands, in the month of
      November, erected their tents or huts in the open field. A
      session of eight days produced some useful or edifying canons for
      the reformation of manners; a severe censure was pronounced
      against the license of private war; the Truce of God 16 was
      confirmed, a suspension of hostilities during four days of the
      week; women and priests were placed under the safeguard of the
      church; and a protection of three years was extended to
      husbandmen and merchants, the defenceless victims of military
      rapine. But a law, however venerable be the sanction, cannot
      suddenly transform the temper of the times; and the benevolent
      efforts of Urban deserve the less praise, since he labored to
      appease some domestic quarrels that he might spread the flames of
      war from the Atlantic to the Euphrates. From the synod of
      Placentia, the rumor of his great design had gone forth among the
      nations: the clergy on their return had preached in every diocese
      the merit and glory of the deliverance of the Holy Land; and when
      the pope ascended a lofty scaffold in the market-place of
      Clermont, his eloquence was addressed to a well-prepared and
      impatient audience. His topics were obvious, his exhortation was
      vehement, his success inevitable. The orator was interrupted by
      the shout of thousands, who with one voice, and in their rustic
      idiom, exclaimed aloud, “God wills it, God wills it.” 17 “It is
      indeed the will of God,” replied the pope; “and let this
      memorable word, the inspiration surely of the Holy Spirit, be
      forever adopted as your cry of battle, to animate the devotion
      and courage of the champions of Christ. His cross is the symbol
      of your salvation; wear it, a red, a bloody cross, as an external
      mark, on your breasts or shoulders, as a pledge of your sacred
      and irrevocable engagement.” The proposal was joyfully accepted;
      great numbers, both of the clergy and laity, impressed on their
      garments the sign of the cross, 18 and solicited the pope to
      march at their head. This dangerous honor was declined by the
      more prudent successor of Gregory, who alleged the schism of the
      church, and the duties of his pastoral office, recommending to
      the faithful, who were disqualified by sex or profession, by age
      or infirmity, to aid, with their prayers and alms, the personal
      service of their robust brethren. The name and powers of his
      legate he devolved on Adhemar bishop of Puy, the first who had
      received the cross at his hands. The foremost of the temporal
      chiefs was Raymond count of Thoulouse, whose ambassadors in the
      council excused the absence, and pledged the honor, of their
      master. After the confession and absolution of their sins, the
      champions of the cross were dismissed with a superfluous
      admonition to invite their countrymen and friends; and their
      departure for the Holy Land was fixed to the festival of the
      Assumption, the fifteenth of August, of the ensuing year. 19

      11 (return) [ See Etat de la France, by the Count de
      Boulainvilliers, tom. i. p. 180-182, and the second volume of the
      Observations sur l’Histoire de France, by the Abbe de Mably.]

      12 (return) [ In the provinces to the south of the Loire, the
      first Capetians were scarcely allowed a feudal supremacy. On all
      sides, Normandy, Bretagne, Aquitain, Burgundy, Lorraine, and
      Flanders, contracted the same and limits of the proper France.
      See Hadrian Vales. Notitia Galliarum]

      13 (return) [ These counts, a younger branch of the dukes of
      Aquitain, were at length despoiled of the greatest part of their
      country by Philip Augustus. The bishops of Clermont gradually
      became princes of the city. Melanges, tires d’une grand
      Bibliotheque, tom. xxxvi. p. 288, &c.]

      14 (return) [ See the Acts of the council of Clermont, Concil.
      tom. xii. p. 829, &c.]

      15 (return) [ Confluxerunt ad concilium e multis regionibus, viri
      potentes et honorati, innumeri quamvis cingulo laicalis militiae
      superbi, (Baldric, an eye-witness, p. 86-88. Robert. Monach. p.
      31, 32. Will. Tyr. i. 14, 15, p. 639-641. Guibert, p. 478-480.
      Fulcher. Carnot. p. 382.)]

      16 (return) [ The Truce of God (Treva, or Treuga Dei) was first
      invented in Aquitain, A.D. 1032; blamed by some bishops as an
      occasion of perjury, and rejected by the Normans as contrary to
      their privileges (Ducange, Gloss Latin. tom. vi. p. 682-685.)]

      17 (return) [ Deus vult, Deus vult! was the pure acclamation of
      the clergy who understood Latin, (Robert. Mon. l. i. p. 32.) By
      the illiterate laity, who spoke the Provincial or Limousin idiom,
      it was corrupted to Deus lo volt, or Diex el volt. See Chron.
      Casinense, l. iv. c. 11, p. 497, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital.
      tom. iv., and Ducange, (Dissertat xi. p. 207, sur Joinville, and
      Gloss. Latin. tom. ii. p. 690,) who, in his preface, produces a
      very difficult specimen of the dialect of Rovergue, A.D. 1100,
      very near, both in time and place, to the council of Clermont,
      (p. 15, 16.)]

      18 (return) [ Most commonly on their shoulders, in gold, or silk,
      or cloth sewed on their garments. In the first crusade, all were
      red, in the third, the French alone preserved that color, while
      green crosses were adopted by the Flemings, and white by the
      English, (Ducange, tom. ii. p. 651.) Yet in England, the red ever
      appears the favorite, and as if were, the national, color of our
      military ensigns and uniforms.]

      19 (return) [ Bongarsius, who has published the original writers
      of the crusades, adopts, with much complacency, the fanatic title
      of Guibertus, Gesta Dei per Francos; though some critics propose
      to read Gesta Diaboli per Francos, (Hanoviae, 1611, two vols. in
      folio.) I shall briefly enumerate, as they stand in this
      collection, the authors whom I have used for the first crusade.

     I.    Gesta Francorum.
     II.   Robertus Monachus.
     III.  Baldricus.
     IV.   Raimundus de Agiles.
     V.    Albertus Aquensis VI. Fulcherius Carnotensis.
     VII.  Guibertus.
     VIII. Willielmus Tyriensis. Muratori has given us,
     IX.   Radulphus Cadomensis de Gestis Tancredi,
     (Script. Rer. Ital. tom. v. p. 285-333,)
     X.    Bernardus Thesaurarius de Acquisitione Terrae Sanctae,
         (tom. vii. p. 664-848.)

      The last of these was unknown to a late French historian, who has
      given a large and critical list of the writers of the crusades,
      (Esprit des Croisades, tom. i. p. 13-141,) and most of whose
      judgments my own experience will allow me to ratify. It was late
      before I could obtain a sight of the French historians collected
      by Duchesne. I. Petri Tudebodi Sacerdotis Sivracensis Historia de
      Hierosolymitano Itinere, (tom. iv. p. 773-815,) has been
      transfused into the first anonymous writer of Bongarsius. II. The
      Metrical History of the first Crusade, in vii. books, (p.
      890-912,) is of small value or account. * Note: Several new
      documents, particularly from the East, have been collected by the
      industry of the modern historians of the crusades, M. Michaud and
      Wilken.—M.]

      So familiar, and as it were so natural to man, is the practice of
      violence, that our indulgence allows the slightest provocation,
      the most disputable right, as a sufficient ground of national
      hostility. But the name and nature of a holy war demands a more
      rigorous scrutiny; nor can we hastily believe, that the servants
      of the Prince of Peace would unsheathe the sword of destruction,
      unless the motive were pure, the quarrel legitimate, and the
      necessity inevitable. The policy of an action may be determined
      from the tardy lessons of experience; but, before we act, our
      conscience should be satisfied of the justice and propriety of
      our enterprise. In the age of the crusades, the Christians, both
      of the East and West, were persuaded of their lawfulness and
      merit; their arguments are clouded by the perpetual abuse of
      Scripture and rhetoric; but they seem to insist on the right of
      natural and religious defence, their peculiar title to the Holy
      Land, and the impiety of their Pagan and Mahometan foes. 20

      I. The right of a just defence may fairly include our civil and
      spiritual allies: it depends on the existence of danger; and that
      danger must be estimated by the twofold consideration of the
      malice, and the power, of our enemies. A pernicious tenet has
      been imputed to the Mahometans, the duty of extirpating all other
      religions by the sword. This charge of ignorance and bigotry is
      refuted by the Koran, by the history of the Mussulman conquerors,
      and by their public and legal toleration of the Christian
      worship. But it cannot be denied, that the Oriental churches are
      depressed under their iron yoke; that, in peace and war, they
      assert a divine and indefeasible claim of universal empire; and
      that, in their orthodox creed, the unbelieving nations are
      continually threatened with the loss of religion or liberty. In
      the eleventh century, the victorious arms of the Turks presented
      a real and urgent apprehension of these losses. They had subdued,
      in less than thirty years, the kingdoms of Asia, as far as
      Jerusalem and the Hellespont; and the Greek empire tottered on
      the verge of destruction. Besides an honest sympathy for their
      brethren, the Latins had a right and interest in the support of
      Constantinople, the most important barrier of the West; and the
      privilege of defence must reach to prevent, as well as to repel,
      an impending assault. But this salutary purpose might have been
      accomplished by a moderate succor; and our calmer reason must
      disclaim the innumerable hosts, and remote operations, which
      overwhelmed Asia and depopulated Europe. 2011

      20 (return) [ If the reader will turn to the first scene of the
      First Part of Henry the Fourth, he will see in the text of
      Shakespeare the natural feelings of enthusiasm; and in the notes
      of Dr. Johnson the workings of a bigoted, though vigorous mind,
      greedy of every pretence to hate and persecute those who dissent
      from his creed.]

      2011 (return) [ The manner in which the war was conducted surely
      has little relation to the abstract question of the justice or
      injustice of the war. The most just and necessary war may be
      conducted with the most prodigal waste of human life, and the
      wildest fanaticism; the most unjust with the coolest moderation
      and consummate generalship. The question is, whether the
      liberties and religion of Europe were in danger from the
      aggressions of Mahometanism? If so, it is difficult to limit the
      right, though it may be proper to question the wisdom, of
      overwhelming the enemy with the armed population of a whole
      continent, and repelling, if possible, the invading conqueror
      into his native deserts. The crusades are monuments of human
      folly! but to which of the more regular wars civilized. Europe,
      waged for personal ambition or national jealousy, will our calmer
      reason appeal as monuments either of human justice or human
      wisdom?—M.]

      II. Palestine could add nothing to the strength or safety of the
      Latins; and fanaticism alone could pretend to justify the
      conquest of that distant and narrow province. The Christians
      affirmed that their inalienable title to the promised land had
      been sealed by the blood of their divine Savior; it was their
      right and duty to rescue their inheritance from the unjust
      possessors, who profaned his sepulchre, and oppressed the
      pilgrimage of his disciples. Vainly would it be alleged that the
      preeminence of Jerusalem, and the sanctity of Palestine, have
      been abolished with the Mosaic law; that the God of the
      Christians is not a local deity, and that the recovery of Bethlem
      or Calvary, his cradle or his tomb, will not atone for the
      violation of the moral precepts of the gospel. Such arguments
      glance aside from the leaden shield of superstition; and the
      religious mind will not easily relinquish its hold on the sacred
      ground of mystery and miracle.

      III. But the holy wars which have been waged in every climate of
      the globe, from Egypt to Livonia, and from Peru to Hindostan,
      require the support of some more general and flexible tenet. It
      has been often supposed, and sometimes affirmed, that a
      difference of religion is a worthy cause of hostility; that
      obstinate unbelievers may be slain or subdued by the champions of
      the cross; and that grace is the sole fountain of dominion as
      well as of mercy. 2012 Above four hundred years before the first
      crusade, the eastern and western provinces of the Roman empire
      had been acquired about the same time, and in the same manner, by
      the Barbarians of Germany and Arabia. Time and treaties had
      legitimated the conquest of the Christian Franks; but in the eyes
      of their subjects and neighbors, the Mahometan princes were still
      tyrants and usurpers, who, by the arms of war or rebellion, might
      be lawfully driven from their unlawful possession. 21

      2012 (return) [ “God,” says the abbot Guibert, “invented the
      crusades as a new way for the laity to atone for their sins and
      to merit salvation.” This extraordinary and characteristic
      passage must be given entire. “Deus nostro tempore praelia sancta
      instituit, ut ordo equestris et vulgus oberrans qui vetustae
      Paganitatis exemplo in mutuas versabatur caedes, novum reperirent
      salutis promerendae genus, ut nec funditus electa, ut fieri
      assolet, monastica conversatione, seu religiosa qualibet
      professione saeculum relinquere congerentur; sed sub consueta
      licentia et habitu ex suo ipsorum officio Dei aliquantenus
      gratiam consequerentur.” Guib. Abbas, p. 371. See Wilken, vol. i.
      p. 63.—M.]

      21 (return) [ The vith Discourse of Fleury on Ecclesiastical
      History (p. 223-261) contains an accurate and rational view of
      the causes and effects of the crusades.]

      As the manners of the Christians were relaxed, their discipline
      of penance 22 was enforced; and with the multiplication of sins,
      the remedies were multiplied. In the primitive church, a
      voluntary and open confession prepared the work of atonement. In
      the middle ages, the bishops and priests interrogated the
      criminal; compelled him to account for his thoughts, words, and
      actions; and prescribed the terms of his reconciliation with God.
      But as this discretionary power might alternately be abused by
      indulgence and tyranny, a rule of discipline was framed, to
      inform and regulate the spiritual judges. This mode of
      legislation was invented by the Greeks; their penitentials 23
      were translated, or imitated, in the Latin church; and, in the
      time of Charlemagne, the clergy of every diocese were provided
      with a code, which they prudently concealed from the knowledge of
      the vulgar. In this dangerous estimate of crimes and punishments,
      each case was supposed, each difference was remarked, by the
      experience or penetration of the monks; some sins are enumerated
      which innocence could not have suspected, and others which reason
      cannot believe; and the more ordinary offences of fornication and
      adultery, of perjury and sacrilege, of rapine and murder, were
      expiated by a penance, which, according to the various
      circumstances, was prolonged from forty days to seven years.
      During this term of mortification, the patient was healed, the
      criminal was absolved, by a salutary regimen of fasts and
      prayers: the disorder of his dress was expressive of grief and
      remorse; and he humbly abstained from all the business and
      pleasure of social life. But the rigid execution of these laws
      would have depopulated the palace, the camp, and the city; the
      Barbarians of the West believed and trembled; but nature often
      rebelled against principle; and the magistrate labored without
      effect to enforce the jurisdiction of the priest. A literal
      accomplishment of penance was indeed impracticable: the guilt of
      adultery was multiplied by daily repetition; that of homicide
      might involve the massacre of a whole people; each act was
      separately numbered; and, in those times of anarchy and vice, a
      modest sinner might easily incur a debt of three hundred years.
      His insolvency was relieved by a commutation, or indulgence: a
      year of penance was appreciated at twenty-six solidi 24 of
      silver, about four pounds sterling, for the rich; at three
      solidi, or nine shillings, for the indigent: and these alms were
      soon appropriated to the use of the church, which derived, from
      the redemption of sins, an inexhaustible source of opulence and
      dominion. A debt of three hundred years, or twelve hundred
      pounds, was enough to impoverish a plentiful fortune; the
      scarcity of gold and silver was supplied by the alienation of
      land; and the princely donations of Pepin and Charlemagne are
      expressly given for the remedy of their soul. It is a maxim of
      the civil law, that whosoever cannot pay with his purse, must pay
      with his body; and the practice of flagellation was adopted by
      the monks, a cheap, though painful equivalent. By a fantastic
      arithmetic, a year of penance was taxed at three thousand lashes;
      25 and such was the skill and patience of a famous hermit, St.
      Dominic of the iron Cuirass, 26 that in six days he could
      discharge an entire century, by a whipping of three hundred
      thousand stripes. His example was followed by many penitents of
      both sexes; and, as a vicarious sacrifice was accepted, a sturdy
      disciplinarian might expiate on his own back the sins of his
      benefactors. 27 These compensations of the purse and the person
      introduced, in the eleventh century, a more honorable mode of
      satisfaction. The merit of military service against the Saracens
      of Africa and Spain had been allowed by the predecessors of Urban
      the Second. In the council of Clermont, that pope proclaimed a
      plenary indulgence to those who should enlist under the banner of
      the cross; the absolution of all their sins, and a full receipt
      for all that might be due of canonical penance. 28 The cold
      philosophy of modern times is incapable of feeling the impression
      that was made on a sinful and fanatic world. At the voice of
      their pastor, the robber, the incendiary, the homicide, arose by
      thousands to redeem their souls, by repeating on the infidels the
      same deeds which they had exercised against their Christian
      brethren; and the terms of atonement were eagerly embraced by
      offenders of every rank and denomination. None were pure; none
      were exempt from the guilt and penalty of sin; and those who were
      the least amenable to the justice of God and the church were the
      best entitled to the temporal and eternal recompense of their
      pious courage. If they fell, the spirit of the Latin clergy did
      not hesitate to adorn their tomb with the crown of martyrdom; 29
      and should they survive, they could expect without impatience the
      delay and increase of their heavenly reward. They offered their
      blood to the Son of God, who had laid down his life for their
      salvation: they took up the cross, and entered with confidence
      into the way of the Lord. His providence would watch over their
      safety; perhaps his visible and miraculous power would smooth the
      difficulties of their holy enterprise. The cloud and pillar of
      Jehovah had marched before the Israelites into the promised land.
      Might not the Christians more reasonably hope that the rivers
      would open for their passage; that the walls of their strongest
      cities would fall at the sound of their trumpets; and that the
      sun would be arrested in his mid career, to allow them time for
      the destruction of the infidels?

      22 (return) [ The penance, indulgences, &c., of the middle ages
      are amply discussed by Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi,
      tom. v. dissert. lxviii. p. 709-768,) and by M. Chais, (Lettres
      sur les Jubiles et les Indulgences, tom. ii. lettres 21 & 22, p.
      478-556,) with this difference, that the abuses of superstition
      are mildly, perhaps faintly, exposed by the learned Italian, and
      peevishly magnified by the Dutch minister.]

      23 (return) [ Schmidt (Histoire des Allemands, tom. ii. p.
      211-220, 452-462) gives an abstract of the Penitential of Rhegino
      in the ninth, and of Burchard in the tenth, century. In one year,
      five-and-thirty murders were perpetrated at Worms.]

      24 (return) [ Till the xiith century, we may support the clear
      account of xii. denarii, or pence, to the solidus, or shilling;
      and xx. solidi to the pound weight of silver, about the pound
      sterling. Our money is diminished to a third, and the French to a
      fiftieth, of this primitive standard.]

      25 (return) [ Each century of lashes was sanctified with a
      recital of a psalm, and the whole Psalter, with the accompaniment
      of 15,000 stripes, was equivalent to five years.]

      26 (return) [ The Life and Achievements of St. Dominic Loricatus
      was composed by his friend and admirer, Peter Damianus. See
      Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 96-104. Baronius, A.D. 1056,
      No. 7, who observes, from Damianus, how fashionable, even among
      ladies of quality, (sublimis generis,) this expiation (purgatorii
      genus) was grown.]

      27 (return) [ At a quarter, or even half a rial a lash, Sancho
      Panza was a cheaper, and possibly not a more dishonest, workman.
      I remember in Pere Labat (Voyages en Italie, tom. vii. p. 16-29)
      a very lively picture of the dexterity of one of these artists.]

      28 (return) [ Quicunque pro sola devotione, non pro honoris vel
      pecuniae adoptione, ad liberandam ecclesiam Dei Jerusalem
      profectus fuerit, iter illud pro omni poenitentia reputetur.
      Canon. Concil. Claromont. ii. p. 829. Guibert styles it novum
      salutis genus, (p. 471,) and is almost philosophical on the
      subject. * Note: See note, page 546.—M.]

      29 (return) [ Such at least was the belief of the crusaders, and
      such is the uniform style of the historians, (Esprit des
      Croisades, tom. iii. p. 477;) but the prayer for the repose of
      their souls is inconsistent in orthodox theology with the merits
      of martyrdom.]




      Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part II.

      Of the chiefs and soldiers who marched to the holy sepulchre, I
      will dare to affirm, that all were prompted by the spirit of
      enthusiasm; the belief of merit, the hope of reward, and the
      assurance of divine aid. But I am equally persuaded, that in many
      it was not the sole, that in some it was not the leading,
      principle of action. The use and abuse of religion are feeble to
      stem, they are strong and irresistible to impel, the stream of
      national manners. Against the private wars of the Barbarians,
      their bloody tournaments, licentious love, and judicial duels,
      the popes and synods might ineffectually thunder. It is a more
      easy task to provoke the metaphysical disputes of the Greeks, to
      drive into the cloister the victims of anarchy or despotism, to
      sanctify the patience of slaves and cowards, or to assume the
      merit of the humanity and benevolence of modern Christians. War
      and exercise were the reigning passions of the Franks or Latins;
      they were enjoined, as a penance, to gratify those passions, to
      visit distant lands, and to draw their swords against the nation
      of the East. Their victory, or even their attempt, would
      immortalize the names of the intrepid heroes of the cross; and
      the purest piety could not be insensible to the most splendid
      prospect of military glory. In the petty quarrels of Europe, they
      shed the blood of their friends and countrymen, for the
      acquisition perhaps of a castle or a village. They could march
      with alacrity against the distant and hostile nations who were
      devoted to their arms; their fancy already grasped the golden
      sceptres of Asia; and the conquest of Apulia and Sicily by the
      Normans might exalt to royalty the hopes of the most private
      adventurer. Christendom, in her rudest state, must have yielded
      to the climate and cultivation of the Mahometan countries; and
      their natural and artificial wealth had been magnified by the
      tales of pilgrims, and the gifts of an imperfect commerce. The
      vulgar, both the great and small, were taught to believe every
      wonder, of lands flowing with milk and honey, of mines and
      treasures, of gold and diamonds, of palaces of marble and jasper,
      and of odoriferous groves of cinnamon and frankincense. In this
      earthly paradise, each warrior depended on his sword to carve a
      plenteous and honorable establishment, which he measured only by
      the extent of his wishes. 30 Their vassals and soldiers trusted
      their fortunes to God and their master: the spoils of a Turkish
      emir might enrich the meanest follower of the camp; and the
      flavor of the wines, the beauty of the Grecian women, 31 were
      temptations more adapted to the nature, than to the profession,
      of the champions of the cross. The love of freedom was a powerful
      incitement to the multitudes who were oppressed by feudal or
      ecclesiastical tyranny. Under this holy sign, the peasants and
      burghers, who were attached to the servitude of the glebe, might
      escape from a haughty lord, and transplant themselves and their
      families to a land of liberty. The monk might release himself
      from the discipline of his convent: the debtor might suspend the
      accumulation of usury, and the pursuit of his creditors; and
      outlaws and malefactors of every cast might continue to brave the
      laws and elude the punishment of their crimes. 32

      30 (return) [ The same hopes were displayed in the letters of the
      adventurers ad animandos qui in Francia residerant. Hugh de
      Reiteste could boast, that his share amounted to one abbey and
      ten castles, of the yearly value of 1500 marks, and that he
      should acquire a hundred castles by the conquest of Aleppo,
      (Guibert, p. 554, 555.)]

      31 (return) [ In his genuine or fictitious letter to the count of
      Flanders, Alexius mingles with the danger of the church, and the
      relics of saints, the auri et argenti amor, and pulcherrimarum
      foeminarum voluptas, (p. 476;) as if, says the indignant Guibert,
      the Greek women were handsomer than those of France.]

      32 (return) [ See the privileges of the Crucesignati, freedom
      from debt, usury injury, secular justice, &c. The pope was their
      perpetual guardian (Ducange, tom. ii. p. 651, 652.)]

      These motives were potent and numerous: when we have singly
      computed their weight on the mind of each individual, we must add
      the infinite series, the multiplying powers, of example and
      fashion. The first proselytes became the warmest and most
      effectual missionaries of the cross: among their friends and
      countrymen they preached the duty, the merit, and the recompense,
      of their holy vow; and the most reluctant hearers were insensibly
      drawn within the whirlpool of persuasion and authority. The
      martial youths were fired by the reproach or suspicion of
      cowardice; the opportunity of visiting with an army the sepulchre
      of Christ was embraced by the old and infirm, by women and
      children, who consulted rather their zeal than their strength;
      and those who in the evening had derided the folly of their
      companions, were the most eager, the ensuing day, to tread in
      their footsteps. The ignorance, which magnified the hopes,
      diminished the perils, of the enterprise. Since the Turkish
      conquest, the paths of pilgrimage were obliterated; the chiefs
      themselves had an imperfect notion of the length of the way and
      the state of their enemies; and such was the stupidity of the
      people, that, at the sight of the first city or castle beyond the
      limits of their knowledge, they were ready to ask whether that
      was not the Jerusalem, the term and object of their labors. Yet
      the more prudent of the crusaders, who were not sure that they
      should be fed from heaven with a shower of quails or manna,
      provided themselves with those precious metals, which, in every
      country, are the representatives of every commodity. To defray,
      according to their rank, the expenses of the road, princes
      alienated their provinces, nobles their lands and castles,
      peasants their cattle and the instruments of husbandry. The value
      of property was depreciated by the eager competition of
      multitudes; while the price of arms and horses was raised to an
      exorbitant height by the wants and impatience of the buyers. 33
      Those who remained at home, with sense and money, were enriched
      by the epidemical disease: the sovereigns acquired at a cheap
      rate the domains of their vassals; and the ecclesiastical
      purchasers completed the payment by the assurance of their
      prayers. The cross, which was commonly sewed on the garment, in
      cloth or silk, was inscribed by some zealots on their skin: a hot
      iron, or indelible liquor, was applied to perpetuate the mark;
      and a crafty monk, who showed the miraculous impression on his
      breast was repaid with the popular veneration and the richest
      benefices of Palestine. 34

      33 (return) [ Guibert (p. 481) paints in lively colors this
      general emotion. He was one of the few contemporaries who had
      genius enough to feel the astonishing scenes that were passing
      before their eyes. Erat itaque videre miraculum, caro omnes
      emere, atque vili vendere, &c.]

      34 (return) [ Some instances of these stigmata are given in the
      Esprit des Croisades, (tom. iii. p. 169 &c.,) from authors whom I
      have not seen]

      The fifteenth of August had been fixed in the council of Clermont
      for the departure of the pilgrims; but the day was anticipated by
      the thoughtless and needy crowd of plebeians, and I shall briefly
      despatch the calamities which they inflicted and suffered, before
      I enter on the more serious and successful enterprise of the
      chiefs. Early in the spring, from the confines of France and
      Lorraine, above sixty thousand of the populace of both sexes
      flocked round the first missionary of the crusade, and pressed
      him with clamorous importunity to lead them to the holy
      sepulchre. The hermit, assuming the character, without the
      talents or authority, of a general, impelled or obeyed the
      forward impulse of his votaries along the banks of the Rhine and
      Danube. Their wants and numbers soon compelled them to separate,
      and his lieutenant, Walter the Penniless, a valiant though needy
      soldier, conducted a van guard of pilgrims, whose condition may
      be determined from the proportion of eight horsemen to fifteen
      thousand foot. The example and footsteps of Peter were closely
      pursued by another fanatic, the monk Godescal, whose sermons had
      swept away fifteen or twenty thousand peasants from the villages
      of Germany. Their rear was again pressed by a herd of two hundred
      thousand, the most stupid and savage refuse of the people, who
      mingled with their devotion a brutal license of rapine,
      prostitution, and drunkenness. Some counts and gentlemen, at the
      head of three thousand horse, attended the motions of the
      multitude to partake in the spoil; but their genuine leaders (may
      we credit such folly?) were a goose and a goat, who were carried
      in the front, and to whom these worthy Christians ascribed an
      infusion of the divine spirit. 35 Of these, and of other bands of
      enthusiasts, the first and most easy warfare was against the
      Jews, the murderers of the Son of God. In the trading cities of
      the Moselle and the Rhine, their colonies were numerous and rich;
      and they enjoyed, under the protection of the emperor and the
      bishops, the free exercise of their religion. 36 At Verdun,
      Treves, Mentz, Spires, Worms, many thousands of that unhappy
      people were pillaged and massacred: 37 nor had they felt a more
      bloody stroke since the persecution of Hadrian. A remnant was
      saved by the firmness of their bishops, who accepted a feigned
      and transient conversion; but the more obstinate Jews opposed
      their fanaticism to the fanaticism of the Christians, barricadoed
      their houses, and precipitating themselves, their families, and
      their wealth, into the rivers or the flames, disappointed the
      malice, or at least the avarice, of their implacable foes.

      35 (return) [ Fuit et aliud scelus detestabile in hac
      congregatione pedestris populi stulti et vesanae levitatis,
      anserem quendam divino spiritu asserebant afflatum, et capellam
      non minus eodem repletam, et has sibi duces secundae viae
      fecerant, &c., (Albert. Aquensis, l. i. c. 31, p. 196.) Had these
      peasants founded an empire, they might have introduced, as in
      Egypt, the worship of animals, which their philosophic descend
      ants would have glossed over with some specious and subtile
      allegory. * Note: A singular “allegoric” explanation of this
      strange fact has recently been broached: it is connected with the
      charge of idolatry and Eastern heretical opinions subsequently
      made against the Templars. “We have no doubt that they were
      Manichee or Gnostic standards.” (The author says the animals
      themselves were carried before the army.—M.) “The goose, in
      Egyptian symbols, as every Egyptian scholar knows, meant ‘divine
      Son,’ or ‘Son of God.’ The goat meant Typhon, or Devil. Thus we
      have the Manichee opposing principles of good and evil, as
      standards, at the head of the ignorant mob of crusading invaders.
      Can any one doubt that a large portion of this host must have
      been infected with the Manichee or Gnostic idolatry?” Account of
      the Temple Church by R. W. Billings, p. 5 London. 1838. This is,
      at all events, a curious coincidence, especially considered in
      connection with the extensive dissemination of the Paulician
      opinions among the common people of Europe. At any rate, in so
      inexplicable a matter, we are inclined to catch at any
      explanation, however wild or subtile.—M.]

      36 (return) [ Benjamin of Tudela describes the state of his
      Jewish brethren from Cologne along the Rhine: they were rich,
      generous, learned, hospitable, and lived in the eager hope of the
      Messiah, (Voyage, tom. i. p. 243-245, par Baratier.) In seventy
      years (he wrote about A.D. 1170) they had recovered from these
      massacres.]

      37 (return) [ These massacres and depredations on the Jews, which
      were renewed at each crusade, are coolly related. It is true,
      that St. Bernard (epist. 363, tom. i. p. 329) admonishes the
      Oriental Franks, non sunt persequendi Judaei, non sunt
      trucidandi. The contrary doctrine had been preached by a rival
      monk. * Note: This is an unjust sarcasm against St. Bernard. He
      stood above all rivalry of this kind See note 31, c. l x.—M]

      Between the frontiers of Austria and the seat of the Byzantine
      monarchy, the crusaders were compelled to traverse as interval of
      six hundred miles; the wild and desolate countries of Hungary 38
      and Bulgaria. The soil is fruitful, and intersected with rivers;
      but it was then covered with morasses and forests, which spread
      to a boundless extent, whenever man has ceased to exercise his
      dominion over the earth. Both nations had imbibed the rudiments
      of Christianity; the Hungarians were ruled by their native
      princes; the Bulgarians by a lieutenant of the Greek emperor;
      but, on the slightest provocation, their ferocious nature was
      rekindled, and ample provocation was afforded by the disorders of
      the first pilgrims Agriculture must have been unskilful and
      languid among a people, whose cities were built of reeds and
      timber, which were deserted in the summer season for the tents of
      hunters and shepherds. A scanty supply of provisions was rudely
      demanded, forcibly seized, and greedily consumed; and on the
      first quarrel, the crusaders gave a loose to indignation and
      revenge. But their ignorance of the country, of war, and of
      discipline, exposed them to every snare. The Greek praefect of
      Bulgaria commanded a regular force; 381 at the trumpet of the
      Hungarian king, the eighth or the tenth of his martial subjects
      bent their bows and mounted on horseback; their policy was
      insidious, and their retaliation on these pious robbers was
      unrelenting and bloody. 39 About a third of the naked fugitives
      (and the hermit Peter was of the number) escaped to the Thracian
      mountains; and the emperor, who respected the pilgrimage and
      succor of the Latins, conducted them by secure and easy journeys
      to Constantinople, and advised them to await the arrival of their
      brethren. For a while they remembered their faults and losses;
      but no sooner were they revived by the hospitable entertainment,
      than their venom was again inflamed; they stung their benefactor,
      and neither gardens, nor palaces, nor churches, were safe from
      their depredations. For his own safety, Alexius allured them to
      pass over to the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; but their blind
      impetuosity soon urged them to desert the station which he had
      assigned, and to rush headlong against the Turks, who occupied
      the road to Jerusalem. The hermit, conscious of his shame, had
      withdrawn from the camp to Constantinople; and his lieutenant,
      Walter the Penniless, who was worthy of a better command,
      attempted without success to introduce some order and prudence
      among the herd of savages. They separated in quest of prey, and
      themselves fell an easy prey to the arts of the sultan. By a
      rumor that their foremost companions were rioting in the spoils
      of his capital, Soliman 391 tempted the main body to descend into
      the plain of Nice: they were overwhelmed by the Turkish arrows;
      and a pyramid of bones 40 informed their companions of the place
      of their defeat. Of the first crusaders, three hundred thousand
      had already perished, before a single city was rescued from the
      infidels, before their graver and more noble brethren had
      completed the preparations of their enterprise. 41

      38 (return) [ See the contemporary description of Hungary in Otho
      of Frisin gen, l. ii. c. 31, in Muratori, Script. Rerum
      Italicarum, tom. vi. p. 665 666.]

      381 (return) [ The narrative of the first march is very
      incorrect. The first party moved under Walter de Pexego and
      Walter the Penniless: they passed safe through Hungary, the
      kingdom of Kalmeny, and were attacked in Bulgaria. Peter followed
      with 40,000 men; passed through Hungary; but seeing the clothes
      of sixteen crusaders, who had been empaled on the walls of
      Semlin. he attacked and stormed the city. He then marched to
      Nissa, where, at first, he was hospitably received: but an
      accidental quar rel taking place, he suffered a great defeat.
      Wilken, vol. i. p. 84-86—M.]

      39 (return) [ The old Hungarians, without excepting Turotzius,
      are ill informed of the first crusade, which they involve in a
      single passage. Katona, like ourselves, can only quote the
      writers of France; but he compares with local science the ancient
      and modern geography. Ante portam Cyperon, is Sopron or Poson;
      Mallevilla, Zemlin; Fluvius Maroe, Savus; Lintax, Leith;
      Mesebroch, or Merseburg, Ouar, or Moson; Tollenburg, Pragg, (de
      Regibus Hungariae, tom. iii. p. 19-53.)]

      391 (return) [ Soliman had been killed in 1085, in a battle
      against Toutoneh, brother of Malek Schah, between Appelo and
      Antioch. It was not Soliman, therefore, but his son David,
      surnamed Kilidje Arslan, the “Sword of the Lion,” who reigned in
      Nice. Almost all the occidental authors have fallen into this
      mistake, which was detected by M. Michaud, Hist. des Crois. 4th
      edit. and Extraits des Aut. Arab. rel. aux Croisades, par M.
      Reinaud Paris, 1829, p. 3. His kingdom extended from the Orontes
      to the Euphra tes, and as far as the Bosphorus. Kilidje Arslan
      must uniformly be substituted for Soliman. Brosset note on Le
      Beau, tom. xv. p. 311.—M.]

      40 (return) [ Anna Comnena (Alexias, l. x. p. 287) describes this
      as a mountain. In the siege of Nice, such were used by the Franks
      themselves as the materials of a wall.]

      41 (return) [ See table on following page.]

      “To save time and space, I shall represent, in a short table, the
      particular references to the great events of the first crusade.”

    [See Table 1.: Events Of The First Crusade]

      None of the great sovereigns of Europe embarked their persons in
      the first crusade. The emperor Henry the Fourth was not disposed
      to obey the summons of the pope: Philip the First of France was
      occupied by his pleasures; William Rufus of England by a recent
      conquest; the kin`gs of Spain were engaged in a domestic war
      against the Moors; and the northern monarchs of Scotland,
      Denmark, 42 Sweden, and Poland, were yet strangers to the
      passions and interests of the South. The religious ardor was more
      strongly felt by the princes of the second order, who held an
      important place in the feudal system. Their situation will
      naturally cast under four distinct heads the review of their
      names and characters; but I may escape some needless repetition,
      by observing at once, that courage and the exercise of arms are
      the common attribute of these Christian adventurers. I. The first
      rank both in war and council is justly due to Godfrey of
      Bouillon; and happy would it have been for the crusaders, if they
      had trusted themselves to the sole conduct of that accomplished
      hero, a worthy representative of Charlemagne, from whom he was
      descended in the female line. His father was of the noble race of
      the counts of Boulogne: Brabant, the lower province of Lorraine,
      43 was the inheritance of his mother; and by the emperor’s bounty
      he was himself invested with that ducal title, which has been
      improperly transferred to his lordship of Bouillon in the
      Ardennes. 44 In the service of Henry the Fourth, he bore the
      great standard of the empire, and pierced with his lance the
      breast of Rodolph, the rebel king: Godfrey was the first who
      ascended the walls of Rome; and his sickness, his vow, perhaps
      his remorse for bearing arms against the pope, confirmed an early
      resolution of visiting the holy sepulchre, not as a pilgrim, but
      a deliverer. His valor was matured by prudence and moderation;
      his piety, though blind, was sincere; and, in the tumult of a
      camp, he practised the real and fictitious virtues of a convent.
      Superior to the private factions of the chiefs, he reserved his
      enmity for the enemies of Christ; and though he gained a kingdom
      by the attempt, his pure and disinterested zeal was acknowledged
      by his rivals. Godfrey of Bouillon 45 was accompanied by his two
      brothers, by Eustace the elder, who had succeeded to the county
      of Boulogne, and by the younger, Baldwin, a character of more
      ambiguous virtue. The duke of Lorraine, was alike celebrated on
      either side of the Rhine: from his birth and education, he was
      equally conversant with the French and Teutonic languages: the
      barons of France, Germany, and Lorraine, assembled their vassals;
      and the confederate force that marched under his banner was
      composed of fourscore thousand foot and about ten thousand horse.
      II. In the parliament that was held at Paris, in the king’s
      presence, about two months after the council of Clermont, Hugh,
      count of Vermandois, was the most conspicuous of the princes who
      assumed the cross. But the appellation of the Great was applied,
      not so much to his merit or possessions, (though neither were
      contemptible,) as to the royal birth of the brother of the king
      of France. 46 Robert, duke of Normandy, was the eldest son of
      William the Conqueror; but on his father’s death he was deprived
      of the kingdom of England, by his own indolence and the activity
      of his brother Rufus. The worth of Robert was degraded by an
      excessive levity and easiness of temper: his cheerfulness seduced
      him to the indulgence of pleasure; his profuse liberality
      impoverished the prince and people; his indiscriminate clemency
      multiplied the number of offenders; and the amiable qualities of
      a private man became the essential defects of a sovereign. For
      the trifling sum of ten thousand marks, he mortgaged Normandy
      during his absence to the English usurper; 47 but his engagement
      and behavior in the holy war announced in Robert a reformation of
      manners, and restored him in some degree to the public esteem.
      Another Robert was count of Flanders, a royal province, which, in
      this century, gave three queens to the thrones of France,
      England, and Denmark: he was surnamed the Sword and Lance of the
      Christians; but in the exploits of a soldier he sometimes forgot
      the duties of a general. Stephen, count of Chartres, of Blois,
      and of Troyes, was one of the richest princes of the age; and the
      number of his castles has been compared to the three hundred and
      sixty-five days of the year. His mind was improved by literature;
      and, in the council of the chiefs, the eloquent Stephen 48 was
      chosen to discharge the office of their president. These four
      were the principal leaders of the French, the Normans, and the
      pilgrims of the British isles: but the list of the barons who
      were possessed of three or four towns would exceed, says a
      contemporary, the catalogue of the Trojan war. 49 III. In the
      south of France, the command was assumed by Adhemar bishop of
      Puy, the pope egate, and by Raymond count of St. Giles and
      Thoulouse who added the prouder titles of duke of Narbonne and
      marquis of Provence. The former was a respectable prelate, alike
      qualified for this world and the next. The latter was a veteran
      warrior, who had fought against the Saracens of Spain, and who
      consecrated his declining age, not only to the deliverance, but
      to the perpetual service, of the holy sepulchre. His experience
      and riches gave him a strong ascendant in the Christian camp,
      whose distress he was often able, and sometimes willing, to
      relieve. But it was easier for him to extort the praise of the
      Infidels, than to preserve the love of his subjects and
      associates. His eminent qualities were clouded by a temper
      haughty, envious, and obstinate; and, though he resigned an ample
      patrimony for the cause of God, his piety, in the public opinion,
      was not exempt from avarice and ambition. 50 A mercantile, rather
      than a martial, spirit prevailed among his provincials, 51 a
      common name, which included the natives of Auvergne and
      Languedoc, 52 the vassals of the kingdom of Burgundy or Arles.
      From the adjacent frontier of Spain he drew a band of hardy
      adventurers; as he marched through Lombardy, a crowd of Italians
      flocked to his standard, and his united force consisted of one
      hundred thousand horse and foot. If Raymond was the first to
      enlist and the last to depart, the delay may be excused by the
      greatness of his preparation and the promise of an everlasting
      farewell. IV. The name of Bohemond, the son of Robert Guiscard,
      was already famous by his double victory over the Greek emperor;
      but his father’s will had reduced him to the principality of
      Tarentum, and the remembrance of his Eastern trophies, till he
      was awakened by the rumor and passage of the French pilgrims. It
      is in the person of this Norman chief that we may seek for the
      coolest policy and ambition, with a small allay of religious
      fanaticism. His conduct may justify a belief that he had secretly
      directed the design of the pope, which he affected to second with
      astonishment and zeal: at the siege of Amalphi, his example and
      discourse inflamed the passions of a confederate army; he
      instantly tore his garment to supply crosses for the numerous
      candidates, and prepared to visit Constantinople and Asia at the
      head of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot. Several
      princes of the Norman race accompanied this veteran general; and
      his cousin Tancred 53 was the partner, rather than the servant,
      of the war.

      In the accomplished character of Tancred we discover all the
      virtues of a perfect knight, 54 the true spirit of chivalry,
      which inspired the generous sentiments and social offices of man
      far better than the base philosophy, or the baser religion, of
      the times.

      42 (return) [ The author of the Esprit des Croisades has doubted,
      and might have disbelieved, the crusade and tragic death of
      Prince Sueno, with 1500 or 15,000 Danes, who was cut off by
      Sultan Soliman in Cappadocia, but who still lives in the poem of
      Tasso, (tom. iv. p. 111-115.)]

      43 (return) [ The fragments of the kingdoms of Lotharingia, or
      Lorraine, were broken into the two duchies of the Moselle and of
      the Meuse: the first has preserved its name, which in the latter
      has been changed into that of Brabant, (Vales. Notit. Gall. p.
      283-288.)]

      44 (return) [ See, in the Description of France, by the Abbe de
      Longuerue, the articles of Boulogne, part i. p. 54; Brabant, part
      ii. p. 47, 48; Bouillon, p. 134. On his departure, Godfrey sold
      or pawned Bouillon to the church for 1300 marks.]

      45 (return) [ See the family character of Godfrey, in William of
      Tyre, l. ix. c. 5-8; his previous design in Guibert, (p. 485;)
      his sickness and vow in Bernard. Thesaur., (c 78.)]

      46 (return) [ Anna Comnena supposes, that Hugh was proud of his
      nobility riches, and power, (l. x. p. 288: ) the two last
      articles appear more equivocal; but an item, which seven hundred
      years ago was famous in the palace of Constantinople, attests the
      ancient dignity of the Capetian family of France.]

      47 (return) [ Will. Gemeticensis, l. vii. c. 7, p. 672, 673, in
      Camden. Normani cis. He pawned the duchy for one hundredth part
      of the present yearly revenue. Ten thousand marks may be equal to
      five hundred thousand livres, and Normandy annually yields
      fifty-seven millions to the king, (Necker, Administration des
      Finances, tom. i. p. 287.)]

      48 (return) [ His original letter to his wife is inserted in the
      Spicilegium of Dom. Luc. d’Acheri, tom. iv. and quoted in the
      Esprit des Croisades tom. i. p. 63.]

      49 (return) [ Unius enim duum, trium seu quatuor oppidorum
      dominos quis numeret? quorum tanta fuit copia, ut non vix totidem
      Trojana obsidio coegisse putetur. (Ever the lively and
      interesting Guibert, p. 486.)]

      50 (return) [ It is singular enough, that Raymond of St. Giles, a
      second character in the genuine history of the crusades, should
      shine as the first of heroes in the writings of the Greeks (Anna
      Comnen. Alexiad, l. x xi.) and the Arabians, (Longueruana, p.
      129.)]

      51 (return) [ Omnes de Burgundia, et Alvernia, et Vasconia, et
      Gothi, (of Languedoc,) provinciales appellabantur, caeteri vero
      Francigenae et hoc in exercitu; inter hostes autem Franci
      dicebantur. Raymond des Agiles, p. 144.]

      52 (return) [ The town of his birth, or first appanage, was
      consecrated to St Aegidius, whose name, as early as the first
      crusade, was corrupted by the French into St. Gilles, or St.
      Giles. It is situate in the Iowen Languedoc, between Nismes and
      the Rhone, and still boasts a collegiate church of the foundation
      of Raymond, (Melanges tires d’une Grande Bibliotheque, tom.
      xxxvii. p 51.)]

      53 (return) [ The mother of Tancred was Emma, sister of the great
      Robert Guiscard; his father, the Marquis Odo the Good. It is
      singular enough, that the family and country of so illustrious a
      person should be unknown; but Muratori reasonably conjectures
      that he was an Italian, and perhaps of the race of the marquises
      of Montferrat in Piedmont, (Script. tom. v. p. 281, 282.)]

      54 (return) [ To gratify the childish vanity of the house of
      Este. Tasso has inserted in his poem, and in the first crusade, a
      fabulous hero, the brave and amorous Rinaldo, (x. 75, xvii.
      66-94.) He might borrow his name from a Rinaldo, with the Aquila
      bianca Estense, who vanquished, as the standard-bearer of the
      Roman church, the emperor Frederic I., (Storia Imperiale di
      Ricobaldo, in Muratori Script. Ital. tom. ix. p. 360. Ariosto,
      Orlando Furioso, iii. 30.) But, 1. The distance of sixty years
      between the youth of the two Rinaldos destroys their identity. 2.
      The Storia Imperiale is a forgery of the Conte Boyardo, at the
      end of the xvth century, (Muratori, p. 281-289.) 3. This Rinaldo,
      and his exploits, are not less chimerical than the hero of Tasso,
      (Muratori, Antichita Estense, tom. i. p. 350.)]




      Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part III.

      Between the age of Charlemagne and that of the crusades, a
      revolution had taken place among the Spaniards, the Normans, and
      the French, which was gradually extended to the rest of Europe.
      The service of the infantry was degraded to the plebeians; the
      cavalry formed the strength of the armies, and the honorable name
      of miles, or soldier, was confined to the gentlemen 55 who served
      on horseback, and were invested with the character of knighthood.
      The dukes and counts, who had usurped the rights of sovereignty,
      divided the provinces among their faithful barons: the barons
      distributed among their vassals the fiefs or benefices of their
      jurisdiction; and these military tenants, the peers of each other
      and of their lord, composed the noble or equestrian order, which
      disdained to conceive the peasant or burgher as of the same
      species with themselves. The dignity of their birth was preserved
      by pure and equal alliances; their sons alone, who could produce
      four quarters or lines of ancestry without spot or reproach,
      might legally pretend to the honor of knighthood; but a valiant
      plebeian was sometimes enriched and ennobled by the sword, and
      became the father of a new race. A single knight could impart,
      according to his judgment, the character which he received; and
      the warlike sovereigns of Europe derived more glory from this
      personal distinction than from the lustre of their diadem. This
      ceremony, of which some traces may be found in Tacitus and the
      woods of Germany, 56 was in its origin simple and profane; the
      candidate, after some previous trial, was invested with the sword
      and spurs; and his cheek or shoulder was touched with a slight
      blow, as an emblem of the last affront which it was lawful for
      him to endure. But superstition mingled in every public and
      private action of life: in the holy wars, it sanctified the
      profession of arms; and the order of chivalry was assimilated in
      its rights and privileges to the sacred orders of priesthood. The
      bath and white garment of the novice were an indecent copy of the
      regeneration of baptism: his sword, which he offered on the
      altar, was blessed by the ministers of religion: his solemn
      reception was preceded by fasts and vigils; and he was created a
      knight in the name of God, of St. George, and of St. Michael the
      archangel. He swore to accomplish the duties of his profession;
      and education, example, and the public opinion, were the
      inviolable guardians of his oath. As the champion of God and the
      ladies, (I blush to unite such discordant names,) he devoted
      himself to speak the truth; to maintain the right; to protect the
      distressed; to practise courtesy, a virtue less familiar to the
      ancients; to pursue the infidels; to despise the allurements of
      ease and safety; and to vindicate in every perilous adventure the
      honor of his character. The abuse of the same spirit provoked the
      illiterate knight to disdain the arts of industry and peace; to
      esteem himself the sole judge and avenger of his own injuries;
      and proudly to neglect the laws of civil society and military
      discipline. Yet the benefits of this institution, to refine the
      temper of Barbarians, and to infuse some principles of faith,
      justice, and humanity, were strongly felt, and have been often
      observed. The asperity of national prejudice was softened; and
      the community of religion and arms spread a similar color and
      generous emulation over the face of Christendom. Abroad in
      enterprise and pilgrimage, at home in martial exercise, the
      warriors of every country were perpetually associated; and
      impartial taste must prefer a Gothic tournament to the Olympic
      games of classic antiquity. 57 Instead of the naked spectacles
      which corrupted the manners of the Greeks, and banished from the
      stadium the virgins and matrons, the pompous decoration of the
      lists was crowned with the presence of chaste and high-born
      beauty, from whose hands the conqueror received the prize of his
      dexterity and courage. The skill and strength that were exerted
      in wrestling and boxing bear a distant and doubtful relation to
      the merit of a soldier; but the tournaments, as they were
      invented in France, and eagerly adopted both in the East and
      West, presented a lively image of the business of the field. The
      single combats, the general skirmish, the defence of a pass, or
      castle, were rehearsed as in actual service; and the contest,
      both in real and mimic war, was decided by the superior
      management of the horse and lance. The lance was the proper and
      peculiar weapon of the knight: his horse was of a large and heavy
      breed; but this charger, till he was roused by the approaching
      danger, was usually led by an attendant, and he quietly rode a
      pad or palfrey of a more easy pace. His helmet and sword, his
      greaves and buckler, it would be superfluous to describe; but I
      may remark, that, at the period of the crusades, the armor was
      less ponderous than in later times; and that, instead of a massy
      cuirass, his breast was defended by a hauberk or coat of mail.
      When their long lances were fixed in the rest, the warriors
      furiously spurred their horses against the foe; and the light
      cavalry of the Turks and Arabs could seldom stand against the
      direct and impetuous weight of their charge. Each knight was
      attended to the field by his faithful squire, a youth of equal
      birth and similar hopes; he was followed by his archers and men
      at arms, and four, or five, or six soldiers were computed as the
      furniture of a complete lance. In the expeditions to the
      neighboring kingdoms or the Holy Land, the duties of the feudal
      tenure no longer subsisted; the voluntary service of the knights
      and their followers were either prompted by zeal or attachment,
      or purchased with rewards and promises; and the numbers of each
      squadron were measured by the power, the wealth, and the fame, of
      each independent chieftain. They were distinguished by his
      banner, his armorial coat, and his cry of war; and the most
      ancient families of Europe must seek in these achievements the
      origin and proof of their nobility. In this rapid portrait of
      chivalry I have been urged to anticipate on the story of the
      crusades, at once an effect and a cause, of this memorable
      institution. 58

      55 (return) [ Of the words gentilis, gentilhomme, gentleman, two
      etymologies are produced: 1. From the Barbarians of the fifth
      century, the soldiers, and at length the conquerors of the Roman
      empire, who were vain of their foreign nobility; and 2. From the
      sense of the civilians, who consider gentilis as synonymous with
      ingenuus. Selden inclines to the first but the latter is more
      pure, as well as probable.]

      56 (return) [ Framea scutoque juvenem ornant. Tacitus, Germania.
      c. 13.]

      57 (return) [ The athletic exercises, particularly the caestus
      and pancratium, were condemned by Lycurgus, Philopoemen, and
      Galen, a lawgiver, a general, and a physician. Against their
      authority and reasons, the reader may weigh the apology of
      Lucian, in the character of Solon. See West on the Olympic Games,
      in his Pindar, vol. ii. p. 86-96 243-248]

      58 (return) [ On the curious subjects of knighthood,
      knights-service, nobility, arms, cry of war, banners, and
      tournaments, an ample fund of information may be sought in
      Selden, (Opera, tom. iii. part i. Titles of Honor, part ii. c. 1,
      3, 5, 8,) Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. iv. p. 398-412, &c.,)
      Dissertations sur Joinville, (i. vi.—xii. p. 127-142, p.
      161-222,) and M. de St. Palaye, (Memoires sur la Chevalerie.)]

      Such were the troops, and such the leaders, who assumed the cross
      for the deliverance of the holy sepulchre. As soon as they were
      relieved by the absence of the plebeian multitude, they
      encouraged each other, by interviews and messages, to accomplish
      their vow, and hasten their departure. Their wives and sisters
      were desirous of partaking the danger and merit of the
      pilgrimage: their portable treasures were conveyed in bars of
      silver and gold; and the princes and barons were attended by
      their equipage of hounds and hawks to amuse their leisure and to
      supply their table. The difficulty of procuring subsistence for
      so many myriads of men and horses engaged them to separate their
      forces: their choice or situation determined the road; and it was
      agreed to meet in the neighborhood of Constantinople, and from
      thence to begin their operations against the Turks. From the
      banks of the Meuse and the Moselle, Godfrey of Bouillon followed
      the direct way of Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria; and, as long as
      he exercised the sole command every step afforded some proof of
      his prudence and virtue. On the confines of Hungary he was
      stopped three weeks by a Christian people, to whom the name, or
      at least the abuse, of the cross was justly odious. The
      Hungarians still smarted with the wounds which they had received
      from the first pilgrims: in their turn they had abused the right
      of defence and retaliation; and they had reason to apprehend a
      severe revenge from a hero of the same nation, and who was
      engaged in the same cause. But, after weighing the motives and
      the events, the virtuous duke was content to pity the crimes and
      misfortunes of his worthless brethren; and his twelve deputies,
      the messengers of peace, requested in his name a free passage and
      an equal market. To remove their suspicions, Godfrey trusted
      himself, and afterwards his brother, to the faith of Carloman,
      581 king of Hungary, who treated them with a simple but
      hospitable entertainment: the treaty was sanctified by their
      common gospel; and a proclamation, under pain of death,
      restrained the animosity and license of the Latin soldiers. From
      Austria to Belgrade, they traversed the plains of Hungary,
      without enduring or offering an injury; and the proximity of
      Carloman, who hovered on their flanks with his numerous cavalry,
      was a precaution not less useful for their safety than for his
      own. They reached the banks of the Save; and no sooner had they
      passed the river, than the king of Hungary restored the hostages,
      and saluted their departure with the fairest wishes for the
      success of their enterprise. With the same conduct and
      discipline, Godfrey pervaded the woods of Bulgaria and the
      frontiers of Thrace; and might congratulate himself that he had
      almost reached the first term of his pilgrimage, without drawing
      his sword against a Christian adversary. After an easy and
      pleasant journey through Lombardy, from Turin to Aquileia,
      Raymond and his provincials marched forty days through the savage
      country of Dalmatia 59 and Sclavonia. The weather was a perpetual
      fog; the land was mountainous and desolate; the natives were
      either fugitive or hostile: loose in their religion and
      government, they refused to furnish provisions or guides;
      murdered the stragglers; and exercised by night and day the
      vigilance of the count, who derived more security from the
      punishment of some captive robbers than from his interview and
      treaty with the prince of Scodra. 60 His march between Durazzo
      and Constantinople was harassed, without being stopped, by the
      peasants and soldiers of the Greek emperor; and the same faint
      and ambiguous hostility was prepared for the remaining chiefs,
      who passed the Adriatic from the coast of Italy. Bohemond had
      arms and vessels, and foresight and discipline; and his name was
      not forgotten in the provinces of Epirus and Thessaly. Whatever
      obstacles he encountered were surmounted by his military conduct
      and the valor of Tancred; and if the Norman prince affected to
      spare the Greeks, he gorged his soldiers with the full plunder of
      an heretical castle. 61 The nobles of France pressed forwards
      with the vain and thoughtless ardor of which their nation has
      been sometimes accused. From the Alps to Apulia the march of Hugh
      the Great, of the two Roberts, and of Stephen of Chartres,
      through a wealthy country, and amidst the applauding Catholics,
      was a devout or triumphant progress: they kissed the feet of the
      Roman pontiff; and the golden standard of St. Peter was delivered
      to the brother of the French monarch. 62 But in this visit of
      piety and pleasure, they neglected to secure the season, and the
      means of their embarkation: the winter was insensibly lost: their
      troops were scattered and corrupted in the towns of Italy. They
      separately accomplished their passage, regardless of safety or
      dignity; and within nine months from the feast of the Assumption,
      the day appointed by Urban, all the Latin princes had reached
      Constantinople. But the count of Vermandois was produced as a
      captive; his foremost vessels were scattered by a tempest; and
      his person, against the law of nations, was detained by the
      lieutenants of Alexius. Yet the arrival of Hugh had been
      announced by four-and-twenty knights in golden armor, who
      commanded the emperor to revere the general of the Latin
      Christians, the brother of the king of kings. 63 631

      581 (return) [ Carloman (or Calmany) demanded the brother of
      Godfrey as hostage but Count Baldwin refused the humiliating
      submission. Godfrey shamed him into this sacrifice for the common
      good by offering to surrender himself Wilken, vol. i. p. 104.—M.]

      59 (return) [ The Familiae Dalmaticae of Ducange are meagre and
      imperfect; the national historians are recent and fabulous, the
      Greeks remote and careless. In the year 1104 Coloman reduced the
      maritine country as far as Trau and Saloma, (Katona, Hist. Crit.
      tom. iii. p. 195-207.)]

      60 (return) [ Scodras appears in Livy as the capital and fortress
      of Gentius, king of the Illyrians, arx munitissima, afterwards a
      Roman colony, (Cellarius, tom. i. p. 393, 394.) It is now called
      Iscodar, or Scutari, (D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p.
      164.) The sanjiak (now a pacha) of Scutari, or Schendeire, was
      the viiith under the Beglerbeg of Romania, and furnished 600
      soldiers on a revenue of 78,787 rix dollars, (Marsigli, Stato
      Militare del Imperio Ottomano, p. 128.)]

      61 (return) [ In Pelagonia castrum haereticum..... spoliatum cum
      suis habi tatoribus igne combussere. Nec id eis injuria contigit:
      quia illorum detestabilis sermo et cancer serpebat, jamque
      circumjacentes regiones suo pravo dogmate foedaverat, (Robert.
      Mon. p. 36, 37.) After cooly relating the fact, the Archbishop
      Baldric adds, as a praise, Omnes siquidem illi viatores, Judeos,
      haereticos, Saracenos aequaliter habent exosos; quos omnes
      appellant inimicos Dei, (p. 92.)]

      62 (return) [ (Alexiad. l. x. p. 288.)]

      63 (return) [ This Oriental pomp is extravagant in a count of
      Vermandois; but the patriot Ducange repeats with much complacency
      (Not. ad Alexiad. p. 352, 353. Dissert. xxvii. sur Joinville, p.
      315) the passages of Matthew Paris (A.D. 1254) and Froissard,
      (vol. iv. p. 201,) which style the king of France rex regum, and
      chef de tous les rois Chretiens.]

      631 (return) [ Hugh was taken at Durazzo, and sent by land to
      Constantinople Wilken—M.]

      In some oriental tale I have read the fable of a shepherd, who
      was ruined by the accomplishment of his own wishes: he had prayed
      for water; the Ganges was turned into his grounds, and his flock
      and cottage were swept away by the inundation. Such was the
      fortune, or at least the apprehension of the Greek emperor
      Alexius Comnenus, whose name has already appeared in this
      history, and whose conduct is so differently represented by his
      daughter Anne, 64 and by the Latin writers. 65 In the council of
      Placentia, his ambassadors had solicited a moderate succor,
      perhaps of ten thousand soldiers, but he was astonished by the
      approach of so many potent chiefs and fanatic nations. The
      emperor fluctuated between hope and fear, between timidity and
      courage; but in the crooked policy which he mistook for wisdom, I
      cannot believe, I cannot discern, that he maliciously conspired
      against the life or honor of the French heroes. The promiscuous
      multitudes of Peter the Hermit were savage beasts, alike
      destitute of humanity and reason: nor was it possible for Alexius
      to prevent or deplore their destruction. The troops of Godfrey
      and his peers were less contemptible, but not less suspicious, to
      the Greek emperor. Their motives might be pure and pious: but he
      was equally alarmed by his knowledge of the ambitious Bohemond,
      651 and his ignorance of the Transalpine chiefs: the courage of
      the French was blind and headstrong; they might be tempted by the
      luxury and wealth of Greece, and elated by the view and opinion
      of their invincible strength: and Jerusalem might be forgotten in
      the prospect of Constantinople. After a long march and painful
      abstinence, the troops of Godfrey encamped in the plains of
      Thrace; they heard with indignation, that their brother, the
      count of Vermandois, was imprisoned by the Greeks; and their
      reluctant duke was compelled to indulge them in some freedom of
      retaliation and rapine. They were appeased by the submission of
      Alexius: he promised to supply their camp; and as they refused,
      in the midst of winter, to pass the Bosphorus, their quarters
      were assigned among the gardens and palaces on the shores of that
      narrow sea. But an incurable jealousy still rankled in the minds
      of the two nations, who despised each other as slaves and
      Barbarians. Ignorance is the ground of suspicion, and suspicion
      was inflamed into daily provocations: prejudice is blind, hunger
      is deaf; and Alexius is accused of a design to starve or assault
      the Latins in a dangerous post, on all sides encompassed with the
      waters. 66 Godfrey sounded his trumpets, burst the net,
      overspread the plain, and insulted the suburbs; but the gates of
      Constantinople were strongly fortified; the ramparts were lined
      with archers; and, after a doubtful conflict, both parties
      listened to the voice of peace and religion. The gifts and
      promises of the emperor insensibly soothed the fierce spirit of
      the western strangers; as a Christian warrior, he rekindled their
      zeal for the prosecution of their holy enterprise, which he
      engaged to second with his troops and treasures. On the return of
      spring, Godfrey was persuaded to occupy a pleasant and plentiful
      camp in Asia; and no sooner had he passed the Bosphorus, than the
      Greek vessels were suddenly recalled to the opposite shore. The
      same policy was repeated with the succeeding chiefs, who were
      swayed by the example, and weakened by the departure, of their
      foremost companions. By his skill and diligence, Alexius
      prevented the union of any two of the confederate armies at the
      same moment under the walls of Constantinople; and before the
      feast of the Pentecost not a Latin pilgrim was left on the coast
      of Europe.

      64 (return) [ Anna Comnena was born the 1st of December, A.D.
      1083, indiction vii., (Alexiad. l. vi. p. 166, 167.) At thirteen,
      the time of the first crusade, she was nubile, and perhaps
      married to the younger Nicephorus Bryennius, whom she fondly
      styles, (l. x. p. 295, 296.) Some moderns have imagined, that her
      enmity to Bohemond was the fruit of disappointed love. In the
      transactions of Constantinople and Nice, her partial accounts
      (Alex. l. x. xi. p. 283-317) may be opposed to the partiality of
      the Latins, but in their subsequent exploits she is brief and
      ignorant.]

      65 (return) [ In their views of the character and conduct of
      Alexius, Maimbourg has favored the Catholic Franks, and Voltaire
      has been partial to the schismatic Greeks. The prejudice of a
      philosopher is less excusable than that of a Jesuit.]

      651 (return) [ Wilken quotes a remarkable passage of William of
      Malmsbury as to the secret motives of Urban and of Bohemond in
      urging the crusade. Illud repositius propositum non ita
      vulgabatur, quod Boemundi consilio, pene totam Europam in
      Asiaticam expeditionem moveret, ut in tanto tumultu omnium
      provinciarum facile obaeratis auxiliaribus, et Urbanus Romam et
      Boemundus Illyricum et Macedoniam pervaderent. Nam eas terras et
      quidquid praeterea a Dyrrachio usque ad Thessalonicam
      protenditur, Guiscardus pater, super Alexium acquisierat; ideirco
      illas Boemundus suo juri competere clamitabat: inops haereditatis
      Apuliae, quam genitor Rogerio, minori filio delegaverat. Wilken,
      vol. ii. p. 313.—M]

      66 (return) [ Between the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, and the River
      Barbyses, which is deep in summer, and runs fifteen miles through
      a flat meadow. Its communication with Europe and Constantinople
      is by the stone bridge of the Blachernoe, which in successive
      ages was restored by Justinian and Basil, (Gyllius de Bosphoro
      Thracio, l. ii. c. 3. Ducange O. P. Christiana, l. v. c. 2, p,
      179.)]

      The same arms which threatened Europe might deliver Asia, and
      repel the Turks from the neighboring shores of the Bosphorus and
      Hellespont. The fair provinces from Nice to Antioch were the
      recent patrimony of the Roman emperor; and his ancient and
      perpetual claim still embraced the kingdoms of Syria and Egypt.
      In his enthusiasm, Alexius indulged, or affected, the ambitious
      hope of leading his new allies to subvert the thrones of the
      East; but the calmer dictates of reason and temper dissuaded him
      from exposing his royal person to the faith of unknown and
      lawless Barbarians. His prudence, or his pride, was content with
      extorting from the French princes an oath of homage and fidelity,
      and a solemn promise, that they

      would either restore, or hold, their Asiatic conquests as the
      humble and loyal vassals of the Roman empire. Their independent
      spirit was fired at the mention of this foreign and voluntary
      servitude: they successively yielded to the dexterous application
      of gifts and flattery; and the first proselytes became the most
      eloquent and effectual missionaries to multiply the companions of
      their shame. The pride of Hugh of Vermandois was soothed by the
      honors of his captivity; and in the brother of the French king,
      the example of submission was prevalent and weighty. In the mind
      of Godfrey of Bouillon every human consideration was subordinate
      to the glory of God and the success of the crusade. He had firmly
      resisted the temptations of Bohemond and Raymond, who urged the
      attack and conquest of Constantinople. Alexius esteemed his
      virtues, deservedly named him the champion of the empire, and
      dignified his homage with the filial name and the rights of
      adoption. 67 The hateful Bohemond was received as a true and
      ancient ally; and if the emperor reminded him of former
      hostilities, it was only to praise the valor that he had
      displayed, and the glory that he had acquired, in the fields of
      Durazzo and Larissa. The son of Guiscard was lodged and
      entertained, and served with Imperial pomp: one day, as he passed
      through the gallery of the palace, a door was carelessly left
      open to expose a pile of gold and silver, of silk and gems, of
      curious and costly furniture, that was heaped, in seeming
      disorder, from the floor to the roof of the chamber. “What
      conquests,” exclaimed the ambitious miser, “might not be achieved
      by the possession of such a treasure!”—“It is your own,” replied
      a Greek attendant, who watched the motions of his soul; and
      Bohemond, after some hesitation, condescended to accept this
      magnificent present. The Norman was flattered by the assurance of
      an independent principality; and Alexius eluded, rather than
      denied, his daring demand of the office of great domestic, or
      general of the East. The two Roberts, the son of the conqueror of
      England, and the kinsmen of three queens, 68 bowed in their turn
      before the Byzantine throne. A private letter of Stephen of
      Chartres attests his admiration of the emperor, the most
      excellent and liberal of men, who taught him to believe that he
      was a favorite, and promised to educate and establish his
      youngest son. In his southern province, the count of St. Giles
      and Thoulouse faintly recognized the supremacy of the king of
      France, a prince of a foreign nation and language. At the head of
      a hundred thousand men, he declared that he was the soldier and
      servant of Christ alone, and that the Greek might be satisfied
      with an equal treaty of alliance and friendship. His obstinate
      resistance enhanced the value and the price of his submission;
      and he shone, says the princess Anne, among the Barbarians, as
      the sun amidst the stars of heaven. His disgust of the noise and
      insolence of the French, his suspicions of the designs of
      Bohemond, the emperor imparted to his faithful Raymond; and that
      aged statesman might clearly discern, that however false in
      friendship, he was sincere in his enmity. 69 The spirit of
      chivalry was last subdued in the person of Tancred; and none
      could deem themselves dishonored by the imitation of that gallant
      knight. He disdained the gold and flattery of the Greek monarch;
      assaulted in his presence an insolent patrician; escaped to Asia
      in the habit of a private soldier; and yielded with a sigh to the
      authority of Bohemond, and the interest of the Christian cause.
      The best and most ostensible reason was the impossibility of
      passing the sea and accomplishing their vow, without the license
      and the vessels of Alexius; but they cherished a secret hope,
      that as soon as they trod the continent of Asia, their swords
      would obliterate their shame, and dissolve the engagement, which
      on his side might not be very faithfully performed. The ceremony
      of their homage was grateful to a people who had long since
      considered pride as the substitute of power. High on his throne,
      the emperor sat mute and immovable: his majesty was adored by the
      Latin princes; and they submitted to kiss either his feet or his
      knees, an indignity which their own writers are ashamed to
      confess and unable to deny. 70

      67 (return) [ There are two sorts of adoption, the one by arms,
      the other by introducing the son between the shirt and skin of
      his father. Ducange isur Joinville, (Diss. xxii. p. 270) supposes
      Godfrey’s adoption to have been of the latter sort.]

      68 (return) [ After his return, Robert of Flanders became the man
      of the king of England, for a pension of four hundred marks. See
      the first act in Rymer’s Foedera.]

      69 (return) [ Sensit vetus regnandi, falsos in amore, odia non
      fingere. Tacit. vi. 44.]

      70 (return) [ The proud historians of the crusades slide and
      stumble over this humiliating step. Yet, since the heroes knelt
      to salute the emperor, as he sat motionless on his throne, it is
      clear that they must have kissed either his feet or knees. It is
      only singular, that Anna should not have amply supplied the
      silence or ambiguity of the Latins. The abasement of their
      princes would have added a fine chapter to the Ceremoniale Aulae
      Byzantinae.]

      Private or public interest suppressed the murmurs of the dukes
      and counts; but a French baron (he is supposed to be Robert of
      Paris 71 presumed to ascend the throne, and to place himself by
      the side of Alexius. The sage reproof of Baldwin provoked him to
      exclaim, in his barbarous idiom, “Who is this rustic, that keeps
      his seat, while so many valiant captains are standing round him?”
      The emperor maintained his silence, dissembled his indignation,
      and questioned his interpreter concerning the meaning of the
      words, which he partly suspected from the universal language of
      gesture and countenance. Before the departure of the pilgrims, he
      endeavored to learn the name and condition of the audacious
      baron. “I am a Frenchman,” replied Robert, “of the purest and
      most ancient nobility of my country. All that I know is, that
      there is a church in my neighborhood, 72 the resort of those who
      are desirous of approving their valor in single combat. Till an
      enemy appears, they address their prayers to God and his saints.
      That church I have frequently visited. But never have I found an
      antagonist who dared to accept my defiance.” Alexius dismissed
      the challenger with some prudent advice for his conduct in the
      Turkish warfare; and history repeats with pleasure this lively
      example of the manners of his age and country.

      71 (return) [ He called himself (see Alexias, l. x. p. 301.) What
      a title of noblesse of the eleventh century, if any one could now
      prove his inheritance! Anna relates, with visible pleasure, that
      the swelling Barbarian, was killed, or wounded, after fighting in
      the front in the battle of Dorylaeum, (l. xi. p. 317.) This
      circumstance may justify the suspicion of Ducange, (Not. p. 362,)
      that he was no other than Robert of Paris, of the district most
      peculiarly styled the Duchy or Island of France, (L’Isle de
      France.)]

      72 (return) [ With the same penetration, Ducange discovers his
      church to be that of St. Drausus, or Drosin, of Soissons, quem
      duello dimicaturi solent invocare: pugiles qui ad memoriam ejus
      (his tomb) pernoctant invictos reddit, ut et de Burgundia et
      Italia tali necessitate confugiatur ad eum. Joan. Sariberiensis,
      epist. 139.]

      The conquest of Asia was undertaken and achieved by Alexander,
      with thirty-five thousand Macedonians and Greeks; 73 and his best
      hope was in the strength and discipline of his phalanx of
      infantry. The principal force of the crusaders consisted in their
      cavalry; and when that force was mustered in the plains of
      Bithynia, the knights and their martial attendants on horseback
      amounted to one hundred thousand fighting men, completely armed
      with the helmet and coat of mail. The value of these soldiers
      deserved a strict and authentic account; and the flower of
      European chivalry might furnish, in a first effort, this
      formidable body of heavy horse. A part of the infantry might be
      enrolled for the service of scouts, pioneers, and archers; but
      the promiscuous crowd were lost in their own disorder; and we
      depend not on the eyes and knowledge, but on the belief and
      fancy, of a chaplain of Count Baldwin, 74 in the estimate of six
      hundred thousand pilgrims able to bear arms, besides the priests
      and monks, the women and children of the Latin camp. The reader
      starts; and before he is recovered from his surprise, I shall
      add, on the same testimony, that if all who took the cross had
      accomplished their vow, above six millions would have migrated
      from Europe to Asia. Under this oppression of faith, I derive
      some relief from a more sagacious and thinking writer, 75 who,
      after the same review of the cavalry, accuses the credulity of
      the priest of Chartres, and even doubts whether the Cisalpine
      regions (in the geography of a Frenchman) were sufficient to
      produce and pour forth such incredible multitudes. The coolest
      scepticism will remember, that of these religious volunteers
      great numbers never beheld Constantinople and Nice. Of enthusiasm
      the influence is irregular and transient: many were detained at
      home by reason or cowardice, by poverty or weakness; and many
      were repulsed by the obstacles of the way, the more insuperable
      as they were unforeseen, to these ignorant fanatics. The savage
      countries of Hungary and Bulgaria were whitened with their bones:
      their vanguard was cut in pieces by the Turkish sultan; and the
      loss of the first adventure, by the sword, or climate, or
      fatigue, has already been stated at three hundred thousand men.
      Yet the myriads that survived, that marched, that pressed
      forwards on the holy pilgrimage, were a subject of astonishment
      to themselves and to the Greeks. The copious energy of her
      language sinks under the efforts of the princess Anne: 76 the
      images of locusts, of leaves and flowers, of the sands of the
      sea, or the stars of heaven, imperfectly represent what she had
      seen and heard; and the daughter of Alexius exclaims, that Europe
      was loosened from its foundations, and hurled against Asia. The
      ancient hosts of Darius and Xerxes labor under the same doubt of
      a vague and indefinite magnitude; but I am inclined to believe,
      that a larger number has never been contained within the lines of
      a single camp, than at the siege of Nice, the first operation of
      the Latin princes. Their motives, their characters, and their
      arms, have been already displayed. Of their troops the most
      numerous portion were natives of France: the Low Countries, the
      banks of the Rhine, and Apulia, sent a powerful reenforcement:
      some bands of adventurers were drawn from Spain, Lombardy, and
      England; 77 and from the distant bogs and mountains of Ireland or
      Scotland 78 issued some naked and savage fanatics, ferocious at
      home but unwarlike abroad. Had not superstition condemned the
      sacrilegious prudence of depriving the poorest or weakest
      Christian of the merit of the pilgrimage, the useless crowd, with
      mouths but without hands, might have been stationed in the Greek
      empire, till their companions had opened and secured the way of
      the Lord. A small remnant of the pilgrims, who passed the
      Bosphorus, was permitted to visit the holy sepulchre. Their
      northern constitution was scorched by the rays, and infected by
      the vapors, of a Syrian sun. They consumed, with heedless
      prodigality, their stores of water and provision: their numbers
      exhausted the inland country: the sea was remote, the Greeks were
      unfriendly, and the Christians of every sect fled before the
      voracious and cruel rapine of their brethren. In the dire
      necessity of famine, they sometimes roasted and devoured the
      flesh of their infant or adult captives. Among the Turks and
      Saracens, the idolaters of Europe were rendered more odious by
      the name and reputation of Cannibals; the spies, who introduced
      themselves into the kitchen of Bohemond, were shown several human
      bodies turning on the spit: and the artful Norman encouraged a
      report, which increased at the same time the abhorrence and the
      terror of the infidels. 79

      73 (return) [ There is some diversity on the numbers of his army;
      but no authority can be compared with that of Ptolemy, who states
      it at five thousand horse and thirty thousand foot, (see Usher’s
      Annales, p 152.)]

      74 (return) [ Fulcher. Carnotensis, p. 387. He enumerates
      nineteen nations of different names and languages, (p. 389;) but
      I do not clearly apprehend his difference between the Franci and
      Galli, Itali and Apuli. Elsewhere (p. 385) he contemptuously
      brands the deserters.]

      75 (return) [ Guibert, p. 556. Yet even his gentle opposition
      implies an immense multitude. By Urban II., in the fervor of his
      zeal, it is only rated at 300,000 pilgrims, (epist. xvi. Concil.
      tom. xii. p. 731.)]

      76 (return) [ Alexias, l. x. p. 283, 305. Her fastidious delicacy
      complains of their strange and inarticulate names; and indeed
      there is scarcely one that she has not contrived to disfigure
      with the proud ignorance so dear and familiar to a polished
      people. I shall select only one example, Sangeles, for the count
      of St. Giles.]

      77 (return) [ William of Malmsbury (who wrote about the year
      1130) has inserted in his history (l. iv. p. 130-154) a narrative
      of the first crusade: but I wish that, instead of listening to
      the tenue murmur which had passed the British ocean, (p. 143,) he
      had confined himself to the numbers, families, and adventures of
      his countrymen. I find in Dugdale, that an English Norman,
      Stephen earl of Albemarle and Holdernesse, led the rear-guard
      with Duke Robert, at the battle of Antioch, (Baronage, part i. p.
      61.)]

      78 (return) [ Videres Scotorum apud se ferocium alias imbellium
      cuneos, (Guibert, p. 471;) the crus intectum and hispida chlamys,
      may suit the Highlanders; but the finibus uliginosis may rather
      apply to the Irish bogs. William of Malmsbury expressly mentions
      the Welsh and Scots, &c., (l. iv. p. 133,) who quitted, the
      former venatiorem, the latter familiaritatem pulicum.]

      79 (return) [ This cannibal hunger, sometimes real, more
      frequently an artifice or a lie, may be found in Anna Comnena,
      (Alexias, l. x. p. 288,) Guibert, (p. 546,) Radulph. Cadom., (c.
      97.) The stratagem is related by the author of the Gesta
      Francorum, the monk Robert Baldric, and Raymond des Agiles, in
      the siege and famine of Antioch.]




      Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part IV.

      I have expiated with pleasure on the first steps of the
      crusaders, as they paint the manners and character of Europe: but
      I shall abridge the tedious and uniform narrative of their blind
      achievements, which were performed by strength and are described
      by ignorance. From their first station in the neighborhood of
      Nicomedia, they advanced in successive divisions; passed the
      contracted limit of the Greek empire; opened a road through the
      hills, and commenced, by the siege of his capital, their pious
      warfare against the Turkish sultan. His kingdom of Roum extended
      from the Hellespont to the confines of Syria, and barred the
      pilgrimage of Jerusalem, his name was Kilidge-Arslan, or Soliman,
      80 of the race of Seljuk, and son of the first conqueror; and in
      the defence of a land which the Turks considered as their own, he
      deserved the praise of his enemies, by whom alone he is known to
      posterity. Yielding to the first impulse of the torrent, he
      deposited his family and treasure in Nice; retired to the
      mountains with fifty thousand horse; and twice descended to
      assault the camps or quarters of the Christian besiegers, which
      formed an imperfect circle of above six miles. The lofty and
      solid walls of Nice were covered by a deep ditch, and flanked by
      three hundred and seventy towers; and on the verge of
      Christendom, the Moslems were trained in arms, and inflamed by
      religion. Before this city, the French princes occupied their
      stations, and prosecuted their attacks without correspondence or
      subordination: emulation prompted their valor; but their valor
      was sullied by cruelty, and their emulation degenerated into envy
      and civil discord. In the siege of Nice, the arts and engines of
      antiquity were employed by the Latins; the mine and the
      battering-ram, the tortoise, and the belfrey or movable turret,
      artificial fire, and the catapult and balist, the sling, and the
      crossbow for the casting of stones and darts. 81 In the space of
      seven weeks much labor and blood were expended, and some
      progress, especially by Count Raymond, was made on the side of
      the besiegers. But the Turks could protract their resistance and
      secure their escape, as long as they were masters of the Lake 82
      Ascanius, which stretches several miles to the westward of the
      city. The means of conquest were supplied by the prudence and
      industry of Alexius; a great number of boats was transported on
      sledges from the sea to the lake; they were filled with the most
      dexterous of his archers; the flight of the sultana was
      intercepted; Nice was invested by land and water; and a Greek
      emissary persuaded the inhabitants to accept his master’s
      protection, and to save themselves, by a timely surrender, from
      the rage of the savages of Europe. In the moment of victory, or
      at least of hope, the crusaders, thirsting for blood and plunder,
      were awed by the Imperial banner that streamed from the citadel;
      821 and Alexius guarded with jealous vigilance this important
      conquest. The murmurs of the chiefs were stifled by honor or
      interest; and after a halt of nine days, they directed their
      march towards Phrygia under the guidance of a Greek general, whom
      they suspected of a secret connivance with the sultan. The
      consort and the principal servants of Soliman had been honorably
      restored without ransom; and the emperor’s generosity to the
      miscreants 83 was interpreted as treason to the Christian cause.

      80 (return) [ His Mussulman appellation of Soliman is used by the
      Latins, and his character is highly embellished by Tasso. His
      Turkish name of Kilidge-Arslan (A. H. 485-500, A.D. 1192-1206.
      See De Guignes’s Tables, tom. i. p. 245) is employed by the
      Orientals, and with some corruption by the Greeks; but little
      more than his name can be found in the Mahometan writers, who are
      dry and sulky on the subject of the first crusade, (De Guignes,
      tom. iii. p. ii. p. 10-30.) * Note: See note, page 556. Soliman
      and Kilidge-Arslan were father and son—M.]

      81 (return) [ On the fortifications, engines, and sieges of the
      middle ages, see Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae, tom. ii.
      dissert. xxvi. p. 452-524.) The belfredus, from whence our
      belfrey, was the movable tower of the ancients, (Ducange, tom. i.
      p. 608.)]

      82 (return) [ I cannot forbear remarking the resemblance between
      the siege and lake of Nice, with the operations of Hernan Cortez
      before Mexico. See Dr. Robertson, History of America, l. v.]

      821 (return) [ See Anna Comnena.—M.]

      83 (return) [ Mecreant, a word invented by the French crusaders,
      and confined in that language to its primitive sense. It should
      seem, that the zeal of our ancestors boiled higher, and that they
      branded every unbeliever as a rascal. A similar prejudice still
      lurks in the minds of many who think themselves Christians.]

      Soliman was rather provoked than dismayed by the loss of his
      capital: he admonished his subjects and allies of this strange
      invasion of the Western Barbarians; the Turkish emirs obeyed the
      call of loyalty or religion; the Turkman hordes encamped round
      his standard; and his whole force is loosely stated by the
      Christians at two hundred, or even three hundred and sixty
      thousand horse. Yet he patiently waited till they had left behind
      them the sea and the Greek frontier; and hovering on the flanks,
      observed their careless and confident progress in two columns
      beyond the view of each other. Some miles before they could reach
      Dorylaeum in Phrygia, the left, and least numerous, division was
      surprised, and attacked, and almost oppressed, by the Turkish
      cavalry. 84 The heat of the weather, the clouds of arrows, and
      the barbarous onset, overwhelmed the crusaders; they lost their
      order and confidence, and the fainting fight was sustained by the
      personal valor, rather than by the military conduct, of Bohemond,
      Tancred, and Robert of Normandy. They were revived by the welcome
      banners of Duke Godfrey, who flew to their succor, with the count
      of Vermandois, and sixty thousand horse; and was followed by
      Raymond of Tholouse, the bishop of Puy, and the remainder of the
      sacred army. Without a moment’s pause, they formed in new order,
      and advanced to a second battle. They were received with equal
      resolution; and, in their common disdain for the unwarlike people
      of Greece and Asia, it was confessed on both sides, that the
      Turks and the Franks were the only nations entitled to the
      appellation of soldiers. 85 Their encounter was varied, and
      balanced by the contrast of arms and discipline; of the direct
      charge, and wheeling evolutions; of the couched lance, and the
      brandished javelin; of a weighty broadsword, and a crooked sabre;
      of cumbrous armor, and thin flowing robes; and of the long Tartar
      bow, and the arbalist or crossbow, a deadly weapon, yet unknown
      to the Orientals. 86 As long as the horses were fresh, and the
      quivers full, Soliman maintained the advantage of the day; and
      four thousand Christians were pierced by the Turkish arrows. In
      the evening, swiftness yielded to strength: on either side, the
      numbers were equal or at least as great as any ground could hold,
      or any generals could manage; but in turning the hills, the last
      division of Raymond and his provincials was led, perhaps without
      design on the rear of an exhausted enemy; and the long contest
      was determined. Besides a nameless and unaccounted multitude,
      three thousand Pagan knights were slain in the battle and
      pursuit; the camp of Soliman was pillaged; and in the variety of
      precious spoil, the curiosity of the Latins was amused with
      foreign arms and apparel, and the new aspect of dromedaries and
      camels. The importance of the victory was proved by the hasty
      retreat of the sultan: reserving ten thousand guards of the
      relics of his army, Soliman evacuated the kingdom of Roum, and
      hastened to implore the aid, and kindle the resentment, of his
      Eastern brethren. In a march of five hundred miles, the crusaders
      traversed the Lesser Asia, through a wasted land and deserted
      towns, without finding either a friend or an enemy. The
      geographer 87 may trace the position of Dorylaeum, Antioch of
      Pisidia, Iconium, Archelais, and Germanicia, and may compare
      those classic appellations with the modern names of Eskishehr the
      old city, Akshehr the white city, Cogni, Erekli, and Marash. As
      the pilgrims passed over a desert, where a draught of water is
      exchanged for silver, they were tormented by intolerable thirst;
      and on the banks of the first rivulet, their haste and
      intemperance were still more pernicious to the disorderly throng.
      They climbed with toil and danger the steep and slippery sides of
      Mount Taurus; many of the soldiers cast away their arms to secure
      their footsteps; and had not terror preceded their van, the long
      and trembling file might have been driven down the precipice by a
      handful of resolute enemies. Two of their most respectable
      chiefs, the duke of Lorraine and the count of Tholouse, were
      carried in litters: Raymond was raised, as it is said by miracle,
      from a hopeless malady; and Godfrey had been torn by a bear, as
      he pursued that rough and perilous chase in the mountains of
      Pisidia.

      84 (return) [ Baronius has produced a very doubtful letter to his
      brother Roger, (A.D. 1098, No. 15.) The enemies consisted of
      Medes, Persians, Chaldeans: be it so. The first attack was cum
      nostro incommodo; true and tender. But why Godfrey of Bouillon
      and Hugh brothers! Tancred is styled filius; of whom? Certainly
      not of Roger, nor of Bohemond.]

      85 (return) [ Verumtamen dicunt se esse de Francorum generatione;
      et quia nullus homo naturaliter debet esse miles nisi Franci et
      Turci, (Gesta Francorum, p. 7.) The same community of blood and
      valor is attested by Archbishop Baldric, (p. 99.)]

      86 (return) [ Balista, Balestra, Arbalestre. See Muratori, Antiq.
      tom. ii. p. 517-524. Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. i. p. 531, 532.
      In the time of Anna Comnena, this weapon, which she describes
      under the name of izangra, was unknown in the East, (l. x. p.
      291.) By a humane inconsistency, the pope strove to prohibit it
      in Christian wars.]

      87 (return) [ The curious reader may compare the classic learning
      of Cellarius and the geographical science of D’Anville. William
      of Tyre is the only historian of the crusades who has any
      knowledge of antiquity; and M. Otter trod almost in the footsteps
      of the Franks from Constantinople to Antioch, (Voyage en Turquie
      et en Perse, tom. i. p. 35-88.) * Note: The journey of Col.
      Macdonald Kinneir in Asia Minor throws considerable light on the
      geography of this march of the crusaders.—M.]

      To improve the general consternation, the cousin of Bohemond and
      the brother of Godfrey were detached from the main army with
      their respective squadrons of five, and of seven, hundred
      knights. They overran in a rapid career the hills and sea-coast
      of Cilicia, from Cogni to the Syrian gates: the Norman standard
      was first planted on the walls of Tarsus and Malmistra; but the
      proud injustice of Baldwin at length provoked the patient and
      generous Italian; and they turned their consecrated swords
      against each other in a private and profane quarrel. Honor was
      the motive, and fame the reward, of Tancred; but fortune smiled
      on the more selfish enterprise of his rival. 88 He was called to
      the assistance of a Greek or Armenian tyrant, who had been
      suffered under the Turkish yoke to reign over the Christians of
      Edessa. Baldwin accepted the character of his son and champion:
      but no sooner was he introduced into the city, than he inflamed
      the people to the massacre of his father, occupied the throne and
      treasure, extended his conquests over the hills of Armenia and
      the plain of Mesopotamia, and founded the first principality of
      the Franks or Latins, which subsisted fifty-four years beyond the
      Euphrates. 89

      88 (return) [ This detached conquest of Edessa is best
      represented by Fulcherius Carnotensis, or of Chartres, (in the
      collections of Bongarsius Duchesne, and Martenne,) the valiant
      chaplain of Count Baldwin (Esprit des Croisades, tom. i. p. 13,
      14.) In the disputes of that prince with Tancred, his partiality
      is encountered by the partiality of Radulphus Cadomensis, the
      soldier and historian of the gallant marquis.]

      89 (return) [ See de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 456.]

      Before the Franks could enter Syria, the summer, and even the
      autumn, were completely wasted: the siege of Antioch, or the
      separation and repose of the army during the winter season, was
      strongly debated in their council: the love of arms and the holy
      sepulchre urged them to advance; and reason perhaps was on the
      side of resolution, since every hour of delay abates the fame and
      force of the invader, and multiplies the resources of defensive
      war. The capital of Syria was protected by the River Orontes; and
      the iron bridge, 891 of nine arches, derives its name from the
      massy gates of the two towers which are constructed at either
      end. They were opened by the sword of the duke of Normandy: his
      victory gave entrance to three hundred thousand crusaders, an
      account which may allow some scope for losses and desertion, but
      which clearly detects much exaggeration in the review of Nice. In
      the description of Antioch, 90 it is not easy to define a middle
      term between her ancient magnificence, under the successors of
      Alexander and Augustus, and the modern aspect of Turkish
      desolation. The Tetrapolis, or four cities, if they retained
      their name and position, must have left a large vacuity in a
      circumference of twelve miles; and that measure, as well as the
      number of four hundred towers, are not perfectly consistent with
      the five gates, so often mentioned in the history of the siege.
      Yet Antioch must have still flourished as a great and populous
      capital. At the head of the Turkish emirs, Baghisian, a veteran
      chief, commanded in the place: his garrison was composed of six
      or seven thousand horse, and fifteen or twenty thousand foot: one
      hundred thousand Moslems are said to have fallen by the sword;
      and their numbers were probably inferior to the Greeks,
      Armenians, and Syrians, who had been no more than fourteen years
      the slaves of the house of Seljuk. From the remains of a solid
      and stately wall, it appears to have arisen to the height of
      threescore feet in the valleys; and wherever less art and labor
      had been applied, the ground was supposed to be defended by the
      river, the morass, and the mountains. Notwithstanding these
      fortifications, the city had been repeatedly taken by the
      Persians, the Arabs, the Greeks, and the Turks; so large a
      circuit must have yielded many pervious points of attack; and in
      a siege that was formed about the middle of October, the vigor of
      the execution could alone justify the boldness of the attempt.
      Whatever strength and valor could perform in the field was
      abundantly discharged by the champions of the cross: in the
      frequent occasions of sallies, of forage, of the attack and
      defence of convoys, they were often victorious; and we can only
      complain, that their exploits are sometimes enlarged beyond the
      scale of probability and truth. The sword of Godfrey 91 divided a
      Turk from the shoulder to the haunch; and one half of the infidel
      fell to the ground, while the other was transported by his horse
      to the city gate. As Robert of Normandy rode against his
      antagonist, “I devote thy head,” he piously exclaimed, “to the
      daemons of hell;” and that head was instantly cloven to the
      breast by the resistless stroke of his descending falchion. But
      the reality or the report of such gigantic prowess 92 must have
      taught the Moslems to keep within their walls: and against those
      walls of earth or stone, the sword and the lance were unavailing
      weapons. In the slow and successive labors of a siege, the
      crusaders were supine and ignorant, without skill to contrive, or
      money to purchase, or industry to use, the artificial engines and
      implements of assault. In the conquest of Nice, they had been
      powerfully assisted by the wealth and knowledge of the Greek
      emperor: his absence was poorly supplied by some Genoese and
      Pisan vessels, that were attracted by religion or trade to the
      coast of Syria: the stores were scanty, the return precarious,
      and the communication difficult and dangerous. Indolence or
      weakness had prevented the Franks from investing the entire
      circuit; and the perpetual freedom of two gates relieved the
      wants and recruited the garrison of the city. At the end of seven
      months, after the ruin of their cavalry, and an enormous loss by
      famine, desertion and fatigue, the progress of the crusaders was
      imperceptible, and their success remote, if the Latin Ulysses,
      the artful and ambitious Bohemond, had not employed the arms of
      cunning and deceit. The Christians of Antioch were numerous and
      discontented: Phirouz, a Syrian renegado, had acquired the favor
      of the emir and the command of three towers; and the merit of his
      repentance disguised to the Latins, and perhaps to himself, the
      foul design of perfidy and treason. A secret correspondence, for
      their mutual interest, was soon established between Phirouz and
      the prince of Tarento; and Bohemond declared in the council of
      the chiefs, that he could deliver the city into their hands. 921
      But he claimed the sovereignty of Antioch as the reward of his
      service; and the proposal which had been rejected by the envy,
      was at length extorted from the distress, of his equals. The
      nocturnal surprise was executed by the French and Norman princes,
      who ascended in person the scaling-ladders that were thrown from
      the walls: their new proselyte, after the murder of his too
      scrupulous brother, embraced and introduced the servants of
      Christ; the army rushed through the gates; and the Moslems soon
      found, that although mercy was hopeless, resistance was impotent.

      But the citadel still refused to surrender; and the victims
      themselves were speedily encompassed and besieged by the
      innumerable forces of Kerboga, prince of Mosul, who, with
      twenty-eight Turkish emirs, advanced to the deliverance of
      Antioch. Five-and-twenty days the Christians spent on the verge
      of destruction; and the proud lieutenant of the caliph and the
      sultan left them only the choice of servitude or death. 93 In
      this extremity they collected the relics of their strength,
      sallied from the town, and in a single memorable day, annihilated
      or dispersed the host of Turks and Arabians, which they might
      safely report to have consisted of six hundred thousand men. 94
      Their supernatural allies I shall proceed to consider: the human
      causes of the victory of Antioch were the fearless despair of the
      Franks; and the surprise, the discord, perhaps the errors, of
      their unskilful and presumptuous adversaries. The battle is
      described with as much disorder as it was fought; but we may
      observe the tent of Kerboga, a movable and spacious palace,
      enriched with the luxury of Asia, and capable of holding above
      two thousand persons; we may distinguish his three thousand
      guards, who were cased, the horse as well as the men, in complete
      steel.

      891 (return) [ This bridge was over the Ifrin, not the Orontes,
      at a distance of three leagues from Antioch. See Wilken, vol. i.
      p. 172.—M.]

      90 (return) [ For Antioch, see Pocock, (Description of the East,
      vol. ii. p. i. p. 188-193,) Otter, (Voyage en Turquie, &c., tom.
      i. p. 81, &c.,) the Turkish geographer, (in Otter’s notes,) the
      Index Geographicus of Schultens, (ad calcem Bohadin. Vit.
      Saladin.,) and Abulfeda, (Tabula Syriae, p. 115, 116, vers.
      Reiske.)]

      91 (return) [ Ensem elevat, eumque a sinistra parte scapularum,
      tanta virtute intorsit, ut quod pectus medium disjunxit spinam et
      vitalia interrupit; et sic lubricus ensis super crus dextrum
      integer exivit: sicque caput integrum cum dextra parte corporis
      immersit gurgite, partemque quae equo praesidebat remisit
      civitati, (Robert. Mon. p. 50.) Cujus ense trajectus, Turcus duo
      factus est Turci: ut inferior alter in urbem equitaret, alter
      arcitenens in flumine nataret, (Radulph. Cadom. c. 53, p. 304.)
      Yet he justifies the deed by the stupendis viribus of Godfrey;
      and William of Tyre covers it by obstupuit populus facti novitate
      .... mirabilis, (l. v. c. 6, p. 701.) Yet it must not have
      appeared incredible to the knights of that age.]

      92 (return) [ See the exploits of Robert, Raymond, and the modest
      Tancred who imposed silence on his squire, (Randulph. Cadom. c.
      53.)]

      921 (return) [ See the interesting extract from Kemaleddin’s
      History of Aleppo in Wilken, preface to vol. ii. p. 36. Phirouz,
      or Azzerrad, the breastplate maker, had been pillaged and put to
      the torture by Bagi Sejan, the prince of Antioch.—M.]

      93 (return) [ After mentioning the distress and humble petition
      of the Franks, Abulpharagius adds the haughty reply of Codbuka,
      or Kerboga, “Non evasuri estis nisi per gladium,” (Dynast. p.
      242.)]

      94 (return) [ In describing the host of Kerboga, most of the
      Latin historians, the author of the Gesta, (p. 17,) Robert
      Monachus, (p. 56,) Baldric, (p. 111,) Fulcherius Carnotensis, (p.
      392,) Guibert, (p. 512,) William of Tyre, (l. vi. c. 3, p. 714,)
      Bernard Thesaurarius, (c. 39, p. 695,) are content with the vague
      expressions of infinita multitudo, immensum agmen, innumerae
      copiae or gentes, which correspond with Anna Comnena, (Alexias,
      l. xi. p. 318-320.) The numbers of the Turks are fixed by Albert
      Aquensis at 200,000, (l. iv. c. 10, p. 242,) and by Radulphus
      Cadomensis at 400,000 horse, (c. 72, p. 309.)]

      In the eventful period of the siege and defence of Antioch, the
      crusaders were alternately exalted by victory or sunk in despair;
      either swelled with plenty or emaciated with hunger. A
      speculative reasoner might suppose, that their faith had a strong
      and serious influence on their practice; and that the soldiers of
      the cross, the deliverers of the holy sepulchre, prepared
      themselves by a sober and virtuous life for the daily
      contemplation of martyrdom. Experience blows away this charitable
      illusion; and seldom does the history of profane war display such
      scenes of intemperance and prostitution as were exhibited under
      the walls of Antioch. The grove of Daphne no longer flourished;
      but the Syrian air was still impregnated with the same vices; the
      Christians were seduced by every temptation 95 that nature either
      prompts or reprobates; the authority of the chiefs was despised;
      and sermons and edicts were alike fruitless against those
      scandalous disorders, not less pernicious to military discipline,
      than repugnant to evangelic purity. In the first days of the
      siege and the possession of Antioch, the Franks consumed with
      wanton and thoughtless prodigality the frugal subsistence of
      weeks and months: the desolate country no longer yielded a
      supply; and from that country they were at length excluded by the
      arms of the besieging Turks. Disease, the faithful companion of
      want, was envenomed by the rains of the winter, the summer heats,
      unwholesome food, and the close imprisonment of multitudes. The
      pictures of famine and pestilence are always the same, and always
      disgustful; and our imagination may suggest the nature of their
      sufferings and their resources. The remains of treasure or spoil
      were eagerly lavished in the purchase of the vilest nourishment;
      and dreadful must have been the calamities of the poor, since,
      after paying three marks of silver for a goat and fifteen for a
      lean camel, 96 the count of Flanders was reduced to beg a dinner,
      and Duke Godfrey to borrow a horse. Sixty thousand horse had been
      reviewed in the camp: before the end of the siege they were
      diminished to two thousand, and scarcely two hundred fit for
      service could be mustered on the day of battle. Weakness of body
      and terror of mind extinguished the ardent enthusiasm of the
      pilgrims; and every motive of honor and religion was subdued by
      the desire of life. 97 Among the chiefs, three heroes may be
      found without fear or reproach: Godfrey of Bouillon was supported
      by his magnanimous piety; Bohemond by ambition and interest; and
      Tancred declared, in the true spirit of chivalry, that as long as
      he was at the head of forty knights, he would never relinquish
      the enterprise of Palestine. But the count of Tholouse and
      Provence was suspected of a voluntary indisposition; the duke of
      Normandy was recalled from the sea-shore by the censures of the
      church: Hugh the Great, though he led the vanguard of the battle,
      embraced an ambiguous opportunity of returning to France and
      Stephen, count of Chartres, basely deserted the standard which he
      bore, and the council in which he presided. The soldiers were
      discouraged by the flight of William, viscount of Melun, surnamed
      the Carpenter, from the weighty strokes of his axe; and the
      saints were scandalized by the fall 971 of Peter the Hermit, who,
      after arming Europe against Asia, attempted to escape from the
      penance of a necessary fast. Of the multitude of recreant
      warriors, the names (says an historian) are blotted from the book
      of life; and the opprobrious epithet of the rope-dancers was
      applied to the deserters who dropped in the night from the walls
      of Antioch. The emperor Alexius, 98 who seemed to advance to the
      succor of the Latins, was dismayed by the assurance of their
      hopeless condition. They expected their fate in silent despair;
      oaths and punishments were tried without effect; and to rouse the
      soldiers to the defence of the walls, it was found necessary to
      set fire to their quarters.

      95 (return) [ See the tragic and scandalous fate of an archdeacon
      of royal birth, who was slain by the Turks as he reposed in an
      orchard, playing at dice with a Syrian concubine.]

      96 (return) [ The value of an ox rose from five solidi, (fifteen
      shillings,) at Christmas to two marks, (four pounds,) and
      afterwards much higher; a kid or lamb, from one shilling to
      eighteen of our present money: in the second famine, a loaf of
      bread, or the head of an animal, sold for a piece of gold. More
      examples might be produced; but it is the ordinary, not the
      extraordinary, prices, that deserve the notice of the
      philosopher.]

      97 (return) [ Alli multi, quorum nomina non tenemus; quia, deleta
      de libro vitae, praesenti operi non sunt inserenda, (Will. Tyr.
      l. vi. c. 5, p. 715.) Guibert (p. 518, 523) attempts to excuse
      Hugh the Great, and even Stephen of Chartres.]

      971 (return) [ Peter fell during the siege: he went afterwards on
      an embassy to Kerboga Wilken. vol. i. p. 217.—M.]

      98 (return) [ See the progress of the crusade, the retreat of
      Alexius, the victory of Antioch, and the conquest of Jerusalem,
      in the Alexiad, l. xi. p. 317-327. Anna was so prone to
      exaggeration, that she magnifies the exploits of the Latins.]

      For their salvation and victory, they were indebted to the same
      fanaticism which had led them to the brink of ruin. In such a
      cause, and in such an army, visions, prophecies, and miracles,
      were frequent and familiar. In the distress of Antioch, they were
      repeated with unusual energy and success: St. Ambrose had assured
      a pious ecclesiastic, that two years of trial must precede the
      season of deliverance and grace; the deserters were stopped by
      the presence and reproaches of Christ himself; the dead had
      promised to arise and combat with their brethren; the Virgin had
      obtained the pardon of their sins; and their confidence was
      revived by a visible sign, the seasonable and splendid discovery
      of the Holy Lance. The policy of their chiefs has on this
      occasion been admired, and might surely be excused; but a pious
      fraud is seldom produced by the cool conspiracy of many persons;
      and a voluntary impostor might depend on the support of the wise
      and the credulity of the people. Of the diocese of Marseilles,
      there was a priest of low cunning and loose manners, and his name
      was Peter Bartholemy. He presented himself at the door of the
      council-chamber, to disclose an apparition of St. Andrew, which
      had been thrice reiterated in his sleep with a dreadful menace,
      if he presumed to suppress the commands of Heaven. “At Antioch,”
      said the apostle, “in the church of my brother St. Peter, near
      the high altar, is concealed the steel head of the lance that
      pierced the side of our Redeemer. In three days that instrument
      of eternal, and now of temporal, salvation, will be manifested to
      his disciples. Search, and ye shall find: bear it aloft in
      battle; and that mystic weapon shall penetrate the souls of the
      miscreants.” The pope’s legate, the bishop of Puy, affected to
      listen with coldness and distrust; but the revelation was eagerly
      accepted by Count Raymond, whom his faithful subject, in the name
      of the apostle, had chosen for the guardian of the holy lance.
      The experiment was resolved; and on the third day after a due
      preparation of prayer and fasting, the priest of Marseilles
      introduced twelve trusty spectators, among whom were the count
      and his chaplain; and the church doors were barred against the
      impetuous multitude. The ground was opened in the appointed
      place; but the workmen, who relieved each other, dug to the depth
      of twelve feet without discovering the object of their search. In
      the evening, when Count Raymond had withdrawn to his post, and
      the weary assistants began to murmur, Bartholemy, in his shirt,
      and without his shoes, boldly descended into the pit; the
      darkness of the hour and of the place enabled him to secrete and
      deposit the head of a Saracen lance; and the first sound, the
      first gleam, of the steel was saluted with a devout rapture. The
      holy lance was drawn from its recess, wrapped in a veil of silk
      and gold, and exposed to the veneration of the crusaders; their
      anxious suspense burst forth in a general shout of joy and hope,
      and the desponding troops were again inflamed with the enthusiasm
      of valor. Whatever had been the arts, and whatever might be the
      sentiments of the chiefs, they skilfully improved this fortunate
      revolution by every aid that discipline and devotion could
      afford. The soldiers were dismissed to their quarters with an
      injunction to fortify their minds and bodies for the approaching
      conflict, freely to bestow their last pittance on themselves and
      their horses, and to expect with the dawn of day the signal of
      victory. On the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul, the gates of
      Antioch were thrown open: a martial psalm, “Let the Lord arise,
      and let his enemies be scattered!” was chanted by a procession of
      priests and monks; the battle array was marshalled in twelve
      divisions, in honor of the twelve apostles; and the holy lance,
      in the absence of Raymond, was intrusted to the hands of his
      chaplain. The influence of his relic or trophy, was felt by the
      servants, and perhaps by the enemies, of Christ; 99 and its
      potent energy was heightened by an accident, a stratagem, or a
      rumor, of a miraculous complexion. Three knights, in white
      garments and resplendent arms, either issued, or seemed to issue,
      from the hills: the voice of Adhemar, the pope’s legate,
      proclaimed them as the martyrs St. George, St. Theodore, and St.
      Maurice: the tumult of battle allowed no time for doubt or
      scrutiny; and the welcome apparition dazzled the eyes or the
      imagination of a fanatic army. 991 In the season of danger and
      triumph, the revelation of Bartholemy of Marseilles was
      unanimously asserted; but as soon as the temporary service was
      accomplished, the personal dignity and liberal arms which the
      count of Tholouse derived from the custody of the holy lance,
      provoked the envy, and awakened the reason, of his rivals. A
      Norman clerk presumed to sift, with a philosophic spirit, the
      truth of the legend, the circumstances of the discovery, and the
      character of the prophet; and the pious Bohemond ascribed their
      deliverance to the merits and intercession of Christ alone. For a
      while, the Provincials defended their national palladium with
      clamors and arms and new visions condemned to death and hell the
      profane sceptics who presumed to scrutinize the truth and merit
      of the discovery. The prevalence of incredulity compelled the
      author to submit his life and veracity to the judgment of God. A
      pile of dry fagots, four feet high and fourteen long, was erected
      in the midst of the camp; the flames burnt fiercely to the
      elevation of thirty cubits; and a narrow path of twelve inches
      was left for the perilous trial. The unfortunate priest of
      Marseilles traversed the fire with dexterity and speed; but the
      thighs and belly were scorched by the intense heat; he expired
      the next day; 992 and the logic of believing minds will pay some
      regard to his dying protestations of innocence and truth. Some
      efforts were made by the Provincials to substitute a cross, a
      ring, or a tabernacle, in the place of the holy lance, which soon
      vanished in contempt and oblivion. 100 Yet the revelation of
      Antioch is gravely asserted by succeeding historians: and such is
      the progress of credulity, that miracles most doubtful on the
      spot, and at the moment, will be received with implicit faith at
      a convenient distance of time and space.

      99 (return) [ The Mahometan Aboulmahasen (apud De Guignes, tom.
      ii. p. ii. p. 95) is more correct in his account of the holy
      lance than the Christians, Anna Comnena and Abulpharagius: the
      Greek princess confounds it with the nail of the cross, (l. xi.
      p. 326;) the Jacobite primate, with St. Peter’s staff, (p. 242.)]

      991 (return) [ The real cause of this victory appears to have
      been the feud in Kerboga’s army Wilken, vol. ii. p. 40.—M.]

      992 (return) [ The twelfth day after. He was much injured, and
      his flesh torn off, from the ardor of pious congratulation with
      which he was assailed by those who witnessed his escape, unhurt,
      as it was first supposed. Wilken vol. i p. 263—M.]

      100 (return) [ The two antagonists who express the most intimate
      knowledge and the strongest conviction of the miracle, and of the
      fraud, are Raymond des Agiles, and Radulphus Cadomensis, the one
      attached to the count of Tholouse, the other to the Norman
      prince. Fulcherius Carnotensis presumes to say, Audite fraudem et
      non fraudem! and afterwards, Invenit lanceam, fallaciter
      occultatam forsitan. The rest of the herd are loud and
      strenuous.]

      The prudence or fortune of the Franks had delayed their invasion
      till the decline of the Turkish empire. 101 Under the manly
      government of the three first sultans, the kingdoms of Asia were
      united in peace and justice; and the innumerable armies which
      they led in person were equal in courage, and superior in
      discipline, to the Barbarians of the West. But at the time of the
      crusade, the inheritance of Malek Shaw was disputed by his four
      sons; their private ambition was insensible of the public danger;
      and, in the vicissitudes of their fortune, the royal vassals were
      ignorant, or regardless, of the true object of their allegiance.
      The twenty-eight emirs who marched with the standard or Kerboga
      were his rivals or enemies: their hasty levies were drawn from
      the towns and tents of Mesopotamia and Syria; and the Turkish
      veterans were employed or consumed in the civil wars beyond the
      Tigris. The caliph of Egypt embraced this opportunity of weakness
      and discord to recover his ancient possessions; and his sultan
      Aphdal besieged Jerusalem and Tyre, expelled the children of
      Ortok, and restored in Palestine the civil and ecclesiastical
      authority of the Fatimites. 102 They heard with astonishment of
      the vast armies of Christians that had passed from Europe to
      Asia, and rejoiced in the sieges and battles which broke the
      power of the Turks, the adversaries of their sect and monarchy.
      But the same Christians were the enemies of the prophet; and from
      the overthrow of Nice and Antioch, the motive of their
      enterprise, which was gradually understood, would urge them
      forwards to the banks of the Jordan, or perhaps of the Nile.

      An intercourse of epistles and embassies, which rose and fell
      with the events of war, was maintained between the throne of
      Cairo and the camp of the Latins; and their adverse pride was the
      result of ignorance and enthusiasm. The ministers of Egypt
      declared in a haughty, or insinuated in a milder, tone, that
      their sovereign, the true and lawful commander of the faithful,
      had rescued Jerusalem from the Turkish yoke; and that the
      pilgrims, if they would divide their numbers, and lay aside their
      arms, should find a safe and hospitable reception at the
      sepulchre of Jesus. In the belief of their lost condition, the
      caliph Mostali despised their arms and imprisoned their deputies:
      the conquest and victory of Antioch prompted him to solicit those
      formidable champions with gifts of horses and silk robes, of
      vases, and purses of gold and silver; and in his estimate of
      their merit or power, the first place was assigned to Bohemond,
      and the second to Godfrey. In either fortune, the answer of the
      crusaders was firm and uniform: they disdained to inquire into
      the private claims or possessions of the followers of Mahomet;
      whatsoever was his name or nation, the usurper of Jerusalem was
      their enemy; and instead of prescribing the mode and terms of
      their pilgrimage, it was only by a timely surrender of the city
      and province, their sacred right, that he could deserve their
      alliance, or deprecate their impending and irresistible attack.
      103

      101 (return) [ See M. De Guignes, tom. ii. p. ii. p. 223, &c.;
      and the articles of Barkidrok, Mohammed, Sangiar, in D’Herbelot.]

      102 (return) [ The emir, or sultan, Aphdal, recovered Jerusalem
      and Tyre, A. H. 489, (Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alexandrin. p.
      478. De Guignes, tom. i. p. 249, from Abulfeda and Ben Schounah.)
      Jerusalem ante adventum vestrum recuperavimus, Turcos ejecimus,
      say the Fatimite ambassadors]

      103 (return) [ See the transactions between the caliph of Egypt
      and the crusaders in William of Tyre (l. iv. c. 24, l. vi. c. 19)
      and Albert Aquensis, (l. iii. c. 59,) who are more sensible of
      their importance than the contemporary writers.]

      Yet this attack, when they were within the view and reach of
      their glorious prize, was suspended above ten months after the
      defeat of Kerboga. The zeal and courage of the crusaders were
      chilled in the moment of victory; and instead of marching to
      improve the consternation, they hastily dispersed to enjoy the
      luxury, of Syria. The causes of this strange delay may be found
      in the want of strength and subordination. In the painful and
      various service of Antioch, the cavalry was annihilated; many
      thousands of every rank had been lost by famine, sickness, and
      desertion: the same abuse of plenty had been productive of a
      third famine; and the alternative of intemperance and distress
      had generated a pestilence, which swept away above fifty thousand
      of the pilgrims. Few were able to command, and none were willing
      to obey; the domestic feuds, which had been stifled by common
      fear, were again renewed in acts, or at least in sentiments, of
      hostility; the fortune of Baldwin and Bohemond excited the envy
      of their companions; the bravest knights were enlisted for the
      defence of their new principalities; and Count Raymond exhausted
      his troops and treasures in an idle expedition into the heart of
      Syria. 1031 The winter was consumed in discord and disorder; a
      sense of honor and religion was rekindled in the spring; and the
      private soldiers, less susceptible of ambition and jealousy,
      awakened with angry clamors the indolence of their chiefs. In the
      month of May, the relics of this mighty host proceeded from
      Antioch to Laodicea: about forty thousand Latins, of whom no more
      than fifteen hundred horse, and twenty thousand foot, were
      capable of immediate service. Their easy march was continued
      between Mount Libanus and the sea-shore: their wants were
      liberally supplied by the coasting traders of Genoa and Pisa; and
      they drew large contributions from the emirs of Tripoli, Tyre,
      Sidon, Acre, and Caesarea, who granted a free passage, and
      promised to follow the example of Jerusalem. From Caesarea they
      advanced into the midland country; their clerks recognized the
      sacred geography of Lydda, Ramla, Emmaus, and Bethlem, 1032 and
      as soon as they descried the holy city, the crusaders forgot
      their toils and claimed their reward. 104

      1031 (return) [ This is not quite correct: he took Marra on his
      road. His excursions were partly to obtain provisions for the
      army and fodder for the horses Wilken, vol. i. p. 226.—M.]

      1032 (return) [ Scarcely of Bethlehem, to the south of
      Jerusalem.— M.]

      104 (return) [ The greatest part of the march of the Franks is
      traced, and most accurately traced, in Maundrell’s Journey from
      Aleppo to Jerusalem, (p. 11-67;) un des meilleurs morceaux, sans
      contredit qu’on ait dans ce genre, (D’Anville, Memoire sur
      Jerusalem, p. 27.)]




      Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part V.

      Jerusalem has derived some reputation from the number and
      importance of her memorable sieges. It was not till after a long
      and obstinate contest that Babylon and Rome could prevail against
      the obstinacy of the people, the craggy ground that might
      supersede the necessity of fortifications, and the walls and
      towers that would have fortified the most accessible plain. 105
      These obstacles were diminished in the age of the crusades. The
      bulwarks had been completely destroyed and imperfectly restored:
      the Jews, their nation, and worship, were forever banished; but
      nature is less changeable than man, and the site of Jerusalem,
      though somewhat softened and somewhat removed, was still strong
      against the assaults of an enemy. By the experience of a recent
      siege, and a three years’ possession, the Saracens of Egypt had
      been taught to discern, and in some degree to remedy, the defects
      of a place, which religion as well as honor forbade them to
      resign. Aladin, or Iftikhar, the caliph’s lieutenant, was
      intrusted with the defence: his policy strove to restrain the
      native Christians by the dread of their own ruin and that of the
      holy sepulchre; to animate the Moslems by the assurance of
      temporal and eternal rewards. His garrison is said to have
      consisted of forty thousand Turks and Arabians; and if he could
      muster twenty thousand of the inhabitants, it must be confessed
      that the besieged were more numerous than the besieging army. 106
      Had the diminished strength and numbers of the Latins allowed
      them to grasp the whole circumference of four thousand yards,
      (about two English miles and a half, 107 to what useful purpose
      should they have descended into the valley of Ben Hinnom and
      torrent of Cedron, 108 or approach the precipices of the south
      and east, from whence they had nothing either to hope or fear?
      Their siege was more reasonably directed against the northern and
      western sides of the city. Godfrey of Bouillon erected his
      standard on the first swell of Mount Calvary: to the left, as far
      as St. Stephen’s gate, the line of attack was continued by
      Tancred and the two Roberts; and Count Raymond established his
      quarters from the citadel to the foot of Mount Sion, which was no
      longer included within the precincts of the city. On the fifth
      day, the crusaders made a general assault, in the fanatic hope of
      battering down the walls without engines, and of scaling them
      without ladders. By the dint of brutal force, they burst the
      first barrier; but they were driven back with shame and slaughter
      to the camp: the influence of vision and prophecy was deadened by
      the too frequent abuse of those pious stratagems; and time and
      labor were found to be the only means of victory. The time of the
      siege was indeed fulfilled in forty days, but they were forty
      days of calamity and anguish. A repetition of the old complaint
      of famine may be imputed in some degree to the voracious or
      disorderly appetite of the Franks; but the stony soil of
      Jerusalem is almost destitute of water; the scanty springs and
      hasty torrents were dry in the summer season; nor was the thirst
      of the besiegers relieved, as in the city, by the artificial
      supply of cisterns and aqueducts. The circumjacent country is
      equally destitute of trees for the uses of shade or building, but
      some large beams were discovered in a cave by the crusaders: a
      wood near Sichem, the enchanted grove of Tasso, 109 was cut down:
      the necessary timber was transported to the camp by the vigor and
      dexterity of Tancred; and the engines were framed by some Genoese
      artists, who had fortunately landed in the harbor of Jaffa. Two
      movable turrets were constructed at the expense, and in the
      stations, of the duke of Lorraine and the count of Tholouse, and
      rolled forwards with devout labor, not to the most accessible,
      but to the most neglected, parts of the fortification. Raymond’s
      Tower was reduced to ashes by the fire of the besieged, but his
      colleague was more vigilant and successful; 1091 the enemies were
      driven by his archers from the rampart; the draw-bridge was let
      down; and on a Friday, at three in the afternoon, the day and
      hour of the passion, Godfrey of Bouillon stood victorious on the
      walls of Jerusalem. His example was followed on every side by the
      emulation of valor; and about four hundred and sixty years after
      the conquest of Omar, the holy city was rescued from the
      Mahometan yoke. In the pillage of public and private wealth, the
      adventurers had agreed to respect the exclusive property of the
      first occupant; and the spoils of the great mosque, seventy lamps
      and massy vases of gold and silver, rewarded the diligence, and
      displayed the generosity, of Tancred. A bloody sacrifice was
      offered by his mistaken votaries to the God of the Christians:
      resistance might provoke but neither age nor sex could mollify,
      their implacable rage: they indulged themselves three days in a
      promiscuous massacre; 110 and the infection of the dead bodies
      produced an epidemical disease. After seventy thousand Moslems
      had been put to the sword, and the harmless Jews had been burnt
      in their synagogue, they could still reserve a multitude of
      captives, whom interest or lassitude persuaded them to spare. Of
      these savage heroes of the cross, Tancred alone betrayed some
      sentiments of compassion; yet we may praise the more selfish
      lenity of Raymond, who granted a capitulation and safe-conduct to
      the garrison of the citadel. 111 The holy sepulchre was now free;
      and the bloody victors prepared to accomplish their vow.
      Bareheaded and barefoot, with contrite hearts, and in an humble
      posture, they ascended the hill of Calvary, amidst the loud
      anthems of the clergy; kissed the stone which had covered the
      Savior of the world; and bedewed with tears of joy and penitence
      the monument of their redemption. This union of the fiercest and
      most tender passions has been variously considered by two
      philosophers; by the one, 112 as easy and natural; by the other,
      113 as absurd and incredible. Perhaps it is too rigorously
      applied to the same persons and the same hour; the example of the
      virtuous Godfrey awakened the piety of his companions; while they
      cleansed their bodies, they purified their minds; nor shall I
      believe that the most ardent in slaughter and rapine were the
      foremost in the procession to the holy sepulchre.

      105 (return) [ See the masterly description of Tacitus, (Hist. v.
      11, 12, 13,) who supposes that the Jewish lawgivers had provided
      for a perpetual state of hostility against the rest of mankind. *
      Note: This is an exaggerated inference from the words of Tacitus,
      who speaks of the founders of the city, not the lawgivers.
      Praeviderant conditores, ex diversitate morum, crebra bella; inde
      cuncta quamvis adversus loagum obsidium.—M.]

      106 (return) [ The lively scepticism of Voltaire is balanced with
      sense and erudition by the French author of the Esprit des
      Croisades, (tom. iv. p. 386-388,) who observes, that, according
      to the Arabians, the inhabitants of Jerusalem must have exceeded
      200,000; that in the siege of Titus, Josephus collects 1,300,000
      Jews; that they are stated by Tacitus himself at 600,000; and
      that the largest defalcation, that his accepimus can justify,
      will still leave them more numerous than the Roman army.]

      107 (return) [ Maundrell, who diligently perambulated the walls,
      found a circuit of 4630 paces, or 4167 English yards, (p. 109,
      110: ) from an authentic plan, D’Anville concludes a measure
      nearly similar, of 1960 French toises, (p. 23-29,) in his scarce
      and valuable tract. For the topography of Jerusalem, see Reland,
      (Palestina, tom. ii. p. 832-860.)]

      108 (return) [ Jerusalem was possessed only of the torrent of
      Kedron, dry in summer, and of the little spring or brook of
      Siloe, (Reland, tom. i. p. 294, 300.) Both strangers and natives
      complain of the want of water, which, in time of war, was
      studiously aggravated. Within the city, Tacitus mentions a
      perennial fountain, an aqueduct and cisterns for rain water. The
      aqueduct was conveyed from the rivulet Tekos or Etham, which is
      likewise mentioned by Bohadin, (in Vit. Saludio p. 238.)]

      109 (return) [ Gierusalomme Liberata, canto xiii. It is pleasant
      enough to observe how Tasso has copied and embellished the
      minutest details of the siege.]

      1091 (return) [ This does not appear by Wilken’s account, (p.
      294.) They fought in vair the whole of the Thursday.—M.]

      110 (return) [ Besides the Latins, who are not ashamed of the
      massacre, see Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 363,) Abulpharagius,
      (Dynast. p. 243,) and M. De Guignes, tom. ii. p. ii. p. 99, from
      Aboulmahasen.]

      111 (return) [ The old tower Psephina, in the middle ages
      Neblosa, was named Castellum Pisanum, from the patriarch
      Daimbert. It is still the citadel, the residence of the Turkish
      aga, and commands a prospect of the Dead Sea, Judea, and Arabia,
      (D’Anville, p. 19-23.) It was likewise called the Tower of
      David.]

      112 (return) [ Hume, in his History of England, vol. i. p. 311,
      312, octavo edition.]

      113 (return) [ Voltaire, in his Essai sur l’Histoire Generale,
      tom ii. c. 54, p 345, 346]

      Eight days after this memorable event, which Pope Urban did not
      live to hear, the Latin chiefs proceeded to the election of a
      king, to guard and govern their conquests in Palestine. Hugh the
      Great, and Stephen of Chartres, had retired with some loss of
      reputation, which they strove to regain by a second crusade and
      an honorable death. Baldwin was established at Edessa, and
      Bohemond at Antioch; and two Roberts, the duke of Normandy 114
      and the count of Flanders, preferred their fair inheritance in
      the West to a doubtful competition or a barren sceptre. The
      jealousy and ambition of Raymond were condemned by his own
      followers, and the free, the just, the unanimous voice of the
      army proclaimed Godfrey of Bouillon the first and most worthy of
      the champions of Christendom. His magnanimity accepted a trust as
      full of danger as of glory; but in a city where his Savior had
      been crowned with thorns, the devout pilgrim rejected the name
      and ensigns of royalty; and the founder of the kingdom of
      Jerusalem contented himself with the modest title of Defender and
      Baron of the Holy Sepulchre. His government of a single year, 115
      too short for the public happiness, was interrupted in the first
      fortnight by a summons to the field, by the approach of the
      vizier or sultan of Egypt, who had been too slow to prevent, but
      who was impatient to avenge, the loss of Jerusalem. His total
      overthrow in the battle of Ascalon sealed the establishment of
      the Latins in Syria, and signalized the valor of the French
      princes who in this action bade a long farewell to the holy wars.

      Some glory might be derived from the prodigious inequality of
      numbers, though I shall not count the myriads of horse and foot
      1151 on the side of the Fatimites; but, except three thousand
      Ethiopians or Blacks, who were armed with flails or scourges of
      iron, the Barbarians of the South fled on the first onset, and
      afforded a pleasing comparison between the active valor of the
      Turks and the sloth and effeminacy of the natives of Egypt. After
      suspending before the holy sepulchre the sword and standard of
      the sultan, the new king (he deserves the title) embraced his
      departing companions, and could retain only with the gallant
      Tancred three hundred knights, and two thousand foot-soldiers for
      the defence of Palestine. His sovereignty was soon attacked by a
      new enemy, the only one against whom Godfrey was a coward.
      Adhemar, bishop of Puy, who excelled both in council and action,
      had been swept away in the last plague at Antioch: the remaining
      ecclesiastics preserved only the pride and avarice of their
      character; and their seditious clamors had required that the
      choice of a bishop should precede that of a king. The revenue and
      jurisdiction of the lawful patriarch were usurped by the Latin
      clergy: the exclusion of the Greeks and Syrians was justified by
      the reproach of heresy or schism; 116 and, under the iron yoke of
      their deliverers, the Oriental Christians regretted the
      tolerating government of the Arabian caliphs. Daimbert,
      archbishop of Pisa, had long been trained in the secret policy of
      Rome: he brought a fleet at his countrymen to the succor of the
      Holy Land, and was installed, without a competitor, the spiritual
      and temporal head of the church. 1161 The new patriarch 117
      immediately grasped the sceptre which had been acquired by the
      toil and blood of the victorious pilgrims; and both Godfrey and
      Bohemond submitted to receive at his hands the investiture of
      their feudal possessions. Nor was this sufficient; Daimbert
      claimed the immediate property of Jerusalem and Jaffa; instead of
      a firm and generous refusal, the hero negotiated with the priest;
      a quarter of either city was ceded to the church; and the modest
      bishop was satisfied with an eventual reversion of the rest, on
      the death of Godfrey without children, or on the future
      acquisition of a new seat at Cairo or Damascus.

      114 (return) [ The English ascribe to Robert of Normandy, and the
      Provincials to Raymond of Tholouse, the glory of refusing the
      crown; but the honest voice of tradition has preserved the memory
      of the ambition and revenge (Villehardouin, No. 136) of the count
      of St. Giles. He died at the siege of Tripoli, which was
      possessed by his descendants.]

      115 (return) [ See the election, the battle of Ascalon, &c., in
      William of Tyre l. ix. c. 1-12, and in the conclusion of the
      Latin historians of the first crusade.]

      1151 (return) [ 20,000 Franks, 300,000 Mussulmen, according to
      Wilken, (vol. ii. p. 9)—M.]

      116 (return) [ Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 479.]

      1161 (return) [ Arnulf was first chosen, but illegitimately, and
      degraded. He was ever after the secret enemy of Daimbert or
      Dagobert. Wilken, vol. i. p. 306, vol. ii. p. 52.—M]

      117 (return) [ See the claims of the patriarch Daimbert, in
      William of Tyre (l. ix. c. 15-18, x. 4, 7, 9,) who asserts with
      marvellous candor the independence of the conquerors and kings of
      Jerusalem.]

      Without this indulgence, the conqueror would have almost been
      stripped of his infant kingdom, which consisted only of Jerusalem
      and Jaffa, with about twenty villages and towns of the adjacent
      country. 118 Within this narrow verge, the Mahometans were still
      lodged in some impregnable castles: and the husbandman, the
      trader, and the pilgrim, were exposed to daily and domestic
      hostility. By the arms of Godfrey himself, and of the two
      Baldwins, his brother and cousin, who succeeded to the throne,
      the Latins breathed with more ease and safety; and at length they
      equalled, in the extent of their dominions, though not in the
      millions of their subjects, the ancient princes of Judah and
      Israel. 119 After the reduction of the maritime cities of
      Laodicea, Tripoli, Tyre, and Ascalon, 120 which were powerfully
      assisted by the fleets of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, and even of
      Flanders and Norway, 121 the range of sea-coast from Scanderoon
      to the borders of Egypt was possessed by the Christian pilgrims.
      If the prince of Antioch disclaimed his supremacy, the counts of
      Edessa and Tripoli owned themselves the vassals of the king of
      Jerusalem: the Latins reigned beyond the Euphrates; and the four
      cities of Hems, Hamah, Damascus, and Aleppo, were the only relics
      of the Mahometan conquests in Syria. 122 The laws and language,
      the manners and titles, of the French nation and Latin church,
      were introduced into these transmarine colonies. According to the
      feudal jurisprudence, the principal states and subordinate
      baronies descended in the line of male and female succession: 123
      but the children of the first conquerors, 124 a motley and
      degenerate race, were dissolved by the luxury of the climate; the
      arrival of new crusaders from Europe was a doubtful hope and a
      casual event. The service of the feudal tenures 125 was performed
      by six hundred and sixty-six knights, who might expect the aid of
      two hundred more under the banner of the count of Tripoli; and
      each knight was attended to the field by four squires or archers
      on horseback. 126 Five thousand and seventy sergeants, most
      probably foot-soldiers, were supplied by the churches and cities;
      and the whole legal militia of the kingdom could not exceed
      eleven thousand men, a slender defence against the surrounding
      myriads of Saracens and Turks. 127 But the firmest bulwark of
      Jerusalem was founded on the knights of the Hospital of St. John,
      128 and of the temple of Solomon; 129 on the strange association
      of a monastic and military life, which fanaticism might suggest,
      but which policy must approve. The flower of the nobility of
      Europe aspired to wear the cross, and to profess the vows, of
      these respectable orders; their spirit and discipline were
      immortal; and the speedy donation of twenty-eight thousand farms,
      or manors, 130 enabled them to support a regular force of cavalry
      and infantry for the defence of Palestine. The austerity of the
      convent soon evaporated in the exercise of arms; the world was
      scandalized by the pride, avarice, and corruption of these
      Christian soldiers; their claims of immunity and jurisdiction
      disturbed the harmony of the church and state; and the public
      peace was endangered by their jealous emulation. But in their
      most dissolute period, the knights of their hospital and temple
      maintained their fearless and fanatic character: they neglected
      to live, but they were prepared to die, in the service of Christ;
      and the spirit of chivalry, the parent and offspring of the
      crusades, has been transplanted by this institution from the holy
      sepulchre to the Isle of Malta. 131

      118 (return) [ Willerm. Tyr. l. x. 19. The Historia
      Hierosolimitana of Jacobus a Vitriaco (l. i. c. 21-50) and the
      Secreta Fidelium Crucis of Marinus Sanutus (l. iii. p. 1)
      describe the state and conquests of the Latin kingdom of
      Jerusalem.]

      119 (return) [ An actual muster, not including the tribes of Levi
      and Benjamin, gave David an army of 1,300,000 or 1,574,000
      fighting men; which, with the addition of women, children, and
      slaves, may imply a population of thirteen millions, in a country
      sixty leagues in length, and thirty broad. The honest and
      rational Le Clerc (Comment on 2d Samuel xxiv. and 1st Chronicles,
      xxi.) aestuat angusto in limite, and mutters his suspicion of a
      false transcript; a dangerous suspicion! * Note: David determined
      to take a census of his vast dominions, which extended from
      Lebanon to the frontiers of Egypt, from the Euphrates to the
      Mediterranean. The numbers (in 2 Sam. xxiv. 9, and 1 Chron. xxi.
      5) differ; but the lowest gives 800,000 men fit to bear arms in
      Israel, 500,000 in Judah. Hist. of Jews, vol. i. p. 248. Gibbon
      has taken the highest census in his estimate of the population,
      and confined the dominions of David to Jordandic Palestine.—M.]

      120 (return) [ These sieges are related, each in its proper
      place, in the great history of William of Tyre, from the ixth to
      the xviiith book, and more briefly told by Bernardus
      Thesaurarius, (de Acquisitione Terrae Sanctae, c. 89-98, p.
      732-740.) Some domestic facts are celebrated in the Chronicles of
      Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, in the vith, ixth, and xiith tomes of
      Muratori.]

      121 (return) [ Quidam populus de insulis occidentis egressus, et
      maxime de ea parte quae Norvegia dicitur. William of Tyre (l. xi.
      c. 14, p. 804) marks their course per Britannicum Mare et Calpen
      to the siege of Sidon.]

      122 (return) [ Benelathir, apud De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom.
      ii. part ii. p. 150, 151, A.D. 1127. He must speak of the inland
      country.]

      123 (return) [ Sanut very sensibly descants on the mischiefs of
      female succession, in a land hostibus circumdata, ubi cuncta
      virilia et virtuosa esse deberent. Yet, at the summons, and with
      the approbation, of her feudal lord, a noble damsel was obliged
      to choose a husband and champion, (Assises de Jerusalem, c. 242,
      &c.) See in M. De Guignes (tom. i. p. 441-471) the accurate and
      useful tables of these dynasties, which are chiefly drawn from
      the Lignages d’Outremer.]

      124 (return) [ They were called by derision Poullains, Pallani,
      and their name is never pronounced without contempt, (Ducange,
      Gloss. Latin. tom. v. p. 535; and Observations sur Joinville, p.
      84, 85; Jacob. a Vitriaco Hist. Hierosol. i. c. 67, 72; and
      Sanut, l. iii. p. viii. c. 2, p. 182.) Illustrium virorum, qui ad
      Terrae Sanctae.... liberationem in ipsa manserunt, degeneres
      filii.... in deliciis enutriti, molles et effoe minati, &c.]

      125 (return) [ This authentic detail is extracted from the
      Assises de Jerusalem (c. 324, 326-331.) Sanut (l. iii. p. viii.
      c. 1, p. 174) reckons only 518 knights, and 5775 followers.]

      126 (return) [ The sum total, and the division, ascertain the
      service of the three great baronies at 100 knights each; and the
      text of the Assises, which extends the number to 500, can only be
      justified by this supposition.]

      127 (return) [ Yet on great emergencies (says Sanut) the barons
      brought a voluntary aid; decentem comitivam militum juxta statum
      suum.]

      128 (return) [ William of Tyre (l. xviii. c. 3, 4, 5) relates the
      ignoble origin and early insolence of the Hospitallers, who soon
      deserted their humble patron, St. John the Eleemosynary, for the
      more august character of St. John the Baptist, (see the
      ineffectual struggles of Pagi, Critica, A. D 1099, No. 14-18.)
      They assumed the profession of arms about the year 1120; the
      Hospital was mater; the Temple filia; the Teutonic order was
      founded A.D. 1190, at the siege of Acre, (Mosheim Institut p.
      389, 390.)]

      129 (return) [ See St. Bernard de Laude Novae Militiae Templi,
      composed A.D. 1132-1136, in Opp. tom. i. p. ii. p. 547-563, edit.
      Mabillon, Venet. 1750. Such an encomium, which is thrown away on
      the dead Templars, would be highly valued by the historians of
      Malta.]

      130 (return) [ Matthew Paris, Hist. Major, p. 544. He assigns to
      the Hospitallers 19,000, to the Templars 9,000 maneria, word of
      much higher import (as Ducange has rightly observed) in the
      English than in the French idiom. Manor is a lordship, manoir a
      dwelling.]

      131 (return) [ In the three first books of the Histoire de
      Chevaliers de Malthe par l’Abbe de Vertot, the reader may amuse
      himself with a fair, and sometimes flattering, picture of the
      order, while it was employed for the defence of Palestine. The
      subsequent books pursue their emigration to Rhodes and Malta.]

      The spirit of freedom, which pervades the feudal institutions,
      was felt in its strongest energy by the volunteers of the cross,
      who elected for their chief the most deserving of his peers.
      Amidst the slaves of Asia, unconscious of the lesson or example,
      a model of political liberty was introduced; and the laws of the
      French kingdom are derived from the purest source of equality and
      justice. Of such laws, the first and indispensable condition is
      the assent of those whose obedience they require, and for whose
      benefit they are designed. No sooner had Godfrey of Bouillon
      accepted the office of supreme magistrate, than he solicited the
      public and private advice of the Latin pilgrims, who were the
      best skilled in the statutes and customs of Europe. From these
      materials, with the counsel and approbation of the patriarch and
      barons, of the clergy and laity, Godfrey composed the Assise of
      Jerusalem, 132 a precious monument of feudal jurisprudence. The
      new code, attested by the seals of the king, the patriarch, and
      the viscount of Jerusalem, was deposited in the holy sepulchre,
      enriched with the improvements of succeeding times, and
      respectfully consulted as often as any doubtful question arose in
      the tribunals of Palestine. With the kingdom and city all was
      lost: 133 the fragments of the written law were preserved by
      jealous tradition 134 and variable practice till the middle of
      the thirteenth century: the code was restored by the pen of John
      d’Ibelin, count of Jaffa, one of the principal feudatories; 135
      and the final revision was accomplished in the year thirteen
      hundred and sixty-nine, for the use of the Latin kingdom of
      Cyprus. 136

      132 (return) [ The Assises de Jerusalem, in old law French, were
      printed with Beaumanoir’s Coutumes de Beauvoisis, (Bourges and
      Paris, 1690, in folio,) and illustrated by Gaspard Thaumas de la
      Thaumassiere, with a comment and glossary. An Italian version had
      been published in 1534, at Venice, for the use of the kingdom of
      Cyprus. * Note: See Wilken, vol. i. p. 17, &c.,—M.]

      133 (return) [ A la terre perdue, tout fut perdu, is the vigorous
      expression of the Assise, (c. 281.) Yet Jerusalem capitulated
      with Saladin; the queen and the principal Christians departed in
      peace; and a code so precious and so portable could not provoke
      the avarice of the conquerors. I have sometimes suspected the
      existence of this original copy of the Holy Sepulchre, which
      might be invented to sanctify and authenticate the traditionary
      customs of the French in Palestine.]

      134 (return) [ A noble lawyer, Raoul de Tabarie, denied the
      prayer of King Amauri, (A.D. 1195-1205,) that he would commit his
      knowledged to writing, and frankly declared, que de ce qu’il
      savoit ne feroit-il ja nul borjois son pareill, ne null sage
      homme lettre, (c. 281.)]

      135 (return) [ The compiler of this work, Jean d’Ibelin, was
      count of Jaffa and Ascalon, lord of Baruth (Berytus) and Rames,
      and died A.D. 1266, (Sanut, l. iii. p. ii. c. 5, 8.) The family
      of Ibelin, which descended from a younger brother of a count of
      Chartres in France, long flourished in Palestine and Cyprus, (see
      the Lignages de deca Mer, or d’Outremer, c. 6, at the end of the
      Assises de Jerusalem, an original book, which records the
      pedigrees of the French adventurers.)]

      136 (return) [ By sixteen commissioners chosen in the states of
      the island: the work was finished the 3d of November, 1369,
      sealed with four seals and deposited in the cathedral of Nicosia,
      (see the preface to the Assises.)]

      The justice and freedom of the constitution were maintained by
      two tribunals of unequal dignity, which were instituted by
      Godfrey of Bouillon after the conquest of Jerusalem. The king, in
      person, presided in the upper court, the court of the barons. Of
      these the four most conspicuous were the prince of Galilee, the
      lord of Sidon and Caesarea, and the counts of Jaffa and Tripoli,
      who, perhaps with the constable and marshal, 137 were in a
      special manner the compeers and judges of each other. But all the
      nobles, who held their lands immediately of the crown, were
      entitled and bound to attend the king’s court; and each baron
      exercised a similar jurisdiction on the subordinate assemblies of
      his own feudatories. The connection of lord and vassal was
      honorable and voluntary: reverence was due to the benefactor,
      protection to the dependant; but they mutually pledged their
      faith to each other; and the obligation on either side might be
      suspended by neglect or dissolved by injury. The cognizance of
      marriages and testaments was blended with religion, and usurped
      by the clergy: but the civil and criminal causes of the nobles,
      the inheritance and tenure of their fiefs, formed the proper
      occupation of the supreme court. Each member was the judge and
      guardian both of public and private rights. It was his duty to
      assert with his tongue and sword the lawful claims of the lord;
      but if an unjust superior presumed to violate the freedom or
      property of a vassal, the confederate peers stood forth to
      maintain his quarrel by word and deed. They boldly affirmed his
      innocence and his wrongs; demanded the restitution of his liberty
      or his lands; suspended, after a fruitless demand, their own
      service; rescued their brother from prison; and employed every
      weapon in his defence, without offering direct violence to the
      person of their lord, which was ever sacred in their eyes. 138 In
      their pleadings, replies, and rejoinders, the advocates of the
      court were subtle and copious; but the use of argument and
      evidence was often superseded by judicial combat; and the Assise
      of Jerusalem admits in many cases this barbarous institution,
      which has been slowly abolished by the laws and manners of
      Europe.

      137 (return) [ The cautious John D’Ibelin argues, rather than
      affirms, that Tripoli is the fourth barony, and expresses some
      doubt concerning the right or pretension of the constable and
      marshal, (c. 323.)]

      138 (return) [ Entre seignor et homme ne n’a que la foi;.... mais
      tant que l’homme doit a son seignor reverence en toutes choses,
      (c. 206.) Tous les hommes dudit royaume sont par ladite Assise
      tenus les uns as autres.... et en celle maniere que le seignor
      mette main ou face mettre au cors ou au fie d’aucun d’yaus sans
      esgard et sans connoissans de court, que tous les autres doivent
      venir devant le seignor, &c., (212.) The form of their
      remonstrances is conceived with the noble simplicity of freedom.]

      The trial by battle was established in all criminal cases which
      affected the life, or limb, or honor, of any person; and in all
      civil transactions, of or above the value of one mark of silver.
      It appears that in criminal cases the combat was the privilege of
      the accuser, who, except in a charge of treason, avenged his
      personal injury, or the death of those persons whom he had a
      right to represent; but wherever, from the nature of the charge,
      testimony could be obtained, it was necessary for him to produce
      witnesses of the fact. In civil cases, the combat was not allowed
      as the means of establishing the claim of the demandant; but he
      was obliged to produce witnesses who had, or assumed to have,
      knowledge of the fact. The combat was then the privilege of the
      defendant; because he charged the witness with an attempt by
      perjury to take away his right. He came therefore to be in the
      same situation as the appellant in criminal cases. It was not
      then as a mode of proof that the combat was received, nor as
      making negative evidence, (according to the supposition of
      Montesquieu; 139 but in every case the right to offer battle was
      founded on the right to pursue by arms the redress of an injury;
      and the judicial combat was fought on the same principle, and
      with the same spirit, as a private duel. Champions were only
      allowed to women, and to men maimed or past the age of sixty. The
      consequence of a defeat was death to the person accused, or to
      the champion or witness, as well as to the accuser himself: but
      in civil cases, the demandant was punished with infamy and the
      loss of his suit, while his witness and champion suffered
      ignominious death. In many cases it was in the option of the
      judge to award or to refuse the combat: but two are specified, in
      which it was the inevitable result of the challenge; if a
      faithful vassal gave the lie to his compeer, who unjustly claimed
      any portion of their lord’s demesnes; or if an unsuccessful
      suitor presumed to impeach the judgment and veracity of the
      court. He might impeach them, but the terms were severe and
      perilous: in the same day he successively fought all the members
      of the tribunal, even those who had been absent; a single defeat
      was followed by death and infamy; and where none could hope for
      victory, it is highly probable that none would adventure the
      trial. In the Assise of Jerusalem, the legal subtlety of the
      count of Jaffa is more laudably employed to elude, than to
      facilitate, the judicial combat, which he derives from a
      principle of honor rather than of superstition. 140

      139 (return) [ See l’Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. In the forty
      years since its publication, no work has been more read and
      criticized; and the spirit of inquiry which it has excited is not
      the least of our obligations to the author.]

      140 (return) [ For the intelligence of this obscure and obsolete
      jurisprudence (c. 80-111) I am deeply indebted to the friendship
      of a learned lord, who, with an accurate and discerning eye, has
      surveyed the philosophic history of law. By his studies,
      posterity might be enriched: the merit of the orator and the
      judge can be felt only by his contemporaries.]

      Among the causes which enfranchised the plebeians from the yoke
      of feudal tyranny, the institution of cities and corporations is
      one of the most powerful; and if those of Palestine are coeval
      with the first crusade, they may be ranked with the most ancient
      of the Latin world. Many of the pilgrims had escaped from their
      lords under the banner of the cross; and it was the policy of the
      French princes to tempt their stay by the assurance of the rights
      and privileges of freemen. It is expressly declared in the Assise
      of Jerusalem, that after instituting, for his knights and barons,
      the court of peers, in which he presided himself, Godfrey of
      Bouillon established a second tribunal, in which his person was
      represented by his viscount. The jurisdiction of this inferior
      court extended over the burgesses of the kingdom; and it was
      composed of a select number of the most discreet and worthy
      citizens, who were sworn to judge, according to the laws of the
      actions and fortunes of their equals. 141 In the conquest and
      settlement of new cities, the example of Jerusalem was imitated
      by the kings and their great vassals; and above thirty similar
      corporations were founded before the loss of the Holy Land.
      Another class of subjects, the Syrians, 142 or Oriental
      Christians, were oppressed by the zeal of the clergy, and
      protected by the toleration of the state. Godfrey listened to
      their reasonable prayer, that they might be judged by their own
      national laws. A third court was instituted for their use, of
      limited and domestic jurisdiction: the sworn members were
      Syrians, in blood, language, and religion; but the office of the
      president (in Arabic, of the rais) was sometimes exercised by the
      viscount of the city. At an immeasurable distance below the
      nobles, the burgesses, and the strangers, the Assise of Jerusalem
      condescends to mention the villains and slaves, the peasants of
      the land and the captives of war, who were almost equally
      considered as the objects of property. The relief or protection
      of these unhappy men was not esteemed worthy of the care of the
      legislator; but he diligently provides for the recovery, though
      not indeed for the punishment, of the fugitives. Like hounds, or
      hawks, who had strayed from the lawful owner, they might be lost
      and claimed: the slave and falcon were of the same value; but
      three slaves, or twelve oxen, were accumulated to equal the price
      of the war-horse; and a sum of three hundred pieces of gold was
      fixed, in the age of chivalry, as the equivalent of the more
      noble animal. 143

      141 (return) [ Louis le Gros, who is considered as the father of
      this institution in France, did not begin his reign till nine
      years (A.D. 1108) after Godfrey of Bouillon, (Assises, c. 2,
      324.) For its origin and effects, see the judicious remarks of
      Dr. Robertson, (History of Charles V. vol. i. p. 30-36, 251-265,
      quarto edition.)]

      142 (return) [ Every reader conversant with the historians of the
      crusades will understand by the peuple des Suriens, the Oriental
      Christians, Melchites, Jacobites, or Nestorians, who had all
      adopted the use of the Arabic language, (vol. iv. p. 593.)]

      143 (return) [ See the Assises de Jerusalem, (310, 311, 312.)
      These laws were enacted as late as the year 1350, in the kingdom
      of Cyprus. In the same century, in the reign of Edward I., I
      understand, from a late publication, (of his Book of Account,)
      that the price of a war-horse was not less exorbitant in
      England.]




VOLUME SIX




      Chapter LIX: The Crusades.—Part I.

     Preservation Of The Greek Empire.—Numbers, Passage, And Event, Of
     The Second And Third Crusades.—St. Bernard.— Reign Of Saladin In
     Egypt And Syria.—His Conquest Of Jerusalem.—Naval
     Crusades.—Richard The First Of England.— Pope Innocent The Third;
     And The Fourth And Fifth Crusades.— The Emperor Frederic The
     Second.—Louis The Ninth Of France; And The Two Last
     Crusades.—Expulsion Of The Latins Or Franks By The Mamelukes.


      In a style less grave than that of history, I should perhaps
      compare the emperor Alexius 1 to the jackal, who is said to
      follow the steps, and to devour the leavings, of the lion.
      Whatever had been his fears and toils in the passage of the first
      crusade, they were amply recompensed by the subsequent benefits
      which he derived from the exploits of the Franks. His dexterity
      and vigilance secured their first conquest of Nice; and from this
      threatening station the Turks were compelled to evacuate the
      neighborhood of Constantinople. While the crusaders, with blind
      valor, advanced into the midland countries of Asia, the crafty
      Greek improved the favorable occasion when the emirs of the
      sea-coast were recalled to the standard of the sultan. The Turks
      were driven from the Isles of Rhodes and Chios: the cities of
      Ephesus and Smyrna, of Sardes, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, were
      restored to the empire, which Alexius enlarged from the
      Hellespont to the banks of the Mæander, and the rocky shores of
      Pamphylia. The churches resumed their splendor: the towns were
      rebuilt and fortified; and the desert country was peopled with
      colonies of Christians, who were gently removed from the more
      distant and dangerous frontier. In these paternal cares, we may
      forgive Alexius, if he forgot the deliverance of the holy
      sepulchre; but, by the Latins, he was stigmatized with the foul
      reproach of treason and desertion. They had sworn fidelity and
      obedience to his throne; but _he_ had promised to assist their
      enterprise in person, or, at least, with his troops and
      treasures: his base retreat dissolved their obligations; and the
      sword, which had been the instrument of their victory, was the
      pledge and title of their just independence. It does not appear
      that the emperor attempted to revive his obsolete claims over the
      kingdom of Jerusalem; 2 but the borders of Cilicia and Syria were
      more recent in his possession, and more accessible to his arms.
      The great army of the crusaders was annihilated or dispersed; the
      principality of Antioch was left without a head, by the surprise
      and captivity of Bohemond; his ransom had oppressed him with a
      heavy debt; and his Norman followers were insufficient to repel
      the hostilities of the Greeks and Turks. In this distress,
      Bohemond embraced a magnanimous resolution, of leaving the
      defence of Antioch to his kinsman, the faithful Tancred; of
      arming the West against the Byzantine empire; and of executing
      the design which he inherited from the lessons and example of his
      father Guiscard. His embarkation was clandestine: and, if we may
      credit a tale of the princess Anne, he passed the hostile sea
      closely secreted in a coffin. 3 But his reception in France was
      dignified by the public applause, and his marriage with the
      king’s daughter: his return was glorious, since the bravest
      spirits of the age enlisted under his veteran command; and he
      repassed the Adriatic at the head of five thousand horse and
      forty thousand foot, assembled from the most remote climates of
      Europe. 4 The strength of Durazzo, and prudence of Alexius, the
      progress of famine and approach of winter, eluded his ambitious
      hopes; and the venal confederates were seduced from his standard.
      A treaty of peace 5 suspended the fears of the Greeks; and they
      were finally delivered by the death of an adversary, whom neither
      oaths could bind, nor dangers could appal, nor prosperity could
      satiate. His children succeeded to the principality of Antioch;
      but the boundaries were strictly defined, the homage was clearly
      stipulated, and the cities of Tarsus and Malmistra were restored
      to the Byzantine emperors. Of the coast of Anatolia, they
      possessed the entire circuit from Trebizond to the Syrian gates.
      The Seljukian dynasty of Roum 6 was separated on all sides from
      the sea and their Mussulman brethren; the power of the sultan was
      shaken by the victories and even the defeats of the Franks; and
      after the loss of Nice, they removed their throne to Cogni or
      Iconium, an obscure and in land town above three hundred miles
      from Constantinople. 7 Instead of trembling for their capital,
      the Comnenian princes waged an offensive war against the Turks,
      and the first crusade prevented the fall of the declining empire.

      1 (return) [ Anna Comnena relates her father’s conquests in Asia
      Minor Alexiad, l. xi. p. 321—325, l. xiv. p. 419; his Cilician
      war against Tancred and Bohemond, p. 328—324; the war of Epirus,
      with tedious prolixity, l. xii. xiii. p. 345—406; the death of
      Bohemond, l. xiv. p. 419.]

      2 (return) [ The kings of Jerusalem submitted, however, to a
      nominal dependence, and in the dates of their inscriptions, (one
      is still legible in the church of Bethlem,) they respectfully
      placed before their own the name of the reigning emperor,
      (Ducange, Dissertations sur Joinville xxvii. p. 319.)]

      3 (return) [ Anna Comnena adds, that, to complete the imitation,
      he was shut up with a dead cock; and condescends to wonder how
      the Barbarian could endure the confinement and putrefaction. This
      absurd tale is unknown to the Latins. * Note: The Greek writers,
      in general, Zonaras, p. 2, 303, and Glycas, p. 334 agree in this
      story with the princess Anne, except in the absurd addition of
      the dead cock. Ducange has already quoted some instances where a
      similar stratagem had been adopted by _Norman_ princes. On this
      authority Wilken inclines to believe the fact. Appendix to vol.
      ii. p. 14.—M.]

      4 (return) [ Ἀπὸ Θύλης, in the Byzantine geography, must mean
      England; yet we are more credibly informed, that our Henry I.
      would not suffer him to levy any troops in his kingdom, (Ducange,
      Not. ad Alexiad. p. 41.)]

      5 (return) [ The copy of the treaty (Alexiad. l. xiii. p.
      406—416) is an original and curious piece, which would require,
      and might afford, a good map of the principality of Antioch.]

      6 (return) [ See, in the learned work of M. De Guignes, (tom. ii.
      part ii.,) the history of the Seljukians of Iconium, Aleppo, and
      Damascus, as far as it may be collected from the Greeks, Latins,
      and Arabians. The last are ignorant or regardless of the affairs
      of _Roum_.]

      7 (return) [ Iconium is mentioned as a station by Xenophon, and
      by Strabo, with an ambiguous title of Κωμόπολις, (Cellarius, tom.
      ii. p. 121.) Yet St. Paul found in that place a multitude
      (πλῆθος) of Jews and Gentiles. under the corrupt name of
      _Kunijah_, it is described as a great city, with a river and
      garden, three leagues from the mountains, and decorated (I know
      not why) with Plato’s tomb, (Abulfeda, tabul. xvii. p. 303 vers.
      Reiske; and the Index Geographicus of Schultens from Ibn Said.)]

      In the twelfth century, three great emigrations marched by land
      from the West for the relief of Palestine. The soldiers and
      pilgrims of Lombardy, France, and Germany were excited by the
      example and success of the first crusade. 8 Forty-eight years
      after the deliverance of the holy sepulchre, the emperor, and the
      French king, Conrad the Third and Louis the Seventh, undertook
      the second crusade to support the falling fortunes of the Latins.
      9 A grand division of the third crusade was led by the emperor
      Frederic Barbarossa, 10 who sympathized with his brothers of
      France and England in the common loss of Jerusalem. These three
      expeditions may be compared in their resemblance of the greatness
      of numbers, their passage through the Greek empire, and the
      nature and event of their Turkish warfare, and a brief parallel
      may save the repetition of a tedious narrative. However splendid
      it may seem, a regular story of the crusades would exhibit the
      perpetual return of the same causes and effects; and the frequent
      attempts for the defence or recovery of the Holy Land would
      appear so many faint and unsuccessful copies of the original.

      8 (return) [ For this supplement to the first crusade, see Anna
      Comnena, (Alexias, l. xi. p. 331, &c., and the viiith book of
      Albert Aquensis.)]

      9 (return) [ For the second crusade, of Conrad III. and Louis
      VII., see William of Tyre, (l. xvi. c. 18—19,) Otho of Frisingen,
      (l. i. c. 34—45 59, 60,) Matthew Paris, (Hist. Major. p. 68,)
      Struvius, (Corpus Hist Germanicæ, p. 372, 373,) Scriptores Rerum
      Francicarum à Duchesne tom. iv.: Nicetas, in Vit. Manuel, l. i.
      c. 4, 5, 6, p. 41—48, Cinnamus l. ii. p. 41—49.]

      10 (return) [ For the third crusade, of Frederic Barbarossa, see
      Nicetas in Isaac Angel. l. ii. c. 3—8, p. 257—266. Struv.
      (Corpus. Hist. Germ. p. 414,) and two historians, who probably
      were spectators, Tagino, (in Scriptor. Freher. tom. i. p.
      406—416, edit Struv.,) and the Anonymus de Expeditione Asiaticâ
      Fred. I. (in Canisii Antiq. Lection. tom. iii. p. ii. p. 498—526,
      edit. Basnage.)]

      I. Of the swarms that so closely trod in the footsteps of the
      first pilgrims, the chiefs were equal in rank, though unequal in
      fame and merit, to Godfrey of Bouillon and his
      fellow-adventurers. At their head were displayed the banners of
      the dukes of Burgundy, Bavaria, and Aquitain; the first a
      descendant of Hugh Capet, the second, a father of the Brunswick
      line: the archbishop of Milan, a temporal prince, transported,
      for the benefit of the Turks, the treasures and ornaments of his
      church and palace; and the veteran crusaders, Hugh the Great and
      Stephen of Chartres, returned to consummate their unfinished vow.
      The huge and disorderly bodies of their followers moved forward
      in two columns; and if the first consisted of two hundred and
      sixty thousand persons, the second might possibly amount to sixty
      thousand horse and one hundred thousand foot. 11 111 The armies
      of the second crusade might have claimed the conquest of Asia;
      the nobles of France and Germany were animated by the presence of
      their sovereigns; and both the rank and personal character of
      Conrad and Louis gave a dignity to their cause, and a discipline
      to their force, which might be vainly expected from the feudatory
      chiefs. The cavalry of the emperor, and that of the king, was
      each composed of seventy thousand knights, and their immediate
      attendants in the field; 12 and if the light-armed troops, the
      peasant infantry, the women and children, the priests and monks,
      be rigorously excluded, the full account will scarcely be
      satisfied with four hundred thousand souls. The West, from Rome
      to Britain, was called into action; the kings of Poland and
      Bohemia obeyed the summons of Conrad; and it is affirmed by the
      Greeks and Latins, that, in the passage of a strait or river, the
      Byzantine agents, after a tale of nine hundred thousand, desisted
      from the endless and formidable computation. 13 In the third
      crusade, as the French and English preferred the navigation of
      the Mediterranean, the host of Frederic Barbarossa was less
      numerous. Fifteen thousand knights, and as many squires, were the
      flower of the German chivalry: sixty thousand horse, and one
      hundred thousand foot, were mustered by the emperor in the plains
      of Hungary; and after such repetitions, we shall no longer be
      startled at the six hundred thousand pilgrims, which credulity
      has ascribed to this last emigration. 14 Such extravagant
      reckonings prove only the astonishment of contemporaries; but
      their astonishment most strongly bears testimony to the existence
      of an enormous, though indefinite, multitude. The Greeks might
      applaud their superior knowledge of the arts and stratagems of
      war, but they confessed the strength and courage of the French
      cavalry, and the infantry of the Germans; 15 and the strangers
      are described as an iron race, of gigantic stature, who darted
      fire from their eyes, and spilt blood like water on the ground.
      Under the banners of Conrad, a troop of females rode in the
      attitude and armor of men; and the chief of these Amazons, from
      her gilt spurs and buskins, obtained the epithet of the
      Golden-footed Dame.

      11 (return) [ Anne, who states these later swarms at 40,000 horse
      and 100,000 foot, calls them Normans, and places at their head
      two brothers of Flanders. The Greeks were strangely ignorant of
      the names, families, and possessions of the Latin princes.]

      111 (return) [ It was this army of pilgrims, the first body of
      which was headed by the archbishop of Milan and Count Albert of
      Blandras, which set forth on the wild, yet, with a more
      disciplined army, not impolitic, enterprise of striking at the
      heart of the Mahometan power, by attacking the sultan in Bagdad.
      For their adventures and fate, see Wilken, vol. ii. p. 120, &c.,
      Michaud, book iv.—M.]

      12 (return) [ William of Tyre, and Matthew Paris, reckon 70,000
      loricati in each of the armies.]

      13 (return) [ The imperfect enumeration is mentioned by Cinnamus,
      (ennenhkonta muriadeV,) and confirmed by Odo de Diogilo apud
      Ducange ad Cinnamum, with the more precise sum of 900,556. Why
      must therefore the version and comment suppose the modest and
      insufficient reckoning of 90,000? Does not Godfrey of Viterbo
      (Pantheon, p. xix. in Muratori, tom. vii. p. 462) exclaim?
      ——Numerum si poscere quæras, Millia millena militis agmen erat.]

      14 (return) [ This extravagant account is given by Albert of
      Stade, (apud Struvium, p. 414;) my calculation is borrowed from
      Godfrey of Viterbo, Arnold of Lubeck, apud eundem, and Bernard
      Thesaur. (c. 169, p. 804.) The original writers are silent. The
      Mahometans gave him 200,000, or 260,000, men, (Bohadin, in Vit.
      Saladin, p. 110.)]

      15 (return) [ I must observe, that, in the second and third
      crusades, the subjects of Conrad and Frederic are styled by the
      Greeks and Orientals _Alamanni_. The Lechi and Tzechi of Cinnamus
      are the Poles and Bohemians; and it is for the French that he
      reserves the ancient appellation of Germans. He likewise names
      the Brittioi, or Britannoi. * Note: * He names both—Brittioi te
      kai Britanoi.—M.]

      II. The number and character of the strangers was an object of
      terror to the effeminate Greeks, and the sentiment of fear is
      nearly allied to that of hatred. This aversion was suspended or
      softened by the apprehension of the Turkish power; and the
      invectives of the Latins will not bias our more candid belief,
      that the emperor Alexius dissembled their insolence, eluded their
      hostilities, counselled their rashness, and opened to their ardor
      the road of pilgrimage and conquest. But when the Turks had been
      driven from Nice and the sea-coast, when the Byzantine princes no
      longer dreaded the distant sultans of Cogni, they felt with purer
      indignation the free and frequent passage of the western
      Barbarians, who violated the majesty, and endangered the safety,
      of the empire. The second and third crusades were undertaken
      under the reign of Manuel Comnenus and Isaac Angelus. Of the
      former, the passions were always impetuous, and often malevolent;
      and the natural union of a cowardly and a mischievous temper was
      exemplified in the latter, who, without merit or mercy, could
      punish a tyrant, and occupy his throne. It was secretly, and
      perhaps tacitly, resolved by the prince and people to destroy, or
      at least to discourage, the pilgrims, by every species of injury
      and oppression; and their want of prudence and discipline
      continually afforded the pretence or the opportunity. The Western
      monarchs had stipulated a safe passage and fair market in the
      country of their Christian brethren; the treaty had been ratified
      by oaths and hostages; and the poorest soldier of Frederic’s army
      was furnished with three marks of silver to defray his expenses
      on the road. But every engagement was violated by treachery and
      injustice; and the complaints of the Latins are attested by the
      honest confession of a Greek historian, who has dared to prefer
      truth to his country. 16 Instead of a hospitable reception, the
      gates of the cities, both in Europe and Asia, were closely barred
      against the crusaders; and the scanty pittance of food was let
      down in baskets from the walls. Experience or foresight might
      excuse this timid jealousy; but the common duties of humanity
      prohibited the mixture of chalk, or other poisonous ingredients,
      in the bread; and should Manuel be acquitted of any foul
      connivance, he is guilty of coining base money for the purpose of
      trading with the pilgrims. In every step of their march they were
      stopped or misled: the governors had private orders to fortify
      the passes and break down the bridges against them: the
      stragglers were pillaged and murdered: the soldiers and horses
      were pierced in the woods by arrows from an invisible hand; the
      sick were burnt in their beds; and the dead bodies were hung on
      gibbets along the highways. These injuries exasperated the
      champions of the cross, who were not endowed with evangelical
      patience; and the Byzantine princes, who had provoked the unequal
      conflict, promoted the embarkation and march of these formidable
      guests. On the verge of the Turkish frontier Barbarossa spared
      the guilty Philadelphia, 17 rewarded the hospitable Laodicea, and
      deplored the hard necessity that had stained his sword with any
      drops of Christian blood. In their intercourse with the monarchs
      of Germany and France, the pride of the Greeks was exposed to an
      anxious trial. They might boast that on the first interview the
      seat of Louis was a low stool, beside the throne of Manuel; 18
      but no sooner had the French king transported his army beyond the
      Bosphorus, than he refused the offer of a second conference,
      unless his brother would meet him on equal terms, either on the
      sea or land. With Conrad and Frederic, the ceremonial was still
      nicer and more difficult: like the successors of Constantine,
      they styled themselves emperors of the Romans; 19 and firmly
      maintained the purity of their title and dignity. The first of
      these representatives of Charlemagne would only converse with
      Manuel on horseback in the open field; the second, by passing the
      Hellespont rather than the Bosphorus, declined the view of
      Constantinople and its sovereign. An emperor, who had been
      crowned at Rome, was reduced in the Greek epistles to the humble
      appellation of _Rex_, or prince, of the Alemanni; and the vain
      and feeble Angelus affected to be ignorant of the name of one of
      the greatest men and monarchs of the age. While they viewed with
      hatred and suspicion the Latin pilgrims the Greek emperors
      maintained a strict, though secret, alliance with the Turks and
      Saracens. Isaac Angelus complained, that by his friendship for
      the great Saladin he had incurred the enmity of the Franks; and a
      mosque was founded at Constantinople for the public exercise of
      the religion of Mahomet. 20

      16 (return) [ Nicetas was a child at the second crusade, but in
      the third he commanded against the Franks the important post of
      Philippopolis. Cinnamus is infected with national prejudice and
      pride.]

      17 (return) [ The conduct of the Philadelphians is blamed by
      Nicetas, while the anonymous German accuses the rudeness of his
      countrymen, (culpâ nostrâ.) History would be pleasant, if we were
      embarrassed only by _such_ contradictions. It is likewise from
      Nicetas, that we learn the pious and humane sorrow of Frederic.]

      18 (return) [ Cqamalh edra, which Cinnamus translates into Latin
      by the word Sellion. Ducange works very hard to save his king and
      country from such ignominy, (sur Joinville, dissertat. xxvii. p.
      317—320.) Louis afterwards insisted on a meeting in mari ex æquo,
      not ex equo, according to the laughable readings of some MSS.]

      19 (return) [ Ego Romanorum imperator sum, ille Romaniorum,
      (Anonym Canis. p. 512.) The public and historical style of the
      Greeks was Ριξ... _princeps_. Yet Cinnamus owns, that Ἰμπεράτορ
      is synonymous to Βασιλεὺς.]

      20 (return) [ In the Epistles of Innocent III., (xiii. p. 184,)
      and the History of Bohadin, (p. 129, 130,) see the views of a
      pope and a cadhi on this _singular_toleration.]

      III. The swarms that followed the first crusade were destroyed in
      Anatolia by famine, pestilence, and the Turkish arrows; and the
      princes only escaped with some squadrons of horse to accomplish
      their lamentable pilgrimage. A just opinion may be formed of
      their knowledge and humanity; of their knowledge, from the design
      of subduing Persia and Chorasan in their way to Jerusalem; 201 of
      their humanity, from the massacre of the Christian people, a
      friendly city, who came out to meet them with palms and crosses
      in their hands. The arms of Conrad and Louis were less cruel and
      imprudent; but the event of the second crusade was still more
      ruinous to Christendom; and the Greek Manuel is accused by his
      own subjects of giving seasonable intelligence to the sultan, and
      treacherous guides to the Latin princes. Instead of crushing the
      common foe, by a double attack at the same time but on different
      sides, the Germans were urged by emulation, and the French were
      retarded by jealousy. Louis had scarcely passed the Bosphorus
      when he was met by the returning emperor, who had lost the
      greater part of his army in glorious, but unsuccessful, actions
      on the banks of the Mæander. The contrast of the pomp of his
      rival hastened the retreat of Conrad: 202 the desertion of his
      independent vassals reduced him to his hereditary troops; and he
      borrowed some Greek vessels to execute by sea the pilgrimage of
      Palestine. Without studying the lessons of experience, or the
      nature of the war, the king of France advanced through the same
      country to a similar fate. The vanguard, which bore the royal
      banner and the oriflamme of St. Denys, 21 had doubled their march
      with rash and inconsiderate speed; and the rear, which the king
      commanded in person, no longer found their companions in the
      evening camp. In darkness and disorder, they were encompassed,
      assaulted, and overwhelmed, by the innumerable host of Turks,
      who, in the art of war, were superior to the Christians of the
      twelfth century. 211 Louis, who climbed a tree in the general
      discomfiture, was saved by his own valor and the ignorance of his
      adversaries; and with the dawn of day he escaped alive, but
      almost alone, to the camp of the vanguard. But instead of
      pursuing his expedition by land, he was rejoiced to shelter the
      relics of his army in the friendly seaport of Satalia. From
      thence he embarked for Antioch; but so penurious was the supply
      of Greek vessels, that they could only afford room for his
      knights and nobles; and the plebeian crowd of infantry was left
      to perish at the foot of the Pamphylian hills. The emperor and
      the king embraced and wept at Jerusalem; their martial trains,
      the remnant of mighty armies, were joined to the Christian powers
      of Syria, and a fruitless siege of Damascus was the final effort
      of the second crusade. Conrad and Louis embarked for Europe with
      the personal fame of piety and courage; but the Orientals had
      braved these potent monarchs of the Franks, with whose names and
      military forces they had been so often threatened. 22 Perhaps
      they had still more to fear from the veteran genius of Frederic
      the First, who in his youth had served in Asia under his uncle
      Conrad. Forty campaigns in Germany and Italy had taught
      Barbarossa to command; and his soldiers, even the princes of the
      empire, were accustomed under his reign to obey. As soon as he
      lost sight of Philadelphia and Laodicea, the last cities of the
      Greek frontier, he plunged into the salt and barren desert, a
      land (says the historian) of horror and tribulation. 23 During
      twenty days, every step of his fainting and sickly march was
      besieged by the innumerable hordes of Turkmans, 24 whose numbers
      and fury seemed after each defeat to multiply and inflame. The
      emperor continued to struggle and to suffer; and such was the
      measure of his calamities, that when he reached the gates of
      Iconium, no more than one thousand knights were able to serve on
      horseback. By a sudden and resolute assault he defeated the
      guards, and stormed the capital of the sultan, 25 who humbly sued
      for pardon and peace. The road was now open, and Frederic
      advanced in a career of triumph, till he was unfortunately
      drowned in a petty torrent of Cilicia. 26 The remainder of his
      Germans was consumed by sickness and desertion: and the emperor’s
      son expired with the greatest part of his Swabian vassals at the
      siege of Acre. Among the Latin heroes, Godfrey of Bouillon and
      Frederic Barbarossa could alone achieve the passage of the Lesser
      Asia; yet even their success was a warning; and in the last and
      most experienced age of the crusades, every nation preferred the
      sea to the toils and perils of an inland expedition. 27

      201 (return) [ This was the design of the pilgrims under the
      archbishop of Milan. See note, p. 102.—M.]

      202 (return) [ Conrad had advanced with part of his army along a
      central road, between that on the coast and that which led to
      Iconium. He had been betrayed by the Greeks, his army destroyed
      without a battle. Wilken, vol. iii. p. 165. Michaud, vol. ii. p.
      156. Conrad advanced again with Louis as far as Ephesus, and from
      thence, at the invitation of Manuel, returned to Constantinople.
      It was Louis who, at the passage of the Mæander, was engaged in a
      “glorious action.” Wilken, vol. iii. p. 179. Michaud vol. ii. p.
      160. Gibbon followed Nicetas.—M.]

      21 (return) [ As counts of Vexin, the kings of France were the
      vassals and advocates of the monastery of St. Denys. The saint’s
      peculiar banner, which they received from the abbot, was of a
      square form, and a red or _flaming_ color. The _oriflamme_
      appeared at the head of the French armies from the xiith to the
      xvth century, (Ducange sur Joinville, Dissert. xviii. p.
      244—253.)]

      211 (return) [ They descended the heights to a beautiful valley
      which by beneath them. The Turks seized the heights which
      separated the two divisions of the army. The modern historians
      represent differently the act to which Louis owed his safety,
      which Gibbon has described by the undignified phrase, “he climbed
      a tree.” According to Michaud, vol. ii. p. 164, the king got upon
      a rock, with his back against a tree; according to Wilken, vol.
      iii., he dragged himself up to the top of the rock by the roots
      of a tree, and continued to defend himself till nightfall.—M.]

      22 (return) [ The original French histories of the second crusade
      are the Gesta Ludovici VII. published in the ivth volume of
      Duchesne’s collection. The same volume contains many original
      letters of the king, of Suger his minister, &c., the best
      documents of authentic history.]

      23 (return) [ Terram horroris et salsuginis, terram siccam
      sterilem, inamnam. Anonym. Canis. p. 517. The emphatic language
      of a sufferer.]

      24 (return) [ Gens innumera, sylvestris, indomita, prædones sine
      ductore. The sultan of Cogni might sincerely rejoice in their
      defeat. Anonym. Canis. p. 517, 518.]

      25 (return) [ See, in the anonymous writer in the Collection of
      Canisius, Tagino and Bohadin, (Vit. Saladin. p. 119, 120,) the
      ambiguous conduct of Kilidge Arslan, sultan of Cogni, who hated
      and feared both Saladin and Frederic.]

      26 (return) [ The desire of comparing two great men has tempted
      many writers to drown Frederic in the River Cydnus, in which
      Alexander so imprudently bathed, (Q. Curt. l. iii c. 4, 5.) But,
      from the march of the emperor, I rather judge, that his Saleph is
      the Calycadnus, a stream of less fame, but of a longer course. *

      Note: * It is now called the Girama: its course is described in
      M’Donald Kinneir’s Travels.—M.]

      27 (return) [ Marinus Sanutus, A.D. 1321, lays it down as a
      precept, Quod stolus ecclesiæ per terram nullatenus est ducenda.
      He resolves, by the divine aid, the objection, or rather
      exception, of the first crusade, (Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. ii.
      pars ii. c. i. p. 37.)]

      The enthusiasm of the first crusade is a natural and simple
      event, while hope was fresh, danger untried, and enterprise
      congenial to the spirit of the times. But the obstinate
      perseverance of Europe may indeed excite our pity and admiration;
      that no instruction should have been drawn from constant and
      adverse experience; that the same confidence should have
      repeatedly grown from the same failures; that six succeeding
      generations should have rushed headlong down the precipice that
      was open before them; and that men of every condition should have
      staked their public and private fortunes on the desperate
      adventure of possessing or recovering a tombstone two thousand
      miles from their country. In a period of two centuries after the
      council of Clermont, each spring and summer produced a new
      emigration of pilgrim warriors for the defence of the Holy Land;
      but the seven great armaments or crusades were excited by some
      impending or recent calamity: the nations were moved by the
      authority of their pontiffs, and the example of their kings:
      their zeal was kindled, and their reason was silenced, by the
      voice of their holy orators; and among these, Bernard, 28 the
      monk, or the saint, may claim the most honorable place. 281 About
      eight years before the first conquest of Jerusalem, he was born
      of a noble family in Burgundy; at the age of three-and-twenty he
      buried himself in the monastery of Citeaux, then in the primitive
      fervor of the institution; at the end of two years he led forth
      her third colony, or daughter, to the valley of Clairvaux 29 in
      Champagne; and was content, till the hour of his death, with the
      humble station of abbot of his own community. A philosophic age
      has abolished, with too liberal and indiscriminate disdain, the
      honors of these spiritual heroes. The meanest among them are
      distinguished by some energies of the mind; they were at least
      superior to their votaries and disciples; and, in the race of
      superstition, they attained the prize for which such numbers
      contended. In speech, in writing, in action, Bernard stood high
      above his rivals and contemporaries; his compositions are not
      devoid of wit and eloquence; and he seems to have preserved as
      much reason and humanity as may be reconciled with the character
      of a saint. In a secular life, he would have shared the seventh
      part of a private inheritance; by a vow of poverty and penance,
      by closing his eyes against the visible world, 30 by the refusal
      of all ecclesiastical dignities, the abbot of Clairvaux became
      the oracle of Europe, and the founder of one hundred and sixty
      convents. Princes and pontiffs trembled at the freedom of his
      apostolical censures: France, England, and Milan, consulted and
      obeyed his judgment in a schism of the church: the debt was
      repaid by the gratitude of Innocent the Second; and his
      successor, Eugenius the Third, was the friend and disciple of the
      holy Bernard. It was in the proclamation of the second crusade
      that he shone as the missionary and prophet of God, who called
      the nations to the defence of his holy sepulchre. 31 At the
      parliament of Vezelay he spoke before the king; and Louis the
      Seventh, with his nobles, received their crosses from his hand.
      The abbot of Clairvaux then marched to the less easy conquest of
      the emperor Conrad: 311 a phlegmatic people, ignorant of his
      language, was transported by the pathetic vehemence of his tone
      and gestures; and his progress, from Constance to Cologne, was
      the triumph of eloquence and zeal. Bernard applauds his own
      success in the depopulation of Europe; affirms that cities and
      castles were emptied of their inhabitants; and computes, that
      only one man was left behind for the consolation of seven widows.
      32 The blind fanatics were desirous of electing him for their
      general; but the example of the hermit Peter was before his eyes;
      and while he assured the crusaders of the divine favor, he
      prudently declined a military command, in which failure and
      victory would have been almost equally disgraceful to his
      character. 33 Yet, after the calamitous event, the abbot of
      Clairvaux was loudly accused as a false prophet, the author of
      the public and private mourning; his enemies exulted, his friends
      blushed, and his apology was slow and unsatisfactory. He
      justifies his obedience to the commands of the pope; expatiates
      on the mysterious ways of Providence; imputes the misfortunes of
      the pilgrims to their own sins; and modestly insinuates, that his
      mission had been approved by signs and wonders. 34 Had the fact
      been certain, the argument would be decisive; and his faithful
      disciples, who enumerate twenty or thirty miracles in a day,
      appeal to the public assemblies of France and Germany, in which
      they were performed. 35 At the present hour, such prodigies will
      not obtain credit beyond the precincts of Clairvaux; but in the
      preternatural cures of the blind, the lame, and the sick, who
      were presented to the man of God, it is impossible for us to
      ascertain the separate shares of accident, of fancy, of
      imposture, and of fiction.

      28 (return) [ The most authentic information of St. Bernard must
      be drawn from his own writings, published in a correct edition by
      Père Mabillon, and reprinted at Venice, 1750, in six volumes in
      folio. Whatever friendship could recollect, or superstition could
      add, is contained in the two lives, by his disciples, in the vith
      volume: whatever learning and criticism could ascertain, may be
      found in the prefaces of the Benedictine editor.]

      281 (return) [ Gibbon, whose account of the crusades is perhaps
      the least accurate and satisfactory chapter in his History, has
      here failed in that lucid arrangement, which in general gives
      perspicuity to his most condensed and crowded narratives. He has
      unaccountably, and to the great perplexity of the reader, placed
      the preaching of St Bernard after the second crusade to which i
      led.—M.]

      29 (return) [ Clairvaux, surnamed the valley of Absynth, is
      situate among the woods near Bar sur Aube in Champagne. St.
      Bernard would blush at the pomp of the church and monastery; he
      would ask for the library, and I know not whether he would be
      much edified by a tun of 800 muids, (914 1-7 hogsheads,) which
      almost rivals that of Heidelberg, (Mélanges tirés d’une Grande
      Bibliothèque, tom. xlvi. p. 15—20.)]

      30 (return) [ The disciples of the saint (Vit. ima, l. iii. c. 2,
      p. 1232. Vit. iida, c. 16, No. 45, p. 1383) record a marvellous
      example of his pious apathy. Juxta lacum etiam Lausannensem
      totius diei itinere pergens, penitus non attendit aut se videre
      non vidit. Cum enim vespere facto de eodem lacû socii
      colloquerentur, interrogabat eos ubi lacus ille esset, et mirati
      sunt universi. To admire or despise St. Bernard as he ought, the
      reader, like myself, should have before the windows of his
      library the beauties of that incomparable landscape.]

      31 (return) [ Otho Frising. l. i. c. 4. Bernard. Epist. 363, ad
      Francos Orientales Opp. tom. i. p. 328. Vit. ima, l. iii. c. 4,
      tom. vi. p. 1235.]

      311 (return) [ Bernard had a nobler object in his expedition into
      Germany—to arrest the fierce and merciless persecution of the
      Jews, which was preparing, under the monk Radulph, to renew the
      frightful scenes which had preceded the first crusade, in the
      flourishing cities on the banks of the Rhine. The Jews
      acknowledge the Christian intervention of St. Bernard. See the
      curious extract from the History of Joseph ben Meir. Wilken, vol.
      iii. p. 1. and p. 63.—M.]

      32 (return) [ Mandastis et obedivi.... multiplicati sunt super
      numerum; vacuantur urbes et castella; et _pene_ jam non inveniunt
      quem apprehendant septem mulieres unum virum; adeo ubique viduæ
      vivis remanent viris. Bernard. Epist. p. 247. We must be careful
      not to construe _pene_ as a substantive.]

      33 (return) [ Quis ego sum ut disponam acies, ut egrediar ante
      facies armatorum, aut quid tam remotum a professione meâ, si
      vires, si peritia, &c. Epist. 256, tom. i. p. 259. He speaks with
      contempt of the hermit Peter, vir quidam, Epist. 363.]

      34 (return) [ Sic dicunt forsitan isti, unde scimus quòd a Domino
      sermo egressus sit? Quæ signa tu facis ut credamus tibi? Non est
      quod ad ista ipse respondeam; parcendum verecundiæ meæ, responde
      tu pro me, et pro te ipso, secundum quæ vidisti et audisti, et
      secundum quod te inspiraverit Deus. Consolat. l. ii. c. 1. Opp.
      tom. ii. p. 421—423.]

      35 (return) [ See the testimonies in Vita ima, l. iv. c. 5, 6.
      Opp. tom. vi. p. 1258—1261, l. vi. c. 1—17, p. 1286—1314.]

      Omnipotence itself cannot escape the murmurs of its discordant
      votaries; since the same dispensation which was applauded as a
      deliverance in Europe, was deplored, and perhaps arraigned, as a
      calamity in Asia. After the loss of Jerusalem, the Syrian
      fugitives diffused their consternation and sorrow; Bagdad mourned
      in the dust; the cadhi Zeineddin of Damascus tore his beard in
      the caliph’s presence; and the whole divan shed tears at his
      melancholy tale. 36 But the commanders of the faithful could only
      weep; they were themselves captives in the hands of the Turks:
      some temporal power was restored to the last age of the
      Abbassides; but their humble ambition was confined to Bagdad and
      the adjacent province. Their tyrants, the Seljukian sultans, had
      followed the common law of the Asiatic dynasties, the unceasing
      round of valor, greatness, discord, degeneracy, and decay; their
      spirit and power were unequal to the defence of religion; and, in
      his distant realm of Persia, the Christians were strangers to the
      name and the arms of Sangiar, the last hero of his race. 37 While
      the sultans were involved in the silken web of the harem, the
      pious task was undertaken by their slaves, the Atabeks, 38 a
      Turkish name, which, like the Byzantine patricians, may be
      translated by Father of the Prince. Ascansar, a valiant Turk, had
      been the favorite of Malek Shaw, from whom he received the
      privilege of standing on the right hand of the throne; but, in
      the civil wars that ensued on the monarch’s death, he lost his
      head and the government of Aleppo. His domestic emirs persevered
      in their attachment to his son Zenghi, who proved his first arms
      against the Franks in the defeat of Antioch: thirty campaigns in
      the service of the caliph and sultan established his military
      fame; and he was invested with the command of Mosul, as the only
      champion that could avenge the cause of the prophet. The public
      hope was not disappointed: after a siege of twenty-five days, he
      stormed the city of Edessa, and recovered from the Franks their
      conquests beyond the Euphrates: 39 the martial tribes of
      Curdistan were subdued by the independent sovereign of Mosul and
      Aleppo: his soldiers were taught to behold the camp as their only
      country; they trusted to his liberality for their rewards; and
      their absent families were protected by the vigilance of Zenghi.
      At the head of these veterans, his son Noureddin gradually united
      the Mahometan powers; 391 added the kingdom of Damascus to that
      of Aleppo, and waged a long and successful war against the
      Christians of Syria; he spread his ample reign from the Tigris to
      the Nile, and the Abbassides rewarded their faithful servant with
      all the titles and prerogatives of royalty. The Latins themselves
      were compelled to own the wisdom and courage, and even the
      justice and piety, of this implacable adversary. 40 In his life
      and government the holy warrior revived the zeal and simplicity
      of the first caliphs. Gold and silk were banished from his
      palace; the use of wine from his dominions; the public revenue
      was scrupulously applied to the public service; and the frugal
      household of Noureddin was maintained from his legitimate share
      of the spoil which he vested in the purchase of a private estate.
      His favorite sultana sighed for some female object of expense.
      “Alas,” replied the king, “I fear God, and am no more than the
      treasurer of the Moslems. Their property I cannot alienate; but I
      still possess three shops in the city of Hems: these you may
      take; and these alone can I bestow.” His chamber of justice was
      the terror of the great and the refuge of the poor. Some years
      after the sultan’s death, an oppressed subject called aloud in
      the streets of Damascus, “O Noureddin, Noureddin, where art thou
      now? Arise, arise, to pity and protect us!” A tumult was
      apprehended, and a living tyrant blushed or trembled at the name
      of a departed monarch.

      36 (return) [ Abulmahasen apud de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom.
      ii. p. ii. p. 99.]

      37 (return) [ See his _article_ in the Bibliothèque Orientale of
      D’Herbelot, and De Guignes, tom. ii. p. i. p. 230—261. Such was
      his valor, that he was styled the second Alexander; and such the
      extravagant love of his subjects, that they prayed for the sultan
      a year after his decease. Yet Sangiar might have been made
      prisoner by the Franks, as well as by the Uzes. He reigned near
      fifty years, (A.D. 1103—1152,) and was a munificent patron of
      Persian poetry.]

      38 (return) [ See the Chronology of the Atabeks of Irak and
      Syria, in De Guignes, tom. i. p. 254; and the reigns of Zenghi
      and Noureddin in the same writer, (tom. ii. p. ii. p. 147—221,)
      who uses the Arabic text of Benelathir, Ben Schouna and Abulfeda;
      the Bibliothèque Orientale, under the articles _Atabeks_ and
      _Noureddin_, and the Dynasties of Abulpharagius, p. 250—267,
      vers. Pocock.]

      39 (return) [ William of Tyre (l. xvi. c. 4, 5, 7) describes the
      loss of Edessa, and the death of Zenghi. The corruption of his
      name into _Sanguin_, afforded the Latins a comfortable allusion
      to his _sanguinary_ character and end, fit sanguine
      sanguinolentus.]

      391 (return) [ On Noureddin’s conquest of Damascus, see extracts
      from Arabian writers prefixed to the second part of the third
      volume of Wilken.—M.]

      40 (return) [ Noradinus (says William of Tyre, l. xx. 33) maximus
      nominis et fidei Christianæ persecutor; princeps tamen justus,
      vafer, providus’ et secundum gentis suæ traditiones religiosus.
      To this Catholic witness we may add the primate of the Jacobites,
      (Abulpharag. p. 267,) quo non alter erat inter reges vitæ ratione
      magis laudabili, aut quæ pluribus justitiæ experimentis
      abundaret. The true praise of kings is after their death, and
      from the mouth of their enemies.]




      Chapter LIX: The Crusades.—Part II.

      By the arms of the Turks and Franks, the Fatimites had been
      deprived of Syria. In Egypt the decay of their character and
      influence was still more essential. Yet they were still revered
      as the descendants and successors of the prophet; they maintained
      their invisible state in the palace of Cairo; and their person
      was seldom violated by the profane eyes of subjects or strangers.
      The Latin ambassadors 41 have described their own introduction,
      through a series of gloomy passages, and glittering porticos: the
      scene was enlivened by the warbling of birds and the murmur of
      fountains: it was enriched by a display of rich furniture and
      rare animals; of the Imperial treasures, something was shown, and
      much was supposed; and the long order of unfolding doors was
      guarded by black soldiers and domestic eunuchs. The sanctuary of
      the presence chamber was veiled with a curtain; and the vizier,
      who conducted the ambassadors, laid aside the cimeter, and
      prostrated himself three times on the ground; the veil was then
      removed; and they beheld the commander of the faithful, who
      signified his pleasure to the first slave of the throne. But this
      slave was his master: the viziers or sultans had usurped the
      supreme administration of Egypt; the claims of the rival
      candidates were decided by arms; and the name of the most worthy,
      of the strongest, was inserted in the royal patent of command.
      The factions of Dargham and Shawer alternately expelled each
      other from the capital and country; and the weaker side implored
      the dangerous protection of the sultan of Damascus, or the king
      of Jerusalem, the perpetual enemies of the sect and monarchy of
      the Fatimites. By his arms and religion the Turk was most
      formidable; but the Frank, in an easy, direct march, could
      advance from Gaza to the Nile; while the intermediate situation
      of his realm compelled the troops of Noureddin to wheel round the
      skirts of Arabia, a long and painful circuit, which exposed them
      to thirst, fatigue, and the burning winds of the desert. The
      secret zeal and ambition of the Turkish prince aspired to reign
      in Egypt under the name of the Abbassides; but the restoration of
      the suppliant Shawer was the ostensible motive of the first
      expedition; and the success was intrusted to the emir Shiracouh,
      a valiant and veteran commander. Dargham was oppressed and slain;
      but the ingratitude, the jealousy, the just apprehensions, of his
      more fortunate rival, soon provoked him to invite the king of
      Jerusalem to deliver Egypt from his insolent benefactors. To this
      union the forces of Shiracouh were unequal: he relinquished the
      premature conquest; and the evacuation of Belbeis or Pelusium was
      the condition of his safe retreat. As the Turks defiled before
      the enemy, and their general closed the rear, with a vigilant
      eye, and a battle axe in his hand, a Frank presumed to ask him if
      he were not afraid of an attack. “It is doubtless in your power
      to begin the attack,” replied the intrepid emir; “but rest
      assured, that not one of my soldiers will go to paradise till he
      has sent an infidel to hell.” His report of the riches of the
      land, the effeminacy of the natives, and the disorders of the
      government, revived the hopes of Noureddin; the caliph of Bagdad
      applauded the pious design; and Shiracouh descended into Egypt a
      second time with twelve thousand Turks and eleven thousand Arabs.
      Yet his forces were still inferior to the confederate armies of
      the Franks and Saracens; and I can discern an unusual degree of
      military art, in his passage of the Nile, his retreat into
      Thebais, his masterly evolutions in the battle of Babain, the
      surprise of Alexandria, and his marches and countermarches in the
      flats and valley of Egypt, from the tropic to the sea. His
      conduct was seconded by the courage of his troops, and on the eve
      of action a Mamaluke 42 exclaimed, “If we cannot wrest Egypt from
      the Christian dogs, why do we not renounce the honors and rewards
      of the sultan, and retire to labor with the peasants, or to spin
      with the females of the harem?” Yet, after all his efforts in the
      field, 43 after the obstinate defence of Alexandria 44 by his
      nephew Saladin, an honorable capitulation and retreat 441
      concluded the second enterprise of Shiracouh; and Noureddin
      reserved his abilities for a third and more propitious occasion.
      It was soon offered by the ambition and avarice of Amalric or
      Amaury, king of Jerusalem, who had imbibed the pernicious maxim,
      that no faith should be kept with the enemies of God. 442 A
      religious warrior, the great master of the hospital, encouraged
      him to proceed; the emperor of Constantinople either gave, or
      promised, a fleet to act with the armies of Syria; and the
      perfidious Christian, unsatisfied with spoil and subsidy, aspired
      to the conquest of Egypt. In this emergency, the Moslems turned
      their eyes towards the sultan of Damascus; the vizier, whom
      danger encompassed on all sides, yielded to their unanimous
      wishes, and Noureddin seemed to be tempted by the fair offer of
      one third of the revenue of the kingdom. The Franks were already
      at the gates of Cairo; but the suburbs, the old city, were burnt
      on their approach; they were deceived by an insidious
      negotiation, and their vessels were unable to surmount the
      barriers of the Nile. They prudently declined a contest with the
      Turks in the midst of a hostile country; and Amaury retired into
      Palestine with the shame and reproach that always adhere to
      unsuccessful injustice. After this deliverance, Shiracouh was
      invested with a robe of honor, which he soon stained with the
      blood of the unfortunate Shawer. For a while, the Turkish emirs
      condescended to hold the office of vizier; but this foreign
      conquest precipitated the fall of the Fatimites themselves; and
      the bloodless change was accomplished by a message and a word.
      The caliphs had been degraded by their own weakness and the
      tyranny of the viziers: their subjects blushed, when the
      descendant and successor of the prophet presented his naked hand
      to the rude gripe of a Latin ambassador; they wept when he sent
      the hair of his women, a sad emblem of their grief and terror, to
      excite the pity of the sultan of Damascus. By the command of
      Noureddin, and the sentence of the doctors, the holy names of
      Abubeker, Omar, and Othman, were solemnly restored: the caliph
      Mosthadi, of Bagdad, was acknowledged in the public prayers as
      the true commander of the faithful; and the green livery of the
      sons of Ali was exchanged for the black color of the Abbassides.
      The last of his race, the caliph Adhed, who survived only ten
      days, expired in happy ignorance of his fate; his treasures
      secured the loyalty of the soldiers, and silenced the murmurs of
      the sectaries; and in all subsequent revolutions, Egypt has never
      departed from the orthodox tradition of the Moslems. 45

      41 (return) [ From the ambassador, William of Tyre (l. xix. c.
      17, 18,) describes the palace of Cairo. In the caliph’s treasure
      were found a pearl as large as a pigeon’s egg, a ruby weighing
      seventeen Egyptian drams, an emerald a palm and a half in length,
      and many vases of crystal and porcelain of China, (Renaudot, p.
      536.)]

      42 (return) [ _Mamluc_, plur. _Mamalic_, is defined by Pocock,
      (Prolegom. ad Abulpharag. p. 7,) and D’Herbelot, (p. 545,) servum
      emptitium, seu qui pretio numerato in domini possessionem cedit.
      They frequently occur in the wars of Saladin, (Bohadin, p. 236,
      &c.;) and it was only the _Bahartie_ Mamalukes that were first
      introduced into Egypt by his descendants.]

      43 (return) [ Jacobus à Vitriaco (p. 1116) gives the king of
      Jerusalem no more than 374 knights. Both the Franks and the
      Moslems report the superior numbers of the enemy; a difference
      which may be solved by counting or omitting the unwarlike
      Egyptians.]

      44 (return) [ It was the Alexandria of the Arabs, a middle term
      in extent and riches between the period of the Greeks and Romans,
      and that of the Turks, (Savary, Lettres sur l’Egypte, tom. i. p.
      25, 26.)]

      441 (return) [ The treaty stipulated that both the Christians and
      the Arabs should withdraw from Egypt. Wilken, vol. iii. part ii.
      p. 113.—M.]

      442 (return) [ The Knights Templars, abhorring the perfidious
      breach of treaty partly, perhaps, out of jealousy of the
      Hospitallers, refused to join in this enterprise. Will. Tyre c.
      xx. p. 5. Wilken, vol. iii. part ii. p. 117.—M.]

      45 (return) [ For this great revolution of Egypt, see William of
      Tyre, (l. xix. 5, 6, 7, 12—31, xx. 5—12,) Bohadin, (in Vit.
      Saladin, p. 30—39,) Abulfeda, (in Excerpt. Schultens, p. 1—12,)
      D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient. _Adhed_, _Fathemah_, but very
      incorrect,) Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 522—525,
      532—537,) Vertot, (Hist. des Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. p.
      141—163, in 4to.,) and M. de Guignes, (tom. ii. p. 185—215.)]

      The hilly country beyond the Tigris is occupied by the pastoral
      tribes of the Curds; 46 a people hardy, strong, savage impatient
      of the yoke, addicted to rapine, and tenacious of the government
      of their national chiefs. The resemblance of name, situation, and
      manners, seems to identify them with the Carduchians of the
      Greeks; 47 and they still defend against the Ottoman Porte the
      antique freedom which they asserted against the successors of
      Cyrus. Poverty and ambition prompted them to embrace the
      profession of mercenary soldiers: the service of his father and
      uncle prepared the reign of the great Saladin; 48 and the son of
      Job or Ayud, a simple Curd, magnanimously smiled at his
      pedigree, which flattery deduced from the Arabian caliphs. 49 So
      unconscious was Noureddin of the impending ruin of his house,
      that he constrained the reluctant youth to follow his uncle
      Shiracouh into Egypt: his military character was established by
      the defence of Alexandria; and, if we may believe the Latins, he
      solicited and obtained from the Christian general the
      _profane_honors of knighthood. 50 On the death of Shiracouh, the
      office of grand vizier was bestowed on Saladin, as the youngest
      and least powerful of the emirs; but with the advice of his
      father, whom he invited to Cairo, his genius obtained the
      ascendant over his equals, and attached the army to his person
      and interest. While Noureddin lived, these ambitious Curds were
      the most humble of his slaves; and the indiscreet murmurs of the
      divan were silenced by the prudent Ayub, who loudly protested
      that at the command of the sultan he himself would lead his sons
      in chains to the foot of the throne. “Such language,” he added in
      private, “was prudent and proper in an assembly of your rivals;
      but we are now above fear and obedience; and the threats of
      Noureddin shall not extort the tribute of a sugar-cane.” His
      seasonable death relieved them from the odious and doubtful
      conflict: his son, a minor of eleven years of age, was left for a
      while to the emirs of Damascus; and the new lord of Egypt was
      decorated by the caliph with every title 51 that could sanctify
      his usurpation in the eyes of the people. Nor was Saladin long
      content with the possession of Egypt; he despoiled the Christians
      of Jerusalem, and the Atabeks of Damascus, Aleppo, and Diarbekir:
      Mecca and Medina acknowledged him for their temporal protector:
      his brother subdued the distant regions of Yemen, or the happy
      Arabia; and at the hour of his death, his empire was spread from
      the African Tripoli to the Tigris, and from the Indian Ocean to
      the mountains of Armenia. In the judgment of his character, the
      reproaches of treason and ingratitude strike forcibly on _our_
      minds, impressed, as they are, with the principle and experience
      of law and loyalty. But his ambition may in some measure be
      excused by the revolutions of Asia, 52 which had erased every
      notion of legitimate succession; by the recent example of the
      Atabeks themselves; by his reverence to the son of his
      benefactor; his humane and generous behavior to the collateral
      branches; by _their_ incapacity and _his_ merit; by the
      approbation of the caliph, the sole source of all legitimate
      power; and, above all, by the wishes and interest of the people,
      whose happiness is the first object of government. In _his_
      virtues, and in those of his patron, they admired the singular
      union of the hero and the saint; for both Noureddin and Saladin
      are ranked among the Mahometan saints; and the constant
      meditation of the holy war appears to have shed a serious and
      sober color over their lives and actions. The youth of the latter
      53 was addicted to wine and women: but his aspiring spirit soon
      renounced the temptations of pleasure for the graver follies of
      fame and dominion: the garment of Saladin was of coarse woollen;
      water was his only drink; and, while he emulated the temperance,
      he surpassed the chastity, of his Arabian prophet. Both in faith
      and practice he was a rigid Mussulman: he ever deplored that the
      defence of religion had not allowed him to accomplish the
      pilgrimage of Mecca; but at the stated hours, five times each
      day, the sultan devoutly prayed with his brethren: the
      involuntary omission of fasting was scrupulously repaid; and his
      perusal of the Koran, on horseback between the approaching
      armies, may be quoted as a proof, however ostentatious, of piety
      and courage. 54 The superstitious doctrine of the sect of Shafei
      was the only study that he deigned to encourage: the poets were
      safe in his contempt; but all profane science was the object of
      his aversion; and a philosopher, who had invented some
      speculative novelties, was seized and strangled by the command of
      the royal saint. The justice of his divan was accessible to the
      meanest suppliant against himself and his ministers; and it was
      only for a kingdom that Saladin would deviate from the rule of
      equity. While the descendants of Seljuk and Zenghi held his
      stirrup and smoothed his garments, he was affable and patient
      with the meanest of his servants. So boundless was his
      liberality, that he distributed twelve thousand horses at the
      siege of Acre; and, at the time of his death, no more than
      forty-seven drams of silver and one piece of gold coin were found
      in the treasury; yet, in a martial reign, the tributes were
      diminished, and the wealthy citizens enjoyed, without fear or
      danger, the fruits of their industry. Egypt, Syria, and Arabia,
      were adorned by the royal foundations of hospitals, colleges, and
      mosques; and Cairo was fortified with a wall and citadel; but his
      works were consecrated to public use: 55 nor did the sultan
      indulge himself in a garden or palace of private luxury. In a
      fanatic age, himself a fanatic, the genuine virtues of Saladin
      commanded the esteem of the Christians; the emperor of Germany
      gloried in his friendship; 56 the Greek emperor solicited his
      alliance; 57 and the conquest of Jerusalem diffused, and perhaps
      magnified, his fame both in the East and West.

      46 (return) [ For the Curds, see De Guignes, tom. ii. p. 416,
      417, the Index Geographicus of Schultens and Tavernier, Voyages,
      p. i. p. 308, 309. The Ayoubites descended from the tribe of the
      Rawadiæi, one of the noblest; but as _they_ were infected with
      the heresy of the Metempsychosis, the orthodox sultans insinuated
      that their descent was only on the mother’s side, and that their
      ancestor was a stranger who settled among the Curds.]

      47 (return) [ See the ivth book of the Anabasis of Xenophon. The
      ten thousand suffered more from the arrows of the free
      Carduchians, than from the splendid weakness of the great king.]

      48 (return) [ We are indebted to the professor Schultens (Lugd.
      Bat, 1755, in folio) for the richest and most authentic
      materials, a life of Saladin by his friend and minister the Cadhi
      Bohadin, and copious extracts from the history of his kinsman the
      prince Abulfeda of Hamah. To these we may add, the article of
      _Salaheddin_ in the Bibliothèque Orientale, and all that may be
      gleaned from the Dynasties of Abulpharagius.]

      49 (return) [ Since Abulfeda was himself an Ayoubite, he may
      share the praise, for imitating, at least tacitly, the modesty of
      the founder.]

      50 (return) [ Hist. Hierosol. in the Gesta Dei per Francos, p.
      1152. A similar example may be found in Joinville, (p. 42,
      edition du Louvre;) but the pious St. Louis refused to dignify
      infidels with the order of Christian knighthood, (Ducange,
      Observations, p 70.)]

      51 (return) [ In these Arabic titles, _religionis_ must always be
      understood; _Noureddin_, lumen r.; _Ezzodin_, decus; _Amadoddin_,
      columen: our hero’s proper name was Joseph, and he was styled
      _Salahoddin_, salus; _Al Malichus_, _Al Nasirus_, rex defensor;
      _Abu Modaffer_, pater victoriæ, Schultens, Præfat.]

      52 (return) [ Abulfeda, who descended from a brother of Saladin,
      observes, from many examples, that the founders of dynasties took
      the guilt for themselves, and left the reward to their innocent
      collaterals, (Excerpt p. 10.)]

      53 (return) [ See his life and character in Renaudot, p.
      537—548.]

      54 (return) [ His civil and religious virtues are celebrated in
      the first chapter of Bohadin, (p. 4—30,) himself an eye-witness,
      and an honest bigot.]

      55 (return) [ In many works, particularly Joseph’s well in the
      castle of Cairo, the Sultan and the Patriarch have been
      confounded by the ignorance of natives and travellers.]

      56 (return) [ Anonym. Canisii, tom. iii. p. ii. p. 504.]

      57 (return) [ Bohadin, p. 129, 130.]

      During its short existence, the kingdom of Jerusalem 58 was
      supported by the discord of the Turks and Saracens; and both the
      Fatimite caliphs and the sultans of Damascus were tempted to
      sacrifice the cause of their religion to the meaner
      considerations of private and present advantage. But the powers
      of Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, were now united by a hero, whom
      nature and fortune had armed against the Christians. All without
      now bore the most threatening aspect; and all was feeble and
      hollow in the internal state of Jerusalem. After the two first
      Baldwins, the brother and cousin of Godfrey of Bouillon, the
      sceptre devolved by female succession to Melisenda, daughter of
      the second Baldwin, and her husband Fulk, count of Anjou, the
      father, by a former marriage, of our English Plantagenets. Their
      two sons, Baldwin the Third, and Amaury, waged a strenuous, and
      not unsuccessful, war against the infidels; but the son of
      Amaury, Baldwin the Fourth, was deprived, by the leprosy, a gift
      of the crusades, of the faculties both of mind and body. His
      sister Sybilla, the mother of Baldwin the Fifth, was his natural
      heiress: after the suspicious death of her child, she crowned her
      second husband, Guy of Lusignan, a prince of a handsome person,
      but of such base renown, that his own brother Jeffrey was heard
      to exclaim, “Since they have made _him_ a king, surely they would
      have made _me_ a god!” The choice was generally blamed; and the
      most powerful vassal, Raymond count of Tripoli, who had been
      excluded from the succession and regency, entertained an
      implacable hatred against the king, and exposed his honor and
      conscience to the temptations of the sultan. Such were the
      guardians of the holy city; a leper, a child, a woman, a coward,
      and a traitor: yet its fate was delayed twelve years by some
      supplies from Europe, by the valor of the military orders, and by
      the distant or domestic avocations of their great enemy. At
      length, on every side, the sinking state was encircled and
      pressed by a hostile line: and the truce was violated by the
      Franks, whose existence it protected. A soldier of fortune,
      Reginald of Chatillon, had seized a fortress on the edge of the
      desert, from whence he pillaged the caravans, insulted Mahomet,
      and threatened the cities of Mecca and Medina. Saladin
      condescended to complain; rejoiced in the denial of justice, and
      at the head of fourscore thousand horse and foot invaded the Holy
      Land. The choice of Tiberias for his first siege was suggested by
      the count of Tripoli, to whom it belonged; and the king of
      Jerusalem was persuaded to drain his garrison, and to arm his
      people, for the relief of that important place. 59 By the advice
      of the perfidious Raymond, the Christians were betrayed into a
      camp destitute of water: he fled on the first onset, with the
      curses of both nations: 60 Lusignan was overthrown, with the loss
      of thirty thousand men; and the wood of the true cross (a dire
      misfortune!) was left in the power of the infidels. 601 The royal
      captive was conducted to the tent of Saladin; and as he fainted
      with thirst and terror, the generous victor presented him with a
      cup of sherbet, cooled in snow, without suffering his companion,
      Reginald of Chatillon, to partake of this pledge of hospitality
      and pardon. “The person and dignity of a king,” said the sultan,
      “are sacred, but this impious robber must instantly acknowledge
      the prophet, whom he has blasphemed, or meet the death which he
      has so often deserved.” On the proud or conscientious refusal of
      the Christian warrior, Saladin struck him on the head with his
      cimeter, and Reginald was despatched by the guards. 61 The
      trembling Lusignan was sent to Damascus, to an honorable prison
      and speedy ransom; but the victory was stained by the execution
      of two hundred and thirty knights of the hospital, the intrepid
      champions and martyrs of their faith. The kingdom was left
      without a head; and of the two grand masters of the military
      orders, the one was slain and the other was a prisoner. From all
      the cities, both of the sea-coast and the inland country, the
      garrisons had been drawn away for this fatal field: Tyre and
      Tripoli alone could escape the rapid inroad of Saladin; and three
      months after the battle of Tiberias, he appeared in arms before
      the gates of Jerusalem. 62

      58 (return) [ For the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, see William of
      Tyre, from the ixth to the xxiid book. Jacob a Vitriaco, Hist.
      Hierosolem l i., and Sanutus Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. iii. p.
      vi. vii. viii. ix.]

      59 (return) [ Templarii ut apes bombabant et Hospitalarii ut
      venti stridebant, et barones se exitio offerebant, et Turcopuli
      (the Christian light troops) semet ipsi in ignem injiciebant,
      (Ispahani de Expugnatione Kudsiticâ, p. 18, apud Schultens;) a
      specimen of Arabian eloquence, somewhat different from the style
      of Xenophon!]

      60 (return) [ The Latins affirm, the Arabians insinuate, the
      treason of Raymond; but had he really embraced their religion, he
      would have been a saint and a hero in the eyes of the latter.]

      601 (return) [ Raymond’s advice would have prevented the
      abandonment of a secure camp abounding with water near Sepphoris.
      The rash and insolent valor of the master of the order of Knights
      Templars, which had before exposed the Christians to a fatal
      defeat at the brook Kishon, forced the feeble king to annul the
      determination of a council of war, and advance to a camp in an
      enclosed valley among the mountains, near Hittin, without water.
      Raymond did not fly till the battle was irretrievably lost, and
      then the Saracens seem to have opened their ranks to allow him
      free passage. The charge of suggesting the siege of Tiberias
      appears ungrounded Raymond, no doubt, played a double part: he
      was a man of strong sagacity, who foresaw the desperate nature of
      the contest with Saladin, endeavored by every means to maintain
      the treaty, and, though he joined both his arms and his still
      more valuable counsels to the Christian army, yet kept up a kind
      of amicable correspondence with the Mahometans. See Wilken, vol.
      iii. part ii. p. 276, et seq. Michaud, vol. ii. p. 278, et seq.
      M. Michaud is still more friendly than Wilken to the memory of
      Count Raymond, who died suddenly, shortly after the battle of
      Hittin. He quotes a letter written in the name of Saladin by the
      caliph Alfdel, to show that Raymond was considered by the
      Mahometans their most dangerous and detested enemy. “No person of
      distinction among the Christians escaped, except the count, (of
      Tripoli) whom God curse. God made him die shortly afterwards, and
      sent him from the kingdom of death to hell.”—M.]

      61 (return) [ Benaud, Reginald, or Arnold de Chatillon, is
      celebrated by the Latins in his life and death; but the
      circumstances of the latter are more distinctly related by
      Bohadin and Abulfeda; and Joinville (Hist. de St. Louis, p. 70)
      alludes to the practice of Saladin, of never putting to death a
      prisoner who had tasted his bread and salt. Some of the
      companions of Arnold had been slaughtered, and almost sacrificed,
      in a valley of Mecca, ubi sacrificia mactantur, (Abulfeda, p.
      32.)]

      62 (return) [ Vertot, who well describes the loss of the kingdom
      and city (Hist. des Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. l. ii. p.
      226—278,) inserts two original epistles of a Knight Templar.]

      He might expect that the siege of a city so venerable on earth
      and in heaven, so interesting to Europe and Asia, would rekindle
      the last sparks of enthusiasm; and that, of sixty thousand
      Christians, every man would be a soldier, and every soldier a
      candidate for martyrdom. But Queen Sybilla trembled for herself
      and her captive husband; and the barons and knights, who had
      escaped from the sword and chains of the Turks, displayed the
      same factious and selfish spirit in the public ruin. The most
      numerous portion of the inhabitants was composed of the Greek and
      Oriental Christians, whom experience had taught to prefer the
      Mahometan before the Latin yoke; 63 and the holy sepulchre
      attracted a base and needy crowd, without arms or courage, who
      subsisted only on the charity of the pilgrims. Some feeble and
      hasty efforts were made for the defence of Jerusalem: but in the
      space of fourteen days, a victorious army drove back the sallies
      of the besieged, planted their engines, opened the wall to the
      breadth of fifteen cubits, applied their scaling-ladders, and
      erected on the breach twelve banners of the prophet and the
      sultan. It was in vain that a barefoot procession of the queen,
      the women, and the monks, implored the Son of God to save his
      tomb and his inheritance from impious violation. Their sole hope
      was in the mercy of the conqueror, and to their first suppliant
      deputation that mercy was sternly denied. “He had sworn to avenge
      the patience and long-suffering of the Moslems; the hour of
      forgiveness was elapsed, and the moment was now arrived to
      expiate, in blood, the innocent blood which had been spilt by
      Godfrey and the first crusaders.” But a desperate and successful
      struggle of the Franks admonished the sultan that his triumph was
      not yet secure; he listened with reverence to a solemn adjuration
      in the name of the common Father of mankind; and a sentiment of
      human sympathy mollified the rigor of fanaticism and conquest. He
      consented to accept the city, and to spare the inhabitants. The
      Greek and Oriental Christians were permitted to live under his
      dominion, but it was stipulated, that in forty days all the
      Franks and Latins should evacuate Jerusalem, and be safely
      conducted to the seaports of Syria and Egypt; that ten pieces of
      gold should be paid for each man, five for each woman, and one
      for every child; and that those who were unable to purchase their
      freedom should be detained in perpetual slavery. Of some writers
      it is a favorite and invidious theme to compare the humanity of
      Saladin with the massacre of the first crusade. The difference
      would be merely personal; but we should not forget that the
      Christians had offered to capitulate, and that the Mahometans of
      Jerusalem sustained the last extremities of an assault and storm.
      Justice is indeed due to the fidelity with which the Turkish
      conqueror fulfilled the conditions of the treaty; and he may be
      deservedly praised for the glance of pity which he cast on the
      misery of the vanquished. Instead of a rigorous exaction of his
      debt, he accepted a sum of thirty thousand byzants, for the
      ransom of seven thousand poor; two or three thousand more were
      dismissed by his gratuitous clemency; and the number of slaves
      was reduced to eleven or fourteen thousand persons. In this
      interview with the queen, his words, and even his tears suggested
      the kindest consolations; his liberal alms were distributed among
      those who had been made orphans or widows by the fortune of war;
      and while the knights of the hospital were in arms against him,
      he allowed their more pious brethren to continue, during the term
      of a year, the care and service of the sick. In these acts of
      mercy the virtue of Saladin deserves our admiration and love: he
      was above the necessity of dissimulation, and his stern
      fanaticism would have prompted him to dissemble, rather than to
      affect, this profane compassion for the enemies of the Koran.
      After Jerusalem had been delivered from the presence of the
      strangers, the sultan made his triumphal entry, his banners
      waving in the wind, and to the harmony of martial music. The
      great mosque of Omar, which had been converted into a church, was
      again consecrated to one God and his prophet Mahomet: the walls
      and pavement were purified with rose-water; and a pulpit, the
      labor of Noureddin, was erected in the sanctuary. But when the
      golden cross that glittered on the dome was cast down, and
      dragged through the streets, the Christians of every sect uttered
      a lamentable groan, which was answered by the joyful shouts of
      the Moslems. In four ivory chests the patriarch had collected the
      crosses, the images, the vases, and the relics of the holy place;
      they were seized by the conqueror, who was desirous of presenting
      the caliph with the trophies of Christian idolatry. He was
      persuaded, however, to intrust them to the patriarch and prince
      of Antioch; and the pious pledge was redeemed by Richard of
      England, at the expense of fifty-two thousand byzants of gold. 64

      63 (return) [ Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 545.]

      64 (return) [ For the conquest of Jerusalem, Bohadin (p. 67—75)
      and Abulfeda (p. 40—43) are our Moslem witnesses. Of the
      Christian, Bernard Thesaurarius (c. 151—167) is the most copious
      and authentic; see likewise Matthew Paris, (p. 120—124.)]

      The nations might fear and hope the immediate and final expulsion
      of the Latins from Syria; which was yet delayed above a century
      after the death of Saladin. 65 In the career of victory, he was
      first checked by the resistance of Tyre; the troops and
      garrisons, which had capitulated, were imprudently conducted to
      the same port: their numbers were adequate to the defence of the
      place; and the arrival of Conrad of Montferrat inspired the
      disorderly crowd with confidence and union. His father, a
      venerable pilgrim, had been made prisoner in the battle of
      Tiberias; but that disaster was unknown in Italy and Greece, when
      the son was urged by ambition and piety to visit the inheritance
      of his royal nephew, the infant Baldwin. The view of the Turkish
      banners warned him from the hostile coast of Jaffa; and Conrad
      was unanimously hailed as the prince and champion of Tyre, which
      was already besieged by the conqueror of Jerusalem. The firmness
      of his zeal, and perhaps his knowledge of a generous foe, enabled
      him to brave the threats of the sultan, and to declare, that
      should his aged parent be exposed before the walls, he himself
      would discharge the first arrow, and glory in his descent from a
      Christian martyr. 66 The Egyptian fleet was allowed to enter the
      harbor of Tyre; but the chain was suddenly drawn, and five
      galleys were either sunk or taken: a thousand Turks were slain in
      a sally; and Saladin, after burning his engines, concluded a
      glorious campaign by a disgraceful retreat to Damascus. He was
      soon assailed by a more formidable tempest. The pathetic
      narratives, and even the pictures, that represented in lively
      colors the servitude and profanation of Jerusalem, awakened the
      torpid sensibility of Europe: the emperor Frederic Barbarossa,
      and the kings of France and England, assumed the cross; and the
      tardy magnitude of their armaments was anticipated by the
      maritime states of the Mediterranean and the Ocean. The skilful
      and provident Italians first embarked in the ships of Genoa,
      Pisa, and Venice. They were speedily followed by the most eager
      pilgrims of France, Normandy, and the Western Isles. The powerful
      succor of Flanders, Frise, and Denmark, filled near a hundred
      vessels: and the Northern warriors were distinguished in the
      field by a lofty stature and a ponderous battle-axe. 67 Their
      increasing multitudes could no longer be confined within the
      walls of Tyre, or remain obedient to the voice of Conrad. They
      pitied the misfortunes, and revered the dignity, of Lusignan, who
      was released from prison, perhaps, to divide the army of the
      Franks. He proposed the recovery of Ptolemais, or Acre, thirty
      miles to the south of Tyre; and the place was first invested by
      two thousand horse and thirty thousand foot under his nominal
      command. I shall not expatiate on the story of this memorable
      siege; which lasted near two years, and consumed, in a narrow
      space, the forces of Europe and Asia. Never did the flame of
      enthusiasm burn with fiercer and more destructive rage; nor could
      the true believers, a common appellation, who consecrated their
      own martyrs, refuse some applause to the mistaken zeal and
      courage of their adversaries. At the sound of the holy trumpet,
      the Moslems of Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and the Oriental provinces,
      assembled under the servant of the prophet: 68 his camp was
      pitched and removed within a few miles of Acre; and he labored,
      night and day, for the relief of his brethren and the annoyance
      of the Franks. Nine battles, not unworthy of the name, were
      fought in the neighborhood of Mount Carmel, with such vicissitude
      of fortune, that in one attack, the sultan forced his way into
      the city; that in one sally, the Christians penetrated to the
      royal tent. By the means of divers and pigeons, a regular
      correspondence was maintained with the besieged; and, as often as
      the sea was left open, the exhausted garrison was withdrawn, and
      a fresh supply was poured into the place. The Latin camp was
      thinned by famine, the sword and the climate; but the tents of
      the dead were replenished with new pilgrims, who exaggerated the
      strength and speed of their approaching countrymen. The vulgar
      was astonished by the report, that the pope himself, with an
      innumerable crusade, was advanced as far as Constantinople. The
      march of the emperor filled the East with more serious alarms:
      the obstacles which he encountered in Asia, and perhaps in
      Greece, were raised by the policy of Saladin: his joy on the
      death of Barbarossa was measured by his esteem; and the
      Christians were rather dismayed than encouraged at the sight of
      the duke of Swabia and his way-worn remnant of five thousand
      Germans. At length, in the spring of the second year, the royal
      fleets of France and England cast anchor in the Bay of Acre, and
      the siege was more vigorously prosecuted by the youthful
      emulation of the two kings, Philip Augustus and Richard
      Plantagenet. After every resource had been tried, and every hope
      was exhausted, the defenders of Acre submitted to their fate; a
      capitulation was granted, but their lives and liberties were
      taxed at the hard conditions of a ransom of two hundred thousand
      pieces of gold, the deliverance of one hundred nobles, and
      fifteen hundred inferior captives, and the restoration of the
      wood of the holy cross. Some doubts in the agreement, and some
      delay in the execution, rekindled the fury of the Franks, and
      three thousand Moslems, almost in the sultan’s view, were
      beheaded by the command of the sanguinary Richard. 69 By the
      conquest of Acre, the Latin powers acquired a strong town and a
      convenient harbor; but the advantage was most dearly purchased.
      The minister and historian of Saladin computes, from the report
      of the enemy, that their numbers, at different periods, amounted
      to five or six hundred thousand; that more than one hundred
      thousand Christians were slain; that a far greater number was
      lost by disease or shipwreck; and that a small portion of this
      mighty host could return in safety to their native countries. 70

      65 (return) [ The sieges of Tyre and Acre are most copiously
      described by Bernard Thesaurarius, (de Acquisitione Terræ Sanctæ,
      c. 167—179,) the author of the Historia Hierosolymitana, (p.
      1150—1172, in Bongarsius,) Abulfeda, (p. 43—50,) and Bohadin, (p.
      75—179.)]

      66 (return) [ I have followed a moderate and probable
      representation of the fact; by Vertot, who adopts without
      reluctance a romantic tale the old marquis is actually exposed to
      the darts of the besieged.]

      67 (return) [ Northmanni et Gothi, et cæteri populi insularum quæ
      inter occidentem et septentrionem sitæ sunt, gentes bellicosæ,
      corporis proceri mortis intrepidæ, bipennibus armatæ, navibus
      rotundis, quæ Ysnachiæ dicuntur, advectæ.]

      68 (return) [ The historian of Jerusalem (p. 1108) adds the
      nations of the East from the Tigris to India, and the swarthy
      tribes of Moors and Getulians, so that Asia and Africa fought
      against Europe.]

      69 (return) [ Bohadin, p. 180; and this massacre is neither
      denied nor blamed by the Christian historians. Alacriter jussa
      complentes, (the English soldiers,) says Galfridus à Vinesauf,
      (l. iv. c. 4, p. 346,) who fixes at 2700 the number of victims;
      who are multiplied to 5000 by Roger Hoveden, (p. 697, 698.) The
      humanity or avarice of Philip Augustus was persuaded to ransom
      his prisoners, (Jacob à Vitriaco, l. i. c. 98, p. 1122.)]

      70 (return) [ Bohadin, p. 14. He quotes the judgment of Balianus,
      and the prince of Sidon, and adds, ex illo mundo quasi hominum
      paucissimi redierunt. Among the Christians who died before St.
      John d’Acre, I find the English names of De Ferrers earl of
      Derby, (Dugdale, Baronage, part i. p. 260,) Mowbray, (idem, p.
      124,) De Mandevil, De Fiennes, St. John, Scrope, Bigot, Talbot,
      &c.]




      Chapter LIX: The Crusades.—Part III.

      Philip Augustus, and Richard the First, are the only kings of
      France and England who have fought under the same banners; but
      the holy service in which they were enlisted was incessantly
      disturbed by their national jealousy; and the two factions, which
      they protected in Palestine, were more averse to each other than
      to the common enemy. In the eyes of the Orientals; the French
      monarch was superior in dignity and power; and, in the emperor’s
      absence, the Latins revered him as their temporal chief. 71 His
      exploits were not adequate to his fame. Philip was brave, but the
      statesman predominated in his character; he was soon weary of
      sacrificing his health and interest on a barren coast: the
      surrender of Acre became the signal of his departure; nor could
      he justify this unpopular desertion, by leaving the duke of
      Burgundy with five hundred knights and ten thousand foot, for the
      service of the Holy Land. The king of England, though inferior in
      dignity, surpassed his rival in wealth and military renown; 72
      and if heroism be confined to brutal and ferocious valor, Richard
      Plantagenet will stand high among the heroes of the age. The
      memory of _Cur de Lion_, of the lion-hearted prince, was long
      dear and glorious to his English subjects; and, at the distance
      of sixty years, it was celebrated in proverbial sayings by the
      grandsons of the Turks and Saracens, against whom he had fought:
      his tremendous name was employed by the Syrian mothers to silence
      their infants; and if a horse suddenly started from the way, his
      rider was wont to exclaim, “Dost thou think King Richard is in
      that bush?” 73 His cruelty to the Mahometans was the effect of
      temper and zeal; but I cannot believe that a soldier, so free and
      fearless in the use of his lance, would have descended to whet a
      dagger against his valiant brother Conrad of Montferrat, who was
      slain at Tyre by some secret assassins. 74 After the surrender of
      Acre, and the departure of Philip, the king of England led the
      crusaders to the recovery of the sea-coast; and the cities of
      Cæsarea and Jaffa were added to the fragments of the kingdom of
      Lusignan. A march of one hundred miles from Acre to Ascalon was a
      great and perpetual battle of eleven days. In the disorder of his
      troops, Saladin remained on the field with seventeen guards,
      without lowering his standard, or suspending the sound of his
      brazen kettle-drum: he again rallied and renewed the charge; and
      his preachers or heralds called aloud on the _unitarians_,
      manfully to stand up against the Christian idolaters. But the
      progress of these idolaters was irresistible; and it was only by
      demolishing the walls and buildings of Ascalon, that the sultan
      could prevent them from occupying an important fortress on the
      confines of Egypt. During a severe winter, the armies slept; but
      in the spring, the Franks advanced within a day’s march of
      Jerusalem, under the leading standard of the English king; and
      his active spirit intercepted a convoy, or caravan, of seven
      thousand camels. Saladin 75 had fixed his station in the holy
      city; but the city was struck with consternation and discord: he
      fasted; he prayed; he preached; he offered to share the dangers
      of the siege; but his Mamalukes, who remembered the fate of their
      companions at Acre, pressed the sultan with loyal or seditious
      clamors, to reserve _his_ person and _their_ courage for the
      future defence of the religion and empire. 76 The Moslems were
      delivered by the sudden, or, as they deemed, the miraculous,
      retreat of the Christians; 77 and the laurels of Richard were
      blasted by the prudence, or envy, of his companions. The hero,
      ascending a hill, and veiling his face, exclaimed with an
      indignant voice, “Those who are unwilling to rescue, are unworthy
      to view, the sepulchre of Christ!” After his return to Acre, on
      the news that Jaffa was surprised by the sultan, he sailed with
      some merchant vessels, and leaped foremost on the beach: the
      castle was relieved by his presence; and sixty thousand Turks and
      Saracens fled before his arms. The discovery of his weakness,
      provoked them to return in the morning; and they found him
      carelessly encamped before the gates with only seventeen knights
      and three hundred archers. Without counting their numbers, he
      sustained their charge; and we learn from the evidence of his
      enemies, that the king of England, grasping his lance, rode
      furiously along their front, from the right to the left wing,
      without meeting an adversary who dared to encounter his career.
      78 Am I writing the history of Orlando or Amadis?

      71 (return) [ Magnus hic apud eos, interque reges eorum tum
      virtute tum majestate eminens.... summus rerum arbiter, (Bohadin,
      p. 159.) He does not seem to have known the names either of
      Philip or Richard.]

      72 (return) [ Rex Angliæ, præstrenuus.... rege Gallorum minor
      apud eos censebatur ratione regni atque dignitatis; sed tum
      divitiis florentior, tum bellicâ virtute multo erat celebrior,
      (Bohadin, p. 161.) A stranger might admire those riches; the
      national historians will tell with what lawless and wasteful
      oppression they were collected.]

      73 (return) [ Joinville, p. 17. Cuides-tu que ce soit le roi
      Richart?]

      74 (return) [ Yet he was guilty in the opinion of the Moslems,
      who attest the confession of the assassins, that they were sent
      by the king of England, (Bohadin, p. 225;) and his only defence
      is an absurd and palpable forgery, (Hist. de l’Académie des
      Inscriptions, tom. xv. p. 155—163,) a pretended letter from the
      prince of the assassins, the Sheich, or old man of the mountain,
      who justified Richard, by assuming to himself the guilt or merit
      of the murder. *

      Note: * Von Hammer (Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 202) sums up
      against Richard, Wilken (vol. iv. p. 485) as strongly for
      acquittal. Michaud (vol. ii. p. 420) delivers no decided opinion.
      This crime was also attributed to Saladin, who is said, by an
      Oriental authority, (the continuator of Tabari,) to have employed
      the assassins to murder both Conrad and Richard. It is a
      melancholy admission, but it must be acknowledged, that such an
      act would be less inconsistent with the character of the
      Christian than of the Mahometan king.—M.]

      75 (return) [ See the distress and pious firmness of Saladin, as
      they are described by Bohadin, (p. 7—9, 235—237,) who himself
      harangued the defenders of Jerusalem; their fears were not
      unknown to the enemy, (Jacob. à Vitriaco, l. i. c. 100, p. 1123.
      Vinisauf, l. v. c. 50, p. 399.)]

      76 (return) [ Yet unless the sultan, or an Ayoubite prince,
      remained in Jerusalem, nec Curdi Turcis, nec Turci essent
      obtemperaturi Curdis, (Bohadin, p. 236.) He draws aside a corner
      of the political curtain.]

      77 (return) [ Bohadin, (p. 237,) and even Jeffrey de Vinisauf,
      (l. vi. c. 1—8, p. 403—409,) ascribe the retreat to Richard
      himself; and Jacobus à Vitriaco observes, that in his impatience
      to depart, in alterum virum mutatus est, (p. 1123.) Yet
      Joinville, a French knight, accuses the envy of Hugh duke of
      Burgundy, (p. 116,) without supposing, like Matthew Paris, that
      he was bribed by Saladin.]

      78 (return) [ The expeditions to Ascalon, Jerusalem, and Jaffa,
      are related by Bohadin (p. 184—249) and Abulfeda, (p. 51, 52.)
      The author of the Itinerary, or the monk of St. Alban’s, cannot
      exaggerate the cadhi’s account of the prowess of Richard,
      (Vinisauf, l. vi. c. 14—24, p. 412—421. Hist. Major, p. 137—143;)
      and on the whole of this war there is a marvellous agreement
      between the Christian and Mahometan writers, who mutually praise
      the virtues of their enemies.]

      During these hostilities, a languid and tedious negotiation 79
      between the Franks and Moslems was started, and continued, and
      broken, and again resumed, and again broken. Some acts of royal
      courtesy, the gift of snow and fruit, the exchange of Norway
      hawks and Arabian horses, softened the asperity of religious war:
      from the vicissitude of success, the monarchs might learn to
      suspect that Heaven was neutral in the quarrel; nor, after the
      trial of each other, could either hope for a decisive victory. 80
      The health both of Richard and Saladin appeared to be in a
      declining state; and they respectively suffered the evils of
      distant and domestic warfare: Plantagenet was impatient to punish
      a perfidious rival who had invaded Normandy in his absence; and
      the indefatigable sultan was subdued by the cries of the people,
      who was the victim, and of the soldiers, who were the
      instruments, of his martial zeal. The first demands of the king
      of England were the restitution of Jerusalem, Palestine, and the
      true cross; and he firmly declared, that himself and his brother
      pilgrims would end their lives in the pious labor, rather than
      return to Europe with ignominy and remorse. But the conscience of
      Saladin refused, without some weighty compensation, to restore
      the idols, or promote the idolatry, of the Christians; he
      asserted, with equal firmness, his religious and civil claim to
      the sovereignty of Palestine; descanted on the importance and
      sanctity of Jerusalem; and rejected all terms of the
      establishment, or partition of the Latins. The marriage which
      Richard proposed, of his sister with the sultan’s brother, was
      defeated by the difference of faith; the princess abhorred the
      embraces of a Turk; and Adel, or Saphadin, would not easily
      renounce a plurality of wives. A personal interview was declined
      by Saladin, who alleged their mutual ignorance of each other’s
      language; and the negotiation was managed with much art and delay
      by their interpreters and envoys. The final agreement was equally
      disapproved by the zealots of both parties, by the Roman pontiff
      and the caliph of Bagdad. It was stipulated that Jerusalem and
      the holy sepulchre should be open, without tribute or vexation,
      to the pilgrimage of the Latin Christians; that, after the
      demolition of Ascalon, they should inclusively possess the
      sea-coast from Jaffa to Tyre; that the count of Tripoli and the
      prince of Antioch should be comprised in the truce; and that,
      during three years and three months, all hostilities should
      cease. The principal chiefs of the two armies swore to the
      observance of the treaty; but the monarchs were satisfied with
      giving their word and their right hand; and the royal majesty was
      excused from an oath, which always implies some suspicion of
      falsehood and dishonor. Richard embarked for Europe, to seek a
      long captivity and a premature grave; and the space of a few
      months concluded the life and glories of Saladin. The Orientals
      describe his edifying death, which happened at Damascus; but they
      seem ignorant of the equal distribution of his alms among the
      three religions, 81 or of the display of a shroud, instead of a
      standard, to admonish the East of the instability of human
      greatness. The unity of empire was dissolved by his death; his
      sons were oppressed by the stronger arm of their uncle Saphadin;
      the hostile interests of the sultans of Egypt, Damascus, and
      Aleppo, 82 were again revived; and the Franks or Latins stood and
      breathed, and hoped, in their fortresses along the Syrian coast.

      79 (return) [ See the progress of negotiation and hostility in
      Bohadin, (p. 207—260,) who was himself an actor in the treaty.
      Richard declared his intention of returning with new armies to
      the conquest of the Holy Land; and Saladin answered the menace
      with a civil compliment, (Vinisauf l. vi. c. 28, p. 423.)]

      80 (return) [ The most copious and original account of this holy
      war is Galfridi à Vinisauf, Itinerarium Regis Anglorum Richardi
      et aliorum in Terram Hierosolymorum, in six books, published in
      the iid volume of Gale’s Scriptores Hist. Anglicanæ, (p.
      247—429.) Roger Hoveden and Matthew Paris afford likewise many
      valuable materials; and the former describes, with accuracy, the
      discipline and navigation of the English fleet.]

      81 (return) [ Even Vertot (tom. i. p. 251) adopts the foolish
      notion of the indifference of Saladin, who professed the Koran
      with his last breath.]

      82 (return) [ See the succession of the Ayoubites, in
      Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 277, &c.,) and the tables of M. De
      Guignes, l’Art de Vérifier les Dates, and the Bibliothèque
      Orientale.]

      The noblest monument of a conqueror’s fame, and of the terror
      which he inspired, is the Saladine tenth, a general tax which was
      imposed on the laity, and even the clergy, of the Latin church,
      for the service of the holy war. The practice was too lucrative
      to expire with the occasion: and this tribute became the
      foundation of all the tithes and tenths on ecclesiastical
      benefices, which have been granted by the Roman pontiffs to
      Catholic sovereigns, or reserved for the immediate use of the
      apostolic see. 83 This pecuniary emolument must have tended to
      increase the interest of the popes in the recovery of Palestine:
      after the death of Saladin, they preached the crusade, by their
      epistles, their legates, and their missionaries; and the
      accomplishment of the pious work might have been expected from
      the zeal and talents of Innocent the Third. 84 Under that young
      and ambitious priest, the successors of St. Peter attained the
      full meridian of their greatness: and in a reign of eighteen
      years, he exercised a despotic command over the emperors and
      kings, whom he raised and deposed; over the nations, whom an
      interdict of months or years deprived, for the offence of their
      rulers, of the exercise of Christian worship. In the council of
      the Lateran he acted as the ecclesiastical, almost as the
      temporal, sovereign of the East and West. It was at the feet of
      his legate that John of England surrendered his crown; and
      Innocent may boast of the two most signal triumphs over sense and
      humanity, the establishment of transubstantiation, and the origin
      of the inquisition. At his voice, two crusades, the fourth and
      the fifth, were undertaken; but, except a king of Hungary, the
      princes of the second order were at the head of the pilgrims: the
      forces were inadequate to the design; nor did the effects
      correspond with the hopes and wishes of the pope and the people.
      The fourth crusade was diverted from Syria to Constantinople; and
      the conquest of the Greek or Roman empire by the Latins will form
      the proper and important subject of the next chapter. In the
      fifth, 85 two hundred thousand Franks were landed at the eastern
      mouth of the Nile. They reasonably hoped that Palestine must be
      subdued in Egypt, the seat and storehouse of the sultan; and,
      after a siege of sixteen months, the Moslems deplored the loss of
      Damietta. But the Christian army was ruined by the pride and
      insolence of the legate Pelagius, who, in the pope’s name,
      assumed the character of general: the sickly Franks were
      encompassed by the waters of the Nile and the Oriental forces;
      and it was by the evacuation of Damietta that they obtained a
      safe retreat, some concessions for the pilgrims, and the tardy
      restitution of the doubtful relic of the true cross. The failure
      may in some measure be ascribed to the abuse and multiplication
      of the crusades, which were preached at the same time against the
      Pagans of Livonia, the Moors of Spain, the Albigeois of France,
      and the kings of Sicily of the Imperial family. 86 In these
      meritorious services, the volunteers might acquire at home the
      same spiritual indulgence, and a larger measure of temporal
      rewards; and even the popes, in their zeal against a domestic
      enemy, were sometimes tempted to forget the distress of their
      Syrian brethren. From the last age of the crusades they derived
      the occasional command of an army and revenue; and some deep
      reasoners have suspected that the whole enterprise, from the
      first synod of Placentia, was contrived and executed by the
      policy of Rome. The suspicion is not founded, either in nature or
      in fact. The successors of St. Peter appear to have followed,
      rather than guided, the impulse of manners and prejudice; without
      much foresight of the seasons, or cultivation of the soil, they
      gathered the ripe and spontaneous fruits of the superstition of
      the times. They gathered these fruits without toil or personal
      danger: in the council of the Lateran, Innocent the Third
      declared an ambiguous resolution of animating the crusaders by
      his example; but the pilot of the sacred vessel could not abandon
      the helm; nor was Palestine ever blessed with the presence of a
      Roman pontiff. 87

      83 (return) [ Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. iii. p.
      311—374) has copiously treated of the origin, abuses, and
      restrictions of these _tenths_. A theory was started, but not
      pursued, that they were rightfully due to the pope, a tenth of
      the Levite’s tenth to the high priest, (Selden on Tithes; see his
      Works, vol. iii. p. ii. p. 1083.)]

      84 (return) [ See the Gesta Innocentii III. in Murat. Script.
      Rer. Ital., (tom. iii. p. 486—568.)]

      85 (return) [ See the vth crusade, and the siege of Damietta, in
      Jacobus à Vitriaco, (l. iii. p. 1125—1149, in the Gesta Dei of
      Bongarsius,) an eye-witness, Bernard Thesaurarius, (in Script.
      Muratori, tom. vii. p. 825—846, c. 190—207,) a contemporary, and
      Sanutus, (Secreta Fidel Crucis, l. iii. p. xi. c. 4—9,) a
      diligent compiler; and of the Arabians Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p.
      294,) and the Extracts at the end of Joinville, (p. 533, 537,
      540, 547, &c.)]

      86 (return) [ To those who took the cross against Mainfroy, the
      pope (A.D. 1255) granted plenissimam peccatorum remissionem.
      Fideles mirabantur quòd tantum eis promitteret pro sanguine
      Christianorum effundendo quantum pro cruore infidelium aliquando,
      (Matthew Paris p. 785.) A high flight for the reason of the
      xiiith century.]

      87 (return) [ This simple idea is agreeable to the good sense of
      Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Ecclés. p. 332,) and the fine
      philosophy of Hume, (Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 330.)]

      The persons, the families, and estates of the pilgrims, were
      under the immediate protection of the popes; and these spiritual
      patrons soon claimed the prerogative of directing their
      operations, and enforcing, by commands and censures, the
      accomplishment of their vow. Frederic the Second, 88 the grandson
      of Barbarossa, was successively the pupil, the enemy, and the
      victim of the church. At the age of twenty-one years, and in
      obedience to his guardian Innocent the Third, he assumed the
      cross; the same promise was repeated at his royal and imperial
      coronations; and his marriage with the heiress of Jerusalem
      forever bound him to defend the kingdom of his son Conrad. But as
      Frederic advanced in age and authority, he repented of the rash
      engagements of his youth: his liberal sense and knowledge taught
      him to despise the phantoms of superstition and the crowns of
      Asia: he no longer entertained the same reverence for the
      successors of Innocent: and his ambition was occupied by the
      restoration of the Italian monarchy from Sicily to the Alps. But
      the success of this project would have reduced the popes to their
      primitive simplicity; and, after the delays and excuses of twelve
      years, they urged the emperor, with entreaties and threats, to
      fix the time and place of his departure for Palestine. In the
      harbors of Sicily and Apulia, he prepared a fleet of one hundred
      galleys, and of one hundred vessels, that were framed to
      transport and land two thousand five hundred knights, with their
      horses and attendants; his vassals of Naples and Germany formed a
      powerful army; and the number of English crusaders was magnified
      to sixty thousand by the report of fame. But the inevitable or
      affected slowness of these mighty preparations consumed the
      strength and provisions of the more indigent pilgrims: the
      multitude was thinned by sickness and desertion; and the sultry
      summer of Calabria anticipated the mischiefs of a Syrian
      campaign. At length the emperor hoisted sail at Brundusium, with
      a fleet and army of forty thousand men: but he kept the sea no
      more than three days; and his hasty retreat, which was ascribed
      by his friends to a grievous indisposition, was accused by his
      enemies as a voluntary and obstinate disobedience. For suspending
      his vow was Frederic excommunicated by Gregory the Ninth; for
      presuming, the next year, to accomplish his vow, he was again
      excommunicated by the same pope. 89 While he served under the
      banner of the cross, a crusade was preached against him in Italy;
      and after his return he was compelled to ask pardon for the
      injuries which he had suffered. The clergy and military orders of
      Palestine were previously instructed to renounce his communion
      and dispute his commands; and in his own kingdom, the emperor was
      forced to consent that the orders of the camp should be issued in
      the name of God and of the Christian republic. Frederic entered
      Jerusalem in triumph; and with his own hands (for no priest would
      perform the office) he took the crown from the altar of the holy
      sepulchre. But the patriarch cast an interdict on the church
      which his presence had profaned; and the knights of the hospital
      and temple informed the sultan how easily he might be surprised
      and slain in his unguarded visit to the River Jordan. In such a
      state of fanaticism and faction, victory was hopeless, and
      defence was difficult; but the conclusion of an advantageous
      peace may be imputed to the discord of the Mahometans, and their
      personal esteem for the character of Frederic. The enemy of the
      church is accused of maintaining with the miscreants an
      intercourse of hospitality and friendship unworthy of a
      Christian; of despising the barrenness of the land; and of
      indulging a profane thought, that if Jehovah had seen the kingdom
      of Naples he never would have selected Palestine for the
      inheritance of his chosen people. Yet Frederic obtained from the
      sultan the restitution of Jerusalem, of Bethlem and Nazareth, of
      Tyre and Sidon; the Latins were allowed to inhabit and fortify
      the city; an equal code of civil and religious freedom was
      ratified for the sectaries of Jesus and those of Mahomet; and,
      while the former worshipped at the holy sepulchre, the latter
      might pray and preach in the mosque of the temple, 90 from whence
      the prophet undertook his nocturnal journey to heaven. The clergy
      deplored this scandalous toleration; and the weaker Moslems were
      gradually expelled; but every rational object of the crusades was
      accomplished without bloodshed; the churches were restored, the
      monasteries were replenished; and, in the space of fifteen years,
      the Latins of Jerusalem exceeded the number of six thousand. This
      peace and prosperity, for which they were ungrateful to their
      benefactor, was terminated by the irruption of the strange and
      savage hordes of Carizmians. 91 Flying from the arms of the
      Moguls, those shepherds 911 of the Caspian rolled headlong on
      Syria; and the union of the Franks with the sultans of Aleppo,
      Hems, and Damascus, was insufficient to stem the violence of the
      torrent. Whatever stood against them was cut off by the sword, or
      dragged into captivity: the military orders were almost
      exterminated in a single battle; and in the pillage of the city,
      in the profanation of the holy sepulchre, the Latins confess and
      regret the modesty and discipline of the Turks and Saracens.

      88 (return) [ The original materials for the crusade of Frederic
      II. may be drawn from Richard de St. Germano (in Muratori,
      Script. Rerum Ital. tom. vii. p. 1002—1013) and Matthew Paris,
      (p. 286, 291, 300, 302, 304.) The most rational moderns are
      Fleury, (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xvi.,) Vertot, (Chevaliers de Malthe,
      tom. i. l. iii.,) Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii.
      l. xvi.,) and Muratori, (Annali d’ Italia, tom. x.)]

      89 (return) [ Poor Muratori knows what to think, but knows not
      what to say: “Chino qui il capo,” &c. p. 322.]

      90 (return) [ The clergy artfully confounded the mosque or church
      of the temple with the holy sepulchre, and their wilful error has
      deceived both Vertot and Muratori.]

      91 (return) [ The irruption of the Carizmians, or Corasmins, is
      related by Matthew Paris, (p. 546, 547,) and by Joinville,
      Nangis, and the Arabians, (p. 111, 112, 191, 192, 528, 530.)]

      911 (return) [ They were in alliance with Eyub, sultan of Syria.
      Wilken vol. vi. p. 630.—M.]

      Of the seven crusades, the two last were undertaken by Louis the
      Ninth, king of France; who lost his liberty in Egypt, and his
      life on the coast of Africa. Twenty-eight years after his death,
      he was canonized at Rome; and sixty-five miracles were readily
      found, and solemnly attested, to justify the claim of the royal
      saint. 92 The voice of history renders a more honorable
      testimony, that he united the virtues of a king, a hero, and a
      man; that his martial spirit was tempered by the love of private
      and public justice; and that Louis was the father of his people,
      the friend of his neighbors, and the terror of the infidels.
      Superstition alone, in all the extent of her baleful influence,
      93 corrupted his understanding and his heart: his devotion
      stooped to admire and imitate the begging friars of Francis and
      Dominic: he pursued with blind and cruel zeal the enemies of the
      faith; and the best of kings twice descended from his throne to
      seek the adventures of a spiritual knight-errant. A monkish
      historian would have been content to applaud the most despicable
      part of his character; but the noble and gallant Joinville, 94
      who shared the friendship and captivity of Louis, has traced with
      the pencil of nature the free portrait of his virtues as well as
      of his failings. From this intimate knowledge we may learn to
      suspect the political views of depressing their great vassals,
      which are so often imputed to the royal authors of the crusades.
      Above all the princes of the middle ages, Louis the Ninth
      successfully labored to restore the prerogatives of the crown;
      but it was at home and not in the East, that he acquired for
      himself and his posterity: his vow was the result of enthusiasm
      and sickness; and if he were the promoter, he was likewise the
      victim, of his holy madness. For the invasion of Egypt, France
      was exhausted of her troops and treasures; he covered the sea of
      Cyprus with eighteen hundred sails; the most modest enumeration
      amounts to fifty thousand men; and, if we might trust his own
      confession, as it is reported by Oriental vanity, he disembarked
      nine thousand five hundred horse, and one hundred and thirty
      thousand foot, who performed their pilgrimage under the shadow of
      his power. 95

      92 (return) [ Read, if you can, the Life and Miracles of St.
      Louis, by the confessor of Queen Margaret, (p. 291—523.
      Joinville, du Louvre.)]

      93 (return) [ He believed all that mother church taught,
      (Joinville, p. 10,) but he cautioned Joinville against disputing
      with infidels. “L’omme lay (said he in his old language) quand il
      ot medire de la loi Crestienne, ne doit pas deffendre la loi
      Crestienne ne mais que de l’espée, dequoi il doit donner parmi le
      ventre dedens, tant comme elle y peut entrer” (p. 12.)]

      94 (return) [ I have two editions of Joinville, the one (Paris,
      1668) most valuable for the observations of Ducange; the other
      (Paris, au Louvre, 1761) most precious for the pure and authentic
      text, a MS. of which has been recently discovered. The last
      edition proves that the history of St. Louis was finished A.D.
      1309, without explaining, or even admiring, the age of the
      author, which must have exceeded ninety years, (Preface, p. x.
      Observations de Ducange, p. 17.)]

      95 (return) [ Joinville, p. 32. Arabic Extracts, p. 549. *

      Note: * Compare Wilken, vol. vii. p. 94.—M.]

      In complete armor, the oriflamme waving before him, Louis leaped
      foremost on the beach; and the strong city of Damietta, which had
      cost his predecessors a siege of sixteen months, was abandoned on
      the first assault by the trembling Moslems. But Damietta was the
      first and the last of his conquests; and in the fifth and sixth
      crusades, the same causes, almost on the same ground, were
      productive of similar calamities. 96 After a ruinous delay, which
      introduced into the camp the seeds of an epidemic disease, the
      Franks advanced from the sea-coast towards the capital of Egypt,
      and strove to surmount the unseasonable inundation of the Nile,
      which opposed their progress. Under the eye of their intrepid
      monarch, the barons and knights of France displayed their
      invincible contempt of danger and discipline: his brother, the
      count of Artois, stormed with inconsiderate valor the town of
      Massoura; and the carrier pigeons announced to the inhabitants of
      Cairo that all was lost. But a soldier, who afterwards usurped
      the sceptre, rallied the flying troops: the main body of the
      Christians was far behind the vanguard; and Artois was
      overpowered and slain. A shower of Greek fire was incessantly
      poured on the invaders; the Nile was commanded by the Egyptian
      galleys, the open country by the Arabs; all provisions were
      intercepted; each day aggravated the sickness and famine; and
      about the same time a retreat was found to be necessary and
      impracticable. The Oriental writers confess, that Louis might
      have escaped, if he would have deserted his subjects; he was made
      prisoner, with the greatest part of his nobles; all who could not
      redeem their lives by service or ransom were inhumanly massacred;
      and the walls of Cairo were decorated with a circle of Christian
      heads. 97 The king of France was loaded with chains; but the
      generous victor, a great-grandson of the brother of Saladin, sent
      a robe of honor to his royal captive, and his deliverance, with
      that of his soldiers, was obtained by the restitution of Damietta
      98 and the payment of four hundred thousand pieces of gold. In a
      soft and luxurious climate, the degenerate children of the
      companions of Noureddin and Saladin were incapable of resisting
      the flower of European chivalry: they triumphed by the arms of
      their slaves or Mamalukes, the hardy natives of Tartary, who at a
      tender age had been purchased of the Syrian merchants, and were
      educated in the camp and palace of the sultan. But Egypt soon
      afforded a new example of the danger of prætorian bands; and the
      rage of these ferocious animals, who had been let loose on the
      strangers, was provoked to devour their benefactor. In the pride
      of conquest, Touran Shaw, the last of his race, was murdered by
      his Mamalukes; and the most daring of the assassins entered the
      chamber of the captive king, with drawn cimeters, and their hands
      imbrued in the blood of their sultan. The firmness of Louis
      commanded their respect; 99 their avarice prevailed over cruelty
      and zeal; the treaty was accomplished; and the king of France,
      with the relics of his army, was permitted to embark for
      Palestine. He wasted four years within the walls of Acre, unable
      to visit Jerusalem, and unwilling to return without glory to his
      native country.

      96 (return) [ The last editors have enriched their Joinville with
      large and curious extracts from the Arabic historians, Macrizi,
      Abulfeda, &c. See likewise Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 322—325,)
      who calls him by the corrupt name of _Redefrans_. Matthew Paris
      (p. 683, 684) has described the rival folly of the French and
      English who fought and fell at Massoura.]

      97 (return) [ Savary, in his agreeable Letters sur L’Egypte, has
      given a description of Damietta, (tom. i. lettre xxiii. p.
      274—290,) and a narrative of the exposition of St. Louis, (xxv.
      p. 306—350.)]

      98 (return) [ For the ransom of St. Louis, a million of byzants
      was asked and granted; but the sultan’s generosity reduced that
      sum to 800,000 byzants, which are valued by Joinville at 400,000
      French livres of his own time, and expressed by Matthew Paris by
      100,000 marks of silver, (Ducange, Dissertation xx. sur
      Joinville.)]

      99 (return) [ The idea of the emirs to choose Louis for their
      sultan is seriously attested by Joinville, (p. 77, 78,) and does
      not appear to me so absurd as to M. de Voltaire, (Hist. Générale,
      tom. ii. p. 386, 387.) The Mamalukes themselves were strangers,
      rebels, and equals: they had felt his valor, they hoped his
      conversion; and such a motion, which was not seconded, might be
      made, perhaps by a secret Christian in their tumultuous assembly.
      *

      Note: * Wilken, vol. vii. p. 257, thinks the proposition could
      not have been made in earnest.—M.]

      The memory of his defeat excited Louis, after sixteen years of
      wisdom and repose, to undertake the seventh and last of the
      crusades. His finances were restored, his kingdom was enlarged; a
      new generation of warriors had arisen, and he advanced with fresh
      confidence at the head of six thousand horse and thirty thousand
      foot. The loss of Antioch had provoked the enterprise; a wild
      hope of baptizing the king of Tunis tempted him to steer for the
      African coast; and the report of an immense treasure reconciled
      his troops to the delay of their voyage to the Holy Land. Instead
      of a proselyte, he found a siege: the French panted and died on
      the burning sands: St. Louis expired in his tent; and no sooner
      had he closed his eyes, than his son and successor gave the
      signal of the retreat. 100 “It is thus,” says a lively writer,
      “that a Christian king died near the ruins of Carthage, waging
      war against the sectaries of Mahomet, in a land to which Dido had
      introduced the deities of Syria.” 101

      100 (return) [ See the expedition in the annals of St. Louis, by
      William de Nangis, p. 270—287; and the Arabic extracts, p. 545,
      555, of the Louvre edition of Joinville.]

      101 (return) [ Voltaire, Hist. Générale, tom. ii. p. 391.]

      A more unjust and absurd constitution cannot be devised than that
      which condemns the natives of a country to perpetual servitude,
      under the arbitrary dominion of strangers and slaves. Yet such
      has been the state of Egypt above five hundred years. The most
      illustrious sultans of the Baharite and Borgite dynasties 102
      were themselves promoted from the Tartar and Circassian bands;
      and the four-and-twenty beys, or military chiefs, have ever been
      succeeded, not by their sons, but by their servants. They produce
      the great charter of their liberties, the treaty of Selim the
      First with the republic: 103 and the Othman emperor still accepts
      from Egypt a slight acknowledgment of tribute and subjection.
      With some breathing intervals of peace and order, the two
      dynasties are marked as a period of rapine and bloodshed: 104 but
      their throne, however shaken, reposed on the two pillars of
      discipline and valor: their sway extended over Egypt, Nubia,
      Arabia, and Syria: their Mamalukes were multiplied from eight
      hundred to twenty-five thousand horse; and their numbers were
      increased by a provincial militia of one hundred and seven
      thousand foot, and the occasional aid of sixty-six thousand
      Arabs. 105 Princes of such power and spirit could not long endure
      on their coast a hostile and independent nation; and if the ruin
      of the Franks was postponed about forty years, they were indebted
      to the cares of an unsettled reign, to the invasion of the
      Moguls, and to the occasional aid of some warlike pilgrims. Among
      these, the English reader will observe the name of our first
      Edward, who assumed the cross in the lifetime of his father
      Henry. At the head of a thousand soldiers the future conqueror of
      Wales and Scotland delivered Acre from a siege; marched as far as
      Nazareth with an army of nine thousand men; emulated the fame of
      his uncle Richard; extorted, by his valor, a ten years’ truce;
      1051 and escaped, with a dangerous wound, from the dagger of a
      fanatic _assassin_. 106 1061 Antioch, 107 whose situation had
      been less exposed to the calamities of the holy war, was finally
      occupied and ruined by Bondocdar, or Bibars, sultan of Egypt and
      Syria; the Latin principality was extinguished; and the first
      seat of the Christian name was dispeopled by the slaughter of
      seventeen, and the captivity of one hundred, thousand of her
      inhabitants. The maritime towns of Laodicea, Gabala, Tripoli,
      Berytus, Sidon, Tyre and Jaffa, and the stronger castles of the
      Hospitallers and Templars, successively fell; and the whole
      existence of the Franks was confined to the city and colony of
      St. John of Acre, which is sometimes described by the more
      classic title of Ptolemais.

      102 (return) [ The chronology of the two dynasties of Mamalukes,
      the Baharites, Turks or Tartars of Kipzak, and the Borgites,
      Circassians, is given by Pocock (Prolegom. ad Abulpharag. p.
      6—31) and De Guignes (tom. i. p. 264—270;) their history from
      Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., to the beginning of the xvth century, by
      the same M. De Guignes, (tom. iv. p. 110—328.)]

      103 (return) [ Savary, Lettres sur l’Egypte, tom. ii. lettre xv.
      p. 189—208. I much question the authenticity of this copy; yet it
      is true, that Sultan Selim concluded a treaty with the
      Circassians or Mamalukes of Egypt, and left them in possession of
      arms, riches, and power. See a new Abrégé de l’Histoire Ottomane,
      composed in Egypt, and translated by M. Digeon, (tom. i. p.
      55—58, Paris, 1781,) a curious, authentic, and national history.]

      104 (return) [ Si totum quo regnum occupârunt tempus respicias,
      præsertim quod fini propius, reperies illud bellis, pugnis,
      injuriis, ac rapinis refertum, (Al Jannabi, apud Pocock, p. 31.)
      The reign of Mohammed (A.D. 1311—1341) affords a happy exception,
      (De Guignes, tom. iv. p. 208—210.)]

      105 (return) [ They are now reduced to 8500: but the expense of
      each Mamaluke may be rated at a hundred louis: and Egypt groans
      under the avarice and insolence of these strangers, (Voyages de
      Volney, tom. i. p. 89—187.)]

      1051 (return) [ Gibbon colors rather highly the success of
      Edward. Wilken is more accurate vol. vii. p. 593, &c.—M.]

      106 (return) [ See Carte’s History of England, vol. ii. p.
      165—175, and his original authors, Thomas Wikes and Walter
      Hemingford, (l. iii. c. 34, 35,) in Gale’s Collection, (tom. ii.
      p. 97, 589—592.) They are both ignorant of the princess Eleanor’s
      piety in sucking the poisoned wound, and saving her husband at
      the risk of her own life.]

      1061 (return) [ The sultan Bibars was concerned in this attempt
      at assassination Wilken, vol. vii. p. 602. Ptolemæus Lucensis is
      the earliest authority for the devotion of Eleanora. Ibid.
      605.—M.]

      107 (return) [ Sanutus, Secret. Fidelium Crucis, 1. iii. p. xii.
      c. 9, and De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. p. 143, from the
      Arabic historians.]

      After the loss of Jerusalem, Acre, 108 which is distant about
      seventy miles, became the metropolis of the Latin Christians, and
      was adorned with strong and stately buildings, with aqueducts, an
      artificial port, and a double wall. The population was increased
      by the incessant streams of pilgrims and fugitives: in the pauses
      of hostility the trade of the East and West was attracted to this
      convenient station; and the market could offer the produce of
      every clime and the interpreters of every tongue. But in this
      conflux of nations, every vice was propagated and practised: of
      all the disciples of Jesus and Mahomet, the male and female
      inhabitants of Acre were esteemed the most corrupt; nor could the
      abuse of religion be corrected by the discipline of law. The city
      had many sovereigns, and no government. The kings of Jerusalem
      and Cyprus, of the house of Lusignan, the princes of Antioch, the
      counts of Tripoli and Sidon, the great masters of the hospital,
      the temple, and the Teutonic order, the republics of Venice,
      Genoa, and Pisa, the pope’s legate, the kings of France and
      England, assumed an independent command: seventeen tribunals
      exercised the power of life and death; every criminal was
      protected in the adjacent quarter; and the perpetual jealousy of
      the nations often burst forth in acts of violence and blood. Some
      adventurers, who disgraced the ensign of the cross, compensated
      their want of pay by the plunder of the Mahometan villages:
      nineteen Syrian merchants, who traded under the public faith,
      were despoiled and hanged by the Christians; and the denial of
      satisfaction justified the arms of the sultan Khalil. He marched
      against Acre, at the head of sixty thousand horse and one hundred
      and forty thousand foot: his train of artillery (if I may use the
      word) was numerous and weighty: the separate timbers of a single
      engine were transported in one hundred wagons; and the royal
      historian Abulfeda, who served with the troops of Hamah, was
      himself a spectator of the holy war. Whatever might be the vices
      of the Franks, their courage was rekindled by enthusiasm and
      despair; but they were torn by the discord of seventeen chiefs,
      and overwhelmed on all sides by the powers of the sultan. After a
      siege of thirty three days, the double wall was forced by the
      Moslems; the principal tower yielded to their engines; the
      Mamalukes made a general assault; the city was stormed; and death
      or slavery was the lot of sixty thousand Christians. The convent,
      or rather fortress, of the Templars resisted three days longer;
      but the great master was pierced with an arrow; and, of five
      hundred knights, only ten were left alive, less happy than the
      victims of the sword, if they lived to suffer on a scaffold, in
      the unjust and cruel proscription of the whole order. The king of
      Jerusalem, the patriarch and the great master of the hospital,
      effected their retreat to the shore; but the sea was rough, the
      vessels were insufficient; and great numbers of the fugitives
      were drowned before they could reach the Isle of Cyprus, which
      might comfort Lusignan for the loss of Palestine. By the command
      of the sultan, the churches and fortifications of the Latin
      cities were demolished: a motive of avarice or fear still opened
      the holy sepulchre to some devout and defenceless pilgrims; and a
      mournful and solitary silence prevailed along the coast which had
      so long resounded with the world’s debate. 109

      108 (return) [ The state of Acre is represented in all the
      chronicles of te times, and most accurately in John Villani, l.
      vii. c. 144, in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. xiii.
      337, 338.]

      109 (return) [ See the final expulsion of the Franks, in Sanutus,
      l. iii. p. xii. c. 11—22; Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., in De Guignes,
      tom. iv. p. 162, 164; and Vertot, tom. i. l. iii. p. 307—428. *

      Note: * After these chapters of Gibbon, the masterly prize
      composition, “Essai sur ‘Influence des Croisades sur l’Europe,”
      par A H. L. Heeren: traduit de l’Allemand par Charles Villars,
      Paris, 1808,’ or the original German, in Heeren’s “Vermischte
      Schriften,” may be read with great advantage.—M.]




      Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part I.

     Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—State Of Constantinople.— Revolt
     Of The Bulgarians.—Isaac Angelus Dethroned By His Brother
     Alexius.—Origin Of The Fourth Crusade.—Alliance Of The French And
     Venetians With The Son Of Isaac.—Their Naval Expedition To
     Constantinople.—The Two Sieges And Final Conquest Of The City By
     The Latins.

      The restoration of the Western empire by Charlemagne was speedily
      followed by the separation of the Greek and Latin churches. 1 A
      religious and national animosity still divides the two largest
      communions of the Christian world; and the schism of
      Constantinople,

       by alienating her most useful allies, and provoking her most
       dangerous

      enemies, has precipitated the decline and fall of the Roman
      empire in the East.

      1 (return) [ In the successive centuries, from the ixth to the
      xviiith, Mosheim traces the schism of the Greeks with learning,
      clearness, and impartiality; the _filioque_ (Institut. Hist.
      Ecclés. p. 277,) Leo III. p. 303 Photius, p. 307, 308. Michael
      Cerularius, p. 370, 371, &c.]

      In the course of the present History, the aversion of the Greeks
      for the Latins has been often visible and conspicuous. It was
      originally derived from the disdain of servitude, inflamed, after
      the time of Constantine, by the pride of equality or dominion;
      and finally exasperated by the preference which their rebellious
      subjects had given to the alliance of the Franks. In every age
      the Greeks were proud of their superiority in profane and
      religious knowledge: they had first received the light of
      Christianity; they had pronounced the decrees of the seven
      general councils; they alone possessed the language of Scripture
      and philosophy; nor should the Barbarians, immersed in the
      darkness of the West, 2 presume to argue on the high and
      mysterious questions of theological science. Those Barbarians
      despised in then turn the restless and subtile levity of the
      Orientals, the authors of every heresy; and blessed their own
      simplicity, which was content to hold the tradition of the
      apostolic church. Yet in the seventh century, the synods of
      Spain, and afterwards of France, improved or corrupted the Nicene
      creed, on the mysterious subject of the third person of the
      Trinity. 3 In the long controversies of the East, the nature and
      generation of the Christ had been scrupulously defined; and the
      well-known relation of father and son seemed to convey a faint
      image to the human mind. The idea of birth was less analogous to
      the Holy Spirit, who, instead of a divine gift or attribute, was
      considered by the Catholics as a substance, a person, a god; he
      was not begotten, but in the orthodox style he _proceeded_. Did
      he proceed from the Father alone, perhaps _by_ the Son? or from
      the Father _and_ the Son? The first of these opinions was
      asserted by the Greeks, the second by the Latins; and the
      addition to the Nicene creed of the word _filioque_, kindled the
      flame of discord between the Oriental and the Gallic churches. In
      the origin of the disputes the Roman pontiffs affected a
      character of neutrality and moderation: 4 they condemned the
      innovation, but they acquiesced in the sentiment, of their
      Transalpine brethren: they seemed desirous of casting a veil of
      silence and charity over the superfluous research; and in the
      correspondence of Charlemagne and Leo the Third, the pope assumes
      the liberality of a statesman, and the prince descends to the
      passions and prejudices of a priest. 5 But the orthodoxy of Rome
      spontaneously obeyed the impulse of the temporal policy; and the
      _filioque_, which Leo wished to erase, was transcribed in the
      symbol and chanted in the liturgy of the Vatican. The Nicene and
      Athanasian creeds are held as the Catholic faith, without which
      none can be saved; and both Papists and Protestants must now
      sustain and return the anathemas of the Greeks, who deny the
      procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, as well as from the
      Father. Such articles of faith are not susceptible of treaty; but
      the rules of discipline will vary in remote and independent
      churches; and the reason, even of divines, might allow, that the
      difference is inevitable and harmless. The craft or superstition
      of Rome has imposed on her priests and deacons the rigid
      obligation of celibacy; among the Greeks it is confined to the
      bishops; the loss is compensated by dignity or annihilated by
      age; and the parochial clergy, the papas, enjoy the conjugal
      society of the wives whom they have married before their entrance
      into holy orders. A question concerning the _Azyms_ was fiercely
      debated in the eleventh century, and the essence of the Eucharist
      was supposed in the East and West to depend on the use of
      leavened or unleavened bread. Shall I mention in a serious
      history the furious reproaches that were urged against the
      Latins, who for a long while remained on the defensive? They
      neglected to abstain, according to the apostolical decree, from
      things strangled, and from blood: they fasted (a Jewish
      observance!) on the Saturday of each week: during the first week
      of Lent they permitted the use of milk and cheese; 6 their infirm
      monks were indulged in the taste of flesh; and animal grease was
      substituted for the want of vegetable oil: the holy chrism or
      unction in baptism was reserved to the episcopal order: the
      bishops, as the bridegrooms of their churches, were decorated
      with rings; their priests shaved their faces, and baptized by a
      single immersion. Such were the crimes which provoked the zeal of
      the patriarchs of Constantinople; and which were justified with
      equal zeal by the doctors of the Latin church. 7

      2 (return) [ ''AndreV dussebeiV kai apotropaioi, andreV ek sktouV
      anadunteV, thV gar 'Esperiou moiraV uphrcon gennhmata, (Phot.
      Epist. p. 47, edit. Montacut.) The Oriental patriarch continues
      to apply the images of thunder, earthquake, hail, wild boar,
      precursors of Antichrist, &c., &c.]

      3 (return) [ The mysterious subject of the procession of the Holy
      Ghost is discussed in the historical, theological, and
      controversial sense, or nonsense, by the Jesuit Petavius.
      (Dogmata Theologica, tom. ii. l. vii. p. 362—440.)]

      4 (return) [ Before the shrine of St. Peter he placed two shields
      of the weight of 94 1/2 pounds of pure silver; on which he
      inscribed the text of both creeds, (utroque symbolo,) pro amore
      et _cautelâ_ orthodoxæ fidei, (Anastas. in Leon. III. in
      Muratori, tom. iii. pars. i. p. 208.) His language most clearly
      proves, that neither the _filioque_, nor the Athanasian creed
      were received at Rome about the year 830.]

      5 (return) [ The Missi of Charlemagne pressed him to declare,
      that all who rejected the _filioque_, or at least the doctrine,
      must be damned. All, replies the pope, are not capable of
      reaching the altiora mysteria qui potuerit, et non voluerit,
      salvus esse non potest, (Collect. Concil. tom. ix. p. 277—286.)
      The _potuerit_ would leave a large loophole of salvation!]

      6 (return) [ In France, after some harsher laws, the
      ecclesiastical discipline is now relaxed: milk, cheese, and
      butter, are become a perpetual, and eggs an annual, indulgence in
      Lent, (Vie privée des François, tom. ii. p. 27—38.)]

      7 (return) [ The original monuments of the schism, of the charges
      of the Greeks against the Latins, are deposited in the epistles
      of Photius, (Epist Encyclica, ii. p. 47—61,) and of Michael
      Cerularius, (Canisii Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iii. p. i. p.
      281—324, edit. Basnage, with the prolix answer of Cardinal
      Humbert.)]

      Bigotry and national aversion are powerful magnifiers of every
      object of dispute; but the immediate cause of the schism of the
      Greeks may be traced in the emulation of the leading prelates,
      who maintained the supremacy of the old metropolis superior to
      all, and of the reigning capital, inferior to none, in the
      Christian world. About the middle of the ninth century, Photius,
      8 an ambitious layman, the captain of the guards and principal
      secretary, was promoted by merit and favor to the more desirable
      office of patriarch of Constantinople. In science, even
      ecclesiastical science, he surpassed the clergy of the age; and
      the purity of his morals has never been impeached: but his
      ordination was hasty, his rise was irregular; and Ignatius, his
      abdicated predecessor, was yet supported by the public compassion
      and the obstinacy of his adherents. They appealed to the tribunal
      of Nicholas the First, one of the proudest and most aspiring of
      the Roman pontiffs, who embraced the welcome opportunity of
      judging and condemning his rival of the East. Their quarrel was
      embittered by a conflict of jurisdiction over the king and nation
      of the Bulgarians; nor was their recent conversion to
      Christianity of much avail to either prelate, unless he could
      number the proselytes among the subjects of his power. With the
      aid of his court the Greek patriarch was victorious; but in the
      furious contest he deposed in his turn the successor of St.
      Peter, and involved the Latin church in the reproach of heresy
      and schism. Photius sacrificed the peace of the world to a short
      and precarious reign: he fell with his patron, the Cæsar Bardas;
      and Basil the Macedonian performed an act of justice in the
      restoration of Ignatius, whose age and dignity had not been
      sufficiently respected. From his monastery, or prison, Photius
      solicited the favor of the emperor by pathetic complaints and
      artful flattery; and the eyes of his rival were scarcely closed,
      when he was again restored to the throne of Constantinople. After
      the death of Basil he experienced the vicissitudes of courts and
      the ingratitude of a royal pupil: the patriarch was again
      deposed, and in his last solitary hours he might regret the
      freedom of a secular and studious life. In each revolution, the
      breath, the nod, of the sovereign had been accepted by a
      submissive clergy; and a synod of three hundred bishops was
      always prepared to hail the triumph, or to stigmatize the fall,
      of the holy, or the execrable, Photius. 9 By a delusive promise
      of succor or reward, the popes were tempted to countenance these
      various proceedings; and the synods of Constantinople were
      ratified by their epistles or legates. But the court and the
      people, Ignatius and Photius, were equally adverse to their
      claims; their ministers were insulted or imprisoned; the
      procession of the Holy Ghost was forgotten; Bulgaria was forever
      annexed to the Byzantine throne; and the schism was prolonged by
      their rigid censure of all the multiplied ordinations of an
      irregular patriarch. The darkness and corruption of the tenth
      century suspended the intercourse, without reconciling the minds,
      of the two nations. But when the Norman sword restored the
      churches of Apulia to the jurisdiction of Rome, the departing
      flock was warned, by a petulant epistle of the Greek patriarch,
      to avoid and abhor the errors of the Latins. The rising majesty
      of Rome could no longer brook the insolence of a rebel; and
      Michael Cerularius was excommunicated in the heart of
      Constantinople by the pope’s legates. Shaking the dust from their
      feet, they deposited on the altar of St. Sophia a direful
      anathema, 10 which enumerates the seven mortal heresies of the
      Greeks, and devotes the guilty teachers, and their unhappy
      sectaries, to the eternal society of the devil and his angels.
      According to the emergencies of the church and state, a friendly
      correspondence was some times resumed; the language of charity
      and concord was sometimes affected; but the Greeks have never
      recanted their errors; the popes have never repealed their
      sentence; and from this thunderbolt we may date the consummation
      of the schism. It was enlarged by each ambitious step of the
      Roman pontiffs: the emperors blushed and trembled at the
      ignominious fate of their royal brethren of Germany; and the
      people were scandalized by the temporal power and military life
      of the Latin clergy. 11

      8 (return) [ The xth volume of the Venice edition of the Councils
      contains all the acts of the synods, and history of Photius: they
      are abridged, with a faint tinge of prejudice or prudence, by
      Dupin and Fleury.]

      9 (return) [ The synod of Constantinople, held in the year 869,
      is the viiith of the general councils, the last assembly of the
      East which is recognized by the Roman church. She rejects the
      synods of Constantinople of the years 867 and 879, which were,
      however, equally numerous and noisy; but they were favorable to
      Photius.]

      10 (return) [ See this anathema in the Councils, tom. xi. p.
      1457—1460.]

      11 (return) [ Anna Comnena (Alexiad, l. i. p. 31—33) represents
      the abhorrence, not only of the church, but of the palace, for
      Gregory VII., the popes and the Latin communion. The style of
      Cinnamus and Nicetas is still more vehement. Yet how calm is the
      voice of history compared with that of polemics!]

      The aversion of the Greeks and Latins was nourished and
      manifested in the three first expeditions to the Holy Land.
      Alexius Comnenus contrived the absence at least of the formidable
      pilgrims: his successors, Manuel and Isaac Angelus, conspired
      with the Moslems for the ruin of the greatest princes of the
      Franks; and their crooked and malignant policy was seconded by
      the active and voluntary obedience of every order of their
      subjects. Of this hostile temper, a large portion may doubtless
      be ascribed to the difference of language, dress, and manners,
      which severs and alienates the nations of the globe. The pride,
      as well as the prudence, of the sovereign was deeply wounded by
      the intrusion of foreign armies, that claimed a right of
      traversing his dominions, and passing under the walls of his
      capital: his subjects were insulted and plundered by the rude
      strangers of the West: and the hatred of the pusillanimous Greeks
      was sharpened by secret envy of the bold and pious enterprises of
      the Franks. But these profane causes of national enmity were
      fortified and inflamed by the venom of religious zeal. Instead of
      a kind embrace, a hospitable reception from their Christian
      brethren of the East, every tongue was taught to repeat the names
      of schismatic and heretic, more odious to an orthodox ear than
      those of pagan and infidel: instead of being loved for the
      general conformity of faith and worship, they were abhorred for
      some rules of discipline, some questions of theology, in which
      themselves or their teachers might differ from the Oriental
      church. In the crusade of Louis the Seventh, the Greek clergy
      washed and purified the altars which had been defiled by the
      sacrifice of a French priest. The companions of Frederic
      Barbarossa deplore the injuries which they endured, both in word
      and deed, from the peculiar rancor of the bishops and monks.
      Their prayers and sermons excited the people against the impious
      Barbarians; and the patriarch is accused of declaring, that the
      faithful might obtain the redemption of all their sins by the
      extirpation of the schismatics. 12 An enthusiast, named
      Dorotheus, alarmed the fears, and restored the confidence, of the
      emperor, by a prophetic assurance, that the German heretic, after
      assaulting the gate of Blachernes, would be made a signal example
      of the divine vengeance. The passage of these mighty armies were
      rare and perilous events; but the crusades introduced a frequent
      and familiar intercourse between the two nations, which enlarged
      their knowledge without abating their prejudices. The wealth and
      luxury of Constantinople demanded the productions of every
      climate; these imports were balanced by the art and labor of her
      numerous inhabitants; her situation invites the commerce of the
      world; and, in every period of her existence, that commerce has
      been in the hands of foreigners. After the decline of Amalphi,
      the Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese, introduced their factories
      and settlements into the capital of the empire: their services
      were rewarded with honors and immunities; they acquired the
      possession of lands and houses; their families were multiplied by
      marriages with the natives; and, after the toleration of a
      Mahometan mosque, it was impossible to interdict the churches of
      the Roman rite. 13 The two wives of Manuel Comnenus 14 were of
      the race of the Franks: the first, a sister-in-law of the emperor
      Conrad; the second, a daughter of the prince of Antioch: he
      obtained for his son Alexius a daughter of Philip Augustus, king
      of France; and he bestowed his own daughter on a marquis of
      Montferrat, who was educated and dignified in the palace of
      Constantinople. The Greek encountered the arms, and aspired to
      the empire, of the West: he esteemed the valor, and trusted the
      fidelity, of the Franks; 15 their military talents were unfitly
      recompensed by the lucrative offices of judges and treasures; the
      policy of Manuel had solicited the alliance of the pope; and the
      popular voice accused him of a partial bias to the nation and
      religion of the Latins. 16 During his reign, and that of his
      successor Alexius, they were exposed at Constantinople to the
      reproach of foreigners, heretics, and favorites; and this triple
      guilt was severely expiated in the tumult, which announced the
      return and elevation of Andronicus. 17 The people rose in arms:
      from the Asiatic shore the tyrant despatched his troops and
      galleys to assist the national revenge; and the hopeless
      resistance of the strangers served only to justify the rage, and
      sharpen the daggers, of the assassins. Neither age, nor sex, nor
      the ties of friendship or kindred, could save the victims of
      national hatred, and avarice, and religious zeal; the Latins were
      slaughtered in their houses and in the streets; their quarter was
      reduced to ashes; the clergy were burnt in their churches, and
      the sick in their hospitals; and some estimate may be formed of
      the slain from the clemency which sold above four thousand
      Christians in perpetual slavery to the Turks. The priests and
      monks were the loudest and most active in the destruction of the
      schismatics; and they chanted a thanksgiving to the Lord, when
      the head of a Roman cardinal, the pope’s legate, was severed from
      his body, fastened to the tail of a dog, and dragged, with savage
      mockery, through the city. The more diligent of the strangers had
      retreated, on the first alarm, to their vessels, and escaped
      through the Hellespont from the scene of blood. In their flight,
      they burnt and ravaged two hundred miles of the sea-coast;
      inflicted a severe revenge on the guiltless subjects of the
      empire; marked the priests and monks as their peculiar enemies;
      and compensated, by the accumulation of plunder, the loss of
      their property and friends. On their return, they exposed to
      Italy and Europe the wealth and weakness, the perfidy and malice,
      of the Greeks, whose vices were painted as the genuine characters
      of heresy and schism. The scruples of the first crusaders had
      neglected the fairest opportunities of securing, by the
      possession of Constantinople, the way to the Holy Land: domestic
      revolution invited, and almost compelled, the French and
      Venetians to achieve the conquest of the Roman empire of the
      East.

      12 (return) [ His anonymous historian (de Expedit. Asiat. Fred.
      I. in Canisii Lection. Antiq. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 511, edit.
      Basnage) mentions the sermons of the Greek patriarch, quomodo
      Græcis injunxerat in remissionem peccatorum peregrinos occidere
      et delere de terra. Tagino observes, (in Scriptores Freher. tom.
      i. p. 409, edit. Struv.,) Græci hæreticos nos appellant: clerici
      et monachi dictis et factis persequuntur. We may add the
      declaration of the emperor Baldwin fifteen years afterwards: Hæc
      est (_gens_) quæ Latinos omnes non hominum nomine, sed canum
      dignabatur; quorum sanguinem effundere penè inter merita
      reputabant, (Gesta Innocent. III., c. 92, in Muratori, Script.
      Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. pars i. p. 536.) There may be some
      exaggeration, but it was as effectual for the action and reaction
      of hatred.]

      13 (return) [ See Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, l. vi. p. 161, 162,)
      and a remarkable passage of Nicetas, (in Manuel, l. v. c. 9,) who
      observes of the Venetians, kata smhnh kai jratriaV thn
      Kwnstantinou polin thV oikeiaV hllaxanto, &c.]

      14 (return) [ Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 186, 187.]

      15 (return) [ Nicetas in Manuel. l. vii. c. 2. Regnante enim
      (Manuele).... apud eum tantam Latinus populus repererat gratiam
      ut neglectis Græculis suis tanquam viris mollibus et
      effminatis,.... solis Latinis grandia committeret negotia....
      erga eos profusâ liberalitate abundabat.... ex omni orbe ad eum
      tanquam ad benefactorem nobiles et ignobiles concurrebant.
      Willelm. Tyr. xxii. c. 10.]

      16 (return) [ The suspicions of the Greeks would have been
      confirmed, if they had seen the political epistles of Manuel to
      Pope Alexander III., the enemy of his enemy Frederic I., in which
      the emperor declares his wish of uniting the Greeks and Latins as
      one flock under one shepherd, &c (See Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom.
      xv. p. 187, 213, 243.)]

      17 (return) [ See the Greek and Latin narratives in Nicetas (in
      Alexio Comneno, c. 10) and William of Tyre, (l. xxii. c. 10, 11,
      12, 13;) the first soft and concise, the second loud, copious,
      and tragical.]

      In the series of the Byzantine princes, I have exhibited the
      hypocrisy and ambition, the tyranny and fall, of Andronicus, the
      last male of the Comnenian family who reigned at Constantinople.
      The revolution, which cast him headlong from the throne, saved
      and exalted Isaac Angelus, 18 who descended by the females from
      the same Imperial dynasty. The successor of a second Nero might
      have found it an easy task to deserve the esteem and affection of
      his subjects; they sometimes had reason to regret the
      administration of Andronicus. The sound and vigorous mind of the
      tyrant was capable of discerning the connection between his own
      and the public interest; and while he was feared by all who could
      inspire him with fear, the unsuspected people, and the remote
      provinces, might bless the inexorable justice of their master.
      But his successor was vain and jealous of the supreme power,
      which he wanted courage and abilities to exercise: his vices were
      pernicious, his virtues (if he possessed any virtues) were
      useless, to mankind; and the Greeks, who imputed their calamities
      to his negligence, denied him the merit of any transient or
      accidental benefits of the times. Isaac slept on the throne, and
      was awakened only by the sound of pleasure: his vacant hours were
      amused by comedians and buffoons, and even to these buffoons the
      emperor was an object of contempt: his feasts and buildings
      exceeded the examples of royal luxury: the number of his eunuchs
      and domestics amounted to twenty thousand; and a daily sum of
      four thousand pounds of silver would swell to four millions
      sterling the annual expense of his household and table. His
      poverty was relieved by oppression; and the public discontent was
      inflamed by equal abuses in the collection, and the application,
      of the revenue. While the Greeks numbered the days of their
      servitude, a flattering prophet, whom he rewarded with the
      dignity of patriarch, assured him of a long and victorious reign
      of thirty-two years; during which he should extend his sway to
      Mount Libanus, and his conquests beyond the Euphrates. But his
      only step towards the accomplishment of the prediction was a
      splendid and scandalous embassy to Saladin, 19 to demand the
      restitution of the holy sepulchre, and to propose an offensive
      and defensive league with the enemy of the Christian name. In
      these unworthy hands, of Isaac and his brother, the remains of
      the Greek empire crumbled into dust. The Island of Cyprus, whose
      name excites the ideas of elegance and pleasure, was usurped by
      his namesake, a Comnenian prince; and by a strange concatenation
      of events, the sword of our English Richard bestowed that kingdom
      on the house of Lusignan, a rich compensation for the loss of
      Jerusalem.

      18 (return) [ The history of the reign of Isaac Angelus is
      composed, in three books, by the senator Nicetas, (p. 228—290;)
      and his offices of logothete, or principal secretary, and judge
      of the veil or palace, could not bribe the impartiality of the
      historian. He wrote, it is true, after the fall and death of his
      benefactor.]

      19 (return) [ See Bohadin, Vit. Saladin. p. 129—131, 226, vers.
      Schultens. The ambassador of Isaac was equally versed in the
      Greek, French, and Arabic languages; a rare instance in those
      times. His embassies were received with honor, dismissed without
      effect, and reported with scandal in the West.]

      The honor of the monarchy and the safety of the capital were
      deeply wounded by the revolt of the Bulgarians and Walachians.
      Since the victory of the second Basil, they had supported, above
      a hundred and seventy years, the loose dominion of the Byzantine
      princes; but no effectual measures had been adopted to impose the
      yoke of laws and manners on these savage tribes. By the command
      of Isaac, their sole means of subsistence, their flocks and
      herds, were driven away, to contribute towards the pomp of the
      royal nuptials; and their fierce warriors were exasperated by the
      denial of equal rank and pay in the military service. Peter and
      Asan, two powerful chiefs, of the race of the ancient kings, 20
      asserted their own rights and the national freedom; their
      dæmoniac impostors proclaimed to the crowd, that their glorious
      patron St. Demetrius had forever deserted the cause of the
      Greeks; and the conflagration spread from the banks of the Danube
      to the hills of Macedonia and Thrace. After some faint efforts,
      Isaac Angelus and his brother acquiesced in their independence;
      and the Imperial troops were soon discouraged by the bones of
      their fellow-soldiers, that were scattered along the passes of
      Mount Hæmus. By the arms and policy of John or Joannices, the
      second kingdom of Bulgaria was firmly established. The subtle
      Barbarian sent an embassy to Innocent the Third, to acknowledge
      himself a genuine son of Rome in descent and religion, 21 and
      humbly received from the pope the license of coining money, the
      royal title, and a Latin archbishop or patriarch. The Vatican
      exulted in the spiritual conquest of Bulgaria, the first object
      of the schism; and if the Greeks could have preserved the
      prerogatives of the church, they would gladly have resigned the
      rights of the monarchy.

      20 (return) [ Ducange, Familiæ, Dalmaticæ, p. 318, 319, 320. The
      original correspondence of the Bulgarian king and the Roman
      pontiff is inscribed in the Gesta Innocent. III. c. 66—82, p.
      513—525.]

      21 (return) [ The pope acknowledges his pedigree, a nobili urbis
      Romæ prosapiâ genitores tui originem traxerunt. This tradition,
      and the strong resemblance of the Latin and Walachian idioms, is
      explained by M. D’Anville, (Etats de l’Europe, p. 258—262.) The
      Italian colonies of the Dacia of Trajan were swept away by the
      tide of emigration from the Danube to the Volga, and brought back
      by another wave from the Volga to the Danube. Possible, but
      strange!]

      The Bulgarians were malicious enough to pray for the long life of
      Isaac Angelus, the surest pledge of their freedom and prosperity.
      Yet their chiefs could involve in the same indiscriminate
      contempt the family and nation of the emperor. “In all the
      Greeks,” said Asan to his troops, “the same climate, and
      character, and education, will be productive of the same fruits.
      Behold my lance,” continued the warrior, “and the long streamers
      that float in the wind. They differ only in color; they are
      formed of the same silk, and fashioned by the same workman; nor
      has the stripe that is stained in purple any superior price or
      value above its fellows.” 22 Several of these candidates for the
      purple successively rose and fell under the empire of Isaac; a
      general, who had repelled the fleets of Sicily, was driven to
      revolt and ruin by the ingratitude of the prince; and his
      luxurious repose was disturbed by secret conspiracies and popular
      insurrections. The emperor was saved by accident, or the merit of
      his servants: he was at length oppressed by an ambitious brother,
      who, for the hope of a precarious diadem, forgot the obligations
      of nature, of loyalty, and of friendship. 23 While Isaac in the
      Thracian valleys pursued the idle and solitary pleasures of the
      chase, his brother, Alexius Angelus, was invested with the
      purple, by the unanimous suffrage of the camp; the capital and
      the clergy subscribed to their choice; and the vanity of the new
      sovereign rejected the name of his fathers for the lofty and
      royal appellation of the Comnenian race. On the despicable
      character of Isaac I have exhausted the language of contempt, and
      can only add, that, in a reign of eight years, the baser Alexius
      24 was supported by the masculine vices of his wife Euphrosyne.
      The first intelligence of his fall was conveyed to the late
      emperor by the hostile aspect and pursuit of the guards, no
      longer his own: he fled before them above fifty miles, as far as
      Stagyra, in Macedonia; but the fugitive, without an object or a
      follower, was arrested, brought back to Constantinople, deprived
      of his eyes, and confined in a lonesome tower, on a scanty
      allowance of bread and water. At the moment of the revolution,
      his son Alexius, whom he educated in the hope of empire, was
      twelve years of age. He was spared by the usurper, and reduced to
      attend his triumph both in peace and war; but as the army was
      encamped on the sea-shore, an Italian vessel facilitated the
      escape of the royal youth; and, in the disguise of a common
      sailor, he eluded the search of his enemies, passed the
      Hellespont, and found a secure refuge in the Isle of Sicily.
      After saluting the threshold of the apostles, and imploring the
      protection of Pope Innocent the Third, Alexius accepted the kind
      invitation of his sister Irene, the wife of Philip of Swabia,
      king of the Romans. But in his passage through Italy, he heard
      that the flower of Western chivalry was assembled at Venice for
      the deliverance of the Holy Land; and a ray of hope was kindled
      in his bosom, that their invincible swords might be employed in
      his father’s restoration.

      22 (return) [ This parable is in the best savage style; but I
      wish the Walach had not introduced the classic name of Mysians,
      the experiment of the magnet or loadstone, and the passage of an
      old comic poet, (Nicetas in Alex. Comneno, l. i. p. 299, 300.)]

      23 (return) [ The Latins aggravate the ingratitude of Alexius, by
      supposing that he had been released by his brother Isaac from
      Turkish captivity This pathetic tale had doubtless been repeated
      at Venice and Zara but I do not readily discover its grounds in
      the Greek historians.]

      24 (return) [ See the reign of Alexius Angelus, or Comnenus, in
      the three books of Nicetas, p. 291—352.]

      About ten or twelve years after the loss of Jerusalem, the nobles
      of France were again summoned to the holy war by the voice of a
      third prophet, less extravagant, perhaps, than Peter the hermit,
      but far below St. Bernard in the merit of an orator and a
      statesman. An illiterate priest of the neighborhood of Paris,
      Fulk of Neuilly, 25 forsook his parochial duty, to assume the
      more flattering character of a popular and itinerant missionary.
      The fame of his sanctity and miracles was spread over the land;
      he declaimed, with severity and vehemence, against the vices of
      the age; and his sermons, which he preached in the streets of
      Paris, converted the robbers, the usurers, the prostitutes, and
      even the doctors and scholars of the university. No sooner did
      Innocent the Third ascend the chair of St. Peter, than he
      proclaimed in Italy, Germany, and France, the obligation of a new
      crusade. 26 The eloquent pontiff described the ruin of Jerusalem,
      the triumph of the Pagans, and the shame of Christendom; his
      liberality proposed the redemption of sins, a plenary indulgence
      to all who should serve in Palestine, either a year in person, or
      two years by a substitute; 27 and among his legates and orators
      who blew the sacred trumpet, Fulk of Neuilly was the loudest and
      most successful. The situation of the principal monarchs was
      averse to the pious summons. The emperor Frederic the Second was
      a child; and his kingdom of Germany was disputed by the rival
      houses of Brunswick and Swabia, the memorable factions of the
      Guelphs and Ghibelines. Philip Augustus of France had performed,
      and could not be persuaded to renew, the perilous vow; but as he
      was not less ambitious of praise than of power, he cheerfully
      instituted a perpetual fund for the defence of the Holy Land.
      Richard of England was satiated with the glory and misfortunes of
      his first adventure; and he presumed to deride the exhortations
      of Fulk of Neuilly, who was not abashed in the presence of kings.
      “You advise me,” said Plantagenet, “to dismiss my three
      daughters, pride, avarice, and incontinence: I bequeath them to
      the most deserving; my pride to the knights templars, my avarice
      to the monks of Cisteaux, and my incontinence to the prelates.”
      But the preacher was heard and obeyed by the great vassals, the
      princes of the second order; and Theobald, or Thibaut, count of
      Champagne, was the foremost in the holy race. The valiant youth,
      at the age of twenty-two years, was encouraged by the domestic
      examples of his father, who marched in the second crusade, and of
      his elder brother, who had ended his days in Palestine with the
      title of King of Jerusalem; two thousand two hundred knights owed
      service and homage to his peerage; 28 the nobles of Champagne
      excelled in all the exercises of war; 29 and, by his marriage
      with the heiress of Navarre, Thibaut could draw a band of hardy
      Gascons from either side of the Pyrenæan mountains. His companion
      in arms was Louis, count of Blois and Chartres; like himself of
      regal lineage, for both the princes were nephews, at the same
      time, of the kings of France and England. In a crowd of prelates
      and barons, who imitated their zeal, I distinguish the birth and
      merit of Matthew of Montmorency; the famous Simon of Montfort,
      the scourge of the Albigeois; and a valiant noble, Jeffrey of
      Villehardouin, 30 marshal of Champagne, 31 who has condescended,
      in the rude idiom of his age and country, 32 to write or dictate
      33 an original narrative of the councils and actions in which he
      bore a memorable part. At the same time, Baldwin, count of
      Flanders, who had married the sister of Thibaut, assumed the
      cross at Bruges, with his brother Henry, and the principal
      knights and citizens of that rich and industrious province. 34
      The vow which the chiefs had pronounced in churches, they
      ratified in tournaments; the operations of the war were debated
      in full and frequent assemblies; and it was resolved to seek the
      deliverance of Palestine in Egypt, a country, since Saladin’s
      death, which was almost ruined by famine and civil war. But the
      fate of so many royal armies displayed the toils and perils of a
      land expedition; and if the Flemings dwelt along the ocean, the
      French barons were destitute of ships and ignorant of navigation.
      They embraced the wise resolution of choosing six deputies or
      representatives, of whom Villehardouin was one, with a
      discretionary trust to direct the motions, and to pledge the
      faith, of the whole confederacy. The maritime states of Italy
      were alone possessed of the means of transporting the holy
      warriors with their arms and horses; and the six deputies
      proceeded to Venice, to solicit, on motives of piety or interest,
      the aid of that powerful republic.

      25 (return) [ See Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xvi. p. 26, &c., and
      Villehardouin, No. 1, with the observations of Ducange, which I
      always mean to quote with the original text.]

      26 (return) [ The contemporary life of Pope Innocent III.,
      published by Baluze and Muratori, (Scriptores Rerum Italicarum,
      tom. iii. pars i. p. 486—568), is most valuable for the important
      and original documents which are inserted in the text. The bull
      of the crusade may be read, c. 84, 85.]

      27 (return) [ Por-ce que cil pardon, fut issi gran, si s’en
      esmeurent mult li cuers des genz, et mult s’en croisierent, porce
      que li pardons ere si gran. Villehardouin, No. 1. Our
      philosophers may refine on the causes of the crusades, but such
      were the genuine feelings of a French knight.]

      28 (return) [ This number of fiefs (of which 1800 owed liege
      homage) was enrolled in the church of St. Stephen at Troyes, and
      attested A.D. 1213, by the marshal and butler of Champagne,
      (Ducange, Observ. p. 254.)]

      29 (return) [ Campania.... militiæ privilegio singularius
      excellit.... in tyrociniis.... prolusione armorum, &c., Duncage,
      p. 249, from the old Chronicle of Jerusalem, A.D. 1177—1199.]

      30 (return) [ The name of Villehardouin was taken from a village
      and castle in the diocese of Troyes, near the River Aube, between
      Bar and Arcis. The family was ancient and noble; the elder branch
      of our historian existed after the year 1400, the younger, which
      acquired the principality of Achaia, merged in the house of
      Savoy, (Ducange, p. 235—245.)]

      31 (return) [ This office was held by his father and his
      descendants; but Ducange has not hunted it with his usual
      sagacity. I find that, in the year 1356, it was in the family of
      Conflans; but these provincial have been long since eclipsed by
      the national marshals of France.]

      32 (return) [ This language, of which I shall produce some
      specimens, is explained by Vigenere and Ducange, in a version and
      glossary. The president Des Brosses (Méchanisme des Langues, tom.
      ii. p. 83) gives it as the example of a language which has ceased
      to be French, and is understood only by grammarians.]

      33 (return) [ His age, and his own expression, moi qui ceste uvre
      _dicta_, (No. 62, &c.,) may justify the suspicion (more probable
      than Mr. Wood’s on Homer) that he could neither read nor write.
      Yet Champagne may boast of the two first historians, the noble
      authors of French prose, Villehardouin and Joinville.]

      34 (return) [ The crusade and reigns of the counts of Flanders,
      Baldwin and his brother Henry, are the subject of a particular
      history by the Jesuit Doutremens, (Constantinopolis Belgica;
      Turnaci, 1638, in 4to.,) which I have only seen with the eyes of
      Ducange.]

      In the invasion of Italy by Attila, I have mentioned 35 the
      flight of the Venetians from the fallen cities of the continent,
      and their obscure shelter in the chain of islands that line the
      extremity of the Adriatic Gulf. In the midst of the waters, free,
      indigent, laborious, and inaccessible, they gradually coalesced
      into a republic: the first foundations of Venice were laid in the
      Island of Rialto; and the annual election of the twelve tribunes
      was superseded by the permanent office of a duke or doge. On the
      verge of the two empires, the Venetians exult in the belief of
      primitive and perpetual independence. 36 Against the Latins,
      their antique freedom has been asserted by the sword, and may be
      justified by the pen. Charlemagne himself resigned all claims of
      sovereignty to the islands of the Adriatic Gulf: his son Pepin
      was repulsed in the attacks of the _lagunas_ or canals, too deep
      for the cavalry, and too shallow for the vessels; and in every
      age, under the German Cæsars, the lands of the republic have been
      clearly distinguished from the kingdom of Italy. But the
      inhabitants of Venice were considered by themselves, by
      strangers, and by their sovereigns, as an inalienable portion of
      the Greek empire: 37 in the ninth and tenth centuries, the proofs
      of their subjection are numerous and unquestionable; and the vain
      titles, the servile honors, of the Byzantine court, so
      ambitiously solicited by their dukes, would have degraded the
      magistrates of a free people. But the bands of this dependence,
      which was never absolute or rigid, were imperceptibly relaxed by
      the ambition of Venice and the weakness of Constantinople.
      Obedience was softened into respect, privilege ripened into
      prerogative, and the freedom of domestic government was fortified
      by the independence of foreign dominion. The maritime cities of
      Istria and Dalmatia bowed to the sovereigns of the Adriatic; and
      when they armed against the Normans in the cause of Alexius, the
      emperor applied, not to the duty of his subjects, but to the
      gratitude and generosity of his faithful allies. The sea was
      their patrimony: 38 the western parts of the Mediterranean, from
      Tuscany to Gibraltar, were indeed abandoned to their rivals of
      Pisa and Genoa; but the Venetians acquired an early and lucrative
      share of the commerce of Greece and Egypt. Their riches increased
      with the increasing demand of Europe; their manufactures of silk
      and glass, perhaps the institution of their bank, are of high
      antiquity; and they enjoyed the fruits of their industry in the
      magnificence of public and private life. To assert her flag, to
      avenge her injuries, to protect the freedom of navigation, the
      republic could launch and man a fleet of a hundred galleys; and
      the Greeks, the Saracens, and the Normans, were encountered by
      her naval arms. The Franks of Syria were assisted by the
      Venetians in the reduction of the sea coast; but their zeal was
      neither blind nor disinterested; and in the conquest of Tyre,
      they shared the sovereignty of a city, the first seat of the
      commerce of the world. The policy of Venice was marked by the
      avarice of a trading, and the insolence of a maritime, power; yet
      her ambition was prudent: nor did she often forget that if armed
      galleys were the effect and safeguard, merchant vessels were the
      cause and supply, of her greatness. In her religion, she avoided
      the schisms of the Greeks, without yielding a servile obedience
      to the Roman pontiff; and a free intercourse with the infidels of
      every clime appears to have allayed betimes the fever of
      superstition. Her primitive government was a loose mixture of
      democracy and monarchy; the doge was elected by the votes of the
      general assembly; as long as he was popular and successful, he
      reigned with the pomp and authority of a prince; but in the
      frequent revolutions of the state, he was deposed, or banished,
      or slain, by the justice or injustice of the multitude. The
      twelfth century produced the first rudiments of the wise and
      jealous aristocracy, which has reduced the doge to a pageant, and
      the people to a cipher. 39

      35 (return) [ History, &c., vol. iii. p. 446, 447.]

      36 (return) [ The foundation and independence of Venice, and
      Pepin’s invasion, are discussed by Pagi (Critica, tom. iii. A.D.
      81, No. 4, &c.) and Beretti, (Dissert. Chorograph. Italiæ Medii
      Ævi, in Muratori, Script. tom. x. p. 153.) The two critics have a
      slight bias, the Frenchman adverse, the Italian favorable, to the
      republic.]

      37 (return) [ When the son of Charlemagne asserted his right of
      sovereignty, he was answered by the loyal Venetians, oti hmeiV
      douloi Jelomen einai tou 'Rwmaiwn basilewV, (Constantin.
      Porphyrogenit. de Administrat. Imperii, pars ii. c. 28, p. 85;)
      and the report of the ixth establishes the fact of the xth
      century, which is confirmed by the embassy of Liutprand of
      Cremona. The annual tribute, which the emperor allows them to pay
      to the king of Italy, alleviates, by doubling, their servitude;
      but the hateful word douloi must be translated, as in the charter
      of 827, (Laugier, Hist. de Venice, tom. i. p. 67, &c.,) by the
      softer appellation of _subditi_, or _fideles_.]

      38 (return) [ See the xxvth and xxxth dissertations of the
      Antiquitates Medii Ævi of Muratori. From Anderson’s History of
      Commerce, I understand that the Venetians did not trade to
      England before the year 1323. The most flourishing state of their
      wealth and commerce, in the beginning of the xvth century, is
      agreeably described by the Abbé Dubos, (Hist. de la Ligue de
      Cambray, tom. ii. p. 443—480.)]

      39 (return) [ The Venetians have been slow in writing and
      publishing their history. Their most ancient monuments are, 1.
      The rude Chronicle (perhaps) of John Sagorninus, (Venezia, 1765,
      in octavo,) which represents the state and manners of Venice in
      the year 1008. 2. The larger history of the doge, (1342—1354,)
      Andrew Dandolo, published for the first time in the xiith tom. of
      Muratori, A.D. 1728. The History of Venice by the Abbé Laugier,
      (Paris, 1728,) is a work of some merit, which I have chiefly used
      for the constitutional part. * Note: It is scarcely necessary to
      mention the valuable work of Count Daru, “History de Venise,” of
      which I hear that an Italian translation has been published, with
      notes defensive of the ancient republic. I have not yet seen this
      work.—M.]




      Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part II.

      When the six ambassadors of the French pilgrims arrived at
      Venice, they were hospitably entertained in the palace of St.
      Mark, by the reigning duke; his name was Henry Dandolo; 40 and he
      shone in the last period of human life as one of the most
      illustrious characters of the times. Under the weight of years,
      and after the loss of his eyes, 41 Dandolo retained a sound
      understanding and a manly courage: the spirit of a hero,
      ambitious to signalize his reign by some memorable exploits; and
      the wisdom of a patriot, anxious to build his fame on the glory
      and advantage of his country. He praised the bold enthusiasm and
      liberal confidence of the barons and their deputies: in such a
      cause, and with such associates, he should aspire, were he a
      private man, to terminate his life; but he was the servant of the
      republic, and some delay was requisite to consult, on this
      arduous business, the judgment of his colleagues. The proposal of
      the French was first debated by the six _sages_ who had been
      recently appointed to control the administration of the doge: it
      was next disclosed to the forty members of the council of state;
      and finally communicated to the legislative assembly of four
      hundred and fifty representatives, who were annually chosen in
      the six quarters of the city. In peace and war, the doge was
      still the chief of the republic; his legal authority was
      supported by the personal reputation of Dandolo: his arguments of
      public interest were balanced and approved; and he was authorized
      to inform the ambassadors of the following conditions of the
      treaty. 42 It was proposed that the crusaders should assemble at
      Venice, on the feast of St. John of the ensuing year; that
      flat-bottomed vessels should be prepared for four thousand five
      hundred horses, and nine thousand squires, with a number of ships
      sufficient for the embarkation of four thousand five hundred
      knights, and twenty thousand foot; that during a term of nine
      months they should be supplied with provisions, and transported
      to whatsoever coast the service of God and Christendom should
      require; and that the republic should join the armament with a
      squadron of fifty galleys. It was required, that the pilgrims
      should pay, before their departure, a sum of eighty-five thousand
      marks of silver; and that all conquests, by sea and land, should
      be equally divided between the confederates. The terms were hard;
      but the emergency was pressing, and the French barons were not
      less profuse of money than of blood. A general assembly was
      convened to ratify the treaty: the stately chapel and place of
      St. Mark were filled with ten thousand citizens; and the noble
      deputies were taught a new lesson of humbling themselves before
      the majesty of the people. “Illustrious Venetians,” said the
      marshal of Champagne, “we are sent by the greatest and most
      powerful barons of France to implore the aid of the masters of
      the sea for the deliverance of Jerusalem. They have enjoined us
      to fall prostrate at your feet; nor will we rise from the ground
      till you have promised to avenge with us the injuries of Christ.”
      The eloquence of their words and tears, 43 their martial aspect,
      and suppliant attitude, were applauded by a universal shout; as
      it were, says Jeffrey, by the sound of an earthquake. The
      venerable doge ascended the pulpit to urge their request by those
      motives of honor and virtue, which alone can be offered to a
      popular assembly: the treaty was transcribed on parchment,
      attested with oaths and seals, mutually accepted by the weeping
      and joyful representatives of France and Venice; and despatched
      to Rome for the approbation of Pope Innocent the Third. Two
      thousand marks were borrowed of the merchants for the first
      expenses of the armament. Of the six deputies, two repassed the
      Alps to announce their success, while their four companions made
      a fruitless trial of the zeal and emulation of the republics of
      Genoa and Pisa.

      40 (return) [ Henry Dandolo was eighty-four at his election,
      (A.D. 1192,) and ninety-seven at his death, (A.D. 1205.) See the
      Observations of Ducange sur Villehardouin, No. 204. But this
      _extraordinary_ longevity is not observed by the original
      writers, nor does there exist another example of a hero near a
      hundred years of age. Theophrastus might afford an instance of a
      writer of ninety-nine; but instead of ennenhkonta, (Prom. ad
      Character.,)I am much inclined to read ebdomhkonta, with his last
      editor Fischer, and the first thoughts of Casaubon. It is
      scarcely possible that the powers of the mind and body should
      support themselves till such a period of life.]

      41 (return) [ The modern Venetians (Laugier, tom. ii. p. 119)
      accuse the emperor Manuel; but the calumny is refuted by
      Villehardouin and the older writers, who suppose that Dandolo
      lost his eyes by a wound, (No. 31, and Ducange.) * Note: The
      accounts differ, both as to the extent and the cause of his
      blindness According to Villehardouin and others, the sight was
      totally lost; according to the Chronicle of Andrew Dandolo.
      (Murat. tom. xii. p. 322,) he was vise debilis. See Wilken, vol.
      v. p. 143.—M.]

      42 (return) [ See the original treaty in the Chronicle of Andrew
      Dandolo, p. 323—326.]

      43 (return) [ A reader of Villehardouin must observe the frequent
      tears of the marshal and his brother knights. Sachiez que la ot
      mainte lerme plorée de pitié, (No. 17;) mult plorant, (ibid.;)
      mainte lerme plorée, (No. 34;) si orent mult pitié et plorerent
      mult durement, (No. 60;) i ot mainte lerme plorée de pitié, (No.
      202.) They weep on every occasion of grief, joy, or devotion.]

      The execution of the treaty was still opposed by unforeseen
      difficulties and delays. The marshal, on his return to Troyes,
      was embraced and approved by Thibaut count of Champagne, who had
      been unanimously chosen general of the confederates. But the
      health of that valiant youth already declined, and soon became
      hopeless; and he deplored the untimely fate, which condemned him
      to expire, not in a field of battle, but on a bed of sickness. To
      his brave and numerous vassals, the dying prince distributed his
      treasures: they swore in his presence to accomplish his vow and
      their own; but some there were, says the marshal, who accepted
      his gifts and forfeited their words. The more resolute champions
      of the cross held a parliament at Soissons for the election of a
      new general; but such was the incapacity, or jealousy, or
      reluctance, of the princes of France, that none could be found
      both able and willing to assume the conduct of the enterprise.
      They acquiesced in the choice of a stranger, of Boniface marquis
      of Montferrat, descended of a race of heroes, and himself of
      conspicuous fame in the wars and negotiations of the times; 44
      nor could the piety or ambition of the Italian chief decline this
      honorable invitation. After visiting the French court, where he
      was received as a friend and kinsman, the marquis, in the church
      of Soissons, was invested with the cross of a pilgrim and the
      staff of a general; and immediately repassed the Alps, to prepare
      for the distant expedition of the East. About the festival of the
      Pentecost he displayed his banner, and marched towards Venice at
      the head of the Italians: he was preceded or followed by the
      counts of Flanders and Blois, and the most respectable barons of
      France; and their numbers were swelled by the pilgrims of
      Germany, 45 whose object and motives were similar to their own.
      The Venetians had fulfilled, and even surpassed, their
      engagements: stables were constructed for the horses, and
      barracks for the troops: the magazines were abundantly
      replenished with forage and provisions; and the fleet of
      transports, ships, and galleys, was ready to hoist sail as soon
      as the republic had received the price of the freight and
      armament. But that price far exceeded the wealth of the crusaders
      who were assembled at Venice. The Flemings, whose obedience to
      their count was voluntary and precarious, had embarked in their
      vessels for the long navigation of the ocean and Mediterranean;
      and many of the French and Italians had preferred a cheaper and
      more convenient passage from Marseilles and Apulia to the Holy
      Land. Each pilgrim might complain, that after he had furnished
      his own contribution, he was made responsible for the deficiency
      of his absent brethren: the gold and silver plate of the chiefs,
      which they freely delivered to the treasury of St. Marks, was a
      generous but inadequate sacrifice; and after all their efforts,
      thirty-four thousand marks were still wanting to complete the
      stipulated sum. The obstacle was removed by the policy and
      patriotism of the doge, who proposed to the barons, that if they
      would join their arms in reducing some revolted cities of
      Dalmatia, he would expose his person in the holy war, and obtain
      from the republic a long indulgence, till some wealthy conquest
      should afford the means of satisfying the debt. After much
      scruple and hesitation, they chose rather to accept the offer
      than to relinquish the enterprise; and the first hostilities of
      the fleet and army were directed against Zara, 46 a strong city
      of the Sclavonian coast, which had renounced its allegiance to
      Venice, and implored the protection of the king of Hungary. 47
      The crusaders burst the chain or boom of the harbor; landed their
      horses, troops, and military engines; and compelled the
      inhabitants, after a defence of five days, to surrender at
      discretion: their lives were spared, but the revolt was punished
      by the pillage of their houses and the demolition of their walls.
      The season was far advanced; the French and Venetians resolved to
      pass the winter in a secure harbor and plentiful country; but
      their repose was disturbed by national and tumultuous quarrels of
      the soldiers and mariners. The conquest of Zara had scattered the
      seeds of discord and scandal: the arms of the allies had been
      stained in their outset with the blood, not of infidels, but of
      Christians: the king of Hungary and his new subjects were
      themselves enlisted under the banner of the cross; and the
      scruples of the devout were magnified by the fear of lassitude of
      the reluctant pilgrims. The pope had excommunicated the false
      crusaders who had pillaged and massacred their brethren, 48 and
      only the marquis Boniface and Simon of Montfort 481 escaped these
      spiritual thunders; the one by his absence from the siege, the
      other by his final departure from the camp. Innocent might
      absolve the simple and submissive penitents of France; but he was
      provoked by the stubborn reason of the Venetians, who refused to
      confess their guilt, to accept their pardon, or to allow, in
      their temporal concerns, the interposition of a priest.

      44 (return) [ By a victory (A.D. 1191) over the citizens of Asti,
      by a crusade to Palestine, and by an embassy from the pope to the
      German princes, (Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom. x. p. 163,
      202.)]

      45 (return) [ See the crusade of the Germans in the Historia C.
      P. of Gunther, (Canisii Antiq. Lect. tom. iv. p. v.—viii.,) who
      celebrates the pilgrimage of his abbot Martin, one of the
      preaching rivals of Fulk of Neuilly. His monastery, of the
      Cistercian order, was situate in the diocese of Basil.]

      46 (return) [ Jadera, now Zara, was a Roman colony, which
      acknowledged Augustus for its parent. It is now only two miles
      round, and contains five or six thousand inhabitants; but the
      fortifications are strong, and it is joined to the main land by a
      bridge. See the travels of the two companions, Spon and Wheeler,
      (Voyage de Dalmatie, de Grèce, &c., tom. i. p. 64—70. Journey
      into Greece, p. 8—14;) the last of whom, by mistaking _Sestertia_
      for _Sestertii_, values an arch with statues and columns at
      twelve pounds. If, in his time, there were no trees near Zara,
      the cherry-trees were not yet planted which produce our
      incomparable _marasquin_.]

      47 (return) [ Katona (Hist. Critica Reg. Hungariæ, Stirpis Arpad.
      tom. iv. p. 536—558) collects all the facts and testimonies most
      adverse to the conquerors of Zara.]

      48 (return) [ See the whole transaction, and the sentiments of
      the pope, in the Epistles of Innocent III. Gesta, c. 86, 87, 88.]

      481 (return) [ Montfort protested against the siege. Guido, the
      abbot of Vaux de Sernay, in the name of the pope, interdicted the
      attack on a Christian city; and the immediate surrender of the
      town was thus delayed for five days of fruitless resistance.
      Wilken, vol. v. p. 167. See likewise, at length, the history of
      the interdict issued by the pope. Ibid.—M.]

      The assembly of such formidable powers by sea and land had
      revived the hopes of young 49 Alexius; and both at Venice and
      Zara, he solicited the arms of the crusaders, for his own
      restoration and his father’s 50 deliverance. The royal youth was
      recommended by Philip king of Germany: his prayers and presence
      excited the compassion of the camp; and his cause was embraced
      and pleaded by the marquis of Montferrat and the doge of Venice.
      A double alliance, and the dignity of Cæsar, had connected with
      the Imperial family the two elder brothers of Boniface: 51 he
      expected to derive a kingdom from the important service; and the
      more generous ambition of Dandolo was eager to secure the
      inestimable benefits of trade and dominion that might accrue to
      his country. 52 Their influence procured a favorable audience for
      the ambassadors of Alexius; and if the magnitude of his offers
      excited some suspicion, the motives and rewards which he
      displayed might justify the delay and diversion of those forces
      which had been consecrated to the deliverance of Jerusalem. He
      promised in his own and his father’s name, that as soon as they
      should be seated on the throne of Constantinople, they would
      terminate the long schism of the Greeks, and submit themselves
      and their people to the lawful supremacy of the Roman church. He
      engaged to recompense the labors and merits of the crusaders, by
      the immediate payment of two hundred thousand marks of silver; to
      accompany them in person to Egypt; or, if it should be judged
      more advantageous, to maintain, during a year, ten thousand men,
      and, during his life, five hundred knights, for the service of
      the Holy Land. These tempting conditions were accepted by the
      republic of Venice; and the eloquence of the doge and marquis
      persuaded the counts of Flanders, Blois, and St. Pol, with eight
      barons of France, to join in the glorious enterprise. A treaty of
      offensive and defensive alliance was confirmed by their oaths and
      seals; and each individual, according to his situation and
      character, was swayed by the hope of public or private advantage;
      by the honor of restoring an exiled monarch; or by the sincere
      and probable opinion, that their efforts in Palestine would be
      fruitless and unavailing, and that the acquisition of
      Constantinople must precede and prepare the recovery of
      Jerusalem. But they were the chiefs or equals of a valiant band
      of freemen and volunteers, who thought and acted for themselves:
      the soldiers and clergy were divided; and, if a large majority
      subscribed to the alliance, the numbers and arguments of the
      dissidents were strong and respectable. 53 The boldest hearts
      were appalled by the report of the naval power and impregnable
      strength of Constantinople; and their apprehensions were
      disguised to the world, and perhaps to themselves, by the more
      decent objections of religion and duty. They alleged the sanctity
      of a vow, which had drawn them from their families and homes to
      the rescue of the holy sepulchre; nor should the dark and crooked
      counsels of human policy divert them from a pursuit, the event of
      which was in the hands of the Almighty. Their first offence, the
      attack of Zara, had been severely punished by the reproach of
      their conscience and the censures of the pope; nor would they
      again imbrue their hands in the blood of their fellow-Christians.
      The apostle of Rome had pronounced; nor would they usurp the
      right of avenging with the sword the schism of the Greeks and the
      doubtful usurpation of the Byzantine monarch. On these principles
      or pretences, many pilgrims, the most distinguished for their
      valor and piety, withdrew from the camp; and their retreat was
      less pernicious than the open or secret opposition of a
      discontented party, that labored, on every occasion, to separate
      the army and disappoint the enterprise.

      49 (return) [ A modern reader is surprised to hear of the valet
      de Constantinople, as applied to young Alexius, on account of his
      youth, like the _infants_ of Spain, and the _nobilissimus puer_
      of the Romans. The pages and _valets_ of the knights were as
      noble as themselves, (Villehardouin and Ducange, No. 36.)]

      50 (return) [ The emperor Isaac is styled by Villehardouin,
      _Sursac_, (No. 35, &c.,) which may be derived from the French
      _Sire_, or the Greek Kur (kurioV?) melted into his proper name;
      the further corruptions of Tursac and Conserac will instruct us
      what license may have been used in the old dynasties of Assyria
      and Egypt.]

      51 (return) [ Reinier and Conrad: the former married Maria,
      daughter of the emperor Manuel Comnenus; the latter was the
      husband of Theodora Angela, sister of the emperors Isaac and
      Alexius. Conrad abandoned the Greek court and princess for the
      glory of defending Tyre against Saladin, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant.
      p. 187, 203.)]

      52 (return) [ Nicetas (in Alexio Comneno, l. iii. c. 9) accuses
      the doge and Venetians as the first authors of the war against
      Constantinople, and considers only as a kuma epi kumati, the
      arrival and shameful offers of the royal exile. * Note: He
      admits, however, that the Angeli had committed depredations on
      the Venetian trade, and the emperor himself had refused the
      payment of part of the stipulated compensation for the seizure of
      the Venetian merchandise by the emperor Manuel. Nicetas, in
      loc.—M.]

      53 (return) [ Villehardouin and Gunther represent the sentiments
      of the two parties. The abbot Martin left the army at Zara,
      proceeded to Palestine, was sent ambassador to Constantinople,
      and became a reluctant witness of the second siege.]

      Notwithstanding this defection, the departure of the fleet and
      army was vigorously pressed by the Venetians, whose zeal for the
      service of the royal youth concealed a just resentment to his
      nation and family. They were mortified by the recent preference
      which had been given to Pisa, the rival of their trade; they had
      a long arrear of debt and injury to liquidate with the Byzantine
      court; and Dandolo might not discourage the popular tale, that he
      had been deprived of his eyes by the emperor Manuel, who
      perfidiously violated the sanctity of an ambassador. A similar
      armament, for ages, had not rode the Adriatic: it was composed of
      one hundred and twenty flat-bottomed vessels or _palanders_ for
      the horses; two hundred and forty transports filled with men and
      arms; seventy store-ships laden with provisions; and fifty stout
      galleys, well prepared for the encounter of an enemy. 54 While
      the wind was favorable, the sky serene, and the water smooth,
      every eye was fixed with wonder and delight on the scene of
      military and naval pomp which overspread the sea. 541 The shields
      of the knights and squires, at once an ornament and a defence,
      were arranged on either side of the ships; the banners of the
      nations and families were displayed from the stern; our modern
      artillery was supplied by three hundred engines for casting
      stones and darts: the fatigues of the way were cheered with the
      sound of music; and the spirits of the adventurers were raised by
      the mutual assurance, that forty thousand Christian heroes were
      equal to the conquest of the world. 55 In the navigation 56 from
      Venice and Zara, the fleet was successfully steered by the skill
      and experience of the Venetian pilots: at Durazzo, the
      confederates first landed on the territories of the Greek empire:
      the Isle of Corfu afforded a station and repose; they doubled,
      without accident, the perilous cape of Malea, the southern point
      of Peloponnesus or the Morea; made a descent in the islands of
      Negropont and Andros; and cast anchor at Abydus on the Asiatic
      side of the Hellespont. These preludes of conquest were easy and
      bloodless: the Greeks of the provinces, without patriotism or
      courage, were crushed by an irresistible force: the presence of
      the lawful heir might justify their obedience; and it was
      rewarded by the modesty and discipline of the Latins. As they
      penetrated through the Hellespont, the magnitude of their navy
      was compressed in a narrow channel, and the face of the waters
      was darkened with innumerable sails. They again expanded in the
      basin of the Propontis, and traversed that placid sea, till they
      approached the European shore, at the abbey of St. Stephen, three
      leagues to the west of Constantinople. The prudent doge dissuaded
      them from dispersing themselves in a populous and hostile land;
      and, as their stock of provisions was reduced, it was resolved,
      in the season of harvest, to replenish their store-ships in the
      fertile islands of the Propontis. With this resolution, they
      directed their course: but a strong gale, and their own
      impatience, drove them to the eastward; and so near did they run
      to the shore and the city, that some volleys of stones and darts
      were exchanged between the ships and the rampart. As they passed
      along, they gazed with admiration on the capital of the East, or,
      as it should seem, of the earth; rising from her seven hills, and
      towering over the continents of Europe and Asia. The swelling
      domes and lofty spires of five hundred palaces and churches were
      gilded by the sun and reflected in the waters: the walls were
      crowded with soldiers and spectators, whose numbers they beheld,
      of whose temper they were ignorant; and each heart was chilled by
      the reflection, that, since the beginning of the world, such an
      enterprise had never been undertaken by such a handful of
      warriors. But the momentary apprehension was dispelled by hope
      and valor; and every man, says the marshal of Champagne, glanced
      his eye on the sword or lance which he must speedily use in the
      glorious conflict. 57 The Latins cast anchor before Chalcedon;
      the mariners only were left in the vessels: the soldiers, horses,
      and arms, were safely landed; and, in the luxury of an Imperial
      palace, the barons tasted the first fruits of their success. On
      the third day, the fleet and army moved towards Scutari, the
      Asiatic suburb of Constantinople: a detachment of five hundred
      Greek horse was surprised and defeated by fourscore French
      knights; and in a halt of nine days, the camp was plentifully
      supplied with forage and provisions.

      54 (return) [ The birth and dignity of Andrew Dandolo gave him
      the motive and the means of searching in the archives of Venice
      the memorable story of his ancestor. His brevity seems to accuse
      the copious and more recent narratives of Sanudo, (in Muratori,
      Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xxii.,) Blondus, Sabellicus, and
      Rhamnusius.]

      541 (return) [ This description rather belongs to the first
      setting sail of the expedition from Venice, before the siege of
      Zara. The armament did not return to Venice.—M.]

      55 (return) [ Villehardouin, No. 62. His feelings and expressions
      are original: he often weeps, but he rejoices in the glories and
      perils of war with a spirit unknown to a sedentary writer.]

      56 (return) [ In this voyage, almost all the geographical names
      are corrupted by the Latins. The modern appellation of Chalcis,
      and all Euba, is derived from its _Euripus_, _Evripo_,
      _Negri-po_, _Negropont_, which dishonors our maps, (D’Anville,
      Géographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 263.)]

      57 (return) [ Et sachiez que il ni ot si hardi cui le cuer ne
      fremist, (c. 66.).. Chascuns regardoit ses armes.... que par tems
      en arons mestier, (c. 67.) Such is the honesty of courage.]

      In relating the invasion of a great empire, it may seem strange
      that I have not described the obstacles which should have checked
      the progress of the strangers. The Greeks, in truth, were an
      unwarlike people; but they were rich, industrious, and subject to
      the will of a single man: had that man been capable of fear, when
      his enemies were at a distance, or of courage, when they
      approached his person. The first rumor of his nephew’s alliance
      with the French and Venetians was despised by the usurper
      Alexius: his flatterers persuaded him, that in this contempt he
      was bold and sincere; and each evening, in the close of the
      banquet, he thrice discomfited the Barbarians of the West. These
      Barbarians had been justly terrified by the report of his naval
      power; and the sixteen hundred fishing boats of Constantinople 58
      could have manned a fleet, to sink them in the Adriatic, or stop
      their entrance in the mouth of the Hellespont. But all force may
      be annihilated by the negligence of the prince and the venality
      of his ministers. The great duke, or admiral, made a scandalous,
      almost a public, auction of the sails, the masts, and the
      rigging: the royal forests were reserved for the more important
      purpose of the chase; and the trees, says Nicetas, were guarded
      by the eunuchs, like the groves of religious worship. 59 From his
      dream of pride, Alexius was awakened by the siege of Zara, and
      the rapid advances of the Latins; as soon as he saw the danger
      was real, he thought it inevitable, and his vain presumption was
      lost in abject despondency and despair. He suffered these
      contemptible Barbarians to pitch their camp in the sight of the
      palace; and his apprehensions were thinly disguised by the pomp
      and menace of a suppliant embassy. The sovereign of the Romans
      was astonished (his ambassadors were instructed to say) at the
      hostile appearance of the strangers. If these pilgrims were
      sincere in their vow for the deliverance of Jerusalem, his voice
      must applaud, and his treasures should assist, their pious design
      but should they dare to invade the sanctuary of empire, their
      numbers, were they ten times more considerable, should not
      protect them from his just resentment. The answer of the doge and
      barons was simple and magnanimous. “In the cause of honor and
      justice,” they said, “we despise the usurper of Greece, his
      threats, and his offers. _Our_ friendship and _his_ allegiance
      are due to the lawful heir, to the young prince, who is seated
      among us, and to his father, the emperor Isaac, who has been
      deprived of his sceptre, his freedom, and his eyes, by the crime
      of an ungrateful brother. Let that brother confess his guilt, and
      implore forgiveness, and we ourselves will intercede, that he may
      be permitted to live in affluence and security. But let him not
      insult us by a second message; our reply will be made in arms, in
      the palace of Constantinople.”

      58 (return) [ Eandem urbem plus in solis navibus piscatorum
      abundare, quam illos in toto navigio. Habebat enim mille et
      sexcentas piscatorias naves..... Bellicas autem sive mercatorias
      habebant infinitæ multitudinis et portum tutissimum. Gunther,
      Hist. C. P. c. 8, p. 10.]

      59 (return) [ Kaqaper iervn alsewn, eipein de kai Jeojuteutwn
      paradeiswn ejeid?onto toutwni. Nicetas in Alex. Comneno, l. iii.
      c. 9, p. 348.]

      On the tenth day of their encampment at Scutari, the crusaders
      prepared themselves, as soldiers and as Catholics, for the
      passage of the Bosphorus. Perilous indeed was the adventure; the
      stream was broad and rapid: in a calm the current of the Euxine
      might drive down the liquid and unextinguishable fires of the
      Greeks; and the opposite shores of Europe were defended by
      seventy thousand horse and foot in formidable array. On this
      memorable day, which happened to be bright and pleasant, the
      Latins were distributed in six battles or divisions; the first,
      or vanguard, was led by the count of Flanders, one of the most
      powerful of the Christian princes in the skill and number of his
      crossbows. The four successive battles of the French were
      commanded by his brother Henry, the counts of St. Pol and Blois,
      and Matthew of Montmorency; the last of whom was honored by the
      voluntary service of the marshal and nobles of Champagne. The
      sixth division, the rear-guard and reserve of the army, was
      conducted by the marquis of Montferrat, at the head of the
      Germans and Lombards. The chargers, saddled, with their long
      caparisons dragging on the ground, were embarked in the flat
      _palanders_; 60 and the knights stood by the side of their
      horses, in complete armor, their helmets laced, and their lances
      in their hands. The numerous train of sergeants 61 and archers
      occupied the transports; and each transport was towed by the
      strength and swiftness of a galley. The six divisions traversed
      the Bosphorus, without encountering an enemy or an obstacle: to
      land the foremost was the wish, to conquer or die was the
      resolution, of every division and of every soldier. Jealous of
      the preeminence of danger, the knights in their heavy armor
      leaped into the sea, when it rose as high as their girdle; the
      sergeants and archers were animated by their valor; and the
      squires, letting down the draw-bridges of the palanders, led the
      horses to the shore. Before their squadrons could mount, and
      form, and couch their Lances, the seventy thousand Greeks had
      vanished from their sight: the timid Alexius gave the example to
      his troops; and it was only by the plunder of his rich pavilions
      that the Latins were informed that they had fought against an
      emperor. In the first consternation of the flying enemy, they
      resolved, by a double attack, to open the entrance of the harbor.
      The tower of Galata, 62 in the suburb of Pera, was attacked and
      stormed by the French, while the Venetians assumed the more
      difficult task of forcing the boom or chain that was stretched
      from that tower to the Byzantine shore. After some fruitless
      attempts, their intrepid perseverance prevailed: twenty ships of
      war, the relics of the Grecian navy, were either sunk or taken:
      the enormous and massy links of iron were cut asunder by the
      shears, or broken by the weight, of the galleys; 63 and the
      Venetian fleet, safe and triumphant, rode at anchor in the port
      of Constantinople. By these daring achievements, a remnant of
      twenty thousand Latins solicited the license of besieging a
      capital which contained above four hundred thousand inhabitants,
      64 able, though not willing, to bear arms in defence of their
      country. Such an account would indeed suppose a population of
      near two millions; but whatever abatement may be required in the
      numbers of the Greeks, the _belief_ of those numbers will equally
      exalt the fearless spirit of their assailants.

      60 (return) [ From the version of Vignere I adopt the
      well-sounding word _palander_, which is still used, I believe, in
      the Mediterranean. But had I written in French, I should have
      preserved the original and expressive denomination of _vessiers_
      or _huissiers_, from the _huis_ or door which was let down as a
      draw-bridge; but which, at sea, was closed into the side of the
      ship, (see Ducange au Villehardouin, No. 14, and Joinville. p.
      27, 28, edit. du Louvre.)]

      61 (return) [ To avoid the vague expressions of followers, &c., I
      use, after Villehardouin, the word _sergeants_ for all horsemen
      who were not knights. There were sergeants at arms, and sergeants
      at law; and if we visit the parade and Westminster Hall, we may
      observe the strange result of the distinction, (Ducange, Glossar.
      Latin, _Servientes_, &c., tom. vi. p. 226—231.)]

      62 (return) [ It is needless to observe, that on the subject of
      Galata, the chain, &c., Ducange is accurate and full. Consult
      likewise the proper chapters of the C. P. Christiana of the same
      author. The inhabitants of Galata were so vain and ignorant, that
      they applied to themselves St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians.]

      63 (return) [ The vessel that broke the chain was named the
      Eagle, _Aquila_, (Dandolo, Chronicon, p. 322,) which Blondus (de
      Gestis Venet.) has changed into _Aquilo_, the north wind. Ducange
      (Observations, No. 83) maintains the latter reading; but he had
      not seen the respectable text of Dandolo, nor did he enough
      consider the topography of the harbor. The south-east would have
      been a more effectual wind. (Note to Wilken, vol. v. p. 215.)]

      64 (return) [ Quatre cens mil homes ou plus, (Villehardouin, No.
      134,) must be understood of _men_ of a military age. Le Beau
      (Hist. du. Bas Empire, tom. xx. p. 417) allows Constantinople a
      million of inhabitants, of whom 60,000 horse, and an infinite
      number of foot-soldiers. In its present decay, the capital of the
      Ottoman empire may contain 400,000 souls, (Bell’s Travels, vol.
      ii. p. 401, 402;) but as the Turks keep no registers, and as
      circumstances are fallacious, it is impossible to ascertain
      (Niebuhr, Voyage en Arabie, tom. i. p. 18, 19) the real
      populousness of their cities.]

      In the choice of the attack, the French and Venetians were
      divided by their habits of life and warfare. The former affirmed
      with truth, that Constantinople was most accessible on the side
      of the sea and the harbor. The latter might assert with honor,
      that they had long enough trusted their lives and fortunes to a
      frail bark and a precarious element, and loudly demanded a trial
      of knighthood, a firm ground, and a close onset, either on foot
      or on horseback. After a prudent compromise, of employing the two
      nations by sea and land, in the service best suited to their
      character, the fleet covering the army, they both proceeded from
      the entrance to the extremity of the harbor: the stone bridge of
      the river was hastily repaired; and the six battles of the French
      formed their encampment against the front of the capital, the
      basis of the triangle which runs about four miles from the port
      to the Propontis. 65 On the edge of a broad ditch, at the foot of
      a lofty rampart, they had leisure to contemplate the difficulties
      of their enterprise. The gates to the right and left of their
      narrow camp poured forth frequent sallies of cavalry and
      light-infantry, which cut off their stragglers, swept the country
      of provisions, sounded the alarm five or six times in the course
      of each day, and compelled them to plant a palisade, and sink an
      intrenchment, for their immediate safety. In the supplies and
      convoys the Venetians had been too sparing, or the Franks too
      voracious: the usual complaints of hunger and scarcity were
      heard, and perhaps felt their stock of flour would be exhausted
      in three weeks; and their disgust of salt meat tempted them to
      taste the flesh of their horses. The trembling usurper was
      supported by Theodore Lascaris, his son-in-law, a valiant youth,
      who aspired to save and to rule his country; the Greeks,
      regardless of that country, were awakened to the defence of their
      religion; but their firmest hope was in the strength and spirit
      of the Varangian guards, of the Danes and English, as they are
      named in the writers of the times. 66 After ten days’ incessant
      labor, the ground was levelled, the ditch filled, the approaches
      of the besiegers were regularly made, and two hundred and fifty
      engines of assault exercised their various powers to clear the
      rampart, to batter the walls, and to sap the foundations. On the
      first appearance of a breach, the scaling-ladders were applied:
      the numbers that defended the vantage ground repulsed and
      oppressed the adventurous Latins; but they admired the resolution
      of fifteen knights and sergeants, who had gained the ascent, and
      maintained their perilous station till they were precipitated or
      made prisoners by the Imperial guards. On the side of the harbor
      the naval attack was more successfully conducted by the
      Venetians; and that industrious people employed every resource
      that was known and practiced before the invention of gunpowder. A
      double line, three bow-shots in front, was formed by the galleys
      and ships; and the swift motion of the former was supported by
      the weight and loftiness of the latter, whose decks, and poops,
      and turret, were the platforms of military engines, that
      discharged their shot over the heads of the first line. The
      soldiers, who leaped from the galleys on shore, immediately
      planted and ascended their scaling-ladders, while the large
      ships, advancing more slowly into the intervals, and lowering a
      draw-bridge, opened a way through the air from their masts to the
      rampart. In the midst of the conflict, the doge, a venerable and
      conspicuous form, stood aloft in complete armor on the prow of
      his galley. The great standard of St. Mark was displayed before
      him; his threats, promises, and exhortations, urged the diligence
      of the rowers; his vessel was the first that struck; and Dandolo
      was the first warrior on the shore. The nations admired the
      magnanimity of the blind old man, without reflecting that his age
      and infirmities diminished the price of life, and enhanced the
      value of immortal glory. On a sudden, by an invisible hand, (for
      the standard-bearer was probably slain,) the banner of the
      republic was fixed on the rampart: twenty-five towers were
      rapidly occupied; and, by the cruel expedient of fire, the Greeks
      were driven from the adjacent quarter. The doge had despatched
      the intelligence of his success, when he was checked by the
      danger of his confederates. Nobly declaring that he would rather
      die with the pilgrims than gain a victory by their destruction,
      Dandolo relinquished his advantage, recalled his troops, and
      hastened to the scene of action. He found the six weary
      diminutive _battles_ of the French encompassed by sixty squadrons
      of the Greek cavalry, the least of which was more numerous than
      the largest of their divisions. Shame and despair had provoked
      Alexius to the last effort of a general sally; but he was awed by
      the firm order and manly aspect of the Latins; and, after
      skirmishing at a distance, withdrew his troops in the close of
      the evening. The silence or tumult of the night exasperated his
      fears; and the timid usurper, collecting a treasure of ten
      thousand pounds of gold, basely deserted his wife, his people,
      and his fortune; threw himself into a bark; stole through the
      Bosphorus; and landed in shameful safety in an obscure harbor of
      Thrace. As soon as they were apprised of his flight, the Greek
      nobles sought pardon and peace in the dungeon where the blind
      Isaac expected each hour the visit of the executioner. Again
      saved and exalted by the vicissitudes of fortune, the captive in
      his Imperial robes was replaced on the throne, and surrounded
      with prostrate slaves, whose real terror and affected joy he was
      incapable of discerning. At the dawn of day, hostilities were
      suspended, and the Latin chiefs were surprised by a message from
      the lawful and reigning emperor, who was impatient to embrace his
      son, and to reward his generous deliverers. 67

      65 (return) [ On the most correct plans of Constantinople, I know
      not how to measure more than 4000 paces. Yet Villehardouin
      computes the space at three leagues, (No. 86.) If his eye were
      not deceived, he must reckon by the old Gallic league of 1500
      paces, which might still be used in Champagne.]

      66 (return) [ The guards, the Varangi, are styled by
      Villehardouin, (No. 89, 95) Englois et Danois avec leurs haches.
      Whatever had been their origin, a French pilgrim could not be
      mistaken in the nations of which they were at that time
      composed.]

      67 (return) [ For the first siege and conquest of Constantinople,
      we may read the original letter of the crusaders to Innocent
      III., Gesta, c. 91, p. 533, 534. Villehardouin, No. 75—99.
      Nicetas, in Alexio Comnen. l. iii. c. 10, p. 349—352. Dandolo, in
      Chron. p. 322. Gunther, and his abbot Martin, were not yet
      returned from their obstinate pilgrim age to Jerusalem, or St.
      John d’Acre, where the greatest part of the company had died of
      the plague.]




      Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part III.

      But these generous deliverers were unwilling to release their
      hostage, till they had obtained from his father the payment, or
      at least the promise, of their recompense. They chose four
      ambassadors, Matthew of Montmorency, our historian the marshal of
      Champagne, and two Venetians, to congratulate the emperor. The
      gates were thrown open on their approach, the streets on both
      sides were lined with the battle axes of the Danish and English
      guard: the presence-chamber glittered with gold and jewels, the
      false substitute of virtue and power: by the side of the blind
      Isaac his wife was seated, the sister of the king of Hungary: and
      by her appearance, the noble matrons of Greece were drawn from
      their domestic retirement, and mingled with the circle of
      senators and soldiers. The Latins, by the mouth of the marshal,
      spoke like men conscious of their merits, but who respected the
      work of their own hands; and the emperor clearly understood, that
      his son’s engagements with Venice and the pilgrims must be
      ratified without hesitation or delay. Withdrawing into a private
      chamber with the empress, a chamberlain, an interpreter, and the
      four ambassadors, the father of young Alexius inquired with some
      anxiety into the nature of his stipulations. The submission of
      the Eastern empire to the pope, the succor of the Holy Land, and
      a present contribution of two hundred thousand marks of
      silver.—“These conditions are weighty,” was his prudent reply:
      “they are hard to accept, and difficult to perform. But no
      conditions can exceed the measure of your services and deserts.”
      After this satisfactory assurance, the barons mounted on
      horseback, and introduced the heir of Constantinople to the city
      and palace: his youth and marvellous adventures engaged every
      heart in his favor, and Alexius was solemnly crowned with his
      father in the dome of St. Sophia. In the first days of his reign,
      the people, already blessed with the restoration of plenty and
      peace, was delighted by the joyful catastrophe of the tragedy;
      and the discontent of the nobles, their regret, and their fears,
      were covered by the polished surface of pleasure and loyalty The
      mixture of two discordant nations in the same capital might have
      been pregnant with mischief and danger; and the suburb of Galata,
      or Pera, was assigned for the quarters of the French and
      Venetians. But the liberty of trade and familiar intercourse was
      allowed between the friendly nations: and each day the pilgrims
      were tempted by devotion or curiosity to visit the churches and
      palaces of Constantinople. Their rude minds, insensible perhaps
      of the finer arts, were astonished by the magnificent scenery:
      and the poverty of their native towns enhanced the populousness
      and riches of the first metropolis of Christendom. 68 Descending
      from his state, young Alexius was prompted by interest and
      gratitude to repeat his frequent and familiar visits to his Latin
      allies; and in the freedom of the table, the gay petulance of the
      French sometimes forgot the emperor of the East. 69 In their most
      serious conferences, it was agreed, that the reunion of the two
      churches must be the result of patience and time; but avarice was
      less tractable than zeal; and a larger sum was instantly
      disbursed to appease the wants, and silence the importunity, of
      the crusaders. 70 Alexius was alarmed by the approaching hour of
      their departure: their absence might have relieved him from the
      engagement which he was yet incapable of performing; but his
      friends would have left him, naked and alone, to the caprice and
      prejudice of a perfidious nation. He wished to bribe their stay,
      the delay of a year, by undertaking to defray their expense, and
      to satisfy, in their name, the freight of the Venetian vessels.
      The offer was agitated in the council of the barons; and, after a
      repetition of their debates and scruples, a majority of votes
      again acquiesced in the advice of the doge and the prayer of the
      young emperor. At the price of sixteen hundred pounds of gold, he
      prevailed on the marquis of Montferrat to lead him with an army
      round the provinces of Europe; to establish his authority, and
      pursue his uncle, while Constantinople was awed by the presence
      of Baldwin and his confederates of France and Flanders. The
      expedition was successful: the blind emperor exulted in the
      success of his arms, and listened to the predictions of his
      flatterers, that the same Providence which had raised him from
      the dungeon to the throne, would heal his gout, restore his
      sight, and watch over the long prosperity of his reign. Yet the
      mind of the suspicious old man was tormented by the rising
      glories of his son; nor could his pride conceal from his envy,
      that, while his own name was pronounced in faint and reluctant
      acclamations, the royal youth was the theme of spontaneous and
      universal praise. 71

      68 (return) [ Compare, in the rude energy of Villehardouin, (No.
      66, 100,) the inside and outside views of Constantinople, and
      their impression on the minds of the pilgrims: cette ville (says
      he) que de toutes les autres ere souveraine. See the parallel
      passages of Fulcherius Carnotensis, Hist. Hierosol. l. i. c. 4,
      and Will. Tyr. ii. 3, xx. 26.]

      69 (return) [ As they played at dice, the Latins took off his
      diadem, and clapped on his head a woollen or hairy cap, to
      megaloprepeV kai pagkleiston katerrupainen onoma, (Nicetas, p.
      358.) If these merry companions were Venetians, it was the
      insolence of trade and a commonwealth.]

      70 (return) [ Villehardouin, No. 101. Dandolo, p. 322. The doge
      affirms, that the Venetians were paid more slowly than the
      French; but he owns, that the histories of the two nations
      differed on that subject. Had he read Villehardouin? The Greeks
      complained, however, good totius Græciæ opes transtulisset,
      (Gunther, Hist. C. P. c 13) See the lamentations and invectives
      of Nicetas, (p. 355.)]

      71 (return) [ The reign of Alexius Comnenus occupies three books
      in Nicetas, p. 291—352. The short restoration of Isaac and his
      son is despatched in five chapters, p. 352—362.]

      By the recent invasion, the Greeks were awakened from a dream of
      nine centuries; from the vain presumption that the capital of the
      Roman empire was impregnable to foreign arms. The strangers of
      the West had violated the city, and bestowed the sceptre, of
      Constantine: their Imperial clients soon became as unpopular as
      themselves: the well-known vices of Isaac were rendered still
      more contemptible by his infirmities, and the young Alexius was
      hated as an apostate, who had renounced the manners and religion
      of his country. His secret covenant with the Latins was divulged
      or suspected; the people, and especially the clergy, were
      devoutly attached to their faith and superstition; and every
      convent, and every shop, resounded with the danger of the church
      and the tyranny of the pope. 72 An empty treasury could ill
      supply the demands of regal luxury and foreign extortion: the
      Greeks refused to avert, by a general tax, the impending evils of
      servitude and pillage; the oppression of the rich excited a more
      dangerous and personal resentment; and if the emperor melted the
      plate, and despoiled the images, of the sanctuary, he seemed to
      justify the complaints of heresy and sacrilege. During the
      absence of Marquis Boniface and his Imperial pupil,
      Constantinople was visited with a calamity which might be justly
      imputed to the zeal and indiscretion of the Flemish pilgrims. 73
      In one of their visits to the city, they were scandalized by the
      aspect of a mosque or synagogue, in which one God was worshipped,
      without a partner or a son. Their effectual mode of controversy
      was to attack the infidels with the sword, and their habitation
      with fire: but the infidels, and some Christian neighbors,
      presumed to defend their lives and properties; and the flames
      which bigotry had kindled, consumed the most orthodox and
      innocent structures. During eight days and nights, the
      conflagration spread above a league in front, from the harbor to
      the Propontis, over the thickest and most populous regions of the
      city. It is not easy to count the stately churches and palaces
      that were reduced to a smoking ruin, to value the merchandise
      that perished in the trading streets, or to number the families
      that were involved in the common destruction. By this outrage,
      which the doge and the barons in vain affected to disclaim, the
      name of the Latins became still more unpopular; and the colony of
      that nation, above fifteen thousand persons, consulted their
      safety in a hasty retreat from the city to the protection of
      their standard in the suburb of Pera. The emperor returned in
      triumph; but the firmest and most dexterous policy would have
      been insufficient to steer him through the tempest, which
      overwhelmed the person and government of that unhappy youth. His
      own inclination, and his father’s advice, attached him to his
      benefactors; but Alexius hesitated between gratitude and
      patriotism, between the fear of his subjects and of his allies.
      74 By his feeble and fluctuating conduct he lost the esteem and
      confidence of both; and, while he invited the marquis of
      Monferrat to occupy the palace, he suffered the nobles to
      conspire, and the people to arm, for the deliverance of their
      country. Regardless of his painful situation, the Latin chiefs
      repeated their demands, resented his delays, suspected his
      intentions, and exacted a decisive answer of peace or war. The
      haughty summons was delivered by three French knights and three
      Venetian deputies, who girded their swords, mounted their horses,
      pierced through the angry multitude, and entered, with a fearful
      countenance, the palace and presence of the Greek emperor. In a
      peremptory tone, they recapitulated their services and his
      engagements; and boldly declared, that unless their just claims
      were fully and immediately satisfied, they should no longer hold
      him either as a sovereign or a friend. After this defiance, the
      first that had ever wounded an Imperial ear, they departed
      without betraying any symptoms of fear; but their escape from a
      servile palace and a furious city astonished the ambassadors
      themselves; and their return to the camp was the signal of mutual
      hostility.

      72 (return) [ When Nicetas reproaches Alexius for his impious
      league, he bestows the harshest names on the pope’s new religion,
      meizon kai atopwtaton... parektrophn pistewV... tvn tou Papa
      pronomiwn kainismon,... metaqesin te kai metapoihsin tvn palaivn
      'RwmaioiV?eqvn, (p. 348.) Such was the sincere language of every
      Greek to the last gasp of the empire.]

      73 (return) [ Nicetas (p. 355) is positive in the charge, and
      specifies the Flemings, (FlamioneV,) though he is wrong in
      supposing it an ancient name. Villehardouin (No. 107) exculpates
      the barons, and is ignorant (perhaps affectedly ignorant) of the
      names of the guilty.]

      74 (return) [ Compare the suspicions and complaints of Nicetas
      (p. 359—362) with the blunt charges of Baldwin of Flanders,
      (Gesta Innocent III. c. 92, p. 534,) cum patriarcha et mole
      nobilium, nobis promises perjurus et mendax.]

      Among the Greeks, all authority and wisdom were overborne by the
      impetuous multitude, who mistook their rage for valor, their
      numbers for strength, and their fanaticism for the support and
      inspiration of Heaven. In the eyes of both nations Alexius was
      false and contemptible; the base and spurious race of the Angeli
      was rejected with clamorous disdain; and the people of
      Constantinople encompassed the senate, to demand at their hands a
      more worthy emperor. To every senator, conspicuous by his birth
      or dignity, they successively presented the purple: by each
      senator the deadly garment was repulsed: the contest lasted three
      days; and we may learn from the historian Nicetas, one of the
      members of the assembly, that fear and weaknesses were the
      guardians of their loyalty. A phantom, who vanished in oblivion,
      was forcibly proclaimed by the crowd: 75 but the author of the
      tumult, and the leader of the war, was a prince of the house of
      Ducas; and his common appellation of Alexius must be
      discriminated by the epithet of Mourzoufle, 76 which in the
      vulgar idiom expressed the close junction of his black and shaggy
      eyebrows. At once a patriot and a courtier, the perfidious
      Mourzoufle, who was not destitute of cunning and courage, opposed
      the Latins both in speech and action, inflamed the passions and
      prejudices of the Greeks, and insinuated himself into the favor
      and confidence of Alexius, who trusted him with the office of
      great chamberlain, and tinged his buskins with the colors of
      royalty. At the dead of night, he rushed into the bed-chamber
      with an affrighted aspect, exclaiming, that the palace was
      attacked by the people and betrayed by the guards. Starting from
      his couch, the unsuspecting prince threw himself into the arms of
      his enemy, who had contrived his escape by a private staircase.
      But that staircase terminated in a prison: Alexius was seized,
      stripped, and loaded with chains; and, after tasting some days
      the bitterness of death, he was poisoned, or strangled, or beaten
      with clubs, at the command, or in the presence, of the tyrant.
      The emperor Isaac Angelus soon followed his son to the grave; and
      Mourzoufle, perhaps, might spare the superfluous crime of
      hastening the extinction of impotence and blindness.

      75 (return) [ His name was Nicholas Canabus: he deserved the
      praise of Nicetas and the vengeance of Mourzoufle, (p. 362.)]

      76 (return) [ Villehardouin (No. 116) speaks of him as a
      favorite, without knowing that he was a prince of the blood,
      _Angelus_ and _Ducas_. Ducange, who pries into every corner,
      believes him to be the son of Isaac Ducas Sebastocrator, and
      second cousin of young Alexius.]

      The death of the emperors, and the usurpation of Mourzoufle, had
      changed the nature of the quarrel. It was no longer the
      disagreement of allies who overvalued their services, or
      neglected their obligations: the French and Venetians forgot
      their complaints against Alexius, dropped a tear on the untimely
      fate of their companion, and swore revenge against the perfidious
      nation who had crowned his assassin. Yet the prudent doge was
      still inclined to negotiate: he asked as a debt, a subsidy, or a
      fine, fifty thousand pounds of gold, about two millions sterling;
      nor would the conference have been abruptly broken, if the zeal,
      or policy, of Mourzoufle had not refused to sacrifice the Greek
      church to the safety of the state. 77 Amidst the invectives of
      his foreign and domestic enemies, we may discern, that he was not
      unworthy of the character which he had assumed, of the public
      champion: the second siege of Constantinople was far more
      laborious than the first; the treasury was replenished, and
      discipline was restored, by a severe inquisition into the abuses
      of the former reign; and Mourzoufle, an iron mace in his hand,
      visiting the posts, and affecting the port and aspect of a
      warrior, was an object of terror to his soldiers, at least, and
      to his kinsmen. Before and after the death of Alexius, the Greeks
      made two vigorous and well-conducted attempts to burn the navy in
      the harbor; but the skill and courage of the Venetians repulsed
      the fire-ships; and the vagrant flames wasted themselves without
      injury in the sea. 78 In a nocturnal sally the Greek emperor was
      vanquished by Henry, brother of the count of Flanders: the
      advantages of number and surprise aggravated the shame of his
      defeat: his buckler was found on the field of battle; and the
      Imperial standard, 79 a divine image of the Virgin, was
      presented, as a trophy and a relic to the Cistercian monks, the
      disciples of St. Bernard. Near three months, without excepting
      the holy season of Lent, were consumed in skirmishes and
      preparations, before the Latins were ready or resolved for a
      general assault. The land fortifications had been found
      impregnable; and the Venetian pilots represented, that, on the
      shore of the Propontis, the anchorage was unsafe, and the ships
      must be driven by the current far away to the straits of the
      Hellespont; a prospect not unpleasing to the reluctant pilgrims,
      who sought every opportunity of breaking the army. From the
      harbor, therefore, the assault was determined by the assailants,
      and expected by the besieged; and the emperor had placed his
      scarlet pavilions on a neighboring height, to direct and animate
      the efforts of his troops. A fearless spectator, whose mind could
      entertain the ideas of pomp and pleasure, might have admired the
      long array of two embattled armies, which extended above half a
      league, the one on the ships and galleys, the other on the walls
      and towers raised above the ordinary level by several stages of
      wooden turrets. Their first fury was spent in the discharge of
      darts, stones, and fire, from the engines; but the water was
      deep; the French were bold; the Venetians were skilful; they
      approached the walls; and a desperate conflict of swords, spears,
      and battle-axes, was fought on the trembling bridges that
      grappled the floating, to the stable, batteries. In more than a
      hundred places, the assault was urged, and the defence was
      sustained; till the superiority of ground and numbers finally
      prevailed, and the Latin trumpets sounded a retreat. On the
      ensuing days, the attack was renewed with equal vigor, and a
      similar event; and, in the night, the doge and the barons held a
      council, apprehensive only for the public danger: not a voice
      pronounced the words of escape or treaty; and each warrior,
      according to his temper, embraced the hope of victory, or the
      assurance of a glorious death. 80 By the experience of the former
      siege, the Greeks were instructed, but the Latins were animated;
      and the knowledge that Constantinople might be taken, was of more
      avail than the local precautions which that knowledge had
      inspired for its defence. In the third assault, two ships were
      linked together to double their strength; a strong north wind
      drove them on the shore; the bishops of Troyes and Soissons led
      the van; and the auspicious names of the _pilgrim_ and the
      _paradise_ resounded along the line. 81 The episcopal banners
      were displayed on the walls; a hundred marks of silver had been
      promised to the first adventurers; and if their reward was
      intercepted by death, their names have been immortalized by fame.
      811 Four towers were scaled; three gates were burst open; and the
      French knights, who might tremble on the waves, felt themselves
      invincible on horseback on the solid ground. Shall I relate that
      the thousands who guarded the emperor’s person fled on the
      approach, and before the lance, of a single warrior? Their
      ignominious flight is attested by their countryman Nicetas: an
      army of phantoms marched with the French hero, and he was
      magnified to a giant in the eyes of the Greeks. 82 While the
      fugitives deserted their posts and cast away their arms, the
      Latins entered the city under the banners of their leaders: the
      streets and gates opened for their passage; and either design or
      accident kindled a third conflagration, which consumed in a few
      hours the measure of three of the largest cities of France. 83 In
      the close of evening, the barons checked their troops, and
      fortified their stations: They were awed by the extent and
      populousness of the capital, which might yet require the labor of
      a month, if the churches and palaces were conscious of their
      internal strength. But in the morning, a suppliant procession,
      with crosses and images, announced the submission of the Greeks,
      and deprecated the wrath of the conquerors: the usurper escaped
      through the golden gate: the palaces of Blachernæ and Boucoleon
      were occupied by the count of Flanders and the marquis of
      Montferrat; and the empire, which still bore the name of
      Constantine, and the title of Roman, was subverted by the arms of
      the Latin pilgrims. 84

      77 (return) [ This negotiation, probable in itself, and attested
      by Nicetas, (p 65,) is omitted as scandalous by the delicacy of
      Dandolo and Villehardouin. * Note: Wilken places it before the
      death of Alexius, vol. v. p. 276.—M.]

      78 (return) [ Baldwin mentions both attempts to fire the fleet,
      (Gest. c. 92, p. 534, 535;) Villehardouin, (No. 113—15) only
      describes the first. It is remarkable that neither of these
      warriors observe any peculiar properties in the Greek fire.]

      79 (return) [ Ducange (No. 119) pours forth a torrent of learning
      on the _Gonfanon Imperial_. This banner of the Virgin is shown at
      Venice as a trophy and relic: if it be genuine the pious doge
      must have cheated the monks of Citeaux.]

      80 (return) [ Villehardouin (No. 126) confesses, that mult ere
      grant peril; and Guntherus (Hist. C. P. c. 13) affirms, that
      nulla spes victoriæ arridere poterat. Yet the knight despises
      those who thought of flight, and the monk praises his countrymen
      who were resolved on death.]

      81 (return) [ Baldwin, and all the writers, honor the names of
      these two galleys, felici auspicio.]

      811 (return) [ Pietro Alberti, a Venetian noble and Andrew
      d’Amboise a French knight.—M.]

      82 (return) [ With an allusion to Homer, Nicetas calls him
      enneorguioV, nine orgyæ, or eighteen yards high, a stature which
      would, indeed, have excused the terror of the Greek. On this
      occasion, the historian seems fonder of the marvellous than of
      his country, or perhaps of truth. Baldwin exclaims in the words
      of the psalmist, persequitur unus ex nobis centum alienos.]

      83 (return) [ Villehardouin (No. 130) is again ignorant of the
      authors of _this_ more legitimate fire, which is ascribed by
      Gunther to a quidam comes Teutonicus, (c. 14.) They seem ashamed,
      the incendiaries!]

      84 (return) [ For the second siege and conquest of
      Constantinople, see Villehardouin (No. 113—132,) Baldwin’s iid
      Epistle to Innocent III., (Gesta c. 92, p. 534—537,) with the
      whole reign of Mourzoufle, in Nicetas, (p 363—375;) and borrowed
      some hints from Dandolo (Chron. Venet. p. 323—330) and Gunther,
      (Hist. C. P. c. 14—18,) who added the decorations of prophecy and
      vision. The former produces an oracle of the Erythræan sibyl, of
      a great armament on the Adriatic, under a blind chief, against
      Byzantium, &c. Curious enough, were the prediction anterior to
      the fact.]

      Constantinople had been taken by storm; and no restraints, except
      those of religion and humanity, were imposed on the conquerors by
      the laws of war. Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, still acted as
      their general; and the Greeks, who revered his name as that of
      their future sovereign, were heard to exclaim in a lamentable
      tone, “Holy marquis-king, have mercy upon us!” His prudence or
      compassion opened the gates of the city to the fugitives; and he
      exhorted the soldiers of the cross to spare the lives of their
      fellow-Christians. The streams of blood that flowed down the
      pages of Nicetas may be reduced to the slaughter of two thousand
      of his unresisting countrymen; 85 and the greater part was
      massacred, not by the strangers, but by the Latins, who had been
      driven from the city, and who exercised the revenge of a
      triumphant faction. Yet of these exiles, some were less mindful
      of injuries than of benefits; and Nicetas himself was indebted
      for his safety to the generosity of a Venetian merchant. Pope
      Innocent the Third accuses the pilgrims for respecting, in their
      lust, neither age nor sex, nor religious profession; and bitterly
      laments that the deeds of darkness, fornication, adultery, and
      incest, were perpetrated in open day; and that noble matrons and
      holy nuns were polluted by the grooms and peasants of the
      Catholic camp. 86 It is indeed probable that the license of
      victory prompted and covered a multitude of sins: but it is
      certain, that the capital of the East contained a stock of venal
      or willing beauty, sufficient to satiate the desires of twenty
      thousand pilgrims; and female prisoners were no longer subject to
      the right or abuse of domestic slavery. The marquis of Montferrat
      was the patron of discipline and decency; the count of Flanders
      was the mirror of chastity: they had forbidden, under pain of
      death, the rape of married women, or virgins, or nuns; and the
      proclamation was sometimes invoked by the vanquished 87 and
      respected by the victors. Their cruelty and lust were moderated
      by the authority of the chiefs, and feelings of the soldiers; for
      we are no longer describing an irruption of the northern savages;
      and however ferocious they might still appear, time, policy, and
      religion had civilized the manners of the French, and still more
      of the Italians. But a free scope was allowed to their avarice,
      which was glutted, even in the holy week, by the pillage of
      Constantinople. The right of victory, unshackled by any promise
      or treaty, had confiscated the public and private wealth of the
      Greeks; and every hand, according to its size and strength, might
      lawfully execute the sentence and seize the forfeiture. A
      portable and universal standard of exchange was found in the
      coined and uncoined metals of gold and silver, which each captor,
      at home or abroad, might convert into the possessions most
      suitable to his temper and situation. Of the treasures, which
      trade and luxury had accumulated, the silks, velvets, furs, the
      gems, spices, and rich movables, were the most precious, as they
      could not be procured for money in the ruder countries of Europe.
      An order of rapine was instituted; nor was the share of each
      individual abandoned to industry or chance. Under the tremendous
      penalties of perjury, excommunication, and death, the Latins were
      bound to deliver their plunder into the common stock: three
      churches were selected for the deposit and distribution of the
      spoil: a single share was allotted to a foot-soldier; two for a
      sergeant on horseback; four to a knight; and larger proportions
      according to the rank and merit of the barons and princes. For
      violating this sacred engagement, a knight belonging to the count
      of St. Paul was hanged with his shield and coat of arms round his
      neck; his example might render similar offenders more artful and
      discreet; but avarice was more powerful than fear; and it is
      generally believed that the secret far exceeded the acknowledged
      plunder. Yet the magnitude of the prize surpassed the largest
      scale of experience or expectation. 88 After the whole had been
      equally divided between the French and Venetians, fifty thousand
      marks were deducted to satisfy the debts of the former and the
      demands of the latter. The residue of the French amounted to four
      hundred thousand marks of silver, 89 about eight hundred thousand
      pounds sterling; nor can I better appreciate the value of that
      sum in the public and private transactions of the age, than by
      defining it as seven times the annual revenue of the kingdom of
      England. 90

      85 (return) [ Ceciderunt tamen eâ die civium quasi duo millia,
      &c., (Gunther, c. 18.) Arithmetic is an excellent touchstone to
      try the amplifications of passion and rhetoric.]

      86 (return) [ Quidam (says Innocent III., Gesta, c. 94, p. 538)
      nec religioni, nec ætati, nec sexui pepercerunt: sed
      fornicationes, adulteria, et incestus in oculis omnium
      exercentes, non solûm maritatas et viduas, sed et matronas et
      virgines Deoque dicatas, exposuerunt spurcitiis garcionum.
      Villehardouin takes no notice of these common incidents.]

      87 (return) [ Nicetas saved, and afterwards married, a noble
      virgin, (p. 380,) whom a soldier, eti martusi polloiV onhdon
      epibrimwmenoV, had almost violated in spite of the entolai,
      entalmata eu gegonotwn.]

      88 (return) [ Of the general mass of wealth, Gunther observes, ut
      de pauperibus et advenis cives ditissimi redderentur, (Hist. C.
      P. c. 18; (Villehardouin, (No. 132,) that since the creation, ne
      fu tant gaaignié dans une ville; Baldwin, (Gesta, c. 92,) ut
      tantum tota non videatur possidere Latinitas.]

      89 (return) [ Villehardouin, No. 133—135. Instead of 400,000,
      there is a various reading of 500,000. The Venetians had offered
      to take the whole booty, and to give 400 marks to each knight,
      200 to each priest and horseman, and 100 to each foot-soldier:
      they would have been great losers, (Le Beau, Hist. du. Bas Empire
      tom. xx. p. 506. I know not from whence.)]

      90 (return) [ At the council of Lyons (A.D. 1245) the English
      ambassadors stated the revenue of the crown as below that of the
      foreign clergy, which amounted to 60,000 marks a year, (Matthew
      Paris, p. 451 Hume’s Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 170.)]

      In this great revolution we enjoy the singular felicity of
      comparing the narratives of Villehardouin and Nicetas, the
      opposite feelings of the marshal of Champagne and the Byzantine
      senator. 91 At the first view it should seem that the wealth of
      Constantinople was only transferred from one nation to another;
      and that the loss and sorrow of the Greeks is exactly balanced by
      the joy and advantage of the Latins. But in the miserable account
      of war, the gain is never equivalent to the loss, the pleasure to
      the pain; the smiles of the Latins were transient and fallacious;
      the Greeks forever wept over the ruins of their country; and
      their real calamities were aggravated by sacrilege and mockery.
      What benefits accrued to the conquerors from the three fires
      which annihilated so vast a portion of the buildings and riches
      of the city? What a stock of such things, as could neither be
      used nor transported, was maliciously or wantonly destroyed! How
      much treasure was idly wasted in gaming, debauchery, and riot!
      And what precious objects were bartered for a vile price by the
      impatience or ignorance of the soldiers, whose reward was stolen
      by the base industry of the last of the Greeks! These alone, who
      had nothing to lose, might derive some profit from the
      revolution; but the misery of the upper ranks of society is
      strongly painted in the personal adventures of Nicetas himself.
      His stately palace had been reduced to ashes in the second
      conflagration; and the senator, with his family and friends,
      found an obscure shelter in another house which he possessed near
      the church of St. Sophia. It was the door of this mean habitation
      that his friend, the Venetian merchant, guarded in the disguise
      of a soldier, till Nicetas could save, by a precipitate flight,
      the relics of his fortune and the chastity of his daughter. In a
      cold, wintry season, these fugitives, nursed in the lap of
      prosperity, departed on foot; his wife was with child; the
      desertion of their slaves compelled them to carry their baggage
      on their own shoulders; and their women, whom they placed in the
      centre, were exhorted to conceal their beauty with dirt, instead
      of adorning it with paint and jewels Every step was exposed to
      insult and danger: the threats of the strangers were less painful
      than the taunts of the plebeians, with whom they were now
      levelled; nor did the exiles breathe in safety till their
      mournful pilgrimage was concluded at Selymbria, above forty miles
      from the capital. On the way they overtook the patriarch, without
      attendance and almost without apparel, riding on an ass, and
      reduced to a state of apostolical poverty, which, had it been
      voluntary, might perhaps have been meritorious. In the mean
      while, his desolate churches were profaned by the licentiousness
      and party zeal of the Latins. After stripping the gems and
      pearls, they converted the chalices into drinking-cups; their
      tables, on which they gamed and feasted, were covered with the
      pictures of Christ and the saints; and they trampled under foot
      the most venerable objects of the Christian worship. In the
      cathedral of St. Sophia, the ample veil of the sanctuary was rent
      asunder for the sake of the golden fringe; and the altar, a
      monument of art and riches, was broken in pieces and shared among
      the captors. Their mules and horses were laden with the wrought
      silver and gilt carvings, which they tore down from the doors and
      pulpit; and if the beasts stumbled under the burden, they were
      stabbed by their impatient drivers, and the holy pavement
      streamed with their impure blood. A prostitute was seated on the
      throne of the patriarch; and that daughter of Belial, as she is
      styled, sung and danced in the church, to ridicule the hymns and
      processions of the Orientals. Nor were the repositories of the
      royal dead secure from violation: in the church of the Apostles,
      the tombs of the emperors were rifled; and it is said, that after
      six centuries the corpse of Justinian was found without any signs
      of decay or putrefaction. In the streets, the French and Flemings
      clothed themselves and their horses in painted robes and flowing
      head-dresses of linen; and the coarse intemperance of their
      feasts 92 insulted the splendid sobriety of the East. To expose
      the arms of a people of scribes and scholars, they affected to
      display a pen, an inkhorn, and a sheet of paper, without
      discerning that the instruments of science and valor were _alike_
      feeble and useless in the hands of the modern Greeks.

      91 (return) [ The disorders of the sack of Constantinople, and
      his own adventures, are feelingly described by Nicetas, p.
      367—369, and in the Status Urb. C. P. p. 375—384. His complaints,
      even of sacrilege, are justified by Innocent III., (Gesta, c.
      92;) but Villehardouin does not betray a symptom of pity or
      remorse.]

      92 (return) [ If I rightly apprehend the Greek of Nicetas’s
      receipts, their favorite dishes were boiled buttocks of beef,
      salt pork and peas, and soup made of garlic and sharp or sour
      herbs, (p. 382.)]

      Their reputation and their language encouraged them, however, to
      despise the ignorance and to overlook the progress of the Latins.
      93 In the love of the arts, the national difference was still
      more obvious and real; the Greeks preserved with reverence the
      works of their ancestors, which they could not imitate; and, in
      the destruction of the statues of Constantinople, we are provoked
      to join in the complaints and invectives of the Byzantine
      historian. 94 We have seen how the rising city was adorned by the
      vanity and despotism of the Imperial founder: in the ruins of
      paganism, some gods and heroes were saved from the axe of
      superstition; and the forum and hippodrome were dignified with
      the relics of a better age. Several of these are described by
      Nicetas, 95 in a florid and affected style; and from his
      descriptions I shall select some interesting particulars. _1._
      The victorious charioteers were cast in bronze, at their own or
      the public charge, and fitly placed in the hippodrome: they stood
      aloft in their chariots, wheeling round the goal: the spectators
      could admire their attitude, and judge of the resemblance; and of
      these figures, the most perfect might have been transported from
      the Olympic stadium. _2._ The sphinx, river-horse, and crocodile,
      denote the climate and manufacture of Egypt and the spoils of
      that ancient province. _3._ The she-wolf suckling Romulus and
      Remus, a subject alike pleasing to the _old_ and the _new_
      Romans, but which could really be treated before the decline of
      the Greek sculpture. _4._ An eagle holding and tearing a serpent
      in his talons, a domestic monument of the Byzantines, which they
      ascribed, not to a human artist, but to the magic power of the
      philosopher Apollonius, who, by this talisman, delivered the city
      from such venomous reptiles. _5._ An ass and his driver, which
      were erected by Augustus in his colony of Nicopolis, to
      commemorate a verbal omen of the victory of Actium. _6._ An
      equestrian statue which passed, in the vulgar opinion, for
      Joshua, the Jewish conqueror, stretching out his hand to stop the
      course of the descending sun. A more classical tradition
      recognized the figures of Bellerophon and Pegasus; and the free
      attitude of the steed seemed to mark that he trod on air, rather
      than on the earth. _7._ A square and lofty obelisk of brass; the
      sides were embossed with a variety of picturesque and rural
      scenes, birds singing; rustics laboring, or playing on their
      pipes; sheep bleating; lambs skipping; the sea, and a scene of
      fish and fishing; little naked cupids laughing, playing, and
      pelting each other with apples; and, on the summit, a female
      figure, turning with the slightest breath, and thence denominated
      _the wind’s attendant_. _8._ The Phrygian shepherd presenting to
      Venus the prize of beauty, the apple of discord. _9._ The
      incomparable statue of Helen, which is delineated by Nicetas in
      the words of admiration and love: her well-turned feet, snowy
      arms, rosy lips, bewitching smiles, swimming eyes, arched
      eyebrows, the harmony of her shape, the lightness of her drapery,
      and her flowing locks that waved in the wind; a beauty that might
      have moved her Barbarian destroyers to pity and remorse. _10._
      The manly or divine form of Hercules, 96 as he was restored to
      life by the masterhand of Lysippus; of such magnitude, that his
      thumb was equal to his waist, his leg to the stature, of a common
      man: 97 his chest ample, his shoulders broad, his limbs strong
      and muscular, his hair curled, his aspect commanding. Without his
      bow, or quiver, or club, his lion’s skin carelessly thrown over
      him, he was seated on an osier basket, his right leg and arm
      stretched to the utmost, his left knee bent, and supporting his
      elbow, his head reclining on his left hand, his countenance
      indignant and pensive. _11._ A colossal statue of Juno, which had
      once adorned her temple of Samos, the enormous head by four yoke
      of oxen was laboriously drawn to the palace. _12._ Another
      colossus, of Pallas or Minerva, thirty feet in height, and
      representing with admirable spirit the attributes and character
      of the martial maid. Before we accuse the Latins, it is just to
      remark, that this Pallas was destroyed after the first siege, by
      the fear and superstition of the Greeks themselves. 98 The other
      statues of brass which I have enumerated were broken and melted
      by the unfeeling avarice of the crusaders: the cost and labor
      were consumed in a moment; the soul of genius evaporated in
      smoke; and the remnant of base metal was coined into money for
      the payment of the troops. Bronze is not the most durable of
      monuments: from the marble forms of Phidias and Praxiteles, the
      Latins might turn aside with stupid contempt; 99 but unless they
      were crushed by some accidental injury, those useless stones
      stood secure on their pedestals. 100 The most enlightened of the
      strangers, above the gross and sensual pursuits of their
      countrymen, more piously exercised the right of conquest in the
      search and seizure of the relics of the saints. 101 Immense was
      the supply of heads and bones, crosses and images, that were
      scattered by this revolution over the churches of Europe; and
      such was the increase of pilgrimage and oblation, that no branch,
      perhaps, of more lucrative plunder was imported from the East.
      102 Of the writings of antiquity, many that still existed in the
      twelfth century, are now lost. But the pilgrims were not
      solicitous to save or transport the volumes of an unknown tongue:
      the perishable substance of paper or parchment can only be
      preserved by the multiplicity of copies; the literature of the
      Greeks had almost centred in the metropolis; and, without
      computing the extent of our loss, we may drop a tear over the
      libraries that have perished in the triple fire of
      Constantinople. 103

      93 (return) [ Nicetas uses very harsh expressions, par
      agrammatoiV BarbaroiV, kai teleon analfabhtoiV, (Fragment, apud
      Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 414.) This reproach, it is
      true, applies most strongly to their ignorance of Greek and of
      Homer. In their own language, the Latins of the xiith and xiiith
      centuries were not destitute of literature. See Harris’s
      Philological Inquiries, p. iii. c. 9, 10, 11.]

      94 (return) [ Nicetas was of Chonæ in Phrygia, (the old Colossæ
      of St. Paul:) he raised himself to the honors of senator, judge
      of the veil, and great logothete; beheld the fall of the empire,
      retired to Nice, and composed an elaborate history from the death
      of Alexius Comnenus to the reign of Henry.]

      95 (return) [ A manuscript of Nicetas in the Bodleian library
      contains this curious fragment on the statues of Constantinople,
      which fraud, or shame, or rather carelessness, has dropped in the
      common editions. It is published by Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc.
      tom. vi. p. 405—416,) and immoderately praised by the late
      ingenious Mr. Harris of Salisbury, (Philological Inquiries, p.
      iii. c. 5, p. 301—312.)]

      96 (return) [ To illustrate the statue of Hercules, Mr. Harris
      quotes a Greek epigram, and engraves a beautiful gem, which does
      not, however, copy the attitude of the statue: in the latter,
      Hercules had not his club, and his right leg and arm were
      extended.]

      97 (return) [ I transcribe these proportions, which appear to me
      inconsistent with each other; and may possibly show, that the
      boasted taste of Nicetas was no more than affectation and
      vanity.]

      98 (return) [ Nicetas in Isaaco Angelo et Alexio, c. 3, p. 359.
      The Latin editor very properly observes, that the historian, in
      his bombast style, produces ex pulice elephantem.]

      99 (return) [ In two passages of Nicetas (edit. Paris, p. 360.
      Fabric. p. 408) the Latins are branded with the lively reproach
      of oi tou kalou anerastoi barbaroi, and their avarice of brass is
      clearly expressed. Yet the Venetians had the merit of removing
      four bronze horses from Constantinople to the place of St. Mark,
      (Sanuto, Vite del Dogi, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum,
      tom. xxii. p. 534.)]

      100 (return) [ Winckelman, Hist. de l’Art. tom. iii. p. 269,
      270.]

      101 (return) [ See the pious robbery of the abbot Martin, who
      transferred a rich cargo to his monastery of Paris, diocese of
      Basil, (Gunther, Hist. C. P. c. 19, 23, 24.) Yet in secreting
      this booty, the saint incurred an excommunication, and perhaps
      broke his oath. (Compare Wilken vol. v. p. 308.—M.)]

      102 (return) [ Fleury, Hist. Eccles tom. xvi. p. 139—145.]

      103 (return) [ I shall conclude this chapter with the notice of a
      modern history, which illustrates the taking of Constantinople by
      the Latins; but which has fallen somewhat late into my hands.
      Paolo Ramusio, the son of the compiler of Voyages, was directed
      by the senate of Venice to write the history of the conquest: and
      this order, which he received in his youth, he executed in a
      mature age, by an elegant Latin work, de Bello
      Constantinopolitano et Imperatoribus Comnenis per Gallos et
      Venetos restitutis, (Venet. 1635, in folio.) Ramusio, or
      Rhamnusus, transcribes and translates, sequitur ad unguem, a MS.
      of Villehardouin, which he possessed; but he enriches his
      narrative with Greek and Latin materials, and we are indebted to
      him for a correct state of the fleet, the names of the fifty
      Venetian nobles who commanded the galleys of the republic, and
      the patriot opposition of Pantaleon Barbus to the choice of the
      doge for emperor.]




      Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And
      Venetians.—Part I.

     Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians,—Five Latin
     Emperors Of The Houses Of Flanders And Courtenay.— Their Wars
     Against The Bulgarians And Greeks.—Weakness And Poverty Of The
     Latin Empire.—Recovery Of Constantinople By The Greeks.—General
     Consequences Of The Crusades.

      After the death of the lawful princes, the French and Venetians,
      confident of justice and victory, agreed to divide and regulate
      their future possessions. 1 It was stipulated by treaty, that
      twelve electors, six of either nation, should be nominated; that
      a majority should choose the emperor of the East; and that, if
      the votes were equal, the decision of chance should ascertain the
      successful candidate. To him, with all the titles and
      prerogatives of the Byzantine throne, they assigned the two
      palaces of Boucoleon and Blachernæ, with a fourth part of the
      Greek monarchy. It was defined that the three remaining portions
      should be equally shared between the republic of Venice and the
      barons of France; that each feudatory, with an honorable
      exception for the doge, should acknowledge and perform the duties
      of homage and military service to the supreme head of the empire;
      that the nation which gave an emperor, should resign to their
      brethren the choice of a patriarch; and that the pilgrims,
      whatever might be their impatience to visit the Holy Land, should
      devote another year to the conquest and defence of the Greek
      provinces. After the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins,
      the treaty was confirmed and executed; and the first and most
      important step was the creation of an emperor. The six electors
      of the French nation were all ecclesiastics, the abbot of Loces,
      the archbishop elect of Acre in Palestine, and the bishops of
      Troyes, Soissons, Halberstadt, and Bethlehem, the last of whom
      exercised in the camp the office of pope’s legate: their
      profession and knowledge were respectable; and as _they_ could
      not be the objects, they were best qualified to be the authors of
      the choice. The six Venetians were the principal servants of the
      state, and in this list the noble families of Querini and
      Contarini are still proud to discover their ancestors. The twelve
      assembled in the chapel of the palace; and after the solemn
      invocation of the Holy Ghost, they proceeded to deliberate and
      vote. A just impulse of respect and gratitude prompted them to
      crown the virtues of the doge; his wisdom had inspired their
      enterprise; and the most youthful knights might envy and applaud
      the exploits of blindness and age. But the patriot Dandolo was
      devoid of all personal ambition, and fully satisfied that he had
      been judged worthy to reign. His nomination was overruled by the
      Venetians themselves: his countrymen, and perhaps his friends, 2
      represented, with the eloquence of truth, the mischiefs that
      might arise to national freedom and the common cause, from the
      union of two incompatible characters, of the first magistrate of
      a republic and the emperor of the East. The exclusion of the doge
      left room for the more equal merits of Boniface and Baldwin; and
      at their names all meaner candidates respectfully withdrew. The
      marquis of Montferrat was recommended by his mature age and fair
      reputation, by the choice of the adventurers, and the wishes of
      the Greeks; nor can I believe that Venice, the mistress of the
      sea, could be seriously apprehensive of a petty lord at the foot
      of the Alps. 3 But the count of Flanders was the chief of a
      wealthy and warlike people: he was valiant, pious, and chaste; in
      the prime of life, since he was only thirty-two years of age; a
      descendant of Charlemagne, a cousin of the king of France, and a
      compeer of the prelates and barons who had yielded with
      reluctance to the command of a foreigner. Without the chapel,
      these barons, with the doge and marquis at their head, expected
      the decision of the twelve electors. It was announced by the
      bishop of Soissons, in the name of his colleagues: “Ye have sworn
      to obey the prince whom we should choose: by our unanimous
      suffrage, Baldwin count of Flanders and Hainault is now your
      sovereign, and the emperor of the East.” He was saluted with loud
      applause, and the proclamation was reechoed through the city by
      the joy of the Latins, and the trembling adulation of the Greeks.
      Boniface was the first to kiss the hand of his rival, and to
      raise him on the buckler: and Baldwin was transported to the
      cathedral, and solemnly invested with the purple buskins. At the
      end of three weeks he was crowned by the legate, in the vacancy
      of the patriarch; but the Venetian clergy soon filled the chapter
      of St. Sophia, seated Thomas Morosini on the ecclesiastical
      throne, and employed every art to perpetuate in their own nation
      the honors and benefices of the Greek church. 4 Without delay the
      successor of Constantine instructed Palestine, France, and Rome,
      of this memorable revolution. To Palestine he sent, as a trophy,
      the gates of Constantinople, and the chain of the harbor; 5 and
      adopted, from the Assise of Jerusalem, the laws or customs best
      adapted to a French colony and conquest in the East. In his
      epistles, the natives of France are encouraged to swell that
      colony, and to secure that conquest, to people a magnificent city
      and a fertile land, which will reward the labors both of the
      priest and the soldier. He congratulates the Roman pontiff on the
      restoration of his authority in the East; invites him to
      extinguish the Greek schism by his presence in a general council;
      and implores his blessing and forgiveness for the disobedient
      pilgrims. Prudence and dignity are blended in the answer of
      Innocent. 6 In the subversion of the Byzantine empire, he
      arraigns the vices of man, and adores the providence of God; the
      conquerors will be absolved or condemned by their future conduct;
      the validity of their treaty depends on the judgment of St.
      Peter; but he inculcates their most sacred duty of establishing a
      just subordination of obedience and tribute, from the Greeks to
      the Latins, from the magistrate to the clergy, and from the
      clergy to the pope.

      1 (return) [ See the original treaty of partition, in the
      Venetian Chronicle of Andrew Dandolo, p. 326—330, and the
      subsequent election in Ville hardouin, No. 136—140, with Ducange
      in his Observations, and the book of his Histoire de
      Constantinople sous l’Empire des François.]

      2 (return) [ After mentioning the nomination of the doge by a
      French elector his kinsman Andrew Dandolo approves his exclusion,
      quidam Venetorum fidelis et nobilis senex, usus oratione satis
      probabili, &c., which has been embroidered by modern writers from
      Blondus to Le Beau.]

      3 (return) [ Nicetas, (p. 384,) with the vain ignorance of a
      Greek, describes the marquis of Montferrat as a _maritime_ power.
      Dampardian de oikeisqai paralion. Was he deceived by the
      Byzantine theme of Lombardy which extended along the coast of
      Calabria?]

      4 (return) [ They exacted an oath from Thomas Morosini to appoint
      no canons of St. Sophia the lawful electors, except Venetians who
      had lived ten years at Venice, &c. But the foreign clergy was
      envious, the pope disapproved this national monopoly, and of the
      six Latin patriarchs of Constantinople, only the first and the
      last were Venetians.]

      5 (return) [ Nicetas, p. 383.]

      6 (return) [ The Epistles of Innocent III. are a rich fund for
      the ecclesiastical and civil institution of the Latin empire of
      Constantinople; and the most important of these epistles (of
      which the collection in 2 vols. in folio is published by Stephen
      Baluze) are inserted in his Gesta, in Muratori, Script. Rerum
      Italicarum, tom. iii. p. l. c. 94—105.]

      In the division of the Greek provinces, 7 the share of the
      Venetians was more ample than that of the Latin emperor. No more
      than one fourth was appropriated to his domain; a clear moiety of
      the remainder was reserved for Venice; and the other moiety was
      distributed among the adventurers of France and Lombardy. The
      venerable Dandolo was proclaimed despot of Romania, and invested
      after the Greek fashion with the purple buskins. He ended at
      Constantinople his long and glorious life; and if the prerogative
      was personal, the title was used by his successors till the
      middle of the fourteenth century, with the singular, though true,
      addition of lords of one fourth and a half of the Roman empire. 8
      The doge, a slave of state, was seldom permitted to depart from
      the helm of the republic; but his place was supplied by the
      _bail_, or regent, who exercised a supreme jurisdiction over the
      colony of Venetians: they possessed three of the eight quarters
      of the city; and his independent tribunal was composed of six
      judges, four counsellors, two chamberlains two fiscal advocates,
      and a constable. Their long experience of the Eastern trade
      enabled them to select their portion with discernment: they had
      rashly accepted the dominion and defence of Adrianople; but it
      was the more reasonable aim of their policy to form a chain of
      factories, and cities, and islands, along the maritime coast,
      from the neighborhood of Ragusa to the Hellespont and the
      Bosphorus. The labor and cost of such extensive conquests
      exhausted their treasury: they abandoned their maxims of
      government, adopted a feudal system, and contented themselves
      with the homage of their nobles, 9 for the possessions which
      these private vassals undertook to reduce and maintain. And thus
      it was that the family of Sanut acquired the duchy of Naxos,
      which involved the greatest part of the archipelago. For the
      price of ten thousand marks, the republic purchased of the
      marquis of Montferrat the fertile Island of Crete or Candia, with
      the ruins of a hundred cities; 10 but its improvement was stinted
      by the proud and narrow spirit of an aristocracy; 11 and the
      wisest senators would confess that the sea, not the land, was the
      treasury of St. Mark. In the moiety of the adventurers the
      marquis Boniface might claim the most liberal reward; and,
      besides the Isle of Crete, his exclusion from the throne was
      compensated by the royal title and the provinces beyond the
      Hellespont. But he prudently exchanged that distant and difficult
      conquest for the kingdom of Thessalonica Macedonia, twelve days’
      journey from the capital, where he might be supported by the
      neighboring powers of his brother-in-law the king of Hungary. His
      progress was hailed by the voluntary or reluctant acclamations of
      the natives; and Greece, the proper and ancient Greece, again
      received a Latin conqueror, 12 who trod with indifference that
      classic ground. He viewed with a careless eye the beauties of the
      valley of Tempe; traversed with a cautious step the straits of
      Thermopylæ; occupied the unknown cities of Thebes, Athens, and
      Argos; and assaulted the fortifications of Corinth and Napoli, 13
      which resisted his arms. The lots of the Latin pilgrims were
      regulated by chance, or choice, or subsequent exchange; and they
      abused, with intemperate joy, their triumph over the lives and
      fortunes of a great people. After a minute survey of the
      provinces, they weighed in the scales of avarice the revenue of
      each district, the advantage of the situation, and the ample or
      scanty supplies for the maintenance of soldiers and horses. Their
      presumption claimed and divided the long-lost dependencies of the
      Roman sceptre: the Nile and Euphrates rolled through their
      imaginary realms; and happy was the warrior who drew for his
      prize the palace of the Turkish sultan of Iconium. 14 I shall not
      descend to the pedigree of families and the rent-roll of estates,
      but I wish to specify that the counts of Blois and St. Pol were
      invested with the duchy of Nice and the lordship of Demotica: 15
      the principal fiefs were held by the service of constable,
      chamberlain, cup-bearer, butler, and chief cook; and our
      historian, Jeffrey of Villehardouin, obtained a fair
      establishment on the banks of the Hebrus, and united the double
      office of marshal of Champagne and Romania. At the head of his
      knights and archers, each baron mounted on horseback to secure
      the possession of his share, and their first efforts were
      generally successful. But the public force was weakened by their
      dispersion; and a thousand quarrels must arise under a law, and
      among men, whose sole umpire was the sword. Within three months
      after the conquest of Constantinople, the emperor and the king of
      Thessalonica drew their hostile followers into the field; they
      were reconciled by the authority of the doge, the advice of the
      marshal, and the firm freedom of their peers. 16

      7 (return) [ In the treaty of partition, most of the names are
      corrupted by the scribes: they might be restored, and a good map,
      suited to the last age of the Byzantine empire, would be an
      improvement of geography. But, alas D’Anville is no more!]

      8 (return) [ Their style was dominus quartæ partis et dimidiæ
      imperii Romani, till Giovanni Dolfino, who was elected doge in
      the year of 1356, (Sanuto, p. 530, 641.) For the government of
      Constantinople, see Ducange, Histoire de C. P. i. 37.]

      9 (return) [ Ducange (Hist. de C. P. ii. 6) has marked the
      conquests made by the state or nobles of Venice of the Islands of
      Candia, Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante, Naxos, Paros, Melos, Andros,
      Mycone, Syro, Cea, and Lemnos.]

      10 (return) [ Boniface sold the Isle of Candia, August 12, A.D.
      1204. See the act in Sanuto, p. 533: but I cannot understand how
      it could be his mother’s portion, or how she could be the
      daughter of an emperor Alexius.]

      11 (return) [ In the year 1212, the doge Peter Zani sent a colony
      to Candia, drawn from every quarter of Venice. But in their
      savage manners and frequent rebellions, the Candiots may be
      compared to the Corsicans under the yoke of Genoa; and when I
      compare the accounts of Belon and Tournefort, I cannot discern
      much difference between the Venetian and the Turkish island.]

      12 (return) [ Villehardouin (No. 159, 160, 173—177) and Nicetas
      (p. 387—394) describe the expedition into Greece of the marquis
      Boniface. The Choniate might derive his information from his
      brother Michael, archbishop of Athens, whom he paints as an
      orator, a statesman, and a saint. His encomium of Athens, and the
      description of Tempe, should be published from the Bodleian MS.
      of Nicetas, (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 405,) and would
      have deserved Mr. Harris’s inquiries.]

      13 (return) [ Napoli de Romania, or Nauplia, the ancient seaport
      of Argos, is still a place of strength and consideration, situate
      on a rocky peninsula, with a good harbor, (Chandler’s Travels
      into Greece, p. 227.)]

      14 (return) [ I have softened the expression of Nicetas, who
      strives to expose the presumption of the Franks. See the Rebus
      post C. P. expugnatam, p. 375—384.]

      15 (return) [ A city surrounded by the River Hebrus, and six
      leagues to the south of Adrianople, received from its double wall
      the Greek name of Didymoteichos, insensibly corrupted into
      Demotica and Dimot. I have preferred the more convenient and
      modern appellation of Demotica. This place was the last Turkish
      residence of Charles XII.]

      16 (return) [ Their quarrel is told by Villehardouin (No.
      146—158) with the spirit of freedom. The merit and reputation of
      the marshal are so acknowledged by the Greek historian (p. 387)
      mega para touV tvn Dauinwn dunamenou strateumasi: unlike some
      modern heroes, whose exploits are only visible in their own
      memoirs. * Note: William de Champlite, brother of the count of
      Dijon, assumed the title of Prince of Achaia: on the death of his
      brother, he returned, with regret, to France, to assume his
      paternal inheritance, and left Villehardouin his “_bailli_,” on
      condition that if he did not return within a year Villehardouin
      was to retain an investiture. Brosset’s Add. to Le Beau, vol.
      xvii. p. 200. M. Brosset adds, from the Greek chronicler edited
      by M. Buchon, the somewhat unknightly trick by which
      Villehardouin disembarrassed himself from the troublesome claim
      of Robert, the cousin of the count of Dijon. to the succession.
      He contrived that Robert should arrive just fifteen days too
      late; and with the general concurrence of the assembled knights
      was himself invested with the principality. Ibid. p. 283. M.]

      Two fugitives, who had reigned at Constantinople, still asserted
      the title of emperor; and the subjects of their fallen throne
      might be moved to pity by the misfortunes of the elder Alexius,
      or excited to revenge by the spirit of Mourzoufle. A domestic
      alliance, a common interest, a similar guilt, and the merit of
      extinguishing his enemies, a brother and a nephew, induced the
      more recent usurper to unite with the former the relics of his
      power. Mourzoufle was received with smiles and honors in the camp
      of his father Alexius; but the wicked can never love, and should
      rarely trust, their fellow-criminals; he was seized in the bath,
      deprived of his eyes, stripped of his troops and treasures, and
      turned out to wander an object of horror and contempt to those
      who with more propriety could hate, and with more justice could
      punish, the assassin of the emperor Isaac and his son. As the
      tyrant, pursued by fear or remorse, was stealing over to Asia, he
      was seized by the Latins of Constantinople, and condemned, after
      an open trial, to an ignominious death. His judges debated the
      mode of his execution, the axe, the wheel, or the stake; and it
      was resolved that Mourzoufle 17 should ascend the Theodosian
      column, a pillar of white marble of one hundred and forty-seven
      feet in height. 18 From the summit he was cast down headlong, and
      dashed in pieces on the pavement, in the presence of innumerable
      spectators, who filled the forum of Taurus, and admired the
      accomplishment of an old prediction, which was explained by this
      singular event. 19 The fate of Alexius is less tragical: he was
      sent by the marquis a captive to Italy, and a gift to the king of
      the Romans; but he had not much to applaud his fortune, if the
      sentence of imprisonment and exile were changed from a fortress
      in the Alps to a monastery in Asia. But his daughter, before the
      national calamity, had been given in marriage to a young hero who
      continued the succession, and restored the throne, of the Greek
      princes. 20 The valor of Theodore Lascaris was signalized in the
      two sieges of Constantinople. After the flight of Mourzoufle,
      when the Latins were already in the city, he offered himself as
      their emperor to the soldiers and people; and his ambition, which
      might be virtuous, was undoubtedly brave. Could he have infused a
      soul into the multitude, they might have crushed the strangers
      under their feet: their abject despair refused his aid; and
      Theodore retired to breathe the air of freedom in Anatolia,
      beyond the immediate view and pursuit of the conquerors. Under
      the title, at first of despot, and afterwards of emperor, he drew
      to his standard the bolder spirits, who were fortified against
      slavery by the contempt of life; and as every means was lawful
      for the public safety implored without scruple the alliance of
      the Turkish sultan Nice, where Theodore established his
      residence, Prusa and Philadelphia, Smyrna and Ephesus, opened
      their gates to their deliverer: he derived strength and
      reputation from his victories, and even from his defeats; and the
      successor of Constantine preserved a fragment of the empire from
      the banks of the Mæander to the suburbs of Nicomedia, and at
      length of Constantinople. Another portion, distant and obscure,
      was possessed by the lineal heir of the Comneni, a son of the
      virtuous Manuel, a grandson of the tyrant Andronicus. His name
      was Alexius; and the epithet of great 201 was applied perhaps to
      his stature, rather than to his exploits. By the indulgence of
      the Angeli, he was appointed governor or duke of Trebizond: 21
      211 his birth gave him ambition, the revolution independence;
      and, without changing his title, he reigned in peace from Sinope
      to the Phasis, along the coast of the Black Sea. His nameless son
      and successor 212 is described as the vassal of the sultan, whom
      he served with two hundred lances: that Comnenian prince was no
      more than duke of Trebizond, and the title of emperor was first
      assumed by the pride and envy of the grandson of Alexius. In the
      West, a third fragment was saved from the common shipwreck by
      Michael, a bastard of the house of Angeli, who, before the
      revolution, had been known as a hostage, a soldier, and a rebel.
      His flight from the camp of the marquis Boniface secured his
      freedom; by his marriage with the governor’s daughter, he
      commanded the important place of Durazzo, assumed the title of
      despot, and founded a strong and conspicuous principality in
      Epirus, Ætolia, and Thessaly, which have ever been peopled by a
      warlike race. The Greeks, who had offered their service to their
      new sovereigns, were excluded by the haughty Latins 22 from all
      civil and military honors, as a nation born to tremble and obey.
      Their resentment prompted them to show that they might have been
      useful friends, since they could be dangerous enemies: their
      nerves were braced by adversity: whatever was learned or holy,
      whatever was noble or valiant, rolled away into the independent
      states of Trebizond, Epirus, and Nice; and a single patrician is
      marked by the ambiguous praise of attachment and loyalty to the
      Franks. The vulgar herd of the cities and the country would have
      gladly submitted to a mild and regular servitude; and the
      transient disorders of war would have been obliterated by some
      years of industry and peace. But peace was banished, and industry
      was crushed, in the disorders of the feudal system. The _Roman_
      emperors of Constantinople, if they were endowed with abilities,
      were armed with power for the protection of their subjects: their
      laws were wise, and their administration was simple. The Latin
      throne was filled by a titular prince, the chief, and often the
      servant, of his licentious confederates; the fiefs of the empire,
      from a kingdom to a castle, were held and ruled by the sword of
      the barons; and their discord, poverty, and ignorance, extended
      the ramifications of tyranny to the most sequestered villages.
      The Greeks were oppressed by the double weight of the priests,
      who were invested with temporal power, and of the soldier, who
      was inflamed by fanatic hatred; and the insuperable bar of
      religion and language forever separated the stranger and the
      native. As long as the crusaders were united at Constantinople,
      the memory of their conquest, and the terror of their arms,
      imposed silence on the captive land: their dispersion betrayed
      the smallness of their numbers and the defects of their
      discipline; and some failures and mischances revealed the secret,
      that they were not invincible. As the fears of the Greeks abated,
      their hatred increased. They murdered; they conspired; and before
      a year of slavery had elapsed, they implored, or accepted, the
      succor of a Barbarian, whose power they had felt, and whose
      gratitude they trusted. 23

      17 (return) [ See the fate of Mourzoufle in Nicetas, (p. 393,)
      Villehardouin, (No. 141—145, 163,) and Guntherus, (c. 20, 21.)
      Neither the marshal nor the monk afford a grain of pity for a
      tyrant or rebel, whose punishment, however, was more unexampled
      than his crime.]

      18 (return) [ The column of Arcadius, which represents in basso
      relievo his victories, or those of his father Theodosius, is
      still extant at Constantinople. It is described and measured,
      Gyllius, (Topograph. iv. 7,) Banduri, (ad l. i. Antiquit. C. P.
      p. 507, &c.,) and Tournefort, (Voyage du Levant, tom. ii. lettre
      xii. p. 231.) (Compare Wilken, note, vol. v p. 388.—M.)]

      19 (return) [ The nonsense of Gunther and the modern Greeks
      concerning this _columna fatidica_, is unworthy of notice; but it
      is singular enough, that fifty years before the Latin conquest,
      the poet Tzetzes, (Chiliad, ix. 277) relates the dream of a
      matron, who saw an army in the forum, and a man sitting on the
      column, clapping his hands, and uttering a loud exclamation. *
      Note: We read in the “Chronicle of the Conquest of
      Constantinople, and of the Establishment of the French in the
      Morea,” translated by J A Buchon, Paris, 1825, p. 64 that Leo
      VI., called the Philosopher, had prophesied that a perfidious
      emperor should be precipitated from the top of this column. The
      crusaders considered themselves under an obligation to fulfil
      this prophecy. Brosset, note on Le Beau, vol. xvii. p. 180. M
      Brosset announces that a complete edition of this work, of which
      the original Greek of the first book only has been published by
      M. Buchon in preparation, to form part of the new series of the
      Byzantine historian.—M.]

      20 (return) [ The dynasties of Nice, Trebizond, and Epirus (of
      which Nicetas saw the origin without much pleasure or hope) are
      learnedly explored, and clearly represented, in the Familiæ
      Byzantinæ of Ducange.]

      201 (return) [ This was a title, not a personal appellation.
      Joinville speaks of the “Grant Comnenie, et sire de
      Traffezzontes.” Fallmerayer, p. 82.—M.]

      21 (return) [ Except some facts in Pachymer and Nicephorus
      Gregoras, which will hereafter be used, the Byzantine writers
      disdain to speak of the empire of Trebizond, or principality of
      the _Lazi_; and among the Latins, it is conspicuous only in the
      romancers of the xivth or xvth centuries. Yet the indefatigable
      Ducange has dug out (Fam. Byz. p. 192) two authentic passages in
      Vincent of Beauvais (l. xxxi. c. 144) and the prothonotary
      Ogerius, (apud Wading, A.D. 1279, No. 4.)]

      211 (return) [ On the revolutions of Trebizond under the later
      empire down to this period, see Fallmerayer, Geschichte des
      Kaiserthums von Trapezunt, ch. iii. The wife of Manuel fled with
      her infant sons and her treasure from the relentless enmity of
      Isaac Angelus. Fallmerayer conjectures that her arrival enabled
      the Greeks of that region to make head against the formidable
      Thamar, the Georgian queen of Teflis, p. 42. They gradually
      formed a dominion on the banks of the Phasis, which the
      distracted government of the Angeli neglected or were unable to
      suppress. On the capture of Constantinople by the Latins, Alexius
      was joined by many noble fugitives from Constantinople. He had
      always retained the names of Cæsar and BasileuV. He now fixed the
      seat of his empire at Trebizond; but he had never abandoned his
      pretensions to the Byzantine throne, ch. iii. Fallmerayer appears
      to make out a triumphant case as to the assumption of the royal
      title by Alexius the First. Since the publication of M.
      Fallmerayer’s work, (München, 1827,) M. Tafel has published, at
      the end of the opuscula of Eustathius, a curious chronicle of
      Trebizond by Michael Panaretas, (Frankfort, 1832.) It gives the
      succession of the emperors, and some other curious circumstances
      of their wars with the several Mahometan powers.—M.]

      212 (return) [ The successor of Alexius was his son-in-law
      Andronicus I., of the Comnenian family, surnamed Gidon. There
      were five successions between Alexius and John, according to
      Fallmerayer, p. 103. The troops of Trebizond fought in the army
      of Dschelaleddin, the Karismian, against Alaleddin, the Seljukian
      sultan of Roum, but as allies rather than vassals, p. 107. It was
      after the defeat of Dschelaleddin that they furnished their
      contingent to Alai-eddin. Fallmerayer struggles in vain to
      mitigate this mark of the subjection of the Comneni to the
      sultan. p. 116.—M.]

      22 (return) [ The portrait of the French Latins is drawn in
      Nicetas by the hand of prejudice and resentment: ouden tvn allwn
      eqnvn eiV ''AreoV?rga parasumbeblhsqai sjisin hneiconto all’ oude
      tiV tvn caritwn h tvn?mousvn para toiV barbaroiV toutoiV
      epexenizeto, kai para touto oimai thn jusin hsan anhmeroi, kai
      ton xolon eixon tou logou prstreconta. [P. 791 Ed. Bek.]

      23 (return) [ I here begin to use, with freedom and confidence,
      the eight books of the Histoire de C. P. sous l’Empire des
      François, which Ducange has given as a supplement to
      Villehardouin; and which, in a barbarous style, deserves the
      praise of an original and classic work.]

      The Latin conquerors had been saluted with a solemn and early
      embassy from John, or Joannice, or Calo-John, the revolted chief
      of the Bulgarians and Walachians. He deemed himself their
      brother, as the votary of the Roman pontiff, from whom he had
      received the regal title and a holy banner; and in the subversion
      of the Greek monarchy, he might aspire to the name of their
      friend and accomplice. But Calo-John was astonished to find, that
      the Count of Flanders had assumed the pomp and pride of the
      successors of Constantine; and his ambassadors were dismissed
      with a haughty message, that the rebel must deserve a pardon, by
      touching with his forehead the footstool of the Imperial throne.
      His resentment 24 would have exhaled in acts of violence and
      blood: his cooler policy watched the rising discontent of the
      Greeks; affected a tender concern for their sufferings; and
      promised, that their first struggles for freedom should be
      supported by his person and kingdom. The conspiracy was
      propagated by national hatred, the firmest band of association
      and secrecy: the Greeks were impatient to sheathe their daggers
      in the breasts of the victorious strangers; but the execution was
      prudently delayed, till Henry, the emperor’s brother, had
      transported the flower of his troops beyond the Hellespont. Most
      of the towns and villages of Thrace were true to the moment and
      the signal; and the Latins, without arms or suspicion, were
      slaughtered by the vile and merciless revenge of their slaves.
      From Demotica, the first scene of the massacre, the surviving
      vassals of the count of St. Pol escaped to Adrianople; but the
      French and Venetians, who occupied that city, were slain or
      expelled by the furious multitude: the garrisons that could
      effect their retreat fell back on each other towards the
      metropolis; and the fortresses, that separately stood against the
      rebels, were ignorant of each other’s and of their sovereign’s
      fate. The voice of fame and fear announced the revolt of the
      Greeks and the rapid approach of their Bulgarian ally; and
      Calo-John, not depending on the forces of his own kingdom, had
      drawn from the Scythian wilderness a body of fourteen thousand
      Comans, who drank, as it was said, the blood of their captives,
      and sacrificed the Christians on the altars of their gods. 25

      24 (return) [ In Calo-John’s answer to the pope we may find his
      claims and complaints, (Gesta Innocent III. c. 108, 109:) he was
      cherished at Rome as the prodigal son.]

      25 (return) [ The Comans were a Tartar or Turkman horde, which
      encamped in the xiith and xiiith centuries on the verge of
      Moldavia. The greater part were pagans, but some were Mahometans,
      and the whole horde was converted to Christianity (A.D. 1370) by
      Lewis, king of Hungary.]

      Alarmed by this sudden and growing danger, the emperor despatched
      a swift messenger to recall Count Henry and his troops; and had
      Baldwin expected the return of his gallant brother, with a supply
      of twenty thousand Armenians, he might have encountered the
      invader with equal numbers and a decisive superiority of arms and
      discipline. But the spirit of chivalry could seldom discriminate
      caution from cowardice; and the emperor took the field with a
      hundred and forty knights, and their train of archers and
      sergeants. The marshal, who dissuaded and obeyed, led the
      vanguard in their march to Adrianople; the main body was
      commanded by the count of Blois; the aged doge of Venice followed
      with the rear; and their scanty numbers were increased from all
      sides by the fugitive Latins. They undertook to besiege the
      rebels of Adrianople; and such was the pious tendency of the
      crusades that they employed the holy week in pillaging the
      country for their subsistence, and in framing engines for the
      destruction of their fellow-Christians. But the Latins were soon
      interrupted and alarmed by the light cavalry of the Comans, who
      boldly skirmished to the edge of their imperfect lines: and a
      proclamation was issued by the marshal of Romania, that, on the
      trumpet’s sound, the cavalry should mount and form; but that
      none, under pain of death, should abandon themselves to a
      desultory and dangerous pursuit. This wise injunction was first
      disobeyed by the count of Blois, who involved the emperor in his
      rashness and ruin. The Comans, of the Parthian or Tartar school,
      fled before their first charge; but after a career of two
      leagues, when the knights and their horses were almost
      breathless, they suddenly turned, rallied, and encompassed the
      heavy squadrons of the Franks. The count was slain on the field;
      the emperor was made prisoner; and if the one disdained to fly,
      if the other refused to yield, their personal bravery made a poor
      atonement for their ignorance, or neglect, of the duties of a
      general. 26

      26 (return) [ Nicetas, from ignorance or malice, imputes the
      defeat to the cowardice of Dandolo, (p. 383;) but Villehardouin
      shares his own glory with his venerable friend, qui viels home
      ére et gote ne veoit, mais mult ére sages et preus et vigueros,
      (No. 193.) * Note: Gibbon appears to me to have misapprehended
      the passage of Nicetas. He says, “that principal and subtlest
      mischief. that primary cause of all the horrible miseries
      suffered by the _Romans_,” i. e. the Byzantines. It is an
      effusion of malicious triumph against the Venetians, to whom he
      always ascribes the capture of Constantinople.—M.]




      Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And
      Venetians.—Part II.

      Proud of his victory and his royal prize, the Bulgarian advanced
      to relieve Adrianople and achieve the destruction of the Latins.
      They must inevitably have been destroyed, if the marshal of
      Romania had not displayed a cool courage and consummate skill;
      uncommon in all ages, but most uncommon in those times, when war
      was a passion, rather than a science. His grief and fears were
      poured into the firm and faithful bosom of the doge; but in the
      camp he diffused an assurance of safety, which could only be
      realized by the general belief. All day he maintained his
      perilous station between the city and the Barbarians:
      Villehardouin decamped in silence at the dead of night; and his
      masterly retreat of three days would have deserved the praise of
      Xenophon and the ten thousand. In the rear, the marshal supported
      the weight of the pursuit; in the front, he moderated the
      impatience of the fugitives; and wherever the Comans approached,
      they were repelled by a line of impenetrable spears. On the third
      day, the weary troops beheld the sea, the solitary town of
      Rodosta, 27 and their friends, who had landed from the Asiatic
      shore. They embraced, they wept; but they united their arms and
      counsels; and in his brother’s absence, Count Henry assumed the
      regency of the empire, at once in a state of childhood and
      caducity. 28 If the Comans withdrew from the summer heats, seven
      thousand Latins, in the hour of danger, deserted Constantinople,
      their brethren, and their vows. Some partial success was
      overbalanced by the loss of one hundred and twenty knights in the
      field of Rusium; and of the Imperial domain, no more was left
      than the capital, with two or three adjacent fortresses on the
      shores of Europe and Asia. The king of Bulgaria was resistless
      and inexorable; and Calo-John respectfully eluded the demands of
      the pope, who conjured his new proselyte to restore peace and the
      emperor to the afflicted Latins. The deliverance of Baldwin was
      no longer, he said, in the power of man: that prince had died in
      prison; and the manner of his death is variously related by
      ignorance and credulity. The lovers of a tragic legend will be
      pleased to hear, that the royal captive was tempted by the
      amorous queen of the Bulgarians; that his chaste refusal exposed
      him to the falsehood of a woman and the jealousy of a savage;
      that his hands and feet were severed from his body; that his
      bleeding trunk was cast among the carcasses of dogs and horses;
      and that he breathed three days, before he was devoured by the
      birds of prey. 29 About twenty years afterwards, in a wood of the
      Netherlands, a hermit announced himself as the true Baldwin, the
      emperor of Constantinople, and lawful sovereign of Flanders. He
      related the wonders of his escape, his adventures, and his
      penance, among a people prone to believe and to rebel; and, in
      the first transport, Flanders acknowledged her long-lost
      sovereign. A short examination before the French court detected
      the impostor, who was punished with an ignominious death; but the
      Flemings still adhered to the pleasing error; and the countess
      Jane is accused by the gravest historians of sacrificing to her
      ambition the life of an unfortunate father. 30

      27 (return) [ The truth of geography, and the original text of
      Villehardouin, (No. 194,) place Rodosto three days’ journey
      (trois jornées) from Adrianople: but Vigenere, in his version,
      has most absurdly substituted _trois heures_; and this error,
      which is not corrected by Ducange has entrapped several moderns,
      whose names I shall spare.]

      28 (return) [ The reign and end of Baldwin are related by
      Villehardouin and Nicetas, (p. 386—416;) and their omissions are
      supplied by Ducange in his Observations, and to the end of his
      first book.]

      29 (return) [ After brushing away all doubtful and improbable
      circumstances, we may prove the death of Baldwin, 1. By the firm
      belief of the French barons, (Villehardouin, No. 230.) 2. By the
      declaration of Calo-John himself, who excuses his not releasing
      the captive emperor, quia debitum carnis exsolverat cum carcere
      teneretur, (Gesta Innocent III. c. 109.) * Note: Compare Von
      Raumer. Geschichte der Hohenstaufen, vol. ii. p. 237. Petitot, in
      his preface to Villehardouin in the Collection des Mémoires,
      relatifs a l’Histoire de France, tom. i. p. 85, expresses his
      belief in the first part of the “tragic legend.”—M.]

      30 (return) [ See the story of this impostor from the French and
      Flemish writers in Ducange, Hist. de C. P. iii. 9; and the
      ridiculous fables that were believed by the monks of St. Alban’s,
      in Matthew Paris, Hist. Major, p. 271, 272.]

      In all civilized hostility, a treaty is established for the
      exchange or ransom of prisoners; and if their captivity be
      prolonged, their condition is known, and they are treated
      according to their rank with humanity or honor. But the savage
      Bulgarian was a stranger to the laws of war: his prisons were
      involved in darkness and silence; and above a year elapsed before
      the Latins could be assured of the death of Baldwin, before his
      brother, the regent Henry, would consent to assume the title of
      emperor. His moderation was applauded by the Greeks as an act of
      rare and inimitable virtue. Their light and perfidious ambition
      was eager to seize or anticipate the moment of a vacancy, while a
      law of succession, the guardian both of the prince and people,
      was gradually defined and confirmed in the hereditary monarchies
      of Europe. In the support of the Eastern empire, Henry was
      gradually left without an associate, as the heroes of the crusade
      retired from the world or from the war. The doge of Venice, the
      venerable Dandolo, in the fulness of years and glory, sunk into
      the grave. The marquis of Montferrat was slowly recalled from the
      Peloponnesian war to the revenge of Baldwin and the defence of
      Thessalonica. Some nice disputes of feudal homage and service
      were reconciled in a personal interview between the emperor and
      the king; they were firmly united by mutual esteem and the common
      danger; and their alliance was sealed by the nuptials of Henry
      with the daughter of the Italian prince. He soon deplored the
      loss of his friend and father. At the persuasion of some faithful
      Greeks, Boniface made a bold and successful inroad among the
      hills of Rhodope: the Bulgarians fled on his approach; they
      assembled to harass his retreat. On the intelligence that his
      rear was attacked, without waiting for any defensive armor, he
      leaped on horseback, couched his lance, and drove the enemies
      before him; but in the rash pursuit he was pierced with a mortal
      wound; and the head of the king of Thessalonica was presented to
      Calo-John, who enjoyed the honors, without the merit, of victory.
      It is here, at this melancholy event, that the pen or the voice
      of Jeffrey of Villehardouin seems to drop or to expire; 31 and if
      he still exercised his military office of marshal of Romania, his
      subsequent exploits are buried in oblivion. 32 The character of
      Henry was not unequal to his arduous situation: in the siege of
      Constantinople, and beyond the Hellespont, he had deserved the
      fame of a valiant knight and a skilful commander; and his courage
      was tempered with a degree of prudence and mildness unknown to
      his impetuous brother. In the double war against the Greeks of
      Asia and the Bulgarians of Europe, he was ever the foremost on
      shipboard or on horseback; and though he cautiously provided for
      the success of his arms, the drooping Latins were often roused by
      his example to save and to second their fearless emperor. But
      such efforts, and some supplies of men and money from France,
      were of less avail than the errors, the cruelty, and death, of
      their most formidable adversary. When the despair of the Greek
      subjects invited Calo-John as their deliverer, they hoped that he
      would protect their liberty and adopt their laws: they were soon
      taught to compare the degrees of national ferocity, and to
      execrate the savage conqueror, who no longer dissembled his
      intention of dispeopling Thrace, of demolishing the cities, and
      of transplanting the inhabitants beyond the Danube. Many towns
      and villages of Thrace were already evacuated: a heap of ruins
      marked the place of Philippopolis, and a similar calamity was
      expected at Demotica and Adrianople, by the first authors of the
      revolt. They raised a cry of grief and repentance to the throne
      of Henry; the emperor alone had the magnanimity to forgive and
      trust them. No more than four hundred knights, with their
      sergeants and archers, could be assembled under his banner; and
      with this slender force he fought 321 and repulsed the Bulgarian,
      who, besides his infantry, was at the head of forty thousand
      horse. In this expedition, Henry felt the difference between a
      hostile and a friendly country: the remaining cities were
      preserved by his arms; and the savage, with shame and loss, was
      compelled to relinquish his prey. The siege of Thessalonica was
      the last of the evils which Calo-John inflicted or suffered: he
      was stabbed in the night in his tent; and the general, perhaps
      the assassin, who found him weltering in his blood, ascribed the
      blow, with general applause, to the lance of St. Demetrius. 33
      After several victories, the prudence of Henry concluded an
      honorable peace with the successor of the tyrant, and with the
      Greek princes of Nice and Epirus. If he ceded some doubtful
      limits, an ample kingdom was reserved for himself and his
      feudatories; and his reign, which lasted only ten years, afforded
      a short interval of prosperity and peace. Far above the narrow
      policy of Baldwin and Boniface, he freely intrusted to the Greeks
      the most important offices of the state and army; and this
      liberality of sentiment and practice was the more seasonable, as
      the princes of Nice and Epirus had already learned to seduce and
      employ the mercenary valor of the Latins. It was the aim of Henry
      to unite and reward his deserving subjects, of every nation and
      language; but he appeared less solicitous to accomplish the
      impracticable union of the two churches. Pelagius, the pope’s
      legate, who acted as the sovereign of Constantinople, had
      interdicted the worship of the Greeks, and sternly imposed the
      payment of tithes, the double procession of the Holy Ghost, and a
      blind obedience to the Roman pontiff. As the weaker party, they
      pleaded the duties of conscience, and implored the rights of
      toleration: “Our bodies,” they said, “are Cæsar’s, but our souls
      belong only to God.” The persecution was checked by the firmness
      of the emperor: 34 and if we can believe that the same prince was
      poisoned by the Greeks themselves, we must entertain a
      contemptible idea of the sense and gratitude of mankind. His
      valor was a vulgar attribute, which he shared with ten thousand
      knights; but Henry possessed the superior courage to oppose, in a
      superstitious age, the pride and avarice of the clergy. In the
      cathedral of St. Sophia he presumed to place his throne on the
      right hand of the patriarch; and this presumption excited the
      sharpest censure of Pope Innocent the Third. By a salutary edict,
      one of the first examples of the laws of mortmain, he prohibited
      the alienation of fiefs: many of the Latins, desirous of
      returning to Europe, resigned their estates to the church for a
      spiritual or temporal reward; these holy lands were immediately
      discharged from military service, and a colony of soldiers would
      have been gradually transformed into a college of priests. 35

      31 (return) [ Villehardouin, No. 257. I quote, with regret, this
      lamentable conclusion, where we lose at once the original
      history, and the rich illustrations of Ducange. The last pages
      may derive some light from Henry’s two epistles to Innocent III.,
      (Gesta, c. 106, 107.)]

      32 (return) [ The marshal was alive in 1212, but he probably died
      soon afterwards, without returning to France, (Ducange,
      Observations sur Villehardouin, p. 238.) His fief of Messinople,
      the gift of Boniface, was the ancient Maximianopolis, which
      flourished in the time of Ammianus Marcellinus, among the cities
      of Thrace, (No. 141.)]

      321 (return) [ There was no battle. On the advance of the Latins,
      John suddenly broke up his camp and retreated. The Latins
      considered this unexpected deliverance almost a miracle. Le Beau
      suggests the probability that the detection of the Comans, who
      usually quitted the camp during the heats of summer, may have
      caused the flight of the Bulgarians. Nicetas, c. 8 Villebardouin,
      c. 225. Le Beau, vol. xvii. p. 242.—M.]

      33 (return) [ The church of this patron of Thessalonica was
      served by the canons of the holy sepulchre, and contained a
      divine ointment which distilled daily and stupendous miracles,
      (Ducange, Hist. de C. P. ii. 4.)]

      34 (return) [ Acropolita (c. 17) observes the persecution of the
      legate, and the toleration of Henry, ('Erh, * as he calls him)
      kludwna katestorese. Note: Or rather 'ErrhV.—M.]

      35 (return) [ See the reign of Henry, in Ducange, (Hist. de C. P.
      l. i. c. 35—41, l. ii. c. 1—22,) who is much indebted to the
      Epistles of the Popes. Le Beau (Hist. du Bas Empire, tom. xxi. p.
      120—122) has found, perhaps in Doutreman, some laws of Henry,
      which determined the service of fiefs, and the prerogatives of
      the emperor.]

      The virtuous Henry died at Thessalonica, in the defence of that
      kingdom, and of an infant, the son of his friend Boniface. In the
      two first emperors of Constantinople the male line of the counts
      of Flanders was extinct. But their sister Yolande was the wife of
      a French prince, the mother of a numerous progeny; and one of her
      daughters had married Andrew king of Hungary, a brave and pious
      champion of the cross. By seating him on the Byzantine throne,
      the barons of Romania would have acquired the forces of a
      neighboring and warlike kingdom; but the prudent Andrew revered
      the laws of succession; and the princess Yolande, with her
      husband Peter of Courtenay, count of Auxerre, was invited by the
      Latins to assume the empire of the East. The royal birth of his
      father, the noble origin of his mother, recommended to the barons
      of France the first cousin of their king. His reputation was
      fair, his possessions were ample, and in the bloody crusade
      against the Albigeois, the soldiers and the priests had been
      abundantly satisfied of his zeal and valor. Vanity might applaud
      the elevation of a French emperor of Constantinople; but prudence
      must pity, rather than envy, his treacherous and imaginary
      greatness. To assert and adorn his title, he was reduced to sell
      or mortgage the best of his patrimony. By these expedients, the
      liberality of his royal kinsman Philip Augustus, and the national
      spirit of chivalry, he was enabled to pass the Alps at the head
      of one hundred and forty knights, and five thousand five hundred
      sergeants and archers. After some hesitation, Pope Honorius the
      Third was persuaded to crown the successor of Constantine: but he
      performed the ceremony in a church without the walls, lest he
      should seem to imply or to bestow any right of sovereignty over
      the ancient capital of the empire. The Venetians had engaged to
      transport Peter and his forces beyond the Adriatic, and the
      empress, with her four children, to the Byzantine palace; but
      they required, as the price of their service, that he should
      recover Durazzo from the despot of Epirus. Michael Angelus, or
      Comnenus, the first of his dynasty, had bequeathed the succession
      of his power and ambition to Theodore, his legitimate brother,
      who already threatened and invaded the establishments of the
      Latins. After discharging his debt by a fruitless assault, the
      emperor raised the siege to prosecute a long and perilous journey
      over land from Durazzo to Thessalonica. He was soon lost in the
      mountains of Epirus: the passes were fortified; his provisions
      exhausted; he was delayed and deceived by a treacherous
      negotiation; and, after Peter of Courtenay and the Roman legate
      had been arrested in a banquet, the French troops, without
      leaders or hopes, were eager to exchange their arms for the
      delusive promise of mercy and bread. The Vatican thundered; and
      the impious Theodore was threatened with the vengeance of earth
      and heaven; but the captive emperor and his soldiers were
      forgotten, and the reproaches of the pope are confined to the
      imprisonment of his legate. No sooner was he satisfied by the
      deliverance of the priests and a promise of spiritual obedience,
      than he pardoned and protected the despot of Epirus. His
      peremptory commands suspended the ardor of the Venetians and the
      king of Hungary; and it was only by a natural or untimely death
      36 that Peter of Courtenay was released from his hopeless
      captivity. 37

      36 (return) [ Acropolita (c. 14) affirms, that Peter of Courtenay
      died by the sword, (ergon macairaV genesqai;) but from his dark
      expressions, I should conclude a previous captivity, wV pantaV
      ardhn desmwtaV poihsai sun pasi skeuesi. * The Chronicle of
      Auxerre delays the emperor’s death till the year 1219; and
      Auxerre is in the neighborhood of Courtenay. Note: Whatever may
      have been the fact, this can hardly be made out from the
      expressions of Acropolita.—M.]

      37 (return) [ See the reign and death of Peter of Courtenay, in
      Ducange, (Hist. de C. P. l. ii. c. 22—28,) who feebly strives to
      excuse the neglect of the emperor by Honorius III.]

      The long ignorance of his fate, and the presence of the lawful
      sovereign, of Yolande, his wife or widow, delayed the
      proclamation of a new emperor. Before her death, and in the midst
      of her grief, she was delivered of a son, who was named Baldwin,
      the last and most unfortunate of the Latin princes of
      Constantinople. His birth endeared him to the barons of Romania;
      but his childhood would have prolonged the troubles of a
      minority, and his claims were superseded by the elder claims of
      his brethren. The first of these, Philip of Courtenay, who
      derived from his mother the inheritance of Namur, had the wisdom
      to prefer the substance of a marquisate to the shadow of an
      empire; and on his refusal, Robert, the second of the sons of
      Peter and Yolande, was called to the throne of Constantinople.
      Warned by his father’s mischance, he pursued his slow and secure
      journey through Germany and along the Danube: a passage was
      opened by his sister’s marriage with the king of Hungary; and the
      emperor Robert was crowned by the patriarch in the cathedral of
      St. Sophia. But his reign was an æra of calamity and disgrace;
      and the colony, as it was styled, of New France yielded on all
      sides to the Greeks of Nice and Epirus. After a victory, which he
      owed to his perfidy rather than his courage, Theodore Angelus
      entered the kingdom of Thessalonica, expelled the feeble
      Demetrius, the son of the marquis Boniface, erected his standard
      on the walls of Adrianople; and added, by his vanity, a third or
      a fourth name to the list of rival emperors. The relics of the
      Asiatic province were swept away by John Vataces, the son-in-law
      and successor of Theodore Lascaris, and who, in a triumphant
      reign of thirty-three years, displayed the virtues both of peace
      and war. Under his discipline, the swords of the French
      mercenaries were the most effectual instruments of his conquests,
      and their desertion from the service of their country was at once
      a symptom and a cause of the rising ascendant of the Greeks. By
      the construction of a fleet, he obtained the command of the
      Hellespont, reduced the islands of Lesbos and Rhodes, attacked
      the Venetians of Candia, and intercepted the rare and
      parsimonious succors of the West. Once, and once only, the Latin
      emperor sent an army against Vataces; and in the defeat of that
      army, the veteran knights, the last of the original conquerors,
      were left on the field of battle. But the success of a foreign
      enemy was less painful to the pusillanimous Robert than the
      insolence of his Latin subjects, who confounded the weakness of
      the emperor and of the empire. His personal misfortunes will
      prove the anarchy of the government and the ferociousness of the
      times. The amorous youth had neglected his Greek bride, the
      daughter of Vataces, to introduce into the palace a beautiful
      maid, of a private, though noble family of Artois; and her mother
      had been tempted by the lustre of the purple to forfeit her
      engagements with a gentleman of Burgundy. His love was converted
      into rage; he assembled his friends, forced the palace gates,
      threw the mother into the sea, and inhumanly cut off the nose and
      lips of the wife or concubine of the emperor. Instead of
      punishing the offender, the barons avowed and applauded the
      savage deed, 38 which, as a prince and as a man, it was
      impossible that Robert should forgive. He escaped from the guilty
      city to implore the justice or compassion of the pope: the
      emperor was coolly exhorted to return to his station; before he
      could obey, he sunk under the weight of grief, shame, and
      impotent resentment. 39

      38 (return) [ Marinus Sanutus (Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. ii. p.
      4, c. 18, p. 73) is so much delighted with this bloody deed, that
      he has transcribed it in his margin as a bonum exemplum. Yet he
      acknowledges the damsel for the lawful wife of Robert.]

      39 (return) [ See the reign of Robert, in Ducange, (Hist. de C.
      P. l. ii. c.—12.)]

      It was only in the age of chivalry, that valor could ascend from
      a private station to the thrones of Jerusalem and Constantinople.
      The titular kingdom of Jerusalem had devolved to Mary, the
      daughter of Isabella and Conrad of Montferrat, and the
      granddaughter of Almeric or Amaury. She was given to John of
      Brienne, of a noble family in Champagne, by the public voice, and
      the judgment of Philip Augustus, who named him as the most worthy
      champion of the Holy Land. 40 In the fifth crusade, he led a
      hundred thousand Latins to the conquest of Egypt: by him the
      siege of Damietta was achieved; and the subsequent failure was
      justly ascribed to the pride and avarice of the legate. After the
      marriage of his daughter with Frederic the Second, 41 he was
      provoked by the emperor’s ingratitude to accept the command of
      the army of the church; and though advanced in life, and
      despoiled of royalty, the sword and spirit of John of Brienne
      were still ready for the service of Christendom. In the seven
      years of his brother’s reign, Baldwin of Courtenay had not
      emerged from a state of childhood, and the barons of Romania felt
      the strong necessity of placing the sceptre in the hands of a man
      and a hero. The veteran king of Jerusalem might have disdained
      the name and office of regent; they agreed to invest him for his
      life with the title and prerogatives of emperor, on the sole
      condition that Baldwin should marry his second daughter, and
      succeed at a mature age to the throne of Constantinople. The
      expectation, both of the Greeks and Latins, was kindled by the
      renown, the choice, and the presence of John of Brienne; and they
      admired his martial aspect, his green and vigorous age of more
      than fourscore years, and his size and stature, which surpassed
      the common measure of mankind. 42 But avarice, and the love of
      ease, appear to have chilled the ardor of enterprise: 421 his
      troops were disbanded, and two years rolled away without action
      or honor, till he was awakened by the dangerous alliance of
      Vataces emperor of Nice, and of Azan king of Bulgaria. They
      besieged Constantinople by sea and land, with an army of one
      hundred thousand men, and a fleet of three hundred ships of war;
      while the entire force of the Latin emperor was reduced to one
      hundred and sixty knights, and a small addition of sergeants and
      archers. I tremble to relate, that instead of defending the city,
      the hero made a sally at the head of his cavalry; and that of
      forty-eight squadrons of the enemy, no more than three escaped
      from the edge of his invincible sword. Fired by his example, the
      infantry and the citizens boarded the vessels that anchored close
      to the walls; and twenty-five were dragged in triumph into the
      harbor of Constantinople. At the summons of the emperor, the
      vassals and allies armed in her defence; broke through every
      obstacle that opposed their passage; and, in the succeeding year,
      obtained a second victory over the same enemies. By the rude
      poets of the age, John of Brienne is compared to Hector, Roland,
      and Judas Machabæus: 43 but their credit, and his glory, receive
      some abatement from the silence of the Greeks. The empire was
      soon deprived of the last of her champions; and the dying monarch
      was ambitious to enter paradise in the habit of a Franciscan
      friar. 44

      40 (return) [ Rex igitur Franciæ, deliberatione habitâ, respondit
      nuntiis, se daturum hominem Syriæ partibus aptum; in armis probum
      (_preux_) in bellis securum, in agendis providum, Johannem
      comitem Brennensem. Sanut. Secret. Fidelium, l. iii. p. xi. c. 4,
      p. 205 Matthew Paris, p. 159.]

      41 (return) [ Giannone (Istoria Civile, tom. ii. l. xvi. p.
      380—385) discusses the marriage of Frederic II. with the daughter
      of John of Brienne, and the double union of the crowns of Naples
      and Jerusalem.]

      42 (return) [ Acropolita, c. 27. The historian was at that time a
      boy, and educated at Constantinople. In 1233, when he was eleven
      years old, his father broke the Latin chain, left a splendid
      fortune, and escaped to the Greek court of Nice, where his son
      was raised to the highest honors.]

      421 (return) [ John de Brienne, elected emperor 1229, wasted two
      years in preparations, and did not arrive at Constantinople till
      1231. Two years more glided away in inglorious inaction; he then
      made some ineffective warlike expeditions. Constantinople was not
      besieged till 1234.—M.]

      43 (return) [ Philip Mouskes, bishop of Tournay, (A.D.
      1274—1282,) has composed a poem, or rather string of verses, in
      bad old Flemish French, on the Latin emperors of Constantinople,
      which Ducange has published at the end of Villehardouin; see p.
      38, for the prowess of John of Brienne.

                N’Aie, Ector, Roll’ ne Ogiers Ne Judas Machabeus li
                fiers Tant ne fit d’armes en estors Com fist li Rois
                Jehans cel jors Et il defors et il dedans La paru sa
                force et ses sens Et li hardiment qu’il avoit.]

      44 (return) [ See the reign of John de Brienne, in Ducange, Hist.
      de C. P. l. ii. c. 13—26.]

      In the double victory of John of Brienne, I cannot discover the
      name or exploits of his pupil Baldwin, who had attained the age
      of military service, and who succeeded to the imperial dignity on
      the decease of his adoptive father. 45 The royal youth was
      employed on a commission more suitable to his temper; he was sent
      to visit the Western courts, of the pope more especially, and of
      the king of France; to excite their pity by the view of his
      innocence and distress; and to obtain some supplies of men or
      money for the relief of the sinking empire. He thrice repeated
      these mendicant visits, in which he seemed to prolong his stay
      and postpone his return; of the five-and-twenty years of his
      reign, a greater number were spent abroad than at home; and in no
      place did the emperor deem himself less free and secure than in
      his native country and his capital. On some public occasions, his
      vanity might be soothed by the title of Augustus, and by the
      honors of the purple; and at the general council of Lyons, when
      Frederic the Second was excommunicated and deposed, his Oriental
      colleague was enthroned on the right hand of the pope. But how
      often was the exile, the vagrant, the Imperial beggar, humbled
      with scorn, insulted with pity, and degraded in his own eyes and
      those of the nations! In his first visit to England, he was
      stopped at Dover by a severe reprimand, that he should presume,
      without leave, to enter an independent kingdom. After some delay,
      Baldwin, however, was permitted to pursue his journey, was
      entertained with cold civility, and thankfully departed with a
      present of seven hundred marks. 46 From the avarice of Rome he
      could only obtain the proclamation of a crusade, and a treasure
      of indulgences; a coin whose currency was depreciated by too
      frequent and indiscriminate abuse. His birth and misfortunes
      recommended him to the generosity of his cousin Louis the Ninth;
      but the martial zeal of the saint was diverted from
      Constantinople to Egypt and Palestine; and the public and private
      poverty of Baldwin was alleviated, for a moment, by the
      alienation of the marquisate of Namur and the lordship of
      Courtenay, the last remains of his inheritance. 47 By such
      shameful or ruinous expedients, he once more returned to Romania,
      with an army of thirty thousand soldiers, whose numbers were
      doubled in the apprehension of the Greeks. His first despatches
      to France and England announced his victories and his hopes: he
      had reduced the country round the capital to the distance of
      three days’ journey; and if he succeeded against an important,
      though nameless, city, (most probably Chiorli,) the frontier
      would be safe and the passage accessible. But these expectations
      (if Baldwin was sincere) quickly vanished like a dream: the
      troops and treasures of France melted away in his unskilful
      hands; and the throne of the Latin emperor was protected by a
      dishonorable alliance with the Turks and Comans. To secure the
      former, he consented to bestow his niece on the unbelieving
      sultan of Cogni; to please the latter, he complied with their
      Pagan rites; a dog was sacrificed between the two armies; and the
      contracting parties tasted each other’s blood, as a pledge of
      their fidelity. 48 In the palace, or prison, of Constantinople,
      the successor of Augustus demolished the vacant houses for winter
      fuel, and stripped the lead from the churches for the daily
      expense of his family. Some usurious loans were dealt with a
      scanty hand by the merchants of Italy; and Philip, his son and
      heir, was pawned at Venice as the security for a debt. 49 Thirst,
      hunger, and nakedness, are positive evils: but wealth is
      relative; and a prince who would be rich in a private station,
      may be exposed by the increase of his wants to all the anxiety
      and bitterness of poverty.

      45 (return) [ See the reign of Baldwin II. till his expulsion
      from Constantinople, in Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c. 1—34,
      the end l. v. c. 1—33.]

      46 (return) [ Matthew Paris relates the two visits of Baldwin II.
      to the English court, p. 396, 637; his return to Greece armatâ
      manû, p. 407 his letters of his nomen formidabile, &c., p. 481,
      (a passage which has escaped Ducange;) his expulsion, p. 850.]

      47 (return) [ Louis IX. disapproved and stopped the alienation of
      Courtenay (Ducange, l. iv. c. 23.) It is now annexed to the royal
      demesne but granted for a term (_engagé_) to the family of
      Boulainvilliers. Courtenay, in the election of Nemours in the
      Isle de France, is a town of 900 inhabitants, with the remains of
      a castle, (Mélanges tirés d’une Grande Bibliothèque, tom. xlv. p.
      74—77.)]

      48 (return) [ Joinville, p. 104, edit. du Louvre. A Coman prince,
      who died without baptism, was buried at the gates of
      Constantinople with a live retinue of slaves and horses.]

      49 (return) [ Sanut. Secret. Fidel. Crucis, l. ii. p. iv. c. 18,
      p. 73.]




      Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And
      Venetians.—Part III.

      But in this abject distress, the emperor and empire were still
      possessed of an ideal treasure, which drew its fantastic value
      from the superstition of the Christian world. The merit of the
      true cross was somewhat impaired by its frequent division; and a
      long captivity among the infidels might shed some suspicion on
      the fragments that were produced in the East and West. But
      another relic of the Passion was preserved in the Imperial chapel
      of Constantinople; and the crown of thorns which had been placed
      on the head of Christ was equally precious and authentic. It had
      formerly been the practice of the Egyptian debtors to deposit, as
      a security, the mummies of their parents; and both their honor
      and religion were bound for the redemption of the pledge. In the
      same manner, and in the absence of the emperor, the barons of
      Romania borrowed the sum of thirteen thousand one hundred and
      thirty-four pieces of gold 50 on the credit of the holy crown:
      they failed in the performance of their contract; and a rich
      Venetian, Nicholas Querini, undertook to satisfy their impatient
      creditors, on condition that the relic should be lodged at
      Venice, to become his absolute property, if it were not redeemed
      within a short and definite term. The barons apprised their
      sovereign of the hard treaty and impending loss and as the empire
      could not afford a ransom of seven thousand pounds sterling,
      Baldwin was anxious to snatch the prize from the Venetians, and
      to vest it with more honor and emolument in the hands of the most
      Christian king. 51 Yet the negotiation was attended with some
      delicacy. In the purchase of relics, the saint would have started
      at the guilt of simony; but if the mode of expression were
      changed, he might lawfully repay the debt, accept the gift, and
      acknowledge the obligation. His ambassadors, two Dominicans, were
      despatched to Venice to redeem and receive the holy crown which
      had escaped the dangers of the sea and the galleys of Vataces. On
      opening a wooden box, they recognized the seals of the doge and
      barons, which were applied on a shrine of silver; and within this
      shrine the monument of the Passion was enclosed in a golden vase.
      The reluctant Venetians yielded to justice and power: the emperor
      Frederic granted a free and honorable passage; the court of
      France advanced as far as Troyes in Champagne, to meet with
      devotion this inestimable relic: it was borne in triumph through
      Paris by the king himself, barefoot, and in his shirt; and a free
      gift of ten thousand marks of silver reconciled Baldwin to his
      loss. The success of this transaction tempted the Latin emperor
      to offer with the same generosity the remaining furniture of his
      chapel; 52 a large and authentic portion of the true cross; the
      baby-linen of the Son of God, the lance, the sponge, and the
      chain, of his Passion; the rod of Moses, and part of the skull of
      St. John the Baptist. For the reception of these spiritual
      treasures, twenty thousand marks were expended by St. Louis on a
      stately foundation, the holy chapel of Paris, on which the muse
      of Boileau has bestowed a comic immortality. The truth of such
      remote and ancient relics, which cannot be proved by any human
      testimony, must be admitted by those who believe in the miracles
      which they have performed. About the middle of the last age, an
      inveterate ulcer was touched and cured by a holy prickle of the
      holy crown: 53 the prodigy is attested by the most pious and
      enlightened Christians of France; nor will the fact be easily
      disproved, except by those who are armed with a general antidote
      against religious credulity. 54

      50 (return) [ Under the words _Perparus_, _Perpera_,
      _Hyperperum_, Ducange is short and vague: Monetæ genus. From a
      corrupt passage of Guntherus, (Hist. C. P. c. 8, p. 10,) I guess
      that the Perpera was the nummus aureus, the fourth part of a mark
      of silver, or about ten shillings sterling in value. In lead it
      would be too contemptible.]

      51 (return) [ For the translation of the holy crown, &c., from
      Constantinople to Paris, see Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c.
      11—14, 24, 35) and Fleury, (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xvii. p.
      201—204.)]

      52 (return) [ Mélanges tirés d’une Grande Bibliothèque, tom.
      xliii. p. 201—205. The Lutrin of Boileau exhibits the inside, the
      soul and manners of the _Sainte Chapelle_; and many facts
      relative to the institution are collected and explained by his
      commentators, Brosset and De St. Marc.]

      53 (return) [ It was performed A.D. 1656, March 24, on the niece
      of Pascal; and that superior genius, with Arnauld, Nicole, &c.,
      were on the spot, to believe and attest a miracle which
      confounded the Jesuits, and saved Port Royal, (uvres de Racine,
      tom. vi. p. 176—187, in his eloquent History of Port Royal.)]

      54 (return) [ Voltaire (Siécle de Louis XIV. c. 37, uvres, tom.
      ix. p. 178, 179) strives to invalidate the fact: but Hume,
      (Essays, vol. ii. p. 483, 484,) with more skill and success,
      seizes the battery, and turns the cannon against his enemies.]

      The Latins of Constantinople 55 were on all sides encompassed and
      pressed; their sole hope, the last delay of their ruin, was in
      the division of their Greek and Bulgarian enemies; and of this
      hope they were deprived by the superior arms and policy of
      Vataces, emperor of Nice. From the Propontis to the rocky coast
      of Pamphylia, Asia was peaceful and prosperous under his reign;
      and the events of every campaign extended his influence in
      Europe. The strong cities of the hills of Macedonia and Thrace
      were rescued from the Bulgarians; and their kingdom was
      circumscribed by its present and proper limits, along the
      southern banks of the Danube. The sole emperor of the Romans
      could no longer brook that a lord of Epirus, a Comnenian prince
      of the West, should presume to dispute or share the honors of the
      purple; and the humble Demetrius changed the color of his
      buskins, and accepted with gratitude the appellation of despot.
      His own subjects were exasperated by his baseness and incapacity;
      they implored the protection of their supreme lord. After some
      resistance, the kingdom of Thessalonica was united to the empire
      of Nice; and Vataces reigned without a competitor from the
      Turkish borders to the Adriatic Gulf. The princes of Europe
      revered his merit and power; and had he subscribed an orthodox
      creed, it should seem that the pope would have abandoned without
      reluctance the Latin throne of Constantinople. But the death of
      Vataces, the short and busy reign of Theodore his son, and the
      helpless infancy of his grandson John, suspended the restoration
      of the Greeks. In the next chapter, I shall explain their
      domestic revolutions; in this place, it will be sufficient to
      observe, that the young prince was oppressed by the ambition of
      his guardian and colleague, Michael Palæologus, who displayed the
      virtues and vices that belong to the founder of a new dynasty.
      The emperor Baldwin had flattered himself, that he might recover
      some provinces or cities by an impotent negotiation. His
      ambassadors were dismissed from Nice with mockery and contempt.
      At every place which they named, Palæologus alleged some special
      reason, which rendered it dear and valuable in his eyes: in the
      one he was born; in another he had been first promoted to
      military command; and in a third he had enjoyed, and hoped long
      to enjoy, the pleasures of the chase. “And what then do you
      propose to give us?” said the astonished deputies. “Nothing,”
      replied the Greek, “not a foot of land. If your master be
      desirous of peace, let him pay me, as an annual tribute, the sum
      which he receives from the trade and customs of Constantinople.
      On these terms, I may allow him to reign. If he refuses, it is
      war. I am not ignorant of the art of war, and I trust the event
      to God and my sword.” 56 An expedition against the despot of
      Epirus was the first prelude of his arms. If a victory was
      followed by a defeat; if the race of the Comneni or Angeli
      survived in those mountains his efforts and his reign; the
      captivity of Villehardouin, prince of Achaia, deprived the Latins
      of the most active and powerful vassal of their expiring
      monarchy. The republics of Venice and Genoa disputed, in the
      first of their naval wars, the command of the sea and the
      commerce of the East. Pride and interest attached the Venetians
      to the defence of Constantinople; their rivals were tempted to
      promote the designs of her enemies, and the alliance of the
      Genoese with the schismatic conqueror provoked the indignation of
      the Latin church. 57

      55 (return) [ The gradual losses of the Latins may be traced in
      the third fourth, and fifth books of the compilation of Ducange:
      but of the Greek conquests he has dropped many circumstances,
      which may be recovered from the larger history of George
      Acropolita, and the three first books of Nicephorus, Gregoras,
      two writers of the Byzantine series, who have had the good
      fortune to meet with learned editors Leo Allatius at Rome, and
      John Boivin in the Academy of Inscriptions of Paris.]

      56 (return) [ George Acropolita, c. 78, p. 89, 90. edit. Paris.]

      57 (return) [ The Greeks, ashamed of any foreign aid, disguise
      the alliance and succor of the Genoese: but the fact is proved by
      the testimony of J Villani (Chron. l. vi. c. 71, in Muratori,
      Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xiii. p. 202, 203) and William de
      Nangis, (Annales de St. Louis, p. 248 in the Louvre Joinville,)
      two impartial foreigners; and Urban IV threatened to deprive
      Genoa of her archbishop.]

      Intent on his great object, the emperor Michael visited in person
      and strengthened the troops and fortifications of Thrace. The
      remains of the Latins were driven from their last possessions: he
      assaulted without success the suburb of Galata; and corresponded
      with a perfidious baron, who proved unwilling, or unable, to open
      the gates of the metropolis. The next spring, his favorite
      general, Alexius Strategopulus, whom he had decorated with the
      title of Cæsar, passed the Hellespont with eight hundred horse
      and some infantry, 58 on a secret expedition. His instructions
      enjoined him to approach, to listen, to watch, but not to risk
      any doubtful or dangerous enterprise against the city. The
      adjacent territory between the Propontis and the Black Sea was
      cultivated by a hardy race of peasants and outlaws, exercised in
      arms, uncertain in their allegiance, but inclined by language,
      religion, and present advantage, to the party of the Greeks. They
      were styled the _volunteers_; 59 and by their free service the
      army of Alexius, with the regulars of Thrace and the Coman
      auxiliaries, 60 was augmented to the number of five-and-twenty
      thousand men. By the ardor of the volunteers, and by his own
      ambition, the Cæsar was stimulated to disobey the precise orders
      of his master, in the just confidence that success would plead
      his pardon and reward. The weakness of Constantinople, and the
      distress and terror of the Latins, were familiar to the
      observation of the volunteers; and they represented the present
      moment as the most propitious to surprise and conquest. A rash
      youth, the new governor of the Venetian colony, had sailed away
      with thirty galleys, and the best of the French knights, on a
      wild expedition to Daphnusia, a town on the Black Sea, at the
      distance of forty leagues; 601 and the remaining Latins were
      without strength or suspicion. They were informed that Alexius
      had passed the Hellespont; but their apprehensions were lulled by
      the smallness of his original numbers; and their imprudence had
      not watched the subsequent increase of his army. If he left his
      main body to second and support his operations, he might advance
      unperceived in the night with a chosen detachment. While some
      applied scaling-ladders to the lowest part of the walls, they
      were secure of an old Greek, who would introduce their companions
      through a subterraneous passage into his house; they could soon
      on the inside break an entrance through the golden gate, which
      had been long obstructed; and the conqueror would be in the heart
      of the city before the Latins were conscious of their danger.
      After some debate, the Cæsar resigned himself to the faith of the
      volunteers; they were trusty, bold, and successful; and in
      describing the plan, I have already related the execution and
      success. 61 But no sooner had Alexius passed the threshold of the
      golden gate, than he trembled at his own rashness; he paused, he
      deliberated; till the desperate volunteers urged him forwards, by
      the assurance that in retreat lay the greatest and most
      inevitable danger. Whilst the Cæsar kept his regulars in firm
      array, the Comans dispersed themselves on all sides; an alarm was
      sounded, and the threats of fire and pillage compelled the
      citizens to a decisive resolution. The Greeks of Constantinople
      remembered their native sovereigns; the Genoese merchants their
      recent alliance and Venetian foes; every quarter was in arms; and
      the air resounded with a general acclamation of “Long life and
      victory to Michael and John, the august emperors of the Romans!”
      Their rival, Baldwin, was awakened by the sound; but the most
      pressing danger could not prompt him to draw his sword in the
      defence of a city which he deserted, perhaps, with more pleasure
      than regret: he fled from the palace to the seashore, where he
      descried the welcome sails of the fleet returning from the vain
      and fruitless attempt on Daphnusia. Constantinople was
      irrecoverably lost; but the Latin emperor and the principal
      families embarked on board the Venetian galleys, and steered for
      the Isle of Euba, and afterwards for Italy, where the royal
      fugitive was entertained by the pope and Sicilian king with a
      mixture of contempt and pity. From the loss of Constantinople to
      his death, he consumed thirteen years, soliciting the Catholic
      powers to join in his restoration: the lesson had been familiar
      to his youth; nor was his last exile more indigent or shameful
      than his three former pilgrimages to the courts of Europe. His
      son Philip was the heir of an ideal empire; and the pretensions
      of his daughter Catherine were transported by her marriage to
      Charles of Valois, the brother of Philip the Fair, king of
      France. The house of Courtenay was represented in the female line
      by successive alliances, till the title of emperor of
      Constantinople, too bulky and sonorous for a private name,
      modestly expired in silence and oblivion. 62

      58 (return) [ Some precautions must be used in reconciling the
      discordant numbers; the 800 soldiers of Nicetas, the 25,000 of
      Spandugino, (apud Ducange, l. v. c. 24;) the Greeks and Scythians
      of Acropolita; and the numerous army of Michael, in the Epistles
      of Pope Urban IV. (i. 129.)]

      59 (return) [ Qelhmatarioi. They are described and named by
      Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 14.)]

      60 (return) [ It is needless to seek these Comans in the deserts
      of Tartary, or even of Moldavia. A part of the horde had
      submitted to John Vataces, and was probably settled as a nursery
      of soldiers on some waste lands of Thrace, (Cantacuzen. l. i. c.
      2.)]

      601 (return) [ According to several authorities, particularly
      Abulfaradj. Chron. Arab. p. 336, this was a stratagem on the part
      of the Greeks to weaken the garrison of Constantinople. The Greek
      commander offered to surrender the town on the appearance of the
      Venetians.—M.]

      61 (return) [ The loss of Constantinople is briefly told by the
      Latins: the conquest is described with more satisfaction by the
      Greeks; by Acropolita, (c. 85,) Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 26, 27,)
      Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. iv. c. 1, 2) See Ducange, Hist. de C. P.
      l. v. c. 19—27.]

      62 (return) [ See the three last books (l. v.—viii.) and the
      genealogical tables of Ducange. In the year 1382, the titular
      emperor of Constantinople was James de Baux, duke of Andria in
      the kingdom of Naples, the son of Margaret, daughter of Catherine
      de Valois, daughter of Catharine, daughter of Philip, son of
      Baldwin II., (Ducange, l. viii. c. 37, 38.) It is uncertain
      whether he left any posterity.]

      After this narrative of the expeditions of the Latins to
      Palestine and Constantinople, I cannot dismiss the subject
      without resolving the general consequences on the countries that
      were the scene, and on the nations that were the actors, of these
      memorable crusades. 63 As soon as the arms of the Franks were
      withdrawn, the impression, though not the memory, was erased in
      the Mahometan realms of Egypt and Syria. The faithful disciples
      of the prophet were never tempted by a profane desire to study
      the laws or language of the idolaters; nor did the simplicity of
      their primitive manners receive the slightest alteration from
      their intercourse in peace and war with the unknown strangers of
      the West. The Greeks, who thought themselves proud, but who were
      only vain, showed a disposition somewhat less inflexible. In the
      efforts for the recovery of their empire, they emulated the
      valor, discipline, and tactics of their antagonists. The modern
      literature of the West they might justly despise; but its free
      spirit would instruct them in the rights of man; and some
      institutions of public and private life were adopted from the
      French. The correspondence of Constantinople and Italy diffused
      the knowledge of the Latin tongue; and several of the fathers and
      classics were at length honored with a Greek version. 64 But the
      national and religious prejudices of the Orientals were inflamed
      by persecution, and the reign of the Latins confirmed the
      separation of the two churches.

      63 (return) [ Abulfeda, who saw the conclusion of the crusades,
      speaks of the kingdoms of the Franks, and those of the Negroes,
      as equally unknown, (Prolegom. ad Geograph.) Had he not disdained
      the Latin language, how easily might the Syrian prince have found
      books and interpreters!]

      64 (return) [ A short and superficial account of these versions
      from Latin into Greek is given by Huet, (de Interpretatione et de
      claris Interpretibus p. 131—135.) Maximus Planudes, a monk of
      Constantinople, (A.D. 1327—1353) has translated Cæsar’s
      Commentaries, the Somnium Scipionis, the Metamorphoses and
      Heroides of Ovid, &c., (Fabric. Bib. Græc. tom. x. p. 533.)]

      If we compare the æra of the crusades, the Latins of Europe with
      the Greeks and Arabians, their respective degrees of knowledge,
      industry, and art, our rude ancestors must be content with the
      third rank in the scale of nations. Their successive improvement
      and present superiority may be ascribed to a peculiar energy of
      character, to an active and imitative spirit, unknown to their
      more polished rivals, who at that time were in a stationary or
      retrograde state. With such a disposition, the Latins should have
      derived the most early and essential benefits from a series of
      events which opened to their eyes the prospect of the world, and
      introduced them to a long and frequent intercourse with the more
      cultivated regions of the East. The first and most obvious
      progress was in trade and manufactures, in the arts which are
      strongly prompted by the thirst of wealth, the calls of
      necessity, and the gratification of the sense or vanity. Among
      the crowd of unthinking fanatics, a captive or a pilgrim might
      sometimes observe the superior refinements of Cairo and
      Constantinople: the first importer of windmills 65 was the
      benefactor of nations; and if such blessings are enjoyed without
      any grateful remembrance, history has condescended to notice the
      more apparent luxuries of silk and sugar, which were transported
      into Italy from Greece and Egypt. But the intellectual wants of
      the Latins were more slowly felt and supplied; the ardor of
      studious curiosity was awakened in Europe by different causes and
      more recent events; and, in the age of the crusades, they viewed
      with careless indifference the literature of the Greeks and
      Arabians. Some rudiments of mathematical and medicinal knowledge
      might be imparted in practice and in figures; necessity might
      produce some interpreters for the grosser business of merchants
      and soldiers; but the commerce of the Orientals had not diffused
      the study and knowledge of their languages in the schools of
      Europe. 66 If a similar principle of religion repulsed the idiom
      of the Koran, it should have excited their patience and curiosity
      to understand the original text of the gospel; and the same
      grammar would have unfolded the sense of Plato and the beauties
      of Homer. Yet in a reign of sixty years, the Latins of
      Constantinople disdained the speech and learning of their
      subjects; and the manuscripts were the only treasures which the
      natives might enjoy without rapine or envy. Aristotle was indeed
      the oracle of the Western universities, but it was a barbarous
      Aristotle; and, instead of ascending to the fountain head, his
      Latin votaries humbly accepted a corrupt and remote version, from
      the Jews and Moors of Andalusia. The principle of the crusades
      was a savage fanaticism; and the most important effects were
      analogous to the cause. Each pilgrim was ambitious to return with
      his sacred spoils, the relics of Greece and Palestine; 67 and
      each relic was preceded and followed by a train of miracles and
      visions. The belief of the Catholics was corrupted by new
      legends, their practice by new superstitions; and the
      establishment of the inquisition, the mendicant orders of monks
      and friars, the last abuse of indulgences, and the final progress
      of idolatry, flowed from the baleful fountain of the holy war.
      The active spirit of the Latins preyed on the vitals of their
      reason and religion; and if the ninth and tenth centuries were
      the times of darkness, the thirteenth and fourteenth were the age
      of absurdity and fable.

      65 (return) [ Windmills, first invented in the dry country of
      Asia Minor, were used in Normandy as early as the year 1105, (Vie
      privée des François, tom. i. p. 42, 43. Ducange, Gloss. Latin.
      tom. iv. p. 474.)]

      66 (return) [ See the complaints of Roger Bacon, (Biographia
      Britannica, vol. i. p. 418, Kippis’s edition.) If Bacon himself,
      or Gerbert, understood _some_Greek, they were prodigies, and owed
      nothing to the commerce of the East.]

      67 (return) [ Such was the opinion of the great Leibnitz, (uvres
      de Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 458,) a master of the history of the
      middle ages. I shall only instance the pedigree of the
      Carmelites, and the flight of the house of Loretto, which were
      both derived from Palestine.]




      Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And
      Venetians.—Part IV.

      In the profession of Christianity, in the cultivation of a
      fertile land, the northern conquerors of the Roman empire
      insensibly mingled with the provincials, and rekindled the embers
      of the arts of antiquity. Their settlements about the age of
      Charlemagne had acquired some degree of order and stability, when
      they were overwhelmed by new swarms of invaders, the Normans,
      Saracens, 68 and Hungarians, who replunged the western countries
      of Europe into their former state of anarchy and barbarism. About
      the eleventh century, the second tempest had subsided by the
      expulsion or conversion of the enemies of Christendom: the tide
      of civilization, which had so long ebbed, began to flow with a
      steady and accelerated course; and a fairer prospect was opened
      to the hopes and efforts of the rising generations. Great was the
      increase, and rapid the progress, during the two hundred years of
      the crusades; and some philosophers have applauded the propitious
      influence of these holy wars, which appear to me to have checked
      rather than forwarded the maturity of Europe. 69 The lives and
      labors of millions, which were buried in the East, would have
      been more profitably employed in the improvement of their native
      country: the accumulated stock of industry and wealth would have
      overflowed in navigation and trade; and the Latins would have
      been enriched and enlightened by a pure and friendly
      correspondence with the climates of the East. In one respect I
      can indeed perceive the accidental operation of the crusades, not
      so much in producing a benefit as in removing an evil. The larger
      portion of the inhabitants of Europe was chained to the soil,
      without freedom, or property, or knowledge; and the two orders of
      ecclesiastics and nobles, whose numbers were comparatively small,
      alone deserved the name of citizens and men. This oppressive
      system was supported by the arts of the clergy and the swords of
      the barons. The authority of the priests operated in the darker
      ages as a salutary antidote: they prevented the total extinction
      of letters, mitigated the fierceness of the times, sheltered the
      poor and defenceless, and preserved or revived the peace and
      order of civil society. But the independence, rapine, and discord
      of the feudal lords were unmixed with any semblance of good; and
      every hope of industry and improvement was crushed by the iron
      weight of the martial aristocracy. Among the causes that
      undermined that Gothic edifice, a conspicuous place must be
      allowed to the crusades. The estates of the barons were
      dissipated, and their race was often extinguished, in these
      costly and perilous expeditions. Their poverty extorted from
      their pride those charters of freedom which unlocked the fetters
      of the slave, secured the farm of the peasant and the shop of the
      artificer, and gradually restored a substance and a soul to the
      most numerous and useful part of the community. The conflagration
      which destroyed the tall and barren trees of the forest gave air
      and scope to the vegetation of the smaller and nutritive plants
      of the soil. 691

      68 (return) [ If I rank the Saracens with the Barbarians, it is
      only relative to their wars, or rather inroads, in Italy and
      France, where their sole purpose was to plunder and destroy.]

      69 (return) [ On this interesting subject, the progress of
      society in Europe, a strong ray of philosophical light has broke
      from Scotland in our own times; and it is with private, as well
      as public regard, that I repeat the names of Hume, Robertson, and
      Adam Smith.]

      691 (return) [ On the consequences of the crusades, compare the
      valuable Essay of Heeren, that of M. Choiseul d’Aillecourt, and a
      chapter of Mr. Forster’s “Mahometanism Unveiled.” I may admire
      this gentleman’s learning and industry, without pledging myself
      to his wild theory of prophets interpretation.—M.]

      _Digression On The Family Of Courtenay._

      The purple of three emperors, who have reigned at Constantinople,
      will authorize or excuse a digression on the origin and singular
      fortunes of the house of Courtenay, 70 in the three principal
      branches: I. Of Edessa; II. Of France; and III. Of England; of
      which the last only has survived the revolutions of eight hundred
      years.

      70 (return) [ I have applied, but not confined, myself to _A
      genealogical History of the noble and illustrious Family of
      Courtenay, by Ezra Cleaveland, Tutor to Sir William Courtenay,
      and Rector of Honiton; Exon. 1735, in folio._ The first part is
      extracted from William of Tyre; the second from Bouchet’s French
      history; and the third from various memorials, public,
      provincial, and private, of the Courtenays of Devonshire The
      rector of Honiton has more gratitude than industry, and more
      industry than criticism.]

      I. Before the introduction of trade, which scatters riches, and
      of knowledge, which dispels prejudice, the prerogative of birth
      is most strongly felt and most humbly acknowledged. In every age,
      the laws and manners of the Germans have discriminated the ranks
      of society; the dukes and counts, who shared the empire of
      Charlemagne, converted their office to an inheritance; and to his
      children, each feudal lord bequeathed his honor and his sword.
      The proudest families are content to lose, in the darkness of the
      middle ages, the tree of their pedigree, which, however deep and
      lofty, must ultimately rise from a plebeian root; and their
      historians must descend ten centuries below the Christian æra,
      before they can ascertain any lineal succession by the evidence
      of surnames, of arms, and of authentic records. With the first
      rays of light, 71 we discern the nobility and opulence of Atho, a
      French knight; his nobility, in the rank and title of a nameless
      father; his opulence, in the foundation of the castle of
      Courtenay in the district of Gatinois, about fifty-six miles to
      the south of Paris. From the reign of Robert, the son of Hugh
      Capet, the barons of Courtenay are conspicuous among the
      immediate vassals of the crown; and Joscelin, the grandson of
      Atho and a noble dame, is enrolled among the heroes of the first
      crusade. A domestic alliance (their mothers were sisters)
      attached him to the standard of Baldwin of Bruges, the second
      count of Edessa; a princely fief, which he was worthy to receive,
      and able to maintain, announces the number of his martial
      followers; and after the departure of his cousin, Joscelin
      himself was invested with the county of Edessa on both sides of
      the Euphrates. By economy in peace, his territories were
      replenished with Latin and Syrian subjects; his magazines with
      corn, wine, and oil; his castles with gold and silver, with arms
      and horses. In a holy warfare of thirty years, he was alternately
      a conqueror and a captive: but he died like a soldier, in a horse
      litter at the head of his troops; and his last glance beheld the
      flight of the Turkish invaders who had presumed on his age and
      infirmities. His son and successor, of the same name, was less
      deficient in valor than in vigilance; but he sometimes forgot
      that dominion is acquired and maintained by the same arms. He
      challenged the hostility of the Turks, without securing the
      friendship of the prince of Antioch; and, amidst the peaceful
      luxury of Turbessel, in Syria, 72 Joscelin neglected the defence
      of the Christian frontier beyond the Euphrates. In his absence,
      Zenghi, the first of the Atabeks, besieged and stormed his
      capital, Edessa, which was feebly defended by a timorous and
      disloyal crowd of Orientals: the Franks were oppressed in a bold
      attempt for its recovery, and Courtenay ended his days in the
      prison of Aleppo. He still left a fair and ample patrimony But
      the victorious Turks oppressed on all sides the weakness of a
      widow and orphan; and, for the equivalent of an annual pension,
      they resigned to the Greek emperor the charge of defending, and
      the shame of losing, the last relics of the Latin conquest. The
      countess-dowager of Edessa retired to Jerusalem with her two
      children; the daughter, Agnes, became the wife and mother of a
      king; the son, Joscelin the Third, accepted the office of
      seneschal, the first of the kingdom, and held his new estates in
      Palestine by the service of fifty knights. His name appears with
      honor in the transactions of peace and war; but he finally
      vanishes in the fall of Jerusalem; and the name of Courtenay, in
      this branch of Edessa, was lost by the marriage of his two
      daughters with a French and German baron. 73

      71 (return) [ The primitive record of the family is a passage of
      the continuator of Aimoin, a monk of Fleury, who wrote in the
      xiith century. See his Chronicle, in the Historians of France,
      (tom. xi. p. 276.)]

      72 (return) [ Turbessel, or, as it is now styled, Telbesher, is
      fixed by D’Anville four-and-twenty miles from the great passage
      over the Euphrates at Zeugma.]

      73 (return) [ His possessions are distinguished in the Assises of
      Jerusalem (c. B26) among the feudal tenures of the kingdom, which
      must therefore have been collected between the years 1153 and
      1187. His pedigree may be found in the Lignages d’Outremer, c.
      16.]

      II. While Joscelin reigned beyond the Euphrates, his elder
      brother Milo, the son of Joscelin, the son of Atho, continued,
      near the Seine, to possess the castle of their fathers, which was
      at length inherited by Rainaud, or Reginald, the youngest of his
      three sons. Examples of genius or virtue must be rare in the
      annals of the oldest families; and, in a remote age their pride
      will embrace a deed of rapine and violence; such, however, as
      could not be perpetrated without some superiority of courage, or,
      at least, of power. A descendant of Reginald of Courtenay may
      blush for the public robber, who stripped and imprisoned several
      merchants, after they had satisfied the king’s duties at Sens and
      Orleans. He will glory in the offence, since the bold offender
      could not be compelled to obedience and restitution, till the
      regent and the count of Champagne prepared to march against him
      at the head of an army. 74 Reginald bestowed his estates on his
      eldest daughter, and his daughter on the seventh son of King
      Louis the Fat; and their marriage was crowned with a numerous
      offspring. We might expect that a private should have merged in a
      royal name; and that the descendants of Peter of France and
      Elizabeth of Courtenay would have enjoyed the titles and honors
      of princes of the blood. But this legitimate claim was long
      neglected, and finally denied; and the causes of their disgrace
      will represent the story of this second branch. _1._ Of all the
      families now extant, the most ancient, doubtless, and the most
      illustrious, is the house of France, which has occupied the same
      throne above eight hundred years, and descends, in a clear and
      lineal series of males, from the middle of the ninth century. 75
      In the age of the crusades, it was already revered both in the
      East and West. But from Hugh Capet to the marriage of Peter, no
      more than five reigns or generations had elapsed; and so
      precarious was their title, that the eldest sons, as a necessary
      precaution, were previously crowned during the lifetime of their
      fathers. The peers of France have long maintained their
      precedency before the younger branches of the royal line, nor had
      the princes of the blood, in the twelfth century, acquired that
      hereditary lustre which is now diffused over the most remote
      candidates for the succession. _2._ The barons of Courtenay must
      have stood high in their own estimation, and in that of the
      world, since they could impose on the son of a king the
      obligation of adopting for himself and all his descendants the
      name and arms of their daughter and his wife. In the marriage of
      an heiress with her inferior or her equal, such exchange was
      often required and allowed: but as they continued to diverge from
      the regal stem, the sons of Louis the Fat were insensibly
      confounded with their maternal ancestors; and the new Courtenays
      might deserve to forfeit the honors of their birth, which a
      motive of interest had tempted them to renounce. _3._ The shame
      was far more permanent than the reward, and a momentary blaze was
      followed by a long darkness. The eldest son of these nuptials,
      Peter of Courtenay, had married, as I have already mentioned, the
      sister of the counts of Flanders, the two first emperors of
      Constantinople: he rashly accepted the invitation of the barons
      of Romania; his two sons, Robert and Baldwin, successively held
      and lost the remains of the Latin empire in the East, and the
      granddaughter of Baldwin the Second again mingled her blood with
      the blood of France and of Valois. To support the expenses of a
      troubled and transitory reign, their patrimonial estates were
      mortgaged or sold: and the last emperors of Constantinople
      depended on the annual charity of Rome and Naples.

      74 (return) [ The rapine and satisfaction of Reginald de
      Courtenay, are preposterously arranged in the Epistles of the
      abbot and regent Suger, (cxiv. cxvi.,) the best memorials of the
      age, (Duchesne, Scriptores Hist. Franc. tom. iv. p. 530.)]

      75 (return) [ In the beginning of the xith century, after naming
      the father and grandfather of Hugh Capet, the monk Glaber is
      obliged to add, cujus genus valde in-ante reperitur obscurum. Yet
      we are assured that the great-grandfather of Hugh Capet was
      Robert the Strong count of Anjou, (A.D. 863—873,) a noble Frank
      of Neustria, Neustricus... generosæ stirpis, who was slain in the
      defence of his country against the Normans, dum patriæ fines
      tuebatur. Beyond Robert, all is conjecture or fable. It is a
      probable conjecture, that the third race descended from the
      second by Childebrand, the brother of Charles Martel. It is an
      absurd fable that the second was allied to the first by the
      marriage of Ansbert, a Roman senator and the ancestor of St.
      Arnoul, with Blitilde, a daughter of Clotaire I. The Saxon origin
      of the house of France is an ancient but incredible opinion. See
      a judicious memoir of M. de Foncemagne, (Mémoires de l’Académie
      des Inscriptions, tom. xx. p. 548—579.) He had promised to
      declare his own opinion in a second memoir, which has never
      appeared.]

      While the elder brothers dissipated their wealth in romantic
      adventures, and the castle of Courtenay was profaned by a
      plebeian owner, the younger branches of that adopted name were
      propagated and multiplied. But their splendor was clouded by
      poverty and time: after the decease of Robert, great butler of
      France, they descended from princes to barons; the next
      generations were confounded with the simple gentry; the
      descendants of Hugh Capet could no longer be visible in the rural
      lords of Tanlay and of Champignelles. The more adventurous
      embraced without dishonor the profession of a soldier: the least
      active and opulent might sink, like their cousins of the branch
      of Dreux, into the condition of peasants. Their royal descent, in
      a dark period of four hundred years, became each day more
      obsolete and ambiguous; and their pedigree, instead of being
      enrolled in the annals of the kingdom, must be painfully searched
      by the minute diligence of heralds and genealogists. It was not
      till the end of the sixteenth century, on the accession of a
      family almost as remote as their own, that the princely spirit of
      the Courtenays again revived; and the question of the nobility
      provoked them to ascertain the royalty of their blood. They
      appealed to the justice and compassion of Henry the Fourth;
      obtained a favorable opinion from twenty lawyers of Italy and
      Germany, and modestly compared themselves to the descendants of
      King David, whose prerogatives were not impaired by the lapse of
      ages or the trade of a carpenter. 76 But every ear was deaf, and
      every circumstance was adverse, to their lawful claims. The
      Bourbon kings were justified by the neglect of the Valois; the
      princes of the blood, more recent and lofty, disdained the
      alliance of his humble kindred: the parliament, without denying
      their proofs, eluded a dangerous precedent by an arbitrary
      distinction, and established St. Louis as the first father of the
      royal line. 77 A repetition of complaints and protests was
      repeatedly disregarded; and the hopeless pursuit was terminated
      in the present century by the death of the last male of the
      family. 78 Their painful and anxious situation was alleviated by
      the pride of conscious virtue: they sternly rejected the
      temptations of fortune and favor; and a dying Courtenay would
      have sacrificed his son, if the youth could have renounced, for
      any temporal interest, the right and title of a legitimate prince
      of the blood of France. 79

      76 (return) [ Of the various petitions, apologies, &c., published
      by the princes of Courtenay, I have seen the three following, all
      in octavo: 1. De Stirpe et Origine Domus de Courtenay: addita
      sunt Responsa celeberrimorum Europæ Jurisconsultorum; Paris,
      1607. 2. Representation du Procedé tenû a l’instance faicte
      devant le Roi, par Messieurs de Courtenay, pour la conservation
      de l’Honneur et Dignité de leur Maison, branche de la royalle
      Maison de France; à Paris, 1613. 3. Representation du subject qui
      a porté Messieurs de Salles et de Fraville, de la Maison de
      Courtenay, à se retirer hors du Royaume, 1614. It was a homicide,
      for which the Courtenays expected to be pardoned, or tried, as
      princes of the blood.]

      77 (return) [ The sense of the parliaments is thus expressed by
      Thuanus Principis nomen nusquam in Galliâ tributum, nisi iis qui
      per mares e regibus nostris originem repetunt; qui nunc tantum a
      Ludovico none beatæ memoriæ numerantur; nam _Cortini_ et
      Drocenses, a Ludovico crasso genus ducentes, hodie inter eos
      minime recensentur. A distinction of expediency rather than
      justice. The sanctity of Louis IX. could not invest him with any
      special prerogative, and all the descendants of Hugh Capet must
      be included in his original compact with the French nation.]

      78 (return) [ The last male of the Courtenays was Charles Roger,
      who died in the year 1730, without leaving any sons. The last
      female was Helene de Courtenay, who married Louis de Beaufremont.
      Her title of Princesse du Sang Royal de France was suppressed
      (February 7th, 1737) by an _arrêt_ of the parliament of Paris.]

      79 (return) [ The singular anecdote to which I allude is related
      in the Recueil des Pieces interessantes et peu connues,
      (Maestricht, 1786, in 4 vols. 12mo.;) and the unknown editor
      quotes his author, who had received it from Helene de Courtenay,
      marquise de Beaufremont.]

      III. According to the old register of Ford Abbey, the Courtenays
      of Devonshire are descended from Prince _Florus_, the second son
      of Peter, and the grandson of Louis the Fat. 80 This fable of the
      grateful or venal monks was too respectfully entertained by our
      antiquaries, Cambden 81 and Dugdale: 82 but it is so clearly
      repugnant to truth and time, that the rational pride of the
      family now refuses to accept this imaginary founder. Their most
      faithful historians believe, that, after giving his daughter to
      the king’s son, Reginald of Courtenay abandoned his possessions
      in France, and obtained from the English monarch a second wife
      and a new inheritance. It is certain, at least, that Henry the
      Second distinguished in his camps and councils a Reginald, of the
      name and arms, and, as it may be fairly presumed, of the genuine
      race, of the Courtenays of France. The right of wardship enabled
      a feudal lord to reward his vassal with the marriage and estate
      of a noble heiress; and Reginald of Courtenay acquired a fair
      establishment in Devonshire, where his posterity has been seated
      above six hundred years. 83 From a Norman baron, Baldwin de
      Brioniis, who had been invested by the Conqueror, Hawise, the
      wife of Reginald, derived the honor of Okehampton, which was held
      by the service of ninety-three knights; and a female might claim
      the manly offices of hereditary viscount or sheriff, and of
      captain of the royal castle of Exeter. Their son Robert married
      the sister of the earl of Devon: at the end of a century, on the
      failure of the family of Rivers, 84 his great-grandson, Hugh the
      Second, succeeded to a title which was still considered as a
      territorial dignity; and twelve earls of Devonshire, of the name
      of Courtenay, have flourished in a period of two hundred and
      twenty years. They were ranked among the chief of the barons of
      the realm; nor was it till after a strenuous dispute, that they
      yielded to the fief of Arundel the first place in the parliament
      of England: their alliances were contracted with the noblest
      families, the Veres, Despensers, St. Johns, Talbots, Bohuns, and
      even the Plantagenets themselves; and in a contest with John of
      Lancaster, a Courtenay, bishop of London, and afterwards
      archbishop of Canterbury, might be accused of profane confidence
      in the strength and number of his kindred. In peace, the earls of
      Devon resided in their numerous castles and manors of the west;
      their ample revenue was appropriated to devotion and hospitality;
      and the epitaph of Edward, surnamed from his misfortune, the
      _blind_, from his virtues, the _good_, earl, inculcates with much
      ingenuity a moral sentence, which may, however, be abused by
      thoughtless generosity. After a grateful commemoration of the
      fifty-five years of union and happiness which he enjoyed with
      Mabe his wife, the good earl thus speaks from the tomb:—

     “What we gave, we have; What we spent, we had; What we left, we
     lost.” 85

      But their _losses_, in this sense, were far superior to their
      gifts and expenses; and their heirs, not less than the poor, were
      the objects of their paternal care. The sums which they paid for
      livery and seizin attest the greatness of their possessions; and
      several estates have remained in their family since the
      thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In war, the Courtenays of
      England fulfilled the duties, and deserved the honors, of
      chivalry. They were often intrusted to levy and command the
      militia of Devonshire and Cornwall; they often attended their
      supreme lord to the borders of Scotland; and in foreign service,
      for a stipulated price, they sometimes maintained fourscore
      men-at-arms and as many archers. By sea and land they fought
      under the standard of the Edwards and Henries: their names are
      conspicuous in battles, in tournaments, and in the original list
      of the Order of the Garter; three brothers shared the Spanish
      victory of the Black Prince; and in the lapse of six generations,
      the English Courtenays had learned to despise the nation and
      country from which they derived their origin. In the quarrel of
      the two roses, the earls of Devon adhered to the house of
      Lancaster; and three brothers successively died either in the
      field or on the scaffold. Their honors and estates were restored
      by Henry the Seventh; a daughter of Edward the Fourth was not
      disgraced by the nuptials of a Courtenay; their son, who was
      created Marquis of Exeter, enjoyed the favor of his cousin Henry
      the Eighth; and in the camp of Cloth of Gold, he broke a lance
      against the French monarch. But the favor of Henry was the
      prelude of disgrace; his disgrace was the signal of death; and of
      the victims of the jealous tyrant, the marquis of Exeter is one
      of the most noble and guiltless. His son Edward lived a prisoner
      in the Tower, and died in exile at Padua; and the secret love of
      Queen Mary, whom he slighted, perhaps for the princess Elizabeth,
      has shed a romantic color on the story of this beautiful youth.
      The relics of his patrimony were conveyed into strange families
      by the marriages of his four aunts; and his personal honors, as
      if they had been legally extinct, were revived by the patents of
      succeeding princes. But there still survived a lineal descendant
      of Hugh, the first earl of Devon, a younger branch of the
      Courtenays, who have been seated at Powderham Castle above four
      hundred years, from the reign of Edward the Third to the present
      hour. Their estates have been increased by the grant and
      improvement of lands in Ireland, and they have been recently
      restored to the honors of the peerage. Yet the Courtenays still
      retain the plaintive motto, which asserts the innocence, and
      deplores the fall, of their ancient house. 86 While they sigh for
      past greatness, they are doubtless sensible of present blessings:
      in the long series of the Courtenay annals, the most splendid æra
      is likewise the most unfortunate; nor can an opulent peer of
      Britain be inclined to envy the emperors of Constantinople, who
      wandered over Europe to solicit alms for the support of their
      dignity and the defence of their capital.

      80 (return) [ Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. i. p. 786. Yet
      this fable must have been invented before the reign of Edward
      III. The profuse devotion of the three first generations to Ford
      Abbey was followed by oppression on one side and ingratitude on
      the other; and in the sixth generation, the monks ceased to
      register the births, actions, and deaths of their patrons.]

      81 (return) [ In his Britannia, in the list of the earls of
      Devonshire. His expression, e regio sanguine ortos, credunt,
      betrays, however, some doubt or suspicion.]

      82 (return) [ In his Baronage, P. i. p. 634, he refers to his own
      Monasticon. Should he not have corrected the register of Ford
      Abbey, and annihilated the phantom Florus, by the unquestionable
      evidence of the French historians?]

      83 (return) [ Besides the third and most valuable book of
      Cleaveland’s History, I have consulted Dugdale, the father of our
      genealogical science, (Baronage, P. i. p. 634—643.)]

      84 (return) [ This great family, de Ripuariis, de Redvers, de
      Rivers, ended, in Edward the Fifth’s time, in Isabella de
      Fortibus, a famous and potent dowager, who long survived her
      brother and husband, (Dugdale, Baronage, P i. p. 254—257.)]

      85 (return) [ Cleaveland p. 142. By some it is assigned to a
      Rivers earl of Devon; but the English denotes the xvth, rather
      than the xiiith century.]

      86 (return) [ _Ubi lapsus! Quid feci?_ a motto which was probably
      adopted by the Powderham branch, after the loss of the earldom of
      Devonshire, &c. The primitive arms of the Courtenays were, _Or_,
      _three torteaux_, _Gules_, which seem to denote their affinity
      with Godfrey of Bouillon, and the ancient counts of Boulogne.]




      Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Part I.

     The Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Elevation And Reign
     Of Michael Palæologus.—His False Union With The Pope And The Latin
     Church.—Hostile Designs Of Charles Of Anjou.—Revolt Of Sicily.—War
     Of The Catalans In Asia And Greece.—Revolutions And Present State
     Of Athens.

      The loss of Constantinople restored a momentary vigor to the
      Greeks. From their palaces, the princes and nobles were driven
      into the field; and the fragments of the falling monarchy were
      grasped by the hands of the most vigorous or the most skilful
      candidates. In the long and barren pages of the Byzantine annals,
      1 it would not be an easy task to equal the two characters of
      Theodore Lascaris and John Ducas Vataces, 2 who replanted and
      upheld the Roman standard at Nice in Bithynia. The difference of
      their virtues was happily suited to the diversity of their
      situation. In his first efforts, the fugitive Lascaris commanded
      only three cities and two thousand soldiers: his reign was the
      season of generous and active despair: in every military
      operation he staked his life and crown; and his enemies of the
      Hellespont and the Mæander, were surprised by his celerity and
      subdued by his boldness. A victorious reign of eighteen years
      expanded the principality of Nice to the magnitude of an empire.
      The throne of his successor and son-in-law Vataces was founded on
      a more solid basis, a larger scope, and more plentiful resources;
      and it was the temper, as well as the interest, of Vataces to
      calculate the risk, to expect the moment, and to insure the
      success, of his ambitious designs. In the decline of the Latins,
      I have briefly exposed the progress of the Greeks; the prudent
      and gradual advances of a conqueror, who, in a reign of
      thirty-three years, rescued the provinces from national and
      foreign usurpers, till he pressed on all sides the Imperial city,
      a leafless and sapless trunk, which must full at the first stroke
      of the axe. But his interior and peaceful administration is still
      more deserving of notice and praise. 3 The calamities of the
      times had wasted the numbers and the substance of the Greeks; the
      motives and the means of agriculture were extirpated; and the
      most fertile lands were left without cultivation or inhabitants.
      A portion of this vacant property was occupied and improved by
      the command, and for the benefit, of the emperor: a powerful hand
      and a vigilant eye supplied and surpassed, by a skilful
      management, the minute diligence of a private farmer: the royal
      domain became the garden and granary of Asia; and without
      impoverishing the people, the sovereign acquired a fund of
      innocent and productive wealth. According to the nature of the
      soil, his lands were sown with corn or planted with vines; the
      pastures were filled with horses and oxen, with sheep and hogs;
      and when Vataces presented to the empress a crown of diamonds and
      pearls, he informed her, with a smile, that this precious
      ornament arose from the sale of the eggs of his innumerable
      poultry. The produce of his domain was applied to the maintenance
      of his palace and hospitals, the calls of dignity and
      benevolence: the lesson was still more useful than the revenue:
      the plough was restored to its ancient security and honor; and
      the nobles were taught to seek a sure and independent revenue
      from their estates, instead of adorning their splendid beggary by
      the oppression of the people, or (what is almost the same) by the
      favors of the court. The superfluous stock of corn and cattle was
      eagerly purchased by the Turks, with whom Vataces preserved a
      strict and sincere alliance; but he discouraged the importation
      of foreign manufactures, the costly silks of the East, and the
      curious labors of the Italian looms. “The demands of nature and
      necessity,” was he accustomed to say, “are indispensable; but the
      influence of fashion may rise and sink at the breath of a
      monarch;” and both his precept and example recommended simplicity
      of manners and the use of domestic industry. The education of
      youth and the revival of learning were the most serious objects
      of his care; and, without deciding the precedency, he pronounced
      with truth, that a prince and a philosopher 4 are the two most
      eminent characters of human society. His first wife was Irene,
      the daughter of Theodore Lascaris, a woman more illustrious by
      her personal merit, the milder virtues of her sex, than by the
      blood of the Angeli and Comneni that flowed in her veins, and
      transmitted the inheritance of the empire. After her death he was
      contracted to Anne, or Constance, a natural daughter of the
      emperor Frederic 499 the Second; but as the bride had not
      attained the years of puberty, Vataces placed in his solitary bed
      an Italian damsel of her train; and his amorous weakness bestowed
      on the concubine the honors, though not the title, of a lawful
      empress. His frailty was censured as a flagitious and damnable
      sin by the monks; and their rude invectives exercised and
      displayed the patience of the royal lover. A philosophic age may
      excuse a single vice, which was redeemed by a crowd of virtues;
      and in the review of his faults, and the more intemperate
      passions of Lascaris, the judgment of their contemporaries was
      softened by gratitude to the second founders of the empire. 5 The
      slaves of the Latins, without law or peace, applauded the
      happiness of their brethren who had resumed their national
      freedom; and Vataces employed the laudable policy of convincing
      the Greeks of every dominion that it was their interest to be
      enrolled in the number of his subjects.

      1 (return) [ For the reigns of the Nicene emperors, more
      especially of John Vataces and his son, their minister, George
      Acropolita, is the only genuine contemporary; but George Pachymer
      returned to Constantinople with the Greeks at the age of
      nineteen, (Hanckius de Script. Byzant. c. 33, 34, p. 564—578.
      Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 448—460.) Yet the history of
      Nicephorus Gregoras, though of the xivth century, is a valuable
      narrative from the taking of Constantinople by the Latins.]

      2 (return) [ Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ii. c. 1) distinguishes
      between the oxeia ormh of Lascaris, and the eustaqeia of Vataces.
      The two portraits are in a very good style.]

      3 (return) [ Pachymer, l. i. c. 23, 24. Nic. Greg. l. ii. c. 6.
      The reader of the Byzantines must observe how rarely we are
      indulged with such precious details.]

      4 (return) [ Monoi gar apantwn anqrwpwn onomastotatoi basileuV
      kai jilosojoV, (Greg. Acropol. c. 32.) The emperor, in a familiar
      conversation, examined and encouraged the studies of his future
      logothete.]

      499 (return) [ Sister of Manfred, afterwards king of Naples. Nic.
      Greg. p. 45.—M.]

      5 (return) [ Compare Acropolita, (c. 18, 52,) and the two first
      books of Nicephorus Gregoras.]

      A strong shade of degeneracy is visible between John Vataces and
      his son Theodore; between the founder who sustained the weight,
      and the heir who enjoyed the splendor, of the Imperial crown. 6
      Yet the character of Theodore was not devoid of energy; he had
      been educated in the school of his father, in the exercise of war
      and hunting; Constantinople was yet spared; but in the three
      years of a short reign, he thrice led his armies into the heart
      of Bulgaria. His virtues were sullied by a choleric and
      suspicious temper: the first of these may be ascribed to the
      ignorance of control; and the second might naturally arise from a
      dark and imperfect view of the corruption of mankind. On a march
      in Bulgaria, he consulted on a question of policy his principal
      ministers; and the Greek logothete, George Acropolita, presumed
      to offend him by the declaration of a free and honest opinion.
      The emperor half unsheathed his cimeter; but his more deliberate
      rage reserved Acropolita for a baser punishment. One of the first
      officers of the empire was ordered to dismount, stripped of his
      robes, and extended on the ground in the presence of the prince
      and army. In this posture he was chastised with so many and such
      heavy blows from the clubs of two guards or executioners, that
      when Theodore commanded them to cease, the great logothete was
      scarcely able to rise and crawl away to his tent. After a
      seclusion of some days, he was recalled by a peremptory mandate
      to his seat in council; and so dead were the Greeks to the sense
      of honor and shame, that it is from the narrative of the sufferer
      himself that we acquire the knowledge of his disgrace. 7 The
      cruelty of the emperor was exasperated by the pangs of sickness,
      the approach of a premature end, and the suspicion of poison and
      magic. The lives and fortunes, the eyes and limbs, of his kinsmen
      and nobles, were sacrificed to each sally of passion; and before
      he died, the son of Vataces might deserve from the people, or at
      least from the court, the appellation of tyrant. A matron of the
      family of the Palæologi had provoked his anger by refusing to
      bestow her beauteous daughter on the vile plebeian who was
      recommended by his caprice. Without regard to her birth or age,
      her body, as high as the neck, was enclosed in a sack with
      several cats, who were pricked with pins to irritate their fury
      against their unfortunate fellow-captive. In his last hours the
      emperor testified a wish to forgive and be forgiven, a just
      anxiety for the fate of John his son and successor, who, at the
      age of eight years, was condemned to the dangers of a long
      minority. His last choice intrusted the office of guardian to the
      sanctity of the patriarch Arsenius, and to the courage of George
      Muzalon, the great domestic, who was equally distinguished by the
      royal favor and the public hatred. Since their connection with
      the Latins, the names and privileges of hereditary rank had
      insinuated themselves into the Greek monarchy; and the noble
      families 8 were provoked by the elevation of a worthless
      favorite, to whose influence they imputed the errors and
      calamities of the late reign. In the first council, after the
      emperor’s death, Muzalon, from a lofty throne, pronounced a
      labored apology of his conduct and intentions: his modesty was
      subdued by a unanimous assurance of esteem and fidelity; and his
      most inveterate enemies were the loudest to salute him as the
      guardian and savior of the Romans. Eight days were sufficient to
      prepare the execution of the conspiracy. On the ninth, the
      obsequies of the deceased monarch were solemnized in the
      cathedral of Magnesia, 9 an Asiatic city, where he expired, on
      the banks of the Hermus, and at the foot of Mount Sipylus. The
      holy rites were interrupted by a sedition of the guards; Muzalon,
      his brothers, and his adherents, were massacred at the foot of
      the altar; and the absent patriarch was associated with a new
      colleague, with Michael Palæologus, the most illustrious, in
      birth and merit, of the Greek nobles. 10

      6 (return) [ A Persian saying, that Cyrus was the _father_ and
      Darius the _master_, of his subjects, was applied to Vataces and
      his son. But Pachymer (l. i. c. 23) has mistaken the mild Darius
      for the cruel Cambyses, despot or tyrant of his people. By the
      institution of taxes, Darius had incurred the less odious, but
      more contemptible, name of KaphloV, merchant or broker,
      (Herodotus, iii. 89.)]

      7 (return) [ Acropolita (c. 63) seems to admire his own firmness
      in sustaining a beating, and not returning to council till he was
      called. He relates the exploits of Theodore, and his own
      services, from c. 53 to c. 74 of his history. See the third book
      of Nicephorus Gregoras.]

      8 (return) [ Pachymer (l. i. c. 21) names and discriminates
      fifteen or twenty Greek families, kai osoi alloi, oiV h
      megalogenhV seira kai crush sugkekrothto. Does he mean, by this
      decoration, a figurative or a real golden chain? Perhaps, both.]

      9 (return) [ The old geographers, with Cellarius and D’Anville,
      and our travellers, particularly Pocock and Chandler, will teach
      us to distinguish the two Magnesias of Asia Minor, of the Mæander
      and of Sipylus. The latter, our present object, is still
      flourishing for a Turkish city, and lies eight hours, or leagues,
      to the north-east of Smyrna, (Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, tom.
      iii. lettre xxii. p. 365—370. Chandler’s Travels into Asia Minor,
      p. 267.)]

      10 (return) [ See Acropolita, (c. 75, 76, &c.,) who lived too
      near the times; Pachymer, (l. i. c. 13—25,) Gregoras, (l. iii. c.
      3, 4, 5.)]

      Of those who are proud of their ancestors, the far greater part
      must be content with local or domestic renown; and few there are
      who dare trust the memorials of their family to the public annals
      of their country. As early as the middle of the eleventh century,
      the noble race of the Palæologi 11 stands high and conspicuous in
      the Byzantine history: it was the valiant George Palæologus who
      placed the father of the Comneni on the throne; and his kinsmen
      or descendants continue, in each generation, to lead the armies
      and councils of the state. The purple was not dishonored by their
      alliance, and had the law of succession, and female succession,
      been strictly observed, the wife of Theodore Lascaris must have
      yielded to her elder sister, the mother of Michael Palæologus,
      who afterwards raised his family to the throne. In his person,
      the splendor of birth was dignified by the merit of the soldier
      and statesman: in his early youth he was promoted to the office
      of _constable_ or commander of the French mercenaries; the
      private expense of a day never exceeded three pieces of gold; but
      his ambition was rapacious and profuse; and his gifts were
      doubled by the graces of his conversation and manners. The love
      of the soldiers and people excited the jealousy of the court, and
      Michael thrice escaped from the dangers in which he was involved
      by his own imprudence or that of his friends. I. Under the reign
      of Justice and Vataces, a dispute arose 12 between two officers,
      one of whom accused the other of maintaining the hereditary right
      of the Palæologi The cause was decided, according to the new
      jurisprudence of the Latins, by single combat; the defendant was
      overthrown; but he persisted in declaring that himself alone was
      guilty; and that he had uttered these rash or treasonable
      speeches without the approbation or knowledge of his patron. Yet
      a cloud of suspicion hung over the innocence of the constable; he
      was still pursued by the whispers of malevolence; and a subtle
      courtier, the archbishop of Philadelphia, urged him to accept the
      judgment of God in the fiery proof of the ordeal. 13 Three days
      before the trial, the patient’s arm was enclosed in a bag, and
      secured by the royal signet; and it was incumbent on him to bear
      a red-hot ball of iron three times from the altar to the rails of
      the sanctuary, without artifice and without injury. Palæologus
      eluded the dangerous experiment with sense and pleasantry. “I am
      a soldier,” said he, “and will boldly enter the lists with my
      accusers; but a layman, a sinner like myself, is not endowed with
      the gift of miracles. _Your_ piety, most holy prelate, may
      deserve the interposition of Heaven, and from your hands I will
      receive the fiery globe, the pledge of my innocence.” The
      archbishop started; the emperor smiled; and the absolution or
      pardon of Michael was approved by new rewards and new services.
      II. In the succeeding reign, as he held the government of Nice,
      he was secretly informed, that the mind of the absent prince was
      poisoned with jealousy; and that death, or blindness, would be
      his final reward. Instead of awaiting the return and sentence of
      Theodore, the constable, with some followers, escaped from the
      city and the empire; and though he was plundered by the Turkmans
      of the desert, he found a hospitable refuge in the court of the
      sultan. In the ambiguous state of an exile, Michael reconciled
      the duties of gratitude and loyalty: drawing his sword against
      the Tartars; admonishing the garrisons of the Roman limit; and
      promoting, by his influence, the restoration of peace, in which
      his pardon and recall were honorably included. III. While he
      guarded the West against the despot of Epirus, Michael was again
      suspected and condemned in the palace; and such was his loyalty
      or weakness, that he submitted to be led in chains above six
      hundred miles from Durazzo to Nice. The civility of the messenger
      alleviated his disgrace; the emperor’s sickness dispelled his
      danger; and the last breath of Theodore, which recommended his
      infant son, at once acknowledged the innocence and the power of
      Palæologus.

      11 (return) [ The pedigree of Palæologus is explained by Ducange,
      (Famil. Byzant. p. 230, &c.:) the events of his private life are
      related by Pachymer (l. i. c. 7—12) and Gregoras (l. ii. 8, l.
      iii. 2, 4, l. iv. 1) with visible favor to the father of the
      reigning dynasty.]

      12 (return) [ Acropolita (c. 50) relates the circumstances of
      this curious adventure, which seem to have escaped the more
      recent writers.]

      13 (return) [ Pachymer, (l. i. c. 12,) who speaks with proper
      contempt of this barbarous trial, affirms, that he had seen in
      his youth many person who had sustained, without injury, the
      fiery ordeal. As a Greek, he is credulous; but the ingenuity of
      the Greeks might furnish some remedies of art or fraud against
      their own superstition, or that of their tyrant.]

      But his innocence had been too unworthily treated, and his power
      was too strongly felt, to curb an aspiring subject in the fair
      field that was opened to his ambition. 14 In the council, after
      the death of Theodore, he was the first to pronounce, and the
      first to violate, the oath of allegiance to Muzalon; and so
      dexterous was his conduct, that he reaped the benefit, without
      incurring the guilt, or at least the reproach, of the subsequent
      massacre. In the choice of a regent, he balanced the interests
      and passions of the candidates; turned their envy and hatred from
      himself against each other, and forced every competitor to own,
      that after his own claims, those of Palæologus were best entitled
      to the preference. Under the title of great duke, he accepted or
      assumed, during a long minority, the active powers of government;
      the patriarch was a venerable name; and the factious nobles were
      seduced, or oppressed, by the ascendant of his genius. The fruits
      of the economy of Vataces were deposited in a strong castle on
      the banks of the Hermus, in the custody of the faithful
      Varangians: the constable retained his command or influence over
      the foreign troops; he employed the guards to possess the
      treasure, and the treasure to corrupt the guards; and whatsoever
      might be the abuse of the public money, his character was above
      the suspicion of private avarice. By himself, or by his
      emissaries, he strove to persuade every rank of subjects, that
      their own prosperity would rise in just proportion to the
      establishment of his authority. The weight of taxes was
      suspended, the perpetual theme of popular complaint; and he
      prohibited the trials by the ordeal and judicial combat. These
      Barbaric institutions were already abolished or undermined in
      France 15 and England; 16 and the appeal to the sword offended
      the sense of a civilized, 17 and the temper of an unwarlike,
      people. For the future maintenance of their wives and children,
      the veterans were grateful: the priests and the philosophers
      applauded his ardent zeal for the advancement of religion and
      learning; and his vague promise of rewarding merit was applied by
      every candidate to his own hopes. Conscious of the influence of
      the clergy, Michael successfully labored to secure the suffrage
      of that powerful order. Their expensive journey from Nice to
      Magnesia, afforded a decent and ample pretence: the leading
      prelates were tempted by the liberality of his nocturnal visits;
      and the incorruptible patriarch was flattered by the homage of
      his new colleague, who led his mule by the bridle into the town,
      and removed to a respectful distance the importunity of the
      crowd. Without renouncing his title by royal descent, Palæologus
      encouraged a free discussion into the advantages of elective
      monarchy; and his adherents asked, with the insolence of triumph,
      what patient would trust his health, or what merchant would
      abandon his vessel, to the _hereditary_ skill of a physician or a
      pilot? The youth of the emperor, and the impending dangers of a
      minority, required the support of a mature and experienced
      guardian; of an associate raised above the envy of his equals,
      and invested with the name and prerogatives of royalty. For the
      interest of the prince and people, without any selfish views for
      himself or his family, the great duke consented to guard and
      instruct the son of Theodore; but he sighed for the happy moment
      when he might restore to his firmer hands the administration of
      his patrimony, and enjoy the blessings of a private station. He
      was first invested with the title and prerogatives of _despot_,
      which bestowed the purple ornaments and the second place in the
      Roman monarchy. It was afterwards agreed that John and Michael
      should be proclaimed as joint emperors, and raised on the
      buckler, but that the preeminence should be reserved for the
      birthright of the former. A mutual league of amity was pledged
      between the royal partners; and in case of a rupture, the
      subjects were bound, by their oath of allegiance, to declare
      themselves against the aggressor; an ambiguous name, the seed of
      discord and civil war. Palæologus was content; but, on the day of
      the coronation, and in the cathedral of Nice, his zealous
      adherents most vehemently urged the just priority of his age and
      merit. The unseasonable dispute was eluded by postponing to a
      more convenient opportunity the coronation of John Lascaris; and
      he walked with a slight diadem in the train of his guardian, who
      alone received the Imperial crown from the hands of the
      patriarch. It was not without extreme reluctance that Arsenius
      abandoned the cause of his pupil; out the Varangians brandished
      their battle-axes; a sign of assent was extorted from the
      trembling youth; and some voices were heard, that the life of a
      child should no longer impede the settlement of the nation. A
      full harvest of honors and employments was distributed among his
      friends by the grateful Palæologus. In his own family he created
      a despot and two sebastocrators; Alexius Strategopulus was
      decorated with the title of Cæsar; and that veteran commander
      soon repaid the obligation, by restoring Constantinople to the
      Greek emperor.

      14 (return) [ Without comparing Pachymer to Thucydides or
      Tacitus, I will praise his narrative, (l. i. c. 13—32, l. ii. c.
      1—9,) which pursues the ascent of Palæologus with eloquence,
      perspicuity, and tolerable freedom. Acropolita is more cautious,
      and Gregoras more concise.]

      15 (return) [ The judicial combat was abolished by St. Louis in
      his own territories; and his example and authority were at length
      prevalent in France, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. c. 29.)]

      16 (return) [ In civil cases Henry II. gave an option to the
      defendant: Glanville prefers the proof by evidence; and that by
      judicial combat is reprobated in the Fleta. Yet the trial by
      battle has never been abrogated in the English law, and it was
      ordered by the judges as late as the beginning of the last
      century. * Note : And even demanded in the present.—M.]

      17 (return) [ Yet an ingenious friend has urged to me in
      mitigation of this practice, 1. _That_ in nations emerging from
      barbarism, it moderates the license of private war and arbitrary
      revenge. 2. _That_ it is less absurd than the trials by the
      ordeal, or boiling water, or the cross, which it has contributed
      to abolish. 3. _That_ it served at least as a test of personal
      courage; a quality so seldom united with a base disposition, that
      the danger of a trial might be some check to a malicious
      prosecutor, and a useful barrier against injustice supported by
      power. The gallant and unfortunate earl of Surrey might probably
      have escaped his unmerited fate, had not his demand of the combat
      against his accuser been overruled.]

      It was in the second year of his reign, while he resided in the
      palace and gardens of Nymphæum, 18 near Smyrna, that the first
      messenger arrived at the dead of night; and the stupendous
      intelligence was imparted to Michael, after he had been gently
      waked by the tender precaution of his sister Eulogia. The man was
      unknown or obscure; he produced no letters from the victorious
      Cæsar; nor could it easily be credited, after the defeat of
      Vataces and the recent failure of Palæologus himself, that the
      capital had been surprised by a detachment of eight hundred
      soldiers. As a hostage, the doubtful author was confined, with
      the assurance of death or an ample recompense; and the court was
      left some hours in the anxiety of hope and fear, till the
      messengers of Alexius arrived with the authentic intelligence,
      and displayed the trophies of the conquest, the sword and
      sceptre, 19 the buskins and bonnet, 20 of the usurper Baldwin,
      which he had dropped in his precipitate flight. A general
      assembly of the bishops, senators, and nobles, was immediately
      convened, and never perhaps was an event received with more
      heartfelt and universal joy. In a studied oration, the new
      sovereign of Constantinople congratulated his own and the public
      fortune. “There was a time,” said he, “a far distant time, when
      the Roman empire extended to the Adriatic, the Tigris, and the
      confines of Æthiopia. After the loss of the provinces, our
      capital itself, in these last and calamitous days, has been
      wrested from our hands by the Barbarians of the West. From the
      lowest ebb, the tide of prosperity has again returned in our
      favor; but our prosperity was that of fugitives and exiles: and
      when we were asked, which was the country of the Romans, we
      indicated with a blush the climate of the globe, and the quarter
      of the heavens. The divine Providence has now restored to our
      arms the city of Constantine, the sacred seat of religion and
      empire; and it will depend on our valor and conduct to render
      this important acquisition the pledge and omen of future
      victories.” So eager was the impatience of the prince and people,
      that Michael made his triumphal entry into Constantinople only
      twenty days after the expulsion of the Latins. The golden gate
      was thrown open at his approach; the devout conqueror dismounted
      from his horse; and a miraculous image of Mary the Conductress
      was borne before him, that the divine Virgin in person might
      appear to conduct him to the temple of her Son, the cathedral of
      St. Sophia. But after the first transport of devotion and pride,
      he sighed at the dreary prospect of solitude and ruin. The palace
      was defiled with smoke and dirt, and the gross intemperance of
      the Franks; whole streets had been consumed by fire, or were
      decayed by the injuries of time; the sacred and profane edifices
      were stripped of their ornaments: and, as if they were conscious
      of their approaching exile, the industry of the Latins had been
      confined to the work of pillage and destruction. Trade had
      expired under the pressure of anarchy and distress, and the
      numbers of inhabitants had decreased with the opulence of the
      city. It was the first care of the Greek monarch to reinstate the
      nobles in the palaces of their fathers; and the houses or the
      ground which they occupied were restored to the families that
      could exhibit a legal right of inheritance. But the far greater
      part was extinct or lost; the vacant property had devolved to the
      lord; he repeopled Constantinople by a liberal invitation to the
      provinces; and the brave _volunteers_ were seated in the capital
      which had been recovered by their arms. The French barons and the
      principal families had retired with their emperor; but the
      patient and humble crowd of Latins was attached to the country,
      and indifferent to the change of masters. Instead of banishing
      the factories of the Pisans, Venetians, and Genoese, the prudent
      conqueror accepted their oaths of allegiance, encouraged their
      industry, confirmed their privileges, and allowed them to live
      under the jurisdiction of their proper magistrates. Of these
      nations, the Pisans and Venetians preserved their respective
      quarters in the city; but the services and power of the Genoese
      deserved at the same time the gratitude and the jealousy of the
      Greeks. Their independent colony was first planted at the seaport
      town of Heraclea in Thrace. They were speedily recalled, and
      settled in the exclusive possession of the suburb of Galata, an
      advantageous post, in which they revived the commerce, and
      insulted the majesty, of the Byzantine empire. 21

      18 (return) [ The site of Nymphæum is not clearly defined in
      ancient or modern geography. But from the last hours of Vataces,
      (Acropolita, c. 52,) it is evident the palace and gardens of his
      favorite residence were in the neighborhood of Smyrna. Nymphæum
      might be loosely placed in Lydia, (Gregoras, l. vi. 6.)]

      19 (return) [ This sceptre, the emblem of justice and power, was
      a long staff, such as was used by the heroes in Homer. By the
      latter Greeks it was named _Dicanice_, and the Imperial sceptre
      was distinguished as usual by the red or purple color.]

      20 (return) [ Acropolita affirms (c. 87,) that this “Onnet” was
      after the French fashion; but from the ruby at the point or
      summit, Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 28, 29) believes that it
      was the high-crowned hat of the Greeks. Could Acropolita mistake
      the dress of his own court?]

      21 (return) [ See Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 28—33,) Acropolita, (c.
      88,) Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. iv. 7,) and for the treatment of
      the subject Latins, Ducange, (l. v. c. 30, 31.)]

      The recovery of Constantinople was celebrated as the æra of a new
      empire: the conqueror, alone, and by the right of the sword,
      renewed his coronation in the church of St. Sophia; and the name
      and honors of John Lascaris, his pupil and lawful sovereign, were
      insensibly abolished. But his claims still lived in the minds of
      the people; and the royal youth must speedily attain the years of
      manhood and ambition. By fear or conscience, Palæologus was
      restrained from dipping his hands in innocent and royal blood;
      but the anxiety of a usurper and a parent urged him to secure his
      throne by one of those imperfect crimes so familiar to the modern
      Greeks. The loss of sight incapacitated the young prince for the
      active business of the world; instead of the brutal violence of
      tearing out his eyes, the visual nerve was destroyed by the
      intense glare of a red-hot basin, 22 and John Lascaris was
      removed to a distant castle, where he spent many years in privacy
      and oblivion. Such cool and deliberate guilt may seem
      incompatible with remorse; but if Michael could trust the mercy
      of Heaven, he was not inaccessible to the reproaches and
      vengeance of mankind, which he had provoked by cruelty and
      treason. His cruelty imposed on a servile court the duties of
      applause or silence; but the clergy had a right to speak in the
      name of their invisible Master; and their holy legions were led
      by a prelate, whose character was above the temptations of hope
      or fear. After a short abdication of his dignity, Arsenius 23 had
      consented to ascend the ecclesiastical throne of Constantinople,
      and to preside in the restoration of the church. His pious
      simplicity was long deceived by the arts of Palæologus; and his
      patience and submission might soothe the usurper, and protect the
      safety of the young prince. On the news of his inhuman treatment,
      the patriarch unsheathed the spiritual sword; and superstition,
      on this occasion, was enlisted in the cause of humanity and
      justice. In a synod of bishops, who were stimulated by the
      example of his zeal, the patriarch pronounced a sentence of
      excommunication; though his prudence still repeated the name of
      Michael in the public prayers. The Eastern prelates had not
      adopted the dangerous maxims of ancient Rome; nor did they
      presume to enforce their censures, by deposing princes, or
      absolving nations from their oaths of allegiance. But the
      Christian, who had been separated from God and the church, became
      an object of horror; and, in a turbulent and fanatic capital,
      that horror might arm the hand of an assassin, or inflame a
      sedition of the people. Palæologus felt his danger, confessed his
      guilt, and deprecated his judge: the act was irretrievable; the
      prize was obtained; and the most rigorous penance, which he
      solicited, would have raised the sinner to the reputation of a
      saint. The unrelenting patriarch refused to announce any means of
      atonement or any hopes of mercy; and condescended only to
      pronounce, that for so great a crime, great indeed must be the
      satisfaction. “Do you require,” said Michael, “that I should
      abdicate the empire?” and at these words, he offered, or seemed
      to offer, the sword of state. Arsenius eagerly grasped this
      pledge of sovereignty; but when he perceived that the emperor was
      unwilling to purchase absolution at so dear a rate, he
      indignantly escaped to his cell, and left the royal sinner
      kneeling and weeping before the door. 24

      22 (return) [ This milder invention for extinguishing the sight
      was tried by the philosopher Democritus on himself, when he
      sought to withdraw his mind from the visible world: a foolish
      story! The word _abacinare_, in Latin and Italian, has furnished
      Ducange (Gloss. Lat.) with an opportunity to review the various
      modes of blinding: the more violent were scooping, burning with
      an iron, or hot vinegar, and binding the head with a strong cord
      till the eyes burst from their sockets. Ingenious tyrants!]

      23 (return) [ See the first retreat and restoration of Arsenius,
      in Pachymer (l. ii. c. 15, l. iii. c. 1, 2) and Nicephorus
      Gregoras, (l. iii. c. 1, l. iv. c. 1.) Posterity justly accused
      the ajeleia and raqumia of Arsenius the virtues of a hermit, the
      vices of a minister, (l. xii. c. 2.)]

      24 (return) [ The crime and excommunication of Michael are fairly
      told by Pachymer (l. iii. c. 10, 14, 19, &c.) and Gregoras, (l.
      iv. c. 4.) His confession and penance restored their freedom.]




      Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Part II.

      The danger and scandal of this excommunication subsisted above
      three years, till the popular clamor was assuaged by time and
      repentance; till the brethren of Arsenius condemned his
      inflexible spirit, so repugnant to the unbounded forgiveness of
      the gospel. The emperor had artfully insinuated, that, if he were
      still rejected at home, he might seek, in the Roman pontiff, a
      more indulgent judge; but it was far more easy and effectual to
      find or to place that judge at the head of the Byzantine church.
      Arsenius was involved in a vague rumor of conspiracy and
      disaffection; 248 some irregular steps in his ordination and
      government were liable to censure; a synod deposed him from the
      episcopal office; and he was transported under a guard of
      soldiers to a small island of the Propontis. Before his exile, he
      sullenly requested that a strict account might be taken of the
      treasures of the church; boasted, that his sole riches, three
      pieces of gold, had been earned by transcribing the psalms;
      continued to assert the freedom of his mind; and denied, with his
      last breath, the pardon which was implored by the royal sinner.
      25 After some delay, Gregory, 259 bishop of Adrianople, was
      translated to the Byzantine throne; but his authority was found
      insufficient to support the absolution of the emperor; and
      Joseph, a reverend monk, was substituted to that important
      function. This edifying scene was represented in the presence of
      the senate and the people; at the end of six years the humble
      penitent was restored to the communion of the faithful; and
      humanity will rejoice, that a milder treatment of the captive
      Lascaris was stipulated as a proof of his remorse. But the spirit
      of Arsenius still survived in a powerful faction of the monks and
      clergy, who persevered about forty-eight years in an obstinate
      schism. Their scruples were treated with tenderness and respect
      by Michael and his son; and the reconciliation of the Arsenites
      was the serious labor of the church and state. In the confidence
      of fanaticism, they had proposed to try their cause by a miracle;
      and when the two papers, that contained their own and the adverse
      cause, were cast into a fiery brazier, they expected that the
      Catholic verity would be respected by the flames. Alas! the two
      papers were indiscriminately consumed, and this unforeseen
      accident produced the union of a day, and renewed the quarrel of
      an age. 26 The final treaty displayed the victory of the
      Arsenites: the clergy abstained during forty days from all
      ecclesiastical functions; a slight penance was imposed on the
      laity; the body of Arsenius was deposited in the sanctuary; and,
      in the name of the departed saint, the prince and people were
      released from the sins of their fathers. 27

      248 (return) [ Except the omission of a prayer for the emperor,
      the charges against Arsenius were of different nature: he was
      accused of having allowed the sultan of Iconium to bathe in
      vessels signed with the cross, and to have admitted him to the
      church, though unbaptized, during the service. It was pleaded, in
      favor of Arsenius, among other proofs of the sultan’s
      Christianity, that he had offered to eat ham. Pachymer, l. iv. c.
      4, p. 265. It was after his exile that he was involved in a
      charge of conspiracy.—M.]

      25 (return) [ Pachymer relates the exile of Arsenius, (l. iv. c.
      1—16:) he was one of the commissaries who visited him in the
      desert island. The last testament of the unforgiving patriarch is
      still extant, (Dupin, Bibliothèque Ecclésiastique, tom. x. p.
      95.)]

      259 (return) [ Pachymer calls him Germanus.—M.]

      26 (return) [ Pachymer (l. vii. c. 22) relates this miraculous
      trial like a philosopher, and treats with similar contempt a plot
      of the Arsenites, to hide a revelation in the coffin of some old
      saint, (l. vii. c. 13.) He compensates this incredulity by an
      image that weeps, another that bleeds, (l. vii. c. 30,) and the
      miraculous cures of a deaf and a mute patient, (l. xi. c. 32.)]

      27 (return) [ The story of the Arsenites is spread through the
      thirteen books of Pachymer. Their union and triumph are reserved
      for Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. vii. c. 9,) who neither loves nor
      esteems these sectaries.]

      The establishment of his family was the motive, or at least the
      pretence, of the crime of Palæologus; and he was impatient to
      confirm the succession, by sharing with his eldest son the honors
      of the purple. Andronicus, afterwards surnamed the Elder, was
      proclaimed and crowned emperor of the Romans, in the fifteenth
      year of his age; and, from the first æra of a prolix and
      inglorious reign, he held that august title nine years as the
      colleague, and fifty as the successor, of his father. Michael
      himself, had he died in a private station, would have been
      thought more worthy of the empire; and the assaults of his
      temporal and spiritual enemies left him few moments to labor for
      his own fame or the happiness of his subjects. He wrested from
      the Franks several of the noblest islands of the Archipelago,
      Lesbos, Chios, and Rhodes: his brother Constantine was sent to
      command in Malvasia and Sparta; and the eastern side of the
      Morea, from Argos and Napoli to Cape Thinners, was repossessed by
      the Greeks. This effusion of Christian blood was loudly condemned
      by the patriarch; and the insolent priest presumed to interpose
      his fears and scruples between the arms of princes. But in the
      prosecution of these western conquests, the countries beyond the
      Hellespont were left naked to the Turks; and their depredations
      verified the prophecy of a dying senator, that the recovery of
      Constantinople would be the ruin of Asia. The victories of
      Michael were achieved by his lieutenants; his sword rusted in the
      palace; and, in the transactions of the emperor with the popes
      and the king of Naples, his political acts were stained with
      cruelty and fraud. 28

      28 (return) [ Of the xiii books of Pachymer, the first six (as
      the ivth and vth of Nicephorus Gregoras) contain the reign of
      Michael, at the time of whose death he was forty years of age.
      Instead of breaking, like his editor the Père Poussin, his
      history into two parts, I follow Ducange and Cousin, who number
      the xiii. books in one series.]

      I. The Vatican was the most natural refuge of a Latin emperor,
      who had been driven from his throne; and Pope Urban the Fourth
      appeared to pity the misfortunes, and vindicate the cause, of the
      fugitive Baldwin. A crusade, with plenary indulgence, was
      preached by his command against the schismatic Greeks: he
      excommunicated their allies and adherents; solicited Louis the
      Ninth in favor of his kinsman; and demanded a tenth of the
      ecclesiastical revenues of France and England for the service of
      the holy war. 29 The subtle Greek, who watched the rising tempest
      of the West, attempted to suspend or soothe the hostility of the
      pope, by suppliant embassies and respectful letters; but he
      insinuated that the establishment of peace must prepare the
      reconciliation and obedience of the Eastern church. The Roman
      court could not be deceived by so gross an artifice; and Michael
      was admonished, that the repentance of the son should precede the
      forgiveness of the father; and that _faith_ (an ambiguous word)
      was the only basis of friendship and alliance. After a long and
      affected delay, the approach of danger, and the importunity of
      Gregory the Tenth, compelled him to enter on a more serious
      negotiation: he alleged the example of the great Vataces; and the
      Greek clergy, who understood the intentions of their prince, were
      not alarmed by the first steps of reconciliation and respect. But
      when he pressed the conclusion of the treaty, they strenuously
      declared, that the Latins, though not in name, were heretics in
      fact, and that they despised those strangers as the vilest and
      most despicable portion of the human race. 30 It was the task of
      the emperor to persuade, to corrupt, to intimidate the most
      popular ecclesiastics, to gain the vote of each individual, and
      alternately to urge the arguments of Christian charity and the
      public welfare. The texts of the fathers and the arms of the
      Franks were balanced in the theological and political scale; and
      without approving the addition to the Nicene creed, the most
      moderate were taught to confess, that the two hostile
      propositions of proceeding from the Father by the Son, and of
      proceeding from the Father and the Son, might be reduced to a
      safe and Catholic sense. 31 The supremacy of the pope was a
      doctrine more easy to conceive, but more painful to acknowledge:
      yet Michael represented to his monks and prelates, that they
      might submit to name the Roman bishop as the first of the
      patriarchs; and that their distance and discretion would guard
      the liberties of the Eastern church from the mischievous
      consequences of the right of appeal. He protested that he would
      sacrifice his life and empire rather than yield the smallest
      point of orthodox faith or national independence; and this
      declaration was sealed and ratified by a golden bull. The
      patriarch Joseph withdrew to a monastery, to resign or resume his
      throne, according to the event of the treaty: the letters of
      union and obedience were subscribed by the emperor, his son
      Andronicus, and thirty-five archbishops and metropolitans, with
      their respective synods; and the episcopal list was multiplied by
      many dioceses which were annihilated under the yoke of the
      infidels. An embassy was composed of some trusty ministers and
      prelates: they embarked for Italy, with rich ornaments and rare
      perfumes for the altar of St. Peter; and their secret orders
      authorized and recommended a boundless compliance. They were
      received in the general council of Lyons, by Pope Gregory the
      Tenth, at the head of five hundred bishops. 32 He embraced with
      tears his long-lost and repentant children; accepted the oath of
      the ambassadors, who abjured the schism in the name of the two
      emperors; adorned the prelates with the ring and mitre; chanted
      in Greek and Latin the Nicene creed with the addition of
      _filioque_; and rejoiced in the union of the East and West, which
      had been reserved for his reign. To consummate this pious work,
      the Byzantine deputies were speedily followed by the pope’s
      nuncios; and their instruction discloses the policy of the
      Vatican, which could not be satisfied with the vain title of
      supremacy. After viewing the temper of the prince and people,
      they were enjoined to absolve the schismatic clergy, who should
      subscribe and swear their abjuration and obedience; to establish
      in all the churches the use of the perfect creed; to prepare the
      entrance of a cardinal legate, with the full powers and dignity
      of his office; and to instruct the emperor in the advantages
      which he might derive from the temporal protection of the Roman
      pontiff. 33

      29 (return) [ Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 33, &c., from the
      Epistles of Urban IV.]

      30 (return) [ From their mercantile intercourse with the
      Venetians and Genoese, they branded the Latins as kaphloi and
      banausoi, (Pachymer, l. v. c. 10.) “Some are heretics in name;
      others, like the Latins, in fact,” said the learned Veccus, (l.
      v. c. 12,) who soon afterwards became a convert (c. 15, 16) and a
      patriarch, (c. 24.)]

      31 (return) [ In this class we may place Pachymer himself, whose
      copious and candid narrative occupies the vth and vith books of
      his history. Yet the Greek is silent on the council of Lyons, and
      seems to believe that the popes always resided in Rome and Italy,
      (l. v. c. 17, 21.)]

      32 (return) [ See the acts of the council of Lyons in the year
      1274. Fleury, Hist. Ecclésiastique, tom. xviii. p. 181—199.
      Dupin, Bibliot. Ecclés. tom. x. p. 135.]

      33 (return) [ This curious instruction, which has been drawn with
      more or less honesty by Wading and Leo Allatius from the archives
      of the Vatican, is given in an abstract or version by Fleury,
      (tom. xviii. p. 252—258.)]

      But they found a country without a friend, a nation in which the
      names of Rome and Union were pronounced with abhorrence. The
      patriarch Joseph was indeed removed: his place was filled by
      Veccus, an ecclesiastic of learning and moderation; and the
      emperor was still urged by the same motives, to persevere in the
      same professions. But in his private language Palæologus affected
      to deplore the pride, and to blame the innovations, of the
      Latins; and while he debased his character by this double
      hypocrisy, he justified and punished the opposition of his
      subjects. By the joint suffrage of the new and the ancient Rome,
      a sentence of excommunication was pronounced against the
      obstinate schismatics; the censures of the church were executed
      by the sword of Michael; on the failure of persuasion, he tried
      the arguments of prison and exile, of whipping and mutilation;
      those touchstones, says an historian, of cowards and the brave.
      Two Greeks still reigned in Ætolia, Epirus, and Thessaly, with
      the appellation of despots: they had yielded to the sovereign of
      Constantinople, but they rejected the chains of the Roman
      pontiff, and supported their refusal by successful arms. Under
      their protection, the fugitive monks and bishops assembled in
      hostile synods; and retorted the name of heretic with the galling
      addition of apostate: the prince of Trebizond was tempted to
      assume the forfeit title of emperor; 339 and even the Latins of
      Negropont, Thebes, Athens, and the Morea, forgot the merits of
      the convert, to join, with open or clandestine aid, the enemies
      of Palæologus. His favorite generals, of his own blood, and
      family, successively deserted, or betrayed, the sacrilegious
      trust. His sister Eulogia, a niece, and two female cousins,
      conspired against him; another niece, Mary queen of Bulgaria,
      negotiated his ruin with the sultan of Egypt; and, in the public
      eye, their treason was consecrated as the most sublime virtue. 34
      To the pope’s nuncios, who urged the consummation of the work,
      Palæologus exposed a naked recital of all that he had done and
      suffered for their sake. They were assured that the guilty
      sectaries, of both sexes and every rank, had been deprived of
      their honors, their fortunes, and their liberty; a spreading list
      of confiscation and punishment, which involved many persons, the
      dearest to the emperor, or the best deserving of his favor. They
      were conducted to the prison, to behold four princes of the royal
      blood chained in the four corners, and shaking their fetters in
      an agony of grief and rage. Two of these captives were afterwards
      released; the one by submission, the other by death: but the
      obstinacy of their two companions was chastised by the loss of
      their eyes; and the Greeks, the least adverse to the union,
      deplored that cruel and inauspicious tragedy. 35 Persecutors must
      expect the hatred of those whom they oppress; but they commonly
      find some consolation in the testimony of their conscience, the
      applause of their party, and, perhaps, the success of their
      undertaking. But the hypocrisy of Michael, which was prompted
      only by political motives, must have forced him to hate himself,
      to despise his followers, and to esteem and envy the rebel
      champions by whom he was detested and despised. While his
      violence was abhorred at Constantinople, at Rome his slowness was
      arraigned, and his sincerity suspected; till at length Pope
      Martin the Fourth excluded the Greek emperor from the pale of a
      church, into which he was striving to reduce a schismatic people.
      No sooner had the tyrant expired, than the union was dissolved,
      and abjured by unanimous consent; the churches were purified; the
      penitents were reconciled; and his son Andronicus, after weeping
      the sins and errors of his youth most piously denied his father
      the burial of a prince and a Christian. 36

      339 (return) [ According to Fallmarayer he had always maintained
      this title.—M.]

      34 (return) [ This frank and authentic confession of Michael’s
      distress is exhibited in barbarous Latin by Ogerius, who signs
      himself Protonotarius Interpretum, and transcribed by Wading from
      the MSS. of the Vatican, (A.D. 1278, No. 3.) His annals of the
      Franciscan order, the Fratres Minores, in xvii. volumes in folio,
      (Rome, 1741,) I have now accidentally seen among the waste paper
      of a bookseller.]

      35 (return) [ See the vith book of Pachymer, particularly the
      chapters 1, 11, 16, 18, 24—27. He is the more credible, as he
      speaks of this persecution with less anger than sorrow.]

      36 (return) [ Pachymer, l. vii. c. 1—ii. 17. The speech of
      Andronicus the Elder (lib. xii. c. 2) is a curious record, which
      proves that if the Greeks were the slaves of the emperor, the
      emperor was not less the slave of superstition and the clergy.]

      II. In the distress of the Latins, the walls and towers of
      Constantinople had fallen to decay: they were restored and
      fortified by the policy of Michael, who deposited a plenteous
      store of corn and salt provisions, to sustain the siege which he
      might hourly expect from the resentment of the Western powers. Of
      these, the sovereign of the Two Sicilies was the most formidable
      neighbor: but as long as they were possessed by Mainfroy, the
      bastard of Frederic the Second, his monarchy was the bulwark,
      rather than the annoyance, of the Eastern empire. The usurper,
      though a brave and active prince, was sufficiently employed in
      the defence of his throne: his proscription by successive popes
      had separated Mainfroy from the common cause of the Latins; and
      the forces that might have besieged Constantinople were detained
      in a crusade against the domestic enemy of Rome. The prize of her
      avenger, the crown of the Two Sicilies, was won and worn by the
      brother of St Louis, by Charles count of Anjou and Provence, who
      led the chivalry of France on this holy expedition. 37 The
      disaffection of his Christian subjects compelled Mainfroy to
      enlist a colony of Saracens whom his father had planted in
      Apulia; and this odious succor will explain the defiance of the
      Catholic hero, who rejected all terms of accommodation. “Bear
      this message,” said Charles, “to the sultan of Nocera, that God
      and the sword are umpire between us; and that he shall either
      send me to paradise, or I will send him to the pit of hell.” The
      armies met: and though I am ignorant of Mainfroy’s doom in the
      other world, in this he lost his friends, his kingdom, and his
      life, in the bloody battle of Benevento. Naples and Sicily were
      immediately peopled with a warlike race of French nobles; and
      their aspiring leader embraced the future conquest of Africa,
      Greece, and Palestine. The most specious reasons might point his
      first arms against the Byzantine empire; and Palæologus,
      diffident of his own strength, repeatedly appealed from the
      ambition of Charles to the humanity of St. Louis, who still
      preserved a just ascendant over the mind of his ferocious
      brother. For a while the attention of that brother was confined
      at home by the invasion of Conradin, the last heir to the
      imperial house of Swabia; but the hapless boy sunk in the unequal
      conflict; and his execution on a public scaffold taught the
      rivals of Charles to tremble for their heads as well as their
      dominions. A second respite was obtained by the last crusade of
      St. Louis to the African coast; and the double motive of interest
      and duty urged the king of Naples to assist, with his powers and
      his presence, the holy enterprise. The death of St. Louis
      released him from the importunity of a virtuous censor: the king
      of Tunis confessed himself the tributary and vassal of the crown
      of Sicily; and the boldest of the French knights were free to
      enlist under his banner against the Greek empire. A treaty and a
      marriage united his interest with the house of Courtenay; his
      daughter Beatrice was promised to Philip, son and heir of the
      emperor Baldwin; a pension of six hundred ounces of gold was
      allowed for his maintenance; and his generous father distributed
      among his aliens the kingdoms and provinces of the East,
      reserving only Constantinople, and one day’s journey round the
      city for the imperial domain. 38 In this perilous moment,
      Palæologus was the most eager to subscribe the creed, and implore
      the protection, of the Roman pontiff, who assumed, with propriety
      and weight, the character of an angel of peace, the common father
      of the Christians. By his voice, the sword of Charles was chained
      in the scabbard; and the Greek ambassadors beheld him, in the
      pope’s antechamber, biting his ivory sceptre in a transport of
      fury, and deeply resenting the refusal to enfranchise and
      consecrate his arms. He appears to have respected the
      disinterested mediation of Gregory the Tenth; but Charles was
      insensibly disgusted by the pride and partiality of Nicholas the
      Third; and his attachment to his kindred, the Ursini family,
      alienated the most strenuous champion from the service of the
      church. The hostile league against the Greeks, of Philip the
      Latin emperor, the king of the Two Sicilies, and the republic of
      Venice, was ripened into execution; and the election of Martin
      the Fourth, a French pope, gave a sanction to the cause. Of the
      allies, Philip supplied his name; Martin, a bull of
      excommunication; the Venetians, a squadron of forty galleys; and
      the formidable powers of Charles consisted of forty counts, ten
      thousand men at arms, a numerous body of infantry, and a fleet of
      more than three hundred ships and transports. A distant day was
      appointed for assembling this mighty force in the harbor of
      Brindisi; and a previous attempt was risked with a detachment of
      three hundred knights, who invaded Albania, and besieged the
      fortress of Belgrade. Their defeat might amuse with a triumph the
      vanity of Constantinople; but the more sagacious Michael,
      despairing of his arms, depended on the effects of a conspiracy;
      on the secret workings of a rat, who gnawed the bowstring 39 of
      the Sicilian tyrant.

      37 (return) [ The best accounts, the nearest the time, the most
      full and entertaining, of the conquest of Naples by Charles of
      Anjou, may be found in the Florentine Chronicles of Ricordano
      Malespina, (c. 175—193,) and Giovanni Villani, (l. vii. c. 1—10,
      25—30,) which are published by Muratori in the viiith and xiiith
      volumes of the Historians of Italy. In his Annals (tom. xi. p.
      56—72) he has abridged these great events which are likewise
      described in the Istoria Civile of Giannone. tom. l. xix. tom.
      iii. l. xx.]

      38 (return) [ Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 49—56, l. vi. c.
      1—13. See Pachymer, l. iv. c. 29, l. v. c. 7—10, 25 l. vi. c. 30,
      32, 33, and Nicephorus Gregoras, l. iv. 5, l. v. 1, 6.]

      39 (return) [ The reader of Herodotus will recollect how
      miraculously the Assyrian host of Sennacherib was disarmed and
      destroyed, (l. ii. c. 141.)]

      Among the proscribed adherents of the house of Swabia, John of
      Procida forfeited a small island of that name in the Bay of
      Naples. His birth was noble, but his education was learned; and
      in the poverty of exile, he was relieved by the practice of
      physic, which he had studied in the school of Salerno. Fortune
      had left him nothing to lose, except life; and to despise life is
      the first qualification of a rebel. Procida was endowed with the
      art of negotiation, to enforce his reasons and disguise his
      motives; and in his various transactions with nations and men, he
      could persuade each party that he labored solely for _their_
      interest. The new kingdoms of Charles were afflicted by every
      species of fiscal and military oppression; 40 and the lives and
      fortunes of his Italian subjects were sacrificed to the greatness
      of their master and the licentiousness of his followers. The
      hatred of Naples was repressed by his presence; but the looser
      government of his vicegerents excited the contempt, as well as
      the aversion, of the Sicilians: the island was roused to a sense
      of freedom by the eloquence of Procida; and he displayed to every
      baron his private interest in the common cause. In the confidence
      of foreign aid, he successively visited the courts of the Greek
      emperor, and of Peter king of Arragon, 41 who possessed the
      maritime countries of Valentia and Catalonia. To the ambitious
      Peter a crown was presented, which he might justly claim by his
      marriage with the sister 419 of Mainfroy, and by the dying voice
      of Conradin, who from the scaffold had cast a ring to his heir
      and avenger. Palæologus was easily persuaded to divert his enemy
      from a foreign war by a rebellion at home; and a Greek subsidy of
      twenty-five thousand ounces of gold was most profitably applied
      to arm a Catalan fleet, which sailed under a holy banner to the
      specious attack of the Saracens of Africa. In the disguise of a
      monk or beggar, the indefatigable missionary of revolt flew from
      Constantinople to Rome, and from Sicily to Saragossa: the treaty
      was sealed with the signet of Pope Nicholas himself, the enemy of
      Charles; and his deed of gift transferred the fiefs of St. Peter
      from the house of Anjou to that of Arragon. So widely diffused
      and so freely circulated, the secret was preserved above two
      years with impenetrable discretion; and each of the conspirators
      imbibed the maxim of Peter, who declared that he would cut off
      his left hand if it were conscious of the intentions of his
      right. The mine was prepared with deep and dangerous artifice;
      but it may be questioned, whether the instant explosion of
      Palermo were the effect of accident or design.

      40 (return) [ According to Sabas Malaspina, (Hist. Sicula, l.
      iii. c. 16, in Muratori, tom. viii. p. 832,) a zealous Guelph,
      the subjects of Charles, who had reviled Mainfroy as a wolf,
      began to regret him as a lamb; and he justifies their discontent
      by the oppressions of the French government, (l. vi. c. 2, 7.)
      See the Sicilian manifesto in Nicholas Specialis, (l. i. c. 11,
      in Muratori, tom. x. p. 930.)]

      41 (return) [ See the character and counsels of Peter, king of
      Arragon, in Mariana, (Hist. Hispan. l. xiv. c. 6, tom. ii. p.
      133.) The reader for gives the Jesuit’s defects, in favor, always
      of his style, and often of his sense.]

      419 (return) [ Daughter. See Hallam’s Middle Ages, vol. i. p.
      517.—M.]

      On the vigil of Easter, a procession of the disarmed citizens
      visited a church without the walls; and a noble damsel was rudely
      insulted by a French soldier. 42 The ravisher was instantly
      punished with death; and if the people was at first scattered by
      a military force, their numbers and fury prevailed: the
      conspirators seized the opportunity; the flame spread over the
      island; and eight thousand French were exterminated in a
      promiscuous massacre, which has obtained the name of the Sicilian
      Vespers. 43 From every city the banners of freedom and the church
      were displayed: the revolt was inspired by the presence or the
      soul of Procida and Peter of Arragon, who sailed from the African
      coast to Palermo, was saluted as the king and savior of the isle.
      By the rebellion of a people on whom he had so long trampled with
      impunity, Charles was astonished and confounded; and in the first
      agony of grief and devotion, he was heard to exclaim, “O God! if
      thou hast decreed to humble me, grant me at least a gentle and
      gradual descent from the pinnacle of greatness!” His fleet and
      army, which already filled the seaports of Italy, were hastily
      recalled from the service of the Grecian war; and the situation
      of Messina exposed that town to the first storm of his revenge.
      Feeble in themselves, and yet hopeless of foreign succor, the
      citizens would have repented, and submitted on the assurance of
      full pardon and their ancient privileges. But the pride of the
      monarch was already rekindled; and the most fervent entreaties of
      the legate could extort no more than a promise, that he would
      forgive the remainder, after a chosen list of eight hundred
      rebels had been yielded to his discretion. The despair of the
      Messinese renewed their courage: Peter of Arragon approached to
      their relief; 44 and his rival was driven back by the failure of
      provision and the terrors of the equinox to the Calabrian shore.
      At the same moment, the Catalan admiral, the famous Roger de
      Loria, swept the channel with an invincible squadron: the French
      fleet, more numerous in transports than in galleys, was either
      burnt or destroyed; and the same blow assured the independence of
      Sicily and the safety of the Greek empire. A few days before his
      death, the emperor Michael rejoiced in the fall of an enemy whom
      he hated and esteemed; and perhaps he might be content with the
      popular judgment, that had they not been matched with each other,
      Constantinople and Italy must speedily have obeyed the same
      master. 45 From this disastrous moment, the life of Charles was a
      series of misfortunes: his capital was insulted, his son was made
      prisoner, and he sunk into the grave without recovering the Isle
      of Sicily, which, after a war of twenty years, was finally
      severed from the throne of Naples, and transferred, as an
      independent kingdom, to a younger branch of the house of Arragon.
      46

      42 (return) [ After enumerating the sufferings of his country,
      Nicholas Specialis adds, in the true spirit of Italian jealousy,
      Quæ omnia et graviora quidem, ut arbitror, patienti animo Siculi
      tolerassent, nisi (quod primum cunctis dominantibus cavendum est)
      alienas fminas invasissent, (l. i. c. 2, p. 924.)]

      43 (return) [ The French were long taught to remember this bloody
      lesson: “If I am provoked, (said Henry the Fourth,) I will
      breakfast at Milan, and dine at Naples.” “Your majesty (replied
      the Spanish ambassador) may perhaps arrive in Sicily for
      vespers.”]

      44 (return) [ This revolt, with the subsequent victory, are
      related by two national writers, Bartholemy à Neocastro (in
      Muratori, tom. xiii.,) and Nicholas Specialis (in Muratori, tom.
      x.,) the one a contemporary, the other of the next century. The
      patriot Specialis disclaims the name of rebellion, and all
      previous correspondence with Peter of Arragon, (nullo communicato
      consilio,) who _happened_ to be with a fleet and army on the
      African coast, (l. i. c. 4, 9.)]

      45 (return) [ Nicephorus Gregoras (l. v. c. 6) admires the wisdom
      of Providence in this equal balance of states and princes. For
      the honor of Palæologus, I had rather this balance had been
      observed by an Italian writer.]

      46 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Villani, the xith volume of
      the Annali d’Italia of Muratori, and the xxth and xxist books of
      the Istoria Civile of Giannone.]




      Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Part
      III.

      I shall not, I trust, be accused of superstition; but I must
      remark that, even in this world, the natural order of events will
      sometimes afford the strong appearances of moral retribution. The
      first Palæologus had saved his empire by involving the kingdoms
      of the West in rebellion and blood; and from these scenes of
      discord uprose a generation of iron men, who assaulted and
      endangered the empire of his son. In modern times our debts and
      taxes are the secret poison which still corrodes the bosom of
      peace: but in the weak and disorderly government of the middle
      ages, it was agitated by the present evil of the disbanded
      armies. Too idle to work, too proud to beg, the mercenaries were
      accustomed to a life of rapine: they could rob with more dignity
      and effect under a banner and a chief; and the sovereign, to whom
      their service was useless, and their presence importunate,
      endeavored to discharge the torrent on some neighboring
      countries. After the peace of Sicily, many thousands of Genoese,
      _Catalans_, 47 &c., who had fought, by sea and land, under the
      standard of Anjou or Arragon, were blended into one nation by the
      resemblance of their manners and interest. They heard that the
      Greek provinces of Asia were invaded by the Turks: they resolved
      to share the harvest of pay and plunder: and Frederic king of
      Sicily most liberally contributed the means of their departure.
      In a warfare of twenty years, a ship, or a camp, was become their
      country; arms were their sole profession and property; valor was
      the only virtue which they knew; their women had imbibed the
      fearless temper of their lovers and husbands: it was reported,
      that, with a stroke of their broadsword, the Catalans could
      cleave a horseman and a horse; and the report itself was a
      powerful weapon. Roger de Flor 477 was the most popular of their
      chiefs; and his personal merit overshadowed the dignity of his
      prouder rivals of Arragon. The offspring of a marriage between a
      German gentleman of the court of Frederic the Second and a damsel
      of Brindisi, Roger was successively a templar, an apostate, a
      pirate, and at length the richest and most powerful admiral of
      the Mediterranean. He sailed from Messina to Constantinople, with
      eighteen galleys, four great ships, and eight thousand
      adventurers; 478 and his previous treaty was faithfully
      accomplished by Andronicus the elder, who accepted with joy and
      terror this formidable succor. A palace was allotted for his
      reception, and a niece of the emperor was given in marriage to
      the valiant stranger, who was immediately created great duke or
      admiral of Romania. After a decent repose, he transported his
      troops over the Propontis, and boldly led them against the Turks:
      in two bloody battles thirty thousand of the Moslems were slain:
      he raised the siege of Philadelphia, and deserved the name of the
      deliverer of Asia. But after a short season of prosperity, the
      cloud of slavery and ruin again burst on that unhappy province.
      The inhabitants escaped (says a Greek historian) from the smoke
      into the flames; and the hostility of the Turks was less
      pernicious than the friendship of the Catalans. 479 The lives and
      fortunes which they had rescued they considered as their own: the
      willing or reluctant maid was saved from the race of circumcision
      for the embraces of a Christian soldier: the exaction of fines
      and supplies was enforced by licentious rapine and arbitrary
      executions; and, on the resistance of Magnesia, the great duke
      besieged a city of the Roman empire. 48 These disorders he
      excused by the wrongs and passions of a victorious army; nor
      would his own authority or person have been safe, had he dared to
      punish his faithful followers, who were defrauded of the just and
      covenanted price of their services. The threats and complaints of
      Andronicus disclosed the nakedness of the empire. His golden bull
      had invited no more than five hundred horse and a thousand foot
      soldiers; yet the crowds of volunteers, who migrated to the East,
      had been enlisted and fed by his spontaneous bounty. While his
      bravest allies were content with three byzants or pieces of gold,
      for their monthly pay, an ounce, or even two ounces, of gold were
      assigned to the Catalans, whose annual pension would thus amount
      to near a hundred pounds sterling: one of their chiefs had
      modestly rated at three hundred thousand crowns the value of his
      _future_ merits; and above a million had been issued from the
      treasury for the maintenance of these costly mercenaries. A cruel
      tax had been imposed on the corn of the husbandman: one third was
      retrenched from the salaries of the public officers; and the
      standard of the coin was so shamefully debased, that of the
      four-and-twenty parts only five were of pure gold. 49 At the
      summons of the emperor, Roger evacuated a province which no
      longer supplied the materials of rapine; 496 but he refused to
      disperse his troops; and while his style was respectful, his
      conduct was independent and hostile. He protested, that if the
      emperor should march against him, he would advance forty paces to
      kiss the ground before him; but in rising from this prostrate
      attitude Roger had a life and sword at the service of his
      friends. The great duke of Romania condescended to accept the
      title and ornaments of Cæsar; but he rejected the new proposal of
      the government of Asia with a subsidy of corn and money, 497 on
      condition that he should reduce his troops to the harmless number
      of three thousand men. Assassination is the last resource of
      cowards. The Cæsar was tempted to visit the royal residence of
      Adrianople; in the apartment, and before the eyes, of the empress
      he was stabbed by the Alani guards; and though the deed was
      imputed to their private revenge, 498 his countrymen, who dwelt
      at Constantinople in the security of peace, were involved in the
      same proscription by the prince or people. The loss of their
      leader intimidated the crowd of adventurers, who hoisted the
      sails of flight, and were soon scattered round the coasts of the
      Mediterranean. But a veteran band of fifteen hundred Catalans, or
      French, stood firm in the strong fortress of Gallipoli on the
      Hellespont, displayed the banners of Arragon, and offered to
      revenge and justify their chief, by an equal combat of ten or a
      hundred warriors. Instead of accepting this bold defiance, the
      emperor Michael, the son and colleague of Andronicus, resolved to
      oppress them with the weight of multitudes: every nerve was
      strained to form an army of thirteen thousand horse and thirty
      thousand foot; and the Propontis was covered with the ships of
      the Greeks and Genoese. In two battles by sea and land, these
      mighty forces were encountered and overthrown by the despair and
      discipline of the Catalans: the young emperor fled to the palace;
      and an insufficient guard of light-horse was left for the
      protection of the open country. Victory renewed the hopes and
      numbers of the adventures: every nation was blended under the
      name and standard of the _great company_; and three thousand
      Turkish proselytes deserted from the Imperial service to join
      this military association. In the possession of Gallipoli, 509
      the Catalans intercepted the trade of Constantinople and the
      Black Sea, while they spread their devastation on either side of
      the Hellespont over the confines of Europe and Asia. To prevent
      their approach, the greatest part of the Byzantine territory was
      laid waste by the Greeks themselves: the peasants and their
      cattle retired into the city; and myriads of sheep and oxen, for
      which neither place nor food could be procured, were unprofitably
      slaughtered on the same day. Four times the emperor Andronicus
      sued for peace, and four times he was inflexibly repulsed, till
      the want of provisions, and the discord of the chiefs, compelled
      the Catalans to evacuate the banks of the Hellespont and the
      neighborhood of the capital. After their separation from the
      Turks, the remains of the great company pursued their march
      through Macedonia and Thessaly, to seek a new establishment in
      the heart of Greece. 50

      47 (return) [ In this motley multitude, the Catalans and
      Spaniards, the bravest of the soldiery, were styled by themselves
      and the Greeks _Amogavares_. Moncada derives their origin from
      the Goths, and Pachymer (l. xi. c. 22) from the Arabs; and in
      spite of national and religious pride, I am afraid the latter is
      in the right.]

      477 (return) [ On Roger de Flor and his companions, see an
      historical fragment, detailed and interesting, entitled “The
      Spaniards of the Fourteenth Century,” and inserted in “L’Espagne
      en 1808,” a work translated from the German, vol. ii. p. 167.
      This narrative enables us to detect some slight errors which have
      crept into that of Gibbon.—G.]

      478 (return) [ The troops of Roger de Flor, according to his
      companions Ramon de Montaner, were 1500 men at arms, 4000
      Almogavares, and 1040 other foot, besides the sailors and
      mariners, vol. ii. p. 137.—M.]

      479 (return) [ Ramon de Montaner suppresses the cruelties and
      oppressions of the Catalans, in which, perhaps, he shared.—M.]

      48 (return) [ Some idea may be formed of the population of these
      cities, from the 36,000 inhabitants of Tralles, which, in the
      preceding reign, was rebuilt by the emperor, and ruined by the
      Turks. (Pachymer, l. vi. c. 20, 21.)]

      49 (return) [ I have collected these pecuniary circumstances from
      Pachymer, (l. xi. c. 21, l. xii. c. 4, 5, 8, 14, 19,) who
      describes the progressive degradation of the gold coin. Even in
      the prosperous times of John Ducas Vataces, the byzants were
      composed in equal proportions of the pure and the baser metal.
      The poverty of Michael Palæologus compelled him to strike a new
      coin, with nine parts, or carats, of gold, and fifteen of copper
      alloy. After his death, the standard rose to ten carats, till in
      the public distress it was reduced to the moiety. The prince was
      relieved for a moment, while credit and commerce were forever
      blasted. In France, the gold coin is of twenty-two carats, (one
      twelfth alloy,) and the standard of England and Holland is still
      higher.]

      496 (return) [ Roger de Flor, according to Ramon de Montaner, was
      recalled from Natolia, on account of the war which had arisen on
      the death of Asan, king of Bulgaria. Andronicus claimed the
      kingdom for his nephew, the sons of Asan by his sister. Roger de
      Flor turned the tide of success in favor of the emperor of
      Constantinople and made peace.—M.]

      497 (return) [ Andronicus paid the Catalans in the debased money,
      much to their indignation.—M.]

      498 (return) [ According to Ramon de Montaner, he was murdered by
      order of Kyr (kurioV) Michael, son of the emperor. p. 170.—M.]

      509 (return) [ Ramon de Montaner describes his sojourn at
      Gallipoli: Nous etions si riches, que nous ne semions, ni ne
      labourions, ni ne faisions enver des vins ni ne cultivions les
      vignes: et cependant tous les ans nous recucillions tour ce qu’il
      nous fallait, en vin, froment et avoine. p. 193. This lasted for
      five merry years. Ramon de Montaner is high authority, for he was
      “chancelier et maitre rational de l’armée,” (commissary of
      _rations_.) He was left governor; all the scribes of the army
      remained with him, and with their aid he kept the books in which
      were registered the number of horse and foot employed on each
      expedition. According to this book the plunder was shared, of
      which he had a fifth for his trouble. p. 197.—M.]

      50 (return) [ The Catalan war is most copiously related by
      Pachymer, in the xith, xiith, and xiiith books, till he breaks
      off in the year 1308. Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii. 3—6) is more
      concise and complete. Ducange, who adopts these adventurers as
      French, has hunted their footsteps with his usual diligence,
      (Hist. de C. P. l. vi. c. 22—46.) He quotes an Arragonese
      history, which I have read with pleasure, and which the Spaniards
      extol as a model of style and composition, (Expedicion de los
      Catalanes y Arragoneses contra Turcos y Griegos: Barcelona, 1623
      in quarto: Madrid, 1777, in octavo.) Don Francisco de Moncada
      Conde de Ossona, may imitate Cæsar or Sallust; he may transcribe
      the Greek or Italian contemporaries: but he never quotes his
      authorities, and I cannot discern any national records of the
      exploits of his countrymen. * Note: Ramon de Montaner, one of the
      Catalans, who accompanied Roger de Flor, and who was governor of
      Gallipoli, has written, in Spanish, the history of this band of
      adventurers, to which he belonged, and from which he separated
      when it left the Thracian Chersonese to penetrate into Macedonia
      and Greece.—G.——The autobiography of Ramon de Montaner has been
      published in French by M. Buchon, in the great collection of
      Mémoires relatifs à l’Histoire de France. I quote this
      edition.—M.]

      After some ages of oblivion, Greece was awakened to new
      misfortunes by the arms of the Latins. In the two hundred and
      fifty years between the first and the last conquest of
      Constantinople, that venerable land was disputed by a multitude
      of petty tyrants; without the comforts of freedom and genius, her
      ancient cities were again plunged in foreign and intestine war;
      and, if servitude be preferable to anarchy, they might repose
      with joy under the Turkish yoke. I shall not pursue the obscure
      and various dynasties, that rose and fell on the continent or in
      the isles; but our silence on the fate of Athens 51 would argue a
      strange ingratitude to the first and purest school of liberal
      science and amusement. In the partition of the empire, the
      principality of Athens and Thebes was assigned to Otho de la
      Roche, a noble warrior of Burgundy, 52 with the title of great
      duke, 53 which the Latins understood in their own sense, and the
      Greeks more foolishly derived from the age of Constantine. 54
      Otho followed the standard of the marquis of Montferrat: the
      ample state which he acquired by a miracle of conduct or fortune,
      55 was peaceably inherited by his son and two grandsons, till the
      family, though not the nation, was changed, by the marriage of an
      heiress into the elder branch of the house of Brienne. The son of
      that marriage, Walter de Brienne, succeeded to the duchy of
      Athens; and, with the aid of some Catalan mercenaries, whom he
      invested with fiefs, reduced above thirty castles of the vassal
      or neighboring lords. But when he was informed of the approach
      and ambition of the great company, he collected a force of seven
      hundred knights, six thousand four hundred horse, and eight
      thousand foot, and boldly met them on the banks of the River
      Cephisus in Botia. The Catalans amounted to no more than three
      thousand five hundred horse, and four thousand foot; but the
      deficiency of numbers was compensated by stratagem and order.
      They formed round their camp an artificial inundation; the duke
      and his knights advanced without fear or precaution on the
      verdant meadow; their horses plunged into the bog; and he was cut
      in pieces, with the greatest part of the French cavalry. His
      family and nation were expelled; and his son Walter de Brienne,
      the titular duke of Athens, the tyrant of Florence, and the
      constable of France, lost his life in the field of Poitiers
      Attica and Botia were the rewards of the victorious Catalans;
      they married the widows and daughters of the slain; and during
      fourteen years, the great company was the terror of the Grecian
      states. Their factions drove them to acknowledge the sovereignty
      of the house of Arragon; and during the remainder of the
      fourteenth century, Athens, as a government or an appanage, was
      successively bestowed by the kings of Sicily. After the French
      and Catalans, the third dynasty was that of the Accaioli, a
      family, plebeian at Florence, potent at Naples, and sovereign in
      Greece. Athens, which they embellished with new buildings, became
      the capital of a state, that extended over Thebes, Argos,
      Corinth, Delphi, and a part of Thessaly; and their reign was
      finally determined by Mahomet the Second, who strangled the last
      duke, and educated his sons in the discipline and religion of the
      seraglio.

      51 (return) [ See the laborious history of Ducange, whose
      accurate table of the French dynasties recapitulates the
      thirty-five passages, in which he mentions the dukes of Athens.]

      52 (return) [ He is twice mentioned by Villehardouin with honor,
      (No. 151, 235;) and under the first passage, Ducange observes all
      that can be known of his person and family.]

      53 (return) [ From these Latin princes of the xivth century,
      Boccace, Chaucer. and Shakspeare, have borrowed their Theseus
      _duke_ of Athens. An ignorant age transfers its own language and
      manners to the most distant times.]

      54 (return) [ The same Constantine gave to Sicily a king, to
      Russia the _magnus dapifer_ of the empire, to Thebes the
      _primicerius_; and these absurd fables are properly lashed by
      Ducange, (ad Nicephor. Greg. l. vii. c. 5.) By the Latins, the
      lord of Thebes was styled, by corruption, the Megas Kurios, or
      Grand Sire!]

      55 (return) [ _Quodam miraculo_, says Alberic. He was probably
      received by Michael Choniates, the archbishop who had defended
      Athens against the tyrant Leo Sgurus, (Nicetas urbs capta, p.
      805, ed. Bek.) Michael was the brother of the historian Nicetas;
      and his encomium of Athens is still extant in MS. in the Bodleian
      library, (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc tom. vi. p. 405.) * Note: Nicetas
      says expressly that Michael surrendered the Acropolis to the
      marquis.—M.]

      Athens, 56 though no more than the shadow of her former self,
      still contains about eight or ten thousand inhabitants; of these,
      three fourths are Greeks in religion and language; and the Turks,
      who compose the remainder, have relaxed, in their intercourse
      with the citizens, somewhat of the pride and gravity of their
      national character. The olive-tree, the gift of Minerva,
      flourishes in Attica; nor has the honey of Mount Hymettus lost
      any part of its exquisite flavor: 57 but the languid trade is
      monopolized by strangers, and the agriculture of a barren land is
      abandoned to the vagrant Walachians. The Athenians are still
      distinguished by the subtlety and acuteness of their
      understandings; but these qualities, unless ennobled by freedom,
      and enlightened by study, will degenerate into a low and selfish
      cunning: and it is a proverbial saying of the country, “From the
      Jews of Thessalonica, the Turks of Negropont, and the Greeks of
      Athens, good Lord deliver us!” This artful people has eluded the
      tyranny of the Turkish bashaws, by an expedient which alleviates
      their servitude and aggravates their shame. About the middle of
      the last century, the Athenians chose for their protector the
      Kislar Aga, or chief black eunuch of the seraglio. This Æthiopian
      slave, who possesses the sultan’s ear, condescends to accept the
      tribute of thirty thousand crowns: his lieutenant, the Waywode,
      whom he annually confirms, may reserve for his own about five or
      six thousand more; and such is the policy of the citizens, that
      they seldom fail to remove and punish an oppressive governor.
      Their private differences are decided by the archbishop, one of
      the richest prelates of the Greek church, since he possesses a
      revenue of one thousand pounds sterling; and by a tribunal of the
      eight _geronti_ or elders, chosen in the eight quarters of the
      city: the noble families cannot trace their pedigree above three
      hundred years; but their principal members are distinguished by a
      grave demeanor, a fur cap, and the lofty appellation of _archon_.
      By some, who delight in the contrast, the modern language of
      Athens is represented as the most corrupt and barbarous of the
      seventy dialects of the vulgar Greek: 58 this picture is too
      darkly colored: but it would not be easy, in the country of Plato
      and Demosthenes, to find a reader or a copy of their works. The
      Athenians walk with supine indifference among the glorious ruins
      of antiquity; and such is the debasement of their character, that
      they are incapable of admiring the genius of their predecessors.
      59

      56 (return) [ The modern account of Athens, and the Athenians, is
      extracted from Spon, (Voyage en Grece, tom. ii. p. 79—199,) and
      Wheeler, (Travels into Greece, p. 337—414,) Stuart, (Antiquities
      of Athens, passim,) and Chandler, (Travels into Greece, p.
      23—172.) The first of these travellers visited Greece in the year
      1676; the last, 1765; and ninety years had not produced much
      difference in the tranquil scene.]

      57 (return) [ The ancients, or at least the Athenians, believed
      that all the bees in the world had been propagated from Mount
      Hymettus. They taught, that health might be preserved, and life
      prolonged, by the external use of oil, and the internal use of
      honey, (Geoponica, l. xv. c 7, p. 1089—1094, edit. Niclas.)]

      58 (return) [ Ducange, Glossar. Græc. Præfat. p. 8, who quotes
      for his author Theodosius Zygomalas, a modern grammarian. Yet
      Spon (tom. ii. p. 194) and Wheeler, (p. 355,) no incompetent
      judges, entertain a more favorable opinion of the Attic dialect.]

      59 (return) [ Yet we must not accuse them of corrupting the name
      of Athens, which they still call Athini. From the eiV thn
      'Aqhnhn, we have formed our own barbarism of _Setines_. * Note:
      Gibbon did not foresee a Bavarian prince on the throne of Greece,
      with Athens as his capital.—M.]




      Chapter LXIII: Civil Wars And The Ruin Of The Greek Empire.—Part
      I.

     Civil Wars, And Ruin Of The Greek Empire.—Reigns Of Andronicus,
     The Elder And Younger, And John Palæologus.— Regency, Revolt,
     Reign, And Abdication Of John Cantacuzene.— Establishment Of A
     Genoese Colony At Pera Or Galata.—Their Wars With The Empire And
     City Of Constantinople.

      The long reign of Andronicus 1 the elder is chiefly memorable by
      the disputes of the Greek church, the invasion of the Catalans,
      and the rise of the Ottoman power. He is celebrated as the most
      learned and virtuous prince of the age; but such virtue, and such
      learning, contributed neither to the perfection of the
      individual, nor to the happiness of society. A slave of the most
      abject superstition, he was surrounded on all sides by visible
      and invisible enemies; nor were the flames of hell less dreadful
      to his fancy, than those of a Catalan or Turkish war. Under the
      reign of the Palæologi, the choice of the patriarch was the most
      important business of the state; the heads of the Greek church
      were ambitious and fanatic monks; and their vices or virtues,
      their learning or ignorance, were equally mischievous or
      contemptible. By his intemperate discipline, the patriarch
      Athanasius 2 excited the hatred of the clergy and people: he was
      heard to declare, that the sinner should swallow the last dregs
      of the cup of penance; and the foolish tale was propagated of his
      punishing a sacrilegious ass that had tasted the lettuce of a
      convent garden. Driven from the throne by the universal clamor,
      Athanasius composed before his retreat two papers of a very
      opposite cast. His public testament was in the tone of charity
      and resignation; the private codicil breathed the direst
      anathemas against the authors of his disgrace, whom he excluded
      forever from the communion of the holy trinity, the angels, and
      the saints. This last paper he enclosed in an earthen pot, which
      was placed, by his order, on the top of one of the pillars, in
      the dome of St. Sophia, in the distant hope of discovery and
      revenge. At the end of four years, some youths, climbing

       by a ladder in search of pigeons’ nests, detected the fatal
       secret; and,

      as Andronicus felt himself touched and bound by the
      excommunication, he trembled on the brink of the abyss which had
      been so treacherously dug under his feet. A synod of bishops was
      instantly convened to debate this important question: the
      rashness of these clandestine anathemas was generally condemned;
      but as the knot could be untied only by the same hand, as that
      hand was now deprived of the crosier, it appeared that this
      posthumous decree was irrevocable by any earthly power. Some
      faint testimonies of repentance and pardon were extorted from the
      author of the mischief; but the conscience of the emperor was
      still wounded, and he desired, with no less ardor than Athanasius
      himself, the restoration of a patriarch, by whom alone he could
      be healed. At the dead of night, a monk rudely knocked at the
      door of the royal bed-chamber, announcing a revelation of plague
      and famine, of inundations and earthquakes. Andronicus started
      from his bed, and spent the night in prayer, till he felt, or
      thought that he felt, a slight motion of the earth. The emperor
      on foot led the bishops and monks to the cell of Athanasius; and,
      after a proper resistance, the saint, from whom this message had
      been sent, consented to absolve the prince, and govern the church
      of Constantinople. Untamed by disgrace, and hardened by solitude,
      the shepherd was again odious to the flock, and his enemies
      contrived a singular, and as it proved, a successful, mode of
      revenge. In the night, they stole away the footstool or
      foot-cloth of his throne, which they secretly replaced with the
      decoration of a satirical picture. The emperor was painted with a
      bridle in his mouth, and Athanasius leading the tractable beast
      to the feet of Christ. The authors of the libel were detected and
      punished; but as their lives had been spared, the Christian
      priest in sullen indignation retired to his cell; and the eyes of
      Andronicus, which had been opened for a moment, were again closed
      by his successor.

      1 (return) [ Andronicus himself will justify our freedom in the
      invective, (Nicephorus Gregoras, l. i. c. i.,) which he
      pronounced against historic falsehood. It is true, that his
      censure is more pointedly urged against calumny than against
      adulation.]

      2 (return) [ For the anathema in the pigeon’s nest, see Pachymer,
      (l. ix. c. 24,) who relates the general history of Athanasius,
      (l. viii. c. 13—16, 20, 24, l. x. c. 27—29, 31—36, l. xi. c. 1—3,
      5, 6, l. xiii. c. 8, 10, 23, 35,) and is followed by Nicephorus
      Gregoras, (l. vi. c. 5, 7, l. vii. c. 1, 9,) who includes the
      second retreat of this second Chrysostom.]

      If this transaction be one of the most curious and important of a
      reign of fifty years, I cannot at least accuse the brevity of my
      materials, since I reduce into some few pages the enormous folios
      of Pachymer, 3 Cantacuzene, 4 and Nicephorus Gregoras, 5 who have
      composed the prolix and languid story of the times. The name and
      situation of the emperor John Cantacuzene might inspire the most
      lively curiosity. His memorials of forty years extend from the
      revolt of the younger Andronicus to his own abdication of the
      empire; and it is observed, that, like Moses and Cæsar, he was
      the principal actor in the scenes which he describes. But in this
      eloquent work we should vainly seek the sincerity of a hero or a
      penitent. Retired in a cloister from the vices and passions of
      the world, he presents not a confession, but an apology, of the
      life of an ambitious statesman. Instead of unfolding the true
      counsels and characters of men, he displays the smooth and
      specious surface of events, highly varnished with his own praises
      and those of his friends. Their motives are always pure; their
      ends always legitimate: they conspire and rebel without any views
      of interest; and the violence which they inflict or suffer is
      celebrated as the spontaneous effect of reason and virtue.

      3 (return) [ Pachymer, in seven books, 377 folio pages, describes
      the first twenty-six years of Andronicus the Elder; and marks the
      date of his composition by the current news or lie of the day,
      (A.D. 1308.) Either death or disgust prevented him from resuming
      the pen.]

      4 (return) [ After an interval of twelve years, from the
      conclusion of Pachymer, Cantacuzenus takes up the pen; and his
      first book (c. 1—59, p. 9—150) relates the civil war, and the
      eight last years of the elder Andronicus. The ingenious
      comparison with Moses and Cæsar is fancied by his French
      translator, the president Cousin.]

      5 (return) [ Nicephorus Gregoras more briefly includes the entire
      life and reign of Andronicus the elder, (l. vi. c. 1, p. 96—291.)
      This is the part of which Cantacuzene complains as a false and
      malicious representation of his conduct.]

      After the example of the first of the Palæologi, the elder
      Andronicus associated his son Michael to the honors of the
      purple; and from the age of eighteen to his premature death, that
      prince was acknowledged, above twenty-five years, as the second
      emperor of the Greeks. 6 At the head of an army, he excited
      neither the fears of the enemy, nor the jealousy of the court;
      his modesty and patience were never tempted to compute the years
      of his father; nor was that father compelled to repent of his
      liberality either by the virtues or vices of his son. The son of
      Michael was named Andronicus from his grandfather, to whose early
      favor he was introduced by that nominal resemblance. The blossoms
      of wit and beauty increased the fondness of the elder Andronicus;
      and, with the common vanity of age, he expected to realize in the
      second, the hope which had been disappointed in the first,
      generation. The boy was educated in the palace as an heir and a
      favorite; and in the oaths and acclamations of the people, the
      _august triad_ was formed by the names of the father, the son,
      and the grandson. But the younger Andronicus was speedily
      corrupted by his infant greatness, while he beheld with puerile
      impatience the double obstacle that hung, and might long hang,
      over his rising ambition. It was not to acquire fame, or to
      diffuse happiness, that he so eagerly aspired: wealth and
      impunity were in his eyes the most precious attributes of a
      monarch; and his first indiscreet demand was the sovereignty of
      some rich and fertile island, where he might lead a life of
      independence and pleasure. The emperor was offended by the loud
      and frequent intemperance which disturbed his capital; the sums
      which his parsimony denied were supplied by the Genoese usurers
      of Pera; and the oppressive debt, which consolidated the interest
      of a faction, could be discharged only by a revolution. A
      beautiful female, a matron in rank, a prostitute in manners, had
      instructed the younger Andronicus in the rudiments of love; but
      he had reason to suspect the nocturnal visits of a rival; and a
      stranger passing through the street was pierced by the arrows of
      his guards, who were placed in ambush at her door. That stranger
      was his brother, Prince Manuel, who languished and died of his
      wound; and the emperor Michael, their common father, whose health
      was in a declining state, expired on the eighth day, lamenting
      the loss of both his children. 7 However guiltless in his
      intention, the younger Andronicus might impute a brother’s and a
      father’s death to the consequence of his own vices; and deep was
      the sigh of thinking and feeling men, when they perceived,
      instead of sorrow and repentance, his ill-dissembled joy on the
      removal of two odious competitors. By these melancholy events,
      and the increase of his disorders, the mind of the elder emperor
      was gradually alienated; and, after many fruitless reproofs, he
      transferred on another grandson 8 his hopes and affection. The
      change was announced by the new oath of allegiance to the
      reigning sovereign, and the _person_ whom he should appoint for
      his successor; and the acknowledged heir, after a repetition of
      insults and complaints, was exposed to the indignity of a public
      trial. Before the sentence, which would probably have condemned
      him to a dungeon or a cell, the emperor was informed that the
      palace courts were filled with the armed followers of his
      grandson; the judgment was softened to a treaty of
      reconciliation; and the triumphant escape of the prince
      encouraged the ardor of the younger faction.

      6 (return) [ He was crowned May 21st, 1295, and died October
      12th, 1320, (Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 239.) His brother Theodore, by
      a second marriage, inherited the marquisate of Montferrat,
      apostatized to the religion and manners of the Latins, (oti kai
      gnwmh kai pistei kai schkati, kai geneiwn koura kai pasin eqesin
      DatinoV hn akraijnhV. Nic. Greg. l. ix. c. 1,) and founded a
      dynasty of Italian princes, which was extinguished A.D. 1533,
      (Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 249—253.)]

      7 (return) [ We are indebted to Nicephorus Gregoras (l. viii. c.
      1) for the knowledge of this tragic adventure; while Cantacuzene
      more discreetly conceals the vices of Andronicus the Younger, of
      which he was the witness and perhaps the associate, (l. i. c. 1,
      &c.)]

      8 (return) [ His destined heir was Michael Catharus, the bastard
      of Constantine his second son. In this project of excluding his
      grandson Andronicus, Nicephorus Gregoras (l. viii. c. 3) agrees
      with Cantacuzene, (l. i. c. 1, 2.)]

      Yet the capital, the clergy, and the senate, adhered to the
      person, or at least to the government, of the old emperor; and it
      was only in the provinces, by flight, and revolt, and foreign
      succor, that the malecontents could hope to vindicate their cause
      and subvert his throne. The soul of the enterprise was the great
      domestic John Cantacuzene; the sally from Constantinople is the
      first date of his actions and memorials; and if his own pen be
      most descriptive of his patriotism, an unfriendly historian has
      not refused to celebrate the zeal and ability which he displayed
      in the service of the young emperor. 89 That prince escaped from
      the capital under the pretence of hunting; erected his standard
      at Adrianople; and, in a few days, assembled fifty thousand horse
      and foot, whom neither honor nor duty could have armed against
      the Barbarians. Such a force might have saved or commanded the
      empire; but their counsels were discordant, their motions were
      slow and doubtful, and their progress was checked by intrigue and
      negotiation. The quarrel of the two Andronici was protracted, and
      suspended, and renewed, during a ruinous period of seven years.
      In the first treaty, the relics of the Greek empire were divided:
      Constantinople, Thessalonica, and the islands, were left to the
      elder, while the younger acquired the sovereignty of the greatest
      part of Thrace, from Philippi to the Byzantine limit. By the
      second treaty, he stipulated the payment of his troops, his
      immediate coronation, and an adequate share of the power and
      revenue of the state. The third civil war was terminated by the
      surprise of Constantinople, the final retreat of the old emperor,
      and the sole reign of his victorious grandson. The reasons of
      this delay may be found in the characters of the men and of the
      times. When the heir of the monarchy first pleaded his wrongs and
      his apprehensions, he was heard with pity and applause: and his
      adherents repeated on all sides the inconsistent promise, that he
      would increase the pay of the soldiers and alleviate the burdens
      of the people. The grievances of forty years were mingled in his
      revolt; and the rising generation was fatigued by the endless
      prospect of a reign, whose favorites and maxims were of other
      times. The youth of Andronicus had been without spirit, his age
      was without reverence: his taxes produced an unusual revenue of
      five hundred thousand pounds; yet the richest of the sovereigns
      of Christendom was incapable of maintaining three thousand horse
      and twenty galleys, to resist the destructive progress of the
      Turks. 9 “How different,” said the younger Andronicus, “is my
      situation from that of the son of Philip! Alexander might
      complain, that his father would leave him nothing to conquer:
      alas! my grandsire will leave me nothing to lose.” But the Greeks
      were soon admonished, that the public disorders could not be
      healed by a civil war; and that their young favorite was not
      destined to be the savior of a falling empire. On the first
      repulse, his party was broken by his own levity, their intestine
      discord, and the intrigues of the ancient court, which tempted
      each malecontent to desert or betray the cause of the rebellion.
      Andronicus the younger was touched with remorse, or fatigued with
      business, or deceived by negotiation: pleasure rather than power
      was his aim; and the license of maintaining a thousand hounds, a
      thousand hawks, and a thousand huntsmen, was sufficient to sully
      his fame and disarm his ambition.

      89 (return) [ The conduct of Cantacuzene, by his own showing, was
      inexplicable. He was unwilling to dethrone the old emperor, and
      dissuaded the immediate march on Constantinople. The young
      Andronicus, he says, entered into his views, and wrote to warn
      the emperor of his danger when the march was determined.
      Cantacuzenus, in Nov. Byz. Hist. Collect. vol. i. p. 104, &c.—M.]

      9 (return) [ See Nicephorus Gregoras, l. viii. c. 6. The younger
      Andronicus complained, that in four years and four months a sum
      of 350,000 byzants of gold was due to him for the expenses of his
      household, (Cantacuzen l. i. c. 48.) Yet he would have remitted
      the debt, if he might have been allowed to squeeze the farmers of
      the revenue.]

      Let us now survey the catastrophe of this busy plot, and the
      final situation of the principal actors. 10 The age of Andronicus
      was consumed in civil discord; and, amidst the events of war and
      treaty, his power and reputation continually decayed, till the
      fatal night in which the gates of the city and palace were opened
      without resistance to his grandson. His principal commander
      scorned the repeated warnings of danger; and retiring to rest in
      the vain security of ignorance, abandoned the feeble monarch,
      with some priests and pages, to the terrors of a sleepless night.
      These terrors were quickly realized by the hostile shouts, which
      proclaimed the titles and victory of Andronicus the younger; and
      the aged emperor, falling prostrate before an image of the
      Virgin, despatched a suppliant message to resign the sceptre, and
      to obtain his life at the hands of the conqueror. The answer of
      his grandson was decent and pious; at the prayer of his friends,
      the younger Andronicus assumed the sole administration; but the
      elder still enjoyed the name and preeminence of the first
      emperor, the use of the great palace, and a pension of
      twenty-four thousand pieces of gold, one half of which was
      assigned on the royal treasury, and the other on the fishery of
      Constantinople. But his impotence was soon exposed to contempt
      and oblivion; the vast silence of the palace was disturbed only
      by the cattle and poultry of the neighborhood, 101 which roved
      with impunity through the solitary courts; and a reduced
      allowance of ten thousand pieces of gold 11 was all that he could
      ask, and more than he could hope. His calamities were imbittered
      by the gradual extinction of sight; his confinement was rendered
      each day more rigorous; and during the absence and sickness of
      his grandson, his inhuman keepers, by the threats of instant
      death, compelled him to exchange the purple for the monastic
      habit and profession. The monk _Antony_ had renounced the pomp of
      the world; yet he had occasion for a coarse fur in the winter
      season, and as wine was forbidden by his confessor, and water by
      his physician, the sherbet of Egypt was his common drink. It was
      not without difficulty that the late emperor could procure three
      or four pieces to satisfy these simple wants; and if he bestowed
      the gold to relieve the more painful distress of a friend, the
      sacrifice is of some weight in the scale of humanity and
      religion. Four years after his abdication, Andronicus or Antony
      expired in a cell, in the seventy-fourth year of his age: and the
      last strain of adulation could only promise a more splendid crown
      of glory in heaven than he had enjoyed upon earth. 12 121

      10 (return) [ I follow the chronology of Nicephorus Gregoras, who
      is remarkably exact. It is proved that Cantacuzene has mistaken
      the dates of his own actions, or rather that his text has been
      corrupted by ignorant transcribers.]

      101 (return) [ And the washerwomen, according to Nic. Gregoras,
      p. 431.—M.]

      11 (return) [ I have endeavored to reconcile the 24,000 pieces of
      Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 1) with the 10,000 of Nicephorus Gregoras,
      (l. ix. c. 2;) the one of whom wished to soften, the other to
      magnify, the hardships of the old emperor.]

      12 (return) [ See Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. ix. 6, 7, 8, 10, 14,
      l. x. c. 1.) The historian had tasted of the prosperity, and
      shared the retreat, of his benefactor; and that friendship which
      “waits or to the scaffold or the cell,” should not lightly be
      accused as “a hireling, a prostitute to praise.” * Note: But it
      may be accused of unparalleled absurdity. He compares the
      extinction of the feeble old man to that of the sun: his coffin
      is to be floated like Noah’s ark by a deluge of tears.—M.]

      121 (return) [ Prodigies (according to Nic. Gregoras, p. 460)
      announced the departure of the old and imbecile Imperial Monk
      from his earthly prison.—M.]

      Nor was the reign of the younger, more glorious or fortunate than
      that of the elder, Andronicus. 13 He gathered the fruits of
      ambition; but the taste was transient and bitter: in the supreme
      station he lost the remains of his early popularity; and the
      defects of his character became still more conspicuous to the
      world. The public reproach urged him to march in person against
      the Turks; nor did his courage fail in the hour of trial; but a
      defeat and a wound were the only trophies of his expedition in
      Asia, which confirmed the establishment of the Ottoman monarchy.
      The abuses of the civil government attained their full maturity
      and perfection: his neglect of forms, and the confusion of
      national dresses, are deplored by the Greeks as the fatal
      symptoms of the decay of the empire. Andronicus was old before
      his time; the intemperance of youth had accelerated the
      infirmities of age; and after being rescued from a dangerous
      malady by nature, or physic, or the Virgin, he was snatched away
      before he had accomplished his forty-fifth year. He was twice
      married; and, as the progress of the Latins in arms and arts had
      softened the prejudices of the Byzantine court, his two wives
      were chosen in the princely houses of Germany and Italy. The
      first, Agnes at home, Irene in Greece, was daughter of the duke
      of Brunswick. Her father 14 was a petty lord 15 in the poor and
      savage regions of the north of Germany: 16 yet he derived some
      revenue from his silver mines; 17 and his family is celebrated by
      the Greeks as the most ancient and noble of the Teutonic name. 18
      After the death of this childish princess, Andronicus sought in
      marriage Jane, the sister of the count of Savoy; 19 and his suit
      was preferred to that of the French king. 20 The count respected
      in his sister the superior majesty of a Roman empress: her
      retinue was composed of knights and ladies; she was regenerated
      and crowned in St. Sophia, under the more orthodox appellation of
      Anne; and, at the nuptial feast, the Greeks and Italians vied
      with each other in the martial exercises of tilts and
      tournaments.

      13 (return) [ The sole reign of Andronicus the younger is
      described by Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 1—40, p. 191—339) and
      Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. ix c. 7—l. xi. c. 11, p. 262—361.)]

      14 (return) [ Agnes, or Irene, was the daughter of Duke Henry the
      Wonderful, the chief of the house of Brunswick, and the fourth in
      descent from the famous Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and
      Bavaria, and conqueror of the Sclavi on the Baltic coast. Her
      brother Henry was surnamed the _Greek_, from his two journeys
      into the East: but these journeys were subsequent to his sister’s
      marriage; and I am ignorant _how_ Agnes was discovered in the
      heart of Germany, and recommended to the Byzantine court.
      (Rimius, Memoirs of the House of Brunswick, p. 126—137.]

      15 (return) [ Henry the Wonderful was the founder of the branch
      of Grubenhagen, extinct in the year 1596, (Rimius, p. 287.) He
      resided in the castle of Wolfenbuttel, and possessed no more than
      a sixth part of the allodial estates of Brunswick and Luneburgh,
      which the Guelph family had saved from the confiscation of their
      great fiefs. The frequent partitions among brothers had almost
      ruined the princely houses of Germany, till that just, but
      pernicious, law was slowly superseded by the right of
      primogeniture. The principality of Grubenhagen, one of the last
      remains of the Hercynian forest, is a woody, mountainous, and
      barren tract, (Busching’s Geography, vol. vi. p. 270—286, English
      translation.)]

      16 (return) [ The royal author of the Memoirs of Brandenburgh
      will teach us, how justly, in a much later period, the north of
      Germany deserved the epithets of poor and barbarous. (Essai sur
      les Murs, &c.) In the year 1306, in the woods of Luneburgh, some
      wild people of the Vened race were allowed to bury alive their
      infirm and useless parents. (Rimius, p. 136.)]

      17 (return) [ The assertion of Tacitus, that Germany was
      destitute of the precious metals, must be taken, even in his own
      time, with some limitation, (Germania, c. 5. Annal. xi. 20.)
      According to Spener, (Hist. Germaniæ Pragmatica, tom. i. p. 351,)
      _Argentifodin_ in Hercyniis montibus, imperante Othone magno
      (A.D. 968) primum apertæ, largam etiam opes augendi dederunt
      copiam: but Rimius (p. 258, 259) defers till the year 1016 the
      discovery of the silver mines of Grubenhagen, or the Upper Hartz,
      which were productive in the beginning of the xivth century, and
      which still yield a considerable revenue to the house of
      Brunswick.]

      18 (return) [ Cantacuzene has given a most honorable testimony,
      hn d’ ek Germanvn auth Jugathr doukoV nti Mprouzouhk, (the modern
      Greeks employ the nt for the d, and the mp for the b, and the
      whole will read in the Italian idiom di Brunzuic,) tou par autoiV
      epijanestatou, kai?iamprothti pantaV touV omojulouV
      uperballontoV. The praise is just in itself, and pleasing to an
      English ear.]

      19 (return) [ Anne, or Jane, was one of the four daughters of
      Amedée the Great, by a second marriage, and half-sister of his
      successor Edward count of Savoy. (Anderson’s Tables, p. 650. See
      Cantacuzene, l. i. c. 40—42.)]

      20 (return) [ That king, if the fact be true, must have been
      Charles the Fair who in five years (1321—1326) was married to
      three wives, (Anderson, p. 628.) Anne of Savoy arrived at
      Constantinople in February, 1326.]

      The empress Anne of Savoy survived her husband: their son, John
      Palæologus, was left an orphan and an emperor in the ninth year
      of his age; and his weakness was protected by the first and most
      deserving of the Greeks. The long and cordial friendship of his
      father for John Cantacuzene is alike honorable to the prince and
      the subject. It had been formed amidst the pleasures of their
      youth: their families were almost equally noble; 21 and the
      recent lustre of the purple was amply compensated by the energy
      of a private education. We have seen that the young emperor was
      saved by Cantacuzene from the power of his grandfather; and,
      after six years of civil war, the same favorite brought him back
      in triumph to the palace of Constantinople. Under the reign of
      Andronicus the younger, the great domestic ruled the emperor and
      the empire; and it was by his valor and conduct that the Isle of
      Lesbos and the principality of Ætolia were restored to their
      ancient allegiance. His enemies confess, that, among the public
      robbers, Cantacuzene alone was moderate and abstemious; and the
      free and voluntary account which he produces of his own wealth 22
      may sustain the presumption that he was devolved by inheritance,
      and not accumulated by rapine. He does not indeed specify the
      value of his money, plate, and jewels; yet, after a voluntary
      gift of two hundred vases of silver, after much had been secreted
      by his friends and plundered by his foes, his forfeit treasures
      were sufficient for the equipment of a fleet of seventy galleys.
      He does not measure the size and number of his estates; but his
      granaries were heaped with an incredible store of wheat and
      barley; and the labor of a thousand yoke of oxen might cultivate,
      according to the practice of antiquity, about sixty-two thousand
      five hundred acres of arable land. 23 His pastures were stocked
      with two thousand five hundred brood mares, two hundred camels,
      three hundred mules, five hundred asses, five thousand horned
      cattle, fifty thousand hogs, and seventy thousand sheep: 24 a
      precious record of rural opulence, in the last period of the
      empire, and in a land, most probably in Thrace, so repeatedly
      wasted by foreign and domestic hostility. The favor of
      Cantacuzene was above his fortune. In the moments of familiarity,
      in the hour of sickness, the emperor was desirous to level the
      distance between them and pressed his friend to accept the diadem
      and purple. The virtue of the great domestic, which is attested
      by his own pen, resisted the dangerous proposal; but the last
      testament of Andronicus the younger named him the guardian of his
      son, and the regent of the empire.

      21 (return) [ The noble race of the Cantacuzeni (illustrious from
      the xith century in the Byzantine annals) was drawn from the
      Paladins of France, the heroes of those romances which, in the
      xiiith century, were translated and read by the Greeks, (Ducange,
      Fam. Byzant. p. 258.)]

      22 (return) [ See Cantacuzene, (l. iii. c. 24, 30, 36.)]

      23 (return) [ Saserna, in Gaul, and Columella, in Italy or Spain,
      allow two yoke of oxen, two drivers, and six laborers, for two
      hundred jugera (125 English acres) of arable land, and three more
      men must be added if there be much underwood, (Columella de Re
      Rustica, l. ii. c. 13, p 441, edit. Gesner.)]

      24 (return) [ In this enumeration (l. iii. c. 30) the French
      translation of the president Cousin is blotted with three
      palpable and essential errors. 1. He omits the 1000 yoke of
      working oxen. 2. He interprets the pentakosiai proV diaciliaiV,
      by the number of fifteen hundred. * 3. He confounds myriads with
      chiliads, and gives Cantacuzene no more than 5000 hogs. Put not
      your trust in translations! Note: * There seems to be another
      reading, ciliaiV. Niebuhr’s edit. in loc.—M.]

      Had the regent found a suitable return of obedience and
      gratitude, perhaps he would have acted with pure and zealous
      fidelity in the service of his pupil. 25 A guard of five hundred
      soldiers watched over his person and the palace; the funeral of
      the late emperor was decently performed; the capital was silent
      and submissive; and five hundred letters, which Cantacuzene
      despatched in the first month, informed the provinces of their
      loss and their duty. The prospect of a tranquil minority was
      blasted by the great duke or admiral Apocaucus, and to exaggerate
      _his_ perfidy, the Imperial historian is pleased to magnify his
      own imprudence, in raising him to that office against the advice
      of his more sagacious sovereign. Bold and subtle, rapacious and
      profuse, the avarice and ambition of Apocaucus were by turns
      subservient to each other; and his talents were applied to the
      ruin of his country. His arrogance was heightened by the command
      of a naval force and an impregnable castle, and under the mask of
      oaths and flattery he secretly conspired against his benefactor.
      The female court of the empress was bribed and directed; he
      encouraged Anne of Savoy to assert, by the law of nature, the
      tutelage of her son; the love of power was disguised by the
      anxiety of maternal tenderness: and the founder of the Palæologi
      had instructed his posterity to dread the example of a perfidious
      guardian. The patriarch John of Apri was a proud and feeble old
      man, encompassed by a numerous and hungry kindred. He produced an
      obsolete epistle of Andronicus, which bequeathed the prince and
      people to his pious care: the fate of his predecessor Arsenius
      prompted him to prevent, rather than punish, the crimes of a
      usurper; and Apocaucus smiled at the success of his own flattery,
      when he beheld the Byzantine priest assuming the state and
      temporal claims of the Roman pontiff. 26 Between three persons so
      different in their situation and character, a private league was
      concluded: a shadow of authority was restored to the senate; and
      the people was tempted by the name of freedom. By this powerful
      confederacy, the great domestic was assaulted at first with
      clandestine, at length with open, arms. His prerogatives were
      disputed; his opinions slighted; his friends persecuted; and his
      safety was threatened both in the camp and city. In his absence
      on the public service, he was accused of treason; proscribed as
      an enemy of the church and state; and delivered with all his
      adherents to the sword of justice, the vengeance of the people,
      and the power of the devil; his fortunes were confiscated; his
      aged mother was cast into prison; 261 all his past services were
      buried in oblivion; and he was driven by injustice to perpetrate
      the crime of which he was accused. 27 From the review of his
      preceding conduct, Cantacuzene appears to have been guiltless of
      any treasonable designs; and the only suspicion of his innocence
      must arise from the vehemence of his protestations, and the
      sublime purity which he ascribes to his own virtue. While the
      empress and the patriarch still affected the appearances of
      harmony, he repeatedly solicited the permission of retiring to a
      private, and even a monastic, life. After he had been declared a
      public enemy, it was his fervent wish to throw himself at the
      feet of the young emperor, and to receive without a murmur the
      stroke of the executioner: it was not without reluctance that he
      listened to the voice of reason, which inculcated the sacred duty
      of saving his family and friends, and proved that he could only
      save them by drawing the sword and assuming the Imperial title.

      25 (return) [ See the regency and reign of John Cantacuzenus, and
      the whole progress of the civil war, in his own history, (l. iii.
      c. 1—100, p. 348—700,) and in that of Nicephorus Gregoras, (l.
      xii. c. 1—l. xv. c. 9, p. 353—492.)]

      26 (return) [ He assumes the royal privilege of red shoes or
      buskins; placed on his head a mitre of silk and gold; subscribed
      his epistles with hyacinth or green ink, and claimed for the new,
      whatever Constantine had given to the ancient, Rome, (Cantacuzen.
      l. iii. c. 36. Nic. Gregoras, l. xiv. c. 3.)]

      261 (return) [ She died there through persecution and
      neglect.—M.]

      27 (return) [ Nic. Gregoras (l. xii. c. 5) confesses the
      innocence and virtues of Cantacuzenus, the guilt and flagitious
      vices of Apocaucus; nor does he dissemble the motive of his
      personal and religious enmity to the former; nun de dia kakian
      allwn, aitioV o praotatoV thV tvn olwn edoxaV? eioai jqoraV.
      Note: The alloi were the religious enemies and persecutors of
      Nicephorus.—M.]




      Chapter LXIII: Civil Wars And The Ruin Of The Greek Empire.—Part
      II.

      In the strong city of Demotica, his peculiar domain, the emperor
      John Cantacuzenus was invested with the purple buskins: his right
      leg was clothed by his noble kinsmen, the left by the Latin
      chiefs, on whom he conferred the order of knighthood. But even in
      this act of revolt, he was still studious of loyalty; and the
      titles of John Palæologus and Anne of Savoy were proclaimed
      before his own name and that of his wife Irene. Such vain
      ceremony is a thin disguise of rebellion, nor are there perhaps
      any personal wrongs that can authorize a subject to take arms
      against his sovereign: but the want of preparation and success
      may confirm the assurance of the usurper, that this decisive step
      was the effect of necessity rather than of choice. Constantinople
      adhered to the young emperor; the king of Bulgaria was invited to
      the relief of Adrianople: the principal cities of Thrace and
      Macedonia, after some hesitation, renounced their obedience to
      the great domestic; and the leaders of the troops and provinces
      were induced, by their private interest, to prefer the loose
      dominion of a woman and a priest. 271 The army of Cantacuzene, in
      sixteen divisions, was stationed on the banks of the Melas to
      tempt or to intimidate the capital: it was dispersed by treachery
      or fear; and the officers, more especially the mercenary Latins,
      accepted the bribes, and embraced the service, of the Byzantine
      court. After this loss, the rebel emperor (he fluctuated between
      the two characters) took the road of Thessalonica with a chosen
      remnant; but he failed in his enterprise on that important place;
      and he was closely pursued by the great duke, his enemy
      Apocaucus, at the head of a superior power by sea and land.
      Driven from the coast, in his march, or rather flight, into the
      mountains of Servia, Cantacuzene assembled his troops to
      scrutinize those who were worthy and willing to accompany his
      broken fortunes. A base majority bowed and retired; and his
      trusty band was diminished to two thousand, and at last to five
      hundred, volunteers. The _cral_, 28 or despot of the Servians
      received him with general hospitality; but the ally was
      insensibly degraded to a suppliant, a hostage, a captive; and in
      this miserable dependence, he waited at the door of the
      Barbarian, who could dispose of the life and liberty of a Roman
      emperor. The most tempting offers could not persuade the cral to
      violate his trust; but he soon inclined to the stronger side; and
      his friend was dismissed without injury to a new vicissitude of
      hopes and perils. Near six years the flame of discord burnt with
      various success and unabated rage: the cities were distracted by
      the faction of the nobles and the plebeians; the Cantacuzeni and
      Palæologi: and the Bulgarians, the Servians, and the Turks, were
      invoked on both sides as the instruments of private ambition and
      the common ruin. The regent deplored the calamities, of which he
      was the author and victim: and his own experience might dictate a
      just and lively remark on the different nature of foreign and
      civil war. “The former,” said he, “is the external warmth of
      summer, always tolerable, and often beneficial; the latter is the
      deadly heat of a fever, which consumes without a remedy the
      vitals of the constitution.” 29

      271 (return) [ Cantacuzene asserts, that in all the cities, the
      populace were on the side of the emperor, the aristocracy on his.
      The populace took the opportunity of rising and plundering the
      wealthy as Cantacuzenites, vol. iii. c. 29 Ages of common
      oppression and ruin had not extinguished these republican
      factions.—M.]

      28 (return) [ The princes of Servia (Ducange, Famil. Dalmaticæ,
      &c., c. 2, 3, 4, 9) were styled Despots in Greek, and Cral in
      their native idiom, (Ducange, Gloss. Græc. p. 751.) That title,
      the equivalent of king, appears to be of Sclavonic origin, from
      whence it has been borrowed by the Hungarians, the modern Greeks,
      and even by the Turks, (Leunclavius, Pandect. Turc. p. 422,) who
      reserve the name of Padishah for the emperor. To obtain the
      latter instead of the former is the ambition of the French at
      Constantinople, (Aversissement à l’Histoire de Timur Bec, p.
      39.)]

      29 (return) [ Nic. Gregoras, l. xii. c. 14. It is surprising that
      Cantacuzene has not inserted this just and lively image in his
      own writings.]

      The introduction of barbarians and savages into the contests of
      civilized nations, is a measure pregnant with shame and mischief;
      which the interest of the moment may compel, but which is
      reprobated by the best principles of humanity and reason. It is
      the practice of both sides to accuse their enemies of the guilt
      of the first alliances; and those who fail in their negotiations
      are loudest in their censure of the example which they envy and
      would gladly imitate. The Turks of Asia were less barbarous
      perhaps than the shepherds of Bulgaria and Servia; but their
      religion rendered them implacable foes of Rome and Christianity.
      To acquire the friendship of their emirs, the two factions vied
      with each other in baseness and profusion: the dexterity of
      Cantacuzene obtained the preference: but the succor and victory
      were dearly purchased by the marriage of his daughter with an
      infidel, the captivity of many thousand Christians, and the
      passage of the Ottomans into Europe, the last and fatal stroke in
      the fall of the Roman empire. The inclining scale was decided in
      his favor by the death of Apocaucus, the just though singular
      retribution of his crimes. A crowd of nobles or plebeians, whom
      he feared or hated, had been seized by his orders in the capital
      and the provinces; and the old palace of Constantine was assigned
      as the place of their confinement. Some alterations in raising
      the walls, and narrowing the cells, had been ingeniously
      contrived to prevent their escape, and aggravate their misery;
      and the work was incessantly pressed by the daily visits of the
      tyrant. His guards watched at the gate, and as he stood in the
      inner court to overlook the architects, without fear or
      suspicion, he was assaulted and laid breathless on the ground, by
      two 291 resolute prisoners of the Palæologian race, 30 who were
      armed with sticks, and animated by despair. On the rumor of
      revenge and liberty, the captive multitude broke their fetters,
      fortified their prison, and exposed from the battlements the
      tyrant’s head, presuming on the favor of the people and the
      clemency of the empress. Anne of Savoy might rejoice in the fall
      of a haughty and ambitious minister, but while she delayed to
      resolve or to act, the populace, more especially the mariners,
      were excited by the widow of the great duke to a sedition, an
      assault, and a massacre. The prisoners (of whom the far greater
      part were guiltless or inglorious of the deed) escaped to a
      neighboring church: they were slaughtered at the foot of the
      altar; and in his death the monster was not less bloody and
      venomous than in his life. Yet his talents alone upheld the cause
      of the young emperor; and his surviving associates, suspicious of
      each other, abandoned the conduct of the war, and rejected the
      fairest terms of accommodation. In the beginning of the dispute,
      the empress felt, and complained, that she was deceived by the
      enemies of Cantacuzene: the patriarch was employed to preach
      against the forgiveness of injuries; and her promise of immortal
      hatred was sealed by an oath, under the penalty of
      excommunication. 31 But Anne soon learned to hate without a
      teacher: she beheld the misfortunes of the empire with the
      indifference of a stranger: her jealousy was exasperated by the
      competition of a rival empress; and on the first symptoms of a
      more yielding temper, she threatened the patriarch to convene a
      synod, and degrade him from his office. Their incapacity and
      discord would have afforded the most decisive advantage; but the
      civil war was protracted by the weakness of both parties; and the
      moderation of Cantacuzene has not escaped the reproach of
      timidity and indolence. He successively recovered the provinces
      and cities; and the realm of his pupil was measured by the walls
      of Constantinople; but the metropolis alone counterbalanced the
      rest of the empire; nor could he attempt that important conquest
      till he had secured in his favor the public voice and a private
      correspondence. An Italian, of the name of Facciolati, 32 had
      succeeded to the office of great duke: the ships, the guards, and
      the golden gate, were subject to his command; but his humble
      ambition was bribed to become the instrument of treachery; and
      the revolution was accomplished without danger or bloodshed.
      Destitute of the powers of resistance, or the hope of relief, the
      inflexible Anne would have still defended the palace, and have
      smiled to behold the capital in flames, rather than in the
      possession of a rival. She yielded to the prayers of her friends
      and enemies; and the treaty was dictated by the conqueror, who
      professed a loyal and zealous attachment to the son of his
      benefactor. The marriage of his daughter with John Palæologus was
      at length consummated: the hereditary right of the pupil was
      acknowledged; but the sole administration during ten years was
      vested in the guardian. Two emperors and three empresses were
      seated on the Byzantine throne; and a general amnesty quieted the
      apprehensions, and confirmed the property, of the most guilty
      subjects. The festival of the coronation and nuptials was
      celebrated with the appearances of concord and magnificence, and
      both were equally fallacious. During the late troubles, the
      treasures of the state, and even the furniture of the palace, had
      been alienated or embezzled; the royal banquet was served in
      pewter or earthenware; and such was the proud poverty of the
      times, that the absence of gold and jewels was supplied by the
      paltry artifices of glass and gilt-leather. 33

      291 (return) [ Nicephorus says four, p.734.]

      30 (return) [ The two avengers were both Palæologi, who might
      resent, with royal indignation, the shame of their chains. The
      tragedy of Apocaucus may deserve a peculiar reference to
      Cantacuzene (l. iii. c. 86) and Nic. Gregoras, (l. xiv. c. 10.)]

      31 (return) [ Cantacuzene accuses the patriarch, and spares the
      empress, the mother of his sovereign, (l. iii. 33, 34,) against
      whom Nic. Gregoras expresses a particular animosity, (l. xiv. 10,
      11, xv. 5.) It is true that they do not speak exactly of the same
      time.]

      32 (return) [ The traitor and treason are revealed by Nic.
      Gregoras, (l. xv. c. 8;) but the name is more discreetly
      suppressed by his great accomplice, (Cantacuzen. l. iii. c. 99.)]

      33 (return) [ Nic. Greg. l. xv. 11. There were, however, some
      true pearls, but very thinly sprinkled. The rest of the stones
      had only pantodaphn croian proV to diaugeV.]

      I hasten to conclude the personal history of John Cantacuzene. 34
      He triumphed and reigned; but his reign and triumph were clouded
      by the discontent of his own and the adverse faction. His
      followers might style the general amnesty an act of pardon for
      his enemies, and of oblivion for his friends: 35 in his cause
      their estates had been forfeited or plundered; and as they
      wandered naked and hungry through the streets, they cursed the
      selfish generosity of a leader, who, on the throne of the empire,
      might relinquish without merit his private inheritance. The
      adherents of the empress blushed to hold their lives and fortunes
      by the precarious favor of a usurper; and the thirst of revenge
      was concealed by a tender concern for the succession, and even
      the safety, of her son. They were justly alarmed by a petition of
      the friends of Cantacuzene, that they might be released from
      their oath of allegiance to the Palæologi, and intrusted with the
      defence of some cautionary towns; a measure supported with
      argument and eloquence; and which was rejected (says the Imperial
      historian) “by _my_ sublime, and almost incredible virtue.” His
      repose was disturbed by the sound of plots and seditions; and he
      trembled lest the lawful prince should be stolen away by some
      foreign or domestic enemy, who would inscribe his name and his
      wrongs in the banners of rebellion. As the son of Andronicus
      advanced in the years of manhood, he began to feel and to act for
      himself; and his rising ambition was rather stimulated than
      checked by the imitation of his father’s vices. If we may trust
      his own professions, Cantacuzene labored with honest industry to
      correct these sordid and sensual appetites, and to raise the mind
      of the young prince to a level with his fortune. In the Servian
      expedition, the two emperors showed themselves in cordial harmony
      to the troops and provinces; and the younger colleague was
      initiated by the elder in the mysteries of war and government.
      After the conclusion of the peace, Palæologus was left at
      Thessalonica, a royal residence, and a frontier station, to
      secure by his absence the peace of Constantinople, and to
      withdraw his youth from the temptations of a luxurious capital.
      But the distance weakened the powers of control, and the son of
      Andronicus was surrounded with artful or unthinking companions,
      who taught him to hate his guardian, to deplore his exile, and to
      vindicate his rights. A private treaty with the cral or despot of
      Servia was soon followed by an open revolt; and Cantacuzene, on
      the throne of the elder Andronicus, defended the cause of age and
      prerogative, which in his youth he had so vigorously attacked. At
      his request the empress-mother undertook the voyage of
      Thessalonica, and the office of mediation: she returned without
      success; and unless Anne of Savoy was instructed by adversity, we
      may doubt the sincerity, or at least the fervor, of her zeal.
      While the regent grasped the sceptre with a firm and vigorous
      hand, she had been instructed to declare, that the ten years of
      his legal administration would soon elapse; and that, after a
      full trial of the vanity of the world, the emperor Cantacuzene
      sighed for the repose of a cloister, and was ambitious only of a
      heavenly crown. Had these sentiments been genuine, his voluntary
      abdication would have restored the peace of the empire, and his
      conscience would have been relieved by an act of justice.
      Palæologus alone was responsible for his future government; and
      whatever might be his vices, they were surely less formidable
      than the calamities of a civil war, in which the Barbarians and
      infidels were again invited to assist the Greeks in their mutual
      destruction. By the arms of the Turks, who now struck a deep and
      everlasting root in Europe, Cantacuzene prevailed in the third
      contest in which he had been involved; and the young emperor,
      driven from the sea and land, was compelled to take shelter among
      the Latins of the Isle of Tenedos. His insolence and obstinacy
      provoked the victor to a step which must render the quarrel
      irreconcilable; and the association of his son Matthew, whom he
      invested with the purple, established the succession in the
      family of the Cantacuzeni. But Constantinople was still attached
      to the blood of her ancient princes; and this last injury
      accelerated the restoration of the rightful heir. A noble Genoese
      espoused the cause of Palæologus, obtained a promise of his
      sister, and achieved the revolution with two galleys and two
      thousand five hundred auxiliaries. Under the pretence of
      distress, they were admitted into the lesser port; a gate was
      opened, and the Latin shout of, “Long life and victory to the
      emperor, John Palæologus!” was answered by a general rising in
      his favor. A numerous and loyal party yet adhered to the standard
      of Cantacuzene: but he asserts in his history (does he hope for
      belief?) that his tender conscience rejected the assurance of
      conquest; that, in free obedience to the voice of religion and
      philosophy, he descended from the throne and embraced with
      pleasure the monastic habit and profession. 36 So soon as he
      ceased to be a prince, his successor was not unwilling that he
      should be a saint: the remainder of his life was devoted to piety
      and learning; in the cells of Constantinople and Mount Athos, the
      monk Joasaph was respected as the temporal and spiritual father
      of the emperor; and if he issued from his retreat, it was as the
      minister of peace, to subdue the obstinacy, and solicit the
      pardon, of his rebellious son. 37

      34 (return) [ From his return to Constantinople, Cantacuzene
      continues his history and that of the empire, one year beyond the
      abdication of his son Matthew, A.D. 1357, (l. iv. c. l—50, p.
      705—911.) Nicephorus Gregoras ends with the synod of
      Constantinople, in the year 1351, (l. xxii. c. 3, p. 660; the
      rest, to the conclusion of the xxivth book, p. 717, is all
      controversy;) and his fourteen last books are still MSS. in the
      king of France’s library.]

      35 (return) [ The emperor (Cantacuzen. l. iv. c. 1) represents
      his own virtues, and Nic. Gregoras (l. xv. c. 11) the complaints
      of his friends, who suffered by its effects. I have lent them the
      words of our poor cavaliers after the Restoration.]

      36 (return) [ The awkward apology of Cantacuzene, (l. iv. c.
      39—42,) who relates, with visible confusion, his own downfall,
      may be supplied by the less accurate, but more honest, narratives
      of Matthew Villani (l. iv. c. 46, in the Script. Rerum Ital. tom.
      xiv. p. 268) and Ducas, (c 10, 11.)]

      37 (return) [ Cantacuzene, in the year 1375, was honored with a
      letter from the pope, (Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 250.)
      His death is placed by a respectable authority on the 20th of
      November, 1411, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 260.) But if he were of
      the age of his companion Andronicus the Younger, he must have
      lived 116 years; a rare instance of longevity, which in so
      illustrious a person would have attracted universal notice.]

      Yet in the cloister, the mind of Cantacuzene was still exercised
      by theological war. He sharpened a controversial pen against the
      Jews and Mahometans; 38 and in every state he defended with equal
      zeal the divine light of Mount Thabor, a memorable question which
      consummates the religious follies of the Greeks. The fakirs of
      India, 39 and the monks of the Oriental church, were alike
      persuaded, that in the total abstraction of the faculties of the
      mind and body, the purer spirit may ascend to the enjoyment and
      vision of the Deity. The opinion and practice of the monasteries
      of Mount Athos 40 will be best represented in the words of an
      abbot, who flourished in the eleventh century. “When thou art
      alone in thy cell,” says the ascetic teacher, “shut thy door, and
      seat thyself in a corner: raise thy mind above all things vain
      and transitory; recline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn
      thy eyes and thy thoughts toward the middle of thy belly, the
      region of the navel; and search the place of the heart, the seat
      of the soul. At first, all will be dark and comfortless; but if
      you persevere day and night, you will feel an ineffable joy; and
      no sooner has the soul discovered the place of the heart, than it
      is involved in a mystic and ethereal light.” This light, the
      production of a distempered fancy, the creature of an empty
      stomach and an empty brain, was adored by the Quietists as the
      pure and perfect essence of God himself; and as long as the folly
      was confined to Mount Athos, the simple solitaries were not
      inquisitive how the divine essence could be a _material_
      substance, or how an _immaterial_ substance could be perceived by
      the eyes of the body. But in the reign of the younger Andronicus,
      these monasteries were visited by Barlaam, 41 a Calabrian monk,
      who was equally skilled in philosophy and theology; who possessed
      the language of the Greeks and Latins; and whose versatile genius
      could maintain their opposite creeds, according to the interest
      of the moment. The indiscretion of an ascetic revealed to the
      curious traveller the secrets of mental prayer and Barlaam
      embraced the opportunity of ridiculing the Quietists, who placed
      the soul in the navel; of accusing the monks of Mount Athos of
      heresy and blasphemy. His attack compelled the more learned to
      renounce or dissemble the simple devotion of their brethren; and
      Gregory Palamas introduced a scholastic distinction between the
      essence and operation of God. His inaccessible essence dwells in
      the midst of an uncreated and eternal light; and this beatific
      vision of the saints had been manifested to the disciples on
      Mount Thabor, in the transfiguration of Christ. Yet this
      distinction could not escape the reproach of polytheism; the
      eternity of the light of Thabor was fiercely denied; and Barlaam
      still charged the Palamites with holding two eternal substances,
      a visible and an invisible God. From the rage of the monks of
      Mount Athos, who threatened his life, the Calabrian retired to
      Constantinople, where his smooth and specious manners introduced
      him to the favor of the great domestic and the emperor. The court
      and the city were involved in this theological dispute, which
      flamed amidst the civil war; but the doctrine of Barlaam was
      disgraced by his flight and apostasy: the Palamites triumphed;
      and their adversary, the patriarch John of Apri, was deposed by
      the consent of the adverse factions of the state. In the
      character of emperor and theologian, Cantacuzene presided in the
      synod of the Greek church, which established, as an article of
      faith, the uncreated light of Mount Thabor; and, after so many
      insults, the reason of mankind was slightly wounded by the
      addition of a single absurdity. Many rolls of paper or parchment
      have been blotted; and the impenitent sectaries, who refused to
      subscribe the orthodox creed, were deprived of the honors of
      Christian burial; but in the next age the question was forgotten;
      nor can I learn that the axe or the fagot were employed for the
      extirpation of the Barlaamite heresy. 42

      38 (return) [ His four discourses, or books, were printed at
      Basil, 1543, (Fabric Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 473.) He composed
      them to satisfy a proselyte who was assaulted with letters from
      his friends of Ispahan. Cantacuzene had read the Koran; but I
      understand from Maracci that he adopts the vulgar prejudices and
      fables against Mahomet and his religion.]

      39 (return) [ See the Voyage de Bernier, tom. i. p. 127.]

      40 (return) [ Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Ecclés. p. 522, 523.
      Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 22, 24, 107—114, &c. The former
      unfolds the causes with the judgment of a philosopher, the latter
      transcribes and transcribes and translates with the prejudices of
      a Catholic priest.]

      41 (return) [ Basnage (in Canisii Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iv. p.
      363—368) has investigated the character and story of Barlaam. The
      duplicity of his opinions had inspired some doubts of the
      identity of his person. See likewise Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc.
      tom. x. p. 427—432.)]

      42 (return) [ See Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 39, 40, l. iv. c. 3, 23,
      24, 25) and Nic. Gregoras, (l. xi. c. 10, l. xv. 3, 7, &c.,)
      whose last books, from the xixth to xxivth, are almost confined
      to a subject so interesting to the authors. Boivin, (in Vit. Nic.
      Gregoræ,) from the unpublished books, and Fabricius, (Bibliot.
      Græc. tom. x. p. 462—473,) or rather Montfaucon, from the MSS. of
      the Coislin library, have added some facts and documents.]

      For the conclusion of this chapter, I have reserved the Genoese
      war, which shook the throne of Cantacuzene, and betrayed the
      debility of the Greek empire. The Genoese, who, after the
      recovery of Constantinople, were seated in the suburb of Pera or
      Galata, received that honorable fief from the bounty of the
      emperor. They were indulged in the use of their laws and
      magistrates; but they submitted to the duties of vassals and
      subjects; the forcible word of _liegemen_43 was borrowed from the
      Latin jurisprudence; and their _podesta_, or chief, before he
      entered on his office, saluted the emperor with loyal
      acclamations and vows of fidelity. Genoa sealed a firm alliance
      with the Greeks; and, in case of a defensive war, a supply of
      fifty empty galleys and a succor of fifty galleys, completely
      armed and manned, was promised by the republic to the empire. In
      the revival of a naval force, it was the aim of Michael
      Palæologus to deliver himself from a foreign aid; and his
      vigorous government contained the Genoese of Galata within those
      limits which the insolence of wealth and freedom provoked them to
      exceed. A sailor threatened that they should soon be masters of
      Constantinople, and slew the Greek who resented this national
      affront; and an armed vessel, after refusing to salute the
      palace, was guilty of some acts of piracy in the Black Sea. Their
      countrymen threatened to support their cause; but the long and
      open village of Galata was instantly surrounded by the Imperial
      troops; till, in the moment of the assault, the prostrate Genoese
      implored the clemency of their sovereign. The defenceless
      situation which secured their obedience exposed them to the
      attack of their Venetian rivals, who, in the reign of the elder
      Andronicus, presumed to violate the majesty of the throne. On the
      approach of their fleets, the Genoese, with their families and
      effects, retired into the city: their empty habitations were
      reduced to ashes; and the feeble prince, who had viewed the
      destruction of his suburb, expressed his resentment, not by arms,
      but by ambassadors. This misfortune, however, was advantageous to
      the Genoese, who obtained, and imperceptibly abused, the
      dangerous license of surrounding Galata with a strong wall; of
      introducing into the ditch the waters of the sea; of erecting
      lofty turrets; and of mounting a train of military engines on the
      rampart. The narrow bounds in which they had been circumscribed
      were insufficient for the growing colony; each day they acquired
      some addition of landed property; and the adjacent hills were
      covered with their villas and castles, which they joined and
      protected by new fortifications. 44 The navigation and trade of
      the Euxine was the patrimony of the Greek emperors, who commanded
      the narrow entrance, the gates, as it were, of that inland sea.
      In the reign of Michael Palæologus, their prerogative was
      acknowledged by the sultan of Egypt, who solicited and obtained
      the liberty of sending an annual ship for the purchase of slaves
      in Circassia and the Lesser Tartary: a liberty pregnant with
      mischief to the Christian cause; since these youths were
      transformed by education and discipline into the formidable
      Mamalukes. 45 From the colony of Pera, the Genoese engaged with
      superior advantage in the lucrative trade of the Black Sea; and
      their industry supplied the Greeks with fish and corn; two
      articles of food almost equally important to a superstitious
      people. The spontaneous bounty of nature appears to have bestowed
      the harvests of Ukraine, the produce of a rude and savage
      husbandry; and the endless exportation of salt fish and caviare
      is annually renewed by the enormous sturgeons that are caught at
      the mouth of the Don or Tanais, in their last station of the rich
      mud and shallow water of the Mæotis. 46 The waters of the Oxus,
      the Caspian, the Volga, and the Don, opened a rare and laborious
      passage for the gems and spices of India; and after three months’
      march the caravans of Carizme met the Italian vessels in the
      harbors of Crimæa. 47 These various branches of trade were
      monopolized by the diligence and power of the Genoese. Their
      rivals of Venice and Pisa were forcibly expelled; the natives
      were awed by the castles and cities, which arose on the
      foundations of their humble factories; and their principal
      establishment of Caffa 48 was besieged without effect by the
      Tartar powers. Destitute of a navy, the Greeks were oppressed by
      these haughty merchants, who fed, or famished, Constantinople,
      according to their interest. They proceeded to usurp the customs,
      the fishery, and even the toll, of the Bosphorus; and while they
      derived from these objects a revenue of two hundred thousand
      pieces of gold, a remnant of thirty thousand was reluctantly
      allowed to the emperor. 49 The colony of Pera or Galata acted, in
      peace and war, as an independent state; and, as it will happen in
      distant settlements, the Genoese podesta too often forgot that he
      was the servant of his own masters.

      43 (return) [ Pachymer (l. v. c. 10) very properly explains
      liziouV (_ligios_) by?lidiouV. The use of these words in the
      Greek and Latin of the feudal times may be amply understood from
      the Glossaries of Ducange, (Græc. p. 811, 812. Latin. tom. iv. p.
      109—111.)]

      44 (return) [ The establishment and progress of the Genoese at
      Pera, or Galata, is described by Ducange (C. P. Christiana, l. i.
      p. 68, 69) from the Byzantine historians, Pachymer, (l. ii. c.
      35, l. v. 10, 30, l. ix. 15 l. xii. 6, 9,) Nicephorus Gregoras,
      (l. v. c. 4, l. vi. c. 11, l. ix. c. 5, l. ix. c. 1, l. xv. c. 1,
      6,) and Cantacuzene, (l. i. c. 12, l. ii. c. 29, &c.)]

      45 (return) [ Both Pachymer (l. iii. c. 3, 4, 5) and Nic. Greg.
      (l. iv. c. 7) understand and deplore the effects of this
      dangerous indulgence. Bibars, sultan of Egypt, himself a Tartar,
      but a devout Mussulman, obtained from the children of Zingis the
      permission to build a stately mosque in the capital of Crimea,
      (De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 343.)]

      46 (return) [ Chardin (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 48) was
      assured at Caffa, that these fishes were sometimes twenty-four or
      twenty-six feet long, weighed eight or nine hundred pounds, and
      yielded three or four quintals of caviare. The corn of the
      Bosphorus had supplied the Athenians in the time of Demosthenes.]

      47 (return) [ De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 343, 344.
      Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 400. But this land or water
      carriage could only be practicable when Tartary was united under
      a wise and powerful monarch.]

      48 (return) [ Nic. Gregoras (l. xiii. c. 12) is judicious and
      well informed on the trade and colonies of the Black Sea. Chardin
      describes the present ruins of Caffa, where, in forty days, he
      saw above 400 sail employed in the corn and fish trade, (Voyages
      en Perse, tom. i. p. 46—48.)]

      49 (return) [ See Nic. Gregoras, l. xvii. c. 1.]

      These usurpations were encouraged by the weakness of the elder
      Andronicus, and by the civil wars that afflicted his age and the
      minority of his grandson. The talents of Cantacuzene were
      employed to the ruin, rather than the restoration, of the empire;
      and after his domestic victory, he was condemned to an
      ignominious trial, whether the Greeks or the Genoese should reign
      in Constantinople. The merchants of Pera were offended by his
      refusal of some contiguous land, some commanding heights, which
      they proposed to cover with new fortifications; and in the
      absence of the emperor, who was detained at Demotica by sickness,
      they ventured to brave the debility of a female reign. A
      Byzantine vessel, which had presumed to fish at the mouth of the
      harbor, was sunk by these audacious strangers; the fishermen were
      murdered. Instead of suing for pardon, the Genoese demanded
      satisfaction; required, in a haughty strain, that the Greeks
      should renounce the exercise of navigation; and encountered with
      regular arms the first sallies of the popular indignation. They
      instantly occupied the debatable land; and by the labor of a
      whole people, of either sex and of every age, the wall was
      raised, and the ditch was sunk, with incredible speed. At the
      same time, they attacked and burnt two Byzantine galleys; while
      the three others, the remainder of the Imperial navy, escaped
      from their hands: the habitations without the gates, or along the
      shore, were pillaged and destroyed; and the care of the regent,
      of the empress Irene, was confined to the preservation of the
      city. The return of Cantacuzene dispelled the public
      consternation: the emperor inclined to peaceful counsels; but he
      yielded to the obstinacy of his enemies, who rejected all
      reasonable terms, and to the ardor of his subjects, who
      threatened, in the style of Scripture, to break them in pieces
      like a potter’s vessel. Yet they reluctantly paid the taxes, that
      he imposed for the construction of ships, and the expenses of the
      war; and as the two nations were masters, the one of the land,
      the other of the sea, Constantinople and Pera were pressed by the
      evils of a mutual siege. The merchants of the colony, who had
      believed that a few days would terminate the war, already
      murmured at their losses: the succors from their mother-country
      were delayed by the factions of Genoa; and the most cautious
      embraced the opportunity of a Rhodian vessel to remove their
      families and effects from the scene of hostility. In the spring,
      the Byzantine fleet, seven galleys and a train of smaller
      vessels, issued from the mouth of the harbor, and steered in a
      single line along the shore of Pera; unskilfully presenting their
      sides to the beaks of the adverse squadron. The crews were
      composed of peasants and mechanics; nor was their ignorance
      compensated by the native courage of Barbarians: the wind was
      strong, the waves were rough; and no sooner did the Greeks
      perceive a distant and inactive enemy, than they leaped headlong
      into the sea, from a doubtful, to an inevitable peril. The troops
      that marched to the attack of the lines of Pera were struck at
      the same moment with a similar panic; and the Genoese were
      astonished, and almost ashamed, at their double victory. Their
      triumphant vessels, crowned with flowers, and dragging after them
      the captive galleys, repeatedly passed and repassed before the
      palace: the only virtue of the emperor was patience; and the hope
      of revenge his sole consolation. Yet the distress of both parties
      interposed a temporary agreement; and the shame of the empire was
      disguised by a thin veil of dignity and power. Summoning the
      chiefs of the colony, Cantacuzene affected to despise the trivial
      object of the debate; and, after a mild reproof, most liberally
      granted the lands, which had been previously resigned to the
      seeming custody of his officers. 50

      50 (return) [ The events of this war are related by Cantacuzene
      (l. iv. c. 11 with obscurity and confusion, and by Nic. Gregoras
      l. xvii. c. 1—7) in a clear and honest narrative. The priest was
      less responsible than the prince for the defeat of the fleet.]

      But the emperor was soon solicited to violate the treaty, and to
      join his arms with the Venetians, the perpetual enemies of Genoa
      and her colonies. While he compared the reasons of peace and war,
      his moderation was provoked by a wanton insult of the inhabitants
      of Pera, who discharged from their rampart a large stone that
      fell in the midst of Constantinople. On his just complaint, they
      coldly blamed the imprudence of their engineer; but the next day
      the insult was repeated; and they exulted in a second proof that
      the royal city was not beyond the reach of their artillery.
      Cantacuzene instantly signed his treaty with the Venetians; but
      the weight of the Roman empire was scarcely felt in the balance
      of these opulent and powerful republics. 51 From the Straits of
      Gibraltar to the mouth of the Tanais, their fleets encountered
      each other with various success; and a memorable battle was
      fought in the narrow sea, under the walls of Constantinople. It
      would not be an easy task to reconcile the accounts of the
      Greeks, the Venetians, and the Genoese; 52 and while I depend on
      the narrative of an impartial historian, 53 I shall borrow from
      each nation the facts that redound to their own disgrace, and the
      honor of their foes. The Venetians, with their allies the
      Catalans, had the advantage of number; and their fleet, with the
      poor addition of eight Byzantine galleys, amounted to
      seventy-five sail: the Genoese did not exceed sixty-four; but in
      those times their ships of war were distinguished by the
      superiority of their size and strength. The names and families of
      their naval commanders, Pisani and Doria, are illustrious in the
      annals of their country; but the personal merit of the former was
      eclipsed by the fame and abilities of his rival. They engaged in
      tempestuous weather; and the tumultuary conflict was continued
      from the dawn to the extinction of light. The enemies of the
      Genoese applaud their prowess; the friends of the Venetians are
      dissatisfied with their behavior; but all parties agree in
      praising the skill and boldness of the Catalans, 531 who, with
      many wounds, sustained the brunt of the action. On the separation
      of the fleets, the event might appear doubtful; but the thirteen
      Genoese galleys, that had been sunk or taken, were compensated by
      a double loss of the allies; of fourteen Venetians, ten Catalans,
      and two Greeks; 532 and even the grief of the conquerors
      expressed the assurance and habit of more decisive victories.
      Pisani confessed his defeat, by retiring into a fortified harbor,
      from whence, under the pretext of the orders of the senate, he
      steered with a broken and flying squadron for the Isle of Candia,
      and abandoned to his rivals the sovereignty of the sea. In a
      public epistle, 54 addressed to the doge and senate, Petrarch
      employs his eloquence to reconcile the maritime powers, the two
      luminaries of Italy. The orator celebrates the valor and victory
      of the Genoese, the first of men in the exercise of naval war: he
      drops a tear on the misfortunes of their Venetian brethren; but
      he exhorts them to pursue with fire and sword the base and
      perfidious Greeks; to purge the metropolis of the East from the
      heresy with which it was infected. Deserted by their friends, the
      Greeks were incapable of resistance; and three months after the
      battle, the emperor Cantacuzene solicited and subscribed a
      treaty, which forever banished the Venetians and Catalans, and
      granted to the Genoese a monopoly of trade, and almost a right of
      dominion. The Roman empire (I smile in transcribing the name)
      might soon have sunk into a province of Genoa, if the ambition of
      the republic had not been checked by the ruin of her freedom and
      naval power. A long contest of one hundred and thirty years was
      determined by the triumph of Venice; and the factions of the
      Genoese compelled them to seek for domestic peace under the
      protection of a foreign lord, the duke of Milan, or the French
      king. Yet the spirit of commerce survived that of conquest; and
      the colony of Pera still awed the capital and navigated the
      Euxine, till it was involved by the Turks in the final servitude
      of Constantinople itself.

      51 (return) [ The second war is darkly told by Cantacuzene, (l.
      iv. c. 18, p. 24, 25, 28—32,) who wishes to disguise what he
      dares not deny. I regret this part of Nic. Gregoras, which is
      still in MS. at Paris. * Note: This part of Nicephorus Gregoras
      has not been printed in the new edition of the Byzantine
      Historians. The editor expresses a hope that it may be undertaken
      by Hase. I should join in the regret of Gibbon, if these books
      contain any historical information: if they are but a
      continuation of the controversies which fill the last books in
      our present copies, they may as well sleep their eternal sleep in
      MS. as in print.—M.]

      52 (return) [ Muratori (Annali d’ Italia, tom. xii. p. 144)
      refers to the most ancient Chronicles of Venice (Caresinus, the
      continuator of Andrew Dandulus, tom. xii. p. 421, 422) and Genoa,
      (George Stella Annales Genuenses, tom. xvii. p. 1091, 1092;) both
      which I have diligently consulted in his great Collection of the
      Historians of Italy.]

      53 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Matteo Villani of Florence, l.
      ii. c. 59, p. 145—147, c. 74, 75, p. 156, 157, in Muratori’s
      Collection, tom. xiv.]

      531 (return) [ Cantacuzene praises their bravery, but imputes
      their losses to their ignorance of the seas: they suffered more
      by the breakers than by the enemy, vol. iii. p. 224.—M.]

      532 (return) [ Cantacuzene says that the Genoese lost
      twenty-eight ships with their crews, autandroi; the Venetians and
      Catalans sixteen, the Imperials, none Cantacuzene accuses Pisani
      of cowardice, in not following up the victory, and destroying the
      Genoese. But Pisani’s conduct, and indeed Cantacuzene’s account
      of the battle, betray the superiority of the Genoese.—M.]

      54 (return) [ The Abbé de Sade (Mémoires sur la Vie de Petrarque,
      tom. iii. p. 257—263) translates this letter, which he copied
      from a MS. in the king of France’s library. Though a servant of
      the duke of Milan, Petrarch pours forth his astonishment and
      grief at the defeat and despair of the Genoese in the following
      year, (p. 323—332.)]




      Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part I.

     Conquests Of Zingis Khan And The Moguls From China To
     Poland.—Escape Of Constantinople And The Greeks.—Origin Of The
     Ottoman Turks In Bithynia.—Reigns And Victories Of Othman, Orchan,
     Amurath The First, And Bajazet The First.— Foundation And Progress
     Of The Turkish Monarchy In Asia And Europe.—Danger Of
     Constantinople And The Greek Empire.

      From the petty quarrels of a city and her suburbs, from the
      cowardice and discord of the falling Greeks, I shall now ascend
      to the victorious Turks; whose domestic slavery was ennobled by
      martial discipline, religious enthusiasm, and the energy of the
      national character. The rise and progress of the Ottomans, the
      present sovereigns of Constantinople, are connected with the most
      important scenes of modern history; but they are founded on a
      previous knowledge of the great eruption of the Moguls 100 and
      Tartars; whose rapid conquests may be compared with the primitive
      convulsions of nature, which have agitated and altered the
      surface of the globe. I have long since asserted my claim to
      introduce the nations, the immediate or remote authors of the
      fall of the Roman empire; nor can I refuse myself to those
      events, which, from their uncommon magnitude, will interest a
      philosophic mind in the history of blood. 1

      100 (return) [ Mongol seems to approach the nearest to the proper
      name of this race. The Chinese call them Mong-kou; the Mondchoux,
      their neighbors, Monggo or Monggou. They called themselves also
      Beda. This fact seems to have been proved by M. Schmidt against
      the French Orientalists. See De Brosset. Note on Le Beau, tom.
      xxii p. 402.]

      1 (return) [ The reader is invited to review chapters xxii. to
      xxvi., and xxiii. to xxxviii., the manners of pastoral nations,
      the conquests of Attila and the Huns, which were composed at a
      time when I entertained the wish, rather than the hope, of
      concluding my history.]

      From the spacious highlands between China, Siberia, and the
      Caspian Sea, the tide of emigration and war has repeatedly been
      poured. These ancient seats of the Huns and Turks were occupied
      in the twelfth century by many pastoral tribes, of the same
      descent and similar manners, which were united and led to
      conquest by the formidable Zingis. 101 In his ascent to
      greatness, that Barbarian (whose private appellation was Temugin)
      had trampled on the necks of his equals. His birth was noble; but
      it was the pride of victory, that the prince or people deduced
      his seventh ancestor from the immaculate conception of a virgin.
      His father had reigned over thirteen hordes, which composed about
      thirty or forty thousand families: above two thirds refused to
      pay tithes or obedience to his infant son; and at the age of
      thirteen, Temugin fought a battle against his rebellious
      subjects. The future conqueror of Asia was reduced to fly and to
      obey; but he rose superior to his fortune, and in his fortieth
      year he had established his fame and dominion over the
      circumjacent tribes. In a state of society, in which policy is
      rude and valor is universal, the ascendant of one man must be
      founded on his power and resolution to punish his enemies and
      recompense his friends. His first military league was ratified by
      the simple rites of sacrificing a horse and tasting of a running
      stream: Temugin pledged himself to divide with his followers the
      sweets and the bitters of life; and when he had shared among them
      his horses and apparel, he was rich in their gratitude and his
      own hopes. After his first victory, he placed seventy caldrons on
      the fire, and seventy of the most guilty rebels were cast
      headlong into the boiling water. The sphere of his attraction was
      continually enlarged by the ruin of the proud and the submission
      of the prudent; and the boldest chieftains might tremble, when
      they beheld, enchased in silver, the skull of the khan of
      Keraites; 2 who, under the name of Prester John, had corresponded
      with the Roman pontiff and the princes of Europe. The ambition of
      Temugin condescended to employ the arts of superstition; and it
      was from a naked prophet, who could ascend to heaven on a white
      horse, that he accepted the title of Zingis, 3 the _most great_;
      and a divine right to the conquest and dominion of the earth. In
      a general _couroultai_, or diet, he was seated on a felt, which
      was long afterwards revered as a relic, and solemnly proclaimed
      great khan, or emperor of the Moguls 4 and Tartars. 5 Of these
      kindred, though rival, names, the former had given birth to the
      imperial race; and the latter has been extended by accident or
      error over the spacious wilderness of the north.

      101 (return) [ On the traditions of the early life of Zingis, see
      D’Ohson, Hist des Mongols; Histoire des Mongols, Paris, 1824.
      Schmidt, Geschichte des Ost-Mongolen, p. 66, &c., and Notes.—M.]

      2 (return) [ The khans of the Keraites were most probably
      incapable of reading the pompous epistles composed in their name
      by the Nestorian missionaries, who endowed them with the fabulous
      wonders of an Indian kingdom. Perhaps these Tartars (the
      Presbyter or Priest John) had submitted to the rites of baptism
      and ordination, (Asseman, Bibliot Orient tom. iii. p. ii. p.
      487—503.)]

      3 (return) [ Since the history and tragedy of Voltaire, Gengis,
      at least in French, seems to be the more fashionable spelling;
      but Abulghazi Khan must have known the true name of his ancestor.
      His etymology appears just: _Zin_, in the Mogul tongue, signifies
      _great_, and _gis_ is the superlative termination, (Hist.
      Généalogique des Tatars, part iii. p. 194, 195.) From the same
      idea of magnitude, the appellation of _Zingis_ is bestowed on the
      ocean.]

      4 (return) [ The name of Moguls has prevailed among the
      Orientals, and still adheres to the titular sovereign, the Great
      Mogul of Hindastan. * Note: M. Remusat (sur les Langues Tartares,
      p. 233) justly observes, that Timour was a Turk, not a Mogul,
      and, p. 242, that probably there was not Mogul in the army of
      Baber, who established the Indian throne of the “Great
      Mogul.”—M.]

      5 (return) [ The Tartars (more properly Tatars) were descended
      from Tatar Khan, the brother of Mogul Khan, (see Abulghazi, part
      i. and ii.,) and once formed a horde of 70,000 families on the
      borders of Kitay, (p. 103—112.) In the great invasion of Europe
      (A.D. 1238) they seem to have led the vanguard; and the
      similitude of the name of _Tartarei_, recommended that of Tartars
      to the Latins, (Matt. Paris, p. 398, &c.) * Note: This
      relationship, according to M. Klaproth, is fabulous, and invented
      by the Mahometan writers, who, from religious zeal, endeavored to
      connect the traditions of the nomads of Central Asia with those
      of the Old Testament, as preserved in the Koran. There is no
      trace of it in the Chinese writers. Tabl. de l’Asie, p. 156.—M.]

      The code of laws which Zingis dictated to his subjects was
      adapted to the preservation of a domestic peace, and the exercise
      of foreign hostility. The punishment of death was inflicted on
      the crimes of adultery, murder, perjury, and the capital thefts
      of a horse or ox; and the fiercest of men were mild and just in
      their intercourse with each other. The future election of the
      great khan was vested in the princes of his family and the heads
      of the tribes; and the regulations of the chase were essential to
      the pleasures and plenty of a Tartar camp. The victorious nation
      was held sacred from all servile labors, which were abandoned to
      slaves and strangers; and every labor was servile except the
      profession of arms. The service and discipline of the troops, who
      were armed with bows, cimeters, and iron maces, and divided by
      hundreds, thousands, and ten thousands, were the institutions of
      a veteran commander. Each officer and soldier was made
      responsible, under pain of death, for the safety and honor of his
      companions; and the spirit of conquest breathed in the law, that
      peace should never be granted unless to a vanquished and
      suppliant enemy. But it is the religion of Zingis that best
      deserves our wonder and applause. 501 The Catholic inquisitors of
      Europe, who defended nonsense by cruelty, might have been
      confounded by the example of a Barbarian, who anticipated the
      lessons of philosophy, 6 and established by his laws a system of
      pure theism and perfect toleration. His first and only article of
      faith was the existence of one God, the Author of all good; who
      fills by his presence the heavens and earth, which he has created
      by his power. The Tartars and Moguls were addicted to the idols
      of their peculiar tribes; and many of them had been converted by
      the foreign missionaries to the religions of Moses, of Mahomet,
      and of Christ. These various systems in freedom and concord were
      taught and practised within the precincts of the same camp; and
      the Bonze, the Imam, the Rabbi, the Nestorian, and the Latin
      priest, enjoyed the same honorable exemption from service and
      tribute: in the mosque of Bochara, the insolent victor might
      trample the Koran under his horse’s feet, but the calm legislator
      respected the prophets and pontiffs of the most hostile sects.
      The reason of Zingis was not informed by books: the khan could
      neither read nor write; and, except the tribe of the Igours, the
      greatest part of the Moguls and Tartars were as illiterate as
      their sovereign. 601 The memory of their exploits was preserved
      by tradition: sixty-eight years after the death of Zingis, these
      traditions were collected and transcribed; 7 the brevity of their
      domestic annals may be supplied by the Chinese, 8 Persians, 9
      Armenians, 10 Syrians, 11 Arabians, 12 Greeks, 13 Russians, 14
      Poles, 15 Hungarians, 16 and Latins; 17 and each nation will
      deserve credit in the relation of their own disasters and
      defeats. 18

      501 (return) [ Before his armies entered Thibet, he sent an
      embassy to Bogdosottnam-Dsimmo, a Lama high priest, with a letter
      to this effect: “I have chosen thee as high priest for myself and
      my empire. Repair then to me, and promote the present and future
      happiness of man: I will be thy supporter and protector: let us
      establish a system of religion, and unite it with the monarchy,”
      &c. The high priest accepted the invitation; and the Mongol
      history literally terms this step the _period of the first
      respect for religion_; because the monarch, by his public
      profession, made it the religion of the state. Klaproth. “Travels
      in Caucasus,” ch. 7, Eng. Trans. p. 92. Neither Dshingis nor his
      son and successor Oegodah had, on account of their continual
      wars, much leisure for the propagation of the religion of the
      Lama. By religion they understand a distinct, independent, sacred
      moral code, which has but one origin, one source, and one object.
      This notion they universally propagate, and even believe that the
      brutes, and all created beings, have a religion adapted to their
      sphere of action. The different forms of the various religions
      they ascribe to the difference of individuals, nations, and
      legislators. Never do you hear of their inveighing against any
      creed, even against the obviously absurd Schaman paganism, or of
      their persecuting others on that account. They themselves, on the
      other hand, endure every hardship, and even persecutions, with
      perfect resignation, and indulgently excuse the follies of
      others, nay, consider them as a motive for increased ardor in
      prayer, ch. ix. p. 109.—M.]

      6 (return) [ A singular conformity may be found between the
      religious laws of Zingis Khan and of Mr. Locke, (Constitutions of
      Carolina, in his works, vol. iv. p. 535, 4to. edition, 1777.)]

      601 (return) [ See the notice on Tha-tha-toung-o, the Ouogour
      minister of Tchingis, in Abel Remusat’s 2d series of Recherch.
      Asiat. vol. ii. p. 61. He taught the son of Tchingis to write:
      “He was the instructor of the Moguls in writing, of which they
      were before ignorant;” and hence the application of the Ouigour
      characters to the Mogul language cannot be placed earlier than
      the year 1204 or 1205, nor so late as the time of Pà-sse-pa, who
      lived under Khubilai. A new alphabet, approaching to that of
      Thibet, was introduced under Khubilai.—M.]

      7 (return) [ In the year 1294, by the command of Cazan, khan of
      Persia, the fourth in descent from Zingis. From these traditions,
      his vizier Fadlallah composed a Mogul history in the Persian
      language, which has been used by Petit de la Croix, (Hist. de
      Genghizcan, p. 537—539.) The Histoire Généalogique des Tatars (à
      Leyde, 1726, in 12mo., 2 tomes) was translated by the Swedish
      prisoners in Siberia from the Mogul MS. of Abulgasi Bahadur Khan,
      a descendant of Zingis, who reigned over the Usbeks of Charasm,
      or Carizme, (A.D. 1644—1663.) He is of most value and credit for
      the names, pedigrees, and manners of his nation. Of his nine
      parts, the ist descends from Adam to Mogul Khan; the iid, from
      Mogul to Zingis; the iiid is the life of Zingis; the ivth, vth,
      vith, and viith, the general history of his four sons and their
      posterity; the viiith and ixth, the particular history of the
      descendants of Sheibani Khan, who reigned in Maurenahar and
      Charasm.]

      8 (return) [ Histoire de Gentchiscan, et de toute la Dinastie des
      Mongous ses Successeurs, Conquerans de la Chine; tirée de
      l’Histoire de la Chine par le R. P. Gaubil, de la Société de
      Jesus, Missionaire à Peking; à Paris, 1739, in 4to. This
      translation is stamped with the Chinese character of domestic
      accuracy and foreign ignorance.]

      9 (return) [ See the Histoire du Grand Genghizcan, premier
      Empereur des Moguls et Tartares, par M. Petit de la Croix, à
      Paris, 1710, in 12mo.; a work of ten years’ labor, chiefly drawn
      from the Persian writers, among whom Nisavi, the secretary of
      Sultan Gelaleddin, has the merit and prejudices of a
      contemporary. A slight air of romance is the fault of the
      originals, or the compiler. See likewise the articles of
      _Genghizcan_, _Mohammed_, _Gelaleddin_, &c., in the Bibliothèque
      Orientale of D’Herbelot. * Note: The preface to the Hist. des
      Mongols, (Paris, 1824) gives a catalogue of the Arabic and
      Persian authorities.—M.]

      10 (return) [ Haithonus, or Aithonus, an Armenian prince, and
      afterwards a monk of Premontré, (Fabric, Bibliot. Lat. Medii Ævi,
      tom. i. p. 34,) dictated in the French language, his book _de
      Tartaris_, his old fellow-soldiers. It was immediately translated
      into Latin, and is inserted in the Novus Orbis of Simon Grynæus,
      (Basil, 1555, in folio.) * Note: A précis at the end of the new
      edition of Le Beau, Hist. des Empereurs, vol. xvii., by M.
      Brosset, gives large extracts from the accounts of the Armenian
      historians relating to the Mogul conquests.—M.]

      11 (return) [ Zingis Khan, and his first successors, occupy the
      conclusion of the ixth Dynasty of Abulpharagius, (vers. Pocock,
      Oxon. 1663, in 4to.;) and his xth Dynasty is that of the Moguls
      of Persia. Assemannus (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.) has extracted
      some facts from his Syriac writings, and the lives of the
      Jacobite maphrians, or primates of the East.]

      12 (return) [ Among the Arabians, in language and religion, we
      may distinguish Abulfeda, sultan of Hamah in Syria, who fought in
      person, under the Mamaluke standard, against the Moguls.]

      13 (return) [ Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ii. c. 5, 6) has felt the
      necessity of connecting the Scythian and Byzantine histories. He
      describes with truth and elegance the settlement and manners of
      the Moguls of Persia, but he is ignorant of their origin, and
      corrupts the names of Zingis and his sons.]

      14 (return) [ M. Levesque (Histoire de Russie, tom. ii.) has
      described the conquest of Russia by the Tartars, from the
      patriarch Nicon, and the old chronicles.]

      15 (return) [ For Poland, I am content with the Sarmatia Asiatica
      et Europæa of Matthew à Michou, or De Michoviâ, a canon and
      physician of Cracow, (A.D. 1506,) inserted in the Novus Orbis of
      Grynæus. Fabric Bibliot. Latin. Mediæ et Infimæ Ætatis, tom. v.
      p. 56.]

      16 (return) [ I should quote Thuroczius, the oldest general
      historian (pars ii. c. 74, p. 150) in the 1st volume of the
      Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum, did not the same volume contain
      the original narrative of a contemporary, an eye-witness, and a
      sufferer, (M. Rogerii, Hungari, Varadiensis Capituli Canonici,
      Carmen miserabile, seu Historia super Destructione Regni Hungariæ
      Temporibus Belæ IV. Regis per Tartaros facta, p. 292—321;) the
      best picture that I have ever seen of all the circumstances of a
      Barbaric invasion.]

      17 (return) [ Matthew Paris has represented, from authentic
      documents, the danger and distress of Europe, (consult the word
      _Tartari_ in his copious Index.) From motives of zeal and
      curiosity, the court of the great khan in the xiiith century was
      visited by two friars, John de Plano Carpini, and William
      Rubruquis, and by Marco Polo, a Venetian gentleman. The Latin
      relations of the two former are inserted in the 1st volume of
      Hackluyt; the Italian original or version of the third (Fabric.
      Bibliot. Latin. Medii Ævi, tom. ii. p. 198, tom. v. p. 25) may be
      found in the second tome of Ramusio.]

      18 (return) [ In his great History of the Huns, M. de Guignes has
      most amply treated of Zingis Khan and his successors. See tom.
      iii. l. xv.—xix., and in the collateral articles of the
      Seljukians of Roum, tom. ii. l. xi., the Carizmians, l. xiv., and
      the Mamalukes, tom. iv. l. xxi.; consult likewise the tables of
      the 1st volume. He is ever learned and accurate; yet I am only
      indebted to him for a general view, and some passages of
      Abulfeda, which are still latent in the Arabic text. * Note: To
      this catalogue of the historians of the Moguls may be added
      D’Ohson, Histoire des Mongols; Histoire des Mongols, (from Arabic
      and Persian authorities,) Paris, 1824. Schmidt, Geschichte der
      Ost Mongolen, St. Petersburgh, 1829. This curious work, by
      Ssanang Ssetsen Chungtaidschi, published in the original Mongol,
      was written after the conversion of the nation to Buddhism: it is
      enriched with very valuable notes by the editor and translator;
      but, unfortunately, is very barren of information about the
      European and even the western Asiatic conquests of the
      Mongols.—M.]




      Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part II.

      The arms of Zingis and his lieutenants successively reduced the
      hordes of the desert, who pitched their tents between the wall of
      China and the Volga; and the Mogul emperor became the monarch of
      the pastoral world, the lord of many millions of shepherds and
      soldiers, who felt their united strength, and were impatient to
      rush on the mild and wealthy climates of the south. His ancestors
      had been the tributaries of the Chinese emperors; and Temugin
      himself had been disgraced by a title of honor and servitude. The
      court of Pekin was astonished by an embassy from its former
      vassal, who, in the tone of the king of nations, exacted the
      tribute and obedience which he had paid, and who affected to
      treat the _son of heaven_ as the most contemptible of mankind. A
      haughty answer disguised their secret apprehensions; and their
      fears were soon justified by the march of innumerable squadrons,
      who pierced on all sides the feeble rampart of the great wall.
      Ninety cities were stormed, or starved, by the Moguls; ten only
      escaped; and Zingis, from a knowledge of the filial piety of the
      Chinese, covered his vanguard with their captive parents; an
      unworthy, and by degrees a fruitless, abuse of the virtue of his
      enemies. His invasion was supported by the revolt of a hundred
      thousand Khitans, who guarded the frontier: yet he listened to a
      treaty; and a princess of China, three thousand horses, five
      hundred youths, and as many virgins, and a tribute of gold and
      silk, were the price of his retreat. In his second expedition, he
      compelled the Chinese emperor to retire beyond the yellow river
      to a more southern residence. The siege of Pekin 19 was long and
      laborious: the inhabitants were reduced by famine to decimate and
      devour their fellow-citizens; when their ammunition was spent,
      they discharged ingots of gold and silver from their engines; but
      the Moguls introduced a mine to the centre of the capital; and
      the conflagration of the palace burnt above thirty days. China
      was desolated by Tartar war and domestic faction; and the five
      northern provinces were added to the empire of Zingis.

      19 (return) [ More properly _Yen-king_, an ancient city, whose
      ruins still appear some furlongs to the south-east of the modern
      _Pekin_, which was built by Cublai Khan, (Gaubel, p. 146.)
      Pe-king and Nan-king are vague titles, the courts of the north
      and of the south. The identity and change of names perplex the
      most skilful readers of the Chinese geography, (p. 177.) * Note:
      And likewise in Chinese history—see Abel Remusat, Mel. Asiat. 2d
      tom. ii. p. 5.—M.]

      In the West, he touched the dominions of Mohammed, sultan of
      Carizme, who reigned from the Persian Gulf to the borders of
      India and Turkestan; and who, in the proud imitation of Alexander
      the Great, forgot the servitude and ingratitude of his fathers to
      the house of Seljuk. It was the wish of Zingis to establish a
      friendly and commercial intercourse with the most powerful of the
      Moslem princes: nor could he be tempted by the secret
      solicitations of the caliph of Bagdad, who sacrificed to his
      personal wrongs the safety of the church and state. A rash and
      inhuman deed provoked and justified the Tartar arms in the
      invasion of the southern Asia. 191 A caravan of three ambassadors
      and one hundred and fifty merchants were arrested and murdered at
      Otrar, by the command of Mohammed; nor was it till after a demand
      and denial of justice, till he had prayed and fasted three nights
      on a mountain, that the Mogul emperor appealed to the judgment of
      God and his sword. Our European battles, says a philosophic
      writer, 20 are petty skirmishes, if compared to the numbers that
      have fought and fallen in the fields of Asia. Seven hundred
      thousand Moguls and Tartars are said to have marched under the
      standard of Zingis and his four sons. In the vast plains that
      extend to the north of the Sihon or Jaxartes, they were
      encountered by four hundred thousand soldiers of the sultan; and
      in the first battle, which was suspended by the night, one
      hundred and sixty thousand Carizmians were slain. Mohammed was
      astonished by the multitude and valor of his enemies: he withdrew
      from the scene of danger, and distributed his troops in the
      frontier towns; trusting that the Barbarians, invincible in the
      field, would be repulsed by the length and difficulty of so many
      regular sieges. But the prudence of Zingis had formed a body of
      Chinese engineers, skilled in the mechanic arts; informed perhaps
      of the secret of gunpowder, and capable, under his discipline, of
      attacking a foreign country with more vigor and success than they
      had defended their own. The Persian historians will relate the
      sieges and reduction of Otrar, Cogende, Bochara, Samarcand,
      Carizme, Herat, Merou, Nisabour, Balch, and Candahar; and the
      conquest of the rich and populous countries of Transoxiana,
      Carizme, and Chorazan. 204 The destructive hostilities of Attila
      and the Huns have long since been elucidated by the example of
      Zingis and the Moguls; and in this more proper place I shall be
      content to observe, that, from the Caspian to the Indus, they
      ruined a tract of many hundred miles, which was adorned with the
      habitations and labors of mankind, and that five centuries have
      not been sufficient to repair the ravages of four years. The
      Mogul emperor encouraged or indulged the fury of his troops: the
      hope of future possession was lost in the ardor of rapine and
      slaughter; and the cause of the war exasperated their native
      fierceness by the pretence of justice and revenge. The downfall
      and death of the sultan Mohammed, who expired, unpitied and
      alone, in a desert island of the Caspian Sea, is a poor atonement
      for the calamities of which he was the author. Could the
      Carizmian empire have been saved by a single hero, it would have
      been saved by his son Gelaleddin, whose active valor repeatedly
      checked the Moguls in the career of victory. Retreating, as he
      fought, to the banks of the Indus, he was oppressed by their
      innumerable host, till, in the last moment of despair, Gelaleddin
      spurred his horse into the waves, swam one of the broadest and
      most rapid rivers of Asia, and extorted the admiration and
      applause of Zingis himself. It was in this camp that the Mogul
      conqueror yielded with reluctance to the murmurs of his weary and
      wealthy troops, who sighed for the enjoyment of their native
      land. Eucumbered with the spoils of Asia, he slowly measured back
      his footsteps, betrayed some pity for the misery of the
      vanquished, and declared his intention of rebuilding the cities
      which had been swept away by the tempest of his arms. After he
      had repassed the Oxus and Jaxartes, he was joined by two
      generals, whom he had detached with thirty thousand horse, to
      subdue the western provinces of Persia. They had trampled on the
      nations which opposed their passage, penetrated through the gates
      of Derbent, traversed the Volga and the desert, and accomplished
      the circuit of the Caspian Sea, by an expedition which had never
      been attempted, and has never been repeated. The return of Zingis
      was signalized by the overthrow of the rebellious or independent
      kingdoms of Tartary; and he died in the fulness of years and
      glory, with his last breath exhorting and instructing his sons to
      achieve the conquest of the Chinese empire. 205

      191 (return) [ See the particular account of this transaction,
      from the Kholauesut el Akbaur, in Price, vol. ii. p. 402.—M.]

      20 (return) [ M. de Voltaire, Essai sur l’Histoire Générale, tom.
      iii. c. 60, p. 8. His account of Zingis and the Moguls contains,
      as usual, much general sense and truth, with some particular
      errors.]

      204 (return) [ Every where they massacred all classes, except the
      artisans, whom they made slaves. Hist. des Mongols.—M.]

      205 (return) [ Their first duty, which he bequeathed to them, was
      to massacre the king of Tangcoute and all the inhabitants of
      Ninhia, the surrender of the city being already agreed upon,
      Hist. des Mongols. vol. i. p. 286.—M.]

      The harem of Zingis was composed of five hundred wives and
      concubines; and of his numerous progeny, four sons, illustrious
      by their birth and merit, exercised under their father the
      principal offices of peace and war. Toushi was his great
      huntsman, Zagatai 21 his judge, Octai his minister, and Tuli his
      general; and their names and actions are often conspicuous in the
      history of his conquests. Firmly united for their own and the
      public interest, the three brothers and their families were
      content with dependent sceptres; and Octai, by general consent,
      was proclaimed great khan, or emperor of the Moguls and Tartars.
      He was succeeded by his son Gayuk, after whose death the empire
      devolved to his cousins Mangou and Cublai, the sons of Tuli, and
      the grandsons of Zingis. In the sixty-eight years of his four
      first successors, the Mogul subdued almost all Asia, and a large
      portion of Europe. Without confining myself to the order of time,
      without expatiating on the detail of events, I shall present a
      general picture of the progress of their arms; I. In the East;
      II. In the South; III. In the West; and IV. In the North.

      21 (return) [ Zagatai gave his name to his dominions of
      Maurenahar, or Transoxiana; and the Moguls of Hindostan, who
      emigrated from that country, are styled Zagatais by the Persians.
      This certain etymology, and the similar example of Uzbek, Nogai,
      &c., may warn us not absolutely to reject the derivations of a
      national, from a personal, name. * Note: See a curious anecdote
      of Tschagatai. Hist. des Mongols, p. 370.—M.]

      I. Before the invasion of Zingis, China was divided into two
      empires or dynasties of the North and South; 22 and the
      difference of origin and interest was smoothed by a general
      conformity of laws, language, and national manners. The Northern
      empire, which had been dismembered by Zingis, was finally subdued
      seven years after his death. After the loss of Pekin, the emperor
      had fixed his residence at Kaifong, a city many leagues in
      circumference, and which contained, according to the Chinese
      annals, fourteen hundred thousand families of inhabitants and
      fugitives. He escaped from thence with only seven horsemen, and
      made his last stand in a third capital, till at length the
      hopeless monarch, protesting his innocence and accusing his
      fortune, ascended a funeral pile, and gave orders, that, as soon
      as he had stabbed himself, the fire should be kindled by his
      attendants. The dynasty of the _Song_, the native and ancient
      sovereigns of the whole empire, survived about forty-five years
      the fall of the Northern usurpers; and the perfect conquest was
      reserved for the arms of Cublai. During this interval, the Moguls
      were often diverted by foreign wars; and, if the Chinese seldom
      dared to meet their victors in the field, their passive courage
      presented and endless succession of cities to storm and of
      millions to slaughter. In the attack and defence of places, the
      engines of antiquity and the Greek fire were alternately
      employed: the use of gunpowder in cannon and bombs appears as a
      familiar practice; 23 and the sieges were conducted by the
      Mahometans and Franks, who had been liberally invited into the
      service of Cublai. After passing the great river, the troops and
      artillery were conveyed along a series of canals, till they
      invested the royal residence of Hamcheu, or Quinsay, in the
      country of silk, the most delicious climate of China. The
      emperor, a defenceless youth, surrendered his person and sceptre;
      and before he was sent in exile into Tartary, he struck nine
      times the ground with his forehead, to adore in prayer or
      thanksgiving the mercy of the great khan. Yet the war (it was now
      styled a rebellion) was still maintained in the southern
      provinces from Hamcheu to Canton; and the obstinate remnant of
      independence and hostility was transported from the land to the
      sea. But when the fleet of the _Song_ was surrounded and
      oppressed by a superior armament, their last champion leaped into
      the waves with his infant emperor in his arms. “It is more
      glorious,” he cried, “to die a prince, than to live a slave.” A
      hundred thousand Chinese imitated his example; and the whole
      empire, from Tonkin to the great wall, submitted to the dominion
      of Cublai. His boundless ambition aspired to the conquest of
      Japan: his fleet was twice shipwrecked; and the lives of a
      hundred thousand Moguls and Chinese were sacrificed in the
      fruitless expedition. But the circumjacent kingdoms, Corea,
      Tonkin, Cochinchina, Pegu, Bengal, and Thibet, were reduced in
      different degrees of tribute and obedience by the effort or
      terror of his arms. He explored the Indian Ocean with a fleet of
      a thousand ships: they sailed in sixty-eight days, most probably
      to the Isle of Borneo, under the equinoctial line; and though
      they returned not without spoil or glory, the emperor was
      dissatisfied that the savage king had escaped from their hands.

      22 (return) [ In Marco Polo, and the Oriental geographers, the
      names of Cathay and Mangi distinguish the northern and southern
      empires, which, from A.D. 1234 to 1279, were those of the great
      khan, and of the Chinese. The search of Cathay, after China had
      been found, excited and misled our navigators of the sixteenth
      century, in their attempts to discover the north-east passage.]

      23 (return) [ I depend on the knowledge and fidelity of the Père
      Gaubil, who translates the Chinese text of the annals of the
      Moguls or Yuen, (p. 71, 93, 153;) but I am ignorant at what time
      these annals were composed and published. The two uncles of Marco
      Polo, who served as engineers at the siege of Siengyangfou, * (l.
      ii. 61, in Ramusio, tom. ii. See Gaubil, p. 155, 157) must have
      felt and related the effects of this destructive powder, and
      their silence is a weighty, and almost decisive objection. I
      entertain a suspicion, that their recent discovery was carried
      from Europe to China by the caravans of the xvth century and
      falsely adopted as an old national discovery before the arrival
      of the Portuguese and Jesuits in the xvith. Yet the Père Gaubil
      affirms, that the use of gunpowder has been known to the Chinese
      above 1600 years. ** Note: * Sou-houng-kian-lou. Abel Remusat.—M.
      Note: ** La poudre à canon et d’autres compositions inflammantes,
      dont ils se servent pour construire des pièces d’artifice d’un
      effet suprenant, leur étaient connues depuis très long-temps, et
      l’on croit que des bombardes et des pierriers, dont ils avaient
      enseigné l’usage aux Tartares, ont pu donner en Europe l’idée
      d’artillerie, quoique la forme des fusils et des canons dont ils
      se servent actuellement, leur ait été apportée par les Francs,
      ainsi que l’attestent les noms mêmes qu’ils donnent à ces sortes
      d’armes. Abel Remusat, Mélanges Asiat. 2d ser. tom. i. p. 23.—M.]

      II. The conquest of Hindostan by the Moguls was reserved in a
      later period for the house of Timour; but that of Iran, or
      Persia, was achieved by Holagou Khan, 231 the grandson of Zingis,
      the brother and lieutenant of the two successive emperors, Mangou
      and Cublai. I shall not enumerate the crowd of sultans, emirs,
      and atabeks, whom he trampled into dust; but the extirpation of
      the _Assassins_, or Ismaelians 24 of Persia, may be considered as
      a service to mankind. Among the hills to the south of the
      Caspian, these odious sectaries had reigned with impunity above a
      hundred and sixty years; and their prince, or Imam, established
      his lieutenant to lead and govern the colony of Mount Libanus, so
      famous and formidable in the history of the crusades. 25 With the
      fanaticism of the Koran the Ismaelians had blended the Indian
      transmigration, and the visions of their own prophets; and it was
      their first duty to devote their souls and bodies in blind
      obedience to the vicar of God. The daggers of his missionaries
      were felt both in the East and West: the Christians and the
      Moslems enumerate, and persons multiply, the illustrious victims
      that were sacrificed to the zeal, avarice, or resentment of _the
      old man_ (as he was corruptly styled) _of the mountain_. But
      these daggers, his only arms, were broken by the sword of
      Holagou, and not a vestige is left of the enemies of mankind,
      except the word _assassin_, which, in the most odious sense, has
      been adopted in the languages of Europe. The extinction of the
      Abbassides cannot be indifferent to the spectators of their
      greatness and decline. Since the fall of their Seljukian tyrants
      the caliphs had recovered their lawful dominion of Bagdad and the
      Arabian Irak; but the city was distracted by theological
      factions, and the commander of the faithful was lost in a harem
      of seven hundred concubines. The invasion of the Moguls he
      encountered with feeble arms and haughty embassies. “On the
      divine decree,” said the caliph Mostasem, “is founded the throne
      of the sons of Abbas: and their foes shall surely be destroyed in
      this world and in the next. Who is this Holagou that dares to
      rise against them? If he be desirous of peace, let him instantly
      depart from the sacred territory; and perhaps he may obtain from
      our clemency the pardon of his fault.” This presumption was
      cherished by a perfidious vizier, who assured his master, that,
      even if the Barbarians had entered the city, the women and
      children, from the terraces, would be sufficient to overwhelm
      them with stones. But when Holagou touched the phantom, it
      instantly vanished into smoke. After a siege of two months,
      Bagdad was stormed and sacked by the Moguls; 251 and their savage
      commander pronounced the death of the caliph Mostasem, the last
      of the temporal successors of Mahomet; whose noble kinsmen, of
      the race of Abbas, had reigned in Asia above five hundred years.
      Whatever might be the designs of the conqueror, the holy cities
      of Mecca and Medina 26 were protected by the Arabian desert; but
      the Moguls spread beyond the Tigris and Euphrates, pillaged
      Aleppo and Damascus, and threatened to join the Franks in the
      deliverance of Jerusalem. Egypt was lost, had she been defended
      only by her feeble offspring; but the Mamalukes had breathed in
      their infancy the keenness of a Scythian air: equal in valor,
      superior in discipline, they met the Moguls in many a well-fought
      field; and drove back the stream of hostility to the eastward of
      the Euphrates. 261 But it overflowed with resistless violence the
      kingdoms of Armenia 262 and Anatolia, of which the former was
      possessed by the Christians, and the latter by the Turks. The
      sultans of Iconium opposed some resistance to the Mogul arms,
      till Azzadin sought a refuge among the Greeks of Constantinople,
      and his feeble successors, the last of the Seljukian dynasty,
      were finally extirpated by the khans of Persia. 263

      231 (return) [ See the curious account of the expedition of
      Holagou, translated from the Chinese, by M. Abel Remusat,
      Mélanges Asiat. 2d ser. tom. i. p. 171.—M.]

      24 (return) [ All that can be known of the Assassins of Persia
      and Syria is poured from the copious, and even profuse, erudition
      of M. Falconet, in two _Mémoires_ read before the Academy of
      Inscriptions, (tom. xvii. p. 127—170.) * Note: Von Hammer’s
      History of the Assassins has now thrown Falconet’s Dissertation
      into the shade.—M.]

      25 (return) [ The Ismaelians of Syria, 40,000 Assassins, had
      acquired or founded ten castles in the hills above Tortosa. About
      the year 1280, they were extirpated by the Mamalukes.]

      251 (return) [ Compare Von Hammer, Geschichte der Assassinen, p.
      283, 307. Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, vol. vii. p. 406.
      Price, Chronological Retrospect, vol. ii. p. 217—223.—M.]

      26 (return) [ As a proof of the ignorance of the Chinese in
      foreign transactions, I must observe, that some of their
      historians extend the conquest of Zingis himself to Medina, the
      country of Mahomet, (Gaubil p. 42.)]

      261 (return) [ Compare Wilken, vol. vii. p. 410.—M.]

      262 (return) [ On the friendly relations of the Armenians with
      the Mongols see Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, vol. vii. p.
      402. They eagerly desired an alliance against the Mahometan
      powers.—M.]

      263 (return) [ Trebizond escaped, apparently by the dexterous
      politics of the sovereign, but it acknowledged the Mogul
      supremacy. Falmerayer, p. 172.—M.]

      III. No sooner had Octai subverted the northern empire of China,
      than he resolved to visit with his arms the most remote countries
      of the West. Fifteen hundred thousand Moguls and Tartars were
      inscribed on the military roll: of these the great khan selected
      a third, which he intrusted to the command of his nephew Batou,
      the son of Tuli; who reigned over his father’s conquests to the
      north of the Caspian Sea. 264 After a festival of forty days,
      Batou set forwards on this great expedition; and such was the
      speed and ardor of his innumerable squadrons, than in less than
      six years they had measured a line of ninety degrees of
      longitude, a fourth part of the circumference of the globe. The
      great rivers of Asia and Europe, the Volga and Kama, the Don and
      Borysthenes, the Vistula and Danube, they either swam with their
      horses or passed on the ice, or traversed in leathern boats,
      which followed the camp, and transported their wagons and
      artillery. By the first victories of Batou, the remains of
      national freedom were eradicated in the immense plains of
      Turkestan and Kipzak. 27 In his rapid progress, he overran the
      kingdoms, as they are now styled, of Astracan and Cazan; and the
      troops which he detached towards Mount Caucasus explored the most
      secret recesses of Georgia and Circassia. The civil discord of
      the great dukes, or princes, of Russia, betrayed their country to
      the Tartars. They spread from Livonia to the Black Sea, and both
      Moscow and Kiow, the modern and the ancient capitals, were
      reduced to ashes; a temporary ruin, less fatal than the deep, and
      perhaps indelible, mark, which a servitude of two hundred years
      has imprinted on the character of the Russians. The Tartars
      ravaged with equal fury the countries which they hoped to
      possess, and those which they were hastening to leave. From the
      permanent conquest of Russia they made a deadly, though
      transient, inroad into the heart of Poland, and as far as the
      borders of Germany. The cities of Lublin and Cracow were
      obliterated: 271 they approached the shores of the Baltic; and in
      the battle of Lignitz they defeated the dukes of Silesia, the
      Polish palatines, and the great master of the Teutonic order, and
      filled nine sacks with the right ears of the slain. From Lignitz,
      the extreme point of their western march, they turned aside to
      the invasion of Hungary; and the presence or spirit of Batou
      inspired the host of five hundred thousand men: the Carpathian
      hills could not be long impervious to their divided columns; and
      their approach had been fondly disbelieved till it was
      irresistibly felt. The king, Bela the Fourth, assembled the
      military force of his counts and bishops; but he had alienated
      the nation by adopting a vagrant horde of forty thousand families
      of Comans, and these savage guests were provoked to revolt by the
      suspicion of treachery and the murder of their prince. The whole
      country north of the Danube was lost in a day, and depopulated in
      a summer; and the ruins of cities and churches were overspread
      with the bones of the natives, who expiated the sins of their
      Turkish ancestors. An ecclesiastic, who fled from the sack of
      Waradin, describes the calamities which he had seen, or suffered;
      and the sanguinary rage of sieges and battles is far less
      atrocious than the treatment of the fugitives, who had been
      allured from the woods under a promise of peace and pardon and
      who were coolly slaughtered as soon as they had performed the
      labors of the harvest and vintage. In the winter the Tartars
      passed the Danube on the ice, and advanced to Gran or Strigonium,
      a German colony, and the metropolis of the kingdom. Thirty
      engines were planted against the walls; the ditches were filled
      with sacks of earth and dead bodies; and after a promiscuous
      massacre, three hundred noble matrons were slain in the presence
      of the khan. Of all the cities and fortresses of Hungary, three
      alone survived the Tartar invasion, and the unfortunate Bata hid
      his head among the islands of the Adriatic.

      264 (return) [ See the curious extracts from the Mahometan
      writers, Hist. des Mongols, p. 707.—M.]

      27 (return) [ The _Dashté Kipzak_, or plain of Kipzak, extends on
      either side of the Volga, in a boundless space towards the Jaik
      and Borysthenes, and is supposed to contain the primitive name
      and nation of the Cossacks.]

      271 (return) [ Olmutz was gallantly and successfully defended by
      Stenberg, Hist. des Mongols, p. 396.—M.]

      The Latin world was darkened by this cloud of savage hostility: a
      Russian fugitive carried the alarm to Sweden; and the remote
      nations of the Baltic and the ocean trembled at the approach of
      the Tartars, 28 whom their fear and ignorance were inclined to
      separate from the human species. Since the invasion of the Arabs
      in the eighth century, Europe had never been exposed to a similar
      calamity: and if the disciples of Mahomet would have oppressed
      her religion and liberty, it might be apprehended that the
      shepherds of Scythia would extinguish her cities, her arts, and
      all the institutions of civil society. The Roman pontiff
      attempted to appease and convert these invincible Pagans by a
      mission of Franciscan and Dominican friars; but he was astonished
      by the reply of the khan, that the sons of God and of Zingis were
      invested with a divine power to subdue or extirpate the nations;
      and that the pope would be involved in the universal destruction,
      unless he visited in person, and as a suppliant, the royal horde.
      The emperor Frederic the Second embraced a more generous mode of
      defence; and his letters to the kings of France and England, and
      the princes of Germany, represented the common danger, and urged
      them to arm their vassals in this just and rational crusade. 29
      The Tartars themselves were awed by the fame and valor of the
      Franks; the town of Newstadt in Austria was bravely defended
      against them by fifty knights and twenty crossbows; and they
      raised the siege on the appearance of a German army. After
      wasting the adjacent kingdoms of Servia, Bosnia, and Bulgaria,
      Batou slowly retreated from the Danube to the Volga to enjoyed
      the rewards of victory in the city and palace of Serai, which
      started at his command from the midst of the desert. 291

      28 (return) [ In the year 1238, the inhabitants of Gothia
      (_Sweden_) and Frise were prevented, by their fear of the
      Tartars, from sending, as usual, their ships to the herring
      fishery on the coast of England; and as there was no exportation,
      forty or fifty of these fish were sold for a shilling, (Matthew
      Paris, p. 396.) It is whimsical enough, that the orders of a
      Mogul khan, who reigned on the borders of China, should have
      lowered the price of herrings in the English market.]

      29 (return) [ I shall copy his characteristic or flattering
      epithets of the different countries of Europe: Furens ac fervens
      ad arma Germania, strenuæ militiæ genitrix et alumna Francia,
      bellicosa et audax Hispania, virtuosa viris et classe munita
      fertilis Anglia, impetuosis bellatoribus referta Alemannia,
      navalis Dacia, indomita Italia, pacis ignara Burgundia, inquieta
      Apulia, cum maris Græci, Adriatici et Tyrrheni insulis pyraticis
      et invictis, Cretâ, Cypro, Siciliâ, cum Oceano conterterminis
      insulis, et regionibus, cruenta Hybernia, cum agili Wallia
      palustris Scotia, glacialis Norwegia, suam electam militiam sub
      vexillo Crucis destinabunt, &c. (Matthew Paris, p. 498.)]

      291 (return) [ He was recalled by the death of Octai.—M.]

      IV. Even the poor and frozen regions of the north attracted the
      arms of the Moguls: Sheibani khan, the brother of the great
      Batou, led a horde of fifteen thousand families into the wilds of
      Siberia; and his descendants reigned at Tobolskoi above three
      centuries, till the Russian conquest. The spirit of enterprise
      which pursued the course of the Oby and Yenisei must have led to
      the discovery of the icy sea. After brushing away the monstrous
      fables, of men with dogs’ heads and cloven feet, we shall find,
      that, fifteen years after the death of Zingis, the Moguls were
      informed of the name and manners of the Samoyedes in the
      neighborhood of the polar circle, who dwelt in subterraneous
      huts, and derived their furs and their food from the sole
      occupation of hunting. 30

      30 (return) [ See Carpin’s relation in Hackluyt, vol. i. p. 30.
      The pedigree of the khans of Siberia is given by Abulghazi, (part
      viii. p. 485—495.) Have the Russians found no Tartar chronicles
      at Tobolskoi? * Note: * See the account of the Mongol library in
      Bergman, Nomadische Streifereyen, vol. iii. p. 185, 205, and
      Remusat, Hist. des Langues Tartares, p. 327, and preface to
      Schmidt, Geschichte der Ost-Mongolen.—M.]

      While China, Syria, and Poland, were invaded at the same time by
      the Moguls and Tartars, the authors of the mighty mischief were
      content with the knowledge and declaration, that their word was
      the sword of death. Like the first caliphs, the first successors
      of Zingis seldom appeared in person at the head of their
      victorious armies. On the banks of the Onon and Selinga, the
      royal or _golden horde_ exhibited the contrast of simplicity and
      greatness; of the roasted sheep and mare’s milk which composed
      their banquets; and of a distribution in one day of five hundred
      wagons of gold and silver. The ambassadors and princes of Europe
      and Asia were compelled to undertake this distant and laborious
      pilgrimage; and the life and reign of the great dukes of Russia,
      the kings of Georgia and Armenia, the sultans of Iconium, and the
      emirs of Persia, were decided by the frown or smile of the great
      khan. The sons and grandsons of Zingis had been accustomed to the
      pastoral life; but the village of Caracorum 31 was gradually
      ennobled by their election and residence. A change of manners is
      implied in the removal of Octai and Mangou from a tent to a
      house; and their example was imitated by the princes of their
      family and the great officers of the empire. Instead of the
      boundless forest, the enclosure of a park afforded the more
      indolent pleasures of the chase; their new habitations were
      decorated with painting and sculpture; their superfluous
      treasures were cast in fountains, and basins, and statues of
      massy silver; and the artists of China and Paris vied with each
      other in the service of the great khan. 32 Caracorum contained
      two streets, the one of Chinese mechanics, the other of Mahometan
      traders; and the places of religious worship, one Nestorian
      church, two mosques, and twelve temples of various idols, may
      represent in some degree the number and division of inhabitants.
      Yet a French missionary declares, that the town of St. Denys,
      near Paris, was more considerable than the Tartar capital; and
      that the whole palace of Mangou was scarcely equal to a tenth
      part of that Benedictine abbey. The conquests of Russia and Syria
      might amuse the vanity of the great khans; but they were seated
      on the borders of China; the acquisition of that empire was the
      nearest and most interesting object; and they might learn from
      their pastoral economy, that it is for the advantage of the
      shepherd to protect and propagate his flock. I have already
      celebrated the wisdom and virtue of a Mandarin who prevented the
      desolation of five populous and cultivated provinces. In a
      spotless administration of thirty years, this friend of his
      country and of mankind continually labored to mitigate, or
      suspend, the havoc of war; to save the monuments, and to rekindle
      the flame, of science; to restrain the military commander by the
      restoration of civil magistrates; and to instil the love of peace
      and justice into the minds of the Moguls. He struggled with the
      barbarism of the first conquerors; but his salutary lessons
      produced a rich harvest in the second generation. 321 The
      northern, and by degrees the southern, empire acquiesced in the
      government of Cublai, the lieutenant, and afterwards the
      successor, of Mangou; and the nation was loyal to a prince who
      had been educated in the manners of China. He restored the forms
      of her venerable constitution; and the victors submitted to the
      laws, the fashions, and even the prejudices, of the vanquished
      people. This peaceful triumph, which has been more than once
      repeated, may be ascribed, in a great measure, to the numbers and
      servitude of the Chinese. The Mogul army was dissolved in a vast
      and populous country; and their emperors adopted with pleasure a
      political system, which gives to the prince the solid substance
      of despotism, and leaves to the subject the empty names of
      philosophy, freedom, and filial obedience. 322 Under the reign of
      Cublai, letters and commerce, peace and justice, were restored;
      the great canal, of five hundred miles, was opened from Nankin to
      the capital: he fixed his residence at Pekin; and displayed in
      his court the magnificence of the greatest monarch of Asia. Yet
      this learned prince declined from the pure and simple religion of
      his great ancestor: he sacrificed to the idol Fo; and his blind
      attachment to the lamas of Thibet and the bonzes of China 33
      provoked the censure of the disciples of Confucius. His
      successors polluted the palace with a crowd of eunuchs,
      physicians, and astrologers, while thirteen millions of their
      subjects were consumed in the provinces by famine. One hundred
      and forty years after the death of Zingis, his degenerate race,
      the dynasty of the Yuen, was expelled by a revolt of the native
      Chinese; and the Mogul emperors were lost in the oblivion of the
      desert. Before this revolution, they had forfeited their
      supremacy over the dependent branches of their house, the khans
      of Kipzak and Russia, the khans of Zagatai, or Transoxiana, and
      the khans of Iran or Persia. By their distance and power, these
      royal lieutenants had soon been released from the duties of
      obedience; and after the death of Cublai, they scorned to accept
      a sceptre or a title from his unworthy successors. According to
      their respective situations, they maintained the simplicity of
      the pastoral life, or assumed the luxury of the cities of Asia;
      but the princes and their hordes were alike disposed for the
      reception of a foreign worship. After some hesitation between the
      Gospel and the Koran, they conformed to the religion of Mahomet;
      and while they adopted for their brethren the Arabs and Persians,
      they renounced all intercourse with the ancient Moguls, the
      idolaters of China.

      31 (return) [ The Map of D’Anville and the Chinese Itineraries
      (De Guignes, tom. i. part ii. p. 57) seem to mark the position of
      Holin, or Caracorum, about six hundred miles to the north-west of
      Pekin. The distance between Selinginsky and Pekin is near 2000
      Russian versts, between 1300 and 1400 English miles, (Bell’s
      Travels, vol. ii. p. 67.)]

      32 (return) [ Rubruquis found at Caracorum his _countryman
      Guillaume Boucher, orfevre de Paris_, who had executed for the
      khan a silver tree supported by four lions, and ejecting four
      different liquors. Abulghazi (part iv. p. 366) mentions the
      painters of Kitay or China.]

      321 (return) [ See the interesting sketch of the life of this
      minister (Yelin-Thsouthsai) in the second volume of the second
      series of Recherches Asiatiques, par A Remusat, p. 64.—M.]

      322 (return) [ Compare Hist. des Mongols, p. 616.—M.]

      33 (return) [ The attachment of the khans, and the hatred of the
      mandarins, to the bonzes and lamas (Duhalde, Hist. de la Chine,
      tom. i. p. 502, 503) seems to represent them as the priests of
      the same god, of the Indian _Fo_, whose worship prevails among
      the sects of Hindostan Siam, Thibet, China, and Japan. But this
      mysterious subject is still lost in a cloud, which the
      researchers of our Asiatic Society may gradually dispel.]




      Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part III.

      In this shipwreck of nations, some surprise may be excited by the
      escape of the Roman empire, whose relics, at the time of the
      Mogul invasion, were dismembered by the Greeks and Latins. Less
      potent than Alexander, they were pressed, like the Macedonian,
      both in Europe and Asia, by the shepherds of Scythia; and had the
      Tartars undertaken the siege, Constantinople must have yielded to
      the fate of Pekin, Samarcand, and Bagdad. The glorious and
      voluntary retreat of Batou from the Danube was insulted by the
      vain triumph of the Franks and Greeks; 34 and in a second
      expedition death surprised him in full march to attack the
      capital of the Cæsars. His brother Borga carried the Tartar arms
      into Bulgaria and Thrace; but he was diverted from the Byzantine
      war by a visit to Novogorod, in the fifty-seventh degree of
      latitude, where he numbered the inhabitants and regulated the
      tributes of Russia. The Mogul khan formed an alliance with the
      Mamalukes against his brethren of Persia: three hundred thousand
      horse penetrated through the gates of Derbend; and the Greeks
      might rejoice in the first example of domestic war. After the
      recovery of Constantinople, Michael Palæologus, 35 at a distance
      from his court and army, was surprised and surrounded in a
      Thracian castle, by twenty thousand Tartars. But the object of
      their march was a private interest: they came to the deliverance
      of Azzadin, the Turkish sultan; and were content with his person
      and the treasure of the emperor. Their general Noga, whose name
      is perpetuated in the hordes of Astracan, raised a formidable
      rebellion against Mengo Timour, the third of the khans of Kipzak;
      obtained in marriage Maria, the natural daughter of Palæologus;
      and guarded the dominions of his friend and father. The
      subsequent invasions of a Scythian cast were those of outlaws and
      fugitives: and some thousands of Alani and Comans, who had been
      driven from their native seats, were reclaimed from a vagrant
      life, and enlisted in the service of the empire. Such was the
      influence in Europe of the invasion of the Moguls. The first
      terror of their arms secured, rather than disturbed, the peace of
      the Roman Asia. The sultan of Iconium solicited a personal
      interview with John Vataces; and his artful policy encouraged the
      Turks to defend their barrier against the common enemy. 36 That
      barrier indeed was soon overthrown; and the servitude and ruin of
      the Seljukians exposed the nakedness of the Greeks. The
      formidable Holagou threatened to march to Constantinople at the
      head of four hundred thousand men; and the groundless panic of
      the citizens of Nice will present an image of the terror which he
      had inspired. The accident of a procession, and the sound of a
      doleful litany, “From the fury of the Tartars, good Lord, deliver
      us,” had scattered the hasty report of an assault and massacre.
      In the blind credulity of fear, the streets of Nice were crowded
      with thousands of both sexes, who knew not from what or to whom
      they fled; and some hours elapsed before the firmness of the
      military officers could relieve the city from this imaginary foe.
      But the ambition of Holagou and his successors was fortunately
      diverted by the conquest of Bagdad, and a long vicissitude of
      Syrian wars; their hostility to the Moslems inclined them to
      unite with the Greeks and Franks; 37 and their generosity or
      contempt had offered the kingdom of Anatolia as the reward of an
      Armenian vassal. The fragments of the Seljukian monarchy were
      disputed by the emirs who had occupied the cities or the
      mountains; but they all confessed the supremacy of the khans of
      Persia; and he often interposed his authority, and sometimes his
      arms, to check their depredations, and to preserve the peace and
      balance of his Turkish frontier. The death of Cazan, 38 one of
      the greatest and most accomplished princes of the house of
      Zingis, removed this salutary control; and the decline of the
      Moguls gave a free scope to the rise and progress of the Ottoman
      Empire. 39

      34 (return) [ Some repulse of the Moguls in Hungary (Matthew
      Paris, p. 545, 546) might propagate and color the report of the
      union and victory of the kings of the Franks on the confines of
      Bulgaria. Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 310) after forty years,
      beyond the Tigris, might be easily deceived.]

      35 (return) [ See Pachymer, l. iii. c. 25, and l. ix. c. 26, 27;
      and the false alarm at Nice, l. iii. c. 27. Nicephorus Gregoras,
      l. iv. c. 6.]

      36 (return) [ G. Acropolita, p. 36, 37. Nic. Greg. l. ii. c. 6,
      l. iv. c. 5.]

      37 (return) [ Abulpharagius, who wrote in the year 1284, declares
      that the Moguls, since the fabulous defeat of Batou, had not
      attacked either the Franks or Greeks; and of this he is a
      competent witness. Hayton likewise, the Armenian prince,
      celebrates their friendship for himself and his nation.]

      38 (return) [ Pachymer gives a splendid character of Cazan Khan,
      the rival of Cyrus and Alexander, (l. xii. c. 1.) In the
      conclusion of his history (l. xiii. c. 36) he _hopes_ much from
      the arrival of 30,000 Tochars, or Tartars, who were ordered by
      the successor of Cazan to restrain the Turks of Bithynia, A.D.
      1308.]

      39 (return) [ The origin of the Ottoman dynasty is illustrated by
      the critical learning of Mm. De Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. iv.
      p. 329—337) and D’Anville, (Empire Turc, p. 14—22,) two
      inhabitants of Paris, from whom the Orientals may learn the
      history and geography of their own country. * Note: They may be
      still more enlightened by the Geschichte des Osman Reiches, by M.
      von Hammer Purgstall of Vienna.—M.]

      After the retreat of Zingis, the sultan Gelaleddin of Carizme had
      returned from India to the possession and defence of his Persian
      kingdoms. In the space of eleven years, that hero fought in
      person fourteen battles; and such was his activity, that he led
      his cavalry in seventeen days from Teflis to Kerman, a march of a
      thousand miles. Yet he was oppressed by the jealousy of the
      Moslem princes, and the innumerable armies of the Moguls; and
      after his last defeat, Gelaleddin perished ignobly in the
      mountains of Curdistan. His death dissolved a veteran and
      adventurous army, which included under the name of Carizmians or
      Corasmins many Turkman hordes, that had attached themselves to
      the sultan’s fortune. The bolder and more powerful chiefs invaded
      Syria, and violated the holy sepulchre of Jerusalem: the more
      humble engaged in the service of Aladin, sultan of Iconium; and
      among these were the obscure fathers of the Ottoman line. They
      had formerly pitched their tents near the southern banks of the
      Oxus, in the plains of Mahan and Nesa; and it is somewhat
      remarkable, that the same spot should have produced the first
      authors of the Parthian and Turkish empires. At the head, or in
      the rear, of a Carizmian army, Soliman Shah was drowned in the
      passage of the Euphrates: his son Orthogrul became the soldier
      and subject of Aladin, and established at Surgut, on the banks of
      the Sangar, a camp of four hundred families or tents, whom he
      governed fifty-two years both in peace and war. He was the father
      of Thaman, or Athman, whose Turkish name has been melted into the
      appellation of the caliph Othman; and if we describe that
      pastoral chief as a shepherd and a robber, we must separate from
      those characters all idea of ignominy and baseness. Othman
      possessed, and perhaps surpassed, the ordinary virtues of a
      soldier; and the circumstances of time and place were propitious
      to his independence and success. The Seljukian dynasty was no
      more; and the distance and decline of the Mogul khans soon
      enfranchised him from the control of a superior. He was situate
      on the verge of the Greek empire: the Koran sanctified his
      _gazi_, or holy war, against the infidels; and their political
      errors unlocked the passes of Mount Olympus, and invited him to
      descend into the plains of Bithynia. Till the reign of
      Palæologus, these passes had been vigilantly guarded by the
      militia of the country, who were repaid by their own safety and
      an exemption from taxes. The emperor abolished their privilege
      and assumed their office; but the tribute was rigorously
      collected, the custody of the passes was neglected, and the hardy
      mountaineers degenerated into a trembling crowd of peasants
      without spirit or discipline. It was on the twenty-seventh of
      July, in the year twelve hundred and ninety-nine of the Christian
      æra, that Othman first invaded the territory of Nicomedia; 40 and
      the singular accuracy of the date seems to disclose some
      foresight of the rapid and destructive growth of the monster. The
      annals of the twenty-seven years of his reign would exhibit a
      repetition of the same inroads; and his hereditary troops were
      multiplied in each campaign by the accession of captives and
      volunteers. Instead of retreating to the hills, he maintained the
      most useful and defensive posts; fortified the towns and castles
      which he had first pillaged; and renounced the pastoral life for
      the baths and palaces of his infant capitals. But it was not till
      Othman was oppressed by age and infirmities, that he received the
      welcome news of the conquest of Prusa, which had been surrendered
      by famine or treachery to the arms of his son Orchan. The glory
      of Othman is chiefly founded on that of his descendants; but the
      Turks have transcribed or composed a royal testament of his last
      counsels of justice and moderation. 41

      40 (return) [ See Pachymer, l. x. c. 25, 26, l. xiii. c. 33, 34,
      36; and concerning the guard of the mountains, l. i. c. 3—6:
      Nicephorus Gregoras, l. vii. c. l., and the first book of
      Laonicus Chalcondyles, the Athenian.]

      41 (return) [ I am ignorant whether the Turks have any writers
      older than Mahomet II., * nor can I reach beyond a meagre
      chronicle (Annales Turcici ad Annum 1550) translated by John
      Gaudier, and published by Leunclavius, (ad calcem Laonic.
      Chalcond. p. 311—350,) with copious pandects, or commentaries.
      The history of the Growth and Decay (A.D. 1300—1683) of the
      Othman empire was translated into English from the Latin MS. of
      Demetrius Cantemir, prince of Moldavia, (London, 1734, in folio.)
      The author is guilty of strange blunders in Oriental history; but
      he was conversant with the language, the annals, and institutions
      of the Turks. Cantemir partly draws his materials from the
      Synopsis of Saadi Effendi of Larissa, dedicated in the year 1696
      to Sultan Mustapha, and a valuable abridgment of the original
      historians. In one of the Ramblers, Dr. Johnson praises Knolles
      (a General History of the Turks to the present Year. London,
      1603) as the first of historians, unhappy only in the choice of
      his subject. Yet I much doubt whether a partial and verbose
      compilation from Latin writers, thirteen hundred folio pages of
      speeches and battles, can either instruct or amuse an enlightened
      age, which requires from the historian some tincture of
      philosophy and criticism. Note: * We could have wished that M.
      von Hammer had given a more clear and distinct reply to this
      question of Gibbon. In a note, vol. i. p. 630. M. von Hammer
      shows that they had not only sheiks (religious writers) and
      learned lawyers, but poets and authors on medicine. But the
      inquiry of Gibbon obviously refers to historians. The oldest of
      their historical works, of which V. Hammer makes use, is the
      “Tarichi Aaschik Paschasade,” i. e. the History of the Great
      Grandson of Aaschik Pasha, who was a dervis and celebrated
      ascetic poet in the reign of Murad (Amurath) I. Ahmed, the author
      of the work, lived during the reign of Bajazet II., but, he says,
      derived much information from the book of Scheik Jachshi, the son
      of Elias, who was Imaum to Sultan Orchan, (the second Ottoman
      king) and who related, from the lips of his father, the
      circumstances of the earliest Ottoman history. This book (having
      searched for it in vain for five-and-twenty years) our author
      found at length in the Vatican. All the other Turkish histories
      on his list, as indeed this, were _written_ during the reign of
      Mahomet II. It does not appear whether any of the rest cite
      earlier authorities of equal value with that claimed by the
      “Tarichi Aaschik Paschasade.”—M. (in Quarterly Review, vol. xlix.
      p. 292.)]

      From the conquest of Prusa, we may date the true æra of the
      Ottoman empire. The lives and possessions of the Christian
      subjects were redeemed by a tribute or ransom of thirty thousand
      crowns of gold; and the city, by the labors of Orchan, assumed
      the aspect of a Mahometan capital; Prusa was decorated with a
      mosque, a college, and a hospital, of royal foundation; the
      Seljukian coin was changed for the name and impression of the new
      dynasty: and the most skilful professors, of human and divine
      knowledge, attracted the Persian and Arabian students from the
      ancient schools of Oriental learning. The office of vizier was
      instituted for Aladin, the brother of Orchan; 411 and a different
      habit distinguished the citizens from the peasants, the Moslems
      from the infidels. All the troops of Othman had consisted of
      loose squadrons of Turkman cavalry; who served without pay and
      fought without discipline: but a regular body of infantry was
      first established and trained by the prudence of his son. A great
      number of volunteers was enrolled with a small stipend, but with
      the permission of living at home, unless they were summoned to
      the field: their rude manners, and seditious temper, disposed
      Orchan to educate his young captives as his soldiers and those of
      the prophet; but the Turkish peasants were still allowed to mount
      on horseback, and follow his standard, with the appellation and
      the hopes of _freebooters_. 412 By these arts he formed an army
      of twenty-five thousand Moslems: a train of battering engines was
      framed for the use of sieges; and the first successful experiment
      was made on the cities of Nice and Nicomedia. Orchan granted a
      safe-conduct to all who were desirous of departing with their
      families and effects; but the widows of the slain were given in
      marriage to the conquerors; and the sacrilegious plunder, the
      books, the vases, and the images, were sold or ransomed at
      Constantinople. The emperor Andronicus the Younger was vanquished
      and wounded by the son of Othman: 42 421 he subdued the whole
      province or kingdom of Bithynia, as far as the shores of the
      Bosphorus and Hellespont; and the Christians confessed the
      justice and clemency of a reign which claimed the voluntary
      attachment of the Turks of Asia. Yet Orchan was content with the
      modest title of emir; and in the list of his compeers, the
      princes of Roum or Anatolia, 43 his military forces were
      surpassed by the emirs of Ghermian and Caramania, each of whom
      could bring into the field an army of forty thousand men. Their
      domains were situate in the heart of the Seljukian kingdom; but
      the holy warriors, though of inferior note, who formed new
      principalities on the Greek empire, are more conspicuous in the
      light of history. The maritime country from the Propontis to the
      Mæander and the Isle of Rhodes, so long threatened and so often
      pillaged, was finally lost about the thirteenth year of
      Andronicus the Elder. 44 Two Turkish chieftains, Sarukhan and
      Aidin, left their names to their conquests, and their conquests
      to their posterity. The captivity or ruin of the _seven_ churches
      of Asia was consummated; and the barbarous lords of Ionia and
      Lydia still trample on the monuments of classic and Christian
      antiquity. In the loss of Ephesus, the Christians deplored the
      fall of the first angel, the extinction of the first candlestick,
      of the Revelations; 45 the desolation is complete; and the temple
      of Diana, or the church of Mary, will equally elude the search of
      the curious traveller. The circus and three stately theatres of
      Laodicea are now peopled with wolves and foxes; Sardes is reduced
      to a miserable village; the God of Mahomet, without a rival or a
      son, is invoked in the mosques of Thyatira and Pergamus; and the
      populousness of Smyrna is supported by the foreign trade of the
      Franks and Armenians. Philadelphia alone has been saved by
      prophecy, or courage. At a distance from the sea, forgotten by
      the emperors, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant
      citizens defended their religion and freedom above fourscore
      years; and at length capitulated with the proudest of the
      Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies and churches of Asia,
      Philadelphia is still erect; a column in a scene of ruins; a
      pleasing example, that the paths of honor and safety may
      sometimes be the same. The servitude of Rhodes was delayed about
      two centuries by the establishment of the knights of St. John of
      Jerusalem: 46 under the discipline of the order, that island
      emerged into fame and opulence; the noble and warlike monks were
      renowned by land and sea: and the bulwark of Christendom
      provoked, and repelled, the arms of the Turks and Saracens.

      411 (return) [ Von Hammer, Osm. Geschichte, vol. i. p. 82.—M.]

      412 (return) [ Ibid. p. 91.—M.]

      42 (return) [ Cantacuzene, though he relates the battle and
      heroic flight of the younger Andronicus, (l. ii. c. 6, 7, 8,)
      dissembles by his silence the loss of Prusa, Nice, and Nicomedia,
      which are fairly confessed by Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. viii. 15,
      ix. 9, 13, xi. 6.) It appears that Nice was taken by Orchan in
      1330, and Nicomedia in 1339, which are somewhat different from
      the Turkish dates.]

      421 (return) [ For the conquests of Orchan over the ten
      pachaliks, or kingdoms of the Seljukians, in Asia Minor. see V.
      Hammer, vol. i. p. 112.—M.]

      43 (return) [ The partition of the Turkish emirs is extracted
      from two contemporaries, the Greek Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii.
      1) and the Arabian Marakeschi, (De Guignes, tom. ii. P. ii. p.
      76, 77.) See likewise the first book of Laonicus Chalcondyles.]

      44 (return) [ Pachymer, l. xiii. c. 13.]

      45 (return) [ See the Travels of Wheeler and Spon, of Pocock and
      Chandler, and more particularly Smith’s Survey of the Seven
      Churches of Asia, p. 205—276. The more pious antiquaries labor to
      reconcile the promises and threats of the author of the
      Revelations with the _present_ state of the seven cities. Perhaps
      it would be more prudent to confine his predictions to the
      characters and events of his own times.]

      46 (return) [ Consult the ivth book of the Histoire de l’Ordre de
      Malthe, par l’Abbé de Vertot. That pleasing writer betrays his
      ignorance, in supposing that Othman, a freebooter of the
      Bithynian hills, could besiege Rhodes by sea and land.]

      The Greeks, by their intestine divisions, were the authors of
      their final ruin. During the civil wars of the elder and younger
      Andronicus, the son of Othman achieved, almost without
      resistance, the conquest of Bithynia; and the same disorders
      encouraged the Turkish emirs of Lydia and Ionia to build a fleet,
      and to pillage the adjacent islands and the sea-coast of Europe.
      In the defence of his life and honor, Cantacuzene was tempted to
      prevent, or imitate, his adversaries, by calling to his aid the
      public enemies of his religion and country. Amir, the son of
      Aidin, concealed under a Turkish garb the humanity and politeness
      of a Greek; he was united with the great domestic by mutual
      esteem and reciprocal services; and their friendship is compared,
      in the vain rhetoric of the times, to the perfect union of
      Orestes and Pylades. 47 On the report of the danger of his
      friend, who was persecuted by an ungrateful court, the prince of
      Ionia assembled at Smyrna a fleet of three hundred vessels, with
      an army of twenty-nine thousand men; sailed in the depth of
      winter, and cast anchor at the mouth of the Hebrus. From thence,
      with a chosen band of two thousand Turks, he marched along the
      banks of the river, and rescued the empress, who was besieged in
      Demotica by the wild Bulgarians. At that disastrous moment, the
      life or death of his beloved Cantacuzene was concealed by his
      flight into Servia: but the grateful Irene, impatient to behold
      her deliverer, invited him to enter the city, and accompanied her
      message with a present of rich apparel and a hundred horses. By a
      peculiar strain of delicacy, the Gentle Barbarian refused, in the
      absence of an unfortunate friend, to visit his wife, or to taste
      the luxuries of the palace; sustained in his tent the rigor of
      the winter; and rejected the hospitable gift, that he might share
      the hardships of two thousand companions, all as deserving as
      himself of that honor and distinction. Necessity and revenge
      might justify his predatory excursions by sea and land: he left
      nine thousand five hundred men for the guard of his fleet; and
      persevered in the fruitless search of Cantacuzene, till his
      embarkation was hastened by a fictitious letter, the severity of
      the season, the clamors of his independent troops, and the weight
      of his spoil and captives. In the prosecution of the civil war,
      the prince of Ionia twice returned to Europe; joined his arms
      with those of the emperor; besieged Thessalonica, and threatened
      Constantinople. Calumny might affix some reproach on his
      imperfect aid, his hasty departure, and a bribe of ten thousand
      crowns, which he accepted from the Byzantine court; but his
      friend was satisfied; and the conduct of Amir is excused by the
      more sacred duty of defending against the Latins his hereditary
      dominions. The maritime power of the Turks had united the pope,
      the king of Cyprus, the republic of Venice, and the order of St.
      John, in a laudable crusade; their galleys invaded the coast of
      Ionia; and Amir was slain with an arrow, in the attempt to wrest
      from the Rhodian knights the citadel of Smyrna. 48 Before his
      death, he generously recommended another ally of his own nation;
      not more sincere or zealous than himself, but more able to afford
      a prompt and powerful succor, by his situation along the
      Propontis and in the front of Constantinople. By the prospect of
      a more advantageous treaty, the Turkish prince of Bithynia was
      detached from his engagements with Anne of Savoy; and the pride
      of Orchan dictated the most solemn protestations, that if he
      could obtain the daughter of Cantacuzene, he would invariably
      fulfil the duties of a subject and a son. Parental tenderness was
      silenced by the voice of ambition: the Greek clergy connived at
      the marriage of a Christian princess with a sectary of Mahomet;
      and the father of Theodora describes, with shameful satisfaction,
      the dishonor of the purple. 49 A body of Turkish cavalry attended
      the ambassadors, who disembarked from thirty vessels, before his
      camp of Selybria. A stately pavilion was erected, in which the
      empress Irene passed the night with her daughters. In the
      morning, Theodora ascended a throne, which was surrounded with
      curtains of silk and gold: the troops were under arms; but the
      emperor alone was on horseback. At a signal the curtains were
      suddenly withdrawn to disclose the bride, or the victim,
      encircled by kneeling eunuchs and hymeneal torches: the sound of
      flutes and trumpets proclaimed the joyful event; and her
      pretended happiness was the theme of the nuptial song, which was
      chanted by such poets as the age could produce. Without the rites
      of the church, Theodora was delivered to her barbarous lord: but
      it had been stipulated, that she should preserve her religion in
      the harem of Bursa; and her father celebrates her charity and
      devotion in this ambiguous situation. After his peaceful
      establishment on the throne of Constantinople, the Greek emperor
      visited his Turkish ally, who with four sons, by various wives,
      expected him at Scutari, on the Asiatic shore. The two princes
      partook, with seeming cordiality, of the pleasures of the banquet
      and the chase; and Theodora was permitted to repass the
      Bosphorus, and to enjoy some days in the society of her mother.
      But the friendship of Orchan was subservient to his religion and
      interest; and in the Genoese war he joined without a blush the
      enemies of Cantacuzene.

      47 (return) [ Nicephorus Gregoras has expatiated with pleasure on
      this amiable character, (l. xii. 7, xiii. 4, 10, xiv. 1, 9, xvi.
      6.) Cantacuzene speaks with honor and esteem of his ally, (l.
      iii. c. 56, 57, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 86, 89, 95, 96;) but he seems
      ignorant of his own sentimental passion for the Turks, and
      indirectly denies the possibility of such unnatural friendship,
      (l. iv. c. 40.)]

      48 (return) [ After the conquest of Smyrna by the Latins, the
      defence of this fortress was imposed by Pope Gregory XI. on the
      knights of Rhodes, (see Vertot, l. v.)]

      49 (return) [ See Cantacuzenus, l. iii. c. 95. Nicephorus
      Gregoras, who, for the light of Mount Thabor, brands the emperor
      with the names of tyrant and Herod, excuses, rather than blames,
      this Turkish marriage, and alleges the passion and power of
      Orchan, eggutatoV, kai th dunamo? touV kat’ auton hdh PersikouV
      (Turkish) uperairwn SatrapaV, (l. xv. 5.) He afterwards
      celebrates his kingdom and armies. See his reign in Cantemir, p.
      24—30.]

      In the treaty with the empress Anne, the Ottoman prince had
      inserted a singular condition, that it should be lawful for him
      to sell his prisoners at Constantinople, or transport them into
      Asia. A naked crowd of Christians of both sexes and every age, of
      priests and monks, of matrons and virgins, was exposed in the
      public market; the whip was frequently used to quicken the
      charity of redemption; and the indigent Greeks deplored the fate
      of their brethren, who were led away to the worst evils of
      temporal and spiritual bondage 50 Cantacuzene was reduced to
      subscribe the same terms; and their execution must have been
      still more pernicious to the empire: a body of ten thousand Turks
      had been detached to the assistance of the empress Anne; but the
      entire forces of Orchan were exerted in the service of his
      father. Yet these calamities were of a transient nature; as soon
      as the storm had passed away, the fugitives might return to their
      habitations; and at the conclusion of the civil and foreign wars,
      Europe was completely evacuated by the Moslems of Asia. It was in
      his last quarrel with his pupil that Cantacuzene inflicted the
      deep and deadly wound, which could never be healed by his
      successors, and which is poorly expiated by his theological
      dialogues against the prophet Mahomet. Ignorant of their own
      history, the modern Turks confound their first and their final
      passage of the Hellespont, 51 and describe the son of Orchan as a
      nocturnal robber, who, with eighty companions, explores by
      stratagem a hostile and unknown shore. Soliman, at the head of
      ten thousand horse, was transported in the vessels, and
      entertained as the friend, of the Greek emperor. In the civil
      wars of Romania, he performed some service and perpetrated more
      mischief; but the Chersonesus was insensibly filled with a
      Turkish colony; and the Byzantine court solicited in vain the
      restitution of the fortresses of Thrace. After some artful delays
      between the Ottoman prince and his son, their ransom was valued
      at sixty thousand crowns, and the first payment had been made
      when an earthquake shook the walls and cities of the provinces;
      the dismantled places were occupied by the Turks; and Gallipoli,
      the key of the Hellespont, was rebuilt and repeopled by the
      policy of Soliman. The abdication of Cantacuzene dissolved the
      feeble bands of domestic alliance; and his last advice admonished
      his countrymen to decline a rash contest, and to compare their
      own weakness with the numbers and valor, the discipline and
      enthusiasm, of the Moslems. His prudent counsels were despised by
      the headstrong vanity of youth, and soon justified by the
      victories of the Ottomans. But as he practised in the field the
      exercise of the _jerid_, Soliman was killed by a fall from his
      horse; and the aged Orchan wept and expired on the tomb of his
      valiant son. 511

      50 (return) [ The most lively and concise picture of this
      captivity may be found in the history of Ducas, (c. 8,) who
      fairly describes what Cantacuzene confesses with a guilty blush!]

      51 (return) [ In this passage, and the first conquests in Europe,
      Cantemir (p. 27, &c.) gives a miserable idea of his Turkish
      guides; nor am I much better satisfied with Chalcondyles, (l. i.
      p. 12, &c.) They forget to consult the most authentic record, the
      ivth book of Cantacuzene. I likewise regret the last books, which
      are still manuscript, of Nicephorus Gregoras. * Note: Von Hammer
      excuses the silence with which the Turkish historians pass over
      the earlier intercourse of the Ottomans with the European
      continent, of which he enumerates sixteen different occasions, as
      if they disdained those peaceful incursions by which they gained
      no conquest, and established no permanent footing on the
      Byzantine territory. Of the romantic account of Soliman’s first
      expedition, he says, “As yet the prose of history had not
      asserted its right over the poetry of tradition.” This defence
      would scarcely be accepted as satisfactory by the historian of
      the Decline and Fall.—M. (in Quarterly Review, vol. xlix. p.
      293.)]

      511 (return) [ In the 75th year of his age, the 35th of his
      reign. V. Hammer. M.]




      Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part IV.

      But the Greeks had not time to rejoice in the death of their
      enemies; and the Turkish cimeter was wielded with the same spirit
      by Amurath the First, the son of Orchan, and the brother of
      Soliman. By the pale and fainting light of the Byzantine annals,
      52 we can discern, that he subdued without resistance the whole
      province of Romania or Thrace, from the Hellespont to Mount
      Hæmus, and the verge of the capital; and that Adrianople was
      chosen for the royal seat of his government and religion in
      Europe. Constantinople, whose decline is almost coeval with her
      foundation, had often, in the lapse of a thousand years, been
      assaulted by the Barbarians of the East and West; but never till
      this fatal hour had the Greeks been surrounded, both in Asia and
      Europe, by the arms of the same hostile monarchy. Yet the
      prudence or generosity of Amurath postponed for a while this easy
      conquest; and his pride was satisfied with the frequent and
      humble attendance of the emperor John Palæologus and his four
      sons, who followed at his summons the court and camp of the
      Ottoman prince. He marched against the Sclavonian nations between
      the Danube and the Adriatic, the Bulgarians, Servians, Bosnians,
      and Albanians; and these warlike tribes, who had so often
      insulted the majesty of the empire, were repeatedly broken by his
      destructive inroads. Their countries did not abound either in
      gold or silver; nor were their rustic hamlets and townships
      enriched by commerce or decorated by the arts of luxury. But the
      natives of the soil have been distinguished in every age by their
      hardiness of mind and body; and they were converted by a prudent
      institution into the firmest and most faithful supporters of the
      Ottoman greatness. 53 The vizier of Amurath reminded his
      sovereign that, according to the Mahometan law, he was entitled
      to a fifth part of the spoil and captives; and that the duty
      might easily be levied, if vigilant officers were stationed in
      Gallipoli, to watch the passage, and to select for his use the
      stoutest and most beautiful of the Christian youth. The advice
      was followed: the edict was proclaimed; many thousands of the
      European captives were educated in religion and arms; and the new
      militia was consecrated and named by a celebrated dervis.
      Standing in the front of their ranks, he stretched the sleeve of
      his gown over the head of the foremost soldier, and his blessing
      was delivered in these words: “Let them be called Janizaries,
      (_Yengi cheri_, or new soldiers;) may their countenance be ever
      bright! their hand victorious! their sword keen! may their spear
      always hang over the heads of their enemies! and wheresoever they
      go, may they return with a _white face!_” 54 541 Such was the
      origin of these haughty troops, the terror of the nations, and
      sometimes of the sultans themselves. Their valor has declined,
      their discipline is relaxed, and their tumultuary array is
      incapable of contending with the order and weapons of modern
      tactics; but at the time of their institution, they possessed a
      decisive superiority in war; since a regular body of infantry, in
      constant exercise and pay, was not maintained by any of the
      princes of Christendom. The Janizaries fought with the zeal of
      proselytes against their _idolatrous_ countrymen; and in the
      battle of Cossova, the league and independence of the Sclavonian
      tribes was finally crushed. As the conqueror walked over the
      field, he observed that the greatest part of the slain consisted
      of beardless youths; and listened to the flattering reply of his
      vizier, that age and wisdom would have taught them not to oppose
      his irresistible arms. But the sword of his Janizaries could not
      defend him from the dagger of despair; a Servian soldier started
      from the crowd of dead bodies, and Amurath was pierced in the
      belly with a mortal wound. 542 The grandson of Othman was mild in
      his temper, modest in his apparel, and a lover of learning and
      virtue; but the Moslems were scandalized at his absence from
      public worship; and he was corrected by the firmness of the
      mufti, who dared to reject his testimony in a civil cause: a
      mixture of servitude and freedom not unfrequent in Oriental
      history. 55

      52 (return) [ After the conclusion of Cantacuzene and Gregoras,
      there follows a dark interval of a hundred years. George Phranza,
      Michael Ducas, and Laonicus Chalcondyles, all three wrote after
      the taking of Constantinople.]

      53 (return) [ See Cantemir, p. 37—41, with his own large and
      curious annotations.]

      54 (return) [ _White_ and _black_ face are common and proverbial
      expressions of praise and reproach in the Turkish language. Hic
      _niger_ est, hunc tu Romane caveto, was likewise a Latin
      sentence.]

      541 (return) [ According to Von Hammer. vol. i. p. 90, Gibbon and
      the European writers assign too late a date to this enrolment of
      the Janizaries. It took place not in the reign of Amurath, but in
      that of his predecessor Orchan.—M.]

      542 (return) [ Ducas has related this as a deliberate act of
      self-devotion on the part of a Servian noble who pretended to
      desert, and stabbed Amurath during a conference which he had
      requested. The Italian translator of Ducas, published by Bekker
      in the new edition of the Byzantines, has still further
      heightened the romance. See likewise in Von Hammer (Osmanische
      Geschichte, vol. i. p. 138) the popular Servian account, which
      resembles that of Ducas, and may have been the source of that of
      his Italian translator. The Turkish account agrees more nearly
      with Gibbon; but the Servian, (Milosch Kohilovisch) while he lay
      among the heap of the dead, pretended to have some secret to
      impart to Amurath, and stabbed him while he leaned over to
      listen.—M.]

      55 (return) [ See the life and death of Morad, or Amurath I., in
      Cantemir, (p 33—45,) the first book of Chalcondyles, and the
      Annales Turcici of Leunclavius. According to another story, the
      sultan was stabbed by a Croat in his tent; and this accident was
      alleged to Busbequius (Epist i. p. 98) as an excuse for the
      unworthy precaution of pinioning, as if were, between two
      attendants, an ambassador’s arms, when he is introduced to the
      royal presence.]

      The character of Bajazet, the son and successor of Amurath, is
      strongly expressed in his surname of _Ilderim_, or the lightning;
      and he might glory in an epithet, which was drawn from the fiery
      energy of his soul and the rapidity of his destructive march. In
      the fourteen years of his reign, 56 he incessantly moved at the
      head of his armies, from Boursa to Adrianople, from the Danube to
      the Euphrates; and, though he strenuously labored for the
      propagation of the law, he invaded, with impartial ambition, the
      Christian and Mahometan princes of Europe and Asia. From Angora
      to Amasia and Erzeroum, the northern regions of Anatolia were
      reduced to his obedience: he stripped of their hereditary
      possessions his brother emirs of Ghermian and Caramania, of Aidin
      and Sarukhan; and after the conquest of Iconium the ancient
      kingdom of the Seljukians again revived in the Ottoman dynasty.
      Nor were the conquests of Bajazet less rapid or important in
      Europe. No sooner had he imposed a regular form of servitude on
      the Servians and Bulgarians, than he passed the Danube to seek
      new enemies and new subjects in the heart of Moldavia. 57
      Whatever yet adhered to the Greek empire in Thrace, Macedonia,
      and Thessaly, acknowledged a Turkish master: an obsequious bishop
      led him through the gates of Thermopylæ into Greece; and we may
      observe, as a singular fact, that the widow of a Spanish chief,
      who possessed the ancient seat of the oracle of Delphi, deserved
      his favor by the sacrifice of a beauteous daughter. The Turkish
      communication between Europe and Asia had been dangerous and
      doubtful, till he stationed at Gallipoli a fleet of galleys, to
      command the Hellespont and intercept the Latin succors of
      Constantinople. While the monarch indulged his passions in a
      boundless range of injustice and cruelty, he imposed on his
      soldiers the most rigid laws of modesty and abstinence; and the
      harvest was peaceably reaped and sold within the precincts of his
      camp. Provoked by the loose and corrupt administration of
      justice, he collected in a house the judges and lawyers of his
      dominions, who expected that in a few moments the fire would be
      kindled to reduce them to ashes. His ministers trembled in
      silence: but an Æthiopian buffoon presumed to insinuate the true
      cause of the evil; and future venality was left without excuse,
      by annexing an adequate salary to the office of cadhi. 58 The
      humble title of emir was no longer suitable to the Ottoman
      greatness; and Bajazet condescended to accept a patent of sultan
      from the caliphs who served in Egypt under the yoke of the
      Mamalukes: 59 a last and frivolous homage that was yielded by
      force to opinion; by the Turkish conquerors to the house of Abbas
      and the successors of the Arabian prophet. The ambition of the
      sultan was inflamed by the obligation of deserving this august
      title; and he turned his arms against the kingdom of Hungary, the
      perpetual theatre of the Turkish victories and defeats.
      Sigismond, the Hungarian king, was the son and brother of the
      emperors of the West: his cause was that of Europe and the
      church; and, on the report of his danger, the bravest knights of
      France and Germany were eager to march under his standard and
      that of the cross. In the battle of Nicopolis, Bajazet defeated a
      confederate army of a hundred thousand Christians, who had
      proudly boasted, that if the sky should fall, they could uphold
      it on their lances. The far greater part were slain or driven
      into the Danube; and Sigismond, escaping to Constantinople by the
      river and the Black Sea, returned after a long circuit to his
      exhausted kingdom. 60 In the pride of victory, Bajazet threatened
      that he would besiege Buda; that he would subdue the adjacent
      countries of Germany and Italy, and that he would feed his horse
      with a bushel of oats on the altar of St. Peter at Rome. His
      progress was checked, not by the miraculous interposition of the
      apostle, not by a crusade of the Christian powers, but by a long
      and painful fit of the gout. The disorders of the moral, are
      sometimes corrected by those of the physical, world; and an
      acrimonious humor falling on a single fibre of one man, may
      prevent or suspend the misery of nations.

      56 (return) [ The reign of Bajazet I., or Ilderim Bayazid, is
      contained in Cantemir, (p. 46,) the iid book of Chalcondyles, and
      the Annales Turcici. The surname of Ilderim, or lightning, is an
      example, that the conquerors and poets of every age have _felt_
      the truth of a system which derives the sublime from the
      principle of terror.]

      57 (return) [ Cantemir, who celebrates the victories of the great
      Stephen over the Turks, (p. 47,) had composed the ancient and
      modern state of his principality of Moldavia, which has been long
      promised, and is still unpublished.]

      58 (return) [ Leunclav. Annal. Turcici, p. 318, 319. The venality
      of the cadhis has long been an object of scandal and satire; and
      if we distrust the observations of our travellers, we may consult
      the feeling of the Turks themselves, (D’Herbelot, Bibliot.
      Orientale, p. 216, 217, 229, 230.)]

      59 (return) [ The fact, which is attested by the Arabic history
      of Ben Schounah, a contemporary Syrian, (De Guignes Hist. des
      Huns. tom. iv. p. 336.) destroys the testimony of Saad Effendi
      and Cantemir, (p. 14, 15,) of the election of Othman to the
      dignity of sultan.]

      60 (return) [ See the Decades Rerum Hungaricarum (Dec. iii. l.
      ii. p. 379) of Bonfinius, an Italian, who, in the xvth century,
      was invited into Hungary to compose an eloquent history of that
      kingdom. Yet, if it be extant and accessible, I should give the
      preference to some homely chronicle of the time and country.]

      Such is the general idea of the Hungarian war; but the disastrous
      adventure of the French has procured us some memorials which
      illustrate the victory and character of Bajazet. 61 The duke of
      Burgundy, sovereign of Flanders, and uncle of Charles the Sixth,
      yielded to the ardor of his son, John count of Nevers; and the
      fearless youth was accompanied by four princes, his _cousins_,
      and those of the French monarch. Their inexperience was guided by
      the Sire de Coucy, one of the best and oldest captain of
      Christendom; 62 but the constable, admiral, and marshal of France
      63 commanded an army which did not exceed the number of a
      thousand knights and squires. 631 These splendid names were the
      source of presumption and the bane of discipline. So many might
      aspire to command, that none were willing to obey; their national
      spirit despised both their enemies and their allies; and in the
      persuasion that Bajazet _would_ fly, or _must_ fall, they began
      to compute how soon they should visit Constantinople and deliver
      the holy sepulchre. When their scouts announced the approach of
      the Turks, the gay and thoughtless youths were at table, already
      heated with wine; they instantly clasped their armor, mounted
      their horses, rode full speed to the vanguard, and resented as an
      affront the advice of Sigismond, which would have deprived them
      of the right and honor of the foremost attack. The battle of
      Nicopolis would not have been lost, if the French would have
      obeyed the prudence of the Hungarians; but it might have been
      gloriously won, had the Hungarians imitated the valor of the
      French. They dispersed the first line, consisting of the troops
      of Asia; forced a rampart of stakes, which had been planted
      against the cavalry; broke, after a bloody conflict, the
      Janizaries themselves; and were at length overwhelmed by the
      numerous squadrons that issued from the woods, and charged on all
      sides this handful of intrepid warriors. In the speed and secrecy
      of his march, in the order and evolutions of the battle, his
      enemies felt and admired the military talents of Bajazet. They
      accuse his cruelty in the use of victory. After reserving the
      count of Nevers, and four-and-twenty lords, 632 whose birth and
      riches were attested by his Latin interpreters, the remainder of
      the French captives, who had survived the slaughter of the day,
      were led before his throne; and, as they refused to abjure their
      faith, were successively beheaded in his presence. The sultan was
      exasperated by the loss of his bravest Janizaries; and if it be
      true, that, on the eve of the engagement, the French had
      massacred their Turkish prisoners, 64 they might impute to
      themselves the consequences of a just retaliation. 641 A knight,
      whose life had been spared, was permitted to return to Paris,
      that he might relate the deplorable tale, and solicit the ransom
      of the noble captives. In the mean while, the count of Nevers,
      with the princes and barons of France, were dragged along in the
      marches of the Turkish camp, exposed as a grateful trophy to the
      Moslems of Europe and Asia, and strictly confined at Boursa, as
      often as Bajazet resided in his capital. The sultan was pressed
      each day to expiate with their blood the blood of his martyrs;
      but he had pronounced that they should live, and either for mercy
      or destruction his word was irrevocable. He was assured of their
      value and importance by the return of the messenger, and the
      gifts and intercessions of the kings of France and of Cyprus.
      Lusignan presented him with a gold saltcellar of curious
      workmanship, and of the price of ten thousand ducats; and Charles
      the Sixth despatched by the way of Hungary a cast of Norwegian
      hawks, and six horse-loads of scarlet cloth, of fine linen of
      Rheims, and of Arras tapestry, representing the battles of the
      great Alexander. After much delay, the effect of distance rather
      than of art, Bajazet agreed to accept a ransom of two hundred
      thousand ducats for the count of Nevers and the surviving princes
      and barons: the marshal Boucicault, a famous warrior, was of the
      number of the fortunate; but the admiral of France had been slain
      in battle; and the constable, with the Sire de Coucy, died in the
      prison of Boursa. This heavy demand, which was doubled by
      incidental costs, fell chiefly on the duke of Burgundy, or rather
      on his Flemish subjects, who were bound by the feudal laws to
      contribute for the knighthood and captivity of the eldest son of
      their lord. For the faithful discharge of the debt, some
      merchants of Genoa gave security to the amount of five times the
      sum; a lesson to those warlike times, that commerce and credit
      are the links of the society of nations. It had been stipulated
      in the treaty, that the French captives should swear never to
      bear arms against the person of their conqueror; but the
      ungenerous restraint was abolished by Bajazet himself. “I
      despise,” said he to the heir of Burgundy, “thy oaths and thy
      arms. Thou art young, and mayest be ambitious of effacing the
      disgrace or misfortune of thy first chivalry. Assemble thy
      powers, proclaim thy design, and be assured that Bajazet will
      rejoice to meet thee a second time in a field of battle.” Before
      their departure, they were indulged in the freedom and
      hospitality of the court of Boursa. The French princes admired
      the magnificence of the Ottoman, whose hunting and hawking
      equipage was composed of seven thousand huntsmen and seven
      thousand falconers. 65 In their presence, and at his command, the
      belly of one of his chamberlains was cut open, on a complaint
      against him for drinking the goat’s milk of a poor woman. The
      strangers were astonished by this act of justice; but it was the
      justice of a sultan who disdains to balance the weight of
      evidence, or to measure the degrees of guilt.

      61 (return) [ I should not complain of the labor of this work, if
      my materials were always derived from such books as the chronicle
      of honest Froissard, (vol. iv. c. 67, 72, 74, 79—83, 85, 87, 89,)
      who read little, inquired much, and believed all. The original
      Mémoires of the Maréchal de Boucicault (Partie i. c. 22—28) add
      some facts, but they are dry and deficient, if compared with the
      pleasant garrulity of Froissard.]

      62 (return) [ An accurate Memoir on the Life of Enguerrand VII.,
      Sire de Coucy, has been given by the Baron de Zurlauben, (Hist.
      de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv.) His rank and
      possessions were equally considerable in France and England; and,
      in 1375, he led an army of adventurers into Switzerland, to
      recover a large patrimony which he claimed in right of his
      grandmother, the daughter of the emperor Albert I. of Austria,
      (Sinner, Voyage dans la Suisse Occidentale, tom. i. p. 118—124.)]

      63 (return) [ That military office, so respectable at present,
      was still more conspicuous when it was divided between two
      persons, (Daniel, Hist. de la Milice Françoise, tom. ii. p. 5.)
      One of these, the marshal of the crusade, was the famous
      Boucicault, who afterwards defended Constantinople, governed
      Genoa, invaded the coast of Asia, and died in the field of
      Azincour.]

      631 (return) [ Daru, Hist. de Venice, vol. ii. p. 104, makes the
      whole French army amount to 10,000 men, of whom 1000 were
      knights. The curious volume of Schiltberger, a German of Munich,
      who was taken prisoner in the battle, (edit. Munich, 1813,) and
      which V. Hammer receives as authentic, gives the whole number at
      6000. See Schiltberger. Reise in dem Orient. and V. Hammer, note,
      p. 610.—M.]

      632 (return) [ According to Schiltberger there were only twelve
      French lords granted to the prayer of the “duke of Burgundy,” and
      “Herr Stephan Synther, and Johann von Bodem.” Schiltberger, p.
      13.—M.]

      64 (return) [ For this odious fact, the Abbé de Vertot quotes the
      Hist. Anonyme de St. Denys, l. xvi. c. 10, 11. (Ordre de Malthe,
      tom. ii. p. 310.)]

      641 (return) [ See Schiltberger’s very graphic account of the
      massacre. He was led out to be slaughtered in cold blood with the
      rest f the Christian prisoners, amounting to 10,000. He was
      spared at the intercession of the son of Bajazet, with a few
      others, on account of their extreme youth. No one under 20 years
      of age was put to death. The “duke of Burgundy” was obliged to be
      a spectator of this butchery which lasted from early in the
      morning till four o’clock, P. M. It ceased only at the
      supplication of the leaders of Bajazet’s army. Schiltberger, p.
      14.—M.]

      65 (return) [ Sherefeddin Ali (Hist. de Timour Bec, l. v. c. 13)
      allows Bajazet a round number of 12,000 officers and servants of
      the chase. A part of his spoils was afterwards displayed in a
      hunting-match of Timour, l. hounds with satin housings; 2.
      leopards with collars set with jewels; 3. Grecian greyhounds; and
      4, dogs from Europe, as strong as African lions, (idem, l. vi. c.
      15.) Bajazet was particularly fond of flying his hawks at cranes,
      (Chalcondyles, l. ii. p. 85.)]

      After his enfranchisement from an oppressive guardian, John
      Palæologus remained thirty-six years, the helpless, and, as it
      should seem, the careless spectator of the public ruin. 66 Love,
      or rather lust, was his only vigorous passion; and in the
      embraces of the wives and virgins of the city, the Turkish slave
      forgot the dishonor of the emperor of the _Romans_ Andronicus,
      his eldest son, had formed, at Adrianople, an intimate and guilty
      friendship with Sauzes, the son of Amurath; and the two youths
      conspired against the authority and lives of their parents. The
      presence of Amurath in Europe soon discovered and dissipated
      their rash counsels; and, after depriving Sauzes of his sight,
      the Ottoman threatened his vassal with the treatment of an
      accomplice and an enemy, unless he inflicted a similar punishment
      on his own son. Palæologus trembled and obeyed; and a cruel
      precaution involved in the same sentence the childhood and
      innocence of John, the son of the criminal. But the operation was
      so mildly, or so unskilfully, performed, that the one retained
      the sight of an eye, and the other was afflicted only with the
      infirmity of squinting. Thus excluded from the succession, the
      two princes were confined in the tower of Anema; and the piety of
      Manuel, the second son of the reigning monarch, was rewarded with
      the gift of the Imperial crown. But at the end of two years, the
      turbulence of the Latins and the levity of the Greeks, produced a
      revolution; 661 and the two emperors were buried in the tower
      from whence the two prisoners were exalted to the throne. Another
      period of two years afforded Palæologus and Manuel the means of
      escape: it was contrived by the magic or subtlety of a monk, who
      was alternately named the angel or the devil: they fled to
      Scutari; their adherents armed in their cause; and the two
      Byzantine factions displayed the ambition and animosity with
      which Cæsar and Pompey had disputed the empire of the world. The
      Roman world was now contracted to a corner of Thrace, between the
      Propontis and the Black Sea, about fifty miles in length and
      thirty in breadth; a space of ground not more extensive than the
      lesser principalities of Germany or Italy, if the remains of
      Constantinople had not still represented the wealth and
      populousness of a kingdom. To restore the public peace, it was
      found necessary to divide this fragment of the empire; and while
      Palæologus and Manuel were left in possession of the capital,
      almost all that lay without the walls was ceded to the blind
      princes, who fixed their residence at Rhodosto and Selybria. In
      the tranquil slumber of royalty, the passions of John Palæologus
      survived his reason and his strength: he deprived his favorite
      and heir of a blooming princess of Trebizond; and while the
      feeble emperor labored to consummate his nuptials, Manuel, with a
      hundred of the noblest Greeks, was sent on a peremptory summons
      to the Ottoman _porte_. They served with honor in the wars of
      Bajazet; but a plan of fortifying Constantinople excited his
      jealousy: he threatened their lives; the new works were instantly
      demolished; and we shall bestow a praise, perhaps above the merit
      of Palæologus, if we impute this last humiliation as the cause of
      his death.

      66 (return) [ For the reigns of John Palæologus and his son
      Manuel, from 1354 to 1402, see Ducas, c. 9—15, Phranza, l. i. c.
      16—21, and the ist and iid books of Chalcondyles, whose proper
      subject is drowned in a sea of episode.]

      661 (return) [ According to Von Hammer it was the power of
      Bajazet, vol. i. p. 218.]

      The earliest intelligence of that event was communicated to
      Manuel, who escaped with speed and secrecy from the palace of
      Boursa to the Byzantine throne. Bajazet affected a proud
      indifference at the loss of this valuable pledge; and while he
      pursued his conquests in Europe and Asia, he left the emperor to
      struggle with his blind cousin John of Selybria, who, in eight
      years of civil war, asserted his right of primogeniture. At
      length, the ambition of the victorious sultan pointed to the
      conquest of Constantinople; but he listened to the advice of his
      vizier, who represented that such an enterprise might unite the
      powers of Christendom in a second and more formidable crusade.
      His epistle to the emperor was conceived in these words: “By the
      divine clemency, our invincible cimeter has reduced to our
      obedience almost all Asia, with many and large countries in
      Europe, excepting only the city of Constantinople; for beyond the
      walls thou hast nothing left. Resign that city; stipulate thy
      reward; or tremble, for thyself and thy unhappy people, at the
      consequences of a rash refusal.” But his ambassadors were
      instructed to soften their tone, and to propose a treaty, which
      was subscribed with submission and gratitude. A truce of ten
      years was purchased by an annual tribute of thirty thousand
      crowns of gold; the Greeks deplored the public toleration of the
      law of Mahomet, and Bajazet enjoyed the glory of establishing a
      Turkish cadhi, and founding a royal mosque in the metropolis of
      the Eastern church. 67 Yet this truce was soon violated by the
      restless sultan: in the cause of the prince of Selybria, the
      lawful emperor, an army of Ottomans again threatened
      Constantinople; and the distress of Manuel implored the
      protection of the king of France. His plaintive embassy obtained
      much pity and some relief; and the conduct of the succor was
      intrusted to the marshal Boucicault, 68 whose religious chivalry
      was inflamed by the desire of revenging his captivity on the
      infidels. He sailed with four ships of war, from Aiguesmortes to
      the Hellespont; forced the passage, which was guarded by
      seventeen Turkish galleys; landed at Constantinople a supply of
      six hundred men-at-arms and sixteen hundred archers; and reviewed
      them in the adjacent plain, without condescending to number or
      array the multitude of Greeks. By his presence, the blockade was
      raised both by sea and land; the flying squadrons of Bajazet were
      driven to a more respectful distance; and several castles in
      Europe and Asia were stormed by the emperor and the marshal, who
      fought with equal valor by each other’s side. But the Ottomans
      soon returned with an increase of numbers; and the intrepid
      Boucicault, after a year’s struggle, resolved to evacuate a
      country which could no longer afford either pay or provisions for
      his soldiers. The marshal offered to conduct Manuel to the French
      court, where he might solicit in person a supply of men and
      money; and advised, in the mean while, that, to extinguish all
      domestic discord, he should leave his blind competitor on the
      throne. The proposal was embraced: the prince of Selybria was
      introduced to the capital; and such was the public misery, that
      the lot of the exile seemed more fortunate than that of the
      sovereign. Instead of applauding the success of his vassal, the
      Turkish sultan claimed the city as his own; and on the refusal of
      the emperor John, Constantinople was more closely pressed by the
      calamities of war and famine. Against such an enemy prayers and
      resistance were alike unavailing; and the savage would have
      devoured his prey, if, in the fatal moment, he had not been
      overthrown by another savage stronger than himself. By the
      victory of Timour or Tamerlane, the fall of Constantinople was
      delayed about fifty years; and this important, though accidental,
      service may justly introduce the life and character of the Mogul
      conqueror.

      67 (return) [ Cantemir, p. 50—53. Of the Greeks, Ducas alone (c.
      13, 15) acknowledges the Turkish cadhi at Constantinople. Yet
      even Ducas dissembles the mosque.]

      68 (return) [ Mémoires du bon Messire Jean le Maingre, dit
      _Boucicault_, Maréchal de France, partie ire c. 30, 35.]




      Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His
      Death.—Part I.

     Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane To The Throne Of Samarcand.—His
     Conquests In Persia, Georgia, Tartary Russia, India, Syria, And
     Anatolia.—His Turkish War.— Defeat And Captivity Of Bajazet.—Death
     Of Timour.—Civil War Of The Sons Of Bajazet.—Restoration Of The
     Turkish Monarchy By Mahomet The First.—Siege Of Constantinople By
     Amurath The Second.

      The conquest and monarchy of the world was the first object of
      the ambition of Timour. To live in the memory and esteem of
      future ages was the second wish of his magnanimous spirit. All
      the civil and military transactions of his reign were diligently
      recorded in the journals of his secretaries: 1 the authentic
      narrative was revised by the persons best informed of each
      particular transaction; and it is believed in the empire and
      family of Timour, that the monarch himself composed the
      _commentaries_ 2 of his life, and the _institutions_ 3 of his
      government. 4 But these cares were ineffectual for the
      preservation of his fame, and these precious memorials in the
      Mogul or Persian language were concealed from the world, or, at
      least, from the knowledge of Europe. The nations which he
      vanquished exercised a base and impotent revenge; and ignorance
      has long repeated the tale of calumny, 5 which had disfigured the
      birth and character, the person, and even the name, of
      _Tamerlane_. 6 Yet his real merit would be enhanced, rather than
      debased, by the elevation of a peasant to the throne of Asia; nor
      can his lameness be a theme of reproach, unless he had the
      weakness to blush at a natural, or perhaps an honorable,
      infirmity. 606

      1 (return) [ These journals were communicated to Sherefeddin, or
      Cherefeddin Ali, a native of Yezd, who composed in the Persian
      language a history of Timour Beg, which has been translated into
      French by M. Petit de la Croix, (Paris, 1722, in 4 vols. 12 mo.,)
      and has always been my faithful guide. His geography and
      chronology are wonderfully accurate; and he may be trusted for
      public facts, though he servilely praises the virtue and fortune
      of the hero. Timour’s attention to procure intelligence from his
      own and foreign countries may be seen in the Institutions, p.
      215, 217, 349, 351.]

      2 (return) [ These Commentaries are yet unknown in Europe: but
      Mr. White gives some hope that they may be imported and
      translated by his friend Major Davy, who had read in the East
      this “minute and faithful narrative of an interesting and
      eventful period.” * Note: The manuscript of Major Davy has been
      translated by Major Stewart, and published by the Oriental
      Translation Committee of London. It contains the life of Timour,
      from his birth to his forty-first year; but the last thirty years
      of western war and conquest are wanting. Major Stewart intimates
      that two manuscripts exist in this country containing the whole
      work, but excuses himself, on account of his age, from
      undertaking the laborious task of completing the translation. It
      is to be hoped that the European public will be soon enabled to
      judge of the value and authenticity of the Commentaries of the
      Cæsar of the East. Major Stewart’s work commences with the Book
      of Dreams and Omens—a wild, but characteristic, chronicle of
      Visions and Sortes Koranicæ. Strange that a life of Timour should
      awaken a reminiscence of the diary of Archbishop Laud! The early
      dawn and the gradual expression of his not less splendid but more
      real visions of ambition are touched with the simplicity of truth
      and nature. But we long to escape from the petty feuds of the
      pastoral chieftain, to the triumphs and the legislation of the
      conqueror of the world.—M.]

      3 (return) [ I am ignorant whether the original institution, in
      the Turki or Mogul language, be still extant. The Persic version,
      with an English translation, and most valuable index, was
      published (Oxford, 1783, in 4to.) by the joint labors of Major
      Davy and Mr. White, the Arabic professor. This work has been
      since translated from the Persic into French, (Paris, 1787,) by
      M. Langlès, a learned Orientalist, who has added the life of
      Timour, and many curious notes.]

      4 (return) [ Shaw Allum, the present Mogul, reads, values, but
      cannot imitate, the institutions of his great ancestor. The
      English translator relies on their internal evidence; but if any
      suspicions should arise of fraud and fiction, they will not be
      dispelled by Major Davy’s letter. The Orientals have never
      cultivated the art of criticism; the patronage of a prince, less
      honorable, perhaps, is not less lucrative than that of a
      bookseller; nor can it be deemed incredible that a Persian, the
      _real_ author, should renounce the credit, to raise the value and
      price, of the work.]

      5 (return) [ The original of the tale is found in the following
      work, which is much esteemed for its florid elegance of style:
      _Ahmedis Arabsiad_ (Ahmed Ebn Arabshah) _Vitæ et Rerum gestarum
      Timuri. Arabice et Latine. Edidit Samuel Henricus Manger.
      Franequer_, 1767, 2 tom. in 4to. This Syrian author is ever a
      malicious, and often an ignorant enemy: the very titles of his
      chapters are injurious; as how the wicked, as how the impious, as
      how the viper, &c. The copious article of Timur, in Bibliothèque
      Orientale, is of a mixed nature, as D’Herbelot indifferently
      draws his materials (p. 877—888) from Khondemir Ebn Schounah, and
      the Lebtarikh.]

      6 (return) [ _Demir_ or _Timour_ signifies in the Turkish
      language, Iron; and it is the appellation of a lord or prince. By
      the change of a letter or accent, it is changed into _Lenc_, or
      Lame; and a European corruption confounds the two words in the
      name of Tamerlane. * Note: According to the memoirs he was so
      called by a Shaikh, who, when visited by his mother on his birth,
      was reading the verse of the Koran, “Are you sure that he who
      dwelleth in heaven will not cause the earth to swallow you up,
      and behold _it shall shake_, Tamûrn.” The Shaikh then stopped and
      said, “We have named your son _Timûr_,” p. 21.—M.]

      606 (return) [ He was lamed by a wound at the siege of the
      capital of Sistan. Sherefeddin, lib. iii. c. 17. p. 136. See Von
      Hammer, vol. i. p. 260.—M.]

      In the eyes of the Moguls, who held the indefeasible succession
      of the house of Zingis, he was doubtless a rebel subject; yet he
      sprang from the noble tribe of Berlass: his fifth ancestor,
      Carashar Nevian, had been the vizier 607 of Zagatai, in his new
      realm of Transoxiana; and in the ascent of some generations, the
      branch of Timour is confounded, at least by the females, 7 with
      the Imperial stem. 8 He was born forty miles to the south of
      Samarcand in the village of Sebzar, in the fruitful territory of
      Cash, of which his fathers were the hereditary chiefs, as well as
      of a toman of ten thousand horse. 9 His birth 10 was cast on one
      of those periods of anarchy, which announce the fall of the
      Asiatic dynasties, and open a new field to adventurous ambition.
      The khans of Zagatai were extinct; the emirs aspired to
      independence; and their domestic feuds could only be suspended by
      the conquest and tyranny of the khans of Kashgar, who, with an
      army of Getes or Calmucks, 11 invaded the Transoxian kingdom.
      From the twelfth year of his age, Timour had entered the field of
      action; in the twenty-fifth 111 he stood forth as the deliverer
      of his country; and the eyes and wishes of the people were turned
      towards a hero who suffered in their cause. The chiefs of the law
      and of the army had pledged their salvation to support him with
      their lives and fortunes; but in the hour of danger they were
      silent and afraid; and, after waiting seven days on the hills of
      Samarcand, he retreated to the desert with only sixty horsemen.
      The fugitives were overtaken by a thousand Getes, whom he
      repulsed with incredible slaughter, and his enemies were forced
      to exclaim, “Timour is a wonderful man: fortune and the divine
      favor are with him.” But in this bloody action his own followers
      were reduced to ten, a number which was soon diminished by the
      desertion of three Carizmians. 112 He wandered in the desert with
      his wife, seven companions, and four horses; and sixty-two days
      was he plunged in a loathsome dungeon, from whence he escaped by
      his own courage and the remorse of the oppressor. After swimming
      the broad and rapid steam of the Jihoon, or Oxus, he led, during
      some months, the life of a vagrant and outlaw, on the borders of
      the adjacent states. But his fame shone brighter in adversity; he
      learned to distinguish the friends of his person, the associates
      of his fortune, and to apply the various characters of men for
      their advantage, and, above all, for his own. On his return to
      his native country, Timour was successively joined by the parties
      of his confederates, who anxiously sought him in the desert; nor
      can I refuse to describe, in his pathetic simplicity, one of
      their fortunate encounters. He presented himself as a guide to
      three chiefs, who were at the head of seventy horse. “When their
      eyes fell upon me,” says Timour, “they were overwhelmed with joy;
      and they alighted from their horses; and they came and kneeled;
      and they kissed my stirrup. I also came down from my horse, and
      took each of them in my arms. And I put my turban on the head of
      the first chief; and my girdle, rich in jewels and wrought with
      gold, I bound on the loins of the second; and the third I clothed
      in my own coat. And they wept, and I wept also; and the hour of
      prayer was arrived, and we prayed. And we mounted our horses, and
      came to my dwelling; and I collected my people, and made a
      feast.” His trusty bands were soon increased by the bravest of
      the tribes; he led them against a superior foe; and, after some
      vicissitudes of war the Getes were finally driven from the
      kingdom of Transoxiana. He had done much for his own glory; but
      much remained to be done, much art to be exerted, and some blood
      to be spilt, before he could teach his equals to obey him as
      their master. The birth and power of emir Houssein compelled him
      to accept a vicious and unworthy colleague, whose sister was the
      best beloved of his wives. Their union was short and jealous; but
      the policy of Timour, in their frequent quarrels, exposed his
      rival to the reproach of injustice and perfidy; and, after a
      final defeat, Houssein was slain by some sagacious friends, who
      presumed, for the last time, to disobey the commands of their
      lord. 113 At the age of thirty-four, 12 and in a general diet or
      _couroultai_, he was invested with _Imperial_ command, but he
      affected to revere the house of Zingis; and while the emir Timour
      reigned over Zagatai and the East, a nominal khan served as a
      private officer in the armies of his servant. A fertile kingdom,
      five hundred miles in length and in breadth, might have satisfied
      the ambition of a subject; but Timour aspired to the dominion of
      the world; and before his death, the crown of Zagatai was one of
      the twenty-seven crowns which he had placed on his head. Without
      expatiating on the victories of thirty-five campaigns; without
      describing the lines of march, which he repeatedly traced over
      the continent of Asia; I shall briefly represent his conquests
      in, I. Persia, II. Tartary, and, III. India, 13 and from thence
      proceed to the more interesting narrative of his Ottoman war.

      607 (return) [ In the memoirs, the title Gurgân is in one place
      (p. 23) interpreted the son-in-law; in another (p. 28) as Kurkan,
      great prince, generalissimo, and prime minister of Jagtai.—M.]

      7 (return) [ After relating some false and foolish tales of
      Timour _Lenc_, Arabshah is compelled to speak truth, and to own
      him for a kinsman of Zingis, per mulieres, (as he peevishly
      adds,) laqueos Satanæ, (pars i. c. i. p. 25.) The testimony of
      Abulghazi Khan (P. ii. c. 5, P. v. c. 4) is clear,
      unquestionable, and decisive.]

      8 (return) [ According to one of the pedigrees, the fourth
      ancestor of Zingis, and the ninth of Timour, were brothers; and
      they agreed, that the posterity of the elder should succeed to
      the dignity of khan, and that the descendants of the younger
      should fill the office of their minister and general. This
      tradition was at least convenient to justify the _first_ steps of
      Timour’s ambition, (Institutions, p. 24, 25, from the MS.
      fragments of Timour’s History.)]

      9 (return) [ See the preface of Sherefeddin, and Abulfeda’s
      Geography, (Chorasmiæ, &c., Descriptio, p. 60, 61,) in the iiid
      volume of Hudson’s Minor Greek Geographers.]

      10 (return) [ See his nativity in Dr. Hyde, (Syntagma Dissertat.
      tom. ii. p. 466,) as it was cast by the astrologers of his
      grandson Ulugh Beg. He was born, A.D. 1336, April 9, 11º 57'. p.
      m., lat. 36. I know not whether they can prove the great
      conjunction of the planets from whence, like other conquerors and
      prophets, Timour derived the surname of Saheb Keran, or master of
      the conjunctions, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 878.)]

      11 (return) [ In the Institutions of Timour, these subjects of
      the khan of Kashgar are most improperly styled Ouzbegs, or
      Usbeks, a name which belongs to another branch and country of
      Tartars, (Abulghazi, P. v. c. v. P. vii. c. 5.) Could I be sure
      that this word is in the Turkish original, I would boldly
      pronounce, that the Institutions were framed a century after the
      death of Timour, since the establishment of the Usbeks in
      Transoxiana. * Note: Col. Stewart observes, that the Persian
      translator has sometimes made use of the name Uzbek by
      anticipation. He observes, likewise, that these Jits (Getes) are
      not to be confounded with the ancient Getæ: they were unconverted
      Turks. Col. Tod (History of Rajasthan, vol. i. p. 166) would
      identify the Jits with the ancient race.—M.]

      111 (return) [ He was twenty-seven before he served his first
      wars under the emir Houssein, who ruled over Khorasan and
      Mawerainnehr. Von Hammer, vol. i. p. 262. Neither of these
      statements agrees with the Memoirs. At twelve he was a boy. “I
      fancied that I perceived in myself all the signs of greatness and
      wisdom, and whoever came to visit me, I received with great
      hauteur and dignity.” At seventeen he undertook the management of
      the flocks and herds of the family, (p. 24.) At nineteen he
      became religious, and “left off playing chess,” made a kind of
      Budhist vow never to injure living thing and felt his foot
      paralyzed from having accidentally trod upon an ant, (p. 30.) At
      twenty, thoughts of rebellion and greatness rose in his mind; at
      twenty-one, he seems to have performed his first feat of arms. He
      was a practised warrior when he served, in his twenty-seventh
      year, under Emir Houssein.]

      112 (return) [ Compare Memoirs, page 61. The imprisonment is
      there stated at fifty-three days. “At this time I made a vow to
      God that I would never keep any person, whether guilty or
      innocent, for any length of time, in prison or in chains.” p.
      63.—M.]

      113 (return) [ Timour, on one occasion, sent him this message:
      “He who wishes to embrace the bride of royalty must kiss her
      across the edge of the sharp sword,” p. 83. The scene of the
      trial of Houssein, the resistance of Timour gradually becoming
      more feeble, the vengeance of the chiefs becoming proportionably
      more determined, is strikingly portrayed. Mem. p 130.—M.]

      12 (return) [ The ist book of Sherefeddin is employed on the
      private life of the hero: and he himself, or his secretary,
      (Institutions, p. 3—77,) enlarges with pleasure on the thirteen
      designs and enterprises which most truly constitute his
      _personal_ merit. It even shines through the dark coloring of
      Arabshah, (P. i. c. 1—12.)]

      13 (return) [ The conquests of Persia, Tartary, and India, are
      represented in the iid and iiid books of Sherefeddin, and by
      Arabshah, (c. 13—55.) Consult the excellent Indexes to the
      Institutions. * Note: Compare the seventh book of Von Hammer,
      Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches.—M.]

      I. For every war, a motive of safety or revenge, of honor or
      zeal, of right or convenience, may be readily found in the
      jurisprudence of conquerors. No sooner had Timour reunited to the
      patrimony of Zagatai the dependent countries of Carizme and
      Candahar, than he turned his eyes towards the kingdoms of Iran or
      Persia. From the Oxus to the Tigris, that extensive country was
      left without a lawful sovereign since the death of Abousaid, the
      last of the descendants of the great Holacou. Peace and justice
      had been banished from the land above forty years; and the Mogul
      invader might seem to listen to the cries of an oppressed people.
      Their petty tyrants might have opposed him with confederate arms:
      they separately stood, and successively fell; and the difference
      of their fate was only marked by the promptitude of submission or
      the obstinacy of resistance. Ibrahim, prince of Shirwan, or
      Albania, kissed the footstool of the Imperial throne. His
      peace-offerings of silks, horses, and jewels, were composed,
      according to the Tartar fashion, each article of nine pieces; but
      a critical spectator observed, that there were only eight slaves.
      “I myself am the ninth,” replied Ibrahim, who was prepared for
      the remark; and his flattery was rewarded by the smile of Timour.
      14 Shah Mansour, prince of Fars, or the proper Persia, was one of
      the least powerful, but most dangerous, of his enemies. In a
      battle under the walls of Shiraz, he broke, with three or four
      thousand soldiers, the _coul_ or main body of thirty thousand
      horse, where the emperor fought in person. No more than fourteen
      or fifteen guards remained near the standard of Timour: he stood
      firm as a rock, and received on his helmet two weighty strokes of
      a cimeter: 15 the Moguls rallied; the head of Mansour was thrown
      at his feet; and he declared his esteem of the valor of a foe, by
      extirpating all the males of so intrepid a race. From Shiraz, his
      troops advanced to the Persian Gulf; and the richness and
      weakness of Ormuz 16 were displayed in an annual tribute of six
      hundred thousand dinars of gold. Bagdad was no longer the city of
      peace, the seat of the caliphs; but the noblest conquest of
      Holacou could not be overlooked by his ambitious successor. The
      whole course of the Tigris and Euphrates, from the mouth to the
      sources of those rivers, was reduced to his obedience: he entered
      Edessa; and the Turkmans of the black sheep were chastised for
      the sacrilegious pillage of a caravan of Mecca. In the mountains
      of Georgia, the native Christians still braved the law and the
      sword of Mahomet, by three expeditions he obtained the merit of
      the _gazie_, or holy war; and the prince of Teflis became his
      proselyte and friend.

      14 (return) [ The reverence of the Tartars for the mysterious
      number of _nine_ is declared by Abulghazi Khan, who, for that
      reason, divides his Genealogical History into nine parts.]

      15 (return) [ According to Arabshah, (P. i. c. 28, p. 183,) the
      coward Timour ran away to his tent, and hid himself from the
      pursuit of Shah Mansour under the women’s garments. Perhaps
      Sherefeddin (l. iii. c. 25) has magnified his courage.]

      16 (return) [ The history of Ormuz is not unlike that of Tyre.
      The old city, on the continent, was destroyed by the Tartars, and
      renewed in a neighboring island, without fresh water or
      vegetation. The kings of Ormuz, rich in the Indian trade and the
      pearl fishery, possessed large territories both in Persia and
      Arabia; but they were at first the tributaries of the sultans of
      Kerman, and at last were delivered (A.D. 1505) by the Portuguese
      tyrants from the tyranny of their own viziers, (Marco Polo, l. i.
      c. 15, 16, fol. 7, 8. Abulfeda, Geograph. tabul. xi. p. 261, 262,
      an original Chronicle of Ormuz, in Texeira, or Stevens’s History
      of Persia, p. 376—416, and the Itineraries inserted in the ist
      volume of Ramusio, of Ludovico Barthema, (1503,) fol. 167, of
      Andrea Corsali, (1517) fol. 202, 203, and of Odoardo Barbessa,
      (in 1516,) fol. 313—318.)]

      II. A just retaliation might be urged for the invasion of
      Turkestan, or the Eastern Tartary. The dignity of Timour could
      not endure the impunity of the Getes: he passed the Sihoon,
      subdued the kingdom of Kashgar, and marched seven times into the
      heart of their country. His most distant camp was two months’
      journey, or four hundred and eighty leagues to the north-east of
      Samarcand; and his emirs, who traversed the River Irtish,
      engraved in the forests of Siberia a rude memorial of their
      exploits. The conquest of Kipzak, or the Western Tartary, 17 was
      founded on the double motive of aiding the distressed, and
      chastising the ungrateful. Toctamish, a fugitive prince, was
      entertained and protected in his court: the ambassadors of Auruss
      Khan were dismissed with a haughty denial, and followed on the
      same day by the armies of Zagatai; and their success established
      Toctamish in the Mogul empire of the North. But, after a reign of
      ten years, the new khan forgot the merits and the strength of his
      benefactor; the base usurper, as he deemed him, of the sacred
      rights of the house of Zingis. Through the gates of Derbend, he
      entered Persia at the head of ninety thousand horse: with the
      innumerable forces of Kipzak, Bulgaria, Circassia, and Russia, he
      passed the Sihoon, burnt the palaces of Timour, and compelled
      him, amidst the winter snows, to contend for Samarcand and his
      life. After a mild expostulation, and a glorious victory, the
      emperor resolved on revenge; and by the east, and the west, of
      the Caspian, and the Volga, he twice invaded Kipzak with such
      mighty powers, that thirteen miles were measured from his right
      to his left wing. In a march of five months, they rarely beheld
      the footsteps of man; and their daily subsistence was often
      trusted to the fortune of the chase. At length the armies
      encountered each other; but the treachery of the standard-bearer,
      who, in the heat of action, reversed the Imperial standard of
      Kipzak, determined the victory of the Zagatais; and Toctamish (I
      speak the language of the Institutions) gave the tribe of Toushi
      to the wind of desolation. 18 He fled to the Christian duke of
      Lithuania; again returned to the banks of the Volga; and, after
      fifteen battles with a domestic rival, at last perished in the
      wilds of Siberia. The pursuit of a flying enemy carried Timour
      into the tributary provinces of Russia: a duke of the reigning
      family was made prisoner amidst the ruins of his capital; and
      Yeletz, by the pride and ignorance of the Orientals, might easily
      be confounded with the genuine metropolis of the nation. Moscow
      trembled at the approach of the Tartar, and the resistance would
      have been feeble, since the hopes of the Russians were placed in
      a miraculous image of the Virgin, to whose protection they
      ascribed the casual and voluntary retreat of the conqueror.
      Ambition and prudence recalled him to the South, the desolate
      country was exhausted, and the Mogul soldiers were enriched with
      an immense spoil of precious furs, of linen of Antioch, 19 and of
      ingots of gold and silver. 20 On the banks of the Don, or Tanais,
      he received an humble deputation from the consuls and merchants
      of Egypt, 21 Venice, Genoa, Catalonia, and Biscay, who occupied
      the commerce and city of Tana, or Azoph, at the mouth of the
      river. They offered their gifts, admired his magnificence, and
      trusted his royal word. But the peaceful visit of an emir, who
      explored the state of the magazines and harbor, was speedily
      followed by the destructive presence of the Tartars. The city was
      reduced to ashes; the Moslems were pillaged and dismissed; but
      all the Christians, who had not fled to their ships, were
      condemned either to death or slavery. 22 Revenge prompted him to
      burn the cities of Serai and Astrachan, the monuments of rising
      civilization; and his vanity proclaimed, that he had penetrated
      to the region of perpetual daylight, a strange phenomenon, which
      authorized his Mahometan doctors to dispense with the obligation
      of evening prayer. 23

      17 (return) [ Arabshah had travelled into Kipzak, and acquired a
      singular knowledge of the geography, cities, and revolutions, of
      that northern region, (P. i. c. 45—49.)]

      18 (return) [ Institutions of Timour, p. 123, 125. Mr. White, the
      editor, bestows some animadversion on the superficial account of
      Sherefeddin, (l. iii. c. 12, 13, 14,) who was ignorant of the
      designs of Timour, and the true springs of action.]

      19 (return) [ The furs of Russia are more credible than the
      ingots. But the linen of Antioch has never been famous: and
      Antioch was in ruins. I suspect that it was some manufacture of
      Europe, which the Hanse merchants had imported by the way of
      Novogorod.]

      20 (return) [ M. Levesque (Hist. de Russie, tom. ii. p. 247. Vie
      de Timour, p. 64—67, before the French version of the Institutes)
      has corrected the error of Sherefeddin, and marked the true limit
      of Timour’s conquests. His arguments are superfluous; and a
      simple appeal to the Russian annals is sufficient to prove that
      Moscow, which six years before had been taken by Toctamish,
      escaped the arms of a more formidable invader.]

      21 (return) [ An Egyptian consul from Grand Cairo is mentioned in
      Barbaro’s voyage to Tana in 1436, after the city had been
      rebuilt, (Ramusio, tom. ii. fol. 92.)]

      22 (return) [ The sack of Azoph is described by Sherefeddin, (l.
      iii. c. 55,) and much more particularly by the author of an
      Italian chronicle, (Andreas de Redusiis de Quero, in Chron.
      Tarvisiano, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xix. p.
      802—805.) He had conversed with the Mianis, two Venetian
      brothers, one of whom had been sent a deputy to the camp of
      Timour, and the other had lost at Azoph three sons and 12,000
      ducats.]

      23 (return) [ Sherefeddin only says (l. iii. c. 13) that the rays
      of the setting, and those of the rising sun, were scarcely
      separated by any interval; a problem which may be solved in the
      latitude of Moscow, (the 56th degree,) with the aid of the Aurora
      Borealis, and a long summer twilight. But a _day_ of forty days
      (Khondemir apud D’Herbelot, p. 880) would rigorously confine us
      within the polar circle.]

      III. When Timour first proposed to his princes and emirs the
      invasion of India or Hindostan, 24 he was answered by a murmur of
      discontent: “The rivers! and the mountains and deserts! and the
      soldiers clad in armor! and the elephants, destroyers of men!”
      But the displeasure of the emperor was more dreadful than all
      these terrors; and his superior reason was convinced, that an
      enterprise of such tremendous aspect was safe and easy in the
      execution. He was informed by his spies of the weakness and
      anarchy of Hindostan: the soubahs of the provinces had erected
      the standard of rebellion; and the perpetual infancy of Sultan
      Mahmoud was despised even in the harem of Delhi. The Mogul army
      moved in three great divisions; and Timour observes with
      pleasure, that the ninety-two squadrons of a thousand horse most
      fortunately corresponded with the ninety-two names or epithets of
      the prophet Mahomet. 241 Between the Jihoon and the Indus they
      crossed one of the ridges of mountains, which are styled by the
      Arabian geographers The Stony Girdles of the Earth. The highland
      robbers were subdued or extirpated; but great numbers of men and
      horses perished in the snow; the emperor himself was let down a
      precipice on a portable scaffold—the ropes were one hundred and
      fifty cubits in length; and before he could reach the bottom,
      this dangerous operation was five times repeated. Timour crossed
      the Indus at the ordinary passage of Attok; and successively
      traversed, in the footsteps of Alexander, the _Punjab_, or five
      rivers, 25 that fall into the master stream. From Attok to Delhi,
      the high road measures no more than six hundred miles; but the
      two conquerors deviated to the south-east; and the motive of
      Timour was to join his grandson, who had achieved by his command
      the conquest of Moultan. On the eastern bank of the Hyphasis, on
      the edge of the desert, the Macedonian hero halted and wept: the
      Mogul entered the desert, reduced the fortress of Batmir, and
      stood in arms before the gates of Delhi, a great and flourishing
      city, which had subsisted three centuries under the dominion of
      the Mahometan kings. 251 The siege, more especially of the
      castle, might have been a work of time; but he tempted, by the
      appearance of weakness, the sultan Mahmoud and his vizier to
      descend into the plain, with ten thousand cuirassiers, forty
      thousand of his foot-guards, and one hundred and twenty
      elephants, whose tusks are said to have been armed with sharp and
      poisoned daggers. Against these monsters, or rather against the
      imagination of his troops, he condescended to use some
      extraordinary precautions of fire and a ditch, of iron spikes and
      a rampart of bucklers; but the event taught the Moguls to smile
      at their own fears; and as soon as these unwieldy animals were
      routed, the inferior species (the men of India) disappeared from
      the field. Timour made his triumphal entry into the capital of
      Hindostan; and admired, with a view to imitate, the architecture
      of the stately mosque; but the order or license of a general
      pillage and massacre polluted the festival of his victory. He
      resolved to purify his soldiers in the blood of the idolaters, or
      Gentoos, who still surpass, in the proportion of ten to one, the
      numbers of the Moslems. 252 In this pious design, he advanced one
      hundred miles to the north-east of Delhi, passed the Ganges,
      fought several battles by land and water, and penetrated to the
      famous rock of Coupele, the statue of the cow, 253 that _seems_
      to discharge the mighty river, whose source is far distant among
      the mountains of Thibet. 26 His return was along the skirts of
      the northern hills; nor could this rapid campaign of one year
      justify the strange foresight of his emirs, that their children
      in a warm climate would degenerate into a race of Hindoos.

      24 (return) [ For the Indian war, see the Institutions, (p.
      129—139,) the fourth book of Sherefeddin, and the history of
      Ferishta, (in Dow, vol. ii. p. 1—20,) which throws a general
      light on the affairs of Hindostan.]

      241 (return) [ Gibbon (observes M. von Hammer) is mistaken in the
      correspondence of the ninety-two squadrons of his army with the
      ninety-two names of God: the names of God are ninety-nine. and
      Allah is the hundredth, p. 286, note. But Gibbon speaks of the
      names or epithets of Mahomet, not of God.—M.]

      25 (return) [ The rivers of the Punjab, the five eastern branches
      of the Indus, have been laid down for the first time with truth
      and accuracy in Major Rennel’s incomparable map of Hindostan. In
      this Critical Memoir he illustrates with judgment and learning
      the marches of Alexander and Timour. * Note See vol. i. ch. ii.
      note 1.—M.]

      251 (return) [ They took, on their march, 100,000 slaves, Guebers
      they were all murdered. V. Hammer, vol. i. p. 286. They are
      called idolaters. Briggs’s Ferishta, vol. i. p. 491.—M.]

      252 (return) [ See a curious passage on the destruction of the
      Hindoo idols, Memoirs, p. 15.—M.]

      253 (return) [ Consult the very striking description of the Cow’s
      Mouth by Captain Hodgson, Asiat. Res. vol. xiv. p. 117. “A most
      wonderful scene. The B’hagiratha or Ganges issues from under a
      very low arch at the foot of the grand snow bed. My guide, an
      illiterate mountaineer compared the pendent icicles to Mahodeva’s
      hair.” (Compare Poems, Quarterly Rev. vol. xiv. p. 37, and at the
      end of my translation of Nala.) “Hindoos of research may formerly
      have been here; and if so, I cannot think of any place to which
      they might more aptly give the name of a cow’s mouth than to this
      extraordinary debouche.”—M.]

      26 (return) [ The two great rivers, the Ganges and Burrampooter,
      rise in Thibet, from the opposite ridges of the same hills,
      separate from each other to the distance of 1200 miles, and,
      after a winding course of 2000 miles, again meet in one point
      near the Gulf of Bengal. Yet so capricious is Fame, that the
      Burrampooter is a late discovery, while his brother Ganges has
      been the theme of ancient and modern story Coupele, the scene of
      Timour’s last victory, must be situate near Loldong, 1100 miles
      from Calcutta; and in 1774, a British camp! (Rennel’s Memoir, p.
      7, 59, 90, 91, 99.)]

      It was on the banks of the Ganges that Timour was informed, by
      his speedy messengers, of the disturbances which had arisen on
      the confines of Georgia and Anatolia, of the revolt of the
      Christians, and the ambitious designs of the sultan Bajazet. His
      vigor of mind and body was not impaired by sixty-three years, and
      innumerable fatigues; and, after enjoying some tranquil months in
      the palace of Samarcand, he proclaimed a new expedition of seven
      years into the western countries of Asia. 27 To the soldiers who
      had served in the Indian war he granted the choice of remaining
      at home, or following their prince; but the troops of all the
      provinces and kingdoms of Persia were commanded to assemble at
      Ispahan, and wait the arrival of the Imperial standard. It was
      first directed against the Christians of Georgia, who were strong
      only in their rocks, their castles, and the winter season; but
      these obstacles were overcome by the zeal and perseverance of
      Timour: the rebels submitted to the tribute or the Koran; and if
      both religions boasted of their martyrs, that name is more justly
      due to the Christian prisoners, who were offered the choice of
      abjuration or death. On his descent from the hills, the emperor
      gave audience to the first ambassadors of Bajazet, and opened the
      hostile correspondence of complaints and menaces, which fermented
      two years before the final explosion. Between two jealous and
      haughty neighbors, the motives of quarrel will seldom be wanting.
      The Mogul and Ottoman conquests now touched each other in the
      neighborhood of Erzeroum, and the Euphrates; nor had the doubtful
      limit been ascertained by time and treaty. Each of these
      ambitious monarchs might accuse his rival of violating his
      territory, of threatening his vassals, and protecting his rebels;
      and, by the name of rebels, each understood the fugitive princes,
      whose kingdoms he had usurped, and whose life or liberty he
      implacably pursued. The resemblance of character was still more
      dangerous than the opposition of interest; and in their
      victorious career, Timour was impatient of an equal, and Bajazet
      was ignorant of a superior. The first epistle 28 of the Mogul
      emperor must have provoked, instead of reconciling, the Turkish
      sultan, whose family and nation he affected to despise. 29 “Dost
      thou not know, that the greatest part of Asia is subject to our
      arms and our laws? that our invincible forces extend from one sea
      to the other? that the potentates of the earth form a line before
      our gate? and that we have compelled Fortune herself to watch
      over the prosperity of our empire. What is the foundation of thy
      insolence and folly? Thou hast fought some battles in the woods
      of Anatolia; contemptible trophies! Thou hast obtained some
      victories over the Christians of Europe; thy sword was blessed by
      the apostle of God; and thy obedience to the precept of the
      Koran, in waging war against the infidels, is the sole
      consideration that prevents us from destroying thy country, the
      frontier and bulwark of the Moslem world. Be wise in time;
      reflect; repent; and avert the thunder of our vengeance, which is
      yet suspended over thy head. Thou art no more than a pismire; why
      wilt thou seek to provoke the elephants? Alas! they will trample
      thee under their feet.” In his replies, Bajazet poured forth the
      indignation of a soul which was deeply stung by such unusual
      contempt. After retorting the basest reproaches on the thief and
      rebel of the desert, the Ottoman recapitulates his boasted
      victories in Iran, Touran, and the Indies; and labors to prove,
      that Timour had never triumphed unless by his own perfidy and the
      vices of his foes. “Thy armies are innumerable: be they so; but
      what are the arrows of the flying Tartar against the cimeters and
      battle-axes of my firm and invincible Janizaries? I will guard
      the princes who have implored my protection: seek them in my
      tents. The cities of Arzingan and Erzeroum are mine; and unless
      the tribute be duly paid, I will demand the arrears under the
      walls of Tauris and Sultania.” The ungovernable rage of the
      sultan at length betrayed him to an insult of a more domestic
      kind. “If I fly from thy arms,” said he, “may _my_ wives be
      thrice divorced from my bed: but if thou hast not courage to meet
      me in the field, mayest thou again receive _thy_ wives after they
      have thrice endured the embraces of a stranger.” 30 Any violation
      by word or deed of the secrecy of the harem is an unpardonable
      offence among the Turkish nations; 31 and the political quarrel
      of the two monarchs was imbittered by private and personal
      resentment. Yet in his first expedition, Timour was satisfied
      with the siege and destruction of Siwas or Sebaste, a strong city
      on the borders of Anatolia; and he revenged the indiscretion of
      the Ottoman, on a garrison of four thousand Armenians, who were
      buried alive for the brave and faithful discharge of their duty.
      311 As a Mussulman, he seemed to respect the pious occupation of
      Bajazet, who was still engaged in the blockade of Constantinople;
      and after this salutary lesson, the Mogul conqueror checked his
      pursuit, and turned aside to the invasion of Syria and Egypt. In
      these transactions, the Ottoman prince, by the Orientals, and
      even by Timour, is styled the _Kaissar of Roum_, the Cæsar of the
      Romans; a title which, by a small anticipation, might be given to
      a monarch who possessed the provinces, and threatened the city,
      of the successors of Constantine. 32

      27 (return) [ See the Institutions, p. 141, to the end of the 1st
      book, and Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 1—16,) to the entrance of Timour
      into Syria.]

      28 (return) [ We have three copies of these hostile epistles in
      the Institutions, (p. 147,) in Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 14,) and in
      Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 19 p. 183—201;) which agree with each
      other in the spirit and substance rather than in the style. It is
      probable, that they have been translated, with various latitude,
      from the Turkish original into the Arabic and Persian tongues. *
      Note: Von Hammer considers the letter which Gibbon inserted in
      the text to be spurious. On the various copies of these letters,
      see his note, p 116.—M.]

      29 (return) [ The Mogul emir distinguishes himself and his
      countrymen by the name of _Turks_, and stigmatizes the race and
      nation of Bajazet with the less honorable epithet of _Turkmans_.
      Yet I do not understand how the Ottomans could be descended from
      a Turkman sailor; those inland shepherds were so remote from the
      sea, and all maritime affairs. * Note: Price translated the word
      pilot or boatman.—M.]

      30 (return) [ According to the Koran, (c. ii. p. 27, and Sale’s
      Discourses, p. 134,) Mussulman who had thrice divorced his wife,
      (who had thrice repeated the words of a divorce,) could not take
      her again, till after she had been married _to_, and repudiated
      _by_, another husband; an ignominious transaction, which it is
      needless to aggravate, by supposing that the first husband must
      see her enjoyed by a second before his face, (Rycaut’s State of
      the Ottoman Empire, l. ii. c. 21.)]

      31 (return) [ The common delicacy of the Orientals, in never
      speaking of their women, is ascribed in a much higher degree by
      Arabshah to the Turkish nations; and it is remarkable enough,
      that Chalcondyles (l. ii. p. 55) had some knowledge of the
      prejudice and the insult. * Note: See Von Hammer, p. 308, and
      note, p. 621.—M.]

      311 (return) [ Still worse barbarities were perpetrated on these
      brave men. Von Hammer, vol. i. p. 295.—M.]

      32 (return) [ For the style of the Moguls, see the Institutions,
      (p. 131, 147,) and for the Persians, the Bibliothèque Orientale,
      (p. 882;) but I do not find that the title of Cæsar has been
      applied by the Arabians, or assumed by the Ottomans themselves.]




      Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His
      Death.—Part II.

      The military republic of the Mamalukes still reigned in Egypt and
      Syria: but the dynasty of the Turks was overthrown by that of the
      Circassians; 33 and their favorite Barkok, from a slave and a
      prisoner, was raised and restored to the throne. In the midst of
      rebellion and discord, he braved the menaces, corresponded with
      the enemies, and detained the ambassadors, of the Mogul, who
      patiently expected his decease, to revenge the crimes of the
      father on the feeble reign of his son Farage. The Syrian emirs 34
      were assembled at Aleppo to repel the invasion: they confided in
      the fame and discipline of the Mamalukes, in the temper of their
      swords and lances of the purest steel of Damascus, in the
      strength of their walled cities, and in the populousness of sixty
      thousand villages; and instead of sustaining a siege, they threw
      open their gates, and arrayed their forces in the plain. But
      these forces were not cemented by virtue and union; and some
      powerful emirs had been seduced to desert or betray their more
      loyal companions. Timour’s front was covered with a line of
      Indian elephants, whose turrets were filled with archers and
      Greek fire: the rapid evolutions of his cavalry completed the
      dismay and disorder; the Syrian crowds fell back on each other:
      many thousands were stifled or slaughtered in the entrance of the
      great street; the Moguls entered with the fugitives; and after a
      short defence, the citadel, the impregnable citadel of Aleppo,
      was surrendered by cowardice or treachery. Among the suppliants
      and captives, Timour distinguished the doctors of the law, whom
      he invited to the dangerous honor of a personal conference. 35
      The Mogul prince was a zealous Mussulman; but his Persian schools
      had taught him to revere the memory of Ali and Hosein; and he had
      imbibed a deep prejudice against the Syrians, as the enemies of
      the son of the daughter of the apostle of God. To these doctors
      he proposed a captious question, which the casuists of Bochara,
      Samarcand, and Herat, were incapable of resolving. “Who are the
      true martyrs, of those who are slain on my side, or on that of my
      enemies?” But he was silenced, or satisfied, by the dexterity of
      one of the cadhis of Aleppo, who replied in the words of Mahomet
      himself, that the motive, not the ensign, constitutes the martyr;
      and that the Moslems of either party, who fight only for the
      glory of God, may deserve that sacred appellation. The true
      succession of the caliphs was a controversy of a still more
      delicate nature; and the frankness of a doctor, too honest for
      his situation, provoked the emperor to exclaim, “Ye are as false
      as those of Damascus: Moawiyah was a usurper, Yezid a tyrant, and
      Ali alone is the lawful successor of the prophet.” A prudent
      explanation restored his tranquillity; and he passed to a more
      familiar topic of conversation. “What is your age?” said he to
      the cadhi. “Fifty years.”—“It would be the age of my eldest son:
      you see me here (continued Timour) a poor lame, decrepit mortal.
      Yet by my arm has the Almighty been pleased to subdue the
      kingdoms of Iran, Touran, and the Indies. I am not a man of
      blood; and God is my witness, that in all my wars I have never
      been the aggressor, and that my enemies have always been the
      authors of their own calamity.” During this peaceful conversation
      the streets of Aleppo streamed with blood, and reechoed with the
      cries of mothers and children, with the shrieks of violated
      virgins. The rich plunder that was abandoned to his soldiers
      might stimulate their avarice; but their cruelty was enforced by
      the peremptory command of producing an adequate number of heads,
      which, according to his custom, were curiously piled in columns
      and pyramids: the Moguls celebrated the feast of victory, while
      the surviving Moslems passed the night in tears and in chains. I
      shall not dwell on the march of the destroyer from Aleppo to
      Damascus, where he was rudely encountered, and almost overthrown,
      by the armies of Egypt. A retrograde motion was imputed to his
      distress and despair: one of his nephews deserted to the enemy;
      and Syria rejoiced in the tale of his defeat, when the sultan was
      driven by the revolt of the Mamalukes to escape with
      precipitation and shame to his palace of Cairo. Abandoned by
      their prince, the inhabitants of Damascus still defended their
      walls; and Timour consented to raise the siege, if they would
      adorn his retreat with a gift or ransom; each article of nine
      pieces. But no sooner had he introduced himself into the city,
      under color of a truce, than he perfidiously violated the treaty;
      imposed a contribution of ten millions of gold; and animated his
      troops to chastise the posterity of those Syrians who had
      executed, or approved, the murder of the grandson of Mahomet. A
      family which had given honorable burial to the head of Hosein,
      and a colony of artificers, whom he sent to labor at Samarcand,
      were alone reserved in the general massacre, and after a period
      of seven centuries, Damascus was reduced to ashes, because a
      Tartar was moved by religious zeal to avenge the blood of an
      Arab. The losses and fatigues of the campaign obliged Timour to
      renounce the conquest of Palestine and Egypt; but in his return
      to the Euphrates he delivered Aleppo to the flames; and justified
      his pious motive by the pardon and reward of two thousand
      sectaries of Ali, who were desirous to visit the tomb of his son.
      I have expatiated on the personal anecdotes which mark the
      character of the Mogul hero; but I shall briefly mention, 36 that
      he erected on the ruins of Bagdad a pyramid of ninety thousand
      heads; again visited Georgia; encamped on the banks of Araxes;
      and proclaimed his resolution of marching against the Ottoman
      emperor. Conscious of the importance of the war, he collected his
      forces from every province: eight hundred thousand men were
      enrolled on his military list; 37 but the splendid commands of
      five, and ten, thousand horse, may be rather expressive of the
      rank and pension of the chiefs, than of the genuine number of
      effective soldiers. 38 In the pillage of Syria, the Moguls had
      acquired immense riches: but the delivery of their pay and
      arrears for seven years more firmly attached them to the Imperial
      standard.

      33 (return) [ See the reigns of Barkok and Pharadge, in M. De
      Guignes, (tom. iv. l. xxii.,) who, from the Arabic texts of
      Aboulmahasen, Ebn (Schounah, and Aintabi, has added some facts to
      our common stock of materials.)]

      34 (return) [ For these recent and domestic transactions,
      Arabshah, though a partial, is a credible, witness, (tom. i. c.
      64—68, tom. ii. c. 1—14.) Timour must have been odious to a
      Syrian; but the notoriety of facts would have obliged him, in
      some measure, to respect his enemy and himself. His bitters may
      correct the luscious sweets of Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 17—29.)]

      35 (return) [ These interesting conversations appear to have been
      copied by Arabshah (tom. i. c. 68, p. 625—645) from the cadhi and
      historian Ebn Schounah, a principal actor. Yet how could he be
      alive seventy-five years afterwards? (D’Herbelot, p. 792.)]

      36 (return) [ The marches and occupations of Timour between the
      Syrian and Ottoman wars are represented by Sherefeddin (l. v. c.
      29—43) and Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 15—18.)]

      37 (return) [ This number of 800,000 was extracted by Arabshah,
      or rather by Ebn Schounah, ex rationario Timuri, on the faith of
      a Carizmian officer, (tom. i. c. 68, p. 617;) and it is
      remarkable enough, that a Greek historian (Phranza, l. i. c. 29)
      adds no more than 20,000 men. Poggius reckons 1,000,000; another
      Latin contemporary (Chron. Tarvisianum, apud Muratori, tom. xix.
      p. 800) 1,100,000; and the enormous sum of 1,600,000 is attested
      by a German soldier, who was present at the battle of Angora,
      (Leunclav. ad Chalcondyl. l. iii. p. 82.) Timour, in his
      Institutions, has not deigned to calculate his troops, his
      subjects, or his revenues.]

      38 (return) [ A wide latitude of non-effectives was allowed by
      the Great Mogul for his own pride and the benefit of his
      officers. Bernier’s patron was Penge-Hazari, commander of 5000
      horse; of which he maintained no more than 500, (Voyages, tom. i.
      p. 288, 289.)]

      During this diversion of the Mogul arms, Bajazet had two years to
      collect his forces for a more serious encounter. They consisted
      of four hundred thousand horse and foot, 39 whose merit and
      fidelity were of an unequal complexion. We may discriminate the
      Janizaries, who have been gradually raised to an establishment of
      forty thousand men; a national cavalry, the Spahis of modern
      times; twenty thousand cuirassiers of Europe, clad in black and
      impenetrable armor; the troops of Anatolia, whose princes had
      taken refuge in the camp of Timour, and a colony of Tartars, whom
      he had driven from Kipzak, and to whom Bajazet had assigned a
      settlement in the plains of Adrianople. The fearless confidence
      of the sultan urged him to meet his antagonist; and, as if he had
      chosen that spot for revenge, he displayed his banner near the
      ruins of the unfortunate Suvas. In the mean while, Timour moved
      from the Araxes through the countries of Armenia and Anatolia:
      his boldness was secured by the wisest precautions; his speed was
      guided by order and discipline; and the woods, the mountains, and
      the rivers, were diligently explored by the flying squadrons, who
      marked his road and preceded his standard. Firm in his plan of
      fighting in the heart of the Ottoman kingdom, he avoided their
      camp; dexterously inclined to the left; occupied Cæsarea;
      traversed the salt desert and the River Halys; and invested
      Angora: while the sultan, immovable and ignorant in his post,
      compared the Tartar swiftness to the crawling of a snail; 40 he
      returned on the wings of indignation to the relief of Angora: and
      as both generals were alike impatient for action, the plains
      round that city were the scene of a memorable battle, which has
      immortalized the glory of Timour and the shame of Bajazet. For
      this signal victory the Mogul emperor was indebted to himself, to
      the genius of the moment, and the discipline of thirty years. He
      had improved the tactics, without violating the manners, of his
      nation, 41 whose force still consisted in the missile weapons,
      and rapid evolutions, of a numerous cavalry. From a single troop
      to a great army, the mode of attack was the same: a foremost line
      first advanced to the charge, and was supported in a just order
      by the squadrons of the great vanguard. The general’s eye watched
      over the field, and at his command the front and rear of the
      right and left wings successively moved forwards in their several
      divisions, and in a direct or oblique line: the enemy was pressed
      by eighteen or twenty attacks; and each attack afforded a chance
      of victory. If they all proved fruitless or unsuccessful, the
      occasion was worthy of the emperor himself, who gave the signal
      of advancing to the standard and main body, which he led in
      person. 42 But in the battle of Angora, the main body itself was
      supported, on the flanks and in the rear, by the bravest
      squadrons of the reserve, commanded by the sons and grandsons of
      Timour. The conqueror of Hindostan ostentatiously showed a line
      of elephants, the trophies, rather than the instruments, of
      victory; the use of the Greek fire was familiar to the Moguls and
      Ottomans; but had they borrowed from Europe the recent invention
      of gunpowder and cannon, the artificial thunder, in the hands of
      either nation, must have turned the fortune of the day. 43 In
      that day Bajazet displayed the qualities of a soldier and a
      chief: but his genius sunk under a stronger ascendant; and, from
      various motives, the greatest part of his troops failed him in
      the decisive moment. His rigor and avarice 431 had provoked a
      mutiny among the Turks; and even his son Soliman too hastily
      withdrew from the field. The forces of Anatolia, loyal in their
      revolt, were drawn away to the banners of their lawful princes.
      His Tartar allies had been tempted by the letters and emissaries
      of Timour; 44 who reproached their ignoble servitude under the
      slaves of their fathers; and offered to their hopes the dominion
      of their new, or the liberty of their ancient, country. In the
      right wing of Bajazet the cuirassiers of Europe charged, with
      faithful hearts and irresistible arms: but these men of iron were
      soon broken by an artful flight and headlong pursuit; and the
      Janizaries, alone, without cavalry or missile weapons, were
      encompassed by the circle of the Mogul hunters. Their valor was
      at length oppressed by heat, thirst, and the weight of numbers;
      and the unfortunate sultan, afflicted with the gout in his hands
      and feet, was transported from the field on the fleetest of his
      horses. He was pursued and taken by the titular khan of Zagatai;
      and, after his capture, and the defeat of the Ottoman powers, the
      kingdom of Anatolia submitted to the conqueror, who planted his
      standard at Kiotahia, and dispersed on all sides the ministers of
      rapine and destruction. Mirza Mehemmed Sultan, the eldest and
      best beloved of his grandsons, was despatched to Boursa, with
      thirty thousand horse; and such was his youthful ardor, that he
      arrived with only four thousand at the gates of the capital,
      after performing in five days a march of two hundred and thirty
      miles. Yet fear is still more rapid in its course; and Soliman,
      the son of Bajazet, had already passed over to Europe with the
      royal treasure. The spoil, however, of the palace and city was
      immense: the inhabitants had escaped; but the buildings, for the
      most part of wood, were reduced to ashes. From Boursa, the
      grandson of Timour advanced to Nice, ever yet a fair and
      flourishing city; and the Mogul squadrons were only stopped by
      the waves of the Propontis. The same success attended the other
      mirzas and emirs in their excursions; and Smyrna, defended by the
      zeal and courage of the Rhodian knights, alone deserved the
      presence of the emperor himself. After an obstinate defence, the
      place was taken by storm: all that breathed was put to the sword;
      and the heads of the Christian heroes were launched from the
      engines, on board of two carracks, or great ships of Europe, that
      rode at anchor in the harbor. The Moslems of Asia rejoiced in
      their deliverance from a dangerous and domestic foe; and a
      parallel was drawn between the two rivals, by observing that
      Timour, in fourteen days, had reduced a fortress which had
      sustained seven years the siege, or at least the blockade, of
      Bajazet. 45

      39 (return) [ Timour himself fixes at 400,000 men the Ottoman
      army, (Institutions, p. 153,) which is reduced to 150,000 by
      Phranza, (l. i. c. 29,) and swelled by the German soldier to
      1,400,000. It is evident that the Moguls were the more numerous.]

      40 (return) [ It may not be useless to mark the distances between
      Angora and the neighboring cities, by the journeys of the
      caravans, each of twenty or twenty-five miles; to Smyrna xx., to
      Kiotahia x., to Boursa x., to Cæsarea, viii., to Sinope x., to
      Nicomedia ix., to Constantinople xii. or xiii., (see Tournefort,
      Voyage au Levant, tom. ii. lettre xxi.)]

      41 (return) [ See the Systems of Tactics in the Institutions,
      which the English editors have illustrated with elaborate plans,
      (p. 373—407.)]

      42 (return) [ The sultan himself (says Timour) must then put the
      foot of courage into the stirrup of patience. A Tartar metaphor,
      which is lost in the English, but preserved in the French,
      version of the Institutes, (p. 156, 157.)]

      43 (return) [ The Greek fire, on Timour’s side, is attested by
      Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 47;) but Voltaire’s strange suspicion,
      that some cannon, inscribed with strange characters, must have
      been sent by that monarch to Delhi, is refuted by the universal
      silence of contemporaries.]

      431 (return) [ See V. Hammer, vol. i. p. 310, for the singular
      hints which were conveyed to him of the wisdom of unlocking his
      hoarded treasures.—M.]

      44 (return) [ Timour has dissembled this secret and important
      negotiation with the Tartars, which is indisputably proved by the
      joint evidence of the Arabian, (tom. i. c. 47, p. 391,) Turkish,
      (Annal. Leunclav. p. 321,) and Persian historians, (Khondemir,
      apud d’Herbelot, p. 882.)]

      45 (return) [ For the war of Anatolia or Roum, I add some hints
      in the Institutions, to the copious narratives of Sherefeddin (l.
      v. c. 44—65) and Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 20—35.) On this part only
      of Timour’s history it is lawful to quote the Turks, (Cantemir,
      p. 53—55, Annal. Leunclav. p. 320—322,) and the Greeks, (Phranza,
      l. i. c. 59, Ducas, c. 15—17, Chalcondyles, l. iii.)]

      The _iron cage_ in which Bajazet was imprisoned by Tamerlane, so
      long and so often repeated as a moral lesson, is now rejected as
      a fable by the modern writers, who smile at the vulgar credulity.
      46 They appeal with confidence to the Persian history of
      Sherefeddin Ali, which has been given to our curiosity in a
      French version, and from which I shall collect and abridge a more
      specious narrative of this memorable transaction. No sooner was
      Timour informed that the captive Ottoman was at the door of his
      tent, than he graciously stepped forwards to receive him, seated
      him by his side, and mingled with just reproaches a soothing pity
      for his rank and misfortune. “Alas!” said the emperor, “the
      decree of fate is now accomplished by your own fault; it is the
      web which you have woven, the thorns of the tree which yourself
      have planted. I wished to spare, and even to assist, the champion
      of the Moslems; you braved our threats; you despised our
      friendship; you forced us to enter your kingdom with our
      invincible armies. Behold the event. Had you vanquished, I am not
      ignorant of the fate which you reserved for myself and my troops.
      But I disdain to retaliate: your life and honor are secure; and I
      shall express my gratitude to God by my clemency to man.” The
      royal captive showed some signs of repentance, accepted the
      humiliation of a robe of honor, and embraced with tears his son
      Mousa, who, at his request, was sought and found among the
      captives of the field. The Ottoman princes were lodged in a
      splendid pavilion; and the respect of the guards could be
      surpassed only by their vigilance. On the arrival of the harem
      from Boursa, Timour restored the queen Despina and her daughter
      to their father and husband; but he piously required, that the
      Servian princess, who had hitherto been indulged in the
      profession of Christianity, should embrace without delay the
      religion of the prophet. In the feast of victory, to which
      Bajazet was invited, the Mogul emperor placed a crown on his head
      and a sceptre in his hand, with a solemn assurance of restoring
      him with an increase of glory to the throne of his ancestors. But
      the effect of his promise was disappointed by the sultan’s
      untimely death: amidst the care of the most skilful physicians,
      he expired of an apoplexy at Akshehr, the Antioch of Pisidia,
      about nine months after his defeat. The victor dropped a tear
      over his grave: his body, with royal pomp, was conveyed to the
      mausoleum which he had erected at Boursa; and his son Mousa,
      after receiving a rich present of gold and jewels, of horses and
      arms, was invested by a patent in red ink with the kingdom of
      Anatolia.

      46 (return) [ The scepticism of Voltaire (Essai sur l’Histoire
      Générale, c. 88) is ready on this, as on every occasion, to
      reject a popular tale, and to diminish the magnitude of vice and
      virtue; and on most occasions his incredulity is reasonable.]

      Such is the portrait of a generous conqueror, which has been
      extracted from his own memorials, and dedicated to his son and
      grandson, nineteen years after his decease; 47 and, at a time
      when the truth was remembered by thousands, a manifest falsehood
      would have implied a satire on his real conduct. Weighty indeed
      is this evidence, adopted by all the Persian histories; 48 yet
      flattery, more especially in the East, is base and audacious; and
      the harsh and ignominious treatment of Bajazet is attested by a
      chain of witnesses, some of whom shall be produced in the order
      of their time and country. _1._ The reader has not forgot the
      garrison of French, whom the marshal Boucicault left behind him
      for the defence of Constantinople. They were on the spot to
      receive the earliest and most faithful intelligence of the
      overthrow of their great adversary; and it is more than probable,
      that some of them accompanied the Greek embassy to the camp of
      Tamerlane. From their account, the _hardships_ of the prison and
      death of Bajazet are affirmed by the marshal’s servant and
      historian, within the distance of seven years. 49 _2._ The name
      of Poggius the Italian 50 is deservedly famous among the revivers
      of learning in the fifteenth century. His elegant dialogue on the
      vicissitudes of fortune 51 was composed in his fiftieth year,
      twenty-eight years after the Turkish victory of Tamerlane; 52
      whom he celebrates as not inferior to the illustrious Barbarians
      of antiquity. Of his exploits and discipline Poggius was informed
      by several ocular witnesses; nor does he forget an example so
      apposite to his theme as the Ottoman monarch, whom the Scythian
      confined like a wild beast in an iron cage, and exhibited a
      spectacle to Asia. I might add the authority of two Italian
      chronicles, perhaps of an earlier date, which would prove at
      least that the same story, whether false or true, was imported
      into Europe with the first tidings of the revolution. 53 _3._ At
      the time when Poggius flourished at Rome, Ahmed Ebn Arabshah
      composed at Damascus the florid and malevolent history of Timour,
      for which he had collected materials in his journeys over Turkey
      and Tartary. 54 Without any possible correspondence between the
      Latin and the Arabian writer, they agree in the fact of the iron
      cage; and their agreement is a striking proof of their common
      veracity. Ahmed Arabshah likewise relates another outrage, which
      Bajazet endured, of a more domestic and tender nature. His
      indiscreet mention of women and divorces was deeply resented by
      the jealous Tartar: in the feast of victory the wine was served
      by female cupbearers, and the sultan beheld his own concubines
      and wives confounded among the slaves, and exposed without a veil
      to the eyes of intemperance. To escape a similar indignity, it is
      said that his successors, except in a single instance, have
      abstained from legitimate nuptials; and the Ottoman practice and
      belief, at least in the sixteenth century, is asserted by the
      observing Busbequius, 55 ambassador from the court of Vienna to
      the great Soliman. _4._ Such is the separation of language, that
      the testimony of a Greek is not less independent than that of a
      Latin or an Arab. I suppress the names of Chalcondyles and Ducas,
      who flourished in the latter period, and who speak in a less
      positive tone; but more attention is due to George Phranza, 56
      protovestiare of the last emperors, and who was born a year
      before the battle of Angora. Twenty-two years after that event,
      he was sent ambassador to Amurath the Second; and the historian
      might converse with some veteran Janizaries, who had been made
      prisoners with the sultan, and had themselves seen him in his
      iron cage. 5. The last evidence, in every sense, is that of the
      Turkish annals, which have been consulted or transcribed by
      Leunclavius, Pocock, and Cantemir. 57 They unanimously deplore
      the captivity of the iron cage; and some credit may be allowed to
      national historians, who cannot stigmatize the Tartar without
      uncovering the shame of their king and country.

      47 (return) [ See the History of Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 49, 52,
      53, 59, 60.) This work was finished at Shiraz, in the year 1424,
      and dedicated to Sultan Ibrahim, the son of Sharokh, the son of
      Timour, who reigned in Farsistan in his father’s lifetime.]

      48 (return) [ After the perusal of Khondemir, Ebn Schounah, &c.,
      the learned D’Herbelot (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 882) may affirm,
      that this fable is not mentioned in the most authentic histories;
      but his denial of the visible testimony of Arabshah leaves some
      room to suspect his accuracy.]

      49 (return) [ Et fut lui-même (Bajazet) pris, et mené en prison,
      en laquelle mourut de _dure mort!_ Mémoires de Boucicault, P. i.
      c. 37. These Memoirs were composed while the marshal was still
      governor of Genoa, from whence he was expelled in the year 1409,
      by a popular insurrection, (Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom. xii.
      p. 473, 474.)]

      50 (return) [ The reader will find a satisfactory account of the
      life and writings of Poggius in the Poggiana, an entertaining
      work of M. Lenfant, and in the Bibliotheca Latina Mediæ et Infimæ
      Ætatis of Fabricius, (tom. v. p. 305—308.) Poggius was born in
      the year 1380, and died in 1459.]

      51 (return) [ The dialogue de Varietate Fortunæ, (of which a
      complete and elegant edition has been published at Paris in 1723,
      in 4to.,) was composed a short time before the death of Pope
      Martin V., (p. 5,) and consequently about the end of the year
      1430.]

      52 (return) [ See a splendid and eloquent encomium of Tamerlane,
      p. 36—39 ipse enim novi (says Poggius) qui fuere in ejus
      castris.... Regem vivum cepit, caveâque in modum feræ inclusum
      per omnem Asian circumtulit egregium admirandumque spectaculum
      fortunæ.]

      53 (return) [ The Chronicon Tarvisianum, (in Muratori, Script.
      Rerum Italicarum tom. xix. p. 800,) and the Annales Estenses,
      (tom. xviii. p. 974.) The two authors, Andrea de Redusiis de
      Quero, and James de Delayto, were both contemporaries, and both
      chancellors, the one of Trevigi, the other of Ferrara. The
      evidence of the former is the most positive.]

      54 (return) [ See Arabshah, tom. ii. c. 28, 34. He travelled in
      regiones Rumæas, A. H. 839, (A.D. 1435, July 27,) tom. i. c. 2,
      p. 13.]

      55 (return) [ Busbequius in Legatione Turcicâ, epist. i. p. 52.
      Yet his respectable authority is somewhat shaken by the
      subsequent marriages of Amurath II. with a Servian, and of
      Mahomet II. with an Asiatic, princess, (Cantemir, p. 83, 93.)]

      56 (return) [ See the testimony of George Phranza, (l. i. c. 29,)
      and his life in Hanckius (de Script. Byzant. P. i. c. 40.)
      Chalcondyles and Ducas speak in general terms of Bajazet’s
      _chains_.]

      57 (return) [ Annales Leunclav. p. 321. Pocock, Prolegomen. ad
      Abulpharag Dynast. Cantemir, p. 55. * Note: Von Hammer, p. 318,
      cites several authorities unknown to Gibbon.—M.]

      From these opposite premises, a fair and moderate conclusion may
      be deduced. I am satisfied that Sherefeddin Ali has faithfully
      described the first ostentatious interview, in which the
      conqueror, whose spirits were harmonized by success, affected the
      character of generosity. But his mind was insensibly alienated by
      the unseasonable arrogance of Bajazet; the complaints of his
      enemies, the Anatolian princes, were just and vehement; and
      Timour betrayed a design of leading his royal captive in triumph
      to Samarcand. An attempt to facilitate his escape, by digging a
      mine under the tent, provoked the Mogul emperor to impose a
      harsher restraint; and in his perpetual marches, an iron cage on
      a wagon might be invented, not as a wanton insult, but as a
      rigorous precaution. Timour had read in some fabulous history a
      similar treatment of one of his predecessors, a king of Persia;
      and Bajazet was condemned to represent the person, and expiate
      the guilt, of the Roman Cæsar 58 581 But the strength of his mind
      and body fainted under the trial, and his premature death might,
      without injustice, be ascribed to the severity of Timour. He
      warred not with the dead: a tear and a sepulchre were all that he
      could bestow on a captive who was delivered from his power; and
      if Mousa, the son of Bajazet, was permitted to reign over the
      ruins of Boursa, the greatest part of the province of Anatolia
      had been restored by the conqueror to their lawful sovereigns.

      58 (return) [ Sapor, king of Persia, had been made prisoner, and
      enclosed in the figure of a cow’s hide by Maximian or Galerius
      Cæsar. Such is the fable related by Eutychius, (Annal. tom. i. p.
      421, vers. Pocock). The recollection of the true history (Decline
      and Fall, &c., vol. ii. p 140—152) will teach us to appreciate
      the knowledge of the Orientals of the ages which precede the
      Hegira.]

      581 (return) [ Von Hammer’s explanation of this contested point
      is both simple and satisfactory. It originates in a mistake in
      the meaning of the Turkish word kafe, which means a covered
      litter or palanquin drawn by two horses, and is generally used to
      convey the harem of an Eastern monarch. In such a litter, with
      the lattice-work made of iron, Bajazet either chose or was
      constrained to travel. This was either mistaken for, or
      transformed by, ignorant relaters into a cage. The European
      Schiltberger, the two oldest of the Turkish historians, and the
      most valuable of the later compilers, Seadeddin, describe this
      litter. Seadeddin discusses the question with some degree of
      historical criticism, and ascribes the choice of such a vehicle
      to the indignant state of Bajazet’s mind, which would not brook
      the sight of his Tartar conquerors. Von Hammer, p. 320.—M.]

      From the Irtish and Volga to the Persian Gulf, and from the
      Ganges to Damascus and the Archipelago, Asia was in the hand of
      Timour: his armies were invincible, his ambition was boundless,
      and his zeal might aspire to conquer and convert the Christian
      kingdoms of the West, which already trembled at his name. He
      touched the utmost verge of the land; but an insuperable, though
      narrow, sea rolled between the two continents of Europe and Asia;
      59 and the lord of so many _tomans_, or myriads, of horse, was
      not master of a single galley. The two passages of the Bosphorus
      and Hellespont, of Constantinople and Gallipoli, were possessed,
      the one by the Christians, the other by the Turks. On this great
      occasion, they forgot the difference of religion, to act with
      union and firmness in the common cause: the double straits were
      guarded with ships and fortifications; and they separately
      withheld the transports which Timour demanded of either nation,
      under the pretence of attacking their enemy. At the same time,
      they soothed his pride with tributary gifts and suppliant
      embassies, and prudently tempted him to retreat with the honors
      of victory. Soliman, the son of Bajazet, implored his clemency
      for his father and himself; accepted, by a red patent, the
      investiture of the kingdom of Romania, which he already held by
      the sword; and reiterated his ardent wish, of casting himself in
      person at the feet of the king of the world. The Greek emperor 60
      (either John or Manuel) submitted to pay the same tribute which
      he had stipulated with the Turkish sultan, and ratified the
      treaty by an oath of allegiance, from which he could absolve his
      conscience so soon as the Mogul arms had retired from Anatolia.
      But the fears and fancy of nations ascribed to the ambitious
      Tamerlane a new design of vast and romantic compass; a design of
      subduing Egypt and Africa, marching from the Nile to the Atlantic
      Ocean, entering Europe by the Straits of Gibraltar, and, after
      imposing his yoke on the kingdoms of Christendom, of returning
      home by the deserts of Russia and Tartary. This remote, and
      perhaps imaginary, danger was averted by the submission of the
      sultan of Egypt: the honors of the prayer and the coin attested
      at Cairo the supremacy of Timour; and a rare gift of a _giraffe_,
      or camelopard, and nine ostriches, represented at Samarcand the
      tribute of the African world. Our imagination is not less
      astonished by the portrait of a Mogul, who, in his camp before
      Smyrna, meditates, and almost accomplishes, the invasion of the
      Chinese empire. 61 Timour was urged to this enterprise by
      national honor and religious zeal. The torrents which he had shed
      of Mussulman blood could be expiated only by an equal destruction
      of the infidels; and as he now stood at the gates of paradise, he
      might best secure his glorious entrance by demolishing the idols
      of China, founding mosques in every city, and establishing the
      profession of faith in one God, and his prophet Mahomet. The
      recent expulsion of the house of Zingis was an insult on the
      Mogul name; and the disorders of the empire afforded the fairest
      opportunity for revenge. The illustrious Hongvou, founder of the
      dynasty of _Ming_, died four years before the battle of Angora;
      and his grandson, a weak and unfortunate youth, was burnt in his
      palace, after a million of Chinese had perished in the civil war.
      62 Before he evacuated Anatolia, Timour despatched beyond the
      Sihoon a numerous army, or rather colony, of his old and new
      subjects, to open the road, to subdue the Pagan Calmucks and
      Mungals, and to found cities and magazines in the desert; and, by
      the diligence of his lieutenant, he soon received a perfect map
      and description of the unknown regions, from the source of the
      Irtish to the wall of China. During these preparations, the
      emperor achieved the final conquest of Georgia; passed the winter
      on the banks of the Araxes; appeased the troubles of Persia; and
      slowly returned to his capital, after a campaign of four years
      and nine months.

      59 (return) [ Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 25) describes, like a curious
      traveller, the Straits of Gallipoli and Constantinople. To
      acquire a just idea of these events, I have compared the
      narratives and prejudices of the Moguls, Turks, Greeks, and
      Arabians. The Spanish ambassador mentions this hostile union of
      the Christians and Ottomans, (Vie de Timour, p. 96.)]

      60 (return) [ Since the name of Cæsar had been transferred to the
      sultans of Roum, the Greek princes of Constantinople
      (Sherefeddin, l. v. c. 54) were confounded with the Christian
      _lords_ of Gallipoli, Thessalonica, &c. under the title of
      _Tekkur_, which is derived by corruption from the genitive tou
      kuriou, (Cantemir, p. 51.)]

      61 (return) [ See Sherefeddin, l. v. c. 4, who marks, in a just
      itinerary, the road to China, which Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 33)
      paints in vague and rhetorical colors.]

      62 (return) [ Synopsis Hist. Sinicæ, p. 74—76, (in the ivth part
      of the Relations de Thevenot,) Duhalde, Hist. de la Chine, (tom.
      i. p. 507, 508, folio edition;) and for the Chronology of the
      Chinese emperors, De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, (tom. i. p. 71,
      72.)]




      Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His
      Death.—Part III.

      On the throne of Samarcand, 63 he displayed, in a short repose,
      his magnificence and power; listened to the complaints of the
      people; distributed a just measure of rewards and punishments;
      employed his riches in the architecture of palaces and temples;
      and gave audience to the ambassadors of Egypt, Arabia, India,
      Tartary, Russia, and Spain, the last of whom presented a suit of
      tapestry which eclipsed the pencil of the Oriental artists. The
      marriage of six of the emperor’s grandsons was esteemed an act of
      religion as well as of paternal tenderness; and the pomp of the
      ancient caliphs was revived in their nuptials. They were
      celebrated in the gardens of Canighul, decorated with innumerable
      tents and pavilions, which displayed the luxury of a great city
      and the spoils of a victorious camp. Whole forests were cut down
      to supply fuel for the kitchens; the plain was spread with
      pyramids of meat, and vases of every liquor, to which thousands
      of guests were courteously invited: the orders of the state, and
      the nations of the earth, were marshalled at the royal banquet;
      nor were the ambassadors of Europe (says the haughty Persian)
      excluded from the feast; since even the _casses_, the smallest of
      fish, find their place in the ocean. 64 The public joy was
      testified by illuminations and masquerades; the trades of
      Samarcand passed in review; and every trade was emulous to
      execute some quaint device, some marvellous pageant, with the
      materials of their peculiar art. After the marriage contracts had
      been ratified by the cadhis, the bride-grooms and their brides
      retired to the nuptial chambers: nine times, according to the
      Asiatic fashion, they were dressed and undressed; and at each
      change of apparel, pearls and rubies were showered on their
      heads, and contemptuously abandoned to their attendants. A
      general indulgence was proclaimed: every law was relaxed, every
      pleasure was allowed; the people was free, the sovereign was
      idle; and the historian of Timour may remark, that, after
      devoting fifty years to the attainment of empire, the only happy
      period of his life were the two months in which he ceased to
      exercise his power. But he was soon awakened to the cares of
      government and war. The standard was unfurled for the invasion of
      China: the emirs made their report of two hundred thousand, the
      select and veteran soldiers of Iran and Touran: their baggage and
      provisions were transported by five hundred great wagons, and an
      immense train of horses and camels; and the troops might prepare
      for a long absence, since more than six months were employed in
      the tranquil journey of a caravan from Samarcand to Pekin.
      Neither age, nor the severity of the winter, could retard the
      impatience of Timour; he mounted on horseback, passed the Sihoon
      on the ice, marched seventy-six parasangs, three hundred miles,
      from his capital, and pitched his last camp in the neighborhood
      of Otrar, where he was expected by the angel of death. Fatigue,
      and the indiscreet use of iced water, accelerated the progress of
      his fever; and the conqueror of Asia expired in the seventieth
      year of his age, thirty-five years after he had ascended the
      throne of Zagatai. His designs were lost; his armies were
      disbanded; China was saved; and fourteen years after his decease,
      the most powerful of his children sent an embassy of friendship
      and commerce to the court of Pekin. 65

      63 (return) [ For the return, triumph, and death of Timour, see
      Sherefeddin (l. vi. c. 1—30) and Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 36—47.)]

      64 (return) [ Sherefeddin (l. vi. c. 24) mentions the ambassadors
      of one of the most potent sovereigns of Europe. We know that it
      was Henry III. king of Castile; and the curious relation of his
      two embassies is still extant, (Mariana, Hist. Hispan. l. xix. c.
      11, tom. ii. p. 329, 330. Avertissement à l’Hist. de Timur Bec,
      p. 28—33.) There appears likewise to have been some
      correspondence between the Mogul emperor and the court of Charles
      VII. king of France, (Histoire de France, par Velly et Villaret,
      tom. xii. p. 336.)]

      65 (return) [ See the translation of the Persian account of their
      embassy, a curious and original piece, (in the ivth part of the
      Relations de Thevenot.) They presented the emperor of China with
      an old horse which Timour had formerly rode. It was in the year
      1419 that they departed from the court of Herat, to which place
      they returned in 1422 from Pekin.]

      The fame of Timour has pervaded the East and West: his posterity
      is still invested with the Imperial _title_; and the admiration
      of his subjects, who revered him almost as a deity, may be
      justified in some degree by the praise or confession of his
      bitterest enemies. 66 Although he was lame of a hand and foot,
      his form and stature were not unworthy of his rank; and his
      vigorous health, so essential to himself and to the world, was
      corroborated by temperance and exercise. In his familiar
      discourse he was grave and modest, and if he was ignorant of the
      Arabic language, he spoke with fluency and elegance the Persian
      and Turkish idioms. It was his delight to converse with the
      learned on topics of history and science; and the amusement of
      his leisure hours was the game of chess, which he improved or
      corrupted with new refinements. 67 In his religion he was a
      zealous, though not perhaps an orthodox, Mussulman; 68 but his
      sound understanding may tempt us to believe, that a superstitious
      reverence for omens and prophecies, for saints and astrologers,
      was only affected as an instrument of policy. In the government
      of a vast empire, he stood alone and absolute, without a rebel to
      oppose his power, a favorite to seduce his affections, or a
      minister to mislead his judgment. It was his firmest maxim, that
      whatever might be the consequence, the word of the prince should
      never be disputed or recalled; but his foes have maliciously
      observed, that the commands of anger and destruction were more
      strictly executed than those of beneficence and favor. His sons
      and grandsons, of whom Timour left six-and-thirty at his decease,
      were his first and most submissive subjects; and whenever they
      deviated from their duty, they were corrected, according to the
      laws of Zingis, with the bastinade, and afterwards restored to
      honor and command. Perhaps his heart was not devoid of the social
      virtues; perhaps he was not incapable of loving his friends and
      pardoning his enemies; but the rules of morality are founded on
      the public interest; and it may be sufficient to applaud the
      _wisdom_ of a monarch, for the liberality by which he is not
      impoverished, and for the justice by which he is strengthened and
      enriched. To maintain the harmony of authority and obedience, to
      chastise the proud, to protect the weak, to reward the deserving,
      to banish vice and idleness from his dominions, to secure the
      traveller and merchant, to restrain the depredations of the
      soldier, to cherish the labors of the husbandman, to encourage
      industry and learning, and, by an equal and moderate assessment,
      to increase the revenue, without increasing the taxes, are indeed
      the duties of a prince; but, in the discharge of these duties, he
      finds an ample and immediate recompense. Timour might boast,
      that, at his accession to the throne, Asia was the prey of
      anarchy and rapine, whilst under his prosperous monarchy a child,
      fearless and unhurt, might carry a purse of gold from the East to
      the West. Such was his confidence of merit, that from this
      reformation he derived an excuse for his victories, and a title
      to universal dominion. The four following observations will serve
      to appreciate his claim to the public gratitude; and perhaps we
      shall conclude, that the Mogul emperor was rather the scourge
      than the benefactor of mankind. _1._ If some partial disorders,
      some local oppressions, were healed by the sword of Timour, the
      remedy was far more pernicious than the disease. By their rapine,
      cruelty, and discord, the petty tyrants of Persia might afflict
      their subjects; but whole nations were crushed under the
      footsteps of the reformer. The ground which had been occupied by
      flourishing cities was often marked by his abominable trophies,
      by columns, or pyramids, of human heads. Astracan, Carizme,
      Delhi, Ispahan, Bagdad, Aleppo, Damascus, Boursa, Smyrna, and a
      thousand others, were sacked, or burnt, or utterly destroyed, in
      his presence, and by his troops: and perhaps his conscience would
      have been startled, if a priest or philosopher had dared to
      number the millions of victims whom he had sacrificed to the
      establishment of peace and order. 69 _2._ His most destructive
      wars were rather inroads than conquests. He invaded Turkestan,
      Kipzak, Russia, Hindostan, Syria, Anatolia, Armenia, and Georgia,
      without a hope or a desire of preserving those distant provinces.
      From thence he departed laden with spoil; but he left behind him
      neither troops to awe the contumacious, nor magistrates to
      protect the obedient, natives. When he had broken the fabric of
      their ancient government, he abandoned them to the evils which
      his invasion had aggravated or caused; nor were these evils
      compensated by any present or possible benefits. _3._ The
      kingdoms of Transoxiana and Persia were the proper field which he
      labored to cultivate and adorn, as the perpetual inheritance of
      his family. But his peaceful labors were often interrupted, and
      sometimes blasted, by the absence of the conqueror. While he
      triumphed on the Volga or the Ganges, his servants, and even his
      sons, forgot their master and their duty. The public and private
      injuries were poorly redressed by the tardy rigor of inquiry and
      punishment; and we must be content to praise the _Institutions_
      of Timour, as the specious idea of a perfect monarchy. _4._
      Whatsoever might be the blessings of his administration, they
      evaporated with his life. To reign, rather than to govern, was
      the ambition of his children and grandchildren; 70 the enemies of
      each other and of the people. A fragment of the empire was upheld
      with some glory by Sharokh, his youngest son; but after _his_
      decease, the scene was again involved in darkness and blood; and
      before the end of a century, Transoxiana and Persia were trampled
      by the Uzbeks from the north, and the Turkmans of the black and
      white sheep. The race of Timour would have been extinct, if a
      hero, his descendant in the fifth degree, had not fled before the
      Uzbek arms to the conquest of Hindostan. His successors (the
      great Moguls 71) extended their sway from the mountains of
      Cashmir to Cape Comorin, and from Candahar to the Gulf of Bengal.
      Since the reign of Aurungzebe, their empire had been dissolved;
      their treasures of Delhi have been rifled by a Persian robber;
      and the richest of their kingdoms is now possessed by a company
      of Christian merchants, of a remote island in the Northern Ocean.

      66 (return) [ From Arabshah, tom. ii. c. 96. The bright or softer
      colors are borrowed from Sherefeddin, D’Herbelot, and the
      Institutions.]

      67 (return) [ His new system was multiplied from 32 pieces and 64
      squares to 56 pieces and 110 or 130 squares; but, except in his
      court, the old game has been thought sufficiently elaborate. The
      Mogul emperor was rather pleased than hurt with the victory of a
      subject: a chess player will feel the value of this encomium!]

      68 (return) [ See Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 15, 25. Arabshah tom.
      ii. c. 96, p. 801, 803) approves the impiety of Timour and the
      Moguls, who almost preferred to the Koran the _Yacsa_, or Law of
      Zingis, (cui Deus maledicat;) nor will he believe that Sharokh
      had abolished the use and authority of that Pagan code.]

      69 (return) [ Besides the bloody passages of this narrative, I
      must refer to an anticipation in the third volume of the Decline
      and Fall, which in a single note (p. 234, note 25) accumulates
      nearly 300,000 heads of the monuments of his cruelty. Except in
      Rowe’s play on the fifth of November, I did not expect to hear of
      Timour’s amiable moderation (White’s preface, p. 7.) Yet I can
      excuse a generous enthusiasm in the reader, and still more in the
      editor, of the _Institutions_.]

      70 (return) [ Consult the last chapters of Sherefeddin and
      Arabshah, and M. De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. l. xx.)
      Fraser’s History of Nadir Shah, (p. 1—62.) The story of Timour’s
      descendants is imperfectly told; and the second and third parts
      of Sherefeddin are unknown.]

      71 (return) [ Shah Allum, the present Mogul, is in the fourteenth
      degree from Timour, by Miran Shah, his third son. See the second
      volume of Dow’s History of Hindostan.]

      Far different was the fate of the Ottoman monarchy. The massy
      trunk was bent to the ground, but no sooner did the hurricane
      pass away, than it again rose with fresh vigor and more lively
      vegetation. When Timour, in every sense, had evacuated Anatolia,
      he left the cities without a palace, a treasure, or a king. The
      open country was overspread with hordes of shepherds and robbers
      of Tartar or Turkman origin; the recent conquests of Bajazet were
      restored to the emirs, one of whom, in base revenge, demolished
      his sepulchre; and his five sons were eager, by civil discord, to
      consume the remnant of their patrimony. I shall enumerate their
      names in the order of their age and actions. 72 _1._ It is
      doubtful, whether I relate the story of the true _Mustapha_, or
      of an impostor who personated that lost prince. He fought by his
      father’s side in the battle of Angora: but when the captive
      sultan was permitted to inquire for his children, Mousa alone
      could be found; and the Turkish historians, the slaves of the
      triumphant faction, are persuaded that his brother was confounded
      among the slain. If Mustapha escaped from that disastrous field,
      he was concealed twelve years from his friends and enemies; till
      he emerged in Thessaly, and was hailed by a numerous party, as
      the son and successor of Bajazet. His first defeat would have
      been his last, had not the true, or false, Mustapha been saved by
      the Greeks, and restored, after the decease of his brother
      Mahomet, to liberty and empire. A degenerate mind seemed to argue
      his spurious birth; and if, on the throne of Adrianople, he was
      adored as the Ottoman sultan, his flight, his fetters, and an
      ignominious gibbet, delivered the impostor to popular contempt. A
      similar character and claim was asserted by several rival
      pretenders: thirty persons are said to have suffered under the
      name of Mustapha; and these frequent executions may perhaps
      insinuate, that the Turkish court was not perfectly secure of the
      death of the lawful prince. _2._ After his father’s captivity,
      Isa 73 reigned for some time in the neighborhood of Angora,
      Sinope, and the Black Sea; and his ambassadors were dismissed
      from the presence of Timour with fair promises and honorable
      gifts. But their master was soon deprived of his province and
      life, by a jealous brother, the sovereign of Amasia; and the
      final event suggested a pious allusion, that the law of Moses and
      Jesus, of _Isa_ and _Mousa_, had been abrogated by the greater
      Mahomet. _3._ _Soliman_ is not numbered in the list of the
      Turkish emperors: yet he checked the victorious progress of the
      Moguls; and after their departure, united for a while the thrones
      of Adrianople and Boursa. In war he was brave, active, and
      fortunate; his courage was softened by clemency; but it was
      likewise inflamed by presumption, and corrupted by intemperance
      and idleness. He relaxed the nerves of discipline, in a
      government where either the subject or the sovereign must
      continually tremble: his vices alienated the chiefs of the army
      and the law; and his daily drunkenness, so contemptible in a
      prince and a man, was doubly odious in a disciple of the prophet.
      In the slumber of intoxication he was surprised by his brother
      Mousa; and as he fled from Adrianople towards the Byzantine
      capital, Soliman was overtaken and slain in a bath, 731 after a
      reign of seven years and ten months. _4._ The investiture of
      Mousa degraded him as the slave of the Moguls: his tributary
      kingdom of Anatolia was confined within a narrow limit, nor could
      his broken militia and empty treasury contend with the hardy and
      veteran bands of the sovereign of Romania. Mousa fled in disguise
      from the palace of Boursa; traversed the Propontis in an open
      boat; wandered over the Walachian and Servian hills; and after
      some vain attempts, ascended the throne of Adrianople, so
      recently stained with the blood of Soliman. In a reign of three
      years and a half, his troops were victorious against the
      Christians of Hungary and the Morea; but Mousa was ruined by his
      timorous disposition and unseasonable clemency. After resigning
      the sovereignty of Anatolia, he fell a victim to the perfidy of
      his ministers, and the superior ascendant of his brother Mahomet.
      _5._The final victory of Mahomet was the just recompense of his
      prudence and moderation. Before his father’s captivity, the royal
      youth had been intrusted with the government of Amasia, thirty
      days’ journey from Constantinople, and the Turkish frontier
      against the Christians of Trebizond and Georgia. The castle, in
      Asiatic warfare, was esteemed impregnable; and the city of
      Amasia, 74 which is equally divided by the River Iris, rises on
      either side in the form of an amphitheatre, and represents on a
      smaller scale the image of Bagdad. In his rapid career, Timour
      appears to have overlooked this obscure and contumacious angle of
      Anatolia; and Mahomet, without provoking the conqueror,
      maintained his silent independence, and chased from the province
      the last stragglers of the Tartar host. 741 He relieved himself
      from the dangerous neighborhood of Isa; but in the contests of
      their more powerful brethren his firm neutrality was respected;
      till, after the triumph of Mousa, he stood forth the heir and
      avenger of the unfortunate Soliman. Mahomet obtained Anatolia by
      treaty, and Romania by arms; and the soldier who presented him
      with the head of Mousa was rewarded as the benefactor of his king
      and country. The eight years of his sole and peaceful reign were
      usefully employed in banishing the vices of civil discord, and
      restoring on a firmer basis the fabric of the Ottoman monarchy.
      His last care was the choice of two viziers, Bajazet and Ibrahim,
      75 who might guide the youth of his son Amurath; and such was
      their union and prudence, that they concealed above forty days
      the emperor’s death, till the arrival of his successor in the
      palace of Boursa. A new war was kindled in Europe by the prince,
      or impostor, Mustapha; the first vizier lost his army and his
      head; but the more fortunate Ibrahim, whose name and family are
      still revered, extinguished the last pretender to the throne of
      Bajazet, and closed the scene of domestic hostility.

      72 (return) [ The civil wars, from the death of Bajazet to that
      of Mustapha, are related, according to the Turks, by Demetrius
      Cantemir, (p. 58—82.) Of the Greeks, Chalcondyles, (l. iv. and
      v.,) Phranza, (l. i. c. 30—32,) and Ducas, (c. 18—27,) the last
      is the most copious and best informed.]

      73 (return) [ Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 26,) whose testimony on this
      occasion is weighty and valuable. The existence of Isa (unknown
      to the Turks) is likewise confirmed by Sherefeddin, (l. v. c.
      57.)]

      731 (return) [ He escaped from the bath, and fled towards
      Constantinople. Five mothers from a village, Dugundschi, whose
      inhabitants had suffered severely from the exactions of his
      officers, recognized and followed him. Soliman shot two of them,
      the others discharged their arrows in their turn the sultan fell
      and his head was cut off. V. Hammer, vol. i. p. 349.—M.]

      74 (return) [ Arabshah, loc. citat. Abulfeda, Geograph. tab.
      xvii. p. 302. Busbequius, epist. i. p. 96, 97, in Itinere C. P.
      et Amasiano.]

      741 (return) [ See his nine battles. V. Hammer, p. 339.—M.]

      75 (return) [ The virtues of Ibrahim are praised by a
      contemporary Greek, (Ducas, c. 25.) His descendants are the sole
      nobles in Turkey: they content themselves with the administration
      of his pious foundations, are excused from public offices, and
      receive two annual visits from the sultan, (Cantemir, p. 76.)]

      In these conflicts, the wisest Turks, and indeed the body of the
      nation, were strongly attached to the unity of the empire; and
      Romania and Anatolia, so often torn asunder by private ambition,
      were animated by a strong and invincible tendency of cohesion.
      Their efforts might have instructed the Christian powers; and had
      they occupied, with a confederate fleet, the Straits of
      Gallipoli, the Ottomans, at least in Europe, must have been
      speedily annihilated. But the schism of the West, and the
      factions and wars of France and England, diverted the Latins from
      this generous enterprise: they enjoyed the present respite,
      without a thought of futurity; and were often tempted by a
      momentary interest to serve the common enemy of their religion. A
      colony of Genoese, 76 which had been planted at Phocæa 77 on the
      Ionian coast, was enriched by the lucrative monopoly of alum; 78
      and their tranquillity, under the Turkish empire, was secured by
      the annual payment of tribute. In the last civil war of the
      Ottomans, the Genoese governor, Adorno, a bold and ambitious
      youth, embraced the party of Amurath; and undertook, with seven
      stout galleys, to transport him from Asia to Europe. The sultan
      and five hundred guards embarked on board the admiral’s ship;
      which was manned by eight hundred of the bravest Franks. His life
      and liberty were in their hands; nor can we, without reluctance,
      applaud the fidelity of Adorno, who, in the midst of the passage,
      knelt before him, and gratefully accepted a discharge of his
      arrears of tribute. They landed in sight of Mustapha and
      Gallipoli; two thousand Italians, armed with lances and
      battle-axes, attended Amurath to the conquest of Adrianople; and
      this venal service was soon repaid by the ruin of the commerce
      and colony of Phocæa.

      76 (return) [ See Pachymer, (l. v. c. 29,) Nicephorus Gregoras,
      (l. ii. c. 1,) Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 57,) and Ducas, (c. 25.)
      The last of these, a curious and careful observer, is entitled,
      from his birth and station, to particular credit in all that
      concerns Ionia and the islands. Among the nations that resorted
      to New Phocæa, he mentions the English; ('Igglhnoi;) an early
      evidence of Mediterranean trade.]

      77 (return) [ For the spirit of navigation, and freedom of
      ancient Phocæa, or rather the Phocæans, consult the first book of
      Herodotus, and the Geographical Index of his last and learned
      French translator, M. Larcher (tom. vii. p. 299.)]

      78 (return) [ Phocæa is not enumerated by Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxv.
      52) among the places productive of alum: he reckons Egypt as the
      first, and for the second the Isle of Melos, whose alum mines are
      described by Tournefort, (tom. i. lettre iv.,) a traveller and a
      naturalist. After the loss of Phocæa, the Genoese, in 1459, found
      that useful mineral in the Isle of Ischia, (Ismael. Bouillaud, ad
      Ducam, c. 25.)]

      If Timour had generously marched at the request, and to the
      relief, of the Greek emperor, he might be entitled to the praise
      and gratitude of the Christians. 79 But a Mussulman, who carried
      into Georgia the sword of persecution, and respected the holy
      warfare of Bajazet, was not disposed to pity or succor the
      _idolaters_ of Europe. The Tartar followed the impulse of
      ambition; and the deliverance of Constantinople was the
      accidental consequence. When Manuel abdicated the government, it
      was his prayer, rather than his hope, that the ruin of the church
      and state might be delayed beyond his unhappy days; and after his
      return from a western pilgrimage, he expected every hour the news
      of the sad catastrophe. On a sudden, he was astonished and
      rejoiced by the intelligence of the retreat, the overthrow, and
      the captivity of the Ottoman. Manuel 80 immediately sailed from
      Modon in the Morea; ascended the throne of Constantinople, and
      dismissed his blind competitor to an easy exile in the Isle of
      Lesbos. The ambassadors of the son of Bajazet were soon
      introduced to his presence; but their pride was fallen, their
      tone was modest: they were awed by the just apprehension, lest
      the Greeks should open to the Moguls the gates of Europe. Soliman
      saluted the emperor by the name of father; solicited at his hands
      the government or gift of Romania; and promised to deserve his
      favor by inviolable friendship, and the restitution of
      Thessalonica, with the most important places along the Strymon,
      the Propontis, and the Black Sea. The alliance of Soliman exposed
      the emperor to the enmity and revenge of Mousa: the Turks
      appeared in arms before the gates of Constantinople; but they
      were repulsed by sea and land; and unless the city was guarded by
      some foreign mercenaries, the Greeks must have wondered at their
      own triumph. But, instead of prolonging the division of the
      Ottoman powers, the policy or passion of Manuel was tempted to
      assist the most formidable of the sons of Bajazet. He concluded a
      treaty with Mahomet, whose progress was checked by the
      insuperable barrier of Gallipoli: the sultan and his troops were
      transported over the Bosphorus; he was hospitably entertained in
      the capital; and his successful sally was the first step to the
      conquest of Romania. The ruin was suspended by the prudence and
      moderation of the conqueror: he faithfully discharged his own
      obligations and those of Soliman, respected the laws of gratitude
      and peace; and left the emperor guardian of his two younger sons,
      in the vain hope of saving them from the jealous cruelty of their
      brother Amurath. But the execution of his last testament would
      have offended the national honor and religion; and the divan
      unanimously pronounced, that the royal youths should never be
      abandoned to the custody and education of a Christian dog. On
      this refusal, the Byzantine councils were divided; but the age
      and caution of Manuel yielded to the presumption of his son John;
      and they unsheathed a dangerous weapon of revenge, by dismissing
      the true or false Mustapha, who had long been detained as a
      captive and hostage, and for whose maintenance they received an
      annual pension of three hundred thousand aspers. 81 At the door
      of his prison, Mustapha subscribed to every proposal; and the
      keys of Gallipoli, or rather of Europe, were stipulated as the
      price of his deliverance. But no sooner was he seated on the
      throne of Romania, than he dismissed the Greek ambassadors with a
      smile of contempt, declaring, in a pious tone, that, at the day
      of judgment, he would rather answer for the violation of an oath,
      than for the surrender of a Mussulman city into the hands of the
      infidels. The emperor was at once the enemy of the two rivals;
      from whom he had sustained, and to whom he had offered, an
      injury; and the victory of Amurath was followed, in the ensuing
      spring, by the siege of Constantinople. 82

      79 (return) [ The writer who has the most abused this fabulous
      generosity, is our ingenious Sir William Temple, (his Works, vol.
      iii. p. 349, 350, octavo edition,) that lover of exotic virtue.
      After the conquest of Russia, &c., and the passage of the Danube,
      his Tartar hero relieves, visits, admires, and refuses the city
      of Constantine. His flattering pencil deviates in every line from
      the truth of history; yet his pleasing fictions are more
      excusable than the gross errors of Cantemir.]

      80 (return) [ For the reigns of Manuel and John, of Mahomet I.
      and Amurath II., see the Othman history of Cantemir, (p. 70—95,)
      and the three Greeks, Chalcondyles, Phranza, and Ducas, who is
      still superior to his rivals.]

      81 (return) [ The Turkish asper (from the Greek asproV) is, or
      was, a piece of _white_ or silver money, at present much debased,
      but which was formerly equivalent to the 54th part, at least, of
      a Venetian ducat or sequin; and the 300,000 aspers, a princely
      allowance or royal tribute, may be computed at 2500_l_. sterling,
      (Leunclav. Pandect. Turc. p. 406—408.) * Note: According to Von
      Hammer, this calculation is much too low. The asper was a century
      before the time of which writes, the tenth part of a ducat; for
      the same tribute which the Byzantine writers state at 300,000
      aspers the Ottomans state at 30,000 ducats, about 15000l Note,
      vol. p. 636.—M.]

      82 (return) [ For the siege of Constantinople in 1422, see the
      particular and contemporary narrative of John Cananus, published
      by Leo Allatius, at the end of his edition of Acropolita, (p.
      188—199.)]

      The religious merit of subduing the city of the Cæsars attracted
      from Asia a crowd of volunteers, who aspired to the crown of
      martyrdom: their military ardor was inflamed by the promise of
      rich spoils and beautiful females; and the sultan’s ambition was
      consecrated by the presence and prediction of Seid Bechar, a
      descendant of the prophet, 83 who arrived in the camp, on a mule,
      with a venerable train of five hundred disciples. But he might
      blush, if a fanatic could blush, at the failure of his
      assurances. The strength of the walls resisted an army of two
      hundred thousand Turks; their assaults were repelled by the
      sallies of the Greeks and their foreign mercenaries; the old
      resources of defence were opposed to the new engines of attack;
      and the enthusiasm of the dervis, who was snatched to heaven in
      visionary converse with Mahomet, was answered by the credulity of
      the Christians, who _beheld_ the Virgin Mary, in a violet
      garment, walking on the rampart and animating their courage. 84
      After a siege of two months, Amurath was recalled to Boursa by a
      domestic revolt, which had been kindled by Greek treachery, and
      was soon extinguished by the death of a guiltless brother. While
      he led his Janizaries to new conquests in Europe and Asia, the
      Byzantine empire was indulged in a servile and precarious respite
      of thirty years. Manuel sank into the grave; and John Palæologus
      was permitted to reign, for an annual tribute of three hundred
      thousand aspers, and the dereliction of almost all that he held
      beyond the suburbs of Constantinople.

      83 (return) [ Cantemir, p. 80. Cananus, who describes Seid
      Bechar, without naming him, supposes that the friend of Mahomet
      assumed in his amours the privilege of a prophet, and that the
      fairest of the Greek nuns were promised to the saint and his
      disciples.]

      84 (return) [ For this miraculous apparition, Cananus appeals to
      the Mussulman saint; but who will bear testimony for Seid
      Bechar?]

      In the establishment and restoration of the Turkish empire, the
      first merit must doubtless be assigned to the personal qualities
      of the sultans; since, in human life, the most important scenes
      will depend on the character of a single actor. By some shades of
      wisdom and virtue, they may be discriminated from each other;
      but, except in a single instance, a period of nine reigns, and
      two hundred and sixty-five years, is occupied, from the elevation
      of Othman to the death of Soliman, by a rare series of warlike
      and active princes, who impressed their subjects with obedience
      and their enemies with terror. Instead of the slothful luxury of
      the seraglio, the heirs of royalty were educated in the council
      and the field: from early youth they were intrusted by their
      fathers with the command of provinces and armies; and this manly
      institution, which was often productive of civil war, must have
      essentially contributed to the discipline and vigor of the
      monarchy. The Ottomans cannot style themselves, like the Arabian
      caliphs, the descendants or successors of the apostle of God; and
      the kindred which they claim with the Tartar khans of the house
      of Zingis appears to be founded in flattery rather than in truth.
      85 Their origin is obscure; but their sacred and indefeasible
      right, which no time can erase, and no violence can infringe, was
      soon and unalterably implanted in the minds of their subjects. A
      weak or vicious sultan may be deposed and strangled; but his
      inheritance devolves to an infant or an idiot: nor has the most
      daring rebel presumed to ascend the throne of his lawful
      sovereign. 86

      85 (return) [ See Ricaut, (l. i. c. 13.) The Turkish sultans
      assume the title of khan. Yet Abulghazi is ignorant of his
      Ottoman cousins.]

      86 (return) [ The third grand vizier of the name of Kiuperli, who
      was slain at the battle of Salankanen in 1691, (Cantemir, p.
      382,) presumed to say that all the successors of Soliman had been
      fools or tyrants, and that it was time to abolish the race,
      (Marsigli Stato Militaire, &c., p. 28.) This political heretic
      was a good Whig, and justified against the French ambassador the
      revolution of England, (Mignot, Hist. des Ottomans, tom. iii. p.
      434.) His presumption condemns the singular exception of
      continuing offices in the same family.]

      While the transient dynasties of Asia have been continually
      subverted by a crafty vizier in the palace, or a victorious
      general in the camp, the Ottoman succession has been confirmed by
      the practice of five centuries, and is now incorporated with the
      vital principle of the Turkish nation.

      To the spirit and constitution of that nation, a strong and
      singular influence may, however, be ascribed. The primitive
      subjects of Othman were the four hundred families of wandering
      Turkmans, who had followed his ancestors from the Oxus to the
      Sangar; and the plains of Anatolia are still covered with the
      white and black tents of their rustic brethren. But this original
      drop was dissolved in the mass of voluntary and vanquished
      subjects, who, under the name of Turks, are united by the common
      ties of religion, language, and manners. In the cities, from
      Erzeroum to Belgrade, that national appellation is common to all
      the Moslems, the first and most honorable inhabitants; but they
      have abandoned, at least in Romania, the villages, and the
      cultivation of the land, to the Christian peasants. In the
      vigorous age of the Ottoman government, the Turks were themselves
      excluded from all civil and military honors; and a servile class,
      an artificial people, was raised by the discipline of education
      to obey, to conquer, and to command. 87 From the time of Orchan
      and the first Amurath, the sultans were persuaded that a
      government of the sword must be renewed in each generation with
      new soldiers; and that such soldiers must be sought, not in
      effeminate Asia, but among the hardy and warlike natives of
      Europe. The provinces of Thrace, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria,
      and Servia, became the perpetual seminary of the Turkish army;
      and when the royal fifth of the captives was diminished by
      conquest, an inhuman tax of the fifth child, or of every fifth
      year, was rigorously levied on the Christian families. At the age
      of twelve or fourteen years, the most robust youths were torn
      from their parents; their names were enrolled in a book; and from
      that moment they were clothed, taught, and maintained, for the
      public service. According to the promise of their appearance,
      they were selected for the royal schools of Boursa, Pera, and
      Adrianople, intrusted to the care of the bashaws, or dispersed in
      the houses of the Anatolian peasantry. It was the first care of
      their masters to instruct them in the Turkish language: their
      bodies were exercised by every labor that could fortify their
      strength; they learned to wrestle, to leap, to run, to shoot with
      the bow, and afterwards with the musket; till they were drafted
      into the chambers and companies of the Janizaries, and severely
      trained in the military or monastic discipline of the order. The
      youths most conspicuous for birth, talents, and beauty, were
      admitted into the inferior class of _Agiamoglans_, or the more
      liberal rank of _Ichoglans_, of whom the former were attached to
      the palace, and the latter to the person, of the prince. In four
      successive schools, under the rod of the white eunuchs, the arts
      of horsemanship and of darting the javelin were their daily
      exercise, while those of a more studious cast applied themselves
      to the study of the Koran, and the knowledge of the Arabic and
      Persian tongues. As they advanced in seniority and merit, they
      were gradually dismissed to military, civil, and even
      ecclesiastical employments: the longer their stay, the higher was
      their expectation; till, at a mature period, they were admitted
      into the number of the forty agas, who stood before the sultan,
      and were promoted by his choice to the government of provinces
      and the first honors of the empire. 88 Such a mode of institution
      was admirably adapted to the form and spirit of a despotic
      monarchy. The ministers and generals were, in the strictest
      sense, the slaves of the emperor, to whose bounty they were
      indebted for their instruction and support. When they left the
      seraglio, and suffered their beards to grow as the symbol of
      enfranchisement, they found themselves in an important office,
      without faction or friendship, without parents and without heirs,
      dependent on the hand which had raised them from the dust, and
      which, on the slightest displeasure, could break in pieces these
      statues of glass, as they were aptly termed by the Turkish
      proverb. 89 In the slow and painful steps of education, their
      characters and talents were unfolded to a discerning eye: the
      _man_, naked and alone, was reduced to the standard of his
      personal merit; and, if the sovereign had wisdom to choose, he
      possessed a pure and boundless liberty of choice. The Ottoman
      candidates were trained by the virtues of abstinence to those of
      action; by the habits of submission to those of command. A
      similar spirit was diffused among the troops; and their silence
      and sobriety, their patience and modesty, have extorted the
      reluctant praise of their Christian enemies. 90 Nor can the
      victory appear doubtful, if we compare the discipline and
      exercise of the Janizaries with the pride of birth, the
      independence of chivalry, the ignorance of the new levies, the
      mutinous temper of the veterans, and the vices of intemperance
      and disorder, which so long contaminated the armies of Europe.

      87 (return) [ Chalcondyles (l. v.) and Ducas (c. 23) exhibit the
      rude lineament of the Ottoman policy, and the transmutation of
      Christian children into Turkish soldiers.]

      88 (return) [ This sketch of the Turkish education and discipline
      is chiefly borrowed from Ricaut’s State of the Ottoman Empire,
      the Stato Militaire del’ Imperio Ottomano of Count Marsigli, (in
      Haya, 1732, in folio,) and a description of the Seraglio,
      approved by Mr. Greaves himself, a curious traveller, and
      inserted in the second volume of his works.]

      89 (return) [ From the series of cxv. viziers, till the siege of
      Vienna, (Marsigli, p. 13,) their place may be valued at three
      years and a half purchase.]

      90 (return) [ See the entertaining and judicious letters of
      Busbequius.]

      The only hope of salvation for the Greek empire, and the adjacent
      kingdoms, would have been some more powerful weapon, some
      discovery in the art of war, that would give them a decisive
      superiority over their Turkish foes. Such a weapon was in their
      hands; such a discovery had been made in the critical moment of
      their fate. The chemists of China or Europe had found, by casual
      or elaborate experiments, that a mixture of saltpetre, sulphur,
      and charcoal, produces, with a spark of fire, a tremendous
      explosion. It was soon observed, that if the expansive force were
      compressed in a strong tube, a ball of stone or iron might be
      expelled with irresistible and destructive velocity. The precise
      æra of the invention and application of gunpowder 91 is involved
      in doubtful traditions and equivocal language; yet we may clearly
      discern, that it was known before the middle of the fourteenth
      century; and that before the end of the same, the use of
      artillery in battles and sieges, by sea and land, was familiar to
      the states of Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and England. 92 The
      priority of nations is of small account; none could derive any
      exclusive benefit from their previous or superior knowledge; and
      in the common improvement, they stood on the same level of
      relative power and military science. Nor was it possible to
      circumscribe the secret within the pale of the church; it was
      disclosed to the Turks by the treachery of apostates and the
      selfish policy of rivals; and the sultans had sense to adopt, and
      wealth to reward, the talents of a Christian engineer. The
      Genoese, who transported Amurath into Europe, must be accused as
      his preceptors; and it was probably by their hands that his
      cannon was cast and directed at the siege of Constantinople. 93
      The first attempt was indeed unsuccessful; but in the general
      warfare of the age, the advantage was on _their_ side, who were
      most commonly the assailants: for a while the proportion of the
      attack and defence was suspended; and this thundering artillery
      was pointed against the walls and towers which had been erected
      only to resist the less potent engines of antiquity. By the
      Venetians, the use of gunpowder was communicated without reproach
      to the sultans of Egypt and Persia, their allies against the
      Ottoman power; the secret was soon propagated to the extremities
      of Asia; and the advantage of the European was confined to his
      easy victories over the savages of the new world. If we contrast
      the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery with the slow
      and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace,
      a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the
      folly of mankind.

      91 (return) [ The first and second volumes of Dr. Watson’s
      Chemical Essays contain two valuable discourses on the discovery
      and composition of gunpowder.]

      92 (return) [ On this subject modern testimonies cannot be
      trusted. The original passages are collected by Ducange, (Gloss.
      Latin. tom. i. p. 675, _Bombarda_.) But in the early doubtful
      twilight, the name, sound, fire, and effect, that seem to express
      _our_ artillery, may be fairly interpreted of the old engines and
      the Greek fire. For the English cannon at Crecy, the authority of
      John Villani (Chron. l. xii. c. 65) must be weighed against the
      silence of Froissard. Yet Muratori (Antiquit. Italiæ Medii Ævi,
      tom. ii. Dissert. xxvi. p. 514, 515) has produced a decisive
      passage from Petrarch, (De Remediis utriusque Fortunæ Dialog.,)
      who, before the year 1344, execrates this terrestrial thunder,
      _nuper_ rara, _nunc_ communis. * Note: Mr. Hallam makes the
      following observation on the objection thrown our by Gibbon: “The
      positive testimony of Villani, who died within two years
      afterwards, and had manifestly obtained much information as to
      the great events passing in France, cannot be rejected. He
      ascribes a material effect to the cannon of Edward, Colpi delle
      bombarde, which I suspect, from his strong expressions, had not
      been employed before, except against stone walls. It seems, he
      says, as if God thundered con grande uccisione di genti e
      efondamento di cavalli.” Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 510.—M.]

      93 (return) [ The Turkish cannon, which Ducas (c. 30) first
      introduces before Belgrade, (A.D. 1436,) is mentioned by
      Chalcondyles (l. v. p. 123) in 1422, at the siege of
      Constantinople.]




      Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part I.

     Applications Of The Eastern Emperors To The Popes.—Visits To The
     West, Of John The First, Manuel, And John The Second,
     Palæologus.—Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches, Promoted By The
     Council Of Basil, And Concluded At Ferrara And Florence.—State Of
     Literature At Constantinople.—Its Revival In Italy By The Greek
     Fugitives.—Curiosity And Emulation Of The Latins.

      In the four last centuries of the Greek emperors, their friendly
      or hostile aspect towards the pope and the Latins may be observed
      as the thermometer of their prosperity or distress; as the scale
      of the rise and fall of the Barbarian dynasties. When the Turks
      of the house of Seljuk pervaded Asia, and threatened
      Constantinople, we have seen, at the council of Placentia, the
      suppliant ambassadors of Alexius imploring the protection of the
      common father of the Christians. No sooner had the arms of the
      French pilgrims removed the sultan from Nice to Iconium, than the
      Greek princes resumed, or avowed, their genuine hatred and
      contempt for the schismatics of the West, which precipitated the
      first downfall of their empire. The date of the Mogul invasion is
      marked in the soft and charitable language of John Vataces. After
      the recovery of Constantinople, the throne of the first
      Palæologus was encompassed by foreign and domestic enemies; as
      long as the sword of Charles was suspended over his head, he
      basely courted the favor of the Roman pontiff; and sacrificed to
      the present danger his faith, his virtue, and the affection of
      his subjects. On the decease of Michael, the prince and people
      asserted the independence of their church, and the purity of
      their creed: the elder Andronicus neither feared nor loved the
      Latins; in his last distress, pride was the safeguard of
      superstition; nor could he decently retract in his age the firm
      and orthodox declarations of his youth. His grandson, the younger
      Andronicus, was less a slave in his temper and situation; and the
      conquest of Bithynia by the Turks admonished him to seek a
      temporal and spiritual alliance with the Western princes. After a
      separation and silence of fifty years, a secret agent, the monk
      Barlaam, was despatched to Pope Benedict the Twelfth; and his
      artful instructions appear to have been drawn by the master-hand
      of the great domestic. 1 “Most holy father,” was he commissioned
      to say, “the emperor is not less desirous than yourself of a
      union between the two churches: but in this delicate transaction,
      he is obliged to respect his own dignity and the prejudices of
      his subjects. The ways of union are twofold; force and
      persuasion. Of force, the inefficacy has been already tried;
      since the Latins have subdued the empire, without subduing the
      minds, of the Greeks. The method of persuasion, though slow, is
      sure and permanent. A deputation of thirty or forty of our
      doctors would probably agree with those of the Vatican, in the
      love of truth and the unity of belief; but on their return, what
      would be the use, the recompense, of such an agreement? the scorn
      of their brethren, and the reproaches of a blind and obstinate
      nation. Yet that nation is accustomed to reverence the general
      councils, which have fixed the articles of our faith; and if they
      reprobate the decrees of Lyons, it is because the Eastern
      churches were neither heard nor represented in that arbitrary
      meeting. For this salutary end, it will be expedient, and even
      necessary, that a well-chosen legate should be sent into Greece,
      to convene the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch,
      and Jerusalem; and, with their aid, to prepare a free and
      universal synod. But at this moment,” continued the subtle agent,
      “the empire is assaulted and endangered by the Turks, who have
      occupied four of the greatest cities of Anatolia. The Christian
      inhabitants have expressed a wish of returning to their
      allegiance and religion; but the forces and revenues of the
      emperor are insufficient for their deliverance: and the Roman
      legate must be accompanied, or preceded, by an army of Franks, to
      expel the infidels, and open a way to the holy sepulchre.” If the
      suspicious Latins should require some pledge, some previous
      effect of the sincerity of the Greeks, the answers of Barlaam
      were perspicuous and rational. “_1._ A general synod can alone
      consummate the union of the churches; nor can such a synod be
      held till the three Oriental patriarchs, and a great number of
      bishops, are enfranchised from the Mahometan yoke. _2._ The
      Greeks are alienated by a long series of oppression and injury:
      they must be reconciled by some act of brotherly love, some
      effectual succor, which may fortify the authority and arguments
      of the emperor, and the friends of the union. _3._ If some
      difference of faith or ceremonies should be found incurable, the
      Greeks, however, are the disciples of Christ; and the Turks are
      the common enemies of the Christian name. The Armenians,
      Cyprians, and Rhodians, are equally attacked; and it will become
      the piety of the French princes to draw their swords in the
      general defence of religion. _4._ Should the subjects of
      Andronicus be treated as the worst of schismatics, of heretics,
      of pagans, a judicious policy may yet instruct the powers of the
      West to embrace a useful ally, to uphold a sinking empire, to
      guard the confines of Europe; and rather to join the Greeks
      against the Turks, than to expect the union of the Turkish arms
      with the troops and treasures of captive Greece.” The reasons,
      the offers, and the demands, of Andronicus were eluded with cold
      and stately indifference. The kings of France and Naples declined
      the dangers and glory of a crusade; the pope refused to call a
      new synod to determine old articles of faith; and his regard for
      the obsolete claims of the Latin emperor and clergy engaged him
      to use an offensive superscription,—“To the _moderator_ 2 of the
      Greeks, and the persons who style themselves the patriarchs of
      the Eastern churches.” For such an embassy, a time and character
      less propitious could not easily have been found. Benedict the
      Twelfth 3 was a dull peasant, perplexed with scruples, and
      immersed in sloth and wine: his pride might enrich with a third
      crown the papal tiara, but he was alike unfit for the regal and
      the pastoral office.

      1 (return) [ This curious instruction was transcribed (I believe)
      from the Vatican archives, by Odoricus Raynaldus, in his
      Continuation of the Annals of Baronius, (Romæ, 1646—1677, in x.
      volumes in folio.) I have contented myself with the Abbé Fleury,
      (Hist. Ecclésiastique. tom. xx. p. 1—8,) whose abstracts I have
      always found to be clear, accurate, and impartial.]

      2 (return) [ The ambiguity of this title is happy or ingenious;
      and _moderator_, as synonymous to _rector_, _gubernator_, is a
      word of classical, and even Ciceronian, Latinity, which may be
      found, not in the Glossary of Ducange, but in the Thesaurus of
      Robert Stephens.]

      3 (return) [ The first epistle (sine titulo) of Petrarch exposes
      the danger of the _bark_, and the incapacity of the _pilot_. Hæc
      inter, vino madidus, ævo gravis, ac soporifero rore perfusus,
      jamjam nutitat, dormitat, jam somno præceps, atque (utinam solus)
      ruit..... Heu quanto felicius patrio terram sulcasset aratro,
      quam scalmum piscatorium ascendisset! This satire engages his
      biographer to weigh the virtues and vices of Benedict XII. which
      have been exaggerated by Guelphs and Ghibe lines, by Papists and
      Protestants, (see Mémoires sur la Vie de Pétrarque, tom. i. p.
      259, ii. not. xv. p. 13—16.) He gave occasion to the saying,
      Bibamus papaliter.]

      After the decease of Andronicus, while the Greeks were distracted
      by intestine war, they could not presume to agitate a general
      union of the Christians. But as soon as Cantacuzene had subdued
      and pardoned his enemies, he was anxious to justify, or at least
      to extenuate, the introduction of the Turks into Europe, and the
      nuptials of his daughter with a Mussulman prince. Two officers of
      state, with a Latin interpreter, were sent in his name to the
      Roman court, which was transplanted to Avignon, on the banks of
      the Rhône, during a period of seventy years: they represented the
      hard necessity which had urged him to embrace the alliance of the
      miscreants, and pronounced by his command the specious and
      edifying sounds of union and crusade. Pope Clement the Sixth, 4
      the successor of Benedict, received them with hospitality and
      honor, acknowledged the innocence of their sovereign, excused his
      distress, applauded his magnanimity, and displayed a clear
      knowledge of the state and revolutions of the Greek empire, which
      he had imbibed from the honest accounts of a Savoyard lady, an
      attendant of the empress Anne. 5 If Clement was ill endowed with
      the virtues of a priest, he possessed, however, the spirit and
      magnificence of a prince, whose liberal hand distributed
      benefices and kingdoms with equal facility. Under his reign
      Avignon was the seat of pomp and pleasure: in his youth he had
      surpassed the licentiousness of a baron; and the palace, nay, the
      bed-chamber of the pope, was adorned, or polluted, by the visits
      of his female favorites. The wars of France and England were
      adverse to the holy enterprise; but his vanity was amused by the
      splendid idea; and the Greek ambassadors returned with two Latin
      bishops, the ministers of the pontiff. On their arrival at
      Constantinople, the emperor and the nuncios admired each other’s
      piety and eloquence; and their frequent conferences were filled
      with mutual praises and promises, by which both parties were
      amused, and neither could be deceived. “I am delighted,” said the
      devout Cantacuzene, “with the project of our holy war, which must
      redound to my personal glory, as well as to the public benefit of
      Christendom. My dominions will give a free passage to the armies
      of France: my troops, my galleys, my treasures, shall be
      consecrated to the common cause; and happy would be my fate,
      could I deserve and obtain the crown of martyrdom. Words are
      insufficient to express the ardor with which I sigh for the
      reunion of the scattered members of Christ. If my death could
      avail, I would gladly present my sword and my neck: if the
      spiritual phnix could arise from my ashes, I would erect the
      pile, and kindle the flame with my own hands.” Yet the Greek
      emperor presumed to observe, that the articles of faith which
      divided the two churches had been introduced by the pride and
      precipitation of the Latins: he disclaimed the servile and
      arbitrary steps of the first Palæologus; and firmly declared,
      that he would never submit his conscience unless to the decrees
      of a free and universal synod. “The situation of the times,”
      continued he, “will not allow the pope and myself to meet either
      at Rome or Constantinople; but some maritime city may be chosen
      on the verge of the two empires, to unite the bishops, and to
      instruct the faithful, of the East and West.” The nuncios seemed
      content with the proposition; and Cantacuzene affects to deplore
      the failure of his hopes, which were soon overthrown by the death
      of Clement, and the different temper of his successor. His own
      life was prolonged, but it was prolonged in a cloister; and,
      except by his prayers, the humble monk was incapable of directing
      the counsels of his pupil or the state. 6

      4 (return) [ See the original Lives of Clement VI. in Muratori,
      (Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. ii. p. 550—589;) Matteo
      Villani, (Chron. l. iii. c. 43, in Muratori, tom. xiv. p. 186,)
      who styles him, molto cavallaresco, poco religioso; Fleury,
      (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 126;) and the Vie de Pétrarque, (tom.
      ii. p. 42—45.) The abbé de Sade treats him with the most
      indulgence; but _he_ is a gentleman as well as a priest.]

      5 (return) [ Her name (most probably corrupted) was Zampea. She
      had accompanied, and alone remained with her mistress at
      Constantinople, where her prudence, erudition, and politeness
      deserved the praises of the Greeks themselves, (Cantacuzen. l. i.
      c. 42.)]

      6 (return) [ See this whole negotiation in Cantacuzene, (l. iv.
      c. 9,) who, amidst the praises and virtues which he bestows on
      himself, reveals the uneasiness of a guilty conscience.]

      Yet of all the Byzantine princes, that pupil, John Palæologus,
      was the best disposed to embrace, to believe, and to obey, the
      shepherd of the West. His mother, Anne of Savoy, was baptized in
      the bosom of the Latin church: her marriage with Andronicus
      imposed a change of name, of apparel, and of worship, but her
      heart was still faithful to her country and religion: she had
      formed the infancy of her son, and she governed the emperor,
      after his mind, or at least his stature, was enlarged to the size
      of man. In the first year of his deliverance and restoration, the
      Turks were still masters of the Hellespont; the son of
      Cantacuzene was in arms at Adrianople; and Palæologus could
      depend neither on himself nor on his people. By his mother’s
      advice, and in the hope of foreign aid, he abjured the rights
      both of the church and state; and the act of slavery, 7
      subscribed in purple ink, and sealed with the _golden_ bull, was
      privately intrusted to an Italian agent. The first article of the
      treaty is an oath of fidelity and obedience to Innocent the Sixth
      and his successors, the supreme pontiffs of the Roman and
      Catholic church. The emperor promises to entertain with due
      reverence their legates and nuncios; to assign a palace for their
      residence, and a temple for their worship; and to deliver his
      second son Manuel as the hostage of his faith. For these
      condescensions he requires a prompt succor of fifteen galleys,
      with five hundred men at arms, and a thousand archers, to serve
      against his Christian and Mussulman enemies. Palæologus engages
      to impose on his clergy and people the same spiritual yoke; but
      as the resistance of the Greeks might be justly foreseen, he
      adopts the two effectual methods of corruption and education. The
      legate was empowered to distribute the vacant benefices among the
      ecclesiastics who should subscribe the creed of the Vatican:
      three schools were instituted to instruct the youth of
      Constantinople in the language and doctrine of the Latins; and
      the name of Andronicus, the heir of the empire, was enrolled as
      the first student. Should he fail in the measures of persuasion
      or force, Palæologus declares himself unworthy to reign;
      transferred to the pope all regal and paternal authority; and
      invests Innocent with full power to regulate the family, the
      government, and the marriage, of his son and successor. But this
      treaty was neither executed nor published: the Roman galleys were
      as vain and imaginary as the submission of the Greeks; and it was
      only by the secrecy that their sovereign escaped the dishonor of
      this fruitless humiliation.

      7 (return) [ See this ignominious treaty in Fleury, (Hist.
      Ecclés. p. 151—154,) from Raynaldus, who drew it from the Vatican
      archives. It was not worth the trouble of a pious forgery.]

      The tempest of the Turkish arms soon burst on his head; and after
      the loss of Adrianople and Romania, he was enclosed in his
      capital, the vassal of the haughty Amurath, with the miserable
      hope of being the last devoured by the savage. In this abject
      state, Palæologus embraced the resolution of embarking for
      Venice, and casting himself at the feet of the pope: he was the
      first of the Byzantine princes who had ever visited the unknown
      regions of the West, yet in them alone he could seek consolation
      or relief; and with less violation of his dignity he might appear
      in the sacred college than at the Ottoman _Porte_. After a long
      absence, the Roman pontiffs were returning from Avignon to the
      banks of the Tyber: Urban the Fifth, 8 of a mild and virtuous
      character, encouraged or allowed the pilgrimage of the Greek
      prince; and, within the same year, enjoyed the glory of receiving
      in the Vatican the two Imperial shadows who represented the
      majesty of Constantine and Charlemagne. In this suppliant visit,
      the emperor of Constantinople, whose vanity was lost in his
      distress, gave more than could be expected of empty sounds and
      formal submissions. A previous trial was imposed; and, in the
      presence of four cardinals, he acknowledged, as a true Catholic,
      the supremacy of the pope, and the double procession of the Holy
      Ghost. After this purification, he was introduced to a public
      audience in the church of St. Peter: Urban, in the midst of the
      cardinals, was seated on his throne; the Greek monarch, after
      three genuflections, devoutly kissed the feet, the hands, and at
      length the mouth, of the holy father, who celebrated high mass in
      his presence, allowed him to lead the bridle of his mule, and
      treated him with a sumptuous banquet in the Vatican. The
      entertainment of Palæologus was friendly and honorable; yet some
      difference was observed between the emperors of the East and
      West; 9 nor could the former be entitled to the rare privilege of
      chanting the gospel in the rank of a deacon. 10 In favor of his
      proselyte, Urban strove to rekindle the zeal of the French king
      and the other powers of the West; but he found them cold in the
      general cause, and active only in their domestic quarrels. The
      last hope of the emperor was in an English mercenary, John
      Hawkwood, 11 or Acuto, who, with a band of adventurers, the white
      brotherhood, had ravaged Italy from the Alps to Calabria; sold
      his services to the hostile states; and incurred a just
      excommunication by shooting his arrows against the papal
      residence. A special license was granted to negotiate with the
      outlaw, but the forces, or the spirit, of Hawkwood, were unequal
      to the enterprise: and it was for the advantage, perhaps, of
      Palæologus to be disappointed of succor, that must have been
      costly, that could not be effectual, and which might have been
      dangerous. 12 The disconsolate Greek 13 prepared for his return,
      but even his return was impeded by a most ignominious obstacle.
      On his arrival at Venice, he had borrowed large sums at
      exorbitant usury; but his coffers were empty, his creditors were
      impatient, and his person was detained as the best security for
      the payment. His eldest son, Andronicus, the regent of
      Constantinople, was repeatedly urged to exhaust every resource;
      and even by stripping the churches, to extricate his father from
      captivity and disgrace. But the unnatural youth was insensible of
      the disgrace, and secretly pleased with the captivity of the
      emperor: the state was poor, the clergy were obstinate; nor could
      some religious scruple be wanting to excuse the guilt of his
      indifference and delay. Such undutiful neglect was severely
      reproved by the piety of his brother Manuel, who instantly sold
      or mortgaged all that he possessed, embarked for Venice, relieved
      his father, and pledged his own freedom to be responsible for the
      debt. On his return to Constantinople, the parent and king
      distinguished his two sons with suitable rewards; but the faith
      and manners of the slothful Palæologus had not been improved by
      his Roman pilgrimage; and his apostasy or conversion, devoid of
      any spiritual or temporal effects, was speedily forgotten by the
      Greeks and Latins. 14

      8 (return) [ See the two first original Lives of Urban V., (in
      Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. ii. p. 623,
      635,) and the Ecclesiastical Annals of Spondanus, (tom. i. p.
      573, A.D. 1369, No. 7,) and Raynaldus, (Fleury, Hist. Ecclés.
      tom. xx. p. 223, 224.) Yet, from some variations, I suspect the
      papal writers of slightly magnifying the genuflections of
      Palæologus.]

      9 (return) [ Paullo minus quam si fuisset Imperator Romanorum.
      Yet his title of Imperator Græcorum was no longer disputed, (Vit.
      Urban V. p. 623.)]

      10 (return) [ It was confined to the successors of Charlemagne,
      and to them only on Christmas-day. On all other festivals these
      Imperial deacons were content to serve the pope, as he said mass,
      with the book and the _corporale_. Yet the abbé de Sade
      generously thinks that the merits of Charles IV. might have
      entitled him, though not on the proper day, (A.D. 1368, November
      1,) to the whole privilege. He seems to affix a just value on the
      privilege and the man, (Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 735.)]

      11 (return) [ Through some Italian corruptions, the etymology of
      _Falcone in bosco_, (Matteo Villani, l. xi. c. 79, in Muratori,
      tom. xv. p. 746,) suggests the English word _Hawkwood_, the true
      name of our adventurous countryman, (Thomas Walsingham, Hist.
      Anglican. inter Scriptores Camdeni, p. 184.) After two-and-twenty
      victories, and one defeat, he died, in 1394, general of the
      Florentines, and was buried with such honors as the republic has
      not paid to Dante or Petrarch, (Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom.
      xii. p. 212—371.)]

      12 (return) [ This torrent of English (by birth or service)
      overflowed from France into Italy after the peace of Bretigny in
      1630. Yet the exclamation of Muratori (Annali, tom. xii. p. 197)
      is rather true than civil. “Ci mancava ancor questo, che dopo
      essere calpestrata l’Italia da tanti masnadieri Tedeschi ed
      Ungheri, venissero fin dall’ Inghliterra nuovi _cani_ a finire di
      divorarla.”]

      13 (return) [ Chalcondyles, l. i. p. 25, 26. The Greek supposes
      his journey to the king of France, which is sufficiently refuted
      by the silence of the national historians. Nor am I much more
      inclined to believe, that Palæologus departed from Italy, valde
      bene consolatus et contentus, (Vit. Urban V. p. 623.)]

      14 (return) [ His return in 1370, and the coronation of Manuel,
      Sept. 25, 1373, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 241,) leaves some
      intermediate æra for the conspiracy and punishment of
      Andronicus.]

      Thirty years after the return of Palæologus, his son and
      successor, Manuel, from a similar motive, but on a larger scale,
      again visited the countries of the West. In a preceding chapter I
      have related his treaty with Bajazet, the violation of that
      treaty, the siege or blockade of Constantinople, and the French
      succor under the command of the gallant Boucicault. 15 By his
      ambassadors, Manuel had solicited the Latin powers; but it was
      thought that the presence of a distressed monarch would draw
      tears and supplies from the hardest Barbarians; 16 and the
      marshal who advised the journey prepared the reception of the
      Byzantine prince. The land was occupied by the Turks; but the
      navigation of Venice was safe and open: Italy received him as the
      first, or, at least, as the second, of the Christian princes;
      Manuel was pitied as the champion and confessor of the faith; and
      the dignity of his behavior prevented that pity from sinking into
      contempt. From Venice he proceeded to Padua and Pavia; and even
      the duke of Milan, a secret ally of Bajazet, gave him safe and
      honorable conduct to the verge of his dominions. 17 On the
      confines of France 18 the royal officers undertook the care of
      his person, journey, and expenses; and two thousand of the
      richest citizens, in arms and on horseback, came forth to meet
      him as far as Charenton, in the neighborhood of the capital. At
      the gates of Paris, he was saluted by the chancellor and the
      parliament; and Charles the Sixth, attended by his princes and
      nobles, welcomed his brother with a cordial embrace. The
      successor of Constantine was clothed in a robe of white silk, and
      mounted on a milk-white steed, a circumstance, in the French
      ceremonial, of singular importance: the white color is considered
      as the symbol of sovereignty; and, in a late visit, the German
      emperor, after a haughty demand and a peevish refusal, had been
      reduced to content himself with a black courser. Manuel was
      lodged in the Louvre; a succession of feasts and balls, the
      pleasures of the banquet and the chase, were ingeniously varied
      by the politeness of the French, to display their magnificence,
      and amuse his grief: he was indulged in the liberty of his
      chapel; and the doctors of the Sorbonne were astonished, and
      possibly scandalized, by the language, the rites, and the
      vestments, of his Greek clergy. But the slightest glance on the
      state of the kingdom must teach him to despair of any effectual
      assistance. The unfortunate Charles, though he enjoyed some lucid
      intervals, continually relapsed into furious or stupid insanity:
      the reins of government were alternately seized by his brother
      and uncle, the dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, whose factious
      competition prepared the miseries of civil war. The former was a
      gay youth, dissolved in luxury and love: the latter was the
      father of John count of Nevers, who had so lately been ransomed
      from Turkish captivity; and, if the fearless son was ardent to
      revenge his defeat, the more prudent Burgundy was content with
      the cost and peril of the first experiment. When Manuel had
      satiated the curiosity, and perhaps fatigued the patience, of the
      French, he resolved on a visit to the adjacent island. In his
      progress from Dover, he was entertained at Canterbury with due
      reverence by the prior and monks of St. Austin; and, on
      Blackheath, King Henry the Fourth, with the English court,
      saluted the Greek hero, (I copy our old historian,) who, during
      many days, was lodged and treated in London as emperor of the
      East. 19 But the state of England was still more adverse to the
      design of the holy war. In the same year, the hereditary
      sovereign had been deposed and murdered: the reigning prince was
      a successful usurper, whose ambition was punished by jealousy and
      remorse: nor could Henry of Lancaster withdraw his person or
      forces from the defence of a throne incessantly shaken by
      conspiracy and rebellion. He pitied, he praised, he feasted, the
      emperor of Constantinople; but if the English monarch assumed the
      cross, it was only to appease his people, and perhaps his
      conscience, by the merit or semblance of his pious intention. 20
      Satisfied, however, with gifts and honors, Manuel returned to
      Paris; and, after a residence of two years in the West, shaped
      his course through Germany and Italy, embarked at Venice, and
      patiently expected, in the Morea, the moment of his ruin or
      deliverance. Yet he had escaped the ignominious necessity of
      offering his religion to public or private sale. The Latin church
      was distracted by the great schism; the kings, the nations, the
      universities, of Europe were divided in their obedience between
      the popes of Rome and Avignon; and the emperor, anxious to
      conciliate the friendship of both parties, abstained from any
      correspondence with the indigent and unpopular rivals. His
      journey coincided with the year of the jubilee; but he passed
      through Italy without desiring, or deserving, the plenary
      indulgence which abolished the guilt or penance of the sins of
      the faithful. The Roman pope was offended by this neglect;
      accused him of irreverence to an image of Christ; and exhorted
      the princes of Italy to reject and abandon the obstinate
      schismatic. 21

      15 (return) [ Mémoires de Boucicault, P. i. c. 35, 36.]

      16 (return) [ His journey into the west of Europe is slightly,
      and I believe reluctantly, noticed by Chalcondyles (l. ii. c.
      44—50) and Ducas, (c. 14.)]

      17 (return) [ Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom. xii. p. 406. John
      Galeazzo was the first and most powerful duke of Milan. His
      connection with Bajazet is attested by Froissard; and he
      contributed to save and deliver the French captives of
      Nicopolis.]

      18 (return) [ For the reception of Manuel at Paris, see
      Spondanus, (Annal. Ecclés. tom. i. p. 676, 677, A.D. 1400, No.
      5,) who quotes Juvenal des Ursins and the monk of St. Denys; and
      Villaret, (Hist. de France, tom. xii. p. 331—334,) who quotes
      nobody according to the last fashion of the French writers.]

      19 (return) [ A short note of Manuel in England is extracted by
      Dr. Hody from a MS. at Lambeth, (de Græcis illustribus, p. 14,)
      C. P. Imperator, diu variisque et horrendis Paganorum insultibus
      coarctatus, ut pro eisdem resistentiam triumphalem perquireret,
      Anglorum Regem visitare decrevit, &c. Rex (says Walsingham, p.
      364) nobili apparatû... suscepit (ut decuit) tantum Heroa,
      duxitque Londonias, et per multos dies exhibuit gloriose, pro
      expensis hospitii sui solvens, et eum respiciens tanto fastigio
      donativis. He repeats the same in his Upodigma Neustriæ, (p.
      556.)]

      20 (return) [ Shakspeare begins and ends the play of Henry IV.
      with that prince’s vow of a crusade, and his belief that he
      should die in Jerusalem.]

      21 (return) [ This fact is preserved in the Historia Politica,
      A.D. 1391—1478, published by Martin Crusius, (Turco Græcia, p.
      1—43.) The image of Christ, which the Greek emperor refused to
      worship, was probably a work of sculpture.]




      Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part II.

      During the period of the crusades, the Greeks beheld with
      astonishment and terror the perpetual stream of emigration that
      flowed, and continued to flow, from the unknown climates of their
      West. The visits of their last emperors removed the veil of
      separation, and they disclosed to their eyes the powerful nations
      of Europe, whom they no longer presumed to brand with the name of
      Barbarians. The observations of Manuel, and his more inquisitive
      followers, have been preserved by a Byzantine historian of the
      times: 22 his scattered ideas I shall collect and abridge; and it
      may be amusing enough, perhaps instructive, to contemplate the
      rude pictures of Germany, France, and England, whose ancient and
      modern state are so familiar to _our_ minds. I. Germany (says the
      Greek Chalcondyles) is of ample latitude from Vienna to the
      ocean; and it stretches (a strange geography) from Prague in
      Bohemia to the River Tartessus, and the Pyrenæan Mountains. 23
      The soil, except in figs and olives, is sufficiently fruitful;
      the air is salubrious; the bodies of the natives are robust and
      healthy; and these cold regions are seldom visited with the
      calamities of pestilence, or earthquakes. After the Scythians or
      Tartars, the Germans are the most numerous of nations: they are
      brave and patient; and were they united under a single head,
      their force would be irresistible. By the gift of the pope, they
      have acquired the privilege of choosing the Roman emperor; 24 nor
      is any people more devoutly attached to the faith and obedience
      of the Latin patriarch. The greatest part of the country is
      divided among the princes and prelates; but Strasburg, Cologne,
      Hamburgh, and more than two hundred free cities, are governed by
      sage and equal laws, according to the will, and for the
      advantage, of the whole community. The use of duels, or single
      combats on foot, prevails among them in peace and war: their
      industry excels in all the mechanic arts; and the Germans may
      boast of the invention of gunpowder and cannon, which is now
      diffused over the greatest part of the world. II. The kingdom of
      France is spread above fifteen or twenty days’ journey from
      Germany to Spain, and from the Alps to the British Ocean;
      containing many flourishing cities, and among these Paris, the
      seat of the king, which surpasses the rest in riches and luxury.
      Many princes and lords alternately wait in his palace, and
      acknowledge him as their sovereign: the most powerful are the
      dukes of Bretagne and Burgundy; of whom the latter possesses the
      wealthy province of Flanders, whose harbors are frequented by the
      ships and merchants of our own, and the more remote, seas. The
      French are an ancient and opulent people; and their language and
      manners, though somewhat different, are not dissimilar from those
      of the Italians. Vain of the Imperial dignity of Charlemagne, of
      their victories over the Saracens, and of the exploits of their
      heroes, Oliver and Rowland, 25 they esteem themselves the first
      of the western nations; but this foolish arrogance has been
      recently humbled by the unfortunate events of their wars against
      the English, the inhabitants of the British island. III. Britain,
      in the ocean, and opposite to the shores of Flanders, may be
      considered either as one, or as three islands; but the whole is
      united by a common interest, by the same manners, and by a
      similar government. The measure of its circumference is five
      thousand stadia: the land is overspread with towns and villages:
      though destitute of wine, and not abounding in fruit-trees, it is
      fertile in wheat and barley; in honey and wool; and much cloth is
      manufactured by the inhabitants. In populousness and power, in
      richness and luxury, London, 26 the metropolis of the isle, may
      claim a preeminence over all the cities of the West. It is
      situate on the Thames, a broad and rapid river, which at the
      distance of thirty miles falls into the Gallic Sea; and the daily
      flow and ebb of the tide affords a safe entrance and departure to
      the vessels of commerce. The king is head of a powerful and
      turbulent aristocracy: his principal vassals hold their estates
      by a free and unalterable tenure; and the laws define the limits
      of his authority and their obedience. The kingdom has been often
      afflicted by foreign conquest and domestic sedition: but the
      natives are bold and hardy, renowned in arms and victorious in
      war. The form of their shields or targets is derived from the
      Italians, that of their swords from the Greeks; the use of the
      long bow is the peculiar and decisive advantage of the English.
      Their language bears no affinity to the idioms of the Continent:
      in the habits of domestic life, they are not easily distinguished
      from their neighbors of France: but the most singular
      circumstance of their manners is their disregard of conjugal
      honor and of female chastity. In their mutual visits, as the
      first act of hospitality, the guest is welcomed in the embraces
      of their wives and daughters: among friends they are lent and
      borrowed without shame; nor are the islanders offended at this
      strange commerce, and its inevitable consequences. 27 Informed as
      we are of the customs of Old England and assured of the virtue of
      our mothers, we may smile at the credulity, or resent the
      injustice, of the Greek, who must have confounded a modest salute
      28 with a criminal embrace. But his credulity and injustice may
      teach an important lesson; to distrust the accounts of foreign
      and remote nations, and to suspend our belief of every tale that
      deviates from the laws of nature and the character of man. 29

      22 (return) [ The Greek and Turkish history of Laonicus
      Chalcondyles ends with the winter of 1463; and the abrupt
      conclusion seems to mark, that he laid down his pen in the same
      year. We know that he was an Athenian, and that some
      contemporaries of the same name contributed to the revival of the
      Greek language in Italy. But in his numerous digressions, the
      modest historian has never introduced himself; and his editor
      Leunclavius, as well as Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p.
      474,) seems ignorant of his life and character. For his
      descriptions of Germany, France, and England, see l. ii. p. 36,
      37, 44—50.]

      23 (return) [ I shall not animadvert on the geographical errors
      of Chalcondyles. In this instance, he perhaps followed, and
      mistook, Herodotus, (l. ii. c. 33,) whose text may be explained,
      (Herodote de Larcher, tom. ii. p. 219, 220,) or whose ignorance
      may be excused. Had these modern Greeks never read Strabo, or any
      of their lesser geographers?]

      24 (return) [ A citizen of new Rome, while new Rome survived,
      would have scorned to dignify the German 'Rhx with titles of
      BasileuV or Autokratwr 'Rwmaiwn: but all pride was extinct in the
      bosom of Chalcondyles; and he describes the Byzantine prince, and
      his subject, by the proper, though humble, names of ''EllhneV and
      BasileuV 'Ellhnwn.]

      25 (return) [ Most of the old romances were translated in the
      xivth century into French prose, and soon became the favorite
      amusement of the knights and ladies in the court of Charles VI.
      If a Greek believed in the exploits of Rowland and Oliver, he may
      surely be excused, since the monks of St. Denys, the national
      historians, have inserted the fables of Archbishop Turpin in
      their Chronicles of France.]

      26 (return) [ Londinh.... de te poliV dunamei te proecousa tvn en
      th nhsw tauth pasvn polewn, olbw te kai th allh eudaimonia
      oudemiaV tvn peoV esperan leipomenh. Even since the time of
      Fitzstephen, (the xiith century,) London appears to have
      maintained this preeminence of wealth and magnitude; and her
      gradual increase has, at least, kept pace with the general
      improvement of Europe.]

      27 (return) [ If the double sense of the verb Kuw (osculor, and
      in utero gero) be equivocal, the context and pious horror of
      Chalcondyles can leave no doubt of his meaning and mistake, (p.
      49.) * Note: I can discover no “pious horror” in the plain manner
      in which Chalcondyles relates this strange usage. He says, oude
      aiscunun tovto feoei eautoiV kuesqai taV te gunaikaV autvn kai
      taV qugateraV, yet these are expression beyond what would be
      used, if the ambiguous word kuesqai were taken in its more
      innocent sense. Nor can the phrase parecontai taV eautvn gunaikaV
      en toiV epithdeioiV well bear a less coarse interpretation.
      Gibbon is possibly right as to the origin of this extraordinary
      mistake.—M.]

      28 (return) [ Erasmus (Epist. Fausto Andrelino) has a pretty
      passage on the English fashion of kissing strangers on their
      arrival and departure, from whence, however, he draws no
      scandalous inferences.]

      29 (return) [ Perhaps we may apply this remark to the community
      of wives among the old Britons, as it is supposed by Cæsar and
      Dion, (Dion Cassius, l. lxii. tom. ii. p. 1007,) with Reimar’s
      judicious annotation. The _Arreoy_ of Otaheite, so certain at
      first, is become less visible and scandalous, in proportion as we
      have studied the manners of that gentle and amorous people.]

      After his return, and the victory of Timour, Manuel reigned many
      years in prosperity and peace. As long as the sons of Bajazet
      solicited his friendship and spared his dominions, he was
      satisfied with the national religion; and his leisure was
      employed in composing twenty theological dialogues for its
      defence. The appearance of the Byzantine ambassadors at the
      council of Constance, 30 announces the restoration of the Turkish
      power, as well as of the Latin church: the conquest of the
      sultans, Mahomet and Amurath, reconciled the emperor to the
      Vatican; and the siege of Constantinople almost tempted him to
      acquiesce in the double procession of the Holy Ghost. When Martin
      the Fifth ascended without a rival the chair of St. Peter, a
      friendly intercourse of letters and embassies was revived between
      the East and West. Ambition on one side, and distress on the
      other, dictated the same decent language of charity and peace:
      the artful Greek expressed a desire of marrying his six sons to
      Italian princesses; and the Roman, not less artful, despatched
      the daughter of the marquis of Montferrat, with a company of
      noble virgins, to soften, by their charms, the obstinacy of the
      schismatics. Yet under this mask of zeal, a discerning eye will
      perceive that all was hollow and insincere in the court and
      church of Constantinople. According to the vicissitudes of danger
      and repose, the emperor advanced or retreated; alternately
      instructed and disavowed his ministers; and escaped from the
      importunate pressure by urging the duty of inquiry, the
      obligation of collecting the sense of his patriarchs and bishops,
      and the impossibility of convening them at a time when the
      Turkish arms were at the gates of his capital. From a review of
      the public transactions it will appear that the Greeks insisted
      on three successive measures, a succor, a council, and a final
      reunion, while the Latins eluded the second, and only promised
      the first, as a consequential and voluntary reward of the third.
      But we have an opportunity of unfolding the most secret
      intentions of Manuel, as he explained them in a private
      conversation without artifice or disguise. In his declining age,
      the emperor had associated John Palæologus, the second of the
      name, and the eldest of his sons, on whom he devolved the
      greatest part of the authority and weight of government. One day,
      in the presence only of the historian Phranza, 31 his favorite
      chamberlain, he opened to his colleague and successor the true
      principle of his negotiations with the pope. 32 “Our last
      resource,” said Manuel, against the Turks, “is their fear of our
      union with the Latins, of the warlike nations of the West, who
      may arm for our relief and for their destruction. As often as you
      are threatened by the miscreants, present this danger before
      their eyes. Propose a council; consult on the means; but ever
      delay and avoid the convocation of an assembly, which cannot tend
      either to our spiritual or temporal emolument. The Latins are
      proud; the Greeks are obstinate; neither party will recede or
      retract; and the attempt of a perfect union will confirm the
      schism, alienate the churches, and leave us, without hope or
      defence, at the mercy of the Barbarians.” Impatient of this
      salutary lesson, the royal youth arose from his seat, and
      departed in silence; and the wise monarch (continued Phranza)
      casting his eyes on me, thus resumed his discourse: “My son deems
      himself a great and heroic prince; but, alas! our miserable age
      does not afford scope for heroism or greatness. His daring spirit
      might have suited the happier times of our ancestors; but the
      present state requires not an emperor, but a cautious steward of
      the last relics of our fortunes. Well do I remember the lofty
      expectations which he built on our alliance with Mustapha; and
      much do I fear, that this rash courage will urge the ruin of our
      house, and that even religion may precipitate our downfall.” Yet
      the experience and authority of Manuel preserved the peace, and
      eluded the council; till, in the seventy-eighth year of his age,
      and in the habit of a monk, he terminated his career, dividing
      his precious movables among his children and the poor, his
      physicians and his favorite servants. Of his six sons, 33
      Andronicus the Second was invested with the principality of
      Thessalonica, and died of a leprosy soon after the sale of that
      city to the Venetians and its final conquest by the Turks. Some
      fortunate incidents had restored Peloponnesus, or the Morea, to
      the empire; and in his more prosperous days, Manuel had fortified
      the narrow isthmus of six miles 34 with a stone wall and one
      hundred and fifty-three towers. The wall was overthrown by the
      first blast of the Ottomans; the fertile peninsula might have
      been sufficient for the four younger brothers, Theodore and
      Constantine, Demetrius and Thomas; but they wasted in domestic
      contests the remains of their strength; and the least successful
      of the rivals were reduced to a life of dependence in the
      Byzantine palace.

      30 (return) [ See Lenfant, Hist. du Concile de Constance, tom.
      ii. p. 576; and or the ecclesiastical history of the times, the
      Annals of Spondanus the Bibliothèque of Dupin, tom. xii., and
      xxist and xxiid volumes of the History, or rather the
      Continuation, of Fleury.]

      31 (return) [ From his early youth, George Phranza, or Phranzes,
      was employed in the service of the state and palace; and Hanckius
      (de Script. Byzant. P. i. c. 40) has collected his life from his
      own writings. He was no more than four-and-twenty years of age at
      the death of Manuel, who recommended him in the strongest terms
      to his successor: Imprimis vero hunc Phranzen tibi commendo, qui
      ministravit mihi fideliter et diligenter (Phranzes, l. ii. c. i.)
      Yet the emperor John was cold, and he preferred the service of
      the despots of Peloponnesus.]

      32 (return) [ See Phranzes, l. ii. c. 13. While so many
      manuscripts of the Greek original are extant in the libraries of
      Rome, Milan, the Escurial, &c., it is a matter of shame and
      reproach, that we should be reduced to the Latin version, or
      abstract, of James Pontanus, (ad calcem Theophylact, Simocattæ:
      Ingolstadt, 1604,) so deficient in accuracy and elegance,
      (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 615—620.) * Note: The Greek
      text of Phranzes was edited by F. C. Alter Vindobonæ, 1796. It
      has been re-edited by Bekker for the new edition of the
      Byzantines, Bonn, 1838.—M.]

      33 (return) [ See Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 243—248.]

      34 (return) [ The exact measure of the Hexamilion, from sea to
      sea, was 3800 orgyiæ, or _toises_, of six Greek feet, (Phranzes,
      l. i. c. 38,) which would produce a Greek mile, still smaller
      than that of 660 French _toises_, which is assigned by D’Anville,
      as still in use in Turkey. Five miles are commonly reckoned for
      the breadth of the isthmus. See the Travels of Spon, Wheeler and
      Chandler.]

      The eldest of the sons of Manuel, John Palæologus the Second, was
      acknowledged, after his father’s death, as the sole emperor of
      the Greeks. He immediately proceeded to repudiate his wife, and
      to contract a new marriage with the princess of Trebizond: beauty
      was in his eyes the first qualification of an empress; and the
      clergy had yielded to his firm assurance, that unless he might be
      indulged in a divorce, he would retire to a cloister, and leave
      the throne to his brother Constantine. The first, and in truth
      the only, victory of Palæologus, was over a Jew, 35 whom, after a
      long and learned dispute, he converted to the Christian faith;
      and this momentous conquest is carefully recorded in the history
      of the times. But he soon resumed the design of uniting the East
      and West; and, regardless of his father’s advice, listened, as it
      should seem with sincerity, to the proposal of meeting the pope
      in a general council beyond the Adriatic. This dangerous project
      was encouraged by Martin the Fifth, and coldly entertained by his
      successor Eugenius, till, after a tedious negotiation, the
      emperor received a summons from the Latin assembly of a new
      character, the independent prelates of Basil, who styled
      themselves the representatives and judges of the Catholic church.

      35 (return) [ The first objection of the Jews is on the death of
      Christ: if it were voluntary, Christ was a suicide; which the
      emperor parries with a mystery. They then dispute on the
      conception of the Virgin, the sense of the prophecies, &c.,
      (Phranzes, l. ii. c. 12, a whole chapter.)]

      The Roman pontiff had fought and conquered in the cause of
      ecclesiastical freedom; but the victorious clergy were soon
      exposed to the tyranny of their deliverer; and his sacred
      character was invulnerable to those arms which they found so keen
      and effectual against the civil magistrate. Their great charter,
      the right of election, was annihilated by appeals, evaded by
      trusts or commendams, disappointed by reversionary grants, and
      superseded by previous and arbitrary reservations. 36 A public
      auction was instituted in the court of Rome: the cardinals and
      favorites were enriched with the spoils of nations; and every
      country might complain that the most important and valuable
      benefices were accumulated on the heads of aliens and absentees.
      During their residence at Avignon, the ambition of the popes
      subsided in the meaner passions of avarice 37 and luxury: they
      rigorously imposed on the clergy the tributes of first-fruits and
      tenths; but they freely tolerated the impunity of vice, disorder,
      and corruption. These manifold scandals were aggravated by the
      great schism of the West, which continued above fifty years. In
      the furious conflicts of Rome and Avignon, the vices of the
      rivals were mutually exposed; and their precarious situation
      degraded their authority, relaxed their discipline, and
      multiplied their wants and exactions. To heal the wounds, and
      restore the monarchy, of the church, the synods of Pisa and
      Constance 38 were successively convened; but these great
      assemblies, conscious of their strength, resolved to vindicate
      the privileges of the Christian aristocracy. From a personal
      sentence against two pontiffs, whom they rejected, and a third,
      their acknowledged sovereign, whom they deposed, the fathers of
      Constance proceeded to examine the nature and limits of the Roman
      supremacy; nor did they separate till they had established the
      authority, above the pope, of a general council. It was enacted,
      that, for the government and reformation of the church, such
      assemblies should be held at regular intervals; and that each
      synod, before its dissolution, should appoint the time and place
      of the subsequent meeting. By the influence of the court of Rome,
      the next convocation at Sienna was easily eluded; but the bold
      and vigorous proceedings of the council of Basil 39 had almost
      been fatal to the reigning pontiff, Eugenius the Fourth. A just
      suspicion of his design prompted the fathers to hasten the
      promulgation of their first decree, that the representatives of
      the church-militant on earth were invested with a divine and
      spiritual jurisdiction over all Christians, without excepting the
      pope; and that a general council could not be dissolved,
      prorogued, or transferred, unless by their free deliberation and
      consent. On the notice that Eugenius had fulminated a bull for
      that purpose, they ventured to summon, to admonish, to threaten,
      to censure the contumacious successor of St. Peter. After many
      delays, to allow time for repentance, they finally declared,
      that, unless he submitted within the term of sixty days, he was
      suspended from the exercise of all temporal and ecclesiastical
      authority. And to mark their jurisdiction over the prince as well
      as the priest, they assumed the government of Avignon, annulled
      the alienation of the sacred patrimony, and protected Rome from
      the imposition of new taxes. Their boldness was justified, not
      only by the general opinion of the clergy, but by the support and
      power of the first monarchs of Christendom: the emperor Sigismond
      declared himself the servant and protector of the synod; Germany
      and France adhered to their cause; the duke of Milan was the
      enemy of Eugenius; and he was driven from the Vatican by an
      insurrection of the Roman people. Rejected at the same time by
      temporal and spiritual subjects, submission was his only choice:
      by a most humiliating bull, the pope repealed his own acts, and
      ratified those of the council; incorporated his legates and
      cardinals with that venerable body; and _seemed_ to resign
      himself to the decrees of the supreme legislature. Their fame
      pervaded the countries of the East: and it was in their presence
      that Sigismond received the ambassadors of the Turkish sultan, 40
      who laid at his feet twelve large vases, filled with robes of
      silk and pieces of gold. The fathers of Basil aspired to the
      glory of reducing the Greeks, as well as the Bohemians, within
      the pale of the church; and their deputies invited the emperor
      and patriarch of Constantinople to unite with an assembly which
      possessed the confidence of the Western nations. Palæologus was
      not averse to the proposal; and his ambassadors were introduced
      with due honors into the Catholic senate. But the choice of the
      place appeared to be an insuperable obstacle, since he refused to
      pass the Alps, or the sea of Sicily, and positively required that
      the synod should be adjourned to some convenient city in Italy,
      or at least on the Danube. The other articles of this treaty were
      more readily stipulated: it was agreed to defray the travelling
      expenses of the emperor, with a train of seven hundred persons,
      41 to remit an immediate sum of eight thousand ducats 42 for the
      accommodation of the Greek clergy; and in his absence to grant a
      supply of ten thousand ducats, with three hundred archers and
      some galleys, for the protection of Constantinople. The city of
      Avignon advanced the funds for the preliminary expenses; and the
      embarkation was prepared at Marseilles with some difficulty and
      delay.

      36 (return) [ In the treatise delle Materie Beneficiarie of Fra
      Paolo, (in the ivth volume of the last, and best, edition of his
      works,) the papal system is deeply studied and freely described.
      Should Rome and her religion be annihilated, this golden volume
      may still survive, a philosophical history, and a salutary
      warning.]

      37 (return) [ Pope John XXII. (in 1334) left behind him, at
      Avignon, eighteen millions of gold florins, and the value of
      seven millions more in plate and jewels. See the Chronicle of
      John Villani, (l. xi. c. 20, in Muratori’s Collection, tom. xiii.
      p. 765,) whose brother received the account from the papal
      treasurers. A treasure of six or eight millions sterling in the
      xivth century is enormous, and almost incredible.]

      38 (return) [ A learned and liberal Protestant, M. Lenfant, has
      given a fair history of the councils of Pisa, Constance, and
      Basil, in six volumes in quarto; but the last part is the most
      hasty and imperfect, except in the account of the troubles of
      Bohemia.]

      39 (return) [ The original acts or minutes of the council of
      Basil are preserved in the public library, in twelve volumes in
      folio. Basil was a free city, conveniently situate on the Rhine,
      and guarded by the arms of the neighboring and confederate Swiss.
      In 1459, the university was founded by Pope Pius II., (Æneas
      Sylvius,) who had been secretary to the council. But what is a
      council, or a university, to the presses o Froben and the studies
      of Erasmus?]

      40 (return) [ This Turkish embassy, attested only by Crantzius,
      is related with some doubt by the annalist Spondanus, A.D. 1433,
      No. 25, tom. i. p. 824.]

      41 (return) [ Syropulus, p. 19. In this list, the Greeks appear
      to have exceeded the real numbers of the clergy and laity which
      afterwards attended the emperor and patriarch, but which are not
      clearly specified by the great ecclesiarch. The 75,000 florins
      which they asked in this negotiation of the pope, (p. 9,) were
      more than they could hope or want.]

      42 (return) [ I use indifferently the words _ducat_ and _florin_,
      which derive their names, the former from the _dukes_ of Milan,
      the latter from the republic of _Florence_. These gold pieces,
      the first that were coined in Italy, perhaps in the Latin world,
      may be compared in weight and value to one third of the English
      guinea.]

      In his distress, the friendship of Palæologus was disputed by the
      ecclesiastical powers of the West; but the dexterous activity of
      a monarch prevailed over the slow debates and inflexible temper
      of a republic. The decrees of Basil continually tended to
      circumscribe the despotism of the pope, and to erect a supreme
      and perpetual tribunal in the church. Eugenius was impatient of
      the yoke; and the union of the Greeks might afford a decent
      pretence for translating a rebellious synod from the Rhine to the
      Po. The independence of the fathers was lost if they passed the
      Alps: Savoy or Avignon, to which they acceded with reluctance,
      were described at Constantinople as situate far beyond the
      pillars of Hercules; 43 the emperor and his clergy were
      apprehensive of the dangers of a long navigation; they were
      offended by a haughty declaration, that after suppressing the
      _new_ heresy of the Bohemians, the council would soon eradicate
      the _old_ heresy of the Greeks. 44 On the side of Eugenius, all
      was smooth, and yielding, and respectful; and he invited the
      Byzantine monarch to heal by his presence the schism of the
      Latin, as well as of the Eastern, church. Ferrara, near the coast
      of the Adriatic, was proposed for their amicable interview; and
      with some indulgence of forgery and theft, a surreptitious decree
      was procured, which transferred the synod, with its own consent,
      to that Italian city. Nine galleys were equipped for the service
      at Venice, and in the Isle of Candia; their diligence anticipated
      the slower vessels of Basil: the Roman admiral was commissioned
      to burn, sink, and destroy; 45 and these priestly squadrons might
      have encountered each other in the same seas where Athens and
      Sparta had formerly contended for the preeminence of glory.
      Assaulted by the importunity of the factions, who were ready to
      fight for the possession of his person, Palæologus hesitated
      before he left his palace and country on a perilous experiment.
      His father’s advice still dwelt on his memory; and reason must
      suggest, that since the Latins were divided among themselves,
      they could never unite in a foreign cause. Sigismond dissuaded
      the unreasonable adventure; his advice was impartial, since he
      adhered to the council; and it was enforced by the strange
      belief, that the German Cæsar would nominate a Greek his heir and
      successor in the empire of the West. 46 Even the Turkish sultan
      was a counsellor whom it might be unsafe to trust, but whom it
      was dangerous to offend. Amurath was unskilled in the disputes,
      but he was apprehensive of the union, of the Christians. From his
      own treasures, he offered to relieve the wants of the Byzantine
      court; yet he declared with seeming magnanimity, that
      Constantinople should be secure and inviolate, in the absence of
      her sovereign. 47 The resolution of Palæologus was decided by the
      most splendid gifts and the most specious promises: he wished to
      escape for a while from a scene of danger and distress and after
      dismissing with an ambiguous answer the messengers of the
      council, he declared his intention of embarking in the Roman
      galleys. The age of the patriarch Joseph was more susceptible of
      fear than of hope; he trembled at the perils of the sea, and
      expressed his apprehension, that his feeble voice, with thirty
      perhaps of his orthodox brethren, would be oppressed in a foreign
      land by the power and numbers of a Latin synod. He yielded to the
      royal mandate, to the flattering assurance, that he would be
      heard as the oracle of nations, and to the secret wish of
      learning from his brother of the West, to deliver the church from
      the yoke of kings. 48 The five _cross-bearers_, or dignitaries,
      of St. Sophia, were bound to attend his person; and one of these,
      the great ecclesiarch or preacher, Sylvester Syropulus, 49 has
      composed a free and curious history 50 of the _false_ union. 51
      Of the clergy that reluctantly obeyed the summons of the emperor
      and the patriarch, submission was the first duty, and patience
      the most useful virtue. In a chosen list of twenty bishops, we
      discover the metropolitan titles of Heracleæ and Cyzicus, Nice
      and Nicomedia, Ephesus and Trebizond, and the personal merit of
      Mark and Bessarion who, in the confidence of their learning and
      eloquence, were promoted to the episcopal rank. Some monks and
      philosophers were named to display the science and sanctity of
      the Greek church; and the service of the choir was performed by a
      select band of singers and musicians. The patriarchs of
      Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, appeared by their genuine or
      fictitious deputies; the primate of Russia represented a national
      church, and the Greeks might contend with the Latins in the
      extent of their spiritual empire. The precious vases of St.
      Sophia were exposed to the winds and waves, that the patriarch
      might officiate with becoming splendor: whatever gold the emperor
      could procure, was expended in the massy ornaments of his bed and
      chariot; 52 and while they affected to maintain the prosperity of
      their ancient fortune, they quarrelled for the division of
      fifteen thousand ducats, the first alms of the Roman pontiff.
      After the necessary preparations, John Palæologus, with a
      numerous train, accompanied by his brother Demetrius, and the
      most respectable persons of the church and state, embarked in
      eight vessels with sails and oars which steered through the
      Turkish Straits of Gallipoli to the Archipelago, the Morea, and
      the Adriatic Gulf. 53

      43 (return) [ At the end of the Latin version of Phranzes, we
      read a long Greek epistle or declamation of George of Trebizond,
      who advises the emperor to prefer Eugenius and Italy. He treats
      with contempt the schismatic assembly of Basil, the Barbarians of
      Gaul and Germany, who had conspired to transport the chair of St.
      Peter beyond the Alps; oi aqlioi (says he) se kai thn meta sou
      sunodon exw tvn 'Hrakleiwn sthlwn kai pera Gadhrwn exaxousi. Was
      Constantinople unprovided with a map?]

      44 (return) [ Syropulus (p. 26—31) attests his own indignation,
      and that of his countrymen; and the Basil deputies, who excused
      the rash declaration, could neither deny nor alter an act of the
      council.]

      45 (return) [ Condolmieri, the pope’s nephew and admiral,
      expressly declared, oti orismon eceipara tou Papa ina polemhsh
      opou an eurh ta katerga thV Sunodou, kai ei dunhqh, katadush, kai
      ajanish. The naval orders of the synod were less peremptory, and,
      till the hostile squadrons appeared, both parties tried to
      conceal their quarrel from the Greeks.]

      46 (return) [ Syropulus mentions the hopes of Palæologus, (p.
      36,) and the last advice of Sigismond,(p. 57.) At Corfu, the
      Greek emperor was informed of his friend’s death; had he known it
      sooner, he would have returned home,(p. 79.)]

      47 (return) [ Phranzes himself, though from different motives,
      was of the advice of Amurath, (l. ii. c. 13.) Utinam ne synodus
      ista unquam fuisset, si tantes offensiones et detrimenta paritura
      erat. This Turkish embassy is likewise mentioned by Syropulus,
      (p. 58;) and Amurath kept his word. He might threaten, (p. 125,
      219,) but he never attacked, the city.]

      48 (return) [ The reader will smile at the simplicity with which
      he imparted these hopes to his favorites: toiauthn plhrojorian
      schsein hlpize kai dia tou Papa eqarrei eleuqervdai thn ekklhsian
      apo thV apoteqeishV autou douleiaV para tou basilewV, (p. 92.)
      Yet it would have been difficult for him to have practised the
      lessons of Gregory VII.]

      49 (return) [ The Christian name of Sylvester is borrowed from
      the Latin calendar. In modern Greek, pouloV, as a diminutive, is
      added to the end of words: nor can any reasoning of Creyghton,
      the editor, excuse his changing into S_gur_opulus, (Sguros,
      fuscus,) the Syropulus of his own manuscript, whose name is
      subscribed with his own hand in the acts of the council of
      Florence. Why might not the author be of Syrian extraction?]

      50 (return) [ From the conclusion of the history, I should fix
      the date to the year 1444, four years after the synod, when great
      ecclesiarch had abdicated his office, (section xii. p. 330—350.)
      His passions were cooled by time and retirement; and, although
      Syropulus is often partial, he is never intemperate.]

      51 (return) [ _Vera historia unionis non ver inter Græcos et
      Latinos_, (_Haga Comitis_, 1660, in folio,) was first published
      with a loose and florid version, by Robert Creyghton, chaplain to
      Charles II. in his exile. The zeal of the editor has prefixed a
      polemic title, for the beginning of the original is wanting.
      Syropulus may be ranked with the best of the Byzantine writers
      for the merit of his narration, and even of his style; but he is
      excluded from the orthodox collections of the councils.]

      52 (return) [ Syropulus (p. 63) simply expresses his intention
      in’ outw pompawn en’ 'ItaloiV megaV basileuV par ekeinvn
      nomizoito; and the Latin of Creyghton may afford a specimen of
      his florid paraphrase. Ut pompâ circumductus noster Imperator
      Italiæ populis aliquis deauratus Jupiter crederetur, aut Crsus ex
      opulenta Lydia.]

      53 (return) [ Although I cannot stop to quote Syropulus for every
      fact, I will observe that the navigation of the Greeks from
      Constantinople to Venice and Ferrara is contained in the ivth
      section, (p. 67—100,) and that the historian has the uncommon
      talent of placing each scene before the reader’s eye.]




      Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part III.

      After a tedious and troublesome navigation of seventy-seven days,
      this religious squadron cast anchor before Venice; and their
      reception proclaimed the joy and magnificence of that powerful
      republic. In the command of the world, the modest Augustus had
      never claimed such honors from his subjects as were paid to his
      feeble successor by an independent state. Seated on the poop on a
      lofty throne, he received the visit, or, in the Greek style, the
      _adoration_ of the doge and senators. 54 They sailed in the
      Bucentaur, which was accompanied by twelve stately galleys: the
      sea was overspread with innumerable gondolas of pomp and
      pleasure; the air resounded with music and acclamations; the
      mariners, and even the vessels, were dressed in silk and gold;
      and in all the emblems and pageants, the Roman eagles were
      blended with the lions of St. Mark. The triumphal procession,
      ascending the great canal, passed under the bridge of the Rialto;
      and the Eastern strangers gazed with admiration on the palaces,
      the churches, and the populousness of a city, that seems to float
      on the bosom of the waves. 55 They sighed to behold the spoils
      and trophies with which it had been decorated after the sack of
      Constantinople. After a hospitable entertainment of fifteen days,
      Palæologus pursued his journey by land and water from Venice to
      Ferrara; and on this occasion the pride of the Vatican was
      tempered by policy to indulge the ancient dignity of the emperor
      of the East. He made his entry on a _black_ horse; but a
      milk-white steed, whose trappings were embroidered with golden
      eagles, was led before him; and the canopy was borne over his
      head by the princes of Este, the sons or kinsmen of Nicholas,
      marquis of the city, and a sovereign more powerful than himself.
      56 Palæologus did not alight till he reached the bottom of the
      staircase: the pope advanced to the door of the apartment;
      refused his proffered genuflection; and, after a paternal
      embrace, conducted the emperor to a seat on his left hand. Nor
      would the patriarch descend from his galley, till a ceremony
      almost equal, had been stipulated between the bishops of Rome and
      Constantinople. The latter was saluted by his brother with a kiss
      of union and charity; nor would any of the Greek ecclesiastics
      submit to kiss the feet of the Western primate. On the opening of
      the synod, the place of honor in the centre was claimed by the
      temporal and ecclesiastical chiefs; and it was only by alleging
      that his predecessors had not assisted in person at Nice or
      Chalcedon, that Eugenius could evade the ancient precedents of
      Constantine and Marcian. After much debate, it was agreed that
      the right and left sides of the church should be occupied by the
      two nations; that the solitary chair of St. Peter should be
      raised the first of the Latin line; and that the throne of the
      Greek emperor, at the head of his clergy, should be equal and
      opposite to the second place, the vacant seat of the emperor of
      the West. 57

      54 (return) [ At the time of the synod, Phranzes was in
      Peloponnesus: but he received from the despot Demetrius a
      faithful account of the honorable reception of the emperor and
      patriarch both at Venice and Ferrara, (Dux.... sedentem
      Imperatorem _adorat_,) which are more slightly mentioned by the
      Latins, (l. ii. c. 14, 15, 16.)]

      55 (return) [ The astonishment of a Greek prince and a French
      ambassador (Mémoires de Philippe de Comines, l. vii. c. 18,) at
      the sight of Venice, abundantly proves that in the xvth century
      it was the first and most splendid of the Christian cities. For
      the spoils of Constantinople at Venice, see Syropulus, (p. 87.)]

      56 (return) [ Nicholas III. of Este reigned forty-eight years,
      (A.D. 1393—1441,) and was lord of Ferrara, Modena, Reggio, Parma,
      Rovigo, and Commachio. See his Life in Muratori, (Antichità
      Estense, tom. ii. p. 159—201.)]

      57 (return) [ The Latin vulgar was provoked to laughter at the
      strange dresses of the Greeks, and especially the length of their
      garments, their sleeves, and their beards; nor was the emperor
      distinguished, except by the purple color, and his diadem or
      tiara, with a jewel on the top, (Hody de Græcis Illustribus, p.
      31.) Yet another spectator confesses that the Greek fashion was
      piu grave e piu degna than the Italian. (Vespasiano in Vit.
      Eugen. IV. in Muratori, tom. xxv. p. 261.)]

      But as soon as festivity and form had given place to a more
      serious treaty, the Greeks were dissatisfied with their journey,
      with themselves, and with the pope. The artful pencil of his
      emissaries had painted him in a prosperous state; at the head of
      the princes and prelates of Europe, obedient at his voice, to
      believe and to arm. The thin appearance of the universal synod of
      Ferrara betrayed his weakness: and the Latins opened the first
      session with only five archbishops, eighteen bishops, and ten
      abbots, the greatest part of whom were the subjects or countrymen
      of the Italian pontiff. Except the duke of Burgundy, none of the
      potentates of the West condescended to appear in person, or by
      their ambassadors; nor was it possible to suppress the judicial
      acts of Basil against the dignity and person of Eugenius, which
      were finally concluded by a new election. Under these
      circumstances, a truce or delay was asked and granted, till
      Palæologus could expect from the consent of the Latins some
      temporal reward for an unpopular union; and after the first
      session, the public proceedings were adjourned above six months.
      The emperor, with a chosen band of his favorites and
      _Janizaries_, fixed his summer residence at a pleasant, spacious
      monastery, six miles from Ferrara; forgot, in the pleasures of
      the chase, the distress of the church and state; and persisted in
      destroying the game, without listening to the just complaints of
      the marquis or the husbandman. 58 In the mean while, his
      unfortunate Greeks were exposed to all the miseries of exile and
      poverty; for the support of each stranger, a monthly allowance
      was assigned of three or four gold florins; and although the
      entire sum did not amount to seven hundred florins, a long arrear
      was repeatedly incurred by the indigence or policy of the Roman
      court. 59 They sighed for a speedy deliverance, but their escape
      was prevented by a triple chain: a passport from their superiors
      was required at the gates of Ferrara; the government of Venice
      had engaged to arrest and send back the fugitives; and inevitable
      punishment awaited them at Constantinople; excommunication,
      fines, and a sentence, which did not respect the sacerdotal
      dignity, that they should be stripped naked and publicly whipped.
      60 It was only by the alternative of hunger or dispute that the
      Greeks could be persuaded to open the first conference; and they
      yielded with extreme reluctance to attend from Ferrara to
      Florence the rear of a flying synod. This new translation was
      urged by inevitable necessity: the city was visited by the
      plague; the fidelity of the marquis might be suspected; the
      mercenary troops of the duke of Milan were at the gates; and as
      they occupied Romagna, it was not without difficulty and danger
      that the pope, the emperor, and the bishops, explored their way
      through the unfrequented paths of the Apennine. 61

      58 (return) [ For the emperor’s hunting, see Syropulus, (p. 143,
      144, 191.) The pope had sent him eleven miserable hacks; but he
      bought a strong and swift horse that came from Russia. The name
      of _Janizaries_ may surprise; but the name, rather than the
      institution, had passed from the Ottoman, to the Byzantine,
      court, and is often used in the last age of the empire.]

      59 (return) [ The Greeks obtained, with much difficulty, that
      instead of provisions, money should be distributed, four florins
      _per_ month to the persons of honorable rank, and three florins
      to their servants, with an addition of thirty more to the
      emperor, twenty-five to the patriarch, and twenty to the prince,
      or despot, Demetrius. The payment of the first month amounted to
      691 florins, a sum which will not allow us to reckon above 200
      Greeks of every condition. (Syropulus, p. 104, 105.) On the 20th
      October, 1438, there was an arrear of four months; in April,
      1439, of three; and of five and a half in July, at the time of
      the union, (p. 172, 225, 271.)]

      60 (return) [ Syropulus (p. 141, 142, 204, 221) deplores the
      imprisonment of the Greeks, and the tyranny of the emperor and
      patriarch.]

      61 (return) [ The wars of Italy are most clearly represented in
      the xiiith vol. of the Annals of Muratori. The schismatic Greek,
      Syropulus, (p. 145,) appears to have exaggerated the fear and
      disorder of the pope in his retreat from Ferrara to Florence,
      which is proved by the acts to have been somewhat more decent and
      deliberate.]

      Yet all these obstacles were surmounted by time and policy. The
      violence of the fathers of Basil rather promoted than injured the
      cause of Eugenius; the nations of Europe abhorred the schism, and
      disowned the election, of Felix the Fifth, who was successively a
      duke of Savoy, a hermit, and a pope; and the great princes were
      gradually reclaimed by his competitor to a favorable neutrality
      and a firm attachment. The legates, with some respectable
      members, deserted to the Roman army, which insensibly rose in
      numbers and reputation; the council of Basil was reduced to
      thirty-nine bishops, and three hundred of the inferior clergy; 62
      while the Latins of Florence could produce the subscriptions of
      the pope himself, eight cardinals, two patriarchs, eight
      archbishops, fifty two bishops, and forty-five abbots, or chiefs
      of religious orders. After the labor of nine months, and the
      debates of twenty-five sessions, they attained the advantage and
      glory of the reunion of the Greeks. Four principal questions had
      been agitated between the two churches; _1._ The use of
      unleavened bread in the communion of Christ’s body. _2._ The
      nature of purgatory. _3._ The supremacy of the pope. And, _4._
      The single or double procession of the Holy Ghost. The cause of
      either nation was managed by ten theological champions: the
      Latins were supported by the inexhaustible eloquence of Cardinal
      Julian; and Mark of Ephesus and Bessarion of Nice were the bold
      and able leaders of the Greek forces. We may bestow some praise
      on the progress of human reason, by observing that the first of
      these questions was now treated as an immaterial rite, which
      might innocently vary with the fashion of the age and country.
      With regard to the second, both parties were agreed in the belief
      of an intermediate state of purgation for the venial sins of the
      faithful; and whether their souls were purified by elemental fire
      was a doubtful point, which in a few years might be conveniently
      settled on the spot by the disputants. The claims of supremacy
      appeared of a more weighty and substantial kind; yet by the
      Orientals the Roman bishop had ever been respected as the first
      of the five patriarchs; nor did they scruple to admit, that his
      jurisdiction should be exercised agreeably to the holy canons; a
      vague allowance, which might be defined or eluded by occasional
      convenience. The procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father
      alone, or from the Father and the Son, was an article of faith
      which had sunk much deeper into the minds of men; and in the
      sessions of Ferrara and Florence, the Latin addition of
      _filioque_ was subdivided into two questions, whether it were
      legal, and whether it were orthodox. Perhaps it may not be
      necessary to boast on this subject of my own impartial
      indifference; but I must think that the Greeks were strongly
      supported by the prohibition of the council of Chalcedon, against
      adding any article whatsoever to the creed of Nice, or rather of
      Constantinople. 63 In earthly affairs, it is not easy to conceive
      how an assembly equal of legislators can bind their successors
      invested with powers equal to their own. But the dictates of
      inspiration must be true and unchangeable; nor should a private
      bishop, or a provincial synod, have presumed to innovate against
      the judgment of the Catholic church. On the substance of the
      doctrine, the controversy was equal and endless: reason is
      confounded by the procession of a deity: the gospel, which lay on
      the altar, was silent; the various texts of the fathers might be
      corrupted by fraud or entangled by sophistry; and the Greeks were
      ignorant of the characters and writings of the Latin saints. 64
      Of this at least we may be sure, that neither side could be
      convinced by the arguments of their opponents. Prejudice may be
      enlightened by reason, and a superficial glance may be rectified
      by a clear and more perfect view of an object adapted to our
      faculties. But the bishops and monks had been taught from their
      infancy to repeat a form of mysterious words: their national and
      personal honor depended on the repetition of the same sounds; and
      their narrow minds were hardened and inflamed by the acrimony of
      a public dispute.

      62 (return) [ Syropulus is pleased to reckon seven hundred
      prelates in the council of Basil. The error is manifest, and
      perhaps voluntary. That extravagant number could not be supplied
      by _all_ the ecclesiastics of every degree who were present at
      the council, nor by _all_ the absent bishops of the West, who,
      expressly or tacitly, might adhere to its decrees.]

      63 (return) [ The Greeks, who disliked the union, were unwilling
      to sally from this strong fortress, (p. 178, 193, 195, 202, of
      Syropulus.) The shame of the Latins was aggravated by their
      producing an old MS. of the second council of Nice, with
      _filioque_ in the Nicene creed. A palpable forgery! (p. 173.)]

      64 (return) [ 'WV egw (said an eminent Greek) otan eiV naon
      eiselqw Datinwn ou proskunv tina tvn ekeise agiwn, epei oude
      gnwrizw tina, (Syropulus, p. 109.) See the perplexity of the
      Greeks, (p. 217, 218, 252, 253, 273.)]

      While they were most in a cloud of dust and darkness, the Pope
      and emperor were desirous of a seeming union, which could alone
      accomplish the purposes of their interview; and the obstinacy of
      public dispute was softened by the arts of private and personal
      negotiation. The patriarch Joseph had sunk under the weight of
      age and infirmities; his dying voice breathed the counsels of
      charity and concord, and his vacant benefice might tempt the
      hopes of the ambitious clergy. The ready and active obedience of
      the archbishops of Russia and Nice, of Isidore and Bessarion, was
      prompted and recompensed by their speedy promotion to the dignity
      of cardinals. Bessarion, in the first debates, had stood forth
      the most strenuous and eloquent champion of the Greek church; and
      if the apostate, the bastard, was reprobated by his country, 65
      he appears in ecclesiastical story a rare example of a patriot
      who was recommended to court favor by loud opposition and
      well-timed compliance. With the aid of his two spiritual
      coadjutors, the emperor applied his arguments to the general
      situation and personal characters of the bishops, and each was
      successively moved by authority and example. Their revenues were
      in the hands of the Turks, their persons in those of the Latins:
      an episcopal treasure, three robes and forty ducats, was soon
      exhausted: 66 the hopes of their return still depended on the
      ships of Venice and the alms of Rome; and such was their
      indigence, that their arrears, the payment of a debt, would be
      accepted as a favor, and might operate as a bribe. 67 The danger
      and relief of Constantinople might excuse some prudent and pious
      dissimulation; and it was insinuated, that the obstinate heretics
      who should resist the consent of the East and West would be
      abandoned in a hostile land to the revenge or justice of the
      Roman pontiff. 68 In the first private assembly of the Greeks,
      the formulary of union was approved by twenty-four, and rejected
      by twelve, members; but the five _cross-bearers_ of St. Sophia,
      who aspired to represent the patriarch, were disqualified by
      ancient discipline; and their right of voting was transferred to
      the obsequious train of monks, grammarians, and profane laymen.
      The will of the monarch produced a false and servile unanimity,
      and no more than two patriots had courage to speak their own
      sentiments and those of their country. Demetrius, the emperor’s
      brother, retired to Venice, that he might not be witness of the
      union; and Mark of Ephesus, mistaking perhaps his pride for his
      conscience, disclaimed all communion with the Latin heretics, and
      avowed himself the champion and confessor of the orthodox creed.
      69 In the treaty between the two nations, several forms of
      consent were proposed, such as might satisfy the Latins, without
      dishonoring the Greeks; and they weighed the scruples of words
      and syllables, till the theological balance trembled with a
      slight preponderance in favor of the Vatican. It was agreed (I
      must entreat the attention of the reader) that the Holy Ghost
      proceeds from the Father _and_ the Son, as from one principle and
      one substance; that he proceeds _by_ the Son, being of the same
      nature and substance, and that he proceeds from the Father _and_
      the Son, by one _spiration_ and production. It is less difficult
      to understand the articles of the preliminary treaty; that the
      pope should defray all the expenses of the Greeks in their return
      home; that he should annually maintain two galleys and three
      hundred soldiers for the defence of Constantinople: that all the
      ships which transported pilgrims to Jerusalem should be obliged
      to touch at that port; that as often as they were required, the
      pope should furnish ten galleys for a year, or twenty for six
      months; and that he should powerfully solicit the princes of
      Europe, if the emperor had occasion for land forces.

      65 (return) [ See the polite altercation of Marc and Bessarion in
      Syropulus, (p. 257,) who never dissembles the vices of his own
      party, and fairly praises the virtues of the Latins.]

      66 (return) [ For the poverty of the Greek bishops, see a
      remarkable passage of Ducas, (c. 31.) One had possessed, for his
      whole property, three old gowns, &c. By teaching one-and-twenty
      years in his monastery, Bessarion himself had collected forty
      gold florins; but of these, the archbishop had expended
      twenty-eight in his voyage from Peloponnesus, and the remainder
      at Constantinople, (Syropulus, p. 127.)]

      67 (return) [ Syropulus denies that the Greeks received any money
      before they had subscribed the art of union, (p. 283:) yet he
      relates some suspicious circumstances; and their bribery and
      corruption are positively affirmed by the historian Ducas.]

      68 (return) [ The Greeks most piteously express their own fears
      of exile and perpetual slavery, (Syropul. p. 196;) and they were
      strongly moved by the emperor’s threats, (p. 260.)]

      69 (return) [ I had forgot another popular and orthodox
      protester: a favorite bound, who usually lay quiet on the
      foot-cloth of the emperor’s throne but who barked most furiously
      while the act of union was reading without being silenced by the
      soothing or the lashes of the royal attendants, (Syropul. p. 265,
      266.)]

      The same year, and almost the same day, were marked by the
      deposition of Eugenius at Basil; and, at Florence, by his reunion
      of the Greeks and Latins. In the former synod, (which he styled
      indeed an assembly of dæmons,) the pope was branded with the
      guilt of simony, perjury, tyranny, heresy, and schism; 70 and
      declared to be incorrigible in his vices, unworthy of any title,
      and incapable of holding any ecclesiastical office. In the
      latter, he was revered as the true and holy vicar of Christ, who,
      after a separation of six hundred years, had reconciled the
      Catholics of the East and West in one fold, and under one
      shepherd. The act of union was subscribed by the pope, the
      emperor, and the principal members of both churches; even by
      those who, like Syropulus, 71 had been deprived of the right of
      voting. Two copies might have sufficed for the East and West; but
      Eugenius was not satisfied, unless four authentic and similar
      transcripts were signed and attested as the monuments of his
      victory. 72 On a memorable day, the sixth of July, the successors
      of St. Peter and Constantine ascended their thrones the two
      nations assembled in the cathedral of Florence; their
      representatives, Cardinal Julian and Bessarion archbishop of
      Nice, appeared in the pulpit, and, after reading in their
      respective tongues the act of union, they mutually embraced, in
      the name and the presence of their applauding brethren. The pope
      and his ministers then officiated according to the Roman liturgy;
      the creed was chanted with the addition of _filioque_; the
      acquiescence of the Greeks was poorly excused by their ignorance
      of the harmonious, but inarticulate sounds; 73 and the more
      scrupulous Latins refused any public celebration of the Byzantine
      rite. Yet the emperor and his clergy were not totally unmindful
      of national honor. The treaty was ratified by their consent: it
      was tacitly agreed that no innovation should be attempted in
      their creed or ceremonies: they spared, and secretly respected,
      the generous firmness of Mark of Ephesus; and, on the decease of
      the patriarch, they refused to elect his successor, except in the
      cathedral of St. Sophia. In the distribution of public and
      private rewards, the liberal pontiff exceeded their hopes and his
      promises: the Greeks, with less pomp and pride, returned by the
      same road of Ferrara and Venice; and their reception at
      Constantinople was such as will be described in the following
      chapter. 74 The success of the first trial encouraged Eugenius to
      repeat the same edifying scenes; and the deputies of the
      Armenians, the Maronites, the Jacobites of Syria and Egypt, the
      Nestorians and the Æthiopians, were successively introduced, to
      kiss the feet of the Roman pontiff, and to announce the obedience
      and the orthodoxy of the East. These Oriental embassies, unknown
      in the countries which they presumed to represent, 75 diffused
      over the West the fame of Eugenius; and a clamor was artfully
      propagated against the remnant of a schism in Switzerland and
      Savoy, which alone impeded the harmony of the Christian world.
      The vigor of opposition was succeeded by the lassitude of
      despair: the council of Basil was silently dissolved; and Felix,
      renouncing the tiara, again withdrew to the devout or delicious
      hermitage of Ripaille. 76 A general peace was secured by mutual
      acts of oblivion and indemnity: all ideas of reformation
      subsided; the popes continued to exercise and abuse their
      ecclesiastical despotism; nor has Rome been since disturbed by
      the mischiefs of a contested election. 77

      70 (return) [ From the original Lives of the Popes, in Muratori’s
      Collection, (tom. iii. p. ii. tom. xxv.,) the manners of Eugenius
      IV. appear to have been decent, and even exemplary. His
      situation, exposed to the world and to his enemies, was a
      restraint, and is a pledge.]

      71 (return) [ Syropulus, rather than subscribe, would have
      assisted, as the least evil, at the ceremony of the union. He was
      compelled to do both; and the great ecclesiarch poorly excuses
      his submission to the emperor, (p. 290—292.)]

      72 (return) [ None of these original acts of union can at present
      be produced. Of the ten MSS. that are preserved, (five at Rome,
      and the remainder at Florence, Bologna, Venice, Paris, and
      London,) nine have been examined by an accurate critic, (M. de
      Brequigny,) who condemns them for the variety and imperfections
      of the Greek signatures. Yet several of these may be esteemed as
      authentic copies, which were subscribed at Florence, before (26th
      of August, 1439) the final separation of the pope and emperor,
      (Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xliii. p.
      287—311.)]

      73 (return) [ Hmin de wV ashmoi edokoun jwnai, (Syropul. p.
      297.)]

      74 (return) [ In their return, the Greeks conversed at Bologna
      with the ambassadors of England: and after some questions and
      answers, these impartial strangers laughed at the pretended union
      of Florence, (Syropul. p. 307.)]

      75 (return) [ So nugatory, or rather so fabulous, are these
      reunions of the Nestorians, Jacobites, &c., that I have turned
      over, without success, the Bibliotheca Orientalis of Assemannus,
      a faithful slave of the Vatican.]

      76 (return) [ Ripaille is situate near Thonon in Savoy, on the
      southern side of the Lake of Geneva. It is now a Carthusian
      abbey; and Mr. Addison (Travels into Italy, vol. ii. p. 147, 148,
      of Baskerville’s edition of his works) has celebrated the place
      and the founder. Æneas Sylvius, and the fathers of Basil, applaud
      the austere life of the ducal hermit; but the French and Italian
      proverbs most unluckily attest the popular opinion of his
      luxury.]

      77 (return) [ In this account of the councils of Basil, Ferrara,
      and Florence, I have consulted the original acts, which fill the
      xviith and xviiith tome of the edition of Venice, and are closed
      by the perspicuous, though partial, history of Augustin
      Patricius, an Italian of the xvth century. They are digested and
      abridged by Dupin, (Bibliothèque Ecclés. tom. xii.,) and the
      continuator of Fleury, (tom. xxii.;) and the respect of the
      Gallican church for the adverse parties confines their members to
      an awkward moderation.]

      The journeys of three emperors were unavailing for their
      temporal, or perhaps their spiritual, salvation; but they were
      productive of a beneficial consequence—the revival of the Greek
      learning in Italy, from whence it was propagated to the last
      nations of the West and North. In their lowest servitude and
      depression, the subjects of the Byzantine throne were still
      possessed of a golden key that could unlock the treasures of
      antiquity; of a musical and prolific language, that gives a soul
      to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of
      philosophy. Since the barriers of the monarchy, and even of the
      capital, had been trampled under foot, the various Barbarians had
      doubtless corrupted the form and substance of the national
      dialect; and ample glossaries have been composed, to interpret a
      multitude of words, of Arabic, Turkish, Sclavonian, Latin, or
      French origin. 78 But a purer idiom was spoken in the court and
      taught in the college; and the flourishing state of the language
      is described, and perhaps embellished, by a learned Italian, 79
      who, by a long residence and noble marriage, 80 was naturalized
      at Constantinople about thirty years before the Turkish conquest.
      “The vulgar speech,” says Philelphus, 81 “has been depraved by
      the people, and infected by the multitude of strangers and
      merchants, who every day flock to the city and mingle with the
      inhabitants. It is from the disciples of such a school that the
      Latin language received the versions of Aristotle and Plato; so
      obscure in sense, and in spirit so poor. But the Greeks who have
      escaped the contagion, are those whom _we_ follow; and they alone
      are worthy of our imitation. In familiar discourse, they still
      speak the tongue of Aristophanes and Euripides, of the historians
      and philosophers of Athens; and the style of their writings is
      still more elaborate and correct. The persons who, by their birth
      and offices, are attached to the Byzantine court, are those who
      maintain, with the least alloy, the ancient standard of elegance
      and purity; and the native graces of language most conspicuously
      shine among the noble matrons, who are excluded from all
      intercourse with foreigners. With foreigners do I say? They live
      retired and sequestered from the eyes of their fellow-citizens.
      Seldom are they seen in the streets; and when they leave their
      houses, it is in the dusk of evening, on visits to the churches
      and their nearest kindred. On these occasions, they are on
      horseback, covered with a veil, and encompassed by their parents,
      their husbands, or their servants.” 82

      78 (return) [ In the first attempt, Meursius collected 3600
      Græco-barbarous words, to which, in a second edition, he
      subjoined 1800 more; yet what plenteous gleanings did he leave to
      Portius, Ducange, Fabrotti, the Bollandists, &c.! (Fabric.
      Bibliot. Græc. tom. x. p. 101, &c.) _Some_ Persic words may be
      found in Xenophon, and some Latin ones in Plutarch; and such is
      the inevitable effect of war and commerce; but the form and
      substance of the language were not affected by this slight
      alloy.]

      79 (return) [ The life of Francis Philelphus, a sophist, proud,
      restless, and rapacious, has been diligently composed by Lancelot
      (Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 691—751)
      (Istoria della Letteratura Italiana, tom. vii. p. 282—294,) for
      the most part from his own letters. His elaborate writings, and
      those of his contemporaries, are forgotten; but their familiar
      epistles still describe the men and the times.]

      80 (return) [ He married, and had perhaps debauched, the daughter
      of John, and the granddaughter of Manuel Chrysoloras. She was
      young, beautiful, and wealthy; and her noble family was allied to
      the Dorias of Genoa and the emperors of Constantinople.]

      81 (return) [ Græci quibus lingua depravata non sit.... ita
      loquuntur vulgo hâc etiam tempestate ut Aristophanes comicus, aut
      Euripides tragicus, ut oratores omnes, ut historiographi, ut
      philosophi.... litterati autem homines et doctius et
      emendatius.... Nam viri aulici veterem sermonis dignitatem atque
      elegantiam retinebant in primisque ipsæ nobiles mulieres; quibus
      cum nullum esset omnino cum viris peregrinis commercium, merus
      ille ac purus Græcorum sermo servabatur intactus, (Philelph.
      Epist. ad ann. 1451, apud Hodium, p. 188, 189.) He observes in
      another passage, uxor illa mea Theodora locutione erat admodum
      moderatâ et suavi et maxime Atticâ.]

      82 (return) [ Philelphus, absurdly enough, derives this Greek or
      Oriental jealousy from the manners of ancient Rome.]

      Among the Greeks a numerous and opulent clergy was dedicated to
      the service of religion: their monks and bishops have ever been
      distinguished by the gravity and austerity of their manners; nor
      were they diverted, like the Latin priests, by the pursuits and
      pleasures of a secular, and even military, life. After a large
      deduction for the time and talent that were lost in the devotion,
      the laziness, and the discord, of the church and cloister, the
      more inquisitive and ambitious minds would explore the sacred and
      profane erudition of their native language. The ecclesiastics
      presided over the education of youth; the schools of philosophy
      and eloquence were perpetuated till the fall of the empire; and
      it may be affirmed, that more books and more knowledge were
      included within the walls of Constantinople, than could be
      dispersed over the extensive countries of the West. 83 But an
      important distinction has been already noticed: the Greeks were
      stationary or retrograde, while the Latins were advancing with a
      rapid and progressive motion. The nations were excited by the
      spirit of independence and emulation; and even the little world
      of the Italian states contained more people and industry than the
      decreasing circle of the Byzantine empire. In Europe, the lower
      ranks of society were relieved from the yoke of feudal servitude;
      and freedom is the first step to curiosity and knowledge. The
      use, however rude and corrupt, of the Latin tongue had been
      preserved by superstition; the universities, from Bologna to
      Oxford, 84 were peopled with thousands of scholars; and their
      misguided ardor might be directed to more liberal and manly
      studies. In the resurrection of science, Italy was the first that
      cast away her shroud; and the eloquent Petrarch, by his lessons
      and his example, may justly be applauded as the first harbinger
      of day. A purer style of composition, a more generous and
      rational strain of sentiment, flowed from the study and imitation
      of the writers of ancient Rome; and the disciples of Cicero and
      Virgil approached, with reverence and love, the sanctuary of
      their Grecian masters. In the sack of Constantinople, the French,
      and even the Venetians, had despised and destroyed the works of
      Lysippus and Homer: the monuments of art may be annihilated by a
      single blow; but the immortal mind is renewed and multiplied by
      the copies of the pen; and such copies it was the ambition of
      Petrarch and his friends to possess and understand. The arms of
      the Turks undoubtedly pressed the flight of the Muses; yet we may
      tremble at the thought, that Greece might have been overwhelmed,
      with her schools and libraries, before Europe had emerged from
      the deluge of barbarism; that the seeds of science might have
      been scattered by the winds, before the Italian soil was prepared
      for their cultivation.

      83 (return) [ See the state of learning in the xiiith and xivth
      centuries, in the learned and judicious Mosheim, (Instit. Hist.
      Ecclés. p. 434—440, 490—494.)]

      84 (return) [ At the end of the xvth century, there existed in
      Europe about fifty universities, and of these the foundation of
      ten or twelve is prior to the year 1300. They were crowded in
      proportion to their scarcity. Bologna contained 10,000 students,
      chiefly of the civil law. In the year 1357 the number at Oxford
      had decreased from 30,000 to 6000 scholars, (Henry’s History of
      Great Britain, vol. iv. p. 478.) Yet even this decrease is much
      superior to the present list of the members of the university.]




      Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part IV.

      The most learned Italians of the fifteenth century have confessed
      and applauded the restoration of Greek literature, after a long
      oblivion of many hundred years. 85 Yet in that country, and
      beyond the Alps, some names are quoted; some profound scholars,
      who in the darker ages were honorably distinguished by their
      knowledge of the Greek tongue; and national vanity has been loud
      in the praise of such rare examples of erudition. Without
      scrutinizing the merit of individuals, truth must observe, that
      their science is without a cause, and without an effect; that it
      was easy for them to satisfy themselves and their more ignorant
      contemporaries; and that the idiom, which they had so
      marvellously acquired was transcribed in few manuscripts, and was
      not taught in any university of the West. In a corner of Italy,
      it faintly existed as the popular, or at least as the
      ecclesiastical dialect. 86 The first impression of the Doric and
      Ionic colonies has never been completely erased: the Calabrian
      churches were long attached to the throne of Constantinople: and
      the monks of St. Basil pursued their studies in Mount Athos and
      the schools of the East. Calabria was the native country of
      Barlaam, who has already appeared as a sectary and an ambassador;
      and Barlaam was the first who revived, beyond the Alps, the
      memory, or at least the writings, of Homer. 87 He is described,
      by Petrarch and Boccace, 88 as a man of diminutive stature,
      though truly great in the measure of learning and genius; of a
      piercing discernment, though of a slow and painful elocution. For
      many ages (as they affirm) Greece had not produced his equal in
      the knowledge of history, grammar, and philosophy; and his merit
      was celebrated in the attestations of the princes and doctors of
      Constantinople. One of these attestations is still extant; and
      the emperor Cantacuzene, the protector of his adversaries, is
      forced to allow, that Euclid, Aristotle, and Plato, were familiar
      to that profound and subtle logician. 89 In the court of Avignon,
      he formed an intimate connection with Petrarch, 90 the first of
      the Latin scholars; and the desire of mutual instruction was the
      principle of their literary commerce. The Tuscan applied himself
      with eager curiosity and assiduous diligence to the study of the
      Greek language; and in a laborious struggle with the dryness and
      difficulty of the first rudiments, he began to reach the sense,
      and to feel the spirit, of poets and philosophers, whose minds
      were congenial to his own. But he was soon deprived of the
      society and lessons of this useful assistant: Barlaam
      relinquished his fruitless embassy; and, on his return to Greece,
      he rashly provoked the swarms of fanatic monks, by attempting to
      substitute the light of reason to that of their navel. After a
      separation of three years, the two friends again met in the court
      of Naples: but the generous pupil renounced the fairest occasion
      of improvement; and by his recommendation Barlaam was finally
      settled in a small bishopric of his native Calabria. 91 The
      manifold avocations of Petrarch, love and friendship, his various
      correspondence and frequent journeys, the Roman laurel, and his
      elaborate compositions in prose and verse, in Latin and Italian,
      diverted him from a foreign idiom; and as he advanced in life,
      the attainment of the Greek language was the object of his wishes
      rather than of his hopes. When he was about fifty years of age, a
      Byzantine ambassador, his friend, and a master of both tongues,
      presented him with a copy of Homer; and the answer of Petrarch is
      at one expressive of his eloquence, gratitude, and regret. After
      celebrating the generosity of the donor, and the value of a gift
      more precious in his estimation than gold or rubies, he thus
      proceeds: “Your present of the genuine and original text of the
      divine poet, the fountain of all inventions, is worthy of
      yourself and of me: you have fulfilled your promise, and
      satisfied my desires. Yet your liberality is still imperfect:
      with Homer you should have given me yourself; a guide, who could
      lead me into the fields of light, and disclose to my wondering
      eyes the spacious miracles of the Iliad and Odyssey. But, alas!
      Homer is dumb, or I am deaf; nor is it in my power to enjoy the
      beauty which I possess. I have seated him by the side of Plato,
      the prince of poets near the prince of philosophers; and I glory
      in the sight of my illustrious guests. Of their immortal
      writings, whatever had been translated into the Latin idiom, I
      had already acquired; but, if there be no profit, there is some
      pleasure, in beholding these venerable Greeks in their proper and
      national habit. I am delighted with the aspect of Homer; and as
      often as I embrace the silent volume, I exclaim with a sigh,
      Illustrious bard! with what pleasure should I listen to thy song,
      if my sense of hearing were not obstructed and lost by the death
      of one friend, and in the much-lamented absence of another. Nor
      do I yet despair; and the example of Cato suggests some comfort
      and hope, since it was in the last period of age that he attained
      the knowledge of the Greek letters.” 92

      85 (return) [ Of those writers who professedly treat of the
      restoration of the Greek learning in Italy, the two principal are
      Hodius, Dr. Humphrey Hody, (de Græcis Illustribus, Linguæ Græcæ
      Literarumque humaniorum Instauratoribus; Londini, 1742, in large
      octavo,) and Tiraboschi, (Istoria della Letteratura Italiana,
      tom. v. p. 364—377, tom. vii. p. 112—143.) The Oxford professor
      is a laborious scholar, but the librarian of Modena enjoys the
      superiority of a modern and national historian.]

      86 (return) [ In Calabria quæ olim magna Græcia dicebatur,
      coloniis Græcis repleta, remansit quædam linguæ veteris,
      cognitio, (Hodius, p. 2.) If it were eradicated by the Romans, it
      was revived and perpetuated by the monks of St. Basil, who
      possessed seven convents at Rossano alone, (Giannone, Istoria di
      Napoli, tom. i. p. 520.)]

      87 (return) [ Ii Barbari (says Petrarch, the French and Germans)
      vix, non dicam libros sed nomen Homeri audiverunt. Perhaps, in
      that respect, the xiiith century was less happy than the age of
      Charlemagne.]

      88 (return) [ See the character of Barlaam, in Boccace de
      Genealog. Deorum, l. xv. c. 6.]

      89 (return) [ Cantacuzen. l. ii. c. 36.]

      90 (return) [ For the connection of Petrarch and Barlaam, and the
      two interviews at Avignon in 1339, and at Naples in 1342, see the
      excellent Mémoires sur la Vie de Pétrarque, tom. i. p. 406—410,
      tom. ii. p. 74—77.]

      91 (return) [ The bishopric to which Barlaam retired, was the old
      Locri, in the middle ages. Scta. Cyriaca, and by corruption
      Hieracium, Gerace, (Dissert. Chorographica Italiæ Medii Ævi, p.
      312.) The dives opum of the Norman times soon lapsed into
      poverty, since even the church was poor: yet the town still
      contains 3000 inhabitants, (Swinburne, p. 340.)]

      92 (return) [ I will transcribe a passage from this epistle of
      Petrarch, (Famil. ix. 2;) Donasti Homerum non in alienum sermonem
      violento alveâ?? derivatum, sed ex ipsis Græci eloquii scatebris,
      et qualis divino illi profluxit ingenio.... Sine tuâ voce Homerus
      tuus apud me mutus, immo vero ego apud illum surdus sum. Gaudeo
      tamen vel adspectû solo, ac sæpe illum amplexus atque suspirans
      dico, O magne vir, &c.]

      The prize which eluded the efforts of Petrarch, was obtained by
      the fortune and industry of his friend Boccace, 93 the father of
      the Tuscan prose. That popular writer, who derives his reputation
      from the Decameron, a hundred novels of pleasantry and love, may
      aspire to the more serious praise of restoring in Italy the study
      of the Greek language. In the year one thousand three hundred and
      sixty, a disciple of Barlaam, whose name was Leo, or Leontius
      Pilatus, was detained in his way to Avignon by the advice and
      hospitality of Boccace, who lodged the stranger in his house,
      prevailed on the republic of Florence to allow him an annual
      stipend, and devoted his leisure to the first Greek professor,
      who taught that language in the Western countries of Europe. The
      appearance of Leo might disgust the most eager disciple, he was
      clothed in the mantle of a philosopher, or a mendicant; his
      countenance was hideous; his face was overshadowed with black
      hair; his beard long and uncombed; his deportment rustic; his
      temper gloomy and inconstant; nor could he grace his discourse
      with the ornaments, or even the perspicuity, of Latin elocution.
      But his mind was stored with a treasure of Greek learning:
      history and fable, philosophy and grammar, were alike at his
      command; and he read the poems of Homer in the schools of
      Florence. It was from his explanation that Boccace composed 931
      and transcribed a literal prose version of the Iliad and Odyssey,
      which satisfied the thirst of his friend Petrarch, and which,
      perhaps, in the succeeding century, was clandestinely used by
      Laurentius Valla, the Latin interpreter. It was from his
      narratives that the same Boccace collected the materials for his
      treatise on the genealogy of the heathen gods, a work, in that
      age, of stupendous erudition, and which he ostentatiously
      sprinkled with Greek characters and passages, to excite the
      wonder and applause of his more ignorant readers. 94 The first
      steps of learning are slow and laborious; no more than ten
      votaries of Homer could be enumerated in all Italy; and neither
      Rome, nor Venice, nor Naples, could add a single name to this
      studious catalogue. But their numbers would have multiplied,
      their progress would have been accelerated, if the inconstant
      Leo, at the end of three years, had not relinquished an honorable
      and beneficial station. In his passage, Petrarch entertained him
      at Padua a short time: he enjoyed the scholar, but was justly
      offended with the gloomy and unsocial temper of the man.
      Discontented with the world and with himself, Leo depreciated his
      present enjoyments, while absent persons and objects were dear to
      his imagination. In Italy he was a Thessalian, in Greece a native
      of Calabria: in the company of the Latins he disdained their
      language, religion, and manners: no sooner was he landed at
      Constantinople, than he again sighed for the wealth of Venice and
      the elegance of Florence. His Italian friends were deaf to his
      importunity: he depended on their curiosity and indulgence, and
      embarked on a second voyage; but on his entrance into the
      Adriatic, the ship was assailed by a tempest, and the unfortunate
      teacher, who like Ulysses had fastened himself to the mast, was
      struck dead by a flash of lightning. The humane Petrarch dropped
      a tear on his disaster; but he was most anxious to learn whether
      some copy of Euripides or Sophocles might not be saved from the
      hands of the mariners. 95

      93 (return) [ For the life and writings of Boccace, who was born
      in 1313, and died in 1375, Fabricius (Bibliot. Latin. Medii Ævi,
      tom. i. p. 248, &c.) and Tiraboschi (tom. v. p. 83, 439—451) may
      be consulted. The editions, versions, imitations of his novels,
      are innumerable. Yet he was ashamed to communicate that trifling,
      and perhaps scandalous, work to Petrarch, his respectable friend,
      in whose letters and memoirs he conspicuously appears.]

      931 (return) [ This translation of Homer was by Pilatus, not by
      Boccacio. See Hallam, Hist. of Lit. vol. i. p. 132.—M.]

      94 (return) [ Boccace indulges an honest vanity: Ostentationis
      causâ Græca carmina adscripsi.... jure utor meo; meum est hoc
      decus, mea gloria scilicet inter Etruscos Græcis uti carminibus.
      Nonne ego fui qui Leontium Pilatum, &c., (de Genealogia Deorum,
      l. xv. c. 7, a work which, though now forgotten, has run through
      thirteen or fourteen editions.)]

      95 (return) [ Leontius, or Leo Pilatus, is sufficiently made
      known by Hody, (p. 2—11,) and the abbé de Sade, (Vie de
      Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 625—634, 670—673,) who has very happily
      caught the lively and dramatic manner of his original.]

      But the faint rudiments of Greek learning, which Petrarch had
      encouraged and Boccace had planted, soon withered and expired.
      The succeeding generation was content for a while with the
      improvement of Latin eloquence; nor was it before the end of the
      fourteenth century that a new and perpetual flame was rekindled
      in Italy. 96 Previous to his own journey the emperor Manuel
      despatched his envoys and orators to implore the compassion of
      the Western princes. Of these envoys, the most conspicuous, or
      the most learned, was Manuel Chrysoloras, 97 of noble birth, and
      whose Roman ancestors are supposed to have migrated with the
      great Constantine. After visiting the courts of France and
      England, where he obtained some contributions and more promises,
      the envoy was invited to assume the office of a professor; and
      Florence had again the honor of this second invitation. By his
      knowledge, not only of the Greek, but of the Latin tongue,
      Chrysoloras deserved the stipend, and surpassed the expectation,
      of the republic. His school was frequented by a crowd of
      disciples of every rank and age; and one of these, in a general
      history, has described his motives and his success. “At that
      time,” says Leonard Aretin, 98 “I was a student of the civil law;
      but my soul was inflamed with the love of letters; and I bestowed
      some application on the sciences of logic and rhetoric. On the
      arrival of Manuel, I hesitated whether I should desert my legal
      studies, or relinquish this golden opportunity; and thus, in the
      ardor of youth, I communed with my own mind—Wilt thou be wanting
      to thyself and thy fortune? Wilt thou refuse to be introduced to
      a familiar converse with Homer, Plato, and Demosthenes; with
      those poets, philosophers, and orators, of whom such wonders are
      related, and who are celebrated by every age as the great masters
      of human science? Of professors and scholars in civil law, a
      sufficient supply will always be found in our universities; but a
      teacher, and such a teacher, of the Greek language, if he once be
      suffered to escape, may never afterwards be retrieved. Convinced
      by these reasons, I gave myself to Chrysoloras; and so strong was
      my passion, that the lessons which I had imbibed in the day were
      the constant object of my nightly dreams.” 99 At the same time
      and place, the Latin classics were explained by John of Ravenna,
      the domestic pupil of Petrarch; 100 the Italians, who illustrated
      their age and country, were formed in this double school; and
      Florence became the fruitful seminary of Greek and Roman
      erudition. 101 The presence of the emperor recalled Chrysoloras
      from the college to the court; but he afterwards taught at Pavia
      and Rome with equal industry and applause. The remainder of his
      life, about fifteen years, was divided between Italy and
      Constantinople, between embassies and lessons. In the noble
      office of enlightening a foreign nation, the grammarian was not
      unmindful of a more sacred duty to his prince and country; and
      Emanuel Chrysoloras died at Constance on a public mission from
      the emperor to the council.

      96 (return) [ Dr. Hody (p. 54) is angry with Leonard Aretin,
      Guarinus, Paulus Jovius, &c., for affirming, that the Greek
      letters were restored in Italy _post septingentos annos_; as if,
      says he, they had flourished till the end of the viith century.
      These writers most probably reckoned from the last period of the
      exarchate; and the presence of the Greek magistrates and troops
      at Ravenna and Rome must have preserved, in some degree, the use
      of their native tongue.]

      97 (return) [ See the article of Emanuel, or Manuel Chrysoloras,
      in Hody (p 12—54) and Tiraboschi, (tom. vii. p. 113—118.) The
      precise date of his arrival floats between the years 1390 and
      1400, and is only confined by the reign of Boniface IX.]

      98 (return) [ The name of _Aretinus_ has been assumed by five or
      six natives of _Arezzo_ in Tuscany, of whom the most famous and
      the most worthless lived in the xvith century. Leonardus Brunus
      Aretinus, the disciple of Chrysoloras, was a linguist, an orator,
      and an historian, the secretary of four successive popes, and the
      chancellor of the republic of Florence, where he died A.D. 1444,
      at the age of seventy-five, (Fabric. Bibliot. Medii Ævi, tom. i.
      p. 190 &c. Tiraboschi, tom. vii. p. 33—38.)]

      99 (return) [ See the passage in Aretin. Commentario Rerum suo
      Tempore in Italia gestarum, apud Hodium, p. 28—30.]

      100 (return) [ In this domestic discipline, Petrarch, who loved
      the youth, often complains of the eager curiosity, restless
      temper, and proud feelings, which announce the genius and glory
      of a riper age, (Mémoires sur Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 700—709.)]

      101 (return) [ Hinc Græcæ Latinæque scholæ exortæ sunt, Guarino
      Philelpho, Leonardo Aretino, Caroloque, ac plerisque aliis
      tanquam ex equo Trojano prodeuntibus, quorum emulatione multa
      ingenia deinceps ad laudem excitata sunt, (Platina in Bonifacio
      IX.) Another Italian writer adds the names of Paulus Petrus
      Vergerius, Omnibonus Vincentius, Poggius, Franciscus Barbarus,
      &c. But I question whether a rigid chronology would allow
      Chrysoloras _all_ these eminent scholars, (Hodius, p. 25—27,
      &c.)]

      After his example, the restoration of the Greek letters in Italy
      was prosecuted by a series of emigrants, who were destitute of
      fortune, and endowed with learning, or at least with language.
      From the terror or oppression of the Turkish arms, the natives of
      Thessalonica and Constantinople escaped to a land of freedom,
      curiosity, and wealth. The synod introduced into Florence the
      lights of the Greek church, and the oracles of the Platonic
      philosophy; and the fugitives who adhered to the union, had the
      double merit of renouncing their country, not only for the
      Christian, but for the catholic cause. A patriot, who sacrifices
      his party and conscience to the allurements of favor, may be
      possessed, however, of the private and social virtues: he no
      longer hears the reproachful epithets of slave and apostate; and
      the consideration which he acquires among his new associates will
      restore in his own eyes the dignity of his character. The prudent
      conformity of Bessarion was rewarded with the Roman purple: he
      fixed his residence in Italy; and the Greek cardinal, the titular
      patriarch of Constantinople, was respected as the chief and
      protector of his nation: 102 his abilities were exercised in the
      legations of Bologna, Venice, Germany, and France; and his
      election to the chair of St. Peter floated for a moment on the
      uncertain breath of a conclave. 103 His ecclesiastical honors
      diffused a splendor and preeminence over his literary merit and
      service: his palace was a school; as often as the cardinal
      visited the Vatican, he was attended by a learned train of both
      nations; 104 of men applauded by themselves and the public; and
      whose writings, now overspread with dust, were popular and useful
      in their own times. I shall not attempt to enumerate the
      restorers of Grecian literature in the fifteenth century; and it
      may be sufficient to mention with gratitude the names of Theodore
      Gaza, of George of Trebizond, of John Argyropulus, and Demetrius
      Chalcocondyles, who taught their native language in the schools
      of Florence and Rome. Their labors were not inferior to those of
      Bessarion, whose purple they revered, and whose fortune was the
      secret object of their envy. But the lives of these grammarians
      were humble and obscure: they had declined the lucrative paths of
      the church; their dress and manners secluded them from the
      commerce of the world; and since they were confined to the merit,
      they might be content with the rewards, of learning. From this
      character, Janus Lascaris 105 will deserve an exception. His
      eloquence, politeness, and Imperial descent, recommended him to
      the French monarch; and in the same cities he was alternately
      employed to teach and to negotiate. Duty and interest prompted
      them to cultivate the study of the Latin language; and the most
      successful attained the faculty of writing and speaking with
      fluency and elegance in a foreign idiom. But they ever retained
      the inveterate vanity of their country: their praise, or at least
      their esteem, was reserved for the national writers, to whom they
      owed their fame and subsistence; and they sometimes betrayed
      their contempt in licentious criticism or satire on Virgil’s
      poetry, and the oratory of Tully. 106 The superiority of these
      masters arose from the familiar use of a living language; and
      their first disciples were incapable of discerning how far they
      had degenerated from the knowledge, and even the practice of
      their ancestors. A vicious pronunciation, 107 which they
      introduced, was banished from the schools by the reason of the
      succeeding age. Of the power of the Greek accents they were
      ignorant; and those musical notes, which, from an Attic tongue,
      and to an Attic ear, must have been the secret soul of harmony,
      were to their eyes, as to our own, no more than minute and
      unmeaning marks, in prose superfluous and troublesome in verse.
      The art of grammar they truly possessed; the valuable fragments
      of Apollonius and Herodian were transfused into their lessons;
      and their treatises of syntax and etymology, though devoid of
      philosophic spirit, are still useful to the Greek student. In the
      shipwreck of the Byzantine libraries, each fugitive seized a
      fragment of treasure, a copy of some author, who without his
      industry might have perished: the transcripts were multiplied by
      an assiduous, and sometimes an elegant pen; and the text was
      corrected and explained by their own comments, or those of the
      elder scholiasts. The sense, though not the spirit, of the Greek
      classics, was interpreted to the Latin world: the beauties of
      style evaporate in a version; but the judgment of Theodore Gaza
      selected the more solid works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, and
      their natural histories of animals and plants opened a rich fund
      of genuine and experimental science.

      102 (return) [ See in Hody the article of Bessarion, (p.
      136—177.) Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, and the rest of the
      Greeks whom I have named or omitted, are inserted in their proper
      chapters of his learned work. See likewise Tiraboschi, in the 1st
      and 2d parts of the vith tome.]

      103 (return) [ The cardinals knocked at his door, but his
      conclavist refused to interrupt the studies of Bessarion:
      “Nicholas,” said he, “thy respect has cost thee a hat, and me the
      tiara.” * Note: Roscoe (Life of Lorenzo de Medici, vol. i. p. 75)
      considers that Hody has refuted this “idle tale.”—M.]

      104 (return) [ Such as George of Trebizond, Theodore Gaza,
      Argyropulus, Andronicus of Thessalonica, Philelphus, Poggius,
      Blondus, Nicholas Perrot, Valla, Campanus, Platina, &c. Viri
      (says Hody, with the pious zeal of a scholar) (nullo ævo
      perituri, p. 156.)]

      105 (return) [ He was born before the taking of Constantinople,
      but his honorable life was stretched far into the xvith century,
      (A.D. 1535.) Leo X. and Francis I. were his noblest patrons,
      under whose auspices he founded the Greek colleges of Rome and
      Paris, (Hody, p. 247—275.) He left posterity in France; but the
      counts de Vintimille, and their numerous branches, derive the
      name of Lascaris from a doubtful marriage in the xiiith century
      with the daughter of a Greek emperor (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p.
      224—230.)]

      106 (return) [ Two of his epigrams against Virgil, and three
      against Tully, are preserved and refuted by Franciscus Floridus,
      who can find no better names than Græculus ineptus et impudens,
      (Hody, p. 274.) In our own times, an English critic has accused
      the Æneid of containing multa languida, nugatoria, spiritû et
      majestate carminis heroici defecta; many such verses as he, the
      said Jeremiah Markland, would have been ashamed of owning,
      (præfat. ad Statii Sylvas, p. 21, 22.)]

      107 (return) [ Emanuel Chrysoloras, and his colleagues, are
      accused of ignorance, envy, or avarice, (Sylloge, &c., tom. ii.
      p. 235.) The modern Greeks pronounce the b as a V consonant, and
      confound three vowels, (h i u,) and several diphthongs. Such was
      the vulgar pronunciation which the stern Gardiner maintained by
      penal statutes in the university of Cambridge: but the
      monosyllable bh represented to an Attic ear the bleating of
      sheep, and a bellwether is better evidence than a bishop or a
      chancellor. The treatises of those scholars, particularly
      Erasmus, who asserted a more classical pronunciation, are
      collected in the Sylloge of Havercamp, (2 vols. in octavo, Lugd.
      Bat. 1736, 1740:) but it is difficult to paint sounds by words:
      and in their reference to modern use, they can be understood only
      by their respective countrymen. We may observe, that our peculiar
      pronunciation of the O, th, is approved by Erasmus, (tom. ii. p.
      130.)]

      Yet the fleeting shadows of metaphysics were pursued with more
      curiosity and ardor. After a long oblivion, Plato was revived in
      Italy by a venerable Greek, 108 who taught in the house of Cosmo
      of Medicis. While the synod of Florence was involved in
      theological debate, some beneficial consequences might flow from
      the study of his elegant philosophy: his style is the purest
      standard of the Attic dialect, and his sublime thoughts are
      sometimes adapted to familiar conversation, and sometimes adorned
      with the richest colors of poetry and eloquence. The dialogues of
      Plato are a dramatic picture of the life and death of a sage;
      and, as often as he descends from the clouds, his moral system
      inculcates the love of truth, of our country, and of mankind. The
      precept and example of Socrates recommended a modest doubt and
      liberal inquiry; and if the Platonists, with blind devotion,
      adored the visions and errors of their divine master, their
      enthusiasm might correct the dry, dogmatic method of the
      Peripatetic school. So equal, yet so opposite, are the merits of
      Plato and Aristotle, that they may be balanced in endless
      controversy; but some spark of freedom may be produced by the
      collision of adverse servitude. The modern Greeks were divided
      between the two sects: with more fury than skill they fought
      under the banner of their leaders; and the field of battle was
      removed in their flight from Constantinople to Rome. But this
      philosophical debate soon degenerated into an angry and personal
      quarrel of grammarians; and Bessarion, though an advocate for
      Plato, protected the national honor, by interposing the advice
      and authority of a mediator. In the gardens of the Medici, the
      academical doctrine was enjoyed by the polite and learned: but
      their philosophic society was quickly dissolved; and if the
      writings of the Attic sage were perused in the closet, the more
      powerful Stagyrite continued to reign, the oracle of the church
      and school. 109

      108 (return) [ George Gemistus Pletho, a various and voluminous
      writer, the master of Bessarion, and all the Platonists of the
      times. He visited Italy in his old age, and soon returned to end
      his days in Peloponnesus. See the curious Diatribe of Leo
      Allatius de Georgiis, in Fabricius. (Bibliot. Græc. tom. x. p.
      739—756.)]

      109 (return) [ The state of the Platonic philosophy in Italy is
      illustrated by Boivin, (Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, tom.
      ii. p. 715—729,) and Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 259—288.)]

      I have fairly represented the literary merits of the Greeks; yet
      it must be confessed, that they were seconded and surpassed by
      the ardor of the Latins. Italy was divided into many independent
      states; and at that time it was the ambition of princes and
      republics to vie with each other in the encouragement and reward
      of literature. The fame of Nicholas the Fifth 110 has not been
      adequate to his merits. From a plebeian origin he raised himself
      by his virtue and learning: the character of the man prevailed
      over the interest of the pope; and he sharpened those weapons
      which were soon pointed against the Roman church. 111 He had been
      the friend of the most eminent scholars of the age: he became
      their patron; and such was the humility of his manners, that the
      change was scarcely discernible either to them or to himself. If
      he pressed the acceptance of a liberal gift, it was not as the
      measure of desert, but as the proof of benevolence; and when
      modest merit declined his bounty, “Accept it,” would he say, with
      a consciousness of his own worth: “ye will not always have a
      Nicholas among you.” The influence of the holy see pervaded
      Christendom; and he exerted that influence in the search, not of
      benefices, but of books. From the ruins of the Byzantine
      libraries, from the darkest monasteries of Germany and Britain,
      he collected the dusty manuscripts of the writers of antiquity;
      and wherever the original could not be removed, a faithful copy
      was transcribed and transmitted for his use. The Vatican, the old
      repository for bulls and legends, for superstition and forgery,
      was daily replenished with more precious furniture; and such was
      the industry of Nicholas, that in a reign of eight years he
      formed a library of five thousand volumes. To his munificence the
      Latin world was indebted for the versions of Xenophon, Diodorus,
      Polybius, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Appian; of Strabo’s
      Geography, of the Iliad, of the most valuable works of Plato and
      Aristotle, of Ptolemy and Theophrastus, and of the fathers of the
      Greek church. The example of the Roman pontiff was preceded or
      imitated by a Florentine merchant, who governed the republic
      without arms and without a title. Cosmo of Medicis 112 was the
      father of a line of princes, whose name and age are almost
      synonymous with the restoration of learning: his credit was
      ennobled into fame; his riches were dedicated to the service of
      mankind; he corresponded at once with Cairo and London: and a
      cargo of Indian spices and Greek books was often imported in the
      same vessel. The genius and education of his grandson Lorenzo
      rendered him not only a patron, but a judge and candidate, in the
      literary race. In his palace, distress was entitled to relief,
      and merit to reward: his leisure hours were delightfully spent in
      the Platonic academy; he encouraged the emulation of Demetrius
      Chalcocondyles and Angelo Politian; and his active missionary
      Janus Lascaris returned from the East with a treasure of two
      hundred manuscripts, fourscore of which were as yet unknown in
      the libraries of Europe. 113 The rest of Italy was animated by a
      similar spirit, and the progress of the nation repaid the
      liberality of their princes. The Latins held the exclusive
      property of their own literature; and these disciples of Greece
      were soon capable of transmitting and improving the lessons which
      they had imbibed. After a short succession of foreign teachers,
      the tide of emigration subsided; but the language of
      Constantinople was spread beyond the Alps and the natives of
      France, Germany, and England, 114 imparted to their country the
      sacred fire which they had kindled in the schools of Florence and
      Rome. 115 In the productions of the mind, as in those of the
      soil, the gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill: the
      Greek authors, forgotten on the banks of the Ilissus, have been
      illustrated on those of the Elbe and the Thames: and Bessarion or
      Gaza might have envied the superior science of the Barbarians;
      the accuracy of Budæus, the taste of Erasmus, the copiousness of
      Stephens, the erudition of Scaliger, the discernment of Reiske,
      or of Bentley. On the side of the Latins, the discovery of
      printing was a casual advantage: but this useful art has been
      applied by Aldus, and his innumerable successors, to perpetuate
      and multiply the works of antiquity. 116 A single manuscript
      imported from Greece is revived in ten thousand copies; and each
      copy is fairer than the original. In this form, Homer and Plato
      would peruse with more satisfaction their own writings; and their
      scholiasts must resign the prize to the labors of our Western
      editors.

      110 (return) [ See the Life of Nicholas V. by two contemporary
      authors, Janottus Manettus, (tom. iii. P. ii. p. 905—962,) and
      Vespasian of Florence, (tom. xxv. p. 267—290,) in the collection
      of Muratori; and consult Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 46—52,
      109,) and Hody in the articles of Theodore Gaza, George of
      Trebizond, &c.]

      111 (return) [ Lord Bolingbroke observes, with truth and spirit,
      that the popes in this instance, were worse politicians than the
      muftis, and that the charm which had bound mankind for so many
      ages was broken by the magicians themselves, (Letters on the
      Study of History, l. vi. p. 165, 166, octavo edition, 1779.)]

      112 (return) [ See the literary history of Cosmo and Lorenzo of
      Medicis, in Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. l. i. c. 2,) who bestows
      a due measure of praise on Alphonso of Arragon, king of Naples,
      the dukes of Milan, Ferrara Urbino, &c. The republic of Venice
      has deserved the least from the gratitude of scholars.]

      113 (return) [ Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 104,) from the
      preface of Janus Lascaris to the Greek Anthology, printed at
      Florence, 1494. Latebant (says Aldus in his preface to the Greek
      orators, apud Hodium, p. 249) in Atho Thraciæ monte. Eas
      Lascaris.... in Italiam reportavit. Miserat enim ipsum Laurentius
      ille Medices in Græciam ad inquirendos simul, et quantovis
      emendos pretio bonos libros. It is remarkable enough, that the
      research was facilitated by Sultan Bajazet II.]

      114 (return) [ The Greek language was introduced into the
      university of Oxford in the last years of the xvth century, by
      Grocyn, Linacer, and Latimer, who had all studied at Florence
      under Demetrius Chalcocondyles. See Dr. Knight’s curious Life of
      Erasmus. Although a stout academical patriot, he is forced to
      acknowledge that Erasmus learned Greek at Oxford, and taught it
      at Cambridge.]

      115 (return) [ The jealous Italians were desirous of keeping a
      monopoly of Greek learning. When Aldus was about to publish the
      Greek scholiasts on Sophocles and Euripides, Cave, (said they,)
      cave hoc facias, ne _Barbari_ istis adjuti domi maneant, et
      pauciores in Italiam ventitent, (Dr. Knight, in his Life of
      Erasmus, p. 365, from Beatus Rhemanus.)]

      116 (return) [ The press of Aldus Manutius, a Roman, was
      established at Venice about the year 1494: he printed above sixty
      considerable works of Greek literature, almost all for the first
      time; several containing different treatises and authors, and of
      several authors, two, three, or four editions, (Fabric. Bibliot.
      Græc. tom. xiii. p. 605, &c.) Yet his glory must not tempt us to
      forget, that the first Greek book, the Grammar of Constantine
      Lascaris, was printed at Milan in 1476; and that the Florence
      Homer of 1488 displays all the luxury of the typographical art.
      See the Annales Typographical of Mattaire, and the Bibliographie
      Instructive of De Bure, a knowing bookseller of Paris.]

      Before the revival of classic literature, the Barbarians in
      Europe were immersed in ignorance; and their vulgar tongues were
      marked with the rudeness and poverty of their manners. The
      students of the more perfect idioms of Rome and Greece were
      introduced to a new world of light and science; to the society of
      the free and polished nations of antiquity; and to a familiar
      converse with those immortal men who spoke the sublime language
      of eloquence and reason. Such an intercourse must tend to refine
      the taste, and to elevate the genius, of the moderns; and yet,
      from the first experiments, it might appear that the study of the
      ancients had given fetters, rather than wings, to the human mind.
      However laudable, the spirit of imitation is of a servile cast;
      and the first disciples of the Greeks and Romans were a colony of
      strangers in the midst of their age and country. The minute and
      laborious diligence which explored the antiquities of remote
      times might have improved or adorned the present state of
      society, the critic and metaphysician were the slaves of
      Aristotle; the poets, historians, and orators, were proud to
      repeat the thoughts and words of the Augustan age: the works of
      nature were observed with the eyes of Pliny and Theophrastus; and
      some Pagan votaries professed a secret devotion to the gods of
      Homer and Plato. 117 The Italians were oppressed by the strength
      and number of their ancient auxiliaries: the century after the
      deaths of Petrarch and Boccace was filled with a crowd of Latin
      imitators, who decently repose on our shelves; but in that æra of
      learning it will not be easy to discern a real discovery of
      science, a work of invention or eloquence, in the popular
      language of the country. 118 But as soon as it had been deeply
      saturated with the celestial dew, the soil was quickened into
      vegetation and life; the modern idioms were refined; the classics
      of Athens and Rome inspired a pure taste and a generous
      emulation; and in Italy, as afterwards in France and England, the
      pleasing reign of poetry and fiction was succeeded by the light
      of speculative and experimental philosophy. Genius may anticipate
      the season of maturity; but in the education of a people, as in
      that of an individual, memory must be exercised, before the
      powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: nor may the artist
      hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to imitate, the
      works of his predecessors.

      117 (return) [ I will select three singular examples of this
      classic enthusiasm. I. At the synod of Florence, Gemistus Pletho
      said, in familiar conversation to George of Trebizond, that in a
      short time mankind would unanimously renounce the Gospel and the
      Koran, for a religion similar to that of the Gentiles, (Leo
      Allatius, apud Fabricium, tom. x. p. 751.) 2. Paul II. persecuted
      the Roman academy, which had been founded by Pomponius Lætus; and
      the principal members were accused of heresy, impiety, and
      _paganism_, (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. P. i. p. 81, 82.) 3. In the
      next century, some scholars and poets in France celebrated the
      success of Jodelle’s tragedy of Cleopatra, by a festival of
      Bacchus, and, as it is said, by the sacrifice of a goat, (Bayle,
      Dictionnaire, Jodelle. Fontenelle, tom. iii. p. 56—61.) Yet the
      spirit of bigotry might often discern a serious impiety in the
      sportive play of fancy and learning.]

      118 (return) [ The survivor Boccace died in the year 1375; and we
      cannot place before 1480 the composition of the Morgante Maggiore
      of Pulci and the Orlando Innamorato of Boyardo, (Tiraboschi, tom.
      vi. P. ii. p. 174—177.)]




      Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—Part I.

     Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—Reign And Character Of Amurath
     The Second.—Crusade Of Ladislaus, King Of Hungary.— His Defeat And
     Death.—John Huniades.—Scanderbeg.— Constantine Palæologus, Last
     Emperor Of The East.

      The respective merits of Rome and Constantinople are compared and
      celebrated by an eloquent Greek, the father of the Italian
      schools. 1 The view of the ancient capital, the seat of his
      ancestors, surpassed the most sanguine expectations of Emanuel
      Chrysoloras; and he no longer blamed the exclamation of an old
      sophist, that Rome was the habitation, not of men, but of gods.
      Those gods, and those men, had long since vanished; but to the
      eye of liberal enthusiasm, the majesty of ruin restored the image
      of her ancient prosperity. The monuments of the consuls and
      Cæsars, of the martyrs and apostles, engaged on all sides the
      curiosity of the philosopher and the Christian; and he confessed
      that in every age the arms and the religion of Rome were destined
      to reign over the earth. While Chrysoloras admired the venerable
      beauties of the mother, he was not forgetful of his native
      country, her fairest daughter, her Imperial colony; and the
      Byzantine patriot expatiates with zeal and truth on the eternal
      advantages of nature, and the more transitory glories of art and
      dominion, which adorned, or had adorned, the city of Constantine.
      Yet the perfection of the copy still redounds (as he modestly
      observes) to the honor of the original, and parents are delighted
      to be renewed, and even excelled, by the superior merit of their
      children. “Constantinople,” says the orator, “is situate on a
      commanding point, between Europe and Asia, between the
      Archipelago and the Euxine. By her interposition, the two seas,
      and the two continents, are united for the common benefit of
      nations; and the gates of commerce may be shut or opened at her
      command. The harbor, encompassed on all sides by the sea, and the
      continent, is the most secure and capacious in the world. The
      walls and gates of Constantinople may be compared with those of
      Babylon: the towers many; each tower is a solid and lofty
      structure; and the second wall, the outer fortification, would be
      sufficient for the defence and dignity of an ordinary capital. A
      broad and rapid stream may be introduced into the ditches and the
      artificial island may be encompassed, like Athens, 2 by land or
      water.” Two strong and natural causes are alleged for the
      perfection of the model of new Rome. The royal founder reigned
      over the most illustrious nations of the globe; and in the
      accomplishment of his designs, the power of the Romans was
      combined with the art and science of the Greeks. Other cities
      have been reared to maturity by accident and time: their beauties
      are mingled with disorder and deformity; and the inhabitants,
      unwilling to remove from their natal spot, are incapable of
      correcting the errors of their ancestors, and the original vices
      of situation or climate. But the free idea of Constantinople was
      formed and executed by a single mind; and the primitive model was
      improved by the obedient zeal of the subjects and successors of
      the first monarch. The adjacent isles were stored with an
      inexhaustible supply of marble; but the various materials were
      transported from the most remote shores of Europe and Asia; and
      the public and private buildings, the palaces, churches,
      aqueducts, cisterns, porticos, columns, baths, and hippodromes,
      were adapted to the greatness of the capital of the East. The
      superfluity of wealth was spread along the shores of Europe and
      Asia; and the Byzantine territory, as far as the Euxine, the
      Hellespont, and the long wall, might be considered as a populous
      suburb and a perpetual garden. In this flattering picture, the
      past and the present, the times of prosperity and decay, are
      artfully confounded; but a sigh and a confession escape, from the
      orator, that his wretched country was the shadow and sepulchre of
      its former self. The works of ancient sculpture had been defaced
      by Christian zeal or Barbaric violence; the fairest structures
      were demolished; and the marbles of Paros or Numidia were burnt
      for lime, or applied to the meanest uses. Of many a statue, the
      place was marked by an empty pedestal; of many a column, the size
      was determined by a broken capital; the tombs of the emperors
      were scattered on the ground; the stroke of time was accelerated
      by storms and earthquakes; and the vacant space was adorned, by
      vulgar tradition, with fabulous monuments of gold and silver.
      From these wonders, which lived only in memory or belief, he
      distinguishes, however, the porphyry pillar, the column and
      colossus of Justinian, 3 and the church, more especially the
      dome, of St. Sophia; the best conclusion, since it could not be
      described according to its merits, and after it no other object
      could deserve to be mentioned. But he forgets that, a century
      before, the trembling fabrics of the colossus and the church had
      been saved and supported by the timely care of Andronicus the
      Elder. Thirty years after the emperor had fortified St. Sophia
      with two new buttresses or pyramids, the eastern hemisphere
      suddenly gave way: and the images, the altars, and the sanctuary,
      were crushed by the falling ruin. The mischief indeed was
      speedily repaired; the rubbish was cleared by the incessant labor
      of every rank and age; and the poor remains of riches and
      industry were consecrated by the Greeks to the most stately and
      venerable temple of the East. 4

      1 (return) [ The epistle of Emanuel Chrysoloras to the emperor
      John Palæologus will not offend the eye or ear of a classical
      student, (ad calcem Codini de Antiquitatibus C. P. p. 107—126.)
      The superscription suggests a chronological remark, that John
      Palæologus II. was associated in the empire before the year 1414,
      the date of Chrysoloras’s death. A still earlier date, at least
      1408, is deduced from the age of his youngest sons, Demetrius and
      Thomas, who were both _Porphyrogeniti_ (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p.
      244, 247.)]

      2 (return) [ Somebody observed that the city of Athens might be
      circumnavigated, (tiV eipen tin polin tvn Aqhnaiwn dunasqai kai
      paraplein kai periplein.) But what may be true in a rhetorical
      sense of Constantinople, cannot be applied to the situation of
      Athens, five miles from the sea, and not intersected or
      surrounded by any navigable streams.]

      3 (return) [ Nicephorus Gregoras has described the Colossus of
      Justinian, (l. vii. 12:) but his measures are false and
      inconsistent. The editor Boivin consulted his friend Girardon;
      and the sculptor gave him the true proportions of an equestrian
      statue. That of Justinian was still visible to Peter Gyllius, not
      on the column, but in the outward court of the seraglio; and he
      was at Constantinople when it was melted down, and cast into a
      brass cannon, (de Topograph. C. P. l. ii. c. 17.)]

      4 (return) [ See the decay and repairs of St. Sophia, in
      Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii. 12, l. xv. 2.) The building was
      propped by Andronicus in 1317, the eastern hemisphere fell in
      1345. The Greeks, in their pompous rhetoric, exalt the beauty and
      holiness of the church, an earthly heaven the abode of angels,
      and of God himself, &c.]

      The last hope of the falling city and empire was placed in the
      harmony of the mother and daughter, in the maternal tenderness of
      Rome, and the filial obedience of Constantinople. In the synod of
      Florence, the Greeks and Latins had embraced, and subscribed, and
      promised; but these signs of friendship were perfidious or
      fruitless; 5 and the baseless fabric of the union vanished like a
      dream. 6 The emperor and his prelates returned home in the
      Venetian galleys; but as they touched at the Morea and the Isles
      of Corfu and Lesbos, the subjects of the Latins complained that
      the pretended union would be an instrument of oppression. No
      sooner did they land on the Byzantine shore, than they were
      saluted, or rather assailed, with a general murmur of zeal and
      discontent. During their absence, above two years, the capital
      had been deprived of its civil and ecclesiastical rulers;
      fanaticism fermented in anarchy; the most furious monks reigned
      over the conscience of women and bigots; and the hatred of the
      Latin name was the first principle of nature and religion. Before
      his departure for Italy, the emperor had flattered the city with
      the assurance of a prompt relief and a powerful succor; and the
      clergy, confident in their orthodoxy and science, had promised
      themselves and their flocks an easy victory over the blind
      shepherds of the West. The double disappointment exasperated the
      Greeks; the conscience of the subscribing prelates was awakened;
      the hour of temptation was past; and they had more to dread from
      the public resentment, than they could hope from the favor of the
      emperor or the pope. Instead of justifying their conduct, they
      deplored their weakness, professed their contrition, and cast
      themselves on the mercy of God and of their brethren. To the
      reproachful question, what had been the event or the use of their
      Italian synod? they answered with sighs and tears, “Alas! we have
      made a new faith; we have exchanged piety for impiety; we have
      betrayed the immaculate sacrifice; and we are become _Azymites_.”
      (The Azymites were those who celebrated the communion with
      unleavened bread; and I must retract or qualify the praise which
      I have bestowed on the growing philosophy of the times.) “Alas!
      we have been seduced by distress, by fraud, and by the hopes and
      fears of a transitory life. The hand that has signed the union
      should be cut off; and the tongue that has pronounced the Latin
      creed deserves to be torn from the root.” The best proof of their
      repentance was an increase of zeal for the most trivial rites and
      the most incomprehensible doctrines; and an absolute separation
      from all, without excepting their prince, who preserved some
      regard for honor and consistency. After the decease of the
      patriarch Joseph, the archbishops of Heraclea and Trebizond had
      courage to refuse the vacant office; and Cardinal Bessarion
      preferred the warm and comfortable shelter of the Vatican. The
      choice of the emperor and his clergy was confined to Metrophanes
      of Cyzicus: he was consecrated in St. Sophia, but the temple was
      vacant. The cross-bearers abdicated their service; the infection
      spread from the city to the villages; and Metrophanes discharged,
      without effect, some ecclesiastical thunders against a nation of
      schismatics. The eyes of the Greeks were directed to Mark of
      Ephesus, the champion of his country; and the sufferings of the
      holy confessor were repaid with a tribute of admiration and
      applause. His example and writings propagated the flame of
      religious discord; age and infirmity soon removed him from the
      world; but the gospel of Mark was not a law of forgiveness; and
      he requested with his dying breath, that none of the adherents of
      Rome might attend his obsequies or pray for his soul.

      5 (return) [ The genuine and original narrative of Syropulus (p.
      312—351) opens the schism from the first _office_ of the Greeks
      at Venice to the general opposition at Constantinople, of the
      clergy and people.]

      6 (return) [ On the schism of Constantinople, see Phranza, (l.
      ii. c. 17,) Laonicus Chalcondyles, (l. vi. p. 155, 156,) and
      Ducas, (c. 31;) the last of whom writes with truth and freedom.
      Among the moderns we may distinguish the continuator of Fleury,
      (tom. xxii. p. 338, &c., 401, 420, &c.,) and Spondanus, (A.D.
      1440—50.) The sense of the latter is drowned in prejudice and
      passion, as soon as Rome and religion are concerned.]

      The schism was not confined to the narrow limits of the Byzantine
      empire. Secure under the Mamaluke sceptre, the three patriarchs
      of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, assembled a numerous
      synod; disowned their representatives at Ferrara and Florence;
      condemned the creed and council of the Latins; and threatened the
      emperor of Constantinople with the censures of the Eastern
      church. Of the sectaries of the Greek communion, the Russians
      were the most powerful, ignorant, and superstitious. Their
      primate, the cardinal Isidore, hastened from Florence to Moscow,
      7 to reduce the independent nation under the Roman yoke. But the
      Russian bishops had been educated at Mount Athos; and the prince
      and people embraced the theology of their priests. They were
      scandalized by the title, the pomp, the Latin cross of the
      legate, the friend of those impious men who shaved their beards,
      and performed the divine office with gloves on their hands and
      rings on their fingers: Isidore was condemned by a synod; his
      person was imprisoned in a monastery; and it was with extreme
      difficulty that the cardinal could escape from the hands of a
      fierce and fanatic people. 8 The Russians refused a passage to
      the missionaries of Rome who aspired to convert the Pagans beyond
      the Tanais; 9 and their refusal was justified by the maxim, that
      the guilt of idolatry is less damnable than that of schism. The
      errors of the Bohemians were excused by their abhorrence for the
      pope; and a deputation of the Greek clergy solicited the
      friendship of those sanguinary enthusiasts. 10 While Eugenius
      triumphed in the union and orthodoxy of the Greeks, his party was
      contracted to the walls, or rather to the palace of
      Constantinople. The zeal of Palæologus had been excited by
      interest; it was soon cooled by opposition: an attempt to violate
      the national belief might endanger his life and crown; not could
      the pious rebels be destitute of foreign and domestic aid. The
      sword of his brother Demetrius, who in Italy had maintained a
      prudent and popular silence, was half unsheathed in the cause of
      religion; and Amurath, the Turkish sultan, was displeased and
      alarmed by the seeming friendship of the Greeks and Latins.

      7 (return) [ Isidore was metropolitan of Kiow, but the Greeks
      subject to Poland have removed that see from the ruins of Kiow to
      Lemberg, or Leopold, (Herbestein, in Ramusio, tom. ii. p. 127.)
      On the other hand, the Russians transferred their spiritual
      obedience to the archbishop, who became, in 1588, the patriarch,
      of Moscow, (Levesque Hist. de Russie, tom. iii. p. 188, 190, from
      a Greek MS. at Turin, Iter et labores Archiepiscopi Arsenii.)]

      8 (return) [ The curious narrative of Levesque (Hist. de Russie,
      tom. ii. p. 242—247) is extracted from the patriarchal archives.
      The scenes of Ferrara and Florence are described by ignorance and
      passion; but the Russians are credible in the account of their
      own prejudices.]

      9 (return) [ The Shamanism, the ancient religion of the Samanæans
      and Gymnosophists, has been driven by the more popular Bramins
      from India into the northern deserts: the naked philosophers were
      compelled to wrap themselves in fur; but they insensibly sunk
      into wizards and physicians. The Mordvans and Tcheremisses in the
      European Russia adhere to this religion, which is formed on the
      earthly model of one king or God, his ministers or angels, and
      the rebellious spirits who oppose his government. As these tribes
      of the Volga have no images, they might more justly retort on the
      Latin missionaries the name of idolaters, (Levesque, Hist. des
      Peuples soumis à la Domination des Russes, tom. i. p. 194—237,
      423—460.)]

      10 (return) [ Spondanus, Annal. Eccles. tom ii. A.D. 1451, No.
      13. The epistle of the Greeks with a Latin version, is extant in
      the college library at Prague.]

      “Sultan Murad, or Amurath, lived forty-nine, and reigned thirty
      years, six months, and eight days. He was a just and valiant
      prince, of a great soul, patient of labors, learned, merciful,
      religious, charitable; a lover and encourager of the studious,
      and of all who excelled in any art or science; a good emperor and
      a great general. No man obtained more or greater victories than
      Amurath; Belgrade alone withstood his attacks. 101 Under his
      reign, the soldier was ever victorious, the citizen rich and
      secure. If he subdued any country, his first care was to build
      mosques and caravansaras, hospitals, and colleges. Every year he
      gave a thousand pieces of gold to the sons of the Prophet; and
      sent two thousand five hundred to the religious persons of Mecca,
      Medina, and Jerusalem.” 11 This portrait is transcribed from the
      historian of the Othman empire: but the applause of a servile and
      superstitious people has been lavished on the worst of tyrants;
      and the virtues of a sultan are often the vices most useful to
      himself, or most agreeable to his subjects. A nation ignorant of
      the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the
      flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume
      the character of justice; his profusion, of liberality; his
      obstinacy, of firmness. If the most reasonable excuse be
      rejected, few acts of obedience will be found impossible; and
      guilt must tremble, where innocence cannot always be secure. The
      tranquillity of the people, and the discipline of the troops,
      were best maintained by perpetual action in the field; war was
      the trade of the Janizaries; and those who survived the peril,
      and divided the spoil, applauded the generous ambition of their
      sovereign. To propagate the true religion, was the duty of a
      faithful Mussulman: the unbelievers were _his_ enemies, and those
      of the Prophet; and, in the hands of the Turks, the cimeter was
      the only instrument of conversion. Under these circumstances,
      however, the justice and moderation of Amurath are attested by
      his conduct, and acknowledged by the Christians themselves; who
      consider a prosperous reign and a peaceful death as the reward of
      his singular merits. In the vigor of his age and military power,
      he seldom engaged in war till he was justified by a previous and
      adequate provocation: the victorious sultan was disarmed by
      submission; and in the observance of treaties, his word was
      inviolate and sacred. 12 The Hungarians were commonly the
      aggressors; he was provoked by the revolt of Scanderbeg; and the
      perfidious Caramanian was twice vanquished, and twice pardoned,
      by the Ottoman monarch. Before he invaded the Morea, Thebes had
      been surprised by the despot: in the conquest of Thessalonica,
      the grandson of Bajazet might dispute the recent purchase of the
      Venetians; and after the first siege of Constantinople, the
      sultan was never tempted, by the distress, the absence, or the
      injuries of Palæologus, to extinguish the dying light of the
      Byzantine empire.

      101 (return) [ See the siege and massacre at Thessalonica. Von
      Hammer vol. i p. 433.—M.]

      11 (return) [ See Cantemir, History of the Othman Empire, p. 94.
      Murad, or Morad, may be more correct: but I have preferred the
      popular name to that obscure diligence which is rarely successful
      in translating an Oriental, into the Roman, alphabet.]

      12 (return) [ See Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 186, 198,) Ducas, (c.
      33,) and Marinus Barletius, (in Vit. Scanderbeg, p. 145, 146.) In
      his good faith towards the garrison of Sfetigrade, he was a
      lesson and example to his son Mahomet.]

      But the most striking feature in the life and character of
      Amurath is the double abdication of the Turkish throne; and, were
      not his motives debased by an alloy of superstition, we must
      praise the royal philosopher, 13 who at the age of forty could
      discern the vanity of human greatness. Resigning the sceptre to
      his son, he retired to the pleasant residence of Magnesia; but he
      retired to the society of saints and hermits. It was not till the
      fourth century of the Hegira, that the religion of Mahomet had
      been corrupted by an institution so adverse to his genius; but in
      the age of the crusades, the various orders of Dervises were
      multiplied by the example of the Christian, and even the Latin,
      monks. 14 The lord of nations submitted to fast, and pray, and
      turn round 141 in endless rotation with the fanatics, who mistook
      the giddiness of the head for the illumination of the spirit. 15
      But he was soon awakened from his dreams of enthusiasm by the
      Hungarian invasion; and his obedient son was the foremost to urge
      the public danger and the wishes of the people. Under the banner
      of their veteran leader, the Janizaries fought and conquered but
      he withdrew from the field of Varna, again to pray, to fast, and
      to turn round with his Magnesian brethren. These pious
      occupations were again interrupted by the danger of the state. A
      victorious army disdained the inexperience of their youthful
      ruler: the city of Adrianople was abandoned to rapine and
      slaughter; and the unanimous divan implored his presence to
      appease the tumult, and prevent the rebellion, of the Janizaries.
      At the well-known voice of their master, they trembled and
      obeyed; and the reluctant sultan was compelled to support his
      splendid servitude, till at the end of four years, he was
      relieved by the angel of death. Age or disease, misfortune or
      caprice, have tempted several princes to descend from the throne;
      and they have had leisure to repent of their irretrievable step.
      But Amurath alone, in the full liberty of choice, after the trial
      of empire and solitude, has _repeated_ his preference of a
      private life.

      13 (return) [ Voltaire (Essai sur l’Histoire Générale, c. 89, p.
      283, 284) admires _le Philosophe Turc:_ would he have bestowed
      the same praise on a Christian prince for retiring to a
      monastery? In his way, Voltaire was a bigot, an intolerant
      bigot.]

      14 (return) [ See the articles _Dervische_, _Fakir_, _Nasser_,
      _Rohbaniat_, in D’Herbelot’s Bibliothèque Orientale. Yet the
      subject is superficially treated from the Persian and Arabian
      writers. It is among the Turks that these orders have principally
      flourished.]

      141 (return) [ Gibbon has fallen into a remarkable error. The
      unmonastic retreat of Amurath was that of an epicurean rather
      than of a dervis; more like that of Sardanapalus than of Charles
      the Fifth. Profane, not divine, love was its chief occupation:
      the only dance, that described by Horace as belonging to the
      country, motus doceri gaudet Ionicos. See Von Hammer note, p.
      652.—M.]

      15 (return) [ Ricaut (in the Present State of the Ottoman Empire,
      p. 242—268) affords much information, which he drew from his
      personal conversation with the heads of the dervises, most of
      whom ascribed their origin to the time of Orchan. He does not
      mention the _Zichid_ of Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 286,) among
      whom Amurath retired: the _Seids_ of that author are the
      descendants of Mahomet.]

      After the departure of his Greek brethren, Eugenius had not been
      unmindful of their temporal interest; and his tender regard for
      the Byzantine empire was animated by a just apprehension of the
      Turks, who approached, and might soon invade, the borders of
      Italy. But the spirit of the crusades had expired; and the
      coldness of the Franks was not less unreasonable than their
      headlong passion. In the eleventh century, a fanatic monk could
      precipitate Europe on Asia for the recovery of the holy
      sepulchre; but in the fifteenth, the most pressing motives of
      religion and policy were insufficient to unite the Latins in the
      defence of Christendom. Germany was an inexhaustible storehouse
      of men and arms: 16 but that complex and languid body required
      the impulse of a vigorous hand; and Frederic the Third was alike
      impotent in his personal character and his Imperial dignity. A
      long war had impaired the strength, without satiating the
      animosity, of France and England: 17 but Philip duke of Burgundy
      was a vain and magnificent prince; and he enjoyed, without danger
      or expense, the adventurous piety of his subjects, who sailed, in
      a gallant fleet, from the coast of Flanders to the Hellespont.
      The maritime republics of Venice and Genoa were less remote from
      the scene of action; and their hostile fleets were associated
      under the standard of St. Peter. The kingdoms of Hungary and
      Poland, which covered as it were the interior pale of the Latin
      church, were the most nearly concerned to oppose the progress of
      the Turks. Arms were the patrimony of the Scythians and
      Sarmatians; and these nations might appear equal to the contest,
      could they point, against the common foe, those swords that were
      so wantonly drawn in bloody and domestic quarrels. But the same
      spirit was adverse to concord and obedience: a poor country and a
      limited monarch are incapable of maintaining a standing force;
      and the loose bodies of Polish and Hungarian horse were not armed
      with the sentiments and weapons which, on some occasions, have
      given irresistible weight to the French chivalry. Yet, on this
      side, the designs of the Roman pontiff, and the eloquence of
      Cardinal Julian, his legate, were promoted by the circumstances
      of the times: 18 by the union of the two crowns on the head of
      Ladislaus, 19 a young and ambitious soldier; by the valor of a
      hero, whose name, the name of John Huniades, was already popular
      among the Christians, and formidable to the Turks. An endless
      treasure of pardons and indulgences was scattered by the legate;
      many private warriors of France and Germany enlisted under the
      holy banner; and the crusade derived some strength, or at least
      some reputation, from the new allies both of Europe and Asia. A
      fugitive despot of Servia exaggerated the distress and ardor of
      the Christians beyond the Danube, who would unanimously rise to
      vindicate their religion and liberty. The Greek emperor, 20 with
      a spirit unknown to his fathers, engaged to guard the Bosphorus,
      and to sally from Constantinople at the head of his national and
      mercenary troops. The sultan of Caramania 21 announced the
      retreat of Amurath, and a powerful diversion in the heart of
      Anatolia; and if the fleets of the West could occupy at the same
      moment the Straits of the Hellespont, the Ottoman monarchy would
      be dissevered and destroyed. Heaven and earth must rejoice in the
      perdition of the miscreants; and the legate, with prudent
      ambiguity, instilled the opinion of the invisible, perhaps the
      visible, aid of the Son of God, and his divine mother.

      16 (return) [ In the year 1431, Germany raised 40,000 horse,
      men-at-arms, against the Hussites of Bohemia, (Lenfant, Hist. du
      Concile de Basle, tom. i. p. 318.) At the siege of Nuys, on the
      Rhine, in 1474, the princes, prelates, and cities, sent their
      respective quotas; and the bishop of Munster (qui n’est pas des
      plus grands) furnished 1400 horse, 6000 foot, all in green, with
      1200 wagons. The united armies of the king of England and the
      duke of Burgundy scarcely equalled one third of this German host,
      (Mémoires de Philippe de Comines, l. iv. c. 2.) At present, six
      or seven hundred thousand men are maintained in constant pay and
      admirable discipline by the powers of Germany.]

      17 (return) [ It was not till the year 1444, that France and
      England could agree on a truce of some months. (See Rymer’s
      Fdera, and the chronicles of both nations.)]

      18 (return) [ In the Hungarian crusade, Spondanus (Annal. Ecclés.
      A.D. 1443, 1444) has been my leading guide. He has diligently
      read, and critically compared, the Greek and Turkish materials,
      the historians of Hungary, Poland, and the West. His narrative is
      perspicuous and where he can be free from a religious bias, the
      judgment of Spondanus is not contemptible.]

      19 (return) [ I have curtailed the harsh letter (Wladislaus)
      which most writers affix to his name, either in compliance with
      the Polish pronunciation, or to distinguish him from his rival
      the infant Ladislaus of Austria. Their competition for the crown
      of Hungary is described by Callimachus, (l. i. ii. p. 447—486,)
      Bonfinius, (Decad. iii. l. iv.,) Spondanus, and Lenfant.]

      20 (return) [ The Greek historians, Phranza, Chalcondyles, and
      Ducas, do not ascribe to their prince a very active part in this
      crusade, which he seems to have promoted by his wishes, and
      injured by his fears.]

      21 (return) [ Cantemir (p. 88) ascribes to his policy the
      original plan, and transcribes his animating epistle to the king
      of Hungary. But the Mahometan powers are seldom it formed of the
      state of Christendom and the situation and correspondence of the
      knights of Rhodes must connect them with the sultan of
      Caramania.]

      Of the Polish and Hungarian diets, a religious war was the
      unanimous cry; and Ladislaus, after passing the Danube, led an
      army of his confederate subjects as far as Sophia, the capital of
      the Bulgarian kingdom. In this expedition they obtained two
      signal victories, which were justly ascribed to the valor and
      conduct of Huniades. In the first, with a vanguard of ten
      thousand men, he surprised the Turkish camp; in the second, he
      vanquished and made prisoner the most renowned of their generals,
      who possessed the double advantage of ground and numbers. The
      approach of winter, and the natural and artificial obstacles of
      Mount Hæmus, arrested the progress of the hero, who measured a
      narrow interval of six days’ march from the foot of the mountains
      to the hostile towers of Adrianople, and the friendly capital of
      the Greek empire. The retreat was undisturbed; and the entrance
      into Buda was at once a military and religious triumph. An
      ecclesiastical procession was followed by the king and his
      warriors on foot: he nicely balanced the merits and rewards of
      the two nations; and the pride of conquest was blended with the
      humble temper of Christianity. Thirteen bashaws, nine standards,
      and four thousand captives, were unquestionable trophies; and as
      all were willing to believe, and none were present to contradict,
      the crusaders multiplied, with unblushing confidence, the myriads
      of Turks whom they had left on the field of battle. 22 The most
      solid proof, and the most salutary consequence, of victory, was a
      deputation from the divan to solicit peace, to restore Servia, to
      ransom the prisoners, and to evacuate the Hungarian frontier. By
      this treaty, the rational objects of the war were obtained: the
      king, the despot, and Huniades himself, in the diet of Segedin,
      were satisfied with public and private emolument; a truce of ten
      years was concluded; and the followers of Jesus and Mahomet, who
      swore on the Gospel and the Koran, attested the word of God as
      the guardian of truth and the avenger of perfidy. In the place of
      the Gospel, the Turkish ministers had proposed to substitute the
      Eucharist, the real presence of the Catholic deity; but the
      Christians refused to profane their holy mysteries; and a
      superstitious conscience is less forcibly bound by the spiritual
      energy, than by the outward and visible symbols of an oath. 23

      22 (return) [ In their letters to the emperor Frederic III. the
      Hungarians slay 80,000 Turks in one battle; but the modest Julian
      reduces the slaughter to 6000 or even 2000 infidels, (Æneas
      Sylvius in Europ. c. 5, and epist. 44, 81, apud Spondanum.)]

      23 (return) [ See the origin of the Turkish war, and the first
      expedition of Ladislaus, in the vth and vith books of the iiid
      decad of Bonfinius, who, in his division and style, copies Livy
      with tolerable success Callimachus (l. ii p. 487—496) is still
      more pure and authentic.]

      During the whole transaction, the cardinal legate had observed a
      sullen silence, unwilling to approve, and unable to oppose, the
      consent of the king and people. But the diet was not dissolved
      before Julian was fortified by the welcome intelligence, that
      Anatolia was invaded by the Caramanian, and Thrace by the Greek
      emperor; that the fleets of Genoa, Venice, and Burgundy, were
      masters of the Hellespont; and that the allies, informed of the
      victory, and ignorant of the treaty, of Ladislaus, impatiently
      waited for the return of his victorious army. “And is it thus,”
      exclaimed the cardinal, 24 “that you will desert their
      expectations and your own fortune? It is to them, to your God,
      and your fellow-Christians, that you have pledged your faith; and
      that prior obligation annihilates a rash and sacrilegious oath to
      the enemies of Christ. His vicar on earth is the Roman pontiff;
      without whose sanction you can neither promise nor perform. In
      his name I absolve your perjury and sanctify your arms: follow my
      footsteps in the paths of glory and salvation; and if still ye
      have scruples, devolve on my head the punishment and the sin.”
      This mischievous casuistry was seconded by his respectable
      character, and the levity of popular assemblies: war was
      resolved, on the same spot where peace had so lately been sworn;
      and, in the execution of the treaty, the Turks were assaulted by
      the Christians; to whom, with some reason, they might apply the
      epithet of Infidels. The falsehood of Ladislaus to his word and
      oath was palliated by the religion of the times: the most
      perfect, or at least the most popular, excuse would have been the
      success of his arms and the deliverance of the Eastern church.
      But the same treaty which should have bound his conscience had
      diminished his strength. On the proclamation of the peace, the
      French and German volunteers departed with indignant murmurs: the
      Poles were exhausted by distant warfare, and perhaps disgusted
      with foreign command; and their palatines accepted the first
      license, and hastily retired to their provinces and castles. Even
      Hungary was divided by faction, or restrained by a laudable
      scruple; and the relics of the crusade that marched in the second
      expedition were reduced to an inadequate force of twenty thousand
      men. A Walachian chief, who joined the royal standard with his
      vassals, presumed to remark that their numbers did not exceed the
      hunting retinue that sometimes attended the sultan; and the gift
      of two horses of matchless speed might admonish Ladislaus of his
      secret foresight of the event. But the despot of Servia, after
      the restoration of his country and children, was tempted by the
      promise of new realms; and the inexperience of the king, the
      enthusiasm of the legate, and the martial presumption of Huniades
      himself, were persuaded that every obstacle must yield to the
      invincible virtue of the sword and the cross. After the passage
      of the Danube, two roads might lead to Constantinople and the
      Hellespont: the one direct, abrupt, and difficult through the
      mountains of Hæmus; the other more tedious and secure, over a
      level country, and along the shores of the Euxine; in which their
      flanks, according to the Scythian discipline, might always be
      covered by a movable fortification of wagons. The latter was
      judiciously preferred: the Catholics marched through the plains
      of Bulgaria, burning, with wanton cruelty, the churches and
      villages of the Christian natives; and their last station was at
      Warna, near the sea-shore; on which the defeat and death of
      Ladislaus have bestowed a memorable name. 25

      24 (return) [ I do not pretend to warrant the literal accuracy of
      Julian’s speech, which is variously worded by Callimachus, (l.
      iii. p. 505—507,) Bonfinius, (dec. iii. l. vi. p. 457, 458,) and
      other historians, who might indulge their own eloquence, while
      they represent one of the orators of the age. But they all agree
      in the advice and arguments for perjury, which in the field of
      controversy are fiercely attacked by the Protestants, and feebly
      defended by the Catholics. The latter are discouraged by the
      misfortune of Warna.]

      25 (return) [ Warna, under the Grecian name of Odessus, was a
      colony of the Milesians, which they denominated from the hero
      Ulysses, (Cellarius, tom. i. p. 374. D’Anville, tom. i. p. 312.)
      According to Arrian’s Periplus of the Euxine, (p. 24, 25, in the
      first volume of Hudson’s Geographers,) it was situate 1740
      stadia, or furlongs, from the mouth of the Danube, 2140 from
      Byzantium, and 360 to the north of a ridge of promontory of Mount
      Hæmus, which advances into the sea.]




      Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—Part II.

      It was on this fatal spot, that, instead of finding a confederate
      fleet to second their operations, they were alarmed by the
      approach of Amurath himself, who had issued from his Magnesian
      solitude, and transported the forces of Asia to the defence of
      Europe. According to some writers, the Greek emperor had been
      awed, or seduced, to grant the passage of the Bosphorus; and an
      indelible stain of corruption is fixed on the Genoese, or the
      pope’s nephew, the Catholic admiral, whose mercenary connivance
      betrayed the guard of the Hellespont. From Adrianople, the sultan
      advanced by hasty marches, at the head of sixty thousand men; and
      when the cardinal, and Huniades, had taken a nearer survey of the
      numbers and order of the Turks, these ardent warriors proposed
      the tardy and impracticable measure of a retreat. The king alone
      was resolved to conquer or die; and his resolution had almost
      been crowned with a glorious and salutary victory. The princes
      were opposite to each other in the centre; and the Beglerbegs, or
      generals of Anatolia and Romania, commanded on the right and
      left, against the adverse divisions of the despot and Huniades.
      The Turkish wings were broken on the first onset: but the
      advantage was fatal; and the rash victors, in the heat of the
      pursuit, were carried away far from the annoyance of the enemy,
      or the support of their friends. When Amurath beheld the flight
      of his squadrons, he despaired of his fortune and that of the
      empire: a veteran Janizary seized his horse’s bridle; and he had
      magnanimity to pardon and reward the soldier who dared to
      perceive the terror, and arrest the flight, of his sovereign. A
      copy of the treaty, the monument of Christian perfidy, had been
      displayed in the front of battle; and it is said, that the sultan
      in his distress, lifting his eyes and his hands to heaven,
      implored the protection of the God of truth; and called on the
      prophet Jesus himself to avenge the impious mockery of his name
      and religion. 26 With inferior numbers and disordered ranks, the
      king of Hungary rushed forward in the confidence of victory, till
      his career was stopped by the impenetrable phalanx of the
      Janizaries. If we may credit the Ottoman annals, his horse was
      pierced by the javelin of Amurath; 27 he fell among the spears of
      the infantry; and a Turkish soldier proclaimed with a loud voice,
      “Hungarians, behold the head of your king!” The death of
      Ladislaus was the signal of their defeat. On his return from an
      intemperate pursuit, Huniades deplored his error, and the public
      loss; he strove to rescue the royal body, till he was overwhelmed
      by the tumultuous crowd of the victors and vanquished; and the
      last efforts of his courage and conduct were exerted to save the
      remnant of his Walachian cavalry. Ten thousand Christians were
      slain in the disastrous battle of Warna: the loss of the Turks,
      more considerable in numbers, bore a smaller proportion to their
      total strength; yet the philosophic sultan was not ashamed to
      confess, that his ruin must be the consequence of a second and
      similar victory. 271 At his command a column was erected on the
      spot where Ladislaus had fallen; but the modest inscription,
      instead of accusing the rashness, recorded the valor, and
      bewailed the misfortune, of the Hungarian youth. 28

      26 (return) [ Some Christian writers affirm, that he drew from
      his bosom the host or wafer on which the treaty had _not_ been
      sworn. The Moslems suppose, with more simplicity, an appeal to
      God and his prophet Jesus, which is likewise insinuated by
      Callimachus, (l. iii. p. 516. Spondan. A.D. 1444, No. 8.)]

      27 (return) [ A critic will always distrust these _spolia opima_
      of a victorious general, so difficult for valor to obtain, so
      easy for flattery to invent, (Cantemir, p. 90, 91.) Callimachus
      (l. iii. p. 517) more simply and probably affirms, supervenitibus
      Janizaris, telorum multitudine, non jam confossus est, quam
      obrutus.]

      271 (return) [ Compare Von Hammer, p. 463.—M.]

      28 (return) [ Besides some valuable hints from Æneas Sylvius,
      which are diligently collected by Spondanus, our best authorities
      are three historians of the xvth century, Philippus Callimachus,
      (de Rebus a Vladislao Polonorum atque Hungarorum Rege gestis,
      libri iii. in Bel. Script. Rerum Hungaricarum, tom. i. p.
      433—518,) Bonfinius, (decad. iii. l. v. p. 460—467,) and
      Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 165—179.) The two first were Italians,
      but they passed their lives in Poland and Hungary, (Fabric.
      Bibliot. Latin. Med. et Infimæ Ætatis, tom. i. p. 324. Vossius,
      de Hist. Latin. l. iii. c. 8, 11. Bayle, Dictionnaire,
      Bonfinius.) A small tract of Fælix Petancius, chancellor of
      Segnia, (ad calcem Cuspinian. de Cæsaribus, p. 716—722,)
      represents the theatre of the war in the xvth century.]

      Before I lose sight of the field of Warna, I am tempted to pause
      on the character and story of two principal actors, the cardinal
      Julian and John Huniades. Julian 29 Cæsarini was born of a noble
      family of Rome: his studies had embraced both the Latin and Greek
      learning, both the sciences of divinity and law; and his
      versatile genius was equally adapted to the schools, the camp,
      and the court. No sooner had he been invested with the Roman
      purple, than he was sent into Germany to arm the empire against
      the rebels and heretics of Bohemia. The spirit of persecution is
      unworthy of a Christian; the military profession ill becomes a
      priest; but the former is excused by the times; and the latter
      was ennobled by the courage of Julian, who stood dauntless and
      alone in the disgraceful flight of the German host. As the pope’s
      legate, he opened the council of Basil; but the president soon
      appeared the most strenuous champion of ecclesiastical freedom;
      and an opposition of seven years was conducted by his ability and
      zeal. After promoting the strongest measures against the
      authority and person of Eugenius, some secret motive of interest
      or conscience engaged him to desert on a sudden the popular
      party. The cardinal withdrew himself from Basil to Ferrara; and,
      in the debates of the Greeks and Latins, the two nations admired
      the dexterity of his arguments and the depth of his theological
      erudition. 30 In his Hungarian embassy, we have already seen the
      mischievous effects of his sophistry and eloquence, of which
      Julian himself was the first victim. The cardinal, who performed
      the duties of a priest and a soldier, was lost in the defeat of
      Warna. The circumstances of his death are variously related; but
      it is believed, that a weighty encumbrance of gold impeded his
      flight, and tempted the cruel avarice of some Christian
      fugitives.

      29 (return) [ M. Lenfant has described the origin (Hist. du
      Concile de Basle, tom. i. p. 247, &c.) and Bohemian campaign (p.
      315, &c.) of Cardinal Julian. His services at Basil and Ferrara,
      and his unfortunate end, are occasionally related by Spondanus,
      and the continuator of Fleury.]

      30 (return) [ Syropulus honorably praises the talent of an enemy,
      (p. 117:) toiauta tina eipen o IoulianoV peplatusmenwV agan kai
      logikwV, kai met episthmhV kai deinothtoV 'RhtprikhV.]

      From an humble, or at least a doubtful origin, the merit of John
      Huniades promoted him to the command of the Hungarian armies. His
      father was a Walachian, his mother a Greek: her unknown race
      might possibly ascend to the emperors of Constantinople; and the
      claims of the Walachians, with the surname of Corvinus, from the
      place of his nativity, might suggest a thin pretence for mingling
      his blood with the patricians of ancient Rome. 31 In his youth he
      served in the wars of Italy, and was retained, with twelve
      horsemen, by the bishop of Zagrab: the valor of the _white
      knight_ 32 was soon conspicuous; he increased his fortunes by a
      noble and wealthy marriage; and in the defence of the Hungarian
      borders he won in the same year three battles against the Turks.
      By his influence, Ladislaus of Poland obtained the crown of
      Hungary; and the important service was rewarded by the title and
      office of Waivod of Transylvania. The first of Julian’s crusades
      added two Turkish laurels on his brow; and in the public distress
      the fatal errors of Warna were forgotten. During the absence and
      minority of Ladislaus of Austria, the titular king, Huniades was
      elected supreme captain and governor of Hungary; and if envy at
      first was silenced by terror, a reign of twelve years supposes
      the arts of policy as well as of war. Yet the idea of a
      consummate general is not delineated in his campaigns; the white
      knight fought with the hand rather than the head, as the chief of
      desultory Barbarians, who attack without fear and fly without
      shame; and his military life is composed of a romantic
      alternative of victories and escapes. By the Turks, who employed
      his name to frighten their perverse children, he was corruptly
      denominated _Jancus Lain_, or the Wicked: their hatred is the
      proof of their esteem; the kingdom which he guarded was
      inaccessible to their arms; and they felt him most daring and
      formidable, when they fondly believed the captain and his country
      irrecoverably lost. Instead of confining himself to a defensive
      war, four years after the defeat of Warna he again penetrated
      into the heart of Bulgaria, and in the plain of Cossova,
      sustained, till the third day, the shock of the Ottoman army,
      four times more numerous than his own. As he fled alone through
      the woods of Walachia, the hero was surprised by two robbers; but
      while they disputed a gold chain that hung at his neck, he
      recovered his sword, slew the one, terrified the other, and,
      after new perils of captivity or death, consoled by his presence
      an afflicted kingdom. But the last and most glorious action of
      his life was the defence of Belgrade against the powers of
      Mahomet the Second in person. After a siege of forty days, the
      Turks, who had already entered the town, were compelled to
      retreat; and the joyful nations celebrated Huniades and Belgrade
      as the bulwarks of Christendom. 33 About a month after this great
      deliverance, the champion expired; and his most splendid epitaph
      is the regret of the Ottoman prince, who sighed that he could no
      longer hope for revenge against the single antagonist who had
      triumphed over his arms. On the first vacancy of the throne,
      Matthias Corvinus, a youth of eighteen years of age, was elected
      and crowned by the grateful Hungarians. His reign was prosperous
      and long: Matthias aspired to the glory of a conqueror and a
      saint: but his purest merit is the encouragement of learning; and
      the Latin orators and historians, who were invited from Italy by
      the son, have shed the lustre of their eloquence on the father’s
      character. 34

      31 (return) [ See Bonfinius, decad. iii. l. iv. p. 423. Could the
      Italian historian pronounce, or the king of Hungary hear, without
      a blush, the absurd flattery which confounded the name of a
      Walachian village with the casual, though glorious, epithet of a
      single branch of the Valerian family at Rome?]

      32 (return) [ Philip de Comines, (Mémoires, l. vi. c. 13,) from
      the tradition of the times, mentions him with high encomiums, but
      under the whimsical name of the Chevalier Blanc de Valaigne,
      (Valachia.) The Greek Chalcondyles, and the Turkish annals of
      Leunclavius, presume to accuse his fidelity or valor.]

      33 (return) [ See Bonfinius (decad. iii. l. viii. p. 492) and
      Spondanus, (A.D. 456, No. 1—7.) Huniades shared the glory of the
      defence of Belgrade with Capistran, a Franciscan friar; and in
      their respective narratives, neither the saint nor the hero
      condescend to take notice of his rival’s merit.]

      34 (return) [ See Bonfinius, decad. iii. l. viii.—decad. iv. l.
      viii. The observations of Spondanus on the life and character of
      Matthias Corvinus are curious and critical, (A.D. 1464, No. 1,
      1475, No. 6, 1476, No. 14—16, 1490, No. 4, 5.) Italian fame was
      the object of his vanity. His actions are celebrated in the
      Epitome Rerum Hungaricarum (p. 322—412) of Peter Ranzanus, a
      Sicilian. His wise and facetious sayings are registered by
      Galestus Martius of Narni, (528—568,) and we have a particular
      narrative of his wedding and coronation. These three tracts are
      all contained in the first vol. of Bel’s Scriptores Rerum
      Hungaricarum.]

      In the list of heroes, John Huniades and Scanderbeg are commonly
      associated; 35 and they are both entitled to our notice, since
      their occupation of the Ottoman arms delayed the ruin of the
      Greek empire. John Castriot, the father of Scanderbeg, 36 was the
      hereditary prince of a small district of Epirus or Albania,
      between the mountains and the Adriatic Sea. Unable to contend
      with the sultan’s power, Castriot submitted to the hard
      conditions of peace and tribute: he delivered his four sons as
      the pledges of his fidelity; and the Christian youths, after
      receiving the mark of circumcision, were instructed in the
      Mahometan religion, and trained in the arms and arts of Turkish
      policy. 37 The three elder brothers were confounded in the crowd
      of slaves; and the poison to which their deaths are ascribed
      cannot be verified or disproved by any positive evidence. Yet the
      suspicion is in a great measure removed by the kind and paternal
      treatment of George Castriot, the fourth brother, who, from his
      tender youth, displayed the strength and spirit of a soldier. The
      successive overthrow of a Tartar and two Persians, who carried a
      proud defiance to the Turkish court, recommended him to the favor
      of Amurath, and his Turkish appellation of Scanderbeg, (_Iskender
      beg_,) or the lord Alexander, is an indelible memorial of his
      glory and servitude. His father’s principality was reduced into a
      province; but the loss was compensated by the rank and title of
      Sanjiak, a command of five thousand horse, and the prospect of
      the first dignities of the empire. He served with honor in the
      wars of Europe and Asia; and we may smile at the art or credulity
      of the historian, who supposes, that in every encounter he spared
      the Christians, while he fell with a thundering arm on his
      Mussulman foes. The glory of Huniades is without reproach: he
      fought in the defence of his religion and country; but the
      enemies who applaud the patriot, have branded his rival with the
      name of traitor and apostate. In the eyes of the Christian, the
      rebellion of Scanderbeg is justified by his father’s wrongs, the
      ambiguous death of his three brothers, his own degradation, and
      the slavery of his country; and they adore the generous, though
      tardy, zeal, with which he asserted the faith and independence of
      his ancestors. But he had imbibed from his ninth year the
      doctrines of the Koran; he was ignorant of the Gospel; the
      religion of a soldier is determined by authority and habit; nor
      is it easy to conceive what new illumination at the age of forty
      38 could be poured into his soul. His motives would be less
      exposed to the suspicion of interest or revenge, had he broken
      his chain from the moment that he was sensible of its weight: but
      a long oblivion had surely impaired his original right; and every
      year of obedience and reward had cemented the mutual bond of the
      sultan and his subject. If Scanderbeg had long harbored the
      belief of Christianity and the intention of revolt, a worthy mind
      must condemn the base dissimulation, that could serve only to
      betray, that could promise only to be forsworn, that could
      actively join in the temporal and spiritual perdition of so many
      thousands of his unhappy brethren. Shall we praise a secret
      correspondence with Huniades, while he commanded the vanguard of
      the Turkish army? shall we excuse the desertion of his standard,
      a treacherous desertion which abandoned the victory to the
      enemies of his benefactor? In the confusion of a defeat, the eye
      of Scanderbeg was fixed on the Reis Effendi or principal
      secretary: with the dagger at his breast, he extorted a firman or
      patent for the government of Albania; and the murder of the
      guiltless scribe and his train prevented the consequences of an
      immediate discovery. With some bold companions, to whom he had
      revealed his design he escaped in the night, by rapid marches,
      from the field or battle to his paternal mountains. The gates of
      Croya were opened to the royal mandate; and no sooner did he
      command the fortress, than George Castriot dropped the mask of
      dissimulation; abjured the prophet and the sultan, and proclaimed
      himself the avenger of his family and country. The names of
      religion and liberty provoked a general revolt: the Albanians, a
      martial race, were unanimous to live and die with their
      hereditary prince; and the Ottoman garrisons were indulged in the
      choice of martyrdom or baptism. In the assembly of the states of
      Epirus, Scanderbeg was elected general of the Turkish war; and
      each of the allies engaged to furnish his respective proportion
      of men and money. From these contributions, from his patrimonial
      estate, and from the valuable salt-pits of Selina, he drew an
      annual revenue of two hundred thousand ducats; 39 and the entire
      sum, exempt from the demands of luxury, was strictly appropriated
      to the public use. His manners were popular; but his discipline
      was severe; and every superfluous vice was banished from his
      camp: his example strengthened his command; and under his
      conduct, the Albanians were invincible in their own opinion and
      that of their enemies. The bravest adventurers of France and
      Germany were allured by his fame and retained in his service: his
      standing militia consisted of eight thousand horse and seven
      thousand foot; the horses were small, the men were active; but he
      viewed with a discerning eye the difficulties and resources of
      the mountains; and, at the blaze of the beacons, the whole nation
      was distributed in the strongest posts. With such unequal arms
      Scanderbeg resisted twenty-three years the powers of the Ottoman
      empire; and two conquerors, Amurath the Second, and his greater
      son, were repeatedly baffled by a rebel, whom they pursued with
      seeming contempt and implacable resentment. At the head of sixty
      thousand horse and forty thousand Janizaries, Amurath entered
      Albania: he might ravage the open country, occupy the defenceless
      towns, convert the churches into mosques, circumcise the
      Christian youths, and punish with death his adult and obstinate
      captives: but the conquests of the sultan were confined to the
      petty fortress of Sfetigrade; and the garrison, invincible to his
      arms, was oppressed by a paltry artifice and a superstitious
      scruple. 40 Amurath retired with shame and loss from the walls of
      Croya, the castle and residence of the Castriots; the march, the
      siege, the retreat, were harassed by a vexatious, and almost
      invisible, adversary; 41 and the disappointment might tend to
      imbitter, perhaps to shorten, the last days of the sultan. 42 In
      the fulness of conquest, Mahomet the Second still felt at his
      bosom this domestic thorn: his lieutenants were permitted to
      negotiate a truce; and the Albanian prince may justly be praised
      as a firm and able champion of his national independence. The
      enthusiasm of chivalry and religion has ranked him with the names
      of Alexander and Pyrrhus; nor would they blush to acknowledge
      their intrepid countryman: but his narrow dominion, and slender
      powers, must leave him at an humble distance below the heroes of
      antiquity, who triumphed over the East and the Roman legions. His
      splendid achievements, the bashaws whom he encountered, the
      armies that he discomfited, and the three thousand Turks who were
      slain by his single hand, must be weighed in the scales of
      suspicious criticism. Against an illiterate enemy, and in the
      dark solitude of Epirus, his partial biographers may safely
      indulge the latitude of romance: but their fictions are exposed
      by the light of Italian history; and they afford a strong
      presumption against their own truth, by a fabulous tale of his
      exploits, when he passed the Adriatic with eight hundred horse to
      the succor of the king of Naples. 43 Without disparagement to his
      fame, they might have owned, that he was finally oppressed by the
      Ottoman powers: in his extreme danger he applied to Pope Pius the
      Second for a refuge in the ecclesiastical state; and his
      resources were almost exhausted, since Scanderbeg died a fugitive
      at Lissus, on the Venetian territory. 44 His sepulchre was soon
      violated by the Turkish conquerors; but the Janizaries, who wore
      his bones enchased in a bracelet, declared by this superstitious
      amulet their involuntary reverence for his valor. The instant
      ruin of his country may redound to the hero’s glory; yet, had he
      balanced the consequences of submission and resistance, a patriot
      perhaps would have declined the unequal contest which must depend
      on the life and genius of one man. Scanderbeg might indeed be
      supported by the rational, though fallacious, hope, that the
      pope, the king of Naples, and the Venetian republic, would join
      in the defence of a free and Christian people, who guarded the
      sea-coast of the Adriatic, and the narrow passage from Greece to
      Italy. His infant son was saved from the national shipwreck; the
      Castriots 45 were invested with a Neapolitan dukedom, and their
      blood continues to flow in the noblest families of the realm. A
      colony of Albanian fugitives obtained a settlement in Calabria,
      and they preserve at this day the language and manners of their
      ancestors. 46

      35 (return) [ They are ranked by Sir William Temple, in his
      pleasing Essay on Heroic Virtue, (Works, vol. iii. p. 385,) among
      the seven chiefs who have deserved without wearing, a royal
      crown; Belisarius, Narses, Gonsalvo of Cordova, William first
      prince of Orange, Alexander duke of Parma, John Huniades, and
      George Castriot, or Scanderbeg.]

      36 (return) [ I could wish for some simple authentic memoirs of a
      friend of Scanderbeg, which would introduce me to the man, the
      time, and the place. In the old and national history of Marinus
      Barletius, a priest of Scodra, (de Vita. Moribus, et Rebus gestis
      Georgii Castrioti, &c. libri xiii. p. 367. Argentorat. 1537, in
      fol.,) his gaudy and cumbersome robes are stuck with many false
      jewels. See likewise Chalcondyles, l vii. p. 185, l. viii. p.
      229.]

      37 (return) [ His circumcision, education, &c., are marked by
      Marinus with brevity and reluctance, (l. i. p. 6, 7.)]

      38 (return) [ Since Scanderbeg died A.D. 1466, in the lxiiid year
      of his age, (Marinus, l. xiii. p. 370,) he was born in 1403;
      since he was torn from his parents by the Turks, when he was
      _novennis_, (Marinus, l. i. p. 1, 6,) that event must have
      happened in 1412, nine years before the accession of Amurath II.,
      who must have inherited, not acquired the Albanian slave.
      Spondanus has remarked this inconsistency, A.D. 1431, No. 31,
      1443, No. 14.]

      39 (return) [ His revenue and forces are luckily given by
      Marinus, (l. ii. p. 44.)]

      40 (return) [ There were two Dibras, the upper and lower, the
      Bulgarian and Albanian: the former, 70 miles from Croya, (l. i.
      p. 17,) was contiguous to the fortress of Sfetigrade, whose
      inhabitants refused to drink from a well into which a dead dog
      had traitorously been cast, (l. v. p. 139, 140.) We want a good
      map of Epirus.]

      41 (return) [ Compare the Turkish narrative of Cantemir (p. 92)
      with the pompous and prolix declamation in the ivth, vth, and
      vith books of the Albanian priest, who has been copied by the
      tribe of strangers and moderns.]

      42 (return) [ In honor of his hero, Barletius (l. vi. p. 188—192)
      kills the sultan by disease indeed, under the walls of Croya. But
      this audacious fiction is disproved by the Greeks and Turks, who
      agree in the time and manner of Amurath’s death at Adrianople.]

      43 (return) [ See the marvels of his Calabrian expedition in the
      ixth and xth books of Marinus Barletius, which may be rectified
      by the testimony or silence of Muratori, (Annali d’Italia, tom.
      xiii. p. 291,) and his original authors, (Joh. Simonetta de Rebus
      Francisci Sfortiæ, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. xxi. p.
      728, et alios.) The Albanian cavalry, under the name of
      _Stradiots_, soon became famous in the wars of Italy, (Mémoires
      de Comines, l. viii. c. 5.)]

      44 (return) [ Spondanus, from the best evidence, and the most
      rational criticism, has reduced the giant Scanderbeg to the human
      size, (A.D. 1461, No. 20, 1463, No. 9, 1465, No. 12, 13, 1467,
      No. 1.) His own letter to the pope, and the testimony of Phranza,
      (l. iii. c. 28,) a refugee in the neighboring isle of Corfu,
      demonstrate his last distress, which is awkwardly concealed by
      Marinus Barletius, (l. x.)]

      45 (return) [ See the family of the Castriots, in Ducange, (Fam.
      Dalmaticæ, &c, xviii. p. 348—350.)]

      46 (return) [ This colony of Albanese is mentioned by Mr.
      Swinburne, (Travels into the Two Sicilies, vol. i. p. 350—354.)]

      In the long career of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, I
      have reached at length the last reign of the princes of
      Constantinople, who so feebly sustained the name and majesty of
      the Cæsars. On the decease of John Palæologus, who survived about
      four years the Hungarian crusade, 47 the royal family, by the
      death of Andronicus and the monastic profession of Isidore, was
      reduced to three princes, Constantine, Demetrius, and Thomas, the
      surviving sons of the emperor Manuel. Of these the first and the
      last were far distant in the Morea; but Demetrius, who possessed
      the domain of Selybria, was in the suburbs, at the head of a
      party: his ambition was not chilled by the public distress; and
      his conspiracy with the Turks and the schismatics had already
      disturbed the peace of his country. The funeral of the late
      emperor was accelerated with singular and even suspicious haste:
      the claim of Demetrius to the vacant throne was justified by a
      trite and flimsy sophism, that he was born in the purple, the
      eldest son of his father’s reign. But the empress-mother, the
      senate and soldiers, the clergy and people, were unanimous in the
      cause of the lawful successor: and the despot Thomas, who,
      ignorant of the change, accidentally returned to the capital,
      asserted with becoming zeal the interest of his absent brother.
      An ambassador, the historian Phranza, was immediately despatched
      to the court of Adrianople. Amurath received him with honor and
      dismissed him with gifts; but the gracious approbation of the
      Turkish sultan announced his supremacy, and the approaching
      downfall of the Eastern empire. By the hands of two illustrious
      deputies, the Imperial crown was placed at Sparta on the head of
      Constantine. In the spring he sailed from the Morea, escaped the
      encounter of a Turkish squadron, enjoyed the acclamations of his
      subjects, celebrated the festival of a new reign, and exhausted
      by his donatives the treasure, or rather the indigence, of the
      state. The emperor immediately resigned to his brothers the
      possession of the Morea; and the brittle friendship of the two
      princes, Demetrius and Thomas, was confirmed in their mother’s
      presence by the frail security of oaths and embraces. His next
      occupation was the choice of a consort. A daughter of the doge of
      Venice had been proposed; but the Byzantine nobles objected the
      distance between an hereditary monarch and an elective
      magistrate; and in their subsequent distress, the chief of that
      powerful republic was not unmindful of the affront. Constantine
      afterwards hesitated between the royal families of Trebizond and
      Georgia; and the embassy of Phranza represents in his public and
      private life the last days of the Byzantine empire. 48

      47 (return) [ The Chronology of Phranza is clear and authentic;
      but instead of four years and seven months, Spondanus (A.D. 1445,
      No. 7,) assigns seven or eight years to the reign of the last
      Constantine which he deduces from a spurious epistle of Eugenius
      IV. to the king of Æthiopia.]

      48 (return) [ Phranza (l. iii. c. 1—6) deserves credit and
      esteem.]

      The _protovestiare_, or great chamberlain, Phranza sailed from
      Constantinople as the minister of a bridegroom; and the relics of
      wealth and luxury were applied to his pompous appearance. His
      numerous retinue consisted of nobles and guards, of physicians
      and monks: he was attended by a band of music; and the term of
      his costly embassy was protracted above two years. On his arrival
      in Georgia or Iberia, the natives from the towns and villages
      flocked around the strangers; and such was their simplicity, that
      they were delighted with the effects, without understanding the
      cause, of musical harmony. Among the crowd was an old man, above
      a hundred years of age, who had formerly been carried away a
      captive by the Barbarians, 49 and who amused his hearers with a
      tale of the wonders of India, 50 from whence he had returned to
      Portugal by an unknown sea. 51 From this hospitable land, Phranza
      proceeded to the court of Trebizond, where he was informed by the
      Greek prince of the recent decease of Amurath. Instead of
      rejoicing in the deliverance, the experienced statesman expressed
      his apprehension, that an ambitious youth would not long adhere
      to the sage and pacific system of his father. After the sultan’s
      decease, his Christian wife, Maria, 52 the daughter of the
      Servian despot, had been honorably restored to her parents; on
      the fame of her beauty and merit, she was recommended by the
      ambassador as the most worthy object of the royal choice; and
      Phranza recapitulates and refutes the specious objections that
      might be raised against the proposal. The majesty of the purple
      would ennoble an unequal alliance; the bar of affinity might be
      removed by liberal alms and the dispensation of the church; the
      disgrace of Turkish nuptials had been repeatedly overlooked; and,
      though the fair Maria was nearly fifty years of age, she might
      yet hope to give an heir to the empire. Constantine listened to
      the advice, which was transmitted in the first ship that sailed
      from Trebizond; but the factions of the court opposed his
      marriage; and it was finally prevented by the pious vow of the
      sultana, who ended her days in the monastic profession. Reduced
      to the first alternative, the choice of Phranza was decided in
      favor of a Georgian princess; and the vanity of her father was
      dazzled by the glorious alliance. Instead of demanding, according
      to the primitive and national custom, a price for his daughter,
      53 he offered a portion of fifty-six thousand, with an annual
      pension of five thousand, ducats; and the services of the
      ambassador were repaid by an assurance, that, as his son had been
      adopted in baptism by the emperor, the establishment of his
      daughter should be the peculiar care of the empress of
      Constantinople. On the return of Phranza, the treaty was ratified
      by the Greek monarch, who with his own hand impressed three
      vermilion crosses on the golden bull, and assured the Georgian
      envoy that in the spring his galleys should conduct the bride to
      her Imperial palace. But Constantine embraced his faithful
      servant, not with the cold approbation of a sovereign, but with
      the warm confidence of a friend, who, after a long absence, is
      impatient to pour his secrets into the bosom of his friend.
      “Since the death of my mother and of Cantacuzene, who alone
      advised me without interest or passion, 54 I am surrounded,” said
      the emperor, “by men whom I can neither love nor trust, nor
      esteem. You are not a stranger to Lucas Notaras, the great
      admiral; obstinately attached to his own sentiments, he declares,
      both in private and public, that his sentiments are the absolute
      measure of my thoughts and actions. The rest of the courtiers are
      swayed by their personal or factious views; and how can I consult
      the monks on questions of policy and marriage? I have yet much
      employment for your diligence and fidelity. In the spring you
      shall engage one of my brothers to solicit the succor of the
      Western powers; from the Morea you shall sail to Cyprus on a
      particular commission; and from thence proceed to Georgia to
      receive and conduct the future empress.”—“Your commands,” replied
      Phranza, “are irresistible; but deign, great sir,” he added, with
      a serious smile, “to consider, that if I am thus perpetually
      absent from my family, my wife may be tempted either to seek
      another husband, or to throw herself into a monastery.” After
      laughing at his apprehensions, the emperor more gravely consoled
      him by the pleasing assurance that _this_ should be his last
      service abroad, and that he destined for his son a wealthy and
      noble heiress; for himself, the important office of great
      logothete, or principal minister of state. The marriage was
      immediately stipulated: but the office, however incompatible with
      his own, had been usurped by the ambition of the admiral. Some
      delay was requisite to negotiate a consent and an equivalent; and
      the nomination of Phranza was half declared, and half suppressed,
      lest it might be displeasing to an insolent and powerful
      favorite. The winter was spent in the preparations of his
      embassy; and Phranza had resolved, that the youth his son should
      embrace this opportunity of foreign travel, and be left, on the
      appearance of danger, with his maternal kindred of the Morea.
      Such were the private and public designs, which were interrupted
      by a Turkish war, and finally buried in the ruins of the empire.

      49 (return) [ Suppose him to have been captured in 1394, in
      Timour’s first war in Georgia, (Sherefeddin, l. iii. c. 50;) he
      might follow his Tartar master into Hindostan in 1398, and from
      thence sail to the spice islands.]

      50 (return) [ The happy and pious Indians lived a hundred and
      fifty years, and enjoyed the most perfect productions of the
      vegetable and mineral kingdoms. The animals were on a large
      scale: dragons seventy cubits, ants (the _formica Indica_) nine
      inches long, sheep like elephants, elephants like sheep.
      Quidlibet audendi, &c.]

      51 (return) [ He sailed in a country vessel from the spice
      islands to one of the ports of the exterior India; invenitque
      navem grandem _Ibericam_ quâ in _Portugalliam_ est delatus. This
      passage, composed in 1477, (Phranza, l. iii. c. 30,) twenty years
      before the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, is spurious or
      wonderful. But this new geography is sullied by the old and
      incompatible error which places the source of the Nile in India.]

      52 (return) [ Cantemir, (p. 83,) who styles her the daughter of
      Lazarus Ogli, and the Helen of the Servians, places her marriage
      with Amurath in the year 1424. It will not easily be believed,
      that in six-and-twenty years’ cohabitation, the sultan corpus
      ejus non tetigit. After the taking of Constantinople, she fled to
      Mahomet II., (Phranza, l. iii. c. 22.)]

      53 (return) [ The classical reader will recollect the offers of
      Agamemnon, (Iliad, c. v. 144,) and the general practice of
      antiquity.]

      54 (return) [ Cantacuzene (I am ignorant of his relation to the
      emperor of that name) was great domestic, a firm assertor of the
      Greek creed, and a brother of the queen of Servia, whom he
      visited with the character of ambassador, (Syropulus, p. 37, 38,
      45.)]




      Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of
      Eastern Empire.—Part I.

     Reign And Character Of Mahomet The Second.—Siege, Assault, And
     Final Conquest, Of Constantinople By The Turks.—Death Of
     Constantine Palæologus.—Servitude Of The Greeks.— Extinction Of
     The Roman Empire In The East.—Consternation Of Europe.—Conquests
     And Death Of Mahomet The Second.

      The siege of Constantinople by the Turks attracts our first
      attention to the person and character of the great destroyer.
      Mahomet the Second 1 was the son of the second Amurath; and
      though his mother has been decorated with the titles of Christian
      and princess, she is more probably confounded with the numerous
      concubines who peopled from every climate the harem of the
      sultan. His first education and sentiments were those of a devout
      Mussulman; and as often as he conversed with an infidel, he
      purified his hands and face by the legal rites of ablution. Age
      and empire appear to have relaxed this narrow bigotry: his
      aspiring genius disdained to acknowledge a power above his own;
      and in his looser hours he presumed (it is said) to brand the
      prophet of Mecca as a robber and impostor. Yet the sultan
      persevered in a decent reverence for the doctrine and discipline
      of the Koran: 2 his private indiscretion must have been sacred
      from the vulgar ear; and we should suspect the credulity of
      strangers and sectaries, so prone to believe that a mind which is
      hardened against truth must be armed with superior contempt for
      absurdity and error. Under the tuition of the most skilful
      masters, Mahomet advanced with an early and rapid progress in the
      paths of knowledge; and besides his native tongue it is affirmed
      that he spoke or understood five languages, 3 the Arabic, the
      Persian, the Chaldæan or Hebrew, the Latin, and the Greek. The
      Persian might indeed contribute to his amusement, and the Arabic
      to his edification; and such studies are familiar to the Oriental
      youth. In the intercourse of the Greeks and Turks, a conqueror
      might wish to converse with the people over which he was
      ambitious to reign: his own praises in Latin poetry 4 or prose 5
      might find a passage to the royal ear; but what use or merit
      could recommend to the statesman or the scholar the uncouth
      dialect of his Hebrew slaves? The history and geography of the
      world were familiar to his memory: the lives of the heroes of the
      East, perhaps of the West, 6 excited his emulation: his skill in
      astrology is excused by the folly of the times, and supposes some
      rudiments of mathematical science; and a profane taste for the
      arts is betrayed in his liberal invitation and reward of the
      painters of Italy. 7 But the influence of religion and learning
      were employed without effect on his savage and licentious nature.
      I will not transcribe, nor do I firmly believe, the stories of
      his fourteen pages, whose bellies were ripped open in search of a
      stolen melon; or of the beauteous slave, whose head he severed
      from her body, to convince the Janizaries that their master was
      not the votary of love. 701 His sobriety is attested by the
      silence of the Turkish annals, which accuse three, and three
      only, of the Ottoman line of the vice of drunkenness. 8 But it
      cannot be denied that his passions were at once furious and
      inexorable; that in the palace, as in the field, a torrent of
      blood was spilt on the slightest provocation; and that the
      noblest of the captive youth were often dishonored by his
      unnatural lust. In the Albanian war he studied the lessons, and
      soon surpassed the example, of his father; and the conquest of
      two empires, twelve kingdoms, and two hundred cities, a vain and
      flattering account, is ascribed to his invincible sword. He was
      doubtless a soldier, and possibly a general; Constantinople has
      sealed his glory; but if we compare the means, the obstacles, and
      the achievements, Mahomet the Second must blush to sustain a
      parallel with Alexander or Timour. Under his command, the Ottoman
      forces were always more numerous than their enemies; yet their
      progress was bounded by the Euphrates and the Adriatic; and his
      arms were checked by Huniades and Scanderbeg, by the Rhodian
      knights and by the Persian king.

      1 (return) [ For the character of Mahomet II. it is dangerous to
      trust either the Turks or the Christians. The most moderate
      picture appears to be drawn by Phranza, (l. i. c. 33,) whose
      resentment had cooled in age and solitude; see likewise
      Spondanus, (A.D. 1451, No. 11,) and the continuator of Fleury,
      (tom. xxii. p. 552,) the _Elogia_ of Paulus Jovius, (l. iii. p.
      164—166,) and the Dictionnaire de Bayle, (tom. iii. p. 273—279.)]

      2 (return) [ Cantemir, (p. 115.) and the mosques which he
      founded, attest his public regard for religion. Mahomet freely
      disputed with the Gennadius on the two religions, (Spond. A.D.
      1453, No. 22.)]

      3 (return) [ Quinque linguas præter suam noverat, Græcam,
      Latinam, Chaldaicam, Persicam. The Latin translator of Phranza
      has dropped the Arabic, which the Koran must recommend to every
      Mussulman. * Note: It appears in the original Greek text, p. 95,
      edit. Bonn.—M.]

      4 (return) [ Philelphus, by a Latin ode, requested and obtained
      the liberty of his wife’s mother and sisters from the conqueror
      of Constantinople. It was delivered into the sultan’s hands by
      the envoys of the duke of Milan. Philelphus himself was suspected
      of a design of retiring to Constantinople; yet the orator often
      sounded the trumpet of holy war, (see his Life by M. Lancelot, in
      the Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 718, 724,
      &c.)]

      5 (return) [ Robert Valturio published at Verona, in 1483, his
      xii. books de Re Militari, in which he first mentions the use of
      bombs. By his patron Sigismund Malatesta, prince of Rimini, it
      had been addressed with a Latin epistle to Mahomet II.]

      6 (return) [ According to Phranza, he assiduously studied the
      lives and actions of Alexander, Augustus, Constantine, and
      Theodosius. I have read somewhere, that Plutarch’s Lives were
      translated by his orders into the Turkish language. If the sultan
      himself understood Greek, it must have been for the benefit of
      his subjects. Yet these lives are a school of freedom as well as
      of valor. * Note: Von Hammer disdainfully rejects this fable of
      Mahomet’s knowledge of languages. Knolles adds, that he delighted
      in reading the history of Alexander the Great, and of Julius
      Cæsar. The former, no doubt, was the Persian legend, which, it is
      remarkable, came back to Europe, and was popular throughout the
      middle ages as the “Romaunt of Alexander.” The founder of the
      Imperial dynasty of Rome, according to M. Von Hammer, is
      altogether unknown in the East. Mahomet was a great patron of
      Turkish literature: the romantic poems of Persia were translated,
      or imitated, under his patronage. Von Hammer vol ii. p. 268.—M.]

      7 (return) [ The famous Gentile Bellino, whom he had invited from
      Venice, was dismissed with a chain and collar of gold, and a
      purse of 3000 ducats. With Voltaire I laugh at the foolish story
      of a slave purposely beheaded to instruct the painter in the
      action of the muscles.]

      701 (return) [ This story, the subject of Johnson’s Irene, is
      rejected by M. Von Hammer, vol. ii. p. 208. The German
      historian’s general estimate of Mahomet’s character agrees in its
      more marked features with Gibbon’s.—M.]

      8 (return) [ These Imperial drunkards were Soliman I., Selim II.,
      and Amurath IV., (Cantemir, p. 61.) The sophis of Persia can
      produce a more regular succession; and in the last age, our
      European travellers were the witnesses and companions of their
      revels.]

      In the reign of Amurath, he twice tasted of royalty, and twice
      descended from the throne: his tender age was incapable of
      opposing his father’s restoration, but never could he forgive the
      viziers who had recommended that salutary measure. His nuptials
      were celebrated with the daughter of a Turkman emir; and, after a
      festival of two months, he departed from Adrianople with his
      bride, to reside in the government of Magnesia. Before the end of
      six weeks, he was recalled by a sudden message from the divan,
      which announced the decease of Amurath, and the mutinous spirit
      of the Janizaries. His speed and vigor commanded their obedience:
      he passed the Hellespont with a chosen guard: and at the distance
      of a mile from Adrianople, the viziers and emirs, the imams and
      cadhis, the soldiers and the people, fell prostrate before the
      new sultan. They affected to weep, they affected to rejoice: he
      ascended the throne at the age of twenty-one years, and removed
      the cause of sedition by the death, the inevitable death, of his
      infant brothers. 9 901 The ambassadors of Europe and Asia soon
      appeared to congratulate his accession and solicit his
      friendship; and to all he spoke the language of moderation and
      peace. The confidence of the Greek emperor was revived by the
      solemn oaths and fair assurances with which he sealed the
      ratification of the treaty: and a rich domain on the banks of the
      Strymon was assigned for the annual payment of three hundred
      thousand aspers, the pension of an Ottoman prince, who was
      detained at his request in the Byzantine court. Yet the neighbors
      of Mahomet might tremble at the severity with which a youthful
      monarch reformed the pomp of his father’s household: the expenses
      of luxury were applied to those of ambition, and a useless train
      of seven thousand falconers was either dismissed from his
      service, or enlisted in his troops. 902 In the first summer of
      his reign, he visited with an army the Asiatic provinces; but
      after humbling the pride, Mahomet accepted the submission, of the
      Caramanian, that he might not be diverted by the smallest
      obstacle from the execution of his great design. 10

      9 (return) [ Calapin, one of these royal infants, was saved from
      his cruel brother, and baptized at Rome under the name of
      Callistus Othomannus. The emperor Frederic III. presented him
      with an estate in Austria, where he ended his life; and
      Cuspinian, who in his youth conversed with the aged prince at
      Vienna, applauds his piety and wisdom, (de Cæsaribus, p. 672,
      673.)]

      901 (return) [ Ahmed, the son of a Greek princess, was the object
      of his especial jealousy. Von Hammer, p. 501.—M.]

      902 (return) [ The Janizaries obtained, for the first time, a
      gift on the accession of a new sovereign, p. 504.—M.]

      10 (return) [ See the accession of Mahomet II. in Ducas, (c. 33,)
      Phranza, (l. i. c. 33, l. iii. c. 2,) Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p.
      199,) and Cantemir, (p. 96.)]

      The Mahometan, and more especially the Turkish casuists, have
      pronounced that no promise can bind the faithful against the
      interest and duty of their religion; and that the sultan may
      abrogate his own treaties and those of his predecessors. The
      justice and magnanimity of Amurath had scorned this immoral
      privilege; but his son, though the proudest of men, could stoop
      from ambition to the basest arts of dissimulation and deceit.
      Peace was on his lips, while war was in his heart: he incessantly
      sighed for the possession of Constantinople; and the Greeks, by
      their own indiscretion, afforded the first pretence of the fatal
      rupture. 11 Instead of laboring to be forgotten, their
      ambassadors pursued his camp, to demand the payment, and even the
      increase, of their annual stipend: the divan was importuned by
      their complaints, and the vizier, a secret friend of the
      Christians, was constrained to deliver the sense of his brethren.
      “Ye foolish and miserable Romans,” said Calil, “we know your
      devices, and ye are ignorant of your own danger! The scrupulous
      Amurath is no more; his throne is occupied by a young conqueror,
      whom no laws can bind, and no obstacles can resist: and if you
      escape from his hands, give praise to the divine clemency, which
      yet delays the chastisement of your sins. Why do ye seek to
      affright us by vain and indirect menaces? Release the fugitive
      Orchan, crown him sultan of Romania; call the Hungarians from
      beyond the Danube; arm against us the nations of the West; and be
      assured, that you will only provoke and precipitate your ruin.”
      But if the fears of the ambassadors were alarmed by the stern
      language of the vizier, they were soothed by the courteous
      audience and friendly speeches of the Ottoman prince; and Mahomet
      assured them that on his return to Adrianople he would redress
      the grievances, and consult the true interests, of the Greeks. No
      sooner had he repassed the Hellespont, than he issued a mandate
      to suppress their pension, and to expel their officers from the
      banks of the Strymon: in this measure he betrayed a hostile mind;
      and the second order announced, and in some degree commenced, the
      siege of Constantinople. In the narrow pass of the Bosphorus, an
      Asiatic fortress had formerly been raised by his grandfather; in
      the opposite situation, on the European side, he resolved to
      erect a more formidable castle; and a thousand masons were
      commanded to assemble in the spring on a spot named Asomaton,
      about five miles from the Greek metropolis. 12 Persuasion is the
      resource of the feeble; and the feeble can seldom persuade: the
      ambassadors of the emperor attempted, without success, to divert
      Mahomet from the execution of his design. They represented, that
      his grandfather had solicited the permission of Manuel to build a
      castle on his own territories; but that this double
      fortification, which would command the strait, could only tend to
      violate the alliance of the nations; to intercept the Latins who
      traded in the Black Sea, and perhaps to annihilate the
      subsistence of the city. “I form no enterprise,” replied the
      perfidious sultan, “against the city; but the empire of
      Constantinople is measured by her walls. Have you forgot the
      distress to which my father was reduced when you formed a league
      with the Hungarians; when they invaded our country by land, and
      the Hellespont was occupied by the French galleys? Amurath was
      compelled to force the passage of the Bosphorus; and your
      strength was not equal to your malevolence. I was then a child at
      Adrianople; the Moslems trembled; and, for a while, the _Gabours_
      13 insulted our disgrace. But when my father had triumphed in the
      field of Warna, he vowed to erect a fort on the western shore,
      and that vow it is my duty to accomplish. Have ye the right, have
      ye the power, to control my actions on my own ground? For that
      ground is my own: as far as the shores of the Bosphorus, Asia is
      inhabited by the Turks, and Europe is deserted by the Romans.
      Return, and inform your king, that the present Ottoman is far
      different from his predecessors; that _his_ resolutions surpass
      _their_ wishes; and that _he_ performs more _than_ they could
      resolve. Return in safety—but the next who delivers a similar
      message may expect to be flayed alive.” After this declaration,
      Constantine, the first of the Greeks in spirit as in rank, 14 had
      determined to unsheathe the sword, and to resist the approach and
      establishment of the Turks on the Bosphorus. He was disarmed by
      the advice of his civil and ecclesiastical ministers, who
      recommended a system less generous, and even less prudent, than
      his own, to approve their patience and long-suffering, to brand
      the Ottoman with the name and guilt of an aggressor, and to
      depend on chance and time for their own safety, and the
      destruction of a fort which could not long be maintained in the
      neighborhood of a great and populous city. Amidst hope and fear,
      the fears of the wise, and the hopes of the credulous, the winter
      rolled away; the proper business of each man, and each hour, was
      postponed; and the Greeks shut their eyes against the impending
      danger, till the arrival of the spring and the sultan decide the
      assurance of their ruin.

      11 (return) [ Before I enter on the siege of Constantinople, I
      shall observe, that except the short hints of Cantemir and
      Leunclavius, I have not been able to obtain any Turkish account
      of this conquest; such an account as we possess of the siege of
      Rhodes by Soliman II., (Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions,
      tom. xxvi. p. 723—769.) I must therefore depend on the Greeks,
      whose prejudices, in some degree, are subdued by their distress.
      Our standard texts ar those of Ducas, (c. 34—42,) Phranza, (l.
      iii. c. 7—20,) Chalcondyles, (l. viii. p. 201—214,) and Leonardus
      Chiensis, (Historia C. P. a Turco expugnatæ. Norimberghæ, 1544,
      in 4to., 20 leaves.) The last of these narratives is the earliest
      in date, since it was composed in the Isle of Chios, the 16th of
      August, 1453, only seventy-nine days after the loss of the city,
      and in the first confusion of ideas and passions. Some hints may
      be added from an epistle of Cardinal Isidore (in Farragine Rerum
      Turcicarum, ad calcem Chalcondyl. Clauseri, Basil, 1556) to Pope
      Nicholas V., and a tract of Theodosius Zygomala, which he
      addressed in the year 1581 to Martin Crucius, (Turco-Græcia, l.
      i. p. 74—98, Basil, 1584.) The various facts and materials are
      briefly, though critically, reviewed by Spondanus, (A.D. 1453,
      No. 1—27.) The hearsay relations of Monstrelet and the distant
      Latins I shall take leave to disregard. * Note: M. Von Hammer has
      added little new information on the siege of Constantinople, and,
      by his general agreement, has borne an honorable testimony to the
      truth, and by his close imitation to the graphic spirit and
      boldness, of Gibbon.—M.]

      12 (return) [ The situation of the fortress, and the topography
      of the Bosphorus, are best learned from Peter Gyllius, (de
      Bosphoro Thracio, l. ii. c. 13,) Leunclavius, (Pandect. p. 445,)
      and Tournefort, (Voyage dans le Levant, tom. ii. lettre xv. p.
      443, 444;) but I must regret the map or plan which Tournefort
      sent to the French minister of the marine. The reader may turn
      back to chap. xvii. of this History.]

      13 (return) [ The opprobrious name which the Turks bestow on the
      infidels, is expressed Kabour by Ducas, and _Giaour_ by
      Leunclavius and the moderns. The former term is derived by
      Ducange (Gloss. Græc tom. i. p. 530) from Kabouron, in vulgar
      Greek, a tortoise, as denoting a retrograde motion from the
      faith. But alas! _Gabour_ is no more than _Gheber_, which was
      transferred from the Persian to the Turkish language, from the
      worshippers of fire to those of the crucifix, (D’Herbelot,
      Bibliot. Orient. p. 375.)]

      14 (return) [ Phranza does justice to his master’s sense and
      courage. Calliditatem hominis non ignorans Imperator prior arma
      movere constituit, and stigmatizes the folly of the cum sacri tum
      profani proceres, which he had heard, amentes spe vanâ pasci.
      Ducas was not a privy-counsellor.]

      Of a master who never forgives, the orders are seldom disobeyed.
      On the twenty-sixth of March, the appointed spot of Asomaton was
      covered with an active swarm of Turkish artificers; and the
      materials by sea and land were diligently transported from Europe
      and Asia. 15 The lime had been burnt in Cataphrygia; the timber
      was cut down in the woods of Heraclea and Nicomedia; and the
      stones were dug from the Anatolian quarries. Each of the thousand
      masons was assisted by two workmen; and a measure of two cubits
      was marked for their daily task. The fortress 16 was built in a
      triangular form; each angle was flanked by a strong and massy
      tower; one on the declivity of the hill, two along the sea-shore:
      a thickness of twenty-two feet was assigned for the walls, thirty
      for the towers; and the whole building was covered with a solid
      platform of lead. Mahomet himself pressed and directed the work
      with indefatigable ardor: his three viziers claimed the honor of
      finishing their respective towers; the zeal of the cadhis
      emulated that of the Janizaries; the meanest labor was ennobled
      by the service of God and the sultan; and the diligence of the
      multitude was quickened by the eye of a despot, whose smile was
      the hope of fortune, and whose frown was the messenger of death.
      The Greek emperor beheld with terror the irresistible progress of
      the work; and vainly strove, by flattery and gifts, to assuage an
      implacable foe, who sought, and secretly fomented, the slightest
      occasion of a quarrel. Such occasions must soon and inevitably be
      found. The ruins of stately churches, and even the marble columns
      which had been consecrated to Saint Michael the archangel, were
      employed without scruple by the profane and rapacious Moslems;
      and some Christians, who presumed to oppose the removal, received
      from their hands the crown of martyrdom. Constantine had
      solicited a Turkish guard to protect the fields and harvests of
      his subjects: the guard was fixed; but their first order was to
      allow free pasture to the mules and horses of the camp, and to
      defend their brethren if they should be molested by the natives.
      The retinue of an Ottoman chief had left their horses to pass the
      night among the ripe corn; the damage was felt; the insult was
      resented; and several of both nations were slain in a tumultuous
      conflict. Mahomet listened with joy to the complaint; and a
      detachment was commanded to exterminate the guilty village: the
      guilty had fled; but forty innocent and unsuspecting reapers were
      massacred by the soldiers. Till this provocation, Constantinople
      had been opened to the visits of commerce and curiosity: on the
      first alarm, the gates were shut; but the emperor, still anxious
      for peace, released on the third day his Turkish captives; 17 and
      expressed, in a last message, the firm resignation of a Christian
      and a soldier. “Since neither oaths, nor treaty, nor submission,
      can secure peace, pursue,” said he to Mahomet, “your impious
      warfare. My trust is in God alone; if it should please him to
      mollify your heart, I shall rejoice in the happy change; if he
      delivers the city into your hands, I submit without a murmur to
      his holy will. But until the Judge of the earth shall pronounce
      between us, it is my duty to live and die in the defence of my
      people.” The sultan’s answer was hostile and decisive: his
      fortifications were completed; and before his departure for
      Adrianople, he stationed a vigilant Aga and four hundred
      Janizaries, to levy a tribute on the ships of every nation that
      should pass within the reach of their cannon. A Venetian vessel,
      refusing obedience to the new lords of the Bosphorus, was sunk
      with a single bullet. 171 The master and thirty sailors escaped
      in the boat; but they were dragged in chains to the _Porte_: the
      chief was impaled; his companions were beheaded; and the
      historian Ducas 18 beheld, at Demotica, their bodies exposed to
      the wild beasts. The siege of Constantinople was deferred till
      the ensuing spring; but an Ottoman army marched into the Morea to
      divert the force of the brothers of Constantine. At this æra of
      calamity, one of these princes, the despot Thomas, was blessed or
      afflicted with the birth of a son; “the last heir,” says the
      plaintive Phranza, “of the last spark of the Roman empire.” 19

      15 (return) [ Instead of this clear and consistent account, the
      Turkish Annals (Cantemir, p. 97) revived the foolish tale of the
      ox’s hide, and Dido’s stratagem in the foundation of Carthage.
      These annals (unless we are swayed by an anti-Christian
      prejudice) are far less valuable than the Greek historians.]

      16 (return) [ In the dimensions of this fortress, the old castle
      of Europe, Phranza does not exactly agree with Chalcondyles,
      whose description has been verified on the spot by his editor
      Leunclavius.]

      17 (return) [ Among these were some pages of Mahomet, so
      conscious of his inexorable rigor, that they begged to lose their
      heads in the city unless they could return before sunset.]

      171 (return) [ This was from a model cannon cast by Urban the
      Hungarian. See p. 291. Von Hammer. p. 510.—M.]

      18 (return) [ Ducas, c. 35. Phranza, (l. iii. c. 3,) who had
      sailed in his vessel, commemorates the Venetian pilot as a
      martyr.]

      19 (return) [ Auctum est Palæologorum genus, et Imperii
      successor, parvæque Romanorum scintillæ hæres natus, Andreas,
      &c., (Phranza, l. iii. c. 7.) The strong expression was inspired
      by his feelings.]

      The Greeks and the Turks passed an anxious and sleepless winter:
      the former were kept awake by their fears, the latter by their
      hopes; both by the preparations of defence and attack; and the
      two emperors, who had the most to lose or to gain, were the most
      deeply affected by the national sentiment. In Mahomet, that
      sentiment was inflamed by the ardor of his youth and temper: he
      amused his leisure with building at Adrianople 20 the lofty
      palace of Jehan Numa, (the watchtower of the world;) but his
      serious thoughts were irrevocably bent on the conquest of the
      city of Cæsar. At the dead of night, about the second watch, he
      started from his bed, and commanded the instant attendance of his
      prime vizier. The message, the hour, the prince, and his own
      situation, alarmed the guilty conscience of Calil Basha; who had
      possessed the confidence, and advised the restoration, of
      Amurath. On the accession of the son, the vizier was confirmed in
      his office and the appearances of favor; but the veteran
      statesman was not insensible that he trod on a thin and slippery
      ice, which might break under his footsteps, and plunge him in the
      abyss. His friendship for the Christians, which might be innocent
      under the late reign, had stigmatized him with the name of Gabour
      Ortachi, or foster-brother of the infidels; 21 and his avarice
      entertained a venal and treasonable correspondence, which was
      detected and punished after the conclusion of the war. On
      receiving the royal mandate, he embraced, perhaps for the last
      time, his wife and children; filled a cup with pieces of gold,
      hastened to the palace, adored the sultan, and offered, according
      to the Oriental custom, the slight tribute of his duty and
      gratitude. 22 “It is not my wish,” said Mahomet, “to resume my
      gifts, but rather to heap and multiply them on thy head. In my
      turn, I ask a present far more valuable and
      important;—Constantinople.” As soon as the vizier had recovered
      from his surprise, “The same God,” said he, “who has already
      given thee so large a portion of the Roman empire, will not deny
      the remnant, and the capital. His providence, and thy power,
      assure thy success; and myself, with the rest of thy faithful
      slaves, will sacrifice our lives and fortunes.”—“Lala,” 23 (or
      preceptor,) continued the sultan, “do you see this pillow? All
      the night, in my agitation, I have pulled it on one side and the
      other; I have risen from my bed, again have I lain down; yet
      sleep has not visited these weary eyes. Beware of the gold and
      silver of the Romans: in arms we are superior; and with the aid
      of God, and the prayers of the prophet, we shall speedily become
      masters of Constantinople.” To sound the disposition of his
      soldiers, he often wandered through the streets alone, and in
      disguise; and it was fatal to discover the sultan, when he wished
      to escape from the vulgar eye. His hours were spent in
      delineating the plan of the hostile city; in debating with his
      generals and engineers, on what spot he should erect his
      batteries; on which side he should assault the walls; where he
      should spring his mines; to what place he should apply his
      scaling-ladders: and the exercises of the day repeated and proved
      the lucubrations of the night.

      20 (return) [ Cantemir, p. 97, 98. The sultan was either doubtful
      of his conquest, or ignorant of the superior merits of
      Constantinople. A city or a kingdom may sometimes be ruined by
      the Imperial fortune of their sovereign.]

      21 (return) [ SuntrojoV, by the president Cousin, is translated
      _père_ nourricier, most correctly indeed from the Latin version;
      but in his haste he has overlooked the note by which Ishmael
      Boillaud (ad Ducam, c. 35) acknowledges and rectifies his own
      error.]

      22 (return) [ The Oriental custom of never appearing without
      gifts before a sovereign or a superior is of high antiquity, and
      seems analogous with the idea of sacrifice, still more ancient
      and universal. See the examples of such Persian gifts, Ælian,
      Hist. Var. l. i. c. 31, 32, 33.]

      23 (return) [ The _Lala_ of the Turks (Cantemir, p. 34) and the
      _Tata_ of the Greeks (Ducas, c. 35) are derived from the natural
      language of children; and it may be observed, that all such
      primitive words which denote their parents, are the simple
      repetition of one syllable, composed of a labial or a dental
      consonant and an open vowel, (Des Brosses, Méchanisme des
      Langues, tom. i. p. 231—247.)]




      Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of
      Eastern Empire.—Part II.

      Among the implements of destruction, he studied with peculiar
      care the recent and tremendous discovery of the Latins; and his
      artillery surpassed whatever had yet appeared in the world. A
      founder of cannon, a Dane 231 or Hungarian, who had been almost
      starved in the Greek service, deserted to the Moslems, and was
      liberally entertained by the Turkish sultan. Mahomet was
      satisfied with the answer to his first question, which he eagerly
      pressed on the artist. “Am I able to cast a cannon capable of
      throwing a ball or stone of sufficient size to batter the walls
      of Constantinople? I am not ignorant of their strength; but were
      they more solid than those of Babylon, I could oppose an engine
      of superior power: the position and management of that engine
      must be left to your engineers.” On this assurance, a foundry was
      established at Adrianople: the metal was prepared; and at the end
      of three months, Urban produced a piece of brass ordnance of
      stupendous, and almost incredible magnitude; a measure of twelve
      palms is assigned to the bore; and the stone bullet weighed above
      six hundred pounds. 24 241 A vacant place before the new palace
      was chosen for the first experiment; but to prevent the sudden
      and mischievous effects of astonishment and fear, a proclamation
      was issued, that the cannon would be discharged the ensuing day.
      The explosion was felt or heard in a circuit of a hundred
      furlongs: the ball, by the force of gunpowder, was driven above a
      mile; and on the spot where it fell, it buried itself a fathom
      deep in the ground. For the conveyance of this destructive
      engine, a frame or carriage of thirty wagons was linked together
      and drawn along by a team of sixty oxen: two hundred men on both
      sides were stationed, to poise and support the rolling weight;
      two hundred and fifty workmen marched before to smooth the way
      and repair the bridges; and near two months were employed in a
      laborious journey of one hundred and fifty miles. A lively
      philosopher 25 derides on this occasion the credulity of the
      Greeks, and observes, with much reason, that we should always
      distrust the exaggerations of a vanquished people. He calculates,
      that a ball, even of two hundred pounds, would require a charge
      of one hundred and fifty pounds of powder; and that the stroke
      would be feeble and impotent, since not a fifteenth part of the
      mass could be inflamed at the same moment. A stranger as I am to
      the art of destruction, I can discern that the modern
      improvements of artillery prefer the number of pieces to the
      weight of metal; the quickness of the fire to the sound, or even
      the consequence, of a single explosion. Yet I dare not reject the
      positive and unanimous evidence of contemporary writers; nor can
      it seem improbable, that the first artists, in their rude and
      ambitious efforts, should have transgressed the standard of
      moderation. A Turkish cannon, more enormous than that of Mahomet,
      still guards the entrance of the Dardanelles; and if the use be
      inconvenient, it has been found on a late trial that the effect
      was far from contemptible. A stone bullet of _eleven_ hundred
      pounds’ weight was once discharged with three hundred and thirty
      pounds of powder: at the distance of six hundred yards it
      shivered into three rocky fragments; traversed the strait; and
      leaving the waters in a foam, again rose and bounded against the
      opposite hill. 26

      231 (return) [ Gibbon has written Dane by mistake for Dace, or
      Dacian. Lax ti kinoV?. Chalcondyles, Von Hammer, p. 510.—M.]

      24 (return) [ The Attic talent weighed about sixty minæ, or
      avoirdupois pounds (see Hooper on Ancient Weights, Measures,
      &c.;) but among the modern Greeks, that classic appellation was
      extended to a weight of one hundred, or one hundred and
      twenty-five pounds, (Ducange, talanton.) Leonardus Chiensis
      measured the ball or stone of the _second_ cannon Lapidem, qui
      palmis undecim ex meis ambibat in gyro.]

      241 (return) [ 1200, according to Leonardus Chiensis. Von Hammer
      states that he had himself seen the great cannon of the
      Dardanelles, in which a tailor who had run away from his
      creditors, had concealed himself several days Von Hammer had
      measured balls twelve spans round. Note. p. 666.—M.]

      25 (return) [ See Voltaire, (Hist. Générale, c. xci. p. 294,
      295.) He was ambitious of universal monarchy; and the poet
      frequently aspires to the name and style of an astronomer, a
      chemist, &c.]

      26 (return) [ The Baron de Tott, (tom. iii. p. 85—89,) who
      fortified the Dardanelles against the Russians, describes in a
      lively, and even comic, strain his own prowess, and the
      consternation of the Turks. But that adventurous traveller does
      not possess the art of gaining our confidence.]

      While Mahomet threatened the capital of the East, the Greek
      emperor implored with fervent prayers the assistance of earth and
      heaven. But the invisible powers were deaf to his supplications;
      and Christendom beheld with indifference the fall of
      Constantinople, while she derived at least some promise of supply
      from the jealous and temporal policy of the sultan of Egypt. Some
      states were too weak, and others too remote; by some the danger
      was considered as imaginary by others as inevitable: the Western
      princes were involved in their endless and domestic quarrels; and
      the Roman pontiff was exasperated by the falsehood or obstinacy
      of the Greeks. Instead of employing in their favor the arms and
      treasures of Italy, Nicholas the Fifth had foretold their
      approaching ruin; and his honor was engaged in the accomplishment
      of his prophecy. 261 Perhaps he was softened by the last
      extremity of their distress; but his compassion was tardy; his
      efforts were faint and unavailing; and Constantinople had fallen,
      before the squadrons of Genoa and Venice could sail from their
      harbors. 27 Even the princes of the Morea and of the Greek
      islands affected a cold neutrality: the Genoese colony of Galata
      negotiated a private treaty; and the sultan indulged them in the
      delusive hope, that by his clemency they might survive the ruin
      of the empire. A plebeian crowd, and some Byzantine nobles basely
      withdrew from the danger of their country; and the avarice of the
      rich denied the emperor, and reserved for the Turks, the secret
      treasures which might have raised in their defence whole armies
      of mercenaries. 28 The indigent and solitary prince prepared,
      however, to sustain his formidable adversary; but if his courage
      were equal to the peril, his strength was inadequate to the
      contest. In the beginning of the spring, the Turkish vanguard
      swept the towns and villages as far as the gates of
      Constantinople: submission was spared and protected; whatever
      presumed to resist was exterminated with fire and sword. The
      Greek places on the Black Sea, Mesembria, Acheloum, and Bizon,
      surrendered on the first summons; Selybria alone deserved the
      honors of a siege or blockade; and the bold inhabitants, while
      they were invested by land, launched their boats, pillaged the
      opposite coast of Cyzicus, and sold their captives in the public
      market. But on the approach of Mahomet himself all was silent and
      prostrate: he first halted at the distance of five miles; and
      from thence advancing in battle array, planted before the gates
      of St. Romanus the Imperial standard; and on the sixth day of
      April formed the memorable siege of Constantinople.

      261 (return) [ See the curious Christian and Mahometan
      predictions of the fall of Constantinople, Von Hammer, p.
      518.—M.]

      27 (return) [ Non audivit, indignum ducens, says the honest
      Antoninus; but as the Roman court was afterwards grieved and
      ashamed, we find the more courtly expression of Platina, in animo
      fuisse pontifici juvare Græcos, and the positive assertion of
      Æneas Sylvius, structam classem &c. (Spond. A.D. 1453, No. 3.)]

      28 (return) [ Antonin. in Proem.—Epist. Cardinal. Isidor. apud
      Spondanum and Dr. Johnson, in the tragedy of Irene, has happily
      seized this characteristic circumstance:—

               The groaning Greeks dig up the golden caverns. The
               accumulated wealth of hoarding ages; That wealth which,
               granted to their weeping prince, Had ranged embattled
               nations at their gates.

      ]
      ]
      ]
      ]
      ]
      The troops of Asia and Europe extended on the right and left from
      the Propontis to the harbor; the Janizaries in the front were
      stationed before the sultan’s tent; the Ottoman line was covered
      by a deep intrenchment; and a subordinate army enclosed the
      suburb of Galata, and watched the doubtful faith of the Genoese.
      The inquisitive Philelphus, who resided in Greece about thirty
      years before the siege, is confident, that all the Turkish forces
      of any name or value could not exceed the number of sixty
      thousand horse and twenty thousand foot; and he upbraids the
      pusillanimity of the nations, who had tamely yielded to a handful
      of Barbarians. Such indeed might be the regular establishment of
      the _Capiculi_, 29 the troops of the Porte who marched with the
      prince, and were paid from his royal treasury. But the bashaws,
      in their respective governments, maintained or levied a
      provincial militia; many lands were held by a military tenure;
      many volunteers were attracted by the hope of spoil and the sound
      of the holy trumpet invited a swarm of hungry and fearless
      fanatics, who might contribute at least to multiply the terrors,
      and in a first attack to blunt the swords, of the Christians. The
      whole mass of the Turkish powers is magnified by Ducas,
      Chalcondyles, and Leonard of Chios, to the amount of three or
      four hundred thousand men; but Phranza was a less remote and more
      accurate judge; and his precise definition of two hundred and
      fifty-eight thousand does not exceed the measure of experience
      and probability. 30 The navy of the besiegers was less
      formidable: the Propontis was overspread with three hundred and
      twenty sail; but of these no more than eighteen could be rated as
      galleys of war; and the far greater part must be degraded to the
      condition of store-ships and transports, which poured into the
      camp fresh supplies of men, ammunition, and provisions. In her
      last decay, Constantinople was still peopled with more than a
      hundred thousand inhabitants; but these numbers are found in the
      accounts, not of war, but of captivity; and they mostly consisted
      of mechanics, of priests, of women, and of men devoid of that
      spirit which even women have sometimes exerted for the common
      safety. I can suppose, I could almost excuse, the reluctance of
      subjects to serve on a distant frontier, at the will of a tyrant;
      but the man who dares not expose his life in the defence of his
      children and his property, has lost in society the first and most
      active energies of nature. By the emperor’s command, a particular
      inquiry had been made through the streets and houses, how many of
      the citizens, or even of the monks, were able and willing to bear
      arms for their country. The lists were intrusted to Phranza; 31
      and, after a diligent addition, he informed his master, with
      grief and surprise, that the national defence was reduced to four
      thousand nine hundred and seventy _Romans_. Between Constantine
      and his faithful minister this comfortless secret was preserved;
      and a sufficient proportion of shields, cross-bows, and muskets,
      were distributed from the arsenal to the city bands. They derived
      some accession from a body of two thousand strangers, under the
      command of John Justiniani, a noble Genoese; a liberal donative
      was advanced to these auxiliaries; and a princely recompense, the
      Isle of Lemnos, was promised to the valor and victory of their
      chief. A strong chain was drawn across the mouth of the harbor:
      it was supported by some Greek and Italian vessels of war and
      merchandise; and the ships of every Christian nation, that
      successively arrived from Candia and the Black Sea, were detained
      for the public service. Against the powers of the Ottoman empire,
      a city of the extent of thirteen, perhaps of sixteen, miles was
      defended by a scanty garrison of seven or eight thousand
      soldiers. Europe and Asia were open to the besiegers; but the
      strength and provisions of the Greeks must sustain a daily
      decrease; nor could they indulge the expectation of any foreign
      succor or supply.

      29 (return) [ The palatine troops are styled _Capiculi_, the
      provincials, _Seratculi_; and most of the names and institutions
      of the Turkish militia existed before the _Canon Nameh_ of
      Soliman II, from which, and his own experience, Count Marsigli
      has composed his military state of the Ottoman empire.]

      30 (return) [ The observation of Philelphus is approved by
      Cuspinian in the year 1508, (de Cæsaribus, in Epilog. de Militiâ
      Turcicâ, p. 697.) Marsigli proves, that the effective armies of
      the Turks are much less numerous than they appear. In the army
      that besieged Constantinople Leonardus Chiensis reckons no more
      than 15,000 Janizaries.]

      31 (return) [ Ego, eidem (Imp.) tabellas extribui non absque
      dolore et mstitia, mansitque apud nos duos aliis occultus
      numerus, (Phranza, l. iii. c. 8.) With some indulgence for
      national prejudices, we cannot desire a more authentic witness,
      not only of public facts, but of private counsels.]

      The primitive Romans would have drawn their swords in the
      resolution of death or conquest. The primitive Christians might
      have embraced each other, and awaited in patience and charity the
      stroke of martyrdom. But the Greeks of Constantinople were
      animated only by the spirit of religion, and that spirit was
      productive only of animosity and discord. Before his death, the
      emperor John Palæologus had renounced the unpopular measure of a
      union with the Latins; nor was the idea revived, till the
      distress of his brother Constantine imposed a last trial of
      flattery and dissimulation. 32 With the demand of temporal aid,
      his ambassadors were instructed to mingle the assurance of
      spiritual obedience: his neglect of the church was excused by the
      urgent cares of the state; and his orthodox wishes solicited the
      presence of a Roman legate. The Vatican had been too often
      deluded; yet the signs of repentance could not decently be
      overlooked; a legate was more easily granted than an army; and
      about six months before the final destruction, the cardinal
      Isidore of Russia appeared in that character with a retinue of
      priests and soldiers. The emperor saluted him as a friend and
      father; respectfully listened to his public and private sermons;
      and with the most obsequious of the clergy and laymen subscribed
      the act of union, as it had been ratified in the council of
      Florence. On the twelfth of December, the two nations, in the
      church of St. Sophia, joined in the communion of sacrifice and
      prayer; and the names of the two pontiffs were solemnly
      commemorated; the names of Nicholas the Fifth, the vicar of
      Christ, and of the patriarch Gregory, who had been driven into
      exile by a rebellious people.

      32 (return) [ In Spondanus, the narrative of the union is not
      only partial, but imperfect. The bishop of Pamiers died in 1642,
      and the history of Ducas, which represents these scenes (c. 36,
      37) with such truth and spirit, was not printed till the year
      1649.]

      But the dress and language of the Latin priest who officiated at
      the altar were an object of scandal; and it was observed with
      horror, that he consecrated a cake or wafer of _unleavened_
      bread, and poured cold water into the cup of the sacrament. A
      national historian acknowledges with a blush, that none of his
      countrymen, not the emperor himself, were sincere in this
      occasional conformity. 33 Their hasty and unconditional
      submission was palliated by a promise of future revisal; but the
      best, or the worst, of their excuses was the confession of their
      own perjury. When they were pressed by the reproaches of their
      honest brethren, “Have patience,” they whispered, “have patience
      till God shall have delivered the city from the great dragon who
      seeks to devour us. You shall then perceive whether we are truly
      reconciled with the Azymites.” But patience is not the attribute
      of zeal; nor can the arts of a court be adapted to the freedom
      and violence of popular enthusiasm. From the dome of St. Sophia
      the inhabitants of either sex, and of every degree, rushed in
      crowds to the cell of the monk Gennadius, 34 to consult the
      oracle of the church. The holy man was invisible; entranced, as
      it should seem, in deep meditation, or divine rapture: but he had
      exposed on the door of his cell a speaking tablet; and they
      successively withdrew, after reading those tremendous words: “O
      miserable Romans, why will ye abandon the truth? and why, instead
      of confiding in God, will ye put your trust in the Italians? In
      losing your faith you will lose your city. Have mercy on me, O
      Lord! I protest in thy presence that I am innocent of the crime.
      O miserable Romans, consider, pause, and repent. At the same
      moment that you renounce the religion of your fathers, by
      embracing impiety, you submit to a foreign servitude.” According
      to the advice of Gennadius, the religious virgins, as pure as
      angels, and as proud as dæmons, rejected the act of union, and
      abjured all communion with the present and future associates of
      the Latins; and their example was applauded and imitated by the
      greatest part of the clergy and people. From the monastery, the
      devout Greeks dispersed themselves in the taverns; drank
      confusion to the slaves of the pope; emptied their glasses in
      honor of the image of the holy Virgin; and besought her to defend
      against Mahomet the city which she had formerly saved from
      Chosroes and the Chagan. In the double intoxication of zeal and
      wine, they valiantly exclaimed, “What occasion have we for
      succor, or union, or Latins? Far from us be the worship of the
      Azymites!” During the winter that preceded the Turkish conquest,
      the nation was distracted by this epidemical frenzy; and the
      season of Lent, the approach of Easter, instead of breathing
      charity and love, served only to fortify the obstinacy and
      influence of the zealots. The confessors scrutinized and alarmed
      the conscience of their votaries, and a rigorous penance was
      imposed on those who had received the communion from a priest who
      had given an express or tacit consent to the union. His service
      at the altar propagated the infection to the mute and simple
      spectators of the ceremony: they forfeited, by the impure
      spectacle, the virtue of the sacerdotal character; nor was it
      lawful, even in danger of sudden death, to invoke the assistance
      of their prayers or absolution. No sooner had the church of St.
      Sophia been polluted by the Latin sacrifice, than it was deserted
      as a Jewish synagogue, or a heathen temple, by the clergy and
      people; and a vast and gloomy silence prevailed in that venerable
      dome, which had so often smoked with a cloud of incense, blazed
      with innumerable lights, and resounded with the voice of prayer
      and thanksgiving. The Latins were the most odious of heretics and
      infidels; and the first minister of the empire, the great duke,
      was heard to declare, that he had rather behold in Constantinople
      the turban of Mahomet, than the pope’s tiara or a cardinal’s hat.
      35 A sentiment so unworthy of Christians and patriots was
      familiar and fatal to the Greeks: the emperor was deprived of the
      affection and support of his subjects; and their native cowardice
      was sanctified by resignation to the divine decree, or the
      visionary hope of a miraculous deliverance.

      33 (return) [ Phranza, one of the conforming Greeks, acknowledges
      that the measure was adopted only propter spem auxilii; he
      affirms with pleasure, that those who refused to perform their
      devotions in St. Sophia, extra culpam et in pace essent, (l. iii.
      c. 20.)]

      34 (return) [ His primitive and secular name was George
      Scholarius, which he changed for that of Gennadius, either when
      he became a monk or a patriarch. His defence, at Florence, of the
      same union, which he so furiously attacked at Constantinople, has
      tempted Leo Allatius (Diatrib. de Georgiis, in Fabric. Bibliot.
      Græc. tom. x. p. 760—786) to divide him into two men; but
      Renaudot (p. 343—383) has restored the identity of his person and
      the duplicity of his character.]

      35 (return) [ Fakiolion, kaluptra, may be fairly translated a
      cardinal’s hat. The difference of the Greek and Latin habits
      imbittered the schism.]

      Of the triangle which composes the figure of Constantinople, the
      two sides along the sea were made inaccessible to an enemy; the
      Propontis by nature, and the harbor by art. Between the two
      waters, the basis of the triangle, the land side was protected by
      a double wall, and a deep ditch of the depth of one hundred feet.
      Against this line of fortification, which Phranza, an
      eye-witness, prolongs to the measure of six miles, 36 the
      Ottomans directed their principal attack; and the emperor, after
      distributing the service and command of the most perilous
      stations, undertook the defence of the external wall. In the
      first days of the siege the Greek soldiers descended into the
      ditch, or sallied into the field; but they soon discovered, that,
      in the proportion of their numbers, one Christian was of more
      value than twenty Turks: and, after these bold preludes, they
      were prudently content to maintain the rampart with their missile
      weapons. Nor should this prudence be accused of pusillanimity.
      The nation was indeed pusillanimous and base; but the last
      Constantine deserves the name of a hero: his noble band of
      volunteers was inspired with Roman virtue; and the foreign
      auxiliaries supported the honor of the Western chivalry. The
      incessant volleys of lances and arrows were accompanied with the
      smoke, the sound, and the fire, of their musketry and cannon.
      Their small arms discharged at the same time either five, or even
      ten, balls of lead, of the size of a walnut; and, according to
      the closeness of the ranks and the force of the powder, several
      breastplates and bodies were transpierced by the same shot. But
      the Turkish approaches were soon sunk in trenches, or covered
      with ruins. Each day added to the science of the Christians; but
      their inadequate stock of gunpowder was wasted in the operations
      of each day. Their ordnance was not powerful, either in size or
      number; and if they possessed some heavy cannon, they feared to
      plant them on the walls, lest the aged structure should be shaken
      and overthrown by the explosion. 37 The same destructive secret
      had been revealed to the Moslems; by whom it was employed with
      the superior energy of zeal, riches, and despotism. The great
      cannon of Mahomet has been separately noticed; an important and
      visible object in the history of the times: but that enormous
      engine was flanked by two fellows almost of equal magnitude: 38
      the long order of the Turkish artillery was pointed against the
      walls; fourteen batteries thundered at once on the most
      accessible places; and of one of these it is ambiguously
      expressed, that it was mounted with one hundred and thirty guns,
      or that it discharged one hundred and thirty bullets. Yet in the
      power and activity of the sultan, we may discern the infancy of
      the new science. Under a master who counted the moments, the
      great cannon could be loaded and fired no more than seven times
      in one day. 39 The heated metal unfortunately burst; several
      workmen were destroyed; and the skill of an artist 391 was
      admired who bethought himself of preventing the danger and the
      accident, by pouring oil, after each explosion, into the mouth of
      the cannon.

      36 (return) [ We are obliged to reduce the Greek miles to the
      smallest measure which is preserved in the wersts of Russia, of
      547 French _toises_, and of 104 2/5 to a degree. The six miles of
      Phranza do not exceed four English miles, (D’Anville, Mesures
      Itineraires, p. 61, 123, &c.)]

      37 (return) [ At indies doctiores nostri facti paravere contra
      hostes machinamenta, quæ tamen avare dabantur. Pulvis erat nitri
      modica exigua; tela modica; bombardæ, si aderant incommoditate
      loci primum hostes offendere, maceriebus alveisque tectos, non
      poterant. Nam si quæ magnæ erant, ne murus concuteretur noster,
      quiescebant. This passage of Leonardus Chiensis is curious and
      important.]

      38 (return) [ According to Chalcondyles and Phranza, the great
      cannon burst; an incident which, according to Ducas, was
      prevented by the artist’s skill. It is evident that they do not
      speak of the same gun. * Note: They speak, one of a Byzantine,
      one of a Turkish, gun. Von Hammer note, p. 669.]

      39 (return) [ Near a hundred years after the siege of
      Constantinople, the French and English fleets in the Channel were
      proud of firing 300 shot in an engagement of two hours, (Mémoires
      de Martin du Bellay, l. x., in the Collection Générale, tom. xxi.
      p. 239.)]

      391 (return) [ The founder of the gun. Von Hammer, p. 526.]

      The first random shots were productive of more sound than effect;
      and it was by the advice of a Christian, that the engineers were
      taught to level their aim against the two opposite sides of the
      salient angles of a bastion. However imperfect, the weight and
      repetition of the fire made some impression on the walls; and the
      Turks, pushing their approaches to the edge of the ditch,
      attempted to fill the enormous chasm, and to build a road to the
      assault. 40 Innumerable fascines, and hogsheads, and trunks of
      trees, were heaped on each other; and such was the impetuosity of
      the throng, that the foremost and the weakest were pushed
      headlong down the precipice, and instantly buried under the
      accumulated mass. To fill the ditch was the toil of the
      besiegers; to clear away the rubbish was the safety of the
      besieged; and after a long and bloody conflict, the web that had
      been woven in the day was still unravelled in the night. The next
      resource of Mahomet was the practice of mines; but the soil was
      rocky; in every attempt he was stopped and undermined by the
      Christian engineers; nor had the art been yet invented of
      replenishing those subterraneous passages with gunpowder, and
      blowing whole towers and cities into the air. 41 A circumstance
      that distinguishes the siege of Constantinople is the reunion of
      the ancient and modern artillery. The cannon were intermingled
      with the mechanical engines for casting stones and darts; the
      bullet and the battering-ram 411 were directed against the same
      walls: nor had the discovery of gunpowder superseded the use of
      the liquid and unextinguishable fire. A wooden turret of the
      largest size was advanced on rollers; this portable magazine of
      ammunition and fascines was protected by a threefold covering of
      bulls’ hides: incessant volleys were securely discharged from the
      loop-holes; in the front, three doors were contrived for the
      alternate sally and retreat of the soldiers and workmen. They
      ascended by a staircase to the upper platform, and, as high as
      the level of that platform, a scaling-ladder could be raised by
      pulleys to form a bridge, and grapple with the adverse rampart.
      By these various arts of annoyance, some as new as they were
      pernicious to the Greeks, the tower of St. Romanus was at length
      overturned: after a severe struggle, the Turks were repulsed from
      the breach, and interrupted by darkness; but they trusted that
      with the return of light they should renew the attack with fresh
      vigor and decisive success. Of this pause of action, this
      interval of hope, each moment was improved, by the activity of
      the emperor and Justiniani, who passed the night on the spot, and
      urged the labors which involved the safety of the church and
      city. At the dawn of day, the impatient sultan perceived, with
      astonishment and grief, that his wooden turret had been reduced
      to ashes: the ditch was cleared and restored; and the tower of
      St. Romanus was again strong and entire. He deplored the failure
      of his design; and uttered a profane exclamation, that the word
      of the thirty-seven thousand prophets should not have compelled
      him to believe that such a work, in so short a time, could have
      been accomplished by the infidels.

      40 (return) [ I have selected some curious facts, without
      striving to emulate the bloody and obstinate eloquence of the
      abbé de Vertot, in his prolix descriptions of the sieges of
      Rhodes, Malta, &c. But that agreeable historian had a turn for
      romance; and as he wrote to please the order he had adopted the
      same spirit of enthusiasm and chivalry.]

      41 (return) [ The first theory of mines with gunpowder appears in
      1480 in a MS. of George of Sienna, (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. P. i. p.
      324.) They were first practised by Sarzanella, in 1487; but the
      honor and improvement in 1503 is ascribed to Peter of Navarre,
      who used them with success in the wars of Italy, (Hist. de la
      Ligue de Cambray, tom. ii. p. 93—97.)]

      411 (return) [ The battering-ram according to Von Hammer, (p.
      670,) was not used.—M.]




      Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of
      Eastern Empire.—Part III.

      The generosity of the Christian princes was cold and tardy; but
      in the first apprehension of a siege, Constantine had negotiated,
      in the isles of the Archipelago, the Morea, and Sicily, the most
      indispensable supplies. As early as the beginning of April, five
      42 great ships, equipped for merchandise and war, would have
      sailed from the harbor of Chios, had not the wind blown
      obstinately from the north. 43 One of these ships bore the
      Imperial flag; the remaining four belonged to the Genoese; and
      they were laden with wheat and barley, with wine, oil, and
      vegetables, and, above all, with soldiers and mariners for the
      service of the capital. After a tedious delay, a gentle breeze,
      and, on the second day, a strong gale from the south, carried
      them through the Hellespont and the Propontis: but the city was
      already invested by sea and land; and the Turkish fleet, at the
      entrance of the Bosphorus, was stretched from shore to shore, in
      the form of a crescent, to intercept, or at least to repel, these
      bold auxiliaries. The reader who has present to his mind the
      geographical picture of Constantinople, will conceive and admire
      the greatness of the spectacle. The five Christian ships
      continued to advance with joyful shouts, and a full press both of
      sails and oars, against a hostile fleet of three hundred vessels;
      and the rampart, the camp, the coasts of Europe and Asia, were
      lined with innumerable spectators, who anxiously awaited the
      event of this momentous succor. At the first view that event
      could not appear doubtful; the superiority of the Moslems was
      beyond all measure or account: and, in a calm, their numbers and
      valor must inevitably have prevailed. But their hasty and
      imperfect navy had been created, not by the genius of the people,
      but by the will of the sultan: in the height of their prosperity,
      the Turks have acknowledged, that if God had given them the
      earth, he had left the sea to the infidels; 44 and a series of
      defeats, a rapid progress of decay, has established the truth of
      their modest confession. Except eighteen galleys of some force,
      the rest of their fleet consisted of open boats, rudely
      constructed and awkwardly managed, crowded with troops, and
      destitute of cannon; and since courage arises in a great measure
      from the consciousness of strength, the bravest of the Janizaries
      might tremble on a new element. In the Christian squadron, five
      stout and lofty ships were guided by skilful pilots, and manned
      with the veterans of Italy and Greece, long practised in the arts
      and perils of the sea. Their weight was directed to sink or
      scatter the weak obstacles that impeded their passage: their
      artillery swept the waters: their liquid fire was poured on the
      heads of the adversaries, who, with the design of boarding,
      presumed to approach them; and the winds and waves are always on
      the side of the ablest navigators. In this conflict, the Imperial
      vessel, which had been almost overpowered, was rescued by the
      Genoese; but the Turks, in a distant and closer attack, were
      twice repulsed with considerable loss. Mahomet himself sat on
      horseback on the beach to encourage their valor by his voice and
      presence, by the promise of reward, and by fear more potent than
      the fear of the enemy. The passions of his soul, and even the
      gestures of his body, 45 seemed to imitate the actions of the
      combatants; and, as if he had been the lord of nature, he spurred
      his horse with a fearless and impotent effort into the sea. His
      loud reproaches, and the clamors of the camp, urged the Ottomans
      to a third attack, more fatal and bloody than the two former; and
      I must repeat, though I cannot credit, the evidence of Phranza,
      who affirms, from their own mouth, that they lost above twelve
      thousand men in the slaughter of the day. They fled in disorder
      to the shores of Europe and Asia, while the Christian squadron,
      triumphant and unhurt, steered along the Bosphorus, and securely
      anchored within the chain of the harbor. In the confidence of
      victory, they boasted that the whole Turkish power must have
      yielded to their arms; but the admiral, or captain bashaw, found
      some consolation for a painful wound in his eye, by representing
      that accident as the cause of his defeat. Balthi Ogli was a
      renegade of the race of the Bulgarian princes: his military
      character was tainted with the unpopular vice of avarice; and
      under the despotism of the prince or people, misfortune is a
      sufficient evidence of guilt. 451 His rank and services were
      annihilated by the displeasure of Mahomet. In the royal presence,
      the captain bashaw was extended on the ground by four slaves, and
      received one hundred strokes with a golden rod: 46 his death had
      been pronounced; and he adored the clemency of the sultan, who
      was satisfied with the milder punishment of confiscation and
      exile. The introduction of this supply revived the hopes of the
      Greeks, and accused the supineness of their Western allies.
      Amidst the deserts of Anatolia and the rocks of Palestine, the
      millions of the crusades had buried themselves in a voluntary and
      inevitable grave; but the situation of the Imperial city was
      strong against her enemies, and accessible to her friends; and a
      rational and moderate armament of the marine states might have
      saved the relics of the Roman name, and maintained a Christian
      fortress in the heart of the Ottoman empire. Yet this was the
      sole and feeble attempt for the deliverance of Constantinople:
      the more distant powers were insensible of its danger; and the
      ambassador of Hungary, or at least of Huniades, resided in the
      Turkish camp, to remove the fears, and to direct the operations,
      of the sultan. 47

      42 (return) [ It is singular that the Greeks should not agree in
      the number of these illustrious vessels; the _five_ of Ducas, the
      _four_of Phranza and Leonardus, and the _two_ of Chalcondyles,
      must be extended to the smaller, or confined to the larger, size.
      Voltaire, in giving one of these ships to Frederic III.,
      confounds the emperors of the East and West.]

      43 (return) [ In bold defiance, or rather in gross ignorance, of
      language and geography, the president Cousin detains them in
      Chios with a south, and wafts them to Constantinople with a
      north, wind.]

      44 (return) [ The perpetual decay and weakness of the Turkish
      navy may be observed in Ricaut, (State of the Ottoman Empire, p.
      372—378,) Thevenot, (Voyages, P. i. p. 229—242, and Tott),
      (Mémoires, tom. iii;) the last of whom is always solicitous to
      amuse and amaze his reader.]

      45 (return) [ I must confess that I have before my eyes the
      living picture which Thucydides (l. vii. c. 71) has drawn of the
      passions and gestures of the Athenians in a naval engagement in
      the great harbor of Syracuse.]

      451 (return) [ According to Ducas, one of the Afabi beat out his
      eye with a stone Compare Von Hammer.—M.]

      46 (return) [ According to the exaggeration or corrupt text of
      Ducas, (c. 38,) this golden bar was of the enormous or incredible
      weight of 500 libræ, or pounds. Bouillaud’s reading of 500
      drachms, or five pounds, is sufficient to exercise the arm of
      Mahomet, and bruise the back of his admiral.]

      47 (return) [ Ducas, who confesses himself ill informed of the
      affairs of Hungary assigns a motive of superstition, a fatal
      belief that Constantinople would be the term of the Turkish
      conquests. See Phranza (l. iii. c. 20) and Spondanus.]

      It was difficult for the Greeks to penetrate the secret of the
      divan; yet the Greeks are persuaded, that a resistance so
      obstinate and surprising, had fatigued the perseverance of
      Mahomet. He began to meditate a retreat; and the siege would have
      been speedily raised, if the ambition and jealousy of the second
      vizier had not opposed the perfidious advice of Calil Bashaw, who
      still maintained a secret correspondence with the Byzantine
      court. The reduction of the city appeared to be hopeless, unless
      a double attack could be made from the harbor as well as from the
      land; but the harbor was inaccessible: an impenetrable chain was
      now defended by eight large ships, more than twenty of a smaller
      size, with several galleys and sloops; and, instead of forcing
      this barrier, the Turks might apprehend a naval sally, and a
      second encounter in the open sea. In this perplexity, the genius
      of Mahomet conceived and executed a plan of a bold and marvellous
      cast, of transporting by land his lighter vessels and military
      stores from the Bosphorus into the higher part of the harbor. The
      distance is about ten 471 miles; the ground is uneven, and was
      overspread with thickets; and, as the road must be opened behind
      the suburb of Galata, their free passage or total destruction
      must depend on the option of the Genoese. But these selfish
      merchants were ambitious of the favor of being the last devoured;
      and the deficiency of art was supplied by the strength of
      obedient myriads. A level way was covered with a broad platform
      of strong and solid planks; and to render them more slippery and
      smooth, they were anointed with the fat of sheep and oxen.
      Fourscore light galleys and brigantines, of fifty and thirty
      oars, were disembarked on the Bosphorus shore; arranged
      successively on rollers; and drawn forwards by the power of men
      and pulleys. Two guides or pilots were stationed at the helm, and
      the prow, of each vessel: the sails were unfurled to the winds;
      and the labor was cheered by song and acclamation. In the course
      of a single night, this Turkish fleet painfully climbed the hill,
      steered over the plain, and was launched from the declivity into
      the shallow waters of the harbor, far above the molestation of
      the deeper vessels of the Greeks. The real importance of this
      operation was magnified by the consternation and confidence which
      it inspired: but the notorious, unquestionable fact was displayed
      before the eyes, and is recorded by the pens, of the two nations.
      48 A similar stratagem had been repeatedly practised by the
      ancients; 49 the Ottoman galleys (I must again repeat) should be
      considered as large boats; and, if we compare the magnitude and
      the distance, the obstacles and the means, the boasted miracle 50
      has perhaps been equalled by the industry of our own times. 51 As
      soon as Mahomet had occupied the upper harbor with a fleet and
      army, he constructed, in the narrowest part, a bridge, or rather
      mole, of fifty cubits in breadth, and one hundred in length: it
      was formed of casks and hogsheads; joined with rafters, linked
      with iron, and covered with a solid floor. On this floating
      battery he planted one of his largest cannon, while the fourscore
      galleys, with troops and scaling ladders, approached the most
      accessible side, which had formerly been stormed by the Latin
      conquerors. The indolence of the Christians has been accused for
      not destroying these unfinished works; 511 but their fire, by a
      superior fire, was controlled and silenced; nor were they wanting
      in a nocturnal attempt to burn the vessels as well as the bridge
      of the sultan. His vigilance prevented their approach; their
      foremost galiots were sunk or taken; forty youths, the bravest of
      Italy and Greece, were inhumanly massacred at his command; nor
      could the emperor’s grief be assuaged by the just though cruel
      retaliation, of exposing from the walls the heads of two hundred
      and sixty Mussulman captives. After a siege of forty days, the
      fate of Constantinople could no longer be averted. The diminutive
      garrison was exhausted by a double attack: the fortifications,
      which had stood for ages against hostile violence, were
      dismantled on all sides by the Ottoman cannon: many breaches were
      opened; and near the gate of St. Romanus, four towers had been
      levelled with the ground. For the payment of his feeble and
      mutinous troops, Constantine was compelled to despoil the
      churches with the promise of a fourfold restitution; and his
      sacrilege offered a new reproach to the enemies of the union. A
      spirit of discord impaired the remnant of the Christian strength;
      the Genoese and Venetian auxiliaries asserted the preeminence of
      their respective service; and Justiniani and the great duke,
      whose ambition was not extinguished by the common danger, accused
      each other of treachery and cowardice.

      471 (return) [ Six miles. Von Hammer.—M.]?

      48 (return) [ The unanimous testimony of the four Greeks is
      confirmed by Cantemir (p. 96) from the Turkish annals; but I
      could wish to contract the distance of _ten_ * miles, and to
      prolong the term of _one_ night. Note: Six miles. Von Hammer.—M.]

      49 (return) [ Phranza relates two examples of a similar
      transportation over the six miles of the Isthmus of Corinth; the
      one fabulous, of Augustus after the battle of Actium; the other
      true, of Nicetas, a Greek general in the xth century. To these he
      might have added a bold enterprise of Hannibal, to introduce his
      vessels into the harbor of Tarentum, (Polybius, l. viii. p. 749,
      edit. Gronov. * Note: Von Hammer gives a longer list of such
      transportations, p. 533. Dion Cassius distinctly relates the
      occurrence treated as fabulous by Gibbon.—M.]

      50 (return) [ A Greek of Candia, who had served the Venetians in
      a similar undertaking, (Spond. A.D. 1438, No. 37,) might possibly
      be the adviser and agent of Mahomet.]

      51 (return) [ I particularly allude to our own embarkations on
      the lakes of Canada in the years 1776 and 1777, so great in the
      labor, so fruitless in the event.]

      511 (return) [ They were betrayed, according to some accounts, by
      the Genoese of Galata. Von Hammer, p. 536.—M.]

      During the siege of Constantinople, the words of peace and
      capitulation had been sometimes pronounced; and several embassies
      had passed between the camp and the city. 52 The Greek emperor
      was humbled by adversity; and would have yielded to any terms
      compatible with religion and royalty. The Turkish sultan was
      desirous of sparing the blood of his soldiers; still more
      desirous of securing for his own use the Byzantine treasures: and
      he accomplished a sacred duty in presenting to the _Gabours_ the
      choice of circumcision, of tribute, or of death. The avarice of
      Mahomet might have been satisfied with an annual sum of one
      hundred thousand ducats; but his ambition grasped the capital of
      the East: to the prince he offered a rich equivalent, to the
      people a free toleration, or a safe departure: but after some
      fruitless treaty, he declared his resolution of finding either a
      throne, or a grave, under the walls of Constantinople. A sense of
      honor, and the fear of universal reproach, forbade Palæologus to
      resign the city into the hands of the Ottomans; and he determined
      to abide the last extremities of war. Several days were employed
      by the sultan in the preparations of the assault; and a respite
      was granted by his favorite science of astrology, which had fixed
      on the twenty-ninth of May, as the fortunate and fatal hour. On
      the evening of the twenty-seventh, he issued his final orders;
      assembled in his presence the military chiefs, and dispersed his
      heralds through the camp to proclaim the duty, and the motives,
      of the perilous enterprise. Fear is the first principle of a
      despotic government; and his menaces were expressed in the
      Oriental style, that the fugitives and deserters, had they the
      wings of a bird, 53 should not escape from his inexorable
      justice. The greatest part of his bashaws and Janizaries were the
      offspring of Christian parents: but the glories of the Turkish
      name were perpetuated by successive adoption; and in the gradual
      change of individuals, the spirit of a legion, a regiment, or an
      _oda_, is kept alive by imitation and discipline. In this holy
      warfare, the Moslems were exhorted to purify their minds with
      prayer, their bodies with seven ablutions; and to abstain from
      food till the close of the ensuing day. A crowd of dervises
      visited the tents, to instil the desire of martyrdom, and the
      assurance of spending an immortal youth amidst the rivers and
      gardens of paradise, and in the embraces of the black-eyed
      virgins. Yet Mahomet principally trusted to the efficacy of
      temporal and visible rewards. A double pay was promised to the
      victorious troops: “The city and the buildings,” said Mahomet,
      “are mine; but I resign to your valor the captives and the spoil,
      the treasures of gold and beauty; be rich and be happy. Many are
      the provinces of my empire: the intrepid soldier who first
      ascends the walls of Constantinople shall be rewarded with the
      government of the fairest and most wealthy; and my gratitude
      shall accumulate his honors and fortunes above the measure of his
      own hopes.” Such various and potent motives diffused among the
      Turks a general ardor, regardless of life and impatient for
      action: the camp reechoed with the Moslem shouts of “God is God:
      there is but one God, and Mahomet is the apostle of God;” 54 and
      the sea and land, from Galata to the seven towers, were
      illuminated by the blaze of their nocturnal fires. 541

      52 (return) [ Chalcondyles and Ducas differ in the time and
      circumstances of the negotiation; and as it was neither glorious
      nor salutary, the faithful Phranza spares his prince even the
      thought of a surrender.]

      53 (return) [ These wings (Chalcondyles, l. viii. p. 208) are no
      more than an Oriental figure: but in the tragedy of Irene,
      Mahomet’s passion soars above sense and reason:—

               Should the fierce North, upon his frozen wings. Bear him
               aloft above the wondering clouds, And seat him in the
               Pleiads’ golden chariot— Then should my fury drag him
               down to tortures.

      Besides the extravagance of the rant, I must observe, 1. That the
      operation of the winds must be confined to the _lower_ region of
      the air. 2. That the name, etymology, and fable of the Pleiads
      are purely Greek, (Scholiast ad Homer, S. 686. Eudocia in Ioniâ,
      p. 399. Apollodor. l. iii. c. 10. Heyne, p. 229, Not. 682,) and
      had no affinity with the astronomy of the East, (Hyde ad Ulugbeg,
      Tabul. in Syntagma Dissert. tom. i. p. 40, 42. Goguet, Origine
      des Arts, &c., tom. vi. p. 73—78. Gebelin, Hist. du Calendrier,
      p. 73,) which Mahomet had studied. 3. The golden chariot does not
      exist either in science or fiction; but I much fear Dr. Johnson
      has confounded the Pleiads with the great bear or wagon, the
      zodiac with a northern constellation:—

     ''Ark-on q' hn kai amaxan epiklhsin kaleouein. Il. S. 487.]

      54 (return) [ Phranza quarrels with these Moslem acclamations,
      not for the name of God, but for that of the prophet: the pious
      zeal of Voltaire is excessive, and even ridiculous.]

      541 (return) [ The picture is heightened by the addition of the
      wailing cries of Kyris, which were heard from the dark interior
      of the city. Von Hammer p. 539.—M.]

      Far different was the state of the Christians; who, with loud and
      impotent complaints, deplored the guilt, or the punishment, of
      their sins. The celestial image of the Virgin had been exposed in
      solemn procession; but their divine patroness was deaf to their
      entreaties: they accused the obstinacy of the emperor for
      refusing a timely surrender; anticipated the horrors of their
      fate; and sighed for the repose and security of Turkish
      servitude. The noblest of the Greeks, and the bravest of the
      allies, were summoned to the palace, to prepare them, on the
      evening of the twenty-eighth, for the duties and dangers of the
      general assault. The last speech of Palæologus was the funeral
      oration of the Roman empire: 55 he promised, he conjured, and he
      vainly attempted to infuse the hope which was extinguished in his
      own mind. In this world all was comfortless and gloomy; and
      neither the gospel nor the church have proposed any conspicuous
      recompense to the heroes who fall in the service of their
      country. But the example of their prince, and the confinement of
      a siege, had armed these warriors with the courage of despair,
      and the pathetic scene is described by the feelings of the
      historian Phranza, who was himself present at this mournful
      assembly. They wept, they embraced; regardless of their families
      and fortunes, they devoted their lives; and each commander,
      departing to his station, maintained all night a vigilant and
      anxious watch on the rampart. The emperor, and some faithful
      companions, entered the dome of St. Sophia, which in a few hours
      was to be converted into a mosque; and devoutly received, with
      tears and prayers, the sacrament of the holy communion. He
      reposed some moments in the palace, which resounded with cries
      and lamentations; solicited the pardon of all whom he might have
      injured; 56 and mounted on horseback to visit the guards, and
      explore the motions of the enemy. The distress and fall of the
      last Constantine are more glorious than the long prosperity of
      the Byzantine Cæsars. 561

      55 (return) [ I am afraid that this discourse was composed by
      Phranza himself; and it smells so grossly of the sermon and the
      convent, that I almost doubt whether it was pronounced by
      Constantine. Leonardus assigns him another speech, in which he
      addresses himself more respectfully to the Latin auxiliaries.]

      56 (return) [ This abasement, which devotion has sometimes
      extorted from dying princes, is an improvement of the gospel
      doctrine of the forgiveness of injuries: it is more easy to
      forgive 490 times, than once to ask pardon of an inferior.]

      561 (return) [ Compare the very curious Armenian elegy on the
      fall of Constantinople, translated by M. Boré, in the Journal
      Asiatique for March, 1835; and by M. Brosset, in the new edition
      of Le Beau, (tom. xxi. p. 308.) The author thus ends his poem:
      “I, Abraham, loaded with sins, have composed this elegy with the
      most lively sorrow; for I have seen Constantinople in the days of
      its glory.”—M.]

      In the confusion of darkness, an assailant may sometimes succeed;
      but in this great and general attack, the military judgment and
      astrological knowledge of Mahomet advised him to expect the
      morning, the memorable twenty-ninth of May, in the fourteen
      hundred and fifty-third year of the Christian æra. The preceding
      night had been strenuously employed: the troops, the cannons, and
      the fascines, were advanced to the edge of the ditch, which in
      many parts presented a smooth and level passage to the breach;
      and his fourscore galleys almost touched, with the prows and
      their scaling-ladders, the less defensible walls of the harbor.
      Under pain of death, silence was enjoined: but the physical laws
      of motion and sound are not obedient to discipline or fear; each
      individual might suppress his voice and measure his footsteps;
      but the march and labor of thousands must inevitably produce a
      strange confusion of dissonant clamors, which reached the ears of
      the watchmen of the towers. At daybreak, without the customary
      signal of the morning gun, the Turks assaulted the city by sea
      and land; and the similitude of a twined or twisted thread has
      been applied to the closeness and continuity of their line of
      attack. 57 The foremost ranks consisted of the refuse of the
      host, a voluntary crowd who fought without order or command; of
      the feebleness of age or childhood, of peasants and vagrants, and
      of all who had joined the camp in the blind hope of plunder and
      martyrdom. The common impulse drove them onwards to the wall; the
      most audacious to climb were instantly precipitated; and not a
      dart, not a bullet, of the Christians, was idly wasted on the
      accumulated throng. But their strength and ammunition were
      exhausted in this laborious defence: the ditch was filled with
      the bodies of the slain; they supported the footsteps of their
      companions; and of this devoted vanguard the death was more
      serviceable than the life. Under their respective bashaws and
      sanjaks, the troops of Anatolia and Romania were successively led
      to the charge: their progress was various and doubtful; but,
      after a conflict of two hours, the Greeks still maintained, and
      improved their advantage; and the voice of the emperor was heard,
      encouraging his soldiers to achieve, by a last effort, the
      deliverance of their country. In that fatal moment, the
      Janizaries arose, fresh, vigorous, and invincible. The sultan
      himself on horseback, with an iron mace in his hand, was the
      spectator and judge of their valor: he was surrounded by ten
      thousand of his domestic troops, whom he reserved for the
      decisive occasion; and the tide of battle was directed and
      impelled by his voice and eye. His numerous ministers of justice
      were posted behind the line, to urge, to restrain, and to punish;
      and if danger was in the front, shame and inevitable death were
      in the rear, of the fugitives. The cries of fear and of pain were
      drowned in the martial music of drums, trumpets, and attaballs;
      and experience has proved, that the mechanical operation of
      sounds, by quickening the circulation of the blood and spirits,
      will act on the human machine more forcibly than the eloquence of
      reason and honor. From the lines, the galleys, and the bridge,
      the Ottoman artillery thundered on all sides; and the camp and
      city, the Greeks and the Turks, were involved in a cloud of smoke
      which could only be dispelled by the final deliverance or
      destruction of the Roman empire. The single combats of the heroes
      of history or fable amuse our fancy and engage our affections:
      the skilful evolutions of war may inform the mind, and improve a
      necessary, though pernicious, science. But in the uniform and
      odious pictures of a general assault, all is blood, and horror,
      and confusion; nor shall I strive, at the distance of three
      centuries, and a thousand miles, to delineate a scene of which
      there could be no spectators, and of which the actors themselves
      were incapable of forming any just or adequate idea.

      57 (return) [ Besides the 10,000 guards, and the sailors and the
      marines, Ducas numbers in this general assault 250,000 Turks,
      both horse and foot.]

      The immediate loss of Constantinople may be ascribed to the
      bullet, or arrow, which pierced the gauntlet of John Justiniani.
      The sight of his blood, and the exquisite pain, appalled the
      courage of the chief, whose arms and counsels were the firmest
      rampart of the city. As he withdrew from his station in quest of
      a surgeon, his flight was perceived and stopped by the
      indefatigable emperor. “Your wound,” exclaimed Palæologus, “is
      slight; the danger is pressing: your presence is necessary; and
      whither will you retire?”—“I will retire,” said the trembling
      Genoese, “by the same road which God has opened to the Turks;”
      and at these words he hastily passed through one of the breaches
      of the inner wall. By this pusillanimous act he stained the
      honors of a military life; and the few days which he survived in
      Galata, or the Isle of Chios, were embittered by his own and the
      public reproach. 58 His example was imitated by the greatest part
      of the Latin auxiliaries, and the defence began to slacken when
      the attack was pressed with redoubled vigor. The number of the
      Ottomans was fifty, perhaps a hundred, times superior to that of
      the Christians; the double walls were reduced by the cannon to a
      heap of ruins: in a circuit of several miles, some places must be
      found more easy of access, or more feebly guarded; and if the
      besiegers could penetrate in a single point, the whole city was
      irrecoverably lost. The first who deserved the sultan’s reward
      was Hassan the Janizary, of gigantic stature and strength. With
      his cimeter in one hand and his buckler in the other, he ascended
      the outward fortification: of the thirty Janizaries, who were
      emulous of his valor, eighteen perished in the bold adventure.
      Hassan and his twelve companions had reached the summit: the
      giant was precipitated from the rampart: he rose on one knee, and
      was again oppressed by a shower of darts and stones. But his
      success had proved that the achievement was possible: the walls
      and towers were instantly covered with a swarm of Turks; and the
      Greeks, now driven from the vantage ground, were overwhelmed by
      increasing multitudes. Amidst these multitudes, the emperor, 59
      who accomplished all the duties of a general and a soldier, was
      long seen and finally lost. The nobles, who fought round his
      person, sustained, till their last breath, the honorable names of
      Palæologus and Cantacuzene: his mournful exclamation was heard,
      “Cannot there be found a Christian to cut off my head?” 60 and
      his last fear was that of falling alive into the hands of the
      infidels. 61 The prudent despair of Constantine cast away the
      purple: amidst the tumult he fell by an unknown hand, and his
      body was buried under a mountain of the slain. After his death,
      resistance and order were no more: the Greeks fled towards the
      city; and many were pressed and stifled in the narrow pass of the
      gate of St. Romanus. The victorious Turks rushed through the
      breaches of the inner wall; and as they advanced into the
      streets, they were soon joined by their brethren, who had forced
      the gate Phenar on the side of the harbor. 62 In the first heat
      of the pursuit, about two thousand Christians were put to the
      sword; but avarice soon prevailed over cruelty; and the victors
      acknowledged, that they should immediately have given quarter if
      the valor of the emperor and his chosen bands had not prepared
      them for a similar opposition in every part of the capital. It
      was thus, after a siege of fifty-three days, that Constantinople,
      which had defied the power of Chosroes, the Chagan, and the
      caliphs, was irretrievably subdued by the arms of Mahomet the
      Second. Her empire only had been subverted by the Latins: her
      religion was trampled in the dust by the Moslem conquerors. 63

      58 (return) [ In the severe censure of the flight of Justiniani,
      Phranza expresses his own feelings and those of the public. For
      some private reasons, he is treated with more lenity and respect
      by Ducas; but the words of Leonardus Chiensis express his strong
      and recent indignation, gloriæ salutis suique oblitus. In the
      whole series of their Eastern policy, his countrymen, the
      Genoese, were always suspected, and often guilty. * Note: M.
      Brosset has given some extracts from the Georgian account of the
      siege of Constantinople, in which Justiniani’s wound in the left
      foot is represented as more serious. With charitable ambiguity
      the chronicler adds that his soldiers carried him away with them
      in their vessel.—M.]

      59 (return) [ Ducas kills him with two blows of Turkish soldiers;
      Chalcondyles wounds him in the shoulder, and then tramples him in
      the gate. The grief of Phranza, carrying him among the enemy,
      escapes from the precise image of his death; but we may, without
      flattery, apply these noble lines of Dryden:—

               As to Sebastian, let them search the field; And where
               they find a mountain of the slain, Send one to climb,
               and looking down beneath, There they will find him at
               his manly length, With his face up to heaven, in that
               red monument Which his good sword had digged.]

      60 (return) [ Spondanus, (A.D. 1453, No. 10,) who has hopes of
      his salvation, wishes to absolve this demand from the guilt of
      suicide.]

      61 (return) [ Leonardus Chiensis very properly observes, that the
      Turks, had they known the emperor, would have labored to save and
      secure a captive so acceptable to the sultan.]

      62 (return) [ Cantemir, p. 96. The Christian ships in the mouth
      of the harbor had flanked and retarded this naval attack.]

      63 (return) [ Chalcondyles most absurdly supposes, that
      Constantinople was sacked by the Asiatics in revenge for the
      ancient calamities of Troy; and the grammarians of the xvth
      century are happy to melt down the uncouth appellation of Turks
      into the more classical name of _Teucri_.]

      The tidings of misfortune fly with a rapid wing; yet such was the
      extent of Constantinople, that the more distant quarters might
      prolong, some moments, the happy ignorance of their ruin. 64 But
      in the general consternation, in the feelings of selfish or
      social anxiety, in the tumult and thunder of the assault, a
      _sleepless_ night and morning 641 must have elapsed; nor can I
      believe that many Grecian ladies were awakened by the Janizaries
      from a sound and tranquil slumber. On the assurance of the public
      calamity, the houses and convents were instantly deserted; and
      the trembling inhabitants flocked together in the streets, like a
      herd of timid animals, as if accumulated weakness could be
      productive of strength, or in the vain hope, that amid the crowd
      each individual might be safe and invisible. From every part of
      the capital, they flowed into the church of St. Sophia: in the
      space of an hour, the sanctuary, the choir, the nave, the upper
      and lower galleries, were filled with the multitudes of fathers
      and husbands, of women and children, of priests, monks, and
      religious virgins: the doors were barred on the inside, and they
      sought protection from the sacred dome, which they had so lately
      abhorred as a profane and polluted edifice. Their confidence was
      founded on the prophecy of an enthusiast or impostor; that one
      day the Turks would enter Constantinople, and pursue the Romans
      as far as the column of Constantine in the square before St.
      Sophia: but that this would be the term of their calamities: that
      an angel would descend from heaven, with a sword in his hand, and
      would deliver the empire, with that celestial weapon, to a poor
      man seated at the foot of the column. “Take this sword,” would he
      say, “and avenge the people of the Lord.” At these animating
      words, the Turks would instantly fly, and the victorious Romans
      would drive them from the West, and from all Anatolia as far as
      the frontiers of Persia. It is on this occasion that Ducas, with
      some fancy and much truth, upbraids the discord and obstinacy of
      the Greeks. “Had that angel appeared,” exclaims the historian,
      “had he offered to exterminate your foes if you would consent to
      the union of the church, even event then, in that fatal moment,
      you would have rejected your safety, or have deceived your God.”
      65

      64 (return) [ When Cyrus suppressed Babylon during the
      celebration of a festival, so vast was the city, and so careless
      were the inhabitants, that much time elapsed before the distant
      quarters knew that they were captives. Herodotus, (l. i. c. 191,)
      and Usher, (Annal. p. 78,) who has quoted from the prophet
      Jeremiah a passage of similar import.]

      641 (return) [ This refers to an expression in Ducas, who, to
      heighten the effect of his description, speaks of the “sweet
      morning sleep resting on the eyes of youths and maidens,” p. 288.
      Edit. Bekker.—M.]

      65 (return) [ This lively description is extracted from Ducas,
      (c. 39,) who two years afterwards was sent ambassador from the
      prince of Lesbos to the sultan, (c. 44.) Till Lesbos was subdued
      in 1463, (Phranza, l. iii. c. 27,) that island must have been
      full of the fugitives of Constantinople, who delighted to repeat,
      perhaps to adorn, the tale of their misery.]




      Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of
      Eastern Empire.—Part IV.

      While they expected the descent of the tardy angel, the doors
      were broken with axes; and as the Turks encountered no
      resistance, their bloodless hands were employed in selecting and
      securing the multitude of their prisoners. Youth, beauty, and the
      appearance of wealth, attracted their choice; and the right of
      property was decided among themselves by a prior seizure, by
      personal strength, and by the authority of command. In the space
      of an hour, the male captives were bound with cords, the females
      with their veils and girdles. The senators were linked with their
      slaves; the prelates, with the porters of the church; and young
      men of the plebeian class, with noble maids, whose faces had been
      invisible to the sun and their nearest kindred. In this common
      captivity, the ranks of society were confounded; the ties of
      nature were cut asunder; and the inexorable soldier was careless
      of the father’s groans, the tears of the mother, and the
      lamentations of the children. The loudest in their wailings were
      the nuns, who were torn from the altar with naked bosoms,
      outstretched hands, and dishevelled hair; and we should piously
      believe that few could be tempted to prefer the vigils of the
      harem to those of the monastery. Of these unfortunate Greeks, of
      these domestic animals, whole strings were rudely driven through
      the streets; and as the conquerors were eager to return for more
      prey, their trembling pace was quickened with menaces and blows.
      At the same hour, a similar rapine was exercised in all the
      churches and monasteries, in all the palaces and habitations, of
      the capital; nor could any place, however sacred or sequestered,
      protect the persons or the property of the Greeks. Above sixty
      thousand of this devoted people were transported from the city to
      the camp and fleet; exchanged or sold according to the caprice or
      interest of their masters, and dispersed in remote servitude
      through the provinces of the Ottoman empire. Among these we may
      notice some remarkable characters. The historian Phranza, first
      chamberlain and principal secretary, was involved with his family
      in the common lot. After suffering four months the hardships of
      slavery, he recovered his freedom: in the ensuing winter he
      ventured to Adrianople, and ransomed his wife from the _mir
      bashi_, or master of the horse; but his two children, in the
      flower of youth and beauty, had been seized for the use of
      Mahomet himself. The daughter of Phranza died in the seraglio,
      perhaps a virgin: his son, in the fifteenth year of his age,
      preferred death to infamy, and was stabbed by the hand of the
      royal lover. 66 A deed thus inhuman cannot surely be expiated by
      the taste and liberality with which he released a Grecian matron
      and her two daughters, on receiving a Latin doe From ode from
      Philelphus, who had chosen a wife in that noble family. 67 The
      pride or cruelty of Mahomet would have been most sensibly
      gratified by the capture of a Roman legate; but the dexterity of
      Cardinal Isidore eluded the search, and he escaped from Galata in
      a plebeian habit. 68 The chain and entrance of the outward harbor
      was still occupied by the Italian ships of merchandise and war.
      They had signalized their valor in the siege: they embraced the
      moment of retreat, while the Turkish mariners were dissipated in
      the pillage of the city. When they hoisted sail, the beach was
      covered with a suppliant and lamentable crowd; but the means of
      transportation were scanty: the Venetians and Genoese selected
      their countrymen; and, notwithstanding the fairest promises of
      the sultan, the inhabitants of Galata evacuated their houses, and
      embarked with their most precious effects.

      66 (return) [ See Phranza, l. iii. c. 20, 21. His expressions are
      positive: Ameras suâ manû jugulavit.... volebat enim eo turpiter
      et nefarie abuti. Me miserum et infelicem! Yet he could only
      learn from report the bloody or impure scenes that were acted in
      the dark recesses of the seraglio.]

      67 (return) [ See Tiraboschi (tom. vi. P. i. p. 290) and
      Lancelot, (Mém. de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 718.)
      I should be curious to learn how he could praise the public
      enemy, whom he so often reviles as the most corrupt and inhuman
      of tyrants.]

      68 (return) [ The commentaries of Pius II. suppose that he
      craftily placed his cardinal’s hat on the head of a corpse which
      was cut off and exposed in triumph, while the legate himself was
      bought and delivered as a captive of no value. The great Belgic
      Chronicle adorns his escape with new adventures, which he
      suppressed (says Spondanus, A.D. 1453, No. 15) in his own
      letters, lest he should lose the merit and reward of suffering
      for Christ. * Note: He was sold as a slave in Galata, according
      to Von Hammer, p. 175. See the somewhat vague and declamatory
      letter of Cardinal Isidore, in the appendix to Clarke’s Travels,
      vol. ii. p. 653.—M.]

      In the fall and the sack of great cities, an historian is
      condemned to repeat the tale of uniform calamity: the same
      effects must be produced by the same passions; and when those
      passions may be indulged without control, small, alas! is the
      difference between civilized and savage man. Amidst the vague
      exclamations of bigotry and hatred, the Turks are not accused of
      a wanton or immoderate effusion of Christian blood: but according
      to their maxims, (the maxims of antiquity,) the lives of the
      vanquished were forfeited; and the legitimate reward of the
      conqueror was derived from the service, the sale, or the ransom,
      of his captives of both sexes. 69 The wealth of Constantinople
      had been granted by the sultan to his victorious troops; and the
      rapine of an hour is more productive than the industry of years.
      But as no regular division was attempted of the spoil, the
      respective shares were not determined by merit; and the rewards
      of valor were stolen away by the followers of the camp, who had
      declined the toil and danger of the battle. The narrative of
      their depredations could not afford either amusement or
      instruction: the total amount, in the last poverty of the empire,
      has been valued at four millions of ducats; 70 and of this sum a
      small part was the property of the Venetians, the Genoese, the
      Florentines, and the merchants of Ancona. Of these foreigners,
      the stock was improved in quick and perpetual circulation: but
      the riches of the Greeks were displayed in the idle ostentation
      of palaces and wardrobes, or deeply buried in treasures of ingots
      and old coin, lest it should be demanded at their hands for the
      defence of their country. The profanation and plunder of the
      monasteries and churches excited the most tragic complaints. The
      dome of St. Sophia itself, the earthly heaven, the second
      firmament, the vehicle of the cherubim, the throne of the glory
      of God, 71 was despoiled of the oblation of ages; and the gold
      and silver, the pearls and jewels, the vases and sacerdotal
      ornaments, were most wickedly converted to the service of
      mankind. After the divine images had been stripped of all that
      could be valuable to a profane eye, the canvas, or the wood, was
      torn, or broken, or burnt, or trod under foot, or applied, in the
      stables or the kitchen, to the vilest uses. The example of
      sacrilege was imitated, however, from the Latin conquerors of
      Constantinople; and the treatment which Christ, the Virgin, and
      the saints, had sustained from the guilty Catholic, might be
      inflicted by the zealous Mussulman on the monuments of idolatry.
      Perhaps, instead of joining the public clamor, a philosopher will
      observe, that in the decline of the arts the workmanship could
      not be more valuable than the work, and that a fresh supply of
      visions and miracles would speedily be renewed by the craft of
      the priests and the credulity of the people. He will more
      seriously deplore the loss of the Byzantine libraries, which were
      destroyed or scattered in the general confusion: one hundred and
      twenty thousand manuscripts are said to have disappeared; 72 ten
      volumes might be purchased for a single ducat; and the same
      ignominious price, too high perhaps for a shelf of theology,
      included the whole works of Aristotle and Homer, the noblest
      productions of the science and literature of ancient Greece. We
      may reflect with pleasure that an inestimable portion of our
      classic treasures was safely deposited in Italy; and that the
      mechanics of a German town had invented an art which derides the
      havoc of time and barbarism.

      69 (return) [ Busbequius expatiates with pleasure and applause on
      the rights of war, and the use of slavery, among the ancients and
      the Turks, (de Legat. Turcicâ, epist. iii. p. 161.)]

      70 (return) [ This sum is specified in a marginal note of
      Leunclavius, (Chalcondyles, l. viii. p. 211,) but in the
      distribution to Venice, Genoa, Florence, and Ancona, of 50, 20,
      and 15,000 ducats, I suspect that a figure has been dropped. Even
      with the restitution, the foreign property would scarcely exceed
      one fourth.]

      71 (return) [ See the enthusiastic praises and lamentations of
      Phranza, (l. iii. c. 17.)]

      72 (return) [ See Ducas, (c. 43,) and an epistle, July 15th,
      1453, from Laurus Quirinus to Pope Nicholas V., (Hody de Græcis,
      p. 192, from a MS. in the Cotton library.)]

      From the first hour 73 of the memorable twenty-ninth of May,
      disorder and rapine prevailed in Constantinople, till the eighth
      hour of the same day; when the sultan himself passed in triumph
      through the gate of St. Romanus. He was attended by his viziers,
      bashaws, and guards, each of whom (says a Byzantine historian)
      was robust as Hercules, dexterous as Apollo, and equal in battle
      to any ten of the race of ordinary mortals. The conqueror 74
      gazed with satisfaction and wonder on the strange, though
      splendid, appearance of the domes and palaces, so dissimilar from
      the style of Oriental architecture. In the hippodrome, or
      _atmeidan_, his eye was attracted by the twisted column of the
      three serpents; and, as a trial of his strength, he shattered
      with his iron mace or battle-axe the under jaw of one of these
      monsters, 75 which in the eyes of the Turks were the idols or
      talismans of the city. 751 At the principal door of St. Sophia,
      he alighted from his horse, and entered the dome; and such was
      his jealous regard for that monument of his glory, that on
      observing a zealous Mussulman in the act of breaking the marble
      pavement, he admonished him with his cimeter, that, if the spoil
      and captives were granted to the soldiers, the public and private
      buildings had been reserved for the prince. By his command the
      metropolis of the Eastern church was transformed into a mosque:
      the rich and portable instruments of superstition had been
      removed; the crosses were thrown down; and the walls, which were
      covered with images and mosaics, were washed and purified, and
      restored to a state of naked simplicity. On the same day, or on
      the ensuing Friday, the _muezin_, or crier, ascended the most
      lofty turret, and proclaimed the _ezan_, or public invitation in
      the name of God and his prophet; the imam preached; and Mahomet
      and Second performed the _namaz_ of prayer and thanksgiving on
      the great altar, where the Christian mysteries had so lately been
      celebrated before the last of the Cæsars. 76 From St. Sophia he
      proceeded to the august, but desolate mansion of a hundred
      successors of the great Constantine, but which in a few hours had
      been stripped of the pomp of royalty. A melancholy reflection on
      the vicissitudes of human greatness forced itself on his mind;
      and he repeated an elegant distich of Persian poetry: “The spider
      has wove his web in the Imperial palace; and the owl hath sung
      her watch-song on the towers of Afrasiab.” 77

      73 (return) [ The Julian Calendar, which reckons the days and
      hours from midnight, was used at Constantinople. But Ducas seems
      to understand the natural hours from sunrise.]

      74 (return) [ See the Turkish Annals, p. 329, and the Pandects of
      Leunclavius, p. 448.]

      75 (return) [ I have had occasion (vol. ii. p. 100) to mention
      this curious relic of Grecian antiquity.]

      751 (return) [ Von Hammer passes over this circumstance, which is
      treated by Dr. Clarke (Travels, vol. ii. p. 58, 4to. edit,) as a
      fiction of Thevenot. Chishull states that the monument was broken
      by some attendants of the Polish ambassador.—M.]

      76 (return) [ We are obliged to Cantemir (p. 102) for the Turkish
      account of the conversion of St. Sophia, so bitterly deplored by
      Phranza and Ducas. It is amusing enough to observe, in what
      opposite lights the same object appears to a Mussulman and a
      Christian eye.]

      77 (return) [ This distich, which Cantemir gives in the original,
      derives new beauties from the application. It was thus that
      Scipio repeated, in the sack of Carthage, the famous prophecy of
      Homer. The same generous feeling carried the mind of the
      conqueror to the past or the future.]

      Yet his mind was not satisfied, nor did the victory seem
      complete, till he was informed of the fate of Constantine;
      whether he had escaped, or been made prisoner, or had fallen in
      the battle. Two Janizaries claimed the honor and reward of his
      death: the body, under a heap of slain, was discovered by the
      golden eagles embroidered on his shoes; the Greeks acknowledged,
      with tears, the head of their late emperor; and, after exposing
      the bloody trophy, 78 Mahomet bestowed on his rival the honors of
      a decent funeral. After his decease, Lucas Notaras, great duke,
      79 and first minister of the empire, was the most important
      prisoner. When he offered his person and his treasures at the
      foot of the throne, “And why,” said the indignant sultan, “did
      you not employ these treasures in the defence of your prince and
      country?”—“They were yours,” answered the slave; “God had
      reserved them for your hands.”—“If he reserved them for me,”
      replied the despot, “how have you presumed to withhold them so
      long by a fruitless and fatal resistance?” The great duke alleged
      the obstinacy of the strangers, and some secret encouragement
      from the Turkish vizier; and from this perilous interview he was
      at length dismissed with the assurance of pardon and protection.
      Mahomet condescended to visit his wife, a venerable princess
      oppressed with sickness and grief; and his consolation for her
      misfortunes was in the most tender strain of humanity and filial
      reverence. A similar clemency was extended to the principal
      officers of state, of whom several were ransomed at his expense;
      and during some days he declared himself the friend and father of
      the vanquished people. But the scene was soon changed; and before
      his departure, the hippodrome streamed with the blood of his
      noblest captives. His perfidious cruelty is execrated by the
      Christians: they adorn with the colors of heroic martyrdom the
      execution of the great duke and his two sons; and his death is
      ascribed to the generous refusal of delivering his children to
      the tyrant’s lust. 791 Yet a Byzantine historian has dropped an
      unguarded word of conspiracy, deliverance, and Italian succor:
      such treason may be glorious; but the rebel who bravely ventures,
      has justly forfeited his life; nor should we blame a conqueror
      for destroying the enemies whom he can no longer trust. On the
      eighteenth of June the victorious sultan returned to Adrianople;
      and smiled at the base and hollow embassies of the Christian
      princes, who viewed their approaching ruin in the fall of the
      Eastern empire.

      78 (return) [ I cannot believe with Ducas (see Spondanus, A.D.
      1453, No. 13) that Mahomet sent round Persia, Arabia, &c., the
      head of the Greek emperor: he would surely content himself with a
      trophy less inhuman.]

      79 (return) [ Phranza was the personal enemy of the great duke;
      nor could time, or death, or his own retreat to a monastery,
      extort a feeling of sympathy or forgiveness. Ducas is inclined to
      praise and pity the martyr; Chalcondyles is neuter, but we are
      indebted to him for the hint of the Greek conspiracy.]

      791 (return) [ Von Hammer relates this undoubtingly, apparently
      on good authority, p. 559.—M.]

      Constantinople had been left naked and desolate, without a prince
      or a people. But she could not be despoiled of the incomparable
      situation which marks her for the metropolis of a great empire;
      and the genius of the place will ever triumph over the accidents
      of time and fortune. Boursa and Adrianople, the ancient seats of
      the Ottomans, sunk into provincial towns; and Mahomet the Second
      established his own residence, and that of his successors, on the
      same commanding spot which had been chosen by Constantine. 80 The
      fortifications of Galata, which might afford a shelter to the
      Latins, were prudently destroyed; but the damage of the Turkish
      cannon was soon repaired; and before the month of August, great
      quantities of lime had been burnt for the restoration of the
      walls of the capital. As the entire property of the soil and
      buildings, whether public or private, or profane or sacred, was
      now transferred to the conqueror, he first separated a space of
      eight furlongs from the point of the triangle for the
      establishment of his seraglio or palace. It is here, in the bosom
      of luxury, that the _Grand Signor_ (as he has been emphatically
      named by the Italians) appears to reign over Europe and Asia; but
      his person on the shores of the Bosphorus may not always be
      secure from the insults of a hostile navy. In the new character
      of a mosque, the cathedral of St. Sophia was endowed with an
      ample revenue, crowned with lofty minarets, and surrounded with
      groves and fountains, for the devotion and refreshment of the
      Moslems. The same model was imitated in the _jami_, or royal
      mosques; and the first of these was built, by Mahomet himself, on
      the ruins of the church of the holy apostles, and the tombs of
      the Greek emperors. On the third day after the conquest, the
      grave of Abu Ayub, or Job, who had fallen in the first siege of
      the Arabs, was revealed in a vision; and it is before the
      sepulchre of the martyr that the new sultans are girded with the
      sword of empire. 81 Constantinople no longer appertains to the
      Roman historian; nor shall I enumerate the civil and religious
      edifices that were profaned or erected by its Turkish masters:
      the population was speedily renewed; and before the end of
      September, five thousand families of Anatolia and Romania had
      obeyed the royal mandate, which enjoined them, under pain of
      death, to occupy their new habitations in the capital. The throne
      of Mahomet was guarded by the numbers and fidelity of his Moslem
      subjects: but his rational policy aspired to collect the remnant
      of the Greeks; and they returned in crowds, as soon as they were
      assured of their lives, their liberties, and the free exercise of
      their religion. In the election and investiture of a patriarch,
      the ceremonial of the Byzantine court was revived and imitated.
      With a mixture of satisfaction and horror, they beheld the sultan
      on his throne; who delivered into the hands of Gennadius the
      crosier or pastoral staff, the symbol of his ecclesiastical
      office; who conducted the patriarch to the gate of the seraglio,
      presented him with a horse richly caparisoned, and directed the
      viziers and bashaws to lead him to the palace which had been
      allotted for his residence. 82 The churches of Constantinople
      were shared between the two religions: their limits were marked;
      and, till it was infringed by Selim, the grandson of Mahomet, the
      Greeks 83 enjoyed above sixty years the benefit of this equal
      partition. Encouraged by the ministers of the divan, who wished
      to elude the fanaticism of the sultan, the Christian advocates
      presumed to allege that this division had been an act, not of
      generosity, but of justice; not a concession, but a compact; and
      that if one half of the city had been taken by storm, the other
      moiety had surrendered on the faith of a sacred capitulation. The
      original grant had indeed been consumed by fire: but the loss was
      supplied by the testimony of three aged Janizaries who remembered
      the transaction; and their venal oaths are of more weight in the
      opinion of Cantemir, than the positive and unanimous consent of
      the history of the times. 84

      80 (return) [ For the restitution of Constantinople and the
      Turkish foundations, see Cantemir, (p. 102—109,) Ducas, (c. 42,)
      with Thevenot, Tournefort, and the rest of our modern travellers.
      From a gigantic picture of the greatness, population, &c., of
      Constantinople and the Ottoman empire, (Abrégé de l’Histoire
      Ottomane, tom. i. p. 16—21,) we may learn, that in the year 1586
      the Moslems were less numerous in the capital than the
      Christians, or even the Jews.]

      81 (return) [ The _Turbé_, or sepulchral monument of Abu Ayub, is
      described and engraved in the Tableau Générale de l’Empire
      Ottoman, (Paris 1787, in large folio,) a work of less use,
      perhaps, than magnificence, (tom. i. p. 305, 306.)]

      82 (return) [ Phranza (l. iii. c. 19) relates the ceremony, which
      has possibly been adorned in the Greek reports to each other, and
      to the Latins. The fact is confirmed by Emanuel Malaxus, who
      wrote, in vulgar Greek, the History of the Patriarchs after the
      taking of Constantinople, inserted in the Turco-Græcia of
      Crusius, (l. v. p. 106—184.) But the most patient reader will not
      believe that Mahomet adopted the Catholic form, “Sancta Trinitas
      quæ mihi donavit imperium te in patriarcham novæ Romæ deligit.”]

      83 (return) [ From the Turco-Græcia of Crusius, &c. Spondanus
      (A.D. 1453, No. 21, 1458, No. 16) describes the slavery and
      domestic quarrels of the Greek church. The patriarch who
      succeeded Gennadius threw himself in despair into a well.]

      84 (return) [ Cantemir (p. 101—105) insists on the unanimous
      consent of the Turkish historians, ancient as well as modern, and
      argues, that they would not have violated the truth to diminish
      their national glory, since it is esteemed more honorable to take
      a city by force than by composition. But, 1. I doubt this
      consent, since he quotes no particular historian, and the Turkish
      Annals of Leunclavius affirm, without exception, that Mahomet
      took Constantinople _per vim_, (p. 329.) 2 The same argument may
      be turned in favor of the Greeks of the times, who would not have
      forgotten this honorable and salutary treaty. Voltaire, as usual,
      prefers the Turks to the Christians.]

      The remaining fragments of the Greek kingdom in Europe and Asia I
      shall abandon to the Turkish arms; but the final extinction of
      the two last dynasties 85 which have reigned in Constantinople
      should terminate the decline and fall of the Roman empire in the
      East. The despots of the Morea, Demetrius and Thomas, 86 the two
      surviving brothers of the name of Palæologus, were astonished by
      the death of the emperor Constantine, and the ruin of the
      monarchy. Hopeless of defence, they prepared, with the noble
      Greeks who adhered to their fortune, to seek a refuge in Italy,
      beyond the reach of the Ottoman thunder. Their first
      apprehensions were dispelled by the victorious sultan, who
      contented himself with a tribute of twelve thousand ducats; and
      while his ambition explored the continent and the islands, in
      search of prey, he indulged the Morea in a respite of seven
      years. But this respite was a period of grief, discord, and
      misery. The _hexamilion_, the rampart of the Isthmus, so often
      raised and so often subverted, could not long be defended by
      three hundred Italian archers: the keys of Corinth were seized by
      the Turks: they returned from their summer excursions with a
      train of captives and spoil; and the complaints of the injured
      Greeks were heard with indifference and disdain. The Albanians, a
      vagrant tribe of shepherds and robbers, filled the peninsula with
      rapine and murder: the two despots implored the dangerous and
      humiliating aid of a neighboring bashaw; and when he had quelled
      the revolt, his lessons inculcated the rule of their future
      conduct. Neither the ties of blood, nor the oaths which they
      repeatedly pledged in the communion and before the altar, nor the
      stronger pressure of necessity, could reconcile or suspend their
      domestic quarrels. They ravaged each other’s patrimony with fire
      and sword: the alms and succors of the West were consumed in
      civil hostility; and their power was only exerted in savage and
      arbitrary executions. The distress and revenge of the weaker
      rival invoked their supreme lord; and, in the season of maturity
      and revenge, Mahomet declared himself the friend of Demetrius,
      and marched into the Morea with an irresistible force. When he
      had taken possession of Sparta, “You are too weak,” said the
      sultan, “to control this turbulent province: I will take your
      daughter to my bed; and you shall pass the remainder of your life
      in security and honor.” Demetrius sighed and obeyed; surrendered
      his daughter and his castles; followed to Adrianople his
      sovereign and his son; and received for his own maintenance, and
      that of his followers, a city in Thrace and the adjacent isles of
      Imbros, Lemnos, and Samothrace. He was joined the next year by a
      companion 861 of misfortune, the last of the Comnenian race, who,
      after the taking of Constantinople by the Latins, had founded a
      new empire on the coast of the Black Sea. 87 In the progress of
      his Anatolian conquest, Mahomet invested with a fleet and army
      the capital of David, who presumed to style himself emperor of
      Trebizond; 88 and the negotiation was comprised in a short and
      peremptory question, “Will you secure your life and treasures by
      resigning your kingdom? or had you rather forfeit your kingdom,
      your treasures, and your life?” The feeble Comnenus was subdued
      by his own fears, 881 and the example of a Mussulman neighbor,
      the prince of Sinope, 89 who, on a similar summons, had yielded a
      fortified city, with four hundred cannon and ten or twelve
      thousand soldiers. The capitulation of Trebizond was faithfully
      performed: 891 and the emperor, with his family, was transported
      to a castle in Romania; but on a slight suspicion of
      corresponding with the Persian king, David, and the whole
      Comnenian race, were sacrificed to the jealousy or avarice of the
      conqueror. 892 Nor could the name of father long protect the
      unfortunate Demetrius from exile and confiscation; his abject
      submission moved the pity and contempt of the sultan; his
      followers were transplanted to Constantinople; and his poverty
      was alleviated by a pension of fifty thousand aspers, till a
      monastic habit and a tardy death released Palæologus from an
      earthly master. It is not easy to pronounce whether the servitude
      of Demetrius, or the exile of his brother Thomas, 90 be the most
      inglorious. On the conquest of the Morea, the despot escaped to
      Corfu, and from thence to Italy, with some naked adherents: his
      name, his sufferings, and the head of the apostle St. Andrew,
      entitled him to the hospitality of the Vatican; and his misery
      was prolonged by a pension of six thousand ducats from the pope
      and cardinals. His two sons, Andrew and Manuel, were educated in
      Italy; but the eldest, contemptible to his enemies and burdensome
      to his friends, was degraded by the baseness of his life and
      marriage. A title was his sole inheritance; and that inheritance
      he successively sold to the kings of France and Arragon. 91
      During his transient prosperity, Charles the Eighth was ambitious
      of joining the empire of the East with the kingdom of Naples: in
      a public festival, he assumed the appellation and the purple of
      _Augustus_: the Greeks rejoiced and the Ottoman already trembled,
      at the approach of the French chivalry. 92 Manuel Palæologus, the
      second son, was tempted to revisit his native country: his return
      might be grateful, and could not be dangerous, to the Porte: he
      was maintained at Constantinople in safety and ease; and an
      honorable train of Christians and Moslems attended him to the
      grave. If there be some animals of so generous a nature that they
      refuse to propagate in a domestic state, the last of the Imperial
      race must be ascribed to an inferior kind: he accepted from the
      sultan’s liberality two beautiful females; and his surviving son
      was lost in the habit and religion of a Turkish slave.

      85 (return) [ For the genealogy and fall of the Comneni of
      Trebizond, see Ducange, (Fam. Byzant. p. 195;) for the last
      Palæologi, the same accurate antiquarian, (p. 244, 247, 248.) The
      Palæologi of Montferrat were not extinct till the next century;
      but they had forgotten their Greek origin and kindred.]

      86 (return) [ In the worthless story of the disputes and
      misfortunes of the two brothers, Phranza (l. iii. c. 21—30) is
      too partial on the side of Thomas Ducas (c. 44, 45) is too brief,
      and Chalcondyles (l. viii. ix. x.) too diffuse and digressive.]

      861 (return) [ Kalo-Johannes, the predecessor of David his
      brother, the last emperor of Trebizond, had attempted to organize
      a confederacy against Mahomet it comprehended Hassan Bei, sultan
      of Mesopotamia, the Christian princes of Georgia and Iberia, the
      emir of Sinope, and the sultan of Caramania. The negotiations
      were interrupted by his sudden death, A.D. 1458. Fallmerayer, p.
      257—260.—M.]

      87 (return) [ See the loss or conquest of Trebizond in
      Chalcondyles, (l. ix. p. 263—266,) Ducas, (c. 45,) Phranza, (l.
      iii. c. 27,) and Cantemir, (p. 107.)]

      88 (return) [ Though Tournefort (tom. iii. lettre xvii. p. 179)
      speaks of Trebizond as mal peuplée, Peysonnel, the latest and
      most accurate observer, can find 100,000 inhabitants, (Commerce
      de la Mer Noire, tom. ii. p. 72, and for the province, p. 53—90.)
      Its prosperity and trade are perpetually disturbed by the
      factious quarrels of two _odas_ of Janizaries, in one which
      30,000 Lazi are commonly enrolled, (Mémoires de Tott, tom. iii.
      p. 16, 17.)]

      881 (return) [ According to the Georgian account of these
      transactions, (translated by M. Brosset, additions to Le Beau,
      vol. xxi. p. 325,) the emperor of Trebizond humbly entreated the
      sultan to have the goodness to marry one of his daughters.—M.]

      89 (return) [ Ismael Beg, prince of Sinope or Sinople, was
      possessed (chiefly from his copper mines) of a revenue of 200,000
      ducats, (Chalcond. l. ix. p. 258, 259.) Peysonnel (Commerce de la
      Mer Noire, tom. ii. p. 100) ascribes to the modern city 60,000
      inhabitants. This account seems enormous; yet it is by trading
      with people that we become acquainted with their wealth and
      numbers.]

      891 (return) [ M. Boissonade has published, in the fifth volume
      of his Anecdota Græca (p. 387, 401.) a very interesting letter
      from George Amiroutzes, protovestiarius of Trebizond, to
      Bessarion, describing the surrender of Trebizond, and the fate of
      its chief inhabitants.—M.]

      892 (return) [ See in Von Hammer, vol. ii. p. 60, the striking
      account of the mother, the empress Helena the Cantacuzene, who,
      in defiance of the edict, like that of Creon in the Greek
      tragedy, dug the grave for her murdered children with her own
      hand, and sank into it herself.—M.]

      90 (return) [ Spondanus (from Gobelin Comment. Pii II. l. v.)
      relates the arrival and reception of the despot Thomas at Rome,.
      (A.D. 1461 No. NO. 3.)]

      91 (return) [ By an act dated A.D. 1494, Sept. 6, and lately
      transmitted from the archives of the Capitol to the royal library
      of Paris, the despot Andrew Palæologus, reserving the Morea, and
      stipulating some private advantages, conveys to Charles VIII.,
      king of France, the empires of Constantinople and Trebizond,
      (Spondanus, A.D. 1495, No. 2.) M. D. Foncemagne (Mém. de
      l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xvii. p. 539—578) has bestowed
      a dissertation on his national title, of which he had obtained a
      copy from Rome.]

      92 (return) [ See Philippe de Comines, (l. vii. c. 14,) who
      reckons with pleasure the number of Greeks who were prepared to
      rise, 60 miles of an easy navigation, eighteen days’ journey from
      Valona to Constantinople, &c. On this occasion the Turkish empire
      was saved by the policy of Venice.]

      The importance of Constantinople was felt and magnified in its
      loss: the pontificate of Nicholas the Fifth, however peaceful and
      prosperous, was dishonored by the fall of the Eastern empire; and
      the grief and terror of the Latins revived, or seemed to revive,
      the old enthusiasm of the crusades. In one of the most distant
      countries of the West, Philip duke of Burgundy entertained, at
      Lisle in Flanders, an assembly of his nobles; and the pompous
      pageants of the feast were skilfully adapted to their fancy and
      feelings. 93 In the midst of the banquet a gigantic Saracen
      entered the hall, leading a fictitious elephant with a castle on
      his back: a matron in a mourning robe, the symbol of religion,
      was seen to issue from the castle: she deplored her oppression,
      and accused the slowness of her champions: the principal herald
      of the golden fleece advanced, bearing on his fist a live
      pheasant, which, according to the rites of chivalry, he presented
      to the duke. At this extraordinary summons, Philip, a wise and
      aged prince, engaged his person and powers in the holy war
      against the Turks: his example was imitated by the barons and
      knights of the assembly: they swore to God, the Virgin, the
      ladies and the _pheasant_; and their particular vows were not
      less extravagant than the general sanction of their oath. But the
      performance was made to depend on some future and foreign
      contingency; and during twelve years, till the last hour of his
      life, the duke of Burgundy might be scrupulously, and perhaps
      sincerely, on the eve of his departure. Had every breast glowed
      with the same ardor; had the union of the Christians corresponded
      with their bravery; had every country, from Sweden 94 to Naples,
      supplied a just proportion of cavalry and infantry, of men and
      money, it is indeed probable that Constantinople would have been
      delivered, and that the Turks might have been chased beyond the
      Hellespont or the Euphrates. But the secretary of the emperor,
      who composed every epistle, and attended every meeting, Æneas
      Sylvius, 95 a statesman and orator, describes from his own
      experience the repugnant state and spirit of Christendom. “It is
      a body,” says he, “without a head; a republic without laws or
      magistrates. The pope and the emperor may shine as lofty titles,
      as splendid images; but _they_ are unable to command, and none
      are willing to obey: every state has a separate prince, and every
      prince has a separate interest. What eloquence could unite so
      many discordant and hostile powers under the same standard? Could
      they be assembled in arms, who would dare to assume the office of
      general? What order could be maintained?—what military
      discipline? Who would undertake to feed such an enormous
      multitude? Who would understand their various languages, or
      direct their stranger and incompatible manners? What mortal could
      reconcile the Germans with the French, Genoa with Arragon, the
      Germans with the natives of Hungary and Bohemia? If a small
      number enlisted in the holy war, they must be overthrown by the
      infidels; if many, by their own weight and confusion.” Yet the
      same Æneas, when he was raised to the papal throne, under the
      name of Pius the Second, devoted his life to the prosecution of
      the Turkish war. In the council of Mantua he excited some sparks
      of a false or feeble enthusiasm; but when the pontiff appeared at
      Ancona, to embark in person with the troops, engagements vanished
      in excuses; a precise day was adjourned to an indefinite term;
      and his effective army consisted of some German pilgrims, whom he
      was obliged to disband with indulgences and arms. Regardless of
      futurity, his successors and the powers of Italy were involved in
      the schemes of present and domestic ambition; and the distance or
      proximity of each object determined in their eyes its apparent
      magnitude. A more enlarged view of their interest would have
      taught them to maintain a defensive and naval war against the
      common enemy; and the support of Scanderbeg and his brave
      Albanians might have prevented the subsequent invasion of the
      kingdom of Naples. The siege and sack of Otranto by the Turks
      diffused a general consternation; and Pope Sixtus was preparing
      to fly beyond the Alps, when the storm was instantly dispelled by
      the death of Mahomet the Second, in the fifty-first year of his
      age. 96 His lofty genius aspired to the conquest of Italy: he was
      possessed of a strong city and a capacious harbor; and the same
      reign might have been decorated with the trophies of the New and
      the Ancient Rome. 97

      93 (return) [ See the original feast in Olivier de la Marche,
      (Mémoires, P. i. c. 29, 30,) with the abstract and observations
      of M. de Ste. Palaye, (Mémoires sur la Chevalerie, tom. i. P.
      iii. p. 182—185.) The peacock and the pheasant were distinguished
      as royal birds.]

      94 (return) [ It was found by an actual enumeration, that Sweden,
      Gothland, and Finland, contained 1,800,000 fighting men, and
      consequently were far more populous than at present.]

      95 (return) [ In the year 1454, Spondanus has given, from Æneas
      Sylvius, a view of the state of Europe, enriched with his own
      observations. That valuable annalist, and the Italian Muratori,
      will continue the series of events from the year 1453 to 1481,
      the end of Mahomet’s life, and of this chapter.]

      96 (return) [ Besides the two annalists, the reader may consult
      Giannone (Istoria Civile, tom. iii. p. 449—455) for the Turkish
      invasion of the kingdom of Naples. For the reign and conquests of
      Mahomet II., I have occasionally used the Memorie Istoriche de
      Monarchi Ottomanni di Giovanni Sagredo, (Venezia, 1677, in 4to.)
      In peace and war, the Turks have ever engaged the attention of
      the republic of Venice. All her despatches and archives were open
      to a procurator of St. Mark, and Sagredo is not contemptible
      either in sense or style. Yet he too bitterly hates the infidels:
      he is ignorant of their language and manners; and his narrative,
      which allows only 70 pages to Mahomet II., (p. 69—140,) becomes
      more copious and authentic as he approaches the years 1640 and
      1644, the term of the historic labors of John Sagredo.]

      97 (return) [ As I am now taking an everlasting farewell of the
      Greek empire, I shall briefly mention the great collection of
      Byzantine writers whose names and testimonies have been
      successively repeated in this work. The Greeks presses of Aldus
      and the Italians were confined to the classics of a better age;
      and the first rude editions of Procopius, Agathias, Cedrenus,
      Zonaras, &c., were published by the learned diligence of the
      Germans. The whole Byzantine series (xxxvi. volumes in folio) has
      gradually issued (A.D. 1648, &c.) from the royal press of the
      Louvre, with some collateral aid from Rome and Leipsic; but the
      Venetian edition, (A.D. 1729,) though cheaper and more copious,
      is not less inferior in correctness than in magnificence to that
      of Paris. The merits of the French editors are various; but the
      value of Anna Comnena, Cinnamus, Villehardouin, &c., is enhanced
      by the historical notes of Charles de Fresne du Cange. His
      supplemental works, the Greek Glossary, the Constantinopolis
      Christiana, the Familiæ Byzantinæ, diffuse a steady light over
      the darkness of the Lower Empire. * Note: The new edition of the
      Byzantines, projected by Niebuhr, and continued under the
      patronage of the Prussian government, is the most convenient in
      size, and contains some authors (Leo Diaconus, Johannes Lydus,
      Corippus, the new fragment of Dexippus, Eunapius, &c., discovered
      by Mai) which could not be comprised in the former collections;
      but the names of such editors as Bekker, the Dindorfs, &c.,
      raised hopes of something more than the mere republication of the
      text, and the notes of former editors. Little, I regret to say,
      has been added of annotation, and in some cases, the old
      incorrect versions have been retained.—M.]




      Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.—Part I.

     State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.—Temporal Dominion Of The
     Popes.—Seditions Of The City.—Political Heresy Of Arnold Of
     Brescia.—Restoration Of The Republic.—The Senators.—Pride Of The
     Romans.—Their Wars.—They Are Deprived Of The Election And Presence
     Of The Popes, Who Retire To Avignon.—The Jubilee.—Noble Families
     Of Rome.— Feud Of The Colonna And Ursini.

      In the first ages of the decline and fall of the Roman empire,
      our eye is invariably fixed on the royal city, which had given
      laws to the fairest portion of the globe. We contemplate her
      fortunes, at first with admiration, at length with pity, always
      with attention, and when that attention is diverted from the
      capital to the provinces, they are considered as so many branches
      which have been successively severed from the Imperial trunk. The
      foundation of a second Rome, on the shores of the Bosphorus, has
      compelled the historian to follow the successors of Constantine;
      and our curiosity has been tempted to visit the most remote
      countries of Europe and Asia, to explore the causes and the
      authors of the long decay of the Byzantine monarchy. By the
      conquest of Justinian, we have been recalled to the banks of the
      Tyber, to the deliverance of the ancient metropolis; but that
      deliverance was a change, or perhaps an aggravation, of
      servitude. Rome had been already stripped of her trophies, her
      gods, and her Cæsars; nor was the Gothic dominion more inglorious
      and oppressive than the tyranny of the Greeks. In the eighth
      century of the Christian æra, a religious quarrel, the worship of
      images, provoked the Romans to assert their independence: their
      bishop became the temporal, as well as the spiritual, father of a
      free people; and of the Western empire, which was restored by
      Charlemagne, the title and image still decorate the singular
      constitution of modern Germany. The name of Rome must yet command
      our involuntary respect: the climate (whatsoever may be its
      influence) was no longer the same: 1 the purity of blood had been
      contaminated through a thousand channels; but the venerable
      aspect of her ruins, and the memory of past greatness, rekindled
      a spark of the national character. The darkness of the middle
      ages exhibits some scenes not unworthy of our notice. Nor shall I
      dismiss the present work till I have reviewed the state and
      revolutions of the Roman City, which acquiesced under the
      absolute dominion of the popes, about the same time that
      Constantinople was enslaved by the Turkish arms.

      1 (return) [ The abbé Dubos, who, with less genius than his
      successor Montesquieu, has asserted and magnified the influence
      of climate, objects to himself the degeneracy of the Romans and
      Batavians. To the first of these examples he replies, 1. That the
      change is less real than apparent, and that the modern Romans
      prudently conceal in themselves the virtues of their ancestors.
      2. That the air, the soil, and the climate of Rome have suffered
      a great and visible alteration, (Réflexions sur la Poësie et sur
      la Peinture, part ii. sect. 16.) * Note: This question is
      discussed at considerable length in Dr. Arnold’s History of Rome,
      ch. xxiii. See likewise Bunsen’s Dissertation on the Aria Cattiva
      Roms Beschreibung, pp. 82, 108.—M.]

      In the beginning of the twelfth century, 2 the æra of the first
      crusade, Rome was revered by the Latins, as the metropolis of the
      world, as the throne of the pope and the emperor, who, from the
      eternal city, derived their title, their honors, and the right or
      exercise of temporal dominion. After so long an interruption, it
      may not be useless to repeat that the successors of Charlemagne
      and the Othos were chosen beyond the Rhine in a national diet;
      but that these princes were content with the humble names of
      kings of Germany and Italy, till they had passed the Alps and the
      Apennine, to seek their Imperial crown on the banks of the Tyber.
      3 At some distance from the city, their approach was saluted by a
      long procession of the clergy and people with palms and crosses;
      and the terrific emblems of wolves and lions, of dragons and
      eagles, that floated in the military banners, represented the
      departed legions and cohorts of the republic. The royal path to
      maintain the liberties of Rome was thrice reiterated, at the
      bridge, the gate, and on the stairs of the Vatican; and the
      distribution of a customary donative feebly imitated the
      magnificence of the first Cæsars. In the church of St. Peter, the
      coronation was performed by his successor: the voice of God was
      confounded with that of the people; and the public consent was
      declared in the acclamations of “Long life and victory to our
      lord the pope! long life and victory to our lord the emperor!
      long life and victory to the Roman and Teutonic armies!” 4 The
      names of Cæsar and Augustus, the laws of Constantine and
      Justinian, the example of Charlemagne and Otho, established the
      supreme dominion of the emperors: their title and image was
      engraved on the papal coins; 5 and their jurisdiction was marked
      by the sword of justice, which they delivered to the præfect of
      the city. But every Roman prejudice was awakened by the name, the
      language, and the manners, of a Barbarian lord. The Cæsars of
      Saxony or Franconia were the chiefs of a feudal aristocracy; nor
      could they exercise the discipline of civil and military power,
      which alone secures the obedience of a distant people, impatient
      of servitude, though perhaps incapable of freedom. Once, and once
      only, in his life, each emperor, with an army of Teutonic
      vassals, descended from the Alps. I have described the peaceful
      order of his entry and coronation; but that order was commonly
      disturbed by the clamor and sedition of the Romans, who
      encountered their sovereign as a foreign invader: his departure
      was always speedy, and often shameful; and, in the absence of a
      long reign, his authority was insulted, and his name was
      forgotten. The progress of independence in Germany and Italy
      undermined the foundations of the Imperial sovereignty, and the
      triumph of the popes was the deliverance of Rome.

      2 (return) [ The reader has been so long absent from Rome, that I
      would advise him to recollect or review the xlixth chapter of
      this History.]

      3 (return) [ The coronation of the German emperors at Rome, more
      especially in the xith century, is best represented from the
      original monuments by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiæ Medii Ævi,
      tom. i. dissertat. ii. p. 99, &c.) and Cenni, (Monument. Domin.
      Pontif. tom. ii. diss. vi. p. 261,) the latter of whom I only
      know from the copious extract of Schmidt, (Hist. des Allemands
      tom. iii. p. 255—266.)]

      4 (return) [ Exercitui Romano et Teutonico! The latter was both
      seen and felt; but the former was no more than magni nominis
      umbra.]

      5 (return) [ Muratori has given the series of the papal coins,
      (Antiquitat. tom. ii. diss. xxvii. p. 548—554.) He finds only two
      more early than the year 800: fifty are still extant from Leo
      III. to Leo IX., with the addition of the reigning emperor none
      remain of Gregory VII. or Urban II.; but in those of Paschal II.
      he seems to have renounced this badge of dependence.]

      Of her two sovereigns, the emperor had precariously reigned by
      the right of conquest; but the authority of the pope was founded
      on the soft, though more solid, basis of opinion and habit. The
      removal of a foreign influence restored and endeared the shepherd
      to his flock. Instead of the arbitrary or venal nomination of a
      German court, the vicar of Christ was freely chosen by the
      college of cardinals, most of whom were either natives or
      inhabitants of the city. The applause of the magistrates and
      people confirmed his election, and the ecclesiastical power that
      was obeyed in Sweden and Britain had been ultimately derived from
      the suffrage of the Romans. The same suffrage gave a prince, as
      well as a pontiff, to the capital. It was universally believed,
      that Constantine had invested the popes with the temporal
      dominion of Rome; and the boldest civilians, the most profane
      skeptics, were satisfied with disputing the right of the emperor
      and the validity of his gift. The truth of the fact, the
      authenticity of his donation, was deeply rooted in the ignorance
      and tradition of four centuries; and the fabulous origin was lost
      in the real and permanent effects. The name of _Dominus_ or Lord
      was inscribed on the coin of the bishops: their title was
      acknowledged by acclamations and oaths of allegiance, and with
      the free, or reluctant, consent of the German Cæsars, they had
      long exercised a supreme or subordinate jurisdiction over the
      city and patrimony of St. Peter. The reign of the popes, which
      gratified the prejudices, was not incompatible with the
      liberties, of Rome; and a more critical inquiry would have
      revealed a still nobler source of their power; the gratitude of a
      nation, whom they had rescued from the heresy and oppression of
      the Greek tyrant. In an age of superstition, it should seem that
      the union of the royal and sacerdotal characters would mutually
      fortify each other; and that the keys of Paradise would be the
      surest pledge of earthly obedience. The sanctity of the office
      might indeed be degraded by the personal vices of the man. But
      the scandals of the tenth century were obliterated by the austere
      and more dangerous virtues of Gregory the Seventh and his
      successors; and in the ambitious contests which they maintained
      for the rights of the church, their sufferings or their success
      must equally tend to increase the popular veneration. They
      sometimes wandered in poverty and exile, the victims of
      persecution; and the apostolic zeal with which they offered
      themselves to martyrdom must engage the favor and sympathy of
      every Catholic breast. And sometimes, thundering from the
      Vatican, they created, judged, and deposed the kings of the
      world; nor could the proudest Roman be disgraced by submitting to
      a priest, whose feet were kissed, and whose stirrup was held, by
      the successors of Charlemagne. 6 Even the temporal interest of
      the city should have protected in peace and honor the residence
      of the popes; from whence a vain and lazy people derived the
      greatest part of their subsistence and riches. The fixed revenue
      of the popes was probably impaired; many of the old patrimonial
      estates, both in Italy and the provinces, had been invaded by
      sacrilegious hands; nor could the loss be compensated by the
      claim, rather than the possession, of the more ample gifts of
      Pepin and his descendants. But the Vatican and Capitol were
      nourished by the incessant and increasing swarms of pilgrims and
      suppliants: the pale of Christianity was enlarged, and the pope
      and cardinals were overwhelmed by the judgment of ecclesiastical
      and secular causes. A new jurisprudence had established in the
      Latin church the right and practice of appeals; 7 and from the
      North and West the bishops and abbots were invited or summoned to
      solicit, to complain, to accuse, or to justify, before the
      threshold of the apostles. A rare prodigy is once recorded, that
      two horses, belonging to the archbishops of Mentz and Cologne,
      repassed the Alps, yet laden with gold and silver: 8 but it was
      soon understood, that the success, both of the pilgrims and
      clients, depended much less on the justice of their cause than on
      the value of their offering. The wealth and piety of these
      strangers were ostentatiously displayed; and their expenses,
      sacred or profane, circulated in various channels for the
      emolument of the Romans.

      6 (return) [ See Ducange, Gloss. mediæ et infimæ Latinitat. tom.
      vi. p. 364, 365, Staffa. This homage was paid by kings to
      archbishops, and by vassals to their lords, (Schmidt, tom. iii.
      p. 262;) and it was the nicest policy of Rome to confound the
      marks of filial and of feudal subjection.]

      7 (return) [ The appeals from all the churches to the Roman
      pontiff are deplored by the zeal of St. Bernard (de
      Consideratione, l. iii. tom. ii. p. 431—442, edit. Mabillon,
      Venet. 1750) and the judgment of Fleury, (Discours sur l’Hist.
      Ecclésiastique, iv. et vii.) But the saint, who believed in the
      false decretals condemns only the abuse of these appeals; the
      more enlightened historian investigates the origin, and rejects
      the principles, of this new jurisprudence.]

      8 (return) [ Germanici.... summarii non levatis sarcinis onusti
      nihilominus repatriant inviti. Nova res! quando hactenus aurum
      Roma refudit? Et nunc Romanorum consilio id usurpatum non
      credimus, (Bernard, de Consideratione, l. iii. c. 3, p. 437.) The
      first words of the passage are obscure, and probably corrupt.]

      Such powerful motives should have firmly attached the voluntary
      and pious obedience of the Roman people to their spiritual and
      temporal father. But the operation of prejudice and interest is
      often disturbed by the sallies of ungovernable passion. The
      Indian who fells the tree, that he may gather the fruit, 9 and
      the Arab who plunders the caravans of commerce, are actuated by
      the same impulse of savage nature, which overlooks the future in
      the present, and relinquishes for momentary rapine the long and
      secure possession of the most important blessings. And it was
      thus, that the shrine of St. Peter was profaned by the
      thoughtless Romans; who pillaged the offerings, and wounded the
      pilgrims, without computing the number and value of similar
      visits, which they prevented by their inhospitable sacrilege.
      Even the influence of superstition is fluctuating and precarious;
      and the slave, whose reason is subdued, will often be delivered
      by his avarice or pride. A credulous devotion for the fables and
      oracles of the priesthood most powerfully acts on the mind of a
      Barbarian; yet such a mind is the least capable of preferring
      imagination to sense, of sacrificing to a distant motive, to an
      invisible, perhaps an ideal, object, the appetites and interests
      of the present world. In the vigor of health and youth, his
      practice will perpetually contradict his belief; till the
      pressure of age, or sickness, or calamity, awakens his terrors,
      and compels him to satisfy the double debt of piety and remorse.
      I have already observed, that the modern times of religious
      indifference are the most favorable to the peace and security of
      the clergy. Under the reign of superstition, they had much to
      hope from the ignorance, and much to fear from the violence, of
      mankind. The wealth, whose constant increase must have rendered
      them the sole proprietors of the earth, was alternately bestowed
      by the repentant father and plundered by the rapacious son: their
      persons were adored or violated; and the same idol, by the hands
      of the same votaries, was placed on the altar, or trampled in the
      dust. In the feudal system of Europe, arms were the title of
      distinction and the measure of allegiance; and amidst their
      tumult, the still voice of law and reason was seldom heard or
      obeyed. The turbulent Romans disdained the yoke, and insulted the
      impotence, of their bishop: 10 nor would his education or
      character allow him to exercise, with decency or effect, the
      power of the sword. The motives of his election and the frailties
      of his life were exposed to their familiar observation; and
      proximity must diminish the reverence which his name and his
      decrees impressed on a barbarous world. This difference has not
      escaped the notice of our philosophic historian: “Though the name
      and authority of the court of Rome were so terrible in the remote
      countries of Europe, which were sunk in profound ignorance, and
      were entirely unacquainted with its character and conduct, the
      pope was so little revered at home, that his inveterate enemies
      surrounded the gates of Rome itself, and even controlled his
      government in that city; and the ambassadors, who, from a distant
      extremity of Europe, carried to him the humble, or rather abject,
      submissions of the greatest potentate of the age, found the
      utmost difficulty to make their way to him, and to throw
      themselves at his feet.” 11

      9 (return) [ Quand les sauvages de la Louisiane veulent avoir du
      fruit, ils coupent l’arbre au pied et cueillent le fruit. Voila
      le gouvernement despotique, (Esprit des Loix, l. v. c. 13;) and
      passion and ignorance are always despotic.]

      10 (return) [ In a free conversation with his countryman Adrian
      IV., John of Salisbury accuses the avarice of the pope and
      clergy: Provinciarum diripiunt spolia, ac si thesauros Crsi
      studeant reparare. Sed recte cum eis agit Altissimus, quoniam et
      ipsi aliis et sæpe vilissimis hominibus dati sunt in direptionem,
      (de Nugis Curialium, l. vi. c. 24, p. 387.) In the next page, he
      blames the rashness and infidelity of the Romans, whom their
      bishops vainly strove to conciliate by gifts, instead of virtues.
      It is pity that this miscellaneous writer has not given us less
      morality and erudition, and more pictures of himself and the
      times.]

      11 (return) [ Hume’s History of England, vol. i. p. 419. The same
      writer has given us, from Fitz-Stephen, a singular act of cruelty
      perpetrated on the clergy by Geoffrey, the father of Henry II.
      “When he was master of Normandy, the chapter of Seez presumed,
      without his consent, to proceed to the election of a bishop: upon
      which he ordered all of them, with the bishop elect, to be
      castrated, and made all their testicles be brought him in a
      platter.” Of the pain and danger they might justly complain; yet
      since they had vowed chastity he deprived them of a superfluous
      treasure.]

      Since the primitive times, the wealth of the popes was exposed to
      envy, their powers to opposition, and their persons to violence.
      But the long hostility of the mitre and the crown increased the
      numbers, and inflamed the passions, of their enemies. The deadly
      factions of the Guelphs and Ghibelines, so fatal to Italy, could
      never be embraced with truth or constancy by the Romans, the
      subjects and adversaries both of the bishop and emperor; but
      their support was solicited by both parties, and they alternately
      displayed in their banners the keys of St. Peter and the German
      eagle. Gregory the Seventh, who may be adored or detested as the
      founder of the papal monarchy, was driven from Rome, and died in
      exile at Salerno. Six-and-thirty of his successors, 12 till their
      retreat to Avignon, maintained an unequal contest with the
      Romans: their age and dignity were often violated; and the
      churches, in the solemn rites of religion, were polluted with
      sedition and murder. A repetition 13 of such capricious
      brutality, without connection or design, would be tedious and
      disgusting; and I shall content myself with some events of the
      twelfth century, which represent the state of the popes and the
      city. On Holy Thursday, while Paschal officiated before the
      altar, he was interrupted by the clamors of the multitude, who
      imperiously demanded the confirmation of a favorite magistrate.
      His silence exasperated their fury; his pious refusal to mingle
      the affairs of earth and heaven was encountered with menaces, and
      oaths, that he should be the cause and the witness of the public
      ruin. During the festival of Easter, while the bishop and the
      clergy, barefooted and in procession, visited the tombs of the
      martyrs, they were twice assaulted, at the bridge of St. Angelo,
      and before the Capitol, with volleys of stones and darts. The
      houses of his adherents were levelled with the ground: Paschal
      escaped with difficulty and danger; he levied an army in the
      patrimony of St. Peter; and his last days were embittered by
      suffering and inflicting the calamities of civil war. The scenes
      that followed the election of his successor Gelasius the Second
      were still more scandalous to the church and city. Cencio
      Frangipani, 14 a potent and factious baron, burst into the
      assembly furious and in arms: the cardinals were stripped,
      beaten, and trampled under foot; and he seized, without pity or
      respect, the vicar of Christ by the throat. Gelasius was dragged
      by the hair along the ground, buffeted with blows, wounded with
      spurs, and bound with an iron chain in the house of his brutal
      tyrant. An insurrection of the people delivered their bishop: the
      rival families opposed the violence of the Frangipani; and
      Cencio, who sued for pardon, repented of the failure, rather than
      of the guilt, of his enterprise. Not many days had elapsed, when
      the pope was again assaulted at the altar. While his friends and
      enemies were engaged in a bloody contest, he escaped in his
      sacerdotal garments. In this unworthy flight, which excited the
      compassion of the Roman matrons, his attendants were scattered or
      unhorsed; and, in the fields behind the church of St. Peter, his
      successor was found alone and half dead with fear and fatigue.
      Shaking the dust from his feet, the _apostle_ withdrew from a
      city in which his dignity was insulted and his person was
      endangered; and the vanity of sacerdotal ambition is revealed in
      the involuntary confession, that one emperor was more tolerable
      than twenty. 15 These examples might suffice; but I cannot forget
      the sufferings of two pontiffs of the same age, the second and
      third of the name of Lucius. The former, as he ascended in battle
      array to assault the Capitol, was struck on the temple by a
      stone, and expired in a few days. The latter was severely wounded
      in the person of his servants. In a civil commotion, several of
      his priests had been made prisoners; and the inhuman Romans,
      reserving one as a guide for his brethren, put out their eyes,
      crowned them with ludicrous mitres, mounted them on asses with
      their faces towards the tail, and extorted an oath, that, in this
      wretched condition, they should offer themselves as a lesson to
      the head of the church. Hope or fear, lassitude or remorse, the
      characters of the men, and the circumstances of the times, might
      sometimes obtain an interval of peace and obedience; and the pope
      was restored with joyful acclamations to the Lateran or Vatican,
      from whence he had been driven with threats and violence. But the
      root of mischief was deep and perennial; and a momentary calm was
      preceded and followed by such tempests as had almost sunk the
      bark of St. Peter. Rome continually presented the aspect of war
      and discord: the churches and palaces were fortified and
      assaulted by the factions and families; and, after giving peace
      to Europe, Calistus the Second alone had resolution and power to
      prohibit the use of private arms in the metropolis. Among the
      nations who revered the apostolic throne, the tumults of Rome
      provoked a general indignation; and in a letter to his disciple
      Eugenius the Third, St. Bernard, with the sharpness of his wit
      and zeal, has stigmatized the vices of the rebellious people. 16
      “Who is ignorant,” says the monk of Clairvaux, “of the vanity and
      arrogance of the Romans? a nation nursed in sedition,
      untractable, and scorning to obey, unless they are too feeble to
      resist. When they promise to serve, they aspire to reign; if they
      swear allegiance, they watch the opportunity of revolt; yet they
      vent their discontent in loud clamors, if your doors, or your
      counsels, are shut against them. Dexterous in mischief, they have
      never learned the science of doing good. Odious to earth and
      heaven, impious to God, seditious among themselves, jealous of
      their neighbors, inhuman to strangers, they love no one, by no
      one are they beloved; and while they wish to inspire fear, they
      live in base and continual apprehension. They will not submit;
      they know not how to govern faithless to their superiors,
      intolerable to their equals, ungrateful to their benefactors, and
      alike impudent in their demands and their refusals. Lofty in
      promise, poor in execution; adulation and calumny, perfidy and
      treason, are the familiar arts of their policy.” Surely this dark
      portrait is not colored by the pencil of Christian charity; 17
      yet the features, however harsh or ugly, express a lively
      resemblance of the Roman of the twelfth century. 18

      12 (return) [ From Leo IX. and Gregory VII. an authentic and
      contemporary series of the lives of the popes by the cardinal of
      Arragon, Pandulphus Pisanus, Bernard Guido, &c., is inserted in
      the Italian Historians of Muratori, (tom. iii. P. i. p. 277—685,)
      and has been always before my eyes.]

      13 (return) [ The dates of years in the contents may throughout
      his this chapter be understood as tacit references to the Annals
      of Muratori, my ordinary and excellent guide. He uses, and indeed
      quotes, with the freedom of a master, his great collection of the
      Italian Historians, in xxviii. volumes; and as that treasure is
      in my library, I have thought it an amusement, if not a duty, to
      consult the originals.]

      14 (return) [ I cannot refrain from transcribing the high-colored
      words of Pandulphus Pisanus, (p. 384.) Hoc audiens inimicus pacis
      atque turbator jam fatus Centius Frajapane, more draconis
      immanissimi sibilans, et ab imis pectoribus trahens longa
      suspiria, accinctus retro gladio sine more cucurrit, valvas ac
      fores confregit. Ecclesiam furibundus introiit, inde custode
      remoto papam per gulam accepit, distraxit pugnis calcibusque
      percussit, et tanquam brutum animal intra limen ecclesiæ acriter
      calcaribus cruentavit; et latro tantum dominum per capillos et
      brachia, Jesû bono interim dormiente, detraxit, ad domum usque
      deduxit, inibi catenavit et inclusit.]

      15 (return) [ Ego coram Deo et Ecclesiâ dico, si unquam possibile
      esset, mallem unum imperatorem quam tot dominos, (Vit. Gelas. II.
      p. 398.)]

      16 (return) [ Quid tam notum seculis quam protervia et
      cervicositas Romanorum? Gens insueta paci, tumultui assueta, gens
      immitis et intractabilis usque adhuc, subdi nescia, nisi cum non
      valet resistere, (de Considerat. l. iv. c. 2, p. 441.) The saint
      takes breath, and then begins again: Hi, invisi terræ et clo,
      utrique injecere manus, &c., (p. 443.)]

      17 (return) [ As a Roman citizen, Petrarch takes leave to
      observe, that Bernard, though a saint, was a man; that he might
      be provoked by resentment, and possibly repent of his hasty
      passion, &c. (Mémoires sur la Vie de Pétrarque, tom. i. p. 330.)]

      18 (return) [ Baronius, in his index to the xiith volume of his
      Annals, has found a fair and easy excuse. He makes two heads, of
      Romani _Catholici_ and _Schismatici_: to the former he applies
      all the good, to the latter all the evil, that is told of the
      city.]

      The Jews had rejected the Christ when he appeared among them in a
      plebeian character; and the Romans might plead their ignorance of
      his vicar when he assumed the pomp and pride of a temporal
      sovereign. In the busy age of the crusades, some sparks of
      curiosity and reason were rekindled in the Western world: the
      heresy of Bulgaria, the Paulician sect, was successfully
      transplanted into the soil of Italy and France; the Gnostic
      visions were mingled with the simplicity of the gospel; and the
      enemies of the clergy reconciled their passions with their
      conscience, the desire of freedom with the profession of piety.
      19 The trumpet of Roman liberty was first sounded by Arnold of
      Brescia, 20 whose promotion in the church was confined to the
      lowest rank, and who wore the monastic habit rather as a garb of
      poverty than as a uniform of obedience. His adversaries could not
      deny the wit and eloquence which they severely felt; they confess
      with reluctance the specious purity of his morals; and his errors
      were recommended to the public by a mixture of important and
      beneficial truths. In his theological studies, he had been the
      disciple of the famous and unfortunate Abelard, 21 who was
      likewise involved in the suspicion of heresy: but the lover of
      Eloisa was of a soft and flexible nature; and his ecclesiastic
      judges were edified and disarmed by the humility of his
      repentance. From this master, Arnold most probably imbibed some
      metaphysical definitions of the Trinity, repugnant to the taste
      of the times: his ideas of baptism and the eucharist are loosely
      censured; but a political heresy was the source of his fame and
      misfortunes. He presumed to quote the declaration of Christ, that
      his kingdom is not of this world: he boldly maintained, that the
      sword and the sceptre were intrusted to the civil magistrate;
      that temporal honors and possessions were lawfully vested in
      secular persons; that the abbots, the bishops, and the pope
      himself, must renounce either their state or their salvation; and
      that after the loss of their revenues, the voluntary tithes and
      oblations of the faithful would suffice, not indeed for luxury
      and avarice, but for a frugal life in the exercise of spiritual
      labors. During a short time, the preacher was revered as a
      patriot; and the discontent, or revolt, of Brescia against her
      bishop, was the first fruits of his dangerous lessons. But the
      favor of the people is less permanent than the resentment of the
      priest; and after the heresy of Arnold had been condemned by
      Innocent the Second, 22 in the general council of the Lateran,
      the magistrates themselves were urged by prejudice and fear to
      execute the sentence of the church. Italy could no longer afford
      a refuge; and the disciple of Abelard escaped beyond the Alps,
      till he found a safe and hospitable shelter in Zurich, now the
      first of the Swiss cantons. From a Roman station, 23 a royal
      villa, a chapter of noble virgins, Zurich had gradually increased
      to a free and flourishing city; where the appeals of the Milanese
      were sometimes tried by the Imperial commissaries. 24 In an age
      less ripe for reformation, the precursor of Zuinglius was heard
      with applause: a brave and simple people imbibed, and long
      retained, the color of his opinions; and his art, or merit,
      seduced the bishop of Constance, and even the pope’s legate, who
      forgot, for his sake, the interest of their master and their
      order. Their tardy zeal was quickened by the fierce exhortations
      of St. Bernard; 25 and the enemy of the church was driven by
      persecution to the desperate measures of erecting his standard in
      Rome itself, in the face of the successor of St. Peter.

      19 (return) [ The heresies of the xiith century may be found in
      Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Ecclés. p. 419—427,) who entertains a
      favorable opinion of Arnold of Brescia. In the vth volume I have
      described the sect of the Paulicians, and followed their
      migration from Armenia to Thrace and Bulgaria, Italy and France.]

      20 (return) [ The original pictures of Arnold of Brescia are
      drawn by Otho, bishop of Frisingen, (Chron. l. vii. c. 31, de
      Gestis Frederici I. l. i. c. 27, l. ii. c. 21,) and in the iiid
      book of the Ligurinus, a poem of Gunthur, who flourished A.D.
      1200, in the monastery of Paris near Basil, (Fabric. Bibliot.
      Latin. Med. et Infimæ Ætatis, tom. iii. p. 174, 175.) The long
      passage that relates to Arnold is produced by Guilliman, (de
      Rebus Helveticis, l. iii. c. 5, p. 108.) * Note: Compare Franke,
      Arnold von Brescia und seine Zeit. Zurich, 1828.—M.]

      21 (return) [ The wicked wit of Bayle was amused in composing,
      with much levity and learning, the articles of Abelard, Foulkes,
      Heloise, in his Dictionnaire Critique. The dispute of Abelard and
      St. Bernard, of scholastic and positive divinity, is well
      understood by Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Ecclés. p. 412—415.)]

      22 (return) [

               ——Damnatus ab illo Præsule, qui numeros vetitum
               contingere nostros Nomen ad _innocuâ_ ducit laudabile
               vitâ.

      We may applaud the dexterity and correctness of Ligurinus, who
      turns the unpoetical name of Innocent II. into a compliment.]

      23 (return) [ A Roman inscription of Statio Turicensis has been
      found at Zurich, (D’Anville, Notice de l’ancienne Gaul, p.
      642—644;) but it is without sufficient warrant, that the city and
      canton have usurped, and even monopolized, the names of Tigurum
      and Pagus Tigurinus.]

      24 (return) [ Guilliman (de Rebus Helveticis, l. iii. c. 5, p.
      106) recapitulates the donation (A.D. 833) of the emperor Lewis
      the Pious to his daughter the abbess Hildegardis. Curtim nostram
      Turegum in ducatû Alamanniæ in pago Durgaugensi, with villages,
      woods, meadows, waters, slaves, churches, &c.; a noble gift.
      Charles the Bald gave the jus monetæ, the city was walled under
      Otho I., and the line of the bishop of Frisingen, “Nobile Turegum
      multarum copia rerum,” is repeated with pleasure by the
      antiquaries of Zurich.]

      25 (return) [ Bernard, Epistol. cxcv. tom. i. p. 187—190. Amidst
      his invectives he drops a precious acknowledgment, qui, utinam
      quam sanæ esset doctrinæ quam districtæ est vitæ. He owns that
      Arnold would be a valuable acquisition for the church.]




      Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.—Part II.

      Yet the courage of Arnold was not devoid of discretion: he was
      protected, and had perhaps been invited, by the nobles and
      people; and in the service of freedom, his eloquence thundered
      over the seven hills. Blending in the same discourse the texts of
      Livy and St. Paul, uniting the motives of gospel, and of classic,
      enthusiasm, he admonished the Romans, how strangely their
      patience and the vices of the clergy had degenerated from the
      primitive times of the church and the city. He exhorted them to
      assert the inalienable rights of men and Christians; to restore
      the laws and magistrates of the republic; to respect the _name_
      of the emperor; but to confine their shepherd to the spiritual
      government of his flock. 26 Nor could his spiritual government
      escape the censure and control of the reformer; and the inferior
      clergy were taught by his lessons to resist the cardinals, who
      had usurped a despotic command over the twenty-eight regions or
      parishes of Rome. 27 The revolution was not accomplished without
      rapine and violence, the diffusion of blood and the demolition of
      houses: the victorious faction was enriched with the spoils of
      the clergy and the adverse nobles. Arnold of Brescia enjoyed, or
      deplored, the effects of his mission: his reign continued above
      ten years, while two popes, Innocent the Second and Anastasius
      the Fourth, either trembled in the Vatican, or wandered as exiles
      in the adjacent cities. They were succeeded by a more vigorous
      and fortunate pontiff. Adrian the Fourth, 28 the only Englishman
      who has ascended the throne of St. Peter; and whose merit emerged
      from the mean condition of a monk, and almost a beggar, in the
      monastery of St. Albans. On the first provocation, of a cardinal
      killed or wounded in the streets, he cast an interdict on the
      guilty people; and from Christmas to Easter, Rome was deprived of
      the real or imaginary comforts of religious worship. The Romans
      had despised their temporal prince: they submitted with grief and
      terror to the censures of their spiritual father: their guilt was
      expiated by penance, and the banishment of the seditious preacher
      was the price of their absolution. But the revenge of Adrian was
      yet unsatisfied, and the approaching coronation of Frederic
      Barbarossa was fatal to the bold reformer, who had offended,
      though not in an equal degree, the heads of the church and state.
      In their interview at Viterbo, the pope represented to the
      emperor the furious, ungovernable spirit of the Romans; the
      insults, the injuries, the fears, to which his person and his
      clergy were continually exposed; and the pernicious tendency of
      the heresy of Arnold, which must subvert the principles of civil,
      as well as ecclesiastical, subordination. Frederic was convinced
      by these arguments, or tempted by the desire of the Imperial
      crown: in the balance of ambition, the innocence or life of an
      individual is of small account; and their common enemy was
      sacrificed to a moment of political concord. After his retreat
      from Rome, Arnold had been protected by the viscounts of
      Campania, from whom he was extorted by the power of Cæsar: the
      præfect of the city pronounced his sentence: the martyr of
      freedom was burned alive in the presence of a careless and
      ungrateful people; and his ashes were cast into the Tyber, lest
      the heretics should collect and worship the relics of their
      master. 29 The clergy triumphed in his death: with his ashes, his
      sect was dispersed; his memory still lived in the minds of the
      Romans. From his school they had probably derived a new article
      of faith, that the metropolis of the Catholic church is exempt
      from the penalties of excommunication and interdict. Their
      bishops might argue, that the supreme jurisdiction, which they
      exercised over kings and nations, more especially embraced the
      city and diocese of the prince of the apostles. But they preached
      to the winds, and the same principle that weakened the effect,
      must temper the abuse, of the thunders of the Vatican.

      26 (return) [ He advised the Romans,

               Consiliis armisque sua moderamina summa Arbitrio
               tractare suo: nil juris in hâc re Pontifici summo,
               modicum concedere regi Suadebat populo. Sic læsâ stultus
               utrâque Majestate, reum geminæ se fecerat aulæ.

      Nor is the poetry of Gunther different from the prose of Otho.]

      27 (return) [ See Baronius (A.D. 1148, No. 38, 39) from the
      Vatican MSS. He loudly condemns Arnold (A.D. 1141, No. 3) as the
      father of the political heretics, whose influence then hurt him
      in France.]

      28 (return) [ The English reader may consult the Biographia
      Britannica, Adrian IV.; but our own writers have added nothing to
      the fame or merits of their countrymen.]

      29 (return) [ Besides the historian and poet already quoted, the
      last adventures of Arnold are related by the biographer of Adrian
      IV. (Muratori. Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. P. i. p. 441, 442.)]

      The love of ancient freedom has encouraged a belief that as early
      as the tenth century, in their first struggles against the Saxon
      Othos, the commonwealth was vindicated and restored by the senate
      and people of Rome; that two consuls were annually elected among
      the nobles, and that ten or twelve plebeian magistrates revived
      the name and office of the tribunes of the commons. 30 But this
      venerable structure disappears before the light of criticism. In
      the darkness of the middle ages, the appellations of senators, of
      consuls, of the sons of consuls, may sometimes be discovered. 31
      They were bestowed by the emperors, or assumed by the most
      powerful citizens, to denote their rank, their honors, 32 and
      perhaps the claim of a pure and patrician descent: but they float
      on the surface, without a series or a substance, the titles of
      men, not the orders of government; 33 and it is only from the
      year of Christ one thousand one hundred and forty-four that the
      establishment of the senate is dated, as a glorious æra, in the
      acts of the city. A new constitution was hastily framed by
      private ambition or popular enthusiasm; nor could Rome, in the
      twelfth century, produce an antiquary to explain, or a legislator
      to restore, the harmony and proportions of the ancient model. The
      assembly of a free, of an armed, people, will ever speak in loud
      and weighty acclamations. But the regular distribution of the
      thirty-five tribes, the nice balance of the wealth and numbers of
      the centuries, the debates of the adverse orators, and the slow
      operations of votes and ballots, could not easily be adapted by a
      blind multitude, ignorant of the arts, and insensible of the
      benefits, of legal government. It was proposed by Arnold to
      revive and discriminate the equestrian order; but what could be
      the motive or measure of such distinction? 34 The pecuniary
      qualification of the knights must have been reduced to the
      poverty of the times: those times no longer required their civil
      functions of judges and farmers of the revenue; and their
      primitive duty, their military service on horseback, was more
      nobly supplied by feudal tenures and the spirit of chivalry. The
      jurisprudence of the republic was useless and unknown: the
      nations and families of Italy who lived under the Roman and
      Barbaric laws were insensibly mingled in a common mass; and some
      faint tradition, some imperfect fragments, preserved the memory
      of the Code and Pandects of Justinian. With their liberty the
      Romans might doubtless have restored the appellation and office
      of consuls; had they not disdained a title so promiscuously
      adopted in the Italian cities, that it has finally settled on the
      humble station of the agents of commerce in a foreign land. But
      the rights of the tribunes, the formidable word that arrested the
      public counsels, suppose or must produce a legitimate democracy.
      The old patricians were the subjects, the modern barons the
      tyrants, of the state; nor would the enemies of peace and order,
      who insulted the vicar of Christ, have long respected the unarmed
      sanctity of a plebeian magistrate. 35

      30 (return) [ Ducange (Gloss. Latinitatis Mediæ et Infimæ Ætatis,
      Decarchones, tom. ii. p. 726) gives me a quotation from Blondus,
      (Decad. ii. l. ii.:) Duo consules ex nobilitate quotannis
      fiebant, qui ad vetustum consulum exemplar summærerum præessent.
      And in Sigonius (de Regno Italiæ, l. v. Opp. tom. ii. p. 400) I
      read of the consuls and tribunes of the xth century. Both
      Blondus, and even Sigonius, too freely copied the classic method
      of supplying from reason or fancy the deficiency of records.]

      31 (return) [ In the panegyric of Berengarius (Muratori, Script.
      Rer. Ital. tom. ii. P. i. p. 408) a Roman is mentioned as
      consulis natus in the beginning of the xth century. Muratori
      (Dissert. v.) discovers, in the years 952 and 956, Gratianus in
      Dei nomine consul et dux, Georgius consul et dux; and in 1015,
      Romanus, brother of Gregory VIII., proudly, but vaguely, styles
      himself consul et dux et omnium Roma norum senator.]

      32 (return) [ As late as the xth century, the Greek emperors
      conferred on the dukes of Venice, Naples, Amalphi, &c., the title
      of upatoV or consuls, (see Chron. Sagornini, passim;) and the
      successors of Charlemagne would not abdicate any of their
      prerogative. But in general the names of _consul_ and _senator_,
      which may be found among the French and Germans, signify no more
      than count and lord, (_Signeur_, Ducange Glossar.) The monkish
      writers are often ambitious of fine classic words.]

      33 (return) [ The most constitutional form is a diploma of Otho
      III., (A. D 998,) consulibus senatûs populique Romani; but the
      act is probably spurious. At the coronation of Henry I., A.D.
      1014, the historian Dithmar (apud Muratori, Dissert. xxiii.)
      describes him, a senatoribus duodecim vallatum, quorum sex rasi
      barbâ, alii prolixâ, mystice incedebant cum baculis. The senate
      is mentioned in the panegyric of Berengarius, (p. 406.)]

      34 (return) [ In ancient Rome the equestrian order was not ranked
      with the senate and people as a third branch of the republic till
      the consulship of Cicero, who assumes the merit of the
      establishment, (Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 3. Beaufort,
      République Romaine, tom. i. p. 144—155.)]

      35 (return) [ The republican plan of Arnold of Brescia is thus
      stated by Gunther:—

               Quin etiam titulos urbis renovare vetustos; Nomine
               plebeio secernere nomen equestre, Jura tribunorum,
               sanctum reparare senatum, Et senio fessas mutasque
               reponere leges. Lapsa ruinosis, et adhuc pendentia muris
               Reddere primævo Capitolia prisca nitori.

      But of these reformations, some were no more than ideas, others
      no more than words.]

      In the revolution of the twelfth century, which gave a new
      existence and æra to Rome, we may observe the real and important
      events that marked or confirmed her political independence. I.
      The Capitoline hill, one of her seven eminences, 36 is about four
      hundred yards in length, and two hundred in breadth. A flight of
      a hundred steps led to the summit of the Tarpeian rock; and far
      steeper was the ascent before the declivities had been smoothed
      and the precipices filled by the ruins of fallen edifices. From
      the earliest ages, the Capitol had been used as a temple in
      peace, a fortress in war: after the loss of the city, it
      maintained a siege against the victorious Gauls, and the
      sanctuary of the empire was occupied, assaulted, and burnt, in
      the civil wars of Vitellius and Vespasian. 37 The temples of
      Jupiter and his kindred deities had crumbled into dust; their
      place was supplied by monasteries and houses; and the solid
      walls, the long and shelving porticos, were decayed or ruined by
      the lapse of time. It was the first act of the Romans, an act of
      freedom, to restore the strength, though not the beauty, of the
      Capitol; to fortify the seat of their arms and counsels; and as
      often as they ascended the hill, the coldest minds must have
      glowed with the remembrance of their ancestors. II. The first
      Cæsars had been invested with the exclusive coinage of the gold
      and silver; to the senate they abandoned the baser metal of
      bronze or copper: 38 the emblems and legends were inscribed on a
      more ample field by the genius of flattery; and the prince was
      relieved from the care of celebrating his own virtues. The
      successors of Diocletian despised even the flattery of the
      senate: their royal officers at Rome, and in the provinces,
      assumed the sole direction of the mint; and the same prerogative
      was inherited by the Gothic kings of Italy, and the long series
      of the Greek, the French, and the German dynasties. After an
      abdication of eight hundred years, the Roman senate asserted this
      honorable and lucrative privilege; which was tacitly renounced by
      the popes, from Paschal the Second to the establishment of their
      residence beyond the Alps. Some of these republican coins of the
      twelfth and thirteenth centuries are shown in the cabinets of the
      curious. On one of these, a gold medal, Christ is depictured
      holding in his left hand a book with this inscription: “The vow
      of the Roman senate and people: Rome the capital of the world;”
      on the reverse, St. Peter delivering a banner to a kneeling
      senator in his cap and gown, with the name and arms of his family
      impressed on a shield. 39 III. With the empire, the præfect of
      the city had declined to a municipal officer; yet he still
      exercised in the last appeal the civil and criminal jurisdiction;
      and a drawn sword, which he received from the successors of Otho,
      was the mode of his investiture and the emblem of his functions.
      40 The dignity was confined to the noble families of Rome: the
      choice of the people was ratified by the pope; but a triple oath
      of fidelity must have often embarrassed the præfect in the
      conflict of adverse duties. 41 A servant, in whom they possessed
      but a third share, was dismissed by the independent Romans: in
      his place they elected a patrician; but this title, which
      Charlemagne had not disdained, was too lofty for a citizen or a
      subject; and, after the first fervor of rebellion, they consented
      without reluctance to the restoration of the præfect. About fifty
      years after this event, Innocent the Third, the most ambitious,
      or at least the most fortunate, of the Pontiffs, delivered the
      Romans and himself from this badge of foreign dominion: he
      invested the præfect with a banner instead of a sword, and
      absolved him from all dependence of oaths or service to the
      German emperors. 42 In his place an ecclesiastic, a present or
      future cardinal, was named by the pope to the civil government of
      Rome; but his jurisdiction has been reduced to a narrow compass;
      and in the days of freedom, the right or exercise was derived
      from the senate and people. IV. After the revival of the senate,
      43 the conscript fathers (if I may use the expression) were
      invested with the legislative and executive power; but their
      views seldom reached beyond the present day; and that day was
      most frequently disturbed by violence and tumult. In its utmost
      plenitude, the order or assembly consisted of fifty-six senators,
      44 the most eminent of whom were distinguished by the title of
      counsellors: they were nominated, perhaps annually, by the
      people; and a previous choice of their electors, ten persons in
      each region, or parish, might afford a basis for a free and
      permanent constitution. The popes, who in this tempest submitted
      rather to bend than to break, confirmed by treaty the
      establishment and privileges of the senate, and expected from
      time, peace, and religion, the restoration of their government.
      The motives of public and private interest might sometimes draw
      from the Romans an occasional and temporary sacrifice of their
      claims; and they renewed their oath of allegiance to the
      successor of St. Peter and Constantine, the lawful head of the
      church and the republic. 45

      36 (return) [ After many disputes among the antiquaries of Rome,
      it seems determined, that the summit of the Capitoline hill next
      the river is strictly the Mons Tarpeius, the Arx; and that on the
      other summit, the church and convent of Araceli, the barefoot
      friars of St. Francis occupy the temple of Jupiter, (Nardini,
      Roma Antica, l. v. c. 11—16. * Note: The authority of Nardini is
      now vigorously impugned, and the question of the Arx and the
      Temple of Jupiter revived, with new arguments by Niebuhr and his
      accomplished follower, M. Bunsen. Roms Beschreibung, vol. iii. p.
      12, et seqq.—M.]

      37 (return) [ Tacit. Hist. iii. 69, 70.]

      38 (return) [ This partition of the noble and baser metals
      between the emperor and senate must, however, be adopted, not as
      a positive fact, but as the probable opinion of the best
      antiquaries, * (see the Science des Medailles of the Père
      Joubert, tom. ii. p. 208—211, in the improved and scarce edition
      of the Baron de la Bastie. * Note: Dr. Cardwell (Lecture on
      Ancient Coins, p. 70, et seq.) assigns convincing reasons in
      support of this opinion.—M.]

      39 (return) [ In his xxviith dissertation on the Antiquities of
      Italy, (tom. ii. p. 559—569,) Muratori exhibits a series of the
      senatorian coins, which bore the obscure names of _Affortiati_,
      _Infortiati_, _Provisini_, _Paparini_. During this period, all
      the popes, without excepting Boniface VIII, abstained from the
      right of coining, which was resumed by his successor Benedict
      XI., and regularly exercised in the court of Avignon.]

      40 (return) [ A German historian, Gerard of Reicherspeg (in
      Baluz. Miscell. tom. v. p. 64, apud Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands,
      tom. iii. p. 265) thus describes the constitution of Rome in the
      xith century: Grandiora urbis et orbis negotia spectant ad
      Romanum pontificem itemque ad Romanum Imperatorem, sive illius
      vicarium urbis præfectum, qui de suâ dignitate respicit utrumque,
      videlicet dominum papam cui facit hominum, et dominum imperatorem
      a quo accipit suæ potestatis insigne, scilicet gladium exertum.]

      41 (return) [ The words of a contemporary writer (Pandulph.
      Pisan. in Vit. Paschal. II. p. 357, 358) describe the election
      and oath of the præfect in 1118, inconsultis patribus.... loca
      præfectoria.... Laudes præfectoriæ.... comitiorum applausum....
      juraturum populo in ambonem sublevant.... confirmari eum in urbe
      præfectum petunt.]

      42 (return) [ Urbis præfectum ad ligiam fidelitatem recepit, et
      per mantum quod illi donavit de præfecturâ eum publice
      investivit, qui usque ad id tempus juramento fidelitatis
      imperatori fuit obligatus et ab eo præfecturæ tenuit honorem,
      (Gesta Innocent. III. in Muratori, tom. iii. P. i. p. 487.)]

      43 (return) [ See Otho Frising. Chron. vii. 31, de Gest.
      Frederic. I., l. i. c. 27.]

      44 (return) [ Cur countryman, Roger Hoveden, speaks of the
      single senators, of the _Capuzzi_ family, &c., quorum temporibus
      melius regebatur Roma quam nunc (A.D. 1194) est temporibus lvi.
      senatorum, (Ducange, Gloss. tom. vi. p. 191, Senatores.)]

      45 (return) [ Muratori (dissert. xlii. tom. iii. p. 785—788) has
      published an original treaty: Concordia inter D. nostrum papam
      Clementem III. et senatores populi Romani super regalibus et
      aliis dignitatibus urbis, &c., anno 44º senatûs. The senate
      speaks, and speaks with authority: Reddimus ad præsens....
      habebimus.... dabitis presbetria.... jurabimus pacem et
      fidelitatem, &c. A chartula de Tenementis Tusculani, dated in the
      47th year of the same æra, and confirmed decreto amplissimi
      ordinis senatûs, acclamatione P. R. publice Capitolio
      consistentis. It is there we find the difference of senatores
      consiliarii and simple senators, (Muratori, dissert. xlii. tom.
      iii. p. 787—789.)]

      The union and vigor of a public council was dissolved in a
      lawless city; and the Romans soon adopted a more strong and
      simple mode of administration. They condensed the name and
      authority of the senate in a single magistrate, or two
      colleagues; and as they were changed at the end of a year, or of
      six months, the greatness of the trust was compensated by the
      shortness of the term. But in this transient reign, the senators
      of Rome indulged their avarice and ambition: their justice was
      perverted by the interest of their family and faction; and as
      they punished only their enemies, they were obeyed only by their
      adherents. Anarchy, no longer tempered by the pastoral care of
      their bishop, admonished the Romans that they were incapable of
      governing themselves; and they sought abroad those blessings
      which they were hopeless of finding at home. In the same age, and
      from the same motives, most of the Italian republics were
      prompted to embrace a measure, which, however strange it may
      seem, was adapted to their situation, and productive of the most
      salutary effects. 46 They chose, in some foreign but friendly
      city, an impartial magistrate of noble birth and unblemished
      character, a soldier and a statesman, recommended by the voice of
      fame and his country, to whom they delegated for a time the
      supreme administration of peace and war. The compact between the
      governor and the governed was sealed with oaths and
      subscriptions; and the duration of his power, the measure of his
      stipend, the nature of their mutual obligations, were defined
      with scrupulous precision. They swore to obey him as their lawful
      superior: he pledged his faith to unite the indifference of a
      stranger with the zeal of a patriot. At his choice, four or six
      knights and civilians, his assessors in arms and justice,
      attended the _Podesta_, 47 who maintained at his own expense a
      decent retinue of servants and horses: his wife, his son, his
      brother, who might bias the affections of the judge, were left
      behind: during the exercise of his office he was not permitted to
      purchase land, to contract an alliance, or even to accept an
      invitation in the house of a citizen; nor could he honorably
      depart till he had satisfied the complaints that might be urged
      against his government.

      46 (return) [ Muratori (dissert. xlv. tom. iv. p. 64—92) has
      fully explained this mode of government; and the _Occulus
      Pastoralis_, which he has given at the end, is a treatise or
      sermon on the duties of these foreign magistrates.]

      47 (return) [ In the Latin writers, at least of the silver age,
      the title of _Potestas_ was transferred from the office to the
      magistrate:—

               Hujus qui trahitur prætextam sumere mavis; An Fidenarum
               Gabiorumque esse _Potestas_. Juvenal. Satir. x. 99.11]




      Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.—Part III.

      It was thus, about the middle of the thirteenth century, that the
      Romans called from Bologna the senator Brancaleone, 48 whose fame
      and merit have been rescued from oblivion by the pen of an
      English historian. A just anxiety for his reputation, a clear
      foresight of the difficulties of the task, had engaged him to
      refuse the honor of their choice: the statutes of Rome were
      suspended, and his office prolonged to the term of three years.
      By the guilty and licentious he was accused as cruel; by the
      clergy he was suspected as partial; but the friends of peace and
      order applauded the firm and upright magistrate by whom those
      blessings were restored. No criminals were so powerful as to
      brave, so obscure as to elude, the justice of the senator. By his
      sentence two nobles of the Annibaldi family were executed on a
      gibbet; and he inexorably demolished, in the city and
      neighborhood, one hundred and forty towers, the strong shelters
      of rapine and mischief. The bishop, as a simple bishop, was
      compelled to reside in his diocese; and the standard of
      Brancaleone was displayed in the field with terror and effect.
      His services were repaid by the ingratitude of a people unworthy
      of the happiness which they enjoyed. By the public robbers, whom
      he had provoked for their sake, the Romans were excited to depose
      and imprison their benefactor; nor would his life have been
      spared, if Bologna had not possessed a pledge for his safety.
      Before his departure, the prudent senator had required the
      exchange of thirty hostages of the noblest families of Rome: on
      the news of his danger, and at the prayer of his wife, they were
      more strictly guarded; and Bologna, in the cause of honor,
      sustained the thunders of a papal interdict. This generous
      resistance allowed the Romans to compare the present with the
      past; and Brancaleone was conducted from the prison to the
      Capitol amidst the acclamations of a repentant people. The
      remainder of his government was firm and fortunate; and as soon
      as envy was appeased by death, his head, enclosed in a precious
      vase, was deposited on a lofty column of marble. 49

      48 (return) [ See the life and death of Brancaleone, in the
      Historia Major of Matthew Paris, p. 741, 757, 792, 797, 799, 810,
      823, 833, 836, 840. The multitude of pilgrims and suitors
      connected Rome and St. Albans, and the resentment of the English
      clergy prompted them to rejoice when ever the popes were humbled
      and oppressed.]

      49 (return) [ Matthew Paris thus ends his account: Caput vero
      ipsius Brancaleonis in vase pretioso super marmoream columnam
      collocatum, in signum sui valoris et probitatis, quasi reliquias,
      superstitiose nimis et pompose sustulerunt. Fuerat enim
      superborum potentum et malefactorum urbis malleus et extirpator,
      et populi protector et defensor veritatis et justitiæ imitator et
      amator, (p. 840.) A biographer of Innocent IV. (Muratori, Script.
      tom. iii. P. i. p. 591, 592) draws a less favorable portrait of
      this Ghibeline senator.]

      The impotence of reason and virtue recommended in Italy a more
      effectual choice: instead of a private citizen, to whom they
      yielded a voluntary and precarious obedience, the Romans elected
      for their senator some prince of independent power, who could
      defend them from their enemies and themselves. Charles of Anjou
      and Provence, the most ambitious and warlike monarch of the age,
      accepted at the same time the kingdom of Naples from the pope,
      and the office of senator from the Roman people. 50 As he passed
      through the city, in his road to victory, he received their oath
      of allegiance, lodged in the Lateran palace, and smoothed in a
      short visit the harsh features of his despotic character. Yet
      even Charles was exposed to the inconstancy of the people, who
      saluted with the same acclamations the passage of his rival, the
      unfortunate Conradin; and a powerful avenger, who reigned in the
      Capitol, alarmed the fears and jealousy of the popes. The
      absolute term of his life was superseded by a renewal every third
      year; and the enmity of Nicholas the Third obliged the Sicilian
      king to abdicate the government of Rome. In his bull, a perpetual
      law, the imperious pontiff asserts the truth, validity, and use
      of the donation of Constantine, not less essential to the peace
      of the city than to the independence of the church; establishes
      the annual election of the senator; and formally disqualifies all
      emperors, kings, princes, and persons of an eminent and
      conspicuous rank. 51 This prohibitory clause was repealed in his
      own behalf by Martin the Fourth, who humbly solicited the
      suffrage of the Romans. In the presence, and by the authority, of
      the people, two electors conferred, not on the pope, but on the
      noble and faithful Martin, the dignity of senator, and the
      supreme administration of the republic, 52 to hold during his
      natural life, and to exercise at pleasure by himself or his
      deputies. About fifty years afterwards, the same title was
      granted to the emperor Lewis of Bavaria; and the liberty of Rome
      was acknowledged by her two sovereigns, who accepted a municipal
      office in the government of their own metropolis.

      50 (return) [ The election of Charles of Anjou to the office of
      perpetual senator of Rome is mentioned by the historians in the
      viiith volume of the Collection of Muratori, by Nicholas de
      Jamsilla, (p. 592,) the monk of Padua, (p. 724,) Sabas Malaspina,
      (l. ii. c. 9, p. 308,) and Ricordano Malespini, (c. 177, p.
      999.)]

      51 (return) [ The high-sounding bull of Nicholas III., which
      founds his temporal sovereignty on the donation of Constantine,
      is still extant; and as it has been inserted by Boniface VIII. in
      the _Sexte_ of the Decretals, it must be received by the
      Catholics, or at least by the Papists, as a sacred and perpetual
      law.]

      52 (return) [ I am indebted to Fleury (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xviii.
      p. 306) for an extract of this Roman act, which he has taken from
      the Ecclesiastical Annals of Odericus Raynaldus, A.D. 1281, No.
      14, 15.]

      In the first moments of rebellion, when Arnold of Brescia had
      inflamed their minds against the church, the Romans artfully
      labored to conciliate the favor of the empire, and to recommend
      their merit and services in the cause of Cæsar. The style of
      their ambassadors to Conrad the Third and Frederic the First is a
      mixture of flattery and pride, the tradition and the ignorance of
      their own history. 53 After some complaint of his silence and
      neglect, they exhort the former of these princes to pass the
      Alps, and assume from their hands the Imperial crown. “We beseech
      your majesty not to disdain the humility of your sons and
      vassals, not to listen to the accusations of our common enemies;
      who calumniate the senate as hostile to your throne, who sow the
      seeds of discord, that they may reap the harvest of destruction.
      The pope and the _Sicilian_ are united in an impious league to
      oppose _our_ liberty and _your_ coronation. With the blessing of
      God, our zeal and courage has hitherto defeated their attempts.
      Of their powerful and factious adherents, more especially the
      Frangipani, we have taken by assault the houses and turrets: some
      of these are occupied by our troops, and some are levelled with
      the ground. The Milvian bridge, which they had broken, is
      restored and fortified for your safe passage; and your army may
      enter the city without being annoyed from the castle of St.
      Angelo. All that we have done, and all that we design, is for
      your honor and service, in the loyal hope, that you will speedily
      appear in person, to vindicate those rights which have been
      invaded by the clergy, to revive the dignity of the empire, and
      to surpass the fame and glory of your predecessors. May you fix
      your residence in Rome, the capital of the world; give laws to
      Italy, and the Teutonic kingdom; and imitate the example of
      Constantine and Justinian, 54 who, by the vigor of the senate and
      people, obtained the sceptre of the earth.” 55 But these splendid
      and fallacious wishes were not cherished by Conrad the
      Franconian, whose eyes were fixed on the Holy Land, and who died
      without visiting Rome soon after his return from the Holy Land.

      53 (return) [ These letters and speeches are preserved by Otho
      bishop of Frisingen, (Fabric. Bibliot. Lat. Med. et Infim. tom.
      v. p. 186, 187,) perhaps the noblest of historians: he was son of
      Leopold marquis of Austria; his mother, Agnes, was daughter of
      the emperor Henry IV., and he was half-brother and uncle to
      Conrad III. and Frederic I. He has left, in seven books, a
      Chronicle of the Times; in two, the Gesta Frederici I., the last
      of which is inserted in the vith volume of Muratori’s
      historians.]

      54 (return) [ We desire (said the ignorant Romans) to restore the
      empire in um statum, quo fuit tempore Constantini et Justiniani,
      qui totum orbem vigore senatûs et populi Romani suis tenuere
      manibus.]

      55 (return) [ Otho Frising. de Gestis Frederici I. l. i. c. 28,
      p. 662—664.]

      His nephew and successor, Frederic Barbarossa, was more ambitious
      of the Imperial crown; nor had any of the successors of Otho
      acquired such absolute sway over the kingdom of Italy. Surrounded
      by his ecclesiastical and secular princes, he gave audience in
      his camp at Sutri to the ambassadors of Rome, who thus addressed
      him in a free and florid oration: “Incline your ear to the queen
      of cities; approach with a peaceful and friendly mind the
      precincts of Rome, which has cast away the yoke of the clergy,
      and is impatient to crown her legitimate emperor. Under your
      auspicious influence, may the primitive times be restored. Assert
      the prerogatives of the eternal city, and reduce under her
      monarchy the insolence of the world. You are not ignorant, that,
      in former ages, by the wisdom of the senate, by the valor and
      discipline of the equestrian order, she extended her victorious
      arms to the East and West, beyond the Alps, and over the islands
      of the ocean. By our sins, in the absence of our princes, the
      noble institution of the senate has sunk in oblivion; and with
      our prudence, our strength has likewise decreased. We have
      revived the senate, and the equestrian order: the counsels of the
      one, the arms of the other, will be devoted to your person and
      the service of the empire. Do you not hear the language of the
      Roman matron? You were a guest, I have adopted you as a citizen;
      a Transalpine stranger, I have elected you for my sovereign; 56
      and given you myself, and all that is mine. Your first and most
      sacred duty is to swear and subscribe, that you will shed your
      blood for the republic; that you will maintain in peace and
      justice the laws of the city and the charters of your
      predecessors; and that you will reward with five thousand pounds
      of silver the faithful senators who shall proclaim your titles in
      the Capitol. With the name, assume the character, of Augustus.”
      The flowers of Latin rhetoric were not yet exhausted; but
      Frederic, impatient of their vanity, interrupted the orators in
      the high tone of royalty and conquest. “Famous indeed have been
      the fortitude and wisdom of the ancient Romans; but your speech
      is not seasoned with wisdom, and I could wish that fortitude were
      conspicuous in your actions. Like all sublunary things, Rome has
      felt the vicissitudes of time and fortune. Your noblest families
      were translated to the East, to the royal city of Constantine;
      and the remains of your strength and freedom have long since been
      exhausted by the Greeks and Franks. Are you desirous of beholding
      the ancient glory of Rome, the gravity of the senate, the spirit
      of the knights, the discipline of the camp, the valor of the
      legions? you will find them in the German republic. It is not
      empire, naked and alone, the ornaments and virtues of empire have
      likewise migrated beyond the Alps to a more deserving people: 57
      they will be employed in your defence, but they claim your
      obedience. You pretend that myself or my predecessors have been
      invited by the Romans: you mistake the word; they were not
      invited, they were implored. From its foreign and domestic
      tyrants, the city was rescued by Charlemagne and Otho, whose
      ashes repose in our country; and their dominion was the price of
      your deliverance. Under that dominion your ancestors lived and
      died. I claim by the right of inheritance and possession, and who
      shall dare to extort you from my hands? Is the hand of the Franks
      58 and Germans enfeebled by age? Am I vanquished? Am I a captive?
      Am I not encompassed with the banners of a potent and invincible
      army? You impose conditions on your master; you require oaths: if
      the conditions are just, an oath is superfluous; if unjust, it is
      criminal. Can you doubt my equity? It is extended to the meanest
      of my subjects. Will not my sword be unsheathed in the defence of
      the Capitol? By that sword the northern kingdom of Denmark has
      been restored to the Roman empire. You prescribe the measure and
      the objects of my bounty, which flows in a copious but a
      voluntary stream. All will be given to patient merit; all will be
      denied to rude importunity.” 59 Neither the emperor nor the
      senate could maintain these lofty pretensions of dominion and
      liberty. United with the pope, and suspicious of the Romans,
      Frederic continued his march to the Vatican; his coronation was
      disturbed by a sally from the Capitol; and if the numbers and
      valor of the Germans prevailed in the bloody conflict, he could
      not safely encamp in the presence of a city of which he styled
      himself the sovereign. About twelve years afterwards, he besieged
      Rome, to seat an antipope in the chair of St. Peter; and twelve
      Pisan galleys were introduced into the Tyber: but the senate and
      people were saved by the arts of negotiation and the progress of
      disease; nor did Frederic or his successors reiterate the hostile
      attempt. Their laborious reigns were exercised by the popes, the
      crusades, and the independence of Lombardy and Germany: they
      courted the alliance of the Romans; and Frederic the Second
      offered in the Capitol the great standard, the _Caroccio_ of
      Milan. 60 After the extinction of the house of Swabia, they were
      banished beyond the Alps: and their last coronations betrayed the
      impotence and poverty of the Teutonic Cæsars. 61

      56 (return) [ Hospes eras, civem feci. Advena fuisti ex
      Transalpinis partibus principem constitui.]

      57 (return) [ Non cessit nobis nudum imperium, virtute sua
      amictum venit, ornamenta sua secum traxit. Penes nos sunt
      consules tui, &c. Cicero or Livy would not have rejected these
      images, the eloquence of a Barbarian born and educated in the
      Hercynian forest.]

      58 (return) [ Otho of Frisingen, who surely understood the
      language of the court and diet of Germany, speaks of the Franks
      in the xiith century as the reigning nation, (Proceres Franci,
      equites Franci, manus Francorum:) he adds, however, the epithet
      of _Teutonici_.]

      59 (return) [ Otho Frising. de Gestis Frederici I., l. ii. c. 22,
      p. 720—733. These original and authentic acts I have translated
      and abridged with freedom, yet with fidelity.]

      60 (return) [ From the Chronicles of Ricobaldo and Francis Pipin,
      Muratori (dissert. xxvi. tom. ii. p. 492) has translated this
      curious fact with the doggerel verses that accompanied the gift:—

               Ave decus orbis, ave! victus tibi destinor, ave! Currus
               ab Augusto Frederico Cæsare justo. Væ Mediolanum! jam
               sentis spernere vanum Imperii vires, proprias tibi
               tollere vires. Ergo triumphorum urbs potes memor esse
               priorum Quos tibi mittebant reges qui bella gerebant.

      Ne si dee tacere (I now use the Italian Dissertations, tom. i. p.
      444) che nell’ anno 1727, una copia desso Caroccio in marmo
      dianzi ignoto si scopri, nel campidoglio, presso alle carcere di
      quel luogo, dove Sisto V. l’avea falto rinchiudere. Stava esso
      posto sopra quatro colonne di marmo fino colla sequente
      inscrizione, &c.; to the same purpose as the old inscription.]

      61 (return) [ The decline of the Imperial arms and authority in
      Italy is related with impartial learning in the Annals of
      Muratori, (tom. x. xi. xii.;) and the reader may compare his
      narrative with the Histoires des Allemands (tom. iii. iv.) by
      Schmidt, who has deserved the esteem of his countrymen.]

      Under the reign of Adrian, when the empire extended from the
      Euphrates to the ocean, from Mount Atlas to the Grampian hills, a
      fanciful historian 62 amused the Romans with the picture of their
      ancient wars. “There was a time,” says Florus, “when Tibur and
      Præneste, our summer retreats, were the objects of hostile vows
      in the Capitol, when we dreaded the shades of the Arician groves,
      when we could triumph without a blush over the nameless villages
      of the Sabines and Latins, and even Corioli could afford a title
      not unworthy of a victorious general.” The pride of his
      contemporaries was gratified by the contrast of the past and the
      present: they would have been humbled by the prospect of
      futurity; by the prediction, that after a thousand years, Rome,
      despoiled of empire, and contracted to her primæval limits, would
      renew the same hostilities, on the same ground which was then
      decorated with her villas and gardens. The adjacent territory on
      either side of the Tyber was always claimed, and sometimes
      possessed, as the patrimony of St. Peter; but the barons assumed
      a lawless independence, and the cities too faithfully copied the
      revolt and discord of the metropolis. In the twelfth and
      thirteenth centuries the Romans incessantly labored to reduce or
      destroy the contumacious vassals of the church and senate; and if
      their headstrong and selfish ambition was moderated by the pope,
      he often encouraged their zeal by the alliance of his spiritual
      arms. Their warfare was that of the first consuls and dictators,
      who were taken from the plough. The assembled in arms at the foot
      of the Capitol; sallied from the gates, plundered or burnt the
      harvests of their neighbors, engaged in tumultuary conflict, and
      returned home after an expedition of fifteen or twenty days.
      Their sieges were tedious and unskilful: in the use of victory,
      they indulged the meaner passions of jealousy and revenge; and
      instead of adopting the valor, they trampled on the misfortunes,
      of their adversaries. The captives, in their shirts, with a rope
      round their necks, solicited their pardon: the fortifications,
      and even the buildings, of the rival cities, were demolished, and
      the inhabitants were scattered in the adjacent villages. It was
      thus that the seats of the cardinal bishops, Porto, Ostia,
      Albanum, Tusculum, Præneste, and Tibur or Tivoli, were
      successively overthrown by the ferocious hostility of the Romans.
      63 Of these, 64 Porto and Ostia, the two keys of the Tyber, are
      still vacant and desolate: the marshy and unwholesome banks are
      peopled with herds of buffaloes, and the river is lost to every
      purpose of navigation and trade. The hills, which afford a shady
      retirement from the autumnal heats, have again smiled with the
      blessings of peace; Frescati has arisen near the ruins of
      Tusculum; Tibur or Tivoli has resumed the honors of a city, 65
      and the meaner towns of Albano and Palestrina are decorated with
      the villas of the cardinals and princes of Rome. In the work of
      destruction, the ambition of the Romans was often checked and
      repulsed by the neighboring cities and their allies: in the first
      siege of Tibur, they were driven from their camp; and the battles
      of Tusculum 66 and Viterbo 67 might be compared in their relative
      state to the memorable fields of Thrasymene and Cannæ. In the
      first of these petty wars, thirty thousand Romans were overthrown
      by a thousand German horse, whom Frederic Barbarossa had detached
      to the relief of Tusculum: and if we number the slain at three,
      the prisoners at two, thousand, we shall embrace the most
      authentic and moderate account. Sixty-eight years afterwards they
      marched against Viterbo in the ecclesiastical state with the
      whole force of the city; by a rare coalition the Teutonic eagle
      was blended, in the adverse banners, with the keys of St. Peter;
      and the pope’s auxiliaries were commanded by a count of Thoulouse
      and a bishop of Winchester. The Romans were discomfited with
      shame and slaughter: but the English prelate must have indulged
      the vanity of a pilgrim, if he multiplied their numbers to one
      hundred, and their loss in the field to thirty, thousand men. Had
      the policy of the senate and the discipline of the legions been
      restored with the Capitol, the divided condition of Italy would
      have offered the fairest opportunity of a second conquest. But in
      arms, the modern Romans were not _above_, and in arts, they were
      far _below_, the common level of the neighboring republics. Nor
      was their warlike spirit of any long continuance; after some
      irregular sallies, they subsided in the national apathy, in the
      neglect of military institutions, and in the disgraceful and
      dangerous use of foreign mercenaries.

      62 (return) [ Tibur nunc suburbanum, et æstivæ Præneste deliciæ,
      nuncupatis in Capitolio votis petebantur. The whole passage of
      Florus (l. i. c. 11) may be read with pleasure, and has deserved
      the praise of a man of genius, (uvres de Montesquieu, tom. iii.
      p. 634, 635, quarto edition.)]

      63 (return) [ Ne a feritate Romanorum, sicut fuerant Hostienses,
      Portuenses, Tusculanenses, Albanenses, Labicenses, et nuper
      Tiburtini destruerentur, (Matthew Paris, p. 757.) These events
      are marked in the Annals and Index (the xviiith volume) of
      Muratori.]

      64 (return) [ For the state or ruin of these suburban cities, the
      banks of the Tyber, &c., see the lively picture of the P. Labat,
      (Voyage en Espagne et en Italiæ,) who had long resided in the
      neighborhood of Rome, and the more accurate description of which
      P. Eschinard (Roma, 1750, in octavo) has added to the
      topographical map of Cingolani.]

      65 (return) [ Labat (tom. iii. p. 233) mentions a recent decree
      of the Roman government, which has severely mortified the pride
      and poverty of Tivoli: in civitate Tiburtinâ non vivitur
      civiliter.]

      66 (return) [ I depart from my usual method, of quoting only by
      the date the Annals of Muratori, in consideration of the critical
      balance in which he has weighed nine contemporary writers who
      mention the battle of Tusculum, (tom. x. p. 42—44.)]

      67 (return) [ Matthew Paris, p. 345. This bishop of Winchester
      was Peter de Rupibus, who occupied the see thirty-two years,
      (A.D. 1206—1238.) and is described, by the English historian, as
      a soldier and a statesman. (p. 178, 399.)]

      Ambition is a weed of quick and early vegetation in the vineyard
      of Christ. Under the first Christian princes, the chair of St.
      Peter was disputed by the votes, the venality, the violence, of a
      popular election: the sanctuaries of Rome were polluted with
      blood; and, from the third to the twelfth century, the church was
      distracted by the mischief of frequent schisms. As long as the
      final appeal was determined by the civil magistrate, these
      mischiefs were transient and local: the merits were tried by
      equity or favor; nor could the unsuccessful competitor long
      disturb the triumph of his rival. But after the emperors had been
      divested of their prerogatives, after a maxim had been
      established that the vicar of Christ is amenable to no earthly
      tribunal, each vacancy of the holy see might involve Christendom
      in controversy and war. The claims of the cardinals and inferior
      clergy, of the nobles and people, were vague and litigious: the
      freedom of choice was overruled by the tumults of a city that no
      longer owned or obeyed a superior. On the decease of a pope, two
      factions proceeded in different churches to a double election:
      the number and weight of votes, the priority of time, the merit
      of the candidates, might balance each other: the most respectable
      of the clergy were divided; and the distant princes, who bowed
      before the spiritual throne, could not distinguish the spurious,
      from the legitimate, idol. The emperors were often the authors of
      the schism, from the political motive of opposing a friendly to a
      hostile pontiff; and each of the competitors was reduced to
      suffer the insults of his enemies, who were not awed by
      conscience, and to purchase the support of his adherents, who
      were instigated by avarice or ambition a peaceful and perpetual
      succession was ascertained by Alexander the Third, 68 who finally
      abolished the tumultuary votes of the clergy and people, and
      defined the right of election in the sole college of cardinals.
      69 The three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons, were
      assimilated to each other by this important privilege; the
      parochial clergy of Rome obtained the first rank in the
      hierarchy: they were indifferently chosen among the nations of
      Christendom; and the possession of the richest benefices, of the
      most important bishoprics, was not incompatible with their title
      and office. The senators of the Catholic church, the coadjutors
      and legates of the supreme pontiff, were robed in purple, the
      symbol of martyrdom or royalty; they claimed a proud equality
      with kings; and their dignity was enhanced by the smallness of
      their number, which, till the reign of Leo the Tenth, seldom
      exceeded twenty or twenty-five persons. By this wise regulation,
      all doubt and scandal were removed, and the root of schism was so
      effectually destroyed, that in a period of six hundred years a
      double choice has only once divided the unity of the sacred
      college. But as the concurrence of two thirds of the votes had
      been made necessary, the election was often delayed by the
      private interest and passions of the cardinals; and while they
      prolonged their independent reign, the Christian world was left
      destitute of a head. A vacancy of almost three years had preceded
      the elevation of George the Tenth, who resolved to prevent the
      future abuse; and his bull, after some opposition, has been
      consecrated in the code of the canon law. 70 Nine days are
      allowed for the obsequies of the deceased pope, and the arrival
      of the absent cardinals; on the tenth, they are imprisoned, each
      with one domestic, in a common apartment or _conclave_, without
      any separation of walls or curtains: a small window is reserved
      for the introduction of necessaries; but the door is locked on
      both sides and guarded by the magistrates of the city, to seclude
      them from all correspondence with the world. If the election be
      not consummated in three days, the luxury of their table is
      contracted to a single dish at dinner and supper; and after the
      eighth day, they are reduced to a scanty allowance of bread,
      water, and wine. During the vacancy of the holy see, the
      cardinals are prohibited from touching the revenues, or assuming,
      unless in some rare emergency, the government of the church: all
      agreements and promises among the electors are formally annulled;
      and their integrity is fortified by their solemn oath and the
      prayers of the Catholics. Some articles of inconvenient or
      superfluous rigor have been gradually relaxed, but the principle
      of confinement is vigorous and entire: they are still urged, by
      the personal motives of health and freedom, to accelerate the
      moment of their deliverance; and the improvement of ballot or
      secret votes has wrapped the struggles of the conclave 71 in the
      silky veil of charity and politeness. 72 By these institutions
      the Romans were excluded from the election of their prince and
      bishop; and in the fever of wild and precarious liberty, they
      seemed insensible of the loss of this inestimable privilege. The
      emperor Lewis of Bavaria revived the example of the great Otho.
      After some negotiation with the magistrates, the Roman people
      were assembled 73 in the square before St. Peter’s: the pope of
      Avignon, John the Twenty-second, was deposed: the choice of his
      successor was ratified by their consent and applause. They freely
      voted for a new law, that their bishop should never be absent
      more than three months in the year, and two days’ journey from
      the city; and that if he neglected to return on the third
      summons, the public servant should be degraded and dismissed. 74
      But Lewis forgot his own debility and the prejudices of the
      times: beyond the precincts of a German camp, his useless phantom
      was rejected; the Romans despised their own workmanship; the
      antipope implored the mercy of his lawful sovereign; 75 and the
      exclusive right of the cardinals was more firmly established by
      this unseasonable attack.

      68 (return) [ See Mosheim, Institut. Histor. Ecclesiast. p. 401,
      403. Alexander himself had nearly been the victim of a contested
      election; and the doubtful merits of Innocent had only
      preponderated by the weight of genius and learning which St.
      Bernard cast into the scale, (see his life and writings.)]

      69 (return) [ The origin, titles, importance, dress, precedency,
      &c., of the Roman cardinals, are very ably discussed by
      Thomassin, (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p. 1262—1287;) but
      their purple is now much faded. The sacred college was raised to
      the definite number of seventy-two, to represent, under his
      vicar, the disciples of Christ.]

      70 (return) [ See the bull of Gregory X. approbante sacro
      concilio, in the _Sexts_ of the Canon Law, (l. i. tit. 6, c. 3,)
      a supplement to the Decretals, which Boniface VIII. promulgated
      at Rome in 1298, and addressed in all the universities of
      Europe.]

      71 (return) [ The genius of Cardinal de Retz had a right to paint
      a conclave, (of 1665,) in which he was a spectator and an actor,
      (Mémoires, tom. iv. p. 15—57;) but I am at a loss to appreciate
      the knowledge or authority of an anonymous Italian, whose history
      (Conclavi de’ Pontifici Romani, in 4to. 1667) has been continued
      since the reign of Alexander VII. The accidental form of the work
      furnishes a lesson, though not an antidote, to ambition. From a
      labyrinth of intrigues, we emerge to the adoration of the
      successful candidate; but the next page opens with his funeral.]

      72 (return) [ The expressions of Cardinal de Retz are positive
      and picturesque: On y vecut toujours ensemble avec le même
      respect, et la même civilité que l’on observe dans le cabinet des
      rois, avec la même politesse qu’on avoit dans la cour de Henri
      III., avec la même familiarité que l’on voit dans les colleges;
      avec la même modestie, qui se remarque dans les noviciats; et
      avec la même charité, du moins en apparence, qui pourroit ètre
      entre des frères parfaitement unis.]

      73 (return) [ Richiesti per bando (says John Villani) sanatori di
      Roma, e 52 del popolo, et capitani de’ 25, e consoli,
      (_consoli?_) et 13 buone huomini, uno per rione. Our knowledge is
      too imperfect to pronounce how much of this constitution was
      temporary, and how much ordinary and permanent. Yet it is faintly
      illustrated by the ancient statutes of Rome.]

      74 (return) [ Villani (l. x. c. 68—71, in Muratori, Script. tom.
      xiii. p. 641—645) relates this law, and the whole transaction,
      with much less abhorrence than the prudent Muratori. Any one
      conversant with the darker ages must have observed how much the
      sense (I mean the nonsense) of superstition is fluctuating and
      inconsistent.]

      75 (return) [ In the first volume of the Popes of Avignon, see
      the second original Life of John XXII. p. 142—145, the confession
      of the antipope p. 145—152, and the laborious notes of Baluze, p.
      714, 715.]

      Had the election been always held in the Vatican, the rights of
      the senate and people would not have been violated with impunity.
      But the Romans forgot, and were forgotten. in the absence of the
      successors of Gregory the Seventh, who did not keep as a divine
      precept their ordinary residence in the city and diocese. The
      care of that diocese was less important than the government of
      the universal church; nor could the popes delight in a city in
      which their authority was always opposed, and their person was
      often endangered. From the persecution of the emperors, and the
      wars of Italy, they escaped beyond the Alps into the hospitable
      bosom of France; from the tumults of Rome they prudently withdrew
      to live and die in the more tranquil stations of Anagni, Perugia,
      Viterbo, and the adjacent cities. When the flock was offended or
      impoverished by the absence of the shepherd, they were recalled
      by a stern admonition, that St. Peter had fixed his chair, not in
      an obscure village, but in the capital of the world; by a
      ferocious menace, that the Romans would march in arms to destroy
      the place and people that should dare to afford them a retreat.
      They returned with timorous obedience; and were saluted with the
      account of a heavy debt, of all the losses which their desertion
      had occasioned, the hire of lodgings, the sale of provisions, and
      the various expenses of servants and strangers who attended the
      court. 76 After a short interval of peace, and perhaps of
      authority, they were again banished by new tumults, and again
      summoned by the imperious or respectful invitation of the senate.
      In these occasional retreats, the exiles and fugitives of the
      Vatican were seldom long, or far, distant from the metropolis;
      but in the beginning of the fourteenth century, the apostolic
      throne was transported, as it might seem forever, from the Tyber
      to the Rhône; and the cause of the transmigration may be deduced
      from the furious contest between Boniface the Eighth and the king
      of France. 77 The spiritual arms of excommunication and interdict
      were repulsed by the union of the three estates, and the
      privileges of the Gallican church; but the pope was not prepared
      against the carnal weapons which Philip the Fair had courage to
      employ. As the pope resided at Anagni, without the suspicion of
      danger, his palace and person were assaulted by three hundred
      horse, who had been secretly levied by William of Nogaret, a
      French minister, and Sciarra Colonna, of a noble but hostile
      family of Rome. The cardinals fled; the inhabitants of Anagni
      were seduced from their allegiance and gratitude; but the
      dauntless Boniface, unarmed and alone, seated himself in his
      chair, and awaited, like the conscript fathers of old, the swords
      of the Gauls. Nogaret, a foreign adversary, was content to
      execute the orders of his master: by the domestic enmity of
      Colonna, he was insulted with words and blows; and during a
      confinement of three days his life was threatened by the
      hardships which they inflicted on the obstinacy which they
      provoked. Their strange delay gave time and courage to the
      adherents of the church, who rescued him from sacrilegious
      violence; but his imperious soul was wounded in the vital part;
      and Boniface expired at Rome in a frenzy of rage and revenge. His
      memory is stained with the glaring vices of avarice and pride;
      nor has the courage of a martyr promoted this ecclesiastical
      champion to the honors of a saint; a magnanimous sinner, (say the
      chronicles of the times,) who entered like a fox, reigned like a
      lion, and died like a dog. He was succeeded by Benedict the
      Eleventh, the mildest of mankind. Yet he excommunicated the
      impious emissaries of Philip, and devoted the city and people of
      Anagni by a tremendous curse, whose effects are still visible to
      the eyes of superstition. 78

      76 (return) [ Romani autem non valentes nec volentes ultra suam
      celare cupiditatem gravissimam, contra papam movere cperunt
      questionem, exigentes ab eo urgentissime omnia quæ subierant per
      ejus absentiam damna et jacturas, videlicet in hispitiis
      locandis, in mercimoniis, in usuris, in redditibus, in
      provisionibus, et in aliis modis innumerabilibus. Quòd cum
      audisset papa, præcordialiter ingemuit, et se comperiens
      _muscipulatum_, &c., Matt. Paris, p. 757. For the ordinary
      history of the popes, their life and death, their residence and
      absence, it is enough to refer to the ecclesiastical annalists,
      Spondanus and Fleury.]

      77 (return) [ Besides the general historians of the church of
      Italy and of France, we possess a valuable treatise composed by a
      learned friend of Thuanus, which his last and best editors have
      published in the appendix (Histoire particulière du grand
      Différend entre Boniface VIII et Philippe le Bel, par Pierre du
      Puis, tom. vii. P. xi. p. 61—82.)]

      78 (return) [ It is difficult to know whether Labat (tom. iv. p.
      53—57) be in jest or in earnest, when he supposes that Anagni
      still feels the weight of this curse, and that the cornfields, or
      vineyards, or olive-trees, are annually blasted by Nature, the
      obsequious handmaid of the popes.]




      Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.—Part IV.

      After his decease, the tedious and equal suspense of the conclave
      was fixed by the dexterity of the French faction. A specious
      offer was made and accepted, that, in the term of forty days,
      they would elect one of the three candidates who should be named
      by their opponents. The archbishop of Bourdeaux, a furious enemy
      of his king and country, was the first on the list; but his
      ambition was known; and his conscience obeyed the calls of
      fortune and the commands of a benefactor, who had been informed
      by a swift messenger that the choice of a pope was now in his
      hands. The terms were regulated in a private interview; and with
      such speed and secrecy was the business transacted, that the
      unanimous conclave applauded the elevation of Clement the Fifth.
      79 The cardinals of both parties were soon astonished by a
      summons to attend him beyond the Alps; from whence, as they soon
      discovered, they must never hope to return. He was engaged, by
      promise and affection, to prefer the residence of France; and,
      after dragging his court through Poitou and Gascony, and
      devouring, by his expense, the cities and convents on the road,
      he finally reposed at Avignon, 80 which flourished above seventy
      years 81 the seat of the Roman pontiff and the metropolis of
      Christendom. By land, by sea, by the Rhône, the position of
      Avignon was on all sides accessible; the southern provinces of
      France do not yield to Italy itself; new palaces arose for the
      accommodation of the pope and cardinals; and the arts of luxury
      were soon attracted by the treasures of the church. They were
      already possessed of the adjacent territory, the Venaissin
      county, 82 a populous and fertile spot; and the sovereignty of
      Avignon was afterwards purchased from the youth and distress of
      Jane, the first queen of Naples and countess of Provence, for the
      inadequate price of fourscore thousand florins. 83 Under the
      shadow of a French monarchy, amidst an obedient people, the popes
      enjoyed an honorable and tranquil state, to which they long had
      been strangers: but Italy deplored their absence; and Rome, in
      solitude and poverty, might repent of the ungovernable freedom
      which had driven from the Vatican the successor of St. Peter. Her
      repentance was tardy and fruitless: after the death of the old
      members, the sacred college was filled with French cardinals, 84
      who beheld Rome and Italy with abhorrence and contempt, and
      perpetuated a series of national, and even provincial, popes,
      attached by the most indissoluble ties to their native country.

      79 (return) [ See, in the Chronicle of Giovanni Villani, (l.
      viii. c. 63, 64, 80, in Muratori, tom. xiii.,) the imprisonment
      of Boniface VIII., and the election of Clement V., the last of
      which, like most anecdotes, is embarrassed with some
      difficulties.]

      80 (return) [ The original lives of the eight popes of Avignon,
      Clement V., John XXII., Benedict XI., Clement VI., Innocent VI.,
      Urban V., Gregory XI., and Clement VII., are published by Stephen
      Baluze, (Vitæ Paparum Avenionensium; Paris, 1693, 2 vols. in
      4to.,) with copious and elaborate notes, and a second volume of
      acts and documents. With the true zeal of an editor and a
      patriot, he devoutly justifies or excuses the characters of his
      countrymen.]

      81 (return) [ The exile of Avignon is compared by the Italians
      with Babylon, and the Babylonish captivity. Such furious
      metaphors, more suitable to the ardor of Petrarch than to the
      judgment of Muratori, are gravely refuted in Baluze’s preface.
      The abbé de Sade is distracted between the love of Petrarch and
      of his country. Yet he modestly pleads, that many of the local
      inconveniences of Avignon are now removed; and many of the vices
      against which the poet declaims, had been imported with the Roman
      court by the strangers of Italy, (tom. i. p. 23—28.)]

      82 (return) [ The comtat Venaissin was ceded to the popes in 1273
      by Philip III. king of France, after he had inherited the
      dominions of the count of Thoulouse. Forty years before, the
      heresy of Count Raymond had given them a pretence of seizure, and
      they derived some obscure claim from the xith century to some
      lands citra Rhodanum, (Valesii Notitia Galliarum, p. 495, 610.
      Longuerue, Description de la France, tom. i. p. 376—381.)]

      83 (return) [ If a possession of four centuries were not itself a
      title, such objections might annul the bargain; but the purchase
      money must be refunded, for indeed it was paid. Civitatem
      Avenionem emit.... per ejusmodi venditionem pecuniâ redundates,
      &c., (iida Vita Clement. VI. in Baluz. tom. i. p. 272. Muratori,
      Script. tom. iii. P. ii. p. 565.) The only temptation for Jane
      and her second husband was ready money, and without it they could
      not have returned to the throne of Naples.]

      84 (return) [ Clement V immediately promoted ten cardinals, nine
      French and one English, (Vita ivta, p. 63, et Baluz. p. 625, &c.)
      In 1331, the pope refused two candidates recommended by the king
      of France, quod xx. Cardinales, de quibus xvii. de regno Franciæ
      originem traxisse noscuntur in memorato collegio existant,
      (Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p. 1281.)]

      The progress of industry had produced and enriched the Italian
      republics: the æra of their liberty is the most flourishing
      period of population and agriculture, of manufactures and
      commerce; and their mechanic labors were gradually refined into
      the arts of elegance and genius. But the position of Rome was
      less favorable, the territory less fruitful: the character of the
      inhabitants was debased by indolence and elated by pride; and
      they fondly conceived that the tribute of subjects must forever
      nourish the metropolis of the church and empire. This prejudice
      was encouraged in some degree by the resort of pilgrims to the
      shrines of the apostles; and the last legacy of the popes, the
      institution of the holy year, 85 was not less beneficial to the
      people than to the clergy. Since the loss of Palestine, the gift
      of plenary indulgences, which had been applied to the crusades,
      remained without an object; and the most valuable treasure of the
      church was sequestered above eight years from public circulation.
      A new channel was opened by the diligence of Boniface the Eighth,
      who reconciled the vices of ambition and avarice; and the pope
      had sufficient learning to recollect and revive the secular games
      which were celebrated in Rome at the conclusion of every century.
      To sound without danger the depth of popular credulity, a sermon
      was seasonably pronounced, a report was artfully scattered, some
      aged witnesses were produced; and on the first of January of the
      year thirteen hundred, the church of St. Peter was crowded with
      the faithful, who demanded the customary indulgence of the holy
      time. The pontiff, who watched and irritated their devout
      impatience, was soon persuaded by ancient testimony of the
      justice of their claim; and he proclaimed a plenary absolution to
      all Catholics who, in the course of that year, and at every
      similar period, should respectfully visit the apostolic churches
      of St. Peter and St. Paul. The welcome sound was propagated
      through Christendom; and at first from the nearest provinces of
      Italy, and at length from the remote kingdoms of Hungary and
      Britain, the highways were thronged with a swarm of pilgrims who
      sought to expiate their sins in a journey, however costly or
      laborious, which was exempt from the perils of military service.
      All exceptions of rank or sex, of age or infirmity, were
      forgotten in the common transport; and in the streets and
      churches many persons were trampled to death by the eagerness of
      devotion. The calculation of their numbers could not be easy nor
      accurate; and they have probably been magnified by a dexterous
      clergy, well apprised of the contagion of example: yet we are
      assured by a judicious historian, who assisted at the ceremony,
      that Rome was never replenished with less than two hundred
      thousand strangers; and another spectator has fixed at two
      millions the total concourse of the year. A trifling oblation
      from each individual would accumulate a royal treasure; and two
      priests stood night and day, with rakes in their hands, to
      collect, without counting, the heaps of gold and silver that were
      poured on the altar of St. Paul. 86 It was fortunately a season
      of peace and plenty; and if forage was scarce, if inns and
      lodgings were extravagantly dear, an inexhaustible supply of
      bread and wine, of meat and fish, was provided by the policy of
      Boniface and the venal hospitality of the Romans. From a city
      without trade or industry, all casual riches will speedily
      evaporate: but the avarice and envy of the next generation
      solicited Clement the Sixth 87 to anticipate the distant period
      of the century. The gracious pontiff complied with their wishes;
      afforded Rome this poor consolation for his loss; and justified
      the change by the name and practice of the Mosaic Jubilee. 88 His
      summons was obeyed; and the number, zeal, and liberality of the
      pilgrims did not yield to the primitive festival. But they
      encountered the triple scourge of war, pestilence, and famine:
      many wives and virgins were violated in the castles of Italy; and
      many strangers were pillaged or murdered by the savage Romans, no
      longer moderated by the presence of their bishops. 89 To the
      impatience of the popes we may ascribe the successive reduction
      to fifty, thirty-three, and twenty-five years; although the
      second of these terms is commensurate with the life of Christ.
      The profusion of indulgences, the revolt of the Protestants, and
      the decline of superstition, have much diminished the value of
      the jubilee; yet even the nineteenth and last festival was a year
      of pleasure and profit to the Romans; and a philosophic smile
      will not disturb the triumph of the priest or the happiness of
      the people. 90

      85 (return) [ Our primitive account is from Cardinal James
      Caietan, (Maxima Bibliot. Patrum, tom. xxv.;) and I am at a loss
      to determine whether the nephew of Boniface VIII. be a fool or a
      knave: the uncle is a much clearer character.]

      86 (return) [ See John Villani (l. viii. c. 36) in the xiith, and
      the Chronicon Astense, in the xith volume (p. 191, 192) of
      Muratori’s Collection Papa innumerabilem pecuniam ab eisdem
      accepit, nam duo clerici, cum rastris, &c.]

      87 (return) [ The two bulls of Boniface VIII. and Clement VI. are
      inserted on the Corpus Juris Canonici, Extravagant. (Commun. l.
      v. tit. ix c 1, 2.)]

      88 (return) [ The sabbatic years and jubilees of the Mosaic law,
      (Car. Sigon. de Republica Hebræorum, Opp. tom. iv. l. iii. c. 14,
      14, p. 151, 152,) the suspension of all care and labor, the
      periodical release of lands, debts, servitude, &c., may seem a
      noble idea, but the execution would be impracticable in a
      _profane_ republic; and I should be glad to learn that this
      ruinous festival was observed by the Jewish people.]

      89 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Matteo Villani, (l. i. c. 56,)
      in the xivth vol. of Muratori, and the Mémoires sur la Vie de
      Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 75—89.]

      90 (return) [ The subject is exhausted by M. Chais, a French
      minister at the Hague, in his Lettres Historiques et Dogmatiques,
      sur les Jubilés et es Indulgences; la Haye, 1751, 3 vols. in
      12mo.; an elaborate and pleasing work, had not the author
      preferred the character of a polemic to that of a philosopher.]

      In the beginning of the eleventh century, Italy was exposed to
      the feudal tyranny, alike oppressive to the sovereign and the
      people. The rights of human nature were vindicated by her
      numerous republics, who soon extended their liberty and dominion
      from the city to the adjacent country. The sword of the nobles
      was broken; their slaves were enfranchised; their castles were
      demolished; they assumed the habits of society and obedience;
      their ambition was confined to municipal honors, and in the
      proudest aristocracy of Venice on Genoa, each patrician was
      subject to the laws. 91 But the feeble and disorderly government
      of Rome was unequal to the task of curbing her rebellious sons,
      who scorned the authority of the magistrate within and without
      the walls. It was no longer a civil contention between the nobles
      and plebeians for the government of the state: the barons
      asserted in arms their personal independence; their palaces and
      castles were fortified against a siege; and their private
      quarrels were maintained by the numbers of their vassals and
      retainers. In origin and affection, they were aliens to their
      country: 92 and a genuine Roman, could such have been produced,
      might have renounced these haughty strangers, who disdained the
      appellation of citizens, and proudly styled themselves the
      princes, of Rome. 93 After a dark series of revolutions, all
      records of pedigree were lost; the distinction of surnames was
      abolished; the blood of the nations was mingled in a thousand
      channels; and the Goths and Lombards, the Greeks and Franks, the
      Germans and Normans, had obtained the fairest possessions by
      royal bounty, or the prerogative of valor. These examples might
      be readily presumed; but the elevation of a Hebrew race to the
      rank of senators and consuls is an event without a parallel in
      the long captivity of these miserable exiles. 94 In the time of
      Leo the Ninth, a wealthy and learned Jew was converted to
      Christianity, and honored at his baptism with the name of his
      godfather, the reigning Pope. The zeal and courage of Peter the
      son of Leo were signalized in the cause of Gregory the Seventh,
      who intrusted his faithful adherent with the government of
      Adrian’s mole, the tower of Crescentius, or, as it is now called,
      the castle of St. Angelo. Both the father and the son were the
      parents of a numerous progeny: their riches, the fruits of usury,
      were shared with the noblest families of the city; and so
      extensive was their alliance, that the grandson of the proselyte
      was exalted by the weight of his kindred to the throne of St.
      Peter. A majority of the clergy and people supported his cause:
      he reigned several years in the Vatican; and it is only the
      eloquence of St. Bernard, and the final triumph of Innocence the
      Second, that has branded Anacletus with the epithet of antipope.
      After his defeat and death, the posterity of Leo is no longer
      conspicuous; and none will be found of the modern nobles
      ambitious of descending from a Jewish stock. It is not my design
      to enumerate the Roman families which have failed at different
      periods, or those which are continued in different degrees of
      splendor to the present time. 95 The old consular line of the
      _Frangipani_ discover their name in the generous act of
      _breaking_ or dividing bread in a time of famine; and such
      benevolence is more truly glorious than to have enclosed, with
      their allies the _Corsi_, a spacious quarter of the city in the
      chains of their fortifications; the _Savelli_, as it should seem
      a Sabine race, have maintained their original dignity; the
      obsolete surname of the _Capizucchi_ is inscribed on the coins of
      the first senators; the _Conti_ preserve the honor, without the
      estate, of the counts of Signia; and the _Annibaldi_ must have
      been very ignorant, or very modest, if they had not descended
      from the Carthaginian hero. 96

      91 (return) [ Muratori (Dissert. xlvii.) alleges the Annals of
      Florence, Padua, Genoa, &c., the analogy of the rest, the
      evidence of Otho of Frisingen, (de Gest. Fred. I. l. ii. c. 13,)
      and the submission of the marquis of Este.]

      92 (return) [ As early as the year 824, the emperor Lothaire I.
      found it expedient to interrogate the Roman people, to learn from
      each individual by what national law he chose to be governed.
      (Muratori, Dissertat xxii.)]

      93 (return) [ Petrarch attacks these foreigners, the tyrants of
      Rome, in a declamation or epistle, full of bold truths and absurd
      pedantry, in which he applies the maxims, and even prejudices, of
      the old republic to the state of the xivth century, (Mémoires,
      tom. iii. p. 157—169.)]

      94 (return) [ The origin and adventures of the Jewish family are
      noticed by Pagi, (Critica, tom. iv. p. 435, A.D. 1124, No. 3, 4,)
      who draws his information from the Chronographus Maurigniacensis,
      and Arnulphus Sagiensis de Schismate, (in Muratori, Script. Ital.
      tom. iii. P. i. p. 423—432.) The fact must in some degree be
      true; yet I could wish that it had been coolly related, before it
      was turned into a reproach against the antipope.]

      95 (return) [ Muratori has given two dissertations (xli. and
      xlii.) to the names, surnames, and families of Italy. Some
      nobles, who glory in their domestic fables, may be offended with
      his firm and temperate criticism; yet surely some ounces of pure
      gold are of more value than many pounds of base metal.]

      96 (return) [ The cardinal of St. George, in his poetical, or
      rather metrical history of the election and coronation of
      Boniface VIII., (Muratori Script. Ital. tom. iii. P. i. p. 641,
      &c.,) describes the state and families of Rome at the coronation
      of Boniface VIII., (A.D. 1295.)

               Interea titulis redimiti sanguine et armis Illustresque
               viri Romanâ a stirpe trahentes Nomen in emeritos tantæ
               virtutis honores Insulerant sese medios festumque
               colebant Aurata fulgente togâ, sociante catervâ. Ex
               ipsis devota domus præstantis ab _Ursâ_ Ecclesiæ,
               vultumque gerens demissius altum Festa _Columna_ jocis,
               necnon _Sabellia_ mitis; Stephanides senior, _Comites_,
               _Annibalica_ proles, Præfectusque urbis magnum sine
               viribus nomen. (l. ii. c. 5, 100, p. 647, 648.)

      The ancient statutes of Rome (l. iii. c. 59, p. 174, 175)
      distinguish eleven families of barons, who are obliged to swear
      in concilio communi, before the senator, that they would not
      harbor or protect any malefactors, outlaws, &c.—a feeble
      security!]

      But among, perhaps above, the peers and princes of the city, I
      distinguish the rival houses of Colonna and Ursini, whose private
      story is an essential part of the annals of modern Rome. I. The
      name and arms of Colonna 97 have been the theme of much doubtful
      etymology; nor have the orators and antiquarians overlooked
      either Trajan’s pillar, or the columns of Hercules, or the pillar
      of Christ’s flagellation, or the luminous column that guided the
      Israelites in the desert. Their first historical appearance in
      the year eleven hundred and four attests the power and antiquity,
      while it explains the simple meaning, of the name. By the
      usurpation of Cavæ, the Colonna provoked the arms of Paschal the
      Second; but they lawfully held in the Campagna of Rome the
      hereditary fiefs of Zagarola and _Colonna_; and the latter of
      these towns was probably adorned with some lofty pillar, the
      relic of a villa or temple. 98 They likewise possessed one moiety
      of the neighboring city of Tusculum, a strong presumption of
      their descent from the counts of Tusculum, who in the tenth
      century were the tyrants of the apostolic see. According to their
      own and the public opinion, the primitive and remote source was
      derived from the banks of the Rhine; 99 and the sovereigns of
      Germany were not ashamed of a real or fabulous affinity with a
      noble race, which in the revolutions of seven hundred years has
      been often illustrated by merit and always by fortune. 100 About
      the end of the thirteenth century, the most powerful branch was
      composed of an uncle and six bothers, all conspicuous in arms, or
      in the honors of the church. Of these, Peter was elected senator
      of Rome, introduced to the Capitol in a triumphal car, and hailed
      in some vain acclamations with the title of Cæsar; while John and
      Stephen were declared marquis of Ancona and count of Romagna, by
      Nicholas the Fourth, a patron so partial to their family, that he
      has been delineated in satirical portraits, imprisoned as it were
      in a hollow pillar. 101 After his decease their haughty behavior
      provoked the displeasure of the most implacable of mankind. The
      two cardinals, the uncle and the nephew, denied the election of
      Boniface the Eighth; and the Colonna were oppressed for a moment
      by his temporal and spiritual arms. 102 He proclaimed a crusade
      against his personal enemies; their estates were confiscated;
      their fortresses on either side of the Tyber were besieged by the
      troops of St. Peter and those of the rival nobles; and after the
      ruin of Palestrina or Præneste, their principal seat, the ground
      was marked with a ploughshare, the emblem of perpetual
      desolation. Degraded, banished, proscribed, the six brothers, in
      disguise and danger, wandered over Europe without renouncing the
      hope of deliverance and revenge. In this double hope, the French
      court was their surest asylum; they prompted and directed the
      enterprise of Philip; and I should praise their magnanimity, had
      they respected the misfortune and courage of the captive tyrant.
      His civil acts were annulled by the Roman people, who restored
      the honors and possessions of the Colonna; and some estimate may
      be formed of their wealth by their losses, of their losses by the
      damages of one hundred thousand gold florins which were granted
      them against the accomplices and heirs of the deceased pope. All
      the spiritual censures and disqualifications were abolished 103
      by his prudent successors; and the fortune of the house was more
      firmly established by this transient hurricane. The boldness of
      Sciarra Colonna was signalized in the captivity of Boniface, and
      long afterwards in the coronation of Lewis of Bavaria; and by the
      gratitude of the emperor, the pillar in their arms was encircled
      with a royal crown. But the first of the family in fame and merit
      was the elder Stephen, whom Petrarch loved and esteemed as a hero
      superior to his own times, and not unworthy of ancient Rome.
      Persecution and exile displayed to the nations his abilities in
      peace and war; in his distress he was an object, not of pity, but
      of reverence; the aspect of danger provoked him to avow his name
      and country; and when he was asked, “Where is now your fortress?”
      he laid his hand on his heart, and answered, “Here.” He supported
      with the same virtue the return of prosperity; and, till the ruin
      of his declining age, the ancestors, the character, and the
      children of Stephen Colonna, exalted his dignity in the Roman
      republic, and at the court of Avignon. II. The Ursini migrated
      from Spoleto; 104 the sons of Ursus, as they are styled in the
      twelfth century, from some eminent person, who is only known as
      the father of their race. But they were soon distinguished among
      the nobles of Rome, by the number and bravery of their kinsmen,
      the strength of their towers, the honors of the senate and sacred
      college, and the elevation of two popes, Celestin the Third and
      Nicholas the Third, of their name and lineage. 105 Their riches
      may be accused as an early abuse of nepotism: the estates of St.
      Peter were alienated in their favor by the liberal Celestin; 106
      and Nicholas was ambitious for their sake to solicit the alliance
      of monarchs; to found new kingdoms in Lombardy and Tuscany; and
      to invest them with the perpetual office of senators of Rome. All
      that has been observed of the greatness of the Colonna will
      likewise redound to the glory of the Ursini, their constant and
      equal antagonists in the long hereditary feud, which distracted
      above two hundred and fifty years the ecclesiastical state. The
      jealously of preeminence and power was the true ground of their
      quarrel; but as a specious badge of distinction, the Colonna
      embraced the name of Ghibelines and the party of the empire; the
      Ursini espoused the title of Guelphs and the cause of the church.
      The eagle and the keys were displayed in their adverse banners;
      and the two factions of Italy most furiously raged when the
      origin and nature of the dispute were long since forgotten. 107
      After the retreat of the popes to Avignon they disputed in arms
      the vacant republic; and the mischiefs of discord were
      perpetuated by the wretched compromise of electing each year two
      rival senators. By their private hostilities the city and country
      were desolated, and the fluctuating balance inclined with their
      alternate success. But none of either family had fallen by the
      sword, till the most renowned champion of the Ursini was
      surprised and slain by the younger Stephen Colonna. 108 His
      triumph is stained with the reproach of violating the truce;
      their defeat was basely avenged by the assassination, before the
      church door, of an innocent boy and his two servants. Yet the
      victorious Colonna, with an annual colleague, was declared
      senator of Rome during the term of five years. And the muse of
      Petrarch inspired a wish, a hope, a prediction, that the generous
      youth, the son of his venerable hero, would restore Rome and
      Italy to their pristine glory; that his justice would extirpate
      the wolves and lions, the serpents and _bears_, who labored to
      subvert the eternal basis of the marble column. 109

      97 (return) [ It is pity that the Colonna themselves have not
      favored the world with a complete and critical history of their
      illustrious house. I adhere to Muratori, (Dissert. xlii. tom.
      iii. p. 647, 648.)]

      98 (return) [ Pandulph. Pisan. in Vit. Paschal. II. in Muratori,
      Script. Ital. tom. iii. P. i. p. 335. The family has still great
      possessions in the Campagna of Rome; but they have alienated to
      the Rospigliosi this original fief of _Colonna_, (Eschinard, p.
      258, 259.)]

      99 (return) [ “Te longinqua dedit tellus et pascua Rheni,” says
      Petrarch; and, in 1417, a duke of Guelders and Juliers
      acknowledges (Lenfant, Hist. du Concile de Constance, tom. ii. p.
      539) his descent from the ancestors of Martin V., (Otho Colonna:)
      but the royal author of the Memoirs of Brandenburg observes, that
      the sceptre in his arms has been confounded with the column. To
      maintain the Roman origin of the Colonna, it was ingeniously
      supposed (Diario di Monaldeschi, in the Script. Ital. tom. xii.
      p. 533) that a cousin of the emperor Nero escaped from the city,
      and founded Mentz in Germany.]

      100 (return) [ I cannot overlook the Roman triumph of ovation on
      Marce Antonio Colonna, who had commanded the pope’s galleys at
      the naval victory of Lepanto, (Thuan. Hist. l. 7, tom. iii. p.
      55, 56. Muret. Oratio x. Opp. tom. i. p. 180—190.)]

      101 (return) [ Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom. x. p. 216, 220.]

      102 (return) [ Petrarch’s attachment to the Colonna has
      authorized the abbé de Sade to expatiate on the state of the
      family in the fourteenth century, the persecution of Boniface
      VIII., the character of Stephen and his sons, their quarrels with
      the Ursini, &c., (Mémoires sur Pétrarque, tom. i. p. 98—110,
      146—148, 174—176, 222—230, 275—280.) His criticism often
      rectifies the hearsay stories of Villani, and the errors of the
      less diligent moderns. I understand the branch of Stephen to be
      now extinct.]

      103 (return) [ Alexander III. had declared the Colonna who
      adhered to the emperor Frederic I. incapable of holding any
      ecclesiastical benefice, (Villani, l. v. c. 1;) and the last
      stains of annual excommunication were purified by Sixtus V.,
      (Vita di Sisto V. tom. iii. p. 416.) Treason, sacrilege, and
      proscription are often the best titles of ancient nobility.]

      104 (return) [

               ————Vallis te proxima misit, Appenninigenæ qua prata
               virentia sylvæ Spoletana metunt armenta gregesque
               protervi.

      Monaldeschi (tom. xii. Script. Ital. p. 533) gives the Ursini a
      French origin, which may be remotely true.]

      105 (return) [ In the metrical life of Celestine V. by the
      cardinal of St. George (Muratori, tom. iii. P. i. p. 613, &c.,)
      we find a luminous, and not inelegant, passage, (l. i. c. 3, p.
      203 &c.:)—

               ————genuit quem nobilis Ursæ (_Ursi?_) Progenies, Romana
               domus, veterataque magnis Fascibus in clero, pompasque
               experta senatûs, Bellorumque manû grandi stipata
               parentum Cardineos apices necnon fastigia dudum Papatûs
               _iterata_ tenens.

      Muratori (Dissert. xlii. tom. iii.) observes, that the first
      Ursini pontificate of Celestine III. was unknown: he is inclined
      to read _Ursi_ progenies.]

      106 (return) [ Filii Ursi, quondam Clestini papæ nepotes, de
      bonis ecclesiæ Romanæ ditati, (Vit. Innocent. III. in Muratori,
      Script. tom. iii. P. i.) The partial prodigality of Nicholas III.
      is more conspicuous in Villani and Muratori. Yet the Ursini would
      disdain the nephews of a _modern_ pope.]

      107 (return) [ In his fifty-first Dissertation on the Italian
      Antiquities, Muratori explains the factions of the Guelphs and
      Ghibelines.]

      108 (return) [ Petrarch (tom. i. p. 222—230) has celebrated this
      victory according to the Colonna; but two contemporaries, a
      Florentine (Giovanni Villani, l. x. c. 220) and a Roman,
      (Ludovico Monaldeschi, p. 532—534,) are less favorable to their
      arms.]

      109 (return) [ The abbé de Sade (tom. i. Notes, p. 61—66) has
      applied the vith Canzone of Petrarch, _Spirto Gentil_, &c., to
      Stephen Colonna the younger:

               Orsi, lupi, leoni, aquile e serpi Al una gran marmorea
               _colexna_ Fanno noja sovente e à se danno.]




      Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.—Part
      I.

     Character And Coronation Of Petrarch.—Restoration Of The Freedom
     And Government Of Rome By The Tribune Rienzi.—His Virtues And
     Vices, His Expulsion And Death.—Return Of The Popes From
     Avignon.—Great Schism Of The West.—Reunion Of The Latin
     Church.—Last Struggles Of Roman Liberty.— Statutes Of Rome.—Final
     Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.

      In the apprehension of modern times, Petrarch 1 is the Italian
      songster of Laura and love. In the harmony of his Tuscan rhymes,
      Italy applauds, or rather adores, the father of her lyric poetry;
      and his verse, or at least his name, is repeated by the
      enthusiasm, or affectation, of amorous sensibility. Whatever may
      be the private taste of a stranger, his slight and superficial
      knowledge should humbly acquiesce in the judgment of a learned
      nation; yet I may hope or presume, that the Italians do not
      compare the tedious uniformity of sonnets and elegies with the
      sublime compositions of their epic muse, the original wildness of
      Dante, the regular beauties of Tasso, and the boundless variety
      of the incomparable Ariosto. The merits of the lover I am still
      less qualified to appreciate: nor am I deeply interested in a
      metaphysical passion for a nymph so shadowy, that her existence
      has been questioned; 2 for a matron so prolific, 3 that she was
      delivered of eleven legitimate children, 4 while her amorous
      swain sighed and sung at the fountain of Vaucluse. 5 But in the
      eyes of Petrarch, and those of his graver contemporaries, his
      love was a sin, and Italian verse a frivolous amusement. His
      Latin works of philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, established his
      serious reputation, which was soon diffused from Avignon over
      France and Italy: his friends and disciples were multiplied in
      every city; and if the ponderous volume of his writings 6 be now
      abandoned to a long repose, our gratitude must applaud the man,
      who by precept and example revived the spirit and study of the
      Augustan age. From his earliest youth, Petrarch aspired to the
      poetic crown. The academical honors of the three faculties had
      introduced a royal degree of master or doctor in the art of
      poetry; 7 and the title of poet-laureate, which custom, rather
      than vanity, perpetuates in the English court, 8 was first
      invented by the Cæsars of Germany. In the musical games of
      antiquity, a prize was bestowed on the victor: 9 the belief that
      Virgil and Horace had been crowned in the Capitol inflamed the
      emulation of a Latin bard; 10 and the laurel 11 was endeared to
      the lover by a verbal resemblance with the name of his mistress.
      The value of either object was enhanced by the difficulties of
      the pursuit; and if the virtue or prudence of Laura was
      inexorable, 12 he enjoyed, and might boast of enjoying, the nymph
      of poetry. His vanity was not of the most delicate kind, since he
      applauds the success of his own _labors_; his name was popular;
      his friends were active; the open or secret opposition of envy
      and prejudice was surmounted by the dexterity of patient merit.
      In the thirty-sixth year of his age, he was solicited to accept
      the object of his wishes; and on the same day, in the solitude of
      Vaucluse, he received a similar and solemn invitation from the
      senate of Rome and the university of Paris. The learning of a
      theological school, and the ignorance of a lawless city, were
      alike unqualified to bestow the ideal though immortal wreath
      which genius may obtain from the free applause of the public and
      of posterity: but the candidate dismissed this troublesome
      reflection; and after some moments of complacency and suspense,
      preferred the summons of the metropolis of the world.

      1 (return) [ The Mémoires sur la Vie de François Pétrarque,
      (Amsterdam, 1764, 1767, 3 vols. in 4to.,) form a copious,
      original, and entertaining work, a labor of love, composed from
      the accurate study of Petrarch and his contemporaries; but the
      hero is too often lost in the general history of the age, and the
      author too often languishes in the affectation of politeness and
      gallantry. In the preface to his first volume, he enumerates and
      weighs twenty Italian biographers, who have professedly treated
      of the same subject.]

      2 (return) [ The allegorical interpretation prevailed in the xvth
      century; but the wise commentators were not agreed whether they
      should understand by Laura, religion, or virtue, or the blessed
      virgin, or————. See the prefaces to the first and second volume.]

      3 (return) [ Laure de Noves, born about the year 1307, was
      married in January 1325, to Hugues de Sade, a noble citizen of
      Avignon, whose jealousy was not the effect of love, since he
      married a second wife within seven months of her death, which
      happened the 6th of April, 1348, precisely one-and-twenty years
      after Petrarch had seen and loved her.]

      4 (return) [ Corpus crebris partubus exhaustum: from one of these
      is issued, in the tenth degree, the abbé de Sade, the fond and
      grateful biographer of Petrarch; and this domestic motive most
      probably suggested the idea of his work, and urged him to inquire
      into every circumstance that could affect the history and
      character of his grandmother, (see particularly tom. i. p.
      122—133, notes, p. 7—58, tom. ii. p. 455—495 not. p. 76—82.)]

      5 (return) [ Vaucluse, so familiar to our English travellers, is
      described from the writings of Petrarch, and the local knowledge
      of his biographer, (Mémoires, tom. i. p. 340—359.) It was, in
      truth, the retreat of a hermit; and the moderns are much
      mistaken, if they place Laura and a happy lover in the grotto.]

      6 (return) [ Of 1250 pages, in a close print, at Basil in the
      xvith century, but without the date of the year. The abbé de Sade
      calls aloud for a new edition of Petrarch’s Latin works; but I
      much doubt whether it would redound to the profit of the
      bookseller, or the amusement of the public.]

      7 (return) [ Consult Selden’s Titles of Honor, in his works,
      (vol. iii. p. 457—466.) A hundred years before Petrarch, St.
      Francis received the visit of a poet, qui ab imperatore fuerat
      coronatus et exinde rex versuum dictus.]

      8 (return) [ From Augustus to Louis, the muse has too often been
      false and venal: but I much doubt whether any age or court can
      produce a similar establishment of a stipendiary poet, who in
      every reign, and at all events, is bound to furnish twice a year
      a measure of praise and verse, such as may be sung in the chapel,
      and, I believe, in the presence, of the sovereign. I speak the
      more freely, as the best time for abolishing this ridiculous
      custom is while the prince is a man of virtue and the poet a man
      of genius.]

      9 (return) [ Isocrates (in Panegyrico, tom. i. p. 116, 117, edit.
      Battie, Cantab. 1729) claims for his native Athens the glory of
      first instituting and recommending the alwnaV—kai ta aqla
      megista—mh monon tacouV kai rwmhV, alla kai logwn kai gnwmhV. The
      example of the Panathenæa was imitated at Delphi; but the Olympic
      games were ignorant of a musical crown, till it was extorted by
      the vain tyranny of Nero, (Sueton. in Nerone, c. 23; Philostrat.
      apud Casaubon ad locum; Dion Cassius, or Xiphilin, l. lxiii. p.
      1032, 1041. Potter’s Greek Antiquities, vol. i. p. 445, 450.)]

      10 (return) [ The Capitoline games (certamen quinquenale,
      _musicum_, equestre, gymnicum) were instituted by Domitian
      (Sueton. c. 4) in the year of Christ 86, (Censorin. de Die
      Natali, c. 18, p. 100, edit. Havercamp.) and were not abolished
      in the ivth century, (Ausonius de Professoribus Burdegal. V.) If
      the crown were given to superior merit, the exclusion of Statius
      (Capitolia nostræ inficiata lyræ, Sylv. l. iii. v. 31) may do
      honor to the games of the Capitol; but the Latin poets who lived
      before Domitian were crowned only in the public opinion.]

      11 (return) [ Petrarch and the senators of Rome were ignorant
      that the laurel was not the Capitoline, but the Delphic crown,
      (Plin. Hist. Natur p. 39. Hist. Critique de la République des
      Lettres, tom. i. p. 150—220.) The victors in the Capitol were
      crowned with a garland of oak eaves, (Martial, l. iv. epigram
      54.)]

      12 (return) [ The pious grandson of Laura has labored, and not
      without success, to vindicate her immaculate chastity against the
      censures of the grave and the sneers of the profane, (tom. ii.
      notes, p. 76—82.)]

      The ceremony of his coronation 13 was performed in the Capitol,
      by his friend and patron the supreme magistrate of the republic.
      Twelve patrician youths were arrayed in scarlet; six
      representatives of the most illustrious families, in green robes,
      with garlands of flowers, accompanied the procession; in the
      midst of the princes and nobles, the senator, count of
      Anguillara, a kinsman of the Colonna, assumed his throne; and at
      the voice of a herald Petrarch arose. After discoursing on a text
      of Virgil, and thrice repeating his vows for the prosperity of
      Rome, he knelt before the throne, and received from the senator a
      laurel crown, with a more precious declaration, “This is the
      reward of merit.” The people shouted, “Long life to the Capitol
      and the poet!” A sonnet in praise of Rome was accepted as the
      effusion of genius and gratitude; and after the whole procession
      had visited the Vatican, the profane wreath was suspended before
      the shrine of St. Peter. In the act or diploma 14 which was
      presented to Petrarch, the title and prerogatives of
      poet-laureate are revived in the Capitol, after the lapse of
      thirteen hundred years; and he receives the perpetual privilege
      of wearing, at his choice, a crown of laurel, ivy, or myrtle, of
      assuming the poetic habit, and of teaching, disputing,
      interpreting, and composing, in all places whatsoever, and on all
      subjects of literature. The grant was ratified by the authority
      of the senate and people; and the character of citizen was the
      recompense of his affection for the Roman name. They did him
      honor, but they did him justice. In the familiar society of
      Cicero and Livy, he had imbibed the ideas of an ancient patriot;
      and his ardent fancy kindled every idea to a sentiment, and every
      sentiment to a passion. The aspect of the seven hills and their
      majestic ruins confirmed these lively impressions; and he loved a
      country by whose liberal spirit he had been crowned and adopted.
      The poverty and debasement of Rome excited the indignation and
      pity of her grateful son; he dissembled the faults of his
      fellow-citizens; applauded with partial fondness the last of
      their heroes and matrons; and in the remembrance of the past, in
      the hopes of the future, was pleased to forget the miseries of
      the present time. Rome was still the lawful mistress of the
      world: the pope and the emperor, the bishop and general, had
      abdicated their station by an inglorious retreat to the Rhône and
      the Danube; but if she could resume her virtue, the republic
      might again vindicate her liberty and dominion. Amidst the
      indulgence of enthusiasm and eloquence, 15 Petrarch, Italy, and
      Europe, were astonished by a revolution which realized for a
      moment his most splendid visions. The rise and fall of the
      tribune Rienzi will occupy the following pages: 16 the subject is
      interesting, the materials are rich, and the glance of a patriot
      bard 17 will sometimes vivify the copious, but simple, narrative
      of the Florentine, 18 and more especially of the Roman,
      historian. 19

      13 (return) [ The whole process of Petrarch’s coronation is
      accurately described by the abbé de Sade, (tom. i. p. 425—435,
      tom. ii. p. 1—6, notes, p. 1—13,) from his own writings, and the
      Roman diary of Ludovico, Monaldeschi, without mixing in this
      authentic narrative the more recent fables of Sannuccio Delbene.]

      14 (return) [ The original act is printed among the Pieces
      Justificatives in the Mémoires sur Pétrarque, tom. iii. p.
      50—53.]

      15 (return) [ To find the proofs of his enthusiasm for Rome, I
      need only request that the reader would open, by chance, either
      Petrarch, or his French biographer. The latter has described the
      poet’s first visit to Rome, (tom. i. p. 323—335.) But in the
      place of much idle rhetoric and morality, Petrarch might have
      amused the present and future age with an original account of the
      city and his coronation.]

      16 (return) [ It has been treated by the pen of a Jesuit, the P.
      de Cerceau whose posthumous work (Conjuration de Nicolas Gabrini,
      dit de Rienzi, Tyran de Rome, en 1347) was published at Paris,
      1748, in 12mo. I am indebted to him for some facts and documents
      in John Hocsemius, canon of Liege, a contemporary historian,
      (Fabricius Bibliot. Lat. Med. Ævi, tom. iii. p. 273, tom. iv. p.
      85.)]

      17 (return) [ The abbé de Sade, who so freely expatiates on the
      history of the xivth century, might treat, as his proper subject,
      a revolution in which the heart of Petrarch was so deeply
      engaged, (Mémoires, tom. ii. p. 50, 51, 320—417, notes, p. 70—76,
      tom. iii. p. 221—243, 366—375.) Not an idea or a fact in the
      writings of Petrarch has probably escaped him.]

      18 (return) [ Giovanni Villani, l. xii. c. 89, 104, in Muratori,
      Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, tom. xiii. p. 969, 970, 981—983.]

      19 (return) [ In his third volume of Italian antiquities, (p.
      249—548,) Muratori has inserted the Fragmenta Historiæ Romanæ ab
      Anno 1327 usque ad Annum 1354, in the original dialect of Rome or
      Naples in the xivth century, and a Latin version for the benefit
      of strangers. It contains the most particular and authentic life
      of Cola (Nicholas) di Rienzi; which had been printed at
      Bracciano, 1627, in 4to., under the name of Tomaso Fortifiocca,
      who is only mentioned in this work as having been punished by the
      tribune for forgery. Human nature is scarcely capable of such
      sublime or stupid impartiality: but whosoever in the author of
      these Fragments, he wrote on the spot and at the time, and
      paints, without design or art, the manners of Rome and the
      character of the tribune. * Note: Since the publication of my
      first edition of Gibbon, some new and very remarkable documents
      have been brought to light in a life of Nicolas Rienzi,—Cola di
      Rienzo und seine Zeit,—by Dr. Felix Papencordt. The most
      important of these documents are letters from Rienzi to Charles
      the Fourth, emperor and king of Bohemia, and to the archbishop of
      Praque; they enter into the whole history of his adventurous
      career during its first period, and throw a strong light upon his
      extraordinary character. These documents were first discovered
      and made use of, to a certain extent, by Pelzel, the historian of
      Bohemia. The originals have disappeared, but a copy made by
      Pelzel for his own use is now in the library of Count Thun at
      Teschen. There seems no doubt of their authenticity. Dr.
      Papencordt has printed the whole in his Urkunden, with the
      exception of one long theological paper.—M. 1845.]

      In a quarter of the city which was inhabited only by mechanics
      and Jews, the marriage of an innkeeper and a washer woman
      produced the future deliverer of Rome. 20 201 From such parents
      Nicholas Rienzi Gabrini could inherit neither dignity nor
      fortune; and the gift of a liberal education, which they
      painfully bestowed, was the cause of his glory and untimely end.
      The study of history and eloquence, the writings of Cicero,
      Seneca, Livy, Cæsar, and Valerius Maximus, elevated above his
      equals and contemporaries the genius of the young plebeian: he
      perused with indefatigable diligence the manuscripts and marbles
      of antiquity; loved to dispense his knowledge in familiar
      language; and was often provoked to exclaim, “Where are now these
      Romans? their virtue, their justice, their power? why was I not
      born in those happy times?” 21 When the republic addressed to the
      throne of Avignon an embassy of the three orders, the spirit and
      eloquence of Rienzi recommended him to a place among the thirteen
      deputies of the commons. The orator had the honor of haranguing
      Pope Clement the Sixth, and the satisfaction of conversing with
      Petrarch, a congenial mind: but his aspiring hopes were chilled
      by disgrace and poverty and the patriot was reduced to a single
      garment and the charity of the hospital. 211 From this misery he
      was relieved by the sense of merit or the smile of favor; and the
      employment of apostolic notary afforded him a daily stipend of
      five gold florins, a more honorable and extensive connection, and
      the right of contrasting, both in words and actions, his own
      integrity with the vices of the state. The eloquence of Rienzi
      was prompt and persuasive: the multitude is always prone to envy
      and censure: he was stimulated by the loss of a brother and the
      impunity of the assassins; nor was it possible to excuse or
      exaggerate the public calamities. The blessings of peace and
      justice, for which civil society has been instituted, were
      banished from Rome: the jealous citizens, who might have endured
      every personal or pecuniary injury, were most deeply wounded in
      the dishonor of their wives and daughters: 22 they were equally
      oppressed by the arrogance of the nobles and the corruption of
      the magistrates; 221 and the abuse of arms or of laws was the
      only circumstance that distinguished the lions from the dogs and
      serpents of the Capitol. These allegorical emblems were variously
      repeated in the pictures which Rienzi exhibited in the streets
      and churches; and while the spectators gazed with curious wonder,
      the bold and ready orator unfolded the meaning, applied the
      satire, inflamed their passions, and announced a distant hope of
      comfort and deliverance. The privileges of Rome, her eternal
      sovereignty over her princes and provinces, was the theme of his
      public and private discourse; and a monument of servitude became
      in his hands a title and incentive of liberty. The decree of the
      senate, which granted the most ample prerogatives to the emperor
      Vespasian, had been inscribed on a copper plate still extant in
      the choir of the church of St. John Lateran. 23 A numerous
      assembly of nobles and plebeians was invited to this political
      lecture, and a convenient theatre was erected for their
      reception. The notary appeared in a magnificent and mysterious
      habit, explained the inscription by a version and commentary, 24
      and descanted with eloquence and zeal on the ancient glories of
      the senate and people, from whom all legal authority was derived.
      The supine ignorance of the nobles was incapable of discerning
      the serious tendency of such representations: they might
      sometimes chastise with words and blows the plebeian reformer;
      but he was often suffered in the Colonna palace to amuse the
      company with his threats and predictions; and the modern Brutus
      25 was concealed under the mask of folly and the character of a
      buffoon. While they indulged their contempt, the restoration of
      the _good estate_, his favorite expression, was entertained among
      the people as a desirable, a possible, and at length as an
      approaching, event; and while all had the disposition to applaud,
      some had the courage to assist, their promised deliverer.

      20 (return) [ The first and splendid period of Rienzi, his
      tribunitian government, is contained in the xviiith chapter of
      the Fragments, (p. 399—479,) which, in the new division, forms
      the iid book of the history in xxxviii. smaller chapters or
      sections.]

      201 (return) [ But see in Dr. Papencordt’s work, and in Rienzi’s
      own words, his claim to be a bastard son of the emperor Henry the
      Seventh, whose intrigue with his mother Rienzi relates with a
      sort of proud shamelessness. Compare account by the editor of Dr.
      Papencordt’s work in Quarterly Review vol. lxix.—M. 1845.]

      21 (return) [ The reader may be pleased with a specimen of the
      original idiom: Fò da soa juventutine nutricato di latte de
      eloquentia, bono gramatico, megliore rettuorico, autorista bravo.
      Deh como et quanto era veloce leitore! moito usava Tito Livio,
      Seneca, et Tullio, et Balerio Massimo, moito li dilettava le
      magnificentie di Julio Cesare raccontare. Tutta la die se
      speculava negl’ intagli di marmo lequali iaccio intorno Roma. Non
      era altri che esso, che sapesse lejere li antichi pataffii. Tutte
      scritture antiche vulgarizzava; quesse fiure di marmo justamente
      interpretava. On come spesso diceva, “Dove suono quelli buoni
      Romani? dove ene loro somma justitia? poleramme trovare in tempo
      che quessi fiuriano!”]

      211 (return) [ Sir J. Hobhouse published (in his Illustrations of
      Childe Harold) Rienzi’s joyful letter to the people of Rome on
      the apparently favorable termination of this mission.—M. 1845.]

      22 (return) [ Petrarch compares the jealousy of the Romans with
      the easy temper of the husbands of Avignon, (Mémoires, tom. i. p.
      330.)]

      221 (return) [ All this Rienzi, writing at a later period to the
      archbishop of Prague, attributed to the criminal abandonment of
      his flock by the supreme pontiff. See Urkunde apud Papencordt, p.
      xliv. Quarterly Review, p. 255.—M. 1845.]

      23 (return) [ The fragments of the _Lex regia_ may be found in
      the Inscriptions of Gruter, tom. i. p. 242, and at the end of the
      Tacitus of Ernesti, with some learned notes of the editor, tom.
      ii.]

      24 (return) [ I cannot overlook a stupendous and laughable
      blunder of Rienzi. The Lex regia empowers Vespasian to enlarge
      the Pomrium, a word familiar to every antiquary. It was not so to
      the tribune; he confounds it with pom_a_rium, an orchard,
      translates lo Jardino de Roma cioene Italia, and is copied by the
      less excusable ignorance of the Latin translator (p. 406) and the
      French historian, (p. 33.) Even the learning of Muratori has
      slumbered over the passage.]

      25 (return) [ Priori (_Bruto_) tamen similior, juvenis uterque,
      longe ingenio quam cujus simulationem induerat, ut sub hoc
      obtentû liberator ille P R. aperiretur tempore suo.... Ille
      regibus, hic tyrannis contemptus, (Opp. p. 536.) * Note: Fatcor
      attamen quod-nunc fatuum. nunc hystrionem, nunc gravem nunc
      simplicem, nunc astutum, nunc fervidum, nunc timidum simulatorem,
      et dissimulatorem ad hunc caritativum finem, quem dixi,
      constitusepius memet ipsum. Writing to an archbishop, (of
      Prague,) Rienzi alleges scriptural examples. Saltator coram archa
      David et insanus apparuit coram Rege; blanda, astuta, et tecta
      Judith astitit Holoferni; et astute Jacob meruit benedici,
      Urkunde xlix.—M. 1845.]

      A prophecy, or rather a summons, affixed on the church door of
      St. George, was the first public evidence of his designs; a
      nocturnal assembly of a hundred citizens on Mount Aventine, the
      first step to their execution. After an oath of secrecy and aid,
      he represented to the conspirators the importance and facility of
      their enterprise; that the nobles, without union or resources,
      were strong only in the fear nobles, of their imaginary strength;
      that all power, as well as right, was in the hands of the people;
      that the revenues of the apostolical chamber might relieve the
      public distress; and that the pope himself would approve their
      victory over the common enemies of government and freedom. After
      securing a faithful band to protect his first declaration, he
      proclaimed through the city, by sound of trumpet, that on the
      evening of the following day, all persons should assemble without
      arms before the church of St. Angelo, to provide for the
      reestablishment of the good estate. The whole night was employed
      in the celebration of thirty masses of the Holy Ghost; and in the
      morning, Rienzi, bareheaded, but in complete armor, issued from
      the church, encompassed by the hundred conspirators. The pope’s
      vicar, the simple bishop of Orvieto, who had been persuaded to
      sustain a part in this singular ceremony, marched on his right
      hand; and three great standards were borne aloft as the emblems
      of their design. In the first, the banner of _liberty_, Rome was
      seated on two lions, with a palm in one hand and a globe in the
      other; St. Paul, with a drawn sword, was delineated in the banner
      of _justice_; and in the third, St. Peter held the keys of
      _concord_ and _peace_. Rienzi was encouraged by the presence and
      applause of an innumerable crowd, who understood little, and
      hoped much; and the procession slowly rolled forwards from the
      castle of St. Angelo to the Capitol. His triumph was disturbed by
      some secret emotions which he labored to suppress: he ascended
      without opposition, and with seeming confidence, the citadel of
      the republic; harangued the people from the balcony; and received
      the most flattering confirmation of his acts and laws. The
      nobles, as if destitute of arms and counsels, beheld in silent
      consternation this strange revolution; and the moment had been
      prudently chosen, when the most formidable, Stephen Colonna, was
      absent from the city. On the first rumor, he returned to his
      palace, affected to despise this plebeian tumult, and declared to
      the messenger of Rienzi, that at his leisure he would cast the
      madman from the windows of the Capitol. The great bell instantly
      rang an alarm, and so rapid was the tide, so urgent was the
      danger, that Colonna escaped with precipitation to the suburb of
      St. Laurence: from thence, after a moment’s refreshment, he
      continued the same speedy career till he reached in safety his
      castle of Palestrina; lamenting his own imprudence, which had not
      trampled the spark of this mighty conflagration. A general and
      peremptory order was issued from the Capitol to all the nobles,
      that they should peaceably retire to their estates: they obeyed;
      and their departure secured the tranquillity of the free and
      obedient citizens of Rome.

      But such voluntary obedience evaporates with the first transports
      of zeal; and Rienzi felt the importance of justifying his
      usurpation by a regular form and a legal title. At his own
      choice, the Roman people would have displayed their attachment
      and authority, by lavishing on his head the names of senator or
      consul, of king or emperor: he preferred the ancient and modest
      appellation of tribune; 251 the protection of the commons was the
      essence of that sacred office; and they were ignorant, that it
      had never been invested with any share in the legislative or
      executive powers of the republic. In this character, and with the
      consent of the Roman, the tribune enacted the most salutary laws
      for the restoration and maintenance of the good estate. By the
      first he fulfils the wish of honesty and inexperience, that no
      civil suit should be protracted beyond the term of fifteen days.
      The danger of frequent perjury might justify the pronouncing
      against a false accuser the same penalty which his evidence would
      have inflicted: the disorders of the times might compel the
      legislator to punish every homicide with death, and every injury
      with equal retaliation. But the execution of justice was hopeless
      till he had previously abolished the tyranny of the nobles. It
      was formally provided, that none, except the supreme magistrate,
      should possess or command the gates, bridges, or towers of the
      state; that no private garrisons should be introduced into the
      towns or castles of the Roman territory; that none should bear
      arms, or presume to fortify their houses in the city or country;
      that the barons should be responsible for the safety of the
      highways, and the free passage of provisions; and that the
      protection of malefactors and robbers should be expiated by a
      fine of a thousand marks of silver. But these regulations would
      have been impotent and nugatory, had not the licentious nobles
      been awed by the sword of the civil power. A sudden alarm from
      the bell of the Capitol could still summon to the standard above
      twenty thousand volunteers: the support of the tribune and the
      laws required a more regular and permanent force. In each harbor
      of the coast a vessel was stationed for the assurance of
      commerce; a standing militia of three hundred and sixty horse and
      thirteen hundred foot was levied, clothed, and paid in the
      thirteen quarters of the city: and the spirit of a commonwealth
      may be traced in the grateful allowance of one hundred florins,
      or pounds, to the heirs of every soldier who lost his life in the
      service of his country. For the maintenance of the public
      defence, for the establishment of granaries, for the relief of
      widows, orphans, and indigent convents, Rienzi applied, without
      fear of sacrilege, the revenues of the apostolic chamber: the
      three branches of hearth-money, the salt-duty, and the customs,
      were each of the annual produce of one hundred thousand florins;
      26 and scandalous were the abuses, if in four or five months the
      amount of the salt-duty could be trebled by his judicious
      economy. After thus restoring the forces and finances of the
      republic, the tribune recalled the nobles from their solitary
      independence; required their personal appearance in the Capitol;
      and imposed an oath of allegiance to the new government, and of
      submission to the laws of the good estate. Apprehensive for their
      safety, but still more apprehensive of the danger of a refusal,
      the princes and barons returned to their houses at Rome in the
      garb of simple and peaceful citizens: the Colonna and Ursini, the
      Savelli and Frangipani, were confounded before the tribunal of a
      plebeian, of the vile buffoon whom they had so often derided, and
      their disgrace was aggravated by the indignation which they
      vainly struggled to disguise. The same oath was successively
      pronounced by the several orders of society, the clergy and
      gentlemen, the judges and notaries, the merchants and artisans,
      and the gradual descent was marked by the increase of sincerity
      and zeal. They swore to live and die with the republic and the
      church, whose interest was artfully united by the nominal
      association of the bishop of Orvieto, the pope’s vicar, to the
      office of tribune. It was the boast of Rienzi, that he had
      delivered the throne and patrimony of St. Peter from a rebellious
      aristocracy; and Clement the Sixth, who rejoiced in its fall,
      affected to believe the professions, to applaud the merits, and
      to confirm the title, of his trusty servant. The speech, perhaps
      the mind, of the tribune, was inspired with a lively regard for
      the purity of the faith: he insinuated his claim to a
      supernatural mission from the Holy Ghost; enforced by a heavy
      forfeiture the annual duty of confession and communion; and
      strictly guarded the spiritual as well as temporal welfare of his
      faithful people. 27

      251 (return) [ Et ego, Deo semper auctore, ipsa die pristinâ
      (leg. primâ) Tribunatus, quæ quidem dignitas a tempore deflorati
      Imperii, et per annos Vo et ultra sub tyrannicà occupatione
      vacavit, ipsos omnes potentes indifferenter Deum at justitiam
      odientes, a meâ, ymo a Dei facie fugiendo vehementi Spiritu
      dissipavi, et nullo effuso cruore trementes expuli, sine ictu
      remanente Romane terre facie renovatâ. Libellus Tribuni ad
      Cæsarem, p. xxxiv.—M. 1845.]

      26 (return) [ In one MS. I read (l. ii. c. 4, p. 409) perfumante
      quatro _solli_, in another, quatro _florini_, an important
      variety, since the florin was worth ten Roman _solidi_,
      (Muratori, dissert. xxviii.) The former reading would give us a
      population of 25,000, the latter of 250,000 families; and I much
      fear, that the former is more consistent with the decay of Rome
      and her territory.]

      27 (return) [ Hocsemius, p. 498, apud du Cerçeau, Hist. de
      Rienzi, p. 194. The fifteen tribunitian laws may be found in the
      Roman historian (whom for brevity I shall name) Fortifiocca, l.
      ii. c. 4.]




      Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.—Part
      II.

      Never perhaps has the energy and effect of a single mind been
      more remarkably felt than in the sudden, though transient,
      reformation of Rome by the tribune Rienzi. A den of robbers was
      converted to the discipline of a camp or convent: patient to
      hear, swift to redress, inexorable to punish, his tribunal was
      always accessible to the poor and stranger; nor could birth, or
      dignity, or the immunities of the church, protect the offender or
      his accomplices. The privileged houses, the private sanctuaries
      in Rome, on which no officer of justice would presume to
      trespass, were abolished; and he applied the timber and iron of
      their barricades in the fortifications of the Capitol. The
      venerable father of the Colonna was exposed in his own palace to
      the double shame of being desirous, and of being unable, to
      protect a criminal. A mule, with a jar of oil, had been stolen
      near Capranica; and the lord of the Ursini family was condemned
      to restore the damage, and to discharge a fine of four hundred
      florins for his negligence in guarding the highways. Nor were the
      persons of the barons more inviolate than their lands or houses;
      and, either from accident or design, the same impartial rigor was
      exercised against the heads of the adverse factions. Peter Agapet
      Colonna, who had himself been senator of Rome, was arrested in
      the street for injury or debt; and justice was appeased by the
      tardy execution of Martin Ursini, who, among his various acts of
      violence and rapine, had pillaged a shipwrecked vessel at the
      mouth of the Tyber. 28 His name, the purple of two cardinals, his
      uncles, a recent marriage, and a mortal disease were disregarded
      by the inflexible tribune, who had chosen his victim. The public
      officers dragged him from his palace and nuptial bed: his trial
      was short and satisfactory: the bell of the Capitol convened the
      people: stripped of his mantle, on his knees, with his hands
      bound behind his back, he heard the sentence of death; and after
      a brief confession, Ursini was led away to the gallows. After
      such an example, none who were conscious of guilt could hope for
      impunity, and the flight of the wicked, the licentious, and the
      idle, soon purified the city and territory of Rome. In this time
      (says the historian,) the woods began to rejoice that they were
      no longer infested with robbers; the oxen began to plough; the
      pilgrims visited the sanctuaries; the roads and inns were
      replenished with travellers; trade, plenty, and good faith, were
      restored in the markets; and a purse of gold might be exposed
      without danger in the midst of the highway. As soon as the life
      and property of the subject are secure, the labors and rewards of
      industry spontaneously revive: Rome was still the metropolis of
      the Christian world; and the fame and fortunes of the tribune
      were diffused in every country by the strangers who had enjoyed
      the blessings of his government.

      28 (return) [ Fortifiocca, l. ii. c. 11. From the account of this
      shipwreck, we learn some circumstances of the trade and
      navigation of the age. 1. The ship was built and freighted at
      Naples for the ports of Marseilles and Avignon. 2. The sailors
      were of Naples and the Isle of naria less skilful than those of
      Sicily and Genoa. 3. The navigation from Marseilles was a
      coasting voyage to the mouth of the Tyber, where they took
      shelter in a storm; but, instead of finding the current,
      unfortunately ran on a shoal: the vessel was stranded, the
      mariners escaped. 4. The cargo, which was pillaged, consisted of
      the revenue of Provence for the royal treasury, many bags of
      pepper and cinnamon, and bales of French cloth, to the value of
      20,000 florins; a rich prize.]

      The deliverance of his country inspired Rienzi with a vast, and
      perhaps visionary, idea of uniting Italy in a great federative
      republic, of which Rome should be the ancient and lawful head,
      and the free cities and princes the members and associates. His
      pen was not less eloquent than his tongue; and his numerous
      epistles were delivered to swift and trusty messengers. On foot,
      with a white wand in their hand, they traversed the forests and
      mountains; enjoyed, in the most hostile states, the sacred
      security of ambassadors; and reported, in the style of flattery
      or truth, that the highways along their passage were lined with
      kneeling multitudes, who implored Heaven for the success of their
      undertaking. Could passion have listened to reason; could private
      interest have yielded to the public welfare; the supreme tribunal
      and confederate union of the Italian republic might have healed
      their intestine discord, and closed the Alps against the
      Barbarians of the North. But the propitious season had elapsed;
      and if Venice, Florence, Sienna, Perugia, and many inferior
      cities offered their lives and fortunes to the good estate, the
      tyrants of Lombardy and Tuscany must despise, or hate, the
      plebeian author of a free constitution. From them, however, and
      from every part of Italy, the tribune received the most friendly
      and respectful answers: they were followed by the ambassadors of
      the princes and republics; and in this foreign conflux, on all
      the occasions of pleasure or business, the low born notary could
      assume the familiar or majestic courtesy of a sovereign. 29 The
      most glorious circumstance of his reign was an appeal to his
      justice from Lewis, king of Hungary, who complained, that his
      brother and her husband had been perfidiously strangled by Jane,
      queen of Naples: 30 her guilt or innocence was pleaded in a
      solemn trial at Rome; but after hearing the advocates, 31 the
      tribune adjourned this weighty and invidious cause, which was
      soon determined by the sword of the Hungarian. Beyond the Alps,
      more especially at Avignon, the revolution was the theme of
      curiosity, wonder, and applause. 311 Petrarch had been the
      private friend, perhaps the secret counsellor, of Rienzi: his
      writings breathe the most ardent spirit of patriotism and joy;
      and all respect for the pope, all gratitude for the Colonna, was
      lost in the superior duties of a Roman citizen. The poet-laureate
      of the Capitol maintains the act, applauds the hero, and mingles
      with some apprehension and advice, the most lofty hopes of the
      permanent and rising greatness of the republic. 32

      29 (return) [ It was thus that Oliver Cromwell’s old
      acquaintance, who remembered his vulgar and ungracious entrance
      into the House of Commons, were astonished at the ease and
      majesty of the protector on his throne, (See Harris’s Life of
      Cromwell, p. 27—34, from Clarendon Warwick, Whitelocke, Waller,
      &c.) The consciousness of merit and power will sometimes elevate
      the manners to the station.]

      30 (return) [ See the causes, circumstances, and effects of the
      death of Andrew in Giannone, (tom. iii. l. xxiii. p. 220—229,)
      and the Life of Petrarch (Mémoires, tom. ii. p. 143—148, 245—250,
      375—379, notes, p. 21—37.) The abbé de Sade _wishes_ to extenuate
      her guilt.]

      31 (return) [ The advocate who pleaded against Jane could add
      nothing to the logical force and brevity of his master’s epistle.
      Johanna! inordinata vita præcedens, retentio potestatis in regno,
      neglecta vindicta, vir alter susceptus, et excusatio subsequens,
      necis viri tui te probant fuisse participem et consortem. Jane of
      Naples, and Mary of Scotland, have a singular conformity.]

      311 (return) [ In his letter to the archbishop of Prague, Rienzi
      thus describes the effect of his elevation on Italy and on the
      world: “Did I not restore real peace among the cities which were
      distracted by factions? did I not cause all the citizens, exiled
      by party violence, with their wretched wives and children, to be
      readmitted? had I not begun to extinguish the factious names
      (scismatica nomina) of Guelf and Ghibelline, for which countless
      thousands had perished body and soul, under the eyes of their
      pastors, by the reduction of the city of Rome and all Italy into
      one amicable, peaceful, holy, and united confederacy? the
      consecrated standards and banners having been by me collected and
      blended together, and, in witness to our holy association and
      perfect union, offered up in the presence of the ambassadors of
      all the cities of Italy, on the day of the assumption of our
      Blessed Lady.” p. xlvii. ——In the Libellus ad Cæsarem: “I
      received the homage and submission of all the sovereigns of
      Apulia, the barons and counts, and almost all the people of
      Italy. I was honored by solemn embassies and letters by the
      emperor of Constantinople and the king of England. The queen of
      Naples submitted herself and her kingdom to the protection of the
      tribune. The king of Hungary, by two solemn embassies, brought
      his cause against his queen and his nobles before my tribunal;
      and I venture to say further, that the fame of the tribune
      alarmed the soldan of Babylon. When the Christian pilgrims to the
      sepulchre of our Lord related to the Christian and Jewish
      inhabitants of Jerusalem all the yet unheard-of and wonderful
      circumstances of the reformation in Rome, both Jews and
      Christians celebrated the event with unusual festivities. When
      the soldan inquired the cause of these rejoicings, and received
      this intelligence about Rome, he ordered all the havens and
      cities on the coast to be fortified, and put in a state of
      defence,” p. xxxv.—M. 1845.]

      32 (return) [ See the Epistola Hortatoria de Capessenda
      Republica, from Petrarch to Nicholas Rienzi, (Opp. p. 535—540,)
      and the vth eclogue or pastoral, a perpetual and obscure
      allegory.]

      While Petrarch indulged these prophetic visions, the Roman hero
      was fast declining from the meridian of fame and power; and the
      people, who had gazed with astonishment on the ascending meteor,
      began to mark the irregularity of its course, and the
      vicissitudes of light and obscurity. More eloquent than
      judicious, more enterprising than resolute, the faculties of
      Rienzi were not balanced by cool and commanding reason: he
      magnified in a tenfold proportion the objects of hope and fear;
      and prudence, which could not have erected, did not presume to
      fortify, his throne. In the blaze of prosperity, his virtues were
      insensibly tinctured with the adjacent vices; justice with
      cruelty, liberality with profusion, and the desire of fame with
      puerile and ostentatious vanity. 321 He might have learned, that
      the ancient tribunes, so strong and sacred in the public opinion,
      were not distinguished in style, habit, or appearance, from an
      ordinary plebeian; 33 and that as often as they visited the city
      on foot, a single viator, or beadle, attended the exercise of
      their office. The Gracchi would have frowned or smiled, could
      they have read the sonorous titles and epithets of their
      successor, “Nicholas, severe and merciful; deliverer of Rome;
      defender of Italy; 34 friend of mankind, and of liberty, peace,
      and justice; tribune august:” his theatrical pageants had
      prepared the revolution; but Rienzi abused, in luxury and pride,
      the political maxim of speaking to the eyes, as well as the
      understanding, of the multitude. From nature he had received the
      gift of a handsome person, 35 till it was swelled and disfigured
      by intemperance: and his propensity to laughter was corrected in
      the magistrate by the affectation of gravity and sternness. He
      was clothed, at least on public occasions, in a party-colored
      robe of velvet or satin, lined with fur, and embroidered with
      gold: the rod of justice, which he carried in his hand, was a
      sceptre of polished steel, crowned with a globe and cross of
      gold, and enclosing a small fragment of the true and holy wood.
      In his civil and religious processions through the city, he rode
      on a white steed, the symbol of royalty: the great banner of the
      republic, a sun with a circle of stars, a dove with an olive
      branch, was displayed over his head; a shower of gold and silver
      was scattered among the populace, fifty guards with halberds
      encompassed his person; a troop of horse preceded his march; and
      their tymbals and trumpets were of massy silver.

      321 (return) [ An illustrious female writer has drawn, with a
      single stroke, the character of Rienzi, Crescentius, and Arnold
      of Brescia, the fond restorers of Roman liberty: ‘Qui ont pris
      les souvenirs pour les espérances.’ Corinne, tom. i. p. 159.
      “Could Tacitus have excelled this?” Hallam, vol i p. 418.—M.]

      33 (return) [ In his Roman Questions, Plutarch (Opuscul. tom. i.
      p. 505, 506, edit. Græc. Hen. Steph.) states, on the most
      constitutional principles, the simple greatness of the tribunes,
      who were not properly magistrates, but a check on magistracy. It
      was their duty and interest omoiousqai schmati, kai stolh kai
      diaithtoiV epitugcanousi tvn politvn.... katapateisqai dei (a
      saying of C. Curio) kai mh semnon einai th oyei mhde
      dusprosodon... osw de mallon ektapeinoutai tv swmati, tosoutw
      mallon auxetai th dunamei, &c. Rienzi, and Petrarch himself, were
      incapable perhaps of reading a Greek philosopher; but they might
      have imbibed the same modest doctrines from their favorite
      Latins, Livy and Valerius Maximus.]

      34 (return) [ I could not express in English the forcible, though
      barbarous, title of _Zelator_ Italiæ, which Rienzi assumed.]

      35 (return) [ Era bell’ homo, (l. ii. c. l. p. 399.) It is
      remarkable, that the riso sarcastico of the Bracciano edition is
      wanting in the Roman MS., from which Muratori has given the text.
      In his second reign, when he is painted almost as a monster,
      Rienzi travea una ventresca tonna trionfale, a modo de uno Abbate
      Asiano, or Asinino, (l. iii. c. 18, p. 523.)]

      The ambition of the honors of chivalry 36 betrayed the meanness
      of his birth, and degraded the importance of his office; and the
      equestrian tribune was not less odious to the nobles, whom he
      adopted, than to the plebeians, whom he deserted. All that yet
      remained of treasure, or luxury, or art, was exhausted on that
      solemn day. Rienzi led the procession from the Capitol to the
      Lateran; the tediousness of the way was relieved with decorations
      and games; the ecclesiastical, civil, and military orders marched
      under their various banners; the Roman ladies attended his wife;
      and the ambassadors of Italy might loudly applaud or secretly
      deride the novelty of the pomp. In the evening, which they had
      reached the church and palace of Constantine, he thanked and
      dismissed the numerous assembly, with an invitation to the
      festival of the ensuing day. From the hands of a venerable knight
      he received the order of the Holy Ghost; the purification of the
      bath was a previous ceremony; but in no step of his life did
      Rienzi excite such scandal and censure as by the profane use of
      the porphyry vase, in which Constantine (a foolish legend) had
      been healed of his leprosy by Pope Sylvester. 37 With equal
      presumption the tribune watched or reposed within the consecrated
      precincts of the baptistery; and the failure of his state-bed was
      interpreted as an omen of his approaching downfall. At the hour
      of worship, he showed himself to the returning crowds in a
      majestic attitude, with a robe of purple, his sword, and gilt
      spurs; but the holy rites were soon interrupted by his levity and
      insolence. Rising from his throne, and advancing towards the
      congregation, he proclaimed in a loud voice: “We summon to our
      tribunal Pope Clement: and command him to reside in his diocese
      of Rome: we also summon the sacred college of cardinals. 38 We
      again summon the two pretenders, Charles of Bohemia and Lewis of
      Bavaria, who style themselves emperors: we likewise summon all
      the electors of Germany, to inform us on what pretence they have
      usurped the inalienable right of the Roman people, the ancient
      and lawful sovereigns of the empire.” 39 Unsheathing his maiden
      sword, he thrice brandished it to the three parts of the world,
      and thrice repeated the extravagant declaration, “And this too is
      mine!” The pope’s vicar, the bishop of Orvieto, attempted to
      check this career of folly; but his feeble protest was silenced
      by martial music; and instead of withdrawing from the assembly,
      he consented to dine with his brother tribune, at a table which
      had hitherto been reserved for the supreme pontiff. A banquet,
      such as the Cæsars had given, was prepared for the Romans. The
      apartments, porticos, and courts of the Lateran were spread with
      innumerable tables for either sex, and every condition; a stream
      of wine flowed from the nostrils of Constantine’s brazen horse;
      no complaint, except of the scarcity of water, could be heard;
      and the licentiousness of the multitude was curbed by discipline
      and fear. A subsequent day was appointed for the coronation of
      Rienzi; 40 seven crowns of different leaves or metals were
      successively placed on his head by the most eminent of the Roman
      clergy; they represented the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost; and
      he still professed to imitate the example of the ancient
      tribunes. 401 These extraordinary spectacles might deceive or
      flatter the people; and their own vanity was gratified in the
      vanity of their leader. But in his private life he soon deviated
      from the strict rule of frugality and abstinence; and the
      plebeians, who were awed by the splendor of the nobles, were
      provoked by the luxury of their equal. His wife, his son, his
      uncle, (a barber in name and profession,) exposed the contrast of
      vulgar manners and princely expense; and without acquiring the
      majesty, Rienzi degenerated into the vices, of a king.

      36 (return) [ Strange as it may seem, this festival was not
      without a precedent. In the year 1327, two barons, a Colonna and
      an Ursini, the usual balance, were created knights by the Roman
      people: their bath was of rose-water, their beds were decked with
      royal magnificence, and they were served at St. Maria of Araceli
      in the Capitol, by the twenty-eight _buoni huomini_. They
      afterwards received from Robert, king of Naples, the sword of
      chivalry, (Hist. Rom. l. i. c. 2, p. 259.)]

      37 (return) [ All parties believed in the leprosy and bath of
      Constantine (Petrarch. Epist. Famil. vi. 2,) and Rienzi justified
      his own conduct by observing to the court of Avignon, that a vase
      which had been used by a Pagan could not be profaned by a pious
      Christian. Yet this crime is specified in the bull of
      excommunication, (Hocsemius, apud du Cerçeau, p. 189, 190.)]

      38 (return) [ This _verbal_ summons of Pope Clement VI., which
      rests on the authority of the Roman historian and a Vatican MS.,
      is disputed by the biographer of Petrarch, (tom. ii. not. p.
      70—76), with arguments rather of decency than of weight. The
      court of Avignon might not choose to agitate this delicate
      question.]

      39 (return) [ The summons of the two rival emperors, a monument
      of freedom and folly, is extant in Hocsemius, (Cerçeau, p.
      163—166.)]

      40 (return) [ It is singular, that the Roman historian should
      have overlooked this sevenfold coronation, which is sufficiently
      proved by internal evidence, and the testimony of Hocsemius, and
      even of Rienzi, (Cercean p. 167—170, 229.)]

      401 (return) [ It was on this occasion that he made the profane
      comparison between himself and our Lord; and the striking
      circumstance took place which he relates in his letter to the
      archbishop of Prague. In the midst of all the wild and joyous
      exultation of the people, one of his most zealous supporters, a
      monk, who was in high repute for his sanctity, stood apart in a
      corner of the church and wept bitterly! A domestic chaplain of
      Rienzi’s inquired the cause of his grief. “Now,” replied the man
      of God, “is thy master cast down from heaven—never saw I man so
      proud. By the aid of the Holy Ghost he has driven the tyrants
      from the city without drawing a sword; the cities and the
      sovereigns of Italy have submitted to his power. Why is he so
      arrogant and ungrateful towards the Most High? Why does he seek
      earthly and transitory rewards for his labors, and in his wanton
      speech liken himself to the Creator? Tell thy master that he can
      only atone for this offence by tears of penitence.” In the
      evening the chaplain communicated this solemn rebuke to the
      tribune: it appalled him for the time, but was soon forgotten in
      the tumult and hurry of business.—M. 1845.]

      A simple citizen describes with pity, or perhaps with pleasure,
      the humiliation of the barons of Rome. “Bareheaded, their hands
      crossed on their breast, they stood with downcast looks in the
      presence of the tribune; and they trembled, good God, how they
      trembled!” 41 As long as the yoke of Rienzi was that of justice
      and their country, their conscience forced them to esteem the
      man, whom pride and interest provoked them to hate: his
      extravagant conduct soon fortified their hatred by contempt; and
      they conceived the hope of subverting a power which was no longer
      so deeply rooted in the public confidence. The old animosity of
      the Colonna and Ursini was suspended for a moment by their common
      disgrace: they associated their wishes, and perhaps their
      designs; an assassin was seized and tortured; he accused the
      nobles; and as soon as Rienzi deserved the fate, he adopted the
      suspicions and maxims, of a tyrant. On the same day, under
      various pretences, he invited to the Capitol his principal
      enemies, among whom were five members of the Ursini and three of
      the Colonna name. But instead of a council or a banquet, they
      found themselves prisoners under the sword of despotism or
      justice; and the consciousness of innocence or guilt might
      inspire them with equal apprehensions of danger. At the sound of
      the great bell the people assembled; they were arraigned for a
      conspiracy against the tribune’s life; and though some might
      sympathize in their distress, not a hand, nor a voice, was raised
      to rescue the first of the nobility from their impending doom.
      Their apparent boldness was prompted by despair; they passed in
      separate chambers a sleepless and painful night; and the
      venerable hero, Stephen Colonna, striking against the door of his
      prison, repeatedly urged his guards to deliver him by a speedy
      death from such ignominious servitude. In the morning they
      understood their sentence from the visit of a confessor and the
      tolling of the bell. The great hall of the Capitol had been
      decorated for the bloody scene with red and white hangings: the
      countenance of the tribune was dark and severe; the swords of the
      executioners were unsheathed; and the barons were interrupted in
      their dying speeches by the sound of trumpets. But in this
      decisive moment, Rienzi was not less anxious or apprehensive than
      his captives: he dreaded the splendor of their names, their
      surviving kinsmen, the inconstancy of the people, the reproaches
      of the world, and, after rashly offering a mortal injury, he
      vainly presumed that, if he could forgive, he might himself be
      forgiven. His elaborate oration was that of a Christian and a
      suppliant; and, as the humble minister of the commons, he
      entreated his masters to pardon these noble criminals, for whose
      repentance and future service he pledged his faith and authority.
      “If you are spared,” said the tribune, “by the mercy of the
      Romans, will you not promise to support the good estate with your
      lives and fortunes?” Astonished by this marvellous clemency, the
      barons bowed their heads; and while they devoutly repeated the
      oath of allegiance, might whisper a secret, and more sincere,
      assurance of revenge. A priest, in the name of the people,
      pronounced their absolution: they received the communion with the
      tribune, assisted at the banquet, followed the procession; and,
      after every spiritual and temporal sign of reconciliation, were
      dismissed in safety to their respective homes, with the new
      honors and titles of generals, consuls, and patricians. 42

      41 (return) [ Puoi se faceva stare denante a se, mentre sedeva,
      li baroni tutti in piedi ritti co le vraccia piecate, e co li
      capucci tratti. Deh como stavano paurosi! (Hist. Rom. l. ii. c.
      20, p. 439.) He saw them, and we see them.]

      42 (return) [ The original letter, in which Rienzi justifies his
      treatment of the Colonna, (Hocsemius, apud du Cerçeau, p.
      222—229,) displays, in genuine colors, the mixture of the knave
      and the madman.]

      During some weeks they were checked by the memory of their
      danger, rather than of their deliverance, till the most powerful
      of the Ursini, escaping with the Colonna from the city, erected
      at Marino the standard of rebellion. The fortifications of the
      castle were instantly restored; the vassals attended their lord;
      the outlaws armed against the magistrate; the flocks and herds,
      the harvests and vineyards, from Marino to the gates of Rome,
      were swept away or destroyed; and the people arraigned Rienzi as
      the author of the calamities which his government had taught them
      to forget. In the camp, Rienzi appeared to less advantage than in
      the rostrum; and he neglected the progress of the rebel barons
      till their numbers were strong, and their castles impregnable.
      From the pages of Livy he had not imbibed the art, or even the
      courage, of a general: an army of twenty thousand Romans returned
      without honor or effect from the attack of Marino; and his
      vengeance was amused by painting his enemies, their heads
      downwards, and drowning two dogs (at least they should have been
      bears) as the representatives of the Ursini. The belief of his
      incapacity encouraged their operations: they were invited by
      their secret adherents; and the barons attempted, with four
      thousand foot, and sixteen hundred horse, to enter Rome by force
      or surprise. The city was prepared for their reception; the
      alarm-bell rung all night; the gates were strictly guarded, or
      insolently open; and after some hesitation they sounded a
      retreat. The two first divisions had passed along the walls, but
      the prospect of a free entrance tempted the headstrong valor of
      the nobles in the rear; and after a successful skirmish, they
      were overthrown and massacred without quarter by the crowds of
      the Roman people. Stephen Colonna the younger, the noble spirit
      to whom Petrarch ascribed the restoration of Italy, was preceded
      or accompanied in death by his son John, a gallant youth, by his
      brother Peter, who might regret the ease and honors of the
      church, by a nephew of legitimate birth, and by two bastards of
      the Colonna race; and the number of seven, the seven crowns, as
      Rienzi styled them, of the Holy Ghost, was completed by the agony
      of the deplorable parent, and the veteran chief, who had survived
      the hope and fortune of his house. The vision and prophecies of
      St. Martin and Pope Boniface had been used by the tribune to
      animate his troops: 43 he displayed, at least in the pursuit, the
      spirit of a hero; but he forgot the maxims of the ancient Romans,
      who abhorred the triumphs of civil war. The conqueror ascended
      the Capitol; deposited his crown and sceptre on the altar; and
      boasted, with some truth, that he had cut off an ear, which
      neither pope nor emperor had been able to amputate. 44 His base
      and implacable revenge denied the honors of burial; and the
      bodies of the Colonna, which he threatened to expose with those
      of the vilest malefactors, were secretly interred by the holy
      virgins of their name and family. 45 The people sympathized in
      their grief, repented of their own fury, and detested the
      indecent joy of Rienzi, who visited the spot where these
      illustrious victims had fallen. It was on that fatal spot that he
      conferred on his son the honor of knighthood: and the ceremony
      was accomplished by a slight blow from each of the horsemen of
      the guard, and by a ridiculous and inhuman ablution from a pool
      of water, which was yet polluted with patrician blood. 46

      43 (return) [ Rienzi, in the above-mentioned letter, ascribes to
      St. Martin the tribune, Boniface VIII. the enemy of Colonna,
      himself, and the Roman people, the glory of the day, which
      Villani likewise (l. 12, c. 104) describes as a regular battle.
      The disorderly skirmish, the flight of the Romans, and the
      cowardice of Rienzi, are painted in the simple and minute
      narrative of Fortifiocca, or the anonymous citizen, (l. i. c.
      34—37.)]

      44 (return) [ In describing the fall of the Colonna, I speak only
      of the family of Stephen the elder, who is often confounded by
      the P. du Cerçeau with his son. That family was extinguished, but
      the house has been perpetuated in the collateral branches, of
      which I have not a very accurate knowledge. Circumspice (says
      Petrarch) familiæ tuæ statum, Columniensium _domos_: solito
      pauciores habeat columnas. Quid ad rem modo fundamentum stabile,
      solidumque permaneat.]

      45 (return) [ The convent of St. Silvester was founded, endowed,
      and protected by the Colonna cardinals, for the daughters of the
      family who embraced a monastic life, and who, in the year 1318,
      were twelve in number. The others were allowed to marry with
      their kinsmen in the fourth degree, and the dispensation was
      justified by the small number and close alliances of the noble
      families of Rome, (Mémoires sur Pétrarque, tom. i. p. 110, tom.
      ii. p. 401.)]

      46 (return) [ Petrarch wrote a stiff and pedantic letter of
      consolation, (Fam. l. vii. epist. 13, p. 682, 683.) The friend
      was lost in the patriot. Nulla toto orbe principum familia
      carior; carior tamen respublica, carior Roma, carior Italia. ——Je
      rends graces aux Dieux de n’être pas Romain.]

      A short delay would have saved the Colonna, the delay of a single
      month, which elapsed between the triumph and the exile of Rienzi.
      In the pride of victory, he forfeited what yet remained of his
      civil virtues, without acquiring the fame of military prowess. A
      free and vigorous opposition was formed in the city; and when the
      tribune proposed in the public council 47 to impose a new tax,
      and to regulate the government of Perugia, thirty-nine members
      voted against his measures; repelled the injurious charge of
      treachery and corruption; and urged him to prove, by their
      forcible exclusion, that if the populace adhered to his cause, it
      was already disclaimed by the most respectable citizens. The pope
      and the sacred college had never been dazzled by his specious
      professions; they were justly offended by the insolence of his
      conduct; a cardinal legate was sent to Italy, and after some
      fruitless treaty, and two personal interviews, he fulminated a
      bull of excommunication, in which the tribune is degraded from
      his office, and branded with the guilt of rebellion, sacrilege,
      and heresy. 48 The surviving barons of Rome were now humbled to a
      sense of allegiance; their interest and revenge engaged them in
      the service of the church; but as the fate of the Colonna was
      before their eyes, they abandoned to a private adventurer the
      peril and glory of the revolution. John Pepin, count of
      Minorbino, 49 in the kingdom of Naples, had been condemned for
      his crimes, or his riches, to perpetual imprisonment; and
      Petrarch, by soliciting his release, indirectly contributed to
      the ruin of his friend. At the head of one hundred and fifty
      soldiers, the count of Minorbino introduced himself into Rome;
      barricaded the quarter of the Colonna: and found the enterprise
      as easy as it had seemed impossible. From the first alarm, the
      bell of the Capitol incessantly tolled; but, instead of repairing
      to the well-known sound, the people were silent and inactive; and
      the pusillanimous Rienzi, deploring their ingratitude with sighs
      and tears, abdicated the government and palace of the republic.

      47 (return) [ This council and opposition is obscurely mentioned
      by Pollistore, a contemporary writer, who has preserved some
      curious and original facts, (Rer. Italicarum, tom. xxv. c. 31, p.
      798—804.)]

      48 (return) [ The briefs and bulls of Clement VI. against Rienzi
      are translated by the P. du Cerçeau, (p. 196, 232,) from the
      Ecclesiastical Annals of Odericus Raynaldus, (A.D. 1347, No. 15,
      17, 21, &c.,) who found them in the archives of the Vatican.]

      49 (return) [ Matteo Villani describes the origin, character, and
      death of this count of Minorbino, a man da natura inconstante e
      senza fede, whose grandfather, a crafty notary, was enriched and
      ennobled by the spoils of the Saracens of Nocera, (l. vii. c.
      102, 103.) See his imprisonment, and the efforts of Petrarch,
      (tom. ii. p. 149—151.)]




      Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.—Part
      III.

      Without drawing his sword, count Pepin restored the aristocracy
      and the church; three senators were chosen, and the legate,
      assuming the first rank, accepted his two colleagues from the
      rival families of Colonna and Ursini. The acts of the tribune
      were abolished, his head was proscribed; yet such was the terror
      of his name, that the barons hesitated three days before they
      would trust themselves in the city, and Rienzi was left above a
      month in the castle of St. Angelo, from whence he peaceably
      withdrew, after laboring, without effect, to revive the affection
      and courage of the Romans. The vision of freedom and empire had
      vanished: their fallen spirit would have acquiesced in servitude,
      had it been smoothed by tranquillity and order; and it was
      scarcely observed, that the new senators derived their authority
      from the Apostolic See; that four cardinals were appointed to
      reform, with dictatorial power, the state of the republic. Rome
      was again agitated by the bloody feuds of the barons, who
      detested each other, and despised the commons: their hostile
      fortresses, both in town and country, again rose, and were again
      demolished: and the peaceful citizens, a flock of sheep, were
      devoured, says the Florentine historian, by these rapacious
      wolves. But when their pride and avarice had exhausted the
      patience of the Romans, a confraternity of the Virgin Mary
      protected or avenged the republic: the bell of the Capitol was
      again tolled, the nobles in arms trembled in the presence of an
      unarmed multitude; and of the two senators, Colonna escaped from
      the window of the palace, and Ursini was stoned at the foot of
      the altar. The dangerous office of tribune was successively
      occupied by two plebeians, Cerroni and Baroncelli. The mildness
      of Cerroni was unequal to the times; and after a faint struggle,
      he retired with a fair reputation and a decent fortune to the
      comforts of rural life. Devoid of eloquence or genius, Baroncelli
      was distinguished by a resolute spirit: he spoke the language of
      a patriot, and trod in the footsteps of tyrants; his suspicion
      was a sentence of death, and his own death was the reward of his
      cruelties. Amidst the public misfortunes, the faults of Rienzi
      were forgotten; and the Romans sighed for the peace and
      prosperity of their good estate. 50

      50 (return) [ The troubles of Rome, from the departure to the
      return of Rienzi, are related by Matteo Villani (l. ii. c. 47, l.
      iii. c. 33, 57, 78) and Thomas Fortifiocca, (l. iii. c. 1—4.) I
      have slightly passed over these secondary characters, who
      imitated the original tribune.]

      After an exile of seven years, the first deliverer was again
      restored to his country. In the disguise of a monk or a pilgrim,
      he escaped from the castle of St. Angelo, implored the friendship
      of the king of Hungary at Naples, tempted the ambition of every
      bold adventurer, mingled at Rome with the pilgrims of the
      jubilee, lay concealed among the hermits of the Apennine, and
      wandered through the cities of Italy, Germany, and Bohemia. His
      person was invisible, his name was yet formidable; and the
      anxiety of the court of Avignon supposes, and even magnifies, his
      personal merit. The emperor Charles the Fourth gave audience to a
      stranger, who frankly revealed himself as the tribune of the
      republic; and astonished an assembly of ambassadors and princes,
      by the eloquence of a patriot and the visions of a prophet, the
      downfall of tyranny and the kingdom of the Holy Ghost. 51
      Whatever had been his hopes, Rienzi found himself a captive; but
      he supported a character of independence and dignity, and obeyed,
      as his own choice, the irresistible summons of the supreme
      pontiff. The zeal of Petrarch, which had been cooled by the
      unworthy conduct, was rekindled by the sufferings and the
      presence, of his friend; and he boldly complains of the times, in
      which the savior of Rome was delivered by her emperor into the
      hands of her bishop. Rienzi was transported slowly, but in safe
      custody, from Prague to Avignon: his entrance into the city was
      that of a malefactor; in his prison he was chained by the leg;
      and four cardinals were named to inquire into the crimes of
      heresy and rebellion. But his trial and condemnation would have
      involved some questions, which it was more prudent to leave under
      the veil of mystery: the temporal supremacy of the popes; the
      duty of residence; the civil and ecclesiastical privileges of the
      clergy and people of Rome. The reigning pontiff well deserved the
      appellation of _Clement_: the strange vicissitudes and
      magnanimous spirit of the captive excited his pity and esteem;
      and Petrarch believes that he respected in the hero the name and
      sacred character of a poet. 52 Rienzi was indulged with an easy
      confinement and the use of books; and in the assiduous study of
      Livy and the Bible, he sought the cause and the consolation of
      his misfortunes.

      51 (return) [ These visions, of which the friends and enemies of
      Rienzi seem alike ignorant, are surely magnified by the zeal of
      Pollistore, a Dominican inquisitor, (Rer. Ital. tom. xxv. c. 36,
      p. 819.) Had the tribune taught, that Christ was succeeded by the
      Holy Ghost, that the tyranny of the pope would be abolished, he
      might have been convicted of heresy and treason, without
      offending the Roman people. * Note: So far from having magnified
      these visions, Pollistore is more than confirmed by the documents
      published by Papencordt. The adoption of all the wild doctrines
      of the Fratricelli, the Spirituals, in which, for the time at
      least, Rienzi appears to have been in earnest; his magnificent
      offers to the emperor, and the whole history of his life, from
      his first escape from Rome to his imprisonment at Avignon, are
      among the most curious chapters of his eventful life.—M. 1845.]

      52 (return) [ The astonishment, the envy almost, of Petrarch is a
      proof, if not of the truth of this incredible fact, at least of
      his own veracity. The abbé de Sade (Mémoires, tom. iii. p. 242)
      quotes the vith epistle of the xiiith book of Petrarch, but it is
      of the royal MS., which he consulted, and not of the ordinary
      Basil edition, (p. 920.)]

      The succeeding pontificate of Innocent the Sixth opened a new
      prospect of his deliverance and restoration; and the court of
      Avignon was persuaded, that the successful rebel could alone
      appease and reform the anarchy of the metropolis. After a solemn
      profession of fidelity, the Roman tribune was sent into Italy,
      with the title of senator; but the death of Baroncelli appeared
      to supersede the use of his mission; and the legate, Cardinal
      Albornoz, 53 a consummate statesman, allowed him with reluctance,
      and without aid, to undertake the perilous experiment. His first
      reception was equal to his wishes: the day of his entrance was a
      public festival; and his eloquence and authority revived the laws
      of the good estate. But this momentary sunshine was soon clouded
      by his own vices and those of the people: in the Capitol, he
      might often regret the prison of Avignon; and after a second
      administration of four months, Rienzi was massacred in a tumult
      which had been fomented by the Roman barons. In the society of
      the Germans and Bohemians, he is said to have contracted the
      habits of intemperance and cruelty: adversity had chilled his
      enthusiasm, without fortifying his reason or virtue; and that
      youthful hope, that lively assurance, which is the pledge of
      success, was now succeeded by the cold impotence of distrust and
      despair. The tribune had reigned with absolute dominion, by the
      choice, and in the hearts, of the Romans: the senator was the
      servile minister of a foreign court; and while he was suspected
      by the people, he was abandoned by the prince. The legate
      Albornoz, who seemed desirous of his ruin, inflexibly refused all
      supplies of men and money; a faithful subject could no longer
      presume to touch the revenues of the apostolical chamber; and the
      first idea of a tax was the signal of clamor and sedition. Even
      his justice was tainted with the guilt or reproach of selfish
      cruelty: the most virtuous citizen of Rome was sacrificed to his
      jealousy; and in the execution of a public robber, from whose
      purse he had been assisted, the magistrate too much forgot, or
      too much remembered, the obligations of the debtor. 54 A civil
      war exhausted his treasures, and the patience of the city: the
      Colonna maintained their hostile station at Palestrina; and his
      mercenaries soon despised a leader whose ignorance and fear were
      envious of all subordinate merit. In the death, as in the life,
      of Rienzi, the hero and the coward were strangely mingled. When
      the Capitol was invested by a furious multitude, when he was
      basely deserted by his civil and military servants, the intrepid
      senator, waving the banner of liberty, presented himself on the
      balcony, addressed his eloquence to the various passions of the
      Romans, and labored to persuade them, that in the same cause
      himself and the republic must either stand or fall. His oration
      was interrupted by a volley of imprecations and stones; and after
      an arrow had transpierced his hand, he sunk into abject despair,
      and fled weeping to the inner chambers, from whence he was let
      down by a sheet before the windows of the prison. Destitute of
      aid or hope, he was besieged till the evening: the doors of the
      Capitol were destroyed with axes and fire; and while the senator
      attempted to escape in a plebeian habit, he was discovered and
      dragged to the platform of the palace, the fatal scene of his
      judgments and executions. A whole hour, without voice or motion,
      he stood amidst the multitude half naked and half dead: their
      rage was hushed into curiosity and wonder: the last feelings of
      reverence and compassion yet struggled in his favor; and they
      might have prevailed, if a bold assassin had not plunged a dagger
      in his breast. He fell senseless with the first stroke: the
      impotent revenge of his enemies inflicted a thousand wounds: and
      the senator’s body was abandoned to the dogs, to the Jews, and to
      the flames. Posterity will compare the virtues and failings of
      this extraordinary man; but in a long period of anarchy and
      servitude, the name of Rienzi has often been celebrated as the
      deliverer of his country, and the last of the Roman patriots. 55

      53 (return) [ Ægidius, or Giles Albornoz, a noble Spaniard,
      archbishop of Toledo, and cardinal legate in Italy, (A.D.
      1353—1367,) restored, by his arms and counsels, the temporal
      dominion of the popes. His life has been separately written by
      Sepulveda; but Dryden could not reasonably suppose, that his
      name, or that of Wolsey, had reached the ears of the Mufti in Don
      Sebastian.]

      54 (return) [ From Matteo Villani and Fortifiocca, the P. du
      Cerçeau (p. 344—394) has extracted the life and death of the
      chevalier Montreal, the life of a robber and the death of a hero.
      At the head of a free company, the first that desolated Italy, he
      became rich and formidable be had money in all the banks,—60,000
      ducats in Padua alone.]

      55 (return) [ The exile, second government, and death of Rienzi,
      are minutely related by the anonymous Roman, who appears neither
      his friend nor his enemy, (l. iii. c. 12—25.) Petrarch, who loved
      the _tribune_, was indifferent to the fate of the _senator_.]

      The first and most generous wish of Petrarch was the restoration
      of a free republic; but after the exile and death of his plebeian
      hero, he turned his eyes from the tribune, to the king, of the
      Romans. The Capitol was yet stained with the blood of Rienzi,
      when Charles the Fourth descended from the Alps to obtain the
      Italian and Imperial crowns. In his passage through Milan he
      received the visit, and repaid the flattery, of the
      poet-laureate; accepted a medal of Augustus; and promised,
      without a smile, to imitate the founder of the Roman monarchy. A
      false application of the name and maxims of antiquity was the
      source of the hopes and disappointments of Petrarch; yet he could
      not overlook the difference of times and characters; the
      immeasurable distance between the first Cæsars and a Bohemian
      prince, who by the favor of the clergy had been elected the
      titular head of the German aristocracy. Instead of restoring to
      Rome her glory and her provinces, he had bound himself by a
      secret treaty with the pope, to evacuate the city on the day of
      his coronation; and his shameful retreat was pursued by the
      reproaches of the patriot bard. 56

      56 (return) [ The hopes and the disappointment of Petrarch are
      agreeably described in his own words by the French biographer,
      (Mémoires, tom. iii. p. 375—413;) but the deep, though secret,
      wound was the coronation of Zanubi, the poet-laureate, by Charles
      IV.]

      After the loss of liberty and empire, his third and more humble
      wish was to reconcile the shepherd with his flock; to recall the
      Roman bishop to his ancient and peculiar diocese. In the fervor
      of youth, with the authority of age, Petrarch addressed his
      exhortations to five successive popes, and his eloquence was
      always inspired by the enthusiasm of sentiment and the freedom of
      language. 57 The son of a citizen of Florence invariably
      preferred the country of his birth to that of his education; and
      Italy, in his eyes, was the queen and garden of the world. Amidst
      her domestic factions, she was doubtless superior to France both
      in art and science, in wealth and politeness; but the difference
      could scarcely support the epithet of barbarous, which he
      promiscuously bestows on the countries beyond the Alps. Avignon,
      the mystic Babylon, the sink of vice and corruption, was the
      object of his hatred and contempt; but he forgets that her
      scandalous vices were not the growth of the soil, and that in
      every residence they would adhere to the power and luxury of the
      papal court. He confesses that the successor of St. Peter is the
      bishop of the universal church; yet it was not on the banks of
      the Rhône, but of the Tyber, that the apostle had fixed his
      everlasting throne; and while every city in the Christian world
      was blessed with a bishop, the metropolis alone was desolate and
      forlorn. Since the removal of the Holy See, the sacred buildings
      of the Lateran and the Vatican, their altars and their saints,
      were left in a state of poverty and decay; and Rome was often
      painted under the image of a disconsolate matron, as if the
      wandering husband could be reclaimed by the homely portrait of
      the age and infirmities of his weeping spouse. 58 But the cloud
      which hung over the seven hills would be dispelled by the
      presence of their lawful sovereign: eternal fame, the prosperity
      of Rome, and the peace of Italy, would be the recompense of the
      pope who should dare to embrace this generous resolution. Of the
      five whom Petrarch exhorted, the three first, John the
      Twenty-second, Benedict the Twelfth, and Clement the Sixth, were
      importuned or amused by the boldness of the orator; but the
      memorable change which had been attempted by Urban the Fifth was
      finally accomplished by Gregory the Eleventh. The execution of
      their design was opposed by weighty and almost insuperable
      obstacles. A king of France, who has deserved the epithet of
      wise, was unwilling to release them from a local dependence: the
      cardinals, for the most part his subjects, were attached to the
      language, manners, and climate of Avignon; to their stately
      palaces; above all, to the wines of Burgundy. In their eyes,
      Italy was foreign or hostile; and they reluctantly embarked at
      Marseilles, as if they had been sold or banished into the land of
      the Saracens. Urban the Fifth resided three years in the Vatican
      with safety and honor: his sanctity was protected by a guard of
      two thousand horse; and the king of Cyprus, the queen of Naples,
      and the emperors of the East and West, devoutly saluted their
      common father in the chair of St. Peter. But the joy of Petrarch
      and the Italians was soon turned into grief and indignation. Some
      reasons of public or private moment, his own impatience or the
      prayers of the cardinals, recalled Urban to France; and the
      approaching election was saved from the tyrannic patriotism of
      the Romans. The powers of heaven were interested in their cause:
      Bridget of Sweden, a saint and pilgrim, disapproved the return,
      and foretold the death, of Urban the Fifth: the migration of
      Gregory the Eleventh was encouraged by St. Catharine of Sienna,
      the spouse of Christ and ambassadress of the Florentines; and the
      popes themselves, the great masters of human credulity, appear to
      have listened to these visionary females. 59 Yet those celestial
      admonitions were supported by some arguments of temporal policy.
      The residents of Avignon had been invaded by hostile violence: at
      the head of thirty thousand robbers, a hero had extorted ransom
      and absolution from the vicar of Christ and the sacred college;
      and the maxim of the French warriors, to spare the people and
      plunder the church, was a new heresy of the most dangerous
      import. 60 While the pope was driven from Avignon, he was
      strenuously invited to Rome. The senate and people acknowledged
      him as their lawful sovereign, and laid at his feet the keys of
      the gates, the bridges, and the fortresses; of the quarter at
      least beyond the Tyber. 61 But this loyal offer was accompanied
      by a declaration, that they could no longer suffer the scandal
      and calamity of his absence; and that his obstinacy would finally
      provoke them to revive and assert the primitive right of
      election. The abbot of Mount Cassin had been consulted, whether
      he would accept the triple crown 62 from the clergy and people:
      “I am a citizen of Rome,” 63 replied that venerable ecclesiastic,
      “and my first law is, the voice of my country.” 64

      57 (return) [ See, in his accurate and amusing biographer, the
      application of Petrarch and Rome to Benedict XII. in the year
      1334, (Mémoires, tom. i. p. 261—265,) to Clement VI. in 1342,
      (tom. ii. p. 45—47,) and to Urban V. in 1366, (tom. iii. p.
      677—691:) his praise (p. 711—715) and excuse (p. 771) of the last
      of these pontiffs. His angry controversy on the respective merits
      of France and Italy may be found, Opp. p. 1068—1085.]

      58 (return) [

               Squalida sed quoniam facies, neglectaque cultû Cæsaries;
               multisque malis lassata senectus Eripuit solitam
               effigiem: vetus accipe nomen; Roma vocor. (Carm. l. 2,
               p. 77.)

      He spins this allegory beyond all measure or patience. The
      Epistles to Urban V in prose are more simple and persuasive,
      (Senilium, l. vii. p. 811—827 l. ix. epist. i. p. 844—854.)]

      59 (return) [ I have not leisure to expatiate on the legends of
      St. Bridget or St. Catharine, the last of which might furnish
      some amusing stories. Their effect on the mind of Gregory XI. is
      attested by the last solemn words of the dying pope, who
      admonished the assistants, ut caverent ab hominibus, sive viris,
      sive mulieribus, sub specie religionis loquentibus visiones sui
      capitis, quia per tales ipse seductus, &c., (Baluz. Not ad Vit.
      Pap. Avenionensium, tom. i. p. 1224.)]

      60 (return) [ This predatory expedition is related by Froissard,
      (Chronique, tom. i. p. 230,) and in the life of Du Guesclin,
      (Collection Générale des Mémoires Historiques, tom. iv. c. 16, p.
      107—113.) As early as the year 1361, the court of Avignon had
      been molested by similar freebooters, who afterwards passed the
      Alps, (Mémoires sur Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 563—569.)]

      61 (return) [ Fleury alleges, from the annals of Odericus
      Raynaldus, the original treaty which was signed the 21st of
      December, 1376, between Gregory XI. and the Romans, (Hist.
      Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 275.)]

      62 (return) [ The first crown or regnum (Ducange, Gloss. Latin.
      tom. v. p. 702) on the episcopal mitre of the popes, is ascribed
      to the gift of Constantine, or Clovis. The second was added by
      Boniface VIII., as the emblem not only of a spiritual, but of a
      temporal, kingdom. The three states of the church are represented
      by the triple crown which was introduced by John XXII. or
      Benedict XII., (Mémoires sur Pétrarque, tom. i. p. 258, 259.)]

      63 (return) [ Baluze (Not. ad Pap. Avenion. tom. i. p. 1194,
      1195) produces the original evidence which attests the threats of
      the Roman ambassadors, and the resignation of the abbot of Mount
      Cassin, qui, ultro se offerens, respondit se civem Romanum esse,
      et illud velle quod ipsi vellent.]

      64 (return) [ The return of the popes from Avignon to Rome, and
      their reception by the people, are related in the original lives
      of Urban V. and Gregory XI., in Baluze (Vit. Paparum
      Avenionensium, tom. i. p. 363—486) and Muratori, (Script. Rer.
      Italicarum, tom. iii. P. i. p. 613—712.) In the disputes of the
      schism, every circumstance was severely, though partially,
      scrutinized; more especially in the great inquest, which decided
      the obedience of Castile, and to which Baluze, in his notes, so
      often and so largely appeals from a MS. volume in the Harley
      library, (p. 1281, &c.)]

      If superstition will interpret an untimely death, 65 if the merit
      of counsels be judged from the event, the heavens may seem to
      frown on a measure of such apparent season and propriety. Gregory
      the Eleventh did not survive above fourteen months his return to
      the Vatican; and his decease was followed by the great schism of
      the West, which distracted the Latin church above forty years.
      The sacred college was then composed of twenty-two cardinals: six
      of these had remained at Avignon; eleven Frenchmen, one Spaniard,
      and four Italians, entered the conclave in the usual form. Their
      choice was not yet limited to the purple; and their unanimous
      votes acquiesced in the archbishop of Bari, a subject of Naples,
      conspicuous for his zeal and learning, who ascended the throne of
      St. Peter under the name of Urban the Sixth. The epistle of the
      sacred college affirms his free, and regular, election; which had
      been inspired, as usual, by the Holy Ghost; he was adored,
      invested, and crowned, with the customary rites; his temporal
      authority was obeyed at Rome and Avignon, and his ecclesiastical
      supremacy was acknowledged in the Latin world. During several
      weeks, the cardinals attended their new master with the fairest
      professions of attachment and loyalty; till the summer heats
      permitted a decent escape from the city. But as soon as they were
      united at Anagni and Fundi, in a place of security, they cast
      aside the mask, accused their own falsehood and hypocrisy,
      excommunicated the apostate and antichrist of Rome, and proceeded
      to a new election of Robert of Geneva, Clement the Seventh, whom
      they announced to the nations as the true and rightful vicar of
      Christ. Their first choice, an involuntary and illegal act, was
      annulled by fear of death and the menaces of the Romans; and
      their complaint is justified by the strong evidence of
      probability and fact. The twelve French cardinals, above two
      thirds of the votes, were masters of the election; and whatever
      might be their provincial jealousies, it cannot fairly be
      presumed that they would have sacrificed their right and interest
      to a foreign candidate, who would never restore them to their
      native country. In the various, and often inconsistent,
      narratives, 66 the shades of popular violence are more darkly or
      faintly colored: but the licentiousness of the seditious Romans
      was inflamed by a sense of their privileges, and the danger of a
      second emigration. The conclave was intimidated by the shouts,
      and encompassed by the arms, of thirty thousand rebels; the bells
      of the Capitol and St. Peter’s rang an alarm: “Death, or an
      Italian pope!” was the universal cry; the same threat was
      repeated by the twelve bannerets or chiefs of the quarters, in
      the form of charitable advice; some preparations were made for
      burning the obstinate cardinals; and had they chosen a
      Transalpine subject, it is probable that they would never have
      departed alive from the Vatican. The same constraint imposed the
      necessity of dissembling in the eyes of Rome and of the world;
      the pride and cruelty of Urban presented a more inevitable
      danger; and they soon discovered the features of the tyrant, who
      could walk in his garden and recite his breviary, while he heard
      from an adjacent chamber six cardinals groaning on the rack. His
      inflexible zeal, which loudly censured their luxury and vice,
      would have attached them to the stations and duties of their
      parishes at Rome; and had he not fatally delayed a new promotion,
      the French cardinals would have been reduced to a helpless
      minority in the sacred college. For these reasons, and the hope
      of repassing the Alps, they rashly violated the peace and unity
      of the church; and the merits of their double choice are yet
      agitated in the Catholic schools. 67 The vanity, rather than the
      interest, of the nation determined the court and clergy of
      France. 68 The states of Savoy, Sicily, Cyprus, Arragon,
      Castille, Navarre, and Scotland were inclined by their example
      and authority to the obedience of Clement the Seventh, and after
      his decease, of Benedict the Thirteenth. Rome and the principal
      states of Italy, Germany, Portugal, England, 69 the Low
      Countries, and the kingdoms of the North, adhered to the prior
      election of Urban the Sixth, who was succeeded by Boniface the
      Ninth, Innocent the Seventh, and Gregory the Twelfth.

      65 (return) [ Can the death of a good man be esteemed a
      punishment by those who believe in the immortality of the soul?
      They betray the instability of their faith. Yet as a mere
      philosopher, I cannot agree with the Greeks, on oi Jeoi jilousin
      apoqnhskei neoV, (Brunck, Poetæ Gnomici, p. 231.) See in
      Herodotus (l. i. c. 31) the moral and pleasing tale of the Argive
      youths.]

      66 (return) [ In the first book of the Histoire du Concile de
      Pise, M. Lenfant has abridged and compared the original
      narratives of the adherents of Urban and Clement, of the Italians
      and Germans, the French and Spaniards. The latter appear to be
      the most active and loquacious, and every fact and word in the
      original lives of Gregory XI. and Clement VII. are supported in
      the notes of their editor Baluze.]

      67 (return) [ The ordinal numbers of the popes seems to decide
      the question against Clement VII. and Benedict XIII., who are
      boldly stigmatized as antipopes by the Italians, while the French
      are content with authorities and reasons to plead the cause of
      doubt and toleration, (Baluz. in Præfat.) It is singular, or
      rather it is not singular, that saints, visions and miracles
      should be common to both parties.]

      68 (return) [ Baluze strenuously labors (Not. p. 1271—1280) to
      justify the pure and pious motives of Charles V. king of France:
      he refused to hear the arguments of Urban; but were not the
      Urbanists equally deaf to the reasons of Clement, &c.?]

      69 (return) [ An epistle, or declamation, in the name of Edward
      III., (Baluz. Vit. Pap. Avenion. tom. i. p. 553,) displays the
      zeal of the English nation against the Clementines. Nor was their
      zeal confined to words: the bishop of Norwich led a crusade of
      60,000 bigots beyond sea, (Hume’s History, vol. iii. p. 57, 58.)]

      From the banks of the Tyber and the Rhône, the hostile pontiffs
      encountered each other with the pen and the sword: the civil and
      ecclesiastical order of society was disturbed; and the Romans had
      their full share of the mischiefs of which they may be arraigned
      as the primary authors. 70 They had vainly flattered themselves
      with the hope of restoring the seat of the ecclesiastical
      monarchy, and of relieving their poverty with the tributes and
      offerings of the nations; but the separation of France and Spain
      diverted the stream of lucrative devotion; nor could the loss be
      compensated by the two jubilees which were crowded into the space
      of ten years. By the avocations of the schism, by foreign arms,
      and popular tumults, Urban the Sixth and his three successors
      were often compelled to interrupt their residence in the Vatican.
      The Colonna and Ursini still exercised their deadly feuds: the
      bannerets of Rome asserted and abused the privileges of a
      republic: the vicars of Christ, who had levied a military force,
      chastised their rebellion with the gibbet, the sword, and the
      dagger; and, in a friendly conference, eleven deputies of the
      people were perfidiously murdered and cast into the street. Since
      the invasion of Robert the Norman, the Romans had pursued their
      domestic quarrels without the dangerous interposition of a
      stranger. But in the disorders of the schism, an aspiring
      neighbor, Ladislaus king of Naples, alternately supported and
      betrayed the pope and the people; by the former he was declared
      _gonfalonier_, or general, of the church, while the latter
      submitted to his choice the nomination of their magistrates.
      Besieging Rome by land and water, he thrice entered the gates as
      a Barbarian conqueror; profaned the altars, violated the virgins,
      pillaged the merchants, performed his devotions at St. Peter’s,
      and left a garrison in the castle of St. Angelo. His arms were
      sometimes unfortunate, and to a delay of three days he was
      indebted for his life and crown: but Ladislaus triumphed in his
      turn; and it was only his premature death that could save the
      metropolis and the ecclesiastical state from the ambitious
      conqueror, who had assumed the title, or at least the powers, of
      king of Rome. 71

      70 (return) [ Besides the general historians, the Diaries of
      Delphinus Gentilia Peter Antonius, and Stephen Infessura, in the
      great collection of Muratori, represented the state and
      misfortunes of Rome.]

      71 (return) [ It is supposed by Giannone (tom. iii. p. 292) that
      he styled himself Rex Romæ, a title unknown to the world since
      the expulsion of Tarquin. But a nearer inspection has justified
      the reading of Rex R_a_mæ, of Rama, an obscure kingdom annexed to
      the crown of Hungary.]

      I have not undertaken the ecclesiastical history of the schism;
      but Rome, the object of these last chapters, is deeply interested
      in the disputed succession of her sovereigns. The first counsels
      for the peace and union of Christendom arose from the university
      of Paris, from the faculty of the Sorbonne, whose doctors were
      esteemed, at least in the Gallican church, as the most consummate
      masters of theological science. 72 Prudently waiving all
      invidious inquiry into the origin and merits of the dispute, they
      proposed, as a healing measure, that the two pretenders of Rome
      and Avignon should abdicate at the same time, after qualifying
      the cardinals of the adverse factions to join in a legitimate
      election; and that the nations should _subtract_ 73 their
      obedience, if either of the competitor preferred his own interest
      to that of the public. At each vacancy, these physicians of the
      church deprecated the mischiefs of a hasty choice; but the policy
      of the conclave and the ambition of its members were deaf to
      reason and entreaties; and whatsoever promises were made, the
      pope could never be bound by the oaths of the cardinal. During
      fifteen years, the pacific designs of the university were eluded
      by the arts of the rival pontiffs, the scruples or passions of
      their adherents, and the vicissitudes of French factions, that
      ruled the insanity of Charles the Sixth. At length a vigorous
      resolution was embraced; and a solemn embassy, of the titular
      patriarch of Alexandria, two archbishops, five bishops, five
      abbots, three knights, and twenty doctors, was sent to the courts
      of Avignon and Rome, to require, in the name of the church and
      king, the abdication of the two pretenders, of Peter de Luna, who
      styled himself Benedict the Thirteenth, and of Angelo Corrario,
      who assumed the name of Gregory the Twelfth. For the ancient
      honor of Rome, and the success of their commission, the
      ambassadors solicited a conference with the magistrates of the
      city, whom they gratified by a positive declaration, that the
      most Christian king did not entertain a wish of transporting the
      holy see from the Vatican, which he considered as the genuine and
      proper seat of the successor of St. Peter. In the name of the
      senate and people, an eloquent Roman asserted their desire to
      cooperate in the union of the church, deplored the temporal and
      spiritual calamities of the long schism, and requested the
      protection of France against the arms of the king of Naples. The
      answers of Benedict and Gregory were alike edifying and alike
      deceitful; and, in evading the demand of their abdication, the
      two rivals were animated by a common spirit. They agreed on the
      necessity of a previous interview; but the time, the place, and
      the manner, could never be ascertained by mutual consent. “If the
      one advances,” says a servant of Gregory, “the other retreats;
      the one appears an animal fearful of the land, the other a
      creature apprehensive of the water. And thus, for a short remnant
      of life and power, will these aged priests endanger the peace and
      salvation of the Christian world.” 74

      72 (return) [ The leading and decisive part which France assumed
      in the schism is stated by Peter du Puis in a separate history,
      extracted from authentic records, and inserted in the seventh
      volume of the last and best edition of his friend Thuanus, (P.
      xi. p. 110—184.)]

      73 (return) [ Of this measure, John Gerson, a stout doctor, was
      the author of the champion. The proceedings of the university of
      Paris and the Gallican church were often prompted by his advice,
      and are copiously displayed in his theological writings, of which
      Le Clerc (Bibliothèque Choisie, tom. x. p. 1—78) has given a
      valuable extract. John Gerson acted an important part in the
      councils of Pisa and Constance.]

      74 (return) [ Leonardus Brunus Aretinus, one of the revivers of
      classic learning in Italy, who, after serving many years as
      secretary in the Roman court, retired to the honorable office of
      chancellor of the republic of Florence, (Fabric. Bibliot. Medii
      Ævi, tom. i. p. 290.) Lenfant has given the version of this
      curious epistle, (Concile de Pise, tom. i. p. 192—195.)]

      The Christian world was at length provoked by their obstinacy and
      fraud: they were deserted by their cardinals, who embraced each
      other as friends and colleagues; and their revolt was supported
      by a numerous assembly of prelates and ambassadors. With equal
      justice, the council of Pisa deposed the popes of Rome and
      Avignon; the conclave was unanimous in the choice of Alexander
      the Fifth, and his vacant seat was soon filled by a similar
      election of John the Twenty-third, the most profligate of
      mankind. But instead of extinguishing the schism, the rashness of
      the French and Italians had given a third pretender to the chair
      of St. Peter. Such new claims of the synod and conclave were
      disputed; three kings, of Germany, Hungary, and Naples, adhered
      to the cause of Gregory the Twelfth; and Benedict the Thirteenth,
      himself a Spaniard, was acknowledged by the devotion and
      patriotism of that powerful nation. The rash proceedings of Pisa
      were corrected by the council of Constance; the emperor Sigismond
      acted a conspicuous part as the advocate or protector of the
      Catholic church; and the number and weight of civil and
      ecclesiastical members might seem to constitute the
      states-general of Europe. Of the three popes, John the
      Twenty-third was the first victim: he fled and was brought back a
      prisoner: the most scandalous charges were suppressed; the vicar
      of Christ was only accused of piracy, murder, rape, sodomy, and
      incest; and after subscribing his own condemnation, he expiated
      in prison the imprudence of trusting his person to a free city
      beyond the Alps. Gregory the Twelfth, whose obedience was reduced
      to the narrow precincts of Rimini, descended with more honor from
      the throne; and his ambassador convened the session, in which he
      renounced the title and authority of lawful pope. To vanquish the
      obstinacy of Benedict the Thirteenth or his adherents, the
      emperor in person undertook a journey from Constance to
      Perpignan. The kings of Castile, Arragon, Navarre, and Scotland,
      obtained an equal and honorable treaty; with the concurrence of
      the Spaniards, Benedict was deposed by the council; but the
      harmless old man was left in a solitary castle to excommunicate
      twice each day the rebel kingdoms which had deserted his cause.
      After thus eradicating the remains of the schism, the synod of
      Constance proceeded with slow and cautious steps to elect the
      sovereign of Rome and the head of the church. On this momentous
      occasion, the college of twenty-three cardinals was fortified
      with thirty deputies; six of whom were chosen in each of the five
      great nations of Christendom,—the Italian, the German, the
      French, the Spanish, and the _English_: 75 the interference of
      strangers was softened by their generous preference of an Italian
      and a Roman; and the hereditary, as well as personal, merit of
      Otho Colonna recommended him to the conclave. Rome accepted with
      joy and obedience the noblest of her sons; the ecclesiastical
      state was defended by his powerful family; and the elevation of
      Martin the Fifth is the æra of the restoration and establishment
      of the popes in the Vatican. 76

      75 (return) [ I cannot overlook this great national cause, which
      was vigorously maintained by the English ambassadors against
      those of France. The latter contended, that Christendom was
      essentially distributed into the four great nations and votes, of
      Italy, Germany, France, and Spain, and that the lesser kingdoms
      (such as England, Denmark, Portugal, &c.) were comprehended under
      one or other of these great divisions. The English asserted, that
      the British islands, of which they were the head, should be
      considered as a fifth and coördinate nation, with an equal vote;
      and every argument of truth or fable was introduced to exalt the
      dignity of their country. Including England, Scotland, Wales, the
      four kingdoms of Ireland, and the Orkneys, the British Islands
      are decorated with eight royal crowns, and discriminated by four
      or five languages, English, Welsh, Cornish, Scotch, Irish, &c.
      The greater island from north to south measures 800 miles, or 40
      days’ journey; and England alone contains 32 counties and 52,000
      parish churches, (a bold account!) besides cathedrals, colleges,
      priories, and hospitals. They celebrate the mission of St. Joseph
      of Arimathea, the birth of Constantine, and the legatine powers
      of the two primates, without forgetting the testimony of
      Bartholomey de Glanville, (A.D. 1360,) who reckons only four
      Christian kingdoms, 1. of Rome, 2. of Constantinople, 3. of
      Ireland, which had been transferred to the English monarchs, and
      4, of Spain. Our countrymen prevailed in the council, but the
      victories of Henry V. added much weight to their arguments. The
      adverse pleadings were found at Constance by Sir Robert
      Wingfield, ambassador of Henry VIII. to the emperor Maximilian
      I., and by him printed in 1517 at Louvain. From a Leipsic MS.
      they are more correctly published in the collection of Von der
      Hardt, tom. v.; but I have only seen Lenfant’s abstract of these
      acts, (Concile de Constance, tom. ii. p. 447, 453, &c.)]

      76 (return) [ The histories of the three successive councils,
      Pisa, Constance, and Basil, have been written with a tolerable
      degree of candor, industry, and elegance, by a Protestant
      minister, M. Lenfant, who retired from France to Berlin. They
      form six volumes in quarto; and as Basil is the worst, so
      Constance is the best, part of the Collection.]




      Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.—Part
      IV.

      The royal prerogative of coining money, which had been exercised
      near three hundred years by the senate, was _first_ resumed by
      Martin the Fifth, 77 and his image and superscription introduce
      the series of the papal medals. Of his two immediate successors,
      Eugenius the Fourth was the _last_ pope expelled by the tumults
      of the Roman people, 78 and Nicholas the Fifth, the _last_ who
      was importuned by the presence of a Roman emperor. 79 I. The
      conflict of Eugenius with the fathers of Basil, and the weight or
      apprehension of a new excise, emboldened and provoked the Romans
      to usurp the temporal government of the city. They rose in arms,
      elected seven governors of the republic, and a constable of the
      Capitol; imprisoned the pope’s nephew; besieged his person in the
      palace; and shot volleys of arrows into his bark as he escaped
      down the Tyber in the habit of a monk. But he still possessed in
      the castle of St. Angelo a faithful garrison and a train of
      artillery: their batteries incessantly thundered on the city, and
      a bullet more dexterously pointed broke down the barricade of the
      bridge, and scattered with a single shot the heroes of the
      republic. Their constancy was exhausted by a rebellion of five
      months. Under the tyranny of the Ghibeline nobles, the wisest
      patriots regretted the dominion of the church; and their
      repentance was unanimous and effectual. The troops of St. Peter
      again occupied the Capitol; the magistrates departed to their
      homes; the most guilty were executed or exiled; and the legate,
      at the head of two thousand foot and four thousand horse, was
      saluted as the father of the city. The synods of Ferrara and
      Florence, the fear or resentment of Eugenius, prolonged his
      absence: he was received by a submissive people; but the pontiff
      understood from the acclamations of his triumphal entry, that to
      secure their loyalty and his own repose, he must grant without
      delay the abolition of the odious excise. II. Rome was restored,
      adorned, and enlightened, by the peaceful reign of Nicholas the
      Fifth. In the midst of these laudable occupations, the pope was
      alarmed by the approach of Frederic the Third of Austria; though
      his fears could not be justified by the character or the power of
      the Imperial candidate. After drawing his military force to the
      metropolis, and imposing the best security of oaths 80 and
      treaties, Nicholas received with a smiling countenance the
      faithful advocate and vassal of the church. So tame were the
      times, so feeble was the Austrian, that the pomp of his
      coronation was accomplished with order and harmony: but the
      superfluous honor was so disgraceful to an independent nation,
      that his successors have excused themselves from the toilsome
      pilgrimage to the Vatican; and rest their Imperial title on the
      choice of the electors of Germany.

      77 (return) [ See the xxviith Dissertation of the Antiquities of
      Muratori, and the 1st Instruction of the Science des Medailles of
      the Père Joubert and the Baron de la Bastie. The Metallic History
      of Martin V. and his successors has been composed by two monks,
      Moulinet, a Frenchman, and Bonanni, an Italian: but I understand,
      that the first part of the series is restored from more recent
      coins.]

      78 (return) [ Besides the Lives of Eugenius IV., (Rerum Italic.
      tom. iii. P. i. p. 869, and tom. xxv. p. 256,) the Diaries of
      Paul Petroni and Stephen Infessura are the best original evidence
      for the revolt of the Romans against Eugenius IV. The former, who
      lived at the time and on the spot, speaks the language of a
      citizen, equally afraid of priestly and popular tyranny.]

      79 (return) [ The coronation of Frederic III. is described by
      Lenfant, (Concile de Basle, tom. ii. p. 276—288,) from Æneas
      Sylvius, a spectator and actor in that splendid scene.]

      80 (return) [ The oath of fidelity imposed on the emperor by the
      pope is recorded and sanctified in the Clementines, (l. ii. tit.
      ix.;) and Æneas Sylvius, who objects to this new demand, could
      not foresee, that in a few years he should ascend the throne, and
      imbibe the maxims, of Boniface VIII.]

      A citizen has remarked, with pride and pleasure, that the king of
      the Romans, after passing with a slight salute the cardinals and
      prelates who met him at the gate, distinguished the dress and
      person of the senator of Rome; and in this last farewell, the
      pageants of the empire and the republic were clasped in a
      friendly embrace. 81 According to the laws of Rome, 82 her first
      magistrate was required to be a doctor of laws, an alien, of a
      place at least forty miles from the city; with whose inhabitants
      he must not be connected in the third canonical degree of blood
      or alliance. The election was annual: a severe scrutiny was
      instituted into the conduct of the departing senator; nor could
      he be recalled to the same office till after the expiration of
      two years. A liberal salary of three thousand florins was
      assigned for his expense and reward; and his public appearance
      represented the majesty of the republic. His robes were of gold
      brocade or crimson velvet, or in the summer season of a lighter
      silk: he bore in his hand an ivory sceptre; the sound of trumpets
      announced his approach; and his solemn steps were preceded at
      least by four lictors or attendants, whose red wands were
      enveloped with bands or streamers of the golden color or livery
      of the city. His oath in the Capitol proclaims his right and duty
      to observe and assert the laws, to control the proud, to protect
      the poor, and to exercise justice and mercy within the extent of
      his jurisdiction. In these useful functions he was assisted by
      three learned strangers; the two _collaterals_, and the judge of
      criminal appeals: their frequent trials of robberies, rapes, and
      murders, are attested by the laws; and the weakness of these laws
      connives at the licentiousness of private feuds and armed
      associations for mutual defence. But the senator was confined to
      the administration of justice: the Capitol, the treasury, and the
      government of the city and its territory, were intrusted to the
      three _conservators_, who were changed four times in each year:
      the militia of the thirteen regions assembled under the banners
      of their respective chiefs, or _caporioni_; and the first of
      these was distinguished by the name and dignity of the _prior_.
      The popular legislature consisted of the secret and the common
      councils of the Romans. The former was composed of the
      magistrates and their immediate predecessors, with some fiscal
      and legal officers, and three classes of thirteen, twenty-six,
      and forty, counsellors: amounting in the whole to about one
      hundred and twenty persons. In the common council all male
      citizens had a right to vote; and the value of their privilege
      was enhanced by the care with which any foreigners were prevented
      from usurping the title and character of Romans. The tumult of a
      democracy was checked by wise and jealous precautions: except the
      magistrates, none could propose a question; none were permitted
      to speak, except from an open pulpit or tribunal; all disorderly
      acclamations were suppressed; the sense of the majority was
      decided by a secret ballot; and their decrees were promulgated in
      the venerable name of the Roman senate and people. It would not
      be easy to assign a period in which this theory of government has
      been reduced to accurate and constant practice, since the
      establishment of order has been gradually connected with the
      decay of liberty. But in the year one thousand five hundred and
      eighty the ancient statutes were collected, methodized in three
      books, and adapted to present use, under the pontificate, and
      with the approbation, of Gregory the Thirteenth: 83 this civil
      and criminal code is the modern law of the city; and, if the
      popular assemblies have been abolished, a foreign senator, with
      the three conservators, still resides in the palace of the
      Capitol. 84 The policy of the Cæsars has been repeated by the
      popes; and the bishop of Rome affected to maintain the form of a
      republic, while he reigned with the absolute powers of a
      temporal, as well as a spiritual, monarch.

      81 (return) [ Lo senatore di Roma, vestito di brocarto con quella
      beretta, e con quelle maniche, et ornamenti di pelle, co’ quali
      va alle feste di Testaccio e Nagone, might escape the eye of
      Æneas Sylvius, but he is viewed with admiration and complacency
      by the Roman citizen, (Diario di Stephano Infessura, p. 1133.)]

      82 (return) [ See, in the statutes of Rome, the _senator and
      three judges_, (l. i. c. 3—14,) the _conservators_, (l. i. c. 15,
      16, 17, l. iii. c. 4,) the _caporioni_ (l. i. c. 18, l. iii. c.
      8,) the _secret council_, (l. iii. c. 2,) the _common council_,
      (l. iii. c. 3.) The title of _feuds_, _defiances_, _acts of
      violence_, &c., is spread through many a chapter (c. 14—40) of
      the second book.]

      83 (return) [ _Statuta alm Urbis Rom Auctoritate S. D. N.
      Gregorii XIII Pont. Max. a Senatu Populoque Rom. reformata et
      edita. Rom, 1580, in folio_. The obsolete, repugnant statutes of
      antiquity were confounded in five books, and Lucas Pætus, a
      lawyer and antiquarian, was appointed to act as the modern
      Tribonian. Yet I regret the old code, with the rugged crust of
      freedom and barbarism.]

      84 (return) [ In my time (1765) and in M. Grosley’s,
      (Observations sur l’Italie torn. ii. p. 361,) the senator of Rome
      was M. Bielke, a noble Swede and a proselyte to the Catholic
      faith. The pope’s right to appoint the senator and the
      conservator is implied, rather than affirmed, in the statutes.]

      It is an obvious truth, that the times must be suited to
      extraordinary characters, and that the genius of Cromwell or Retz
      might now expire in obscurity. The political enthusiasm of Rienzi
      had exalted him to a throne; the same enthusiasm, in the next
      century, conducted his imitator to the gallows. The birth of
      Stephen Porcaro was noble, his reputation spotless: his tongue
      was armed with eloquence, his mind was enlightened with learning;
      and he aspired, beyond the aim of vulgar ambition, to free his
      country and immortalize his name. The dominion of priests is most
      odious to a liberal spirit: every scruple was removed by the
      recent knowledge of the fable and forgery of Constantine’s
      donation; Petrarch was now the oracle of the Italians; and as
      often as Porcaro revolved the ode which describes the patriot and
      hero of Rome, he applied to himself the visions of the prophetic
      bard. His first trial of the popular feelings was at the funeral
      of Eugenius the Fourth: in an elaborate speech he called the
      Romans to liberty and arms; and they listened with apparent
      pleasure, till Porcaro was interrupted and answered by a grave
      advocate, who pleaded for the church and state. By every law the
      seditious orator was guilty of treason; but the benevolence of
      the new pontiff, who viewed his character with pity and esteem,
      attempted by an honorable office to convert the patriot into a
      friend. The inflexible Roman returned from Anagni with an
      increase of reputation and zeal; and, on the first opportunity,
      the games of the place Navona, he tried to inflame the casual
      dispute of some boys and mechanics into a general rising of the
      people. Yet the humane Nicholas was still averse to accept the
      forfeit of his life; and the traitor was removed from the scene
      of temptation to Bologna, with a liberal allowance for his
      support, and the easy obligation of presenting himself each day
      before the governor of the city. But Porcaro had learned from the
      younger Brutus, that with tyrants no faith or gratitude should be
      observed: the exile declaimed against the arbitrary sentence; a
      party and a conspiracy were gradually formed: his nephew, a
      daring youth, assembled a band of volunteers; and on the
      appointed evening a feast was prepared at his house for the
      friends of the republic. Their leader, who had escaped from
      Bologna, appeared among them in a robe of purple and gold: his
      voice, his countenance, his gestures, bespoke the man who had
      devoted his life or death to the glorious cause. In a studied
      oration, he expiated on the motives and the means of their
      enterprise; the name and liberties of Rome; the sloth and pride
      of their ecclesiastical tyrants; the active or passive consent of
      their fellow-citizens; three hundred soldiers, and four hundred
      exiles, long exercised in arms or in wrongs; the license of
      revenge to edge their swords, and a million of ducats to reward
      their victory. It would be easy, (he said,) on the next day, the
      festival of the Epiphany, to seize the pope and his cardinals,
      before the doors, or at the altar, of St. Peter’s; to lead them
      in chains under the walls of St. Angelo; to extort by the threat
      of their instant death a surrender of the castle; to ascend the
      vacant Capitol; to ring the alarm bell; and to restore in a
      popular assembly the ancient republic of Rome. While he
      triumphed, he was already betrayed. The senator, with a strong
      guard, invested the house: the nephew of Porcaro cut his way
      through the crowd; but the unfortunate Stephen was drawn from a
      chest, lamenting that his enemies had anticipated by three hours
      the execution of his design. After such manifest and repeated
      guilt, even the mercy of Nicholas was silent. Porcaro, and nine
      of his accomplices, were hanged without the benefit of the
      sacraments; and, amidst the fears and invectives of the papal
      court, the Romans pitied, and almost applauded, these martyrs of
      their country. 85 But their applause was mute, their pity
      ineffectual, their liberty forever extinct; and, if they have
      since risen in a vacancy of the throne or a scarcity of bread,
      such accidental tumults may be found in the bosom of the most
      abject servitude.

      85 (return) [ Besides the curious, though concise, narrative of
      Machiavel, (Istoria Florentina, l. vi. Opere, tom. i. p. 210,
      211, edit. Londra, 1747, in 4to.) the Porcarian conspiracy is
      related in the Diary of Stephen Infessura, (Rer. Ital. tom. iii.
      P. ii. p. 1134, 1135,) and in a separate tract by Leo Baptista
      Alberti, (Rer. Ital. tom. xxv. p. 609—614.) It is amusing to
      compare the style and sentiments of the courtier and citizen.
      Facinus profecto quo.... neque periculo horribilius, neque
      audaciâ detestabilius, neque crudelitate tetrius, a quoquam
      perditissimo uspiam excogitatum sit.... Perdette la vita quell’
      huomo da bene, e amatore dello bene e libertà di Roma.]

      But the independence of the nobles, which was fomented by
      discord, survived the freedom of the commons, which must be
      founded in union. A privilege of rapine and oppression was long
      maintained by the barons of Rome; their houses were a fortress
      and a sanctuary: and the ferocious train of banditti and
      criminals whom they protected from the law repaid the hospitality
      with the service of their swords and daggers. The private
      interest of the pontiffs, or their nephews, sometimes involved
      them in these domestic feuds. Under the reign of Sixtus the
      Fourth, Rome was distracted by the battles and sieges of the
      rival houses: after the conflagration of his palace, the
      prothonotary Colonna was tortured and beheaded; and Savelli, his
      captive friend, was murdered on the spot, for refusing to join in
      the acclamations of the victorious Ursini. 86 But the popes no
      longer trembled in the Vatican: they had strength to command, if
      they had resolution to claim, the obedience of their subjects;
      and the strangers, who observed these partial disorders, admired
      the easy taxes and wise administration of the ecclesiastical
      state. 87

      86 (return) [ The disorders of Rome, which were much inflamed by
      the partiality of Sixtus IV. are exposed in the Diaries of two
      spectators, Stephen Infessura, and an anonymous citizen. See the
      troubles of the year 1484, and the death of the prothonotary
      Colonna, in tom. iii. P. ii. p. 1083, 1158.]

      87 (return) [ Est toute la terre de l’église troublée pour cette
      partialité (des Colonnes et des Ursins) come nous dirions Luce et
      Grammont, ou en Hollande Houc et Caballan; et quand ce ne seroit
      ce différend la terre de l’église seroit la plus heureuse
      habitation pour les sujets qui soit dans toute le monde (car ils
      ne payent ni tailles ni guères autres choses,) et seroient
      toujours bien conduits, (car toujours les papes sont sages et
      bien consellies;) mais très souvent en advient de grands et
      cruels meurtres et pilleries.]

      The spiritual thunders of the Vatican depend on the force of
      opinion; and if that opinion be supplanted by reason or passion,
      the sound may idly waste itself in the air; and the helpless
      priest is exposed to the brutal violence of a noble or a plebeian
      adversary. But after their return from Avignon, the keys of St.
      Peter were guarded by the sword of St. Paul. Rome was commanded
      by an impregnable citadel: the use of cannon is a powerful engine
      against popular seditions: a regular force of cavalry and
      infantry was enlisted under the banners of the pope: his ample
      revenues supplied the resources of war: and, from the extent of
      his domain, he could bring down on a rebellious city an army of
      hostile neighbors and loyal subjects. 88 Since the union of the
      duchies of Ferrara and Urbino, the ecclesiastical state extends
      from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, and from the confines of
      Naples to the banks of the Po; and as early as the sixteenth
      century, the greater part of that spacious and fruitful country
      acknowledged the lawful claims and temporal sovereignty of the
      Roman pontiffs. Their claims were readily deduced from the
      genuine, or fabulous, donations of the darker ages: the
      successive steps of their final settlement would engage us too
      far in the transactions of Italy, and even of Europe; the crimes
      of Alexander the Sixth, the martial operations of Julius the
      Second, and the liberal policy of Leo the Tenth, a theme which
      has been adorned by the pens of the noblest historians of the
      times. 89 In the first period of their conquests, till the
      expedition of Charles the Eighth, the popes might successfully
      wrestle with the adjacent princes and states, whose military
      force was equal, or inferior, to their own. But as soon as the
      monarchs of France, Germany and Spain, contended with gigantic
      arms for the dominion of Italy, they supplied with art the
      deficiency of strength; and concealed, in a labyrinth of wars and
      treaties, their aspiring views, and the immortal hope of chasing
      the Barbarians beyond the Alps. The nice balance of the Vatican
      was often subverted by the soldiers of the North and West, who
      were united under the standard of Charles the Fifth: the feeble
      and fluctuating policy of Clement the Seventh exposed his person
      and dominions to the conqueror; and Rome was abandoned seven
      months to a lawless army, more cruel and rapacious than the Goths
      and Vandals. 90 After this severe lesson, the popes contracted
      their ambition, which was almost satisfied, resumed the character
      of a common parent, and abstained from all offensive hostilities,
      except in a hasty quarrel, when the vicar of Christ and the
      Turkish sultan were armed at the same time against the kingdom of
      Naples. 91 The French and Germans at length withdrew from the
      field of battle: Milan, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and the
      sea-coast of Tuscany, were firmly possessed by the Spaniards; and
      it became their interest to maintain the peace and dependence of
      Italy, which continued almost without disturbance from the middle
      of the sixteenth to the opening of the eighteenth century. The
      Vatican was swayed and protected by the religious policy of the
      Catholic king: his prejudice and interest disposed him in every
      dispute to support the prince against the people; and instead of
      the encouragement, the aid, and the asylum, which they obtained
      from the adjacent states, the friends of liberty, or the enemies
      of law, were enclosed on all sides within the iron circle of
      despotism. The long habits of obedience and education subdued the
      turbulent spirit of the nobles and commons of Rome. The barons
      forgot the arms and factions of their ancestors, and insensibly
      became the servants of luxury and government. Instead of
      maintaining a crowd of tenants and followers, the produce of
      their estates was consumed in the private expenses which multiply
      the pleasures, and diminish the power, of the lord. 92 The
      Colonna and Ursini vied with each other in the decoration of
      their palaces and chapels; and their antique splendor was
      rivalled or surpassed by the sudden opulence of the papal
      families. In Rome the voice of freedom and discord is no longer
      heard; and, instead of the foaming torrent, a smooth and stagnant
      lake reflects the image of idleness and servitude.

      88 (return) [ By the conomy of Sixtus V. the revenue of the
      ecclesiastical state was raised to two millions and a half of
      Roman crowns, (Vita, tom. ii. p. 291—296;) and so regular was the
      military establishment, that in one month Clement VIII. could
      invade the duchy of Ferrara with three thousand horse and twenty
      thousand foot, (tom. iii. p. 64) Since that time (A.D. 1597) the
      papal arms are happily rusted: but the revenue must have gained
      some nominal increase. * Note: On the financial measures of
      Sixtus V. see Ranke, Dio Römischen Päpste, i. p. 459.—M.]

      89 (return) [ More especially by Guicciardini and Machiavel; in
      the general history of the former, in the Florentine history, the
      Prince, and the political discourses of the latter. These, with
      their worthy successors, Fra Paolo and Davila, were justly
      esteemed the first historians of modern languages, till, in the
      present age, Scotland arose, to dispute the prize with Italy
      herself.]

      90 (return) [ In the history of the Gothic siege, I have compared
      the Barbarians with the subjects of Charles V., (vol. iii. p.
      289, 290;) an anticipation, which, like that of the Tartar
      conquests, I indulged with the less scruple, as I could scarcely
      hope to reach the conclusion of my work.]

      91 (return) [ The ambitious and feeble hostilities of the Caraffa
      pope, Paul IV. may be seen in Thuanus (l. xvi.—xviii.) and
      Giannone, (tom. iv p. 149—163.) Those Catholic bigots, Philip II.
      and the duke of Alva, presumed to separate the Roman prince from
      the vicar of Christ, yet the holy character, which would have
      sanctified his victory was decently applied to protect his
      defeat. * Note: But compare Ranke, Die Römischen Päpste, i. p.
      289.—M.]

      92 (return) [ This gradual change of manners and expense is
      admirably explained by Dr. Adam Smith, (Wealth of Nations, vol.
      i. p. 495—504,) who proves, perhaps too severely, that the most
      salutary effects have flowed from the meanest and most selfish
      causes.]

      A Christian, a philosopher, 93 and a patriot, will be equally
      scandalized by the temporal kingdom of the clergy; and the local
      majesty of Rome, the remembrance of her consuls and triumphs, may
      seem to imbitter the sense, and aggravate the shame, of her
      slavery. If we calmly weigh the merits and defects of the
      ecclesiastical government, it may be praised in its present
      state, as a mild, decent, and tranquil system, exempt from the
      dangers of a minority, the sallies of youth, the expenses of
      luxury, and the calamities of war. But these advantages are
      overbalanced by a frequent, perhaps a septennial, election of a
      sovereign, who is seldom a native of the country; the reign of a
      _young_ statesman of threescore, in the decline of his life and
      abilities, without hope to accomplish, and without children to
      inherit, the labors of his transitory reign. The successful
      candidate is drawn from the church, and even the convent; from
      the mode of education and life the most adverse to reason,
      humanity, and freedom. In the trammels of servile faith, he has
      learned to believe because it is absurd, to revere all that is
      contemptible, and to despise whatever might deserve the esteem of
      a rational being; to punish error as a crime, to reward
      mortification and celibacy as the first of virtues; to place the
      saints of the calendar 94 above the heroes of Rome and the sages
      of Athens; and to consider the missal, or the crucifix, as more
      useful instruments than the plough or the loom. In the office of
      nuncio, or the rank of cardinal, he may acquire some knowledge of
      the world, but the primitive stain will adhere to his mind and
      manners: from study and experience he may suspect the mystery of
      his profession; but the sacerdotal artist will imbibe some
      portion of the bigotry which he inculcates. The genius of Sixtus
      the Fifth 95 burst from the gloom of a Franciscan cloister. In a
      reign of five years, he exterminated the outlaws and banditti,
      abolished the _profane_ sanctuaries of Rome, 96 formed a naval
      and military force, restored and emulated the monuments of
      antiquity, and after a liberal use and large increase of the
      revenue, left five millions of crowns in the castle of St.
      Angelo. But his justice was sullied with cruelty, his activity
      was prompted by the ambition of conquest: after his decease the
      abuses revived; the treasure was dissipated; he entailed on
      posterity thirty-five new taxes and the venality of offices; and,
      after his death, his statue was demolished by an ungrateful, or
      an injured, people. 97 The wild and original character of Sixtus
      the Fifth stands alone in the series of the pontiffs; the maxims
      and effects of their temporal government may be collected from
      the positive and comparative view of the arts and philosophy, the
      agriculture and trade, the wealth and population, of the
      ecclesiastical state. For myself, it is my wish to depart in
      charity with all mankind, nor am I willing, in these last
      moments, to offend even the pope and clergy of Rome. 98

      93 (return) [ Mr. Hume (Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 389) too
      hastily conclude that if the civil and ecclesiastical powers be
      united in the same person, it is of little moment whether he be
      styled prince or prelate since the temporal character will always
      predominate.]

      94 (return) [ A Protestant may disdain the unworthy preference of
      St. Francis or St. Dominic, but he will not rashly condemn the
      zeal or judgment of Sixtus V., who placed the statues of the
      apostles St. Peter and St. Paul on the vacant columns of Trajan
      and Antonine.]

      95 (return) [ A wandering Italian, Gregorio Leti, has given the
      Vita di Sisto-Quinto, (Amstel. 1721, 3 vols. in 12mo.,) a copious
      and amusing work, but which does not command our absolute
      confidence. Yet the character of the man, and the principal
      facts, are supported by the annals of Spondanus and Muratori,
      (A.D. 1585—1590,) and the contemporary history of the great
      Thuanus, (l. lxxxii. c. 1, 2, l. lxxxiv. c. 10, l. c. c. 8.) *
      Note: The industry of M. Ranke has discovered the document, a
      kind of scandalous chronicle of the time, from which Leti wrought
      up his amusing romances. See also M. Ranke’s observations on the
      Life of Sixtus. by Tempesti, b. iii. p. 317, 324.— M.]

      96 (return) [ These privileged places, the _quartieri_ or
      _franchises_, were adopted from the Roman nobles by the foreign
      ministers. Julius II. had once abolished the abominandum et
      detestandum franchitiarum hujusmodi nomen: and after Sixtus V.
      they again revived. I cannot discern either the justice or
      magnanimity of Louis XIV., who, in 1687, sent his ambassador, the
      marquis de Lavardin, to Rome, with an armed force of a thousand
      officers, guards, and domestics, to maintain this iniquitous
      claim, and insult Pope Innocent XI. in the heart of his capital,
      (Vita di Sisto V. tom. iii. p. 260—278. Muratori, Annali
      d’Italia, tom. xv. p. 494—496, and Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV.
      tom. i. c. 14, p. 58, 59.)]

      97 (return) [ This outrage produced a decree, which was inscribed
      on marble, and placed in the Capitol. It is expressed in a style
      of manly simplicity and freedom: Si quis, sive privatus, sive
      magistratum gerens de collocandâ _vivo_ pontifici statuâ
      mentionem facere ausit, legitimo S. P. Q. R. decreto in perpetuum
      infamis et publicorum munerum expers esto. MDXC. mense Augusto,
      (Vita di Sisto V. tom. iii. p. 469.) I believe that this decree
      is still observed, and I know that every monarch who deserves a
      statue should himself impose the prohibition.]

      98 (return) [ The histories of the church, Italy, and
      Christendom, have contributed to the chapter which I now
      conclude. In the original Lives of the Popes, we often discover
      the city and republic of Rome: and the events of the xivth and
      xvth centuries are preserved in the rude and domestic chronicles
      which I have carefully inspected, and shall recapitulate in the
      order of time.

      1. Monaldeschi (Ludovici Boncomitis) Fragmenta Annalium Roman.
      A.D. 1328, in the Scriptores Rerum Italicarum of Muratori, tom.
      xii. p. 525. N. B. The credit of this fragment is somewhat hurt
      by a singular interpolation, in which the author relates his own
      death at the age of 115 years.

      2. Fragmenta Historiæ Romanæ (vulgo Thomas Fortifioccæ) in Romana
      Dialecto vulgari, (A.D. 1327—1354, in Muratori, Antiquitat. Medii
      Ævi Italiæ, tom. iii. p. 247—548;) the authentic groundwork of
      the history of Rienzi.

      3. Delphini (Gentilis) Diarium Romanum, (A.D. 1370—1410,) in the
      Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. ii. p. 846.

      4. Antonii (Petri) Diarium Rom., (A.D. 1404—1417,) tom. xxiv. p.
      699.

      5. Petroni (Pauli) Miscellanea Historica Romana, (A.D.
      1433—1446,) tom. xxiv. p. 1101.

      6. Volaterrani (Jacob.) Diarium Rom., (A.D. 1472—1484,) tom.
      xxiii p. 81.

      7. Anonymi Diarium Urbis Romæ, (A.D. 1481—1492,) tom. iii. P. ii.
      p. 1069.

      8. Infessuræ (Stephani) Diarium Romanum, (A.D. 1294, or
      1378—1494,) tom. iii. P. ii. p. 1109.

      9. Historia Arcana Alexandri VI. sive Excerpta ex Diario Joh.
      Burcardi, (A.D. 1492—1503,) edita a Godefr. Gulielm. Leibnizio,
      Hanover, 697, in 14to. The large and valuable Journal of Burcard
      might be completed from the MSS. in different libraries of Italy
      and France, (M. de Foncemagne, in the Mémoires de l’Acad. des
      Inscrip. tom. xvii. p. 597—606.)

      Except the last, all these fragments and diaries are inserted in
      the Collections of Muratori, my guide and master in the history
      of Italy. His country, and the public, are indebted to him for
      the following works on that subject: 1. _Rerum Italicarum
      Scriptores_, (A.D. 500—1500,) _quorum potissima pars nunc primum
      in lucem prodit_, &c., xxviii. vols. in folio, Milan, 1723—1738,
      1751. A volume of chronological and alphabetical tables is still
      wanting as a key to this great work, which is yet in a disorderly
      and defective state. 2. _Antiquitates Italiæ Medii Ævi_, vi.
      vols. in folio, Milan, 1738—1743, in lxxv. curious dissertations,
      on the manners, government, religion, &c., of the Italians of the
      darker ages, with a large supplement of charters, chronicles, &c.
      3. _Dissertazioni sopra le Antiquita Italiane_, iii. vols. in
      4to., Milano, 1751, a free version by the author, which may be
      quoted with the same confidence as the Latin text of the
      Antiquities. _Annali d’ Italia_, xviii. vols. in octavo, Milan,
      1753—1756, a dry, though accurate and useful, abridgment of the
      history of Italy, from the birth of Christ to the middle of the
      xviiith century. 5. _Dell’ Antichita Estense ed Italiane_, ii.
      vols. in folio, Modena, 1717, 1740. In the history of this
      illustrious race, the parent of our Brunswick kings, the critic
      is not seduced by the loyalty or gratitude of the subject. In all
      his works, Muratori approves himself a diligent and laborious
      writer, who aspires above the prejudices of a Catholic priest. He
      was born in the year 1672, and died in the year 1750, after
      passing near 60 years in the libraries of Milan and Modena, (Vita
      del Proposto Ludovico Antonio Muratori, by his nephew and
      successor Gian. Francesco Soli Muratori Venezia, 1756 m 4to.)]




      Chapter LXXI: Prospect Of The Ruins Of Rome In The Fifteenth
      Century.—Part I.

     Prospect Of The Ruins Of Rome In The Fifteenth Century.— Four
     Causes Of Decay And Destruction.—Example Of The
     Coliseum.—Renovation Of The City.—Conclusion Of The Whole Work.

      In the last days of Pope Eugenius the Fourth, 101 two of his
      servants, the learned Poggius 1 and a friend, ascended the
      Capitoline hill; reposed themselves among the ruins of columns
      and temples; and viewed from that commanding spot the wide and
      various prospect of desolation. 2 The place and the object gave
      ample scope for moralizing on the vicissitudes of fortune, which
      spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries
      empires and cities in a common grave; and it was agreed, that in
      proportion to her former greatness, the fall of Rome was the more
      awful and deplorable. “Her primeval state, such as she might
      appear in a remote age, when Evander entertained the stranger of
      Troy, 3 has been delineated by the fancy of Virgil. This Tarpeian
      rock was then a savage and solitary thicket: in the time of the
      poet, it was crowned with the golden roofs of a temple; the
      temple is overthrown, the gold has been pillaged, the wheel of
      fortune has accomplished her revolution, and the sacred ground is
      again disfigured with thorns and brambles. The hill of the
      Capitol, on which we sit, was formerly the head of the Roman
      empire, the citadel of the earth, the terror of kings;
      illustrated by the footsteps of so many triumphs, enriched with
      the spoils and tributes of so many nations. This spectacle of the
      world, how is it fallen! how changed! how defaced! The path of
      victory is obliterated by vines, and the benches of the senators
      are concealed by a dunghill. Cast your eyes on the Palatine hill,
      and seek among the shapeless and enormous fragments the marble
      theatre, the obelisks, the colossal statues, the porticos of
      Nero’s palace: survey the other hills of the city, the vacant
      space is interrupted only by ruins and gardens. The forum of the
      Roman people, where they assembled to enact their laws and elect
      their magistrates, is now enclosed for the cultivation of
      pot-herbs, or thrown open for the reception of swine and
      buffaloes. The public and private edifices, that were founded for
      eternity, lie prostrate, naked, and broken, like the limbs of a
      mighty giant; and the ruin is the more visible, from the
      stupendous relics that have survived the injuries of time and
      fortune.” 4

      101 (return) [ It should be Pope Martin the Fifth. See Gibbon’s
      own note, ch. lxv, note 51 and Hobhouse, Illustrations of Childe
      Harold, p. 155.—M.]

      1 (return) [ I have already (notes 50, 51, on chap. lxv.)
      mentioned the age, character, and writings of Poggius; and
      particularly noticed the date of this elegant moral lecture on
      the varieties of fortune.]

      2 (return) [ Consedimus in ipsis Tarpeiæ arcis ruinis, pone
      ingens portæ cujusdam, ut puto, templi, marmoreum limen,
      plurimasque passim confractas columnas, unde magnâ ex parte
      prospectus urbis patet, (p. 5.)]

      3 (return) [ Æneid viii. 97—369. This ancient picture, so
      artfully introduced, and so exquisitely finished, must have been
      highly interesting to an inhabitant of Rome; and our early
      studies allow us to sympathize in the feelings of a Roman.]

      4 (return) [ Capitolium adeo.... immutatum ut vineæ in senatorum
      subsellia successerint, stercorum ac purgamentorum receptaculum
      factum. Respice ad Palatinum montem..... vasta rudera.... cæteros
      colles perlustra omnia vacua ædificiis, ruinis vineisque oppleta
      conspicies, (Poggius, de Varietat. Fortunæ p. 21.)]

      These relics are minutely described by Poggius, one of the first
      who raised his eyes from the monuments of legendary, to those of
      classic, superstition. 5 _1._Besides a bridge, an arch, a
      sepulchre, and the pyramid of Cestius, he could discern, of the
      age of the republic, a double row of vaults, in the salt-office
      of the Capitol, which were inscribed with the name and
      munificence of Catulus. _2._ Eleven temples were visible in some
      degree, from the perfect form of the Pantheon, to the three
      arches and a marble column of the temple of Peace, which
      Vespasian erected after the civil wars and the Jewish triumph.
      _3._ Of the number, which he rashly defines, of seven _thermæ_,
      or public baths, none were sufficiently entire to represent the
      use and distribution of the several parts: but those of
      Diocletian and Antoninus Caracalla still retained the titles of
      the founders, and astonished the curious spectator, who, in
      observing their solidity and extent, the variety of marbles, the
      size and multitude of the columns, compared the labor and expense
      with the use and importance. Of the baths of Constantine, of
      Alexander, of Domitian, or rather of Titus, some vestige might
      yet be found. _4._ The triumphal arches of Titus, Severus, and
      Constantine, were entire, both the structure and the
      inscriptions; a falling fragment was honored with the name of
      Trajan; and two arches, then extant, in the Flaminian way, have
      been ascribed to the baser memory of Faustina and Gallienus. 501
      _5._ After the wonder of the Coliseum, Poggius might have
      overlooked small amphitheatre of brick, most probably for the use
      of the prætorian camp: the theatres of Marcellus and Pompey were
      occupied in a great measure by public and private buildings; and
      in the Circus, Agonalis and Maximus, little more than the
      situation and the form could be investigated. _6._ The columns of
      Trajan and Antonine were still erect; but the Egyptian obelisks
      were broken or buried. A people of gods and heroes, the
      workmanship of art, was reduced to one equestrian figure of gilt
      brass, and to five marble statues, of which the most conspicuous
      were the two horses of Phidias and Praxiteles. _7._ The two
      mausoleums or sepulchres of Augustus and Hadrian could not
      totally be lost: but the former was only visible as a mound of
      earth; and the latter, the castle of St. Angelo, had acquired the
      name and appearance of a modern fortress. With the addition of
      some separate and nameless columns, such were the remains of the
      ancient city; for the marks of a more recent structure might be
      detected in the walls, which formed a circumference of ten miles,
      included three hundred and seventy-nine turrets, and opened into
      the country by thirteen gates.

      5 (return) [ See Poggius, p. 8—22.]

      501 (return) [ One was in the Via Nomentana; est alter præterea
      Gallieno principi dicatus, ut superscriptio indicat, _Viâ
      Nomentana_. Hobhouse, p. 154. Poggio likewise mentions the
      building which Gibbon ambiguously says be “might have
      overlooked.”—M.]

      This melancholy picture was drawn above nine hundred years after
      the fall of the Western empire, and even of the Gothic kingdom of
      Italy. A long period of distress and anarchy, in which empire,
      and arts, and riches had migrated from the banks of the Tyber,
      was incapable of restoring or adorning the city; and, as all that
      is human must retrograde if it do not advance, every successive
      age must have hastened the ruin of the works of antiquity. To
      measure the progress of decay, and to ascertain, at each æra, the
      state of each edifice, would be an endless and a useless labor;
      and I shall content myself with two observations, which will
      introduce a short inquiry into the general causes and effects.
      _1._ Two hundred years before the eloquent complaint of Poggius,
      an anonymous writer composed a description of Rome. 6 His
      ignorance may repeat the same objects under strange and fabulous
      names. Yet this barbarous topographer had eyes and ears; he could
      observe the visible remains; he could listen to the tradition of
      the people; and he distinctly enumerates seven theatres, eleven
      baths, twelve arches, and eighteen palaces, of which many had
      disappeared before the time of Poggius. It is apparent, that many
      stately monuments of antiquity survived till a late period, 7 and
      that the principles of destruction acted with vigorous and
      increasing energy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
      _2._ The same reflection must be applied to the three last ages;
      and we should vainly seek the Septizonium of Severus; 8 which is
      celebrated by Petrarch and the antiquarians of the sixteenth
      century. While the Roman edifices were still entire, the first
      blows, however weighty and impetuous, were resisted by the
      solidity of the mass and the harmony of the parts; but the
      slightest touch would precipitate the fragments of arches and
      columns, that already nodded to their fall.

      6 (return) [ Liber de Mirabilibus Romæ ex Registro Nicolai
      Cardinalis de Arragoniâ in Bibliothecâ St. Isidori Armario IV.,
      No. 69. This treatise, with some short but pertinent notes, has
      been published by Montfaucon, (Diarium Italicum, p. 283—301,) who
      thus delivers his own critical opinion: Scriptor xiiimi. circiter
      sæculi, ut ibidem notatur; antiquariæ rei imperitus et, ut ab
      illo ævo, nugis et anilibus fabellis refertus: sed, quia
      monumenta, quæ iis temporibus Romæ supererant pro modulo
      recenset, non parum inde lucis mutuabitur qui Romanis
      antiquitatibus indagandis operam navabit, (p. 283.)]

      7 (return) [ The Père Mabillon (Analecta, tom. iv. p. 502) has
      published an anonymous pilgrim of the ixth century, who, in his
      visit round the churches and holy places at Rome, touches on
      several buildings, especially porticos, which had disappeared
      before the xiiith century.]

      8 (return) [ On the Septizonium, see the Mémoires sur Pétrarque,
      (tom. i. p. 325,) Donatus, (p. 338,) and Nardini, (p. 117, 414.)]

      After a diligent inquiry, I can discern four principal causes of
      the ruin of Rome, which continued to operate in a period of more
      than a thousand years. I. The injuries of time and nature. II.
      The hostile attacks of the Barbarians and Christians. III. The
      use and abuse of the materials. And, IV. The domestic quarrels of
      the Romans.

      I. The art of man is able to construct monuments far more
      permanent than the narrow span of his own existence; yet these
      monuments, like himself, are perishable and frail; and in the
      boundless annals of time, his life and his labors must equally be
      measured as a fleeting moment. Of a simple and solid edifice, it
      is not easy, however, to circumscribe the duration. As the
      wonders of ancient days, the pyramids 9 attracted the curiosity
      of the ancients: a hundred generations, the leaves of autumn,
      have dropped 10 into the grave; and after the fall of the
      Pharaohs and Ptolemies, the Cæsars and caliphs, the same pyramids
      stand erect and unshaken above the floods of the Nile. A complex
      figure of various and minute parts to more accessible to injury
      and decay; and the silent lapse of time is often accelerated by
      hurricanes and earthquakes, by fires and inundations. The air and
      earth have doubtless been shaken; and the lofty turrets of Rome
      have tottered from their foundations; but the seven hills do not
      appear to be placed on the great cavities of the globe; nor has
      the city, in any age, been exposed to the convulsions of nature,
      which, in the climate of Antioch, Lisbon, or Lima, have crumbled
      in a few moments the works of ages into dust. Fire is the most
      powerful agent of life and death: the rapid mischief may be
      kindled and propagated by the industry or negligence of mankind;
      and every period of the Roman annals is marked by the repetition
      of similar calamities. A memorable conflagration, the guilt or
      misfortune of Nero’s reign, continued, though with unequal fury,
      either six or nine days. 11 Innumerable buildings, crowded in
      close and crooked streets, supplied perpetual fuel for the
      flames; and when they ceased, four only of the fourteen regions
      were left entire; three were totally destroyed, and seven were
      deformed by the relics of smoking and lacerated edifices. 12 In
      the full meridian of empire, the metropolis arose with fresh
      beauty from her ashes; yet the memory of the old deplored their
      irreparable losses, the arts of Greece, the trophies of victory,
      the monuments of primitive or fabulous antiquity. In the days of
      distress and anarchy, every wound is mortal, every fall
      irretrievable; nor can the damage be restored either by the
      public care of government, or the activity of private interest.
      Yet two causes may be alleged, which render the calamity of fire
      more destructive to a flourishing than a decayed city. _1._ The
      more combustible materials of brick, timber, and metals, are
      first melted or consumed; but the flames may play without injury
      or effect on the naked walls, and massy arches, that have been
      despoiled of their ornaments. _2._ It is among the common and
      plebeian habitations, that a mischievous spark is most easily
      blown to a conflagration; but as soon as they are devoured, the
      greater edifices, which have resisted or escaped, are left as so
      many islands in a state of solitude and safety. From her
      situation, Rome is exposed to the danger of frequent inundations.
      Without excepting the Tyber, the rivers that descend from either
      side of the Apennine have a short and irregular course; a shallow
      stream in the summer heats; an impetuous torrent, when it is
      swelled in the spring or winter, by the fall of rain, and the
      melting of the snows. When the current is repelled from the sea
      by adverse winds, when the ordinary bed is inadequate to the
      weight of waters, they rise above the banks, and overspread,
      without limits or control, the plains and cities of the adjacent
      country. Soon after the triumph of the first Punic war, the Tyber
      was increased by unusual rains; and the inundation, surpassing
      all former measure of time and place, destroyed all the buildings
      that were situated below the hills of Rome. According to the
      variety of ground, the same mischief was produced by different
      means; and the edifices were either swept away by the sudden
      impulse, or dissolved and undermined by the long continuance, of
      the flood. 13 Under the reign of Augustus, the same calamity was
      renewed: the lawless river overturned the palaces and temples on
      its banks; 14 and, after the labors of the emperor in cleansing
      and widening the bed that was encumbered with ruins, 15 the
      vigilance of his successors was exercised by similar dangers and
      designs. The project of diverting into new channels the Tyber
      itself, or some of the dependent streams, was long opposed by
      superstition and local interests; 16 nor did the use compensate
      the toil and cost of the tardy and imperfect execution. The
      servitude of rivers is the noblest and most important victory
      which man has obtained over the licentiousness of nature; 17 and
      if such were the ravages of the Tyber under a firm and active
      government, what could oppose, or who can enumerate, the injuries
      of the city, after the fall of the Western empire? A remedy was
      at length produced by the evil itself: the accumulation of
      rubbish and the earth, that has been washed down from the hills,
      is supposed to have elevated the plain of Rome, fourteen or
      fifteen feet, perhaps, above the ancient level; 18 and the modern
      city is less accessible to the attacks of the river. 19

      9 (return) [ The age of the pyramids is remote and unknown, since
      Diodorus Siculus (tom. i l. i. c. 44, p. 72) is unable to decide
      whether they were constructed 1000, or 3400, years before the
      clxxxth Olympiad. Sir John Marsham’s contracted scale of the
      Egyptian dynasties would fix them about 2000 years before Christ,
      (Canon. Chronicus, p. 47.)]

      10 (return) [ See the speech of Glaucus in the Iliad, (Z. 146.)
      This natural but melancholy image is peculiar to Homer.]

      11 (return) [ The learning and criticism of M. des Vignoles
      (Histoire Critique de la République des Lettres, tom. viii. p.
      47—118, ix. p. 172—187) dates the fire of Rome from A.D. 64, July
      19, and the subsequent persecution of the Christians from
      November 15 of the same year.]

      12 (return) [ Quippe in regiones quatuordecim Roma dividitur,
      quarum quatuor integræ manebant, tres solo tenus dejectæ: septem
      reliquis pauca testorum vestigia supererant, lacera et semiusta.
      Among the old relics that were irreparably lost, Tacitus
      enumerates the temple of the moon of Servius Tullius; the fane
      and altar consecrated by Evander præsenti Herculi; the temple of
      Jupiter Stator, a vow of Romulus; the palace of Numa; the temple
      of Vesta cum Penatibus populi Romani. He then deplores the opes
      tot victoriis quæsitæ et Græcarum artium decora.... multa quæ
      seniores meminerant, quæ reparari nequibant, (Annal. xv. 40,
      41.)]

      13 (return) [ A. U. C. 507, repentina subversio ipsius Romæ
      prævenit triumphum Romanorum.... diversæ ignium aquarumque clades
      pene absumsere urbem Nam Tiberis insolitis auctus imbribus et
      ultra opinionem, vel diuturnitate vel maguitudine redundans,
      _omnia_ Romæ ædificia in plano posita delevit. Diversæ qualitates
      locorum ad unam convenere perniciem: quoniam et quæ segnior
      inundatio tenuit madefacta dissolvit, et quæ cursus torrentis
      invenit impulsa dejecit, (Orosius, Hist. l. iv. c. 11, p. 244,
      edit. Havercamp.) Yet we may observe, that it is the plan and
      study of the Christian apologist to magnify the calamities of the
      Pagan world.]

      14 (return) [

      Vidimus flavum Tiberim, retortis Littore Etrusco violenter undis,
      Ire dejectum monumenta Regis Templaque Vestæ. (Horat. Carm. I.
      2.)

      If the palace of Numa and temple of Vesta were thrown down in
      Horace’s time, what was consumed of those buildings by Nero’s
      fire could hardly deserve the epithets of vetustissima or
      incorrupta.]

      15 (return) [ Ad coercendas inundationes alveum Tiberis laxavit,
      ac repurgavit, completum olim ruderibus, et ædificiorum
      prolapsionibus coarctatum, (Suetonius in Augusto, c. 30.)]

      16 (return) [ Tacitus (Annal. i. 79) reports the petitions of the
      different towns of Italy to the senate against the measure; and
      we may applaud the progress of reason. On a similar occasion,
      local interests would undoubtedly be consulted: but an English
      House of Commons would reject with contempt the arguments of
      superstition, “that nature had assigned to the rivers their
      proper course,” &c.]

      17 (return) [ See the Epoques de la Nature of the eloquent and
      philosophic Buffon. His picture of Guyana, in South America, is
      that of a new and savage land, in which the waters are abandoned
      to themselves without being regulated by human industry, (p. 212,
      561, quarto edition.)]

      18 (return) [ In his travels in Italy, Mr. Addison (his works,
      vol. ii. p. 98, Baskerville’s edition) has observed this curious
      and unquestionable fact.]

      19 (return) [ Yet in modern times, the Tyber has sometimes
      damaged the city, and in the years 1530, 1557, 1598, the annals
      of Muratori record three mischievous and memorable inundations,
      (tom. xiv. p. 268, 429, tom. xv. p. 99, &c.) * Note: The level of
      the Tyber was at one time supposed to be considerably raised:
      recent investigations seem to be conclusive against this
      supposition. See a brief, but satisfactory statement of the
      question in Bunsen and Platner, Roms Beschreibung. vol. i. p.
      29.—M.]

      II. The crowd of writers of every nation, who impute the
      destruction of the Roman monuments to the Goths and the
      Christians, have neglected to inquire how far they were animated
      by a hostile principle, and how far they possessed the means and
      the leisure to satiate their enmity. In the preceding volumes of
      this History, I have described the triumph of barbarism and
      religion; and I can only resume, in a few words, their real or
      imaginary connection with the ruin of ancient Rome. Our fancy may
      create, or adopt, a pleasing romance, that the Goths and Vandals
      sallied from Scandinavia, ardent to avenge the flight of Odin; 20
      to break the chains, and to chastise the oppressors, of mankind;
      that they wished to burn the records of classic literature, and
      to found their national architecture on the broken members of the
      Tuscan and Corinthian orders. But in simple truth, the northern
      conquerors were neither sufficiently savage, nor sufficiently
      refined, to entertain such aspiring ideas of destruction and
      revenge. The shepherds of Scythia and Germany had been educated
      in the armies of the empire, whose discipline they acquired, and
      whose weakness they invaded: with the familiar use of the Latin
      tongue, they had learned to reverence the name and titles of
      Rome; and, though incapable of emulating, they were more inclined
      to admire, than to abolish, the arts and studies of a brighter
      period. In the transient possession of a rich and unresisting
      capital, the soldiers of Alaric and Genseric were stimulated by
      the passions of a victorious army; amidst the wanton indulgence
      of lust or cruelty, portable wealth was the object of their
      search; nor could they derive either pride or pleasure from the
      unprofitable reflection, that they had battered to the ground the
      works of the consuls and Cæsars. Their moments were indeed
      precious; the Goths evacuated Rome on the sixth, 21 the Vandals
      on the fifteenth, day: 22 and, though it be far more difficult to
      build than to destroy, their hasty assault would have made a
      slight impression on the solid piles of antiquity. We may
      remember, that both Alaric and Genseric affected to spare the
      buildings of the city; that they subsisted in strength and beauty
      under the auspicious government of Theodoric; 23 and that the
      momentary resentment of Totila 24 was disarmed by his own temper
      and the advice of his friends and enemies. From these innocent
      Barbarians, the reproach may be transferred to the Catholics of
      Rome. The statues, altars, and houses, of the dæmons, were an
      abomination in their eyes; and in the absolute command of the
      city, they might labor with zeal and perseverance to erase the
      idolatry of their ancestors. The demolition of the temples in the
      East 25 affords to _them_ an example of conduct, and to _us_ an
      argument of belief; and it is probable that a portion of guilt or
      merit may be imputed with justice to the Roman proselytes. Yet
      their abhorrence was confined to the monuments of heathen
      superstition; and the civil structures that were dedicated to the
      business or pleasure of society might be preserved without injury
      or scandal. The change of religion was accomplished, not by a
      popular tumult, but by the decrees of the emperors, of the
      senate, and of time. Of the Christian hierarchy, the bishops of
      Rome were commonly the most prudent and least fanatic; nor can
      any positive charge be opposed to the meritorious act of saving
      or converting the majestic structure of the Pantheon. 26 261

      20 (return) [ I take this opportunity of declaring, that in the
      course of twelve years, I have forgotten, or renounced, the
      flight of Odin from Azoph to Sweden, which I never very seriously
      believed, (vol. i. p. 283.) The Goths are apparently Germans: but
      all beyond Cæsar and Tacitus is darkness or fable, in the
      antiquities of Germany.]

      21 (return) [ History of the Decline, &c., vol. iii. p. 291.]

      22 (return) [———————————vol. iii. p. 464.]

      23 (return) [———————————vol. iv. p. 23—25.]

      24 (return) [———————————vol. iv. p. 258.]

      25 (return) [———————————vol. iii. c. xxviii. p. 139—148.]

      26 (return) [ Eodem tempore petiit a Phocate principe templum,
      quod appellatur _Pantheon_, in quo fecit ecclesiam Sanctæ Mariæ
      semper Virginis, et omnium martyrum; in quâ ecclesiæ princeps
      multa bona obtulit, (Anastasius vel potius Liber Pontificalis in
      Bonifacio IV., in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii.
      P. i. p. 135.) According to the anonymous writer in Montfaucon,
      the Pantheon had been vowed by Agrippa to Cybele and Neptune, and
      was dedicated by Boniface IV., on the calends of November, to the
      Virgin, quæ est mater omnium sanctorum, (p. 297, 298.)]

      261 (return) [ The popes, under the dominion of the emperor and
      of the exarchs, according to Feas’s just observation, did not
      possess the power of disposing of the buildings and monuments of
      the city according to their own will. Bunsen and Platner, vol. i.
      p. 241.—M.]

      III. The value of any object that supplies the wants or pleasures
      of mankind is compounded of its substance and its form, of the
      materials and the manufacture. Its price must depend on the
      number of persons by whom it may be acquired and used; on the
      extent of the market; and consequently on the ease or difficulty
      of remote exportation, according to the nature of the commodity,
      its local situation, and the temporary circumstances of the
      world. The Barbarian conquerors of Rome usurped in a moment the
      toil and treasure of successive ages; but, except the luxuries of
      immediate consumption, they must view without desire all that
      could not be removed from the city in the Gothic wagons or the
      fleet of the Vandals. 27 Gold and silver were the first objects
      of their avarice; as in every country, and in the smallest
      compass, they represent the most ample command of the industry
      and possessions of mankind. A vase or a statue of those precious
      metals might tempt the vanity of some Barbarian chief; but the
      grosser multitude, regardless of the form, was tenacious only of
      the substance; and the melted ingots might be readily divided and
      stamped into the current coin of the empire. The less active or
      less fortunate robbers were reduced to the baser plunder of
      brass, lead, iron, and copper: whatever had escaped the Goths and
      Vandals was pillaged by the Greek tyrants; and the emperor
      Constans, in his rapacious visit, stripped the bronze tiles from
      the roof of the Pantheon. 28 The edifices of Rome might be
      considered as a vast and various mine; the first labor of
      extracting the materials was already performed; the metals were
      purified and cast; the marbles were hewn and polished; and after
      foreign and domestic rapine had been satiated, the remains of the
      city, could a purchaser have been found, were still venal. The
      monuments of antiquity had been left naked of their precious
      ornaments; but the Romans would demolish with their own hands the
      arches and walls, if the hope of profit could surpass the cost of
      the labor and exportation. If Charlemagne had fixed in Italy the
      seat of the Western empire, his genius would have aspired to
      restore, rather than to violate, the works of the Cæsars; but
      policy confined the French monarch to the forests of Germany; his
      taste could be gratified only by destruction; and the new palace
      of Aix la Chapelle was decorated with the marbles of Ravenna 29
      and Rome. 30 Five hundred years after Charlemagne, a king of
      Sicily, Robert, the wisest and most liberal sovereign of the age,
      was supplied with the same materials by the easy navigation of
      the Tyber and the sea; and Petrarch sighs an indignant complaint,
      that the ancient capital of the world should adorn from her own
      bowels the slothful luxury of Naples. 31 But these examples of
      plunder or purchase were rare in the darker ages; and the Romans,
      alone and unenvied, might have applied to their private or public
      use the remaining structures of antiquity, if in their present
      form and situation they had not been useless in a great measure
      to the city and its inhabitants. The walls still described the
      old circumference, but the city had descended from the seven
      hills into the Campus Martius; and some of the noblest monuments
      which had braved the injuries of time were left in a desert, far
      remote from the habitations of mankind. The palaces of the
      senators were no longer adapted to the manners or fortunes of
      their indigent successors: the use of baths 32 and porticos was
      forgotten: in the sixth century, the games of the theatre,
      amphitheatre, and circus, had been interrupted: some temples were
      devoted to the prevailing worship; but the Christian churches
      preferred the holy figure of the cross; and fashion, or reason,
      had distributed after a peculiar model the cells and offices of
      the cloister. Under the ecclesiastical reign, the number of these
      pious foundations was enormously multiplied; and the city was
      crowded with forty monasteries of men, twenty of women, and sixty
      chapters and colleges of canons and priests, 33 who aggravated,
      instead of relieving, the depopulation of the tenth century. But
      if the forms of ancient architecture were disregarded by a people
      insensible of their use and beauty, the plentiful materials were
      applied to every call of necessity or superstition; till the
      fairest columns of the Ionic and Corinthian orders, the richest
      marbles of Paros and Numidia, were degraded, perhaps to the
      support of a convent or a stable. The daily havoc which is
      perpetrated by the Turks in the cities of Greece and Asia may
      afford a melancholy example; and in the gradual destruction of
      the monuments of Rome, Sixtus the Fifth may alone be excused for
      employing the stones of the Septizonium in the glorious edifice
      of St. Peter’s. 34 A fragment, a ruin, howsoever mangled or
      profaned, may be viewed with pleasure and regret; but the greater
      part of the marble was deprived of substance, as well as of place
      and proportion; it was burnt to lime for the purpose of cement.
      341 Since the arrival of Poggius, the temple of Concord, 35 and
      many capital structures, had vanished from his eyes; and an
      epigram of the same age expresses a just and pious fear, that the
      continuance of this practice would finally annihilate all the
      monuments of antiquity. 36 The smallness of their numbers was the
      sole check on the demands and depredations of the Romans. The
      imagination of Petrarch might create the presence of a mighty
      people; 37 and I hesitate to believe, that, even in the
      fourteenth century, they could be reduced to a contemptible list
      of thirty-three thousand inhabitants. From that period to the
      reign of Leo the Tenth, if they multiplied to the amount of
      eighty-five thousand, 38 the increase of citizens was in some
      degree pernicious to the ancient city.

      27 (return) [ Flaminius Vacca (apud Montfaucon, p. 155, 156. His
      memoir is likewise printed, p. 21, at the end of the Roman Antica
      of Nardini) and several Romans, doctrinâ graves, were persuaded
      that the Goths buried their treasures at Rome, and bequeathed the
      secret marks filiis nepotibusque. He relates some anecdotes to
      prove, that in his own time, these places were visited and rifled
      by the Transalpine pilgrims, the heirs of the Gothic conquerors.]

      28 (return) [ Omnia quæ erant in ære ad ornatum civitatis
      deposuit, sed e ecclesiam B. Mariæ ad martyres quæ de tegulis
      æreis cooperta discooperuit, (Anast. in Vitalian. p. 141.) The
      base and sacrilegious Greek had not even the poor pretence of
      plundering a heathen temple, the Pantheon was already a Catholic
      church.]

      29 (return) [ For the spoils of Ravenna (musiva atque marmora)
      see the original grant of Pope Adrian I. to Charlemagne, (Codex
      Carolin. epist. lxvii. in Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. iii. P.
      ii. p. 223.)]

      30 (return) [ I shall quote the authentic testimony of the Saxon
      poet, (A.D. 887—899,) de Rebus gestis Caroli magni, l. v.
      437—440, in the Historians of France, (tom. v. p. 180:)

               Ad quæ marmoreas præstabat Roma columnas, Quasdam
               præcipuas pulchra Ravenna dedit. De tam longinquâ
               poterit regione vetustas Illius ornatum, Francia, ferre
               tibi.

      And I shall add from the Chronicle of Sigebert, (Historians of
      France, tom. v. p. 378,) extruxit etiam Aquisgrani basilicam
      plurimæ pulchritudinis, ad cujus structuram a Roma et Ravenna
      columnas et marmora devehi fecit.]

      31 (return) [ I cannot refuse to transcribe a long passage of
      Petrarch (Opp. p. 536, 537) in Epistolâ hortatoriâ ad Nicolaum
      Laurentium; it is so strong and full to the point: Nec pudor aut
      pietas continuit quominus impii spoliata Dei templa, occupatas
      arces, opes publicas, regiones urbis, atque honores magistratûum
      inter se divisos; (_habeant?_) quam unâ in re, turbulenti ac
      seditiosi homines et totius reliquæ vitæ consiliis et rationibus
      discordes, inhumani fderis stupendà societate convenirent, in
      pontes et mnia atque immeritos lapides desævirent. Denique post
      vi vel senio collapsa palatia, quæ quondam ingentes tenuerunt
      viri, post diruptos arcus triumphales, (unde majores horum
      forsitan corruerunt,) de ipsius vetustatis ac propriæ impietatis
      fragminibus vilem quæstum turpi mercimonio captare non puduit.
      Itaque nunc, heu dolor! heu scelus indignum! de vestris marmoreis
      columnis, de liminibus templorum, (ad quæ nuper ex orbe toto
      concursus devotissimus fiebat,) de imaginibus sepulchrorum sub
      quibus patrum vestrorum venerabilis civis (_cinis?_) erat, ut
      reliquas sileam, desidiosa Neapolis adornatur. Sic paullatim
      ruinæ ipsæ deficiunt. Yet King Robert was the friend of
      Petrarch.]

      32 (return) [ Yet Charlemagne washed and swam at Aix la Chapelle
      with a hundred of his courtiers, (Eginhart, c. 22, p. 108, 109,)
      and Muratori describes, as late as the year 814, the public baths
      which were built at Spoleto in Italy, (Annali, tom. vi. p. 416.)]

      33 (return) [ See the Annals of Italy, A.D. 988. For this and the
      preceding fact, Muratori himself is indebted to the Benedictine
      history of Père Mabillon.]

      34 (return) [ Vita di Sisto Quinto, da Gregorio Leti, tom. iii.
      p. 50.]

      341 (return) [ From the quotations in Bunsen’s Dissertation, it
      may be suspected that this slow but continual process of
      destruction was the most fatal. Ancient Rome eas considered a
      quarry from which the church, the castle of the baron, or even
      the hovel of the peasant, might be repaired.—M.]

      35 (return) [ Porticus ædis Concordiæ, quam cum primum ad urbem
      accessi vidi fere integram opere marmoreo admodum specioso:
      Romani postmodum ad calcem ædem totam et porticûs partem
      disjectis columnis sunt demoliti, (p. 12.) The temple of Concord
      was therefore _not_ destroyed by a sedition in the xiiith
      century, as I have read in a MS. treatise del’ Governo civile di
      Rome, lent me formerly at Rome, and ascribed (I believe falsely)
      to the celebrated Gravina. Poggius likewise affirms that the
      sepulchre of Cæcilia Metella was burnt for lime, (p. 19, 20.)]

      36 (return) [ Composed by Æneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius
      II., and published by Mabillon, from a MS. of the queen of
      Sweden, (Musæum Italicum, tom. i. p. 97.)

               Oblectat me, Roma, tuas spectare ruinas: Ex cujus lapsû
               gloria prisca patet. Sed tuus hic populus muris defossa
               vetustis Calcis in obsequium marmora dura coquit. Impia
               tercentum si sic gens egerit annos Nullum hinc indicium
               nobilitatis erit.]

      37 (return) [ Vagabamur pariter in illâ urbe tam magnâ; quæ, cum
      propter spatium vacua videretur, populum habet immensum, (Opp p.
      605 Epist. Familiares, ii. 14.)]

      38 (return) [ These states of the population of Rome at different
      periods are derived from an ingenious treatise of the physician
      Lancisi, de Romani Cli Qualitatibus, (p. 122.)]

      IV. I have reserved for the last, the most potent and forcible
      cause of destruction, the domestic hostilities of the Romans
      themselves. Under the dominion of the Greek and French emperors,
      the peace of the city was disturbed by accidental, though
      frequent, seditions: it is from the decline of the latter, from
      the beginning of the tenth century, that we may date the
      licentiousness of private war, which violated with impunity the
      laws of the Code and the Gospel, without respecting the majesty
      of the absent sovereign, or the presence and person of the vicar
      of Christ. In a dark period of five hundred years, Rome was
      perpetually afflicted by the sanguinary quarrels of the nobles
      and the people, the Guelphs and Ghibelines, the Colonna and
      Ursini; and if much has escaped the knowledge, and much is
      unworthy of the notice, of history, I have exposed in the two
      preceding chapters the causes and effects of the public
      disorders. At such a time, when every quarrel was decided by the
      sword, and none could trust their lives or properties to the
      impotence of law, the powerful citizens were armed for safety, or
      offence, against the domestic enemies whom they feared or hated.
      Except Venice alone, the same dangers and designs were common to
      all the free republics of Italy; and the nobles usurped the
      prerogative of fortifying their houses, and erecting strong
      towers, 39 that were capable of resisting a sudden attack. The
      cities were filled with these hostile edifices; and the example
      of Lucca, which contained three hundred towers; her law, which
      confined their height to the measure of fourscore feet, may be
      extended with suitable latitude to the more opulent and populous
      states. The first step of the senator Brancaleone in the
      establishment of peace and justice, was to demolish (as we have
      already seen) one hundred and forty of the towers of Rome; and,
      in the last days of anarchy and discord, as late as the reign of
      Martin the Fifth, forty-four still stood in one of the thirteen
      or fourteen regions of the city. To this mischievous purpose the
      remains of antiquity were most readily adapted: the temples and
      arches afforded a broad and solid basis for the new structures of
      brick and stone; and we can name the modern turrets that were
      raised on the triumphal monuments of Julius Cæsar, Titus, and the
      Antonines. 40 With some slight alterations, a theatre, an
      amphitheatre, a mausoleum, was transformed into a strong and
      spacious citadel. I need not repeat, that the mole of Adrian has
      assumed the title and form of the castle of St. Angelo; 41 the
      Septizonium of Severus was capable of standing against a royal
      army; 42 the sepulchre of Metella has sunk under its outworks; 43
      431 the theatres of Pompey and Marcellus were occupied by the
      Savelli and Ursini families; 44 and the rough fortress has been
      gradually softened to the splendor and elegance of an Italian
      palace. Even the churches were encompassed with arms and
      bulwarks, and the military engines on the roof of St. Peter’s
      were the terror of the Vatican and the scandal of the Christian
      world. Whatever is fortified will be attacked; and whatever is
      attacked may be destroyed. Could the Romans have wrested from the
      popes the castle of St. Angelo, they had resolved by a public
      decree to annihilate that monument of servitude. Every building
      of defence was exposed to a siege; and in every siege the arts
      and engines of destruction were laboriously employed. After the
      death of Nicholas the Fourth, Rome, without a sovereign or a
      senate, was abandoned six months to the fury of civil war. “The
      houses,” says a cardinal and poet of the times, 45 “were crushed
      by the weight and velocity of enormous stones; 46 the walls were
      perforated by the strokes of the battering-ram; the towers were
      involved in fire and smoke; and the assailants were stimulated by
      rapine and revenge.” The work was consummated by the tyranny of
      the laws; and the factions of Italy alternately exercised a blind
      and thoughtless vengeance on their adversaries, whose houses and
      castles they razed to the ground. 47 In comparing the _days_ of
      foreign, with the _ages_ of domestic, hostility, we must
      pronounce, that the latter have been far more ruinous to the
      city; and our opinion is confirmed by the evidence of Petrarch.
      “Behold,” says the laureate, “the relics of Rome, the image of
      her pristine greatness! neither time nor the Barbarian can boast
      the merit of this stupendous destruction: it was perpetrated by
      her own citizens, by the most illustrious of her sons; and your
      ancestors (he writes to a noble Annabaldi) have done with the
      battering-ram what the Punic hero could not accomplish with the
      sword.” 48 The influence of the two last principles of decay must
      in some degree be multiplied by each other; since the houses and
      towers, which were subverted by civil war, required by a new and
      perpetual supply from the monuments of antiquity. 481

      39 (return) [ All the facts that relate to the towers at Rome,
      and in other free cities of Italy, may be found in the laborious
      and entertaining compilation of Muratori, Antiquitates Italiæ
      Medii Ævi, dissertat. xxvi., (tom. ii. p. 493—496, of the Latin,
      tom.. p. 446, of the Italian work.)]

      40 (return) [ As for instance, templum Jani nunc dicitur, turris
      Centii Frangipanis; et sane Jano impositæ turris lateritiæ
      conspicua hodieque vestigia supersunt, (Montfaucon Diarium
      Italicum, p. 186.) The anonymous writer (p. 285) enumerates,
      arcus Titi, turris Cartularia; arcus Julii Cæsaris et Senatorum,
      turres de Bratis; arcus Antonini, turris de Cosectis, &c.]

      41 (return) [ Hadriani molem.... magna ex parte Romanorum
      injuria.... disturbavit; quod certe funditus evertissent, si
      eorum manibus pervia, absumptis grandibus saxis, reliqua moles
      exstisset, (Poggius de Varietate Fortunæ, p. 12.)]

      42 (return) [ Against the emperor Henry IV., (Muratori, Annali d’
      Italia, tom. ix. p. 147.)]

      43 (return) [ I must copy an important passage of Montfaucon:
      Turris ingens rotunda.... Cæciliæ Metellæ.... sepulchrum erat,
      cujus muri tam solidi, ut spatium perquam minimum intus vacuum
      supersit; et _Torre di Bove_ dicitur, a boum capitibus muro
      inscriptis. Huic sequiori ævo, tempore intestinorum bellorum, ceu
      urbecula adjuncta fuit, cujus mnia et turres etiamnum visuntur;
      ita ut sepulchrum Metellæ quasi arx oppiduli fuerit. Ferventibus
      in urbe partibus, cum Ursini atque Columnenses mutuis cladibus
      perniciem inferrent civitati, in utriusve partis ditionem cederet
      magni momenti erat, (p. 142.)]

      431 (return) [ This is inaccurately expressed. The sepulchre is
      still standing See Hobhouse, p. 204.—M.]

      44 (return) [ See the testimonies of Donatus, Nardini, and
      Montfaucon. In the Savelli palace, the remains of the theatre of
      Marcellus are still great and conspicuous.]

      45 (return) [ James, cardinal of St. George, ad velum aureum, in
      his metrical life of Pope Celestin V., (Muratori, Script. Ital.
      tom. i. P. iii. p. 621, l. i. c. l. ver. 132, &c.)

               Hoc dixisse sat est, Romam caruisee Senatû Mensibus
               exactis heu sex; belloque vocatum (_vocatos_) In scelus,
               in socios fraternaque vulnera patres; Tormentis jecisse
               viros immania saxa; Perfodisse domus trabibus, fecisse
               ruinas Ignibus; incensas turres, obscuraque fumo Lumina
               vicino, quo sit spoliata supellex.]

      46 (return) [ Muratori (Dissertazione sopra le Antiquità
      Italiane, tom. i. p. 427—431) finds that stone bullets of two or
      three hundred pounds’ weight were not uncommon; and they are
      sometimes computed at xii. or xviii _cantari_ of Genoa, each
      _cantaro_ weighing 150 pounds.]

      47 (return) [ The vith law of the Visconti prohibits this common
      and mischievous practice; and strictly enjoins, that the houses
      of banished citizens should be preserved pro communi utilitate,
      (Gualvancus de la Flamma in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum,
      tom. xii. p. 1041.)]

      48 (return) [ Petrarch thus addresses his friend, who, with shame
      and tears had shown him the mnia, laceræ specimen miserable Romæ,
      and declared his own intention of restoring them, (Carmina
      Latina, l. ii. epist. Paulo Annibalensi, xii. p. 97, 98.)

               Nec te parva manet servatis fama ruinis Quanta quod
               integræ fuit olim gloria Romæ Reliquiæ testantur adhuc;
               quas longior ætas Frangere non valuit; non vis aut ira
               cruenti Hostis, ab egregiis franguntur civibus, heu!
               heu’ ————Quod _ille_ nequivit (_Hannibal_.) Perficit hic
               aries.]

      481 (return) [ Bunsen has shown that the hostile attacks of the
      emperor Henry the Fourth, but more particularly that of Robert
      Guiscard, who burned down whole districts, inflicted the worst
      damage on the ancient city Vol. i. p. 247.—M.]




      Chapter LXXI: Prospect Of The Ruins Of Rome In The Fifteenth
      Century.—Part II

      These general observations may be separately applied to the
      amphitheatre of Titus, which has obtained the name of the
      Coliseum, 49 either from its magnitude, or from Nero’s colossal
      statue; an edifice, had it been left to time and nature, which
      might perhaps have claimed an eternal duration. The curious
      antiquaries, who have computed the numbers and seats, are
      disposed to believe, that above the upper row of stone steps the
      amphitheatre was encircled and elevated with several stages of
      wooden galleries, which were repeatedly consumed by fire, and
      restored by the emperors. Whatever was precious, or portable, or
      profane, the statues of gods and heroes, and the costly ornaments
      of sculpture which were cast in brass, or overspread with leaves
      of silver and gold, became the first prey of conquest or
      fanaticism, of the avarice of the Barbarians or the Christians.
      In the massy stones of the Coliseum, many holes are discerned;
      and the two most probable conjectures represent the various
      accidents of its decay. These stones were connected by solid
      links of brass or iron, nor had the eye of rapine overlooked the
      value of the baser metals; 50 the vacant space was converted into
      a fair or market; the artisans of the Coliseum are mentioned in
      an ancient survey; and the chasms were perforated or enlarged to
      receive the poles that supported the shops or tents of the
      mechanic trades. 51 Reduced to its naked majesty, the Flavian
      amphitheatre was contemplated with awe and admiration by the
      pilgrims of the North; and their rude enthusiasm broke forth in a
      sublime proverbial expression, which is recorded in the eighth
      century, in the fragments of the venerable Bede: “As long as the
      Coliseum stands, Rome shall stand; when the Coliseum falls, Rome
      will fall; when Rome falls, the world will fall.” 52 In the
      modern system of war, a situation commanded by three hills would
      not be chosen for a fortress; but the strength of the walls and
      arches could resist the engines of assault; a numerous garrison
      might be lodged in the enclosure; and while one faction occupied
      the Vatican and the Capitol, the other was intrenched in the
      Lateran and the Coliseum. 53

      49 (return) [ The fourth part of the Verona Illustrata of the
      marquis Maffei professedly treats of amphitheatres, particularly
      those of Rome and Verona, of their dimensions, wooden galleries,
      &c. It is from magnitude that he derives the name of _Colosseum_,
      or _Coliseum_; since the same appellation was applied to the
      amphitheatre of Capua, without the aid of a colossal statue;
      since that of Nero was erected in the court (_in atrio_) of his
      palace, and not in the Coliseum, (P. iv. p. 15—19, l. i. c. 4.)]

      50 (return) [ Joseph Maria Suarés, a learned bishop, and the
      author of a history of Præneste, has composed a separate
      dissertation on the seven or eight probable causes of these
      holes, which has been since reprinted in the Roman Thesaurus of
      Sallengre. Montfaucon (Diarium, p. 233) pronounces the rapine of
      the Barbarians to be the unam germanamque causam foraminum. *
      Note: The improbability of this theory is shown by Bunsen, vol.
      i. p. 239.—M.]

      51 (return) [ Donatus, Roma Vetus et Nova, p. 285. Note: Gibbon
      has followed Donatus, who supposes that a silk manufactory was
      established in the xiith century in the Coliseum. The Bandonarii,
      or Bandererii, were the officers who carried the standards of
      their _school_ before the pope. Hobhouse, p. 269.—M.]

      52 (return) [ Quamdiu stabit Colyseus, stabit et Roma; quando
      cadet Coly seus, cadet Roma; quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus,
      (Beda in Excerptis seu Collectaneis apud Ducange Glossar. Med. et
      Infimæ Latinitatis, tom. ii. p. 407, edit. Basil.) This saying
      must be ascribed to the Anglo-Saxon pilgrims who visited Rome
      before the year 735 the æra of Bede’s death; for I do not believe
      that our venerable monk ever passed the sea.]

      53 (return) [ I cannot recover, in Muratori’s original Lives of
      the Popes, (Script Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. i.,) the
      passage that attests this hostile partition, which must be
      applied to the end of the xiith or the beginning of the xiith
      century. * Note: “The division is mentioned in Vit. Innocent.
      Pap. II. ex Cardinale Aragonio, (Script. Rer. Ital. vol. iii. P.
      i. p. 435,) and Gibbon might have found frequent other records of
      it at other dates.” Hobhouse’s Illustrations of Childe Harold. p.
      130.—M.]

      The abolition at Rome of the ancient games must be understood
      with some latitude; and the carnival sports, of the Testacean
      mount and the Circus Agonalis, 54 were regulated by the law 55 or
      custom of the city. The senator presided with dignity and pomp to
      adjudge and distribute the prizes, the gold ring, or the
      _pallium_, 56 as it was styled, of cloth or silk. A tribute on
      the Jews supplied the annual expense; 57 and the races, on foot,
      on horseback, or in chariots, were ennobled by a tilt and
      tournament of seventy-two of the Roman youth. In the year one
      thousand three hundred and thirty-two, a bull-feast, after the
      fashion of the Moors and Spaniards, was celebrated in the
      Coliseum itself; and the living manners are painted in a diary of
      the times. 58 A convenient order of benches was restored; and a
      general proclamation, as far as Rimini and Ravenna, invited the
      nobles to exercise their skill and courage in this perilous
      adventure. The Roman ladies were marshalled in three squadrons,
      and seated in three balconies, which, on this day, the third of
      September, were lined with scarlet cloth. The fair Jacova di
      Rovere led the matrons from beyond the Tyber, a pure and native
      race, who still represent the features and character of
      antiquity. The remainder of the city was divided as usual between
      the Colonna and Ursini: the two factions were proud of the number
      and beauty of their female bands: the charms of Savella Ursini
      are mentioned with praise; and the Colonna regretted the absence
      of the youngest of their house, who had sprained her ankle in the
      garden of Nero’s tower. The lots of the champions were drawn by
      an old and respectable citizen; and they descended into the
      arena, or pit, to encounter the wild bulls, on foot as it should
      seem, with a single spear. Amidst the crowd, our annalist has
      selected the names, colors, and devices, of twenty of the most
      conspicuous knights. Several of the names are the most
      illustrious of Rome and the ecclesiastical state: Malatesta,
      Polenta, della Valle, Cafarello, Savelli, Capoccio, Conti,
      Annibaldi, Altieri, Corsi: the colors were adapted to their taste
      and situation; the devices are expressive of hope or despair, and
      breathe the spirit of gallantry and arms. “I am alone, like the
      youngest of the Horatii,” the confidence of an intrepid stranger:
      “I live disconsolate,” a weeping widower: “I burn under the
      ashes,” a discreet lover: “I adore Lavinia, or Lucretia,” the
      ambiguous declaration of a modern passion: “My faith is as pure,”
      the motto of a white livery: “Who is stronger than myself?” of a
      lion’s hide: “If am drowned in blood, what a pleasant death!” the
      wish of ferocious courage. The pride or prudence of the Ursini
      restrained them from the field, which was occupied by three of
      their hereditary rivals, whose inscriptions denoted the lofty
      greatness of the Colonna name: “Though sad, I am strong:” “Strong
      as I am great:” “If I fall,” addressing himself to the
      spectators, “you fall with me;”—intimating (says the contemporary
      writer) that while the other families were the subjects of the
      Vatican, they alone were the supporters of the Capitol. The
      combats of the amphitheatre were dangerous and bloody. Every
      champion successively encountered a wild bull; and the victory
      may be ascribed to the quadrupeds, since no more than eleven were
      left on the field, with the loss of nine wounded and eighteen
      killed on the side of their adversaries. Some of the noblest
      families might mourn, but the pomp of the funerals, in the
      churches of St. John Lateran and St. Maria Maggiore, afforded a
      second holiday to the people. Doubtless it was not in such
      conflicts that the blood of the Romans should have been shed;
      yet, in blaming their rashness, we are compelled to applaud their
      gallantry; and the noble volunteers, who display their
      magnificence, and risk their lives, under the balconies of the
      fair, excite a more generous sympathy than the thousands of
      captives and malefactors who were reluctantly dragged to the
      scene of slaughter. 59

      54 (return) [ Although the structure of the circus Agonalis be
      destroyed, it still retains its form and name, (Agona, Nagona,
      Navona;) and the interior space affords a sufficient level for
      the purpose of racing. But the Monte Testaceo, that strange pile
      of broken pottery, seems only adapted for the annual practice of
      hurling from top to bottom some wagon-loads of live hogs for the
      diversion of the populace, (Statuta Urbis Romæ, p. 186.)]

      55 (return) [ See the Statuta Urbis Romæ, l. iii. c. 87, 88, 89,
      p. 185, 186. I have already given an idea of this municipal code.
      The races of Nagona and Monte Testaceo are likewise mentioned in
      the Diary of Peter Antonius from 1404 to 1417, (Muratori, Script.
      Rerum Italicarum, tom. xxiv. p. 1124.)]

      56 (return) [ The _Pallium_, which Menage so foolishly derives
      from _Palmarius_, is an easy extension of the idea and the words,
      from the robe or cloak, to the materials, and from thence to
      their application as a prize, (Muratori, dissert. xxxiii.)]

      57 (return) [ For these expenses, the Jews of Rome paid each year
      1130 florins, of which the odd thirty represented the pieces of
      silver for which Judas had betrayed his Master to their
      ancestors. There was a foot-race of Jewish as well as of
      Christian youths, (Statuta Urbis, ibidem.)]

      58 (return) [ This extraordinary bull-feast in the Coliseum is
      described, from tradition rather than memory, by Ludovico
      Buonconte Monaldesco, on the most ancient fragments of Roman
      annals, (Muratori, Script Rerum Italicarum, tom. xii. p. 535,
      536;) and however fanciful they may seem, they are deeply marked
      with the colors of truth and nature.]

      59 (return) [ Muratori has given a separate dissertation (the
      xxixth) to the games of the Italians in the Middle Ages.]

      This use of the amphitheatre was a rare, perhaps a singular,
      festival: the demand for the materials was a daily and continual
      want which the citizens could gratify without restraint or
      remorse. In the fourteenth century, a scandalous act of concord
      secured to both factions the privilege of extracting stones from
      the free and common quarry of the Coliseum; 60 and Poggius
      laments, that the greater part of these stones had been burnt to
      lime by the folly of the Romans. 61 To check this abuse, and to
      prevent the nocturnal crimes that might be perpetrated in the
      vast and gloomy recess, Eugenius the Fourth surrounded it with a
      wall; and, by a charter long extant, granted both the ground and
      edifice to the monks of an adjacent convent. 62 After his death,
      the wall was overthrown in a tumult of the people; and had they
      themselves respected the noblest monument of their fathers, they
      might have justified the resolve that it should never be degraded
      to private property. The inside was damaged: but in the middle of
      the sixteenth century, an æra of taste and learning, the exterior
      circumference of one thousand six hundred and twelve feet was
      still entire and inviolate; a triple elevation of fourscore
      arches, which rose to the height of one hundred and eight feet.
      Of the present ruin, the nephews of Paul the Third are the guilty
      agents; and every traveller who views the Farnese palace may
      curse the sacrilege and luxury of these upstart princes. 63 A
      similar reproach is applied to the Barberini; and the repetition
      of injury might be dreaded from every reign, till the Coliseum
      was placed under the safeguard of religion by the most liberal of
      the pontiffs, Benedict the Fourteenth, who consecrated a spot
      which persecution and fable had stained with the blood of so many
      Christian martyrs. 64

      60 (return) [ In a concise but instructive memoir, the abbé
      Barthelemy (Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii.
      p. 585) has mentioned this agreement of the factions of the xivth
      century de Tiburtino faciendo in the Coliseum, from an original
      act in the archives of Rome.]

      61 (return) [ Coliseum.... ob stultitiam Romanorum _majori ex
      parte_ ad calcem deletum, says the indignant Poggius, (p. 17:)
      but his expression too strong for the present age, must be very
      tenderly applied to the xvth century.]

      62 (return) [ Of the Olivetan monks. Montfaucon (p. 142) affirms
      this fact from the memorials of Flaminius Vacca, (No. 72.) They
      still hoped on some future occasion, to revive and vindicate
      their grant.]

      63 (return) [ After measuring the priscus amphitheatri gyrus,
      Montfaucon (p. 142) only adds that it was entire under Paul III.;
      tacendo clamat. Muratori (Annali d’Italia, tom. xiv. p. 371) more
      freely reports the guilt of the Farnese pope, and the indignation
      of the Roman people. Against the nephews of Urban VIII. I have no
      other evidence than the vulgar saying, “Quod non fecerunt
      Barbari, fecere Barberini,” which was perhaps suggested by the
      resemblance of the words.]

      64 (return) [ As an antiquarian and a priest, Montfaucon thus
      deprecates the ruin of the Coliseum: Quòd si non suopte merito
      atque pulchritudine dignum fuisset quod improbas arceret manus,
      indigna res utique in locum tot martyrum cruore sacrum tantopere
      sævitum esse.]

      When Petrarch first gratified his eyes with a view of those
      monuments, whose scattered fragments so far surpass the most
      eloquent descriptions, he was astonished at the supine
      indifference 65 of the Romans themselves; 66 he was humbled
      rather than elated by the discovery, that, except his friend
      Rienzi, and one of the Colonna, a stranger of the Rhône was more
      conversant with these antiquities than the nobles and natives of
      the metropolis. 67 The ignorance and credulity of the Romans are
      elaborately displayed in the old survey of the city which was
      composed about the beginning of the thirteenth century; and,
      without dwelling on the manifold errors of name and place, the
      legend of the Capitol 68 may provoke a smile of contempt and
      indignation. “The Capitol,” says the anonymous writer, “is so
      named as being the head of the world; where the consuls and
      senators formerly resided for the government of the city and the
      globe. The strong and lofty walls were covered with glass and
      gold, and crowned with a roof of the richest and most curious
      carving. Below the citadel stood a palace, of gold for the
      greatest part, decorated with precious stones, and whose value
      might be esteemed at one third of the world itself. The statues
      of all the provinces were arranged in order, each with a small
      bell suspended from its neck; and such was the contrivance of art
      magic, 69 that if the province rebelled against Rome, the statue
      turned round to that quarter of the heavens, the bell rang, the
      prophet of the Capitol repeated the prodigy, and the senate was
      admonished of the impending danger.” A second example, of less
      importance, though of equal absurdity, may be drawn from the two
      marble horses, led by two naked youths, who have since been
      transported from the baths of Constantine to the Quirinal hill.
      The groundless application of the names of Phidias and Praxiteles
      may perhaps be excused; but these Grecian sculptors should not
      have been removed above four hundred years from the age of
      Pericles to that of Tiberius; they should not have been
      transferred into two philosophers or magicians, whose nakedness
      was the symbol of truth or knowledge, who revealed to the emperor
      his most secret actions; and, after refusing all pecuniary
      recompense, solicited the honor of leaving this eternal monument
      of themselves. 70 Thus awake to the power of magic, the Romans
      were insensible to the beauties of art: no more than five statues
      were visible to the eyes of Poggius; and of the multitudes which
      chance or design had buried under the ruins, the resurrection was
      fortunately delayed till a safer and more enlightened age. 71 The
      Nile which now adorns the Vatican, had been explored by some
      laborers in digging a vineyard near the temple, or convent, of
      the Minerva; but the impatient proprietor, who was tormented by
      some visits of curiosity, restored the unprofitable marble to its
      former grave. 72 The discovery of a statue of Pompey, ten feet in
      length, was the occasion of a lawsuit. It had been found under a
      partition wall: the equitable judge had pronounced, that the head
      should be separated from the body to satisfy the claims of the
      contiguous owners; and the sentence would have been executed, if
      the intercession of a cardinal, and the liberality of a pope, had
      not rescued the Roman hero from the hands of his barbarous
      countrymen. 73

      65 (return) [ Yet the statutes of Rome (l. iii. c. 81, p. 182)
      impose a fine of 500 _aurei_ on whosoever shall demolish any
      ancient edifice, ne ruinis civitas deformetur, et ut antiqua
      ædificia decorem urbis perpetuo representent.]

      66 (return) [ In his first visit to Rome (A.D. 1337. See Mémoires
      sur Pétrarque, tom. i. p. 322, &c.) Petrarch is struck mute
      miraculo rerum tantarum, et stuporis mole obrutus.... Præsentia
      vero, mirum dictû nihil imminuit: vere major fuit Roma majoresque
      sunt reliquiæ quam rebar. Jam non orbem ab hâc urbe domitum, sed
      tam sero domitum, miror, (Opp. p. 605, Familiares, ii. 14, Joanni
      Columnæ.)]

      67 (return) [ He excepts and praises the _rare_ knowledge of John
      Colonna. Qui enim hodie magis ignari rerum Romanarum, quam Romani
      cives! Invitus dico, nusquam minus Roma cognoscitur quam Romæ.]

      68 (return) [ After the description of the Capitol, he adds,
      statuæ erant quot sunt mundi provinciæ; et habebat quælibet
      tintinnabulum ad collum. Et erant ita per magicam artem
      dispositæ, ut quando aliqua regio Romano Imperio rebellis erat,
      statim imago illius provinciæ vertebat se contra illam; unde
      tintinnabulum resonabat quod pendebat ad collum; tuncque vates
      Capitolii qui erant custodes senatui, &c. He mentions an example
      of the Saxons and Suevi, who, after they had been subdued by
      Agrippa, again rebelled: tintinnabulum sonuit; sacerdos qui erat
      in speculo in hebdomada senatoribus nuntiavit: Agrippa marched
      back and reduced the—Persians, (Anonym. in Montfaucon, p. 297,
      298.)]

      69 (return) [ The same writer affirms, that Virgil captus a
      Romanis invisibiliter exiit, ivitque Neapolim. A Roman magician,
      in the xith century, is introduced by William of Malmsbury, (de
      Gestis Regum Anglorum, l. ii. p. 86;) and in the time of
      Flaminius Vacca (No. 81, 103) it was the vulgar belief that the
      strangers (the _Goths_) invoked the dæmons for the discovery of
      hidden treasures.]

      70 (return) [ Anonym. p. 289. Montfaucon (p. 191) justly
      observes, that if Alexander be represented, these statues cannot
      be the work of Phidias (Olympiad lxxxiii.) or Praxiteles,
      (Olympiad civ.,) who lived before that conqueror (Plin. Hist.
      Natur. xxxiv. 19.)]

      71 (return) [ William of Malmsbury (l. ii. p. 86, 87) relates a
      marvellous discovery (A.D. 1046) of Pallas the son of Evander,
      who had been slain by Turnus; the perpetual light in his
      sepulchre, a Latin epitaph, the corpse, yet entire, of a young
      giant, the enormous wound in his breast, (pectus perforat
      ingens,) &c. If this fable rests on the slightest foundation, we
      may pity the bodies, as well as the statues, that were exposed to
      the air in a barbarous age.]

      72 (return) [ Prope porticum Minervæ, statua est recubantis,
      cujus caput integrâ effigie tantæ magnitudinis, ut signa omnia
      excedat. Quidam ad plantandas arbores scrobes faciens detexit. Ad
      hoc visendum cum plures in dies magis concurrerent, strepitum
      adeuentium fastidiumque pertæsus, horti patronus congestâ humo
      texit, (Poggius de Varietate Fortunæ, p. 12.)]

      73 (return) [ See the Memorials of Flaminius Vacca, No. 57, p.
      11, 12, at the end of the Roma Antica of Nardini, (1704, in
      4to.)]

      But the clouds of barbarism were gradually dispelled; and the
      peaceful authority of Martin the Fifth and his successors
      restored the ornaments of the city as well as the order of the
      ecclesiastical state. The improvements of Rome, since the
      fifteenth century, have not been the spontaneous produce of
      freedom and industry. The first and most natural root of a great
      city is the labor and populousness of the adjacent country, which
      supplies the materials of subsistence, of manufactures, and of
      foreign trade. But the greater part of the Campagna of Rome is
      reduced to a dreary and desolate wilderness: the overgrown
      estates of the princes and the clergy are cultivated by the lazy
      hands of indigent and hopeless vassals; and the scanty harvests
      are confined or exported for the benefit of a monopoly. A second
      and more artificial cause of the growth of a metropolis is the
      residence of a monarch, the expense of a luxurious court, and the
      tributes of dependent provinces. Those provinces and tributes had
      been lost in the fall of the empire; and if some streams of the
      silver of Peru and the gold of Brazil have been attracted by the
      Vatican, the revenues of the cardinals, the fees of office, the
      oblations of pilgrims and clients, and the remnant of
      ecclesiastical taxes, afford a poor and precarious supply, which
      maintains, however, the idleness of the court and city. The
      population of Rome, far below the measure of the great capitals
      of Europe, does not exceed one hundred and seventy thousand
      inhabitants; 74 and within the spacious enclosure of the walls,
      the largest portion of the seven hills is overspread with
      vineyards and ruins. The beauty and splendor of the modern city
      may be ascribed to the abuses of the government, to the influence
      of superstition. Each reign (the exceptions are rare) has been
      marked by the rapid elevation of a new family, enriched by the
      childish pontiff at the expense of the church and country. The
      palaces of these fortunate nephews are the most costly monuments
      of elegance and servitude: the perfect arts of architecture,
      sculpture, and painting, have been prostituted in their service;
      and their galleries and gardens are decorated with the most
      precious works of antiquity, which taste or vanity has prompted
      them to collect. The ecclesiastical revenues were more decently
      employed by the popes themselves in the pomp of the Catholic
      worship; but it is superfluous to enumerate their pious
      foundations of altars, chapels, and churches, since these lesser
      stars are eclipsed by the sun of the Vatican, by the dome of St.
      Peter, the most glorious structure that ever has been applied to
      the use of religion. The fame of Julius the Second, Leo the
      Tenth, and Sixtus the Fifth, is accompanied by the superior merit
      of Bramante and Fontana, of Raphael and Michael Angelo; and the
      same munificence which had been displayed in palaces and temples
      was directed with equal zeal to revive and emulate the labors of
      antiquity. Prostrate obelisks were raised from the ground, and
      erected in the most conspicuous places; of the eleven aqueducts
      of the Cæsars and consuls, three were restored; the artificial
      rivers were conducted over a long series of old, or of new
      arches, to discharge into marble basins a flood of salubrious and
      refreshing waters: and the spectator, impatient to ascend the
      steps of St. Peter’s, is detained by a column of Egyptian
      granite, which rises between two lofty and perpetual fountains,
      to the height of one hundred and twenty feet. The map, the
      description, the monuments of ancient Rome, have been elucidated
      by the diligence of the antiquarian and the student: 75 and the
      footsteps of heroes, the relics, not of superstition, but of
      empire, are devoutly visited by a new race of pilgrims from the
      remote, and once savage countries of the North.

      74 (return) [ In the year 1709, the inhabitants of Rome (without
      including eight or ten thousand Jews,) amounted to 138,568 souls,
      (Labat Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, tom. iii. p. 217, 218.)
      In 1740, they had increased to 146,080; and in 1765, I left them,
      without the Jews 161,899. I am ignorant whether they have since
      continued in a progressive state.]

      75 (return) [ The Père Montfaucon distributes his own
      observations into twenty days; he should have styled them weeks,
      or months, of his visits to the different parts of the city,
      (Diarium Italicum, c. 8—20, p. 104—301.) That learned Benedictine
      reviews the topographers of ancient Rome; the first efforts of
      Blondus, Fulvius, Martianus, and Faunus, the superior labors of
      Pyrrhus Ligorius, had his learning been equal to his labors; the
      writings of Onuphrius Panvinius, qui omnes obscuravit, and the
      recent but imperfect books of Donatus and Nardini. Yet Montfaucon
      still sighs for a more complete plan and description of the old
      city, which must be attained by the three following methods: 1.
      The measurement of the space and intervals of the ruins. 2. The
      study of inscriptions, and the places where they were found. 3.
      The investigation of all the acts, charters, diaries of the
      middle ages, which name any spot or building of Rome. The
      laborious work, such as Montfaucon desired, must be promoted by
      princely or public munificence: but the great modern plan of
      Nolli (A.D. 1748) would furnish a solid and accurate basis for
      the ancient topography of Rome.]

      Of these pilgrims, and of every reader, the attention will be
      excited by a History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire;
      the greatest, perhaps, and most awful scene in the history of
      mankind. The various causes and progressive effects are connected
      with many of the events most interesting in human annals: the
      artful policy of the Cæsars, who long maintained the name and
      image of a free republic; the disorders of military despotism;
      the rise, establishment, and sects of Christianity; the
      foundation of Constantinople; the division of the monarchy; the
      invasion and settlements of the Barbarians of Germany and
      Scythia; the institutions of the civil law; the character and
      religion of Mahomet; the temporal sovereignty of the popes; the
      restoration and decay of the Western empire of Charlemagne; the
      crusades of the Latins in the East: the conquests of the Saracens
      and Turks; the ruin of the Greek empire; the state and
      revolutions of Rome in the middle age. The historian may applaud
      the importance and variety of his subject; but while he is
      conscious of his own imperfections, he must often accuse the
      deficiency of his materials. It was among the ruins of the
      Capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work which has
      amused and exercised near twenty years of my life, and which,
      however inadequate to my own wishes, I finally delivere to the
      curiosity and candor of the public.

      Lausanne, June 27 1787




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